RE: Do you believe in free will?
March 8, 2012 at 7:28 pm
(This post was last modified: March 8, 2012 at 7:29 pm by Angrboda.)
(March 8, 2012 at 8:57 am)Rhythm Wrote: Quantum- anything does not have a noticeable effect on dice, they're a bit too large. By "a bit", I mean by many orders of magnitude, of course. The same goes for our "free will" generating apparatus. You know I'm actually very frustrated with all the quantum this and thats being bandied about in service of randomness. ...
Quote:
I agree. Proponents of "quantum consciousness" need to plant their ghost-in-the-machine in a mysterious netherworld, and quantum probability fields are sufficiently mysterious and poorly understood to qualify. Earlier spiritualists planted ghosts in the ether, once a widely accepted notion in the theory of electromagnetic waves. Nowadays, physicists see no need for an ethereal medium carrying electromagnetic waves (akin to the air carrying pressure waves [sound]), but when the notion was current, the ether was a convenient medium for immaterial souls as well.
Not surprisingly, the word "spirit" itself descends from Latin meaning breath, so earlier understanding planted the soul in the air when this life-giving medium was more mysterious. The soul entered the body when a babe took its first breath. Of course, few people take this idea seriously today.
— Martin Brock at (Skeptic Magazine)
(I'm not sure he's correct on the part about the breath and the soul, but the point I think is sound. These quantum consciousness theories are essentially God of the gaps theories of free will. As soon as it is clearly demonstrated that free will cannot hide in the quantum mechanical gap, free will theorists won't abandon free will, they'll just look for some other place to hide the McGuffin.)