Determinism, Free Will and Paradox

[Alex K]

-and that's the (or one of the) hook for why things seem so different in a QM experiment than they do in our lives as we experience them, or the universe as we experience -it-. If you isolate something, and find that a great deal is possible - that's not entirely surprising. Once you have forces pushing in from every direction, and a mountain of the same behind you....many of those possibilities that a QM particle might be able to realize in isolation become a non-issue as a part in the whole mess of interaction at a massively grander scale.

To put it another way, the more modifiers you add, the smaller the range of probability becomes. Perhaps x can be whatever it wants, it's truly random. However, when x interacts with y, lets say (just for ease of use) that half of those possibilities are removed. Add a z, take away another half. So forth and so on for everything that's interacting with any other thing....and up here...there's a whole hell of alot of "things".

So, the indeterminacy met on QM is for the most part negligible, and in specific instances where it is relevant, these are far removed from any environment likely to include a multitude of modifiers... which I would presume is the case with most objects larger than the atom?

I'm not sure I follow - are you saying that the indeterminacy of outcomes of such isolated small systems average out/become irrelevant when one zooms out? Because looking at any chaotic system, and be it a double pendulum, or the weather, we know that arbitrarily small perturbations will be amplified. Of course, they will be drowned it other influences which one could however at least in principle know and predict. Do we know that the electrical noise which is produced in any circuit such as the brain, will not influence neurons to fire at probabilistic times, thus blowing up the random element which is introduced by the quantum noise to macroscopic proportions? And let me stress that I'm not talking about consciousness from entanglement or such hokuspokus, but simply noise.

[bennyboy]

I can choose to eat a Mars Bar, or to rape an entire nation, or to type in an internet forum, or to sit next to a river for 20 years, and in the end it all "works out," because the paradox of determinism means that everything I do is exactly what I am meant to do in order to keep the Universe chugging along toward the Big Crunch (or whatever).

Are you saying that- because the end is unavoidable and immutable, everything we do is towards that end, no matter the choices we make, and so we have free will but the end is determined?

That's fatalism, I believe, which is not quite determinism. So yes, I'd say that what you've said accurately describes my position, with the added comment: that the "end" can be any future time, t(n).

[Alex K]

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Say what? Determinism is *only* true if causality exists, and causality exists in so far as there is change, and change is just motion---hence, space and time. "All points along the 'time' line" are not present; the past and future, namely, or those instances in which change has occurred or is yet to occur, are not present except as they exist potentially or actually in that a body has changed and is changing. Since the past is immalleable and determines the present, the present is immalleable in so far as it must be as it presently is, and the future will proceed likewise.

You are implying a dirty trick: the injection of the experience of time into a philosophical model of time. But let me ask you this: does time really "take time" if there is nobody experiencing it? Or does it compress into a singularity, as space does as one approaches the speed of light? I propose that without the experience of causality represented by a subjective being changing perspective gradually, there would be neither time nor change-- just the coexistence of all possible states of the universe in a kind of data space.

It's not a reality, presently, but it's one that can be predicted in so far as the present conditions and their subsequent interactions can be hypothetically determined with precision. Maybe I missed something in your other posts but on what basis are you defining time---or motion---out of real existence? Of course the results will be absurd because the notion of everything existing in total stasis is not the world we experience.

Don't let absurdity scare you away from a theory, unless you are entirely sure that reality is not absurd.

In order for determinism to be true, time must exist. If future time does not exist, then it must be created, presumably constantly as the universe continues to unfold. Which is more absurd, that time is a dimension, where future events are already writ but not yet discovered? Or that the entire universe each instant recreates itself? I'm not so confident as you that the latter must be true, and I haven't seen any reason why, in a deterministic universe, it should be considered true.

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I couldn't disagree more. They are related by the very nature of change itself.

We are arguing about whether time is a dimension. If every moment of every particle could at least in theory be calculated at the moment of the universe's inception, then why wouldn't that certain future be set along a dimension, to be discovered rather than constantly recreated?

Because of how our selves arise from brain activity. The fact that we would still only remember the past, but not the future, in such a universe, is directly connected with the arrow of time from increasing entropy. You'll notice that you can know the future to a certain small extent if you put work in it, but will lose with increasing probability in the long run. That's entropy for you...

[bennyboy]

As it just so happens, this is the book I had planned on starting today:

I suspect it may have some things to do with the topic at hand...

Tell me that's a picture of the front cover, and not the binding!

[The Grand Nudger]

But let me ask you this: does time really "take time" if there is nobody experiencing it?

Does a tree falling in the forest make a sound if no ones there to hear it?

[bennyboy]

But let me ask you this: does time really "take time" if there is nobody experiencing it?

Does a tree falling in the forest make a sound if no ones there to hear it?

Does light really move if someone moving at the speed of light is infinitely close to his destination?

[Davka]

I don't see how pockets of truly unpredictable behavior should be able to arise any more than pockets of violation of energy conservation can arise.

It's not a violation of the conservation of energy.

It's a small region in which complexity is increasing, order is increasing, energy available for work is increasing - all at the expense of increased entropy in another (larger?) part of the system. Energy is not magically being created, it's just that the process of energy diffusion across the entire system is not a smooth, linear progression. It's turbulent.

This turbulence allows for the increase of complexity in a small part of the whole, along with an increase in available energy in a small part of the whole. This is balanced by a decrease of complexity and energy elsewhere. It's really not a difficult idea. Crystals form in small pockets on Earth while mountains crumble (he said, speaking allegorically).

Life is the opposite of entropy - but it's only possible because the entropic system is turbulent. It's a temporary phenomenon. We're here, surrounded by examples of increased complexity and decreased entropy, typing messages on keyboards that can only exist because the Sun is pouring energy into the earth, creating the illusion of "swimming upstream." And in fact for a short time, taking advantage of small eddies, we can swim upstream. Not very far or fast, but it's a bit more than simply treading water. Since the Earth is not a closed system, 2LOT is not threatened.

Complexity, turbulence, emergent properties - all part of the greater inexorable march towards heat-death, or wherever it is that the Universe is headed. It's the incredible messiness of it all that allows these seeming paradoxes.

[Marsellus Wallace]

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We've talked much about determinism in the context of free will. If all the universe is a product of mechanical certainty, then there is no free will, at least as we'd normally think about it. But it seems to me we've taken a good philosophical idea and trivialized it as a kind of parlor trick to pull out of a hat for online discussions, ignoring that under the hat sits a universe-sized dragon to think about.

If we accept that everything that exists is connected, at least by Gravity, and perhaps by being entangled in a Big Bang event as well, then what does this mean? It means that all events, past, present and future, inevitably lead to my existence, and yours, and etc., like a multidemensional tapestry woven of a single thread. If you were to pull at that thread at any point in that tapestry, the entire picture would be transformed, perhaps subtly, or perhaps not so subtly. But perhaps we can't do that, can we, because we ourselves would then flicker out of existence. So free will, it seems, must be false. Right?

It also means that time doesn't matter to causality. Not only does every past event in the universe arrive at my existence, so is every single future event an absolute necessity: every death, every birth, every thought we all have-- they are all mutually co-dependent. Every neuron fired, every sperm that was #2 in the race to fertilize an egg, every movement of every particle in the universe, is co-dependent on every event that ever happened or will happen.

It seems to me that determinism implies yin-yang, the paradoxical separation of an individual life into the polar opposities of infinite power and infinitesimal importance: power, because each act I commit affects everything in the universe; and unimportance because those very actions are strictly determined by the position, momentum, spin, etc. of every particle in the universe. Therefore, determinism, if true, makes each of us the Alpha and the Omega-- both the beginning of all causality and its end. Paradoxically, however, it is exactly determinism which best allows for a real free will. I can choose to eat a Mars Bar, or to rape an entire nation, or to type in an internet forum, or to sit next to a river for 20 years, and in the end it all "works out," because the paradox of determinism means that everything I do is exactly what I am meant to do in order to keep the Universe chugging along toward the Big Crunch (or whatever).

The mistake in discarding free-will is this: that it favors only one expression of the paradox of existence. It favors the absolute effect OF the universe ON one's behavior, but ignores the equally absolute effect ON the universe OF one's behavior. If determinism is true, then free will must ALSO be true. That they are mutually exclusive means little-- only that we are not capable of accepting the paradoxical nature of reality.

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Kudos for the title which is quite smart, i'm gonna read when I have time tho .

[Mudhammam]

You are implying a dirty trick: the injection of the experience of time into a philosophical model of time. But let me ask you this: does time really "take time" if there is nobody experiencing it? Or does it compress into a singularity, as space does as one approaches the speed of light?

No no no, I am not injecting "the experience of time into a philosophical model..." Rather, motion. Do you think motion is dependent upon experience in such a way that when "The Reality(ies)" ceases for the experiencer, it renders all of the universe static in relation to itself? If phenomena divided and called motion precedes mind though the concept itself, and the experience, is related to mind, and is not merely an interpretation of some timeless, almost Platonic reality---and I have zero reason to think that makes much sense of anything, then yes, there is an arrow of time in relation to objects within this arrangement of (four?) dimensions.

I propose that without the experience of causality represented by a subjective being changing perspective gradually, there would be neither time nor change-- just the coexistence of all possible states of the universe in a kind of data space.

Is a flea a subjective being? I know what you're saying, and obviously there's no possible method of verification for experience---which is everything we know and have to go on for anything---without some involvement of subjectivity, and that is precisely why I find your speculation akin to something like Zeno's paradoxes. It's a fascinating idea that reveals the limits of human reason, but it actually serves little purpose in trying to understand the real world, and that should always follow our sense experience or be framed in such a way that promises to occasionally kick a stone from Mount Theory down to the experimenters below. Otherwise, I'm not sure why we would simply grant that motion---and hence everything we experience---is an illusion. It puts us back in the shoes (or sandals) of the ancient Greeks.

Don't let absurdity scare you away from a theory, unless you are entirely sure that reality is not absurd.

In order for determinism to be true, time must exist. If future time does not exist, then it must be created, presumably constantly as the universe continues to unfold. Which is more absurd, that time is a dimension, where future events are already writ but not yet discovered? Or that the entire universe each instant recreates itself? I'm not so confident as you that the latter must be true, and I haven't seen any reason why, in a deterministic universe, it should be considered true.

I totally accept the absurd when that is what the evidence of reality reveals itself to be; but when you have to deny the evidence of reality, and say that motion is a created illusion of mind, unnecessary for dynamic existence (period), when nothing indicates that "the ultimate reality" is a "oneness at rest" (i.e. god, death, and the death of god---or do you also include a black hole?), then an obscure thought that doesn't really buy you much of anything---certainly not "free will" in the sense that people think is worth debating---it sounds quasi-theological, and not in a good way.

[bennyboy]

No no no, I am not injecting "the experience of time into a philosophical model..." Rather, motion. Do you think motion is dependent upon experience in such a way that when "The Reality(ies)" ceases for the experiencer, it renders all of the universe static in relation to itself?

No, not renders. I'm suggesting that if the entire universe's existence in time is immalleable from start to finish, then it's like a tunnel through which we move-- we see things "changing" around us, but in reality it is only our perspective which changes-- everything else is just sitting there. Remember when you were a kid, drawing little falling-man stick figures in the margins of your textbooks and flipping through them to see him "fall" ? Does your page-flipping "render" the motion of the man? No, because he is not actually moving.

Otherwise, I'm not sure why we would simply grant that motion---and hence everything we experience---is an illusion. It puts us back in the shoes (or sandals) of the ancient Greeks.

It is in fact YOUR contention that free will is an illusion, due to the laws of determinism, so I find your statement a little ironic.

We as human agents see the universe as a framework in which we may choose to act, and in which our actions have consequences. We constantly make decisions, and watch their real effects. And yet, despite all this, you find determinism sufficiently convincing that you see all this active expression of the agency of self as an illusion. That paints the self as merely an observer in the inevitable, and entirely predictable, unfolding of the universe through time. Have I mistaken your position, in saying these things on your behalf?

I totally accept the absurd when that is what the evidence of reality reveals itself to be; but when you have to deny the evidence of reality, and say that motion is a created illusion of mind, unnecessary for dynamic existence (period), when nothing indicates that "the ultimate reality" is a "oneness at rest" (i.e. god, death, and the death of god---or do you also include a black hole?), then an obscure thought that doesn't really buy you much of anything---certainly not "free will" in the sense that people think is worth debating---it sounds quasi-theological, and not in a good way.

I didn't say motion is an illusion of the mind. I said that in determinism, time is a dimension along which all events are arranged-- like frames of a movie or scenery along a roller coaster. Let me ask you, when you are riding in a car, do you not have the sensation that the trees outside the car are "moving" past you?