Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Frost]

This looks like a free will question in drag

Logically, if the universe is large enough (let's not say "infinite" for now) then "many worlds" is a probabilistic inevitability. The size to achieve this, though, would be beyond mind shredding!

True, but I guess I see that as a sort of neoscholasticism that puts mathematics on a mystical Pythagorian pedestal. It makes far too many physical assumptions, and bad ones, in my opinion. For example, in a similar vein, the claim from M-Theory that there may be 10^500 universes. Solve the measurement problem first and then tell me the ontological status of those universes. I think there is good reason to think that they have no ontological status and were merely potentials that were never actualized. Physicists are treading into anti-scientific territory and Pythagorean mysticism by equating mathematical objects with reality. A good example is Max Tegmark's Our Mathematical Universe.

But you're right. This question is about free will. I guess I do not get caught up in the determinism thing because contemporary physics does not indicate that determinism is an ontological reality. The only viable stances involve indeterminism vs. free will and the related question of whether or not Intentional causality is possible, i.e., is there Causal Closure of the Physical. Strangely, Causal Closure of the Physical is taken as axiomatic yet it is contradicted by orthodox quantum formalism.

[Sy Borg]

Frost, I just see it as simply probability - if there are enough habitable worlds then there both repetition and diversity become more likely. Taken to the, yes, theoretical extreme, this means actual repetition. The reality? We are still learning what solar system actually is and how they are structured, let alone having a handle on what lies beyond the observable universe :)

Causal Closure of the Physical is taken as axiomatic yet it is contradicted by orthodox quantum formalism

Do you also have the impression that in terms of paradigms, people have not yet adapted to QM findings a century ago? Nineteenth century materialism continues to resonate, despite being shown to be as limited in physics as its offshoot, behaviourism, is limited in psychology. I think it's because that's what reality looks like to us. The emphasis there is on "look" because a strong visual bias, as humans have, logically will create global perceptual biases.

[Frost]

Frost, I just see it as simply probability - if there are enough habitable worlds then there both repetition and diversity become more likely. Taken to the, yes, theoretical extreme, this means actual repetition. The reality? We are still learning what solar system actually is and how they are structured, let alone having a handle on what lies beyond the observable universe :

Do you also have the impression that in terms of paradigms, people have not yet adapted to QM findings a century ago? Nineteenth century materialism continues to resonate, despite being shown to be as limited in physics as its offshoot, behaviourism, is limited in psychology. I think it's because that's what reality looks like to us. The emphasis there is on "look" because a strong visual bias, as humans have, logically will create global perceptual biases.

I agree that if the universe were spatially infinite then there would be repetition, but my point is more a practical ontological issue of what it means for a physical system to exist in quantum theory. The teleportation of photons by Anton Zeilinger and his team raise serious ontological questions, since they teleport the information state and a physical particle instantaneously manifests. Combine this with the measurement problem and I think there is a serious problem to any conception to alternate universes. What I mean to say is that there is an implicit Newtonian paradigm in physics, even though they practice quantum theory. They still feel that objects must exist in a metaphysical Newtonian sense, which inhibits understanding of quantum theory. I like to be as exact as possible with the label, so I prefer "Newtonian paradigm" over materialism, since the mathematical model and its metaphysical interpretation is more precise. This is in distinction to the type of materialism or physicalism which is seen in General Relativity and quantum theory, which all have their nuances.

It is critical to understand that all physics requires interpretation. Many hard-nosed physicists refuse this acknowledge this point, but it is a rather trivial one. All representation requires interpretation, and the equations of physics are representations. In order to understand reality, we must understand the semantic content of the equations. This was inhibited by the positivistic Copenhagen Interpretation, and later on, there was a reaction against certain speculations that consciousness may have something to do with it (notably from von Neumann and Wigner). Many of the founders had views that are now considered "mystical," especially Schrodinger, which is a shame considering that it's been 90 years and there is still no better proposal than the von Neumann interpretation, which uses the formalism still in practice experimentally to this day.

Philosophers of science seem to like the GRW model, which is not even an interpretation since it proposes actual modifications to quantum theory, but this option seems very unlikely considering all the experimental evidence. They think that there just must be some entirely physical explanation, and then they simply throw their hands up at the Hard Problem of consciousness, ignoring the elephant in the room of the von Neumann Interpretation which requires a non-physical experiential state to actualize the quantum state of the system, and the formalism provides an explicit and astonishingly accurate mathematical formalism of the psycho-physical interaction that free-will philosophers claim is impossible. However, due to how deeply engrained the Newtonian paradigm is, physicists, philosophers, and intellectuals, in general, think that such an answer just can't be. The New Age quantum mysticism has only further harmed this state of affairs, in my opinion.

[Sy Borg]

Does the non-physical experiential state actualise the quantum system or just focus on it?

If you think of the world as a quantum information matrix, then you have a huge sphere in relative space that is constantly rippling with information exchanges. A small portion of the information rippling through the quantum fabric are the thoughts of conscious beings. So one might expect that sensitive quantum systems could be buffeted by thought as they are by the photons bouncing off eyes and lenses.

[Frost]

Does the non-physical experiential state actualise the quantum system or just focus on it?

If you think of the world as a quantum information matrix, then you have a huge sphere in relative space that is constantly rippling with information exchanges. A small portion of the information rippling through the quantum fabric are the thoughts of conscious beings. So one might expect that sensitive quantum systems could be buffeted by thought as they are by the photons bouncing off eyes and lenses.

The non-physical experiential state must actualize the quantum state. The reason is that there cannot be any state prior to that since there are potentially conflicting potentials. To more precisely understand what occurs, one must look into the relativistic wave equations, which are the Dirac and Klein-Gordon equations (not to be confused with relativistic quantum field theory). In these, the complex conjugate solution which suggested a negative time wave was initially rejected as irrelevant until the positron was experimentally confirmed. These equations are typically interpreted in a somewhat classical manner of "backward" or "retro-causation," but I think this is mistaken. What I take to be the semantic content of these equations is that there is an atemporal exchange process which only occurs with the actualization of the quantum state of the system by way of a non-physical experiential state. Indeed the concept of an "atemporal process" seems incoherent, but it only occurs between actualized states, in which the quantum exchanges actually take place.

Regarding the possibility of the physical interacting with thought, I think this certainly occurs, although by different mechanisms. First, there is experimental evidence using Michaelson interferometers and double slit devices that there can be a mental interaction:

• Radin, D., Michel, L., Galdamex, K., Wendland, P., Rickenbach, R., & Delorme, A. (2012). "Consciousness and the double-slit interference pattern: Six experiments." Physics Essays, 25(2), 157-171.
  
  Radin, D., Michel, L., Johnston, J., & Delorme, A. (2013) "Psychophysical interactions with a double-slit interference pattern." Physic Essays, 26(4), 553-566.
  
  Radin, D., Michel, L., & Delorme, A. (2016) "Psychophysical modulation of fringe visibility in a distant double-slit optical system." Physics Essays, 29(1), 14-22.

Two very important points here considering the controversial nature of these experiments: 1. This is a mainstream peer-reviewed physics journal, not a parapsychology journal; and 2. Those that claim impossibility seem to fail to realize that the orthodox von Neumann formalization mathematically describes the psycho-physical interaction and is not causally closed.

Additionally, I do not believe that the information of consciousness is the same as the quantum information of physical systems. I think that philosophy of information is terribly confused and ambiguous, and the most significant mistake is lack of recognition of non-physical intrinsic information which composes experiential states. I think intrinsic information structures interact with the physical information system in "bubbles of experience" in relativistic inertial frames, and that psycho-physical interaction is described by orthodox quantum formalism. I also think that there is no information without experiential states, in that information is only formed in experiential states and the atemporal quantum exchanges only occur between actualized experiential states. While black hole theory has lead to the holographic information principle, which is a mainstream idea at this point, I think there is a mistake in its interpretation. Some physicists speculate that perhaps the information of the universe is found on the boundary of the whole universe and projected inside. While interesting speculation, I think it fails to take into account the rest of quantum theory, and I think that the information would be found on the boundary of the actualized experiential state, and "holographically projected" by the non-physical experiential state. I must always point out, I am not claiming idealism in any way, shape, or form. The quantum information described in physics has an ontologically objective mode of existence, not subjective.

[growthhormone]

Is marriage ultimately governed by physics?

Are you asking whether all human activity is governed by the laws of physics, or are you just interested in marriage?

Do you believe that the laws of physics are discovered by human beings or created by human beings?

Do you think that there might be any contradiction in the idea that a brain operating according to the laws of phyaics discovers/creates those laws?

"Are you asking whether all human activity is governed by the laws of physics, or are you just interested in marriage?"
Firstly, Both. Secondly, specifically in marriage.

[LuckyR]

Are you asking whether all human activity is governed by the laws of physics, or are you just interested in marriage?

Do you believe that the laws of physics are discovered by human beings or created by human beings?

Do you think that there might be any contradiction in the idea that a brain operating according to the laws of phyaics discovers/creates those laws?

"Are you asking whether all human activity is governed by the laws of physics, or are you just interested in marriage?"
Firstly, Both. Secondly, specifically in marriage.

Since marriage is governed mostly by human behavior, the answer is multi-factorial, but for the sake of simplification you can look at it this way: sure, at some distant future time, some future physicist may be able to crunch the numbers on the very, very numerous variables and be able to accurately predict human behavior. Until then, human behavior is unpredictable, ie it appears to an observer like it does NOT obey the Laws of Physics.

This is a parallel of the Free Will vs Predetermination argument. That is, it is completely logical as a thought problem that there is no Free Will. However, here in the Real World, everything having to do with human (or animal) behavior acts, statistically, as if Free Will existed. So from a practical matter we exist in a Free Will world.

[Steve3007]

"Are you asking whether all human activity is governed by the laws of physics, or are you just interested in marriage?"
Firstly, Both. Secondly, specifically in marriage.

OK. My answer: No and no.

Nothing is governed by the laws of physics. The laws of physics are descriptive, not prescriptive. They are our attempts to describe the patterns we see in the things that we observe and thereby attempt to predict things that we have not yet observed. They have been quite successful in this when describing simple physical systems. Human beings interacting with each other is the most complex physical system in the known universe. Even though we are made of the same stuff as the relatively simple physical systems that are quite successfully described by the laws of physics, there are reasons why our behaviour cannot be predicted by those laws.