Free will is real

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bahman
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Re: Free will is real

Post by bahman »

Atla wrote: Tue Apr 03, 2018 4:44 pm Your argument made no sense to me.
Which part of it makes no sense?
Atla wrote: Tue Apr 03, 2018 4:44 pm We can give different answers to the free will question on different levels but to me it seems that you are mixing everything together.
That is not true. My argument is in fact very clear. What I am mixing?
Atla wrote: Tue Apr 03, 2018 4:44 pm And how can you say these things are facts we are all sure about?
We experience thought and act. These are facts.
Atla wrote: Tue Apr 03, 2018 4:44 pm At the most fundamental level I can think of, there are no distinct "thoughts" or "acts". But everything is one universal process and we roughly say that this "part" of the universal process is a thought and that "part" is an act.
At the fundamental level, if you believe in materialism, everything is the result of one process. Can't you distinguish yourself from mine? How such a thing is possible within materialism?
Atla wrote: Tue Apr 03, 2018 4:44 pm Here it makes no sense to me to derive a decision point. I also don't see actual causality on this level, just correlations creating the illusion of causality.
So, you have never experienced that you decide? There is a point that you go idle even if we accept that decision is an illusion.
Atla wrote: Tue Apr 03, 2018 4:44 pm If we are talking about everyday human psychology and biology. Everyday level things, everyday causality. Well, still not all acts are preceded by thoughts, some reflexes are automatic without thoughts.
That I already comment on it. We are not talking about reflex.
Atla wrote: Tue Apr 03, 2018 4:44 pm It is also not true that there is necessarily a point when there is neither thought or act. I don't even know what this means.

Have you ever experienced that you go idle (don't think or act anymore) trying to decide to do something?
Atla wrote: Tue Apr 03, 2018 4:44 pm You can keep thinking about doing something, while you are already doing it.
That is not true. You cannot focus on two things at the same time.
Atla wrote: Tue Apr 03, 2018 4:44 pm Even if you think about something, then stop thinking, and then act after that. The pause between them is when the signals from your head are transmitted to the body part that will do the act. That is not nothing.
Well, there is a point at which you stop thinking and try to decide. You can say that decision is an illusion but you cannot deny that you experience it.
Atla wrote: Tue Apr 03, 2018 4:44 pm Believing that there are such things as matter substance and mind substance, is also a wild speculation to me with nothing to back it up (they are one and the same).
I think that we can agree on the fact that there are always an object, subject of experience, and an experiencer. Don't you believe on experiencer?
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bahman
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Re: Free will is real

Post by bahman »

Belinda wrote: Tue Apr 03, 2018 6:14 pm Bahman wrote the original post:
We are all sure about the fact that thought precedes act and the fact that they are different. There is therefore a point in which there is neither thought nor act. Lets call this point the decision point. This point cannot be affected by thought because otherwise it is a part of chain of thought. Therefore decision is free.
The human nervous system is such that there is an autonomic nervous system which controls unconscious behaviour such as blood pressure.

Human voluntary behaviours involve the other nervous system the central nervous system which includes thinking and awareness and other voluntary behaviours and spinal reflexes.The brain-mind is constantly using energy with no hiatus whatsoever. Even when the individual is in a state of deep sleep the autonomic nervous system is active.There is no hiatus.
Have you ever asked yourself that what is the point of experiencing for a living being? What is the point of experiencing if everything is a process?
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bahman
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Re: Free will is real

Post by bahman »

Serendipper wrote: Tue Apr 03, 2018 8:47 pm
bahman wrote: Tue Apr 03, 2018 4:06 pm
Serendipper wrote: Tue Apr 03, 2018 3:53 am
What's the mind determined by?
Nothing. That is mind which determine things and decide. You can also ask what is randomness determined by?
Randomness cannot be determined by anything or it would not be random, but determined.

What is the mind?

https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... Psychology

In biology, the unitary approach makes it explicit why no organism can be thought of without an environment. An organism as a skin bag is no functioning system; it may be such only together with the relevant environmental parts. The same applies to neurophysiology or “cognitive” brain research: without the rest of the world the nervous system is not a system at all; neither is the agent of the behavior a part of the body, such as the brain.

The mind can only be regarded as the system of the whole universe observing itself from a point.

Is the wind moving the boat or the sailor who was smart enough to put up a sail?
Do you think that mind is the result of material process? Material process cannot produce an experiencer since experiencer is a thing.
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bahman
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Re: Free will is real

Post by bahman »

Serendipper wrote: Tue Apr 03, 2018 9:02 pm Do you breathe or does it happen to you?
It is both way. I can decide about breathing or it could happen automatically.
Serendipper wrote: Tue Apr 03, 2018 9:02 pm You can see it both ways, but is there really a difference?
Of course they are different.
Serendipper wrote: Tue Apr 03, 2018 9:02 pm If you aren't breathing, then who is doing it?
As I mentioned it is both way. So I can take the control of breathing.
Serendipper wrote: Tue Apr 03, 2018 9:02 pm If the answer is "no one; it's just a process", then what makes you think you're anymore than a process?
The answer of course is not only no one.
Serendipper wrote: Tue Apr 03, 2018 9:02 pm Where does "you" end and "the process" begin?
When I am stopping to decide and focus on breathing.
Serendipper wrote: Tue Apr 03, 2018 9:02 pm This is why meditators focus on breathing.
So you agree that there is a meditator?
Serendipper wrote: Tue Apr 03, 2018 9:02 pm There is only one continuous thing and "thought" cannot be apart from everything else that is going on. Is a thought a product of you or are you a product of a thought?
You of course can decide and direct your thoughts. You experience it.
Atla
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Re: Free will is real

Post by Atla »

bahman wrote: Wed Apr 04, 2018 5:28 pm...
Though I disagree with most of the things you wrote and it would take hours to explain in detail why, that's not really the important part for me here.

What's more important to me is that, whether or not there is free will in the most fundamental sense, doesn't really matter. I think we should live our everyday lives like we have free will. We should believe it to the most ridiculous degree that we have free will, because why not. That makes life pretty good, and in the everyday sense, we pretty much do decide things.
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Noax
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Re: Free will is real

Post by Noax »

Atla wrote: Wed Apr 04, 2018 5:52 pm What's more important to me is that, whether or not there is free will in the most fundamental sense, doesn't really matter. I think we should live our everyday lives like we have free will.
Just a comment on this.
How would it be possible to live our lives as if we didn't have free will? Any difference in the life lived would be an exercise of the free will you didn't think you had.
So if there was no free will, you'd not be able to choose to live like there was.
If there is free will, then you're already living like there is (by definition), although perhaps making free choice to live like there is none. Not sure what sort of choices those would be, but I guess you find it important not to choose this path. To that I agree.
Atla
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Re: Free will is real

Post by Atla »

Noax wrote: Wed Apr 04, 2018 7:21 pm
Atla wrote: Wed Apr 04, 2018 5:52 pm What's more important to me is that, whether or not there is free will in the most fundamental sense, doesn't really matter. I think we should live our everyday lives like we have free will.
Just a comment on this.
How would it be possible to live our lives as if we didn't have free will? Any difference in the life lived would be an exercise of the free will you didn't think you had.
So if there was no free will, you'd not be able to choose to live like there was.
If there is free will, then you're already living like there is (by definition), although perhaps making free choice to live like there is none. Not sure what sort of choices those would be, but I guess you find it important not to choose this path. To that I agree.
Not sure I can follow your comment. If fundamentally there is no free will, yet I choose to believe that I have free will and live my life accordingly, then my choice and belief was predetermined too. It couldn't have happened any other way.

But some people seem to be misunderstanding this, and once they've decided that there is no free will, they think that this somehow effects how they have to live their everyday lives. Some of them become depressed, inactive and feel compelled to not make any decisions in the future.
Serendipper
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Re: Free will is real

Post by Serendipper »

bahman wrote: Wed Apr 04, 2018 5:42 pm
Serendipper wrote: Tue Apr 03, 2018 8:47 pm
bahman wrote: Tue Apr 03, 2018 4:06 pm

Nothing. That is mind which determine things and decide. You can also ask what is randomness determined by?
Randomness cannot be determined by anything or it would not be random, but determined.

What is the mind?

https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... Psychology

In biology, the unitary approach makes it explicit why no organism can be thought of without an environment. An organism as a skin bag is no functioning system; it may be such only together with the relevant environmental parts. The same applies to neurophysiology or “cognitive” brain research: without the rest of the world the nervous system is not a system at all; neither is the agent of the behavior a part of the body, such as the brain.

The mind can only be regarded as the system of the whole universe observing itself from a point.

Is the wind moving the boat or the sailor who was smart enough to put up a sail?
Do you think that mind is the result of material process? Material process cannot produce an experiencer since experiencer is a thing.
Reality is a subject/object interaction. If either piece is missing then there is no experience.
Serendipper
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Re: Free will is real

Post by Serendipper »

bahman wrote: Wed Apr 04, 2018 5:51 pm
Serendipper wrote: Tue Apr 03, 2018 9:02 pm Do you breathe or does it happen to you?
It is both way. I can decide about breathing or it could happen automatically.
Serendipper wrote: Tue Apr 03, 2018 9:02 pm You can see it both ways, but is there really a difference?
Of course they are different.
Why are they different?
Serendipper wrote: Tue Apr 03, 2018 9:02 pm If you aren't breathing, then who is doing it?
As I mentioned it is both way. So I can take the control of breathing.
Who is the "I" that takes control and who is it taking control from?
Serendipper wrote: Tue Apr 03, 2018 9:02 pm If the answer is "no one; it's just a process", then what makes you think you're anymore than a process?
The answer of course is not only no one.
I don't understand what you said.
Serendipper wrote: Tue Apr 03, 2018 9:02 pm Where does "you" end and "the process" begin?
When I am stopping to decide and focus on breathing.
When is that? Can you measure down the the second? .0001s? .0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001s? When?

And how does the dumb process know to resume control?
Serendipper wrote: Tue Apr 03, 2018 9:02 pm This is why meditators focus on breathing.
So you agree that there is a meditator?
If there are rocks, there are meditators.
Serendipper wrote: Tue Apr 03, 2018 9:02 pm There is only one continuous thing and "thought" cannot be apart from everything else that is going on. Is a thought a product of you or are you a product of a thought?
You of course can decide and direct your thoughts. You experience it.
If that is true, then you also shine the sun.
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Noax
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Re: Free will is real

Post by Noax »

Atla wrote: Wed Apr 04, 2018 7:34 pm But some people seem to be misunderstanding this, and once they've decided that there is no free will, they think that this somehow effects how they have to live their everyday lives. Some of them become depressed, inactive and feel compelled to not make any decisions in the future.
This is demonstrably the wrong path to take, regardless of the reality or not of the free will. We possess the tools to make good choices. If decisions didn't matter (fatalism), the brain would not have evolved to make better ones. It is otherwise an expensive piece of hardware giving no return on its investment.

So the free will issue is not about what choices should be made. It's about something else. Decisions still matter even if there is no free will.
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Re: Free will is real

Post by Serendipper »

Atla wrote: Wed Apr 04, 2018 7:27 am
Serendipper wrote: Tue Apr 03, 2018 11:21 pm Right, it's instantaneous meaning that whatever causes the one particle to choose states instantly causes the other particle to choose the opposite state, so there is no speed limit (ie no time and therefore no space) and therefore no such thing as local/nonlocal (the whole universe is local). Even the speed of light implies no time or space. How can there be a local or nonlocal if there is nothing to be local within?
Yeah well then maybe we are saying the same thing actually (?). Local/nonlocal seems to have at least two meanings. The whole universe is local, but from a pre-QM point of view, that's nonlocal.
I don't know how they derive that conceptualization knowing that space and time do not exist from the perspective of light, so there is no universe in which to have locality.
Because it would be a colossal waste of energy just to setup a few googolplexes of dominoes only to not be able to watch them fall because a dumb process, regardless of complexity, couldn't be conscious of the show. There is nothing in nature hinting that such wastefulness could exist and it would be far easier to have had nothing at all.
No, but I'm not sure how you can imagine your existence being analogous to a set of dominoes falling. I can't imagine how a deterministic process could engender consciousness; it's like suggesting shape causes color; there is no way.
I really don't know what you mean. What does being conscious of snow have to do with whether or not there is randomness or determinism? How do you connect the two?
It's not that randomness is required for consciousness, but that I can't understand how I have a point of view, an experience, if I am merely the product of a dumb mechanical process such as dominoes falling. It's hard to articulate why. Additionally, there is nothing to select for this point of view that I have because it makes no difference to anything if I have it. I could function as a robot just the same. All my emotions and whatnot could be programmed in, if all that I am is a determined process. If that is so, then how did awareness of myself and a feeling of a point of view on the universe come to be if there is nothing selecting for it?
Why would the universe need energy to be set up?
Can you think of a way of having a universe without energy?
How come?
Because it would break everything else I know about the world. I see that everything works in certain ways. Frankly, genuine randomness comes across as unexplicable magic to me.
Maybe there is genuine randomness though - in that case the result is still the same, we are here all the same.
Oh, well, it only applies to small things so you needn't worry.

See this thread briefly http://ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=193940

There is a chance that you could spontaneously transfer to Mars if all your particles randomly decided to do so at once. There is a chance that heat can flow from cold to hot. But we don't see these events on this scale because the particles are too numerous making the chance much too small.
Now that's a REAL waste of energy lol. I truly can't believe Max Tegmark believes that. He seems like a reasonable, levelheaded guy, but that is silly.
What waste of energy? The universe doesn't care about wasting energy. Why is it silly, several leading physicists accept such views.
And several leading physicists don't.

Advocates of MWI often cite a poll of 72 "leading cosmologists and other quantum field theorists" [88] conducted by the American political scientist David Raub in 1995 showing 58% agreement with "Yes, I think MWI is true".[89]

However, the poll is controversial. For example, Victor J. Stenger remarks that Murray Gell-Mann's published work explicitly rejects the existence of simultaneous parallel universes. Collaborating with James Hartle, Gell-Mann is working toward the development a more "palatable" post-Everett quantum mechanics. Stenger thinks it's fair to say that most physicists dismiss the many-world interpretation as too extreme, while noting it "has merit in finding a place for the observer inside the system being analyzed and doing away with the troublesome notion of wave function collapse".[90]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worl ... tion#Polls

It's silly because, as I said, each quantum event would have to be represented in a separate universe. If an event has 1000000 possible outcomes, then 1000000 universes would have to be constructed for each possibility. Then, in each universe, the same thing would happen: each quantum event would have 1000000 possibilities requiring that many more universes and so on and on and on. There would be at least 2 orders of infinity: temporal and spacial. It would be 1000000 x 1000000 x 1000000.... forever and forever in terms of time. This is THE most ridiculous thing I could conceive.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worl ... objections
On the other hand how do you explain that out of the infinite possibilities, only our peculiar world exists?
There aren't infinite possibilities. There may be other possibilities, but this is the possibility that survived. It is like a tree growing branches to reach sunlight: the branches do not presuppose where the sun is (for the most part, discounting gravity, heat, etc) so the branches head off in random directions and the one that receives the best light survives while the others slowly die off. So it was likely the same with the universe: some possibilities happened and the one that beat the others managed to survive leading to the next competition in the evolution of things.
I don't think our universe is big enough to calculate the number of universes that would be required to make that happen. Dark numbers are numbers that cannot be expressed within the observable universe when written on the planck scale and dark numbers would be dwarfed by the number of universes required to represent every possible combination of quantum events. It's ludicrous. One may as well claim there is an infinite amount of energy and therefore no such thing as conservation of energy. Can you imagine every quantum event for the last 13 billion years? And who know how much more time is to come. There could be trillions of years of every quantum possibility sprouting into a new universe which would then do the same thing within that universe and so on forever in causal-time and spacially into the infinite new universes. Crazy^2
I didn't understand any of that. Why would we have to calculate or imagine everything? What does that have to do with anything?
Why do you imagine time as an endless one-way process? How do you know that?
Why would new universes actually spring into existence?
Because that's the theory: many worlds. Each quantum event happens in another universe.

Many-worlds implies that all possible alternate histories and futures are real, each representing an actual "world" (or "universe"). In layman's terms, the hypothesis states there is a very large—perhaps infinite[2]—number of universes, and everything that could possibly have happened in our past, but did not, has occurred in the past of some other universe or universes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worl ... rpretation

An infinite number of universes??? Each with no temporal end??? You don't see that as silly? Why not? What empirical observation has given you any clue that the infinite can exist or that all possibilities exist?
Yes I suppose what causes this event to happen in this universe and another event to happen in another universe would have to be random because I can't imagine what would determine it like a director directing the traffic of possibilities which way to go. If the universes cannot communicate (or they wouldn't be separate universes) then how can a director know which way to send which possibility?
I wasn't talking about different universes, just ours.
And what determines how randomness plays out, just in the correct way that leads to self-aware humans?
As I said above, I don't know the connection of randomness to consciousness; I just know determinism can't explain it.

I think if there is a fundamental thing, then that thing cannot have something more fundamental determining its behavior; therefore randomness must exist unless there is no fundamental thing, which implies an infinite number of smaller things. But again, there is no starting point for an infinite series of causality so again there appears to be no cause that can be identified. Whether the cause of an event is due to an infinite number of factors or zero factors, it is the same.
I'm sure any conscious entity could collapse the wave function if it could understand what it is observing (being conscious of it). I don't know what "non-alive things" means since there are plenty of nonalive things in the test facility that failed to collapse the wave function. Whatever the entity is, it would have to understand what it is observing or have a possibility of conveying the information to someone who could understand it.
Umm no offense but you have no idea what you're talking about. Quantum observation has almost nothing to do with the everyday meaning of observation/understanding/being conscious of.
Do you have substantiation?
Sure, if humans are conscious of information, then so is the universe. Walls, ceilings, floors, cannot convey the information that is understood by humans.
There is no such thing as literal information in this context, information is an abstraction. Quantum observation doesn't work like that.
Doesn't work like what?
Well, yes, a magnet has a N and S pole, but is one magnet, but still has a N and S pole. We are here, we are also the universe, we are observing the universe and circular observation always results in infinite regressions.
A circle is a circle, not an infinite regression. That's my point, we shouldn't misconceptualize it.
If a circle is not infinite, please write out PI in its entirety here for me.
If the universe observes itself, then it changes itself and requires another observation to account for the changes, but that observation changes itself yet again. There is no way for an eye to look at itself without having a camera pointed at its own monitor.
No. The universe doesn't change itself by observing itself, that's a misconceptualization. Any "effect" it would have on itself is already part of itself, so really there are NO changes, no effects at all. There are only correlations.
What's the difference? If there are changes or no changes, then it's infinite regression. A simple illustration is to aim a camera at its monitor. Does the monitor change because of what the camera sees? Yes or no, it doesn't matter.
Belinda
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Re: Free will is real

Post by Belinda »

Bahman wrote:
Have you ever asked yourself that what is the point of experiencing for a living being? What is the point of experiencing if everything is a process?
Reality is pregnant with possibility . Wishful thinking is sterile, or at best it helps to soothe you to sleep.
Atla
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Re: Free will is real

Post by Atla »

Serendipper wrote: Wed Apr 04, 2018 9:59 pmThere aren't infinite possibilities. There may be other possibilities, but this is the possibility that survived. It is like a tree growing branches to reach sunlight: the branches do not presuppose where the sun is (for the most part, discounting gravity, heat, etc) so the branches head off in random directions and the one that receives the best light survives while the others slowly die off. So it was likely the same with the universe: some possibilities happened and the one that beat the others managed to survive leading to the next competition in the evolution of things.
Well there you have it, this is why I choose the MWI.
Your explanation is magical, you say that there is something magical going on behind the scenes, or something magical right now in this world, that MADE this possibility be chosen.
Not only is that a non-explanation, it also goes completely against genuine randomness.
So out of genuine randomness, this and only this universe comes to be. THAT is the most crazy idea to me.
I don't know how they derive that conceptualization knowing that space and time do not exist from the perspective of light, so there is no universe in which to have locality.
I guess looking at it from the perspective of light is also a new idea.
It's not that randomness is required for consciousness, but that I can't understand how I have a point of view, an experience, if I am merely the product of a dumb mechanical process such as dominoes falling. It's hard to articulate why. Additionally, there is nothing to select for this point of view that I have because it makes no difference to anything if I have it. I could function as a robot just the same. All my emotions and whatnot could be programmed in, if all that I am is a determined process. If that is so, then how did awareness of myself and a feeling of a point of view on the universe come to be if there is nothing selecting for it?
But if you say that something is selecting for it, then you are saying that there is another mechanism outside this universe that made things happen the way they did. And you have to explain that as well.

My take is that there is no other type of mechanism, just more of the same: which is indeed why I chose the MWI. And so there is only the illusion of selection. I find this to be the simplest extension.
Can you think of a way of having a universe without energy?
Sure, I think the net energy of the universe is zero.
Oh, well, it only applies to small things so you needn't worry.

See this thread briefly http://ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=193940

There is a chance that you could spontaneously transfer to Mars if all your particles randomly decided to do so at once. There is a chance that heat can flow from cold to hot. But we don't see these events on this scale because the particles are too numerous making the chance much too small.
Everything is made of those little things so everything behaves randomly. But indeed the more we zoom out the more this behaviour seems to go away, the chances are too small, and also coherence occurs (for some not fully understood reasons).
And several leading physicists don't.

Advocates of MWI often cite a poll of 72 "leading cosmologists and other quantum field theorists" [88] conducted by the American political scientist David Raub in 1995 showing 58% agreement with "Yes, I think MWI is true".[89]

However, the poll is controversial. For example, Victor J. Stenger remarks that Murray Gell-Mann's published work explicitly rejects the existence of simultaneous parallel universes. Collaborating with James Hartle, Gell-Mann is working toward the development a more "palatable" post-Everett quantum mechanics. Stenger thinks it's fair to say that most physicists dismiss the many-world interpretation as too extreme, while noting it "has merit in finding a place for the observer inside the system being analyzed and doing away with the troublesome notion of wave function collapse".[90] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worl ... tion#Polls

It's silly because, as I said, each quantum event would have to be represented in a separate universe. If an event has 1000000 possible outcomes, then 1000000 universes would have to be constructed for each possibility. Then, in each universe, the same thing would happen: each quantum event would have 1000000 possibilities requiring that many more universes and so on and on and on. There would be at least 2 orders of infinity: temporal and spacial. It would be 1000000 x 1000000 x 1000000.... forever and forever in terms of time. This is THE most ridiculous thing I could conceive.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worl ... objections
I see every possible history of our universe as being part of our universe (the universal wavefunction is real) but yeah, already here we may have infinite possibilities.

It's excessive, but imo it's the only explanation right now that doesn't use magic, so it's actually the simplest, least ridiculous explanation. I have yet to see a better one.
Because that's the theory: many worlds. Each quantum event happens in another universe.

Many-worlds implies that all possible alternate histories and futures are real, each representing an actual "world" (or "universe"). In layman's terms, the hypothesis states there is a very large—perhaps infinite[2]—number of universes, and everything that could possibly have happened in our past, but did not, has occurred in the past of some other universe or universes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worl ... rpretation

An infinite number of universes??? Each with no temporal end??? You don't see that as silly? Why not? What empirical observation has given you any clue that the infinite can exist or that all possibilities exist?
Well not quite, there seem to be several version of the MWI. In the non-layman's terms version, there is actually just the universal wavefunction assumed. But indeed some physicists take it to separate branching universes and that's crazy imo.
I also don't see why our universe couldn't have a temporal end, maybe time goes in circle in this universe.
As I said above, I don't know the connection of randomness to consciousness; I just know determinism can't explain it.

I think if there is a fundamental thing, then that thing cannot have something more fundamental determining its behavior; therefore randomness must exist unless there is no fundamental thing, which implies an infinite number of smaller things. But again, there is no starting point for an infinite series of causality so again there appears to be no cause that can be identified. Whether the cause of an event is due to an infinite number of factors or zero factors, it is the same.
Determinism can explain it, as I showed. And a fundamental thing can easily be deterministic.
Do you have substantiation?
The quantum measurement problem is imo the greatest unsolved mistery in physics and philosophy. No one could fully figure it out yet. But it's getting really old having to explain every time that the "mind causes the collapse" idea is just one of the many interpretations and while it may be partially true, it's fundamentally incorrect. That "mind" that causes the collapse is just another set of particles, that everything else is made of too. There's more and less to it.
If it would be so damn simple as you write then it had been solved long ago.
Doesn't work like what?
Of course not. Information, path information, knowledge is not extra "thing" here, but more like an abstraction, a metaphor. As I said it's not fully understood.
If a circle is not infinite, please write out PI in its entirety here for me.
That's a numerical represaentation of pi, which is an irrational number. Are you saying that every circle we draw or imagine is infinitely large?
What's the difference? If there are changes or no changes, then it's infinite regression. A simple illustration is to aim a camera at its monitor. Does the monitor change because of what the camera sees? Yes or no, it doesn't matter.
If there are no changes, then there are no changes.
That's not an infinite regression, your misconceptualization of it is an infinite regression.
Belinda
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Re: Free will is real

Post by Belinda »

Atla replied to Serendipper:

Serendipper
It's not that randomness is required for consciousness, but that I can't understand how I have a point of view, an experience, if I am merely the product of a dumb mechanical process such as dominoes falling. It's hard to articulate why. Additionally, there is nothing to select for this point of view that I have because it makes no difference to anything if I have it. I could function as a robot just the same. All my emotions and whatnot could be programmed in, if all that I am is a determined process. If that is so, then how did awareness of myself and a feeling of a point of view on the universe come to be if there is nothing selecting for it?
Atla
But if you say that something is selecting for it, then you are saying that there is another mechanism outside this universe that made things happen the way they did. And you have to explain that as well.
Atla, there is design. Living things strive to live; some of them strive with conscious purpose: others not.

That there is design does not necessarily imply any designer.
Atla
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Re: Free will is real

Post by Atla »

Belinda wrote: Thu Apr 05, 2018 10:46 am Atla, there is design. Living things strive to live; some of them strive with conscious purpose: others not.

That there is design does not necessarily imply any designer.
We are here now. For us to be here now, an evolution of species had to happen (in a universe where such an evolution is possible at all).

So there was this ~4 billion year long evolution of life on this planet, which couldn't have happened if lifeforms hadn't been hardwired for survival.

Living things don't "strive" to live. They are hardwired for survival.

Saying that all this HAD to happen this way is a magical non-explanation. Design may not require a designer, but it sure requires a design mechanism that is probably outside this universe, or inside it but we can't find it.

The designer or design mechanism has to be explained as well, of course. I just find it impossibly improbable that there is only one world, and out of pure chance it's this world. That doesn't make any sense to me.
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