[extropy-chat] The omniscience of God and the free will of Man

[scerir]

Giu1i0 writes:

> Of course the fact that we feel like we choose freely means that if in
> reality the universe were completely deterministic, we would still observe
> free will on the macroscale without noticing any difference.

The above seems to be close to the super-determinism Bell was talking about.
Bell's theorem implies determinism (hidden variables) within the quantum
system to be observed, implies again determinism al the logical level
(he uses counterfactuals), but implies indeterminism (free will, if you
wish) within the observers. If both the quantum system and the observers
behave following deterministic ways, you get something different, namely
that super-determinism, supposed by Bell. The EPR "paradox" vanishes
if the observers too, following this magic super-determinism, set the
polarizers, on both wings, in every run of the experiment, in such a manner
to get the right outcome (the same outcome predicted by QM). Thus we can
say that Bell theorem depends severely on its assumptions regarding
the indeterminism of the observers.

There is another interesting proof of Bell's theorem, due to Wigner.
He made two basic assumptions. 1) Determinism: the results of all
conceivable measurements are pre-determined (i.e. by hidden variables).
Note that this does not contradict Heisenberg's principle because Heisenberg
speaks of real measurements and Wigner speaks of reality before the action
of a measurement instrument. 2) Locality: measurements performed on left
wing (particle 1) do not modify pre-determined values of observables in
the right wing (particle 2), and viceversa. With the above two assumptions
only, Wigner proved Bell's theorem and those inequalities. Now, we know
that Bell's relations are falsified (let me say this way) by experiments.
Thus at least one of those two Wigner's assumptions is wrong. That is to
say: or determinism or locality is wrong. (Later works by Jarrett, Shimony,
Eberhard, etc. showed that the theoretical framework is more complex,
in the sense that determinism and non-locality, say action at a distance,
are connected, and indeterminism and locality are connected too.
QM is "located" between these two extremes, being indeterministic enough
and also local enough (local enough here means "non-separable", actually
non-separability is a correlation, and QM systems are, in general, much
more correlated than CM systems, in spite of indeterminism, and this is
another "paradox").

We can also recall here Weyl's deterministic Block Universe model.
Einstein liked it. He wrote (March 1955) to Besso (his friend, passed away)
family: "For us faithful physicists, the separation between past, present,
and future has only the meaning of an illusion, though a persistent
one". More or less Weyl's words: "the objective world simply is, it does
not happen. Only to the gaze of my consciousness, crawling upward along
the lifeline of my body, does a section of this world come to life as a
fleeting image in space which continuously changes in time".

The relativity of simultaneity (SR essentially) was devised (Boethius,
i.e.) in order to defend the doctrine of "free will" against the charge
of its in-compatibility with God's omniscience. On the contrary Rietdijk
(theorems of 1966. 1976) and Einstein (in his "Credo") and Cassirer and
F.H.Bradley and H. Weyl and J.Hopwood Jeans claimed that the relativity
of simultaneity implies, strictly, determinism, thus the denial of
free will.

On the other side, A.S.Eddington, Bondi (1952) and, more recently, H.
Stein and R.Torretti, and P.T. Landsberg, introduced, more or less
consistently, quantum indeterminism - in spite of the contrary opinion of
N. Maxwell - in the framework of the Block Universe model. This "openness
of the future" issue says (Bondi's words here) that "relativity demands
a non-deterministic theory such as is given at present by quantum theory"
because "the flow of time has no significance in the logically fixed
pattern of events demanded by deterministic theory, time being a mere
co-ordinate. In a theory with indeterminacy, however, the passage of
time transforms statistical expectation into real events". The argument
seems feeble and obscure but, in some sense, is also robust, i.e. if we
realize the striking similarity between the Block Universe model and the
quantum "delayed choice" experiments. In both cases time seems to play a
peculiar
role. No phenomenon is a phenomenon until the phenomenon is fully recorded.
Recording is up to us. Even when the phenomenon is already recorded at one
end, we can still change this very record from another end (as for
entangled momenta, or other retro-causal effects). As Alfred Coulson argues,
"observed from without, the will is causally determined; observed from
within
it is free". Bohr says "we are onlookers and actors in the great drama of
existence". Introducing indeterminism in the Block Universe (of Weyl and
Einstein) seems then possible. But something changes: the Block Universe
seen
from within (us) is now different, in its very nature, from the Block
Universe
seen from without (God).

> Concerning the Copenaghen  interpretation, I think it is possible to
> demonstrate that interacting with a macroscopic environment does not do
> the trick that we describe as collapse. Scerir?

Perhaps. The former term for collapse (Born) was "reduction of probability
packet". I don't know if the "probability packet" is physical or not. The
young Born thought it was not. The late Born thought it was physical. But
experiments by Leggett (with meso-scale-quantum-objects) show that there
is no such a thing like a physical collapse. You can keep the "cat" dead and
alive for a (very) little while. And, as Wigner showed long ago, after the
measurements there is always an "inheritance of the previous superposition",
spread in the air. And this has little to do with the collapse.