[ExI] Free will was: Everett worlds

[Stuart LaForge]

Quoting John Clark:

> On Sat, Aug 29, 2020 at 11:53 AM Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
> * > What you are saying is classically correct, but at a quantum level
>> you have a mathematical object i.e. information,*
>
>
> And that information says one observer will see the electron go left for no
> apparent reason and another observer will see the electron go right for no
> apparent reason. But in reality the reason is that everything that can
> happen will happen.

I don't disagree, but such a thing requires either the lavish  
extravagance of infinity or some nigh-magical FTL book-keeping. Local  
hidden variables have been largely ruled out by experiment but perhaps  
global hidden variables exist.

> *> Everett's theory, there is only ONE monolithic  wave function, a
>> universal one.*
>>
>
> I know, that's why Everett's theory is a favorite among cosmologists, but
> what I don't know is why you think the quantum Zeno effect Is evidence that
> this is untrue.

I did but I found your explanation for how it needn't be rather  
compelling. I buy your explanation especially because it leaves  
freedom of choice intact even though it requires that all the  
different versions of an observer to make every possible choice as  
well. The only way that the conscious choices of all the alternate  
versions of the observers could encompass every possible choice  
available to them is if their consciousnesses were also terms of the  
universal wave function interfering with one another. In other words  
it would require consciousness to be a quantum phenomena. How else  
could all the different John Clarks be expected to obey quantum  
unitarity and choose differently in different branches?

>> *> All actual computers that have been constructed thus far have
>> been finite state machines approximating a Turing machines and not
>> actual Turing machines which are purely abstract mathematical ideals that
>> have infinite tape i.e. unlimited memory or hard drive space.*
>
>
> That is incorrect. All Turing Machines that you see that are still working
> on a problem have only used a finite amount of tape, and all Turing
> Machines that have actually produced an answer have only used a finite
> amount of tape to produce that answer.

Yes, but Turing also proved there is no way to tell if a Turing  
machine ever halts with output except to wait and see. A Turing  
machine that never halts must have infinite tape to compute forever.

In any case, why believe me when you can get it directly from the  
source. Several times in his paper linked to below, Alan Turing speaks  
of his machine outputting an infinite string of zeros. Such is only  
possible if it it had an infinite amount of tape with which to output  
an infinite string of zeros.

https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/Turing_Paper_1936.pdf

> Turing Machines have unlimited
> memory but that's not the same thing as infinite memory, it just means when
> you start to run out of tape you need to add some more tape if you want any
> hope of ever getting an answer. If you have to keep adding tape forever
> then the function is uncomputable, the Busy Beaver function for example is
> not computable. The first four Busy Beaver numbers have been computed, they
> are 1, 6, 21, and 107, the fifth is suspected by some of being 47,176,870
> but that has not been proven and may never be proven. It has been proven
> that the 748'th Busy Beaver number, although well-defined and finite, is
> not computable, if God exists even He doesn't know what the 748'th Busy
> Beaver number is, He may not even know for sure what the fifth Busy Beaver
> number is.

There is only a countable infinity of computable numbers while there  
are an uncountable infinity of real numbers and and almost all real  
numbers are uncomputable. The busy beaver numbers are not special in  
that regard. But their epistemic existence does make it less likely  
that the universe is a Turing machine even with infinite tape.

Of course if the continuum i.e. aleph-1 ontologically exists as a  
physical entity, then uncomputable numbers could be physically  
manifest without actually ever needing to be computed. Just like the  
hypotenuse of the unit square ontologically exists even though its  
length cannot be computed in finite time.

>> *Why do you think general relativity can't be true at Planck scales?*
>
>
> Nobody thinks General Relativity can be true with the Planck scale, if you
> try to calculate things at that scale you always get the same answers,
> infinite energy, infinite density, infinite curvature, infinite momentum
> ,,,, that's useless. That's why we need a quantum theory of gravity.
> Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity are our two best physical
> theories, One does a good job explaining the weak and strong nuclear forces
> and electromagnetism, and the other does a good job explaining gravity, but
> they are incompatible, they don't play nice with each other.

If quantum events at the Planck scale are constantly creating new  
universes with alternate histories, then maybe the infinities one  
calculates at the Planck scale are in fact what is actually physically  
manifesting.

>
>> *> This demonstrates that to a certain extent that we can choose the
>> Everett branch we find ourselves in. That sounds like free will to me,*
>
> The scientists either chose to perform the experiment for a reason in which
> case they're cuckoo clocks, or they decided to perform the experiment for
> no reason in which case they are roulette wheels.

I don't like this analogy of yours for several reasons. First of all,  
cuckoo clocks operate with a mechanism that follows simple direct  
cause and effect. Cuckoo clocks don't actually make decisions; they  
simply repeat the exact same actions over and over in a periodic  
fashion until they run out of energy. Secondly roulette wheels are  
deterministically chaotic but not actually random. That is to say that  
the ball settles on a number for a long chain of reasons, causes, and  
effects and that the earlier reasons are given greater weight as to  
outcome than the later ones.

Intelligent agents, those with the ability to make decisions and  
presumably having a will that is more or less free, are more like  
thermostats or computers. They are able to make decisions based on  
abstract information such that cause and effect are disconnected from  
each other allowing for indirect and thereby intentional causation. In  
other words, things that make decisions, always do so deliberately. So  
for example in nature, temperatures dropping precipitously could never  
directly cause the spontaneous combustion of fuel. But in a  
thermostat, the drop in temperature is abstracted to change the shape  
of a sensor which activates a burner to burn fuel and provide heat. Of  
course, things that are truly random cannot be said to actually make  
decisions which require reasons even if they are abstract, indirect,  
or obscure.

Stuart LaForge