[ExI] Free will was: Everett worlds

Sun Sep 13 13:32:14 UTC 2020

On Sun, Sep 13, 2020 at 12:37 AM Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> 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.*

All it requires is one universal wave function that evolves as
Schrodinger's deterministic equation says wave functions should evolve.
That's it.

>
> * > 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?*

Maybe. I am most certainly not saying consciousness does not exist, in fact
the thing that I am most certain of is that at least one consciousness does
exist, and probably many billions more. What I'm saying is that "free will"
is like a burp, it's not true and it is not false either, it's just a burp.
"Free will" doesn't exist and "free will" doesn't not exist either, and the
only thing that can simultaneously exist and not exist is gibberish. So I
have to ask, why did you change the title of this thread to something
nonsensical like "Free will"?

> > *Turing also proved there is no way to tell if a Turing machine ever
> halts with output except to wait and see*

True, and that wait may never end (or it might end in the next two
seconds), so the process of adding more tape may never end too, but after
any finite amount of time the machine will have only used a finite amount
of tape.

> *except to wait and see. A Turing machine that never halts must have
> infinite tape to compute forever.*
>

You may someday look upon a Turing Machine that will never halt, but no
human being will ever look upon a Turing Machine that has never halted.
Every Turing Machine ever observed or will ever be observed will have only
used a finite amount of tape, and every Turing Machine that has been
successful and halted and actually produced an answer to the question posed
has only used a finite amount of tape to produce that answer.

>> 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.*

All the Busy Beaver numbers are well defined and finite and some of them
I'm not even particularly large, the first 4 are not large and they can and
have been computed, but that might be that only the first 4 that can be
computed, or maybe a few more can be, nobody knows. It wouldn't surprise me
very much if 47,176,870 really is the fifth busy Beaver Number but it can
never be computed or proven to be so, if so then 47,176,870 being a Busy
Beaver number would be a effect without a cause, that is to say a brute
fact, a brute fact that human beings or even God will never know.

*> **But their epistemic existence does make it less likely that the
> universe is a Turing machine even with infinite tape.*
>

I don't see why. A Turing Machine is needed to even define a Busy Beaver
number. But the fact that a physical Turing Machine can't produce a Busy
Beaver number just means the physical universe does not need to know what
the 748'th Busy Beaver number is for it to operate.

> *Of course if the continuum i.e. aleph-1 ontologically exists as a
> physical entity, *

That is a very big if!  It could be that the Real Numbers are not really
real because there are only about 10^83 atoms in the observable universe
and physics has never discovered a googolplex number of anything much less
a aleph-0 or aleph-1 infinite number of them.

> *then uncomputable numbers could be physically  manifest*

If uncomputable numbers are physically manifest then our physical eyes
should see evidence for at least one of them being at work in the physical
universe, but so far there is no such evidence.

>
> *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.*

I think it would be a mistake, the same sort of mistake Plato made, to say
the physical hypotenuse of a cardboard square is just an approximation of
the hypotenuse of the abstract unit square, I think it would be much more
accurate to say the hypotenuse of the abstract unit square is just an
approximation of the hypotenuse of a physical cardboard square.
Approximations are simpler than the real deal, and a computer model of a
hurricane is much simpler than a real physical hurricane.

> >> 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 >forcesand
>> 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.*

Theories are only useful when they can make testable predictions, when they
start predicting infinities that robs them of their ability to do that. The
Planck scale Is the point where Quantum Mechanics stops being useful, and
the center of a Black Hole marks the point where General Relativity stops
being useful. What if anything goes on a scale smaller than the Planck
scale and at the center of black holes is unknown.

> >> 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.*

People are more complex than cuckoo clocks but that's a difference in
degree not of kind. One cause and one effect can be simple but 10^23
Interacting causes and 10^23  effects is not simple, but both either do
things for a reason or they don't do things for a reason.

>*Cuckoo clocks don't actually make decisions;*

What exactly is it that people do that cuckoo clocks don't? There is
nothing mystical about a "decision", it was either made for a reason in
which case we call it a rational decision, or it was made for no
reason in which
case we call it a irrational decision.

> *> they  simply repeat the exact same actions over and over in a
> periodic fashion until they run out of energy.*

Some Turing Machines behave that way, some do not, all of them are
deterministic.

> *> Secondly roulette wheels are deterministically chaotic but not actually
> random.*

That's a pretty weak objection. If you don't like roulette wheels then
replace them with the decay of a Uranium or Potassium 40 nucleus.

* > Intelligent agents, those with the ability to make decisions*

Decisions? Please strip that word down to its simplest essentials and tell
me what it means.

> *and  presumably having a will that is more or less free,*

Free from what, outside influence? If a person's behavior was not
influenced by light reflecting off of a brick wall it will most certainly
be influenced when his head comes into contact with that wall.

*> In other words, things that make decisions, always do so deliberately.*

And a thing does something deliberately if it has decided to do so. And
round and round we go.

> *So for example in nature, temperatures dropping precipitously could
> never directly cause the spontaneous combustion of fuel.*

Not so, all that would be needed for that to happen would be a battery, a
thermostat. and a match head.

John K Clark
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