[ExI] Free will was: Everett worlds

[William Flynn Wallace]

 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.  John

Please define 'reason'.  You certainly cannot mean without a cause, so you
must mean it's a purely emotional decision, and I don't think those exist.
We have to translate a physiological response into actions by voluntary
muscles, such as by saying words or signing something, which are conscious
things.  It also depends on what you call a 'decision'.  Is a reflex
drawing away from a fire a decision?  Are autonomic functions decisions?  I
reckon not. You?

If a person does something that is counter to his reasoning, it's fair to
call it an irrational decision, but that doesn't mean at all that it's a
bad thing.  It's the elephant overruling the rider, to use Haidt's metaphor
(is that right? - Haidt?)   Maybe better:  nonrational.

 bill w

On Sun, Sep 13, 2020 at 8:35 AM John Clark via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> 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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