[ExI] Free will was: Everett worlds

[Stuart LaForge]

Quoting John Clark:


> 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.

But Schrodinger's equation is time-dependent so that would imply some  
sort of multiversal absolute time. Something that Einstein  
demonstrated was impossible. Didn't he?


> 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"?

I did not change the title; SR Ballard did. I however was trying to  
reconcile my own belief in my freedom to choose with what I know about  
MWI in response to Giulio's statement that MWI was incompatible with  
free will. Since Ballard's choice of title seemed as relevant to  
Giulio's ideas as to her own, I kept it.

Your Everett-based explanation for how the quantum Zeno effect could  
operate in the absense of wavefunction collapse made me reconsider  
Giulio's point.

If calling it "free will" bothers you, why not call it "agency"  
instead? I have to assume at some point in your life you did something  
that you perceived that your mind was responsible for having you do?  
Like perhaps replying to this email for example? What do you want to  
call that? Or do you not believe you have choices? Do you believe the  
future is already written?

> 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.

Interestingly if Jason Resch is correct that all mathematical truths  
are physically manifest in some corner of the multiverse, then that  
would mean that Godel Incompleteness would also be manifest. That  
would imply the existence of all manner of physical effects without  
cause or "brute facts" as you put it.

>> *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.

Sure it has: The Hamiltonian for those 10^83 atoms has ((10^83)^2 -  
10^83)/2 = 5*10^165 potential energy terms for those atoms, and the  
Hamiltonian was discovered by a physicist. Isn't the total energy of  
the set 10^83 atoms a thing unto itself?

>> *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.

Maybe the physical manifestation of uncomputable numbers are  
responsible for the huge number of paranormal experiences people have  
claimed to have had consistently over many centuries of recorded  
history. Stuff like UFOs, bigfoot, and ghosts not to mention Jesus on  
the way to Damascus?

>>
>> *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.

Mistake? Plato could have been right. Why would you use something so  
crude as a cardboard square to test something so precise? Why not use  
a laser, a beam-splitters, and mirrors i.e. an interferometer to put  
Pythagoras, and Plato, to the test? Of course the curved space of  
Earth's gravity well might skew results but results should  
none-the-less be informative.

> 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.

I think that if two theories that have never been falsified both  
independently stop being useful in a place that cannot be observed,  
even in principle, then maybe it is a mistake to assume that anything  
goes on in that place at all. Perhaps it is not even a place.

If one applies the Lorentzian transforms to the de Broglie waves of  
quantum particles crossing an event horizon of a black hole, then at  
the event horizon, their wavelength drops to zero, their position is  
precisely determined with respect to the black hole, and their energy  
and momentum consequently both become infinite and undefined. In other  
words, they cannot actually be said ever actually cross the horizon  
because once they reach it, the Heisenberg uncertainty of their  
momentum is maximal. They are going in every possible direction at  
every possible speed. All this is relative to the black hole, mind you  
and not to some outside observer who simply sees the in falling  
particle slow down, red shift its light, and freeze at the event  
horizon.

Now you can change to Krustal coordinates or something to track the  
fall of SOMETHING into the black hole, but whatever it is, it is  
described by a separate wave function than what hit the event horizon  
so it cannot be said to be the same particle due to the No Cloning  
Theorem. My guess therefore is that it is the antimatter clone of  
whatever fell into the black hole. And if Feynman was right about  
antimatter particles being matter particles travelling backwards in  
time, then antimatter falling into a black hole should "feel" like  
matter being ejected from a white hole.

>> * > 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.

Cuckoo clocks cannot split universes by chiming every possible hour at  
once for starters. If you are pushed and you fall down, you fell for a  
reason in that the push caused you to fall, but you did not make a  
rational choice to fall. If you are pushed and you windmill your arms  
and manage to keep your feet, you did make a rational choice not to  
fall. In other words, you successfully exercised agency.


>
>> *> 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.

I agree that agency is deterministic. By definition, it is you  
determining your own future to a certain extent. Unless you are a  
believer in predestined fate?


> * > 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.

The simplest way I can describe a decision is conditional causation.  
If input A, then output B. You are right, it is not at all mystical.  
Using a Turing machine as a cuckoo clock is a waste of this very  
property of Turing machines.

>
>> *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.

Outside influences is the whole point behind agency. If external  
influences were not important, then agency would never have evolved.  
Agency is what gives light rays reflecting from a wall to stop your  
forward momentum without themselves having sufficient momentum to stop  
you.

> *> 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.

Not quite. All agents have a purpose when making decisions, whether  
their own or another's.

>> *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.

The unlikely confluence of all those components speaks of purpose and  
intent. Both hallmarks of agency.

Stuart LaForge