[ExI] Free will was: Everett worlds

Stathis Papaioannou stathisp at gmail.com
Mon Sep 14 03:27:38 UTC 2020


On Sun, 13 Sep 2020 at 14:36, Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

>
> 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 the different JCs have different brains and different experiences. One
JC chooses vanilla and is aware of choosing vanilla, while another JC
chooses chocolate and is aware of choosing chocolate. Each JC says "I chose
my flavour because I wanted to".


> >> *> 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
>
>
>
>
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-- 
Stathis Papaioannou
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