<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">On Mon, Nov 28, 2016 at 1:39 AM, Stuart LaForge </span><span dir="ltr" style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><<a href="mailto:avant@sollegro.com" target="_blank">avant@sollegro.com</a>></span><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"> wrote:</span><br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote"><br></div><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">> </div>Free will is the ability to choose something because you want to.</blockquote><div><br></div><div><font size="4"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">You </div>choose something<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline"> because you want to, and a</div>nd you want to for a reason or you want to for no reason.</font><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline"><font size="4"> So how does adding in a redundant choice middle man make things clearer? </font></div><br></div> <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">> </div>Neither<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline"> </div>the cuckoo clock, nor the roulette wheel can express intent.</blockquote><div><br></div><div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><font size="4">Not true, the </font></font><font size="4">cuckoo clock can express its intent to do X by actually doing X; for example sending out its bird at exactly noon. In the same way I deduce my fellow human beings intent, by observing their actions. Like everything else in the quantum universe the cuckoo clock is subjected to random jogs and jostles, that is to say perturbations that have no cause, so although the cuckoo usually comes out at exactly noon sometimes one of the teeth on its cogwheel slips and the bird comes out at 1159 or 1201. Yes your brain is VASTLY more complex than the cuckoo clockwork but science tells us it is just a difference in degree, there is not even a hint that there are processes going on in that organ that are different in kind. </font></div></div><div class="gmail_default"><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><span style="font-size:12.8px"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">> </div>Therefore </span><span style="font-size:12.8px">neither has free will.</span></blockquote><div><br></div><div><font size="4"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">Near as I can tell, free will means having the ability to choose, and having the ability to choose means having free will. And round and round we go. </div> </font></div><div class="gmail_default"> <br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">> </div>I did not intend to venture out into the murky waters of metaphysics and<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline"> </div>philosophy</blockquote><div><br></div><div><font size="4"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">In my</div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"> naivety</font> <div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">I would have thought one couldn't talk about "free will" without getting into </div>metaphysics and<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline"> </div>philosophy<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">, but as I don't know what "free will" means I could be entirely wrong about that.</div></font></div><div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">></div> I defined free will as simply and clearly<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline"> </div>as I could.</blockquote><div><br></div><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><font size="4">I know of only 2 definitions of "free will" that are not gibberish and nobody uses either one, neither is profound but at least they mean something:</font></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><font size="4"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><font size="4">1) "Free Will" is an ASCII sequence.</font></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><font size="4"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><font size="4">2) "Free Will" is the inability to know what you've decided to do before you've decided to do it. </font></div></div><div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">> </div>Do you believe you have something as obvious and trivial as a<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline"> </div>naked choice when you set the angle of your polararizing filter during a<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline"> </div>Bell Test experiment?</blockquote><div><br></div><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline"><font size="4">I believe I wanted to set the angle of the polarizer at 42 degrees and not 43 degrees for a reason or for no reason. With one exception X happened because of Y or X did not happen because of Y; the one exception is if X is gibberish. </font></div></div><div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><span style="font-size:12.8px"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">> </div>I</span>f you don't really have that choice, then the universe is<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline"> </div>superdeterministic. Your entire life is an already written script, and you<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline"> </div>are just cog in the big wheel.</blockquote><div><br></div><font size="4">I think<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline"> </div>superdeterminism</font><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline"><font size="4"> is the most unlikely quantum interpretation of all because if it were true I don't see why science itself would work, and yet it sure seems like it does. If it were true then the universe itself would decree what questions the experimenter would ask and therefore what experiments to perform. Why would those questions be the correct ones? After all, there are far more bad questions than good ones. </font> </div><div> <br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">> </div>It's<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline"> </div>weirdness no matter which way you cut it.<br></blockquote><div><br></div><div><font size="4"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">Now that I agree with! Whatever the truth turns out to be it will be weird.</div> </font></div><div><font size="4"><br></font></div><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><font size="4">John K Clark</font></div><br></div><div><br></div></div></div></div>