[Paleopsych] free wills and quantum won'ts

[HowlBloom at aol.com]

Sorry it took me so long to answer this.  I puzzled over it  considerably.  
Free will is a matter of whether there are choices and  whether the choice we 
make is determined entirely by prior causes...or is this  what the question of 
free will is about? 
 
The free-will debate is an intellectual ruckus over something worth  
ruckusing about--the question of whether we respond to a conundrum by  making a 
pre-programmed, robotic decision, a decision that the ultimate  mathematician or 
mechanician could theoretically predict, right?  It's the  question of whether 
our not we're kidding ourselves.  We're under the  impression  that we have 
options and that the exertion of some sort of  thought, feeling, and  will really 
does help us make up our mind, or  whether we simply pinball automatically 
down just one predetermined path.   It's a question of what will is and if what 
we think it is is all wrong.
 
Isn't it?  Howard
 
In a message dated 5/16/2005 8:28:09 P.M. Pacific Standard Time,  
dsmith06 at maine.rr.com writes:

Traditionally, the problem of free will is not a question of whether or  not 
we have choices, it is the question of whether or not these  choices are 
caused by prior events.  
 
David
 
 
----- Original Message ----- 

From:  _HowlBloom at aol.com_ (mailto:HowlBloom at aol.com)  
To: _paleopsych at paleopsych.org_ (mailto:paleopsych at paleopsych.org)  
Sent: Monday, May 16, 2005 11:19  PM
Subject: [Paleopsych] free wills and  quantum won'ts



This is from a dialog Pavel Kurakin and I are having behind the  scenes.  I 
wanted to see what you all thought of it.  Howard
 
You know that I'm a quantum skeptic.  I believe that our math is  primitive.  
The best math we've been able to conceive to get a handle  on quantum 
particles is probabilistic.  Which means it's cloudy.   It's filled with multiple 
choices.  But that's the problem of our math,  not of the cosmos.  With more 
precise math I think we could make more  precise predictions.
 
And with far more flexible math, we could model large-scale things like  
bio-molecules, big ones, genomes, proteins and their interactions.   With a really 
robust and mature math we could model thought and  brains.  But that math is 
many centuries and many perceptual  breakthroughs away.
 
As mathematicians, we are still in the early stone age.
 
But what I've said above has a kink I've hidden from view.  It  implies that 
there's a math that would model the cosmos in a totally  deterministic way.  
And life is not deterministic.  We DO have  free will.  Free will means 
multiple choices, doesn't it?  And  multiple choices are what the Copenhagen School's 
probabilistic equations  are all about?
 
How could the concept of free will be right and the assumptions behind  the 
equations of Quantum Mechanics be wrong?  Good question.  Yet  I'm certain that 
we do have free will.  And I'm certain that our  current quantum concepts are 
based on the primitive metaphors underlying our  existing forms of math.  
Which means there are other metaphors ahead of  us that will make for a more 
robust math and that will square free will with  determinism in some radically new 
way.
 
Now the question is, what could those new metaphors be?
 
Howard

 
----------
Howard Bloom
Author of The Lucifer  Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of 
History and Global  Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind From The Big Bang to the 
21st  Century
Visiting Scholar-Graduate Psychology Department, New York  University; Core 
Faculty Member, The Graduate  Institute
www.howardbloom.net
www.bigbangtango.net
Founder:  International Paleopsychology Project; founding board member: Epic 
of  Evolution Society; founding board member, The Darwin Project; founder: The 
 Big Bang Tango Media Lab; member: New York Academy of Sciences, American  
Association for the Advancement of Science, American Psychological Society,  
Academy of Political Science, Human Behavior and Evolution Society,  
International Society for Human Ethology; advisory board member:  Youthactivism.org; 
executive editor -- New Paradigm book series.
For  information on The International Paleopsychology Project, see:  
www.paleopsych.org
for two chapters from 
The Lucifer Principle: A  Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of History, 
see  www.howardbloom.net/lucifer
For information on Global Brain: The  Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big 
Bang to the 21st Century, see  www.howardbloom.net

 
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----------
Howard Bloom
Author of The Lucifer  Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of 
History and Global Brain:  The Evolution of Mass Mind From The Big Bang to the 
21st Century
Visiting  Scholar-Graduate Psychology Department, New York University; Core 
Faculty  Member, The Graduate  Institute
www.howardbloom.net
www.bigbangtango.net
Founder:  International Paleopsychology Project; founding board member: Epic 
of Evolution  Society; founding board member, The Darwin Project; founder: The 
Big Bang Tango  Media Lab; member: New York Academy of Sciences, American 
Association for the  Advancement of Science, American Psychological Society, 
Academy of Political  Science, Human Behavior and Evolution Society, International 
Society for Human  Ethology; advisory board member: Youthactivism.org; 
executive editor -- New  Paradigm book series.
For information on The International Paleopsychology  Project, see: 
www.paleopsych.org
for two chapters from 
The Lucifer  Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of History, 
see  www.howardbloom.net/lucifer
For information on Global Brain: The Evolution of  Mass Mind from the Big 
Bang to the 21st Century, see  www.howardbloom.net

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