[Paleopsych] free wills and quantum won'ts

Wed Jun 1 11:18:00 UTC 2005

The question of free will, as traditionally conceived by philosophers, is not the question of whether or not we make choices (nobody denies this): it is the question of whether our choosings are themselves caused by prior events.  

David

----- Original Message ----- 
  From: HowlBloom at aol.com 
  To: paleopsych at paleopsych.org 
  Sent: Tuesday, May 31, 2005 10:42 PM
  Subject: Re: [Paleopsych] free wills and quantum won'ts

  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 
      To: 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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