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<DIV>In a message dated 6/1/2005 2:47:37 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
eec1@nyu.edu writes:</DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: blue 2px solid"><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000
size=2>>Howard, before dealing with the math that a putative "free will"
would <BR>>require, I feel there is a paradoxical motivational issue
regarding "free <BR>>will" that first needs at least considering (if not
clarifying). One of <BR>>the reasons "free will" is an attractive
concept is that it liberates us <BR>>from a smothering sense of external
control with which determinism <BR>>tyrannizes us. Who among us
wouldn't like to throw off the behavior <BR>>chains of causality and "over
these prison walls fly"? Yet when asked the <BR>>reasons why we do
things, we say "because....," thus, admitting to a <BR>>justifying
influence in vast preference to the insanity of doing something
<BR>>without reason (the abhorrent equivalent of a motivationless crime, so
to <BR>>speak). So the issue, at least psychologically, is: Can we
choose without <BR>>being chosen or, if we must be chosen, can we still
choose? Perhaps <BR>>entanglement is somehow the
answer.....Ted<BR>><BR>>At 11:19 PM 5/16/2005 -0400, you
wrote:<BR>>>This is from a dialog Pavel Kurakin and I are having behind
the <BR>>>scenes. I wanted to see what you all thought of
it. Howard<BR>>><BR>>>You know that I'm a quantum
skeptic. I believe that our math is <BR>>>primitive. The
best math we've been able to conceive to get a handle on <BR>>>quantum
particles is probabilistic. Which means it's cloudy. It's
<BR>>>filled with multiple choices. But that's the problem of our
math, not of <BR>>>the cosmos. With more precise math I think we
could make more precise <BR>>>predictions.<BR>>><BR>>>And
with far more flexible math, we could model large-scale things like
<BR>>>bio-molecules, big ones, genomes, proteins and their
interactions. With <BR>>>a really robust and mature math we could
model thought and brains. But <BR>>>that math is many centuries
and many perceptual breakthroughs away.<BR>>><BR>>>As
mathematicians, we are still in the early stone
age.<BR>>><BR>>>But what I've said above has a kink I've hidden
from view. It implies <BR>>>that there's a math that would model
the cosmos in a totally <BR>>>deterministic way. And life is not
deterministic. We DO have free <BR>>>will. Free will means
multiple choices, doesn't it? And multiple <BR>>>choices are what
the Copenhagen School's probabilistic equations are all
about?<BR>>><BR>>>How could the concept of free will be right and
the assumptions behind <BR>>>the equations of Quantum Mechanics be
wrong? Good question. Yet I'm <BR>>>certain that we do have
free will. And I'm certain that our current <BR>>>quantum concepts
are based on the primitive metaphors underlying our <BR>>>existing forms
of math. Which means there are other metaphors ahead of <BR>>>us
that will make for a more robust math and that will square free will
<BR>>>with determinism in some radically new
way.<BR>>><BR>>>Now the question is, what could those new
metaphors be?<BR>>><BR>>>Howard</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV>
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<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT lang=0 face=Arial size=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF"
PTSIZE="10">----------<BR>Howard Bloom<BR>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<BR>Visiting Scholar-Graduate
Psychology Department, New York University; Core Faculty Member, The Graduate
Institute<BR>www.howardbloom.net<BR>www.bigbangtango.net<BR>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.<BR>For information on The International Paleopsychology
Project, see: www.paleopsych.org<BR>for two chapters from <BR>The Lucifer
Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of History, see
www.howardbloom.net/lucifer<BR>For information on Global Brain: The Evolution of
Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century, see
www.howardbloom.net<BR></FONT></DIV></FONT></BODY></HTML>