[ExI] Humans losing freewill

Mon Nov 21 06:31:47 UTC 2016

Stathis wrote:

'Why do you say "freewill in this instance [is] precisely defined as the idea that you actually have a choice in what direction you orient the magnetic field or polarizer when you conduct [an] entanglement experiment"?'

I said that mostly to keep John Clark from wiggling out of the trilemma by claiming that freewill was too vague or undefined a term to be taken seriously. But I also wanted to specify that we are talking about quantum violations of Bell's Inequality rather than some sweeping philosophical generalization thereof, since Bell's Inequality does actually hold for macroscopic phenomena, which is what makes quantum entanglement so darn weird.

Stathis again:

'Why can't you "actually have a choice" about something if your behaviour is fixed by the configuration of your brain?'

Because if your choices were, are, and always will be fixed, there is no possibility that you could have counterfactually chosen any other options and therefore they were never really options to begin with.

Stuart LaForge

Sent from my phone.

extropy-chat-request at lists.extropy.org wrote:

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>Today's Topics:
>
>   1. Re: hasta be a pony in here somewhere (spike)
>   2. Re: Humans losing freewill (William Flynn Wallace)
>   3. Re: hasta be a pony in here somewhere (spike)
>   4. Re: Humans losing freewill (Will Steinberg)
>   5. books (William Flynn Wallace)
>   6. Re: Humans losing freewill (John Clark)
>   7. Re: Humans losing freewill (William Flynn Wallace)
>   8. Re: Humans losing freewill (John Clark)
>   9. Re: Humans losing freewill (William Flynn Wallace)
>
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Message: 1
>Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2016 08:38:15 -0800
>From: "spike" <spike66 at att.net>
>To: "'ExI chat list'" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
>Subject: Re: [ExI] hasta be a pony in here somewhere
>Message-ID: <007d01d2434c$7dfbb8b0$79f32a10$@att.net>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> 
>
> 
>
>>? On Behalf Of Will Steinberg
>Subject: Re: [ExI] hasta be a pony in here somewhere
>
> 
>
>>?Oi sorry Spike old boy.  I haven't read 1984 in 13 years and I was too young to really retain it.
>
> 
>
>Now is the time Will.  It helps to read it again with respect to what you know now that you didn?t know then.  Reading it after 40 is good.  Speaking of after 40? I prefer to think of myself as Spike middle-aged boy please.  Or even Spike late-youth boy.  Or if we must have technical accuracy, Spike traces-of-yellow-left-in-the-white-hair boy.  {8-[   {8^D
>
>spike
>
> 
>
> 
>
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>Message: 2
>Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2016 10:56:38 -0600
>From: William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
>To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
>Subject: Re: [ExI] Humans losing freewill
>Message-ID:
>	<CAO+xQEbH1n46+ECNx5VWmJ3aahjgask9wij9YEw65UZgC_+RBA at mail.gmail.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
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>>From the viewpoint of any observer anywhere in the multiverse ( in other
>words from any possible
>?
>observer) determinism locality
>?
>and realism cannot all be true, at least one must be wrong.
>?
>
>John K Clark?
>
>I have to give up here and stop.  If you are going to throw quantum theory
>at me, I am defenseless.  I will add that we are talking about some things
>that possibly will never be proven.  Someone spoke something like this:
> The universe is more complex than we *can* know.
>
>A million years, a billion years - we will never know everything.  So I
>think I will hold on to the theories that please me, and why not?
>
>bill w
>
>On Sat, Nov 19, 2016 at 8:49 PM, Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp at gmail.com>
>wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On 20 November 2016 at 13:05, John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On Sat, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> ?> ?
>>>> I agree that no action is random, but maintain that all actions are
>>>> determined.
>>>
>>>
>>> ?There is nothing in logic that demands every event have a cause, quantum
>>> mechanics says true randomness exists and from experiment, specifically the
>>> observation that Bell's inequality is violated, we know that AT LEAST one
>>> of the following 3 concepts about the universe must be untrue:
>>>
>>> 1) Determinism (everything has a cause and thus nothing is random)
>>>
>>> 2) Locality (the
>>> future can not change the past and distance diminishes the strength and
>>> speed of an effect
>>> ?)?
>>>
>>> 3) Realism (
>>> things are in a definite state even if they
>>> ?are not being observed) ?
>>>
>>> I'd like all three
>>> ? ?
>>> ?to be true
>>> but if I had to give up one of them (and I do)
>>> ? then?
>>> I'd give up determinism
>>> ?;
>>> ?t?
>>> o my mind it would be the least disturbing, and giving up
>>> ?realism?
>>>  would be the most disturbing
>>> ?.?
>>>
>>> ?But
>>>  the universe may not agree with me so for all I know all 3 may be false
>>> ?.
>>>
>>> ?If ?
>>> the Everett
>>> ?
>>> interpretation
>>> ? is true then ?
>>> from a point of view that
>>> ? can
>>> not
>>> ?
>>> exist, like the viewpoint
>>> ?
>>> of
>>> ? ?
>>> ?
>>> somebody
>>> ?
>>> standing outside
>>> ?
>>> of
>>> ?
>>> the multiverse looking
>>> ?
>>> back in
>>> ?
>>> at it
>>> ?,
>>> all 3 of those attributes, locality
>>> ?
>>> ?
>>> determinism and realism,
>>> ?
>>> can exist together;
>>> ?
>>> but
>>> ?say I said ?
>>> that is a viewpoint that can not exist
>>> ?.?
>>> ?
>>> So
>>> ?that's like
>>> saying if 2+2=5 then 2+2+2=7.
>>> ?
>>> From the viewpoint of any observer anywhere in the multiverse ( in other
>>> words from any possible
>>> ?
>>> observer) determinism locality
>>> ?
>>> and realism cannot all be true, at least one must be wrong.
>>> ?
>>>
>>
>> The latter is what Bruno Marchal has called the "first person
>> indeterminacy". The multiverse is entirely deterministic, but an observer
>> embedded in the multiverse will see intractable randomness, because he does
>> not know in which branch he will end up, and not even God can tell him.
>>
>> --
>> Stathis Papaioannou
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> extropy-chat mailing list
>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
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>>
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>Message: 3
>Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2016 09:01:34 -0800
>From: "spike" <spike66 at att.net>
>To: "'ExI chat list'" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
>Subject: Re: [ExI] hasta be a pony in here somewhere
>Message-ID: <00be01d2434f$c05e5250$411af6f0$@att.net>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> 
>
> 
>
>>? On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace
>?
>
> 
>
>>?Government got blasted today in MS.  Secret contracts a committee voted on, and then a total ban on legislators getting their hands on the details of those same contracts.  ?Legislators cannot see all of the contracts they are voting on!!  ?At least the newspaper is trying.  To what effect?  Probably little to none.  ?bill w
>
> 
>
> 
>
> 
>
> 
>
>On the contrary sir, this is progress.  Now you will have legislators who will run on openness.  No more ?We must quickly pass this bill so we can find out what is in it.?  You will have MS legislators running on a platform of: Show us what is in it before the vote. 
>
> 
>
>Bumper sticker:  If I don?t know, I vote no.
>
> 
>
>That one will be elected.  Good deal.  Julian was right all along.
>
> 
>
>spike
>
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>Message: 4
>Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2016 12:20:29 -0500
>From: Will Steinberg <steinberg.will at gmail.com>
>To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
>Subject: Re: [ExI] Humans losing freewill
>Message-ID:
>	<CAKrqSyGe0wo2Tny2DZXur5tOgaRkpbN3tZUNBdcLWZEKT+HiLA at mail.gmail.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
>On Nov 20, 2016 11:57, "William Flynn Wallace" <foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>  If you are going to throw quantum theory at me, I am defenseless.
>>
>> bill w
>>
>
>Hey man count your blessings, at least it's not about Trump!
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>Message: 5
>Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2016 11:27:45 -0600
>From: William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
>To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
>Subject: [ExI] books
>Message-ID:
>	<CAO+xQEbvU=CXdWyJn45sjsOo1=RQXdydc5ObsDrKgBKJBKkoNQ at mail.gmail.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
>Rafal said he was reading Pre-Suasion, so I thought some of the rest of you
>might be interested in some #1 sellers in closely related fields:
>
>A Field Guide to Lies: Critical Thinking in the Information Age  Daniel
>Levitin
>
>The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload
> same author
>
>bill w  (I will gladly receive others' book recommendations)
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>Message: 6
>Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2016 14:01:51 -0500
>From: John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com>
>To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
>Subject: Re: [ExI] Humans losing freewill
>Message-ID:
>	<CAJPayv0ZAO31O9t1vPgE6sbDxp51tTysKcX-o9vwaAufLV0J3w at mail.gmail.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
>On Sun, Nov 20, 2016 at 11:56 AM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com
>> wrote:
>
>
>>> ?>> ?
>>> From the viewpoint of any observer anywhere in the multiverse ( in other
>>> words from any possible
>>> ?
>>> observer) determinism locality
>>> ?
>>> and realism cannot all be true, at least one must be wrong.
>>> ?
>>>
>>
>
>> I have to give up here and stop.  If you are going to throw quantum
>> theory at me, I am defenseless.  I will add that we are talking about some
>> things that possibly will never be proven.
>>
>
>?It's not a theory it's a experimental ?
>observation, Bell's inequality is violated no doubt about it. And Bell
>didn't even use quantum mechanics when he derived his inequality, he used
>nothing but high school algebra and trigonometry and the assumptions that
>determinism, locality and realism are true. And yet we know through
>observation that Bell's inequality *IS* violated. So either high school
>algebra and ?
>trigonometry
>? is wrong or at least one of the 3 assumptions that Bell made is wrong.
>Even if quantum mechanics is someday proven to be incorrect whatever
>theory succeeds it will not change the observation that Bell's inequality
>is indeed violated. I don't think algebra or trigonometry is wrong, so at
>least one of those assumptions must be.
>
>  John K Clark
>
>
>
>>
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>Message: 7
>Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2016 14:43:11 -0600
>From: William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
>To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
>Subject: Re: [ExI] Humans losing freewill
>Message-ID:
>	<CAO+xQEaXVSYr-RWmPtQpriDVFgwbA5z7LkQWf-gNqYHp-UqU0A at mail.gmail.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
>I don't think algebra or trigonometry is wrong, so at least one of those
>assumptions must be.
>
>  John K Clark
>
>Sometimes we just have to assume things without good evidence.  In the
>absence of compelling data, we assume that a person meant to do what they
>did, and use that as the basis for a legal decision.
>
>Determinism fits in here too:  we have to assume it in criminal cases, just
>like free will, even though both constructs are arguable.
>
>When something better comes along, we may have to change
>our way of thinking about people and re-write our entire legal system.  But
>for now, we have no good alternatives.
>
>We bend the assumptions we have too.  We excuse certain behaviors by minors
>and by mentally challenged people as if they cannot have full intent.  (I
>think this is ridiculous.  They knew what they were doing.)
>
>Anyone want to get rid of the idea of determinism?  Replace it with what?
>
>As for the math you talk about, how can algebra and trig be 'wrong' when
>they give answers that work in the 'real world'?
>
>bill w
>
>On Sun, Nov 20, 2016 at 1:01 PM, John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Sun, Nov 20, 2016 at 11:56 AM, William Flynn Wallace <
>> foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>> ?>> ?
>>>> From the viewpoint of any observer anywhere in the multiverse ( in other
>>>> words from any possible
>>>> ?
>>>> observer) determinism locality
>>>> ?
>>>> and realism cannot all be true, at least one must be wrong.
>>>> ?
>>>>
>>>
>>
>> > I have to give up here and stop.  If you are going to throw quantum
>>> theory at me, I am defenseless.  I will add that we are talking about some
>>> things that possibly will never be proven.
>>>
>>
>> ?It's not a theory it's a experimental ?
>> observation, Bell's inequality is violated no doubt about it. And Bell
>> didn't even use quantum mechanics when he derived his inequality, he used
>> nothing but high school algebra and trigonometry and the assumptions that
>> determinism, locality and realism are true. And yet we know through
>> observation that Bell's inequality *IS* violated. So either high school
>> algebra and ?
>> trigonometry
>> ? is wrong or at least one of the 3 assumptions that Bell made is wrong.
>> Even if quantum mechanics is someday proven to be incorrect whatever
>> theory succeeds it will not change the observation that Bell's inequality
>> is indeed violated. I don't think algebra or trigonometry is wrong, so at
>> least one of those assumptions must be.
>>
>>   John K Clark
>>
>>
>>
>>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> extropy-chat mailing list
>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>>
>>
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>Message: 8
>Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2016 16:29:13 -0500
>From: John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com>
>To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
>Subject: Re: [ExI] Humans losing freewill
>Message-ID:
>	<CAJPayv2rB6XKL-owZCsncrzzxP2cFFRCXaJK352c1GYRH8KWRQ at mail.gmail.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
>On Sun, Nov 20, 2016 at 3:43 PM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
>wrote:
>
>?> ?
>> In the absence of compelling data, we assume that a person meant to do
>> what they did, and use that as the basis for a legal decision.
>> ? ?
>> Determinism fits in here too:  we have to assume it in criminal cases,
>>
>
>?Well yes. Nobody is saying that events never have causes, just that they
>don't always.
>The only useful purpose for criminal law is to stop someone who hurt
>somebody else from doing it again and to deter others from doing something
>similar; that is to say criminal law causes people to behave in certain
>ways and civilization would be impossible without it.
> ?
>>
>>
>> ?> ?
>> just like free will, even though both constructs are arguable.
>
>
>?I can say nothing about "free will" because I don't know what it means.?
>
>
>?> ?
>> When something better comes along, we may have to change
>> our way of thinking about people and re-write our entire legal system.
>> But for now, we have no good alternatives.
>>
>
>?How about treating it as irrelevant if a person is a moral monster because
>he had bad genes or a bad environment and instead punish him if and only if
>doing so will prevent him from doing bad stuff again and or deter others.
>?If you can explain why
>?somebody is a monster that doesn't stop him from being a monster, and I
>don't care if he's insane or not.?
>
>John K Clark
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>Message: 9
>Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2016 16:52:18 -0600
>From: William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
>To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
>Subject: Re: [ExI] Humans losing freewill
>Message-ID:
>	<CAO+xQEa6SEbkETWkBfPZiLsvFWWHujZmHXN8HnUeMNpcFfdS7Q at mail.gmail.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
>I can say nothing about "free will" because I don't know what it means.?
> john
>
>I do love someone who wants their words defined properly.  Yet, in everyday
>conversation, I'll bet that you use words like 'instinct', 'intuition',
>'gut feelings' and more and cannot give a proper, that is to say, a more
>scientific definition than is usual among the insufficiently educated.
>
>And if you don't, then welcome to my club!
>
>bill w
>
>On Sun, Nov 20, 2016 at 3:29 PM, John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Sun, Nov 20, 2016 at 3:43 PM, William Flynn Wallace <
>> foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> ?> ?
>>> In the absence of compelling data, we assume that a person meant to do
>>> what they did, and use that as the basis for a legal decision.
>>> ? ?
>>> Determinism fits in here too:  we have to assume it in criminal cases,
>>>
>>
>> ?Well yes. Nobody is saying that events never have causes, just that they
>> don't always.
>> The only useful purpose for criminal law is to stop someone who hurt
>> somebody else from doing it again and to deter others from doing something
>> similar; that is to say criminal law causes people to behave in certain
>> ways and civilization would be impossible without it.
>>  ?
>>>
>>>
>>> ?> ?
>>> just like free will, even though both constructs are arguable.
>>
>>
>> ?I can say nothing about "free will" because I don't know what it means.?
>>
>>
>> ?> ?
>>> When something better comes along, we may have to change
>>> our way of thinking about people and re-write our entire legal system.
>>> But for now, we have no good alternatives.
>>>
>>
>> ?How about treating it as irrelevant if a person is a moral monster
>> because he had bad genes or a bad environment and instead punish him if and
>> only if doing so will prevent him from doing bad stuff again and or deter
>> others. ?If you can explain why
>> ?somebody is a monster that doesn't stop him from being a monster, and I
>> don't care if he's insane or not.?
>>
>> John K Clark
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> extropy-chat mailing list
>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>>
>>
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