Either as Hard determinism (60% confidence in this theory), or as in some form of Quantum randomness (40% confidence in this theory), you cannot just willy nilly pick something. Its just an algorithm, and, possibly, a little bit of randomness, if Quantum randomness is true.
I agree that free will is an illusion, but have decided that because it is true it isn’t worth thinking about further.
I don’t find the “why” to be interesting, which is interesting because it is like “I” am trying to avoid further reflection on that fact which “I” also have no control over. haha
I always understand “free will” to mean “figure out who you really are”. I.e., every person has a certain character from birth, and that just unfolds throughout life. “Free will” is about figuring that out.
Free will and the “self” - just two sides of the same coin. You’re not free to choose, because there’s no “you” in the first place. You’re just a collection of atoms obeying the laws of physics. It makes no sense to say you could’ve done otherwise. No, you couldn’t - whatever caused you to make a decision in the first place would compel you to make the same choice every single time, no matter how many times you rewound the universe, assuming everything else stayed the same.
We do things for two reasons: either because we want to, or because we have to. There’s no freedom in being forced to do something - and you don’t get to choose your wants or don’t-wants.
I have a crackpot theory that I enjoy for the sake of enjoying it. What if our “soul” or “consciousness” is the collapse of the quantum field. Our decisions moment to moment aren’t random chance, but the unspeakable thing.
Again, pure speculation, but it’s a lot more satisfying and rewarding to live by than throwing moral responsibility to the universe.
My understanding is that, according to the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, everything that can happen will happen - so for every choice you’ve made, there’s an alternate timeline for every other possible choice you could have made. But it still makes no sense to claim that you could’ve acted differently in this timeline.
Many-worlds is nonsensical mumbo jumbo. It doesn’t even make sense without adding an additional unprovable postulate called the universal wave function. Every paper just has to assume it without deriving it from anywhere. If you take MWI and subtract away this arbitrary postulate then you get RQM. MWI - big psi = RQM. So RQM is inherently simpler.
Although the simplest explanation isn’t even RQM, but to drop the postulate that the world is time-asymmetric. If A causes B and B causes C, one of the assumptions of Bell’s theorem is that it would be invalid to say C causes B which then causes A, even though we can compute the time-reverse in quantum mechanics and there is nothing in the theory that tells us the time-reverse is not equally valid.
Indeed, that’s what unitary evolution means. Unitarity just means time-reversibility. You test if an operator is unitary by multiplying it by its own time-reverse, and if it gives you the identity matrix, meaning it completely cancels itself out, then it’s unitary.
If you just accept time-symmetry then it is just as valid to say A causes B as it is to say C causes B, as B is connected to both through a local causal chain of events. You can then imagine that if you compute A’s impact on B it has ambiguities, and if you compute C’s impact on B it also has ambiguities, but if you combine both together the ambiguities disappear and you get an absolutely deterministic value for B.
Indeed, it turns out quantum mechanics works precisely like this. If you compute the unitary evolution of a system from a known initial condition to an intermediate point, and the time-reverse of a known final condition to that intermediate point, you can then compute the values of all the observables at that intermediate point. If you repeat this process for all observables in the experiment, you will find that they evolve entirely locally and continuously. Entangled particles form their correlations when they locally interact, not when you later measure them.
But for some reason people would rather believe in an infinite multiverse than just accept that quantum mechanics is not a time-asymmetric theory.
I dunno man. I’m currently in my time-space experiencing whatever I can. Is it my “decision” to not deteriorate in a pile of my own waste? Who knows! I’ll be dead before we have an answer, and I’m not a philosopher, so I might as well be an armchair optimist in the meantime.
Just because I probably could “disprove” my theory with science, I think the concept of self and science are inherently incompatible with our current model. So until someone can disprove my experience with the world, I’ll continue “choosing” to accept it.
Free will is an illusion.
Either as Hard determinism (60% confidence in this theory), or as in some form of Quantum randomness (40% confidence in this theory), you cannot just willy nilly pick something. Its just an algorithm, and, possibly, a little bit of randomness, if Quantum randomness is true.
I agree that free will is an illusion, but have decided that because it is true it isn’t worth thinking about further.
I don’t find the “why” to be interesting, which is interesting because it is like “I” am trying to avoid further reflection on that fact which “I” also have no control over. haha
I always understand “free will” to mean “figure out who you really are”. I.e., every person has a certain character from birth, and that just unfolds throughout life. “Free will” is about figuring that out.
Free will and the “self” - just two sides of the same coin. You’re not free to choose, because there’s no “you” in the first place. You’re just a collection of atoms obeying the laws of physics. It makes no sense to say you could’ve done otherwise. No, you couldn’t - whatever caused you to make a decision in the first place would compel you to make the same choice every single time, no matter how many times you rewound the universe, assuming everything else stayed the same.
We do things for two reasons: either because we want to, or because we have to. There’s no freedom in being forced to do something - and you don’t get to choose your wants or don’t-wants.
I have a crackpot theory that I enjoy for the sake of enjoying it. What if our “soul” or “consciousness” is the collapse of the quantum field. Our decisions moment to moment aren’t random chance, but the unspeakable thing.
Again, pure speculation, but it’s a lot more satisfying and rewarding to live by than throwing moral responsibility to the universe.
Nah, if I commit a warcrime, I’m blaming the universe.
Aint my fault, should’ve made me a master
My understanding is that, according to the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, everything that can happen will happen - so for every choice you’ve made, there’s an alternate timeline for every other possible choice you could have made. But it still makes no sense to claim that you could’ve acted differently in this timeline.
Many-worlds is nonsensical mumbo jumbo. It doesn’t even make sense without adding an additional unprovable postulate called the universal wave function. Every paper just has to assume it without deriving it from anywhere. If you take MWI and subtract away this arbitrary postulate then you get RQM. MWI - big psi = RQM. So RQM is inherently simpler.
Although the simplest explanation isn’t even RQM, but to drop the postulate that the world is time-asymmetric. If A causes B and B causes C, one of the assumptions of Bell’s theorem is that it would be invalid to say C causes B which then causes A, even though we can compute the time-reverse in quantum mechanics and there is nothing in the theory that tells us the time-reverse is not equally valid.
Indeed, that’s what unitary evolution means. Unitarity just means time-reversibility. You test if an operator is unitary by multiplying it by its own time-reverse, and if it gives you the identity matrix, meaning it completely cancels itself out, then it’s unitary.
If you just accept time-symmetry then it is just as valid to say A causes B as it is to say C causes B, as B is connected to both through a local causal chain of events. You can then imagine that if you compute A’s impact on B it has ambiguities, and if you compute C’s impact on B it also has ambiguities, but if you combine both together the ambiguities disappear and you get an absolutely deterministic value for B.
Indeed, it turns out quantum mechanics works precisely like this. If you compute the unitary evolution of a system from a known initial condition to an intermediate point, and the time-reverse of a known final condition to that intermediate point, you can then compute the values of all the observables at that intermediate point. If you repeat this process for all observables in the experiment, you will find that they evolve entirely locally and continuously. Entangled particles form their correlations when they locally interact, not when you later measure them.
But for some reason people would rather believe in an infinite multiverse than just accept that quantum mechanics is not a time-asymmetric theory.
This many worlds thing I find that it is easier to visualise as an extra dimension with all the other dimensions within it, including time.
I dunno man. I’m currently in my time-space experiencing whatever I can. Is it my “decision” to not deteriorate in a pile of my own waste? Who knows! I’ll be dead before we have an answer, and I’m not a philosopher, so I might as well be an armchair optimist in the meantime.
Just because I probably could “disprove” my theory with science, I think the concept of self and science are inherently incompatible with our current model. So until someone can disprove my experience with the world, I’ll continue “choosing” to accept it.