On 21 Nov 2010, at 09:11, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:
It seems to me that there is no that much difference between
Universes with complete determinism and inherent randomness. Rex put
it quite well here
Intelligence and Nomologicalism Optionen
http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list/browse_frm/thread/5ab5303cdb696ef5
From the viewpoint of Wolfram (I guess it is close to the statement
that the Universe is some kind of a cellular automaton), it does not
matter much if a node is fully deterministic or random.
The account on free will by Wolfram is coherent with the mechanist
assumption, and is a good example of how computer science can help to
build a compatibilist account of free will.
But his account of physicalness is wrong. He is forced to put the
quantum weirdness (non locality notably) under the rug, and he is not
aware that if "we" are machine, then the observable reality cannot be
a machine. By the mechanist first person indeterminacy, the observable
reality has to be a non constructive (non Turing emulable) first
person plural reality.
Also, I begin to think that digital mechanism entails also that the
physical universe is infinite in time, space and scale. The big bang
would only be a local explosion/singularity, and not the (physical)
origin of the cosmos.
Bruno
on 20.11.2010 23:57 Brent Meeker said the following:
On 11/20/2010 5:51 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:
on 19.11.2010 04:11 Rex Allen said the following:
On Thu, Nov 18, 2010 at 9:56 AM, Jason
Resch<jasonre...@gmail.com> wrote:
Rex,
Your post reminded me of the quote (of which I cannot recall
the source) where someone asked "Who pushes who around inside
the brain?", meaning is it the matter that causes thought to
move around a certain way, or is it the opposite? The looped
hierarchies described by Hofstadter, if present, make this a
difficult question to answer. If the highest levels of thought
and reason are required in your decision making, does it still
make sense to say we are slaves of deterministic motions of
particles or is that missing a few steps?
Well, I find it entirely conceivable that fundamental physical
laws acting on fundamental physical entities (particles, fields,
strings, whatever) could account for human behavior and ability.
So if human behavior and ability is what we are trying to
explain, then I see no reason to invoke thought and reason as
causal forces. And, even if you wanted to, I don't see how they
could be made to serve that role. 1Z and I discussed this in the
other thread.
We don't invoke thought and reason to explain the abilities and
behavior of chess playing computers - and while human behavior
and ability is much more complex and extensive, I think it can be
put in the same general category.
The conscious experience that accompanies human behavior is
another matter entirely, but I don't think it serves any causal
role either.
Have I understood you correctly, that the current discussion has
been already predetermined by the initial conditions of the
Universe?
I guess that something like this Stephen Wolfram says. A few
citations from his talk Some Modern Perspectives on the Quest for
Ultimate Knowledge
"It looks probabilistic because there is a lot of complicated stuff
going on that we’re not seeing–notably in the very structure and
connectivity of space and time."
"But really it’s all completely deterministic."
"That somehow knowing the laws of the universe would tell us how
humans would act–and give us a way to compute and predict human
behavior."
"Of course, to many people this always seemed implausible–because
we feel that we have some form of free will."
"And now, with computational irreducibility, we can see how this
can still be consistent with deterministic underlying laws."
See more at
http://blog.rudnyi.ru/2010/07/stephen-wolframs-computational-irreducibility.html
I am not sure that I agree but at least with computational
irreducibility there is some logic in all this. Do you agree with
Stephen Wolfram?
Evgenii
But also see the argument by Elitzur and Doleve that the universe has
inherent randomness:
http://a-c-elitzur.co.il/uploads/articlesdocs/UndoMsrmnt.pdf "It
seems safe to conclude, therefore, that the famous `uneasy truce'
be- tween relativity and quantum mechanics has never been uneasier.
If there are hidden variables beneath the quantum level, then, by an
earlier proof of ours (Elitzur & Dolev, 2005a), they must be
`forever-hidden variables' in order to never give rise to violations
of relativity. But then, by the same reasoning that has lead Einstein
to abolish the aether, they probably do not exist. Indeed, it has
been proved long ago (Elitzur, 1992) that God must play dice in order
to preserve relativistic locality. Hence, randomness, novelty and
emergence, which for luminaries like Parmenides, Spinoza and Einstein
were mere epiphenomena to be explained away, are likely the Uni-
verse's very mode of existence."
Brent
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