Free will

[ObiWan]

From Entanglement, Thermodynamics and Doppler shift as Vector Energy:

Chaos is irrelevant. Chaos is not knowing the exact initial and continuing state of a system, so that its future progress cannot be predicted.

In an isolated system, each part within the system has precise energy, mass, momentum etc and can pass precise amounts around to other components of the system. The future development of each part of the system happens precisely in line with whatever events between the components occur, with no uncertainty at all, because each interaction splits the available energies, momenta etc precisely in line with the innate laws of nature. If one particle leaves an interaction with energy hw rather than h(w+1) it is because that is what occurred.

It is only when an external observer tries to get information on the system that uncertainty and chaos enter. The act of measuring the energy of just one particle involves the use of another particle from outside the system, and the minimum unit of energy, frequency etc that the system can be measured to is h. Even if the properties of the measuring particle are known precisely, there will be uncertainty of at least h in the observation of the properties of the system because any measurement must either be at hw or h(w+1). There is no precise balance between measuring and measured particles, because the properties of the latter will not be known until after the measurement, so the outcome cannot be certain. It is the introduction of this uncertainty that leads to the prediction of chaos within systems. The act of measuring a system means that you cannot predict its future development or know its precise past, with an uncertainty that grows over time.

So for isolated systems there is no uncertainty or chaos. The observation of a system introduces uncertainty and chaos. If all the properties of a system were known precisely, then its future could be predicted exactly over all times, but that would require observation, which introduces the seed of uncertainty and the unpredictability of future events - which appear chaotic because they are not predictable. To eliminate uncertainty, it would be necessary not to observe the system - but then there would be no information about the system at all for that observer.

The universe is thus a clockwork system, until observers start to take information. Notice that there is uncertainty only for the observers and the observed separately. If the observers were within the system, then the system could again be considered isolated and the uncertainty eliminated. The uncertainty for the observers is equal and in some way opposite that of the observed.

If this is true surely it leaves no room for free-will, and even if the universe is not clockwork, if the only reason my decisions can change is because of randomness, surely that is not free-will either.

I often think, if I could perfectly reset the day I have just done and start it off again would I do everything exactly the same? When buying that Coke, I thought to myself “I could have chosen Pepsi, Sprite or root beer (eww!), I just didn’t”, but in that particular instance I would have always chosen the Coke because of the state of the universe at that point.

If you believe in just the physical universe (and no, erm, spiritual plane?) is believing in free-will impossible as everything we are and do is completely due to the interaction between particles which follow either clockwork rules or have an element of randomness in (I would be grateful if someone could dish the dope on the above article, is it clockwork underneath or is randomness a fundamental part of the universe*). Neither really allows the possibilty of free-will and there is no room for anything else.

I can’t quite seem to think my way out of this one (it’s been bugging me for a while) but, I thought, I know people who might…

• = My thought: How can the author know that the universe is a “clockwork system, until observers start to take information”? Surely this is untestable.

[Ethilrist]

First of all, what exactly are they thinking of when they talk of an isolated system? A ping-pong ball floating halfway between our solar system and Alpha Centauri? It has to be something where absolutely NOTHING from outside of the system interferes with it. No gravity, no light, heat, tetryonic cascades, whatever, enters the system. That’s pretty darned isolated. There’s light everywhere the stars can shine. Any place shielded from the light probably has the gravitic influence of whatever’s shielding the light.

The author is overlooking the question, “If a tree falls in a forest and nobody is there to see or hear it, how do you know it fell?” According to what they’re saying, just because we’re not there to observe the light from Rigel plowing into that pingpong ball doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.

They’ve got tense problems. It’s not, “The universe is thus a clockwork system, until observers start to take information.” It’s “the universe WAS thus a clockwork system.”

[Spiritus_Mundi]

If one particle leaves an interaction with energy hw rather than h(w+1) it is because that is what occurred.

This is the flaw in the argument. The author glosses over unpredictability in particle interaction by saying, “this is what happened”. This, of course, makes his argument circular.

A closed system is perfectly predictable because “this is what happened”.

[erislover]

For a treatment of consciousness (not necessarily free will, though a consciousness without a free will seems to be a useless idea) the book The Emperor’s New Mind is a thought-provoking read.

However, I think the argument takes a pretty non-standard view of the uncertainty principle by saying that uncertainty is somehow linked inexorably with measurement which has been demonstrated to not be the case. Under the system of quantum mechanics, results obtained through experimentation have confirmed that until the system is measured there is, actually, no certainty at all. The tests were set up to record an event under conditions which would allow for the “unpredictable” things to happen, such as electrons interfering with themselves or photons doing so. As such, when the event was finally measured, the results could only be explained under the system by accepting that stuff was inherently unpredictable. Such tests are also detailed in the book mentioned above.

[BickByro]

I just had to jump in on this one…

ObiWan, about two years ago I reached my “working hypothesis” that, in fact, there is no free will per se; that the world is essentially deterministic. As with any hypothesis, once you’ve decided on one it can be easy to find support for it, but it still makes me happy to read things like this, from a recent Time magazine:

“it is clearer than ever that galaxies cluster together into huge clumps that reflect conditions that existed soon after the Big Bang… the temperature fluctuations were set in place when [the universe] was just a split-second old”

Does this disprove free will? Of course not. But if the current distribution of all the matter in the universe was, in some sense, completely predictable from the beginning… well, it makes me wonder, as you did, whether I’m really making a “free choice” to purchase Coke instead of Pepsi.

The problem, as Spiritus points out, is that it’s rather impossible to prove or disprove free will. In part, this is because we’re generally talking about things that have already happened, for which the cause (whether free or forced) has already been lost to history.

There are other problems too. We don’t even understand how all the neurons in your brain work toward making a “decision” to buy a Coke, so there’s no way for us to know whether that decision truly arose from the ether or whether it was just inevitable.

And how would we be able to tell the difference anyway? Clearly, whether free will exists or not, human beings are set up in such a way that we believe we have free will (see erislover’s comment that “consciousness without a free will seems to be a useless idea”—I suspect a lot of people feel this way, that somehow the reality of “fate” would rob their lives of meaning). So if you were somehow able to observe in minute detail the brain of one about to choose between sodas, what do you suppose we would be looking for that would “tip us off” to the absence or presence of free will? Surely even the staunchest believers in free will would agree that certain environmental factors play into any decision (for example, you probably won’t buy a soda at all if you’re not thirsty), so where would we draw the line?

In conclusion, to address erislover’s point, let me just say that (given the complexity of humans and even the universe as a whole) if everything is in fact fated, this should really only diminish “meaning” for an omniscient observer. For the rest of us, there will be elements of surprise, which is, I suspect, where we get a lot of our ideas about the “usefulness of consciousness.”

[erislover]

Oh, don’t get me wrong, when pressed to the issue I think that the universe is deterministic but inherently non-computable. This latter condition allows all sorts of interesting things to pop up, not the least of which is our consciousness.

I don’t rule out the idea of free will, but I see it as more and more unlikely the more I read about science.

[Mars_Horizon]

Damn!

And here I thought we were going to be talking about the classic Rush tune!

:: d&r ::