are there more views than deterministic and indeterministic

[empleat]

Hello,

are there more approaches in quantum mechanics than deterministic and indeterministic, because if not, we certainly don't have free will.

Thanks for answer.

[studiot]

What do you mean?

[empleat]

Physical laws are deterministic, like if you drop a ball it will fall down cause gravitation.

But quantum mechanics is indeterministic, you can only predict, where particle will be.

It either means, it is random, or determined, but we can't determine it yet.

And we are just particles, nothing more, so if their behaviour is determined, or random, it does not leave any room for free will.

[beecee]

24 minutes ago, empleat said:

Physical laws are deterministic, like if you drop a ball it will fall down cause gravitation.

You mean gravitation will make the ball and Earth attract each other.

[empleat]

Point is, is there a any other view in quantum mechanics, that determinism, or indeterminism ?

[StringJunky]

35 minutes ago, empleat said:

Point is, is there a any other view in quantum mechanics, that determinism, or indeterminism ?

Consciousness is too high-level a process for quantum effects to have any effect on our choices.

[studiot]

3 hours ago, empleat said:

Physical laws are deterministic, like if you drop a ball it will fall down cause gravitation.

You don't have to go microscopic or to QM to find non deterministic laws in Physics.

A good classical macroscopic example would be turbulent motion in fluid dynamics.

[empleat]

My point is if everything is indeterministic, or deterministic, there is 0 chance for free will. 

There would have to be a third option.

So i ask again is there any another view that macrosocopis level, or quantum particles are indeterministic, or deterministic.

 

 

 

[Markus Hanke]

1 hour ago, empleat said:

My point is if everything is indeterministic, or deterministic, there is 0 chance for free will. 

There would have to be a third option.

So i ask again is there any another view that macrosocopis level, or quantum particles are indeterministic, or deterministic.

If only it was as simplistic as you think it is

First of all, quantum physics is both completely deterministic and stochastic. What is deterministic is the evolution of the wave function - given any initial wave function, you can predict with certainty how that wave function will evolve over time (assuming you know the respective boundary conditions etc). However, what is stochastic is the relationship between the wave function, and physical observables - observables are represented by hermitian operators, and which of their eigenvalues you actually measure is - in general - purely probabilistic. 

For example - you send a stream of photons through a double slit. Given knowledge about the initial conditions (slit separation, photon frequencies, etc) you can predict with certainty what kind of an interference pattern you are going to get on your screen at the end of the experiment. However, you can not predict precisely where each individual photon will hit the screen, that is purely probabilistic. And we’re not even talking about the question which slit each photon goes through. So this is your third possibility - it’s come to be called “determined probabilities”.

That’s the first thing. The other thing then is that determinism does not imply an absence of free will, and conversely, indeterminism does not imply that free will is necessarily possible. There are four different philosophical positions that encompass the four possibilities here: hard determinism, compatibilism, hard incompatibilism, and libertarianism. You can look these up yourself. The main point here is that this an ongoing debate, and there is no consensus about which is the correct one.

And just to top things off - the human brain is a macroscopic system, and as such classical. So one would expect it to be deterministic. In reality however, in spite of its classicality, it is an example of a complex non-isolated, non-linear, chaotic system. So even if it were completely classical (which actually it isn’t anyway, since it’s fundamental building blocks are quantum mechanical), you still couldn’t predict its precise state very far into the future, because it is extremely sensitive to initial and boundary conditions, never even mind way too complex to mathematically model with currently available technology. It’s also an open feedback system, since it continuously receives external inputs, and generates responses that can modify those very inputs.

So is the brain deterministic? You decide yourself, based on the above. 
Whatever your conclusion, what does that imply for free will? Again, you decide yourself, based on the philosophical positions on this subject matter.

I think it is safe to say that there are no straightforward answers either way here.

Edited July 29, 2018 by Markus Hanke

[Strange]

1 hour ago, empleat said:

My point is if everything is indeterministic, or deterministic, there is 0 chance for free will. 

I understood that was your point but could you explain how you reach that conclusion? 

You probably also need to define which sense of "free will" you mean. There are many possible meanings that vary from the political sense (does the state allow you to say and do whatever you wish) to the meaningless.

In addition to Markus's excellent points, I would just add that we feel as if we have free will. And that would still be true if there is a logical argument that proves we don't. So what difference does it make.

[Markus Hanke]

40 minutes ago, Strange said:

In addition to Markus's excellent points, I would just add that we feel as if we have free will. And that would still be true if there is a logical argument that proves we don't. So what difference does it make.

Good point!

[geordief]

1 hour ago, Strange said:

I understood that was your point but could you explain how you reach that conclusion? 

You probably also need to define which sense of "free will" you mean. There are many possible meanings that vary from the political sense (does the state allow you to say and do whatever you wish) to the meaningless.

In addition to Markus's excellent points, I would just add that we feel as if we have free will. And that would still be true if there is a logical argument that proves we don't. So what difference does it make.

Any idea why we would  feel it?(  if we don't actually have it that is)

 

Might it be a kind of useful  suspension of disbelief?

 

Is it also uncontroversial that that what we identify as our free will is diminished  as our objective range of free choices narrows?

 

So our "free will" is a function of our objective (or what we perceive as objective) choices.....

Edited July 29, 2018 by geordief

[empleat]

2 hours ago, Strange said:

I understood that was your point but could you explain how you reach that conclusion? 

You probably also need to define which sense of "free will" you mean. There are many possible meanings that vary from the political sense (does the state allow you to say and do whatever you wish) to the meaningless.

In addition to Markus's excellent points, I would just add that we feel as if we have free will. And that would still be true if there is a logical argument that proves we don't. So what difference does it make.

I read more than 500k articles about everything that exists, i suffer from depression and existential boredom.

Things to let me to belief that, things are determined, or undetermined, we are just particles, which behaviour is either determined, or undetermined, i can't think of anything else, so because i can't see other colours, doesn't mean other don't exists, either there aren't other options, or we don't know them yet, which make me interested about whether everything is binary or not and i didn't find proof, or disproof: 

http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2016/01/free-will-is-dead-lets-bury-it.html

Deterministic - everyhing is determined, no space for free will.

Compatibilitic - They define free will as freedom to act according to one's motives without arbitrary hindrance from other individuals or institutions.

Which is not free will in my opinion, because you don't choose genes, with which you born and your environment and extrinisic factors.

Libertarian - naturistical: Bohr said - no connection could be made between indeterminism of nature and freedom of will

non physical - which would require soul, or conciousness not underlying physical laws, which you have no proof of that

Einstein didn't believe in free will aswell as: sean caroll, stephen hawking, sabine hosselander, richard dawkins.

Normal people after getting brain tumor, become pedophiles and murderers, it is fact genes can determine iq up to 90%, or personality from 35% - studies on twins.

Also i am stil not sure if everything isn't binary, which i got answer for example word temperature, but it is just a word, which antonym is coldness for example, you can mirror it upside down and word is just light refraction, which is wawe lenght, which can have thereticaly opposite value like 400 and -400, like matter and antimatter and it means quantity of kinectic energy transfered, i don't remember definition from head, there can be unlimited postive heat C, but only limited in - to absolute zero. but one more i don't understand what that means in terms of kinertic energy, or another type energy chemical, if there is exactly opposite. Like some energy would determined -50 c and some +3000c.

You have even proton, which counterpart is neutron i think, and even qurks or some particles have counter particles.

I didn't occupy if everything is binary or not long time, because i didn't find much and for more reasons yet, so i am saying i just don't know currently.

Edit 12:33: that question if everything is binary is stil bothering me: even energy has opposite dark energy.

Edited July 29, 2018 by empleat

[Markus Hanke]

6 minutes ago, geordief said:

Any idea why we would  feel it?(  if we don't actually have it that is)

It would be just an artefact of how our brain works, i.e. how it builds up a model of experience. Specifically, I would say it is one of the many mechanisms by which the mind constructs a sense of self. After all, how would you build a self construct if it turns out that there isn’t actually an agent that can affect change, such as free will?

[studiot]

3 hours ago, empleat said:

My point is if everything is indeterministic, or deterministic, there is 0 chance for free will. 

There would have to be a third option.

So i ask again is there any another view that macrosocopis level, or quantum particles are indeterministic, or deterministic.

 

 

 

Thank you for clarifying your question.

I now fully understand.

It has made me think further about it ;  +1 for an excellent question.

I think the main point I take from the discussion is that it is not as simple as first meets the eye - In shorts It's complicated.

 

We should consider what we mean by deterministic and indeterministic and free will.

 

It is easy when we take the result of a single statement or event to say that it follows this mathematical expression or that one and so is 'deterministic'.

But what about a chain of events, each perhaps with its own expression?

Do I hear a vote for what was called "The Clockwork Universe" at the end of the 19th century?

But what about relativity? What if one of those events in the chain was outside our light cone at the beginning of the chain but moved within it at some point?

So is there a limit on the complexity of the event chain we can apply the term deterministic to?

 

So what about indeterministic?

Suppose we go up to an ice cream van or a burger van and buy something.
We can study purchases form these and say that 15% come away with a coffe, 25% come away with an ice lolly, and so on.
We can further say that this means a 15% chance we will buy a coffee, 25% a lolly and so on.

We could even venture that this is compatible with free will since we have a free choice of everything on offer.
We could also venture that it is deterministic that we will not buy say tea or brown bread ice cream, neither of which are on offer.

 

And what about free will herself?

Well it is common in Science to consider a system and everything external to that system.
Free will is something external to a system and applied to it.
It is not part of the system, as is the temperature.

So why can we not have free will to choose the actual event path taken by the system?

So my answer to your question has to be

Yes there are more views available than the strict bibnary choice originally presented.
And these increase in number and scope with system complexity.

 

Edited July 29, 2018 by studiot

[empleat]

 

It is exactly like you said: 

We could even venture that this is compatible with free will since we have a free choice of everything on offer.
We could also venture that it is deterministic that we will not buy say tea or brown bread ice cream, neither of which are on offer.

 

Maybe you are free to decide, but fact is a lot is still determined by genes and environment, which is already pretty grim and unfair and i don't see a point.

How i can feel contentment, when i achieve something, so i borned superior to someone else, coinflipp...

Some people die in fire for example, you can't prepare for everything, so that is already random.

Edited July 29, 2018 by empleat

[studiot]

Of course, having posited the existance of a system and an external agent with free wiil, it is not a major leap to imagine a second (or more) agent who is just bent on frustrating our will.

So all though we want and try to exercise our choice, perhaps we might be struck but lightning or jsut distracted by another event, just as we  place our order.

[empleat]

External agent with free will, like souls ?, i know it can be anything like magnitude of things, i.e. gravitation affect macroscopic things and we don't undestand how gravitaions is formed, seems to good to be truth for me tho. There is no proof of soul existence.

And particles are just particles, they have no will as sabine hosselander said, of course it can be just system of an external agent which would have will theoretically, which sound stupid to me: like bio centrism.

Can it be even be discovered and proven, if we are just encapsulated in some sandbox.

People die of terrible deaths by murder or accidents, or during birth delivery, or brain tumor, which made people pedophiles and murderes, if there was some external agent with free will, why would it make someone to get brain tumor, what would be reason for that, who deserved to die at age 2 innocent for example, souls are just ridiculous, it seens like determined, or coinflipp.

15 minutes ago, studiot said:

So all though we want and try to exercise our choice, perhaps we might be struck but lightning or jsut distracted by another event, just as we  place our order.

What do you mean by just as we place our order ?

[studiot]

1 minute ago, empleat said:

External agent with free will, like souls ?, i know it can be anything like magnitude of things, i.e. gravitation affect macroscopic things and we don't undestand how gravitaions is formed, seems to good to be truth for me tho. There is no proof of soul existence.

And particles are just particles, they have no will as sabine hosselander said, of course it can be just system of an external agent which would have will theoretically, which sound stupid to me: like bio centrism.

Can it be even be discovered and proven, if we are just encapsulated in some sandbox.

People die of terrible deaths by murder or accidents, or during birth delivery, or brain tumor, which made people pedophiles and murderes, if there was some external agent with free will, why would it make someone to get brain tumor, what would be reason for that, who deserved to die at age 2 innocent for example, souls are just ridiculous, it seens like determined, or coinflipp.

What do you mean by just as we place our order ?

 

I am suggesting that the agent possessing the free will cannot be part of the system itself.

But no, not like souls. Like someone standing at an ice cream van.

The van is the system, the someone is the agent with free will that can be applied to the system.

I am sorry my dislexic typing interfered with the next bit which should read

" So although we want and try to exercise our choice, perhaps we might be struck by lightning or just distracted by another event, just as we  place our order. "

The first possibility would be the action of an external agent (the lightning) that does not possess free will.

The second might be another van offering a better price.

Either way we never buy anything from that van.

[Eise]

Hi empleat,

Markus gave an excellent overview:

7 hours ago, Markus Hanke said:

There are four different philosophical positions that encompass the four possibilities here: hard determinism, compatibilism, hard incompatibilism, and libertarianism

Except that I think there are only three. The 'hard incompatibilist', who says that free will and determinism do not go together, must take sides: being a hard determinist, or a libertarian. Of course he can be agnostic on the topic, but that is intellectual cowardice.

With a little irony, I would say I am a 'hard compatibilist': without determinism free will could not possibly exist. So it is not that determinism and free will go together, but determinism is a hard condition for free will. Now we know that in reality there are none-determined processes: quantum processes. But as you guessed, randomness cannot be a basis for free will. Markus already said that there is no basis to think that quantum randomness plays an essential role in the functioning of the brain.

The problem lies in the concept of free will that most people use: that under exactly the same circumstances I 'could have done otherwise'. Determinism denies this, and so do I. But this kind of free will is 'magic'. Even worse, it is the 'original sin' taken over from 2000 years of Christianity. Philosophically said, it is an ideological concept, not rooted in our experience. It naively seems so, if we say 'I could have done otherwise'. What you really mean, is that you had several options for acting, and you chose one (hopefully on good grounds). Because there were more options it makes sense to say that you 'could have done otherwise'. But that is a counterfactual statement, not a factual one. It expresses that all the external circumstances being the same, your acting only depended on your choice. Just realise: counterfactual statements can be true or false: they are not expressions of facts however, but about possible relationships between facts. 'If my car would fall in the sun, it would meld' is a true sentence. But it has not happened, and I will expect it never to happen.

So the experience of free will (not the ideological concept!) is this: that we do what we want, from ourselves. Not coerced by somebody else.

Another point you have to consider is that free will is not an absolute: to have free will does not mean you can do anything you want, e.g. jump to the moon. Physics stands in your way. Same is with your genes, upbringing, culture you live in, etc, in short everything that made you to what you are now. You are nor free to be who you are: you are free to act as you want. It might be biologically determined that I like broccoli, and despise of Brussels sprouts. Having free will means that I can choose: I take the broccoli.

The experience of being not free has a lot of forms. One I mentioned already: being coerced by others, to do something that you would not do, given your beliefs and convictions. Another one follows from the fact that psychologically seen, we are not individuals (we are not 'individable'). We have many inclinations, and often they are not at peace with each other. Depending how strong some of my drives are, and how strong they conflict, this can really hurt, and give me the experience that I am not free. I cannot choose (so I do nothing), or one of the drives always works out bad, but I cannot help doing it (addictions are an example). 

To conclude: yes, you are free. But as you mentioned, you are depressed and bored: but that has nothing to do with the philosophical problem of free will. Do not hide your real problems behind a theoretical philosophical topic. Philosophy is for intellectual freaks, not for people with personal problems.

[studiot]

1 hour ago, Eise said:

Except that I think there are only three. The 'hard incompatibilist', who says that free will and determinism do not go together, must take sides: being a hard determinist, or a libertarian. Of course he can be agnostic on the topic, but that is intellectual cowardice.

............................

To conclude: yes, you are free. But as you mentioned, you are depressed and bored: but that has nothing to do with the philosophical problem of free will. Do not hide your real problems behind a theoretical philosophical topic. Philosophy is for intellectual freaks, not for people with personal problems.

Except this was posted in quantum theory and the answer asked for in terms of quantum mechanics.

I did consider suggesting the thread be moved to philosophy are you going to do this?

 

I actually prefer my hard science approach. I find the difficulty with the above is that is mixes up the determiner and the determinant.

Hard science separates these to useful effect and result in the analysis.

 

I see a significant parallel with Thermodynamics where failure to perform exactly this separation so often leads to failure to get valid results in that subject.

[empleat]

Are there any updates on two stage cogito model from martin heisenberg from 2009 ? 

Surprisingly i can't find anything.

I am stil skeptical, that this prove free will in any meaninful way. That bacteria doesn't react only upon external stimuli doesn't suprise me, humans too doesn't only react to external stimuli, but have some itnernal mechanism too by which decide.

If superdeterminism was true, everything is determined, but because of complexity is it hard to prove, there is no free will certainly, so we have nothing to do, i hate this, scientist abandom this and prefer indetederministic approach, only beucase indeterministic is viable for making experiments.

Only sabine hossefender and g t'hoft and tim maudlin is engaging in superdeterminism.

NEXT VIEW IS LIKE PARTIALLY DETERMINISM AND HALF INDETERMINISM:

Even given macrocropic level is stable long time and succumb to physical laws, it has been proven that quantum indeterministic phenomena affect even macrolevel, like chemicals in birds and enzymes in horses, even quantum phenomena has little effect relatively, it is so complex what do i know, one small random occurence can make all difference, for example flowers woudn't exist - i read photon goes everywhere, but encoutering plant makes it collapse, hmm if you think about it, it doesn't sound random at all, if i use analogy of destiny, life is a journey, but you end up at one destined place, particle can literally be everywhere, but encoutering plant makes it collapse, wow what a coincidence(i mean that ironically). And birds woudn't know where to fly, i don't know if it plays any meaninful role in free will, it can be difference between life and death for birds, existence or non-existence for existence of complex life.

But if it can play role in human mind, i don't know if there is proof, of quantum phenomena in human mind, for example quantum tunneling, if it can play some role, i read quantum mind is speculative at this point.

So back to cognito model: even that was true - you generate randomly some options and than decide to think again, we already know that 35% of personality is determined by genes and iq up to 90%.Or people became murderes, after developing a brain tumor. So even if you have free will, it is very limited and based on luck, with which genes you borned and environment and i woudn't call that even free will at this point. But i stil want know more about cogito model, can't find anything   and that it is from 2009 and i cannot find updates doesn't make me optimistical about it..Generally there are not much articles on free will, like on prominent site as sciencedaily.com Maybe because it is almost pointless to solve at this point, make quantum computer easy peasy  Me personally i don't even thing it is necessary to wait til quantum computers, i don't belive in free will at all, after read over 500k to much things, theories and facts. Thing is like if qunatum particles was sub-system of some system and that somehow determined our behaviour, hm it seems like wishful thinking and absurd. We already know that genes and enviroment even more determine a lot, i read also to much articles on prominent site psychologytoday.com

After what i read i belive 0% in free will... Before i was born i coudn't choose my preferences, because i was nothing, not nothing, but not yet formed more precisely and for example that genes determine 35% personality, is already hard proof, that at least partially your choice is determined, don't you agree ? And yet i can't prepare for everything, i can't look around 360 degree on street around myself all time, or prepare for meteorits, or for all kind of viruses resiliant against antibiotics. And at some point humanity ceases to exists and so the universe, i mean big freeze, even that is theory, still, like i said for example that perfectly normal people became murders after a getting brain tumor, ye they had certainly 100% choice..., more likely 0%. That is not random coincidence.

Edited July 29, 2018 by empleat

[Eise]

empleat,

Seems you have not read my posting at all. You make exactly the same philosophical errors again. Are you here just to complain that you do not have free will, or do you really want to reflect about it?

- You use a concept of free will that is ideological, instead one that is firmly rooted in experience

- You think free will must be ultimate free will, the freedom to do everything, even the physically impossible.

 

And it is Sabine Hossenfelder, and Gerard 't Hooft.

@Studiot,

This was the OP:

On 7/28/2018 at 8:49 PM, empleat said:

are there more approaches in quantum mechanics than deterministic and indeterministic, because if not, we certainly don't have free will.

The 'because' is just wrong. What we need is sufficient determinism to have free will. Even if quantum randomness plays some role in the brain, it at most would disturb, breaking the determined chain from sensory input, processing in the brain, and the motoric output. It would explain 'jerks' in our behaviour, not e.g. acting on grounds.

 

Edited July 30, 2018 by Eise

[studiot]

2 hours ago, Eise said:

@Studiot,

This was the OP:

On 28/07/2018 at 7:49 PM, empleat said:

are there more approaches in quantum mechanics than deterministic and indeterministic, because if not, we certainly don't have free will.

The 'because' is just wrong. What we need is sufficient determinism to have free will. Even if quantum randomness plays some role in the brain, it at most would disturb, breaking the determined chain from sensory input, processing in the brain, and the motoric output. It would explain 'jerks' in our behaviour, not e.g. acting on grounds.

But I am proposing something further to enable rational analysis of the situation.

 

That is the separation of the system that undergoes whatever process is under consideration and the agent that applies/causes/enforces that process.

The system can never have or contain "free will", by definition or the specified process may not occur at all.

The agent may be subject to practical and/or physical constraints but must be able to enforce some aspect of the process.
This need not be an either-or situation, (to enforce this or a different process) it could simply be a rate (shall I eat my box of chocolates at one a day and make them last a fortnight, or two a day and finish the box in a week?).

 

I agree that all of us (including empleat) have been rather lax is reading and writing about the actual question asked and the issue of free will seems to have taken over from QM.

So empleat please clarify which you are more interested in?

[Eise]

20 hours ago, studiot said:

That is the separation of the system that undergoes whatever process is under consideration and the agent that applies/causes/enforces that process.

The system can never have or contain "free will", by definition or the specified process may not occur at all.

Can you elaborate a little, maybe with an example? I do not understand what you are getting at.