# Reading > Philosophical Literature >  My Philosophy

## Philosofer123

Over the past few years, I have formulated my philosophy of life, a 13-page document that may be found at the following link:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0Byh6...it?usp=sharing

In the first half of the document, I present and defend the following positions: atheism, afterlife skepticism, free will impossibilism, moral skepticism, existential skepticism and negative hedonism. The second half of the document is devoted to ways to achieve and maintain peace of mind.

I have found the entire exercise to be very beneficial personally, and I hope that you will benefit from reading the document.

I am posting my philosophy to solicit feedback so that it may be improved. I welcome any constructive criticism that you may have.

Enjoy!

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## YesNo

This is only a comment on the free will portion of the document. You believe that none of us are responsible for our intentional actions because: (page 3)

_For any agent S and intentional action A, S does A because of the way S is in certain mental respects._
The phrase "in certain mental respects" is hand waving, but I understand that to mean we are determined by some material brain changes which we are apparently not responsible for. You might want to make this more precise by checking out various philosophers who study "mind". One reference giving a wide range of viewpoints would be _The Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Mind_: http://www.amazon.com/Oxford-Handboo.../dp/019959631X.

Let us assume you are right. That means you were not responsible for writing the paper which was an intentional act on your part. It also means that I am not responsible for this response that I am making because it also was an intentional act. Since neither of us are responsible for what we have written, is there any reason to continue the dialog? 

Furthermore, does one even have the ability to decide whether something is true or false? That would be an intentional act and therefore determined. How do we know our assessments of truth or falsity, determined by whatever unconscious process is controlling us, are correct? The most that evolution would give us is that whatever we view as true or false gives us a greater ability to reproduce.

If what is true or false is therefore arbitrary, why bother writing a philosophy? Of course, if you are correct about free will, you had no real choice in performing that intentional activity.

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## Philosofer123

> The phrase "in certain mental respects" is hand waving, but I understand that to mean we are determined by some material brain changes which we are apparently not responsible for.


I am referring to the agent's beliefs and desires. The regress argument assumes neither physicalism nor determinism.




> Let us assume you are right. That means you were not responsible for writing the paper which was an intentional act on your part. It also means that I am not responsible for this response that I am making because it also was an intentional act. Since neither of us are responsible for what we have written, is there any reason to continue the dialog?


Of course. Just because I cannot be ultimately responsible for my actions does not mean I cannot change my mind. 




> Furthermore, does one even have the ability to decide whether something is true or false? That would be an intentional act and therefore determined. How do we know our assessments of truth or falsity, determined by whatever unconscious process is controlling us, are correct? The most that evolution would give us is that whatever we view as true or false gives us a greater ability to reproduce.


Again, the regress argument does not assume determinism. Also, the impossibility of ultimate responsibility does not rule out rational thought processes that can consider the evidence and the arguments and evaluate whether a particular statement is true or false.




> If what is true or false is therefore arbitrary, why bother writing a philosophy?


What is true or false is not arbitrary, as discussed above. I wrote my philosophy because it enables me to determine how to live well.

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## YesNo

> I am referring to the agent's beliefs and desires. The regress argument assumes neither physicalism nor determinism.


How does it avoid determinism? Or physicalism? To me this doesn't make sense. The concise version of the regress argument you state as:

_More concisely, free will requires ultimate self-origination, which is impossible_
Admittedly, no one has absolute free will. There are always influences and even subconscious actions that don't require a conscious choice. However, I hear you taking an extreme view that free will of any sort is impossible, that you cannot contribute adequately to any change that occurs sufficiently to be responsible for what happened. Basically, I hear you saying that you cannot make a choice of any sort and be responsible for that choice.




> Of course. Just because I cannot be ultimately responsible for my actions does not mean I cannot change my mind.


Are you responsible for the act of changing your mind should it happen to occur? If you are not responsible, who or what is responsible for that occurring? I could suggest "evolution" or "natural selection" or "random neurons firing" as pseudo-agents whom some might see as responsible. They are pseudo-agents because they do not actually make choices themselves.





> Again, the regress argument does not assume determinism. Also, the impossibility of ultimate responsibility does not rule out rational thought processes that can consider the evidence and the arguments and evaluate whether a particular statement is true or false.


I wonder what is required to have a "rational thought process". Do we need to make a choice in the process, for example, to remain rational since we don't have to? Do we have adequate free will to make that choice?




> What is true or false is not arbitrary, as discussed above. I wrote my philosophy because it enables me to determine how to live well.


If free will is impossible, how could you live your life in any other way than you find yourself living it?

It's an interesting topic. Thanks for bringing it up. I don't know the answers. I'm more trying to clarify what is involved for myself.

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## Philosofer123

> How does it avoid determinism? Or physicalism? To me this doesn't make sense.


The regress argument allows for quantum indeterminism that does not translate into macro-level indeterminism, and it allows for randomness in one's unintentional actions. Also, even if there are indeterministic/random factors involved in one's intentional actions, one cannot be responsible for such factors, so the conclusion of the argument (that ultimate responsibility is impossible) still holds.




> Admittedly, no one has absolute free will. There are always influences and even subconscious actions that don't require a conscious choice. However, I hear you taking an extreme view that free will of any sort is impossible, that you cannot contribute adequately to any change that occurs sufficiently to be responsible for what happened. Basically, I hear you saying that you cannot make a choice of any sort and be responsible for that choice.


My view is only that free will in the way I have defined it (in terms of ultimate responsibility) is impossible. Free will of other types may still be possible.




> Are you responsible for the act of changing your mind should it happen to occur? If you are not responsible, who or what is responsible for that occurring? I could suggest "evolution" or "natural selection" or "random neurons firing" as pseudo-agents whom some might see as responsible. They are pseudo-agents because they do not actually make choices themselves.


Yes, the regress argument establishes that one's actions are ultimately a function of factors that are completely outside of one's control, such as heredity, sensory input, and random/indeterministic factors.




> I wonder what is required to have a "rational thought process". Do we need to make a choice in the process, for example, to remain rational since we don't have to? Do we have adequate free will to make that choice?


A rational thought process is one that employs reason. No ultimate responsibility is required for one to apply reason.




> If free will is impossible, how could you live your life in any other way than you find yourself living it?


You could not. But this is perfectly compatible with the usefulness of a philosophy of life.

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## Skydaemon

> The regress argument allows for quantum determinism that does not translate into macro-level determinism, and it allows for randomness in one's unintentional actions. Also, even if there are indeterministic/random factors involved in one's intentional actions, one cannot be responsible for such factors, so the conclusion of the argument (that ultimate responsibility is impossible) still holds.
> 
> My view is only that free will in the way I have defined it (in terms of ultimate responsibility) is impossible. Free will of other types may still be possible.


Free will as I define it, is having the outcome of a choice you are faced with making be non-predetermined, or that you can affect the outcome. 

Enter the two-face example (of batman fame). Deciding to make your choice based on a coin flip (or whatever substitute you wish for a random event) requires absolute universal determinism to make the outcome predetermined. Any randomness in the universe anywhere opens the door for free will. That you were destined to choose to leave it up to chance doesn't change the fact that the ultimate outcome isn't predetermined unless the whole universe is.

I dunno what you mean by ultimate responsibility, but it seems like a cop-out. You'd essentially have to claim that inanimate objects like the coin bear ultimate responsibility for choices, even though you selected the coin as arbiter, and you execute the action. If two-face points a gun at your head, and says you live or die based on the flip of a coin, he doesn't get to avoid ultimate responsibility for shooting you afterwards. In outsourcing your actions to chance, you are accepting responsibility for both possible outcomes. I also don't believe this constitutes an unintentional action. You've defined two intentional acts, and let chance choose which is executed.

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## Philosofer123

> I dunno what you mean by ultimate responsibility, but it seems like a cop-out. You'd essentially have to claim that inanimate objects like the coin bear ultimate responsibility for choices, even though you selected the coin as arbiter, and you execute the action.


Not at all. I am claiming that ultimate responsibility is impossible.




> If two-face points a gun at your head, and says you live or die based on the flip of a coin, he doesn't get to avoid ultimate responsibility for shooting you afterwards.


But the regress argument demonstrates that all of two-face's actions--including the action of "pointing a gun at your head, and says you live or die based on the flip of a coin"--are ultimately a function of factors completely outside his control. Therefore, two-face cannot be ultimately responsible for his actions.

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## Skydaemon

I don't really find determinism compelling, but if that pleases you so be it.

I find the focus odd though. You basically begin with an assertion that people aren't independent actors, have no agency, and everything they do is scripted by the universe. After that you proceed to discuss peace of mind and living well. I can't see how either matter in this theory. 

In your theory, you really don't exist as an independent entity, at least, no more so than as a label. Why does it matter if you live well or not? You'll live as you were determined to, a gear in the machine, the concept of living well has no meaning. You aren't capable of living badly or well, just as you were molded to live. In this theory, I'm not sure "you" even should be recognized independently of the universe around you. The universe will act as it must, and there is no you.

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## Philosofer123

> I don't really find determinism compelling, but if that pleases you so be it.


The regress argument does not assume determinism.




> I find the focus odd though. You basically begin with an assertion that people aren't independent actors, have no agency, and everything they do is scripted by the universe. After that you proceed to discuss peace of mind and living well. I can't see how either matter in this theory. 
> 
> In your theory, you really don't exist as an independent entity, at least, no more so than as a label. Why does it matter if you live well or not? You'll live as you were determined to, a gear in the machine, the concept of living well has no meaning. You aren't capable of living badly or well, just as you were molded to live. In this theory, I'm not sure "you" even should be recognized independently of the universe around you. The universe will act as it must, and there is no you.


You are confusing free will impossibilism with fatalism.

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## Skydaemon

> The regress argument does not assume determinism.


You've claimed this but it isn't apparent how it's workable. To my eyes it does.

Simply, if determinism isn't in play, then your choices are not dictated by factors around you. Influenced sure, but not dictated. Influenced leaves, choice and responsibility intact.

This:



> But the regress argument demonstrates that all of two-face's actions--including the action of "pointing a gun at your head, and says you live or die based on the flip of a coin"--are ultimately a function of factors completely outside his control.


is not true without an assumption of determinism. In any system but a deterministic one, the above is a choice.

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## Skydaemon

> You are confusing free will impossibilism with fatalism.


I don't see how your argument differs in any respect from fatalism, but this comes down to determinism again. You seem to believe you've avoided determinism, and thus your theory isn't fatalism. I don't see it.

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## Philosofer123

> You've claimed this but it isn't apparent how it's workable. To my eyes it does.
> 
> Simply, if determinism isn't in play, then your choices are not dictated by factors around you. Influenced sure, but not dictated. Influenced leaves, choice and responsibility intact.
> 
> This:
> 
> 
> is not true without an assumption of determinism. In any system but a deterministic one, the above is a choice.


The regress argument allows for quantum indeterminism that does not translate into macro-level indeterminism, and it allows for randomness in one's unintentional actions. Also, even if there are indeterministic/random factors involved in one's intentional actions, one cannot be responsible for such factors, so the conclusion of the argument (that ultimate responsibility is impossible) still holds.

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## Philosofer123

> I don't see how your argument differs in any respect from fatalism, but this comes down to determinism again. You seem to believe you've avoided determinism, and thus your theory isn't fatalism. I don't see it.


As I explained in my last post, the regress argument does not assume determinism. However, even if it did, it would not imply fatalism, since determinism does not imply fatalism.

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## Skydaemon

> even if there are indeterministic/random factors involved in one's intentional actions, one cannot be responsible for such factors.


Why not?

If you know that pushing a button may make you rich, or it may blow up the world, and you push it, how do you avoid responsibility? Morally, ethically, you clearly bear responsibility, especially if you knew the range of outcomes in advance. Causally, you must assume at least partial responsibility for your action as well. This is like the difference between first degree murder and manslaughter. You are still responsible for it even if you didn't intend for the precise outcome.

I guess I just reject this notion that you claim no responsibility for your chosen actions if you don't know the outcome in advance or if randomness (especially limited randomness) is involved. Real world law tends to support this view as well. If you unleash a monster on the world, you are responsible for any damage it causes.

You seem to like this idea of unintentional actions as a method of absolving responsibility. I don't think intentionality is required for responsibility.

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## Philosofer123

> Why not?


Because one cannot be responsible for randomness.




> If you know that pushing a button may make you rich, or it may blow up the world, and you push it, how do you avoid responsibility?


As demonstrated by the regress argument, your pushing the button is ultimately a function of factors that are completely outside of your control, such as heredity, sensory input, and perhaps random/indeterministic factors. Since you cannot be responsible for these factors, you cannot be ultimately responsible for pushing the button.

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## Skydaemon

You basically believe in determinism-lite, where humans do not have agency, or any free will, but get bumped in meaningless ways by randomness. The combination absolves them from responsibility for anything they do, and lacking free will, they cannot affect the future intentionally.

It is a depressing theory, but I think I'm back to this again.




> I find the focus odd though. You basically begin with an assertion that people aren't independent actors, have no agency, and everything they do is scripted by the universe. After that you proceed to discuss peace of mind and living well. I can't see how either matter in this theory. 
> 
> In your theory, you really don't exist as an independent entity, at least, no more so than as a label. Why does it matter if you live well or not? You'll live as you were determined to, a gear in the machine, the concept of living well has no meaning. You aren't capable of living badly or well, just as you were molded to live. In this theory, I'm not sure "you" even should be recognized independently of the universe around you. The universe will act as it must, and there is no you.


And although you try to shunt it as a reference only to fatalism, it works just as well in the context of determinism-lite instead of a fully determined universe. Whether the final destination is modified by randomness or not is irrelevant.

// As an aside, it was an interesting discussion so thanks for that, but my time for the evening is done.~ Cheers.

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## Philosofer123

> You basically believe in determinism-lite, where *humans do not have agency*, or any free will, but *get bumped in meaningless ways by randomness*. The combination absolves them from responsibility for anything they do, and lacking free will, *they cannot affect the future intentionally*.


All bolded phrases are incorrect. Free will impossibilism does not imply any of them.




> It is a depressing theory


Why?




> I find the focus odd though. You basically begin with an assertion that people aren't independent actors, have no agency, and everything they do is scripted by the universe. After that you proceed to discuss peace of mind and living well. I can't see how either matter in this theory.


They matter because I care about living well. I would rather enjoy life than suffer.




> In your theory, you really don't exist as an independent entity, at least, no more so than as a label. Why does it matter if you live well or not?


Because I care about living well. I would rather enjoy life than suffer.




> You'll live as you were determined to, a gear in the machine, *the concept of living well has no meaning*. *You aren't capable of living badly or well*, just as you were molded to live.


Quoted phrases are false, and not implied by free will impossibilism.




> And although you try to shunt it as a reference only to fatalism, it works just as well in the context of determinism-lite instead of a fully determined universe.


Not at all.




> As an aside, it was an interesting discussion so thanks for that, but my time for the evening is done.~ Cheers.


My pleasure.

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## YesNo

> The regress argument allows for quantum indeterminism that does not translate into macro-level indeterminism, and it allows for randomness in one's unintentional actions. Also, even if there are indeterministic/random factors involved in one's intentional actions, one cannot be responsible for such factors, so the conclusion of the argument (that ultimate responsibility is impossible) still holds.


When I mentioned determinism, I was thinking quantum uncertainty would contradict it. Since you are aware of quantum unceertainty then we don't have to worry about strict determinism. That would not agree with current science.

One thing I've noticed about discussions of quantum uncertainty is that it gets confused with "randomness". It seems when we drop "determinism", we figure the only thing left is "randomness". One skips the possibility that some kind of "choice" is being made that introduces something new into the system. However, choices require consciousness of some sort.

The quantum particles aren't acting randomly in the sense that any of their outcomes is equally likely. They generate non-random wave patterns on the detector in a double slit experiment where they have not been measured. If one thinks of them as if they were conscious having free will (in a limited way), they could be viewed as making individual choices taking into account what the other particles have done before them. Or, more traditionally and less anthropomorphically, one could think of them as not only particles, but "waves".




> My view is only that free will in the way I have defined it (in terms of ultimate responsibility) is impossible. Free will of other types may still be possible.


What are those other forms of free will? Perhaps that would help me understand better.

If we consider the example of the paper you wrote. In what sense are you "responsible" for writing it? If you were not responsible, then who or what was responsible for writing it? Some theists might claim that God is ultimately responsible, but you don't acknowledge a God.

I assume you would acknowledge some responsibility, but it is only "ultimate" responsibility that you lack. However, who or what then is _ultimately_ responsible? 





> A rational thought process is one that employs reason. No ultimate responsibility is required for one to apply reason.


But when we argue we make a choice to be rational. We could be irrational. So some choice was made. That choice is where the will comes in. I don't see how we are not responsible in some small way for that choice. In all of this I am not saying we have complete freedom to act any way we want. There are influences, but our choices add something new to the system.





> You could not. But this is perfectly compatible with the usefulness of a philosophy of life.


This looks like a search for _meaning_, but I think elsewhere in your paper you claimed that meaning was as impossible as free will. 

As you can probably guess, my view is that life does have meaning, there are Gods, some of whom might even be interested in us, and we have adequate free will to assume responsibility for choices that we make since we, like other species, are conscious enough to make choices. I am finishing Alvin Plantinga's _Where the Conflict Really Lies_. This is a discussion of the conflict between science, religion and what he calls "naturalism".

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## Philosofer123

> One skips the possibility that some kind of "choice" is being made that introduces something new into the system.


Either the choice has an explanation (in terms of the way the agent is, mentally speaking), or it does not. If it does, it is subject to the regress. And if it does not, then it is random and the agent cannot be responsible for it.




> What are those other forms of free will? Perhaps that would help me understand better.


This would take too long to explain. Please refer to the SEP article on free will.




> If we consider the example of the paper you wrote. In what sense are you "responsible" for writing it? If you were not responsible, then who or what was responsible for writing it? Some theists might claim that God is ultimately responsible, but you don't acknowledge a God.
> 
> I assume you would acknowledge some responsibility, but it is only "ultimate" responsibility that you lack. However, who or what then is _ultimately_ responsible?


No one is ultimately responsible. The conclusion of the regress argument is that ultimate responsibility is impossible.




> But when we argue we make a choice to be rational. We could be irrational. So some choice was made. That choice is where the will comes in. I don't see how we are not responsible in some small way for that choice. In all of this I am not saying we have complete freedom to act any way we want. There are influences, but our choices add something new to the system.


But one's intentional choices are a function of the way one is, mentally speaking. And the regress looms.




> This looks like a search for _meaning_, but I think elsewhere in your paper you claimed that meaning was as impossible as free will.


My philosophy is not a search for meaning. As stated on the first page of the document, the purpose of the document is to advise myself on how to live well.

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## YesNo

> Either the choice has an explanation (in terms of the way the agent is, mentally speaking), or it does not. If it does, it is subject to the regress. And if it does not, then it is random and the agent cannot be responsible for it.


What you are expressing is an inability to get past the deterministic/random duality. You seem to claim, by assumption or assertion, that there are only two cases. If our actions are not determined ("in terms of the way the agent is") then you claim they must be "random". There are other possibilities and quantum uncertainty illustrates it. There the patterned behavior of the particles is neither determined nor random. 

With our own consciousness, we experience ourselves making choices and hence introducing an element that is neither deterministic nor random. Your claim goes counter to the evidence of our experience. 




> This would take too long to explain. Please refer to the SEP article on free will.


I know this is not easy to do, but you are making an extraordinary claim that our experience of being able to make a choice is unreliable. I am asking for more than mere assertions that the claim is true, but some argumentation. Basically, you have not convinced me not to accept my own experience over your philosophy.

The opposite of your position is not that we have absolute free will to act as individuals. It only claims we have adequate free will to be responsible while acting under various influences that blur our distinction as individuals.





> No one is ultimately responsible. The conclusion of the regress argument is that ultimate responsibility is impossible.


How do you know that the regress argument is correct? It relies on the false duality of determinism and randomness. Even at the quantum level there is uncertainty that can be described as neither deterministic nor random. To deny that would put you in a position in opposition to current science. In terms of uncertainty, why should this not exist at the human level as well? 

If there is uncertainty as well at the human level, the regress argument is faulty somewhere. I suggest it fails at the point where it claims as a mere assertion, without evidence, that "For any agent S and intentional action A, S does A because of the way S is in certain mental respects." The evidence of our experience falsifies that particular assertion. It needs to be modified to overcome the objections (evidence) of our experience and submitted for further possible falsification.

You are making an extraordinary claim that goes against the evidence of our experience. All I am asking for is some evidence, not even extraordinary evidence.





> But one's intentional choices are a function of the way one is, mentally speaking. And the regress looms.


If you have something behaving as a "function" of something else, you have strict determinism. 




> My philosophy is not a search for meaning. As stated on the first page of the document, the purpose of the document is to advise myself on how to live well.


Again, when you ask yourself "how" to live well, you assume you have adequate free will to carry this out. If you have that free will, you are responsible, like it or not, for your choice on how to live. However, this contradicts your claims against free will.

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## Philosofer123

> What you are expressing is an inability to get past the deterministic/random duality.


Not at all. One can allow for a mixture of determinism and indeterminism. To the extent that there is an explanation for one's behavior, the regress looms. And the extent there is not, one cannot be responsible. 




> With our own consciousness, we experience ourselves making choices and hence introducing an element that is neither deterministic nor random. Your claim goes counter to the evidence of our experience.


The regress argument proves that our "experience" of free will is an illusion.




> I know this is not easy to do, but you are making an extraordinary claim that our experience of being able to make a choice is unreliable. I am asking for more than mere assertions that the claim is true, but some argumentation. Basically, you have not convinced me not to accept my own experience over your philosophy.


The regress argument backs up my claim. Again, if you want to know more about the free will debate in general, then do your own research. A good place to start would be Galen Strawson's article on free will, which contains a defense of the regress argument:

http://www.rep.routledge.com/article/V014




> How do you know that the regress argument is correct? It relies on the false duality of determinism and randomness.


False, as explained above.





> Even at the quantum level there is uncertainty that can be described as neither deterministic nor random. To deny that would put you in a position in opposition to current science. In terms of uncertainty, why should this not exist at the human level as well?


From Wikipedia entry on quantum indeterminacy:

"Quantum indeterminacy can be quantitatively characterized by a probability distribution on the set of outcomes of measurements of an observable. The distribution is uniquely determined by the system state, and moreover quantum mechanics provides a recipe for calculating this probability distribution."

Thus quantum indeterminacy is a mixture of randomness and determinism. As explained above, such a mixture would not enable one to refute the regress argument.




> I suggest it fails at the point where it claims as a mere assertion, without evidence, that "For any agent S and intentional action A, S does A because of the way S is in certain mental respects." The evidence of our experience falsifies that particular assertion.


How does the evidence of our experience falsify that particular assertion?




> If you have something behaving as a "function" of something else, you have strict determinism.


With respect to one's intentional actions (actions performed for a reason), that is correct (at the macro level). To the extent that there is indeterminism in one's decisions, one's decisions are not intentional.




> Again, when you ask yourself "how" to live well, you assume you have adequate free will to carry this out.


Not at all. Striving to live well is perfectly compatible with the impossibility of ultimate responsibility.

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## YesNo

> Not at all. One can allow for a mixture of determinism and indeterminism. To the extent that there is an explanation for one's behavior, the regress looms. And the extent there is not, one cannot be responsible.


Your position seems caught inside a metaphysical box. You believe there are only two cases. Either something is determined by something else or it is random. You are not questioning three key things:

1) Is anything really determined? 
2) Is anything really random?
3) Could there not be other cases besides the two you accept? In other words, I see no reason to say that a free choice could not be made.





> The regress argument proves that our "experience" of free will is an illusion.


I usually assume that when one needs to discredit experience by calling it an illusion in order to keep a metaphysics running, there must be something wrong with the metaphysics.

The experience of free will falsifies the regress argument. The regress argument needs to be modified to avoid the falsification.





> The regress argument backs up my claim. Again, if you want to know more about the free will debate in general, then do your own research. A good place to start would be Galen Strawson's article on free will, which contains a defense of the regress argument:
> 
> http://www.rep.routledge.com/article/V014


The article you cite illustrates the point I am trying to make about the metaphysical box one gets in when one assumes the determinism-random duality. Here is the quote about libertarian incompatibilists with my emphasis showing the duality problem:

_They hold that we are indeed free and fully morally responsible agents, and that determinism must therefore be false. Their great difficulty is to explain why the falsity of determinism is any better than the truth of determinism when it comes to establishing our free agency and moral responsibility. For suppose that not every event is determined, and that some events occur randomly, or as a matter of chance. How can our claim to moral responsibility be improved by the supposition that it is partly a matter of chance or random outcome that we and our actions are as they are?_
Notice the dualism between determinism and randomness. Notice the assumption that there are only two cases. The part that I put in bold is a logical assumption, a metaphysical box constraining one's thought, not a statement of fact. One could consider it a belief statement that forms part of an unquestioned metaphysical dogma. It certainly violates everyday experience which falsifies the belief statement.




> From Wikipedia entry on quantum indeterminacy:
> 
> "Quantum indeterminacy can be quantitatively characterized by a probability distribution on the set of outcomes of measurements of an observable. The distribution is uniquely determined by the system state, and moreover quantum mechanics provides a recipe for calculating this probability distribution."
> 
> Thus quantum indeterminacy is a mixture of randomness and determinism. As explained above, such a mixture would not enable one to refute the regress argument.


Unless the probabilities are all the same for each possible outcome the uncertain events are not random. Randomness requires a uniform distribution. So where does the randomness come in? That the Schrodinger formula determines a result is simply a property of mathematics formalism used to model reality. It is not a property of the real world.

To see this differently, consider the double slit experiment. Were the events random, there would be no wave pattern displayed on the detection screen. 





> How does the evidence of our experience falsify that particular assertion?


Evidence falsifies an assertion by its existence.

The assertion is a statement. The experience or evidence falsifies that statement because one can produce the evidence. Scientifically, we have a falsified statement. How does one get around this? One can either stop doing science and claim that the assertion is true regardless of the evidence or one can continue doing science and modify the assertion. Some metaphysicians prefer to stop doing science. They then must claim that the evidence is illusory.






> Not at all. Striving to live well is perfectly compatible with the impossibility of ultimate responsibility.


My claim is that "striving to live well" is an act of will. If you are not responsible for that striving, who or what is? The belief that you can strive to live well and the belief in free will impossibilism are contradictory positions.

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## Philosofer123

> Your position seems caught inside a metaphysical box. You believe there are only two cases. Either something is determined by something else or it is random.


Not at all. Read my quote again. You are ignoring its content.




> The experience of free will falsifies the regress argument.


Not if it is an illusion, which is what the regress argument proves.




> The article you cite illustrates the point I am trying to make about the metaphysical box one gets in when one assumes the determinism-random duality. Here is the quote about libertarian incompatibilists with my emphasis showing the duality problem:


You are quoting Strawson's statement of a different position. You have not touched his regress argument.




> Unless the probabilities are all the same for each possible outcome the uncertain events are not random. Randomness requires a uniform distribution.


Again, you are ignoring what I actually said. 




> Evidence falsifies an assertion by its existence.


Unless your experience is an illusion, which the regress argument demonstrates.




> My claim is that "striving to live well" is an act of will. If you are not responsible for that striving, who or what is? The belief that you can strive to live well and the belief in free will impossibilism are contradictory positions.


Not at all. The regress argument demonstrates that my willingness and ability to strive to live well are ultimately a function of factors that are completely outside of my control. Therefore, I cannot be ultimately responsible for my striving to live well.

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## YesNo

> Not at all. Read my quote again. You are ignoring its content.


This is what you said that I responded to:

_Not at all. One can allow for a mixture of determinism and indeterminism. To the extent that there is an explanation for one's behavior, the regress looms. And the extent there is not, one cannot be responsible._
It looks like there are two alternatives here. Either one has an explanation for someone's choice or it is caused by chance. The case you are missing is that one can make a choice and that is an adequate explanation. One does not need to bring in chance to explain it.





> Not if it is an illusion, which is what the regress argument proves.


Again, I don't trust a metaphysics that claims that evidence from our experience is an illusion just because it counters the metaphysical position. This is not to say that we do not have illusions when our experience is faulty. We can have illusions. That is cleared up with other evidence. However, we can also have "delusions" which is when our metaphysical theory is faulty. 

We need a way to avoid both illusions and delusions. One can expect a delusion to claim that evidence contradicting it is illusory.





> You are quoting Strawson's statement of a different position. You have not touched his regress argument.


What I am pointing out in Strawson's comment is something that applies to the regress argument. It assumes determinism. Where determinism fails, it assumes that god-of-the-gaps, chance (randomness), must be responsible. Right up front the argument does not allow for anything or anyone to make any kind of choice, because that would involve some sort of consciousness. That's the metaphysical box it is in, the unquestioned blind spot it refuses to look at, because, if it did, the whole fantasy land it has constructed would fall apart. 

And that is why the regress argument against free will fails.





> Unless your experience is an illusion, which the regress argument demonstrates.


Basically, I have discredited the regress argument as valid by questioning its assumption that everything is either determined or the result of chance. My justification is to reference either (1) quantum uncertainty, or (2) our own experience of making choices. 

One could find evidence elsewhere as well. For example, there is recent evidence that slim mold, without a brain, without "mental respects" (whatever they are), can function intelligently, that is, make choices it is responsible for: http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...s-slime-molds/




> Not at all. The regress argument demonstrates that my willingness and ability to strive to live well are ultimately a function of factors that are completely outside of my control. Therefore, I cannot be ultimately responsible for my striving to live well.


And I have shown that the regress argument is faulty. Consider Strawson's comment about libertarian incompatibilists: 

_"Their great difficulty is to explain why the falsity of determinism is any better than the truth of determinism when it comes to establishing our free agency and moral responsibility."_ 
If one gets out of the metaphysical box built by determinism and chance, there is no "great difficulty" involved.

By the way, there is another metaphysical assumption involved in these free will arguments. It basically is that we are just machines, not organisms making choices.

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## Philosofer123

> The case you are missing is that one can make a choice and that is an adequate explanation.


"Making a choice" is not an "adequate explanation". One needs an explanation as to why one made that particular choice; otherwise, the choice has no explanation, which means that one cannot be responsible for that choice.




> Again, I don't trust a metaphysics that claims that evidence from our experience is an illusion just because it counters the metaphysical position. This is not to say that we do not have illusions when our experience is faulty. We can have illusions. That is cleared up with other evidence. However, we can also have "delusions" which is when our metaphysical theory is faulty. 
> 
> We need a way to avoid both illusions and delusions. One can expect a delusion to claim that evidence contradicting it is illusory.


Whether you "trust" the regress argument is irrelevant. You have failed to refute it.




> What I am pointing out in Strawson's comment is something that applies to the regress argument.


Again, you have failed to refute the regress argument. To do so, you must either show that one or more of its premises is not necessarily true, or that its premises do not logically entail its conclusion, or both. You have done neither.

This renders the rest of your post irrelevant.

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## MorpheusSandman

This has been an exceedingly humorous debate between two people that know neither science or philosophy. I'm inclined to point out that, as usual in philosophy, the debaters are getting hung up on words more than actual facts: I taboo the words "determinism," "random," "regress," "choice," "responsibility," and "free will;" now, argue what you mean without using those words (and don't just substitute synonyms, like "chance" for "random"), at least until you clearly define them. 

Example: A bowl of food is placed in front of me. In my mind there is an instinct to eat in order to survive. Yet, in spite of this instinct, I can either eat or not eat. Most people if they're hungry will simply eat, unless there's some competing impulse not to, such as it being a religious fasting holiday, or maybe that food is forbidden in their culture, or maybe the person is watching their weight. When people refer to "choice" they typically refer to these competing impulses between doing and not doing. From that, several questions arise: 

1. Is there a physical mechanism (biology, physics, etc.) that controls that choice? 
2. If so, is anyone "responsible" for that choice (more on responsibility in a moment). 
3. If not, what is it that facilitates the choice?
4. If not, is anyone responsible for that choice
5. Regardless of the above issue of determinism/indeterminism, since we can't will the instinctual impulses to begin with, are we responsible regardless? 

YesNo answers "no" to one, "free will" to three, and "yes" (I presume) to 4.; Philosofer says "it doesn't matter" to one and three "no" to two and four. I think both of these are wrong. I don't think either of you have really addressed 5., though perhaps it's Philosofer's implicit "yes" to five that informs his other answers. YesNo and I have been over one ad nauseam as it relates to quantum physics (I think he's demonstrably ignorant on the subject), so I won't rehash those arguments; so, for the purpose of this thread, I'll keep it to the notion of "responsibility." 

For me, it's quite simple; responsibility, like, morality, is a social phenomenon. We hold people "responsible" as a means of lessening the likelihood that they'll (or others) will do things that can damage the society. Whether people "choose" to murder of their own free will, out of deterministic instinct, or out of pure chance is irrelevant; what's relevant is whether us holding murderers "responsible" via imprisonment, execution, etc. makes it less likely for people to committ murder. I'm fairly confident in saying that it does. Thought of this way, such "responsibility" is really just a means by which we have a considerable influence on the competing impulses that people have. The question "is X responsible for Y" is much less important than "if X thinks he will be responsible for Y, is X less likely to do Y?" and the obvious answer to that is "yes." 

So I'm with Philosofer in that the issue of responsibility isn't tied to the determinism/indeterminism/free-will issue, but disagree with him in thinking that it's an ontological question as opposed to a social one. Really, responsibility is little more than the social equivalent of, say, pain; pain is a physical feedback system that teaches us that certain actions have consequences on our being. As a child, whether or not I'm "free" to put my hand on a hot stove is rather irrelevant to the question of whether doing so will be painful and influence me to not do it again. In that sense, I'm "responsible" in that I acted (for whatever reason) and the action had negative consequences for me. If you think of responsibility like that (and I think it's the most sensible way to think of it) then most of these issues go away.

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## Philosofer123

> 5. Regardless of the above issue of determinism/indeterminism, since we can't will the instinctual impulses to begin with, are we responsible regardless?





> though perhaps it's Philosofer's implicit "yes" to five that informs his other answers.


Actually, I answer "no" to five.




> For me, it's quite simple; responsibility, like, morality, is a social phenomenon. We hold people "responsible" as a means of lessening the likelihood that they'll (or others) will do things that can damage the society. Whether people "choose" to murder of their own free will, out of deterministic instinct, or out of pure chance is irrelevant; what's relevant is whether us holding murderers "responsible" via imprisonment, execution, etc. makes it less likely for people to committ murder. I'm fairly confident in saying that it does. Thought of this way, such "responsibility" is really just a means by which we have a considerable influence on the competing impulses that people have.


I agree that punishment for pragmatic reasons (such as deterrence, quarantine and perhaps rehabilitation) makes sense, regardless of whether ultimate responsibility exists. But if free will impossibilism is correct, then punishment for retributive reasons makes no sense. And it is clear that penal systems around the world do punish criminals at least in part for retribution. This is one practical implication of free will impossibilism that your analysis is missing. But the more significant practical implication of free will impossibilism is that it renders irrational a whole range of negative emotions, including resentment and regret (see page 6 of my document). This strongly conduces to peace of mind.

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## MorpheusSandman

I worded that hypothetical response to 5. poorly; what I meant is that maybe because you'd answer yes to the fact that we can't will our impulses would be why you'd argue we don't have responsibility. 

To me, you don't need things like "free will impossibilism" to discuss irrationality in humans, as there are entire areas of science, such as the study of biases in cognitive/neuroscience, that focus on this. Most of our emotions stem from either irrational or arational (I call "arational" those initial premises that can not find a basis in statements about how reality is: "It is important that I live" would be an arational statement) impulses. In that regard, I don't think resentment, regret, or the desire for retribution is any different than most emotions. I do agree with you that they certainly don't help one's state of mind and even if we get was we desire from them it doesn't necessarily lessen the initial pain that caused the desire. Humans, though, when they suffer irreparable wrongs will INVENT ways to create closure if not actual ones exist. It provides the illusion of reparation if not any actuality; but all humans make do with manifold illusions about reality. That people find things like determinism "depressing" is why they latch on to the possibility of free will, despite the fact that there's not a stitch of evidence that it exists. Someone like YesNo loves to come back to our experiences, despite the fact that the last few hundred years have been a steady stream of scientific discoveries that showed us how illusive our experiences are, especially in what inferences we draw from them.

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## YesNo

> *"Making a choice" is not an "adequate explanation".* One needs an explanation as to why one made that particular choice; otherwise, the choice has no explanation, which means that one cannot be responsible for that choice.


Actually, it is. The choice is the explanation. It needs no other explanation than its existence.





> Whether you "trust" the regress argument is irrelevant. You have failed to refute it.


The regress argument claims there is a deterministic explanation for each mental state. The person having that mental state has no responsibility for that state since some previous mental state determined it and so on. If one argues that reality is indeterministic, then those promoting the regress argument bring in their god-of-the-gaps, chance, or "randomness", to keep their metaphysics afloat.

The regress argument depends on either (1) strict determinism or (2) a dualism between determinism and chance. These are mere assumptions. Neither of these have support from either our own experiences nor from quantum uncertainty. They are purely metaphysical assumptions without basis in reality.

From a scientific perspective, that falsifies the regress argument. 





> Again, you have failed to refute the regress argument. To do so, *you must either show that one or more of its premises is not necessarily true,* or that its premises do not logically entail its conclusion, or both. You have done neither.
> 
> This renders the rest of your post irrelevant.


Indeed, I have shown that. 

The determinism premise has been discredited by quantum uncertainty if not by our own experiences. The god-of-the-gaps back-up premise that if strict determinism is not true then a determinism=chance operation is in play has also been discredited by quantum uncertainty since the probabilities that quantum physics comes up are not uniform. They are not random, that is, not caused by the god-of-the-gaps Chance.

So, something else is involved besides determinism or chance. Because of that, the regress argument freeing you from responsibility for your actions does not hold.

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## MorpheusSandman

> The determinism premise has been discredited by quantum uncertainty


Maybe if you just keep saying this enough, on the 1,000,000th time it will actually be true! That seems to be YOUR philosophy, anyway; repeat nonsense enough so that you (and maybe one or two others) can actually believe it.

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## YesNo

> Maybe if you just keep saying this enough, on the 1,000,000th time it will actually be true! That seems to be YOUR philosophy, anyway; repeat nonsense enough so that you (and maybe one or two others) can actually believe it.


Is that how people who believe in many worlds convince themselves that they're right? 

I've mentioned this before, but I'll say it again. I'm not trying to convince you. I want someone to challenge my positions. That's how I test them and how I get a better version of my positions. I don't care if anyone agrees with me or not.

These questions of the existence of strict determinism or its backup, chance, and its relationship to free will involve unquestioned cultural assumptions. To discuss them is challenging for people who don't want to step out of their metaphysical boxes. 

These are the ones that I see at the moment rephrased as questions:

1)_ Does strict materialistic determinism actually exist?_  That is, is it possible to construct a state vector from which one can predict the entire future and claim to know the entire past. I don't think so. If it doesn't exist, the trending behavior that makes mathematical laws look deterministic needs to be rethought. 

Quantum uncertainty, like it or not, has discredited this at the fundamental level. There is no reason not to assume it should be discredited everywhere.

2) _Does the materialist's god-of-the-gaps, chance, exist at all?_ When determinism fails, this chance God is brought out to save the materialist's metaphysics, that is, fill in the gaps that determinism leaves unanswered. 

Why is chance needed? If determinism fails then something must fill in the gap so that one does not have to acknowledge the existence of enough consciousness for choices to be made. Why are materialists afraid of consciousness? Why are they afraid of choices being made? Well, it would wipe out their metaphysical belief system.

Again, quantum uncertainty has discredited chance. If unconscious chance actually was behind quantum uncertainty, those many worlders would have no problem constructing the Schrodinger equation. They would simply assign all the coefficients the same value under the assumption there was a uniform (chance--unconscious) distribution.

3) _Are human beings machines?_ We look more like organisms, but culturally some people think there is no difference between organisms and machines. It seems clear, again, like it or not, that we have sufficient will power to make choices for which we are responsible. That would mean we are not machines.

I'm hoping to name other unjustified assumptions to add to this list as our discussions progress.

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## MorpheusSandman

> Is that how people who believe in many worlds convince themselves that they're right?


No MW advocate I know of goes around saying that MW is true and that CI has been falsified or that CI "isn't even an interpretation." You don't get it; it's the not the fact that you advocate CI that I'm so antagonistic towards you, it's the fact that, in doing so, you insist on repeating claims like "determinism is discredited by quantum uncertainty" or "MW isn't even an interpretation" that are PATENTLY FALSE. If you want to advocate CI, it's fine that you say "MW can't derive the Born rule," because that's true, and that's a problem; but it's NOT ok for you to utter nonsense like "determinism is discredited." 

That you feel the need to repeat such things suggest either gross ignorance or dishonesty; at first I leaned towards the former, because there's no crime in being ignorant and I like to think the best of people, but in your repeated insistence on repeating falsites that you've been corrected on I now have to lean towards dishonesty, and it's all the more egregious when you put up this "I'm an innocent, honest truth-seeker who want people to challenge my opinion," which is bollocks. You started out your investigation believing in your magical, mystical "conscious choice" (never mind the lunacy of suggesting how particles could possible be "conscious" when we only know of consciousness to begin with because of a material brain made up of countless such particles) and wanting to disbelieve in determinism, and what you want to believe had colored everything you've read and said on the matter. 

I have no problem "discussing" this subject with people that are honest or capable of understanding it; I don't think you are. My offer stands: I'll pay you to sign up for a physics forum and discuss this with others, if only so I can have a permanent record of many others confirming exactly what I've said. If you don't want to take up the challenge, then that speaks to your lack of honesty right there. 




> 1)_ Does strict materialistic determinism actually exist?_  -- Quantum uncertainty, like it or not, has discredited this at the fundamental level.


It's "discredited" this ONLY if the collapse assumption of CI is true, and, I remind you, there's not a stitch of evidence--not in the math, not in the experiments--suggesting that it is. What's more, all of the paradoxes it creates suggests the exact opposite; that there is no collapse, everything is in a state of superposition, and, in which case, the wavefunction is deterministic and decohering into different worlds upon entanglement. The "uncertainty" is precisely what we'd expect to see since we can't see into both worlds simultaneously. 




> 2) _Does the materialist's god-of-the-gaps, chance, exist at all?_ When determinism fails, this chance God is brought out to save the materialist's metaphysics, that is, fill in the gaps that determinism leaves unanswered. 
> 
> Why is chance needed? If determinism fails then something must fill in the gap so that one does not have to acknowledge the existence of enough consciousness for choices to be made. Why are materialists afraid of consciousness? Why are they afraid of choices being made? Well, it would wipe out their metaphysical belief system.


 :FRlol:  You are too funny sometimes. You dislike both determinism and chance, but don't seem to get that they are mutually exclusive and things have to be one or the other. The "indeterminism" of CI is really no different than "chance." Saying that some outcomes are more likely makes it "not chance" is as silly as saying gambling isn't "chance." 




> If unconscious chance actually was behind quantum uncertainty, those many worlders would have no problem constructing the Schrodinger equation. They would simply assign all the coefficients the same value under the assumption there was a uniform (chance--unconscious) distribution.


And then you come out with pseudo-scientific garble like this that's almost credible enough to find its way into a sci-fi anime. Born is not uniform; MW recognizes this, but doesn't know why. CI doesn't know why either, but invokes a mystical "collapse" that's about as explanatory as saying "Zeus!" to explain lightning.

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## YesNo

> No MW advocate I know of goes around saying that MW is true and that CI has been falsified or that CI "isn't even an interpretation." You don't get it; it's the not the fact that you advocate CI that I'm so antagonistic towards you, it's the fact that, in doing so, you insist on repeating claims like "determinism is discredited by quantum uncertainty" or "MW isn't even an interpretation" that are PATENTLY FALSE. If you want to advocate CI, it's fine that you say "MW can't derive the Born rule," because that's true, and that's a problem; but it's NOT ok for you to utter nonsense like "determinism is discredited."


If you want me to think about this differently you will need to provide reasons or evidence. Otherwise, I will take the opportunity to summarize my latest understanding of the subject:

1) MW is not an interpretation of QM. Why? Because MW cannot formulate the Schrodinger equation from within the "interpretation". Without the Schrodinger equation, MW cannot claim to be in agreement with QM. What's "false" about that?

2) The Heisenburg uncertainty principle is derived mathematically from the Schrodinger equation. One of the points Bohm and Hiley made in _The Undivided Universe_, in the chapter criticizing many worlds, was to question whether the MW position actually removed uncertainty. 




> That you feel the need to repeat such things suggest either gross ignorance or dishonesty; at first I leaned towards the former, because there's no crime in being ignorant and I like to think the best of people, but in your repeated insistence on repeating falsites that you've been corrected on I now have to lean towards dishonesty, and it's all the more egregious when you put up this "I'm an innocent, honest truth-seeker who want people to challenge my opinion," which is bollocks. You started out your investigation believing in your magical, mystical "conscious choice" (never mind the lunacy of suggesting how particles could possible be "conscious" when we only know of consciousness to begin with because of a material brain made up of countless such particles) and wanting to disbelieve in determinism, and what you want to believe had colored everything you've read and said on the matter.


Regarding the claim that consciousness requires a material brain, this seems to me to be falsified by the behavior of slime mold that appears intelligent enough to make choices and yet doesn't have a material brain at all.




> It's "discredited" this ONLY if the collapse assumption of CI is true, and, I remind you, there's not a stitch of evidence--not in the math, not in the experiments--suggesting that it is. What's more, all of the paradoxes it creates suggests the exact opposite; that there is no collapse, everything is in a state of superposition, and, in which case, the wavefunction is deterministic and decohering into different worlds upon entanglement. The "uncertainty" is precisely what we'd expect to see since we can't see into both worlds simultaneously.


If everything is in a state of superposition then determinism has been removed not only at the quantum level but at all levels. I think that might be the case, but I don't think it helps your argument against uncertainty.




> You are too funny sometimes.


Thank you.




> You dislike both determinism and chance, but don't seem to get that they are mutually exclusive and things have to be one or the other. The "indeterminism" of CI is really no different than "chance." Saying that some outcomes are more likely makes it "not chance" is as silly as saying gambling isn't "chance."


The point I am trying to make is that the view that determinism and chance are mutually exclusion is a metaphysical assumption that clouds one's thinking. This is why Pilosofer123 can't see past "free will impossibilism" leading to the view that our ability to make a choice as an illusion.

This is my view: 

(1) Strict determinism is a metaphysical delusion. Things "trend" and from here we get approximate mathematical laws. I am using my understanding of Rupert Sheldrake's position regarding this, although I don't know if I understand Sheldrake completely.

(2) Uniformly distributed chance is rare in nature. If the chance event is not uniformly distributed, there is no guarantee that something else isn't going on. If the metaphysics one promotes must avoid conscious input of one sort or another, the materialist's god-of-the-gaps Chance must be a uniform distribution to even get off the ground as a viable position that does away with consciousness.

(3) Consciousness is fundamental. I think panpsychism, as a current philosophy of mind, is more likely true than not: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panpsychism It fits reality better.

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## MorpheusSandman

> If you want me to think about this differently you will need to provide reasons or evidence.


I have. Repeatedly. You've ignored it. I have no reason of thinking you'll change now. 




> 1) MW is not an interpretation of QM. Why? Because MW cannot formulate the Schrodinger equation from within the "interpretation". Without the Schrodinger equation, MW cannot claim to be in agreement with QM. What's "false" about that?
> 
> 2) The Heisenburg uncertainty principle is derived mathematically from the Schrodinger equation. One of the points Bohm and Hiley made in _The Undivided Universe_, in the chapter criticizing many worlds, was to question whether the MW position actually removed uncertainty.


1) You don't seem to get that Shrodinger is DESCRIPTIVE, while Born, which derives Shrodinger, is EXPLANATORY. How to explain the difference... imagine you're an alien that's just discovered human automobiles. After much testing, you can describe what they do, but you don't understand how/why they do it (via combustion). Even if you don't understand how/why it works, you can still describe what it does. Shrodinger is describing what the car does; Born is explaining why it does it. 

You have this wonky notion that MW needs to "explain" Shrodinger (via Born) in order for it to be an interpretation. This is classic YesNo nonsense, especially when you consider that CI's "collapse" only "explains" Born by assuming something it has no reason to assume, and a great many reasons NOT to assume it. It would be like saying that the alien that shouts "gremlins!" to explain how a car runs is a legitimate interpretation, while an alien that says "it probably has something to do with that oily, transparent liquid, but I don't know what" isn't a legitimate interpretation. 

I'll repeat this simple important fact: MW can't derive Born, but CI only derives Born at the expense of creating paradoxes and assuming something (a collapse) not validated by math or testing. An advocate of EITHER interp has to argue why their approach is better, and why the problems inherent in their approach aren't that serious. The way I see it, MW has one problem that's potentially solvable; CI has multiple problems that probably aren't. You always seem to gloss over the manifold problems in CI as if they don't exist. To me, MW not being able to derive Born is relatively MINOR compared to all the craziness of CI. Even invoking your magical, mystical "conscious choice" doesn't explain how particles can affect each other thousands of miles away at thousands of times faster than the speed of light. 

2) MW would not remove uncertainty from a subjective standpoint. HUP merely expresses the limits of our knowledge before observation: "you can know this much, be this precise about the future, but no more until you actually get entangled with the particles." I have no idea why Bohm or Hiley would think MW removes uncertainty, unless they (maybe like you) don't get this crucial difference between the objective determinacy of Shrodinger VS the subjective indeterminacy of HUP. 




> Regarding the claim that consciousness requires a material brain, this seems to me to be falsified by the behavior of slime mold that appears intelligent enough to make choices and yet doesn't have a material brain at all.


You misquoted me; what I said was: "WE only know of consciousness to begin with because of a material brain made up of countless such particles," meaning that our experience of consciousness is tied to our brains. We have no clue what "experience" a slime mold has, whether it counts as consciousness or makes choice or if it's just a blob of DNA acting and reacting. Even the slime mold is made up of countless particles that make up the nuclei, proteins, DNA, etc. These are far from singular particles; they're still highly complex, organic, organized, life (comparatively, at least). 




> If everything is in a state of superposition then determinism has been removed not only at the quantum level but at all levels. I think that might be the case...


Absolutely false. Remember that the wavefunction IS deterministic, so if everything is in superposition then it's evolving according to that deterministic formula. CI NEEDS the collapse in order to make the wavefunction indeterministic. No collapse, no indeterminism; all you have left is observer uncertainty, which is not the same. This is another fundamental point you've never understood: MW as its simplest is saying "everything is in superposition." If that's true, then MW is true. So you can't think that "everything is in superposition" is a true statement without also thinking MW is true; they're the same thing. 




> This is my view:


Yeah, it's a complete mess right from the get-go. There are no "approximate mathematical laws." Those used in QM are ridiculously precise. Rupert Sheldrake is a first-rate charlatan promoting pseudoscience (and this is not my opinion, but that of the scientific community at large). "Uniform chance" is a nonsense term, and saying "consciousness is fundamental" is what Wittgenstein would call a meaningless statement.

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## Philosofer123

> Actually, it is. The choice is the explanation. It needs no other explanation than its existence.


If the choice has no explanation, then it is non-rational (not based on reason). And it makes no sense to hold someone responsible for a non-rational choice.




> The regress argument claims there is a deterministic explanation for each mental state. The person having that mental state has no responsibility for that state since some previous mental state determined it and so on. If one argues that reality is indeterministic, then those promoting the regress argument bring in their god-of-the-gaps, chance, or "randomness", to keep their metaphysics afloat.
> 
> The regress argument depends on either (1) strict determinism or (2) a dualism between determinism and chance. These are mere assumptions. Neither of these have support from either our own experiences nor from quantum uncertainty. They are purely metaphysical assumptions without basis in reality.
> 
> From a scientific perspective, that falsifies the regress argument.
> 
> Indeed, I have shown that. 
> 
> The determinism premise has been discredited by quantum uncertainty if not by our own experiences. The god-of-the-gaps back-up premise that if strict determinism is not true then a determinism=chance operation is in play has also been discredited by quantum uncertainty since the probabilities that quantum physics comes up are not uniform. They are not random, that is, not caused by the god-of-the-gaps Chance.
> ...


The regress argument has no "determinism premise". As I explained in post #12, the regress argument does not assume determinism.

So again, in order to refute the regress argument, you must either show that one or more of its premises is not necessarily true, or you must show that its premises do not logically entail its conclusion. You have done neither, so the argument stands.

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## YesNo

> If the choice has no explanation, then it is non-rational (not based on reason). And it makes no sense to hold someone responsible for a non-rational choice.


At least you seem to agree that choices can be made. If one wants an "explanation" for the choice, one might be able to bring back Aristotle's four causes (explanations) and use them. 




> The regress argument has no "determinism premise". As I explained in post #12, the regress argument does not assume determinism.
> 
> So again, in order to refute the regress argument, you must either show that one or more of its premises is not necessarily true, or you must show that its premises do not logically entail its conclusion. You have done neither, so the argument stands.


What your position depends on is a dichotomy between determinism and chance. If something is not deterministic, then the god-of-the-gaps chance is invoked to explain it. There are two problems with that: (1) there may be more going on than determinism and chance and (2) both determinism and chance may be soft, that is, not having any reality except as approximations.

Actually, I have refuted the regress argument. The regress argument is based upon a metaphysical assumption that you need to justify now that I have pointed it out.

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## YesNo

> You have this wonky notion that MW needs to "explain" Shrodinger (via Born) in order for it to be an interpretation. This is classic YesNo nonsense, especially when you consider that CI's "collapse" only "explains" Born by assuming something it has no reason to assume, and a great many reasons NOT to assume it.


What MW needs to do is find the coefficients of the Schrodinger equation without copying those from Copenhagen. It does not need to explain the equation.

I don't think MW will ever be able to do this. The reason is that, assuming there are many worlds, one would have to find a position outside the universe of worlds from which to measure the probability of specific events after a test was run. That requires taking a supernatural position or having a supernatural agent of some sort willing to make those measurements and willing to communicate them to us. One cannot trust the results of an experiment performed in one of those worlds, like the real world we are living in. 

So why trust Copenhagen over MW? Well, they can find those coefficients. What is more, they run a test and they can use the results of that test to predict the probability of something happening the next time and the next time. All in one world. All without the need of a supernatural agent. If MW trusts the results of its experiments, it is making a major assumption that the world we are living in will give us useful results. I suppose you could say, because QM works at all, MW must be false.

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## MorpheusSandman

> What MW needs to do is find the coefficients of the Schrodinger equation without copying those from Copenhagen. It does not need to explain the equation.


These two things are essentially identical, since Born explains Schrodinger; for MW to derive Born would be to explain Schrodinger, they go hand in hand. 




> I don't think MW will ever be able to do this.


Most thought we'd never fly to the moon or figure out what caused lightning; you underestimate the cleverness and resourcefulness of science. Quantum computing may very well be able to derive Born via MW. There are already plenty of plausible ideas out there how to get Born from MW: http://hanson.gmu.edu/mangledworlds.html 

FWIW, it's not necessarily necessary (heh) to be outside the "worlds" in order to derive Born. I mean, if MW is right then the wavefunction is already, in a sense, us glimpsing multiple worlds contained in a point. The problem is the barrier we run up against when we become entangled with the wavefunction. If you have something that can crunch enough numbers then it's entirely possible it could measure without the same effects of entanglement and we'd have a new way of testing. Anyway, I'm not betting against anything they'll be able to find out through it in, say, 25-50 years time. Who knows, we may all be completely wrong. 




> So why trust Copenhagen over MW? Well, they can find those coefficients.


Yes, I've already stated this; but you ignore that they "find those coefficients" by assuming a collapse that they have no justification for assuming either via math or via testing, and this assumption also creates contradictions and paradoxes that 100 years of physics have yet to solve. So, you need to address these problems rather than just touting its one "success" 




> I suppose you could say, because QM works at all, MW must be false.


 :FRlol:  MW makes the same predictions CI does! Neither are experimentally distinguishable from each other! Again, that MW can't explain Schrodinger via Born doesn't prevent it from using Born any more than my hypothetical aliens not being able to explain how the car runs prevent them from driving the car. QM "working" is not an argument for either interpretation.

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## MorpheusSandman

> If one wants an "explanation" for the choice, one might be able to bring back Aristotle's four causes (explanations) and use them.


Yes, I'm sure a guy that lived thousands of years ago before the advent of modern science had "choice" all figured out. Hint: most all dead philosophers were wrong on most every major topic concerning reality as-it-is (ie, not necessarily about ethics and similar subjects, which don't correspond to how reality is, but how we want it to be). 




> There are two problems with that: (1) there may be more going on than determinism and chance and (2) both determinism and chance may be soft, that is, not having any reality except as approximations.


(1) What else is going on? (2) The terms "determinism" and "chance" themselves are just approximations of language, they're already about as "soft" as it gets; but I've yet to see you present any plausible way in which they can co-exist. The closest you get is CI which says that QM is all about "chance" but classical mechanics is all "deterministic" and there's some magical "collapse" where the former becomes the latter.

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## Philosofer123

> At least you seem to agree that choices can be made. If one wants an "explanation" for the choice, one might be able to bring back Aristotle's four causes (explanations) and use them.


The explanation that is required for rational choice is an explanation in terms of one's reasoning process. To the extent such an explanation is not available, the choice is non-rational, and one cannot be responsible for non-rational choices. And to the extent such an explanation is available, the regress looms. Aristotle can't help you here.




> What your position depends on is a dichotomy between determinism and chance. If something is not deterministic, then the god-of-the-gaps chance is invoked to explain it. There are two problems with that: (1) there may be more going on than determinism and chance and (2) both determinism and chance may be soft, that is, not having any reality except as approximations.
> 
> Actually, I have refuted the regress argument. The regress argument is based upon a metaphysical assumption that you need to justify now that I have pointed it out.


The dichotomy is not between determinism and chance, but between one's choices being explainable in terms of one's reasoning process or not. To the extent such an explanation is not available, the choice is non-rational, and one cannot be responsible for non-rational choices. And to the extent such an explanation is available, the regress looms.

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## YesNo

> The dichotomy is not between determinism and chance, but between one's choices being explainable in terms of one's reasoning process or not. To the extent such an explanation is not available, the choice is non-rational, and one cannot be responsible for non-rational choices. And to the extent such an explanation is available, the regress looms.


Of course one can. If you make a choice, you are responsible. That's the way reality is. It doesn't matter whether the choice was rationally made or not.

If you open the metaphysical box, stand up, stretch, step outside and take a deep breath, you will see that the regress argument is nonsense built out of a misunderstanding of determinism and chance.

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## Philosofer123

> Of course one can. If you make a choice, you are responsible. That's the way reality is. It doesn't matter whether the choice was rationally made or not.


Then why is insanity a legitimate legal defense for one who has committed a crime?

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## YesNo

> Then why is insanity a legitimate legal defense for one who has committed a crime?


If you sincerely explain to the judge the regress argument, I agree that this should help the insanity plea.

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## YesNo

> Most thought we'd never fly to the moon or figure out what caused lightning; you underestimate the cleverness and resourcefulness of science. Quantum computing may very well be able to derive Born via MW. There are already plenty of plausible ideas out there how to get Born from MW: http://hanson.gmu.edu/mangledworlds.html 
> 
> FWIW, it's not necessarily necessary (heh) to be outside the "worlds" in order to derive Born. I mean, if MW is right then the wavefunction is already, in a sense, us glimpsing multiple worlds contained in a point. The problem is the barrier we run up against when we become entangled with the wavefunction. If you have something that can crunch enough numbers then it's entirely possible it could measure without the same effects of entanglement and we'd have a new way of testing. Anyway, I'm not betting against anything they'll be able to find out through it in, say, 25-50 years time. Who knows, we may all be completely wrong. 
> 
> Yes, I've already stated this; but you ignore that they "find those coefficients" by assuming a collapse that they have no justification for assuming either via math or via testing, and this assumption also creates contradictions and paradoxes that 100 years of physics have yet to solve. So, you need to address these problems rather than just touting its one "success"


In the article you cite, Robin Hanson writes this:

_We have done enough tests by now that if the many worlds view were right, the worlds where the tests were passed would constitute an infinitesimally tiny fraction of the set of all those worlds where the test was tried. So the key question is: how is it that we happen to be in one of those very rare worlds? Any classical statistical significance test would strongly reject the hypothesis that we are in a typical world._
I agree with this. We should not be experiencing ourselves in this exceptional world where QM works the way it does, if many worlds were true. I don't think he's right in claiming that the probability should be uniform across this universe of worlds, but if he wants to avoid introducing something else, he has to have a uniform distribution. However, that just makes the rarity of our experienced world more evident. It is evidence that something is wrong with many worlds concept.

It seems as if the "mangled" worlds are a way to get rid of those other worlds to explain why we don't ever experience ourselves there. 




> MW makes the same predictions CI does! Neither are experimentally distinguishable from each other! Again, that MW can't explain Schrodinger via Born doesn't prevent it from using Born any more than my hypothetical aliens not being able to explain how the car runs prevent them from driving the car. QM "working" is not an argument for either interpretation.


To the extent that many worlds predicts that all results happen in some world, it predicts what CI predicts for one world. It doesn't need the Schrodinger equation to do that. But that makes it a weaker theory because it is harder to falsify than the CI interpretation.

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## MorpheusSandman

> ..if he wants to avoid introducing something else, he has to have a uniform distribution. However, that just makes the rarity of our experienced world more evident... It seems as if the "mangled" worlds are a way to get rid of those other worlds to explain why we don't ever experience ourselves there.


All of this is wrong, which just confirms my suspicion that you don't understand most of what you read on this subject. 




> To the extent that many worlds predicts that all results happen in some world, it predicts what CI predicts for one world.


Exactly, so they are experimentally indistinguishable. 




> But that makes it a weaker theory because it is harder to falsify than the CI interpretation.


Actually, it's the reverse; MW is quite easy to falsify and CI is near impossible to falsify. MW's key assumption that QM works all the way down is falsifiable if we find any split between he micro and macro world predicted by CI's collapse. However, there's nothing you can "find" to falsify CI, although finding said split would prove it.

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## Philosofer123

> If you sincerely explain to the judge the regress argument, I agree that this should help the insanity plea.


You have failed to answer my question. The question is designed to show that society holds people responsible only to the degree that they are capable of action that is based on rational deliberation. According to your conception of "free" action, one's choices have no explanation and are therefore non-rational. As a result, it makes no sense to hold one responsible for one's choices, and the conclusion of the regress argument stands.

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## stymontgomery

I enjoyed reading your philosophy and plan on re-reading it. It is a very thorough and accurate for everything it claims to be; one man’s understanding of his surroundings based on his experiences, emotions, perceptions, etc. which were all built by him, occasionally using blocks from others but nonetheless molded completely to himself and his immediate wants and desires. 

One more thing, I love you.

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## Philosofer123

> I enjoyed reading your philosophy and plan on re-reading it. It is a very thorough and accurate for everything it claims to be; one mans understanding of his surroundings based on his experiences, emotions, perceptions, etc. which were all built by him, occasionally using blocks from others but nonetheless molded completely to himself and his immediate wants and desires. 
> 
> One more thing, I love you.


Thank you for your kind words, stymontgomery. I am glad that you enjoyed reading the document.

Should you have any additional feedback, please do not hesitate to share.

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## YesNo

> You have failed to answer my question. The question is designed to show that society holds people responsible only to the degree that they are capable of action that is based on rational deliberation. According to your conception of "free" action, one's choices have no explanation and are therefore non-rational. As a result, it makes no sense to hold one responsible for one's choices, and the conclusion of the regress argument stands.


Does society let most people off because of an insanity plea? 

The individual's intention could be one explanation for the choice that individual made. Now that the choice has an explanation, although not a deterministic explanation, it is "rational". The regress argument fails again.

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## YesNo

> Exactly, so they are experimentally indistinguishable.


MW claims that it gets every result. Because of that, it doesn't need the Schrodinger equation to get any particular result the way CI does. However, it makes an assumption, that is unacknowledged, that this splitting actually avoids uncertainty. MW supporters just hope it does. 

Why should one doubt that uncertainty is removed in a MW metaphysics? It is highly unlikelihood that we should find ourselves in a universe where the probabilities obtained by CI are not uniform unless the probabilities in all the other worlds are not uniform either. But then all those other worlds are uncertain like ours, and the MW program fails to deliver on its promise of restoring determinism. 




> Actually, it's the reverse; MW is quite easy to falsify and CI is near impossible to falsify. MW's key assumption that QM works all the way down is falsifiable if we find any split between he micro and macro world predicted by CI's collapse. However, there's nothing you can "find" to falsify CI, although finding said split would prove it.


MW is too vague to falsify, because there is no result that can happen that it would not claim to be one of those it covers.

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## MorpheusSandman

> MW claims that it gets every result. Because of that, it doesn't need the Schrodinger equation to get any particular result the way CI does. However, it makes an assumption, that is unacknowledged, that this splitting actually avoids uncertainty. MW supporters just hope it does.


I have no idea what you're saying here. The "every result" MW gets is determined by Schrodinger (SWE). SWE describes what the WF does; MW says it does it by decoherence across worlds. Without SWE MW wouldn't be interpreting anything, so I don't know what you can possibly mean by "MW doesn't need SWE;" that's nonsensical. 

Also don't know what you mean by an assumption that "this splitting avoids uncertainty." The only "splitting" happens in CI, not MW. Decoherence is not the split/collapse. 




> Why should one doubt that uncertainty is removed in a MW metaphysics?


I've explained this about a billion times; uncertainty can be had on the subjective level, ie what we experience, because the only way to experience the determinism of the SWE would be to be outside all of the worlds themselves. As Hanson says, it may be possible to derive Born, thus explaining why the probabilities aren't uniform, by finite world-counting. Whether this is possible to experimentally do is another matter entirely. 




> MW is too vague to falsify


What's vague about "the wavefunction is real and everything is in superposition?" That's not vague in the least, and it's falsifiable by finding a level of organization in which groups of particles are not in superposition. CI's collapse if far more vague; what is it? What causes it? How does it cause it? At what size-point does it happen? None of these questions can be (or at least has been) answered experimentally. 




> there is no result that can happen that it would not claim to be one of those it covers.


Absolutely false. If any result shows that a group of particles are not in superposition, that would falsify MW.

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## Philosofer123

> Does society let most people off because of an insanity plea?


Irrelevant. 




> The individual's intention could be one explanation for the choice that individual made. Now that the choice has an explanation, although not a deterministic explanation, it is "rational".


A mere intention in no way implies a rational thought process. Insane people have intentions, but are not rational.

The regress argument stands.

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## Dono

A flea is born and struggles to survive in a harsh and brutal world. Somehow in its struggle it finds its way to the back of a passing dog and begins its flea destiny of feeding and procreation. In short order there are thousands of fleas on dog, each with their own views on existence and the nature of the dog on which they exist. 

The flea who found his way to the dog after a struggle is forever grateful for what dog provides: shelter, sustenance, protection from the evils of a dog less world.

The fleas born on dog have never known life away from Dog and therefore take Him for granted, even questioning whether dog still has meaning to them.

Those fleas at the base of dog's neck and muzzle, protected alike from the elements and from dog's own movements, love Dog and see him as benevolent.

Those at Dog's *** who are frequently bitten, kicked at and shat on by Dog fear his wrath and live by his whim and the luck of capricious fate. But they do not doubt his presence.

Dog, if he thinks of fleas at all, sees them as an annoyance and an irritant, something he'd just as soon be rid of. Occasionally they annoy him enough to bite at them and given time they bleed him to the point of illness; but mostly dog has no thoughts on the existence of fleas.

And herein lies the deep flaw in your philosophy on the nature and existence of God. It presupposes that any such being capable of omnipotence would still somehow be answerable to the ethics, mores and questions of us fleas. 

It is extremely unlikely that a god would require or notice our belief in him/them/it. It is even more unlikely given the nature of man that we are the pinnacle life form in this universe. A God made in the image and ego of man does not likely exist. But a god beyond our Ken and understanding almost certainly must.

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## Philosofer123

> And herein lies the deep flaw in your philosophy on the nature and existence of God. It presupposes that any such being capable of omnipotence would still somehow be answerable to the ethics, mores and questions of us fleas. 
> 
> It is extremely unlikely that a god would require or notice our belief in him/them/it. It is even more unlikely given the nature of man that we are the pinnacle life form in this universe. A God made in the image and ego of man does not likely exist. But a god beyond our Ken and understanding almost certainly must.


So you agree that it is highly unlikely that the God of classical theism exists.

But then you claim that "a god beyond our ken and understanding almost certainly must" exist. How do you support that claim?

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## Dono

I said your philosophy is flawed in a number of ways, foremost that your own prejudice of what a god ought to be and do is reason enough for discounting its existence. You spend an awful lot of time quoting "isms" and various texts, all of whom are perfectly good reads and yet none of whom are any more or less valid than the texts which support theism (of any kind). Therefore, your philosophy is incomplete and only accepts data that agrees with the notion you brought into it: that God doesn't exist. You don't actually prove anything. You just cite sources that support your thesis. And in the process ignore entire bodies of work to the contrary view. In order to include or discount a specific work as a reference I'd like to know what criteria you used. Certainly Buddha is no more or less relevant than the hearsay teachings of the apostles?
My assertion is that logic dictates in an infinite universe all things must be possible. In our immediate universe there is strong evidence to support likely tampering with our own evolutionary process. My claim is merely that antiquated writing, bad translations and fanciful opinionated church leaders have obscured the being of God into something not actually described in ancient texts.

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## Philosofer123

> I said your philosophy is flawed in a number of ways, foremost that your own prejudice of what a god ought to be and do is reason enough for discounting its existence. You spend an awful lot of time quoting "isms" and various texts, all of whom are perfectly good reads and yet none of whom are any more or less valid than the texts which support theism (of any kind). Therefore, your philosophy is incomplete and only accepts data that agrees with the notion you brought into it: that God doesn't exist. You don't actually prove anything. You just cite sources that support your thesis. And in the process ignore entire bodies of work to the contrary view. In order to include or discount a specific work as a reference I'd like to know what criteria you used. Certainly Buddha is no more or less relevant than the hearsay teachings of the apostles?
> My assertion is that logic dictates in an infinite universe all things must be possible. In our immediate universe there is strong evidence to support likely tampering with our own evolutionary process. My claim is merely that antiquated writing, bad translations and fanciful opinionated church leaders have obscured the being of God into something not actually described in ancient texts.


I have considered a very wide range of viewpoints in formulating my philosophy. And I have found some viewpoints that I feel are strongly supported by the arguments and evidence.

Nothing in your posts refute anything in my philosophy. 

Unless you can provide persuasive arguments and/or evidence that supports positions that are not consistent with my own, I see no reason to continue this discussion.

You mention "evidence to support likely tampering with our own evolutionary process", but you fail to elaborate.

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## MorpheusSandman

> My assertion is that logic dictates in an infinite universe all things must be possible. In our immediate universe there is strong evidence to support likely tampering with our own evolutionary process.


What do you mean by "infinite universe?" The closest thing we get in modern science is a multi-verse or many worlds interpretation of quantum physics. Our own universe is not infinite. Even in a multi-verse or many worlds all things that are possible will happen; this doesn't mean everything is possible. One still has to consider that entropy is likely something you can't get away from anywhere, and it's impossible to reconcile entropy with any classical conception of God. I have no idea what you mean by there being evidence of tampering with our evolutionary process because there is no such thing. 




> But a god beyond our Ken and understanding almost certainly must.


Why "almost certainly must" exist? FWIW, I agree with this if one is willing to consider quantum fields a god.

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## ladderandbucket

An infinite universe, or an infinite amount of time, does not mean that all things are inevitable. 
Firstly, impossible things will never happen. Secondly, there is no law that says possible things have to happen eventually. The universe might be infinite, but it could just repeat itself infinitely, without anything interesting happening. I daresay a lot of very unlikely things will happen in the course of eternity, but they don't have to.

If there is an infinite amount of possible worlds/moments (and if the possible is as valid as the actual), then every possible thing does exist. But we couldn't say anything about God's influence on us. Only the moment (your moment) would meaningfully exist, and it would have some possible reasons, histories and futures which required a God, and some which didn't. This is assuming that God is also subject to the law of infinite possibilities, but then if he wasn't, and if all possible worlds exist, then he would be a spectacularly impotent God, hardly worth of the name.

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## YesNo

> I have no idea what you're saying here. The "every result" MW gets is determined by Schrodinger (SWE). SWE describes what the WF does; MW says it does it by decoherence across worlds. Without SWE MW wouldn't be interpreting anything, so I don't know what you can possibly mean by "MW doesn't need SWE;" that's nonsensical.


Many worlds, even with Hanson's conjectures, is not able to compute the probability amplitudes that form part of the Schrodinger wave equation (SWE) since they are not a uniform distribution. So MW does not have the SWE. Does it need it? Here I am trying to cut MW as much slack as possible. I don't think it actually does need it because every event occurs in MW.

However, that raises the question of why QM can get the answers right in the single world we are in now. There are multiple problems:

1) Why do we continue to experience ourselves in one world? We should experience ourselves in multiple worlds.
2) Why are the Born probabilities not uniform in the world we experience ourselves to be in? If chance is driving these probabilities they should be a uniform distribution as Hanson explains. 
3) Why do we experience any "superpositions" at all in a single world? After decoherence, the superpositions should stop.




> I've explained this about a billion times; uncertainty can be had on the subjective level, ie what we experience, because the only way to experience the determinism of the SWE would be to be outside all of the worlds themselves. As Hanson says, it may be possible to derive Born, thus explaining why the probabilities aren't uniform, by finite world-counting. Whether this is possible to experimentally do is another matter entirely.


Hanson did not get Born's results, as I recall. It was only a close approximation to them and required additional assumptions. Maggie McKee, in her article (http://hanson.gmu.edu/press/NewScientist-2-23-06.htm) cited by Hanson, states the problem clearly that Hanson is trying to solve:

_"And this idea, called the "many worlds" interpretation, raises other problems. Some theorists say it suggests that physicists doing a quantum experiment would find themselves in a random world, such that they would have an equal chance of seeing the bell ring or not ring. But this does not match the well-tested Born rule, which may predict that the bell should ring 70% of the time, for example."_
I don't see how one can practically do finite "world counting" without taking a supernatural position outside the universe of many worlds.




> What's vague about "the wavefunction is real and everything is in superposition?" That's not vague in the least, and it's falsifiable by finding a level of organization in which groups of particles are not in superposition. CI's collapse if far more vague; what is it? What causes it? How does it cause it? At what size-point does it happen? None of these questions can be (or at least has been) answered experimentally. 
> 
> Absolutely false. If any result shows that a group of particles are not in superposition, that would falsify MW.


What I don't understand, given many worlds, is why we can experience the superpositions of anything today in a single world. Those superpositions should have been resolved into many worlds at the beginning of the universe.

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## MorpheusSandman

> Many worlds, even with Hanson's conjectures, is not able to compute the probability amplitudes that form part of the Schrodinger wave equation (SWE) since they are not a uniform distribution.


But, again, there's a difference between deriving/explaining SWE and using SWE. Go back to my examples of aliens modeling how a car works VS explaining how it works. SWE models how the wavefunction behaves; MW interprets what SWE says, it just doesn't explain it as Born does. So you should rephrase your "MW doesn't need SWE" to "MW doesn't need TO EXPLAIN SWE." There's a difference. MW needs SWE since that's what it's interpreting. 




> 1) Why do we continue to experience ourselves in one world? We should experience ourselves in multiple worlds.
> 2) Why are the Born probabilities not uniform in the world we experience ourselves to be in? If chance is driving these probabilities they should be a uniform distribution as Hanson explains. 
> 3) Why do we experience any "superpositions" at all in a single world? After decoherence, the superpositions should stop.


Of these, only 2. is an actual problem. Hanson's "mangled words" MAY explain why the probabilities in the world we experience isn't uniform, but, again, we have no way to currently test it experimentally. It's just a possibility (one amongst many). 

1) Because we are a quantum system ourselves; we decohere along with whatever other system we become entangled with. When we decohere, we subjectively find ourselves in one world. In a sense, one can look at our uncertainty prior to decisions/results as a kind of metaphorical superposition (they made a joke about this on The Big Bang Theory not too long ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCOE__N6v4o). Anyway, asking why we wouldn't experience multiple worlds is a bit asking why we can't be in two places at the same time. It's a similar principle. If one world goes left and another goes right, we can't very well can't go right and left simultaneously, can we? The closest we can get is pondering whether to go right or left before we go left in one world and right in another. 

3) Our "single world" is constantly decohering. Even if a single particle decoheres and becomes fixed in one world that doesn't meant there aren't countless others still in superposition, or even that that particle can't be in superposition again. For particles to stop being in superposition and stop decohering would essentially be for them to stop existing at all. They only seem to stop being in superposition and stop decohering when we observe them because we've become entangled with them. That's two quantum systems entangling out of a near infinity of possible quantum systems that can become entangled. 




> Hanson did not get Born's results, as I recall.


No, and I didn't claim he did; the point is that he's presenting one possible way of getting Born, though. 




> What I don't understand, given many worlds, is why we can experience the superpositions of anything today in a single world. Those superpositions should have been resolved into many worlds at the beginning of the universe.


I don't see why you think the superpositions should've resolved themselves at the beginning of the universe for... Let's assume the beginning of the universe gave rise to 1,000,000^1,000,000 particles, and that may be conservative; assuming these things are decohering temporally by interacting with each other, why do you think they'd be done at the start of the universe?

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## desiresjab

> Let's assume the beginning of the universe gave rise to 1,000,000^1,000,000 particles, and that may be conservative;


That sounds like a gigantic overestimation, really. What kind of particles are you talking about? Presently the high end estimate for particles in the observable universe is 10^82. I realize you did not say observable. Still, I don't know how one gets from 10^82 to 1,000,000^1,000,000 for a universe with a diameter of 46 billion light years. Homegeneity would demand a much smaller number, unless you are talking about sub atomic particles--quarks, leptons, etc. I still think it would be a smaller number than a million to the millionth power.

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## MorpheusSandman

> unless you are talking about sub atomic particles--quarks, leptons, etc. I still think it would be a smaller number than a million to the millionth power.


I was, and perhaps you're right about the overestimate; but one thing to consider is that particles are constantly popping in and out of existence as well, so the total number is not fixed. I not only had in mind those that exist in a fixed state, but those that have existed and disappeared as quickly. Probably impossible to estimate. Anyway, the actual number isn't all that important to the point.

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## desiresjab

> I not only had in mind those that exist in a fixed state, but those that have existed and disappeared as quickly.



Hmm...those fireflies could add up all right, but their weak identities and sheer numbers dazzle me. For your conception of particles in this case, you may have erred on the conservative side.

Interestingly, the number of permutations (individual orders) of a fifty-two card deck of cards weighs in at around 10^70, and ought to easily the fill the Grand Canyon top to bottom, end to end with grains of average earth beach sand. It's a runaway.

Below is the actual number of orders of our deck of cards.

80658175170943878571660636856403766975289505440883 277824000000000000

Widely more than an octillion octillions, just in a deck of cards.

In a well randomized deck of cards it is not very likely that particluar arrangement has ever been shuffled up in earth's history. 

That was my minor interjection and irrelevancy.

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## YesNo

> But, again, there's a difference between deriving/explaining SWE and using SWE. Go back to my examples of aliens modeling how a car works VS explaining how it works. SWE models how the wavefunction behaves; MW interprets what SWE says, it just doesn't explain it as Born does. So you should rephrase your "MW doesn't need SWE" to "MW doesn't need TO EXPLAIN SWE." There's a difference. MW needs SWE since that's what it's interpreting.


As I understand it, Born interprets the norm of the coefficients of the SWE as probabilities. Those coefficients are complex numbers, but if you multiply them by their conjugates you get a real number. That product is what I'm calling the norm of the coefficients (maybe there's a better term). Whatever the name for this product is, this converts the "probability amplitude" to a probability for that event. Finally, if you sum all of these probabilities, you get 1. This is what you would expect if they were probabilities. Then one checks experimentally that this is the distribution of events. I think that is all the Born assumption is that the norm of the coefficients is the probability of the event occurring if it is measured. 

I don't understand how MW interprets these coefficients, but it seems that Born's interpretation works experimentally, so why reject it?




> Of these, only 2. is an actual problem. Hanson's "mangled words" MAY explain why the probabilities in the world we experience isn't uniform, but, again, we have no way to currently test it experimentally. It's just a possibility (one amongst many). 
> 
> 1) Because we are a quantum system ourselves; we decohere along with whatever other system we become entangled with. When we decohere, we subjectively find ourselves in one world. In a sense, one can look at our uncertainty prior to decisions/results as a kind of metaphorical superposition (they made a joke about this on The Big Bang Theory not too long ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCOE__N6v4o). *Anyway, asking why we wouldn't experience multiple worlds is a bit asking why we can't be in two places at the same time.* It's a similar principle. If one world goes left and another goes right, we can't very well can't go right and left simultaneously, can we? The closest we can get is pondering whether to go right or left before we go left in one world and right in another.


Are you implying that we can't be in two places at one time? I thought the current MW position was saying we were in many places at one time. We must be experiencing ourselves in those other worlds like we are in this world. 

Bohm and Hiley describes Everett's original version as a many minds rather than a many worlds position. Basically, the worlds didn't physically split, but our minds split and we only remember one of these splits. They claim this requires other assumptions about mind that have not been verified making MW rejection of the Born assumption nothing more than a replacement of one assumption with other assumptions that cannot be verified. And there goes the Occam's Razor argument that MW claims is in its favor.




> 3) Our "single world" is constantly decohering. Even if a single particle decoheres and becomes fixed in one world that doesn't meant there aren't countless others still in superposition, or* even that that particle can't be in superposition again*. For particles to stop being in superposition and stop decohering would essentially be for them to stop existing at all. They only seem to stop being in superposition and stop decohering when we observe them because we've become entangled with them. That's two quantum systems entangling out of a near infinity of possible quantum systems that can become entangled.


If the particle can go back into superposition (which it seems to do), why can't we experience those other worlds we were in before decohering the first time? My suspicion is that MW doesn't remove uncertainty and so what is the point of it?

This a simple scenario about spin that I don't understand how MW interprets. Suppose we measure the spin of a particle in direction X and get a result, say -1. At this point we don't know what the spin would be in some other direction, call it direction Y, because the uncertainty principle says we can't know both of these at the same time. Those other potential results are still in superposition unlike the X direction which we now know. Then we measure the spin in direction Y and let us say we get the value 1. With that measurement the superposition Y decoheres. What about the spin in the original X direction? Is it still -1? No one knows. It is back in superposition. We have to measure it again. Rather than -1, it could now be 1.

How does having many worlds resolve this situation to make it deterministic?

What does all this have to do with the topic of this thread? 

Philosofer123 seems to assume there is a mutually exclusive dichotomy between determinism and chance. If something is not deterministic then it must have a chance distribution, which must be a uniform distribution if we do not want to involve panpsychism of some sort. From there he gets a regress argument, which I admit works in his preferred metaphysics. My challenge is that his preferred metaphysics does not fit reality and one of the ways to argue that (there are others) is to reference quantum mechanics.

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## MorpheusSandman

> As I understand it, Born interprets the norm of the coefficients of the SWE as probabilities.


Yes, but it comes back to the issue of whether probabilities are something that exist in reality or in the mind, and whether there's a difference between this on the macro or micro level. Going back to the old coin-flip example, if you add up the probabilities of the two sides it also comes out to 1; but is it REALLY 50/50 or is the 50/50 only generated by our inability to mentally calculate the deterministic forces involve that would make the result of any coinflip 100/0 rather than 50/50? The correct answer is the latter in the macro world, since applying General Relativity in the span of the flip and the landing would give you the right answer every time (the problem would be being able to do the calculations before the landing!). So, the question becomes whether Born is to SWE as the coin-flip is to us; is it expressing an ACTUAL probability or just showing that the SWE decoheres across worlds unequally. 

Right now, there's no way to experimentally tell, but it's worth pointing out that Born itself is silent on the Copenhagen/MW issue. It just gives us a means to do calculations based on our experiences, which is compatible with both views. 




> I don't understand how MW interprets these coefficients, but it seems that Born's interpretation works experimentally, so why reject it?


Nobody is rejecting Born; as you say, it's needed experimentally. Right now MW DOESN'T interpret the coefficients as it has no means to. CI only interprets them by assuming a single world and that the Born probabilities are an objective part of that single world. The problem with this are all of the problems this creates between CI and macro physics that have yet to be solved. The question is whether CI's assumption that "gets Born" (the single world collapse) is justifiable. 

I don't know how to explain it any simpler than that: CI "gets Born" by assuming a collapse into a single world; this collapse creates all the problems/paradoxes associated with CI that are currently unsolved. MW "doesn't get Born" by assuming the objectivity of the SWE, which gives no reason why decoherence would happen more often one way than another. So, again, "where does Born come from?" is THE problem for MW. It's one myself (and all other MW proponents) admit exists; but it's no worse than the problems that exist for CI. I'm not sure what about this you don't get... 




> Are you implying that we can't be in two places at one time? I thought the current MW position was saying we were in many places at one time.


This is just a language barrier thing: the "us" in the other worlds are not "us" in this world. Let's say I'm driving a car and am not sure whether to turn left or right. MW says in one world "I" turn right and in another "I" turn left, but the "me" that turns left is not the "me" that turns right, and neither are either the "me" that wasn't sure whether to turn right or left. The point is that the "me" that isn't sure whether to turn left or right can never experiencing having turned both left and right simultaneously. Subjectively, I experience turning left in one world and right in another.




> Bohm and Hiley describes Everett's original version as a many minds rather than a many worlds position. Basically, the worlds didn't physically split, but our minds split and we only remember one of these splits. They claim this requires other assumptions about mind that have not been verified making MW rejection of the Born assumption nothing more than a replacement of one assumption with other assumptions that cannot be verified. And there goes the Occam's Razor argument that MW claims is in its favor.


Few things here: 

1. There's no justification for assuming that the mind operates any differently from the world around it. In fact, this creates other problems since it still has the implications that nothing is happening in the world unless there is a mind to perceive it... so what was happening on the quantum level for all those billions of years before there were any intelligent minds? 

2. MW doesn't reject Born; MW just can't explain where Born comes from. 

3. Don't know what you mean about "there goes the Occam's Razor argument for MW." Occam's Razor will always be on MW's side since MW basic claim is that everything (including us) operates according to QM. This is demonstrably simpler than CI that has to assume a collapse or even the above many minds that assumes that mind is somehow distinct/different from everything else in the universe. 




> If the particle can go back into superposition (which it seems to do), why can't we experience those other worlds we were in before decohering the first time?


In a sense, we can. Going back to my above driving example, let's say you turn left. Even if you can't turn right AND left, you can go back to that same street and turn right the next time and see what it would've been like. So, in a sense, you have experienced both the "worlds" of having turned left and right. That said, because both events happened at different times having been separated by many subsequent decoherences, the experiences may be slightly different than they would've been the first time. 

Here's another visual illustration: http://www.askamathematician.com/201...r-many-worlds/

Go down to "simplified example" right before the red/blue arrow diagrams. You can see how the different worlds intersect. 




> My suspicion is that MW doesn't remove uncertainty and so what is the point of it?


I've explained this about a billion times: it removes uncertainty on the OBJECTIVE level, but SUBJECTIVELY we will always experience uncertainty because we can never be in both worlds simultaneously. At each decoherence point we subjectively find ourselves in one world or the other, and this creates uncertainty TO US. 

I don't know what you mean by "what is the point of it?" The "point of it" is that it seems to be right! The problems with CI are well-documented and seemingly unsolvable. MW removes those problems by saying "everything is QM." If everything is QM, that includes us, and if we are quantum systems than we'd experience uncertainty due to decoherence. Is it really so radical that how things objectively work are so different than how things seem to us subjectively? Subjectively it seems like we're walking on a flat Earth and the sun moves in the sky. Objectively the Earth is round and we're the ones moving. Does us not being able to "experience" a round and moving Earth mean that the Earth isn't round and isn't moving? 




> How does having many worlds resolve this situation to make it deterministic?


It says it's both, and that with our measurement we (along with the particle) decohere, so we get both results if we consider both "us"es measuring the particle in both worlds. This basically Schrodinger's Cat: when we open the door, we decohere along with the cat, and A(us) in A(world) sees A(cat) as dead and B(us) in B(world) sees B(cat) as alive. Perhaps you don't understand that upon measurmeent we decohere along with the particles? Decoherence is about two quantum systems interacting; we are a quantum system ourselves, so we decohere when we "measure" because "measurement" is a type of interaction. Before measurement we can only see the possible interactions and measure it to a certain extent (Heisenberg).

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## dratsab

I downloaded your PDF. I want to revisit this topic after I read it. I've written my own philosophical works, but I can't post them here yet ;/

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