Free Will? Quantum Mechanics Clarified (Part 2)

[breaneainn]

The non-locality really is the crux of the issue here. Symmetries most often seem to be described as vectors in a..phase space?..and when something appears to violate or break that symmetry, like the string theory guys we introduce more elements to patch it up. Surely the truth is about describing complex things with simpler rules. Could indeterminacy turn out to be valid, but as an artifact of observation or investigation? headache now.

[zadeh79]

Quantum mechanics is amazing. Everyone deserves to understand and appreciate it's strangeness.

[robtherub]

your first sentence is quite shocking, are you saying the world itself DOES NOT in any way determine the way its going to be? so it all moves about via some leibnizian pre-established harmony? i'm fairly sure quantum mechanics says more or less the exact opposite of what you are saying there

[23discordians]

Thats not the only way to look at the copenhagen interpretation.

[ourben]

Non-locality has never been proven.

[elimisteve]

Non-locality is basically the only thing we can be certain of. Google for the experiments performed by Aspect that violate Bell's Inequality, thereby demonstrating non-locality.

[acr08807]

@elimisteve Bell's theorem can be satisfied by a local formulation of QM that does not require hidden variables (e.g., Heisenberg's Copenhagen) or in which the choice of the measurement to be made at each of the detectors is not independent (e.g., multiple worlds and any deterministic QM).

Anyway, do the different interpretations make different predictions that can be tested? If not, what's the harm of someone accepting an incorrect interpretation or rejecting a correct one?

[cnewq5]

can you say more on why a non-deterministic universe does not necessarily mean we have free will? for me, one problem is that whatever physics tells us about fundamental laws, we can't yet say what a mind is physically, much less how choice relates to physical processes.

[elimisteve]

If the universe is non-deterministic, it could just be the case that there are random events (which is how many people interpret QM), which has nothing to do with a human mind making a free choice. Just because it may be impossible to predict the long-term state of a physical system, that doesn't entail that we have free will, even if that system is a human brain. If they're random then we don't have any say over them either, and that appears to be what is going on, but we can't be sure.

[zadeh79]

I suppose it depends what we mean by 'free will'. I think 'Free" as in, not predictable by the enviornment or our brain neuro-chemistry, is a good enough interpretation of 'free will' (And as in, uniquely 'me'). But it's more like 'indeterminate will', which I find equally important. Although I'm sure, that such a concept wouldn't have an effect on the way everyone understands the world,  for a long time.

[majhee55]

dude fix the sound

[trombone7]

How do you feel about String Theory ?

[elimisteve]

I'm not a fan of String Theory. I'm interested in the critics that say it's not even science because there's no test predictions. Another interesting criticism I've heard: supposedly it's so powerful that no matter what test results we measure, you'll be able to come up with a mathematical formalism within string theory that can account for the results, which means string theory isn't falsifiable!

[trombone7]

Right on. Lee Smolin's "The Trouble with Physics" and Peter Woit's "Not Even Wrong", spell out the problems with String Theory. And I agree. Every time a criticism is found, they add a new module to String Theory to try to fix it. String Theory is WAY to suppose-y. (suppositional?) "We have extra dimensions, they are curled up like a telephone cable."

[elimisteve]

Yes, it's pretty presumptuous :-). But at the bleeding edge of research, they don't feel too bad about making leaps in logic because that's how many theories start out, and the gaps are filled over time.

[trombone7]

Hey, funny you should start on that book. In the meantime since I mentioned it, I found a Lee Smolin TED talk. Do you watch TED talks ? Google it and "Lee Smolin" It's something about science and democracy. Seems like a cool guy, working in a cool project.

[trombone7]

Thanks for the video. And to the guy who asks "...and who are you again ??" is afraid of his own original thoughts being shot down by authorities. Don't we all question our own authority ? My answer : You (Steve) are a guy who's read a lot about quantum mechanics and noticed that under the pop-sci genre, some authors create a platform by choosing a QM interpretation and runnning with it. And calling any dissent, "uninformed" etc. Thanks again for the post.

[gunboundjaps]

..and who are you again??

[vetteluvnh]

Thanks for the great infor on qm. I appreciate the over simplified explanation so even a laymen like me could understand it.

[randomagain101]

this commenting system is quantum :P