tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post1476382290269732180..comments2024-03-28T20:04:20.286-07:00Comments on One Cʘsmos: Big Other is Watching!Gagdad Bobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14249005793605006679noreply@blogger.comBlogger116125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-4965518030352650312010-12-31T19:32:13.259-08:002010-12-31T19:32:13.259-08:00If there is no free will, then self-evidently, the...If there is no free will, then self-evidently, there can be no meaning. Unless being a rock is meaningful.Gagdad Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14249005793605006679noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-8361740093032025522010-12-31T00:30:11.521-08:002010-12-31T00:30:11.521-08:00On the human plane there can be neither pure freed...On the human plane there can be neither pure freedom nor pure determinacy -- or, by extension, pure providence nor unalloyed fate -- but always a mingling of the two in various proportions. As Bolton explains, this is why the issue can appear confusing to people, since it's not as if freedom is an either/or proposition. <br /><br />Rather, each individual has a varying mixture of freedom and determinacy, chance and necessity, horizontal parasites and vertical symbionts, flack and slack."<br /><br />Great post, Bob. <br />I cooncur with Van that the entire post is rich and newtricious. :^)<br /><br />Narg- the nihilism inherent in your self-destructive "philosophy" must be depressing. <br />Then again, it might be comforting to you since you have no other choice but to embrace it.USS Ben USN (Ret)https://www.blogger.com/profile/07492369604790651538noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-46727023899403963292010-12-30T20:47:09.378-08:002010-12-30T20:47:09.378-08:00Hey, don't blame me. I suggest that you edit ...Hey, don't blame me. I suggest that you edit the wiki page with your little survey, and set them right.Gagdad Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14249005793605006679noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-48306822864580398752010-12-30T20:33:45.448-08:002010-12-30T20:33:45.448-08:00Uh, you were the one who introduced "populari...Uh, you were the one who introduced "popularity" into this, via your quote from wiki: <i>The Copenhagen interpretation, due largely to the Danish theoretical physicist Niels Bohr, is the interpretation of the quantum mechanical formalism <b>most widely accepted</b> amongst physicists</i><br /><br />Quantum physics is hard, but keeping track of your own argument ought to be within your capabilities.anonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18207020184445548247noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-4249582059677150602010-12-30T19:36:50.251-08:002010-12-30T19:36:50.251-08:00Truth is overruled by popularity.Truth is overruled by popularity.juliehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15975754287030568726noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-27905499746173929602010-12-30T19:27:45.907-08:002010-12-30T19:27:45.907-08:00"A highly unscientific poll taken at the 1997..."A highly unscientific poll taken at the 1997 UMBC quantum mechanics workshop gave the once all-dominant Copenhagen interpretation less than half of the votes."<br /><br />Good to know that unscience trumps science.Gagdad Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14249005793605006679noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-88225234985697368592010-12-30T19:21:48.396-08:002010-12-30T19:21:48.396-08:00"Quantum mechanics is weird but it is still p..."Quantum mechanics is weird but it is still physics"<br /><br />What a peculiar thing to say. It's the other way around.Gagdad Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14249005793605006679noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-1751646885925302902010-12-30T18:53:58.496-08:002010-12-30T18:53:58.496-08:00I totally agree. Free will did not, and could not...I totally agree. Free will did not, and could not have, emerged through any purely physical process.Gagdad Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14249005793605006679noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-81541631210172916442010-12-30T18:40:32.214-08:002010-12-30T18:40:32.214-08:00Physicists are moving away from the copenhagen int...Physicists are <a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9709032v1" rel="nofollow">moving away from the copenhagen interpretation</a>, pretty much for the exact same reasons that it appeals to flakes like yourself. <br /><br />Anyway, you miss the point. There is nothing in physics, quantum or otherwise, that supports the idea of free will, because how could it? Free will by definition is action independent of physical causation -- it means that humans have the unique ability (shared with God I suppose) to act acausally. Quantum mechanics is weird but it is still physics, not some magic escape from physics.anonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18207020184445548247noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-80304746360516143602010-12-30T17:48:00.948-08:002010-12-30T17:48:00.948-08:00BTW, while both anon and Nagarjuna are to be compl...BTW, while both anon and Nagarjuna are to be complimented for being unafraid to publicly beclown themselves, the prize clearly goes to Nagarjuna for not hiding behind a veil of anonymity.Gagdad Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14249005793605006679noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-17876053471806353152010-12-30T17:33:00.857-08:002010-12-30T17:33:00.857-08:00And although I have never even hinted at the notio...And although I have never even hinted at the notion that reality is created by observation, I do very much believe that the principles of nonlocality and complementarity are of great ontological and epistemological significance.Gagdad Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14249005793605006679noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-88318383884390840142010-12-30T17:27:05.029-08:002010-12-30T17:27:05.029-08:00Our point -- which you overlooked in your eagernes...Our point -- which you overlooked in your eagerness to score a point -- is that since classical causation has been abandoned in deep physics, there is certainly no reason to assume it would apply to mental or spiritual phenomena.Gagdad Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14249005793605006679noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-11224475067530446522010-12-30T17:25:10.193-08:002010-12-30T17:25:10.193-08:00Wikipedia's simplified explanation is perfectl...Wikipedia's simplified explanation is perfectly satisfactory for our purposes:<br /><br />"The Copenhagen interpretation, due largely to the Danish theoretical physicist Niels Bohr, is the interpretation of the quantum mechanical formalism most widely accepted amongst physicists. According to it, the probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics is not a temporary feature which will eventually be replaced by a deterministic theory, but instead must be considered to be a final renunciation of the classical ideal of causality. In this interpretation, it is believed that any well-defined application of the quantum mechanical formalism must always make reference to the experimental arrangement, due to the complementarity nature of evidence obtained under different experimental situations.<br /><br />"Albert Einstein, himself one of the founders of quantum theory, disliked this loss of determinism in measurement. (This dislike is the source of his famous quote, "God does not play dice with the universe.") Einstein held that there should be a local hidden variable theory underlying quantum mechanics and that, consequently, the present theory was incomplete. He produced a series of objections to the theory, the most famous of which has become known as the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox. John Bell showed that the EPR paradox led to experimentally testable differences between quantum mechanics and local realistic theories. Experiments have been performed confirming the accuracy of quantum mechanics, thus demonstrating that the physical world cannot be described by local realistic theories.[38] The Bohr-Einstein debates provide a vibrant critique of the Copenhagen Interpretation from an epistemological point of view."Gagdad Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14249005793605006679noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-60989321567944871832010-12-30T17:21:26.308-08:002010-12-30T17:21:26.308-08:00It doesn't. That's the point. But in any...It doesn't. That's the point. But in any event, Einstein has been proved wrong about quantum physics being reconcilable with his "realism."Gagdad Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14249005793605006679noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-6998586725223226242010-12-30T17:12:38.142-08:002010-12-30T17:12:38.142-08:00Your knowledge of physics is about as solid as you...Your knowledge of physics is about as solid as your grasp of philosophy. Einstein was one of the main developers of quantum physics, and his beef with later developments in its interpretation was not over causality and determinism, but realism. Einstein was a believer in physical reality and was not comfortable with the new-agey view that we create reality by observing it. If you want to be on the other side of that divide, be my guest, but be aware <a href="http://www.truthseekerjournal.com/1995archive/122_3/20realityquantum.html" rel="nofollow">whose company you will find yourself in</a>. <br /><br />Even if you can't wrap your head around quantum theory (and really, few can), it doesn't take very complex thinking to realize that quantum randomness, while it might mean the universe is not strictly deterministic, does not imply free will. How does the fact that subatomic particles will unpredictably jump in one direction or another equate to giving humans the ability to violate causality?anonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18207020184445548247noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-72712784060955849842010-12-30T13:27:00.136-08:002010-12-30T13:27:00.136-08:00"nags (aka integralist, aka aka) & I firs..."nags (aka integralist, aka aka) & I first started in on this question about 5 years ago and there are reams worth of respectful questioning back and forth, in the archives here, and on several on my site, which attest to that."<br /><br />As best I can recall, it's always been just nagarjuna.<br /><br />I would gladly go back and read and ponder those archived exchanges if I could readily find them, but, alas, I cannot.Stevehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02549770321948541384noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-58852918419864498352010-12-30T13:13:44.012-08:002010-12-30T13:13:44.012-08:00"I might add that not a soul here wishes to t..."I might add that not a soul here wishes to talk anonarjuna out of their denial of free-will."<br /><br />I don't "deny" it so much as question whether and how we have it.Stevehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02549770321948541384noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-42822510244638196832010-12-30T13:12:03.203-08:002010-12-30T13:12:03.203-08:00anunce mouthed "Of course the contradiction b...anunce mouthed "Of course the contradiction between those two viewpoints is what makes it a philosophically interesting question."<br /><br />What makes a philosophical question interesting... or of any point or worth at all... is that it suggests that there is some reply which must be made to it, or at least sought after. I suggest that refusing to attempt to answer the question, refusing to consider the evidence, or denying that it exists, is not only not an interesting thing to do, but it is an insult to all those who have engaged with the question.<br /><br />nags (aka integralist, aka aka) & I first started in on this question about 5 years ago and there are reams worth of respectful questioning back and forth, in the archives here, and on several on my site, which attest to that.<br /><br />However when it becomes apparent that someone isn't really considering the available information, isn't really interested in attempting to answer the question, but instead only wishes to engage in perpetual philosophical masturbation, they lose some measure of their due respect.<br /><br />An honest, intelligent person acknowledges that when someone has diligently considered all of the available evidence, engaged you in reasoning over the matter but arrived at a different conclusion than you, it is time to acknowledge their right to disagree, and leave them be on the matter. <br /><br />An honest, intelligent person does not continually bring up the same question you've agreed to disagree over, over and over, plant themselves in your face, and demand that you cheerfully regurgitate the same damn evidence, reasoning and conclusions you've continually given to them over and over over five years and - without providing any new thoughts or evidence of their own - demand that you politely amuse them by rehashing it all again AND that you acknowledge their obtuseness and rudeness with good cheer.<br /><br />Anyone who tries to paint those who have given the question at hand not only careful consideration, but honestly believes that they've arrived at a correct and satisfying conclusion, as being " in denial" or as fixating "on one side of the question and try to paint anyone who differs as evil or broken" is, I submit to you, a shallow, calculating, dishonest and pernicious little twerp, aka: a trol, aka: a anonymouse, aka a dunce... or anunce for short.Van Harveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08470413719262297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-83239378063755781072010-12-30T13:09:58.118-08:002010-12-30T13:09:58.118-08:00I might add that not a soul here wishes to talk an...I might add that not a soul here wishes to talk anonarjuna out of their denial of free-will. In a free country, it is their right to choose servility.<br /><br />Our only objection is when such eccentrics translate their values to political action, and deny other people their freedom just because they don't believe in it.Gagdad Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14249005793605006679noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-60383319320410763102010-12-30T13:09:28.393-08:002010-12-30T13:09:28.393-08:00Good question, Einstein!Good question, Einstein!Gagdad Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14249005793605006679noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-45341738005364509482010-12-30T13:06:39.712-08:002010-12-30T13:06:39.712-08:00"because it describes a world that is caused ..."because it describes a world that is caused but not determined."<br /><br />Once again, what's the difference between "caused" and "determined"?Stevehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02549770321948541384noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-29171307946125853662010-12-30T12:58:09.355-08:002010-12-30T12:58:09.355-08:00This unedifying conversation reminds us of how Ein...This unedifying conversation reminds us of how Einstein could not accept the quantum theory, because it describes a world that is caused but not determined. Mechanistic dreams die hard.Gagdad Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14249005793605006679noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-1899264003499090612010-12-30T12:50:34.312-08:002010-12-30T12:50:34.312-08:00I think you're right, Anon. I think there are ...I think you're right, Anon. I think there are too many people on both sides and in the middle of this issue to cavalierly dismiss any of them, I suspect that there's important truth to be found in all of their positions, and I guess you could say that I'm looking to reconcile all of them in my own inadequate way.Stevehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02549770321948541384noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-80764042641135724862010-12-30T12:39:16.750-08:002010-12-30T12:39:16.750-08:00"all theory is against the freedom of the wil..."all theory is against the freedom of the will; all experience is for it." -- Samuel Johnson<br /><br />Of course the contradiction between those two viewpoints is what makes it a philosophically interesting question. An honest, intelligent person acknowledges both sides; ideologues or people in denial will fixate on one side of the question and try to paint anyone who differs as evil or broken.anonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18207020184445548247noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-52344166052607138292010-12-30T12:02:14.960-08:002010-12-30T12:02:14.960-08:00B.F. Skinner: nice theory, wrong species.B.F. Skinner: nice theory, wrong species.Gagdad Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14249005793605006679noreply@blogger.com