Are free will and determinism compatible?

[Tez]

Well the short answer is there is nothing in principle preventing a hidden variable description of QM - Bell provided some simple examples for spin systems, Bohm provided another. Moreover, if all you care about is local predictions (such as your radioactive nucleus decay) then all you have to worry about is the local "hidden variable" physics. This covers almost all the use of QM in practice. (i.e no need to look at the "rest of the universe" etc)

What Bell showed, however, is that if you compare measurements on separated systems, and look for correlations in the data then (for specially prepared systems) you must invoke some sort of nonlocal (i.e. "action at a distance type) effect in order to explain the observed correlations. This is not an objection to all hidden variables, just to the local kind. These nonlocal effects do not allow superluminal signalling (otherwise they'd be incompatible with my assertion above about local predictions etc)

 

[Art Vandelay]

no, of course thats not what it means.

Google "Bell's theorem" or "Bell inequalities", do some reading, and then I'll be happy to answer questions...

Ah, argumentum ad Google. Why can't you present what you think is a valid argument? The first page that I got on Google was this: http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Quantum/bells_inequality.html

It makes several arguments that I consider to be invalid, such as

"Yet, one could imagine the two measurements were so far apart in space that special relativity would prohibit any influence of one measurement over the other."

"they are separated by light years of space and far too little time has passed for information to have travelled to it according to the rules of special relativity"

If the universeis deterministic, then it's possible for both of them to be determined by some other cause which does have time to travel between them.

 

[hammegk]

Sounds like an acknowledgement of self-determination, through the medium of internal control... free will.

My thought exactly based on M's comment. A hard behavorist has gone through the camel's eye to achieve ... free will. ROTFL.

 

[69dodge]

If the world is determinstic, then what meaning does "independently" have? Everything either happens or it doesn't.

If the world is determistic, then what Mercution tells me depends on prior events, and so what Mercution tells me can't be the ultimate cause of anything that I do.

But if he has no free will, the he isn't really choosing to do this.

The problem with your analogy is that we're not discussing whether a particular person has free will, we're discussing whether free will in general exists. If no one has free will, then no one has a choice whether to program computers.

I'm not quite sure what to make of this post. I guess I don't actually disagree with any of it, but ... so what? Is it supposed to convince me that people do have free will? I don't see why it should do that.

 

[69dodge]

Hmmm... why is "live as though you have free will" supposed to be comforting? (not being confrontative; I am genuinely curious. My own free will implies that others have it too; does that mean I should live as if I have no influence on them?) Why not live with the recognition that we are not free, but interdependent? Live as if the things you do really do matter to other people...

Yes, I agree. And yet ... there does still seem to be a problem.

It's easy enough to live as though other people don't have free will, but what could it mean for me to live as though I myself have no free will? What would I be thinking to myself as I try to make any sort of decision? The whole idea of making a decision would appear to be nonsensical. I'd be forever second-guessing myself, and never reach any decision at all, if I always kept in mind the fact that actually I have no free will. In order for me to get on with the business of choosing a course of action, I have to pretend, at least for the moment, that I can choose. Or, perhaps better, that I can choose.

This doesn't mean that I really do have free will, of course. But it's still kind of annoying.

 

[Tez]

Ah, argumentum ad Google. Why can't you present what you think is a valid argument? The first page that I got on Google was this: http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Quantum/bells_inequality.html

It makes several arguments that I consider to be invalid, such as

"Yet, one could imagine the two measurements were so far apart in space that special relativity would prohibit any influence of one measurement over the other."

"they are separated by light years of space and far too little time has passed for information to have travelled to it according to the rules of special relativity"

If the universeis deterministic, then it's possible for both of them to be determined by some other cause which does have time to travel between them.

Sorry, I'm lost as to your point/question.

I was responding to a claim that there cant be a deterministic theory underling QM, by saying that in fact there can be - though it needs to be nonlocal. Bell's theorem clarifies in what way it needs to be nonlocal. So what I was saying is only indirectly related to the thread topic, and was directly related to correcting a (common) misunderstanding of a previous poster.

But it is a very interesting (though not really to do with my original point) that what physicists often call "Super-determinism" can be used to remove the need for nonlocality in a hidden variable theory, by forcing a sort of conspiracy of systems since the big bang to eventually perform experiments which make them *think* the world is nonlocal. It always turns out to seem highly contrived when you try and do it quantitatively, but its not impossible.

 

[hammegk]

But it is a very interesting (though not really to do with my original point) that what physicists often call "Super-determinism" can be used to remove the need for nonlocality in a hidden variable theory, by forcing a sort of conspiracy of systems since the big bang to eventually perform experiments which make them *think* the world is nonlocal.

Is it not equally plausible to conclude that at least in the domains under discussion by Bell-Aspect-etc that reality is neither deterministic nor local?

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Hi everybody.

It was me who voted for libertarian non-compatibilism.

Geoff