Free will, freedom from what?

[phyllo]

The universe is nothing but particles. All those particles follow laws of motion. They aren’t free. The brain is made up entirely of those same particles. Therefore, there is nothing in the brain that would give us freedom. These particles also don’t understand anything, they don’t make sense of anything, they don’t grasp the meaning of anything. Since the brain, again, is made up of those particles, it has no power to allow us to grasp meaning or understand anything. But we do understand. We do grasp meaning. Therefore, we are talking about qualities we possess which are not made out of energy. These qualities are entirely non-material. -A. Einsten, in the afterlife

Just to be clear...

This is a fake quote that neither Albert Einstein nor A. Einsten ever said.

It's from a fictional dialog that someone wrote and that HQ keeps posting.

It's nothing but a lie.

[promethean75]

Btw i still have like eight grams of psilocybin from two years ago that I've vacuum sealed and kept for a special occasion. But i never have special occasions and frankly I'm afraid to eat em. What with all the crazy shit i have in my head now, who the fuck knows what i might do. Jump out of a goddamn tree or sumthin.

Saully, u want em? Lemme know and I'll send em to ya.

[promethean75]

"This is a fake quote that neither Albert Einstein"

Lol I knew sumthin was wrong with that becuz Albert was a Spinozean. That fuckin Henry will stop at nothing, I'm afraid.

[phyllo]

I don't know what that means, but whatever it means, it's still the case that relativity doesn't rule out determinism

FJ is right: all it does is change the "mechanism" that is supposed to produce the predetermined outcome. It doesn't make the outcome less predetermined. Instead of it being by predictable natural forces, it merely becomes by unpredictable forces or randomness. But it doesn't open up an explanation for human volition or freedom.

You might be confusing relativity with quantum mechanics. Relativity has nothing to do with randomness.

A random event cannot be predetermined. It's a nonsensical idea.

If it could be predetermined, even in theory, then it wouldn't be random.

[Immanuel Can]

A random event cannot be predetermined. It's a nonsensical idea.

"Random" is just a word that means, "We don't know why it happens." It doesn't at all mean "There's no cause."

When the roulette wheel stops on "6," we call it "random." But there was still a reason why it stopped on "6" and not "8" or "23." We are simply admitting that we are unable to tabulate the forces involved in why it ended up where it did.

Similarly, in a "random" universe, we are saying we can't tabulate all the forces involved -- not that there were no forces. And if it's strictly natural forces that are involved, then the universe is Deterministic, even when people can't "determine" with their minds which forces were in play.

So free will cannot exist in a "random" universe, either. We wouldn't be free, then...just ignorant of the forces predetermining our actions.

[phyllo]

That's not what 'random' means in science.

[Immanuel Can]

That's not what 'random' means in science.

Let's see if you're right. What's your definition, the one you think "science" means when it says "random"?

[Flannel Jesus]

You might be confusing relativity with quantum mechanics. Relativity has nothing to do with randomness.

A random event cannot be predetermined. It's a nonsensical idea.

If it could be predetermined, even in theory, then it wouldn't be random.

I don't know why you've written this to me. Do you think I've contradicted it? If so, what specifically did I say that contradicted it?

[phyllo]

You seemed to be giving IC a free pass.

Sure, relativity has nothing to do with randomness, but he said other 'problematic' statements about randomness.

[Flannel Jesus]

You seemed to be giving IC a free pass.

Sure, relativity has nothing to do with randomness, but he said other 'problematic' statements about randomness.

Yes he has a very unique way of talking about randomness. I'm not giving him a pass, I'm not talking to him at all about it.

[phyllo]

Meet true randomness

Quantum mechanics is a theory that deals with the description of nature at the most fundamental level. This is the level where we deal with the building blocks of matter and energy, atoms, molecules, electrons, photons, etc. At this level, nature behaves very differently from how it appears in our everyday life, as we will shortly see.
A quantum coin

Think again of the toss of a coin. But this time, it is a quantum coin, for example, the spin of an electron. Electrons are part of the building blocks of matter. These are the genie we have released from the magic teapot with the difference that we can make more than three wishes. Everything around you that moves makes noises and is not a baby is running on electrons. The electrons have a property called spin. The measurement of the spin of electrons is quite easy. All you have to do is to pass the electron near a wedge-shaped magnet. The magnetic field of such magnet exerts a force on the electron, and the electron is deflected in one or the other direction depending on its spin.

When the experiment to measure the spin of an electron is performed, we find that it has only two possible values. We label them as the head (spin-up) and tail (spin down), and we have got ourselves a quantum coin.

If you now toss the quantum coin, you will again get a random output, either head or tail. But the difference from the classical (the one we discussed earlier) is that the indeterminacy is not due to any lack of information. We know everything there is to know about the electron, and still, there is no way to predict if the spin measurement will result in spin up (head) or spin down (tail).

Every event in the quantum world is a roll of dice.

This is in contrast to the classical coin, where randomness was due to a lack of information. This is the first mystery of nature at the quantum level. Nature does not allow us to know when and which fundamental interaction between the building blocks of matter and energy will take place. Every event happening at this level is a roll of dice.

In fact, this aspect of quantum mechanics has been part of a lively debate since the beginning of the theory. Many people, including Albert Einstein, were not happy with the indeterministic description of events at the quantum level. You must have heard his famous quote, “God does not play dice”. He believed that the theory was incomplete and likely missing some hidden variables that would restore the classical world, like determinism in the quantum world, when added to the description.

However, countless experiments in the last 100 years have ruled out the possibility of these hidden variable theories. And our best understanding of nature at the quantum level is the one provided by quantum mechanics, which in principle does not allow us to predict the outcome of the toss of a quantum coin.

https://hackernoon.com/natural-selectio ... ernoon.com

[Atla]

Was that really written by a physicist? Even laymen know that "only" local hidden variables can be ruled out. But nonlocality is inherent in QM, so who knows.

[phyllo]

The point is that IC's concept of randomness is based on "lack of information".

True randomness isn't based on lack of information. And if it exists, then "predetermination" isn't possible.

[henry quirk]

a fictional dialog

Obviously. I doubt anyone, in-forum, thought it was real. The tip off: A. Einstein, in the afterlife

It's nothing but a lie.

No. It's an excerpt from a fiction meant to illustrate a fact, that being: mindless particles, no matter the quantity or configuration, cannot create mind.

In context, then, the only lies are...

-mind is solely the product of brain action

-compatibilism

[phyllo]

Obviously. I doubt anyone, in-forum, thought it was real. The tip off: A. Einstein, in the afterlife

I would wager that many people would read it and believe it. Such is the nature of the human animal.

And you have often posted it without the "in the afterlife " tag.