I can’t think of how to answer you without a pretty huge post. It would have three parts.
Why I think the laws of physics are not the only thing at work.
Consciousness and my ideas of panosychism.
How Consciousness is causal.
I’ve said it all before, scattered around various threads. I’m thinking maybe start my own thread, which I haven’t done since the site changed to this new system. That would make it easier for you to read at your leasure. Or easier to not bother with the whole thing. Also easier for me to find any part of it when I want.
OK, I look forward to that.
In the meantime I would again suggest that the reason you can’t think of a free will version of the rolling rock, or how angels in magicland choose between coffee and tea is because…determinism was never the problem.
Baseless intentionality is the problem. It’s fundamentally self-inconsistent.
This is where you seem to have got all wrong. Reality doesn’t have phases, and it certainly doesn’t need the phase transition. Please clarify why reality needs the phases, and phase transition.
The point is this: you brought up the rolling rock analogy as an illustration of why we are not free in a deterministic universe. You’ve also taken the position that we are free if there’s randomness…
So what is now necessary to do, is give the equivalent analogy for the rolling rock but now with free will (through randomness). To refuse to do so, shows either that the rock analogy is exceptionally misleading, or that you cannot think of how randomness makes us free, or (and I think this is the right answer): both.
I’m not refusing to give such an analogy. There isn’t one to give. At least I don’t believe there is.
If our decision making is entirely deterministic, then it’s exactly the same situation as the avalanche.
If our decisions making is not entirely deterministic, then the analogy is not accurate. I do not think our decision making is entirely deterministic, so I do not think the analogy is accurate.
I don’t have any idea how that could be misleading. You may not agree with my belief that our decision making is not entirely deterministic, but that’s not the same thing as thinking I am misleading with the analogy.
Which illustrates my point perfectly.
It’s a bad analogy for decision-making, period. If it were a good analogy, you’d be able to say “well in the version with randomness the equivalent would be…”
Ok. In the version with randomness, the equivalent would be the boulder moving in a way at some point that is not the result of the dirt/rocks/plants it comes into contact with.
It would be the dirt/rocks/plants it came into contact with, if we were being consistent. Because randomness would be part of physics and/or neurology, which are represented by the hill in the deterministic example.
The idea is that randomness in our decision making is not part of physics and/or neurology. It is part of consciousness, which has elements that are not part of physics and/or neurology. That’s the whole point of panpsychism. (I think it’s also the point of what @Geoff_Dann is saying.)
For about the fifth time: randomness does not entail being outside of physics. If you want to just posit “magic”, then say so.
Still no description of how this links to my conscious decision-making / reasoning. How does randomness make my choice between coffee and tea more free?
Put it this way: let’s say I choose between coffee and tea and then a demon randomly swaps the cups. I could see how that makes my choice pointless, but I fail to see how it makes it more free.
Yes it does. If there is no cause for something within physics, then it is outside of physics. That doesn’t imply magic. It implies that our reality has more to it than physics.
If it is random, then it is free from physics. I know you disagree. That’s ok.
As a meta comment, I think this illustrates well the issue with the “determinism vs free will” framing, and how it really poisons the well of this topic.
Because @Patterner , you’ve clearly become convinced that all we need to do is find something not deterministic and therefore we’re free. So there’s this need to posit something “outside of physics” (but don’t call it magic; that would be silly).
And absolutely no thought of how this makes our actual decisions more free, or indeed what we meant by free in the first place.
If you could try to treat me with the respect I treat you, that would be great. You’re getting less so as the conversation goes on. It’s not necessary. Also, I suspect nobody has ever convinced anyone that their position was wrong with things like sarcasm and ridicule.
Can you describe the process using the laws of physics that explains why something with a half-life of, say, a hundred years has some particles deteriorate today, and some particles that have not deteriorated a million years later?
If there is a point in my decision making process that is free from determinism, how can you say I am not free from determinism in any way?
What part of my post was attacking the man and not the ball?
But yes I agree let’s keep things civil and topic-focused.
If you mean can we say why N particles have decayed, the answer is yes. If you mean can we say why this specific nucleus has not decayed, the answer is no. But importantly, I don’t think physicists would see the decay of particle #766432 as being decided by something local that we can’t see – that would be a hidden variable, which is explicitly ruled out. They generally take the position that randomness is part of physics.
Not sure if you got my meaning there. I’m saying that I think the “Determinism vs free will” framing is inherently flawed. I don’t see how it even makes a difference whether the universe is deterministic.
Like the example I gave upthread: let’s say I’m in a deterministic universe, and I choose tea over coffee. Then a randomization demon randomly swaps the two cups. Is my decision now free? I don’t think many people would say “yes”. So randomness doesn’t inherently give us freedom, which is why I have been asking how it gives us freedom under your model?
Indeed. Randomness exists. Let’s say it’s part of physics, because we’re studying what is before and what is after the moment of decay. But physics cannot explain the moment of decay, or why one particle decays now, and the one next to it has not yet decayed a million years later.
It’s true that I don’t get your meaning. Because I feel otherwise.
I don’t understand your example at all. What does anyone or anything switching the cups, regardless of whether their actions were random or determined, have to do with the decision you already made, regardless of whether your decision was random or determined?
Sure. Nothing about physics entails being able to make perfect predictions.
Disagreeing is not the same as not understanding.
I’ll say right now: I have not had any issue understanding your position.
The point is that in the example:
Randomness exists
“Free will” doesn’t exist
(though again I don’t like this term but I think we both agree there’s nothing “free” about a demon switching the cups).
You’re absolutely right to ask what the randomness has to do with your choice, and that’s exactly what I’m asking you.
I pick tea because I like it almost as much as coffee and I think if I drink coffee now I won’t be able to sleep. Now, how does randomness play into that in a way that makes my choice more free (and not like the demon)?
Cosmology is broken, so is quantum foundations (the measurement problem) and so is neuroscience/cognitive science (the hard problem).
The only way to fix all three problems is to split quantum reality and classical-relativistic reality into two different realms, like the maths has been telling us to do for 100 years now.
This model fixes about 30 different problems in science and philosophy, with one structure/mechanism. Whitehead was basically right. So was von Neumann, and so was Wheeler.
My model of reality actually works. Yours doesn’t.
Also easier for me to find any part of it when I want.