Platt, Magnus, etc. and also Rick,
PLATT:
Instead of our will being at the head of the train our aesthetic sense
is at the front […]
PATRICK: Well, it seems to me that our aesthetic judgement can and does
influence our choices. Everything in experience, DQ and SQ’s, or the
different categories perception and cognition, or information and
meaning, or qualia or whatever you want to discern in our experience,
function as a basis for our free will. It’s a good point some of you
have made that information is distinct from meaning. The point is,
‘dead’ information is NOT the only basis of our choices, it is based as
well on the other distinctions in experience I just mentioned.
I agree with Magnus that quantum mechanics as currently accepted is
totally computable, with random elements added. But theoretical
considerations and empirical findings suggest that the mind cannot
adequately captured by conventional QM, and that the mind indeed might
be noncomputable, and that free will does exist. First the emperical
evidence concerning psi, in particular PK or psychokinesis. Helmut
Schmidt and others have showed again and again that the output of a
Quantum Random Number Generator can be influenced merely by the will of
subjects in any direction, analyzed by means of ordinary statistical
significance. Favorable articles concerning this kind of Psi have
appeared in Behavioral and Brain Sciences, Physical review Letters and
more prestigues journals, indicating that it’s not just New Age cranks
that say that paranormal effects do exist.
Now the theoretical part. Henry Stapp has participated in an experiment
concerning PK which found positive results, and he consequently has
formulated a COMPUTABLE QM with a nonlinear Schroedinger equation to
explain it. However, Stapp believes in (an extension of) the Copenhagen
interpretation, which is essentially a object-subject metaphysics;
You’ve got quantum information and subjects observing and using this
information. That also suggest that free will might exist, at least from
a subjective point of view, which is part of the theory. I haven’t dived
very deep into the Copenhagen interpretation(s), so I leave it at this.
Roger Penrose approaches QM differently. He wrote in my opinion
convincingly about noncomputable aspects of certain branches of
mathematics, which follow from the famous Goedel Argument. Because
humans CAN in principal solve these noncomputable problems, Penrose
argues that the mind is noncomputable, and that we need a new Physics
combining Relativity and QM to describe it. Thus, one could say that
information, with which you can compute as much as you like, is not
enough to describe or capture the mind or experience.
Okay, I wanted to comment on more interesting ideas of you people, but
this mail is already getting quite lengthy. Just a last note on Rick’s
comment concerning mathematics:
RICK: (new answer):
Pythagoras's theorem is a 'definition' and therefore it's not quite
right to describe it as being "true" or not. For sure, A(sq) + B(sq) =
C(sq) seems to 'apply' to every right triangle no matter what end of the
universe you are in. But that's deceptive from the perspective of
'truth'.
For in reality a 'right triangle' and 'A(sq) +B(sq) = C(sq)' are merely
two
different terms for the exact same thing. Saying that, "Pythagoras's
theorem will always be true - no matter what end of the universe you
exist
in" is really saying nothing more than "A=A no matter what end of the
universe you exist in."
PATRICK: A friend of mine has argued that mathematics is one big
tautology. You seem to be saying the same. It’s a very relevant point, I
think. But a tautology normally exists of two assumptions explaining one
another. In mathematics there are whole ‘buildings’ of assumptions and
theorems that all relate in some exact way to each other. You can
calcute Pi with different algorithms to the infinite, but the
assumptions of both algorithms lead to different theorems. Ah… I can’t
in just a few words explain to you what is floating intuitively in my
teacup. In my opinion the tautological notion of mathematics has to do
with Goedel’s Argument, but it’s just an intuition. Maybe someday I’ll
try to formulate this intuition in an essay for the MoQ site, if anyone
is interested (and if I decide to stick around here, which right now I
do plan to!) Just one thing still I’d like to mention is, if mathematics
is just saying A=A, why then does it take so long to develop new
mathematics? And another point, why does mathematics work so well in
describing reality?
I leave it at this, and lay off for a while. One general comment
concerning MF; I’m surely interested in this forum. I personally would
like to see it revived…
Patrick.
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