9 ms·

Here's a dumbed down version: https://outline.com/7Ckkqa https://outline.com/7Ckkqa Also not directly related video if you like your mind being blown: https://

• Svoka 8y ago
  For me "freedom of choice" argument always seemed completely philosophical with no practical implications. But still, philosophical arguments are fun.
  • crooked-v 8y ago
    I'm personally a fan of the theological-style "everything is perfectly predestinated, and also you have full free will, and both are true at the same time" arguments.
    • lenticular 8y ago
      I've never quite understood those kind of arguments. It seems that if that were true, then either the logic that the physical or metaphysical world runs on would be inconsistent. I suppose that isn't necessarily a deal-breaker, though.
      • jMyles 8y ago
        > It seems that if that were true, then either the logic that the physical or metaphysical world runs on would be inconsistent. This statement itself depends on the logic which are you supposing might be deprecated.
      • Retra 8y ago
        If everything was predetermined, you'd simply be predetermined to feel justified in the belief that free will exists. So we would all agree to it, even if it were false. Personally, I don't see any reason it isn't a figment of the mind. Nobody is debating whether love exists. Our ability to model counterfactuals in our mind doesn't have any broader philosophical implications, so I don't see why free will would, when that may as well be all that it is.
        • state_less 8y ago
          As we gather more information, the free will argument seems to be looking less viable, but it'll be interesting to see how things pan out as ANNs start to guess our next moves. It might be something like picking the next word using a string of past words. Perhaps such a system could predict our actions and intervene when some poor outcome is predicted and direct us toward more positive outcomes?
        • neom 8y ago
          I like to explore the idea that there is premeditation in asking a question, but the experiments you run to get there may contain free will.
    • polynomial 8y ago
      How does that work exactly?
    • ridgeguy 8y ago
      You're in good company: "There's a divinity that shapes our ends/ Rough hew them how we will." Hamlet, to Horatio, in Hamlet Act 5 Scene 2.
    • msviss 8y ago
      The argument isn’t that “everything is predestined” but there is still free will. That’s illogical by definition (and theologians are not intellectual weaklings). Rather the question is wheather, despite God’s omniscience, we still have free will. The question therefore is: is God’s omniscience equivalent to predestination? Some think yes (no free will. some Protestants and Muslims). Some think not (therefore we are free. Catholics, ppl who reject omniscience.) Personally I like Tolstoy’s take on the whole thing in WnP, because it betrays how deep his understanding of physics is (he even scratches at chaos theory).
      • smoyer 8y ago
        I definitely believe in both but not because God is omniscience. We experience time because that's how God designed our universe and we progress along or timeline exercising free will. God on the other hand is outside our universe and can see our entire timeline. So he hasn't predestined us to make one decision or the other but is rather able to see every decision we've made in or future.
        • quickthrower2 8y ago
          Like the series Quantum Leap?
        • tylerjwilk00 8y ago
          I like to use a record player analogy for this concept. We are the needle. The needle responds to the environment of the record but can't see outside it's little perspective. God on other hand sees the record from above all at once. We are a consciousness needle scratching a path through 4D space-time.
          • goldenkey 8y ago
            Furthermore, our consciousness is harmonic in nature. Every moment experienced reflects a bounded bitrate state of the brain. And death is when the needle has scratched the record so much that it has become worn flat, producing just silence. The record is still being played but the effect is all the same.. Until a new record is placed on the player. Do you identify yourself with the record or the needle? ;-)
    • andrepd 8y ago
      Superdeterminism?
  • atq2119 8y ago
    The most important thing is to acknowledge that "freedom of choice" or "free will" or any concept like that isn't a binary. Addiction and marketing both prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that we don't have "perfect" free will, and this is both (1) true regardless of what you think about determinism and (2) more relevant than any consequences of whether the universe is deterministic or not. The pragmatically relevant aspect of "free will" is to what extent our actions can be predicted and/or manipulated by others today and in the future. This necessarily involves e.g. measurement and computational limitations that others have, and it's something that occurs on a scale rather than as a binary.
  • akvadrako 8y ago
    Freedom is choice is important because you might decide to base your choice on a property of a photon that originated in a galaxy far away. If you have no choice, than that property must have been predetermined to have a specific conspiratorial outcome, essentially since the beginning of the universe. Just to make sure you and your friend make compatible measurements. Without that assumption, every outcome can be explained as due to a highly unlikely conspiratorial setup.
  • naasking 8y ago
    > For me "freedom of choice" argument always seemed completely philosophical with no practical implications. The "free will" debated in philosophy is not the same as the "free will" physicists talk about. The former is about moral responsibility, the latter is about being able to set experimental parameters independently of the system you're measuring.
• devoply 8y ago
  What's really interesting to me is the philosophical interpretation of this... as if something wants the experience of things within the universe to be somehow consistent. That implies intelligence and not just randomness.
  • crooked-v 8y ago
    Alternately, maybe you're looking at progressive 3D slices of a 4D spacetime blob, and consistency is tautological in the same way as fitting together 2D slides of a 3D object. From what I understand, this basic idea of 4D geometry also provides some of the more elegant explanations for the effects of relativity when approaching the speed of light, because time dilation effects reduce down to (relatively) simple 3D trigonometry in a 4D graph. Of course, that raises predestination questions, because you're treating all of time and space as a single "object".
• deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
• deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
• keyle 8y ago
  > It begins with a single polarized photon that, when measured, can have either a horizontal polarization or a vertical polarization. But before the measurement, according to the laws of quantum mechanics, the photon exists in both polarization states at the same time—a so-called superposition. Pardon my basic understanding, but doesn't it meant that it's both simply because it hasn't been measured - and therefor we don't know? Meaning it's either one or the other; at a very fast rate, it's both.
  • shredprez 8y ago
    Piggybacking on my similarly basic understanding of wave-particle duality: it is literally both, and the mode of measurement is what causes the superposition to collapse into one state or another. In other words, you can “force” a superpositioned particle into the desired state simply by measuring it appropriately. We infer from this odd arrangement that the particle contains both states at once. Pardon any incorrectly used terminology above, but I believe my explanation is conceptually sound.
  • colanderman 8y ago
    "Exists in both states" is a very misleading description of how quantum states work. I wish introductory texts didn't use that phrasing (or "superposition", for that matter). A photon can have one of an infinity of polarizations. These states are describable as a mixture of any two orthogonal polarizations (a "basis"), such as "horizontal" and "vertical". "Left circular" and "right circular" are another choice. The funny thing happens when you measure "how much" a photon is polarized into any given orientation. It appears as being polarized either in that orientation, or in the polarization complementary to what you measured. E.g., horizontal or vertical. The outcome is determined with a probability based on the actual polarization of the photon prior to your measurement. Then – the funny thing – the photon takes on that polarization. Repeated measurement using the same basis gives the same results. Measure again with a different basis, and the game starts over again. You can see this in the macro world with a laptop screen and two pairs of polarizing sunglasses. Using one pair of sunglasses, you should be able to block the light from the screen entirely – you are holding them perpendicular to the polarization of the screen. Place the second pair in between the first and the screen, and rotate it. At certain orientations, you will be able to see the screen! The second pair (nearest the screen) is diagonally polarized, and will "convert" the light from the screen into that polarization, before it reaches the first pair (furthest from the screen), which is orthogonal to the screen only. (Note: Things change completely once a second photon enters the picture. It can be entangled with the first, and their states are no longer independently describable. Measurement of one affects the pair.)
• IgorPartola 8y ago
  Here is what I don’t get, and never did as a physics undergrad: why is the information transfer important here? Let’s modify the thought experiment: Wigner’s friend measures the photon’s polarization and determines that it is horizontal. He then calls Wigner on the phone and tells him the result. Does this affect the result that Wigner sees when he verifies superposition? What if the friend lies? The post you linked seems to specifically call out that the friend cannot reveal the result of his measurement, lest the experiment get spoiled. This all seems to point to some philosophical/theological Mumbai jumbo with regard to consciousness being a necessary ingredient here, which doesn’t hold water. Yet with every thought experiment like this that I have seen, this kind of clause is included. Can anyone explain it like I am 25?
  • asark 8y ago
    The field's (quantum physics') moving back and freely between: Serious Math; ill-advised specialist terminology that borrows then twists common words in just the worst ways; and seemingly metaphysical stories or explanations that are... literal? Metaphorical? Full of borrowed BS words from point two that fall out of the math but don't "mean" anything in everyday terms? Definitely one of those until you ask a question then you're an idiot and it's another, until it's not again? Has put me off any childlike interest I once had in it. It seems fun. But I can't tell when they're serious or screwing with me. Sometimes one person claims something's serious, and they do so with authority, and another says they're screwing with me with just as much authority. I gave up. Somewhat relatedly[0], I can't find an explanation of the Oberth Effect that makes any damn sense. Every so often I try again and leave disappointed. People are happy to provide them. There are lots of them. They attribute it to all sorts of things. Not one of them I've read makes sense. [0] i.e. is physics, but is not quantum physics. So far as I know, anyway.
    • Baeocystin 8y ago
      >I can't find an explanation of the Oberth Effect that makes any damn sense. It's simpler than people make it. When a spacecraft is moving at a high velocity, the amount of kinetic energy embodied by its fuel mass is a significant fraction of the chemical energy already present. And kinetic + chemical is greater than chemical alone. That's all there is to it.
• PavlikPaja 8y ago
  It's essentially the schrödinger's cat - the first observer is the observer, while his friend is the cat. But the time won't stop going for the cat, it does experience its death and not, but it's vawefunction only collapses for the observer once the box is opened.
• wozer 8y ago
  Maybe we can just say "true randomness" instead of "freedom of choice"?
• pishpash 8y ago
  That's not just a dumbed down version, that's a version with no useful information about this particular experiment.
• Razengan 8y ago
  > Especially given how our understanding of the world changed during the last 200 years, I would say we are still very much clueless. I find that exciting. Exactly. The universe would be rather boring if we learned everything about it during my lifetime.