Does Physics disprove the existence of free will?
- Thread starter M.I.D
- Start date
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
It's called the 'Many Worlds Interpretation'; it is not a theory. It's just a way of rationalizing the mystery of superposition.
And it doesn't disprove anything.
These are philospohical issues, not physics issues.
And it doesn't disprove anything.
These are philospohical issues, not physics issues.
How do you classify it as an philosophical issue. Any event or action that you do will never have a sure shot outcome due to the uncertainty of the wave function of that outcome. So who is to say that there isn't a universe where the combination of the most undesirable and most unexpected outcome preval?And that universe isn't this one?
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
Because of this:
"who is to say?" is the hallmark of something that is not physics.
More to the point: it is a philosophical issue because there is no test that will distinguish between the various interpretations of superposition, nor is there a reason to think there ever will be. There's no right or wrong answer. Nor is there any science in the answer - it is one of philosphy.
Last edited:
That is a pretty massive misunderstanding of physics. If I drive my car into a solid wall at 80 kph my car will be crashed every time. Or if I drop a rock on the surface of the earth it will fall to the ground. If you think that the wave function or tunneling or anything else makes those event uncertain, then you just do not understand physics/statistics.
Well, it does make it uncertain. But the uncertainty is so far into the noise that it is effectively not a factor. Macroscopic events, looked at at macroscopic levels, tend to average all that uncertainty out.
I disagree with this statement. The outcome is not uncertain. It is like looking at a distribution of the height of 10000 people. If I look at 20 sigma I can see that there could be a person who could be 20 ft tall. Uh, no.
Would you say it is uncertain if I will win every state lottery over the next 20 years? If you tell me statistically there is a chance, then you do not understand that statistics like all applied mathematics is a model of reality it is not the reality.
edited to add:
I guess you could say this is essentially a philosophical position....
Last edited:
It is not like that.
The height distribution of a human population is not actually a Bell Curve - that's an approximation, with known limits of usefulness. It's a fitted curve, not a derived one. It's descriptive of a population, not mechanistic of individuals. You can't use it to assign an accurate probability of a future height to a given human embryo, or project it beyond the population it describes, either one.
The equations of QED are not fitted curves.
There is, in fact, a legally guaranteed non-zero probability that you will win every lottery you enter for the next twenty years. If that probability is in reality zero, a crime has been committed at some point - you will have been defrauded of your purchase price at the time of sale of whichever ticket(s) did not provide the stated chance of winning.
Meanwhile, physics only disproves supernatural free will - the notion that in order to be free one must be able to willfully act in defiance of physical law. If instead one compares, say, the freedom of will possessed by a heroin addict to that possessed by their non-addicted twin brother, the claim that the one has more freedom of will than the other is unremarkable. And the notion that one can have more or less of what does not exist doesn't make much sense, eh?
Last edited:
Write4U
Valued Senior Member
If you have a brain, you have no choice but to think, even subconsciously.....
What you do depends on by what criteria the brain processes the received information
It is uncertain. There's a distribution of outcomes.
Agreed.
But let's say you look at a distribution of the height of 10000 people. Then one person comes through the door. How tall will he be? You know he is most probably not going to be 2 inches tall, nor 20 feet tall. But there is a distribution of likely heights you will see. If you say "about five and a half feet" you will be right most of the time. If you say "exactly 5 feet 6.5 inches" you will almost always be wrong - because there is some uncertainty.
It is uncertain. It is very, very unlikely - but possible.
To win the lottery (multiple times) you enter with tickets containing every possible combination. But would the winnings outweigh the cost?
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
No. If the winnings outweighed the cost, then the lottery would lose money every time*. They don't build them that way.
And super-duper no:
Our local 649 lottery pays out in the tens of millions.
The number of possible tickets is 49x48x47x46x45x44 = 10,068,347,520 - which at an optimistic $1 per ticket - is 10 billion dollars.
RainbowSingularity
Valued Senior Member
many worlds Vs alternate worlds vs divergent reality matrix of worlds.
perpetuation of common reality is what appears to be a premis.
laymens = every time you make a descision it creates a new reality where you made a different descision.
i think this is more of an ego relic of the frail fragile male ego in retrospect attempting to self validate.
the reality of the existance would be a 'which came first chicken or the egg debate'.
does the alternate reality exist without the thought or action taking place ?
is the essence of the action a position of self belief that simply serves the ego to attempt to make it a reality ?
there is a difference between 'dreaming of something'/wishing somethng to take physical form
and
a theory of quantum physics.
'potential'-'to be', is not a solid fact of 'assured theorhetical probability'.
note, "many worlds theory" would actualy be "unlimited infinite worlds theory"
because.... every time something exists, it suddenly also does not exist.
RainbowSingularity
Valued Senior Member
If you have a brain, you have no choice but to think, even subconsciously.....
barely touched on this semi subconscious thought i have been mulling over.
withthe greater need for faster and greater learning of technical aspects, and the massive increase in data being absorbed via social media,
i do wonder if humans(millenials back to x for pure arguement) have heralded a new age of human intellect where a vast larger proportion of thought is being carried out as subconscious thought, which is used to interact with society on a general daily routine...(?)
note i am not referring to savante level people.
i am referring to the average lower middle class profesional and their level of day to day subconscious thought and what that is about, and how much is actually going on.
my suspision is that todays average milenial may be operating at twice the subconscious thought data quantity level as their grandparents would have.
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
Did ... did you just turn Quantum Mechanics into a sexist issue?
Does physics disproves the existence of free will?
Physics, suprise suprise, deals with physical and detectable stuff
Free will is a ability. Said ability is constrained by physics, which is not the same as disapproval
Physics, suprise suprise, deals with physical and detectable stuff
Free will is a ability. Said ability is constrained by physics, which is not the same as disapproval
RainbowSingularity
Valued Senior Member
an ability ...
[N]euroscience hasn’t definitively proven anything one way or the other
Strongly suggests, possibly. Proves, no.