Mathematicians Prove that Particles Have Free Will

Discussions about the possibility of consciousness, free will, spirits, deities, religions and so on, and how these might interact with time travel, the Big Bang, many worlds and so on.

Mathematicians Prove that Particles Have Free Will

Postby PatrickPowers » Thu Jan 07, 2016 6:35 pm

Consider the ancient game of Twenty Questions. Alice thinks of something, and Ben has to figure out what it is. Ben may ask twenty questions, to which Alice has to answer yes or no.

This being a game with humans, Alice may try to cheat. If she thinks that Ben is getting close, Alice can change her imaginary goal. But in order to not get caught cheating, the new goal has to be consistent with all of the questions and answers asked so far. If she cheats she wants to do so without leaving any evidence for a later trial and possible conviction.

Something like this be can be done between a human and a proton. The human can ask questions about the state of the proton and the proton answers yes or no. It has been proved is that sooner or later the proton must "cheat." There simply is no consistent set of yes/no answers to the questions. So the human can never win by uncovering the proton's state. The proton doesn't have a complete state, so it can never be discovered.

Over time the proof has become increasingly simple. No one has been able to find anything wrong with it. The latest version is by several contributors with the capstone set by mathematician John Conway and physicist Simon Kochen. Many critics of the proof have appealed to "randomness" or "indeterminacy" or even "stochastic phenomena," but Conway isn't impressed. He has already excluded all that. Says John,

If we have free will then the indeterminacy of the particles can’t be explained by randomness. Einstein’s statement that God plays dice with the universe, well that doesn’t matter. Einstein said that because he thought that the opposite of determinism was randomness in some way and it’s not. Randomness does not help.

Many people thought I should say the particle’s behaviour is indeterminate. But it would be really rude if I told you that you were indeterminate! It’s the same property and I don’t see why we should be required to speak of it as if it were a different property. Our theorem says that if human’s have it[free will], then so do particles."


It then follows that if particles don't have free will, then people don't either. That's your choice. Free will for everything, or no free will for anything. Nothing in between.

The "no free will at all for anything" position has its supporters, including Nobel Prize winner Gerard t'Hooft and rich guy Stephen Wolfram. This belief is called superdeterminism. Not just elementary particle behavior is determined: everything is determined beforehand. They believe they have had no choice other than to believe in superdeterminism, while Conway has had no choice other than to believe in free will. Everything has been determined from the beginning of time.

Conway can't disprove superdeterminism but he isn't buying it either. Instead in true mathematical tradition he has followed the free will argument to its logical conclusion. He believes that our Universe is the creation of the collective free will of its inhabitants, including elementary particles.

It’s really affected how I look at the world. I believe that the glimmerings of freedom are in every particle – in the clouds, in everything – the particles are all taking free decisions.

You must have played with magnets – they feel alive! This one is pushing that one and it’s not touching it! You put it the other way around and you can’t bring them together – they obstinately refuse to go. Well the whole world’s alive, the whole Universe is alive.

I can’t prove this nonsense, but there’s no reason to disbelieve it!


[url]From https://plus.maths.org/content/john-con ... l-part-iii.[/url]
PatrickPowers
Tetronian
 
Posts: 440
Joined: Wed Dec 02, 2015 1:36 am

Re: Mathematicians Prove that Particles Have Free Will

Postby ubersketch » Mon Dec 11, 2017 9:43 pm

PatrickPowers wrote:Consider the ancient game of Twenty Questions. Alice thinks of something, and Ben has to figure out what it is. Ben may ask twenty questions, to which Alice has to answer yes or no.

This being a game with humans, Alice may try to cheat. If she thinks that Ben is getting close, Alice can change her imaginary goal. But in order to not get caught cheating, the new goal has to be consistent with all of the questions and answers asked so far. If she cheats she wants to do so without leaving any evidence for a later trial and possible conviction.

Something like this be can be done between a human and a proton. The human can ask questions about the state of the proton and the proton answers yes or no. It has been proved is that sooner or later the proton must "cheat." There simply is no consistent set of yes/no answers to the questions. So the human can never win by uncovering the proton's state. The proton doesn't have a complete state, so it can never be discovered.

Over time the proof has become increasingly simple. No one has been able to find anything wrong with it. The latest version is by several contributors with the capstone set by mathematician John Conway and physicist Simon Kochen. Many critics of the proof have appealed to "randomness" or "indeterminacy" or even "stochastic phenomena," but Conway isn't impressed. He has already excluded all that. Says John,

If we have free will then the indeterminacy of the particles can’t be explained by randomness. Einstein’s statement that God plays dice with the universe, well that doesn’t matter. Einstein said that because he thought that the opposite of determinism was randomness in some way and it’s not. Randomness does not help.

Many people thought I should say the particle’s behaviour is indeterminate. But it would be really rude if I told you that you were indeterminate! It’s the same property and I don’t see why we should be required to speak of it as if it were a different property. Our theorem says that if human’s have it[free will], then so do particles."


It then follows that if particles don't have free will, then people don't either. That's your choice. Free will for everything, or no free will for anything. Nothing in between.

The "no free will at all for anything" position has its supporters, including Nobel Prize winner Gerard t'Hooft and rich guy Stephen Wolfram. This belief is called superdeterminism. Not just elementary particle behavior is determined: everything is determined beforehand. They believe they have had no choice other than to believe in superdeterminism, while Conway has had no choice other than to believe in free will. Everything has been determined from the beginning of time.

Conway can't disprove superdeterminism but he isn't buying it either. Instead in true mathematical tradition he has followed the free will argument to its logical conclusion. He believes that our Universe is the creation of the collective free will of its inhabitants, including elementary particles.

It’s really affected how I look at the world. I believe that the glimmerings of freedom are in every particle – in the clouds, in everything – the particles are all taking free decisions.

You must have played with magnets – they feel alive! This one is pushing that one and it’s not touching it! You put it the other way around and you can’t bring them together – they obstinately refuse to go. Well the whole world’s alive, the whole Universe is alive.

I can’t prove this nonsense, but there’s no reason to disbelieve it!


[url]From https://plus.maths.org/content/john-con ... l-part-iii.[/url]


Perhaps particles do have sort of will, but it has to be very unreasonable and might as well be random. We are just a higher order version of this made complex through morphogenesis leading us to analyze our surroundings and create an answer. A particle cannot analyze its surroundings so it replies with a mostly random result.
gwa
discord is spiritbackup#1797
User avatar
ubersketch
Trionian
 
Posts: 159
Joined: Thu Nov 30, 2017 12:00 am

Re: Mathematicians Prove that Particles Have Free Will

Postby davegerber » Sun Jan 20, 2019 12:41 pm

One last meaning of 'measurement' ought to be unveiled now, along these lines : "as an unadulterated scientifically unique develop." This is a third method to comprehend the 4d geometry conveyed, as simply an expansion of the initial 3 measurements and the 3-dimensional viewpoint of the 4d geometry, as can be google sought on the web. This last definition, just enables one to comprehend the 4d geometry conveyed, yet holds no property of how nature can apply higher dimensional geometries while nature shows up 3-dimensional to us. The initial 2 definitions indicate how nature can conceal potential higher dimensional geometries, directly before our countenances. Appreciate...

domyhomework
davegerber
Nullonian
 
Posts: 1
Joined: Sun Jan 20, 2019 12:37 pm

Re: Mathematicians Prove that Particles Have Free Will

Postby GingerH » Thu Apr 25, 2019 10:19 am

like this article. The author's approach is practical and direct. Most articles about these are so scientific that it's less appealing. anyway, yeah I don't think the performance of kids at school is based on their Mathematicians Prove. I should probably order fresh essays review and write my own post. Thanks!
GingerH
Nullonian
 
Posts: 1
Joined: Thu Apr 25, 2019 10:12 am

Re: Mathematicians Prove that Particles Have Free Will

Postby Linda111 » Tue Jul 02, 2019 8:28 am

It is an interesting fact that the human can never win by uncovering the proton's state. Keep it on writing such articles and you will earn your grateful readers. I will be back here again once I find mary robinson writer and get my assignment done quickly.
Linda111
Nullonian
 
Posts: 1
Joined: Tue Jul 02, 2019 8:21 am

Re: Mathematicians Prove that Particles Have Free Will

Postby fog1258 » Fri Aug 02, 2019 7:46 am

Scientists argue that this paper type encourages students to develop their critical, logical, and analytical skills on how to write a dissertation introduction. That is why it is much easier for professors to estimate their students since they value not the number of pages but the quality of the critical analysis and findings.
fog1258
Nullonian
 
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri Aug 02, 2019 7:34 am

Re: Mathematicians Prove that Particles Have Free Will

Postby steelpillow » Wed Jun 07, 2023 9:40 am

Conway's "proof" is naive and simplistic.
The assertion that free will equates to quantum randomness is wholly unjustifiable.
Firstly, quantum randomness is a phenomenon of physical reality while free will is a phenomenon of meaning (or semantics). Provided that randomness is not overtly violated, there is nothing to stop some non-physical influence from massaging that randomness to suit itself. If I assert my free will here, perhaps that will force what happens there in order to keep the statistics working right. Something like this happened in the entanglement experiments of Alain Aspect and his successors; wilfully collapsing one particle into some state also forced the state of the entangled partner. However there, Bell's theorem showed how entanglement subtly massages the randomness statistics. Certainly, entanglement and randomness are not the same thing! Who knows whether there is a "Free will" theorem waiting to be discovered; perhaps, by asserting free will on one event, I force the state of some other "wilfully entangled" event. Or perhaps free will is altogether more subtle about its little nudges. No laws of physics have been harmed during this explanation.
steelpillow
Dionian
 
Posts: 39
Joined: Sat Jan 15, 2011 7:06 pm
Location: England


Return to Consciousness

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 7 guests

cron