Physics and Free will

[crossfire]

Velocity implies vector. You can't have velocity without a vector.

Was the train moving?

Both special and general relativity require that there be no such thing as stationary. There is only stationary relative to another reference frame.

One would certainly hope that the front of the train and the back of the train are stationary relative to each other. You didn't mention anything about a rubber band train where one end of the train is traveling at a different speed than the other.

 

[stillsong]

All of your arguments are based on the assumption that there is an individual that can have free will. If we all wake up right now and realize our entire life was a dream, everything we hypothesize about what will happen in the dream is inconsequential.
Why is it so important to prove points with the mind when 96% of the universe is invisible and not understandable by the the mind?

 

[crossfire]

All of your arguments are based on the assumption that there is an individual that can have free will. If we all wake up right now and realize our entire life was a dream, everything we hypothesize about what will happen in the dream is inconsequential.
Why is it so important to prove points with the mind when 96% of the universe is invisible and not understandable by the the mind?

Your mind and attitude has never been affected by any of your dreams, ever? No book or movie has affected your mind/attitude either?

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Was the train moving?

Yes. Did I seriously leave that out? It's fundamental. I'll look back at my original posts.

One would certainly hope that the front of the train and the back of the train are stationary relative to each other.

Necessarily so.

You didn't mention anything about a rubber band train where one end of the train is traveling at a different speed than the other.

That would be because I didn't describe such an event and it is not relevant to my example. There is only one constant speed in relativistic physics: the speed of light. Thus the propagation of a lightwave will necessarily travel at a constant speed, but an observer can move towards it or away from it. Alice was moving towards the light propagating from the front end of her car/carriage and away from the rear. For Bob, who was stationary relative to the train, this distinction didn't exist.

 

[crossfire]

Yes. Did I seriously leave that out? It's fundamental. I'll look back at my original posts.



Necessarily so.


That would be because I didn't describe such an event and it is not relevant to my example. There is only one constant speed in relativistic physics: the speed of light. Thus the propagation of a lightwave will necessarily travel at a constant speed, but an observer can move towards it or away from it. Alice was moving towards the light propagating from the front end of her car/carriage and away from the rear. For Bob, who was stationary relative to the train, this distinction didn't exist.

From Alice's frame of reference, the front of the train and the back of the train are also the same distance, no? Within her frame of reference, the train's movement relative with the constant of the speed of light manifests via red shift and blue shift, preserving the lightspeed constant within the given frame of reference. If this wasn't the case, then it could not be said that lightspeed is a constant--it would change according to the frame of reference.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

From Alice's frame of reference, the front of the train and the back of the train are also the same distance, no?

She agrees that she is equidistant from both ends of her train car/carriage, yes.

Within her frame of reference, the train's movement relative with the constant of the speed of light manifests via red shift and blue shift

It doesn't. The visible spectrum relates to the wavelength & frequency of a light "wave". In this case, both Alice & Bob observe light with the same frequency & wavelength.

If this wasn't the case, then it could not be said that lightspeed is a constant

If it were the case, then it couldn't be true that the speed of light were constant. However, the speed of light can be constant and yet differ in e.g., wavelength.

 

[The Sum of Awe]

Sure. Not many people argue that we don't appear to make decisions. A simplistic approach to freewill, but educational, would be to compare a reflex action that you do not make "consciously" with those that you make "consciously". In both cases, environmental stimuli are interpreted by some set of sensory modalities (visual, auditory, nociception, olfactory, gustatory, tactile, etc.) via different neurons and neural pathways (afferent neurons in the PNS, VI & V2, differentially activated olfactory receptor binding neuron or the gruenenberg ganglion, nociceptors responsive to tonic pressure, etc.). There is no distinction between the electro-chemical signals sent to motor neurons that cause a (literal) knee-jerk response and a "conscious" decision to move your leg. The activation of sensorimotor regions of the brain are differentially activated (conscious decisions involve greater activations of neuronal networks in the PFC and frontal cortex than do reflexes), but it is still arguably simply a matter of environmental stimuli causing chemical changes in your brain that cause you to decide what you do and in such a way that you could not decide otherwise.

That kind of argument relies on our vast ignorance of the brain, complex systems in general, and gaps in modern physics that matter especially both to living systems and at the cellular level of living systems. Relativity offers a challenge of an altogether different nature.

Rather than arguments that claim all your decisions are just chemical reactions to stimuli that force mental states you confuse with free decisions, relativity (under interpretations akin to the brief summary I gave) removes the possibility that you can actually be said to make decisions at all. In an entirely deterministic world (which quantum physics holds ours is not and classical physics fails to show is) it is possible to know exactly how any human will behave arbitrarily into the future. Arguments from determinism, therefore, depend upon understanding decisions and actions as occurring in time with some series of causes resulting in determined effects (including decisions).

In 4D spacetime there can be no determinism because there is no actual progression of moments in time. Instead, there is simply a location in spacetime at which all the cosmos is arranged from an observers 3D perspective at that point. Thus every decision you appear to make is simply an inability to recognize that everything you perceive as occurring through time isn't even you perceiving anything. It is a piece of your entity as it is ontologically realized in our 4D universe.

Put simply, if the decisions you make are already made and the reason they don't appear to is simply an epistemic limitation, do you actually ever decide anything? Put most simply, can you be said to have made a decision when time is an illusion and there is no time to make a decision in?

In a 4D spacetime (or 3D+1T), time isn't an illusion and there is time. Duration is very real, it is as real as width and length.

And no, I don't believe in decisions.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

In a 4D spacetime (or 3D+1T), time isn't an illusion and there is time.

This is an assertion. Were I interested merely in expressing an opinion I wouldn't have started this thread. I have presented (in simplified form) the argument of many physicists. I'm looking for counter-arguments other than those I have already considered.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

All of your arguments are based on the assumption that there is an individual that can have free will.

If I attempt to argue that free will doesn't exist, I have to assume it might. I have argued the opposite of what I have here elsewhere: Free Will Works- An account without a model or free will

If we all wake up right now and realize our entire life was a dream, everything we hypothesize about what will happen in the dream is inconsequential.

As mesmerizing as this idea is to many high school students I've taught, it is still irrelevant. Were the entirety of reality to have come into existence a few seconds ago, it would say nothing as to my free will.

Why is it so important to prove points with the mind when 96% of the universe is invisible and not understandable by the the mind?

"Rien, rien n'avait d'importance..."

If it doesn't matter to you, don't contribute.

 

[idav]

Thanks!


No. In an ontological 4D spacetime (i.e., "real" rather than some mathematical convenience), everything is sort of "frozen". A sort of 3D analogue would be spatial extension: we can't be located in 3D space using a single set of coordinates (x, y, z). These coordinates define an infinitesimally small "point" in space, while we take up a certain amount of spatial region (we have "volume"). So the space we take up is actually lots of specific x, y, z coordinates (infinitely many, actually, but for simplicity let's just consider the space we "take up" as sets of "points" in 3D space). So there is no unique "point" in 3D space in which we exist, but rather many points extended in all directions in 3D space.

In 4D spacetime, this is still true but instead of just being "spread out" over space or "taking up" a certain amount of space at a particular time, we are "spread out" over space and time. Just like a bunch of x, y, z points in 3D space at a single moment in time t uniquely defined our position at that time, now a bunch of points x, y, z, t uniquely define our "position" in spacetime. This "position" is our entire existence.

The fact that different references frames "slice up" spacetime differently simply reflects different "positions".

If you and I were facing opposite directions, what I called "left" would be your "right". This doesn't change what is on either side, just our perspective. That's a grossly oversimplified analogy, but it gets at the basic idea.

Your saying I will always be stuck in a certain frame of reference. I can go with that but with those aspects of time, what is happening really also happened another way? Therefore it is in moments of decision that allows for a shift in frame of reference.

 

[Prophet]

I do not believe the argument I've presented in this thread to be true. However, I can't honestly purport to seriously consider the arguments of those I disagree with unless I can present them and defend them- hence the thread.

I certainly understand the urge to play contrarian and defend the "little guy".

The physical basis for free will I consider at best so far beyond our understanding of physics and dynamics as to be irrelevant and at worse to err fundamentally in such an approach. There is no more support for applying the tool of classical physics and its determinism to the brain than there is the Orch-Or model or any other quantum theory of consciousness.

However, the challenges posed by relativity are not about chemical reactions or stimuli. They address the nature of time and the possibility that any decision could ever be made that wasn't illusory.

I did not bring physical brains into our conversation by any means other than indirectly referring to them as "physical stuff" which is preceded by consciousness. Nor did I bring up a quantum theory of consciousness which, in my admittedly limited knowledge, seems to me to make the same seemingly atheistic assumption I objected to earlier: that physical stuff like worlds, brains, quantum fields, chemical reactions, and stimuli are necessarily the basis from which consciousness arose.

I apologize for the gap. I didn't read you right the first time.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Your saying I will always be stuck in a certain frame of reference.

Actually, you define your frame of reference (or rather, your frame of reference is unique to you and is defined by you)

I can go with that but with those aspects of time, what is happening really also happened another way?

Interesting question. For those who hold 4D spacetime to be ontological, I suppose that every observation of what "happens" is wrong, but that there is a way in which we can say "what happened". This is what is behind Lorenz transforms: the laws of physics are identical everywhere, and we can mathematically resolve discrepancies between observations as well as ensure that there is no violation of physics using the geometry and mathematics of relativistic physics.

Therefore it is in moments of decision that allows for a shift in frame of reference.

Frame of reference is merely a set (or collection of sets) of coordinates in a 4D spacetime. You cannot change your reference frame because you define it.

 

[idav]

Actually, you define your frame of reference (or rather, your frame of reference is unique to you and is defined by you)



Interesting question. For those who hold 4D spacetime to be ontological, I suppose that every observation of what "happens" is wrong, but that there is a way in which we can say "what happened". This is what is behind Lorenz transforms: the laws of physics are identical everywhere, and we can mathematically resolve discrepancies between observations as well as ensure that there is no violation of physics using the geometry and mathematics of relativistic physics.



Frame of reference is merely a set (or collection of sets) of coordinates in a 4D spacetime. You cannot change your reference frame because you define it.

When we are doing parallel processing in quantum computing, doesnt that show superposition to be ontologically real? And if it isnt real I think that kills the idea of collapse without having to resort to faster than light reactions.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

When we are doing parallel processing in quantum computing, doesnt that show superposition to be ontologically real?

Not exactly. We're still relying on a statistical structure that tells us little about the "quantum computer" other than that givens particular specifications we will obtain certain results with some known probability.
However, certain experiments in quantum physics are far more convincing than anything we might find in quantum computing for the existence of systems which have multiple ontological states. In particular, the superposition of macroscopic system involving hundreds of atoms (such a system is well beyond the quantum-classical "divide" and many magnitudes larger than typical quantum systems such electrons).

And if it isnt real I think that kills the idea of collapse without having to resort to faster than light reactions.

The general understanding of superposition effects is couched in very careful terms such that
1) They aren't faster-than-light but instantaneous, and thus do not either travel nor are the results of anything traveling at any speed.
2) These effects, while instantaneous, cannot be used to transmit any superluminal signals.

 

[idav]

Not exactly. We're still relying on a statistical structure that tells us little about the "quantum computer" other than that givens particular specifications we will obtain certain results with some known probability.
However, certain experiments in quantum physics are far more convincing than anything we might find in quantum computing for the existence of systems which have multiple ontological states. In particular, the superposition of macroscopic system involving hundreds of atoms (such a system is well beyond the quantum-classical "divide" and many magnitudes larger than typical quantum systems such electrons).



The general understanding of superposition effects is couched in very careful terms such that
1) They aren't faster-than-light but instantaneous, and thus do not either travel nor are the results of anything traveling at any speed.
2) These effects, while instantaneous, cannot be used to transmit any superluminal signals.

The collapse can't work becausd your talking about the particle physically propagating in am infinite amount of points which would be faster than the speed of light. The trick of space time would allow the particle to really be there, it simply gets trapped in our spacetime, and there would have to be other spacetimes for it to jump to, to produce that effect.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

The collapse can't work becausd your talking about the particle physically propagating in am infinite amount of points which would be faster than the speed of light.

Let's reformulate the above, not so much because it needs it but to ensure I'm understanding you aright.

The "collapse" of the state-vector or wavefunction (same thing) is basically an ad hoc insertion into the theoretical & mathematical framework that is quantum mechanics. In QM, physical systems are describes as "spread-out" in space without any definite location or any definite physical properties at all, really. Physical properties that we are used to measuring or "observing" in classical physics, esp. position, linear momentum, angular momentum, and energy continue to "exist" in QM, but whereas in classical physics something like momentum would be a "value", in QM it is a mathematical operator which is applied in a mathematical space to a mathematical system that yields another value.

In order for QM to be the spectacularly successful theory it is, we are required to represent systems as "spread-out", but we never, ever, observe it as such. So on the one hand, if we try to treat "particles" like electrons or photons as actually being particles, we will always be wrong when we try to predict, model, or conclude (based on experiments) anything. When we describe them as "waves", however, we can not only successfully model quantum systems, but build a great deal of technology that only works given such treatment and make predictions that we've confirmed given such treatment.

The problem, though, is that we never observe waves. Ever. We only ever measure "particles". Thus, once we make any kind of measurement of any quantum system, again the only way we can ever determine anything is if we immediately "collapse" the state-vector/wavefunction and suddenly (and instantaneously) treat it as a "particle".

Simplistically, if we treat quantum systems as "particles" we will always be wrong and modern physics is a bust. But, when we treat them as waves, even though suddenly QM (and extensions of it) are immediately extremely successful but we never find the kind of systems we describe. This fact, this inability to describe quantum systems as particles combined with our inability to measure them as waves, is at the heart of the so-called "collapse" (or "decoherence").

However, this isn't the kind of non-locality that generally attracts much attention. That is, experiments that show two quantum systems interact instantaneously over distances that we've measured at least up to ~16 kilometers (and has no theoretical limit) are different from the ways in which a single wavefuction is said to "collapse".

The trick of space time would allow the particle to really be there, it simply gets trapped in our spacetime,

There is only one spacetime. In both SR and GR, assuming multiple spacetimes basically destroys both of these theories, the motivations for them, and doesn't give us anything other than more questions than we had before either special or general relativity.

 

[idav]

Let's reformulate the above, not so much because it needs it but to ensure I'm understanding you aright.

The "collapse" of the state-vector or wavefunction (same thing) is basically an ad hoc insertion into the theoretical & mathematical framework that is quantum mechanics. In QM, physical systems are describes as "spread-out" in space without any definite location or any definite physical properties at all, really. Physical properties that we are used to measuring or "observing" in classical physics, esp. position, linear momentum, angular momentum, and energy continue to "exist" in QM, but whereas in classical physics something like momentum would be a "value", in QM it is a mathematical operator which is applied in a mathematical space to a mathematical system that yields another value.

In order for QM to be the spectacularly successful theory it is, we are required to represent systems as "spread-out", but we never, ever, observe it as such. So on the one hand, if we try to treat "particles" like electrons or photons as actually being particles, we will always be wrong when we try to predict, model, or conclude (based on experiments) anything. When we describe them as "waves", however, we can not only successfully model quantum systems, but build a great deal of technology that only works given such treatment and make predictions that we've confirmed given such treatment.

The problem, though, is that we never observe waves. Ever. We only ever measure "particles". Thus, once we make any kind of measurement of any quantum system, again the only way we can ever determine anything is if we immediately "collapse" the state-vector/wavefunction and suddenly (and instantaneously) treat it as a "particle".

Simplistically, if we treat quantum systems as "particles" we will always be wrong and modern physics is a bust. But, when we treat them as waves, even though suddenly QM (and extensions of it) are immediately extremely successful but we never find the kind of systems we describe. This fact, this inability to describe quantum systems as particles combined with our inability to measure them as waves, is at the heart of the so-called "collapse" (or "decoherence").

However, this isn't the kind of non-locality that generally attracts much attention. That is, experiments that show two quantum systems interact instantaneously over distances that we've measured at least up to ~16 kilometers (and has no theoretical limit) are different from the ways in which a single wavefuction is said to "collapse".




There is only one spacetime. In both SR and GR, assuming multiple spacetimes basically destroys both of these theories, the motivations for them, and doesn't give us anything other than more questions than we had before either special or general relativity.

It is the 4d that causes that issue. If you were to say I can warp from point a to b and did so by warping spacetime then at the point its warped I am at point a and b at the same time. You would say if I arrived at point b that it was real. In the same respect as with our space and time there are others as you pointed out in your spread out time model. Being in a different time or different physical path would be just as real as the instantaneous effects over large distances in our own spacetime.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

It is the 4d that causes that issue. If you were to say I can warp from point a to b and did so by warping spacetime then at the point its warped I am at point a and b at the same time.

I'm not sure what you men by "warp" spacetime (in general, warping spacetime explains what we experience as gravity in TGR). However, you can not end up "at" any point in "time" in spacetime. To see this simply disregard the non-Euclidean geometries of 4D spacetime as it exists in physcs and simplify it to be a 4D Euclidean space (i.e., all the rules of geometry, such as the distance between 2 points, are the same but there is an additional variable that represents the additional dimension).

Also for simplicity, assume that I can represent my position as a single point (in our 3D world, a single point is infinitesimally small and occupies no space, so we can perhaps think of the point representing my location as my "center" or something). In that case, my position in 4D spacetime is a set of values for the coordinates (x, y, z, t). If any of the values for any one of these coordinates were to change, my location in spacetime would as well. Thus, even if we simplify and describe "time" as the value of the fourth coordinate t, there is no point in spacetime that is the same as the one I occupy other than that which I do.

Alternatively, consider our 3D world and our locations/positions as defined by our x, y, z coordinates. Change any of these, and I'm not in the same place any more. It's the same with spacetime: change any of the coordinates and I'm somewhere different.

You would say if I arrived at point b that it was real.

That "point" is unique there is no other space-like or time-like position in spacetime such that you could be at that other point "at the same time."

Being in a different time

Assumes time can be described independent of reference frame OR that spacetime doesn't exist (which are in many ways equivalent; in fact, it is the realization that there is no way to order events or describe motion in some absolute sense independent of one's reference frame except by adopting a 4D spacetime).

 

[idav]

I'm not sure what you men by "warp" spacetime (in general, warping spacetime explains what we experience as gravity in TGR). However, you can not end up "at" any point in "time" in spacetime. To see this simply disregard the non-Euclidean geometries of 4D spacetime as it exists in physcs and simplify it to be a 4D Euclidean space (i.e., all the rules of geometry, such as the distance between 2 points, are the same but there is an additional variable that represents the additional dimension).

Also for simplicity, assume that I can represent my position as a single point (in our 3D world, a single point is infinitesimally small and occupies no space, so we can perhaps think of the point representing my location as my "center" or something). In that case, my position in 4D spacetime is a set of values for the coordinates (x, y, z, t). If any of the values for any one of these coordinates were to change, my location in spacetime would as well. Thus, even if we simplify and describe "time" as the value of the fourth coordinate t, there is no point in spacetime that is the same as the one I occupy other than that which I do.

Alternatively, consider our 3D world and our locations/positions as defined by our x, y, z coordinates. Change any of these, and I'm not in the same place any more. It's the same with spacetime: change any of the coordinates and I'm somewhere different.



That "point" is unique there is no other space-like or time-like position in spacetime such that you could be at that other point "at the same time."



Assumes time can be described independent of reference frame OR that spacetime doesn't exist (which are in many ways equivalent; in fact, it is the realization that there is no way to order events or describe motion in some absolute sense independent of one's reference frame except by adopting a 4D spacetime).

Yes every point is unique but that is the issue qm brings up, a single photon is as if it were is a wave of places at once. Some of your explanation essentially ignores that.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

a single photon is as if it were is a wave of places at once. Some of your explanation essentially ignores that.

Actually all of my explanation ignores that (although it's not technically accurate to describe a wave, quantum or classical, as "a wave of points" but rather as spread-out and, simplistically, without any "points"). My reason for ignoring it (or maybe passing over it so as to focus on relativity itself) is in part because special and general relativity both ignore quantum mechanics and no sufficiently satisfactory theory of relativistic quantum physics yet exists. It is also in part because of the so-called "Copenhagen interpretation", the standard interpretation of quantum mechanics (which turns out to have different interpretations itself and while the majority of physicists working in fields like quantum mechanics give it lip-service most do not think it satisfactory). According to the Copenhagen interpretation, to ask anything about a quantum system before it is measured is meaningless. Another way to say this is that the "spread-out" nature of quantum systems is a probability function, not anything "real" (i.e., QM is irreducibly statistical). A single photon, therefore, is under the mainstream interpretation of QM a mathematical entity with no real existence or properties outside of a mathematical, abstract space.
Personally, I think that this interpretation (championed by Bohr and contested bitterly by Einstein) is a cop-out. It was a way of dealing with the fact that because things get weird if we try to interpret what the mathematics of QM says about quantum systems apart from measurements (e.g., a photon after it "passes" through the double-slit screen but before it is detected). Instead, we shouldn't even interpret the mathematical representations of QM as representations of physical systems, let alone try to figure out how they relate. I don't think this is tenable anymore, given the numerous experiments which not only demonstrate the very physical nature of quantum systems but also have shown that quantum effects such as superposition states can occur far outside the subatomic realm of QM.
This problem doesn't disappear in 4D spacetime. First, everything "warps" spacetime. Yet it is possible to demonstrate that the laws of physics (outside of QM) are the same everywhere, which is to say that relativity gives us classical results at least locally (in some frame of reference or reference frames close that their light-cones "overlap"). So locally, particles should still behave like particles and waves should not exist as actual "things" (in classical physics, waves were just the disturbance of matter; they required a medium and thus couldn't exist in a vacuum). One difference would be that light should not be a wave at all, as Einstein himself showed it can't be, but that's not a big deal. The problem, though, is that classical physics doesn't hold locally in 4D spacetime any more than in the 3D Newtonian world.
Second, if we try to use relative simultaneity to explain why it "seems" as if things like electrons and photons propagate like waves, we are left with no reason why they do and the things which they make up don't. Basically, we're still left trying to explain how we have to sets of “laws” of physics for every region of spacetime. It’s actually worse, because we can’t show that the properties of QM are the same in every reference frame without changing both relativity and QM mostly by fiddling with equations.
Third, if quantum systems somehow “warp” spacetime in some way such that they are able to exist in two points at once, they still exist at two points at once. They do that anyway (superposition) so we haven’t resolved anything we’ve just invented a fix that turns out to mess up relativity instead. On the other hand, if we try to think of e.g., photons as particles that can appear to be waves because they are only ever at one point in spacetime but somehow “not our spacetime” then we’ve willed another cosmos into existence without any way to explain how it is supposed to make up our own. Spacetime is spacetime- there isn’t one for us and one for quantum systems (which are supposed to be the “stuff” that make up what we are anyway). There is no ‘other” spacetime just different ways to “slice up” spacetime. However, every different possible “slice” can be put into a single “whole” such that all the differences among reference frames concerning e.g. the time of events, time dilation, length dilation, etc., are resolved (this is mainly what special relativity is: the resolution of these would-be paradoxes). The ways in which a single spacetime can be “sliced” to explain the different measurements among different reference frames falls apart at the quantum level.