The Illusion of Free Will in the Context of Time Travel and Paradoxes

[agentredlum]

Martin Rees's quote is just too dumb, he must have been smoking PCP when he said that ****, or he just said it to see if anyone was indeed dumb enough to believe it.

So the universe came into being, and there was only probabilities, then observers were somehow made out of nonexistent probabilityness and then the universe was like "FINALLY, SOMEONE CARES ABOUT ME, I WILL STABILIZE".

Its actually the dumbest thing I've ever, EVER read.
His credentials doesn't mean anything other than the fact that the whole idea of "credentials" is as pointless as his flawed statement.

Well Fyzix, I suppose dummies get elevated to the position of MASTER OF TRINITY COLLEGE!

He earned his respect...

 

[agentredlum]

I can say it another way than Professor Rees...you Q.M. people are going to like this...even though most of you probably won't admit to 'liking' Douglas Adams statement...

"The universe is a figment of it's OWN imagination"-Douglas Adams

LOL

 

[Fyzix]

I can say it another way than Professor Rees...you Q.M. people are going to like this...even though most of you probably won't admit to 'liking' my statement...

"The universe is a figment of it's OWN imagination"-agentredlum

LOL

... your statement isn't even original...
http://www.thinkgeek.com/homeoffice/stickers/3188/

You appeal to authority like it gives his stupid statement any creedence.

 

[Drakkith]

Well then what was boffinwannabe quote about and you AGREE 100%?

here i put first sentence of the quote you AGREED 100% with

And nobody in qm is saying conciousness is required for observation since qm is not able to even describe conciousness.

Before the word since he makes a claim about everybody in Q.M.
After the word observation he gives his opinion

I have posted evidence contrary to both of thes ideas, yet you agreed with him 100%...

Observation doesn't refer to somethig with consciousness observing, it refers to any interaction. An electron passing by a proton observes it and vice versa.

 

[agentredlum]

... your statement isn't even original...
http://www.thinkgeek.com/homeoffice/stickers/3188/

You appeal to authority like it gives his stupid statement any creedence.

Thanks for the heads up, I ddn't realize i must have seen it somewhere. I corrected the post.

You haven't presented any evidence supporting your opinion, why should we believe you?

 

[agentredlum]

Observation doesn't refer to somethig with consciousness observing, it refers to any interaction. An electron passing by a proton observes it and vice versa.

Do me a favor and develop the logical implications of this thought.

How can the electron observe the photon if the electron is not conscious or inteligent?

 

[DaveC426913]

Do me a favor and develop the logical implications of this thought.

How can the electron observe the photon if the electron is not conscious or inteligent?

There are lots of books on this subject that are more concise and comprehensive than we can provide here. It's pretty difficult to bring someomne up-to-speed on a subject such as this in an online forum. Every question we try to answer is ging to raise five more - as is happening here.

But, for a loose analogy: Particles don't literally observe; they interact with each other. When a particle interacts with another particle, the upshot is that they define each other's position. Think of two billiard balls rolling around on a table. Once they connect, they will move each off with a particular diraction and speed. For ball A to go off in direction A' with speed A'', it must in some sense "know" where ball B was going and how fast (otherwise its own subsequent direction and speed would be undefined).

Whether or not the whole system of ball A and B is still in some undefined state by ball C (or player D) is not the point. The point is, that ball A and ball B have interacted, and in so doing, have defined to themselves their positions and velocities.

 

[Drakkith]

Do me a favor and develop the logical implications of this thought.

How can the electron observe the photon if the electron is not conscious or inteligent?

As Dave said, they aren't conscious per the definition of the word, it is that people use the term incorrectly if you will, to refer to interactions.

 

[agentredlum]

There are lots of books on this subject that are more concise and comprehensive than we can provide here. It's pretty difficult to bring someomne up-to-speed on a subject such as this in an online forum. Every question we try to answer is ging to raise five more - as is happening here.

But, for a loose analogy: Particles don't literally observe; they interact with each other. When a particle interacts with another particle, the upshot is that they define each other's position. Think of two billiard balls rolling around on a table. Once they connect, they will move each off with a particular diraction and speed. For ball A to go off in direction A' with speed A'', it must in some sense "know" where ball B was going and how fast (otherwise its own subsequent direction and speed would be undefined).

Whether or not the whole system of ball A and B is still in some undefined state by ball C (or player D) is not the point. The point is, that ball A and ball B have interacted, and in so doing, have defined to themselves their positions and velocities.

You're right Dave, I think I've posted enough questions, let me sit back and watch for a while. Thanx to everyone for their time.

Agentredlum at rest.

 

[DaveC426913]

You're right Dave, I think I've posted enough questions, let me sit back and watch for a while. Thanx to everyone for their time.

Agentredlum at rest.

I don't wish to discourage questions. That was not my intent at all. It's just that, I suppose, it's difficult to get too deep in a specific subject.

Actually, more like: there are people here who can answer these questions more concisely than I. I am but a layperson.

Probably better that you keep asking, and I sit back and watch for a while.

 

[Drakkith]

Agentredlum, the only thing I see that *might* be better is instead of posting counterpoints you simply say "Can you elaborate?" or "What exactly do you mean?". But that's just my opinion!

 

[agentredlum]

I don't wish to discourage questions. That was not my intent at all. It's just that, I suppose, it's difficult to get too deep in a specific subject.

Actually, more like: there are people here who can answer these questions more concisely than I. I am but a layperson.

Probably better that you keep asking, and I sit back and watch for a while.

'I'm afraid i can't let you do that Dave'-Hal 9000 from 2001 a space oddity-in a parallel quantum mechanical universe...

Please keep posting Dave. Myself, I find your examples interesting and your insight valuable.

I have this tendency to concentrate on extreme cases and this may give the impression that i want to throw away all Q.M. Not at all, Q.M. is very successful, I must concede that because so many experts in the field say so.

Langauge has limitations, I just noticed in a previous post, I said orbits, Drakkith said orbitals. I was talking about any orbit of radius R a real number. Orbital has a slightly different cannotation, it implies the allowed Bohr orbits and not any orbit of Radius R.

Sometimes it is a little difficult to agree on what it is we're actually talking about.

Even this post is probably going to cause confusion...

agentredlum-refreshed

 

[agentredlum]

Agentredlum, the only thing I see that *might* be better is instead of posting counterpoints you simply say "Can you elaborate?" or "What exactly do you mean?". But that's just my opinion!

Seems like we were thinking the same thing because our posts were 1 minute apart. I don't have a crystal ball and i am assuming you don't have a crystal ball either.

We were thinking the same thing my 'extreme' counterpoints are probably perceived as 'attacks' against a very successful science.

Your insight is also helpful like Dave's keep it comming it helps me to question my own ideas and reveal underlying bias of my views. I don't want to be biased but i can never be sure. Also this conversation helps me organize my own thoughts better.

agentredlum-friend

 

[boffinwannabe]

How do you know what it's typing if you're not conscious of what it's typing?

Some of you here want the benefit of INTELLIGENCE without Consciousness.

I am not for or against consciosness in Q.M.

I am glad I am conscious. A universe devoid of consciousness would be a total waste.

im not sure where your going with this. You say your not for consciousness in QM. But there is no consciousness in QM to be for or against. QM deals with information not consciousness. consciousness in relation to QM is philosophy. You talk consciousness as though itw as an abstract thing, but there is no agreement on what consciousness, how it arises or a definition for it. I do not need to know what I am typing as far as QM goes, only the possibility to retrieve that information needs to be in play. Can you even define know? If I am blind and i type on a brail keyboard, do the letters wave collapse as i type or when someone with sight reads it. When i type and that information becomes available does that collapse the wave. Once you say consciousness is required by QM you are on sticky ground IMHO, what level of consciousness? one neuron level? one million neurons?
Please define what you mean by you are consciousness. Its so subjective yet talked about as an entity we can all identify with, much like use of the word god, so different for so many people, so subjective and so in the realms of philosophy and not science.
I have a much admired your posts and stance by on this one i don't follow your logic I am afraid. Because you talk about consciousness as though your definition of it was all there was.

 

[boffinwannabe]

INTELLIGENCE without Consciousness

That would be an interesting thought debate. Would a Turin machine be intelligent to a person who didn't know it was a machine? Is intelligence both relative and contextual? Can one thing be intelligent without another being less so? Is it not very human focussed? Would an ant be intelligent if it started using tools? My neighbour uses tools but is thick as S&*T. With the Turin machine the intelligent bit might be said to be the software it runs rather than the hardware, but that software was written by a collaboration of people, does group intelligence count when it overcomes herd stupidity?

 

[syberraith]

Has the concepts of closed time loops and discrete time lines been brought here yet?

These two concepts together form my perspective on time travel. Imagine a closed time loop, a circle, with one point that goes around it, and pick one spot on the loop to represent t = 0, which is the top for me. The point represents a single space-time continuum as it proceed from the big bang to the big crunch in a perpetual repetition of cycles.

This point forms one discrete time line that produces it's own new unique history with every new cycle. Now, knowing how nature avoids being wasteful in any shape or form with an intense obsession, why waste all the infrastructure need to enable that one discrete time line to traverse the closed time loop on just one discrete time line.

Now imagine a large but still finite number of discrete timelines all traveling around the closed time loop like a kind of universal carousel. I use the word carousel here to mean the entire closed time loop with all the discrete time lines it includes. From this perspective each discrete time line could properly be called a monoverse.

According time travel in ones own history or future is impossible, because events only happen in the present. The past and the future only exist as memories and dreams in one own monoverse. As the train of discrete time lines progress around the closed time loop, it is fairly easy to envision that if one jumped from discrete time line to discrete time opposite to the natural direction of their progress around the closed time loop, that the "present" of the time line arrived at would correspond to a time in the past of the time line from which they originally departed.

In comparing the unique histories of different discrete time lines, it also easy to imaging that time lines relatively close together about the closed time loop would be similar, although they would be independent of each other that being their nature and the reason for the use of the word "discrete" in naming them.

So, we have arrived at the point I wanted to make. If one were to jump back along the train of time lines far enough to where they would be able to meet the grandfather of the equivalent them in that time line, and I think this is reasonable to presume that the time lines would be similar enough to allow this considering say the fifty years or so required to do so is such a small figure compared to the length of the closed time loop, which would be at least some tens of billions of years, and kill that person, the result would be, and it should be easy enough to see where I'm going with this, that they killed the grandfather of the equivalent them in that discrete time line. They, the one that did the time line jumping would continue to exist, because obviously their grandfather survived to sire their father etc.

In this view for any given person, their past is unchangeable, although is possible to travel to a parallel present which equate with either the past or the future of the the departed time line. This ties the idea of parallel universes, or more properly monoverses, to the idea of linear series of discrete anchor point that propagate along a closed time loop.

I like this perspective because it allows time travel in both directions and eliminates all the common paradoxes associated with doing so. It also puts the idea of parallel universes into a perspective that I can tolerate. It could be called a convergent solution to all the divergent problems commonly brought up in regards to time travel.

 

[boffinwannabe]

No that hasnt been mentioned. Your still trying to avoid a paradox and i thought the whole point of closed time loops were that what you think is a paradox is actually part of your timeline, so your history has already taken into account your time traveling because its part of your entire time line. This in a way was my point, anything you could do in the way of time travel can only be done if there was a history that would allow it, and if its allowed there's no paradox. But we have to face the fact that a paradox is a human concept, there's no reason to suppose that simply because the result of it is puzzling to us that it in itself prohibits time travel.

 

[agentredlum]

im not sure where your going with this. You say your not for consciousness in QM. But there is no consciousness in QM to be for or against. QM deals with information not consciousness. consciousness in relation to QM is philosophy. You talk consciousness as though itw as an abstract thing, but there is no agreement on what consciousness, how it arises or a definition for it. I do not need to know what I am typing as far as QM goes, only the possibility to retrieve that information needs to be in play. Can you even define know? If I am blind and i type on a brail keyboard, do the letters wave collapse as i type or when someone with sight reads it. When i type and that information becomes available does that collapse the wave. Once you say consciousness is required by QM you are on sticky ground IMHO, what level of consciousness? one neuron level? one million neurons?
Please define what you mean by you are consciousness. Its so subjective yet talked about as an entity we can all identify with, much like use of the word god, so different for so many people, so subjective and so in the realms of philosophy and not science.
I have a much admired your posts and stance by on this one i don't follow your logic I am afraid. Because you talk about consciousness as though your definition of it was all there was.

I don't have a definition of consciousness and I haven't seen a definition of consciousness that satisfies me above 58.7% LOL

All these questions you raise about 'where does consciousness begin' are fascinating to me but I can't prove it starts with 1 neuron or ends in a collective universal subconscious.

However, I can make statements about the world even without a clearly defined concept of consciousness.
I HOPE i am conscious, i certainly believe a cat is conscious, i think a rock is not conscious, i don't know if 1 neuron is conscious, is a single neuron alive? Put several million in a network and they appear alive to me.

I would say, in my opinion, consciousness is a phenomenon exhibited by things that are alive, but due to recent advancements in science (specifically our ability to look into things that are very small) it is getting harder to classify some things as alive or not alive and even harder to distinguish between conscious and not conscious.

I think a cell is alive, but is a cell conscious? I don't know. We can't talk to it yet. A cell copes with the environment and 'gets what it wants' stays alive for awhile. It communicates with other cells, so is a cell inteligent? I don't know.

Many scientists believe a VIRUS is not alive, I'm not talking about a computer virus, although it is interesting to speculate wether a biological virus is not too different from a computer virus.

Is a biological virus intelligent? IDK, given a chance it can overwhelm an organism and provide for its own survival then lay dormant until another unlucky organism comes along.

In my opinion, the ability to correlate information and make non random predictions based on that information is a feature of consciousness and intelligence. The ability of performing an experiment that leads you to perform another, and another, and another, all increasing in complexity and providing benfits to our existence, making life easier and more interesting, is a great indication of intelligence. Also the ability to go back and re-evaluate any particular experiment mentioned in the above chain is a great indication of intelligence.

I hope I have clarified my position on consciousness

 

[agentredlum]

That would be an interesting thought debate. Would a Turin machine be intelligent to a person who didn't know it was a machine? Is intelligence both relative and contextual? Can one thing be intelligent without another being less so? Is it not very human focussed? Would an ant be intelligent if it started using tools? My neighbour uses tools but is thick as S&*T. With the Turin machine the intelligent bit might be said to be the software it runs rather than the hardware, but that software was written by a collaboration of people, does group intelligence count when it overcomes herd stupidity?

I would say it depends what the ant, or your neighbor is DOING with those tools. If your neighbor is splitting the atom in his garage then you would have to concede he is intelligent. This leads to the idea of the POTENTIAL of intelligence. Suppose your neighbor is doing something you consider 'dumb' with his tools, if you give him 'time' and 'space', will he/she eventually do something you consider brilliant? If I believe my neighbor has this potential then I consider my neighbor intelligent.

This leads to a nightmarish thought...Imagine ants with nuclear capability...they would overwhelm humanity overnight.

This also raises a point about extraterrestrial intelligence, if it exists, I am not for or against this idea, however we may be perceived as intelligent ants capable of causing them great harm.

On no! i did it again, went to the extreme...

 

[syberraith]

No that hasnt been mentioned. Your still trying to avoid a paradox and i thought the whole point of closed time loops were that what you think is a paradox is actually part of your timeline, so your history has already taken into account your time traveling because its part of your entire time line. This in a way was my point, anything you could do in the way of time travel can only be done if there was a history that would allow it, and if its allowed there's no paradox. But we have to face the fact that a paradox is a human concept, there's no reason to suppose that simply because the result of it is puzzling to us that it in itself prohibits time travel.

Yes, that's another perspective, although it's a more predeterministic one. I suppose what I explained would be a variant of the closed time loop concept. I tend to prefer perspectives that maximize the potential for the application of the free will.

***

I was just thinking that because the present is an infinitesimal small point on the closed time loop, that may be why time breaks down into a series of discontinuous monoverse anchor points that propagate along the loop, because according to the uncertainty principal if time is known to infinitesimal precision, then the err in the momentum of particles becomes infinitely large.

 

[agentredlum]

Dave...are you there Dave?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukeHdiszZmE&feature=related

 

[DaveC426913]

Well, I'm here but this thread's topic has gone AWOL...

 

[boffinwannabe]

Yes, that's another perspective, although it's a more predeterministic one. I suppose what I explained would be a variant of the closed time loop concept. I tend to prefer perspectives that maximize the potential for the application of the free will.

Free will? do you mean unconscious free will but predetermined by your personal history (in otherw ords if anyone else had access to your brains history of events they could also predict your apparent free will decision) or the conscious illusion of free will?