These a few problems with that. One is that you just figured out how the universe works without examining the the universe. Another is that it you can’t get MWI out if it...unless you regard it as a statement only about subjective probability.
I’m not sure I understood these two points. Can you elaborate?
The unstated part of the argument being that free will must be neither-deterministic nor probabilistic?
Actually, the state part. It’s my original comment. Although maybe I wasn’t as clear as I thought I was about it.
I know what “reductionism” means.
This isn’t quite the same reductionism as understood in physics, it has to do with Whitehead’s discussion of the problem of bifurcationism in nature (see the next block for details). In this context even a Jupiter-sized Culture-style AI Mind orders of orders of magnitude more complex than a human brain still counts as “physical reduction” in regards to “objective corporeality” if one assumes its computations capable of qualia-perception.
The problem is that you haven’t explained why reducing the qualia of free will disposes of free will, since you haven’t explained why free will “is” the qualia of free will, or why free will (the ability as opposed to the qualia) can’t be physically explained.
Free will is always perceived as qualia. You perceive it in yourself and in others, similarly to how you perceive any other qualia.
Any attempt at reducing it to the physical aspects of a being describes at most the physical processes that occur in/with/to the object in correlation with that qualia. Therefore, two philosophical options arise:
a) One may assume the qualia thus perceived is as fundamental as the measurable properties of the corporeal object, thus irreducible to those measurable properties, and that the corporeal object is thus a composite of both measurable properties and qualia properties.
In this scenario the set of the measurable properties of a corporeal object can be abstracted from it forming a pseudo-entity, the “physical object”, which is the object studied via mensuration, that is, via mathematical (and by extension logical) procedures and all they provide, among which statistical and probabilistic methods. Any conclusion arrived through them is then understood to describe the “physical object”, which, being only part of the full corporeal object, makes any such conclusion partial by definition, as they never cover the entirety of all properties of the corporeal object, in particular never covering its qualitative properties, as all they ever cover are its quantitative properties.
b) Or one may assume the qualia thus perceived is a consequence of those measurable properties, reducible to them, and therefore the corporeal object is those measurable properties, that is, that the corporeal object and the physical object are one and the same.
The burden of proof for case “a” is much lighter than that of case “b”. In fact, case “a” is the null hypothesis, as it corresponds to our direct perception of the world. Case “b”, in contrast, goes against that perception, and therefore is the one that needs to provide proof of its assertions. In particular, in the case of free will, it’d need to identify all the measurables related to what’s perceived as free will, then show with absolute rigor that they produce the perceived qualia of free will in something formerly devoid of it, and then, somehow, make that generated qualia perceptible as qualia to qualia-perceivers.
To use a classic analogy, even something much more simple, such as showing that the qualia “color red” is the electromagnetic range from 400 to 484 THz cannot be done yet. Note that this isn’t the same as showing that the qualia “color red” is associated with and carried by that EM range. For instance, if I close my eyes and think about an apple, I can access that qualia without a 400~484 THz EM wave hitting my eyes. As such, my affirmation that the qualia “color red” is distinct from the EM wave is straightforward and needs no further proof, while any affirmation involving the assertion that the qualia “color red” is reducible to, first, the measurable physical property “400~484 THz EM wave”, second, to the measurable physical properties of neurons in a brain, are the ones that need thorough proof.
While any such proof—for colors, as the entry level “easy” case, then for the much more difficult stuff such as free will—doesn’t appear, opting for “a” or for “b” will remain an arbitrary preference, as philosophical arguments for one and for the other cancel out.
That {QM}’s the best known example {of “indeterministic physics”} .
From the summary of the bifurcation problem I provided above I think it’s more clear what I mean as indeterministic. From an “a” point of view QM is still entirely about physical objects, saying much about their measurable properties but nothing actually about their qualia. Hence, all it says is that some aspects of corporeal objects are fuzzy, the range of that fuzziness however being strictly determined and that, if MWI is correct, even this fuzziness is more apparent than real, since what it really is saying is not that such physically measurable aspects are fuzzy, but rather that the physical object branches very deterministically into so many ways.
Whether such “fuzziness within a determined range in a single world” or such “deterministic branching in many worlds” works as carriers for, or in correlation to, qualia properties of the full corporeal object, including but not limited to the free will qualia perceived by qualia-perceivers, is an entirely different problem, and there’s no easy, straight jump from one domain to the other. I suppose there may be, but no matter how much physically measurable randomness properties one identifies and determines, there’s still no self-evident link between this property of the physical object and the “free will” qualia of the full corporeal object.
You can conceivably have free will while having no qualia , or while having a bunch of qualia, but not that one.
From the exposed, you may have determinations in the form of single values or that of value ranges with inherent randomness while having no qualia, but stating these physical determinations imply having the “free will” qualia is a logical jump.
Taking from the “color red” example again, you may have an extremely energetic 400~484 THz EM wave, and yet no “color red” qualia at all for the simple lack of any qualia-perceiver in its path, or for the lack of any qualia-perceiver who however lacks the ability to extract a “color red” qualia from that carrier, or because the EM wave was absorbed by a black body etc.
Hence, while physically measurable randomness may be a “free will” qualia carrier, the lack of qualia perception would still result in the “free will” qualia carried by it to be lost. Conversely, a qualia-perceiver may have free will even in the absence of the typical physical carrier of “free will” qualia, as in the analogous case of a mind capable of imagining the “color red” qualia despite the absence of it usual “400~484 THz EM wave” carrier.
These a few problems with that. One is that you just figured out how the universe works without examining the the universe.
The argument that probabilities of past events are always 1 doesn’t prove anything objective, anything about the universe, unless you can show that probability always has to be interpreted objectively. As it happens there is also a subjective explanation for the rule.
Another is that it you can’t get MWI out if it...unless you regard it as a statement only about subjective probability
The probabilities or squared measures of the branches in MWI have to aim to 1. So you cant have more than one branch of probability 1.
Hence, while physically measurable randomness may be a “free will” qualia carrier, the lack of qualia perception would still result in the “free will” qualia carried by it to be lost
Ok, but why should I care? The question I care about is whether free will per se exists.
I’m not sure I understood these two points. Can you elaborate?
Actually, the state part. It’s my original comment. Although maybe I wasn’t as clear as I thought I was about it.
This isn’t quite the same reductionism as understood in physics, it has to do with Whitehead’s discussion of the problem of bifurcationism in nature (see the next block for details). In this context even a Jupiter-sized Culture-style AI Mind orders of orders of magnitude more complex than a human brain still counts as “physical reduction” in regards to “objective corporeality” if one assumes its computations capable of qualia-perception.
Free will is always perceived as qualia. You perceive it in yourself and in others, similarly to how you perceive any other qualia.
Any attempt at reducing it to the physical aspects of a being describes at most the physical processes that occur in/with/to the object in correlation with that qualia. Therefore, two philosophical options arise:
a) One may assume the qualia thus perceived is as fundamental as the measurable properties of the corporeal object, thus irreducible to those measurable properties, and that the corporeal object is thus a composite of both measurable properties and qualia properties.
In this scenario the set of the measurable properties of a corporeal object can be abstracted from it forming a pseudo-entity, the “physical object”, which is the object studied via mensuration, that is, via mathematical (and by extension logical) procedures and all they provide, among which statistical and probabilistic methods. Any conclusion arrived through them is then understood to describe the “physical object”, which, being only part of the full corporeal object, makes any such conclusion partial by definition, as they never cover the entirety of all properties of the corporeal object, in particular never covering its qualitative properties, as all they ever cover are its quantitative properties.
b) Or one may assume the qualia thus perceived is a consequence of those measurable properties, reducible to them, and therefore the corporeal object is those measurable properties, that is, that the corporeal object and the physical object are one and the same.
The burden of proof for case “a” is much lighter than that of case “b”. In fact, case “a” is the null hypothesis, as it corresponds to our direct perception of the world. Case “b”, in contrast, goes against that perception, and therefore is the one that needs to provide proof of its assertions. In particular, in the case of free will, it’d need to identify all the measurables related to what’s perceived as free will, then show with absolute rigor that they produce the perceived qualia of free will in something formerly devoid of it, and then, somehow, make that generated qualia perceptible as qualia to qualia-perceivers.
To use a classic analogy, even something much more simple, such as showing that the qualia “color red” is the electromagnetic range from 400 to 484 THz cannot be done yet. Note that this isn’t the same as showing that the qualia “color red” is associated with and carried by that EM range. For instance, if I close my eyes and think about an apple, I can access that qualia without a 400~484 THz EM wave hitting my eyes. As such, my affirmation that the qualia “color red” is distinct from the EM wave is straightforward and needs no further proof, while any affirmation involving the assertion that the qualia “color red” is reducible to, first, the measurable physical property “400~484 THz EM wave”, second, to the measurable physical properties of neurons in a brain, are the ones that need thorough proof.
While any such proof—for colors, as the entry level “easy” case, then for the much more difficult stuff such as free will—doesn’t appear, opting for “a” or for “b” will remain an arbitrary preference, as philosophical arguments for one and for the other cancel out.
From the summary of the bifurcation problem I provided above I think it’s more clear what I mean as indeterministic. From an “a” point of view QM is still entirely about physical objects, saying much about their measurable properties but nothing actually about their qualia. Hence, all it says is that some aspects of corporeal objects are fuzzy, the range of that fuzziness however being strictly determined and that, if MWI is correct, even this fuzziness is more apparent than real, since what it really is saying is not that such physically measurable aspects are fuzzy, but rather that the physical object branches very deterministically into so many ways.
Whether such “fuzziness within a determined range in a single world” or such “deterministic branching in many worlds” works as carriers for, or in correlation to, qualia properties of the full corporeal object, including but not limited to the free will qualia perceived by qualia-perceivers, is an entirely different problem, and there’s no easy, straight jump from one domain to the other. I suppose there may be, but no matter how much physically measurable randomness properties one identifies and determines, there’s still no self-evident link between this property of the physical object and the “free will” qualia of the full corporeal object.
From the exposed, you may have determinations in the form of single values or that of value ranges with inherent randomness while having no qualia, but stating these physical determinations imply having the “free will” qualia is a logical jump.
Taking from the “color red” example again, you may have an extremely energetic 400~484 THz EM wave, and yet no “color red” qualia at all for the simple lack of any qualia-perceiver in its path, or for the lack of any qualia-perceiver who however lacks the ability to extract a “color red” qualia from that carrier, or because the EM wave was absorbed by a black body etc.
Hence, while physically measurable randomness may be a “free will” qualia carrier, the lack of qualia perception would still result in the “free will” qualia carried by it to be lost. Conversely, a qualia-perceiver may have free will even in the absence of the typical physical carrier of “free will” qualia, as in the analogous case of a mind capable of imagining the “color red” qualia despite the absence of it usual “400~484 THz EM wave” carrier.
The argument that probabilities of past events are always 1 doesn’t prove anything objective, anything about the universe, unless you can show that probability always has to be interpreted objectively. As it happens there is also a subjective explanation for the rule.
The probabilities or squared measures of the branches in MWI have to aim to 1. So you cant have more than one branch of probability 1.
Ok, but why should I care? The question I care about is whether free will per se exists.