----- Original Message ----- From: "Doug Pensinger" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, August 27, 2004 11:10 PM Subject: Re: thinking about free will
> Dan wrote: > > > If that makes it virtually indistinguishable, then, photons also have > > free will in the same sense that we do....because we cannot in principal, > > predict where they hit. We only give probabilities, but we can measure > > with enough precision to in the same manner that humans do? > > Photons might have the free part down, they're not to hep on the will > though. In any case, are you saying that we will never be able to predict > where they hit? Not exactly, but within reasonable quibbles, yes. We have dp*dx >h (where p is momentum and x is position) as a fundamental indeterminacy...we also have dEdt. Take light going through a thin slit, with low enough intensity so..on average, only one photon is in transit at any given time, and then hitting a screen behind the slit. We can make the screen out of material that will allow us to very precisely determine where the photons hit. Yet, it is literally impossible, according to QM, to determine where the photon will hit. In a limit value case, the probability of it hitting any point will approach zero...in practical terms we can set up experiments which would have .00000001 as the highest probability. > > My point is that there is no experimental evidence for a number of things > > most people accept. Arguing the tautology that anything that is not > > experimentally testable is meaningless because it is not experimentally > > testable is not really proving anything. > > Well, that's kind of what I was trying to say - that it doesn't really > matter weather or not we really have free will until someone is able to > prove otherwise What type of proof are you talking about? Absolute, or proof, given a few reasonable assumptions. > > If people want to believe only in those things that can be empirically > > verified, then that's certainly an option. I'd just like the logical > > consequences of that to also be accepted. > > Personally, I believe that there are a great number of things that can not > _yet_ be verified, The things I am thinking of will only be subject to emperical verification if the present understanding of physics is as wrong as the caloric theory of heat. If it is as right as Newtonian mechanics, or even the aether, then they can never be subject to emperical verification. >but that doesn't mean that I feel a need to fabricate an explanation for them. So, you believe that phenomeon is reality independent of our observation...and that everything that cannot be reduced to this reality is fabricated? >In fact I consider it one of the factors that give our existence purpose. But, there is no empirical evidence for purpose of any kind. So, why fabricate it, since you said earlier that you don't need to. Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
