On Friday, August 16, 2013 2:36:02 PM UTC-4, Brent wrote: > > That the world is unpredictable because the initial conditions are > unknown and this is different from probabilistically unpredicability, aka > randomness, because you don't even know a probability distribution. He > speculates that chaotic amplification might allow this to account for what > he calls "Knightian freedom" (after Frank Knight) as a component of what is > usually called "free will" and which Aronson says can mean no more than > "unpredictable in principle". >
Interesting. If we don't know the initial conditions, then how do we know that free will isn't part of them? Why wouldn't the initial condition be something like free will itself? To me, probability itself can only arise from the initial condition that expectations can exist and be validated, which I suspect is not only improbable, but actually defines unlikelihood itself mathematically. All expectations of probability float on the surface of absolute improbability - a residue of unintention which cuts across an eternity of intentions within intentions. In my view, unpredictability is not what is interesting about free will though. It's trivial compared to the phenomenon of experiential motivation and resistance. The fact that we can't just mechanically go about accomplishing any task which makes sense for us to accomplish, but actually have to suffer the expenditure of 'effort' is more central to the reality of private physics and the difference between information-theoretic abstractions and concrete sensory-motor experiences. Thanks, Craig > Brent > > On 8/16/2013 8:53 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote: > > What new perspectives would you say are revealed in the paper? Can you sum > them up? > > Craig > > On Friday, August 16, 2013 1:50:04 AM UTC-4, Brent wrote: >> >> Here's a fascinating essay by Scott Aronson that is a really scientific, >> operational exposition on the question of 'free will'; one which takes my >> idea that if you solve the engineering problem you may solve the >> philosophical problem along the way and does much more with it than I could. >> >> He also discusses how the entanglement of the brain with the environment >> affects personal identity as in Bruno Marchal's duplication thought >> experiments. >> >> He also discusses Stenger's idea of the source of the arrow of time >> (secton 5.4) and Boltzmann brains. >> >> Brent >> >> The Ghost in the Quantum Turing Machine >> Scott Aaronson >> (Submitted on 2 Jun 2013 (v1), last revised 7 Jun 2013 (this version, v2)) >> >> In honor of Alan Turing's hundredth birthday, I unwisely set out some >> thoughts about one of Turing's obsessions throughout his life, the question >> of physics and free will. I focus relatively narrowly on a notion that I >> call "Knightian freedom": a certain kind of in-principle physical >> unpredictability that goes beyond probabilistic unpredictability. Other, >> more metaphysical aspects of free will I regard as possibly outside the >> scope of science. I examine a viewpoint, suggested independently by Carl >> Hoefer, Cristi Stoica, and even Turing himself, that tries to find scope >> for "freedom" in the universe's boundary conditions rather than in the >> dynamical laws. Taking this viewpoint seriously leads to many interesting >> conceptual problems. I investigate how far one can go toward solving those >> problems, and along the way, encounter (among other things) the No-Cloning >> Theorem, the measurement problem, decoherence, chaos, the arrow of time, >> the holographic principle, Newcomb's paradox, Boltzmann brains, algorithmic >> information theory, and the Common Prior Assumption. I also compare the >> viewpoint explored here to the more radical speculations of Roger Penrose. >> The result of all this is an unusual perspective on time, quantum >> mechanics, and causation, of which I myself remain skeptical, but which has >> several appealing features. Among other things, it suggests interesting >> empirical questions in neuroscience, physics, and cosmology; and takes a >> millennia-old philosophical debate into some underexplored territory. >> >> Comments: 85 pages (more a short book than a long essay!), 2 figures. >> To appear in "The Once and Future Turing: Computing the World," a >> collection edited by S. Barry Cooper and Andrew Hodges. And yes, I know >> Turing is 101 by now. v2: Corrected typos >> Subjects: Quantum Physics (quant-ph); General Literature (cs.GL); >> History and Philosophy of Physics (physics.hist-ph) >> Cite as: arXiv:1306.0159 [quant-ph] >> (or arXiv:1306.0159v2 [quant-ph] for this version) >> > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected] <javascript:>. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]<javascript:> > . > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > > No virus found in this message. > Checked by AVG - www.avg.com > Version: 2013.0.3392 / Virus Database: 3211/6581 - Release Date: 08/15/13 > > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. 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