On 10/4/2013 2:14 PM, LizR wrote:
On 5 October 2013 06:53, meekerdb <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>
wrote:
He comes to this because he's *defined* "Knightian uncertainty" as radical
unpredictability without randomness.
I don't see why it doesn't entail randomness, especially if it comes from quantum
fluctuations during the big bang.
I found that a little puzzling too. But I happen to be reading Scott's book "Quantum
Computing Since Democritus" too; and in it he gives more of an explanation. He notes that
there are some things which are undetermined but which it doesn't seem possible to assign
a probability distribution to, more precisely there are quite different probability
distributions that seem equally applicable. He discusses a few examples. The Doomsday
argument is one that is probably known to everyone on this list. He notes that one could
estimate a probability using a self-sampling assumption or a self-indicial assumption and
they produce different answers. His general conclusion is that there are undetermined
things that are not random. I think he would put Bruno's FPI in that class. And
apparently that's what he thinks initial conditions of the universe could be.
Incidentally, I highly recommend the book.
But even if it doesn't, it still doesn't seem to me to lead to "free will worth
having".
I agree with Dennett there: Determinism can provide all the freedom worth
having.
Brent
The cosmic background radiation seems more likely to have it (if anything does) than
humans, the latter being made of atoms that have been knocking around on Earth for
billions of years amd surely losing any correlation with "initial uncertainty" in the
process. So does the CMB have more free will than we do?
I agree that doesn't seem very significant, e.g. in terms of public policy
for
example. Nietzsche says "free will" is an invention of the priestly class
in order
to justify judgement, guilt, and punishment - all social tools.
Good point! I tend to agree with Neitzsche on that one (would you Adam and Eve
it? :)
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