--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, matrixmonitor
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
snip
Kochen and Conway stress that their theorem doesn't disprove 't
Hooft's theory. It simply states that if his theory is true, our
actions cannot be free. And they admit that there's no way for us
to tell. Our lives could be like the second showing of a movie --
all actions play out as theough they are free, but that freedom is
an illusion, says Kochen.
Since the mathematicians believe that we have free will, it
follows for them that 't Hooft's theory must be wrong. We have to
believe in free will to do anything, says Conway. I believe I am
free to drink this cup of coffee, or throw it across the room. I
believe I am free in choosing to have this conversation.
Halvorson [Hans Halvorson, philosopher of physics at Princeton]
says the debate really boils down to a matter of personal
taste. Kochen and Conway can't tolerate the idea that our future
may already be settled,, he says, but people like 't Hooft and
Einstein find the notion that the univere can't be completely
described by physics just as disturbing..
For philosophers, both arguments can be troubling. Quantum
randomness as the basis fo free will doesn't really give us control
over our actions, says Tim Maudlin, a philosopher of physics at
Rutgers. We're either deterministic machines, or we're random
machines. That's not much of a choice.
It's almost scary how closely this follows the
discussion Curtis and I were having about free
will based on the Schroedinger quote. This is
exactly the problem Schroedeinger was addressing:
our powerful sense of free will, versus the science
that says it's just an illusion. The one point
we didn't get into was the randomness factor.
And I think it's *remarkable* how closely it tracks
with the Upanishadic and Gita view of the realization
of higher consciousness that MMY teaches, that one is
not the author of one's actions, it's all the interplay
of the gunas.
The only thing missing from the scientists' and
mathematicians' ideas is the concept of the Self, that
one can be without the gunas. If they were introduced
to it--intellectually and experientially--would the
mathematicians find the scientists' theories quite so
threatening?
[last, Halvorson says]:, There are very important questions to
be
asked about free will, and maybe physics can answer them..
[end of article].
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