someone:
> >There is no objective test for the existance of free will.
>
Brian
> Do you mean proof or test? Oh, sorry. Did God predestine
> you to have your brain wired in such a way that you do not
> believe that there is a proof or test?
>
> Here is a test. You can come to Columbus and observe my
> behavior for some specified period of time. [please note, this
> is a thought experiment only :-0] . Use whatever analysis
> techniques you want. At the end of the specified time period
> you must submit to me, in writing, your prediction about what
> shirt I will wear the following day. Then we'll wait and see if
> you are right.
Chris
This would not be a valid test. The level of knowledge required to ensure an
accurate prediction would vastly too great. It would (or could, at least)
require the ability to determine the precise position and precise behavior
of every subatomic particle in your brain in virtually infinite detail up
until the time you chose a shirt. Thus, if the prediction were to be made 12
hours ahead of time, it might require knowledge of the current details of
every particle, photon, whatever, within a 12-light-hour space around you,
including the current state of every particle in your brain at the moment,
again, to an almost infinite level of detail. Then, given current knowledge
of physics, it would require a computer that would be, I'd guess, larger
than a sphere around the Solar system just to store the data at the
beginning of the calculation. Oh, then there'd be the calculations
themselves, involving numbers accurate to thirty or forty or more places
(possibly a *lot* more places, I don't know).
Sorry, there is no empirical test to validate indeterminism. In any case,
even if the above-suggested procedure were to be carried out and the
prediction were still to fail, it would not prove indeterminism. It would,
*maximally,* suggest that there are what are called "unknowns." Our
knowledge of physics is still far from perfect, despite Hawking's suggestion
that we might be nearing the end soon. *Logically,* indeterminism does not
even arise as an option, and it was scientifically and philosophically
invalid for Bohr, et al, ever to suggest it. It was invalid because it was
the purest form of argument from ignorance one might imagine. Their argument
amounted to: "We don't have empirical access to what's happening. Therefore
it's indeterministic." They had the burden of proof and could not, even
theoretically, carry it, and have thus failed to do so to this day. Why?
Because there is no empirical distinction between something deterministic
that we don't have enough access to to enable us to see the mechanism and
something that would be indeterministic. Just as sufficiently advanced
technology can be indistinguishable (to us) from magic, so sufficiently deep
and non-visible determinism can be indistinguishable (to us) from
indeterminism.
Of course, this does not, in any way, change the accuracy of the
mathematical descriptions of the behavior of matter -- as far as such
descriptions go. They do not make any claims of determinism or
indeterminism, anyway.
Put another way, indeterminism is a *philosophical* (specifically
*metaphysical*) proposition, and it is not subject to empirical
corroboration (since a strictly determinist universe could behave in
*apparently* the exact same way), but only (*sometimes*) to empirical
disconfirmation (when an indeterminist theory implies that there should
*not* be a causal pattern that *is* found to occur).
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed May 03 2000 - 22:30:31 EDT