Re: Free will and quantum mechanics (For Dr. Haarsma and anyone for that matter)

"D. F. Siemens, Jr." wrote:

> On Wed, 23 Mar 2005 20:49:22 -0500 "John Hewlett" <john.hewlett@usa.com>
> writes:
> > I have learned as someone has pointed out that the idea of free will
> > is kind of a grey area. One book that you might be interested in
> > (and I am reading it right now my self) is by Walter J. Freeman
> > J.r., he is a neuroscientist at Berkley. One of the most best in the
> > country probably. The book is called "How Brains Make Up Their
> > Minds" and I have not run into any QM in the book. I would like to
> > see some different approaches to the free-will issue besides quantum
> > approaches although I still find the quantum approaches terribly
> > interesting. Quantum approaches have been around for a while. One is
> > the Eccles/Beck approach. Eccles being one of the greatest
> > neurophysiologist of the century and Beck a quantum physicist. Dr.
> > Haarsma you of course know this issue gives me some troubles as I
> > have e-mailed you privatly before.
> >
> > Thanks a bunch,
> > John
> >
> Let me throw in another aspect of freedom: there is no way to prove that
> one is free. Consider: Al in situation S with choice between A and B
> chooses A, says he did it freely. But Bob claims that Al had to choose A.
> Al replies that he'll show that it's his choice by going back to S and
> choosing B this time. But Al cannot go back to S, which did not have the
> choice of A in its background. The closest he can come is to something
> like S, call it S'--if it can even be that close.
>
> The only thing we have is that conviction that the human being's choice
> makes a difference. It underlies ascriptions of moral responsibility,
> rationality, the things that are distinctively human.
> Dave

Let me pose another experiment.

We gather a group of N people who think that they have free will. In an
experiment there is a black disk and a red disk. Each person chooses which
disk he will touch if a random coin flip comes up heads. The experiment is
conducted M times and the "free will" result does indeed come up N*M times.
Does it prove anything, or are they deterministically forced to do what they
said that they would do?

Walt

--
===================================
Walt Hicks <wallyshoes@mindspring.com>
In any consistent theory, there must
exist true but not provable statements.
(Godel's Theorem)
You can only find the truth with logic
If you have already found the truth
without it. (G.K. Chesterton)
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