Free will and quantum indeterminacy

[sjastro]

As has been pointed out in this thread there are various interpretations of quantum mechanics including deterministic ones such as the Many Worlds Interpretation which states we are stuck with only one possibility as all other alternatives exist in other universes which are unobservable in our own.

The mathematics of quantum mechanics is based on linear algebra and Hilbert Spaces.
With a central electrostatic Coulomb potential applied to the hydrogen atom, the resulting model gives accurate energy level predictions supported by experimental evidence.
While the mathematics gives us an appreciation of quantum mechanics, understanding the reality of quantum mechanics is extremely difficult if not impossible to grasp leading to the various interpretations.
Quantum mechanics is a mathematical model for reality, it explains ‘how’ the model works not ‘why’ it works which is consistent with science which is about addressing the ‘how’ and not the ‘why’.

In the mathematics you have observable quantities like energy and momentum which are represented by linear operators acting on the Hilbert space, then there are the eigenvalues and eigenvectors which represent the measured value and the state respectively.
The operator A acts on the eigenvector |Ψ> which gives the eigenvalue λ according to the general equation.

A|Ψ> = λ|Ψ>
|Ψ>= Σ λₙ|Ψₙ> which defines the Hilbert space.

In the mathematics there is no observer doing the measuring, in the resulting physics the observer doesn’t have to be a person, it can be a device.

Erwin Schrödinger believed quantum mechanics was deterministic and his cat thought experiment was a dig against it being probabilistic as advocated by Heisenberg and others by illustrating the absurdity of applying quantum mechanics to objects on a macroscopic scale.
The probabilistic interpretations of quantum mechanics could lead to nonsensical situations when scaled up from subatomic particles to macroscopic systems.

 

[Bradskii]

The probabilistic interpretations of quantum mechanics could lead to nonsensical situations when scaled up from subatomic particles to macroscopic systems.

That's the part of your post that I understood. And with which I agree.

 

[Bob Crowley]

Interesting.

Have you been on the Art Bell or George Noory program?

No, I've never heard of them. I live in Australia. I'm also hard of hearing and very rarely listen to radio.

Incidentally I know two other people who have had "similar" experiences, although one didn't seem to involve any conversation.

One was a lady I met via my last job. She claimed her husband sat on the foot of the bed (having died in hospital from a brain aneurysm that night) and apologised to her for the abusive way he'd treated her. What particularly interested me was that her eldest daughter had the same experience at about the same time. The lady said that of all their children her husband had easily been the most abusive to the eldest daugher.

I don't know if the conversation went past an apology as I didn't ask, and I didn't have time to stick around as I had to move onto my next passenger.

A (Catholic ex-Protestant - like me) psychiatrist said one of his patients and fellow parishioners turned up in church shortly after they announced she had died that morning. He could see her. He said she seemed to be trying to get his attention, but gave up and moved to the other side of the church. He thought she might have had family members on that side of the church.

I'd told him a number of times about my father turning up. I used to only see him every 3, 4 or 5 months as we usually ended up talking about spiritual matters. Originally it was for depression but Prozac and some psychotherapy fixed that up. I kept seeing him though as we both had spiritual experiences in common.

But when he told me about his "experience", he started with the words "Something strange happened last weekend!" In other words having told him about my experience I think God gave him his experience the very weekend before I was due to have my next appointment, which only happened as I said once every few months. The incident would have been quite fresh in his mermory.

I don't think anything was said. Since he was probably the only parishioner who was allowed to see the lady, he could hardly start talking to what would have appeared to everbody else as empty space.

 

[Bob Crowley]

I'll admit I know diddly squat about quantum computing. I think I need to give myself a crash course.

I've been reading "Quantum Computing for Dummies" (being a dummy it's about my pay grade).

It's interesting but they've got a fair way to go before it becomes mainstream. The biggest problem is keeping qubits stable, and hopefully being able to do so above a near zero Kelvin degree environment.

It's going to be a long time (if ever) before you can wander down to your local computer shop to roll your own.

 

[AV1611VET]

Incidentally I know two other people who have had "similar" experiences, although one didn't seem to involve any conversation.

I know of one.

Eliphaz.

Job 4:12 Now a thing was secretly brought to me, and mine ear received a little thereof.
13 In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth on men,
14 Fear came upon me, and trembling, which made all my bones to shake.
15 Then a spirit passed before my face; the hair of my flesh stood up:
16 It stood still, but I could not discern the form thereof: an image was before mine eyes, there was silence, and I heard a voice, saying,

 

[sjastro]

That's the part of your post that I understood. And with which I agree.

Having a knowledge of the mathematics helps.
An example is the Rydberg equation which was empirically derived in the late 19th century and describes the energy level spacings versus wavelength λ in the spectrum of the hydrogen atom.

Rₕ is Rydberg’s constant for the hydrogen atom, n₁ and n₂ are known as the principal quantum numbers where n₂ > n₁.
Scientists had very little idea at the time of how the empirical relationship worked or why Rₕ had a value of 1.097×10⁷ m⁻¹.

When the quantum mechanical model for the hydrogen atom was created in the 1920s the Schrödinger equation was found to be:

On solving this equation, it was found the equation could be reduced to a simpler form of the type.

The solutions for this equation are known as associated Laguerre polynomials.
Remarkably these polynomials lead to the Rydberg equation which could now be explained in terms of the quantum mechanical model of the hydrogen atom.

This leads to a philosophical issue was the Rydberg equation invented or discovered?
The methods used in the 19th century would indicate it was an invention but in the 1920s it was derived from the principles of quantum mechanics and was a discovery.
Is the Rydberg equation like mathematics in general already 'out there' waiting to be discovered or is it a product of the human mind?

There is also the case raised by the Nobel Prize winner in physics Eugene Wigner that the laws of nature are written in the language of mathematics.

The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Bradskii]

Is the Rydberg equation like mathematics in general already 'out there' waiting to be discovered or is it a product of the human mind?

I think maths is just a language like any other. It's a way of describing the world. I can say that 'the square on the hypotenuse...' etc or I can say that 'A2 + B2...' etc.

Is that an answer to the question?

 

[Neogaia777]

This question actually stems from my pondering of the notion of free will. But in the process of thinking about free will I was forced to consider the concepts of quantum indeterminacy and wave function collapse, and those questions are better suited for a sciencey forum like this one.

So here goes.

I only have a 9th grade education so I tend to be a visual thinker. Give me a good gedankenexperiment and I can be lost for hours of pointless mental meandering. A good example of this is 'Schrodinger's cat'. But the more that I consider this seemingly elegant thought experiment, the more confused I get.

One of the main sticking points of Schrodinger's cat is the question of whether the cat is dead, alive, or a combination thereof, before we open the box. There are those who'll argue that the cat was either dead or alive long before we opened the box, for the simple reason that the 'environment causes collapse'. Initially this seems like a logical explanation because the box is full of stuff to interact with... there's the cat, and the detector, and the bottle of poison, and the hammer, and the emitter, and the walls of the box, and the air... that's a lot of stuff for a radioactive decay particle to weave its way through undetected.

Thus the dilemma is resolved, the environment causes collapse, there is no dead and alive cat.

But if you're anything like me then your stupid brain won't stop thinking, and here's what my stupid brain thinks. It's easy to consider the environment as all of this physical 'stuff', but in reality everything in the box, and even the box itself is nothing more than a bunch of indeterminate particles, absolutely no different from the one that I'm concerned about measuring. There's nothing special about those other particles. They're no more entangled with the environment than the particle that I'm concerned about measuring. That radioactive decay particle was emitted by the environment just like all those other particles were. So if those particles are entangled with the environment, then by the same reasoning, so is that radioactive decay particle. But instead, everything inside that box is one big indeterminate cloud of particles.

So that's the first thing that my brain starts to do. It stops visualizing the environment as a bunch of stuff, and starts visualizing it for what it really is, a nebulous cloud of probability. There's nothing different or special about my radioactive decay particle, compared to any other particle.

The second thing that my brain gets confused about is the state of the radioactive emitter. Because until something happens to collapse the wave function, the emitter is also in a state of indeterminacy, of having both emitted, and not emitted a particle. Which means that it has always emitted a particle. There's never a point in time when it isn't in an indeterminate state of having emitted a particle. And this idea can be extended to every other particle in the box. They're all in an indeterminate state of having interacted with that potential radioactive decay particle, and not interacted with that radioactive decay particle. There's never a time when that potential radioactive decay particle isn't being interacted with by a practically infinite number of other indeterminate particles.

This is the point at which my brain gets really confused, because if every particle in the box can be said to have potentially interacted with every other particle in the box, with a greater or lesser degree of probability, then what makes one particular interaction of such preeminent importance that it collapses the entire wave function, and we go from an infinite number of possibilities to just one?

What is it about one particular arrangement of that cloud that makes it collapse the wave function when none of the others do, and if none of them have any particular significance, then what makes it reasonable to assume that one of them just randomly will?

This is where we come full circle back to the question of free will, and the significance of an observer. Because the observer is the only thing that would seem to have a unique perspective that nothing else does... at least relative to me. And if I'm not the cause of the collapse, then that collapse would appear to be random, and how do random events create a determinate reality? @Bradskii, a la Schrodinger, we've got a cat walking around for no other reason than sheer dumb luck.

Now I'm pretty darn sure that me and my 9th grade education have screwed something up in this... I'm just wondering what the heck it is. I'm not here to argue. I'm here to find out where I'm wrong.

The simplest answer to your question is, because the actions/thoughts/direction/decisions, etc, of the observer themselves, is all always determinate, or has already been determined/predetermined, and that's the simplest answer to your question.

What you are going to think it to be, is all already fully known, or has already all been predetermined already, or is already all fully and totally predictable/knowable/known to some entities, etc. Along with "everything else", etc. Or what was or would be before it, and what would come after it, etc, that is or would be always caused by whatever was or came before it, etc.

God Bless.

 

[Neogaia777]

The simplest answer to your question is, because the actions/thoughts/direction/decisions, etc, of the observer themselves, is all always determinate, or has already been determined/predetermined, and that's the simplest answer to your question.

What you are going to think it to be, is all already fully known, or has already all been predetermined already, or is already all fully and totally predictable/knowable/known to some entities, etc. Along with "everything else", etc. Or what was or would be before it, and what would come after it, etc, that is or would be always caused by whatever was or came before it, etc.

God Bless.

You are never going to be able to say, even if we are somehow determining reality, or what happens next, etc, that the way you did that, or chose that, etc, was not already able to be fully predicted/caused/known, etc. Or that it was "random", etc. And in the case of "caused", etc, this by whatever was happening or was going on before it, etc.

And this going "all the way (way, way, way) back", etc.

God Bless.

 

[Neogaia777]

Now, you might be able to think that cat either alive, or dead, etc, and the only time it exists as neither or both is only when you haven't checked on it yet, etc. But, either way, there was a sequence of events, or causes, going on with you and your thought processes before that and leading up to it that were all caused by whatever was before that, etc. But and/or anyway, there is no way for you to know whether or not you thought the cat either alive or dead or not, but even if you did somehow think the cat something contrary to what it was supposed to be, etc, then that would all be fully known by some other observer who had already made or caused it in you to happen, etc. Because that One was responsible for what led up to it either way, having been the original cause of all of it, etc, including what was happening in or with you before you did that, or were right then able to do that, etc. And if you did do something that was contrary, then it does not mean it wasn't supposed to happen that way, but just that you were not yet able to do anything contrary till up to that very moment, because what needed to happen in or with you, had not been made to happen yet, etc. So if you were somehow able to do something contrary, then it would only be due to your unique make-up that was already meant to happen in or with you, in those very moments, etc, but not before that, etc. All fully known and caused already a long, long time ago already by this "Other", etc, who never not knows it, or never cannot fully know/predict it, because He was actually the original cause of both you and it, which will make you wonder if it is really even ever you doing it, even when it is something contrary to it, etc.

Jesus said it wasn't him actually doing it after all, etc. But that it was this other One who had given him the ability to do it, and was causing/making it happen through him (Jesus) that was the actual one/One doing it, etc. Said that he was doing nothing on his own, or of his own accord, but that it was his Father doing it, etc.

God Bless.

 

[Neogaia777]

Now, you might be able to think that cat either alive, or dead, etc, and the only time it exists as neither or both is only when you haven't checked on it yet, etc. But, either way, there was a sequence of events, or causes, going on with you and your thought processes before that and leading up to it that were all caused by whatever was before that, etc. But and/or anyway, there is no way for you to know whether or not you thought the cat either alive or dead or not, but even if you did somehow think the cat something contrary to what it was supposed to be, etc, then that would all be fully known by some other observer who had already made or caused it in you to happen, etc. Because that One was responsible for what led up to it either way, having been the original cause of all of it, etc, including what was happening in or with you before you did that, or were right then able to do that, etc. And if you did do something that was contrary, then it does not mean it wasn't supposed to happen that way, but just that you were not yet able to do anything contrary till up to that very moment, because what needed to happen in or with you, had not been made to happen yet, etc. So if you were somehow able to do something contrary, then it would only be due to your unique make-up that was already meant to happen in or with you, in those very moments, etc, but not before that, etc. All fully known and caused already a long, long time ago already by this "Other", etc, who never not knows it, or never cannot fully know/predict it, because He was actually the original cause of both you and it, which will make you wonder if it is really even ever you doing it, even when it is something contrary to it, etc.

Jesus said it wasn't him actually doing it after all, etc. But that it was this other One who had given him the ability to do it, and was causing/making it happen through him (Jesus) that was the actual one/One doing it, etc. Said that he was doing nothing on his own, or of his own accord, but that it was his Father doing it, etc.

God Bless.

How do you know know whether or not, it is or not, etc, the Father's will for you to go around doing the supernatural, etc? I mean just because He already knows, doesn't mean that you do yet, does it? Or rather maybe, doesn't it, etc? Either way, few are willing to try, etc. And this is most usually because they are afraid of either what might happen, or else might not happen, and the implications of that, or both, etc? I know that's what holds me back from even trying it right now, etc. I'm still too afraid either way, etc. And don't feel like I even should even try it until I've shed that or gotten over that first, etc, as I'm betting it could get in the way, etc, as it shows I still have doubts, etc.

But, as far as the Father's will in it goes, etc, how do we know either way, etc?

Can we think the cat either alive, or else dead, etc?

And what would be the Father's will either way, etc?

God desires people be healed, or made well, right?

What if all these thought processes that have been going on or happening within you are a part of what the Father already has been or already did make happen a long, long time ago, etc, anyway, what if all of these are supposed to be leading up to something like that with you specifically, and is all a part of His overall will/plan(s), etc? He's the One who has been causing you to be right now where you at with it so that you are thinking about it right now with what He has already caused you to right now know so that you are right now considering it with what you right now know after all, etc? So, maybe it is a part of his plans/will maybe, etc? You are not your own after all, but it is all only Him right now doing it, etc? So, what if you are supposed to be doing it/that, etc?

If none of it is actually us, but is all actually Him, then maybe it is all leading up to something maybe, etc?

Would seem pretty pointless if it was all leading up to nothing, etc?

This might have been some of the start in Jesus thinking before he was able to start doing the miraculous, etc.

God Bless.

 

[Neogaia777]

I'm betting Jesus spent a great deal of time resisting fully embracing his destiny, before finally fully embracing his destiny, etc, maybe thinking some of these kind of similar things before that time, etc?

Right before he turned the water into wine, and the interaction between him and his mother right before he did, etc, kind of seems like Mary was trying to push the little eaglet out of it's nest at that time, etc. She knew it was now the time, etc.

I wonder where Jesus was at mentally at that time, etc?

God Bless.

 

[Neogaia777]

To shorten what I am saying, or am trying to say, if the Father already predetermined/predestined/foreordained everything, and for it to all only go or happen only one way, etc, then how do you/me/we know that something contrary is not supposed to happen when you/me/we show up or enter the picture, etc?

All I'm saying is that you/me/we really don't know that really, etc?

God Bless.

 

[AV1611VET]

To shorten what I am saying, or am trying to say, if the Father already predetermined/predestined/foreordained everything,

He didn't.

Did Klebold & Harris shoot up Columbine as marionettes?

 

[Neogaia777]

He didn't.

Did Klebold & Harris shoot up Columbine as marionettes?

Yeah, you threw this at me before, and I'm not going to try an get into it with you again.

Since you obviously don't remember (but I do) there would be no point in trying to get into it with you again, etc. Since you're not going to try and process or remember it anyway, etc.

God Bless.

 

[AV1611VET]

Yeah, you threw this at me before, and I'm not going to try an get into it with you again.

Since you obviously don't remember (but I do) there would be no point in trying to get into it with you again, etc. Since you're not going to try and process or remember it anyway, etc.

God Bless.

Okay.

We can skip Klebold & Harris if you want to.

I have a whole genre of shooters we can pick from.

But I'm sure you'll say the same thing.

So let's talk about inanimate objects.

Does your predeterminism cover those as well?

For example, did God push down that "lifesaving" Florida footbridge down on to those motorists under it?

 

[Neogaia777]

Okay.

We can skip Klebold & Harris if you want to.

I have a whole genre of shooters we can pick from.

But I'm sure you'll say the same thing.

So let's talk about inanimate objects.

Does your predeterminism cover those as well?

For example, did God push down that "lifesaving" Florida footbridge down on to those motorists under it?

God thought up this whole entire creation and the way all of it would happen/go, including your bridge, and shootings, but also all of the good things that would happen or take place here also, before the ultimate good that would come out of all of it in the end, anyway, He conceived or thought all of it up at the very beginning, and then wound it all up, and then let it go, or set it all in motion, until it's already fully known, and fully expected end, fully knowing all of everything in-between, including your bridge, and shootings, but you would fault Him for that, etc.

I suppose you are one of those who thinks they could have done it better, or thought up something better, right?

Well, you wouldn't be alone in that, there are plenty of people in the world that happen to think the same thing, but I wouldn't be one of them on judgement day though, etc.

I think once we see and experience the end, or what happens after the end, we will have no choice but to glorify God for all of it either way, including your bridge, and whatever else, that was all only temporary, etc. We just lack the proper perspective right now, and we can't see the end, etc.

God Bless.

 

[AV1611VET]

God thought up this whole entire creation and the way all of it would happen/go, including your bridge, and shootings, but also all of the good things that would happen or take place here also, before the ultimate good that would come out of all of it in the end, anyway, He conceived or thought all of it up at the very beginning, and then wound it all up, and then let it go, or set it all in motion, until it's already fully known, and fully expected end, fully knowing all of everything in-between, including your bridge, and shootings, but you would fault Him for that, etc.

It sounds to me like you're the one faulting God for everything.

So God thought this whole thing up ahead of time -- including the Fall.

Put it on some kind of cosmic video tape.

Wound that tape up around a spindle.

And now He's playing it out on screen?

 

[Neogaia777]

It sounds to me like you're the one faulting God for everything.

So God thought this whole thing up ahead of time -- including the Fall.

Put it on some kind of cosmic video tape.

Wound that tape up around a spindle.

And now He's playing it out on screen?

This was all created for God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit (YHWH in the OT) also, and they are as much a part of this tape/play that is playing out that was thought up by God the Father as well, etc. They are a big, huge, huge part of God the Father's plan(s) in this creation that He has made or set out/forth from the very beginning, etc.

But, He has no need to watch it all play out, or interfere or intervene, etc. It can all only ever happen/go only ever according to the way that He has already set it all out/forth to all happen/go, from the very beginning, etc.

It is being revealed to the rest not the Father in time, or over time, etc.

God Bless.

 

[AV1611VET]

But, He has no need to watch it all play out, or interfere or intervene, etc. It can all only ever happen/go only ever according to the way that He has already set it all out/forth to all happen/go, from the very beginning, etc.

Then why are we told to pray for others?