cross-posted from: https://discuss.online/post/38877381
http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/quantum-6
Alt text
Later they go out for a superposition of chocolate and vanilla ice cream.
Bonus panel
cross-posted from: https://discuss.online/post/38877381
http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/quantum-6
Alt text
Later they go out for a superposition of chocolate and vanilla ice cream.
Bonus panel
![Quantum [SMBC]](https://discuss.online/pictrs/image/12cdcf9d-eda8-4eed-b025-1eae09419199.png){kind=link}
Yes! Finally someone mentions this. No one ever seems to acknowledge that they assume some kind of omniscient perspective. Something can’t be determined if no one knows the answer.
I’ll also add two points:
Why do we assume determinism removes our free will? If I were a parent you could bet with almost certainty that I would take a bullet for my child, does that mean it’s not my choice because it’s predictable? And events in the past are almost always determined, but we don’t say our past actions are against our will because they’re known now.
Why do we assume randomness gives or allows for free will? If my muscle spasms randomly it’s not suddenly my choice because it’s unpredictable. And if I found out that a choice I had reasons for committing was actually just a random chance that would be more disheartening than liberating. We only think this gives free will because we assume the random chance and our consciousness are the same thing. But that’s just reinventing the immaterial soul with added psuedoscience.
Yes it can. The trajectory of the planets is well determined and can be predicted many years into the future. That was also true before astronomy, or before humans even. Even if nobody currently knows how to predict something, it can certainly be obeying deterministic rules.
Under determinism there is no such thing as choice. Not whether you take a bullet for your child, not whether you watch TV or read a book, not whether you look at the wall for ten or twenty seconds. If there can be no choice, there can be no free will.
The proposition is not than random behaviour is free will. The proposition is that since determinism precludes free will, the existence of free will must require a non-deterministic world. This does mean we know anything about how free will works or comes about, and certainly it doesn’t mean that non-determinism implies free will. We can definitely be living in a non-deterministic world without free will.