Scientific Justification for Free Will?

[Divine Insight]

Is there any scientific justification for the notion of Free Will?

Question #1. If you believe their is, can you please state your scientific evidence for the existence of Free Will.

Question #2. If you believe there is no scientific justification for the notion of Free Will, then please explain how we can have any scientific justification for holding anyone responsible for their actions. In fact, wouldn't the very notion of personal responsibility be scientifically unsupportable?

[JohnPaul]

[Replying to post 285 by Divine Insight]
Divine Insight wrote:

If we are ever able to make sense of it and explain it, only then will it become what we consider to be natural. But as of yet no one has been able to do this, and the theory of QM actually states quite profoundly that this will never be possible to do.

As I understand it, there is no "theory" of QM, only various "interpretations," none of which has yet reached even the level of a testable hypothesis, much less a theory. I agree that it will "never" be understood as long as we stick with the popular Copenhagen Interpretation, which essentially states: "Just do the calculations, and don't ask questions." What kind of an explanation is that?

I personally prefer a version of Everett's 1957 "Many Worlds" interpretatation which postulates that reality consists of a larger reality of four space dimensions, conposed of an infinite number of 3-dimensional "slices," each a 3-D universe similar to our own. The math of QM predicts only random probabilities for each of the possible outcomes of a quantum experiment or observation, but cannot predict which one will "really" occur. The Many Worlds interpretation says that ALL possible outcomes actually do occur, each in a universe-slice of its own. The only thing random about the result is which one the observer's awareness happens to land in at the moment, since "copies" of the observer exist in many of the universes.

Of course this is just an interpretation, but at least it does try to explain something. It only remains to find a way to detect these multiple universes.

[Divine Insight]

I think the bottom line is that it would be presumptuous for us to pretend to know all the forces of nature conclusively.

That is a strawman. No one has claimed absolute certainty about anything. But not being absolutely certain doesn't mean we can't be reasonably certain or draw rational conclusions.

For example, suppose you give me a glass jar and ask me "what large objects are inside the jar?" I look at the jar and see 2 pennies. I shake the jar and hear two pennies rattle around. I open the jar, dump out the jar and only find two pennies. I then tell you there are two pennies inside the jar. "Ahah" you reply, "its presumptuous for you to pretend to know all the objects in the jar. There is absolutely no way that we can claim that we have detected all of the large objects and claim with a very high degree of certainty that there are not more. "

That is an example of the know-nothing, hyperskepticism you and Divine Insight seem to be putting forth.

But your analogy here is totally misleading to the point that I would suggest you are actually putting forth a false analogy on purpose to try to make your point.

You are using a finite jar as an example.

But reality is not a finite jar. It's a bottomless pit. Moreover we have scientific evidence that there are things going on in the bottomless pit that we can't get at.

A far more honest analogy would be the following;

We are at the entrance to a cave. We hear noises coming from the cave. So we go into the cave and we find some animals, and we bring those animals outside of the cave. Then we go back into the cave and listen and we still hear strange noises.

You say, "Well, it can't be animals because we took all the animals we could find out of the cave so there must not be anymore animals."

I say, "Look, just because we have recognized and captured some animals doesn't mean that there can't be more deep in the abyss which we can't reach. After all, we are still hearing noises".

That is a better analogy, IMHO.

Your analogy with a finite glass jar where everything can be accounted for is NOT representative of reality.

So I reject your finite-jar analogy. It doesn't properly represent the situation.

[olavisjo]

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Of course this is just an interpretation, but at least it does try to explain something. It only remains to find a way to detect these multiple universes.

How many of these universes will be created in the next second? And how many universes will each of these universes create in the next second? And how many have been created in the last 13 billion years?
And we can't go into an already existing world, just imagine finding yourself in a world where your parents never lived or they died before you were born.

The idea of many worlds is simply absurd.

[keithprosser3]

Lots of true things are absurd. It is absurd that something can be in more than one place at once, but electrons do it. It is absurd that nothing can go faster than a certain limit because it becomes infinitely massive. It's absurd that merely going faster makes something heavier. It is absurd that quantum events are truly random... and so on and so on.

How about the fact that there are 10 dimensions you cant see because they are rolled up too small to detect? Absurd? People thought that continental drift and even evolution are absurd.

Alice laughed. "There's no use trying," she said: "one can't believe impossible things."
"I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

I'm not keen on the multiverse idea either, but the fact that is it is 'absurd' isn't a good reason to reject it.

[olavisjo]

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Lots of true things are absurd. It is absurd that something can be in more than one place at once, but electrons do it. It is absurd that nothing can go faster than a certain limit because it becomes infinitely massive. It's absurd that merely going faster makes something heavier. It is absurd that quantum events are truly random... and so on and so on.

How about the fact that there are 10 dimensions you cant see because they are rolled up too small to detect? Absurd? People thought that continental drift and even evolution are absurd.

I see no reason to think any of those things are absurd, I may think that some of those things are not true but it is not because they are absurd.

I'm not keen on the multiverse idea either, but the fact that is it is 'absurd' isn't a good reason to reject it.

It is absurd because every quantum event increases the amount of information, that exists, by the amount of information found in the entire universe. Where would such information be recorded? Only an infinite God could keep track of it all.

[Goat]

When speaking of science the term "supernatural" simply means "above and beyond what is natural". My point is simply that science can't yet say what the true nature of reality is, and it may never be able to even address that question. In fact, the theory of Quantum Mechanics actually states mathematically that it will indeed be forever impossible to answer this question, and that this fact itself is an intrinsic part of "Nature".
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Just perhaps, there is no such thing as the 'supernatural', just the 'natural' that is too narrowly defined.

[JohnPaul]

.

Of course this is just an interpretation, but at least it does try to explain something. It only remains to find a way to detect these multiple universes.

How many of these universes will be created in the next second? And how many universes will each of these universes create in the next second? And how many have been created in the last 13 billion years?
And we can't go into an already existing world, just imagine finding yourself in a world where your parents never lived or they died before you were born.

The idea of many worlds is simply absurd.

Really? Why don't you come up with an alternate explanation for the many "absurd" quantum events already observed, and then we can compare absurdities. When the things you are trying to explain are themselves absurd, it is not surprising that the explanation for them might also be a little absurd, or at least new to our thinking. Many people once believed the earth was flat, but that did not stop Columbus from finding a New World and Magellan from sailing around it.

The idea of multiple "parallel universes" has been around for some time and a similar idea is part of String Theory now. It is impossible for the limited 3-D human mind to "visualize" such things, but mathematics welcomes it. A model often used to describe it is a book with pages of zero thickness. Each page would have a flat two-dimensional area containing an infinite number of points, but the total three-dimensional "thickness" of the book would still be zero, thus giving a three-dimensional "volume" of the book as zero. Likewise, a reality of four space dimensions could contain an infinite number of three-dimensional "slices" or pages of the whole reality, but the total four-dimensional "volume" of the whole reality would still be zero.

It would not be necessary for us to "go into" another of these parallel universes, since a slice of us is already there in many of them closest to us, side-by-side right next to us, but in a "direction" we cannot see or even imagine. Everything we observe in our universe around us, including ourselves, is simply a 3-D slice or cross-section of a larger four-dimensional object in a larger reality. Schroedinger's Cat is alive in some of the universes and dead in others, but all a part of the same larger 4-D cat.

[keithprosser3]

I see no reason to think any of those things are absurd, I may think that some of those things are not true but it is not because they are absurd.

If you don't see a reason to think that the behavior of electrons is weird you are probably in a minority. Weird ideas can become acceptable through familiarity, but they are still weird.

JBS Haldane - no fool - said "The universe is not only stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine."

I always wonder when people worry about things like the first cause. If a theist asks me 'well, what caused the big bang?' I tell them I haven't the foggiest idea. Being an atheist doesn't mean knowing all the answers - it means knowing what the answer isn't. I think even atheists forget that sometimes.

On the information issue, I don't see why things have to be 'tracked' at all...

[Philbert]

If it's true that reality is stranger than we can imagine, how could anybody know what the answer isn't?

How could anybody even know whether the question is at all relevant to the reality?

QUESTION: How tall is the color blue?

We could passionately debate this for centuries. We could make competing arguments with great logical and rhetorical skill etc.

And it would all be for nothing because the inevitable failure is contained in the question itself.

I suspect something like this is going on in regards to the god question. The god question may be like a nonsensical zen koan which has no literal answer, but serves the purpose of engaging us in a certain type of dialog, the experience of which is the actual answer.

[instantc]

If it's true that reality is stranger than we can imagine, how could anybody know what the answer isn't?

How could anybody even know whether the question is at all relevant to the reality?

QUESTION: How tall is the color blue?

We could passionately debate this for centuries. We could make competing arguments with great logical and rhetorical skill etc.

And it would all be for nothing because the inevitable failure is contained in the question itself.

I suspect something like this is going on in regards to the god question. The god question may be like a nonsensical zen koan which has no literal answer, but serves the purpose of engaging us in a certain type of dialog, the experience of which is the actual answer.

What makes you suspect that? It seems to me that either an intelligent designer exists or doesn't exist. I don't think that the universe was created by half a person.