The Present State of Physics, Mathematics, and Science

Hi Paul and all,

wow, I think there are much, much more aspects to consider regarding the issue of "free will" than were mentioned or examined in the article by Sean Carroll. I like to mention some of these aspects here.

First of all, there are fundamental, "primitive" needs for any living human subject, at least until that subject is more or less an adult. For example these are food, water, a shelter against rough environments, care from other humans. These are the "hard physical" needs that increase the chances of survival even - and especially - for newborn babies, but also for adults.

Then there are other needs, such as security, love, care, being accepted, being recognized and valued. Additional needs may be our striving for "happiness", "fun" and "playing", or in other words to be creative, to create something - even if it is just creating food for some animals out of what one had planted on the field or to create something just for the purpose of fun (the rules of a chess game, baseball game etc.).

Now, for each and every of these mentioned needs there can be specified some exceptions:

The homeless person who doesn't want to live again in a conventional home / shelter. The subject who committed a hunger strike. The other subject who deliberately committed suicide (maybe by a hunger strike, but surely also via other measures). And there may be persons who do not need, for whatever reasons, "things" like love and being valued, for example some psychopaths ore else.

When talking about "normal" people, we take it for guaranteed that they regularly have the "will" to eat during their living. That they do not kill themselves. That they like to be happy as much as possible (in opposition to being grumpy as much as possible). That they want to achieve something in their lives. For these people we cannot talk about them such that they deliberately choose to eat everyday by free will, since they are not free to choose whether they are hungry or not. Same is also valid for most of the needs I just mentioned above that are already there when a subject is just a baby.

Now, some kind of free will comes into play when some of these (baby) needs suddenly are in conflict, in opposition with some other needs. To understand this, we have to admit that the more primitive needs can be overwritten, replaced by some more sophisticated needs. For example there are cases where people in the 9/11 disaster choose to "waste" some precious time in the towers to help other people to escape that inferno. Cases where the helpers were aware of the contradiction between their intuitive feeling to instantly leave the building due to high danger of death and their intuitive feeling that it is likewise or more valid trying to help others getting out.

The main aspect to consider here is what people judge to be worth doing or not doing (even worth thinking through or not thinking through!). So an element of judgement, a real element of belief in what worthiness things have or don't have comes into play. The terrorist may not have at all orchestrated their plans if they didn't thought that their goals are of a personal high worth. The same is true for all the helpers that died or have survived that day. In fact, such beliefs in a "higher" worthiness apart from the "primitive" needs of food, water and shelter can be observed on many occasions. As already mentioned there are suicides and hunger strikes in the world as well as wars to enforce "worthiness". But on the other side there are also kind acts of humanity all over the world that meet other definitions of "worthiness".

Since Osama Bin Laden was obviously very happy with the results of 9/11, it may have been the case that this satisfied his need for some "happiness" in his life. If true or not for that special person, most people obviously have very different beliefs of how to best satisfy their needs for happiness. And not only regarding their need for happiness, but also regarding their need for love, care and attention.

For me, the main point here is not the plethora of different "beliefs" in "worthiness" of different people that are often mutually conflicting each other. It is the fact that most human beings, during their lives, repeatedly come across two or more internally conflicting beliefs of "worthiness" already within their own hearts / souls / minds and have to make a decision. Whereas the more "primitive" needs like hunger are usually not conflicting with some other needs, belief-based needs can often do so.

Independent of what one thinks about the "worthiness" (or reliability concerning the truth of these beliefs) other people's various beliefs, these beliefs surely often lead to effective and irreversible results in physical reality. Moreover, weighing up two conflicting needs happens in the human mind and whether or not such a weighing up happens in a human's mind depends on another belief of that person, namely whether or not it is worth at all thinking more deeply about these two conflicting needs / beliefs / emotions.

Of course one can always "decide" that every decision the human mind makes is predetermined by the physics of the brain - even that very decision! That is another belief and, if true, the minds of all the people are populated with a plethora of beliefs that never can be proven / disproven constructively to be true or false - unless there would exist a method to explain how the brain can reliably differentiate true from false beliefs in all cases.

So we are left with a plethora of beliefs and don't even know whether or not they can be examined and analysed such that we are guaranteed to know whether or not there is any reality, any "worthiness" at their basis. We can't know that because we even cannot know what such a "basis" should look like, since a deterministic production of beliefs in the brain mustn't in any way coincide with the true ontology of ultimate reality, whatever it is. Nonetheless many scientist seem to believe that one day every truth about ultimate (physical) reality will be revealed to some human brains by means of deterministic processes in those brains such that these brains have complete knowledge about all that constituents of ultimate reality.

At this point it is a good guess that the plethora of conflicting beliefs in the world are all more or less trials to satisfy the variety of human needs enumerated above. It would be interesting to answer the question which of these beliefs is best suited for permanently satisfying these human needs. But as history, philosophy and a plethora of discussions at least since the age of enlightenment has shown, no overall consensus can be expected to arise for humanity concerning this question. Why? Because for analysing the whole issue, almost all steps of that analysis are themselves steps of belief in this or that.

So, if it is true that each and every human's life is driven by a set of more or less "primitive" internal needs / emotions, then every human is at first driven to satisfy its own internal primitive needs / emotions by its own internal "primitive" beliefs (for example "it is good to eat", "it is good to drink water", "it is good to have a shelter", "it is good to receive recognition" etc.). On the other hand, the resources to satisfy these needs may decrease from time to time - or steadily - via known and / or unknown causes.

We can surely state that there are many people who's needs are not served in this world. One now can react to this by ignoring these people or by at least being aware of them in one's own environment and trying to help them from time to time, even if some acts of little help require some acts of little sacrifice / relinquishment of one's own needs. Unless there would exist a method to explain how the brain can reliably differentiate true from false beliefs in all cases and therefore also figure out whether or not human decisions are indeed fully predetermined by the physics in the human brain, I would say that helping or not helping somebody, thinking or not thinking about one's own and others needs and how oneself handles these needs is in any case a personal decision that has indeed some kind of "free" will (in a binary sense) in it.

Hi Stefan,

you have well generalised this free , there are indeed many parameters to take into account, you begin in describing the primitive ones, correlated with the locomotion, reproduction , nutrition. And it is function of our environments and its interactions. The survival being an essential point, we are a little bit in the darwinism and this competition to survive. Lamarck and the will too can be considered for the encodings of informations and the changes in the dna.

You speak about the feelings like the love , the recognising....it is also essential points building our personalities and it is still correlated with many parameters with these environments more the education, the genetic, ..... You speak too about the pleasure and the game, it seems too an important point because when we are children, I have remarked that we are full of energy and we can play with innocence with all , maybe it is this imagination, creativity, innocence the secret, maybe we loose unfortunally this in becoming adults.

You analyse after an important point about the lost of something implying rebellions or depressions, it is because the environments deceive us I believe or the personal problems, personally I have suffered a lot since I am young, my father drunk and was violent with my mother, we have had the police at home many times, I was obliged at the age of 16 to stop him, he is dead I was 19 years old and I was at university in geology. I have stopped in 3 due to a coma, due to epilepsy, but I cannot stop to study maths and physics. My mother after was in depression and in psychiatry. I have lost my mother 6 years ago , a cancer, she has begun too to drink , I have no sister and brother, I have lost my god father 4 years ago and my grandmother 3 years ago, they were my only familly. I have known during the funerals of my mom that I was adopted. It was difficult, I have had many depressions. I have had a heart failure 10 months ago and an operation in emergency.I have had sexual abuses too when I was a child. And other problem, in fact I have never been able to breath . But This consciousness and survival has helped me , I was near a suicide I must say but This universe has helped me. Maybe without my theory and this faith in this universe, I d be not here .

It was so my choice to live , and accept this past , the free will is not predeterminated , maybe generally yes bot not in the details.

You spoke about the 11 september, we arrive at the philosophies and the psychology, why these kind of evil comportments ? it is complex , it is still about the education, the cognitive sciences, the environments, the choices, and even the spirituality in this case, the ideologies extremist are simply sick comportments in a sense that the consciousness lacks of universal altruism and moderation.

This free will is so complex and is function of so many parameters that we cannot really compute it , it is about the uniqueness of things too.

You speak about the global problems, it is a general free will to choose to solve these problems because if the leaders were more consciousn universally, we could solve but the humans and our past imply that we have bad habits simply and that a kind of normality is accepted. But when we analyse the whole of sciences and this universal philosophy, we have the choices in hands to harmonise because simply it does not lack nor of potential, nor space,nor energy, nor matter. It is just a choice general altruistic global. The planet generally is sick Stefan due to a lack of universalism at all levels of this society. The needs are not really the problem, the choices yes permitting to harmonise these said needs.

Steve,

thanks for reading my comment and for replying.

Steve,

thanks for reading my comment and for replying.

You can be proud of what you have achieved, since you had many resistances to overcome in your life. Others may had become violent, you decided to think about the fundamental things in physics and other disciplines. The issues we discuss are very complex and the possible answers are no less ambiguous. For example, there are many opposing interests involved that had to be settled / balanced for mankind to be on the same page. It begins with the question for whom should I vote for in the next elections in my country to improve / not worsen things...? I think every human being is left with trying to make some little steps in the right direction by questioning from time to time her / his own beliefs and its impacts on other people. At the current state of affairs, I see no other easy way out of the complexity of the problems humankind continuously produces / is confronted with. I think you are a step ahead since you at least believe that there could be something greater than yourself, namely what you call "the universe". Since you know that I believe in a creator that means well with every person but also demands a certain attitude to obey his commandments, I like to mention that such a belief isn't any more considered useful today by more and more people. My take on that is that without believing in some kind of such a creator, people will continue to act more and more anti-altruistic (since the primitive functioning of their reptile brains more and more take over the more sophisticated parts of the human mind). And of course with my remarks on a creator i do not subscribe to any god that allows or demands the killing of people.

You are welcome, thanks too for your words. I have never lost the faith fortunally in this universe. I have searched the answers younger in reading the religious books , after the philosophes , I like kant and spinoza, and after I have ranked the sciences, animals, minerals, vegetals, physics, maths, evolution and it is like this that I found my theory in seeing the evolution of brains, the hominids mainly since the selacians, we see a relative spherisation. I elive in god, but a little bit like einstein , a god of nature in respecting the pure determinism. I am persuaded that we cannot come from a mathematical accident, it seems odd. I have remarked too that the fields like origin of our topologies, geometries, matters have enormous problems when we consider the oscillations and fields. Because if an eternal infinite consciousness has been able to create a so incredible universe with oscillations, why this thing has not created quickly a more perfect universe and why a murderer or others are not stopped with an oscillation. For me it is a proof that we are inside a system in evolution in a superfluidity with particles and mainly 3 ethers , the photons, the cold dark matter, and the dark energy possessing the main codes. I see god like an infinite eternal consciousness in 0D , without time space matter dimension beyond the physicality and everywhere paradoxally, that is why I believe that we have a central cosmological sphere, a kind of super matter energy able to send all informations. Why this thing has decided to create this ? maybe simply this infinity was alone and has taken an eternity to create this central sphere and now we create a system in evolution where the consciousness too evolves, maybe we create it this paradise and the future in this logic is fadscinating. It d be odd to come from a mathematical accident from an infinite heat not conscious I must say. It seems no sense. The persons thinking in this , I respect their choices , I am tolerant, we cannot prove our interpretations in fact, it is sure but something seems to appear .

I have created this forum Global collaboration to unite the thinkers, systems, institutes, scientists and to create a book of concrete adapted solutions to convice the UN and the WB, I beleive strongly that we can success with this consciousness but I have remarked that it is difficult to convice and unite, maybe due to our psychology and the normality and the sad common past. But I have hope, in all case, these solutions exist where all wins, we don t lack of space, matter, energy, potential, consciousness, the win win for all lifes of this earth can be a reality. I will not stop to try to unify but I need help I believe , this vanity and ego and this normality are parameters to take into account, the humans have difficulties to follow and work in team, they are always interested with the notoriety or the money or power unfortunally. Take care stefan , be the force with you jedi of the Sphere :)

So what exactly is WRONG with physics, apart from the fact that physics says that it was the laws of nature, not people, that flew planes into the twin towers? (Because according to physics, the laws of nature cause all outcomes; and everything, including people and their actions, are merely epiphenomena, i.e. by-products of the laws of nature.)

One thing wrong with physics is that it has a system with bottom-up causation, but no top-down causation. Physics believes that, when you look at it closely, top-down causation is nothing but bottom-up causation. I.e. physics believes that top-down causation is unnecessary, and that it doesn't actually exist.

To put it another way, physics believes that a situation symbolically representable as:

"variable1=number1 AND variable2=number2 AND ... AND variableN=numberN IS TRUE"

is identical to the following separate situations:

"variable1=number1 IS TRUE" ; "variable2=number2 IS TRUE" ; ... "variableN=numberN IS TRUE".

I.e. physics believes that an aspect of the world, symbolically representable as "AND", doesn't exist.

So, in reply to the posts by Stefan Weckbach and Steve Dufourny above, I'd say that:

1. To understand how the world operates, one needs to symbolically represent the world as a system, with equations, variables and number symbols, and other special symbols.

2. While there might be laws/ rules (symbolically representable by equations) that handle simple individual situations symbolically representable as:

"variable1=number1 IS TRUE" ; "variable2=number2 IS TRUE" ; ... "variableN=numberN IS TRUE",

it is not possible to have laws/ rules that handle the myriads of complicated situations symbolically representable as:

"variable1=number1 AND variable2=number2 AND ... AND variableN=numberN IS TRUE" . I.e. in order to handle complicated situations, something describable as "free will" is a NECESSARY part of a complicated system. "Free will" can't exist unless it is a NECESSARY part of a system.

P.S.

Clearly, a situation symbolically representable as:

"variable1=number1 AND variable2=number2 AND ... AND variableN=numberN IS TRUE",

and any further analysis of the situation, could only exist from the point of view of some sort of information-integrated entity: it couldn't exist from the point of view of e.g. a pile of sand.

Hi Steve,

take also care Steve, and may the force of the three spheres be always with you!!!

Hi Lorraine,

in the case of the crashing twin-towers, the term "top-down causation" becomes a striking new twist to the crumbling down of them. I agree that this was caused by a deliberate act of human beings, of course with the help of physics.

Concerning what's wrong with physics I would say that we even don't know what the difference between a physical "thing"and a "non-physical" thing is - because we neither do know what's the complete essence of "physical" entails nor do we know what's the complete essence of "non-physical"entails. And I see no reasons why both cannot interact, only because they are thought of as being of somewhat different "essences". This does not mean that consciousness is produced by matter, it only means that there are two different "essences" with two different sets of rules that may built a certain intersection that is neither mathematical nor chaotic.

A living thing is not a like set of individual isolated ingredients, or a set of individual isolated characteristics:

"variable1=number1 IS TRUE" ; "variable2=number2 IS TRUE" ; ... ; "variableN=numberN IS TRUE".

A living thing or a molecule is like a whole, an information-integrated entity, representable as something like:

"variable1=number1 AND variable2=number2 AND ... AND variableN=numberN IS TRUE", but with further collating and summarising logical order imposed on it, something like:

"IF variable1=number1 AND variable2=number2 THEN newvariable1= newnumber1".

This information-integration, with collating and summarising logical order, does not "emerge" from the epiphenomena of so-called "complexity" (the shapes of clouds are epiphenomena) because the world does not have an overview of itself whereby it discerns the shapes of the clouds. The only entities that discern the shapes of clouds are entities like human beings, that are already information-integrated entities.

And the information-integration, with collating and summarising logical order (represented by Boolean and algorithmic symbols), does not derive from, and can't be derived from, the laws of nature (represented by equations). The aspect of the world represented by Boolean and algorithmic symbols is a separate, foundational, "top-down" aspect of the world.

The situation represented by:

"variable1=number1 AND variable2=number2 AND ... AND variableN=numberN IS TRUE", with further collating and summarising logical order, can't be handled by the law of nature rules (represented by equations): at least some individual on-the-spot rules ("free will" assigning numbers to variables) is a necessary aspect of this system.

Hi Stefan,

I have replied below.

Hi Lorraine,

if I understood you correctly, you say that physics - its mathematical laws - are only dealing with quantities, numbers. Although there are some symbols involved for which we have a qualitative subjective feeling about (for example "wavelength"), the causal power of all these symbols is determined by their quantities, hence numbers. I would agree on that, we only have access to quantities, we can only evaluate quantitative relationships. The quest for the real nature of the entities that we observe by our quantitative measures cannot be answered by the laws of nature, by our quantitative measures.

"A living thing or a molecule is like a whole, an information-integrated entity"

Yes, I do agree. I also do agree that in standard physics, death matter does not use boolean logic to output its results over time. You made that clearer by pointing to the formation of clouds, where the atoms and molecules do not use boolean logic to produce a certain shape / result. I think nobody would think that these atoms and molecules "use" the laws of nature to accomplish a certain shape. But nonetheless some do interpret that shape such that it was the common effort of all the atoms and molecules "together" to form that shape - thereby bringing a certain element of "goal" into the issue. Surely, in a deterministic world, no atoms and molecules do "work together" to accomplish a certain goal and in a deterministic world there will nowhere be found a "plan" to form a cloud. In a deterministic world there are only the laws of physics and these laws have not incorporated any "plans". Especially they have no plans to use "other" laws of nature to accomplish a certain goal.

On the other hand, this happened when the twin-towers were attacked. The terrorists used some laws of nature (flying planes to reach the top of some buildings), high momentum of huge masses of matter etc. So you are right, they combined certain different sets of laws of nature in a boolean fashion to accomplish their goals. Of course, those people that believe in a strict deterministic world would say that all of this is due to some initial conditions of myriads of atoms that have acted exactly according to the known laws of physics for billions of years to produce that terrorist attack.

Now, for this line of reasoning to work, one would need either some very distinct initial conditions (among a myriad of "possible" conditions) or an unimaginably huge set of boolean combinations. Clearly, most determinists would say that it was the special initial conditions that made all of this happen. But that would leave the question open why there does at all exist boolean logic in the world (or logics at all). The determinists may answer that boolean logics is built into the foundations of the world by the existence of the laws of physics, since for example the gravitational laws either do exist or do not exist, either have the form they have or do not have the form we think they have. This would be a boolean "either-or". And since the terrorists decided to accept the gravitational laws, they had to somehow overcome them by using planes.

Now let's look at what is wrong with physics today. Many (theoretical) physicists believe that somehow it is itself a law of nature that human beings are able in principle to find out all the answers to the quests of physical existence by the workings of their brains. This would mean that all the laws of physics couldn't be other than they are. If true, there is no more a boolean element that could be attached to these laws - one couldn't any more say "either-or". Moreover, for the complete set of laws (theory of everything), there wouldn't even be the chance for this set to be composed of some slightly different ingredients. So we not even could say that the set of laws (theory of everything) is composed of "law1 AND law2 AND law3" etc. as if there would be any alternative (for example law3 is not element of that set). In such a theory of everything, boolean logic with its AND, OR etc. would have no place, since in that set there is nothing to choose or to combine, there do not exist any alternatives. Every trial of decomposing that theory would be truly magical and here is why:

For the case of finding such a theory of everything, boolean logics becomes superfluous - but still exists, and that is a contradiction. Remember, if such a theory for everything should be found in the future, it can only be found with the help of boolean logics. In other words: boolean logics would then disprove its own existence, what is deeply contradictory and therefore I do not subscribe to the idea of a theory of everything.

So, where does boolean logics come from? Of course, many would say now that boolean logics stems from mathematics. But wait a minute: if everything is determined, even human thoughts and their mathematical conclusions, how can we know that the mathematics that is responsible for this determinism always leads human brains exclusively only to truths about the world, the physics and the mathematics? The answer is that determinism does not guarantee this and we have plenty of examples where human thinking fails to determine some physical or mathematical truths. In other words, there are plenty of wrong results out there in science (otherwise it wouldn't be science, but magic!). Nonetheless many physicists think that there not only exists a theory of everything, but moreover that this theory is such that it must be representable in a human brain.

So we have a boolean element of "either-or" (theory of everything does exist or does not exist) and a boolean AND (AND it must be representable in a human brain). Even if boolean logics has its roots in mathematics, I see no reason how mathematics should encode the necessity for itself to deliver one and just one identifiable set of laws (theory of everything) and at the same time reveal to some human brains that this set not only exists but also is representable in principle by some human brains in the future. Clearly, this kind of belief in a theory of everything obviously has some kind of "goal" built into it, the goal of finding out the ultimate truth about existence. According to this kind of reasoning we end up with a deterministic process that at some stage not only will reveal itself as deterministic but also will reveal to the human brain the ultimate truth about existence. This then would be the ultimate case of "emergence", made possible by the ultimate "complexity" of mathematics itself: mathematics becomes self-conscious!

So far, so fantastic. But the last question that a mathematical universe then must answer is why it is at all destined to become self-conscious? Can mathematics answer this last question WITHOUT also answering why it exists at all? And if this question is mathematically invalid because it indicates a boolean yes-no possibility (existence vs. non-existence) that is not existent at the most fundamental level, why then does boolean logics stem at all from mathematics - if there are no alternatives at all (neither in the deterministic world, nor in deterministic maths)? If mathematics can't answer that last question it wouldn't be more fundamental than the cloud in the sky you mentioned that has no plan to form a certain shape - and with that result a mathematical universe would be superfluous right from the start since it wouldn't have more information to offer than that cloud in the sky.

So I agree that determinism isn't sufficient to completely describe the phenomenal world and I agree that there has to be something that - due to lack of better words - could be termed "top-down" influences.

To shortly resume my main points here for a better understanding:

I wrote

"we have plenty of examples where human thinking fails to determine some physical or mathematical truths."

If the universe is exclusively mathematical, then mathematics can produce false statements / thoughts about itself.

And if it can, every musing / conviction about a purely mathematical universe could be such a false statement / thought. But that in turn couldn't be the case, since we presupposed right from the start that the universe is exclusively mathematical. So either the universe isn't exclusively mathematical or it is, in the sense that this is a mathematical result, "calculated" and represented in one's brain, and that result says about itself that it is mandatory to be true - and not false.

So there is a "mathematical" result, originated in a brain that says that itself is true - since there is no possibility of "false" in that case. The question then is why the brain should be capable of producing scientific results that are sometimes false, but shouldn't fail when it comes to the question what the fundamental nature of these thought processes should be (namely exclusively mathematics). In the case of some false scientific results, one has falsely combined some boolean elements to come to a false conclusion (or simply has presupposed something that doesn't exist). The question now is why should the mathematical universe hypothesis be excluded from that kind of falsity? The answer is simply because it is only a hypothesis, not a scientifically proven fact (and with that we regain the option of the boolean either / or - either the hypothesis is true or it is false).

Dear Lorraine, :) thanks a lot, I am touched by these words from you, take care too , friendly

1. Physics can't tell you why the world ever moves, i.e. physics assumes that number jumps just happen. And in any case, physics can't tell you what numbers are, and physics can't tell you what a system is.

A basic issue for any system is: how are you going to move the system i.e. how are you going to move the numbers for the variables? And clearly, the law of nature relationships can't explain what is jumping the numbers, they can merely explain the relationships between categories IF some of the numbers for the variables are jumped to a new value for some reason. In other words when it comes to the numbers, the system i.e. the world is inherently free (but structured by the relationships); and matter is the only candidate for what is jumping the numbers for some of the variables.

But if you ask them, physicists can't tell you what a number is, and physicists can't tell you what a system is. So physics has assumed that the world must be inherently UNfree, because all they've got is the law of nature relationships.

(continued)

2. Physics has assumed that bottom-up causation IS top-down causation. So physics says that the laws of nature caused the planes to fly into the twin towers.

The issue seems to be information. Physics can't explain the basic difference between: 1) the low-level information such as might apply to a single particle; and 2) the interconnected, collated and logically analysed information necessary for a living thing or a molecule to respond to its situation.

It might be thought that the unprocessed information, that comes from light or sound waves interacting with the eyes or other senses, can be represented as variables and numbers. But from the point of view of a living thing or large molecule, the unprocessed information needs to be represented as:

"variable1=number1 AND variable2=number2 AND ... AND variableN=numberN IS TRUE".

I.e. there exists an aspect of the world that can only be represented by the Boolean symbol "AND". Similarly, you can't use equations to represent the collation and analysis of information: you need to use Boolean and algorithmic symbols to represent this aspect of the world.

Boolean and algorithmic symbols represent a logical aspect of the world that can only be inferred, not measured; similarly, the equations that represent the laws of nature represent a relationship aspect of the world that can only be inferred, not measured; you can only measure the variables and numbers aspect of the world.

Hi Lorraine,

I think you are on to something.

Let's make a Gedankenexperiment:

1) Assume that everything that happens is determined by what happened just before and so on. So things can only happen as they happen and have no possibility to happen otherwise. In other words, let's assume strict determinism is true.

2) Assume that also our feelings, thoughts, our complete conscious experience at any time is determined in the same way as described under 1).

3) The consequences of 1) and 2) then would result into a kind of cosmic movie (film) that unfolds picture by picture.

Now we ask where there could be some extra room for boolean logics in human thoughts? Since every thought is determined (by what happened just before in the brain/the world), every result of any "inference" obtained by conscious beings via boolean logics is also determined. And so are the results of all "collating" and "logical analysis" by human beings.

This means that boolean logics has no effective power in the world, it only SEEMS that it has this effective power. The only effective power is determinism (however it may have come about in the distant past). It also means that neither consciousness has any effective power in the world, it only seems to us that it has.

If we assume that the points 1)-3) are TRUE, then - magically -, a predetermined process in MY brain that hasn't followed some boolean logics, but only followed a mathematical calculation (remember, 1)-3) considers my brain to be merely a bunch of atoms, a complex mathematical pattern) OUTPUTS a profound result that has to be considered TRUE. And it would be TRUE not because I handled some boolean combinations in the appropriate way, but only because the past was what it was and the future is what it is (namely both deterministic).

Hence, boolean logics would have no place at the fundamental level of reality and I wonder why it is possible that boolean logics nonetheless brought me to that analytical result. If we assume that 1)-3) are facts about the world, then we must also admit that boolean logics is NOT the entity that leads people to some insights about reality - it only SEEMS that boolean logics can do this, but according to 1)-3), it can do nothing.

This is astonishing since nonetheless there is an analytical result. Moreover that result speaks about how it came about, and how it didn't came about. Consequently, if we assume that 1)-3) are facts about the world, we also have to admit that determinism is somewhat magically able to explain itself, whenever we FALSELY THINK (or believe) that we used boolean logics to analyse it. According to 1)-3) we haven't analysed anything, but determinism merely played out its next couples of pictures of the cosmic movie.

Hi Stefan,

Replying to your last couple of posts, this is the way I would put it:

The symbols of physics and mathematics, that people use to represent the world, shouldn't be confused with the actual underlying reality of the world. But the symbols are important because, unlike words, they can clearly show the structure of the world. E.g. the symbols (together with experimental evidence) have shown that there ARE underlying relationships and associated numbers structuring the world.

Regarding people flying planes into the twin towers, there seems to be 2 issues:

1. If you model the world as a system, why is it moving, why are the numbers moving? Physics basically says either that the laws of nature are the entities that move/jump the numbers for the variables, or physics says that the numbers move/jump because that's just the way it is. But I would say that information-integrated matter, at all scales, are the entities that jump the numbers for their own variables; i.e. they create new numbers for their own variables; and that its only when these numbers jump that other numbers change, due to passive law of nature relationships.

The world doesn't just automatically move; and the laws of nature are just passive relationships (represented by equations) that don't move the world. Matter moves the world; people change the world: you can call that "free will" because something entirely new has been created, and there are absolutely no rules of any type constraining it. But you need to use Boolean and algorithmic symbols to symbolically represent matter jumping the numbers for their own variables.

2. What is the difference (if any) between the information available to a particle and the information available to an integrated living thing? The only explanatory tool physics has in its toolbox is equations, variables and numbers, or something equivalent. But I think that information points to a type of dualism, a different aspect of the world that requires different types of symbols to represent it. I'd say that, in order to operate, a differentiated system needs to differentiate (discern difference in) its own equations, variables and numbers. I.e. this particular type of dualism, whereby a system differentiates its own equations, variables and numbers, is a NECESSARY aspect of a system.

I'd say that the information available to a single particle can be symbolically represented as something like: "variable1=number1 AND variable2=number2 IS TRUE"; and the basic information available to a living thing can be symbolically represented as something like: "variable1=number1 AND variable2=number2 AND ... AND variableN=numberN IS TRUE".

So there is no essential difference between the basic information available to a particle and the basic information available to a living thing: information is ALWAYS a combined whole, from the point of view of matter. But, unlike the particle, the living thing can further collate and analyse this basic information (where collation and analysis can also only be represented using Boolean and algorithmic symbols). This collated and analysed information is the rationale that urges the living thing to move itself (change the numbers for its own variables) with respect to the world: this is top-down causation.

Hi Lorraine,

thanks for your explanations.

I think I now better understand what you mean with your posts about Boolean and algorithmic symbols.

Concerning information, I would agree that it plays a vital role in human behaviour (and also may play a vital role in the behaviour of matter). Nonetheless many actions of human beings are also motivated by what I in my earlier posts termed "beliefs".

In my Gedankenexperiment above, the contradiction of Boolean logics leading one to some reliable truth values and the logical fact that a completely deterministic world doesn't leave any room for human inferencing shows (at least to me) that this contradiction came about because a BELIEF in determinism is confused with thinking that this determinism is an established FACT. So, we have facts (information) and beliefs.

When continuing my above mentioned Gedankenexperiment by assuming that the points 1)-3) are facts (instead of beliefs, whether they are well-founded or not), I even arrive at the conclusion that whatever Artificial Intelligence will be able to "do" in the future, it will not be intelligent - because in a deterministic world AI simply comes about by an unavoidable deterministic chain, not by intelligence.

I surely would be interested what Max Tegmark and other people that subscribe to determinism and AI had to say about this logical result. Nonetheless, in a deterministic world envisioned by these people, boolean logics has no power to come to any result.

Even if we think that physical law number X governed particle Y such that result Z is a fact, we cannot speak of "IF physical law number X governed particle X such that result Z is a fact" - because in a deterministic world with eternal physical laws there is no logical alternative for the resulting facts. Hence, in a deterministic world, there is no IF, AND, OR.

So it seems to me we both are on the same footing here: there is something missing in a deterministic world, and the missing thing is boolean logics with its freedom to choose in certain situations.