The Present State of Physics, Mathematics, and Science

Re Rick Lockyer's assertions that "free will has no place in a physics discussion" and that "free will has no innate connection to physics or mathematics":

Physics says that the law of nature relationships are the explanation for all physical outcomes. But if "free will" were a SEPARATE AND DISTINCT cause of physical outcomes, then "free will" would necessarily be of interest to physics.

But physics doesn't see "free will" as a separate and distinct cause of physical outcomes: physics' "free will" is merely a rebranding or re-naming of particular aspects of what the laws of nature are already doing. In other words, physics' (and philosophy's) concept of "free will" is just a bit of PR spin.

So, can people and other living things have an effect on the world that is SEPARATE AND DISTINCT to the effect that the law of nature relationships have on the world? I.e. can people have an influence on the climate that is separate and distinct to the effect that the law of nature relationships have on the climate?

According to physics, the answer is: No. According to physics, people and their actions are mere epiphenomena, i.e. by-products of the laws of nature; and these laws of nature are the only things that have any effect on the world, the only things that have any effect on the climate.

(continued)

In other words, physics says "que sera sera", "what will be, will be": physics has a fatalistic view that events are completely outside of the control of people, because there is nothing anyone can do about the laws of nature, and people have NO SEPARATE AND DISTINCT ABILITY to effect events.

In other words, despite their PR, 99% of physicists are anthropogenic climate change deniers because of their beliefs about the nature of the world.

Oops. The above "effect" should be "affect"!

(continued)

But, unlike 99% of physicists, I'm not a fatalist. I'm saying that people DO have an ability to affect the world, an ability that is separate and distinct from the laws of nature.

This is why people's ability to have an effect on the world can only be represented via the use of Boolean and algorithmic symbols.

Similarly, the ability to differentiate/discern difference (i.e. consciousness) is a FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT AND DISTINCT aspect of the world to the law of nature aspect of the world. This fundamentally different and distinct aspect of the world can't be derived from the law of nature relationships: it too can only be represented via the use of Boolean and algorithmic symbols.

The concept of a strictly deterministic working world can be reframed as the concept of a computer simulation.

Ultimate reality as a computer simulation obviously can - and does - some sub-simulations, brought by us via our modern computers. Even human brains could be termed as such "sub-simulators".

However, within the concept of a strictly deterministic world, no such sub-simulation is independent from the simulation ultimate reality does as a whole. Because the existence of such sub-simulations correlate to a 100 % with what ultimate reality simulated at other places and other times (even in the future). That's why some physicists speak of a space-time block universe that is independent of time.

Although that concept of a block-universe has no conscious goal what to simulate, the simulation itself and its results are nonetheless predetermined if we believe in the concept of a strict determinism.

The substrate on which this gigantic simulation is performed is considered by some to be of secondary interest, since all what counts are the fundamental concepts of computation. In a certain sense, that gigantic simulation can be thought of as being simulated on itself - namely on the fundamental concepts of computation. And how could it be other, since a strictly deterministic world cannot have been come into existence by some non-deterministic events. Even if there was a big bang, if we want to hang on to the world view of strict determinism, then that big bang had to be caused by some deterministic causes - and they themselves also - and so on infinitely.

Thus, a strictly deterministic world must be thought of as as an eternal simulation. It has and will simulate everything that is possible to simulate, infinitely often. Of course, such a strictly deterministic world is thought to also being able to simulate consciousness (otherwise consciousness wouldn't be existent, so the argument goes). Consequently that eternal simulation also does simulate you and me infinitely often during its infinite, eternal course of events.

What we call "particles" and their behaviour then are merely computational steps in that giant simulation. Our best physical theories have already figured out to what computational steps these "particles" belong to. Of course, this seems to imply that parts of this gigantic simulation (human brains) are able to figure out what smaller parts of that simulation do - so that this gigantic simulation at least knows a little bit about due to what principles it comes about in the first place.

Although this may be true (if we assume strict determinism to be true), the above mentioned human knowledge about the principles behind that simulation is predetermined by the whole simulation. Here the question arises whether or not it is (logically) possible for a mindless simulation to not only become aware of itself as being a simulation, but moreover to also figure out the principles on which the whole simulation is based on. Many scientist would say that both questions can be answered with "yes":

every simulation at some point becomes partly aware of itself as a simulation. It then figures out a little bit about due to what principles the whole simulation comes about - and the result is that these principles must be considered as fundamental, since they are eternal. To now "solve" the riddle of how some abstract, eternal and timeless principles (like mathematics) are able to produce a time-dependent computation on just the substrate science has found in our world, it is tempting to say that an eternal simulation does not need any substrate to run itself.

Why? Because the world we observe must - according to an eternal simulation - be a repeated version of an infinite series of identical computational histories in the past. And the fundamental principles of simulation (computation) are logically not changeable whereas the substrate could logically be replaced by some other substrate. One now could argue that the latter is not a logical conclusion and the whole universal simulation we speak of here can exclusively only run on a substrate we call "matter". The point here is that we have no chance to answer this question - since we have no chance to answer the question why there does exist such an eternal simulation at all.

That would be the end-point - if there wouldn't be a subtle detail in the whole chain of reasoning: If we even have no chance to answer the two questions about why only a substrate we call "matter" can do such a simulation and why there should at all exist such an eternal simulation, we could reframe these two questions into the one question whether or not an eternal deterministic world is at all a reasonable concept.

It seems that I have reached the end of reasoning here. My intention was to examine the reasonability of a deterministic world view. Without doubt, there is some determinism in this world. And whether or not the world is exclusively deterministic or not, in either case there is an unambiguous answer out there, there is an unambiguous truth out there that already has answered this question - independent of me asking.

I can only say that it seems to me that truth somehow must be a fundamental and universal measure for all of that. And if true - then it is astonishing for me that this benchmark also realized itself in the endeavour of all scientific reasoning. Moreover, that endeavour is characterized by the ever same goal, finding out what is true and what is false. This is goal-oriented behaviour and I conclude from its existence that for answering all the questions that couldn't be answered here in this post, goal-oriented behaviour must somehow come into the equation. In this sense I agree with Lorraine about her arguments concerning human will and goals.

Lorraine, it is pointless for you and me to have a meaningful conversation here, we do not agree on rather fundamental issues like what physics is, how physicists are and what they believe. You have a narrow view and too much tendency to stereotype. While I have strong views (educated opinions) on human influence on global climate, I fully believe there are very smart and dedicated physicists working on climate science with the goal of determining the truth, and sadly some people I can't call physicists that have an agenda to kill the use of fossil fuels, and have no issue with turning their back on honesty, science and the scientific method.

Climate change is not the greatest existential threat to humanity, not even close. My top three are dishonesty, hate, and emotionalism.

Stefan,

From my point of view, I never had any "arguments concerning human will and goals."

I don't have an anthropocentric view of the world: no new physics emerged when birds started to fly; no new physics emerged when human beings appeared.

I think that human beings and other living things are just forms of matter: the difference between living things and primitive matter is a question of degree, but not a question of superiority.

The physics is the same, though in addition to the equations, variables and number symbols of physics, I contend that it is necessary to use Boolean and algorithmic symbols in order to represent the world differentiating (discerning difference in) itself (i.e. consciousness) and the world moving itself (i.e. agency).

There is no program controlling the world; the world is free, but structured by the laws of nature; the Boolean and algorithmic symbols merely represent necessary aspects of the world that can't be represented by equations, variables and number symbols.

And the world is not like a computer:

A computer is a human artefact whereby existing symbols (Boolean, algorithmic, word, sentence, equation, variable, number) are re-represented via ingenious arrangements of electrical circuits, voltages and transistors.

The electrical circuits, voltages and transistors are human-created symbols of other human-created symbols: you can't liken the natural world to a computer, and you can't liken the human brain to a computer. For starters, think of the difference between a real-world number, and how a number is represented in a computer.

Rick,

I presume that there would be a better chance of moderating dishonesty, hate and emotionalism in countries with the rule of law, decent healthcare and education for all, and ways for all people to earn a decent living. What's happening with Facebook and Twitter might lead to people caring enough about the issue to do something about it.

I don't appreciate being repeatedly lectured to about, what you perceive as, my personal failings. Instead, it is up to you to provide an argument which proves me wrong.

But I never was talking about climate change as such. I was talking about whether the nature of the world is such that people and living things COULD influence the climate, as opposed to the physics' view that the laws of nature are responsible for every number outcome for every variable. I'm saying that people DO have an effect on the world (not necessarily a climate effect), and that this can only be represented via the use of Boolean and algorithmic symbols, as well as variables and number symbols.

I have also noted the fact that people and the mathematical symbols they use are so entangled that the mathematical symbols are not standalone entities.

Lorraine,

if I understood you correctly, your lines of reasoning are based on the assumptions Panpsychism makes? No problem with that, I just want to reassure that I didn't miss the point you want to make with your comment.

1. According to physics, every numeric outcome for every variable is determined by the laws of nature. People and their actions are mere epiphenomena, i.e. by-products of the laws of nature, because the laws of nature are the only things that have any effect on the world. So, people can't have a genuine effect on the world.

2. If people WERE to have a genuine effect on the world in response to situations, then you'd need to use Boolean and algorithmic symbols to represent this.

Without going into details of the musculature and nerves, this is essentially about people assigning some new numbers to (e.g.) the position variables for their own vocal cords in response to a situation they are facing (whereby other numbers for other variables would be changed, due to law of nature relationships).

In a way that is analogous to what a computer program does, the situation a person faces can be represented as the result of a high-level Boolean-algorithmic collation and analysis of a set of numbers that apply to a set of variables. In turn, this set of numbers that applies to the set of variables represents the outcome of light and sound waves interacting with the person's eyes and ears.

3. Would physics implode if people assigned new numbers to their own position variables? Well, physics currently copes with the assignment of new numbers to variables that is described as "quantum mechanics". Maybe it's the same type of thing.

Hi Stefan,

I think that panpsychism as a philosophical theory is a pretty vague way of looking at the world. Panpsychism as a philosophical theory seemingly has no real details, no real mechanisms, and no real rationale apart from the fact that it would be convenient if high-level consciousness were built out of low-level consciousness.

I would say instead that the world is a system, and the necessary elements of a system include: 1) an aspect that differentiates (discerns difference in) the lawful relationships, categories and numbers; and 2) an aspect that moves/changes the system. These 2 necessary aspects of a system can't be represented by equations: they can only be symbolically represented via the use of Boolean and algorithmic symbols.

The world being a system implies a type of panpsychism. So this would be my religious(?) view of the type of world we live in.

Hi Lorraine,

thanks for your honest answer.

In my opinion there is nothing wrong with "religious" thoughts about the world. Many scientific a priori assumptions are similarly based on deep beliefs about how the world must be.

Take for example the "electron". Apart from its main features (spin, mass etc.) it is believed to be no more reducible. So a certain irreducibility necessarily appears when defining some atomic blocks of reality. Fair enough, the same would hold true for a panpsychism view of that electron. Its panpsychistic property couldn't be reduced to something other.

At some point of analysis, irreducibility necessarily comes into "the equation". Some theoretical physicists try to work around this by introducing mathematical infinities into their theories. For example an electron as a kind of infinite fractal structure, the latter "explaining" the electron's behaviour and interactions. But there are problems about considering such an electron to be existent in space-time, since such a structure had to have ever more smaller sub-structures all the way "down" to the infinitely small. No mechanical cause could ever reach the top of that fractal tower (means our microcosm) from "down there" in finite time, since that cause would have to traverse infinitely many steps from "all the way down" to the top in merely a finite time. Even if assuming that every such step needs "no time at all" would not result in a classical mechanistic explanation, but would re-introduce some "spooky action at a very large distance" (aka instantaneous, infinitely fast influences). By the way, the same problem of infinitely many steps appears if one considers that the present state of the universe has been caused by what happened infinitely far away back in time - by assuming the universe is infinite in the past.

Hi Lorraine,

"but you probably couldn't tell the difference between people having a genuine effect on the world and quantum mechanics."

There could be at least a kind of consistency argument delivered by quantum mechanical experiments in favour of the argument that people have a genuine effect on the world.

If the experiment by Genovese, Marletto and Vedral (to be found on fqxi here: https://fqxi.org/community/articles/display/251 ) and its main statement of having found some irreversible action at the quantum level turns out to show us something fundamental about the quantum level, then this irreversibility would be at least inconsistent with a strict deterministic world view that assumes that all actions can be traced back arbitrarily in time unambiguously only by using the known time-reversible laws (and the initial conditions). And if you can't trace it back, you may also not be able to trace it strictly deterministically forward into the future.

Notice that if the experiment of Genovese, Marletto and Vedral turns out to have indeed found a fact about nature that was not implicit in our hitherto known physical laws, this does not automatically mean that Constructor Theory has it all right - only because it predicts the outcome of that experiment. it only would mean that concerning that prediction, Constructor Theory is not at odds with the experimental result.

Rick,

It is up to you to provide an argument which proves me wrong. I'm saying that:

1) Contrary to the ideas of physics and philosophy, people and other living things DO have an effect on the world, i.e. living things change some of the numbers for their own variables, in response to situations they face. This is necessarily an entirely separate aspect of the world to the effect that the law of nature relationships have on the numbers for the variables.

2) Contrary to the ideas of physics and mathematics, a mathematical system can't exist without: aspects that differentiate (discern difference in) the relationships, categories and numbers; and aspects that move the system. These aspects can only be represented via the use of Boolean and algorithmic symbols.

Stefan,

My view IS a religious view. It's just that there is no (human! male!) God up there requiring certain behaviours, so that one can be "saved" and have eternal life. The "God" is down here, a part of the world: the world is continually being created/ updated by the individual elements of the world.

But to understand the structure of the world, and how the world works, it is necessary to represent the world with symbols. But the living reality of the world is different to the set of symbols that people/ physicists use to represent the world. Even written and spoken words are mere symbols.

Fractals are just a way of symbolically representing non-fundamental aspects of the world. I wouldn't take man-made symbols of the world too seriously: it's the REAL word that one needs to take seriously. If you take mere symbols of the world too seriously, you will make mistakes about the nature of the world.

However, people are so entangled with the symbols that they use, they rarely notice that they are using symbols.

Stefan,

These people (Genovese, Marletto and Vedral etc.) are essentially saying that mathematical symbols and (so-called) "Boolean" symbols [1] can be used to represent the world and explain how the world works. The blurb even says that these symbols can be used to explain or define "purpose" and "agency" and life and consciousness etc. etc. It's more of the same old physics hype, just dressed in slightly different clothes.

But I would contend that contrary to the ideas of physics and mathematics, a mathematical system can't exist without: 1) consciousness i.e. aspects that differentiate (discern difference in) the relationships, categories and numbers; and 2) agency i.e. aspects that move the system. These aspects can only be represented via the use of (genuine!) Boolean and algorithmic symbols.

1. The symbols are not actually Boolean symbols. These people are trying to redefine Boolean symbols: redefinition, i.e. defining a thing out of existence, is a commonly used tactic. The philosopher Daniel Dennett used redefinition in an attempt to define genuine "free will" out of existence: a lot of people were convinced; but basically, he just redefined "free will".

Re what's wrong with physics and mathematics:

I want to repeat that physicists and mathematicians (e.g. Marletto and Vedral, that Stefan mentioned) are part of the system of representation. They discern difference in their symbols, they move their symbols; i.e. a set of symbols cannot represent a standalone system, independent of people.

In order to attempt to represent a standalone system, independent of people, you need to add symbols representing the system differentiating (discerning difference in) itself, and symbols representing the system moving itself. You can only do this with Boolean and algorithmic symbols. These symbols represent the aspects of a system that can't be represented by equations: there are aspects of a system that can't be represented by equations.

Hi Lorraine,

I differentiate between an experiment (like that of Marletto et al.) and the explanation for why the outcomes are as they are. There is nothing wrong with doing experiments and I think you would agree. The question is of course what the outcomes can say or can't say about the world we live in. If human beings have a genuine effect on the course of events in the world (what I have been arguing for on this forum), then logically no experiment can disprove that.

As I wrote earlier, I find it interesting that (human) consciousness can at all construct counterfactuals (in the sense "IF this and that would be true, THEN..."). Galileo's famous thought experiment is based on counterfactual thinking - although he didn't knew at the beginning of his thought experiment which of his assumptions had to be considered counterfactual. He envisioned a stone coupled by a rope with another - smaller - stone and asked how that combined system would change the speed of the bigger stone falling down the tower of Pisa. Therefore he assumed that the bigger stone alone always would need the same time to arrive at the bottom of the tower as well as the smaller stone - but the smaller one would need more time than the bigger one because the bigger one is heavier than the smaller one.

Then he asked whether or not the coupled system of the two stones would fall faster or slower then the bigger stone alone would. He came to the - correct - conclusion that his initial assumption of smaller stones falling slower than bigger stones must have been false. Because the smaller stone would decelerate the bigger stone by tightening the rope. But IF we couple both stones by a rigid bar (with negligible mass), then the two-stone system is heavier than each stone alone - and therefore should accelerate the fall. Since the bigger stone cannot be accelerated and decelerated at the same time by the smaller stone when considering such a two-stone system, the logical conclusion was that both stones need the same time to arrive at the bottom of the tower - independent of being coupled together or not!

The nice thing here is that one doesn't need any theory about WHY stones fall the way they do (equivalence of inert mass with bulk mass) to arrive at that conclusion. It not even needs an actual experiment to confirm the result - IF one thinks that the world acts logically (if the world doesn't act logically then it seems at first glance that one would "need" an experiment to confirm what Galileo concluded, but with an illogical acting world we couldn't hardly do any science and even such an experiment couldn't say something reliable about the behaviour of falling stones).

This thought experiment of Galileo is a counterexample to David Deutsch's credo of explanations being the guiding theme for all of (theoretical) science, since it predicts an experimental outcome without subscribing to any theoretical framework other than the validity of logic. Hence, via logic one surely can determine something as being non-existent (for example "different falling times" for different weights of stones to arrive at the bottom of a tower). That is surely different from just defining something as non-existent only because one believes it should not have any place in the world.

Now, Galileo came to his conclusions by applying some boolean and algorithmic operations: IF (heavier objects fall faster), AND (both stones), OR (decelerated or accelerated), NOT (no difference in the time falling for objects with different weights), THEN (falling time independent of coupling or not coupling some stones). He didn't use Newton's equations and Einstein's general relativity equations - but nonetheless determined a truth. The question for me now is: what can this result reliably say or not say about the assumed truth of a strictly deterministic world where all human thoughts are thought to be predetermined with mathematical precision and therefore the minds of humans are considered to not be stand-alone systems?

Concerning my last posts about Constructor Theory and Galileo Galilei's famous thought experiment, I would like to elaborate a bit more on both:

Constructor Theory aims to capture what is fundamentally possible and fundamentally impossible. Since this theory is strictly deterministic, the term "possible" must be redefined as "necessary", means everything that is not impossible will happen at some time somewhere (in a multiverse).

Since Constructor Theory is anxious about the physicality of any information (defined as the ability to perfectly copy a physical state) but also anxious about some abstract meta-laws that are defined for the purpose of "defining" what the physical laws are capable of (possible tasks) or not (impossible tasks), it cannot answer the ontological status of what is called a "Constructor".

It seems to me that such a "Constructor" is merely a thing that has been constructed by the authors of Constructor Theory. Indeed, they write that

"As I shall explain, the idea is that the fundamental questions of physics can all be expressed in terms of those issues, and that the answers do not depend on what the constructor is, so it can be abstracted away, leaving transformations (2) as the basic subject matter of the theory."

This is relieving since otherwise there had to exist all kinds of different meta-laws (constructors) for almost each and every physical situation in addition to the already found usual physical laws (that also cannot answer some fundamental questions unambiguously). Let's take for example Galileo's thought experiment (described one post above by me):

According to Constructor Theory, there is a constructor that at least allowed Galileo to built a counterfactual idea in his mind. This idea was that objects with different weights need different times in a free fall of the same distance to arrive at the bottom of the earth. Now, according to Constructor Theory, there is another constructor that at least allowed the person named Galileo to make a thought experiment (another counterfactual thing!) with two stones, a rope and a rigid bar.

Galileo's result (the output of a computation?) was that both stones MUST fall in free fall with the same acceleration rate. So it seems that a couple of "constructors" indeed can tell us what must happen and what is impossible to happen - without having to do the experiment.

But isn't the talk about various Constructors, even the talk about a set of constructors (that enabled Galileo to come to his final conclusion) being able to be re-defined as a single Constructor that is responsible for Galileo's final conclusion, isn't this talk merely a nice circumlocution for ordinary logic at work (together with some human experience about how nature behaves)? Why does one need additional "Constructors" when one already has Boolean logic - which is equally abstract than a "Constructor" (but cannot be abstracted away)?

And why does it need at all Constructors that can be partitioned and de-partitioned according to a specific situation (for example Galileo's), if the universe (the multiverse) obeys per definition a strictly deterministic evolution - where everything that happens and happened is correlated to a 100% with happened at other times and places? Surely, we "nonetheless" want to "know" what is possible and impossible in such a multiverse, but on the other hand, whatever we are able to know in the future is determined by "constructors / laws of physics".

I suspect that Constructor Theory tries to circumvent another impossibility, namely that it is logically impossible to reconstruct the needed initial conditions for such a strictly deterministic multiverse (universe) as well as to reconstruct all the past interactions that led to our present world - including intelligence and consciousness. Since without these reconstructions the world view of a strict determinism is shaky at least in the sense that there are enough people that do not buy into it, therefore a new meta-theory is needed to blur the remaining non-provability and all the open questions.

Be it constructors or laws of nature, in constructor theory both have no inherent intelligence, no consciousness, they aren't even aware of what is possible and impossible by themselves, aren't even aware of their own meta-physical existence (if they at all do exist in an ontological sense). Same is true for death matter. Nonetheless Constructor Theory aims to gain knowledge about what is possible and what is impossible in principle by crowning death matter and abstract, death principles on a throne.

So, in my opinion, the remarkable thing is that Constructor Theory not only takes knowledge as an effective force in the world, built from dull matter and dull laws of physics / Constructors. It also is eager to "explain" that only dull matter and dull laws of physics can make effective knowledge possible - and that everything that is more intelligent than dull matter (and more intelligent than human beings!) is impossible to have created the whole machinery purposefully.

I really do not want to bash the authors of Constructor Theory, I just want to say that I am not convinced on which logical basis this theory excludes an intelligent "Constructor" (Creator) by implicitly defining it impossible. In my opinion the gap between dull matter and human intelligence is equally large than the gap between human intelligence and something that is in-principle able to find out once and for all times what is possible and what is impossible. This does not mean that the world is lawless at its foundations, to the contrary. It only means that this "something" that should in-principle be able to "find out" once and for all times what is possible and what is impossible (as Constructor Theory would like it to have) can possibly only be that "thing" which created the whole "machinery" purposefully in the first place. due to the lack of an adequate term for this "thing" let's simply name it "God".