[Avodah] free will

[Micha Berger]

On Sun, Nov 29, 2020 at 09:27:28PM +0200, Eli Turkel wrote:
> Chaos theory only says that the path is so complicated that we can't follow
> it and small changes can make a big difference
> However it is completely deterministic

Not if those small changes aren't deterministic.

> With quantum mechanics there is first the problem whether it applies to
> macroscopic systems.

Except that it /has/ to apply to macroscopic *chaotic* systems.

Here's a good essay on the topic:
https://arxiv.org/abs/1306.0159

     Quantum Physics
     Title: The Ghost in the Quantum Turing Machine
     Author: Scott Aaronson

     Abstract:
     In honor of Alan Turing's hundredth birthday, I unwisely set out
     some thoughts about one of Turing's obsessions throughout his life,
     the question of physics and free will. I focus relatively narrowly
     on a notion that I call "Knightian freedom": a certain kind of
     in-principle physical unpredictability that goes beyond probabilistic
     unpredictability. Other, more metaphysical aspects of free will
     I regard as possibly outside the scope of science. I examine a
     viewpoint, suggested independently by Carl Hoefer, Cristi Stoica,
     and even Turing himself, that tries to find scope for "freedom"
     in the universe's boundary conditions rather than in the dynamical
     laws. Taking this viewpoint seriously leads to many interesting
     conceptual problems. I investigate how far one can go toward solving
     those problems, and along the way, encounter (among other things)
     the No-Cloning Theorem, the measurement problem, decoherence, chaos,
     the arrow of time, the holographic principle, Newcomb's paradox,
     Boltzmann brains, algorithmic information theory, and the Common
     Prior Assumption. I also compare the viewpoint explored here to the
     more radical speculations of Roger Penrose. The result of all this
     is an unusual perspective on time, quantum mechanics, and causation,
     of which I myself remain skeptical, but which has several appealing
     features. Among other things, it suggests interesting empirical
     questions in neuroscience, physics, and cosmology; and takes a
     millennia-old philosophical debate into some underexplored territory.

But I have to warn you it's more of a small book than an article. I'm
in the 20s, the main text ends on 71.

>                      More problematic
> is that it replaces determinism by probability that has nothing to do with
> free choice

That was my point.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 Man is equipped with such far-reaching vision,
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   yet the smallest coin can obstruct his view.
Author: Widen Your Tent                            - Rav Yisrael Salanter
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF