[Avodah] free will

[Eli Turkel]

He went in detail into chaos theory and quantum mechanics and showed that
neither has anything to do with free will.

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

With quantum mechanics there is first the problem whether it applies to
macroscopic systems. More problematic
is that it replaces determinism by probability that has nothing to do with
free choice

RAM claim is that there is no proof for either detrminism or libertism.
Since we we feel we have free will so that is the better choice
but there is certainly no proof for free will.

Again he has a whole series in Hebrew on the topic on his web site

On Sun, Nov 29, 2020 at 8:29 PM Micha Berger <micha at aishdas.org> wrote:

> On Sat, Nov 28, 2020 at 07:31:51PM +0200, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote:
> > I have listened to about 10 shiurim of Rav Michael Avraham...
> >
> > He analyzes determinism vs free will from just about every angle from
> > philosophic to chaos theory to quantum mechanics to brain experiments.
> >
> > He basically comes to the conclusion that there does not exist any logic
> or
> > experiment that demonstrates determinism. All experiments have their weak
> > points and he doesn't believe that one could construct a better
> experiment
> > that would prove determinsim.
>
> Yeah, but, that just proves the possitility of "free".
>
> I mean the brain is arguably a perfectly designed Chaotic System, with
> 85-100bn neurons in complicated non-linear feedback loops.
>
> Definition: Chaotic System: A system that is unpredictable because
> immeasurably small difference in initial conditions can create huge
> differences in outcome. Because the system has feedback, which can
> magnify a small change (or dampen it) in response to other microscopic
> differences. Like the proverbial butterfly fluttering its wings in Africa
> making the difference between whether or not a tornado develops in the US.
>
> But the brain is more than just chaotic. Because a neuron's behavior can
> depend on stimuli on the subatomic level -- a single photon or electron's
> state. Its microscopic initial conditions get down to quantum uncertainty.
>
> So the brain can end up in very different macroscopic states due to
> quantum randomness.
>
> Then there is the No Cloning Theorem, an idea in Quantum Mechanics
> which says that there is no way to copy an existing quantum state.
> (Entanglement is something else, since that's about a *shared* quantum
> state, not a copy.) No outside machine could ever determine what some
> brain's qauntum initial microscopic state was.
>
> So the "free" part of free will is done.
>
> Now, define "will". Rolling a die and getting a 6 isn't an expression
> of the will of the die.
>
> Free Will requires the mind to be both deterministic and not simply
> random.
>
> And if the mind is not physical, how does it intervene in causing physical
> effects without violating laws of nature. Even those, like quantum ones,
> that "only" give us probabilities.
>
> If quantum mechanics says that the odds of something happening is .5,
> the soul would have to interact with brains such that over huge numbers
> of interactions, it happens half the time.
>
> Me, I think this middle ground between deterministic and random is
> ineffible. I think R/Dr Moshe Koppel proves it exists in Metahalakhah
> ch. 2, and I summarized his demonstration a number of times on-list
> over the decades. One of which got edited and ended up on my blog
> https://www.aishdas.org/asp/neither-random-nor-predetermined
>
> But I don't think we can say what it is. Because if we could describe it
> in words, we could turn it into an algorithm -- and it would be either
> deterministic or random.
>
> Tir'u baTov!
> -Micha
>
> --
> Micha Berger                 The true measure of a man
> http://www.aishdas.org/asp   is how he treats someone
> Author: Widen Your Tent      who can do him absolutely no good.
> - https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF                 - Samuel Johnson
>


-- 
Eli Turkel
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