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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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May 30, 2018 - 10:23pm PT
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madbolter, what is the Bell test?
do you understand it?
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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May 30, 2018 - 10:57pm PT
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^^^ Well, "understand" is a vague term. Do you understand the standard model?
"I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics." —Richard Feynman, The Character of Physical Law (MIT Press: Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1995), 129. JKeck (talk) 10:56, 25 March 2017 (UTC)
I'm sure you understand it far better than me. But what does that mean?
You seem to be implying that I'm just out to lunch on the Bell test. If I am, please explain, and please explain the inferences you (a la the testers) are drawing from the observations in terms of HFW, randomness, and local realism.
I think I "understand" the Bell test and in the above terms. Again, perhaps I'm wrong. But I keep asking without success for you to "show your work." To the minimal extent you have done so in one post, I've charitably cast your points in inferential terms. Did I get it wrong? Perhaps you can clarify in similar inferential terms.
It's also interesting to me that Bohmian mechanics also predicts that local realism is false (along with many other predictions that mirror those of the standard model), but it has a very different metaphysics from the standard model.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/pilot-wave-theory-gains-experimental-support-20160516/
Do you believe that the Big Bell test would falsify Bohmian mechanics, and, if so, why? (I believe I know the answer, but your answer will help me understand what inferences you are making but not clearly showing.)
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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May 30, 2018 - 11:00pm PT
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It seems that everyone wants others to play by their own mores. IIIIIIiiiiiiiii . . . don’t think we can either do that or even expect that.
Largo: . . . Long story short . . . .
I couldn’t help but see that writing taken out of context.
What Largo might be pointing towards is the same thing that I see: there are or might be certain things that cannot be approached with either logic or materialism. ( I know that can be totally aggravating.)
I really like the question that OP posed, but somehow we’ve again started into a long quarrel about beliefs, and THAT doesn’t seem to be getting us anywhere. It's aggravating, too.
As regards soul, there seems to be something that intuition points us to, but I’m doubtful that will help us in a language- / text-based media.
I just returned from a trip to Canada fishing, something I haven’t done for 55 years, last with my Dad. I took my wife to show her what real fishing looks like, and I wanted to walk down memory lane with my Dad in spirit.
My wife's and my fishing with her did not live up to what I remembered, and so many things did not happen for me nostalgically. Both triggered looking at my memories vs. my experience with my wife. Although there could be many so-called “factual” data points to correlate between the two experiences, I got a close look at looking what my memories might be made of. They now appear to be simply emotional energy expressions that I created. The objective comparison between them and just recently is nil to nigh. (How is that?)
I think I’m a pretty reflective and self-aware guy, but I was very impressed with how much non-objective expressions constituted what I thought or believed was unassailably real about something that supposedly happened. The result was far beyond the "You can never go back!" homily. I was in another universe.
All I’m really suggesting here is that part of the dream that each of us is living includes *things* like physical materialism and philosophical understanding. I don't have to tell you that there are many other expressions of What This Is.
You peel this onion one layer at a time. The layers just go on and on.
I don’t think I’m much of a fisherman anymore. Once we caught what we would eat for lunch, some of the glow left me about fishing--even if I was looking for a fight with a big fish. But Lisa, my wife (never having fished from a boat before), was way impressed, and I think she longs to return. Canada IS magical.
P.S. the sun really looked like that. I was mesmerized by the ball, and I burned my eyeballs for about 10 minutes.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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May 30, 2018 - 11:22pm PT
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you first, what is the Bell test?
it will help me understand what you're thinking.
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yanqui
climber
Balcarce, Argentina
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May 31, 2018 - 02:54am PT
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but that might well be either an intention or a hope.
I suppose I could hope my computer doesn't magically float up into the sky in contradiction to my basic belief in gravity (although that strikes me as a weird thing to hope for) and I suppose my belief that what science calls "gravity" captures something objectively true about our universe might be intentional. Is that what you mean? Or are you referring specifically to Putman's psychological state?
Edit to add: the more I think about it, the less I think that hope has anything to do with it, at least when it comes to the belief, per se, that there can be some kind of objective truth at all. I mean, certainly, I may hope that some particular thing is objectively true or not, however when I step out of the way of a moving vehicle to avoid being crushed, it seems to me a misuse of ordinary language to refer to such an action as an expression of "hope" in objective truth.
Second edit to add: on the other hand, it might just be that a belief in the possibility of human morality is a kind of expression of hope. Hope is as much a part of our human (animal?) nature as our ability (albeit limited) to construct some kind of objective truth.
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nah000
climber
now/here
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May 31, 2018 - 03:03am PT
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don't claim to necessarily follow...
but i can appreciate: at least when three sheets in... on almost all of the fronts...
especially MikeL's most recent post...
at the end of the day that's all i can really agree with...
reagardless: thanks.
all of it makes me think/feel...
is there anything more?
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WBraun
climber
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May 31, 2018 - 07:24am PT
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You're not supposed to agree or disagree,
You're supposed to expand your consciousness to the unlimited .......
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WBraun
climber
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May 31, 2018 - 07:36am PT
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Dingus -- "When we ...."
First fatal mistake.
You just mentally projected and corralled everyone in the whole cosmic manifestation into a box that you think you are in .....
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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May 31, 2018 - 08:18am PT
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Physics, moon landings, and soul? Only on StuporTopo.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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May 31, 2018 - 08:37am PT
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When we push up to and past the boundaries of known territory we enter the realm of beliefs
Good post, Dingus. We have different operational definitions of "belief" half the time - just as we've noted/detected in the past - but so what, I get it.
the question of effective communication arises...
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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May 31, 2018 - 08:38am PT
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If any writer thinks 15 or 20 paragraphs is effective use of this medium? They've missed the boat, sorry. I'm not boarding that vessel. I'll skim the first and last paragraphs, if that.
Then there's no point in discussing anything substantial in "this medium." As Ed and I have both demonstrated, it's laughable to "encapsulate" a substantive argument in a paragraph.
So, frankly, if your attention span can't cope, then this isn't the droid you're looking for. You can disembark the vessel at your leisure.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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May 31, 2018 - 08:45am PT
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So do you feel there's been good, fruitful, effective communication between you two - the philosopher and the physicist - over the last several pages?
Forget for a moment the deep thoughts on Bell, entanglement, etc... Just consider such basic concepts as "agency" and "proof" and "certainty" and "freedom" and "choice" and... "soul" and "free will". Do you feel/think you two are on the same page in understanding when you've used these terms? on this thread and others to make further points?
For the record, I have my doubts.
...
What amazing display of agency and soul and freedom Alex and Tommy showed on El Cap this week! Almost superhuman!!
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Trump
climber
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May 31, 2018 - 08:46am PT
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Yes, soul exists. That was easy.
Whatever I believe about it, I hope believing it works to my advantage, regardless of the truth.
Everyone wants to tell you what your shoulds should be. Whatever. I’ve got a soul of my own.
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JohnnyDontDoit
Ice climber
Bozeman
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May 31, 2018 - 09:05am PT
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Lots of philosophy talk here and some interesting points. A lot of conjecture though. The idea of soul has been around for thousands of years. Socrates and Plato wrote about it as being essential for life, but they didn't know much about biology. Now we know a lot more. They thought gods controlled the weather etc, so the idea of the soul falls into this line of thinking. What's necessary for life? Electricity, a brain, a heart, a nervous system to control everything. some other biological systems. No real mystery or eternal source is required. Belief without proof is faith or philosophy. The idea of soul is similar to religion to me. Both are a way to conflate our existence to something more than 75 years on this rock in space. There must be more? Not necessarily.
I like HFCS's ideas a lot. That podcast about mushrooms and consciousness was so good. His description mimics my own with the dissolution of ego when tripping and an understanding of oneness with the world and universe. These ideas stay with you your whole life, and do not end when the trip ends, as some have postulated. It truly can be a life changing event.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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May 31, 2018 - 09:08am PT
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you first, what is the Bell test?
it will help me understand what you're thinking.
That's a punt, Ed, and you know it.
So, let's try this.
By your lights, I'm just an ignorant, tail-chasing philosopher. You tout a Bell test as evidence of that fact and of the fact that physics has proved something substantive about HFW that philosophers, being tail-chasing and all, are literally unable to prove.
I say, "Physics does some impressive stuff, and I'm in awe of it. But I don't think it proves anything, and I don't believe that this Bell test proves what you say it does." (Now, of course, I'm just an ignorant, tail-chasing philosopher, so it's no surprise that I'm as clueless as I am.)
I ask you to explain some key definitions and relations. You defer. I offer various alternatives, hoping to understand why you believe you are entitled to such grandiose claims from what to me (ignorantly) seems to be a quite straightforward experiment (thinking as I do that it is understandable and not showing what you assert it does).
You respond with one post (way back up there) that seems to be a genuine effort to do so.
I can't figure it out. I ask follow-up questions about what you mean in your explanation. Perhaps I am too ignorant and/or genuinely stupid to get it. But, again, it sure seems to me that the key definitions and relations should be easy enough for you, the physicist to explain to a lay person, and thinking myself not actually stupid, I would expect to be able to understand.
See, I think I understand "local realism," but I probably don't. I would expect the physicist to be able to explain that, as well as why something about HFW "shows" something about it.
I think I understand randomness, but it seems that I don't. I would love to have a physicist explain it to me, as well as what relation it has to HFW and to local realism.
I used to think that I had a better understanding of HFW than most people, but apparently my "understanding" is a chimera. But I would think that a physicist making strong claims about it could explain it to me.
I could go on and on, as I have upthread. There is apparently SO much that I don't understand. But, thinking myself merely ignorant and not stupid, I imagine that I have the capacity to understand, if only these things were explained to me. But your explanations literally don't make sense to me, in part because I'm such a tail-chasing philosopher that clarity of terms and relations trumps "results" in my mind. Or, perhaps a better way to say it is that I don't think I understand any "results" that can't be expressed in terms of clear definitions and explicit logical relations.
So, when you ask me to explain the Bell test, I'll say that I'm ignorant and apparently in need of instruction. But I can't yet buy the "results" until they are explained in terms of clear definitions and logical relations. I haven't heard such yet, even though I've tried at great length to explain "my thinking" about what I need to hear and why I need to hear the particular explanations I've asked for.
Of course, you can just think to yourself and perhaps even say something like, "I've explained all that any reasonably intelligent person would need to hear. This philosopher just demonstrates why philosophers ARE just chasing their tails and never getting anywhere."
I would respond that I think that reasonable people on this thread with enough attention span and dedication to the topic would agree that you have not adequately explained the Bell test "results" so as to substantiate the quite grandiose claims that you are making for them.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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May 31, 2018 - 09:09am PT
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It's yours to decide.
I don't imagine anything. I'm just doin' the best I can with what I've got. I think my decision is apparent. Disembark at will.
And, seriously, cheers back atcha.
:-)
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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May 31, 2018 - 09:37am PT
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By your lights, I'm just an ignorant, tail-chasing philosopher.
never said this, and you provide lots of thoughtful posts (once all these sorts of personal rants are sorted out) that are worth pursuing.
Largo says I'm "locked into a perspective" but as I've written elsewhere I'm committed to a particular world view. I'd like to try to push that commitment as far as possible, and testing ideas on this forum with people committed to very different views provides such an opportunity.
When I'm arguing with you on these pages I've noticed that you offer lots of criticism but very few ideas of your own. In that respect you lurk around to "defend" the boarder of metaphysics and physics. The history of defining that boarder would show that over time, metaphysics losses ground to physics, I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing, as we learn more, those subjects that once appeared metaphysical are accessible to physics (where I'd identify "physics" as an abbreviation for the sciences).
If that is the subtext of your passionate assertion that the Bell test has nothing whatsoever to do with HFW, then we can put aside the Bell test and discuss the setting of the boarder, and investigate how it changes in time, and why. But a criticism of the Bell test, and the claim of the "Big Bell Test" paper, would seem to rest on understanding the issues which would necessarily require a redefinition of the boarder.
In the case of quantum mechanics, the nature of the subject and the object. If you'd like to talk about Bohmian mechanics we could, why would you bring that up? as an alternative interpretation of quantum mechanics? (Bell was a big fan of Bohm's ideas, which he felt provide a clear way of looking at the various issues in quantum mechanics).
It is not just the philosophers who would complain about invoking HFW, the physicists did too, Bell responded to the criticism of Clauser, Horn and Shimony: of his 'relying on a metaphysics which is has not been proved and which may well be false' when invoking experimenter 'free will.'
It being metaphysics, I assume you could address the issue of 'proofs' for HFW.
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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May 31, 2018 - 10:03am PT
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Duck: The brain is NOT the driver and operator of the gross physical material body. . . . Just as the computer (artificial brain) in the car is NOT the operator of the car, the living entity the driver is (crude example).
Fair analogy. The mind, correspondingly, would appear to be like a janitor attempting to make sure things are tidy. (“Awareness,” . . . now that seems to be a very different subject.)
Ed: go f*#k yourself.
Geez, Ed.
yanqui: . . . I may hope that some particular thing is objectively true or not, however when I step out of the way of a moving vehicle to avoid being crushed, it seems to me a misuse of ordinary language . . . it might just be that a belief in the possibility of human morality is a kind of expression of hope.
Psychologists would probably claim that the human psyche contains uncounted hidden images that individuals hold dear.
An image is a term I’ll use here to refer to complexes that lie underneath the surface of consciousness. Those complexes arise apparently from all over the place: parental guidance, educational instruction, social mores from social communities of many sorts, disciplinary institutionalizations, a collective unconscious, and so forth. What we think constitutes a good life, things worth doing, notions of right and wrong, etc. all seem to provide backgrounds scenes to who, what, and where we think we are. Surely, as you point out, hope is as much a part of what I am as anything, I suppose. But my own self-reflection can expose that to me so that I am cognizant of those things that I am barely aware of (until someone challenges me).
I readily admit that when I am running on autopilot, maybe even resonating with the Tao (in flow, experiencing hot cognition, in “wu wei,” in a trance, being psychologically present, etc.), I might respond to what appears to be a real world all around me (viz., my little bubble). I’m not too sure, however, that being on autopilot means that there is a part of my sub-consciousness that is assessing objectivity vs. subjectivity. It’s only when I engage the discursive, analytical mind (cold cognition) that I start to make those distinctions about subjectivity vs. objectivity. It’s something that one can unearth for themselves.
It seems that almost every spiritual tradition tells a story of seekers who find themselves through self-immolations ascetically, only to return to mendacity looking like every other seemingly normal person—the only difference being that they no longer see themselves distinctly separated from The All that is around them. The question that then seems to arise is: what does it mean to be “at-one-ment?” What I’ve found for myself is that it’s not about learning new or more stuff, but dismantling all of the programs that I referred to above.
Be well.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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May 31, 2018 - 03:49pm PT
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By your lights, I'm just an ignorant, tail-chasing philosopher.
never said this, and you provide lots of thoughtful posts (once all these sorts of personal rants are sorted out) that are worth pursuing.
Thanks, Ed. But I think it's clear that you've repeatedly bashed pretty hard on philosophy as being tail-chasing, unproductive, and even unnecessary. So, I'm not "ranting" to call attention to the invalidity of such a perspective.
But let's move on and talk about substantive things....
Largo says I'm "locked into a perspective" but as I've written elsewhere I'm committed to a particular world view. I'd like to try to push that commitment as far as possible, and testing ideas on this forum with people committed to very different views provides such an opportunity.
I respect that, Ed. I think that what John and I wonder about, though, is a sort of inattentional blindness. We're all susceptible to it, but the more "committed one is to a particular world view," the more likely it is that inattentional blindness can be a problem.
When I'm arguing with you on these pages I've noticed that you offer lots of criticism but very few ideas of your own.
What would "an idea of my own" look like, Ed? I mean, how many "ideas of your own" have you provided here? You've quoted from others quite a bit, while, by contrast, I've provided a lot of inferential analysis "of my own," literally generated on the fly out of my own mind.
In that respect you lurk around to "defend" the boarder of metaphysics and physics.
I understand, I think, why you summarize our exchange that way, but I don't think that that's my ax to grind. I would summarize it this way:
There is no "border" between physics and metaphysics, because metaphysics is just the study of what really is. Perhaps physics just is metaphysics, in the sense that it's the only approach to telling us what really is. In my experience, that is what physicists think. Your more mitigated (now) assertions are something like, "Physics is the only productive approach to doing metaphysics."
Another alternative is what I advocate for, and I think that I've produced a LOT of "my own ideas" on this and other threads, to the effect that physics is not doing metaphysics and cannot in principle be doing metaphysics. That's why you think I'm "defending a border," when I'm really not. I'm arguing that such a border exists, but I have no ax to grind to "defend that border." If physics could provide a compelling case that it is telling us about what really is, I'd be just as happy as not to say that physics is doing metaphysics.
The history of defining that boarder would show that over time, metaphysics losses ground to physics, I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing, as we learn more, those subjects that once appeared metaphysical are accessible to physics (where I'd identify "physics" as an abbreviation for the sciences).
Again, I think I understand why you are summarizing the state of affairs that way. But, because I'm arguing that physics can't in principle tell us about the way things really are, I don't agree that the "border surrounding metaphysics is shrinking."
If that is the subtext of your passionate assertion that the Bell test has nothing whatsoever to do with HFW, then we can put aside the Bell test and discuss the setting of the boarder, and investigate how it changes in time, and why.
That seems useful to me. We had been discussing that, I believe, when you brought in the Bell test as an example of how physics is "shrinking the border," and I've been responding to say that I don't see the Bell test as an example of that "shrinkage."
But a criticism of the Bell test, and the claim of the "Big Bell Test" paper, would seem to rest on understanding the issues which would necessarily require a redefinition of the boarder.
Agreed! Which brings us to the point you mention just below....
In the case of quantum mechanics, the nature of the subject and the object. If you'd like to talk about Bohmian mechanics we could, why would you bring that up? as an alternative interpretation of quantum mechanics? (Bell was a big fan of Bohm's ideas, which he felt provide a clear way of looking at the various issues in quantum mechanics).
Precisely because the contrast between the two different (but in many ways compatible) approaches to QM reveals how two "working models" nevertheless depend upon profoundly different metaphysical presumptions. And this reveals that "what works" as an explanatory/predictive models does not equate to (or, perhaps, even have any relevancy) to how things really are in the universe.
This point goes to the so-called "underdetermination of theories by facts," in other words that no set of experimental results is sufficient to determine among competing theories that have the same predictive capacities. Both theories "work" in a robust sense, although both have radically different "results" in metaphysical terms (for example, that Bohmian mechanics retains determinacy, while the standard model embraces indeterminacy). So, both models, for example, predict tunneling, but for wildly different reasons and with wildly different metaphysical commitments. In short, "the way the world really is" is very, very different for these two approaches to QM.
It is not just the philosophers who would complain about invoking HFW, the physicists did too, Bell responded to the criticism of Clauser, Horn and Shimony: of his 'relying on a metaphysics which is has not been proved and which may well be false' when invoking experimenter 'free will.'
Yes, I've read that stuff, and I get how from it you could gather that Bell "presumes HFW" and then sees results emerge from a Bell test that "indicate" that HFW is not just a "metaphysical speculation" but that has genuine, measurable, physical effects.
But this really is an inference in which the devil's in the details! And that's why I have been so relentless about trying to get clear about those details.
I brought up Bohmian mechanics because one would presume that such an experiment could distinguish between a deterministic model and the standard model. But, again, that's precisely why the details would need to be carefully analysed. And that goes directly to the relations between HFW and randomness. After all, machine-generated randomness is "genuine randomness" in one sense, "pseudo-randomness" in another.
The whole point to prime-number "seeds" in encryption algorithms is that "deterministically-generated" randomness is "pseudo-randomness" and so must be "seeded" by appeal to a "random seed." The appeal to HFW as a "stand-in," like genuine HFW could be employed to produce genuine randomness could be taken by a Bell proponent as a "proof" both of HFW and of genuine randomness, while by a Bohmian proponent as deeply question-begging.
Again, the devil's in the details, and analytical philosophers are nothing if not persnickety about details that other disciplines are content to call "close enough."
It being metaphysics, I assume you could address the issue of 'proofs' for HFW.
We might get there. I'm happy to play at some point. And I MUCH appreciate that it seems that we're learning how to talk with each other, Ed.
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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May 31, 2018 - 04:13pm PT
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MB1 wrote (a while back);
Depends on what you mean by evolution Sorry, just getting back to this. Evolution is a big subject, of course, but I will try to be as succinct as possible.
All life on this earth is related along an ancestral tree. You are the product of your parents. They are the product of their parents. And, parents can have more than one offspring. That’s it, logically. If you just trace these relationships back through time, there will be naturally, fewer and fewer humans and, as you go back even further, the appearance of the parent and child will look less human and more “ape-like”. Go back even further, and primates become undifferentiated mammals, and mammals ultimately become undifferentiated vertebrates. This goes on, both logically and actually to a single (or possibly very low number of related entities) as the root or source for the tree of life.
If you believe in this, then you believe in evolution as currently understood, I would say.
Because I very much believe in this, it seems logical that if souls do exist, then at least our nearest neighbors on the tree of life are likely to have them as well. If not, I would need a good explanation (because I’m an inquiring or enquiring mind (ask sycorax)). If one were to concede that perhaps chimpanzees or extinct hominids had souls, then the problem just gets booted to lower down the tree. At what point was soul imbued into the tree nodes?
Science has an elegant solution. Human consciousness had to first exist (also through evolution) for soul to have any meaning. Soul is almost synonymous with our identity. That's exactly the right way to look at it.
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