Free will re-redux

It's too complicated and lacks evidence. Are people suggesting that large groups of particles have some sort of hive mind that selects when each particle will decay but organizes the decays so that the half lives work out? We have detected not a shred of evidence to support this model. I am no more able to imagine such a low-level behavior than I am to imagine a stochastic behavior.

There's no hive mind, there's just what Laird was calling contingent causation.

I don't even know where the idea of a hive mind is coming from? Though even that would be better than the idea that there's nothing between the precursors and outcomes, that all the different half-lives are just odd instances of stable probabilities.

I'm not sure why people keep bringing up the 4 out of 100 photons through glass thing. That is not a stochastic process like particle decay (https://physics.stackexchange.com/questi...ass/199905).

IIRC it's in Feynman's QED, which at least the physicist Bernard Haisch references as indeterministic. I'll check.

There's no hive mind, there's just what Laird was calling contingent causation.

I don't even know where the idea of a hive mind is coming from? Though even that would be better than the idea that there's nothing between the precursors and outcomes, that all the different half-lives are just odd instances of stable probabilities.

You have to account for the apparently random decay of individual particles and the observed half lives of arbitrarily large groups of particles. So there is contingent causation of individual decay, but also a group orchestration of the half life.


In the standard particle decay model, the half life = ln(2) / decay_constant of the material. I suppose you could retain this for the contingent causation model, but then you would have to explain why such causation has a decay constant.

The trick is that you have to explain more than the current model. Otherwise, what is the point?



~~ Paul

You have to account for the apparently random decay of individual particles and the observed half lives of arbitrarily large groups of particles. So there is contingent causation of individual decay, but also a group orchestration of the half life.

In the standard particle decay model, the half life = ln(2) / decay_constant of the material.

Yes, the argument hinges on the fact there's an equation that can measure the half-life despite the inherent indeterminism.

What would be your explanation?

Yes, the argument hinges on the fact there's an equation that can measure the half-life despite the inherent indeterminism.

What would be your explanation?

I have none. The time of decay of a particle is random but within certain parameters. Various factors affect the half life, including the inherent stability of the nucleus.

You could postulate a contingent causal agent that determines when a particle will decay. I guess you don't need a hive mind, because the half life will emerge from the decay rates of a large group of homogeneous particles. However, the agent has to have all the same parameters and decay behavior that we observe. So all you've done is add a complex layer underneath the process that serves no purpose other than to get rid of some part of the bothersome "it's just random" model. And you've added a whole new layer than needs explaining.

~~ Paul

I have none. The time of decay of a particle is random but within certain parameters. Various factors affect the half life, including the inherent stability of the nucleus.

Do you mean factors such as stability of nucleus are precursors [that] cause the indeterminate aspect of particle decay to hold to certain parameters?

Because that is essentially what it means to say there's "dispositional" or "contingent" causal relations. There's nothing being added in the sense of an extra energy/spirit. It's just looking at the data and giving the description of causation that fits.

Do you mean factors such as stability of nucleus are precursors [that] cause the indeterminate aspect of particle decay to hold to certain parameters?

Because that is essentially what it means to say there's "dispositional" or "contingent" causal relations. There's nothing being added in the sense of an extra energy/spirit. It's just looking at the data and giving the description of causation that fits.

Yes, I think that is true.

But I don't think you can call that particular causal relationship dispositional. If that is the case, then aren't all causal relationships dispositional?

~~ Paul

Yes, I think that is true.

But I don't think you can call that particular causal relationship dispositional. If that is the case, then aren't all causal relationships dispositional?

~~ Paul

Curious what you mean by this?

Curious what you mean by this?

Doesn't the current state of affairs always hold future events to certain parameters, be they deterministic, random, or some other sort of events?

~~ Paul

Doesn't the current state of affairs always hold future events to certain parameters, be they deterministic, random, or some other sort of events?

~~ Paul

Right, but the future events here have a pattern across a series of future states. [The pattern] just cannot be applied to any one instance of particle decay yet clearly some relation [continually] holds between the indetermined ejections as otherwise there wouldn't be calculable half-lives.

It's like the truly indeterministic coin Ajum and Mumford use in the paper I quoted -> We can't predict any one flip but we know the coin is disposed over many trials to come out 50% heads, 50% tails. So there is a dispositional, or contingent causation, with the coin and its relation to the rest of reality.

Right, but the future events here have a pattern across a series of future states. [The pattern] just cannot be applied to any one instance of particle decay yet clearly some relation [continually] holds between the indetermined ejections as otherwise there wouldn't be calculable half-lives.

I'm not sure I'd call it a relation between the events. It's just a property of the particles from which a half life trivially emerges. But, yes, something is required to make it so particles don't decay entirely arbitrarily.

It's like the truly indeterministic coin Ajum and Mumford use in the paper I quoted -> We can't predict any one flip but we know the coin is disposed over many trials to come out 50% heads, 50% tails. So there is a dispositional, or contingent causation, with the coin and its relation to the rest of reality.

Or each flip is just truly random with respect to the other flips. I think you would need contingent causation to make the flips come out something other than 50/50. Coin flips are different from particle decay, no?



~~ Paul