Free will re-redux

I guess it is hard for me to see how something like the 4 reflected photons is truly random. Same thing with the particle decay constants. The very fact we can provide these probabilities is an indication of there being some underlying order. If it was truly random we wouldn't have any stochastic modeling.


I will say the 1:25 expectation for photon reflection is exceedingly odd as the photons aren't as-far-as-we-know sharing any information with each other.

They are stochastic processes. So there are various probabilities for group events, but individual events are random. Note that the half-life of a group of particles can be changed by time dilation. The reflection of photons is described by the Fresnel equations.

We have no idea what determines the group probabilities.

https://wtamu.edu/~cbaird/sq/2015/03/13/...and-decay/

~~ Paul

I guess when I hear the word "pattern", it makes me think of a substance assuming patterns.

But you're saying there is no "stuff" assuming patterns, that patterns are just out there...does this mean they are relations without relata?

Patterns are equally out there and in here - equally necessitating subject and object.

Relata are a function of zoom level and/or time scale. Zoom in to relata and you find relations. So yes everything is a nested infinite regress of relations making self-referential loops of varying distance from center.

Look at it this way - for those stochastic events where the outcomes are measured by a random variable, it's technically possible for one outcome to occur over and over. If there was a truly random pair of fair dice, for example, it's exceedingly improbable but *possible* that rolling the pair produces snake eyes for a millennia.

And when someone says, "deterministic" they mean those cause-effect relations which so far at least are unchanging. But just as a fair pair of dice can possibly come up snake eyes for a million rolls, however implausible that is, there's no way just from outside observation to know which "deterministic" cause-effect relations are just "lucky streaks" precisely because we don't have an explanation for what makes some cause-effect relations better modeled by singular output functions and other cause-effect relations better modeled by random variable functions.

I noticed an interesting connection to this reference to rolling of dice in Andy Paquette's interview:
https://psiencequest.net/forums/thread-p...e-and-more

Patterns are equally out there and in here - equally necessitating subject and object.

Relata are a function of zoom level and/or time scale. Zoom in to relata and you find relations. So yes everything is a nested infinite regress of relations making self-referential loops of varying distance from center.

But what are the relations between if there are no relata?

But what are the relations between if there are no relata?

Relata is just another word for object.

You still have in mind the materialistic notion of an object - that there is some hard lasting substance at the core of reality. I'm saying the hardness and duration of anything is relative to the subject.

Materialism and Idealism both seek to reduce reality to a monism. I'm saying you can't really do that. The fundamental reality is a trinity for which we have different words or metaphors: subject/object/will or determinism/randomness/choice or logos/abyss/spirit, or Father/Son/Spirit, etc.

I'm saying the word "pattern" implies all 3 components and your response is to attempt to reduce this back to one of the components.  

So the reason this thread is causing people to want to bash heads against hard objects is because we are trying to take one member of the primal trinity and argue for its existence when all three members are required to explain reality.

Relata is just another word for object.

You still have in mind the materialistic notion of an object - that there is some hard lasting substance at the core of reality. I'm saying the hardness and duration of anything is relative to the subject.

Materialism and Idealism both seek to reduce reality to a monism. I'm saying you can't really do that. The fundamental reality is a trinity for which we have different words or metaphors: subject/object/will or determinism/randomness/choice or logos/abyss/spirit, or Father/Son/Spirit, etc.

I'm saying the word "pattern" implies all 3 components and your response is to attempt to reduce this back to one of the components.  

So the reason this thread is causing people to want to bash heads against hard objects is because we are trying to take one member of the primal trinity and argue for its existence when all three members are required to explain reality.

Ah ok I didn't know Pattern was implying irreducible triads. That makes it easier to grok...

They are stochastic processes. So there are various probabilities for group events, but individual events are random. Note that the half-life of a group of particles can be changed by time dilation. The reflection of photons is described by the Fresnel equations.

We have no idea what determines the group probabilities.

https://wtamu.edu/~cbaird/sq/2015/03/13/...and-decay/

~~ Paul

Similarly, we have no idea how to predict where this deep learning algorithm will place individual particles of a fluid until we run the simulation...



And speaking of time dilation:

Similarly, we have no idea how to predict where this deep learning algorithm will place individual particles of a fluid until we run the simulation...

That's true of any algorithm involving random numbers.

For deterministic algorithms, it's more complicated.

~~ Paul

Suppose something like that goes into chaos theory though, an incredibly different set of outcomes from the same original effects.

Similarly, we have no idea how to predict where this deep learning algorithm will place individual particles of a fluid until we run the simulation...

I don't think this is the same thing as quantum indeterminism? It seems to me that we - or let's say Lapace's Demon - could predict the outcome of the simulation if we looked at the atoms of a computer as it runs the program.

Whereas, at least based on our current understanding, it is in principle impossible to predict the individual particle behavior in the examples of quantum indeterminism. (Think Maxwell's Demon on the side of Xaos, and Lapace's Demon the side of Law.)



The one caveat is I've read this idea that if we are in a Simulation then ground level indeterminism from our vantage point could be accomplished by a pseudo-random generator invoked by the program running said Simulation.