Neuroscience and free will

Sorry Paul, I never meant to some how correlate random and free decisions as one being evidence for the other.  I've simply been trying to piece together why a description of how a free choice might logically be constructed/made is so confounding and yet you readily accept the notion of a fully arbitrary random event which seems equally abstract.

At the risk of flaunting my own ignorance (which I really don't mind doing), is there a scientific proof for "random"?  For example, just because we haven't found any hints that alpha decay may be nonrandom is not the same thing as saying we've proven it to be "random".

Just seems to me you should be wrestling with both concepts (random and free will) since while they may or may not be related, neither seems to have a satisfying, rational explanation.  (To me at least.)

There is no way to prove that an event is random. There could be some hidden variable(s) that we have not yet discovered. However, that does not bother me, because

random = not determined

But if you do not accept that definition, then you will be bothered. So I offer the slightly wordier:

As random event is one with no causal precursors. Thus it is arbitrary, perhaps with some nonuniform outcome probabilities.

If you do not believe there can be no causal precursors, then you will still be bothered. At this point I have nothing left to offer. However, I still think that those are better descriptions than any we have for a free decision, given that there is evidence that some events are truly random. All we have for a free decision:

A free decision is a decision made in a way that is not wholly deterministic and random.

That definition depends on the two italicized terms that we are arguing about. There doesn't seem to be an independent definition.

~~ Paul

State of your preparation is known --> state during entanglement is not available --> measurement is known. I think you are asking me something similar to the question "how can a single particle go through two slits at once?" in the double slit experiment, but I really can't say anything about the state of the particles between them leaving the laser, and measuring them either, that information is not available. So I'm not going to be able to give you any answer to you question that will make sense to you.

That's not what I'm asking. I'm asking you to name the aspect of entangled particles that allows their future measurements to be correlated. If you insist on using only the phrase "they are entangled," so be it. But what entanglement means is that their quantum states are correlated. From Wikipedia:

"However, the three scientists did not coin the word entanglement, nor did they generalize the special properties of the state they considered. Following the EPR paper, Erwin Schrödinger wrote a letter to Einstein in German in which he used the word Verschränkung (translated by himself as entanglement) to describe the correlations between two particles that interact and then separate, as in the EPR experiment."

A perhaps clearer way of saying this is that the states of two particles are independently unknowable, but there is a correlation between the two states.

I'm perfectly happy with you taking some philosophical position, that you believe the idea that we can say nothing about the state of the particles between measurements as unacceptable - many do - and making some assumptions that you believe you can say something about the state of the particles, and I would disagree. But the fact is, entanglement is a special state that is known only to the entangled particles, and trying to measure it stops the entanglement, changes the state, and loses all the information about the previous state. It's just off limits to us.

I agree with everything you just said, except for your claim that I believe we can say something about the state of the particles before measurement. I do not think we can say anything about the state of the particles, except that they are correlated. It is this correlation that leads to the correlation of future measurements.

Edited to add: To be super careful: I do not think we can say anything about the state of the particles, except that their quantum states are not independent.

~~ Paul

P.S.: I believe it is also the case that some entanglements do not produce correlations.

Could you elaborate on who these Austrians are and what truth they've revealed?

Also, what is your definition of random - it might help me understand where you are coming from re: Two-Stage Models...I can see "first stage" of efficient causality that brings to mind the necessity of selecting between potentials (possibly including the "do nothing" potential) to be actualized (Whitehead's prehension), and the "second stage" of final causation that makes use of intentionality to bring us to new total state when a particular potential state is selected/actualized (Whitehead's concrescence).

And I do think, based on his own writing of indeterminism, William James intended to include Final Causes (see my bolding):

Chance is a purely negative and relative term, giving us no information about that of which it is predicated, except that it happens to be disconnected with something else—not controlled, secured, or necessitated by other things in advance of its own actual presence. What I say is that it tells us nothing about what a thing may be in itself to call it “chance.” All you mean by calling it “chance” is that this is not guaranteed, that it may also fall out otherwise. For the system of other things has no positive hold on the chance-thing. Its origin is in a certain fashion negative: it escapes, and says, Hands off! coming, when it comes, as a free gift, or not at all.

This negativeness, however, and this opacity of the chance-thing when thus considered ab extra, or from the point of view of previous things or distant things, do not preclude its having any amount of positiveness and luminosity from within, and at its own place and moment. All that its chance-character asserts about it is that there is something in it really of its own, something that is not the unconditional property of the whole. If the whole wants this property, the whole must wait till it can get it, if it be a matter of chance. That the universe may actually be a sort of joint-stock society of this sort, in which the sharers have both limited liabilities and limited powers, is of course a simple and conceivable notion.
  —William James, Dilemma of Determinism 1884 Harvard lecture

See also Chris Fuch's - the physicist who "invented" the QBism interpretation - On Participatory Realism

The Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information (IQOQI) (German: Institut für Quantenoptik und Quanteninformation) is a subsidiary institute of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and was founded in November 2003. The institute, with sites in Innsbruck and Vienna, is dedicated to fundamental research in quantum optics and quantum information, both theoretical and experimental.

The research institute has around 100 employees and consists of a section in Innsbruck and a section in Vienna with six groups led by Časlav Brukner, Marcus Huber, Markus Müller, Miguel Navascués, Rupert Ursin, and Anton Zeilinger. 

I had a little chat with Max Maaneli and he said that careful use of terminology means I should avoid using "correlation" when talking about nonfactorable quantum states and stick with "entanglement" or "states that are not independent" or "nonfactorable states."

So, Max_B, I believe we now agree on both the situation and the terminology.

~~ Paul

The Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information (IQOQI) (German: Institut für Quantenoptik und Quanteninformation) is a subsidiary institute of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and was founded in November 2003. The institute, with sites in Innsbruck and Vienna, is dedicated to fundamental research in quantum optics and quantum information, both theoretical and experimental.

The research institute has around 100 employees and consists of a section in Innsbruck and a section in Vienna with six groups led by Časlav Brukner, Marcus Huber, Markus Müller, Miguel Navascués, Rupert Ursin, and Anton Zeilinger. 

Ah, so the Reality Test guys!

And your definition of random? (I suspect it aligns with my own, but just to make sure we're on the same page...)

There is no way to prove that an event is random. There could be some hidden variable(s) that we have not yet discovered. However, that does not bother me, because

random = not determined

But if you do not accept that definition, then you will be bothered. So I offer the slightly wordier:

As random event is one with no causal precursors. Thus it is arbitrary, perhaps with some nonuniform outcome probabilities.

If you do not believe there can be no causal precursors, then you will still be bothered. At this point I have nothing left to offer. However, I still think that those are better descriptions than any we have for a free decision, given that there is evidence that some events are truly random. All we have for a free decision:

A free decision is a decision made in a way that is not wholly deterministic and random.

That definition depends on the two italicized terms that we are arguing about. There doesn't seem to be an independent definition.

~~ Paul

I do accept the definition you provided in bold and I don't feel compelled to go to some conjecture beyond that that presupposes a random event include no causal precursors.  The reason I can't make the jump to the second definition (and it is materially different in my view) is that it is a hand wave to my eye.  There's no tested science that such a thing (events with no causal precursors) exists to my knowledge.

I was stuck on some of your earlier posts (back on pages 12 and 13 of this thread when Max first introduced the definition for random as "without understanding".  (Again, seems akin to your definition in bold above.)  You seemed unsatisfied.  (And stated: "However, I still think it is reasonable to define random event: an event that is not fully specified by causal precursors".)

I don't find the latter definition troublesome but it seems to include a leap of some faith.

The corollary to free decisions may actually be closer to your second definition for random: Decisions that have no causal (material) precursor.

I do accept the definition you provided in bold and I don't feel compelled to go to some conjecture beyond that that presupposes a random event include no causal precursors.  The reason I can't make the jump to the second definition (and it is materially different in my view) is that it is a hand wave to my eye.  There's no tested science that such a thing (events with no causal precursors) exists to my knowledge.

True, because it is impossible to prove there are no hidden variables. But everything we do with particle decay points to randomness.

I was stuck on some of your earlier posts (back on pages 12 and 13 of this thread when Max first introduced the definition for random as "without understanding".  (Again, seems akin to your definition in bold above.)  You seemed unsatisfied.  (And stated: "However, I still think it is reasonable to define random event: an event that is not fully specified by causal precursors".)

I don't like "without understanding" because we do understand some things about, say, particle decay. Also, it seems to imply that there is an explanation but we just don't understand it yet. There may be no explanation.

The corollary to free decisions may actually be closer to your second definition for random: Decisions that have no causal (material) precursor.

I hope that free decisions have causes. Otherwise they would be arbitrary, no?

~~ Paul

I'm fine with the first two... (not come across 'nonfactorable' to do with QM, so that's a new one on me, but seems like it  means something along the lines that one can't get a result in principle - which I guess is probably fine too).

It is a word describing the correlated* quantum states that come about by interaction of the particles. The terms of the individual particles cannot be factored out of the state equation.

~~ Paul

* See what I did there? Oops.