Richard Marshall at 3AM magazine has been doing a series of interviews with all kinds of thinkers, especially philosophers; some recent examples include Dan Dennett, Tim Maudlin, Rebecca Kukla, Alex Rosenberg, and Craig Callender. And I’m the latest subject. Given the venue, we talk as much (or more) about philosophy than about physics, and a lot about how they fit together.
Spoiler alert: I think it’s possible to have productive grown-up interactions between philosophy and science. I guess I’m just a radical bomb-thrower at heart.
Click through if this kind of thing floats your boat:
I think emergence is absolutely central to how naturalists should think about the world, and how we should find room for higher-level concepts from tables to free will in a way compatible with the scientific image. But “weak” emergence, not strong emergence. That is simply the idea that there are multiple theories/languages/vocabularies/ontologies that we can use to usefully describe the world, each appropriate at different levels of coarse-graining and precision. I always return to the example of thermodynamics (fluids, energy, pressure, entropy) and kinetic theory (collections of atoms and molecules with individual positions and momenta). Here we have two ways of talking, each perfectly valid within a domain of applicability, but with the domain of one theory (thermodynamics) living strictly inside the domain of the other (kinetic theory). Crucially, the “emergent” higher-level theory can exhibit features that you might naively think are ruled out by the lower-level rules; in particular, thermodynamics famously has an arrow of time defined by the Second Law (entropy increases in isolated systems), whereas the microscopic rules of the lower-level theory are completely time-symmetric and arrowless.
I think this example serves as a paradigm for how we can connect the manifest image to the scientific image. Sure, there’s nothing like “free will” anywhere to be found in the ultimate laws of physics. But that’s not the only question to ask; at the higher-level description, we should ask whether our best emergent theory of human beings includes the idea that they are (in the right circumstances) rational decision-making agents with freedom of action. Until we come up with a better description of human beings, I’m perfectly happy to say that free will is “real.” It’s not to be found in the most fundamental ontology, but it’s not incompatible with it either; it’s simply a crucial part of our best higher-level vocabulary.
“Spoiler alert: I think it’s possible to have productive grown-up interactions between philosophy and science. I guess I’m just a radical bomb-thrower at heart.”
RABBLE! RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE!
(complete side note on the 2nd law of thermodynamics mentioned: is the universe an isolated system? What are the upper and lower boundaries of the universe? both opinions and established facts are greatly appreciated to clear up my mental fog in this area)
“Until we come up with a better description of human beings, I’m perfectly happy to say that free will is “real.” It’s not to be found in the most fundamental ontology, but it’s not incompatible with it either; it’s simply a crucial part of our best higher-level vocabulary.”
I think that’s a very good way to put it. To my understanding, which is evolving quite rapidly at the moment, we exist at a very unique scale in the universe. At larger scales of nature, motion is so slow that it might as well not exist. At smaller scales of nature, motion is so fast that it might as well be infinite. We exist at a unique scale that allows us to have free will and the ability to make choices before they either are made for us (the lower limit) or are never made at all (the upper limit). We are at a scale that is dynamic enough to make a choice before the possibilities no longer exist, but are not at a scale that is so dynamic that any action is a choice.
Free Will is not so hard to demonstrate – walk around in a circle in your kitchen changing direction every prime number of revolutions. Nature can’t do that deterministically for macroscopic objects unless you assume an extreme philosophy.
People muddy the waters by arguing about desires and volition.
Dear Sean,
I learned about you through the 3AM interview. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I was wondering if you can refer me to any articles or books in which you talk more about reality not having multiple levels. I’d like to read it.
Thanks,
Derek
Derek, I don’t think there’s anywhere I’ve talked about that specifically. What I was referring to was simply the common naturalist idea that there is only one world, although there may be different ways of talking about it. A human being made of atoms is still a collection of atoms, not something intrinsically different than atoms. Nothing more profound than that.
@marko, @stephen,
Don’t confuse non-linearity and chaos with non-determinism.
Just because you can’t predict something, it doesn’t mean it isn’t theoretically predictable. It just means the complexity exceeds our modeling and computational abilities, so the behavior appears “random” or “non-deterministic”. But chaos just means that tiny changes in initial conditions lead to widely varying paths through state space, which makes prediction and modeling hard. It doesn’t mean that given any initial condition, that the system doesn’t evolve in such a way that the transitions between states in some sufficiently small interval of time are entirely determined by mechanical and electrostatic forces between molecules in the system. So one and only one path is followed through state space give one set of initial conditions. This is still deterministic, even if it is chaotic.
And chaos simply doesn’t help with free will, nor would indeterminacy, if you could find it in the neurons of the brain. If our brain were driven by indeterminacy in some important way, we would not have the stability and consistency that our reasoning and decision making shows. We would be chaotic and random in our behavior and choices. No, chaos is not the magic to replace the ghost in the machine, nor is quantum indeterminacy. That is wishful thinking, or a stab in the dark made necessary by a failure to grasp how complex parallel networks of networks competing in the brain can be deterministically reponsible for thinking and behavior that is so radically different from simplistic impulse-reaction or stimulus-response notions of determinism. Most people balk at determinism because they don’t think beyond such simplistic models when they envision deterministic systems. Compare the orders of magnitude difference in capability between a bouncing ball and a digital computer, yet both are deterministic systems. The brain simply adds orders of magnitude of complexity beyond a digital computer, while remaining deterministic. But it is not predictable in practice, and the state space is so enormous that it can generate behavior more varied and complex than we are accustomed to expect from the simplistic models within our mathematical grasp that we use to study deterministic systems. So it doesn’t appear to be deterministic at first glance. But the more you think about the evidence we have from neuroscience and from our experience, the more you realize it must be deterministic. If it weren’t, we’d have a very hard time controlling anything or making choices.
@Jeff Johnson
I think we need to avoid all-or-nothing statements. I do not claim human behavior is completely random. Indeed, much of behavior is deterministic. You are hungry, so you eat; you are tired, so you sleep, etc. But on top of this determinism there are random, chaotic elements.
And I will throw another wrench into the discussion, which you should not ignore if you value empirical science:
A Turing machine would not be capable of reproducing the effect reported in these 26 studies. Therefore, the brain cannot be simulated by a classical computer. QED (to the 6.9 sigma level 😉 )
“The brain simply adds orders of magnitude of complexity beyond a digital computer, while remaining deterministic.”
@ Jeff Johnson
It could be, but how do you know? Do you have conclusive evidence to back up that claim?
@ Jeff:
“Don’t confuse non-linearity and chaos with non-determinism.”
I’m not confusing them. It is quantum mechanics that is non-deterministic, and chaos is there only to amplify its effects into the macroscopic world.
“But chaos just means that tiny changes in initial conditions lead to widely varying paths through state space, which makes prediction and modeling hard. […] So one and only one path is followed through state space give one set of initial conditions. This is still deterministic, even if it is chaotic.”
What you say is based on the assumption that a physical system can really be represented by a single point in phase space. If that were true, you would be right. However, it just isn’t true, because Heisenberg’s inequalities put a bound on a precision with which a given phase-space region can exist. And here I mean “it doesn’t exist as a point” literally, rather than just “we can’t know its value, but it exists nonetheless”. The latter is called “realism”, and “local realism” has been experimentally falsified (see Bell’s theorem), so we have to give up either realism or locality. In either case determinism cannot survive. Quantum mechanics is not deterministic, period.
And chaos is there only to amplify these non-determinstic effect of QM into the macroscopic world.
“If our brain were driven by indeterminacy in some important way, we would not have the stability and consistency that our reasoning and decision making shows. We would be chaotic and random in our behavior and choices.”
The amout of “chaos” in a given physical system can be quantified (by Lyapunov exponents), and can be large or small, depending on the type of interactions in the system. When you look at a biological system, say a brain, one can imagine a whole spectrum of possible brain types which range from “very chaotic” over “moderately chaotic” to “not chaotic at all”. You may think of it as the amount of neuron firings in the brain, or behaviorally as schizophrenic, normal and comatose, for example.
And now evolution comes in. In that big spectrum of chaos-level in the brain, the extremes are unlikely to survive, but there is a “sweet spot” somewhere in between, where there is just enough chaos to allow for creative thinking, imagination and non-predictable behavior, while there is not enough chaos to make too much “noise” in the brain. Animals with this types of brains were the most likely to survive, and evolution has preferred them over the more extreme cases.
So I would say that evolution has filtered-out the structure of our brain such that it has just the right amount of chaotic behavior. Our behavior is nondeterministic, yet still consistent and reasonable. Other variants just did not live long enough to procreate successfully.
HTH, 🙂
Marko
I think it boils down to your opinion. Either free will is an “emergent phenomenon” or it is an “illusion”. Is there really a difference between an emergent phenomenon and an illusion? I prefer to take the stance that it is an illusion because the list of possible actions we could choose as human beings is limited. If the list of possible choices is limited, then that is determinate. The only way that it could be indeterminate is if the list of possible choices was infinite. I’m sure there’s a way to work the many worlds interpretation into this, oh well.
As far as I can tell, the “Free Will” question is actually about feeling okay with punishing people.
Stephen wrote:
Coherence for energy harvesting, but not quantum superposition of states for information processing. If it were the latter, we would be growing it in vitro and starting a new definition for “server farms.”
@Qu Quine
As I mentioned previously, these 26 studies from multiple research groups on retrocausal physiological effects having “results reveal a significant overall effect with a small effect size [fixed effect: overall ES=0.21, 95% CI=0.15–0.27, z=6.9, p=2.7×10^-12; random effects: overall (weighted) ES=0.21, 95% CI=0.13–0.29, z=5.3, p=5.7×10^-8]” are extremely good evidence for some sort of macroscopic quantum effect in the brain. Perhaps these results could be explained by Prof. John Cramer’s transactional quantum theory. Anyways, a classical system would never exhibit this and a classical computer could never simulate it.
I looked at the paper you linked and did not see any mention of testing “quantum effects.” Did I miss that? If so, what specific effects? You do know that all of chemistry relies on quantum effects for things like bond angles and energy levels, right?
@Qu Quine
“You do know that all of chemistry relies on quantum effects for things like bond angles and energy levels, right?”
Of course I know that. Sheesh. And bond angles and energy levels are not macroscopic; they are microscopic.
The paper I linked shows evidence of retrocausal information transfer. This cannot be explained using classical physics (or at least not very easily at all; QM provides a much more natural framework because retrocausal influences have already been experimentally verified). Though this meta-analysis does not mention this, the sub-papers it references do.
Which of the sub-papers would those be? I am trying to understand the connection you are making. Also, unexplained results can float along for quite some time before the picture clarifies, as in the “FTL neutrinos” that took years, and the best minds on the planet, to trace to a bad data connection. If there is a connection to quantum effects in our neurosystems, I would like to know what specific events, and what are the connections to macro-scale phenomena. (And quite a few other questions in phylogenetic evolution and ontogenetic development, as well.)
@Qu Quine
Rereading a couple of the original papers + a paper which came out after the meta-analysis (which also showed a very strong signal), it appears the experimentalists involved still have only the kind of hand-wavy arguments like the ones I already wrote. I.e., it can’t be due to classical physics; therefore, it must be quantum retrocausality. It does appear there is a theoretical explanatory gap between quantum retrocausality as reported in quantum optics experiments and these physiological results. But neuroscience is still very much in its infancy so an explanation may come in the future. This research at face value appears to be outside standard neuroscience paradigms but there is no reason this cannot change soon.
Please, NSF, fund this research!
That, I support. It may turn out to be something new, or it may not, but finding out is what science is for.
@Jeff Johnson
“So the idea that a conscious intentional being created everything, an idea obviously cribbed from observing how humans make things, is no more likely than millions of other possibilities, most of which may be beyond our imagining.”
.
You set up a straw man and probably knock it down and declare that the field is now probably empty. I’m saying that we know less than one gazillionth of what is or is not standing in the field, probabilities mean nothing with out one-data-point universe and our inability to test the existence of God, and the only rational point of view is “I don’t know”. Saying “I don’t know” makes me as uncomfortable as any other scientist, but I’m not about to use the opiate of organized religion, nor the opiate of atheism to ease my discomfort.