The Determinism of Physical Matter

[Cramulus]

Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
-Larry Niven

You only think you have Free Will^TM because you don't understand how The Machine^TM works.*
The fact is, you can't even understand The Machine^TM. It's too big and complex for one of its components to comprehend. Individuality, Discordia, even your flawed interpretation of The Machine^TM is part of its Process.

If you wish, you can think you're escaping The Machine^TM by acting contrary to the majority of its parts. Counterspin is necessary for the Process.

*this is an exponent of mechanics, which is an exponent of physics, in which "free will" is immaterial

[Random Probability]

Needs moar tentacles.

[Triple Zero]

looks very nice, but it's a bit preaching to the choir here, right? what is the target audience?

it would probably make a very good entry for the blog?

aand i was a littlebit dissapointed that it ended at the pic of the balls. because that's when i was expecting you'd get to the new point that i hadn't thought of already.

[Cramulus]

looks very nice, but it's a bit preaching to the choir here, right? what is the target audience?

it would probably make a very good entry for the blog?

jah I was testing the waters here for the blag. Perhaps preaching to the choir.

aand i was a littlebit dissapointed that it ended at the pic of the balls. because that's when i was expecting you'd get to the new point that i hadn't thought of already.

TBH the balls are there because I was looking for a good Magritte painting to open the piece, and couldn't decide which one I liked more, so I just took both.



this rant was born out of thinking about how Free Will is an abstraction of an incredibly complex machine. And how any sufficiently advanced technology looks like magic, which is why I think people believe in this Free Will thing - in many cases due to ignorance of how the brain works.

But then I started thinking about The Machine, and how we're living two illusions - the illusion of personal freedom and the illusion of social freedom. The Machine has evolved over the last millenia, and rebellion against it is very much a part of its process.

After every revolution, The Man gets a little bit better at crushing revolutions. It's also like how by going to a pro-choice protest, you're simultaneously motivating pro-lifers to action.

We're a part of a very large, very complex system, and we're too small to even see its shape - much less understand how to really affect change. Unless we can somehow get outside of the
Machine, perhaps?

[Adjective Noun]

Hmm, yes it is probably impossible to calculate the long-term reprecussions of your actions. With the whole of humanity (I presume?) represented by the machine .. well, who can say what it is going to do? Except in terms of historical analysis, maybe? Most people never really see or care about the big picture, so is the machine blind or can some people control it?

[FingFeng]

Possibly more correct to say that we don't understand what 'free will' means.

Since free will is an entirely internal notion quite specific to reasoning creatures then it ceases to have meaning in any other context.  however, IN this context it makes perfect sense to say that we have free will... provided that one understands that our notion of reality is strictly interpretive.

As for a deterministic universe this is an assumption based upon classical physics.  It leaves no room for the idea that universe may still be singularity in another very real sense, all divisibility of matter being merely conceptual.  In such a case determinism falls apart since there are no sequential states.  We can say that regardless of any grand underlying truth all that matters is that some notion of determinism can be observed to exist in the classical/subjective frame... but to deny free will in the subjective frame seems a little perverse even when I know exactly where you're coming from.

Here is a thought...


One could similarly say that matter is indivisible and that any divisibility of matter is part of some grand illusion.  Rather than, say, posit some 24+ material dimensions (as is required by science to currently explain quantum phenomenon in a way we feel comfortable) it is far easier to arrive at the conclusion that we've completely missed the point.  The universe is without dimension, material is seperable in any sense one wishes and yet remains indivisible in another very real sense.

This is not so hard to wrap ones head around.  If, before the grand event, there was neither time nor dimensionality then the grand event is by definition perpetual.  It is difficult to reason that it 'happened' in any way we can make classical sense of... yet we still quibble about classical causality and thus some feel strongly inclined to resort to creator gods.


The simple truth is that regardless of what we may feel we know about the universe, we're missing something important.  We're forever trapped inside a singular event and for this reason, the deeper we look, the more we come to realise that seperability is not strictly true, just an interpretation...  and every time it happens we look surprised.

I bet you don't believe me.

Take a look at what we know of two entangled particles devolved from a common source.  They show quite clearly that although the particles appear classically seperated they are, in a very strict sense, also not.  Through recursing we reach the conclusion that everything is entangled by virtue of common source and thus also never seperated in any concrete sense.  This marries quite well with our instinct that any catastrophic event resulting in temporality and dimensionality cannot 'have happened' but must 'happen in perpetuity' - and thus the walls of classical reasoning come toppling in on themselves.

So, when schroedinger introduced us to his dead/alive cat to highlight the absurdity of the conclusions he was assuming that the collapse of the probablistic pilot wave into a definite tangible universe.  The truth as I see it is that neither cat exists in a 'concrete' sense unless one actually gets into the business of prodding one.  Having prodded one you can then go on to make subjective statements about causation.

So, please don't think I'm just throwing a mystic smokescreen.  It really does make sense that the universe is 'expanding' and yet not...  'real' and yet not... a seperation of matter and yet not

I draw parallels to the Katavasura Sutra in which it says :

'Everything is not as it appears... nor is it otherwise'

The concept appears a lot in eastern writings and it is therefore no surprise that eastern scientists are uniquely unperturbed by quantum phenomenon whilst the best western minds shake their collective heads and claim 'if QM makes sense to you... then you haven't understood it'.


and, for the MWI folks I think it makes far more sense to say that it matters not one jot whether a quantum event causes a splitting of the universe into statistically probable outcomes... or that all outcomes are intrinsically present from the beginning as part of the noise and that no single interpretation of the universe is any more correct than any other given the collapse of classical seperability.  I know that isn't useful in technological research nor is it going to get you a government research grant... but it does make explain a lot.  Fortunately, physics is not so much about explaining the universe rather than modelling it.


Sorry for going off on one,

Other theories exist and have equal claim to truth:  Of particular note is the work done by DRS Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell in their groundbreaking scientific paper in which they tender proofs that the world is indeed 'just a great big onion'

Can we please keep determinism restricted to the classical frame... and let those who so insist restrict their free will to the subjective frame.  It makes little sense to cling to either as a concrete objective truth.


- Pope Fing Feng III

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I like you, FingFeng.

[FingFeng]

I've heard that line before and it always makes me nervous.

So, if you've got plans on coming anywhere NEAR my juicy frontal lobe or are salivating at the thought of my tangy eferrent fibres be warned... I'm expecting it and I'm gonna beat you to death with this shovel you zombie bitch.

If not, then my deepest apologies.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Don't worry, it's just my way of saying that I might actually bother to read what you've written, and eventually it may go so far that when I disagree with you I'll mock you and call you names.

[FingFeng]

Ah, my last relationship got a little out of hand... now I think anyone that sits next to me on a bus is automatically going to try devouring my brain.

I don't care what the doctors say... the bitch had it coming, and if I can see that clearly then who needs the medication, am I right ?


~ Pope Fing Feng III

[Jack of Turnips]

Good points by both Cramulus and Fingfeng.

Does chaos end up triumphant, however?

Any sufficiently advanced toaster-oven is indistinguishable from Harry Houdini, yes, but can we also say that any sufficiently chaotic system is indistinguishable from chance?

Or: If a horsefly had not lit momentarily upon the drawn arrow of a Mongol warrior near Tashkent in 1283 then Napoleon Bonaparte would have been a 6-foot Belgian with a cleft palate, and The Machine would have gone chugging off in a different direction.

You must admit that this example, while improbable, is incredibly stupid.

Entropy chaosifies, but the Machine attempts to create determinism from chaos. Entropy will win in the end, of course; it always does, especially if there are more than five people at the party. Beer will be spilled, eyeglasses smashed, virgins deflowered. Entropy wins.

There is a line in Cormac McCarthy's novel Blood Meridian to the effect that only man is capable of making "a machine, and a machine to make a machine, and an evil that can run a thousand years, no need to tend it."

That thousand-year evil may be an aspiration we cannot live up to. We aim so very high, and yet we shoot ourselves in the foot. Both feet, usually. The Machine incorporates elements of chaos, elements of Heisenberg uncertainty; but mostly I think it incorporates elements of human stupidity.

Certainly stupidity is the rule in my own case.

~~ Jack of Turnips

[Cainad (dec.)]

I have no idea what you just said, Jack, but it made me

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

You must admit that this example, while improbable, is incredibly stupid.