Also, the length of the number doesn't really matter. If it's a pure number generator, it won't do what you need it to.

oopppss *poor* generator. If it was pure, that would be perfect.

Well, yes, but there is a great difference between a single particle closed quantum system and an open multi particle quantum systen which admits decoherence in multiple ways.

And why I agree that the brain is controlled by chemistry I don't think that the internal degrees of freedom of the atom or more precisely the molecule are so important. As far as I know, there are receptors, electrical currents and hormones which are important in the biochemistry of the human body all of which are fairly classical concepts.

@Pep

But, if our brains are a purely classical system (which is purely deterministic) then surely we can't have free will.

But our brain is not a collection of point masses either, and even if you wouldn't know the initial conditions.

In a classical system, you can fundamentally observe and predict with 100% accuracy. Therefore, free will cannot be possible in a classical system. I'll admit that getting initial conditions and exact interactions is very complex (so complex that we may never be able to accurately model it); however, there's a difference between what we can actually do and what we can theoretically do. Theoretically, we could predict everyone's every action if it was truly a classical system.

Also, I'm not sure I agree at all the QM isn't important in brain chemistry.

Consider your computer. If it weren't for QM, it wouldn't work at all. I guarantee you this. All a computer does is move electrons, same as a neuron. But electrons are quantum entities at the small scale.

@Abge Whilst I agree its probably not truely random, http://www.random.org/history/ gives you an explanation. It basis its values on measuring background radiation, which has to be pretty darn good. Certainly if someone can predict a bias in it I would be far more interested in the physics discovered than the flaw in the randomness!

Also, the following article may be of interest to anyone talking about Heisenberg's Principal and the limitations it imposes:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13626587

@figle

My point was you can't tell if it's random by just looking at one number, as Fasces seemed to think.

@Abge - Let me disprove you with php code...

<?php
$h = new possibly_random_number_generator();
echo is_random($h);
unlink($h);
exit;
?>

If the script outputs 1 then you know its random, and if 0 then its not.

QED :P

I thought this quote was interesting:

"The trouble with quantum mechanics is that while we've learned to calculate the outcomes of all sorts of experiments, we've lost much of our ability to describe what is really happening in any natural language.

"I think that this has really hampered our ability to make progress, to come up with new ideas and see intuitively how new systems ought to behave."

Yes, this is a problem, but I don't see how it can be solved. QM is inherently non-intuitive because we don't live in a quantum world. Obviously you can study it to get a better understanding, but I don't think you can ever understand it as well as throwing a ball in the air and it coming back down.

@figle

LOL

Publish that and you could be famous!

And another thing to consider is the brain/mind problem: is there only physical reality, or is there a mental reality as well? If so, what is the relation that holds between the 2 realities?

What I meant to say, of course, is that the brain is physical reality and may thus be part of a "system" where the question that was asked applies,. But if there is a mind, and it is not physical, then it doesn't matter what QM do to the brain, or it only matters insofar as there is indeed a relation between brain (physical) and mind (mental).

Most people have traditionally made freedom or free will a property of the mind.

1) I must admit that I am only really familiar with molecular orbital theory (chemistry rather than physics). Although a position of a particular electron may be ''random'', it is not unpredictable. Therefore, given a large enough sample #, the tools of statistics can be employed to give us some rather elegant explaintory models.

2) Any universe where the we lack the knowledge of a first cause cannot be classified as deterministic, by definition.

What evidence is there to suggest.the mind is separate from the.brain?

Sorry I'm late, I would post the hell out of this, but I'm tired. Sorry abgemacht, looks like I missed this. I'll look forwarrd to another one.

i'm sure i had a comment, but then i got rather drunk and can't quantize mechanics when i'm drunk...

Don't need no fancy science to prove freewill.

@atom

I'm pretty sure this thread will be here tomorrow.

@ abgemacht

The logical gates in a computer in the integrated circuitry are made from a semiconductor material which and to understand the electrical and optical response of semiconductors quantum mechanics is indeed needed.

However, these elements are used to control and manipulate classical bits, in this case encoded in the presence or absence of an electrical current. In the past people have build computers with vacuum tubes, the logic used is there is the same. The essence of a classical bit is that it can only be `yes' or `no'. This is in contrast to quantum logic, which uses a so called `qubit' which can be in a linear superposition of `yes' and `no'.

I am no expert of what happens in out brain, but I thinks it is more akin to classical logic than quantum logic.

^^ my typing is atrocious.

I agree with abgematcht. If you argue whether the world is deterministic or QM is coherent, it is still obvious that we are controlled by our composed particles. If you argue that we're complex enough enough to control it, well...isn't it the particles that make us complex? The circularity makes it so that it appears that there's free will, but not really. Ergo, free will is impossible w/o non-physical implications. I don't think this can be argued, and I don't know why people do.

"What I meant to say, of course, is that the brain is physical reality and may thus be part of a "system" where the question that was asked applies,. But if there is a mind, and it is not physical, then it doesn't matter what QM do to the brain, or it only matters insofar as there is indeed a relation between brain (physical) and mind (mental)."

Cachimbo, maybe...it's obvious that the brain has impact on decisions. You can say it's linked to a mind, but from my pov I'd rather say it's linked to the soul. However, I'm not saying that souls are the explanation for the apparent QM. The randomness in experiments is just physics. However, the randomness of particles in the brain appears to be part of the QM when it's not. A decision would be affected by triggering a randomness caused by the soul that leads to a chain reaction of particle movements in the brain that lead to a choice. It's undetectable because of the QM. So, I believe in free will linked to the supernatural, making it neither provable or unprovable.

Also, I believe that God can alter particles outside of the brain to influence what's called "miracles." Kind of radical thinking...but you could hypothetically test a miracles to see if atoms were moving in unpredictable ways. Except the QM makes this type of supernatural influence undetectable also. Don't ask me why, it's God's business.

Anyways, that's just a religious spin on QM and freewill.

@Pep

You are correct about digital logic, although it's actually controlled by high and low Voltages, not Currents.


My point is this. Although digital logic (or synapse firing) is classical, it's underlying mechanics is quantum. Because of this, QM *does* play a part in a computer. If you have an improperly doped transistor, you may get a 1 where you should get a 0, and a digital logic analyzer will not help you. (well, it will help you isolate the bad transistor, but no further).

Similarly, free will may be QM anomalies due to "errors" in how a synapse fires.

@zaza

I'd like to keep the supernatural out of this discussion. Not because it doesn't have merit, but because it seems every thread crumbles into a religious debate, which I find very tedious.

However, I think you make a good point and I agree. *IF* there is FW, it probably comes from the supernatural, as the natural doesn't seem to have room for it.

Ah, I understand. In that case, I stand by my opinion that there's no possible way you can make FW possible with any physical model.

I'd agree wtith ZaZa in a way, although maybe i'd weaken it to any feasible physical model. I am with abgemacht, that the brain is a physical object, that chemical processes happen which have their roots in physical processes, and because atoms and molecules are part of the biochemistry, quantum mechanics is inherently involved, but all this is different from understanding the brain as a physical system. Physics is about the reduction to the necessary, it may not be necessary to account for all the quantum states of all the molecules in my brain to understand the processes, and I doubt that it is possible.

We can probablistically predict the behaviour of a large group of individual entities (electrons, molecules, radioactive decay on upwards), but to predict with certainty the behaviour of any one individual is impossible. We are sentinent beings with a volutary muscle system and our individual behaviour is of necassity unpredictable; ergo free will exists.

@ful
You're taking a lot of liberties in your statement.


Is our muscle system voluntary? Why is our behavior of necessity unpredictable?