Metric

This type of example is a mathematical pathology that appears by introducing infinite precision in the context of an unstable system. It's not something you can observe or even hope to observe in principle. It is not a terribly uncommon situation in physics that some theory gives odd/unexpected/unobserved behavior in some mathematically special case -- to show that the the theory isn't "broken" by the existence of such cases, one usually shows that the solutions with such behavior "are of measure zero" in the space of solutions. The interpretation being that you can never actually see such behavior. This is exactly the case in this example. It is true that it's kind of interesting and unexpected mathematically, but it doesn't actually say anything about the functioning of the world around us.

Yes, this definitely needs to be explored. If we remain on the current technological track, arguments for slow, multi-generational change have to be modified in light of the fact that our present ideas of what constitutes "a human" are likely to be completely outdated and irrelevant in only a few decades. IMO, the field that will have "staying power" throughout all of this is the field of "machine ethics." It is only when ethics is 1) as precise, reliable, and free of cheap rhetorical loopholes as mathematics and 2) generally applicable enough to apply to machines with almost godlike intelligence and power that it will really be taken seriously. Because at some point, having this form of ethics sorted out will be an absolute requirement for the survival of the planet, when people get ready to switch on recursively self-improving AI's. The issue for now is just that the field is very new, and most people have never heard of it, and in any case don't realize the potential importance for the future. That situation will change very suddenly, though, at some point.

I think you're making an excellent observation about the limitations of the way this topic has been traditionally discussed.

What physics (as presently understood) demands is that the state of the universe "now" evolves to one and only one state of the universe "tomorrow." The precise term is "unitary time evolution" ("unitarity" is a mathematical property that ensures this). Presumably, you are referencing probabilities that occur in quantum mechanics -- these probabilities aren't a breakdown in unitary time evolution, they are instead a consequence of the way information is shared between entangled subsystems in QM. There is definitely some subtle stuff here that may have interesting philosophical implications, but it's not at simple as time evolution breaking down and turning into mush. Time evolution is still one-to-one in quantum mechanics. I am pretty sure everyone agrees that there is an interesting decision-making process that takes place in the human brain, where high-level abstraction, principles, and ideas are part of the calculation. Presumably, that's what you're referring to as "free will." None of that is opposed to deterministic physics playing out the way it is presently understood, which is simply what I subscribe to -- the notion that an extremely well-established experimental science is likely to be correct, in the absence of good evidence to the contrary. BTW, Stefan has introduced at least one definition of "free will" that is not in opposition to deterministic time evolution, but hasn't addressed that point. Also, while it's quite possible that people subscribe to any number of ideas for reasons of "bad personal psychology", it's also the case that I'm actually using these deterministic laws of physics as part of ongoing research about the physical world. And I'm using them because they work.

First of all, I think you made a really excellent point in the other thread -- I was gone for a few days, so I didn't get to respond before the thread was locked (and no one else bothered). The question was more or less "how would you tell the difference between a human and an android with a deterministic computer which simulates all the processes in a human brain?" And I agree that this point pretty much closes the book on arguments from human behavior, if nobody can even imagine distinguishing the two possibilities. I will also address the question you raise in this post, namely what *I personally* find interesting about the subject. I am a physicist, and so have general interest regarding the way the universe works. And determinism is a major component of physics, which is why I found it so surprising to see philosophers making these meta-arguments about arguments and thinking they've proved something about the way the universe works, which is very counter to the state of experimental science -- as far as I'm aware, this form of argument has never ever been successfully used in physics to conclusively demonstrate anything whatsoever about the working of the universe, and it's pretty easy to see why. Incidentally, I went to a philosophy lecture a few weeks ago on the subject of "time travel" (not a physics lecture, but philosophy). During the talk, three philosphical camps regarding the nature of time were presented, one called "the presentists" who argue that the past and future do not exist, and therefore that time travel can't really exist. So I asked what the reaction of the presentists would be if one were able to actually construct a basic time machine that could transport a single particle through time. And her answer was basically that she'd never actually known a philosopher to change their position based on emperical data -- that it would be more likely that the "presentist position" would simply adapt to account for the existence of time machines. It appears to me that this debate is a special case of this -- no matter how much science supports deterministic time evolution, the somewhat nebulous "philosopher definition" of free will will be adapted to it.

An emergent property isn't independent like it exists without it's component pieces, but it is absolutely independent in quality. Atoms don't have color, water molecules don't feel wet, particles don't smell or move of their own volition, pinky toes don't think or choose. But obviously, empirically these phenomena exist. To say that a thing is a way because it's component pieces are that way is the fallacy of composition. (Lol, I posted this in the wrong thread before). It may indeed be a fallacy of composition to assume a-priori that deterministic physics continues to be true when you begin to compose systems. However, what is actually found to be the case when you study the behavior of the world is that composite systems do, in fact, continue to follow deterministic physics. And so this observation has been encoded into the laws of physics as currently understood. It could always turn out to be wrong (like the rest of science), but all available data suggests the opposite -- and we are not talking about something trivial here, we are talking about some of the most well-established laws of physics known. Also, btw, emergent phenomena do not invalidate the fundamental rules from which they derive. There is no fundamental rule that says "a water molecule is not wet" which is then "broken" when you get lots of water molecules together. I know you didn't make this assertion in your post above, but I wanted to point this out anyway, since I've seen some people make this mistake before. If the decision-making process in your brain is emergent from the type of deterministic physics we understand (and all evidence points to this being the case), then the entire process is deterministic.

I changed my position, based on his argument as it was presented in the four-way conversation several years ago. What's the rule? Whenever the phrase "...it basically boils down to..." is used, you know with near certainty that an argument is about to be misrepresented. I don't believe "can't imagine", "deterministic physics", or "evaluate different courses of action" are part of the argument. Have you considered the possibility that you disagree because you do not understand the argument? Your lack of ability in reproducing the argument suggests a lack of comprehension. Come on -- the actual argument is kindergarten stuff that doesn't need to be reproduced in detail every single time. He always gives the same little argument: 1) deterministic physics doesn't have any "should" in the equations 2) you as a human being implicitly use "should" when you argue 3) therefore you aren't really convinced of deterministic physics Yes, this does boil down to taking one's own "imagination fail" far too seriously -- it's an outline of an impossibility proof with "lack of imagination" substituted where you'd expect to see "proof" (i.e. the conclusion does not follow from the premise, but you can pretend it does if you don't think about it too much). And it's just a bad way or arguing to begin with -- there are an infinitude of philosophical concepts that don't appear in physics (whether it is deterministic or not), and were never expected to. If you want to actually convince people that the state-of-the-art understanding of physics is wrong (and determinism is right there in the middle of it), you need to clearly show that it predicts something incorrectly. In the absence of this, you have a fake proof that is worse than useless, unless you are just really into chasing your own tail for ever and ever and ever. Another way to look at it: If successful physics (an experimental science) collides with philosophy (a bunch of conditional reasoning), guess which one is going to have to be re-thought? even if my argument was that simplistic, you still haven't addressed it Seriously? I mean, conclusion failing to follow from the premise? Conclusions about physical law requiring comparison of prediction to experiment? I guess you want additional examples or something? Fine -- let's take the same type of argument and apply it to "love." There is no "love" in the equations of physics -- they are free of love. Asteroids do not have love. Yet I tell my wife I love her all the time. Does this imply that I am secretly doubting the laws of physics? Of course not. It means that I'm applying a high-level label to some really complicated phenomenon involving 10^25 or so particles that tends to happen in brains rather than asteroids. Exactly the same argument applies to "choice" -- there is certainly some phenomenon that requires a label there, but I have no reason at all to suspect that it contradicts basic (deterministic) physical law. If you had evidence that it did in fact clearly violate physical law, that would be something else to be taken far more seriously -- but that's not at all the type of argument you have presented.

I changed my position, based on his argument as it was presented in the four-way conversation several years ago. What's the rule? Whenever the phrase "...it basically boils down to..." is used, you know with near certainty that an argument is about to be misrepresented. I don't believe "can't imagine", "deterministic physics", or "evaluate different courses of action" are part of the argument. Have you considered the possibility that you disagree because you do not understand the argument? Your lack of ability in reproducing the argument suggests a lack of comprehension. Come on -- the actual argument is kindergarten stuff that doesn't need to be reproduced in detail every single time. He always gives the same little argument: 1) deterministic physics doesn't have any "should" in the equations 2) you as a human being implicitly use "should" when you argue 3) therefore you aren't really convinced of deterministic physics Yes, this does boil down to taking one's own "imagination fail" far too seriously -- it's an outline of an impossibility proof with "lack of imagination" substituted where you'd expect to see "proof" (i.e. the conclusion does not follow from the premise, but you can pretend it does if you don't think about it too much). And it's just a bad way or arguing to begin with -- there are an infinitude of philosophical concepts that don't appear in physics (whether it is deterministic or not), and were never expected to. If you want to actually convince people that the state-of-the-art understanding of physics is wrong (and determinism is right there in the middle of it), you need to clearly show that it predicts something incorrectly. In the absence of this, you have a fake proof that is worse than useless, unless you are just really into chasing your own tail for ever and ever and ever. Another way to look at it: If successful physics (an experimental science) collides with philosophy (a bunch of conditional reasoning), guess which one is going to have to be re-thought?

Yeah, I know you'd think it would be something simple like semantics, but it basically boils down to the fact that Stefan just can't imagine how deterministic physics could possibly give rise to beings who can imagine and evaluate different courses of action. He's been repeating this for years, and is apparently convinced that the rest of us are mentally defective because no one else finds it a convincing argument. Anyway, the video demonstrates very well why his position has remained static for so long -- he gives opposing positions about 6 uninterrupted seconds to develop their case.

Stefan, just wanted to let you know -- a little less than 3 weeks ago, about the time you were getting this diagnosis, my first child was born. The non-violent parenting he will experience is due in large part to your work over the last few years. Get well -- the world is a much better place with you in it.

Thought it was great. Tried it out on a forum populated by statists -- the biggest objection was that it didn't talk too much about the "you can always leave" argument.

Very good point -- it might not be finished yet. Also, one possibility with regard to this marathon bombing is that I'd watch for anonymous to "claim credit" (according to official sources) since it's trivially easy to pin it on them (all they need to do is have someone write up an email no one can trace) and basically impossible for anonymous to deny it, due to their inherent decentralization. I'm not sure they are libertarian, exactly, but pinning it on them might have the effect of demonizing people who don't like the government in general.

Yeah, just to be clear I'm not really claiming to have predicted this particular one (the marathon bombing), since my prediction was basically a correlation of 3 factors -- blame on libertarians, large enough to be economy shaking, and just as a new financial crisis is on the horizon. I did notice that some people on CNN were quick to blame libertarians before the facts were in, but in order for this to be a true false-flag against libertarians, the "official story" will have to involve libertarians, not just the early speculation/hopes/dreams of CNN statist reporters.

That is exactly the paradigm I challenge. We presuppose that models of mathematics are (or can be) distinct from the world. I have once believed that there are models that work, and those that fail. So physics is a subset of mathematics. But this now seems completely false. All mathematical objects and conclusions must remain accessible to us, because physical matter (brain or computer) must perform a proof. Independent mathematicians can confirm the proof, and you mention internal consistency. To maintain such consistency is objective, there must be a physical model even if it is symbols in chalk. Mathematics can tell you how the world operates at least as much as physics, because neither is divorced from the senses. I say this because we demand a physical model (a proof that is reproducible). The computational resources and experimental information seem very difficult for me to distinguish, and seems only a matter of opinion. You can have physicists witnessing radioactive decay and extrapolating the results a million years in the future. But a mathematician can prove 13 whole cookies can only be divided evenly to 1 or 13 people. Either way, you make a prediction about physical events. The mathematicians can distinguish between two models because the models make different predictions. The physicist is perhaps delusional that one of the models has no application. If the physicist points to a model that "doesn't work", I will put that model into a computer and ask the physicist what the atoms of the computer will do. When the physicist says "well the atoms of the computer are arranged so that an answer X will result, but that's totally wrong." Now I ask, "hey you just used that incorrect model to predict what a physical system is going to do, didn't you?" Therefore, the model does work to predict atomic motion, and I argue that particular physicist is a hypocrite. If I understand this perspective, and can re-state it in a slightly different way, you're kind of saying that all possible simulated universes (rules on a computer) are in some sense on equal footing with the laws of physics. For example, that there's no fundamental "scientific" distinction between Conway's Life and quantum mechanics. My initial objection is that a computer actually has many more degrees of freedom than the "logical degrees of freedom" -- let's call these the "physical degrees of freedom." You can know the evolution of the logical degrees of freedom by knowing the rules of the simulation, but you can also know the evolution of the logical degrees of freedom if you know the laws of physics. But you lose information if you try to guess the evolution of the physical degrees of freedom, knowing only the rules of the simulation. So, my counter-argument is that physical law is, by definition, that set of rules which are irreducible and universally applicable.

The distinction is that mathematics alone cannot tell you how the world operates. As a thought experiment, consider any number of the most brilliant mathematicians, together with any computational resources they ask for. Without additional information, they will not be able to distinguish between two models of the universe (as long as they are both internally consistent). The requirement of experimental information sets a hard distinction that cannot be crossed in principle. Of course, once you have a mathematical model to work with, then "theory" is basically just the mathematics of the model.

OMG, it hasn't been this low in, like, two weeks!

I expect much sooner than that. The reason is that the trajectory of technology will transform the world at an ever-accelerating rate, and the state will simply not be able to keep up. Top-down management of an increasingly decentralized world will simply not work for long.

Oh the horrors of deflation. Aren't we concered about all the money that was invested into these expensive cellphones that are now worthless? Aren't we worried that consumers will postpone buying indefinitely, due to an expectation of lower prices in the future? If only we could escape the ravages of these "unsteered" markets and animal spirits, somehow -- make it more like the health care industry or something...

Also, I wanted to mention as a general principle, I think arguments like these aren't clearly won in the mind of the public until Forrest Gump could win the argument after hearing it one time. We've got to keep it really, really simple and not be afraid to say "that doesn't matter" if they try to stray off the few central, powerful points. Imagine arguing over the morality of slavery as a template.

Just wanted to mention that I like what you're doing, here. The "social contract" is one very common excuse that we should be able to absolutely destroy in the simplest, clearest way, and I do think the objection that "I didn't sign any contract" is starting to creep into the awareness of the public. I noticed a while ago that Obama had started referring to it as a "social compact" for slight rhetorical advantage (wtf is a "compact" and how is it different than a "contract?") -- you can tell when you're winning the argument when the opposition starts resorting to pure rhetorical smoke-screens.

I believe you're correct on both counts: A) General Relativity is a classical theory and breaks down at sufficiently high energy/short distance scales. A lot of people are looking into next-generation theories, but in this field it is incredibly difficult to get good predictions that can be checked against experiment. So although a lot of work has been done, not very much can be said to be actually known. B) There always exists the logical possibility that some intelligence had something to do with the construction of our universe as we know it. The "simulation hypothesis" is this sort of idea. However, merely being a "logical possibility" isn't saying much at all -- there's no real reason (that I know of) to subscribe to this sort of thing other than "wanting to believe." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulation_hypothesis

So, this North Korea thing has had me a little worried in connection with my prediction a few weeks ago, and now Zero Hedge has noted something similar. The one thing I don't see here is a means to blame libertarian types, but the idea here is that globalists could be orchestrating a smoke screen to cover a major economic shift, not US politicians, and they would be less concerned with placing the blame on libertarians. However, I don't want to discount the possibility that US politicians still have their own plans to attempt to hold onto power when something like this goes down. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-04-03/guest-post-will-globalists-use-north-korea-trigger-catastrophe

I imagine it's not terribly different from other forms of power, which also tend to corrupt. The un-earned nature of it, and the fact that it tends to fall disproportionally onto young women not long out of childhood probably means that it has an easier time corrupting, and is more brutal on the corrupted person when it eventually leaves them.

But he is a slave. He's also the tax payer who foots the bill if something goes wrong. Liability shield means, someone else pays for damages. That is - Joe. I don't disagree with you on principle. I'm just saying there is a very interesting and under-discussed heirarchy here. At the top is full-on, unapologetic "get back in yer box" slavery. A little under that is "report to me every year with a bundle of cash you made or else I throw you in a box." Down near the bottom is "you can't sue Mr. Jones because he bought a liability shield from us -- you can only sue his corporation." If we had the latter, the state would probably fly under my personal ethical radar (at least between other outrages they cause), and it would be easier to direct my energies elsewhere.

That’s a very interesting point that I never heard or thought of. Usually, I would argue that corporations are income producing tools of individuals and since individuals are taxed on the output of their tools, taxing tools is nothing short of double taxation. But saying that corporate tax is simply “protection money” for the liability removal – that’s something I’d need to internalize. Thanks! Yeah, one could imgaine that people could still choose to do business without a liability shield if they so desired, in which case the corporate tax really would be a voluntary trade -- a liability shield for a percentage. But the largest businesses would almost certainly "buy" their liability shield, because in doing billions of dollars of business per year with millions of people, you know that someone somewhere is going to take you to court eventually (for spilling hot coffee on themselves or whatever). Of course, it all breaks down when you realize that a "liability shield" is an artificial thing to begin with -- the government would effectively be selling away my ability to hold someone responsible for something they did to me. So from that perspective it's still immoral and probably quite damaging when scaled up, but at least the average Joe isn't explicitly a slave. That's why I think it it would be interesting to see the "heirarchy of evil" explored in a video -- people tend to be drawn to "ranking things" and will buy into a certain, difficult premise more readily if there seems to be some kind of calculus about the whole thing. You can always ask a statist, "Which form of taxation do YOU find to be the least like human ownership?" and you might even see them process the question and return an actual answer.