Timeline for Does quantum superposition enable the possibility of free will?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
13 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Mar 18 at 22:09 | comment | added | Professor Sushing | @Addlai many thanks for the helpful suggestions. I have a PhD in quantum theory, so I'll skip the introductory books. | |
| Mar 18 at 19:54 | comment | added | Addlai | @Marco Ocram You haven't stated what I'm supposedly wrong about, or why, and your comments suggest you are not too familiar with the significance of the Schrodinger's Cat thought experiment. If you have something new to say about it, to definitively resolve what to make of it, by all means, stop writing comments here and publish a paper for the world, advancing the state of physics and philosophy. Otherwise, you might start by reading the appropriate section from any introductory book on QM, or the Wikipedia article on it. | |
| Mar 18 at 6:35 | comment | added | Professor Sushing | @Addlai I am afraid you are so wrong that no amount of exchanges in comments will get us to the same place! Either that or we are arguing at cross purposes. | |
| Mar 17 at 22:30 | comment | added | Addlai | @Marco Ocram "but cats are not ..." according to ... your hunch? Human intuition about the nature of physical reality, isn't worth much. If the history of physics and math hasn't taught you that by now, not sure what to say. So if we can easily set up an apparatus to make the cat's life dependent on a subatomic "quantum" superposed event, but you don't believe the physics applies to the cat the same way, but can't explain why, do you really believe you have a solid argument that quantum physics excludes free will? I can't see that you have presented any argument at all. | |
| Mar 17 at 7:47 | comment | added | tkruse | @DrCleve, chaos is not a good foundation of will, free or not. | |
| Mar 17 at 6:48 | comment | added | Professor Sushing | @addlai clearly we are made of particles that obey QM, so in that sense you are right, but cats are not simultaneously alive and dead, so in that sense you are wrong. | |
| Mar 17 at 4:52 | comment | added | Addlai | @MarcoOcram "extrapolating quantum concepts to everyday objects yields nonsense"? Really? Current mainstream physics holds that, apart from gravity, essentially all behavior of "everyday objects" is rooted in QM, mostly the behavior of electrons and photons. And, consider that the retina of the human eye can detect single photons, so not only in the lab, but in the brain, atomic level events manifest macroscopically. These prove, conclusively, that the idea that the macroscopic world is fundamentally different from the QM world, is a fallacy. | |
| Mar 14 at 17:29 | comment | added | Dcleve | Hmm. That's not how the thought experiment was used in my physics classes. The principle works out fine -- a detector can sense a single decay, and leverage up macro-scale consequences. It is an illustration of a hair-trigger bounded chaotic system at macro scale. How to interpret this in QM theory -- is more problematic. The role of observer in collapsing QM events is suspect, as the cat is an observer, and "observer" versions of QM interpretation may need revision. | |
| Mar 14 at 15:35 | comment | added | Professor Sushing | @Dcleve no, the Schrodinger's cat thought experiment is an illustration that extrapolating quantum concepts to everyday objects yields nonsense. That was Schrodinger's point is suggesting it. | |
| Mar 14 at 15:24 | comment | added | Dcleve | Chaos studies have shown many macro-scale systems are chaotic, such that QM indeterminacy can be leveraged up to macro scale consequences. All living things are such bounded chaotic systems, where a single QM event can have dramatic consequences for us. The "Schoedinger's cat" thought problem is an illustration of such macro-scale leveraging. Our brain states are chaotically under stable, so the possibility of QM effects having consequences on future brin states is highly plausible. Consider the effect of a single gamma ray causing cancer in a person, that will affect their thoughts! | |
| Mar 13 at 17:14 | comment | added | Joseph_Kopp | There are actually species of birds that have been found to use quantum entanglement to help their brains determine when and where to migrate. It's opened up a whole new field of study called Quantum Biology. So, while we haven't found anything like that yet in humans, it's not entirely implausible. | |
| Mar 13 at 15:43 | comment | added | Jo Wehler | Possibly the OP means "mixture of states" instead of "superposition"? - Ceterum censeo: To explain free will with quantum indeterminacy is ruled out - you recall the reason. And the subjective feeling of free choice is the contrary of randomness. | |
| Mar 13 at 15:13 | history | answered | Professor Sushing | CC BY-SA 4.0 |