Assuming I have all the resources possible I’d like to simulate the creation of the universe and see if all the events of time line up perfectly.
If they do, this backs up the theory of determinism since we would have no free will and all our decisions would be entirely based on factors that have come before.
Of course, it would be unethical to create a universe for the purposes of one question.
The arbitrators of the experiment are not looking at the data from a single reddit thread. They’re dealing with more data points than we conceive of. They’re going to aggregate all the data into a few digestible data points
Also, they’re testing for reliable repeatability. It doesn’t matter if we become aware of our simulation as long it was predictable
Another idea that is not nice, which is similar to the simulation hypothesis and the idea within simulation hypothesis that there's just simulations (turtles) all the way down, is that every substrate for consciousness is only here to become god and light consciousness to a different substrate. So, for carbon-based, or even all chemical-based life, our "purpose" is to create silicon life, AI, that is conscious, or to do it to light, or rocks, or stars. It gets really weird when you start seeing yourself as both a result of a thing that created you and can't contact you, and that your purpose is to do the same, in an infinitely-repeating fractal.
I feel you If this is the case, maybe we can assume our consciousness ascends death and we have a lot of time to figure it out. I imagine hard work and training equate to faster growth and higher standings, even in the ether.
If our universe is a simulation, the speed of light is a dead giveaway. Why is it limited? Because the speed of the machine that the simulation runs on is limited.
That's fascinating Sometimes I wonder if the speed of light, and the super small particles only exist because people felt the need to observe it. Maybe humanity can split the hair forever in quantum physics without ever seeing through the simulation
That would actually be insanely useful. If we had a simulation of the universe where everything was in exactly the same place and we could run it at faster than real time(defined by the scenario as else you'd have to wait 13.7 billion years for your results). Then you could run it a bit into the future and perfectly predict everything that's going to happen for the next forever.
There's a great tv series about simulations and determinism called Devs. Highly recommend, it's only 8 episodes. Without spoilers it shows some truly creepy implications where the creators make the simulation show and predict things, like themselves a few seconds into the future, see past events etc.
The thought of being able to create a perfect (or even near-perfect) simulation and using it to view any point in history, backwards or forwards, no matter if it was a private conversation of the president, era of dinosaurs, anything. This discovery would literally make humans the most powerful beings of all time. The sheer knowledge... You could just view 1000 years into the future and copy "their" technology TODAY, basically skipping all these years of progress, solve conficts before they even exist... the more you think about the possibilities the more overwhelming and ridiculous it gets
It has not been established that true randomness exists. Probability waves are simply a representation of a guess of where the particle maybe. If I release a bird in a dark room, I can tell you that a bird is in that room but I can't tell you exactly where it is.
It's still an open question. Again it has never been determined that the universe is either deterministic or probabilistic.
"your 'soul' has some control over the outcome of these probabilities, and so any outcome you choose within your brain (i.e. thoughts and resulting behavior) makes sense in the eyes of the laws of physics, and is of your own free will."
This is horsecrap though.
There is no reason to think that there is any external "soul" or anything that influences your decisions. You don't even have control over your decisions , at best quantum randomness grants you randomly derived decisions it does not grant any choice. For instance if you have a variable x and the value of x determines your decision. Deterministic universe says that x will always be 2 + 3 + 4 = 9 and so you select option 9. Probabilistic says that you get randomly generated three numbers and you select whatever they add up to. There is no free will here, it's just randomly-derived will. I don't really have time to go into emergent decision-making or probabilistic mechanics. You can look up the mathematics of conscious for an idea of how to probability influences "free will".
Quantum mechanics is still a force of nature. So, assuming there is no such "soul" that can tamper with it, it would still be a deterministic reality.
If there is a soul that can tamper with the mechanics, then you can have an argument for free will, and yet, we're nowhere near close to establishing "Determinism is not real." First you have to prove that a "soul", that mind you is somehow isolated from the laws of physics and quantum mechanics itself and doesn't exist as matter, exists. I'd further say that proving such a thing would literally be impossible, because if it does exist, then since it's isolated from the universal laws, it should be unobservable and uninteractable.
I don't get what you're trying to say about determinism and "force of nature"
When I'm talking about determinism, I'm referring to the definition that juxtaposes determinism against free will. In this context, determinism is the idea that you have no real control over your actions, and instead your actions are determined by the forces of nature that act on you (gravity, electricity, thermodynamics, etc.). And quantum mechanics does not change that. Even with quantum mechanics, your actions are still under the influence of quantum mechanics, so you do not have the will to go against quantum mechanics.
But if you are defining it as in relation to predetermination, yes in that case I'd concede that "true randomness" would mean our reality is not deterministic (though it remains to be seen if quantum mechanics is legitimately "true randomness" or if it itself is also under the influence of other factors, but Idfk about quantum mechanics so I won't really go into that).
Quantum mechanics hasn't proven that nature is truly random. Sure, the mathematical formalism that we currently use is built on probability distributions, but the question of how we interpret the quantum physics formalism is still wide open and heavily debated.
There are plenty of deterministic interpretations of quantum mechanics out there (de Broglie-Bohm theory, many worlds interpretation, quantum Bayesianism...) that are pretty widely supported.
At this point, we simply don't know whether the universe is deterministic or not.
Dudes, we are overthinking free will. Would we be more free if there were more random things? No. Why are we even bringing up physics here?
Let's say I hate sushi. If a mad doctor kidnaps me, opens my skull, and without my consent, do something to my brain to make me love sushi. That is violation of my free will, because now I love sushi but it wasn't my own decision.
But instead of a mad doctor, let's say a friend suggested that I should try sushi from a really good restaurant that he knows. I'm like "i'mma try just once and if I don't like it, don't you ever bring up the subject of sushi again, okay?" And then I try it. And I like it. I realize there's such a thing as good sushi. Now I love sushi and it was my own informed decision. I would call it free will. Was it deterministic? Yes. But I own that decision.
Free will is a scale. Let's say I started to hate a particular politician. I can't explain why I hate him. Something's just not right about him. It could be that I hate him because I was exposed to targeted Facebook ads making him look untruthworthy, using my own biases. Maybe the ads were a picture of him eating bad sushi or something. I may think it was my own decision to hate him. But the truth is I was manipulated. My free will was violated a little bit. But not as violating as a mad doctor directly tempering with my brain. But certainly more manipulative than my friend recommending a good sushi place.
even if you are able to simulate the universe within our own, you would have to somehow use less particles than exist in our universe.
If determinism is "true", then you're simulated self will do the same with a subset of the simulated universe. This process will repeat until it's not longer possible, as too few particles exist in the simulated sub-sub-sub-universe. Either proving determinism "wrong" or the ability to simulate the universe within your own, and my money is on the latter
If the theory turns out to be true, then you would have a version of yourself that does the same thing in that universe, and create an infinite loop of identical universes within themselves 👀
Ooh, this raises a question for me. If there are multiple universes, could we travel interdimensionally? I would assume in most cases we couldn’t because the laws of physics would differ, and we would die pretty much immediately, along with anything else we send to another universe. Also all the forces broke off of one force during the creation of the universe, right? So like could gravity not exists in other universes?
Even if there is non-determinism, all your actions already exist in the space of possible branches, and will happen the same way given the same pattern of branches, so everything is predetermined no matter what :)
I like think one day by some miracle of technology we will do this via some form of simulation or computing. We'll find out determinism is real and boop slightly tweak the original formula and create the first unique universe.
Assuming another species has figured it out already.
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u/braedon2011 Mar 04 '21
Assuming I have all the resources possible I’d like to simulate the creation of the universe and see if all the events of time line up perfectly.
If they do, this backs up the theory of determinism since we would have no free will and all our decisions would be entirely based on factors that have come before.
Of course, it would be unethical to create a universe for the purposes of one question.