Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Geek Talk & Media
Why does the idea of no Free Will bother some people?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Umbran" data-source="post: 6048338" data-attributes="member: 177"><p>[MENTION=19675]Dannyalcatraz[/MENTION] - you thought that was jumbo? I'm not done yet!</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Maybe it did. Maybe dogs have enough sentience for that. I'm good with that idea. Frankly, I'm good with the idea that the cat is sentient enough too, such that there actually isn't any issue - that's something Schrodinger didn't worry about at the time, to be honest. He wasn't talking about sentience and free will, just about the absurdity of a cat being both dead and alive at the same time.</p><p></p><p>Or, maybe the dog isn't sentient/free-willed enough. It left the area of your perception - now the dog is in as much an unresolved quantum state as the cat. Maybe the dog+cat doesn't resolve until you *look* into the doorway, and the system falls into a known state.</p><p></p><p>This way lies an uneasy idea - none of the Universe actually exists as "reality" outside the range of perception of qualified observers.</p><p></p><p>There's a basic way out of this, which amounts to, "actually, the observer isn't important, the form of interaction is important". We still end up in the same place, though, so bear with me...</p><p></p><p>Here's the thing: The uncertainty principle doesn't actually seem to mean much for large objects. We notice the effect for very small things, like electrons and atoms, but as the mass of an object gets big, the effect shrinks. </p><p></p><p>I can go into why that is, but it requires math to fully express. So, for the moment, I'll assume you all trust me on that - for micro-scale objects, the uncertainty principle means large effects. For macro-scale objects, it means very little. So, for things like atoms and electrons, we have large ranges of uncertainty. For things like cats and bowling balls, not so much. </p><p></p><p>We could consider that in Schrodinger's cat, we aren't considering the interaction between a quantum effect and an observer, but between a quantum effect and a macro-scale object (which just happened to be an observer). Normally, single quantum-scale events mean very little to macro-scale objects. Schrodinger just set up a particular case where a quantum effect was very potent - his original had a radioactive atom in the box, and if it decayed, a mechanism broke a poison vial, killing the cat. So, we needed interaction with a large object to resolve it - Schrodinger's large object just happened to be a human being. But maybe anything macro-scale outside the box would do - say a ball that bounces off the lid, and opens the box.</p><p></p><p>Thus, maybe any time we have a quantum effect interacting notably with a macro-scale object, we have the macro-scale object able to collapse the quantum probabilities into one reality. This doesn't affect our free will idea one bit. We still get that if the activity of the mind/brain/thought-process has quantum properties, and still have the person (who is macro-scale) collapsing the wave of probability of his or her own mind.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Umbran, post: 6048338, member: 177"] [MENTION=19675]Dannyalcatraz[/MENTION] - you thought that was jumbo? I'm not done yet! Maybe it did. Maybe dogs have enough sentience for that. I'm good with that idea. Frankly, I'm good with the idea that the cat is sentient enough too, such that there actually isn't any issue - that's something Schrodinger didn't worry about at the time, to be honest. He wasn't talking about sentience and free will, just about the absurdity of a cat being both dead and alive at the same time. Or, maybe the dog isn't sentient/free-willed enough. It left the area of your perception - now the dog is in as much an unresolved quantum state as the cat. Maybe the dog+cat doesn't resolve until you *look* into the doorway, and the system falls into a known state. This way lies an uneasy idea - none of the Universe actually exists as "reality" outside the range of perception of qualified observers. There's a basic way out of this, which amounts to, "actually, the observer isn't important, the form of interaction is important". We still end up in the same place, though, so bear with me... Here's the thing: The uncertainty principle doesn't actually seem to mean much for large objects. We notice the effect for very small things, like electrons and atoms, but as the mass of an object gets big, the effect shrinks. I can go into why that is, but it requires math to fully express. So, for the moment, I'll assume you all trust me on that - for micro-scale objects, the uncertainty principle means large effects. For macro-scale objects, it means very little. So, for things like atoms and electrons, we have large ranges of uncertainty. For things like cats and bowling balls, not so much. We could consider that in Schrodinger's cat, we aren't considering the interaction between a quantum effect and an observer, but between a quantum effect and a macro-scale object (which just happened to be an observer). Normally, single quantum-scale events mean very little to macro-scale objects. Schrodinger just set up a particular case where a quantum effect was very potent - his original had a radioactive atom in the box, and if it decayed, a mechanism broke a poison vial, killing the cat. So, we needed interaction with a large object to resolve it - Schrodinger's large object just happened to be a human being. But maybe anything macro-scale outside the box would do - say a ball that bounces off the lid, and opens the box. Thus, maybe any time we have a quantum effect interacting notably with a macro-scale object, we have the macro-scale object able to collapse the quantum probabilities into one reality. This doesn't affect our free will idea one bit. We still get that if the activity of the mind/brain/thought-process has quantum properties, and still have the person (who is macro-scale) collapsing the wave of probability of his or her own mind. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Geek Talk & Media
Why does the idea of no Free Will bother some people?
Top