Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] Atheism in Decline: meme map

From: [email-masked] ("Hal Finney")
Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 16:20:01 -0800 (PST)

Damien writes:
> A strong countervailing current is spiritual monism: the claim that All is 
> Consciousness, or rather Consciousness is Primordial, sometimes these days 
> based in interpretations of QT. While I find this suggestion preposterous, 
> and almost certainly due to the conceptual pratfall of category mistake, 
> it's worth looking at, for example:
>
> http://www.swcp.com/~hswift/swc/vol06no2/bkrev62.htm

Perhaps a little more down to earth is the so-called Free Will Theorem
of John Conway and Simon Kochen, described at
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~jas/one/freewill-theorem.html.  This relies
on a Bell's Theorem-like argument to conclude, supposedly, that if
scientists have free will, then particles have free will:

   Conway thus concluded that if the experimented [sic, should be
   experimenter] had sufficient freewill to decide the directions in
   which he would measure the particle then the particle too must have
   the freewill to decide on the value of its spin in those directions
   such that it can be consistent with the 101-property. In concluding Dr
   Conway said that he believed he did have freewill. Holding up a piece
   of chalk, he said he felt he could choose whether or not he would drop
   it or continue to hold it. His theorem he said leads him to accept
   that the universe is teeming with freewill. He also said that while
   he did not have any proof for it, he believed that the cumulative
   freewill of particles is the source of his freewill as a person.

   Questions

   When the floor was opened for questions, one member of the audience
   questioned Dr Conway's use of the term "Free Will". She asked whether
   Dr Conway was "confusing randomness and free will".

   In a passionate reply, Dr Conway said that what he had shown, with
   mathematical precision, that if a given property was exhibited by an
   experimenter than that same property was exhibited by particles. He
   had been careful when constructing his theorem to use the same term
   "free will" in the antecedent and consequent of his theorem. He said he
   did not really care what people chose to call it. Some people choose to
   call it "free will" only when there is some judgment involved. He said
   he felt that "free will" was freer if it was unhampered by judgment -
   that it was almost a whim. "If you don't like the term Free Will, call
   it Free Whim - this is the Free Whim Theorem".

I agree with the questioner.  It would be much more reasonable to say
that both particles and scientists are governed by randomness.  But a
Randomness Theorem would not have gotten as much publicity as a Free
Will Theorem.

Conway's claim reminds me of a talk I attended once by David
Chalmers, a famous philosopher of consciousness.  Based not
on physics, but on the kind of hair-splitting, definitional,
angels-on-a-pin argumentation beloved of philosophers, Chalmers
concluded that consciousness is impossible unless the universe is full
of particles with "proto-consciousness".  Then the combination of these
proto-consciousnesses leads to the consciousness of our brain, in somewhat
the same way that a large object has mass by virtue of being composed
of small particles that each have a tiny bit of mass.  This does not
explain though why our brains are conscious, but not our stomachs or
livers (or perhaps they are conscious, but lack mouths to speak with).

Hal
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