quantum mechanics: free will (Introduction)

by dhw, Wednesday, September 04, 2013, 20:16 (4099 days ago) @ David Turell

Dhw: It is clear to me that an unconscious experimenter is unlikely to conclude anything, but I don't understand how the authors can assume that the experimenter's "free choices" are any freer than the choices we all make in any other field of human activity. If humans are to take responsibility for their actions, "it is crucial to assume" that they are not robots. But does that prove they have free will? I'm not saying we don't have free will ... I'm just asking for an explanation of the logic. -DAVID: He is not logical because he isn't recognizing fully Ruth's contribution. If one realizes that the particles are entangled outside our level of reality, speed of light doesn't matter. Double slits equal spookiness all the time, no matter how we think to manipulate the experiment. -QUOTE: "Be it as it may, we cannot have nature without non-material (spiritual) agency."-dhw: Since we understand so little about consciousness, and so little about the quantum world, could we not rewrite the final sentence as follows: we cannot have nature without agencies which at present cannot be explained in known material terms?-DAVID: Exactly right.-Thank you for your endorsements of my scepticism, even though the first is not quite what I was getting at. What we have here is a typical example of how people twist information and misuse language to fit their personal agenda. The ordinary layman like myself has no hope of understanding the experiments. He can only go by the comments that accompany them ... comments like: "free will and consciousness should be considered axioms (founding principles) of standard quantum physics theory", and "we cannot have nature without non-material (spiritual) agency". So are free will and the spiritual world a scientific fact? Of course they're not. And scientists ... whether theist or atheist ... should not merge their scientific findings with their personal opinions as if they were all one.