RE: "Free Will Theorem"

From: Brent Meeker <meekerdb.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2005 16:42:59 -0000

>-----Original Message-----
>From: John M [mailto:jamikes.domain.name.hidden]
>Sent: Wednesday, April 13, 2005 9:05 PM
>To: Brent Meeker; everything-list.domain.name.hidden
>Cc: ncsamish.domain.name.hidden
>Subject: Re: "Free Will Theorem"
>
>
>Dear Brent,
>I wish I had the insight into future development of our knowledge-base. Or
>am I rather happy, not to have it?
>Of course I do not contemplate dualism or any other 'expired' folly.
>
>I had a hint lately that 'determinism' can be thought of in more than one
>way.

What ways would those be? I can see that "determinism" may be relative to what
is known. Most things are unpredictable, i.e. indeterminate, because we don't
know enough about how they work (brains) or we don't know an initial state (the
weather) from which to project, or both. But "being deterministic" is usually
meant "determined in principle", i.e. in accord with our best theory of how
things work. Of course nothing is strictly predictable in this sense, both
because of quantum randomness and because an event could be influenced by a CMB
photon from our past light horizon.

>On the other side: random was mentioned as absolute and relative
>(this was not the proper word, sorry).
>Did the accolades of Ptolemy foresee the Big Bang cosmology (whether we
>consider it 'proper', or not)?

Why would awards forsee anything? In any case, one can't "forsee" new
scientific theories. One can guess or hypothesize; but a new theory isn't
accepted until there's some empirical evidence.

Brent Meeker
Received on Wed Apr 13 2005 - 20:36:36 PDT