So, there's such a thing as base nature and we have an override capability. Where is free will in all this? — TheMadFool

Free will, as it is usually defined, means that Dewey, being possessed by a supernatural demon and thus under remote control, has free will. Bob does not. But hey, I never said I approved of the definition.

QM doesn't provide any proof of free-will. How can it?

QM is utterly silent on the subject. I said it show the universe to be non-deterministic in any subjective way. Determinism being false does not prove free will

↪noAxioms What is your definition of free will then? — TheMadFool

I stated this in my prior reply to you.

think I have free will because my choices are my own, — noAxioms

So free will is making your own choices. That's pretty different than the usual definition, I know, but when people say their choices feel free, that's what they're feeling.

It seems pointless to ask anybody (or anything) if they have free will, because the answer is always yes. So Bob is Bob, and makes his own choices. He answers yes. Dewey on the other hand has been possessed by an evil demon, and when asked if his will is free, the demon is the one that answers, and thus the answer is still 'yes'. Dewey no longer has free will, but cannot answer due to the lack of it. Bob is responsible for his actions, and the demon is responsible for Dewey's actions.
Trick is to ask a question in a way that Bob and the demon give distinct replies.

In my humble opinion, a key determinant for free will is awareness, self-awareness and also awareness of possible influences on our choices. This is important because self-awareness leads to the realization that one is part of causation and knowing what influences us helps in deciding how the chain of causation will unfold with our participation in the causal web.

Not sure here. Dewey can be quite aware of all this stuff you mention, but lacking free will, he is incapable of actually making the choices he concludes to be the better ones. But that's using my definition.
Your definition differs from the often implied 'has supernatural control' definition, which requires none of the qualities you mention. Self-awareness is a product of eons of evolution, while introspection is something easily programmed into any device. I don't see how awareness of external influences has anything to do with free will, except that it seems to be a useful trait for a moral agent, and free will is often associated with moral responsibility, but moral awareness is different from moral responsibility.

I understand the requirement of choice for free will arises from the belief that determinism permits of no alternatives

I think this is a misrepresentation. If I want vanilla, I am not coerced into choosing chocolate by deterministic physics. That's not how it works. Determinism is not a lack of choice, and not a lack of responsibility. Read the bit about chess in my prior post where I get into that more. On a side note, QM has shown pretty decisively that our universe is not deterministic in any sense that the future of closed system X can be predicted even in principle, even with arbitrarily large resources, so not sure why determinism keeps coming up in these discussions. I think the argument stems from the old philosophers working from say a Newtonian view of physics with everything being billiard balls bouncing around with perfect mathematical predictability.

Schopenhauer once said "a man can do what he wants but not want what he wants".

I think this is wrong. People override their base nature all the time, which is readily apparent when that override breaks down such as in disaster areas. Ability to want better wants is probably the core of moral behavior.

1. The dandelion obviously does not have a keyboard. — 3017amen

I don't find it obvious. I mean, I don't think I have a keyboard, so if it turns out I do, I have no clue as to what has one and what doesn't. Under panpsychism, maybe everything has one, but probably not. Panpsychism says everything is conscious, not that everything is remote controlled by a non-physical will.

However, much like other lower life-forms, it is likely to have emergent properties genetically coded for it's survival. Is that what the concern is?

My concern is that one life form is a self-contained thing, and some closely related thing (perhaps its near descendant) evolves a new organ that not only detects something never physically detected before, but starts taking hints for choices from it instead of making those choices itself. Mind you, that sort of thing definitely did happen when the cerebellum say, which is used to calling all the shots, suddenly started getting new inputs from say the more recently evolved limbic system. So there is precedent for a new keyboard to suddenly appear, attached to a computer that didn't have one before. Thing is, we see the keyboard, and more importantly, we see the way it is connected to the more central computer.

2. The keyboard represents volitional existence. If you think that making it bluetooth-ableand [...] voice commands, I would consider that analogy.

The analogy can work with any of those mechanisms. Point is, they're all identifiable. There is an obvious point where the computer is taking its commands of what to do from that input. There seems to be no such point in us. We have physical sensory input, but no apparent extra-sensory input from this supposed non-physical keyboard. If our actions are made based on this input, there'd be a receptor for it somewhere. Descartes was aware of the problem and actually posited a point (a gland of all things), which has since been discounted.

automated much like vehicle's without drivers,

A self-driving vehicle are semi-autonomous and don't necessarily have a keyboard (steering wheel say). They make all their own decisions, except for where to go, so I agree still that such a car needs a clearly defined input from outside, and yes, it is pretty easy to identify that point of input.

How does the agent behind the keyboard know what the correct thing to do is? Suppose it is filling out a complex tax form using its free will. Does it tell the computer what number to put in the form, or does it just tell the computer to figure out the answer for itself? I'm wondering where such work is done in this model.

I'm thinking that the computer never shuts down, much like I'm unterrupted power supplies for critical computer systems.

But it does, at least to the ponit where the screen shuts off completely and gives no response to queries. It is still running to the point of critical systems (heartbeat, respiration and such). When my computer does that, I'm still fully there, but unable to do anything with the computer until it comes back. But when my body is in hibernate mode like that, so is the conscious agent. I don't find myself in some sort of boring sensory-deprivation state as you would expect from the arrangement you describe.
My feedback here is that the computer/keyboard model predicts different experience than is empirically observed.

However in this human metaphor, it can be easily put in sleep mode.

You need a different model then.

4. My definition of the Free Will illusion from my interpretation of your question, is more akin to Kant's metaphysics, and more specifically to Bishop Berkeley's Idealism/Metaphysics.

Sorry, but I am not particularly aware of Kant's metaphysics beyond the transcendental idealism. I know he asserts that a person cannot be held responsible for an act if his actions are determined (determinism, analogous to a computer running a program with no external inputs), but I'm not sure if he asserts said determinism (the metaphysical stance) itself. It seems that his definition of 'responsibility for an act' rests on an objective (not part of the universe) standard.
My analogy on this is always a position in a chess game, where the white pieces cannot be held responsible for the weak position it's in, but a player can be held responsible for it if (and only if) he has volition of which moves are made. So while chess is not hard-deterministic (no one side always wins), a given position may be the result of randomness instead of a player's choices. Only in the latter instance is there responsibility for the current state.
My objection I'm voicing here is that I am presented with no mechanism by which the pieces can be moved by the player since they occupy different worlds. There are thus only the pieces which cannot be held responsible for their position in the player's world.

Berkeley is a different story, pushing an idealistic view where seemingly all experience is fed to us by presumably God. I had to look it all up, since I'm also not familiar with his works. How does it avoid soplipsism?
I read this:

although God could make a watch run (that is, produce in us ideas of a watch running) without the watch having any internal mechanism (that is, without it being the case that, were we to open the watch, we would have ideas of an internal mechanism), he cannot do so if he is to act in accordance with the laws of nature, which he has established for our benefit, to make the world regular and predictable. — stanford

But if I open a person instead of a watch, I am presented with the ideas of an internal mechanism which is entirely deterministic, and hence in principle predictable without benefit of knowing what the real volition might have to contribute to a behavior. We're shown no idea of a keyboard port which would render the mechanism under the control of a real agent. So either we're presented with the idea of a body with no control by the person experiencing it, or God has presented us the ideas of a mechanism not acting in accordance with established natural law.

BTW, I consider myself to be a relational idealist, which I don't find described anywhere, but is based on taking Rovelli's RQM to its conclusion. It is a form of idealism that doesn't lead to solipsism.

I truly wonder what all these old (pre 20th century) philosophers would change in their views given the developments in science in the last century. Some churches have flat out denied the science, thus asserting that God and empirical observation are in contradiction. That seems a very dangerous stance to take.

Feel free to poke holes — 3017amen

Don't mind if I do.

Consider briefly, that life is a computer metaphor. All the combinations of life choices exist within the computer program and are determined in advance. The keyboard represents volition or volitional existence. All the ethical (how to live a sad or happy productive life) choices are within our grasp, by virtue of the keyboard, and what we type-in.

Does all life have this? Does a dandelion have a keyboard? It would be like a keyboard attached to a solar sidewalk light: Not very responsive to the input from the keyboard.
Anyway, this model always neglects that detail. If the dandelion doesn't have a keyboard, then there is a threshold of life forms that have a keyboard and them that doesn't. It matters little where it is put, but the model should predict some fundamental difference between being on one side or the other of that threshold.

It seems the model reduces a human to a mere tool of the entity sitting at the keyboard. That's what a computer with a keyboard is: an appliance, an avatar for navigation in a different world. The computers without keyboards might be simpler, but they're actually doing more complex stuff since they're free to make their own choices rather than having the tough decisions deferred to the keyboard input. That seems to be a contradiction, that the self-sufficient computer would be less complex than the passive appliance.

Another problem with the model is that when my computer shuts down, I don't shut down with it. I'm aware that it's off, and I need to turn it on again to access that other world, but otherwise I'm still functional. That seems not to match actual experience.

Final problem is that nobody has ever found where the keyboard attaches to the computer. A real computer has to get input from a very specific place, and there's no hiding it if you take a computer apart.

Surely I'm not the only one to point out these issues, so how does the model deal with them?

The illusion of free-will exists ...

Here you call free will an illusion, implying a stance arguing against its existence. What is your definition of it, and is the computer model above an analogy of free will, or an analogy of the lack of it?

I think I have free will because my choices are my own, so it only seems to come down to what "I" means in that definition, but the definition seems to require no particular stance regarding the philosophy of mind.

Indeed, this is the very essence of free will - to be able to deny/negate anything and everything, whether it's logic or morality or even the basic instinct of self preservation. — TheMadFool

Maybe it would be better to let a proponent of free will do the defining of it then.
I'm a proponent of it, but my definition is very different than the one you quote in the OP.

I'd like to run this by you all to for comments:

It seems that free will isn't just about choices; if it were then there would be no difference between us and computers with algorithmic decision trees (choices). — TheMadFool

Since no demonstration of a difference has been identified, then it hasn't been demonstrated that we're in any fundamental way different from this computer, a supposed symbol of what we're not.

However, free will is about choices that originate in a person

If it is defined as a choice made by a person, then the test for free will can be done with a DNA test. The computer would fail that. It seems important to find a definition that we pass but the computer doesn't.

it's about how these choices are made, specifically concerning whether they were part of a causal chain external to a person.

And we're back to my example of crossing the street. I really would not want to make that decision without the causal chain of the information about the traffic playing a role as to when I choose to cross. I think the computer would fare better than I if I had the free will you describe here.

Choice is central to free will. Free will can be translated as the ability to make choices free from influences we have no control over. — TheMadFool

I know this post is 3 years old, but this seems like a the sort of definition that makes me consider free will to be something undesirable.
I am standing at the side of a road trying to cross safely, using my free will (or not) to choose when to do it. I have no control over when the cars go by. If I choose to be influenced by those cars and wait for a gap, then I don't have free will by this definition. If I free myself from those influences and use the free will, I cross at an effectively uniformed moment and probably get killed.

I garbled the answer for the circular case. Sorry. I should have said the linear acceleration causes the traveling twin and the home twin to disagree about their respective ages when they are separated. But in the circular motion case, they agree about their respective ages, even while they are separated. — Mike Fontenot

If they're separated, their computation of each other's ages is a frame dependent thing, but I agree that the answers agree in the two frames where each person respectively is stationary. There's no reason why some other frame might be chosen, despite your rather solipsistic way of having observers only compute their reality relative to their immediate frame.

There are two "red herring" examples that claim to prove that acceleration doesn't cause the time difference in the twins' ages at the reunion.

One is the example that uses three perpetually-inertial observers: the home twin, and two unrelated people. The fist unrelated person takes the place of the traveler on the outbound leg, and the second one takes the place of the traveler on the inbound leg. The latter is younger than the home twin at the "reunion" by the same amount as the twins in the original scenario. The fallacy is that in the revised case, no one is surprised at the result, so there is no paradox to resolve. — Mike Fontenot

I agree that dismissing acceleration altogether is wrong. We seem to take apart Lincoln's dismissal of the 3-person scenario the same way. I would have explained the different ages in terms of moment-of-acceleration, something not often mentioned in explanations.

The second red herring is the case where the traveling twin circles the home twin, at a high constant speed. When he returns, she isn't older.

Excuse me??? How do you figure this? H-K experiment demonstrates otherwise.

But it's not hard to show that whenever the motion is perpendicular to the line connecting the two twins (which is always is, in the circular case), their rates of ageing will be equal.

Love to see you show this my friend.

Please show it. And circular motion is always under acceleration. The velocity, in other words, is changing continuously. — tim wood

The acceleration doesn't matter in this case since it is perpendicular to the motion in the central frame. The changing velocity doesn't matter either since only the direction changes, not the magnitude. But there is nonzero magnitude, and thus there is dilation. Mike is wrong here.

See this video. Acceleration is the wrong answer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgvajuvSpF4&t=10s — tim wood

I looked at the comments first, and the common complaint is that he speaks to you as a child through the first 12 minutes, and then suddenly blurts the real answer in the final seconds and exits without explanation, and his wording is obfuscating if not wrong.

First of all, the 'difference is acceleration' explanation is dismissed by considering a valid 3-observer tag-team scenario, except it doesn't explain the younger age of person C (the return person) using that C's reference frame, in which C is massively younger than A already at the start of the exercise (does Lincoln mention that? No!), so of course C is younger when C and A meet. Acceleration does have something to do with it, but it isn't the direct cause, as my example above demonstrates.

Secondly I have a gripe with Lincoln's obfuscating usage of phrasing like: "Don is in one reference frame but Ron is in two". Under SR, an observer is in all inertial reference frames, and it is impossible to exit one. It can be done only in GR. What he means to say is that Don is stationary in one reference frame the entire time, but Ron is stationary for different periods of time in two different inertial frame. Most of us know that but not everybody does, so it is obfuscating language.

Finally, he announces in the final seconds that the above quote is the reason for the discrepancy, and says this follows directly from Einstein's equations, which, to my knowledge, contain no mention of dilation being due to some count of reference frames. Don could have been pacing back and forth for 8 years ,and hence been 'in' two different reference frames himself. Ron is in an instantaneously accelerating craft leaving him actually stationary while coasting, while Don is on Earth spinning and orbiting, so it seems Don is actually the one stationary in innumerable inertial frames while Ron is confined to the two. I know, the idealized experiment ignores a spinning Don and the his gravity well, but even if he was doing all this continuous accelerating, he'd still be older than Ron when they meet again. Thus the count of frames just isn't enough of the story to explain this.

I'm saying that Linclon's fast exit from the video leaves all these questions unanswered. I'd not ever understand the twins scenario if that's all I had to go on.

I have a question for you. I was told acceleration or the application of force on the male twin is what solves the twin paradox. Please explain. — Michael Lee

You were told incorrectly. This can be verified here on Earth where two clocks are kept at identical speed but one experiences far greater continuous force and corresponding acceleration (in a centrifuge say). They will remain in sync indefinitely. Application of force has no dilation effect on clocks.

Change in rate of change of distance multiplied by distance (a scalar quantity) is what matters. This is a little different from just acceleration times distance since acceleration is a vector quantity, a component of which may not alter the rate of change of distance, and thus has no effect.

"I'm trying to demonstrate its consistency with itself, despite your assertions that your premise "is well supported by hundreds of years of scientific experimentation, empirical evidence".
— noAxioms
This is incorrect, "consistency with itself" does not make it true, — Metaphysician Undercover

Where above did I assert that self-consistency made an argument true? I didn't, which means I'm not incorrect, or at least you've not pointed out where.

You seem to be missing something. Time is passing do you not agree?

Given your beliefs, yes.

Things change as time passes. [...] By the time I say "now" things have changed.

Of course. It takes time to say 'now'. I don't recall mentioning the time it takes to utter words.

Therefore there is no such thing as "the current state" of things.

I don't see how this follows, but if that's how you envision it, fine.

I don't think Einstein ever denied that there is a difference between past and future.

At the time of the publishing of GR, he adopted the geometric interpretation of relativity, thus denying the reality of past, present, and future, and thus any different between these unreal things is irrelevant to the view. For example, a unicorn is different than a bandersnatch, and I don't have to deny that difference in order to posit a view in which neither of them exists.

It's definitely not denied by Special Relativity nor General Relativity. There are those who interpret Special Relativity as forcing the conclusion that there is no real difference between future and past, but that conclusion requires another premise not provided by the theory, so I think it's a misinterpretation.

I agree that SR theory proper does not assert either premise. I don't think GR did either, but the theory was essentially unworkable without a geometric interpretation of relativity. I'm just reading this on wiki in the history section of spacetime, my bold:

Minkowski's geometric interpretation of relativity was to prove vital to Einstein's development of his 1915 general theory of relativity, wherein he showed how mass and energy curve flat spacetime into a pseudo-Riemannian manifold.
- - -
Einstein, for his part, was initially dismissive of Minkowski's geometric interpretation of special relativity, regarding it as überflüssige Gelehrsamkeit (superfluous learnedness). However, in order to complete his search for general relativity that started in 1907, the geometric interpretation of relativity proved to be vital, and in 1916, Einstein fully acknowledged his indebtedness to Minkowski, whose interpretation greatly facilitated the transition to general relativity. Since there are other types of spacetime, such as the curved spacetime of general relativity, the spacetime of special relativity is today known as Minkowski spacetime. — wiki

As I said, if you want me to drop my "biases" you need to give me reasons why I ought to. If your asking me to dismiss what I know to be true, just to accept what I know to be false, then forget it.

Again, I never asked you to alter your beliefs. I'm just demonstrating that the existence of an valid alternate view contradicts your assertion of the necessary truth of the opinions you hold. One opinion at least. Your beliefs are just that, not knowledge as you claim. Some of them are known to be false, as Tim Wood has pointed out.

The existence of a present moment is one of the premises of Aristotle's argument, so if that premise is wrong, his argument is unsound. How do you not see this? You claim to be 'trained in philosophy' and yet you don't see these trivial flaws in your argument. I have no training at all, but I at least took some courses requiring some basic elements of logic. You're the one who cannot back his assertions.
— noAxioms

Existence of a present moment is not the premise being discussed here I clarified that in the last post.

As I've told you, the premise provided by Aristotle is that there is a fundamental difference between past and future. The other premise is that two distinct, or different things require something which separates them, this constitutes "the difference" between them. Therefore there is something which separates past from future, and this is the present.

You're repeating yourself. See my quote that I left just above which answers this. By assuming a present, Aristotle's argument is inapplicable to a view that denies that premise, as does the geometric interpretation.

If my decision to accept this premise is an "uninformed" one then there must be evidence, information out there which demonstrates the falsity of my premise.

You honestly don't see the logical fallacy of this statement, do you?

Yes, my model defines the words differently. It has no 'the past' and 'the future', hence there is no issue to dodge. It denies the existence of such properties.
— noAxioms

Exactly! That demonstrates how you are asking me to dismiss science, in favour of science fiction.

Again with this assertion that you cannot back. Name a single science experiment that predicts a different result given the geometric interpretation. You can't because there isn't one. You've reduced yourself to making up facts to support your case.

However, unlike what you claim, my mind remains open

You probably believe that as well, empirical evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.

That's why I continue this discussion. As soon as you can produce any type of evidence or information, which reveals that the distinction between the past and the future might not be a real distinction, I'm ready to follow you into other possibilities.

The claim of such a distinction is yours, hence the burden of proof. That's another part of your philosophical training that seems not to have stuck.
My claim was that your assertion of a real and distinct past and future is not a necessary truth, and I demonstrated that claim by showing a valid alternate interpretation where they don't exist at all.

All I want to know is that I exist. — Kranky

Out of curiosity, why?
What difference would it make if the truth of that bit was knowable one way or the other?

I agree with the prior post about thinking not implying existing, and as it turns out, it doesn't matter to me or what values I hold.

We seem to be talking about different things here. I have been consistently talking about a distinction between past and future, which we call "the present". You have been consistently talking about a "present moment". — Metaphysician Undercover

We're talking about the same thing, just slightly different wording,.

If what you call the present "moment" is the same thing as what I call the present, then it is impossible to make the "positing of no preferred moment" consistent with my perspective

I'm not trying to make it consistent with your perspective. Where ever did I say that?
I'm trying to demonstrate its consistency with itself, despite your assertions that your premise "is well supported by hundreds of years of scientific experimentation, empirical evidence". If your assertion is true, then all these hundreds of years of experimentation and evidence should have in some way by now falsified the alternative premise, and yet that premise remains taught in schools.

Perhaps we could compromise on our differences if we allow that the present (as the division between past and future), is not a dimensionless division as a "moment".

I don't know what you mean by 'dimensionless division'. It does seem to divide past from future (neither of which is actual, so I'm not sure where dimensions suddenly come into play).
'The present' means the objective current time which defines the actual current state of any given object. I made that up just now. Not trying to put words in your mouth.

I am willing to accept that the present, as the division between past and future, does not exists as a dimensionless divide, but as a period of "time", during which the past is changing to the future.

OK, that's really weird since most wordings deny the actuality of the past and future, and thus there is no past to change. There is just the current state of everything (not a short duration), and that is continuously changing to a new state in place. I really don't care how you choose to word it. The alternative premise doesn't have a present at all, so how you want to defined it is essentially moot.

This requires two dimensions of "time", and makes the present not a "preferred moment", but a "preferred time". Will you agree to this, and release your use of "preferred moment", and "present moment", for "preferred time", and "present time"?

You speak now of a model with two dimensions of time, but you seem incapable of getting your head around even one.
I can refer to the present using any of those terms, but if there are two things that require different terms, then I'm not talking about that at all.

So, you have misunderstood my argument. I have not argued for a "present moment". I argue that there is undeniable empirical evidence for a distinction between past and future.

The existence of a present moment is one of the premises of Aristotle's argument, so if that premise is wrong, his argument is unsound. How do you not see this? You claim to be 'trained in philosophy' and yet you don't see these trivial flaws in your argument. I have no training at all, but I at least took some courses requiring some basic elements of logic. You're the one who cannot back his assertions.

I assume this premise, right up front, because I believe it is so fundamental, and undeniably true.

You're wrong about it being undeniable since it is denied by plenty, including Einstein who resisted doing so even beyond publishing Special Relativity, but GR could only be worked out with the premise dropped. So we're back to you admitting you can't consider any view that conflicts with your biases. That's being closed minded.

If you have any reasons whatsoever, why this premise might not be true, then as I've requested of you, put these reasons forward.

Because it doesn't have to be true. That's actually the reason.
Being open minded to all valid views is the first step in making an informed choice. Your choice is made, but it is a completely uniformed one. My choices are at least more informed, and I make no claim as to the necessary truth of them when I'm aware of a viable alternative.

Until you model this difference, your model has no past and future. — Metaphysician Undercover

If A is before B, then B would be in the future of A and A would be in the past of B. This illustrates the usage of the terms as relations instead of properties.
— noAxioms
Defining "past" and "future" in a different way doesn't give me what I requested, it just dodges the issue.

Yes, my model defines the words differently. It has no 'the past' and 'the future', hence there is no issue to dodge. It denies the existence of such properties.

Argument here is hopeless. Is there a real, live physicist who will enter the discussion and untangle this mess? :roll: — jgill

I've queried a few 'live physicists' about a couple points (not this one), and most of them don't know their philosophy very well, and might have differing opinions to such questions. As physicists, if the topic is relevant to their field, they'll be able to tell you what will be expected to be measured by a given test, which should be true regardless of their opinions on the metaphysics of the situation.

Translation: You're probably not going to get a better answer from them.

I can think of countless counterexamples to pretty much everything asserted in the OP.
Distance is not an issue. The moon causes tides without touching them. The sun causes my sunburn at a larger distance.
The dinosaur falling into a tar pit causes me to learn about it when I dig it up millions of years later.

The principle of locality (if you accept it) says that cause and effect must occur within each other's light cones, so that principle would deny for instance spooky action at a distance.

No, you're wrong. It's not conjecture, it's proven. The truth of it has been demonstrated to me as true, through evidence and logic, therefore it is proven. Aristotle thoroughly explained this thousands of years ago. — Metaphysician Undercover

The view to which I refer (positing no preferred moment in time) was probably not something Aristotle was aware of. The argument you outline assumes the opposite point of view (yours) and argues for a distinction between past, present, and future. I have little against the argument, but it is irrelevant to proving its assumption, that there is a present moment.

So we're back to unproven conjecture. You need a proof that does not proceed right up from an assumption that a present moment exists, as both you and Aristotle do.

It has been proven, and now you need to demonstrate that what has been proven to me as true, is actually false if you have any desire to lead me in another direction.

As I said, the argument isn't particularly invalid, but it assumes your premises right up front. Aristotle can be forgiven because to my awareness the alternate position would not be proposed for around 14 centuries.

The alternate view does not describe a different experience, so there is no distinction. There is still past and future, but they're just relations between events, not actual states of events. — noAxioms
"Relations between events" does not produce a past and future, it produces a before and after.

Pretty much yes. To be a little more precise, if you assume a preferred frame, then there is an objective before/after/simultaneous relationship between any two events. If you assume neither a preferred moment nor a preferred frame (mainstream view), then there is a relationship of before/after/ambiguous between any two events (the 'ambiguous' meaning the relation is frame dependent). No event is in 'the past' or 'the future'. Thus any references to such properties in any demonstration of inconsistency of this view would be begging a different set of assumptions.

Until you model this difference, your model has no past and future.

If A is before B, then B would be in the future of A and A would be in the past of B. This illustrates the usage of the terms as relations instead of properties.

Every person, as a self, body, or both, knows they exist. — Unlimiter

Why ask the question if every person knows the answer?

Fundamental facts, proven by hundreds of years of application of the scientific method, are what you call "biases". — Metaphysician Undercover

You cannot back this assertion. Science has done no such thing, especially since what I called a bias (the lack of a present moment) is strictly a philosophical premise.

I am actually very capable of putting aside such biases, when they are demonstrated to contain contradictions and inconsistent premises.

Wrong. You should be able to set them aside when considering an alternate point of view. It doesn't mean you have to change your personal belief to that alternate PoV. The exercise is done simply to recognize that your favored 'proven' view is not proven fact at all, but merely conjecture.

That there is a difference between future and past is easily proven. Past events are remembered, and future events are anticipated. Furthermore, past events cannot be changed while future events can be created, or avoided. Therefore there is a fundamental difference between past and future. That this difference cannot be measured is irrelevant to the proof We do not need to measure things to prove that they are different, we only need to describe the difference.

The alternate view does not describe a different experience, so there is no distinction. There is still past and future, but they're just relations between events, not actual states of events.

- - -

The problem here, as I've already explained, is that the field is the medium. — Metaphysician Undercover

Still assuming the conclusion I see.

Feynman, as a physicist, is very good at tutorials, putting things into words which non-physicists can understand.

Then you're summarizing his argument completely wrong. You really need to find that reference as jgill requested. I don't think Feynman would make commit such an obvious fallacy as blatant begging.

The field exerts force on the particles through the means of the waves

The quote you originally made said something different, and I agree with the former only:

Changes within the field are described as waves, — Metaphysician Undercover

The waves convey changes to the field, but not the force. Gravity waves for instance are not generated for a mass exerting a force at a distance. Gravity waves are energy, and energy expenditure would quickly deplete the mass of an object. But gravity waves do this. Earth for instance, due to its acceleration around the sun, emits about 200 watts of power in the form of gravity waves, far less than the energy given to even a small rock falling to the surface. Thus the force upon and kinetic energy gained by the falling rock does not come from waves of any kind.
Ditto with EM force and energy. The waves do not carry the force, only the minor energy of the changes which has negligible effect on other masses. LIGO is sensitive enough for instance to detect this, but any object can measure gravity.

I believe that some physicists such as Feynman have produced very convincing arguments which demonstrate that electromagnetic fields must have real physical existence, i.e. substance. — Metaphysician Undercover

Please do. I am curious. :chin: — jgill

An electromagnetic field is necessarily a real object (what I call substantial) because it exerts a force on particles (exemplified by iron filings). This is the energy of the field. Changes within the field are described as waves, and this is how energy moves from one place to another through the field, by means of waves. — Metaphysician Undercover

So you are attacking the soundness of my argument, not the validity of it.
-- Meta
Only when your argument is in fact invalid. — noAxioms

jgill bumps an excellent example of an invalid argument which in this case begs two different conclusions by assuming them both true in order to conclude them. It begs the field being a real object, and it also begs a medium for EM waves.
To illustrate that, let's assume otherwise and see if a contradiction is reached.

The force on particles (iron filings) is exerted by the magnet nearby. Changes within the field are described as EM waves which require no medium. It works just fine with the opposite assumptions, therefore the argument demonstrates nothing.

As for energy, your comment seems to equate force to energy, which is just wrong. It makes it sound like the field itself has energy, and if that energy was consumed by something, it would be gone, leaving the magnet with no field. Gravity is like that. There's no gravitational energy of an object or its field. Nobody quotes some number representing the gravitational energy of say the Earth or its gravitational field (which is neither an energy field nor a force field, but rather an acceleration field).

Anyway, if Feynman did actually argue for this, and it was in any way convincing, then you've not summarized it very well.

The problem is you have not presented anything which makes sense. — Metaphysician Undercover

It make sense to those that understand it. I'm sorry that you're apparently not one of them.

Present me with contradictions and it's intelligent for me to attack them.

Your contradictions come from twisting my statements out of context. Maybe spell out the contradictions more clearly so I can point out where you didn't get it right.

Your approach is fruitless if you cannot demonstrate why the thing which is extremely obvious to me might be false.

I cannot demonstrate it to you. It's like trying to convince my cat. I've spent whole threads discussing this with you. I know where it goes. You are incapable of setting aside your biases, and hence you see contradiction where there is none. You already know the answer, so any premise that contradicts it must be wrong, and is thus not worthy of consideration.

If your claim is that a similar empirical experience could be produced without the present, as in "a simulation",

A simulation has a present, and a dualistic experience for that matter.. Not at all a good model of what I'm talking about.

On the contrary, there seems to be no measurement that can be made to distinguish between the premise being the case or not, which makes hundreds of years of nothing. They've tried too. I've seen many attempts, mostly logical, to disprove one view or the other. I've never seen a successful one. I even have my own argument, but it rests on premises that cannot be proven. — noAxioms

I went through this with you already, it's called "refraction".

I'm talking about the existence of a present moment, which has little if anything to do with refraction.

I don't see how this is relevant. The patterns exist in a medium. If they simply look like waves, but are not actually waves, they are still an activity of the medium.

No, they can appear and move with no activity of what you might consider to be the medium. That's why I brought it up.

Just a thought and the connection to the topic title is the possibility of an object/objects that could be at rest relative to everything else in the universe. — TheMadFool

Not possible. Beyond a certain distance away, the Hubble expansion prevents any object from being stationary relative to something over here.

If two objects A and B have the same velocity relative to another object C, then the two objects A and B must be at rest relative to each other.

Seems correct to me.

If that's the case then since all objects in the universe have the same velocity relative to light

They do not. Read what I said above about light not defining a valid reference frame. Also, light doesn't all have the same velocity since it is moving in all different directions

Do thoughts require a thinker? — Kranky

Kind of by definition, yes. I think it safe to use such a definition.

If they do, and thoughts occur, then I exist?

Doesn't follow the way it is worded.
Give the above definition, try: "if thoughts exist, then the thinker exists". That seems to work for any definition of 'exists' one cares to use.

Then you clearly have inconsistency, contradiction, if you model gravity waves as wrinkles in the fabric of spacetime, and you maintain that things do not travel through spacetime. — Metaphysician Undercover

Wrinkles in fabric are not movement, so 'clearly' hasn't exactly been spelled out.

And if you say that nothing moves because spacetime is an eternal static block

I didn't say nothing moves. Your refusal to understand the view isn't evidence that it is inconsistent. Read up on it and attack it intelligently.

know you have a consistent history of inability to understand that view, as again evidenced by your statement above.
— noAxioms

That's right, I cannot understand principles which appear fundamentally contradictory, and the appearance of contradiction is only made to go away when the obvious is denied.

There you go. You admit that you cannot let go of at least this one particular bias long enough to comprehend a view that doesn't posit it. Yes, the view indeed becomes contradictory if this additional 'obvious' premise is made, but the fact is that there is a different set of premises that predict the same empirical experience and these premises deny the existence of the present moment. Hence the truth of that premise is not obvious.

You might say this, but you attack my premises, not my logic

I only attack your premises if you insist on applying them to a view that doesn't posit them. Otherwise, when have I ever asserted your premises are necessarily wrong in any way? Maybe some of them are. I forget.

so you are really demonstrating that you think my arguments are unsound.

I meant invalid, and if they're invalid, then they're also unsound, which is why I kind of used both words.

For example, here's my argument. P1. Light exists as waves. P2. Waves require a medium. C. Therefore there is a medium for light, "the ether". The logic is valid, but you consistently attacked the truth of my first premise.

Sorry, but I never attacked that line of reasoning. I might attack your assertion that those premises are necessarily true.

So you are attacking the soundness of my argument, not the validity of it.

Only when your argument is in fact invalid.

However, my first premise is well supported by hundreds of years of scientific experimentation, empirical evidence, so you haven't gotten very far with your attack.

On the contrary, there seems to be no measurement that can be made to distinguish between the premise being the case or not, which makes hundreds of years of nothing. They've tried too. I've seen many attempts, mostly logical, to disprove one view or the other. I've never seen a successful one. I even have my own argument, but it rests on premises that cannot be proven.

Also, you or others, have made some attempt at creating ambiguity, and obscuring the separation between P1 and P2, by saying rather that light is "wavelike". This allows P2 to appear unsound, because there could be a "wavelike" thing which cannot be called a "wave" because it does not require a medium.

P2 might be true by definition. It depends on how a real wave is defined. But yes, the logic goes pretty much along the lines of what you say here. Known real waves do things that light doesn't, and light does things that known waves do not. That doesn't demonstrate that light is not a wave, but it does demonstrate that your premises are not necessarily true.

The ambiguity as to the criteria of "wave" allows for something which we would normally call a wave, to actually not be a wave, only "wavelike", and therefore exist without a medium.

As an example of something wavelike: Take interference patterns, which are formed by things other than waves. Moire patterns are a good example of this. The patterns move in apparent 'waves' without an obvious medium carrying the waves, as evidenced by the fact that there seems to be no limit to the speed at which they move.

What about light? No matter who the observer, where the observer, relative velocity with light is always 186,000 mph. — TheMadFool

The speed (not velocity) of light is constant. Each photon has a different frame dependent velocity.

Isn't this kinda like saying that all object in the universe, because they're moving at the same velocity with respect to light,

Light does not define a valid reference frame, so no, it's not like saying that. If one was to attempt consideration of such a frame, the universe collapses into a singularity and there is no space or time in which to define motion at all.

I am wondering what any of this has to do with the topic title. Absolute rest (of a given object) is conceptually possible, and it means that the object's absolute location is unchanging, and has nothing to do with what any of the other objects are doing. It requires a definition of absolute location, which isn't trivial.

Correct. Thanks for pointing that out. Motion is always relative. What I meant to ask was if there exists an object that's at rest relative to everything else in the universe? There is no such thing, right? — TheMadFool

If there are only two objects in the universe moving relative to each other, a third object might be stationary relative to one of them, but it would be moving relative to the other at the same velocity as the thing relative to which it is stationary. This is pretty trivial geometry. Yes, you describe this in your lower paragraph.

Another way of wording it: For an object to be a rest relative to the rest of the universe, everything in the universe would need to become stationary relative to the one thing. All motion everywhere would need to stop. That's not going to happen.

In some of your posts you talk about the distance between things changing or not. That's not the same as relative motion. Given two objects in relative motion (like a pair of masses A, B in eccentric orbit say), one can find a 3rd point (not stationary) that is always some unchanging distance from them, forming a constant length AC and BC despite the ever changing AB. That's still relative motion, but unchanging separation. It might even work for 3 objects, but not 4.

Your proposition, "Spactime is not something that anything can travel through", is not a sound premise. — Metaphysician Undercover

It isn't a premise at all, but rather a conclusion from a different premise, one a thousand years old, that time is a 4th dimension, even if the 'spacetime' term and the mathematical description were introduced far more recently, by Minkowski if I have my history correct.
If the premise is accepted, then spacetime isn't something that things travel through. If not, there is no spacetime at all through which a thing can travel.
I know you have a consistent history of inability to understand that view, as again evidenced by your statement above.

Do you understand the difference between soundness and validity?

A sound one is valid, and in addition, has all true premises. I probably used the word incorrectly there. We have no easy way of knowing which premises are true if they contradict each other but each lead to the same observations.

My point was that your arguments are very often not valid.

Not arbitrary. In all such cases, the speed of the waves is pretty much fixed (isotropic) only relative to the medium.
— noAxioms

Right, this is one reason (amongst others) why, as I explained, objects must be conceived of as part (features) of the medium. — Metaphysician Undercover

If you can actually follow the argument presented in that exchange, you see the opposite position is suggested.

Your [...] lack of ability to formulate a sound logical argument,
— noAxioms
When you deny science, and the truth of obvious premises, as you were doing, you cannot distinguish a sound argument from an unsound one.

If science was about asserting 'obvious' premises, the sun would still be going around the Earth. Science is not about premises at all. It is about models that correspond to empirical observation.
As for the sound argument, you illustrate my point above with your response. The soundness (validity if you will) of a logical argument has nothing to do with the premises chosen, but rather what conclusions are (and are not) drawn from those premises.

Your commitment, that light exists as a particle

I never said that. Strawman fallacy, getting at least two things wrong about what I've said. Wait, three things wrong. Not bad for 8 words. Kindly refrain from putting words in my mouth.

To a solipsist, the only universe that exists is one in which their self is the same with the world. Does that make more sense? — Wallows

Guess I'd make a lousy solipsist because no, that doesn't make sense to me, and here I am, an idealist of a weird sort.

That's true; but, we can measure models and traits of the original universe through measurement and observation, yes? Kinda, Plato's cave.

You're saying the original universe is simulating the experience of something with the same rules as itself. How might you know that?

Are you also considering the multitude of multiverses also? — Wallows

No, but do those exist to a solipsist? Why count them? Why simulate them?

Any solipsistic universe can be (potentially) uncountably infinite, as per the pre-existing universe from where the solipsist derives their solipsism.

You talking about the scale of the container universe simulating this one? The properties of that are completely undefined, so I can offer no opinion.

Continuously expanding or not, I can conceivably count the electrons in it, so it seems countably infinite, no?

As for the solipsist thing to which you seem to be leaning, the universe need not be simulated at all, only your experience of it, which is within the capability of the sort of machine we can envision.

An infinite universe expanded say 10% does not require more state spaces any more than a busload of new guests requires expansion of Hilbert's hotel.
— noAxioms

I think it more as an issue of countably infinite alphabets versus uncountably infinite alphabets as an analogy. — Wallows

It goes from countable to uncountable when growing 10%?
If not, what do you mean by that reply?

The universe is not the sort of thing that can be run on any computer as we know them, even given infinite resources. Approximated, sure, but even then only a subset of it. So the thing doing the simulating is not anything to which we can really relate.

As for being a deterministic universe, that all depends on your quantum interpretation of choice, but most of them are actually pretty deterministic with no fundamental randomness.

Well, the question is pretty straightforward. If the universe is expanding, then new state spaces are arising and hence information. — Wallows

An infinite universe expanded say 10% does not require more state spaces any more than a busload of new guests requires expansion of Hilbert's hotel.
Also, I have personal doubts about there being a specific state for any particular location, but there are interpretations of the universe that posit it, so I cannot say it is wrong.

Think of a solipsist arising within a simulated world. — Wallows

That's different. As the visible universe expands, it seems that matter exits it over time, leaving less to simulate. More space for a while, but eventually even that begins to collapse as the event horizon encroaches.

A crisp shadow is not inconsistent with a wave, as an object in a wave tank demonstrates. — Metaphysician Undercover

Alrighty then.

Designations such as "inertial medium" are arbitrary because motion is relative.

Not arbitrary. In all such cases, the speed of the waves is pretty much fixed (isotropic) only relative to the medium.

OK, so you do recognize the need for a medium.

Not a need for it, but a reference to something like one. Spacetime is not something that anything can travel through, so it doesn't really correspond to the function of an actual medium like rope, water, or air, all of which are mediums through which waves travel .

people like you will deny this need

Yes, I deny the need, even if I don't deny the medium.

and speak of people like me as if we're "cranks"

Your're a crank probably mostly due to the lack of ability to formulate a sound logical argument, and not so much for the views you choose. I never used the word, but I see it coming up quite a bit now. Doubtless there are those that consider me one for whatever reason. The views I hold (not a realist for one) are not exactly mainstream, but at least I can defend them.

The assumption of "stationary" is arbitrary, and really quite false.

Arbitrary, but the assumption of its existence is mandatory for the view you hold.

The preferred frame, what Leo called the "absolute inertial frame" ... — Metaphysician Undercover

I pointed out why the preferred frame cannot be an inertial one, so Leo hasn't thought it through. Have you? I suggested some violations of thermodynamics as well for other suggested preferred frames. Maybe the lost energy I pointed out accounts for the source of 'dark energy'. That would at least resolve that problem. Not claiming to be a cosmological expert, but I can do 4D math at least.

Continuing with the denial of science I see. The activity of light is described by a wave-function. Where's your evidence that light does anything which is not wavelike? — Metaphysician Undercover

You're ignoring my posts above. Surely you're aware of the dual nature of light. Yes, light refracts, which is very much swimming like a duck. Not denying that. The mathematics of waves can be used to compute angles of diffraction for instance.

But like also throws crisp shadows given a small light source, and that is very much not quacking like a duck. The conclusion you should draw from this is that the nature of light is not exactly like a classic wave in a medium with a known velocity, and thus isn't necessarily best expressed as a function of such a medium. No wave in an inertial medium throws hard shadows or is measured at a single point instead of spread-out, and all waves with known mediums behave differently in frames other than the one in which the medium is stationary, and thus drawing a conclusion of the existence of a medium is premature.

There also seem to be a lack of working model using such a medium, since I've seen no links to one, only hand-waving and assertions of how it would work if such a model was created.

Gravity waves are probably the closest analogy. They are sort of modeled as waves in the 'fabric of spacetime'. That wording suggests a frame-independent medium of spacetime itself. If there was a necessity for some preferred frame, it would be called the 'fabric of space'.
There is no spacetime in the 3D view, but there is no movement through 4D spacetime, so said gravity waves are more ripple distortions in spacetime, which in any choice of frames manifest as waves that travel through space. This would not work with a 3D medium since it would change the properties of the waves in any frame that doesn't match the one in which the medium is not stationary.

If for example I tie one end of a rope to a tree and then take the other end out to some distance and move it rapidly and forcefully up and down, I can easily establish a standing wave in the rope. Or, such a thing is the simple operation of a guitar string. The medium, if you want to call it that, is air, but the air - the medium in this case - is irrelevant. — tim wood

The medium in this case is the rope, not the air. The air carries resulting sound waves perhaps, but not the wave in the rope, which would be there even if the exercise was done in a vacuum.

Yes, light acts like a wave in one way, but it acts in other ways like no wave acts. If it swims like a duck but honks like a goose, it's probably not a duck. To assert it being a duck by only considering the swimming property and turning a deaf ear to the honking is a blatant example of selection bias. So no, Meta, it does not look and act like a wave.

Fairly good description there, but the phrase 'waves of probability' hardly fits that.
Yes, there is a wave function, and yes, the function is probabilistic, but that doesn't make the function a 'wave of probability' traveling through a medium. It simply means that the probability of any particular measurement can be computed from the wave function.

The only models I can think of are those of particles physics, in which the particles are a feature of the fields.. — Metaphysician Undercover

None of those require a preferred frame for the fields. Any theory corresponding to the ether would need to.

Empirical evidence indicates that there are waves and this necessitates the conclusion of an "ether" or some such substance which the waves exist in.

All empirical evidence for real waves (like in water) have an obvious medium, and no real waves behave like that which the M-M experiment is measuring, so this is just your biases talking.

Your objection about the two clocks, or two billiard balls is not applicable when the objects are conceived of as part of the ether. Each is a different activity of the ether. The two clocks cannot be said to have the same activity (therefore as 'clocks' they are not the same), nor can the two balls be said to be the same, in any real way. It makes no sense to refer to these distinct things involved in completely different activities, as the same. That's all I wanted to explain, and I think I've finally succeeded.

I agreed to that, yes.

waves are an activity of the medium — Metaphysician Undercover

Kind of by definition, yes. What jgill was questioning not that definition, but where you assert "Empirical evidence indicates that there are waves". That part does not hold up.

What is the medium through which probability waves in QM travel? — jgill

QM does not posit waves of probability, through a medium or otherwise.
Meta's answer to this is a statement of his personal beliefs, but nothing about what QM theory says.

You don't seem to understand. The objects, billiard balls now instead of clocks, are features of the ether. I've explained this over and over, but you don't seem to get it. It's what we can take away from the M-M experiment, as what is likely the case, objects are not independent from the ether. The existence of an object is a feature of the ether, like a particle is a feature of the field in particle physics. So if one ball is moving at a high velocity in relation to the other ball, then the activity of the ether cannot be the same at the two locations. The movement of the ball is an activity of the ether. — Metaphysician Undercover

OK. Sounds a little like Conway game of Life which has an objective medium, undetectable directly, but the activity of which determines the physical properties of the 'matter'.

I am unaware of any actual model that has been fleshed out that works this way for our universe. Is there one, or is this just your contribution here?
The M-M experiment results do not suggest this case is particularly likely since there are actual fleshed out models that don't involve the ether which are still entirely consistent with the M-M results.

The only thing I'm trying to demonstrate is that the objection you made to what I said, is baseless. — Metaphysician Undercover

You seem to be failing in your demonstration of that. Yes, I agree that you are trying.
I suspect the thing to which I've objected here is probably that 'one cannot deny the reality of waves', but light also behaves in ways that waves do not, such as throwing crisp shadows, so light seems in reality to be something that is best described as neither particle nor wave.

Yes, I was talking about the activity of the ether. You introduced to that discussion, "clocks". Now a clock is itself a form of activity, and you asked how it is possible that two clocks (two specified activities) at the same place, at the same time, with one of them moving at a high velocity in relation to the other, could be "the same". — Metaphysician Undercover

I never said they were the same. You can make the two things billiard balls if you like. The moving one is half the length and twice the mass of other (a physical change), but the 'activty' of the ether is the same at those two locations, hence it seems that the ether activity there has nothing to do with the different properties of the two balls. If the contraction is caused by the ether, then it must be its speed through the ether, or the ether's speed through it. If not, the ether seems unnecessary for the view at all and there's just a preferred frame for whatever reason.
Correct any holes in my logic, since I'm arguing about a theory I don't hold, so I might misrepresent it. I certainly don't know how all the absolutist interpretations word it, but I know some posit relative motion with the ether as the cause of the physical change.

There is no physical change to the balls in the mainstream view. The differing length measurements are due to spatial separation of different things, not a change in the thing itself.

I just pointed out to you how this notion, this scenario you created, is in fact contradictory. If one is moving at a high velocity relative to the other, then clearly the two clocks are not each the same "activity".

Again you use the word in a different way than your original usage. I never spoke of the activity of the clocks, but since you seem to dwell on it, I made the two objects into balls. The ether has physically changed one of the balls, which sort of kills the absolutist's claim to being the more intuitive view. Relativity isn't intuitive no matter how you look at it.

They might represent something real that simply isn't actually a wave.
— noAxioms
Sure, and a rainbow doesn't involve the refraction of waves either.

That's right. Maybe it doesn't. Hence your assertion that we can't deny the reality of these waves being fallacious. Yes, light has a dual nature, and of course you gravitate towards rainbows where it is most wave like, but you've not demonstrated that matter is actually waves, so one is free to deny it. I'm personally open both ways. I don't know.

One clock is moving at a high velocity relative to the other. It is next to the other "momentarily". Therefore there is no such thing as the same "activity" of the two distinct clocks at the "same" location. — Metaphysician Undercover

The term 'activity' comes from you, and you did not seem to be referring to the activity of each clock, but rather to the ether or something else in the environment:

The "absolute inertial frame" cannot be produced without a proper representation of the ether flow, which may not be a flow at all, but some other unknown type of activity. — Metaphysician Undercover

So I am reacting to that usage of the word 'activity'.

That's why 'speed relative to the ether' works better because the two clocks are in the same ether but have different velocities to it.
— noAxioms
This scenario ought to be impossible according to Michelson-Morley experiments. That's what was disproven, the idea that a physical object moves relative to the ether.

If the ether is undetectable, then the M-M experiment proved nothing about it.

It's not that the ether is moving "through" you, but that you, as a physical object, are a property of the ether. That's why I said it's better to conceive of the ether as changing rather than flowing.

The ether is changing (instead of 'activity'). There are the same two objects in proximity, one heavily length contracted. The cause seems to be the object's speed and not a difference in how the ether is changing. Same argument. The object's speed causes the contraction, not the ether causing it.

Ether is necessary to account for the reality of waves.

That the state of a system can be represented by something called a wavefunction does not mean that the system is necessarily a wave, or that a medium is required for it. The Schrodinger equation does just fine with the future evolution of a wave function without requirement for an ether.

A wave is in a substance. We can deny the reality of these waves, but then fields and wavefunctions don't represent anything real.

Fallacious reasoning. They might represent something real that simply isn't actually a wave.