then what steers the choice one way or another? — Mike Adams

The creative mind. We are creative. That is how we evolve. It is fundamentally who we are - creative.

If you are looking for the fundamental beginning of everything, it is the creative mind.

I am saying we all make choices, but they are made by the biological brain, based on the memory and instinct contained therein. — CasKev

Brain or mind? How does a brain morph into a mind?

No matter to me. So your brain is making choices. Fine. If there are choices, it's not determined and that's about that.

And, might I add, the fundamental mechanism for creating concentration of wealth are the central banks which were designed by bankers and controlled by bankers for the benefit of bankers and their cronies. Of course, there are plenty of goodies for the politicians that play along, which is just about all of them.

Exactly who do you think it's making choices for you?

So you can admit that there is memory built from the experiential results of choices, on which future choices are based. Yet you seem to insist on there being this other source of creative intelligence that somehow influences decision-making and generates ideas out of nowhere. — CasKev

It is exactly, precisely, without and additions or substractions, the way we experience it in every day life. There is no supernatural God or supernatural Laws of Nature. There is our memory, our creative mind (making choices and introducing novelty), and our will (effecting choices). I am sorry if existence is not a huge philosophical tome, but it is fun and interesting if one chooses to be creative.

Bottom line, life is exactly what one experiences.

Read Bergson. His inquiry into free will (choices) is entirely independent of morality and for him fundamental.

Finally a scientist who actually studied Bohmian Mechanics and Bell's Inequality. For me, it's a relief. I'm booking this for the next time someone comes along and claims Bohmian Mechanics is in anyway deterministic. For gosh sakes, just look at the equation.

https://www.quora.com/Does-Bohmian-Mechanics-claim-quantum-randomness-is-really-deterministic-chaos

What would happen is exactly what would happen if someone dies in their sleep.

I don't recognize any issues. Memory evolves and this is what we feel as the internal flow of duration (real time). Choices and learning from these choices (memory) is the process of creative evolution (duration).

Does it sound like I believe in the God of the Big Bang?

Determinism is the exact equivalent to Calvinism. Simply replacing God with the phrase Natural Laws does not make a religion different.

As for me, I don't have a need for God or Natural Laws to define my life. I have a creative mind that makes choices.

A contraction in output due to decreased consumer demand will likely result in unemployment, — WISDOMfromPO-MO

Absolutely not. The problem is wealth concentration not of production. Conventional thinking is making this world into one polluted mess. The top 1% had sure been successful in messing with everyone's thinking. So what is the point of the OP? You still are buying into all of the marketing junk pouring through the media. When it comes right down to it, you are still quite conventional.

Our unprecedented prosperity — Janus

Which world are we talking about? You must read the Economist. Concentration of wealth had never been greater nor has debt. It's quite a disaster in the real world unless you live in one of the 1% enclaves.

Your genes are driving your novelty seeking behavior. Other people's genes drive familiarity seeking. — Bitter Crank

I love stories that people just make up. Genes are just little humans doing everything that we do? And who does it for the genes?

It's true that is we consume less we will need to produce less, which is fine. The only one hurt will be the profiteers. They'll have to live in billions instead of 10s of billions. The point is, if one is if one is concerned with pollution just consume less.

Unpredictable yes, because we are nowhere near being able to accurately model all of the variables that go into brain function. — CasKev

Listen, quantum theory says that unpredictably is inherent in the universe. All you are doing is parroting some ancient story that was concocted as cute theory which never had a scintilla of evidence to support it.

I can't argue with faith. No one can and shouldn't. Now, why don't you pray to the Laws of Nature that I am saved and see the light? Discussion is useless. My fate has been sealed since the Genesis of the Big Bang.

My last major decision was to answer this post. I just it and decided to answer it. I would say it was a rather spontaneous action. It just happened. Sometimes I don't respond. Sometimes I wait to respond. The amount of time I wait is rather unpredictable.

So the experiment is evidence that the relative quantum states described by the Schrodinger equation have physically real referents. — Andrew M

Provide references and I'll see if I have the time to study it. Still, quantum theory remains probabilistic though in Bohm's model there are real causal agents - including "information".

OK. It's over. Thanks. Enjoy your life.

Quantum is the substrate of all events and we continue to use other theories as a matter of convenience. Computer technology developed around quantum theory. Events aren't random, they are probabilistic because the universe has habits. Events are unpredictable. If you don't believe me, go to Amazon reviews.

How come our computers work so reliably? Why don't quantum fluctuations cause them to exhibit free and random behavior? — VagabondSpectre

They don't. They fail in unpredictable ways all the time. That is why computer systems have backups.

But don't you cling to the notion of hard free will like a religious person when presented with evidence that diminishes it? (hormones impacting decision making for instance). — VagabondSpectre

There is zero evidence for determinism other than the cute story cooked up a couple of hundred years ago which was in turn decimated by quantum physics much to Einstein's chagrin.

As for me, I am quite comfortable making choices in my life. If your comfortable with a gated life, go for it, just don't try to use it v as an excuse, that's all. It's never worked.

The main knee jerk reaction to determinism is to somehow feel that because our choices are predetermined they are therefore less valuable or important to perform well. Eating a bar of chocolate is a pleasurable experience for me, even if it's just a determined chemical reaction in my brain, and so more chocolate bars is what I'll try to get. It might be pre-determined how successful I will be, but I do know that if I don't try success is impossible. — VagabondSpectre

My knee jerk reaction is that I was never religious (spiritual yes) and no reason to start now just because someone has come up with a new story of how our lives are fated. Suits lots of people though, but usually they want God and not Natural Laws. It's a question of taste. As for me, I continue to make choices in my life as I bring creativity into my experiences.

No choice is fated or necessarily predictable (because of the infinite level of complexity involved in thought), but you can definitely say that everything is determined by what precedes it. — CasKev

Ok, everything is fated but it isn't. Some call this compatibilism, others call it having your cake and eat it, yet others might call it muddy and strange. No doubt, others think it is absolutely brilliant. If you are satisfied, may the gods be kind to you.

How can you know what choice you will make before you actually make it (hint: you can't). Once you've made a choice, how do you know that some component of hard free will could have allowed you to choose otherwise? (this differs from the compatibilist sense of having options and being un-coerced)... — VagabondSpectre

Everyone feels they are making choices every day of their lives.

Then the determinists come along and claim, no it's all an illusion (Hinduism retread), that there are Natural Laws (the Calvinist God) making all the decisions for you, and your entire existence is fated through some space-time come (Einstein Relativity forbids any preferred frame of reference). As for evidence of this very religious, biblical like story: none, zero, zilch.

Take you pick. And if one chooses the religious option, just let things happen and enjoy life. It's all in the hands of the gods.

"This above all to thine oneself be true.'

No need to look to others to be yourself.. Probably lots of people will react in different ways and from these experiences you learn and evolve. It's the only way. To pretend to "take a rational position" gets you nowhere in life. Those who do pretend just founder and learn nothing other than it takes lots of energy to pretend.

Be yourself and change if you choose to.

The 'I' you speak of only exists because your parents had sex. The desire you have to add novelty to your life only exists because of the experiences that have led you to that point, and your biological instinct to love and create. — CasKev

No. I am creating and evolving everyday in my life. Are you creative? Do you create new things, new ideas, new directions in your life? Allowing the creative mind to express is good for the soul. I live and breathe creativity. The major issue is that people have been trained since kindergarten to suppress creativity and play follow the leader. I was pretty much my own person for most of my life. Never needed to be or wanted to be one of the crowd. Never a robot and always creative in the direction I followed in my life.

The knowledge and experience you use to make your choices are based on past choices and outcomes — CasKev

No, I am constantly adding novelty to my life.

I am beginning to realize that there actually may be people who are purely robotic in their life and without actual experience otherwise have come to believe that everyone is equally robotic.

The mind not only had the capacity for creative novelty, for many it is the primary experience. Creative evolution is the essence of Life.

People are the way they are as a result of their genetics and upbringing. To change that would mean that you'd need to manipulate them (their genes and upbringing). — Harry Hindu

And I suppose you have some evidence of this? I change all the time and it had zero to do with my genetics and upbringing. The WHO says only a small percentage of chronic ailments are due to genetics, while 80% or more are due to lifestyle choices. Choices.

A wise person responds to climate change by recognizing that it is the creation of both business and science and looking for ways to act outside of business and science — WISDOMfromPO-MO

All people have to do is consume less, but industry/government have become very good at marketing consumption. Let's take a look at the sales pitch of the medical device industry: "Take this test, or you will die!". Pretty effective sales pitch especially when the lobbyists have successfully passed laws to help them push their products and drugs.

Maybe environmentalists can take less trips to the environments they are trying to save? There are many ways to look a simple, healthy, interesting life without constantly consuming.

The MZI experiment is a simple and crystal-clear demonstration of quantum behavior without any stochastic elements. — Andrew M

It is not. I've read enough about it to understand there are lots of questions and issues to consider when using the apparatus and setting up the device depending upon what the experimenter is studying. But for some reason, you are using this as evidence of what??

In any case MZI is just an apparatus, not an experiment.

Someone would have to analyze and compute the quantum potential effects throughout the apparatus. I have not found a specific study on this problem. However, to revert to some deterministic, many-works interpretation based upon this one situation, given all of the other issues regarding quantum measurement problems, would be slightly "extravagant".

This paper discusses a way to analyze the experiment utilizing the concept of quantum erasing. No deterministic interpretation of quantum mechanics is required.

Single photon quantum erasing: a demonstration experiment
T L Dimitrova1 and A Weis

Bohm's model would simply say that the quantum potential is at near certainty at the point of the slit. However, the quantity potential is subject to "information fluctuations", for example: the Delayed-Choice scenario. Note the use of choice. It is causal but not deterministic.

As you wish. You know quite well there is a ton more. But for you it's just a baseball. Go for it. You just proved, with a single experiment, that quantum theory is deterministic. How did I miss it? Heck, Newton was right after all. It's all baseballs knocking into each other - until there are TWO slits.

You don't understand how all of what I've said about real choice, including the paper I've cited by Hiley, had anything to do with the OP.

The reason I am ending out discussion is because while I go through all of the effort of providing you with source information, you just recite to me articles of your faith. I'm tired and I don't really care if you believe your whole life is fated. Sit back, observe, and enjoy the life that God has laid out for you.

Yes, let's agree.

You are using quantum states as if they are baseballs. Are you being deliberately disingenuous? I'm only interested in learning more about nature, not playing games. You know what quantum states are and they have nothing to do with determinism. The only way to bring determinism back is in what Bell described as the "extravagant" Many-Worlds Interpretation, which still leaves us in a probabilistic world only now "we" have been also smeared over an infinite, every growing number of worlds. Everett's interpretation makes Copenhagen downright sensible.

ok. I think we are done. You want to be a robot and play the "I have no choice, only illusions iof choices" game for the rest of your life, go right ahead, just don't use it as an excuse because no one will have it. The truth of the illusion have not been revealed to them as it has been to you. Something gone haywire with the Laws of Nature (which should not be questioned because they cannot be fully understood).

Future scientist.

The quantum state is analogous to the classical state in Newtonian Mechanics — Andrew M

Yes, I dispute this.

http://www.physlink.com/education/askexperts/ae392.cfm

They aren't close to being analogous. It's like saying a jump rope is analogous to baseball.

Exactly what are you trying to prove here? That waves are the same as baseballs?

You can find the pdf for this paper, "Can Mind Affect Matter
Via Active Information?", By Basil Hiley who worked with Bohm and coauthered several books and papers with him. In it, he describes the problems of consciousness and how "active information" can affect processes. It's a good read and it's from the source, not from some lazy scientist who throws off labels such as mysticism.

To be frank, I am still skeptical that many people, including physicists who should know better, are prone to this error. — Mr Bee

They don't study Bohm, instead they just copy errors. Bell actually took the time to study the equations and came up with a way of understanding it better. Bell favored Bohm's approach. Of course others later on tested Bell's equation later in the laboratory.

As I have said in other thread, scientists are human and they are full of biases. Bohm should have received a Nobel Prize for doing the impossible, but instead he was ostracized and marginalized - by everyone except Bell.

I count four deterministic interpretations. Bohm no. Many-Worlds, Many-Mind, still probabilistic in our world and universe. And the last one I never heard of.

I would like you to consider the silliness of Many-Minds. Observe to what extent scientists will go to deny choice in humans. It's bizarre.

1. The Schrodinger equation uniquely determines a system's quantum state at a future time — Andrew M

Quantum state??? And how does that figure into determinism? You mean that state that is spread out as a probabilistic wave function?

This is easily explained in local, deterministic terms. But can you (or anyone else) explain the result in terms of probabilities or non-determinism? — Andrew M

What you are omitting, conveniently is what happens when an additional slit is opened after the photon passes through the first slot. I've experiment doesn't make determinism. However, one experiment does destroy it. Determinism is all our nothing.

Are you figuring on proving that Quantum is deterministic and local in this thread?