I think democracy is the wrong system for our nation — Leontiskos

that's what rejecting democracy means...

it's only as much a performative contradiction as someone who is anti violence using violence to protect themselves from other violence, it seems to me.

If you want a dictatorial monarchy, and the only way to achieve a dictatorial monarchy is to vote for it, that seems like an acceptable action towards that end.

In a free nation, long posts without paragraph breaks shouldn't be allowed

right, with the Copenhagen interpretation the indeterminism comes AFTER the deterministic Schrödinger equation. The Schrödinger equation deterministically outputs a probability distribution, and then some mystery process indeterministically chooses a random result to obtain from that distribution.

The distribution always comes from the Schrödinger equation though, and that's decided deterministically. Even in Copenhagen

there's not a "possible interpretation". It's an equation that is by definition deterministic. Indeterminism in various interpretations of quantum mechanics come AFTER the Schrödinger equation, not in the equation. There's no question it's deterministic

this conservation isn't about if its true. You expressed confusion about why people think many worlds is deterministic. Regardless of if it's true or not, you can hopefully be able to gain an understanding of why it's a deterministic world view.

It says the world evolves according to the Schrödinger equation, it says the entire output of the Schrödinger equation is real in some sense, the Schrödinger equation is deterministic so that makes many worlds deterministic.

so then sure it's deterministic, but with a probablistic mathematics which makes it such that you cannot tell what will necessarily happen — Moliere

In many worlds you can - what happens is all of it. That's why many worlds is deterministic. It takes the output of a deterministic function and says "that entire thing is real, that entire thing happens"

my bad, someone claimed that? People are just chopping off their willies to look like Allen Rickman in Dogma?

a deterministic function is a function that gives the same output given the same input. The Schrödinger equation outputs probability clouds of configurations based on inputs of probability clouds of configurations. Given the same input, it gives the same output, which is why it's deterministic.

Have you googled if it's deterministic? What does a bit of googling tell you?

(Ps my description of the input and output is not exactly correct, but it's close enough to correct for casual conversation, and still completely correct that given the same input it gives the same output)

what is "it"? The "it" that you understand isn't deterministic.

I don't think it is. I think it's just fine that one of us is me and one of us is you, and I don't think it makes sense to ask "why am I me and not you?". If I was you, I would just be you, it wouldn't be me at all.

And the same thing is true of your many worlds question.

You understand that the Schrödinger equation is deterministic tight? And that many worlds is just the idea that the Schrödinger equation continues to evolve the wave function with no collapse?

considering creation of a neo vagina is standard transition surgery so you're clearly out of your depth. — LuckyR

Idk what exactly you mean by "standard", but it should be noted that that kind of surgery is actually on the rare side.

They just don't want to be tortured by wanting this important, objectively good thing that they can't have. — Patterner

Yeah

If they managed to never think about their health again, then were offered the new medical cure...? — Patterner

Well of course they'd take it, but they can't spend their lives just daydreaming about a miracle

and how would someone detect that difference? How could WE detect that difference? How do you know this isn't our second time through these lives, and we have already switched places?

Are you sure that's the answer? Doesn't that pre suppose that you have some kind of pre-existent identity with which to flip heads?

The universe in which you're you and I'm me is identical to the universe in which I'm you and you're me - so identical in fact that I posit it's most likely correct to say that the very concept that I could be you and you could be me is probably incoherent.

You may be able to, but I cannot understand why Many Worlds is deterministic for the reason I said -- why am I in the up-world and not the down-world? What is the deterministic law that makes it such that I experience this world I am in? — Moliere

That's an indexical problem. The answer to that is not a problem for many worlds, it's a problem for ANY multi-consciouness existence, even if many worlds is not true. Why are you you and not me? If you can answer that question coherently, you can also answer why you're this version of you in MWI and not some other version of you.

And the other version of you is wondering the same thing - why is he that version, instead of the version you are?

Imagine putting a conscious being inside my dice program. By the time you roll the dice twice, there's now a person who has seen a 1 and a 1, and ap erson who has seen a 1 and a 2, etc.. all the way to 6 and a 6.

Now you run the program once and the guy who sees a 1 and a 3 wonders aloud, "why am I this one and not the one that saw a 6/6?" and the guy who sees 6/6 says "Wow! Two sixes in a row! I'm so lucky!"

And every time you run the program from scratch, you see it again: the guy who sees a 1 and a 3 wonders aloud, "why am I this one and not the one that saw a 6/6?" and the guy who sees 6/6 says "Wow! Two sixes in a row! I'm so lucky!"

Now you know there's nothing particularly lucky about the 6/6 guy, right? Not from your perspective. From your perspective, outside the program, that's a natural, inevitable consequence of the program running - every time you roll the dice twice, there will ALWAYS be a guy who saw 6 and then 6, and that guy will ALWAYS say "Wow! Two sixes in a row! I'm so lucky!".

And the first guys question is kinda weird too. There's no reason why he's the one who saw 1 and 3 instead of some other one, that question assumes he COULD HAVE seen something else, in some ontologically strong sense of "could", but the reality is his consciousness was in some sense created the moment that window split into the dice roll of 3. He's the one who saw 1 and 3 because he was invented at that moemnt to be the one that saw 1 and 3. He is almost by definition, the version of that consciousness that sees 1 and 3. If he saw something else, he'd just... be somethig else.

So can you answer why you're you and not me? Can you tell me why I'm me and not you? And can you try to apply that answer to many worlds versions of yourself?

---

I just realized, it might first be worth clarifying, do you understand why MWI is deterministic if we set aside the problem of conscious experience? Like if you have an MWI-flavor world but just without any experience happening in it, can you accept that THAT world is deterministic?

we're not talking about if many worlds is true or not, just what the consequences of it would be and why it's considered deterministic. Right? You can understand why many worlds is deterministic separately from questioning if it's true or not.

It can be deterministic and also just not the right interpretation, not matching reality.

"does the same thing every time" isn't what I said with respect to different kinds of events. — Moliere

I have no idea what you're trying to say with this. You asked me how many worlds is deterministic, I tried to give you a visualization to help you see it

Many worlds is analogous to my dice example.

Another way to explain it: In the many worlds view, the Schrödinger equation is king. The Schrödinger equation evolves the wave function deterministically, and - unlike some other interpretations - in many worlds the wave function never collapses, which means it keeps getting evolved by the Schrödinger equation forever.

I'm struggling to see how many-worlds can be interpreted as deterministic, — Moliere

If I had a computer program where you press a button, and it rolls a dice, and you see a random number between 1 and 6 afterward, that would be indeterministic in a sense, right?

Now what if I had a computer program where you press a button, and it rolls a dice, and then it deletes the original window and spawns 6 new windows, one for each dice side? And then you press the button again and for each of those 6 windows, it spawns another 6 windows, so now there's 36 windows, and in the first window the history is a roll of a 1 and then a 1, and the second window has a history of a 1 and a 2, ... all the way to the 36th window which is a 6 and a 6?

And then you close the program down and run it again and it happens the exact same way every time.

Would you think that program, with a new window for every possible roll, is indeterministic? After all, it does the same thing every time.

That's the same as asking "why am I me and not you?" What do you think of that question?

don't know why you'd claim our particular universe evolves deterministically — Moliere

I wasn't making a statement about our universe, you asked me for a scenario in which something would be true. It's a hypothetical to answer your question.

But qm is only a counter example depending on interpretation - you brought up many worlds, many worlds is deterministic

someone with a chronic illness may spend a lot of their time envying people with health, may spend hours each day in maladaptive daydreams imagining they were more healthy. Eventually they may realise that what they're doing isn't the best way for them to live, and they may choose to chase a more Buddhist approach - it's the Buddhists who say that want is the source of suffering, right? So they may become interested more in acceptance of their health and body and life as it is, rather than wanting more of it, more of what other people have.

I guess I'm just not sure of how you're using the word "will". If you don't use the word, does it change the meaning?
"You want to not want something."
"You will to not want something." — Patterner

Without looking into the deep deep library of philosophical writings, I would say "want" is something kinda passive, and "will" is when you have a want and you actually do something about it.

Passively wanting to stop smoking is one thing, but actively taking steps to counter your addiction is another. That's the difference between want and will, to me, speaking semi-casually.

We don't want to not want health.

I can <kinda> probably think of a counter example, and would bet that my counter-example exists in reality. You want to hear it?

yeah maybe it's particularly rare to entirely destroy the want just through will.

Doesn't mean you can't want not to want something, can't will not to want something, even if it might be true that that's not always achievable.

And yes it does come down to competing wants.

you started with "seems to me that's not willing not to want the addiction". I don't think I agree with that opening sentence. You are willing not to want something.

I wouldn't phrase it as "willing not to want the addiction", the addiction is the want, so if someone's addicted to cigarettes it would be "willing not to want cigarettes".

choosing them over the other want, to the point that you.. maybe... want to destroy the want? And then act to destroy the want? And then sometimes succeed?

All these question marks are making me sound very sassy. Let me say it without all the sass.

Many people who overcome addiction literally want not to want some of their wants, and destroy those wants through deliberate action.

How then, using this terminology, does determinism not imply the PSR? What is the deterministic scenario in which the PSR is false? — Moliere

The universe we live in happens to evolve deterministically, but there's no particular reason for, say, the physical constants or the starting conditions of the universe. They just are what they are with no underlying reason.

Suppose the many-worlds interpretation -- is "It was down because you're in the down-electron universe, whereas another version of you is in the up-electron universe" a sufficient explanation? — Moliere

Yes

Because ironically, in the many worlds there's a single state of affairs in the end with a complete explanation.

"Single state of affairs? In many worlds?" I hear you ask. Yes. Find out why in the next episode.

My current view is,

PSR -> determinism
But not the other way around necessarily

But neither the PSR nor determinism are necessarily true.

I guess it'd depend upon what you want out of your sufficiency. — Moliere

I guess I can't get over the idea that it seems fundamentally reasonable to ask "but why this result in particular?"

Electron can be spin up or spin down. We measure it down. Why was it down? "Because it could be up or down". That's cool, but why was it down?

It's okay if there's no particular reason why it was specifically down - sure, maybe that's reality, maybe there is no particular reason why it was specifically down - but if that's the case, then there's a fact without an explanation. We can explain why it was <up or down>, but not why it was down.

And that's what PSR means to me - maybe I'm misinterpreting it, but PSR I would paraphrase as "everything has an explanation". If so, then the fact that it was down and not up should also have an explanation, and "it can be down or up" just isn't the end of the explanation. To my mind, there's still that unanswered question.

The PSR , like I've said before, isn't necessarily true. Maybe we don't live in a world where everything has an explanation. That's okay too.

interesting

the singular nature of the end result. I want to know why one thing happened, if your explanation doesn't tell me exactly why this one thing happened, then it doesn't seem sufficient, right?

Like maybe that IS just the truth, but if it is the truth then the PSR isn't true there.

that sounds like a "no particular reason" flavour of answer to me.

see how this satisfies the notion that everything has a reason, even if that reason is not a cause? — Moliere

No not really. It still seems like there are things that don't have reasons in that case to me. Maybe I'm just being stubborn or something, but I don't see it.

If qm dictates that you see A 50% of the time and B 50% of the time, then the question "why did I see A instead of B this time?" still seems reasonless to me.

I certainly think there's probably a brute fact somewhere down there, and that would pop out of nothing, yes, and that would arguably undermine PSR. I think things popping out of nothing do undermine the PSR.

But they might undermine the PSR in different ways.

Like maybe you could say "The PSR is true except for these small amount of axioms with no explanation". And that's just a little bit of non-PSR in the world.

Or you could say "The PSR is true except for literally every single quantum event", and then suddenly you have a lot of non-PSR in the world.

if some things have explanations, then there will always be some utility in understanding them.

I think, even if we do live in a world with quantum randomness, when it comes to the kinds of events we're interested in at our macroscopic scale of existence MOST things have explanations. It doesn't necessarily hurt all that much if some tiny things don't.

I don't understand. What seems so weak it's irrelevant?

case of a stochastic event I'd imagine we have to say "The conditions were sufficient for 50%A/50%B, and we observed A this time" — Moliere

And the "A this time" would still be insufficiently explained, that's the problem, that's the disconnect between indeterminism and PSR.

Like I totally agree that you can have a determined and explained probability distribution in QM, but that last bit, that "A this time instead of B", just seems to pop out of nothing.

The PSR can be considered the underpinning of science: the pursuit of answers to why something is the way it is. — Relativist

Science certainly is searching for explanations, but I don't think science strictly needs it to be metaphysically true for EVERYTHING to have an explanation.

And if it's sufficient, then the question would be why doesn't that thing always happen under those conditions? "The conditions were sufficient for this thing to happen, but it didn't happen anyway"... Maybe I'm misunderstanding what sufficient means, but it doesn't seem like that's how sufficient works.