...

...

GRW as I understand it is a theory where individual particles actually collapse their state...

Hmm... Maybe there is something to electrons and free will. The ability to collapse its state sounds like the electron version of suicide. Of course I don't blame the little guys. Think how they must feel. Some folks interested in their behavior come along and told them that they have to circle those big beefy protons all the time. Circling, circling, endlessly circling. They can get close, but not too close. That is sure to make them dizzy and frustrated. Then a more enlightened observer comes along and tells them they cannot circle anymore, rather they just sort of have to be where their going to be at. Maybe here, maybe there, who knows. All that flittering and fluttering about all the time has got to be harder on them than the circling. The worst blow to the electron's morale had to come from that guy Heisenberg. He went and told them they can't even know where they are at. Just think how confused they are every time they get out of bed in the morning, most likely waking up in a different place than when they went to sleep. Social things like meeting a friend for dinner has got to be really tough. After all, they can never settle on a time and place. With all that, I'm surprised that even more of the little guys don't off themselves. Maybe they haven't yet heard about electron heaven. -----Original Message----- From: math-fun-bounces@mailman.xmission.com [mailto:math-fun-bounces@mailman.xmission.com] On Behalf Of Steve Witham Sent: Wednesday, March 25, 2009 3:13 PM To: math-fun@mailman.xmission.com Subject: Re: [math-fun] If We Have Free Will, Then So Do Electrons I agree that Dennett's "Elbow Room" does a pretty good job of disentangling (heh) quantum whatsit issues from more sensible ponderings about free will. Anyway, the term "free will" in the recent paper is just a special technical term for the purpose of the paper, provides no useful connection to philosophy, and is either a conscious joke or dig at the theories it's criticizing, or is a really bad choice that mainly serves to confuse conversations about the result. |http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/quant-ph/pdf/0604/0604079v1.pdf | |Mind you |- it's not really about free will, free will is a |stronger and |fuzzier claim than non determinism |- it doesn't really disprove determinism because then the |experiment |itself is a deterministic event. | |The main result seems to be disproving ( special |relativity ^ GRW ) and |Yah, that terminology is a distraction. | ||The main result seems to be disproving ( special ||relativity ^ GRW ) | |And also a variety of hidden variable theories. :) GRW as I understand it is a theory where individual particles actually collapse their state, but very rarely. --Steve -- My apples and oranges are beyond compare! _______________________________________________ math-fun mailing list math-fun@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/math-fun