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So nearly but not quite in Dilbert today:

It’s not speed you get in dual-hemisphere processing, but quality. Think Jill Bolte-Taylor. The two brain halves are quite different processors for a reason, the whole is more than the sum of the parts.

Galen Strawson describing his four level view of free will, ends up describing it as a proof of a problem between free-will and determinism, whereas it is the solution IMHO.

• If I am responsible for my decisions and actions, then that responsibility is somehow related to what I am, the set of resources available to me to make my decision.
• But if that’s the case then I need to have responsibility for what I am. (Because, if what I am were purely pre-determined or randomly defined externally, then that external decided resource would be the basis of any decision I make. I couldn’t be held responsible for either me or my decisions.)
• But if I am taking responsibility for what I am, I must have previously been making decisions towards being / becoming what I am (and knowing what I should need to be).
• But if that’s the case …. those decisions were based on what I am (was) … etc.

Sounds like infinite regress – well Duh ! Yes, but no.

It’s a Hofstadter strange-loop, a generator, iterating on each cycle, the very basis of evolving morality, evolving anything. Freedom evolves to give us elbow room as Dennett puts it.

All the usual stuff – Libet et al. Actually, not a bad edition of In our Time, the panel coming down on the idea that free-will is NOT incompatible with determinism. They are both real. There is a “wholist” holistic view needed of the person making any decision – whole of physiology and system physiognomy (including whole of nervous system, endocrine, etc …), and whole of evolved life, both species and individual “mind”. No homunculus or ghost-in-the-machine representing my mind, just the whole me.

Frustrating that Melvin never seems to join up the dots or gets past the naive stance of either / or. Getting there, though.

Hay on Wye (How the Light Gets In) looking promising.

 

Higher education is the front-line
in the arms race of values and cultures.

He’s not wrong.

I have an adage that no-one ever seems to buy, that aiming to make oneself redundant is a primary driver (for me and quite a few people I know, at least). If something takes effort to explain and sell, implement and extract value, then there is work for consultants, sure, but boy it becomes boring very fast, if that thing doesn’t get easier for people to pick-up and use. The object really is to put yourself out of a job, and move onto more interesting (rewarding) work, rather than giving the same presentations to the same conferences year after year.

I was struck by the same motive in laying quantum theory(ies) to rest in this paper by Christopher Fuchs of Bell Labs.

The issue is, when will we ever stop burdening the taxpayer with conferences devoted to the quantum foundations? The suspicion is expressed that no end will be in sight until a means is found to reduce quantum theory to two or three statements of crisp physical (rather than abstract, axiomatic) significance. In this regard, no tool appears better calibrated for a direct assault than quantum information theory. Far from a strained application of the latest fad to a time-honored problem, this method holds promise precisely because a large part – but not all – of the structure of quantum theory has always concerned information. It is just that the physics community needs reminding.

For me the quality of information is a root topic, and whilst being a David Deutsch fan, I’m not an Everettic – the multi-verse flavour of many worlds is usually a kludge IMHO.

Fuchs is the keynote speaker at Quantum Interaction 2011 in Aberdeen, 27 to 29 June.

Is it possible to imagine that any mind – even Einstein’s – could have made the leap to general relativity directly from the original, abstract structure of the Lorentz transformations? A structure that was only empirically adequate? I would say no.

…

The quantum system represents something real and independent of us; the quantum state represents a collection of subjective degrees of belief about something to do with that system … The structure called quantum mechanics is about the interplayof these two things – the subjective and the objective.

My emphases. Wow, that’s a scientist talking. And the obligatory apology to avoid the new-agey jibes.

I should point out, however, that in contrast to the picture of general relativity, where reintroducing the coordinate system – i.e. reintroducing the observer – changes nothing about the manifold … I do not suspect the same for the quantum world. …

Observers, scientific agents, a necessary part of reality? No.
But do they tend to change things once they are on the scene? Yes.
[space-time with and without mass present]
If quantum mechanics can tell us something deep about nature, I think it is this.

Previously, I have not emphasized so much the radical Bayesian idea that the probability one ascribes to a phenomenon amounts to nothing other than the gambling commitments one is willing to make on it. To the radical Bayesian, probabilities are subjective all the way to the bone. … Believe me … if the reader … fears that I will become a crystal-toting New Age practitioner of homeopathic medicine – I hope he will keep in mind that this attempt to be absolutely frank about the subjectivity of some of the terms in quantum theory is part of a larger programme to delimit the terms that can be interpreted as objective in a fruitful way.

And nearing conclusions:

Quantum states – whatever they be – cannot be objective entities.
A quantum state is as a state of belief about what would happen if one were to approach a standard measurement device.
Quantum entanglement is a secondary and subjective effect.
A measurement is is just an arbitrary application of Bayes’ rule – an arbitrary refinement of one’s beliefs – along with some account that measurements are invasive interventions into nature.

Subjective. Subjective! Subjective!!

It is a word that will not go away.
The last thing we need is a bloodbath of deconstruction.
At the end of the day, there had better be element in quantum theory that stands for the objective, or we might as well melt away and call the whole world a dream.

So finally:

A grain of sand falls into the shell of an oyster and the result is a pearl. The oyster’s sensitivity to the touch is the source of a beautiful gem.

A’s attempt to surreptitiously come into alignment with the B’s predictability is always shunted away from its goal. This shunting of various observer’s predictability is the subtle manner in which the quantum world is sensitive to our experimental interventions. Maybe this is our crucial hint! The wedge that drives a distinction between Bayesian probability theory in general and quantum mechanics in particular is perhaps nothing more than this ‘Zing!’ of a quantum system that is manifested when an agent interacts with it.

It is this wild sensitivity to the touch that keeps our information and beliefs from ever coming into too great an alignment.

Can’t help seeing the macro-level, non-linear “game theory” view in this final statement.

BTW in a nutshell.

Measurement (interaction / participation)
disturbs information about a physical system,
NOT the real physical system itself.

Three links I need to capture:

(1) Interesting piece from Prospect on the portrayal of stammering in The Kings Speech:

“This is also why it’s helpful for non-stammerers to maintain steady eye contact, and to send vibes that convey, “No hurry, we’ve got all the time in the world.” (While we’re on the subject, please don’t finish off our sentences: it makes us feel like doomed contenders in a hellish, eternal game of Countdown.)”

Don’t take it personally, but I finish off everyone’s sentences.

(2) The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt. Like Plato’s charioteer controlling two horses, Ovid wrote:

I am dragged along by a strange new force. Desire and reason are pulling in different directions. I see the right way and approve it, but follow the wrong.

That good old management hypocrisy. Lots more on hypocrisy and the real truth in ancient metaphorical adages.

(3) Finally , thanks to Clive on FB for this Grauniad quiz on Gaddafi vs Sheen. Magic.

The Romans and Greeks that is. The title of the 2011 Voltaire Lecture organized by the British Humanist Association 20th April, London.

Sadly as my diary stands, I can’t be there. Rats.

Philosophy is not new and yet it really should be part of an enlightened modern curriculum, and what better location than Red Lion Square ?! Come the revolution, …

Strange gig last night. Heavy looking line-up at Brisbane’s Globe Theatre, 4 or 5 (?) on the line-up, I saw three. Gold Coast’s F1Elevens’s I wanted to see, they are (were) local legends. The whole event was low key – none of the acts pre-set-up on stage, no roadies, just the one sound guy, really slow change overs. After Homeless Yellow (Dreadlocks, two acoustic guitars, OK), Sons of the Soil (single heavy guitar, also OK if brief set.), I’m glad I stayed to see the F1Elevens’s – but only about 15 people did, at least 10 of whom seemed to know the band personally. Most of the local bar bands attract more that that on a Saturday night. Spooky.

Still, double-stacked Marshall 4×12’s OTT in such a venue, lanky, hairy-arsed tattooed bass and rhythm guitars slung so low they could (and did) play between their legs, clean cut lead, seriously loud and heavy. Classic if stereotypical heavy rock, originals so far as I could tell, culminating in a cover of Motorhead’s Ace of Spades. It’s only rock and roll. Clearly this stuff does go in and out of fashion – but sad to see so much energy wasted on so few. I liked it.

Experienced the drive across Kansas, east to west, a few years ago on our way from Alabama to Bozeman, Montana. Another from Rivets. The Zen link ?

Collection of after and during the flood aerial photos of Brisbane. from ABC, via Rivets. CBD Riverside most interesting.