Naked Science Forum
Non Life Sciences => Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology => Topic started by: yamo on 20/09/2010 09:56:22
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Can physics explain, describe, predict free will, animal behavior? How or Why not?
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Yes it can at the most basic level because it describes how atoms interact but dealing with animal (and human) behaviour involves several layers of evolutionary organisation over the basic physical laws so it is usually essential to use collective models of solids liquids gases chemical and electrical interactions to describe and analyse things. Even this is rather basic because these are dominated by cellular structure and organisation. Finally of course with living creatures there are learned attributes and pre programmed instincts to take into account.
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No, not as I see it. Free will is a very mysterious thing, and chaos theory forbids you to backtrack permutations, as well as the uncertainty principle forbids you to know it all simultaneously. What we can see is 'patterns' though, that to their nature comes back on a greater plane, no matter what 'individual decisions' have been made. Look up Chaos theory for that. So in that motto maybe Soul Surfer and me would agree, but for me free will and 'consciousness' still is a mystery.
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You may have missed a trick the uncertainty principle may not be a barrier because if the brain uses quantum based computing processes at its root as some people suggest it may be possible to analyse many possibilities in parallel simultaneously. I am totally confident that physical laws are all that there is and there are no mysterious paranormal processes going on.
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Yep Soul Surfer, that is really a sweet approach to it :)
I wonder about that one too.
If that's the reason to why a deterministic universe won't exist we have lifted it up on a whole new plane. Entanglements I find to express that point of view beautifully. Not that they are uncertain, as soon as you evaluate them they will fall out, but before. Well, then they are in a superposition right :) So the universe seems to have an QM answer, both allowing a free will as well as creating a causality chain with a 'true history', indisputable.
I think you're perfectly correct, even though I still expect us to find unvarying patterns on that 'greater plane'. What I'm curious too is also how those 'patterns' would change if we changed some of the constants/parameters creating our universe. I assume here that they may change, but I may easily be wrong there. But if they do, will we then find other patterns describing those?
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I was discussing the process only here though.
When it comes to if the brain does it too :)
Well, if that's the way nature works?
Using entanglements?
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Can physics explain, describe, predict free will, animal behavior? How or Why not?
If it were that cut and dry, it would be easy to know what every woman is thinking of or devising. A single behavior, can have multiple meanings, concludes that there is nothing defined.
If you can dispute this, write a book, it would be the biggest best seller, sitting on the night stand with "Gideon".
I know every straight man, would by a case and hand them out to their friends like candy on Holloween
There is an old saying, "Woman, she can be so fickle."
I suspect that this is the mystery Yor_on, speaks of.
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:)
The older you get the more you want to start over, knowing what you learnt, huh :)
The girls would be all over me, maybe hitting me, screaming.
But still, all over me :)
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:)
The older you get the more you want to start over, knowing what you learnt, huh :)
The girls would be all over me, maybe hitting me, screaming.
But still, all over me :)
Beware of what one wishes for, take quality over quantity, being smothered can be a curse.
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i think its unpredictable !
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uncertainty at the atomic level + chaotic processes = non-deterministic macroscopic phenomena
but let us not confuse non-determinism with free will (it's just the "free" part--"will" is much more complicated, and as far as I know, not understood yet in a physical sense, nor is it likely to be understood in the near future...)
Physics can be used to explain much of the underlying processes of cognition, in that we understand much of the physics related to chemistry, which allows for biological functions. However, with each layer of complexity, the usefulness of a reductionistic approach diminishes.
Instead, we approach such high level phenomena using a phenomenological approach (yes, that sentence sounds funny...) Top down, vs bottom up. Perhaps it isn't as satisfying, but since we can't even model a helium atom perfectly yet, I would say the bottom up approach is going to be a tough road.
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Can physics explain, describe, predict free will, animal behavior?
In principle, yes. In practice, no.