posted December 08, 1999 05:34 PM            

Naraoia, I think, said: >It's my theory that time travel wrecks free will. If you know exactly what's going to happen to you for the rest of your life you can't do a damn thing about it. Anyone have any thoughts on this? I'm still writing the book.<

posted December 08, 1999 07:48 PM            

The idea of splitting off the universe is good, solid quantum physics, a la Everett's "Many Worlds" hypothesis, but I've long been a subscriber instead to Grady's fractal crystal idea (as described in #6 and #5, I believe--thanks to GM for cluing me in that there was a mathematical basis for that one!).

If anyone cares to read it, here's my cosmology: The universe is a solid object in eleven or twenty-six dimensions (either one allows superstrings, but they're the only options) and some of those dimensions are what we call time. It grows like a fractal (remember the clouds from Black Science I?) and becomes more complex as it goes along. Right now it's complex enough to allow the illusion of free will, but it's still just that--an illusion.

Which is a whole can of worms to open up here, but I will at least say in my defense that there's a difference between free will and freedom as per the Invisibles...

Also, "grows" suggests some kind of progress, evolution, or other time-bound phenomenon, which is not correct. Hmm. Can't think of a better word, though. More like our perception of it grows, when the whole thing is already there.

I got all this after thinking about the cosmology put forth in "Big Numbers" (now there's a weird reference):

Kid: They say life is a fractal in hilbert space.

Dad: Well, I suppose that bit about it being a bowl of cherries is right out, then?

posted December 10, 1999 04:40 AM            

Naraoia: If you do not have free will then everything you do is planned and inevitable(sp?). If something is inevitable then it cannot be changed therefore destroying that fractal dimension theory. But ofcourse, as I believe, we do have free will, hence, the universe is created so it can be altered if we wanted to alter it.

posted December 10, 1999 04:41 PM            

I'm not seeing free will as an individual determining hir own future, more as the fuel for destiny.

If we're moving through an information structure universe, will/choice is that which either moves your awareness through the fullness of the path, or it doesn't.

posted December 11, 1999 07:02 AM            

What I'm confused about, is that since we don't know what's going to happen next, only that something is, well, can't we still enjoy the ride? I mean, free will, shmree will. The true end of philosophy is the end of philosophy. Personally, I tend to subscribe to the we are all god, we are all love idea, but only because it's true. It's like what boy was trying to say after her somatic/neural interface, you sound like you're on drugs, which I may be, but that's not the point.

posted December 11, 1999 08:51 AM            

Our consciousness is a limiting access portal that comes with a free set of paradigms that structure the percept model of reality. Directional time is one of those paradigms, and cause and effect is another. (Identity may be a third)

By damaging our consciousness we may change the shape of the doorway, dreams are frequently about things that haven't happened yet or places other people have seen and we haven't.

But we are precisely the same size as the universe (which includes time) so we can't travel in time, although our conscousness should be capable of derestriction.

Of course free will exist, without free will there couldn't be perversity, and we've all experienced that. However Jelly's wobble but they don't walk away. (Is that too abstruse a metaphor?)

posted December 11, 1999 05:03 PM            

I think what ianjones said is kind of what I was trying to say. Although the jelly thing lost me. (language note: in America, jelly is something you spread on toast. Jello or gelatin is the wobbly dessert.)

Universe is a sponge, awareness of present-self is a point moving through the pores of the sponge. True self is all the spaces in the sponge all at once.

That's what I believe, more or less.

posted December 11, 1999 07:12 PM            

The idea behind Hilbert Space (infinite dimensions) is that you can always get outside of any given box and look at the whole thing from a new perspective. This suggests that it is possible (if not probable) to get outside of time and look at the whole thing at once. Slaughterhouse Five, right?

posted December 11, 1999 10:00 PM            

I'm into patterns of energy and observation interacting in chaotic ways (that sounds really naff, but it's pretty much what I think) with our perceived consciousness being a tiny aspect of the whole - like a surfer on the sea.

posted December 12, 1999 12:23 AM            

I also have a hunch that the problem with Plato Tom brings up hinges on the "good" part of the argument.
What about left fork, right fork situations? What if you have to decide which version of good to adhere to? The James Dean/Jack Kerouac breakin' the law good or the Jack Webb/Robert Frost play by the rules good?

Who pulls the strings one way or another? The universe (outside) or the self (inside)?

posted December 12, 1999 03:22 AM            

To time travel, here's a good one:

There was a young lady named Bright
Who could travel much faster than light
She started one day
In the relative way
And came back the previous night

posted December 12, 1999 06:27 AM            

I agree with Jackie. Free will is just an idea. Does it exist or not? Does anything? Sheesh. Ice cream or purple? What's really going on here, anyway?

I was looking at this video that showed up-close images of the brain's electrical activity, and in the end, all it was was little flashing lights, telling other little lights to flash, and messages cascading out, like ripples in a pond... of light. Like telepathy circles in old comics, bomb blast patterns; Barbelith, just a torch on the higway down the coast a little, a secret friend to save the universe with, that's all it is, just comminication, offs and ons, binary information, numbers, digits, digital codes on and off. I mean, that's why Grant said he started the whole thing, to start a global network of people who wouldn't normally participate in global networks, shinning our little lights at each other in the noise, trying to reaffirm each other's ideas about what the hell is going on... right?

I think the time travel we need to worry about, is the time we're travelling through right now, and how we use it, and how we kill it, and well.

posted December 12, 1999 08:44 PM            

Free will as an illusion is a very good one. So good you could go through your whole life and never see the cracks. Why? Because the predestination is taking place in dimensions so far removed from our experience that we never see them. So, yes, I agree with Jackie Susann--it doesn't really matter.

As for Minsky's Storyteller--my understanding is that it doesn't make any decisions at all. It's purely reactive, a little paranoid quirt that makes up stories to try to explain its universe because it doesn't understand what's really going on--all the flashing lights/neurons. The decisions are made before you're born, basically a lab experiment where your factory (genetic) presets get matched up against everybody else's factory presets and the resulting hodge-podge is forced to conform to the environment (so nature and nurture).

Individuality is an illusion, too, another good one (and one I cling to myself, far too often). Anybody with any kind of insight, scientific, religious, metaphysical, intertextual etc. knows we're all interconnected, right? So how can we be individuals? The idea of a man, alone is outdated, I'm afraid.

As for chaos: I think it's a subset of order. Which is a subset of a larger chaos. Which is a subset of a larger order, which is... The Big Crystal may look like perfect order but it's really just overgrown chaos--like a haircut, if you'll pardon an extremely bizarre metaphor. Each hair grows its own way, its ends split, it falls out etc. Taken as a whole, though, they look like one entity. Which is correct? Both.

As for time travelers not showing up yet: well, there are a million answers to that one. Here's the total cop out I chose for my book: the time travelers have colonized all of earth history from the Cambrian Period (600 million years ago, when oxygen suddenly became a big part of the atmosphere) to what we call the Omegacene, the last epoch before the sun explodes. The only part of time they haven't exploited is a ten thousand year gap from the last ice age to the "invention" of the time machine which they call the Quiet Zone. Why don't they go there? Because this culture, which has no innocence of its own, reveres the pure unspoiled simplicity of our society. They think time traveling in front of us would be like handing out porno at a grade school. Of course, some of them do it anyway, but they tend to be so ashamed that they just try to fit in and not make a fuss.

Okay, this post is already much too long and I don't want to monopolize this thread with my humble opinions.

posted December 15, 1999 07:58 PM            

I just KNOW I'm not going to be able to explain myself properly but here goes nothing...

posted December 15, 1999 09:23 PM            

And free will is demonstrated by human perversity, especially in the bizarre cases of people who act against self interest for the good of others, or those who damage themselves for entertainment.

And I know free will can't beat gravity, but it can beat someone elses free will.

We are not automata, and feeling like one is a form of oppression.

posted December 16, 1999 12:45 PM            

What if someone came up and told you there was no free will? Ala MATRIX? What would you do? Would you rather have the ignorance, or take the hard option?

posted December 16, 1999 07:31 PM            

Look, sorry, I love you all, but the arguments for free will I've been hearing kind of break down into two kinds:

1) the "Fuck You" argument, where someone seems to be saying that their individuality is threatened by my theory. My only response to this is huh? If you disagree with my theory, well, groovy, man, come up with your own. That's why it's called a theory.

2) the "No I'm not!" argument, which suggests that I'm wrong because someone feels like they have free will. My constant reference to the power of that illusion seem to fall on deaf ears.

posted December 16, 1999 09:35 PM            

What happened between the two posts? What did you feel happen? I guess it felt like 'you' changed 'your' mind.

But it might have been the universe moving thru you. And that it suddenly occurs to me is what you mean. We feel like we are in control but we're not really.

I agree with lots of this, I think our sense of self is often utterly bogus, and that our other conscious mind (the one we have when asleep) may be just as valid as the one that gets to play with motor functions of our body, but I can't belief that I just belief that I can make choices.

but thats what you said.

Perhaps its because its when we make bad or hard choices the hurt we feel at the time makes us feel more real. thats a bit like what I mean by perversity.

Maybe the universe is random, and our consciousness is busy narrating connections to make it seem real. Thats why all accounts of the same event come out different.

But why do I like lying and deceiving? I think its because its me playing with other peoples reality. Maybe I'm just the instrument the universe uses to fuck people up?
( perversity)

In the end I think we are all healthier when we believe we are in control. So Free will is a sort of belief system with built in rewards.

Naraoia, I'v really rambled. I think you might be right but I refuse to believe you. And thats perversity.

CONTINUATION 1 DAY LATER

My old philosophy tutor (BASSSSSTARD) used to ask 'What do you mean and how do you know?'. Karl Popper would ask us if it was possible to disprove the proposition there is no such thing as free will.

I think we must agree that this question falls into the category of things we can neither prove or disprove. We are discussing how we experience things, not how things are.

Time travel on the other hand may not fall into that category.

I was watching loads of people wandering through the streets, looking agitated and muttering to themselves.

Were they mad?

No they had mobile phones. Very small ones. If they went twenty years in the past (even) how disturbed they would look. How would we recognize time travels if their existence changed our universe retroactively, which is very congruent with some schools of quantum mechanics.

Personally I believe time travel must be possible, but the human sensorium cannot deal with it.

posted December 17, 1999 08:41 AM            

To say weather or not free will exists is silly. Is it an illusion that a light goes on when you flick a switch? Are our brains little more than complicated Turing machines, little yesnoyesnoyesno onoffonoffonoff switches in our heads, flicking lights back and forth, are we not men? We are Devo, okay?