The Problem of Free Will and Its Solution I have earlier discussed the differences between two distinct ideas of free will: Self-control vs. other control. The key point of that article was the conception of free will in which we are free to control others is false, but the conception […]
Computing / Mathematics / Overview / Philosophy / Physics
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Computers and the Mind – What’s the Difference?
Introduction and Overview This article discusses the widespread notion that the mind is some kind of computer; that the computer is able to represent knowledge, and this knowledge can be about the world. As we will see, this notion is silly, although people—who are either not physicists, mathematicians, or computer engineers, […]
Mathematics / Philosophy / Physics
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Information, Uncertainty and Choice
Introduction and Overview Modern science employs two contradictory ideas—possibility and choice—although in practice only one of them can be used, resulting in incompleteness. An example of that incompleteness is that quantum theory describes the world as a possibility that needs to be completed by a choice, although that choice cannot […]
Overview / Philosophy / Psychology
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The Mechanisms of Choice
Introduction and Overview When John von Neumann introduced the idea of the “conscious collapse” into quantum theory, he committed a heresy—or at least something that would have been considered a heresy up until that point—by introducing a causal agent called “consciousness” within science. Science until that point had worked explicitly […]
Overview / Philosophy
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There is Only Form
Introduction and Overview Since the time of Greek philosophers—Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates—it has been believed that the present universe is comprised of two things: form and substance. Forms are the ideas that exist even when substances don’t; the world of things combines form and substance, kind of like the form of […]