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Re:Subatomic particle seen changing to antiparticle and back... by noizejoy on Saturday June 12, 2021 @04:47PM (#27487323)
The big programmer in the sky, responsible for the entire simulation is having fun introducing new variables, whenever our science gets close to the edge of having figured out all of the existing variables.

It’s like moving the cheese :-)

Re:Subatomic particle seen changing to antiparticle and back... by codeulike on Saturday June 12, 2021 @04:54PM (#27487366)
"There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.

There is another theory which states that this has already happened."

― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

Re:Subatomic particle seen changing to antiparticle and back... by interfixus on Saturday June 12, 2021 @11:39PM (#27489548)
"Overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out".
Re:Subatomic particle seen changing to antiparticle and back... by some_furry on Saturday June 12, 2021 @09:11PM (#27488914)
It has also happened 42 times already.
Re:Subatomic particle seen changing to antiparticle and back... by drak0n1c on Saturday June 12, 2021 @11:51PM (#27489601)
Perhaps probabilistic quantum effects offer a way to disguise deliberate runtime manipulations from internal observers.
Re:Subatomic particle seen changing to antiparticle and back... by emerged on Sunday June 13, 2021 @06:25AM (#27491373)
You can also sneak in free will via those effects. The narrative of a purely mechanical deterministic world has fallen apart probably more than is recognized.
Re:Subatomic particle seen changing to antiparticle and back... by wizzwizz4 on Sunday June 13, 2021 @06:32AM (#27491413)
Free will does not imply, nor require, determinism. Non-determinism (randomness) does not imply free will. The concepts are orthogonal.
Re:Subatomic particle seen changing to antiparticle and back... by zeven7 on Sunday June 13, 2021 @07:05PM (#27497446)
Parent said you could sneak in free will. I don't know that you can really combine determinism and free (autonomous) will.
Re:Subatomic particle seen changing to antiparticle and back... by wizzwizz4 on Monday June 14, 2021 @12:04PM (#27504277)
It's easy: you are the process making your decisions. All determinism means is that your existence was predetermined (i.e. computable in advance, if you had the true omniscience and nigh-omnipotence-levels of compute power to do so); “your actions are predetermined” from there just means that your actions are a result of you, rather than randomness.

If you are within the universe, then determinism doesn't prevent free will in the slightest. It only screens off free will if you believe that free will can only come from an external-to-the-universe supernatural spirit (and ignore that you haven't explained how that has free will).

Non-determinism only gives you free will if you further believe that that random noise somehow gives rise to this supernatural spirit, or allows it to affect the world. For a physicalist, non-determinism actually weakens free will (though not by much).

Remember: all non-determinism can be modelled as determinism plus random input. You can factor out all non-deterministic effects as an extra input bitstream (or… probably real-stream if the universe is continuous) fed into a deterministic process.

From that point of view, non-determinism doesn't really harm free will all that much. All it means is that you're affected by another thing you don't know about, but that's already the case in every conversation you have with another human, deterministic or no.

Re:Subatomic particle seen changing to antiparticle and back... by zeven7 on Wednesday June 23, 2021 @01:51AM (#27601188)
Under determinism you don't have autonomous free will, and nothing you wrote in those 5 paragraphs actually explained otherwise.

PS I neither believe in free will nor determinism.