Free Will and Consciousness in the Multiverse

Free Will and Consciousness in the Multiverse PDF Author: Christian D. Schade
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3030035832
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 249

Get Book Here

Book Description
It is hard to interpret quantum mechanics. The most surprising, but also most parsimonious, interpretation is the many-worlds, or quantum-multiverse interpretation, implying a permanent coexistence of parallel realities. Could this perhaps be the appropriate interpretation of quantum mechanics? This book collects evidence for this interpretation, both from physics and from other fields, and proposes a subjectivist version of it, the clustered-minds multiverse. The author explores its implications through the lens of decision making and derives consequences for free will and consciousness. For example, free will can be implemented in the form of vectorial choices, as introduced in the book. He furthermore derives consequences for research in the social sciences, especially in psychology and economics.

Free Will and Consciousness in the Multiverse

Free Will and Consciousness in the Multiverse PDF Author: Christian D. Schade
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3030035832
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 249

Get Book Here

Book Description
It is hard to interpret quantum mechanics. The most surprising, but also most parsimonious, interpretation is the many-worlds, or quantum-multiverse interpretation, implying a permanent coexistence of parallel realities. Could this perhaps be the appropriate interpretation of quantum mechanics? This book collects evidence for this interpretation, both from physics and from other fields, and proposes a subjectivist version of it, the clustered-minds multiverse. The author explores its implications through the lens of decision making and derives consequences for free will and consciousness. For example, free will can be implemented in the form of vectorial choices, as introduced in the book. He furthermore derives consequences for research in the social sciences, especially in psychology and economics.

Just Deserts

Just Deserts PDF Author: Daniel C. Dennett
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1509545778
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 145

Get Book Here

Book Description
The concept of free will is profoundly important to our self-understanding, our interpersonal relationships, and our moral and legal practices. If it turns out that no one is ever free and morally responsible, what would that mean for society, morality, meaning, and the law? Just Deserts brings together two philosophers – Daniel C. Dennett and Gregg D. Caruso – to debate their respective views on free will, moral responsibility, and legal punishment. In three extended conversations, Dennett and Caruso present their arguments for and against the existence of free will and debate their implications. Dennett argues that the kind of free will required for moral responsibility is compatible with determinism – for him, self-control is key; we are not responsible for becoming responsible, but are responsible for staying responsible, for keeping would-be puppeteers at bay. Caruso takes the opposite view, arguing that who we are and what we do is ultimately the result of factors beyond our control, and because of this we are never morally responsible for our actions in the sense that would make us truly deserving of blame and praise, punishment and reward. Just Deserts introduces the concepts central to the debate about free will and moral responsibility by way of an entertaining, rigorous, and sometimes heated philosophical dialogue between two leading thinkers.

Evil and Many Worlds

Evil and Many Worlds PDF Author: William Hunt
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781793634290
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 228

Get Book Here

Book Description
Evil and Many Worlds is a free-will theodicy based upon Huw Everett III's 1957 many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. The theodicy argues for a balance of good and evil across an emergent multiverse where free will--a greater good valued by both persons and God-- flourishes.

Free Will

Free Will PDF Author: Meghan Griffith
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0415562198
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 162

Get Book Here

Book Description
The question of whether humans are free to make their own decisions has long been debated and it continues to be a controversial topic today. In Free Will: The Basics readers are provided with a clear and accessible introduction to this central but challenging philosophical problem. The questions which are discussed include: Does free will exist? Or is it illusory? Can we be free even if everything is determined by a chain of causes? If our actions are not determined, does this mean they are just random or a matter of luck? In order to have the kind of freedom required for moral responsibility, must we have alternatives? What can recent developments in science tell us about the existence of free will? Because these questions are discussed without prejudicing one view over others and all technical terminology is clearly explained, this book is an ideal introduction to free will for the uninitiated.

Until the End of Time

Until the End of Time PDF Author: Brian Greene
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 1524731684
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 448

Get Book Here

Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A captivating exploration of deep time and humanity's search for purpose, from the world-renowned physicist and best-selling author of The Elegant Universe. "Few humans share Greene’s mastery of both the latest cosmological science and English prose." —The New York Times Until the End of Time is Brian Greene's breathtaking new exploration of the cosmos and our quest to find meaning in the face of this vast expanse. Greene takes us on a journey from the big bang to the end of time, exploring how lasting structures formed, how life and mind emerged, and how we grapple with our existence through narrative, myth, religion, creative expression, science, the quest for truth, and a deep longing for the eternal. From particles to planets, consciousness to creativity, matter to meaning—Brian Greene allows us all to grasp and appreciate our fleeting but utterly exquisite moment in the cosmos.

Biocentrism

Biocentrism PDF Author: Robert Lanza
Publisher: ReadHowYouWant.com
ISBN: 1458795179
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 298

Get Book Here

Book Description
Robert Lanza is one of the most respected scientists in the world a US News and World Report cover story called him a genius and a renegade thinker, even likening him to Einstein. Lanza has teamed with Bob Berman, the most widely read astronomer in the world, to produce Biocentrism, a revolutionary new view of the universe. Every now and then a simple yet radical idea shakes the very foundations of knowledge. The startling discovery that the world was not flat challenged and ultimately changed the way people perceived themselves and their relationship with the world. For most humans of the 15th century, the notion of Earth as ball of rock was nonsense. The whole of Western, natural philosophy is undergoing a sea change again, increasingly being forced upon us by the experimental findings of quantum theory, and at the same time, toward doubt and uncertainty in the physical explanations of the universes genesis and structure. Biocentrism completes this shift in worldview, turning the planet upside down again with the revolutionary view that life creates the universe instead of the other way around. In this paradigm, life is not an accidental byproduct of the laws of physics. Biocentrism takes the reader on a seemingly improbable but ultimately inescapable journey through a foreign universe our own from the viewpoints of an acclaimed biologist and a leading astronomer. Switching perspective from physics to biology unlocks the cages in which Western science has unwittingly managed to confine itself. Biocentrism will shatter the readers ideas of life--time and space, and even death. At the same time it will release us from the dull worldview of life being merely the activity of an admixture of carbon and a few other elements; it suggests the exhilarating possibility that life is fundamentally immortal. The 21st century is predicted to be the Century of Biology, a shift from the previous century dominated by physics. It seems fitting, then, to begin the century by turning the universe outside-in and unifying the foundations of science with a simple idea discovered by one of the leading life-scientists of our age. Biocentrism awakens in readers a new sense of possibility, and is full of so many shocking new perspectives that the reader will never see reality the same way again.

The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind

The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind PDF Author: Julian Jaynes
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 0547527543
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 580

Get Book Here

Book Description
National Book Award Finalist: “This man’s ideas may be the most influential, not to say controversial, of the second half of the twentieth century.”—Columbus Dispatch At the heart of this classic, seminal book is Julian Jaynes's still-controversial thesis that human consciousness did not begin far back in animal evolution but instead is a learned process that came about only three thousand years ago and is still developing. The implications of this revolutionary scientific paradigm extend into virtually every aspect of our psychology, our history and culture, our religion—and indeed our future. “Don’t be put off by the academic title of Julian Jaynes’s The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. Its prose is always lucid and often lyrical…he unfolds his case with the utmost intellectual rigor.”—The New York Times “When Julian Jaynes . . . speculates that until late in the twentieth millennium BC men had no consciousness but were automatically obeying the voices of the gods, we are astounded but compelled to follow this remarkable thesis.”—John Updike, The New Yorker “He is as startling as Freud was in The Interpretation of Dreams, and Jaynes is equally as adept at forcing a new view of known human behavior.”—American Journal of Psychiatry

Multiverse Theories

Multiverse Theories PDF Author: Simon Friederich
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108487122
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 215

Get Book Here

Book Description
At the intersection of physics and philosophy of science, this book outlines the philosophical challenge to theoretical physics in a measured, well-grounded manner. Cosmologists, high energy physicists, and philosophers including graduate students and researchers will find a systematic exploration of such questions in this important book.

The Feeling of Life Itself

The Feeling of Life Itself PDF Author: Christof Koch
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262042819
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 277

Get Book Here

Book Description
A thought-provoking argument that consciousness—more widespread than previously assumed—is the feeling of being alive, not a type of computation or a clever hack In The Feeling of Life Itself, Christof Koch offers a straightforward definition of consciousness as any subjective experience, from the most mundane to the most exalted—the feeling of being alive. Psychologists study which cognitive operations underpin a given conscious perception. Neuroscientists track the neural correlates of consciousness in the brain, the organ of the mind. But why the brain and not, say, the liver? How can the brain—three pounds of highly excitable matter, a piece of furniture in the universe, subject to the same laws of physics as any other piece—give rise to subjective experience? Koch argues that what is needed to answer these questions is a quantitative theory that starts with experience and proceeds to the brain. In The Feeling of Life Itself, Koch outlines such a theory, based on integrated information. Koch describes how the theory explains many facts about the neurology of consciousness and how it has been used to build a clinically useful consciousness meter. The theory predicts that many, and perhaps all, animals experience the sights and sounds of life; consciousness is much more widespread than conventionally assumed. Contrary to received wisdom, however, Koch argues that programmable computers will not have consciousness. Even a perfect software model of the brain is not conscious. Its simulation is fake consciousness. Consciousness is not a special type of computation—it is not a clever hack. Consciousness is about being.

The Simulated Multiverse

The Simulated Multiverse PDF Author: Rizwan Virk
Publisher: Bayview Books, LLC
ISBN: 1954872011
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 484

Get Book Here

Book Description
Do multiple versions of ourselves exist in parallel universes living out their lives in different timelines? In this follow up to his bestseller, The Simulation Hypothesis, MIT Computer Scientist and Silicon Valley Game Pioneer Rizwan Virk explores these topics from a new lens: that of simulation theory. If we are living in a digital universe, then many of the complexities and baffling characteristics of our reality start to make more sense. Quantum computing lets us simulate complex phenomena in parallel, allowing the simulation to explore many realities at once to find the most "optimum" path forward. Could this explain not only the enigmatic Mandela Effect but provide us with a new understanding of time and space? Bringing his unique trademark style of combining video games, computer science, quantum physics and computing with lots of philosophy and science fiction, Virk gives us a new way to think about not just our universe, but all possible realities!