Sup guys...

The only thing stopping them from commenting on it is an in depth knowledge of it.

Does anyone know any philosphers who know what they're talking about when it comes to quantum mechanics?

I think you've confused a lot of different areas of philosophy and have formulated your questions vaguely, without clarifying the relationships between different concepts you imply are strongly connected. What does Epicurus have to do with quantum mechanics? Perhaps a lot, but the onus is on you to shine light on exactly where their formulations overlap and where they differ and what this means. Similarly, what does Einstein's fuzzy metaphors about a clock have to do with the beginning of time, let alone thence inverse as a whole? The universe has no minute or hour hands. It has no batteries. No gears. It wasn't designed by human hands. So you need to Situate your free form "deep" "trippy" philosophical musings in a rigorous context if you hope them to illicit rigorous discussion. I think this applies to all your questions. Your prof might humour you though if he's patient.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_will_theorem

I don't know of any philosophers who understand regular mechanics.

*contemporary

Heh, I was just about to get you. There must be some though.

The problem with modern philosophers is that they all get degrees in "philosophy" when they should be studying physics and math.

look in the philosophy departments of places like MIT, UPitt, CMU, Harvard, etc... random places too. There are a lot of philosophers who have their Phd in physics or undegrad in physics and phd in philosophy.

false, the most important philosophers around today have mostly math degrees I've noticed. You just don't know about them because their writings are too obscure and technical

>You just don't know about them because their writings are too obscure and technical
I would be genuinely interested if you would share some

I sometimes wonder how many physicists do.

Deep. Also you're an idiot. Why give opinions on something you know literally nothing about? Same question to you OP

On the contrary, they became even more intertwined to the point where it has become difficult to delineate a direct boundary between them

Contemporary philosophers of physics like David Albert, David Wallace, Tim Maudlin, Nancy Cartwright, James Ladyman and so on

Consciousness is not an illusion; it is reality. Don't constrict yourself to western materialistic thought, study eastern philosophy. In Vedic literature, karma, or simply the law of cause and effect, is acknowledged as a system of laws that govern the material world. The karma of one's past life determines how one's present life plays out. So in this life you are preparing for how your future life, if you take birth again, will be through exertion of your own free will. However, the material world is not all that there is and this system of karma can and should be transcended. This is called moksha, or liberated from all karma, material, and all sufferings.

quantum mechanics is not indeterministic

>mentions Michio Kaku
is this a shitpost or are you serious? if you go to your professor and have a serious discussion with him about the thoughts of Michio Kaku then he should be fired and you should probably just be decapitated

just go to SEP and search for whatever topic you want. For example check the bibliography for an article on the differences between JVN and Dirac on Quantum Theory
plato.stanford.edu/entries/qt-nvd/

Set Theory: Constructive and Intuitionistic ZF
plato.stanford.edu/entries/set-theory-constructive/

Being and Becoming in Modern Physics
plato.stanford.edu/entries/spacetime-bebecome/

These articles are the types of pseud shit that is infuriating to hear "philosophy" majors talk about so freely. However, the real discussions are in the bibliographies.

...

OP here. I find these comments about me being an idiot sort of ironic. Isn't that why I'm going to speak with my philosophy teacher about this, so I can clear up some of these issues, if there's really stuff here which is unclear to me? I mean, that's sort of the whole point of meeting with him, is that you can have incomplete perspectives on things, it wouldn't make much sense if I already had a complete understanding of physics and the ethical implications of free will now, wouldn't it. But these are some of the same people who bash gay and trans people and go spouting racist ideology, so I'm not surprised.

>this is the state of """"""""""philosophy""""""""""" in academia

That looks like a good summary of what philosophy undergrads discuss between themselves. Needless to mention, they are utter imbeciles because 99.9% of them cannot solve elementary school tasks from physics (the ones where you apply Newton's formulae) and they have the gut to "discuss" matters extremely difficult that take years and years of study. I am sorry that I have to shatter your illusions OP, but r/science, YouTube videos and other pop-science nonsense won't give you a strong foundation that is necessary in order to critically approach physics from a philosophical point of view. I sincerely hope that you will abandon the pop philosophy of science train as soon as possible, for your own good.

Please acknowledge that philosophy has its own legitimate field of study that does not demand you to interfere with topics too far from your reach (e.g. mathematics, physics, etc.). Aristotle, Plato, Aquinas, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz... such a wealth of thought. Why would you abandon it all? (The answer is because you are lazy, just like the vast majority of undergrads. It is easier to watch a YouTube video and keep spewing nonsense about determinism than devoting your time to studying Hegel for instance).

I'm amazed anyone here could take a single philosophy course in college without the professor blabbering on about the physics and maths departments, the shared interests and students. Or is this all Veeky Forums "self-taught" genius fuckery?

grand plan for the universe vs meaningless universe with no goal or destination

You don't understand what nihilism is. And desu, the fact that everything is predetermined doesn't mean there's a "plan" as such either since a plan implies intent, so you don't really understand determinism either

Read Popper's essay "Clouds and Clocks". A lot of people dislike Popper but that essay in particular is spot-on.

>the fact that everything is predetermined doesn't mean there's a "plan" as such either since a plan implies intent
I disagree

underrated

You're not meeting to 'discuss' with your Professor, you're meeting to be taught by him. 'Discuss' implies you are on equal footing, when, judging from your post, you are clearly not.

you write like a retard but like i am glad to wake up tomorrow knowing that somebody solved all these mind games for me

part of philosophy is the definition of words, if you're going to disagree with something as ostensibly correct as "the word 'plan' implies intent", you're going to have to back it up with more than your own dipshit opinion, dipshit.

"Intent" is a meaningless concept, especially when dealing with non-human intelligences

grad student here OP. I'm studying math but let me give you some general advice. Given my heavy involvement in academia in general.

Lit should be used sort of like a second rate alternative to a second opinion for people who aren't in college and don't have formally trained friends.

Just to shed some light on why so many people are giving you shit. Most people here are self taught and highly insecure. You're in a great position to have a professor to discuss things with. It's his JOB to take up your questions and address them. Most Phil profs and grad students I know see more things to appreciate (in a humorous, "oh so cute" manner, not a respecting manner) in freshman forming their first opinions about the world, than things to cringe at.
Theyd only ever be annoyed if you had that mix of arrogance and incompetence at the bottom end of the dunning kruger spectrum.

Everyone started somewhere and chances are, if you're not at an elite department, your profs might not have been geniuses themselves at your age either so to some extent they'd definitely relate to your baby's first philosophy questions.

Never use lit as a learning platform unless it's about something very specific. If it's something specific you're going to automatically filter out all the unthoughtful blobs that only pop their head out to hurl insults and stroke their ego. Make it specific enough that anything not a formal argument is wildly off topic, do so and you'll know the number of people here that are clueless thoughtless auto dictates that read but don't internalise philosophy . Lit is useless for anything else, especially if you're a Phil student at univ.

>Never use lit as a learning platform unless it's about something very specific. If it's something specific you're going to automatically filter out all the unthoughtful blobs that only pop their head out to hurl insults and stroke their ego. Make it specific enough that anything not a formal argument is wildly off topic, do so and you'll know the number of people here that are clueless thoughtless auto dictates that read but don't internalise philosophy .

Agreed, in fact if you want any topic you start to feature something other than memes, humor and bait, you have to use terms and present things in such a manner as to intimidate the average Veeky Forums-ard, so that they don't respond from the fear of shaming themselves, that they simply feel too dumb to respond.

>I am the educated patrician standing as on high above the waste of 'auto dictate' plebeians

Stop LARPing, you're not fooling anybody

looks like he struck a nerve, autodidact scum

>autodidact scum

sorry, not everybody is a poor failure like you, too dumb to even use Veeky Forums properly

>too dumb to even use Veeky Forums properly
idiot

>We do not orchestrate what is going on inside our heads, our brains are doing all the work, and we just happen to notice the outcome; the brain absorbs the information around us and does the processing, we just notice our thoughts which gives us the illusion of consciousness
>which gives us the illusion of consciousness
Which gives what the illusion of consciousness?
Seriously though, I am not denying determinism but that is not a good point at all, firstly because it is speculation that can be proven neither empirically nor deductively and secondly because it is entirely irrelevant to the topic of determinism and free will.
>people will always be judged for their actions, because they do not understand how the brain works; no one does.
Replace 'brain' with mind and you have a perfectly agreeable statement, as is you lose yourself in pointless materialism. On the other hand, why am I even bothered by that, since you were determined in writing these points? Oh yeah, because I am determined to be bothered by them.

Jesus fuck. I'm picturing some bearded philosophy Phd taking time off from his pizza delivery job to come in and speak to sunken chested 25 year old with braces who wants to talk about his guiding philosophies in life, seriously thinking this is one of the defining moments in his life.

Yeah. I just got back from the meeting with my professor. I would definitely say that it was bewildering, and a lot of times I was struggling just to try to understand some of the points that he was making. The dunning krugger effect is something that I notice more and more I discuss these issues.

I basically asked him to try to argue for a world where there isn't determinism, and for free will. Conveniently, he himself doesn't believe in strict "libertarian free will", but that we're free in some regards and not in others. Where it got difficult was his explanations of why we're free in some regards. I found myself constantly referring back to my own argument, which states that it seems like we're not in control of our minds, we just notice what our brains process which gives us the illusion of consciousness.

So overall, I'd say it was confusing to an epic proportion, and I sort of wish that there was something I could have done to prepare better. Except perhaps I'm just not equipped for trying to listen to someone's points and then understand all the information they're throwing at me all at once. Usually it takes me a while to read and digest things, I don't just understand something the first time I hear a concept.

So yeah, all in all, I wouldn't say the meeting was a total failure, because it did give me a chance to discuss these things with my professor and perhaps show me how difficult some of the subjects surrounding this matter really are. But I will say that it could have gone better, in that I think that I wasn't so much unswayed, as I was just inert. In that I couldn't really bring myself to move from my stance if I tried, solely for not really understanding a lot of the points that my professor was trying to bring up.

>Conveniently, he himself doesn't believe in strict "libertarian free will", but that we're free in some regards and not in others.
holey moley

>I sort of wish that there was something I could have done to prepare better
Instead of a world where there isn't determinism, and only free will, you could have tried to imagine one with books.

>I found myself constantly referring back to my own argument, which states that it seems like we're not in control of our minds, we just notice what our brains process which gives us the illusion of consciousness.
Can you explain this argument a bit more in-depth? Because it is not an argument, it's just a statement.And even if you had some proof (which is impossible) all you would say is that brain is synonymous with mind, making the distinction entirely pointless.

>And even if you had some proof (which is impossible)
Not him, but why would it be impossible?

you can't prove anything, philosophy 101

Because you can not empirically (nor deductively) overcome the mind/body problem. It is not solvable.

>Conveniently, he himself doesn't believe in strict "libertarian free will", but that we're free in some regards and not in others. Where it got difficult was his explanations of why we're free in some regards. I found myself constantly referring back to my own argument, which states that it seems like we're not in control of our minds, we just notice what our brains process which gives us the illusion of consciousness.
Congrats, you already posses a philosophy more grounded in reality than your professor.

Well, everything that happens is causal. To say something happened because of nonsense is a contradiction. So my argument would be that things can't just not be causal, and if everything is causal, then there can't be room for free action, because there would have needed to be something that caused that free action.

all philosophers need to be shot

but that's literally an unsound meme evasion that gets constantly posted on Veeky Forums as bait

No shit, user. That's determinism. Our mental processes being determined doesn't prove causation on the part of the brain.

There can't be no cause for something. What you're saying amounts to saying, thoughts just happen. No explanation, they just happen.

If you're adhering to a Cartesian problematic it's already too late

I pointed out to you that our thoughts being determined does not imply causation on part of the brain. You have not said anything to defend your statement.

just because you don't like it doesn't mean that it is false

>Our mental processes being determined doesn't prove causation on the part of the brain.
wat

The mind-body problem doesn't exist.

Excellent. How was it solved?

ignoring it completely won't make it go away either

There was nothing to solve in the first place

Physical reality, the realm of objects and actions we share with other humans and are all able to perceive and come to an agreement on how it is composed about (if we speak the same language, however utopian that scenarion may be) is distinct from the indivual mental process. This can very easily be proven by the fact that other people do not perceive our thoughts and feelings and even if we tell them, we have no way of directly assessing if our words conjure up the same thoughts and feelings in them.

>is distinct from the indivual mental process.
Yeah, it's almost like you have a skull separating your brain from other people.

That's funny but stupid.

What's stupid is the way you invent ghosts to fight against when there's nothing to impede you.

Even if you disregard the mind-body problem, there is another problem your puny brain will be unable to solve.
You make a statement, and lets say that statement seems true in 100 experiments you conducted all over the globe. Now prove to me that it will also be true in another galaxy, or a hundred years from now. You can't. You can't even say that you know for 100% it will be true in the next minute. "proof" is really just an empty word

Huh, You're right. Guess I'll leave Veeky Forums for today and meet some real people.

You've shown why empirical evidence is not the same as proof.

what is the problem?

You're welcome.

Any "logical evidence" suffers from the same problem, you only have the empirical evidence from your brain that it seems correct. Also, your brain is a part of the thing you are trying to make a statement about. The distinction you are trying to make doesn't exist, especially if you reject the mind-body problem.

Within the logical system your brain is working in you can still say whether or not something is a priori true.

>you only have the empirical evidence from your brain
this statement is incredibly flawed

The logical system that is working in your brain is not a flawless machine, so you only have the assurance that something is correct insofar as your brain can tell it's correct. You've rejected the mind-body problem, so the only thing you can rely on is empirical evidence. Your brain functions according to the rules of the universe, which you are unable to empirically say that are forever unchanging or even completely logical.

If empirical evidence can't provide proof, relying on your brain in declaring proof is idiotic. Especially when you can't discern truth from the statement that you quoted, it was abbreviated if you still fail to understand.

>a flawless machine
What the fuck is a flawless machine

>Your brain functions according to the rules of the universe
Yes and thus logical deductions made by the brain are subsumed by the logical structure of the universe.

A machine that isn't flawed, pretty self explanatory. You don't know if the universe has a logical structure, you only have the empirical proof of that, and you only have the empirical proof of your brain being capable of logical deductions.

What is a flaw?

How can something beholden to the laws of the universe perform calculations not in accordance with those laws.

have you ever been near an actual college?

Ever heard of a computer? Ever had a faulty calculator, ever had a program have a bug? Why would you say your brain was somehow exempt from all flaws?

You don't need to break the laws od the universe to get a wrong answer. All you need is a bad algorithm, and what proof do you have of your brain being somehow a perfect machine capable of 100% accurate logical processes (as in processes which give a right answer)?

This is the best post in this thread OP. You can't give opinions and forumlate new theories on topics you're barely aware of. Read 100 books about this stuff and LEARN before you start 'pondering'.

>Ever heard of a computer? Ever had a faulty calculator, ever had a program have a bug?
I've never had a program break the laws of the universe. At least to my knowledge.

>You don't need to break the laws od the universe to get a wrong answer.
In this context there is no wrong answer. There's only abiding by the logical system of the universe or not.

There are no wrong computations.

>muh reductionism to the extent that I'll ignore consciousness and the awareness of causality conscious beings have

consciousness is a meme

Memes are the absence of consciousness

So you say that the brain is capable of conducting some sort of processes, which lead to some sort of answers, we only don't have any idea what is the question the answer to we are getting. We can prove... something. We just don't know what is that we proved by our logical process. I'm sure that's very helpful.

And still this assurance that the universe has a logical system, despite no proof. Alright.

I sent this message to my professor.

>Thank you for the get together today to discuss alternative views to determinism. Some reflections that I have about our meeting: I noticed that a lot of time I felt rather perplexed at some of the things you were trying to teach me, about alternative views and "non libertarian free will". Perhaps the pace was a bit to fast for me. I notice in myself ever more, the Dunning Krugger effect, of thinking I had some perception of these concepts, but realizing that it's a bit over my head when faced with alternative perspectives. I was perhaps hoping to be swayed, but instead I was inert, unable to be moved because the subject matter was difficult to grasp. That said, I will be thinking about the 3 Aristotle quotes which you gave me. Thank you.

>Perhaps the pace was a bit to fast for me
Noooooo, now he'll hate you!

What do you mean he'll hate me? It makes perfect sense. We went over these concepts without taking time to fully discuss each one. They seemed to go over my head a bit. Why would he hate me for this?

Are you just trying ironically to be that nagging voice inside my head that tells me self loathing thoughts?

whatever this Prof is being paid, it isn't enough.

;-;

I mean because you failed to solve the to/too dichotomy. Do you even know how to fast?

>I'm literally a brainlet so it was a complete waste of time but thanks for the Aristotle quotes