Free will-y.

This does not refer to the titular whale in that crappy kid’s movie. And it doesn’t refer to that either. Get your mind out of the gutter.

Nope, it refers to this article.

There are several problems with the premise. But all I will say is this (if the following is incoherent, blame infinity):

Reading between the lines in this case as in many others, the way authors of such articles seem to conceptualize the cause-and-effect aspect of determinism is rather provincial. They - and many commenters - seem to be under the impression that we could in some way come close to understanding enough of the causes of a given effect (or in the context of this article, choice) to understand the extent to which we truly have a non-contingent choice about what to do next. This is ridiculous. It’s not that simple. There is not a single cause for a given effect. There are not hundreds of causes for every given effect. There are not thousands or millions... there are, logically speaking, an infinite number of causes for every effect. An infinite number of reasons to be faced with and then make a given choice. Free will - like self - is process, not event. In other words, free will is not the crux of the matter. In the infinitely complex soup that is cause and effect we have what amounts to free will. So... if we can never hope to quantify what is controlling our processes, how can anyone credibly say that we functionally lack free will? You can’t because of the infinite regress. Technically we do not have free will, but we have de facto free will because of that infinite dance that is cause and effect.

Appendix 1 - Think about what goes into a single decision. I have a choice between two different pints of draught beer that someone has thoughtfully placed in front of me in order that I decide which one I like better. Just to decide which one to smell first, there are an infinite number of causes that govern the process, but we’re not interested in that particular patch of infinity. But once the beer is flowing over my tongue, the decision about whether or not I like it begins. Because of set neural pathways that are activated by the receptors in my tongue and olfactory nerves, I get instant feedback, as the brain, programmed by the effects of previous causes to be predisposed to like red beer (with the exception of Killian’s, which is crap) I decide I like that one. Think of all the effects - every neuron, every neuronal pathway... each tiny step in the process subject to the same infinite soup of cause-and-effect as every other. And then there’s the outside effects. Peer pressure, sounds, other smells, memories, and moifnt df sfglnsl...

Oops. Infinity broke my brain.

So. Free will: technically hogwash. Functionally, I choose to go to bed without watching the Olympics.

I, crackpot? Not compared to this.

I'm sure all three of my readers are terribly bored by my political rantings of late, so I'm going try ranting in a different direction here. And I mean ranting.

It's due to this mind-blowing article in the New York Times. (I was tipped by this clear-thinking blog. Seconded by a sensible neuro-scientist.) I'll wait while you read it. Try not to let incredulity overwhelm you. And don't let your eyes glaze over. That will only cheat you out of the full wonky experience.

Okay. How was it for you? Did you follow it? Understand it? Believe it? Probably not and good for you.

Unfortunately, this is a fine example of the state of theoretical physics. (If I didn't know that they were dead serious, I'd cry “Sokal hoax!”) And people call me a crackpot for thinking that this and this are better answers. Really, based on that article, I think that the gatekeepers of high-level physics are now fully prepared to don their Voodoo headdresses and drop a LSD tab for old-time sake. I say that merely to be funny. I have nothing against these folks personally. I'm sure they are accomplished thinkers and are merely attempting to build 11-dimensional houses of cards on top of the worst possible logical and epistemological foundations. This stuff is ridiculous. Needless indeterminism abounds. When is enough enough for these people? When are they going stop and say, “Hmm... that's a bit far-fetched - maybe we should rethink this”? After reading about possibly being a random protuberance and/or a disembodied brain, I'm thinking it's past time for re-examination of cosmology in its current cosmogonic guise.

Not only do we all need to yell 'shenanigans' on this, we need to get them to follow the trail back through string theory, 11 dimensions, spacetime foam, all the way to Einstein's Special (more than one three-dimensional space? No!) and General (space bends? Not!) Relativity. That's where this whole thing got off got off on the wrong foot. That's when theoretical physics became the piquant wackadoo nutjobbery that we all get to enjoy today.

More on this later. I'll let you all recover first.