Can we work around physical determinism?

[mgb]

Extreme determinsts maintain that the physical universe is just an outworking of the laws of nature and everything is predetermined by these laws. It is even argued that our brains are determined by neurological processes etc that are physically deterministic.

There seems to be a way around this determinism. It involves making a list of possible actions and making a choice from that list in such a way that the choice is not determined by either neurological states or any physical state in the world.

Here is how it works. Make a list of ordinary events and label them 0 to 9.

0. Read a book
1. Go to the library
2. Play tennis
3. Drive your car
4. Go to the cinema
5. Go to the supermarket
6. Listen to the radio
7. ...
8. ...
9. ...

Next get the decimal expansion of an irrational number such as the square root of 23
or 1/23.

We can take the square root of 11 to get going.

The square root of 11 is 3.3166247903554

Now take the first digit in the decimal expansion, 3
and go to your list;

3 = Drive your car

the next is 1

1 = Go to the library

6 = Listen to the radio

etc.

Now our choice is not determined by any physical or neurological state. It is determined by purely non physical mathematical entities. So we seem to have broken with any previously determinism by letting digits make our choice for us. If we are in the library, for example, we are engaged with a series of physical acitivities that, as a set, cannot be traced back to any previous physical state because the digit intervened and determined what set of physical events we would enter into. Comments?

[mgb]

Right here, this is the part where you think you are adding randomness. But you are choosing to take the square root of 11, then you are choosing to take the first digit, and that digit will always be the same, it will always be a 3 if you select those parameters. If you select different parameters it will be a different number but you are making that choice.

Yes, much of the process is physically deterministic but only part of it needs to be non deterministic. My intention is not to add randomness, my intention is to replace physical determinism with mathematical determinism. Yes, I am making the choice of the initial number to start with (i am choosing it arbitrarily and taking the square root) BUT I make sure I don't know what digits will be in the decimal expansion. That won't be known until the digits arrive on the screen and the choice is made at that point by the digits themselves.

Again, I don't think the universe is deterministic, but your logic doesn't follow. You could replace that whole sequence with you picking the root of 11 and selecting the first digit with any formula that will yield the same result every time. You could say "and I'm going to pick 9, and the root of 9 is 3, so I'm going with option 3". Or you could say "I'm going to pick 2 and add 1 and that makes it 3". It's not random either way.

Yes, if I know what the digits will be it defeats the purpose but there are an infinity of digit sequences (in fact, all kinds of algorithms can be used to create the digits. Quadratic Residues, for example, so long as I don't know in advance what those digits will be; that eliminates foreknowledge which would constitute a brain or mind state)

Look at it this way. I'm in the supermarket. Did I make the choice 'I'll go to the supermarket'? No. Did the physical state of the world, prior to the digits arriving on screen, make the decision? No. The digit just appeared on screen and said 'go to the supermarket'. But where did the digit come from? It came from mathematical reality, which is outside the physical world; if God calculates the digits He will get the same answer. If the universe collapses and explodes again, and humanoid beings arrive and calculate it they will get the same digits. So the digits are independent of matter, space and time.