Apparently this miserable fellow really will die. May his memory be blessed.

If one is going to die, then only on the altar of rationality.

Said the one who sacrifices many people on the altar of odd principles such as not throwing that guy off the bridge and letting five be sacrificed on their own. “O altar, altar, thus says the Lord,” etc., “and upon you the priests of the high places shall be slaughtered.” I sacrifice far fewer victims.
Even if we do need to assume free choice, I don’t see how one can choose between two things that are completely equal. You can choose between two different things and decide which one you want, but when they are equal in every respect it doesn’t sound plausible to me that a person could choose. Just as a person can’t climb out of a deep pit even if he denies all altars together.

He’ll choose to flip a coin that will tell him which table to go to. Or he’ll just decide arbitrarily.

How will he decide what each side of the coin means
and why wouldn’t a coin help a deterministic machine

He’ll decide arbitrarily, which is why I said he could also arbitrarily decide to go to some side even without a coin. Do you really think that if you were completely symmetrical in such a situation you would die of hunger? Hard to believe!
But regarding a deterministic machine, I already explained that a coin won’t help, because the coin toss would cause the machine to go to one side when its state and surroundings are symmetrical. The laws of nature do not allow that.

I really do think that would have been where I was buried (even if I assumed free choice).
If the machine knows the result of the coin toss, why doesn’t that break the symmetry?

If I’ve understood you correctly, then someone who claims that a person is not necessarily a symmetrical creature (like the computer I gave) can indeed claim that a person is a deterministic creature and can still go to one of the sides rather than starve to death. Am I right?

Buridan’s donkey dilemma exists only among the donkeys of the nations, who “do not know their right from their left.” But the donkeys of Israel (and even the donkeys of those nations bounded by religion and civilized norms) know that “whenever you turn, let it only be to the right,” and they fulfill upon themselves: “A wise man’s heart inclines to his right” 🙂

With the blessing of “wine and life,” signed, Eizel Buridansky,
lying between the saddlebags, in equally divided Kiryataim, here in the holy community of Parish, may it be established and thrive

Tirgitz, I don’t understand your question. Just do me a favor and be careful not to end up in a symmetrical region. Sometimes I feel I’m talking here only with you, and it would be a shame to lose you that way.

Moshe, indeed. The experiment I described is a hypothetical thought experiment, and it deals with a symmetrical creature. The question is whether a symmetrical creature would die or not. A non-symmetrical creature will go to one of the sides dictated by its asymmetry (and not “choose” one of the sides, as you wrote in a turn of phrase).

According to what you’re saying, flipping a coin won’t help the machine because all the laws of nature around it are still symmetrical. But obviously a person has consciousness, and even as a deterministic machine he registers that information. Then he decides what to do.
After all, it’s obvious that if all the packages are identical etc., but it is known that whoever touches the right-hand one will die on the spot, then even a deterministic person will go to the left one. No? The very knowledge itself is a symmetry-breaker.
So I don’t understand why flipping a coin wouldn’t help a deterministic human-machine.

Forget the details and look at the whole picture. The assumption is that a person is nothing but a collection of atoms and nothing more. Take out consciousness and understanding and so on. All of these are epiphenomena (phenomena that merely accompany the physics), but what drives everything in terms of cause and effect is the physics. Now explain to me how, in a symmetrical situation, the body moves to one side. How is that mathematically possible if what governs its motion are the equations of motion of mechanics and dynamics? If the coin toss affects the person differently, then there is already some built-in asymmetry in him. There is no escaping that within the deterministic-materialist picture.
Think about the motion of the person himself. There are atoms here moving, and there has to be a force acting on them in that direction. What created it? How does that fit with the symmetry of the problem? There is no such possibility.

Materialism is an additional layer in the discussion. But even with materialism, seeing the face of the coin would trigger a chain reaction that leads to one of the sides. Everyone understands that seeing a roadblock in the road causes a person to stop the car. In your view, would a deterministic person die even if he knows one of the packages is poisoned?

[In addition, I don’t understand how with free choice one can choose between two things that are completely equal and symmetrical to the fullest extent of symmetry and comparison. The mind has nothing to latch onto in order to choose it. One can choose between donating to this person or that person because the objects are different, and somehow he decides on one of them—that is, he prefers A over B. But when they are identical, how can one decide? It doesn’t sound plausible to me.]

If one of the packages is poisoned, then there is no symmetry here.
I don’t understand what you don’t understand. A person in such a situation will decide to make a lottery in order to survive. That’s all. The result of the lottery will dictate where he goes. Very simple.

I’m a slow learner.
A person in a deterministic materialist world is driving a car and suddenly sees a barrier in front of him. Will he stop? What force of nature acted here?

If there is an option of making a lottery, then the dilemma of the donkey/man is not between the two tables but between three options: the right table, the left table, and the lottery. The lottery is the most tempting option, so he chooses it. If so, then from the outset *there is no symmetry here*, and this parable is not relevant to the question of free choice.

Tirgitz,
The light that struck the retina activated a brain mechanism, which activated muscles that pressed the brake and stopped the car.

Buridan,
The lottery is just a rhetorical flourish. He has the option of going right or left, and he decides randomly on one of them. That is what is called a lottery.

What does “decides randomly” mean?
If he decided to go right, let him explain why he didn’t decide to go left. And vice versa.
And if he decided to go right for no special reason, just so as not to die, let him explain why the “no special reason, just so as not to die” didn’t lead him to go left. And vice versa.

All right, I don’t see what the discussion is about. You move from one question to another as though it were a continuation, especially since the other one was answered from the outset.

So the face of the coin can also cause a deterministic machine to choose a side? Meaning, if a coin helps someone with free choice, it should help a machine too

Not true. Again, you’re not looking at it globally. There is no possibility whatsoever that a mechanical-deterministic creature will choose a side in a completely symmetrical situation. If the face of the coin causes asymmetry, then the asymmetry was already there from the outset.

And one more piece of advice for the donkey equally drawn to both sides:
Take a bite from the right and a bite from the left, and repeat until you finish everything. That way you’ll enjoy both piles at once, as the wise man said: “There is no right and no left; the main thing is to gobble and gobble” 🙂

With the blessing of “wine and life,” signed, Eizel Buridansky
lying between the saddlebags, in equally divided Kiryataim, in the city of Parish, may it be built and established

With Heaven’s help, 14 Cheshvan 5782

And perhaps for that reason the tribe of Issachar was praised as “those who understand the times,” since the whole idea of leap-year calculation is to create a combination of the solar year with the lunar months.

The ability “to crouch between the saddlebags,” to grasp both poles that seem opposed, and over them “to arbitrate” the unifying and mediating factor, which rests on both together and integrates them into one unified reality—thereby it becomes clear that the two sides are not opposed to one another, but rather complement one another.

With blessings, Nehorai Shraga Agami-Psisovitz

The difference between a person and a donkey in the perfect symmetrical case comes down to this: the person can say to himself, “That’s it. I’m done for. I’m going to die,” and the donkey can’t.

To the Final Halakhic Decisor — greetings,

From the portion of Vayishlach, where it says that Jacob sent “twenty female donkeys and ten male donkeys,” it appears that each male donkey got two female donkeys and knew how to manage with both of them and give each one the proper attention.

All the more so a person, who can consult a halakhic decisor, and especially the final halakhic decisor, can satisfy all sides of the doubt, as it is written: “A God-fearing person will fulfill both” 🙂

With the blessing of “wine and life,” signed, Eizel Buridansky
lying between the saddlebags, in equally divided Kiryataim, in the splendid city of Parish

The situation in which a person is stuck and cannot turn to either side is described by the Sages with the image: “This is a donkey-camel.” Buridan’s donkey is also a donkey-camel 🙂

With joyful resolution of doubts, Simcha Fish"l HaLevi Plankton

Thank you very much for the reply. Your example on the topic is now much clearer.

And thanks also for the precision 🙂 What I really meant was “will go,” not “will choose.”

With Heaven’s help, 14 Cheshvan 5782

In several places in our sources, the motif of “the stuck donkey” appears. Thus Balaam’s donkey got stuck in the vineyard path, unable to turn this way or that.

And so too the donkey of Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair was stuck. On the one hand it was unable to eat produce that had not been tithed, and on the other hand it could not tithe it itself. As a result, the donkey of Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair was prepared to starve to death like Buridan’s donkey, until the thieves returned it to its owner.

The “generation of the Messiah” too is compared in the Zohar to a donkey that is “good on the inside and bad on the outside,” and thus it is stuck in its perplexities between its contradictory desires, until its redeemer arises to rescue it from its confusions and lead it to the “golden path,” where it will find both freedom and meaning, both “self-realization” and closeness to God, innocence and sophistication together.

With blessings, Chasdai Betzalel Duvdevani Kirshen-Kvas

Rabbi Michael, just to clarify: are you basically saying that in a completely symmetrical world, such a coin (if it can even be tossed) would always fall on its edge? And there wouldn’t even be wind to tip it, since there would be no reason for low- and high-pressure pockets to form?
Basically, is motion even possible in such a world?

Absolutely. Motion is possible in directions that preserve symmetry, or as a result of some initial condition. But the start of motion would only be in the directions of symmetry. If in this world there is symmetry between right and left, then motion will only be straight ahead.

Thank you.
So if certain initial conditions determine that some body will have a velocity vector not in the direction that preserves symmetry, that wouldn’t damage the consistency of the symmetry laws in the world?
Or did you mean that “valid” initial conditions are only those that conform to the symmetry laws?

If there is a non-symmetrical initial condition, then one can no longer say that the situation is symmetrical. For example, a point-like donkey between two troughs that at some moment in time is moving left will continue moving left.

Okay, that’s what I thought.
Thank you very much.