• Is free will possible, or are we always affect by some level of determinism
    354 replies, posted
[QUOTE=carcarcargo;43167040]But it doesn't allow magic stuff. While it does assert that even if you build a computer the size of the universe that it would be impossible to accurately predict what exactly would happen in every part of the universe at a point due to a level of uncertainty at a subatomic level, it does not imply magic in any way. This is a usual misunderstanding of quantum mechanics that even I had until I really started to read about it.[/QUOTE] What moves the particles then? Free kinetic energy?
[QUOTE=JohnnyMo1;43167269]I think that, if our thoughts are the product of the physical state of our brain and its interactions with the environment (which I would contend is the case), then to say that a person "chooses" anything is meaningless. Nature chooses for them. That's why we don't have free will, and it doesn't depend on determinism.[/QUOTE] But you can trigger brain states. You can watch a tragedy and make yourself sad. You can watch a comedy and make you laugh. You can go to a shelter and feel empathy. All of these states will generate thoughts that follow, but in the 'neutral' brainstate you have a ton of possibilities open to you, and your free will is the way you, through introspection, decide on what you want to do. You will never be able to predict what a person is going to do based on a snapshot of their brain at a particular point of time. If you can't, that wiggle room is free will. If you assert that you can, then I think you are arguing for determinism is everyway but name. Unless I am misunderstading what you mean by brain states [editline]13th December 2013[/editline] [QUOTE=TNOMCat;43167425]What moves the particles then? Free kinetic energy?[/QUOTE] A ton of things can move particles? F= MA the expansion of the universe Gravity?
[QUOTE=Flameon;43167502] A ton of things can move particles? F= MA the expansion of the universe Gravity?[/QUOTE] But its not truly random in an indeterministic way if gravity or the expansion of the universe cause the movement
[QUOTE=Flameon;43167502]But you can trigger brain states. You can watch a tragedy and make yourself sad. You can watch a comedy and make you laugh. You can go to a shelter and feel empathy. All of these states will generate thoughts that follow, but in the 'neutral' brainstate you have a ton of possibilities open to you, and your free will is the way you, through introspection, decide on what you want to do. You will never be able to predict what a person is going to do based on a snapshot of their brain at a particular point of time. If you can't, that wiggle room is free will. If you assert that you can, then I think you are arguing for determinism is everyway but name. Unless I am misunderstading what you mean by brain states [editline]13th December 2013[/editline] A ton of things can move particles? F= MA the expansion of the universe Gravity?[/QUOTE] Even at this "neutral" state, what the person does next will be determined by the environment at the moment, the person's personality/dispositions/needs, and countless other variables affecting the person at that moment.
[QUOTE=Levithan;43167662]Even at this "neutral" state, what the person does next will be determined by the environment at the moment, the person's personality/dispositions/needs, and countless other variables affecting the person at that moment.[/QUOTE] I think this an assertion? Equally possible that as a rational animal, we have introspection, and have freedom to choose between a smorgasboard of equally possible and acceptable activities. Some things we may exclude from the periphery of our exercise of free will, for example I dont want to kill myself right now so I won't, but other things we have free will over: I should be studying now, and after this post I will. This is what i meant when I said [quote]I also just want to say that it is nearly impossible to prove free will since determinism is the one operating on the "scientific model". If thats the case, then I'd say the inability for human behavior to be predicted 100% should function as proof of free will. [/quote] I can't prove free will since determinsim is such a broad cattegory that it, in theory, should be able to swallow all human actions - even those championed as free will. Rather its proof comes in the form of the negative - the inability to predict/isolate the determining factors in human interactions reveals the space for free will.
[QUOTE=JohnnyMo1;43167269]I think that, if our thoughts are the product of the physical state of our brain and its interactions with the environment (which I would contend is the case), then to say that a person "chooses" anything is meaningless. Nature chooses for them. That's why we don't have free will, and it doesn't depend on determinism.[/QUOTE] Finally. I just opened this up and now there isn't anything for me to say.
There is no real experiment that can directly or indirectly prove or disprove free will. However, the only thing that would be needed to disprove free will (which cannot exist) is [URL="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v436/n7047/full/436150a.html"]a device with a button and a light that would light up one second [I]before[/I] you pressed the button.[/URL] Personally, I think free will exists. EDIT: It's a short story by Ted Chiang.
If you believe that simply non-determinism is what supports free will then you have to concede that under that definition literally [I]everything[/I] has free will, down to individual subatomic particles. There may be multiple possible actions you may take, but you don't "decide" that set of possible actions outside of the influences of the purely electrochemical operations of your mind and the environment you reside in, and you don't "decide" which action is taken of that set, non-determinism does that for you. [editline]13th December 2013[/editline] With determinism, free will is the sensation we experience when our minds work towards the only possible decision they could make. Without determinism, free will is the sensation we experience when our minds work towards the only possible decision they would be allocated by non-determinism from the limited set of possible actions.
[QUOTE=FlandersNed;43168707]There is no real experiment that can directly or indirectly prove or disprove free will. However, the only thing that would be needed to disprove free will (which cannot exist) is [URL="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v436/n7047/full/436150a.html"]a device with a button and a light that would light up one second [I]before[/I] you pressed the button.[/URL] Personally, I think free will exists.[/QUOTE] This article is amazingly awesome, never thought of it this way before! And no, not everything has free will. Thats an absurd statement, free will is a product of introspection and decision. Our, as well as some animals I imagine, brain structures are built to allow us the ability to reflect and make choice. Nigel Clark writes in 2010 [quote=From EX-ORBITANT GENEROSITY: GIFTS OF LOVE IN A COLD COSMOS] Demands might well emit from any object, but not every thing can give in or give out in response to a summons. As biologist Lynn Margulis and science writer Dorion Sagan put it: `life is matter that chooses’. Which appears to makes choice fairly rare in the known universe, as well as contingent and, in all likelihood, ephemeral. Like other living creatures, we humans `can turn away from faces as we can turn away from the surfaces of things’. Or choose not too. Even if it is not unique, perhaps our particularly pronounced capacity to vacillate between turning toward and turning away has a defining quality. If not us, then who? [/quote] [editline]13th December 2013[/editline] I love the middle line "life is matter that chooses’"
[QUOTE=FlandersNed;43168707]There is no real experiment that can directly or indirectly prove or disprove free will. However, the only thing that would be needed to disprove free will (which cannot exist) is [URL="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v436/n7047/full/436150a.html"]a device with a button and a light that would light up one second [I]before[/I] you pressed the button.[/URL][/QUOTE] So if I build a fairly simple bot that has a camera as a sensor and a robotic arm as an actuator that uses a pseudo random number generator to decide whether to press the button with its arm at each moment in time or not, the predictor would need to simulate the programming of my automaton (including the pseudo random number generator) to predict when my automaton would press the button. However, I've designed the bot to refrain from pressing the button if it would mean the predictor is correct, and to only press it when the light is off. It would be impossible to construct a predictor device that can correctly anticipate my simple automaton's button pressing. Does my bot have free will? The predictor argument is absurd and proves nothing. [editline]13th December 2013[/editline] For those who believe in free will, how exactly would you define it?
[quote]I've designed the bot to refrain from pressing the button if it would mean the predictor is correct[/quote] I've designed a machine that has free will even if determinism is true. The predictor also predicts it dude because if you read the story it predicts based on time travel.
The machine isn't impossible to construct because of free will, but because sending information backwards through time is impossible. Again, invalid and absurd argument.
[QUOTE=Ziks;43168976]So if I build a fairly simple bot that has a camera as a sensor and a robotic arm as an actuator that uses a pseudo random number generator to decide whether to press the button with its arm at each moment in time or not, the predictor would need to simulate the programming of my automaton (including the pseudo random number generator) to predict when my automaton would press the button. However, I've designed the bot to refrain from pressing the button if it would mean the predictor is correct, and to only press it when the light is off. It would be impossible to construct a predictor device that can correctly anticipate my simple automaton's button pressing. Does my bot have free will? The predictor argument is absurd and proves nothing. [editline]13th December 2013[/editline] For those who believe in free will, how exactly would you define it?[/QUOTE] Not that absurd really, you've just made your bot make its decision based on the predictor rather than the random number generator, so of course the predictor would cease working since the bot is no longer relying on the RNG. The bot doesn't have free will anyway, everything it does it determined by which of its finite states it's in, all of which are quantifiable and entirely predictable. Personally though I'm sort of inclined to believe our minds work pretty similarly to the bot, not really having free will, since every decision we make could be traced back to neurological impulses at some level, meaning that our decisions are entirely programmed responses. While it isn't exactly whether decisions are predictable or not that makes them based on free will or not, to me, uncertainty is an important factor in free will. Else we're just like computers, which I cannot consider to have free will since they're fully under my control (in theory).
The thought experiment described works like this: 1. Assume information can be passed backwards through time | 2. Predictor can be constructed using (1) | 3. Automaton can be trivially constructed that defeats predictions of (2) | 4. Contradiction of (2), the predictor is incorrect due to (3) | 5. Because of contradiction (4), our assumption must be incorrect (1) 6. Information cannot be passed backwards through time (1-5) Obviously this makes an assumption itself, that there is only one immutable timeline. However, I'm certain you can construct a similar logical sequence to show the predictor relies on one immutable timeline to make predictions and so the contradiction will still arise. [editline]13th December 2013[/editline] [QUOTE=Im Crimson;43169090]Not that absurd really, you've just made your bot make its decision based on the predictor rather than the random number generator, so of course the predictor would cease working since the bot is no longer relying on the RNG. The bot doesn't have free will anyway, everything it does it determined by which of its finite states it's in, all of which are quantifiable and entirely predictable.[/QUOTE] True, I kind of got distracted from the original point I was going to make that a predictor for an automaton using a PRNG would have to simulate almost the entirety of the automaton to predict its actions. So the predictor device for a person would have to simulate that person's mind in its entirety. That's for the person not being influenced by the predictor, for example if the light is hidden from them. Otherwise the contradiction I identified applies. [editline]13th December 2013[/editline] [QUOTE]For those who believe in free will, how exactly would you define it?[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=TNOMCat;43167557]But its not truly random in an indeterministic way if gravity or the expansion of the universe cause the movement[/QUOTE] Energy and momentum cause particles to move. Particles may behave differently than in classical mechanics but they still interact. It's not like they're just moving around "because."
From my perspective the problem with free will is that any definition which we know applies to us is pretty trivial, and ones that we can't prove apply to us introduce unnecessary complexity and would be indistinguishable from what the world would be like if free will using those definitions did not exist.
Whether or not I have free will is something I don't want to sit down and prove. Either I do, and life goes on, or I find out I don't, and that changes everything. Better to live in ignorance of the fact then to know.
[QUOTE=JohnnyMo1;43169630]Energy and momentum cause particles to move. Particles may behave differently than in classical mechanics but they still interact. It's not like they're just moving around "because."[/QUOTE] Yeah, of course but that's not what i was going after there. If quantum mechanics allow a particle to move indeterministically, whats causing it to move to that specific direction? And apparently the uncertainity principle allows particles to appear out of nowhere (quantum fluctuations) that are impossible to predict either.
[QUOTE=TNOMCat;43170108]Yeah, of course but that's not what i was going after there. If quantum mechanics allow a particle to move indeterministically, whats causing it to move to that specific direction? And apparently the uncertainity principle allows particles to appear out of nowhere (quantum fluctuations) that are impossible to predict either.[/QUOTE] Whatever causes them to go in a specific direction, it doesn't really prove free will, unless you believe somehow our consciousness somehow manipulates the universe (I do recall hearing a hypothesis on QM that said this, but I don't think it's very popular as it's a bit silly)
I cannot say are we absolutely free minded because a lot of things affect our decision making.
[QUOTE=TNOMCat;43170108]Yeah, of course but that's not what i was going after there. If quantum mechanics allow a particle to move indeterministically, whats causing it to move to that specific direction? And apparently the uncertainity principle allows particles to appear out of nowhere (quantum fluctuations) that are impossible to predict either.[/QUOTE] We don't know, although there are a few interpretations which attempt to explain it. For example, the Many-Worlds interpretation says there isn't anything purely random, but in the event of some scenario having multiple possible outcomes each one occurs but in separate independent universes. The appearance of randomness is then derived from the arbitrariness of which "branch" of the universe you find yourself in.
[QUOTE=Ziks;43170213]We don't know, although there are a few interpretations which attempt to explain it. For example, the Many-Worlds interpretation says there isn't anything purely random, but in the event of some scenario having multiple possible outcomes each one occurs but in separate independent universes. The appearance of randomness is then derived from the arbitrariness of which "branch" of the universe you find yourself in.[/QUOTE] I love many worlds, it has to be my favourite QM interpretation, even if it's unlikely that it's true (most tend to go with the Copenhagen interpretation) Would really give any real sense of Free will since which universe you are in would still be out of your control, but still cool none the less.
[QUOTE=carcarcargo;43170188]Whatever causes them to go in a specific direction, it doesn't really prove free will, unless you believe somehow our consciousness somehow manipulates the universe (I do recall hearing a hypothesis on QM that said this, but I don't think it's very popular as it's a bit silly)[/QUOTE] If particles can move in an indeterministic way and particles can appear out of nowhere.. who knows how much other similiar stuff there is we haven't found yet. And we don't really know how consciousness/the mind works, so it might use some quantum shit which would allow free will. however I personally think our decisions are deterministic just by trying to observe how i make my seemingly random decisions. [QUOTE=carcarcargo;43170232]I love many worlds, it has to be my favourite QM interpretation, even if it's unlikely that it's true (most tend to go with the Copenhagen interpretation) Would really give any real sense of Free will since which universe you are in would still be out of your control, but still cool none the less.[/QUOTE] I have always thought that dimensions / parallel universes is just a way to explain something, but they dont "physically" exist [QUOTE=Ziks;43170213]We don't know, although there are a few interpretations which attempt to explain it. For example, the Many-Worlds interpretation says there isn't anything purely random, but in the event of some scenario having multiple possible outcomes each one occurs but in separate independent universes. The appearance of randomness is then derived from the arbitrariness of which "branch" of the universe you find yourself in.[/QUOTE] IMO the scale where quantum mechanics start taking place is so small that almost any internal (of the particle) and external factors affect the particles such as various, constantly changing magnetic and gravitational fields, and the equipment that was used to make the observations that it is impossible to disregard these factors and say the behaviour is completely random and indeterministic. however im just a kid whos strongly relying on logic instead of what tons of people smarter than me say about the subject. So you should disregard anything I say here lol
[QUOTE=carcarcargo;43170188]Whatever causes them to go in a specific direction, it doesn't really prove free will, unless you believe somehow our consciousness somehow manipulates the universe [/QUOTE] I may be drawing an nonsensical parallel here, but I'm instantly reminded of the double-slit experiment (where the mere act of observing the particles in the experiment changes the results).
[QUOTE=Im Crimson;43170347]I may be drawing an nonsensical parallel here, but I'm instantly reminded of the double-slit experiment (where the mere act of observing the particles in the experiment changes the results).[/QUOTE] Well this is kind of what Schrodinger's cat talks about. The thing is that the "observer" can be just about anything. It could be the Cat, the geiger counter and so on. Theres nothing special about the human eyes that suddenly causes collapse.
[QUOTE=carcarcargo;43170504]Well this is kind of what Schrodinger's cat talks about. The thing is that the "observer" can be just about anything. It could be the Cat, the geiger counter and so on. Theres nothing special about the human eyes that suddenly causes collapse.[/QUOTE] Well yeah, but it's the same thing. It's the conscious act of collecting the data that breaks the interference pattern. EDIT: Maybe. Saw a video claiming that the interference pattern returned if the photon detectors were left on but the data they delivered was discarded, but apparently it's deemed questionable by most.
[QUOTE=Im Crimson;43170671]EDIT: Maybe. Saw a video claiming that the interference pattern returned if the photon detectors were left on but the data they delivered was discarded, but apparently it's deemed questionable by most.[/QUOTE] It would be pretty disturbing if that were true, it errs on the side of magical thinking.
[QUOTE=TNOMCat;43170264]If particles can move in an indeterministic way and particles can appear out of nowhere.. who knows how much other similiar stuff there is we haven't found yet. And we don't really know how consciousness/the mind works, so it might use some quantum shit which would allow free will.[/QUOTE] But we can't predict let alone control the results of quantum measurements, so how is there any meaningful control over our actions? Instead of our minds being at the mercy of deterministic laws, they're at the mercy of probabilistic laws. Where does any real human will enter into that? [editline]13th December 2013[/editline] [QUOTE=Im Crimson;43170671]Well yeah, but it's the same thing. It's the conscious act of collecting the data that breaks the interference pattern.[/QUOTE] None but the most "out there" of physicists believes that. It's still not settled what constitutes a measurement or what wavefunction collapse is, but neither one is likely to have anything to do with consciousness.
[QUOTE=Ziks;43171290]It would be pretty disturbing if that were true, it errs on the side of magical thinking.[/QUOTE] Exactly which is why it's most likely not the case [editline]13th December 2013[/editline] [QUOTE=TNOMCat;43170264] I have always thought that dimensions / parallel universes is just a way to explain something, but they dont "physically" exist [/QUOTE] This is true for most who accept that interpretation, there's just a few who genuinely do believe that they're actual physical universes, which is silly but an interesting idea.
[QUOTE=carcarcargo;43171553] This is true for most who accept that interpretation, there's just a few who genuinely do believe that they're actual physical universes, which is silly but an interesting idea.[/QUOTE] Hard to say. It's what Hawking believes at least. Not that his endorsement makes it fact.
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