Free will is back, and maybe we can measure it
1–10 of 63 posts
Re: Free will is back, and maybe we can measure it
#2So basically: The world is deterministic, so free will just means to be able to weigh options and delay gratification for a bit longer?
That's a sad definition in my book.
Re: Free will is back, and maybe we can measure it
#3We desperately need a new way of thinking about free will.
We really don't.
The author of the article has written off hundreds of years of philosophical debate about determinist free will versus indeterminism and decided that his interpretation of free will, which falls firmly in the causal indeterminism camp, is the right way to think about things. Admittedly that's the nice one, because determinism is hard when it comes to things like ethics and morality, but we don't need to redefine 'free will' to have the discussion. Especially when it's a low redefinition[1].
The fact is whether or not we have free will is largely irrelevant. There's a really interesting Philosophy Bites podcast with Daniel Dennett about what's important in the free will question[2]. It's well worth a listen if you're interested in philosophical stuff.
[1] http://www.fallacyfiles.org/redefine.html
[2] http://traffic.libsyn.com/philosophybites/Daniel_Dennett_on_...
Re: Free will is back, and maybe we can measure it
#4So basically: The world is deterministic, so free will just means to be able to weigh options and delay gratification for a bit longer? That's a sad definition in my book.
Agree. From the article:
"If you are able to imagine a number of options for yourself, weigh them with regard to your interests, and then commit yourself to the one that seems the best, you are exercising your free will."
So .. if the number of options you CAN imagine is arbitrary (which it by definition is), you've just described a computer program written for optimisation.
Re: Free will is back, and maybe we can measure it
#5All discussions about free will are completely useless without first defining what exactly "free will" is. Is your definition of free will compatible with the assumption that the brain has to obey the laws of physics? Do you believe that free will is somehow magic?
Re: Free will is back, and maybe we can measure it
#6So basically: The world is deterministic, so free will just means to be able to weigh options and delay gratification for a bit longer? That's a sad definition in my book.
That depends on exactly what idea of determinism you have. If you mean something like phenomena can be described by the standard model, that's fine, but if it's something like local realism, that's been busted pretty hard. This might prove more interesting than the linked article, though it was on HN previously:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v409/n6822/full/409791a...
Local realism is the idea that objects have definite properties whether or not they are measured, and that measurements of these properties are not affected by events taking place sufficiently far away1.
[...]
Many experiments1, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 have since been done that are consistent with quantum mechanics and inconsistent with local realism. But these conclusions remain the subject of considerable interest and debate, and experiments are still being refined to overcome ‘loopholes’ that might allow a local realistic interpretation. Here we have measured correlations in the classical properties of massive entangled particles (9Be+ ions): these correlations violate a form of Bell's inequality. Our measured value of the appropriate Bell's ‘signal’ is 2.25 ± 0.03, whereas a value of 2 is the maximum allowed by local realistic theories of nature. In contrast to previous measurements with massive particles, this violation of Bell's inequality was obtained by use of a complete set of measurements. Moreover, the high detection efficiency of our apparatus eliminates the so-called ‘detection’ loophole.
Re: Free will is back, and maybe we can measure it
#7We desperately need a new way of thinking about free will. We really don't. The author of the article has written off hundreds of years of philosophical debate about determinist free will versus indeterminism and decided that his interpretation of free will, which falls firmly in the causal indeterminism camp, is the right way to think about things. Admittedly that's the nice one, because determinism is hard when it…
ISTM that the hundreds of years of debate comes from a unfortunate misunderstanding provoked by many centuries of religious thought: that to be free we need some kind of "soul" apart from physical reality. (The article mentions that)
But I don't fully understand why so many smart people, including non-believers, can't see the obvious: that determinism has nothing to do with free will. Free will is just a mechanism of finding a path between the set of natural forces operating inside our mind, including all the range of motivations, from basic instincts to sublimated aspirations.
The opposite to freedom is slavery, either from external circumstances or from own instincts that, in turn, is caused by external circumstances: arrested development, physiological defects or the mental illness.
So lack of freedom has causes and freedom has causes too (configuration of our brain and a favorable environment). The opposite of freedom is not "uncaused".
Requiring no determinism is one more example of the not true scottman fallacy. Or moving goal posts.
Re: Free will is back, and maybe we can measure it
#8We desperately need a new way of thinking about free will. We really don't. The author of the article has written off hundreds of years of philosophical debate about determinist free will versus indeterminism and decided that his interpretation of free will, which falls firmly in the causal indeterminism camp, is the right way to think about things. Admittedly that's the nice one, because determinism is hard when it…
ISTM that the hundreds of years of debate comes from a unfortunate misunderstanding provoked by many centuries of religious thought: that to be free we need some kind of "soul" apart from physical reality. (The article mentions that) But I don't fully understand why so many smart people, including non-believers, can't see the obvious: that determinism has nothing to do with free will. Free will is just a mechanism of…
that determinism has nothing to do with free will
The theory goes that, on an atomic level, interactions between particles is a deterministic process - it's wholly and completely predictable because the outcome is determined by a knowable set of rules. Given the fact that our brains are just[1] a huge set of particles and chemical processes it should then follow that a perfect computer model of someone's brain would make the exact same decisions as that person.
In other words, we don't actually make any decisions for ourselves. It's all determined by chemistry.
If that's true then someone could argue that the path of their life was predetermined by the state of the universe at any given time, so the fact they shot their wife was actually nothing they could have had any control over, and it's very unfair to lock them away for 30 years if they couldn't have changed anything. It's just the latest outcome of a chemical reaction that started at the Big Bang.
It's actually a very compelling argument. The counter argument requires 'magic' in the form of something that we can control that can't be measured. That's a big ask for any rational scientist.
[1] Pretty huge 'just' there because it discounts God, souls, etc. Many people think that the brain isn't just atomic particles. But there's no evidence that they're right. We've cut brains up and looked.
Re: Free will is back, and maybe we can measure it
#9"We must believe in free will — we have no choice." (Isaac Bashevis Singer)
Re: Free will is back, and maybe we can measure it
#10All discussions about free will are completely useless without first defining what exactly "free will" is. Is your definition of free will compatible with the assumption that the brain has to obey the laws of physics? Do you believe that free will is somehow magic?
In general, it's far from useless to investigate the nature of X before having a clear definition of X. Perhaps the definition will come as a result of the investigation. Perhaps there will never be a clear definition, but paradigm cases are easy to come by (that's arguably the case with free will).