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Test your “free will” at the Aaronson Oracle

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Re: Test your “free will” at the Aaronson Oracle

#21

Post by GTP »

MarkPNeyer wrote: post #9

What happens if i open the source code for this, run it in node, get the probability of guessing f or d, and then guess the one that's lower? This is like showing someone an elaborate mirror, and saying, "See? My copy of you does exactly what you're doing to do! You don't have free will!" All you have to do is put another mirror in the middle and show them that it doesn't work as they claim.

Your premise "open the source code for this, run it in node, get the probability of guessing f or d, and then guess the one that's lower" goes straight against the explicit request to try to type randomly, everything that follows althoug may be correct doesn't apply here.

Re: Test your “free will” at the Aaronson Oracle

#22

Post by Aelinsaar »

mkagenius wrote: post #10

I am stuck at around 0.76. I think its flawed - Whatever I press it never changes by more than 1% How can the prediction for 'f' be 0.764 and for 'd' be 0.763 - they don't add up to 1.

A couple things I did to get it down to ~.44 Press based on random environmental input (woman's voice on tv = f, man's voice = d, while flipping channels). Do it very quickly, while paying attention to something else that utterly absorbs your attention, and don't look at the meter.

Re: Test your “free will” at the Aaronson Oracle

#23

Post by abc_lisper »

MarkPNeyer wrote: post #9

What happens if i open the source code for this, run it in node, get the probability of guessing f or d, and then guess the one that's lower? This is like showing someone an elaborate mirror, and saying, "See? My copy of you does exactly what you're doing to do! You don't have free will!" All you have to do is put another mirror in the middle and show them that it doesn't work as they claim.

You are onto something here. This reminds me of various hierarchies of logic(Bertrand Russell's arguments). To beat a person such as you, all it has to do is lie - and tell you at the end it has been lying all along.

Re: Test your “free will” at the Aaronson Oracle

#24

Post by amasad »

At first I was stuck at ~0.95 but I was just striking the keys really fast but then I concentrated and looked at the keys and really tried to feel which key I wanted to press and it worked. I was able to score lower ~0.4. I'm computationally irreducible for now.

Re: Test your “free will” at the Aaronson Oracle

#26

Post by ncallaway »

GTP wrote: post #21
MarkPNeyer wrote: post #9

What happens if i open the source code for this, run it in node, get the probability of guessing f or d, and then guess the one that's lower? This is like showing someone an elaborate mirror, and saying, "See? My copy of you does exactly what you're doing to do! You don't have free will!" All you have to do is put another mirror in the middle and show them that it doesn't work as they claim.

Your premise "open the source code for this, run it in node, get the probability of guessing f or d, and then guess the one that's lower" goes straight against the explicit request to try to type randomly, everything that follows althoug may be correct doesn't apply here.

Choosing to ignore the rules as prescribed is a great demonstration of free will.

Re: Test your “free will” at the Aaronson Oracle

#28

Post by CamperBob2 »

clock_tower wrote: post #16

This is pressing two letters, and you're explicitly told to press them in a way which feels random (which is going to be culturally determined). Aristotle would say that this is about habit, not free will -- unless you're opting to ignore the instructions.

Can you elaborate on how one's perception of randomness is subject to cultural bias? You do have to realize that frequent runs of repeated characters are expected to appear in a truly random sequence, but that's more a matter of basic reasoning (or perhaps education) than culture.

Re: Test your “free will” at the Aaronson Oracle

#29

Post by wickedgain »

MarkPNeyer wrote: post #9

What happens if i open the source code for this, run it in node, get the probability of guessing f or d, and then guess the one that's lower? This is like showing someone an elaborate mirror, and saying, "See? My copy of you does exactly what you're doing to do! You don't have free will!" All you have to do is put another mirror in the middle and show them that it doesn't work as they claim.

Sure, there are ways to "break" it. The point here is to demonstrate that if you try to intuitively go for manual "non-randomness", you won't be as random as you think, sometimes surprisingly off from ~50%.

Actually the quickest way I found to "break" it and hover at ~50% is to simply aim for the dead space between the "F" and "D" keys. If it was using non-adjacent keys like "F" and "J" instead it would be better for its purpose. "Q" and "P" might work even better since it would mostly force you to use 2 hands, making it much harder to score close to 50%.

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