Test your “free will” at the Aaronson Oracle

Post by schoen » Thu, Jun 02, 2016, 6:53 PM UTC

ikeboy wrote: post #94

schoen wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, is there an easy way to generate that algorithmically without maintaining an explicit history? Is there a well-known sequence with that property? Do Gray codes have it, for example?

You'd want a sequence that contains every 6-gram exactly once and ends with the same 5 digits as it starts with: such a sequence would be 2^6=64+5=69 bits long, and then you'd repeat the first 64 over and over. (Or just contains exactly once up to cycles.) Some searching tells me this already has a name, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Bruijn_sequence So yes, just take a De Bruijb sequence B(2,6) (algorithms in…

Post by brianpan » Thu, Jun 02, 2016, 6:57 PM UTC

DanielStraight wrote: post #92

You can use its own output against it. (Which means, ironically, it does not follow "know thyself", a maxim said to be from the Oracle at Delphi.) Fixate on a number fairly late in the sequence (the millionths place seems to work well). If that number is 5-9, push 'f'. Otherwise, push 'd'. Keeps it pretty consistently around 0.5.

Post by loupgarou21 » Thu, Jun 02, 2016, 6:59 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #40

Got it to 0.5991561181434598 after a while (totally random would be "0.5"). Not sure how "free will" comes into play, if there was indeed free will, I could have freely decided to only press one, and the Oracle would have had close to 100% certainty. Rather, what it measures is randomness or predictability, which is not the same thing as free will (especially "after the fact", e.g. after the choice is made).

Post by etjossem » Thu, Jun 02, 2016, 6:59 PM UTC

SilasX wrote: post #96

etjossem wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. It tries to measure how random your brain's PRNG is, which has nothing to do with free will. A simple computer has no free will at all, but after being instructed to type randomly, it will score close to 0.5 without fail. The "free will" quote comes from a Berkley quantum computing student, who chose keys as independently of pattern as he could [1], and this seems to take it out of context. It might make sense…

To most people, "how predictable you are" and "whether you have free will" are almost the same question.

Post by moultano » Thu, Jun 02, 2016, 7:00 PM UTC