Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will • Hacker News Board

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#41

Post by gpderetta » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 9:57 AM UTC

nnq wrote: post #24

montenegrohugo wrote: post #2

I've always thought of free will as an absurdity. Here's my thought process: If I make a decision, there's 2 possibilities: 1. The decision is based upon prior information and states, therefore there is a deterministic causality 2. The decision is not based upon prior causality: E.g. I have a "soul" and that's what decides. However, if we look into 2, we arrive at the same problem: 1. Either the souls decision is det…

Sometimes you pick from a set of actions for each you have equal reasons/information to pick. And you pick technically randomly. But after you made the choice, you stick/commit to it, you identify with it. The other choices are no longer a possibility. You become fixed in this particular causality. And it defines "you" as "the one who [randomly] picked choice X and Y and ... and ended up on this particular causal pat…

Any definition that assigns free will to potentially any object, including fundamental particles, doesn't seem a very useful definition to me.

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#42

Post by jgh » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 10:05 AM UTC

dtujmer wrote: post #22

I think Sam Harris put it like this: for free will, it doesn't even matter if reality is deterministic or random because the determinism or randomness are found at the quantum level, many levels "below" neurological free will. Let's say we have Universe 1 (deterministic) and Universe 2 (random). You face a choice - raise your left hand or your right hand. In U1, if you went back in time several times, you would alway…

wasnt there a story linked here a couple weeks ago about neurons possibly having some sensitivity to quantum interactions? Wouldn't that mean that the quantum level is not actually below neurological free will?

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#43

Post by gpderetta » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 10:08 AM UTC

praptak wrote: post #33

bambataa wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That applies if you think of a soul as ‘just another mind’, but my understanding is that souls are usually seen as different. What I find problematic with them is that they can be defined to be whatever you need to get out of a logical fix eg “souls use state but are non-deterministic”. Ultimately you’re asking what defines a soul, which is unknown as far as I can tell.

Ultimately I am asking what defines free will. The attempts at definitions that involve soul seem either circular ("soul is that part of human that has free will") or an unnecessary step, i.e. the considerations about soul might as well apply to original human, without the attempt to define a separate soul.

An argument could be that the soul is not constrained by the law of phisics or even logic and ultimately unknowable.

But then the link between the soul and the phisical world should be detectable due to violations of the laws of phisics.

Unless we believe that the whole universe is unlogical and does not follow the law of phisics. We might as well end this, and any other, debate then.

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#44

Post by placebo » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 10:15 AM UTC

Consider the possibility that whether the future is predetermined or not has nothing to do with free will.

The persistence of the notion of free will seems to be an attempt to reconcile a feeling of what seems to be a very real, conscious and subjective "me in here" vs, what seems to be an objective, deterministic "world out there". This division is necessary for science to exist.

But what if there is a deeper truth than just being stuck with the question of whether "I" can control the outcome of events or "I" am powerless to do anything about them. Consider the possibility of access to knowledge before there's an intellectual division into a "me" and "not me", a knowing where the entire notion of whether there's free will or not becomes completely irrelevant. This seems to be the common theme running through various teachings of mysticism, from Zen to Sufism.

I don't think science should try and make use of mysticism, as science starts where mysticism ends (and vice versa), but any attempt by science to wrestle with the question of free will appears to me as pointless as an attempt of a Zen master to wrestle with solving problems in quantum mechanics. It's simply not in their domain.

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#45

Post by rslonik » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 10:19 AM UTC

I think either we do not have free will or we have some special brain that shapes probabilities that literally make the reality as we see.

And I always prefer to believe we are not special animals.

Still, as opposite as deterministic universe, we may do not have free will but the future is not determined. The future may be random at some scale, with most obvious sequence of events happening and yet not prohibiting different events to happen.

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#46

Post by ajuc » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 11:20 AM UTC

atq2119 wrote: post #25

montenegrohugo wrote: post #2

I've always thought of free will as an absurdity. Here's my thought process: If I make a decision, there's 2 possibilities: 1. The decision is based upon prior information and states, therefore there is a deterministic causality 2. The decision is not based upon prior causality: E.g. I have a "soul" and that's what decides. However, if we look into 2, we arrive at the same problem: 1. Either the souls decision is det…

As usual, these kinds of discussions are really about what we mean by words. What does "free will" mean? I think technically inclined people like us are easily led down the path you describe, but over the years I've become convinced that the kind of definition that leads you to "free will = random choice" is pretty pointless because it's so vacuous. I like to take a step back and ask: why are we interested in free wi…

Yup, free will is meaningless, there's no measurable difference between an universe which has a free will and one that doesn't.

> are criminals responsible for their actions?

Doesn't matter, what matters is - is a commitment to punish certain behavior decreasing number of people behaving that way? If so - punishing crimes makes sense, no matter if there's a free will or not.

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#47

Post by jstanley » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 11:26 AM UTC

placebo wrote: post #44

Consider the possibility that whether the future is predetermined or not has nothing to do with free will. The persistence of the notion of free will seems to be an attempt to reconcile a feeling of what seems to be a very real, conscious and subjective "me in here" vs, what seems to be an objective, deterministic "world out there". This division is necessary for science to exist. But what if there is a deeper truth…

> Consider the possibility that whether the future is predetermined or not has nothing to do with free will.

If free will exists, that would seem to imply that people can make decisions that affect their future. Wouldn't free will therefore imply nondeterminism?

I agree that notfreewill does not imply determinism.

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#48

Post by raxxorrax » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 11:40 AM UTC

Ah, the age old question where it doesn't matter if the answer is positive or negative at all.

Since it is opinion time: I do think that we posses free will whatever the definition might be.

There are enough know non-deterministic processes. I also think consideration of randomness vs determinism isn't sufficient to find an answer.

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#49

Post by joycian » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 11:57 AM UTC

raxxorrax wrote: post #48

Ah, the age old question where it doesn't matter if the answer is positive or negative at all. Since it is opinion time: I do think that we posses free will whatever the definition might be. There are enough know non-deterministic processes. I also think consideration of randomness vs determinism isn't sufficient to find an answer.

Can you supply a non-deterministic process, where the non-determinism is fundamental and not a way to quantify a lack of information about the system?

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#50

Post by joycian » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 12:01 PM UTC

mirimir wrote: post #21

millstone wrote: post #10

The article argues that "randomness" (by which it means essential unpredictability) is experimentally backed. This is an awkward constraint for a universe designer: isn't a totally deterministic universe much easier and simpler? Free will has no room to survive in a clockwork universe. But free will remains a viable position, despite the philosophical contortions, but supported by experimental evidence like what's di…

> This is an awkward constraint for a universe designer: isn't a totally deterministic universe much easier and simpler? Huh? Maybe it's natural selection, all the way down, and all the way up. The results aren't at all "random", but they're also not at all designed.

I think he means it would be expensive to inject randomness all the time instead of just letting a rule-based system go from state to state deterministically.