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Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

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Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#71

Post by gpderetta »

whatshisface wrote: post #62
gpderetta wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why there should be a why?

You don't get to know in advance which questions will pan out into answerable ones. You could answer "why should there be a why" to literally and question about why. In fact, you could have said that about the motion of the planets, right up until Newton - which shows that the category of things that can be answered like that contracts over time.

That's a how, not a why. Asking why is it worth the trouble ascribes intentionality to the universe where none is expected

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#72

Post by newacctjhro »

hashr8064 wrote: post #67
coldtea wrote: post #60

> Of course, randomness isn’t the only thing necessary for free will Not only that, but randomness and determinism are equally against the (casual) idea of free will. Free will, as commonly understood, means there's an "extra layer of abstraction" between the universe (material objects and their relationships) and me. What people called "soul". It's not just that our decisions (will) are random instead of predetermin…

> It's not just that our decisions (will) are random instead of predetermined by a cascade of material interactions. You seem somewhat knowledgeable about this topic, so maybe you or someone else can answer this. Why can't free will just be a complex system feedback loop and name for the way we humans perceive our own decision making process in this loop. I mean why can it not be that "free will" is the decision maki…

This is called compatibilism and yeah it seems to be a mainstream view in the academic debate

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatibilism

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/compatibilism/

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#73

Post by joycian »

adrianN wrote: post #69
joycian wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdeterminism What do you think of ideas like this then?

I think it's a boring theory that doesn't pass Ockham's razor. For the universe to be superdeterministic you'd have to encode its whole evolution somewhere. That is more complicated that the normal interpretation of QM but doesn't explain more.

Isn't it simpler? There are just a few rules and everything works? For the normal QM you have to get some randomness from somewhere else.

edit: I mean I agree it's problematic for experimental science, but I think Occam's razor cuts the other way in this instance.

edit2: Isn't the entire history encoded anyway in the current state of the universe in the deterministic case. I don't understand what the problem is there.

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#74

Post by [deleted] »

coldtea wrote: post #60

> Of course, randomness isn’t the only thing necessary for free will Not only that, but randomness and determinism are equally against the (casual) idea of free will. Free will, as commonly understood, means there's an "extra layer of abstraction" between the universe (material objects and their relationships) and me. What people called "soul". It's not just that our decisions (will) are random instead of predetermin…

[deleted]

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#75

Post by naasking »

newacctjhro wrote: post #72
hashr8064 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not just that our decisions (will) are random instead of predetermined by a cascade of material interactions. You seem somewhat knowledgeable about this topic, so maybe you or someone else can answer this. Why can't free will just be a complex system feedback loop and name for the way we humans perceive our own decision making process in this loop. I mean why can it not be that "free will" is the decision maki…

This is called compatibilism and yeah it seems to be a mainstream view in the academic debate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatibilism https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/compatibilism/

More than mainstream, it's the majority view among philosophers (59% Compatibilists, the rest even split among 3 other possibilities): https://philpapers.org/surveys/results.pl

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#76

Post by nyc111 »

What is interesting about this article for me is that, the question of free will has been one of the oldest subject of academic scholasticism. So how come now it is being discussed by people whose profession is about measuring and classifying natural phenomena in relation to the physical concept of force? I wonder what changed? Did physics become academic scholasticism or did free will is transformed into a physical force?

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#77

Post by naasking »

coldtea wrote: post #60

> Of course, randomness isn’t the only thing necessary for free will Not only that, but randomness and determinism are equally against the (casual) idea of free will. Free will, as commonly understood, means there's an "extra layer of abstraction" between the universe (material objects and their relationships) and me. What people called "soul". It's not just that our decisions (will) are random instead of predetermin…

> Free will, as commonly understood, means there's an "extra layer of abstraction" between the universe (material objects and their relationships) and me. What people called "soul".

This was commonly believed for a long time, but there have been numerous studies in experimental philosophy that actually tested this question, and it turns out that people's moral reasoning is Compatibilist. See the latest:

Why compatibilist intuitions are not mistaken: A reply to Feltz and Millan, https://philpapers.org/rec/ANDWCI-3

So people only claim to be incompatibilists when they confuse determinism with fatalism. Regardless, they tended to agree strongly with Compatibilist moral reasoning.

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#78

Post by mannykannot »

coldtea wrote: post #61
jstanley wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> 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? Not necessarily. "Free will" is being able to express your actual self (your will) in a decision. But if on a matter that calls for A or B decision, you can make either A or B, then "you" are not a coherent thing (because you can go multiple ways. Wouldn't a perso…

If that is so, then free will is a redundant concept (the outcome is actually determined without it), and the question becomes one of why do we feel we have, and are exercising, a choice between A and B.

As it happens, I am pretty sure that I am not a coherent thing - or, at least, I would not rule out a putative explanation on the grounds that it would imply that I am not a coherent thing.

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#79

Post by cthalupa »

intralizee wrote: post #65
ajuc wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No that is absurd and dehumanizing towards the victims.

Plenty of things about reality are unfair. I'm not quite sure how free will being nonexistent is dehumanizing towards victims, but even if you feel it will be, that isn't an argument that free will exists.

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#80

Post by naasking »

jstanley wrote: post #47
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.

> If free will exists, that would seem to imply that people can make decisions that affect their future.

Yes, and this is trivially true. I will demonstrate: you must now make a decision whether or not to lift your arm overhead. Whether you lift your arm or not, you manifested that future by a choice.

People who make claims like yours typically misunderstand either what's meant by "you" or what's meant by "decision", typically the latter.

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