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

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#81

Post by naasking » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 1:44 PM UTC

nyc111 wrote: post #76

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…

> 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?

Quantum mechanics changed how physicists see the universe's classical deterministic character (see Einstein's famous quote). Then they published The Free Will Theorem and the Strong Free Will Theorem, but this conception of "free will" has no relation to the one in philosophy. It was a very poor choice of terminology IMO.

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#82

Post by naasking » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 1:46 PM UTC

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…

> Free will has no room to survive in a clockwork universe

Incorrect, see Compatibilism. In fact, free will as a concept is incoherent without some degree of determinism.

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#83

Post by cthalupa » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 1:48 PM UTC

nyc111 wrote: post #76

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…

>Did physics become academic scholasticism or did free will is transformed into a physical force?

Unless you believe in a soul or something similar, and that that soul is what governs free will, then physics would have to be involved. The workings of our brains are governed by the same laws of physics as everything else.

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#84

Post by ajuc » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 1:50 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #64

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.

> Doesn't matter, what matters is - is a commitment to punish certain behavior decreasing number of people behaving that way? If there's no free will obviously not -- since any crime decision is predetermined upon the earlier states of the universe (even before we appeared on Earth), and any drop in crime in correlation with a "commitment to punish certain behavior" is just correlation itself, and not causation (both…

> If there's no free will obviously not -- since any crime decision is predetermined upon the earlier states of the universe (even before we appeared on Earth), and any drop in crime in correlation with a "commitment to punish certain behavior" is just correlation itself, and not causation (both things being caused by those earlier states).

An asteroid hitting Earth is predetermined by early stages of universe too. Is the collision just correlated with dinosaurs extinction, or was it the cause?

When a ball hits another ball in snooker - is the movement of the second ball caused by the collision, or just correlated with it? In deterministic universe it was known since the start of time it will happen after all.

Why is it different when people are involved?

If everything is determined by early stages of universe - then you can still discover how exactly that determinism works between 2 particular events (no matter that they share a common causation chain higher up).

In the case of criminals and punishement assuming determinism - our brains deterministically evolved to deterministically respond to punishement by deterministically changing the behaviour when punished. This deterministically caused the brains to come to conclussion, that punishement makes sense. Then they deterministically punish crime, and criminals deterministically respond by avoiding being caught which reduces the crime.

No need for the free will at all.

BTW even if universe is not deterministic it doesn't mean free will exists. After all you wouldn't say dices have a free will.

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#85

Post by naasking » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 1:52 PM UTC

intralizee wrote: post #12

I’m a person who acknowledges everything is deterministic and free will is a facade. The two types of people I’ve encountered who desire the notion of free will: 1) Person with ego who needs to have a belief in free will. 2) Persons who has ego, gets annoyed by free will being a facade and refuses to think about it because “it doesn’t matter” to this person. I’m perplexed if the problem is singular between the two ty…

> The two types of people I’ve encountered who desire the notion of free will: 1) Person with ego who needs to have a belief in free will. 2) Persons who has ego, gets annoyed by free will being a facade and refuses to think about it because “it doesn’t matter” to this person.

This is a complete straw man. Let me describe the contrary claim: in my experience, the type of person who desire giving up free will either a) want to give up punishment and so confuse justice with moral responsibility, and/or b) are confused about what determinism and choice really mean. You appear to fall in the former category at the very least.

I suggest you read up a little more on the meaning of free will and Compatibilism specifically. There's a reason why the majority of professional philosophers are Compatibilists.

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#86

Post by naasking » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 1:55 PM 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…

> I still see no possibility of the classical idea of free will there.

That's because you're mistaken that the classical version of free will requires the ability to do otherwise in the sense of making different choices after rewinding time.

Consider what that actually means: an outcome that is different every time you sample it, even going back in time, is classified as a random phenomena. That's not what free will means, classically. Where is the will if your choices are random?

Furthermore, the Frankfurt cases debunked this old notion of the principle of alternate possibilities back in the 60s. Sam Harris is simply mistaken about the applicability of this principle.

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#87

Post by amelius » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 1:55 PM UTC

A different view: if we live in a universe that branches into multiple universe at every $PLANCK_TIME, then free will could be our consciousness choosing the branch it follows without actually interacting with the universe.

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#88

Post by naasking » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 1:59 PM UTC

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…

> So, either there is no free will because all your actions are determined by past actions, or instead free will just means that part of your actions are just based on, essentially, the throw of a dice. In both of these cases, you yourself have 0 agency.

Your mistake is assuming that determinism precludes agency. You've merely claimed this, you haven't proven it like you did with case #2.

You'll actually find that you can't prove this and so you should give up that assumption, at which point you've reinvented Compatibilism. That's why Compatibilism is the majority view among philosophers.

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#89

Post by SonicSoul » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 1:59 PM UTC

amelius wrote: post #87

A different view: if we live in a universe that branches into multiple universe at every $PLANCK_TIME, then free will could be our consciousness choosing the branch it follows without actually interacting with the universe.

Love this! As if God designed universe timeline to be immutable. The question is, by making choice B you get universe B unique to that branch you chose, but is it a new branch per person per choice? Or do multiple people get “switched” to that branch?

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#90

Post by naasking » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 2:00 PM UTC

stareatgoats wrote: post #36

atq2119 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Agree it's about word meanings, and superimposing different meanings of the same word on each other (often in an attempt to close any cracks in our worldview that might allow religious concepts to take hold). That's probably why "free will" discussions are such a mess. > In practice, what tends to be really relevant are questions like: are criminals responsible for their actions? Exactly what I've landed in too, i.e.…

> And so the question of "free will" should really be disentangled from physics, once and for all.

Welcome to Compatibilism!