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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

#121

Post by naasking »

cthalupa wrote: post #104
naasking wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 compatibi…

>So people only claim to be incompatibilists when they confuse determinism with fatalism. Regardless, they tended to agree strongly with Compatibilist moral reasoning. I pretty strongly disagree with this statement. I am not a compatibilist, but I am fully aware of the differences between fatalism and determinism. If I believed in fatalism then I would believe that If am fated to recover or die from an illness, it wo…

You've written a lot of text, most of which I might agree with, but you haven't demonstrated why any of it precludes the existence of free will.

Compatibilism is specifically the position that free will is compatible with deterministic agents. Merely stating you disagree that this qualifies as free will isn't particularly compelling. Compatibilism makes sense of our moral language, we clearly have the free will described by Compatibilism, and it's strongly predictive of our moral reasoning as the paper I linked shows.

That seems to describe what most people mean when they use the term "free will" quite well, just like "day job" describes quite well what I do every weekday from 9AM to 5PM.

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#122

Post by bad_user »

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…

In the absence of free will, expressing yourself in a decision is simply a function taking the current environment and your past as input.

You may be a unique being, due to your past, meaning that the possibility for another being to make the same "choices" in the same sequence as you is really low, however that's just high entropy.

Compatibilism is basically word play. If the universe is deterministic, then we are just a bunch of atoms reacting predictably to external forces, making us not very different from rocks.

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#123

Post by naasking »

cthalupa wrote: post #116
naasking wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No need for the free will at all. You're mistaken. Free will is needed to identify who the criminal is in any given situation, ie. who are the morally responsible parties. You can't escape that with the arguments you presented, and you just skipped it to talk about justice, which is a whole separate matter.

>Free will is needed to identify who the criminal is in any given situation, No. Causality is all you need to identify who the criminal is. Physical stimuli are basically all we need as intelligent beings to come to a conclusion about things we don't like happening to us, and thus ultimately make into moral laws or codified ones. These are the inputs, these are the causes. Then, once enough human beings have had thos…

> No. Causality is all you need to identify who the criminal is.

Unfortunately not. If your gets car stolen, without free will, you can't assign responsibility to the "thief", because you yourself were a causal factor in your car getting stolen: had you parked somewhere else, your car wouldn't have been stolen. Had society or his parents better supported the "thief", he wouldn't have stolen that car. Had your city placed that street somewhere else, your car wouldn't have been stolen.

To designate the "thief" as the "singular" cause that's relevant, you need free will.

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#124

Post by naasking »

ajuc wrote: post #115
naasking wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No need for the free will at all. You're mistaken. Free will is needed to identify who the criminal is in any given situation, ie. who are the morally responsible parties. You can't escape that with the arguments you presented, and you just skipped it to talk about justice, which is a whole separate matter.

> Free will is needed to identify who the criminal is in any given situation, ie. who are the morally responsible parties. Belief in free will is required (in most common ethical systems at least - there were whole religions believing in deterministic salvation, where God made people who will sin and can't do anything about it - and people carried on, punishing crimes as usual :) - instead of striving to be good to d…

I suggest reading my other reply here since it covers the same ground: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18608505

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#125

Post by cthalupa »

naasking wrote: post #121
cthalupa wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>So people only claim to be incompatibilists when they confuse determinism with fatalism. Regardless, they tended to agree strongly with Compatibilist moral reasoning. I pretty strongly disagree with this statement. I am not a compatibilist, but I am fully aware of the differences between fatalism and determinism. If I believed in fatalism then I would believe that If am fated to recover or die from an illness, it wo…

You've written a lot of text, most of which I might agree with, but you haven't demonstrated why any of it precludes the existence of free will. Compatibilism is specifically the position that free will is compatible with deterministic agents. Merely stating you disagree that this qualifies as free will isn't particularly compelling. Compatibilism makes sense of our moral language, we clearly have the free will descr…

>but you haven't demonstrated why any of it precludes the existence of free will.

Except I don't need to. Compatibilists haven't proven the existence of free will, so the null hypothesis still holds true, at least for now.

Throughout the comments here you seem to continually rely on the fact that professional philosophers strongly agree with the idea of compatabilism, but from my point of view, it doesn't really matter what philosophers think. It's a matter of what the science says.

I don't see any real incompatibilities with moral reasoning between a universe where there is no free will and one where it is compatible with determinism, so saying that compatbilist moral reasoning is predictive of how we generally behave is not an argument for free will.

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#126

Post by davemp »

bad_user wrote: post #122
coldtea wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

In the absence of free will, expressing yourself in a decision is simply a function taking the current environment and your past as input. You may be a unique being, due to your past, meaning that the possibility for another being to make the same "choices" in the same sequence as you is really low, however that's just high entropy. Compatibilism is basically word play. If the universe is deterministic, then we are j…

> If the universe is deterministic, then we are just a bunch of atoms reacting predictably to external forces, making us not very different from rocks.

No. This is very disingenuous. We are a beautifully ordered, continuously changing, unlikely set of atoms with history and the ability to affect / finely order huge amounts of other atoms. We're much better and more interesting than rocks! :)

(No offense to anyone who really likes rocks--they're cool too).

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#127

Post by naasking »

szemet wrote: post #118
naasking wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because free will merely requires the ability to understand the choices we're making and learn from them, like I said.

AlphaZero made choices in chess, and learned from them. So did I get you right: it had a free-will because it is a necessity for this behavior according to you? Because mere "machines" can't make decisions, and can't learn from consequences.

> AlphaZero made choices in chess, and learned from them. So did I get you right: it had a free-will because it is a necessity for this behavior according to you?

That's domain-specific learning, not general learning. If you could then take AlphaZero out for coffee to talk about a match and why it made certain choices, I'm fairly certain you'd be less confident that it wouldn't qualify.

> Because mere "machines" can't make decisions, and can't learn from consequences.

I disagree. Humans are a type of machine.

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#128

Post by zaarn »

lordlimecat wrote: post #113
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.

I have a hard time understanding how people disbelieving in free will do not just devolve to fatalism. Why bother discussing it as if it matters, when it's all predetermined? Why do people having the argument seem to assume in their lives that free will exists, exhibited by their pursuit of their wants?

>Why bother discussing it as if it matters, when it's all predetermined?

Because personally, I do find it quite enjoyable.

All my decisions and everything I do being predetermined doesn't change the fact that I will still experience it and can enjoy and want things.

Determinism doesn't make the things that you experience and the things you choose any less real, they happen. Similarly, Nihilism doesn't mean you give into depression because there is no morality and the universe doesn't give a shit about you, quite the opposite, you can do what you enjoy precisely because the universe doesn't give a shit about you, you can do what makes you happy, not what society things ought to make you happy.

In short; because it's enjoyable and the alternative is not, even in the face of determinism.

>Why do people having the argument seem to assume in their lives that free will exists, exhibited by their pursuit of their wants?

Because ultimately the answer doesn't matter and having free will is a comfortable illusion. Humans like being in charge, especially being in charge of themselves. Since science still owes us a definitive answer (although IMO the current state seems to lean in favor of determinism), people choose free will over determinism.

Similarly, people choose to believe that inherent, objective morality exists, that a higher power protects them, etc. It's comforting. Reality is lovecraftian.

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#129

Post by stareatgoats »

naasking wrote: post #90
stareatgoats wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

Yeah, maybe. Although (from what I can see) compatibilism is more like carving a niche for free will in an otherwise deterministic universe. I find that the "deterministic universe" is a concept without sufficient empirical support. It is a nebulous abstraction of reality, a faith good as any, but even as such it has a structure (a meaning) that disqualifies it from interfering with any practical notion of "free will" as outlined above.

A more pertinent question is really why the question (of whether "free will" exists) is posed at all. I find that it is often for anti-religious reasons, sometimes for moral responsibility evasion, and sometimes because people want to avoid the all too common cases where a single individual (or group of) is chastised when other factors (like circumstances, other people's actions) are just as important. The former two I don't care for much, that latter is more likable, even if none of them accomplish what they seek using this line of reasoning IMO.

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#130

Post by codeulike »

cthalupa wrote: post #104
naasking wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 compatibi…

>So people only claim to be incompatibilists when they confuse determinism with fatalism. Regardless, they tended to agree strongly with Compatibilist moral reasoning. I pretty strongly disagree with this statement. I am not a compatibilist, but I am fully aware of the differences between fatalism and determinism. If I believed in fatalism then I would believe that If am fated to recover or die from an illness, it wo…

To change this, we would need perfect knowledge of how basically everything works, have the ability to measure every necessary input in the system, and calculate the outcomes. If we are ever able to reach that point, I'm pretty sure it'll be so far into the future it's nothing worth worrying myself about.

Its pretty easy to argue that this is impossible. To exploit determinism to 'predict the future' you'd have to simulate a large chunk of reality at the sub-atomic level. Arguably, you might have to simulate the whole universe. But lets just say you were trying to simulate our planet - you would need a computer running a model of the world at the sub-atomic level and somehow running it faster than the world itself unfolds. I'm 100% sure that would be impossible. Also, there's the whole 'sensitive dependence on initial conditions' for your simulation (see chaos theory etc).

So you can think of the universe as a computer that is calculating its own future in real time. There is no way to 'get ahead' of the univere's own unfolding. As such the fact that it might be deterministic becomes irrelevant because there is no way to exploit that determinism. Simply put: It may be deterministic but its fundamentally unpredictable.

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