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

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#131

Post by naasking » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 2:52 PM UTC

cthalupa wrote: post #125

naasking wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 matt…

> 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.

Prove that "a universe without free will but behaviourally indistinguishable from one that features Compatibilism" is actually a coherent definition/non-empty set.

Compatibilism entails that any universe featuring intelligent agents acting on reasons and capable of understanding and learning from their actions will have free will. So basically, you're claiming that a universe that features such intelligent agents is indistinguishable from a universe that has no such intelligent agents.

> 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.

I honestly don't understand what confusion would lead you to make such a statement. Null hypotheses are simply not relevant to this sort of question. What populations are you comparing here exactly?

Secondly, Compatibilism describes exactly what humans do because it's compatible with both deterministic and indeterministic worlds (see point above re:universes with Compatibilism). Compatibilist free will clearly exists in our universe virtually by definition, ie. we are clearly intelligent agents acting on reasons and capable of understanding and learning from our choices.

> Throughout the comments here you seem to continually rely on the fact that professional philosophers strongly agree with the idea of compatabilism

Because most people don't have the requisite knowledge to evaluate possibilities that require profound domain knowledge. Would you be similarly derisive if I referenced the medical consensus when wading through a health debate?

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#132

Post by cthalupa » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 2:53 PM UTC

naasking wrote: post #123

cthalupa wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 pl…

All of those things are true, and I don't need them to be untrue to assign the largest share of responsibility to the thief.

Having laws (and the enforcement of laws) in place is something we believe to be the most effective input in causing the Bad Things to not happen. As such, having them and enforcing them is purely logical. We have decided that having someone "broken" in such a manner that these inputs are not enough to result in them not doing Bad Things need to be removed from the public, and do so.

Let's even step away from laws and assigning moral responsibility there. Let's look at interpersonal relationships.

I love my SO. I try to avoid doing things that hurt her, because seeing her hurt fundamentally makes me unhappy. It makes me unhappy enough that it outweighs the personal benefits of whatever decision I was making. We would all agree that not being shitty to your SO for personal gain is a morally correct choice, but this is still all a matter of causality. Either you have negative stimuli to it from something more direct, such as in my situation, or perhaps just because of social pressure and the desire to conform, but morality still comes into existence from the causal nature of reality. Free will is not necessary to explain it.

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#133

Post by naasking » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 2:54 PM UTC

stareatgoats wrote: post #129

naasking wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> A more pertinent question is really why the question (of whether "free will" exists) is posed at all.

Good question. See my reply to this post for an answer: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18608440

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#134

Post by fsloth » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 2:55 PM UTC

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…

I take the computational approach. Even if a system was computable in a finite time, if that time is too long, then effectively for all practical purposes the system is computationally intractable.

I find even the idea that we could one day compute the human brain completely preposterous. We can't even compute water flowing in a pipe today (I'm saying this as an effective non-expert who has dabbled a bit in computational physics).

So, if the philosophical basis is that "if we can deterministically compute something, it's deterministic" then human cognition at the moment is most indeterminate.

Free will or no free will, we really can't know the difference. So it's best to behave like you have a free will, and own your own actions as far as you can.

This is a slight modification to Pascal's gamble :)

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#135

Post by dmreedy » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 2:55 PM UTC

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…

An idea that's been tickling me lately is that 'randomness', as perceived by people inside a system, is actually an avenue by which free will from some hypothetical meta-system might assert itself.

The actions causally derived from randomness in our universe seem random because we inside the system have no Informational view in to the meta-system in which they have some kind of causal logic, but the decision makes sense when you have access to that higher-order logic in the meta-system. The random state of some set of particles in someone's brain that makes them choose one action over another, could be a connective tissue by which the meta-'soul' asserts its control.

It's useless for any kind of pragmatic ethical effort, and really it's just pushing the problem up one level, but it's fun to think about.

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#136

Post by bad_user » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 2:56 PM UTC

davemp wrote: post #126

bad_user wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm not talking about what's interesting or not in the universe.

I'm saying that compatibilism basically says that rocks too have free will. Which makes the term meaningless.

I mean, if you think about it, rocks too can suffer grinding due to their environment, having their shape, size or texture changed, which will affect what "choices" they'll make in the future and all rocks are unique in the universe due to their shape, composition and location.

So in regards to a "free will" discussion, the only difference between us and rocks is what? That we are living organisms and thus can move around? So is an amoeba.

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#137

Post by ajuc » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 2:59 PM UTC

naasking wrote: post #123

cthalupa wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 pl…

It is allowed to park a car, it is not allowed to take somebody else's car.

If it was a place where you can't park, and a police took your car - it would be your fault, not theirs. It doesn't depend on the free will, it just depends on the laws.

And the laws are what they are because of practical concerns and not free will.

Notice that if you left your TV on a parking lot for a week - and accused people who got it of theft - you would be ignored. But with car it's a theft :) It's all about agreed customs that work reasonably well for the socity, not some platonic ideals.

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#138

Post by naasking » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 3:02 PM UTC

cthalupa wrote: post #132

naasking wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 pl…

All of those things are true, and I don't need them to be untrue to assign the largest share of responsibility to the thief. Having laws (and the enforcement of laws) in place is something we believe to be the most effective input in causing the Bad Things to not happen. As such, having them and enforcing them is purely logical. We have decided that having someone "broken" in such a manner that these inputs are not e…

> All of those things are true, and I don't need them to be untrue to assign the largest share of responsibility to the thief.

You actually do. The very process of assigning "share of responsibility" is precisely the question that depends upon free will. If the thief stole your car only because someone was holding his wife hostage, now where does the responsibility lie? The circumstances immediately surrounding the car theft are precisely the same, but now an influence further back in the causal chain is presumably responsible. How would you differentiate these two scenarios without free will?

> I love my SO. I try to avoid doing things that hurt her, because seeing her hurt fundamentally makes me unhappy. It makes me unhappy enough that it outweighs the personal benefits of whatever decision I was making. [...] Free will is not necessary to explain it.

Free will is necessary to explain why you are morally blameworthy or praiseworthy for your choice of whether to go with your inclinations.

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#139

Post by naasking » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 3:06 PM UTC

fsloth wrote: post #134

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…

I take the computational approach. Even if a system was computable in a finite time, if that time is too long, then effectively for all practical purposes the system is computationally intractable. I find even the idea that we could one day compute the human brain completely preposterous. We can't even compute water flowing in a pipe today (I'm saying this as an effective non-expert who has dabbled a bit in computati…

> So, if the philosophical basis is that "if we can deterministically compute something, it's deterministic" then human cognition at the moment is most indeterminate.

I think computational complexity is important, but I also think it's important not to conflate "unpredictable" with "indeterminate", even if they are behaviourally indistinguishable.

> Free will or no free will, we really can't know the difference. So it's best to behave like you have a free will, and own your own actions as far as you can.

Dennett calls this the "intentional stance", ie. that any system of sufficient complexity should be treated as if it were acting with intent.

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#140

Post by ilitirit » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 3:10 PM UTC

chasd00 wrote: post #107

someone mentioned free will not existing because every decision made is the result of past decisions. Given a choice between A or B, I will only choose given who I am and therefore there was really no choice to begin with. When you're born you have no past to rely on but there sure seems to be a lot of randomness in a baby/child. Maybe randomness is free-will but it slowly erodes away with time.

> Maybe randomness is free-will but it slowly erodes away with time.

It's a bit tricky depending on your idea of what "free will" means, but essentially it can be argued that there's a difference non-trivial difference between free will and determinism.

If the development of the Universe is predetermined, then the Universe is deterministic (in some system of logic) and free will does not exist.

If the development of the Universe depends on the the outcome of truly random events, then the universe is non-deterministic, but this does not imply that free will exists.

Consider: Someone has to decide between two choices which for all intents and purposes are exactly the same when measured against each other. On the most fundamental level, the only way to break the deadlock is through a "random" selection. If this random selection is driven by the aforementioned random (possibly quantum) events, then is this really "free will"? After all, the person making the decision has no conscious control of the events influencing the decision process on that level. This implies that decision making ("will") is just a function acting on inputs.