The Libet experiment doesn't disprove free will (2019) • Hacker News Board

Re: The Libet experiment doesn't disprove free will (2019)

#41

Post by alisonkisk » Tue, Feb 16, 2021, 12:00 AM UTC

plutonorm wrote: post #35

netizen-936824 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That may be true, but I think our current conception of free will necessitates some sort of nondeterministic mechanism. Our brains, being physical systems, appear to be entirely deterministic.

Why does determinism preclude free will? If I am the physical processes that occur in my brain, then my decisions are rooted in those processes. Even if those processes are deterministic and there was only ever one outcome for my decisions, I can still say that I have free will because it was the very unfolding of those deterministic processes which led me to me to expressing my free will. There is only a clash betwe…

What is your definition of free will?

> unfolding of those deterministic processes

Doesn't sound free to me. Is a computer running a program exercising its free will?

Re: The Libet experiment doesn't disprove free will (2019)

#42

Post by alisonkisk » Tue, Feb 16, 2021, 12:06 AM UTC

cardanome wrote: post #19

twodave wrote: post #4

This sort of debate always struck me as nonsense. If our actions are not derived of our own free will, but just exist as a small part of nature, then if you follow that thread far enough you’ll understand that all reason and truth would also be invalid, being just the effect to some coincidental cause. This incidentally would render theories about the subject of free will invalid as well. Thus if there is no free wil…

A deterministic machine is still able to react based on external stimulus and able to reason about the world and itself. And we don't even need to go the full determinism route to disprove free will. What can free will be other than an illusion? Am I really deciding to be hungry, to want companionship, and so on? Am I simply doing what needs to be done to fulfill my needs while my brain is inventing reasons? What am…

Relativity theories say that objective truth only exists globally/abstractly, and cannot shared between observers.

Re: The Libet experiment doesn't disprove free will (2019)

#43

Post by cortesoft » Tue, Feb 16, 2021, 12:18 AM UTC

netizen-936824 wrote: post #24

cortesoft wrote: post #8

The idea that this experiment would disprove free will seems to rely on thinking that the 'conscious' mind is somehow separate from your physical brain, and free will is the act of your non-physical consciousness telling your body to move. This seems like nonsense to me. Your brain waves are the not caused by thoughts, they ARE your thoughts. Of course they are present before you are conscious of your decision to mov…

That may be true, but I think our current conception of free will necessitates some sort of nondeterministic mechanism. Our brains, being physical systems, appear to be entirely deterministic.

Why does a brain being a physical system necessitate it being deterministic?

It seems like the more we learn about quantum mechanics, the more things seem to be probabilistic than deterministic.

The physical brain being probabilistic fits perfectly with the idea of free will.

Re: The Libet experiment doesn't disprove free will (2019)

#44

Post by benibela » Tue, Feb 16, 2021, 12:20 AM UTC

maest wrote: post #29

joefourier wrote: post #10

Can someone actually provide a definition of free will? Apart from the legalistic definition - the ability to make decisions without being coerced by third parties or external factors - any other meaning seems to require dualism, the existence of some external force that can affect the brain and make decisions with some magical non-causal mechanism, which is to me a rather illogical concept. It seems it is just a neb…

I don't think you can define free-will in the absence of a definition for causality, and I have yet to see that.

Judea Pearl won a Turing award for a definition of causality

Re: The Libet experiment doesn't disprove free will (2019)

#45

Post by benibela » Tue, Feb 16, 2021, 12:21 AM UTC

twodave wrote: post #4

This sort of debate always struck me as nonsense. If our actions are not derived of our own free will, but just exist as a small part of nature, then if you follow that thread far enough you’ll understand that all reason and truth would also be invalid, being just the effect to some coincidental cause. This incidentally would render theories about the subject of free will invalid as well. Thus if there is no free wil…

I said that in a philosophy exam in school, and got a D- for it

Re: The Libet experiment doesn't disprove free will (2019)

#46

Post by netizen-936824 » Tue, Feb 16, 2021, 12:28 AM UTC

wruza wrote: post #39

kanzenryu2 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quantum Physics has perfectly random outcomes

In QM, you may teleport into the sun, but it was never registered for de-coherent macro objects, even for few millimeters. A brain is macro, neurons and their signals are pretty macro. Why should a brain or its parts even slightly depend on QM effects? Modern CPUs which have much smaller parts can work for years and not experience QM randomness bugs. Nothing is deterministic or “the same” at quantum level, but at the…

QM does have some impact on functional biochemistry, but I highly doubt its enough to make the system nondeterministic at any appreciable level. Not to mention, do we truly know that any part of QM is nondeterministic? Perhaps the nondeterministic appearance of QM is just our lack of understanding combined with our limited perspective.

Re: The Libet experiment doesn't disprove free will (2019)

#47

Post by netizen-936824 » Tue, Feb 16, 2021, 12:28 AM UTC

cortesoft wrote: post #43

netizen-936824 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That may be true, but I think our current conception of free will necessitates some sort of nondeterministic mechanism. Our brains, being physical systems, appear to be entirely deterministic.

Why does a brain being a physical system necessitate it being deterministic? It seems like the more we learn about quantum mechanics, the more things seem to be probabilistic than deterministic. The physical brain being probabilistic fits perfectly with the idea of free will.

QM does have some impact on functional biochemistry, but I highly doubt its enough to make the system nondeterministic at any appreciable level. Not to mention, do we truly know that any part of QM is nondeterministic? Perhaps the nondeterministic appearance of QM is just our lack of understanding combined with our limited perspective.

Re: The Libet experiment doesn't disprove free will (2019)

#48

Post by netizen-936824 » Tue, Feb 16, 2021, 12:30 AM UTC

alisonkisk wrote: post #41

plutonorm wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does determinism preclude free will? If I am the physical processes that occur in my brain, then my decisions are rooted in those processes. Even if those processes are deterministic and there was only ever one outcome for my decisions, I can still say that I have free will because it was the very unfolding of those deterministic processes which led me to me to expressing my free will. There is only a clash betwe…

What is your definition of free will? > unfolding of those deterministic processes Doesn't sound free to me. Is a computer running a program exercising its free will?

I think this actually perfectly shows how nebulous our definition of "free will" is. I sure can't define it, I can only observe what other people seem to think it means. The definition I tend to observe is one that fits in with a dualistic view, of some outside force making decisions for our body.

Re: The Libet experiment doesn't disprove free will (2019)

#49

Post by LatteLazy » Tue, Feb 16, 2021, 12:43 AM UTC

joefourier wrote: post #10

Can someone actually provide a definition of free will? Apart from the legalistic definition - the ability to make decisions without being coerced by third parties or external factors - any other meaning seems to require dualism, the existence of some external force that can affect the brain and make decisions with some magical non-causal mechanism, which is to me a rather illogical concept. It seems it is just a neb…

It's the same as intelligence or pornograph: you can't measure or really define it, you just know it when you see it.

Aka, it's not within the realm of science and people should stop pretending it is.

Re: The Libet experiment doesn't disprove free will (2019)

#50

Post by chr1 » Tue, Feb 16, 2021, 1:01 AM UTC

peterburkimsher wrote: post #36

joefourier wrote: post #10

Can someone actually provide a definition of free will? Apart from the legalistic definition - the ability to make decisions without being coerced by third parties or external factors - any other meaning seems to require dualism, the existence of some external force that can affect the brain and make decisions with some magical non-causal mechanism, which is to me a rather illogical concept. It seems it is just a neb…

The late John H Conway deduced a consistency proof that if people have free will, so do elementary particles. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_will_theorem He discusses it more in the following lecture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmx2tpcdKZY&feature=youtu.be... Free will doesn't mean "I can do anything." I'm not good at singing, so I can't ever be a famous rock star. Free will is to make a choice between a fin…

> If numbers cannot have infinite strings of digits, then the future can never be perfectly preordained.

Why? A simple cellular automaton like Rule 30 doesn't use any infinite data but it's future is perfectly preordained.

But being preordained doesn't mean that there can't be free will. Because having the initial state, and being able to predict later state are very different. Even simplest cellular automata are computationally irreducible, meaning that there is no shortcut, and the only way to find out their future states is to run the full computation.

So if physics can be described by finite computation, and all the future states can be obtained from initial state, the only way to obtain them would be running the whole simulation, which would be equivalent to people in that simulation living and making their choices themselves.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_30