Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

blogs.scientificamerican.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 257 posts

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

#71

Post by mcswell »

alisonkisk wrote: post #42
cardanome wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No; all observers see the speed of light as the same.

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

#72

Post by mcswell »

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…

"Your brain waves are the not caused by thoughts, they ARE your thoughts." How can you know that? How do you know that your mind isn't somewhere else (in some sense of "where"), and transmitting signals to your brain, which simply acts as a receiver? I don't say this is true, I'm just asking how you would empirically or experimentally distinguish that situation from the notion that your brain makes up your thoughts.

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

#73

Post by pdonis »

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 legalistic definition pretty much is the definition used by philosophers who are physicalists (such as Dennett). Basically, the question is not whether physical processes determine what you do; of course they do. The question is, which physical processes? The ones that are going on in your brain, that we label with words like "perception", "cognition", "decision", etc? Or other processes, like the process of someone holding a gun to your head?

The only real difference I can see between the legalistic definition and the philosopher's definition is that the legalistic definition of "coercion" is broader. For example, I mentioned someone holding a gun to your head just now. Legally this would be coercion and wouldn't count as a free decision on your part. But to a physicalist philosopher, this might still count as a case of free will on your part--just free will based on a highly constrained set of acceptable choices given the circumstances. But that's a fine distinction that doesn't change the basic point.

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

#74

Post by pdonis »

mcswell wrote: post #70
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 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." I can see why you wouldn't believe this, but why do you think it is illogical? Consider the contrast between a tape recorder + tape, vs. a radio. In the one, the sounds that come out of the speaker are purely internally produced (considering the tape…

> if you apply OR to the brain and the mind, then you ought to be able to apply it to the radio receiver and transmitter

Only if you fail to take the obvious step of looking for the external influence--and finding it in the case of the radio receiver, but not in the case of the brain.

Occam's Razor doesn't say the simplest explanation always wins. It only says the simplest explanation that covers all the facts wins. That means you can't apply it until you have all the facts.

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

#75

Post by blue_potato »

joefourier wrote: post #65
finghin wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never understood this line of argument. It is difficult to see why something being hard to define makes it nebulous. The use of the concept of free will (which is incredibly intuitive—try asking a stranger if they have it, and they will certainly be able to answer) is only in this rather useless discussion associated with physical determinism (which is certainly not being thought of by the mentioned stranger). Can…

I can define a decision: the outcome of a process that selects between multiple options. The process can be conscious, unconscious or a computer programme. Semantics can be tiresome but if you are unable to define a concept and must resort to “try asking a stranger” then how am I supposed to know what you are referring to? You could be referring to the legal definition of free will, the compatibilist one as espoused…

> the outcome of a process that selects between multiple options

Doesn't this just kick the can down the road? Can you define it without "select", "choose", and other synonyms?

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

#76

Post by taneq »

chordalkeyboard wrote: post #34
B1FF_PSUVM wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's quite a bit of historical philosophical, and theological, debate on the topic. Boils down to "there is an immutable, foreordained destiny" vs. "each actor chooses freely and history is the sum of those vectors".

This needle is threaded by contemplation of what it means for someone to “choose.” If one freely chooses whatever one wants, then one has free will but one will always choose their desires.

I tend to drive that relation backwards - what people choose is what they ACTUALLY want (out of their given options).

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

#77

Post by pdonis »

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…

The definition of "free will" in this proof is not the same as the one being discussed here. The kind of "free will" that Conway's proof talks about could be exercised by an automated device that randomly chose measurement settings based on some unpredictable quantum event.

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

#78

Post by taneq »

smeej wrote: post #67
taneq wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly! All of the "YOU don't actually choose to move your hand, it's THIS PART OF YOUR BRAIN" stuff makes no sense. What do you think 'you' are if not your brain plus your body?

Or for that matter, what existence do you imagine "you" have apart from your body? Even the distinction between brain and body is artificial. Your brain isn't "you" in some special way that the rest of your body isn't. The whole unity is "you."

Yeah, I wouldn't be at all surprised to find out, some day in the far future when we actually understand the human body properly, that we're doing all sorts of interesting processing in the peripheral nervous system and even chemically outside of nerve cells.

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

#79

Post by cwalv »

PixyMisa wrote: post #68
finghin wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never understood this line of argument. It is difficult to see why something being hard to define makes it nebulous. The use of the concept of free will (which is incredibly intuitive—try asking a stranger if they have it, and they will certainly be able to answer) is only in this rather useless discussion associated with physical determinism (which is certainly not being thought of by the mentioned stranger). Can…

Nebulous means "hard to define" or "lacking a clear definition".

Maybe a better distinction is how some things are "hard to define" but "easy to understand".

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

#80

Post by voxl »

joefourier wrote: post #64
voxl wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given any decision, you have t amount of time to consider how to decide it. Suppose everything the same, if you were given `t + k` time but with no other external input, could you choose something different? If you could, you have free will (internal inputs _only_ can augment your decision).

By that definition, chess engines would have free will, as they would be able to search a through larger amount of possible moves given the extra time and thus find another move. The problem with that definition is that time itself is an external input of sorts. Therefore, everything is not the same since you have +k time. Your definition would also apply to many trivial decision processes, e.g. a computer programme…

Sure, its probably a better definition of "free action" but I am very convinced that those are necessary conditions (though probably not sufficient). Additional time can be an external input, that's fine, its only important that its the _only_ one.

Any definition of free will that doesn't appeal to dualism will allow programs to have free will, that's just par for the course.

Post reply on HN