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What You (Want to)* Want

paulgraham.com

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Re: What You (Want to)* Want

#171

Post by mjburgess »

xianshou wrote: post #112
mjburgess wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, Action: Act(Environment|Character) Reflection: Act(Character|Environment) An agent has free will iff it engages in action reflection cycles. Also: An agent A "could have taken" action X vs Y: ActX(Env|CharA) vs ActY(Env|CharB) in the sense that there is a graph "of some sort" linking their CharA to the CharB which could realise ActY. Eg., Bob can either steal the money or return it. Bob chooses to steal it. Bob i…

This is a very interesting definition of "free will" and not one I would expect most philosophers to agree with, but more measurable and useful than most would propose. In this case "free will" reduces to self-modifying action with randomness injected by the environment, which feels more like a stochastic model than genuine self-determination. That said, the existence of a "reflection" function is still the primary d…

It's really just a restatement of compatibilism, which has been the major position in philosophy for a long time. And I think, in practice, what most people actually think.

Only somewhat recently have philosophers intuitions changed a little more to incompatibilism.

Re: What You (Want to)* Want

#172

Post by bheadmaster »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #164
xianshou wrote: post #80

Schopenhauer: "Man can do what he wills, but he cannot will what he wills." I've wrestled with this question from time to time and, to the extent I've found a solution, the key is duration: In the short term, choices are mutable (but determined by character), and character is fixed. In the long term, character is mutable, and determined by some inner nature plus the integral of experience, influence, and choice. Ther…

A good response to people like Schopenhauer is: "Not everyone has an ordinal complex, Mr Freud, just you." Willpower is absolutely a muscle that needs to be cultivated over the long term, as is every other character trait. I don't think people realize this, but it only takes about 2-3 months of hard, conscious effort to build a habit. On the scale of a lifetime, that is such a short time to make a change in your char…

What is an ordinal complex?

Re: What You (Want to)* Want

#173

Post by bheadmaster »

snowwrestler wrote: post #158
wodenokoto wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I found the concept of free will at odds with my opinion that the brain and physics are very deterministic. Physics don't have to be deterministic in order to be at odds with free will. Whether neurons fire due to a predefined pattern, or they fire with some probabilities do not change the equation for "how can a biological machine have free will?" Choice is at odds with both predefined rules and drawing from a ran…

You’re starting from a definition of free will that is a modern outlier compared to the historical use of the term in Western culture. That our will is not completely free is obvious to a child: they can’t always get they want. They can’t will an ice cream cone into existence. “Free will” never meant freedom from physics, so it’s a tautology to say it’s not free because of physics. > A recursive function, that mutate…

> You’re starting from a definition of free will that is a modern outlier compared to the historical use of the term in Western culture.

> That our will is not completely free is obvious to a child: they can’t always get they want. They can’t will an ice cream cone into existence.

> “Free will” never meant freedom from physics, so it’s a tautology to say it’s not free because of physics.

Well, would you care to share with us what "free will" really means, then?

Re: What You (Want to)* Want

#174

Post by sph »

SkyPuncher wrote: post #50
sph wrote: post #10

I probably don't have much to contribute, but I wanted to share some thoughts on the concept of free will Paul seems to brush against. I found the concept of free will at odds with my opinion that the brain and physics are very deterministic. But one thing the "free will doesn't exist" people tend to forget, is that the brain rewires and changes itself. You are destined to do what your brain is wired to do, but doing…

> I found the concept of free will at odds with my opinion that the brain and physics are very deterministic. IMO, this is the prime example of theory vs practice. In my opinion, our universe is deterministic at a theoretical level, but will never be practically deterministic. * Everything is likely made of a fundamental building block that can be predicted and modeled. In isolation, there is a small enough system th…

Precisely, and very well said. My understanding is that our will is still deterministic, but cannot be determined within the bounds of our universe. So effectively, in this universe and within this universe, our free will cannot be simulated nor predicted over even a pretty short amount of time.

Re: What You (Want to)* Want

#175

Post by wodenokoto »

snowwrestler wrote: post #158
wodenokoto wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I found the concept of free will at odds with my opinion that the brain and physics are very deterministic. Physics don't have to be deterministic in order to be at odds with free will. Whether neurons fire due to a predefined pattern, or they fire with some probabilities do not change the equation for "how can a biological machine have free will?" Choice is at odds with both predefined rules and drawing from a ran…

You’re starting from a definition of free will that is a modern outlier compared to the historical use of the term in Western culture. That our will is not completely free is obvious to a child: they can’t always get they want. They can’t will an ice cream cone into existence. “Free will” never meant freedom from physics, so it’s a tautology to say it’s not free because of physics. > A recursive function, that mutate…

> “Free will” never meant freedom from physics, so it’s a tautology to say it’s not free because of physics.

I don’t understand all your points but let me give a go at answering this one:

If we follow a markov-graph with rules between each point on the graph, until we reach a node with a decision, then hopefully we can agree that your choice is not free will, but just a rule set.

If we introduce a pair of dice to help navigate the decision graph, that doesn’t introduce free will either.

If we write down a set of rules for how to mutate the graph on each move, we still haven’t introduced free will. We are still following sets of rules blindly by the constraints of the rules and the rolls of the dice.

If we substitute the markov graph with _any_ computable, self modifiable, stochastic function, we don’t change the essence of the above argument.

If the brain is a biological machine that self-mutate following rules set in its structure, guided by the randomness inherited by nature, it is still just a function.

So where is the free will? Where does it fit in?

If it’s “well, you’re not a slave. You have the freedom to say and think what you want” then shouldn’t we consider GPT-3 to have free will? It says what it wants.

If its pseudo rng isn’t good enough to qualify we can hook it up to some decaying radioactive isotopes.

We can even hook it up to update its weights every time it receives human input, if free will require constant mutations of its function.

So I don’t agree with your argument. I think a reasonable critique of free will is that it doesn’t fit into our understanding of physics, unless we want to bestow free will on simple computer programs.

Re: What You (Want to)* Want

#176

Post by pclmulqdq »

bheadmaster wrote: post #172
pclmulqdq wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A good response to people like Schopenhauer is: "Not everyone has an ordinal complex, Mr Freud, just you." Willpower is absolutely a muscle that needs to be cultivated over the long term, as is every other character trait. I don't think people realize this, but it only takes about 2-3 months of hard, conscious effort to build a habit. On the scale of a lifetime, that is such a short time to make a change in your char…

What is an ordinal complex?

Damn autocorrect. An *oedipal complex.

Re: What You (Want to)* Want

#177

Post by ratrocket »

bheadmaster wrote: post #173
snowwrestler wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re starting from a definition of free will that is a modern outlier compared to the historical use of the term in Western culture. That our will is not completely free is obvious to a child: they can’t always get they want. They can’t will an ice cream cone into existence. “Free will” never meant freedom from physics, so it’s a tautology to say it’s not free because of physics. > A recursive function, that mutate…

> You’re starting from a definition of free will that is a modern outlier compared to the historical use of the term in Western culture. > That our will is not completely free is obvious to a child: they can’t always get they want. They can’t will an ice cream cone into existence. > “Free will” never meant freedom from physics, so it’s a tautology to say it’s not free because of physics. Well, would you care to share…

Not OP, but later in their comment they say:

> [...] declining dessert because I’m trying to lose weight. Which is the sort of banal decision that “free will” has historically referred to.

So, they shared that "free will" really means things like ... declining dessert.

Re: What You (Want to)* Want

#178

Post by snowwrestler »

wodenokoto wrote: post #175
snowwrestler wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re starting from a definition of free will that is a modern outlier compared to the historical use of the term in Western culture. That our will is not completely free is obvious to a child: they can’t always get they want. They can’t will an ice cream cone into existence. “Free will” never meant freedom from physics, so it’s a tautology to say it’s not free because of physics. > A recursive function, that mutate…

> “Free will” never meant freedom from physics, so it’s a tautology to say it’s not free because of physics. I don’t understand all your points but let me give a go at answering this one: If we follow a markov-graph with rules between each point on the graph, until we reach a node with a decision, then hopefully we can agree that your choice is not free will, but just a rule set. If we introduce a pair of dice to hel…

You're trying to start with our fundamental physical theories and calculate your way to free will. And you're right that we can't do that. But we can't calculate our way to a rose, or a tree, or a squirrel, or a human, or Mt Everest either. We can't even calculate our way to folding proteins.

How complex phenomena emerge from the fundamental laws of the universe is a blank spot on the map of human understanding. You're looking there and saying "I don't see a road to free will through here." You think this says something about free will, but all it really does is say something about the map.

The best we can do is observe complex phenomena and look for contradictions to fundamental physical theory. I can observe a beetle and see if anything about it contradicts quantum mechanics. So far, no. And observations of free will do not either.

This only disproves free will if you carefully define "free will" in advance as a quality that contradicts fundamental physics. But why would you do that? Free will has historically meant the quality that allows people to make decisions in the course of everyday life, not a quality that allows them to do fantastic feats like generate infinite amounts of energy or some other violation of physics.

As long as our ability to freely make decisions doesn't violate our understanding of physics, you can't say that our understanding of physics excludes our ability to freely make decisions.

Re: What You (Want to)* Want

#179

Post by bheadmaster »

ratrocket wrote: post #177
bheadmaster wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You’re starting from a definition of free will that is a modern outlier compared to the historical use of the term in Western culture. > That our will is not completely free is obvious to a child: they can’t always get they want. They can’t will an ice cream cone into existence. > “Free will” never meant freedom from physics, so it’s a tautology to say it’s not free because of physics. Well, would you care to share…

Not OP, but later in their comment they say: > [...] declining dessert because I’m trying to lose weight. Which is the sort of banal decision that “free will” has historically referred to. So, they shared that "free will" really means things like ... declining dessert.

In that case, by "free will" they mean "the feeling of free will".

In which case it's completely besides the point, since the original argument is about how can free will arise from deterministic/random universe. If the rebuttal is "well I feel like I have free will" there is nothing anyone can do to refute that, since the feeling is real, to them.

But that doesn't mean free will itself is real. He's not really choosing to decline dessert just for the sake of it - he has a motivation behind it: losing weight. Now, one could say "well I could decline dessert just for the sake of it" to prove a point, but then "proving a point" would be the motivation for declining dessert. There's just no way out.

Free will is a fundamentally ill-defined concept, just like consciousness. We all "feel" it, but nobody can put it into words precisely enough to enable any kind of rigorous discussion.

Re: What You (Want to)* Want

#180

Post by amts »

He should try to rewrite this topic in ketamine and/or other dissociatives and with appropriate combinations of set&setting, otherwise it's just another one biased opinion.
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