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The Erosion of Free Will: Why Society's Loss of Belief in Freedom Is Dangerous

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Re: The Erosion of Free Will: Why Society's Loss of Belief in Freedom Is Dangerous

#71

Post by lapcat »

simonh wrote: post #57
lapcat wrote: post #15

> If there’s no free will, every solution must be a top-down one. If people aren’t free to choose, then “people don’t change”—they can’t change. Neither of these claims is justified or even explained by the author.

I came to comment on the same core claim. Clearly people do change, we see it happen in our own lives. People undergo religious conversion, change their political views, decide to become vegetarian, give up a life of crime. Giving up a belief in philosophical free will doesn’t negate any of that. The physicalist view is that we are physical systems, and obviously such systems are entirely mutable. Determinism means I…

> It’s basically the same argument as the old sore that without a belief in gods moral authority, there would be nothing to stop us from attacking, raping and stealing from each other.

Yep. The good news is that many people are not actually free to do these things things, restrained by an innate sense of humanity. Society has a lot of problems, but it would completely fall apart, becoming a Hobbesian war of all against all, if we depended on everyone deliberately choosing to be good rather than simply being good.

Re: The Erosion of Free Will: Why Society's Loss of Belief in Freedom Is Dangerous

#72

Post by danaris »

Animats wrote: post #38

That's a mess of an article. It confuses "free will" and "freedom". "Free will" is an internal issue within brains. "Freedom" is about what you can do before some external constraint stops you. Confusing the two does not help. On the free will side, there are various technical arguments. One science fiction author has one of his robots, asked about free will by a human, say that they have a random number generator, a…

> There are psychology experiments which indicate that the explanation for a decision is generated after the decision is made.

While this is true (IIRC it found that for the decisions it was tracking, the "real" decision was made subconsciously seven seconds before it was consciously stated), it is trivially disprovable that this is universally true. All you have to do is present people with a novel decision to make, and force them to make it in a very short amount of time.

Since we know that humans are capable of reacting and making decisions based on new information in well under seven seconds, it is clearly dangerous to overgeneralize the results of the experiments you cite.

Re: The Erosion of Free Will: Why Society's Loss of Belief in Freedom Is Dangerous

#73

Post by krapp »

danaris wrote: post #72
Animats wrote: post #38

That's a mess of an article. It confuses "free will" and "freedom". "Free will" is an internal issue within brains. "Freedom" is about what you can do before some external constraint stops you. Confusing the two does not help. On the free will side, there are various technical arguments. One science fiction author has one of his robots, asked about free will by a human, say that they have a random number generator, a…

> There are psychology experiments which indicate that the explanation for a decision is generated after the decision is made. While this is true (IIRC it found that for the decisions it was tracking, the "real" decision was made subconsciously seven seconds before it was consciously stated), it is trivially disprovable that this is universally true. All you have to do is present people with a novel decision to make,…

That doesn't disprove anything. It could just as well be the case that the subconscious decision-making process can be done more quickly when necessary.

Re: The Erosion of Free Will: Why Society's Loss of Belief in Freedom Is Dangerous

#74

Post by mistermann »

Nevermark wrote: post #65

Free will, like our concept of ourselves and other objects as identifiable "things", is simply a useful approximation. It is useful to think of an island as a clear concept, with an area and border with the sea. But the more accurately you attempt to identify its shape, at higher and higher resolution, the more complex its perimeter and shape become. Until quantum mechanics kicks in and you have superpositions of par…

> But free will doesn't exist, even as a viable concept, at any fundamental level.

Have you not accomplished the impossible: knowing what cannot be known? You may lack free will, but this remarkable ability (involuntary Oracle?) may more than make up for that shortcoming.

Re: The Erosion of Free Will: Why Society's Loss of Belief in Freedom Is Dangerous

#75

Post by mistermann »

stametseater wrote: post #34

I think the question of free will is irrelevant from the perspective of a government. The relevant question is whether a government can modify the behaviors of people by manipulating systems of incentives and punishments. This can be empirically tested, and the answer is clearly yes. All governments on every corner of the world do it in one form or another. If there are no punishments for not paying taxes, then few w…

> If there are no punishments for not paying taxes, then few will pay. If there are harsh punishments, then most will pay. This is common sense. Whether or not a thing called 'free will' plays a roll simply doesn't matter.

What about edge cases?

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

And if one node can defect from the system default programming, might it be possible that others can as well?

Re: The Erosion of Free Will: Why Society's Loss of Belief in Freedom Is Dangerous

#76

Post by mgh2 »

Animats wrote: post #38

That's a mess of an article. It confuses "free will" and "freedom". "Free will" is an internal issue within brains. "Freedom" is about what you can do before some external constraint stops you. Confusing the two does not help. On the free will side, there are various technical arguments. One science fiction author has one of his robots, asked about free will by a human, say that they have a random number generator, a…

The misunderstanding is understandable, since there is a bias in 1st world countries, living in too much "choice" (fueled by marketing): https://trendguardian.medium.com/free-will-a-rich-fairy-tale...

Re: The Erosion of Free Will: Why Society's Loss of Belief in Freedom Is Dangerous

#77

Post by stametseater »

mistermann wrote: post #75
stametseater wrote: post #34

I think the question of free will is irrelevant from the perspective of a government. The relevant question is whether a government can modify the behaviors of people by manipulating systems of incentives and punishments. This can be empirically tested, and the answer is clearly yes. All governments on every corner of the world do it in one form or another. If there are no punishments for not paying taxes, then few w…

> If there are no punishments for not paying taxes, then few will pay. If there are harsh punishments, then most will pay. This is common sense. Whether or not a thing called 'free will' plays a roll simply doesn't matter. What about edge cases? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kaczynski And if one node can defect from the system default programming, might it be possible that others can as well?

> What about edge cases?

What about them? You tell me, you're the one who evidently thinks they're relevant.

Re: The Erosion of Free Will: Why Society's Loss of Belief in Freedom Is Dangerous

#78

Post by stametseater »

brutusborn wrote: post #55
stametseater wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm saying that quantum physics basically gives you an RNG, and you cannot build meaningful free will in the sense that people believe in by adding an RNG to an otherwise deterministic toolbox. People who do as you describe are appealing not to quantum physics itself but rather to the mystic of quantum physics.. quantum woo. 'Quantum' is a word they throw around to give a veneer of science to their assertions, but th…

I agree that people take a little knowledge and run with it (myself included). But doesn’t the mere existence of random processes in quantum theory suggest that there is a route for non-deterministic action (I.e. free will). So although quantum randomness cannot currently be linked to consciousness, there’s no fundamental idea in quantum theory that precludes humans affecting the “randomness” via some yet unidentifie…

Quantum physics doesn't offer a mechanism for free will, the best it offers is a "gap" for you to squeeze your god into: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_of_the_gaps

Re: The Erosion of Free Will: Why Society's Loss of Belief in Freedom Is Dangerous

#79

Post by than3 »

While it is an interesting diatribe, its clearly echo chamberish.

There's a psychology study showing that people's sense of freedom and agency are significantly reduced in the presence of coercion. That's a much more interesting topic than this article.

Why should we bother reading 8 pages of text (all that air) if they only want and care about comments from paid subscribers? Seems like a fruitless and wasteful diversion.

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