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What's expected of us

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Re: What's expected of us

#51

Post by benpbenp »

aninhumer wrote: post #47
benpbenp wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, what I am saying is that you can have the deterministic universe, or the random universe, and still have free-will, properly understood. Note that from the outside, free-will is by definition apparently "random". It is a black box not determined by any variables in the greater world. What matters is that the free-will is mine or yours -- that the entity known as to me as myself or to you as yourself should al…

I seem to have misunderstood your post (and possibly conflated it with others). I thought you were arguing that "free will" was a third possibility, distinct from a deterministic or probabilistic universe. I am entirely happy to accept that free will is compatible with determinism, and it sounds like we have similar views on this issue. Personally I consider ownership of "will" to be a far more important notion than…

Probably due to my sloppiness, let me try to sort it out...

Free-will is a third possibility opposed to determinism of choice and pure randomness of choice.

But it is compatible with a either a deterministic or a probabilistic universe.

Re: What's expected of us

#52

Post by ksmiley »

jaw wrote: post #14

Sadly we're not informed what happens if you program a robot to press the button at fixed intervals unless it observes a flash.

Some simple resolutions would be: a freak lightning strike disables the robot's button-pressing hardware. Or a cosmic ray flips a bit in its machine code, causing it to shut down. Or the robot's designer suffers a heart attack before turning it on.

These may seem like contrived examples, but when you eliminate all outcomes that aren't self-consistent, it may be that _all_ the remaining possibilities are contrived. Probability gets weird when time travel is involved.

Re: What's expected of us

#53

Post by Xcelerate »

aninhumer wrote: post #50
capisce wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On [1], one interpretation of quantum mechanics says that the universe is the evolution of all possible future worlds through branching: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worlds_interpretation The other major interpretation would be that out of the possible futures one is randomly selected based on its probability. Determinism without branching doesn't seem like an option given the laws of physics, correct me if I'm…

As I understand it, our current understanding of physics suggests a probabilistic system, but I don't think we know enough to assert that a deterministic model is impossible. This comment goes into more detail about what we do know: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7069261 Also, if we were being obtuse, we can describe any (finite) probabilistic universe as a deterministic one with enough rules.

> As I understand it, our current understanding of physics suggests a probabilistic system, but I don't think we know enough to assert that a deterministic model is impossible.

We're pretty close actually. Look up Bell's Theorem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell's_theorem). It has been experimentally verified countless times and necessitates that "one is forced to reject locality, realism, or freedom". "Freedom" meaning something specific in a scientific sense. Rejecting the last one implies something called superdeterminism, which is basically just determinism (the "super" implies that everything that exists is deterministic; there are no random components). Gerard t'Hooft is one of the only legit physicists left who supports a superdeterministic theory. Almost all other physicists believe that a measurement of a quantum state collapses it into a random eigenstate.

For me personally, were superdeterminism found to be true (although it's looking more likely that's not going to be the case) it wouldn't bother me in the slightest, and I don't see a conflict between determinism and free will. Imagine someone creates a movie. They decide the plot -- what happens and when. They decide the setting, the number of characters, and everything else about the movie. Then when you play the movie, everything that occurs is predetermined -- deterministic in a sense -- yet it was freely chosen outside the realm of the movie. I kind of view reality that way.

Re: What's expected of us

#54

Post by nooneelse »

manmal wrote: post #29
tomp wrote: post #25

Oh my... another meditation on the issue of free will, and the existential angst we would experience if we learned that our choices are deterministic. Personally, however, I think that the whole question of free-will vs. determinism is a false dilemma. For me, another issue is more important: Determinism vs. randomness. If my choices are not deterministic, they must be random. I would rather be deterministic than ran…

I think that the brain is influenced by what is often called true randomness (e.g. radioactive decay). If neurons are influenced by true randomness in our environment, then the way they fire is not purely deterministic. But I'm not so sure anymore that radioactive decay and the like are purely random. Are they (because of quantum mechanical effects)?

Just to bolster your point that neurons can be influenced by radioactive decay (in case a reader were wanting to dispute any direct influence exists): a person with a Geiger counter can make a decision of any kind based on the parity of a count produced by it. "Even I turn left and go to work, odd I turn right and go to a park."

Re: What's expected of us

#55

Post by UnFleshedOne »

lmm wrote: post #46
benpbenp wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If my choices are not deterministic, they must be random. But this is not what is classically understood by free-will, and I suggest that it is your dilemma which is false. Quoting Aquinas, "Free-will is the cause of its own movement, because by his free-will man moves himself to act." I anticipate that free-will thus understood is likely ruled out a priori by your philosophical disposition. Nonetheless, I think you…

I've just never heard a notion of "free will" that makes enough sense to even ask whether it's true or not. Unless you're talking about some sort of Cartesian duality where there's a nonphysical soul that determines your body's actions - which is at least a coherent idea, but not supported by the evidence.

Even with a soul in the picture, you just move the question to a different level, not answering anything. Wouldn't you want to ask if a soul have a free will, or if it is governed by its own set of deterministic rules?

Re: What's expected of us

#56

Post by manmal »

nooneelse wrote: post #54
manmal wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that the brain is influenced by what is often called true randomness (e.g. radioactive decay). If neurons are influenced by true randomness in our environment, then the way they fire is not purely deterministic. But I'm not so sure anymore that radioactive decay and the like are purely random. Are they (because of quantum mechanical effects)?

Just to bolster your point that neurons can be influenced by radioactive decay (in case a reader were wanting to dispute any direct influence exists): a person with a Geiger counter can make a decision of any kind based on the parity of a count produced by it. "Even I turn left and go to work, odd I turn right and go to a park."

Great point! Given the current state of affairs in quantum physics (again, AFAIK), it can then be argued that there is no real determinism, but randomness and "chaos". (entropy increases in the universe, etc)

I can live with that :)

Re: What's expected of us

#57

Post by eevilspock »

benpbenp wrote: post #51
aninhumer wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I seem to have misunderstood your post (and possibly conflated it with others). I thought you were arguing that "free will" was a third possibility, distinct from a deterministic or probabilistic universe. I am entirely happy to accept that free will is compatible with determinism, and it sounds like we have similar views on this issue. Personally I consider ownership of "will" to be a far more important notion than…

Probably due to my sloppiness, let me try to sort it out... Free-will is a third possibility opposed to determinism of choice and pure randomness of choice . But it is compatible with a either a deterministic or a probabilistic universe .

I'm still confused by your point. "Because by his free-will man moves himself to act" seems to beg the question. Which direction does a woman act? I'm assuming her actions are determined by "who she is". If not, what are we referring by "her".

My choice of the feminine above was a choice, but not one everyone would make. So how could it be anything but determined by who I am?

Re: What's expected of us

#58

Post by nichtich »

Why is greater than one second is a problem? You can chain many predictor together using robots that when seeing a flash from one predictor presses another predictor. That way you can move the message back in time many seconds.

Re: What's expected of us

#59

Post by tomp »

vortmeester wrote: post #33
manmal wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that the brain is influenced by what is often called true randomness (e.g. radioactive decay). If neurons are influenced by true randomness in our environment, then the way they fire is not purely deterministic. But I'm not so sure anymore that radioactive decay and the like are purely random. Are they (because of quantum mechanical effects)?

As best anyone knows, quantum mechanical effects (like radioactive decay) really are purely and objectively random -- i.e., it is not the case that they appear random because of our ignorance of some deterministic processes. The not-actually-random scenario is called Local Hidden Variable Theory [1], and is ruled out by a series of remarkable experiments based on Bell's Theorem [2]. You can, if you are stubborn, crea…

I guess that the "determinism" that I have in mind is physically called "superdeterminism" [1]. In this sense, the revolution of the universe has been predetermined at the moment of the Big Bang (or even before) and throughout the lifetime of the universe, the next moment in time has been and is completely determined by the previous moment in time.

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdeterminism

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