There's No Such Thing as Free Will • Hacker News Board

Re: There's No Such Thing as Free Will

#11

Post by stouset » Tue, May 17, 2016, 8:52 PM UTC

aaron-santos wrote: post #9

dctoedt wrote: post #4

Seems like unwarranted either-or binary thinking: Either we're totally in control of ourselves, or we have no control at all. I suspect that doesn't square with most people's personal experiences. (Cf. Paul's letter to the Romans: " I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. " [1] ) One problem might lie in the nomenclature. The term "free will" is simply wrong. And it's n…

For a few years, I've considered the hot hand experiment[1] somewhat of a free will test in the sense that if our choices are not a function of the past then we should have the ability to fake coin flips. It supports idea of free will being a continuum because the answer to the runs test is the probability that the data was faked - never a definite yes or no. [1] - http://math.williams.edu/the-hot-hand/

I don't follow your logic. The question of whether or not we have free will is independent of the question of whether or not events from the past influence our decision-making process, which seems to be unquestionably true.

Re: There's No Such Thing as Free Will

#12

Post by taneq » Fri, May 20, 2016, 5:44 PM UTC

leecarraher wrote: post #8

why come up with a free will theorem when hand waving apparently suffices : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_will_theorem

This article seems to completely confuse free will with determinism. You can be non-deterministic without having free will, it doesn't matter whether it's equations of motion or truly random chance that pushes you in a particular direction, there's still no room for 'choice' in your resulting motion.

Re: There's No Such Thing as Free Will

#13

Post by taneq » Fri, May 20, 2016, 5:47 PM UTC

zaque1213 wrote: post #5

dctoedt wrote: post #4

Seems like unwarranted either-or binary thinking: Either we're totally in control of ourselves, or we have no control at all. I suspect that doesn't square with most people's personal experiences. (Cf. Paul's letter to the Romans: " I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. " [1] ) One problem might lie in the nomenclature. The term "free will" is simply wrong. And it's n…

> Either we're totally in control of ourselves, or we have no control at all. Maybe I missed it, but it seems the author of the article makes no distinction between natural and moral inability. Jonathan Edwards, in his work Freedom of the Will, puts forth the idea that a man chained to a chair is not morally unable to get up from the chair, but he is naturally unable. The author mentions that a day laborer with no be…

I think this distinction between 'moral' and 'natural' inability is an artificial one. The only difference is where, between the chair and the center of the man's mind, the chains are fastened.