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Can you use your "free will"? Try your hand

people.ischool.berkeley.edu

101–110 of 279 posts

Re: Can you use your "free will"? Try your hand

#101
post #22

The question is never if we have free will or not. The question is if we are in a state where free will is available or not. For example, when I’m aware that there is space around myself, then I’m also aware that there are thoughts, feeling in the body, breath etc. In this state, I believe, it’s possible to choose. In this test I can choose the only press the other key and this algorithm doesn’t do so well. Then some…

> I believe, it's possible to choose

What exactly do you mean by choose? Are you saying there are actions that have no discernable cause? That there's a state in the brain that is unrelated to the state of the brain a brief moment ago? If so, is that a type of telekinesis?

Re: Can you use your "free will"? Try your hand

#102

From the Github description, a quote: "In a class I taught at Berkeley, I did an experiment where I wrote a simple little program that would let people type either “f” or “d” and would predict which key they were going to push next. It’s actually very easy to write a program that will make the right prediction about 70% of the time. Most people don’t really know how to type randomly. They’ll have too many alternation…

51%

Re: Can you use your "free will"? Try your hand

#103
post #100
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your behaviour can be predicted then you don't have free will. Obviously you can argue whether this really predicts human behaviour or even the above implication itself (for example I think compatibilism kinda disagrees with it) but I'd say it is related.

Is it true? From my point of view, that someone can predict what I will do from past behavior does not imply I don't have a free will. Only way that would prove I don't have a free will is someone who would predict my behavior without knowing anything about my past, like a fortune teller that would tell my friend (because if fortune teller tells it to me it might be self fulfilling prophecy :D) something I would do;…

I think it is true. If something could predict all your actions with 100% certainty then you have no free will - you have no ability to decide for a different outcome than the one that is predetermined.

Although if it wasn't like that and you could do truly random decisions, I'm not sure what that says about your free will either.

If I had to guess, I don't think I have a free will. In my opinion my actions are a deterministic function of the state of my mind (including memory, personality) + input. I have no choice in the matter, only an illusion of one.

Re: Can you use your "free will"? Try your hand

#107
post #97
post #78

This doesn't work on mobile. Free will and self-determination are not the same thing. Free will means the consequences and outcomes you face can be tracked back to decisions you made. Everything can be pre-destined at a level that transcends time and space as we understand it, and you can still have free will. Imagine starting a program you wrote, you know exactly what it will do given you already know the exact para…

Your definition of free will is a compatibilist one, and a lot of people reacts strongly negatively to compatibilist definitions when you turn explain that in a deterministic universe they are compatible with you not actually being able to make a different choice if we "rewound time". To me, a compatibilist "free will" is not free - it's an illusion. Being aware the "free" part of compatibilist free will is an illusi…

I think the critical thing you and I disagree with is how you think chance and randomness exist, there is no proof that they do, everything has a cause. There is no rewinding of time. You and I are experiencing time one reality clockrate at a time and our minds refuse to contemplate reality beyond time as we know it, that's why infinity is a difficult to grasp concept for us.

You couldn't have made a different decision, but it was still your decision. It is because you assumed that your decisions control all outcomes that you feel deluded. Or you assumed your decisions can't be predicted.

Let me give you an example: A man wantes to kill himself so he took cyanide but it just so happens, a car ran into his house by accident and found him in time, then after recovery he shoots himself in the mouth directly to the brain with a shotgun but in the last second his neighbor made a loud sound that startled him and he ended up shooting half of his face off instead, he recovered from that and jumped off a building but he landed on a car and somehow he broke a lot of bones but was still alive, he crawled out his hospital bed after a few years, he hanged himself but the rope wasn't thr right length, he broke his neck and the rope snapped, he spent many decades paralyzed on a hospital bed.

Now that man had free will to make the decision about killing himself but the outcome is that in each case he failed because his destiny of be a paralytic was planned around his decisions to attempt suicide. In no way was his free will an illusion? he was allowed to make the decision and act on it but whether or not things go as he planned is what he does not control.

A less morbid example: I want to get tacos and head over to my regular taqueria but they happen to be closed due to a plumbing emergency, so I head over to mcdonalds instead. I made a free will decision to get tacos but the fact that I couldn't doesn't mean I don't have free will. Now, if the persons who own the taqueria and mcdonalds predicted beforehand that I will attempt to get tacos this morning and orchestrated a fake plumbing emergency, knowing with certainty that I will go to mcdonalds, does that mean my will was any less free? No. Because my ability to control outcomes is what I don't have, I was still able to make that decision to get tacos. Now, if those business owners brainwash me to a point where they can control my decision to get tacos or mcdonalds, then I would have lost free will because it isn't outcomes but my decision making process that is being controlled.

What makes you feel deluded is you now have to face the fact that you are not in control of your outcome, but only of your decisions. Concepts like justice would not need to exist if everyone controlled their own outcomes.

Step back to the begining, did you decide to be born or to exist? If you couldn't even control that, why did you presume you could control any outcome? You can make decisions and hopefully most of the time the outcome goes your way but at what point between birth and adulthood did you suddenly gain control of your destiny?

I wish more people can read this but therein is the difference between fate and destiny. Destiny is the outcome you can't control, fate is that same outcome but connected to specific decisions you and others made. In my first example, becoming a paralytic was his destiny, his excercise of free will to attempt suicides is the cause of his tragic paralytic fate (and I hope my morbid example scared someone off lol).

Re: Can you use your "free will"? Try your hand

#109
post #106
post #104

I got down to 0% on my first try... I'm afraid I don't get it :D I typed dddfdddfdffffddddddf

Not sure what the percentages mean. It predicted 6 keys correctly and 14 incorrectly.

Hm after pressing some more it suddenly increases to 30% while the ratio of hits and misses hasn't really changed. Perhaps the calculation is somewhat buggy?

Re: Can you use your "free will"? Try your hand

#110
post #103
post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it true? From my point of view, that someone can predict what I will do from past behavior does not imply I don't have a free will. Only way that would prove I don't have a free will is someone who would predict my behavior without knowing anything about my past, like a fortune teller that would tell my friend (because if fortune teller tells it to me it might be self fulfilling prophecy :D) something I would do;…

I think it is true. If something could predict all your actions with 100% certainty then you have no free will - you have no ability to decide for a different outcome than the one that is predetermined. Although if it wasn't like that and you could do truly random decisions, I'm not sure what that says about your free will either. If I had to guess, I don't think I have a free will. In my opinion my actions are a det…

Unless you decide to act irrationally at some point, and at others you act rationally, and switch back and forth using a coin flip.
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