Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Test your “free will” at the Aaronson Oracle

people.ischool.berkeley.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 240 posts

Re: Test your “free will” at the Aaronson Oracle

#131

Post by kobayashi »

SilasX wrote: post #96
etjossem wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. It tries to measure how random your brain's PRNG is, which has nothing to do with free will. A simple computer has no free will at all, but after being instructed to type randomly, it will score close to 0.5 without fail. The "free will" quote comes from a Berkley quantum computing student, who chose keys as independently of pattern as he could [1], and this seems to take it out of context. It might make sense…

To most people, "how predictable you are" and "whether you have free will" are almost the same question.

The only way to assume that those are synonymous would be to ask if one can freely will themselves to be random. However, even that has more to do with aptitude and ability than free will. E.g. I can freely will myself to try and be an NBA player, but I'm bound by physical limitations. However, my inability to be an NBA player would not normally be considered a lacking of free will.

Re: Test your “free will” at the Aaronson Oracle

#132

Post by jonathanyc »

SilasX wrote: post #96
etjossem wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. It tries to measure how random your brain's PRNG is, which has nothing to do with free will. A simple computer has no free will at all, but after being instructed to type randomly, it will score close to 0.5 without fail. The "free will" quote comes from a Berkley quantum computing student, who chose keys as independently of pattern as he could [1], and this seems to take it out of context. It might make sense…

To most people, "how predictable you are" and "whether you have free will" are almost the same question.

Whether or not determinism and free will are compatible is a very intricate debate that your throwaway remark doesn't do justice to. Look up Compatibilism.

Re: Test your “free will” at the Aaronson Oracle

#133

Post by jameshart »

BucketSort wrote: post #66

So. I have done a similar thing for a while now. I call it adversarial selection. I ask a participant(p) to guess a number [1,10] repeatedly. After they guess a number, I immediately tell them my guess of their selected number. Immediately after I guess they are instructed to make a new guess and tap the table indicating they have picked a number. The point is to go through these generations very fast. Often what I'l…

"I ask a participant(p)"

Good forward planning to allocate a variable to hold a reference to the participant in case you need to refer to them later in the story, though in this case it turned out not to be needed. I need to start doing this in anecdotes. "So I was chatting with a colleague (C), and he mentioned..."

Re: Test your “free will” at the Aaronson Oracle

#135

Post by mevile »

Natsu wrote: post #115
brianpan wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You got 0.5, but where's your free will now, human?

One could also invoke that free will and simply not play the game at all.

You're playing this game, every day with every website you go to, every store you visit, every app you use, every interaction you make. Unless you live a (probably less comfortable) life in a rural area. These types of techs for the most part make out lives better.

Re: Test your “free will” at the Aaronson Oracle

#138

Post by etjossem »

jonathanyc wrote: post #132
SilasX wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To most people, "how predictable you are" and "whether you have free will" are almost the same question.

Whether or not determinism and free will are compatible is a very intricate debate that your throwaway remark doesn't do justice to. Look up Compatibilism.

Also, Determinism (philosophy) != deterministic (computing)

The former is the metaphysical idea that all events are causally linked, a belief which we can never confirm or refute. The latter describes something's observable degree of predictability.

They're not related concepts at all. This demo has nothing to do with free will, Determinism, or Compatibilism - but it's an interesting study in predictability.

Re: Test your “free will” at the Aaronson Oracle

#139

Post by Dove »

loupgarou21 wrote: post #106
coldtea wrote: post #40

Got it to 0.5991561181434598 after a while (totally random would be "0.5"). Not sure how "free will" comes into play, if there was indeed free will, I could have freely decided to only press one, and the Oracle would have had close to 100% certainty. Rather, what it measures is randomness or predictability, which is not the same thing as free will (especially "after the fact", e.g. after the choice is made).

if .5 is completely random, what does it mean that I got it down to 0.4781666666666667? I may have gotten it lower than that, but got tired of taking screenshots. Eventually I ended up back around .53

It means you were able to fake the algorithm out. Consider a very simple algorithm that guesses based on your previous two characters:

  df  d
  dd  d
  fd  f
  ff  f
This is presumably much simpler than what the page is doing, but will nonetheless work pretty well on humans by looking for alternations and long runs.

This algorithm is trivially defeated (chance of guessing 0) by the string

ffddffddffdd

Since that holds a pattern just long enough to get the algorithm to guess based on it and then switches.

For a little while, either intentionally or not, you must have been doing a more sophisticated version of this.

With perfect knowledge, it should be possible to get it down to 0.

Re: Test your “free will” at the Aaronson Oracle

#140

Post by perennate »

zzrg wrote: post #65

When I was little (and had too much free time) I memorized many digits of some transcendental numbers. The only (semi)practical use I've found for that knowledge, is that I can use it as a reasonably good pseudorandom stream. If for some reason I have to choose things pseudorandomly. Pick an arbitrary starting point in pi, and press 'd' for even digits and 'f' for odd digits, I get around 0.49 accuracy with this orac…

Mm I did something similar, doesn't need memorization though: arbitrarily form sentences, go through the letters in order, and pick 'd' for a-m and 'f' for n-z. Of course there will be some patterns, but it's sufficient for this. And I think this strategy uses more free will :P
Post reply on HN