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Test your “free will” at the Aaronson Oracle

people.ischool.berkeley.edu

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

#141

Post by bumbledraven »

avip wrote: post #113
bumbledraven wrote: post #99

An idea I shared on "Can you behave randomly? (1998)" ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11753194 ) seems relevant here. The keypresses I entered were not predictable by the Oracle. I generated the keypresses by first picking an arbitrary integer in [0,59]. I then (using simple mental arithmetic) used that integer to seed a PRNG by George Marsaglia [1] to generate a stream of pseudo-random decimal digits. For eac…

Can't you invoke a simpler random generator? Let's say primes % 4 ?

Do you have any references on the statistical properties of the primes % 4 sequence? When converted to coin flips, primes % 4 fails the statistical randomness tests at http://faculty.rhodes.edu/wetzel/random/mainbody.html

See results at http://imgur.com/iaHBNNr ("Your nth attempt" is primes % 4, "Coin nth attempt" is the Marsaglia PRNG). Note that primes % 4 has too many runs, its prob(H given H) is too low, and its prob(H given T) is too high.

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

#142

Post by etjossem »

knodi123 wrote: post #116
DanielStraight wrote: post #92

You can use its own output against it. (Which means, ironically, it does not follow "know thyself", a maxim said to be from the Oracle at Delphi.) Fixate on a number fairly late in the sequence (the millionths place seems to work well). If that number is 5-9, push 'f'. Otherwise, push 'd'. Keeps it pretty consistently around 0.5.

"To maximize your free will, press the key that the robot tells you to."

Right! Someone please get dang to retitle this submission, so we can all finally stop equating free will with unpredictability.

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

#143

Post by rosser »

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).

Yeah, I feel like randomness and "free will"-ness are pretty orthogonal. That said, I was able to keep the thing below a maximum of .56-ish without using any of the tricks others have suggested here, like picking an insignificant digit in the accuracy number and pressing 'f' or 'd' based on its value, or using the even/oddness of successive positions in π, or whatever.

So, apparently, my brain's PRNG is pretty random. But I still have absolutely fuck-all idea whether or not I have "free will".

Fun two-and-small-change minutes, though.

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

#147

Post by Tyr42 »

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.

Scott Aaronson has a cool paper taking about the relationship between the two questions.

Ghost in the Quantum Turing Machine https://arxiv.org/abs/1306.0159

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

#149

Post by colanderman »

SilasX wrote: post #97
colanderman wrote: post #79

I got it down to 0.51-something by simply switching keys iff the measure increased. Ironic, since I was exhibiting no "free will" by following that rule :)

I did that too and it worked for a short while, but then started increasing without bound. I wish it would list the record as you go.

1.0 is a fixpoint of that strategy! Since increasing values cause you to switch keys, and continually switching keys is perfectly predictable.
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