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

people.ischool.berkeley.edu

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

#161

Post by PunchTornado »

legacynl wrote: post #135
karmakaze wrote: post #128

In what way is being unpredictable considered "free will"? Of course it's just being clickbaity but worth mentioning. I've seen this better used to show that humans are poor sources of randomness. Is there a difference between non-determinism and a free will choice? The latter seems to be a contradiction. A choice implies a reason which would be a cause, thus determinism. This test is asking to make random 'choices'.…

It's hard to come up with a scientifically valid test for something as wide and vague as 'free will'. So what happens is that the tests are designed to test for very specific things that are then used to reason better about vague things like 'free will'. What this test is actually focused on is decision making. The participant in the test is asked to randomly press either button A or B. The cognitive/mental experienc…

Hmm, I don't get it. The prediction was accurate 49% of the time, which is what I was expecting in a coin toss like this one. In which way does it predict the answer at step 1 if it's a binary choice with 50% accuracy?

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

#162

Post by aeneasmackenzie »

lupire wrote: post #141
GTP wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although I do believe we have free will, I don't agree with this specific example: looking at the algorithm used to predict key presses and just doing the opposite of what would the algorithm predicts, is letting the algorithm tell you what to do. This is related to inverse psychology.

How do you define free will?

Even a Turing machine has free will. You can’t find out what it will do without running it, in a way beyond all questions of technical capability. Mechanistic attacks on free will died with godel.

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

#163

Post by miika »

vasco wrote: post #29
miika wrote: 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…

The universe led up to this moment where you fool yourself into thinking you have free will just cause you sat still for a bit. Doesn't mean much. Think about it, if the universe is all predetermined, how peaceful your mental state is or isn't has no impact on it. We all either have free will or not, but breathing deep isn't gonna trigger it.

When you say "you fool yourself" then I have to admit that I don't know who am I or how I could define myself anyways. I have been sitting with that question every day for about 12 years now.

Only reason you believe there is a mind is because the mind says it exists. But have you investigated where is that mind and who is that which mind if speaking to?

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

#164

Post by pixl97 »

lupire wrote: post #141
GTP wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although I do believe we have free will, I don't agree with this specific example: looking at the algorithm used to predict key presses and just doing the opposite of what would the algorithm predicts, is letting the algorithm tell you what to do. This is related to inverse psychology.

How do you define free will?

I would say it's a measure of probability. Of course measuring probability in non repeatable situations gets tricky.

But, if I wrote there is a 90% probability that lupire will write an application to 'beat' the free will program, and then you did so, it should at least give you pause.

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

#165

Post by miika »

criddell wrote: post #101
miika wrote: 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?

Do you believe it's all about the brain?

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

#166

Post by hospitalJail »

ForwardObserver wrote: post #140

It got less than half right, so worse than just guessing. Observation- predicting learned habits and other cognitive-effort preserving strategies your brain uses are not a refutation of free will. The whole point of habits, as Marvin Minsky pointed out in Society of Mind, is to save us from having to think through every little decision, i.e. to make ourselves predictable and unburden ourselves from decisions. So in t…

Yep I got it about 50%.

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

#167

Post by miika »

qaq wrote: post #41
miika wrote: 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…

Well you either do something because you are forced to or because you want to. You don't control either.

There are always more than two choices.

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

#168

Post by wittjeff »

wittjeff wrote: post #160

Page & Neuringer (1985) showed that you could teach pigeons to be more variable. The discussion around that phenomenon has similar branches: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3501427/

More recent review: A Critical Review of the Support for Variability as an Operant Dimension https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33024930/

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

#169

Post by gus_massa »

From a comment in a previous similar project (I can't find it now), an easy method to defeat the predictor is to use 4 keys instead of 2. Instead of d and f, press s, d, f and e. The other keys are ignored by the program but the create enough confusion in your finger to make a more random sequence.

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

#170

Post by stiiv »

munksbeer wrote: post #148
eigenket wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Free will is equivalent to randomness with many (asymptotically infinite) degrees of freedom. I don't think this is obviously true. I can make a random number generating device with as many degrees of freedom as you like by producing a bunch of vertically polarised photons and measuring their horizontal polarisation. I don't think anyone would describe this system as having "free will". Conversely humans with "free…

> Free will seems to be qualitatively different to randomness. There is no such thing as free will, so any attempt to define it will fail. If we naively define it as something that isn't just pure randomness, but also something that isn't pure causality, then what is it? Either things are causal, in which case, you can replay everything and arrive at the same point. That doens't fit an intuitive definition of free wi…

There's an incongruity between a "mechanistic" model of causality and how we actually live, and actually should live.

Your explanation is a good response to the posted experiment, but I don't think it's a good response to common sense, especially when we consider important (largely pragmatic) concepts like agency and responsibility.

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