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Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

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Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#201

Post by naasking »

cthalupa wrote: post #187
naasking wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Someone kidnapped my wife so I stole a car is not a valid legal defense That's not the scenario I posed, although perhaps the presentation wasn't clear. So to be perfectly clear so there are no misunderstandings, the thief was told to steal your car or his wife would be executed. Clearly he's morally culpable for stealing the car in one scenario and not in the other. This distinction can be clearly made using free…

I get your point - where does the distinction lie? At what point does responsibility shift? And I understand that you argue free will is necessary to make that distinction. But you don't need free will to do that. You need a system of inputs that result in an output, with that output being the decision. It's still all a matter of causality. We've evolved in such a way that we want to stay alive, and that the vast maj…

You still haven't answered the question. You can't claim that we don't need free will to address these questions while simultaneously refusing to provide even a single alternative concept or process that could do so equally well.

Clearly some quality leads people to make a distinction between the scenarios I presented. Compatibilism calls this quality the free will of the agent in question. This is not an earth-shattering concept and does not violate any scientific principles, and it matches how people talk and reason about these scenarios.

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#202

Post by naasking »

dragonwriter wrote: post #200
naasking wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He is responsible for stealing the car in both situations. He's causally responsible yes, free will is about assigning moral responsibility. The validity of various reasons for acting immorally is precisely the question that free will addresses.

> He's causally responsible yes On one case, only as inevitable intermediary in the chain of causation, in the other as a necessary part of the ultimate, uncaused causation. These are very different senses of “causally responsible”. > free will is about assigning moral responsibility. Only indirectly, in the context of it being assumed axiomatically that having ones will be a necessary uncaused cause of the outcome i…

> These are very different senses of “causally responsible”.

The posters I'm engaging here don't believe in uncaused causation (nor do I), so there's little difference in the causal character of the thief's actions here in either case.

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#203

Post by dragonwriter »

naasking wrote: post #202
dragonwriter wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He's causally responsible yes On one case, only as inevitable intermediary in the chain of causation, in the other as a necessary part of the ultimate, uncaused causation. These are very different senses of “causally responsible”. > free will is about assigning moral responsibility. Only indirectly, in the context of it being assumed axiomatically that having ones will be a necessary uncaused cause of the outcome i…

> These are very different senses of “causally responsible”. The posters I'm engaging here don't believe in uncaused causation (nor do I), so there's little difference in the causal character of the thief's actions here in either case.

> The posters I'm engaging here don't believe in uncaused causation

Free will is, by definition, both uncaused and a cause of other actions. If you don't believe in uncaused causation, you don't believe in free will, but you can't discuss the meaning and implication of free will in any meaningful way while ignoring the entirety of it's definition whether or not you believe in free will (or the broader conceptual class of uncaused causes of which free will is a part.)

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#204

Post by cthalupa »

naasking wrote: post #201
cthalupa wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get your point - where does the distinction lie? At what point does responsibility shift? And I understand that you argue free will is necessary to make that distinction. But you don't need free will to do that. You need a system of inputs that result in an output, with that output being the decision. It's still all a matter of causality. We've evolved in such a way that we want to stay alive, and that the vast maj…

You still haven't answered the question. You can't claim that we don't need free will to address these questions while simultaneously refusing to provide even a single alternative concept or process that could do so equally well. Clearly some quality leads people to make a distinction between the scenarios I presented. Compatibilism calls this quality the free will of the agent in question. This is not an earth-shatt…

>You can't claim that we don't need free will to address these questions while simultaneously refusing to provide even a single alternative concept or process that could do so equally well.

You keep saying this, but it's simply not true. I've specifically explained how it is a matter of making value judgments based on our past. That's all it is. This same system of judgments also equally explains people's beliefs when it comes to morals as well.

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#205

Post by Koshkin »

kenmicklas wrote: post #190
jobigoud wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe there are no hidden variables, and maybe there is no communication, but these properties are simply encoded into the light particles, by the way they are created. I believe this is exactly what "hidden variables" means. Some unknown property that would be present in both particles before we measure it and constraint the possible outcomes. This is inconsistent with experiments, it was shown there is no such pr…

It's only inconsistent if you assume information can't travel faster than the speed of light, for which there is no basis besides gospel.

Science is no "gospel."

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#206

Post by intralizee »

naasking wrote: post #85
intralizee wrote: post #12

I’m a person who acknowledges everything is deterministic and free will is a facade. The two types of people I’ve encountered who desire the notion of free will: 1) Person with ego who needs to have a belief in free will. 2) Persons who has ego, gets annoyed by free will being a facade and refuses to think about it because “it doesn’t matter” to this person. I’m perplexed if the problem is singular between the two ty…

> The two types of people I’ve encountered who desire the notion of free will: 1) Person with ego who needs to have a belief in free will. 2) Persons who has ego, gets annoyed by free will being a facade and refuses to think about it because “it doesn’t matter” to this person. This is a complete straw man. Let me describe the contrary claim: in my experience, the type of person who desire giving up free will either a…

You don’t have a good grasp on philosophy to suggest the meaning of free will and complatiblism. Yes the justic system is a disgrace to humanity and I understand determinism. Prove otherwise please from what I wrote and I’ll be thankful. Instead it looks like someone with a hurt ego writing nonsense to me.

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#207

Post by ajuc »

naasking wrote: post #197
ajuc wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He is responsible for stealing the car in both situations. He has an excuse in one, but excuse doesn't stop responsibility, and both doesn't require a free will to exist. To provide better example - one guy blackmails you to kill me, or he will kill your whole family. You still have a choice. You make your choice or it's predetermined cause no free will - it doesn't matter. You are responsible for your choice, and th…

> He is responsible for stealing the car in both situations. He's causally responsible yes, free will is about assigning moral responsibility. The validity of various reasons for acting immorally is precisely the question that free will addresses.

> free will is about assigning moral responsibility

Moral responsibility seems to me to be the same as the casual responsibility in these cases?

There's the famous "goal does/does not justify means" - if blackmail removed your moral responsibility then it's meaningless because there's nothing to justify. I don't think it's the case.

I think moral responsibility is still there, it's just negligible compared to the alternatives.

And I still don't see how it requires free will (except for the useless definition "anything that learns and can make a choice" - then by definition we have a free will, but that was never in question, why even waste a word on such a concept?).

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#208

Post by cthalupa »

naasking wrote: post #177
cthalupa wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Prove that "a universe without free will but behaviourally indistinguishable from one that features Compatibilism" is actually a coherent definition/non-empty set. It being at all meaningful for me to do that relies Compatibilism having been proven to be correct. There's no evidence that this is the case. >I honestly don't understand what confusion would lead you to make such a statement. Null hypotheses are simply…

> The null hypothesis is 100% relevant to this sort of question. Take a look at the actual definition of null hypothesis and tell me how it's relevant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Null_hypothesis You're suggesting there's no relationship between what two phenomena when it comes to free will? > The scientific null assumption is that something doesn't exist. No it's not. Science is agnostic on such questions until th…

From the very Wikipedia article you are attempting to use to say I'm using it incorrectly:

>Scientific null assumptions are used to directly advance a theory. For example, the angular momentum of the universe is zero. If not true, the theory of the early universe may need revision.

We have not proven that the angular momentum of the universe is zero. We assume it is, and have created our equations of how the universe works assuming this, and those equations have accurately described how the universe works.

However, it is not impossible that the universe is has angular momentum, and some scientists have proposed that it does, actually, and have some evidence that backs their claims. However, it hasn't been proven, so most scientists still work under the assumption that the angular momentum is zero.

>Fortunately, the philosophical question of free will is not about how the universe works.

Uh. What?

Whether or not we have free will is 100% about how the universe works. Either we have it, and the laws of nature allow it, or we do not.

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#209

Post by cthalupa »

coldtea wrote: post #174
cthalupa wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Prove that "a universe without free will but behaviourally indistinguishable from one that features Compatibilism" is actually a coherent definition/non-empty set. It being at all meaningful for me to do that relies Compatibilism having been proven to be correct. There's no evidence that this is the case. >I honestly don't understand what confusion would lead you to make such a statement. Null hypotheses are simply…

> What? The null hypothesis is 100% relevant to this sort of question. The scientific null assumption is that something doesn't exist. If you are claiming it does, you're the one that needs to prove it. That's not what the null hypothesis is.

It very much is. Please see my response at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18610573

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#210

Post by EventH- »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #29
EventH- wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A decision can be based on prior information (in the sense of being informed by it) while not being deterministic. This is how Aristotle and Aquinas handle the relationship between the Intellect and the Will, where the will chooses between goods which are known by the intellect. It is precisely in this choosing between different goods that we are classically understood to have free will. So, our decisions are determi…

Absolutely no human has ever operated like this. We experience choice and decision as subjective processes controlled by a subjective experience of self. But all of those experiences are subjective, and delusional to varying degrees. I recently had a fascinating experience with a lawyer while buying a house. The vendors and the agent did various things annoy my lawyer, and she set up a situation where the agent was -…

On the contrary, this example only /supports/ the classical understanding of free will, in the sense that it shows the will operates only on goods that we perceive, and not on those which the intellect does not know.

We often operate with imperfect knowledge of our situations. That is simply because our intellects are not all-knowing.

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