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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

#31

Post by intralizee »

atq2119 wrote: post #27
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 real question with free will is: free of what? Free of physics? Obviously not, but that conclusion is pretty vacuous because almost by definition anything that can affect our actions is a potential object of study for physics once you break it down sufficiently. For actual applications of the notion of free will in moral reasoning, this line of argument is also pretty irrelevant. What matters more is whether our…

There is no freedom with understanding determinism. I'm just a vessel forcibly navigated from start to finish in life. All the external forces make me who I am. I'm not free of the order assigned to me and the linear outcomes is scrutinized when it comes to others who had a less favorable order or different producing variables with undesired results.

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#32

Post by karmakaze »

montenegrohugo wrote: post #2

I've always thought of free will as an absurdity. Here's my thought process: If I make a decision, there's 2 possibilities: 1. The decision is based upon prior information and states, therefore there is a deterministic causality 2. The decision is not based upon prior causality: E.g. I have a "soul" and that's what decides. However, if we look into 2, we arrive at the same problem: 1. Either the souls decision is det…

I myself have gone through a similar line of reasoning. My conclusion however has always been undecided and that the answer lies in an area where I'm not sufficiently versed.

A good thought experiment is to consider the simulation hypothesis. It doesn't require you to believe it, it's just a thought experiment to show a counter example that lies outside of the deduction.

1. We are living in a simulated universe. 2. But our characters are controlled by beings in an outer universe with everything else that follows the laws of physics being programmed.

So in the context of our universe our actions are based on metaphysical mumbo jumbo, inexplicable in our laws of physics. We the avatars are the beings in the outer universe. So we have 'free will' that is not determined by the state of our universe.

Now of course the simulation hypothesis has a turtles all the way down issue, but that's not the point here. The point is to be clear about our terms. When we say deterministic we mean with respect to the laws of our universe. The thought experiment just makes the terms clear and not conflate what's happening in one with all. If you want to make the definition that free will is something that's not deterministic in all universes, that's something different to discuss.

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#33

Post by praptak »

bambataa wrote: post #30
praptak wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problems arise when you start to think what influences the soul's decisions. Does it make decisions solely based on its state? Then you have determinism. Not only state? Than what is this not-state that creates the free will? Adding some dice throwing into this mix does not sound like free will either.

That applies if you think of a soul as ‘just another mind’, but my understanding is that souls are usually seen as different. What I find problematic with them is that they can be defined to be whatever you need to get out of a logical fix eg “souls use state but are non-deterministic”. Ultimately you’re asking what defines a soul, which is unknown as far as I can tell.

Ultimately I am asking what defines free will. The attempts at definitions that involve soul seem either circular ("soul is that part of human that has free will") or an unnecessary step, i.e. the considerations about soul might as well apply to original human, without the attempt to define a separate soul.

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#34

Post by random_upvoter »

If free will did not exist, how would you ever be able to imagine such a thing?

An entity that is constrained by determinism, say a computer program, has no room to "step outside" its own frame and imagine things running an different way.

In essence, free will and consciousness the same thing.

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#35

Post by Drakim »

random_upvoter wrote: post #34

If free will did not exist, how would you ever be able to imagine such a thing? An entity that is constrained by determinism, say a computer program, has no room to "step outside" its own frame and imagine things running an different way. In essence, free will and consciousness the same thing.

We can imagine tons of things that don't exist. For instance I'm currently imagining a bouncy ball that instead of bouncing according to deterministic laws, bounces according to a mystic will-based system.

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#36

Post by stareatgoats »

atq2119 wrote: post #25
montenegrohugo wrote: post #2

I've always thought of free will as an absurdity. Here's my thought process: If I make a decision, there's 2 possibilities: 1. The decision is based upon prior information and states, therefore there is a deterministic causality 2. The decision is not based upon prior causality: E.g. I have a "soul" and that's what decides. However, if we look into 2, we arrive at the same problem: 1. Either the souls decision is det…

As usual, these kinds of discussions are really about what we mean by words. What does "free will" mean? I think technically inclined people like us are easily led down the path you describe, but over the years I've become convinced that the kind of definition that leads you to "free will = random choice" is pretty pointless because it's so vacuous. I like to take a step back and ask: why are we interested in free wi…

Agree it's about word meanings, and superimposing different meanings of the same word on each other (often in an attempt to close any cracks in our worldview that might allow religious concepts to take hold). That's probably why "free will" discussions are such a mess.

> In practice, what tends to be really relevant are questions like: are criminals responsible for their actions?

Exactly what I've landed in too, i.e. does free will have any real every-day meaning. The answer must be an unequivocal "yes", otherwise questions like these would be meaningless (which they are not):

- "did they force you to take that apple or did you do it of your own free will?"

- "was the sex voluntary or were you forced?".

- etc

The problematic word/concept here is really "force" and the different meanings of that word. The force of causality is fundamentally different from the force of coercion, and they can not be used interchangeably.

And so the question of "free will" should really be disentangled from physics, once and for all.

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#37

Post by gpderetta »

millstone wrote: post #9
_Schizotypy wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would completely agree. Our decisions are made based on previous stimuli. Our networks of neurons are altered by stimuli as we grow, this determines how we process later stimuli and the process repeats.

A silver atom's angular momentum is aligned based on the field in a Stern-Gerlach device. This alignment determines how these atoms react to a future magnetic field. Therefore a silver atom's angular momentum is deterministic. But it's not. A totally deterministic universe would have been a lot simpler. Why go through so much trouble?

Why there should be a why?

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#38

Post by waterhouse »

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 -…

In game theory, you encounter situations where a player's optimal strategy is a "mixed strategy", i.e. "x% chance of choosing strategy A, y% chance of choosing strategy B, ...", with at least two nonzero values in x,y,... . For example, in rock-paper-scissors, if your strategy is anything other than 1/3 rock, 1/3 paper, 1/3 scissors, then an opponent can defeat you (in terms of expected value) by choosing the right pure strategy. People don't normally take out a die to make the choice, but... In a sport like boxing, if in certain situations you always "punch high" or "punch low" or otherwise act predictably, that will probably hurt your chances against an observant opponent. That presumably applies to real fights as well. Outside of direct combat, sometimes someone does you a small favor (or a small offense), and maybe the only favor (or punishment) you can do them in return is significantly larger than that; in that case, the appropriate response might be an x% chance of doing the thing and 1-x% of doing nothing.

So nondeterminism is a useful skill in at least some circumstances, quite likely some circumstances that existed in the environment where we did lots of evolving. Therefore I would expect us to have evolved some capability for (apparent) nondeterminism.

How often does the agent deal with lawyers in an adversarial situation? How often does the lawyer deal with people in adversarial situations like that? If an expert is able to see through and manipulate a beginner, well, I don't consider that good evidence that humans can never effectively deploy nondeterminism.

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#39

Post by gpderetta »

stareatgoats wrote: post #36
atq2119 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As usual, these kinds of discussions are really about what we mean by words. What does "free will" mean? I think technically inclined people like us are easily led down the path you describe, but over the years I've become convinced that the kind of definition that leads you to "free will = random choice" is pretty pointless because it's so vacuous. I like to take a step back and ask: why are we interested in free wi…

Agree it's about word meanings, and superimposing different meanings of the same word on each other (often in an attempt to close any cracks in our worldview that might allow religious concepts to take hold). That's probably why "free will" discussions are such a mess. > In practice, what tends to be really relevant are questions like: are criminals responsible for their actions? Exactly what I've landed in too, i.e.…

I think this practical definition is quite interesting, useful, and worth discussing about, but I suspect that most people have a more nebulous, metaphisical idea of free will.

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#40

Post by gpderetta »

karmakaze wrote: post #32
montenegrohugo wrote: post #2

I've always thought of free will as an absurdity. Here's my thought process: If I make a decision, there's 2 possibilities: 1. The decision is based upon prior information and states, therefore there is a deterministic causality 2. The decision is not based upon prior causality: E.g. I have a "soul" and that's what decides. However, if we look into 2, we arrive at the same problem: 1. Either the souls decision is det…

I myself have gone through a similar line of reasoning. My conclusion however has always been undecided and that the answer lies in an area where I'm not sufficiently versed. A good thought experiment is to consider the simulation hypothesis. It doesn't require you to believe it, it's just a thought experiment to show a counter example that lies outside of the deduction. 1. We are living in a simulated universe. 2. B…

It seems that the avatar theory should be falsifiable: does the mind behaves fully accordingly to the laws of phisics (whether deterministically or probabiliatically via quantum effects) or does some unphisical, unaccoutable effect affects it? It should be possible to design an experiment to magnify this effects and test for them, at least in theory.
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