Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will • Hacker News Board

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#61

Post by coldtea » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 12:53 PM UTC

jstanley wrote: post #47

placebo wrote: post #44

Consider the possibility that whether the future is predetermined or not has nothing to do with free will. The persistence of the notion of free will seems to be an attempt to reconcile a feeling of what seems to be a very real, conscious and subjective "me in here" vs, what seems to be an objective, deterministic "world out there". This division is necessary for science to exist. But what if there is a deeper truth…

> Consider the possibility that whether the future is predetermined or not has nothing to do with free will. If free will exists, that would seem to imply that people can make decisions that affect their future. Wouldn't free will therefore imply nondeterminism? I agree that notfreewill does not imply determinism.

>If free will exists, that would seem to imply that people can make decisions that affect their future. Wouldn't free will therefore imply nondeterminism?

Not necessarily.

"Free will" is being able to express your actual self (your will) in a decision.

But if on a matter that calls for A or B decision, you can make either A or B, then "you" are not a coherent thing (because you can go multiple ways. Wouldn't a person that is authentically themselves can only chose one option --the one truer to themselves and their ideas, courage, cowardice, etc.-- each time?).

So, what if there's only one possible outcome of each decision one makes each time, and the set of prior decisions (that they followed A in this matter, B in the other, and on on) is what defines you as you?

Then free will and determinism are the same thing -- the untangling of yourself as a unique being.

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#62

Post by whatshisface » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 12:53 PM UTC

gpderetta wrote: post #37

millstone wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

You don't get to know in advance which questions will pan out into answerable ones. You could answer "why should there be a why" to literally and question about why. In fact, you could have said that about the motion of the planets, right up until Newton - which shows that the category of things that can be answered like that contracts over time.

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#63

Post by azag0 » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 12:56 PM UTC

I find this view satisfying: “free will” is the feeling that our decisions are the consequence of the train of our inner thoughts. In that sense, free will exists. The following question is whether that feeling corresponds to physical reality or is an illusion. Here I believe it’s the latter and free will is in fact merely an interpretation of what happens around us. See the book Feee Will from Sam Harris for more.

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#64

Post by coldtea » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 12:56 PM UTC

ajuc wrote: post #46

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…

Yup, free will is meaningless, there's no measurable difference between an universe which has a free will and one that doesn't. > are criminals responsible for their actions? Doesn't matter, what matters is - is a commitment to punish certain behavior decreasing number of people behaving that way? If so - punishing crimes makes sense, no matter if there's a free will or not.

>Doesn't matter, what matters is - is a commitment to punish certain behavior decreasing number of people behaving that way?

If there's no free will obviously not -- since any crime decision is predetermined upon the earlier states of the universe (even before we appeared on Earth), and any drop in crime in correlation with a "commitment to punish certain behavior" is just correlation itself, and not causation (both things being caused by those earlier states).

In fact, if there's no free will, then there's also no free decision of a "commitment to punish certain behavior" or not: all those decisions to make laws, punish certain behaviors, etc are already determined.

Without free will nobody can influence whether we create this or that law.

In essence, you started that "free will is meaningless" and then your whole argument was like as if free like totally exists and we can take actual non predetermined decisions.

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#65

Post by intralizee » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 12:58 PM UTC

ajuc wrote: post #46

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…

Yup, free will is meaningless, there's no measurable difference between an universe which has a free will and one that doesn't. > are criminals responsible for their actions? Doesn't matter, what matters is - is a commitment to punish certain behavior decreasing number of people behaving that way? If so - punishing crimes makes sense, no matter if there's a free will or not.

No that is absurd and dehumanizing towards the victims.

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#66

Post by navjack27 » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 1:11 PM UTC

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…

I like the way you think

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#67

Post by hashr8064 » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 1:12 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #60

> Of course, randomness isn’t the only thing necessary for free will Not only that, but randomness and determinism are equally against the (casual) idea of free will. Free will, as commonly understood, means there's an "extra layer of abstraction" between the universe (material objects and their relationships) and me. What people called "soul". It's not just that our decisions (will) are random instead of predetermin…

> It's not just that our decisions (will) are random instead of predetermined by a cascade of material interactions.

You seem somewhat knowledgeable about this topic, so maybe you or someone else can answer this.

Why can't free will just be a complex system feedback loop and name for the way we humans perceive our own decision making process in this loop. I mean why can it not be that "free will" is the decision making process which is influenced by unconscious processes and in turn influences those unconscious processes? It could be deterministic and random or the universe could turn out to work differently at some level and it really wouldn't matter.

Is something like this a standard view in this whole debate on Free Will?

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#68

Post by ozy » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 1:14 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #60

> Of course, randomness isn’t the only thing necessary for free will Not only that, but randomness and determinism are equally against the (casual) idea of free will. Free will, as commonly understood, means there's an "extra layer of abstraction" between the universe (material objects and their relationships) and me. What people called "soul". It's not just that our decisions (will) are random instead of predetermin…

In either scenario, there can be knowledge about the future, which, paradoxically, might cause that future never to materialize.

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#69

Post by adrianN » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 1:19 PM UTC

joycian wrote: post #55

adrianN wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anything that is best described by quantum mechanics.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdeterminism What do you think of ideas like this then?

I think it's a boring theory that doesn't pass Ockham's razor. For the universe to be superdeterministic you'd have to encode its whole evolution somewhere. That is more complicated that the normal interpretation of QM but doesn't explain more.

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#70

Post by mannykannot » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 1:22 PM UTC

jstanley wrote: post #47

placebo wrote: post #44

Consider the possibility that whether the future is predetermined or not has nothing to do with free will. The persistence of the notion of free will seems to be an attempt to reconcile a feeling of what seems to be a very real, conscious and subjective "me in here" vs, what seems to be an objective, deterministic "world out there". This division is necessary for science to exist. But what if there is a deeper truth…

> Consider the possibility that whether the future is predetermined or not has nothing to do with free will. If free will exists, that would seem to imply that people can make decisions that affect their future. Wouldn't free will therefore imply nondeterminism? I agree that notfreewill does not imply determinism.

But you need a level of determinism for peoples' decisions to affect their future.