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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

#91

Post by naasking »

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.

> Yup, free will is meaningless, there's no measurable difference between an universe which has a free will and one that doesn't.

Actually there is: in a universe with free will, you must have intelligent agents that can understand their own actions and learn from their choices. A universe lacking free will would lack these qualities, and be observably different as a result.

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#92

Post by red75prime »

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.

Disclaimer: it's my take on free will and it's probably not backed up by prominent philosophers (I haven't checked).

While your body exists in the physical world, you as an intelligent agent exist in probabilistic distribution of possible worlds. You don't have enough information to know the physical world your body belongs to. You thusly exist in all of possible worlds that don't contradict your observations.

Your act of making a free choice selects a subset of possible physical worlds where physical laws make your body go through motions of making the choice.

The physical world is still deterministic, but you don't know which one is THE physical world.

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#93

Post by naasking »

nnq wrote: post #24
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…

Sometimes you pick from a set of actions for each you have equal reasons/information to pick. And you pick technically randomly. But after you made the choice, you stick/commit to it, you identify with it. The other choices are no longer a possibility. You become fixed in this particular causality. And it defines "you" as "the one who [randomly] picked choice X and Y and ... and ended up on this particular causal pat…

> Sometimes you pick from a set of actions for each you have equal reasons/information to pick. And you pick technically randomly.

If this were true, people wouldn't have any actual preferences and be fairly consistent with their choices. Clearly they are, ergo people do not make choices "technically randomly".

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#94

Post by szemet »

coldtea wrote: post #64
ajuc wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If I write a program that scans for counter example of Fermat-theorem it will run until physics is kind to my machine.

The non-halting property of this setup is caused by the physical arrangements/movements of particles and the laws of nature. Fermat-theorem is an abstraction having no real causal power.

I would say, that for us the proof of Fermat-theorem is the right abstraction level to explain the general behavior of the machine: The machine does not halt because Fermat theorem is true

Similarly "punishment causes less crime" may be the right level of abstraction if the correlation is there, even if it can't be reduced to physical terms. And "Responsibility for action due to free will" may be worse abstraction if agent causation[1] is impossible (I am not saying it is)

So even if increasing/decreasing punishments is determined by low level laws of nature, we still can use the higher level explanation if it suits us better.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_causation

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#95

Post by ajuc »

naasking wrote: post #91
ajuc wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Yup, free will is meaningless, there's no measurable difference between an universe which has a free will and one that doesn't. Actually there is: in a universe with free will, you must have intelligent agents that can understand their own actions and learn from their choices. A universe lacking free will would lack these qualities, and be observably different as a result.

> A universe lacking free will would lack these qualities

Why?

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#96

Post by madmaniak »

Wow! Such a lot of work on top of a mistake which they already figured out, too bad that only in a scale of laboratory room. If EVERYTHING is determined taking quasars from far far away (in time and space) doesn't change anything in the experiment. Back then, the experiment in the laboratory room also was determined. Pop-"science".

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#97

Post by coldtea »

szemet wrote: post #94
coldtea wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

If I write a program that scans for counter example of Fermat-theorem it will run until physics is kind to my machine. The non-halting property of this setup is caused by the physical arrangements/movements of particles and the laws of nature. Fermat-theorem is an abstraction having no real causal power. I would say, that for us the proof of Fermat-theorem is the right abstraction level to explain the general behavio…

>Similarly "punishment causes less crime" may be the right level of abstraction if the correlation is there, even if it can't be reduced to physical terms.

If it can't be reduced to physical terms (and there's no free will) it doesn't matter if its the "right level of abstraction" or not.

We have no other alternative but to think of it at whether level of abstraction we're determined to think of it. We don't have a say in the matter for our thoughts on it to matter at all.

(In fact both our thoughts of it and this comment and your responses will also be pre-determined).

>So the future increasing/decreasing in punishment is depend on elementary particles, also the effect of those, but we still can use the higher level explanation if it suit us better.

This presupposes some "us" that can or cannot use the this or that explanation at will. Which is exactly what we assumed doesn't exist.

If free will doesn't exist, then we don't have any say on whether we "use the higher level explanation if it suit us better". We use it or we don't use it as was predetermined by the causal chain of the universe -- not because it "suits" us.

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#98

Post by naasking »

adrianN wrote: post #69
joycian wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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

The Cellular Automaton Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, by 't Hooft https://arxiv.org/abs/1405.1548

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#99

Post by naasking »

ajuc wrote: post #84
coldtea wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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). An asteroid hitting Earth is predetermined by early stages of universe too. I…

> No need for the free will at all.

You're mistaken. Free will is needed to identify who the criminal is in any given situation, ie. who are the morally responsible parties. You can't escape that with the arguments you presented, and you just skipped it to talk about justice, which is a whole separate matter.

Re: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

#100

Post by davemp »

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…

> Not only that, but randomness and determinism are equally against the (casual) idea of free will.

I'm not sure that I'd agree. Maybe the layman doesn't think about how to reconcile determinism with their concept of free will, but it is possible. Talking about free will without a working definition is hard.

If free will is: "You are free to make any choices presented to you."

Then it becomes simple to argue that you are in fact making these choices regardless of whether what makes up you is pre-determined. The same you would of course make the same choices, but then it is still you making them. The outcomes and opportunity of the choices is irrelevant.

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