quote:Maybe I just didn't get enough sleep last night, but I can't seem to parse this sentence. Do you meane "separate" by "determine?"
Yeah, that's what I meant. The word I meant to write was distinguish.
Okay. I imagine that would be impossible if you were to attribute divine powers to the entity, for example. But since I don't believe in the divine, I don't have to worry about that particular problem. Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: The belief that we do or do not can and likely will have an effect on how people behave. Not having free will doesn't mean that you stop believing in things or that the things you believe stop influencing your actions. It just means that you aren't free to choose what to believe or how to act
If I am not free to choose what to believe or how to act how is it sensible that I should choose to act as if I believe in free will?
posted
Let's see if I get this worldview of a not-free-will-world.
People are robots. If you put the same person, who has the same experiences, personality, mood, and knowledge, in the same situation, he would behave the exact same way each time.
Of course, this cannot be proven because you can't take the same person with the same experiences over and over again - once you do it the first time he has different experiences!
Just putting pieces together (beware the programming analogies!) I want to bring my experience programming robots and games into this. As an amateur game programmer, I know the importance of suspense of disbelief, and I also know that this can be done in part by making lifelike Non-Playable-Characters. Doing so is very tricky. I have never been able to duplicate a thinking human being, but I have been able to simulate it by making randomly generated responses in my simpler games. However, this doesn't do much to help suspense of disbelief. A more practical approach is to have a fixed response to a set of variables that define its awareness. If the NPC has enough variables to watch, and enough programmed responses, it can react pretty realistically, so long as you don't program it to respond to you so well that you can't beat it. However, this makes it predictable, so it's easy to take advantage of.
My greatest successes in programming AI is by combining the two methods. Not have one response for each scenario, but several which it chooses randomly. This is probably a step away from the world as a non-free-will-believer perceives it, as well as a world where humanity has free will. All I know is that it works pretty well.
The arguments against Tom's true free will seem to imply that there is a fixed response to every scenario, given readings on all sorts of variables. If a human's complete experiences could be measured, personality weighed (much more precisely than most current psychiatric tests), memories copied, and environment completely controlled - even the color of the sky matters! - a computer could make a perfect simulation of the human's response to any given situation before it happens. If we built an Oversoul-like system of computers that did that for the whole world, we could build a utopian communist global society that fixes our future and controls humanity. This is probably where the original quote in the first post comes from. We should treat people as if they have a choice in what they do, because if it is perceived that there is no choice, that WILL affect everyone's experiences and personalities to make difficult outcomes.
The argument against free will is that the variation in decisions of people is caused by the variation in variables; so many variables that it is not likely we can control them all.
This makes such proposals fuzzy science. Even we ourselves don't know everything about ourselves at a given time: we might forget things, we might be in doubt, we could overlook something that our subconsciouses decided was important.
This implies that time is a one-dimensional thread, and we at the present are continuously moving forward on a fixed path. Free will is explained the same way I reject randomness (if you get enough practice rolling a die you can roll it just the right way to get the result you want - randomness is just an inaccurate term for that which is influenced by variables that cannot be measured).
I personally believe futures can be changed by our choices, but I won't devote my post to explaining why; rather trying to make sure I understand the perception of those who do not believe in free will.
In my AI creations, I find it hard to believe that I could actually make something that would be as fully self-aware and (appearing to) have free will as you and me. It's like the jump from primordial soup to life. It's a long ways to go from simple amino acids to replicating life forms, even if they're dozens of times simpler than even viruses (which aren't even considered life), such as it is with going from cause-effect chains to a conscious being. We know what we're made of, but there's something about us that's hard to explain; a hole between our building blocks and ourselves that distinguishes us as life. Our attempts at duplicating either simple life or free will have not answered much.
If I'm conscious, I'm just as much crude matter as the rock that's next to me (hypothetically), and therefore the rock could be conscious too, just a whole lot stupider. It may not be aware, it may not be knowledgeable, it may not care about anything, but it is driven by cause and effect just as much as I am. Everything responds to its environment, and I have trouble grasping the idea that it is a large web entangling our environment, our wiring, and our choices that makes our will and being.
Posts: 1029 | Registered: Apr 2007
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posted
How do you define free will, C3PO? Is it the nebulous something you just described that you can't define that sits between our building blocks and ourselves?
BTW, the comparison of rock and human misses one extremely important point: The non-random complexity of your structure is orders of magnitude higher than the complexity of the rock's structure. This complexity is why you can't fathom an equivalent computer program. After all, computers are actually quite simple. A few million transistors defining a discrete set of logic circuits, built to purpose. The software can be quite complex but the hardware is not complex at all when compared to your nervous system (for example).
Posts: 4287 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
That's exactly what I'm speculating. Is it just how much there is, or is it a new ingredient?
The rock is not at all complex. By comparison, my brain (and everyone else's) is tremendously complicated, watching thousands if not millions of the biological equivalent of my computer's variables. The rock has inertia, and that's basically it.
The question I'm pondering is whether the response to environment that resonates systematically through me actually creates this consciousness think-therefore-I-am stuff.
How do I define free will? A being able to make a choice independent of outside cause. A being can make a choice based on the environment, mood, personality, etc, but it is not the environment, mood, and personality making the choice.
Posts: 1029 | Registered: Apr 2007
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posted
What I mean by "true free will:" the ability to make a decision that is not consistently reproducible by someone able to create a mechanical copy of your brain and perfectly replicate all the variables which factored into the process of your decision.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:If I am not free to choose what to believe or how to act how is it sensible that I should choose to act as if I believe in free will?
You're not. However, you are affecting by outside stimuli (in a deterministic manner). You don't choose to believe anything, but the idea that you should act as if you believe it even if it doesn't exist can act as stumulus that will affect your behavior.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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I've been thinking a lot about free will, recently. In my opinion, there are two basic possibilities of existence. Either, there exists nothing other than the physical universe that we perceive (incompletely, perhaps), or there is something more. I personally believe the physical is all. If the physical is all, then my entire existence is caused by and based on my physical self (which was determined for me by others) and my environment (which is made up of others). Therefore, I have no free will.
However (and this seems to be MPH's question), I do have the illusion of free will. I seem to be able to choose green shirt/red shirt, etc. If I don't actually have free will, then it isn't a real choice, but that doesn't change my illusion. A theoretical observer with perfect and complete knowledge might look at me and say "he will pick the red shirt" but I still feel myself picking.
So, if I don't have free will, it is inaccurate to talk of "choosing to act as though I have free will" because choice implies free will. However, I still say, even if I don't have free will, I continue to act as though I have free will, because part of my lack of choice is the perception of choice (wrong though it be). I am not choosing to act as though I have free will, I simply am acting as though I have free will.
I am eager to discuss this further and personally, if people want to email me directly.
Posts: 354 | Registered: Jan 2006
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I want to get a bit more detailed with the example of choosing a shirt.
Here's an example of an internal monologue that might go with choosing a shirt: "What shirt should I wear? Hmm, looks like I have 2 that aren't wrinkled. I wore the green one a few days ago...I guess I'll go with the red one."
The point of that example is that my process of choice is influenced by a number of things: -My preference to not wear a wrinkled shirt -My preference to avoid the labor of ironing a shirt -I have an idea that there's something undesirable about wearing the same shirt I wore very recently
Each of those things can be broken down: -My preference to not wear a wrinkled shirt ---I was taught wearing wrinkled clothing was socially unacceptable ---I've observed people receiving negative feedback for wrinkled clothing ---I want social acceptance
-My preference to avoid the labor of ironing a shirt ---I am constantly exposed to cultural influence that portrays "housework" as boring and unrewarding ---My shirt isn't that important to me, I'd rather get on to something more meaningful
-I have an idea that there's something undesirable about wearing the same shirt I wore very recently ---again, social influence
This is becoming a very labored example (sorry) but my point is that various things factored into my choice. Those things can be described, and traced backward in time to actual physical inputs into my brain (to an extent). I think all choices are like that - we are often not aware of all the influences on our choice, but I think they are there. I think that the perception of free will is simply the macro-level conscious emergence of the interplay of all the myriad (deterministic or, occasionally, random*) things that might influence any decision. I think this because there's little to suggest to me that any choice that anyone makes can't be reduced to a set of factors that if known, would lead to accurate prediction.
Semi-random additional thought: sometimes, I don't even feel myself making a choice (hitting the brakes when a kid runs in front of my car). I wonder how conditioned reflex response is explained by those who don't believe in deterministic behavior.
*You know that feeling when you're making a completely arbitrary choice? ("Pick a card.") Maybe that feeling is your brain setting part of itself in a state of equipotential so that a random neural event can tip it to a course of action.
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posted
scifi: Exactly, except for the last bit about arbitrary choice. In all cases, there are factors which go into making a choice. And complete perfect knowledge of those factors by either the chooser or an outside observer would, I believe, make any choice subject to predetermination (IE, knowing the choice before it is made). By my belief, there are no "arbitrary choices", merely choices in which we do not consciously think about the factors that go into the choice.
In the "choose a card" situation, I, because of my history with cards, being right handed, having damaged my wrist in the past, and the way the sun is in my eyes, select a specific card. It's not arbitrary, but it appears arbitrary because the factors that go into the choice are innumerable and subtle. Just as the "choice" to slam on the brakes is influenced by your reflexes, both natural and trained, the "choice" of a card is influenced by your physical being and history as well.
Posts: 354 | Registered: Jan 2006
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quote:I am not choosing to act as though I have free will, I simply am acting as though I have free will.
I'd reword that. Insofar as such a thing as "choice" exists, you choose to act as though you have free will. "Choice" is a fiction that shares a page with the fiction of selfhood.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:By my belief, there are no "arbitrary choices", merely choices in which we do not consciously think about the factors that go into the choice.
And, honestly, there is no problem with this, as long as people realize that it is an article of faith and not something that has been (or most likely ever can be) established by scientific or rational means.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:Are we talking about localized free will, the ability to make an illusory or artificial "choice" within your internal context, or true free will, the ability to make a choice independent of the manipulation of other contexts?
I'd argue that what you are calling "true free will" is better termed "acting insane". That's because free beings make their choices based on reasons. Reasons are variables that determine the choices we make. In contrast, if you make choices that are not based on any reasons at all, you aren't even really choosing - you are acting randomly. That is not how a rational free-willed being would act. That is how an insane person would act. Therefore, I don't think "true free will" is actually free will at all. And I definitely see no benefit to pretending my actions are random and not based on variables or reasons.
The real true free will is what you are calling "localized free will". That is what it really means to choose: you make a decision based on variables which determine the decision you make. Making a free choice is nothing fancier or more bizarre than that.
There's a lot of confusion in philosophy over the issue of free will, and I think most of that stems from the simple mistaken belief that free will contradicts determinism. We can escape the whole mess simply by recognizing that making free choices does not mean those choices aren't determined by anything. (Otherwise we put ourselves in the bizarre state of having to act in a way opposite of what we believe to be true in regards to free will.)
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posted
Determinism = the notion that our choices are determined entirely by facts of the universe, such as our brain state, etc. Is this not how it is being used?
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posted
Not exactly. It's that our choices are determined entirely by the material facts of the universe.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
That's not determinism. That's determinism + materialism. I'm not a materialist and a number of people on this forum aren't materialists, so if you want to limit determinism only to materialist determinism, we are going to get hung up there. There are plenty of nonmaterialist determinists though.
Having said that, the argument I gave above does apply to materialist determinism just the same. If the universe was materialist and my choices were not determined by material facts of the universe, that would make my choices random - and thus not really choices at all. Acting randomly is not being free. In fact, that's the opposite of being free...
Posts: 8120 | Registered: Jul 2000
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posted
I'm glad we're all agreed that true free will, as it's defined here, is a logical impossibility.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:I'm glad we're all agreed that true free will, as it's defined here, is a logical impossibility.
I haven't agreed with that. Also, in the context that I'm talking about, it being logically impossible wouldn't necessarily matter.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
You're certainly welcome to your definition. If you choose to define "true free will" as "predictably and consistently behaving in accordance with responses to stimuli," though, I suspect you're going to get some weird looks.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
Perhaps, but not as many weird looks as if I tell people true free will is only when you're acting unpredictable and behaving totally randomly. Posts: 8120 | Registered: Jul 2000
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We're not talking about free will as decisions being made for no reason. We're talking about whether they are part of a deterministic materialist system where the same material inputs will result in the same outcomes or whether there is a non-deterministic entity or some other aspect involved. This entity would be making choices based on reasons, but these reasons are not reducible to material stimuli.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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We're not talking about free will as decisions being made for no reason. We're talking about whether they are part of a deterministic materialist system where the same material inputs will result in the same outcomes or whether there is a non-deterministic entity or some other aspect involved. This entity would be making choices based on reasons, but these reasons are not reducible to material stimuli.
Not reducible, or not reducible using known means? Does this come down to "something we cannot measure" or "something to which measurement cannot apply"? The latter might be a nice subject for metaphysics or religion, but by definition couldn't be shown to actually exist, and therefore could not disprove materialistic determinism.
Posts: 4287 | Registered: Mar 2005
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quote:The latter might be a nice subject for metaphysics or religion, but by definition couldn't be shown to actually exist, and therefore could not disprove materialistic determinism.
That's definitely true, but you're missing the point, which is the reverse of this. Using scientific means, these things cannot be shown to exist. Fine. They also cannot be shown not to exist. They fall outside of the scope of science.
Science cannot answer that question. Etiher way, it is a matter of faith.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:Using scientific means, these things cannot be shown to exist. Fine. They also cannot be shown not to exist.
Practically, almost nothing can be shown not to exist. Does that mean that the existence of unicorns falls outside the scope of science?
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:They also cannot be shown not to exist. They fall outside of the scope of science.
Me:
quote:You missed a "currently" in there somewhere.
MrSquicky:
quote:No, I didn't. The inability to do this crops up on a theoretical level, not a practical one.
Scratching my head.
You've already concluded that science cannot show that non-material entities or influences do not affect free will? Science has a long way to go before I'd be willing to accept that. I think it's entirely possible that science will reach a point that rules out non-material factors.
This is not to say that such an entity could be disproven, but rather that it could be demonstrated that even if such an entity existed, it did not have any impact on things like individual free will, because any effects that might result from such an entity can be otherwise accounted for.
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posted
I have to agree. It sounds an awful lot like we're calling this theoretical entity "non-maerialistic" just because it's expedient to do so.
Posts: 2907 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:Unicorns could be shown to exist, so obviously they fall into the scope of science.
So it's your argument that there is something which is undetectable by any mechanism?
May I ask why you'd bother imagining such a thing, given that by its very definition it is completely irrelevant?
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:May I ask why you'd bother imagining such a thing, given that by its very definition it is completely irrelevant?
How so? Whether or not we have free will seems to me to be very relevant. It's just not measurable or objectively observable.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote: I think it's entirely possible that science will reach a point that rules out non-material factors.
Yes, and it is possible that we'll reach a point where traveling faster than the speed of light is as easy as snapping your fingers. However, right now, both of these things are theoretically impossible.
Look, if you have faith that science will someday overcome the current theoretical limitations on this, that's fine. I'm not going to try to argue with you on that. Regardless, you are still building your ideas on faith, which is basically what I'm arguing.
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quote:It sounds an awful lot like we're calling this theoretical entity "non-maerialistic" just because it's expedient to do so.
I'm not sure you understaqnd the discussion then. What I'm talking about, by definition, has to be non-materialistic.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:I'm not sure you understand the discussion then.
You may want to grant that no one else is actually having the discussion you want to have about hypothetical, undetectable, non-physical things that appear to do nothing. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:You may want to grant that no one else is actually having the discussion you want to have about hypothetical, undetectable, non-physical things that appear to do nothing.
I'm pretty sure you don't understand the discussion, Tom. What I'm talking about definitely does things.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
No, it doesn't definitely do things. If it reliably and observably did things, those things could be perceived. And in the absence of this hypothetical thing, those things would not be perceived.
We knew quarks existed before we were ever able to perceive them. Heck, in fact, we don't really know that quarks exist, but theories of their existence have proven useful (which is, as far as science is concerned, almost the same thing). Your imperceptible thingy, if it has a perceptible effect, is a thing of science; if it has no perceptible effect, it does not exist.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:May I ask why you'd bother imagining such a thing, given that by its very definition it is completely irrelevant?
How so? Whether or not we have free will seems to me to be very relevant. It's just not measurable or objectively observable.
If free will is a relevant phenomenon then it should not be possible to perfectly emulate it by natural means (otherwise the concept itself is redundant). However, this presents a dichotomy. If it is emulable by natural means then it is not relevant. On the other hand, if it is not emulable by natural means then it is clearly (if only theoretically) measurable because it would be a phenomenon that violates natural law.
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quote:If it reliably and observably did things, those things could be perceived.
That's what I don't grant. There are more things that go into perceiving something than it existing. Did you never get the white drawing discrimination lesson?
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:On the other hand, if it is not emulable by natural means then it is clearly (if only theoretically) measurable because it would be a phenomenon that violates natural law.
I'm not sure I understand what you mean by natural law and violating it.
If I had to guess, I'd say you meant a full deterministic, completely accurate model of human behavior. In this case, I'd say that in order to detect a violation of this model, you'd have to have it, which is currently theoretically impossible.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
White drawing discrimination lesson, in brief:
Someone makes a drawing in the same shade of white as the paper. The drawing exists, but it can't be perceived visually because there is no visual way to discriminate the drawing from the background.
It can still be perceived, of course, but you need to choose a method that allows you to discriminate it from the surroundings.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:It's practically impossible, but theoretically possible.
What theory is that, Tom? It's possible that I haven't been keeping up with my cog sci, but the last I was aware there were several theoretically intractable obstacles to developing and testing any model.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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We're not talking about free will as decisions being made for no reason. We're talking about whether they are part of a deterministic materialist system where the same material inputs will result in the same outcomes or whether there is a non-deterministic entity or some other aspect involved. This entity would be making choices based on reasons, but these reasons are not reducible to material stimuli.
What I don't understand is why it matters whether or not the things controlling our actions are physical or nonphysical. It seems to me that the person being controlled by a nonphsyical God is no more or less controlled than the person in the Matrix being controlled by physical machines hooked up to his physical brain. Similarly, I would think that a person whose decisions are determined absolutely by the mechanisms of a physical brain is as equally controlled as a person whose decisions are determined absolutely by the nature of some nonphysical spirit. Why would it make a difference whether or not the variables predetermining your decisions are physical or nonphysical? They are still determining your choices either way.
I think we are mixing up two different issues here. Materialism is one question. Determinism is a different question.
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And in truth, I think Free Will is a third question too - which doesn't necessarily correlate to the other two. Free Will does correlate to another question though: Do I exist? If you believe your personal identity is an illusion, then you definitely can't have free will, because there is nothing doing the willing. Some materialists believe the "self" is one's physical body, and for these people I'd think free will is possible, as long as the body is making decisions. Other materialists believe materialism means the "self" is an illusion, and doesn't exist, so for those folks I think free will of any sort cannot be anything more than illusion. (But that's a great reason to reject the view that "self" is an illusion...)
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