FREE WILL

Until conclusive evidence arises proving I have no free will, it is my default assumption that I do.

cool wahle movie

The arguments for absolute determinism are all predicated on idealized models of the universe that cannot be verified and appear extremely improbable when compared to reality.

settled

(dusts hands and walks away)

Free will is an explicitly Christian concept and as such is mostly meaningless outside of its theological context

Seems to me that deterministic arguments can be based entirely on materialism, provided one is limited to the discredited version of materialism that arose out of Newtonian physics.

Well, less-than-absolute determinism is sufficient to moot what we generally mean when we discuss "free will, so I'm less-than-satisfied by that response.

Nevertheless, my default is that the subjective perception of decision-making is indistinguishable from decision-making itself, so it's a silly question in the first place. There's also the fact that the progress of the deterministic universe (relative to thinking creatures) is entirely dependent on decision-making. The fact that the decisions rendered are dependent on other factors does not mean that they don't exist - it merely means that they can be predicted.

add another " up there somewhere

Free will is an explicitly Christian concept and as such is mostly meaningless outside of its theological context

this is ridiculous btw

i doubt free will exists but "free will" undoubtedly exists. i think that makes me box c

http://allaccessblog.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/100110_066wm_jok.jpg

lol

Aren't free will and determinism saying essentially the same thing, that things happen? Like, what does it mean for things to be 'predetermined' in no tangible way... it means that there exists one future.

"Free Will" suggests that there is a magic cause which is uncaused but capable of causation. "Determinism" says bollocks.

predetermination and choice are simultaneous processes

Spiralli OTM, which is to say that I reject Noodle's interpretation. Free will doesn't require an absence of causation and isn't negated by determinism.

i've been pondering but nah, even a freely willed act plucked from an infinite rainbow of possibilities implies a causer doing the willing

but i'm happy to say that even if there was a traceable chain of near-infinite causation it wouldn't matter - the question of it mattering seems like a bigger issue than efforts to prove some metaphysically "free" will imo

i dont have an answer to this question (i mean, come on) but i would argue that you can reject Free Will (especially it's modern version going back to Descartes) without affirming strict materialistic determinism. it's the "will" part that is the problem, not so much that random or unpredictable things happening are possible.

this is ridiculous btw

how so

it's the "will" part that is the problem

*ding ding ding*

we don't even know what consciousness is, pretending that we can determine how consciousness guides events is ridiculous.

yeah, but we don't have to determine how consciousness guides events. in assessing the freedom of the human will, we can limit ourselves to the nature of consciousness itself, setting aside questions about how a free will, if it existed, might extend out from subjective consciousness to influence the objective material world.

so the question is is consciousness an independent actor or are all of its actions governed by other causes...? I don't see how the former is possible, frankly.

yeah, but like, isn't determinism just... part of the big picture, you know? it's like... heisenberg? or, like, that dude's cat? like, we can't even tell what's going to happen because, it's all about, like, i dunno, quarks n shit. it's like we don't know anything at all, man.

you guys i'm so high right now

lol

re shakey:

the question is whether or not people can be meaningfully said to "make their own decisions". there doesn't need to be any more or less to it than that. my take is that even if all human decisions (or decision-like events or whatever) can theoretically be predicted in advance, based on the idea that they are effects of other causes, this doesn't necessarily mean that the decisions in question aren't, you know, real decisions. it merely means that human decision making is another link in the infinite causal chain.

what's the definition of 'real decision' then

Hot dog vs taco

2 C on Ts or not 2 C on Ts

that is the question

http://www.teenidols4you.com/blink/Actors/jjrichter/jjrichter_1215244989.jpg

it merely means that human decision making is another link in the infinite causal chain

seems to me like this implies that the specific will of a specific human involved in decision making has no freedom - it's actions are predetermined

xp

if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice

I really don't care if there's free will or not. We all live as if there were.

what's the definition of 'real decision' then

it's probably just semantic sleight-of-hand, but i'm saying that concepts like "will" and "freedom" don't have much meaning outside of our subjectivity, and therefore to the extent that we subjectively perceive them, they exist in the only way that's really relevant.

i don't imagine that response is going to satisfy anybody but me, so here's another: determinism's negation of free will is based on a failure to realize that the decision-making will is part of the universal web of factors that supposedly binds the will. so if the will is bound, it is, at least in part, self-bound, and that creates a sort of paradox. the determinist argument essentially says, "given that the self is of such a nature, it is predictable that it will do x in situation y." but that formulation is crucially dependent on "given that the self is of such a nature," a formulation which subordinates determinacy to the nature of the self. the relationship of determinacy to the nature of the self becomes a chicken-egg loop.

yer subjecthood is externally bound up in various determinisms - physical through to cultural (tho that there is probably a qualitative leap and at the extremes it probably doesn't make much sense to think one in terms of the other) via whatever else onto whatever else - but regardless, that subjecthood is how we identify ourselves as active beings and so its decisions are 'our' decisions. what sense does it make to wish for a free will that doesn't come from the subject that you are?

i like the last two posts and they align pretty close to my feelings. also i think the best engagement with this particular Mobius strip is Emerson's essay "Fate"--which is a totally awesome essay.

more than that, i still think that thinking about this issue in terms of "Will" is very problematic since it presumes a whole host of things id want to question, most particularly the idea that our actions or "decisions" are transparent even to ourselves.

never got the pun in Free Willy until just now. obviously am not even remotely smart enough to have an opinion on this subject

i think this is one of those subjects so tough that everyone is allowed an opinion! (along with: "why is there something rather than nothing?" and "what is consciousness?")

I think I'm broadly on the same page as contenderizer, but it's a bit hand-wavy "the way that can be spoken of is not the true way" to satisfy hardcore determinists - including the one sitting on my right shoulder.

On another note, I read a real interestin' paper that suggested not only does determinism not imply causation, in fact it's in strong conflict with the idea. In short(ish): macro-level cause-effect events can always be defeated by micro ones - it's not physically impossible that your drink could heat up after putting an ice-cube in, or on a more day-to-day level, you might strike a match and it fails to light, with no conceivable macro-level explanation for the failure. So given that the causal connection has to be necessary, and there is no such necessary connection at the macro level, macro causation is a bust. And it's not certain that we can call what happens at the micro level causation either - consider that current laws of physics are time-symmetrical, so it makes as much sense to say that the future "caused" the past as the past causes the future, and that's a pretty weird kind of causation.

I think this has interesting implications for free will - obv hardcore determinists are prepared to bite the bullet and deny free will, and even though that's a pretty big bullet to bite, would they also be prepared to deny causation and the arrow of time?

full paper here: http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/2071/1/Causality_and_Determinism.pdf

Where are some of those studies about how, in the brain, the muscles and neurotransmitters and everything start firing up to, say, move your finger well in advance of the time that you're "conscious" of making the decision to move it? Like, in a statistically significant way?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroscience_of_free_will#The_Libet_experiment

half a second, pshaw. ambiguities abound.

reading that fuller explanation i'm more in agreement with 'tenderizer's position, tho i'm not sure that this kind of argument doesn't use "free will" in a way that isn't entirely natural. but the first thing i said upthread - "i doubt free will exists but "free will" undoubtedly exists" - is broadly in agreement with contenderizer.

like ledge, my Tao side always wants to arm-wrestle my strict determinist side

also i'm not particularly wedded to classical causation but i am extremely uncomfortable with "uncaused cause" arguments

given that the causal connection has to be necessary, and there is no such necessary connection at the macro level, macro causation is a bust

this feels like a more science-attuned version of Hume tbh?

No I think they're different enough; Hume says we never observe causation just constant conjunction, that article says even the (macro) conjunction we observe is not reliably constant. The micro point might be more Humean but that current physical laws don't talk about causation is perhaps too oft forgotten.

would they also be prepared to deny causation and the arrow of time?

Excellent point. If the course of the universe has only one possible path, based on the causal factors present at some theoretical 'prime' instant and it must travel that path to some 'final' moment, and all the instants between these two are determined, then causality could be said to flow in either direction. There would be no way to choose between the two directions.

Putting aside whether or not this is true, that is just one fucking awesome thought.

Also, even if the subjective experience of making decisions can be 'proved' to be illusory through some mathematically consistant logic, I think Godel might well dispose of that line of proof.

Re the libet experiment etc...

If vision is a construction why wouldn't our own consciousness be a similar construction? It doen't necessarily take away from the function of the brain as mind nor of something like free-will to note that many of our actions are split-second hard-wirings and that we're not aware (capable of reflection, judgment or memory, let's say) of our quick decisions until they get broadcast on the 'big screen'. It also doesn't mean you can't meaningfully agonize over what color to paint your bedroom for days.

I think we have free will but it's a question of degrees, and it breaks down the more you try to define sharply define the self. Ultimately I think the only path to ultimate free will is in knowing that there is not a 'YOU' that has free will over 'THAT'. Once the distinction between personal control and the uncontrollable arrow of time breaks down then we are talking some real free will.

The universe has free will but the individual Ego at odds with the universe does not. Fortunately the individual Ego at odds with the universe is an illusory state, an emotional reaction that is merely temporal. The fortune of this is called Grace.

I don't agree -- "I don't recall being aware" means "I didn't record any of 'my' decisions/actions during this time".

That is a plausible reading (although I would still warn against the error of taking reflexive consciousness to be the only kind worth considering) but I don't think it helps...

It's the access to those memories that makes us feel like we were in charge during those times

Surely how I felt at the time is more important than how I remember it might have felt, after the fact? Memory is unreliable. Are you really taking "I didn't record any of 'my' decisions/actions during this time" to imply "I didn't (consciously) make any decisions/actions during this time"? Would the same apply to perceptions - I didn't record any of my perceptions, so I didn't have any?

"Buridan's ass is an illustration of a paradox in philosophy in the conception of free will. It refers to a hypothetical situation wherein an ass that is equally hungry and thirsty is placed precisely midway between a stack of hay and a pail of water. Since the paradox assumes the ass will always go to whichever is closer, it will die of both hunger and thirst since it cannot make any rational decision to choose one over the other"

I beg to differ. Buridan's ass illustrates a paradox in rationality, not free will. An ass with free will may make its decision about which item it will seek first based on any methodology that occurs to it; it is not confined to rationality as the sole possible method.

btw, the paradox is easiliy solved by permitting action in cases of indifference based on the need to act, not upon weighting. We've all played the game where someone holds both hands behind their back, but only one hand contains the desired item, and the other player is asked to choose a hand. This game could be played between two computers using extremely simple rules and those rules would not make the actions of the computers paradoxical.

i'm pretty sure i've ended up not getting pizza and almost starving to death on more than a few occasions because deciding parties could not agree on toppings.

Surely how I felt at the time is more important than how I remember it might have felt, after the fact? Memory is unreliable.

Is it more important, though? If I don't remember how I felt while driving on autopilot -- or apparently remember incorrectly -- it doesn't change that I feel no ownership of those actions. There's also the work here on split personalities/psychic breaks/accountability for actions during temporary insanity etc. Not remembering the decisions or feelings of consciousness at the time is paramount importance to all of those.

Are you really taking "I didn't record any of 'my' decisions/actions during this time" to imply "I didn't (consciously) *make* any decisions/actions during this time"?

Would the same apply to perceptions - I didn't record any of my perceptions, so I didn't have any?

Yes, I think so. If I didn't record any of the perceptions at all (and hence have no memory of them) I would naturally assume that *I* didn't have any -- as if I had been under anaesthetic.

It would take some outside evidence -- video of me walking about perhaps -- to convince me that perceptions were being had, and then my next question would be who was having them? Was it me and I can't remember, or was it someone else?

Sanpaku otm

i'm pretty sure i've ended up not getting pizza and almost starving to death on more than a few occasions because deciding parties could not agree on toppings.

― Philip Nunez, Wednesday, December 12, 2012 12:34 PM (8 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The canonical solution is to just order cheese so everyone can eat in a timely fashion

cheese is the lowliest of nash equilibriums

free will #amandapalmer

I dont see why we should say such stuff as "we don't know what consciousness is" - is it not merely apprehension, sensory information held in the brain's memory, interacting within itself to form logical ideas about the things?

Not merely no

I seem to remember thinking it didnt matter but I forget why!

guys im fine

Can't remember anything I was compelled to write on this thread.

http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~nick/aaronson-oracle/index.html

mine hovered btw about 57% and 60%. Better than random but not super impressive

i got it to 50-51%

i think the trick is this: your brain naturally underestimates the probability of strings of the same character under pure randomness (they did experiments to prove this), so a naive attempt at randomness tends to closely resemble the sequence FDFDFDFDFDFDFDFDFDFDFDFDFDFD and he can predict most of your flips. if you throw in what feels like an unnatural number of same-character-strings FFFFFDDDFFFFDFDFFFF you can throw it off the scent

fdfdfdfdfd or
dfdfdfdfdf

will be highly predictable

i tried the ffffffdddddfffdddd but what's vital are the short dfdfff instances otherwise it starts to make accurate predictions

nah i got blasted back up to 60% and can't make my way back down

that's what happened to me try those short sequences of fdfd

it's p good tho isn't it

ah sorry wasn't saying nah to you but to myself, got xp'd

yeah it's addictive

The algorithm is based on recording sequences of five or so key-presses, then predicting that the most often recurrent patterns you produce will reappear. Since pressing f or d is a pointless activity, the average brain will soon tire of producing novel sequences and begin to repeat itself out of boredom with the task. I would predict that the faster you press the keys, the more likely this unconscious boredom effect will assert itself. The more one consciously decides each keypress based on a good understanding of genuine randomness, together with a strong motivation to outwit the oracle by weeding out repetitive sequences, the less effective the oracle will be.

put your theory to the test and show us your results champ

my results square with aimless's theory. going fast and just typing "randomly", the machine was almost 70% accurate. moving slowly and forcing myself to break patterns, i could keep it well under 60%. a good trick is to rotate your keyboard periodically.

A good strategy for lowering the number is to look away from the keyboard and just bash in the general area of D and F.

I can't get it to give me any results, possibly it needs cookies, which I habitually block.

60% is not good btw

A good strategy for lowering the number is to look away from the keyboard and just bash in the general area of D and F.

― jmm, Friday, June 3, 2016 4:39 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

haha i like this

might try this later once everyone at the office is liquored up

did this for a couple mins and hovered around 45-49%, some wills are freer than others

by the time i got bored it had climbed to 51%, look out everyone i'm literally Joker

getting under 50% is impressive but paradoxically means your sequence may be less random??

teach me how to introduce a little anarchy

xp

getting under 50% is impressive but paradoxically means your sequence may be less random??

my sequence is art and this algorithm is a philistine

i had this about 35% for a while last night - played a lot of long sequences of mostly the same key and broke it up for a little bit when the program started guessing right

dude you needed to screenshoot that

i had no idea what a good score was last night tbh. or how many presses you guys have made altogether. i got bored of it fairly quickly, probably only played < 5 mins

Reviving this thread so maybe we can all choose to use it to discuss free will and return to properly slagging off Richard Dawkins in the Richard Dawkins - Anti-Christ or Great Thinker thread.

one's concept/definition of "free will" seems contingent on so many near-ineffable assumptions about the universe and stuff.. seems like it would be hard not to just be talking past each other

oh that was a dumb post, sorry

hey folks what's y'alls favourite freiwillige selbstkontrolle record

Every debate on free will always fucks off because 1) People begin to use moral arguments in an ontological debate (but without free will, how can society...) and 2) People for some reason think completely free will or complete determinism are the only two possibilities.

otm

3) people who aren't interested in the discussion pile in to tell everybody how not interesting it is

like they're somehow compelled to do so

https://twitter.com/ilikemints/status/840645034978480130

^^^the secret vector of all human compulsions

Pretty sure the quote is from Kathleen McAuliffe's This Is Your Brain on Parasites.

The science on flu viri affecting animal behavior is rather weak, but there's tons on toxoplasmosis. Becoming attracted to cat piss in rodents, but in humans, higher testosterone, more risk taking and road accidents, etc.

It would be crazy to argue that our individual wills exist godlike, floating serenely above all mere physical influence, controlling but never controlled. It is obvious that our will is predicated upon myriads of contributing factors, including the vagaries of vertebrate evolution and whether it is raining at the moment, and it can never be disentangled from them. But even if our will is heavily constrained, nevertheless if one can choose between two nearly indistinguishable actions and effectively act upon that choice, then one's will is not predetermined or predestined and the effects of that choice will propagate into the future.

I've decided I'd rather believe in free will than physical determinism(*). After all I do have direct evidence of free will (though it could be an illusion) and no direct evidence of physical determinism (though the indirect evidence is obviously persuasive, for some).

(*) if we are deciding between those two options, ignoring any third ways suggested by this snippet from above: People for some reason think completely free will or complete determinism are the only two possibilities.

This is a really fun read and helps make an intuitive case for compatibilism, highly recommend: https://www.mit.edu/people/dpolicar/writing/prose/text/godTaoist.html

very entertaining, on morality and religion and logic as much as on free will. I think it cheats a bit by not specifying *physical* determinism.

but mankind has grown up since then