Free will and determinism

[I Am The Scum]

The fun part of this entire discussion is that I have had an exactly similar discussion with Christians on an atheist forum. They think that their god is omniscient, and so his universe becomes deterministic, but they just couldn’t see that humans do not have a free will in this kind of magical universe.

If God knows he will save one thousand souls tomorrow, can he choose to save even one more, or one less?

 

[Leumas]

Not necessarily. In a probabilistic universe, we wouldn't know which choices would be made until after they have been made. Even if we knew the exact state of the universe at some time, we wouldn't be able to predict which synapses will fire in a human brain.

WOW... so it is RANDOM then... well done... so you agree that randomness does exist after all.... good!!!

Note that a non-deterministic universe doesn't necessarily imply free will.

Correct.... again!!!

It is tempting to suggest that if a person is making choices independently of the state of the universe...

Nothing makes anything independent of the state of the universe... but the universe has RANDOMNESS as part of its states.


And that is in addition to the words of sheer perspicacity below...

.. And natural events don't do anything by "free will".

.

 

[steenkh]

If God knows he will save one thousand souls tomorrow, can he choose to save even one more, or one less?

Exactly. I’ll leave inconsistencies in religious thinking to a thread about religion.

 

[Leumas]

Dennett would argue that our brains have evolved to be able to make decisions to avoid the future. In that case, we are programmed by genes and environmental pressures to have free will (though not the "magic" free will that usually gets discussed in these types of threads).

No that is not what the brain does... the brain responds to events which includes stored memory of past events... and thus appears to be avoiding the "future" in that this "future" is nothing more than a similar outcome to events that took place in the past and is stored in memory and thus it is a positive feedback or a negative feedback from stored memory which will influence the reaction to current events... appearing to be an avoidance of "future" outcomes although they were nothing more than an added feedback into the process of reacting to current and actual events.

Click on the image to see it in better resolution
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[GDon]

Nobody has claimed that the choices are illustrations, only the free will decision is an illusion.

Having choices is a prerequisite for free will. If we don't have choices, then we don't have free will.

Certainly, but the “decision engine” is bound to make the same decision over and over again if the same situation occurred over and over again: it is not free.

It's the old dilemma: if we make the same decision each time, then we are not free. If we make different decisions, then we have no will.

But my view is that our free will decisions are part of the causal chain that leads us to today. So we will make the same decision each time, simply because the free will decision is part of the same deterministic chain. That may sound contradictory, but the idea is built upon the complexity of the processes involved in making a decision.

That is what I have meant: you can change the definition of “free” to mean “free enough”, and then you can claim that we have free will. “Free enough” equals “illusion of free”.

Fair point. I'm certainly not arguing for "magic" free will, which some require for free will to exist. "My" free will is based on the idea of the complexity of the brain that has evolved to have a decision engine which allows it to choose from two options. As per your earlier analogy: if we have enough bouncing balls, free will would develop.

 

[Leumas]

Having choices is a prerequisite for free will. If we don't have choices, then we don't have free will.

Totally wrong... one can freely will without any choices... having one's freely willed desires thwarted by lack of choices does not stop one from imagining choices... or wishing for choices... and not being able to do the actions necessary to choose when there are choices (e.g. no feathers) does not mean that the willed thing was not freely willed despite not being freely actualized.

It's the old dilemma: if we make the same decision each time, then we are not free. If we make different decisions, then we have no will.

Again totally wrong... I can decide to eat Brussel sprouts because they are good for me because I have just heard my glucose meter beeping... but the next day I can ignore the beeping and gobble down an apple pie with huge dollops of pecan butter ice-cream... and the next day to have it without ice-cream at all and the third day regret it and go back to Brussel sprouts again for the rest of the month....

I just do not see how your statement is in any way reflective of reality???

But my view is that our free will decisions are part of the causal chain that leads us to today. So we will make the same decision each time, simply because the free will decision is part of the same deterministic chain.

Again arrantly wrong... the "causal chain" has many and numerous random possibilities to its trajectory.... say that one of those random events resulted in my pancreas still working... now think of all the Brussel sprouts I would enjoy eating just because I am sick and tired of eating Trifle all the time.

That may sound contradictory, but the idea is built upon the complexity of the processes involved in making a decision.
Fair point. I'm certainly not arguing for "magic" free will, which some require for free will to exist. "My" free will is based on the idea of the complexity of the brain that has evolved to have a decision engine which allows it to choose from two options. As per your earlier analogy: if we have enough bouncing balls, free will would develop.

Your points are total nonsense because you really have a total nonsense definition of all the concepts involved.... every one... not just "free will".

...As per your earlier analogy: if we have enough bouncing balls, free will would develop.

So you think the Galton Board device is an example of a system with burgeoning "free-will"?

 

[psionl0]

No it does not... you state that randomness does not exist... and that the brain is PRE-programmed.

You totally forgot the words "deterministic universe".

WOW... so it is RANDOM then... well done... so you agree that randomness does exist after all.... good!!!

You totally forgot the words "probabilistic universe".

 

[Leumas]

You totally forgot the words "deterministic universe".

You totally forgot the words "probabilistic universe".

We have only this one and only universe... if you cannot decide what it is then by definition that implies and means it is indeterministic... QED!!!

 

[psionl0]

We have only this one and only universe... if you cannot decide what it is then by definition that implies and means it is indeterministic... QED!!!

That is not what indeterministic means.

 

[steenkh]

Nobody has claimed that the choices are illustrations, only the free will decision is an illusion.

I see that my iPad has garbled the text. What I wanted to say was this:

Nobody has claimed that the choices are illusions, only the free will decision is an illusion.

 

[GDon]

I see that my iPad has garbled the text. What I wanted to say was this:

Nobody has claimed that the choices are illusions, only the free will decision is an illusion.

No worries, happens to me all the time too, except the garbler is usually myself rather than the computer I understood that to be what you meant. But in the absence of free will, would it be accurate to call them "choices"? Wouldn't the choices be illusions?

 

[psionl0]

But in the absence of free will, would it be accurate to call them "choices"? Wouldn't the choices be illusions?

In computer-talk, we would call them "decisions". Computer programs are full of IF-THEN-ELSE statements where the computer "chooses" which branch to take depending on the state of the conditions it is examining.

 

[steenkh]

No worries, happens to me all the time too, except the garbler is usually myself rather than the computer I understood that to be what you meant. But in the absence of free will, would it be accurate to call them "choices"? Wouldn't the choices be illusions?

You could say that.

But your argument was: “But if the choices can be seen in the synapses, then how are they illusions?”
And I would say that if you can “see” the synapses considering the choices, then they are not illusions, anymore than thinking is an illusion.

We can regard choices in a deterministic world as crossroads where you can see the roads but all but one are blocked.

 

[Myriad]

You could say that.

But your argument was: “But if the choices can be seen in the synapses, then how are they illusions?”
And I would say that if you can “see” the synapses considering the choices, then they are not illusions, anymore than thinking is an illusion.

We can regard choices in a deterministic world as crossroads where you can see the roads but all but one are blocked.

If we're looking at synapses from a future-omniscient point of view, we could get by without examining anything on the level of choices. Just trace cause and effect from the sense organs and memory synapses through all the processing to the motor synapses and subsequent memory synapses, and none of it has to mean anything.

I've used this analogy before: imagine looking at a proportion of a Game of Life cellular automaton grid that's functioning correctly. At some point you see a white cell turn black. You can ask, "why did it turn black just then?" And you can always answer, based on the rules and the past evolution of the automaton. It turned black because exactly three of its neighbors were black on the the previous iteration. And why were those three neighbors black (and the other five white)? Because of the states of all their neighbors in the previous iteration, and so forth, all the way back to the automaton's initial state. In a way, that's the most complete explanation for the event in question (the cell turning black) that you can have. It's also the least specific and the least satisfying, though, because "the rules required it to" is the explanation for every event in any Game of Life automaton ever.

But there might be a different explanation possible. For example, the cell that turned black might have been part of an undisturbed field of white cells, until a Glider formation passed through it. "Because a glider passed through" is a more specific explanation. But isn't it also less...real?

After all, a Glider isn't a thing. It's a pattern of behavior that can result from the rules of the automaton and the state of some cells. The cells that are momentarily "part of a Glider" are exactly the same and follow all the same rules as the rest of the cells. A Glider is a fiction that's useful because it summarizes the behavior of the system in particular circumstances. Which is also what an explanation is.

In the synapses, the decision and the potential decisions are like Gliders. They're good summary explanations for what the system is doing. If your omiscient-after-the-fact observer can decode them, then depending on circumstance you might be able to trace them back to patterns of sensory input (for instance, photons from a restaurant menu being read). What would doing so give you? You already have a full explanation in terms of synapses. It would give you instead an explanation that relates to other abstractions like the decision-maker's experiences, the choice made and alternative choices that were considered, how difficult the decision was, and so forth.

 

[steenkh]

Myriad, that is a very good analogy.

At least for those of us who know the game of life

 

[Chanakya]

What I'm arguing is that free-will is something that happens within the brain. Thus it is a product of genes and environment. For some reason people call it an 'illusion' because it is occurring within the brain, but my argument is that it isn't an illusion of free-will, it is free-will.


Exactly. They are free-will decisions occurring within the brain. No need to propose a 'soul' or supernatural origin for free-will.


But if we can't even imagine what we're looking for, how can we say it's not there?

Does it make sense to say that X doesn't exist if X can't be defined in the first place? That's the problem with debates around free-will. "I think, therefore I have free-will." That works for me.

How do you define free will, then, GDon? Free of what?

 

[Chanakya]

Optical and auditory illusions are working on different principles than free will. We could just as well proclaim gravity is an illusion and put up an MC Escher stair pic as a 'proof'. It doesn't prove anything.

Free will is generally understood as something like 'the capacity of agents to choose between different possible courses of action unimpeded', or to have independent agency over your fate. Legal systems worldwide function on whether an individual has free will, otherwise they could not be held accountable, as they had no choice. Even yea verily this very forum would serve no purpose, as argumentation would be pointless. We could not agree or disagree, or even change our minds without free will.

So to claim that we don't have free will is pretty much a fringe belief, that needs the proverbial extraordinary evidence. Can anyone provide what they consider solid evidence that this commonly understood state doesn't exist? No changing the subject, or passing the buck, or shifting the burden, or other word games. And toying with 'unencumbered' choice doesn't mean anything; we are all influenced by environmental/genetic factors. Those may predispose us to a particular conclusion or increase the probability of reaching one, but it does not negate free will.

Unimpeded by what? I think the operating factor here is 'precedent causes'. Do you think anything at all might be unimpeded by, and independed of, precendent causes? Think about it: How might that even be possible, for anything at all?

 

[GDon]

How do you define free will, then, GDon? Free of what?

Earlier in the thread I quoted from the Free Will entry in Wiki:

"Free will is the capacity of agents to choose between different possible courses of action unimpeded."

Unimpeded by what? I think the operating factor here is 'precedent causes'. Do you think anything at all might be unimpeded by, and independed of, precendent causes? Think about it: How might that even be possible, for anything at all?

"Precedent causes" aren't logically part of the free will equation. You could have all the precedent causes in the world leading up to a free choice. Doesn't make it not free.

The key is "capacity of agents to choose". The agent here is (in effect) the brain. Free will is sometimes presented as invalidated if the choices are occurring within the brain, since the brain runs on physical laws, and anything that runs on physical laws isn't free.

My argument is that the brain has evolved a "free will decision engine" that can evaluate between choices and make a decision from there. The fact that this all happens within a brain that runs on physical laws within a deterministic universe is irrelevant. Activity is occurring within the brain, choices made, decisions made. The free will decision is simply another part of the chain of existence. If one were to wind back time to the same starting point a 1000 times, the same decision would be made each time since the free will decision is part of that causal chain.

There are lots of compatibilists out there, so I'm not alone! Doesn't make me right, but it doesn't make me crazy... I think!

That the brain has a free will decision engine is an assumption, but one based on observation. I know, the claim is that what we observe is an illusion of free will. But that conclusion is based on the brain being involved, which I think is irrelevant. It's not an illusion, it is actual activity going on in the brain.

I'd feel less confident if someone could say exactly how a free will decision would work. It seems the first thing that incompatibilists want to do is remove the brain from the process, though it never goes much beyond that.

 

[Thermal]

Unimpeded by what? I think the operating factor here is 'precedent causes'. Do you think anything at all might be unimpeded by, and independed of, precendent causes? Think about it: How might that even be possible, for anything at all?

I get the train of thought you are on, I really do. But as I've said before, it boils down to whether you think reason...that unique sense of self...is the inevitable result of previous billiard balls banging around. I personally don't. I think the process of a functional brain will result in open ended choices, that cause various synapses to fire, rather than the other way around.

So by "unimpeded", I mean "not bound by previous experience/biology". The simple evolutionary ability to think and make choices, guided by little more than your mood that day, results in free will. I can make a good choice, foolish choice, or none at all and let the cardsfall as they may. But the ongoing process of a functioning consciousness frees me from the inevitably of billiard balls I can weigh out the probability, and evaluate the most beneficial outcome, yet still choose according to what is most likely to get me laid tonight or lose a game of pool to me

 

[Chanakya]

Earlier in the thread I quoted from the Free Will entry in Wiki:

"Free will is the capacity of agents to choose between different possible courses of action unimpeded."


"Precedent causes" aren't logically part of the free will equation. You could have all the precedent causes in the world leading up to a free choice. Doesn't make it not free.

The key is "capacity of agents to choose". The agent here is (in effect) the brain. Free will is sometimes presented as invalidated if the choices are occurring within the brain, since the brain runs on physical laws, and anything that runs on physical laws isn't free.

My argument is that the brain has evolved a "free will decision engine" that can evaluate between choices and make a decision from there. The fact that this all happens within a brain that runs on physical laws within a deterministic universe is irrelevant. Activity is occurring within the brain, choices made, decisions made. The free will decision is simply another part of the chain of existence. If one were to wind back time to the same starting point a 1000 times, the same decision would be made each time since the free will decision is part of that causal chain.

There are lots of compatibilists out there, so I'm not alone! Doesn't make me right, but it doesn't make me crazy... I think!

That the brain has a free will decision engine is an assumption, but one based on observation. I know, the claim is that what we observe is an illusion of free will. But that conclusion is based on the brain being involved, which I think is irrelevant. It's not an illusion, it is actual activity going on in the brain.

I'd feel less confident if someone could say exactly how a free will decision would work. It seems the first thing that incompatibilists want to do is remove the brain from the process, though it never goes much beyond that.

I ask again, because I think this is key: Free of what? Unimpeded by what?

Just answer that, in your words. This disagreement may be a definitional thing. How're you defining free will? Free of what? Unimpeded by what?