• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

The unsolved problem of "free will"

cyborg said:
Damn this is simple DD:

Poster asks how to quote.
Poster responds on how to quote.
Poster directs to tutorials on using the forum in general.

You sure do make simple things complicated.
Click to expand...
I understand your point regarding the OP now. Thanks.
 
To get back to the OP for a minute, the term "free will" is as irrelevant as the term "I", in my opinion.

Assume our brain is a processor, receiving thousands of inputs from the Universe every second. Assume that the processor can change its programming (grow dendrites) and that some, if not all its input, is truelly random.

This means the output of the system cannot be predicted with 100%. It is thus not deterministic.

In what way does such a model of the brain differ from reality?
 
This means the output of the system cannot be predicted with 100%. It is thus not deterministic.
Click to expand...

Uh, it doesn't quite work like that.

It's the difference between a black box and a white box.

In science the smallest boxes are always going to be black.

If the output of the mechanism is sufficiently patterned we may assume a particular characteristic mechanism to describe its output.

If we can find no such mechanism we can only describe the black box's operation probabilistically.

You are saying that if we treat the brain as a black box we may be forced to say, "it is not deterministic."

But, say I make a program to emulate a brain. I know the all the peculiarities of the program. It is a white box. But then I give it to you. To you it appears to be no different to the 'black box' brain.

Yet one is certainly, completely, deterministic.

Unpredictability is not enough - there are unpredictable yet deterministic algorithms out there - some very simple indeed.
 
cyborg said:
Uh, it doesn't quite work like that.

It's the difference between a black box and a white box.

In science the smallest boxes are always going to be black.

If the output of the mechanism is sufficiently patterned we may assume a particular characteristic mechanism to describe its output.

If we can find no such mechanism we can only describe the black box's operation probabilistically.

You are saying that if we treat the brain as a black box we may be forced to say, "it is not deterministic."

But, say I make a program to emulate a brain. I know the all the peculiarities of the program. It is a white box. But then I give it to you. To you it appears to be no different to the 'black box' brain.

Yet one is certainly, completely, deterministic.

Unpredictability is not enough - there are unpredictable yet deterministic algorithms out there - some very simple indeed.
Click to expand...
Nothing is deterministic if it contains any random part at all.
 
Nothing is deterministic if it contains any random part at all.
Click to expand...

*Sigh* It's like you didn't read what I said.

If it's black box randomness is an assumption, not a given. There is ALWAYS a deterministic description.
 
Sure, after you tell me how it's not the case that there is always a deterministic description of the operation of a black box - otherwise your point of view is irrelevant.
 
cooper1958nc said:
So if a person walks into a room holding a letter opener, trips and kills her cousin sitting in a chair, that behavior is to be treated the same as if she tries to kill him?
Click to expand...
Cyborg is right, if a bit pithy. You have it very nearly exactly wrong.

You are looking at consequences; I am looking at behavior. Unless you wish to outlaw tripping, you have chosen a poor example. Additionally, it is our current system that differentiates among A) reckless driving (someone loses control of the car), B) vehicular assault (same, but now after losing control you hit another car), and C) manslaughter (same as before, but now the person you hit dies, even days later). Note, the "conscious intent" is the same in each--B and C are different only after the point where control of the car has been lost. We are trying to oversimplify--we want a singular cause (and a person to blame) of whatever the eventual damage might be.
Prescientific or not, the system makes distinctions based on conscious intent.
Click to expand...
Yes, and on the severity of the damage. It only makes sense from a make-believe perspective wherein conscious actors, fully cognizant of the potential consequences of their actions, choose freely to engage in those actions and are thus blameworthy. Anyone who has ever had the need to say "oops!" knows that the real world is more complex.

What our current system does do, is allow the larger society to evade any responsibility. Most of us, I would wager, have heard the mantra "if you blame the environment, you are letting the criminal off the hook!"; what we escape is the corollary--when we blame the criminal, we are letting the environment off the hook. If we know that particular environmental conditions (educational or economic, for instance) are causally related to crime, shouldn't we address these conditions before a crime is committed? Fortunately, by blaming the criminal, we don't have to spend that money. But...surely the criminal is to blame, is he not? Well... no. But that does not mean he evades punishment. When we separate blame and punishment, we can recognise society's moral obligation to change the environment, but also the pragmatic necessity of applying the appropriate contingencies for those who behave unacceptably. "Blame" is not a well-defined concept, but a fuzzy (and as I said, prescientific) notion that has served us reasonably well, but should not go unchallenged.
 
DanishDynamite said:
Nothing is deterministic if it contains any random part at all.
Click to expand...

Please, kindly tell me how we differentiate between randomness and the limits of our ability to measure a deterministic system.

Is natural selection deterministic?

[eta: for once, I am glad Tai Chi has me on ignore. Or claims to.]
 
We don't.
Click to expand...

It would be best in future not to do silly things like tell me to look up the meanings of words I know perfectly well then.
 
cooper, I get what you're saying, but I still think "consciousness" and "free will" aren't the right concepts in regards to law and ethics. I think they're way too large and has been pointed out too poorly-defined. I don't think we need to answer an awful lot of questions regarding these concepts in order to reason regarding morality and ethics.

Again, I'd point to "desire utilitarianism" as just one system that does a credible job without addressing those big, vague problems (or invoking the supernatural).
 
I don't think it matters if your "choice" is deterministic or not. A lot of data is fed into a very complex processor. That processor deals with the data and spits out a "choice". If the processor is sufficently complex, we call that "choice" free will. It is a useful term to describe the output of highly complex processors. The point is that the processor is "you". Deterministic or not, it is "you" who is making the choice.

So could a computer have free will? I don't see why not, if it were sufficiently complex that its outputs were indistinguishable from human "choice". Turing test anyone?

Alternately I might argue that every process that results in a selection is free will, but that the amount of free will varies widely. A simple computer program that can only evaluate a few variables has a small amount of free will. A less intelligent organism whose responses to a situation are limited to, let's say, flight or fight, has a small amount of free will. The more variables that are factored in to a selection and the more potential selections that are possible, the more free will.

Of course, I don't know doodly about philosopy. I'm sure it shows.
 
Mercutio said:
Good answer. Would it be fair to say that you feel we cannot know if something is deterministic or random? (given your answer in #72)
Click to expand...
No. We know that at the most basic level every physical interaction has an element of randomness. Absolute determinism, as such, no longer exists. It still gives meaning, however, to discuss which interactions are sufficiently macro such that the old deterministic laws can still be said to apply.
 
Well you're on the right course Tricky.

Ostensibly there's no mechanistic difference between the simple being and the complex being you identified - that is there's no new mechanisms that give the complex organism any fundamentally different abilities to the simple one. The toolset, if you will, for building 'free will' is the same.

Hence, one concludes, the ability for something to have 'free will' is not based on the fundamental building blocks of decision processes since clearly neither fundamental block (namely those I identified earlier) can give 'free will'. People don't seem to like this at all.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom