Science and free will

[cyborg]

Yes and no. It's like the natural/supernatural dichotomy. I don't have a natural/supernatural dichotomy because I think there are a whole range of different sorts of possible causality, and while it is quite easy to label some of them as being natural (e.g. plate tectonics) or supernatural (e.g. intelligent design) there are many things which fall somewhere inbetween (e.g. karma, synchronicity and the various different sorts of libertarian free will).

Ok fine, I get that - but you get rid of all the fancy terms atop it then it comes down to an effect is either caused by some other effect or it is not and there are good mathematical tools that one can use to analyse such things after the fact.

That is to say the pattern of behaviour of deterministic systems is different to the pattern of behaviour of non-deterministic systems and these patterns apply to any system you could fantasize about.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Ok fine, I get that - but you get rid of all the fancy terms atop it then it comes down to an effect is either caused by some other effect or it is not and there are good mathematical tools that one can use to analyse such things after the fact.

That is to say the pattern of behaviour of deterministic systems is different to the pattern of behaviour of non-deterministic systems and these patterns apply to any system you could fantasize about.

One problem here is that free will is something tied up with things like ethics and meaning. In order to apply mathematics to it, you'd have to be able to measure things like ethical goodness and spiritual meaning - which is obviously impossible. I'm not sure how you could apply mathematics to reality in order to find out whether it was entirely deterministic or partly non-deterministic, even if you had a computer that was powerful enough to build a model of the entire universe.

 

[Matt the Poet]

Exactly.

What's different?

The structure.

Yes, but you’re saying that there’s something special about certain kinds of structure that enable them to do something that no other kind of structure we know about can do. Even a computer can only behave as the current flowing through all its bits directs it to behave, and yet you seem to think that all (and apparently only) brain-shaped things can escape this physical necessity

Sure you do. Because sometimes you choose the chicken.

When I do the external stimuli are always different. One of those stimuli will be my memory of having had the fish before. What I choose now will depending on whether I value variety or consistency in my eating habits, which will depend on the sorts of things I’ve eaten growing up, which will will depend on the taste of my parents, which will depend on the way that taste bud variability evolved, which will depend…all the way back, unless you think there’s any reason to believe otherwise, to the initial conditions of the universe. All of it causal (if, on some level, stochastic), none of it ‘willed’.

To determine whether my ‘deciding’ sensation corresponds to some actual physical process in which all of the alternatives begin as, at base, equally likely and then something reversible happens that 'picks one of them out', I would have to replicate the exact initial conditions – and I’ve explained in posts above the logical incoherency of that. For all I know I’m an out-of-equilibrium system, exquistely sensitive to external conditions but absolutely predictable given sufficient computing power.

 

[cyborg]

One problem here is that free will is something tied up with things like ethics and meaning.

Well yes - in the same way that heliocentrism used to be a political matter too.

Nevertheless thatthere is a political and a scientific issue here doesn't mean that the scientific issue has to worry about the political ramifications.

I'm not sure how you could apply mathematics to reality in order to find out whether it was entirely deterministic or partly non-deterministic, even if you had a computer that was powerful enough to build a model of the entire universe.

You can't, but that was not what I said. The analytical tools exist. You are not going to know the "actual" answer, you just have a model of it which is either good or not as good as a better one.

 

[rocketdodger]

Why? As far as anyone knows you aren’t materially different from that of the chair you’re sitting in. If you got together X grams of carbon, Y grams of nitrogen, Z grams of oxygen etc. etc. until we’ve covered all the elements you’re made of and stuck it on that chair (imagine the room’s chilled so it’s all solid), what is the difference in that heap’s ‘physical substrate’ and your own?

The obvious answer is that the matter is arranged in a more complicated way, but what is it about the organisation process that uniquely gives the particular arrangement of the atoms that occupy the chair at the moment access to some sort of magical process that allows it to escape the physical laws that appear to govern the behaviour of everything else at that scale?

It just might not be isomorphic to the same basic behaviors, thats all.

I am not saying any physical laws are escaped. I am saying that an idea, in the mind of a conscious entity, might be isomorphic to some bizarre law of QM rather than, for example, the conventional behavior of a set of molecules.

 

[Matt the Poet]

It just might not be isomorphic to the same basic behaviors, thats all.

I am not saying any physical laws are escaped. I am saying that an idea, in the mind of a conscious entity, might be isomorphic to some bizarre law of QM rather than, for example, the conventional behavior of a set of molecules.

Ah, but ‘might be isomorphic’, as John Major once rather lyrically said, butters no parsnips. My point isn’t that such an isomorphism isn’t possible, but that asserting that it is has more to do with an emotional desire to give a special kind of dignity to human activity than any kind of science.

Not that there's anything wrong with that desire, as long as its proponents acknowledge it for what it is rather than claiming 'truth'.

 

[yy2bggggs]

Yes, but you’re saying that there’s something special about certain kinds of structure that enable them to do something that no other kind of structure we know about can do.

Well, sure.

Even a computer can only behave as the current flowing through all its bits directs it to behave,

Yeah, but a computer is a special kind of structure that can do something no other kind of structure we know about can do.

and yet you seem to think that all (and apparently only) brain-shaped things can escape this physical necessity

Quite the opposite. You seem to think that the only way I can decide things is if I transcend the laws of physics. How does that work? How do you get to my deciding things being mutually exclusive from it being the inevitable consequence of physics? If I did make a decision, what train of thought leads you to think that physics would have been violated? Do you believe that I'm not part of the universe?

FYI, none of the things you describe about what has to be true in order for me to decide things seem as if it has to be true. I might eat fish more than chicken because I like fish. That makes eating chicken probabilistically more likely.

But I might choose chicken if, say, there's only one piece of fish left, and someone else is coming--and I want to give them a choice. This might occur to me while I'm trying to figure out which to eat. In other words, I'm able to process information and act according to the processing of that information. That this must be the result of physical laws does not erase the fact that such things occur.

The same argument, for example, could be taken in terms of this very conversation. I could argue that we're not really talking about things--instead, we're simply reacting according to the laws of physics. There's nothing special about us that is different than the physics of ordinary things. If that's the case, why bother? It's not like we're going to have any hope of saying anything true--we're just going to react to what is being typed, according to our particular organizations of our brains, right? I hope this looks as ridiculous to you as it does to me... there's no conflict between following physical law and being able to talk about things, including physical law itself and our ability to talk about things.

 

[rocketdodger]

Ah, but ‘might be isomorphic’, as John Major once rather lyrically said, butters no parsnips. My point isn’t that such an isomorphism isn’t possible, but that asserting that it is has more to do with an emotional desire to give a special kind of dignity to human activity than any kind of science.

Not that there's anything wrong with that desire, as long as its proponents acknowledge it for what it is rather than claiming 'truth'.

Erm.. I think you are reading more into my words than you need to.

I am just saying that, for example, the mathematical fact that a set of information cannot include all information about itself (the formal version of "you can't see the back of your own head") may be isomorphic to something like whatever physical law gives rise to the uncertainty principle.

This says nothing about libertarian free will because libertarian free will is an incoherent concept that is beyond description by mathematics -- in other words, who cares about it.

So please don't think I am trying to defend UE in that respect. I just wanted to point out that there is definitely a possibe mathematical link between QM and consciousness. Furthermore, a mathematical link doesn't imply an operational link, and for the record I am one of the most vocal opponents of Penrose on this forum.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

This says nothing about libertarian free will because libertarian free will is an incoherent concept that is beyond description by mathematics -- in other words, who cares about it.

I was going to put in my two cents, but Rocket already did it.

~~ Paul

 

[UndercoverElephant]

I remain unconvinced that all versions of LFW are necesarily incoherent. They may be beyond or near-beyond comprehension, but that's not quite the same.

I could suggest the following if anybody really wants to try chasing this rabbit down the rabbit-hole, but be warned that this is Occultism, not philosophy. Ouspensky was a student of Gurdjieff, and he's writing about the same topic that Crowley wrote about. It can only be understood intuitively.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/6442884/Ouspensky-The-Psychology-of-Mans-Possible-Evolution

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P._D._Ouspensky

 

[Robin]

I did not say that. I don't believe in a complex soul.

I know you didn't say that - but what I said is that it is implicit in what you say that the soul is capable of complex behaviour.

Even the simplest choice is a complex process - so if the soul is the agent of free volition then it must be capable of complex behaviour.

On the other hand if the thing that makes our choices is not capable of evaluating and comprehending options then it is capable of neither freedom nor will.

 

[Robin]

I remain unconvinced that all versions of LFW are necesarily incoherent. They may be beyond or near-beyond comprehension, but that's not quite the same.

I could suggest the following if anybody really wants to try chasing this rabbit down the rabbit-hole, but be warned that this is Occultism, not philosophy. Ouspensky was a student of Gurdjieff, and he's writing about the same topic that Crowley wrote about. It can only be understood intuitively.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/6442884/Ouspensky-The-Psychology-of-Mans-Possible-Evolution

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P._D._Ouspensky

The best philosophical treatment of LFW is the essay Libertarianism from C.D Broad. I think is probably the only serious philosophical attempt to really come to grips with the concept.

It is a very difficult read (surprising for Broad) and I am not really sure whether he has been successful in defining the concept. In any case he concludes against the possibility.

 

[rocketdodger]

I remain unconvinced that all versions of LFW are necesarily incoherent. They may be beyond or near-beyond comprehension, but that's not quite the same.

If something can't be described by mathematics, it is incoherent.

Many things can be and we just don't know how. Not so with LFW. By definition LFW cannot be described by mathematics.

So... there ya go.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I remain unconvinced that all versions of LFW are necesarily incoherent. They may be beyond or near-beyond comprehension, but that's not quite the same.

I just don't see how you're going to describe a decision-making process/procedure/algorithm/method/thingie that isn't merely some combination of determinism and randomness, no matter where you try to place the agent making the decision. Placing the agent outside of the natural world doesn't help, because coming up with the process is a logical problem, not simply a naturalistic one.

The only vaguely coherent trick I've seen is to suggest that the agent makes decisions powered by some hidden set of (un)natural free will laws, sort of like gravity "decides" how to move planets. Why such a thing would make a libertarian free willie feel any better I cannot imagine.

~~ Paul

 

[PixyMisa]

Yes, but you’re saying that there’s something special about certain kinds of structure that enable them to do something that no other kind of structure we know about can do.

No.

There's nothing special about the structure. Different structures just behave in different ways. You see this everywhere.

If they'd built the Brooklyn Bridge out of raspberry jam, it wouldn't have stayed up very long.

If they'd built the first television sets out of soggy lettuce and potato peelings, it wouldn't have picked up much of a signal.

If you try to watch television on the Brooklyn Bridge, you won't be very entertained. (Or maybe you will; who's to say?)

If you try to cross the East River on a 42" Sony Bravia, you won't get very far.

Even a computer can only behave as the current flowing through all its bits directs it to behave, and yet you seem to think that all (and apparently only) brain-shaped things can escape this physical necessity

Nope. I keep saying, it cannot escape the laws of physics. It doesn't need to.

When I do the external stimuli are always different.

So?

One of those stimuli will be my memory of having had the fish before.

So?

What I choose now will depending on whether I value variety or consistency in my eating habits, which will depend on the sorts of things I’ve eaten growing up, which will will depend on the taste of my parents, which will depend on the way that taste bud variability evolved, which will depend…all the way back, unless you think there’s any reason to believe otherwise, to the initial conditions of the universe. All of it causal (if, on some level, stochastic), none of it ‘willed’.

So?

If it didn't depend on all that stuff, it wouldn't be a decision, it would just be random.

To determine whether my ‘deciding’ sensation corresponds to some actual physical process in which all of the alternatives begin as, at base, equally likely and then something reversible happens that 'picks one of them out', I would have to replicate the exact initial conditions – and I’ve explained in posts above the logical incoherency of that.

No, not at all. Indeed, that would not even be a decision.

For all I know I’m an out-of-equilibrium system, exquistely sensitive to external conditions

Yes.

but absolutely predictable given sufficient computing power.

No. Between quantum mechanics and chaos theory, we know that this is impossible. Indeed, either one would suffice, but both apply.

As far as I can see, you are arguing that something that is logically incoherent can't exist. Well, fine. I agree.

What I am pointing out is that nonetheless, we do decide what to have for lunch.

 

[PixyMisa]

Yeah, but a computer is a special kind of structure that can do something no other kind of structure we know about can do.

Exactly right. It computes.

A computer is not defined by its structure - it can be made of transistors or cells or Lego blocks - it's defined by the fact that it computes. But there are certain common properties to all structures that compute.

 

[PixyMisa]

One problem here is that free will is something tied up with things like ethics and meaning.

No it isn't.

In order to apply mathematics to it, you'd have to be able to measure things like ethical goodness and spiritual meaning - which is obviously impossible.

It's only impossible because you haven't defined them properly.

I'm not sure how you could apply mathematics to reality in order to find out whether it was entirely deterministic or partly non-deterministic

We've already done this. Quantum mechanics.

even if you had a computer that was powerful enough to build a model of the entire universe.

Why would we need one?

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I'm not sure how you could apply mathematics to reality in order to find out whether it was entirely deterministic or partly non-deterministic, even if you had a computer that was powerful enough to build a model of the entire universe.

It is probably partly nondeterministic. Unfortunately, nondeterministic means random. Of what use is that to the libertarian?

~~ Paul

 

[Ron_Tomkins]

I just took ten swigs of Bourbon and it still doesn't make sense.

Yes, but the real question is: Did you take those swigs out of your own free will?

 

[Matt the Poet]

Well, sure.
If that's the case, why bother? It's not like we're going to have any hope of saying anything true--we're just going to react to what is being typed, according to our particular organizations of our brains, right? I hope this looks as ridiculous to you as it does to me....

Why ridiculous? It's uncomfortable to think about, but it's a perfectly logically coherent option.

I'm not saying we do or don't have free will, really. I'm just saying that it's a question we can never, ever answer - on a par with whether or not we're living inside a computer simulation or what it's like to be a bat.