Free will and determinism

[Thermal]

The answer is always "No", because free will is a logical impossibility. The worst argument is when people try to bring chance into the equation, as if my decisions hinging on a dice throw should make me feel in control of my actions.

What makes you think that?

 

[Olmstead]

What makes you think that?

Because you can't even conceive of a way free will would work.

You can choose to do anything you like ... but you cannot choose what any of your choices will be. You would have to make yourself into someone who can choose what he chooses. And that is absolutely absurd.

 

[Thermal]

Because you can't even conceive of a way free will would work.

Sure I can. At least with as much precision as conceiving the alternatives.

You can choose to do anything you like ... but you cannot choose what any of your choices will be. You would have to make yourself into someone who can choose what he chooses. And that is absolutely absurd.

*Thermal decides to put some coins down to declare which will be his lucky coin today*

 

[Olmstead]

Sure I can. At least with as much precision as conceiving the alternatives.

Well, go ahead then. It's very easy to come up with a theory of how consciousness without free will works, even without philosophy. The environment provides the input, and the brain generates the output while creating the illusion of multiple choices having been available. Experiments with split-brain patients have even pointed to the fact that there is an illusion of choice.

So, amaze me. Give me an example of making a choice, and explain how that choice was a result of free will.

 

[Agatha]

Bob doesn't have free will in his very early years (and possibly in his much later life) when he doesn't have agency or capacity and cannot make choices. So the "entire life" bit of proposition 1 must be false.

And even once Bob acquires capacity, many of his choices are closed; he can choose to do A, B or C but cannot choose impossible option Q.

 

[Olmstead]

Bob doesn't have free will in his very early years (and possibly in his much later life) when he doesn't have agency or capacity and cannot make choices. So the "entire life" bit of proposition 1 must be false.

And even once Bob acquires capacity, many of his choices are closed; he can choose to do A, B or C but cannot choose impossible option Q.

What determines whether he chooses A or B?

 

[Leumas]

What determines whether he chooses A or B?

The sum total of responses to a chain of sequences in the past along the trajectory of one's surfing through the waves and tides of space-time.

Furthermore... it is not just one's own trajectory of being tossed and churned... it is the other flotsam and jetsam that was also being tossed in the vicinity bumping against one that had nothing to do with one's own micro-trajectory either but rather the overall macro-trajectory of the whole mass of jetsam and flotsam even in another area of the ocean of space-time.

What one ingests and what one excretes even affect and effect different forks and choices...

Imagine waking up late and rushing to get to work missing breakfast...

Near work he stops at a street food vendor to buy a quick snack... because he is hungry and missed breakfast because he woke up late...

And while standing at the street vendor a bus veers and runs him down and paralyses him...

The bus veered because the bus driver dosed off on the wheel because she works three jobs to pay for cancer treatment for her daughter and was exhausted....

The reason her daughter has cancer is because she ate too many salads at school where the vegetables came from an unethical farming consortium that used Roundup in its farming despite knowing its dangers all because it is cheaper....

The reason the guy woke up too late... is because he had diarrhea all night because he was courting a girl and took her to a cheap restaurant he could afford because his job does not pay well.

 

[Olmstead]

The sum total of responses to a chain of sequences in the past along the trajectory of ones surfing through the waves and tides of space-time.

Furthermore... it is not just one's own trajectory of being tossed and churned... it is the other flotsam and jetsam that was also being tossed in the vicinity bumping against one that had nothing to do with one's own micro-trajectory either but rather the overall macro-trajectory of the whole mass of jetsam and flotsam even in another area of the ocean of space-time.

What one ingests and what one excretes even affect and effect different forks and choices...

Imagine waking up late and rushing to get to work missing breakfast...

Near work he stops at a street food vendor to buy a quick snack... because he is hungry and missed breakfast because he woke up late...

And while standing at the street vendor a bus veers and runs him down and paralyses him...

The bus veered because the bus driver dosed off on the wheel because she works three jobs to pay for cancer treatment for her daughter and was exhausted....

The reason her daughter has cancer is because she ate too many salads at school where the vegetables came from an unethical farming consortium that used Roundup in its farming despite knowing its dangers all because it is cheaper....

The reason the guy woke up too late... is because he had diarrhea all night because he was courting a girl and took her to a cheap restaurant he could afford because his job does not pay well.

You probably could have summarised that in a sentence.

I agree, but even beyond that, there is no possibility for free will in the human organism. Genes and the environment have created an organism that was always going to make the choices they've made.

I realise that I'm almost paraphrasing you, but it's important to understand just how deep the lack of free will goes. There's the determinism of the universe, there's the inpunt/output reality of our existence, and then there's the logical impossibility of ever choosing what you choose.

 

[Leumas]

Lack of free will does not entail predeterminism.

Things can be (and are) indeterministic... but that does not entail free will.

The balls' trajectories in the video below are indeterministic ... but yet the metal balls have no free will...

You ever see a good pool player? They can predict exactly how a ball will ricochet around and what will do. That's fine for inanimate objects. But does a living consciousness operate like a billiard ball?

Also, the Galton board has built-in fails for comparisons here. You can't control the precise spin of each ball as it enters, or whether it is perfectly round, or the vibrations on the board causing 'random' changes in trajectory, how straight the nails/pins are driven, etc. If you could account for these things, I'd bet you could predict exactly the path a ball would take.

Exactly... indeterministic... and despite your hypothetical you will lose the bet.... even the slightest change in temperature or the subtlest of tremors of a distant geological fault or volcanic rumble... or even the passing by of a bus or train or metro or teenager's souped-up car will render null and void any previous accounting for the variables.

 

[Leumas]

You probably could have summarised that in a sentence.

Please show me how... I will bow to your superior abilities if you do.

I agree, but even beyond that, there is no possibility for free will in the human organism. Genes and the environment have created an organism that was always going to make the choices they've made.

I agree...

I realise that I'm almost paraphrasing you, but it's important to understand just how deep the lack of free will goes.

I agree... and I do understand...

There's the determinism of the universe, there's the inpunt/output reality of our existence, and then there's the logical impossibility of ever choosing what you choose.

Here... I disagree... it is not determined by any possibility of any way of looking at it.

Do you know what Radioactive decay is... do you know what Quantum Physics is?

.... there's the inpunt/output reality of our existence, and then there's the logical impossibility of ever choosing what you choose.

I agree....

We are sure the brain is physical and its neuronal firings are physical and they are the result of the DNA that made all the lipids and proteins in it and the chemicals it has acquired from the blood which has acquired them from the environment.

What we are not sure about is how we store the memory that we use as a feedback mechanism (see image below) to influence the firing process in addition to the chemicals.

But those are the sum total of all the previous firings due to previous firings and chemicals.

At every instant the brain is at a state that has been set by previous states and current environmental factors (see image below)

None of this is freely willed by the definition of this term.

Where one is born ... at what era of time... to whom ... and how... is a random set of environmental factors that start a trajectory jump off point that is not in anyway under the control of the person being born

And from that point onwards each neuronal firing is the result of a feedback mechanism that depends on the environment at the moment of firing as well as the state of the brain which is the result of the previous states.

A path of which not a single point is freely willed.

Click on the image to view it in a better resolution
[imgw=500]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/thum_5128262dae1baa2a1a.jpg[/imgw]​

 

[GDon]

Is it possible for both of the following statements to be true about one person, Bob:

1. Every single thing Bob does in his entire life was already inevitable even before he was born.

2. Bob has free will

Yes, assuming that Bob's free-will decisions are inevitable, i.e. Bob cannot help but to freely choose what he will freely choose. Viewing free-will decisions at the end of time: can you go back into the past and change what you freely choose? Should you be able to if you have free-will? If not, then how is it different from standing at the start of time and looking at your free-will decisions in the future?

I agree with Darat: this is going to become about defining what is meant by free-will.

 

[GDon]

I agree, but even beyond that, there is no possibility for free will in the human organism. Genes and the environment have created an organism that was always going to make the choices they've made.

What if free-will choices are a *result* of genes and the environment? Is there any contradiction there with your definition of free-will?

 

[Thermal]

Exactly... indeterministic... and despite your hypothetical you will lose the bet.... even the slightest change in temperature or the subtlest of tremors of a distant geological fault or volcanic rumble... or even the passing by of a bus or train or metro or teenager's souped-up car will render null and void any previous accounting for the variables.

In the here and now practical sense, sure. But in the abstract, if we had enough information and could control the variables, we could make the accurate prediction.

But of course, we can't, in the practical sense. Just too much going on. That's what the no-free-will argument hinges on, though: with enough information, our very consciousness is just another ball, doing what it has to do.

 

[Leumas]

What if free-will choices are a *result* of genes and the environment? Is there any contradiction there with your definition of free-will?

What does this mean... what is "free will choices" and how can genes determine this and yet it is still called free will?

 

[Thermal]

Well, go ahead then. It's very easy to come up with a theory of how consciousness without free will works, even without philosophy. The environment provides the input, and the brain generates the output while creating the illusion of multiple choices having been available. Experiments with split-brain patients have even pointed to the fact that there is an illusion of choice.

Holup: how and why is the brain creating illusions? Trying out for a magic act, is it? And what it 'generates' is consciousness itself. You know, the whole "I" thing in "I think".

Your "easy" theory has a lot of blanks in it. I think its much harder to account for not having agency, unless we understood consciousness much better than we do.

So, amaze me. Give me an example of making a choice, and explain how that choice was a result of free will.

If your response is going to be "ya those wheels were already in order since the Big Bang", is there really a point to examples?

Whatever. I walk up to an intersection, with no place in particular to go. I could go left, right, straight, or turn around. I choose to cut through the woods and masturbate behind a tree.

Was this my choice, or did the Universe align to make it so? Asking for a constable.

 

[Olmstead]

What if free-will choices are a *result* of genes and the environment? Is there any contradiction there with your definition of free-will?

The whole problem begins with the fact that you have to phrase it this vaguely, because you can't even come up with an example of how this would work.

Genes and my life have brought me to a point where I have to decide whether I will exercise today or not ... and then what? I will force myself to do an hour of exercise because it's good for my health, or I will turn on my Playstation instead. Can you even hypothesize on a way in which either of these choices couldn't be traced back to either my genes or the environment?

The starting point of all arguments for free will is always the same. The idea of being akin to a puppet is disagreeable, so maybe there's some room for free will somewhere in that noggin. But when it's time to formulate a theory on free will, there is nothing, and it all ends right there. We can't even imagine what we would be looking for.


ETA: And the worst part? This isn't actually where we're at. The lack of free will starts at a much higher level:

The non-verbal side of a split-brain patient's brain is instructed to pick up a pencil. The patient does so. And when you ask the verbal side why they did that, they will tell you that they wanted to scribble with it. That's the reality of human existence.

 

[Leumas]

Holup: how and why is the brain creating illusions? Trying out for a magic act, is it? And what it 'generates' is consciousness itself. You know, the whole "I" thing in "I think".

In order to allow you to do this....

...
Whatever. I walk up to an intersection, with no place in particular to go. I could go left, right, straight, or turn around. I choose to cut through the woods and masturbate behind a tree.

Was this my choice, or did the Universe align to make it so? Asking for a constable.

Neither.... it had nothing to do with the universe aligning ... nor is it your choice...

 

[Olmstead]

Holup: how and why is the brain creating illusions? Trying out for a magic act, is it? And what it 'generates' is consciousness itself. You know, the whole "I" thing in "I think".

Your "easy" theory has a lot of blanks in it. I think its much harder to account for not having agency, unless we understood consciousness much better than we do.

That's incredibly easy to answer. Both human consciousness and the illusion of free will were evolutionary advantageous. In fact, you could argue that it's impossible to have one without the other, so the illusion of free will might simply be a result of human consciousness.

If your response is going to be "ya those wheels were already in order since the Big Bang", is there really a point to examples?

Whatever. I walk up to an intersection, with no place in particular to go. I could go left, right, straight, or turn around. I choose to cut through the woods and masturbate behind a tree.

Was this my choice, or did the Universe align to make it so? Asking for a constable.

The various circumstances of your environment interacted with the curcumstances of your body, and this was the result. I don't even understand how this is supposed to show anything with regards to free will. Your body performed a very complicated equivalent of a light turning on after a switch is pressed. Where is the free will in your example?

 

[Leumas]

...The environment provides the input, and the brain generates... the illusion ...

The illusion of free will in the brain is akin to this visual illusion

​

In the above image notice the squares A and B....

They are exactly the same color... but try as much as you can you cannot see it.

You can prove it for yourself that they are indeed the same color EXACTLY the same color (RGB = 111,111,111) by loading the image in Paint Shop or similar software and use the color-picker tool and pick the color of the tiles and compare the RGB values... also compare the RGB values of the other tiles....

It is the most amazing illusion ever... in other illusions if you squint or twiddle your head or defocus the eyes or something you might be able to overcome the illusion.... in this one there is no way at all to shirk off the illusion.

The Free will illusion is analogous to this illusion.

 

[Thermal]

That's incredibly easy to answer. Both human consciousness and the illusion of free will were evolutionary advantageous. In fact, you could argue that it's impossible to have one without the other, so the illusion of free will might simply be a result of human consciousness.

I don't see any advantage. Quite the contrary, it would seem. Acting instinctively, without thought or choosing, with the same net result would rely in a faster moving animal. That's an evolutionary plus.

The various circumstances of your environment interacted with the curcumstances of your body, and this was the result. I don't even understand how this is supposed to show anything with regards to free will. Your body performed a very complicated equivalent of a light turning on after a switch is pressed. Where is the free will in your example?

I smell a word game around here somewhere.