Science and free will

[Matt the Poet]

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

Chaos theory doesn't get you to free will - unless you intend to claim that weather systems have it.

Quantum mechanics doesn't get you there either. Say you magically imbued a C14 atom with consciousness, so that it was aware of its internal processes to the same extent as a human appears to be. Would it feel as though it was 'deciding' when to decay to C12? If it wouldn't, why not - what would be the difference between the stochastic nature of the quantum processes going on there and the ones that might, or might not, be going on in our brains? If it would, how would you be able to convince it otherwise?

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

I'm not sure, then, how you're defining 'decision'. It's beginning to sound like I'm in some last bastion of hardcore logical positivism - are you saying that free will must exist solely because we use the word 'decision' to describe certain kinds of things we do in the world? Because that seems to me like saying that geocentrism must be true because we use the word 'sunrise' to describe what happens every morning.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I'm not sure, then, how you're defining 'decision'. It's beginning to sound like I'm in some last bastion of hardcore logical positivism - are you saying that free will must exist solely because we use the word 'decision' to describe certain kinds of things we do in the world? Because that seems to me like saying that geocentrism must be true because we use the word 'sunrise' to describe what happens every morning.

I think we be having the usual confusion between compatibilist and libertarian free will.

~~ Paul

 

[yy2bggggs]

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

That it's allegedly uncomfortable to think about has nothing to do with it. It's ridiculous because it undermines itself--if the claim held any convincing value, it would be its own counterexample.

I'm not saying we do or don't have free will, really.

This suggests that you misunderstand what I'm claiming. Free will is incoherent, and not the same as choice. Even the form of the term betrays this--it's a compound term "free will"--made by attaching "free" to "will". If you take "will" alone, you're talking about volition--choice. So what's the point in attaching "free" to it to make a distinct compound word?

Free will--with all it's "free"ness, whatever that is supposed to mean--is not the same thing as "choice". It is, instead, "choice" plus baggage--where baggage includes false theories about what has to be true in order to have choice.

When I argue that we can choose things, I'm not arguing for any of the baggage. I'm arguing that we have "will".

I'm just saying that it's a question we can never, ever answer

What question exactly? If it's "do we have free will?", then the answer is: "the question is wrong."

 

[Asm]

When you to make a decision, your brain performs a calculation based on sensory input and memories.

As a result, the sum of this calculation is exactly what “you” (i.e. your brain) would perceive as "this is what I would do", or free will.

Even if "you" (i.e. your brain) decided to tinker with the calculation to get “your” will, I fail to see how that would be anything but the same story over again.

 

[Matt the Poet]

That it's allegedly uncomfortable to think about has nothing to do with it. It's ridiculous because it undermines itself--if the claim held any convincing value, it would be its own counterexample.

How? In a will-less world set of stimuli X causes me to doubt the existence of choice, set of stimuli Y causes you to affirm it. What does that have to do with with the truth of the matter?

Free will--with all it's "free"ness, whatever that is supposed to mean--is not the same thing as "choice". It is, instead, "choice" plus baggage--where baggage includes false theories about what has to be true in order to have choice.

I don’t see the difference. Either we can respond in more than one way to an identical set of external stimuli, or we can’t. If the latter, there is no ‘will’, free or otherwise. If the former, that makes us different from everything else in the universe that we know about. Which is possible (we’re different from everything else in the universe in a number of ways), but we have no mechanism for it – just a vague sense that quantum physics is the sort of thing that might underly such a mechanism if it existed.

 

[QED]

I don’t see the difference. Either we can respond in more than one way to an identical set of external stimuli, or we can’t. If the latter, there is no ‘will’, free or otherwise. If the former, that makes us different from everything else in the universe that we know about. Which is possible (we’re different from everything else in the universe in a number of ways), but we have no mechanism for it – just a vague sense that quantum physics is the sort of thing that might underly such a mechanism if it existed.

The worth of proposing a quantum mechanical mechanism to save the concept of freewill is questionable in my opinion. For one thing there is the problem that the brain isn't a quantum object, the influence of random fluctuations would be extremely limited. Let's assume that a random fluctuation caused a single, or for the sake of argument, a couple of neurons to fire. This event would still not have any significance in a process as complex as decision making, as there are random neuron discharges all the time, but the brain evolved in such a way as to filter out background noise quite effectively. But let's again, for the sake of argument, assume that it did have an effect on our decision-making. How would that choice be the consequence of "free" will? It's still reduces to a combination of 'random variable' and 'processing' based on your brain's structure (which was shaped partly by past experience).

 

[Belz...]

LFW is the view that free will isn't compatible with determinism. It is the belief that humans (and maybe other entities) have the capacity to be uncaused or originatory causes.

How ? If it isn't pre-determined and isn't random, then what could possibly influence the decision ? Turtles ?

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

How ? If it isn't pre-determined and isn't random, then what could possibly influence the decision ? Turtles ?

Uncaused factors that aren't random. As soon as we hear a coherent example of such a thing, we'll be good to go.

~~ Paul

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Uncaused factors that aren't random. As soon as we hear a coherent example of such a thing, we'll be good to go.

~~ Paul

They are factors which are caused by WILL. What is the problem? :shrugs:

Maybe the thing you're not getting is that "WILL" appears in this system as a foundational entity in its own right. It's not reducible to anything else. WILL can be informed by causal factors (e.g. knowledge stored in a brain) but the acausal WILL component of it is not the knowledge. So it is acausal (because WILL is acausal) but it is not random because it is informed by knowledge stored in a brain. If you think of WILL as a brain process then none of this makes any sense.

 

[yy2bggggs]

How? In a will-less world

Huh? This wasn't about the will-less world.

I don’t see the difference.

I do.

Either we can respond in more than one way to an identical set of external stimuli, or we can’t.

We can't, in any universe even remotely similar to ours. We can only possibly ever decide to do the thing that we will decide to do. This is part of the baggage, not choice.

Choice is about picking an option. We can do that.

If the latter, there is no ‘will’, free or otherwise.

Why not? What law requires that I be a different sort of thing than a causal link? If it's possible to plug a sink with a stopper--to make the water stay in the sink because the stopper is there, then why is it impossible for me to choose something--to select a particular option because I am there?

If the former, that makes us different from everything else in the universe that we know about.

And it also contradicts the fact that we can only possibly do that which we, being exactly who we are at a given moment, would be such a person as to willfully decide to do.

Which is possible

No it's not.

just a vague sense that quantum physics is the sort of thing that might underly such a mechanism if it existed.

Randomness doesn't help you a bit. You can't tie the result of tossing cosmic die to intent. It's not a choice unless I made it.

The one and only requirement for me to choose something would be for me to have done it, and for me to be able to consider options. There's no such thing as this imaginary ontological sense of "could have" you're going on about--there's only "did" and the hypothetical.

 

[dlorde]

My pragmatic view of free-will is summed up by the statement I've made elsewhere:

"In a deterministic universe we must act as if we have free will - we have no choice."

We feel that we can choose to act freely, when we act, we feel that we freely choose to do so, and when we have acted we feel that we made a free choice of action - and there is a general consensus that this is the case - so for all practical purposes we do have free-will (it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck..., etc). After all, we know that there are both internal and external influences on our choices, and when making a choice we generally attempt to base it on an evaluation of those influences. It feels like free will because it feels like our personal weighting and evaluation of these influences. Additionally, how can we not act as if we have free will? How would that work?

Further, if the universe is deterministic and our choices are inevitable or pre-determined, it makes no difference to our experience of free will. Even if it were possible to enumerate all the internal and external influences that contribute to a particular choice of action, and to simulate the processing that resulted in that action, and get the same answer, it would always be retrospective. We still have to act as if we have free will.

Of course, that view avoids the real question 'Do We Have Free Will?' by claiming it doesn't really matter. My own inclination is that our choices are deterministic but not necessarily predictable. They can be so sensitively dependent on the initial conditions that they can be unpredictable even in principle - I'm not saying they are necessarily the result of chaotic processes, but something similar is happening involving self-referential processing - that is also involved with maintaining our sense of self. The self-referencing occurs in the course of the evaluations leading to the choice, making them, in some sense a true choice by our 'self'; so our choices are free in the same sense that our thoughts themselves are free, and they are deterministic in the same way our thoughts are deterministic.

 

[linusrichard]

I hate these threads. It feels like running up a sand dune to even express my position, let alone trying to actually defend it or anything. And then come the claims that LFW is "incoherent," and I can't blame people for saying it, because if I can't give a coherent account for it, why should they believe it's not incoherent? I mean, it's not, and I know it's not, but I can't expect people to just take my word for it. I think the mistake is that there is no coherent explanation - no coherent description of a mechanism, whether within the brain or without, that would enable LFW to exist. I don't think that makes LFW itself incoherent. It's sort of like knowing that living things pass along traits to their descendants before you know about genes and chromosomes. Were Mendel and Darwin "incoherent" before Watson and Crick?

Anyway, I don't have anything substantive to add, I just wanted to post to give moral support to Undercover Elephant. You Are Not Alone.

 

[Matt the Poet]

Why not? What law requires that I be a different sort of thing than a causal link? If it's possible to plug a sink with a stopper--to make the water stay in the sink because the stopper is there, then why is it impossible for me to choose something--to select a particular option because I am there?
And it also contradicts the fact that we can only possibly do that which we, being exactly who we are at a given moment, would be such a person as to willfully decide to do.

OK, I’m lost now.

You appear to agree that given a particular set of external stimuli there is only ever one thing I could do in any situation.

From that point of view behaviour may not be entirely determinable, but it’s definitely deterministic in the sense that I don’t do anything other than follow the same physical laws as a pair of dice do once they’ve left a gambler’s hand.

Yet still you use the phrase ‘willfully decide’, as if you think I really am doing something special that other kinds of system, however chaotic, aren’t doing.

I don’t dispute that I internally feel as though I’m selecting options, I’m just saying that if this sensation does correspond to some real, outside-of-the-skull physical process it’s hard to imagine what that process might be, and that my sense that I am ‘wilfully deciding’ to do things might well be exactly as inaccurate as my sense that the sun is ‘rising’ every morning?

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

They are factors which are caused by WILL. What is the problem? :shrugs:

If they are caused by will, then they are not uncaused. So we're down to whether will itself is caused.

Maybe the thing you're not getting is that "WILL" appears in this system as a foundational entity in its own right. It's not reducible to anything else. WILL can be informed by causal factors (e.g. knowledge stored in a brain) but the acausal WILL component of it is not the knowledge. So it is acausal (because WILL is acausal) but it is not random because it is informed by knowledge stored in a brain. If you think of WILL as a brain process then none of this makes any sense.

It doesn't make any sense anyway. You're sneaking in causality using the word "informed." And if there is any output of my will that is not informed, it is random.

~~ Paul

 

[Matt the Poet]

I I don't think that makes LFW itself incoherent.

It doesn’t make it incoherent, it just makes it little more than an article of faith

It's sort of like knowing that living things pass along traits to their descendants before you know about genes and chromosomes. Were Mendel and Darwin "incoherent" before Watson and Crick?

Mendel and Darwin had data (well Darwin did, Mendel sort of cheated, but this is by the by). Their hypotheses, whether or not they were eventually backed up by further data, were successful in the sense that they explained a set of already existing external observations – variations in plant heights, finch beak shapes etc. etc.

What external observations require explanation in this case?

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I think the mistake is that there is no coherent explanation - no coherent description of a mechanism, whether within the brain or without, that would enable LFW to exist. I don't think that makes LFW itself incoherent. It's sort of like knowing that living things pass along traits to their descendants before you know about genes and chromosomes. Were Mendel and Darwin "incoherent" before Watson and Crick?

It's incoherent because it's illogical, not simply because we have no explanation for it yet.

Things are either determined or they are not determined. And not determined means random.

Now I could be wrong, but I have yet to see the logical explication of a third sort of process that would be of help to libertarians.

~~ Paul

 

[linusrichard]

It doesn’t make it incoherent, it just makes it little more than an article of faith



Mendel and Darwin had data (well Darwin did, Mendel sort of cheated, but this is by the by). Their hypotheses, whether or not they were eventually backed up by further data, were successful in the sense that they explained a set of already existing external observations – variations in plant heights, finch beak shapes etc. etc.

What external observations require explanation in this case?

I don't know what is special about "external" observations. I observe the phenomenon of making decisions probably millions of times per day. I could finish typing this, or delete it and get back to work. I could do this, or I could do that. Even for determinists, this is what is experienced. And for each of these decisions, I could have done something else - at least, that is what I observe, that at the time, I had the ability to make a different choice. Now maybe this is illusion - maybe determinism is at work here, or determinism + random (which I think is more likely). But I don't think that's the proper thing to assume, simply because we lack a mechanism to explain what is observed.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

It's incoherent because it's illogical, not simply because we have no explanation for it yet.

Things are either determined or they are not determined.

I just explained why that isn't true. You haven't responded to that explanation. You've just ignored it and repeated the same claim you made before.

And not determined means random.

Now I could be wrong, but I have yet to see the logical explication of a third sort of process that would be of help to libertarians.

Yes you have. I just explained it to you. Here:

Maybe the thing you're not getting is that "WILL" appears in this system as a foundational entity in its own right. It's not reducible to anything else. WILL can be informed by causal factors (e.g. knowledge stored in a brain) but the acausal WILL component of it is not the knowledge. So it is acausal (because WILL is acausal) but it is not random because it is informed by knowledge stored in a brain. If you think of WILL as a brain process then none of this makes any sense.

See? Acausal but not random.

 

[linusrichard]

It's incoherent because it's illogical, not simply because we have no explanation for it yet.

Things are either determined or they are not determined. And not determined means random.

To say that "not determined means random" may be true (as a free willy, I sort of think I have to say it's not true), but even if it's true, it's not true of logical necessity. To say that something could be both determined and not determined is illogical. Or to say that something could be neither determined nor not determined. But it is not illogical to say that something could be neither determined nor random, even if it's wrong.

Now I could be wrong

Of course, if your statement were one of logic, there would be no "could be wrong" about it!

, but I have yet to see the logical explication of a third sort of process that would be of help to libertarians.

The explication is missing, yes. The mechanism is unknown. It may be unknowable. But I'm still being asked to dismiss my observations as illusions not because they're impossible, and not because we have a better explanation of why I appear to be observing what I'm observing, but only because we lack an explanation for how what I'm observing could be happening.

Is there any other time in science when it's appropriate to say, well, we can't come up with any natural process that would cause the observed effect, so we must conclude ipso facto that the observation itself is an illusion? Isn't the better scientific position to find a cause for the effect, or the observation, first? (Disclaimer: I'm not a scientist, but I fancy I have at least a little understanding of the methods and philosophy of science...)

 

[UndercoverElephant]

If they are caused by will, then they are not uncaused. So we're down to whether will itself is caused.

And it isn't. WILL is acausal. NOT RANDOM.

Think of it it in terms of your own experience of being conscious. You have a belief system and you act according to that belief system. As a determinist, you don't believe in any metaphysical entity called "WILL" so you believe that everything you do is dependent either on that belief system interacting deterministically with your environment, or by purely random influences from QM. But for somebody who believes in WILL as a metaphysical entity there isn't just a belief system - there is also a WILL. In our normal state, that WILL is a prisoner of our belief system. It is UNFREE. Which leaves us with the questions like "how does WILL become free of our belief system (or ego)?" and "how does WILL act independently of that belief system?" You won't find any answers to those questions in science and you won't find much in the way of answers from philosophy - at least not any philosophical answers that are easily understood. As Thomas Nagel put it "it is probable that nothing true has ever been written about the subject of free will." If you want to try to understand what free will is or how it might "work" then you have to turn to religious and occult literature - and don't expect that to be easy to understand either. The question is deeply religious. Attaining free will is on a par with attaining enlightenment.