Freedomain Radio

Bigleady:

Its an interesting intectual debate but a little futile. The physical universe to the best empirically tested physical theories is not deterministic so nothing else can be.

This should really be set aside for a few reasons.

1)  Quantum effects are really tiny for brain-scale processes, meaning your brain should be considered deterministic in much the same way as you consider your computer to be deterministic.

2)  From a fundamental point of view, quantum mechanics itself is actually deterministic.  The appearance of quantum probabilities arises when you restrict to subsystems of the whole system.  In other words, it is only your perception that appears to have some randomness in it, because you are a subsystem of the universe -- the state of the universe itself evolves deterministically.  I imagine this may be a little-known fact amongst philosophers, but the few times I have discussed it with them, they seem to regard it as important.

rpellow:

I haven't posted yet for respect to the rules, but now that stef has given this the ok ill jump in.

 

I am SO torn on determinism . . 

My Mind says Yes to Determinism but my heart says no.

 

As a Software Engineer i am familiar with turning machines, input output algorithms etc and it makes logical sense to me that there is no such thing as true free will if the output is the result of the input, how is there a choice? But personally i know that i choose to do things, and i "know" that i could have chosen to do a different thing . . but there is no way to prove that i could have done anything other than what i did . .  i can never re-live a historical point in my life and change something, so i cannot empirically prove that i could have made any other decision. . . even if i could go back in time one could argue that my knowledge of my choice would "determine" what my second chance would be . .

All that aside i don't live my life as a determinist . . i have yet to meet anyone that has. I appreciate my choices and live with the responsibility of my choices (even if i really never had a choice . . .)

The Turing machine doesn't "live its life" as a determinist, either.  It doesn't know the answer until it has progressed through many, agonizing mental steps and arrived at its final "decision," which it then reports to you.  Nevertheless, it is deterministic.  The picture would be complete if you could ask the Turing machine how it subjectively "feels in its heart" as it performs its calculation and before it knows the (deterministic) answer -- it would have to express uncertainty about the final decision in some way (since the calculation is not complete).  The way *we* manifest that uncertainty it is through this "perception of free will."

ash:

Metric:

ash:

Metric:

I am pretty sure that "Free Will" is just the perception of making a decision, as subjectively experienced by a human brain.  I don't think there needs to be anything mystical about it, at all.  Defined in this way, it definitely exists, and has no conflict with determinism at all. 

I am new to the philosophy forum, so please forgive me if this is a terribly old approach to the issue.

 

This is one form of compatibalism, which seems like a workaround but does not answer the fundamental question.

Could you elaborate a bit?  What is it "working around," and what is the "fundamental question" which it does not answer?

As far as humans are concerned, they are effectively deterministic machines.  From my point of view coming from physics, the only thing that needs explaining is why I feel like there are multiple possible futures depending on my choice, when in fact there is only one future.  This is just a question of how I perceive my own computational process leading to my eventual (deterministic) choice.

What else is there to understand?

You have really answered your own question. You have defined free will in a way that ignores the classical (or libertarian) definition of free will, making it irrelevant, which is asking if we have the capacity or not. In your definition, and in this later explanation, you are assuming the answer to this is 'no'. Thats all well and good of course, but its important to be clear that you are using a compatibalist definition when engaging in debate, because otherwise you will be using the same terms to talk about totally different things.

Also, just as a point of interest, I can understand how coming from physics would frame your understanding in a way that would seem to undermine the libertarian position on freedom, but the more interesting question for you here might be to investigate how philosophy might undermine your frame of reference in physics. Have a read of Hume :)

I don't think I have denied any kind of capacity.  I definitely make choices and decisions all the time.  This does not conflict with the fact that the universe evolves deterministically.

Suppose, for a minute, that you had a deterministic simulation of a human brain (perhaps involved in a debate with a simulated physicist).  When the simulated brain vehemently insists upon having free will and making meaningful decisions and having the feeling of freedom in his heart, are you going to disagree with it, in the face of the fact that all relevant information processes are identical to a real brain?

I think I agree with Metric on this question. I couldn't say that there is a complete proof for determinism, but if you evaluate all the evidence you have, the best guess is that determinism, not free will, is true. And free will is true only if defined as Metric has defined it, which is the opposit of the libertarian definition of free will.

While reading old threads about free will I thought maybe I have some psychological reasons to lean towards determinism - maybe I want to think that people who did harm to me had no real choice to do otherwise, or I want to think that I had no real choice when I did harm to others, so I twist evidence in my mind towards desirable conclusion. But it seems that truth is that there are much more evidence in favor of determinism, and free will proponents have psychological reason to believe that free will is true despite evidence to the contrary - they need it to justify libertarianism, what, in my opinion, is not necessary.

Giedrius:

I would argue that for libertarianism to be true it is irrelevant free will is true or not (I started similar discussion here).

I assume you are talking about the political movement when you say "libertarianism" here. Be careful of the terms you use, because libertarianism is a position on free will, so using it in its political sense unqualified in this thread can only lead to confusion.

Metric:

Suppose, for a minute, that you had a deterministic simulation of a human brain (perhaps involved in a debate with a simulated physicist).  When the simulated brain vehemently insists upon having free will and making meaningful decisions and having the feeling of freedom in his heart, are you going to disagree with it, in the face of the fact that all relevant information processes are identical to a real brain?

I am not sure what you are trying to say with this, as its begging the question. I could just as well say the following and it would be equally empty in persuasive value...

"Suppose, for a minute, that you had a human person with free will (perhaps involved in a debate with another human person). When the person vehemently insists upon being determined and only having the illusion of making decisions, are you going to disagree with them?"

ash:

I assume you are talking about the political movement when you say "libertarianism" here. Be careful of the terms you use, because libertarianism is a position on free will, so using it in its political sense unqualified in this thread can only lead to confusion.

Sorry for the confusion and thank you for your valid remark, you're right, by "libertarianism" here I meant political movement, not a philosophical position on free will.

ash:

Metric:

Suppose, for a minute, that you had a deterministic simulation of a human brain (perhaps involved in a debate with a simulated physicist).  When the simulated brain vehemently insists upon having free will and making meaningful decisions and having the feeling of freedom in his heart, are you going to disagree with it, in the face of the fact that all relevant information processes are identical to a real brain?

I am not sure what you are trying to say with this, as its begging the question. I could just as well say the following and it would be equally empty in persuasive value...

"Suppose, for a minute, that you had a human person with free will (perhaps involved in a debate with another human person). When the person vehemently insists upon being determined and only having the illusion of making decisions, are you going to disagree with them?"

I am simply adding determinism in the most explicit way imaginable, from the outset, and showing that you are still stuck with the same problem.

In other words, the simulated brain is making choices, decisions, and feeling free will in his heart, just like a real brain.  Yet determinism is 100% manifest from the beginning (we could even run time back and forth in the simulation and watch him make the same decision over and over, like a movie, if we wanted).  In this situation, you must in some way reconcile the fact that 1) the simulated brain very definitely percieves free will and 2) we have "hard determinism" by assumption.

After you have reconciled these in whatever manner you like, I simply claim that you have also reconciled "real" determinism with "real" free will, because there is no way to distinguish between deterministic laws of physics and an arbitrarily accurate deterministic simulation from inside.

To me, the whole thing seems very easily encapsulated by noting that free will is exactly the self-perception of performing calculations which control future actions.  Free will is very real -- I am percieving it right now.  And my decisions are also very real -- I am making them right now.  And they get along just fine with determinism.

The fallacy she's making is eqivocating free will with choice. If free will didn't exist what would that have to do with choice or responsibility?

All you have to do is demonstrate to her choice. Free will is a moot point because what could a creature with free will do that a creature without it couldn't do?

Personally, as I see it, there is no real free will that exists in human nature. It seems to me that this is because the mind of the human individual is constantly under scrutiny from the judging eye of society and the perameters it imposes. The school systems (that some will call a giant propaganda machine of society) immensely effects the individuals own nature and the developing nature of the human. It, as it occours to me, is unavoidable because all education can be percieved as propaganda because it all has an impact on the human psyche. There is , to me, no choosing without being constrained. Either one can be constrained by the perameters society imposes or one can be constrained by the perameters society teaches the individual to impose on his or herself. Therefore if there is no society or government to teach "morals" (define it as you may) every single human would be corrupted by the ignorance that he or she is born with without society helping him or her along. After all, how many of us can say that we were born as smart or as eloquent as we are today? Society needs us to have our psyches to be imposed on and shine its wheels and we, in turn, need the knowledge that it has carried over milennia to become productive and eloquent humans; as we would believe us to be; today.

Thanks for hearing me out,

RRP

If there's a will there's a way ,check out this Fly guy.

If you dont like it the devil made me post it.

Determinism is the idea that my memories, genetics, metabolism, &c. control my preferences, and  my preferences control my actions.  However, those things are me, therefore determinism is the idea that I control my actions.  That's my take on it at least.  I've never really gotten why it's supposed tolead to a woe-is-me situation.

Free will's definition varies from "the idea that I can make choices that I don't regret" to "something in my brain that violates the laws of physics and controls my actions."

EDIT: Wow, old thread is old.