The Illusion of Free Will: A Scientific Perspective

[Functor97]

As of late i have been musing upon the nature of free will. However i disagree with the standard interpretation of the link between Determinism and free will. Incompatibilism states that Free Will and Determinism cannot co-exist, and i agree with this stance. Where i disagree is with the empirical nature of our reality and the implications for free will.

Quantum mechanics has demonstrated that our universe is (at least at the quantum scale in-deterministic). In the standard Copenhagen interpretation we must assign probabilities to certain events, and we can never discount a certain event from occurring (such as an electron existing out at Pluto). Now this clearly demolishes the deterministic frame work, but what does it say about free will? This is where i disagree with the standard interpretation made by the likes of Kaku (See here http://bigthink.com/ideas/37862), who claim that this demonstrates we have free will. I agree that an observer would be inclined to state that a "mind" has free will as the observer can only calculate the probability of certain actions occurring thereby negating determinism.
However consider the perspective of the "mind". From its perspective, no matter which course of action it takes, it will be unable to determine the results. Certain probabilities may be calculated, but is it not chance which decides the outcome of the event? The mind cannot be certain of that any action it undertakes will cause a particular event, and thus despite its will, it may not reach the desired result. Is this not a contradiction to the very definition of free will?

On the other hand, if you subscribe to Everett's Many worlds interpretation (this world is the world in which x occurs and not x'), is not determinism left intact, and thus our free will negated?

I am inclined to agree with Arthur Schopenhauer's belief that free will is an illusion, but i am not totally convinced. Compatibalists such as Dennett (see Elbow Room) disagree with my stance, but i believe they are confusing uncertainty from the perspective of an observer and ignoring the uncertainty of the "mind". I cannot find a modern philosopher who agrees with my stance, and this somewhat disturbs me, as i may be missing something crucial. I would like to hear other people's opinion on my stance and their advice for searching for sympathetic philosophical works.

 

[conquest]

Hi,

I'm no philosophy buff, but I do think quantum mechanics is to often used carelessly indiscussions about this matter. In quantum mechanics physicists describe certain concepts like the electron (which is kind of the prime example of a particle) by determining a state or a possible state and then measuring whether this is actually it's state. This state then is quite robust it is the state of the electron (you could even say it is the electron). The difference with the deterministic view is that even once a state has been assigned this doesn't force the same results for the same experiment on an electron in the same state.

So the state of an electron doesn't determine it's behaviour exactly but it does offer the probabilities of certain things happening and via pauli's exclusion principle for instance it also excludes some things from happening. In my view it doesn't pay to use these concepts in talking about free will. The description of a concept like an electron just doesn't have anything to do with free will.

The thing that should be taken away from this is the way of thinking about things. Namely that something can have quite neat and well recorded properties and still not react the same way to the same situation.

 

[chiro]

There is also the idea that the systems that are described in nature are 'pseudo-random' and not actually random.

The idea is that the deterministic nature of things is tied up in systems that are just so complex in the way of a mathematical expression (very complex), or in the number of variables involved, or a combination of both.

Given that most people have problems when we talk about systems that go over say five variables, I wouldn't be at the least surprised if the pseudo-random argument was the case.

 

[Pythagorean]

I generally think that free-will is an illusion; but free-will can be a big subject with different peoples having different connotations.

I differentiate it form will-power. Will-power is an organism's ability to get what it wants. Free-will is the notion that the organism can choose what it wants. There's definitely will-power, but free-will seems like it would evade cause and effect and as far as we have measured, we don't do that.

 

[Functor97]

Hi,

I'm no philosophy buff, but I do think quantum mechanics is to often used carelessly indiscussions about this matter. In quantum mechanics physicists describe certain concepts like the electron (which is kind of the prime example of a particle) by determining a state or a possible state and then measuring whether this is actually it's state. This state then is quite robust it is the state of the electron (you could even say it is the electron). The difference with the deterministic view is that even once a state has been assigned this doesn't force the same results for the same experiment on an electron in the same state.

So the state of an electron doesn't determine it's behaviour exactly but it does offer the probabilities of certain things happening and via pauli's exclusion principle for instance it also excludes some things from happening. In my view it doesn't pay to use these concepts in talking about free will. The description of a concept like an electron just doesn't have anything to do with free will.

The thing that should be taken away from this is the way of thinking about things. Namely that something can have quite neat and well recorded properties and still not react the same way to the same situation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_will_theorem I think the nature of quantum mechanics is very important when discussing this subject. If nature is deterministic then we must understand the basic physical laws, which are quantum in nature in order to determine outcomes.

 

[Pythagorean]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_will_theorem I think the nature of quantum mechanics is very important when discussing this subject. If nature is deterministic then we must understand the basic physical laws, which are quantum in nature in order to determine outcomes.

QM isn't needed to reproduce the action of neurons that we attribute to behavior. The system is treated classically and most arguments for quantum consciousness aren't taken seriously by the community. What you have linked here is the opposite point... a flavor of panpsychism it appears: concluding that particles must have free-will... but i'ts predicated on humans having free-will... which hasn't been shown yet. In fact, most experiments are interpreted to show the opposite.

 

[conquest]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_will_theorem I think the nature of quantum mechanics is very important when discussing this subject. If nature is deterministic then we must understand the basic physical laws, which are quantum in nature in order to determine outcomes.

The introduction to this wikipedia entry reads:

The free will theorem of John H. Conway and Simon B. Kochen states that, if we have a certain amount of "free will", then, subject to certain assumptions, so must some elementary particles

This seems to me to absolute hogwash then. It is not hard to dispute the very existence of elementary particles other than in the way of a concept used by scientists to model certain situation. I only read the wikipedia article but it seems like they choose ´free will' to mean that the outcome is not predetermined. This seems to follow from quantum mechanics pretty easily. But the way it is presented there it seems to me to be only about elementary partciles and thus about the domain where quantum mechanics of quantum field theory is valid.

If you model a certain theory by using another theory you can't just blindly assume it works. Quantum mechanics was partly invented because the model that we had for orbiting planets didn't seem to work for orbiting electrons. An example of this fact.
If you use quantum mechanics to model a theory of free will you shouldn't use quantum mechanics to prove it, of course the model for your theory agrees with it!

 

[chiro]

Also one should realize that its not going to do justice to the problem to think in terms of purely isolated cases or in terms of segmentation.

There may certainly be ways of using statistical analysis to describe mean behaviours and even "tail" behaviours but until we start at looking these things in more wholistic way, we are bound to miss important interactions that will give us the most valuable hints.

Looking at a reduced problem is useful as its important to build up intuition so I'm not saying to not bother with understanding building blocks like say an electron or a neuron or whatever, but if we keep taking the approach of only segmentation or divide and conquer, then again many important effects will swept by the wayside.

 

[apeiron]

I only read the wikipedia article but it seems like they choose ´free will' to mean that the outcome is not predetermined. This seems to follow from quantum mechanics pretty easily. But the way it is presented there it seems to me to be only about elementary partciles and thus about the domain where quantum mechanics of quantum field theory is valid.

There is an interesting parallel in that the choices being made with both QM and the brain are post-determined, not pre-determined. The constraints which determine the action lie in the future rather than the past. Well, there are constraints in both directions, but the "freedom" concerns what has not yet happened.

In QM, this gives you the retrocausal view of the transactional interpretation.

And with humans, it boils down to our ability to anticipate. We can imagine courses of action and predict the results of different choices. So we are constrained by future expected consequences rather than - in some direct fashion - a past history of events.

Human freewill is like QM freewill in that the past does not completely constrain a systems degrees of freedom, further information is needed that comes from the future of the system. But while there is a causal parallel, the source of the brain's freewill has nothing to do with QM's indeterminism. In QM, the information would actually have to come from the future, whereas brains can only imagine their futures.

 

[I_am_learning]

How can you prove there is a free will? I believe in Determinism.

oh! wait. Shall I drink water on my desk, now. I'm feeling thirsty. I can either drink and clear my thirst or keep being thirsty. Oh! I can choose. I have free will.
Or maybe, what I will do is already determined by the configuration of neurons in my brain and the ambient temp/humidity etc... etc. This is just so confusing.
I quit, I can't answer. :)

 

[Maui]

QM isn't needed to reproduce the action of neurons that we attribute to behavior. The system is treated classically and most arguments for quantum consciousness aren't taken seriously by the community. What you have linked here is the opposite point... a flavor of panpsychism it appears: concluding that particles must have free-will... but i'ts predicated on humans having free-will... which hasn't been shown yet. In fact, most experiments are interpreted to show the opposite.

The universe(reality) is creative :)

I am beginning to consider this possibility that arises from strong determinism

 

[Maui]

How can you prove there is a free will? I believe in Determinism.

oh! wait. Shall I drink water on my desk, now. I'm feeling thirsty. I can either drink and clear my thirst or keep being thirsty. Oh! I can choose. I have free will.
Or maybe, what I will do is already determined by the configuration of neurons in my brain and the ambient temp/humidity etc... etc. This is just so confusing.
I quit, I can't answer. :)

The claim is that your choice not to drink water was made at least 13.7 billion years ago.

 

[TGlad]

I don't see what the philosophical problem is with free will...
Whether the microscopic world is deterministic or stochastic, either way it doesn't have free will. This should be uncontroversial.
But animals in the macroscopic world do have free will. They do by definition of the words free and will. If you argue that animals don't have free will then you are changing the meaning of the phrase free will.
Why is it so hard to understand that a concept can exist at the macroscopic scale despite not existing at microscopic scales? This emergence happens all the time...
wetness, elasticity, probably gravity, well anything really.

The argument that free will doesn't exist because the underlying laws are deterministic or stochastic is about as sophisticated as claiming chocolate doesn't exist because there are no chocolate atoms, or that happiness doesn't exist because it can't be seen in the laws of physics.

 

[Pythagorean]

I don't see what the philosophical problem is with free will...

Free will would evade cause and effect, undermining strong determinism. If an organism can act independent of how it's acted upon, it's evading cause and effect.

In a completely stochastic universe, there's no cause and effect, so free will would be useless; you wouldn't be able to make anything happen, things just happen by chance, not because you caused them to happen by will (it would only appear that way).

So at these two extreme ends, free will is paradoxical.

Anyway, much of our behavior, independent of philosophical arguments, is empirically shown to be deterministic in the short-term; even when we feel that we are being spontaneous. Long-term is not as easy to test.

 

[apeiron]

So at these two extreme ends, free will is paradoxical.

Yes, they may stand as limits on what we conceive as the possible. But why can't freewill (which would better be called intelligent choice of course) then emerge as part of the actual complexity of the world?

I mean why does strong determinism have to be the case? And utter indeterminacy the only alternative?

The very fact you can imagine such a thesis and its anti-thesis already opens up the further possibility of their higher-order synthesis. It's basic Hegelian logic

 

[Pythagorean]

Right; my post was meant to be a pedagogical reply to Tglad's question, thus the qualifiers. I make no arguments about what the universe is; I just describe the philosophical foundations of the question.

 

[TGlad]

For me, the root of the problem is that people think of 'does free will exist' as a boolean question, rather appreciating that existence of a concept can vary with the level of detail:

At a coarse detail level, e.g. in everyday conversation, referring to normal situations, using the colloquial definition of free will, we can say that people are able to make choices independently of others, therefore free will does exist at this level, as most people understand the term.
At a fine detail level, e.g. considering interaction of atoms or the basic laws of physics, then free will clearly doesn't exist.

So it is a high level property. Like wetness, or elasticity or sentience, or roughness etc etc.

 

[apeiron]

Right; my post was meant to be a pedagogical reply to Tglad's question, thus the qualifiers. I make no arguments about what the universe is; I just describe the philosophical foundations of the question.

Except there was nothing in TGlad's post to suggest he did not get the basic claim.

Whereas you seem to say that determinism is an issue to do with "external" cause and effect, when the conventional view is that the difficulty lies with the workings of the brain/mind. And then you equate the stochastic to some kind of total lack of controllability, when most would think that probability is a measure of what actually is predictable.

 

[ThomasT]

Free will, as I think it's usually used, refers to our volitional behavior -- an observation, not an assumption or, necessarily, an illusion. Taken in that sense, free will is compatible with the assumption that our universe is evolving deterministically in accordance with fundamental dynamical laws. So, if free will is taken to refer to our volitional behavior, then there's no problem.

But if free will is taken to mean that we could have done otherwise, then, wrt that connotation, free will refers to an assumption that implies nondeterminism ... and sets up an, imo, unsolvable problem. That is, we're then back to pondering the apparently unanswerable question of whether our universe is evolving deterministically or not (though, imo, determinism is the more reasonable assumption).

 

[Helicobacter]

i always found it facinating how deep feelings are encoded and how the "i am" irreducible (at least in the psychological sense) consciousness part is encoded in matter...its pretty amazing

 

[Pythagorean]

Except there was nothing in TGlad's post to suggest he did not get the basic claim.

Whereas you seem to say that determinism is an issue to do with "external" cause and effect, when the conventional view is that the difficulty lies with the workings of the brain/mind. And then you equate the stochastic to some kind of total lack of controllability, when most would think that probability is a measure of what actually is predictable.

Not surprisingly, you're putting words in my post that aren't there in effort to stir up controversy that is equally vacant.

External/internal can be taken as one system.

 

[chiro]

Also probability can sometimes help define a system in very specific ways.

Anything that minimizes entropy is a good thing. In a completely deterministic system, you would be able to get an exhaustable number of conditional entropies that had a zero value.

Even if you can't get the above, if you ended up getting a process that had significantly lower entropy than a maximum value, that still gives a lot better constraints for that process than you would get if you just assumed "anything can happen".

 

[Pythagorean]

While were at it, let's destroy the fallacy that taking a probability implies a nondeterministic system. I use probability measures on my deterministic models regularly.

 

[chiro]

While were at it, let's destroy the fallacy that taking a probability implies a nondeterministic system. I use probability measures on my deterministic models regularly.

Haha I don't know if people would go that far ;)

The thing is that our pattern matching ability, even with computers is pretty bad. Computers with the right algorithms and the right horsepower can do wonders, but the sad truth is that we are geared to make sense of the world and unfortunately we are not that good at being 'random' ourselves.

Its hard enough for us to see simple deterministic processes like linear recurrence relations let alone something resembling a stock price, natural scientific system or something similar.

 

[ThomasT]

While were at it, let's destroy the fallacy that taking a probability implies a nondeterministic system.

I agree. Probabilistic and random experimental results, accidents, chance, etc. are all compatible with the assumption of determinism.

 

[ThomasT]

It should be clear that wrt the view expressed in post #19 that free will can't be said to be an illusion. That is, free will either refers to observations about choice making behavior which are compatible with determinism, or free will refers to an assumption that implies nondeterminism (which is effectively the same as assuming nondeterminism).

 

[apeiron]

Free will would evade cause and effect, undermining strong determinism. If an organism can act independent of how it's acted upon, it's evading cause and effect.

The way you write makes it sound as though you think it is the actions of the world upon the organism, rather than the actions that constitute the organism, which are what people are worried about. Or are you perhaps making some dualistic argument where the question is whether the mind can somehow evade even the causality of its own brain activity?

Either way, neither of these would be standard ways of framing the "paradox" of Newtonian mechanical determinism.

In a completely stochastic universe, there's no cause and effect, so free will would be useless; you wouldn't be able to make anything happen, things just happen by chance, not because you caused them to happen by will (it would only appear that way).

Again, your meaning is murky here. If it appears that you are in fact making things happen (such as choosing to move off at a green light, or perhaps instead run a red), then are you really claiming that a standard position in freewill arguments is that this is some kind of elaborate stochastic illusion, a trick the universe is playing on you?

Randomness is more usually invoked in the sense of neural noise or other tiny uncontrolled forces that may have biased some decision that you thought "you" were making. An element of chance deep down in the works would be enough to evade strict mechanical determinism.

 

[Pythagorean]

The way you write makes it sound as though you think it is the actions of the world upon the organism, rather than the actions that constitute the organism, which are what people are worried about. Or are you perhaps making some dualistic argument where the question is whether the mind can somehow evade even the causality of its own brain activity?

Either way, neither of these would be standard ways of framing the "paradox" of Newtonian mechanical determinism.

I am talking about modeling the universe as one N-dimensional super-particle. Every Newtonian particle (whether it's part of what constitutes an organism or not) would have a determined path given by the initial conditions at the beginning of the macroscopic universe.

This is where Laplace's demon arises.

Again, your meaning is murky here. If it appears that you are in fact making things happen (such as choosing to move off at a green light, or perhaps instead run a red), then are you really claiming that a standard position in freewill arguments is that this is some kind of elaborate stochastic illusion, a trick the universe is playing on you?

Randomness is more usually invoked in the sense of neural noise or other tiny uncontrolled forces that may have biased some decision that you thought "you" were making. An element of chance deep down in the works would be enough to evade strict mechanical determinism.

Neural noise is not really random at all though in the non-determinism sense. If you drop a handful of tictacs, they're going to fall different every time and you can add a noise term to model this. What's really happening, of course, is chaos: different initial conditions every time and a high-sensitivity to those differences (even though the eye/hand can't detect the difference in initial conditions).

I was talking about a purely stochastic universe, of course. So if you have a grid of squared and each square has a 50/50 chance to be black or white, you'll usually see noise; but if you wait long enough, patterns and shapes will eventually appear and you can make laws to describe the patterns for a short time. Human existence could simply be a short time in a stochastic universe where patterns just seem to line up.

Of course, these are two ideals generated by the human mind to make sense of the universe and probably neither are true (but they aren't proven wrong, of course) but if you begin to mix them just a little bit, things become too complicated to sum up in a single internet thread. Several whole branches of science have to develop and communicate with each other over a long period of time to even begin to establish a framework in which to test such questions. Whole libraries stacked with volumes of information go into explaining any mixture of these two extremes.

That is the nature of complexity: events can be unpredictable independent of whether they are deterministic or not.

 

[Johninch]

Incompatibilism states that Free Will and Determinism cannot co-exist, and i agree with this stance.

May I as a beginner in philosophy offer my first thoughts?

Our earthly environment is one of a range of possible outcomes in the universe and I assume that it is unique. The same applies to my personal inheritance. Within these constraints and recognising the application of chaos theory, I exercise my free will. The environment and other people push me in certain directions, so I have to weigh up the consequences when I exercise my free will. I often say, I have to do this or that, but it's not true, particularly when taking risks. I can take this risk or that risk.

If the dog had not run across the road at that moment, I would not now be choosing a new car. That I replace my ruined car in these circumstances is only partly predetermined, as it is influenced by my previous choices of life style etc. I have preferences regarding the model, year, price, etc. but when I go searching on the internet, I can only find what happens to be on offer and I may not get that car because someone else has already bought it, etc. So I am free to exercise my will, but I can't determine the result. That's the same deal for the whole universe and every life form. The result is predermination within certain ranges, but within those ranges there is uncertainty.

My conclusion is that both determinism and free will are present in uncertain and variable proportions. It's not one or the other. Furthermore I would like to point out that our free will is exclusively future orientated. We try to live in the present, but all of our choices refer to future imagined scenarios, which do not actually exist.
.
.

 

[ThomasT]

As of late i have been musing upon the nature of free will. However i disagree with the standard interpretation of the link between Determinism and free will. Incompatibilism states that Free Will and Determinism cannot co-exist, and i agree with this stance.

Free will, in one sense, means that, given a certain decision/action wrt certain conditions, you could have chosen/done other that what you chose/did. Free will in that sense is clearly incompatible with the assumption of determinsim. In another sense, free will refers to the fact that your decisions/actions affect the course of events -- no more, no less. Free will in that sense is compatible with determinism.

Where i disagree is with the empirical nature of our reality ...

That's a somewhat curious statement, given the definition of the word 'empirical'.

Quantum mechanics has demonstrated that our universe is (at least at the quantum scale in-deterministic).

That's incorrect.

In the standard Copenhagen interpretation we must assign probabilities to certain events, and we can never discount a certain event from occurring (such as an electron existing out at Pluto). Now this clearly demolishes the deterministic frame work ...

Or, it's evidence of our ignorance. Take your pick.

... but what does it say about free will?

Nothing, as far as I can tell.

... the observer can only calculate the probability of certain actions occurring thereby negating determinism.

This doesn't negate the assumption of determinism. It merely supports the assumption of our relative ignorance wrt the deep reality of things. At least that's one way of looking at it.

... is it not chance which decides the outcome of the event?

Chance doesn't determine anything. Chance is a word that refers to our inability to make precise predictions.

The mind cannot be certain of that any action it undertakes will cause a particular event, and thus despite its will, it may not reach the desired result. Is this not a contradiction to the very definition of free will?

If your state of mind is a contributing factor wrt subsequent actions, then no.

On the other hand, if you subscribe to Everett's Many worlds interpretation (this world is the world in which x occurs and not x'), is not determinism left intact, and thus our free will negated?

Everett's relative state interpretation of quantum theory has nothing to do with free will. Anyway, this interpretation is, afaik, largely disregarded.

I am inclined to agree with Arthur Schopenhauer's belief that free will is an illusion, but i am not totally convinced.

Assuming a certain definition of free will, the one that's compatible with determinism, it's not an illusion, ie., it has subjective referents which are compatible with observed, objective referents. Eg., you made a decision to act in a certain way, and you acted in that way.

Assuming a certain other definition of free will, the one that says you could have chosen/acted differently than you did, then this is an unanswerable question. However, there's no particular reason to assume that you could have chosen/acted other that you did, and it amounts to assuming that the world is evolving indeterministically. And the problem with that assumption is that observations strongly suggest that the world is evolving deterministically.

 

[Johninch]

However, there's no particular reason to assume that you could have chosen/acted other that you did, and it amounts to assuming that the world is evolving indeterministically. And the problem with that assumption is that observations strongly suggest that the world is evolving deterministically.

There's certainly a reason why I stepped to the left or to the right in order to avoid a puddle, but the chain of events leading to my approaching the puddle at all is extremely complex, is it not? Are you saying that it is predetermined that I stepped to the left at that particular time to avoid that particular puddle? That's ridiculous.

If you would say that it's ridiculous to talk about avoiding puddles, I would mention that some people live on land which is mined.

I agree with your statement "observations strongly suggest that the world is evolving deterministically", but that fact has little influence on most things a person does. We are talking about individual free will, are we not? I would argue that the sum of all individual actions results in the evolution of the world's population, but there is no evidence that every individual action is predetermined. Neither is it necessary.

If it were necessary, we would all have to be preprogrammed like robots and we would have to be living in a computer simulation, in order to make sure that the plan is carried out.
.

 

[Quiksilver421]

I believe in Free Will.

Yes the previous outcomes of situations have determined the situations you can be or will be presented, but we make our decisions in the now based on what happened in our past (pleasure driven choices included |Gambling, Drugs, Relaxing, Buying a 42" TV instead of a 32" | ).

ex; I thought my families induction stove-top looked cool when it was on high as a young boy, so I touched it and burned my fingers. ---> I will never touch a glowing red metal object again.

If you look at Free Will from the future, then the outcome was meant to be, and nothing else can replaced that choice(since it now is "set in stone").

I'm not sure if analyzing Free Will from the future(the then present now) or the now(the now now) is correct. The "now" perspective has different parameters than the "future" perspective.

 

[eloheim]

This is where i disagree with the standard interpretation made by the likes of Kaku ... who claim that this demonstrates we have free will.

I'm with you there. Sure you can construe the above as "free will," but by that definition, EVERYTHING has free will, from stars, to stones, to individual particles.

Compatibalists such as Dennett (see Elbow Room) disagree with my stance, but i believe they are confusing uncertainty from the perspective of an observer and ignoring the uncertainty of the "mind". I cannot find a modern philosopher who agrees with my stance, and this somewhat disturbs me, as i may be missing something crucial.

Once again we think alike. I've read Elbow Room as well, and I think what Dennett is saving is not really the free will we intuitively believe in. To me true "free will" has no father, if you will. Dennett does a good job of showing how complex and subtle and responsive the mechanisms underlying human behavior are, but I think the average man-on-the-street feels something different when they say, "I did that."

In my view it doesn't pay to use these concepts in talking about free will. The description of a concept like an electron just doesn't have anything to do with free will.

How does it not apply when all you are is a bunch of electrons (etc.)?

The argument that free will doesn't exist because the underlying laws are deterministic or stochastic is about as sophisticated as claiming chocolate doesn't exist because there are no chocolate atoms, or that happiness doesn't exist because it can't be seen in the laws of physics.

Again with the above. To me chocolate is nothing like free will; it's just a description, whereas free will implies a cause and effect relationship. It's a very mechanical concept; to be "free," it must not (merely) result from a sequence of previous events, which could be described by standard physical laws. To me your objection to looking at, e.g., individual particles, would suggest a 'special place' in the universe for certain collections/systems of particles (i.e. humans). How do the same laws of nature not apply to both the atoms in your body and those outside?

 

[skeptic2]

Let's define a meaningful decision as an action or decision that benefits the organism that makes it. Thus evolutionary survival of the fittest is not a meaningful action but an organism who chooses the best mate among the suitors does make a meaningful decision. Likewise a driver who is obeying traffic laws as he is driving along the highway is making meaningful decisions but he moment he falls asleep at the wheel he stops making meaningful decisions.

If we accept that there exist meaningful decisions, then we have to decide whether the meaning of those decisions was encoded somehow into primordial chaos that existed at the big bang and which has simply played out by pure determinism since then or whether it occurs by free will. The former is very similar to the concept of deism.

Frankly I have no idea how free will could occur but the alternative, that of all our technology, laws and arts existed in some sense at the big bang, is far more difficult to accept.

 

[Quiksilver421]

Let's define a meaningful decision as an action or decision that benefits the organism that makes it. Thus evolutionary survival of the fittest is not a meaningful action but an organism who chooses the best mate among the suitors does make a meaningful decision. Likewise a driver who is obeying traffic laws as he is driving along the highway is making meaningful decisions but he moment he falls asleep at the wheel he stops making meaningful decisions.

If we accept that there exist meaningful decisions, then we have to decide whether the meaning of those decisions was encoded somehow into primordial chaos that existed at the big bang and which has simply played out by pure determinism since then or whether it occurs by free will. The former is very similar to the concept of deism.

Frankly I have no idea how free will could occur but the alternative, that of all our technology, laws and arts existed in some sense at the big bang, is far more difficult to accept.

If you think about it, freewill is only freewill when thinking about it in the present. After the fact it seems more predeterminedishy.

Only after computers are powerful to map out every single particle of mass, predict their past and future paths (just by their current location and trajectory) we will have our answer.

Some believe that when such a computer becomes reality the old saying "if these walls could speak" will become a fact. Ancient Astronaut Theorist believe (LOL JK). The impressions left by matter on your walls could tell what happened.

I think the amount of variables in this problem (freewill or no freewill) is so astronomical that it would be impossible to name one outcome as being fact, (dust=sneeze, sneeze=Atom a shift in x'y'z direction, Atom a= interact w/TV sound-wave, interact=collision, etc...). Instead we will be given a number of "possible outcomes". The whole consciousness thing really throws a fork in the road of time.

It might just be variable specific, with us logging negative variables (smokes, speeds a lot, hates seat belts, eats McD's 3/5 of the time) and positive variables (brushes teeth, wears sunscreen, eats healthy)
Like- If 'condition' == smokes cigs(a -2 value on life) then
'condition'== 68 years of life
But each profile would have to have extensive lifestyle/trait data on the subject. You'd have to chip us all to keep the data current.

A kid walking in the library and deciding to pick up a Anatomy book, only to cure cancer forty years later is just too unpredictable. Consciousness is a "female dog".

Freewill or not, I'm going to go play some Xbox!

 

[skeptic2]

Welcome to Physics Forums even though you haven't officially arrived yet because you still have zero posts.

Think of all the program variations that are possible in writing a game versus the number that would result in a game that will actually run. Now think of the probability that all the instructions for your next game were encoded in the chaos 13.7 billion years ago and that the universe has been unfolding deterministically like a computer program all these billions of years, resulting only now in your producing a computer game.

 

[Quiksilver421]

Welcome to Physics Forums even though you haven't officially arrived yet because you still have zero posts.

Think of all the program variations that are possible in writing a game versus the number that would result in a game that will actually run. Now think of the probability that all the instructions for your next game were encoded in the chaos 13.7 billion years ago and that the universe has been unfolding deterministically like a computer program all these billions of years, resulting only now in your producing a computer game.

Yeah, what's up with the whole zero post thing?

I'm just not sure if we'd have to build a time machine to gather the data from 13.7 b.y.a, or if we could map out the trajectory of present day atoms/mass.

For option 1- IDK

For option 2 we'd have to create a bubble-wrap sphere of spheres within spheres w/a layered curtain of these sensors on the x & y axis' (to cover the holes in between the outer spheres). Although, by measuring the "mass/atoms" we'd end up changing their trajectories for any future data points in the QikSphere (<-made it up) Maybe offset the spheres to counteract the previous spheres interaction (like bouncing a laser off 2000 mirrors, leaving the end trajectory unchanged). We'd have to do this to the whole freaking Universe

Seeing step one instead of step 1.37x10^10 would be preferable. Mapping out everything that ever happened... ever... is unfathomable!

Im all for option 1

Ps- I suck at sentence structure, Sry.

 

[eloheim]

Let's define a meaningful decision as an action or decision that benefits the organism that makes it.

That is quite a loaded definition. What does "beneficial" mean exactly? For example, if you're talking about AN organism, it's hard to see how that organism cares about events that will occur long after it is deceased. Now if you're saying that, e.g., ending up with the stunning girl is beneficial to me because I get to enjoy her beauty and make my rivals envious, then to me that makes more sense.

If we accept that there exist meaningful decisions, then we have to decide whether the meaning of those decisions was encoded somehow into primordial chaos that existed at the big bang and which has simply played out by pure determinism since then or whether it occurs by free will.

I know this has been covered before, but even without a predetermined cosmos, that does not ensure that there exists free will. Alternatively, things could (merely) be the result of blind chance. I suppose in some conceptions the determinism is "recovered" on the scale of a multiverse, but this is really not necessary.

 

[skeptic2]

Alternatively, things could (merely) be the result of blind chance.

Does maintaining a car on the road and obeying traffic laws, not only you but all the drivers on all the roads, seem like it could be the result of blind chance?

 

[Whovian]

I just feel like pointing something out. Sorry if I'm acting too scientific for this forum. We haven't rigorously defined free will, so I really can't say whether or not free will can exist with our current understanding of the universe.

Does maintaining a car on the road and obeying traffic laws, not only you but all the drivers on all the roads, seem like it could be the result of blind chance?

Well, no, but there is a reason it was stated as the result of blind chance. In a non-closed system, order can arise.

 

[eloheim]

We haven't rigorously defined free will, so I really can't say whether or not free will can exist with our current understanding of the universe

Well, to me, it means "input" into the universe outside the normal course of the physical evolution of the systems involved. For example, if the universe were a computer program, free will would be if it stopped at certain points, and awaited input from a user sitting at the terminal. So, in other words, there is an intelligence making choices that are more than just the standard 'churning' of the algorithms.

And, as a side note, to address the "free will vs. determinism" issue, discussed above. The computer program could make use of a random number generator, so that its exact outcomes could not be predicted. Like the free will (user input) example, the program could freeze at certain points and proceed based upon the result of the random number generator. Obviously this would make it indeterminant, but also in no way free, or intelligent.

I take it other people may disagree or consider this definition too radical. If so I'd like to hear alternative ideas about the nature of free will.

 

[Maui]

If we accept that there exist meaningful decisions, then we have to decide whether the meaning of those decisions was encoded somehow into primordial chaos that existed at the big bang and which has simply played out by pure determinism since then or whether it occurs by free will. The former is very similar to the concept of deism.

Frankly I have no idea how free will could occur but the alternative, that of all our technology, laws and arts existed in some sense at the big bang, is far more difficult to accept.

In that no-faster-than-light mechanistic universe, we would not have encountered entanglement between space-like separated particles. So either the idea of the existence of such a universe is wrong or we haven't even begun to understand the universe and don't really know what we mean by 'universe', which leaves the question about freewill open.

 

[John Creighto]

What exactly is free will. If your actions aren’t determined by the laws of nature then what are they determined by? Is it our soul, and if so what would make this concept of a soul distinct from nature? It is fine to argue immigrant properties but if we can’t define and measure these properties then what use is such an argument? There is an alternative view of reductionism where what is small is determined by what is large (this is an anti-reductionism) and this would match the free will theorem mentioned above.

This anti-reductionism actually make such ridiculous views as Schweitzer’s cat possible such a viewpoint would be very uncomfortable to science because we can’t measure free will and consequently couldn’t derive deterministic laws of science from such a (property?). Moreover even if their was such thing as free will which partly determines nature all evidence suggests that we are constrained by the laws of nature.

How can any form of dualism be reconciled with our inability to influence the nature beyond what can be modeled with a form of determinism?

 

[Maui]

What exactly is free will. If your actions aren’t determined by the laws of nature then what are they determined by?

This way of thinking leads back to the Big Bang where everything was an undivided whole and because it's not understood(and very likely never will), one can say its potential for explanation of philosophical quesions is very close to zero. You could as well ask - if your actions are determined by the laws of nature(the properties of the constituents that sprung forth during the BB), what determined these properties so that self-reflecting intelligence would arise? There are no self-evident answers to these questions, are there?

Is it our soul, and if so what would make this concept of a soul distinct from nature? It is fine to argue immigrant properties but if we can’t define and measure these properties then what use is such an argument? There is an alternative view of reductionism where what is small is determined by what is large (this is an anti-reductionism) and this would match the free will theorem mentioned above.

I'd guess people love to fill in vacant knowledge with whatever is most accessible to them - as they say "Too stupid to understand science? Try religion!" :)

On a side note, we know that nature abhors vacuum, so we can't put all the blame on them if we are unable to provide an adequate and satisfying answer to the deep questions(e.g. that of determinism and free will).

How can any form of dualism be reconciled with our inability to influence the nature beyond what can be modeled with a form of determinism?

One possibility is that all that is observable with the senses is not absolutely all that exists(we haven't reached the end, science is rather young and really just beginning). Call that hidden variables, yet unknown mechanisms or underlying reality, etc. The purported existence of dark energy is somewhat close to what i have in mind as "something" that can only be 'detected' and inferred as an influence on that which is observable.

 

[josh1492]

How I see determinism:
Determinism-if I do this the result will be that.
action A results in the effect C and etc

How I see free-will:
Free will-I can choose to complete any action or inaction based upon all conceivable possible actions or inactions. The result(effect) is not within my control but my ability to set an event or non event into action is under my complete control.

In my definitions determinism and freewill not only coexist but they are essentially two sides of the same coin. These concepts apply equally to thought as they do to physical action or communication. I am of the belief that to an extent your mental state is the composition of prior thoughts and experiences IE past thoughts determine how you conceptualize other events/thoughts.

I was trying to avoid delving into the semantics of how the OP perceives the world and offer my individual spin on the question.

 

[Whovian]

How I see free-will:
Free will-I can choose to complete any action or inaction based upon all conceivable possible actions or inactions. The result(effect) is not within my control but my ability to set an event or non event into action is under my complete control.

Alright. Please don't take this wrong. Here's what I think about why that kind of free will won't work. What one decides is based on a very complicated system (the brain), but its outcome is still determined by determinism (or, at least, "quantum determinism.") And so ... we've sort of taken care of that.

 

[DrSnarl]

I find it interesting that in a thread on free will, there is no mention of conscious experience. (If there was and I missed it, then I apologize.) How can we even begin to evaluate what "free will" means without first nailing down the elusive problem of conscious experience? It is like trying to explain the behavior of an object without even knowing what the object in question is.

I noticed that someone mentioned the idea of elementary particles having free will. That sounds absurd, but what if we state that a little bit differently? What if conscious experience is a fundamental property of the universe - something that is inseparable from even elementary particles? In other words, do electrons have experience? Is there "something that it is like to be an electron"? If so, then it is quite reasonable to think that advanced (ie. human) conscious experience could arise from matter. If that is the case, then the question of "free will" becomes somewhat misleading. In a sense, we would have free will because we ARE the universe, and the universe IS our will.

As an aside, many people reject this line of reasoning with the following type of counter: "That is complete nonsense. We know that conscious experience is purely a physical result of interactions between our neurons. There is nothing to explain." The rebuttal to this is fairly involved, but let me summarize it by saying that such an argument makes the mistake of equating observable output with conscious experience. It is theoretically possible for a human to behave in an indistinguishable fashion from any other human, and yet be completely unaware of its actions (like sleep walking). This is what is meant by the term "philosophical zombie". Such a zombie would have identical observable output, but would lack conscious experience.

Another attack against this line of reasoning is of this form: "Conscious experience MUST arise from neurological processes because there is no alternative." This is circular reasoning, and it also demonstrates a bit of hubris. There is so much about physics and the human brain that we do not understand.

Here is an interesting thought: Is it possible to model the human brain in a super huge computer? If so, and if conscious experience arises purely from neural interactions in the brain, then it is possible for a computer to have conscious experience. By extension, it would then be possible to write an equation for conscious experience (computers are nothing more than logical equation solvers). If we wrote this equation on a sufficiently large chalkboard, would we effectually give that chalk and chalkboard conscious experience? I would claim that the answer is "no", which invalidates the initial assumption that we can model the brain in a computer, no matter how big or advanced that computer is.

 

[skeptic2]

Whovian, I understand your argument and don't disagree with it, yet I still can't support pure determinism. The reason I can't makes me very uncomfortable because it is the same argument used by creationists or intelligent design advocates, both of which, I am strongly opposed to.

The issue is how to explain the self organization of nature. With regard to creationism, an effective mechanism, evolution, is sufficient to explain development of higher and higher life forms. However I can find no equivalent mechanism to explain how an organism manipulates nature to satisfy its needs. On a human scale that would include inventions, laws, software, literature and the understanding and usage of mathematics to name a few. The probability of these developments occurring by chance, even since the big bang is so remote, either we must consider that these developments were somehow encoded into the chaos of the big bang (Deism, which I don't support) or there must be some, yet undiscovered mechanism, that permits the selection of one effect among several for a given cause.

 

[josh1492]

Alright. Please don't take this wrong. Here's what I think about why that kind of free will won't work. What one decides is based on a very complicated system (the brain), but its outcome is still determined by determinism (or, at least, "quantum determinism.") And so ... we've sort of taken care of that.

What I mean is that free will is the ability to take an action or not to take an action(the number of inactions being infinitely greater than the number of actions) and determinism is the result of that action. Obviously you do not have control over the actual outcome but you have the freedom to choose an action based upon your perception of what the outcome will be. Determinism for me is another way of saying that a free will action will interact with the world and the result will be an "effect" or an "ineffect." Effect being a relational term that is only given meaning when compared or not compared to something else.

This is one of those subjects that I think everyone does understand in basically the same way but because of the complexity of how we interpret information, communicating the ideas with exact detail is very difficult. Even though we are thinking of the same concept communicating this to each other is very difficult...thus this is a shinning example of how breakdowns in communication occur when dealing with exact finite details.

 

[Goodison_Lad]

I find it interesting that in a thread on free will, there is no mention of conscious experience.

I agree, DrSnarl. I doubt there’d be a discussion at all unless we all had the conscious experience of feeling we have free will.

If free will is somehow an illusion, what is not illusory is the conscious experience of the illusion (although I’m sure I’ve seen conscious experience explained seriously as some sort of illusion!). If free will is real in the sense that some decision could be made that is beyond the inevitably of the physical laws playing themselves out, there is still some operational agency that is conscious of executing this free will.

I’m not sure whether ‘genuine’ free will in the absence of conscious experience would mean anything.

Is it possible to model the human brain in a super huge computer? If so, and if conscious experience arises purely from neural interactions in the brain, then it is possible for a computer to have conscious experience.

Your later point about whether modelling the human brain perfectly would produce a conscious computer or a philosophical zombie is another tough question. The key question would be: how could you tell the difference? Arthur C. Clarke commented that when he told people that one day sufficiently sophisticated computers might be built that had conscious emotions, those people put on a very impressive simulation of anger!