I Anton Zeilinger's comment about free will being required for science

[mattt]

Because some people say that free will exist. And they don't realize that it is inconsistent with physics.

You are basically saying that discussing free will is not worth it? You don't think that it is worth our time to share what physics has to say about it? I disagree.

I see from your previous post that you are using a legal type of definition for free will. I thought we could have a scientific discussion on the issue, but you attack me for being anti scientific when I want to focus on what science can say about it (which I find extremely strange). Since it's not possible to discuss the scientific aspect of the issue without being told essentially that no one should bother, then I will stop.

Thanks for the open minded and respectful discussion.

I'm not sure that you understood what he's saying.

I think that what he's saying is that the traditional view on Free Will is so incompatible with all that we know from current Neuroscience, for example, that it is simply a non-starter.

That is, he's not going to waste his time on the traditional view of Free Will because it doesn't make any sense to him or to Science.

 

[nrqed]

I'm not sure that you understood what he's saying.

I think that what he's saying is that the traditional view on Free Will is so incompatible with all that we know from current Neuroscience, for example, that it is simply a non-starter.

That is, he's not going to waste his time on the traditional view of Free Will because it doesn't make any sense to him or to Science.

Maybe, but his definition of free will is not what I would expect in a scientific discussion. It has no scientific merit. I would expect it when talking to lawyers, not when talking to scientists. For example, he gave the example I quote below. How can a scientist say that there is no free will if someone points a gun at me? If free will really existed, it would still my decision to post even if there is a gun pointed at me. But a lawyer would disagree,

I was trying to have a scientific discussion, and I am being accused of not wanting to have a rational discussion, which is nonsense.

Quote:

"When you made the post I have just quoted above, I assume you weren't forced to make the post: nobody held a gun to your head. Nobody dictated the words you wrote. You weren't under the influence of any drug or any device implanted in your brain that made it tell your body to do things you didn't choose. You chose to make the post and chose what it would say, and your body made the post happen in accordance with your choice. In other words, your making the post was an example of you exercising your free will."

 

[mattt]

It is interesting the way we tend to use those fuzzy words as "decision", "intent", "choice", "free",...

We think that we make choices, that we make decisions. I think that a thermostat doesn't make any decision.

What about those many systems in between ?

Does a mosquito make choices? A bacterium? An amoeba? A fish, frog, lizard, rat...? Was that dog "free" when it killed a human baby?

A chimpanzee?

Are humans the only "free" species?

My guess: in the future we will find much better terms and concepts ( and theories and models) to deal with all this.

 

[PeterDonis]

You are basically saying that discussing free will is not worth it? You don't think that it is worth our time to share what physics has to say about it?

Physics can't have anything to say about something that is inconsistent with the laws of physics. We close threads all the time here because people ask questions that basically amount to "what does physics say about this hypothetical scenario that is inconsistent with the laws of physics?" So whatever your concept of "free will" is, if it is inconsistent with the laws of physics, then I can't see what point there is in discussing it here in a physics forum.

I see from your previous post that you are using a legal type of definition for free will.

No, I'm using a common sense definition for free will, one that points at something that obviously does exist and is therefore consistent with the laws of physics. Such a common sense definition of course plays a role in legal contexts, but that's not the only place it plays a role. It plays a role all the time in all aspects of everyday life.

I thought we could have a scientific discussion on the issue

Then let's talk about something science can actually address, such as how the human brain produces the kinds of human actions that fall under the common sense definition of "free will", and how the human brain produces the conscious experiences that we are pointing to when we talk about having a sense of free will. Dennett's books on free will are full of references to that kind of science. I'd be thrilled to talk about it. But you don't think any of that is about "free will", so we can't even get started.

By your definition of "free will", as I said above, we can't have a scientific discussion about "free will" at all, because it violates the laws of physics and therefore physics can't say anything about it except that it doesn't exist. Okay, I agree that "free will" by your definition doesn't exist. Now what do we talk about?

 

[PeterDonis]

his definition of free will is not what I would expect in a scientific discussion. It has no scientific merit.

You are extremely mistaken. If you have not read any of the voluminous scientific literature investigating the kind of concept of "free will" that I have been describing, please take some time to do so. (As I noted in my previous post, Dennett's books on free will give plenty of references to that literature.) There is a lot of scientific work being done in this area.

 

[PeterDonis]

it would still my decision to post even if there is a gun pointed at me

This is a valid point of view, and different workers in this area draw the lines in cases like this in different ways. Some would indeed say it's still your free choice, but made under a set of constraints very different from the case in which no gun is being pointed at you (due to the very different inputs your brain is getting and the very different context your thoughts are taking place in).

Note, also, that I did not give the gun as my only example. I also gave the examples of being under the influence of drugs, and having a chip implanted in your brain (the latter, of course, being much more science-fictional today).

However, by your definition, none of this is about "free will" anyway. Or have you changed your mind, since you are now saying it is your "decision to post" in this case? Is this now allowed by you as a case of free will?

 

[PeterDonis]

My guess: in the future we will find much better terms and concepts ( and theories and models) to deal with all this.

I agree, and so does Dennett, at least judging from what is in the books of his that I referred to.

 

[A. Neumaier]

I think this is just a matter of choice of words. I agree the structure of the brain is important; I would say that an important reason why the structure of the brain is important is that it is complex and heterogeneous. If the brain were just three pounds of jello it would not support information processing.

But soil is very complex and heterogeneous and still does not support information processing. The same holds for the ecology of tropical rain forests.

I find it extremely strange that one would assign free will to something just because it is very complex.

It is not the complexity but the abilidy to do complex information processing according to meaningful criteria that makes the difference.

I don't understand how to define "choices that are for practical purposes free". How can someone not be a choice but can be a choice "for practical purposes"? It is a choice only because we cannot reproduce the system on a computer?

It is already common practice to talk about a computer program to make random choices when it calls a random generator. If (as is often done) these random choices are afterwards screened by selecting the useful choices among the random ones according to certain criteria, the program makes no longer purely random choices. It now makes choices according to the internal criteria of the screening program. These criteria constiture the will of a system based these programs. This will is free once the system can modify the criteria according to its needs.

If I am free to choose if I post this or not, explain to me at what point am I making a decision?

At the moment where your internal processes restrict the possibile responses to the one actually executed.

Note that you need to answer this question even if the system constituting 'you' is not deterministic, and the correct answer is necessarily the same.

In a deterministic system, it is impossible. Even including quantum effects, there is no such instant.

In a deterministic computer, it is known precsely when any particular instruction is execued. Hence it is known precisely when a specific decision was made.

So I don't see how one can say that free will exists if no choice is ever made.

Well, lots of choices are made deterministically. For example the decision when to switch the cooler on and off, made by the thermostat in your fridge. Except that the latter are not free since the thermostat is not complex enough to be self-modifying.

I am saying that free will does not exist because it is inconsistent with physical laws.

You claimed this without any scientific support.

you are using a legal type of definition for free will. I thought we could have a scientific discussion on the issue

Then state your scientific definition of free will!

I wish that given we are supposed to have a scientific debate here, with very smart people, that they would at least acknowledge that their definition of free will is, and that it is not well defined. Instead I am the one accused of believing in magic. Strange.

It is strange because you want a scientific discussion without giving a precise meaning to the concept. Only saying what it is not is not enough.

 

[A. Neumaier]

Of course, even used that way, it's a fuzzy term to say the least.

Free will is a fuzzy term, even (and especially) when used in the usual informal way.

 

[PeterDonis]

But soil is very complex and heterogeneous and still does not support information processing. The same holds for the ecology of tropical rain forests.

Hm, yes, interesting examples. I think there is a sense of "complex" for which a human brain is still much more complex than soil or a rain forest, but I admit I can't formulate it explicitly right now. I think the term "information processing" could also stand to be formulated more explicitly (after all, there are lots of things going on in soil that could be interpreted as "information processing" in some sense), but it's probably a better term to start with than "complexity".

 

[EPR]

Determinism is a useful approximation much like macro objects are average approximations of large degrees of freedom.

Does everyone agree that a physical system can be more than the sum of its parts(and be indescribable completely in terms of its physics)?
If yes, why is free will impossible?

 

[PeterDonis]

Does everyone agree that a physical system can be more than the sum of its parts(and be indescribable completely in terms of its physics)?

I don't know what you mean by "more than the sum of its parts" or "indescribable completely in terms of its physics".

If you just mean physical laws apply to all systems, but we can't always expect to find explicit expressions of the laws for a system in terms of the laws that govern individual parts of it, that's fine.

If you mean physical laws don't apply to some systems, no, I don't agree.

 

[A. Neumaier]

Hm, yes, interesting examples. I think there is a sense of "complex" for which a human brain is still much more complex than soil or a rain forest, but I admit I can't formulate it explicitly right now. I think the term "information processing" could also stand to be formulated more explicitly (after all, there are lots of things going on in soil that could be interpreted as "information processing" in some sense), but it's probably a better term to start with than "complexity".

Complex information processing is necessary but probably not sufficient.

In any case, I haven't seen any discussion of soil or rain forests making choices. Even plants with their complex DNA are generally considered to be passive, though reading DNA is likely some information processing act.

But computer programs make choices very frequently, both deterministic and (pseudo-)probabilistic ones.

 

[EPR]

I don't know what you mean by "more than the sum of its parts" or "indescribable completely in terms of its physics".

If one is a deep believer in determinism as an ultimate(and complete) explanation of reality, one should be able to account for everything in terms of deterministic causes and effects.

If not, a mere description of the events of observations will not suffice to convince everyone.

I treat the current framework and situation in physics and neurology(the hard problem) as transient and a useful approximation. The way reality works appears much more complex than current(approximate) models imply.

 

[EPR]

Because some observables do have values at all tmes. In BM positon.

Who states that there is no reality?

How come electrons do not radiate and lose energy and fall into the nucleus?

 

[PeterDonis]

If one is a deep believer in determinism as an ultimate(and complete) explanation of reality, one should be able to account for everything in terms of deterministic causes and effects.

In a general way, yes. However, if a deterministic system is chaotic, it can be unpredictable even though it is deterministic, so there would be no way of having a predictive model of a specific system that accounted for specific events.

 

[user30]

By that definition, almost all interpretations would be non-realist interpretations, including GRW, many-world and in a certain sense even Bohmian.

That's why they are all problematic.

 

[Lord Jestocost]

I never understood how is compatibilism different from the claim that free will is an illusion.

Is compatibilism actually different from the claim that free will is an illusion?

“Determinism, on the contrary, says they [possibilities, LJ] exist nowhere, and that necessity on the one hand and impossibility on the other are the sole categories of the real. Possibilities that fail to get realized are, for determinism, pure illusions: they never were possibilities at all. There is nothing inchoate, it says, about this universe of ours, all that was or is or shall be actual in it having been from eternity virtually there. The cloud of alternatives our minds escort this mass of actuality withal is a cloud of sheer deceptions, to which ‘impossibilities’ is the only name that rightfully belongs.”

From Williams James’ essay “The Dilemma of Determinism”

 

[PeterDonis]

Is compatibilism actually different from the claim that free will is an illusion?

I've already answered this: yes, it is.

From Williams James’ essay “The Dilemma of Determinism”

There has been a lot of work done in this field since William James.

 

[Buzz Bloom]

It was a basic assumption in our discussion that that choice is not determined from the outside. This fundamental assumption is essential to doing science.

Hi msumm:

I am having a lot of difficulty distinguishing this quoted concept from philosophy. Any suggestions?

Regards,
Buzz

 

[PeterDonis]

I am having a lot of difficulty distinguishing this quoted concept from philosophy.

It's a statement about what Zeilinger believes is required to do science. For purposes of this discussion that makes it a part of science.

 

[user30]

Is compatibilism actually different from the claim that free will is an illusion?

“Determinism, on the contrary, says they [possibilities, LJ] exist nowhere, and that necessity on the one hand and impossibility on the other are the sole categories of the real. Possibilities that fail to get realized are, for determinism, pure illusions: they never were possibilities at all. There is nothing inchoate, it says, about this universe of ours, all that was or is or shall be actual in it having been from eternity virtually there. The cloud of alternatives our minds escort this mass of actuality withal is a cloud of sheer deceptions, to which ‘impossibilities’ is the only name that rightfully belongs.”

From Williams James’ essay “The Dilemma of Determinism”

No, it is not different. Compatibilism is mere semantics. It defines choice different from how the free will people do, but is still a deterministic theory

 

[PeterDonis]

It defines choice different from how the free will people do

From how some "free will people" do, but not all.

Some "free will people" do claim that there must be an element of intrinsic randomness in the physical processes in the brain for there to be true "free will". However, I don't think they have really thought through the implications. If your actions are caused by random chance, that's not free will in any meaningful sense, because you don't choose something that is caused by random chance; it's just random chance.

The process of "choice" in any meaningful sense requires that your "choice" determines what you do. That can only be the case if the physical processes involved are deterministic, at least to a very good approximation. Similarly, "choice" in any meaningful sense means that your choice is based on relevant information: but that can only be the case if the information processing involved is deterministic, at least to a very good approximation. People aren't perfect at having their choices determine what they do or making choices based only on relevant information, so there is room for some indeterminism in the underlying processes (which is why I said "to a very good approximation" above), but that indeterminism can't be an essential part of the process.

 

[user30]

From how some "free will people" do, but not all.

Some "free will people" do claim that there must be an element of intrinsic randomness in the physical processes in the brain for there to be true "free will". However, I don't think they have really thought through the implications. If your actions are caused by random chance, that's not free will in any meaningful sense, because you don't choose something that is caused by random chance; it's just random chance.

Because they believe that minimum moral responsibility entails: "could have done otherwise", which is satisifed under a random antecedent process. "Ought" implies "can", but you could not have acted differently in a deterministic world.

Hence people in an indeterministic universe were "free"of any predetermined action.

 

[PeterDonis]

Because they believe that minimum moral responsibility entails: "could have done otherwise"

I already addressed that in an earlier post. Dennett also discusses moral responsibility in his free will books.

Also, your objection does not at all address the issues I raised regarding random chance.

 

[Buzz Bloom]

It's a statement about what Zeilinger believes is required to do science. For purposes of this discussion that makes it a part of science.

Hi Peter:

It was a basic assumption in our discussion that that choice is not determined from the outside. This fundamental assumption is essential to doing science.

Perhaps clarifying the meaning of some phrases would help.

What does "from the outside" mean? What does "free will" mean?

I imagine a laboratory with a graduate student taking some instruction from a professor. Does this count as being from the outside? If the student can choose (with no fear of "punishment") not to do what the professor tells him to do, but he chooses to do it, is this a violation of free will? If the student does what the professor says because of fear of punishment, is this a violation of free will?

Regards,
Buzz

 

[user30]

I already addressed that in an earlier post. Dennett also discusses moral responsibility in his free will books.

Also, your objection does not at all address the issues I raised regarding random chance.

There is no issue since you and others assume an idealised concept of free will that is perfect. The traditional free will advocates never claimed that man is in absolute control of his action, but that randomness is a non-starter. Any world which negates randomness is simply a Newtonian clockwork. A true choice can only be in effect if alternatives to the decision that was taken were at play, which they were if randomness played a part. Otherwise it was mere actions like any event in the universe, not choices.

 

[user30]

Hi Peter:

It was a basic assumption in our discussion that that choice is not determined from the outside. This fundamental assumption is essential to doing science.

Perhaps clarifying the meaning of some phrases would help.

What does "from the outside" mean? What does "free will" mean?

I imagine a laboratory with a graduate student taking some instruction from a professor. Does this count as being from the outside? If the student can choose (with no fear of "punishment") not to do what the professor tells him to do, but he chooses to do it, is this a violation of free will? If the student does what the professor says because of fear of punishment, is this a violation of free will?

Regards,
Buzz

If you believe that that antecedent factors unambigiously determine the next action humans make, and you still believe in free will, then a computer must have free will as well by your reasoning.

 

[PeterDonis]

There is no issue since you and others assume an idealised concept of free will that is perfect.

I have made no such assumption. I have already explained the position I am defending in some detail, and have given references to books that explain it in far more detail. You are simply stating the contrary position without addressing any of the actual points I have made in previous posts. I don't see any point in repeating what I've already said.

 

[PeterDonis]

If you believe that that antecedent factors unambigiously determine the next action humans make, and you still believe in free will, then a computer must have free will as well by your reasoning.

Not at all. As has already been pointed out in this thread, it's not just the "choice" that matters, but the information processing that went into the choice. Even the most sophisticated information processing that can currently be done by computers is still far, far short of the information processing that is done by humans when making choices.

That said, it is not at all necessary to view "free will" as a binary property. It can perfectly well be viewed as a continuum, in which case some computers would indeed have a form of "free will" that is simply in a very different part of the continuum from the free will of humans.