moving finger said:
I hope you are not putting this forward as a serious definition of choice.
Nevertheless, that's the definition of choice *you* put forward, when you say that deterministic machines "evaluate, determine which course of action is best and then determine which course of action occurs".
After all, the assignment of values such as "best" etc... are just shifting around the notion we're trying to grab: free will. If you simply look at the compiled computer code in the memory of a deterministic machine, without knowing the intentions of the programmer, then you can determine that the machine will do this or that,
in exactly the same way as you can write down the dynamical laws for an apple falling from a tree. Words such as "evaluate the situation, determining what is best" etc... are embellishments of simply saying: follows his deterministic dynamical laws.
Who knows ? Maybe there's a ghost in the apple, who "evaluates the situation" (calculates his lagrangian), and "determines what is best" (that is, tries to minimize its action), and hence, falls down, because the apple determined that as his "best course of action".
Any deterministic prescription of "determining the best course of action" is nothing else but other words for "follows his deterministic dynamical laws".
A choice is made when an agent is able to evaluate the relative consequences of two or more logically alternative courses of action, to decide (based on comparison against a set of internal values which it owns as “its value system”) which course of action is the best, and then to determine which course of action occurs.
It is also what an apple does. It's "value system" is "have minimal action", and his course of action is to fall down to earth. It feels also that it did exactly what it wanted to do.
An apple falling from a tree does not choose in the sense described above, because an apple (as far as we know) does not evaluate the consequences of different ways of falling, does not decide which way to fall, and does not thereby determine which route to follow in its falling. (the option of rising up to the moon would not be open to them, any more than it's open to a human being, even if apples did make choices about which way to fall).
Well, you don't know any more that an apple is not evaluating its action and tries to minimize it. And as I said, if deterministic laws (call them evalution of the situation and deciding on the best course of action, if you want) determine indeed what you are supposed to decide,
then any other option than the one prescribed by the deterministic laws is just as closed to you as falling up to the moon is to the apple.
It is just that you've given a fancy name to the dynamics in certain cases, such as "evaluation of the situation followed by a decision", but deep down, it just means: follow the deterministic dynamical laws.
Again, you are assuming choice is defined as free will choice.
What else could it be ? Unless you consider "choice" as certain forms of dynamical laws, such as "if then else" statements in computer code. But they are not more than dynamical laws of course.
– which is why you cannot accept that a deterministic machine makes a choice. I do not agree with your definition (basically because I do not believe free will choices exist, thus the entire concept of such a choice would be meaningless). Perhaps you would also say that no deterministic machine can make “decisions”, nor make “selections”?
I'm not sure free will exists either (unless, we redefine it as a specific form of dynamics - which kills the essence of the concept). But we're trying to see what it would imply if it existed, and in how much it is compatible with a deterministic physics. I claim that it is not compatible.
There are such things as deterministic choices, decisions and selections.
Well, to me, that's just fancy words to describe dynamics, or laws of nature. From what point on does a dynamical rule become a "choice, decision and selection" when the "intentions" are not known, and in what way is this different from an apple "choosing, deciding" to minimize its action and "select" the movement that corresponds to this "choice" ?
There are also (allegedly) such things as free will choices, decisions and selections (though I believe the latter are illusions). You seem to believe that all choices (and decisions and selections?) must by definition be free will choices (and decisions and selections?).
I think it is only in that sense that there is "choice". If you just execute an algorithm, differential equation, minimum action principle or what ever, I don't see what "choice" there is, given that there are no allowed alternatives than what the algorithm/differential equation/minimum action principle is prescribing.
In any deterministic or non-deterministic world, alternatives exist in a counterfactual sense – “if X had wanted Y instead of Z, then X could have chosen Y instead of Z”. The whole point is that freedom is defined as : I act according to my will. And this is determinism. Whether the alternatives exist in a real sense or in a counterfactual sense is not relevant, what is relevant is that I act according to my will – and that is freedom in anyone’s language.
But the "trajectory falling up" for an apple is also an "alternative in the counterfactual sense", meaning: it was a possibility (in the space of possible trajectories) but which was not picked out by a minimum-action principle. And if we define the "will" of an apple to minimize its action, then an apple also acts according to its "will". The alternatives have to exist in a real sense for there to be a genuine choice to be possible, no ? If the choice is prescribed, by an algorithm or any other deterministic principle, it's not a choice.
When we look at the supposed free-will explanation of choice – how does it work?
The very point of a free-will choice is that one
cannot say how it works, of course ! Because otherwise we would be back to case 1.
The only rational reason it might turn out any differently is if there is indeed a random element in the selection process – but are you seriously suggesting this randomness is the source of our so-called free will?
To come back to the original poster's question, randomness means "ignorance about which to pick". When one says that something is random, one simply tells you that there are different possibilities, and that one doesn't have a rule to say - even in principle - which of the possibilities should come out. A choice can hence only be random to an entity that is not making the choice, because the entity making the choice is of course not ignorant of its very choice.
However, whether that entity should follow any deterministic rules to arrive at its choice is what is debated here. From the moment that there are such rules, there's no real choice anymore ! So
a genuine choice doesn't obey any rules.
Again this confuses fatalism with determinism. It is not the case that I am first forced to act in certain ways, and only then am I subsequently forced to want to act in those ways. My wishes/wants/desires determine my subsequent actions, not the other way about.
But your wishes etc... are determined by dynamical prescriptions. Your wishes ARE dynamical prescriptions. The "wishes" of a deterministic machine are simply its computer code in its memory, and the "wish" of an apple is simply to minimise its action.
I am not constrained to act in a certain way against my will; instead my will determines how I act.
So your "will" is nothing else but the deterministic law itself, but just given a fancy name, in this case.
Yes it is true under determinism that if I do X then it was always going to be the case, ever since the Big Bang, that I would do X (because it was always going to be the case that I would want to do X) – but so what?
Yes, but you will have a hard time convincing me that your "will" is anything else but the dynamical rules themselves - over which you have no choice. Like the "will" of a deterministic machine is to execute its program.
Saying it is unavoidable leads to misunderstanding – because there are two types of unavoidable and many people get them confused. There is the “fatalism” type of unavoidable (where “what is going to happen is going to happen, whether you like it or not!”), but such things are not necessarily unavoidable under determinism (where “what is going to happen only happens because you want it to happen”). If I want to avoid something, and I am physically unconstrained, then I can avoid it, even under determinism.
Hell, you don't even have the possibility
not to want to avoid it ! This possibility is not even open to you. Like the possibility not to follow its computer program is not open to a deterministic machine.
Your "will" is nothing else but the dynamical law you are going to have to follow in any case. There are no alternatives open to you, and if you think so, then that's the *illusion* of free will you have. "Desiring" something else than what is determined by the deterministic dynamics since the big bang, is not an option, in the same way as *not* minimizing its action is not an option to an apple. So in as much an apple has any "desire", it must be to minimize its action.
The same is true under determinism – if I had chosen to do something different then I would have done something different.
No, you couldn't. The option was not open to you, you could not have desired anything else than what was fixed since the big bang.
BTW, I'm
not advocating free will, in fact in as much as I have to pick anything, I'd rather say that we do not have free will (but only the illusion). But if we are going to require "free will" I'm only indicating that, by definition, it is not going to follow any deterministic prescriptions, and that the laws of nature need to leave some room for it by being *ignorant* of what will happen - so leaving open more than one option from which to pick.
The free will advocates would have us believe that there must be some mystical but unidentified and mysterious introduction of non-determinism at some point – but nobody has any idea of how this would work, or how this could magically turn a supposedly non-free will act into a free will act.
As I said, it is
essential for an entity exercising free will that it doesn't follow any dynamics, or rules. The randomness resides not in the exercise of free will from the PoV of the entity exercising it, but rather externally: externally, one has to remain fundamentally ignorant of the decision the free will entity will take, and hence needs to introduce an element of randomness (= ignorance) in any dynamical prescription of the event.
Non-determinism means that the future is “open”, but how does this create any kind of “free will choice” (in any real meaning of the word) where none existed before? If a deterministic machine, by your definition, cannot make a choice, then by what mechanism are we able to magically create the conditions for a choice by simply adding non-determinism into the equation? How exactly does this work?
Well, the essence of the concept is that we cannot say how it works, because from the moment we can, we destroy the very concept of free choice !
It is inevitable that the free will believer believes the magic potion of free will is buried somewhere within non-determinism – he has no choice!
Yes, that was my point. Determinism doesn't allow for free will. Non-determinism doesn't provide it, but is at least a necessary condition even to start contemplating its possibility. It leaves the possibility, because the laws of nature leave open several potential alternatives (in contrast to deterministic laws). In order to have a free choice, one needs several alternatives to pick from in the first place.
The second point is that, in order not to destroy the very possibility opened up by having now different potential alternatives, the entity exercising free will cannot, itself, be subject to any regularities of laws itself (because these regularities or laws would then close the door that was opened by the non-deterministic laws in the first place). So it remains a fundamentally mystical concept.
But, again, I'm not an advocate of free will. I'm only putting down the consequences of the concept, that's all.
The very notion is irrational and incoherent, but the free will believer has no other choice – irrationality and incoherency must be more comforting than the evils of determinism.
No, not at all. Free will would simply imply that there are limits to the rational description of nature, that's all. That some things are fundamentally underscribable.
I am the driver of my train, and the train goes where I want it to go – my will is not determined by the tracks and terrain ahead of me, but instead those tracks and terrain are determined by my will. All perfectly compatible with determinism. What possible purpose would be served by introducing non-determinism, so that the train might go where I did NOT want it to go?
The tracks are nothing else but the deterministic laws of nature, and what you describe as your free will is nothing else but that same dynamics. You want the train to go where the track is, the track is where you want the train to go, and this is already determined since the big bang. Exactly as the apple wanting to fall on exactly the trajectory that is minimizing its action.
Again you insist that all choice must be free will choice – you do not acknowledge the existence of deterministic choice. What about random choice – would you accept that such a thing as random choice exists? If yes, then why not deterministic choice?
"random choice" is, as I said before, only random to the exterior of the entity exercising free will. Random means: no way to know which one. Clearly the entity making the choice knows which one: it picks it. The "random" part comes from the *non-existence* of any specific regularity of rule that could determine what the entity "has" to choose.
As I said, a free will entity must necessarily be undescribable by any form of dynamics. It's part of its essential being.
You claim the machine is not making a choice, because it is acting deterministically. Where does the ability to make a choice come from then – from non-determinism? How can adding non-determinism into the machine’s decision-making process turn a non-choice into a choice? How does it work? How can{/b] it work? It’s incoherent.
No, it is fundamentally undescribable, that's all. You can call it mystical. Yes, free will is an essentially mystical concept. Mystical in the sense of fundamentally undescribable.
It is already determined since about 15 billion years. Of course it is not (purely) external, but "internal" if you want. Nevertheless, you have no real "choice". Your only "choice" is to "desire" what will actually, unavoidably, happen. Like the train, who "desires" to go exactly the way the track is laid out.
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