Free Will

[JellySlayer]

A few of us were having a discussion about player choice in another thread, which led to the topic of free will. Rather than bloat that thread down with an interesting, but irrelevant, digression, I thought I'd bring the topic here so that we can discuss more thoroughly.

My view on the subject is that free will does not exist. Or, at least, a coherently-defined, interesting concept of free will does not exist. There may be ways to define free will in such a way that it is trivially true (or trivially false), but these definitions fail for one reason or another to capture the concept that is really being described. However, while I believe that free will does not exist, I am willing to concede that free will is a useful approximation to adopt in certain circumstances--in practice, it matters little whether it exists or not, though the philosophical consequences are fairly significant.

I'll choose not to define free will at this point and rather let the people who believe it exists explain what they mean by the concept.

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Here's the context that spawned this discussion:




I've said this before, but everyone who opposes self determination by players really should read the dedication in the ADOM readme. Thomas believes the freedoms he has been given are a major determinant of who he is.

People were given free will for a reason. I guess either you (and he) understand that, or you don't.



I don't believe free will exists (or it's insufficiently well-defined for me to say anything about it), so that's kind of a moot point with me. But that's an argument for a different thread.



That kind logic of runs afoul of the whole concept of a criminal justice system, doesn't it?

For instance, the next time a police officer pulls you over for speeding, just try telling him: "I couldn't help it, officer, I don't have free will."

Maybe we should take away your free will in situations that you don't have much experience in?


If doing something infringes on others' rights, it's illegal, the cop doesn't care what your excuse is, just like how they expect you to read up on every single law even though that would take forever. lol


Unfortunately, the officer doesn't have the free will not to give you a ticket ;)

I'm quite happy to have fewer choices in circumstances when I can't evaluate them, especially when some of those choices can lead to significant harm to me or others. We rely on that type of system all the time. I have no experience skydiving, so I'd imagine that, if I went skydiving, I'd probably want to have a professional skydiver with me to show me exactly what to do so that I don't screw it up and kill myself. I'd greatly prefer that over having the freedom to decide how I want to pack my parachute.

[Greyling]

However, while I believe that free will does not exist, I am willing to concede that free will is a useful approximation to adopt in certain circumstances--in practice, it matters little whether it exists or not, though the philosophical consequences are fairly significant.

Honestly, what you just said there is all I was going to argue. I know enough about neurobiology to know that a neuron doesn't have free will, nor do two attached to each other, nor do three, etc. So I admit I don't know how 100 billion of the suckers hooked together can have free will, either.

But even though I don't think there is a neurological basis for free will, if you take the idea of "no free will" to its logical conclusions, you end up with some pretty weird situations. For instance, it certainly seems like our whole criminal justice system is based on the existence of free will. We generally think of criminals as people who have chosen to do something wrong, and we punish them for it. If they didn't have free will, how would it make sense to do that? They weren't in control of their actions, so why should they suffer for them?

Honestly, it's hard for me to believe that Jellyslayer goes around during his everyday life thinking that he has no free will. When he makes decisions, I strongly suspect he thinks of himself as actually making a choice.

[GordonOverkill]

I think usually the expression "free will" does not fit the phenomenon that it should describe. In my eyes it's rather trivial that you cannot decide whether or not to want something... either you want it or not. In this respect I do not belive that there is anything like a free will. Still there is another concept of "will" like Schopenhauer or Nietzsche used it, in which "will" is something like a power to change reality according to your ideas. In this way I think that it's absolutely necessary to believe in a "free will", which means: to believe in the fact that people have the power and the freedom to either change reality according to their ideas or not. At first that fits my everyday-experience, for example when I stopped smoking two years ago I had the impression that I had to make a choice in every single moment either to smoke or not to smoke. I had the feeling that I was in every moment absolutely able to buy a pack of cigarrets and smoke one of them, and actually that would have been easier than not doing it. The second reason for my belief in a "free will" is the fact that such a concept is absolutely necessary in order to create something like a concept of responsibility. Without freedom of will nobody could be held responsible for his action, be it positively or negativly.

[GordonOverkill]

Honestly, what you just said there is all I was going to argue. I know enough about neurobiology to know that a neuron doesn't have free will, nor do two attached to each other, nor do three, etc. So I admit I don't know how 100 billion of the suckers hooked together can have free will, either.

In my eyes that's a very interesting and important point. If you believe that everything can be explained by laws of nature, there remains no space for freedom in general and thus for freedom of will. That's why I am surely not a strict naturalist... I believe that there are issues in the world which cannot be completely explained by natural laws, for example freedom... or to be more precise: I believe it in order to be able to believe in things like freedom.

[Stingray1]

To me decision making is a very complex program. The program running in the brain accesses past experienced that is also stored in this organ to reach an action to send to a set of sells in other organs. So technically there is no free will, in theory the same action would be performed if we were able to time travel. As the program is the same and the stored data is the same and there is no RNG.

If however there is a RNG, which is improbable then 'free' will would exist.

[JellySlayer]

Honestly, what you just said there is all I was going to argue. I know enough about neurobiology to know that a neuron doesn't have free will, nor do two attached to each other, nor do three, etc. So I admit I don't know how 100 billion of the suckers hooked together can have free will, either.

Well, emergent properties are a thing--there are all kinds of complex structures and processes that can't necessarily be understood by examining an individual component (eg. magnetism, pressure). It's only in the collective behaviour that you see the emergent property. While an individual neuron cannot think, the collective sum of the neuron microstates translates into thought. The problem is that this chain is still very deterministic: Given a particular set of neuron microstates, you have a given brain state. If some stimulus changes the neuron states, it will change the brain state. It's a deterministic system, and it's not entirely clear how it is possible for a system to be both completely deterministic and have free will.


But even though I don't think there is a neurological basis for free will, if you take the idea of "no free will" to its logical conclusions, you end up with some pretty weird situations. For instance, it certainly seems like our whole criminal justice system is based on the existence of free will. We generally think of criminals as people who have chosen to do something wrong, and we punish them for it. If they didn't have free will, how would it make sense to do that? They weren't in control of their actions, so why should they suffer for them?

Yes, absolutely our justice system is based on the existence of free will. I think it's a very good question as to what a criminal justice system would look like absent the concept of free will. Clearly it wouldn't look anything like what we have now, but I don't have a particularly good idea of what it would look like. As I said, free will is sometimes a useful approximation, but in the end, it is just an approximation. Perhaps a natural bridge might be to ask: If criminality is partially determined by genetics--if, say, certain people are genetically predispositioned toward violence--should that be taken into account in the justice system? Is my culpability reduced if the odds are weighted towards me committing a violent act compared to you, through no fault of my own?


Honestly, it's hard for me to believe that Jellyslayer goes around during his everyday life thinking that he has no free will. When he makes decisions, I strongly suspect he thinks of himself as actually making a choice.

Well, yes, I do think of myself as making a choice. But that doesn't necessarily mean that free will exists, if it was inevitable that I reached that choice, and similarly inevitable that I would reach the decision that I did. And while I might like to say that, were I in the same place again, I might want to make a difference choice, that is only true with the benefit of hindsight--"if I knew then what I know now, I'd choose differently". Sure, but then it's not the same choice, because you have access to different information. What's interesting is that we have limited, but good, testing of this. Patients with anterograde amnesia are unable to form new memories (think: Memento), and can experience a set of identical circumstances on multiple occasions. One man, for example, has been recording the same thoughts in his journal for over two decades (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clive_Wearing#Amnesia).


If however there is a RNG, which is improbable then 'free' will would exist.

How do random processes help?

[Saracen]

Free will, what an exiting idea. In the real scheme of things you are controlled by your past experiences and the consequences of those decisions. So maybe an infant can have the ideal "free will". A newborn with no past experiences or an animal. Or maybe we just live in a simulation and the "puppeteers", or players, control our actions with an illusion of free will. Whatever the answer is, I don't think that really exists as we understand it.

[Stingray1]

How do random processes help?

A random process makes a decision not determined by fixed "stored information" alone, but throws a coin into the air or die into the air resulting in a choice.

But random processes don't exist either, so that is also moot.

[Greyling]

Well, emergent properties are a thing--there are all kinds of complex structures and processes that can't necessarily be understood by examining an individual component (eg. magnetism, pressure). It's only in the collective behaviour that you see the emergent property. While an individual neuron cannot think, the collective sum of the neuron microstates translates into thought. The problem is that this chain is still very deterministic: Given a particular set of neuron microstates, you have a given brain state. If some stimulus changes the neuron states, it will change the brain state. It's a deterministic system, and it's not entirely clear how it is possible for a system to be both completely deterministic and have free will.

You said that better than me. Yes, I agree with all of that. In fact, you haven't said much that I do disagree with. I guess my point is that the idea of free will is the only thing that "works" in everyday life. And I guess my question is, if it works so well, shouldn't that make us consider that it might actually be real? Even if we can't explain how it exists?

As far as the criminal justice system goes, my understanding it that in most cases, we are not able to identify a specific genetic marker that predisposed someone to commit a crime in any sort of straightforward way. But I may be wrong, that is admittedly not my area.

But you really don't even need to bring that into the argument. I already agree with you that it seems as though, biologically speaking, we shouldn't have free will. I guess I'm just curious how it would ever help to think that we don't have it.

And this may seem like a dumb question, but, as far as Mr. Wearing, how do we know he isn't using his free will to choose the same thing over and over again? If he is faced with the exact same situation, why wouldn't he make the same decision? Even with a working memory, there are lots of questions that you would answer the same way, no matter how many times you were asked, right? And I don't think anyone would say that means you don't have free will.

I suspect you know a lot more about this topic than I do, but I mentioned before, I also suspect that you live your life as though you have free will. Isn't that irrational, if you know you don't?

EDIT: I guess my point is, if you really believed your own argument, wouldn't you be living your life in a way drastically different from everyone else?

[Stingray1]

If you really can't make your mind up about something, what is that? A choice hasn't been reached, what is the brain waiting for? Is it more information?
It gets more information and now a decision is reached. Was that free will?

The brain forgets the information and has to make the exact same decision again. Now it gets different information. It makes a different decision than previously.
This must be free will happening.


EDIT: I guess my point is, if you really believed your own argument, wouldn't you be living your life in a way drastically different from everyone else? He doesn't have a choice in the matter. :p

I suppose what the justice system is attempting to do is to give the brain new better information. Often it does not work however. This poses the question in my mind, is it the thinking(genetics/environment) or the memory part that is to blame for criminal actions?

[GordonOverkill]

Well, yes, I do think of myself as making a choice. But that doesn't necessarily mean that free will exists, if it was inevitable that I reached that choice, and similarly inevitable that I would reach the decision that I did. And while I might like to say that, were I in the same place again, I might want to make a difference choice, that is only true with the benefit of hindsight--"if I knew then what I know now, I'd choose differently". Sure, but then it's not the same choice, because you have access to different information. What's interesting is that we have limited, but good, testing of this. Patients with anterograde amnesia are unable to form new memories (think: Memento), and can experience a set of identical circumstances on multiple occasions. One man, for example, has been recording the same thoughts in his journal for over two decades (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clive_Wearing#Amnesia).

Every single person I know acts as if he believes in the existence of free will. I never met anybody for whome the absence of free will was more than a sophisticated mind game.
But like you say, that's not a prove for itself. But there are logical reasons to believe in a free will, or rather not to believe the opposite. If all our actions were predeterminated, that would include all our cognitiv processes, including all our knowledge. Under these circumstances all our knowledge would lose it's reliability because we could never say for sure if it is really true (=that there really is a law of nature that we observed) or if we just think so because of whatever predeterminations of the process of "discovery" in our brain. There would just not be an outsider position that the scientist himself could hold. If knowledge had no reliability, that would include our knowledge about the freedom of will... so if there really was no freedom of will, we could consequently never find out about that.

[Stingray1]

An interesting experiment would be to take two identical twins biological clones and give them the exact same life from birth. Then give them the same choices. This only possible in a laboratory with mice maybe. Too evil to consider doing with humans.

[Silfir]

JellySlayer doesn't have to pretend to know more than what he does. Whether free will exists or not, neurologically, is not useful knowledge outside of neurology. Determinism doesn't have practical applications, since even though the future is determined, we lack even the theoretical ability to know what happens, with perfect accuracy, before it actually happens. That's why natural sciences are still useful, because finding out the ways the world works allows us to guess. Our laws, our ethics, our societies, our languages assume the existence of a concept of free will because it's integral to our "best guess" on how humans actually act. Acknowledging that we have no absolute knowledge that free will exists doesn't necessitate abandoning free will as a guideline for our actions, and in turn assuming free will as a guideline for our actions doesn't require absolute knowledge that free will exists. Even if free will is just an illusion all of us humans share, we cannot break free from it.

[JellySlayer]

You said that better than me. Yes, I agree with all of that. In fact, you haven't said much that I do disagree with. I guess my point is that the idea of free will is the only thing that "works" in everyday life. And I guess my question is, if it works so well, shouldn't that make us consider that it might actually be real? Even if we can't explain how it exists?

Well, in practice, that's pretty much what we do--most people consider free will to be a real thing. Though, I'll point out, this isn't actually a universal belief. There are some belief systems, Calvinism for example, that explicitly reject the concept of free will. I don't have enough knowledge of the day-to-day workings of believers of such faiths to understand the practice in detail. For religions, you can move to divine command theory--given situation X, the rule says to perform Y.


As far as the criminal justice system goes, my understanding it that in most cases, we are not able to identify a specific genetic marker that predisposed someone to commit a crime in any sort of straightforward way. But I may be wrong, that is admittedly not my area.

There's nothing definitive yet, no. But say hypothetically, if such a marker did exist, should it make a difference? Or not genetic, but even something more substantive? Let's make this example more concrete. How about a man whose brain tumor led to uncontrollable paedophilia (http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2943-brain-tumour-causes-uncontrollable-paedophilia.html#.Uhu-DazjF_Y)? The tumor was removed and the problem went away. Should this be considered a mitigating circumstance? Or absolve him of guilt?


And this may seem like a dumb question, but, as far as Mr. Wearing, how do we know he isn't using his free will to choose the same thing over and over again? If he is faced with the exact same situation, why wouldn't he make the same decision? Even with a working memory, there are lots of questions that you would answer the same way, no matter how many times you were asked, right? And I don't think anyone would say that means you don't have free will.

Well, but then what's the difference between having free will and not? If given the same set of circumstances, you always perform the same action, then in what sense is your will "free"?


I suspect you know a lot more about this topic than I do, but I mentioned before, I also suspect that you live your life as though you have free will. Isn't that irrational, if you know you don't?

EDIT: I guess my point is, if you really believed your own argument, wouldn't you be living your life in a way drastically different from everyone else?

Maybe I do. It's not clear how believing versus not believing in free will would affect my decision-making algorithms. I can't really perform any analysis about this on myself, because the analysis will be intrinsically biased.


Every single person I know acts as if he believes in the existence of free will. I never met anybody for whome the absence of free will was more than a sophisticated mind game. But like you say, that's not a prove for itself. But there are logical reasons to believe in a free will, or rather not to believe the opposite. If all our actions were predeterminated, that would include all our cognitiv processes, including all our knowledge. Under these circumstances all our knowledge would lose it's reliability because we could never say for sure if it is really true (=that there really is a law of nature that we observed) or if we just think so because of whatever predeterminations of the process of "discovery" in our brain. There would just not be an outsider position that the scientist himself could hold. If knowledge had no reliability, that would include our knowledge about the freedom of will... so if there really was no freedom of will, we could consequently never find out about that.

Well, that doesn't actually imply that we should believe free will exists. The premise that all of your knowledge is inherently suspect is plausible, just uncomfortable. I don't know much about epistemology, but that's basically the whole problem.


A random process makes a decision not determined by fixed "stored information" alone, but throws a coin into the air or die into the air resulting in a choice.

But random processes don't exist either, so that is also moot.

Well, there are certainly processes that, to the very best of our knowledge and understanding, appear to be completely random, yes. Nuclear radioactive decays are the quintessential example. Many other quantum processes appear to be purely random. It may be that there is some very deep deterministic properties that somehow give rise to this randomness, but along the way, we'd be forced to give up some other concepts that seem pretty fundamental to our understanding of reality as well.

[Stingray1]

Well, there are certainly processes that, to the very best of our knowledge and understanding, appear to be completely random, yes. Nuclear radioactive decays are the quintessential example. Many other quantum processes appear to be purely random. It may be that there is some very deep deterministic properties that somehow give rise to this randomness, but along the way, we'd be forced to give up some other concepts that seem pretty fundamental to our understanding of reality as well.

Well, if you aren't 100 percent certain that you have discovered all the atomic elements, quantum particles and forces then I suppose some things might appear random.

It is still feasible that some forces and interactions are undetectable if your understanding of quantum mechanics and those particles are flawed as a species.

[JellySlayer]

Well, if you aren't 100 percent certain that you have discovered all the atomic elements, quantum particles and forces then I suppose some things might appear random.

It is still feasible that some forces and interactions are undetectable if your understanding of quantum mechanics and those particles are flawed as a species.

That's true. But Bell's theorem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell's_theorem) requires that in order to have a hidden variable theory that is consistent with quantum mechanics, you have to give up causality.

[Greyling]

There's nothing definitive yet, no. But say hypothetically, if such a marker did exist, should it make a difference? Or not genetic, but even something more substantive? Let's make this example more concrete. How about a man whose brain tumor led to uncontrollable paedophilia (http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2943-brain-tumour-causes-uncontrollable-paedophilia.html#.Uhu-DazjF_Y)? The tumor was removed and the problem went away. Should this be considered a mitigating circumstance? Or absolve him of guilt?

Jellyslayer, I completely accept the idea that in some very, very extreme situations people can lack free will. That is the exception and not the rule, though.


Well, but then what's the difference between having free will and not? If given the same set of circumstances, you always perform the same action, then in what sense is your will "free"?

I think free will is the ability to make choices. My point before was that no matter how often you were asked some types of questions (like simple math problems) you would give the same answer. I don't think anyone would say that means you do not have free will.


Maybe I do. It's not clear how believing versus not believing in free will would affect my decision-making algorithms. I can't really perform any analysis about this on myself, because the analysis will be intrinsically biased.

I think it is possible for you to perform an analysis on yourself. If you really believed free will didn't exist, it would mean no human being, including you should ever feel guilty about any of their actions. Anyone else did something to hurt another person wouldn't be able to help it, so there would be no reason to feel bad about it.

I guess you could argue that you would still feel bad in a way, because you would see that their situation was unfortunate, but it would be the same way you feel bad for a victim of a natural disaster, not a sense of guilt.

I assume you would feel morally responsible and guilty if you did something terrible to someone else, jellyslayer?

[Greyling]

JellySlayer doesn't have to pretend to know more than what he does. Whether free will exists or not, neurologically, is not useful knowledge outside of neurology. Determinism doesn't have practical applications, since even though the future is determined, we lack even the theoretical ability to know what happens, with perfect accuracy, before it actually happens. That's why natural sciences are still useful, because finding out the ways the world works allows us to guess. Our laws, our ethics, our societies, our languages assume the existence of a concept of free will because it's integral to our "best guess" on how humans actually act. Acknowledging that we have no absolute knowledge that free will exists doesn't necessitate abandoning free will as a guideline for our actions, and in turn assuming free will as a guideline for our actions doesn't require absolute knowledge that free will exists. Even if free will is just an illusion all of us humans share, we cannot break free from it.

I'm not sure I understand what you are saying here, Silfir. Are you saying that it makes sense for Jellyslayer to say he doesn't believe in free will but act like he does?

[Greyling]

Well, in practice, that's pretty much what we do--most people consider free will to be a real thing. Though, I'll point out, this isn't actually a universal belief. There are some belief systems, Calvinism for example, that explicitly reject the concept of free will.

Wait a minute. I remember reading that Calvinists believe people can only become a member of the elect by being chosen by god, but don't they also believe people can be kicked out of the elect if they make the wrong decisions? If that's the case, it seems like they do believe at least some people have the free will to reject god. Also, I didn't realize that Calvinists believed they had no free will in any situation, I thought it was just in relation to the elect thing.

EDIT: Even Calvinists believed in the complete absence of free will in all situations, I bet they still felt guilty when they stole, or lied, or killed. So, here again, while some people do claim to believe that there is no such thing as free will, I can't think of much of anyone who really lives their lives as though that is the case.

[Silfir]

I'm not sure I understand what you are saying here, Silfir. Are you saying that it makes sense for Jellyslayer to say he doesn't believe in free will but act like he does?

Eeeeeeyup.

[Greyling]

Eeeeeeyup.

I don't agree with that. I think that if he really believed what he was saying, it would change the way he lived his life in the way that I described. Just like in the example that I gave before, do you think it is logical for Jellyslayer to tell himself not to feel guilty for things he does to harm other people?

[grobblewobble]

I really didn't want to post in this thread but I didn't have a choice.

[Greyling]

I really didn't want to post in this thread but I didn't have a choice.

That was pretty good.

[Greyling]

I meant to address some of these points in more detail.


JellySlayer doesn't have to pretend to know more than what he does.

I didn't think he was trying to do that at all. He knows a lot about this subject, and I can see that.


Whether free will exists or not, neurologically, is not useful knowledge outside of neurology. Determinism doesn't have practical applications, since even though the future is determined, we lack even the theoretical ability to know what happens, with perfect accuracy, before it actually happens. That's why natural sciences are still useful, because finding out the ways the world works allows us to guess. Our laws, our ethics, our societies, our languages assume the existence of a concept of free will because it's integral to our "best guess" on how humans actually act.

I think natural science's "best guess" is that free will does not exist. I think this is a case where science contradicts these laws and ethics you are talking about. And I think that's the opposite of what you are saying? I'm really having a hard time understanding this paragraph.


Acknowledging that we have no absolute knowledge that free will exists doesn't necessitate abandoning free will as a guideline for our actions

Wait, what? How can it still be a guideline for our actions if we don't think it exists? That doesn't make sense. How can you "know" you don't have free will, but still use it as a guideline for your actions?


Even if free will is just an illusion all of us humans share, we cannot break free from it.

Why can't we break free of it if we know it doesn't exist? I mean, I think that Jellyslayer is claiming he has been able to, anyway.

Look, I don't understand how there can be any morality without free will. If somebody could just explain that to me, I might be on the same page as you guys (seriously, that's not sarcasm).

[JellySlayer]

I think free will is the ability to make choices. My point before was that no matter how often you were asked some types of questions (like simple math problems) you would give the same answer. I don't think anyone would say that means you do not have free will.

Sure, but so does a calculator. If free will is simply the ability to make choices, then it is trivially true. But it also implies that a tic-tac-toe playing computer program has free will. This is one of those not-so-interesting definitions.


I think it is possible for you to perform an analysis on yourself. If you really believed free will didn't exist, it would mean no human being, including you should ever feel guilty about any of their actions. Anyone else did something to hurt another person wouldn't be able to help it, so there would be no reason to feel bad about it.
I assume you would feel morally responsible and guilty if you did something terrible to someone else, jellyslayer?

Well, I can't exactly choose whether or not to feel guilty, first of all. Second, I feel guilty when my actions cause harm, even if I didn't intend for them to do so. In fact, I'd be tempted to say that I would probably feel more guilty about doing something that hurt somebody unintentionally than intentionally causing someone harm--it's the causing harm that I respond to primarily.

[edit]

Look, I don't understand how there can be any morality without free will. If somebody could just explain that to me, I might be on the same page as you guys (seriously, that's not sarcasm).

Sure. Here's an example of a simple moral system that doesn't require free will: Do whatever brings the greatest good to the largest number of people. This doesn't require free will, all it requires is a method to evaluate the goodness of a potential action. In practice, a machine could follow this moral system. And that's okay.

[Greyling]

Sure, but so does a calculator. If free will is simply the ability to make choices, then it is trivially true. But it also implies that a tic-tac-toe playing computer program has free will. This is one of those not-so-interesting definitions.

I don't understand what you mean by trivially true. I think we all agree that the calculator cannot choose what choice to make. I would argue that you can choose how to give an answer to a math problem, but since the most rational thing to do is give the correct answer, that is likely what you would do every time.

How about this. You know a lot more about this topic than I do. Why don't you tell me what your definition of free will is?

This is a really weird discussion, because I already agree completely that there is no scientific evidence free will exists. I guess right now I'm arguing about whether that particular situation you brought up shows that there is no free will? But either way, I agree with the evidence we already discussed that indicates free will doesn't exist. The main thing I am debating with you is what you are talking about in the next quoted segment.

[QUOTE=JellySlayer;81554]Well, I can't exactly choose whether or not to feel guilty, first of all.

But you wouldn't tell yourself it's illogical to feel guilty, either. Say you got angry for whatever reason and physically harmed someone. Not out of self defense, just out of anger. Afterwards, when you felt bad, would you say to yourself: well, I really shouldn't feel guilty, because I had no control over my actions.

The point is, even if you can't "choose" whether you feel guilty, rationally, you should feel less guilty than someone who believes in free will, because you had no control over your actions. And I think you would still feel just as guilty as anyone else. Again, I'm not just saying you would feel bad because someone suffered for any reason, you would feel as responsible as anyone else.


Second, I feel guilty when my actions cause harm, even if I didn't intend for them to do so. In fact, I'd be tempted to say that I would probably feel more guilty about doing something that hurt somebody unintentionally than intentionally causing someone harm--it's the causing harm that I respond to primarily.

I find it very hard to believe that you wouldn't feel more guilty for intentionally running someone over than you would if your brakes went out and you hit them accidentally. Is that what you are saying?

I guess if that is what you are saying, I'll take you at your word, but you must understand how this is a very difficult thing for me to believe. It certainly isn't the way that most people would feel, for instance.

EDIT: and, if that's true, you have certainly proved me wrong, I guess I just didn't realize there was anyone who really felt that way. I'm not saying this makes you a bad person in any way (and in fact, you seem like a very good person), I'm just genuinely surprised.

[Greyling]

Sure. Here's an example of a simple moral system that doesn't require free will: Do whatever brings the greatest good to the largest number of people. This doesn't require free will, all it requires is a method to evaluate the goodness of a potential action. In practice, a machine could follow this moral system. And that's okay.

Jelly, that doesn't work. I mean, you get into weird situations where you sacrifice one person for the good of the many in terrible ways. I also don't think that's really what I was talking about. I don't think any action can be immoral or moral any more if you don't have free will, just like a tornado or an earthquake can't be moral or immoral.

EDIT: you mentioned this earlier:


Well, I can't exactly choose whether or not to feel guilty, first of all.

No, but cause and effect still apply. If you were presented with evidence that you had no control over your actions, it certainly seems like that would cause you (or at least most people) to feel less guilt about them, even if you weren't "choosing" to change how you felt. Your perceptions of the world are still based on information you have gathered in the past, whether you have free will or not.

[JellySlayer]

I don't understand what you mean by trivially true. I think we all agree that the calculator cannot choose what choice to make. I would argue that you can choose how to give an answer to a math problem, but since the most rational thing to do is give the correct answer, that is likely what you would do every time.

Why can't the calculator choose what choice to make? I mean, what's the difference between a calculator that "chooses" to always spit out the right answers, and one that generates the right answer through some electronics without choosing? Or a computer program that plays tic-tac-toe or chess or whatever? There's clearly options available to them--the calculator has the capacity to generate any answer within the number of digits it generates; the computer programs can play any legal move available to them. Are these not choices in your mind? If not, what distinguishes the type of choice that I'm talking about from the type of choice that you're talking about?

If you're claiming that free will is simply the ability to make choices, then I agree, under that definition, free will exists. But that definition is so broad as to include a whole bunch of other things that most people would not consider free will.


How about this. You know a lot more about this topic than I do. Why don't you tell me what your definition of free will is?

I don't have a great definition for you. I've heard lots, and there's problems with all of them, as far as I'm concerned. I'd say how most people define it is probably something like "The capacity for an agent to evaluate various options presented to them and choose one it prefers. While the preference may be informed by knowledge, past experiences, and emotions, the method of selection itself is ultimately a result solely of the introspection of the agent, and not external forcing." The second clause is the tricky part.


I find it very hard to believe that you wouldn't feel more guilty for intentionally running someone over than you would if your brakes went out and you hit them accidentally. Is that what you are saying?

I guess if that is what you are saying, I'll take you at your word, but you must understand how this is a very difficult thing for me to believe. It certainly isn't the way that most people would feel, for instance.


I'd feel terrible if I hit someone accidentally. If I was harming someone purposefully, I'd probably already have justified to myself why that action was okay, and would feel less guilty about it. Maybe I'm mixing concepts here. I guess maybe I'd feel sorrow in the first case and guilt in the second? I dunno. It could be that I'm possibly a psychopath. I haven't definitively ruled out the possibility yet. But I'm fairly certain I'd feel worse if I killed someone accidentally than if I did it intentionally, regardless of what the actual names of the emotions being described are.


Jelly, that doesn't work. I mean, you get into weird situations where you sacrifice one person for the good of the many in terrible ways. I also don't think that's really what I was talking about. I don't think any action can be immoral or moral any more if you don't have free will, just like a tornado or an earthquake can't be moral or immoral.

I'm not saying that it's a good (or complete?) moral system, but it is a moral system that definitely doesn't require free will to operate. Then again, I think you probably could make the case that an objective, universal morality probably doesn't exist either. Subjective moralities are good enough for our purposes, for the most part.

[Greyling]

If you're claiming that free will is simply the ability to make choices, then I agree, under that definition, free will exists. But that definition is so broad as to include a whole bunch of other things that most people would not consider free will.

Yes, that is probably my definition. I don't understand why it is considered "trivial", though. Again, I agree that as far as I know, science doesn't seem to indicate that there is free will.


I don't have a great definition for you. I've heard lots, and there's problems with all of them, as far as I'm concerned. I'd say how most people define it is probably something like "The capacity for an agent to evaluate various options presented to them and choose one it prefers. While the preference may be informed by knowledge, past experiences, and emotions, the method of selection itself is ultimately a result solely of the introspection of the agent, and not external forcing." The second clause is the tricky part.

That sounds pretty good to me too, actually.


I'd feel terrible if I hit someone accidentally. If I was harming someone purposefully, I'd probably already have justified to myself why that action was okay, and would feel less guilty about it. Maybe I'm mixing concepts here. I guess maybe I'd feel sorrow in the first case and guilt in the second?

That's...an unusual way to look at it. Jellyslayer, I admit I do not know what goes on inside your head, but I still very, very strongly suspect you would feel more guilty if you hurt someone on purpose than on accident. I really think you should consider that might be the case, unless you have some sort of previous example in your life that proves otherwise.

Remember, we're not talking about harming someone in self defense. This would just be a case of you getting very angry at someone else and taking it out physically on them.

EDIT: Oh, and also remember, we're not just talking about which action would make you feel worse, we're talking about which would make you feel more guilty. Because, rationally, if you didn't have free will, you wouldn't feel any more guilty for doing something to intentionally hurt someone than if that same bad thing happened to them by random chance.


I dunno. It could be that I'm possibly a psychopath. I haven't definitively ruled out the possibility yet. But I'm fairly certain I'd feel worse if I killed someone accidentally than if I did it intentionally, regardless of what the actual names of the emotions being described are.

Jellyslayer, I think you're a cool guy, and definitely not a psychopath. I think part of the problem may be that you don't do things to hurt people on purpose, so you can more or less only guess what that would be like.

Look, lets take a much milder example. Think back to when you were a kid. Say you accidentally bumped into one of your friends and made them drop a popsicle that they were eating. You would feel bad that you did that, but it would be just an accident, so you wouldn't feel guilty. Now, say you were angry at this other kid for some reason, and you knocked the popsicle out of his hand to get back at him. Wouldn't you feel guilty afterwards?

Maybe you could even think of another example like that, where you did some sort of trivially bad (but intentional) thing to someone else. And I bet you did feel guiltier in that situation than if the same thing had happened to that person through chance.


I'm not saying that it's a good (or complete?) moral system, but it is a moral system that definitely doesn't require free will to operate. Then again, I think you probably could make the case that an objective, universal morality probably doesn't exist either. Subjective moralities are good enough for our purposes, for the most part.

Jellyslayer, what I'm saying is that I don't think anything anyone does can be moral or immoral if they don't have free will. It would be like saying that when plentiful rain caused a farmer's crops to grow, the weather was behaving morally by doing something nice for that farmer. People without free will, like the weather, cannot choose what actions they make, so I don't see how you can say that they are moral or immoral any more than forces of nature are.

[grobblewobble]

That's true. But Bell's theorem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell's_theorem) requires that in order to have a hidden variable theory that is consistent with quantum mechanics, you have to give up causality.

Since you're familiar with this topic, I'd like to make an argument based on it.

Say we have some society or system with lots of agents making choices based on free will, where the agents repeatly have to make an identical choice between A and B. In that case, we could plot their choices over time. What would this look like? If there is no factor that changes over time, it could only look like random behavior with a certain distribution. No singular choice would be predictable, but there inevitably has to be a distribution in any sort of noise.

Therefore, free will is indistinguishable from randomness.

And since physical particles are, to the best of our knowledge, behaving randomly (with a distribution that is narrow enough to derive useful "laws"), the behavior of any particle is indistinguishable from an agent with free will. And so is the behavior of any body made out of particles.

To put it in a different way, if you say that we do not have a free will, then how do you define a hypothetical person who would have it, and how does his behavior differ from ours?

[Stingray1]

I'd like to define that person if its fine. On occasion he would make a different decision when presented with the same choice while conditions are exactly the same and he hasn't received additional or different information and does not remember his previous decisions.

[GordonOverkill]

Two points that are quite interesting in my eyes... at first i think it's very typical that, talking about responsibility of actions, most of the examples we talk about are negative ones dealing with guilt. That's the result of twoandahalve millenia of jewish-christian tradition, I guess. To me the other side is even more interesting. A person who believes in strict determination could not attribute any action at all to himself, neither negative nor positive; because in a strictly determinated world there would be nothing like a "self". That brings me to the second point: In my eyes freedom of will does surely not mean randomness of decisions. Maybe that's what a sociologist would say, but sociology negates the freedom of will per premise. In my eyes freedom of will meens that I as the subject of my actions make decisions. I value situations and decide how to take influence on them or not. Of course - that's actually trivial to me - in exactly the same situation I would always make exactly the same decision and thus act exactly in the same way, but still it would be I who decides. In a strictly determinated world there would be no space for such an "I". "I" would just be the name of a body who reacts to the laws of nature just like every other body different from me. Like I said earlier, that would imply fatal epistemological consequences, like the negation of every claim for truth of all our knowledge; or so to say: You could never know about such a situation, because in such a situation you could not know anything at all and there could not be anything like science.

[grobblewobble]

I'd like to define that person if its fine. On occasion he would make a different decision when presented with the same choice while conditions are exactly the same and he hasn't received additional or different information and does not remember his previous decisions.
According to this definition an electron has a free will and so do you.

(I am assuming here that quantum noise is actually big enough of an effect to matter in human decision making, but that's not much of a stretch because in a chaotic system even the tiniest fluctuation can change large scale outcomes. For a robot this would not hold, because chips are not as chaotic as the chemistry in a brain. In this sense you could argue that people have a free will and robots do not.)

[grobblewobble]

in a strictly determinated world there would be nothing like a "self".

The problem with this definition is that it is impossible to measure a self. Can you tell me how to determine if a dog has a self? How about a plant?

I am sticking here with randomness because randomness is what free will looks like from the outside if it exists. If something behaves truly randomly (which is just another word for impredictable), then you can't say it doesn't have a free will, because it behaves exactly like something that does.

[Stingray1]

An electron and I will always do exactly the same if I play the scenario how many times. All particles in the universe will be in exactly the same place and orientation at that time no matter how many times I run the program.

In my view, hence no chaos or randomness. No free will.

But I like Silfir's original post the best of all posts here. I and everyone do make choices that we think about apparently freely. But all those choices has been determined at the start unless new physical laws are created or changed through history ot the blue or particle comes into existence from nothing, which is then a chaotic universe we occupy I suppose.

Which I have no proof of and never could.

[grobblewobble]

An electron and I will always do exactly the same if I play the scenario how many times. All particles in the universe will be in exactly the same place and orientation at that time no matter how many times I run the program.

In my view, hence no chaos or randomness. No free will.

This is not really a matter of personal opinion. Scientific insights are that the universe is random.. it has been proven. This is basically what Bell's theorem says.

I am sorry if that sounded arrogant.. but it simply has been shown. Saying that you personally believe that randomness does not exist is just factually wrong.

[GordonOverkill]

The problem with this definition is that it is impossible to measure a self. Can you tell me how to determine if a dog has a self? How about a plant?

I am sticking here with randomness because randomness is what free will looks like from the outside if it exists. If something behaves truly randomly (which is just another word for impredictable), then you can't say it doesn't have a free will, because it behaves exactly like something that does.

Actually that's the problem. You demand measurability as presupposition for truth; thus you already presuppose a strictly positivistic/naturalistic idea of the world, which in the end seems to be mutually exclusive with the existence of a free will. This kind of thinking goes back at least to the Vienna circle and it definitely has a strong influence on the present, but such a strict point of view has to face and deal with certain logical problems. For example: If truth demands measurability, how can this sentence itself be true? It doesn't seem to be measurable, so doesn't it somehow eliminate itself?
I am of the oppinion that natural science does not cover the complete universe. It makes the rules for the observable parts of the world, but the idea that these parts were everything seems to lead into logical problems of which I don't know how they could be solved.

[JellySlayer]

Yes, that is probably my definition. I don't understand why it is considered "trivial", though. Again, I agree that as far as I know, science doesn't seem to indicate that there is free will.

Well again, it depends how you define it. I mean, science doesn't seem to indicate that there is a God, for example. But if I define God to be "the Universe", then it is trivially true that this 'God' exists. It's just not a useful definition. The ability to make choices, I feel, falls into this category. If this is what you mean by 'free will', then I agree 'free will' exists. But I feel that this definition, without any extra deals, quite easily allows free will for things like plants, computers, bacteria. Anything with the capacity to perform more than one action would fall into this category. The capacity to make choices is a necessary but not sufficient part of the definition of free will.


That's...an unusual way to look at it. Jellyslayer, I admit I do not know what goes on inside your head, but I still very, very strongly suspect you would feel more guilty if you hurt someone on purpose than on accident. I really think you should consider that might be the case, unless you have some sort of previous example in your life that proves otherwise.

EDIT: Oh, and also remember, we're not just talking about which action would make you feel worse, we're talking about which would make you feel more guilty. Because, rationally, if you didn't have free will, you wouldn't feel any more guilty for doing something to intentionally hurt someone than if that same bad thing happened to them by random chance.

Well, if I didn't have free will, then I would behave however I was "programmed" to. If the program said that I was to feel guilty when I intentionally (or unintentionally) hurt someone, then I guess that's how I'd feel. This argument, if anything, seems kind of backwards to me. If I did have free will, then I might be inclined to say that I can choose whether or not I should guilty about things, whereas if I don't, then I just do whatever my neurobiology tells me to do. Though in reality, I'd say that your emotional state is something that you actually have pretty limited control over--that's kind of the point. Is guilt an emotion? I guess it must be.

As I said, my impression is that I would feel worse for doing something harmful unintentionally than not, but I have to admit, I suppose I can't say for certain that it would be the same feeling.


Look, lets take a much milder example. Think back to when you were a kid. Say you accidentally bumped into one of your friends and made them drop a popsicle that they were eating. You would feel bad that you did that, but it would be just an accident, so you wouldn't feel guilty. Now, say you were angry at this other kid for some reason, and you knocked the popsicle out of his hand to get back at him. Wouldn't you feel guilty afterwards?

In the first case, yes, I'd definitely feel bad. In the second case... maybe? I guess if I were angry at him and did something harmful, yes, I'd probably feel guilty about it afterwards. But I'm not sure that the feeling would necessarily be different from the first case. The third case that I'm pointing to isn't anger, or, at least not the same kind of anger--if I felt that I were justified in knocking the popsicle out of his hand, then I wouldn't feel guilty about it even though it was intentional.


Jellyslayer, what I'm saying is that I don't think anything anyone does can be moral or immoral if they don't have free will. It would be like saying that when plentiful rain caused a farmer's crops to grow, the weather was behaving morally by doing something nice for that farmer. People without free will, like the weather, cannot choose what actions they make, so I don't see how you can say that they are moral or immoral any more than forces of nature are.

I guess the difference is that I look at morality through the lens of altruism versus selfishness. The most important moral questions are the ones where your interests are in conflict with someone else's--if you behave in the manner that puts the interests of the other above your own, those actions are the ones that are generally perceived as moral; conversely, actions where you enrich yourself at someone else's expense are generally those perceived as immoral. The weather has no interests, so it can't interact morally. Admittedly, this isn't an exhaustive definition of morality, but it is the basis of how I perceive moral interactions.


Say we have some society or system with lots of agents making choices based on free will, where the agents repeatly have to make an identical choice between A and B. In that case, we could plot their choices over time. What would this look like? If there is no factor that changes over time, it could only look like random behavior with a certain distribution. No singular choice would be predictable, but there inevitably has to be a distribution in any sort of noise.

Therefore, free will is indistinguishable from randomness.

A deterministic system would also produce this result though, unless you're specifying that each agent has the same inputs--the same experiences, the same emotional states, the same genetics, everything. If the agents aren't indistinguishable, there's no reason to believe that they would always choose the same option even in a deterministic system.

Though, this experiment could provide some interesting insights. If the distribution were random, changing the inputs wouldn't change the distribution. I could pick any collection of people and run them through the experiment, and I'd always end up with the same distribution of choices. In a deterministic system, the distribution could change if I chose a collection of people with different inputs--eg. if the decision were completely random, it wouldn't matter whether the people I chose were all men, all women, or a mixture. If the decision were somehow gender sensitive, then my distribution would change depending on how many men versus women were in my sample volume.

I think suggesting that free will is the result of non-causal processes in many ways represents as much of a problem as suggesting it arises from causal ones. I'm more inclined to refer back to Silfir's point: The universe is more-or-less completely deterministic on large scales, with some random shit thrown in at small scales. However, while it is deterministic in principle, it's indeterministic in any practical sense of the term--there's simply no possible way to have to completely measure the state of the Universe, and predict its future evolution. And since we're inside the Universe, any such measurement would perturb the state of the Universe anyway.

[Stingray1]

This is not really a matter of personal opinion. Scientific insights are that the universe is random.. it has been proven. This is basically what Bell's theorem says.

I am sorry if that sounded arrogant.. but it simply has been shown. Saying that you personally believe that randomness does not exist is just factually wrong.

Could you link these scientific proofs. All that Bell's theorems says is that quantum mechanic theory is wrong and that photons aren't understood, if something like a photon even exist, where is the physical proof.

[JellySlayer]

Could you link these scientific proofs. All that Bell's theorems says is that quantum mechanic theory is wrong and that photons aren't understood, if something like a photon even exist, where is the physical proof.

In brief, Bell's theorem states that you can't have a theory that reproduces all of the results of quantum mechanics that is simultaneously 1) deterministic (ie. hidden variables to describe quantum effects non-randomly) and 2) causal (ie. that causes always precede their effects). One (or both) of these things must be false. We are fairly certain that causality is true, and we are fairly certain that quantum mechanics is true, so this implies that hidden variables are out.

Here's one proof (http://arxiv.org/abs/1212.5214) of Bell's theorem.
Here's a bunch of experiments done (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_test_experiments) to test Bell's theorem.

[Stingray1]

ok, thx. Shoo, I thought there was some definite proofs. I'll have a look at those experiments and see how fairly certain is.

[JellySlayer]

ok, thx. Shoo, I thought there was some definite proofs. I'll have a look at those experiments and see how fairly certain is.

Well, the first linked article is a proof. The rest are verifications.

Proof doesn't come up that much in science, honestly. We can't prove that gravity exists or that light from the Sun causes the Earth to heat up or pretty much anything. We measure a bunch of stuff, and then try to make an educated guess as to what it all means. The better the evidence we have available, the more confidence we can place in our guesses. Proof is mostly on the mathematics side--we draw up a mathematical theory that tries to describe a whole bunch of observations holistically. From the axioms of the theory, you can prove different things (like the Bell's Theorem), and those things that you prove must be true assuming the theory is true. But you can't prove the theory is true; all you can do get it to match observations and predict new ones, and you use this to build up your confidence in the theory.

[grobblewobble]

The universe is more-or-less completely deterministic on large scales, with some random shit thrown in at small scales.
Right for predictable systems like computers, wrong for chaotic processes like the weather. In the long term, tiny fluctuations (even quantum scale) often make a huge difference there (like the difference between sunshine or a storm two weeks from now). I suspect that living beings are as chaotic as the weather in this regard. Which would make them non-deterministic in a meaningful way.

The key point I was making: what do you mean with "free will" when you say it does not exist? What hypothetical sort of free will does not exist and what would it look like if it did?

[KyoShinda]

This thread went over my head extremely quick. lol

Anyways, by the dictionary definition: the power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate; the ability to act at one's own discretion.

I guess it boils down to choosing by preference. A lot of choices we have to make are between short/long run, logic/emotion, and to benefit ourself/others. What this all traces back to is how important free will is in a game.

What makes it really confusing is that if you consider how someone plays a game as free will, it's two orders of free will conflicting with one another if you make more modes. If you choose an easier way out (an easier mode), you are choosing less choice because the harder (in this case regular) mode forces you into desperate situations more often(more decisions have to be made). However, the easier 'less choice' option might be less overwhelming and therefore more enjoyable, but one could argue if that mode choice didn't even exist, the player would get used to the hardcoritude the game normally provides.

In most games with difficulty levels it's usually most beneficial to start on the most difficult mode and play until you know what you're doing (forced evolution of strategy). However, sometimes it's nearly impossible to learn if there's absolutely no progress in such a feat, but in adom you usually learn from mistakes.

Getting back to actual free will, humans choose a decision if it has more benefit than loss. Some people have grown up to value different things because of different realizations, like some never getting caught stealing or someone benefiting from others who they previously helped or became friends with. Associations usually lead to preferences which can lead to specific decisions. In the end, the law isn't really based on the concept of free will but instead it is there to punish those who haven't previously felt the punishment of deeds(or not enough) that trample on other people's rights(oh god, another debate word).

I guess that leads to some people being 'lucky' in that they spawned in the world as they are and went through that certain chain of effect the RNG provided to become people who get high scores or develop a good lawful set of habits.

I forgot where I was going with this but, another point I want to make is that things that exist HAVE to make sense to the smallest extent, otherwise they would not exist. Just because we don't understand something doesn't mean it doesn't have a bag full of simple mechanics on the smallest level. It's usually the fact that we think of things the wrong way, like were trying to find the end of a non-repeating decimal instead of just using a fraction. It may well in fact be impossible to explain the universe with the extent in which we can use our tools, but that is just how the universe limits us and there would be no changing that.

[grobblewobble]

The universe is more-or-less completely deterministic on large scales, with some random shit thrown in at small scales.
Coming back to this point because I'm really surprised you think so..

In fact the large scale structure of the universe itself is the result of quantum fluctuations during the first fraction of a second of the big bang. It doesn't get any more large scale than that.. I could give you more examples. Chaotic processes, where the final outcome depends on the initial state with extreme sensitivity, are the rule in nature. Even with infinite calculation power and perfect knowledge it would be impossible to predict the growth of a forest, star formation and (moment of) death, cloud formation in galaxies.. nearly every large scale natural process is fundamentally non-deterministic because quantum fluctuations, no matter how small they are, turn out to be critical.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory#Sensitivity_to_initial_conditions

Human artifacts are exceptional precisely because they (usually, mostly) behave deterministic.

[GordonOverkill]

Getting back to actual free will, humans choose a decision if it has more benefit than loss. Some people have grown up to value different things because of different realizations, like some never getting caught stealing or someone benefiting from others who they previously helped or became friends with. Associations usually lead to preferences which can lead to specific decisions. In the end, the law isn't really based on the concept of free will but instead it is there to punish those who haven't previously felt the punishment of deeds(or not enough) that trample on other people's rights(oh god, another debate word).

Very interesting posting. When I read about the functions of law and punishment in modern societies, I got the feeling that one important function has not been mentioned yet: Vengeance. At least that's always the impression I have when I hear interviews with the relatives of a crime victim. They want the criminal to get what he deserves and they are honestly disappointed when the punishment is not hard enough. The want him to suffer, just like their relative had to suffer, in order to create something like a feeling of compensative justice. This function of course is not harmed at all by a loss of responsibility on the side of the criminal.

[Joe]

Why can't the calculator choose what choice to make? I mean, what's the difference between a calculator that "chooses" to always spit out the right answers, and one that generates the right answer through some electronics without choosing? Or a computer program that plays tic-tac-toe or chess or whatever? There's clearly options available to them--the calculator has the capacity to generate any answer within the number of digits it generates; the computer programs can play any legal move available to them. Are these not choices in your mind? If not, what distinguishes the type of choice that I'm talking about from the type of choice that you're talking about?

If you're claiming that free will is simply the ability to make choices, then I agree, under that definition, free will exists. But that definition is so broad as to include a whole bunch of other things that most people would not consider free will.

Although you are writing very precise and interesting I'm going to try and bring up a difference between a computers 'choices' and human choices as requested by you.

My main argument would be this: we know a computer program completely and exactly to be determined by it's code. All of the program's types of choices are foreseen by it's programmers. We understand the thing completely. Granted, it can be difficult to find precisely why the program does what it does in a specific case. The language and processes are complex and contain too many variables and numbers to keep track of all the time. But we know, theoretically, how it works.
To me it seems that all of this is not true for humans. We have maybe some slight clues how they work, but isn't it a very quick conclusion that they work like computers just because they resemble eachother somewhat in some aspects? You ask me (or anyone) to point out the difference, but isn't this somewhat strange? I would much rather feel justified in asking you what is actually the same in a computer programs decision-making and a humans. They are so totally different from eachother that it's just hard to find out what is actually the same. For computers we understand how they make choices. For humans, we guess.

Your main argument seems to be that they can be treated with the 'same model' philosophically without creating trouble in the philosophical realm. This may be true. My main argument would be that they cannot be treated with the same model in reality but only, maybe, within the small borders of 'philosophy/neurology of decision-making'. The amount of information/reality which is left out by this model seems huge to me as humans seem to get right away reduced into decision-making computers rather than staying human. And yes, if a human necessarily is treated as a decision-making computer, it will be hard to find differences between them.

This all boils down roughly that I agree with you if you make a philosophical point but disagree if you insist that it covers all of reality, i.e. that your point is valid outside the philosophical realm (which is in my eyes a very small part of reality).


I'm not saying that it's a good (or complete?) moral system, but it is a moral system that definitely doesn't require free will to operate. Then again, I think you probably could make the case that an objective, universal morality probably doesn't exist either. Subjective moralities are good enough for our purposes, for the most part.

I could make a case for universal morality if you like. Apart from that I agree with your first statement and am hesitant about the third.

Btw: ADOMers are really awesome folk creating such a discussion in such an orderly way rather than spamming other topics full about it while banning and cursing eachother :P

[Silfir]

"If there is no free will, criminals can't be held responsible for their actions" is one of those cases where someone forgot to think in the middle of a sentence. If there is no free will, there is no "responsible" or the holding thereof in the way that we understand the terms. But there is still responsibility in the way a computer might be able to parse it. In the end, our ethics, laws, emotions and motivations and what have you can be expressed as conditions for a program to check. Even if we only act according to our societal programming when we punish murderers, in the absence of a concept of "free will" there's nothing wrong with that. It's the only way things could be. What we perceive to be free will, our conscious perhaps, is then a part of the program.

As far as I'm concerned, whether that which I perceive as my own free will is actually free will or not doesn't matter - until it does. If we had deciphered the human brain so far that we could "fix" criminal behavior with a medical procedure instead of engaging in our current justice system, we'd have some actual questions to answer.

EDIT: @Joe: Look at something like this (http://perl.plover.com/obfuscated/). Now expand that level of complexity a billionfold and more, constantly modified and expanded since the beginning of time. If there was an original programmer (some argue there was, some argue there wasn't), they are long since unavailable, and there is no documentation either. Do you think it's likely that we would understand that program completely, today? If the human mind resembles a program, that's a fraction of the complexity it would have.

Even with "regular" human-made programs, without the source code or documentation we're often reduced to experimentation and guesswork on what happens within them. ADOM is a good example.

[Soirana]

Although you are writing very precise and interesting I'm going to try and bring up a difference between a computers 'choices' and human choices as requested by you.

My main argument would be this: we know a computer program completely and exactly to be determined by it's code. All of the program's types of choices are foreseen by it's programmers. We understand the thing completely.
For slight educational -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nondeterministic_algorithm

In simple version you can easily jack in some portion of choice/decision/calculation via random number generation.

If you try decide externally [by results that is] if there is "free will" in that thing one would end in major problem, me thinks.

As far as experimentation on humans goes ---
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17092-possible-site-of-free-will-found-in-brain.html#.Uh35jhElsl8
Let say in my opinion that gives some ground to thinking that "free will" is just the way humans tends to understand themselves...

[grobblewobble]

The joke is that you cannot write an algorithm that generates real random numbers and all the so-called "nondeterministic algorithms" are in reality deterministic algorithms that simulate non-determinism with pseudo-random number generators.

The RNG god that ADOM players worship is a fraud!

[Soirana]

The joke is that you cannot write an algorithm that generates real random numbers and all the so-called "nondeterministic algorithms" are in reality deterministic algorithms that simulate non-determinism with pseudo-random number generators.

The RNG god that ADOM players worship is a fraud!

Personally I consider random number to be just same philosophical category as free will. As far as I am aware there is no method at all to generate "true random" in practice.

although let's imagine a tad:
machine throws reasonably well made dice into chamber with adequate force and angle. Adequate not to smash dice but guarantee several bounces from walls/floor.
afterwards machine uses optics to check number on dice and sucks it for next use.
Any problems with this in methodology?

[grobblewobble]

I guess that could work. If I had to build a true RNG I'd probably use radioactive decay times as input (one of the most practical ways to measure randomness from a quantum process).

[KyoShinda]

As far as experimentation on humans goes ---
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17092-possible-site-of-free-will-found-in-brain.html#.Uh35jhElsl8
Let say in my opinion that gives some ground to thinking that "free will" is just the way humans tends to understand themselves...----That's also similar to how we see. Our mind doesn't just instantly receive the information and tell us that that is what we see, it collects for a little bit longer then patches it altogether to get the big picture, like when you're in a car looking at a fence and are able to see a complete lawn even though the gaps in the fence are really small. It seems like our body takes multiple steps for things that we thought were only one step, and in the case of the human brain, as that mentioned, there's the initial decision then performing the act or not.

[Soirana]

That's also similar to how we see. Our mind doesn't just instantly receive the information and tell us that that is what we see, it collects for a little bit longer then patches it altogether to get the big picture, like when you're in a car looking at a fence and are able to see a complete lawn even though the gaps in the fence are really small. It seems like our body takes multiple steps for things that we thought were only one step, and in the case of the human brain as you mentioned, it would be the initial decision and the act of actually performing later or not.

Well, sight works slightly different - for start pixelated[assuming singular pixels as single generated impulses] starts being transformed inside the eye and than that is processed further inside brain.

Problem is we assume that light>impulses>eye processing/brain processing is deterministic process. [you input same stuff you get same outcome].

Situation>decision>will>motion is philosophically believed not to be deterministic. Despite that there is no evidence of supporting physical system for so called "decision" to appear and the rest of system works exactly as in deterministic variant. That is enough for me personally to have theoretical doubt in "free will" concept.

[JellySlayer]

My main argument would be this: we know a computer program completely and exactly to be determined by it's code. All of the program's types of choices are foreseen by it's programmers. We understand the thing completely. Granted, it can be difficult to find precisely why the program does what it does in a specific case. The language and processes are complex and contain too many variables and numbers to keep track of all the time. But we know, theoretically, how it works.

To me it seems that all of this is not true for humans. We have maybe some slight clues how they work, but isn't it a very quick conclusion that they work like computers just because they resemble eachother somewhat in some aspects? You ask me (or anyone) to point out the difference, but isn't this somewhat strange? I would much rather feel justified in asking you what is actually the same in a computer programs decision-making and a humans. They are so totally different from eachother that it's just hard to find out what is actually the same. For computers we understand how they make choices. For humans, we guess.

Well, we know that they aren't exactly the same, of course. I guess I just don't see that there is anything to suggest that the differences are so fundamental as to be a problem. I mean, I have no idea how nearly all computer programs work; I only see inputs and outputs. It's deterministic in principle, but less in practice. I'd be tempted to say that I have a better idea, subjectively at least, of how people make decisions than how computers do, because I have more experience with the former than the latter. Going back to my comment about chess programs: Any half-decent chess program will not play exactly the same game, even if you make the same moves. There's elements in its decision-making process that are non-deterministic, because a program that always played exactly the same game would be kind of boring to play against. And chess is a more limited system than a lot of more complex problems that computers (and people) have to deal with. We're at the point where we can already generate programs that write other programs, generate code that is never seen or interacted with by the programmers...

Our understanding of the brain is good enough that we can interface with it directly with computers. We can make prosthetic eyes (http://www.livescience.com/22373-an-artificial-eye-that-can-see.html) that are able to interface well enough with the brain hardware that we can restore some level of vision in people with eye damage--and vision, it must be noted, is one of the brain's most complex and demanding systems. I don't think they're fundamentally incompatible. Moreover, I think it's worth pointing out that we've been underestimating machine "intelligence" as a thing from pretty much the time that the first computer was invented. People thought that a computer would never be able to beat a good human player at chess; now the top-rated computer programs are significantly ahead of human players. People thought that computers would never be able to make music, write poetry, or whatever, but, while they aren't very sophisticated, we have computers that can indeed do these things. People thought that a computer would never be able to pass a Turing Test, but it now seems pretty plausible that it will happen in the very near future. I don't see any reason to believe that there is some fundamental barrier to making a computer that is conscious--I don't expect it to happen any time soon, but, based on what we have seen already, I find it hard to doubt the possibility.


I could make a case for universal morality if you like. Apart from that I agree with your first statement and am hesitant about the third.

You're welcome to if you'd like :)


Coming back to this point because I'm really surprised you think so..

In fact the large scale structure of the universe itself is the result of quantum fluctuations during the first fraction of a second of the big bang. It doesn't get any more large scale than that.. I could give you more examples. Chaotic processes, where the final outcome depends on the initial state with extreme sensitivity, are the rule in nature. Even with infinite calculation power and perfect knowledge it would be impossible to predict the growth of a forest, star formation and (moment of) death, cloud formation in galaxies.. nearly every large scale natural process is fundamentally non-deterministic because quantum fluctuations, no matter how small they are, turn out to be critical.

While I might quibble about the details of whether individual examples are really chaotic (as opposed to incalculably deterministic), I'll concede this point in the general case--chaos does seem to be a pretty fundamental property of the Universe.


I guess that could work. If I had to build a true RNG I'd probably use radioactive decay times as input (one of the most practical ways to measure randomness from a quantum process).

There are already quantum random number generators, though none commercially available, AFAIK. You can generate random bits using pretty much any entangled system--photons going through a semi-transparent mirror, electrons through a slit, etc.

[Joe]

Well, we know that they aren't exactly the same, of course. I guess I just don't see that there is anything to suggest that the differences are so fundamental as to be a problem. I mean, I have no idea how nearly all computer programs work; I only see inputs and outputs. It's deterministic in principle, but less in practice. I'd be tempted to say that I have a better idea, subjectively at least, of how people make decisions than how computers do, because I have more experience with the former than the latter. Etc. Etc.

I concede all this in my last post (by saying: Your main argument seems to be that they can be treated with the 'same model' philosophically without creating trouble in the philosophical realm). Could you also tell me what you think about the little part of my post you didn't respond to? For instance: 'This all boils down roughly that I agree with you if you make a philosophical point but disagree if you insist that it covers all of reality, i.e. that your point is valid outside the philosophical realm (which is in my eyes a very small part of reality).'


Going back to my comment about chess programs: Any half-decent chess program will not play exactly the same game, even if you make the same moves. There's elements in its decision-making process that are non-deterministic, because a program that always played exactly the same game would be kind of boring to play against. And chess is a more limited system than a lot of more complex problems that computers (and people) have to deal with.

It's funny since as a chessplayer who regularly plays and watches chess (including computer chess) I know about this a little. Now I see this as a typical example of the huge difference in choice making between humans and computers. Computer chess is about 'pure' chess. Human chess is about way more than just chess. Computer-haters would mean the same by saying that computer chess is 'dead' chess, claiming that 'real' chess is about more than just chess (psychology, self-control, confidence etc..). Can't resist to post this video as example ;)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTWM7LA540Y
So for me, the only thing which is slightly alike when a program and a human play chess is that they both make moves. But the differences are way bigger! The human is playing a game, wasting his time, earning money, 'working' as a professional, meeting friends, challenging himself and others with senseless difficulties. The program on the other hand is running. And that's it. Claiming that they do the same is just missing so much simple information. Only a chess-computer could fail to see the difference.


We're at the point where we can already generate programs that write other programs, generate code that is never seen or interacted with by the programmers...

But this doesn't escape my knowledge of it being a program anyway, since the coded program was made to write code/programs ;)


You're welcome to if you'd like :)

Maybe another thread when this one is exhausted ;)

[Soirana]

Our understanding of the brain is good enough that we can interface with it directly with computers. We can make prosthetic eyes (http://www.livescience.com/22373-an-artificial-eye-that-can-see.html)
An eye which relies on functional retina to work is not prosthetic to be honest not more than mexchanical ventilation machine is prosthetic lung anyway. Ditto for all the "complex".

[grobblewobble]

The ability to make choices, I feel, falls into this category. If this is what you mean by 'free will', then I agree 'free will' exists. But I feel that this definition, without any extra deals, quite easily allows free will for things like plants, computers, bacteria. Anything with the capacity to perform more than one action would fall into this category. The capacity to make choices is a necessary but not sufficient part of the definition of free will.
So how would you define free will?

[Joe]

As far as experimentation on humans goes ---
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17092-possible-site-of-free-will-found-in-brain.html#.Uh35jhElsl8

Let say in my opinion that gives some ground to thinking that "free will" is just the way humans tends to understand themselves...

I agree with that but might read it in a bit a different way of you. I think that you mean to say that it doesn't 'truly exist out there', in reality. It's just how we understand ourselves. Or maybe you mean to say (like Silfir) that it doesn't really matter if it exists or not.

I would say that it is more important to understand yourself than to understand (the rest of) reality. That's why I don't mind giving up free will as a meaningful philosophical expression but don't want to give it up in everyday life. Some posts in this thread have already pointed out the bizarre consequences that would have. Jellyslayer claims that the everyday use of 'free will' is 'trivial', but I think it is a cornerstone of civilization and really pretty important to cling unto. It's only 'trivial' seen through a philosophical looking-glass. In real life (pun intended) it is the best weapon/armor mankind has against all sorts of injustice or downright evilness.

[Soirana]

The ability to make choices, I feel, falls into this category.
If this is what you mean by 'free will', then I agree 'free will' exists.
But I feel that this definition, without any extra deals,
quite easily allows free will for things like plants, computers, bacteria.
Anything with the capacity to perform more than one action would fall into this category.
The capacity to make choices is a necessary but not sufficient part of the definition of free will.
I have a feeling that some mistake ability to interact [or rather react] with making choices.

sunflower does interact with sun by following sun, but they do not make decision. Further on that is the only thing they can do in that situation, meaning not follow is not presented as option, same for calculator - it does not have option to provide wrong/not matching programing answer.
The whole question is of "make choice" being able to choose between viable options. The whole problem is how determine if other choice was viable option or just subjective illusion.

You know conditional reflexes are neither choices nor free will expression and some believe human will is essentially more complex version of these.

[JellySlayer]

I concede all this in my last post (by saying: Your main argument seems to be that they can be treated with the 'same model' philosophically without creating trouble in the philosophical realm). Could you also tell me what you think about the little part of my post you didn't respond to? For instance: 'This all boils down roughly that I agree with you if you make a philosophical point but disagree if you insist that it covers all of reality, i.e. that your point is valid outside the philosophical realm (which is in my eyes a very small part of reality).'

Well, this is kind of backwards from the way I'd think of it. I'd say that the philosophical realm is much, much broader than reality--it includes all possible realities that we can conceive of. The problem is that we don't necessarily know whether a particular philosophical model is applicable to our reality or not. But that said, I don't know for certain that it is applicable, no. I have no reason to believe that mechanical intelligence is impossible, and have no reason to believe that there are processes in living organisms that are fundamentally impossible to replicate using machines. There could be, but, historically we have predicted a number of such things that were believed to be impossible, and have subsequently proven those claims wrong.


So for me, the only thing which is slightly alike when a program and a human play chess is that they both make moves. But the differences are way bigger! The human is playing a game, wasting his time, earning money, 'working' as a professional, meeting friends, challenging himself and others with senseless difficulties. The program on the other hand is running. And that's it. Claiming that they do the same is just missing so much simple information. Only a chess-computer could fail to see the difference.

Sure, but all of those things are unrelated to the specific task of playing chess. Yes, we don't yet have computers that can socialize (at least, not well), or that can respond to your emotional state (at least, not well), or whatever. That doesn't mean that computers can't do these things at all, only that they can't do them yet. I'm not going to deny that it's more fun to play chess against a person than a computer. I'm just not sure that it's relevant to the point that I'm making.


But this doesn't escape my knowledge of it being a program anyway, since the coded program was made to write code/programs ;)

Sure, but why does it matter that you know it's a program?

[edit]

Jellyslayer claims that the everyday use of 'free will' is 'trivial', but I think it is a cornerstone of civilization and really pretty important to cling unto. It's only 'trivial' seen through a philosophical looking-glass. In real life (pun intended) it is the best weapon/armor mankind has against all sorts of injustice or downright evilness.

No, I think defining free will as "the ability to make choices" is a definition that is so expansive that nobody who actually believed in free will would be able to use this definition without further qualification. As I said, if this is what you call free will, then I'll concede it exists. But in that case, I'd argue that there are plenty of things, including computers and most animals, that have free will. If that's what you mean, well, okay, I won't dispute that. It's just not a very interesting definition to me.


So how would you define free will?

This is what I said on this subject earlier in the thread:

"I don't have a great definition for you. I've heard lots, and there's problems with all of them, as far as I'm concerned. I'd say how most people define it is probably something like "The capacity for an agent to evaluate various options presented to them and choose one it prefers. While the preference may be informed by knowledge, past experiences, and emotions, the method of selection itself is ultimately a result solely of the introspection of the agent, and not external forcing." The second clause is the tricky part."

[edit2]Relevant (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/08/130827122713.htm) aside on machines interfacing with humans:


University of Washington researchers have performed what they believe is the first noninvasive human-to-human brain interface, with one researcher able to send a brain signal via the Internet to control the hand motions of a fellow researcher.

[Stingray1]

Well, humans also don't have the option of making non-program decision. Hand-up who can hold his breath for the next 20 minutes.

[Joe]

Well, this is kind of backwards from the way I'd think of it. I'd say that the philosophical realm is much, much broader than reality--it includes all possible realities that we can conceive of. The problem is that we don't necessarily know whether a particular philosophical model is applicable to our reality or not. But that said, I don't know for certain that it is applicable, no. I have no reason to believe that mechanical intelligence is impossible, and have no reason to believe that there are processes in living organisms that are fundamentally impossible to replicate using machines. There could be, but, historically we have predicted a number of such things that were believed to be impossible, and have subsequently proven those claims wrong.

I agree with that and trust you on it (not having followed logic courses with possible universes etc myself..). But isn't it also true that the philosophical realm (including all possible realities within her) does exist within our current reality, as a small part of it?


Sure, but all of those things are unrelated to the specific task of playing chess. Yes, we don't yet have computers that can socialize (at least, not well), or that can respond to your emotional state (at least, not well), or whatever. That doesn't mean that computers can't do these things at all, only that they can't do them yet. I'm not going to deny that it's more fun to play chess against a person than a computer. I'm just not sure that it's relevant to the point that I'm making.

Yes I know I sound stupid. It is indeed all unrelated. But it is still the point I am trying to make. Because when 'exporting' philosophical views into daily life (if you get what I mean) by claiming that free will doesn't exist all these unrelated and non-to-the-point points are starting to become to-the-point suddenly.


Sure, but why does it matter that you know it's a program?

Because (as you say above) the programs are made to perform a task and judged accordingly. The programs 'live' (if you want) in a small universe (chess computers in a chess universe). You can expand that universe as a mental exercise as much as you want, for my part making it infinitely bigger than the human universe (which is already the case in some numerical aspects). But simply because I know it is a program rather than a human I will conclude that it has no free will. Even if it acts much more like it has one than most humans do.

We do not know all this for humans; we don't know if we're programmed, if we work sort-of-alike machines. We don't know in what universe we live. And on that basis I am granting humans a free will while denying it to machines. Simply because we're humans, and we need it to understand ourselves (as Soirana pointed out). My definition of free will is sort of based on ignorance :)

Btw. I'm sorry to say my English isn't really up to the job of having such detailed and nuanced discussions. It might be that I sometimes misunderstand you (and vice-versa) :(

[Soirana]

No, I think defining free will as "the ability to make choices" is a definition that is so expansive that nobody who actually believed in free will would be able to use this definition without further qualification. As I said, if this is what you call free will, then I'll concede it exists. But in that case, I'd argue that there are plenty of things, including computers and most animals, that have free will.

Glad to see you gave up on plants and calculators:)

Now is there any realistic reason to deny that at least some animals [chimps and other monkeys for example] have "free will" under any definition of it?

[JellySlayer]

Glad to see you gave up on plants and calculators:)

Well, a computer is just a really sophisticated calculator. As for plants... well, there are hints of things (http://www.edmontonjournal.com/Growing+body+evidence+shows+plants+make+decisions/3196674/story.html) that could be construed as decision-making processes in plants, yes.

[Soirana]

Well, a computer is just a really sophisticated calculator. As for plants... well, there are hints of things (http://www.edmontonjournal.com/Growing+body+evidence+shows+plants+make+decisions/3196674/story.html) that could be construed as decision-making processes in plants, yes.

same conceptual flaw as before in both cases - mixing reaction as choice. neither computer nor plant does not have proven alternative to known behaviour.

So where does choice come from?

[JellySlayer]

same conceptual flaw as before in both cases - mixing reaction as choice. neither computer nor plant does not have proven alternative to known behaviour.

So where does choice come from?

Is there a difference between reaction and choice? They're response functions to a stimulus.

[Joe]

In a controlled environment they are response functions to a stimulus. In reality the difference is quite along the lines of 'humans choose, nonhuman agents react'. And with good reasons.

[Soirana]

Is there a difference between reaction and choice? They're response functions to a stimulus.

Let see:
reaction:
Change [normally environment]>inner process>outgoing result --- presumably deterministic.

choice:
Change [noramlly environment]>inner process>outgoing results [few possible options]. Different outs to same situation without knowledge about internal process results in reasonable doubt if process was deterministic or not.
PC has chance to imitate choice, but has problems in being known what goes inside which leads to believing that it is based on reaction -- input>execute command, especially since outgoing result of command chain does not have much sense for PC.

I also like this paper about flies quite a lot.
http://blogarchive.brembs.net/e107_files/downloads/maye_2007.pdf

[Soirana]

In a controlled environment they are response functions to a stimulus. In reality the difference is quite along the lines of 'humans choose, nonhuman agents react'. And with good reasons.

Could I get few of these reasons?
Preferably chimps vs humans, please...

[JellySlayer]

In a controlled environment they are response functions to a stimulus. In reality the difference is quite along the lines of 'humans choose, nonhuman agents react'. And with good reasons.

I'd say the difference is more along the lines of: Humans have to process far more stimuli in a much more rapid manner than, say, plants, and have a much wider variety of possible responses available to them. That doesn't mean, however, that it isn't a response function. It just means that the function is continuous rather than discrete.

Incidentally, I'll pass Soirana's question on to you: Are you saying that animals like apes, monkeys, dolphins, etc. don't have free will in your mind? Why not?


Change [noramlly environment]>inner process>outgoing results [few possible options]. Different outs to same situation without knowledge about internal process results in reasonable doubt if process was deterministic or not.

As I pointed out earlier, in the same situation, people actually do behave extremely deterministically. See my example of anterograde amnesia. The problem is that except for a few rather special cases like that, it's impossible to be in the same situation twice, because you always have access to different information. Even if you arrive at the same problem, you have the benefit of knowing what you tried last time.

[Joe]

I don't know about any of the creatures you mentioned as I haven't been any of them.
The reasons are along the line that humans need the free will to understand themselves in daily life. Animals don't need to understand themselves at all (or so it seems), or maybe they understand themselves automatically without needing a free will (because they're just way smarter than us... think of cats)

I really think Soirana was on the right track with his mentioning of understanding ;)

[Soirana]

Most animals are believed to have self-awareness.

I also never have been another person so my guess about their awareness/free will/understanding is deeply hypothetical....

[Soirana]

As I pointed out earlier, in the same situation, people actually do behave extremely deterministically. See my example of anterograde amnesia. The problem is that except for a few rather special cases like that, it's impossible to be in the same situation twice, because you always have access to different information. Even if you arrive at the same problem, you have the benefit of knowing what you tried last time.

Dude had severe frontal lobe injury, didn't he? No surprise he has some mentality problem, shrugs...
I failed to find any other proof of human determenistic behaviour although.

As far as experimentation problem goess... Well, if it would be easy to set up experiment we would already know the answer.

[JellySlayer]

I don't know about any of the creatures you mentioned as I haven't been any of them.
The reasons are along the line that humans need the free will to understand themselves in daily life. Animals don't need to understand themselves at all (or so it seems), or maybe they understand themselves automatically without needing a free will (because they're just way smarter than us... think of cats)

I really think Soirana was on the right track with his mentioning of understanding ;)

I think you probably aren't giving animals enough credit here. Many animals appear to have at least rudimentary moral systems (http://www.livescience.com/24802-animals-have-morals-book.html). They have emotions, memories. They have complex social structures, and have friends, enemies, etc. They can be altruistic or vindictive. The decisions that they have to make are not significantly less complex than those of, say, pre-civilization humans.

If I were to speculate a moment, I might venture that this line of reasoning might lead me to suggest that there is little difference between free will and consciousness. What people call free will is either a property of consciousness, or perhaps is consciousness in its entirety. In which case, I'd suggest that free will/consciousness isn't a binary choice--it's not that you either have consciousness or you don't, but rather, that there is a continuum of possible levels of consciousness and different species--or even different individuals within a species, have different degrees of consciousness, and consequently, different degrees of free will, such as it is.

[Joe]

Most animals are believed to have self-awareness.

I also never have been another person so my guess about their awareness/free will/understanding is deeply hypothetical....

Maybe, but self-awareness (whatever it means) is a far way to go from human self-understanding. Also I don't deny they might have free will of some sort. I was just playing devils advocate, pointing out that according to my own views they don't need it per se. So it is thinkable they don't have a free will (but I wouldn't know if they have). My main point would be to say that for animals it is not as important as for humans to grant freedom to their wills.

About other people: yes, their awareness is theoretically hypothetical too, although less so than of animals (the difference is smaller). Luckily many humans have an upbringing in which they learn to value other people's feelings and thoughts and preferences (and to a lesser extent the same is true for animals). So outside academic philosophy and inside reality there seldomly arises the question whether other people are self-aware or have a free will (if only because it would be so strange to ask someone of which you know/belief he has no self-understanding or awareness but who is just mechanically replying you whether or not he has a free will; whatever he answers will be meaningless because he's not human anymore. There simply ceases to be a need for talking...)

Don't you think yourself that you simply presuppose other people's awareness/understanding? When looking closely in lab-conditions all you have are stimuli+reactions as Jellyslayer rightly points out. I'm quite happy to confess that I'm just prejudiced about human awareness (and free will). Even if it is untrue, I would still live as if it was true. If only to keep my daily life understandable.

[Joe]

I think you probably aren't giving animals enough credit here. Many animals appear to have at least rudimentary moral systems (http://www.livescience.com/24802-animals-have-morals-book.html). They have emotions, memories. They have complex social structures, and have friends, enemies, etc. They can be altruistic or vindictive. The decisions that they have to make are not significantly less complex than those of, say, pre-civilization humans.

In that case I will quite happily grant them a lesser version of free will.


If I were to speculate a moment, I might venture that this line of reasoning might lead me to suggest that there is little difference between free will and consciousness. What people call free will is either a property of consciousness, or perhaps is consciousness in its entirety. In which case, I'd suggest that free will/consciousness isn't a binary choice--it's not that you either have consciousness or you don't, but rather, that there is a continuum of possible levels of consciousness and different species--or even different individuals within a species, have different degrees of consciousness, and consequently, different degrees of free will, such as it is.

Very interesting. I tend to fully agree with that on first sight. It's only the fully functionalistic definition of free will and consciousness which I argue against.

[grobblewobble]

This is what I said on this subject earlier in the thread:

"I don't have a great definition for you. I've heard lots, and there's problems with all of them, as far as I'm concerned. I'd say how most people define it is probably something like "The capacity for an agent to evaluate various options presented to them and choose one it prefers. While the preference may be informed by knowledge, past experiences, and emotions, the method of selection itself is ultimately a result solely of the introspection of the agent, and not external forcing." The second clause is the tricky part."

Thanks - sorry I missed this earlier.

What do you mean with external forcing?

1. Options ruled out because they're impossible? (like teleporting) .. or
2. Options ruled out because they would have a really bad result? (like when someone points a gun at you)

[JellySlayer]

I was thinking mostly of the latter type of case. While there are people who argue that you can't be truly free without essentially godlike (or at least dictatorial) powers, I don't find this reasoning terribly compelling. I suppose if the degree of freedom you have is a continuum, a being with those abilities would certainly be more free than we are.

[KyoShinda]

So maybe having free will is to re-evaluate what is possible instead of just going through the motions.

[grobblewobble]

I was thinking mostly of the latter type of case. While there are people who argue that you can't be truly free without essentially godlike (or at least dictatorial) powers, I don't find this reasoning terribly compelling. I suppose if the degree of freedom you have is a continuum, a being with those abilities would certainly be more free than we are.
I will stick to the example of being forced with a gun, then.

My feeling is that such a situation does not conflict with the concept of free will at all. You are not truly forced; it is just that certain choices will very clearly lead to very bad outcomes. Very few people prefer to die if there is an alternative at all. But you do have a choice. Some people may choose to die if the alternative is to do something terrible. Or choose to attack the person with the gun, even if this means a very high risk of being killed. Heck, some people volunteer to blow themselves up.

It's just the extreme end. Every choice has more preferred and less preferred options*. If someone "forces" you to do something, it just means he tries to make one option as unattractive as possible. But in the end it still depends 100% on the internal evaluation of the person how he responds.

*unless you're indifferent of course, but usually this is not the case

[Stingray1]

Wrt there not being any 'random' processes.
I'd like to rephrase: Every outcome is deterministic. Maybe not now or ever by humans, but by an agent that knows everything but the future. Which implies that it knows the future, oh my.

Sorry, guys I misunderstood what random means.

[grobblewobble]

I'd like to rephrase: Every outcome is deterministic. Maybe not now or ever by humans, but by an agent that knows everything but the future. Which implies that it knows the future, oh my.
Sorry, but no.. even if you do know everything about the present and even if you have infinite computational power, it is still impossible to predict the future.

By the way, even Einstein found this hard to believe.

Here is a good article from Stephen Hawking where this is explained: http://www.hawking.org.uk/does-god-play-dice.html

[Stingray1]

True, but I wasn't referring to me or you or anyone or single or collection of physical agents. Sure, nothing can determine the future, but that does not imply that it is not deterministic.

Edit - I'm not giving up reality just yet.

[KyoShinda]

So that would pretty much mean random is when you can only see the outputs and the mechanics are hidden or too complex. So if we were to understand the human brain down to every movement of particle, we would know every choice it would make in the future, but since we don't know that deep down how it works, it can only be looked at statistically and it's choices, to that extent, are considered random.

Edit: Holy cow, found this video and it's pretty interesting, they talk about a bunch of stuff then tie in it in with free will in the end http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbh5l0b2-0o