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.

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.

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?