Free Will

[Polymath257]

I'm not making sense of why you are having that difficulty.


Part of the system. Not separate from it.
Okay, let's go with that.
Your hands are part of your body. Can your hands do anything different to your body?

Since my hands are part of my body, this is an example of my body doing something to itself.

For example, can your hand take a knife, and cut your body? What drives your hands to do this?

My brain.

I hope you don't tell me your brain... but just in case... what drives your brain to drive your hand?

History and the laws of physics and chemistry?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Since my hands are part of my body, this is an example of my body doing something to itself.

My brain.

History and the laws of physics and chemistry?

If you look close to how history and brains work, you will notice that brains are embedded in ideas or if you like culture. And thus there is so far no truly objective culture, because even the idea that objectivity is better than subjectivity, is a subjective idea.

 

[Polymath257]

If you look close to how history and brains work, you will notice that brains are embedded in ideas or if you like culture. And thus there is so far no truly objective culture, because even the idea that objectivity is better than subjectivity, is a subjective idea.

Yes, we all absorb culture through our interaction with others. The shared goals and values of that culture affect us even if we ultimately reject them.

So?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Yes, we all absorb culture through our interaction with others. The shared goals and values of that culture affect us even if we ultimately reject them.

So?

That includes in the end everything we do. I once heard it described as that humans live in a cognitive reality. It means that some of the question you ask or I ask are not science in the strong sense.

 

[Polymath257]

That includes in the end everything we do. I once heard it described as that humans live in a cognitive reality. It means that some of the question you ask or I ask are not science in the strong sense.

Again, so? I'm trying to figure out how this is relevant to the question at hand: whether free will is possible or not.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Again, so? I'm trying to figure out how this is relevant to the question at hand: whether free will is possible or not.

Maybe the answer is that we can't know that, because we can't get outside our cognition to check if our cognition work as free will.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

And my point is that even the choice of the 'whole me' might be pre-determined.

It seems to me that for the decision to be 'free', there has to be more than one possible future and that something *I* do affects which future actually occurs. If, instead, there is only one possible future (because the laws of physics determine precisely what will happen) or if the specific future that occurs is determined even before I start to process the data, or if the specific future that occurs is totally random and 'I' have no causal bearing on the outcome, then I don't see how the choice is 'free'.

The video @vulcanlogician gave made the relevant points very well, I thought. Post #173

I confess it freely, I have a terrible time with this notion of the laws of physics determining only one possible future, and my reason has to do with what was discussed previously -- the Butterfly Effect, in the presences of minds.

When I consider the question of making choices, for example, is it possible the smallest input -- say catching a hawk flying outside my window from the corner of my eye -- not have an impact on the choice I make? How likely is it, I have to ask, that physics determined precisely when the rabbit decided to move that caught the hawk's eye that led it to bank towards my window? Now multiply all that by trillions of actions and billions of minds. To me, that would be indistinguishable from random inputs.

No, determinism is not really conceivable, in my view. (It might be, if there were no minds of any kind, but there are.)

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I confess it freely, I have a terrible time with this notion of the laws of physics determining only one possible future, and my reason has to do with what was discussed previously -- the Butterfly Effect, in the presences of minds.

When I consider the question of making choices, for example, is it possible the smallest input -- say catching a hawk flying outside my window from the corner of my eye -- not have an impact on the choice I make? How likely is it, I have to ask, that physics determined precisely when the rabbit decided to move that caught the hawk's eye that led it to bank towards my window? Now multiply all that by trillions of actions and billions of minds.

No, determinism is not really conceivable, in my view. (It might be, if there were no minds of any kind, but there are.)

Yeah, but that in one reading means that your choice is not free, it is random.

 

[Polymath257]

I confess it freely, I have a terrible time with this notion of the laws of physics determining only one possible future, and my reason has to do with what was discussed previously -- the Butterfly Effect, in the presences of minds.

When I consider the question of making choices, for example, is it possible the smallest input -- say catching a hawk flying outside my window from the corner of my eye -- not have an impact on the choice I make? How likely is it, I have to ask, that physics determined precisely when the rabbit decided to move that caught the hawk's eye that led it to bank towards my window? Now multiply all that by trillions of actions and billions of minds. To me, that would be indistinguishable from random inputs.

No, determinism is not really conceivable, in my view. (It might be, if there were no minds of any kind, but there are.)

One aspect of this, though, is the butterfly effect is an aspect of certain *deterministic* systems. In these system, the result is *determined* once the initial conditions are set. But, if the initial conditions are slightly different, the system evolves in a very different way.

And yes, one of the difficulties is that chaotic systems (those deterministic systems with sensitive dependence on initial conditions) cannot be precisely predicted and thereby *look* like probabilistic systems, even though they are not.

So, yes, in a *classical* system, in which the basic physical laws are deterministic, the physics *does* determine when the rabbit will decide to move. And that was determined by the initial conditions billions of years ago. The fact that if the initial conditions were slightly different there may not have been a rabbit at all does not negate the deterministic aspect of the system.

Now, we know that the real world is NOT deterministic in this sense. Quantum mechanics has an inherent and unavoidable probabilistic nature. One question that has not been sufficiently investigated, I think, is what happens to quantum systems that would be chaotic in classical physics.

But I'm not sure that quantum mechanics saves free will. If anything, it seems to make the problems even more significant. Instead of our choices being determined by initial conditions billions of years ago, they are determined by random processes right now.

Nobody disagrees with the fact that we all have at least an *illusion* of free will. The question is whether that illusion actually matches reality in some way and, if so, the specifics of that matching.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

One aspect of this, though, is the butterfly effect is an aspect of certain *deterministic* systems. In these system, the result is *determined* once the initial conditions are set. But, if the initial conditions are slightly different, the system evolves in a very different way.

And yes, one of the difficulties is that chaotic systems (those deterministic systems with sensitive dependence on initial conditions) cannot be precisely predicted and thereby *look* like probabilistic systems, even though they are not.

So, yes, in a *classical* system, in which the basic physical laws are deterministic, the physics *does* determine when the rabbit will decide to move. And that was determined by the initial conditions billions of years ago. The fact that if the initial conditions were slightly different there may not have been a rabbit at all does not negate the deterministic aspect of the system.

Now, we know that the real world is NOT deterministic in this sense. Quantum mechanics has an inherent and unavoidable probabilistic nature. One question that has not been sufficiently investigated, I think, is what happens to quantum systems that would be chaotic in classical physics.

But I'm not sure that quantum mechanics saves free will. If anything, it seems to make the problems even more significant. Instead of our choices being determined by initial conditions billions of years ago, they are determined by random processes right now.

Nobody disagrees with the fact that we all have at least an *illusion* of free will. The question is whether that illusion actually matches reality in some way and, if so, the specifics of that matching.

But do you see only a single, large system -- the universe and all within? Or is it possible that it is made of systems that, for one reason or another, can be seen as deterministic within themselves, and subject to changing "initial conditions" moment-to-moment through something as simple as the feedback our neural networks provide? This is more how I see it -- that my responses to my own thoughts have the ability to change the trajectory of the process itself.

 

[RestlessSoul]

And how can that be determined? For that matter, how can I know whether it is 'like something' to be me?

How is it 'being like something' different than having a sense of position and orientation?

How can I know that I am conscious?

That you can question your consciousness, is how you know you are conscious. Cogito ergo dubito, dubito ergo sum.

 

[Polymath257]

That you can question your consciousness, is how you know you are conscious. Cogito ergo dubito, dubito ergo sum.

So if I program an AI to question its own consciousness, it is thereby conscious? That seems unlikely.

 

[Polymath257]

But do you see only a single, large system -- the universe and all within? Or is it possible that it is made of systems that, for one reason or another, can be seen as deterministic within themselves, and subject to changing "initial conditions" moment-to-moment through something as simple as the feedback our neural networks provide? This is more how I see it -- that my responses to my own thoughts have the ability to change the trajectory of the process itself.

No, I don't see any subsystem as possibly deterministic within itself. ALL subsystems interact with their environment and that environment thereby affects how they behave. Some interact in stronger ways, others is weaker ways, but ALL subsystems interact to some degree (otherwise we couldn't even know they exist at all).

One of the characteristics of people (and life in general) is that we interact strongly with our environment and that environment also interacts strongly with us through our senses (if no other way). So we are most certainly NOT an enclosed system.

 

[RestlessSoul]

So if I program an AI to question its own consciousness, it is thereby conscious? That seems unlikely.

Depends how it answers the questions you program it to ask itself, I suppose. Is there any reason, in principle, why an A.I. shouldn't develop consciousness? We're probably a long way from that now, and I've no idea how you'd test for it, but why does it seem unlikely?

 

[RestlessSoul]

Again, so? I'm trying to figure out how this is relevant to the question at hand: whether free will is possible or not.

Have you ever forced yourself to do something you really didn't want to do, just for exercise? It requires a considerable effort of will, does it not, to do something like swim in icy water, or climb a scaffold if you are afraid of heights? Experiences like these give us a visceral sense of the power of the will. Of course the experience could be illusory, but sometimes you have to trust in the veracity of lived experience.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

No, I don't see any subsystem as possibly deterministic within itself. ALL subsystems interact with their environment and that environment thereby affects how they behave. Some interact in stronger ways, others is weaker ways, but ALL subsystems interact to some degree (otherwise we couldn't even know they exist at all).

One of the characteristics of people (and life in general) is that we interact strongly with our environment and that environment also interacts strongly with us through our senses (if no other way). So we are most certainly NOT an enclosed system.

I can't help it, but something subtle and very deep is missing.

Think about this: if you really believe that you have no free will (by which I mean "whole-you free will," not "conscious-you free will"), then every time you made a promise you would know by definition that you are lying -- that you have no possible reason to believe that you could deliver on your promise, because you have no possible knowledge of, or even reason to suspect, what you will do next, let alone when the promise is due to be kept.

Let me ask you: do you feel that way?

I'm attaching a PDF, not very long, in which Daniel Dennett discusses some of this issue in "Philosophy Bites Again" printed by Oxford University Press.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

So if I program an AI to question its own consciousness, it is thereby conscious? That seems unlikely.

You know, I am not so sure how unlikely that is. I'm really not. After all, if you were to do that, you are in effect building in a feedback loop making AI aware of its own nature, and that awareness (by the nature of AI learning) could well become part of that nature.

 

[Polymath257]

Have you ever forced yourself to do something you really didn't want to do, just for exercise? It requires a considerable effort of will, does it not, to do something like swim in icy water, or climb a scaffold if you are afraid of heights? Experiences like these give us a visceral sense of the power of the will. Of course the experience could be illusory, but sometimes you have to trust in the veracity of lived experience.

Sorry, but that seems incoherent to me. I may not like what I am doing, but 'forcing myself' means that I *want* to do it for some reason, even if it is just for bragging rights.

So, my desire might be to 'overcome my fears'. I have to *want* to overcome my fears and that desire has to overwhelm the desire to avoid facing my fears. If I didn't *want* it, and I am not forced, it wouldn't happen.

I realize there is a challenge and facing that challenge is more important to me than avoiding the fear *in that instant*.

So, yes, it requires an 'effort of will', but what is happening is competing desires and one wins out. I *want* the outcome unless I simply fail in my desire.

 

[Polymath257]

I can't help it, but something subtle and very deep is missing.

Think about this: if you really believe that you have no free will (by which I mean "whole-you free will," not "conscious-you free will"),

My situation is worse than that: I have no idea what it even means to have 'free will' and how it could be consistent with what we know about physics.

then every time you made a promise you would know by definition that you are lying -- that you have no possible reason to believe that you could deliver on your promise, because you have no possible knowledge of, or even reason to suspect, what you will do next, let alone when the promise is due to be kept.

One good reason to not make many promises. And your assumption that I have no self-knowledge is wrong. I can make reasonable predictions of my future behavior and desires. I base what few promises I make on such predictions.

Let me ask you: do you feel that way?

I don't consider it to be a lie if I am making a reasonable prediction of my future desires.

I'm attaching a PDF, not very long, in which Daniel Dennett discusses some of this issue in "Philosophy Bites Again" printed by Oxford University Press.

Hmm..I disagree with Dennett in this instance. Having an atom-by-atom description *does* give the causal description, even if it is in far more detail than is useful.

For example, suppose I have a gas at high pressure and I open a valve letting out the gas. the low level description is in terms of the motion of the individual molecules and it *does* give the reason that the gas leaves the chamber. BUT, there is also a simplified, higher level version in terms of pressure that *reduces* to the atomic description but is simpler for us to understand. the atomic level description is more accurate and detailed. The pressure description is simpler, but leaves out a lot of the details. BOTH are correct.

In the same way, an atomic level description of the brain *does* contain the information required to understand how and why a decision is made. And, in fact, it is more accurate than a higher level description in terms of consciousness and desires. The higher level description is a *simpified* version of the atomic description that leaves out a LOT of details in the interests of simplicity. Both are true, but the atomic is far more detailed and correct.

 

[RestlessSoul]

Sorry, but that seems incoherent to me. I may not like what I am doing, but 'forcing myself' means that I *want* to do it for some reason, even if it is just for bragging rights.

So, my desire might be to 'overcome my fears'. I have to *want* to overcome my fears and that desire has to overwhelm the desire to avoid facing my fears. If I didn't *want* it, and I am not forced, it wouldn't happen.

I realize there is a challenge and facing that challenge is more important to me than avoiding the fear *in that instant*.

So, yes, it requires an 'effort of will', but what is happening is competing desires and one wins out. I *want* the outcome unless I simply fail in my desire.

Okay, so you are choosing between competing desires or impulses; and we know what choice implies.

In choosing the more difficult of two options, one may have to overcome considerable internal resistance. Doing this requires a mindset we may describe as a conscious determination. You don’t need me to unpack the implications of that last sentence, I’m sure.