A case for free choice

[Mark1031]

Anything that is said to have free-will must possess the following characteristics .

(a) It can make a choice. i.e. given any number of options to choose from it can always pick one out of all the available options. It does this is such a way that it is
(b) Unpredicatable (hence impossible to simulate even in principle), yet
(c) Partially non-random
(d) and thus can be assigned as the responsible entity for making the choice.

As you said this is so loose as to be trivial. Human brains meet a-c but so what it does not seem to get at the essence of free will. If it was a machine and a,c were designed by the creator to favor evil decisions would you assign responsibility to the machine or the builder. For humans if the creator of a/c preferences is past environment, genetics, random developmental events should you assign responsibility to the individual?

 

[betazed]

<snip> Human brains meet a-c <snip>

I am not sure human brains meet any of the criteria (a), (b) or (c) under all conditions.

 

[Aphex_Twin]

@betazed
a) through c) can also be met by any other life form with a central nervous system. Do animals have "responsibility for their actions"? But even the definition of "choice" is weak.

 

[Mark1031]

I am not sure human brains meet any of the criteria (a), (b) or (c) under all conditions.

Examples of where they fall short? I agree sometimes it is difficult to make a decision but we certainly can.

 

[betazed]

@betazed
a) through c) can also be met by any other life form with a central nervous system. Do animals have "responsibility for their actions"? But even the definition of "choice" is weak.

Well, sure we can. But whether we do assign the responsibility or not is arbitrary (which is the reason I put it as a separately). If we do assign the responsibility then it has free-will. Otherwise we are arbitrarily saying that it does not.

p.s. personally I think that if a system obeys a) thru c) then it is responsible for its actions.

 

[Aphex_Twin]

Well, sure we can. But whether we do assign the responsibility or not is arbitrary (which is the reason I put it as a separately). If we do assign the responsibility then it has free-will. Otherwise we are arbitrarily saying that it does not.

p.s. personally I think that if a system obeys a) thru c) then it is responsible for its actions.

Then something has responsibility iff we say so. It would seem then that the meaning of "free will" (derived from your reasoning) has no practical application.

 

[betazed]

Examples of where they fall short? I agree sometimes it is difficult to make a decision but we certainly can.

(b) is an easy case. It is the strong-AI hypothesis (actually it can also be the weak AI hypothesis). Basically, if the brain is running nothing but an algorithm then in principle if not in practice we can simulate the brain on a computer give it all the inputs that a brain is getting and get the exact outputs. So the brain is completely predictable and hence violates (b). Obviously, we are not sure whether teh brain is actually running a algorithm.

(a) is seen frequently among people. In extreme situations/under pressure/in shock etc. people freeze up and are unable to take any decisions irrespective of how many choices we put in front of them. This is not a case of difficulty but inability. It is not so much that the choices are difficult as the brain is temporarily at least unable to make any choices.

(c) I must admit is almost always true. We do behave in patterns. So I guess, I must admit I was in error and the human brain possess (c).

 

[betazed]

Then something has responsibility iff we say so. It would seem then that the meaning of "free will" (derived from your reasoning) has no practical application.

That is a trivial explanation if you so choose.

As I said if (a) to (c) is satisfied then IMO assignment of responsibility is satisfied.

 

[Mark1031]

@BZ: Well there is a random element to brain function even at the single cell level. The same input to a neuron will not produce the same exact output in all cases so I guess you will never get the AI hypothesis.

For a) I didn't know you imposed a time limit but freezing is a temporary event and I would argue is in fact a choice,often a good one. If your time limit is greater than an hour then we should satisfy it in most all cases. If it is less than 50ms then we never do.
Besides what is the basis for arbitrarily imposing this time limit?

PS: While I don’t believe anyone is really responsible for their actions I do believe we need to structure society around the idea that they are as it provides an environmental stimulus that results in a more efficient and productive world and benefits all.

 

[Aphex_Twin]

Well, would a thing that posesses "free will" be distinguishable by a non-deterministic Turing machine?

1. There is an initial set of "internal state"
2. There is an initial set of "rules"
3. Rules can change both internal states, the rules themselves and the environment. We will call these actions "decisions"
4. Decisions are also taken in accordance to a random output from a source of entropy.


As time progresses the internal states alter so it would be practically impossible to derive anything but loose patterns from those machines. By your definition they would have free-will (which I am not really disputing BTW).

 

[WillJ]

They seem to be. The only, and admittedly somewhat shaky, solution to this paradox has to be that children are not indefinitely without that right. They are all equal with adults in that the adults have also had to wait for this right.

And? How does equality justify anything? And if it does justify things, wouldn't that mean the current world (with coercive governments and all) is justified because no one has the complete freedom of choice?

I don't distinguish between what people think is the best for them and what actually is. Nobody can afford to do this, as the consequences of present decisions and choices are always unknown. Defining what is objectively best for an individual is therefore impossible.

I disagree. While I agree that what's "best" for a person *ultimately* comes from his/her own opinion (that's just my definition of "best"), that doesn't imply what one would immediately think it does.

For one thing, people's opinions change over time. In such cases, I consider the opinion that is held for the longest period of time to be the most important. For example, if I buy a refrigerator and for 10 minutes think it's a great thing, but then realize that I could have gotten it for half the price and for the rest of my life I think it was a stupid choice, the latter opinion represents what's "best" for me.

Also, sometimes we think something is good for us only because we think it leads to something else---a more fundamental thing---that we think is good. For example, a person who thinks voting for Bush would be a good idea might derive that preference from his support of the rich having lower taxes. But a person could want to vote for someone because he incorrectly thinks something about that candidate---that person's fundamental preferences can't be "wrong" (since preferences are subjective in nature), but a specific non-fundamental preference can be.

I admit the first thing can't be perfectly predicted, although I think in some cases the imperfection is trivial (although I guess you'll disagree). And the second thing I actually think is objectively determinable in all the cases I can think of.

Well, the point of much of my first answer to you was to outline how man turns into a slave when he is relieved of responsibility for his own life.
But also there is the fundamental problem that the state does not work by consensus or by voluntary means. It enforces and compels its decisions and a minority always suffer. Just because there is a majority for something, it doesn't mean that the rights of individuals can be removed.

Yeah, but as awful as it sounds, people want that.

The irony of the situation is that if the government disappeared and let everyone fulfill their personal choices, no one would be happy about this (except for maybe you ). This was never anyone's choice!

Humans being social creatures, this newfound individual choice would actually be a loss for [nearly] all individuals.

 

[punkbass2000]

@insurgent:

As gothmog has now pointed out a couple times, there is simply no reason that you cannot hold someone responsible just because they don't have free will. I believe what you mean is that, in your estimation, people shouldn't be held responsible for their actions if they don't have free will, which is an altogether different topic.

As for your bit about engagement, I'm not sure why you find it sad, really. Is there some inherent joy in pride? In fact, your entire criticism seems to rest upon a set of a priori beliefs about what constitutes a "good" life, if you will.

 

[punkbass2000]

I think I should throw that I think that it is likely that any case for free will implies at least something of a dualist perspective.

 

[Ayatollah So]

Ayatollah, I think we are in basic agreement.

I think you are saying that humans have a right to act according to who they are and what they have experienced.

While I agree to some extent, I also think society has a right to punish people who violate its laws. That is I think it is proper and necessary that society limit individual human freedoms to some extent. You obviously agree that a person does not have the right to oppress another. You feel it is an intrinsic right, I think it is a function of society. Also, you take your argument a bit too far wrt morallity (which I see as an intrinsic evolutionary property of humans again modified by experience). I agree with your ideas, but don't see them as possessing some sort of objective truth.

Still, it seems you are saying that ones decisions are the result of ones intrinsic character coupled with ones experiences.

We agree even more than you think. I also think society should limit individual freedoms to some extent, in order to promote other freedoms and the general welfare. For example, the US govt taxes people and gives some of the money to the Centers for Disease Control. Every taxpayer's economic freedom is impinged somewhat by the taxes, but almost everyone gets more benefit than what they lose, because we live in a relatively plague-free society. So I part company from libertarians like insurgent in the same place you do.

I also see morality as building on intrinsic evolutionary properties of humans modified by experience. I just don't see how that conflicts with objective (albeit complex) truth.

And yes, I think that decisions are the result of ones intrinsic character coupled with experiences. I also think that's a vital aspect of why we do have free will, as I understand "free will". It's because we take our experiences into account that we are flexible, intelligent decision makers. I wouldn't want my decisions to be random. That wouldn't make me free or responsible.

 

[Ayatollah So]

I think you are making a subtle error. Predictability does not mean that a random event is predicted but rather all events are consistently predicted correctly. In the example above your friend predicted one random event of yours. But that does not mean he can predict you. To predict you he has to consistently predict every future action of yours. In the case that he can actually do that it can be said that you do not have a free will. Your friend is the free-will machine and you are just the actor.

Let my friend be able to predict my every move, I don't mind. He'd have to be a lot smarter than anyone I know, but what the hey, sometimes wildly hypothetical scenarios can be revealing. That wouldn't disprove my free will. Your last sentence repeats the mistake I accused you of before: you assume that free will is somehow exclusionary. Granted that my friend has free will - that doesn't show that I don't. I don't act on his predictions, I act on my decisions. He's imitating me, not vice versa.

I can ignore his predictions and do whatever I want. It's his problem, not mine, to get prediction and decision to agree.

For an in-depth look at the prediction "problem", or how predictability is beside the point when it comes to free will, see
Free Will: A Morality Play Disguised as Bad Science Fiction
by yours truly

 

[insurgent]

@insurgent – sorry I still am not seeing at all why you cannot hold someone responsible for his actions based on a philosophical discussion of weather free will exists. You ignored my comment about the justice system, but it is central. A stable working society requires a system of justice, we all accept that there are mitigating circumstances (my brother dying in a car accident is different from being murdered during a crime) – but again this has nothing to do with free will. We are all accountable for our actions in the context of society, what does this have to do with theoretically being able, or not, to chose a different path of action?

If free will does not exist, there is no justification for a punitive justice system. Free will is the very foundation of our court system. The concept of responsibility is based on the idea of free choice. It makes no sense to punish somebody for something that is not his fault. If his actions were inevitable due to his nature or whatever, he could not have acted otherwise. If he could not have acted otherwise, how can we punish him?
Sure, a court system that is based on issuing treatment verdicts or whatever to correct the individual can exist without free will. That way, the nature which "determines" the individual can be "corrected". But punishments and honour lose all meaning without free will.

Yes, basically what I say above to betazed – a belief in free will is much like a belief in God. It may be true, but no one has true knowledge of it (or if they do they have no way of knowing it); and indeed it has no measurable impact on the physical world other than through human psychology – there is no need for that hypothesis. Weather God created man or man created God, it amounts to the same thing. To paraphrase: how can something feel like pain and not be pain?

I readily admit that this is an emotional issue to me. I feel that I have free will and cannot accept that anybody would say that I haven't.
But if you allow some sort of logic to dictate that this feeling of free will is unreal, then you also remove the idea of responsibility. In a world in which you consider everything an unstoppable chain of cause and effect, where you consider everybody an unwilling product of other things, you will face serious problems.
An example is when somebody has murdered someone else. If the murderer has merely done it because he was determined to do it by factors beyond the control of his (nonexistant) will, then he is as much a victim of his conditions as the victim of the crime is.

There is lots of interesting evidence from neuroscience that actions often precede our awareness of intention. That is, you move to scratch an itch before you ‘decide’ to lift your left hand and scratch your nose.

That is why I distinguish between conscious decisions and basically unconscious decisions. In one of my previous replies to you, I explained it like this:
A smoker might, being preoccupied with something different, talking, eating or whatever, out of habit and dependence reach out for his packet of cigarettes. He might light it and smoke it and not think about what he does. In other words, he is not conscious of his decision.
But if something interrupts him. If he stops and thinks about what he does, he might decide to skip the smoke because it isn't healthy. He might have chosen at some point not to smoke more than five cigarettes a day or something along those lines. If he stops and considers what he should do, he makes a conscious decision. And whether or not he gives in to his urge and smokes a cigarette or he decides not to, he will have made a choice which is an expression of his free will.

Heh, hard facts of reality… amusing. IME, life is only pointless if you feel that people are worthless. Otherwise, love gives meaning, love and service. Again, if it feels like meaning how can it not be meaning?

Love for other people does not feel like meaning to me. The basic fact of it all to me is that we can be sure of one thing: that we are going to die. This makes all our efforts in this life basically pointless. As I see it, acknowledging and accepting this absurdity is prerequisite for happiness. Then one can focus on living life for life's own sake without any illusions. Camus quotes something at the start of his essay "Le Mythe de Sisyphe", which goes like this, IIRC: "Oh my soul, do not seek immortality, but exhaust the realm of what is possible."
I do not know if this applies to you, but I think it is true that if you accept something in your life as meaning and point, you will face existential crises when you realise the absurdity of what you are doing.
Either you will at some point realise that you have achieved what you sought. The pointlessness of your efforts will then overwhelm you, as you realise that it has done nothing for you, but that it will die with you.
You also might at some point realise that you will not achieve what you are trying to do. Then the pointlessness of all your efforts will also hit you as despair and anxiety.
You might also realise that other things were always more important, and then you will suddenly realise that what you have made the meaning of your life was never actually a meaning of life.
Now, if you recognise that life is pointless and then make it whatever you want to make it, then you will never suffer the illusion that will break you upon the dawn of realisation.

Of course I may be wrong in this understanding. It might be hugely subjective. It is not particularly original, but I am not a particularly original individual. But I still find it oddly obvious and true. If you can engage yourself out of the problem, then that is good for you.

I guess you are not following what I am saying. I believe both that free will is a pleasing illusion, and that I am fully responsible for my actions. Who else will take responsibility for them after all? I insist that others do the same because historically speaking a functioning society requires that. We are all accountable, if not responsible on some philosophical grounds.

I don't think I would ever be able to rape my own conscience and force it to draw conclusions and consequences from something that I consider an illusion. If you can live with that, then don't misunderstand me: it's your own business, I just can't identify with it.

So where do you think that free will originates?

I have no idea. Maybe it originates in the fact that we can think abstractly and be conscious about something. That we can think rationally and not be solely guided by our instincts and urges. Because I don't think we are. Our actions do not strike me as advanced manifestations of animal urges and desires. There's something else in humans, there are ethics, there is capacity for something much greater than what we can simply ascribe to determining factors. Maybe it doesn't.
If there is a God, then it must have been his gift to and curse on humans. If there is no God, then it must be the freak result of some mutation or evolutionary development. I do not believe that I will never know the answer.

 

[insurgent]

And? How does equality justify anything? And if it does justify things, wouldn't that mean the current world (with coercive governments and all) is justified because no one has the complete freedom of choice?

It doesn't justify anything. I just thought that your point was that since we discriminate against children, there is no reason we shouldn't discriminate others. But since we are all children at some point and must suffer from the same discrimination, there is in fact no discrimination between individuals when it comes to the right to choose.

For one thing, people's opinions change over time. In such cases, I consider the opinion that is held for the longest period of time to be the most important. For example, if I buy a refrigerator and for 10 minutes think it's a great thing, but then realize that I could have gotten it for half the price and for the rest of my life I think it was a stupid choice, the latter opinion represents what's "best" for me.

I don't think that you can possibly distinguish and judge which desires of others are more real or permanent than others. The individual himself will have to be conscious about this and choose rationally based on this realisation.

Also, sometimes we think something is good for us only because we think it leads to something else---a more fundamental thing---that we think is good. For example, a person who thinks voting for Bush would be a good idea might derive that preference from his support of the rich having lower taxes. But a person could want to vote for someone because he incorrectly thinks something about that candidate---that person's fundamental preferences can't be "wrong" (since preferences are subjective in nature), but a specific non-fundamental preference can be.

Admittedly, I don't understand what you are saying. Are you merely making a point about misinformation, or what is it?

Yeah, but as awful as it sounds, people want that.

Indeed, most people want that. I'm just trying to convince some of them to change that preference as it is a serious problem in my opinion.

Humans being social creatures, this newfound individual choice would actually be a loss for [nearly] all individuals.

I disagree with the notion that a coercive state is necessary for communities, societies or groups to work together as social creatures.

 

[WillJ]

It doesn't justify anything. I just thought that your point was that since we discriminate against children, there is no reason we shouldn't discriminate others. But since we are all children at some point and must suffer from the same discrimination, there is in fact no discrimination between individuals when it comes to the right to choose.

But I was asking why discrimination per se is the issue. Doesn't make much sense to me. After all, killing one person is better than blowing up the planet, right?

Wouldn't you say that in the current world, no one has the complete freedom of choice? And don't you think this is a problem? Well, it seems to me that if you want to be logically consistent, you shouldn't think this is a problem, because no one's being discriminated against. We're all in the same boat.

I don't think that you can possibly distinguish and judge which desires of others are more real or permanent than others. The individual himself will have to be conscious about this and choose rationally based on this realisation.

I agree, if I understand what you're saying.

It's true that a refrigerator can't be good for a person if that person never thinks this him/herself. But when actually buying the refrigerator, he/she won't be able to perfectly predict whether or not he/she will like it. And it's my opinion that in some cases, someone else could actually tell better than this particular person (although admittedly not in the case of buying refrigerators), although you probably disagree.

Admittedly, I don't understand what you are saying. Are you merely making a point about misinformation, or what is it?

I understand the confusion, considering my example didn't match what I was saying. A new one: imagine someone voting for a run-of-the-mill Democrat because this voter supports lower taxes for the rich. This is a mistake. The "fundamental" choice in this case is that the person decides the rich should have lower taxes---and you can't really argue with that, if it's an axiom of this person (which it's probably not, but let's pretend it is). But the "logically dependent" choice is that the person decides to vote for a Democrat---the person is thus mistaken, as this choice doesn't reflect what this person, deep down, really wants (lower taxes for the rich). Voting for a Republican, Libertarian, or Constitution party candidate would be the right thing to do.

And if, hypothetically speaking, I knew someone who was planning on voting for a Democrat because they wanted lower taxes for the rich, I would have no ethical problem with forcing them to vote for a Republican instead, assuming I couldn't simply convince them. Would you? (Note that I understand the slippery slope of this, and I am certainly careful when applying this bit of moral philosophy to the real world.)

Indeed, most people want that. I'm just trying to convince some of them to change that preference as it is a serious problem in my opinion.

I disagree with the notion that a coercive state is necessary for communities, societies or groups to work together as social creatures.

I wasn't quite saying that the state is necessary for us to work together. (I do think this, but it's a separate issue.)

I was saying (not very well, I admit) that if you look at just one particular individual, he would almost certainly appreciate being given the full freedom of choice. With this freedom, he could keep all his hard-earned money, do all the recreational drugs he wants, etc. And if you wanted to go particularly far, he could kill anyone he doesn't like.

So if you asked just one person if he would like complete freedom, I imagine he would say yes. But if the populace at large were asked, with the understanding that all individuals would be given this freedom, maybe .01% of people would say they would like this.

So why do you think this is a problem? Don't people always know what's best for them? Wouldn't thinking this is a problem be insulting the people's choice?

 

[betazed]

I don't act on his predictions, I act on my decisions.

That is what you think and what you perceive. I am aware that you as a human being perceive that you have this so called nebulous free-will. What I am trying to do here is create a conception/description/explanation of free will that does not depend on feelings/perceptions because I am not so sure I want to base any rational argument on human "feelings".

I can ignore his predictions and do whatever I want.

No you can't. You only think and feel you can and your feelings are irrelevant. if his prediction is 100% correct then you must always do exactly as he predicted. While doing what he predicted you are free to "feel" whatever you like.

Think of it this way. I have a computer program running on a computer churning out pseudo-random numbers on computer A. I run another copy of the program on another computer, computer B, starting is out just one second before A. B will correctly predict the random sequence on A from here on to eternity. However, A is a cognitive machine made of bio-neural chips and thinks that it has "free-will" and "thinks" it can make a choice. (But it can't really, because all it is doing is running an algorithm.) So just because A feels that way should we say that A has free-will when we know that A is pre-ordained to give us a fixed and known sequence?

Can't understand where your confusion is. The argument is crystal clear.

 

[betazed]

Well, would a thing that posesses "free will" be distinguishable by a non-deterministic Turing machine?

As my Automata Theory professor used to say "A Turing Machine is a Turing Machine is a Turing Machine". Non-deterministic or not it is just a TM. Hence it is a predictable algorithm that can be run on a computer. (A non-deterministic TM just requires lots of deterministic TMs to simulate).

hence by definition it cannot have a "free-will".

A free-will machine cannot be a TM (of any kind).