Free Will

[Sidhe]

That's not fact, that's illusion - if you mean only one possible path. If you mean only one actual path, that's not a problem (and if it were, the only known theory to solve it would be Many Worlds Interpretation, which, ironically enough, is deterministic.)

No it isn't? How do you make that out, if all possible results can happen in many worlds and there's no particular result favoured over another, and there is no future or past? Then you can only conclude free will?

Many worlds assumes the Copenhagen Interpretation is true thus there are an almost infinite number of possibilities given a certain circumstance in the quantum world, Ie the possibilities are 2 to infinity or close enough as to make no difference, with no one possibility more likely than another and thus in the macro world possible outcomes are potentially infinite.

 

[Ayatollah So]

Ayatollah So

Let's just end this discussion with the realization that we interpret determinism in vastly different ways. I think your interpretation is way off, but that's another topic of discussion for another thread.

OK. For anyone who's interested, I got my definition from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (link). My summary in post #213 was based on this summary on that website:

We can now put our -- still vague -- pieces together. Determinism requires a world that (a) has a well-defined state or description, at any given time, and (b) laws of nature that are true at all places and times. If we have all these, then if (a) and (b) together logically entail the state of the world at all other times (or, at least, all times later than that given in (b)), the world is deterministic.

 

[Ayatollah So]

No it isn't? How do you make that out, if all possible results can happen in many worlds and there's no particular result favoured over another, and there is no future or past? Then you can only conclude free will?

Many worlds assumes the Copenhagen Interpretation is true [...]

I don't get your question or argument. Are you suggesting that Many Worlds Interpretation is not deterministic? The received view says it is. There is nothing chancy about a quantum experiment, because ALL of the results will happen, every time, according to MWI.

Can you give me a link so I can learn about this "no future or past" idea?

 

[Mise]

Quick question about this modal logic stuff.

In the link, it gave an example with Diana planting some plants. Two statements were given:

A: Diana exactly 6 rosebushes.
B: Diana plants less than 8 rosebushes.

The crux of it seems to be that the following statements are modal-logically different:

(1) It is impossible (for A to be true and for B to be false)
(2) If A is false, then it is impossible for B to be false.

Am I right so far?

I can see how the two (English) sentences are textually different. I can also see how the symbolic sentences might be logically different (although I don't know how to do logical algebra on the symbolic statements in the link, I'll take their word that the two are not equivalent).

However, I fail to see how that makes a difference. It may be true that B is not impossible given A, but we also know that B is not true given A. I see no reason why I cannot claim that if A is true, then B is not true.

AFAICT, Warpus is claiming that, if determinism is true, then free will is impossible. This may not be true in the modal-logical sense, but in the sense that everyone else in the thread is taking it, he is really claiming that, if determinism is true, then free will is false. Not necessarily false, but actually false.

I don't know anything about this stuff beyond what I've just read from your link, but I think insisting on the distinction between "necessarily false" and "false" is quite mischaracterising what Warpus is saying. I'd be happy to assert, not that B is necessarily false given A, but that it is in actual fact false, for all useful discussion. "The truth of a proposition concerning your future behavior does not make that future behavior necessary." No, but it does make that future behaviour true, so what's the difference? If it's not necessary, but it is true, then what's the difference? How can I change it, if it is true?

I'm struggling with the "misleading grammar" involved here... I guess I should be asking, is there a way in which Diane could plant exactly 6 rosebushes, without the statement, "Diane planted less than 8 rosebushes" being true.

 

[warpus]

AFAICT, Warpus is claiming that, if determinism is true, then free will is impossible. This may not be true in the modal-logical sense, but in the sense that everyone else in the thread is taking it, he is really claiming that, if determinism is true, then free will is false. Not necessarily false, but actually false.

Yes, although I claim that it would be necessarily false as well.

 

[Ayatollah So]

The crux of it seems to be that the following statements are modal-logically different:
(1) It is impossible (for A to be true and for B to be false)
(2) If A is false, then it is impossible for B to be false.

Am I right so far?

Typo: the first "false" in (2) should be "true". Otherwise, right so far.

AFAICT, Warpus is claiming that, if determinism is true, then free will is impossible. This may not be true in the modal-logical sense, but in the sense that everyone else in the thread is taking it, he is really claiming that, if determinism is true, then free will is false. Not necessarily false, but actually false.

If that weaker statement could be established, my views on the subject would have to change. But, I don't see this point as the point where "necessarily" and "possibly" come into play and cause disagreement. Rather, it is concerning a person's options and actions. That's where we need to be ultra careful about what we say is necessily true, or what is impossible, and what follows or doesn't follow from deterministic theories.

"The truth of a proposition concerning your future behavior does not make that future behavior necessary." No, but it does make that future behaviour true, so what's the difference? If it's not necessary, but it is true, then what's the difference? How can I change it, if it is true?

What do you want to change - the behavior, or the truth-values of propositions? I think if we can control our behavior, that suffices. The truth-values of the propositions are dependent on the behavior, not the other way around. The behavior is the horse, the proposition is the cart which is just along for the ride.

If you're quitting smoking, you've got some behavior you want to change. But if we're just talking about the general case of some future behavior, which someone has said something true about, it may be something you've never done before. In which case, we shouldn't be talking about changing it. We should be talking about selecting it.

So, does this guy's true statement prevent me from selecting something different? No, that would be putting the cart before the horse. Even if he knows what I'm going to do, that doesn't stop me from doing whatever I want. Knowledge, to be knowledge, needs to be faithful to the subject matter - in this case, me and my actions. That makes my actions the horse and his predictions the cart.

 

[warpus]

So, does this guy's true statement prevent me from selecting something different? No, that would be putting the cart before the horse. Even if he knows what I'm going to do, that doesn't stop me from doing whatever I want. Knowledge, to be knowledge, needs to be faithful to the subject matter - in this case, me and my actions. That makes my actions the horse and his predictions the cart.

It always seems to come back to this. You are essentially saying: "we are conscious & can make decisions, therefore free will exists".

I was arguing free will from an entirely different angle, claiming that free will is not obvious, and that we'd need a nondeterministic universe for it to be even possible.. which is the type of universe we appear to be living in, so so far so good.

You do appear to be stuck on this whole "knowing something will happen doesn't mean there are other possibilities". This is just an argument I was making, assuming that the universe were deterministic. You have been taking this argument and applying it to your argument, which is approaching the problem from an entirely different angle.. thus the disagreement.

 

[ArneHD]

I do not belive in Free Will in the traditional sence of the word. People are influenced by their environment to such an extent that, if we knew everything possible about his or her environment, we could tell more or less what his/her personality is like and how he/she will react in any given situation.

The fundamental part of this belief is that humans DO have some Free Will within a framework of environment. If presented with two options, a human has a chance of going in one direction and another chance to go in another, say in this case 70% and 30%. This means that humans have some free will, but we are not free from our environment.

 

[Ayatollah So]

It always seems to come back to this. You are essentially saying: "we are conscious & can make decisions, therefore free will exists".

I was arguing free will from an entirely different angle, claiming that free will is not obvious, and that we'd need a nondeterministic universe for it to be even possible.. which is the type of universe we appear to be living in, so so far so good.

You're right about what I'm essentially saying. The only way in which free will could turn out to be an illusion, is if consciousness turned out to be epiphenomenal. I.e., if the things we think are the results of conscious mental activity turned out really to be independent of consciousness, and the correlation between them were just a systematically misleading pattern. Deterministic theories generally don't imply that, so they're not in conflict with free will.

You do appear to be stuck on this whole "knowing something will happen doesn't mean there are[n't] other possibilities".

Maybe, but in this case I was responding to this bit from Mise:

"The truth of a proposition concerning your future behavior does not make that future behavior necessary." No, but it does make that future behaviour true, so what's the difference? [...] How can I change it, if it is true?

 

[brennan]

I don't get your question or argument. Are you suggesting that Many Worlds Interpretation is not deterministic? The received view says it is. There is nothing chancy about a quantum experiment, because ALL of the results will happen, every time, according to MWI.

Ahem; it's non-deterministic, because in the universe you are in, it is not possible to predict which particular result did happen.

 

[aaglo]

What is free will?

Free will is a song by Rush

 

[Mise]

Typo: the first "false" in (2) should be "true". Otherwise, right so far.



If that weaker statement could be established, my views on the subject would have to change. But, I don't see this point as the point where "necessarily" and "possibly" come into play and cause disagreement. Rather, it is concerning a person's options and actions. That's where we need to be ultra careful about what we say is necessily true, or what is impossible, and what follows or doesn't follow from deterministic theories.



What do you want to change - the behavior, or the truth-values of propositions? I think if we can control our behavior, that suffices. The truth-values of the propositions are dependent on the behavior, not the other way around. The behavior is the horse, the proposition is the cart which is just along for the ride.

If you're quitting smoking, you've got some behavior you want to change. But if we're just talking about the general case of some future behavior, which someone has said something true about, it may be something you've never done before. In which case, we shouldn't be talking about changing it. We should be talking about selecting it.

So, does this guy's true statement prevent me from selecting something different? No, that would be putting the cart before the horse. Even if he knows what I'm going to do, that doesn't stop me from doing whatever I want. Knowledge, to be knowledge, needs to be faithful to the subject matter - in this case, me and my actions. That makes my actions the horse and his predictions the cart.

I think I have a problem with distinguishing between behaviour and the outcome of that behaviour. You seem to suggest that, if someone states that we are destined toward some particular outcome, we still have free will, in that we can change our behaviour, and that since our actions can be changed (or selected from a range of possible actions), we have free will. But what if the prediction that the guy says is about our actions specifically? Or even our thought processes behind those actions? (Be those thought processes subvocalised, conscious thoughts, or impulsive, subconscious thoughts.)

 

[CartesianFart]

Quick question about this modal logic stuff.

In the link, it gave an example with Diana planting some plants. Two statements were given:

A: Diana exactly 6 rosebushes.
B: Diana plants less than 8 rosebushes.

The crux of it seems to be that the following statements are modal-logically different:

(1) It is impossible (for A to be true and for B to be false)
(2) If A is false, then it is impossible for B to be false.

Am I right so far?

I can see how the two (English) sentences are textually different. I can also see how the symbolic sentences might be logically different (although I don't know how to do logical algebra on the symbolic statements in the link, I'll take their word that the two are not equivalent).

However, I fail to see how that makes a difference. It may be true that B is not impossible given A, but we also know that B is not true given A. I see no reason why I cannot claim that if A is true, then B is not true.

AFAICT, Warpus is claiming that, if determinism is true, then free will is impossible. This may not be true in the modal-logical sense, but in the sense that everyone else in the thread is taking it, he is really claiming that, if determinism is true, then free will is false. Not necessarily false, but actually false.

I don't know anything about this stuff beyond what I've just read from your link, but I think insisting on the distinction between "necessarily false" and "false" is quite mischaracterising what Warpus is saying. I'd be happy to assert, not that B is necessarily false given A, but that it is in actual fact false, for all useful discussion. "The truth of a proposition concerning your future behavior does not make that future behavior necessary." No, but it does make that future behaviour true, so what's the difference? If it's not necessary, but it is true, then what's the difference? How can I change it, if it is true?

I'm struggling with the "misleading grammar" involved here... I guess I should be asking, is there a way in which Diane could plant exactly 6 rosebushes, without the statement, "Diane planted less than 8 rosebushes" being true.

I think you might want to look not into modal logic but ask yourself why “ x is preferred to y.”

Modal logic just deals with contingencies,necessities,impossibilities and etc.

Try look at proairesis, “a choosing."Which in fact give you clarity on why one prefer indeterminism and the other prefer determinism.The alternative of these two polar opposite is not established and will forever be first-order principles in the realm of metaphysics.

 

[Ayatollah So]

You seem to suggest that, if someone states that we are destined toward some particular outcome, we still have free will, in that we can change our behaviour, and that since our actions can be changed (or selected from a range of possible actions), we have free will. But what if the prediction that the guy says is about our actions specifically? Or even our thought processes behind those actions?

Actually the scenario you give is exactly the kind of case I had in mind. Let's say Dr. Sigmund is a famous psychologist, and has demonstrated an amazing ability to understand and predict human actions. And he's made a prediction about what you'll do today and why. Still, there's no threat to your free will there. His predictions (to the extent they're accurate, which let's assume is 100%) are a copy of your actions (in a different medium - prose, rather than performance). Your actions are the original (or maybe we should say, master) for that copy. You are still in charge.

 

[Souron]

You keep talking about "modal logic" as if it some how validates you claim, but it doesn't. Modal logic assumes certain axioms to be true, it order for it to apply. If those axioms are not true in a given situation, that means that modal logic does not apply.

Determinism is the theory that every action has a measurable reaction -- each cause has one effect. The inverse is also true, each effect has only one proximate cause. So a cause is a necessary and sufficient condition for it's effect. Therefore, if something happens a certain way, we can

Your post got cut off there, I think. How were you going to finish that thought?

Probably something about how it had to happen. I was trying to say that determinism follows a simple logical structure about the future:
A is necessary for B.
A
Therefore B.

As for the axioms of modal logic - perhaps they don't apply, but modal logic was developed specifically to handle assertions of possibility and impossibility, necessity and contingency. Anyway, you guys are the ones asserting that a logical contradiction exists between determinism and free will. I am the one denying that such a contradiction exists. If you guys are right, there is some valid proof of "if determinism is true, there's no free will." If I'm right, there is no such proof. It's unreasonable to demand that I go through every conceivable proof-attempt and refute it - the burden should be on you guys to construct the proof. Use any logic system you want (if it's esoteric, like I guess modal logic may be, it should come with some explanation of why it applies.)

OK, I'll give it a shot. Be careful with the phrase "there can be more than one future". That almost sounds like many-worlds interpretation of QM, where multiple futures all actually happen.

What determinism says is that for any two times, the laws of nature posit a definitive 1:1 mapping between states of the universe at those times. If the state of the universe at time 1 is A, then the state at time 2 is X; if B, then Y; if C, then Z, etc. It can't happen that one half of one of these pairs happens without the other. But, since there is no necessity about A or B or C, there is no necessity about X or Y or Z. And vice versa: since there is no necessity about X or Y or Z, there is no necessity about A, B, C.

Notice that I didn't specify which time is earlier, and which is later. On most deterministic theories that have been seriously proposed for physics, determinism is bi-directional. Later events plus laws of nature entail a specification of earlier events, just as much as the other way around. This raises the interesting question: if you're not worried about the correspondence between future events and the choice you're making right now, why worry about the correspondence with past events? Suppose someone 100 years from now writes, "On Feb 12 2007, warpus did X", and this sentence is true. That doesn't conflict with your free will - does it? So why would it conflict with your free will that, in principle, someone with an awful lot of knowledge 100 years ago could have written that sentence?

I've actually recently heard this argument backwards. It claimed that the illusion free will arises from our inability to know the future. If we knew the future like we know the past, we would see that there is only one possible course of action, violating the option clause that you seem to have agreed is vital to free will.

 

[Souron]

You have a choice.

move your eyes to the left or move your eyes to the right.

Just like the water droplet on the rooftop, it will roll to the left or right.

Unlike the water, you have control which way your eye moves.

There is no conditioning which will determine which way you will move them.

All other actions can be based on this principle.

free will exists.

Obvious flaw here is that I don't move my eyes randomly -- there is always a reason. Even if I did move them randomly, that would constitute involuntary twitching, not free will.

I'm afraid Feynman said not that antiparticles travel back in time, they travel in a way a matter particle would if it was going back in time, in other words their motion is the inverse of a matter particle, forward in time but in the complete opposite or image reversed. This is a common fallacy, as far as physics knows they have never seen a particle travel back in time. If you look at the track of an antimatter particle across a bubble tank it reveals itself in the same way as a matter particle does, it just does so in an opposite fashion, ie it is travelling forward in time from point a to point b.

What's the difference between traveling backwards in time, and appearing to travel in time? To me, logically there isn't one. If it quacks like a duck, it's a duck.

Given my posits, then free will does exist, because nothing leads to anything or from anything, it just is. Thus any decision you make may follow the laws of physics, but they are not predestined to lead anywhere, because of the chaos of the quantum. There is no predetermination in quantum mechanics only complete and utter disorder, anything given enough time can and will happen on any scale nano or macro.

Pure randomness does not constitute free will. If something doesn't have a cause, then it is random, and therefor not willed. I haven't presented an argument claiming that semi-random event's don't constitute free will, but intuitively it seems to me that semi random events can be thought of as a combination of compleately random and deterministic events.

Ayatollah Bohmian mechanics is not something to throw out at all it's usefull in particle representation, but it is not as accepted a picture of QM as the Copenhagen Interpritation for good reasons,light wave/particles do not behave in a deterministic way, unless the wave is decohered. Given that Sauron has made a claim that since there is no other other predeterminism must exist, I have given a scientific claim that there is another other, thus his hypothesis could well be wrong as he's making apriori assumptions.

If I went Many World interpritation on you then you'd have to concede that free will exists as all possibilities exist in different worlds, but there is no proof of that it is pure philosophy although based on the tenets of the Copenhagen Interpretation and EPR and BEll's theory all being correct and then extrapolating them to IMO absurd conclusions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worlds_interpretation

We're discussing the possibility of free will, not looking for proof one way or another. I can make a priori assumptions all I want under those rules, as long as the assumptions are noted.

BTW to all-
I recognize that my formal argument failed to adequately dismiss the possibility of "waited dice" being a mechanism for free will.

PS Sidhe, I still don't get what you mean by there is no past and no future. I can give you three definitions of time, and all of them provably exist. (provable in a scientific way that is.)

 

[warpus]

Actually the scenario you give is exactly the kind of case I had in mind. Let's say Dr. Sigmund is a famous psychologist, and has demonstrated an amazing ability to understand and predict human actions. And he's made a prediction about what you'll do today and why. Still, there's no threat to your free will there. His predictions (to the extent they're accurate, which let's assume is 100%) are a copy of your actions (in a different medium - prose, rather than performance). Your actions are the original (or maybe we should say, master) for that copy. You are still in charge.

In a universe with true free will - yes

If there was no such thing as free will and somebody not only predicted, but foresaw what you were going to do for the rest of the day.. but you still felt as though you had a choice in the matter.. you actually didn't.

 

[Souron]

I do not belive in Free Will in the traditional sence of the word. People are influenced by their environment to such an extent that, if we knew everything possible about his or her environment, we could tell more or less what his/her personality is like and how he/she will react in any given situation.

The fundamental part of this belief is that humans DO have some Free Will within a framework of environment. If presented with two options, a human has a chance of going in one direction and another chance to go in another, say in this case 70% and 30%. This means that humans have some free will, but we are not free from our environment.

But the way you are presenting this argument, you can only claim that there is a chance that free will exits. You do not rule out the possibility that human behavior is entirely deterministic.

Warpus is essentially making the same argument, with the same problem.

 

[Bozo Erectus]

No problem!

I had free will to write that. Nobody forced me to, there was no bias towards me writing that. I just pure and plain had free will to write that.

Could you have not written it?

 

[Ayatollah So]

I've actually recently heard this argument backwards. It claimed that the illusion free will arises from our inability to know the future. If we knew the future like we know the past, we would see that there is only one possible course of action, violating the option clause that you seem to have agreed is vital to free will.

But we wouldn't "see" this, unless we are illogical. We would see that there is only one actual course of action, not (the illogical conclusion) that there is only one possible course of action.

This comes back to the point about the copy and the original. In both the case of the historian looking back, and that of the hypothetical super-knowledgeable psychologist forseeing an action, those describers are simply finding reliable, faithful ways to make copies, so to speak. The historian is finding reliable causal links from your action to your future (the historian's present). The super-psychologist is finding reliable links from your action to your past (his present). These guys are just finding the traces of you, spread out over history. Why on earth would that disempower you?

Philosopher Daniel Dennett has quipped, "If you make yourself really small, you can externalize virtually everything." That sums up the problem quite nicely. I propose that we make ourselves really large instead. Whatever follows logically from our decisions and the laws of nature - including both earlier and later states of the universe - only makes our imprint on the universe that much bigger.

If there was no such thing as free will and [deletia].. but you still felt as though you had a choice in the matter.. you actually didn't.

Tautology.

Now let's look at those deletia, considered on their own:

somebody not only predicted, but foresaw what you were going to do for the rest of the day..

If someone can forsee what you'll do, they have figured out how to make an advance copy. Your decision remains the original. There's no constraint on you, only on the other guy (insofar as he wants to get it right).

A foreseen choice is still a choice. Some of my most free choices have been entirely foreseeable to those who know me well. It's not just the unforseeable choices (left sock first vs. right, for instance) that express my free agency - quite the opposite: those choices have little to do with who I am. They tend to be just random (in a broad sense at least - the same sense in which a coin flip is random, despite being a matter of classical physics.)