Is Langton's Ant deterministic? Does Langton's Ant have free will?

[Kyriakos]

http://www.fortunecity.com/emachines/e11/86/langton.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langton's_ant

The original:



Now...


If I am offered an otherwise neutral choice between a chocolate ice-cream and having dog feces smeared in my face, I will choose the chocolate ice-cream. This is predictable in advance if you have watched me for some time, or even if you generalize from other people like me. If time is somehow "rewound", I will choose the same again. If I am given the same choice later, I will make the same choice.

Langton's Ant, however, is arguably less predictable. You cannot predict what it will do except by letting it run and then looking at it afterwards. If given a huge board with random distributions of black and white squares, the ant will move according to a very clear set of rules - but you can't really predict what it will do. You can work out its moves, but this is like reading a history book and declaring that the people described there don't have free will because we know what they did, since all you've done is to let the ant move on another board. We cannot, as with mathematics, simplify the calculations and "predict" in advance. We can add 2¹²°° + 2¹²°° and get 2¹²°¹ in less time than 2¹²°° planck times (ca 8*10³¹° seconds). We cannot skip Langton's ant ahead in the same way without losing precision, while the previous calculation is arbitrarily precise. (A planck time is the shortest known time in which something can happen.)

So. I submit that Langton's ant is deterministic in that it can be simulated, and has free will in that we cannot predict its behavior - only watch it behave.

I do not submit any conclusions with regard to humans as yet, but I think that we may need to throw out both concepts of "determinism" and "free will".


Well, there are my ideas from this evening, mashed into postable form. Feedback welcome, since I'm thinking a good deal about this, and it's likely that someone else will think of and post something that I won't yet have thought of. I hope someone else finds the debate interesting. I'm sure there will be clarifications forthcoming, but I wanted to post this now and start communicating with people rather than spend a week polishing my post.

Doesn't compute ( ) that this has 'free will', much like nothing which is explained in a simple math function as that 2d being's moves are, can ever logically be said to have a will*. Let alone that in this example there is literally nothing else this being does other than move on those squares, and as said that is already accounted for by a simple function. So why claim it has 'free will'? It just happens that to an observer who is not aware of the function (left or right turn and one move ahead depending on the color of squares) the being may falsely seem to move in an unaccountable manner, but by definition of the description given for this it is solely make-belief.

*Crucial parameter here is depth. If something has limited, or obviously limited/finite progressions it runs, and those are expressed in a set way, then it has no will at any rate. Will in general connotes difference between any progressions a being is currently running, and the total of its potential, which logically is not conscious anyway.

 

[Mise]

I stand by what I said before. The ant is deterministic and has no free will. The human has free will but may or may not be deterministic.

 

[warpus]

My position restated: The ant is deterministic and has no free will. The human is or maybe isn't deterministic and may or may not have free will - however, if it is deterministic then free will is impossible.

 

[Flying Pig]

If we define 'free will' as the ability to do whatever you want, the two are entirely compatible, assuming that the general rules about how our wants can be influenced are actually part of a grander system in which our wants are perfectly manipulable, given the right information and tools. I'm not willing to rule the latter out.

 

[Kyriakos]

^Should be noted that (usually) even if X is deterministic, but X potentially exists in an environment which features some change, then even X in the longer run is subject to 'chance' effects, which would render it practically non-deterministic (at least as long as you won't factor the environment as a whole being some kind of closed system).

But i think that for practical purpose humans are not deterministic. Way too many variables, and it seems that not even 1 billionth of those are conscious to us anyway.

 

[Mise]

I also think it's not necessarily binary: I think some things could have more free will than others. There are surely things that I can't even imagine doing, and therefore can't even will. A being that was capable of imagining those things would therefore have more free will than me.

 

[Kyriakos]

I also think it's not necessarily binary: I think some things could have more free will than others. There are surely things that I can't even imagine doing, and therefore can't even will. A being that was capable of imagining those things would therefore have more free will than me.

I strongly agree in that it seems logical to claim that in mental issues the strongest barriers are the actual lack of the sense that there is something to change there

(ie to think something in a notably different manner, to use a more general/easy example).

 

[warpus]

If we define 'free will' as the ability to do whatever you want, the two are entirely compatible, assuming that the general rules about how our wants can be influenced are actually part of a grander system in which our wants are perfectly manipulable, given the right information and tools. I'm not willing to rule the latter out.

(I think) what you're describing is a deterministic system sitting inside of a non-deterministic one. I am talking about the scenario in which the entire human is 100% deterministic. In your scenario free will would be possible, in mine it's the opposite.

 

[Flying Pig]

^Should be noted that (usually) even if X is deterministic, but X potentially exists in an environment which features some change, then even X in the longer run is subject to 'chance' effects, which would render it practically non-deterministic (at least as long as you won't factor the environment as a whole being some kind of closed system).

But i think that for practical purpose humans are not deterministic. Way too many variables, and it seems that not even 1 billionth of those are conscious to us anyway.

Is there a meaningful distinction to be made between 'perfectly chaotic' and 'unthinkably chaotic'? Put another way, if the rules governing our behaviour are so complicated that we can't understand them, is that the same as there being no rules?

 

[Kyriakos]

Is there a meaningful distinction to be made between 'perfectly chaotic' and 'unthinkably chaotic'? Put another way, if the rules governing our behaviour are so complicated that we can't understand them, is that the same as there being no rules?

Many ways to go about this, but:
If a man is since birth stranded on an island, is there for sure nothing past the vast sea on all sides and horizons?

 

[Flying Pig]

I'd say no - though he might not get far contemplating the question - which is why I found your last sentence a bit tricky.

 

[Kyriakos]

I'd say no - though he might not get far contemplating the question - which is why I found your last sentence a bit tricky.

I agree. Maybe some such questions are inherently unsolvable. Personally i think that such unsolvable issues will lead to discovering things about our own selves, ie that which forms those notions and problems.

(btw: i doubt a human can understand fully his mental world, even if that is finite, cause i have to suppose that this would be a bit like one digging up all the land on which he stands, hence he will have fallen to an abyss long before finishing up such digging...).

 

[ArneHD]

Is there a definition of what free will actually is in this thread?

 

[Mise]

No, that's kind of what the question in the OP is exploring.

 

[Kozmos]

I think neuroscience has largely proven that free will is a lost battle.

 

[Kyriakos]

^Sounds very impressive, given they haven't established any workable definition of free will either
(and is a bit like a farmer claiming that a myriad of bits of machinery in a clock-tower is firmly established to work pretty much explained in the vocabulary he himself employs to ask for field ploughing tools in the lowly market).

 

[Kozmos]

Oh there pretty much is. The switch cannot flip itself.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Is there a definition of what free will actually is in this thread?

From what I have gathered over the years, in popular understand there are two basic possiblities:

(A) magic: will as a soul-like entity moving beyond the constraints of causation

or

(B) projection of self-identity: you expierence yourself to be empowered and project that expierence on the general idea of a will by insisting that it be understood as free - and thus legitimizaign your expierence as objectively true.
Turns out people have an extremely hard time to have the very fundamentals of their self-identity questioned.

I personally find the term 'free will' absolutely superfluos and the term 'will' absolutely sufficient. I also never had it explained to me what would actually distinguish a will from a free will. Very curious.
I suspect people have some vague idea about how sophistication of decision-making-processes would serve as such a distunguishing. But I don't see the fundamental difference in that. A human may make better or at least more complex decisions than a dog or an ant (provided an ant has a will) - but are they hence more free?

 

[timtofly]

Free will is the ability to chose ones own way, even if there is or is not a greater deterministic plan or purpose. If people feel trapped, then they are letting such entrapment limit their free will, that does not mean they do not have it. It would seem that even if people feel they do not want to do something, if they do it any ways, they have giving themselves the desire to want to do it.

None of that has anything to do with the reality that there is multiple phenomenon out there that is also blocking one's ability to exercise one's free will, that is outside of their control or any other ultimate purpose.

Flying Pig is correct in thinking that free will is the ability to do anything regardless off consequences, even if that leads to chaos. Chaos is the lack of determinism, and not the result of free will. The OP is not really a producer of free will. The "ant" would be the creator of any determinism.

Giving an entity choices is not free will either. Giving choices is the ability to be an outside deterministic force. To some that would entail artificial free will. I am not sure how any one can say that setting up any framework that gives an entity a choice is not deterministic. Neither does determinism, take away free will. The only thing that limits free will is the consequences or ability to handle the consequences in the exercise of free will. Even if consequences were separate and not predetermined, one could say that free will does not exist because there is in reality no point to just do as one pleases.

 

[uppi]

The other thing about the quantum defense is that it's possible to create a hypothesis about a being that exists outside of our universe's physical constraints and is superpotent, e.g. "god". Heisenbergian uncertainty etc would mean nothing to such a being, and he would be able to predict us as easily as the ant.

This argument relies on the very questionable assumption, that quantum mechanics is realistic. If the superpotent being is somehow connected to time (and it has to be to make predictions) it can only make its predictions based on things that exist. And if non-realistic interpretations of quantum mechanics are right, the outcome of a quantum process does not exist before the measurement.