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Mike Raiford wrote:
> The computer is running a series of instructions to give the appearance
> of running Excel.
Electricity is flowing through silicon to give the appearance of running a
series of instructions.
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Invisible <voi### [at] dev null> wrote:
> I chose to reply to this post.
Maybe you didn't. Not at the most basic level. Maybe it was just a
consequence of physics, not a true choice.
> I think people sometimes confuse "deterministic" with "predictable".
I don't think so. The very definition of "deterministic" is predictability.
The very word itself is saying so. It's the opposite of "non-deterministic",
which is unpredictability.
A chain of events is deterministic if it happens in a certain way because
there's no other way it could have happened. If the exact same initial setup
can be replicated, then the chain of events will happen in the exact same
way again, completely predictably. That's the very definition of
deterministic.
> The
> weather is deterministic, and well-understood. And yet, after millennia
> of trying, nobody can predict the weather.
Just because something is extremely hard to predict doesn't mean it's
not deterministic and impossible to predict. It just means that we don't
have the computing power to predict it yet.
(But weather is probably affected also by quantum randomness, so in that
case it's really non-deterministic and impossible to predict with exact
accuracy. You can only make statistical approaches.)
Anyways, whether physical events are predictable or not, it doesn't
change the philosophical concept of "free choice" which I wrote about.
--
- Warp
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Nicolas Alvarez wrote:
>
> Electricity is flowing through silicon to give the appearance of running a
> series of instructions.
>
Indeed ... ;)
--
~Mike
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Warp wrote:
> I cannot see any other possible definition of "free choice" than something
> which transcends the physical world, in other words, something which can
> break determinism in a non-random way, which basically breaks physics.
Well, it's a good definition. The primary problem is that you've defined the
term in such a way as to be unknowable. I.e., it's a definition that
prevents you from determining the answer to any of the questions you might
ask about it.
Unfortunately, I think most definitions of "free choice" where you might ask
"do we have it" are going to either be by definition unanswerable or by
definition trivial. If you define "free choice" as "how humans make
choices", then yes, obviously we have it and nothing else does. If you
define "free choice" as "able to do anything conceivable" then obviously we
don't have that, or we'd be flapping our arms to fly to the moon.
Another possible definition would be "a selection made by a system from one
of multiple behaviors, where the selection of behavior is based on existing
circumstances, and the selection of which behavior before the selection is
made is impossible to predict by any system including the system making the
selection." I.e., it's free will if it's impossible to know what you're
going to pick before you pick it, even for you. At that point, does it
matter whether it's natural or supernatural?
In that definition, yes, we almost undoubtedly have free will, unless we're
all Sims or something, and there's someone "outside" who can predict what
we'll do by examining the state of the universe.
> If we take the materialistic view (which, note, I'm not saying is wrong!)
> that the human mind is purely physical and doesn't transcend the laws of
> physics, I can see no other conclusion than that free choice does not exist,
> but every "choice" is just a consequence of something else (which is mostly
> a combination of both determinism and pure randomness). Of course these are
> not choices at all, just consequences.
Sure. But you see what you're doing? You're defining "free choice" as
something supernatural, then saying "if there's nothing supernatural,
there's no free choice." You have basically trivialized your conclusion by
presupposing the mechanism by which free choice comes about, then asked what
happens if that mechanism isn't the basis of free choice.
I'd prefer to approach the subject by saying "Of course we have free choice.
It's unprovable, but we also know we have self-awareness, which can't be
proven to anyone else. But what is this free will that we have?" I.e., I
prefer to approach the topic by defining free will in a way that doesn't
address the mechanism, then ask if there are mechanisms that would cause
that to come about.
> No, your "choices" are simply consequences of previous events and sometimes
> randomness. At its core, you are not different from an inanimate object which
> gets moved by physical phenomena. The object is not "choosing" anything.
That's like saying I didn't choose to make a fist, because that's just
muscles contracting from electrical signals from my brain. You're mixing
levels here. You're looking at choice as something that happens at the
atomic level, and it's (probably) caused by some higher-level combination of
things. ("Probably" in the sense that maybe it is supernatural after all.)
I.e., something without self-awareness can't make a choice, right? Yet no
atoms of your brain "think". No neuron of your brain "thinks." It's the sum
total of the neurons in your brain which "think." To say "I can't think
because none of my atoms think" is like saying "I can't make a choice
because all of my atoms are deterministic."
I.e., "choice" is a pattern of thought, not a fundamental property of the
universe. You *know* you're making choices. You're looking for the mechanism
whereby those choice are made. You're defining that mechanism as something
supernatural, then asking "if there's nothing supernatural about it, why
does it feel like I'm making choices?" If you weren't making choices, you
wouldn't be asking the question in the first place. Nobody asks "Is doing
bluflert a result of determinism or randomness" because nobody is doing
bluflert.
>>> Not at the most basic level. It's just a result of deterministic
>>> cause and effect and completely random unpredictable quantum fluctuations.
>
>> Does a rock stop existing simply because its fall is a result of
>> determinsitic gravity effects?
>
> Who said anyting about existence? I was talking about free choice.
It was an analogy. We *are* talking about definitions. :-)
A rock doesn't exist anyway. It's just a bunch of individual atoms
interacting. We just *call* it a rock. The concept of "rock" is in your
head, not out there. :-)
> If the human mind is bound to the exact same physics as the rock, then
> the human mind is no different from the rock. It's not really a sentient,
> independent being, but an inanimate object. Extremely complex, yes, but at
> its core no different from the rock.
It's a sentient independent being, *and* an object. (Not inanimate,
technically, because that word means "doesn't move", but I know what you mean.)
No, humans are animate sentient independent beings made out of inanimate
objects.
(Oh, and it's not the human "mind" as such, but the human brain, that's just
an object. I expect the human "mind" is the pattern encoded in the brain.
Still subject to the same physics, but in a different way than the rock is.
For example, the human mind can completely disappear without a trace, while
the brain or the rock cannot.)
> If it happened as a consequence, it's not a choice.
By your definition, *perhaps*. I think it's possible to have free will *and*
be deterministic, because I don't equate free will with the supernatural. I
equate it with a type of processing that goes on inside sufficiently
intelligent minds.
Is it possible to be deterministic and intelligent? If so, what part of
intelligence is involved in free choice?
Is it possible to be self-aware and deterministic? Is there any reason to
believe you can't be self-aware and deterministic? That it would be
impossible to (say) write a computer program that would learn enough to
eventually understand its own workings and understand itself, becoming
self-aware?
[ I recently wrote a long screed on the question of "what is consciousness"
which I'll likely have a chance to organize later this week. It'll be fun
incorporating some of this stuff too. Then I'll let y'all rip up my
assumptions and bad logic here. ;-]
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".
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Warp wrote:
> Mass and energy is quantized, and thus there's only a finite number of
> ways the balls can act. It doesn't matter how many possibilities there are,
> they are still finite.
I'm not sure that position is quantitized. But even granted that, the number
of combinations is large enough that the possible sets of results are that
you can't tell after 15 collisions where any balls on the table are.
> Of course if we start measuring their physical properties at atomic
> accuracy, we may end up having random variation due to quantum phenomena,
That's what I was talking about, yes. I was just pointing out that quantum
randomness does indeed multiply into macroscopic results surprisingly
quickly. You don't need to do anything clever to make quantum effects
overwhelm deterministic effects, just like you don't need to do anything
highly magical and technical to witness quantum effects first hand - a few
pairs of polarized sunglasses will do the trick.
> but that's exactly what I was saying in my original post.
Yes. You just had something like "(I'm not sure how often this happens)" or
something that I was addressing with the billiards comment.
> I define it that way because I don't consider events which are simply a
> consequence of deterministic and random events to be "making a choice".
> They are consequences, not choices.
Then I think you've trivially answered your question by making it impossible
to determine the answer of whether or not we have free choice.
>> I think the first problem comes from defining "free will" as being able to
>> make a choice that's neither deterministic nor random. (I'd say "not
>> deterministic but controllable" or something, perhaps.) This is a "mu" kind
>> of question, because you haven't said what it means to make a choice.
>
> What do you mean? Of course I did, and in a rather simple way at that:
> Making a choice is changing a deterministic chain of events in a non-random
> way.
But we've already determined that deterministic chains of events don't
exist. And given that they're random, how would you know if you've changed them?
Doesn't *feeling* like you've made a choice come into the definition?
> In other words, a deterministic chain of events is affected, broken,
> changed, resulting in a completely new chain of events which wouldn't have
> happened if this choice hadn't been made, but this change was not due to
> quantum (or any other unpredictable) randomness, but rather because of the
> will of a sentient, intelligent being.
ANd here you're defining "will" as "non-deterministic". You're saying "the
series of events was affected by the will of a being in a way that is
supernatural", then asking "can this be the case?" How would you answer
that? You're saying "can the chain of events be changed in a way that's
impossible to detect with physcics?" Well, that's impossible to detect.
> This choice was not simply a
> consequence of earlier events or quantum randomness. In other words, a
> sentient being is not completely bound by the laws of physics, but can
> affect outcomes in ways which are not determined by these laws.
And that's why you've defined the question to be unanswerable. "Do we have
the ability to do things that are impossible to understand?" Um... :-)
> Free choice is what would make sentient beings different from inanimate
> objects. If we are completely bound to physics, then we are, at its core,
> just inanimate objects with no true free will. Everything we do is just a
> direct consequence of past events and quantum randomness. The chains of
> events may be really, really complicated, but nevertheless just physical
> consequences, not choices.
If we're not bound to physics, then how do our choices affect the world?
I mean, you're saying "how can we do something that's neither 100%
predictable, nor has unpredictable variations?" You've kind of eliminated
the entire realm of possibility, as far as I can see. Especially since
"choice" is unpredictable.
If you could predict it, it wouldn't be choice. If you couldn't predict it,
it's by definition random. However, there's a third possibility, which is
unpredictable determinism, which is indistinguishable from unpredictable
randomness by definition.
> I find it a rather odd definition. "If the consequences are too complicated
> to be predicted by us, then it's free will acting there."
More like "if even we can't predict what our own choice would be in advance,
then it's a free choice." The only way it would not be free is if the choice
is limited enough that we can predict it.
Indeed, that's even the layman kind of definition. If someone holds a gun up
to your head and demands your wallet, we don't say you gave the robber your
wallet of your own free choice. Why? Because we (and in particular the
robber) can predict your behavior with a high degree of accuracy.
> That means that what constitutes free will would change over time, as our
> ability to predict physical events gets increased.
Assuming there isn't irreducable quantum randomness involved, yes. If I
could write down in an envelope whatever you were going to say or do
tomorrow, and reliably and repeatedly to your satisfaction predict a day in
advance every "free" choice you made, would you think you still have free will?
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".
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Warp wrote:
> It makes no sense to go to jail just because you think
> you have no free will.
But you won't have a choice about it. You *will* do bad things if everything
is deterministic. :-) Plus, there's no reason to send you to jail for doing
bad things, because it's all deterministic.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".
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Warp wrote:
> I don't think so. The very definition of "deterministic" is predictability.
That's where we disagree. It's completely possible to be both deterministic
and unpredictable. Indeed, that's exactly what the halting problem is all about.
> The very word itself is saying so. It's the opposite of "non-deterministic",
> which is unpredictability.
Also not quite true. Non-deterministic turing machines are very predictable
in their behavior.
> A chain of events is deterministic if it happens in a certain way because
> there's no other way it could have happened. If the exact same initial setup
> can be replicated, then the chain of events will happen in the exact same
> way again, completely predictably. That's the very definition of
> deterministic.
Yet, oddly, NDTMs behave that way. ;-)
Yes, that's the basis of deterministic. That doesn't mean you can predict
the *future*. It just means that given sufficiently similar pasts, the same
future will unfold.
> Just because something is extremely hard to predict doesn't mean it's
> not deterministic and impossible to predict.
Here, have a turing machine. Tell me when it'll halt. :-)
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".
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Darren New <dne### [at] san rr com> wrote:
> Another possible definition would be "a selection made by a system from one
> of multiple behaviors, where the selection of behavior is based on existing
> circumstances, and the selection of which behavior before the selection is
> made is impossible to predict by any system including the system making the
> selection." I.e., it's free will if it's impossible to know what you're
> going to pick before you pick it, even for you. At that point, does it
> matter whether it's natural or supernatural?
I think that the difference between our definitions is that you are
defining the concept of "choice" while I am trying to define the concept
of "free choice". There's a difference.
A computer makes choices based in its input. A conditional statement is
basically choice-making: Depending on the input, it chooses either one
execution branch or another.
That kind of choice is deterministic and predictable. If a computer is
reading a source of true randomness (such as sampling the noise produced
by a resistor) and making choices based on that input, then these choices
are non-deterministic and unpredictable.
However, neither case is "free choice". The computer is bound by the laws
of physics to act according to its input (be it deterministic or not). The
computer is not a sentient being which is making a choice according to what
it wants. It's mechanically making choices according to its input and to the
laws of physics. The computer is not "free" to make any choice it desires,
because it has no desires.
So if we pose my original question in another way: Are we intelligent
sentient beings capable of making free choices, or are we simply computers
acting according to laws of physics based on input?
If the latter case is the truth, then there is no free choice, even if
there is choice. It's "bound" choice, so to speak, not free choice. We are
simply biological machines with no true free will of their own.
Maybe free will cannot exist, and is just an invented, artificial and
ultimately false notion. An illusion.
--
- Warp
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Darren New <dne### [at] san rr com> wrote:
> Then I think you've trivially answered your question by making it impossible
> to determine the answer of whether or not we have free choice.
That's why they call it philosophy and not science. ;)
> > I find it a rather odd definition. "If the consequences are too complicated
> > to be predicted by us, then it's free will acting there."
> More like "if even we can't predict what our own choice would be in advance,
> then it's a free choice."
I don't consider purely random events "making a choice" either.
--
- Warp
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Darren New <dne### [at] san rr com> wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> > I don't think so. The very definition of "deterministic" is predictability.
> That's where we disagree. It's completely possible to be both deterministic
> and unpredictable. Indeed, that's exactly what the halting problem is all about.
But a deterministic program will always behave the same way. It doesn't
change its behavior from one execution to another. Thus it behaves predictably.
"It will do the same thing it did the last time."
> > The very word itself is saying so. It's the opposite of "non-deterministic",
> > which is unpredictability.
> Also not quite true. Non-deterministic turing machines are very predictable
> in their behavior.
If it's non-deterministic, you cannot say how it will behave the next time
it will be executed.
> > A chain of events is deterministic if it happens in a certain way because
> > there's no other way it could have happened. If the exact same initial setup
> > can be replicated, then the chain of events will happen in the exact same
> > way again, completely predictably. That's the very definition of
> > deterministic.
> Yet, oddly, NDTMs behave that way. ;-)
If it always behaves the same way, isn't it by definition deterministic?
--
- Warp
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