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] sanrrcom> 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] sanrrcom> 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] sanrrcom> 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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Warp wrote:
>   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.

Hmmm... To some extent.

>   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.

Agreed.

>   That kind of choice is deterministic and predictable. 

Predictable in the small. In the large, it's possible that the only way to 
predict what the result of a program will be is to run the program and find 
out. In other words, the only way to predict what the program will choose is 
to let it choose and see what the result is.

> 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.

Right.

>   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. 

How complex can the computer get before you'd say it's a sentient being 
making a choice based on what it wants?  If we had SciFi levels of AI 
around, would you claim they're not sentient, not really making choices?

> 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.

What if it gets complex enough that you can't distinguish the computer's 
desires from its programming? If it's too complex to understand why it made 
a choice, even given everything you know about it? If it's so integrated 
with its inputs that it's impossible to make it take the same path through 
the program twice, even tho it is deterministic?

It's like asking whether computers can be intelligent, then declaring "No, 
because intelligence requires soul, so even if a computer's behavior was 
100% indistinguishable from a person, it still would only be pretending to 
be intelligent."

>   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?

I'm claiming those two aren't incompatible. You're claiming the only way to 
have free choice is to disobey the laws of physics (by defining it that 
way). I'm questioning whether that's a useful definition, intuitive as it 
may be.

I'm also questioning whether it even makes sense to ask such a question, 
given you're asking about whether the laws of physics apply to our own 
physical behavior. I.e., how could our free will *not* be part of physics if 
it results in physical results?

I'm also questioning whether you can rationally distinguish between 
"intrinsically random" and "chosen by supernatural means".

>   Maybe free will cannot exist, and is just an invented, artificial and
> ultimately false notion. An illusion.

Possibly, given the definition that it's supernatural. However, given the 
definition that it's supernatural, you've just defined it as being 
impossible to investigate. That's the way in which I'm saying it's not a 
useful definition: you've defined it in a way that blocks further useful 
inquiry into the subject.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

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Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> 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. ;)

Yep. Don't get me wrong. It's a fun discussion.

>>>   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.

No, but a pile of random events with self-awareness might be making a 
choice. :-)

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

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