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Ok, time for some philosophical tought.
In the physical world as we know it, at macroscopic levels, every action
is deterministic: Every event is just a deterministic consequence of some
earlier events. Every effect is the product of some causes. They happen that
way because there's physically no other way they could have happened. The
link between causes and consequences can be so intricately complicated that
it can be nearly impossible to see the whole chain of events, but the events
are nevertheless deterministic and predetermined. In theory every single
event can be perfectly predicted from earlier events all the way to infinity.
This changes at atomic scales, where quantum effects can be truely
non-deterministic and unpredictable, in other words, random. This is the
exact opposite of determinism and predetermination: Here the outcome is
purely random (in the absolute and ultimate sense) and there is no physical
way of predicting it (as far as we know).
Sometimes quantum effects can escalate to macroscopic scales, and thus
affect macroscopic events. What this means in practice is that these random
quantum effects may change an otherwise deterministic chain of macroscopic
events in a completely unpredictable way. In other words, the purely
deterministic and predetermined chain of events is sometimes disrupted
at random, resulting in a different chain of events from that point forward.
(How often this happens, I have no idea, as I am no physicist.)
Now we come to the philosophical concept of human free choice. By its
very definition free choice is necessarily something which transcends both
deterministic and random behavior. In other words, free choice can change
a deterministic chain of events non-randomly. Thus it overrides both
determinism at macroscopic levels and randomness at quantum levels.
Thus if human free choice exists, it means that the human mind which is
making this choice transcends both the deterministic macroscopic and the
random quantum physics.
There are only two possible conclusions we can make from this:
1) The human mind does not transcend beyond the physical world, which means
that free choice does not exist. Everything the human mind comes up with is
predetermined by deterministic events, sometimes garbled by random quantum
effects. This is not free choice.
2) The human mind does transcend beyond the physical world as we know it,
and is able to perform true choices which change deterministic chains of
events in non-random ways. In other words, the human consciousness is more
than just the electric impulses in our brain.
The religious (and possibly agnostic) point of view chooses option number 2.
The atheist point of view must therefore choose option number 1, unless an
explanation of how the human mind can affect deterministic events in a
non-random way is given. Free choice is just an illusion.
(And no, this was not an argument promoting religious thinking, even
though it might have unintentionally came up sounding like that. It's not
my intention. It was just some food for thought.)
--
- Warp
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Warp schrieb:
> Sometimes quantum effects can escalate to macroscopic scales, and thus
> affect macroscopic events. What this means in practice is that these random
> quantum effects may change an otherwise deterministic chain of macroscopic
> events in a completely unpredictable way. In other words, the purely
> deterministic and predetermined chain of events is sometimes disrupted
> at random, resulting in a different chain of events from that point forward.
> (How often this happens, I have no idea, as I am no physicist.)
It happens every time and always.
Cause and effect appear to be present at quantum scale as well, but they
have a statistical nature there. At quantum levels, there is no such
thing as an /inevitable/ consequence.
The same actually goes for the macroscopic scale: There are only
/extremely probable/ consequences, to such an extent that they can be
considered inevitable for practical purposes.
If you shoot a bullet right at your head, serious head injury is not an
/inevitable/ effect. But for statistical reasons, it is pretty unlikely
that even half of the lead atoms will miss your skull (unless you're a
pretty bad marksman :-)).
> Now we come to the philosophical concept of human free choice. By its
> very definition free choice is necessarily something which transcends both
> deterministic and random behavior. In other words, free choice can change
> a deterministic chain of events non-randomly. Thus it overrides both
> determinism at macroscopic levels and randomness at quantum levels.
An interesting philosophical question is whether events at quantum
levels are /truly/ random - or whether they may be driven by a
particular purpose.
Some quantum stuff experiments exhibit strange effects in this respect,
indicating that cause and effect may even work backwards at those scales.
Maybe the whole universe is "heading towards a particular purpose", and
any chain of events that would cause it to miss this purpose is
automatically cancelled out.
That is, maybe life and death of Schrodinger's Cat depend on whether the
universe "wants" it to be alive or dead - and the cat will be both so
long as the universe doesn't care.
And after all, isn't that the hope cryptanalysts place in quantum
computers? As far as I understand, they want to start a machine with all
possible sets of input values in superposition, have it perform some
math on it - still will all values in superposition - and then collapse
all the superposed states into the one single state which gives the
desired result; then, so they hope, all they need to do is examine what
input values were /effectively/ fed into the machine. That is, the
machine would sort of "un-do" every possible chain of events not
matching the desired result.
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Warp wrote:
> There are only two possible conclusions we can make from this:
>
> 1) The human mind does not transcend beyond the physical world, which means
> that free choice does not exist. Everything the human mind comes up with is
> predetermined by deterministic events, sometimes garbled by random quantum
> effects. This is not free choice.
>
> 2) The human mind does transcend beyond the physical world as we know it,
> and is able to perform true choices which change deterministic chains of
> events in non-random ways. In other words, the human consciousness is more
> than just the electric impulses in our brain.
Actually, I've been thinking a lot about this lately, as I'm currently
reading "Godel, Escher, Bach." In particular, I'm in the section which
deals with how completely ordered, formal, & logical systems can serve
as a basis for (apparently) chaotic, fuzzy & random systems layered on
top of them.
I'm left thinking that, if "free will" does transcend mere chemistry
(ie, we are more than just moist robots), then I don't understand how it
works.
Alternatively, if "free will" is an illusion, then it is a useful one,
as it is the basis for many philosophies and, in fact, legal systems.
How's that for an answer? :)
...Chambers
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Chambers <Ben### [at] gmail com> wrote:
> Alternatively, if "free will" is an illusion, then it is a useful one,
> as it is the basis for many philosophies and, in fact, legal systems.
The main (highly) philosophical problem with there not being true free
will nor true free choice is that it basically nullifies the entire
concepts of sentience, independence and individuality. It's not you, a
sentient being, a thinking individual, who is making the choices. Not
really. Not at the most basic level. It's just a result of deterministic
cause and effect and completely random unpredictable quantum fluctuations.
You may be deluded into thinking that you are making choices, when in fact
you aren't.
--
- Warp
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4aad2d5d@news.povray.org...
> Chambers <Ben### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
>> Alternatively, if "free will" is an illusion, then it is a useful one,
>> as it is the basis for many philosophies and, in fact, legal systems.
>
> The main (highly) philosophical problem with there not being true free
> will nor true free choice is that it basically nullifies the entire
> concepts of sentience, independence and individuality.
The main philosophical problem is philosophy !
And what about intermediate responses?
May be it is a continuum between free choice and determinism.
A continuum between animals and our human sentience.
A continuum between predictible systems and chaotic systems.
Somebody who follows his instinct is closer to the deterministic side
The one who thinks hard and weights the consequences of his acts is closer
to the free choice side
Marc
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m_a_r_c wrote:
> Somebody who follows his instinct is closer to the deterministic side
> The one who thinks hard and weights the consequences of his acts is closer
> to the free choice side
Isn't that the other way 'round? If you think carefully and weigh all
consequences, you're using a system to precisely *determine* the
outcome. ;)
...whereas purely emotion-driven is (in theory) totally random, with no
real choice involved, either.
Uh-oh...
--
Tim Cook
http://empyrean.freesitespace.net
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Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
> Chambers <Ben### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> > Alternatively, if "free will" is an illusion, then it is a useful one,
> > as it is the basis for many philosophies and, in fact, legal systems.
>
> The main (highly) philosophical problem with there not being true free
> will nor true free choice is that it basically nullifies the entire
> concepts of sentience, independence and individuality. It's not you, a
> sentient being, a thinking individual, who is making the choices. Not
> really. Not at the most basic level. It's just a result of deterministic
> cause and effect and completely random unpredictable quantum fluctuations.
> You may be deluded into thinking that you are making choices, when in fact
> you aren't.
well, I'll choose to refrain from posting a reply!
oops...
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Warp wrote:
> In the physical world as we know it, at macroscopic levels, every action
> is deterministic:
Not really. For example, you cannot play billiards without feedback. Because
of the roundness of the balls, every tiny mistake is going to get amplified
and magnified. By the time you've taken 15 shots, the accumulated
uncertainty would be larger than the diameter of the cue ball. So if you
tried to program a robot to play pool by dead reckoning, you're doomed to fail.
> but the events
> are nevertheless deterministic and predetermined. In theory every single
> event can be perfectly predicted from earlier events all the way to infinity.
Nope. That's flaw #1. :-)
> This changes at atomic scales, where quantum effects can be truely
> non-deterministic and unpredictable, in other words, random. This is the
> exact opposite of determinism and predetermination: Here the outcome is
> purely random (in the absolute and ultimate sense) and there is no physical
> way of predicting it (as far as we know).
It can be predicted statistically with great precision, and differences, as
they add up, tend to cancel out instead of reinforce for arbitrarily chosen
starting conditions. Hence, things *look* deterministic on a large scale
because there's so many ways the same final situation could have come about
that it swamps the ways in which it could have happened exceptionally.
> Sometimes quantum effects can escalate to macroscopic scales, and thus
> affect macroscopic events.
Often. Perhaps even usually. Polarized sunglasses. Semiconductors. Glare
reflecting off a window. Lasers.
> (How often this happens, I have no idea, as I am no physicist.)
I think the question is unclear enough that it would be hard to give an
answer. Recalling that QED is statistically very reliable, would the result
of an atomic bomb going off be considered "completely random"? One certainly
cannot affect when a nucleus will decay, but neither do people overly worry
about a disarmed bomb randomly exploding.
Look at it like shuffling cards. Take a deck and shuffle it well, then
examine the order. What's the likelihood you got exactly that order of
cards? (1/52!) A terribly remote possibility. The same probability, indeed,
that you'd shuffle them right back into standard unshuffled order. The
difference is that there's so many "random" shufflings of the deck and very
few "exceptional" shufflings of the deck that one doesn't distinguish
different random situations.
If you look at the details of exactly where a pool ball comes to rest, there
are huge numbers of ways in which it could come to rest that are essentially
equivalent to our course senses. If the center is 0.01 degree hotter than
the edge, we'd not notice that, for example, even tho that would be a random
fluctuation as "important" as being 0.01% further to the left.
> Now we come to the philosophical concept of human free choice. By its
> very definition free choice is necessarily something which transcends both
> deterministic and random behavior. In other words, free choice can change
> a deterministic chain of events non-randomly. Thus it overrides both
> determinism at macroscopic levels and randomness at quantum levels.
If that's how you define it, yes. I think you've defined yourself into a
corner, tho.
> Thus if human free choice exists, it means that the human mind which is
> making this choice transcends both the deterministic macroscopic and the
> random quantum physics.
>
> There are only two possible conclusions we can make from this:
>
> 1) The human mind does not transcend beyond the physical world, which means
> that free choice does not exist. Everything the human mind comes up with is
> predetermined by deterministic events, sometimes garbled by random quantum
> effects. This is not free choice.
There's huge amounts of evidence that wanting to have an event happen has no
affect on whether the event happens, either at the quantum level or the
everyday level.
> 2) The human mind does transcend beyond the physical world as we know it,
> and is able to perform true choices which change deterministic chains of
> events in non-random ways. In other words, the human consciousness is more
> than just the electric impulses in our brain.
>
> The religious (and possibly agnostic) point of view chooses option number 2.
> The atheist point of view must therefore choose option number 1, unless an
> explanation of how the human mind can affect deterministic events in a
> non-random way is given. Free choice is just an illusion.
FWIW, I don't think this has anything to do with religion or atheism. It's a
question of (1) philosophy, namely "what do we mean by 'free will' or
'making a choice'" and (2) science, answering "does this actually happen?"
You don't need a deity to have free will, and you don't need to be an
atheist to think free choice isn't what you defined it to be. (I'm reluctant
to say "it's an illusion", because I think you've defined "free will" as
something other than what it is.)
(As an aside, I think the only reason this question is even involved in
religion at all is the "if god is good, why is there evil?" I don't think
those worshiping the Roman gods, for example, ever asked if they really had
free will, because the Roman gods weren't omnipotent and were far from being
omnibenevolent.)
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.
You obviously can't choose to breathe underwater or jump out of a window
without falling. So what does "making a choice" mean? There are several
possible ways you could behave, and you "decide" on one of them. What is the
process of the "decision"? Could you have decided on the other one? You
*think* you could have, but you can't really know. As far as we know,
there's no way to find out if you could have made the other decision. So, if
you like, by definition it's an illusion: the only place you're making the
decision is in your mind, and the only place the other decision ever played
out is in your imagination, as a hallucination of what would happen if you
made the other choice. (Rather a different definition of "free will", and
not what you meant, granted. Just pointing out there what the importance of
the definition of what you mean is.)
Penrose has hypothesized that since there are structures in the brain that
have quantum effects in them (as in, they appear to have evolved such that
their *purpose* is to have quantum effects affect them strongly),
deterministic computers can't "think" or "be aware". (At least, that's my
understanding. I never read "The Emperor's New Mind".) Unfortunately, he has
zero evidence and nobody who is actually a neurologist or anything actually
agrees with him.
On the other hand, there's a great deal of scientific experimentation that
shows you actually make most "decisions" quite a long time after you've
acted on them. Stuff like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Libet (which
is admittedly open to dispute et al) and other more modern stuff which I've
read but which I can't track down online right now. This unauthoritative
blog post does give an idea of the level of detail that we already know, tho.
http://shamelesslyatheist.wordpress.com/2009/07/23/the-science-of-free-will-part-i/
My take is that the concept of free will applies only to those who are
self-aware. If you have a model in your mind of how you yourself think and
behave, then "free will" consists of running that model, seeing the
predicted results of behavior, and comparing the different sets of results
to "decide" which behavior to follow. And by "decide", of course, I mean
running the results thru some part of your brain that does that stuff, and
redirecting the results to cause the behavior to happen. In this case, free
will is *literally* the illusion that you tried out those different choices
and picked on. "Free will" in this definition is the ability to simulate the
future with you in it (while *not* carrying out that behavior, mind), and it
is thus quite literally an illusion or hallucination (except that we know it
is, so we're not disturbed by it). (This assumes, of course, that you're
talking about something long term, like which food store you'll drive to
this afternoon, rather than something like which hand to pick up the fork
with for the next bite of food.)
Hence, in my take, if everything *were* deterministic, but still to
complicated to predict what someone else might do, then that person has free
will. It's even possible that free will is an attribute of an association
between two beings, and not an attribute of a particular person. (Of course,
for the most part this is always true - the grass isn't green, but rather
you see green grass instead of some other color grass.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_semantics )
Also, in my take, it's not a binary question of "do I have free will?" It's
"how much free will do I have?" I'm not one to think that I can alter the
laws of physics just by wanting to really hard, so I don't go with the
supernatural explanation for free will myself. But I expect you could have
guessed that already. :-)
Here's a question to ponder: is what you do voluntarily and intentionally
but not consciously "free will"? If you wake up to find your house is on
fire, and you panic, and the next thing you know you're standing in the
front yard with the alarm clock in your hand, did you pick up the alarm
clock out of "free will"? Was it a "choice" to pick it up? If you were
once frightened by a snake as a child, is it "free will" to shy away from
snakes as an adult, even if your intelligence knows they're harmless? Do you
"choose" to behave according to that phobia? What if you're driving, and
something happens in front of you, and you stomp on the brakes to avoid an
accident. Was this "free will" if it happened so fast you relied on
practice/reflex/etc? You *could* have decided not to slow down, perhaps turn
instead, or perhaps get into the accident, if you had time, but your
experience and preparedness allowed you to react quickly and "without
thinking" about what the right decision would be. So was your decision to
hit the brakes a "free choice"?
I'm throwing out those ideas to think about, without trying to imply that
any particular answer is "right".
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".
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Warp wrote:
> There are only two possible conclusions we can make from this:
I think you are assuming a bit much to pick only two possible
conclusions. Time and, by connection, our progression through it which
we happen to call life may not be deterministic either.
>
> 1) The human mind does not transcend beyond the physical world, which means
> that free choice does not exist. Everything the human mind comes up with is
> predetermined by deterministic events, sometimes garbled by random quantum
> effects. This is not free choice.
>
> 2) The human mind does transcend beyond the physical world as we know it,
> and is able to perform true choices which change deterministic chains of
> events in non-random ways. In other words, the human consciousness is more
> than just the electric impulses in our brain.
>
> The religious (and possibly agnostic) point of view chooses option number 2.
> The atheist point of view must therefore choose option number 1, unless an
> explanation of how the human mind can affect deterministic events in a
> non-random way is given. Free choice is just an illusion.
>
Why must an atheist pick option one? Physics has not, as far as I know,
proven that the universe is a completely deterministic place. Nor do all
religions speak about a free will.
So, for the sake of argument, allow me to propose a way that a human
could prove some free will in the universe. Someone, anyone reading
this, type out several replies to Warp's statements. Some supporting,
some against, and some nonsensical if you wish. Then, using a
nondeterministic source of random numbers to pick one of the replies,
post it. Do not tell us that you are doing this, just take that stance
in the discussion.
If the rest of us are deterministic, you will have chanced the input and
chain of events, and therefor the future of this discussion. The chain
of events that this nondeterministic 'choice' sets off may add up to
something in the future, or it may get drowned out by other noise.
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Warp wrote:
> The main (highly) philosophical problem with there not being true free
> will nor true free choice is that it basically nullifies the entire
> concepts of sentience, independence and individuality.
If you agree there's a lack of "free will" in the dualistic sense, it of
course destroys the dualistic concepts of sentience, independence, and
individuality. I.e., if you define "free will" and "sentience" and
"individuality" as supernatural, saying "the supernatural cause of free will
is missing and thus the supernatural cause of sentience is also."
> It's not you, a sentient being, a thinking individual, who is making the choices.
Of course it is. I'm just not doing it through supernatural means.
> 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?
> You may be deluded into thinking that you are making choices, when in fact
> you aren't.
Am I deluded into thinking that I'm thinking, then? I think, therefore I
am? Who is deluded into thinking I'm making choices? Why can't I make
choices deterministically?
When we launch Excel, have we deluded the computer into running a
spreadsheet program? Or is it really, actually running Excel?
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".
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