Free Will- Moot or Super Moot?

I’m sorry, maybe this is beating the dead horse but I just couldn’t resist (especially after the sentience thread):

Does ‘Free Will’ exist?
Seeing this is Science board, I’m probably preaching to the choir.

Classic Newtonian physics denies any possibility and that everything follows certain, empirical rules. If we know all the rules of physics and every particle current state, then we can predict everything about the universe. This view of determinism is known as Laplace’s Demon.

This goes directly against my intuition, that there is volition-based mental causation. When I raise my arm, it is me deciding to raise my arm and not the result of the Newtonian, biological, and subconscious.

Granted, I would secede that much of life is predetermined. The domain of our choices is limited to biology, nature v nurture, and physics. But this does not connect with the innate idea of choice and that I’m choosing because of the awareness of other possibilities.  Of course, Epiphenomanalists would argue that there is no such thing as mental causation. This is also counter-intuitive to me because my intuitions tell me I’m not some mind stuck in a body I can’t control.

I’m not a fan of time-travel thought experiments, “If time is reversed, could I have made a different choice?” The influence of science leads me to believe NO. Free will could only exists in the present, In real time, at the moment.

The probabilities and randomness in Quantum Mechanics don’t factor in Free Will, I believe. Random does not mean free. Also, Libet’s experimentations on the neurology of Free Will seem moot to me also.

Also, morality seems based on the assumption of free will.
When someone derives some equation that perfectly predicts my behavior, that’s when I’ll be convinced.
And that’s the day I commit Existential suicide.

P.S I believe in Free Will.

Thisi s a question of scientific method.

We don't know the answer, we can only record properties and phenomena and compose theories that fit them. However none of these theories suggest whether we have free will or not, you can't prove we have it or we don't. There is evidence to SUGGEST both, but nothing conclusive.

It seems the universe is infinitely complex, so that it is impossible for anything but an omnipotent being to predict everything to a 100% degree of precision, then that doesn't really tell us anything. We are predictable, but nothing can predict us. We can map the laws of physics, but we can't find the gravitational constant with 100% accuracy. We are conscious, but we are governned by these laws, but there is no way we can predict them. We are almost beings commanded by the uncertainty of the quantum world.

You get the general idea..

As a "materialist" (not in the economic or life-style sense) I believe that free will is the most awesome illusion ever, and I'll enjoy it to the best of my capability.

Inderterminism and determinism are so simple and clear cut to define, yet true freedom's definition continues to escape our grasp. Even if true freedom existed, is is too abstract of a concept for us to grasp effectively.

>>3

Seconded and signed.

Except you can't prove you have or have not free will, but it is apparent. Suggesting we have freOMG I DON'T HAVE FFREE WILL IM NOT SENTIENT OH OGDASFAAAA

free will is a crazy new ager idea

morality is not based on free will. if you made a deterministic ai agent and it killed people it would still be "immoral" and "responsible" for what it does, despite its actions being predetermined.

there is no free will. there is only confusion in your mind.

Morality is based on the assumption that othe peopel are sentient and that it is wrong for sentient beings to suffer. It is also coupled with long term logic. Whether we have free will or not doesn't matter as we are sentient nonetheless.

For instance fighting a burtal war to get rid of a dictator is good, because even though more people will die and there will be more sufferring during the period of war than if the war had not been fought, for the hundreds of years of democracy afterwards there will be a lot less sufferring than if the country would be a despotism for hundreds of years afterwards.

"there is no free will. there is only confusion in your mind."

Straight out of 1984... Why not continue and state that I am an insignificant underling, a machine that is not sentient and there only to serve the state as a mindless automaton? It's bullshit anyway as clearly I exist and can choose to do whatever I want, so according to scientific method the hypothesis derived from the facts is that I am sentient and have free will.

>>6
lol

>>9

get out

free will has nothing to do with the following: morality, sentience, sapience, responsibility, quantum coherence, thermodynamics, crime, genes, statistical physics, automata theory, biology, neuroscience, shitty novels, logic, iraq, suffering, authority, subservience, reflection, cosmology, astrology, astronomy, or, indeed, science.

it's an empty concept based on lingual and logical misinterpretations.

>>10

That is the stupidest claim I've heard in awhile. And worst of all, you back up none of your statements with any logic. I'm not saying you're wrong, but either explain yourself or get the fuck out.

Free Will= the ability to choose.

Why Free will involves items in said list:

Current judicial systems run on the assumption that agents in the world make free choices, and those choices are what they are accountable and responsible. Societies that have denied Free Will are victim to the slippery slope. Why do you think 1984 and Brave New World societies are widely considered to be dystopias? Think of the horrors of Hitler's belief in Eugenics. The concepts of good and bad, concepts or morals, will never be divorced from human nature (Nietzsche can eat it for all I care)

Beyond that, think of what determinism actually implies. It means there is only one possible future set to occur and I have no choice on how this unfolds. Under this mindset, the individual can justify any action.

If some AI agent was programmed to kill, I'll sure as hell hold it responsible. Hell, I'd hold the programmer/creator responsible. But that's why this example is moot, because we aren't fucking robots.

"it's an empty concept based on lingual and logical misinterpretations."
This is what kills me the most, and the most unexplained. The phenomena (in a Husserl sense) of me choosing to lift my arm is completely different from someone raising my arm, or force-electrode shocking me brain to raise me arm.

If anything, Evolution has somehow given our species, our set of particles, the ability to choose. Why? I have no fucking clue. Maybe neurology has an answer.

And that’s about everything, except for quantum mechanics because even I don’t see how this one fits in with Free Will. [i.e, random does not mean free, QM does not concern the macroscopic]

>>11

There's too much conceptual fog in your mind, and I'm not motivated to clear anything up since it benefits me exactly in no way, but I'm going to try one last time.

There is only one future, the one that's happening. This future is completely predetermined by the past. Where you see free will in this I don't understand. I don't even know how you define free will and I don't see any possible meaningful definition. Sapience gives you the ability to reflect and meta-reflect and meta-meta-reflect,... but then again an AI could do that too and it would still be deterministic. If you think some sort of supernatural property gives humans the ability to escape physical laws then I'm afraid I can't help you at all.

Your "ability to choose" is an illusion created by consciousness and your lack of foresight where in fact what you choose was determined at the moment casuality began existing (some 15 billion years ago).

You don't really seem to understand determinism or it's consequences. Even with human behaviour being fully predetermined, a criminal still has to be punished and removed from society so that he doesn't commit a crime again, and to serve as a warning to other potential criminals. Determinism doesn't mean all actions are justifiable, it means that you simply recognise that what happened could not have happened any other way. Our complete lack of foresight makes determinism have remakably few practical consequences (I urge you to give this some thought and not just dismiss it).

Good luck!

"what happened could not have happened any other way."

At the very 'present', I am aware of possibilities that I am "free" to choose from, and this is my basis of Free Will. Free Will means the ability to choose. Determinism denies that I ever choose, that I only follow one path. Or my feeling ‘of choice' is only an illusion, the basis of this makes no sense to me. To call it an illusion is only to be able to line it up with current scientific theory, which is more or less in infant stages with regards to “Mind”.

I already know that this idea of Free Will goes against the very grain of contemporary science and all it's findings about physics and biology but neither of these fields have yet to be able to predict human behavior. This 'lack of foresight' that is referred to is because the future is not ingrained.  I believe in the opposite of Eliminativism, that as science progresses, the origin of Free Will will be known.

"Even with human behaviour being fully predetermined, a criminal still has to be punished and removed from society so that he doesn't commit a crime again, and to serve as a warning to other potential criminals."

But that's it. The Judge never escapes concepts of morality.  They must decide what is 'good' and 'bad, involving choice thus Free Will. Never has a society ever escaped Free Will. If I recognize things can only unfold one way, concepts such as blame, praise and 'responsibility' (though I admit accountability will still exist) and motivation cease to be logically important. No one has ever truly given up “Free Will”, nor could they ever as long as their brain is nice and healthy.

And no, current AI can’t meta-reflect or even make choices, only behave like it does. (a giant debate in itself)

Determinism denies that I ever choose, that I only follow one path. Or my feeling ‘of choice' is only an illusion, the basis of this makes no sense to me.

No, determinism means that even though you might be offered what you would consider choices, the choice you will make is predetermined. There is a single path you follow through time (pretty much by definition, because you cannot go back in time and take a different route), and according to determinism, this is also the only possible path you could have ever chosen. It makes a lot of sense.

I don't see how this is different from an "illusion" of choice.
Choosing implies I'm making the decision. From the Garden of Forking Paths, I'm deciding which path I take. Determinism, even by your definition, denies any forking paths.

I vehemently deny this on the account of:

1.) The phenomena (Husserl sense) of "I'm making a choice" vs. being forced into a choice is very different.

2.) Why am I aware of other possibilities if only one can occur?

3.) Time Travel is unprofitable thought experiment. To me, only the present exists and that’s where choices occur. And even we did reverse time, who's to say the same output would occur? The answer is truly unknown.

The phenomena (Husserl sense) of "I'm making a choice" vs. being forced into a choice is very different.
How could you tell? It isn't 'force' as in the macroscopic sense, it is just that every molecule in your brain (and everywhere else in the universe) follows a single path through spacetime, and thereby every thought these molecules can form is predetermined as a collection of points on these paths, and thereby every choice is predetermined as any other thought, only one that makes you act.

Why am I aware of other possibilities if only one can occur?
What? Why wouldn't you be?

To me, only the present exists and that’s where choices occur.
Exactly! You're beginning to understand. To you, your choices very much appear to be choices free of any force; this is the case whether or not you are following a path. You wouldn't know, because the path is in the future, you cannot see it. There is actually an interesting visualization of this in the movie Donnie Darko; Donnie for some reason can temporarily see the paths, and can see where everyone is going, ahead of time. He knows what people will choose to do, yet to those people, it seems as if their choices aren't yet made. (Interestingly, he can see his own path, and could decide not to follow it, yet still does.)

And even we did reverse time, who's to say the same output would occur? The answer is truly unknown.
Well, yes, we will never know anything at all about the universe. Determinism is simply an elegant principle which is often used in science. Some interpretations of quantum physics don't agree with it, etc, etc. But what we're arguing here is whether an entity could feel Free Will in a deterministic universe; and it very well might.

holy god i anit reading all that text

>>17
me too. lets go start some stupid one-sentence thread.

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mooti ^___^!