Free Will?

[Mr Wobble]

what proofs do you have for determinism or freewill

None! There are no philosophical proofs.

I've chosen to make some assumptions which I think are sensible, or, at least, they suit me.

I can't be sure, for example, that the objective world exists, or that I'm not a brain in a vat being fed false sensory information by some malevolent entity. I can't be sure that there are other minds with an experience of self.

I assume, however, that I'm not being deceived, there is an objective world and other minds do exist just because it suits me to do so.

I also assume that the universe is predictable (deterministic and possibly stochastic) - it might not be, but I can't see any value in assuming that it is not predictable. If it's not predictable, then I'm not sure that one can say anything useful about it.

 

[Mr Wobble]

Here's another thought experiment:

Suppose that some neuroscientist devised an experiment in which a person was hooked up to some kind of brain imaging machine. That person was asked to make a series of 'random' choices by pressing either one of two buttons.

If the scientist were able to successfully predict which button the person would press six seconds before the person was consciously aware of making a choice - would you still believe in free will?

 

[B9]

Yes I would implicitly believe in freewill if such a scenario were to be played out.

or that I'm not a brain in a vat being fed false sensory information by some malevolent entity

.


Sensory information is simply information - falseness leads to the question of truth - currently playing in another thread in this very forum - yet again - perenially popular subject matter.


I must take my leave of this experiment & take late tea with my good wife - it's been a pleasure - whether it was preprogrammed or not

 

[Mr Wobble]

Yes I would implicitly believe in freewill if such a scenario were to be played out.

Well, I'm surprised, because it seem to me that predicting the choices a person would make before they were consciously aware of making that choice, just from looking at brain activity, would strongly suggest a deterministic brain process.

In fact, I can't see an interpretation other than that the deterministic brain processes precede and are the cause of the conscious awareness of making a choice and it is this conscious awareness of choice making that we perceive as free will.

Oh, and it isn't a thought experiment - it's an experiment that has already been demonstrated. (there's a link to a BBC Horizon program in one of my posts in this thread which shows this experiment being performed)

My bet is that advances in neuroscience and digital brain modelling will eventually kill off the notion of non-deterministic free will.

 

[B9]

Anything that can be mathemtically modelled would tend to indicate cause and effect. Perhaps somethings are beyond mathematics - such as 0/1 or 1/0 either does the job as effectively as the other so it's a matter of a random event or freedom of choice.

 

[Mr Wobble]

Anything that can be mathemtically modelled would tend to indicate cause and effect.

The moment at which a particular radioactive decay of atomic nuclei is thought to be random (uncaused), yet the decay of a large number of such nuclei can be mathematically modelled using probability (stochastically).

Perhaps somethings are beyond mathematics - such as 0/1 or 1/0 either does the job as effectively as the other so it's a matter of a random event or freedom of choice.

Sorry, I don't understand that.

You seem determined to hang on to free will, illusion or no. If you're happier assuming free will, then do just that - no one 's forcing you.

After all, allowing oneself to be taken in by an illusion can be fun ("the willing suspension of disbelief"), maybe even useful.

And I still have a strong perception of something that I might once have called free will - I just don't really believe that the free part bears up to close scrutiny.

 

[Mr Wobble]

Mr wobble if i may - you asked "does freewill exist" (paraphrased slightly) in your opinion does it exist

Sorry, I missed this question.

If it means anything, I don't believe in Free Will.

(In a previous post I said something like this: if we accept that the Free Will is defined as agency that is neither deterministic nor random - then I can't see how FW can exist. I can't conceive of another class of agency that is not deterministic (caused), nor random (uncaused). Those options seem to me to cover all possibilities.)

 

[Vader]

A nice thought experiment is Laplace's demon. If there were a being omniscient about the state of the universe as it is in the present moment, would that being be able to make perfect predictions?

 

[B9]

^ To a very accurate degree yes, but not infallible.

If it means anything, I don't believe in Free Will.

I believe I may shortly have a vacancy available for an "assistant" the job could be yours - applications via subservient PM please.

 

[Mr Wobble]

^ To a very accurate degree yes, but not infallible.

I don't think that it would be possible, in a deterministic sense, for predictions to be both very accurate and fallible.

Over time any inaccuracy, how ever slight, would be magnified, just as happens with weather forecasts, where the tiniest uncertainty in initial conditions leads to large uncertainties in prediction accuracy, these uncertainties growing for longer forecast periods until, at long range, meaningful predictions become impossible.

 

[B9]

I don't think that it would be possible, in a deterministic sense, for predictions to be both very accurate and fallible.

It would seem to be a contradiction in the deterministic sense.


Nothing is infallible ! Somethings are very predicatable - i shouldn't have posted (but have) being one of them - clearly determinism is creeping into my life by the back door.

 

[lolbob]

To me "Free Will' is a non concept. In my opinion it is a remnant of older, more intuitive, understanding of the world and the organisms in it. The idea that our bodies, and those of animals are biological 'machines' was not always known. Not just in reference to brains, but the rest of the body. Imagine this is how you understood the world (or 'lack of understood the world'). There are just these entities (animals, people, your self, ect) and they move about, act freely, ect. With out the idea that there are mechanical forces at work inside these entities you can understand how people would could class things as 'with free will' and 'with out free will'. Something with free will would be anything that is animated, seems to have intent, not random but not entirely predictable ect. Now these criteria do sound similar to definitions already covered in this thread, but think about them in the context of an old understanding of the world. It makes sense. Add in a more modern, less intuitive understanding, and it doesn't. It's not that modern understanding 'disproves' free will, it just becomes a meaningless way to class various entities. I think this is separate from discussions about mind/body/dualism/determinism/physicalism.

 

[B9]

Well, I'm surprised, because it seem to me that predicting the choices a person would make before they were consciously aware of making that choice, just from looking at brain activity, would strongly suggest a deterministic brain

I was thinking more about the "scientist" you described rather than the experimentee.

In short I believe freewill to exist - I also believe it is extremely uncommon & that most things are deterministic.

Do you think that it is possible to have a situation where there are two options in which determining factors are absolutely balanced? If so any choice would have to be a matter of freewill wouldn't it?

 

[Mr Wobble]

Do you think that it is possible to have a situation where there are two options in which determining factors are absolutely balanced? If so any choice would have to be a matter of freewill wouldn't it?

If a human brain can make a choice then the system (i.e. the Universe which necessarily includes that brain) is not perfectly balanced.

This is closely related to what your talking about: Buridan's Ass

 

[Mr Wobble]

I was thinking more about the "scientist" you described rather than the experimentee.

Okay, for now, just forget the scientist, the prediction could equally be done by a machine. With regards to the subject of the experiment - if the machine can predict the subject's choices well before the subject is aware of having made a choice, then doesn't that rather do for any notion of free will?

I would say that the conscious experience of making a choice is that which we subjectively experience as 'free will'. The experiment seems to suggest that that experience is the end result of a sequence of deterministic brain processes, therefore not 'free'.

 

[azzazza !?]

why exactly would the coming of awareness of (some) choices several seconds after it has been functionally made exclude free will? as humans we build systems/machines all the time to take the work out of our hands. why would we not do the same thing in our subconscious. given the time needed for making a fully aware choice, i'm not all surprised by this. the entire quality of our life depends on it. it does not mean that at one point we have not chosen to accept or built this automatic processing system by certain value standards. i cannot begin to imagine the workload of having to process, each time anew, every detail of a choice consciously, without being able to build on previous learnings, choices etc.

the scientists may be able to predict the choice you are going to make by looking at unconscious brain activity, but i'd be very surprised if they have a standard for that, which can be applied to all persons invariably. they may be able to study what happens in a particular brain when this person choses left or right in that controlled setting, and use what they see to predict his choice next time.

all i see it proving personally, is that we construct choice-making machinery in our subconscious to relieve ourselves of repetitive workloads so that our conscious resources can be devoted to more important/interesting tasks and higher, abstract reasoning.

 

[Mr Wobble]

Azzazza, do you find the possibility that FW might not exist in some way offends or threatens your sense of personal identity and/or world view?

 

[azzazza !?]

when one is consequent, there simply is no personal identity without free will. it be just as much an illusion. i do not feel it threatening my world view at all, i have subsribed to determinism myself in my early study years. moreover, once you get to the heart of philosophy, nothing threatens your world view, as you simply learn to accept that there is no foundation for any. we are singing stories in the void. one learns to switch and rotate entire and opposite world views in a matter of seconds, as if they were mental clothing.
i have since then come to find determinism an intellectually totalitarian and absolutist point of view which i found difficult to uphold any longer. furthermore, as i (tried to) explain earlier in this thread, i have come to think a determinist contradicts himself when he says "i am a determinist".

 

[Mr Wobble]

as i (tried to) explain earlier in this thread, i have come to think a determinist contradicts himself when he says "i am a determinist".

And, as I tried to explain earlier in the thread, I find the definition of free will that I offered (which I think is a definition that is acceptable to most people, including yourself) is itself fundamentally contradictory.

And so we have reached an impasse.

 

[B9]

^ Impasse or no you are a determined determinist, I cannot think how to proceed either - except to say i can buy everything you're saying 99.9% of the time.

The ass would have simply made a choice and eaten from which pile it chose (i'm with the two piles of hay it's too complex mixing water into such an equation).

I'd venture to suggest that determinism would cause the ass to die !