Free will
in [Lisp]
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From: Pascal Costanza on 20 May 2010 08:33 On 20/05/2010 14:13, RG wrote: > In article<85kmdsF5dhU1(a)mid.individual.net>, > Pascal Costanza<pc(a)p-cos.net> wrote: > >> On 20/05/2010 13:22, RG wrote: >>> In article<85k743Fal6U1(a)mid.individual.net>, >>> Pascal Costanza<pc(a)p-cos.net> wrote: >>> >>>> On 20/05/2010 08:06, RG wrote: >>>>> In article<87wruzqj5w.fsf(a)mail.geddis.org>, >>>>> Don Geddis<don(a)geddis.org> wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> "Free choice" is not necessarily incompatible with determinism. >>>>> >>>>> That's news to me. How is that possible? >>>> >>>> Just because something is determined at one level doesn't mean it's >>>> determined at the higher levels as well. For example, Google's search >>>> algorithm is most certainly a deterministic algorithm, but that doesn't >>>> mean that the search results will be deterministic as well. >>>> >>>> Same with "free will": Just because the neurons in your brain act >>>> according to deterministic principles doesn't mean that the decisions >>>> you make are deterministic. >>>> >>>> Hofstadter had a good example: If you have to make the decision to >>>> choose between a Pizza Margherita and a Pizza Hawaii doesn't mean that >>>> your neurons are oscillating between Margherita-ness and Hawaii-ness. >>>> They just act independent of what's going on at that level decision making. >>>> >>>> "Free will" can be seen as an emergent property of your body functions. >>> >>> Is there really a substantive difference between "emergent property" and >>> "illusion"? >> >> Yes, I think so. >> >> What I find especially dangerous is that arguments that suggest that >> free will is just an illusion can change people's behavior, and make >> them more passive, less active in their actions: I strongly believe that >> if someone thinks they are fully determined makes them act differently >> than if they think they have a free will. This alone shows that that >> level can indeed have an influence on people's decisions, no matter >> where their actions are actually determined or not. >> >> In other words, the determination of the physical world on one's >> conscious actions are irrelevant, in my opinion. Physical determination >> is an illusion, and a pretty dangerous one, not free will. > > But that's not an argument that free will is real. That's an argument > that believing in determinism has harmful effects, and so there are > benefits to maintaining a collective delusion that people "really" have > free will (whatever that means) independent of whether or not this is > actually true. I don't dispute that. But it's a different argument. > It makes the difference between "illusions" and "emergent property" > rhetorical, not substantive. It does make a difference. "Illusion" means it's not real, "emergent property" means it's real. I don't know whether "free will" is real or not, and neither can you. There is a model that potentially explains "free will" as an emergent property, plus on top of that, "free will" can have a positive effect on how people live their lives. That's good enough for me to accept a notion of "free will" as a given. Everything else is speculation. (Well, my position is speculative, too, but I prefer it because it has potentially positive effects.) Pascal -- My website: http://p-cos.net Common Lisp Document Repository: http://cdr.eurolisp.org Closer to MOP & ContextL: http://common-lisp.net/project/closer/
From: Nick Keighley on 20 May 2010 08:51 On 17 May, 04:06, Don Geddis <d...(a)geddis.org> wrote: > Raffael Cavallaro <raffaelcavall...(a)pas.despam.s.il.vous.plait.mac.com> wrote on Sun, 16 May 2010: <snip> > The brain is basically a computational device. You're quote experiments > that mess with the internals of the computation. The subjects are > reporting that their brains were the ones that decided what to do. All > of these statements can be true at the same time. They are not > (necessarily) in conflict. and the subject cannot examine the entire internal state of his brain. > > We know that the subject is in fact constrained in a way that is > > incompatible with free will > > That's your mistake. Thinking that free will must be outside of physics > and determinism. > > > yet his perception is one of undiminished free choice. > > He's right. He can choose whatever it is he wants. > > However, what he wants, is constrained by physics (and the structure of > his brain). He can't choose to want something different than his brain > does in fact want. > > > The most economical explanation of all of these data is that all of > > our choices are constrained (i.e., not free) and that our subjective > > perception of free will is merely an illusion. > > False dichotomy. It is not true that the only choices are either (1) > brains are outside of physics; or (2) free will is "merely" an illusion. > > The correct answer is that the feeling of free will describes real > behavior, which is compatible with ordinary (even deterministic!) > physics. > > > IOW, free will means that we are choosing our own acts unconstrained > > by other influences > > Unconstrained by quantum mechanics? By electromagnetic interaction? By > the structure of neural connections within the brain? > > For sure, _that_ naive form of free will doesn't exist. > > But that doesn't at all mean that people's perception of choosing freely > is all an illusion. even the "deterministic physics" bit isn't as "determinable" as you might first think. Lots of systems are very sensitive to initial conditions (will it rain here exactly 28 days from now?). Where will Eros be in 100Myrs time? Will I cook risotto tomorrow? That's caotic behaviour. Then there's quantum. Is the brain's state influenced by quantum events? Probably yes. So if you built a "perfect" simulation of my brain and provided the same inputs you /still/ wouldn't be able to completly determine my behaviour. Oh, and Heisenburg makes it very hard to measure the initial state of the brain anyway. I don't think either chaos or QM give us free will but they do complicate trying to predict our behaviour. > > not that our acts have unconscious (or even extra-somatic) constraints > > of which we are unaware and that we are retroactively made aware of > > our supposed choices after they've already been determined, and given > > the false impression that we are the unconstrained originators of > > these acts. > > You're correct, that if some separate subconscious "really" made all the > choices, and our conscious selves merely rationalized that they were > "really' in charge, that would mean that all forms of free will were > only an illusion. I don't agree. I don't see why you are allowed to partition off part of the mind and say "this is subconcious we aren't allowed to call this part of ourselves". Concious/subconcious is a pretty naive way to chop up the brain. Sometimes you aren't listening when you hear a key word at the end of the sentence. At that point you are aware of the entire sentence. Some sort of buffering in the ear driver. So what does it mean to "know" about the sentence? > But our conscious decision making CAN (easily!) influence our behavior, > so this fear of all-illusion is false. > > Nonetheless, our conscious decision-making is constrained by physics and > the structure of our brains.
From: RG on 20 May 2010 08:53 In article <85kog0Fi69U1(a)mid.individual.net>, Pascal Costanza <pc(a)p-cos.net> wrote: > On 20/05/2010 14:13, RG wrote: > > In article<85kmdsF5dhU1(a)mid.individual.net>, > > Pascal Costanza<pc(a)p-cos.net> wrote: > > > >> On 20/05/2010 13:22, RG wrote: > >>> In article<85k743Fal6U1(a)mid.individual.net>, > >>> Pascal Costanza<pc(a)p-cos.net> wrote: > >>> > >>>> On 20/05/2010 08:06, RG wrote: > >>>>> In article<87wruzqj5w.fsf(a)mail.geddis.org>, > >>>>> Don Geddis<don(a)geddis.org> wrote: > >>>>> > >>>>>> "Free choice" is not necessarily incompatible with determinism. > >>>>> > >>>>> That's news to me. How is that possible? > >>>> > >>>> Just because something is determined at one level doesn't mean it's > >>>> determined at the higher levels as well. For example, Google's search > >>>> algorithm is most certainly a deterministic algorithm, but that doesn't > >>>> mean that the search results will be deterministic as well. > >>>> > >>>> Same with "free will": Just because the neurons in your brain act > >>>> according to deterministic principles doesn't mean that the decisions > >>>> you make are deterministic. > >>>> > >>>> Hofstadter had a good example: If you have to make the decision to > >>>> choose between a Pizza Margherita and a Pizza Hawaii doesn't mean that > >>>> your neurons are oscillating between Margherita-ness and Hawaii-ness. > >>>> They just act independent of what's going on at that level decision > >>>> making. > >>>> > >>>> "Free will" can be seen as an emergent property of your body functions. > >>> > >>> Is there really a substantive difference between "emergent property" and > >>> "illusion"? > >> > >> Yes, I think so. > >> > >> What I find especially dangerous is that arguments that suggest that > >> free will is just an illusion can change people's behavior, and make > >> them more passive, less active in their actions: I strongly believe that > >> if someone thinks they are fully determined makes them act differently > >> than if they think they have a free will. This alone shows that that > >> level can indeed have an influence on people's decisions, no matter > >> where their actions are actually determined or not. > >> > >> In other words, the determination of the physical world on one's > >> conscious actions are irrelevant, in my opinion. Physical determination > >> is an illusion, and a pretty dangerous one, not free will. > > > > But that's not an argument that free will is real. That's an argument > > that believing in determinism has harmful effects, and so there are > > benefits to maintaining a collective delusion that people "really" have > > free will (whatever that means) independent of whether or not this is > > actually true. I don't dispute that. But it's a different argument. > > It makes the difference between "illusions" and "emergent property" > > rhetorical, not substantive. > > It does make a difference. "Illusion" means it's not real, "emergent > property" means it's real. > > I don't know whether "free will" is real or not, and neither can you. What is it with everyone telling me what I can and can't do? Of course I can know. Not only *can* I, I'm pretty sure I actually *do*. > There is a model that potentially explains "free will" as an emergent > property, plus on top of that, "free will" can have a positive effect on > how people live their lives. That's good enough for me to accept a > notion of "free will" as a given. Everything else is speculation. (Well, > my position is speculative, too, but I prefer it because it has > potentially positive effects.) So what you're saying is: 1) based on what you know, you can't rule out the possibility that free will is real and 2) the belief that free will is real has benefits so 3) you choose believe free will is real and you don't wish to hear any arguments or evidence to the contrary. Is that a fair restatement of your position? rg
From: Pascal J. Bourguignon on 20 May 2010 09:03 Nicolas Neuss <lastname(a)kit.edu> writes: > Pascal Costanza <pc(a)p-cos.net> writes: > >> Just because something is determined at one level doesn't mean it's >> determined at the higher levels as well. > > And we should also keep in mind that even at the lowest level of quantum > mechanics things are deterministic only in a rather questionable and > non-observable sense. I'm somehow lost how anyone can believe as firmly > as Raffael in determinism nowadays. I had thought this to be an > attitude of the 19th century which had more-or-less died out. But > apparently it has survived (in a sufficiently far distance from physics) > until today. Well, I guess it is reborn in the guise of "the universe is a computer simulation" theory. But I would think that even in a computer simulation, indeterminism may exist at emergent levels. -- __Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com
From: Bob Felts on 20 May 2010 09:09
RG <rNOSPAMon(a)flownet.com> wrote: > In article <871vd6n61y.fsf(a)ma-patru.mathematik.uni-karlsruhe.de>, > Nicolas Neuss <lastname(a)kit.edu> wrote: > > > Pascal Costanza <pc(a)p-cos.net> writes: > > > > > Just because something is determined at one level doesn't mean it's > > > determined at the higher levels as well. > > > > And we should also keep in mind that even at the lowest level of quantum > > mechanics things are deterministic only in a rather questionable and > > non-observable sense. I'm somehow lost how anyone can believe as firmly > > as Raffael in determinism nowadays. I had thought this to be an > > attitude of the 19th century which had more-or-less died out. But > > apparently it has survived (in a sufficiently far distance from physics) > > until today. > > Quantum randomness does not rule out the possibility of classical > determinism under the right circumstances. Computers are a pretty good > example of this. > So would an AI with a decision making module based on quantum randomness with an extremely large state space be considered determined or free? |