Do We Have Free Will?

[Markus Hanke]

9 hours ago, Genady said:

This IS a free will!

If you really think you have free will, you obviously haven’t been owned by a cat 🐈 

[Genady]

35 minutes ago, Markus Hanke said:

If you really think you have free will, you obviously haven’t been owned by a cat 🐈 

You are absolutely right. A dog person here. Even if I don't have free will, they pretend I do. But I know what you mean. My daughter used to be owned by a cat  

[Vashta Nerada]

On 2/21/2022 at 3:10 PM, Peterkin said:

If the second, you can never understand anything anyway, so it doesn't matter.

You got the point 😉

[geordief]

Am just wondering what might be the contribution  of the Maxwell Demon scenario to this question

 

Can one have any kind of a will without information and is that information of an external nature?

Would that give the lie to any concept of a free standing (absolutist) "will"  ?

[dimreepr]

1 hour ago, geordief said:

Am just wondering what might be the contribution  of the Maxwell Demon scenario to this question

 

Can one have any kind of a will without information and is that information of an external nature?

Would that give the lie to any concept of a free standing (absolutist) "will"  ?

Even if you're a bacteria you can choose which direction...

[Peterkin]

3 hours ago, geordief said:

Am just wondering what might be the contribution  of the Maxwell Demon scenario to this question

None that I can see.

3 hours ago, geordief said:

Can one have any kind of a will without information and is that information of an external nature?

Sure. You don't react to everything all the time; you only make a decision when a decision is required. If no new information is coming in, the will is in "stand by" mode until a decision is required again. This doesn't mean you're in suspended animation or unaware: most of an organism's activities, most of the time, takes place without conscious control. The free will is called in only when an intelligent decision is required.

Of course, there is no state in which a living organism does not receive some external information, but it doesn't have to act on all of that information.

You might, then, imagine a non-conscious entity - a rock or an item of furniture - also being bombarded by information from the outside, but physically incapable of action. You might posit that they react to to the outside environment  by changing... It seems rather fanciful to me, and redundant, applying gold leaf to a lily or a putting an evening gown on a butterfly.

2 hours ago, dimreepr said:

Even if you're a bacteria you can choose which direction...

Of course. But a bacterium is already quite sophisticated organism. What about the stone and the spoon? Even if they are conscious, they don't have the equipment with which to express a preference or make a decision, let alone take action. That's why they're so easy to kill.

 

[Genady]

As to so many other questions in physics, an answer to the OP question depends on a reference frame. In this case, there are two types of reference frames with different answers, external and internal. An external observer can, in  principle, observe a neuronal machinery working according to the laws of physics and leading inevitably to a decision. There is no room for free will in this reference frame.

On the other hand, an internal observer, who is busy with making a decision and thus who even in principle cannot be occupied at the same time with observing the neuronal machinery, makes the decision according to their free will.

Just another instance of "Alice and Bob".

[geordief]

25 minutes ago, Genady said:

As to so many other questions in physics, an answer to the OP question depends on a reference frame. In this case, there are two types of reference frames with different answers, external and internal. An external observer can, in  principle, observe a neuronal machinery working according to the laws of physics and leading inevitably to a decision. There is no room for free will in this reference frame.

On the other hand, an internal observer, who is busy with making a decision and thus who even in principle cannot be occupied at the same time with observing the neuronal machinery, makes the decision according to their free will.

Just another instance of "Alice and Bob".

How would that differ from free will being an illusion?

 

I mean,anyone other than the subject of the experience can judge the claim of others to free will as unjustified .

 

The subject of the claim is the only person who finds that claim  appealing.

 

Others will say they agree  (that everyone has free will) but this is based on grounds of "well I feel I have free will  so you  must also have free will because we are so similar "

 

But they could turn that around and say "because I judge you not to have free  will ,then I can deduce that neither do I ** ,because we are so similar"

 

**against  my innate feeling 

[Genady]

3 minutes ago, geordief said:

How would that differ from free will being an illusion?

 

I mean,anyone other than the subject of the experience can judge the claim of others to free will as unjustified .

 

The subject of the claim is the only person who finds that claim  appealing.

 

Others will say they agree  (that everyone has free will) but this is based on grounds of "well I feel I have free will  so you  must also have free will because we are so similar "

 

But they could turn that around and say "because I judge you not to have free  will ,then I can deduce that neither do I ** ,because we are so similar"

 

**against  my innate feeling 

In my reference frame you don't have free will, and I know that in your reference frame you do. In my RF I have free will, and I know that in your reference frame I don't. There is no paradox as long as we are clear about the reference frames in question. I can talk about your free will when I refer to your RF and about my free will when I refer to my RF.

It is very similar to Alice watching Bob falling into a black hall. In Bob's reference frame he passes the event horizon in a definite time. In the Alice's RF he never does. Alice knows that in his RF Bob crosses the EH, although in hers he does not. Bob knows that in Alice's RF he doesn't cross EH, although in his he does. 

[geordief]

8 minutes ago, Genady said:

In my reference frame you don't have free will, and I know that in your reference frame you do. In my RF I have free will, and I know that in your reference frame I don't. There is no paradox as long as we are clear about the reference frames in question. I can talk about your free will when I refer to your RF and about my free will when I refer to my RF.

It is very similar to Alice watching Bob falling into a black hall. In Bob's reference frame he passes the event horizon in a definite time. In the Alice's RF hedeterminism in  never does. Alice knows that in his RF Bob crosses the EH, although in hers he does not. Bob knows that in Alice's RF he doesn't cross EH, although in his he does. 

Can we also talk about "my determinism in your RF and "your determinism in my RF"?(following the analogy)

Edited February 25, 2022 by geordief

[Genady]

1 minute ago, geordief said:

Can we also talk about "my determinism in your RF and "your determinism in my RF"?(following the analogy)

Yes, of course. As long as we're clear about the RFs.

[geordief]

19 minutes ago, Genady said:

Yes, of course. As long as we're clear about the RFs.

I wonder where the analogy breaks down.

Or is the question  so trivial and pointless  that an analogy can cover it seamlessly?

[Genady]

4 minutes ago, geordief said:

I wonder where the analogy breaks down.

Or is the question  so trivial and pointless  that an analogy can cover it seamlessly?

I don't know. I hope for the latter.

[Jonathan Day]

There are a number of problems with this particular philosophical question, the most obvious one being that we don't have a single definition of free will. (We have many, some of which are contradictory, but what we don't have is a single agreed definition that we can then actually test against.)

A second problem lies in the fact that science is based on observable phenomenon, falsifiability, measurement and invariance. You can't observe free will directly, so we'd need something we can observe that is a surrogate. That's fine, physicists do that a lot. Only, what do we observe or measure here? Without a working definition and model, we don't know what to look for or how to quantify it.

Unless we can distinguish between random, hidden variables, undiscovered interactions and choice, free will is unfalsifiable. In principle they can be distinguished, since free will implies that a variable that is actually independent as far as the physics is concerned can affect the outcome. In practice, since we only know a variable is independent experimentally, you can't readily distinguish between free will and simply getting the physics wrong.

We do have one possible path, Professor Conway's Strong Free Will Theorem. This is a dense mathematical argument that essentially states that free will can only exist within the universe if physics itself has a notion of free will. If something that is fundamental within the universe has the capacity to behave in non-random, non-deterministic ways, then this can potentially accumulate into free will in something as complex as a brain. If there is no such capacity, there is no free will.

This part's fun, since physicists don't know if this would be fundamental particles, superstrings, M-branes, pure mathematics or something yet to be determined. So once we know what "fundamental" means and what the physics is at this level, we can presumably figure out how to do some experimental test that can rule out all of the alternatives.

And, of course, it relies on both the theorem being correct in all the particulars AND of there being nothing that can be considered "outside" of physics/mathematics.

Now, if we can get past all of that, then we can determine if there is free will. But at this point, any answer is essentially meaningless.

[Eise]

On 3/7/2022 at 3:28 PM, Jonathan Day said:

There are a number of problems with this particular philosophical question, the most obvious one being that we don't have a single definition of free will. (We have many, some of which are contradictory, but what we don't have is a single agreed definition that we can then actually test against.)

Yes, that is the first problem. So any question or answer on this topic should clarify first which definition of free will one is using. 

On 3/7/2022 at 3:28 PM, Jonathan Day said:

A second problem lies in the fact that science is based on observable phenomenon, falsifiability, measurement and invariance. You can't observe free will directly, so we'd need something we can observe that is a surrogate. That's fine, physicists do that a lot. Only, what do we observe or measure here? Without a working definition and model, we don't know what to look for or how to quantify it.

I think measuring free will without treating a human as a subject, but as object only, will never succeed. Compare it with 'meaning'. From the physical properties of ink, it is not possible to derive the meaning of the sentence that it forms. To assess if somebody acted from free will, you need to know her motivations and reasoning. 

On 3/7/2022 at 3:28 PM, Jonathan Day said:

In principle they can be distinguished, since free will implies that a variable that is actually independent as far as the physics is concerned can affect the outcome.

You did not make your definition of free will explicit. What you say here fits to the 'libertarian' definition of free will, or even stronger, a dualistic definition. Something like 'the soul interferes with the physics of the brain'. 

Same holds for this:

On 3/7/2022 at 3:28 PM, Jonathan Day said:

We do have one possible path, Professor Conway's Strong Free Will Theorem. This is a dense mathematical argument that essentially states that free will can only exist within the universe if physics itself has a notion of free will. If something that is fundamental within the universe has the capacity to behave in non-random, non-deterministic ways, then this can potentially accumulate into free will in something as complex as a brain. If there is no such capacity, there is no free will.

I agree that this can be true for certain definitions of free will, as the one you were using above.

Personally I think we should adhere to the daily use and experience of free will, but only to an empirical notion of it. Why do people say they did something freely, or just the opposite, were coerced to it? The compatibilist notion of free will comes closest: somebody acts according her free will, if she acts according her own motivations, and not those of somebody else. However, such a definition only works in a deterministic universe. This guarantees that my motivations and actions can be related. Don't throw randomness in it, because then this relation is disturbed. Also, to anticipate the results of your actions, the world better functions in a regular, and therefore predictable way, which can also be guaranteed by determinism. So determinism is a necessary condition that free will can exist; there simply is no contradiction between determinism and having free will.

On 2/22/2022 at 2:49 AM, Markus Hanke said:

If you really think you have free will, you obviously haven’t been owned by a cat 🐈 

Ah, I know you are joking, but the remark is interesting. It presupposes that a cat can limit your free will. But how can a cat limit something you would not have at all in the first place? 

On 2/25/2022 at 10:25 PM, Genady said:

As to so many other questions in physics, an answer to the OP question depends on a reference frame. In this case, there are two types of reference frames with different answers, external and internal.

I would prefer to say that there are different discourses: you won't find meaning, consciousness, or free will if you only study quarks, electrons, molecules, or whatever. That is because they simply do not exist in that discourse. But they exist in a discourse about choices, beliefs, feelings, ethics, laws, etc etc. The second discourse is not invalidated by the first. 

[deepend]

On 2/20/2022 at 12:46 AM, Amadeus said:

Are we truly free or are we some sort characters, in a game, that are controlled by God.

Every decision we've taken, has it really been our choice or was it just fate.

 

  In a word, no.  Might I recommend a song by Frank Zappa about the power of television called "I'm the Slime."  To have free will you need a free mind.

[MSC]

On 2/21/2022 at 7:49 PM, Markus Hanke said:

If you really think you have free will, you obviously haven’t been owned by a cat 🐈 

Wow... out of all of the arguments I've ever heard against free-will, this is the only one that has gotten me close to questioning my beliefs 😆 my cat overlord will be pleased.