In Free Will, What Makes it "Free"

[DBT]

This seems to suggest that quantum mechanics is not intrisically random.
That is a gross misunderstanting of QM.

The key difference is that the outcome of specific measurements are probabilistic and not truly random. Not that this is any form of aid for those who argue for the reality of free will...

 

[fromderinside]

This seems to suggest that quantum mechanics is not intrisically random.
That is a gross misunderstanting of QM.

The key difference is that the outcome of specific measurements are probabilistic and not truly random. Not that this is any form of aid for those who argue for the reality of free will...

Wow. I'm so clumsy. First I don't mention the events of which spoke to Juma are the many interactions within the non-measuarable realm we are considering as an event. Then you find what I wrote might suggest a place for will. Nothing could be further from my view. Those out of view (unmeasurable by us) events I consider to be completely deterministic making the quantum world just as fixed as is the macro world and probably the black world and any other world necessitated to form a satisfactory TOE. Its the easiest answer.

 

[DBT]

The key difference is that the outcome of specific measurements are probabilistic and not truly random. Not that this is any form of aid for those who argue for the reality of free will...

Wow. I'm so clumsy. First I don't mention the events of which spoke to Juma are the many interactions within the non-measuarable realm we are considering as an event. Then you find what I wrote might suggest a place for will. Nothing could be further from my view. Those out of view (unmeasurable by us) events I consider to be completely deterministic making the quantum world just as fixed as is the macro world and probably the black world and any other world necessitated to form a satisfactory TOE. Its the easiest answer.

I'm not sure whether you are responding to my remark to Juma (what I said doesn't allow for free will), or to Juma's remark which implies that quantum is intrinsically random.

 

[Perspicuo]

If will is free, freedom is due to randomness.

Christians who educate are actually contradicting their belief in free will. If you educate you are predicting an outcome, input-output. If you will be saved or damned through your own free will, why bother?

Only a behavior that is random in the face of any and all conditions, is ontologically free.

 

[Juma]

This seems to suggest that quantum mechanics is not intrisically random.
That is a gross misunderstanting of QM.

The key difference is that the outcome of specific measurements are probabilistic and not truly random.

I'm not sure what you think you are saying here. There is no contradiction between probabilistic and random.

 

[DBT]

The key difference is that the outcome of specific measurements are probabilistic and not truly random.

There is no contradiction between probabilistic and random.

How so?

 

[DBT]

If will is free, freedom is due to randomness.

Christians who educate are actually contradicting their belief in free will. If you educate you are predicting an outcome, input-output. If you will be saved or damned through your own free will, why bother?

Only a behavior that is random in the face of any and all conditions, is ontologically free.

Random events within the neural networks of a brain do not entail information processing. The neural networks of a brain are a coherant, rational system (not being random) that process information from the senses, which is not random and correlates this information with memory function (information related to past experiences), which is not random, in order to select an option based on a given set of critera, which is determined by a cost to benenfit ration based on knowledge (memory) of the benefits and downsides of the options being presented. Decision making is not a random process, nor is it an example of free will, sorry to say.

 

[Perspicuo]

If will is free, freedom is due to randomness.

Christians who educate are actually contradicting their belief in free will. If you educate you are predicting an outcome, input-output. If you will be saved or damned through your own free will, why bother?

Only a behavior that is random in the face of any and all conditions, is ontologically free.

Random events within the neural networks of a brain do not entail information processing. The neural networks of a brain are a coherant, rational system (not being random) that process information from the senses, which is not random and correlates this information with memory function (information related to past experiences), which is not random, in order to select an option based on a given set of critera, which is determined by a cost to benenfit ration based on knowledge (memory) of the benefits and downsides of the options being presented. Decision making is not a random process, nor is it an example of free will, sorry to say.

Free will is an ancient concept with no neural correlates.

 

[Juma]

There is no contradiction between probabilistic and random.

How so?

You seem to differentiate between probabilistic and random. Explain what you mean.

 

[Togo]

If will is free, freedom is due to randomness.

Christians who educate are actually contradicting their belief in free will. If you educate you are predicting an outcome, input-output.

How so?

Let's say I want to buy a car. So first, I try and learn more about cars, their performance, good points, bad points, etc. This gives me more information on which to base a decision.

What you seem to be saying is that gaining information on which to base a decision is automatically equivalent to predicting and determining the outcome of the decision based on that information. That because I have information about cars, that removes any choice I have as to what car I buy. I'm not sure how having information violates free will, or why deciding to base a decision on evidence would somehow imply never having had a choice in the first place. Can you explain?

Only a behavior that is random in the face of any and all conditions, is ontologically free.

Where are you getting this definition from, and what makes you think it is accurate? Is it just a straw man?

 

[Speakpigeon]

Take a more abstract example to make the problem clearer - Say I'm holding in my hands a 'Godelbox', a device with two buttons that light up, one red and one green. The device scans my brain, and then lights up the button I am going to press. In an entirely determined universe, I am going to press the button that lights up - it can be no other way. Yet if I'm sitting there with the box in my hands, looking at the buttons, it seems obvious that I can press either one. What would stop you from pressing the other button?

In this instance the device may get it wrong. However, this is not a problem for determinism generally. The universe may be deterministic and yet not contain a device that infallibly predicts its future. You reasoning slipped from the universe being deterministic to a particular device infallibly predicting the future even though it could only have limited information. Of course, all actual experiments, and all scientists with them, will get it similarly wrong on principle if not necessarily in practice. For any device (which is not the whole universe) there is a number n such that the nth prediction done by the device will be wrong (if there is enough time to arrive at the nth prediction). So the best answer is that the device can only make approximative predictions. Well, just like any measuring device.

Of course this does not imply that determinism is correct. In fact, no one would know even if it was.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

Of course it is. The initial conditions are in line with determinism, but as soon as the determined information is made available you end up with implausible results. That's why it's called a Gödel-Box.

To be a paradox it would have to be logically impossible not merely "implausible".

Contradictions are essentially logical impossibilities. Secondarily, they will usually be paradoxes as well.

A paradox is just that which goes against the general (or public) opinion. Here the Gödel box thought experiment goes indeed against the opinion of the hard-core materialists here, as indeed expressed in their responses to Togo's post, so it's a paradox which they should feel incumbant on them to explain, if only they could understood the idea.
EB

 

[The AntiChris]

A paradox is just that which goes against the general (or public) opinion.

I've never heard this definition before.

A paradox is usually understood to be a logical contradiction. Of course what is believed to be logically contradictory may well be up for debate (this may be what you meant - i.e. dependent on opinion). In any event Togo's godel-box thought experiment produces a counterintuitive result (what he calls implausible) but there's nothing logically contradictory about it.

Here the Gödel box thought experiment goes indeed against the opinion of the hard-core materialists here,

I guess I'm a 'hard core materialist' but nothing about the Godel box TE goes "against" my 'opinions'.

 

[Speakpigeon]

I've never heard this definition before.

Doxa = opinion, belief

n
1. a seemingly absurd or self-contradictory statement that is or may be true: religious truths are often expressed in paradox.
2. (Logic) a self-contradictory proposition, such as I always tell lies
3. a person or thing exhibiting apparently contradictory characteristics
4. an opinion that conflicts with common belief
[C16: from Late Latin paradoxum, from Greek paradoxos opposed to existing notions, from para-1 + doxa opinion]
Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003

A paradox is usually understood to be a logical contradiction. Of course what is believed to be logically contradictory may well be up for debate (this may be what you meant - i.e. dependent on opinion).

For a contradiction to be a paradox it needs to look true to most people. Most people can see that "A and non-A" is an obvious contradiction and therefore necessarily false so it's not a paradox.

The argument that Achilles will never catch up with the tortous is a paradox only because we all believe that he will catch up. Yet, it's not enough to say that. The crucial point is that most people cannot identify the error in the argument. They think it's wrong, it's in their face, and yet they can't explain how it's wrong. So here, even if the argument is wrong, it is still justified to call it a paradox.

In any event Togo's godel-box thought experiment produces a counterintuitive result (what he calls implausible) but there's nothing logically contradictory about it.

It depends what you include in the argument.

Proposition A - The universe is deterministic therefore the Gödel Box correctly predicts decisions.

Proposition B - It is obvious that a subject informed in advance of the Gödel Box prediction of the action he is to decide on will be able to change his decision, thereby making the prediction false.​

A would be the opinion (of hardcore materialists) and B the paradox going against A.

For all, B is not a paradox if it's not their opinion that A is true.

However, since most hardcore materialists believe determinism is true they may also take A to be true. B seems to go against A. Is there a contradiction between A and B? Maybe yes, maybe no but they do look contradictory. So B on it's own will be paradoxical to hardcore materialists only to the extent that their opinion is that A is true and they can't explain exactly how B is wrong (if they do then the paradox is solved and no longer a paradox for them).

Here the Gödel box thought experiment goes indeed against the opinion of the hard-core materialists here,

I guess I'm a 'hard core materialist' but nothing about the Godel box TE goes "against" my 'opinions'.

No because it's your opinion that a Gödel box could predict opinions. So the paradox for you to explain should be proposition B suggesting that A cannot in fact be true.
EB

 

[The AntiChris]

Doxa = opinion, belief

n
1. a seemingly absurd or self-contradictory statement that is or may be true: religious truths are often expressed in paradox.
2. (Logic) a self-contradictory proposition, such as I always tell lies
3. a person or thing exhibiting apparently contradictory characteristics
4. an opinion that conflicts with common belief
[C16: from Late Latin paradoxum, from Greek paradoxos opposed to existing notions, from para-1 + doxa opinion]
Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003

Ok. I'd not seen that particular sub-definition before so I'll happily concede that the godel box TE can reasonably called a paradox.

In any event Togo's godel-box thought experiment produces a counterintuitive result (what he calls implausible) but there's nothing logically contradictory about it.

It depends what you include in the argument.

Proposition A - The universe is deterministic therefore the Gödel Box correctly predicts decisions.

Proposition B - It is obvious that a subject informed in advance of the Gödel Box prediction of the action he is to decide on will be able to change his decision, thereby making the prediction false.​

Proposition B is the one I take issue with. It simply doesn't logically follow that because "a subject informed in advance" is able to change his decision that he will change his decision. For this reason it's not necessarily a logical contradiction.

If you want to tighten up Togo's TE I suppose you could stipulate that the subject will always and without exception do the opposite of what's predicted, in which case you've asked the godel-box to perform an unsolvable calculation (it entails an infinite feedback loop). This is why embedded subsystems within the universe are problematic for absolute predictability. However determinism only implies external predictability, that is, the possibility for an external observer, not part of the universe, to predict, in principle, all future states of the universe.

 

[DBT]

How so?

You seem to differentiate between probabilistic and random. Explain what you mean.

'Random' events' by definition do not generate probable results or outcomes. Probability is related to something, therefore equations that are able to calculate a degree of probability of something occuring....predicability that is lacking in true randomness, but not necessarily within chaotic but deterministic systems such as weather.

 

[DBT]

Free will is an ancient concept with no neural correlates.

The concept of free will would not exist without neural activity, as with all concepts and thoughts.

 

[Juma]

You seem to differentiate between probabilistic and random. Explain what you mean.

'Random' events' by definition do not generate probable results or outcomes. Probability is related to something, therefore equations that are able to calculate a degree of probability of something occuring....predicability that is lacking in true randomness, but not necessarily within chaotic but deterministic systems such as weather.

Ok. I see what your point is but you are not using the words correctly. What you mean by random is an even distribution but even poisson or normal distribution or a two valued distribution where the probabilities are 0.3 and 0.7 are example of results of random processes.

 

[DBT]

'Random' events' by definition do not generate probable results or outcomes. Probability is related to something, therefore equations that are able to calculate a degree of probability of something occuring....predicability that is lacking in true randomness, but not necessarily within chaotic but deterministic systems such as weather.

Ok. I see what your point is but you are not using the words correctly. What you mean by random is an even distribution but even poisson or normal distribution or a two valued distribution where the probabilities are 0.3 and 0.7 are example of results of random processes.

I'm using the words according to their accepted meaning. The word 'random' represents ' 'without definite aim, reason or pattern,'' for instance. In this context: without pattern.

''Probability'' being 'the measure of the likeliness that an event will occur.'

Randomness, by defintion, allowing no reliable or repeatable measure of the likeliness that a particular event will occur.

 

[Juma]

I'm using the words according to their accepted meaning.

No, you are not. You are using it in some sloppy undistinct meaning that has nothing with the current context.

That a QM property has a random value means that you cannot predict the result itself, only its probability and that is best modelled by a stochastic variable.

Randomness in continous variables comes in many forms called "distributions" but they are still random.

If you want to say that all values have equal probability or that the probabilities sre unknown then say so. But randomness does not require that.