A simpler explanation of free will.

[DBT]

Why did you post these videos? People might see you as a trader to their cult.

Kharakov is trying to help you to understand the difference between random and not random in relation to thought processes and behaviour.

This is what you should be trying to understand.

 

[Kharakov]

Why did you post these videos? People might see you as a trader to their cult.

They are entertaining, even though you need to filter the pop-sci woo from their statements.

On a side note, some people are afraid of determinism (for whatever reason they think that determinism means they are not free), so the whole quantum "you can't peer behind the curtain" thing makes them feel more comfortable, like stuff isn't deterministic.

I suppose I shouldn't argue for determinism, because it scares people, but eventually they just get it, or their brains are not capable of forming the structures because of some genetic determining factor, whatever in that case.

 

[ryan]

You just ignored my comment to this exact same point you made in your last post (post #71). How do you expect to convince me of anything if you ignore what I say? How do you even expect us to get anywhere?

I don't even want to continue this until you argue properly.

That remark is quite funny, given that you have offered no argument of your own. Your comments - ''A particle may be free to go wherever it has a probability greater than 0. This assumes a truly random behaviour.

Ultimately the freedom (microtubules) is in "I", specifically the decision-making process, then "I" has freedom, specifically my decisions have freedom.'' - are, for the given reasons, quite meaningless.

Your comments are nothing more than baseless assertions, equivocating freedom with randomness when there is no relationship between randomness and freedom. Randomness imposing on a system and altering it in non chosen and non willed ways being freely willed or chosen.

The proposition not only fails, but is quite absurd....sorry to say.

That was not my comment on your quote, "Randomness is not chosen or utilized in order to make rational decisions" from post #71. In post #76 I replied with, "I agree (well, unless you choose to make choices based on flipping a coin or something). But you have what I am saying backwards. I am saying that the choice is random".

Now that was my reply. Your response seems to mean that after all of this time, you still don't understand the central part of my argument. I even tried to explain this to you many times before.

I have to assume that you either can't or won't understand my argument anytime soon, so it doesn't make sense for us to continue.

- - - Updated - - -

Why did you post these videos? People might see you as a trader to their cult.

Kharakov is trying to help you to understand the difference between random and not random in relation to thought processes and behaviour.

This is what you should be trying to understand.

Then you definitely did not watch the last 2 minutes of the second video.

 

[DBT]

That was not my comment on your quote, "Randomness is not chosen or utilized in order to make rational decisions" from post #71. In post #76 I replied with, "I agree (well, unless you choose to make choices based on flipping a coin or something). But you have what I am saying backwards. I am saying that the choice is random".

Now that was my reply. Your response seems to mean that after all of this time, you still don't understand the central part of my argument. I even tried to explain this to you many times before.

I have to assume that you either can't or won't understand my argument anytime soon, so it doesn't make sense for us to continue.

That is what you are claiming.

But you don't have an argument.

Your errors have been pointed out by every poster who has responded to your assertions. Which you duly ignore, just dodging and dancing in response to anything that is said, never considering that the problem lies with your assertions.

- - - Updated - - -

Then you definitely did not watch the last 2 minutes of the second video.

But you still don't understand the implications of random elements altering information processing within a rational system in unpredictable ways, which, if occur, are neither willed or decisions made, instead insisting that this is freedom/free will.

You do this without a formal argument or evidence, only assertion.

 

[ryan]

Why did you post these videos? People might see you as a trader to their cult.

They are entertaining, even though you need to filter the pop-sci woo from their statements.

On a side note, some people are afraid of determinism (for whatever reason they think that determinism means they are not free), so the whole quantum "you can't peer behind the curtain" thing makes them feel more comfortable, like stuff isn't deterministic.

I suppose I shouldn't argue for determinism, because it scares people, but eventually they just get it, or their brains are not capable of forming the structures because of some genetic determining factor, whatever in that case.

Did you mean to post those videos because I can't for the life of me understand what the hell is going on.

Or, is it at all possible that you really really really f***ed up? I mean, like on a scale probably never before seen on TF. Could I for a moment entertain the unthinkable idea than you accidently posted something that says my exact argument? There are myriad things that could have been said in the last two minutes of the second video, but saying exactly what I am saying is too much of a coincidence to comprehend.

I mean, I got a chill when the one guy said what he said about randomness allowing free will; because I swear to you I never heard or read that anywhere before. But now that chill has turned in to total shock at the prospect that you made a mistake.

 

[ryan]

That is what you are claiming.

But you don't have an argument.

Your errors have been pointed out by every poster who has responded to your assertions. Which you duly ignore, just dodging and dancing in response to anything that is said, never considering that the problem lies with your assertions.

Oh please, you know I answer and comment on all of what you and others post. You are the only one who actually replies back to me.

Then you definitely did not watch the last 2 minutes of the second video.

But you still don't understand the implications of random elements altering information processing within a rational system in unpredictable ways, which, if occur, are neither willed or decisions made, instead insisting that this is freedom/free will.

You do this without a formal argument or evidence, only assertion.

I will let you off the hook on this one because I am just as much confused by Kharakov's post as you probably are.

And hey, since numbers seem to be so important to you, you can add someone to my column.

 

[Kharakov]

I posted the videos specifically for you, which is why I said "here bud". Not to bring you down too much, but do you think that some intelligent kids making the same mistake as you means that the mistake is not a mistake?

 

[ryan]

I posted the videos specifically for you, which is why I said "here bud". Not to bring you down too much, but do you think that some intelligent kids making the same mistake as you means that the mistake is not a mistake?

It doesn't matter who says what. It's what is being said that is important.

I am only making a philosophical argument based mostly on scientific realism. My argument requires many assumptions. If one of them is false, the whole thing could fall.

 

[Kharakov]

Keep in mind that not one non-deterministic QM formulation takes into account spacetime's influence on the evolution of the system. If you have an omnipresent entity, it's going to have a non-local impact (it's the "hidden" variable, and it's not very sneaky.. ok, it is sometimes hard to notice because of everything else we are interacting with- sometimes you can't see the spacetime for the particles...).

 

[ryan]

Keep in mind that not one non-deterministic QM formulation takes into account spacetime's influence on the evolution of the system. If you have an omnipresent entity, it's going to have a non-local impact (it's the "hidden" variable, and it's not very sneaky.. ok, it is sometimes hard to notice because of everything else we are interacting with- sometimes you can't see the spacetime for the particles...).

Or, there can be extra dimensions that could explain QM deterministically. I don't know; nobody does. That is why we shouldn't be certain.

 

[Kharakov]

Keep in mind that not one non-deterministic QM formulation takes into account spacetime's influence on the evolution of the system. If you have an omnipresent entity, it's going to have a non-local impact (it's the "hidden" variable, and it's not very sneaky.. ok, it is sometimes hard to notice because of everything else we are interacting with- sometimes you can't see the spacetime for the particles...).

Or, there can be extra dimensions that could explain QM deterministically. I don't know; nobody does. That is why we shouldn't be certain.

I'm sure someone isn't.

 

[DBT]

Or, there can be extra dimensions that could explain QM deterministically. I don't know; nobody does. That is why we shouldn't be certain.

Yet you yourself appear to be extremely certain of your own position, regardless of the fatal problems with that position....which have been repeatedly pointed out.

 

[DBT]

Oh please, you know I answer and comment on all of what you and others post. You are the only one who actually replies back to me.

You do answer and you do comment, but neither your answer or your comment involves an actual argument to support your claims.


Just for the sake of interest, here's is someone's argument against indeterminism as a foundation for free will;

Quote;
''Assuming that discussion of free will is necessarily a discussion concerning necessity or contingency is wrong. As Kant said, freedom is neither nature nor chance. Philosophers or scientists who think that indeterminism gives freedom of will forget the rules of classical logic and claim that "(p −−> ¬q) implies (¬p −−> q)", where "p" stands for determinism and "q" stands for freedom of will. This argument is false.

For example, let us imagine building a robot that follows random laws. Is it free? Of course not.

Indeterminism is not an absence of causation but the presence of non−deterministic causal processes (Fetzer 1988).

I mean that "causality" is not necessarily determinism; we can understand "causality" in a more general sense: causality as "explanation" or "reason". An explanation of or the reason for an event means following a law (perhaps a statistical law), and the presence of laws is the absence of free will. Quantum mechanics is indeterministic but it is not acausal. There is always a cause, an explanation or reason, for any phenomenon; for example, when an electron which is pushed towards another electron. Both electrons are repelled, and their positions and velocities are undetermined. The cause of repulsion is that we joint both electrons. The electrons are not free to choose their repulsion''

7. Conclusions
•Indeterminism does not imply free will.
•The opposite of free will is materialism rather than determinism.
•Dualism and "mind collapsing matter" from quantum subjectivism is against observational
evidence in neurology.
•Dualism and "mind collapsing matter" from quantum subjectivism is against evolution theory.
•The contemporary scientific position no more has a place for freedom of will than French materialism of XVIII century''

 

[ryan]

Or, there can be extra dimensions that could explain QM deterministically. I don't know; nobody does. That is why we shouldn't be certain.

Yet you yourself appear to be extremely certain of your own position, regardless of the fatal problems with that position....which have been repeatedly pointed out.

This is maddening. I am shocked that you still think this. I admittedly have to assume indeterminism (which is not a stretch but certainly not certain). I have to assume that the QM effects of the microtubules actually could allow a decision to have been different. I even have to assume monism (not a stretch for you but a stretch for me).

I take these assumptions, and many more, to fit a definition of free will. The definition being that we could have chosen differently. If the microtubules in our decision-making process allow this, then I have what I need.

Forget about the "free" and "will" parts of the term; it's the definition that you should focus on.

 

[fromderinside]

That what we can't measure or see 'acts' probabilistically is assured by the fact that it can't be other than seen in populations of outcomes. The point that these population reports average out to deterministic macro events should be proof enough that the calculus for the very tiny produces results in concert with the large. The theory is about calculus of tiny steps and interceding steps between products producing accurate statements. Try interpolating a measure on a slide rule some time to determine whether an average (several interpolations) produces a result consistent with a determination.

That the tactic may not be ruled by determinism is not evidence the method is not producing deterministic results.

Ryan its time to concede.

This is crazy. You seem to be saying that just because the collective/whole exhibits some property the individual parts must have the same property. That's like saying that all colors are white because their combined properties exhibit white.

Now there's a bad analogy. All light is made of photons which have different levels of energy, or, for this discussion frequency which our receptors can report. Saying white would be like saying QM permits choice because, what the hey, the energies when they are mixed average out to white. Fact of the matter is there is no choice in QM, just different energies which may result in different entities based on rules. No freedom there. What results are just random energy outcomes of those which are available which is, by the way, what we see as white when frequencies are randomly mixed together.

 

[Juma]

I have to assume that the QM effects of the microtubules actually could allow a decision to have been different.

The reason anyone, with his wits still working, talks about the importance of being able to have chosen otherwise, is to make people reasponsible for their actions. As in "He was a bad person, he could have saved that boys life by shooting the lion".


There are two important points here:

1)As you may notice this is a !hypotetical! question. Thus not really a question wether the mechanism behind the decision could have worked differently.

2) if he had acted differently due to random reasons (as by your QM effects) that would have no impact on his morailty but on the mans apparent sanity.

 

[ryan]

This is crazy. You seem to be saying that just because the collective/whole exhibits some property the individual parts must have the same property. That's like saying that all colors are white because their combined properties exhibit white.

Now there's a bad analogy. All light is made of photons which have different levels of energy, or, for this discussion frequency which our receptors can report. Saying white would be like saying QM permits choice because, what the hey, the energies when they are mixed average out to white. Fact of the matter is there is no choice in QM, just different energies which may result in different entities based on rules. No freedom there. What results are just random energy outcomes of those which are available which is, by the way, what we see as white when frequencies are randomly mixed together.

The parts do not share the same properties as the whole. The whole could be moving south, but a part could be moving north.

For systems as intricate and small as neurological processes, one random event can have a chaotic effect on the whole. It might be enough to actually have a significant impact on what choice is made, specifically close choices.

 

[ryan]

I have to assume that the QM effects of the microtubules actually could allow a decision to have been different.

The reason anyone, with his wits still working, talks about the importance of being able to have chosen otherwise, is to make people reasponsible for their actions. As in "He was a bad person, he could have saved that boys life by shooting the lion".

My argument means that we would be free to make mistakes or do things that others consider as wrong. If jails are meant to change a person's behavior, then that means that jails are also meant to change a person's brain chemistry. The neural pathways that allowed that "free" option by way of QM might actually become closed off. We know this works with kids; it's debatable whether it works with adults.

1)As you may notice this is a !hypotetical! question. Thus not really a question wether the mechanism behind the decision could have worked differently.

I don't know what question you are referring to. I don't understand what you mean here.

2) if he had acted differently due to random reasons (as by your QM effects) that would have no impact on his morailty but on the mans apparent sanity.

My argument is not meant for clear and easy decisions. Shooting the lion is a "hardwired" choice for most people. I am talking about a choice, say, if the lion were running towards your friend and another lion is running towards you, but you only have one bullet.

 

[Kharakov]

For systems as intricate and small as neurological processes, one random event can have a chaotic effect on the whole. It might be enough to actually have a significant impact on what choice is made, specifically close choices.

 

[ryan]

DBT, I don't think your constituency are holding their own very well.