There isn't really a 'freewill problem'.

[The AntiChris]

If you accept regulative control as a necessary part of free will, it seems impossible either way:
1. Free will requires that given an act A, the agent could have acted otherwise
2. Indeterminate actions happens randomly and without intent or control
3. Therefore indeterminism and free will are incompatible
4. Determinate actions are fixed and unchangeable
5. Therefore determinism is incompatible with free will

This is the standard refutation of libertarian (incompatibilist) free will. I agree with it.

You haven't offered an argument or an explanation.. As usual, you merely assert your belief.

What precisely are you objecting to?

 

[The AntiChris]

If the universe is deterministic, all references to freedom are an illusion.

So, are you saying that all references to freedom in our universe are an illusion (I think you really mean 'mistaken')

Or, are you saying that all all references to freedom in our universe, if they are not an "illusion", are justified by indeterminism'?

These references are common usage based on limited observations the world and its objects and events, which does not take into account whether the World is Determined or not.....in other words, surface appearance.

Sorry, what?

Your responses are becoming increasingly more cryptic.

I really have no idea what you're trying to say.

 

[Emily Lake]

Briefly....


To me, iow as I see it, You are describing there a very complicated but essentially automatic process.

Possibly you won't object to that. You won't mind if 'free will' plays out automatically.

True - I don't have any objection to it rolling out automatically. It isn't magic, after all. To me, as I said, the key element is that it is possible that given the same starting conditions, a different action could be taken. The model I proposed makes that a possibility. It's also fairly similar (though much less complex) to the sorts of learning and decision-making algorithms that are being leveraged in AI research right now... so there's some validity to the idea that an element of randomness produces outcomes that are more similar to actual observed thinking and decision-making processes than a purely deterministic "programmed" approach. The best and most advanced learning models and intelligence models out there today implicitly employ an element of randomization and uncertainty in the process.

Caveat here is that my knowledge of AI and ML is a step removed. There's a lot of the math and programming that I don't follow. And while part of my team works on data science and some ML, it's not something I myself do directly. I have a high-level understanding, but not super deep knowledge.

But I still think (and you will probably disagree) that it's barking up the wrong tree. In the final analysis, you could not ever do otherwise than what you ever did.

Only in the same retrospective sense that whatever the outcome of your dice roll was, is the only thing it could have been - the outcome is the outcome. The observation is the observation. But the definiteness of the observation doesn't destroy the essentially probabilistic nature of the process itself. Observing that an 11 was rolled with two dice doesn't imply that only an 11 could have been rolled. The observation of an actual outcome doesn't invalidate the probability distribution, nor does ti imply that there is no probability involved.

In these determinism/randomness combo models, at least as I've come across it/them before, there seems to be a sort of two-stage process envisaged. First, the decoupling from determinism (the randomness) and second the application of determinism thereafter. Even if that's too simplistic and the process is not linear and sequential but stochastic, unpredictable and involving continuous feedback and so on, I still don't see where's there's any free will in any meaningful sense.

Of course 'free will in any meaningful sense' is a phrase that could mean different things. It's not clear to me yet what it means to you, precisely.

I thought i'd covered that, but perhaps I haven't been clear: to me 'free will' means that given the same starting conditions and the same actor, it is possible for a different decision to be made. That doesn't mean magic. That doesn't mean that there's not a physical process involved that is bound by the laws of physics. It simply means that the set of potential outcomes available to an agent prior to a decision being made represents realizable options, and that the likelihoods associated with the non-selected options are nonzero.

A simplistic analogy......You are choosing between two flavours of ice cream. Just at the instant you are about to choose, you notice a third flavour, and a fourth and so on. No matter which flavour you end up choosing (and let's say that 'go for a swim instead' also pops into your mind) you effectively and essentially had no control over it. It just happened, automatically. There is even a good (imo) case for saying that the other flavours (options) popping up works against your agency, not for it. And if I recall correctly, from another forum, some data from studies which suggest that more options reduces decision-making ability.

Let's work with your analogy. Let's say that you walk into the store, and you're going to decide what flavor of ice cream you choose using a really simple method. For each flavor that you encounter, you're going to say either "Yuck" or "Yum". As soon as you hit the first flavor for which your response is "Yum", you stop looking at flavors, and choose that one. This is a sufficiency condition - you continue to evaluate until the sufficiency criteria is met, then you stop.

Now lets say the the order in which you are presented with potential flavors is random. What's the outcome of this? The process of decision-making can be well defined (call it determined), but the actual selection made is uncertain (indeterminate). There are two major uncertainties involved. The first one is the portion of flavors that you like out of the available population of flavors. So if you only like 1 out of 31 flavors, then the likelihood of you choosing that flavor is 1. But if you like 10 out of 31 flavors, then about a third of the options presented are candidates for selection. The second uncertainty revolves around how the flavors are presented. If the distribution is uniform, then each flavor has the same probability of being presented first, or second, or so on. But it's entirely possible that the distribution isn't uniform. Perhaps the order of presentation is based on the volume of that flavor sold the prior day, multiplied by a randomization factor. In that case, the most popular flavors are more likely to be presented earlier in the list... but the single most popular flavor isn't necessarily guaranteed to be the first one presented.

In this case, you have a mixed model. The process of selection is determined. But the outcome of the process is not.

At its core, that is what I mean by 'free will' - that the outcome of the decision process is not determined (and often is not determinable) even if the process is well defined.

When you add in that there exist several different decision-making schema, all of which get used by humans in different situations, then it seems clear to me that 1) selection of the appropriate process to use is not fully determined and 2) the outcome of the decision process is not determined.

I'd be happy to call it an agreeable middle-ground to say that humans have indeterminate will. It seems sufficient for this discussion

 

[ruby sparks]

I think I'm fine with all of that. Except for one small thing. And that is why you would use the term 'free will' to describe it.

It would, if it were the correct model, only be freedom from determinism, as per your last line.

I'm not actually sure it even is that. It may just be freedom from predictability?

But, setting that aside temporarily, let's say for the sake of argument that your model is at least pretty useful nonetheless (and possibly correct, I'm not saying it isn't).


It's time for me to confess that on a general note, I don't quite 'get' the idea, or in fact if I'm totally honest I have trouble believing, that some people are really ok with or accepting of a version of human capacities (free will, agency, whatever) where they believe that everything they think and do happens automatically and without personal control.

Am I the only person who goes around during quite a lot of his waking life under the impression that everything I think and do does not just happen automatically as a result of a mixture of determinism and randomness, and that 'I' (aka my self, he who 'I' call ruby sparks) exercise at least some conscious control? In fact I'd go further and admit, here in public, that the locus of this conscious control feels like it's just behind my eyes, at least much of the time.

In a nutshell, what sort of free will is it, in any meaningful sense, and what does it explain about what I've just described above, if it's automatic, uncontrolled and/or non-conscious?

I know you didn't bring up the last of those three, but others do claim that consciousness is not required for free will (and it seems to me it might not be required in your model. For example, the ice cream options could be presented to me subliminally or I might be a non-consciousness-and-non-self-experiencing, ice-cream-selecting computer program).

Am I the only person who experiences a mindfuck when confronted with that limited version of 'free will'?

I can forgive myself, and some others, for not really wanting to use the term.



ETA: It's here that I sometimes feel like citing those who define god as the universe and all its physical laws. At some point, word definitions cease to be particularly relevant, useful or accurate. Especially if, like god and free will they come pre-loaded, for almost all of us, with culturally (and possibly genetically) inherited or developmentally learned psychological baggage of one sort or another. Not the same baggage in each case, obviously. And my guess is that the human sensation of free will probably predates the invention of gods in any case.

 

[Emily Lake]

I would like to throw one more thing into the mix here. I think that nearly everyone, almost all of us, are naturally inclined to over-estimate our capacities for agency (or free will if you prefer). It's as if we have an inherent (confirmation) bias. Even if we do have (some) capacities which might to some extent by some conceptions merit the term 'free will', it seems to me that it would only be via a relatively small hole in a blanket covering of profound and fundamental physical constraints, especially when we consider the plethora of ways in which our actions are not even conscious, and the ways in which some aspects of consciousness (and especially self-consciousness) may be illusory as to their role. It's as if we are hubristic enough to want to hold on to something that feels so essential to our sense of self and autonomy and our ability to navigate the world. One could argue that we are at the very least putting far too much emphasis on free will (trying to squeeze the last bit of magic toothpaste out of the tube) and not the lack of it, and what that implies as a consequent (a lot more humility for starters). It's sometimes hard to avoid concluding that the old paradigm, 'hoomans is spechul' ( and that there is spechul sauce in our brains) is still subtly operating here. You know what Ecclesiastes warned. All is vanity.

I sometimes, tangentially, cite the scene in the film, 'Toy Story' where Buzz Lightyear realises he's 'just' a toy and has a bit of an identity crisis. Although that again is only a partial analogy since Buzz still has (a sense of) free will to choose to run and jump, he just doesn't have 'superpowers' such as flying, or a laser that actually works. You could say he accepts compatibilism or some other realistic, limited version of himself, but actually the film doesn't really get into that in sufficient detail. That's not a criticism of the film.

I agree that we all tend to perceive ourselves as having greater agency than we actually do. It's similar, in a way, to how we all tend to assume we understand other people better than they understand us (especially if they are viewed as adversaries).

To add on to the discussion 'swamp' (love the mental image on that, by the way), even though I don't think that discussions of free will vs determinism have much practical value to how humans function... I do think it has ramifications for our future, particularly in terms of AI. Some people hold the belief that we'll never be able to create truly intelligent machines, because of that 'speshul sauce' that they think makes humans so unique. Personally, I don't think that special sauce exists, nor do I think that humans are all that unique. When it comes to agency, I think we're at one end of a spectrum - we have more agency than other animals (so far as we can tell, with our admitted bias in play)... but I also think that other animals have some degree of agency as well: we're not unique. And I think that as we continue to develop more complex models and incorporate learning into programming,we will be able to build actual intelligence.

Which raises the question: If a sufficiently intelligent machine reaches a stage where it is self aware, learns, and has the ability to weigh options and make decisions... do we hold it accountable for the consequences of those decisions? Just because it is programmed, does that imply that it has no agency? Just because the process is determined... does that make the outcome inevitable?

 

[Emily Lake]

If you accept regulative control as a necessary part of free will, it seems impossible either way:
1. Free will requires that given an act A, the agent could have acted otherwise
2. Indeterminate actions happens randomly and without intent or control
3. Therefore indeterminism and free will are incompatible
4. Determinate actions are fixed and unchangeable
5. Therefore determinism is incompatible with free will

I disagree - I think that indeterminism and free will are compatible, given the right model. There's of course no guarantee that the model is accurate... but most of the advances in Artifical Intelligence and Machine Learning are currently leveraging indeterminism for advances in non-biological thinking and decision making.

As I've outlined a couple of times, indeterminism in terms of the reference set used for a sufficiency-based decision model creates a situation where the agent could have acted otherwise within the confines of how we think of "could have". That is to say, given the exact same starting conditions, a very small introduction of randomness without intent or control can lead to a different decision being reached - and thus a different action being taken.

Whether you agree or not, under the given definition of Determinism, there is no possible freedom for the inhabitants or the objects within a determined system;

Determinism: The world is governed by (or is under the sway of) determinism if and only if, given a specified way things are at a time t, the way things go thereafter is fixed as a matter of natural law.

Fixed means no deviation. Compatibalism is a failed argument.

Okaaaayyyyy... But none of my post was about determinism being compatible with free will. It was pretty clearly about INdeterminism being compatible with free will. See - I even bolded and colored the parts I was disagreeing with

 

[Emily Lake]

I think I'm fine with all of that. Except for one small thing. And that is why you would use the term 'free will' to describe it.

Because that was the framing of the initiating discussion... and because I view it as being closer along the spectrum to "free will" than to "determinism" as each of those is classically defined.

Also, probably, because I haven't done any studying on compatabilism and other than a rough idea of what the term "compatible" means, I don't really know what it is!

 

[fast]

This is so topsy tervy!

First came the notion of free will.
Ooh goody goody, we can do as we please.

Second came the notion of determinism.
Ooh goody goody, all events are caused.

Third came the big question.
Does the truth of one exclude the truth of the other?
Is the world big enough for the both?
Is there a consistency such that both can be true?

Blah blah blah

Awe, but it's topsy tervy time now.

We are now discussing whether INdeterminism is compatable with free will? Of course! That just means if we live in a world where not all events are caused, there would be room for free will.

 

[DBT]

You haven't offered an argument or an explanation.. As usual, you merely assert your belief.

What precisely are you objecting to?

Rushed post due to limited time....I'm trying to get a picture of what you believe in terms of 'free will'. Compatibalism I guess, but I'm not sure. You have said that the word 'free' may be applied to 'will' but I don't know how. I assume that it has something to do with your examples, but they are related to brain function and condition, not will. So I don't know what you are trying to say.

 

[DBT]

Whether you agree or not, under the given definition of Determinism, there is no possible freedom for the inhabitants or the objects within a determined system;

Determinism: The world is governed by (or is under the sway of) determinism if and only if, given a specified way things are at a time t, the way things go thereafter is fixed as a matter of natural law.

Fixed means no deviation. Compatibalism is a failed argument.

Okaaaayyyyy... But none of my post was about determinism being compatible with free will. It was pretty clearly about INdeterminism being compatible with free will. See - I even bolded and colored the parts I was disagreeing with

The syllogism addresses indeterminism.....2. Indeterminate actions happens randomly and without intent or control.

Which does not allow - regulative control as a necessary part of free will

The brain is an information processor so random events within the system can only disrupt decision making. If random events happen in the external world, this must be processed by our neural architecture in the normal way....the state of the system at any given moment in time determining the decision made in that moment in time. Information processing and selection of an option based on a given set of criteria, which is not free will. Computers do it without will or consciousness. Even plants respond to their stimuli without conscious will, yet alone 'free will'

 

[DBT]

These references are common usage based on limited observations the world and its objects and events, which does not take into account whether the World is Determined or not.....in other words, surface appearance.

Sorry, what?

Your responses are becoming increasingly more cryptic.

I really have no idea what you're trying to say.

Time and haste is a problem, but it shouldn't be difficult to grasp the essential meaning.

The Inhabitants of a Determined system may feel free because they feel that they are going about their lives without any apparent restrictions, making decisions and acting upon them, but not a having access to the necessary information, the state of the World at large, they are unaware of the large scale forces that are shaping not only the events around them but their very thought processes, decisions and actions.

So in every day language they express the belief that they are making 'free choices' and that they have 'free will' but in reality their choices and actions are inevitable. Set and Fixed by the vast passage of time and events which are both beyond their control and their understanding.

So what does in mean when an inhabitant of a Determined World happens to say ''my choice was freely made, I have free will?'' yet not taking into account how that decision was made or why in terms of the events that made it inevitable?

 

[The AntiChris]

This is the standard refutation of libertarian (incompatibilist) free will. I agree with it.

You haven't offered an argument or an explanation.. As usual, you merely assert your belief.

What precisely are you objecting to?

Rushed post due to limited time......... So I don't know what you are trying to say.

I'm saying that I agree with your refutation of libertarian (incompatibilist) free will.

I honestly don't know how you could read what I said in any other way.

 

[DBT]

You haven't offered an argument or an explanation.. As usual, you merely assert your belief.

What precisely are you objecting to?

Rushed post due to limited time......... So I don't know what you are trying to say.

I'm saying that I agree with your refutation of libertarian (incompatibilist) free will.

I honestly don't know how you could read what I said in any other way.

This morning (check the time) I only had a few minutes to reply to several posts before starting work, so skimming through several replies, Emily's, etc, happened to misread what you said. My fault. Sorry for the confusion.

So, when you said - This is the standard refutation of libertarian (incompatibilist) free will. I agree with it - I assumed that your comment left an option open for compatibalism. Which is what I'd like to see explained, assuming too much too soon, I guess.

 

[The AntiChris]

These references are common usage based on limited observations the world and its objects and events, which does not take into account whether the World is Determined or not.....in other words, surface appearance.

Sorry, what?

Your responses are becoming increasingly more cryptic.

I really have no idea what you're trying to say.

Time and haste is a problem, but it shouldn't be difficult to grasp the essential meaning.

Ok here's my question again:

If the universe is deterministic, all references to freedom are an illusion.

So, are you saying that all references to freedom in our universe are an illusion (I think you really mean 'mistaken')

Or, are you saying that all all references to freedom in our universe, if they are not an "illusion", are justified by indeterminism'?

And your latest response:

The Inhabitants of a Determined system may feel free because they feel that they are going about their lives without any apparent restrictions, making decisions and acting upon them, but not a having access to the necessary information, the state of the World at large, they are unaware of the large scale forces that are shaping not only the events around them but their very thought processes, decisions and actions.

So in every day language they express the belief that they are making 'free choices' and that they have 'free will' but in reality their choices and actions are inevitable. Set and Fixed by the vast passage of time and events which are both beyond their control and their understanding.

So what does in mean when an inhabitant of a Determined World happens to say ''my choice was freely made, I have free will?'' yet not taking into account how that decision was made or why in terms of the events that made it inevitable?

Your original claim, and my response, was talking about "all references to freedom" but your response talks only about free will.

Clearly the word "freedom" is used in vastly more contexts than just freedom of the will. I'd assumed you were making a claim about the more general sense of freedom. Did you in fact only intend 'freedom of the will' when you said "freedom" in your original claim [in bold]?

On a general point, I think you generate much confusion when you make general claims about the use of the word 'free' when you actually mean 'free will'.

 

[DBT]

Time and haste is a problem, but it shouldn't be difficult to grasp the essential meaning.

Ok here's my question again:

If the universe is deterministic, all references to freedom are an illusion.

So, are you saying that all references to freedom in our universe are an illusion (I think you really mean 'mistaken')

Or, are you saying that all all references to freedom in our universe, if they are not an "illusion", are justified by indeterminism'?

And your latest response:

The Inhabitants of a Determined system may feel free because they feel that they are going about their lives without any apparent restrictions, making decisions and acting upon them, but not a having access to the necessary information, the state of the World at large, they are unaware of the large scale forces that are shaping not only the events around them but their very thought processes, decisions and actions.

So in every day language they express the belief that they are making 'free choices' and that they have 'free will' but in reality their choices and actions are inevitable. Set and Fixed by the vast passage of time and events which are both beyond their control and their understanding.

So what does in mean when an inhabitant of a Determined World happens to say ''my choice was freely made, I have free will?'' yet not taking into account how that decision was made or why in terms of the events that made it inevitable?

Your original claim, and my response, was talking about "all references to freedom" but your response talks only about free will.

Clearly the word "freedom" is used in vastly more contexts than just freedom of the will. I'd assumed you were making a claim about the more general sense of freedom. Did you in fact only intend 'freedom of the will' when you said "freedom" in your original claim [in bold]?

On a general point, I think you generate much confusion when you make general claims about the use of the word 'free' when you actually mean 'free will'.

No, I meant the status of freedom in general within a Determined World.

 

[The AntiChris]

No, I meant the status of freedom in general within a Determined World.

So, if I understand you correctly, you're saying that all references to freedom (e.g. "freedom of the press", "freedom of movement ", "freedom of information" etc, etc..), not just freedom of the will, are an "illusion" (I think you mean mistaken). Have I got this right?

 

[DBT]

No, I meant the status of freedom in general within a Determined World.

So, if I understand you correctly, you're saying that all references to freedom (e.g. "freedom of the press", "freedom of movement ", "freedom of information" etc, etc..), not just freedom of the will, are an "illusion" (I think you mean mistaken). Have I got this right?

The inhabitants of a Determined World may not know that their thoughts and actions are determined, they may be under the impression of being free agents, that they have regulative control, which is not only a mistake but an illusion based on their narrow perspective of the World...their experience of the World being based on sensory experience;

illusion
ɪˈluːʒ(ə)n/
noun
an instance of a wrong or misinterpreted perception of a sensory experience.

 

[ruby sparks]

I agree that we all tend to perceive ourselves as having greater agency than we actually do. It's similar, in a way, to how we all tend to assume we understand other people better than they understand us (especially if they are viewed as adversaries).

To add on to the discussion 'swamp' (love the mental image on that, by the way), even though I don't think that discussions of free will vs determinism have much practical value to how humans function... I do think it has ramifications for our future, particularly in terms of AI. Some people hold the belief that we'll never be able to create truly intelligent machines, because of that 'speshul sauce' that they think makes humans so unique. Personally, I don't think that special sauce exists, nor do I think that humans are all that unique. When it comes to agency, I think we're at one end of a spectrum - we have more agency than other animals (so far as we can tell, with our admitted bias in play)... but I also think that other animals have some degree of agency as well: we're not unique. And I think that as we continue to develop more complex models and incorporate learning into programming,we will be able to build actual intelligence.

I agree.

Which raises the question: If a sufficiently intelligent machine reaches a stage where it is self aware, learns, and has the ability to weigh options and make decisions... do we hold it accountable for the consequences of those decisions? Just because it is programmed, does that imply that it has no agency? Just because the process is determined... does that make the outcome inevitable?

'Inevitable' is only part of the 'problem', I think. As I said, it isn't that hard to say that at least in principle, randomness decouples events (all events, not just human actions) from determinism. If randomness operates at the macro level that is. Which I deem possible without knowing whether it is or isn't. If it isn't we'd have to use the word 'unpredictable' (as in incapable, perhaps even in principle, of being known in advance) which is a slightly different thing, since it's 'merely' about knowing (what will happen).

Anyhows, decoupling is only 'stage 1'. 'Stage 2' (where the brain deterministically acts on whatever options are in front of it, including the ones potentially thrown up by a random swerve) is, I think, trickier. It might even be argued that your dice have the sort of free will you are talking about, even if only a tiny bit.

 

[ruby sparks]

I think I'm fine with all of that. Except for one small thing. And that is why you would use the term 'free will' to describe it.

Because that was the framing of the initiating discussion... and because I view it as being closer along the spectrum to "free will" than to "determinism" as each of those is classically defined.

Also, probably, because I haven't done any studying on compatabilism and other than a rough idea of what the term "compatible" means, I don't really know what it is!

On the idea of a spectrum...


To me, when I think about it, the capacity that we have that gives us more 'elbow room' as it has been called, more 'degrees of freedom' (a useful machine term for meat robots, imo) than, say, other meat robots (animals), seems to be that our systems (mainly brains) automatically generate predictions about what is about to happen. These are essentially a form of 'simulations', about both the future and the past (memories in the latter case). As I see it, our systems run these simulations mostly non-consciously ('in the dark'), but when we're consciously deliberating about something, they are occurring in 'daylight' (the activity seems to cross a threshold into consciousness for whatever varied reasons). In such cases, our brains can 'pretend' they have made a decision (about, say, whether to go to the beach tomorrow or do that bit of work that needs doing) and get feedback about probable outcomes. We may heavily rely on simulations from the past (memories) to inform these simulations of the future, because we can't easily imagine something that we have never before experienced, so only options from memory (or combinations of them) can arise, I'm thinking, and our systems are inducing (not deducing) the probable outcomes based on prior experience.

In other words, in that model, it's our capacity to not have to 'live in the present moment', to (non-literally) 'time travel', that gives us a lot of our sophisticated agency. It's not something a thermostat can do, even though a thermostat is arguably a very basic rational agent. And it doesn't seem to be something that other animals do as much as us.

The above capacity doesn't need randomness and may even operate better without it. Hard to say, maybe as you say randomness helps in some way.

The idea that our brains internally generate much more information which affects action than is coming in through the senses (and to which our systems react) is, I think, fairly well established. When we drop the raw egg onto the tiled kitchen floor, it seems we have already predicted that it will probably smash before it lands and that when we see it smashing we are just confirming a prediction, not waiting for it to smash and then reacting. If it were to stop a centimetre above the floor, we'd be stymied for a moment or two. Our brains' superfast inductive reasoning 'algorithms' would have failed us.

 

[The AntiChris]

No, I meant the status of freedom in general within a Determined World.

So, if I understand you correctly, you're saying that all references to freedom (e.g. "freedom of the press", "freedom of movement ", "freedom of information" etc, etc..), not just freedom of the will, are an "illusion" (I think you mean mistaken). Have I got this right?

The inhabitants of a Determined World may not know that their thoughts and actions are determined, they may be under the impression of being free agents, that they have regulative control, which is not only a mistake but an illusion based on their narrow perspective of the World...their experience of the World being based on sensory experience;

illusion
ɪˈluːʒ(ə)n/
noun
an instance of a wrong or misinterpreted perception of a sensory experience.

So, to be quite clear, are you saying that all references to freedom (e.g. "freedom of the press", "freedom of movement ", "freedom of information" etc, etc..) are instances of "wrong or misinterpreted perception of a sensory experience"?