The Free Will Thread

Hoss_sl said:

Now with what you're describing, we're back to the question of how you can hold anyone responsible for anything they do. No one should be in jail because they had no choice.

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Why shouldn't they? Whether or not they had a "choice", they did something. Time spent in jail protects the rest of us from them doing other things, discourages the rest of us from doing the same things, and may impact the criminal's future actions. Is the objective to be "fair" to some meaningless technicality or to protect and improve society?

I think it is quite likely that free will is completely an illusion. I also think that it doesn't matter even a little bit if that is true or not.

It's like the simulated universe arguments or head-in-a-box stuff. They may or may not be the *actual reality* but who cares? If it doesn't impact how my life goes then that's fine. I might not actually have free will but as long as I can have a coherent existence while pretending I do, that's good enough for me.

Sentagur_sl said:

The whole thing is very counter intuitive and very hard to explain. The only way i can think of is to compare it to trickling water down a pane of glass , the water will take a randomly seeming path based on bunch of different variables but its not making conscious decisions which way it should flow. If you clean and dry the same glass panes and try it again the path might be same or different depending on many minuscule things that could have changed. You could say you could force the water down a specific path on that glass pane but we don't have the same control over our brain chemistry brain structure and environment that would allow us to change decisions we make.

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We do have some control, though. I see that in my daughter, she had some serious problems which medication helped. I have seen this in other people as well. We may not be at the super granular levelyet, but we are definitely able to influence behavior and choices. In 100 years who knows what kind of control we will have, much less 1000.

Jive Turkey_sl said:

I'd agree with chaos' second point 100%. But I'd argue it does matter because we have everything to gain from learning how our bodies work

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Sure, of course. I just mean it doesn't matter in everyday life. If a person dwells on this shit they could have a nervous breakdown, it's terrifying. But ultimately a meaningless difference in our daily lives. And once you break it down and get away from the "omg I am not in control" fear, it's just kind of meh.

I think rather than abstract philosophy an in depth study of cellular biology does more to clarify this question. There are things that cells do which would seem to have no chemical imperative. It may be that our understanding of the mechanics involved are not yet complete, and there is a mechanical imperative -- but it sure looks an awful fucking lot like choice.

To say, "were a cell not to do this it would no longer be a cell -- therefore it is a mandatory action and no choice at all" is no sort of rebuttal but instead a peculiar sort of circular reasoning.

As the science progresses and we begin to study virus with greater complexity and understanding I suspect (but can't know) that it will become even more clear that choice itself exists in a constitutional way as part of what we qualify as "animate matter" or "life". And that there is no particular magic to it, it arises naturally from the interactions of complex systems. Which, I fully realize, sounds hand-wavey and full of magic. But it is not always our place to explain why even as we explain how.

The rocks have no free will. They cannot choose to stop being rocks. They might be sentient though, on timescales we cannot understand.

Siddar_sl said:

I'm in the free will camp because that is how my belief system has been built. I have no reason to question those beliefs, unless someone can not only show that they're wrong but that there is something to be gained by changing them.

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The very definition of faith. Well done.

pharmakos_sl said:

if it arises naturally from complex systems, will we ever be able to draw a line in the sand that says "this is where conscious choice begins"? if all we find is a fuzzy line, does that mean we do or don't have free will?

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It's a very good question, and I think one that future generations will have to answer.

I don't think I'll live long enough. We're starting to see the beginnings of tackling that question. It's a large part of where the controversy over stem cell research comes from. Not only the harvesting, that is part of it, but the impulse to go crazy with fucking around with things we don't understand.

There is some wisdom in restraint as well. A thing worth doing is worth doing right, and all that. The universe isn't going anywhere. Stem cells will still be there in 20 years.

pharmakos_sl said:

cogito ergo sum

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wouldn't it be really bizarre for consciousness to even arise in a purely deterministic universe? what would be the point? occam's razor (i know, not definitive) to me would suggest that free will exists, simply because IMO it makes the universe a simpler place.

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You are pissing on Occam's grave.

Occam said,"Among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected."

This tends to make the world a more complex place than it would otherwise be because the simplest answer of all time, to every question ever is magic. Magic is the greatest of all assumptions. It is the appeal to metaphysics. "Physics that isn't physics." To invoke it is to read Occam exactly wrong.

Summoning magic into a discussion of understandingismaking assumptions. It is the exact opposite of understanding.

pharmakos_sl said:

Only read the three paragraphs

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pharmakos_sl said:

touche. i suppose i'm operating under the assumption that if free will does exist, then it arises from a metaphysical place rather than a physical process.

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pharmakos_sl said:

i never read this book

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Free will might be nothing more than the macro expression of electrons existing as a probability cloud rather than a well defined point particle.

I mean you have to accept that the answers we look for to the questions we have may just not be satisfying answers when found.

pharmakos_sl said:

Not sure what you have a legitimate reason to condescend here.

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He does. Stop giving commentary on things you haven't read.

pharmakos_sl said:

Assuming that I have free will is a bigger assumption than assuming that the only reason I'm typing this right now is because of an incredibly precise sequence of events that have happened since the big bang, any number of which being different by a single iota could cause an outcome so different as to maybe be unrecognizable by human eyes?

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You describe something complex and intricate and then you assign yourself cognitive mastery over it. Where does your mastery come from if not from the very physically intricate and complex system itself? Some place 'extra' physical? Outside physics? Metaphysical? Magical?

This sounds like a conversation I had with a gal the other day at work when she said something along the lines of, "The universe is so complex, so vast, so much going on, there is no way it just 'came to be'.

Even if something like metaphysical free will were real, it would ultimately be constrained by physical processes.

pharmakos_sl said:

Assuming that I have free will is a bigger assumption than assuming that the only reason I'm typing this right now is because of an incredibly precise sequence of events that have happened since the big bang, any number of which being different by a single iota could cause an outcome so different as to maybe be unrecognizable by human eyes?

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Is you typing on rerolled about free will some inevitable event? Why does the precise sequence of events leading up to it matter? You're ascribing importance to something, then applying statistical probability after it has already happened.
I just looked out my window and saw licence plate# AMBS 438. Out of all the licence plates in the provence, I saw that one. Isn't that amazing? It's statistically impossible, yet here I am looking at it

Watch this one if you still think you have free will