Determinism, Randomness, and Free Will

[NoXion]

OK, I kind of wanted to get something off my chest about an equivocation on the title subject that seems to be common. I'll illustrate with a quote from this article: Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will

Life is full of choices. Do we have a cookie or go to the gym? Do we binge watch our favorite show on Netflix or go to bed at a reasonable time? Our choices have consequences, and we make them of our own free will. Or do we?

The nature of free will has long inspired philosophical debates, but it also raises a central question about the fundamental nature of the universe. Is the cosmos governed by strict physical laws that determine its fate from the big bang until the end of time? Or do the laws of nature sometimes allow for things to happen at random? A century-old series of physics experiments still hasn’t been able to settle the question, but a new experiment has tilted the odds toward the latter by performing a quantum experiment across billions of light-years.

Here we see see an example of randomness being equivocated with choice. Why? When I roll a dice, I don't choose which of the numbers come up. If my behaviour ultimately breaks down to the influence of random quantum fluctuations, then how on Earth would be I be choosing anything?

It's this point which I feel that is missed by the vast majority of people who advocate for some quantum mechanism for free will, like what some do with the Orch-OR hypothesis.

Of course, randomness isn’t the only thing necessary for free will. But it does mean that your fate is not necessarily sealed.

No, instead my fate is subject to the roll of the die. This is no more allowing for free will, any more than a roulette table allows for a steady income.

 

[Jeff Robinson]

Yes, I can't for the life of me fathom how anybody could think that randomness at the quantum level, or any level for that matter, could be adduced as evidence in favour of the free will thesis.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Quantum processes are still deterministic, just determined according to a mechanism we don't yet comprehend. If entangled particles were 'choosing' their quantum states, well firstly which particle chooses and which has choice inflicted upon it, and secondly why when you repeat a quantum experiment with two possible outcomes enough times do the results always end up 50/50? If one quantum state was 'better' you'd expect to see maybe observed particles choosing it 50.1% of the time, but that never happens.

We can't predict individual quantum-scale events but we can model them very accurately on a large scale. Hence things like radioactive half-life, which is constant for a given material even if we have no idea when or if an individual atom will decay.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Yes, I can't for the life of me fathom how anybody could think that randomness at the quantum level, or any level for that matter, could be adduced as evidence in favour of the free will thesis.

I heard this line of argument from a friend who also believes in spiritual energy, astrology, faith healing and basically all the hoodoo bullshit you can think of. She'd clearly heard the word quantum mentioned somewhere, and decided it was a get out of jail free card that absolved her from having to worry about determinism.

 

[ManchesterBeth]

a pseudo-problem. no need if you reject god.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

'free will' seems an incoherent idea in the first place to me. I'm not sure how it can even be defined. 'I did what I thought was best at the time. How could I have done anything else?'

 

[ManchesterBeth]

it's not an incoherent idea. it exists in a specific period and form of social domination. a seudo-problem for the materialist.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

it's not an incoherent idea. it exists in a specific period and form of social domination. a seudo-problem for the materialist.

Ok, can you define it for me?

 

[ManchesterBeth]

read qur'an and you will understand. what is there to define?

 

[ManchesterBeth]

it's not like the question ever existed as an abstract hypothetical did it.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

What is there to define? The term 'free will'. As in what I said above - 'I did what I thought best at the time, and how could I have done anything else?' Where is 'free will' in this? What would its opposite look like? What does it mean?

Read Mr. Tickle. It will show you.

 

[butchersapron]

Who came up with the term or concept of free will. Or randomness come to that.

 

[NoXion]

a pseudo-problem. no need if you reject god.

What's God got to do with free will? If anything I would have thought that free will, at least as I rather hazily understand the concept, would be impossible in a universe containing an omniscient being.

 

[ManchesterBeth]

oh, we're back to man in the sky. Sometimes i really regret being an atheist.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

oh, we're back to man in the sky. Sometimes i really regret being an atheist.

I'm very happy to start from an assumption of atheism. You're the one who brought up 'god'.

Read Mr. Mean next after Mr. Tickle.

 

[cheesethief]

Quantum processes are still deterministic, just determined according to a mechanism we don't yet comprehend. If entangled particles were 'choosing' their quantum states, well firstly which particle chooses and which has choice inflicted upon it, and secondly why when you repeat a quantum experiment with two possible outcomes enough times do the results always end up 50/50? If one quantum state was 'better' you'd expect to see maybe observed particles choosing it 50.1% of the time, but that never happens.

Are you sure about that? Do you know something the physics community has thus far missed?

There may be an underlying deterministic explanation, or there may not. Last I checked the jury was still very much out on that one.

And even if it were shown to be the case, you'd also have to convincingly demonstrate that the purported quantum determinism wasn't itself built upon an underlying layer of non-determinism.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Are you sure about that? Do you know something the physics community has thus far missed?

There may be an underlying deterministic explanation, or there may not. Last I checked the jury was still very much out on that one.

And even if it were shown to be the case, you'd also have to convincingly demonstrate that the purported quantum determinism wasn't itself built upon an underlying layer of non-determinism.

Even if there was a layer of non-determinism, which as creatures bound by what-goes-up-must-come-down deterministic physical laws we'd never truly be able to comprehend, that wouldn't in itself allow you to derive the existence of free will or a soul or fundamental human nautre or whatever. It might simply change the underlying cause of human behaviour from deterministic interactions to deterministic interactions plus blind luck.

 

[ManchesterBeth]

I'm very happy to start from an assumption of atheism. You're the one who brought up 'god'.

Read Mr. Mean next after Mr. Tickle.

See, you're still talking about it as a separated abstraction. why did the debate between free will and atheism gain traction within religion? or the history of religious thought (aka. philosophy?)

 

[butchersapron]

See, you're still talking about it as a separated abstraction. why did the debate between free will and atheism gain traction within religion? or the history of religious thought (aka. philosophy?)

If you just say things have a history he may get it. That said, i spent years trying get people to understand that art has a history with little or no success.

 

[cheesethief]

Even if there was a layer of non-determinism, which as creatures bound by what-goes-up-must-come-down deterministic physical laws we'd never truly be able to comprehend, that wouldn't in itself allow you to derive the existence of free will or a soul or fundamental human nautre or whatever. It might simply change the underlying cause of human behaviour from deterministic interactions to deterministic interactions plus blind luck.

If there's a layer of non-determinism, anywhere below us, then everything above is non-deterministic.

If we're bounded by determinism, then there's really no such thing as blind luck, or any other type of luck. There's merely ignorance of a future that's predetermined.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

If you just say things have a history he may get it. That said, i spent years trying get people to understand that art has a history with little or no success.

I'm capable of having this discussion without being a condescending prick. Maybe you are too. If so, I would still pose the original question. If you'd like to flesh the debate out with some historical context and think this will help, then please do.

 

[kabbes]

Every time I make a choice, I do so because of the particular configuration of my biological system at that time. How could I have made a different choice from within the confines of that same biological system?

However, that doesn’t mean the choice isn’t real. I still had to go through a process to arrive at it, even if that process was one controlled outside my conscious awareness. So I have to live as if free will is a thing, because I have no other way of accessing the choices I need to make.

It’s a bugger alright.

 

[butchersapron]

I'm capable of having this discussion without being a condescending prick. Maybe you are too. If so, I would still pose the original question. If you'd like to flesh the debate out with some historical context and think this will help, then please do.

Ah, but the real test is if you can do it without writing like a periwigged buffoon from the regency.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Every time I make a choice, I do so because of the particular configuration of my biological system at that time. How could I have made a different choice from within the confines of that same biological system?

However, that doesn’t mean the choice isn’t real. I still had to go through a process to arrive at it, even if that process was one controlled outside my conscious awareness. So I have to live as if free will is a thing, because I have no other way of accessing the choices I need to make.

It’s a bugger alright.

Yep, I think that's about it. It's a concept we live by, and like many of the concepts we live by, it is at best only fuzzily defined. The concept of the unified self is another of these.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Ah, but the real test is if you can do it without writing like a periwigged buffoon from the regency.

Go fuck yourself. I've addressed each question on this thread using the simplest of language. I always try to do that, not to hide behind semi-understood jargon.

 

[butchersapron]

I reckon the number of people who live by these concepts is pretty small. Trivially so.

 

[TruXta]

What does it matter, except to keep philosophers in grant money?

 

[Santino]

This article: Is Neuroscience a Bigger Threat than Artificial Intelligence? - suggests that modern neuroscience proves that we are not really conscious. But I think the article actually demonstrates that Anglo-American philosophers are still thinking of minds as a kind of machine with propositional content, which I don't think they are.

 

[TruXta]

This article: Is Neuroscience a Bigger Threat than Artificial Intelligence? - suggests that modern neuroscience proves that we are not really conscious. But I think the article actually demonstrates that Anglo-American philosophers are still thinking of minds as a kind of machine with propositional content, which I don't think they are.

That's pretty much the standard model these days.

What do you think it is?

 

[Jeff Robinson]

What's God got to do with free will? If anything I would have thought that free will, at least as I rather hazily understand the concept, would be impossible in a universe containing an omniscient being.

Theists often claim the opposite: that free will is only possible if there is an omnipotent being to bestow it upon us. It is only such a supernatural entity that can insert a break in the casual chain of effects that would otherwise compel our conduct and thoughts.

If one rejects both libertarian free will and compatiblism then I think one has to accept this conditional form of the theist argument is right but of course one can simply conclude from it that there is no free will because there is no such supernatural entity.