Free Will Redux: A Question

[Unseen]

_Robert_ wrote:

Don’t think you will be collecting your Nobel prize just yet. All you need is practically complete knowledge of the state of every atom from the beginning of time till now just to know you will flip a coin in the future and come up heads. Good luck with that.

One doesn’t need the Big Bang and every cause and effect between then and now. Name one thing (barring the quantum level) that happens NOT due to the immediate antecedent conditions.

Oh yeah, I forgot: free will. The one thing people claim operates based on uncaused causes. Everything else requires a set of sufficient PHYSICAL conditions to happen, but not human choices.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 4 months ago by Unseen.

[Unseen]

Ivy wrote:

@unseen

Psychology really can contribute little to a discussion centered on physical laws.

How do you figure that physical laws has anything to do with free will?

It doesn’t. Never the twain shall meet other than that physics and chemistry exist and operate below the psyche generating thoughts, emotions, fears, anxiety, etc. All those things ultimately map onto physical structures in the brain. Unless, you’re a dualist and you think the mind is a separate KIND of stuff.

[_Robert_]

Unseen wrote:

_Robert_ wrote:

Don’t think you will be collecting your Nobel prize just yet. All you need is practically complete knowledge of the state of every atom from the beginning of time till now just to know you will flip a coin in the future and come up heads. Good luck with that.

One doesn’t need the Big Bang and every cause and effect between then and now. Name one thing (barring the quantum level) that happens NOT due to the immediate antecedent conditions. Oh yeah, I forgot: free will. The one thing people claim operates based on uncaused causes. Everything else requires a set of sufficient PHYSICAL conditions to happen, but not human choices.

Lots of different things can happen from the same set of sufficient PHYSICAL conditions (thanks to sub-atomics that are neither here nor there).

• This reply was modified 5 years, 4 months ago by _Robert_.

[Belle Rose]

@Unseen

I guess I just laugh because I think y’all are way over complicating this LOL…

[Davis]

What are you talking about unseen. If it cannot even be predicted when a radioactive element will decay then how could you possible predict a coin toss 1000 years in the future even if you know the current state of every particle?

[Davis]

I guess I just laugh because I think y’all are way over complicating this LOL…

So what’s your definition of free will Ivy?

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

@Unseen  – Unless, you’re a dualist and you think the mind is a separate KIND of stuff.

Yes, there are still Homo sapiens who contend that the human species have “souls” that can exist independently of their primate hosts. They need to maintain this belief because they also believe “gods” will grant their souls immortality. Many of them have insisted to me that eventually their dead bodies will be re-animated and united with their souls again, thought I am not sure why this is has to happen. Why would an immortal soul need a body?

[_Robert_]

If you conduct experiments that are gross and have limited trials you usually get consistent results. The usual human experience. Unless you start measuring all parameters very accurately. At some point background/cosmic radiation, particle behavior and thermal noise enter the picture. The very act of observation changes results. Sometimes the effects of randomness are amplified. Electrical engineers live in that world. The world where we need techniques such as autocorrelation to lift a signal from the noise. Techniques to detect when a random digital bit in a ‘life critical’ machine gets flipped by a random cosmic ray.

The processes that create snowflakes or human fingerprints or the shape of a flower are repeated innumerable times with different results every single time as far as we can tell. Even identical twins have different fingerprints. So what goes on in the human brain? Are brain processes immune to background radiation from the big bang? Are they immune from observer effects? Are they really deterministic in any meaningful sense? And if not, what does that imply as far as ‘free will’? Does our consciousness get a dose of randomness to work with to generate ideas and creativity?

This question truly comes down to definition of terms.

 

[Unseen]

_Robert_ wrote:

Lots of different things can happen from the same set of sufficient PHYSICAL conditions (thanks to sub-atomics that are neither here nor there).

That’s a fairly desperate attempt to salvage free will, and yet reread it and tell us all where WILL comes into it? Generally speaking, all science depends on the regularity and predictability off effects always being the same given identical causes.

[Unseen]

Davis wrote:

What are you talking about unseen. If it cannot even be predicted when a radioactive element will decay then how could you possible predict a coin toss 1000 years in the future even if you know the current state of every particle?

a) On our level of existence, we know that things are the result of proximate causes. Quantum fluctuations may and probably do occasionally effect events on our level, but not magically, but rather by becoming a proximate cause and sending a causal chain in a different direction. b) That said, I’m at a loss to understand how your meager little point, such as it is, gives us FREE WILL.

Do tell.

[Unseen]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:

@unseen – Unless, you’re a dualist and you think the mind is a separate KIND of stuff. Yes, there are still Homo sapiens who contend that the human species have “souls” that can exist independently of their primate hosts. They need to maintain this belief because they also believe “gods” will grant their souls immortality. Many of them have insisted to me that eventually their dead bodies will be re-animated and united with their souls again, thought I am not sure why this is has to happen. Why would an immortal soul need a body?

To fuck? Masturbate? Enjoy a delicious chicken paprikash or tikka masala? Watch a sunset? Swim in the surf? Listen to Prince or Beatles tunes? LOL

[Unseen]

_Robert_ wrote:

If you conduct experiments that are gross and have limited trials you usually get consistent results. The usual human experience. Unless you start measuring all parameters very accurately. At some point background/cosmic radiation, particle behavior and thermal noise enter the picture. The very act of observation changes results. Sometimes the effects of randomness are amplified. Electrical engineers live in that world. The world where we need techniques such as autocorrelation to lift a signal from the noise. Techniques to detect when a random digital bit in a ‘life critical’ machine gets flipped by a random cosmic ray. The processes that create snowflakes or human fingerprints or the shape of a flower are repeated innumerable times with different results every single time as far as we can tell. Even identical twins have different fingerprints. So what goes on in the human brain? Are brain processes immune to background radiation from the big bang? Are they immune from observer effects? Are they really deterministic in any meaningful sense? And if not, what does that imply as far as ‘free will’? Does our consciousness get a dose of randomness to work with to generate ideas and creativity? This question truly comes down to definition of terms.

Reminder: neither determinism nor indeterminism results in FREE WILL. Besides, science has to assume that variations in twins’ fingerprints or differences in snowflakes nevertheless are caused. (That identical twins have different fingerprints implies only that “identical” should really be in quotes. “Identical” twins is something of a misnomer.)

• This reply was modified 5 years, 4 months ago by Unseen.

[Unseen]

We feel we have free will. When there is a scientific analysis of free will, it may show how we get this feeling. It’s inconceivable it will show that our decisions are free of the laws of nature.

[Davis]

I never said quantum effects explain free will. I like how you keep trying to frame my position as though I stand by free will existing or not. I don’t. You…actually…are the only person who has taken a hard position on the topic. And the sum of your argument is: I just don’t see how it’s possible (that and a propensity for visiting sites and reading things that only confirm your position and not investing time into theories on how actually it is possible).

No…quantum randomness won’t explain free will. But it also makes predicting a coin toss 1000 years in the future nearly impossible (even with an omniscient level knowledge of every particle in the universe at any one time). So you might want to give up this idea of yours that “quantum randomness cancels itself out in the aggregate” because it most certainly is not the case.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 4 months ago by Davis.

[jakelafort]

How is it possible for biological organisms to have free will? Roughly 3 and a half billion years ago life began on the pale blue dot. Replication with tiny variations led to an orange and craven nation. Okay enough of that BS, Glen. Presumably any form of sentience set in long after genesis. The automatic pilot of biology is an integral and necessary aspect of our consciousness. Does anyone doubt that actions and reactions of the earliest life were purely physical? Life comes with instructions and responds to environmental stimuli. Then and now. Does our awareness or that of a macaque alter the physics of life and endow it with freedom? The trend of biology/neuroscience is clear. There isn’t any indication of freedom. On the contrary we seem to be galvanic responses, matter in motion with a consciousness that is along for the merry ride. Pass the glass. Say the mass. Admire the mandrill’s ass.

[Author]

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