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Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

Luck favors the prepared. When luck and preparation intersect good stuff happens, but if you're 'just' lucky and are not in a position to capitalize on that luck then you will appear unlucky.

Obviously the writer and the person referenced have taken the 'luck' angle to an extreme, there is an element of truth in there: you need a good sized dose of luck to get anywhere in life, whether it is an accident of birth or genetics.

Where free will enters the picture is that not everybody that was lucky at some point in their life ends up making it: you can easily annihilate your luck by working against yourself or by having other factors that negate your luck.

So it's an interesting viewpoint but a bit of a cop-out.

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> Where free will enters the picture is that not everybody that was lucky at some point in their life ends up making it: you can easily annihilate your luck by working against yourself.

What do you think determines this? At what point can you say this magical thing called free will pops into existence? I don't understand how the laws of physics determine how the universe behaves but then those laws decide to step aside while someone is making decisions about their life.

There's a school of thought that states that the brain operates at a quantum level, and there is a more classical view that it's all 'billiard balls', and some people are in between there somewhere and see the billiard balls setup as so complex that the knowledge about any initial configuration must always be incomplete.

Only in the classical 'billiard balls' universe would there not be free will, in every other situation there has to be some element that allows us to make choices for good or bad.

Interesting aside: if an omnipotent being would exist and we'd live in a classical billiard balls universe that being would be able to predict the outcome of its own creation which would obviate the need for creating stuff in the first place.

So 'free will' is a central tenet of almost every religion, and according to that we are given choices and how we make those choices determines whether we are 'worthy' or not.

Obviously it doesn't require religion to have free will but I find it interesting that religions have caught on to this so universally.

Good, if somewhat large book that touches on this subject: The emperors new mind, by Roger Penrose.

> Only in the classical 'billiard balls' universe would there not be free will, in every other situation there has to be some element that allows us to make choices for good or bad.

I think you're saying that a 'billiard balls' universe is deterministic, even if it's far beyond our ability to either detect a given state or predict outcomes, and that otherwise in the 'quantum' view, there is true chance, or randomness, involved. I'm assuming that's what you're going from.

Given that, why do you believe that free will must come from a universe that has real chance in it? (If that's an accurate statement of your belief.)

How does free will necessarily flow from fundamental randomness?

Because that element of randomness introduces the room that allows decisions to go one way or the other not dependent on the initial conditions.

The question then shifts to 'is the state of the universe at any point in time knowable', and if it isn't then you probably will have vector through which thinking creatures could have free will. And even if the whole string of chance encounters up to there did not exhibit free will the ability to choose an outcome would quickly become a selection criterion in any genetic mix that ends up laying out a nervous system. After all, the ability to react intelligently to an environment is a huge benefit.

In a 'billiard balls' (as you correctly infer, deterministic) universe it doesn't matter whether minds exist or not, the outcome will be identical. Having reasoning ability in a universe like that would be akin to a cruel version of being along for the ride without any ability to influence your environment. And I don't think we need to look very far to determine that our minds have very successfully influenced our environment so there is some evidence that it makes a difference.

Ah! says the proponent of the deterministic universe: but if it were deterministic it would be just the same! Which to me is just as much a cop-out as saying 'God did it'.

Randomness is a thing, entropy is a thing and quantum mechanics operates at a level that our brains are ill equipped to deal with. It appears to me that free will is real, and our whole society is built on that premise.

Free will is about ultimately having control. If your decisions are randomly determined by quantum mechanics, you aren't any freer than if your decisions are the result of a deterministic process.

Yep, I don't see free will in a completely random universe OR a completely deterministic universe. In either case, something you have no control over is governing your behavior.

Free will doesn't exist so you're correct.

The subconscious mind controls everything and your idea of self and conscious choice is a ruse. It's been proven again and again in peer reviewed, reproducible studies over the last 30 years.

These are two separate discussions, really:

- Is the universe fully deterministic? We don't know the answer to that, and it's possible we might never know

- Are the life decisions that I make correlated with my success? That one is easier to work out: Even if the "decisions" turn out to be "pseudo-random" due to the properties of the underlying universe, they could still be correlated with success, therefore it's useful to devote resources into deliberately moving closer to that "success" (even if there are external/random factors) at play

> - Are the life decisions that I make correlated with my success? That one is easier to work out: Even if the "decisions" turn out to be "pseudo-random" due to the properties of the underlying universe, they could still be correlated with success, therefore it's useful to devote resources into deliberately moving closer to that "success" (even if there are external/random factors) at play

But "devoting resources to deliberately moving closer to that 'success'" is just as much not-determined-by-you as everything else, whether it's fully deterministic in a classical physics sense, or partly deterministic, and part randomly quantum-influenced. The notion that you can influence yourself is true... your thoughts a second ago influence your thoughts now. So, through introspection, you can see that you're influencing yourself. But it's a mirage, because you're not at the root of the chain of causation going back to the first thought you had, so you don't control the thought you had a second ago, and you don't control any external factors (senses) that influenced you between your last thought and your current thought, so you don't control your thought now.

The reason you devote resources to moving closer to success isn't that you're "deciding" (from no prior state) to do that. Rather, your psychology is already such that you want to actively improve yourself, you don't have other psychological issues that would sabotage that desire, and you see a path to improve yourself. What better to do, then, than to move yourself along that path toward future success?

Yeah, that's a good point.

I guess the ideal way to put it is that I didn't mean "decision" necessarily in a "free-will, non-deterministic" way but rather in a more computational sense (like branches of an "if").

If ultimately free will turns out to not exist, that will affect us very little in how we live: perhaps morally we should be more forgiving towards other people's shortcomings

Yep I don't believe in free will and agree whole-heartedly with everything you said.

I still believe people make decisions and that those decisions have consequences, I just think the decisions can likely be traced back to the state of the universe and physical processes rather than poofing out of nowhere. Of course, even if quantum mechanics means that there are some random processes at play, that doesn't change much since it is still quantum mechanics at the root of those "poofs".

> perhaps morally we should be more forgiving towards other people's shortcomings

That's good practice anyway.

I'd feel satisfied if it turned out that I'm a deterministic machine planted in a nondeterministic universe.

Why? What's the difference?

They aren't laws. Free will, persistence, a determination to make one's life better, are things some people have more of than others, and things that one's parents might have encouraged more than others.

Why? Who knows? Why are some people taller than others, or more athletic, etc. People are not all the same.

> Why are some people taller than others, or more athletic, etc. People are not all the same.

Genetics and environment.

Too glib and trite. These things can change, and are affected by us.

Three key here is that collectively we have the power to fix things yet we do not collectively exercise it enough and build systems that make it harder.

You don't change your genetics in any meaningful way during your life no matter how much you want to influence them.

If you're born with Down syndrome that's that. A predisposition for getting certain kinds of cancer tend to be born out by statistics. Having a body that works well for athletics is mostly a function of genetics and training.

No amount of collective work is going to make everybody athletes, the whole definition of an athlete is 'outlier'.

What we can change collectively is education and diet.

I meant as a society. We have the power to fix many of these things but we choose not to exercise it for allegedly ethical reasons and the economics.

Genetics are not a life sentence either except in the most complex cases - genes are activated and regulated by the environment. Sometimes even environment in the womb.

Not just diet. Exposure to chemicals and mother's illnesses too.

Or main limitations here are ethics and lack of knowledge, both self imposed.

The laws of physics haven't explained consciousness or free will, so looking at physics for the answer doesn't seem to be the right way to be going about it.

What do you mean by "not explained"? We sort of know how they work. The only arguments against that are mostly philosophical.

No we don't. Not even close.

You can tell it to AlphaGo, char-rnn and other similar recent stuff. They lack self-awareness, but that is mostly due to lack of reflections in their respective environments.

> Luck favors the prepared.

It also favors those who put themselves in positions to get lucky. Staying home all the time means you don't make connections and interact with people that you can help and who can help you. Thinking that you have no control over your success makes you less likely to take big chances or do things that will probably not work. You can put yourself in more positions to get lucky, and most of those behaviors aren't very costly and have huge upsides.

The saying is really 'Fortune favors the bold'

Like many sayings, it is survivor biased. The dead have no say, and if the gold rushes of the past teach us anything is that losers far outnumber winners.

I think of luck in similar terms to hacking. Whereas an insecure system can have a large attack surface area, I think there are things you can do in life to increase your "luck surface area" - working hard, being intelligent (not always within your control), being persistent, paying it forward, not being a douche etc etc.

That's a coincidence... When thinking about this before, I settled on the term "luck surface area" as well.

My version had one axis for "things you can do", and another axis for "number of people who know about the things you can do". The theory being - the larger the area, the luckier you'll be.

It came out of recollections about people I've met. One or two working on amazing projects at home and telling almost no-one, and others networking like crazy but with little substance behind it (as far as I could tell anyway) - both seemed like thin surface areas.

The problem is that you can fall into a trap of self improvement for sake of it or try to overcome weaknesses that are inconsequential. Essentially waste time better used otherwise.

Persistence has its limits and is easily exploited. To know your limits takes a special kind of training and sensitivity. Moore so to figure out limits of others.

(That's not even starting with how accurate anyone's knowledge and perceptions are.)

That's an interesting perspective!

You're thinking of luck in a narrow sense. If an otherwise fiscally responsible and decent person wins the lottery, they're set for life.

But luck means a lot more than just getting some big break. It means your genetics, parents, your friends and your teachers. It means your childhood environments. It means everything your senses have ever detected. It means toxins you've been exposed to, diseases, parasites, and microbiome. It means chance genetics that can lead to diseases.

Just because some people with difficult childhoods end up being wildly successful, and some people who were handed every opportunity (good schools, rich parents) end up making a mess of their lives, doesn't at all imply that the traditional notion of free will is at work. Even what little we understand about psychology suggests that it's because of difficult upbringings that some people are so tenacious at achieving success, and it's because of having things handed to them that someone you'd expect to succeed ends up an underachiever for life.

In other words, not having luck early in life can be its own luck in shaping your psychology, and having luck early in life can be its own bad luck in shaping your psychology.

> You're thinking of luck in a narrow sense.

I'm not sure what gave you that impression.

> If an otherwise fiscally responsible and decent person wins the lottery, they're set for life.

That depends. They might get ill or they might get robbed. As the parable says 'we'll see'[1].

> But luck means a lot more than just getting some big break.

Yes, obviously.

> It means your genetics, parents, your friends and your teachers. It means your childhood environments. It means everything your senses have ever detected. It means toxins you've been exposed to, diseases, parasites, and microbiome. It means chance genetics that can lead to diseases.

That was the point of TFA: it means everything and as soon as something means 'everything' it might as well mean nothing.

> Just because some people with difficult childhoods end up being wildly successful, and some people who were handed every opportunity (good schools, rich parents) end up making a mess of their lives, doesn't at all imply that the traditional notion of free will is at work.

It also doesn't imply that it isn't.

> Even what little we understand about psychology suggests that it's because of difficult upbringings that some people are so tenacious at achieving success, and it's because of having things handed to them that someone you'd expect to succeed ends up an underachiever for life.

That's the core of the parable. Everything in your life that happens by chance can be 'good' or 'bad', it all depends.

> In other words, not having luck early in life can be its own luck in shaping your psychology, and having luck early in life can be its own bad luck in shaping your psychology.

Exactly. But the people that make 'good' decisions tend to do better all things considered than the people that make 'bad' decisions, and that's where free will comes in. Even if statistically speaking some of the good decisions will lead to bad outcomes this is not the majority of the cases.

We'll have a simple example: smoking is bad for you. Decide not to smoke and you will likely live a healthier and longer life and your reproductive chances go up. That's a decision that's all yours and even if your personality make-up is a big factor in whether or not you will take up smoking and if you do you may quit or not depending on your genetics again - all due to luck - in the end you consciously decide whether or not you wish to continue to smoke or not.

So you can reduce everything to luck but it doesn't help you at all, it's a nihilist approach.

http://www.inspirationpeak.com/cgi-bin/stories.cgi?record=31

> and as soon as something means 'everything' it might as well mean nothing.

Can you expand on that? I think I understand what you're saying, but I'd like to be sure.

> in the end you consciously decide whether or not you wish to continue to smoke or not.

Citation needed. The genetic and environmental precursors to addiction are pretty well documented these days.

> Can you expand on that? I think I understand what you're saying, but I'd like to be sure.

Hope that's expansion enough:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SharpshooterFalla...

> > in the end you consciously decide whether or not you wish to continue to smoke or not.

> Citation needed. The genetic and environmental precursors to addiction are pretty well documented these days.

Absolutely. And yet, a percentage of the people that have all the 'wrong' bits set ends up not smoking. They have a harder time of it resisting the pressure but in the end it is a conscious decision. It's just that the odds are stacked against them and more of them will end up smoking. But not everybody. And then there are such things as compensating environmental factors as well.

> all the 'wrong' bits set ends up not smoking.

How would we know that all of the 'pro-smoking' bits are set? Are we aware of all the possible bits?

I've always been ardently anti-smoking, even as a kid, even though I was surrounded by smokers. (I'm not claiming that YOU are claiming those are even close to all of the relevant bits, just stating background.)

So now I'll make something up: perhaps I was going to become a smoker, except as a toddler, something really bad (from my toddler perspective) happened to me while I was pondering the people smoking around me. And that alone setup sufficient neural pathways that over-rode all of the 'pro smoking' bits, present and future.

I believe that the relevant 'bits' are so numerous as to be effectively random.

I understand your assertion that free will can't be a thing in a fully deterministic universe, that randomness is a requirement.

At the same time, I'm still not convinced that randomness necessarily leads to free will.

I honestly don't think that humans have the linguistic or cognitive tools necessary to rigorously discuss or even consider this question.

Is there an effective difference between having and not having 'free will' when the playing field is so many orders of magnitude more complex than our ability to quantify or understand it?

A sufficiently advanced bot in a sufficiently advanced game, even when using a completely deterministic pseudo random number generator, should be fully able to convince us that it has free will.

> I've always been ardently anti-smoking, even as a kid, even though I was surrounded by smokers. (I'm not claiming that YOU are claiming those are even close to all of the relevant bits, just stating background.)

I'm pretty anti smoking too. I grew up around smokers, people with yellow fingers and I absolutely hated the smoke. Still, genetics being what it is if that had not been the case I probably would have tried it at some point (ditto alcohol) and given my addictive nature I probably would have been hooked.

So we're pretty much in the same boat there.

> I believe that the relevant 'bits' are so numerous as to be effectively random.

A large number of bits does not automatically - or effectively - imply randomness. It's all about patterns and independence, you could have millions of bits that change in lockstep (think 'game of life') and it would be totally deterministic.

> A sufficiently advanced bot in a sufficiently advanced game, even when using a completely deterministic pseudo random number generator, should be fully able to convince us that it has free will.

It wouldn't because you could set up a second bot with the same initial seed and the fact that both of them would act exactly the same way to within the limit of observation would be proof that they were deterministic.

Thank you. At this point, I'm pretty convinced that my other assertion is true: that humans don't even have the necessary tools to think about and discuss this topic with any kind of rigor.

We are pleasantly and politely talking past each other, which is pretty fun and interesting, but not conducive to substantive progress.

In the end, I guess I'm saying that whether we have free will is effectively unknowable, that the underlying complexity is way too high for us to grok. Thus, there isn't a realistic difference between having it and not having it.

It brings to mind an argument I had with a creationist a long time ago, that asserted that the universe was only a few thousand years old. I convinced him that it looked much older than that, and the response was that perhaps God made it, a few thousand years ago, look billions of years old.

My response: "What's the difference between a universe that is billions of years old and a universe that, in every detail, only appears to be billions of years old, even if it is in fact much younger? If God made it look billions of years old, it's still very worthwhile to study and learn from it."

I view the whole free will question in a similar way: whether we do or don't have it, it seems like we have it, and so studying it is worth while.

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