John Conway: Discovering free will (2011) | Hacker News Reader

John Conway: Discovering free will (2011)

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82 pointsmonort134 comments

If you're an armchair quantum theorist, I have a suggestion. Rather than sitting around positing how the world works, build an actual quantum experiment, and spend some time just thinking about what's going on with your intuitive brain and comparing it to what you observe.

It's a bit pricey, but https://www.thorlabs.com/newgrouppage9.cfm?objectgroup_id=69... is a full quantum erase experiment with a straightforward, visible path for the photons.

I personally found that arguing with people with pop-sci level of understanding of quantum to be pretty exhausting. If you can setup an experiment like this and understand it, it goes a long way to reconfiguring your brain to accept the counterintuitive implications of QM.

That said I still hold out an irrational hope for superdeterminism.

This is a teaching problem, because (like most things that are taught) there's no way for most students to verify it.

People who seek out areas of ambiguity or contested models in later life, after formal or professional education: good luck to them. They would surely benefit from your suggestion. But the rest of us are going to have to just believe what we are told, having applied certain personal heuristic filters to the info we are getting...

So it seems that quantum particles do not "choose" their state until observed. I've heard this multiple times now, including in this article (demonstrated by the 33 sticks analogy).

I'm curious, has any research been done on HOW they "choose" their state when observed? I imagine it is pretty difficult (if not impossible) to analyze this, but is there any insight of the factors that make a quantum particle choose its state? Or is the prevalent theory that it is completely random?

PD: I find this topic fascinating.

This is basically where interpretations of quantum mechanics come into play. The maths/experiments alone don't tell you much. There are only a few things we can be sure of, e.g. the particle is not choosing a locally determined, pre-existing value as in classical mechanics. What you believe after that comes down to which "comforting illusion" you are most willing to ditch.

> the particle is not choosing a locally determined, pre-existing value as in classical mechanics

Translation: The value of to entangled measurements does not allow inference of a value back in time.

> What you believe after that comes down to which "comforting illusion" you are most willing to ditch.

You should drop the illusion that even 1% reading here understand enough relativity theory to even understand the problem. I don't. I took a few crash courses on physics and they tried to teach the double slit experiment to us in the second semester. Of course they had to cut it short and call it "magic". Of course even scientists parrot popular science when explaining only the difficulties they face, not the exact physics, I guess.

All this local hidden variable stuff seems like a version of Laplace's demon. Well of course you don't have enough data. There could always be another hidden variable. But instead QC takes a statistical approach like thermodynamics, ignoring single states and looking at, ironically speaking, the bigger picture.

> What you believe after that comes down to which "comforting illusion" you are most willing to ditch.

There's no illusion to ditch. You start with a null hypothesis, so the problem is which null hypothesis to fall back on. To ditch a hypothesis you need to understand the experiments in question and the math. The philosphy is an after thought to rationalize the results, but it doesn't matter much to e.g. the material scientists doing the field work, and vice versa, the level of precision of these measurements is so far removed from our every day understanding that it really has no bearing on Multiverse Theories and all that popular nonsense.

By the way, non-local hidden variables have not been ruled out. Where's the difference, distance (ie. locality) might just be a matter of more than 4 dimensions?! Maybe I misunderstand. Different question. Why is time always the independent variable?

I think the problem is that people like things linear, first order, because I have a huge problem imagining differential equations, recursion and what not, even OEDs, not to mention PDEs.

You don't need to understand even special relativity to learn about Bell's theorem. It's just about measurement settings and local influence.

You're correct that non-local hidden variable theories are still plausible. Bohmian mechanics is the prominent example. In this case "locality" is the comfortable illusion that you drop. In Copenhagen it is a kind of realism. In Many Worlds it is the notion that an observation leads to a single result. There's no clear way to determine which of these is more like a "null hypothesis" than the others, so what tends to happen is that people gravitate towards one or another based on which of the illusions they're more okay with dropping.

It would be nice to be able to discriminate between interpretations based on experiment, and a little work has been done on this, but we're not really anywhere near there yet.

I wrote under the impression that locality would rely on a notion of space-time. wiki/Local_realism says as much. That then is one notion to knock down. The null hypothesis here would be non-locality.

Unifying that with GR is the big problem, I hear, especially regarding gravity.

Without some notion of space-time you could not have a meaningful notion of locality, therefore Bell's Theorem is a non-issue. But you don't need a relativistic space-time for Bell's Theorem, any space-time in which physical influences travel at a bounded speed will suffice.

Bell's Theorem does, however, create an uneasy tension between quantum theory and special relativity. Tim Maudlin writes quite a good book about this called "Quantum Non-Locality and Relativity".

So it seems that quantum particles do not "choose" their state until observed. I've heard this multiple times now, including in this article (demonstrated by the 33 sticks analogy).

As I understand it (and correct me if I'm wrong), the particles give different distributions depending on how they are observed and these distributions vary in fashion distinction from how they would vary if there were underlying classical distribution involved - this gives "quantum logic".

I think the insight is that there isn't really a built-in mechanism in particles for making choices, it's more that through experimentation we are _imposing_ a structure that forces a choice in an attempt to extract information. But we find that even when we force the system to make a choice, we get effectively no information and this appears to us to be a sort of complete randomness.

I interpret Conway's idea (in part III) to be that this is not a structural randomness, but rather randomness only in response to structure that _we_ impose during an experiment (e.g. determining spin), and that this is similar to our free will which is not structured (if you subscribe that that theory).

EDIT: I feel like I should clarify: at play here is the question of how mechanistic the universe is. If we accept that the universe is mechanistic, then we are forced into a position where we have to say (if we wish to avoid determinism) that there is such a thing as a "completely random" mechanism, and furthermore we have to effectively absolve free will of any structural restrictions by requiring that it is somehow part of our vitality as humans (call this mind-body dualism or whatever -- there is a long history of this debate). Obviously this is all beyond physics, but it is important to realize what assumptions we are implicitly requiring in order to discuss randomness and free will in this case.

> I'm curious, has any research been done on HOW they "choose" their state when observed?

They do not. There is no "particle choosing", ever.

What happens instead is that you (the observer) are also composed of particles. This is something that people are kinda willing to admit, but afterwards they deny the logical consequence... that the particles that create you can also be in more than one state at the same time.

What happens instead is "entanglement", which means that certain options of one particle become connected to certain options of another particle. All options continue to exist, but only some of the relations between different particles exist. Specifically, when observe the particle, the option "particle going left" becomes entangled with the option (remember, you are also a system of particles) "you see the particle going left"; and analogically, the option "particle going right" becomes entangled with the option "you see the particle going right".

Now each version of you observe one specific outcome... and can ask themselves 'what made the particle choose this specific outcome?' But there was no choice; it's just that the other movement of the particle is entangled with a different version of you.

Yes, parallel worlds -- the true shocking discovery of the quantum physics. Actually, all physicists admit that parallel worlds exist on the microscopic scale, the only controversy is that half of them say "and it's the same on the macroscopic scale, too", while the other half goes "I can't believe in macroscopic parallel worlds, therefore there must be a magical thing called 'quantum collapse' which makes this madness stop before it gets too large". (The belief in quantum collapse in unfalsifiable, because no matter how large system of particles existing in parallel configuration you build, the possible counter-argument goes "but if you make it even larger, then it will finally collapse". And this goalpost can be pushed indefinitely.)

Unlike in science fiction, the parallel worlds of quantum physics have the property that the more they differ, the less they can interact. If they only differ in position of one particle (one world where the particle goes left, another where it goes right, but everything else is exactly the same), there is a lot of interaction. But if they differ in hundreds of particles, the interaction is almost zero. The disappointing part is that you can never observe the parallel universe directly, because - again - you are composed of particles; even your very act of thinking means moving millions of particles in your brain around... so just the fact that you noticed a particle moving left has put millions of particles in your brain in a different position than if you would have noticed the particle moving right.

The problems with thinking about quantum physics arise when we imagine that the microscopic scale is just like the macroscopic scale, only smaller. ("Particles are like oranges, only smaller, duh. Actually, they are more like waves on the lake. Anyway, must be the former or the latter, because those are the only options I am familiar with.") When instead, the macro scale is a statistical aggregate of the micro scale, so we can't observe e.g. things that get cancelled out by other things. Instead of trying to fit the micro scale into our everyday experience, the proper way is to study the micro scale by its own laws, such as probabilities being expressed by complex numbers, and then think how could our everyday experience arise from this, i.e. again, what laws would then govern huge systems of particles, such as ourselves.

> Actually, all physicists admit that parallel worlds exist on the microscopic scale

No they don't. The many worlds theory is a very tentative suggestion. And even if that was a professional opinion, does it have any consequences for the theory or is it an after thought?

Many world theory is about what happens on macroscopic scale. Specifically, it says: "The world on the macro scale is still governed by the same laws of physics as on the micro scale, duh. There are no extra laws of physics (such as collapse) which would start to apply only when the number of particles involved in the experiment exceeds some unspecified threshold."

And yes, there are people who agree with this, and there are people who disagree with this, even among the experts.

But on microscopic scale, it is a general consensus that in the double-slit experiment the particle somehow goes simultaneously through both slits, i.e. that two different realities (different only in trajectory of a single particle) somehow got into superposition.

The disagreement is only about "what will happen with this superposition, when more and more particles enter the game". Some theories say "at some moment, the superposition of multiple realities will somehow collapse, and only one reality will emerge victorious". Some theories say "the additional particles will also get entangled with the particles that are already there". The former predict that the observer will only see one outcome, because when the human brain is entangled, the collapse already happened and there is now only one reality. The latter predict that each observer will only see one outcome, because each outcome gets entangled with the version of observer observing that specific outcome. Both theories agree that at the end the observer will report to only see one outcome.

I guess the experimental consequence of the no-collapse interpretations of quantum physics would be that quantum computers of arbitrary size will be possible.

If you instead believe that an interaction with e.g. 1000 particles will collapse, that would put a limit on number of possible qubits. But of course, if someone would falsify that theory by building a larger quantum computer, nothing prevents you from saying "did I say 1000 particles? I actually meant 10000 particles!" and have the theory survive yet another day. Of course, you can also come up with a theory saying "the superposition of too many particles will collapse unless it happens to be inside of a quantum computer"; etc. But at that moment it should be obvious you are just making excuses.

Now let me ask you in return: Is there any specific prediction of when exactly does the collapse happen? Was it ever experimentally observed to happen?

> general concensus

This is a weasel word (as per e.g. Wikipedia:WEASEL). You need to accompany that with a quote at the very least for "two different realities (...) somehow got into superposition". And even then I wouldn't buy it if the quote was from popular science or by-the-way opinions. Simply because that's a contradiction.

The two slit open phase is described in a wave model and the other phase in a particle. model. But neither is correct at the same time. That's been good enough for me so far. You might as well say both models were correct and somehow get into super position. But how is somehow important. I have never calculated a wave collapse or even began to understand the PSI operator.

I don't think it would lead me anywhere unless taking the slit, or rather the barrier into the equation. But no, you skip ahead and entangle the whole human brain. Excuse me: What?

> Now let me ask you in return: Is there any specific prediction of when exactly does the collapse happen? Was it ever experimentally observed to happen?

I had missed that question. I don't know, to be honest. I hadn't even mentioned it. The Kopenhagen interpretation is famous, but I guess inconsequential the same way that entanglement cannot violate the speed limit for information transmission.

> "You mustn’t misread it, we’re not asserting these particles make decisions, we’re not saying they have any consciousness. What happens is they act, they indubitably act, and which action the particle does is free in this sense, it is not a predetermined function of the past. And that’s not the same as randomness, oh dear me no!"

Why not? Couldn't seem to find a reason for this assertion. If the behavior of a particle is not predetermined, how is it not random?

I don't know if this adds anything to your comment; The input of a program is neither predetermined nor random.

If there is an input "out of our reality", then our reality would not be predetermined nor would it be random. (Which makes sense for the simulation hypothesis, which I enjoy having that conversation with my colleagues)

It's easy to say X part of a system is "neither predetermined nor random" within a system defined as open (like a computer program or even a machine with a dial that can be set by an operator).

When a system is closed, things become harder.

Chaitin's number represents (very roughly) the structure of any complete mathematical system and it can be shown to be random in the sense of Kolmogorov.

but that just means there is more logical (predetermined) action 'out of our reality' The input of a program is predetermined by the physics that drive input to reach the program. (or it is from nowhere and is truly random, though I doubt this is the case)

This is a good explanation. We are saying we give the function x and y, but we can't guarantee that z comes out EVEN if we control for everything we are aware of. Thank you.

Still, I don't understand any of this even vaguely past the platitudes.

Conway talks a little about this distinction in his talk at Google, at around 40 minutes: https://youtu.be/r1bDSlt1n9M?t=2401

The crux is that randomness is indistinguishable from a large collection of pre-determined hidden variables (imagine rolling all the dice for all of the outcomes of Physics ahead of time), but not all of the behaviors of quantum mechanics can be accounted for by (local) hidden variables (Bell's theorem.)

Conway proves the existence of free will not by nebulous philosophical arguments but by a combination of quantum mechanics and relativity.

Note the definition of 'free will' here is specific: fundamental particles future states cannot be purely a function of the information in their past light cones and so only 'they' can fully determine their future state, and this is not the same thing as them having random number generators; they truly are free

As far a I can tell from the article, Conway doesn't prove the existence of free will at all, not even attempt to do so. Instead he explores what the implications of free will would be if it exists.

And despite the claim to the contrary, his definition of "free will" isn't appreciably different from randomness, only he uses the word "randomness" to mean pseudorandomness, so he sticks the term "free will" on true randomness.

An interesting contribution to quantum physics, presumably, but not a proof of free will.

Can you define precisely what you mean by random in this context?

How about "proceeding, made, or occurring without definite aim, reason, or pattern". From https://www.dictionary.com/browse/random .

On second, thought, though, after looking at the paper at finmin's suggestion, I agree that their definition is distinct from randomness in a meaningful and interesting way.

you have to read the actual paper not the article

From the paper:

1. "It follows that we cannot prove our Free Will assumption – determinism, like solipsism, is logically possible."

So not a proof of free will.

2. "Although we find ourselves unable to give an operational definition of either “free” or “random,” we have managed to distinguish between them in our context, because free behavior can be twinned, while random behavior cannot (a remark that might also interest some philosphers of free will)."

I stand corrected. This IS a meaningful distinction from pure randomness, after all, as entangled particles don't behave randomly with respect to each other. Though I still disagree with the name "free will", as that makes it sound as if there's a conscious will behind it, which the authors make it clear that they don't claim.

I think a better phrase would be self-deterministic, meaning that the action is determined regardless of external influences. However, I will admit, that sounds a lot like free will.

By the way, thanks for the suggestion.

For me, this is a bad name for the theorem. Free will is not just indeterminism, it also includes agency.

If I understood the argument correctly, there is still one possibility of global determinism: imagine a "God function", a random oracle that gives all results to all measurements, unpredictable but fully deterministic. Even if it can't be predicted from previous states of the world, it can still maintain some sort of "determinism". It can even be tractable: imagine a pseudo-random generator with some seed and "external" state as this God function. It should all work.

It "works", although it's an absurdity at the level of Descartes' evil demon.

See superdeterminism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdeterminism

The free will as it defined in this context means the ability of an entity to do truly __random__ choices not dependent on the surrounding environment or their causal history.

It does not mean that they can intelligently freely choose between the options. Any cognitive mechanism that does reasoned decisions is not free. It can just have a random or arbitrary[1] element in it.

I like how Einstein never mixed free will with true randomness. Used the better metaphor: throwing the dice.

---

[1]: What I mean with arbitrary is something that derives choices that are not relevant to the decision decision. For example pseudorandomness.

I find the topic of the free will to be the most fascinating.

The abscence of the free will ('free will' as it is defined by the pop culture) is a revolutionary idea because the current world structures and narratives are based on the notion that free will exists.

It is a much more revolutionary idea than Copernicus' round Earth discovery, because the illusion of the free will influences our lives more and in multiple ways.

I'm also a strong believer that the society without the idea of the free will would be a much more compassionate, healthier and happy.

Well that's a cliffhanger. How would that society be all those things?

I suppose it wouldn't have a choice!

I can defitely see some of the upsides-mostly a lack of judgemental views and just pragmatic solutions. Some examples are the varying effectiveness of prison systems around the world. Similarly for treatment of mental health issues or addictions.

What I find hard to gauge is the potential downside to thinking without free will. There's no accountability so anything goes, or even a 'then why bother at all' infliction.

Personally I think we're moving in the right direction on this and could move somewhat faster so thus kind of awareness and discussion is great. I'm less in favor of taking it to the extreme and hoping that it wasn't too far. Maybe a small population will do that experiment for larger groups to watch and learn from.

There's an endless loop in this argument.

Per definition, if free will doesn't exist, then you can't say that "the illusion of the free will influences our lives more and in multiple ways."

If free will doesn't exist, then our lives, thoughts and choices are predetermined, and thus they can't be "influenced" by our belief in free will (or lack thereof).

In fact if we are in such a world, the we can't even opt to believe in free will or not -- since in such a world, our beliefs are also predetermined themselves.

The society wont be any more "compassionate, healthier and happy" in such a world based on any of its beliefs. It would only be compassionated, healthier and happy if its predetermined to be so.

The only option for your argument to work, would be for free will to exist while the society doesn't believe it does. Such a society, indeed, could be more compassionated, healthier and happy (it remains to be proven, but it's a possibility that non-belief in free will could change things positively, as long as free will exists for this non-belief to make a difference).

For your last case, isn't it just as likely the opposite would happen? If Fred don't deserve any blame for being a mass murderer, why should Sally get any credit for not giving in to her instinct to see him hang for it? And what would the point of trying to be compassionate be?

I don't follow your reasoning at all. You seem to be quite confused over how beliefs could possibly work in a predetermined world.

Firstly, a lack of free will does not imply predetermination, since it's possible that some things are fundamentally random.

Secondly, even if everything is predetermined, it can still be the case that our choices can be influenced by our belief in free will. You could imagine two instances of a fairly simple bot which has a "isFreeWillBelieved" property. One of them has it set to true and the other to false, and they make different choices accordingly.

Thirdly, whilst we can't "opt" to believe in free will or not, whether or not we believe in it can certainly change over time due to building evidence and argumentation.

>I don't follow your reasoning at all. You seem to be quite confused over how beliefs could possibly work in a predetermined world. Firstly, a lack of free will does not imply predetermination, since it's possible that some things are fundamentally random.

Predetermined or random is all the same for the sake of the argument I've made. Both are beyond the control of the subjects.

>Secondly, even if everything is predetermined, it can still be the case that our choices can be influenced by our belief in free will.

Not really. If "everything is predetermined" then we don't have choices, and what we do (the singular thing that we cannot but do) is only influenced by the start event in the casual chain (that predetermined everything).

>Thirdly, whilst we can't "opt" to believe in free will or not, whether or not we believe in it can certainly change over time due to building evidence and argumentation.

That only applies to a universe with free will. If free will doesn't exist, then evidence and argumentation doesn't matter -- as those are not the causes that shape our beliefs. Instead both our beliefs and any evidence that appears are determined from the entire predetermined casual chain (or are random, as you said, and as such, are still not based on the presence of evidence or not).

> Predetermined or random is all the same for the sake of the argument I've made.

Fair point, I was just pointing out the first gap in the logic.

> If "everything is predetermined" then we don't have choices

Pure semantics. You can replace "choice" with "the action that occurs" in the context of my point.

> If free will doesn't exist, then evidence and argumentation doesn't matter -- as those are not the causes that shape our beliefs.

I genuinely don't see why not. Going back to the simple bot analogy, it's conceivable that a bot's "isFreeWillBelieved" field is updated based on the results returned from an "ObserveNature()" procedure. That's all I'm saying.

I think I'm starting to understand your perspective. It's like you're so entrenched in a belief that free will exists that you're clinging very tightly to definitions of words/concepts that somehow presuppose the existence of free will. For example you seem determined that the external state of the world cannot alter our internal narratives unless we have the "free will" to make that alteration ourselves. But to me, this seems to be countered quite straightforwardly by thinking about the bots with their internal belief settings.

>Pure semantics. You can replace "choice" with "the action that occurs" in the context of my point.

When we talk about "free will" it's all in the semantics. The term must have a specific meaning -- else we're discussing in vain.

The action that occurs is either a:

1) a conscious choice (i.e. free will)

or:

2) a predetermined / random action (i.e. no free will)

In either case, (2) is beyond the subject's control, and that's not a merely nominal or semantic difference, it's a very real difference. In fact, it's exactly what we're debating.

>> If free will doesn't exist, then evidence and argumentation doesn't matter -- as those are not the causes that shape our beliefs.

> I genuinely don't see why not.

Probably because I didn't clarified that. I use "shape our beliefs" in the meaning that we would use the term everyday: that they enter our minds, we judge them and consider them, and through this we are influenced by them in our beliefs.

They could still "shape our beliefs" in the sense that kicking a ball will make it move.

But not in any way in which our conscious self participates in that shaping. More like a trauma would "shape" our beliefs.

>I think I'm starting to understand your perspective. It's like you're so entrenched in a belief that free will exists that you're clinging very tightly to definitions of words/concepts that somehow presuppose the existence of free will.

Not really. I'm actually pointing the consequences of free will not existing. I don't believe it exists except in a very specific way myself, which is in accordance with a deterministic universe (to sum, that our free will is exactly the inevitable choice we make because we are who we are -- i.e. directly the sum product of our prior space-time history -- and that it's both free -- as in uniquely expressing our self -- and inevitable).

>For example you seem determined that the external state of the world cannot alter our internal narratives unless we have the "free will" to make that alteration ourselves.

I gave the example in another comment on this post about a person being surgically altered to not have free will, which is the different side of the same coin.

The actions of that person would indeed be controlled by the outside world (e.g. the surgeon). But without free will, in other words, without an agent, there are no "internal narratives".

What remains would be an internal "program" -- like the bots in your example.

But a program is not a narrative in the sense of an agent consciously talking to itself.

I'll explain what I mean about the semantics. Your original argument went thus:

> Per definition, if free will doesn't exist, then you can't say that "the illusion of the free will influences our lives more and in multiple ways."

By teasing apart your arguments, I now realise that you have bundled up the word "influence" into a package of meaning. You're presupposing "influence" to mean an agent consciously - and with free will - modifying their belief based on the environment. Same as what you mean by "shape our beliefs" just now. But I doubt OP was using the word "influence" that strongly; I think they were allowing for us to be machines without the free will necessary to "shape" their own beliefs. Therefore their point stands without the "endless loop".

Where is this ridiculous idea that you need to have free will to make choices coming from?

Free will is incompatible with the concept of choice, because all choices are bound by physical constraints. How do you make a choice without any constraints? The best you can do is random.

Think about any of the choices you made today and think about why you made them. When you take all the inputs into account, most of your outcomes are predictable or random. There's no room for free will when you start looking closely.

The experience of free will can be real, without free will being real. An individual believing it has free will, will certainly act different to an individual that believes all actions are predetermined. I think what your parent commenter meant was that society might be better off if the notion of free will was not taken for granted by its individuals, hoping this would inspire compassion and tolerance. Of course, if free will isn't real, this isn't something anyone would be able to influence. It would still be possible to come to that conclusion deterministically.

Looking at this from the angle of social organisation, I think without the notion of personal responsibility, we lose more good things than we would gain by assuming life is deterministic, and I don't see how we can keep personal responsibility when giving up on free will. There is a consideration of trusting other people to be cooperative if they stand nothing to lose by being selfish to the detriment of others hidden somewhere in there too.

>An individual believing it has free will, will certainly act different to an individual that believes all actions are predetermined

Sure, but then you still have this loop the parent talks about: if there's no free will then the insight that you have it or not is also completely predetermined. This discussion is predetermined. The reply that you may or may not write to this comment is predetermined. We're just in a movie and one of the character says "What if we don't have free will? Maybe that'll change the end of the movie." No it won't, it's already set in stone, just fast-forward a bit.

Not necessarily, there could still be effects of true randomness that are not influenced by previous causes.

True randomness is also beyond the control of the individual so it's not a "will".

That doesn't really give us free will, otherwise the NPCs in videogames would have free will (since they experience and react to events in-universe which are effectively absolutely unpredictable since they come from outside the universe).

Maybe the universe is a simulation and the randomness we observe when we look at quantum fluctuations comes from /dev/urandom in God's computer. That doesn't really get us anywhere when it comes to the nature of consciousness and free will.

> We're just in a movie and one of the character says "What if we don't have free will? Maybe that'll change the end of the movie." No it won't, it's already set in stone, just fast-forward a bit.

That's mixing in-universe time (and change), and out-of-universe time (and change).

For characters in the movie stuff changes. One of them was alive and then died. It's objectively a change in state of that universe.

For us looking from outside the story is constant, so nothing really changes.

So, returning to the subject - beliefs of people in predetermined universe can have measurable effects in that universe, so they influence stuff. The way they influence stuff is predetermined, but so what?

If the beliefs were different (for example because of different inital conditions), then the universe would be and develop differently. That's enough IMHO to say that beliefs influence stuff in that universe.

I see what you mean but in the absence of free will "beliefs" changing are just yet an other event steering your course. It's like a rock tumbling down a mountain and changing path as it hits a tree, sure the tree changed the course of the rock and therefore influenced the state of the universe by existing at this location at this given moment but that doesn't really get us anywhere. If you can't choose to believe in something then the whole concept of belief is just yet an other consequence of external stimuli and the chemical and physical reactions in your brain. You deciding to believe something is no different than you getting a flat tire and getting late to work. It's happening to you, not by you.

As far as I can tell the only way for free will to exist is if consciousness somehow transcends the physical existence and is more than a series of physical reactions. An other poster mentioned randomness but that doesn't really help, if there are absolutely random events occurring in the universe (for instance at the quantum scale) that means that the universe is effectively unpredictable but that doesn't grant us free will. Free will requires unpredictability but it must be the consequence of the conscious choice, not God rolling the dice while playing DnD.

> As far as I can tell the only way for free will to exist is if consciousness somehow transcends the physical existence and is more than a series of physical reactions

Yep, that's why I don't think there is a free will. Removing it from the model simplifies everything and doesn't change any predictions.

I don't see how personal responsibility wouldn't be possible without free will.

Society decides the consequences for wrongdoing (and positive reinforcement). Free will or not an entity is affected by the consequences of ones action (if it is able to realize those consequences).

The desire to live in a society where people don't solely act in their own interests is by itself a driving force (not necessarily fueled by free will). There are other species that more or less do only act in their own interest but humans would not have survived if we did, our strength comes from collaboration.

Even our own, well behaved, developed software "understand" the concept of consequences and personal responsibility - because we program in that behavior. Just as evolution has programmed us not to be destructive (with varying success).

>I don't see how personal responsibility wouldn't be possible without free will.

It's still possible to reward and punish people for their actions. The point is that the absence of free will seems to give everyone a rock solid excuse for anything bad that they do: "I could not have done otherwise". Thus, while you can still punish people, you can't actually hold them responsible.

The free will equivalent of that rock solid excuse also exist: "Because I wanted to".

The the incentives are identical and the consequences are identical, why can't we hold one of the scenarios responsible?

Now if you subscribe to the lack of free will idea, you might come to the conclusion that. Okay, it isn't this individual that performed this action, it is the history led up to this point. But in the end nothing has changed. Given that belief you might adjust and realize that hey, maybe we could have prevented this. And we probably could.

But nothing in this reasoning is any different with or without free will. Our societies would most likely be much better if we had good techniques for detecting signs for bad behavior early and encouraging change (no force required), and I'm positive that would be the case both in a free will and in a lack of free will scenario.

I don't see how "because I wanted to" is an excuse at all. If you shouldn't have, and you needn't have, then it doesn't matter if you wanted to.

I mean, I am just talking about excuses as we ordinarily understand them here. Try using "because I wanted to" as an excuse in your daily life and see how that goes.

> Try using "because I wanted to" as an excuse in your daily life and see how that goes.

Try using "I could not have done otherwise" as an excuse in your daily life and see how that goes.

The consequences will be equally bad, thus with or without free will you will be equally motivated to avoid it. And even if it doesn't hold up to some definition of being "held responsible" the outcomes are identical.

EDIT: Nothing stops you from, even in a free-will world, believing that free will doesn't exist (as many do). But I bet you don't see them using that excuse.

"I could not have done otherwise" is a great excuse when people agree that you could, indeed, not have done otherwise. Conversely, "because I wanted to" is a terrible excuse, even if people agree that you did indeed want to.

I'm not meaning the excuse to be interpreted literally with all the social context it implies. I'm saying that whether the action is performed because of free will or not doesn't matter.

We as a society has come up with ways to direct the responsibility and the answer will be different depending on the viewpoint of who is asking it. But this is arbitrary, just something we as a society has decided is "fair", you have responsibility for your actions and the consequences you face should be in proportion to that responsibility.

You can argue that this reasoning is all based on the assumption that everyone has free will, because if you don't then the blame should be directed further up the chain (the hammer isn't responsible for the actions performed with it).

We still do this plenty today though, even with humans. If a rocket crashes because of one person installing a gyro the wrong way you don't necessarily put the blame squarely on him/her, the processes involved should have prevented that from being undetected and thus the responsibility and blame goes further.

(EDIT: the gyro example was a bad example as the person installed it didn't want to do it in the wrong direction. A better example would be the engineer implementing the code to cheat emission tests. But that is also a point, we do still blame people even when there is no intent (or will) to base it on)

But the reasoning is still arbitraty. A human would, free will or not, still react to the consequences (direct as well as risk assesment) of its actions. The concept of responsibility still works and doesn't need to change.

We don't as a society respond the same way when someone involuntarily does something harmful and when someone voluntarily does someone harmful. If all acts are in fact involuntary, it's hard to justify that. (We could of course keep acting as we do now but without the justification.)

No we don't, and neither would a society without free will.

Whether something was done by accident or intent has nothing to do with free will or not. An entity without free will can still compare two options, realize the consequence for both and choose an action.

If that action is illegal in the eyes of society that signifies intent. But if the action was a mistake (perhaps the entity miscalculated or didn't have enough information to do it correctly) it will then be treated as a mistake or carelessness.

You're conflating unintentional actions with involuntary actions, but the two are distinct. It's unfair to punish someone for an intentional but involuntary action. And all actions are involuntary if people do not have free will.

From societies perspective there is no difference between someone with free will choosing bad (illegal) decisions from a bad entity programmed to make bad decisions. The society will have the exact same incentives to take exactly the same actions to prevent such behavior. Nothing about free will or lackthereof makes it unfair.

Someone making involuntarily actions that harms others are a danger to society and should be dealt with. If it is coupled with intent that is very bad, but if not it is unfortunate - but still needs to be dealt with. No reason to involve free will in this reasoning at all.

It's unfair to punish someone for an intentional but involuntary action.

Intent is exactly what is fair to punish someone for. What can be fairer?

>From societies perspective there is no difference between someone with free will choosing bad (illegal) decisions from a bad entity programmed to make bad decisions.

Says who? Those strike me as different. Society could certainly choose to recognize them as different.

>Intent is exactly what is fair to punish someone for. What can be fairer?

It isn't fair if people have no control over their intentions, which they don't if they don't have free will.

An entity making bad decisions because its whole history and current environment made it that way (no free will) and an entity making identical decisions because it has an out-of-universe-outside-of-physics control unit that merely takes history and current environment into consideration (free will) while making those decisions -- are identical when viewed as a black box from outside.

In fact if you start asking questions on what makes the out-of-universe control unit lean this way or that, you can arrive at it either having that inherent property (it just choses right more often than left) or it is a result of some outside influence. And we are at the square one again.

It's p-zombies all the way down.

From society perspective the goal is to minimize or encourage certain behaviors. The only lever available in either scenario is to change the history (by reducing harmful events in general for example) and current environment (by promising punishment or reward and affecting risk assessment for example).

Whether you have a free will or not, the only way to influence your decisions is by affecting your history and current environment. Assigning blame and holding people responsible is a lever that works the same. Doesn't mean you can't look at exactly how effective it is comparing to other methods though.

Right, but we don't actually view people as block boxes, and neither does 'society', as far as I can see. We care about whether or not someone freely chose to do what they did.

We do? We might pretend we would like to. But we can't even distinguish whether a decision was made with free will or not and we don't even attempt to try and find out.

This is a great point. Maybe there is a moral argument to be made here that we shouldn't punish people for actions they could not have prevented (since they don't have free will), but I see, my implicit assumption that transgression of social rules must be responded to by punishment that causes suffering for the offender is probably harmful as well.

>I don't see how personal responsibility wouldn't be possible without free will.

Responsibility is not about punishment or lack thereof. That is just a mechanism to encourage responsibility, not its manifestation.

Responsibility is about being able to do X or Y and choosing right.

A rock is not considered responsible because we don't think it has free will. If a rock falls on one's head and kills them, that's it. We don't jail it.

In most jurisdictions we don't even hold people that are mad as responsible for something they committed for the same reason (the US is kind of Old Testament backwater legally so this might be different there). They don't go to jail etc.

>Society decides the consequences for wrongdoing (and positive reinforcement). Free will or not an entity is affected by the consequences of ones action (if it is able to realize those consequences).

Without free will there is no "decides".

Everything is pre-decided.

It doesn't even matter if one is guilty or not -- the decision to jail them or not is already made before they committed anything and is independent of their actions.

> In most jurisdictions we don't even hold people that are mad as responsible for something they committed for the same reason (the US is kind of Old Testament backwater legally so this might be different there). They don't go to jail etc.

It depends on your viewpoint, but the reason for why they don't go to jail etc. is because it doesn't match the intent with jail. Jail is meant as a deterrence as well as shielding the society. If it doesn't work as a deterrence and we have better ways to shield the society from it happening again (which is "easy" to argue in regards to a mad person) then it doesn't make sense to force it upon people where it will do more harm than good (we still do it do a large extent, but society also benefits from its inhabitants believing that the system is fair and that is a difficult balance).

> Without free will there is no "decides".

This also depends on your viewpoint. A computer takes tons of decisions but they are all based on a given set of inputs, as will society (regardless of whether free will exist or not).

A computer doesn't take any "free will" decision of its own -- everything is determined at the time the program is written/loaded.

"Doing X if Y" is not a free will decision if it's already encoded. In a sense it's not a decision at all. When X, the computer will do Y, period.

(And this also applies if we add some stohastic elements in the mix).

A computer doesn't take any "free will" decisions. But it does make decisions, based on rules that the programmer gave it. Everything about the program is determined, but the inputs to the program is not necessarily deterministic and is also completely orthogonal to free will. We can still have true random events, that doesn't imply that free will exist.

The actions of a computer making decisions based on a noisy, nondeterministic source, can not be predicted.

From your previous post: It doesn't even matter if one is guilty or not -- the decision to jail them or not is already made before they committed anything and is independent of their actions.

The decision to jail them depends on whether they are found guilty. Whether they are found guilty depends on the information available at that time. What information is available is not deterministic even in a world lacking free will.

> everything is determined at the time the program is written/loaded

Computer can measure random event and do something basing on that.

> is not a free will decision if it's already encoded

Most probably so is our "free will".

> An individual believing it has free will, will certainly act different to an individual that believes all actions are predetermined.

Just because all actions are predetermined does not mean I don't (or can't) make any choices. It may be not "my" choice, but I for sure experience it as one (thus the "illusion of free will"). I like to believe that everything is predetermined and yet this has no effect on my behavior (except me writing this post right now ;) )

As Sam Harris told in his talk (linked in my other post here): Not making a choice is also a choice.

>The experience of free will can be real, without free will being real. An individual believing it has free will, will certainly act different to an individual that believes all actions are predetermined.

Without free will that's not up to the individual.

So it's not "certain" at all.

Individuals programmed to behave differently depending on X will act differently depending on X. It's irrelevant whether they have a choice, or are programmed.

Our all current social structures, norms and concepts evolved on the basis of the illusion of the free will.

When we look from this perspective, we put so much emphasis on the concept of personal responsibility. We assign points of success or failure to people based on their personal responsibility and our lives depend on it, in many cases it's even a matter of life and death. That's why we are so heavility invested in the concept of personal responsibility and think that it's so important.

But in the culture without the belief in free will, the concept of personal responsibility wouldn't even exist. It would be meaningless. The society without the free will would look at life from completely different perspectives, have different values and would organize itself in different ways.

I think that the illusion of free will is just a one step in our consciouscness. Sooner or later we will move forward and leave it behind.

> If free will doesn't exist, then our lives, thoughts and choices are predetermined, and thus they can't be "influenced" by our belief in free will (or lack thereof).

Something that is predetermined can be influenced. See a collision of 2 balls in Newtonian universe - it's predetermined, yet you're justified in saying "collision influenced paths of these balls".

The only thing determinism takes from you is choice. There is still causality (stuff influencing other stuff), there can still be thoughts and beliefs influencing behavior of people and (indirectly) the state of the universe. The only difference is - these people had no choice how to react to these ideas.

>Something that is predetermined can be influenced. See a collision of 2 balls in Newtonian universe - it's predetermined, yet you're justified in saying "collision influenced paths of these balls".

Not beyond its initial cause. If free will doesn't exist (in the universe), then nothing that happens after our birth can influence it.

(A fundamental existence of free will is not the same scenario with e.g. taking a person and specifically (e.g. surgically) alter them to not have free will).

> Not beyond its initial cause. If free will doesn't exist (in the universe), then nothing that happens after our birth can influence it.

This is false. If the sun were to explode right now it would influence the earth. Neither of them have free will.

Even in a completely deterministic universe, where we could predict to the second when the sun would explode from initial conditions, its explosion still influences the earth.

You're mixing influence with choice.

>>If free will doesn't exist (in the universe), then nothing that happens after our birth can influence it.

>This is false. If the sun were to explode right now it would influence the earth. Neither of them have free will.

I didn't mean "nothing can influence the universe".

I meant nothing can influence someone's will (if free will doesn't exist).

Hence the "after our birth" qualifier.

> I meant nothing can influence someone's will (if free will doesn't exist).

But it's still wrong. Just because will isn't free doesn't mean it isn't influenced by events in the physical universe (in fact, the alternative to free will is will completely determined by events in the physical universe.)

> Not beyond its initial cause.

Who cares about the initial cause? Initial cause of everything in deterministic universe is the initial conditions + the set of rules that govern it.

And it's also the main influence on anything that happens in our universe, no matter if it's deterministic. If Earth wasn't there you wouldn't write this comment. Who caused your comment, then - you or Big Bang?

It's our arbitrary convention to stop looking for a root cause when we hit a person. It's useful for social organization, but it's not objectively more true than looking up the chain of "why" till you hit the Big Bang, or stopping on the first step.

> If free will doesn't exist (in the universe), then nothing that happens after our birth can influence it.

Influence = cause change. When you're born you interact (and influence) very many things. That's true no matter if the universe is deterministic or not.

You might be confused about change in predetermined universe. There's in-universe change (particle moves as laws of physics dictate), and external change (universe was going to develop one way, but then something changed the future and it will develop differently). I don't think only the second kind of change deserves to be called "influence". I don't think the second kind of change ever happens.

> If free will doesn't exist (in the universe), then nothing that happens after our birth can influence it.

Even assuming your weird definition of "influence" this is still not true, you can have nondeterministic universe without free will.

>And it's also the main influence on anything that happens in our universe, no matter if it's deterministic. If Earth wasn't there you wouldn't write this comment. Who caused your comment, then - you or Big Bang?

The key difference determined by the existence or not of free will is whether the comment is solely or partly caused by the Big Bang (or the first cause).

What we're discussing is not whether the writing of a comment is possible in a non-free will universe. Of course it is.

But we're discussing whether free will exists (the very subject is "Discovering free will"), and then, what does that entail if it does or if it doesn't. It surely doesn't entail that comments can't be written.

>It's our arbitrary convention to stop looking for a root cause when we hit a person. It's useful for social organization, but it's not objectively more true than looking up the chain of "why" till you hit the Big Bang, or stopping on the first step.

Well, it's not just a convention. You seem to take for granted what one should prove: whether free will exists or not.

Society stops looking for a root cause when it hits a person not as an "arbitrary convention", but because it does believe in free will.

(And it also believes that it's limited by external events. So that it doesn't stop looking for a root cause always on a person, but can go beyond that. E.g. "yeah, the driver caused an accident, but they were forced to swerve because a rock fell on the road, so they're not to blame").

>Influence = cause change. When you're born you interact (and influence) very many things. That's true no matter if the universe is deterministic or not.

If the universe is deterministic you don't cause or influence anything. Those things would have happened anyway. At best you're a medium through an already determined casual chain moves.

But you can not be said to influence something to happen, because that requires that not influencing it was also a possibility.

>Even assuming your weird definition of "influence" this is still not true, you can have nondeterministic universe without free will.

Not really "weird". It's the very dictionary definition.

"influence: the capacity to have an effect on the character, development, or behaviour of someone or something, or the effect itself: the influence of television violence | I was still under the influence of my parents | [count noun] : their friends are having a bad influence on them. • the power to shape policy or ensure favourable treatment from someone, especially through status, contacts, or wealth: the institute has considerable influence with teachers. • [count noun] a person or thing with the capacity to have an influence on someone or something: Fiona was a good influence on her"

You can't have an influence on something happening (or someone's thoughts etc) if that is beyond your control.

> But we're discussing whether free will exists

No, we were discussing whether the argument in the article was circular. It's not circular, because your assertion that influence requires free will is wrong.

> If the universe is deterministic you don't cause or influence anything. Those things would have happened anyway.

No, they wouldn't. Deterministic universe is like a compiler. You give it source code and it produces output. Given different source code (such that you aren't born) the output is different.

> But you can not be said to influence something to happen, because that requires that not influencing it was also a possibility.

No it doesn't. It's not in the definition you provided.

> Society stops looking for a root cause when it hits a person not as an "arbitrary convention", but because it does believe in free will.

Yes, and it's arbitrary, because we don't know if that assumption is true (and I might add it's very unlikely to be true - even if universe is nondeterministic. The rules of physics still work in our heads just as well as elsewhere).

>No, we were discussing whether the argument in the article was circular.

Actually, on this subthread we were discussing whether the argument of the grandparent ( dziungles) was circular. That's what I called circular and started the circularity discussion -- not something in the article.

>No, they wouldn't. Deterministic universe is like a compiler. You give it source code and it produces output. Given different source code (such that you aren't born) the output is different.

That's not an option in a deterministic universe. Everything you've described, like the ability to give a compiler different source code, depends on non determinism.

In a non-deterministic universe there's only one source code that is given to the compiler, and it's predetermined at the first of the universe's deterministic causal chain. That's the whole point, or the very definition of the universe being deterministic: that it cannot change course.

>Yes, and it's arbitrary, because we don't know if that assumption is true

We haven't proved it, but we do believe it to be true. And that's not arbitrary (it's based on people's inherent experience of free will). It might be illusory, but not arbitrary.

The source code is "given" from outside of universe. It's the initial conditions during big bang + the rules of physics.

It was you who started the hypothetical "Those things would have happened anyway". That's obviously false - the laws of physics work, so if something was changed in the initial conditions - then results would be different.

It doesn't matter that you can't change the initial conditions from inside the simulation, the code of the simulation still has "if this then that", so "this" influences "that".

> And that's not arbitrary

Ok, then illusory. In any case it's not justified (and in fact you using this make the same mistake you accused dziungles of doing - assuming free will and using it in an argument about free will).

> we do believe it to be true

"You" not "we" :) Free will doesn't fit an universe described by laws of physics (no matter if deterministic or not). Even if universe is nondeterministic it just means sometimes it throws dices to decide if neuron fires or not.

Calling that "free will", is like calling a Geiger counter beeps decisions" :) The fact that they are (probably) random doesn't mean there's some magical entity choosing which result it gives.

That's insightful, but I also thing the parent argument still works if you use a weaker hypothesis. The way I see it if free will somehow exists it's still relatively limited in scope, at least from what I observe for most human beings (including myself). Our upbringing has a massive influence on who we are and how we think. I'd very much like to believe that I'm a product of my own free will, that I ended up where I am through my own intelligence and the decisions I made but let's face it, had I been born in a poor Ethiopian family I probably wouldn't be talking philosophy on HN because I'm procrastinating on that Perl project.

In particular in right-wing politics I really think that the importance of free-will and self-determination is massively overinflated. We have a ton of evidence that shows that people who are born poor (both economically and culturally) tend to stay that way. Even the most advanced first world societies fail to level the playing field through education and redistribution. Free will is an interesting concept at the individual level but clearly when we consider large societies it's relatively easy to model how humans are likely to behave.

I don't want to derail this discussion to the topic of politics but I want to point out that this conception of the world is why I think socialism makes sense, because I believe that freedom is meaningless if where you're born so heavily influences who you're going to become. Ideally if we were all born perfectly equal in all aspects then your own decisions would be the only things that matter, but we're very, very far from that, therefore I think that we have the moral duty as a society to attempt to correct these inequalities as much as possible. Because all of us right here, had we been born in a Pakistani slum we'd probably be pretty fucking screwed right now, regardless of the existence of free will.

You are right that my all expressions are predetermined. The concepts of free will and of it being an illusion are also predetermined.

With my completely predetermined wholeness, I see the possibility for a better life in which the concept of the free will doesn't exist.

As a being, I'm designed to evolve. My prior message about the illusion of the free will is an act of evolution. By publicly stating that free will is an illusion, I try to change minds and move to a better future.

> society without the idea of the free will would be a much more compassionate, healthier and happy.

I'm less optimistic.

What will keep people--resigned to their fate--from plopping on the couch to wait it out, as opposed to attempting something more ambitious? As someone famous said, if the outcome was certain, it wouldn't be a game; so if humans don't have some risk, some excitement, there will be no motivation.

I find that argument similar to "without religion what stops you from murder and raping people?"

The absolute knowledge that free will doesn't exist doesn't really change much at all. It might give you a different outlook and, optimistically, a better understanding of different viewpoints.

If you are absolutely contempt to sit on the couch for the rest of your life nothing stops you from choosing that in a free-will world. Most of us would be bored and will try other ways to entertain our self. Whether that desire is founded on free will or just a predetermined evolutionary trait doesn't really change the outcome.

You believing in free will or not is quite irrelevant compared to the impact your surrounding has on you. It is even your surrounding that forms the basis of your belief in the first place.

> What will keep people--resigned to their fate--from plopping on the couch to wait it out, as opposed to attempting somethin

I don't think this is how it works from my observations. People don't decide to couch it out based on their philosophy or the expected outcome. They may rationalize it that way but what I believe is that based on their experiences so far some people are simply driven to go out and do stuff and others don't want to do anything mostly.

And my belief is compatible with the "no free will" theory.

"What will keep people--resigned to their fate--from plopping on the couch to wait it out, as opposed to attempting something more ambitious?"

When the mind and body is in movement, when it has goals and ambitions - that all creates a good feeling for a human being. Look at kids in healthy environments. Look at kids in unorthodox schools. Look at successful entrepreneurs who keep working even after they become financially independent.

The opposite "lying in bed" doesn't stimulate the mind, nor body, is boring and depressing.

Only in today's world, where we have the concept of responsibility, we blame people if they try and fail. Or we don't create opportunities for people to learn useful skills, and then we force them (in a moral ways of course) to work in poorly paid, low status and hard labour jobs. Of course, under such conditions, many people believe that happiness is lying in bed.

If we discovered free will doesn't exist, provably, which is my current position, I don't think anything would change.

The illusion that we have free will was strong enough that we used law to keep everything in line, make people responsible for their actions, etc.

I see no reason why either side of the coin would or should stop that behaviour.

If our actions are a result of our environment, shouldn't the environment to the best of our ability be changed such that negative actions have a lower probability of occuring?

With free will you punish people for a crime because it's their fault. Without you punish people to create an environment in which crime is not desirable. (Though resocialization / rehabilitation is probably a better option)

> I'm also a strong believer that the society without the idea of the free will would be a much more compassionate, healthier and happy.

There's a major religion where one of the main theses is that everything is predestined. I haven't noticed those societies to be significantly more compassionate, healthier, or happy.

Which religion?

I'm not really sure I understand what you're arguing for or observing, but notably, the article actually argues for free will existing (thus I assume not being an illusion), if you read it to the end:

> Although the Free Will Theorem can't prove if we have free will, it does have a fundamental consequence: if the Universe is deterministic, and a particles behaviour is always described by a function of the past, then we can’t have free will. And Conway is convinced that we do: "I can’t prove we have free will but I still believe that we do."

> While this and other repercussions are still being discussed by the mathematics, physics and philosophical communities, the theorem has had a profound impact on Conway himself. "It’s really affected how I look at the world. I believe that the glimmerings of freedom are in every particle – in the clouds, in everything – the particles are all taking free decisions."

> [...]

> And he immediately emphasises he’s not attributing some sort of consciousness to the particles. "You mustn’t misread it, we’re not asserting these particles make decisions, we’re not saying they have any consciousness. What happens is they act, they indubitably act, and which action the particle does is free in this sense, it is not a predetermined function of the past. And that’s not the same as randomness, oh dear me no!"

Though I'm still not sure to what extent this whole argument hangs on the third axiom dubbed "MIN", which according to the article, "isn’t experimentally testable" per Conway. Given it's also the one I don't-understand-the-most, I'm not sure how to look at the whole thing at face value. That said, the way they constructed the analogy, and how the article's author managed to approach it with an attempt at simplifying, are totally super interesting. I mean, that just the possibility of even constructing an analogy here (between something so vague and problematic to measure as free will, and something so material and experimental as behaviours of particles) is certainly stimulating for thoughts and some philosophical pondering.

Ted Chiang has a short story "What's expected of us" about possible consequences of proving the absence of free will:

https://www.nature.com/articles/436150a

It's been tried. Many times over. The type of society you advocate is a religious one. One would argue this is still the dominant model. In America, more than 50% believe in some form of God. Some nations are outright religious. Poland and Italy are ~85% accepted Catholic and over 95% if you include lapsed Catholics.

Most religions believe in predestination, in that God's Will supersedes man's will, everything happens for a reason, and our fate is decided the day we are born. Individual religious folk are more compassionate on average, take care of the needy, poor and downtrodden. Religious societies however, have led to intolerance, persecution and rigid class systems.

As far as I know, the opposite is true. The concept of the free was heavility influenced by Christianity and I bet by other religions too.

You are free to do so, but talking in absolutes won't get you anywhere. There's the will to be free and the will to be content, not to say contained. These are two extremes and the target is in the middle, if and only if this is really just a two dimensional thing ... If you wonder how two dimensions can have a middle, think of negative and positive parts of the number line as individual axis ... I havent' figured out the maths, it's not a normed vector space, though.

Either way, people strive for consistency, but will is a highly inconsistent notion. So there must be more angles to the equation.

Free will is an oxymoron, or the homogenous solution ignoring higher orders at best, because will immediately constrains freedom.

Absence... is a revolutionary idea

Indeed. For one thing, if it were true, then everyone who's ever been convicted of a crime and punished has been the victim of a complete fantasy ... imposed on them and us by fate.

Stereotypes, biases, hate crimes, going to war or not, building the pyramids or not, painting the Mona Lisa, creating a symphony ... picking this flower or not, falling in love or not, discarding a cigarette butt on the beach ... all equally driven by immutable, unstoppable fate?

That's not happy.

Free will does exist, only we don't have it. We live in our own little world of illusions, thinking and dreaming. In reality every random influence can change our path.

Reality only exists in the present moment; just try to "be" there for a few minutes (without thinking) and you realize you don't have "free will". These are qualities that come with a huge price that almost none of us can or want to pay for, mainly because we love to dream we already have it.

Examples of people with free will are: Jesus Christ, Buddha, etc..

I'm curious as to what your theological beliefs are? How come you list Jesus (which I would understand if you are christian) but also, in the same breath, Buddha?

As I understand it there's pretty firm evidence that both Jesus and Buddha existed and arguably they both had some pretty cool ideas...

That doesn’t mean that their ideas weren’t generated by a deterministic machine inside their skulls. GGP doesn’t explain why he thinks these individuals had free will and the rest of us don’t. Seems to me even in “random” yet deterministic systems, you’ll still get “anomalous” behavior that others within the system catagorize as “somehow different” - still doesn’t mean their will is freer than others’.

Yeah absolutely. I don't agree with his 'examples', but I'll defend to the death his right to use them in the same breath. It seems absurd to claim a handful of humans to have free will and others not, not really sure what that would even mean.

In Buddhism there is a notion that the human conscious experience is a largely automatic state of "waking sleep" where the individual navigates life reactively, subject to the karmic law of "cause and effect". (Determinism)

The metaphor of "waking up" is about practicing a present state of mind, such that one recognizes how they are living life with about the same amount of awareness as a dream, with the aim to cultivate the same agency of a lucid dream in waking life. (Free Will)

A Gnostic reading of the New Testament reveals a similar allegorical prescription to awakening in Jesus' teachings, whereby adherents strive to attain "Christ Consciousness" and achieve liberation.

Many contemplative traditions hold that human suffering is caused by our baseline instinctual unconscious tendencies (a feedback loop from hell), and that it takes sustained practice to become present enough to "take the car off autopilot" permanently.

A cursory survey of the brutishness of human history is a testament to how rare this mental state is, and explains the high regard by those who attempt to emulate the characters (historical or fictional) claimed to have mastered it.

The whole free will debate always falls flat on its face because the distinction between free will and free choice is never made. You may not have free will, but you have natural tendencies that you gravitate towards. However, these can only be expressed if you have the choice to do so.

There is a joke that I think captures this philosophy of Compatibalism quite well: A reporter asks a citizen in Pyongyang to comment about life in North Korea. The citizen answers "Well, I can't complain".

Ensembles can disentangle, right? Then, if measuring only one side, how do you know the other side is entangled? How did experiments establish entanglement anyway? If you measure hundred runs and all correlate, sure you can say the next one will too, but that's literally a predetermined outcome.

Archive version:

http://archive.is/NlB7R

Part 2: http://web.archive.org/web/20180726093121/https://plus.maths...

Okay, but it still doesn't mean the particle passes through both slits.

If you find this topic interesting, I highly recommend watching this talk by Sam Harris [0].

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCofmZlC72g

"Conway thinks the free decisions of the particles inside us might account for our own free will."

Another mathematician, Roger Penrose, made a similar claim, but with "consciousness" instead of "free will".

I find this very implausible. So does Douglas Hofstadter, probably, though I've not yet read his main book on the subject.

Thought experiment: You make a mathematical model of how neurons work, you cut up a human's brain, and you build a machine that simulates it. Wherever the model required randomness, you use pseudorandom numbers, generated cryptographically, so the entire system is deterministic. You connect it up to some kind of humanoid robot. Does the resulting system behave roughly like a human, and, if so, does it have free will, and is it conscious?

People who believe that consciousness or free will depends on fundamental physics have to believe:

* Either that the simulated human won't work like a human: it will mysteriously fail to function, but how exactly?

* Or that the simulated human will seem to work like a real human, but nevertheless it won't be conscious; it will be a mere "zombie".

The first option seems intuitively implausible to me, and the second option sounds like silly sophistry.

In the case of free will I don't see any intuitive implausibility. It's intuitively plausible that someone/something could exhibit human-like behavior without actually having free will. After all, some people think that regular humans fall into this category!

The issue is that a lot of people look at humans and say "This kind of behavior requires and proves free will", which would mean that exhibiting human-like behavior without free will ought to be impossible.

I don't think anyone concludes that humans have free will on the basis of their behavior. At least, that's a pretty unusual line of argument.

Maybe not with the wording I used, but I'd say it's actually THE most common argument around. The whole "machines can't love" line.

Most people who argue for free will do so on the basis that it appears that we are free, not because there is some physical mechanic of the universe that implies free will.

The difficultly in deciding whether humans have "free will" suggests that the concept of "free will" might be silly sophistry.

Similarly, the difficulty in deciding whether or not Goldbach's conjecture holds shows that the concept of "prime number" might be silly sophistry.

Hardly worth replying, but I don't see the similarity. A 6-year-old understands perfectly well what a prime number is, and you can write a program to test for primality in half a line of Haskell (though the performance will not be good). Now what's a "free will"?

I was responding to your original claim, which appeared to rest on the assumption that problems which are difficult to solve are likely to be psuedoproblems. I deliberately chose a difficult problem based on a concept that has a clear definition (prime number) in order to show how silly this line of argument is.

If you are just saying that it's difficult to come up with a generally agreed upon definition of "free will", then that's of course true. But that doesn't mean that there aren't any genuine philosophical problems relating to free will. By way of analogy, it's also difficult to define terms like "property", "freedom" and "constitution", but that doesn't mean that all of political philosophy is sophistry.

a) Penrose' claim is about something completely different, namely the non-algorithmic computational abilities of the brain by quantum-gravity effects

b) intuition is irrelevant - this is a proof of the physics of free-will, it doesn't matter how 'plausible' it sounds. Quantum mechanics isn't intuitive either - why should it be ?

a) Penrose has probably made a lot of claims over the years. I may be thinking of earlier writings than you are.

b) Proofs tend to be a garbage-in-garbage-out sort of thing. It's best to check the output against your intuition because you may have made a mistake in your reasoning or, more likely, in your assumptions and definitions. Intuition is not fixed and immutable: you can develop it to include things like quantum mechanics, probably.

They probably would be conscious too if QM randomness is psuedorandomness. It is not known whether Quantum Randomness is special. It could be the result of deterministic pseudorandomness. All randomness might be either complex scenarios with insufficient information or algorithmically random sequences..

Here is a good in depth article by Scott Aaronson on this: https://www.americanscientist.org/article/quantum-randomness

> if QM randomness is psuedorandomness

Isn't that the same as the hidden variables theory which has been proved wrong experimentally?

Local hidden variables have been disproven. Non-local ones are an entirely valid solution.

> I find this very implausible. So does Douglas Hofstadter

Dennett does a good refutation of Penrose. There's some in Darwin's Dangerous Idea (I think; might be confusing it with Consciousness Explained), but he finishes the job in Freedom Evolves

Long story short, his assertion is that the contradiction between determinism in physics and free will in humans is a category mix-up, not a true contradiction. There are so many layers between the two levels, so many interactions, that when you get to the top level at which we consider an coherent blob of "matter" called an "organism" -- with a "brain" even -- there really are things called "thinking" and "free will". But way down at the level of molecules, those concepts aren't even nonsensical; they're just meaningless. To talk about free will, you have to have a very high vantage point. And that's why it gets confusing when you go back down to the building blocks.

This is similar to the systems argument against Searle's Chinese Room: the phenomenon we find so interesting disappears when the system is broken down, exactly because it's an emergent product of the system.

There are analogies I could make, but I'd probably miss something, so I'll leave it to Dennett (he actually uses the Game of Life to make his point). I highly recommend reading Freedom Evolves if you're into these ideas. Very thought-provoking, especially for its compact length.

It seems to me your assertions assumes that the randomness you get out of a quantum mechanical system is essentially same as psuedo-random sequences in quality. which may very well be true functionally (as in being able to simulate specific behaviors) but it is still completely deterministic (unless you use a true random event like decay of a nuclei etc). Until then your option-2 fall into the phys-zombie mode.

If I peer deeper into that line of thought I'd say it assumes that consciousness is simulate-able by physical deterministic processes and then goes onto say Ah look the behavior is indistinguishable so we have simulated the consciousness. BTW you can tell I am not a believer in turing tests like setup for 'measuring consciousness'. IMO its of a completely different nature.

here is my take: Could it be that consciousness needs quantum mechanics to actually 'express' itself in human brain? this is borrowed from Penrose's Orchestrated-Objective-Reduction thesis. if so we could have either of those outcomes depending on the sophistication of your simulation and handling of various perturbations in human brain architecture. personally I lean more towards this option, especially after learning that QM processes play more central role in biology than we thought originally despite 'it' being too warm, wet & noisy. In short, if there is any evolutionary advantage to be had from QM effects, biology will adapt to exploit it.

I'd argue Option 2 is not silly sophistry if you consider following scenario:

1) Lets say we create a planet sized computer with enough capacity to simulate every human being in the way you described. then we decide Ah we dont need to be in meatspace anymore because what difference it makes anyways.. so we simulate all human minds and 'upload' each human into this computer. now if we are wrong about consciousness then essentially we would have willfully committed genocide on our own race (& every other living thing).

2) suppose we develop a Opt-2 based super-intelligent AI which is way better then us at everything. now why should it keep such resource hogs as humans around? IMO precise definition of consciousness matters quite a bit here as it creates a quality worth preserving/exploring further.

Oh boy, I know this is arrogant; It's pretty easy to show evidence of determinism. 1) Read my brain, check if in ten seconds I will say yes or nothing. 2) Don't tell me. 3) Wait ten seconds. 4) Compare results. I'm aware of the experiments of reading brain decisions faster than our consiousness (machines telling which button we will play "before we realized"). No, no psychomotor tricks. Just read my brain, don't tell me until I made my choice. If you get 100% I believe you, meanwhile, no evidence.

>no evidence

Why do you assume that the null hypothesis is free will?

I'm not assuming free will exists. To be honest, I'm personally a compatibilist. I'm determinism and free will agnostic. No evidence for free will doesn't mean determinsm is true. No evidence for determinism doesn't mean free will is true. Is an unpopular opinion. But I see no gap in the logic.

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