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Comment by Workaccount2 | Hacker News Reader

It's trivial to solve the debate over free will:

Given a computer of infinite computing power, write a program that exhibits "free will".

You quickly realize that the only decision making tools you have are either deterministic, random, or some mix of the two.

There is no "free will" tool. And if there is, it has to be some kind of extra-dimensional transcendental property. Or perhaps if you're loose with definitions, you'll consider a stack of deterministic and random processes of arbitrary complexity to be "free will".

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Assuming that the universe functions like a deterministic/stochastic machine, and that our understanding of said universe is 100% correct and complete. Except, we know for certain that our understanding of the universe isn’t 100% correct and complete. Our math and physics (which assume that the universe is a deterministic/stochastic machine) work fantastically well up to a point, then fail. Our two primary theories for physics are incompatible, so clearly there is a gap in our understanding.

Free will seems to me to be intimately tied to consciousness. Without free will, consciousness is pointless. Why be conscious if you have no choices? Yet we are conscious. Lots of things are conscious. Making conscious choices must provide evolutionary fitness value. It seems to be extremely important. And the view of the universe as a deterministic/stochastic machine has absolutely no explanation for consciousness, and it doesn’t seem like we’re getting any closer to a theory using that framework.

There are a few scientists who actually think that consciousness is a fundamental aspect of the universe. Apparently, Max Planck and some early quantum theorists thought it was. I’m not convinced yet, but I think it’s an interesting perspective, and I think it’s worth considering. But I’m definitely not convinced that there’s no free will.

The universe has a fundamental source of randomness that comes through all over the place. The universe is in no way deterministic.

But the opposite of deterministic isn't free will. It's randomness.

Programming lets you mash determinism and randomness together to arbitrary levels of depth and complexity. Yet not even the slightest hint of free will anywhere in anyone's program. Or even theoretical research into programming "free will".

In your thought experiment, you basically say, “Let’s model the universe with the assumption that there’s no free will” and use that assumption to show that there’s no free will. If you assume that the universe functions like a computer, you’ll get that result, but I need more proof to accept that the universe functions like a computer. I highly doubt that it does. If this was the seventeenth century, the argument would be that the universe functions like clockwork. That was a decent approximation at the time, but clearly not true.

I can’t say that there IS free will, but I think trying to make the determination that there isn’t with today’s level of understanding is premature. Since free will (whether real or illusory) is either an effect of consciousness or at least deeply tied to consciousness, I think we need a coherent theory of consciousness before we rule out free will. We don’t have that theory. That’s why it’s called The Hard Problem of Consciousness.

> write a program that exhibits "free will".

A bit more detailed spec would be really helpful here.

What are the test cases? How can QA validate if the program exhibits "free will" or not?

You have just proved the opposite. For a 100 lines program, you will never even know whether it will terminate or not, and what would be the result of computation.

Free will is the complete opaqueness of the thought process to you, where the only way to get the result is to run the program.

The n'th digit of pi is also opaque to me without running a program.

That's why it is a transcedental number. Maybe it becomes sentient after some digit. In fact, it certainly does.

An infinite stream of numbers does not -by necessity- contain every possible permutation.

Therefore it is not automatically proven that pi becomes sentient after some particular digit [1]

Though it's a fun thought!

[1] (eg. by way of containing a permutation that exactly describes the mind-state of thriftwy if fed to a near-future sci-fi 3d printer) .

Determinism comes in a couple of flavors, one of which is "chaotic". I think that most interesting behavior lives under the header of "chaotic". Insofar as we experience free will, I think it's chaotic behavior.

I think time loop stories are one of the gateway drugs to this mode of thinking ( a time loop thought experiment is an easy way to say "repeatedly resetting the world to a known set of parameters") .

In these stories; when the protagonist goes back in time, (s)he doesn't get knocked over by people robotically acting out what they did in the time loop. But neither do events unroll completely at random.

Instead people react to the protagonist's actions, and then other people react to their reactions, etc. So what starts out in one corner with the protagonist arriving with their time machine will spread out to affect everyone else's behavior over the next few days. After a week or so this effect has spread out such that the future of this particular time line is no longer easy to determine.

Chaos is a funny thing. It's technically deterministic, but can sometimes feel like randomness.

Time loop stories themselves aren't real. But they make an interesting thought experiment that gives one an intuition on (how I think) the world works.

The common definition of free will is just supernatural.

I believe free will exists. It's simply not supernatural.

I don't think that's possible.

If there is no supernatural, if matter and the laws of physics are all that exist, then all you can be is matter that obeys the laws of physics. You have particles that obey the quantum laws, making up atoms that obey the laws of atomic physics, making up molecules that obey the laws of chemistry, making up neurons that obey the laws of neurology. There is nowhere in that stack for free will - it's all determinism plus noise.

The only way free will is possible is if there is more than the pure materialist position says there is.

Every time this comes up, I want to tell people they're in the lucky 10000 [1], because I get to tell them about Chaos Theory.

For a while Chaos theory was very popular. But this died down a just a little bit because who is happy with a theory that says you can't know things even in a perfectly deterministic universe? It's still a very useful and important thing to know about though.

[1] https://xkcd.com/1053/

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory

But that still doesn't give you free will, because you don't control the chaos.

More like you are the chaos.

(To compress an insanely long story into a pithy but awesome oneliner)

Expanding slightly: You being [deterministically] chaotic in nature pretty much gives you all the properties of having free will afaict imvho. It covers both the ability to act with a will as well as the fact that your behavior is not practically predictable. I can live with that!

Chaos is just an arbitrary level of complexity on a deterministic/random system. It doesn't come into play here because a chaotic system is still just a stack of deterministic/random micro actions.

I can write a computer program that produces a chaotic output. However, nowhere in the computer or program will you find any free will.

Well, if I take a Mercedes apart, nowhere in any part of the car will I find the ability to comfortably cruise at 160 km/h on the autobahn. Not in the engine (it just makes funny noises), not in the suspension (it's just a bit springy when compressed) , and not in the tires (which just bounce up and down and roll off if you throw them).

Only when I put all the parts of the car together in the right order and in the right places does that property emerge.

...which is an entirely deterministic output of the design of the car. Literally the reason why the car was made the way it was.

I'm failing to see your point here, but it seems you are alluding to the idea that chaos theory produces a black box of complexity, and therefore free will exists there. Which isn't really an explanation so much as an exercise in moving goal posts into unlit corridors of knowledge.

Which doesn't even make sense because chaos theory is a theory that deals with system evolution when incomplete knowledge is known about the systems starting conditions. No where in chaos theory is there talk of supernatural phenomena. It's purely a theory of practical constraints, no physical ones.

The Mercedes example is just strictly in response to the idea that property X of a system must somehow (already) be present in one of its sub-components. It doesn't.

So a concept like free will could exhibit itself in the output of -say- a turing machine, (or turing-like entity, like a DNA strand - think tape and multiple read heads), even if none of the components has that property.

I do actually think that certain [deterministically] chaotic systems have a lot of the properties we associate with free will (the ability to make some sort of sensible choices that still seem 'random'); so I tend to see them as very similar concepts. You might have a different definition though!

Technically chaos is deterministic, so technically correct, though a chaotic function (like a PRNG) will act in funny ways. Here's what I mean in python

    # If you use the same seed twice the 
    # outcome is predictable in some sense.

    >>> import random

    >>> random.seed(1234)
    >>> random.random()
    0.9664535356921388

    >>> random.seed(1234)
    >>> random.random()
    0.9664535356921388


    # But good luck predicting in general, 
    # especially if you don't know the seed 
    # or your  position in the sequence. 

    >>> random.random()
    0.4407325991753527

    >>> random.random()
    0.007491470058587191

.

What do you mean by “realize”. What does “realize” mean in a world without free will?

Right. And let's not forget that any such 100-line program would not be—in any meaningful sense—written by anybody, but instead predetermined by the initial conditions of the universe 14 billion years ago, give or take. Something bounced off something else (as it had to) and, presto, these particular tokens were arranged just so. Remember, of course, that the same initial position and velocity of particles during the big bang implied the inevitable and precise creation of the compiler, the processor, the memory, the keyboard, the particular arrangement of letters on that keyboard (and the language they represent, which itself does not communicate anything that wasn't ordained before the first stars coalesced), as well as the office chair you sat in—with its 7 points of articulation!—and the Homer Simpson coffee mug that nobody decided to fill with coffee, but which was in all important ways filled with coffee by the universe itself. At no point did anything ever happen except by predetermined interactions, and the initial conditions of the universe caused all of human history to play out exactly as it did. I think we can all agree that that just makes intuitive sense, and isn't preposterous at all. In fact, we have to.

Human history would certainly have been different if the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs hadn't free-will'd itself into an extinction event I guess.

> Right. And let's not forget that any such 100-line program would not be—in any meaningful sense—written by anybody,

Its perfectly meaningful. If I'm hiring a programmer I know that the mindstate of the one who did the physical action of typing that program is arranged such that they can write useful code for me. Whether that is the result of free will or a chain of causality leading back to the big bang doesn't matter.

The universe is not deterministic because it has a constant stream of fundamental randomness (quantum noise) running through it. This is how you end up with the deterministic-random dichotomy.

We do not know that for sure. Yes, it looks like that, but there could be determinism all the way, we're just not equippted to measure it.

This is patently absurd. If I did this, I would not be exercising free will but follow your instructions. Guess what, I'm choosing not to do that.

You don't chose to do anything. Your brain makes decisions and you take full credit for them. This is plainly visible too.

If I ask you to think of a car manufacturer, your brain just served up a name. No conscious input from you, no choice made, your brain decided what car maker to think of.

Maybe you think of a few and then decide from those which one to "think of" (even though you already thought of one) in effort to inject "choice". But if you pay attention to the process here, its clear that its not even you selecting. It's your brain moving the selector of which one to "think of". It's your brain that served up those other names.

Free will isn't even an illusion. It just straight up isn't even there. It's just that 99.999999% of people never even pay attention to how their head works. But it's obvious when you observe it.

And, if I go back in time and ask again, you'd choose the same manufacturer every time.

However, if I go back in time, ask you to roll a die first (or some other minimal perturbation), and THEN ask again, you might actually answer differently already; depending.

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