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We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40337110.
As we're detached, let me say that ycombinator used to be a place that attracted the best of the best. One could come here and talk to people who knew their shit and had something to say.
What happened?
Either way though, please stick to the rules when posting here.
Likewise, our pseudo-free will is probably more than enough for having near-independent agency from the environment. Anything outside of that is probably already within the realms of metaphysics, which is unprovable by definition anyway.
And just like free will, there are no true RNGs, just RNGs that we don't have the accuracy or computer power to predict. Quantum mechanics may disprove this.
It's funny that while it's great to also keep this perspective open as an interesting theoretical avenue, and Penrose is worth appreciating as a very original thinker... all the "evidence" for quantum consciousness theories is probably pure junk sci =)
What fiction? QNTM did a great job and it's all available for free. qntm.org
It's similar to learning that the universe doesn't literally revolve around us.
Assuming free will doesn't exist, how would a world where free will does exist be any different? As far as I can tell, our current world is indistinguishable from a world with free will, therefore our world is equivalent to one with free will.
IMO, I think free will is just a lie we tell ourselves. The inner workings of our brains are mostly hidden from us. When asked why we did something we just make up some bullshit that's not unlike what ChatGPT does when it helpfully fabricates an answer for us.
I don't think that is possible. Or at least I've never seen a definition that isn't self referntial or makes sense. Possibly I'm uneducated.
1) ability to do as you want
2) ability to do otherwise
3) ability to control choice
4) be an author of choice
If you think “you” is just a bunch of neurons in the brain then most people would not consider that free will because physics is the author of your thoughts.
To be clear that is my view. So I don’t think we have free will. We just feel like we do.
> Free will is the idea that there is a “you” and you are the author of your thoughts.
I am a "me", and I am the author of my thoughts, but that comes from the neurons in my brain firing and making decisions based on input. It still makes decisions, choices. I just maintain that those choices are not outside the universe. They are either:
1) Entirely causal based on all inputs and particles in the universe. Rewinding the universe and replaying will result in the exact same decisions.
or
2) The universe contains implicit randomness and this feeds into our neurons firing, meaning, rewinding the universe and replaying won't result in the same decisions.
I guess it depends on how you define it but I would say physics is the author of your thoughts. Physics is what’s making the decisions. Physics is the reason neurons fire.
But for anyone else, I still don't see how the concept of free will even makes sense. It is either determined, or random. What other options are there?
We have free agency to do what is possible for us, like ultimately committing suicide to restrict that freedom, but we dont have the freedom to choose how we choose because this will never be fully transparent to us, even though we can approximate it with mindfullness.
So, to answer OPs question how the world would look like with "free will", i imagine a world without all those cognitive biases like this entire tribalistic political bullshit we are seeing around the world with identity infested right (and lesser, left) wing movements as a reaction to ever more complex global problems, so quite a contrast.
I've never seen an answer to this question, which hints that the question itself is ill-formed.
A non-free-will would be something where somebody else controls my mind. Like you could imagine hearing thoughts in your head which you think are thought by someone else, like in schizophrenia I guess.
You can force me to do something but you cannot force me to will/want/like anything.
Now, you’re looking sideways. Try looking down at a bunch of little Bobs. That’s where it gets interesting in my opinion.
The actual question is this: do I have free will or not? Life presents us with choices. To paraphrase the prince of Denmark, 'Do I decide to do x or !x? That is the question'.
Related question is does I (distinct from Reality) even have a real existence?
In the 2 slit experiment, as long as the future state of the system is undecidable, we see light behave as waves. When the future of the system is constrained (by measure, which is a 'means of determination') does light behave like a particle.
As far as I can tell, everything in our world is governed by the laws of physics, and free will is an illusion. We "make choices", but only because physics moves our brain from one state to the next, and your "choices" only have one option - the one that follows physics.
(this assumes there's no true randomness in the universe, as it requires a source of true randomness, so infinite regress)
Is it deterministic, who makes the choices for us, why does physics move our brain, what's the cause?
To us free will feels real because that’s how our neurons fire. We can refuse because there are patterns of neuron activation that lead to the physical act of refusal.
The question of free will is meaningful as a dual of the proposition of determinism. I suggest to you :) that you lack clarity of thought and need to work on that.
In order for free will to exist there would need to be some force outside of normal physics that influences the physical world.
No evidence for this force of nature exists. And, at a high level, this is no different from other quackery like psychics, witchcraft and other similar nonsense where people insist that their minds can influence the physical world beyond normal physics.
Is this an axiom?
If the brain is just normal physics then your behavior is dictated by the laws of physics. This is not what most people consider free will.
Therefore, you would need something outside of physics for there to be free will. Like a spirit.
“Free will” is a cultural-linguistic construct. How could it be anything else? The very concepts of discrete individuals, let alone agency, is effectively arbitrary as far as physical forces are concerned.
The “things” that free will concern are already many, many layers of abstractions (and cultural-linguistic construction) away from the individual deterministic interactions of what we currently understand to be physics.
And, like all abstractions, these are leaky and imprecise. So trying to model or analyse their behavior in terms of deterministic physical interactions has always seemed misguided to me.
The Laws of Physics cannot dictate whether Schrodinger's cat dies because an atomic reaction happens, only that there is a specific probability for that happening.
So if the world is not deterministic neither are human brains. Physics cannot dictate what the brains think, it can only dictate what the probabilities for some neuron pathways opening or closing are.
It can all be broken down as follows:
Rewind time by a certain amount where the entire universe is exactly as it was at that instant. Start the replay. Do you make all the exact same choices, is the universe exactly the same when we get back to the present time?
If the answer is yes, then most people will accept that rejects the most common understanding of free will.
If the answer is no, then by what mechanism were different choices made? How did the neurons in your brain fire differently to make different choices? It must be random. And if it is just random, then that, to me (and many others) also rejects the most common understanding of free will.
But, that doesn't reject the idea of accountability within this system, because accountability is the feedback that directs the neurons to fire in a certain manner to make choices that soiciety prefers. If there was no accountability, no punishment for behaviour that was harmful to other individuals, it would not have good outcomes. So the system creates accountability. It must, because that accountability is part of the physical process by which choices are made.
I fully acknowledge that we feel like we have free will and that we should act like we have it. But it’s still an illusion.
Free will is the idea that there is a "you" and you are the author of your actions, or at least you can significantly influence your actions.
Of course, your actions are authored by the neurons in your brain but most people speak as if there is more to it than that. As if there is a "you" that exists outside the brain.
One of the debates around free will centers on an idea that free will means actions must be physically random. So, I think people understand that probability and randomness are really important pieces to understanding free will.
The missing link is understanding that probability is a state of mind. It doesn't matter that the physics is deterministic. (Deterministic physics is indeed also responsible for my current unique perception of my consciousness, so deterministic physics can do a whole heckuva lot.)
So, yes, my moment-by-moment decisions in the sea of the universe's physics and other conscious agents are determined by physics, but to all possible computational agents my moment-by-moment decisions and their affect on reality are weighted random.
That’s why it’s called free “will”. Will is an internal concept, it’s your desire determination, etc for something to happen.
Randomness is not really central to this discussion. What matters is the source, not whether the source is random or deterministic.
I guess this could be something analogous to dark matter... It is as much physics as any other unexplainable "fundamental" concept.