The Illusion of Free Will: A Scientific Perspective

[rocket123456]

As of late i have been musing upon the nature of free will. However i disagree with the standard interpretation of the link between Determinism and free will. Incompatibilism states that Free Will and Determinism cannot co-exist, and i agree with this stance. Where i disagree is with the empirical nature of our reality and the implications for free will.

Quantum mechanics has demonstrated that our universe is (at least at the quantum scale in-deterministic). In the standard Copenhagen interpretation we must assign probabilities to certain events,

The probabilities are determinstically calculated. The wave-function is deterministic and predicts how the world will evolve(probalistically) in the future. It's deterministic randomness like Hawking says.

Nevermind Qm there's a much simplier argument for why the world must be deterministic if you mean by deterministic fatalistic.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Is_life_pre-determined

 

[Zarqon]

The probabilities are determinstically calculated. The wave-function is deterministic and predicts how the world will evolve(probalistically) in the future. It's deterministic randomness like Hawking says.

Nevermind Qm there's a much simplier argument for why the world must be deterministic if you mean by deterministic fatalistic.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Is_life_pre-determined

The argument in that link is rather bad/full of holes and based on a circular reasoning. They are making the ASSUMPTION that the only way a complex organism can work is if all it's parts (cells) are predictable, but they give no proof of this. On the contrary, I can instead easily come up with other situations where the complex organsim works just as well even with all parts unpredictable (but for example where the average of their behaviors are still predictable).

 

[Zarqon]

In my view the biggest issue with these discussions is defining "free will" in the first place. How can it possibly be defined? The core problem with defining free will is that the Brain is either fully deterministic or it it contains elemtens of randomness, and in either of those cases there is no free will:

1) the brain is fully deterministic, which might be considered as "will" but it certainly isn't "free", thus there is no free will.

2) the brain has random elements, and while this makes your choices "free", most people do not consider this as "will", and thus there is no free will.

My best explanation for the notion of "free will", is that it is a collection of algorithms and filters in our brains that are based on information from our past gathered experience + genetics + immediate sensory input, in order to arrive at a "choice". The reason why it feels like the choices we make are out of a free will, is that you may not be directly aware of most filters/algorithms in the brain, since there are so many of them, and they all contribute/interact in subtle ways to help you "make the decision".

In addition to that, I think there is some amount of randomness/unpredictability involved in making choices. This may not stem from fundamental (quantum) randomness, but may simply come from the fact that most sufficiently complicated processes demonstrate some form of chaotic behavior, which gives unpredictability. And our brains are most certainly complicated enough for this.

 

[rocket123456]

The argument in that link is rather bad/full of holes and based on a circular reasoning. They are making the ASSUMPTION that the only way a complex organism can work is if all it's parts (cells) are predictable, but they give no proof of this. On the contrary, I can instead easily come up with other situations where the complex organsim works just as well even with all parts unpredictable (but for example where the average of their behaviors are still predictable).

You know very well that all arguments rely on premisses/assumptions. A much better way to put it would be to infer the workings of cause and effect to show why everything is predetermined.

For instance let say you think you have free will... and now you decide to do nothing! well you can't--- your brain still continues to process input-output- you still have the impulses.. and everything around you keeps moving along.

The flow of time just keeps on going. If there truly was unclear randomness then there would not be a continiuty of events. THe next event in your life for each second just continues to unfold seeminglessly.

 

[matt24]

I'm not a philosopher neither study about metaphysic yet in my understanding freewill is a decision/choice made by human while determinism refers to cause and effect. .e.g. Your thinking to be a successful businessman - that is your choice, your free will. The next step is what, how, when to do it - that is your determinism.

 

[rocket123456]

To me the only meaningful definition of free will= you could have done otherwise.

Determinism with cause and effect- says no. Your life is already set in stone- all parts of it--

If you think free will means making your own decisions, fine you can say that, but how can it be a genuine decision if there were never any uncertainty as to wheter you would make it or not?

We are basically just machines trapped in the universe.

 

[skeptic2]

My best explanation for the notion of "free will", is that it is a collection of algorithms and filters in our brains that are based on information from our past gathered experience + genetics + immediate sensory input, in order to arrive at a "choice".

Why are particular algorithms or filters chosen over the many other possible ones? For example, why might you have an algorithm or filter that suggests you to get out of the rain?

 

[Zarqon]

Why are particular algorithms or filters chosen over the many other possible ones? For example, why might you have an algorithm or filter that suggests you to get out of the rain?

Because standing in the rain typically leaves you wet and cold, something that increases chances of getting sick? From evolution we have thus learned to dislike it.

Also note that there isn't much point in discussing the details of particular algorithms, it's enough to consider them as a whole collection of interwoven "circuitry". In fact, my guess was that the illusion of free will arises exactly because we can not distinguish them and pinpoint where our decisions originated from, so we instead attribute the "decision" to the mysterious free will.

 

[skeptic2]

Still, getting out of the rain isn't a deterministic reaction. Even if you argue that the algorithm or filter makes it deterministic, there must have been a choice at some point to use that filter.

 

[Pythagorean]

Still, getting out of the rain isn't a deterministic reaction. Even if you argue that the algorithm or filter makes it deterministic, there must have been a choice at some point to use that filter.

There must have been? Shouldn't we be skeptical without evidence?

 

[skeptic2]

There is strong statistical evidence that organisms take actions that benefit themselves. Does determinism claim a causal relationship exists between rain and people running for cover. What does it say about a person who decides to stay in the rain.

 

[Maui]

What does determinism say about feeling pain? What/who/how feels pain? Seems like we have a new entity.

 

[Travis_King]

Still, getting out of the rain isn't a deterministic reaction. Even if you argue that the algorithm or filter makes it deterministic, there must have been a choice at some point to use that filter.

Choices are easily accounted for in deterministic frameworks.

 

[Pythagorean]

There is strong statistical evidence that organisms take actions that benefit themselves. Does determinism claim a causal relationship exists between rain and people running for cover. What does it say about a person who decides to stay in the rain.

All of this is independent of the determinism discussion. Chaos theory is the basic premise that describes how two systems that are generally similar can have all kinds of behavioral variety given small differences in the system.

But more importantly, the differences aren't small across people's. A large part of our neural development is in the associative cortex, which samples environmental events for years, so all kinds of social and environmental quirks can factor into long-term behavioral habits.

As an anecdotal examples, I was raised in a place that rains 250/360 days a year. In the new town I'm in, it's not unusual for me to be left standing in the rain going "what's the problem?" when my friends bail for cover.

For instance, one could argue that ducking into the rain is an evolutionary impulse (surely, many of our ancestors would have died from exposure/hypothermia if they didn't evade the evaporative cooling of the rain). But in my hometown, you can't get a whole lot done if you keep running from the rain, so we eventually desensitize to the panic response as our need to work outweighs our need to feel comfortable and our ore autonomous brain eventually recognizes there is no threat.

The general idea here is that we have evolutionary panic responses that are no longer necissary, but unless we have an opportunity to overcome our fear (when desires or other fears outweight them) most of us may never realize what cautionary behavior we participate in that is useless. Another example besides the rain is tickling, which is thought to be a panic response to letghal insects. But in this example, it's much more difficult to overcome the panic respones of somebody else tickling you.

 

[Maui]

Choices are easily accounted for in deterministic frameworks.

Yes, but choosing is not. Man can choose to build a cruise ship or not to build a cruise ship. There is zero evidence that nature forces man to build cruise ships by deterministic processes.

 

[Pythagorean]

Yes, but choosing is not.

Sure it is. We can design a computer that deterministically chooses things based on it's current sample (stimulus) and it's collection of samples over its history (memory). If we wanted to make it really biological, we could throw random metabolic perturbations in, that have more to do with internal resource management than explicit decision making.

 

[Maui]

Sure it is. We can design a computer that deterministically chooses things based on it's current sample (stimulus) and it's collection of samples over its history (memory). If we wanted to make it really biological, we could throw random metabolic perturbations in, that have more to do with internal resource management than explicit decision making.

A computer can't design anything on its own. It lacks creativity and imagination. You have to program every single step and let it run. This isn't choosing, this is programming.
A computer cannot choose to ponder or not to ponder the nature of determinsm, as machines cannot ponder.


What's the likelihood of placing an electrical activity of the frequancy range of Alfa, theta and beta waves(coupled with the supportive chemical reactions as in a functioning brain) on a pile of dough and it becoming conscious of itself?

 

[Pythagorean]

A computer can't design anything on its own. It lacks creativity and imagination. You have to program every single step and let it run. This isn't choosing, this is programming.

Neither can a human do anything on its own. They go through a long period of "supervised learning". In fact, they will die without a caretaker during critical periods.

Qualities like "creativity" and "imagination" aren't very quantifiable, but qualitatively, feral children don't display much for them either. You can theoretically emulate creativity and imagination but having erroneous associations being made (which is fairly typical with humans). Humans produce a lot of senseless information in an attempt to produce reliable predictions. That is essentially what creativite works consists of: senseless (or vague) information (sometimes mixed with functional information.. but once it becomes purely functional it's now technical and not creative).

This isn't choosing, but it's not really programming either. We design computers NOT to have the flaws that humans have. If you ever have written in C though, you CAN actually get random results with sloppy programming.

 

[Maui]

Neither can a human do anything on its own. They go through a long period of "supervised learning". In fact, they will die without a caretaker during critical periods.

We did everything we have acomplished so far on this planet on our own(unless one believes in divine intervention, we are the ones who built the civilization we have today, we walked this road alone). True, that was in a group, not on our own, but we could communicate and reason the communicated information. Machines cannot exchange information, they exchange frequencies. You need a mind for frequency to become information.

Qualities like "creativity" and "imagination" aren't very quantifiable, but qualitatively, feral children don't display much for them either.

Yes, from a purely physical perspective they are hard to quantify(i cannot be of help eaither). That doesn't mean you cannot observe its achievements - just look around in the room you are sitting in.

You can theoretically emulate creativity and imagination but having erroneous associations being made (which is fairly typical with humans). Humans produce a lot of senseless information in an attempt to produce reliable predictions. That is essentially what creativite works consists of: senseless (or vague) information (sometimes mixed with functional information.. but once it becomes purely functional it's now technical and not creative).

This isn't choosing, but it's not really programming either. We design computers NOT to have the flaws that humans have. If you ever have written in C though, you CAN actually get random results with sloppy programming.

I agree with most of your points about determinism playing a very big role, where my opinion differs is the inclination to think(or imply) that determinism can even in principle account for all of human behavior and its achievements. I find that notion rather absurd.

 

[Pythagorean]

We did everything we have acomplished so far on this planet on our own(unless one believes in divine intervention, we are the ones who built the civilization we have today, we walked this road alone).

But probably not with intention. It just kind of accumulated into what it is now through mutual negotiations, much like life formed from mutual particle negotiations.

I agree with most of your points about determinism playing a very big role, where my opinion differs is the inclination to think(or imply) that determinism can even in principle account for all of human behavior and its achievements. I find that notion rather absurd.

Of course, I'm not asserting that for sure it's all deterministic. It could be random too. But that doesn't really lead to free will either. I just wanted to demonstrate that things we percieve as having free will are often deterministic processes (as shown by Libet's experiments).

Free will is kind of a ghost. It would imply that we can evade causality, which is a strange concept (something we could find "rather absurd" as well). It has no evidence, so far, it's just a feeling we (including myself) have. But I think you have to really face that feeling and question it if you want to have an honest discussion.

I have lots of feelings about lots of things; a lot of them are bogus and lead me to false conclusions. I've been shown over and over again when my feelings are wrong through constant reflection and self-analysis.

 

[skeptic2]

No one is saying that choices are made out of the blue. There are many factors that weigh in choices but those factors are not deterministic.

For instance there are many factors that determine how one drives a car. There are personal preferences, which lane to drive in; there are physical laws, how fast you can stop; there are legal laws, stopping at a red light; and there are desires, stopping off for a latte on the way home from work. None of these represent a causal relationship to how one drives nor are they chaotic in nature.

For the universe to be deterministic, all those factors must have existed at the Big Bang, otherwise known as Deism.

 

[Pythagorean]

I think I've addressed your comments in post #90. Not sure if you saw it before you posted.

 

[Maui]

Free will is kind of a ghost.

So you want to delve into the fundamental nature of things and you singled out 'free will' as if it's the only thing that appears like a ghost under very close scrutiny?

It would imply that we can evade causality, which is a strange concept (something we could find "rather absurd" as well). It has no evidence, so far, it's just a feeling we (including myself) have. But I think you have to really face that feeling and question it if you want to have an honest discussion.

I've pushed a lot of bounderies and I am questioning everything all the time, probably past the safe sanity level. There exists a personal experience, that's all i can say. I can believe a framework if it fits all the evidence and stick to a worldview that i would consider correct. If it fits some of the evidence, but not other, i revert to "my personal experience" framework and remain sceptical.When determinism addresses the issue i raised in post 82, i may join the camp.

 

[Pythagorean]

So you want to delve into the fundamental nature of things and you singled out 'free will' as if it's the only thing that appears like a ghost under very close scrutiny?

Freewill is the red hering in behavior science. It's not needed to explain anything. It's a feeling we have (that's been questioned by Libet's experiments) so I do so on rational grounds agasinst my natural intuition. Though, by now, I've developed an intution about causality in behavior.

When determinism addresses the issue i raised in post 82, i may join the camp:
[...POST 82...]
What does determinism say about feeling pain? What/who/how feels pain? Seems like we have a new entity.

Again, this is independent of whether things are deterministic or not. We could feel pain whether we did so as a passive observer or an active observer. This is the "hard problem of consciousness". It's not solved.

However, it does fit into determinism. It's an evolutionary mechanism. Pain and pleasure are the mechanisms that allow for survival (pleasure leads to sustainance and reproduction, pain leads to death).

 

[Travis_King]

When determinism addresses the issue i raised in post 82, i may join the camp.

What does determinism say about feeling pain? What/who/how feels pain? Seems like we have a new entity.

Determinsm says nothing about feeling pain. That isn't in its purview. The nature of the self is quite a different question than the nature of the interactions of extant things, both living and non.

Do you know what determinism actually argues? It isn't simply, "Free will is wrong"...

Edit, Seems Pythagorean beat me to it.

 

[chiro]

One thing I think people should really think about is what information people have, what they don't have, what they are assuming based on what they don't have and as a product of what they have (i.e. inference) and also how far the projectification of information is being made.

The projectification of information means that you start with a tonne of information and you project it down to a tiny sub-space for something like a lower descriptive capacity in order to be able to make sense of it.

In a lot of these examples, the space being considered is extremely narrow and basically doesn't take into account the myriad of other information, relationships and dependencies that exist.

When people talk about determinism, funnily enough people often talk about a form of local determinism rather than a global determinism and so they focus on an extremely narrow form of cause and affect which is always going to result in problems from the start.

 

[Nikitin]

determinism seems like a bunch of BS to me. I mean, sure, if the universe behaved like a clock-work and had 0 degree of randomness, then determinism would be guaranteed.

However, from what I've understood from quantum mechanics, I'm fairly sure atoms behave randomly to a certain degree. Ergo there can never be any determinism.

 

[Travis_King]

Determinism on a macro scale doesn't necessarily require determinism on a quantum scale...

 

[Pythagorean]

determinism seems like a bunch of BS to me. I mean, sure, if the universe behaved like a clock-work and had 0 degree of randomness, then determinism would be guaranteed.

However, from what I've understood from quantum mechanics, I'm fairly sure atoms behave randomly to a certain degree. Ergo there can never be any determinism.

Cohered macro-systems (ensembles of quantum particles) behave in a deterministic manner. Furthermore, quantum effects have been shown not to play a relevant role in decision making in the brain (there were a few papers published in response to Penrose, whose view is considered crackpot by physical chemists and neuroscientists).

 

[Maui]

Again, this is independent of whether things are deterministic or not. We could feel pain whether we did so as a passive observer or an active observer. This is the "hard problem of consciousness". It's not solved.

So there obviously exists something that feels pain and it can not be accounted for in physical terms, but we are somehow supposed to believe that that same "it" that feels pain and can reason can not make sovereign decisions? If there is a hard problem of conciosuness, there is a hard problem of free will.

 

[Travis_King]

You are still misunderstanding determinism, Maui. Decisions are A-OK within a deterministic framework. Determinism speaks to the mechanisms by which those decisions are made.

 

[Nikitin]

How do you know that these "macro-systems" behave _perfectly_ deterministically? As long as there is some randomness on the atom-level, there must be randomness on the macro level, even if it is statistically insignificant..

In addition, our brains work purely by chemical reactions and electrical impulses. If atoms and molecules behave randomly when those take place, our thoughts cannot be perfectly deterministic.

----

disclaimer: I have only started my first year in uni... so don't murder me now.

 

[Maui]

Determinsm says nothing about feeling pain. That isn't in its purview. The nature of the self is quite a different question than the nature of the interactions of extant things, both living and non.

What do you mean by "nature of the interactions of extant things"? And what does it have to do with free will or determinism?

Do you know what determinism actually argues? It isn't simply, "Free will is wrong"...

I do. I am not sure you are seeing a conflict between freewill and determinism and that may be the source of your confusion.

 

[Maui]

How do you know that these "macro-systems" behave _perfectly_ deterministically? As long as there is some randomness on the atom-level, there must be randomness on the macro level, even if it is statistically insignificant..

In addition, our brains work purely by chemical reactions and electrical impulses. If atoms and molecules behave randomly when those take place, our thoughts cannot be perfectly deterministic.

----

disclaimer: I have only started my first year in uni... so don't murder me now.

The question in qm is indeterminism vs determinism and i'd say it is irrelevant in this topic.

 

[Travis_King]

Nikitin, I think it'd be worth while to point out that there is a huge difference between a system which operates deterministically and one which is determinable. Let's not fall prey to the common problem of mixing up determinism with fatalism.

The is randomness on the quantum scale, so they say. I'm not quantum mechanics expert, but the real thing to understand is that while on the quantum scale things operate probabilistically, what they actuallly wind up doing doesn't really matter in the macro scale. If I have an atom of Hydrogen, then I will have one electron. Always. Which exact crazy-little-bits of matter are there at the quantum level at any given time won't change that. A Hydrogen atom will act like a hydrogen atom. This is increasingly true as we get higher and higher up in scale.

The human brain is a network of chemicals and neurons, billions and billions of them, all well above the quantum scale. I don't know enough about brownian motion and how that applies at this scale to talk to it, but two things are immediately true about indeterminsm:

1) The reactions and impulses in our brains are not random, but are with certainty tied to the stimuli received from within and from without. Were this not the case, we could not function.

2) Even if it was the case, which it isn't, random motion does not allow for any will. Randomness is, for all intents and purposes, worse for a free-willer than determinism.

What do you mean by "nature of the interactions of extant things"? And what does it have to do with free will or determinism?

What's not to get? It's a pretty straightforward statement, I think...The way matter and energy interacts with other matter and energy.

What doesn't that have to do with free will and determinism?