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RE: Ehh... free will?
July 15, 2016 at 3:11 pm
(July 15, 2016 at 3:05 pm)Rhythm Wrote: Moving around does not satisfy the conditions for life. It would be a pointless argument. Similarly, making choices does not satisfy the conditions for free will.
It's not really an issue of whether or not we seem to be doing x, in either case, it's that the relationship and means of inference are missing or insufficient. We don't even know what "acting like we have free will" would look like, as we do in the case of "acting like it's alive".
So what does "acting like it's alive" mean then? Can inorganic entities (extraterrestrial aliens, for example) potentially be alive under the criteria you have in mind?
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RE: Ehh... free will?
July 15, 2016 at 3:28 pm
(This post was last modified: July 15, 2016 at 3:35 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
Why not, we'd simply refer to ourselves as carbon based terrestrial life, and them as "x based extraterrestrial life". Life has a working definition, you have google. That's the trouble, free will has a mythology, a backstory. The two examples are not sufficiently related in context to set up an informative analogy. We can at least determine between "acting like it's alive" - say it's meets too few of the criteria, but enough to draw attention, and being alive "meets the criteria". With free will we have no yardstick, no coherent description of what it is or how it is. No procedure for devising a test and nothing to judge the results by.
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
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RE: Ehh... free will?
July 15, 2016 at 3:39 pm
If I am tempted to steal, and choose instead not to, then I have steered the neural impulses away from theft and toward honesty.
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RE: Ehh... free will?
July 15, 2016 at 3:43 pm
(This post was last modified: July 15, 2016 at 3:46 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
That assumes what you hope to establish by mentioning it. Have you steered it, or were you steered? What accounts for this choice, by what process or means is it achieved....these would be the informative bits, with regards to free will.
Wouldn't it be just as accurate to say that you were more compelling tempted -not- to steal? What's the difference?
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
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RE: Ehh... free will?
July 15, 2016 at 3:53 pm
(This post was last modified: July 15, 2016 at 3:56 pm by RozKek.)
(July 15, 2016 at 3:39 pm)Spirian Wrote: If I am tempted to steal, and choose instead not to, then I have steered the neural impulses away from theft and toward honesty.
You haven't. You can't steer the neurons, that's nonsensical as far as I know also Libet's experiments have shown that when someone makes a decision it's made before they're even aware of it. Not only that, the neurons in your brain are causal (and if they're random then there's no determining/choice), you can't steer them out of that causal chain. So even your decision to not steal was ultimately not free. That's just how your neurons interacted with each other resulting in you having an urge to steal but going against it at the same time.
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RE: Ehh... free will?
July 15, 2016 at 3:59 pm
(This post was last modified: July 15, 2016 at 4:03 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
From the free will camp, we could say that the delay is due to signal relay limits. OFC you can't be aware of the decision you haven't yet made made, and it takes time for signals to move. This doesn't show us that the decision was not free in the relevant manner. It simply shows us that our perception is not strictly in real-time.....which I think we already knew.
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
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RE: Ehh... free will?
July 15, 2016 at 5:15 pm
(This post was last modified: July 15, 2016 at 5:16 pm by RozKek.)
(July 15, 2016 at 3:59 pm)Rhythm Wrote: From the free will camp, we could say that the delay is due to signal relay limits. OFC you can't be aware of the decision you haven't yet made made, and it takes time for signals to move. This doesn't show us that the decision was not free in the relevant manner. It simply shows us that our perception is not strictly in real-time.....which I think we already knew.
Alright. I'll make two scenarios.
1) Here the universe is causal. We're going to test if a human has free will, we have a Laplace's Demon machine i.e it can completely predict everything in a causal universe. There is a person deciding to buy a car, the cars are numbered from A to F. In a causal universe Laplace's Demon can completely predict that Bob will buy car B no matter what because his neurons also consist of particles and are causal. However, the only possible scenario here would be if Bob would somehow steer his neurons independently and defy causality by allowing the neurons to not follow the causal chain. Does that make sense to you? How would that be possible?
2) The universe isn't completely causal i.e it has randomness in it. Then there is no determining, if Bob buys car A instead of B, that's completely random and there is no free choice made but an RNG choice instead.
Free will doesn't fit in any universe as far as I know. If someone else has any ideas, please enlighten me and elaborate.
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RE: Ehh... free will?
July 15, 2016 at 5:29 pm
1.) I haven't seen any evidence to support that any given Bob has or can do such a thing, nor am I privy to the details on what would allow for that possibility, regardless of whether or not we allow for or possess accurate predictions.
2.) I think that plenty of compatabilists could take a random will as a free one. It's free in the relevant manner, at least. Maybe not quite what we mean...obviously you're thinking of some sort of intent behind the will, but a person will have to make concessions to reality if they're in the business of maintaining their free wills.
Personally, I don't think we have a random or a free will.
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
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RE: Ehh... free will?
July 15, 2016 at 7:47 pm
(This post was last modified: July 15, 2016 at 7:49 pm by RozKek.)
(July 15, 2016 at 5:29 pm)Rhythm Wrote: 1.) I haven't seen any evidence to support that any given Bob has or can do such a thing, nor am I privy to the details on what would allow for that possibility, regardless of whether or not we allow for or possess accurate predictions.
2.) I think that plenty of compatabilists could take a random will as a free one. It's free in the relevant manner, at least. Maybe not quite what we mean...obviously you're thinking of some sort of intent behind the will, but a person will have to make concessions to reality if they're in the business of maintaining their free wills.
Personally, I don't think we have a random or a free will.
Taking a random will as a free one is a defining problem. If I pick car A over B because of randomness the only thing that my will would be free from is causality but there's no determining in indeterminism. If there's no determining it isn't free either. If you roll a dice for every decision you make, is your decision free?
I don't believe we have a free will either, but I don't know for sure if it's determined or random, some say QM (randomness) doesn't apply to our brain but I'd say it can have an affect because of the butterfly effect. I assume you believe in that our will is determined?
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RE: Ehh... free will?
July 15, 2016 at 7:59 pm
(This post was last modified: July 15, 2016 at 8:11 pm by bennyboy.)
(July 15, 2016 at 3:28 pm)Rhythm Wrote: With free will we have no yardstick, no coherent description of what it is or how it is. No procedure for devising a test and nothing to judge the results by.
That's because free will is something one experiences, and subjective experiences, for the most part, are very hard to do science on.
When I'm standing in a candy aisle, I definitely freely choose my candy. Whether I could have "chosen otherwise" in another re-play of the moment, or whether a computer can predict my choice before I make it, is irrelevant to the fact that I'm standing there as a thinking agent, enjoying the process of choosing my delicious snack. But how do you determine whether another life form, or ANY collection of physical particles, is experiencing that?
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