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Kind of clever. This looks to be based on the supposition that free will is indeterministic. The argument ties the indeterminacy of the choice to take some sort

Kind of clever. This looks to be based on the supposition that free will is indeterministic. The argument ties the indeterminacy of the choice to take some sort of measurement to the quantum indeterminacy of the results of the measurements. But indeterminacy is not what most people have in mind when they think of free will. A random action is not a free action. EDIT: Here's the paper: http://www.ams.org/notices/200902/rtx090200226p.pdf http://www.ams.org/notices/200902/rtx090200226p.pdf

kd0amg 16y ago
But indeterminacy is not what most people have in mind when they think of free will. A random action is not a free action. It's not a sufficient condition, but it does seem to be a necessary condition. A determined action is also not a free action.
- mbateman 16y ago
  Well, non-determinacy is a necessary condition, but that doesn't mean indeterminacy is. Non-determinacy can be divided into at least two things, indeterminacy (i.e. determined stochastically) and agent-determinacy (i.e. determined by the actor).
  - Qz 16y ago
    But what determines what the actor determines? 'agent-determinacy' just seems like a synonym for the idea of free will rather than anything that can justify it.
    - mbateman 16y ago
      According to agent-causal views, at a certain level nothing else determines what the actor determines. I don't here want to argue which view of human action is the right one, I just want to point out (or argue, since even this is contentious) that there's a three-fold alternative: determined, random, and free. The "free will" in this paper is actually the second and not the third alternative. In the paper they actually protest against this move, arguing that the kind of randomness involved in entanglement is importantly different than stochastic randomness. I only dimly understand the the Kochen-Specker theorem so I can't follow all the details of the argument in this paper, but the resulting view still seems to fall under indeterminism. So alternative title (and subtitle) for the paper: "The Indeterminism Theorem: If Humans Act Indeterministically, Then So Do Fundamental Particles."
      - Qz 16y ago
        I just want to point out (or argue, since even this is contentious) that there's a three-fold alternative: determined, random, and free. The "free will" in this paper is actually the second and not the third alternative. My issue is that I understand determined, and random, but I don't understand 'free'. If you read the article you just linked to, they point out that in the case of this experiment, 'random' is equivalent to 'free', as the free-will human experimenters can be replaced by a computer program with a truly random number generator, but that the non-determinacy necessary for the random number generator to work is the same exact freedom necessary for a human experiment to have 'free' choice over the experiment. Furthermore, that the entangled nature of the particles precludes the type of 'randomness involved in entanglement' that you suggest. Entanglement is specifically non-random in exactly the quality at issue in this experiment. Basically the result of the theorem (as relevant to this conversation) is that 'random' and 'free' are equivalent. There is simply determinate or non-determinate.
      - ugh 16y ago
        Determined and random I can understand, free I can’t. How can any actions be free (as in not determined and not random)? That, to me, seems impossible, at least in a great many situations where humans would claim to have free will. How can any action a agent makes be meaningful without causal links to the outside? Determinism to me seems to be a requirement for agents to make useful decisions.
        Qz 16y ago
        How can any action a agent makes be meaningful without causal links to the outside? One of the responses that has been raised to that issue goes like this: At any point we have a number of meaningful choices from which to choose. For example, if someone calls you up and asks you to go out to dinner with them, it would be meaningful to say, "sure that's great!" or "no thanks maybe later". In any situation like that, we are 'free' to choose from a set of meaningful choices. Each is meaningful in that it is related to the past, but regardless of eventually choosing one choice, we could have chosen another of those choices, and still had it be meaningful. I don't particularly buy that argument, as the idea of 'could have chosen something else' is just a further escaping of the question of free will. But it is a way of looking at it that seems to avoid the randomness/lack of meaningfulness associated with the idea of free will.
  - kd0amg 16y ago
    Ok, I was not aware of this difference in terminology. Thanks.
- _delirium 16y ago
  I'd say probably most modern philosophers don't think that's the case. Daniel Dennett is a particularly strong proponent of the notion that free will is perfectly compatible with physical causation, and doesn't require agents to somehow magically be able to create gaps in it (and his view doesn't care much whether the causation is deterministic or has randomness in it). Overview of the position: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/compatibilism/ http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/compatibilism/
  - danbmil99 16y ago
    this. Read "Freedom Evolves" or the shorter precursor "Elbow Room". This confusion of free will with indeterminacy, and the specious connection with Quantum Mechanics (taken to the absurd extreme by Penrose) really muddies the water wrt AI/cogsci and the understanding of consciousness, qualia etc.
  - Qz 16y ago
    That's fine, except that quantum mechanics messes with the idea of determinate physical causation, and the Free Will Theorem (as well as the KS Paradox that it extends) is based on a particular proof that certain things (in this case, the measurement of the spin of a particle under certain circumstances) do not follow physical causation. What the FW Theorem shows is that if you take a situation in which we assume humans have free will, then the result is that subatomic particles also have that exact same kind of free will.

kd0amg 16y ago

But indeterminacy is not what most people have in mind when they think of free will. A random action is not a free action. It's not a sufficient condition, but it does seem to be a necessary condition. A determined action is also not a free action.

mbateman 16y ago
Well, non-determinacy is a necessary condition, but that doesn't mean indeterminacy is. Non-determinacy can be divided into at least two things, indeterminacy (i.e. determined stochastically) and agent-determinacy (i.e. determined by the actor).
- Qz 16y ago
  But what determines what the actor determines? 'agent-determinacy' just seems like a synonym for the idea of free will rather than anything that can justify it.
  - mbateman 16y ago
    According to agent-causal views, at a certain level nothing else determines what the actor determines. I don't here want to argue which view of human action is the right one, I just want to point out (or argue, since even this is contentious) that there's a three-fold alternative: determined, random, and free. The "free will" in this paper is actually the second and not the third alternative. In the paper they actually protest against this move, arguing that the kind of randomness involved in entanglement is importantly different than stochastic randomness. I only dimly understand the the Kochen-Specker theorem so I can't follow all the details of the argument in this paper, but the resulting view still seems to fall under indeterminism. So alternative title (and subtitle) for the paper: "The Indeterminism Theorem: If Humans Act Indeterministically, Then So Do Fundamental Particles."
    - Qz 16y ago
      I just want to point out (or argue, since even this is contentious) that there's a three-fold alternative: determined, random, and free. The "free will" in this paper is actually the second and not the third alternative. My issue is that I understand determined, and random, but I don't understand 'free'. If you read the article you just linked to, they point out that in the case of this experiment, 'random' is equivalent to 'free', as the free-will human experimenters can be replaced by a computer program with a truly random number generator, but that the non-determinacy necessary for the random number generator to work is the same exact freedom necessary for a human experiment to have 'free' choice over the experiment. Furthermore, that the entangled nature of the particles precludes the type of 'randomness involved in entanglement' that you suggest. Entanglement is specifically non-random in exactly the quality at issue in this experiment. Basically the result of the theorem (as relevant to this conversation) is that 'random' and 'free' are equivalent. There is simply determinate or non-determinate.
    - ugh 16y ago
      Determined and random I can understand, free I can’t. How can any actions be free (as in not determined and not random)? That, to me, seems impossible, at least in a great many situations where humans would claim to have free will. How can any action a agent makes be meaningful without causal links to the outside? Determinism to me seems to be a requirement for agents to make useful decisions.
      - Qz 16y ago
        How can any action a agent makes be meaningful without causal links to the outside? One of the responses that has been raised to that issue goes like this: At any point we have a number of meaningful choices from which to choose. For example, if someone calls you up and asks you to go out to dinner with them, it would be meaningful to say, "sure that's great!" or "no thanks maybe later". In any situation like that, we are 'free' to choose from a set of meaningful choices. Each is meaningful in that it is related to the past, but regardless of eventually choosing one choice, we could have chosen another of those choices, and still had it be meaningful. I don't particularly buy that argument, as the idea of 'could have chosen something else' is just a further escaping of the question of free will. But it is a way of looking at it that seems to avoid the randomness/lack of meaningfulness associated with the idea of free will.
- kd0amg 16y ago
  Ok, I was not aware of this difference in terminology. Thanks.
_delirium 16y ago
I'd say probably most modern philosophers don't think that's the case. Daniel Dennett is a particularly strong proponent of the notion that free will is perfectly compatible with physical causation, and doesn't require agents to somehow magically be able to create gaps in it (and his view doesn't care much whether the causation is deterministic or has randomness in it). Overview of the position: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/compatibilism/ http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/compatibilism/
- danbmil99 16y ago
  this. Read "Freedom Evolves" or the shorter precursor "Elbow Room". This confusion of free will with indeterminacy, and the specious connection with Quantum Mechanics (taken to the absurd extreme by Penrose) really muddies the water wrt AI/cogsci and the understanding of consciousness, qualia etc.
- Qz 16y ago
  That's fine, except that quantum mechanics messes with the idea of determinate physical causation, and the Free Will Theorem (as well as the KS Paradox that it extends) is based on a particular proof that certain things (in this case, the measurement of the spin of a particle under certain circumstances) do not follow physical causation. What the FW Theorem shows is that if you take a situation in which we assume humans have free will, then the result is that subatomic particles also have that exact same kind of free will.