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Your claims are no more convincing than the article. You're entirely free to hold your beliefs about this, of course (or are you? perhaps they're predetermined

by jfk13 7y ago

Your claims are no more convincing than the article. You're entirely free to hold your beliefs about this, of course (or are you? perhaps they're predetermined), but don't imagine they're somehow more valid than the alternatives.

tpetrina 7y ago
They aren't predetermined, free will is not the opposite of determinism. You cannot have process interacting with itself in non-random and non-deterministic way. It's a contradiction! I mean, it's basically an infinite regression: either something happens outside of your control or you control what you control what you control...
- gerbilly 7y ago
  > It's a contradiction! I mean, it's basically an infinite regression: either something happens outside of your control or you control what you control what you control... But you can have a process interacting with itself in a nonlinear way, and the outcome of those types of processes are difficult to predict. Even if you write a small non linear program, with each instruction completely simple and clear, it's still very difficult to predict the outcome without running the program. Now imagine that at a scale ten or twenty orders of magnitude higher.
  - tpetrina 7y ago
    But then free will requires you to mentally conceptualise future events like "I want to go to cafe" and then translate them into interaction between trillions of neurons, 10 to the power of 29 atoms in that exact non-linear fashion! So freely chosen decision is actually a translation of human-level concepts to non-linear highly complex set of neurons/atoms/particles and it is working flawlessly? Wow!
    - gerbilly 7y ago
      Yeah, free will is perhaps our sensed experience of the process you describe (the interaction between trillions of neurons, 10 to the power of 29 atoms in that exact non-linear fashion!)
      - amazingman 7y ago
        So not free, then.
0_gravitas 7y ago
They're convincing to me. I have a hard time seeing a reason to ascribe 'free will' to a physical process that was always going to happen in that particular way. A ball doesn't choose to bounce when it is dropped on the ground.
- gerbilly 7y ago
  > I have a hard time seeing a reason to ascribe 'free will' to a physical process Who says it's a physical process to begin with? That's an assertion, not a proof. More interestingly, did you make that assertion of your own free will? :-)
  - 0_gravitas 7y ago
    > More interestingly, did you make that assertion of your own free will? :-) Very cute if unoriginal, someone says that anytime I bring up this argument, and the answer is very simple, of course I didnt! A 'decision' is a physical process, as in 'physics' physical, if something is not physical, then it is magic, and I dont believe (believe being used in the abstract sense of course) in magic.
    - gerbilly 7y ago
      > if something is not physical, then it is magic Again you are simply asserting it is so. I'll grant you it's a very popular assertion, but you'll forgive me if I don't just take your word for it. 1) I think free will is a concept that has to be approached in a practical matter: as in we get better social outcomes if we assume people have free will. The concept has utility. 2) Processes with simple rules can still exhibit emergent behaviour. edited: To add point #2
      - 0_gravitas 7y ago
        > 1) I think free will is a concept that has to be approached in a practical matter: as in we get better social outcomes if we assume people have free will. The concept has utility. You must understand, this is the most horrifying part! People are sentenced to prisons, torture, and death for "making bad/evil decisions". I'm not saying we should let murderers be murderers, but what I am saying is we should start looking closely into possible "down to the hardware" remedies instead if prison. If we are operating on this whole free-will notion, then that will never happen. > 2) Processes with simple rules can still exhibit emergent behaviour. Define emergent in this case, I dont know of any truly emergent behavior that violates the rules of what caused it, you could say 'organic life' was an emergent behavior, but it still obeys physics. >you'll forgive me if I don't just take your word for it. I think if we can't get passed an agreement that magic isnt real, that may be a reasonable time to end the discussion.

by jfk13 7y ago

tpetrina 7y ago

They aren't predetermined, free will is not the opposite of determinism. You cannot have process interacting with itself in non-random and non-deterministic way. It's a contradiction! I mean, it's basically an infinite regression: either something happens outside of your control or you control what you control what you control...

gerbilly 7y ago
> It's a contradiction! I mean, it's basically an infinite regression: either something happens outside of your control or you control what you control what you control... But you can have a process interacting with itself in a nonlinear way, and the outcome of those types of processes are difficult to predict. Even if you write a small non linear program, with each instruction completely simple and clear, it's still very difficult to predict the outcome without running the program. Now imagine that at a scale ten or twenty orders of magnitude higher.
- tpetrina 7y ago
  But then free will requires you to mentally conceptualise future events like "I want to go to cafe" and then translate them into interaction between trillions of neurons, 10 to the power of 29 atoms in that exact non-linear fashion! So freely chosen decision is actually a translation of human-level concepts to non-linear highly complex set of neurons/atoms/particles and it is working flawlessly? Wow!
  - gerbilly 7y ago
    Yeah, free will is perhaps our sensed experience of the process you describe (the interaction between trillions of neurons, 10 to the power of 29 atoms in that exact non-linear fashion!)
    - amazingman 7y ago
      So not free, then.

0_gravitas 7y ago

They're convincing to me. I have a hard time seeing a reason to ascribe 'free will' to a physical process that was always going to happen in that particular way. A ball doesn't choose to bounce when it is dropped on the ground.

gerbilly 7y ago
> I have a hard time seeing a reason to ascribe 'free will' to a physical process Who says it's a physical process to begin with? That's an assertion, not a proof. More interestingly, did you make that assertion of your own free will? :-)
- 0_gravitas 7y ago
  > More interestingly, did you make that assertion of your own free will? :-) Very cute if unoriginal, someone says that anytime I bring up this argument, and the answer is very simple, of course I didnt! A 'decision' is a physical process, as in 'physics' physical, if something is not physical, then it is magic, and I dont believe (believe being used in the abstract sense of course) in magic.
  - gerbilly 7y ago
    > if something is not physical, then it is magic Again you are simply asserting it is so. I'll grant you it's a very popular assertion, but you'll forgive me if I don't just take your word for it. 1) I think free will is a concept that has to be approached in a practical matter: as in we get better social outcomes if we assume people have free will. The concept has utility. 2) Processes with simple rules can still exhibit emergent behaviour. edited: To add point #2
    - 0_gravitas 7y ago
      > 1) I think free will is a concept that has to be approached in a practical matter: as in we get better social outcomes if we assume people have free will. The concept has utility. You must understand, this is the most horrifying part! People are sentenced to prisons, torture, and death for "making bad/evil decisions". I'm not saying we should let murderers be murderers, but what I am saying is we should start looking closely into possible "down to the hardware" remedies instead if prison. If we are operating on this whole free-will notion, then that will never happen. > 2) Processes with simple rules can still exhibit emergent behaviour. Define emergent in this case, I dont know of any truly emergent behavior that violates the rules of what caused it, you could say 'organic life' was an emergent behavior, but it still obeys physics. >you'll forgive me if I don't just take your word for it. I think if we can't get passed an agreement that magic isnt real, that may be a reasonable time to end the discussion.