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A few issues with the “free will” debate. 1) Define “free” 2) How do you test your hypothesis? You’re trying to apply logic to an untestable philosophical de

by awb 5y ago

A few issues with the “free will” debate. 1) Define “free” 2) How do you test your hypothesis? You’re trying to apply logic to an untestable philosophical debate. If you believe free will doesn’t exist, you can’t design an experiment that would invalidate that belief. And if your theory is untestable and unfalsifiable, then what good is it other than a creative exercise? However, we do know from Quantum Mechanics that the universe is probabilistic and not deterministic: https://www.thegreatcoursesdaily.com/quantum-universe-fundamentally-probabilistic-not-deterministic/#:~:text=The%20quantum%20universe%20is%20fundamentally,laws%20must%20be%20strictly%20deterministic.&text=It%20was%20this%20kind%20of,new%20theory%20of%20quantum%20mechanics https://www.thegreatcoursesdaily.com/quantum-universe-fundam.... So, we do know that the universe is not pre-determined and cannot be calculated in advance, but if you want to believe in humans as fully deterministic (or some other definition of no free will) inside of a non-deterministic environment, I haven’t heard anyone propose an experiment that could test that, at which point the debate of “free will” is relegated to the realm of thought experiments rather than science. So, perhaps the better question is: Does it serve you better to believe there is free will or no free will? And leave it at that.

vidarh 5y ago
> You’re trying to apply logic to an untestable philosophical debate. If you believe free will doesn’t exist, you can’t design an experiment that would invalidate that belief. And if your theory is untestable and unfalsifiable, then what good is it other than a creative exercise? This is reversing the burden of proof. The issue with "free will" is getting those who think there is a meaningful "free will" concept to actually define what they mean. Look through this discussion and see the comments trying to justify the existence of free will, and look for definitions of what they actually mean by that. > However, we do know from Quantum Mechanics that the universe is probabilistic and not deterministic: That's a meaningless distinction in this context. The point is that nobody has presented a mechanism whereby you can inject any form of agency that fits a definition of "free" (see your own point: define "free") that doesn't devolve to smoke and mirrors that way. In order to do so, there'd need to be something that would lead to measurable biases in outcomes that can not be explained by the probabilities. The rest of your argument devolves to Russel's teapot: As long as nobody has posited a reasonable definition that'd give rise to a theory of what free will might mean, the notion is so absurd that it is entirely reasonable to say that free will makes no sense. If you can present a definition that can't easily be shown to be just smoke and mirrors and which somehow makes sense to people, even without coming up with ways of actually testing it, I might be tempted to moderate that claim, but I've had these discussions with people for decades, and in none of them have anyone ever managed to come up with a cohesive definition of what free will would even mean that doesn't very easily start looking distinctly "unfree". There are clearly definitions of free will that would allow something you label with that term to exist. But I challenge you to come up with one that people would agree is both "free" and "will".
- awb 5y ago
  > This is reversing the burden of proof. No, in response to someone vaguely mentioning the words “free will”, you made the claim: “Free will does not exist.” The burden of proof is now on you to provide evidence of your claim as well as on you to define the terms contained within your claim. I am not arguing the “free will” debate either way for the reasons mentioned previously and do not care to define the terms as the entire debate is nothing more than a creative thought experiment as far as I can tell.
  - vidarh 5y ago
    Russel's teapot. If I claim Russel's teapot doesn't exist, the burden of proof is on you to prove it exists if you disagree with me, not me, because the set of claims that are so poorly defined and unlikely as to make it an unjustified burden to expect anyone to caveat the claims to make them technically correct is infinite - someone who makes an extraordinary claim without being able to provide a justification therefore needs to be prepared to take on the burden of proof. I equally claim that santa doesn't exist, and yet will insist the burden of anyone disagreeing with my claim lies on them, not on me, even if I make the initial claim, for exactly that reason. In this case the claim that free will does not exists puts the burden on those who disagree *because nobody here or otherwise* have presented a definition of free will that most people would agree to, not least because without narrowing the scope with a definition I have the freedom to apply whichever definition I prefer, and I have several places in this thread. E.g. I'd argue that "free will" would require an entity to be able to do something which cannot be explained by the combination of determinism and randomness. Given we're unaware of any kind of processes that can produce outputs that are not either deterministic or random modulated by some sort of probabilistic distribution, to claim that a process that can produce such an output exist is an extraordinary claim that would give you a Nobel in physics if you could demonstrate it. As such: Russel's teapot. I'd love to be wrong. I'd love for someone here to come up with a definition of free will that overcomes that problem, as if so I'd be witnessing a revolution in philosophy surpassing anything we've seen in centuries. Just like I'd be delighted to be wrong when I say that santa doesn't exist, but I do believe I'm far more likely to be proven wrong about santa than free will, given that people can at least come up with definitions of santa that are somewhat coherent if unlikely.
danbruc 5y ago
However, we do know from Quantum Mechanics that the universe is probabilistic and not deterministic That is not true, quantum mechanics - more specifically the Schrödinger equation - is deterministic. What is not deterministic is the wave function collapse but that is also incompatible with the Schrödinger equation because it implies non-unitary evolution of the wave function. And we have - as far as I know - no really good ideas how to resolve this. In consequence I think it would be premature to declare that the universe is definitively non-deterministic.
- awb 5y ago
  From the article: > One of the key implications of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle is that it highlights the probabilistic nature of the universe
  - danbruc 5y ago
    The article is wrong there. I can not provide a good source so I will just point you to this StackExchange question [1]. [1] https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/63811/is-the-universe-fundamentally-deterministic https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/63811/is-the-uni...
    - awb 5y ago
      The article you linked to seems to say the universe is indeterministic: > Indeterminism in Quantum Mechanics is given by another "evolution" that the wavefunction may experience: wavefunction collapse. I’ll give you that it’s not a fully settled issue though: > According to the Copenhagen interpretation of QM, it does mean the universe is non-deterministic. There are other interpretations of QM which allow for determinism though. Which is the correct interpretation (if any)? Currently, no one knows. Here’s another article: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/29/the-battle-for-free-will-in-the-face-of-determinism https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/29/the-battle-for... > Most physicists would not regard the events in our universe as deterministic, or clockwork if you insist; they are in fact considered probabilistic > randomness (ie indeterminism) has been proven to be real by the National Institute for Science and Technology’s work on a randomness beacon.
tsimionescu 5y ago
> However, we do know from Quantum Mechanics that the universe is probabilistic and not deterministic: This is not true, and there are consistent interpretations of QM that are fully deterministic (many worlds, superdeterminism, pilot wave). Still, probabilistic vs deterministic makes no difference. There is no free will in a throw of the dice, and no free will in the wave function collapse. On the other hand, the main philosophical position on this is compatibilism: free will in a fully deterministic universe (or probabilistic one). If you think of yourself as the sum total of all your experiences and genetics, your next action is of course determined by these; but, another agent in your shoes, one with different experiences and genetics, would make a different choice. So in this framework, your choice, even though uniquely determined by everything that happened before, and theoretically predictable 1000 years in advance, is still meaningfully "your choice". In fact, random chance hurts this definition, and weakens the case for compatibilism; if your next action is entirely dependent on some random quantum fluctuation, and running the experiment with your exact same experience and genetics but a different random quantum event at this exact time would produce 1000 entirely different actions on your part, then it is very hard to imagine any kind of free will. So, free will actually depends on some amount of determinism. Even the type of determinism in Many Worlds would not solve this - since in that interpretation, all possible outcomes of the quantum event actually happen, so all your "choices" that depend on the random event are fully real. So, if each of the fully real copies of you, with the exact same experiences and genetics, does a wildly different thing, then it's pretty clear there is no meaningful free will in any possible sense.
- SuoDuanDao 5y ago
  I find the most satisfying version of compatibilism one where an agent is mostly determined by 'state' (genes/experiences etc), but the subjective experience of expending mental effort (e.g. when overcoming an addiction) is the agent nudging the wave function collapse this way or that. Add in the ability to influence future 'states' and one has a model much more consistent with the subjective experience of making difficult choices.
  - JackFr 5y ago
    Or you can just accept that reductive materialism is not an adequate description of the world.
Natsu 5y ago
"Free will" is a gesture at the experience we have of deliberating upon and deciding our own actions, I don't think determinism really matters, as long as we're the ones doing the deterministic calculations by which we choose what to do. But it's okay, I understand if you have no choice but to argue with that.
SuoDuanDao 5y ago
>So, perhaps the better question is: Does it serve you better to believe there is free will or no free will? And leave it at that. From a pragmatic analysis the answer is pretty straightforward[1] (Spoiler, believing in free will is better if you value moral behaviour). Glad I chose to believe in free will! [1]https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02045.x https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9280.200...
- danbruc 5y ago
  I don't think that would be the best option. There is nothing wrong with figuring out that we don't have true free will - however you want to define it - and still behave in everyday life as if we have it. It might just be a useful abstraction.
  - SuoDuanDao 5y ago
    The study I linked indicates that people who don't believe in free will act as if they don't, granted, they weren't warned of the dangers of believing they don't so there might be more to explore. But the question seems to me more about pragmatism vs realism than pragmatism vs. realism with 'some beliefs-as-if'. I find realism unsatisfying philosophically because we can see historical beliefs being so off the mark that we'd have to live in a pretty special time to have anything close to a realistic model of the universe, I think making good predictions is simply the best tool that we have. If that comes at the cost of having a single internally-consistent model of the universe, that's unfortunate, but at least I'm not attached to the wrong one. So if my belief in free will and my belief in Newtonian Mechanics are incompatible, that's not such a big deal to me as a pragmatist. In fact it's a useful feature of the metaphysics, since the places they come into conflict give an idea of where they're incomplete.
phkahler 5y ago
>> However, we do know from Quantum Mechanics that the universe is probabilistic and not deterministic Do we? Quantum mechanics looks like there is genuine randomness, but one interpretation of experiments testing the Bell inequalities is non-locality. It could be completely deterministic, we just don't know what determines it.
- stevenhuang 5y ago
  Furthermore, even granting that, one should realize that _random_ will is not _free_ will.
  - phkahler 5y ago
    Or maybe it is. Didn't some big name physicists "prove" that if humans have free will then so do electrons? Not sure why it has to be an inherent property rather than an emergent property, but I just read the summary.
tshaddox 5y ago
> 1) Define “free” It doesn't seem worth spending much time here, lest the entire argument becomes nothing more than a semantic one. If your definition of "free will" is "this thing that I undeniably feel" then sure, you've made it undeniable by definition.

by awb 5y ago

vidarh 5y ago

> You’re trying to apply logic to an untestable philosophical debate. If you believe free will doesn’t exist, you can’t design an experiment that would invalidate that belief. And if your theory is untestable and unfalsifiable, then what good is it other than a creative exercise? This is reversing the burden of proof. The issue with "free will" is getting those who think there is a meaningful "free will" concept to actually define what they mean. Look through this discussion and see the comments trying to justify the existence of free will, and look for definitions of what they actually mean by that. > However, we do know from Quantum Mechanics that the universe is probabilistic and not deterministic: That's a meaningless distinction in this context. The point is that nobody has presented a mechanism whereby you can inject any form of agency that fits a definition of "free" (see your own point: define "free") that doesn't devolve to smoke and mirrors that way. In order to do so, there'd need to be something that would lead to measurable biases in outcomes that can not be explained by the probabilities. The rest of your argument devolves to Russel's teapot: As long as nobody has posited a reasonable definition that'd give rise to a theory of what free will might mean, the notion is so absurd that it is entirely reasonable to say that free will makes no sense. If you can present a definition that can't easily be shown to be just smoke and mirrors and which somehow makes sense to people, even without coming up with ways of actually testing it, I might be tempted to moderate that claim, but I've had these discussions with people for decades, and in none of them have anyone ever managed to come up with a cohesive definition of what free will would even mean that doesn't very easily start looking distinctly "unfree". There are clearly definitions of free will that would allow something you label with that term to exist. But I challenge you to come up with one that people would agree is both "free" and "will".

awb 5y ago
> This is reversing the burden of proof. No, in response to someone vaguely mentioning the words “free will”, you made the claim: “Free will does not exist.” The burden of proof is now on you to provide evidence of your claim as well as on you to define the terms contained within your claim. I am not arguing the “free will” debate either way for the reasons mentioned previously and do not care to define the terms as the entire debate is nothing more than a creative thought experiment as far as I can tell.
- vidarh 5y ago
  Russel's teapot. If I claim Russel's teapot doesn't exist, the burden of proof is on you to prove it exists if you disagree with me, not me, because the set of claims that are so poorly defined and unlikely as to make it an unjustified burden to expect anyone to caveat the claims to make them technically correct is infinite - someone who makes an extraordinary claim without being able to provide a justification therefore needs to be prepared to take on the burden of proof. I equally claim that santa doesn't exist, and yet will insist the burden of anyone disagreeing with my claim lies on them, not on me, even if I make the initial claim, for exactly that reason. In this case the claim that free will does not exists puts the burden on those who disagree *because nobody here or otherwise* have presented a definition of free will that most people would agree to, not least because without narrowing the scope with a definition I have the freedom to apply whichever definition I prefer, and I have several places in this thread. E.g. I'd argue that "free will" would require an entity to be able to do something which cannot be explained by the combination of determinism and randomness. Given we're unaware of any kind of processes that can produce outputs that are not either deterministic or random modulated by some sort of probabilistic distribution, to claim that a process that can produce such an output exist is an extraordinary claim that would give you a Nobel in physics if you could demonstrate it. As such: Russel's teapot. I'd love to be wrong. I'd love for someone here to come up with a definition of free will that overcomes that problem, as if so I'd be witnessing a revolution in philosophy surpassing anything we've seen in centuries. Just like I'd be delighted to be wrong when I say that santa doesn't exist, but I do believe I'm far more likely to be proven wrong about santa than free will, given that people can at least come up with definitions of santa that are somewhat coherent if unlikely.

danbruc 5y ago

However, we do know from Quantum Mechanics that the universe is probabilistic and not deterministic That is not true, quantum mechanics - more specifically the Schrödinger equation - is deterministic. What is not deterministic is the wave function collapse but that is also incompatible with the Schrödinger equation because it implies non-unitary evolution of the wave function. And we have - as far as I know - no really good ideas how to resolve this. In consequence I think it would be premature to declare that the universe is definitively non-deterministic.

awb 5y ago
From the article: > One of the key implications of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle is that it highlights the probabilistic nature of the universe
- danbruc 5y ago
  The article is wrong there. I can not provide a good source so I will just point you to this StackExchange question [1]. [1] https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/63811/is-the-universe-fundamentally-deterministic https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/63811/is-the-uni...
  - awb 5y ago
    The article you linked to seems to say the universe is indeterministic: > Indeterminism in Quantum Mechanics is given by another "evolution" that the wavefunction may experience: wavefunction collapse. I’ll give you that it’s not a fully settled issue though: > According to the Copenhagen interpretation of QM, it does mean the universe is non-deterministic. There are other interpretations of QM which allow for determinism though. Which is the correct interpretation (if any)? Currently, no one knows. Here’s another article: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/29/the-battle-for-free-will-in-the-face-of-determinism https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/29/the-battle-for... > Most physicists would not regard the events in our universe as deterministic, or clockwork if you insist; they are in fact considered probabilistic > randomness (ie indeterminism) has been proven to be real by the National Institute for Science and Technology’s work on a randomness beacon.

tsimionescu 5y ago

> However, we do know from Quantum Mechanics that the universe is probabilistic and not deterministic: This is not true, and there are consistent interpretations of QM that are fully deterministic (many worlds, superdeterminism, pilot wave). Still, probabilistic vs deterministic makes no difference. There is no free will in a throw of the dice, and no free will in the wave function collapse. On the other hand, the main philosophical position on this is compatibilism: free will in a fully deterministic universe (or probabilistic one). If you think of yourself as the sum total of all your experiences and genetics, your next action is of course determined by these; but, another agent in your shoes, one with different experiences and genetics, would make a different choice. So in this framework, your choice, even though uniquely determined by everything that happened before, and theoretically predictable 1000 years in advance, is still meaningfully "your choice". In fact, random chance hurts this definition, and weakens the case for compatibilism; if your next action is entirely dependent on some random quantum fluctuation, and running the experiment with your exact same experience and genetics but a different random quantum event at this exact time would produce 1000 entirely different actions on your part, then it is very hard to imagine any kind of free will. So, free will actually depends on some amount of determinism. Even the type of determinism in Many Worlds would not solve this - since in that interpretation, all possible outcomes of the quantum event actually happen, so all your "choices" that depend on the random event are fully real. So, if each of the fully real copies of you, with the exact same experiences and genetics, does a wildly different thing, then it's pretty clear there is no meaningful free will in any possible sense.

SuoDuanDao 5y ago
I find the most satisfying version of compatibilism one where an agent is mostly determined by 'state' (genes/experiences etc), but the subjective experience of expending mental effort (e.g. when overcoming an addiction) is the agent nudging the wave function collapse this way or that. Add in the ability to influence future 'states' and one has a model much more consistent with the subjective experience of making difficult choices.
- JackFr 5y ago
  Or you can just accept that reductive materialism is not an adequate description of the world.

Natsu 5y ago

"Free will" is a gesture at the experience we have of deliberating upon and deciding our own actions, I don't think determinism really matters, as long as we're the ones doing the deterministic calculations by which we choose what to do. But it's okay, I understand if you have no choice but to argue with that.

SuoDuanDao 5y ago

>So, perhaps the better question is: Does it serve you better to believe there is free will or no free will? And leave it at that. From a pragmatic analysis the answer is pretty straightforward[1] (Spoiler, believing in free will is better if you value moral behaviour). Glad I chose to believe in free will! [1]https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02045.x https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9280.200...

danbruc 5y ago
I don't think that would be the best option. There is nothing wrong with figuring out that we don't have true free will - however you want to define it - and still behave in everyday life as if we have it. It might just be a useful abstraction.
- SuoDuanDao 5y ago
  The study I linked indicates that people who don't believe in free will act as if they don't, granted, they weren't warned of the dangers of believing they don't so there might be more to explore. But the question seems to me more about pragmatism vs realism than pragmatism vs. realism with 'some beliefs-as-if'. I find realism unsatisfying philosophically because we can see historical beliefs being so off the mark that we'd have to live in a pretty special time to have anything close to a realistic model of the universe, I think making good predictions is simply the best tool that we have. If that comes at the cost of having a single internally-consistent model of the universe, that's unfortunate, but at least I'm not attached to the wrong one. So if my belief in free will and my belief in Newtonian Mechanics are incompatible, that's not such a big deal to me as a pragmatist. In fact it's a useful feature of the metaphysics, since the places they come into conflict give an idea of where they're incomplete.

phkahler 5y ago

>> However, we do know from Quantum Mechanics that the universe is probabilistic and not deterministic Do we? Quantum mechanics looks like there is genuine randomness, but one interpretation of experiments testing the Bell inequalities is non-locality. It could be completely deterministic, we just don't know what determines it.

stevenhuang 5y ago
Furthermore, even granting that, one should realize that _random_ will is not _free_ will.
- phkahler 5y ago
  Or maybe it is. Didn't some big name physicists "prove" that if humans have free will then so do electrons? Not sure why it has to be an inherent property rather than an emergent property, but I just read the summary.

tshaddox 5y ago

> 1) Define “free” It doesn't seem worth spending much time here, lest the entire argument becomes nothing more than a semantic one. If your definition of "free will" is "this thing that I undeniably feel" then sure, you've made it undeniable by definition.