10 ms·
There's no evidence for nondeterminism in the human brain
by thereare5lights 3y ago
There's no evidence for nondeterminism in the human brain
- anikan_vader 3y agoThere is plenty of evidence for non-determinism in matter, which the brain is notably made out of.
- Legend2440 3y agoNot necessarily. Everything is deterministic above the quantum level, and it's possible that quantum non-determinism is the result of deterministic processes we can't see. Lots of deterministic processes (like PRNGs) look random from the outside - that's what chaos theory is about. I think it's likely that everything in the universe is deterministic.
- kedean 3y agoIf it's not actually possible to simulate a system within the confines of physics, does it being deterministic actually matter outside of thought experiments? I feel like a random system and a deterministic system which cannot be simulated are effectively the same thing.
- zappchance 3y agoIt only matters in matters of free will and ethics. One actual scenario where it's relavant would be the discussion around the criminal justice system. If the universe is deterministic, how can punitive justice be justified?
- brutusborn 3y agoIt can be justified in a deterministic universe because it makes criminals less likely to commit crime in future. As a recipient of punitive justice myself, being punished had a tangible effect on how I thought about crime and thus how I behaved post-punishment. Whether you believe that was deterministic or due to my own free will doesn’t change the outcome.
- tchaffee 3y agoPunishment is not effective for most people in reducing crime. One thing that is effective is increasing the perceived risk of getting caught. People rarely commit crimes when they are sure they will be caught.
- murderfs 3y agoFor the sake of argument, let's assume that punishment has absolutely no effect on whether someone will commit a crime. Even so, there's still a benefit to imprisonment: it separates criminals from society for a period of time, during which they won't be committing crimes against it.
- tchaffee 3y agoSure but separation can be a harsh punishment or a caring and comfortable place. Some countries do the latter and have lower recidivism rates.
- chongli 3y agoEven in the worst case, recidivism rates only reach around 2/3. That means punishment (incarceration) reforms criminals 1/3 the time. When you consider all of the problems with prisons in the U.S., and all of the hurdles offenders have to pass in order to successfully reintegrate into society, it’s quite remarkable that so many manage to do so. There are plenty of medical interventions, particularly for mental illnesses, that would dream of 1/3 effectiveness. Now consider the fact that recidivism rates are often much lower than 2/3, and in many cases are closer to 1/3. That tells me that punishment actually is quite effective at reducing crime.
- tchaffee 3y agoCorrelation is not causation. If punishment is causing the recidivism then you'd expect an increase in punishment to increase recidivism. It doesn't. You also need to compare prevention with recidivism. Optimal approaches prevent the crime in the first place.
- d-cc 3y agoThe free will "debate", as most consider it, is an utter joke. A tumor or large amount of kinetic energy to the right parts of your, or anybody else's, brain can turn them into an unredeemable monster.
- b1daly 3y agodoesn’t your example make clear the existence and nature of free will? it’s obvious in its absence
- d-cc 3y agoI'd argue that it's not obvious in it's absence, see: the philosophical zombie thought experiment The secret is that we are all philosophical zombies to begin with.
- d-cc 3y agoRecently, I've dealt with behavioral issues with my aging mother brought about by a series of different factors, but most significantly age-related cognitive decline. Trying to determine if she was acting in a certain way intentionally or unintentionally was fundamentally impossible. In the past, I mistreated her thinking she was choosing to behave in certain ways whenever she really didn't have much of a choice, but then later I realized that to some extent and in some situations, she was. It's an extremely murky line, what decisions were being made due to other influences and what decisions were being made by her, that line never existed to begin with as who her consciousness is fundamentally is determined exclusively by 'outside' influences. Separating her identity as an entity from her material manifestation is likely nonsensical.
- Legend2440 3y agoThe point of punishment is to discourage you (and other people) from doing that action in the future. You don't need free will for that.
- tchaffee 3y agoIf you don't have free will then how would something discourage you from doing something that is already determined you will do? That doesn't make any sense.
- MrScruff 3y agoNot the commenter you're replying to, and I'm sure you already realise this, but crime/punishment in a fully deterministic universe could be seen as a 'self correction' mechanism of the whole system. One could imagine an impossibly vast cellular automata system which develops individual cellular 'agents'. Over time the agents develop some means of reproduction/death/reward system and become more and more complex. Then the agents that evolve with cooperative behaviours start to dominate. One might imagine that the system as a whole would also evolve these kind of 'self corrective' behaviours for anti-cooperative behaviours of the individual agents. This is ignoring the whole philosophical ethics discussion and consciousness of course.
- tchaffee 3y agoThat does ignore a lot of the important factors but it's a useful analogy.
- layer8 3y agoBecause the punishment is part of the input that determines what you will do. In fact, if free will were absolute, punishment wouldn't make any sense because it wouldn't have any effect on your will.
- tchaffee 3y agoNeither of your claims make sense. If everything is predetermined, you don't need inputs. If you have absolute free will you are free to disregard or consider inputs.
- tchaffee 3y agoWhy would you need to justify a punishment that was already predetermined? If you are going to excuse crime with the no free will argument you can excuse the punishers with that argument too.
- trashtester 3y agoI'm in favor of punishing crimes. I don't think I have a choice about the matter.
- mensetmanusman 3y agoPrisoners don't have free will, nor do judges and police. All is well!
- zappchance 3y agoTo clarify my position, I do believe in free will; specifically a compatibilistic view of free will. If you read my other replies, you can see that I do advocate for a criminal justice sustem, just not a retributive one (or a restorative one, for that matter). I do not excuse any crime, nor do I excuse any punishment. Every individual is responsible for their own actions, regardless of the circumstances. However, I see little use in revenge from a legal standpoint. Instead our main motivations should be deterrence and incarceration.
- mo_42 3y ago> If the universe is deterministic, how can punitive justice be justified? Determinism doesn't necessarily mean that organisms always act in the same way. They act in the same way given the exact configuration of them and the world. Obviously, justice changes the configuration of an organism (fines, prison, ...). To me it boils down to the question whether justice decreases the likelihood to commit crimes again. Given that our systems of justice have evolved over a long time, I'd give them the benefit of the doubt.
- RhodesianHunter 3y agoOur justice systems have evolved over a long time, and thus include many remnants of earlier times when prevailing values were much different than they are today. I'd be wary about giving them the benefit of the doubt.
- trashtester 3y agoIf you try to do some semi-random change to large body of code that you don't understand, chances are much higher that you break the system than of you making it significantly better. The same goes for culture. Most changes tend to have unexpected consequences, and if you try to change everything at once, society tends to collapse.
- b1daly 3y agothis is my pet peeve with discussions of ‘free will’ they have an implicit definition—everything being exactly the same at a different time or place—that is non-sensical as far as we know. I’m still disturbed by peoples confidence in a deterministic universe—I suppose such confidence is based on the success of inductive reasoning but inductive reasoning is a phenomenon based on how our minds work. As far as I know the philosophical problem of causation is not considered solved? In any case, elements of randomness seem likely to play a role in human intelligence but what that role is, who knows?
- zappchance 3y agoI didn't realize I would need to define the meaning of punitive justice to this crowd, but it's the idea that "the punishment must fit the crime". The idea behind it is to hurt the criminal in order to satisfy the human desire for justice. The other goals of justice include rehabilitation (re-intgation of the criminal into civil society), deterrence (using the threat of punishment as a means to scare would be criminals), incapacitation (remove dangerous people from society to protect public order), and denunciation (public shaming).
- aoeusnth1 3y agoAnd how is a seeded RNG that an LLM uses any logically different from a deterministic brain? I’m not sure why any of this physics would be relevant to the functional behavior of the brain vs an LLM.
- goatlover 3y agoOr the Many Worlds Interpretation is the correct understanding of quantum mechanics. The MWI people will say that indeterminism comes from the Copenhagen idea of there being a random collapse. But since measuring devices and human brains are also quantum systems, there's no reason to propose a collapse. Decoherence would be the reason we only see one result.
- Legend2440 3y agoMaybe, but there's no data to support one interpretation over another. I believe that all quantum interpretations are incomplete and therefore wrong. Quantum mechanics is an abstraction over a deeper level of physics we can't measure yet.
- trashtester 3y agoActually, there is a reason to support one interpretation over another. Specifically that it's really hard to define what an "observer" is in the Copenhagen interpretation. The MW/Everett interpretation is what we have left if we remove the things we cannot define. There are also reasons to believe other interpretations. For instance, if you're religious, that could pull you towards the Bohr interpretation, since it may make it easier to assume that observation could be linked to an immortal soul. In any case, it's not natural to assume that below QM there exists a reality that is more similar to our instinctual world model than QM is. If anything, anything below it is likely to be even more abstract and hard to comprehend. Or it could be that the principles of QM applies all the way down, just as we've seen for the pieces of the SM that we solved after QM was first introduced (strong force, electroweak force).
- layer8 3y agoObjective-collapse theories can actually be experimentally tested: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objective-collapse_theory#Tests_of_collapse_models https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objective-collapse_theory#Test...
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- phreeza 3y agoThe problem is that any hidden variable resolving quantum indeterminacy would have to be non -local, i.e. able to propagate itself faster than light, which would also violate our understanding of the world quite a bit.
- llaolleh 3y agoIt won't be the first time our understanding is flipped upside down if such a framework of thought arises.
- phreeza 3y agoYea I don't disagree, just wanted to point out that the hidden variable would not mean that matter actually behaves like a classical mechanics machine.
- Legend2440 3y agoLocality may also be an abstraction. I find it very intriguing that a "speed of light" emerges automatically in Conway's Game of Life. It's not built into the system, but shows up from the convolutional update rule.
- dgfl 3y agoYour comparison with Conway's Game of Life is interesting, since that's inherently local. More importantly, I'm skeptical towards non-locality because it is an extremely strong assumption with very weak effects: the only place it really shows up is in post-correlations between measurements of previously entangled systems, which notably cannot transfer any information faster than light (in fact, they require classical communication to even be noticed). Moreover, the only way to get entangled systems in the first place is through local interactions. By believing in non-local hidden variables you get a deterministic universe with a mysterious, otherwise undetectable ether that instantaneously notifies quantum entities that they should update their behavior. By not believing in them, you get rid of the only n on-local "phenomenon" in physics (really, more of an interpretation) but you have to accept that some things are fundamentally random. Easy choice, if you ask me (or most of the physics community).
- adrianN 3y agoIn most systems, if you simulate them for sufficiently long, macroscopic behavior depends on quantum effects. For example, if you simulate simple newtonian gravity on three bodies, your numeric precision quickly grows such that you need to know the position of the objects more accurately than Heisenberg allows.
- mensetmanusman 3y agoNot necessarily. As you fine grain the simulation enough, eventually you run out of energy in the universe to compute even a second of simulated output.
- ignoramous 3y agoA recent discussion: People can be convinced they committed a crime that never happened https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36367147 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36367147