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Within her discussion is the unscientific "humans have no free will" statement. Free will is experienced as a part of the consciousness, which we cannot point t

Within her discussion is the unscientific "humans have no free will" statement. Free will is experienced as a part of the consciousness, which we cannot point to, physiologically. (For those who point to the head region as "containing consciousness", this is also unscientific.) The most annoying part of the video is that her statement comes off as this being simple observable fact that "everybody knows" and is a good example of why articles on topics are best when kept on topic. My own observation is that time is better described as human narrative description of events in the observable universe. I have not read the paper referenced in the video and I have to really spend time on these things to recall the concepts such papers are typically breezing through, but when I have attempted in previous years to understand how scientists explain time, they seem to usually have little agreement and lots of guesses. I have not found scientists claiming they have discovered fundamental units of time. I have not found scientists claiming they can sample time. I have not found scientists claiming they can isolate time. I have not found scientists claiming to have derived time as some sort of force in the universe. I am not clear on how something that has no fundamental units, cannot be sampled, cannot be isolated, and is not a force can also be something in the physically existent universe. Yet, scientists seem to place time in their explanations and equations as something that de facto exists.

exe34 2y ago
> cannot be sampled Time is measured by clocks.
- paulnpace 2y ago
  > Time is measured by clocks. What is the fundamental unit of time discovered by using these "clocks"?
  - creata 2y ago
    What do you mean by "fundamental unit"? Like, what would you consider a "fundamental unit" of space?
    - paulnpace 2y ago
      What I am doing here, really, is demonstrating that time does not seem to be a particle, which is usually made up of some fundamental unit (molecules are made from atoms, atoms are made from nucleons, those are made from quarks, etc) or is a fundamental unit.
      - catlifeonmars 2y ago
        Same with space
        paulnpace 2y ago
        Can you define "space"?
        exe34 2y ago
        how much time have you got?
        catlifeonmars 2y ago
        I have a volume of spacetime approximately equal to 5e11 quartic meters :)
  - oezi 2y ago
    These clocks fundamentally measure how long certain processes at the quantum level take. We can measure time now so exactely that on the scale of the age of the universe we are less than 1/10th of a second inaccurate. Or as another example clocks are now so accurate that we can measure the time dilation by raising a clock in the gravitational field of the earth by millimeters.
    - paulnpace 2y ago
      How does this compare to confirming the existence of other things demonstrated to exist? For example, do we confirm the existence of a proton as some percent of the universe of protons? The same for gravity? Magnetism? Why is it that with time, we are always using some kind of tolerance statement based on some understanding of the entire existence of the universe (which I am unclear on how to test such theories), meaning that we still are not coming to a single statement "time is x" while also assuming time to exist (I haven't seen things published such as "we are less than 1/10th of a nuclear force inaccurate" because this is not how the nuclear force is demonstrated to exist)? To me, this suggests there may be certain broadly predictable properties of the universe such that time seems to explain some aspect what we observe, but it is merely concurrent with the mechanics of the universe and useful for human understanding, but not something that exists (note that this is my interpretation, not a scientific proposition). (Conceptually similar to how the Ptolemaic model of the universe can predict the cycles of the stars, but does not provide a description of how the universe works, but I'm not trying to change the topic, just to stick strictly here to demonstrate things can be useful and scientifically not true.)
      - exe34 2y ago
        every single measurement is subject to measurement uncertainty. the mass of an electron will be quoted with some errorbar. we had a quote in the lab at uni: errorbars or it didn't happen. errorbars aren't a weakness, on the contrary, they indicate how confident we are of some measurement.
        paulnpace 2y ago
spacebacon 2y ago
I like to assume both sides of the free will argument will be wrong in the future. The future answers will be wrong as well. This is consistent with history.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
oezi 2y ago
> humans have no free will I believe that human brains harness quantum uncertainty and chaos theory to combine stateful information (such as preference for chocolate icecream) and recursive processes to make 'free' decisions which aren't random and fundamentally unknowable to outsiders without destroying the human (similar to a quantum system which can't be measured in more than one dimension without destroying it).
- baseballdork 2y ago
  At what point did the brain transition from not "harnessing quantum uncertainty and chaos theory to combine stateful information and recursive processes" to doing so? Do fish brains? What about the jellyfish nervous system? My problem with these types of explanations is that they are so egotistical. We probably all agree that a rock doesn't have free will. Is there no quantum uncertainty and chaos theory happening inside a rock? What about in a solar system?
  - oezi 2y ago
    > a rock A rock certainly isn't going to surprise us in any time scale relevant for us. The processes shaping it will be more from the outside than inside it's boundaries. Certainly chaos theory and quantum uncertainty are at play, but the stone is rather just like a single pendulum which swings rather very predictably and humans seem to be more like dual pendulums which are so chaotic that they escape simulation beyond minutes. We have come far to scan the brain for the manifestation of conscious decision making, but nobody serious is claiming that we can predict human choices from say 20 minutes before a decision is made. In the same sense that we can predict the weather now 7-10 days but would never think it viable to go for 100 day weather forecasts. This phenomenon is certainly on a sliding scale and we might simulate rather well jellyfish, fly, and increasingly bigger brains, but the fundamental uncertainty just means we won't be able to get the outcome correct enough the longer we look into the future.
    - baseballdork 2y ago
      Our inability to predict something on an arbitrary timescale isn't the threshold for free will, right? Otherwise, we'd say tornadoes and hurricanes exhibit free will.
bubblyworld 2y ago
I think your observation can be generalised - all of physics is human narrative description of events in the universe, coupled with some principles for choosing one narrative over another. I think when a scientist says "free will does not exist", they mean that in a very particular sense - a theory of physics (or narrative) that includes free will has as much predictive power as one that doesn't. So from a scientific point of view it's parsimonious to exclude it. As you rightly point out this has nothing to do with the subjective experience of free will, which is an aspect of consciousness that I expect most people are familiar with (scientists or no). By the way, this is not directly related, but who are these scientists you speak of who claim to be unable to measure time? Time, as it is used in theories like classical mechanics or relativity, has been measurable with clocks for millenia. The measurements fulfil the role of time in those theories; the predictions they make have been tested to an extreme degree. This is the strongest evidence for time as an ontological primitive that science can produce! (which is not inconsistent with the fact that it may behave differently outside those regimes)
- paulnpace 2y ago
  > I think your observation can be generalised - all of physics is human narrative description of events in the universe, coupled with some principles for choosing one narrative over another. At least in regards to scientific study, this is not correct. The purpose of science is to discover the properties of the physically existent universe. The properties, themselves, cannot be "narrative". For example, we would not describe magnetic force as "narrative". We may use "words" to communicate what a magnetic for is, but this does not mean the magnetic force, itself, is narrative, and the magnetic force is what science is discovering. > I think when a scientist says "free will does not exist", they mean that in a very particular sense - a theory of physics (or narrative) that includes free will has as much predictive power as one that doesn't. So from a scientific point of view it's parsimonious to exclude it. This is an opinion on what this individual is claiming. However, I can also have an opinion on what this person is claiming, and based on my personal experience with both the body language and tone of the statement, my opinion is she is likely a Humanist or heavily influenced by Humanists (even without realizing this), as a critical part of Humanism is that free will does not exist. > By the way, this is not directly related, but who are these scientists you speak of who claim to be unable to measure time? It is easier for me to find them than to post a comment on HN. I am confident you experience will be similar.

exe34 2y ago

> cannot be sampled Time is measured by clocks.

paulnpace 2y ago
> Time is measured by clocks. What is the fundamental unit of time discovered by using these "clocks"?
- creata 2y ago
  What do you mean by "fundamental unit"? Like, what would you consider a "fundamental unit" of space?
  - paulnpace 2y ago
    What I am doing here, really, is demonstrating that time does not seem to be a particle, which is usually made up of some fundamental unit (molecules are made from atoms, atoms are made from nucleons, those are made from quarks, etc) or is a fundamental unit.
    - catlifeonmars 2y ago
      Same with space
      - paulnpace 2y ago
        Can you define "space"?
        exe34 2y ago
        how much time have you got?
        catlifeonmars 2y ago
        I have a volume of spacetime approximately equal to 5e11 quartic meters :)
- oezi 2y ago
  These clocks fundamentally measure how long certain processes at the quantum level take. We can measure time now so exactely that on the scale of the age of the universe we are less than 1/10th of a second inaccurate. Or as another example clocks are now so accurate that we can measure the time dilation by raising a clock in the gravitational field of the earth by millimeters.
  - paulnpace 2y ago
    How does this compare to confirming the existence of other things demonstrated to exist? For example, do we confirm the existence of a proton as some percent of the universe of protons? The same for gravity? Magnetism? Why is it that with time, we are always using some kind of tolerance statement based on some understanding of the entire existence of the universe (which I am unclear on how to test such theories), meaning that we still are not coming to a single statement "time is x" while also assuming time to exist (I haven't seen things published such as "we are less than 1/10th of a nuclear force inaccurate" because this is not how the nuclear force is demonstrated to exist)? To me, this suggests there may be certain broadly predictable properties of the universe such that time seems to explain some aspect what we observe, but it is merely concurrent with the mechanics of the universe and useful for human understanding, but not something that exists (note that this is my interpretation, not a scientific proposition). (Conceptually similar to how the Ptolemaic model of the universe can predict the cycles of the stars, but does not provide a description of how the universe works, but I'm not trying to change the topic, just to stick strictly here to demonstrate things can be useful and scientifically not true.)
    - exe34 2y ago
      every single measurement is subject to measurement uncertainty. the mass of an electron will be quoted with some errorbar. we had a quote in the lab at uni: errorbars or it didn't happen. errorbars aren't a weakness, on the contrary, they indicate how confident we are of some measurement.
      - paulnpace 2y ago

spacebacon 2y ago

I like to assume both sides of the free will argument will be wrong in the future. The future answers will be wrong as well. This is consistent with history.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

oezi 2y ago

> humans have no free will I believe that human brains harness quantum uncertainty and chaos theory to combine stateful information (such as preference for chocolate icecream) and recursive processes to make 'free' decisions which aren't random and fundamentally unknowable to outsiders without destroying the human (similar to a quantum system which can't be measured in more than one dimension without destroying it).

baseballdork 2y ago
At what point did the brain transition from not "harnessing quantum uncertainty and chaos theory to combine stateful information and recursive processes" to doing so? Do fish brains? What about the jellyfish nervous system? My problem with these types of explanations is that they are so egotistical. We probably all agree that a rock doesn't have free will. Is there no quantum uncertainty and chaos theory happening inside a rock? What about in a solar system?
- oezi 2y ago
  > a rock A rock certainly isn't going to surprise us in any time scale relevant for us. The processes shaping it will be more from the outside than inside it's boundaries. Certainly chaos theory and quantum uncertainty are at play, but the stone is rather just like a single pendulum which swings rather very predictably and humans seem to be more like dual pendulums which are so chaotic that they escape simulation beyond minutes. We have come far to scan the brain for the manifestation of conscious decision making, but nobody serious is claiming that we can predict human choices from say 20 minutes before a decision is made. In the same sense that we can predict the weather now 7-10 days but would never think it viable to go for 100 day weather forecasts. This phenomenon is certainly on a sliding scale and we might simulate rather well jellyfish, fly, and increasingly bigger brains, but the fundamental uncertainty just means we won't be able to get the outcome correct enough the longer we look into the future.
  - baseballdork 2y ago
    Our inability to predict something on an arbitrary timescale isn't the threshold for free will, right? Otherwise, we'd say tornadoes and hurricanes exhibit free will.

bubblyworld 2y ago

I think your observation can be generalised - all of physics is human narrative description of events in the universe, coupled with some principles for choosing one narrative over another. I think when a scientist says "free will does not exist", they mean that in a very particular sense - a theory of physics (or narrative) that includes free will has as much predictive power as one that doesn't. So from a scientific point of view it's parsimonious to exclude it. As you rightly point out this has nothing to do with the subjective experience of free will, which is an aspect of consciousness that I expect most people are familiar with (scientists or no). By the way, this is not directly related, but who are these scientists you speak of who claim to be unable to measure time? Time, as it is used in theories like classical mechanics or relativity, has been measurable with clocks for millenia. The measurements fulfil the role of time in those theories; the predictions they make have been tested to an extreme degree. This is the strongest evidence for time as an ontological primitive that science can produce! (which is not inconsistent with the fact that it may behave differently outside those regimes)

paulnpace 2y ago
> I think your observation can be generalised - all of physics is human narrative description of events in the universe, coupled with some principles for choosing one narrative over another. At least in regards to scientific study, this is not correct. The purpose of science is to discover the properties of the physically existent universe. The properties, themselves, cannot be "narrative". For example, we would not describe magnetic force as "narrative". We may use "words" to communicate what a magnetic for is, but this does not mean the magnetic force, itself, is narrative, and the magnetic force is what science is discovering. > I think when a scientist says "free will does not exist", they mean that in a very particular sense - a theory of physics (or narrative) that includes free will has as much predictive power as one that doesn't. So from a scientific point of view it's parsimonious to exclude it. This is an opinion on what this individual is claiming. However, I can also have an opinion on what this person is claiming, and based on my personal experience with both the body language and tone of the statement, my opinion is she is likely a Humanist or heavily influenced by Humanists (even without realizing this), as a critical part of Humanism is that free will does not exist. > By the way, this is not directly related, but who are these scientists you speak of who claim to be unable to measure time? It is easier for me to find them than to post a comment on HN. I am confident you experience will be similar.