/sci/ - Science & Math

>>10878731

The problem lies in the term 'free will'. It is not well defined and vague. It seems to imply the ability to make choices free from constraints, yet we know it does not mean we can choose to teleport about as we wish.

What I hope clears your confusion is to think simply in terms of 'will'. 'Will' clearly exists, but it is not free, it is something you earn through discipline and hardship.

>>10878738
>The ability to make choices free from constraints
I find this hilarious because those constraints are precisely what people define as will, personality, beliefs. These are constraints that people want. A truly free will would be like rolling a dice for every decision.

>>10878731
do you wanna know who actually doesn't have free will? literal slaves, wage slaves and incels

saying that not being able to move 6 limbs isn't "real" free will because humans can only have 4 is trolling

it should be obvious that you can only exist while bound by the rules of universe, and it doesn't matter if they are deterministic or probabilistic, that doesn't define free will

>>10878738
I agree there are constraints, but given the constraints I can still read the lecture script or browse 4chan. It feels wrong to me that I can't freely choose between these two options which fulfill all constraints.

>>10878731
There's no hard free will, as an agent that controls the body and is free from cause-effect. Heck, modern psychology/neuroscience's has found no medical/physiological evidence of any supernatural selfhood substance residing in our body that transcends the body. Anyone saying otherwise is trying to sell you snake oil.

The softer "free will" is whether we can irrevocably call our perception or ability to project our will onto others as "free will" or if its just a pure fiction dreamt up by the brain to give it a sense of direction.

>>10878731
>debating free will
literally an exercise in semantics

>>10878751
Also the second one "ignores" or side-steps the modern understanding of an selfhood "agent" or rather the lack of one however its a convenient tool describing the convenient assumptions(even though its wrong in science).

If we are truly take science to heart, then there's no free-will, both hard and soft. What's left is a post-action rationalizing machine.

>>10878731
>I have the choice
No, you have the illusion of choice. The choices you make are determined by your personality, which is defined primarily by your childhood, your parents, your environment, etc. All of these things are determined by similar states before them and so on and so forth.

"Free will", as defined in popular terms, doesn't exist; however, that doesn't mean you can't appreciate your self-awareness and the emotional weight of the illusion of choice.

>>10878753
>>10878751
>>10878749
>>10878738
>>10878748

Let's focus just on this situation to clarify:
If I continue to browse 4chan for another week, I will fail an exam. I feel it is my fault, because I could have chosen to read the script instead and nothing hindered me and I was fully aware of the whole situation.

On the other hand, if the universe is deterministic like I believe, I can say that this was programmed to happen, so I have no guilt/fault/responsibility.

>>10878762
>I can say that this was programmed to happen
no you can say you have a mental illness

>>10878759
No, free will as defined in popular terms does exist. Free will as defined in academic terms doesn't.
>No, you have the illusion of choice.
If I always (except where directly compelled otherwise) make the choice I want (desire) to make, then it's tautologically true that I am free to do what I want and not otherwise, and there's no real point quibbling about whether or not that's "freedom" because then we'd be talking about a "freedom" to do something I don't want to do, which is by definition an undesired situation in the first place. I'm aware your and my positions are only different in terms of semantics but I hate this pessimistic spin that's put on it.

Incidentally if you want to get to the QM debate everything about free will always ends up with, Bohmian mechanics is a dead end because it conflicts with relativity so the quasi-Newtonian classical deterministic universe is total bullshit. At very most we're constrained by adequate determinism.

>>10878762
>I have no guilt/fault/responsibility.

but then no one has guilt for anything they do. no one is responsible for anything.

>>10878762
Fun thing is, universe is statistically deterministic. This means if there was any probability that you could pass or fail, both events will occur in a MWI. There's no need for supernatural agency to confirm your belief that it was your inner will doing x or y. Its just a probability distribution.


Suppose I was watching a horse race in my home and I hold a Jesus Christ cross in my hand tightly as I believe it would lead my horse to victory. If the horse wins, I will have reinforced my belief. If it doesn't I'll soon forget and do it again. Now this sort of belief reinforcement happens all the time in our life, this is where we get/see the illusion of control.

>>10878771
no he can act like that under his retarded rationale and live with the consequences of his actions

his actions can only influence other people if they read his bullshit and are retarded enough to think "oh that sounds like a good reason to fail an exam"

>>10878789
>MWI

>>10878797
What's wrong with the most literal interpretation of one of the most fundamental, successful and empirically confirmed physical theories we have?

>>10878803
Occam's razor. Being asked to suppose that there's an infinite number of universes for every decision? Doesn't pass the smell test. I go in for consistent histories.

>>10878811
You don't understand Occam razor. Occam razor is the default position where the most likely hood is the one that makes the least assumption.

Wave collapse is an additional assumption to QM equation. MWI is strict QM equation.

>>10878820
>You don't understand Occam razor.
No I think YOU don't. You in fact are asking us to suppose (assume) the existence of infinite universes without evidence. That kind of massive ontological assumption outweighs the relatively small assumption that our understanding is incomplete and when adjusted won't massively expand the number of necessary objects within reality.

>>10878829
QM equation is a mathematical equation. Your argument is "its not common sense understanding," which is exactly why QM is differentiated from classical mechanics.

>>10878731
It's pretty easy. What you're talking about is self-control. The seat of self-control is in the area of the brain associated with executive function (pre-frontal cortex and others). Let me remind you of that famous study conducted on judges where their decisions were heavily influenced by whether they'd already had lunch that day or not. What you're describing is an internal struggle between this brain region and the "lizard brain". When you're fatigued or hungry or are otherwise influenced by some type of negative affect, the lizard brain will win more often. You have no control over this internal balance of power. It is affected by all kinds of factors, but none of them "free will", whatever that even means.

>>10878836
My argument is that the present state of QM is incomplete, and that interpretations such as MWI which artificially expand the number of possible objects are just epistemological artefacts. It is far more modest to suggest that our ideas are wrong than to compound our error by following through on bad ideas to their absurd conclusions.

>>10878851
Whether or not you FEEL QM is incomplete matters to no one. What matters is how effective the mathematical equation in testing/confirming our theories. As far as mathematical aspect of QM is concerned, MWI is completely and perfectly rational explanation. The explanation of "wave collapse" is a worse explanation imo in that it hand waves the core math of QM in favor of "common sense" rational. That's not science, that's faith.

>>10878748
That wouldn't be free will because you're not making any decisions yourself. You would become a slave to the dice. Free will is impossible no matter what unless you define it as something like "being able to do what it is that you want to do, even if what you want to do is pre-determined" and live in a deterministic universe.

>>10878857
>Whether or not you FEEL QM is incomplete matters to no one.
I'm glad you think that way, because it's not a matter of feeling is it cunt? It's factually incomplete because as yet it's irreconcilable with GR.
>What matters is how effective the mathematical equation in testing/confirming our theories
Literally every interpretation of QM does this, it's not an argument for any interpretation you pop-sci parrot.
>As far as mathematical aspect of QM is concerned, MWI is completely and perfectly rational explanation
That means nothing if it doesn't actually correspond with physical reality.
>The explanation of "wave collapse" is a worse explanation imo
It doesn't matter what you feel about it, so far we can only empirically detect one reality, and your favoured interpretation doesn't conform to that.
>That's not science, that's faith.
If you're going to do dressed-up metaphysics then you have to contend with Occam's razor, and despite what you think it's far more modest to assume that our understanding is incomplete, rather than there being an infinite number of untestable universes lmao.

>>10878862
>That wouldn't be free will because you're not making any decisions yourself.
I made the decision to obey the device myself. But my point is precisely that free will as normally defined, as in, free from prior constraints is not necessarily a desired thing.

>>10878829
>>10878851
In terms of fundamental laws MWI is simple, the complexity is emergent. So its "complexity" isn't anything in need of explanation. MWI is also local unlike many other interpretations so it works better with relativity.
It's always possible that QM is somehow incomplete but until there's evidence for that the most literal interpretation is what Occam's razor demands.

>>10878865
>That means nothing if it doesn't actually correspond with physical reality.
QM is separate from classical mechanics because it doesn't conform to observed physical reality. Heck the notion of a "physical reality" itself is just an ontology. QM is breaking down this older notion of ontology and moving forward.

Why is anyone discussing QM in this context? Probability =/= freedom.

>>10878871
>It's always possible that QM is somehow incomplete
It is factually incomplete.

>>10878875
Horrible misunderstanding of QM.

>>10878877
Hidden variables have all but died out. Its not the time of decoherence, entanglement, and universal wave function.

>>10878881
I'm not hoping for a hidden variable, I'm hoping for, as our understanding of physics builds a physics that closely explains what we see without positing anything extraneous, ideally ruling it out altogether.

>>10878884
We don't see atoms. We don't see electrons. We certainly don't see any of the elementary particles. The best model we have is statistical model based on mathematical rigor and theory.

Perception is not everything.

>>10878877
All we know is that QM and GR can't BOTH be complete at the same time. And MWI is one of the most relativity-friendly of the interpretations so why not go with that? It would mean there's less additional assumptions to be made.

>>10878887
But unlike an infinite number of universes, we know that those all have to be there to explain the macroscopic objects we DO in fact see. We absolutely do not have to posit an infinite number of universes for every decision to explain what we see.

>>10878769
>t. has never taken a philosophy course

>>10878890
>And MWI is one of the most relativity-friendly of the interpretations so why not go with that?
Because other interpretations such as consistent histories are every bit as good and don't posit an infinite number of universes.
>It would mean there's less additional assumptions to be made.
It is better, as far as I can see, to take the idea of physical alternative universes as being an epistemological artefact rather than actually real.

>>10878762
>I feel it is my fault, because I could have chosen to read the script instead and nothing hindered me and I was fully aware of the whole situation.
>On the other hand, if the universe is deterministic like I believe, I can say that this was programmed to happen, so I have no guilt/fault/responsibility.

I'm the first reply.

This also depends on that tricky word, 'I'. Your choice, ultimately, is the reflection of who you are and what you want in life. Who you perceive yourself to be and who you are differ. Maybe you find browsing 4chan to be more rewarding than getting a passing grade (this may actually be the true). Look to Buddhism for much discourse on what 'I' really means.

Ultimately if you want better control over your own actions, practice meditation. It is training your mind to have control over your own thoughts, which is a prerequisite to control over your own actions, and the course of your own life.

>>10878892
And yet the moon doesn't cease to exist when we cover our eyes. MWI explanation is just fine. You just take things for granted without questioning the implications of the wave collapse.

>>10878895
t. Got shit marks in Philosophy

>>10878901
>And yet the moon doesn't cease to exist when we cover our eyes.
It doesn't "cease to exist" as such at all, it just enters a less definite state.
>MWI explanation is just fine
Things entering a less definite state is, IMO, preferable to supposing that there is an infinite number of those objects actually existing in order to preserve that definite state.

I have a little more sympathy with MWI variants which don't give an actual reality to the alternate branches though.

>>10878905
You're being stupid. There's no "less definite state." The moon is stable for every human all the time. So is the sun, the planets, stars.

Now who's being wishy-washy with fluff? "less definite state"? LMAO

>>10878910
>You're being stupid. There's no "less definite state." The moon is stable for every human all the time. So is the sun, the planets, stars.
That's literally just an assumption.
>Now who's being wishy-washy with fluff? "less definite state"? LMAO
There's literally nothing wishy-washy about it. That's what standard quantum mechanics suggests, the moon doesn't stop being an actual thing when not observed it just enters a less concrete state.

Saying "Hurr the moon isn't there when we don't look at it" is part of the problem with science communication, people get the impression that it actually disappears altogether or that it's somehow mystical which isn't what QM suggests at all.

>>10878916
Every scientific measurement we take of the moon confirms its there, all the time. We can do trillions of observation with dozens of telescopes running on modern computer that does scan of the moon every second and it will always be there. There's no "less definite state."

The reason is not because QM is broken, but because wave collapse aka Copenhagen interpretation is bad.

>>10878920
>Every scientific measurement we take of the moon confirms its there, all the time
Lmao by definition it does no such fucking thing you dork.
>We can do trillions of observation with dozens of telescopes running on modern computer that does scan of the moon every second and it will always be there. There's no "less definite state."
Holy fucking brainlet.

>>10878897
>Because other interpretations such as consistent histories are every bit as good and don't posit an infinite number of universes.

I'm familiar enough with consistent histories to confidently reject it but every time I've read on it it sounds hopelessly vague and incomprehensible to me. And in particular when trying to explain how locality is preserved it sounds awfully a lot like its appealing to many worlds, yet it also denies them.

>>10878924
I'm glad that you feel that your ignorance gives you confidence.

>>10878902
Face it dude, free will doesn't exist and compatibilism is a meme. But that doesn't mean you can't appreciate self-awareness.

>>10878979
>compatibilism is a meme

So is every other word in your post. You wish you were cool enough to be a meme yourself.

>>10878979
This is how I can tell you got shit marks in Philosophy. You look at free will and you abide by a pointless academic definition like "free from prior influence" when what's closer to peoples intuitions is "Being able to do what they want to do" I.e. that they are free (able) to do what they will (want to do).

If you're free to do what you want, that satisfies a folk-definition of free will, the only definition that's really personally consequential for your experience of life. Talking about whether or not you're actually free to will what you will is as far as I'm concerned a pointless question.

>>10878979
I've been reading about compatibilism for years. I have yet to come across a single argument in favor that would be convincing to me. It all just seems like grasping at straws.

>>10878992
That's because you're stupid.

>>10878995
I've finally found the argument that convinced me. Thanks. Free will is real.

THIS QUESTION IS LITERALLY ALL ABOUT SEMANTICS

WASTE OF A THREAD

>>10878931
I meant "not familiar enough"

Do compatibilists believe videogames characters also have a "free" will? They are making decisions, so obviously they are free to choose.

>>10878999
The problem is that the academic definition of free will is a pointless abstraction. What upsets most people when you suggest "free will isn't real" is the suggestion that their behaviour is compelled, but what is it actually being compelled by most of the time? Their personality, their will, their wants and desires. Now ultimately that might not be of their making but that doesn't make their wills any less their own. By fucking around with the definition bad Philosophers and the Physicists who listen to them have people fretting around worrying about being forced to do what they want. Can you imagine a more absurd paradigm? It's like the child being worried about wanting to eat a chocolate cake.

>>10879006
It's not even really about choice, it's about desire. They don't have free will because they don't have will at all. There is nothing that it's actually "like to be" a videogame character.

>>10878762
>On the other hand, if the universe is deterministic like I believe, I can say that this was programmed to happen, so I have no guilt/fault/responsibility.

well, it was predetermined that you are gonna create a self fulfilling prophecy. which is not your fault but just dumb.
if you dont realize that and no one tells you, then your are now gonna fail every future exam. which is of course not your fault you are just unfortunately using faulty logic.
there is no problem with determinism you just cant logically use it to justify your actions

the concept of free will is a psychological weapon that weakens the believer's understanding of cause and effect.

it's just the opposite of what this anon says: >>10878762. someone who's never been introduced to the concept would be more likely to make optimal decisions because they wouldn't be burdened by endlessly ruminating over fault or responsibility or guilt. we are indoctrinated with this mentally-fatiguing construct in order to keep us paralyzed.

>>10879017
cont.

it's a lot like OCD in many respects. it really puts the weight of the world on your shoulders. any precise definition of "free will" can be reduced to an absurdity. fortunately, it's not terribly hard to mitigate its psychological effects. one must not only understand that it's bunk, that's the easy part, but one must understand that rejecting the concept will not put you at a disadvantage, as this stupid asshole >>10878762 suggests that it will

>>10878731
OP, your biggest mistake it to assume that non-determinism = random. No, random vs determinism is a false dichotomy, the real dichotomy is simply determinism vs non-determinism, one kind of non-determinism being what is called "randomness".

The human individual has free will as he is able to do something against his instinct, unlike any other creature. Consciousness is exactly a set of parallel input that don't get added up algorithmically, probably only useful to rational verbal species like you and me. The negation of free will is panpsychism in the most bizarre ways.

>>10878990
No, I really do mean the popular definition of choosing what you want to do and doing it because you choose to do so. Such acts are defined by your personality, which is defined by how you were raised, your environment, and other variables. All of these themselves are also DETERMINED and based on states and conditions that come before them. If you think I got shit marks in Philosophy, you must have been too retarded to even sign up for the correct class.

>>10878731
>I have the choice between lazing about or learning and I have awareness of many aspects of both options and that I have to choose one.

The choice you make is predetermined.
Solved.

>>10878751
>Heck, modern psychology/neuroscience's has found no medical/physiological evidence of any supernatural selfhood substance residing in our body that transcends the body.

Even if we did, free will would still not exist. The spooky spirit goo would nevertheless make decisions based on prior experience or we’d behave literally randomly.

>>10878887
>We don't see atoms.

I see literally quintillion’s of them right now.

>>10878905
>It doesn't "cease to exist" as such at all, it just enters a less definite state.

No it doesn’t. “Observation” doesn’t affect reality in any way whatsoever. Measuring things does, because that involves hitting them with particles

>>10878731
REMINDER: the most renowned philosophers in history believed in true Free Will through rational categories.
Also free will =/= sensory experience (i.e empiricism)

>We will start with freedom. Kant argues that morality and the obligation that comes with it are only possible if humans have free will. This is because the universal laws prescribed by the categorical imperative presuppose autonomy (autos = self; nomos = law). To be autonomous is to be the free ground of one’s own principles, or “laws” of action. Kant argues that if we presuppose that humans are rational and have free will, then his entire moral theory follows directly. The problem, however, lies in justifying the belief that we are free. Kant had argued in the Second Analogy of Experience that every event in the natural world has a “determining ground,” that is, a cause, and so all human actions, as natural events, themselves have deterministic causes (see 2f above). The only room for freedom of the will would lie in the realm of things in themselves, which contains the noumenal correlate of my phenomenal self. Since things in themselves are unknowable, I can never look to them to get evidence that I possess transcendental freedom. Kant gives at least two arguments to justify belief in freedom as a precondition of his moral theory. (There is a great deal of controversy among commentators regarding the exact form of his arguments, as well as their success. It will not be possible to adjudicate those disputes in any detail here. See Section 10 (References and Further Readings) for references to some of these commentaries.)

>>10878789
ALL-ENCOMPASSING DETERMINISM IS NOT AT ODDS WITH FREE WILL, JUST LIKE THE BELIEF OF GOD ISN'T WITH SCIENCE

>>10879523
>We will start with freedom. Kant argues that morality and the obligation that comes with it are only possible if humans have free will.

Apparently emotional satisfaction from bringing some things to pass and emotional discomfort from other things coming to pass needs”free will”.
No it really doesn’t.

>>10879526
>I have free will
>My actions are predetermined

???

>>10879527
>>10879530
>tripping over semantics
I'd continue this conversation if it wasn't for me hitting the hay soon

>>10879539
I have no idea how you’re defining free will. Some define it as choices made free of coercion.
Also believing in God is moronic

>>10879487
>No, I really do mean the popular definition of choosing what you want to do and doing it because you choose to do so
If you insist on using a pointless definition, you'll only get involved in a pointless argument. You're essentially worrying that you're being forced to do what you want. That's retarded.
>If you think I got shit marks in Philosophy
I don't think, I know. Compatibilism is genuinely a brainlet-filter. People reject it because they have a bad understanding of what free will is. When I did Philosophy at A-level without exception the people that actually understood the compatibilist arguments were the ones that got 80-90% and above marks, and the ones that didn't, didn't.

>>10879518
>Muh arbitrary Heisenberg cut
Lmao.

>>10879736
Yeah, no. I majored in Mathematics and minored in Philosophy. Anyway, at least consider the following:

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/freewill/#DoWeHaveFreeWill

I understand the Compatibilism argument, which is why I come to my conclusion against it. Also, I wouldn't use the word "forced": I feel "destined" is a more appropriate word yet still not entirely adequate.

>>10879017
>the concept of free will is a psychological weapon that weakens the believer's understanding of cause and effect.
Hahahahaha.
>It's a weapon but it cannot be used by anybody willingly, nor can it be aimed at anybody who is actually real
Come to terms with the plurality and complexity of existence. The Universe has completely random things in it, as well as completely deterministic ones. Yet we experience free will and can use it as we use placebo.
Some don't like the responsibility so they spend most of their life coping, willingly and irresponsibly.

>>10878731
>Can consciousness be real and free will not?
Sure. It depends how you define each one. You'll find both concepts have very vague definitions.

>>10879816
Even putting aside the "deterministic" arguments against free will, I'm not sure what people possibly imagine "true" free will being.

>>10880039

>>10879530
define free will

>>10879979

so to be clear, you're arguing that free will helps its believers defer gratification, enhancing their executive function and ability to make long-term plans?

>>10880053
cont.

because this seems to be the first-line defense of "free will" against those who question its foundation in magical thinking.

"well, it's not really true but we need to believe that it's true, for morality, responsibility, etc.".

but we have ways to measure things like executive function, long term-planning capacity, the ability to defer gratification, the capacity for altruism, etc.

to be honest, i doubt highly that the believers would turn out to be the higher performing group.

>>10879816
Yes yes. As long as we're swinging our dicks I won an Oxford interview on the strength of my Philosophy results.
>I understand the Compatibilism argument, which is why I come to my conclusion against it
No, you've just let yourself get taken in by a linguistic sleight of hand where the meaningful definition of free will meaning the circumstances wherein we find ourselves largely free to do as we desire, is substituted by something else, the idea of being totally free from prior influence.

Philosophers like Hume didn't make the case for Compatibilism for their health, they had serious reasons to dispute the ways that we were misusing the concept of the will.

literally this thread

>do i have free will?
>what do you mean by free will?
>are my decisions really my decisions?
>what do you mean by "my decisions"?
>can i really control what i choose to do?
>what do you mean by control?
>am i simply following instructions that were given to me by nature?
>what do you mean by "instructions"?
>a logical organization of tasks broken down into individually executable units?
>i forget what we're talking about

>>10880152
It's 100% semantics and pseuds trying to impress others by showing how they've accepted what they percieve as an uncomfortable truth.

>>10878731
Option 1 assuming observable dimensions are set and deterministic then no free will. Option 2 layered dimensional exposure then yes concesiness can be non deterministic and ultimately not bound.

>>10880052
You make a decision. If that scenario was replayed, could you have done otherwise? If you think so, you think free will exists. If you think that the decision made would always have been made due to the positions and momentums of particles and so on and so forth, you do not believe in free will.

>>10880180
>If that scenario was replayed, could you have done otherwise?
The fuck does that mean?
If you "replay" something, that generally means you are watching something again the way it played out when it recorded. Are you saying if you replayed everything except your thinking process it could have gone differently? Well then obviously it could by quantum randomness in your brain alone.

Does free will just mean "non-deterministic universe"? That seems retarded to me.

>>10880188
Also quantum mechanics clearly says the universe isn't deterministic the way you are describing. If you set up and even multiple times with the atoms in the exact same momentum at the start, ect ect, you will get a different result every time because randomness is a fundamental component of our observable reality.

You could argue all the multi-world possibilities are deterministic though.

>>10880188
>The fuck does that mean?

If you were God or something and returned the universe to its exact state prior to the decision being made, is it possible that different decisions could have been reached, or would the same decision always result?

>Are you saying if you replayed everything except your thinking process it could have gone differently? Well then obviously it could by quantum randomness in your brain alone.

Quantum effects are irrelevant neurologically. Quantum scale is below the size of even the ions used by neurons to communicate.

>Does free will just mean "non-deterministic universe"? That seems retarded to me.

I don’t think free will is really a coherent concept. Decisions are either determined or random, and random doesn’t sound like what people who believe in free will mean or want.

>>10880198
>Quantum effects are irrelevant neurologically.
You have no idea how quantum mechanics works. Quantum effects can result in your brain suddenly teleporting to martian orbit. Your brain is 100% made out of matter who's behaviour is determined by quantum mechanics.

>I don’t think free will is really a coherent concept.
Literally pointless discussing a topic in detail that isn't even clearly defined. It's just schizo rambling 99% of the time.

>>10880212
>You have no idea how quantum mechanics works. Quantum effects can result in your brain suddenly teleporting to martian orbit.

Tell me more about all the observed instances of random teleportation that violates the conservation of energy and the light speed limit.

>Literally pointless discussing a topic in detail that isn't even clearly defined. It's just schizo rambling 99% of the time.

The topic gets the most mileage in theology these days, which says a lot.

>>10880239
>Tell me more about all the observed instances of random teleportation that violates the conservation of energy and the light speed limit.
Quantum teleportation is the operating principle for every one of the trillion or so transistors that your computer used to post me that message. The speed of light is not violated. I forget the explanation for conservation of energy. W/e. QED is one of the most thoroughly well tested theories in the history of physics.

>>10878731
Free will is an emergent phenomenon. I don't see the problem with this. It exists at a certain level of complexity and does not exist merely as the sum of constituent parts.

When one talks about not being able to "choose" the constituent functions and random processes of consciousness, that merely satisfies the definition that choice is emergent from their complex interaction and cannot exist prior.

Then you get all the things that emerge from choices, like self-esteem and integrity. Then there are the things that emerge when choice is constituent among many, such as culture.

>>10880513
if we're talking in these terms, one could argue that all emergent phenomena are the result of the universe's ever-expanding nature. reality constantly seeks the next form, and in an infinite universe we can assume that this is just another occurrence of its continual creation of... everything, really.

but I choose to believe that quantum allows us to have individuality and choice since we're able to change our state, even if that state were always going to exist in one way or another. if that make sense.

I also think the Free-Will meme is a fucking joke and there's no sense in contemplating it, in the same way that there is no sense in overthinking the simulation hypothesis. There's just no way we would ever know, and no reason for it to matter to us one way or another, until science brings us far along enough for a better answer.

>>10878769
Imagine being this dumb

>>10880640
It's tautologically true dickhead. The case against is a pointless semantic race to the bottom about what you mean by freedom by which gets you far away from the things people are actually concerned with.

>>10880640
she does look dumb, must be the tattoo

>>10880175
>layered dimensional exposure
What does this mean?

>>10880140

OP here. Apparently most tend to determinism with all its consequences, including the absence of free will. This is giving me a small crisis. How can we punish a murderer, how can we praise a hard working nurse saving lifes? How can there be the concept of responsibility? I'm not even responsible for myself since nothing that happens is based on true choices.

It seems like most people here are retarded.

This post was too small to contain everything so READ THE REPLY.

Let me set the record straight, you as a human have a brain, and that brain is programmed to make decisions from genetics, and experience. Determinism does not inherently mean that your brain is no longer making any choices, it just means that those choices are merely stemming from historical events and interactions between every atom and molecule in the universe which led up to your brain deciding that making a certain choice is the correct one.

As an example, if you are in literal empty space and the universe was entirely empty, and you threw a ball from your position, you could predict the path of the ball relative to you very easily, its not going to change, and its relatively simple physics. Now lets say you take 10,000 balls and release them all at once. They will collide and interact, but theoretically if you could measure the state, velocity, and interaction of every ball at one point after release, you could use a computer to predict the bath of the balls to an infinite time in the future, its just using physics, and the predictable interaction between the balls.

Now you could further increase the complexity of systems you analyze but if you were theoretically capable of capturing the data for that system and you had a method of calculating with it it wouldn't matter how big. When you look at a human, while extremely complex, its simply made of atoms and molecules that make up cells, and those cells and molecules interact and come together to form organs, bones, the human brain, etc. If we captured all the data in the universe, and calculated the result, theoretically it would simply be "predicting the future". Because while the human brain is so complex that you cant simply write a formula for it like the ball, all of that complexity is built off a system that is based on that simplicity, like the 10,000 ball system.

Continued in reply post.

>>10880853
CONTINUED

Having all the data would mean we would know your current state, and we could predict everything that would influence your future decisions ontop of your current state, as well as everyone else's states and influences, meaning that their decisions and influence on you would also be predictable.

Now, this is where some people are going to shout QUANTUM QUANTUM and say that you couldn't predict it because of the extremely minute effect quantum mechanics has on everything. but that doesnt change the underlying principle of it, which is that the brain, while making decisions, is doing so on the basis of everything they have experienced, and everything the people around them and their ancesters hve experienced, etc. Throwing quantum in the mix only means that the predictability factor has decreased, not that you have 'free will' outside of your influeneces that led to this point.

All in all, you make decisions, you have 'free will' for all the spergs who will freak out if they cant confirm their conciousness, its just not the god 'I'm special' free will.

>>10880861
And by "you have free will" I meant the world is deterministic, but you have free will.

>>10880775
Convergence of energy on one point from multiple dimensions.

>>10880835
Consider the following:

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/skepticism-moral-responsibility/

Sorry for the length, but I think you'll find the article interesting (being interested enough to create a thread about philosophy and all).

>>10880835
That is dumb. The thing about determinism and free will argument is that its entirely distinct from reality itself.

Also, you have "conciousness" in the sense that you feel capable of making decisions, even ones you know are wrong. So it doesn't really matter how they got to the point of deciding that, you did. Read >>10880853 as I think they put it nicely with how "determinism" doesnt interfere with the capability to punish, or to make your own decisions.

>>10880853
>>10880861
>>10880864
Very based, but you're throwing pearls before swine.

>>10880864
You just made the argument against free will, though. I mean, if you consider the "not the god" free will to be making your single decision, you as an agent will have only one choice to make due to your past experiences, like you say, that your personality deems appropriate. There are many subconscious influencers when a person is making a choice in which they have no control over, so they're not really "free" to act in either case.

What argument for compatibilism do you find compelling exactly?

>>10880887
>You just made the argument against free will, though. I mean, if you consider the "not the god" free will to be making your single decision, you as an agent will have only one choice to make due to your past experiences, like you say, that your personality deems appropriate.

The point was that while yes, your decisions are predictable because you have been shoehorned into making them, that does not mean that you arent making them, you just have the illusion of multiple choice while your making that decision.

I was mainly describing this to clear up the confusion that some people have, in which they believe determinism means they're a slave and just along for the ride wherever the universe takes them, while in reality they make decisions, your brain chooses between 2 or more things things, but which one your brain will actually choose is theoretically "set in stone", you're just waiting for your brain to give you a response as to which one. You could say those are synonymous, but the important disctinction is that you are actually choosing something, its just predictable.

Your personality, past, and every influence is just an algorithm for your decisions, as it changes you can predict the output from any questions or choices posed to it.

>>10880927 here, I forgot to adress a few things.

>>10880887
>There are many subconcious influencers when a person is making a choice in which they have no control over, so they're not really "free" to act in either case.

It really depends on your definition of free. Like I've been trying to say, you are free to make choices, but if you know enough about who is making them, or enough about the entire universe, those choices are predictable.

>What argument for compatibilism do you find compelling exactly?

I havent researched compatibilism, but from a quick google search it seems interesting. Will read up on it.

>>10880951
I mean "free" to be entirely unpredictable: an agent chooses to act upon a decision because their consciousness literally chooses to do so absolutely free from any bias, past experience, or influence.

What's different about what you're saying is that the agent is still confined to act within a boundary defined by the summation of influencers, and that given enough data you can predict the most probable choice. Or, perhaps without data you can get the probability distribution, and with enough data you can predict their decision. Either way, the agent technically performs an action, there's no arguing that, but if you can predict it due to it being determined by past experiences and other influencing factors, did they really have a "choice"?

Of course, even if the agent didn't have a choice, that doesn't mean said agent can't appreciate the existence of their own consciousness, the illusion (or possible reality) of choice, and the apparent uncertainty from stochastic processes and probability.

>>10881039
>What's different about what you're saying is that the agent is still confined to act within a boundary defined by the summation of influencers

This is the difficult part about my opinion on the issue, and I think the issues stem from our desire to obsess over sentience or conciousness. In my opinion, like I've said, the ball can float in one direction predictably. That does not inherently mean its confined, it simply has been placed on the path to float in that direction. And I make the ball metaphor intentionally because the ball is not alive, and in my opinion, trivializing human existance into that of a non-living object is the only way to think about it logically.

I feel like you can't involve emotions or exstastential fear if you want to tackle this problem as logically and consistently as possible.

Yet again I'll reimphasize for others reading, this does not mean your simply trapped on a path and you have no control, you make decisions, the decisions are predictable given enough information.

>>10881039
>Of course, even if the agent didn't have a choice, that doesn't mean said agent can't appreciate the existence of their own consciousness, the illusion (or possible reality) of choice, and the apparent uncertainty from stochastic processes and probability.

This is also another important point to emphaize, as many people get so worked up about determinism and what it means for them. The debate of free will vs determinism is entirely destinct from your living reality. Its that simple. Live your life, enjoy the conversation, don't take it to mean anything that you should apply irl.

>Either way, the agent technically performs an action, there's no arguing that, but if you can predict it due to it being determined by past experiences and other influencing factors, did they really have a "choice"?

See, this is also where I think trivializing life into object is the only way to look at the problem. Does an algorithm or function have a choice when it comes to its output? Well no, it receives an input and outputs a result, in this case a decision (to simplify things heavily). Humans are an extremely complex representation of this, and a better comparison rather than a hardcoded algorithm would be a neural network, depending on the variant of neural network the training methodology is different, but to use simple reinforcement learning as an example, the agent receives input, and outputs a decision, the decision has reprocussions, and that modifies the neural structure of the agent resulting in a different result next time. If most neural networks didn't apply some form of 'seed' or randomness in their creation, using the same data or same scenario on this simple NN would result in the same output every time, and subsequent training would modify the result, but it would be the same as the modified result in the last test. In real life there is obviously more to shape the 'network' than just reprocussions of decisions, but that's the point simplifed.

>>10881265
Well, think about the ball: it cannot swim in any other direction without a motor or extremities, nor can it prevent itself from being moved in another direction from a wave. Just like the ball, humans are affected by external factors in which they have no control over. Such external factors do add up (even to the extent of subconscious influence that may not even be motivationally relevant to the proposed action), and agents have to seemingly act within such factors.

Plus, I don't think you need to get rid of the "living" portion of the argument. If anything, I feel that it is the most important part of it all. Instead, I think the approach should be one that analyzes physical systems (including humans) statistically and from a standpoint in which considers uncertainty, stochastic processes, and whatever other things that play a role in presenting new situations for an agent to seemingly act on. I think agents are more or less "confined" (how are you defining this for your argument?) because they can only act within whatever conditions their physical states, mental states, and external factors allow them to.

>>10881290
I really appreciate your neural network argument. You still have to consider the layers in which the network determines which neuron to feed, and the different outcomes are due to probability which is why I mention the importance of uncertainty and statistics in my previous post. The modelling and activation methods are based on mathematical models, which still lean more towards determinism more so than free will (being that it obeys a set of equations and does not act on its own but I digress). I think instead of viewing something living as an "object", which then implies the absence of consciousness, I think you would agree that it would be moreso making a mathematical model (function) for the physical system or agent at hand. This is what I mean when I bring up the statistics jazz, and I'm sure this is what you mean too.

Of course, scale this up to universal size and you get a clusterfuck so convoluted it only seems natural for free will to exist, as tracking all the external factors (and other things) influencing an agent turns into a practically impossible task; however, one should theoretically still be able to predict an agent's "decision" granted they have enough relevant data, as previously discussed.

>>10881345
>Plus, I don't think you need to get rid of the "living" portion of the argument. If anything, I feel that it is the most important part of it all.

I would disagree, the living portion of it only results in personifying and thinking illogically and emotionally about these 'agents' as the concept of being 'confined' as you say is troubling to people. As I say later in this post, rather than using the term object I should have used a more descriptive term. By dehumanizing the agent, I instead was hoping towards thinking about it more as a neural network. The issue with the whole debate is that we've established objects can be predictable, and as you scale up the systems, nothing changes except for the complexity of the problem, and the 'face' of the 'object' in this case becoming a living human, and we apply emotions and irrationality to those humans and we can't think about it logically, and as a result somehow the people attempt to draw the conclusion that a ball can be predictable but humans cant.

>>10881388

>You still have to consider the layers in which the network determines which neuron to feed, and the different outcomes are due to probability...

I understand what you mean, but my reasoning for making it as simple as I did is to appeal to a mainstream audience which may not have experience with these systems, and despite my attempt at simplification I still did a poor job explaining it upon a further re-read. I will try to improve on that in the future.

>I think instead of viewing something living as an "object", which then implies the absence of consciousness, I think you would agree that it would be moreso making a mathematical model (function) for the physical system or agent at hand.

Yeah, absolutely. I should have not used the term object, but you understood what I meant, and its easier to present than a more accurate term which may be more confusing or convoluted.

>>10881431
Oh, if you meant forgetting about the "living" aspect to objectively mathematically model it then I agree. What I meant by the importance of an agent to be "living" is that if it weren't, then it wouldn't have consciousness, and then there wouldn't even be any free will to debate over. I misunderstood what you meant originally but it's clear now. Anyway, thanks for the discussion anon, it's rare to get anything interesting and engaging on this board anymore but you have restored my hope.

>>10881505
no, thank you!