/sci/ - Science & Math

>>12167165
If a gave you evidence it would just be because I was forced to since we have no free will.

>>12167179
Just tell me how is science if possible with free will? I can't cope it, bros, help me!

>>12167165
>Give some good evidence that free will exist
Your perception of your own free will is as good evidence as you can get.
Given that there are 0 good reasons to doubt this perception, it's completely rational and justified to believe in free will.
You may think you have reasons, but they're all easily refuted. You can give a reason that convinced you you can't have free will and I'll refute it.

It is reasonable to believe in free will.

1. If some fact or statement is immediately perceived to be true then it's reasonable to belief the statement is true unless your perception is challenged by a valid reason why it could be wrong.
Examples: I remember that yesterday I drank a cup of coffee. There are no valid reasons to believe my perception is wrong and that in fact I didn't drink any coffee yesterday. In absence of such counterevidence, it's reasonable to believe that I actually drank coffee yesterday. I do not need to come up with a mechanism for how my memory works to believe it, nor do I need to give precise technical/philosophical definitions of memory and the word "drank" for it to be reasonable for me to believe this fact. My immediate perception of this fact is enough for it to be reasonable, in absence of evidence or reasons to the contrary.
2. I immediately perceive my own free will (the ability for me to make choices, i.e. influence the future).
I perceived it when I was a child and I still perceive it. In fact, my own perception in free will has been central to the way I live and the way I think about the world. I regularly spend time thinking about how to improve my own future which would make no sense in a worldview where I am not able to influence my own future (for example, in a worldview where everything is already predetermined).
3. The only reason I'm aware of that attempts to challenge my perception of free will is the notion of determinism. That is, the state of the universe at one point in time completely determines how it will look at all subsequent points in time, which is theoretically predictable.
If you have any other reasons for me to doubt free will that are unrelated to determinism feel free to point them out in this thread, I'd be happy to discuss.
<cont>

>>12167191
<cont>
4. Determinism is conclusively disproved by quantum phenomena.
For example, the splitting of an atom which is an indeterministic process (impossible to predict the measurement using any theoretical laws of physics) can have large scale direct influence over the real world. For example, I might test if an atom is split after some small amount of time, if it is then I go to the store while if it's not I stay at home. Since the measurement is indeterministic and has large scale real life consequences, it conclusively refutes determinism.
5. Therefore, I don't know any good reasons to believe that my own immediate perception of my free will is flawed and not to be trusted.
6. Therefore, it's reasonable for me to believe that I have free will.

Discuss.

>>12167190
>>12167191
>>12167192

What about behavioral genetics?

>>12167198
Well, what about them?

>>12167191
>1. If some fact or statement is immediately perceived to be true then it's reasonable to belief the statement is true unless your perception is challenged by a valid reason why it could be wrong.

By that logic, a schizo could be a valid reason to belive that his crazies is true.

>>12167191
2. I immediately perceive my own free will (the ability for me to make choices, i.e. influence the future).
I perceived it when I was a child and I still perceive it. In fact, my own perception in free will has been central to the way I live and the way I think about the world. I regularly spend time thinking about how to improve my own future which would make no sense in a worldview where I am not able to influence my own future (for example, in a worldview where everything is already predetermined).

The future is already set in stone, dude, but we don't know about how will play out. Just like one day you will die, but you don't know how you will die

>>12167201
Correct. He is rational to trust his perceptions if there is nothing telling him that his perceptions are faulty.
Just a colorblind person is rational to believe different colors are the same before he is told that he's colorblind.
>>12167205
Cope. You have 0 evidence for this. It's just a fantasy you tell yourself.

>>12167208
It's not cope, it is just logic in action.

>>12167165
Seriously OP do you have 1 good reason to believe there's no free will?
I'd be really interested in hearing it.
So far I've only heard extremely weak objections which are incredibly easy to refute
>the world is deterministic therefore there can't be free will
>if the world is indeterministic it's random and randomness can only give you randomness, not free will
>for every decision there are reasons behind it which determine the decision all of which are eventually out of your control, thus you have no actual control over your decisions
>neuroscience shows your brain makes a decision before you consciously become aware of it. Thus it's not you making the decision, but the biology in your brain.
>We are a combination of our genes and our environment and all our actions are a product of these. We have no control over these therefore free will is an illusion.
All of these are extremely weak and retarded objections that a child could refute (and which I've refuted multiple times in the other thread about free will).
Do you have a better one? Or do you want to keep repeating the same retarded objections?

You have just as much free will as the particles you are made out of, None.

Soon you have strong urge to go to the toilet and all these silly ideals go down in to the shitters. Then eat some food, you need the energy. Good biological robot you are.

>>12167225
What logic? Show me the logic.
>>12167230
>You have just as much free will as the particles you are made out of
Why is that?
>None
Why do you think so?
0 evidence for any of your claims.

>>12167184
God says make sex robots and have sex with them. It’s his plan, you can’t deny it cuz no free will.

>>12167229
>universe is a physical system with cause and actions
>any child can refute that

No.

Sometimes I think that brainlets who don't trust their own perception of free will and instead believe in incredibly faulty arguments that there's no free will are better off not believing in it.
It's like an automatic filter for being a brainlet cattle. It's easier to control you that way because you will be predisposed to thinking about the world and your own situation in a helpless manner.

>>12167190
>>12167191
>>12167192
>>12167200
>>12167229
>>12167234

Schizo and weak arguments.

>>12167246
Cope.

>>12167243
>Sometimes I think that brainlets who don't trust their own perception of free will
An assumption is not a perception.

The burden of proof is on you to show free will exists. Good luck even describing what it is in a coherent way. If you can't do this then there is no reason to believe it exists. It's neither coherent nor necessary to explain anything.

>>12167251
I feel the divine love of Jesus in my heart. Only brainlets deny this.

>>12167234
For free will to exist you need to show that it is possible to build something large from small building blocks that is independent of the behavior of these small blocks. Notice, this is not the same as large system behaving in a way that cannot be predicted from its parts. Brain activity is definitely emergent like that. You can´t predict it based on knowing how single neuron works. However, there is nothing extra either, it can be fully described based on all neurons together.

>>12167190
based animeposter

>>12167165
You first need to define free will before the question can even be considered meaningful.

https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Free_will_(solution)

>>12167258
>The burden of proof is on you to show free will exists. Good luck even describing what it is in a coherent way. If you can't do this then there is no reason to believe it exists.
All three of these objections are dealt with in my argument. Read it again.

>>12167165
>Desireurges me on, while fear bridals me.

>>12167264
>For free will to exist you need to show that it is possible to build something large from small building blocks that is independent of the behavior of these small blocks
Why?
Why should free will be independent of the behavior of neurons? Clearly it's not independent. Freedom of will is very much dependent on consciousness which is in turn strongly dependent on our brain, which is dependent on the neurons that constitute it and so on.
>>12167267
>You first need to define free will before the question can even be considered meaningful
Why? We constantly argue and reason about things without giving definitions for them. Why should free will be an exception. So far ITT no one has given a definition for free will and yet we are able to talk about it.

>>12167268
No they're not. Every facet of your argument is flawed.

1. You have not explained what "perceiving" free will means

2. You have not explained what free will means

3. You set up a strawman of determinism and then knock it down with random action, while failing to realize that if everything is fundamentally based in random action and/or deterministic processes, that still leaves no room for free will.

>>12167262
I don't think that only brainlets could deny it. However, if you think there are no good reasons to believe your perception is faulty, it's true that only brainlets will deny that it's rational for you to believe what you just said.
>>12167280
>1. You have not explained what "perceiving" free will means
OK now it's completely clear to me what's going on. You should not bother with the argument.
You see, most people do perceive free will and if asked about it they readily testify that they do.
Unfortunately, you don't even seem to understand what it means to perceive free will. That means you probably don't have free will, i.e. are a NPC. That's very unusual but it's also OK. Nothing wrong with it.

>>12167242
Formulate a full argument for this that you want me to refute and I'll refute it.

>>12167283
>However, if you think there are no good reasons to believe your perception is faulty
It's not perception that's faulty, it's your assumption that's faulty. The reason it's faulty is that it makes no sense and there is no evidence for it.

>You see, most people do perceive free will and if asked about it they readily testify that they do.
Most people assume free will.

But thanks for admitting that free will can't exist since everything is random or determined.

>>12167301
>Most people assume free will
Why do you think they do that?

>>12167165
If you have free will, then you have it. If you don't, you don't. That's all you need.

>>12167310

>>12167305
Because that's what they are taught. People also assume they have souls.

You are confusing the perception of making a choice with free will. Perceiving choice is just will, not free will. We know from neuroscientific studies that choices can be perceived long after they have already been subconsciously made. So what does the perception of choice tell us about free will? Nothing.

Why does it matter? If the universe is completely deterministic with no free will but you don't know what actions your future self will undertake, then it might as well be same as if you had free will.

>>12167165
If free will does not exist, then why are you able to change your actions?

It does not exist in a traditional sense, admittedly. Consider a time travel experiment. A man is delivered a cake and eats it in a 5 minute span. Then, we go back in time 5 minutes ago. We have no real science to prove it, but logically, he performs the same action every time, no? This would suggest no free will, as even without time travel it would seem reality is just an infinitely complex set of dominoes that fall into place the same way every time.

But he can choose not to eat the cake, or he could choose to eat half of it. Whatever he wants to do, he can do. People argue this action is predetermined. But even if it is, he had the power to shape his destiny. Even if the destiny was already laid out from the start. It was changed by his mindset retroactively.

So free will exists, and it is the power to retroactively shape the future you are going to tread.

>>12167321
>You are confusing the perception of making a choice with free will. Perceiving choice is just will, not free will
That's what I meant when I said people perceive their free will. And it's not just the perception of choice, but the perception that the choice is theirs, and not determined by the environment. I.e. nobody is forcing them to make that choice.
Do you believe people are capable of making choices?
>We know from neuroscientific studies that choices can be perceived long after they have already been subconsciously made.
So? Why is it surprising that there is a delay between a choice being made and becoming aware of that choice?
>So what does the perception of choice tell us about free will?
It tells us that it's rational to consider it to be a real thing unless we have any evidence to the contrary (we don't).

>>12167341
Your experiment (if it could be performed) implies some randomness in the universe, not the existence of free will.

>this schizo anime poster saying that we can trust our instinct and minds, free will exist in physical universe
>science show that we are very flawed

Take your med, schizo anime poster.

Free will makes no sense, it defies cause and effect

>>12167362
You're grasping at straws.
>>this schizo anime poster saying that we can trust our instinct and minds
Only as long as we have no good reasons to doubt them.
For example, my instinct might tell me that the earth is flat. But it would not be rational to believe the earth is actually flat, since there are good reasons to believe my instinct is flawed and the earth is actually round.
However, I also perceive that I have two hands. I do not have a proof that I have two hands, I don't even know how I would go about proving it. I just perceive that I have two hands. And I am aware of no reasons to think my perception that I have two hands is faulty or not to be trusted. Thus it's rational for me to believe I have two hands.
In the exact same way, it's rational for me to believe I have free will.
>>12167366
How so?

>>12167355
No, my experiment proves there is no randomness (assuming the man behaves identically every time). Randomness is a scenario too complex to calculate (minus quantum measurements, which could invalidate this entire line of thought if they have something to do with consciousness). Regardless, my point is that the man's personality and willpower inevitably decided whether he was going to eat the cake.
Let's consider a new analogy. You are a rather abusive drinker and want to break the habit. You are scared by the thought of having no free will, and imagine you are destined to a future of alcohol. But you can just... stop drinking. There is no destiny stopping you from doing that. i, by, having the strong mindset I was destined to have, can stop the drinking habit. I have the power to retroactively shape what my destiny was decided to be.
Perhaps this method of thinking is a bit abstract, but it's likely it is incomprehensible in its entirety to third dimensional creatures who experience time.

>>12167366
Explain better, my dear sir.
>>12167399
Holy shit, you don't stop shit posting, let the real people with knowledge about free will talk about, schizo.

>>12167404
>let the real people with knowledge about free will talk about, schizo
Are you saying that I'm not... real? What do you think I am?

>>12167399
>How so?
Your mind doesn't override the mechanics of our universe. The mind is just a physical thing that follows that laws of the universe, you don't freely choose anything, your mind follows the laws of the universe just like everything else does.

>>12167417
what if laws are local?

>>12167417
>Your mind doesn't override the mechanics of our universe
But our mind is part of the universe. Why should it override the mechanics of the universe for free will to exist?
Maybe free will is one of the laws of the universe.
>you don't freely choose anything, your mind follows the laws of the universe just like everything else does
If there indeed are laws of the universe that everything follows, then I agree that my mind follows them as well, since my mind is part of the universe. Now how does that preclude free will?
I see no contradiction.

>>12167403
There's no way to verify that the experiment would turn out in a such a way that the man chooses differently on each attempt. It would make more sense that he makes the same choice each time if the circumstances are EXACTLY the same each time he makes the choice regarding the cake.

You don't have free will because you say "sike" to yourself and do something else than what you first thought to do, you are predetermined to do that. It doesn't even matter if you say sike twice, that still isn't proof for free will.

if the universe is a closed mathematical structure
and
mathematical itself is a closed or at least very closed structure that leave no room for illogical structure
and
we can describe humans in mathematical terms
then
humans can't have free will, because the universe doesn't allowed it

Free will doesnt exist.

>>12167426
>Maybe free will is one of the laws of the universe
Sure, but we have no evidence for that and there's nothing indicative of that being the case. The simpler explanation is that the mind is no different from any other structure in the universe and follows the universe's laws just the same, not that the mind influences the laws of the universe somehow. It's just Occam's razor.

>>12167428
I agree. Free will does not exist in the traditional sense, and what does exist is pure speculation, including what I said.
I don't think you fully read my post, that's fine, but basically I think that our actions, predecided, were decided based on our minds, and our minds are something it seems we can shape. Thus, we can retroactively shape the future with our decisions. And since those decisions were predecided, it becomes an infinite loop of deciding behavior that somehow gives us a strange version of "free will", the ability to choose the path we were destined to take. Toss in a quantum buzzword in there somewhere, too.

>>12167438
>if the universe is a closed mathematical structure
What do you mean by this? Do you mean that the universe can be completely described by some mathematical structure?
You seem to believe this is true. Do you have any evidence for this claim?
>closed or at least very closed
lol wut

>>12167354
>That's what I meant when I said people perceive their free will.
Then you're just spouting semantics.

>And it's not just the perception of choice, but the perception that the choice is theirs
That's not a perception, it's an assumption. You perceive that an object is red, you assume that object is red for a reason. That assumption is not empirical evidence of anything.

>Do you believe people are capable of making choices?
Yes, but those choices aren't free and the perception of choice is not related to control over that choice. This is scientifically proven, since choices have been shown to occur subconsciously before the perception of choice.

>Why is it surprising that there is a delay between a choice being made and becoming aware of that choice?
It should be surprising to you since your entire argument is based on awareness of something being evidence that you have control over it. If you are only aware of it after it already occured, how can you be in control if it?

>It tells us that it's rational to consider it to be a real thing unless we have any evidence to the contrary
No it tells us choice is a real thing, it says nothing about free will. Since free will is lacking both logical coherence and any evidence, there is no reason to believe it exists.

>>12167447
>Sure, but we have no evidence for that and there's nothing indicative of that being the case.
We don't need to. The mere logical possibility of this is enough to destroy your argument.
>The simpler explanation is that the mind is no different from any other structure in the universe and follows the universe's laws just the same, not that the mind influences the laws of the universe somehow
Explanation of what? What are we trying to explain?
And the mind is clearly different from other structures in the universe. Nobody would disagree that the mind is completely different from a chair, even though both are structures in the universe.
>and follows the universe's laws just the same
Sure (assuming there are laws in the universe).
>not that the mind influences the laws of the universe somehow
That's unnecessary for free will. As I already said, the mind is part of the universe so whatever laws there are in the universe, the mind must follow them.

>>12167452
The universe is mathematics, bro.

>>12167474
>The mere logical possibility of this is enough to destroy your argument.
No? Free will being real is highly unlikely, there is nothing speaking for free will being a thing.

>>12167471
>That's not a perception, it's an assumption.
What? An assumption is some proposition you take to be true without explaining why for an argument.
I know that I definitely perceive that the choice I make is mine.
>Yes, but those choices aren't free and the perception of choice is not related to control over that choice.
Then in what sense is it our choice? How is it possible to have no control over a choice you make? Surely then it can't be called a choice.
>It should be surprising to you since your entire argument is based on awareness of something being evidence that you have control over it
Perception of something being evidence that it's true.
>If you are only aware of it after it already occured, how can you be in control if it
Simple. There's more to me than my conscious awareness.

>>12167494
>there is nothing speaking for free will being a thing
I don't know about you, but I have great evidence for free will being a thing, namely my immediate perception of my ability to choose freely. In fact, this evidence is way stronger than the evidence for other propositions I also believe, like the earth being round.
>>12167482
Doubtless aspects of the universe have been described very accurately by mathematics. Some models were better than others. This indeed makes it seem more likely that there could be a complete mathematical description of the universe, but on the whole it doesn't seem very likely.

Even if the universe's fate was predetermined, it's not like you'd know about your future, so in a way, you still technically have free will since you cannot anticipate your own actions to a precise degree.

>>12167513
>My perception is evidence
Dude... We're on a science forum.

>Replies: 61
>Good reasons given to doubt the immediate perception of free will for those who have it: 0
NPCs seething

>>12167522
Literally all evidence in science derives from perception, brainlet.

>>12167525
Yes and I percieve there to be no free will. Do I cancel your perception out? What makes your perception the correct one?

>>12167520
This, even if the universe is 100% deterministic what comes your way might as well be random since you have no way of knowing it in advance.

>>12167531
>Yes and I percieve there to be no free will
Congratulations, you're a NPC. Don't worry, you're not the only one. For you, it's completely rational to trust your perception and to believe that you don't have free will since there is 0 good reasons to doubt your perception.