P1 is wrong because it’s impossible to observe free will. If free will equals randomness, and randomness is indistinguishable from non randomness for all practical purposes, then it’s impossible to know if you live in a universe with free will or not.
However defining free will as randomness is really weird, which is what I tried to argue above. If randomness is determining your actions, that’s not your will, and the result is meaningless. You don’t gain any useful information by watching a coin flip.
I think my possible argumentative error is:
P1: I observe free will in the behavior of living things.
P2: Deterministic physical mechanical processes don’t permit free will.
C: Therefore physics must include random processes.
I think I only see a solution of free will in randomness, but maybe there are other solutions ( I will read the Free Will Sequence here on LW!)
P1 is wrong because it’s impossible to observe free will. If free will equals randomness, and randomness is indistinguishable from non randomness for all practical purposes, then it’s impossible to know if you live in a universe with free will or not.
However defining free will as randomness is really weird, which is what I tried to argue above. If randomness is determining your actions, that’s not your will, and the result is meaningless. You don’t gain any useful information by watching a coin flip.
I agree, both P1 and P2 are false because free will is unobservable to begin with.
This post and the exchanges with you and others have helped me advance my thinking a lot about these issues.
I am reading the Free Will Sequence too.