I thought you made an argument that physical determinism somehow means that there’s no free will because physics is causes an effect to happen.
No, that’s not my argument. My argument (well, one of them anyway) is that if I am reliably predictable, then it must be the case that I am deterministic, and therefore I cannot have free will.
I actually go even further than that. If I am not reliably predictable, then I might have free will, but my mere unpredictability is not enough to establish that I have free will. Weather systems are not reliably predictable, but they don’t have free will. It is not even the case that non-determinism is sufficient to establish free will. Photons are non-deterministic, but they don’t have free will.
That’s an appeal to the authority of your personal intuition.
Well, yeah, of course it is (though I would not call my intuitions an “authority”). This whole discussion starts from a subjective experience that I have (and that other people report having), namely, feeling like I have free will. I don’t know of any way to talk about a subjective experience without referring to my personal intuitions about it.
The difference between free will and other subjective experiences like, say, seeing color, is that seeing colors can be easily grounded in an objective external reality, whereas with free will it’s not so easy. In fact, no one has exhibited a satisfactory explanation of my subjective experience that is grounded in objective reality, hence my conclusion that my subjective experience of having free will is an illusion.
This whole discussion starts from a subjective experience that I have (and that other people report having), namely, feeling like I have free will.
To the extend that the subjective experience you call free will is independent on what other people mean with the term free will, the arguments about it aren’t that interesting for the general discussion about whether what’s commonly called free will exists.
More importantly concepts that start from “I have the feeling that X is true” usually produce models of reality that aren’t true in 100% of the cases. They make some decent predictions and fail predictions in other cases.
It’s usually possible to refine concepts to be better at predicting. It’s part of science to develop operationalized terms.
This started by you saying But the word "free" has an established meaning in English. That’s you pointing to a shared understanding of free and not you pointing to your private experience.
No, that’s not my argument. My argument (well, one of them anyway) is that if I am reliably predictable, then it must be the case that I am deterministic, and therefore I cannot have free will.
Human’s are not reliably predictive due to being NFA’s. Out of memory Heinz von Förster bring the example of a child answer the question of: “What’s 1+1?” with “Blue”. It needs a education to train children to actually give predicable answers to the question what’s “What’s 1+1?”.
Weather systems are not reliably predictable, but they don’t have free will.
I think the issue with why weather systems are not predictable is not because they aren’t free to make choices (if you use certain models) but because is about the part of “will”. Having a will is about having desires. The weather doesn’t have desires in the same sense that humans do and thus it has no free will.
I think that humans do have desire that influence the choices they make even in the absence of them being conscious of the desire creating the choice.
The difference between free will and other subjective experiences like, say, seeing color, is that seeing colors can be easily grounded in an objective external reality
Grounding the concept of color in external reality isn’t trival. There are many competing definitions. You can define it over what the human eye perceives which has a lot to do with human genetics that differ from person to person. You can define it over wave-lengths. . You can define it over RGB values.
It doesn’t make sense to argue that color doesn’t exist because the human qualia of color doesn’t map directly to the wave-length definition of color
With color the way you determine the difference between colors is also a fun topic. The W3C definition for example leads to strange consequences.
That’s you pointing to a shared understanding of free and not you pointing to your private experience.
You’re conflating two different things:
Attempting to communicate about a phenomenon which is rooted in a subjective experience.
Attempting to conduct that communication using words rather than, say, music or dance.
Talking about the established meaning of the word “free” has to do with #2, not #1. The fact that my personal opinion enters into the discussion has to do with #1, not #2.
I think that humans do have desire that influence the choices they make
Yes, of course I agree. But that’s not the question at issue. The question is not whether we have “desires” or “will” (we all agree that we do), the question is whether or not we have FREE will. I think it’s pretty clear that we do NOT have the freedom to choose our desires. At least I don’t seem to; maybe other people are different. So where does this alleged freedom enter the process?
Grounding the concept of color in external reality isn’t trival
I never said it was. In fact, the difficulty of grounding color perception in objective reality actually supports my position. One would expect that the grounding of free will perception in objective reality to be at least as difficult as grounding color perception, but I don’t see those who support the objective reality of free will undertaking such a project, at least not here.
I’m willing to be convinced that this free will thing is real, but as with any extraordinary claim the burden is on you to prove that it is, not on me to prove that it is not.
I’m willing to be convinced that this free will thing is real, but as with any extraordinary claim the burden is on you to prove that it is, not on me to prove that it is not.
Pretty much everyone perceives himself/herself freely making choices, so the claim that free will is real is consistent with most peoples’ direct experience. While this does not prove that free will is real, it does suggest that the claim that free will is real is not really any more extraordinary than the claim that it is not real. So, I do not think that the person claiming that free will is real has any greater burden of proof than the person who claims that it is not.
That’s not a valid argument for at least four reasons:
There are manyperceptualillusions, so the hypothesis that free will is an illusion is not a priori an extraordinary claim. (In fact, the feeling that you are living in a classical Galilean universe is a perceptual illusion!)
There is evidence that free will is in fact a perceptual illusion.
It makes evolutionary sense that the genes that built our brains would want to limit the extent to which they could become self-aware. If you knew that your strings were being pulled you might sink into existential despair, which is not generally salubrious to reproductive fitness.
We now understand quite a bit about how the brain works and about how computers work, and all the evidence indicates that the brain is a computer. More precisely, there is nothing a brain can do that a properly programmed Turing machine could not do, and therefore no property that a brain have that cannot be given to a Turing machine. Some Turing machines definitely do not have free will (if you believe that a thermostat has free will, well, we’re just going to have to agree to disagree about that). So if free will is a real thing you should be able to exhibit some way to distinguish those Turing machines that have free will from those that do not. I have heard no one propose such a criterion that doesn’t lead to conclusions that grate irredeemably upon my intuitions about what free will is (or what it would have to be if it were a real thing).
In this respect, free will really is very much like God except that the subjective experience of free will is more common than the subjective experience of the Presence of the Holy Spirit.
BTW, it is actually possible that the subjective experience of free will is not universal among humans. It is possible that some people don’t have this subjective perception, just as some people don’t experience the Presence of the Holy Spirit. It is possible that this lack of the subjective perception of free will is what leads some people to submit to the will of Allah, or to become Calvinists.
so the hypothesis that free will is an illusion is not a priori an extraordinary claim
I basically agree with that too—it is you rather than me who brought up the notion of extraordinary claims. It seems to me that the notion of extraordinary claims in this case is a red herring—that free will is real is a claim, and that free will is not real is a claim; I am simply arguing that neither claim has a greater burden of proof than the other. In fact, I think that there is room for reasonable people to disagree with regard to the free will question.
In fact, the feeling that you are living in a classical Galilean universe is a perceptual illusion!
I don’t know what that means exactly, but it sounds intriguing! Do you a link or a reference with additional information?
2 There is evidence that free will is in fact a perceptual illusion
None of those experiments provides strong evidence; the article you linked lists for several of the experiments objections to interpreting the experiment as evidence against free will (e.g., per the article, “Libet himself did not interpret his experiment as evidence of the inefficacy of conscious free will”). One thing in particular that I noticed is that many of the experiments dealt with more-less arbitrary decisions—e.g. when to flick one’s wrist, when to make brisk finger movements at arbitrary intervals, etc. Even if it could be shown that the brain somehow goes on autopilot when making trivial, arbitrary decisions that hold no significant consequences, it is not clear that this says anything about more significant decisions—e.g. what college to attend, how much one should spend on a house, etc.
3 It makes evolutionary sense that the genes that built our brains would want to limit the extent to which they could become self-aware. If you knew that your strings were being pulled you might sink into existential despair, which is not generally salubrious to reproductive fitness.
That is a reasonable statement and I have no argument with it. But, while it provides a possible explanation why we might perceive free will even if it does not exist, I don’t think that it provides significant evidence against free will.
4 We now understand quite a bit about how the brain works and about how computers work, and all the evidence indicates that the brain is a computer. More precisely, there is nothing a brain can do that a properly programmed Turing machine could not do
I agree with that.
and therefore no property that a brain have that cannot be given to a Turing machine. Some Turing machines definitely do not have free will… So if free will is a real thing you should be able to exhibit some way to distinguish those Turing machines that have free will from those that do not.
If that statement is valid, then it seems to me that the following statement is also valid:
“There is no property that a brain can have that cannot be given to a Turing machine. Some Turing machines definitely are not conscious. So if consciousness is a real thing you should be able to exhibit some way to distinguish those Turing machines that are conscious will from those that are not.”
So, do you believe that consciousness is a real thing? And, can a Turing machine be conscious? If so, how are we to distinguish those Turing machines that are conscious will from those that are not?
neither claim has a greater burden of proof than the other
That may be. Nonetheless, at the moment I believe that free is an illusion, and I have some evidence that supports that belief. I see no evidence to support the contrary belief. So if you want to convince me that free will is real then you’ll have to show me some evidence.
If you don’t care what I believe then you are under no obligations :-)
None of those experiments provides strong evidence
The fact that you can reliably predict some actions that people perceive as volitional up to ten seconds in advance seems like pretty strong evidence to me. But I suppose reasonable people could disagree about this. In any case, I didn’t say there was strong evidence, I just said there was some evidence.
So, do you believe that consciousness is a real thing?
That depends a little on what you mean by “a real thing.” Free will and consciousness are both real subjective experiences, but neither one is objectively real. Their natures are very similar. I might even go so far as to say that they are the same phenomenon. I recommend reading this book if you really want to understand it.
And, can a Turing machine be conscious?
Yes, of course. You would have to be a dualist to believe otherwise.
If so, how are we to distinguish those Turing machines that are conscious will from those that are not?
That’s very tricky. I don’t know. I’m pretty sure that our current methods of determining consciousness produce a lot of false negatives. But if a computer that could pass the Turing test told me it was conscious, and could describe for me what it’s like to be a conscious computer, I’d be inclined to believe it.
I don’t know what that means exactly, but it sounds intriguing! Do you a link or a reference with additional information?
It’s not that deep. It just means that your perception of reality is different from actual reality in some pretty fundamental ways. The sun appears to revolve around the earth, but it doesn’t. The chair you’re sitting on seems like a solid object, but it isn’t. “Up” always feels like it’s the same direction, but it’s not. And you feel like you have free will, but you don’t. :-)
If you don’t care what I believe then you are under no obligations
As a matter of fact, I think the free will question is an interesting question, but not an instrumentally important question; I can’t really think of anything I would do differently if I were to change my mind on the matter. This is especially true if you are right—in that case we’d both do whatever we’re going to do and it wouldn’t matter at all!
Free will and consciousness are both real subjective experiences, but neither one is objectively real. Their natures are very similar. I might even go so far as to say that they are the same phenomenon.
Interesting. The reason I asked the question is that there are some thinkers who deny the reality of free will but accept the reality of consciousness (e.g. Alex Rosenberg); I was curious if you are in that camp. It sounds as though you are not.
I recommend reading this book if you really want to understand (consciousness).
Glad to see you are open to at least some of Daniel Dennett’s views! (He’s a compatibilist, I believe.)
It’s not that deep. It (the idea that the feeling that you are living in a classical Galilean universe is a perceptual illusion) just means that your perception of reality is different from actual reality in some pretty fundamental ways. The sun appears to revolve around the earth, but it doesn’t. The chair you’re sitting on seems like a solid object, but it isn’t. “Up” always feels like it’s the same direction, but it’s not.
Understood. My confusion came from the term “Galilean Universe” which I assumed was a reference to Galileo (who was actually on-board with the idea of the Earth orbiting the Sun—that is one of the things that got him into some trouble with the authorities!)
we’d both do whatever we’re going to do and it wouldn’t matter at all!
Exactly right. I live my life as if I’m a classical conscious being with free will even though I know that metaphysically I’m not. It’s kind of fun knowing the truth though. It gives me a lot of peace of mind.
I was curious if you are in that camp.
I’m not familiar with Rosenberg so I couldn’t say.
Glad to see you are open to at least some of Daniel Dennett’s views! (He’s a compatibilist, I believe.)
Yes, I think you’re right. (That video is actually well worth watching!)
Galilean Universe
Sorry, my bad. I meant it in the sense of Galilean relativity (a.k.a. Newtonian relativity, though Galileo actually thought of it first) where time rather than the speed of light is the same for all observers.
No, that’s not my argument. My argument (well, one of them anyway) is that if I am reliably predictable, then it must be the case that I am deterministic, and therefore I cannot have free will.
I actually go even further than that. If I am not reliably predictable, then I might have free will, but my mere unpredictability is not enough to establish that I have free will. Weather systems are not reliably predictable, but they don’t have free will. It is not even the case that non-determinism is sufficient to establish free will. Photons are non-deterministic, but they don’t have free will.
Well, yeah, of course it is (though I would not call my intuitions an “authority”). This whole discussion starts from a subjective experience that I have (and that other people report having), namely, feeling like I have free will. I don’t know of any way to talk about a subjective experience without referring to my personal intuitions about it.
The difference between free will and other subjective experiences like, say, seeing color, is that seeing colors can be easily grounded in an objective external reality, whereas with free will it’s not so easy. In fact, no one has exhibited a satisfactory explanation of my subjective experience that is grounded in objective reality, hence my conclusion that my subjective experience of having free will is an illusion.
To the extend that the subjective experience you call free will is independent on what other people mean with the term free will, the arguments about it aren’t that interesting for the general discussion about whether what’s commonly called free will exists.
More importantly concepts that start from “I have the feeling that X is true” usually produce models of reality that aren’t true in 100% of the cases. They make some decent predictions and fail predictions in other cases.
It’s usually possible to refine concepts to be better at predicting. It’s part of science to develop operationalized terms.
This started by you saying
But the word "free" has an established meaning in English. That’s you pointing to a shared understanding offreeand not you pointing to your private experience.Human’s are not reliably predictive due to being NFA’s. Out of memory Heinz von Förster bring the example of a child answer the question of: “What’s 1+1?” with “Blue”. It needs a education to train children to actually give predicable answers to the question what’s “What’s 1+1?”.
I think the issue with why weather systems are not predictable is not because they aren’t free to make choices (if you use certain models) but because is about the part of “will”. Having a will is about having desires. The weather doesn’t have desires in the same sense that humans do and thus it has no free will.
I think that humans do have desire that influence the choices they make even in the absence of them being conscious of the desire creating the choice.
Grounding the concept of color in external reality isn’t trival. There are many competing definitions. You can define it over what the human eye perceives which has a lot to do with human genetics that differ from person to person. You can define it over wave-lengths. . You can define it over RGB values.
It doesn’t make sense to argue that color doesn’t exist because the human qualia of color doesn’t map directly to the wave-length definition of color
With color the way you determine the difference between colors is also a fun topic. The W3C definition for example leads to strange consequences.
You’re conflating two different things:
Attempting to communicate about a phenomenon which is rooted in a subjective experience.
Attempting to conduct that communication using words rather than, say, music or dance.
Talking about the established meaning of the word “free” has to do with #2, not #1. The fact that my personal opinion enters into the discussion has to do with #1, not #2.
Yes, of course I agree. But that’s not the question at issue. The question is not whether we have “desires” or “will” (we all agree that we do), the question is whether or not we have FREE will. I think it’s pretty clear that we do NOT have the freedom to choose our desires. At least I don’t seem to; maybe other people are different. So where does this alleged freedom enter the process?
I never said it was. In fact, the difficulty of grounding color perception in objective reality actually supports my position. One would expect that the grounding of free will perception in objective reality to be at least as difficult as grounding color perception, but I don’t see those who support the objective reality of free will undertaking such a project, at least not here.
I’m willing to be convinced that this free will thing is real, but as with any extraordinary claim the burden is on you to prove that it is, not on me to prove that it is not.
Pretty much everyone perceives himself/herself freely making choices, so the claim that free will is real is consistent with most peoples’ direct experience. While this does not prove that free will is real, it does suggest that the claim that free will is real is not really any more extraordinary than the claim that it is not real. So, I do not think that the person claiming that free will is real has any greater burden of proof than the person who claims that it is not.
That’s not a valid argument for at least four reasons:
There are many perceptual illusions, so the hypothesis that free will is an illusion is not a priori an extraordinary claim. (In fact, the feeling that you are living in a classical Galilean universe is a perceptual illusion!)
There is evidence that free will is in fact a perceptual illusion.
It makes evolutionary sense that the genes that built our brains would want to limit the extent to which they could become self-aware. If you knew that your strings were being pulled you might sink into existential despair, which is not generally salubrious to reproductive fitness.
We now understand quite a bit about how the brain works and about how computers work, and all the evidence indicates that the brain is a computer. More precisely, there is nothing a brain can do that a properly programmed Turing machine could not do, and therefore no property that a brain have that cannot be given to a Turing machine. Some Turing machines definitely do not have free will (if you believe that a thermostat has free will, well, we’re just going to have to agree to disagree about that). So if free will is a real thing you should be able to exhibit some way to distinguish those Turing machines that have free will from those that do not. I have heard no one propose such a criterion that doesn’t lead to conclusions that grate irredeemably upon my intuitions about what free will is (or what it would have to be if it were a real thing).
In this respect, free will really is very much like God except that the subjective experience of free will is more common than the subjective experience of the Presence of the Holy Spirit.
BTW, it is actually possible that the subjective experience of free will is not universal among humans. It is possible that some people don’t have this subjective perception, just as some people don’t experience the Presence of the Holy Spirit. It is possible that this lack of the subjective perception of free will is what leads some people to submit to the will of Allah, or to become Calvinists.
I agree with that
I basically agree with that too—it is you rather than me who brought up the notion of extraordinary claims. It seems to me that the notion of extraordinary claims in this case is a red herring—that free will is real is a claim, and that free will is not real is a claim; I am simply arguing that neither claim has a greater burden of proof than the other. In fact, I think that there is room for reasonable people to disagree with regard to the free will question.
I don’t know what that means exactly, but it sounds intriguing! Do you a link or a reference with additional information?
None of those experiments provides strong evidence; the article you linked lists for several of the experiments objections to interpreting the experiment as evidence against free will (e.g., per the article, “Libet himself did not interpret his experiment as evidence of the inefficacy of conscious free will”). One thing in particular that I noticed is that many of the experiments dealt with more-less arbitrary decisions—e.g. when to flick one’s wrist, when to make brisk finger movements at arbitrary intervals, etc. Even if it could be shown that the brain somehow goes on autopilot when making trivial, arbitrary decisions that hold no significant consequences, it is not clear that this says anything about more significant decisions—e.g. what college to attend, how much one should spend on a house, etc.
That is a reasonable statement and I have no argument with it. But, while it provides a possible explanation why we might perceive free will even if it does not exist, I don’t think that it provides significant evidence against free will.
I agree with that.
If that statement is valid, then it seems to me that the following statement is also valid:
“There is no property that a brain can have that cannot be given to a Turing machine. Some Turing machines definitely are not conscious. So if consciousness is a real thing you should be able to exhibit some way to distinguish those Turing machines that are conscious will from those that are not.”
So, do you believe that consciousness is a real thing? And, can a Turing machine be conscious? If so, how are we to distinguish those Turing machines that are conscious will from those that are not?
That may be. Nonetheless, at the moment I believe that free is an illusion, and I have some evidence that supports that belief. I see no evidence to support the contrary belief. So if you want to convince me that free will is real then you’ll have to show me some evidence.
If you don’t care what I believe then you are under no obligations :-)
The fact that you can reliably predict some actions that people perceive as volitional up to ten seconds in advance seems like pretty strong evidence to me. But I suppose reasonable people could disagree about this. In any case, I didn’t say there was strong evidence, I just said there was some evidence.
That depends a little on what you mean by “a real thing.” Free will and consciousness are both real subjective experiences, but neither one is objectively real. Their natures are very similar. I might even go so far as to say that they are the same phenomenon. I recommend reading this book if you really want to understand it.
Yes, of course. You would have to be a dualist to believe otherwise.
That’s very tricky. I don’t know. I’m pretty sure that our current methods of determining consciousness produce a lot of false negatives. But if a computer that could pass the Turing test told me it was conscious, and could describe for me what it’s like to be a conscious computer, I’d be inclined to believe it.
It’s not that deep. It just means that your perception of reality is different from actual reality in some pretty fundamental ways. The sun appears to revolve around the earth, but it doesn’t. The chair you’re sitting on seems like a solid object, but it isn’t. “Up” always feels like it’s the same direction, but it’s not. And you feel like you have free will, but you don’t. :-)
As a matter of fact, I think the free will question is an interesting question, but not an instrumentally important question; I can’t really think of anything I would do differently if I were to change my mind on the matter. This is especially true if you are right—in that case we’d both do whatever we’re going to do and it wouldn’t matter at all!
Interesting. The reason I asked the question is that there are some thinkers who deny the reality of free will but accept the reality of consciousness (e.g. Alex Rosenberg); I was curious if you are in that camp. It sounds as though you are not.
Glad to see you are open to at least some of Daniel Dennett’s views! (He’s a compatibilist, I believe.)
Understood. My confusion came from the term “Galilean Universe” which I assumed was a reference to Galileo (who was actually on-board with the idea of the Earth orbiting the Sun—that is one of the things that got him into some trouble with the authorities!)
Exactly right. I live my life as if I’m a classical conscious being with free will even though I know that metaphysically I’m not. It’s kind of fun knowing the truth though. It gives me a lot of peace of mind.
I’m not familiar with Rosenberg so I couldn’t say.
Yes, I think you’re right. (That video is actually well worth watching!)
Sorry, my bad. I meant it in the sense of Galilean relativity (a.k.a. Newtonian relativity, though Galileo actually thought of it first) where time rather than the speed of light is the same for all observers.