Kevin's Watch

wayfriend wrote: I prefer to believe that free will is more of a "causal collapse". It's when you trace a chain of cause and effect backwards and discover that the chain just arises out of nothing - an effect with no cause. This original effect, which is the exercise of our will, is, in essence, a miracle - an adam or eve of causality. In this way, we are like gods, in that we can cause things to be just by wishing it.

Hmmm, I quite like this.

--A

Agreed!

Was tempted to go Loresraat with this, but decided here.
The guy is a serious [but fun to hang and play with] mathematician.
I'll put a link to an article about him at the end---a few pages of profile/bio.
But the real point is this paper. [long-ish] Has math. But is also kinda fun to read. Some snippets, then the link to pdf.

To be more precise, what we shall show is that the particles’ response to a certain type of experiment is not determined by the entire previous history of that part of the universe accessible to them.
[More precisely still, the universe’s response in the neighborhood of the particles.]

[[[[[[[snip]]]]]]
if our physical axioms are even approximately true, the
free will assumption implies the stronger result, that no theory, whether it
extends quantum mechanics or not, can correctly predict the results of future spin experiments. It also makes it clear that this failure to predict is a merit rather than a defect, since these results involve free decisions that the universe has not yet made.
[[[[snip]]]]]

We are left with the case in which some of the information used (by a, say) is
spontaneous, that is to say, is itself not determined by any earlier information whatever.

Paper: arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/0604079v1.pdf
bio/profile: https://www.quantamagazine.org/20150828 ... -in-games/

I did try, honestly V. but while the spirit was willing the [grey] flesh was weak. Is there any simple way to relate the significance of this to the question of the thread. [From the abstract, they seem to be saying that they have demonstrated at least a degree of free-will in the universe and what exists in one place can by assumption be presumed to exist in all.]

If demonstrated then that alone would surely shake the world of Philosophy to it's knees [or at least demand massive levels of re-thinking in a multitude of areas].

Freedom is effectively an illusion, because almost all of us are not free for one or another reason.

However, freedom is still possible...but its implications are terrifying.

--A

But 'freedom' is always associated with 'freedom to do something'. It has no meaning unless applied to something; thus is the world composed of lots of little freedoms [or our self-referential worlds at least].

Freedom, if it exists, means being able to act in a way that is not restrained by circumstances.

Now, often in life we feel constrained in our actions. However, this is because we desire to see certain ends, and desire to avoid certain other ends. We may desire these modestly, or we may desire them greatly; to seek pleasure, or to avoid pain, or to survive. But this is not a lack of freedom, this is a self-imposed choice. This is the pursuit of desire. If we desire something so greatly that we cannot imagine any choice but one, we may poetically call it a lack of freedom, but it's actually a desire which rules the will completely.

Pursuing desire is complimentary to, not contradictory to, free will. Even when desire rules so completely that we cannot imagine any choice but one.

I once read/heard somewhere someone say that no-one ever does anything they don't want to. In a weird way there is truth of sorts in this and in some way [though I'm not sure how] it merges with the idea of freedom. If we never do anything but what we want [albeit often as the lesser of two 'don't wants'] are we actually free in making our choice? perfect freedom of action as Av notes above, possibly is only ever truly exercised by the unmitigated and unrestrained sociopath.

peter wrote:If demonstrated then that alone would surely shake the world of Philosophy to it's knees [or at least demand massive levels of re-thinking in a multitude of areas].

Re-thinking, for sure. But that would be good, I think.
If it is correct, there is still a fair amount of determinism/cause-effect out there. Hell, there has to be---or there couldn't be any remotely stable universe.
So, at various levels---the particulate/inanimate, the neuro/bio, the psycho, and the philosophical---people could begin trying to decipher under what conditions freedom/choice occurs. And under which it does not.

It would almost surely relate to knowing/creativity/intuition/discovery/invention.

And it would [eventually] relate to responsibility...punishment or treatment? [which is deserved, and also which would work/correct the problem]

I'm still thinking on it. But I like what I think I get so far---probably because it doesn't seem to contradict my preferred view of bounded freedom [we have some choices/intuition/leaps of knowing---but not any/all/total choice, and we can't leap to knowing in any direction/field...there are limits, and sometimes we will and sometimes we won't know when, how, or where we're leaping to. [related, I think, to restraint/constraint WF mentioned, and probably to Av's effective thought.]

Also, probably, because it means the future isn't set---so not only do we have some choice, they are/can be meaningful choices. We CAN change the future.
No matter how statistically powerful/predictive out tools become, they can still be Lord Foul-like. Correct---but wrong.

I also hope it's something close to right because I like the idea of messing with the common---in this case, instead of the conventional "exception that proves the rule," we get "the rules create the exceptions." That appeals to me.

peter wrote:If we never do anything but what we want [albeit often as the lesser of two 'don't wants'] are we actually free in making our choice?

If "freedom" isn't the freedom to do what you want, what is it? This is like saying I had no choice because I had to choose.

wayfriend wrote: This is like saying I had no choice because I had to choose.

I consider that, sometimes, a real situation.
Like, if someone says "Give me your money, or I kill you."
You can say that's a choice. [I'm pretty sure Av. somewhere said that it is a choice]. And it is in the extremely technical sense. But not in the important senses---including the important sense of "freedom" of choice.

For me, there will always be a difference in kind/category between "coercion" by circumstances, and coercion by other thinking, choice-capable beings.

Vraith wrote:Like, if someone says "Give me your money, or I kill you." You can say that's a choice. [I'm pretty sure Av. somewhere said that it is a choice]. And it is in the extremely technical sense. But not in the important senses---including the important sense of "freedom" of choice.

But it -is- free will, when considered as opposition to predetermination - which is as we have been. You're exactly as free to choose to give up your money as you are to choose mint chocolate chip, as far as the universe is concerned.

[But I would be on the same side as assumed-Av: you do have a choice. Just because one of your options is very distasteful doesn't mean it's not an option. And there may be yet other options that you do not see, but are nevertheless available. And, as SRD would say, you always have the power to choose how you feel about it ... the font from which all other options arise.]

Just because you don't like your options has no bearing whatsoever on whether you are free. The premise of freedom does not depend on promises of agreeable alternatives. No one can guarantee that you will like the available choices before you. It's impossible. Freedom is about your response to those options, not the creation of them.

If only more people realized this in the context of political and/or economic freedom ... just because we do not all have equal opportunities doesn't mean we aren't all equal to make choices that bear directly on those options. We create new options with every choice we make. Choosing to drop out of school or lead a life of crime narrows the scope of choices available to you. Choosing to own your freewill, to be responsible for your choices, makes the issue of available options less important over time, as new options are created by the right kind of choices.

Vraith wrote:So why is it that we hold those who SHOULD be most accountable, have the most choices, the most power, the largest effects, to the least responsibility?

You honestly think a CEO (for instance) has the least responsibility in our society? Take your average welfare recipient and your average CEO, and just think about that for a moment. People who owe their subsistence to the generosity of society have the least amount of responsibility. They don't have to take care of their kids, don't have to buy their own food, their own health care, or whatever. They seldom have to face the consequences of their choices ... which would be death in every other society that didn't have rich people to fund their irresponsibility.

Even if your claim wasn't ridiculous, even if it were true, I'd say those who create options for millions of people that wouldn't otherwise exist might deserve a break now and then when it comes to privileges of their wealth and power. That's not saying they should be exempt from laws, but greater access to politicians? Sure. Greater influence on legislation and regulation? Yep. From which responsibilities do you imagine they are exempt?

Vraith wrote:If it weren't for such foreclosure of options, the Egyptian pyramids would probably be cool still...but Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle might have been philosophizing from the moon, China's Great Wall would be a string of outposts in the asteroid belt, and Elon Musk would be working frantically on Spacex^Xth, to colonize extra-solar planets.

The foreclosure of options is directly attributable to the decline of rational/scientific thinking. If the ancient Greek culture had continued on the trajectory of Socrates' time, we'd have colonized the stars by now.

peter wrote:...possibly is only ever truly exercised by the unmitigated and unrestrained sociopath.

In many cases, but not necessarily. I mean, in theory, the person who embezzles the pension fund is also making his free choice. Doesn't make him a sociopath. But, some freedoms are only ever excercised by sociopaths and the like.

Vraith wrote:[I'm pretty sure Av. somewhere said that it is a choice]. And it is in the extremely technical sense. But not in the important senses---including the important sense of "freedom" of choice.

But it -is- free will, when considered as opposition to predetermination - which is as we have been. You're exactly as free to choose to give up your money as you are to choose mint chocolate chip, as far as the universe is concerned.

Yes, I have (and do) say it's a choice. Not a palatable one, but one nonetheless.

wayfriend wrote:[But I would be on the same side as assumed-Av: you do have a choice. Just because one of your options is very distasteful doesn't mean it's not an option. And there may be yet other options that you do not see, but are nevertheless available. And, as SRD would say, you always have the power to choose how you feel about it ... the font from which all other options arise.]

Yes, a million times yes.

--A

A quick idea...

Cause-effect is like "if-then," and free will is like "or." So for there to be free will in the totally spontaneous sense, there'd have to be "ors" in reality that weren't also "thens" of some "if." Or(!), in a somewhat more compatibilist vein, suppose there were fundamental "if A then B or C" kinds of truths, where nothing predecided that if A, either specifically.