
Photons, Quasars and the Possibility of Free Will - sdeepak
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/photons-quasars-and-the-possibility-of-free-will/
======
coldtea
> _Of course, randomness isn’t the only thing necessary for free will_

Not only that, but randomness and determinism are equally against the (casual)
idea of free will.

Free will, as commonly understood, means there's an "extra layer of
abstraction" between the universe (material objects and their relationships)
and me. What people called "soul".

It's not just that our decisions (will) are random instead of predetermined by
a cascade of material interactions.

Note that if one presumes a soul, free will is then not an illogical
impossibility. It's just an extra layer of abstraction: it can decide based on
our material-timeline-history (our interactions with the universe and others),
but it's not absolutely bound by them (in the way a deterministic brain would
be).

A soul, in that sense, is like when a protagonist in a movie breaking the
fourth wall. They exist in the world of the movie, but they have some footing
outside of it. (Of course in the case of the movie, the breaking is scripted).

~~~
davemp
> Not only that, but randomness and determinism are equally against the
> (casual) idea of free will.

I'm not sure that I'd agree. Maybe the layman doesn't think about how to
reconcile determinism with their concept of free will, but it is possible.
Talking about free will without a working definition is hard.

If free will is: " _You_ are free to make any choices presented to you."

Then it becomes simple to argue that _you_ are in fact making these choices
regardless of whether what makes up _you_ is pre-determined. The same you
would of course make the same choices, but then it is still _you_ making them.
The outcomes and opportunity of the choices is irrelevant.

~~~
lordlimecat
I'd define free will as used by the average person to mean the ability to make
decisions that are based at least in part on something other than your makeup
and environment.

~~~
davemp
I'll go poll the world and get back to you to see if you align ;)

~~~
naasking
Already been done. They do not:
[https://philpapers.org/rec/ANDWCI-3](https://philpapers.org/rec/ANDWCI-3)

~~~
coldtea
Or so says a paper. Assuming no methodological errors and replication, in
which Psychology (this being posted in "Philosophical Psychology" is a very
bad culprit, and stats/polls even more so).

~~~
naasking
Let's be fair, it's more than one paper. That's just the latest in a whole
series of papers empirically testing lay people's intuitions on this question
(see the citations).

------
bad_user
My view on "free will" is that it's a non-falsifiable notion.

The universe isn't deterministic due to randomness. In absence of determinism
in the universe's laws, free will is at least possible. However talking about
it is like talking about the existence of God.

The question is this: what observations can you make that, if they were true,
would lead to the conclusion that "free will" doesn't exist? And the answer
is, in the presence of randomness, there are no such observations.

Think about it like this: if you could observe and analyze two universes in
parallel, almost identical except that in one people have free will and in the
other people don't, what differences would you be able to see? And the answer
is obvious.

N.B. I'm not talking about compatibilism, which is irrelevant.

~~~
ganzuul
If you have a will, your will is not free. A slightly corny but apt analogy is
one of an empty cup. An empty cup can be filled with anything, but once full
it needs to be emptied again before it can accept a new substance.

I think this is a useful touchstone in the debate about freedom of will. - It
moves the goalposts so that your requirement is the ability to shed will
instead of the ability to pick new ones.

------
placebo
Consider the possibility that whether the future is predetermined or not has
nothing to do with free will.

The persistence of the notion of free will seems to be an attempt to reconcile
a feeling of what seems to be a very real, conscious and subjective "me in
here" vs, what seems to be an objective, deterministic "world out there". This
division is necessary for science to exist.

But what if there is a deeper truth than just being stuck with the question of
whether "I" can control the outcome of events or "I" am powerless to do
anything about them. Consider the possibility of access to knowledge before
there's an intellectual division into a "me" and "not me", a knowing where the
entire notion of whether there's free will or not becomes completely
irrelevant. This seems to be the common theme running through various
teachings of mysticism, from Zen to Sufism.

I don't think science should try and make use of mysticism, as science starts
where mysticism ends (and vice versa), but any attempt by science to wrestle
with the question of free will appears to me as pointless as an attempt of a
Zen master to wrestle with solving problems in quantum mechanics. It's simply
not in their domain.

~~~
jstanley
> Consider the possibility that whether the future is predetermined or not has
> nothing to do with free will.

If free will exists, that would seem to imply that people can make decisions
that affect their future. Wouldn't free will therefore imply nondeterminism?

I agree that notfreewill does not imply determinism.

~~~
coldtea
> _If free will exists, that would seem to imply that people can make
> decisions that affect their future. Wouldn 't free will therefore imply
> nondeterminism?_

Not necessarily.

"Free will" is being able to express your actual self (your will) in a
decision.

But if on a matter that calls for A or B decision, you can make either A or B,
then "you" are not a coherent thing (because you can go multiple ways.
Wouldn't a person that is authentically themselves can only chose one option
--the one truer to themselves and their ideas, courage, cowardice, etc.-- each
time?).

So, what if there's only one possible outcome of each decision one makes each
time, and the set of prior decisions (that they followed A in this matter, B
in the other, and on on) is what defines you as you?

Then free will and determinism are the same thing -- the untangling of
yourself as a unique being.

~~~
mannykannot
If that is so, then free will is a redundant concept (the outcome is actually
determined without it), and the question becomes one of why do we feel we
have, and are exercising, a choice between A and B.

As it happens, I am pretty sure that I am _not_ a coherent thing - or, at
least, I would not rule out a putative explanation on the grounds that it
would imply that I am not a coherent thing.

~~~
coldtea
> _and the question becomes one of why do we feel we have, and are exercising,
> a choice between A and B._

Perhaps there's no choice, but there's an examination/consideration of the
alternatives. We mistake this examination as a choice process, even though we
only have one choice (the one we end up making).

~~~
naasking
> We mistake this examination as a choice process, even though we only have
> one choice (the one we end up making).

Or perhaps you're mistaken that "choice" was ever anything else.

------
outlace
The idea that randomness gives rise to free will is ludicrous. If my brain
randomly chooses to eat an apple on Monday and randomly chooses to eat a Pear
on Tuesday how is that giving me more free will than if my brain was
predetermined to choose an Apple then a Pear.

There is no way to even conceive of what free will could be, determined or
not. Either the activity of your brain is causally determined by previous
brain states and interactions with the environment plus or minus randomness,
neither option gives you the intuitive notion of free will.

Edit: also the Nobel winner Gerard t’Hooft argues that even these quasar
experiments don’t rule out determinism. He argues that any closed
deterministic system will have correlations across any distance in spacetime.

~~~
GuB-42
You may or may not have "true" free will with randomness, you definitely can't
have it with determinism.

Random just means unpredictable. It means that the information about whether
your eat a pear or an apple is nowhere to be found in the universe. We can
only see it after the fact. Something has been injected in the universe from
outside.

That something is undecidable by definition, therefore, it is outside the
realm of science, and it may very well be free will, god, a soul, whatever.
Having that randomness leaves an opening for metaphysical free will.

On the opposite, without randomness that form of free will is impossible.
Everything is determined and science doesn't leave any space for these
concepts.

~~~
outlace
So if this metaphysical 'force' is deciding your actions, that still is not
free will. You can posit anything as the ultimate cause of your activity but
that isn't free will, it's just a higher-level cause. Either things are
ultimately caused (at whatever level, metaphysical or not) or they're just
acausally random or some combination. Pushing free will into the realm of
souls and God doesn't help.

However, your point about unpredictability is right. There are some processes
that are fundamentally unpredictable, but this unpredictability can and does
occur in a completely deterministic setting.

A completely closed deterministic system will have processes that are
unpredictable to agents acting within the closed system, this is the nature of
computational irreducibility as elaborated by Stephen Wolfram and more
recently Tim Palmer.

Personally, I certainly hope we live in a deterministic universe because a
fundamentally random or a-causal universe would be nihilistic to me. If things
just happened for no reason then that seems far more distressing than the
universe following (possibly a few elegant) well-posed and deterministic
rules, even if some aspects of its future evolution are unpredictable due to
computational irreducibility.

------
montenegrohugo
I've always thought of free will as an absurdity.

Here's my thought process:

If I make a decision, there's 2 possibilities:

    
    
      1. The decision is based upon prior information and states, therefore there is a deterministic causality
    
      2. The decision is not based upon prior causality: E.g. I have a "soul" and that's what decides.
    

However, if we look into 2, we arrive at the same problem:

    
    
      1. Either the souls decision is deterministic based upon metaphysical information
    
      2. Or the soul has a soul (where the same problem appears, turtles all the way down)
    

_3\. Or, if the choice is not based on any prior information, then we must
conclude that it is therefore completely random (since its not based on
anything)_

So, either there is no free will because all your actions are determined by
past actions, or instead free will just means that part of your actions are
just based on, essentially, the throw of a dice. In both of these cases, you
yourself have 0 agency.

I think saying that Free Will exists when it equates to a random choice is
absurd.

~~~
atq2119
As usual, these kinds of discussions are really about what we mean by words.

What does "free will" mean? I think technically inclined people like us are
easily led down the path you describe, but over the years I've become
convinced that the kind of definition that leads you to "free will = random
choice" is pretty pointless because it's so vacuous.

I like to take a step back and ask: why are we interested in free will in the
first place?

In practice, what tends to be really relevant are questions like: are
criminals responsible for their actions?

Free will is better defined as a shorthand for these kinds of questions. And
in that context, it seems clear to me that even if our actions are purely
deterministic, we can still have free will. What matters isn't whether our
will is free of physics or determinism; what matters is whether or to what
extent our will is free from the influence of other people and society.

Once you look at it this way it's also clear that there are no absolutes. We
all influence each other, which puts limits on our free will, but we aren't
just puppets, either.

~~~
ajuc
Yup, free will is meaningless, there's no measurable difference between an
universe which has a free will and one that doesn't.

> are criminals responsible for their actions?

Doesn't matter, what matters is - is a commitment to punish certain behavior
decreasing number of people behaving that way? If so - punishing crimes makes
sense, no matter if there's a free will or not.

~~~
coldtea
> _Doesn 't matter, what matters is - is a commitment to punish certain
> behavior decreasing number of people behaving that way?_

If there's no free will obviously not -- since any crime decision is
predetermined upon the earlier states of the universe (even before we appeared
on Earth), and any drop in crime in correlation with a "commitment to punish
certain behavior" is just correlation itself, and not causation (both things
being caused by those earlier states).

In fact, if there's no free will, then there's also no free decision of a
"commitment to punish certain behavior" or not: all those decisions to make
laws, punish certain behaviors, etc are already determined.

Without free will nobody can influence whether we create this or that law.

In essence, you started that "free will is meaningless" and then your whole
argument was like as if free like totally exists and we can take actual non
predetermined decisions.

~~~
ajuc
> If there's no free will obviously not -- since any crime decision is
> predetermined upon the earlier states of the universe (even before we
> appeared on Earth), and any drop in crime in correlation with a "commitment
> to punish certain behavior" is just correlation itself, and not causation
> (both things being caused by those earlier states).

An asteroid hitting Earth is predetermined by early stages of universe too. Is
the collision just correlated with dinosaurs extinction, or was it the cause?

When a ball hits another ball in snooker - is the movement of the second ball
caused by the collision, or just correlated with it? In deterministic universe
it was known since the start of time it will happen after all.

Why is it different when people are involved?

If everything is determined by early stages of universe - then you can still
discover how exactly that determinism works between 2 particular events (no
matter that they share a common causation chain higher up).

In the case of criminals and punishement assuming determinism - our brains
deterministically evolved to deterministically respond to punishement by
deterministically changing the behaviour when punished. This deterministically
caused the brains to come to conclussion, that punishement makes sense. Then
they deterministically punish crime, and criminals deterministically respond
by avoiding being caught which reduces the crime.

No need for the free will at all.

BTW even if universe is not deterministic it doesn't mean free will exists.
After all you wouldn't say dices have a free will.

~~~
naasking
> No need for the free will at all.

You're mistaken. Free will is needed to identify _who the criminal is_ in any
given situation, ie. who are the morally responsible parties. You can't escape
that with the arguments you presented, and you just skipped it to talk about
justice, which is a whole separate matter.

~~~
cthalupa
>Free will is needed to identify who the criminal is in any given situation,

No. Causality is all you need to identify who the criminal is.

Physical stimuli are basically all we need as intelligent beings to come to a
conclusion about things we don't like happening to us, and thus ultimately
make into moral laws or codified ones. These are the inputs, these are the
causes. Then, once enough human beings have had those inputs result in a large
enough collective coming to the conclusion that stuff is Bad, we end up with
laws.

Then, whenever someone acts in a way that we have determined is Bad, they are
the criminal. They do not need to possess free will for the rational thing to
do to be to provide punishment for them, because punishing them ultimately
changes the inputs used by others to reach decisions. Nothing about this
requires free will - it's all just as applicable if you just believe the laws
of physics and causality determine every choice we make.

~~~
naasking
> No. Causality is all you need to identify who the criminal is.

Unfortunately not. If your gets car stolen, without free will, you can't
assign responsibility to the "thief", because you yourself were a causal
factor in your car getting stolen: had you parked somewhere else, your car
wouldn't have been stolen. Had society or his parents better supported the
"thief", he wouldn't have stolen that car. Had your city placed that street
somewhere else, your car wouldn't have been stolen.

To designate the "thief" as _the_ "singular" cause that's _relevant_ , you
need free will.

~~~
cthalupa
All of those things are true, and I don't need them to be untrue to assign the
largest share of responsibility to the thief.

Having laws (and the enforcement of laws) in place is something we believe to
be the most effective input in causing the Bad Things to not happen. As such,
having them and enforcing them is purely logical. We have decided that having
someone "broken" in such a manner that these inputs are not enough to result
in them not doing Bad Things need to be removed from the public, and do so.

Let's even step away from laws and assigning moral responsibility there. Let's
look at interpersonal relationships.

I love my SO. I try to avoid doing things that hurt her, because seeing her
hurt fundamentally makes me unhappy. It makes me unhappy enough that it
outweighs the personal benefits of whatever decision I was making. We would
all agree that not being shitty to your SO for personal gain is a morally
correct choice, but this is still all a matter of causality. Either you have
negative stimuli to it from something more direct, such as in my situation, or
perhaps just because of social pressure and the desire to conform, but
morality still comes into existence from the causal nature of reality. Free
will is not necessary to explain it.

~~~
naasking
> All of those things are true, and I don't need them to be untrue to assign
> the largest share of responsibility to the thief.

You actually do. The very process of assigning "share of responsibility" is
precisely the question that depends upon free will. If the thief stole your
car only because someone was holding his wife hostage, now where does the
responsibility lie? The circumstances immediately surrounding the car theft
are precisely the same, but now an influence further back in the causal chain
is presumably responsible. How would you differentiate these two scenarios
without free will?

> I love my SO. I try to avoid doing things that hurt her, because seeing her
> hurt fundamentally makes me unhappy. It makes me unhappy enough that it
> outweighs the personal benefits of whatever decision I was making. [...]
> Free will is not necessary to explain it.

Free will is necessary to explain why you are morally blameworthy or
praiseworthy for your choice of whether to go with your inclinations.

~~~
cthalupa
>If the thief stole your car only because someone was holding his wife
hostage, now where does the responsibility lie?

Still with the thief. He still has all of the other inputs into his system
beyond just the fact that someone kidnapped his wife. Believing that causality
ultimately determines every decision we make doesn't mean that I believe that
it's a simple one to one mapping. He knows he can call the police - this isn't
an action movie, and he's not the characters Jason Statham plays. If he is the
characters Jason Statham plays, well, it doesn't really matter because he's
not going to be caught anyway, and I'm left railing against the hypothetical
thief that more often matches reality than your car getting stolen by the
living embodiment of an action movie hero/anti-hero.

>The circumstances immediately surrounding the car theft are precisely the
same, but now an influence further back in the causal chain is presumably
responsible. How would you differentiate these two scenarios without free
will?

By not believing that one changed input unrelated to all of the others somehow
invalidates all of them.

>Free will is necessary to explain why you are morally blameworthy or
praiseworthy for your choice of whether to go with your inclinations.

Free will is unnecessary to explain why I am morally blameworthy or
praiseworthy for my choice of whether or not to go with my inclinations.

Both are assertions that do not stand alone.

~~~
naasking
> He knows he can call the police - this isn't an action movie, and he's not
> the characters Jason Statham plays. If he is the characters Jason Statham
> plays, well, it doesn't really matter because he's not going to be caught
> anyway, and I'm left railing against the hypothetical thief that more often
> matches reality than your car getting stolen by the living embodiment of an
> action movie hero/anti-hero.

You're evading the question. The point of moral dilemmas is to highlight the
qualities that meaningfully affect the outcome. We have here two scenarios,
one in which the thief would be held responsible, and one in which he would
not. Free will easily distinguishes these two scenarios, and since you claim
we don't need free will to make such judgments, let's hear how you distinguish
these.

~~~
cthalupa
>You're evading the question. The point of moral dilemmas is to highlight the
qualities that meaningfully affect the outcome. We have here two scenarios,
one in which the thief would be held responsible, and one in which he would
not. Free will easily distinguishes these two scenarios, and since you claim
we don't need free will to make such judgments, let's hear how you distinguish
these.

Someone kidnapped my wife so I stole a car is not a valid legal defense, nor
would I argue it is a valid moral defense. As I stated from the get go, I
would hold the thief responsible in both situations.

~~~
naasking
> Someone kidnapped my wife so I stole a car is not a valid legal defense

That's not the scenario I posed, although perhaps the presentation wasn't
clear. So to be perfectly clear so there are no misunderstandings, the thief
was told to steal your car or his wife would be executed.

Clearly he's morally culpable for stealing the car in one scenario and not in
the other. This distinction can be clearly made using free will. You claim you
don't need free will to make this distinction, so I'd like to hear how you do
so.

~~~
ajuc
He is responsible for stealing the car in both situations. He has an excuse in
one, but excuse doesn't stop responsibility, and both doesn't require a free
will to exist.

To provide better example - one guy blackmails you to kill me, or he will kill
your whole family. You still have a choice.

You make your choice or it's predetermined cause no free will - it doesn't
matter.

You are responsible for your choice, and the blackmailer is responsible for
the blackmail. You have an excuse why you choose the way you did, and it may
be decided to be a good thing to do or evil, depending on the morality of
particular person (basically the trolley problem).

With car the responsibility for stealing compared to the responsibility for a
murder is negligible, so people focus on the second one. But both are still
there, they don't cancel out.

~~~
naasking
> He is responsible for stealing the car in both situations.

He's _causally_ responsible yes, free will is about assigning _moral_
responsibility. The validity of various reasons for acting immorally is
precisely the question that free will addresses.

~~~
dragonwriter
> He's causally responsible yes

On one case, only as inevitable intermediary in the chain of causation, in the
other as a necessary part of the ultimate, uncaused causation.

These are very different senses of “causally responsible”.

> free will is about assigning moral responsibility.

Only indirectly, in the context of it being assumed axiomatically that having
ones will be a necessary uncaused cause of the outcome is required for moral
responsibility; it's _directly_ about assigning root cause.

~~~
naasking
> These are very different senses of “causally responsible”.

The posters I'm engaging here don't believe in uncaused causation (nor do I),
so there's little difference in the causal character of the thief's actions
here in either case.

~~~
dragonwriter
> The posters I'm engaging here don't believe in uncaused causation

Free will is, by definition, both uncaused and a cause of other actions. If
you don't believe in uncaused causation, you don't believe in free will, but
you can't discuss the meaning and implication of free will in any meaningful
way while ignoring the entirety of it's definition _whether or not_ you
believe in free will (or the broader conceptual class of uncaused causes of
which free will is a part.)

~~~
naasking
> Free will is, by definition, both uncaused and a cause of other actions.

No it's not. The free will debate is about defining what free will actually
means so that we can assign moral responsibility.

The scientific meaning of "free will" as experimenters being able to setup
their instruments free from influence of that which they're measuring is not
what's being discussed here.

------
axilmar
To me, articles like these are littered with logical fallacies. I truly wonder
if the quoted scientists really meant what the article says.

For example:

"And if our measurements are random, there is no way for the photons to know
ahead of time which orientation will be measured. So, there can’t be any
hidden variable to determine the outcome. Whether we get the left or right
shoe, or the left or right glove, the result is truly random."

The above assumes that the actual properties that lead to the specific
measurements have to be communicated between particles. But there has been no
research in finding out if these properties are truly encoded into the
particles themselves. Maybe there are no hidden variables, and maybe there is
no communication, but these properties are simply encoded into the light
particles, by the way they are created.

"It’s spooky because entangled objects have a quantum connection, even if they
are light-years apart."

Or maybe they don't, and the appropriate properties are encoded into the
particles themselves.

"Of course, randomness isn’t the only thing necessary for free will."

Free will means the power to determine one's fate through a set of thoughts
(logical or not). If there is actual randomness in the Universe, then there is
random will, not free will.

~~~
jobigoud
> Maybe there are no hidden variables, and maybe there is no communication,
> but these properties are simply encoded into the light particles, by the way
> they are created.

I believe this is exactly what "hidden variables" means. Some unknown property
that would be present in both particles before we measure it and constraint
the possible outcomes. This is inconsistent with experiments, it was shown
there is no such properties.

~~~
kenmicklas
It's only inconsistent if you assume information can't travel faster than the
speed of light, for which there is no basis besides gospel.

~~~
Koshkin
Science is no "gospel."

~~~
kenmicklas
How is it science? We literally have direct empirical evidence that suggests
the contrary, but physicists do complicated mental gymnastics to come up with
other explanations that fit their preconceived notions better.

------
amelius
A different view: if we live in a universe that branches into multiple
universe at every $PLANCK_TIME, then free will could be our consciousness
choosing the branch it follows without actually interacting with the universe.

~~~
SonicSoul
Love this! As if God designed universe timeline to be immutable. The question
is, by making choice B you get universe B unique to that branch you chose, but
is it a new branch per person per choice? Or do multiple people get “switched”
to that branch?

~~~
davemp
If you were to view people as a composition of their choices, then in the
current branch every individual chose said branch. Every person who did not
chose the current branch, is now a different individual.

If the universe is considered a set of individuals or object, then it's
unclear whether a multiple paths could lead to equivalent universes or the
same. It all depends on the category theory (is the composition of choices
associative, etc).

That being said, I really don't like multiple/branching universes theories.

------
wallace_f
This maybe is a question more about our egos than about the universe (which we
do not just exist in, but are the most intricate part of). But is it even very
much possible to begin to answer it?

What I mean is this: The idea of choice is a human concept, which seems to be
made to be illusory by the fact that, for the most part, our universe is
deterministic in nature.

But even in the case the universe is wholly deterministic, as the article's
hidden variables theory proposes, then our choices would still be attributed
to ourselves.

So in that case, what created ourselves is the big bang. And what created the
big bang? Is it even possible to answer that?

The nature of time and the universe is not something that is understood. We
understand a lot more than our ancestors due to the scientific method and the
spread of the tolerance of Enlightenment-era ideals which allow its pursuit,
but that seems to give the illusion that we understand the nature of our
universe well-enough to answer these metaphysical queations.

Perhaps we are just in a bubble that is a kind of Sagan's Flatland. Perhaps we
are some insignificant random combination of patterns, or perhaps not. We have
no idea what we are. But I dont believe our ownership of our choices is
refuted by a universe without randomness.

------
intralizee
I’m a person who acknowledges everything is deterministic and free will is a
facade. The two types of people I’ve encountered who desire the notion of free
will: 1) Person with ego who needs to have a belief in free will. 2) Persons
who has ego, gets annoyed by free will being a facade and refuses to think
about it because “it doesn’t matter” to this person.

I’m perplexed if the problem is singular between the two types of persons and
if it’s either: ego, desire, greed, selfishness, or these people really need a
belief similar to persons of religious ideology to continue functioning as who
they are subconsciously. To me it’s fascinating to observe because I genuinely
propose the world would be better when the majority lives by reason in
reality; when it comes to law, health, the environment, finances, and social
problems. The psychological impact would be the most exciting thing for me
personally to witness as I cannot imagine any negatives of a majority
understanding determinism compared to the madnesses today in society; where
the majority “who blame everyone” or compare themselves to others unfortunate
as the outcome wasn’t determined before birth.

~~~
naasking
> The two types of people I’ve encountered who desire the notion of free will:
> 1) Person with ego who needs to have a belief in free will. 2) Persons who
> has ego, gets annoyed by free will being a facade and refuses to think about
> it because “it doesn’t matter” to this person.

This is a complete straw man. Let me describe the contrary claim: in my
experience, the type of person who desire giving up free will either a) want
to give up punishment and so confuse justice with moral responsibility, and/or
b) are confused about what determinism and choice really mean. You appear to
fall in the former category at the very least.

I suggest you read up a little more on the meaning of free will and
Compatibilism specifically. There's a reason why the majority of professional
philosophers are Compatibilists.

~~~
intralizee
You don’t have a good grasp on philosophy to suggest the meaning of free will
and complatiblism. Yes the justic system is a disgrace to humanity and I
understand determinism. Prove otherwise please from what I wrote and I’ll be
thankful. Instead it looks like someone with a hurt ego writing nonsense to
me.

~~~
naasking
There's nothing to prove. Your comment had no substance, and advanced no
arguments. It was a set of bald assertions without justification, and so can
be dismissed without argument.

------
rslonik
I think either we do not have free will or we have some special brain that
shapes probabilities that literally make the reality as we see.

And I always prefer to believe we are not special animals.

Still, as opposite as deterministic universe, we may do not have free will but
the future is not determined. The future may be random at some scale, with
most obvious sequence of events happening and yet not prohibiting different
events to happen.

------
prmph
The question of free will is bound up with the question of consciousness. We
first need to understand what consciousness is, where it resides, and what its
boundaries are, before we can understand free will. It is not possible to
properly test a statement such as: "I have free will" without understanding
what the "I" refers to

------
raxxorrax
Ah, the age old question where it doesn't matter if the answer is positive or
negative at all.

Since it is opinion time: I do think that we posses free will whatever the
definition might be.

There are enough know non-deterministic processes. I also think consideration
of randomness vs determinism isn't sufficient to find an answer.

~~~
joycian
Can you supply a non-deterministic process, where the non-determinism is
fundamental and not a way to quantify a lack of information about the system?

~~~
adrianN
Anything that is best described by quantum mechanics.

~~~
joycian
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdeterminism](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdeterminism)

What do you think of ideas like this then?

~~~
adrianN
I think it's a boring theory that doesn't pass Ockham's razor. For the
universe to be superdeterministic you'd have to encode its whole evolution
somewhere. That is more complicated that the normal interpretation of QM but
doesn't explain more.

~~~
naasking
> I think it's a boring theory that doesn't pass Ockham's razor. For the
> universe to be superdeterministic you'd have to encode its whole evolution
> somewhere

The Cellular Automaton Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, by 't Hooft
[https://arxiv.org/abs/1405.1548](https://arxiv.org/abs/1405.1548)

~~~
adrianN
That's really interesting, I like CAs a lot. However the author himself states
in the introduction that Bell's inequality and related theorems very strongly
suggest that his theory is not correct.

~~~
naasking
> However the author himself states in the introduction that Bell's inequality
> and related theorems very strongly suggest that his theory is not correct.

It's widely believed that Bell's theorem and other no-go theorems preclude a
local, hidden variable interpretation of QM. The author merely mentions that
he can reconcile existing results with this local, hidden variable
interpretation via "superdeterminism".

------
loup-vaillant
I thought this experiment was explained just as well by decoherence? Under the
many world interpretation, there's no instant communication, _or_ hidden
variable, we just happen to learn in which world we are by performing the
measurement.

The laws of physics are still deterministic as far as I can tell.

~~~
furgooswft13
This just pushes back the point of non-determinism. Instead of the
measurement, or wave function collapse, or decoherence or whatever you want to
call it being not deterministic, the "world" you end up in is.

If even that point is to be considered deterministic then there has to be some
previous state of _something_ to lead to it, and we're back to non-local
hidden variables.

This is one of the many reasons I dislike the many-worlds theory, and it's
seeming popularity of late. It does not actually solve non-determinism, it
just shuffles the deck a little, while also tacking on an ever expanding
number of alternate universes, all the while remaining as non-falsifiable as
any other QM interpretation.

If I had to choose between two non-local hidden variable theories, I'd choose
the one without the constant branching alternate worlds.

Non-local hidden variables are almost by definition unknowable to us, so I'm
not sure what we gain by pretending all this meta-physical philosophizing is
actual science. It did make for a good TNG episode though.

~~~
loup-vaillant
Many Worlds is popular for a reason: it's one of the simplest interpretation
that fits the facts. The scientist in you might dislike that it came about
later than the Copenhagen interpretation without any experiment to distinguish
them. The Bayesian in me just applies Occam's razor.

Just realize that a collapse interpretation is the same as a many worlds, with
the _additional_ assumption that the blob of amplitude you don't live in is
somehow flattened to zero. The "it's just maths" interpretation isn't much
better: the maths tell us that we have two worlds worth of amplitudes, yet for
some reason the one we don't observe isn't real. This is as ridiculous as
believing that stuff you send outside the observable universe ceases to exist
once it crosses the boundary.

As for how far it pushes non-determinism… I'd say quite far. Under the MWI,
the universe is entirely deterministic. What is not is just our subjective
experience. What was originally a Physics problem is now an *anthropic"
problem, similar to what you would get if you were to copy & paste humans, or
do mind uploading. The more interesting mystery in my opinion is more about
why the Born statistics are the way they are, instead whatever else we could
imagine them to be.

------
ethn
So many popular science articles have started to commit ontological fallacies
like this. Free will obviously exists because we experience it. This question
presumes a denial of experience and a claim that really the experience isn't
real but instead this other thing that cannot ever be experienced is. What's
even the motivation for that?

The motivation seems to be to paint an awe-inspiring picture of mystery
through the facade of science for link clicks, with the defamation of science.
Science is meant to make things clear not enigmatic.

The question debating if free will actually exists, is a denial of experience
and a solicitation to some sort of ontology outside of experience that can
never be known.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Free will obviously exists because we experience it.

You seem to be confusing the subjective experience of consciousness with free
will. They aren't equivalent. (Free will can be viewed as a conjecture about
the relationship of conscious experience with the outside world, but is not
synonymous with conscious experience.)

~~~
ethn
I'm not. If I meant the experience of consciousness I would have said so.

------
millstone
The article argues that "randomness" (by which it means essential
unpredictability) is experimentally backed. This is an awkward constraint for
a universe designer: isn't a totally deterministic universe much easier and
simpler?

Free will has no room to survive in a clockwork universe. But free will
remains a viable position, despite the philosophical contortions, but
supported by experimental evidence like what's discussed here. And that seems
like an argument in itself, right? It ain't come this far...

~~~
mirimir
> This is an awkward constraint for a universe designer: isn't a totally
> deterministic universe much easier and simpler?

Huh? Maybe it's natural selection, all the way down, and all the way up. The
results aren't at all "random", but they're also not at all designed.

~~~
joycian
I think he means it would be expensive to inject randomness all the time
instead of just letting a rule-based system go from state to state
deterministically.

~~~
mirimir
OK, except why are you putting it in those terms?

It just is what it is. There's no reason to think that stuff evolves in the
least-expensive way.

And there are rules. What we call laws of physics. It's just that there's lots
of wiggle room. At least, if you're lucky enough.

------
nyc111
What is interesting about this article for me is that, the question of free
will has been one of the oldest subject of academic scholasticism. So how come
now it is being discussed by people whose profession is about measuring and
classifying natural phenomena in relation to the physical concept of force? I
wonder what changed? Did physics become academic scholasticism or did free
will is transformed into a physical force?

~~~
naasking
> So how come now it is being discussed by people whose profession is about
> measuring and classifying natural phenomena in relation to the physical
> concept of force? I wonder what changed?

Quantum mechanics changed how physicists see the universe's classical
deterministic character (see Einstein's famous quote). Then they published The
Free Will Theorem and the Strong Free Will Theorem, but this conception of
"free will" has no relation to the one in philosophy. It was a very poor
choice of terminology IMO.

------
madmaniak
Wow! Such a lot of work on top of a mistake which they already figured out,
too bad that only in a scale of laboratory room. If EVERYTHING is determined
taking quasars from far far away (in time and space) doesn't change anything
in the experiment. Back then, the experiment in the laboratory room also was
determined. Pop-"science".

------
sadness2
I believe that free will is possible. Our conceptions of existence are limited
by our perspective; that of a causative (and, OK, possibly random) reality,
but it's possible that our wills are interfaced with super-dimensional spirits
(souls, if you like). The fact that we cannot conceive of an existence which
is not causative does not mean that our spirits do not dwell in one. One way
of approximating such an existence is to consider it as "timeless". This
timeless spirit may then, in a sense, exercise influence on our wills
throughout our entire lifespan, simultaneously (perhaps through a quantum
interface). You could call this deterministic, but how is it deterministic in
any meaningful sense if our choices are "determined" by a spirit which is, by
definition, our essential self, free of circumstantial preconditions?

------
kenmicklas
It turns out if you make unjustified assumptions (information can't travel
faster than light) you can make unjustified conclusions (no hidden variables).

------
chasd00
someone mentioned free will not existing because every decision made is the
result of past decisions. Given a choice between A or B, I will only choose
given who I am and therefore there was really no choice to begin with. When
you're born you have no past to rely on but there sure seems to be a lot of
randomness in a baby/child. Maybe randomness is free-will but it slowly erodes
away with time.

~~~
ilitirit
> Maybe randomness is free-will but it slowly erodes away with time.

It's a bit tricky depending on your idea of what "free will" means, but
essentially it can be argued that there's a difference non-trivial difference
between free will and determinism.

If the development of the Universe is predetermined, then the Universe is
deterministic (in some system of logic) and free will does not exist.

If the development of the Universe depends on the the outcome of truly random
events, then the universe is non-deterministic, but this does not imply that
free will exists.

Consider: Someone has to decide between two choices which for all intents and
purposes are exactly the same when measured against each other. On the most
fundamental level, the only way to break the deadlock is through a "random"
selection. If this random selection is driven by the aforementioned random
(possibly quantum) events, then is this really "free will"? After all, the
person making the decision has no conscious control of the events influencing
the decision process on that level. This implies that decision making ("will")
is just a function acting on inputs.

------
ppeetteerr
Free will is a lie the mind tells itself to cope with reality.

No matter where the choice to act rests, it's not with the individual willing
it to be so.

In a western society, with ample choice and the ability to make those choices,
one might feel like they have free will. Look elsewhere, and you'll see that
the "choice" to act is very limited to the circumstances of your life.

------
random_upvoter
If free will did not exist, how would you ever be able to imagine such a
thing?

An entity that is constrained by determinism, say a computer program, has no
room to "step outside" its own frame and imagine things running an different
way.

In essence, free will and consciousness the same thing.

~~~
Drakim
We can imagine tons of things that don't exist. For instance I'm currently
imagining a bouncy ball that instead of bouncing according to deterministic
laws, bounces according to a mystic will-based system.

~~~
chasd00
and i'm currently imagining getting work done rather than being on HN :)

------
Koshkin
My free will told me not to read this thread, and yet here I am...

------
dtujmer
I think Sam Harris put it like this: for free will, it doesn't even matter if
reality is deterministic or random because the determinism or randomness are
found at the quantum level, many levels "below" neurological free will.

Let's say we have Universe 1 (deterministic) and Universe 2 (random). You face
a choice - raise your left hand or your right hand. In U1, if you went back in
time several times, you would always pick the same hand because the
configuration of matter in the universe would "require" that the next step,
globally, is you raising that same hand. In U2, if you went back in time,
there could be some variance - maybe you'd pick the other hand 50% of the time
- but this variance would happen on a quantum level and only manifest
neurologically/physically. I still see no possibility of the classical idea of
free will there.

~~~
jgh
wasnt there a story linked here a couple weeks ago about neurons possibly
having some sensitivity to quantum interactions? Wouldn't that mean that the
quantum level is not actually below neurological free will?

------
azag0
I find this view satisfying: “free will” is the feeling that our decisions are
the consequence of the train of our inner thoughts. In that sense, free will
exists. The following question is whether that feeling corresponds to physical
reality or is an illusion. Here I believe it’s the latter and free will is in
fact merely an interpretation of what happens around us. See the book Feee
Will from Sam Harris for more.

------
posterboy
If you look at the polysemy of 'to determine', you will likely determine that
the primary meaning is actually to 'recognize, find out'. In that sense,
saying that somebody had no choice means they _don 't anymore_ have a choice.
But looking towards the future, you never have a closed function; the outcome
is open. The ambiguity of 'to determine' is still relevant, because by
determining a fact, you (try to) determine an outcome. This polysemy exists
the same in other languages, e.g. German "bestimmen".

If you are lucky, your future will remain undetermined. After all, there's
only one certain closed function for the future, which is its ... End.

PS: there's a contraction when people want to make free willed choices and
remain undetermined at the same time. And it gets turned on its head when
people are determined not to make any decisions, because ultimately, they will
be deprived of all choices.

PPS: In law and politics especially, determining a 'fact' often has the
ridiculous outcome that ridiculous rules based on rough estimates determine a
detrimental outcome, e.g. age-limits on movies or tax collection. Those are
real underlying problems, not philosophy. And the very notion of free will
comes into play with 'wanton'. That does not just play a role with e.g.
premediated murder, but "Willkürverbot" against law and court is anchored in
the German Grundgesetz, that every decision must be based on reason. "Willkür"
roughly translates to ... wow, I guess, "good faith". Whereas 'voluntary' is
"freiwillig" (free willing). "Wille" compares to "Wahl" (election, choice).
The history of "Willkür" is complicated, but Pfeifer compares Sanskr. "juis-",
for "Kür" and related words, which reminds too much of Lt. 'iius'.

> got. kiusan ‘prüfen’. Hierzu stellen sich außergerm. Entsprechungen wie
> aind. juṣátē, jṓṣati ‘hat gern, findet Gefallen, genießt’, awest. zaoš-,
> apers. dauš- ‘an etw. Gefallen finden’, griech. gé͞uesthai (γεύεσθαι)
> ‘kosten, schmecken, zu spüren bekommen’, lat. dēgūnere ‘kosten’, air. togu
> ‘wählen’ und, mit dentalem Element wie in ↗kosten (s. d.), lat. gustāre
> ‘kosten, genießen’, die auf eine gemeinsame Wurzel ie. _g̑eus-_ ‘kosten,
> genießen, schmecken’ (im Germ. und Kelt. ‘wählen’ durch Übertragung des
> Wahrnehmens und Prüfens auf andere Sinnesbereiche) führen.

"iius" also reminds of 'juice', as far as enjoyment goes, which with relations
to blood (cp. Agr. ear - blood, juice; and the four humors [juices] theory,
"Viersäfteleehre"). 'Joy' itself looks related. Talk about bad blood and
gusto. Gives August a different perspective, too.

Whereas "free" has to be compared to "Frieden" (piece), with a sense secure,
bounded (cp. fence? Friesen ... Brit vs Fritz, through 'bh'?). Still Lt.
"volens" has to be compared to Ger. "wollens" (and vollends?). Ultimately I
take a shortcut and equate well with will to derive good (cp Ger. "Güte" \-
mercy, quality, "Gut" \- merch, lot [of a farm]); And 'faith' from "Treu und
Glauben" and "guter Glaube" which expresses the notion of Willkür for old
Kurpfalzen best, by my own esteemed estimate. This derivation is a bit of a
freestyle ("Kür" as in sports). "Kür" could relate to 'sure' if a prehistoric
_scur_ is assumed, which is, of course, obscure, as is 'obscure'.

So we see that the words _free will_ are not literal because a lot of punning
was involved.

None of that has anything to do with stars, but election is superficially
cognate with illuminate (elector - sun; lux - light; lego - collect, read;
ligo - bind) and to star has something to do with being appointed.

