
What's expected of us - luu
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v436/n7047/full/436150a.html
======
tomp
Oh my... another meditation on the issue of free will, and the existential
angst we would experience if we learned that our choices are deterministic.
Personally, however, I think that the whole question of free-will vs.
determinism is a false dilemma. For me, another issue is more important:

Determinism vs. randomness.

If my choices are not deterministic, they must be random. I would rather be
deterministic than random. In any case, if they are random, it means that I
don't have free will either.

I like to think that all my choices are a result of the past; my genetics, my
childhood upbringing (that I don't even remember, but which formed the neural
pathways in my brain), my early memories, my environment, education,
experiences, friends, knowledge that I have absorbed from the world... In each
and every moment, I make a choice, which is the best choice I can make given
my brain power/structure, my motivations and the external constraints given
(is it raining? can I fly? when do I need to pay the rent). Even my
motivations are largely determined by my genetics - avoid pain, strive for
pleasure. I definitely hope that my choices are not random.

How does morality come into play, if our choices are deterministic? It doesn't
- my morality is my internal concept that I use to make choices more
quickly/easily. I don't impose my morality on other people and I don't really
care how they make their choices, but I support different forms of punishment
that modify the incentives of other people so that the society can function.

Finally, I don't think that the future is predictable, even though it is
deterministic. Like you don't know what 1048936701349 * 13046871435 is before
you calculate it, like even the computer cannot predict the result before
calculating it (i.e. the fastest calculation algorithm is also the fastest
prediction algorithm), the same way we cannot predict the future before it
happens, i.e. before the universe "calculates" it.

~~~
benpbenp
_If my choices are not deterministic, they must be random._

But this is not what is classically understood by free-will, and I suggest
that it is your dilemma which is false. Quoting Aquinas, "Free-will is the
cause of its own movement, because by his free-will man moves himself to act."

I anticipate that free-will thus understood is likely ruled out _a priori_ by
your philosophical disposition. Nonetheless, I think you can perhaps come
around to see that is logically opposed neither to determinism nor randomness
in the human brain as observed from an objective standpoint.

~~~
aninhumer
As I see it, if you consider the universe to be a series of states[1], either
the next state is perfectly determined by the previous one, or there is a
(finite) set of possibilities for the next state. The latter therefore
exhibits randomness.

I'm happy to be challenged on my philosophical disposition though, because I'm
aware that there are whole schools of thought that seem like vague informal
nonsense to me, and I'm not so arrogant as to assume I'm simply smarter than
them.

[1] I don't understand relativity well enough to adapt my argument to it, so
I'm happy to accept a counterargument there.

~~~
benpbenp
Indeed, what I am saying is that you can have the deterministic universe, or
the random universe, and still have free-will, properly understood.

Note that from the outside, free-will is by definition apparently "random". It
is a black box not determined by any variables in the greater world. What
matters is that the free-will is _mine_ or _yours_ \-- that the entity known
as to me as _myself_ or to you as _yourself_ should also possess this power of
determination which to the outside world appears random.

To witness to the lack of a logical incompatibility with determinism, you can
posit a model wherein the will does something like project itself in both time
directions in such a way as to keep up the "illusion of determinism". Not that
I think such a mechanism is actually in place; this model is just to show
there is no logical contradiction, and there could be other models that do the
same.

~~~
aninhumer
I seem to have misunderstood your post (and possibly conflated it with
others). I thought you were arguing that "free will" was a third possibility,
distinct from a deterministic or probabilistic universe.

I am entirely happy to accept that free will is compatible with determinism,
and it sounds like we have similar views on this issue. Personally I consider
ownership of "will" to be a far more important notion than that of some
abstract metaphysical "freedom".

~~~
benpbenp
Probably due to my sloppiness, let me try to sort it out...

Free-will is a third possibility opposed to determinism _of choice_ and pure
randomness _of choice_.

But it is compatible with a either a deterministic or a probabilistic
_universe_.

~~~
eevilspock
I'm still confused by your point. "Because by his free-will man moves himself
to act" seems to beg the question. Which direction does a woman act? I'm
assuming her actions are determined by "who she is". If not, what are we
referring by "her".

My choice of the feminine above was a choice, but not one everyone would make.
So how could it be anything but determined by who I am?

------
rzimmerman
This reminds me of the Isaac Asimov spoof article "The Endochronic Properties
of Resublimated Thiotimoline" which describes "experiments" on a substance
that reacts so aggressively with water that it reacts before the water is
added. Can't find the text unfortunately, but Wikipedia has a summary:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiotimoline](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiotimoline)

~~~
troymc
I just read about that in Asimov's autobiography. He wrote it when he was a
grad student at Columbia and was worried that it (a satire of chemistry
papers) might harm his chances of passing his final (oral) PhD examination.
His examiners never mentioned it until the very end... when one asked him what
he knew about resublimated thiotimoline, at which time Asimov burst out in a
fit of nervous laughter.

He passed.

------
afthonos
What I really hate about these sorts of stories and attending discussions is
that we all pretend we know what "free will" is, when no one has ever come up
with satisfying definition (just look at the Wikipedia page). My humble
opinion: all hand-wringing about lack of free will should be put on hold until
we can answer the following question:

In what way will an entity that has free will behave differently than both a
fully deterministic entity and an entity that is deterministic excepting
occasional random events?

I have yet to see either an answer to that question, or a definition of free
will that leads to one. Until then, I consider all speculation and meditation
on the "revelation" that we have none to be a tale full of sound and fury,
signifying nothing.

------
eloff
The predictor already exists, there's a common FMRI experiment in neuroscience
where with about 80% accuracy the scientists can predict you're about to push
the button about one second before you decide to do it. Someone no doubt will
post a link, I don't have time to Google it now. I'm guessing it's the
inspiration for this story.

I'm more curious about what you guys think. I've long thought the arguments
against free will are much stronger than those for it, but it's an unsettling
idea to live with.

~~~
dangrossman
It'd be a "predictor" if an FMRI could predict that the neurons are about to
light up a second before _that_ happens, rather than just measure the delay
between neuron activity and conscious perception or conscious motor control.

Regardless, if anyone finds the thought that an FMRI can detect you making a
decision a significant amount of time before you're aware of making that
decision particularly interesting, this book dives into that research and much
more about the nature of consciousness from a neuroscience and information
theory POV:

[http://www.amazon.com/The-User-Illusion-Cutting-
Consciousnes...](http://www.amazon.com/The-User-Illusion-Cutting-
Consciousness/dp/0140230122)

~~~
diydsp
Yes, loved the User Illusion. Fascinating Stuff.

Also, lately I've been hearing a lot about
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Happiness_Hypothesis](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Happiness_Hypothesis)

in which the brain is likened to a person riding and elephant. We can train
the elephant, but mostly the elephant repeats its program.

It's billed as about "happiness," but imo that's only one slice of it. It
applies to all habits, including eating, exercise, improving sw development
skills...

------
svermeulen
Anyone that liked this should definitely check this one as well by the same
author:
[http://infinityplus.co.uk/stories/under.htm](http://infinityplus.co.uk/stories/under.htm)

~~~
friendcomputer
I highly recommend Ted Chiang. I really enjoyed "Story of your Life" available
in this short story collection of the same name:
[http://www.amazon.com/Stories-Your-Life-Others-
Chiang/dp/193...](http://www.amazon.com/Stories-Your-Life-Others-
Chiang/dp/1931520720)

Some of the stuff is a but uneven but he's written some of the most thought-
provoking sci-fi I've read in some time.

~~~
pattisapu
Looks like "Story of Your Life" is going to be made into a movie.
[http://www.tor.com/blogs/2013/10/ted-chiang-story-of-your-
li...](http://www.tor.com/blogs/2013/10/ted-chiang-story-of-your-life-film-
adaptation)

~~~
friendcomputer
Hmm. I'd like to say I'm excited but I really don't see how they will capture
that story effectively in film.

------
Kronopath
The question of "Do we have free will?" always becomes a lot less confusing if
you question the question itself, by asking what you mean by "free will" in
the first place. There are some nice posts on Less Wrong that deal with this,
they're worth a read if you're curious:

[http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Free_will_(solution)](http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Free_will_\(solution\))

------
warcode
I'd say this touches more on the mechanics of time travel than free will.

So if this "predictor" is nothing more than a circuit that sends information
to itself in the past, there must be a "me" that pressed the button without
seeing the light, before the data is transmitted to the past to the "me" that
then sees the light but at that exact point splits off into a separate
timeline. And then I would have free will again.

Of course I am assuming time travel where travelling forward in your own
timeline is impossible, something the article seem to not really go into.

------
jrlocke
Does such a detector imply that there is no freewill? Would determinism imply
it?

Imagine the predictor works, what does that mean? One second prior to the
action, the course you would take is set. This is actually probably a point in
favor of the possibility of freewill; humans are course-taking machines, we
have a whole life (and our evolution before that) to acquire dispositions that
will one day help us survive. What kind of freewill do we want? Do we want to
be "free to dodge a brick when thrown at us" or "free, one second before the
brick arrives, to duck or not duck". Which of these is the important one? The
kind of freewill we really want isn't the kind where we are free floating
actors, it is the kind where our history, personal and evolutionary, dictates
our present. The point is, real freedom is not about being without limits, it
is about having sensible responses to ones environment; creatures evolve the
freedom to avoid being eaten, the freedom to anticipate others' actions, the
freedom to manipulate other agents with our clever words. Dan Dennett makes a
better case for this than I, please look into his wonderful books on the
topic.

Daniel Dennett: \--Elbow Room \--Freedom Evolves

------
super_mario
Just because you can predict what simple decision I will make before I am
aware of it consciously, does not imply I don't have free will. All it says is
that my conscious awareness of some other part of my brain making the decision
is delayed by x milliseconds i.e. we are not making decisions in the upper
layers of consciousness, but below it.

When you think about it, it is what I would expect. Your awareness is the
product of nerves firing, so they have to fire before it can be reflected in
your consciousness. If you decide to recall some information, the neurons
storing that information have to be activated (they have to fire). If you can
create a device (and we have) to detect those nerves as they are firing you
will know what person is trying to recall before (by some miniscule lead time)
they are aware of it.

------
jaw
Sadly we're not informed what happens if you program a robot to press the
button at fixed intervals unless it observes a flash.

~~~
ksmiley
Some simple resolutions would be: a freak lightning strike disables the
robot's button-pressing hardware. Or a cosmic ray flips a bit in its machine
code, causing it to shut down. Or the robot's designer suffers a heart attack
before turning it on.

These may seem like contrived examples, but when you eliminate all outcomes
that aren't self-consistent, it may be that _all_ the remaining possibilities
are contrived. Probability gets weird when time travel is involved.

------
pattisapu
Ted Chiang's Predictor would be quite the expansion pack for Hermann Hesse's
Glass Bead Game.

------
mnemonicsloth
Here's a similar appearance by Vernor Vinge:
[http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v407/n6805/full/407679a...](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v407/n6805/full/407679a0.html)

------
sarreph
I _love_ pieces of writing like this.

Determinism isn't something I've explored quite satisfactorily enough just
yet, and reading articles such as this one sends me straight back into the
depths of the literature.

------
marmaduke
This is known in the dynamical systems literature as strong anticipation:

[http://digital.csic.es/bitstream/10261/7493/2/Dynamical_mech...](http://digital.csic.es/bitstream/10261/7493/2/Dynamical_mechanism.pdf)

[http://www.haskins.yale.edu/Reprints/HL1521.pdf](http://www.haskins.yale.edu/Reprints/HL1521.pdf)

------
wodow
My predictor says that some of you will want to read The Hundred-Light-Year
Diary by Greg Egan (in Axiomatic [1]) ... if you like this kind of thing.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axiomatic_%28story_collection%2...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axiomatic_%28story_collection%29)

------
nichtich
Why is greater than one second is a problem? You can chain many predictor
together using robots that when seeing a flash from one predictor presses
another predictor. That way you can move the message back in time many
seconds.

------
pyalot2
Cool idea for creative writing class, would've helped in plausibility if
they'd thrown a few nano and quantum randomly into the essay instead of
"negative time delay circuit".

------
gbrandt
Relevant:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timequake](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timequake)

------
throwaway7808
That reminds me of Feynman's Thesis and his (failed) attempt to build his
Feynman's Radio...

------
poorelise
Reminds me of Comed-Tea in "Harry Potter And The Methods Of Rationality":

"If you drink it, something surprising is bound to happen which makes you
spill it on yourself or someone else. But it's charmed to vanish just a few
seconds later"

~~~
eli_gottlieb
Except of course, that was done via a cheap trick with minor prescience: the
tea transmits an urge to drink into your mind when it detects that something
funny is about to happen.

~~~
poorelise
You might want to add a spoiler warning to that, as the actual mechanism
behind it is not immediately revealed in the story :-)

Still, I don't see why the Predictor couldn't work in the same way - how would
you determine that it doesn't?

------
_sabe_
Even if we were free thinking individuals, able to make rational decisions on
our own, we base those decisions on past events and the current situation. So
even if you get to choose, you'd probably make the same rational choices as
long as your past experience and the environment is the same.

This would be true one second ago, and a second ago this would be true about
the second before that.

