

Is Free Will a Buffer Overflow? - rogueleaderr
http://rogueleaderr.com/post/46948814545/is-free-will-a-buffer-overflow

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topherreynoso
Glad to see the questions raised but I fail to see how free will can at all be
compared to buffer overflow or how in doing so we draw any closer to an
explanation or understanding of its existence. I think if your goal is merely
to show that free will can't be discounted by the laws of the known universe
you're better off comparing it to "strange matter," things that share physical
properties with most matter but are missing fundamental blocks of what we call
matter like mass (gravitons) or interaction with matter (neutrinos). That
allows us to say that if this "strange matter" can violate those rules, there
is the possibility that something exists in the universe that operates on the
fringe of known matter, still interacting but violating most of what we
consider "rules" regarding matter's existence, perhaps even allowing us to
operate freely. In computing terms, free will is probably more like a systemic
computer, maybe it's more easily understood as a human's ability to reprogram
itself. A highly evolved, biological machine capable of reprogramming itself.
Although that just begs the question since the reprogrammer must still be
programmed at some higher level to follow commands. The process of making a
biological machine like that is a blast, but they're wildly unpredictable, as
you would expect anything truly capable of freely reprogramming itself would
be. ;)

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rogueleaderr
OP here. I'm with you on the notion of free will as "reprogramming", but I
contend that "strange matter" is the wrong direction to look. My point in the
article is that in order for free will to exist at all, it would have to exist
as a dynamic of the information system that is "represented" by arrangements
of matter but is _not_ actually the matter doing the arranging.

As soon as you link free will to discrete matter (i.e. this is the free will
atom) physical laws clearly attach and you've boxed yourself out. Strange
matter may obey different laws, but it still obeys laws.

But in an information system like a computer program, things are a lot more
nebulous. You can't even in principle point to the bit that makes one
instruction a buffer overflow and another not. It's just that in one
configuration the system behaves as intended and in another it doesn't, but
the standing-in-relation-to-expectations of the system is something that
exists in the information layer and not in matter per se. And when you
introduce self-reference information systems go bonkers.

Free will has to be the same way, if it exists at all.

~~~
topherreynoso
I think we need to determine what free will is first because to me random or
just unpredictable does not equal free will (that's how I think of the buffer
overflow you describe). Nor does complete freedom to act or do whatever you
want equal free will. For example, having free will doesn't mean I can now fly
or defy other natural laws. Free will, to me, incorporates interpretation and
response, and the ability to change the rules regarding interpretation and
response. It doesn't mean not having rules and laws regulating interpretation
and response, it just means having the ability to redefine those laws. So yes,
at some point I'll need something above causal reaction in order to have free
will but that doesn't automatically imply that I'm boxed out because that free
will is attributed to matter (strange as that matter may be). The whole point
of the comparison to strange matter isn't that free will is a particle, but
rather a way to show that physical laws don't clearly attach to everything in
the universe. And I don't mean to imply that free will must be one thing or
another. I think that's what I'm taking issue with in your argument.
Especially your last sentence in the above comment. My comparison to strange
matter is merely to show that free will cannot be discounted by physical laws.
Your assertion says that free will, if existent, must be in a particular form.
While my position can't be disproved, yours can't be proven. So I guess
neither of us are pushing this argument much of anywhere.

~~~
rogueleaderr
I think we're only disagreeing on a pretty narrow point. I basically define
"free" in this case as "impossible in principle to definitely predict". That's
why I'm resistant to the strange matter explanation, because although
neutrinos etc do behave unusually I haven't seen evidence that they behave
_without any laws_. I could be wrong about that; I don't know much about
strange matter.

But re: my last sentence, the idea is that:

1) Free will cannot follow laws 2) All physical objects follow laws 3)
Therefore free will cannot be physical, if it exists

And re: disproval, I kind of think my position may actually be testable. I'm
not clever enough to think of an experiment, but my contention is that "will"
can have causal influence on the world. And where there's influence, there can
be measurement.

