
Free will is dead lets bury it - hamdal
http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2016/01/free-will-is-dead-lets-bury-it.html
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Retra
Free will is basically the _feeling_ of experiencing a mind that operates in a
certain way. Just because you don't know what the requirements are doesn't
mean it doesn't exist. You could just as well say "love doesn't exist" because
physicists don't have a great model of what causes it.

Sure free will exists; it just isn't a objective natural phenomena to be
studied under the domain of physics. It's an emotion. It's what happens when
you brain builds counterfactual models of its own behavior. It's really no
different from things like pride and regret -- you experience them only
because you can imagine a reality different from the one you are in. There
needn't be any physical mechanism for predicting the construction of those
realities.

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steinsgate
I think this is a perfect example of a pseudo scientific article. The author
claims there is no free will based on another claim : "laws of Physics can
describe/predict human actions". Physics does not make this second claim, at
least, not yet.

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DArcMattr
The Aristotelian treatment of causality is what's needed here. Objects act in
accordance to their nature. Cause and effect is the course of how objects
interact with each other. For a given situation, objects A & B will produce
the same results if made to interact with each other in a given way.

This is in contrast to the Humean treatment of causality, which is a listing
of events where objects play a nominal role.

Let's consider the case of a person considering an argument for determinism.
The arguer is presenting a logical sequence of statements building to a
conclusion. The considerer is having to focus on each of the presented facts
and how they relate to the conclusion. It is this act of focusing which is the
core role of volition. The arguer is counting on the focusing act to take
place in order to present an argument for determinism. It may be argued that
volition can't be proven, but in order to argue against it, it's necessary to
rely on volition still the same. Funny thing, volition.

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robgibbons
Determinism should be the obvious starting point for both physicists and
philosophers. The idea that any action or set of events can unfold outside of
prior physical causes underlies the idea of free will, but it also essentially
contradicts the law of causality: every event has an exact set of causes,
prior conditions which map perfectly to the resulting effects of a given
system. The claim that your actions are purely the result of your own
decisions does not factor your thinking itself as being a fundamentally
physical process, governed only by physics. Thinking is a natural process,
founded on top of other natural processes, and bound ultimately by the greater
forces of causality. Of course, quantum randomness on a fundamental level may
alter the effects of these processes such that the future cannot be predicted,
but it does not dispute the fundamentally physical, and thus causal, nature of
thought.

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DougN7
If thought is merely chemical gears spinning, doesn't that remove any kind of
control or responsibility of the person for their actions? It would be morally
wrong to punish someone for an act they had no control over for example.

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orasis
Just as space is what gives matter room to exist, probability is what gives
information room to exist. In this unfolding of probability to information,
there is a possibility for choice to exist.

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wodenokoto
While I do find the argument that free will doesn't exist quite simple, I have
a hard time wrapping my head around what free will is supposed to mean.

