
John Conway – The Free Will Lectures (2009) [video] - jessup
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmx2tpcdKZY
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dan-robertson
I’ve heard rumours of a course of five or six lectures Conway did many years
ago (before he went to Princeton). The goal is to prove Gödel’s incompleteness
theorem but somehow using geometry in some way. I think you need to allow
comparing two lines and knowing which is longer (and this foundational thing
is hard or maybe impossible) in some sense. I don’t know what is left of eg
Gödel numbering or the formal languages stuff because I’ve only heard vague
descriptions of this.

I believe the contents of this course were lost to time but I’d like to be
surprised.

~~~
lidHanteyk
It isn't what you're looking for, but perhaps Lawvere's generalization of
Gödel's work is sufficiently geometric for you [0][1][2].

[0]
[https://ncatlab.org/nlab/show/Lawvere's+fixed+point+theorem](https://ncatlab.org/nlab/show/Lawvere's+fixed+point+theorem)

[1]
[http://tac.mta.ca/tac/reprints/articles/15/tr15.pdf](http://tac.mta.ca/tac/reprints/articles/15/tr15.pdf)

[2] [https://arxiv.org/abs/math/0305282](https://arxiv.org/abs/math/0305282)

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lez
I'm very much surprised to hear philosophical gems in this talk. If you like
these thoughts, you'll like some of Alan Watts' lectures, too.

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prescojan
Exactly what I was thinking. This kind of attitude can make people that are
less connected to the topics John Conway is talking about, feels much more
into it.

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gbjw
The Free Will Theorem paper is available here: [https://arxiv.org/pdf/quant-
ph/0604079v1.pdf](https://arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/0604079v1.pdf). Most of it
seems quite readable.

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coderunner
My understanding is that it says if anyone anywhere has free will, then so do
some elementary particles. It doesn't say anything about if anyone or if any
elementary particles actually have free will right? Does it lend support
either way to if free will exists?

~~~
gbjw
He notes in the first lecture that he thinks it is impossible to disprove
determinism. A determined determinist can always resort to the argument: all
of your senses are deceiving you and you are simply experiencing some
predetermined script of qualia (he uses the analogy of watching a movie a
second time).

~~~
ethn
This is also the conclusion of Kant, free will is impossible to prove or
disprove as it’s a question of the noumenon.

~~~
gbjw
Right: if you are a brain-in-a-vat observing some powerful play, what can you
say about the world in which the vat is embedded? (or for that matter, how is
it that you can even be made aware of the vat’s existence?)

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JoelJacobson
Post-corona observation: You can hear a lot of coughing from students in the
audience. I wonder if I would have made a mental note of this pre-corona.

~~~
harry8
How we all wish we were actually post-corona.

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sysbin
The HN crowd from my impression wants to deeply think of themselves as being
in control of how their life transpired. I'm an outlier and I think free will
is an illusion. Not only do I think everything is fated beyond our control but
I have the belief that society would function better if people were educated
young about understanding the concept of determinism and why we don't have
control over how life transpires. Fundamentally we're living in a judgement &
punishment system of society because religion adopted the stance of people
being in control instead of what we describe as evil being a product of God. I
think a society that replaces judgement & punishment with rehabilitation would
be fundamentally just. I'm curious if society will evolve or stay unchanging
but I think it likely won't be in my lifetime.

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k__
_" society would function better if people were educated young about
understanding the concept of determinism and why we don't have control"_

My life got better after I rid myself from those thoughts. I firmly believe,
they are dangerous.

~~~
trevyn
> _I firmly believe, they are dangerous._

What is your reasoning?

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0_gravitas
A single example: the US justice system is based on retribution. People are
condemned to prisons and sometimes death as a result of ultimately how they
are wired and the circumstances they were in- there was no 'choice' made
regarding whether or not to steal or kill, they were always going to do that,
they never had any real 'control' over their actions. If anything criminality
in any form should be considered a mental illness, but instead we gladly put
people in tortuous conditions because we have wantonly decided that they are
guilty, bad/evil, people.

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chrisshroba
This focuses on the "retribution/punishment" aspect of the penal system, but
it's also important to remember that "deterrence" and "reform" are also
important. Even if you feel people don't deserve to be punished for their
crimes due to the crimes' inevitability, it's still important for
repercussions to exist to create a society where it is less likely for people
to commit those crimes (for fear of punishment), and where people who do
commit crimes undergo a process that makes them less likely to do so in the
future. (There are better ways than prison to reform people, of course, but
not as many to deter people from committing crimes in the first place)

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sysbin
That just sounds like a one sided convenience for people fated to not be hurt
by the system that doesn't harm them. Deterrence can be from not having to go
through the rehabilitation system.

