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FF: Determinism vs. free will
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I think determinism is overstated. I hate anchovies. I would never order a pizza with anchovies on it. Yet that doesn't mean I don't have free will in choosing pizza toppings. So too with determinism. The fact that if you rewind the universe by five minutes, I would write this same message doesn't change that in the moment of composition, every key I strike is my choice.
Mod
That kind of argument is implied in Lloyd's pushing of the Minkowski block theory in the book, (view spoiler)
I just remembered that Slaughterhouse-Five is a perfect example of a sci-fi work dealing with determinism / a Minkowski block of time. That book's Tralfamadorian aliens see all of time at once - one vast, inevitable panorama, and have their fatalistic "so it goes" philosophy that goes along with their perception.
Sean wrote: "I think determinism is overstated. I hate anchovies. I would never order a pizza with anchovies on it. Yet that doesn't mean I don't have free will in choosing pizza toppings. So too with determini..."You were fated to post that.
Personally, I don't think finding the truth (if it exists) matters as much. Right now, I believe that free will does exist so the result will be that I'm able to take responsibility for my decisions, feel guilt over bad decisions and make better choices in the future rather than believing in a deterministic universe and saying to myself my past choices couldn't have gone any other way, so there's no point in learning from them. Not all people will think this way, but most people might, and if they learn that something was unchangeable, blame and guilt will be reasoned out if only to stop themselves from feeling bad. But really, I don't really know, since we haven't had a revelation that proves that the universe is deterministic and had people react to it.
I personally have a different bent in that I have a religious presepective that drives my thoughts on this, though interestingly a similar paradox of sorts exists. There is the notion of predestination that exists. I actually find it interesting that a lot of the scientific theories reflect similar contentions thatto my viewing were first raised in these other areas but lacked what some have come to call meaning.Anyway I'm like xenphi, I tend not to personally think about it too much and base my frame such that I do have free will.
Jlawrence wrote: "Well, but is it really a choice if it always happens? The deterministic argument is that your every "choice", whether they be typical (no anchovies) or very rare (anchovies), is a product of mechanistic physical processes, pre-determined by conditions and events preceding the action."I don't see how that makes it not-a-choice. My mind is looking at the options and determining which is best. Sure, given the exact same set of circumstances it would reach the same conclusion, but that doesn't change the process taking place in my brain.
If anything, a non deterministic universe is the one where we're deprived of choice, since it would only be possible if our minds were subject to the whims of random quantum events. Instead of our thoughts being a logical process determined through the sum of our experiences and environment, they'd be the product of an RNG feeding arbitrary inputs at random.
Mod
Well, I'd say 'having free will' is usually understood as being able to choose any of a set of options in a given situation, not being pre-destined to always make the same choice in that given situation. Perhaps 'inevitable choice' would be better phrasing than 'not-a-choice.'
Sean wrote: "If anything, a non deterministic universe is the one where we're deprived of choice, since it would only be possible if our minds were subject to the whims of random quantum events. Instead of our thoughts being a logical process determined through the sum of our experiences and environment, they'd be the product of an RNG feeding arbitrary inputs at random."
Ah, but the lowest-level physical workings of the brain may indeed be affected by the whims of random quantum events. As far as I know, we're still pretty far from understanding exactly how the low-level physics of the brain interacts with the all the high-level abstractions of consciousness. There could be some mix of true randomness and true deterministic processes going on. At the very least, there's also plenty of actions we take during the day that are result of decisions made below a conscious, rational level, which adds another nuance to the idea of choice (for my favorite humorous take on this, see The Trouble with Brains.)
I should make clear that I'm not decidedly on the side of determinism, but it is a problem that fascinates me, and Flashforward brought it back to mind (as it was fated to do. ;) ). Like xenhpi and Andrew, my day-to-day frame of reference includes a assumption of free will.
Mod
They don't mean you don't have choices. They don't mean you might as well give up trying to be a good person because everything is determined. In fact, on the individual level they're very adamant that you should act as if you have free will.
But from the 10,000 foot view our brains work within the laws of physics. And we are bound by those laws and can't, through some supernatural force, change it. So it's not mechanistic. It's all still governed byt the probabilities of quantum physics, and the alternate realities they create (which are presumed to be very real).
This is bolstered by studies that show we already are acting on decisions before we've made them. Our brains tend to make up our reasons afterwards.
So anyway, from what they say, we don't need to choose between free will and determinism, since there is no such thing as determinism either.
Predestination is basically the same thing as determinism. When considering predestination and free will I am convinced that only God is capable of knowing the answer to that question absolutely. I personally think that the answer lies in between the two points of view. That is, God acts in His providence to guide and direct events while allowing a certain amount of free will in our personal decision making. To what degree, I do not know and concede that this view in itself is supportive of a deterministic world view since the very degree of our free will is determined by God. What I think it all boils down to is that we can not absolutely know and regardless of the debate we are personally accountable for our actions and decisions.
Jlawrence wrote: "Well, I'd say 'having free will' is usually understood as being able to choose any of a set of options in a given situation, not being pre-destined to always make the same choice in that given situation. Perhaps 'inevitable choice' would be better phrasing than 'not-a-choice.'"I think that's a hangover from the religious origins of the issue. As originally phrased, determinism was the idea that if an omniscient God created the whole universe, then everything we do is part of his design. If you remove God from the equation, then the inevitability of our choices becomes an emergent phenomenon of the universe, and not something being imposed upon us by an outside will. To me, as long as the choices I make are a product of my mind interacting with an infinitude of stimuli and not some grand design, then I have free will, regardless of whether I would make the same choices agains with the exact same set of stimuli.
Tom wrote: "This is bolstered by studies that show we already are acting on decisions before we've made them. Our brains tend to make up our reasons afterwards."Tom I'm curious about this with regards to your statement that choice as you see it isn't mechanistic. My appreciation of some of these studies is that there is an almost mechanistic process that is occurring whilst our forward consciousness lags such that a decision is occurring before that part you would likely call self kicks in. If I'm recalling these studies correctly it is things like a hand moving toward the phone before an individual has made a conscious decision to make said call giving a signal that choice has been made prior to self-awareness of said choice... or are you referring to something else?
Mod
Tom wrote: "This is bolstered by studies that show we already are acting on decisions before we've made them. Our brains tend to make up our reasons afterwards."Next you'll be telling us that as soon as we stop thinking about this that we'll remember we don't believe in any of this fate crap and that we are in control of our own life. And you'll say we should have a cookie and by the time we are finished eating it we'll feel as right as rain.
(I'm making a not so vague Matrix movie reference for those non-movie lovers.)
In all seriousness this sounds a lot like the Matrix movie's interpretation of a few of Spinoza's ideas about free will. The whole "You've already made the decision. Now you just need to understand why you made that decision." idea throughout the Matrix Reloaded movie.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baruch_S...
Quoting a sentence about Spinoza's belief from the wiki article
"That humans presume themselves to have free will, he argues, is a result of their awareness of appetites while being unable to understand the reasons why they want and act as they do."
And yes I did steal this Spinoza/Matrix movie association from an article I read on Matrix Movie philosophy. I've a done a little reading on philosophy but I probably don't know as much as I should on the subject.
Mod
Tom wrote: "By not mechanistic, I mean non-Newtonian."Ah, noted.
Tom wrote: "The philosophers and the psych folks often go at it over free will, since the psych scientists like to say they don't guess, they just look at the data. This is why psych scientists are so annoyin..."
They may look at data but the experimental psychologists often infer meaning from said data that I believe isn't without contention even within their own profession. If you have specific studies that inform your (or phsyc friends) view I would love to read them out of personal interest. Already thinking I need to hit up the literature/academic databases when I get time as I'm curious where current consensus sits. Too many interesting things, too little time is the problem. :)
I always have wondered if the either/or proposition for this issue is really a false choice and reality is a mix of both determinism and free will. I get the fact that on some level our brains are operating with in the laws of physics and behavior triggers built into our biology but I also think the emotional act of choosing a course of action is a valid event as well. That perception is reality for the human species as well that makes free will a componanat of who we are as well. It is free will bound by a deterministic universe.
We are completely free to make all the choices we always would have made.I subscribe to the subjective free will but objective determinism idea. From our perspective we have all the free will we could want. From an outside perspective, we are never going to make any different choices given the same set of circumstances.
There is a line of thought that says, all actions, viewed from a future perspective, are predetermined. You will cross the street and get hit by a car because you always did. There is another line of thought that the moment of decision where you decided to cross the street, you also created multiple versions of yourself. That each moment to moment, with each decision, an alternate reality is spun off. IN that case, not matter the decision you make, there is always a version of you who chose otherwise. Which of you has free will? Can anyone's choices mean anything if all choices are made and valid somewhere?There is still another line of thought that states that you can't help the decisions you make because all of history, culture, language, and genetics brought you to that moment, conditioned to make the choice you make.
Ultimately, this is a philosophical rabbit hole. it is like trying to prove the world is real and not just some illusion. Act as you want or need too. The philosophers can argue all they wish, it is meaningless. The only point of meaning is in the making of the decision. In that moment, it is purely yours.
Science is pretty clear that the smaller you get in scale, any notion of determinism evaporates completely. (See Quantum Mechanics, Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle , Planck distance, Planck time). All these concepts are many decades old and very accepted by almost all physicists.Now getting more meta... Essentially at small enough scales of time and distance, the universe cannot observe itself with any precision. Since the known processes in our bodies and brains are built on top of interactions at these tiny scales, there are quantum imposed non deterministic effects associated with the processes that we think govern our thought.
The above objective argument only pokes holes in determinism though. It does not prove free will.
On the free will side, All I think we can say is that since we have a subjective experience of our existence that many interpret as free will... Then subjectively there is free will (for those who experience it).
Not atypically, I agree with Sean on most all points including the analysis of how subtracting God from a historical discussion left the terms of engagement framed in a way that persists but clouds an accurate analysis.Pt 1: determinism. Easy to beat. Say I tie a range of options (have a child or don't have a child; jump off the bridge, don't jump; plan an assassination or don't; etc) to quantum events. Observe the outcome and act. Voila, all subsequent history has been changed. Call it Schrodinger's life planning.
Note that using the above method doesn't really add meaning to your life.
Pt 2: decisions. Decision I make by drawing up a list of options, evaluating them, asking for advice, agonizing, etc would not be the same decision without that process. The process is embodied but I frankly don't think that means our actions are determined in the very primitive sense it is often used, ie one that implies the process did not cause the decision.
Pt 3: We have a residual 'ghost in the machine' definition of free will that leads us to conclude unless some disembodied entity acts from 'outside' then the act is not 'free.' If that's the criteria you have determined the outcome of the discussion. No embodied process can be free.
There's a Pt 4 & 5 but I need to pause...more later if this seems a line worth pursuing to you all.
(PS, the 'we make decisions and then justify them' brain imaging experiments look to me like a vast amount of conclusion chasing a tiny amount of data.)
Mod
Yes, I have read the brain imaging stuff. To conclude from that >all< conscious decisions are illusory or that the evidence is unequivocal is precisely what I mean by a lot of conclusion chasing very little data.Also, since none of us are citing specific studies or doing original research, every post in this thread can be attacked with the same argument you use on me: opinion chasing data. Somehow yours aren't?
Btw, nowhere do I claim that emotion has nothing to do with decision making. Values themselves are feeling stuff. Without any emotion everything flunks the 'why bother test.' I can see how my post leads in that direction, though...my fault here.
To clarify, are you actually contending that any decision you make after minutes, hours, or days of deliberation is exactly the same decision you'd make if you just acted on your initial impulse and that some unconscious event (displayable unequivocally as such on brain imaging machines) is the 'real' decision played out as a bit of theater in the brain thereafter?
Looking forward to drawing this out a bit,
Al
Mod
And this doesn't necessarily imply determinism, as you indicate by bringing in physics. Everythign is probabilisitic. The question is whether we have any real conscious affect on the probabilities. Sure our observance causes decoherence, but are we really deciding to observe? Or is that a trick of the mind?
Tom, you precisely state the gist of our disagreement, I think, assuming you agree with the psychologist you cite.I view the deliberation as the process itself and not epiphenomenal to it. I agree, however, there is post-hoc justification in some but not all circumstances.
I think that 'trained psychologists' are simply (but dangerously) wrong as were the behavorists before them when they made very similar sweeping claims...as are the 'rational actor' economists and the selfish gene evolutionary biologists.
They are all using a simple model or observation and over generalizing massively. It's all good as they push the model to its limits to see where it works...that's what science is supposed to do. The problem is when they mistake their battle plan to prove out a model in wider contexts with actual success in doing so and then start to tell us easily observable human phenomena (kindness, thoughtful decision making, non-rational action in the 'marketplace') are illusory. I find this not only dubious science but damaging.
I love thinking about this stuff so I'm happy to continue the conversation or drop it,
Al
First time poster, yadda yadda yadda....I am one of those psychologists. I was trained, not sure why that is in quotes above....
Anyway, Tom is correct about the brain making a decision before you are aware of it. The phenomenon is called P300. You get a positive spike of electrical activity (the charge is +) about 300 msec before a decision. So, if I ask you to push a button as a clock strikes 12, you will be of course, very good at it. However, there will be a P300, at 11:59:59.700. This is very cool, and shows up across species and in many different paradigms. (Check out "An Introduction to Brain and Behavior, by Kolb and Wishaw, especially the chapter on vision).
The notion of free will also flies in the face of science, well any kind of science of human behaviour and cognition. If we are to say that X causes Y (so say alcohol causes an increase in reaction time) we can be pretty clear on that. If we have a free agent in there, call it Z (and I am pronouncing that 'zed' by the way....) then how can we ever, ever say that X causes Y? We must say that Z could play a role. So, most if not all experimental psychologists, including social and personality types, reject the notion of free will.
If we understand all of the variables, and how they interact, we can make perfect predictions. We just are not there yet. We can do those things in some cases, but those are rare. We can, for example, account for about 99.99 percent of the variance in short term timing behaviour. So, if .01 percent of the variance is free will (and I am pretty sure it is not) then it has little effect anyway.
I think we act like, and think that, we have free will because it is an adaptive thing.
I could use a TENS machine and run current on your scalp in the (if memory serves) right parietal lobe and turn off your morality. The data there are striking. I ask you to say if a person is evil on a scale of 1-7. So I give you a story, a guy is going to poison another guy. He tries, but puts coffee mate in the cup, not the poison. So, nobody is hurt. I then ask you on a scale of 1-7 is the guy evil. We would all pretty much say 7, and the data bear this out. Then I put the TENS on your head, right parietal, and do the same thing. You reply 1. Your reasoning becomes 'no harm no foul'. Your detection of intention has been shut down. I could put the TENS somewhere else, and you would still reply 7. Well unless I put it at left temporal, then you couldn't speak.... (this stuff is done between subjects of course, proper experimental design etc, we are obsessive about such stuff).
Oh and I am annoying, and plan on staying that way....
Here's an interesting view point: Free Will and Quantum Clones: How Your Choices Today Affect the Universe at its Origin
I accept the science that indicates human behavior can be predictable if we can learn all the inputs but I still can't reconcile some human behavior with that notion. One example is the special ops soldiers that delibrately drown themselves in training to learn to control their bodies reactions to drowning, or a Dr I heard speak on surviving on Mt Everest when his body appeared clinically dead, or the acts of heroism you hear of like fire men running into a burning building knowing they can't survive. These examples seem to contradict the science. Not everyone in those circumstances responses the same way which seems to fly in the face of human behavior always being predictable....Of course if it is all probabilities these are just outlier behavior or are they?
Determinism doesn't necessarily mean predictable. To be able to predict an individual human's actions accurately, you would need to account for every factor influencing his mind -- and that would require a computer of stupendous size (as in I doubt there's enough matter in the universe to do it) and it would take so long to run the program that the person would've died of old age millennia before it can tell you what he'll do next Tuesday.
Sean wrote: "Determinism doesn't necessarily mean predictable. To be able to predict an individual human's actions accurately, you would need to account for every factor influencing his mind -- and that would r..."Dave's post seems to link the predictability and determinism thru science but I may be over thinking...
Kris wrote: "Sean wrote: "Determinism doesn't necessarily mean predictable. To be able to predict an individual human's actions accurately, you would need to account for every factor influencing his mind -- and..."Yeah that is what I meant for sure. I am linking the science to it. I know no other way that works as well.
As for soldiers etc, it is interesting. Now think about this, we have been selected for doing nice things for family. They share genes with us. As Bill Hamilton said, 'I would not give up my life for my brother, but for 2 I would' (I am paraphrasing). So as selection acts at the gene level we are nice to those that share genes. Soldiers are trained that their mates are their family. Now, of course they are not, they are strangers, but the training goes against that. Then, when a grenade falls in front of you, you jump on it to save your mates. Your mind (god I hate that word, but it is good enough.....) sees your mates as your family.
Sean wrote: "Determinism doesn't necessarily mean predictable. To be able to predict an individual human's actions accurately, you would need to account for every factor influencing his mind -- and that would r..."Give it 20 years and I imagine this will happen, we will be able to build machines that can accurately model humans, and, can easily pass for us. (I have no data to base that on, other than the advance of cognitive neuroscience and computer science to date).
Dave wrote: "Kris wrote: "Sean wrote: "Determinism doesn't necessarily mean predictable. To be able to predict an individual human's actions accurately, you would need to account for every factor influencing hi..."I agree about the training but the person is fighting the biological reaction to preserve them self so is that a selected trait to be self sacrificing so then what about the opposite behavior? Seems contradictory to me...
Kris wrote: "Dave wrote: "Kris wrote: "Sean wrote: "Determinism doesn't necessarily mean predictable. To be able to predict an individual human's actions accurately, you would need to account for every factor i..."Indeed Sean, but it shows that these mechanisms are affected more or less by the environment. Natural Selection is the ultimate environmental theory. Very cool stuff. Evolutionary Psychology rocks, though, I may be biased......
Dave wrote: "Give it 20 years and I imagine this will happen, we will be able to build machines that can accurately model humans, and, can easily pass for us. (I have no data to base that on, other than the advance of cognitive neuroscience and computer science to date). "You might, under laboratory conditions, be able to model a person's actions a second or two into the future. But our minds are not black boxes that operate independently of the universe. To predict the outcome of any thought process not currently executing in the brain, you would have to predict every input that affects that process -- phones ringing, light bulbs burning out, sudden changes of weather -- and that will never be possible.
I wouldn't say never. There are a number of things we've said could never happen that we've made happen. An average lifespan over 40 years, super-sonic flight, splitting the atom... Given enough time we have a habit of finding we're wrong.Now, here's where it gets interesting. If you ran a simulation that accounted for Bob's actions while Bob was watching the simulation, Bob would see it, be predicted for a second or two, and then likely go off track. Now, that's not because the prediction was wrong but because the prediction isn't removed form the universe and the act of prediction could easily cause a change.
The trick would be to create a prediction system that existed entirely independently of the active universe and measure all energy and matter at the same time.
That, in theory, would let you do it.
Dave wrote: "First time poster, yadda yadda yadda...."
Dave, I don't dispute that the brain is made up of material processes. If you define free will as 'ghost in the machine' there is no free will. And, of course, you've defined the issue in a way that predetermines the answer.
If you define free will phenomenally as exactly what we experience as free will (weighing options, making tough choices, pulling off a long term plan that might take years or even decades) then it's a whole different argument.
I contend that you are overgeneralizing a simple observation out to account for all human experience in a way that distorts a simple model into incoherence.
Btw, weather is a good place to play with the whole 'we can figure it all out with enough information' model. You probably can predict weather in a system provided your predictive system has exactly the same number of entities (air molecules, etc) as the system you need to predict and your model runs faster...which is, to the best of our knowledge, physically impossible to do in a way that gives advance notice. Basically you'd need an earth's atmosphere and surface with solar heat running faster than real time to predict earth's weather.
Not that the rules we've been able to figure out for predictability in material systems (and I don't know of any other kind) make the meaningful free will we experience and more or less free.
The human brain contains a large number of particles and massive number of connections. Maybe (maybe!) it would someday be possible to model out exactly the process that I call free will in a way that retains its meaning and makes it fully predictable. I have no problem with that. Might work, might fall prey to the inherent unpredictability of sufficiently complex system.
I do have a problem with taking a simple limited useful insight and claiming you've conquered the world.
The other topic on how characters would react to learning they'd be immortal until their pre-determined time of death makes me come back to this topic to wonder if the book is even really about free will vs. determinism. Lloyd, in particular, staunchly argues that the visions they saw show one, and only one, possible outcome. But getting a vision of the "future" must be accounted for in a deterministic universe. In other words, like we mentioned in the example of the predicting machine, knowing the "predicted result" will change the variables and thus may change the outcome. This is true in both a free will and deterministic universe.
Thus, I think the argument in Flashforward is really more about something like pre-destination vs. "the utter inability to know the eventual outcome".
I guess what's I'm saying is: does a deterministic universe imply a predictable one? Because the act of prediction is itself a variable, and will have an effect on the outcome.
Mod
Al, I define everything in a materialistic way. Works for me, science and all that. I don't understand the 'simple limited useful insight' sentence.Sodon, I think deterministic implies predictable, but we would need to know everything to make a perfect prediction.
nobody ever mention that both determintism and free will are interconnected like the Chinese yin/yan concept and never(cannot) be separated because of they are part of the universe makeup.
Doug wrote: "I wouldn't say never. There are a number of things we've said could never happen that we've made happen. An average lifespan over 40 years, super-sonic flight, splitting the atom... Given enough ti..."There are some limits that can't be breached. To create an accurate, long-term model of a person's behavior, you would have to be able to predict every flap of every butterfly's wing everywhere on Earth -- and not just butterflies, but every bolt of lightning, every earthquake, every pothole and airplane crash. That requires absolute omniscience and a computer large enough to hold and process the data. Worse still, we can be affected by things outside the Earth that are currently outside our lightcone -- you can never predict that there'll be a supernova that will light up the night sky tomorrow, or that SETI will detect an alien signal from Omicron Persei VIII. For that matter, you could never predict more earthly scientific breakthroughs without knowing what the breakthrough is to begin with.
At best, you can copy a mind into a relatively accurate simulacra of the Earth, but that simulacra will begin diverging immediately.
Mod
Getting a perfect model would be quite hard for sure. Getting a model that accounts for a great deal of the variance, I would imagine that would not be that hard, I mean like in the future. We can do that now with some stuff.
Tom wrote: "Sean, Fair point, but does that fact that humans aren;t capable of predicting things mean they are unpredictable? Could a more intelligent species/machine predict them, Conceivably? If so, then i..."No matter how intelligent they are, they're still Einstein's bitch -- they can't predict things outside their own lightcone. Nor do I think a purely local model would work -- how many bytes of data do you suppose would be needed even for a good-enough model of the entire Earth, and then assuming the best case scenario with quantum computing, how many moles of matter would you need just to store it, to say nothing of the processor? And even then there's no guarantee that the system would be able to execute the model faster than reality.
Dave wrote: "Getting a perfect model would be quite hard for sure. Getting a model that accounts for a great deal of the variance, I would imagine that would not be that hard, I mean like in the future. We ca..."
I disagree. Weather plays a significant role in all our lives, and meteorologists have enough trouble making very generalized predictions like, "There's a 60% chance that it will rain somewhere in this area between 2-6 PM." To get down to predicting exactly where tornadoes and lightning will hit is exceedingly unlikely.
I'm not sure where this fits into the above conversation, but I just finished Flashforward this morning and I'm also reading The Night Circus, which has several characters who can read the cards, the stars, etc, and see what will happen in vague terms. In a similar way, people who know me well often get freaked out by my "psychic ability." While I enjoy freaking people out, I think my brain just sees more patterns than most people, and most people are pretty freaking predictable. But does me (or a fortune teller, or god) knowing what will happen mean I caused it to happen? Nah. People just aren't that surprising.Except for when they are, because of some external force we are unaware of, similar to the "z" factor mentioned above. For instance, if Theo had been more in tune with his brother's emotions instead of obsessing about his future murder, he may have been the Z factor that could have prevented the suicide.
Flashforward addresses this issue head-on, making its main characters face the question of destiny (determinism) vs. choice (free will) in how they respond to their flashforward visions. This had great potential, but fell a bit flat for me -- wasn't really engaged with any of the characters so their struggles had much impact than they could have. Nonetheless, it obviously got me thinking about the problem.
I know there must be other science fiction works that address this issue - heck, practically any time-travel story raises the issue implicitly -- but I don't know if I've ever read or seen a really excellent example.
What did you think of Flashforward's take on this?
And any suggestions of other sci-fi works that tackled it?