Osiris

It seems the more you think about something the more likely you are to use knowledge you have been taught. Or, the more you think the greater chance your decision is controlled by others.

The most compelling example of free-will is that you can make a decision based on a totally random outcome: "I will do X if the coin ends up heads."

[ December 08, 2002: Message edited by: Osiris ]</p>

Thomas Ash

I think that's a really interesting idea. But, I still think free will isn't a very coherent concept as most people think about it. <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />

Devilnaut

Again with a compatibilist hat on, I'd say that in this version of free will, "free" is simply defined as "freedom from external forces".

As long as there is no direct, external force operating on a decision, I'd say that it's fully and completely free, under this definition.

In contrast, the definition of "free" that most people like to argue against is "freedom from all forces". Clearly the only possibility here is pure randomness, and it is difficult to see how anything completely random would even constitute a choice or the operation of any sort of will. This is why this particular version of free will is incoherent.

Kharakov

I agree that free choice is completely different from free will. Nice.

Were you refering to will in this part or choice?

Starboy

Devilnaut, I agree that the existence of pure randomness does establish the existence of "freedom". The question is, can you say with certainty that what we call “free will” is free of “random choice”? After all, if chess players possessed perfect reason there would be no point in playing chess since whomever got the first move would win. But life is not like a game of chess; it is more like a card game. You can compute the odds but only in a few special cases can you be sure of the outcome. The rest of the time your process of choosing is more like the flip of a coin than a reasoned choice. And under such conditions if you were convinced that one choice was better than others of equal probability and outcome wouldn’t that be a fantasy? What is the difference between making a choice based on a fantasy of what will happen vs. a flip of the coin? And who can say that the fantasy is not a random creation, sort of the coin of the mind?

Starboy

[ December 14, 2002: Message edited by: Starboy ]</p>

PotatoError

I am a firm believer in determinism.

I believe we do not posess real free will. That is, if we rewound time we would pick the same choices.

The universe is governed by cause and effect and is determisistic itself. To me, the brain is no exception.

"The most compelling example of free-will is that you can make a decision based on a totally random outcome: "I will do X if the coin ends up heads."

I argue in this case that a coin toss is NOT truely random - nothing is truely random.

We only percieve free will because of the way our brains work. Our free will is an illusion, we think we are making choices but in fact all the choices are determined by our environment.

I am trying to work out how this "illusion" of free will comes about. I believe it is strongly connected to the reason we possess conciousness. In fact I would go so far as to say that without the illusion of free will we would not be concious beings.

I am toying with the idea that time has a lot to do with free will. I am thinking along the lines that if we knew the future, then we would not percieve free will (as we would know the determined course). As it is, we don't know the future but know the past. I will have to do more thinking on this when I have time - get the pun?

Starboy

Welcome PotatoError!

Glad to see a new poster! I hope you find this site as interesting and stimulating as I have.

As to your point that nothing is truely random, how do you square this with the results of quantum mechanics?

Starboy

99Percent

Thats great. You can become rich going to Las Vegas, (actually becoming a Casino owner).

Cheers!

[ December 15, 2002: Message edited by: 99Percent ]</p>

Devilnaut

Welcome to the discussion, potato

Heh.. if the definition of true randomness includes anything that one is not capable of accurately predicting the outcome of, I am left wondering how anyone ever figured anything out in the first place!

Well, if there are truly random processes occuring at a quantum level, doesn't that make your example of the coin toss superfluous?

Personally, from what I know of quantum mechanics, nothing about it is "truly random". The uncertainty principle simply states that practically speaking, it's impossible to know the outcome of quantum events with 100% accuracy. This doesn't mean that they're uncaused. How the heck could uncaused events occur in the first place? How could "random events" form patterns of any kind? How could truly random events fall into the categories of probability that they use to predict the outcome of quantum events?

Starboy

Hiya Devilnaut,

I don’t follow you please explain.



There is more to it than that. The quantum equations of motion compute probability functions. They do not exactly predict where a particle will be detected so much as what the probability of detecting a particle at a specific location will be. For some locations the probability is zero, however there are no locations where the probability is one. Of course the sum of all the probabilities must add up to one. For a simple single slit diffraction experiment, the probability that any given electron will end up on the right side of target WRT the centerline of the slit vs. the left side is 50%. Thus in this sense it is possible to construct a random coin, if you associate left with heads and right with tails. Even in the case where it is not exactly 50/50 because of some bias in the room, it is still random, just not completely random.

Starboy