Starboy

Theli:

When I refer to using a random selector as being a way of choosing with no outside influence what I mean is that it is completely independent of the person and the circumstances on which it is used. If you or anyone else uses a random coin to make a two choice decision at any time or place the coin is not aware of it and behaves in the same way for all people and circumstances. As such it is free of outside influence.

As for logic being a restraint, perhaps I argued incorrectly. On further reflection I see logic to be just one of many ways that a person with the “will” to decide can use to make the decision. I do not consider logic to be any magic bullet when it comes to decisions since many use it imperfectly and even when it is used flawlessly its conclusions are only as good as the assumptions. If logic were sufficient there would be no need for science.

Perhaps we should settle on the meaning of “will”. I see will as a drive or desire not a method or technique. The “will” to succeed does not imply any specific way in which it must be fulfilled. I see “free will” as the “will to choose freely”. In the everyday sense it would mean to be able to choose without outside influence. As some have argued “free will” may not exist at all since we are machines in a deterministic world. How can a machine that exists in a universe “choose freely” if its behavior is determined? My argument is simple: 1) the universe is quantum deterministic. Therefore a “random” coin does exist. 2) If you use a random coin to make a choice from a selection of two choices it is chosen freely. If it is a given that we have “will” then there exists a mechanism by which we can demonstrate “free will”.

Starboy

[ November 30, 2002: Message edited by: Starboy ]

[ November 30, 2002: Message edited by: Starboy ]</p>

Zadok001

Starboy:

How can you freely choose from between two choices if you cannot influence the outcome? A random choice, by definition, we cannot affect.

You can't choose between A and B by flipping a coin. You can choose to flip a coin to decide, but you can't CHOOSE the outcome by flipping the coin. The outcome is BEYOND OUR CONTROL. If it's out of control, then we can't very well be choosing anything about it, now can we?

Starboy

Zadok001, how can you say that you are choosing if you already know the outcome? How does not knowing the outcome and using reason to determine it differ from not knowing the outcome and using a coin? In both cases you start out not knowing the outcome. Only until you choose how you will decide and then decide, or flip the coin, would you know what you would choose. There appears to be a gap between our concepts. We appear to be using the same words and yet interpret them very differently. Please clarify:

1) If any part of a process of choosing uses input from something that is not under one's control such as the position of the sun or the location of a mountain or the flip of a coin then we are not making the choice?

2) In order for a choice to be ours we must reason using information gathered only from things under our control? We cannot use a compass or map or coin?

It seems to me that you confuse the process of making the choice with the outcome of the process and with the execution of that outcome. In other words it is a three-step process:

1) What are my choices and how shall I make the choice.
2) Make the choice.
3) Execute the choice.

So as an example:

I have come to a fork in the road. I can go left or right. I look at the map and it appears that the two routes are the same length and end up at the same location. I determine to decide by tossing a coin, heads to the left and tails to the right. I flip the coin and it is heads. I now travel down the left fork.

Please explain to me how I have not:

1) Decided how I will choose
2) Made a choice freely with no external influences
3) Executed the choice

Starboy

Theli

Starboy...
And this is supposed to be a free choice?
How can a choice be independent of the person who makes it?

Not by any chance. The coin behaviour and outcome depends on alot of factors.
Wich side was up when it was flipped.
How high it was flipped.
How many total degrees it rotated in mid air.
The nature of the material it lands on.
The shape of the objects it lands on.
Possible disturbence in mid air.
Weight, height and diameter of the coin.
and so on...

The only reason it appears random is that calculating it's outcome is way beyond our capacity.

What the hell are you talking about?
Is it the fault of the tool if the user can't master it?
Would you blame mathematics as a tool if you failed to master the multiplication table?
We simply don't have the intelligence to forsee every single outcome of our actions.

Do you suggest that logic is limited to the ability of the person using it, and mathematics is limited to what a calculator can perform?
If that was true then noone could ever get smarter.

I rather use the word goal, as the word "will" also exists in "free will" wich is more than desire.

Isn't that supposed to be "ability to choose freely"?
Because "will to choose freely" suggests that free will is a choice. And choice implies a way/route towards this "free will".

I don't understand, what is there to choose that doesn't have any outside or inborn influence?
Can you give me an example?

Determinism doesn't make us machines.
There are several failures in your argument above you need to correct first.

The goal is set by the beings perception of it's surrounding along with it's own desire/need.
The choice is calculated by it's brain, in wich an action is taken to reach that goal.
As I asked before, what is the alternative?

Why?

The 2 possible outcomes was chosen by you using logic/desire. The outcome was determined by outside factors that you could not forsee (the coin). The screening part was made by you, the final choice was not even yours.

Yes, by us acting in terms of that will. By us eating when we're hungry and sleeping when we're tired.

[ November 30, 2002: Message edited by: Theli ]</p>

Zadok001

Starboy:

Still missing the point.

Not knowing the outcome does NOT equal free choice. If I have a button, and it will do either A or B when pushed, I CANNOT CHOOSE TO DO A! I cannot choose to do B. I can merely choose to HIT THE BUTTON. It's not a free choice to do A.

Random selection of options is never free choice.

The thing we are concerned with is not the outcome of a situation. We are concerned with influences upon that outcome. The outcome is totally irrelevant to free choice.

Remember that CHOICE is not directly related to action.

You seem to be making the claim that if one of two things CAN happen, then we have free will. This is absurd - Think about it. This statement implies that if a random event occurs, anywhere in the universe, totally independant of me, then I was capable of freely choosing the outcome of that decision.

Starboy

Theli:

I am not fond of these point-by-point replies. It makes it difficult to respond to them and after a few rounds they become almost impossible to reply to. If you could find it in you heart to post simpler replies that get to the point, I would appreciate it. Of course it is your choice this is only a request.

Theli, that is the point. It is an example of making a choice that is so uninfluenced that it is not even affected by the person for whom the choice is being made. It is an example of an absolutely “free” choice.

Theli, in a classically deterministic universe you would be right. We do not exist in such a universe. In the quantum deterministic universe we live in, it is possible to create a random coin.

Theli, we are getting off topic. I do not blame mathematics or logic, I simply point out that even if you were a perfect mathematician or logician, the conclusions of your arguments would only be as good as your assumptions. For example your argument regarding “free will” appears to be based on the assumption that we live in a classically deterministic universe, however if that assumption is false then it doesn’t matter how well you argue, your conclusions are not guaranteed to be right just because you are a perfect logician. GARBAGE IN, GARBAGE OUT. Because we live in quantum deterministic universe even if we had the intelligence to foresee every single outcome we could not predict the future.

What I am saying is what I said before. Logic is all very fine and good but without reliable assumptions there isn’t much to prove. The source of reliable assumptions is actual knowledge, the kind of knowledge that science can provide. Without actual knowledge of nature, arguments like this one would be as pointless as arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. You might think it worthwhile but I would be outahere.

Good to know. You do realize that your usage is distinctive.

Yes, the will and “ability to choose freely”. Thanks for the correction.

This is the crux of the whole thing. Please see my previously posed example to Zadok001 with the fork in the road example. It all boils down to having two choices and flipping a “random” coin, a coin that is influenced by nothing and then using the outcome of that flip to make the choice.

Theli, I think this is off topic. For the record it is my opinion that there is no such thing as the supernatural and that all matter behaves in accordance with nature. As such we are made of the same matter as any machine and like any other machine must behave in accordance with nature. The only difference I can determine between man-made machines and living creatures is that man-made machines are usually made for a the purposes of man whereas the only purposes I can see for living creatures is to make more living creatures. In any case I see people as very remarkable machines, if I do say so myself, but machines nonetheless. In a classically deterministic universe if the initial conditions are known then all future history can be computed in principle. This goes for all the life or machines that exist in the universe. The catch is, as I have said before, we do not live in a classically deterministic universe. So forget about it.

I think I am beginning to understand your point of view. It seems to revolve around the concept of possession. If you don’t “own” every step in the process of exercising “free will” then you don’t have it. I am arguing it backwards, my claim is that in order to have free will you do not have to possess free will in everything you do, as a matter of fact if you manage to do it only once in your entire lifetime then you have it. Kind of like the difference between possessing a gun and using it. You only have to shoot it once to say you are a gun user as opposed to a gun owner or collector.

If I understand your position correctly using any kind of tool or aid in making a decision negates the decision as being yours? So if you didn’t invent logic or mathematics then if you use logic or mathematics in a decision the decision is not yours? If you didn’t make the cells in your own head that made the decision then it wasn’t yours? Please correct me if I am wrong. I fail to see what the problem is with using a tool as an aid to making a decision. The answer came from the coin but the decision to use the coin was mine. What matter that I used a coin or logic or any other tool for that matter? If I used logic, but instead of doing it in my head I used a machine to do the logic would that negate the choice as being mine?

There is no doubt that the choice is for the individual to make and as such belongs to the individual, we are only hagling over how it can be made and if it is in principle predetermined.

I don’t see it that way. That sort of thing would be machine behavior. If you did not eat when you were hungry or sleep when you were tired then I might think you had "free will". The person who smokes a cigarette every time they have a craving does not have free will. Just ask any honest smoker, they will tell you they are slaves to nicotine. It is only the person who can demonstrate that they can take it or leave it, that can claim to have "free will" when it comes to cigarettes.

Starboy

[ November 30, 2002: Message edited by: Starboy ]</p>

Starboy

Oops, don't know how this happened.

[ November 30, 2002: Message edited by: Starboy ]</p>

xeren

Theli and Starboy:

It seems you guys are arguing over different kinds of free will.

Theli is arguing against the "free will we don't possess" that we discussed, while you Starboy are aguing for the compatibilist version of free will, that if there are options to be had that could actually be carried out, then you have free will.

I don't think Theli or anyone here disagrees with that definition, if you want to use that definition, but this whole thread was about the "free will we don't possess".

The difference:

Compatibilist version:

You come to a fork in the road and decide randomly (through the flip of the coin) which direction to take. You have two options that could be successfully carried out: the left or the right, therefore you have compatibilist free will regarding this decision.

"free will we don't possess" version.

You come to a fork in the road, and decide you will go left if the coin comes up heads and right if it comes up tails. You flip the coin, and it RANDOMLY comes up tails, therefore you go left. The decision was based on the fact that your past experiences and external influences brought you to conclusion that randomly deciding was better for some reason.

So this decision was based on a combination of 1) past experiences, 2) external influences and 3) random chance. That is not free will.

Yes, you had a choice, but it was determined by the 3 things above.

-xeren

Starboy

Zadok001:

Thanks for your patience. It is not my claim that not knowing the outcome equates to “free choice”. Your distinction between choosing to do A and hitting button A is lost on me. If they both result in what happens when the A button is pushed what is the difference?

I understand that is your opinion, but I have yet to see an argument or explanation that would convince me of it, or indicate that it is anymore than a sentiment held by you.

Ahhhhhhhh. I see now, therein lies the rub, you think as a philosopher and I think as a scientist. As a scientist the only way to test the claim is to run the experiment. In this case it would be to run experiments on an ensemble to see if they were behaving like machines or like things that had a “free” choice. In this situation there is no distinction between choosing and exercising the choice. In fact there would be no way to know a choice had been made until it was exercised. So for a scientist CHOICE is directly related to action.

Even so, what does this have to do with making a “FREE” CHOICE?

Zadok001, I agree with you, if I was indeed making that claim then it would be absurd, however that is not the claim I am making.

I am claiming that in practice it is possible to make a “free” choice even if it may not be a useful choice. That such a demonstration would show that “free will” exists. I base my claim on the fact that random events do occur in the universe and that one can use these events as an aid in making “free” choices. Because the decision can be made completely independent of you or anything else in the universe for that matter that it is “free”. You can think of it as a decision machine that can be used as an aid by a person that wished to make a guaranteed “free” choice. Do not confuse the CHOICE with the METHOD OF DECISION. The CHOICE belongs to the person; they are simply using an aid in making the decision that just so happens to guarantee that the choice is “free”.

Starboy

Starboy

xeren:

Thanks for clearing that up for me. There was such a huge disconnect. However this distinction may exist for philosophers but not for scientists. If you took an ensemble of people with different histories and influences and ran the experiment where **everyone** used a “random” coin to make the decision there would be no distinction between the results from a random selection of people and for a single person run over and over. As a result of this one would conclude that 1) and 2) had nothing to do with it.

It comes down to: is it allowed to use a decision aid that guarantees a 100% free choice. Would that then be a “free” choice?

Starboy