tronvillain

Well, what I call free will is simply the ability to make choices - to identify the available options and select one (as far as I can tell this is the only coherent sane definition of "free will"). Clocks are simply not capable of making choices (identifying the available options and selecting one) and so do not have free will, whlie humans are and do.

K

I could live with that definition of free will, but I would add the caveat that the choice is only an illusion. It looks like a choice to the chooser, but the outcome is simply a result of the physical processes in the brain of the individual.

tronvillain

Ah. I would add no such caveat, since I define choice as simply selecting one of a given number of identified options. That a choice is the product of physical processes in the brain does not make the choice any less real, it is simply a lower level of explanation.

Thomas Ash

It's not really different. I'd defend the view that in a sense the alarm clock has free will (though not in common usage, obviously.) It 'chooses' when to go off, just with very simple, inflexible logical circuits rather than the vastly more complex, flexible 'logic circuits' (brains) humans have.

K

tronvillian:

Then in that case, the alarm clock still has a choice it's just not aware that it does. And that choice will actually only have one possible outcome which is determined by the state of the clock. Similarly the human's choice will have only one possible outcome which is determined by his or her state.

Thomas Ash:

That would be a consistent (but like you said unusual) definition of free will.

Thomas Ash

Yes, It'd be good to work this out. I'd defend the idea that you could have a common usage definition of free will that only allows for it to apply to humans and higher animals with sophisticated choices, choice-making paths and possibly self-awareness, but that for a truly coherent definition of free will you have to include an alarm clocks logic-choices as much as a humans logic-chocies. For instance, what if a human is making a decision as simple as the alarm clock has to: when to turn on the TV to catch Buffy the Vampire Slayer ? It's still free will, just a very simple, almost automatic exercise of it.

Starboy

Hello everyone,

Sorry I haven’t posted for awhile, I have a question regarding "free will":

Let us say that you were a very skilled programmer tasked with writing a program that a computer could run to determine if something had "free will". What would be the algorithm?

Starboy

K

There was an interesting experiment with chimpanzees. One of the chimps was presented with two bowls of candy. One had more than the other. The object of the game was for the chimp making the decision to point to the bowl that should be given to the OTHER chimp in the experiment (in this case, a younger and smaller one). The choosing chimp always got extremely frustrated because he knew the rules of the game, but he could not choose the bowl with the lesser amount of candy. He was at the mercy of his brain.

I just thought I'd throw this out there to give an example of an individual who was aware of his choices, but clearly unable to do anything to change them.

Starboy

Ha! This brings us full circle. What if the chimp opted to decide by using a coin, would that free up the will of the chimp? IOW the chimp after determining that it was helpless to decide using its brain gets assistance by using a %100 guaranteed free choice maker.

Starboy

Thomas Ash

That's a really interesting story. But do you actually think chimps don't have free will? I think they do have it to at least some extent, just they're more under the sway of their instincts than we are under the sway of ours...