What is left for free will?

Originally posted by SwissGambit
Actually, that last sentence sounds like the epitome of free choice to me. My choice cannot have been otherwise because otherwise is not what I wanted to do.

is it always what you wanted to do? havent you ever done something and immediately thought 'why did i do that'. your subconscious reaches a result too soon, a nano-second longer and you may have reached a different conclusion. can this be described as 'what you want'.

maybe for this to make any sense we need to clarify what is 'i' . are we the results our subconscious's outputs mixed chemical hormones? is our subconscious part of our personality?

Originally posted by black beetle
If the decision making system can be indeed viewed as deterministic, it should be viewed as bi-directionally deterministic, where a specification of the state of the conditions and its parameters at a time t determines how things go after t and also how things go before t. To think of the past as done, over, fixed and beyond our control is false. If it ...[text shortened]... an a deterministic dynamical system. So, where the “free” or the “forced” will can be found?
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then it is equally true that the state of the world herenow determines everything that happened in the past. What do you think?

i agree with googlefudge on this (and he explains it much better than i can). although i would add that if the future and past are effecting each other it still doesnt change the point that the thought process is deterministic. the same conditions apply regardless where they stand in time. as if everything happened at once.

the only way i can see outputs being different is if their is a true random input into the system changing the variables............but that still leads to the same problem changing the input just changes the output at no point in the process do we get to decide the output. im starting to think maybe its because 'we' are actually part of the output as well. 'we' are our concious and our concious is the result of what our subconscious spews forth.

Originally posted by googlefudge
Influence propagates only one way.

However, as far as I know, all laws of physics work both ways.

Originally posted by googlefudge

You appear to believe that the state of the universe 10.000 years ago fixes everything
you do during your life. However, if we are to accept that earlier states of the universe can be
seen as fixing all later states, then equally, later states can be seen as fixing all earlier states.

Woo... I would like to see the workings on this ...[text shortened]... rmine the
past absolutely but there is a difference between what is and what can be known.[/i]

Edit: “Woo... I would like to see the workings on this because I don't think it's necessarily true.”

OK, then you could check amongst else Suppes, P., 1999, “The Noninvariance of Deterministic Causal Models,” Synthese, 121: 181–198; Van Fraassen, B., 1989, Laws and Symmetry, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Van Kampen, N. G., 1991, “Determinism and Predictability,” Synthese, 89: 273–281; Winnie, J. A., 1996, “Deterministic Chaos and the Nature of Chance,” in The Cosmos of Science—Essays of Exploration, J. Earman and J. Norton (eds.), Pittsburgh: University of Pitsburgh Press, pp. 299–324;


Edit: “Consider a chain… …Influence propagates only one way.”

Due to the fact that the classical equations of motion are time reversal invariant, nothing necessarily refers to the direction of time. According to Boltzman’s account of entropy increase in terms of entropy increasing into the future, the explanation can be turned around and made for the past temporal direction as well.


Edit: “Well… …can be known.”

Despite the belief that classical mechanics is perfectly deterministic, the theory is full with possibilities where determinism can break down. One class of problems arises due to the absence of an upper bound on the velocities of moving objects (check Xia, Z., 1992, “The existence of noncollision singularities in newtonian systems,” Annals of Mathematics, 135: 411–468). A second class of determinism-breaking models can be constructed on the basis of collision phenomena, whilst there is also a good literature of physical or quasi-physical systems, usually set in the context of classical physics, that carry out supertasks (check Earman & Norton, 1998)
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Originally posted by twhitehead
However, as far as I know, all laws of physics work both ways.

Sure thing😵

Originally posted by twhitehead
I don't get it. What do you mean by 'choice' if not 'a way of describing a brains ability to process and reach more positive effecting results than negative or the reverse.'
You seem to be saying:
1. A deterministic system is not choice.
2. A non-deterministic system (partially or wholly random) is not choice.

I think the mistake many people make is ...[text shortened]... ion of how said soul makes decisions. But this merely hides the problem, it does not resolve it.

1. A deterministic system is not choice.

yes, when all inputs and variables remain the same, the output will be the same.

2. A non-deterministic system (partially or wholly random) is not choice.

im i bit more open on this one. somebody may a scenario ive not considered. at the moment though im thinking that if a variable is changed there is still a set response/output to that variable change, like a boolean operation.

take a sinner. the christians on here will say it was their choice to sin. how and where in the thought process do the christians think that the sinner can make a conscious decision to change? the only way to effect a change is for the correct input (which is obviously almost impossible to figure out) to be arranged so the subconscious gives the correct non-sinning output. at no point in the system can i see a space for the sinner to simply 'decide' to be good.

Originally posted by stellspalfie
...at no point in the process do we get to decide the output.

You have already realised that you need to define more carefully 'we' and 'I'.
But you also need to define 'decide' and 'choice'. The way you talk seems to imply you haven't really thought through the meaning of those words.
If the 'process' involves 'you' (whatever 'you' is), taking some input, and producing some output via some methodology, (by whatever mechanism), how is that not 'deciding'? If it is not 'deciding' then what is?

I also highly recommend watching:
YouTube
as food for thought.
We discussed it inThread 157776
I don't necessarily agree with Sam Harris' conclusions, but he makes very good points about how little the consciousness is involved in decision making.

Originally posted by stellspalfie
at no point in the system can i see a space for the sinner to simply 'decide' to be good.

If the person in question had a random number generator in his head, and when offered a choice, he drew a random number and if it was even, he sinned, and if it was odd, he did not sin, then would that be an example of him exercising free will? Is that something anyone would desire? How would that fit in with concepts like justice, retribution, punishment etc?

Originally posted by stellspalfie
[b]then it is equally true that the state of the world herenow determines everything that happened in the past. What do you think?

i agree with googlefudge on this (and he explains it much better than i can). although i would add that if the future and past are effecting each other it still doesnt change the point that the thought process is dete ...[text shortened]... well. 'we' are our concious and our concious is the result of what our subconscious spews forth.[/b]

On the contrary, “nothing happened at once”, due to the fact that everything is a product of specific causes and conditions. In my opinion, to claim that everything can happen at once is the absolute theist default position, and to me it simply doesn't hold.

On the other hand, think of the indeterminism of the Earman and Norton hole argument, and of course of the singularities: for example, near the center of a Schwarzschild black hole the curvature increases without bound, and right at the center it is undefined –in other words Einstein's equations don’t hold, and thus this point does not exist at all as a part of the spacetime
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Originally posted by googlefudge
Ahh, but did you have the ability to choose what you wanted?

Defining free will as being able to do what you want [within the laws of
physics] simply moves the problem to whether or not you were free to
choose what you wanted.

Yes, I did. That is the Compatibilist view.

Originally posted by stellspalfie
is it always what you wanted to do? havent you ever done something and immediately thought 'why did i do that'. your subconscious reaches a result too soon, a nano-second longer and you may have reached a different conclusion. can this be described as 'what you want'.

maybe for this to make any sense we need to clarify what is 'i' . are we the resul ...[text shortened]... our subconscious's outputs mixed chemical hormones? is our subconscious part of our personality?

It doesn't have to be always - just at that moment.

Originally posted by twhitehead
If the person in question had a random number generator in his head, and when offered a choice, he drew a random number and if it was even, he sinned, and if it was odd, he did not sin, then would that be an example of him exercising free will? Is that something anyone would desire? How would that fit in with concepts like justice, retribution, punishment etc?

no he would be a slave to the rules applied to a random system. he still would have no free will.

Originally posted by black beetle
On the contrary, “nothing happened at once”, due to the fact that everything is a product of specific causes and conditions. In my opinion, to claim that everything can happen at once is the absolute theist default position, and to me it simply doesn't hold.

On the other hand, think of the indeterminism of the Earman and Norton hole argument, and of ...[text shortened]... s equations don’t hold, and thus this point does not exist at all as a part of the spacetime
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possibly, im getting out of my depth when it comes to space time (ill read up on earman and norton, it sounds interesting). either way the variables are either the same or vary. it is still outside inputs being put through a system to produce an output.

Originally posted by twhitehead
You have already realised that you need to define more carefully 'we' and 'I'.
But you also need to define 'decide' and 'choice'. The way you talk seems to imply you haven't really thought through the meaning of those words.
If the 'process' involves 'you' (whatever 'you' is), taking some input, and producing some output via some methodology, (by whatev ...[text shortened]... but he makes very good points about how little the consciousness is involved in decision making.

if a fixed set of inputs always had the same output, could we call that a decision or choice? a decision to me would imply there are several outputs to select from, but that only creates another set of inputs to be narrowed down until there is one output.

i did start watching the youtube talk last week. i got about 20mins in but had to go out, ill watch the rest tonight.

Originally posted by stellspalfie
possibly, im getting out of my depth when it comes to space time (ill read up on earman and norton, it sounds interesting). either way the variables are either the same or vary. it is still outside inputs being put through a system to produce an output.

Methinks the outside inputs are all forcefully or freely evaluated by the mind; it seems to me that the decision making system which brings up decisions either by force (not according to the free will of the decision maker) or freely (according to the free will of the decision maker), does not stand above the free will of the decision maker. If it was standing above, for one we would have extremely great predictability for every issue, and for two all the decisions of all the persons under the very same circumstances would be identical
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