Maybe. Again I don’t think that having a mechanism for our being. Our will. Does not make in nonfree will. This argument of if enough is known, even if its impossible to have all that knowledge, means no free will is flawed because the premise is based on an impossibility. Again to me its an argument against a mystical spirit or soul type free will but I think we can have free will that emerges from complex systems. To me its like. You eat because your hungry therefore you did not make free will choice to eat. Its like the logic is that there can be no free will unless we are random and crazy and don’t use our reason and situation into account with our decisions. We make different decisions because we are different entities and that to me is free will. I mean I also feel we define ourselves by our actions so in effect by the decisions we make.
I agree that “having a mechanism for our being, our will, does not make in nonfree will.”
The one thing that makes it non-free is the lack of any freedom (given the exact same circumstances) of choosing differently.
So if you think our actions are 100% determined by external factors, and that we don’t have the freedom to choose differently, then I would say that’s not what normally is considered “free”.
I honestly don’t see this being for/against “a mystical spirit or soul” one way or the other… one can believe in a deterministic God/soul (like for example, Spinoza’s God), or one can believe in free will without it being spiritual at all… whether there’s “spiritality” is not really directly related, imho.
We make different decisions because we are different entities and that to me is free will. I mean I also feel we define ourselves by our actions so in effect by the decisions we make.
To me, we being different entities is differentiation, not free will. Two pieces of rock can also behave differently when thrown because they might have different distribution of their mass… does this make the rocks free?
Also, I think we are way more than just our actions… but if we were to really define everything based on the actions that it takes as a consequence of their circunstances, then you might as well define a rock by the way it bounces as a consequence of its velocity. Does that make it free?
well its an argument against in that she discounts it in her view. everything if if could be known then you could compute the outcome. I have been thinking about this and im not sure I accept her premise. I think she is saying if you knew the exact starting conditions and all the laws the universe perfectly you could know that we would come into being and what we would do. At first I was thinking she was more saying if you knew everything up to us now which is kinda different. I don’t think knowing the exact initial state and all the laws would allow for knowing anything but the next step. I do think we see randomness or what we can only describe as randomness in in the way our universe works such that you cannot really predict more than the next step. If you see the particle go through the slit then you know where it will land. Going from the start and looking into the far future or even having all the information to now won’t necessarily allow for exact knowldge of what will happen 100 years from now. Even with perfect everything. I do actually think what we see in quantum physics may be a part of our decision making and our effectively free will. We call it random but if that is what it is then maybe randomness is needed for free will.
Note that “knowing the next step” implies knowing “everything” about that next step.
So if you accept that, given knowledge of “everything” about a given state, it’s possible to know “everything” about the next state, it follows by pure logic that this can be iterated. Otherwise, you would have to say that it’s not true that the knowledge of “everything” about a state makes it possible to know “everything” about the next state.
So either you agree that one can go forwards beyond the second state or you don’t think we can know “everything” about that second state, or you don’t really think that knowing “everything” about a state really guarantees that you will be able to predict the next one.
But saying that you can perfectly know one step and not the next one seems logically incoherent to me. Not when you are talking about a theoretical perfect system that follows that initial premise. If there are factors that affect going from state+1 to state+2 then why would those factors not play a role when going from state+0 to state+1?
You would need to introduce variables that are not known (like say… random factors), which would already mean that you do not really agree with the initial premise (since the initial premise implies that there are no unknown variables). And if there are variables that are unknown… why would you assume that state+1 (the first step) is predictable to begin with?
Thats I good point. I was thinking since its the next step of a confined area that you could not get the rest but what it really does it make it just ludicrously impossible its like okay if you have some something larger than the universe that can take in the universe you can get the next step in once place but now you need an infinte of them or infinte time to get all of the specific things. Or virtually infinite. Its like stacking infinities on infinities to make it not free will. It just does not work for me.
Yes, that’s the difference between theory and practice. It’s just a way to try and explain the idea of determinism, it’s not about actually arguing that building a machine that predicts the entire Universe is actually possible. I think Sabine knows that’s impossible in practical terms, since you’ll reach practical limits in information storage and face infinite recursion (the machine might have to contain a model of itself to predict the effects of its own existence).
I think the only way for that machine to exist would be if it were completely external to the thing that is predicting (so… external to our Universe) and independent from it, with no way to alter it, or to even measure anything on it (since measurements also cause alterations at the quantum level).
But the practical viability of such machine wasn’t the point of the example, the point was to illustrate a system being deterministic.
Like I said before, there’s a difference between something being actually “predictable” and something being “deterministic”. Something that is predictable necessarily is deterministic (which is why predictability is often used as a way to illustrate it), but something being deterministic does not necessarily make it predictable in practice.
well so this gets back to what I call effective free will. We have free will in the sense that we feel it because why you can theoretically build an impossible construct that would not make it so effectively it works that way. I may decide to grab another donut because its tasty or I may decide I need to watch my weight. If I grabbed one I may eat it or as about to my health concerns win out or I drop it and decide I just don’t want it now and im not going to bother with another. Its effectively infinite possibilities and choices from our perspective and we make the choices through them.
Superdeterminism is a bit odd in that it rejects even effective free will, at least in very specific circumstances. Let’s say you set up an experiment where the observer is given the free choice to measure a particle in a particular way. If you were Laplace’s demon and could see the precise state of the initial particle, that information alone would be sufficient to predict the choice the observer will make because they would be guaranteed to be pre-correlated with that value.
It would be like Final Destination where, just by looking at a single variable in a single particle, you would know with absolute certainty what conscious decision the observer would make ahead of time, and all their complex brain chemistry and stuff becomes unnecessary to predict what decision they will make, because you will know with certainty what the orientation of the measurement must be. You could try everything to stop them and change their mind and even fight them, but you’d find yourself entirely unable to change it, because the laws of physics would guarantee the particle would be measured on that particular choice of orientation.
You might be able to get around this by arguing that the these variables are fundamentally unobservable and hidden from us so that you still have effective free will, but then the model becomes pointless. Hossenfelder has suggested she thinks a hidden variable model should be testable and she thinks it may be possible to find patterns in the quantum noise and violations of the Born rule under specific circumstances. If these variables become even partially knowable then even effective free will, at least in certain very contrived circumstances, becomes doomed.
What’s put into question is not our perception of getting to decide between different choices, what we are challenging is whether or not those choices are taken freely or determined by external factors.
Again, just because you are making a choice, amongst many possibilities, does not mean that this choice is “free”.
And one cannot judge this based on what one knows about the factors affecting oneself, since you necessarily cannot have full knowledge of them.
This is another recursive problem, one that happens in our own perception of those factors, if we knew about everything that affects our decisions, then this knowledge would affect our decisions, and so there would be a new external factor which would be the repercussions this knowledge itself would have…and if you knew this new factor this knowledge would again be new information that you’d need to be aware of, and being aware of it would again add to the data pool you use to base your decisions, altering it… and so on infinitely
This makes it impossible for us to ever be aware of all factors that determine our decisions. So the “feeling” of having no external factors that determines you is actually not really proof of us having any kind of freedom, since even in a deterministic world, with no freedom, it would be expected for people to be unaware of their own determining factors. It’s in fact expected for people to not be aware of the determination.
So. Here is the thing and where it gets silly to me. I don’t view choices being made taking external factors into consideration as not making them freely. It makes free will this thing that can only be achieved by randomness or at least it feels that way to me. I consider free will and effective free will as essentially the same thing. I mean thing about the idea of optimization and choices. People write books about it and we have business practices around it. Yet people being cognizant of the optimized choice will still make a different one. Because of different priorities. Somone might be known for choosing the optimized choice and its part of who they are. But others will not. This is free will to me. Two people in the same situations making different choices because of who they are. Thats the thing the stuff that might in theory tell exactly the decision the person will make is knowledge about who they are. Innately. As an entity. It is the impossibility of truly knowing someone. So it is the fact we make different choices to me that is free will. That we make these choices and define ourselves in the process.
Maybe. Again I don’t think that having a mechanism for our being. Our will. Does not make in nonfree will. This argument of if enough is known, even if its impossible to have all that knowledge, means no free will is flawed because the premise is based on an impossibility. Again to me its an argument against a mystical spirit or soul type free will but I think we can have free will that emerges from complex systems. To me its like. You eat because your hungry therefore you did not make free will choice to eat. Its like the logic is that there can be no free will unless we are random and crazy and don’t use our reason and situation into account with our decisions. We make different decisions because we are different entities and that to me is free will. I mean I also feel we define ourselves by our actions so in effect by the decisions we make.
I agree that “having a mechanism for our being, our will, does not make in nonfree will.”
The one thing that makes it non-free is the lack of any freedom (given the exact same circumstances) of choosing differently.
So if you think our actions are 100% determined by external factors, and that we don’t have the freedom to choose differently, then I would say that’s not what normally is considered “free”.
I honestly don’t see this being for/against “a mystical spirit or soul” one way or the other… one can believe in a deterministic God/soul (like for example, Spinoza’s God), or one can believe in free will without it being spiritual at all… whether there’s “spiritality” is not really directly related, imho.
To me, we being different entities is differentiation, not free will. Two pieces of rock can also behave differently when thrown because they might have different distribution of their mass… does this make the rocks free?
Also, I think we are way more than just our actions… but if we were to really define everything based on the actions that it takes as a consequence of their circunstances, then you might as well define a rock by the way it bounces as a consequence of its velocity. Does that make it free?
well its an argument against in that she discounts it in her view. everything if if could be known then you could compute the outcome. I have been thinking about this and im not sure I accept her premise. I think she is saying if you knew the exact starting conditions and all the laws the universe perfectly you could know that we would come into being and what we would do. At first I was thinking she was more saying if you knew everything up to us now which is kinda different. I don’t think knowing the exact initial state and all the laws would allow for knowing anything but the next step. I do think we see randomness or what we can only describe as randomness in in the way our universe works such that you cannot really predict more than the next step. If you see the particle go through the slit then you know where it will land. Going from the start and looking into the far future or even having all the information to now won’t necessarily allow for exact knowldge of what will happen 100 years from now. Even with perfect everything. I do actually think what we see in quantum physics may be a part of our decision making and our effectively free will. We call it random but if that is what it is then maybe randomness is needed for free will.
Note that “knowing the next step” implies knowing “everything” about that next step.
So if you accept that, given knowledge of “everything” about a given state, it’s possible to know “everything” about the next state, it follows by pure logic that this can be iterated. Otherwise, you would have to say that it’s not true that the knowledge of “everything” about a state makes it possible to know “everything” about the next state.
So either you agree that one can go forwards beyond the second state or you don’t think we can know “everything” about that second state, or you don’t really think that knowing “everything” about a state really guarantees that you will be able to predict the next one.
But saying that you can perfectly know one step and not the next one seems logically incoherent to me. Not when you are talking about a theoretical perfect system that follows that initial premise. If there are factors that affect going from state+1 to state+2 then why would those factors not play a role when going from state+0 to state+1?
You would need to introduce variables that are not known (like say… random factors), which would already mean that you do not really agree with the initial premise (since the initial premise implies that there are no unknown variables). And if there are variables that are unknown… why would you assume that state+1 (the first step) is predictable to begin with?
Thats I good point. I was thinking since its the next step of a confined area that you could not get the rest but what it really does it make it just ludicrously impossible its like okay if you have some something larger than the universe that can take in the universe you can get the next step in once place but now you need an infinte of them or infinte time to get all of the specific things. Or virtually infinite. Its like stacking infinities on infinities to make it not free will. It just does not work for me.
Yes, that’s the difference between theory and practice. It’s just a way to try and explain the idea of determinism, it’s not about actually arguing that building a machine that predicts the entire Universe is actually possible. I think Sabine knows that’s impossible in practical terms, since you’ll reach practical limits in information storage and face infinite recursion (the machine might have to contain a model of itself to predict the effects of its own existence).
I think the only way for that machine to exist would be if it were completely external to the thing that is predicting (so… external to our Universe) and independent from it, with no way to alter it, or to even measure anything on it (since measurements also cause alterations at the quantum level).
But the practical viability of such machine wasn’t the point of the example, the point was to illustrate a system being deterministic.
Like I said before, there’s a difference between something being actually “predictable” and something being “deterministic”. Something that is predictable necessarily is deterministic (which is why predictability is often used as a way to illustrate it), but something being deterministic does not necessarily make it predictable in practice.
well so this gets back to what I call effective free will. We have free will in the sense that we feel it because why you can theoretically build an impossible construct that would not make it so effectively it works that way. I may decide to grab another donut because its tasty or I may decide I need to watch my weight. If I grabbed one I may eat it or as about to my health concerns win out or I drop it and decide I just don’t want it now and im not going to bother with another. Its effectively infinite possibilities and choices from our perspective and we make the choices through them.
Superdeterminism is a bit odd in that it rejects even effective free will, at least in very specific circumstances. Let’s say you set up an experiment where the observer is given the free choice to measure a particle in a particular way. If you were Laplace’s demon and could see the precise state of the initial particle, that information alone would be sufficient to predict the choice the observer will make because they would be guaranteed to be pre-correlated with that value.
It would be like Final Destination where, just by looking at a single variable in a single particle, you would know with absolute certainty what conscious decision the observer would make ahead of time, and all their complex brain chemistry and stuff becomes unnecessary to predict what decision they will make, because you will know with certainty what the orientation of the measurement must be. You could try everything to stop them and change their mind and even fight them, but you’d find yourself entirely unable to change it, because the laws of physics would guarantee the particle would be measured on that particular choice of orientation.
You might be able to get around this by arguing that the these variables are fundamentally unobservable and hidden from us so that you still have effective free will, but then the model becomes pointless. Hossenfelder has suggested she thinks a hidden variable model should be testable and she thinks it may be possible to find patterns in the quantum noise and violations of the Born rule under specific circumstances. If these variables become even partially knowable then even effective free will, at least in certain very contrived circumstances, becomes doomed.
That is kind of the weirdest thing about it.
What’s put into question is not our perception of getting to decide between different choices, what we are challenging is whether or not those choices are taken freely or determined by external factors.
Again, just because you are making a choice, amongst many possibilities, does not mean that this choice is “free”.
And one cannot judge this based on what one knows about the factors affecting oneself, since you necessarily cannot have full knowledge of them.
This is another recursive problem, one that happens in our own perception of those factors, if we knew about everything that affects our decisions, then this knowledge would affect our decisions, and so there would be a new external factor which would be the repercussions this knowledge itself would have…and if you knew this new factor this knowledge would again be new information that you’d need to be aware of, and being aware of it would again add to the data pool you use to base your decisions, altering it… and so on infinitely
This makes it impossible for us to ever be aware of all factors that determine our decisions. So the “feeling” of having no external factors that determines you is actually not really proof of us having any kind of freedom, since even in a deterministic world, with no freedom, it would be expected for people to be unaware of their own determining factors. It’s in fact expected for people to not be aware of the determination.
So. Here is the thing and where it gets silly to me. I don’t view choices being made taking external factors into consideration as not making them freely. It makes free will this thing that can only be achieved by randomness or at least it feels that way to me. I consider free will and effective free will as essentially the same thing. I mean thing about the idea of optimization and choices. People write books about it and we have business practices around it. Yet people being cognizant of the optimized choice will still make a different one. Because of different priorities. Somone might be known for choosing the optimized choice and its part of who they are. But others will not. This is free will to me. Two people in the same situations making different choices because of who they are. Thats the thing the stuff that might in theory tell exactly the decision the person will make is knowledge about who they are. Innately. As an entity. It is the impossibility of truly knowing someone. So it is the fact we make different choices to me that is free will. That we make these choices and define ourselves in the process.