Chance, Determinism and Free Will

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_Physics Guy
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Re: Chance, Determinism and Free Will

Post by _Physics Guy »

I might be interested in thinking about what physics has to say about free will, but instead I get hung up on a problem with understanding what free will even means.

At least naïvely, it seems to mean not determinism. I don't want my feeling that I make my own decisions to be an illusion; I don't want all my choices to be determined, in reality, by things other than me.

To deny determinism, I want to have a sense that, whichever way I decide something, I "could have" decided differently if I had wanted. But then why didn't I decide in that different way? Either there was a reason I chose how I did, and not otherwise; or else there was no reason, and my decision was random.

Sometimes my decisions do feel pretty random. Choosing what to take at the salad bar, for instance, is more of a pain than a luxury. I don't care what kind of lettuce I get. If there were a button to push that would give me a random selection, I'd push it, to not have to choose. Important choices aren't like that, though: whom to marry, what career path to take. I have desires about those things, and I want the freedom to choose what I want.

But if important choices like those are determined by chance, that's not freedom. It's worse than predestination, because the thing that determines my fate isn't even the plan of an omnipotent God. It's not even the whim of a capricious child. The child might at least have some sort of childish plan that sometimes meant something. The rolling dice of randomly non-deterministic decisions are totally mindless. Once I think about that, I look again at determinism. It might not be so bad.

Actually, when I say that I could have decided differently from how I did decide, all I mean is that I could have decided differently if I had wanted. Freedom is perfectly consistent with having only one possibility, if that possibility is "whatever I want". Freedom and determinism are not opposed.

What determines what I want, though? Was it predestined from the beginning of time that I would like coffee and be impatient with peeling fruit and run off to join a vegan commune when I turned fifty-seven? The hypothesis is that all those preferences are simply who I really am, expressing my free intentions. But what determined that those would be my intentions?

So I've decided I don't really care about the freedom to choose different lettuce, and that I'm happy if my major decisions about spouses and jobs are determined by my own character. But now I'm wondering whether I have the freedom to change my own character.

Am I free to choose what kind of person I am? Does that even make sense? What does it even mean?

I haven't yet been able to form a clear idea of what it could mean. So I'm stuck at this point, just trying to see what the question is, about free will and determinism.

(Turning fifty-seven is still, hopefully, in my future. I hope the vegan commune thing isn't predestined.)
Last edited by Guest on Mon Feb 12, 2018 12:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
_Meadowchik
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Re: Chance, Determinism and Free Will

Post by _Meadowchik »

I just shelf the question and pretend like I do have free will.
_Stem
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Re: Chance, Determinism and Free Will

Post by _Stem »

Physics Guy wrote:I might be interested in thinking about what physics has to say about free will, but instead I get hung up on a problem with understanding what free will even means.

At least naïvely, it seems to mean not determinism. I don't want my feeling that I make my own decisions to be an illusion; I don't want all my choices to be determined, in reality, by things other than me.

To deny determinism, I want to have a sense that, whichever way I decide something, I "could have" decided differently if I had wanted. But then why didn't I decide in that different way? Either there was a reason I chose how I did, and not otherwise; or else there was no reason, and my decision was random.

Sometimes my decisions do feel pretty random. Choosing what to take at the salad bar, for instance, is more of a pain than a luxury. I don't care what kind of lettuce I get. If there were a button to push that would give me a random selection, I'd push it, to not have to choose. Important choices aren't like that, though: whom to marry, what career path to take. I have desires about those things, and I want the freedom to choose what I want.

But if important choices like those are determined by chance, that's not freedom. It's worse than predestination, because the thing that determines my fate isn't even the plan of an omnipotent God. It's not even the whim of a capricious child. The child might at least have some sort of childish plan that sometimes meant something. The rolling dice of randomly non-deterministic decisions are totally mindless. Once I think about that, I look again at determinism. It might not be so bad.

Actually, when I say that I could have decided differently from how I did decide, all I mean is that I could have decided differently if I had wanted. Freedom is perfectly consistent with having only one possibility, if that possibility is "whatever I want". Freedom and determinism are not opposed.

What determines what I want, though? Was it predestined from the beginning of time that I would like coffee and be impatient with peeling fruit and run off to join a vegan commune when I turned fifty-seven? The hypothesis is that all those preferences are simply who I really am, expressing my free intentions. But what determined that those would be my intentions?

So I've decided I don't really care about the freedom to choose different lettuce, and that I'm happy if my major decisions about spouses and jobs are determined by my own character. But now I'm wondering whether I have the freedom to change my own character.

Am I free to choose what kind of person I am? Does that even make sense? What does it even mean?

I haven't yet been able to form a clear idea of what it could mean. So I'm stuck at this point, just trying to see what the question is, about free will and determinism.

(Turning fifty-seven is still, hopefully, in my future. I hope the vegan commune thing isn't predestined.)


This is well put. It seems to me the great disagreement on this topic is inherent in the notion that we're trying to put two positions on polar ends of a spectrum when they in some ways don't seem to be on the same spectrum or be in consideration of the same questions. I didn't watch the Sam Harris video (but I think I've heard him before ont his topic) but I watched the little clip about combatibilism and I'm not feeling convinced that the pedophile who had a tumor was completely free of pedohilia without the tumor. It could be the tumor helped him act out in ways he simply wouldn't have considered without it. But it also seems possible that he didn't have to act out even with the tumor. He perhaps still could have suppressed his feelings and not molested his step daughter. While the tumor might have seemed to have made him a pedophile, seemingly making it determined for him, it seems it was likely the tumor drawing out those thoughts and him exploring those thoughts.

I can't square the notion that just because someone becomes a serial killer it means he had to be a serial killer for all the reasons that led him there. What led him there, was in part, it seems to me, what he decided at various points. the door might never have opened if he didn't start by approaching and knocking (to throw in a Jesus analogy).
_Themis
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Re: Chance, Determinism and Free Will

Post by _Themis »

Meadowchik wrote:I just shelf the question and pretend like I do have free will.


I choose what I want, even if what I want is not a choice. :confused:
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_kairos
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Re: Chance, Determinism and Free Will

Post by _kairos »

Think of your emergence into self awareness about choosing right or young according to your moral upbringing. At 11-12 when sex hormones are beginning to rage in boy turning to man stage of life, I clearly recall free will choices to masturbate, lust or not.

My RC background led me to a choice to sin or not which i could personally control- that continues today in the choices to buy or not a car, eat gobs of ice cream or be unfaithful.

Free will is part of human nature imho.

k
_Meadowchik
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Re: Chance, Determinism and Free Will

Post by _Meadowchik »

Themis wrote:
Meadowchik wrote:I just shelf the question and pretend like I do have free will.


I choose what I want, even if what I want is not a choice. :confused:


Is that supposed to be a restatement of what I said?

ETA: Because what is the relevance of the answer on our reality? If we have no choices, then what's the point of knowing it? If I do have choices, what's the danger of believing I don't? Weigh the latter against not having choice but believing you do.
_Physics Guy
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Re: Chance, Determinism and Free Will

Post by _Physics Guy »

I don't know exactly what Harris said about the pedophile's tumor, but the idea that free will would have to be able to overcome any tumor seems like a straw man to me. Free will obviously doesn't let me choose not to fall if I jump off a building. I might not want to fall, but gravity will not care.

My free will, if I have it, is only one causal factor in the universe, and other factors may often overpower it. Perhaps the tumor was one of those. That doesn't mean there's no such thing as free will, just that it isn't omnipotent. But who said that it was?
_RockSlider
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Re: Chance, Determinism and Free Will

Post by _RockSlider »

I never really associated 'Free Agency' (Mormon speak) as being so fundamental to morality. In Mormonism, it's all about the Garden of Eden, the presentation of opposites and allowing Lucifer, our common enemy to test and try us to see if we will choose the good or the evil. You know, the second test, the Second Estate.

I suppose Mormonism thus presents it's answer to the problem of evil, i.e. the test is all setup to see how the individual will run the maze, the overall test is more important than any damage done from the required evil elements.

The choice is all about winning the game, obtaining one's exaltation, choosing Jesus over Satan.

Image the Satanic influences required to suggest Free Agency, as defined by one of the most foundational tenets of Mormonism, does not exist! That Secular Humanistic morals, based on natural evolution, biology and complex environment influences must be weighted in the scales with the focus being the evolution of the best moral choices being sought for the greatest flourishing of Mankind.

The selfish elitist Free Agency of Mormonism is shameful.
_Yahoo Bot
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Re: Chance, Determinism and Free Will

Post by _Yahoo Bot »

Sam Harris's position is that game theory compels action of humans, so there is no real free will. I say that at the individual level, game theory does not compel individual action or else the game is so incredibly complex that it is difficult to say whether game theory compels all.
_Yahoo Bot
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Re: Chance, Determinism and Free Will

Post by _Yahoo Bot »

Sam Harris's position is that game theory compels action of humans, so there is no real free will. I say that at the individual level, game theory does not compel individual action or else the game is so incredibly complex that it is difficult to say whether game theory compels all.

Harris's view of game theory is foretold by Isaac Asimov's Foundation trilogy.

I believe that game theory does compel much of what we do, and that God is the Game, but we have the freedom to not play the game and engage in self-destructive behavior. Harris would say that even self-destructive behavior is part of the greater game.
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