Does Physics disprove the existence of free will?

[iceaura]

Analogy: We all agree that the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics is a foundation of modern physics, yes?
Yet evolution - proceeding according to physical (natural) law, strictly - produces entities of increasing complexity and order over time. This is not extraordinary - it is normal to observe this. Nobody who comprehends evolutionary theory finds this somehow impossible. It is not an illusion. No supernatural abilities are involved.

Similarly, in a sense, by analogy, sufficiently large and long-lived deterministic physical systems sometimes produce entities with arbitrarily complex and sophisticated degrees of freedom in their behavior - patterns even defined by these degrees of freedom they possess, identified by them. They do this increasingly, over time - increasing complexities, increasing degrees of freedom, ever more deeply nested and higher stacked entities with ever higher logical levels of freedom in their behaviors, come to exist. They "emerge".

The human mind is one of them, including the aspect or property or ability we identify as decision making. The human mind does in fact choose, decide, and direct the human will - physically, in real time, recordable by instruments, observable in the same sense the behaviors of other very complex physical systems or patterns are observable. And in this behavior, as a necessary physical property or feature or characteristic, it possesses very large and complex and high level (logical level) degrees of freedom. It possesses them prior to specifically behaving, as determining features of its behavior, necessarily: without them its identity as a coherent set of patterns of behavior - its "self", its identity as an entity - would not exist.

 

[Write4U]

Yes? No? This? That? Here? There? Make up your mind!
I can't.....

 

[iceaura]

Show that you argument leads to an ability to do otherwise.

The ability to do otherwise is an observed feature of the human mind prior to its making a decision. It's a defining characteristic of that specific behavior, it's how we identify it as a "decision". The example of a driver approaching a traffic light is on the table, for your perusal.

My argument does not "lead" to that. It's a starting point, rather, just an illustration of the matter at hand, bringing various confusions into focus.

So do explain: how do different levels of complexity make a difference?

Once again: They add degrees of freedom, including logical levels to the concept - qualitative differences. New kinds of inputs - such as "information" - join the party.

 

[Baldeee]

The ability to do otherwise is an observed feature of the human mind prior to its making a decision.

That is begging the question.
You are assuming that the observation matches what is going on.
That is the very question we are discussing.
But if you want to simply it assert it as being the case from the outset, I'll happily leave you to your own discussion.

It's a defining characteristic of that specific behavior, it's how we identify it as a "decision". The example of a driver approaching a traffic light is on the table, for your perusal.

That is indeed how things are perceived, and how we identify it as a decision (based on how we perceive it).
Across the past 40+ pages, though, you have never really gotten past judging things by how they are perceived (hence your continued retreat to what you think the lab shows etc).
Until you can do so, there really isn't much you're going to add that is relevant to what I'm discussing.

My argument does not "lead" to that. It's a starting point, rather, just an illustration of the matter at hand, bringing various confusions into focus.

So you start from how things are observed, and move on from there.
Okay.
That's what has been suggested you do from the outset.
And as such you are simply not in a realm that is relevant to the argument you're trying to counter.

Once again: They add degrees of freedom, including logical levels to the concept - qualitative differences. New kinds of inputs - such as "information" - join the party.

The party has been in full swing, it seems, but the one I'm attending is clearly in a different building to yours.
You're having fun with your "degrees of freedom" while we see that in an orbiting brick.

To put it bluntly, having read much of the last 40 or so pages, your rebuttals are simply not relevant to the argument that I initially put forth.

 

[pluto2]

If everything we do is determined by our genetics, our health status, our moods and the biochemistry of our body then where exactly does that leave free will?

 

[iceaura]

Across the past 40+ pages, though, you have never really gotten past judging things by how they are perceived

I keep correcting that, and you keep making the same assertions as if you hadn't read a single post.

So you start from how things are observed, and move on from there.

Either that, or you start from how you think things have to be, and refuse to acknowledge the fact that they aren't - even when presented with the most basic, simplistic examples.
The example of the driver approaching a traffic light: any time now.

You're having fun with your "degrees of freedom" while we see that in an orbiting brick.

Perceptions can be corrected, with good faith and careful attention. You can see what's in front of you, if you make a good faith effort.

It is a bit of a puzzle, though, despite its familiarity: why are you guys still missing the point, babbling about bricks? Unfamiliar with the concept of logical levels? Unfamiliar with the notion of a decision as a physical event, the mind as an entity in the real world?

My best guess, amply reinforced by every post you make here, is that you are blinded by two basic misconceptions that frame and constrain everything you think you (and therefore everybody else) "perceive": freedom as supernatural; substrates as determining patterns.

 

[Baldeee]

I keep correcting that, and you keep making the same assertions as if you hadn't read a single post.

You think you are correcting and yet I and others keep explaining why you are not, as if you hadn't read a single post.

Either that, or you start from how you think things have to be, and refuse to acknowledge the fact that they aren't - even when presented with the most basic, simplistic examples.

Not how I think things have to be, but how the logic concludes it is.
I start from that logic, you start from your observations that don't even come close to addressing the matter I raised, yet you think it does.

The example of the driver approaching a traffic light: any time now.

I think Sarkus has more than adequately addressed this woefully flawed example over the past 10 pages or so.
I have no doubt you think it supports your position, but it in no way invalidates the logic I put forward, or the conclusions that come from that.
As said, you're really not even addressing the same issue.

Perceptions can be corrected, with good faith and careful attention. You can see what's in front of you, if you make a good faith effort.

Sure, if those things are within the scope of things that can be corrected.
Some things can't.
They are simply ingrained within the way our brain processes things.
Write4U posted some examples of relatively simple optical illusions that we can not, no matter how much good faith and careful attention, observe in any other way.

It is a bit of a puzzle, though, despite its familiarity: why are you guys still missing the point, babbling about bricks? Unfamiliar with the concept of logical levels? Unfamiliar with the notion of a decision as a physical event, the mind as an entity in the real world?

My best guess, amply reinforced by every post you make here, is that you are blinded by two basic misconceptions that frame and constrain everything you think you (and therefore everybody else) "perceive": freedom as supernatural; substrates as determining patterns.

Ah, yes, this "freedom is supernatural" assumption you keep asserting those who disagree with you must be starting from, despite having taken you quite clearly through the logic, explaining and demonstrating quite clearly that there is no such assumption.
An explanation, it has been noted, that you simply chose to ignore, in favour of bringing up more irrelevancies.
And as for me having the misconception that substrates determinine patterns, that is simply another false assertion on your part.
It would seem to be your inability to understand the actual argument that leads you to these incorrect assertions of my position and your continued retreat to irrelevancies as if they in any way rebut the argument presented.
You have so far seemed to offer nothing other than your repetitive, and mostly irrelevant, claims.
Do you not have an actual argument, or are irrelevancies the limit of your offering?

 

[DaveC426913]

Ah, yes, this "freedom is supernatural" assumption you keep asserting those who disagree with you must be starting from, despite having taken you quite clearly through the logic, explaining and demonstrating quite clearly that there is no such assumption.

You have more patience than I.

 

[Baldeee]

You have more patience than I.

Alas now exhausted, though.

 

[Quantum Quack]

I keep correcting that, and you keep making the same assertions as if you hadn't read a single post.
Either that, or you start from how you think things have to be, and refuse to acknowledge the fact that they aren't - even when presented with the most basic, simplistic examples.
The example of the driver approaching a traffic light: any time now.
Perceptions can be corrected, with good faith and careful attention. You can see what's in front of you, if you make a good faith effort.

It is a bit of a puzzle, though, despite its familiarity: why are you guys still missing the point, babbling about bricks? Unfamiliar with the concept of logical levels? Unfamiliar with the notion of a decision as a physical event, the mind as an entity in the real world?

My best guess, amply reinforced by every post you make here, is that you are blinded by two basic misconceptions that frame and constrain everything you think you (and therefore everybody else) "perceive": freedom as supernatural; substrates as determining patterns.

Don't get too heated about it Ice. Baldee and Sarkus have been playing this logic game for over 10 years. It's riddle of shifting context and ambitions.
There is no interest in solving the issue of freewill the only interest is in promoting a flawed logic string, a scam to sap up your time and effort.

 

[Quantum Quack]

The freedom is about the freedom to determine the future, nothing to do with the indeterminate, supernatural or other.
The universe does some of the determining and then so do we humans also do some of the determining...therefor everything is still determined, even if humans have the freedom to do some of it for themselves.

 

[iceaura]

Not how I think things have to be, but how the logic concludes it is.

Your assumption of no freedom without supernatural action is central to your logic. You think things have to be that way, you assume they are, the assumption is so deeply embedded one cannot even persuade you to examine it.
You jump from having reasoned that a deterministic physical universe includes deterministic human will, to claiming you have shown that there is no freedom of will in a human in that universe, as if it had followed from your reasoning.

I think Sarkus has more than adequately addressed this woefully flawed example over the past 10 pages or so.

He has yet to address it at all. He's still denying the physical situation, the existence of things like decisions in the real world.

They are simply ingrained within the way our brain processes things.

The assumption that freedom requires independence from physical cause and effect is correctable. Not everybody makes it.

Do you not have an actual argument, or are irrelevancies the limit of your offering?

Let's try again:
The driver approaches the traffic light.
Do you agree that the driver actually exists, as an actual behaving entity?
Do you agree that they are approaching the light but have not yet reached it - that time actually exists?
Do you agree that when they do the color of the light will influence their behavior?

That is: Do you agree that at this moment they have the ability to stop, and the ability to go, both, depending on the traffic light color?

 

[Write4U]

That is: Do you agree that at this moment they have the ability to stop, and the ability to go, both, depending on the traffic light color?

I think I understand your perspective, but I wonder if ability to choose is the same as the actual choice you make at the moment you must choose.

When we are a block away, we know that when the next light is green we have the right of way and will be able to choose to enter the intersection safely.

OTOH, we also know that when the light is red we do not have the right of way and entering the intersection is fraught with dangers coming from the right or left and we can choose to stop.

Thus we have a choice to go or stop depending on the information imparted by the color of the light.

However, when we arrive at the next intersection the light will actually only show one color which takes away our actual choice, even as we retain the ability to choose differently, and we will obey the permission or prohibition inherent in the current color of the light.
Thus that light will determine our response. Red = stop, Green = go

We act accordingly either way, which may appear as free choice to do different, but actually your choice is determined not by you but by the light at the moment you choose to act.
This is how I understand "determinism".

Is this significantly different from your viewpoint?

 

[iceaura]

We act accordingly either way, which may appear as free choice to do different, but actually your choice is determined not by you but by the light at the moment you choose to act.

Somehow the event of the driver deciding according to information received becomes them not having had the ability to make that decision. Seems odd, no?

Are you claiming the red light "actually" makes the decision to stop the car?

 

[Write4U]

Somehow the event of the driver deciding according to information received becomes them not having had the ability to make that decision. Seems odd, no?

He always maintains the ability to make a different choice, he just never can actually choose other than what he does.

Are you claiming the red light "actually" makes the decision to stop the car?

No, I am proposing that the ability to change is a superposed position in the brain as well as in the traffic lights, from which one or the other becomes actualized.

From a quantum probability perspective, the collapse of the superposed state between red and green of the traffic light to red determines the collapse of the superposed states stop and go in the brain to stop, and vice versa with the collapse to green.

It is a condition of superposed probabilities (uncertainty) until the actual quantum collapse determines the result.

 

[iceaura]

He always maintains the ability to make a different choice, he just never can actually choose other than what he does.

What does the word "actually" mean, in that sentence?

Because until the driver sees the light color, and possibly after depending on decision criteria, their ability to either stop or go is observably, physically, verifiably, present. So that time interval is not included in the "never".

No, I am proposing that the ability to change is a superposed position in the brain

That is contrary to observation. Their is no known violation of Bell's Inequality, for example, in human decision making.

 

[Write4U]

What does the word "actually" mean, in that sentence?

By acting.

Because until the driver sees the light color, and possibly after depending on decision criteria, their ability to either stop or go is observably, physically, verifiably, present. So that time interval is not included in the "never".

If we replay the identical circumstances it is unreasonable to claim that a person would act other than what he did the first time.

Moreover, it is not a decision between "stop and go", you are already engaged in one action. Thus the choice is to do nothing and keep going, or to do something and stop.

If the light turns red and you do nothing, you are no longer in control of the situation. A red light on your side means a green light on the other side of the intersection, the implications are obvious. Only an "insane" person would choose to keep going when the light on his side turns red. Insanity is not being able to make a controlled choice.

And insanity does indeed allow you to act against your own interests. But that's logic based on a false premise.

That is contrary to observation. There is no known violation of Bell's Inequality, for example, in human decision making.

I don't know enough about Bell's Inequality theory, to answer at this time. Off-hand;

Bell's theorem rules out local hidden variables as a viable explanation of quantum mechanics (though it still leaves the door open for non-local hidden variables, such as De Broglie–Bohm theory, etc).

And I do like Bohmian Mechanics.

Bell concluded:
In a theory in which parameters are added to quantum mechanics to determine the results of individual measurements, without changing the statistical predictions, there must be a mechanism whereby the setting of one measuring device can influence the reading of another instrument, however remote. Moreover, the signal involved must propagate instantaneously, so that such a theory could not be Lorentz invariant

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell's_theorem

However, can I ask if quantum superposition is in violation of BI? I see that as a probabilistic aspect of Determinism

 

[Baldeee]

Your assumption of no freedom without supernatural action is central to your logic.

No, it's not.
It is a central conclusion that the ability to do otherwise (aka being "free") does not exist in a deterministic system.
There is no assumption that freedom must be supernatural, no matter how many times you want to claim there is, and no matter how many times I crawl you through logic ('cos let's face it, you're having trouble walking through it).

You think things have to be that way, you assume they are, the assumption is so deeply embedded one cannot even persuade you to examine it.

The logic I put forward doesn't even assume that the universe is deterministic.
It assumes that a deterministic interaction is one that (initially worded slightly differently but) has no ability to do otherwise.
It assumes that a system built from such interactions is itself deterministic.
And it assumes that the will is such a system.
Where in that is the assumption that the ability to do otherwise is supernatural?

Let's assume that the ability to do otherwise is property Z.
I have assumed that a deterministic interaction has no such property.
I have assumed that a system built from such interaction has no such property.
I have assumed that the will is such a system.
Conclusion: the will does not have property Z.

It might very well be that a non-deterministic system has property Z.
The argument makes no claims about that at all.
And the argument makes no claims about whether non-deterministic systems are possible in the universe.

So where, iceaura, in any of this, is the assumption that freewill (the ability to do otherwise) is supernatural?

Yes, when discussing the singular case of the deterministic universe, where one assumes all systems are deterministic, one could argue that the second premise effectively makes "the ability to do otherwise" impossible.
And I'm sure you think this is thus assuming it to be supernatural.
That's then a matter of tomaytoes / tomahtoes.

But in the original argument there is no assumption that the ability to do otherwise is supernatural.
It's simply not there.
You have been so fixated on it from the get go despite that, that it now clouds your vision.

You jump from having reasoned that a deterministic physical universe includes deterministic human will, to claiming you have shown that there is no freedom of will in a human in that universe, as if it had followed from your reasoning.

Yes, if the will is a system built from deterministic interactions then that is what the logic shows.
The logic is valid, the conclusion as sound as the premises.
If you disagree with the premises - e.g. if you think the will is a system built from non-deterministic interactions, or that a system built from deterministic interactions is not itself deterministic - then by all means we can discuss it.
But I'm not going to give you any credence for seeing what is patently not there.

He has yet to address it at all. He's still denying the physical situation, the existence of things like decisions in the real world.

He seemed to be quite clear that decisions are made, that the process we call decisions is followed, quite regularly.
So what exactly is he not addressing?

The assumption that freedom requires independence from physical cause and effect is correctable. Not everybody makes it.

I'm not making that assumption.
As shown above, I have merely argued that property Z is not possible in a deterministic system.
If you dispute the premises, let's discuss them, but let's not hear any more about your delusional claim that I'm assuming the ability to do otherwise is supernatural, okay.

Let's try again:
The driver approaches the traffic light.

Okay.

Do you agree that the driver actually exists, as an actual behaving entity?

Yes.

Do you agree that they are approaching the light but have not yet reached it - that time actually exists?

Yes.

Do you agree that when they do the color of the light will influence their behavior?

Yes.

That is: Do you agree that at this moment they have the ability to stop, and the ability to go, both, depending on the traffic light color?

The ability to do otherwise is not to conceive of some theoretical case where if the inputs are X then you get output 1, but if the inputs are Y then you get output 2.
The ability to do otherwise is whether, based on what is actually input, can they at that stage do either 1 or 2.
And the answer remains no (at least not for a deterministic system).
Elon Musk's floating Tesla ('cos I know how upset you get if anyone uses the example of a brick) gets to do many different things depending on input.
And until you can actually explain why this is not "free" yet you consider the will to be "free", you're still just handwaving.
So offer something, iceaura.
Offer something more than "you're just ignoring levels of logic".
Put an actual explanation together that justifies your position.

 

[iceaura]

The ability to do otherwise is not to conceive of some theoretical case where if the inputs are X then you get output 1, but if the inputs are Y then you get output 2.

The case is not theoretical, but observational.

The ability to do otherwise is whether, based on what is actually input, can they at that stage do either 1 or 2.

To what "stage" do you refer?
The example is of a driver approaching a traffic light. That's the "stage". None of your assertions holds, at that stage. You haven't consistently identified your "system" or its inputs, and you have muddled your timelines to the point that the very existence of time itself, much less cause and effect, is in question.

And until you can actually explain why this is not "free" yet you consider the will to be "free",

Why should I be responsible for explaining or justifying your confused misconceptions and willful obliviousness?

I'm dealing - explicitly and repeatedly and in simple declarative sentences - with degrees of freedom. Logical levels. Physical facts. Extrapolations and extensions and heuristic analogies from the engineering degrees of freedom no one has any problem recognizing in simple objects and low level patterns.

Freedom in this view is not a supernatural status, that something either has or has not. It's not on or off like a light bulb or a creationist's "life". It's a product of a physically deterministic universe, not a defiance of it.

 

[iceaura]

So where, iceaura, in any of this, is the assumption that freewill (the ability to do otherwise) is supernatural?

For the seventh time, as I try once more to dumb it down enough for you:
In drawing the conclusion that a system's being physically deterministic - unable to contravene chains of cause and effect - excludes freedom of behavior.
In claiming that an observation of an ability to do otherwise within a deterministic universe is necessarily illusion.
And so forth.

If you disagree with the premises - e.g. if you think the will is a system built from non-deterministic interactions, or that a system built from deterministic interactions is not itself deterministic - then by all means we can discuss it.

As always before, explicitly and repeatedly and in simple sentences anyone can read: I don't.

It is a central conclusion that the ability to do otherwise (aka being "free") does not exist in a deterministic system.

You keep rephrasing that, dodging aspects of earlier formulations you apparently can sense are hiding trouble.
The reason is that you aren't actually making sense.
It's not a "conclusion" - of your argument or anyone's - that a deterministic universe has no "ability to do otherwise": it's in the definition of "deterministic".
But we aren't discussing the freedom of will of the universe, whatever that would be.
As soon as the focus narrows to the entity of interest - a human being, making decisions in real time according to information acquired in real time - we observe that this entity is in fact making decisions and acting on them in real time according to information acquired in real time. That is among its abilities. Necessarily, then, it has the ability to make decisions according to information - meaning at least two different courses of action are within its abilities prior to its becoming informed.
So whichever way it is going to decide, it possesses an ability to do otherwise meantime. It actually decides according to the information it acquires, in other words. (Which points to yet another location of your assumption of supernatural freedom - this ability to do otherwise, bound as it is by natural law and never to result in doing, is not in your view freedom).

Note that by assumption (of physics, in this case) there is no indeterminacy involved - the same information would produce the same decision every time, and perfect knowledge of that future information would allow perfect prediction of the decision (within quantum uncertainty and similar irrelevant complications).