Thoughts on this article on free-will?

[adavies42]

Eric S. Raymond has just posted a new article to his blog, Armed and Dangerous, entitled Predictability, Computability, and Free Will. In it he has several interesting ideas on the nature and causes of free will that seem to me, on cursory examination, as if they might have at least some potential. As I understand it, he wants to define free will relatively, and in terms of observation: if an observer cannot predict a mind's future mental state, that mind has free will relative to that observer.

I would be interested to read what those with more experience in philosophy think of his argument.

Caveat: ESR is a libertarian/anarchocapitalist, and I'm not implying any endorsement of his politics here.

[y_feldblum]

Here's a simple question (though I haven't had time yet to read the articles):

Do people have free will or don't they? Objectively, without resorting to observers, is free will fact or fiction?

[adavies42]

Here's a simple question (though I haven't had time yet to read the articles):

Do people have free will or don't they? Objectively, without resorting to observers, is free will fact or fiction?

He thinks that's a meaningless question, which is obviously the biggest problem with his arguments. He compares the issue to General Relativity's definitions of time and motion as fundamentally relative. He is of course most likely wrong on that point, but I still think he has some interesting ideas about relating free will to predictability.

[stephen_speicher]

Eric S. Raymond has just posted a new article to his blog, Armed and Dangerous, entitled Predictability, Computability, and Free Will. In it he has several interesting ideas on the nature and causes of free will that seem to me, on cursory examination, as if they might have at least some potential. As I understand it, he wants to define free will relatively, and in terms of observation: if an observer cannot predict a mind's future mental state, that mind has free will relative to that observer.

I would be interested to read what those with more experience in philosophy think of his argument.

An individual's free will does not have an existence dependent upon the knowledge, or lack thereof, that another has of his actions. By an act of introspection one identifies the existence of one's free will. It is by extension to like beings that we acknowledge free will in others.

I glanced at the essay that you referenced and it seems like a bunch of pseudo-scientific, psuedo-philosophic gobbledygook. The appeal made to quantum mechanics and relativity is absurd, especially considering that his view of physics is fundamentally flawed. This sort of "thinking" is characteristic of the crowd who are unable to differentiate between human volition and computational algorithms. In short, unless you like to dissect the errors of others, the essay is a complete waste of time.

[neverborn]

Had a debate with a Communist today... interesting arguments I didn't really know what to say to...

He said that since we are all made from genetic code that dictates basic responses to one another, and our genetic code responses interact with other peoples' genetic code responses, that free will does not exist. Quantum physics says that there is enough indeterminism to allow for SOME choice, but not much, and only a chance.

He then goes off at the end with "This means your morality has no basis, there is no good or evil, just action. Read some Kant."

I'm speechless.

[Captain Nate]

You should have punched him and blamed it on your genes.

Nah, probably not a good move...but it would've made you feel better.

Edited June 19, 2005 by Captain Nate

[skap35]

Your commie friend is clearly ignorant of the basics of neurology that have been accepted as fact for years. All you need to do is throw a Neurology-101 book at him and his argument falls apart.

Or you can give him a copy of "Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology," which says basically the same thing.

[y_feldblum]

He was programmed to say that. So was Kant. Whatever "arguments" they advance in favor of their position, they have been programmed to advance them. What they are doing is not so much engaging in intellectual debate, as much as it is vibrations in the air beating at their eardrums, sending electric signals to the brain, which deterministically processes them via neuron pathways, and then sends instructions to the mouth to spew the words "Kant proved there's no free will and thus no responsibility to think for oneself." He cannot know what he is doing, much less control himself even if he did, because his genes are controlling him and even controlling what he can and can't know. Basically, he only advances genetic determinism because he's genetically determined to advance genetic determinism, and for no other reason. Tell him that if he wishes to pursue an intellectual debate on the subject, he must first free himself from the intellectual bonds of genetic determinism and learn to think for himself.

If a person pronounces an absurdity, one means of countering it is to throw it in his face - the full logical conclusion of the absurdity. To the person who believes existence doesn't exist: neither does he. To the person who believes people cannot think: he can't think enough to realize that people can. To the person who believes in determinism: he's been coerced into saying that.

[backpacker]

Your commie friend is clearly ignorant of the basics of neurology that have been accepted as fact for years. 

But doesn't that also control the mind? that at least have to make some right to your own neurology booster (like Redbull) like you have the right to your own property because since it control our mood and action how can we then be free and what about that day everybody can buy their own mix at seven eleven to justify/make possible your own action or new better logical thinking?

[Fixed spelling, but can't figure out what was intended in order to fix grammar. - Felipe]

Edited June 22, 2005 by Felipe

[skap35]

But doesn't that also control the mind? that at least have to make some right to your own neurology booster (like Redbull) like you have the right to your own property  because since it control our mood and action how can we then be free and what about that day everybody can buy their own mix at seven eleven to justify/make possible your own action or new better logical thinking?

[Fixed spelling, but can't figure out what was intended in order to fix grammar. - Felipe]

I don't think mind-altering chemicals apply here. When you choose to drink Red Bull or take cocaine, your mind is under the control of that substance while it is in your body. When you are not under the control of any substance, you are the one making your decisions, not chemicals and not genetics.

[Hal]

your mind is under the control of that substance

I think this is a purely metaphorical statement, which is meaningless if taken literally. Drugs change the physical structure of your brain, they dont 'take control'.

Volition does not allow a person to do 'whatever he likes' - this would make it almost occult. It allows him to choose between the limited range of options which are available to his mind at any given time. The chemical effects of drugs can modify the options available, and they can also modify how attractive each option seems. But they cannot make the choice for you.

I dont think drugs are special at all - normal human 'moods' have the exact same effect, although to a lesser degree. Let's take an example. Imagine that you are in a good mood, sitting on a bus on your way to work. A baby starts crying loudly, which irritates you immensely. You start considering what to do, and several options enter your mind - you can ignore it, you can ask the mother to quieten it down, you can go and sit upstairs, you can get off the bus, and so on. These options will be 'consciously available' - they are things you are explicitly considering, and your volition consists in choosing between them.

Now lets imagine the same situation when you are in a bad mood. You had 3 hours of sleep last night, youre late for work, and you just managed to spill a can of coke all over your nice clean shirt. In other words, you are highly irritated and close to breaking point. What options will enter your mind now? Well, most of the above ones will also occur. But you might also start thinking exceptionally dark thoughts, perhaps involving getting up and punching the baby, or maybe even throwing it out the window. These thoughts horrify you, and you try to put them out of your mind. Of course, you do not actually carry them out - you are not the kind of person who would intentionally harm a child.

Now, in the second situation, I would say that you are exercising volition in not harming the child. The option is present in your mind, you are fully aware you could choose to carry it out, yet you decide not to. However in the first case, you arent choosing not to harm the child. There is no sense in which you are considering 'should I hurt the child or not?' like you would be in the second case - you havent even considered it as a possibility, it is not an option available to you, and it is quite literally not in your mind. Some people might say you are 'subconsciously' or 'implictly' choosing not to harm it, but I would say these expressions are meaningless unless you want to give them some sort of definition.

Another example would be someone who has just learned that there is something humans can do which he wasnt previously aware of. Imagine something silly, like rolling your tongue or wiggling your ears, and also imagine that you had never done this, or seen anyone do it. Now, one day your friend tells you about this "really awesome trick" he has discovered, and shows you his tongue rolling. Suitably impressed, you now try it yourself and find you can do it too. From this point on, you have the option of choosing whether to wiggle your ears. But before you found out it was possible, it doesnt make sense to say you were 'choosing' not to do it - you didnt even know that tongue rolling existed and it was never an option available to you.

Now, humans dont explictly choose what enters their conscious mind. Their choice consists purely in deciding between the alternatives that they 'somehow' find before them. If you dont believe this, go and try the standard meditation trick of sitting absolutely still, and trying to think about 'nothing'. Observe how random unrelated thoughts suddenly pop into your mind without your conscious control. Why did you just think of a holiday you were on 7 years ago? Who knows.

Or, imagine trying to chat up an attractive girl - you saw a TV program last night where some lothario charmed the pants off some girl in a bar, and you wish to do the same. But you cant - the right words just arent coming into your head. Whereas his dialogue flowed gracefully, yours sounds awkward and stunted. You desperately want to talk like a 'big shot', but you simply dont have this option - the right words arent available to you and no magical act of volition is going to help you out. You can of course choose between the options which do enter your mind (you can tell her she has nice eyes, or decide not to), but you cant choose to say the beautifully poetic lines which you havent (non-volitionally) thought up.

Once free-will is understood in this way, the problem of whether "drugs control people" disappears. They dont - drugs simply change the options you have available at any given moment. When you are on an LSD trip, you will have possibilities enter your mind which would never EVER EVER have occurred otherwise. When I stand near a window normally, I don't 'choose' not to jump out it - this possibility doesnt even enter my head for a split second. But under the influence of LSD, jumping might be something I would actually consider. My volition still exists and I am in no way determined - I can still choose whether to jump. But the choices available to you are not the same.

edit: Above I said "humans dont explictly choose what enters their conscious mind". I want to stress the 'explicit' part - there are certainly ways of making yourself more likely to have certain options available. While I might not have had the poetic words to charm the girl available last year, I might have them now as a result of deliberately choosing to learn how to speak more eloquently. And of course choosing to take LSD will allow 'weird' things to enter my head, even though I dont actually choose which weird things they will be.

Edited June 23, 2005 by Hal

[Evangelical Capitalist]

He then goes off at the end with "This means your morality has no basis, there is no good or evil, just action. Read some Kant."

That's just his genes talking.

[AisA]

Once free-will is understood in this way, the problem of whether "drugs control people" disappears. They dont - drugs simply change the options you have available at any given moment. When you are on an LSD trip, you will have possibilities enter your mind which would never EVER EVER have occurred otherwise. When I stand near a window normally, I don't 'choose' not to jump out it - this possibility doesnt even enter my head for a split second. But under the influence of LSD, jumping might be something I would actually consider. My volition still exists and I am in no way determined - I can still choose whether to jump. But the choices available to you are not the same.

If it were true that "the choices available to you are not the same", it would mean that you do not have the choice of jumping out the window when sober. But that is clearly not the case, is it?

LSD does not create choices; nothing about reality changes when you take LSD. Rather, LSD creates delusions and impairs or destroys the ability to make rational choices, i.e. it impairs or destroys one's ability to control one's mind and one's actions.

[skap35]

Once free-will is understood in this way, the problem of whether "drugs control people" disappears. They dont - drugs simply change the options you have available at any given moment. When you are on an LSD trip, you will have possibilities enter your mind which would never EVER EVER have occurred otherwise. When I stand near a window normally, I don't 'choose' not to jump out it - this possibility doesnt even enter my head for a split second. But under the influence of LSD, jumping might be something I would actually consider. My volition still exists and I am in no way determined - I can still choose whether to jump. But the choices available to you are not the same.

I strongly disagree with this. Depending on which drug and how much you take, drugs will physically disable different parts of the brain. This does not mean that any specific area is entirely shut down, but it is so saturated with a given chemical that it can no longer function. The best example of this is alcohol. When you drink too much the room starts spinning and you stumble around. The physical reason for this is that alcohol has effectively shut down your cerebellum (which is responsible for maintaining your orientation and balance). This same thing occurs with different drugs and different parts of the brain. A given drug can severely impair the functioning of the frontal lobe, which means that you are no longer capable of rational thought. And that means that you are no longer capable of making choices on your own. The chemical has effectively taken over that part of your brain.

Think about how this applies to your example of jumping out the window. As AisA pointed out, the choice to jump out the window is there whether or not you are sober. The reason it seems more appealing when you are on LSD is that your rational thought process is no longer functioning. A rational person would never jump out of the window. Being in full possession of your cognitive process, it wouldn't make any sense. But since your brain is saturated with LSD to the point that it can no longer function normally, your neurological ability to think is no longer there. The end result is that the thought "should I jump out the window"?, which couldn't get processed because LSD molecules got in the way, results in jumping out the window.

Edited June 24, 2005 by skap35

[Hal]

If it were true that "the choices available to you are not the same", it would mean that you do not have the choice of jumping out the window when sober.  But that is clearly not the case, is it?

If something doesnt actually enter my mind, then I cant choose whether or not to do it. So no, in a sense I dont have that choice (unless for some reason I actually think about jumping out - for instance if I stand near a window after making this post then I'll probably think about it, since its in the back of my mind)

LSD does not create choices; nothing about reality changes when you take LSD.  Rather, LSD  creates delusions and impairs or destroys the ability to make rational choices

It changes how you experience reality, and your attitudes towards what you experience.

Skap; I dont have time to reply to your post just now since I'm heading out, but I'd like to ask:

Think about how this applies to your example of jumping out the window.  As AisA pointed out, the choice to jump out the window is there whether or not you are sober. 

Where is this choice? If the option to jump out the window never entered my mind, then what sense does it make to talk about me not choosing to do it? Its not like that I normally think "jumping out of this window is stupid" and then dont do it - I dont think about it at all. To talk about choices necessitates talk about conscious acts, and I do not consciously choose not to jump out of windows other than in very rare cases. There is no such thing as a 'subconscious choice'. Edited June 24, 2005 by Hal

[AisA]

If something doesnt actually enter my mind, then I cant choose whether or not to do it.

Our most basic choice is the choice to focus or not, and implicit in that choice is the selection of what to focus on, i.e. on what to think about. So what "enters your mind" is up to you.

So no, in a sense I dont have that choice (unless for some reason I actually think about jumping out - for instance if I stand near a window after making this post then I'll probably think about it, since its in the back of my mind)

I see a problem with this. The notion that something -- like the alternative of jumping out the window instead of remaining inside -- does not exist unless it comes into your awareness is primacy of consciousness.

In this case, the fact that an alternative is not considered is the result of past thinking on your part -- you considered and rejected that alternative long ago when you learned that falling is painful or even fatal. You made the choice to avoid harm, and unless something drastic changes, you will not reconsider that choice. So, I agree that one does not consciously reconsider all alternatives in all situations. But this does not mean the alternatives do not exist.

[skap35]

Where is this choice? If the option to jump out the window never entered my mind, then what sense does it make to talk about me not choosing to do it? Its not like that I normally think "jumping out of this window is stupid" and then dont do it - I dont think about it at all. To talk about choices necessitates talk about conscious acts, and I do not consciously choose not to jump out of windows other than in very rare cases. There is no such thing as a 'subconscious choice'.

In a sense there is a subconscious choice. When you were a little kid, you experienced something that told you jumping out of the window is a bad idea. Either you tried it and learned that you get hurt by doing it, or you saw someone fall out of a window, or maybe your mom explained the consequences to you. What I'm trying to say is that at some point in your life the choice was presented to you. At that time you decided that jumping out of the window was a bad idea. From then on, that choice was programmed into your brain.

As you go through any given day, there are thousands of possible choices you can make. Clearly your brain would be overwhelmed if you had to consciously consider every possible choice throughout the day. So the way your brain handles that is that it doesn't burden your conscious mind with the more "common sense" or unimportant choices. The decision you made as a kid about not jumping out the window was programmed into your brain years ago. So your brain will just draw on this choice automatically. Of course, you could easily override this process by just consciously thinking about it.

Here is a similar example, but I think it is a better illustration of my point: You walk from your bedroom to your kitchen to get a glass of water. There is a door separating the two rooms, so you must open it. How often do you consciously think about opening the door. Most of the time you will just reach up and turn the nob without thinking about it. At that moment your mind is on a higher level goal: getting a glass of water. Most of the lower level goals are handled without wasting the time of your brain. These goals are: standing up, planning a path from the bedroom to the kitchen, taking one step, then another, opening the door, etc. You rarely think about these tasks, but they are still happening. Your brain made the choice to do them.

Your conscious mind made a high-level choice: get a glass of water. Your subconscious mind then made all the common, unimportant choices that results in a glass of water in your hand. These choices were all made automatically.

[RationalBiker]

In a sense there is a subconscious choice.

What you call a "subconscious choice" other people call "integrated knowledge" (or in this case another example of the is/ought relationship). I disagree that it's a subconcious choice. It was a conscious choice that person made long ago and continued to adhere once integrated into knowledge without needing to reconsider it unless the context surrounding that choice changes. When the context changes, the person then may need to consciously whether or not to continuing with the same conscious choice that was made long ago.

[Acadi]

Had a debate with a Communist today... interesting arguments I didn't really know what to say to...

He said that since we are all made from genetic code that dictates basic responses to one another, and our genetic code responses interact with other peoples' genetic code responses, that free will does not exist. Quantum physics says that there is enough indeterminism to allow for SOME choice, but not much, and only a chance.

He then goes off at the end with "This means your morality has no basis, there is no good or evil, just action. Read some Kant."

I'm speechless.

You should've demonstrated to him how your thoughts directly determined your actions, that you think, therefore you know good and evil, and only some of your defensive reflexes in the face of danger are mindless spinal cord actions/reactions.

I'm not surprised you were speechless, given the type of character people like us are. We like to think about the opposition carefully, even if it isn't all-new what we come up against, and not just automatically respond as if we're superior or all-knowing. We realize the opposition might have an important point, and we don't want to alienate that point if it possibly exists, even in the face of pressure. Correct me if I'm wrong.