Free will and determinism

[Jo555]

Think that may be my signature, "Foolish and giddy for Christ". It's a shame more aren't experiences the joys of that.

I pray that each and everyone of you will eventually be captivated by his love and become fools for Him. In your name Lord I pray. Pursue them until you've captured them by your love.

Ok, think that truly is all i have to say today. Continue on the OP and forgive me for going off topic. I'm like a mother lion protecting her cubs. The love of God compels me, foolish ss that maybsee

I don't feel like I should have to dignify/justify this question with a response.

I am most definitely still a Christian despite knowing almost all of the whole truth that Jesus died to give us, etc.

But many of you might not be if you more fully knew. I don't think very many of you would survive or make it through the whole process without giving up on your faith before you got through it all, or came out the other side of it all, etc. Many of you do not truly know him or Them, etc. You think you do, but you do not, etc. You know almost next to nothing about any of any of their stories, etc. To get that you have to pass through death and darkness and shadow and flame, and come out of the other side of it still fully intact, or unscathed, etc, And you people don't know anything about that either, etc. But I'm actually trying to make it a whole heck of a lot easier for you here, etc.

God Bless.

If that is a yes, welcome to the glorious fools club brother, or is it sister?

When you have encounters with God, He can send you to hell and back and you know it is all filtered through his love.

The love of God is not human love. It overwhelms you and so solidly implants itself in you.

I can't boast about it. He decided to take this gal as a child that didn't have all her knowledge and ducks in order, but wanted to know Him. and reveal Himself to her.

I hear ya. At 31 i accomplished all i wanted to in life. Great career. Nice home, dream car, good life, and i know He helped me. But when i did i said Lord, it's all just stuff, not that i was not happy in my own way, but I've tasted of his life, drank from his love and knew there was so much more. So i said take all my desires and will that are not in line with yours and do with my life as you see fit.

Can i tell you, before things were easy, to a degree, just a prayer and some good ole preserversnce. Right after that prayer it was like all --- broke loose on me and nothing worked as it did before, until I was immobile in my bed from the storm, broken from my own strength, and telling God i can't do anything without Him.

In me i knew He was saying, now I got you where i want to. I'll give you what you want, but if you are going to be of use to me, it's my way where no flesh glories in my presence.

That was the beginning of an incredible, personal spiritual revival. He was showing off to me in a good sense, like look what your daddy can do, and He was moving and it was so fast, took me off guard more than once. And He's funny. What awaited me on the other side made the journey there truly a light affliction in comparison.

Now I'm farther along in my journey and I don't care much about myself anymore, or being used of Him, or any of that. I just grieve for humanity, as He does too. I'm sharing in his sufferings and He loves that.

Off topic from the OP, but wanted to respond to you

I'm still trying to decipher who is a Christian and who is not. Helps to know who speaks your language and may need to switch lingos of needed for understanding.

But I've said enough tonight and quite a bit off the OP, so I'm done for tonight. God bless you

 

[partinobodycular]

All decisions we make are determined by existing and prior influences. There has been an effectively infinite chain of events which has resulted in me sitting here writing this sentence. They have all led to this point.

For what it's worth this video seems to explain your position fairly well. The only question being... what caused the initial conditions?

 

[Bradskii]

For what it's worth this video seems to explain your position fairly well. The only question being... what caused the initial conditions?

I'm typing this as I watch it.

The guy says that experiments might not discover new information because we might instead be discovering knowledge that already exists. This doesn't fill me with much hope that the video is going to be worth much. As those two things do not contradict each other. The height of Everest was always 8850m. That information already existed before we discovered it (Notwithstanding that his use of the term 'knowledge' is clumsy in that it implie facts already known).

And what we do does matter. Determinism doesn't affect that.

It certainly doesn't require us to change our views on physics. It's physics that determines existence. Quantum mechanics relies on probablity, not predictability. He's confusing a lack of predictability with randomness.

His example of the universe dictating, from the big bang, the result of a coin toss implies that the result could in theory be known 5 billion years ago. But existence is effectively chaotic, so it's not possible. Even in theory. People seem to think that determinism means that everything is set in stone. But that would mean that the future is knowable. It isn't, even in theory.

Wow, big error around the 5 minute mark when he says that determinism cannot be tested. Of course it can. It can actually be disproved quite easily just by giving an example of literally anything that had no cause. You know how many would times I've asked for that example...

He says that quasars could be said to be determined. Well...yes. Something determined their existence of course. That's what determinism means. That there was a reason for any given quasar to be there in the first place.

Probability and randomness don't lose their meaning. Probability is working out the likelihood of something happening because we don't have enough information to calculate the exact future condition. And randomness? It doesn't exist.

He says that determinism would mean that every choice is fixed. Again implying a possible theoretical knowledge of that choice. That's not possible. You can know what has determined an event. But not what will determine it. It's an important distinction.

You won't need to rewrite quantum mechanics to allow for predictability in a determined universe. It's almost by definition probabilistic. You'd probably have more chance of predicting that coin toss from 5 billion years ago than predicting a quantum event.

 

[partinobodycular]

And what we do does matter. Determinism doesn't affect that.

And here I thought that I was finally getting a grasp on your thought process, but dang that determinism fooled me again. Whoever set this up has a really sick sense of humor.

 

[Bradskii]

And here I thought that I was finally getting a grasp on your thought process, but dang that determinism fooled me again. Whoever set this up has a really sick sense of humor.

Well if I am determined by circumstances to shoot you, then would that matter? I think it might. Certainly to you.

 

[partinobodycular]

Well if I am determined by circumstances to shoot you, then would that matter? I think it might. Certainly to you.

This may sound odd, but it would matter in the sense that I'd probably try to stop you, but determinism or not I'm gonna forgive you. On the other hand if you shot my dog, I disavow all responsibility for what I might do.

Unfortunately my dog's already dead, so there's nothing that you could possibly do to me that I wouldn't forgive.

 

[partinobodycular]

Well if I am determined by circumstances to shoot you, then would that matter? I think it might. Certainly to you.

FYI, back on Aug. 6th I got run over by a man in a Chevy Silverado. Two broken bones in my left ankle, broken left knee, numerous broken bones in my left hand, and a torn rotator cuff in my right shoulder. Big deal? Nah. That's just life. Do I hold it against the guy? Nope. He seemed like a really nice guy.

Things tend not to bother me. Heck, I can already get stuff off of the top shelf of my kitchen cupboards, and I'm confident that my disc golf game will be back to as good as ever by spring. So when I say that stuff doesn't bother me... stuff doesn't bother me. Apathy does have its benefits.

 

[DennisF]

First up, kudos on presenting an argument for free will, as opposed to what we normally get. But firstly...this, from the link:

'MacKay's argument might appear to assume deterministic predictions and conclude free will for the agent. Instead it argues from free will by allowing the agent, who is assumed free to choose, to respond to the predictions. It is up to the agent to believe a prediction or not, and such an act of free will determines the truth-value of the prediction. The physical outcome depends on the choice of the agent.'

Yes, the argument of MacKay assumes free will and then shows that it is simply a logical fact that a deterministic prediction - that is, a physically causal prediction that is complete in accounting for all future states of Joe's brain up to the time when he is shown the prediction - would not be determinate for Joe so that he would have no choice but to accept it as true. The reason is simple; once the prediction is offered to Joe (and keep in mind that the prediction does not include what Joe will decide to make of the prediction), the effect (whatever it might be) on Joe of the prediction has not been taken into account in the prediction. Hence, the "Joe" predicted would not be the Joe who has been offered the prediction because at that point, it is no longer deterministic in that it fails to take into account the effect it will have on Joe.

So MacKay's argument is a purely logical argument with the only physical assumption being that there is a correspondence between Joe's brain and his mind as an agent - one who acts on what he receives, including decision-making.

Now one might object, as you seem to have done, that the prediction is not truly deterministic in that it is incomplete because it fails to take into account the effect of the prediction on Joe. But MacKay covers that too. His definition of free will is

There cannot exist a prediction of a (future) choice (decision, what-have-you) that would be both correct for Joe to believe and incorrect for him to disbelieve if offered to him.

Thus, a prediction that also takes into account the effect that it will have on Joe would not be incorrect for Joe to disbelieve. Whether either kind of prediction is true or not is up to Joe. To the Infallible Predictor, Joe is deterministic, even after he decides about the offered prediction. Yet for Joe, the prediction he is offered cannot determine what he will decide about it.

This is at its core a logical argument, not a physical one about mind-brain relations or causality. In other words, any entity - even a recursive futuristic software program - that can reflect on its own thinking and behavior applies to this argument. So what MacKay has done is to narrow down the meaning of free will in a rather precise, logical way, and then proceed to show that any "system" to which this definition applies is a free agent, as defined.

My argument differs from MacKay's in that I assume determinism and show that a being capable of such "recursive awareness" is also acting freely in much the same sense MacKay means by free will.

I hope this helps to clarify the nature of these arguments showing that physical determinism for a non-interacting observer does not infer an absence of free will for Joe as a logical fact of self-referencing logic. Self-awareness is a key ingredient to agency and hence to the arguments over whether we humans are actually making anything like the free decisions we suppose we are making every day.

This approach to the free-will issue is also somewhat like complementarity in quantum physics, if you know about it. Free will is consequently relative to Joe yet to the super-predictor, he is determined. This issue shows up in theology, in arguments about "God's sovereignty" (as the Determiner of all events) versus human freedom of choice and its centrality in salvation. Both the divine and the human frames of reference have significance. A "Joe" God determines will be saved is also one who accepts the gospel (from a Christian standpoint). Joe realizes that he could reject instead of accept, yet, if he is determined by God to be saved, he chooses to accept. Such is the nature of free will and self-reflective thought.

It is not up to the agent to believe anything. He cannot make a conscious decision to believe something. All he can do is decide whether to accept the evidence for a given proposal or not and then belief, or disbelief, will follow automatically. Let's say that someone says that your wife is being unfaithful because they saw her having coffee with a male work colleague. You probably wouldn't accept that as evidence so therefore wouldn't believe the claim. But if you were shown a video of her in flagrante delicto then you probably would accept that evidence and therefore believe the claim. But you can't accept the evidence and not believe or reject the evidence and believe.

In any case, making a choice (in this case choosing to believe something) is not an example of free will. You make choices whether free will exists or not. The deciding factor is whether the choice was determined by antecedent conditions or not . Not the act of choosing.

The second point is that predicting a choice that someone will make is one of the antecedent conditions that determines your choice. Whether you believe it or not (and you have no choice in believing it or not - it either convinces you or it doesn't) it will determine your decision.

And this from the 'Closure':

'MacKay recognized that we think and behave as though we are free; and he argued that physical determinism does not deny this basic fact of our personal experience.'

I completely agree with that. But...

'The kind of physical determinism that MacKay's argument allows is limited to what can be predicted about A without interacting with A.'

Prediction is not relevant to determinism.

 

[partinobodycular]

Yes, the argument of MacKay assumes free will and then shows that it is simply a logical fact that a deterministic prediction - that is, a physically causal prediction that is complete in accounting for all future states of Joe's brain up to the time when he is shown the prediction - would not be determinate for Joe so that he would have no choice but to accept it as true. The reason is simple; once the prediction is offered to Joe (and keep in mind that the prediction does not include what Joe will decide to make of the prediction), the effect (whatever it might be) on Joe of the prediction has not been taken into account in the prediction. Hence, the "Joe" predicted would not be the Joe who has been offered the prediction because at that point, it is no longer deterministic in that it fails to take into account the effect it will have on Joe.

So MacKay's argument is a purely logical argument with the only physical assumption being that there is a correspondence between Joe's brain and his mind as an agent - one who acts on what he receives, including decision-making.

Now one might object, as you seem to have done, that the prediction is not truly deterministic in that it is incomplete because it fails to take into account the effect of the prediction on Joe. But MacKay covers that too. His definition of free will is

There cannot exist a prediction of a (future) choice (decision, what-have-you) that would be both correct for Joe to believe and incorrect for him to disbelieve if offered to him.

Thus, a prediction that also takes into account the effect that it will have on Joe would not be incorrect for Joe to disbelieve. Whether either kind of prediction is true or not is up to Joe. To the Infallible Predictor, Joe is deterministic, even after he decides about the offered prediction. Yet for Joe, the prediction he is offered cannot determine what he will decide about it.

This is at its core a logical argument, not a physical one about mind-brain relations or causality. In other words, any entity - even a recursive futuristic software program - that can reflect on its own thinking and behavior applies to this argument. So what MacKay has done is to narrow down the meaning of free will in a rather precise, logical way, and then proceed to show that any "system" to which this definition applies is a free agent, as defined.

My argument differs from MacKay's in that I assume determinism and show that a being capable of such "recursive awareness" is also acting freely in much the same sense MacKay means by free will.

I hope this helps to clarify the nature of these arguments showing that physical determinism for a non-interacting observer does not infer an absence of free will for Joe as a logical fact of self-referencing logic. Self-awareness is a key ingredient to agency and hence to the arguments over whether we humans are actually making anything like the free decisions we suppose we are making every day.

This approach to the free-will issue is also somewhat like complementarity in quantum physics, if you know about it. Free will is consequently relative to Joe yet to the super-predictor, he is determined. This issue shows up in theology, in arguments about "God's sovereignty" (as the Determiner of all events) versus human freedom of choice and its centrality in salvation. Both the divine and the human frames of reference have significance. A "Joe" God determines will be saved is also one who accepts the gospel (from a Christian standpoint). Joe realizes that he could reject instead of accept, yet, if he is determined by God to be saved, he chooses to accept. Such is the nature of free will and self-reflective thought.

Is this simply determinism's version of the halting problem?

 

[DennisF]

DennisF said:
The ability to predict correctly is a logical necessity for a deterministic scientific theory.

Not exactly. The falsifiability of a theory may be considered necessary, but your statement doesn't even say WHOSE ability it is. Certainly no human ability to predict is necessary for causes to determine choices and outcomes, according to our current use of the word, "determine". That, to me, rings of the pompous question, "If a tree falls in a forest.....[and so on]".

I'll reword it: It is logically necessary for scientific statements (upon which predictions are based) to be true.

 

[DennisF]

Is this simply determinism's version of the halting problem?

Yes, something like that. The Halting Problem (of a Turing Machine?) is (probably - I haven't checked this) logically equivalent to proving a negative universal. A proving algorithm has no termination in doing this for predicate logic because the number of elements in the set to be proved is infinite in number.

The collapse of the Formalist School of mathematics because of self-referencing logic has interesting possible applications, one being to the free-will issue, and Donald MacKay picked up on that a few decades ago. The hardy Scot is no longer with us (R.I.P.), but his legend and memory lingers on ...

 

[partinobodycular]

Yes, something like that.

Sorry, I'm just curious. How does one ever progress beyond t1? If t2 influences t1 then you end up with a seemingly unbreakable feedback loop.

 

[DennisF]

Sorry, I'm just curious. How does one ever progress beyond t1? If t2 influences t1 then you end up with a seemingly unbreakable feedback loop.

I am not quite following this. The Predictor of Joe's future decision bases his prediction on what happens up until that point of decision. Joe might also know his past but might not know which decision he will make as predicted. So there are no time feedback loops.

What is recursive in the logic is that Joe is aware of his own decision-making, even in view of the prediction offered to him. Yet he is not determined (bound) by it to decide as predicted because the prediction is outdated by his knowledge of it and is no longer deterministic.

 

[Bradskii]

Now one might object, as you seem to have done, that the prediction is not truly deterministic in that it is incomplete because it fails to take into account the effect of the prediction on Joe.

That's correct.

But MacKay covers that too. His definition of free will is

There cannot exist a prediction of a (future) choice (decision, what-have-you) that would be both correct for Joe to believe and incorrect for him to disbelieve if offered to him.

Are you missing something there? What follows 'His definition of free will is...' is not a definition of free will. It's an argument. Which I think you believe leads to a conclusion that decisions aren't determined. The prediction itself is one of the antecedent conditions. Whether it is true or not or whether it is believed or not is somewhat irrelevant.

 

[Bradskii]

What is recursive in the logic is that Joe is aware of his own decision-making, even in view of the prediction offered to him. Yet he is not determined (bound) by it to decide as predicted because the prediction is outdated by his knowledge of it and is no longer deterministic.

Well...yes. That's true. But you haven't gone anywhere with that. A decision isn't based on a single antecedent condition. That's not logically possible. All you have done is increase the number of antecedent conditions. The prediction of his choice, his knowledge of it, whether he believes it or not...they are all now included into the set of conditions that determines how he decides.

I think you are following some people down a path where feedback loops, recursive thinking, predictions, prior knowledge etc all go into a somewhat complex mix of tortured logic to suggest that hey, there was free will in there right at the end. When all you have need to do to dismantle the whole edifice is to simply ask 'Why did Joe make that decision?'

And? Were there reasons why he did so? Of course there were. Unless it's a purely arbitrary decision then there always are. And those reasons are the antecedent conditions that determined his choice. Hence no free will.

 

[Bradskii]

A "Joe" God determines will be saved is also one who accepts the gospel (from a Christian standpoint). Joe realizes that he could reject instead of accept, yet, if he is determined by God to be saved, he chooses to accept. Such is the nature of free will...

It's not a free will decision if it was, as you say it was, determined. And that's whether God actually determined it or Joe's knowledge of what God wanted determined it (the way you worded it was unclear).

 

[Mark Quayle]

And here I thought that I was finally getting a grasp on your thought process, but dang that determinism fooled me again. Whoever set this up has a really sick sense of humor.

Ha! Don't let that mislead you. He's saying that determinism doesn't CHANGE your thought process. He didn't say that your thought processes are not according to cause, nor that determinism does not cause your thought processes. He's saying (in my words, "Feel free to decide all you want. That is, after all, what you are going to decide, no?"

In Christian terms, since we believe that God is first cause, God leaves you free to decide and you always do so according to your preferences. God isn't changing that. But logically, everything except First Cause is a consequence of first cause —an effect, and so, caused, including your choices. Feel free! From the presumptuous human POV we are free to really decide, and our decisions have real consequences, and so one's future is determined by their choices. But from a realistic, logical (and, I say, from God's POV) we do indeed choose according to our inclinations and desires, and our choices do have effects, but every one of our choices are also caused, as is everything else that comes subsequent to first cause. So, God determines all things. That does not impinge on the reality of man's choices.

 

[Bradskii]

What is recursive in the logic is that Joe is aware of his own decision-making, even in view of the prediction offered to him. Yet he is not determined (bound) by it to decide as predicted because the prediction is outdated by his knowledge of it and is no longer deterministic.

I reread what you'd posted to make sure I was understanding it correctly. And I want to go over this portion again.

The usual hypothetical that's sometimes used to indicate no free will is to point out that if circumstances were repeated exactly the same then a person would always make the same choice. So Michael always kills Freddo.

In your scenario we have Joe making a decision. Say to walk to work. There'd be antecedent conditions that would determine that choice. And something like Laplace's Demon, knowing all those conditions, would be able to correctly predict his choice. No problem there. Joe always walks to work if the exact conditions are repeated. Even if the demon knows what it is. However...if Joe is told what his decision is going to be, then then the conditions are not exactly the same. Obviously. So he might decide to be ornery and take the bus, just to prove the demon wrong. And being told what he would have done is the antecedent condition that determined what he did do.

At which point the hypothetical logically fails because whatever the demon tells Joe what he will decide, he chooses the other option.

 

[partinobodycular]

Ha! Don't let that mislead you. He's saying that determinism doesn't CHANGE your thought process. He didn't say that your thought processes are not according to cause, nor that determinism does not cause your thought processes. He's saying (in my words, "Feel free to decide all you want. That is, after all, what you are going to decide, no?"

In Christian terms, since we believe that God is first cause, God leaves you free to decide and you always do so according to your preferences. God isn't changing that. But logically, everything except First Cause is a consequence of first cause —an effect, and so, caused, including your choices. Feel free! From the presumptuous human POV we are free to really decide, and our decisions have real consequences, and so one's future is determined by their choices. But from a realistic, logical (and, I say, from God's POV) we do indeed choose according to our inclinations and desires, and our choices do have effects, but every one of our choices are also caused, as is everything else that comes subsequent to first cause. So, God determines all things. That does not impinge on the reality of man's choices.

I actually have no objections to the idea of determinism. My disagreement is with the notion that determinism negates free will. To my way of thinking free will is simply a being's ability to consciously select one course of action over another.

So the relevant question is... can I do that? If I can, then I have free will. Can a rock do that? If it can't, then it doesn't have free will. Pretty simple.

Yes, antecedent conditions are ultimately responsible for creating consciousness ... but that doesn't diminish the fact that it's consciousness that recognizes and considers the preferability of any potential outcomes, so I don't care where that consciousness came from, I just know that by golly I have it, and I intend to use it.

God made rocks... lots and lots of rocks. But He didn't make a whole lot of things that can argue back and forth on an internet forum about whether or not they have free will. That's a whole 'nother level of stuff. It's stuff that can do things simply because it wants to.

So God was sitting around thinking about all the marvelous things that He could create, and He thought to Himself... you know what would be really cool, is if I made something that could do things simply because it wanted to. Let's see OpenAI do that.

 

[Bradskii]

To my way of thinking free will is simply a being's ability to consciously select one course of action over another.

If you define it to match what you think it is, then you'll win the argument every time.