Does Physics disprove the existence of free will?

[Baldeee]

I could be wrong, but didn't you introduce "randomness" as an example of a system that doesn't do as it "must"? (And thus considered "free"?)

No.
I introduced it as a non-strictly deterministic that also is not free.
From the outset, post #130, I commented that when I referred to a determined system I was including within that label the probabalistic determinism case, even though it is actually indeterministic.
The inclusion being because rather than being same input leads to same output, it is the same input leading to the same probability function.

No, indeed not. But can you then give an example of a "free" system? Because if there can be no such system, then my point about "free" being a useless definition comes up again.

No, I can not.
But that is partly from the conclusion of the logic, not an assumption.
I can give examples of things that appear free, though.
However, as argued previously, I don't consider the definition being useless just because nothing comes up to muster.
It is a word that describes a concept, whether that concept references something in reality or not.

I also don't rule out there being something that is free, though.
Nowhere have I stated, or is it assumed by me, that everything is deterministic (or probabilistically so).
I leave open the possibility that there is something else, although I can't say what that might be.
All I have effectively said is that if the will is a deterministic system... etc.
If someone wishes to show that something is, or could be, free, using the term as I have (weaknesses and all) rather than their own, then that would be a more than welcome discussion.

 

[NotEinstein]

We are stuck on a fundamental difference in intuition, between those who require freedom to be the ability to contravene natural law and those who require it to embody an ability to make decisions and act in accordance with a person's decision criteria, moods, memories, dreams, immediate sources of information, and so forth - fully recognizing that whatever happens will be a physical event (rewindable in Newtonian terms, determined by physical law and cause/effect sequences, and so forth).

Then I suppose no further progress can be made in the discussion, because if the involved parties cannot agree on a common definition, there's little sense continuing it.

 

[NotEinstein]

No.
I introduced it as a non-strictly deterministic that also is not free.

That's a contradiction with your previous statement: this statement directly implying that "must" and "free" aren't opposites.

From the outset, post #130, I commented that when I referred to a determined system I was including within that label the probabalistic determinism case, even though it is actually indeterministic.
The inclusion being because rather than being same input leads to same output, it is the same input leading to the same probability function.

I have not been talking about deterministic systems at all?

No, I can not.
But that is partly from the conclusion of the logic, not an assumption.

Sure, isn't not due to an assumption; it's due to the definition of "free". And if no system can ever be "free", its definition is (logically) useless.

I can give examples of things that appear free, though.
However, as argued previously, I don't consider the definition being useless just because nothing comes up to muster.
It is a word that describes a concept, whether that concept references something in reality or not.

But it's not merely reality in which you cannot find an example. You also can't hypothetically give a case in a universe where the laws of physics are different. It's not just that no such system exists, it's that it can't exist (following from the inability to give any examples). Why define an attribute that cannot exist? What's the sense in that?

I also don't rule out there being something that is free, though.

Wait, what? Oh, I see. When I said "give an example" I didn't mean restricted to real, existing things. Sorry for the confusion. Can you give any example, hypothetical or otherwise, of a "free" system?

Nowhere have I stated, or is it assumed by me, that everything is deterministic (or probabilistically so).
I leave open the possibility that there is something else, although I can't say what that might be.
All I have effectively said is that if the will is a deterministic system... etc.
If someone wishes to show that something is, or could be, free, using the term as I have (weaknesses and all) rather than their own, then that would be a more than welcome discussion.

Yes, same sentiment here.

 

[Baldeee]

That's a contradiction with your previous statement: this statement directly implying that "must" and "free" aren't opposites.

Your notion of free, perhaps, but not the one I have.
You stated that you saw this randomness as something "that could indeed be defined quite nicely as "free".", and that you thought that this was what I was implying.
I didn't agree.
I don't see randomness as being "free", for the reasons given.
So it's not a contradiction, but rather your assumption that I agreed with your notion of "free" with regard randomness.

I have not been talking about deterministic systems at all?

You may not have been explicitly, but I have (and including probabilistic within the umbrella of determinism, for sake of brevity), from the outset.
I made it quite clear in that post that I didn't consider randomness (within probabilistic interactions) as being "free".
Any sense of "free" I have does not include randomness, as exampled.

Sure, isn't not due to an assumption; it's due to the definition of "free". And if no system can ever be "free", its definition is (logically) useless.

Where have I assumed that no system can ever be "free"?
I have not assumed, and do not assume, that the universe is only made up of deterministic or probabilistic interactions.
That I can't provide an alternative is neither here nor there.

But it's not merely reality in which you cannot find an example. You also can't hypothetically give a case in a universe where the laws of physics are different. It's not just that no such system exists, it's that it can't exist (following from the inability to give any examples). Why define an attribute that cannot exist? What's the sense in that?

Inability to give examples is not the same as "can't exist".
I can't give an example of any beetle from South America, for example.

Wait, what? Oh, I see. When I said "give an example" I didn't mean restricted to real, existing things. Sorry for the confusion. Can you give any example, hypothetical or otherwise, of a "free" system?

There was no confusion, don't worry.
I can't give an example, hypothetical or otherwise.
I just don't rule out the possibility.
I am not versed well enough in physics to be able to do that.
If someone convinces me that the logic put forward, or the definitions provided, mean that nothing can be considered "free" (as similarly defined) then so be it.
I have no issue with that.
But it is not assumed from the outset.

But even if it turns out that nothing can be "free" then I also don't consider that definition of the term therefore worthless.
If anything it shows that our understanding of "free" is generally based upon appearance rather than the machinations of the system.
If we have gleaned any understanding from the definition then how has it been worthless?

The notion/definition of free used also isn't that far, if at all, removed from most other people's understanding, even if a definition can not be satisfactorily pinned down.
Is something free if it has no ability to do anything other than what it ends up doing?
Most would not find that contentious.
Or if something else is determining the course of events (such whatever determines the hour the prisoner is released, rather than the prisoner himself - the example as an analogy for randomness), is it free?
That seems a reasonable understanding.
I have merely tried to apply some logic to that, to see where it goes, but started from some basic interactions.
I certainly didn't look to define it in a way to ensure that I conclude it doesn't exist.


Anyhoo - I am likely going to be away for a while, so will withdraw from the discussion at this point, and let others have their say on the matter.
It has been greatly appreciated, though.

 

[iceaura]

Then I suppose no further progress can be made in the discussion, because if the involved parties cannot agree on a common definition, there's little sense continuing it.

The resistance to recognizing the sticking point - the sheer incivility of it - brings hope of long term persuasion. It's a paradigm shift - such things are not enforceable, but once brought to attention they nag the interested and attentive.

I also don't rule out there being something that is free, though.
Nowhere have I stated, or is it assumed by me, that everything is deterministic (or probabilistically so).
I leave open the possibility that there is something else, although I can't say what that might be.

1) Not in this context, of freedom of will. Humans are physical entities, and the behavior of their will is physical behavior. You have derived your premises, intuitions, etc., by extrapolating - necessarily, cause and effect, "must", deterministically - from simple physical systems, which you do assume/observe are determined. You directly compared the degrees of freedom of the will to those of a brick, for example - the actions of the mind as recorded by monitoring brainwave activity are in fact assumed, by you, to be built of deterministic parts and thus determined, just as the behavior of a brick is.
You have excluded all such physical systems from any possibility of freedom in your sense.

2) That avoids the central matter anyway. The sticking point is the assumption that freedom is excluded from deterministic systems, regardless of logical level.

 

[NotEinstein]

Your notion of free, perhaps, but not the one I have.

No, I'm trying to operate with your definitions. As is clearly evident, I have not introduced any definitions myself.

You stated that you saw this randomness as something "that could indeed be defined quite nicely as "free".", and that you thought that this was what I was implying.
I didn't agree.
I don't see randomness as being "free", for the reasons given.
So it's not a contradiction, but rather your assumption that I agreed with your notion of "free" with regard randomness.

If randomness is not "free", then it must be "must". Sorry I got it mixed up.

You may not have been explicitly, but I have (and including probabilistic within the umbrella of determinism, for sake of brevity), from the outset.
I made it quite clear in that post that I didn't consider randomness (within probabilistic interactions) as being "free".
Any sense of "free" I have does not include randomness, as exampled.

Alright, so the entire deterministic and randomness discussion is just an aside?

Where have I assumed that no system can ever be "free"?
I have not assumed, and do not assume, that the universe is only made up of deterministic or probabilistic interactions.
That I can't provide an alternative is neither here nor there.

Please re-read what I wrote. You have not assumed it, but you have admitted that you are unable to provide even one example of a "free" system.

Inability to give examples is not the same as "can't exist".

True, and that's something I'm not claiming either.

I can't give an example of any beetle from South America, for example.

There was no confusion, don't worry.
I can't give an example, hypothetical or otherwise.
I just don't rule out the possibility.
I am not versed well enough in physics to be able to do that.
If someone convinces me that the logic put forward, or the definitions provided, mean that nothing can be considered "free" (as similarly defined) then so be it.
I have no issue with that.
But it is not assumed from the outset.

True, and that's something I'm not doing either.​

But even if it turns out that nothing can be "free" then I also don't consider that definition of the term therefore worthless.
If anything it shows that our understanding of "free" is generally based upon appearance rather than the machinations of the system.
If we have gleaned any understanding from the definition then how has it been worthless?

I've not claimed the term would be worthless; my claim was that it would be logically useless.

The notion/definition of free used also isn't that far, if at all, removed from most other people's understanding, even if a definition can not be satisfactorily pinned down.
Is something free if it has no ability to do anything other than what it ends up doing?
Most would not find that contentious.
Or if something else is determining the course of events (such whatever determines the hour the prisoner is released, rather than the prisoner himself - the example as an analogy for randomness), is it free?
That seems a reasonable understanding.
I have merely tried to apply some logic to that, to see where it goes, but started from some basic interactions.
I certainly didn't look to define it in a way to ensure that I conclude it doesn't exist.

Understood, but not intending it doesn't mean it didn't happen anyway.

Anyhoo - I am likely going to be away for a while, so will withdraw from the discussion at this point, and let others have their say on the matter.
It has been greatly appreciated, though.

Same to you! You've given me some food for thought. Thank you, and take care!

 

[NotEinstein]

The resistance to recognizing the sticking point - the sheer incivility of it - brings hope of long term persuasion. It's a paradigm shift - such things are not enforceable, but once brought to attention they nag the interested and attentive.

Indeed, often times nagging is required before progress can be made.

Would you care to give it a try? (Coming up with a definition of "free (will)", that is.)

 

[river]

Physics and Free-will have nothing to do with each other .

Free-will questions

 

[C C]

Incompatibilists may feel that physics could say something about the validity of determinism, which in their context then relates to free-will. Whereas compatilibilists do not deem determinism as mattering to begin with (as far as being an impediment to free-will). The former pressures free-will into being a metaphysical issue. The latter is more content with it being an everyday matter (like justice systems simply establishing whether or not a person was forced against their nature [by others] to commit a crime, suffered from mental illness, was under the influence of substances, etc).

~

 

[Quantum Quack]

Would it be fair to say that one only has to give a single example of freewill in action to show that determinism ( other than self-determinism) is not applicable?

 

[Sarkus]

As with any such discussion on free will, you first need to define what it is you mean by free will. Otherwise you'll just go through page after page after page of arguing cross-purposes, one arguing for, another against, when you're not actually discussing the same thing at all.

 

[Sarkus]

Would it be fair to say that one only has to give a single example of freewill in action to show that determinism ( other than self-determinism) is not applicable?

Just two questions: What do you mean by "self-determinism"? What do you mean by "freewill"?

 

[Quantum Quack]

Just two questions: What do you mean by "self-determinism"? What do you mean by "freewill"?

no... a better question is how you define them not me....even as abstract please I am all ears ( eyes actually)

What normally happens is the goal posts keep getting shifted. So set your goal posts and let go for it...
and perhaps, while we wait for those goal posts,
Who owns the will you refer to?
Who is the "willer"?

 

[geordief]

Any workable definition from anybody would be welcome.

My own ,dating back over 50 years when I started to think about it is "can we take a decision/action in the face of any and all surrounding circumstances based on who we are at that particular time"?

My answer is yes and no. (who we are is determined for us;the circumstances will inevitably overwhelm us anyway;but we have a strong delusion /belief/understanding that there is a core within us that can"rise above the circumstances " and assert its independence)

 

[Sarkus]

no... a better question is how you define them not me....even as abstract please I am all ears ( eyes actually)

You posed the initial question, QQ, asking about whether a single example of free will would show determinism not to be applicable. How can you possibly ask this question if you do not have an idea of the terms you use to construct the sentence so that a response be meaningful?
So I ask again: what do you mean by "self-determination" and what do you mean by "free will", in so far as they relate to your question?

What normally happens is the goal posts keep getting shifted. So set your goal posts and let go for it...
and perhaps, while we wait for those goal posts,
Who owns the will you refer to?
Who is the "willer"?

Perhaps you have mistaken me for someone who has done other than simply ask you for clarification on your question? What goal posts do you expect me to set for your question? Why do you not have an idea of the goalposts you want people to play with when responding to your question?
Otherwise you're basically saying: okay, here's a question about X, but I'm not going to tell you what I mean by X, that's for you to establish.

There is hopefully some etiquette left in these forums, QQ. Please feel free demonstrate some.

 

[C C]

Would it be fair to say that one only has to give a single example of freewill in action to show that determinism ( other than self-determinism) is not applicable?

What does the "free" adjective impart to volition? It must necessarily refer to working within the constrained options of one's own psychological and physiological make-up. You first have to exist (ironically not have the anarchical degree of "freedom" pertaining to a disorganized and non-regulated aggregation of particles or field events). The world outside your body does have to output you as an autonomous agent and "set" your personal characteristics, your moral cage, etc. But after that (slash in the continued course of maturation) it is the brain/body doing the understanding, the deciding, and actions. (The cosmos in general is too "stupid", unaware, and disinterested to be manipulating you like a marionette.)

Being "completely determined by prior states" is irrelevant if referencing a human body's own incremental changes or differences in the past. It is some spirit version of self or a "prior in rank to represented reality" version (etc, whatever) which doesn't entail mechanistic processes. For the physiological self the latter is an ineluctable feature of its very identity.

Anomalous intrusions or injections of randomness would just be another type of being subverted by an external handler (albeit not one of pattern -- without principle, order, predictability, and governance). "Choosing arbitrarily or without reason" might perversely be contended a rule which one has adopted to smuggle in "surprise" as an internal or native component. But the very conflict of it being taken on as a rule or personality tendency arguably nullifies it being a legit anomaly exercised within a managed system (self).

- - -

Side Note: Now obviously the believer in a soul would be unsatisfied with responsibility and "engendering of will" being assigned to the structural dynamics of the phenomenal soma rather than the supernatural entity which such proponent endorses as the actual self. But does that "concern / objection" and the predictable, detouring, and indefinitely prolonged discourse revolving around it really have to be addressed in a science forum? Granted, a truly unfettered "general philosophy" subforum isn't mandated to color within the lines of methodological naturalism, but the tedious squabbling has surely played out countless times before. Adding another replay to the heap isn't intriguing.

~

 

[Yazata]

Physics and Free-will have nothing to do with each other .

I'm not sure that I would agree.

A great deal depends on what "physics" refers to.

Sometimes 'physics' seems to used as a synonym with 'reality'. We speak that way when we say that 'Physics prevents x from happening'. And I'm exceedingly skeptical about the idea that reality is inconsistent with free-will.

And sometimes 'physics' seems to be used as a name for our human conceptualization of how reality behaves. In that case, free will may be consistent with some ideas about physical reality and not with others.

It seems to me that hard physical determinism is kind of a holdover from 19th century physics.

 

[Yazata]

Incompatibilists may feel that physics could say something about the validity of determinism, which in their context then relates to free-will. Whereas compatilibilists do not deem determinism as mattering to begin with (as far as being an impediment to free-will).

I consider myself a compatibilist. I think that I would say that physics places constraints on how we should best conceive of free will. That's assuming that our current understanding of physical causation and of how physical systems evolve over time is indeed accurate.

The former pressures free-will into being a metaphysical issue. The latter is more content with it being an everyday matter (like justice systems simply establishing whether or not a person was forced against their nature [by others] to commit a crime, suffered from mental illness, was under the influence of substances, etc).

I'm kind of inclined to think that both sides make metaphysical moves, if 'metaphysical' refers to speaking about the most basic features of how reality really is as opposed to speaking about our models of that reality.

 

[Yazata]

Would it be fair to say that one only has to give a single example of freewill in action to show that determinism ( other than self-determinism) is not applicable?

Sure, logically that will work. We could say that

1. If determinism is true, then free-will is impossible (there are no instances of free-will).

2. A is an instance of free-will.

Therefore (by modus tollens)

3. Determinism is false.

But we all know that the ensuing argument would revolve around 2., about whether A is in fact an instance of free-will.

Both positions on that (yes it is and no it isn't) would seem to incorporate preexisting assumptions that might render the whole thing circular.

 

[Quantum Quack]

Sure, logically that will work. We could say that

1. If determinism is true, then free-will is impossible (there are no instances of free-will).

2. A is an instance of free-will.

Therefore (by modus tollens)

3. Determinism is false.

But we all know that the ensuing argument would revolve around 2., about whether A is in fact an instance of free-will.

Both positions on that (yes it is and no it isn't) would seem to incorporate preexisting assumptions that might render the whole thing circular.

...thanks...
another issue that needs to be clarified is understanding two similar yet very different notions; Control and Influence.
for example:
If we treat these terms as absolute.
Absolute control indicates determinism by control.
Absolute Influence indicates determinism by influence. ( but only if absolute )

If one stated:

• The man's choices were absolutely controlled by his environment ( external universe) then the argument for determinism would be sound IMO.

however if ones stated:

• The man's choices were absolutely influenced by his environment ( external universe) then an argument for the existence of volition ( with actual choice) is possible but neutralized by the influences being absolute.

Thus the argument for determinism is compromised and if it is indeed compromised then one can clearly state that decisions made by man can be undetermined, being influenced instead. ( even while giving every indication of being determined)

The point being is that in an extreme case of absolutes, freewill is unable to be revealed or proven yet may still be present but neutralized.
=====
Compare two statements:

• "I am influenced by my external universe (*) but controlled by my internal universe (**)."
  • indicates the presence of Volition which I am in control of via my internal universe aka "free will"

vs

• "I am controlled by my external universe and controlled by my internal universe."
  • Indicates that I have utterly no control over my choices ( determinism)

(*) External Universe refers to all that exist outside of our physical bodies
(**) Internal universe refers to the physical body, imagination, thoughts etc

Self determination ( free-will)

A scenario to use as a test for self determination:

"A man in a small dark room sitting on a chair, taps his fingers on his knee. At first he tapped because he was nervous and anxious and did so with out exerting any real restraint. The tapping was automatic driven by subconscious need. However once he realized that he was tapping his knee with his fingers he applied restraint and deliberately stopped tapping his knee. As time passed he "freely" chose to tap his knee deliberately, culpably and with intent as a way of filling in time. Choosing to tap in rhythm and sometimes in random using a timing of his own choice."

How would we assess this scenario in terms of

1. Control: determinism (Absolute)
2. Influence: Self determinism
3. Both: A mixture of determinism and self determinism