Does Physics disprove the existence of free will?

[Quantum Quack]

The solution is obvious: we are not able to do otherwise, only think we do and appear to act as if we are able to. There. Simples. Your examples are thus also all examples of the way in which we think we do, and how we appear to act as if we are able to.
If you want to assert those examples are of a genuine / actual ability, you'll need to provide something more... like an actual argument that supports them being more than just examples of the person thinking they are able to act otherwise, and more than just them appearing to be able to act otherwise.

hee hee
and the climate scientist yells out to the packed auditorium:
"I am not hallucinating, climate change is a real and imminent threat to the human races existence"

 

[Write4U]

Have you ever considered that "it may actually be determined that the human being has evolved the capacity to reject, agree or accept that which is determined?"

Can you stop yourself from orbiting the sun? We can set a goal, but until we invent warp drive, not much we can do about it..

For about 4.7 billion years it has been logically determined to keep orbiting the sun.
And a good thing it is.....

 

[Quantum Quack]

Quantum Quack said: ↑
Have you ever considered that "it may actually be determined that the human being has evolved the capacity to reject, agree or accept that which is determined?"

Can you stop yourself from orbiting the sun? We can set a goal, but until we invent warp drive, not much we can do about it..

So far it is logically determined to keep orbiting the sun. And a good thing it is.....

eh? explain the relevance to the quote please?

 

[Write4U]

eh? explain the relevance to the quote please?

I merely gave you an example of a deterministic function which is completely outside your control. You'll just have to accept the fact.
We can go down to quantum and cite similar examples. In fact there is no physical freedom from any of the universal functions, no matter how hard we wish for it.

IOW, there are no uncaused effects, even in human decision making. Got to have a reason to choose and it is never uncaused or completely "free". But because we don't always recognize all the causalities in play, we think we are free to choose, but we never are.

 

[Quantum Quack]

I merely gave you an example of a deterministic function which is completely outside your control.
We can go down to quantum and cite similar examples. In fact there is no physical freedom from any of the universal functions, no matter how hard we wish for it.

IOW, there are no uncaused effects, even in human decision making. Got to have a reason to choose and it is never uncaused or "free".

so ... why didn't you say so to begin with?

 

[Write4U]

so ... why didn't you say so to begin with?

I either did and you missed it, or I had no cause to say it to begin with. I'm not free to choose either......
It is possible I said it but presented it poorly..

 

[Quantum Quack]

so how does determined physics such as orbiting a star relate to my post that you quoted.
repeating:

Have you ever considered that "it may actually be determined that the human being has evolved the capacity to reject, agree or accept that which is determined?"

 

[iceaura]

Yet you have been unable to show it false,

The driver approaches the light. That driver has the ability to stop, or go. It's kind of simple, dude.

You simply refuse to acknowledge physical reality. Either that , or you have some private definition of "ability" that makes about as much sense as your notion of an "appearance". (Of course, you could be declaring time to be an illusion - so the stuff that in our deluded state appears to be going to happen in the future has already happened in some sense. You denied that, but you deny most of your assumptions by turns, as their consequences become apparent).

No, the thought/belief that we are able to do otherwise is sufficient for that.

That would fail to account for the scientific observations (including mechanical recording), independent of anyone's thoughts or beliefs, by researchers in controlled settings - as well as everybody paying attention , of course.

"Observable". See how you can't escape that aspect.

It's called science, and it's you who can't escape it in this thread - which is why I bring it up.

It's a matter of having to jump between referencing the decision as a process and the decision as being the actual ability to do otherwise.

Handwaving, and a complete muddle. Half the sentence is talking about some "process" that includes the light cone, the other half is talking about the human being making the decision, and together they make no sense at all. Drop the word "actually" - it's confusing you. (It's bringing in that supernatural assumption you keep denying you are making - it's synonymous. By "actual" you mean "supernatural").
The human approaching the traffic light has - at that moment, prior to making the decision, prior to the light changing color - the ability to stop or go. That's a physical fact. To verify, run the situation several times with different light colors, and record the outcomes. Nobody's "beliefs" are involved.

If the same inputs can lead to more than one output then that is indeterminism.

But that's not the situation. We have the same inputs leading to the same outputs, always and by assumption. So we don't have indeterminism - indeterminism would be an illusion, here.

If you don't see how open systems can appear indeterminate then you're the one not taking things seriously, iceaura

But I do. It's just that a mistake like that has nothing to do with this thread. The example of the driver approaching a traffic light does not appear indeterminate, for example.

The human decision is made within the human being. That is where the decision point is that is being referred to. But the closed system involved in reaching that point extends far greater than that

We are not interested in the freedom or lack of freedom that your mythically closed system may or may not possess. It's irrelevant.
Is the human making the decision, or not? Because the human being is an open system, and if the human being is making the decision an open system is making the decision.
And it "actually" is, observably, making a decision. You can record the brain waves. Physics.
- - - - -
Meanwhile, in the growing category of gratuitous insult from people who are wrong again:

But anyway, good luck with showing different inputs with regard radioactive decay, for example Or anything relating to quantum indeterminacy, where even if hidden variables apply we are unable to demonstrate the same states, as you claimed we could

Was my post that confusing? Here - reread:

When different outputs are observed, different inputs are deduced - not merely assumed, but demonstrated.

Can I dumb it down some more? Let's try: Different outputs demonstrate different inputs, by deduction from the deterministic assumption - your deterministic assumption. I got it from you. It's already done - no "good luck" involved, no further effort necessary.

 

[Write4U]

it may actually be determined that the human being has evolved the capacity to reject, agree or accept that which is determined?"

IMO, that is a contradiction in terms.

Being a spiritual person, I believe you call it "fate". Do you accept your fate? Can you reject your fate?

fate. noun,
The development of events outside a person's control, regarded as predetermined by a supernatural power.
‘fate decided his course for him’
‘his injury is a cruel twist of fate’

The course of someone's life, or the outcome of a situation for someone or something, seen as outside their control.
‘he stared at the faces of the committee, trying to guess his fate’

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/fate

 

[Quantum Quack]

We think we have. We haven't.
Being a spiritual person, I believe you call it "fate". Do you accept your fate?
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/fate

see my post: #709 for part of your answer.

 

[Write4U]

The driver approaches the light. That driver has the ability to stop, or go. It's kind of simple, dude.

What causes the actual decision to stop or go is the determining factor, and no matter how many times you would have to do it over again, you would always make the same choice. It was your initial free will choice, no?
Or was it?
What do you think of when you see a red light? STOP! Not Go! You are already moving.
What do you think of when you see a green light? GO! Not Stop! You are already stopped.

However, if your wife is having a baby and you are on the way to the hospital, you may decide to run the red light, but that is because you have a greater imperative than obeying a traffic law. This still does not count as FW.
Freedom to Act, yes. Free Will to act, no.

 

[Quantum Quack]

What causes the actual decision to stop or go is the determining factor, and no matter how many times you would have to do it over again, you would always make the same choice. It was your initial free will choice, no?
Or was it?

Say you decided ten days earlier that you would disobey the lights color? What then?
Say, when you got your license you decided to avoid traffic fines and attempt to obey the rules to the best of your ability? What then?

 

[Write4U]

Say you decided ten days earlier that you would disobey the lights color? What then?

What causal reason would you have to decide that?

Say, when you got your license you decided to avoid traffic fines and attempt to obey the rules to the best of your ability? What then?

An excellent causal reason to obey the traffic lights, which are placed there for your protection to begin with and provide another excellent causal reason to obey the lights. Self preservation.

 

[Quantum Quack]

What reason would you have to decide that?

My wife is expecting a child determined about 9 months earlier due to a failure of a prophylactic and I made a decision that if we needed to get to the hospital urgently I would run the light.
Of course you know this fantasy determinism that you keep referring to is just as much an imaginary thing as my answer....a fiction.
Sarkus may recall the earlier thread ( some years ago) where by it was explained that decisions are based on an imaginary reality over laying the real one and are entirely fictional until implemented.

 

[Write4U]

My wife is expecting a child determined about 9 months earlier due to a failure of a prophylactic and I made a decision that if we needed to get to the hospital urgently I would run the light.

As would I. An compelling causal reason.

Of course you know this fantasy determinism that you keep referring to is just as much an imaginary thing as my answer....a fiction.

It makes no difference if it is imaginary or reality. It is the physical response which determines your eventual action.

Sarkus may recall the earlier thread ( some years ago) where by it was explained that decisions are based on an imaginary reality over laying the real one and are entirely fictional until implemented.

As does superposition of potentials. Of all superposed possibilities, only one ever becomes reality. But not by FW choice.

 

[Write4U]

Hameroff proposes that thinking itself is also performed by microtubules, logical nano scale computers. He (and Roger Penrose) propose that microtubules are in fact quantum computers and as such would have superposed probabilities of which only one ever can become reality.
This would demonstrate the deterministic process of thinking, no?

 

[Quantum Quack]

It makes no difference if it is imaginary or reality. It is the physical response which determines your eventual action.

Now link it to the theoretical big bang imaginary and illogical starting point of this reality?
and refute the plausibility of:

Have you ever considered that "it may actually be determined that the human being has evolved the capacity to reject, agree or accept that which is determined?"

 

[iceaura]

What causes the actual decision to stop or go is the determining factor,

You imagine one single determining factor? Ok - it's certainly not the traffic light, as that is just a decision criterion among many others. What do you think it is?

Freedom to Act, yes. Free Will to act, no.

Willing is an action. It's a physical event in the brain, an enacted (moving) pattern in the mind.

and no matter how many times you would have to do it over again, you would always make the same choice.

If identically replayed, yes - by assumption of the thread. And I happen to agree.

It was your initial free will choice, no?

To some as yet undiscussed degree, you had some freedom of choice, yes. From an engineering pov.

 

[Write4U]

To some as yet undiscussed degree, you had some freedom of choice, yes. From an engineering pov

If that were the case, then you should be able to make a different choice than what you made the first time, no?

Willing is an action. It's a physical event in the brain, an enacted (moving) pattern in the mind.

Hence the term "an act of will". But is it free?

Is it a conscious act of will for ant to fight to the death or is that a completely unconscious electro/chemical response mechanism?

We have no control over the movement of electro/chemicals in the brain. That is the subconscious processing part.
IMO, will emerges from the causal neural patterns which form during the processing of information.

Perhaps this is why meditation requires a "restful environment and physical stasis" to allow for transcendent freeform thought patterns which are not directly involved with the task of survival.

But notice meditation does not function well when constantly interrupted. Your brain won't let you ignore reality.

Hameroff (anesthesiologist) identifies three distinct levels of brain functions. Anesthesia is designed to render only the third conscious level unconscious. The other two subconscious levels remain unaffected by the anesthetics and continue to actively control all you bodily maintenance functions, else you would die.
But your body no longer responds to pain.

 

[iceaura]

Hence the term "an act of will". But is it free?

In what respect, specifically, does it differ from a decision between alternatives - subsequently carried out as directed, by the will?

IMO, will emerges from the causal neural patterns which form during the processing of information.

Or, with equal validity, the previously emerged patterns we call "decision making" control the neural firing. Top down, patterns control substrates.

Anesthesia is designed to render only the third conscious level unconscious.

Thereby demonstrating its physical nature subject to natural law, and excluding the supernatural hypothesis.