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Aka-Pulc0 t1_j1wsyj0 wrote

Dr. Sabine Hossenfelder's video about free will (mentioned in the article) was called out by a French youtube channel for the same pitfalls that the article fell into. In short, the article's argument is as follow: 1 The world is Deterministic 2 I am part of the world 3 Deterministic = No free will 4 Hence, I have no free will.

Point 1 and 2 are basics for the deterministic view of the world but 3 is actually far stretch and therefore, 4 is a fallacy. There is a whole branch of philosophy (compatibilism) that argue quite well that you can have free will even in a deterministic world. I ll try to explain it tomorrow if some need the argument (too late for Tonight)

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CryptoTrader1024 OP t1_j1x3mhx wrote

indeed, and this is mentioned in the article at the end. The compatibilists would argue that free will merely means freedom from compulsion. I used to hold this compatibilist view too. But upon further inspection, this view seems pretty hollow, and meaningless.

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the_grungydan t1_j1xghol wrote

Compatiblism always just smacks me of "but that (determinism) makes me uncomfortable so I'm going to contort my mind into a pretzel so I feel better again.

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AConcernedCoder t1_j1y4o6i wrote

As someone trained in machine learning and compelled for years to really dive into the subject to try to figure out how it could even work at all, I find compatibilism to be the most reasonable position to agree with. While I still find myself having deterministic leanings, the opposition on that side usually seems much more motivated by other factors, enough that the interesting conversations must be taken elsewhere.

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CryptoTrader1024 OP t1_j1yezsu wrote

in that case, you might like some of the other articles on that blog, since I also have an ML background and it has very interesting philosophical implications that pop up here and there.

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the_grungydan t1_j1zjb5t wrote

Unrelated, but here's my favorite ML joke.

Scientist: If all of your friends jumped off a bridge would you do it too?

Machine Learning algorithm: Yes.

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Nameless1995 t1_j1yoxv3 wrote

> The compatibilists would argue that free will merely means freedom from compulsion.

They don't though.

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CryptoTrader1024 OP t1_j1ypg8j wrote

Please enlighten us, instead of just saying "nope".

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Nameless1995 t1_j1yqoxb wrote

You can just check SEP:

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/compatibilism/

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/compatibilism/supplement.html

They have different specific accounts for compatibilism -- example higher-order theories of freedom (from Frankfurt and others), Reason-responsiveness views, and there are also compatibilist variants of "ability to do otherwise".

Also compatibilists are trying to make many different points:

  • Some may argue that what we actually want to "track" by freedom and what we care about are compatible with determinism. This can involve some thought experiments and arguments as to how incompatibilist "ability to do otherwise" doesn't really offer anything much.

  • They may argue that "ability to do otherwise" itself is compatible with determinism if ability is understood in a unloaded/unbloated sense.

  • They often want to argue not only that we have compatibilist free will, it's also moral responsibility inducing. Which is a substantive point and not just "shrugging".

  • They may attack incompatibilist intuitions for example -- they may provide cases where it feels intuitive to assign praise even when the person says they are compelled by their nature to do some good, or they may argue lack of meta-wants or meta-meta-wills to control oneself and such are unnecessary demands and not clear why necessary for moral responsibility. And so on.

  • They may also provide x-phi support that ordinary humans have elements of compatibilists intuitions.

> This sort of solution essentially splits freedom into two concepts: the type of freedom we recognize in everyday life, and freedom from the laws of causality. Since the latter is impossible, it makes no sense to draw any kind of moral consequence from it, and one must therefore focus on the former. This is rather unsatisfying because it feels like the philosophical version of a shoulder shrug.

But that sounds more favorable to compatibilism than against. If the compatibilist's version of freedom is the very freedom we recognize and talk about in everyday life, what's the practical value and meaning of this "freedom from laws of causality" (which you yourself recognize to be ultimately seemingly incoherent, because to be free from causation is make actions free from the actor which would again be no freedom at all)? So why should anyone bat an eye or lament or celebrate the non-existence of some concept that cannot be even legibly conceived of? It's also not clear if moral responsibility is necessarily threatened by lack of such "freedom from causality". Backward-looking punishment can also be independently argued against. So we don't have to worry about that.

Personally, I am not a compatibilist. I am just trying to give credit where it's due.

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VitriolicViolet t1_j21wr6m wrote

>But upon further inspection, this view seems pretty hollow, and meaningless.

why?

'you' are just neurons, genes, memories, environment, culture etc therefore by definition you make all your own choices.

what magical 'you' is there that could make choices outside yourself? and how does the universe being deterministic mean that you do not make choices? (as i already stated genes and neurons and culture and memories are you, so you cannot tell me that choices cant happen due to determinism, it makes no rational sense at all)

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Aka-Pulc0 t1_j1yskma wrote

Replying to myself as a true beginner haha. I've just watched two well-made videos on the subject from Monsieur Phi (It's in French, but the English dubs are decent Link 1 & Link 2). I agree with the content but I am just paraphrasing here.

There is a philosophical confusion about freedom and free will. Freedom can be defined as (1) being able to make different choices in the same situation and (2) making that decision without being influenced by any external factors. Therefore, being free means being able to determine yourself in a deterministic world, and that sounds like a godly power. This definition seems to be the classical, enlightenment, view of freedom, not mine. But that definition is a philosophical definition of Freedom and not how it is perceived intuitively by common folks (including philosophers) and it s not the definition of Free will.

Free will is simpler than Freedom. Free will is based on (1) I can exert some control over my decision (2) I can deliberate and choose between different options (and not be forced to pick one ie: at gunpoint).

These 2 definitions seem close but the devil is in the details.

Scenario 1 : I wake up extremely sick on Monday and can't go to work. Not going to work is a decision that was determined by external causes, with no control nor different options to choose from. There was no freedom nor free will in this scenario.

Scenario 2 : I wake up on Monday feeling fine, debate whether or not I should go to work, and decide to stay. I had several real options to choose from, deliberated, and freely choose not to go. We can debate on the Freedom part but there was free will here.

Scenario 3 : I wake up, and debate wether or not I should go, remembered that my boss warned me that I ll get fired if I don't show up again. I had several real options and deliberate but the decision was forced on me. Hence no free will.

Scenario 4 : I wake up, debate whether I should go or not, and decide to stay, but, unknown to me, my car is actually broken and I would not have been able to go even if I wanted to. I had no freedom to choose because either way, I would have had to stay, but still used my free will to decide to stay. This is a Franckfurt case where you believe you can choose even if you really cant.

All 4 scenarios illustrate the grey area between Freedom and free will. In a deterministic universe, true Freedom (in the metaphysical definition as stated above) seems impossible, yet Free will is possible. There is a compatibility between the two (hence, compatibilism). Because there is a place for Free will, there is a use for our moral system and justice overall. We are responsible for our own actions as long as we had some control over them and as long as we deliberate and we can choose between them.

I am no expert on the subject, feel free (lol) to poke holes in my block of text =)

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CryptoTrader1024 OP t1_j1z87om wrote

yes, you are referring to a colloquial definition of free will, or perhaps a compatibilist one. That is, you think that free will is compatible with a deterministic universe. This is a totally valid position to hold. The question is whether we think that this "freedom" is indeed "enough". And that's where I would say that it just isn't. Yes, it serves it's purpose in every-day life, and in normal conversation we all talk about choices, etc.

But if we think about what is fundamentally true in the world, I think this compatibilist version of free will is just weaksauce. No "choices" really exist, except in our imagination. If possessing a mental image of imagined options is "free will" then free will means very little I think. And, furthermore, the imagined list of choices in your mind's eye would also have been determined by prior causes, such that you can only imagine those choices that you are determined to imagine.

I think neuroscience throws another wrench into your common sense reasoning. Namely, the entity that you call "yourself", the "you" is much less of a concrete thing than it appears subjectively. So when you talk about "you" making a choice, this fact further complicates it. Really, there exists a brain that has various inputs and outputs, and it acts perfectly deterministically in connection to the unique evolution of the universe and it's initial conditions, and that's it. The "you" and "choices" are all abstract concepts that we "recognize" but which are not fixed ontological objects or real things.

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XiphosAletheria t1_j1zpvyd wrote

> No "choices" really exist, except in our imagination. If possessing a mental image of imagined options is "free will" then free will means very little I think.

What makes you think they don't really exist? I mean, the universe as a whole is an non-living system, yet some objects in it have the emergent property of being alive. The universe as a whole is a non-conscious system, yet some objects in it have the emergent property of being conscious. The universe as a whole is a deterministic (non-choosing) system, yet some objects in it have the emergent property of being free-willed (making choices). And that is, after all, how we experience ourselves, as living, conscious, free-willed beings. Mostly the arguments in favor of determinism seem to be arguments from ignorance - I can't explain how free will could exist, so it must not be real! But I think this is just the prejudice of a society that overvalues science, which has little interest in the subjective experiences of people because they are not something science is well-equipped to handle.

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CryptoTrader1024 OP t1_j1zscfc wrote

I'm not sure you quite understand the argument, or you're arguing for a kind of dualism where the mind is not part of the world. Or you're arguing for magic, such that the laws of causation that govern everything else in the universe, somehow don't govern the electro-chemical reactions in your head? Which one is it?

You seem fine with the idea that the universe is deterministic. But then you say that some parts of the universe (humans, for example) are non-deterministic. How can you claim this, without invoking magic?

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XiphosAletheria t1_j1ztqek wrote

>You seem fine with the idea that the universe is deterministic. But then you say that some parts of the universe (humans, for example) are non-deterministic. How can you claim this, without invoking magic?

The same way I am fine both with the idea that the universe is non-living and that some parts of it are living. Or that it is non-conscious yet some parts of it are conscious. That you (or I) cannot currently explain a given phenomenon doesn't mean that the answer has to be magic, or that the phenomenon somehow isn't real. That's just an argument from ignorance.

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CryptoTrader1024 OP t1_j209z8a wrote

I've described a mechanism that suggests that everything follows a deterministic path, including our choices. This mechanism seems to conform to everything we know about how the world works (let's just assume this is so).

You are making a claim about how the universe works that differs from mine, yet you do not support this in any way. You don't propose a mechanism or principle, or reason for why it works the way you say. The only thing you present is a sort of allegory about how parts of something must not share the same qualities as the whole. But how does this preserve free will, or indeterminacy?

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XiphosAletheria t1_j20jizx wrote

No, I am saying that the universe is deterministic. Its basic particles don't have choices. A ball bearing pushed rolling down a forking path at a particular angle must go left. A person starting on the same path will see that it forks, will recognize that there is a choice, and may shift right instead. You argue that the "choice" is an illusion, because you can't explain how a non-choosing system gave rise to choosing beings. That's fine. I've seen people say the same of consciousness, and even (more rarely) of life. But the truth is that that in all cases amounts to no more than an argument from ignorance, a sort of fit of pique because science not only doesn't explain any of these things very well but probably can't.

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CryptoTrader1024 OP t1_j20ps5e wrote

again, you seem to fundamentally not understand the problem. What are your choices? They are comprised of some set of neurons firing in one way or the other. Why do those neurons fire the way they do? well, their reactions are electrochemical, based on the strength of the stimulus in and out, and the relative amplification, or damping of the signal within the neuron. This all follows physical laws.

Now tell me... where, in this web of firing neurons is the "choice" exactly? everything just reacts to a prior cause, including all the parts of your brain. Unless, as I've stated before, you are willing to argue that the brain is magic, and is not beholden to these laws.

This is the opposite of an argument from ignorance. I'm not saying "I have no idea how free will could work", I'm saying that based on everything we know about how the brain works, and how physics works, the illusion of choice does not translate to actual choice.

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XiphosAletheria t1_j20x5uk wrote

>Now tell me... where, in this web of firing neurons is the "choice" exactly?

No idea! Nevertheless I am aware of having choices. I still don't see why your inability to explain why should cause me to doubt the reality of my experience.

>This is the opposite of an argument from ignorance. I'm not saying "I have no idea how free will could work", I'm saying that based on everything we know about how the brain works, and how physics works, the illusion of choice does not translate to actual choice.

Yes, physics can't explain it, any more than it can explain life or consciousness, because those things are all emergent properties of complex systems, not direct consequences of simple actions.

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Aka-Pulc0 t1_j1zvqki wrote

agree. the difference is between freedom and free will. we can have free will as long as we have the illusion of choice because we cant perceived that there was no other choice possible (deterministic) Or, perhaps more correct, we perceived choices that were never possible.

In the videos I mentioned, they are using a series of thought experiment, including one about repeating the same day over and over again or even the same universe over and over again. And I trully believe that, if everything starts the same, then they should end the same and all choices, all decisions, everything will turned out exactly as it already has been. But still, as we perceived our choices as our own, we can believe in free will, even if it could perfectly be some coping mechanism.

On the last note, about me, myself and I. I also agree on the several "me" inside of me. I believe in an non conscious part of my brain making or influecing way more than I wish to admit (I dont think about breathing or I dont "think" most of the decision I make in a day). I think there is a more conscious me and also that when I say "I think" there is a thinking me and the "I" that observe the one thinking. Well it s complicated

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VitriolicViolet t1_j21w3qt wrote

>No "choices" really exist, except in our imagination. If possessing a mental image of imagined options is "free will" then free will means very little I think

why?

why do you dismiss yourself? i have literally no idea how it can possibly make sense to think that due our choices are constrained by ourselves we have no choice?

that is what you are saying, that due to the fact 'you' are made up of genes, neurons, culture, memories, environment, preferences, trauma and due to these parts of 'you' limiting choice that somehow magically 'you' make no choices at all.

its an entirely nonsensical position to hold in the first place (if we deleted your memories, culture, preferences and trauma then 'you' would not be able to even hold the opinion you do, those things are the very foundation of the person who is claiming to not have free will).

emergent behavior and properties may not be fun or special but they sure as shit make more sense then Determinism trying to pretend it doesnt require souls (or the free will believers thinking we do)

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pokoponcho t1_j21fpvv wrote

Thanks for the comment. I learned new things.

Your examples are presented as events separated from the past. If we isolate the situation from all prior events, then free will exists because you can consciously choose between a few options. Hence, compatibilism seems logical.

But if you try to track and connect all prior events, you'll see that you have been led to that situation and your decision.

In this thread, you can check my comment about inescapability from a trio of genetics, life experiences, and external circumstances.

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tkuiper t1_j1z0vph wrote

This comes down to the semantics of what "free-will" means.

I think it can be agreed that there's a subjective 'free-will'. We know there's something going on. However, this 'thing' is challenging to describe in a way that doesn't evaporate under scrutiny.

It's a challenge of description, rather than a test of existence.

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InTheEndEntropyWins t1_j1z456g wrote

Yep, you can summarise it with the statement libertarian free will doesn't exist but that doesn't matter since most people really mean compatibilist free will that does exist.

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