Early Retirement Extreme Forums

Round 1.. fight

Yes, see if you can match this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92vV3QGagck

brute sees and raises: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0N_RO-jL-90

Um... I claim there IS free will, and cite, um...

The last 2500 years of Western Thought. (Although, I don't seem to have a handy link.)

Seriously, I've seen a few references to the science behind the "no free will" theory tossed out in a few places here. I did a bit of googling, and ran into what seemed like the level of science at an undergrad kegger.

I was kind of hoping there was more to it.

So, I guess,"Move along. There's nothing to see here."

If by free will you mean the universe is non-determinestic, then quantum mechanics suggests that the universe is fundamentally probabilistic (just a model, but a very accurate and precise model indeed), hence future events cannot be determined by past events.

...but if you me free will as in you can alter your own future, then I have no clue, and I doubt anyone else does either.

daylen wrote:...but if you me free will as in you can alter your own future, then I have no clue, and I doubt anyone else does either.

My opinion notwithstanding, I'm wondering how that could ever be proven.

Example: You did X. You can't prove what would have happened if you hadn't done X, so how can you prove that you changed your future by doing X?

Whether decisions are really our own or not is another story. That I think we (mankind) could prove.

My entry into the youtube duel. Blame is better to give than receive.

Perhaps my favorite interlude in all of rock music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yE2WjSm ... E2WjSmUcRA

brute believes it's maybe more interesting to find out where that "free will" (may it exist or not) is located in the mind-stack.

brute pretty much believes the universe is deterministic (the alternatives would be absurd), with some randomness (this allows for probabilistic).

neither a fixed outcome (determinist) nor a random outcome could in brute's mind be construed as "free will" in the sense humans like to believe they have it. so on an atomic level (and below), there is no such thing as "will", there is just causation and randomness.

question being, is it possible to assemble a "free will" that fits one's definition above a completely mechanistic layer?

it's not that hard to imagine. computers can only handle 0s and 1s, yet a whole bunch of shit has been built on top of that, and that was just in the last 50 years. evolution had billions of years. and all the other stuff about life is made out of carbon atoms, so we know nature has some tricks up her sleeve.

for reference, here is brute's mental model of the human mind, mostly inspired by Daniel Dennett:

1)in the beginning there were inanimate "beings" (like viruses)
2)then they developed some kind of "this is my body and I need to move it away from pain" mechanisms, a very simple biological machine
3)more little biological machines were added that helped (don't go into the fire, don't go into the water, run from loud noises). like a collection of microcontrollers. at this point, everything is still unconscious, mechanical reaction.
4)at one point, it made evolutionary sense to build a "software platform" on top of these microcontrollers. disadvantages: uses vastly more energy and needs to be "programmed" (=trained with experiences). advantages: much more flexible, improvements in the animal can now be inspired by experience instead of by genetic natural selection. much faster improvement possible. think days instead of generations.
5)later, it made evolutionary sense to develop certain diagnostic functions, to allow an animal to be aware of its body and mental states (to a certain degree, humans are certainly not aware of ALL their bodily or mental states).
6)then, this diagnostic center somehow became convinced it was in control. and to a certain degree it is in control, but it's very hard to even tell the different systems of the mind apart. (this is the "invention" of consciousness)
7)much later (basically 19xx), it can be scientifically shown that almost any of the things humans think proves their consciousness can be proven to be false.

here are some examples from Dennett's book that brute finds fascinating:

humans believe they consciously decide to take actions. it can be shown with electromagnetic signal scanning that the order to "press that button" has been sent from the brain BEFORE the consciousness has decided to press that button. in effect, this appears to the test subject as if the button can read their mind - which is, in essence true.

Dennett's theory of consciousness, the "multiple drafts" theory, essentially says that the conscious is not the director, it is merely an observer. and every time it acquires a new fact ("the button has been pressed", "the arm has been moved"), it retells the story to fit the facts.

i.e. human consciousness is not the driver, it's a biased sports reporter who desperately wants the home team to look good. "that happened? sure, that's because our consciousness TOTALLY wanted to do that".

end of exposition.

this is why brute finds it interesting to talk about free will. on the atomic level, it seems clear there can't be consciousness, just as there can't be "life" on the atomic level. but even on the macro level, much of what humans experience as "consciousness" can be explained by a few simple card tricks, single-purpose machines in our moist computer brains, that can be easily tricked into totally nonsensical observations/behaviors.

so, in brute's mind (<- haha), if human consciousness exists, it must be a composite phenomenon, just like life. hard to even define, but humans know it when they see it. every single defining feature of it seems to disappear under scrutiny (such quantum!).

now the big question, to brute, is: is there even any free will in the lying, history-rewriting human mind at all? or are humans just automata that follow relatively deterministic patterns, and tell themselves a story to feel good about themselves, as some evolutionary quirk?

I'm not sure it can be proven, and I might lean towards the side that argues no free will in the sense that we understand it. But it seems pointless to act as if there is no free will.

If there IS NOT free will:
-disbeliever and believer are both just responding to motives, stimuli, what-have-you, believe what they do because they have to, and act they way they do because they have to. Wash. No winners or losers.

If there IS free will:
-disbeliever in a position of accepting things that happen deterministically. Stronger wills will always impose themselves on a weak, undeveloped one.
-believers exercise will, will grows stronger, believers see more circumstances fall into place for them as if by blind luck. Believers win.

Whether or not there is free will, it makes sense to convince myself that there is to some degree, and behave in a way that exercises my will. If I am wrong, I'm just doing what I had to do. If I'm right, I have a slightly larger degree of control over my life than one who passively accepts determinism.

Dragged over from Poor/Rich thread:

7Wannabe5 wrote:
My two primary addictive vices are sugar and sex, neither of which is very financially expensive for me.

BRUTE replied: 7Wannabe5 can quit. brute believes in her.

lol- I will assume that this was meant as humor, since we both know that the hand reaches out for the cookie before the brain forms the thought of intention. Of course, my bad making use of archaic Puritan-era verbiage such as "vice."

OTOH, if you had typed something like "7Wannabe will quit. I will accept bets at 2 to 1.", I would be very, very curious to know your reasoning. Based on my own long-term objective observation of past me, I think it is highly unlikely that future me will not continue to eat sugar and have sex, and I think any rational, intelligent individual presented with a thoughtfully presented visual display of the quantitative data associated with my past behavior would concur. I think if I were to claim that my behavior will be otherwise in the future, that would be indicative of the same sort of hubris that might cause the owner of a Blue Ribbon winning canine to bet that his dog can be safely be left alone in a car with a bag of steaks for two days.

It seems to me that Kahneman's System 1 and System 2 are currently the model in vogue for thinking about the issue.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking,_Fast_and_Slow
System 01 is the automatic reaction.
System 02 is the considered response.
In my opinion, we, as humans, thought we used System 02, the free will response, much more than we actually do. I personally find it disturbing how many of my decisions are System 01.

BTW Kahneman was just on Bloomberg's Masters in Business in case you want a quick review on the biases from the master.

It's not that simple though. Making a decision that alters your future is not equivalent to being able to choose (non-deterministically) what future altering decision to make.

Belief in Free Will can also be considered as part of the social construct of motivating forces. For instance, if BRUTE were to say I will bet you $X at 5 to 1 that you can't go a year without eating candy, whether or not I would eat candy this year would become dependent on the value of X. Therefore, if I believe that Free Will exists and my ability to exhibit discipline is a valued social virtue, then I might not eat any candy this year if BRUTE were to say "I bet you don't have enough will-power to go a year without eating candy." You can see how this is true if you imagine that "eating candy" were to be attached to other social virtues, such as "caring for others" which fewer people on this forum believe in than "will power. " Like if BRUTE handed me a little cardboard Save the Children box with a slit in it and said "I bet you don't care about other people enough to put all your candy money in this box for a year." Since a similar event did occur in my childhood, I know that it is true that I care more about eating candy than I care about helping other people (sigh.)

DSKla wrote:I'm not sure it can be proven, and I might lean towards the side that argues no free will in the sense that we understand it. But it seems pointless to act as if there is no free will.

If there IS NOT free will:
-disbeliever and believer are both just responding to motives, stimuli, what-have-you, believe what they do because they have to, and act they way they do because they have to. Wash. No winners or losers.

If there IS free will:
-disbeliever in a position of accepting things that happen deterministically. Stronger wills will always impose themselves on a weak, undeveloped one.
-believers exercise will, will grows stronger, believers see more circumstances fall into place for them as if by blind luck. Believers win.

Whether or not there is free will, it makes sense to convince myself that there is to some degree, and behave in a way that exercises my will. If I am wrong, I'm just doing what I had to do. If I'm right, I have a slightly larger degree of control over my life than one who passively accepts determinism.

Pretty much. It's a non-starter.

DSKla wrote:But it seems pointless to act as if there is no free will. ... Whether or not there is free will, it makes sense to convince myself that there is to some degree, and behave in a way that exercises my will. If I am wrong, I'm just doing what I had to do. If I'm right, I have a slightly larger degree of control over my life than one who passively accepts determinism.

uh, this assumes that humans have free will.. a human without free will could hardly "act" or "convince" himself that he has free will, unless that's in his deterministic future?^^

brute has never gotten this particular argument. it seems as fallacious as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_Wager

edit:

elaborating a bit, brute wants to make the point that any "quadrant wager" (brute thinks Pascal's is the most famous) always leads to a result predetermined by the formulation. here's how brute could re-formulate the "determinist wager":

determinism/determinist: happy life, pure zen state, everything was "meant" to be, there is no "better life" one misses out on
determinism/non-determinist: humans tries to hopelessly improve or act upon his life, not realizing he's powerless
non-determinism/determinist: happy life, pure zen state, belief that everything was "meant to be", no regrets
non-determinism/non-determinist: potentially better life than (nd/d), but also potentially worse - in any case, lots of work

therefore it is always better to believe in determinism.

No, it doesn't assume that humans have free will. It provides that if they do not have free will, then I had no other choice than to present that argument, and whether or not you believe in free will is determined outside of your control. And you're right, if that's the case, no one can act any way other than the one they have to, or convince themselves of anything. That half of the argument is a wash. You're doing what you have to do, regardless.

But if you're wrong--and unless you're infallible you have to account for the possibility that you might be wrong on a subject that can't be proven one way or the other--and free will does exist, you CAN act differently, or change your own mind. So it makes sense to assume that position. If free will doesn't exist you will do as you have to, but if it does, you may be able to affect your circumstances. This way, it doesn't matter what the truth is, because two of the four possibilities are a moot point, one is a negative outcome, and one is a positive outcome.

Only if you completely refuse to entertain the possibility that free will exists can acting as though it does seem silly. If you entertain both possibilities, there's only one good choice, and if you don't entertain both, you are extremely confident in your ability to know the absolute truth behing a big, unprovable question. Even if there is some gradient to it, with a limited amount of free will in certain circumstances, attempting to exercise free will as much as possible might still capture whatever benefits could be had.

How can you say that determinism/determinist equals a happy life and a zen state? There are unhappy people. If everything is determined, your emotional state is determined already, and if that's the case, it's clear that suffering has also been determined and cannot be changed.

The same is true of determinism/non-determinist. If he tries to improve his life and suffers on account, that was determined and unavoidable. Both of these are really just one category: determined.

Non-determinism-determinist could very well end up like that if you can wrap your mind around that worldview. I would think it's a difficult outlook, and some people migt have an easier time changing their circumstances than accepting them, but I will grant you this one.

Agreed on the last one. It does take work, and there's no guarantee the work will work in your favor. It seems like it has a better chance of leaving you happy than passively hoping things work out, with the only other option being to adopt a turn the other cheek approach to everything. That takes a pretty strong will to do if you actually have choices, IMO.

I lean towards DSKia assessment; living life as if it is non-deterministic makes it more interesting and meaningful in my opinion, though this seems like a subjective view point. From brute's perspective, perhaps it is optimal for his utility to live as if the universe is deterministic.

Thinking a little deeper...assuming determinism or non-determinism doesn't affect one's current actions, but it does affect one's reflection on thoes actions. This, in turn, affects one's future actions. Whether this is for the good or bad, I believe, depends on the person's psychology.

DSKla wrote:How can you say that..

it was just an example to show that the solution to the wager depends entirely on the assumptions/formulation of the options.