The old free will question revisited.

[fnord_too]

One thing I have pondered a lot is the possibility of free will. First, a little orientation to my jumbled thought process:

The future is certainly unpredictable. Even without quantum uncertainty, even if Newtonian physics held perfectly true, there would be no way to predict the exact state of the system in the future. One reason is that you need position, velocity, etc. of everything in a system to make those predictions, and those things are going to be not entirely presise no matter how many decimal places you carry them out (the existence of transcendental numbers gurantees this). But in a purely Newtonian environment, the future state of the system would be inescapable, even though unpredictable.

Unless things have changed in the past couple of years or my memory fails me, our current understanding is that quantum states are collapsed into in truely random fashion. That is, there is no deterministic reason why say a photon collapses into a state that allows it or does not allow it to pass through a polarized lens, it just does. The mainstream belief, IIRC, is that there are no suspected hidden variables that force these quantum phenomena. But...

Things do collapse into specific states. So take a system and set it in motion. Now even though quantum effects would render predicting exact future states impossible, even if we could somehow get arround the propagation of measurement error problem, since quantum effects introduce true randomness into the system (assuming the above statements are true.) But once things collapse into an observable state they will interact in accordance with the physics of the situation. (That is, the real physics defining the interaction, which may or may not correspond with current theory).

Now, onto free will. If we are merely physical beings, governed by physics, then we are certainly unpredictable and random, but can we have free will? If our brain is just a big biological neural net, then it is governed by physics. Sure, the quantum state something collapses into can have an impact on the system, but it is not an impact we control.

The notion of sentience is very hard to reconcile here. Is there an area of physics surrounding conciousness that we just have not discovered? Or are we really just a bunch of sub-atomic particles that are dancing in a determined manner to a random drummer? I certainly like to think I am more than the latter, but I have yet to see evidence that I am. Emotion is about the closest thing to a counter-argument I can come up with, but modern pharma-psychiatry looms as strong counter-counter-argument.

[maurile]

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Sure, the quantum state something collapses into can have an impact on the system, but it is not an impact we control.

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Yes. This is an important point that many people don't grasp. If we have free will, it's not because of quantum randomness. And act isn't freely chosen because it was random. Hook me up to a geiger counter such that I blink whenever it clicks -- are my blinks manifestations of free will?

To the extent we have free will (in the sense of doing something because we want to), it is a consequence of our universe's deterministic aspects rather than its indeterministic aspects. What could be more free than doing whatever you want because there's a deterministic cause-and-effect linkage between wanting and doing?

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The notion of sentience is very hard to reconcile here. Is there an area of physics surrounding conciousness that we just have not discovered?

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I'm not sure I understand the question, but you may be interested in Dan Dennett's book, Consciousness Explained. It is fascinating.

[David Sklansky]

"This is an important point that many people don't grasp. If we have free will, it's not because of quantum randomness."

But it (or some other kind of randomness) is a necessary condition.

Which means by the way that quantum randomness should have been seriously suspected by physicists a long time before it was discovered, because people appear to have free will. I would have if I lived back then.

[fnord_too]

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But it (or some other kind of randomness) is a necessary condition.



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This is something I am not sure about. What difference does randomness make? If our "free will" is just random noise, is it really free will? I don't think so. (Though certainly the random noise counters pre destination).

I believe that if we truly have free will, there is an area of physics we have not yet stumbled upon, and that randomness may or may not play a key role. That is, there has to be something more to sentient beings than just the stuff of understood physics that we are made of (at least partially).

There is another set of questions closely related to this in my mind that goes something like this:
Can a machine (we'll say with no biological elements for simplicities sake) be sentient? I think at least this is possible to certain degrees, though the definition of sentient is debatable.
Can a machine demonstrate true intelligence? This may depend on the definition of intelligence you use.
Can a machine achieve a state of being equivalent to a human? That is, have emotional responses, goals and desires, etc?
If the answer to all of the above is "yes", then the question is of course can a machine demonstrate free will? Talking about free will in a machine is easier, since we better understand the mechanics of it.
And a bonus question: If there is such a thing as a soul (or ghost, or whatever you want to call it), and it is not divine, how does it manifest? Is it an artifact of sentience? free will? can a machine have one?

I like this sort of line of questions since biological entities are esentially machines (if you use a definition that does not require the machine to be relatively physically static, that is, if your definition allows for growth and change.)

One more thing: I think within the next 50-100 years we will be able to replicate our brains in machines. That is, we will be able to "download" what is essentially us into a computer. ("Ghost in the Shell" type stuff, it is looking like technology will allow this in the future if there is not some area of physics that we haven't discovered yet). If this becomes a reality, what does that say about free will? Computers are finite state machines. Even with analog components, they would be deterministic with only quantum randomness to introduce noise.

[chezlaw]

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One more thing: I think within the next 50-100 years we will be able to replicate our brains in machines. That is, we will be able to "download" what is essentially us into a computer. ("Ghost in the Shell" type stuff, it is looking like technology will allow this in the future if there is not some area of physics that we haven't discovered yet). If this becomes a reality, what does that say about free will? Computers are finite state machines. Even with analog components, they would be deterministic with only quantum randomness to introduce noise.


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What about conciousness? Will this be supported by the tcehnology or will the host be a zombie.

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To the extent we have free will (in the sense of doing something because we want to), it is a consequence of our universe's deterministic aspects rather than its indeterministic aspects. What could be more free than doing whatever you want because there's a deterministic cause-and-effect linkage between wanting and doing? - maurile

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That seems right to me, but if we going to have some fanciful ideas what about a many worlds view of the universe, with each world being deterministic but somehow we can choose which version of ourseves to experience.

chez

[Jordan Olsommer]

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The future is certainly unpredictable. Even without quantum uncertainty, even if Newtonian physics held perfectly true, there would be no way to predict the exact state of the system in the future. One reason is that you need position, velocity, etc. of everything in a system to make those predictions, and those things are going to be not entirely presise no matter how many decimal places you carry them out (the existence of transcendental numbers gurantees this). But in a purely Newtonian environment, the future state of the system would be inescapable, even though unpredictable.

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You don't even need something as ridiculously complex as "the universe" to illustrate this principle - Stephen Wolfram showed in his book that unpredictability (or "nonlinear systems" or "chaos" or whatever you choose) can arise in a one-dimensional system of black and white squares along with very simple rules for each "generation" of squares to the next (a la Conway's game of Life).

And no, free will doesn't arise from quantum spookiness. Think about it - how many billions of subatomic particles are there in just one neuron? Then you have to come up with a way of explaining just how it is that we (our true selves, the "chooser") have control over the building blocks of atoms. (*edit: not to mention the fact that if we did have access to such a low-level sub-atomic assembly language, why does it only apply to some parts of the brain and not others? Surely if we could control the very building blocks of neurons themselves, we could control the involuntary processes of our brains - nobody would ever get depressed or tired, and that business with the knee and the rubber mallet at the doctor's office would be OVER.)

It's very simple to notice that quantum mechanics provides uncertainty and then conveniently tuck free will inside, but logically speaking it makes no more sense than saying "Jesus gives me free will." At least the Jesus hypothesis, while being equally ridiculous, is cleverly stated enough to not even attempt to be proveable.

[Jordan Olsommer]

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Which means by the way that quantum randomness should have been seriously suspected by physicists a long time before it was discovered, because people appear to have free will

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I think Rene Descartes had a viewpoint somewhat along those lines [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img].

[chezlaw]

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Which means by the way that quantum randomness should have been seriously suspected by physicists a long time before it was discovered, because people appear to have free will

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I think Rene Descartes had a viewpoint somewhat along those lines [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img].

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Careful, his not on the approved list [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

chez

[maurile]

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"This is an important point that many people don't grasp. If we have free will, it's not because of quantum randomness."

But it (or some other kind of randomness) is a necessary condition.

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It's not. Free will is perfectly consistent with determinism.

As I argued previously in this post, the notion that free will and determinism are incompatible comes from the assumption of Cartesian dualism -- that your brain is just a collection of molecules and atoms acting in accordance with the laws of physics, but the real you is something different -- a non-physical soul.

If what your body does is caused by physical events, but the real you is a non-physical soul, then the real you has no control over what happens and free will is impossible. Under this view, determinism precludes free will, which is why people sought refuge in quantum indeterminacy.

But if the real you isn't a non-physical soul, but is a bunch of physical events, then the fact that your actions have physical causes in no way implies that the real you isn't in control. You are in control; your actions are caused by your physical brain state; and that is free will.

[fnord_too]

Here is how I define free will:

The ability to do two or more different things in the same situation. That is, given the exact state of the universe at the time of a decision, the actual decision can vary.

I am not sure if this is compatable with your definition of free will; I don't think it is because if the physics of your brain deterministically come to a decision at a point in time, then the decsion can not vary.

In the end though, the only value of the question is in exploring concepts. If we have free will, in some regards considering the question (except as an intellectual pursuit) is fretting over nothing, and if we don't the question is moot and not worth worrying about.

The physics of a thought though (not to be confused with an idea) is a pretty interesting subject, as is the physics of an emotion.

Something just occurred to me there. Ideas are not really bound by physics, though the thoughts that allow us to conceive them probably are. That is, the ideas underlying things like math and logic are in no way physical things, except in their manifestation when we think about them or scribe them. Regardless of the laws of the universe, the Mandelbrot set would "exist", e would exist. (Pi may be dependant on the physics, specifically the geometry, of the universe, but even were the geometry such that the ratio of a circle to its radius not 2r * Pi, the Pi we know and love would be still Pi in the abstract Euclidean geometry.)

I need to think about this some more.