Lets solve Free will once and for all!!

[Nimos]

Whether we actually have a degree of free will or it's simply that our brain tricks us into thinking this, people still act as if they have a degree of agency, even those who nominally claim to believe the universe is deterministic. People who don't believe in free will still get annoyed at ignorance, rudeness, arrogance, violence or whatever behaviours they personally dislike. This is either because they judge the person could have done otherwise or because they had no other choice other than to get annoyed. The result is identical though.

For that reason I've never really found it a particularly interesting question worthy of much deeper contemplation as it seems somewhat pointless (or maybe I was always predestined to not find it a particularly interesting question )

You are correct in that.

If we live in a truly deterministic Universe where we have no agency, then the most important question becomes regarding morality. If humans have no free will, then we can't really morally judge others. As that would be rather absurd as we in theory are judging the cards the person was dealt by the Universe

It is no longer a question of morality, it is simply the extermination of "conditions" that the majority of us don't agree with. Meaning that there would be no moral justification to punish a murderer. Besides us simply stating that we don't like what the Universe determined for this individual, and even our choice to get rid of them is equally determined, so we didn't make the choice either.

Things become pretty absurd in a truly deterministic Universe in my opinion.

Yet, if we do have free will or even just limited free will, I still don't see how it could come into being, maybe it is just me, but that is probably one of my biggest interests. If we have free will, then the answer to how it could have evolved is crucial in my opinion.

 

[RestlessSoul]

My knowledge of this is limited, I'll admit that

But from what I understand, there are different views on this. You probably didn't see the article I posted to someone earlier, so I would like to hear your opinion about it as well.

(From Nature 19.dec 2023):
But there is a deeper reason why the quantum Universe might be more deterministic, to which Hartle’s scientific legacies are relevant. With US physicist Murray Gell-Mann, Hartle developed an influential approach to quantum theory, called decoherent histories1. This attempted to explain the usefulness of probabilistic statements in quantum physics, and the emergence of a familiar, classical realm of everyday experience from quantum superpositions. In their picture, the wavefunction never randomly jumps. Instead, it always obeys a deterministic law given by Schrödinger’s equation, which characterizes the smooth and continuous evolution of quantum states. In this respect, it is similar to US physicist Hugh Everett III’s popular ‘many worlds’ interpretation of quantum mechanics, which proposes that the quantum Universe splits into different branches according to the possibilities encoded in the wavefunction whenever anything is measured2. In what follows I assume, as Everett did, that the Universe can be completely described by a quantum wavefunction with no ‘hidden’ variables that operate on a more fundamental level....

...So how deterministic is the Universe? The answer will depend on the final theory that bridges the divide between quantum physics and relativity — and that remains a far-off prospect. But if Hartle is right, the story of the rise and fall of determinism until now might be the reverse of the conventional tale. From a certain perspective, the quantum Universe is more deterministic than a classical one, providing stronger explanations and better predictions. That has consequences for humans, too, because that makes it harder to appeal to quantum theory to defend free will11. If the quantum Universe is strongly deterministic, then there is no other path to make the Universe than the way it is. The ultimate laws of the quantum cosmos might tell us why it is this one.

Source
Does quantum theory imply the entire Universe is preordained?

Yes, there are determinist, and indeed super-determinist, interpretations of QM. An argument put forward by Gerard t’Hooft is that there is no randomness in nature, but only the appearance of randomness, which manifests that way due to something fundamental we are not seeing or are not accounting for.

And of course, there is no consensus among physicists regarding the ontological implications of QM. Or even, whether quantum physics needs an ontology at all - Niels Bohr and the Copenhagenists took the line that it did not. The ultimate scientific anti-realist stance, somewhat out of fashion now.

Part of the issue here is that at extremes of scale and at the limits of reductionism, physicists are not debating, describing or defining reality - they are debating, describing and defining the terms and concepts used to debate, describe and define reality. From such a paradigm, observable reality becomes a hall of mirrors.

Which brings us neatly to the perspective of the observer. Some might that say all roads lead us there, but that’s a whole other tangent which threatens to bring more confusion than clarity, to the issue of cause and effect.

On the subject of free will, I would suggest that we are talking always about degrees thereof. If we concede that freedom is never absolute, should we not also assume for the sake of balance, that determinism is never total?

 

[Augustus]

Yet, if we do have free will or even just limited free will, I still don't see how it could come into being, maybe it is just me, but that is probably one of my biggest interests. If we have free will, then the answer to how it could have evolved is crucial in my opinion.

I imagine it emerged in a similar manner to when a group of people becomes a crowd - there is no specific point.

Senses evolved as emergent properties of certain kinds of complex matter. Over time they became more complex, instead of just 'move towards the light' they needed to make choices between different benefits. These choices were often made with incomplete information so they learned to weigh up and discern more and more factors. At some point this constituted the ability to 'have done otherwise' and thus would be a form of free will.

 

[Nakosis]

The time has come to settle whether we have free will or not

So had a somewhat interesting talk with ChatGPT about this, but can't help but feel that it has some restrictions or fallback safety mechanisms that limit it in regards to saying what is actually on its "mind". So thought I would raise the discussion here instead with my human brethren

There are several questions here:

1. Where does free will come from?
2. Do we have it?

Definition:
the power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate; the ability to act at one's own discretion.

Let's assume we have free will or at least limited, given that we are bound by certain biological constraints, such as eating, sleeping etc. Let's go back in time and ask the question when did free will cease to exist?

Let's assume that it did somewhere with early humans, then the question is where did they get it from?
To me free will seems like a binary condition, either you have it, or you don't (ignoring biological constraints). The reason for this is that if we go back 10.000 years, I don't think humans back then had less free will than we do and the same if we go forward 10.000 years, humans in the future don't have more than we do.
How we can make use of our free will seems only limited by our knowledge. We can't travel to distant stars, because we lack the ability or understanding of how to do this, yet we are aware of the concept. Early humans probably weren't aware of such things, but I don't think that restricts their free will, their concepts of things they thought about were simply different than ours.

It seems strange to me how free will could evolve without also making an argument that early humans somehow only had part free will, which seems extremely weird to me. Im not even sure what an example of part-free will would be like.

To me, there are three options at least that I can come up with:

1. We don't have free will, it is merely an illusion
2. It spontaneously came into existence
3. Our definition of free will is incorrect.

If anyone else has other options I would be interested in hearing them?

One of the arguments for how we have free will is that we can still act upon our desires and intentions, yet if the Universe is determined by physical laws, particles, atoms whatever, and these make up everything like how planets form, how the Universe function, then it seems rather unlikely that human desires and intentions isn't also govern by these as we are also part of it. At least an argument for why these are beyond or not influenced by the very same rules that everything else seems to be would be interesting to hear.

That free will spontaneously came into existence seems very unlikely to me.

Could it be, that the human brain simply evolved far enough for us to be able to comprehend the illusion of free will? Said in another way, we reached the point of the brain being able to fool itself?

(Im not interested in hearing that God did it. He could do anything am interested in people who want to offer naturalistic suggestions or views)

Especially where do you think free will came from?

Are there ways you could see free will evolve? And could that potentially mean that humans in the future have more or less free will than we do?

I define free will as being relative to the options, i.e. choices you have available to you. Obviously in some cases, we have very limited options. However, the number of options available is greatly increase by our knowledge of how the universe works. So as we humans learned more about the universe, the number of options available to us increased and so did the amount of free will we have.

In the future, assuming our knowledge about continues to increases, so will our free will. In the past our knowledge was limited and so was our free will.

 

[Nimos]

On the subject of free will, I would suggest that we are talking always about degrees thereof. If we concede that freedom is never absolute, should we not also assume for the sake of balance, that determinism is never total?

I think I would agree. However, I can't really seem to think of any scenario where we would apply free will, except if something is truly unknown to us.

If we have (A) and (B) each representing a choice/option, let's say A is going to the beach and B is going to the park.

Let's say we assign a value to them and the one with the highest one wins.

[Beach]
- Fast to get there.
- Don't want to deal with sand in the shoes
- It cold
- It gets boring fast

[Park]
- Takes a long time to get there
- Like looking at birds
- Can get some food in the area
- No sand

So the final score is [Beach] = 15 and [Park] = 40

All of these considerations seem to come from past experiences, which obviously might change, let's assume it was summer then cold on the beach wouldn't be an issue and would give it a higher score.

But we didn't choose how to weigh in on these things. For instance, I hate it when it is warm, I think laying on the beach is a waste of time etc. Yet other people love this. But neither of us chose it, yet it will decide what we will ultimately do. So where exactly is the free will choice here?

And you could apply that to food as well, some like apples and some oranges, yet none of us decided which one it is, we simply prefer the one that was "chosen" for us. Obviously, we might choose to do something that doesn't have the highest value, but in that case, we simply add another condition or influencer to the system. Maybe eat the apple anyway, because we won't be the only ones choosing the orange, feeling outside, which simply means that whatever conditions influence our feeling of being on the outside adds a lot to the value system.

But if we have nothing to influence our choice, like choosing between two unknowns, then we can't really assign a value, obviously, we might do this, thinking that "option 1" is always more likely to be better than "option 2" for whatever superstitious reason. In which case, that would also be an influencer.

But if we look at the definition again:
the power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate; the ability to act at one's own discretion.

Do we ever act at our own discretion? What would be an example of free will without any former influences? And what would an influence be for which we are 100% in control of?

So when you say "always about degrees thereof. If we concede that freedom is never absolute". But if we are never in control of what influences us the same would be true here as well, that it is absolute.

 

[Nimos]

I imagine it emerged in a similar manner to when a group of people becomes a crowd - there is no specific point.

Senses evolved as emergent properties of certain kinds of complex matter. Over time they became more complex, instead of just 'move towards the light' they needed to make choices between different benefits. These choices were often made with incomplete information so they learned to weigh up and discern more and more factors. At some point this constituted the ability to 'have done otherwise' and thus would be a form of free will.

So I found this article:

One final step sets humans apart. We can reason about our reasons. The extra levels of our cognitive hierarchies let us make models of our own minds. We can recursively think about our beliefs and desires and intentions, and consciously operate on them as objects of cognition, not just elements of it. We can consider and decide, and reconsider, and change our minds – we can consciously deliberate and choose our actions.

It’s not absolutely free from any prior causes, as some people seem to demand of ‘free will’. On the contrary, our actions are informed by our past and directed towards our future. That is precisely what allows us to persist as selves through time. We have degrees of freedom and we exert our will to choose among them.

Can evolution explain free will?

To me, it doesn't really seem to address the issue of past influences, if these are completely beyond our control, then how is behaviors more of a free will thing than that of being hungry and eating?

But humans behave in certain ways, we don't want to be sad, we don't want to be harmed, we like to be safe, happy etc. But what makes us sad or happy etc, is beyond our control. It doesn't seem like much of free will, if all we do is to align to conditions for which we had no control of, if that makes sense?

 

[Bear Wild]

The time has come to settle whether we have free will or not

So had a somewhat interesting talk with ChatGPT about this, but can't help but feel that it has some restrictions or fallback safety mechanisms that limit it in regards to saying what is actually on its "mind". So thought I would raise the discussion here instead with my human brethren

There are several questions here:

1. Where does free will come from?
2. Do we have it?

Definition:
the power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate; the ability to act at one's own discretion.

Let's assume we have free will or at least limited, given that we are bound by certain biological constraints, such as eating, sleeping etc. Let's go back in time and ask the question when did free will cease to exist?

Let's assume that it did somewhere with early humans, then the question is where did they get it from?
To me free will seems like a binary condition, either you have it, or you don't (ignoring biological constraints). The reason for this is that if we go back 10.000 years, I don't think humans back then had less free will than we do and the same if we go forward 10.000 years, humans in the future don't have more than we do.
How we can make use of our free will seems only limited by our knowledge. We can't travel to distant stars, because we lack the ability or understanding of how to do this, yet we are aware of the concept. Early humans probably weren't aware of such things, but I don't think that restricts their free will, their concepts of things they thought about were simply different than ours.

It seems strange to me how free will could evolve without also making an argument that early humans somehow only had part free will, which seems extremely weird to me. Im not even sure what an example of part-free will would be like.

To me, there are three options at least that I can come up with:

1. We don't have free will, it is merely an illusion
2. It spontaneously came into existence
3. Our definition of free will is incorrect.

If anyone else has other options I would be interested in hearing them?

One of the arguments for how we have free will is that we can still act upon our desires and intentions, yet if the Universe is determined by physical laws, particles, atoms whatever, and these make up everything like how planets form, how the Universe function, then it seems rather unlikely that human desires and intentions isn't also govern by these as we are also part of it. At least an argument for why these are beyond or not influenced by the very same rules that everything else seems to be would be interesting to hear.

That free will spontaneously came into existence seems very unlikely to me.

Could it be, that the human brain simply evolved far enough for us to be able to comprehend the illusion of free will? Said in another way, we reached the point of the brain being able to fool itself?

(Im not interested in hearing that God did it. He could do anything am interested in people who want to offer naturalistic suggestions or views)

Especially where do you think free will came from?

Are there ways you could see free will evolve? And could that potentially mean that humans in the future have more or less free will than we do?

For your questions
1. Where does it come from? - It comes from increasing complexity and individualism in nature. Its potential occurred once life formed and cells developed increasing autonomy from their immediate environment. and started acting as an individual agents.

2. Do we have it? Yes we have it. It may be much less free than we think it is there is still an aspect of decisions that can occur that is beyond the environmental both external and internal to the brain. It is true that most of our decision is influenced but the determinants involved - the environment of the conditions in which the decision is made, there is still the the capacity of a decision which is not absolutely determined by that environment. This is a creative factor of life.

 

[muhammad_isa]

But if we look at the definition again:
the power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate; the ability to act at one's own discretion.

I can agree with that..

Do we ever act at our own discretion? What would be an example of free will without any former influences? And what would an influence be for which we are 100% in control of?

No .. you are confusing 2 issues here.
One issue is according to the above def. i.e. are we able to choose despite a "destined fate"?

..and the other issue is about HOW we make our choices .. not the same thing.

 

[Nimos]

I define free will as being relative to the options, i.e. choices you have available to you. Obviously in some cases, we have very limited options. However, the number of options available is greatly increase by our knowledge of how the universe works. So as we humans learned more about the universe, the number of options available to us increased and so did the amount of free will we have.

In the future, assuming our knowledge about continues to increases, so will our free will. In the past our knowledge was limited and so was our free will.

In my chat with the AI, I actually raised the exact same issue.

But there are some flaws with this I think, because then free will is limited by our knowledge, which seems wrong. A more correct way of putting it I think is how we can utilize our free will depending on our knowledge, we simply have a larger range of choices to draw on, but the concept is exactly the same. You freely choose between several options, but some options might simply not be available due to the lack of knowledge.

For instance, we can speculate and imagine traveling to other solar systems, we can make movies about it, write books etc. But we don't have the technology. But if we could do it, nothing prevents us from making the choice, the concept is the same. Just as it would be for the early humans, their understanding of the Universe was simply more limited than ours, so these choices might not have occurred to them. In the same way that we can't imagine what we could do if we knew what happened before the big bang, but if we imagine we knew, then the concept of free will is exactly the same.

If knowledge is limiting free will, I think one runs into issues, with the partly free will thing. Which to me is an odd concept. Meaning that modern humans can use free will in regards to things we do now, but if we knew what happened before the big bang, then our free will simply wouldn't work here. That seems extremely unlikely, or at least I think there has to be an explanation for why that would be true.

 

[muhammad_isa]

It is true that most of our decision is influenced but(by) the determinants involved - the environment of the conditions in which the decision is made, there is still the the capacity of a decision which is not absolutely determined by that environment..

Agreed upon.

 

[Stan77]

Don't worry I hold no grudges.

I don't think there is anything in my conduct that indicates one is a "worry"ing kind of guy, if you get the drift.

But this is what I refer to as biological constraints,...........

Are you defining free will to me ?

In any case, I think you should now be in a position to read (in context) my very first comment which had previously seemingly appeared "nonsense" to you. I think now you can understand why i called it "boring" and "practically useless". My posts have probably now given you the needed context to understand it better.

Regarding that physics article all i will say to someone is, get real. When one's house is burning (literally or figuratively) you don't concern yourself with subatomic waves. You are not living (conscious existence) in a subatomic world. They are not part of your usual direct perception nor factor in your conscious "willing"/volition . Also, you may if you wish, try to determine the veracity of that double slit experiment, and find out for yourself what university level professors/experts think about it. Chances are you may be laughed out of the room. In any case, resting your case on the double slit is akin to resting on very shaky grounds.

As to the rest of what you've said, i will refer you to my very first comment on the limited/boring usage/scope of what we refer to as free will.

That said, Augustus's post reminded me, this the first time in my life i have posted on a free will thread. Like him/her i don't consider this a particularly interesting topic. My interest in will is limited only to it's effects/affects on the sense of agency (which is a far more critical subject). I think the reason i posted on this thread was because i was on a roll and it was an impulse influenced by quantum fluctuations ;-) So if it ok with you i will leave you to continue with others.

 

[RestlessSoul]

So I found this article:

One final step sets humans apart. We can reason about our reasons. The extra levels of our cognitive hierarchies let us make models of our own minds. We can recursively think about our beliefs and desires and intentions, and consciously operate on them as objects of cognition, not just elements of it. We can consider and decide, and reconsider, and change our minds – we can consciously deliberate and choose our actions.

It’s not absolutely free from any prior causes, as some people seem to demand of ‘free will’. On the contrary, our actions are informed by our past and directedragra towards our future. That is precisely what allows us to persist as selves through time. We have degrees of freedom and we exert our will to choose among them.

Can evolution explain free will?

To me, it doesn't really seem to address the issue of past influences, if these are completely beyond our control, then how is behaviors more of a free will thing than that of being hungry and eating?

But humans behave in certain ways, we don't want to be sad, we don't want to be harmed, we like to be safe, happy etc. But what makes us sad or happy etc, is beyond our control. It doesn't seem like much of free will, if all we do is to align to conditions for which we had no control of, if that makes sense?

On the contrary, I think the second paragraph does address the issue of past influences. The writer makes use of time's arrow to distinguish between past and future, noting that we as conscious agents, can influence the latter, as the former influences us.

It's arguable that the only aspect of our lives we really have any control over, is ourselves, in the here and now. We cannot change the past events that shaped us, but we can choose how to react to them in the present, thus influencing what we become in the future...

 

[Bear Wild]

"Let's assume we have free will or at least limited, given that we are bound by certain biological constraints, such as eating, sleeping etc. Let's go back in time and ask the question when did free will cease to exist?"
"Could it be, that the human brain simply evolved far enough for us to be able to comprehend the illusion of free will? Said in another way, we reached the point of the brain being able to fool itself?"

So is the free will an illusion or is it the deterministic view that is an illusion. Maybe we have not lost free will but only gained enough scientific knowledge to deny free will but not enough to understand it exists.

"1. We don't have free will, it is merely an illusion
2. It spontaneously came into existence
3. Our definition of free will is incorrect."

or choice 4
4. free will evolved with as life evolved.

 

[Nimos]

2. Do we have it? Yes we have it. It may be much less free than we think it is there is still an aspect of decisions that can occur that is beyond the environmental both external and internal to the brain. It is true that most of our decision is influenced but the determinants involved - the environment of the conditions in which the decision is made, there is still the the capacity of a decision which is not absolutely determined by that environment. This is a creative factor of life.

What would be an example of this? - which is not absolutely determined by that environment

I have tried thinking of some, but have been unsuccessful

1. Where does it come from? - It comes from increasing complexity and individualism in nature. Its potential occurred once life formed and cells developed increasing autonomy from their immediate environment. and started acting as an individual agents.

Just how would it play out.

Let's take a crab living at the beach, I think we agree that it probably doesn't have a lot of free will, but rather driven by instincts and do whatever a crab does. Meaning it doesn't suddenly decide that it wants to go on a vacation beyond the beach.

If we compare that too early humans (assuming that free will evolved here), at some point one of them looked at the beach and the mountains and thought "Screw this I want to go mountain climbing today, that sounds fun". Now go back X amount of evolutionary generations and the ancestor to this early human would just move around like a crab, driven by instincts.

What I don't seem to understand, is when or how did the ability to decide that mountain climbing was more fun than not to?

If what you are saying, free will as I see it, must have evolved out of something and must be connected to the brain capacity.

Obviously, not your fault, but to me the explanation of how free will could evolve seems a bit vague, like there are a huge amount of gaps here. Because I can fully understand the logic, behind how an eye could evolve and all the intermediate states to me, seem extremely logical and that it is a process that takes millions of year. Yet with the concept of free will, it seems very odd how that would have taken millions of years as well, given the definition, that it is about making a choice.

 

[Nimos]

..and the other issue is about HOW we make our choices .. not the same thing.

Care to elaborate on that?

 

[Nimos]

On the contrary, I think the second paragraph does address the issue of past influences. The writer makes use of time's arrow to distinguish between past and future, noting that we as conscious agents, can influence the latter, as the former influences us.

But I don't think that changes anything, it would still be a string of influences.

Influences
A --> B --> C --> X Will be based on passed influences A, B and C will decide X

Again with the beach example, if you for whatever reason don't like the beach due to a bad experience there, then your choice probably won't be to go there.

 

[Nimos]

So is the free will an illusion or is it the deterministic view that is an illusion. Maybe we have not lost free will but only gained enough scientific knowledge to deny free will but not enough to understand it exists.

That is a good question I think.

My assumption is that if all life evolved from single-cell molecules as evolution tells us and we don't look at these as having free will. From this we can draw some conclusions.

- Free will must have evolved.
- Life can exist and thrive perfectly fine without free will.

We can then ask some questions.
- If these two conclusions are true and there originally wasn't free will, why would we then assume that something like it does exist?
- Are there any evolutionary "benefits" from this? It seems from a human understanding of having free will, we really want it. But ants and other animals are doing just fine without it, if it wasn't because of humans. They live and die in the cycle of life. It seems like a rather weird evolutionary concept to emerge. Why would evolution "care" about whether humans have free will or not? if that makes sense.

 

[RestlessSoul]

But I don't think that changes anything, it would still be a string of influences.

Influences
A --> B --> C --> X Will be based on passed influences A, B and C will decide X

Again with the beach example, if you for whatever reason don't like the beach due to a bad experience there, then your choice probably won't be to go there.

A string of influences, yes. But as conscious agents, we have, it appears self-evident, some agency over how we respond to those influences.

I might have a morbid dread of the beach (let’s say I was once attacked by a shark), but still choose to go there. It may take a supreme effort of will to do so, but perhaps I have sufficient motivation to overcome my reluctance; maybe just to prove to myself that I can overcome my fears.

 

[osgart]

I would have to ask:

Is any person free to will whatsoever they wish to will unimpeded? Nevermind the actions.

What exactly forces me to will what I do will?

If you can't answer these two questions then you have no business saying that we do or do not have freedom to will what we will.

Doing otherwise than what my will desires is quite evidently true. It may be painful, or distressful, but it can be done.

Everyone that claims we have no free will to will whatsoever we wish to will never comes up with an answer as to what exactly is determining everyone's will in the first place.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

The time has come to settle whether we have free will or not

Isn't that basically the same as a Christian saying we're living in the End Times?