Well, the chess computer is given a set of conditions, the rules of movement of the pieces, the general rules of the game, and an algorithm for determining best moves. We give the computer a situation to resolve and the computer tells us the move to make. Picking that move is the decision.

As for poker and the rest of it, it's all math. Choosing "against the math" is just a broader math governing a more narrow math.

Yes.



I don't think so. I defined free will using a pretty standard conceptualization, and demonstrated why that definition can't be true. It makes no sense to see how many definitions I can imagine just to shoot them all down. That's a waste of my time. If you, on the other hand, have some definition of free will that you think can be demonstrated to be true then by all means throw that definition out there, and the LR will take a look at it.

OK, let me take another crack at this with just your comments this time. =)

What I mean is that if you conclude, like some people here in this thread, that determining we have no free will means we should no longer entertain the thought "what should I do" then you are not being logical or reasonable with understanding what it means to have no free will (my contention). Humans are designed to use our internal thinking algorithms and that includes "what should I do". If you eliminate that mode of thought you will not come to the conclusions that are best for you and your community.

We give the computer a situation to resolve and the computer tells us the move to make. Picking that move is the decision. //

Well if you think if you type into a common calculator 2+2 and it says = 4 that the calculator made that decision, then I guess you could call this chess move that. But all the computer is doing is running the multitude of simulations, and math picks the move to make, the computer only tells what math decided.


And I like how you used choosing against the math in poker as using a broader math. That may be true to some extent as the way our brains work in these cases is like a computer, but I believe there is also something lurking there that may not be math. To go against the dictated math of a situation you have to be using external evidence that goes against it. How often does this guy bluff, the fast blinking often means weakness?strength, the incessant talking after going all in is typically a sign of weakness. And then of course all the position plays that lead up to the situation that indicate strength or weakness. But in the end you decision is based on all of this and I believe what people call intuition. Of course intuition could just be all the math going on in your brain without you being aware of any numbers associated with the variables. All I know is that it sure does not seem that every decision is predetermined, and often in almost exact situations I will choose different outcomes..

I agree.

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They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot

It's really weird to get into an existential discussion about what a decision is, but that's the greatness of the LR I guess. Anyway, if I'm playing chess and I turn to you and ask "Monty, what should I do?", and you respond "Knight to f4." then we'd all agree you just made a decision on what the recommended next move should be. If I turn to my handy chess computer, and ask the same question, aren't I also receiving a decision about the recommended next move?



Yes, a person is able to process inputs that a computer -- at least so far -- is unable to take in. It seems reasonable to conclude the extra information should help.



When we push a boulder down a hill it is impossible for our minds to predict every tumble, turn, and angle that boulder will take on its way down. Similar boulders in similar positions may take very different paths. It seems to me that's an argument that small differences in the boulder's weight, shape and initial trajectory can have outsized effects, but not that there is some totally undefined, and possibly supernatural, aspect that needs to be factored into the boulder's physics.

I've said should, ought, and desire are all the same thing. But as I said above, should and ought are often the result of an algorithm of multiple "I desire" decisions.

For instance, "I should (or ought) to get out of bed and go to work" is the result of subconscious neuron processing of:

- I am tired and desire to continue sleeping
- I will be fired if I don't show up today
- I don't have any savings and will be broke in two weeks without a paycheck
- I desire to pay rent be able to stay in my apartment
- I desire to take my girlfriend out on dates
- etc

Do you have an example of an "ought" or "should" decision that is not determined by desires?

I've never said, nor I believe has anyone else said, that "determining we have no free will means we should no longer entertain the thought "what should I do"." The question is absurd in the deterministic model. You have no choice over what thought you will entertain. What you do is determined by current physical and biochemical structure in your brain, including the biochemical changes now that you have "determined you have no free will."

I put quotations around that last phrase because any belief or determination is really nothing more than the momentary ordering of atoms and electrons within your brain. Our perceived thoughts and ideas are nothing more than current brain state -- matter and energy in the brain.

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It doesn't really matter what Phil is saying, the music of his voice is the appropriate soundtrack for a bicycle race. HTupolev

If I turn to my handy chess computer, and ask the same question, aren't I also receiving a decision about the recommended next move? //

I dont believe so, it is not a decision, unless math can change its properties all of a sudden. The computer is just a fancy way of writing down 2+2=4. Is there a decision in that equation?

Ah, thanks for the clarification. We definitely agree and I think were talking past each other. The only premise that I was trying to get across is that in a debate that asks the question "is there free will" (the question of "is"), there is one logical conclusion and it needs to be separated as a ground truth from what generally follows - the debate about right and wrong (the question of "should"). That is not to say we should not have discussion about morals and how to approach them as a society relative to the knowledge that we are deterministic - to me that is actually a much more important subject and it seems like to you're in the same boat. But saying "if we have no free will then morals are irrelevant" is illogical and unproductive.

I'm having trouble understanding what this question has to do with free will? Wouldn't all your arguments hold under either regime?

I think the reason we get into "should" so much in these debates is that, in the past, free will advocates made some specious arguments about "should" related thoughts implying free will. Folks that are fairly well read, and that remember these arguments, sometimes bring them back up like they are some kind of trump card in this debate -- even though they aren't.

It goes back to your statement about Hitler:


Hitler feels how he feels. He cannot feel any different. Given that (which I think you have agreed with), why do you say he should feel bad?

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It doesn't really matter what Phil is saying, the music of his voice is the appropriate soundtrack for a bicycle race. HTupolev

I don't believe in free will either. But, it's a losing argument because it certainly feels as if I have free will.

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“Read the transcript.”

There is one fly in the ointment for the no free will argument in my opinion.

Creativity.

A human brain has 100,000,000,000 or so neurons that can work with other neurons or groups of neurons to accomplish all the things that humans do. If there was no free will, where would creativity come from? The invention of everything from the wheel to the latest concerto. Frank Zappa's rambling to a NASA scientist invention the Super Soaker. How would a machine, one without free will, even a very sophisticated machine, create something that no one had ever created before? Not evolutionary creativity, revolutionary creativity, the kind that can not be explained by ones past.

Perhaps there are those who would believe that creativity is nothing more than our programming and has nothing to do with free will. To me however, it takes free will to say 2+2=5 and then make it work.

Because you're providing more useful data with which to influence the offender's and other's behavior. For example, a DWI offender being compelled to spend a day among a fiercely grieving family who lost a young child to a drunk driver may not change the offender's ability to actually choose differently, but it may tip the scales in terms of compelling factors that determine what course that offender takes in the future.

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The devil made me do it the first time, second time I done it on my own - W

I see where you're coming from: if neural architecture is set, how does it create something new that no one has ever seen before? There are physical, mechanistic explanations for this. The human brain is uniquely adapted to create a lot of randomness in its system. Early in life there is only this randomness and that is why infants start out with flailing limbs and cannot form a sentence or complete thought. As we age movements and thoughts, and therefore the architecture of the brain, is refined by neurons "assigning credit" to random patterns that were beneficial, and will even suppress patterns that weren't. But the randomness is always present in the system even as we age. Now, the randomness *seems* random to us because we do not know the exact synaptic, dendritic, axonal, somatic etc... structure of each individual neuron. If we did we could model the randomness quite well.

Looking at the network as a whole, the "randomness" (now in quotes because of the last sentence) is due to the brain never quite being in the same state when it receives inputs from the outside world. Let's take a 3 neuron system. One neuron is firing away at 20 Hz, a second is pretty quiet, only firing intermittently every 10 seconds or so, and the third is oscillating between firing at 5 Hz and 15 Hz. These 3 neurons synapse onto a single output neuron that fires as a function of the 3 input neurons. At any point in time if there was an input to these 3 neurons, the output would be different. The input could arrive 20ms after the first neuron fired in its 20Hz cycle, not while the second neuron was firing and while the 3rd neuron was at 7Hz. It could arrive at the instant of the first neurons 20Hz firing, while the second neuron was firing and while the 3rd was at 8.345Hz. Just the timing of these inputs will create a different output as will the infinite other combinations of firing and timing (each combination being the "state" of the system).

Now scale this up to 100,000,000,000 neurons. You will never experience the same input with the same brain state of all your neurons. We're very good about consolidating how to handle new inputs and funneling information to create the right state for an optimal response (ex: getting out of the way of an oncoming car, knowing this is the best restaurant, etc...), but sometimes the state is aligned in such a way as to create a completely new idea. It's like looking at the ocean. We know the physical laws governing waves and currents and can accurately model them. The ocean's molecules are never in the same state twice, but the ocean as a whole usually behaves a certain way with waves crashing on the beach at certain intervals, at certain heights, etc. But every once in a while the inputs and states align to create a rogue wave and thus seeming randomness results in a very salient activity pattern.

The amazing thing to me is that our brains somehow track most of the current state and previous states to learn what states resulted in something good and then tries to replicate that state (you can never replicate it fully, but can get the important aspects of it "close enough").

So what is still lacking is physical evidence of free will. You literally do have to say something like "2+2=5" to make the claim that it is real and not just an emergent "feeling" from a deterministic process.

Suppose we someday understand and can replicate the structure and function of each neuron and are able to carefully replace a neuron with a nano mechanical box and a wire leading to a controller. Say we assigned a person to the controller and the person would perfectly replicate the function of the neuron in it's position. Let's pick a person in China as we're gonna need a lot of people. With that one neuron's function perfectly replicated by remote control from China, the brain ought to function exactly as it had been functioning.

Then we continue carefully replacing every neuron and functioning cell in the brain with a nano part and remote control to person in China who replicates perfectly the prior biological functioning of the replaced cell.

When we are done, all the cells and neurons in the brain are replaced. Does the brain and attached person still have consciousness?

China Brain thought experiment.

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It doesn't really matter what Phil is saying, the music of his voice is the appropriate soundtrack for a bicycle race. HTupolev

According to any measure we could make of consciousness, yes, they would have consciousness. That's really the best we could do. If you asked, "are you aware of yourself", they would definitely say "yes".

I do wonder about this with things like the Blue Brain Project https://bluebrain.epfl.ch/ , but for now and a long time from now we just don't have the processing power to make anything remotely conscious.