h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

OK. This one is one of mine. It's already been through the sub-editing process once, and made "Peta's Picks" so it shouldn't need much doing to it.

I think it's good.

Go on. You know you want to.

I liked it! My brain hurts, but I liked it.
Definitely a contender...

You haven't really narrowed down what free will actually is... not that I'm particularly sure myself.

One nice definition is to say that it's relative. Entity X has free will from the perspective of Entity Y if Y cannot fully predict the actions of X. This means that you and I have free will relative to each other, but my calculator does not have free will to me because I know that if I enter in 4+2 it will give me 6. But neither of us have free will in relation to the mystical supermen of the planet Zog.

You seem to be defining it as whether you possess a random element. That is, whether, *in theory* you could possibly be predicted. IE - in a deterministic universe, nothing has free will, and in a universe with random chance on the smallest scale, everything has free will. (my pen could decide to start levitating, but the odds of it doing so are tiny.)

You also don't really say why a belief in a deterministic universe necesarily leads to fatalism and suchlike. In fact, its not entirely clear why a belief in a deterministic universe leads to anything at all in our daily lives.A belief in *Fate* does cause problems - that is, a belief that we can make all sorts of free will based decisions, but the end result will always be the same - you're fated to fall in love with Princess Beatrice and live happily ever after. But that's a very different issue.

Looking at the forums, you seem to acknowledge this - to quote you :-
"1) It's in the physics! Wow! Freaky! I have no free will! OK, now let's get a pizza.
(i.e. superdeterminism as administrative detail)

2) I have no free will, yet I can still get a pizza when I feel I want one! Wow, God
is making all of this work out perfectly! (Superdeterminism as heavenly
gift/wrathful punishment (depending on what sort of day you've had)).

3) Life is a hollow sham, we think we are free, but we are really running along on
pre-determined railway tracks, what is the point? I think I'll lie in a darkened
room for the rest of my pointless life. (Superdeterminism as teenage lifestyle)"
That seems a good point to put in : if you are in category 2-3, then a belief in determinism is not for you. If you are in category 1, then the argument really doesn't apply to you, and why aren't you out getting a pizza?

I think you also need to point out (at least one) loophole in your argument - its not entirely obvious that "either free will exists, or it doesn't" - in fact, my intuition tells me that I have more free will than a monkey, who has more free will than an ant, who has rather more free will than my PC. -> it's not necessarily a black/white thing. The same problem holds with putting a black/white barrier on believing in free will - at times I believe in it, at other times I think its a hallucination. Which one generally depends on which belief is most convenient at the time...

I'd also like to comment on -
"
There is no way to tell a free
world from a superdetermined world. Even if we found an experiment to tell them apart, it could be
argued that this was predetermined, we were always going to get results which disprove
superdetermininism, and so they don't disprove it."

It *could* be argued, but that's begging the question :- "why were the experiments predetermined to screw up?". To answer that question you pretty much have to take refuge in some sort of God or Tao or suchlike, and one with fairly weird motives at that. To do so would be distinctly unscientific.
In any case - you're arguing against yourself - just earlier you pointed out that the discovery of Quantum Mechanics stuck several large nails through the heart of the deterministic universe. Nobody came up with the Sadistic God defence then, and I don't imagine they will if/when superdeterminism loses out to the next theory.

That was rambling, wasn't it?

I'd kind of decided to avoid prolonged philosophical ramblings on this, for reasons which should be clear from the entry, but you've made some interesting points, so here goes:
**********

You haven't really narrowed down what free will actually is... not that I'm particularly sure myself.

One nice definition is to say that it's relative. Entity X has free will from the perspective of Entity Y if Y cannot fully predict the actions of X. This means that you and I have free will relative to each other, but my calculator does not have free will to me because I know that if I enter in 4+2 it will give me 6. But neither of us have free will in relation to the mystical supermen of the planet Zog.

**********
Er, what if my calculator is choosing to be completely predictable? Part of the point of the entry is that we can'tell if free will exists in the "scientific", black and white way.
*********

You seem to be defining it as whether you possess a random element. That is, whether, *in theory* you could possibly be predicted. IE - in a deterministic universe, nothing has free will, and in a universe with random chance on the smallest scale, everything has free will. (my pen could decide to start levitating, but the odds of it doing so are tiny.)

*********
If it is possible to define "free will", I suppose my definition in the context of the entry is having choice as opposed to having no real choice in my behavior. I can't comment about the experience of pens or sub-atomic particles. I don't think I've ever been one.
*********

You also don't really say why a belief in a deterministic universe necesarily leads to fatalism and suchlike. In fact, its not entirely clear why a belief in a deterministic universe leads to anything at all in our daily lives.A belief in *Fate* does cause problems - that is, a belief that we can make all sorts of free will based decisions, but the end result will always be the same - you're fated to fall in love with Princess Beatrice and live happily ever after. But that's a very different issue.

*********
My feeling is that believing that one has no influence over the nature and outcome of one's actions is depressing, and depression does affect our lives, directly or indirectly.
*********

Looking at the forums, you seem to acknowledge this - to quote you :-
"1) It's in the physics! Wow! Freaky! I have no free will! OK, now let's get a pizza.
(i.e. superdeterminism as administrative detail)

2) I have no free will, yet I can still get a pizza when I feel I want one! Wow, God
is making all of this work out perfectly! (Superdeterminism as heavenly
gift/wrathful punishment (depending on what sort of day you've had)).

3) Life is a hollow sham, we think we are free, but we are really running along on
pre-determined railway tracks, what is the point? I think I'll lie in a darkened
room for the rest of my pointless life. (Superdeterminism as teenage lifestyle)"
That seems a good point to put in : if you are in category 2-3, then a belief in determinism is not for you. If you are in category 1, then the argument really doesn't apply to you, and why aren't you out getting a pizza?

**************
My examples of attitudes to the concept of superdeterminism are exactly that, examples of possible attitudes. Any and all of these attitudes are informed by the personality of the person holding them, and as experience, affect and inform the personality. Re. adding the point; isn't it already in there?
**************

I think you also need to point out (at least one) loophole in your argument - its not entirely obvious that "either free will exists, or it doesn't" - in fact, my intuition tells me that I have more free will than a monkey, who has more free will than an ant, who has rather more free will than my PC. -> it's not necessarily a black/white thing. The same problem holds with putting a black/white barrier on believing in free will - at times I believe in it, at other times I think its a hallucination. Which one generally depends on which belief is most convenient at the time...

************
First of all, as regards the existance of free will, I'm not treating this as a subjective experiential issue, and in fact I'm saying that this can never be known one way or the other through experience. I'm treating free will(or its absence) as absolute. Is this justified? Well, superdeterminism demands absolute lack of free will, so again, in the context of this entry, yes. I don't dispute the the usefulness of the relative position, it just doesn't apply to what's being discussed in this entry, in my opinion.
**********

I'd also like to comment on -
"
There is no way to tell a free
world from a superdetermined world. Even if we found an experiment to tell them apart, it could be
argued that this was predetermined, we were always going to get results which disprove
superdetermininism, and so they don't disprove it."

It *could* be argued, but that's begging the question :- "why were the experiments predetermined to screw up?". To answer that question you pretty much have to take refuge in some sort of God or Tao or suchlike, and one with fairly weird motives at that. To do so would be distinctly unscientific.
In any case - you're arguing against yourself - just earlier you pointed out that the discovery of Quantum Mechanics stuck several large nails through the heart of the deterministic universe. Nobody came up with the Sadistic God defence then, and I don't imagine they will if/when superdeterminism loses out to the next theory.

********
Actually, asking that question assumes that there is a "point" to superdeterminism. Does your question "why were the experiments predetermined to screw up?" assume that there is a hidden purpose behind superdeterminism? If superdeterminism exists (and I don't happen to think it does), it could just "be", without any reason or hyperbeing behind it.

I can't see any contradiction here.
********

That was rambling, wasn't it?

****
Long may you ramble!

I think free will can still exist in a deterministic universe. 'I' am a product of deterministic laws, so how can I possibly argue that because of them I have no free will?

Or, the way I prefer to think about it: suppose all my actions could be predicted with 100% accuracy. How would this be done? For the sake of argument, let us imagine a computer program which does the job. How does this program work? Obviously by simulting all the deterministic interactions which go on in my head.

Now, I happen to believe that if you do that, you actually have what is to all intents and purposes a copy of me, with conciousness included. Conclusion: it's possible to tell what I'm going to do, but *only* by creating a copy of me and watching how it behaves. Final conclusion: you can tell what I'm going to do, but only *after* me (or a copy of me) has done it.

Very final conclusion: free will can exist in a deterministic universe, because there is no method of predicting my actions simpler than actually creating a copy of me and watching what it does, which is equivalent to waiting for me to do whatever I was going to do in the first place.

Problem solved

26199

> "I suppose my definition in the context of the entry is having choice as opposed to having no real choice in my behavior."

To which I guess I have to ask what choice is... does a dice have a choice over what number it will come up, or a radioactive particle have a choice as to when it will decay?
But I think you're right here - the entry should probably stick to an intuitive definition - "what is free will" is a whole new entry...

> "My feeling is that believing that one has no influence over the nature and outcome of one's actions is depressing....."

That's just your feeling, though, and its a feeling that isn't unanimous. I think you're making a false generalisation - just because it makes YOU depressed doesn't mean that it has to make the rest of us have to be depressed...

> "what if my calculator is choosing to be completely predictable?"

If somebody claimed that my calculator was choosing to be predictable, I'd ask them for evidence that demonstrated this. If they could not come up with any evidence then I'd apply Occam's Razor to decide that the simpler explanation of the given facts is that my calculator appears to have no free will because it has no free will. That's the basis of the scientific method.

> "I don't dispute the the usefulness of
the relative position, it just doesn't apply to what's being discussed in this entry, in my opinion."

Again, on second thoughts I think you're right here. I'm wrong. Dang!

> "Does your question "why were the experiments predetermined to screw up?" assume that there is a hidden purpose behind superdeterminism?"

I don't think so. Suppose you've done a thousand experiments, and they've all shown that predeterminism must be wrong. If you claim that all 1000 experiments screwed up, then that requires evidence. Again, the simpler explanation is that all of the experiments disproved predeterminism because predeterminism is wrong. And, again, Occam's Razor comes into play - the simpler theory is more likely to be correct.
Sure, the universe could *just happen* to be predetermined such that scientists could always get the wrong answer, but that is *fantastically* unlikely, unless there is some purpose behind the universe (IE, to p**s off scientists...).

> "My examples of attitudes to the concept of superdeterminism are exactly that, examples of possible attitudes. Any and all of these
attitudes are informed by the personality of the person holding them, and as experience, affect and inform the personality. Re.
adding the point; isn't it already in there?"

No, you say things like this in the entry :-

> "(Region 2) We choose to live as though freedom does not exist, but it does. This is sad, as we are both incorrect and in
some ways denying our freedom. Living here seems a bit miserable and fatalistic."

Which is too harsh - it should read more like "Some people feel that living here would be a bit miserable and fatalistic".

In other words, your argument is totally sound for some people, but for others it's totally irrelevant. The way the entry has been written, those who doesn't believe in free will are necessarily servants of Depression and likely to hurl themselves over a bridge at the earliest possible opportunity. (only not so exaggeratted). That may not be the impression you were trying to give, but it is certainly one I gain from reading it... and I think it's a false impression.

MyRedDice - Servant of Fate (which sounds cool but means little... )

the question is, of course, can you write the computer program so it simulates you faster than you? That's not necessarily impossible - after all, we plan to forecast the weather in faster than real time, and the weather is a large and chaotic system. However, it seems highly unlikely that anybody will do this in the next 70 years, so for all intents and purposes, you have free will...

Whether it does it faster than me is irrelevant... it would still be like putting me in whatever situation they want to find out about and waiting for me to do what I'm going to do...

The point is, I may be predictable, but I'm still me, and my decisions are still my own, because I *am* that predictable entity.

Incidentally, there is one problem with the example of a calculator as a predictable, deterministic object... okay, so you ask it '2+2' and you predict the answer is four. All well and good. Ask it the cube root of 2045742... can you still predict the answer? How do you know it's right?

When it comes to difficult arithmetic, calculators may give consistant answers but I certainly couldn't predict 'em for you... you'd have to ask another calculator, and what does that achieve? It's identical in all important respects to the one you're dealing with, and prediction by simulation proves nothing...



26199

>If somebody claimed that my calculator was choosing to be predictable, I'd ask them for evidence that demonstrated this. If they could not come up with any evidence then I'd apply Occam's Razor to decide that the simpler explanation of the given facts is that my calculator appears to have no free will because it has no free will. That's the basis of the scientific method.

****

What I'm saying is that our experience (and even scientific results are just another name for our experience) is no guide when we try to answer the question "does free will exist". It's one of those questions which is outside the remit of science (and, yes, I do think there are fields which lie outside the remit of science).

Occam's Razor is all very well and its use is often entirely sensible, but it is just a tool, and will not always give the "true" answer, simply because we never know how much of the "sample space" we have seen so far. As we learn more, theories are superceded. The Razor slices where and when we choose to wield it.

O's R has been used, in one form or another and throughout history, to discount physical realities which don't fit the prevailing mental model, e.g. a heliocentric Solar System, plate tectonics. Occam's Razor is a subjective method, with no absolute basis. Who says what "simpler" is? Who decides what the "evidence" is? You? Me? Anyone? Do I understand the evidence? Do I have enough?

For example, an Evolutionist would apply Occam's Razor and call "God" an unnecessary embellishment (see Richard Dawkins books), while a Creationist would say the same thing of evolution (what could be simpler than a big guy with a beard calling the shots?). (I'm not being flippant here, these are frequently argued positions). Occam's Razor can't help, as it all depends on who's doing the cutting and what assumptions they bring with them.

(There are better, more subtle examples. The extent of human influence on climate change is one).

So far as the willful calculator is concerned, again, I'm saying we can never know with absolute certainty whether a calculator has free will. How can we make an absolute judgement?

We can set up an experiment to test the pridictability of the calculator, and we can apply Occam's Razor to the problem, and we may decide that we should discount the possibility of its choosing to be mathematically consistant. That's fine. What we can't do is say that we have absolute certainty that the calculator isn't just humouring us. If we say this then we are stepping outside the scientific method. Why? Because we can't collect any data to test this. 1000 or 1000000 negative results don't help. Either way, the results are consistent with either a calculator without free will AND one which chooses to be consistent. Scientifically, it would not be considered a "useful" question.

(Interestingly, the "usefulness" of an area of research depends partly on our ability to access meaningful data, partly on the availability of funds to do the job and partly on the effect on a researcher's/funding body's reputation in being involved in the research. But that's another entry!)

(In our culture, stones and stars are considered not to have free will. In other cultures stones and stars are considered to be doing their bit. Are we right? Are they wrong? Science can't help with this. It's just not equipped to do it.)

I'm not proposing that we take the idea of a willful calculator seriously. I'm just saying that your suggestion that we can test the presence of free will by predictability doesn't really hold water.

Also, I don't feel that I should need to make any part of my entry universally relevant. Why should I want to do that? How would I know if everyone agrees I've succeeded? I'm just presenting my take on things.

26199 - I could be wrong, but I think your point about simulation was made in one of the discussions of the original entry. In the context of the entry, what you are actually doing in that posting is saying which side of the graph you are on (the left), and why you feel this way. This actually has no bearing on the truth or otherwise of Superdeterminism.

Desk lamp, anyone?

Just to say, I will be looking at the wording of the "regions" section to see if I can improve it. Thanks for the feedback, guys.

Hmmmmm. Outside the remit of science, is it?

*thinks*

How can *anything* be outside the remit of science, when science is not simply a rigid system but basically a word for a consistant way of looking at things? As far as I'm concerned, you're either using scientific methods or you're making illogical (ie inconsistant) guesses. So to say something is outside the remit of science is an odd thing to say indeed...

Anything which it is possible to think and reason about, it is possible to think and reason about using scientific principles, for what else is reasoning?

And I'm sticking with my solution to the problem being the actual, real solution to the problem (it's based on perfectly logical reasoning, after all ), until someone persuades me otherwise...

26199

yeah - O's R is a horrendously ineffective tool and fequently slices the wrong way. And it's based on the groundless assumption that the universe is simple at root. But it's all we've got!

We can't say that the calculator isn't just humouring us with absolute certainty - sure. However, if I know anything, then I know that calculators do not have free will. The claim holds water for me, and it holds water for you. Whether it holds water for Mongolian Tribesmen is a matter of supreme indifference to me...
(And I never said that it was a 100% watertight definition - there is no such thing. All I said was it was a "useful" definition... and it is.)

However, as you say, we can discount the possibility. Similarly, if we had experimental evidence that "disproved" superdeterminism, then we could discount the possibility that we were predetermined to get the wrong answer every thousand times we did the experiment.

And *OUR* culture's scientists would conclude that superdeterminism was incorrect, just as they previously concluded that the clockwork universe was incorrect. Superdeterminism is just another theory, and can be shown to be consistent or inconsistent with Scientific "Truth" just the same as any other theory. Whether that has any bearing on "absolute reality" is an entirely seperate issue, of course.

MyRedDice - "If I know anything, then I know that your definition of "to know" is a useless one."

------------------------
How can *anything* be outside the remit of science, when science is not simply a rigid system but basically a word for a consistant way of looking at things?
-----------------------

It would make sense to say something is outside of the remit of *current* science. Newton was an achemist. Considered in the current scientific paradigm as nonsensical rubbish, at the time was considered perfectly logical. Until the time of copernicus, it was considered unscientific to believe anything other than that the sun revolved around the earth - they had no reason to believe otherwise.

More recently, it was believed that time was a constant - and then they flew a couple of planes with clocks on board opposite ways around the earth - although the planes appeared from the airport to have taken off and landed simutaeneously, the clocks read different times.

Yes science is a *consistent way of looking at things* but only within the current paradigm. Things outside of that paradigm, (ie. that cannot be explained within it), are considered unscientific. But this does *not* mean that it is illogical or untrue.

But just because it cannot be predicted what you do next, does not entail that you have free will. Free will is not identical with unpredictability

Er... scientists don't declare things 'unscientific' because they can't understand them, nor can a phenomenon be said to be unscientific. Either we understand it, or we don't, but the only way we're going to understand it is through reasoning.

Of course science can turn up wrong answers. But you can apply scientific methods to anything, which was my main point. And if you do get wrong answers, it's because of lack of information or a mistake on your part - not because of any fundamental inadequacy in logical reasoning.

After all... surely you're not going to argue that there are some things you can only understand by being illogical? That's just silly.

Anyway. The gist of my argument is that we may well be predictable, but free will is in no way made impossible by a completely deterministic universe.

So, in fact, I'm arguing that predictability is entirely irrelevant to the matter of free will

26199

-------------------------------
Either we understand it, or we don't, but the only way we're going to understand it is through reasoning.
...
But you can apply scientific methods to anything
...
After all... surely you're not going to argue that there are some things you can only understand by being illogical? That's just silly.
-----------------------------

Well, in fact I *would* argue that! There are certain things you cannot understand by scientific method. Human thought processes for example. Emotions. Art. How certain acts feel. These things cannot be understood by scientific method. The *mechanics* of what is going on can be understood in this way, but that is an entirely different thing from the *feel* of those things.

Artwork, mood swings, the feel of riding a huge wave on a surfboard - these are all things that cannot be understood by logic. An example of a thing which thousands of people have felt, but do not understand, and is not understood by scientific method, is Chi, the chinese word for Life Force. A *thing* many Martial Arts practitioners, Yoga pratitioners, western spritual healers, have all experienced, yet do not understand, exept by what most *would* condsider illogical means.

Perhaps we should take this argument to a more appropriate forum, as it quite interests me.

---------------------------------
free will is in no way made impossible by a completely deterministic universe.
---------------------------------

This I may agree with, but as with most philosophical arguments, I have found that the whole reason for the argument is lack of a solid core definition of (in this case) free will. People tend to have their own idea as to what free will consists of, and hence argue at cross purposes.
So, in fact, I'm arguing that predictability is entirely irrelevant to the matter of free will

Actually, the last line of that post was yours! I meant to respond to it, but can't remember what I was going to say! Maybe later I'll recall...

> "Perhaps we should take this argument to a more appropriate forum, as it quite interests me."
probably - know any good entries for hosting it?

If free will is not about being unpredictable, and it's not about whether the universe is deterministic or not, what is it about? That's the sort of question I would hope that an entry on "The Problem of Free Will" would answer... or do we need an entry on Free Will, first?

OK, this is gonna take a while. I would post it somewhere else, but it pertains to my objections to the article, so here we go.

Firstly, free-will is a philosophical concept and as you say it is largely ignored by the rest of us. The only people who have more than a passing interest in it are philosophers, so you are going to have to tell us what it is before you tell us what the scientists (and a lot of philosophers) think it is wrong with it. It is no good saying that free will is what everyone thinks it is, and anything else is just hair splitting, some of your arguments are irrelevent without it, especially, in my opinion, the whole of the last bit of your article, where you advise us to live as though we have free will. And this is why.

Take Tom. Tom is faced with a decision, a choice between A and B. I know it is rarely that simple, but hey. Both are eminantly choosable and it seems likely that he might choose either one or the other. We are not talking about a choice between a cup of coffe (which Tom likes) and a glass of piss (which Tom thinks is disgusting). After much struggle, he chooses option A and his life flows onward.

OK, now imagine you have a very powerful remote control and can freeze frame the universe and Tom in it. Press the rewind button until you get to the moment that Tom made his decision. The circumstances - Toms state of mind, his personal history to date, his personality and everthing that entails (hereditory or otherwise), his body chemistry at that moment, the weather, the song playing on the radio, the universe in fact - are exactly the same, of course. Now which option does Tom choose. A or B?

Proponants of free will would argue that you can't tell, it could be A or B, even though we know which one he chose so labouriosly last time.

I disagree. I like to think (and yes, it is eminently unprovable either way, but thats the point, this is philosophy not science, although philosophers are not above quoting physicists) that the efforts that go into my choices are not wasted, not arbitary as free will seems to imply. I would like to think, in fact, that I would choose the same option each time. This makes me a determinist (why "superdeterminist" by the way?), as most of what goes into my decision are my experiences, my background (sociolocical, hereditory etc etc etc), as well as the whole history of the universe, leading to my experience of it and the outside forces acting on me at the time of my desision. Even if they are imperceptable or subconcious, they are exactly the same, so why should I choose differently? And what is so bad and depressing about that? It doesn't take away my ability to make a reasoned choice, as you seem to imply. In fact it enhances it. It is my choice, not the toss of some coin. The problem with free will is not that it doesn't exist, but if it did.

I haven't finished, but I've got to go. I'm sorry if this abit confused.