Free will or predestination?

eh, why does it matter? It's not like it's actually possible to extrapolate what will happen realistically. With over 100 billion neurons the human brain is highly random. Not to mention you have thousands of people with a unique brain interacting with that person not to mention the brain reacting to all it's senses.

It's so unpredictable that even if they found subatomic particles to be deterministic it doesn't mean anything.

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Original post by coldacid Science News / Do Subatomic Particles Have Free Will? It comes down to this, people: Either at some level, subatomic particles are nondeterministic and therefore we have free will, or they are deterministic and free will is nothing but an illusion for everything is predestined. What's your position?

What do you mean by free will is illusion ?
Free will has nothing to do with physics, if you take for eg. chaos theory it's totally irrelevant weather you can predict individual particles if you don't account for their surrounding influences, and if you add the nonlocality AFAIK that would mean that you would have to account for the whole universe and yourself. Only universe can do that ... kind of like universe is it's own simulator [grin]
Even if the nature is deterministic it's still unpredictable so it's irrelevant. If you believe in God, he is "out of time" so time and prediction are meaningless concepts in this. If you don't believe in God than you probably believe in theory of Evolution and it's primary value is survival/life, so you just adapt trough time and try to survive ... who knows maybe someday we know more about the subject and can see the "bigger picture", but until then I think we have more pressing concerns like prolonging the life span (or eliminating the aging process). After that we can spend a lot more time to deal with the issue [grin].
Also this question is usually associated with morality, which i think is pretty illogical. To illustrate, if you killed someone and the universe is deterministic some would say you could not avoid this because it was your "destiny" to do it and therefore you should not be "responsible"- That's crap [IMHO]. There is no such thing as "responsibility", the only reason you "punish" such people (although I think reintegrating them in to society is much more effective) is to prevent repeating of the act because there is a high probability for repeating it. [well punishment also serves to discourage people form doing it but I've expressed my opinion about "fear of the law" many times already [grin] ]

I'm not a physicist, so that hinders my ability to make a sound judgment on this subject. My personal views are that the universe is nondeterministic at the most fundamental level (I believe it's been mathematically demonstrated that a hidden variables quantum theory cannot account for all observed quantum phenomena), but I don't necessarily have any way to consciously influence this nondeterminism, so the nondeterminism does not itself imply free will. Although I'll change my opinion as soon as strong, accepted, peer-reviewed evidence shows up (the arguments the article discusses are interesting but by no means widely accepted), for now I view free will as an illusion, but the illusion is convincing enough that we're better off treating it as if it were true in all practical matters.

Basically, I don't understand how the ability of fundamental particles to behave randomly means that humans suddenly have full social and moral free will.

[Edited by - nilkn on August 17, 2008 7:59:19 AM]

Animal spirits ftw.

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Original post by RedDrake Quote: Original post by coldacid Science News / Do Subatomic Particles Have Free Will? It comes down to this, people: Either at some level, subatomic particles are nondeterministic and therefore we have free will, or they are deterministic and free will is nothing but an illusion for everything is predestined. What's your position? What do you mean by free will is illusion ?

It's them more or less saying it. I'm just curious as to everyone's take on this.

And now, I'm wondering if this debate on free will vs predestination (which has raged in certain scientific circles since the days of natural philosophy) had any effect on Philip K. Dick when he was writing The Minority Report. Seems as if it might have some influence...

BTW I say nondeterministic universe, free will, etc. based on gut feeling.

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Original post by RedDrake Free will has nothing to do with physics

Your brain controls your actions, and your brain is made of matter is it not?

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Original post by RedDrake if you take for eg. chaos theory it's totally irrelevant weather you can predict individual particles if you don't account for their surrounding influences, and if you add the nonlocality AFAIK that would mean that you would have to account for the whole universe and yourself. Only universe can do that ... kind of like universe is it's own simulator [grin]

Even if it can't be exactly calculated, that doesn't mean it doesn't function on a set of rules or that you can't get close enough. I am exerting a gravitational pull on you right now you know [grin]

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Original post by Lazy Foo Your brain controls your actions, and your brain is made of matter is it not?

Well "free will" is usually taken in context of morality and moral responsibility, fate & destiny and similar things. In that context physics are irrelevant. I won't go in to "the universe has it's own micro intelligence" and similar theories I don't know anything about them I only think how this practically affects me.

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Original post by Lazy Foo Even if it can't be exactly calculated, that doesn't mean it doesn't function on a set of rules or that you can't get close enough. I am exerting a gravitational pull on you right now you know [grin]

That's exactly what I'm talking about, you can use statistics to calculate things to high probability but unless it's one (100%) your taking a guess. If you neglect even the smallest element in a nonlinear system it can significantly change the outcome, so you basically need to account for EVERYTHING and as far as I understand non locality it gets even more complicated (you need to account for not only chain reactions but non local ones too).
If you make some statistical/specific assumptions you can predict things much more efficiently. That's why you can predict human reactions if you know someone well (his motivation, personality etc...).
Even if QM is unpredictable at our scale physics are deterministic so it's irrelevant on our scale (you can make those "close" approximations in a deterministic and nondeterministic universe)

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Original post by RedDrake Well "free will" is usually taken in context of morality and moral responsibility, fate & destiny and similar things. In that context physics are irrelevant.

The way I see it, physics is the study of matter, morals are a social construct, humans are made of matter, so humans and the morals they create are must in some way obey the laws of physics. Much in the way what your seeing and interacting with right now is just a bunch of switches.

Maybe it's because I spend too much time on cracked.com, but if you look through out history, morals aren't concrete and it takes very little for them to go out the window. .

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Original post by RedDrake That's exactly what I'm talking about, you can use statistics to calculate things to high probability but unless it's one (100%) your taking a guess. If you neglect even the smallest element in a nonlinear system it can significantly change the outcome

It can. That doesn't mean it does. That's beside the point. The question is not whether we can predict human action 100% accuracy or whether we can get close enough. Matter is going to do what it does even if we don't predict everything to the highest possible digit.

The questions is whether humans choose or do they just do. IMO, physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, and history point towards no.

The proofs talked about in the article seem based on the presumption that the 1-0-1 rule is accurate.

As the article itself says, "experiments have shown" that the 1-0-1 rule applies. Unless there are mathematical or logical proofs of the 1-0-1 rule, all it really seems to me is that theyve found a theoretical flaw in an experimentally based theory - and I dont see any assertion made or reasoning to suggest that the 1-0-1 rule is only possible way particles can be deterministic.

If the particles are deterministic, but in a more complicated way than current theories suggest, then the research isnt relevant.

So, really, it seems to me that its an interesting piece of work, but largely beside the point.


I wouldnt really say I have position on the subject... My philosophy is "wait and see, if it even matters at all" but I certainly think our current level of knowledge is nowhere near good enough to judge determinism except in a limited frame of reference.

Free will yo.

Without free will, there would be no war.

I don't understand why this is news now. 5 years ago at my university I was told the same: either quantum particles behave truly random and we have free will, or they don't and it's impossible to have free will.

If that was known 5 years ago, what's new about it today?

Also, this means, if you want a computer to have free will, it'll need a very good true random generator :)

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Original post by coldacid Either at some level, subatomic particles are nondeterministic and therefore we have free will

Err, stop. That just doesnt follow.

Either way, free will is a completely meaningless concept.

Personally, ever since I heard of Godel's incompleteness theorems I hold little hope for anyone figuring out the theory of everything.
Since physicist use math to as a foundation to show the validity of their proofs since it is fatally flawed I take anything they say with a grain of salt.
John Conway being a mathematician from what I remember should know better I would've though?


"
Theories of everything and physics

Stanley Jaki, followed much later by Stephen Hawking and others, argue that (an analogous argument to) Gödel's theorem implies that even the most sophisticated formulation of physics will be incomplete, and that therefore there can never be an ultimate theory that can be formulated as a finite number of principles, known for certain as "final".
"


So I'm all for free will since will never be able to prove that the mathematical system they are using is incomplete unless Godel doesn't apply to them.
What I really want to know is have they found a limit to plank time?
If they determine that time is not continuous and discrete then that pretty much throws out alot of stuff into doubt?

One Planck time should be the smallest measurable unit of time, according to quantum mechanics. But according to news reports, analyses of Hubble Space Telescope Deep Field images in 2003 brought up a possible discrepancy. Images should have been blurry at very far distances, but the news articles stated that they were not, challenging the theory that Planck time is indeed the smallest measurable unit of time in the universe.
Light is said to move in very small but measurable quanta, or quantum bits. Time is supposed to move in correspondingly miniscule quantum bits. The bits fit in with Einstein's theory of general relativity, which describes physics at the large scale of the universe. Einstein said time, gravity and the fabric of space are different manifestations of the same phenomenon.



[Edited by - daviangel on August 17, 2008 7:04:54 AM]

The way I read the article it seems to boil down to "If basic particles do not behave randomly, then humans cannot behave randomly", which is not really a very surprising result. Perhaps the fact that they could express it in some formal system is Really Cool(tm), but beyond that it really seems to be pointing out the obvious.

Also, at least the linked-to article (who knows about the original paper) is a discussion of free will without discussing what their definition of "free will" is, so it's of questionable use anyway.

And to answer the original question: That the universe behaves nondeterministically from our point of view is really the most consistent and clear explanation of the things I know about physics (which isn't too much).

I also believe that free will is largely independent. Even if the universe were fully deterministic from our point of view, we could still have free will. (For any useful definition of free will.)

I don't know if the universe is deterministic or not. We will probably never know, as it would ultimately require measures to be taken while being detached from the system to measure (ie. while being outside of the universe).

Of course, if the universe is deterministic, then this means that we have no free will. Everything we do, and everything we will ever do in the whole history of humanity will be 100% predetermined, without any way of actually influencing it. All interactions between humans, whether one morning I decide to bring out the garbage or kill my neighbour, everything will already be set up in advance. That would be kind of sad, because it makes everything we do irrelevant in sense. But then again, the illusion is pretty good, and we can't change it, so who cares.

If the universe is non-deterministic, then the possibility of free will exists. But it does in no way imply that we have it. The human brain can still be deterministic, even though the universe is not. My computer here is perfectly deterministic, although it is constructed using non-deterministic matter particles.

I personally believe this to be the case, and lots of recent neurological studies agree. We are entirely a product of our brain reacting according to some predefined patterns in response to outside stimulus combined with our memory (which essentially makes our personality). We have no way of actually consciously deciding what happens in a certain situation, because our reaction is a product of deterministic processing of new and stored information. Then again, this might actually be the very definition of 'free will': we act according to our own personality, our absolutely unique memory and neuro-topography. Even though we might not have free will, we are still unique. And combined with non-deterministic outer parameters, this still makes human interaction itself absolutely unpredictable.

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Original post by Prefect The way I read the article it seems to boil down to "If basic particles do not behave randomly, then humans cannot behave randomly", which is not really a very surprising result. Perhaps the fact that they could express it in some formal system is Really Cool(tm), but beyond that it really seems to be pointing out the obvious. Also, at least the linked-to article (who knows about the original paper) is a discussion of free will without discussing what their definition of "free will" is, so it's of questionable use anyway. And to answer the original question: That the universe behaves nondeterministically from our point of view is really the most consistent and clear explanation of the things I know about physics (which isn't too much). I also believe that free will is largely independent. Even if the universe were fully deterministic from our point of view, we could still have free will. (For any useful definition of free will.)

I find all of this tricky to grasp - but hey, I'm sure somebody clever once said "if you think you understand quantum theory, you're wrong" or somethign like that - so I don't feel too bad about that.

What I find odd is "consciousness". Cogito ergo sum and all that. Is there a chance that e.g. a brain is able to do stuff that is non-deterministic even if particles are deterministic? Presumably not if brains are all made of particles.

So that leaves two options - either our entire thinking process is deterministic, or particles arne't. I'm all for the latter - because whilst not all the time, there certainly are times when I think I'm making my own mind up. But hey, maybe that's all wrong and we are just dumb brains following some very-very-complex algorithms and thinking stuff that's statistically driven.

Firstly, particles don;t need to be inherently random to create non determinism.

Take for example a pool/billiards table and a camera (it can be fun to do this experiment yourself).

Get a camera and put it on the fastest shutter speed.

While a game of pool is in progress, take a photo of the table.

From that photo can you tell if any of the balls are moving and in which direction they are moving?

(if the shutter speed is fast enough), the answer is No.

This is because the photo is a static image of the table. It gives you a precise location of the balls, but give you no information about how they are moving.

However, if you now put the camera on a slow shutter speed and take a photo of the table, then any balls that are moving will show up as streaks. However as the photo was taken over a period of time, then you can't give a precise position of the balls.

This very fact means that you can't know both the position and motion of those balls at the same time (you could take two photos, but things will have changed between them). In fact, it means that not even the universe can know both the position and motion of those balls at the same time.

Now, what if those balls are extremely light, so light that the photons from the flash on the camera will push the balls around. Now, when you take a photo you actually change how the balls are moving, and the only way to know how you changed how the balls are moving is to take another photo (which then changes how they are moving again!)

This is how it is with subatomic particles. Not only can the universe only know either their position or their momentum (the way the are moving), it also changes how they are moving each time they detect one of these features.

So even if they are non random, they can not be deterministic.

Even non random can be non deterministic. Coupled with the fact that the universe is a non linear system, it means that any small indeterminism can lead to large scale (exponential) non deterministic behaviours. Or in other words, Free Will.

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Original post by Edtharan So even if they are non random, they can not be deterministic.

Not entirely correct. While Heisenbergs uncertainty principle seems to induce non-determinism in the eye of an observer, should the entire universe be deterministic, then the event of observation itself was already predetermined (as well as its consequences). All alterations coming from an observation will therefore not influence on the deterministic nature of the particle. No free will :)

Try giving up an addiction, cold turkey, then tell me about no free will. However, I don't think there will ever be a way to prove it either way, 100%.