demagogue on 21/5/2025 at 21:46
Interesting. My tack is usually the other way around. Free will is deterministic. If I will my right arm to rise and it doesn't deterministically rise, then that's not free will either. I think people too often skimp on the "will" side of free will (thinking that free will isn't determined), and over-focus on the free side (that free means free of any cause at all; at the extreme that's just random white noise if time-step B has no connection to time-step A, and that's not free will either).
But anyway, my usual go-to way to explain my thinking is that I think it's the personal identity debate in disguise. Most modern types that believe in science are on board with events happening deterministically according to scientific laws (there's quantum indeterminism, I'll grant, but usually that indeterminacy of that gets washed out at the classical level. It's rare that an unexpected quantum fluctuation cascades up to change the classical level, although it sometimes happens, so I'm not against it in principle), but generally I think it's typically determined outside of ultra-rare weirdo cases.
The question of free will to me is, is it "me" that's doing the determining or "something that's not me". Free means free of causes that aren't me; I'm the cause. Of course it's the brain, if anything. But I tend to take the tack that it's fair to call all the inputs going into the decision "me", because it's account for "all the things that I care about", my values, personality, history, preferences, what I want to do at that moment. I'm the one that cares about those things; I don't expect neurotransmetters really care about them; they're just the vehicle to carry that caring stuff for me sitting at a higher level, even granting that I'm made out of the stuff.
When there actually is "outside" things taking over my decisions, like a neurological or muscular tic that "I can't control", or under the influence of a drug, or one of those rando quantum fluctuations that cascades, or somebody holds a gun to my head, then those are exactly the cases it's not fair to say it's me making the decision and I grant they're not expressions of free will anymore.
Pyrian on 22/5/2025 at 00:23
Traditionally, Free Will was defined as indeterminate, and indeed as opposed to determinism (while physics was deterministic). That was just the terms of the debate. If you redefine Free Will as deterministic - as indeed many have - that's fine, but you have to recognize that you're not talking about the same thing at all.
Nicker on 22/5/2025 at 03:50
Even just in this corner of the world, it doesn't sound that we are in agreement about the definition of important terms.
Briareos H on 22/5/2025 at 04:43
If a determinism falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?
Azaran on 22/5/2025 at 14:28
My free will is always prompted by something. External stimuli, instinct or primal needs, necessity, random thoughts, etc.
I just traced the letters 'free will' in the air with my finger to demonstrate that I have free will. But that action was prompted by my thoughts that arose from this thread, so was it really free will?
heywood on 27/5/2025 at 14:54
Free will is a squishy term. Autonomy might be a more accurate word.
Like Pyrian said, quantum mechanics destroyed the illusion of strict determinism. If another universe were created with exactly the same initial conditions as ours, it wouldn't be the same as ours. It could have the same fundamental laws and constants, and it may develop the same forces and forms of matter, and have the same large scale properties and similar looking structure. But it wouldn't have the same Milky Way galaxy, Sun, and Earth with humans on it just like us. 14 billion years of quantum dice rolls and chaotic particle and force interactions guarantee that.
Nicker on 27/5/2025 at 17:59
I still prefer limited agency to free will but autonomy is pretty good also.
Butterfly effect. There's just too many variables for the universe to be entirely scripted.
Starker on 27/5/2025 at 21:19
American Crypto
[video=youtube;26kLN1A05zQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26kLN1A05zQ[/video]
taffernicus on 31/5/2025 at 14:22
Now with google veo3 out, “eliza cassan” gets even more realistic
I would say Deus Ex HR and MD (which has Eliza in it) are very prophetic.
