Does Physics disprove the existence of free will?

So, your definition was incomplete then?
'Has to be alive' is in there too?

 

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I know that they are recording acts of will, moments of decision and choice, etc. The freedom involved is yet to be discussed.

I'm not interpreting them at all. I'm pointing out that they are not illusions, in the ordinary sense or the word - they do, in fact, exist.
And they are not determined by their substrate.

It is not.
No attempt by me to define "free will" (your term, not mine) appears here, for good reasons you continue to illustrate.
If I paid you money, would you read my posts as written?

They are identified - by knowledgable firsthand experts - as the patterns associated with willful decisions, conscious choices, etc.
And they are not electro-chemical in "nature". They are combinatoric patterns of other combinatoric patterns manifested in a partially electro-chemical substrate. (Snowflake patterns are not water in "nature". One can cut them out of paper.).
So are their "stimuli", often. Dreams are causal, remember?

Already dealt with, several posts back, the first time you posted that confusion.

If you are simply going to ignore the existence of logical levels and hierarchies of pattern and complexity of organization and so forth, along with all my posts in the matter, progress in this discussion will be slow.

Do snooker balls respond to being struck by a cue, or is that all an illusion from the point of view of quarks?

 

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I would contend if you are asking about a "clockwork claw machine"

you might be defining a "clockwork claw machine" as being alive

Hence I was seeking clarification when I asked

Since you avoided giving a answer but replied with a question I will repeat

Free will is a ABILITY to choose

I will leave you to reconsider your "clockwork claw machine"

Good luck

,

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This reminds me of the Lie detector machine
Yes brain patterns are detected (along with a few other responses) but but but the brain patterns cannot be classified as Lies

A lie detector machine does not exist

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"Nor is there any science in the answer - it is one of philosophy."

Saw this phrase early on, but would revise it to:

Nor is there any science in the answer - it is one of ignorance.

Science cannot investigate anything it can't measure, intangible things like love, charity, hope, etc.
Free will is definitely established by reason.
If I had a choice of 'living forever' vs 'playing GOD for 1000 yrs', my freewill choice would not have been the same as our original pair!

 

We have free will because it's an evolutionary advantage, from the point of view of evolution meaning an organism is "equipped" for survival.
It's hard to define what it is because it's a fundamental aspect of existence--a "will" to survive.

This doesn't change if we rationalise anything. It's similar to what happens when we try to understand time as a thing outside ourselves. So, where is it, what is it etc, might actually not be meaningful questions.

 

Sorry, are you suggesting that a clockwork claw machine could somehow be inferred as being alive?
Of the three words in there, two of them are unambiguously non-living terms.

If I say the machine is red, will you question if, by 'red', I meant 'green'?

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So, my question remains: what do you mean by "ability to choose"? What does this look like?

This machine could be set up in a number of ways to pull out a number of types of marbles from a bag. How do you determine, by looking at it, whether it has "chosen" or just been programmed to pick?

 

Is it fair to point out that we could equally ask whether living organisms are not also programmed even if the "program" can be viewed as self correcting** perhaps?

**there are computer programs now that do their own learning once they have been set on their initial "trajectory", would that be a correct interpretation?

 

That's kind of where I'm going.
How does one determine that something is exhibiting free will?
Contrary to Iceaura's claims, free will does not show up on scans.

 

I think I asked for a scientific setup to determine this one way or the other in post#105.
None forthcoming I continue to assume it is a philosophical rather than a scientific question.

Yes it is rather reminiscent of the 19th (and later?) century's attempts to weigh the soul at the time of expiration of the body .

 

The patterns associated with conscious choice, decision, and willed behavior, are identifiable in general.

Good question, if it's clearly asked.
But I'm not convinced we have got rid of the supernatural presumption yet - because you keep using "free will", despite your past difficulties with the term, and because this repetition of same old confusion followed:

which is just trolling, by now.
If I paid you money, would you read my posts as written - or is that simply beyond your capabilities?

As long as we're stuck in the supernatural woo, there's no way.
If we're willing to entertain possibilities such as - for example - that someone modifying their behavior on request - as a reaction to the meaning of a word - is displaying some freedom of will, then we have something to discuss.

 

How do we see this?? If we were to examine a moth, we would see the artifacts of stimulus and response too. Where do you draw the line?

I keep using free-will because that is the subject if this thread.

If you wish to posit something else, and you want anyone to listen you, you'll have to show good faith.

You are using that word incorrectly.

Calling you out on your equivocations is not trolling.

If you wish to make a clear distinction between free will and freedom of will and will - and wish to use them in further conversation - you'll first have to get them accepted.
I can't accept them until we have working definitions.

Until then, the subject of the thread has not changed, no matter how deplorable your behavior.

You blame others for your shortcomings. You cannot expect others to simply take every word you say as granted. If your idea is challenged, you must defend it. Insults don't count as a defense.

Straw man.
The only person talking about supernatural - again - is you.

So lay your case out. You've suggested a change in terms, but you just sort of seemed to assume it was granted, and now, when it's not granted, you make straw men, you throw insults. You fault your opponents for your own fail to make your case. For the moment, I have no obligation to grant it as anything more than an attempt to move the goalposts. Convince me otherwise.

You are exhausting my patience, hoping for civil discourse.

 

I think any definition of "freedom of will " is only likely to be validly applied to a combination of internal and external states. ("internal" and "external" being relative terms and lying on some kind of a continuum)

I don't think the notion of anything that could be described as an absolute free will is even worth considering.

Rather ,as I suggested earlier it is more interesting why (as I imagine) it is so common a belief that such a facility exists.

Of course I could easily be wrong and if someone strongly believes that they have this ability then perhaps that is so.....but they could never demonstrate that in any other way than theatrically I would suppose.

 

I don't assume it is granted. I observe that it would probably be a good idea, because you remain confused in a manner familiar to me - insisting, for example, on the inability to willfully contravene natural law indicating an absence of - your term - "free will".

This again?
We see the patterns of mental behavior associated with acts of decision and willed behavior in the research reports from people studying these matters in labs - as noted now several times.
We observe, also, yet again, that moths lack at least two logical levels of mental behavior that humans possess, that conscious human decision involves those levels - and that you keep repeating irrelevancy about moths in the face of all responses including specific examples, above, for some reason known only to yourself.

I blame you for misrepresenting my posts and making false claims about them. Repeatedly. After being corrected.

I don't have to get approval from you to use terms in the English language.
If you are unable to differentiate human will - an observed mental behavior, repeatable and intersubjectively verifiable - from freedom of that will - a property or aspect it may or may not possess - progress in any discussion of freedom of that will is going to be slow here.
As far as "free will", I'm simply recommending that you quit confusing yourself with the term - and I insist on you ceasing to attribute that term to me when I haven't used it. I made no claim that free will shows up in scans. Whether or not freedom of will is somehow visible in scans I have no idea - it would make a reasonable topic here, imho. Will itself is routinely observed, of course.

Bingo. The goalposts that require freedom of will to be supernatural, such as by positing Newtonian determinism as in conflict with it, need moving.

Not only exists as a concept, but is so firmly lodged in people's minds that they cannot be persuaded to view freedom of will in any other light.[/QUOTE]

 

It would be interesting to see if you are able to argue against anything that you don't have to first reform into a straw man to suit your narrative.
Alas, we won't find out in this thread.

 

To me the question could be better stated as:
Does 0.999... = 1
If the above is true then freewill is a myth. If false, then free will is possible.

 

iceaura, out of curiosity, what is your view of what was posted in #130?
Do you agree with the premises?
Do you agree that the conclusion is valid?

 

If your premises are correct then does it follow that our actions at any particular junction can comprise (with varying degrees of probability and provided they remain within the applicable laws of physics -eg too much thinking might cause an embolism) any action at all?

For instance ,my wife tells me she wants a divorce and as a consequence I , an Eskimo immediately set out to discover the cause of intestinal cancer in marsupials(probabilistically determined with no obvious connection between the mental input and output)

Where has the OP (probably) gone anyway?

 

I think it's irrelevant, essentially.

And the word "illusion" has no clear meaning in that context, unless (again) you are referring to the illusion that human will has some kind of supernatural power to contravene physical law, abrogate cause and effect.

Sure, you can interpret causality and so forth as implying that everything is "determined" - that makes sense, in the abstract. But that does not mean substrates determine patterns. They don't.

In the present context, that logical truth focuses attention on what it is that a determinist regards as determining something in particular: the decisions of someone who has been given verbal instructions in some situation, for example, or a dog that has been kicked while dreaming. Nothing in the properties of quarks is causal in such situations, notice. Biochemistry is not what causes the behavior being analyzed.

 

I do not.
I think it speaks to the very issue: a system built from determined components is itself determined, irrespective of how it might appear to our conscious selves.
Indeed it would suggest that everything we do is determined.
How is that irrelevant to the notion of free will?

I find the meaning that Sarkus previously detailed to be adequate: something that appears to be different to what it actually is.
How is that meaning unclear to you?
There is no mention of the supernatural, although you seem to insist upon bringing it in.
The illusion is that the will appears to have some freedom.
The logical argument is utterly relevant because it suggests that the freedom is merely an appearance.
How much more illusory can you get?

Abstract?
It makes sense in more than just the abstract, but in reality.
That we act according to how things appear, that we act as though utterly bought in to the illusion, is a secondary matter.

Where have I said they do?
Where does the logical argument presented in post #130 suggest such.
The system, complex or otherwise, has to be considered as a whole.
One moment determines the next.
I make no claim as to top down or bottom up but to whole affecting the whole.

The present context seems to be whether free will even exists, other than as an illusion that we all can not escape from.
What you are looking at is merely a matter of how the illusion appears to us.
While some are still looking at whether it is an illusion or not.