if you were to somehow revert the state of the universe back to last Saturday, — Cidat

So the chess playing program that uses a TRNG has free will?

What I'm saying is that given the same circumstances, a computer would always make the same choice. — Cidat

Let's say I played a game of chess; I started at 11:47pm, last Saturday. I was playing against my friend on a computer. It was a rainy night. I opened E4. So you're saying, now, what? That if I play again with my friend at 11:47 next Saturday, I might open with D4 instead? That's no different from the FFW of the computer using a PRNG. Surely you don't mean that last Saturday at 11:47pm, despite my having chosen E4, I can choose to having had chosen D4, right?

No, I think you mean something like, if we go back in time, and now it's 11:47pm, last Saturday, and I play again, then I could play D4. But that's a bit fake, because if I "go back in time" I'll remember doing so. To really be the same circumstance, it would have to be 11:47pm last Saturday. Which means, it's the time at which I played E4. There will never have been a time I played D4 last Saturday at 11:47pm.

Do you see what the problem is? It's easy to say those words, but what do they mean?

And no, computers are inherently deterministic machines, they produce the same output for the same input, so they cannot have free will. — Cidat

But if we take "choice" in a looser sense, this fits entirely with your definition. So if you want to have this discussion, I want to keep a thumb here. You don't want to call this free will, but, it does match everything you say, with a looser sense of choice; a perfectly sane one, but looser one. I'll just grant that it's fake; so we'll just call this fake free will, or FFW.

But as a side note, chess playing programs don't produce the same output for the same input, at least within the universe that is the game play board (that is, they don't move the same in the same game state). If they did, they would be useless, because it would be trivial to "solve" a chess playing program that played the same moves (that is, to find a game that wins, and to always play that game). Computers introduce entropy in basically two ways; they can use a PRNG or a TRNG. The former is deterministic, but just hard to predict; it maintains a state and usually has an entropic seed (like, the former state, or, the current time). But regardless of the source of entropy, the chess playing program only ever winds up playing a specific move. So in our case, it played E4 in this game. So E4 is the only actual game state that is ontic. This is true even if E4 was the result of a TRNG; the precise difference between the PRNG and TRNG isn't whether or not D4 is ontic, because D4 will never be ontic, because it will never happen; you cannot claim a thing to be ontic if it never is. The precise difference, rather, is whether the move E4 is the inevitable consequence of a prior universe state or independent of prior universe states.

So basically, you were saying that determinism doesn't really count as a choice (though there is definitely something at least analogous to choice that's going on here; after all, it's a perfect match to your description if we don't appeal to the unmentioned properties of choice you're now being asked to elucidate). So, okay. Stage 2. Let's toss the PRNG out, and use a chess playing program with a TRNG. Problem solved. Now does it have free will?

Argue against or for free will all you want, but — Cidat

I believe I did both.

don't question my definitions. I'm just trying to make him understand what we're talking about.

"Him" is me. So if you're really "just trying to make him understand what we're talking about", how about addressing the question "him" asked you instead of literally whining about the fact that he asked you a question.

Free will is the idea that — Cidat

That doesn't help; this is just the 7th grader overview. I'm looking for the bees knees of the meaning of the thing.

we have multiple options to choose from regarding the outcome of a particular situation. — Cidat

Let's take a chess playing AI program. On the first move, it can open D4. Or, it can open E4. It cannot open E5. It has "multiple options to choose from regarding the outcome" (e.g., D4 and E4; but not E5) "of a particular situation" (start of a game).

Thus, free will implies that freely willed actions could have been chosen differently. — Cidat

Take the same program. Suppose it does indeed open E4. That "action" (opening E4) could have been chosen as D4. It couldn't have been E5, mind you, because that's an impossible move. But it could have been D4.

Free will implies that the world could have looked radically different if we had just exercised our free will differently. — Cidat

...the game could have looked quite different had the chess program opened with D4.

So it sounds like you're telling me that chess playing programs have free will. Is that what you mean?

Oh, since you engaged me, let's destroy this real quick:

so people can feel security by believing their actions are beyond their control, freeing them from moral responsibility — Cidat

This is an appeal to motive. It's also a bit of a straw man; the main personal psychological appeal to rejecting free will is that it tends to grant you freedom from being responsible; there are less extreme situations, such as a person who is terrified that anything they do is wrong. The main personal psychological appeal to accepting free will is that it tends to grant you the feeling that you are in control; that your actions matter and that you can avoid bad things. The main interpersonal psychological appeal to rejecting free will is that it avoids holding people to standards you believe they can't realistically live up to. The main interpersonal psychological appeal to accepting free will is that it promotes people taking responsibility for their actions; e.g., if something bad happens and someone else did it, that makes it their fault (note that the interpersonal appeal may actually be used to avoid personal responsibility, ironically).

None of this has to do with what philosophers should be worried about, which is, what is the truth? So, your biased account of biases should be summarily ignored, especially here.

But what if we add sensors to the doll, so it can see, hear, feel, smell, and taste, like the zombie; — Samuel Lacrampe

Well, let's slow down a bit. Consider actually building a robot that does things the "right" way (that is, it's not tough and fragile). Now take just "see"; we could define that as ability to sense light; namely, "pixels" in a camera. That's obviously not enough though; we need it to be able to recognize things it's looking at, and not only that, but to recognize those things in real time. We do that when we see, for example. However, for our robot, we don't really need much more than this; the robot need not be conscious for example. So although we're conscious agents, the robot doesn't really need to be one to do this.

But as part of the mechanics of this robot, to make its actions effective, it does need to orient itself towards the high level goal state "clean the troughs". That requires a particular kind of relating of the things it "sees" to the goal, and its actions to attempting to attain the goal, and some basic world modeling such that it can avoid cats running before it, and so on. So the "what if" is that we can have goal oriented behaviors (like a stable version of "clean the troughs) with precisely this minimalist sense of "seeing"; it's more than just having access to camera pixels, but doesn't require the whole shebang of our visual experience. (In fact, there's a human analog; the rare person with blindsight can carry out intentional actions involving "seeing" in a not quite conscious way).

I thought we agreed that computers, being nothing but programs, cannot have intentions. — Samuel Lacrampe

No, we didn't agree on that. We agreed that computers, in following a program line by line, are not carrying out intentions by doing so at that level. (See example below with the shaky people).

People on the other hand can have intentions, and intentionally choose our own ranking of values — Samuel Lacrampe

The robot in cleaning up troughs is different than the computer in following its program line by line. The zombie in cleaning out the troughs is probably different than the robot, too; a hired servant or contractor that cleans up the troughs would be different still.

I know people who shake; there's nothing wrong with them, they just aren't "steady"... you wouldn't want them operating on you but beside that they're just fine. Maybe you would even say that have free will; they can certainly intentionally drive a car, while their hands are shaking.

But the wind-up doll, the person whose hands shakes, and the computer executing a computer program line by line have something in common... none of those things are exhibiting goal oriented behaviors in doing these things. Likewise, the zombie in cleaning out troughs, the robot in cleaning out troughs, and the shaky person in driving a car, all have something in common... all of these entities are exhibiting goal oriented behaviors.

Does this mean State A is fully physical or merely that some of it is physical? — Samuel Lacrampe

It means what it means exactly; if it's not specified, it doesn't mean it. That's why you can't possibly maintain an inconsistency in 1 through 5; it's your model of human action... namely, humans have free will which implies they are not fully determined (your words) which requires non-physical souls. But other than having non-physical souls, it's implied that you agree humans can actually exist.

P1.1. All that is fully physical is determined — Samuel Lacrampe

I think you misunderstand. You're trying to prove that physics is fully determined; you can't just hold that as a premise. That's begging the question.

But let me just try this a different way. I'll grant that we have free will, and we're not fully determined. So now we're good. I'll grant your premises too, and your argument; since we're not fully determined, and all things physical must be fully determined, then we're not physical. So the conclusion you want is, we have some non-physical thing, called a soul.

Banno, however, has raised an objection to this. He has identified a photon (and radioactive atom) as being not fully determined. Here's the problem... there's nothing to disagree with. What's good for the goose is good for the gander... a photon isn't fully determined? No problem! All physical things are fully determined? Okay, fine. There's no contradiction here; rather, we simply apply your second syllogism and wind up proving the photon isn't physical. Same with the radioactive atom decaying... it's not fully determined. Is that allowed? Of course it is, if the radioactive atom isn't physical. So, same thing... now photons and radioactive atoms are not physical.

In all honesty, I don't see a problem with this, except that you're going to have really long discussions with people who want to call photons and radioactive atoms physical. And to avoid such strange language barriers, might I suggest instead of using the word "physical", since all you really mean by that is apparently "fully determined", that you just use that word... determined.

But on the off chance that you do have a problem with it, I'd like to see a logical proof that photons are physical.

So you would say the original command to go clean the troughs is not intended by the zombie — Samuel Lacrampe

Not really; quite the opposite. As the zombie carries out the command, he is indeed intending it. The zombie picks up the shovel in order to clean the troughs. The goal of his action is to clean the troughs. That is the intention.

Would this therefore be different than a computer program which only goes through a programming code line by line with no intentions involved? Genuinely asking. — Samuel Lacrampe

Yes; it would be different. The zombie is an agent; it has to navigate a complex environment that it doesn't have full knowledge about. Imagine master without his zombie, but instead he is a master engineer, and wants to build a wind-up doll. The wind-up doll will go through the exact actions needed to clean the troughs; all built-in. Doesn't that sound a bit tough, and fragile even? If you accidentally have the doll rotated half a degree from where it has to be to clean the troughs, it will completely fail to; if the troughs are an inch off, you could have complete failure. An unplanned for cat running in your doll's path and it's again a complete and total failure. Someone hangs the shovel on the wrong peg, and you have to reprogram the entire wind-up doll. The zombie, by contrast, can pull this off quite easily, because the zombie's actions are oriented towards the goal state. That's what an agent is, and what a goal is.

The computer program you describe, insofar as it is just following the programming, isn't exhibiting goal oriented behavior; the "environment" it "navigates" by following its programming is insanely simple. This symbol goes in, clock ticks, this has to happen. That symbol goes in, clock ticks, that has to happen. There are no shovels on the wrong pegs to figure out are on the wrong pegs and adjust behaviors for, at that level. Now put the computer into a robot and have it clean troughs, and you might have to deal with goal oriented behaviors (at least, if you want the robot to be effective, and you're not prescient enough to solve the problem with the programmatic equivalent to "wind-up dolls").

I take the time to explain this because I think one of your listed premises is a bit confused.

In a situation with only one type of value, like choosing between chocolate or vanilla, then free will is not really involved; because free will or not, everyone would simply pick their preferred flavour, and that's that. Free will only applies at the "very beginning", when it comes to ranking our values in order of priority. — Samuel Lacrampe

But that just sounds like AlphaZero building its own valuation system, which it does deterministically.

The Laws of Thoughts are also called Laws of Logic. Take the Law of Non-Contradictions. If two propositions contradict, then at least one of these is necessarily false. — Samuel Lacrampe

Let me make this a bit more clear. I present the following dilemma to you:
1. At time T=0, the universe is in state A.
2. At time T=1, the universe evolves to state B.
3. At time T=k, the universe evolves back to state A.
4. At time T=k+1, the universe evolves to state C.
5. B!=C

This must be logically consistent, according to you, because it is logically possible. Specifically, it is logically possible if state A includes a being that has free will. However, you're also saying that physical laws must be deterministic, which this certainly does not describe. Let's represent that thusly:

6. State A involves the physical.

Now, 1 through 5 is logically consistent. But 1 through 6 is presumably logically inconsistent. Why? Incidentally, I read the phrase "The Laws of Thought are also called Laws of Logic" as demanding the burden of a logical proof... so, what is the logical proof that 1 through 6 is a contradiction?

Yes, we can also entertain the hypothesis that photons have free will — Samuel Lacrampe

You misunderstand. Free will => original causation does not entail original causation => free will. If a photon has just original causation, then it's not fully determined. We need never have photons with free will.

I still don't understand the distinction between volition and free will. — Samuel Lacrampe

Suppose there's a classic, old, voodoo style zombie (not a p-zombie) hanging around. The zombie's master orders him to clean the troughs; the zombie complies. The zombie's actions in cleaning out the trough are not involuntary... this zombie isn't having tics or shaking from a siezure, for example; it's identifying the shovel, intentionally grabbing it, and performing the commanded act. That's volition. But the zombie has no freedom not to obey the master's commands; so it has no free will.

It's not about complexity. — Samuel Lacrampe

That's fine, but your example took something like a desire (preference for vanilla), and added a second variable to it (cost). What is the purpose of having two variables involved in the choice? This is what I took away from what I read... my response to optimizing two variables was the fact that AlphaZero makes decisions among multiple variables. Loosely, if AlphaZero can deterministically judge multiple variables, then pointing out that I judge two doesn't demonstrate a break in determinism (i.e., this is solely about the argument... maybe my choices aren't deterministic, but we certainly didn't demonstrate it by saying that I'm weighing two variables... if that was not your intent, tell me what you think really implies there's indeterminism happening).

Are you objecting because there is a flaw in my reasoning, or merely because it seems I am telling God what to do? — Samuel Lacrampe

Yes, a flaw in your reasoning. The phrase is a reference (Einstein: "God does not play dice with the universe." Bohr: "Don't tell God what to do.") The error is in specifying how the universe should behave a priori, because you imagine it to be "logical"; what's really happening when you do this is that you're prescribing your preconceived notions onto the universe... hence, "telling God what to do". There is no solid a proiri reason that the universe must fit our preconceived notions of how it works.

Laws of Thoughts, specifically the Principle of Sufficient Reason, does not allow for random causality. — Samuel Lacrampe

I have no idea what random causality means, so I'm just going to substitute "random indeterminism". Determinism is the notion that for every effect there is a sufficient antecedent cause. PoSR is almost identical to this definition; it differs only that it allows "reason" to be used instead of "cause". But let's grant a charitable interpretation of free will here... compatibilist free will does nothing for your argument so we need LFW. To be sensible we'll invoke the notion of "original cause"; an agent having free will implies that the agent is an original cause of some event E. Again, charitably speaking, we might say this fits the PoSR; it's "allowed" if you will. But there's still the same conflict I told you about... if I, a conscious sentient agent, can be an original cause; how come a photon cannot be an original cause, or a radioactive atom?

Alright. You pick vanilla because vanilla tastes better than chocolate for you, and since this choice in taste is not voluntary, it must come from psychological history; and everyone with the same history would do the same. — Samuel Lacrampe

Why? The vast majority of humans have a unique genome. Human brains it's rumored have 100 trillion neural connections. And human males seem to find female humans attractive significantly more often than they find female turkeys attractive. So, yes; humans indeed are a highly social species, so nurture (for which "psychological history" is longhand) is very significant. But nature is also very significant; and even if you count development (phenotype from genotype) entirely in the nurture camp, there's plenty of nature to go around to explain different behaviors.

Now if that was the whole story, then indeed positing free will would be superfluous.

But that's a false dilemma, because for reasons mentioned above it cannot be the full story anyway. To make this argument you would have to prove a point you don't even believe... that we are tabula rasa.

But let's add to the example that vanilla is more expensive than chocolate. You then have to choose between two conflicting values: taste and money.

Making preferences complex isn't impressive. AlphaZero learned to play chess with no heuristics and, though there's still a tad bit of controversy about some particulars, it seems to have bested the prior best chess engines. Many chess experts who have seen sample games recognize the games that AlphaZero plays as "beautiful" compared to typical engines, FWIW. Now I'm not going to argue that AlphaZero is conscious or sentient, or on par with human agency (because, quite frankly, I don't believe it), but... imagine AlphaZero "choosing" which chess piece to move in a particular game; weighing variables that it literally "invented" a way to even valuate (read up on how it works if you're curious). AlphaZero is a program; it runs on a deterministic machine (I don't know; it could use entropy, but even if it does it could in principle run off of a CSPRNG). I've no idea how many variables of this self-learned valuation AlphaZero uses, but compared to my "choosing" to get vanilla versus chocolate, preferring the taste of chocolate, but weighing it against price; since AlphaZero can definitely beat the best human players hands down, I don't quite think that choice is as impressive as you're making it out to be.

And choosing between values is voluntary, and so is caused by our power of free will (or volition if you prefer).

I've no problem with choice, and no problem with volition; I just make a distinction between these two things. I'm agnostic on the free will question, though I can't take libertarian free will too seriously without new physics (and some better argument for why we should buy it than I've heard). That's not the problem here, though.

The problem I have with your argument can be described with two metaphors: (1) You're telling God what to do, (2) You want to have your cake and eat it too. (1) comes into play with how you argue that physics is fully determined; it must be, "laws of thoughts" demand it to be. That to me sounds not so much like an argument as it does an excuse not to give one. What's worse is that when it comes to how we behave, this rule suddenly gets thrown out the window; "laws of thoughts" demand physics to be fully determined; "free will" demands us to not be. That's (2). Even if logic did demand physics to be fully determined, how is it logic doesn't demand us to be? If we're excepted by free will how come photons and radioactively decaying atoms cannot be excepted? This immediately flunks my baloney detector test; real logical implications are invariant with respect to what they apply to.

I don't think a choice in outcome is necessary for free will. ... this would not take away my free will, because I can still intend to move. — Samuel Lacrampe

That is not a compelling argument. That you can intend to move demonstrates volition. That you have no choice by definition rules out free will. Essentially, you're conflating free will with volition, then arguing that you aren't by conflating free will with volition. You can call anything by any name you like, but when most people refer to free will it involves making some kind of a choice; and there are plenty who believe there is no such thing as free will, who have no problem whatsoever with volition. So if you want to speak the same language as these people, free will requires choice of some sort; and volition per se doesn't demonstrate it.

"Does Free Will violate the Principle of Sufficient Reason?"
I don't believe so. — Samuel Lacrampe

Okay, so let's back track. Banno says:

It's double slit experiments - nothing causes the photon to go left instead of right. It's atomic decay - nothing causes this uranium atom to decay now, but not that one. The list goes on. — Banno

Your response to that was:

I would accept the claim "we don't know what causes [...]", but "nothing causes [...]" is a logical fallacy.
It goes against the Principle of Sufficient Reason; which is one of the four Laws of Thoughts. — Samuel Lacrampe

I'm a bit curious then. If it's a logical fallacy to say that nothing causes the photon to go left instead of right, how is it not a logical fallacy to say that nothing causes me to pick vanilla instead of chocolate?

I would accept the claim "we don't know what causes [...]", but "nothing causes [...]" is a logical fallacy.
It goes against the Principle of Sufficient Reason — Samuel Lacrampe

Free Will enables some of our acts to be freely chosen, and therefore not fully determined. — Samuel Lacrampe

Alright, I'll ask it. Does Free Will violate the Principle of Sufficient Reason?

An act is called freely chosen when it is voluntary, intended, willed, as opposed to being accidental, fully caused by external forces outside our control. — Samuel Lacrampe

I think this is a confusion about the dilemma of free will. Volition is just an action with a goal. An intention is simply a goal that a voluntary action is directed towards. "Ordinary" will is simply about initiating a voluntary action.

Free will is supposed to involve choice, which is none of the above things. I voluntarily reach towards the chocolate ice cream after I deliberate about whether to get chocolate or vanilla.

Knowing your enemy is good as it shows you their weakness. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

There's the problem.

BTW:

As a Gnostic Christian — Gnostic Christian Bishop

...

Just reading the bible gave me my arguments — Gnostic Christian Bishop

...what's a Gnostic doing relying on the bible for his arguments?

There is no proof that there is no afterlife. — TheDarkElf

Well, obviously, but this essentially says nothing useful. There's no proof that there is no undiscovered species of mammal in Brazil, and there's equally no proof that there's no 800 pound gorilla in the core of the moon. Nevertheless, the former is fairly reasonable to believe; the latter is ridiculous. If I were to justify a belief that there's an undiscovered species somewhere in Brazil, but my only reason for believing it was that you can't prove it's not true, then I may as well believe in the 800 pound gorilla in the center of the moon.

Likewise, if there's a good reason to believe in the afterlife, then it can't possibly be the same reason to believe there's an 800 pound gorilla in the moon's core.

It's the same theory with another name — Gregory

"The same theory with another name" implies a two way lexicon. Mapping from B-series to Einstein's conception of time requires a revision.

The most profound thing someone has said to me on this forum was that there is no difference bewteen infinity and finitude. — Gregory

That's another fun thing; relativity has this. The measure of time is a metric; and there are "horizons". From a theoretical POV one person can measure an infinite amount of time to a horizon, and another a finite amount of time (the black hole scenario is one example). Just slipping this in whilst I disagree w you about the other thing.

Actually, McTaggart's landmark 1908 paper did not say anything about the A/B/C theories, only the A/B/C series — aletheist

Fair, A-theory and B-theory are strictly Richard Gale's coinage. But Gregory here is talking about something he is calling "B-theory" and attributing it to Einstein. In Richard Gale's coinage, McTaggart's name is literally in the title; A-theory is just a view of time like the A-series, and B-theory like the B-series.

Einstein posited a "block universe" in which time is the fourth dimension of spacetime, such that all "positions" in time are fixed along with all positions in space--consistent with McTaggart's B series (and C series). — aletheist

Not quite. In Einstein's theory, time is not "the" fourth dimension; it is "a" fourth dimension. The future direction of time depends on your reference frame (SR) and on how spacetime (which is a single entity) is shaped (GR; e.g. in black holes, the shape of spacetime is distorted so extremely that the time coordinate points towards the center).

To fit relativity onto this, you need some interpretation:

The B series is "[t]he series of positions which runs from earlier to later." — aletheist

That ordering is not always defined; in particular, space-like events have no time ordering requisite to call events "earlier and later" ala B-series or having a well defined order ala C-series. Time-like events, mind you, can be ordered, so they can fit. But it's also easy to have events X, Y, and Z such that X,Z is space-like, Y-Z is space-like, but X-Y is timelike. That's the biggest distinction; relativity basically gets rid of "moments". You only wind up with partial ordering; specifically, local ordering.

But for the third time I want to point out... nobody is discussing this, and Gregory's off and running calling B-theory Einstein's theory. Why? Because he wants to use the big guy's name?

B theory is just Einstein's theory — Gregory

Why do you keep saying that? What has Einstein's theories to do with B theory?

It is a matter of where we look for the truth, in a holy book or in nature. — Athena

I don't think it's even that. Ten pigeons are on the top of the roof of an apartment building. Below that, there are ten humans living on the top floor. The pigeons don't contribute anything to the human quest-for-truth project; suppose that likewise, those ten humans don't contribute anything to the human quest-for-truth project. Maybe five just aren't capable; bless their heart, they just don't have the mental capacity. Maybe the other five follow an arbitrarily crazy religion that compels them to not participate.

Then what exactly are we talking about, worst case? If we're supposed to believe that these five crazy religious people compromise truth, then what of the other five who just can't contribute... do they poison the project too? If so, should we start demanding the ten pigeons pull their weight? The biggest concern as I see it is that the five crazy religious people might actually talk to other humans, but if our concern for truth is that fragile, then IMO it's not genuine either.

What right had Einstein to put time into his equations? What do they even stand for if his B theory is correct? — Gregory

It sounds like you're confused. "B theory" is not Einstein's; it's McTaggart's, introduced in McTaggart's work "The Unreality of Time". In McTaggart's work, he also introduced "A theory" and the lesser discussed "C theory". Time in Einstein's relativity theories is just a coordinate; one with an observer-dependent "orientation" (analogous to how "down" has an observer dependent orientation for those on earth). Time as in the thing McTaggart argues is unreal has nothing to do with time as in the thing in Einstein's relativity equations.

I think you're thinking about this from a perspective that is too technical. — Echarmion

Too technical for what exactly?

Yes you can still arrive at averages that you can use as indicative metrics. But that will filter out those individual differences. — Echarmion

I don't doubt that other people are going to be different than me, but this line of argument (by which I mean arguing against science being able to study mind by focusing on how different we are) sounds more like a rationalization than a reasoned argument. Empathy's core is to "put yourself in someone else's shoes"; that can only possibly work if there's some level of similarity between you and the person you're empathizing with. Extrapolate this, and there should be similarities between you and at least a fair number of others. Reasoning a priori about this, maybe it's global, maybe it's diffuse, maybe it comes in clumps. These averages can possibly teach you how human minds work; help you categorize these minds-at-large, how those minds work, how different they are, what the categories are, and so on and so on. By learning how human minds work, it's even possible that you would understand a human mind a lot better; after all, isn't a human human?

Without that perspective, are you studying the mind, or merely behaviour?

I don't believe this dichotomy; it's like asking, if I look at a cup, am I seeing the cup or am I seeing light? In fact, in a sense, it can literally be like asking this... if I look at a man screaming that he is in pain, am I seeing someone who is in pain, or am I seeing light?

The problem here is that the light you see when you look at a cup still conveys information about the cup. We don't directly see cups either (in fact, even the light is several layers of indirection removed from the cone signals). So the fundamental issue that you're raising... that the mind is "hidden" behind a layer and we only "indirectly" see it through observing behaviors, doesn't really do much for me, because the same is true when you look at any object. I think the degrees of separation are a red herring; it matters not how far down the chain the thing you're observing is. What matters is what you can piece together down the causal chain from the information conveyed to you about that thing that is up the causal chain.

What do you think religious tolerance entails in terms of attitudes toward truth? — frank

Very little, if anything. I can imagine religious tolerance in a society that has little regard towards truth just as easily as I can imagine it in a society that has high regard towards truth.

religious tolerance, which is most definitely an American value, requires a certain amount of apathy about any victory of truth — frank

And why would that be?

As to how it looks: you might know from observation that someone is in a bad mood today. You use empathy to get a sense of how their mind feels. — Echarmion

I think I understand, but this doesn't really seem like it's addressing the same level as the burden carved out in the previous quote. Here's the issue as I read it:

the question is whether looking at observable effects allows you to "study" the mind, or whether you need to combine that information with unscientific methods, like empathy, to actually get a sense of the mind. — Echarmion

So here, you're using empathy to get a sense of how someone else feels. I contend that your example is non-scientific; furthermore, I could very well use empathy myself, and come up with a different conclusion. So we can conclude that empathy isn't a "perfect metric". (OTOH, mood is just one example of a mind phenomenon; visual percepts are another and, though they have the same kinds of issue, they're much more crisp... also, this kind of thing isn't unique to mind; even pregnancy tests have false positives and false negatives).

But I don't think you need perfect metrics to do science; to do science, all you require is indicative metrics. If our empathetic judgments are better than chance at judging mental states, that's enough to use them as measuring tools in double blind studies. Even better, after multiple applications of such methods are performed over a period of time, we could perform meta-analysis on studies to gain insight into whether or not empathy in such applications is a metric of at least something. Such use of empathy as a part of scientific investigations I would not consider unscientific.

Well if your understanding is not complete, what else would you apply to physics? If there isn't anything else, then whatever is beyond the scientific method is beyond any understanding whatsoever. I'd say that if we have understood all we can possibly understand, then our understanding is complete. — Echarmion

Let's use current science as an example; I'll make some fair generalizations about what we know. We know there's dark matter, and we know there is dark energy; but those terms basically mean "here be dragons"; they're fillers for physics we know is happening but cannot quite account for. We know QM works, and we know general relativity works, but we know they clash in certain areas as well. Given these examples, we know our physics is incomplete; there's dark energy but we know we don't know what it is... we have some speculations in theoretical physics but nothing quite demonstrated... and we know we don't know how to mesh QM with GR in the "correct" way, where correct means loosely scientifically demonstrated. There's no guarantee that employing the scientific method would complete our understanding of physics; but the lack of such a guarantee does not prevent us from using the scientific method to find out. So I would be happy if the physics we know appears closed, in the sense that we don't know we have such holes; but I cannot fathom calling this current state of physics complete until we at least patch the holes we know are there.

I did not give that answer though. — Echarmion

I realize that; but the OP is inviting the implications of that answer, and Nagase in my estimation is responding to said invitation.

the question is whether looking at observable effects allows you to "study" the mind, or whether you need to combine that information with unscientific methods, like empathy, to actually get a sense of the mind. — Echarmion

I'm not sure I follow. What would combining the scientific method with empathy to get a sense of the mind look like and, if someone did something like this, then how are they being unscientific?

I would just question whether we are studying "parts of the mind" or rather "manifestations of the mind". The difference being that if you can study parts, you arrive at an accurate and complete understanding of the parts. If you can only study a manifestation, that's not necessarily the case. — Echarmion

I'm having problems here. If someone were to tell me that, by applying the scientific method to physics, one can arrive at a complete understanding of physics, I would think that such a claim itself was unscientific. If it were false with physics that one could come up with a complete understanding of the parts, I don't know how to infer anything from it being false with mind; and if that's the case, then I really don't see the distinction you're pointing out.

I think that, in a way, this is begging the question. Can we study the mind by observing people from the outside? — Echarmion

I think the question begging accusation is a bit backwards. A reasonable a priori answer to this question is "possibly", or, "perhaps; let's find out". The answer, "no, because minds are private" is the dubious one; that is the answer that begs the question (assumes its conclusion).

The question boils down to whether the mind has observable effects from the outside and whether those effects can be used to infer facts about the mind. That minds are private in the way described in the original post does not suffice to entail that it has no observable effects that can be used to infer facts about the mind; all it really entails is that such methods cannot reveal facts about the mind "directly".

Nagase gave an example of studying infant behaviors in terms of the ability to relate stimuli. I can think of several other kinds of examples, some of which we already do; studying the efficacy of pain medications, studying the effects of optical illusions on perception; studying/classifying disorders of mind in terms of the disabilities of particular persons and by contrast to nominal persons without disorders, deriving facts about how capabilities of the mind are organized; studying nominal disabilities, such as cognitive biases, and deriving from such studies facts about how our minds tend to form conclusions and beliefs; and so on. These things fall somewhere on the spectrum of the scientific method from data collecting to forming theories based on the data, but there's no clear barrier to deriving facts about the mind using these types of observations and scientific approaches.

To me it's painfully obvious that we can indeed study the mind, by which I mean we can derive facts related to how the mind works, using indirect means and scientific approaches. What might be a much more interesting conversation than simply denying reality would be to explore what we could study by such methods and what we cannot.

We can't fully understand redness without having experienced it. Suppose you'd never experience either red or blue, but you knew all the physical aspects of these colors (the physics of reflected light, wavelengths, the mechanisms of visual perception...). I present to you 2 balls: a red and a blue. Can you identify which is which? — Relativist

This is kind of a tricky question; it's asking for an intuitive answer, but the intuitions don't necessarily hold. The real answer to this question is, possibly. A person who both has never experienced red or blue, and lacks knowledge of the physical aspects of those colors, still might nevertheless be able to distinguish red from blue; such an individual is merely qualifying for type 1 blindsight. Technically a person who has knowledge might be able to distinguish by some "trick", but persons with type 1 blindsight can distinguish by "unknown non-conscious means".

This leads to even tricker questions. (a) Does such a person experience redness non-consciously? (b) Could such a person experience redness non-consciously?

I view "mind" as shorthand for the sense of agency we all have, and a way to describe the thoughts that we happen to notice. — CeleRate

Interesting... that's somewhat similar to how I view mind, only I would describe it more in terms of what's useful at the agency level as opposed to the sense of agency per se. I think I generally get here from a different path though... more like a software engineer reverse engineering his mind.

Now we might have even more time to sit at the safety of our computers opining about such topics. — CeleRate

Well, the way I see it, on the topic of free will, everyone is an expert but nobody can agree. That itself looks a bit fishy to me; my gut instinct suggests that there are flaws in our assumptions (at least most of us) at play. (I suppose at some level this has to be true of everyone; but for me, I'm more interested in pausing here and just trying to find those flawed assumptions).

Experimentation reveals the orderliness of effects on behavior, and with proper experimental control, allows the scientist to predict, verify, and replicate. This further reveals principles at work that are then described with models that explain the observed phenomena. — CeleRate

That I would describe as replicable experiments; i.e., we get the same results when we repeat these experiments. To me the term "replicable effects" is stronger, suggesting that the effects themselves are replicable.

However, when stepping away from experimental settings and experimental control, and people casually observe one another doing things — CeleRate

...this to me sounds like it's describing folk psychology; and I would agree there are problems with folk psychology. I don't think folk psychology is entirely flawed, because it's demonstrably useful (theory of mind, for example, is critical for deceiving people... not necessarily unethically). Things like personality traits and such get muckier; e.g., we are susceptible to things like attribution bias... so I can buy a general criticism here.

This is a common misunderstanding. Psychology is the study of the mind. Although it is true that operant conditioning had its beginnings in psychology, it eventually became a field unto itself as the study of the self went from metaphysics, to logical positivists, to radical behaviorists in one of the lines of epistemological changes. The study of the mind became the study of behavior, with an entirely new set of tools and scientific methodology. — CeleRate

Wait... back up. What is a common misunderstanding?

According to multiple primary sources, the study of behavior is psychology. Wikipedia: "Psychology is the science of behavior and mind.", Merriam-Webster: "1 : the science of mind and behavior.", Random-House Unabridged is a bit more interesting: "1. the science of the mind or of mental states and processes. 2. the science of human and animal behavior." Per these primary sources, I interpret a field claiming to be a science of behavior as being psychology.

It sounds to me like you're using the terms a bit differently than these sources suggest. That's... actually, just fine by me. Let's say then the study of mind per se psychology, and the study of behavior we'll just call behaviorism (just as an umbrella term; we can call anything you like a branch of behaviorism).

So would you say that the mind does not affect behavior, that there is no such thing as the mind, or that the mind itself is simply a result of operant conditioning?

In the end, they ignore the simplest explanations (from demonstrations) that the schedule of reinforcement delivered at the slots selected the person's gambling behavior in a way that looks very similar to what happens when arranging those schedules of reinforcement for non-human species used in experiments. — CeleRate

One needs scientific testing. — CeleRate

Because different people experience different effects on their behavior, philosophical and psychological explanations often pay too much attention to the individual and too little to the conditions when trying to explain addiction. — CeleRate

I'm having some difficulty untangling what you're trying to say here. The demonstrations you're referring to sound like something akin to Pavlovian experiments. That in my mind qualifies as scientific testing, in particular, in the field of psychology. Where I'm choking is that you're partially complaining about psychological explanations on the basis that one needs scientific testing, but then appealing to scientific testing performed as part of a psychological investigation.

What experimentation shows through replicable effects on people's behavior is that the person is not the origination point for the choices they make. — CeleRate

Because different people experience different effects on their behavior — CeleRate

I'm confused. If different people experience different effects, then in what sense are those replicable effects?

it is "the ability to have acted differently" — chatterbears

I don't understand that definition. Let's suppose there's a universe exactly like ours, excepting that there's "the ability to have acted differently". What would that look like? It doesn't sound like the proposal is that we can actually retroactively change what we did... but the suggestion is that there's some distinction between that universe and our universe... ours being, one in which there is no such ability. And I have no idea what form that distinction would take, if any.

I would argue that there are 3 things that enforce your actions. Beliefs, Desires (or wants), Mood. — chatterbears

Not sure I quite understand this either. Let's take an example action... you typed stuff on a keyboard in English. To me, I would explain your ability to type in terms of your ability to interact with your keyboard; and to type in English as a result of your prior interactions with other English speakers.

We might could argue that belief is involved, but that sounds like an imprecise view. In order to type what you want to type, you have to hit the right keys. Since you're presumably doing so, then somehow you had to either learn the layout of your keyboard, or you're during the act searching on the keyboard for the letters. Either way it's more precise to say that you're interacting with the keyboard (whose precise layout was designed by the manufacturer) than it is to say you're just being driven by your beliefs about it. That you're typing in English is kind of the same thing, only it involves interacting socially with other humans.

Can you choose to believe in magical leprechauns? Can you choose to desire homosexuality over heterosexuality? Can you choose to be happy instead of sad? — chatterbears

This sounds like cherry picking to me. Your definition of free will has something to do with the ability to do otherwise. Your point is that we have no free will. But your argument is to point out particulars we can't influence. I don't think that matches the burden you selected... if you're trying to make the point that we have no free will, your burden is to argue that nothing we do is such that we had the ability to do something diferent, not that some particulars are such.

There is a possibility for indeterminism. It has never been demonstrated in a macroscopic system. — Malice

Oh, it's even worse than this; indeterminism hasn't even been demonstrated in microscopic systems. The common notion is that quantum mechanics demonstrates indeterminism, but if you peel that layer of the onion and look at it, it's not quite this simple. Whether QM demonstrates indeterminism depends on your favorite QM interpretation... though, the type of determinism you find in say MWI is a strange, quantum realist (and thus classical non-realist) type of determinism that just makes this all the more complicated.

People define free-will in different ways. And so they argue about different things. — Malice

Agreed, but there's also "more at stake" concerning free will, and also, "it's obvious".

The more-at-stake aspect can be seen two ways; there's psychological satisfaction with saying that we have free will, because it means we're in control, and we like being in control. Ironically, there's also psychological satisfaction with saying that we do not have free will, because it means we're not blameworthy, and nobody likes to be blamed. Both of these things have non-personal aspects as well; to say others have free will allows us to say that others have responsibility, so we can hold someone morally culpable (though there are those who assign moral culpability without their concept of free will as well; not as popular, but fairly represented). The opposite, to not hold people morally culpable, also has appeal for the opposite reason... it makes people victims of circumstance and/or accident. Both non-personal aspects seem to have to do with politics and strategy for how to deal with people who don't conform to rules. (For example, how much and do we blame addicts for their behavior? But certainly we blame child abusers for theirs... unless, their activities possibly are the result of brain tumors (real example))

The it's-obvious aspect comes from an illusion of expertise. That illusion is the product of our familiarity with the will; after all, we spend our entire lives making choices, we can observe ourselves doing so, and it kind of "comes easy". I claim that this expertise is illusory because what really happens that drives our choices isn't accessible to us in our "easy" self reflection; it's beyond the veil of what we can introspect (at least directly; I make no claims one way or the other for introspection being able to reveal things indirectly). And on top of all of this, there are people who confuse volition (action directed towards an intention) and choice (the selection of and initiation of an action from a set of alternatives).

But it's a really, really old question as well; older than our language. The ancient Greeks started to discover these questions as they formulated their ideas about human nature and natural law..

Let me offer a bit of deconstruction... this might actually help.

You know very well that free will is defined in terms of choice — TheMadFool

Let's pause here. In mathematics, a definition is used to determine what you're talking about; for example, we define lines as parallel if they are coplanar and have no points in common. This is a prescriptive definition; the definition tells us how the term should be used. By contrast, in natural language, we start by using terms; a lexicographist creates dictionaries by looking at how terms are used, then writes the definition from that. This is a descriptive definition; here, the definition serves to document how terms are used.

When it comes to the general question of how free works, I think we need to appeal to descriptive definitions; because people seem to disagree about given definitions. Furthermore, people's definitions of free will often conflict with how they use the term, and it's here that I want to emphasize a problem.

Something I just realized, perhaps misunderstood: if free will exists then every path to the future must have an alternative. If there is only one route to the future there can be no choice and where there is no choice, free will becomes meaningless as its definitional essence is choice. — TheMadFool

You spoke of alternatives and that's where I want to begin. I agree with you that awareness does one thing for sure - it reveals alternative pathways to the future. — TheMadFool

A lot of people describe free will in this manner; this is essentially the Principle of Alternate Possibilities (PAP). But people also say that it feels like they have free will; this includes both people who subscribe to PAP who believe they have free will and those who subscribe to PAP who believe they do not. It's as if they think these two things are identical.

But this is dubious; the thing we seem to have has nothing to do with alternate futures per se... there's kind of a "hidden theory" that connects the two, but that theory itself is questionable. Consider that at time T0, I deliberate between vanilla and chocolate. At time T1, I act to attain vanilla. And at T2, I'm actually eating vanilla. PAP would have us say that at T0, there are two T2's; say T2A where I'm eating vanilla, and T2B where I'm eating chocolate. Then at T1, I'm "picking future T2A". At T2, T2A attains, and T2B for lack of better terms "disappears". Now does it really feel like this is what's going on?

I would argue, no, it does not. We do not even feel, at time T0, that we mentally time travel to T2A, sniff it; then travel to T2B, and sniff that; then compare our mental time trips. We do not feel like prophets, prophesying potentialities T2A and T2B, nor is that part of our theory of mind for others. What we feel like is that at time T0, we are considering the potential T2A and T2B, as counterfactuals. The considerations feel more like something constrained by what we know and model; our theory of mind is consistent with this (consider playing poker, for example; we don't presume people know what hand we have when making their bets... we presume they have a type of perspective based lack of knowledge). In contrast to prophets, we feel like weathermen, forecasting potentialities. Having choices result from these forecasts does not require PAP; it requires only that the universe follows laws, that we can learn of those laws, and that we can apply that knowledge to make decisions.

So to answer your question here:

How would I know if you had the capacity to eat? By eating, right? — TheMadFool

...not necessarily, but in the case of eating per se, certainly. But we have eaten; we've eaten food countless times in our lives. Multiple times, we even agentively set about a goal of eating with a spoon, with a fork, with chopsticks, with fingers, and have multiple times managed to succeed in such eating. But also, we eat food, not bricks or nails. It's fair to use these past patterns to develop models of the world whereby we "forecast" that we can eat ice cream with a spoon, but not bowling balls with chopsticks; where said theories purport that the things we seem to be doing when we choose are actually real; without ever appealing to some future ontic potentiality, which doesn't really seem to have to do with the thing we do when we choose anyway. In other words, no, we don't require PAP; we simply require the universe follows laws, that we can learn them, that we can use this to formulate forecasts not prophecies, and that we can use these forecasts to drive a decision process to select one to enact.

Consider "The Popeye Argument" (because "I yam what I yam and that's all that I yam"). The idea here is that I am free if I'm the one that decides my course of actions. The argument (TPA) is that this is entailed when the thing that decides my course of actions is me; aka, "what I yam".

That S8 leads to S10 AND S9 leads to S10 is not a contradiction because S9 is an intermediate step to S10. — TheMadFool

Of course. That's point 3.

If someone were to say, given the causal chan S8 > S9 > S10, that S8 directly causes S10 then that would be a contradiction ... — TheMadFool

Of course. That's point 4, and point 4 is the one with the contradiction.

then it follows that we're not free; (a) we are automatons, each with its own (b) preprogrammed set of dispositions that will ultimately (c) determine (d) every course of action that we'll ever choose in the course of our lives. — TheMadFool

So against TPA, this has no teeth unless you're trying to make point 4. From this perspective, analogously, (a) is something like part of S9; and the argument is that (b), something like S8, is what (c) determines (d) my courses of actions, which is to say, S8>S10. To say that this refutes something like TPA is to say that it refutes that "what I yam" is determining my actions; aka, that it refutes that S9>S10. But that refutation would require the contradiction that is point 4.

I'm not sure you're claiming that you're arguing against TPA. But you're certainly arguing against something. And I can easily reverse engineer what you're arguing against based on what you're arguing... that would be that we cannot be something like "original causes" of what we are. What I'm curious about is how many people argue that to be free means that we're original causes of what we are.

I don't see the relevance to my argument in the OP. — TheMadFool

It's a similar point to TPA. Under deterministic assumptions, something causes our actions. The question, under TPA, is whether that thing is us or not. That's a matter of perspective, which to me, implies it's simply a language game. To say that priors "force us" to do something is to say that we aren't states in the universe, but rather, are enslaved by them; something akin to "my brain made me do it". To say that we "yam what we yam" is to say that we are states in the universe, and if that's the case, there's no distinction between our doing something and the universe evolving that way; something akin to "I have a soul, it's made of flesh". If we're states in the universe, then some other state wouldn't be us; it'd be some other soul, made of some "other" flesh ("other" meaning simply flesh in a different state).

(And FTR, I think it's a bit more complex than this; qualitatively it may be abbreviated as a matter of what our dispositions are, but in terms of determinism as an explanation of the world we live in, we're agents; as agents, we both affect and are affected by both "mere" world states and other individuals... so it's really more like a whole world state being a certain way evolving to the next world state, as opposed to merely "our predispositions" determining the thing we do).

We are automatons, each with its own preprogrammed set of dispositions that will ultimately determine every course of action that we'll ever choose in the course of our lives. — TheMadFool

Sorry, I've never understood this argument; it has always sounded a bit off to me. Let me overly simplify determinism just for illustration... we'll suppose states are contiguous, and presume "temporal locality", which is at least fair. So, for example, we have some state S8, that leads to S9; and S9 will lead to S10.

To me, this sounds like a kind of bait and switch; as if one is arguing: "(1) S8 leads to S9, inevitably. (2) And S9 leads to S10, inevitably. (3) By 1 and 2, S8 leads to S10, inevitably. (4) Therefore, S10 is not the result of S9, but of S8." ...with the bait-and-switch being (4) which to me seems to flatly contradict (2). I'm perfectly fine, mind you, with 3; that's not a problem for me. But the suggestion that S10 is "predetermined" (here, "preprogrammed") sounds like saying 4... that S10 does not in fact occur due to S9; otherwise, why bother with the word "predetermined"? To me it sounds very off... e.g., if there were multiple ways to S9... say, S8a, S8b, ..., S8n; then I would say how the state evolved to S9 doesn't matter... merely the fact that it did leads to S10, because S10 follows from S9. Likewise, I would say that S8k leads to S10 by virtue of it leading to S9 from which S10 follows. I don't know how to swallow the notion that S8k leads to S10 regardless of S9, or how to interpret "predetermined" (/preprogrammed) otherwise.

(Full disclosure; I'm agnostic on the question of free will; this point here is solely about determinism to me).

How would we choose our personality traits? — TheMadFool

It's not so clear to me where the separation here is; let's hypothetically suppose John's parents consider a procedure that would affect their baby. If they opt for it, John grows up to like chocolate. If they opt out, he grows up to prefer vanilla. So what is it that this procedure does... does it affect what flavor John will prefer? Or does it pick which John his parents would give birth to? Or is there a difference? How would you reconcile it?

Theories of mind indicate both voluntary functions and involuntary functions. — Enrique

Volition primarily is about goal driven behavior; you set about some intention to attain, then act to attain it. When I wash my hands and find no towels, I shake my hands to get water off; I'm setting about a goal, and acting to attain it. If my hands shake due to a tick, nothing is setting about the goal of their shaking. I don't think that conflicts with determinism at all; you can program robots to do something similar.

An astute reader will note that it's a case of following from your use(s) and showing that it leads to a reductio ad absurdum. — creativesoul

So where is this reductio ad absurdum argument that I've been waiting now 7 days for you and/or some "astute reader" to present?

Eyes do not measure. Anthropomorphism. — creativesoul

You're reaching. Eyes do this:

measure
7: To serve as a means of measuring.
// a thermometer measures temperature — Merriam webster

link

...and here's an example of you using that sense of the word measure:

According to this criterion, it would make sense to say that a mantis shrimp's eyes are measuring light frequencies and distributions... — creativesoul

So to dissect this more, eyes do not measure (m-w, entry 2, use 7) frequency components; and they do not measure (m-w, entry 2, use 7) spectral distributions. Instead, they measure (m-w, entry 2, use 7) equivalence classes of spectral distributions.

That is not a correct report of what I wrote. — creativesoul

Sans the labels, it's a direct quote. If you don't mean what you say, just say what you mean.

Mantis shrimp's eyes measure... what they measure. The question is what they measure. I define color in terms of what eyes measure in color vision; that's the colorimetric definition. If you're going to object to this, you need to phrase your objection in a form that actually means something, not just accuse me of equivocating by clumsily misrepresenting my assessment's implications.

If that were true then measuring requires only detection (3), reception, excitation, folding, and/or perception. According to this criterion, it would make sense to say that a mantis shrimp's eyes are measuring light frequencies(1) and distributions(2)... — creativesoul

That's incorrect. As you yourself say, "photoreceptors are just doing what they do". And what they do, with respect to responding to light, is send signals proportional to some amount of isomerization of photopsin molecules that they contain. That's it; nothing else. That thing is (3). And if (3) cannot distinguish between spectral distributions (2), then (3) cannot be said to measure which (2) you have. If (3) cannot distinguish frequency components (1) in a spectral distribution, (3) cannot be said to measure frequencies in a spectral distribution. (3) can do neither of these things, so it measures neither.

To reach your conclusion from the assessment requires conflating (3) with (1) and (2). My assessment contains no such conflating; that's all on you.

Please. I've given due attention — creativesoul

...doesn't quite seem so to me. Ignoring your flexing and crowing posts, the only thing you've demonstrated so far was a lack of understanding of what the assessment even is.

I'm still struggling a little bit here, particularly when I perform a substitution of terms with your proposed referents/definitions for those. — creativesoul

Okay, but I'm a bit confused why you're struggling:

Either the sheer number of photopsin events is equal to an equivalence class of spectra — creativesoul

The idea here is correct (though the phrasing's a bit strange; "equals" is a relation between two quantities; "equivalence classes" are things that can define an equality relation).

Think of this mathematically; here's a simplified model. Say we have 100,000 photopsin molecules around for a particular photoreceptor. About 20,000 isomerize... that is the "shere number"; 3x. That suggests there's about a 20% chance each would isomerize. 2a would cause that; so would 2b. So there's an equivalence class of spectral distributions defined in terms of this effect, and that's what we measure with this photoreceptor. That 20,000 number is all we get; that's the effect; it doesn't tell us which spectra, just which equivalence class the spectra falls into... the class of spectra that would have about a 20% chance of isomerizing each of our photopsin molecules.

With three photoreceptor types, we get three such numbers; 20,000 of these, 30,000 of those, 25,000 of the other. That gives us more information, but still, there's an equivalence class of spectra defined by what thing has a 20% of isomerizing the first, 30% of the second, and 25% of the third. (Note that percentages are artificial; they are ratios per-hundred. We've already got a t for the "per-t"; that's the number of each photopsin molecules total. The percentages just help to think of the canonical form of ratios like this). That's what color is.