The are two ways to have social order, culture, or authority over the people. Do you agree or disagree with that? — Athena

I guess i agree if i had to put it in those terms (culture or authority), but both those terms imply some external force or influence imposed on an individual. If we can get rid of this "externality" of perceiving others as apart from us then new healthier more peaceful forms of social order would emerge not based on silly cultures and external force by arbitrary flawed power hungry psychopathic individuals.

The hive-mind takes care of this problem by taking the collective and transforming it into a "composite individual". If you and I were right now linked to each other in a hive-mind situation, then you would not be able to keep secrets from me and vice versa, you would not want to hurt me because you would feel it too and vice versa. You can call it a new type of culture if you like (hive-mind culture). This is a wholly different situation compared to what we have always been familiar with, which is why traditional governments and laws will become obsolete.

Do you need a law or rule, or someone to tell you not to cut off your left arm? No i don't think you do; The hive mind will feel the same way about itself.

The only goal or job a government needs to perform is the healthy maintenance of the population; to protect, to provide resources, and as much freedom as reasonably possible for every citizen (homeostasis). — punos

The point is, who or what, is responsible for your well-being and the well-being of those we share this planet with? What are the boundaries of responsibility? — Athena

That would be the global cybernetic AI-Human hybrid hive-mind. In other words everybody including the AI will be responsible for everyone's well-being. The main responsibility of the whole system is to keep a stable homeostatic state throughout the whole planet and or solar system, in much the same way an organism takes care of itself. At this point the whole Earth would be a cybernetic organism entity concerned for the well-being of all it's parts.

A democracy is rule by reason and making sure that happens is as simple as universal education for good citizenship in a democracy. — Athena

democracy = late 15th century: from French démocratie, via late Latin from Greek dēmokratia, from dēmos ‘the people’ + -kratia ‘power, rule’.

A democracy is rule by people, and ruling people will always be the problem, Plato describes the problem with democracy in 'The Republic'.

any government controlled by humans in power positions will always eventually slip into some despotic state — punos

I think that democracy as we know it is actually a preliminary development that foreshadows the full development and implementation of a global human hive-mind system. Social media and BMIs will be part of this final evolution of a hive-mind, where humanity can finally be as one, united and mature as a global species. People will be able to feel each others pain and suffering thus engendering a mutual compassion among all connected ("One for all and all for one"). Symbiotically Infuse the AI into this hive-mind and the old ways of governing with laws will be no more needed. This can be the ultimate form of democracy if we do it right or the ultimate form of tyranny if we do it wrong (50/50).

And what of liberty? — Athena

The only goal or job a government needs to perform is the healthy maintenance of the population; to protect, to provide resources, and as much freedom as reasonably possible for every citizen (homeostasis). — punos

My main point really is that any government controlled by humans in power positions will always eventually slip into some despotic state. AI i believe may be the only way out of our own corruption, and self-destruction; people should not be able to govern other people, but they do need to be governed by something.

Probability of despotism (humans vs AI):
------------------------------------------------------
Humans in control = 100%
AI in control = 50%

I think the type of governments that people have known since time immemorial will probably all become antiquated relatively soon; the big difference now being the digital information revolution. I imagine the ideal future world government will be a worldwide cybernetic system responsible for equitable and balanced resource distribution in an environmentally sustainable way. Most or all work will be performed by robotics and AI producing anything we or it might need. Money will not exist since it will be a resource based economy. Laws will be as simple and as general as possible; no killing, no stealing, etc..

Governments should mimic nature as much as possible in my opinion, and should resemble how organisms are organized and function. Biological systems are cybernetic systems, and in the same way our governing systems should be cybernetic. The only goal or job a government needs to perform is the healthy maintenance of the population; to protect, to provide resources, and as much freedom as reasonably possible for every citizen (homeostasis).

All governments up until now have all become corrupt in some way or other, and i believe the reason for this consistent tendency towards eventual corruption is mainly due to human control. Remove people from political positions of power by replacing them with objective systems such as AI. An unbiased AI with perfect knowledge or information about the social system, that can not be bribed or threatened would be the ideal governing system (as long as it's done correctly).

cybernetic:
the science of communications and automatic control systems in both machines and living things.
from Greek kubernētēs ‘steersman’, from kubernan ‘to steer’.

You're not paying attention. Merry Christmas. — Olivier5

You're probably right, and happy New Year. :-)

Everything in time is created and destroyed in due time. If meaning was at any point created in time then in time it should be destroyed or in other words forgotten. The potential for meaning on the other hand always persists with time, which means it can rise again in due time.

As long as humans exist then human meaning will also persist although it may not persist in pristine form. The original meaning may be lost, mangled, or dead, but memes reproduce and adapt to new minds where the pressure of evolution holds as well as in any other place or time.

Some or perhaps most of the meaning held by prehistoric people about things in their world is completely and probably irretrievably lost today. The meanings or words from dead languages we've never even heard about, extinct religious and cultural systems of meaning are no more. Meaning will come and go, but it always keeps on coming and going.

One way to simplify these debates is to do one simple thing. Ask the other person you're debating what would need to be true or false in order to bring them to your side of things. If the other person answers that question and vice versa, then they both can get to work more effectively on addressing what really actually matters to the question at hand.

Just to clarify. When i speak of the environment as an organism, or society as a super-organism (like ants), etc.. i'm really not being metaphorical, i am being literal. The literality of my "metaphorical" statements are a result of my perceiving the wider system i'm embedded in as one system with a complex but singular will composed of the average of all the wills within an arbitrary boundary. To remove the arbitrary nature of selecting among many boundaries, one should seek the widest or most inclusive boundary to gain the most holistic (holy) perspective.

Explain to me why it should come from below. — Olivier5

Because everything has a ground on which it stands. You're talking about building castles in the sky on top of clouds. You think it rains down without the ocean first rising as vapor and condensing to fall from above. You think that ocean just decides to evaporate and make rain for no reason, isn't that the sun's fault? Do you think the sun came from the gods, and not from the force of gravity that compressed a cosmic hydrogen cloud into a ball of fusion?


These info-graphs may help illustrate, maybe:





What happens if you remove one of the layers of the pyramid?


Now you explain to me why it should originate from above?

He is his brain and nervous system, though. So if his choice was determined by the specific activation weights and thresholds in his nerve cells as his sensory signals propagate through the system, then his choice was determined entirely by him. — NOS4A2

Well yes, i agreed with him that it is not false to think of it that way, but it's not the whole story either. There are more expanded perspectives that include more than just the singular organism or self, perspectives that include the environment as a whole system and an organism unto itself. From that point of view the will of the system is distributed over a wider and more expanded area. Will has a quantum nature, that is to say that will has a "particle/wave" nature. The perspective can be arbitrary, but i believe that the deeper and more expanded the perspective that includes all the emergent layers as one thing yields the truest point of view.

The debate succumbs to a category error as soon as we start abstracting the self into different ways of being, like the conscious and unconscious, mind/brain and body, and apply selfhood to one aspect and not the other. It results in something so convoluted that it is a strange wonder why anyone even bothers. — NOS4A2

I agree, which is the reason why i try to simplify the problem and bring it down to a lower level of abstraction that can be examined more clearly. The conscious mind or the self is a complex abstraction from more fundamental parts. Consensus can't be reached without first establishing some sort of stable standard of meaning. A significant portion of my interest however in this has a lot to do with how the communication breakdown occurs particularly with topics like this. It somewhat reminds me of how God in the Bible confused the language of the builders of the Tower of Babel, inhibiting their ability to understand each other.

He wills the blood to move just as much as he wills his arm to move, as he always does and must do, with the entirety of his living being. — NOS4A2

Can he make his blood stop circulating just by his will? Can he decide to be sleepy now, or thirsty? Can he feel happy or sad at will? There is a lot that is involuntary in the body, and it seems that those things need to be working before any voluntary action can develop. The majority of what we call 'self' is not under the control of the part of our mind that makes conscious decisions. It is a very small subset of the whole 'self'. There are many other lower smaller selves inside every self. It's selves all the way down, and all the way up like nested Russian dolls.

No appeals to “laws of physics” and other metaphors need be invoked. — NOS4A2

I agree with Einstein when he said "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler”. Everyone has their own idea of what simple is i suppose, but what does an explanation look like if no laws, principles, rules, or even metaphors are allowed? In what terms are we supposed to speak about it if not in the terms of what it stands on. This is what it means to 'understand' a thing; to stand under the thing that the thing stands on is understanding it. You want there to be a 5th floor without the ground of the 4th floor, and so on. Einstein also said that “We cannot solve problems at the same level of thinking that we were at when we created those problems.”

Yes, but the point I am making here is that chirality makes no sense at the atomic level, it is an emerging property of molecules. So the laws of chemistry are not derivable from the laws of physics. — Olivier5

That doesn't follow. If not the laws of physics then from where would chemistry be derived? It just exists on it's own? What would happen to molecules if one were to eliminate the force of electro-magnetism? What would happen to atoms if one were to remove the strong force from existence? Are you saying that everything in chemistry would continue to function as if nothing was changed?

The shape of a particular molecule is not "contained" in or determined by its atoms. That is to say, one can construct several different molecules with the same atomic elements. And this shape is causal, it has consequences. There's a whole science on this, called stereochemistry. Check it up. — Olivier5

I know a little bit about stereochemistry, but you're making my point for me. A molecule as you say is constructed (structured) from atomic elements and it's CAUSAL as in cause and effect or consequence (your words). Structure affects what chemicals can do, and chirality is just a type of structure, or pattern in which atoms can connect to each other. They can't just connect however they want, they have a constrained set of possible arrangements, and the specific environmental conditions determine which arrangements are selected and actualized.

definition:
consequence = a result or EFFECT of an action (CAUSE) or condition. (in other words cause and effect)

It's an unprecedented situation, I don't think they have anything like that yet — khaled

LOL :lol:

Soft. Though I think you mean weak vs strong. — khaled

Oh right.. sorry about that.

But it seems we've reached agreement! A rare sight on this site. I don't see anything in your reply that I disagree with. — khaled

Do we get an award or at least a certificate of completion?! :smile:

This is the only thing in your post that I disagree with (also the animist bit about the universe having desires). In practice, you cannot derive chemistry from physics, and you cannot derive biology from chemistry. Each level of organization had its own rules and ways, that aren't reductible to those of the level below. — Olivier5

How do molecules form? How can atoms form molecules yet at the same time have no effect on the molecules they form. If a molecule does something it is because of the combined effect of the atoms that make it up. There is no molecule apart from atom. Molecules can only be understood in terms of their atoms, or what else could you refer to in speaking of molecules. The charge of a molecule is the charge of the atoms together as one thing. The saying goes "the system is more than the sum of its parts". Water a molecule acquires the quality of wetness that does not exist when hydrogen and oxygen are isolated. Wetness comes from the emergent interaction of water molecules which is governed by the atomic charges and bonding angles between them.

Where does the quality of wetness come from in your view?

This is a very important principle of emergence: the rules too are emerging, not just structures. — Olivier5

Form follows function, and structure is form or information. With new emergent structures come new emergent functions or rules as you say. So yes the rules also evolve but only because structure evolves.

The error you are making is very common among materialists: you assume, for no particular reason, that causation only works "from bellow". There is no reason for this assumption, and it can be disposed of. — Olivier5

I don't think it's an error, and i'm not a materialist either. Explain to me how causation can come from any other place than from below. Tell me of a case where causation starts or comes from above downward. The only way i can see causation coming from above is by "causal reflection" which i described in a prior post, and is my explanation for the subjective feeling of free-will or free-choice.

If there is no reason for this assumption then is there a reason for assuming the opposite? If so what is it?

Yes. And this is the fundamental difference between us. You seem to think that free will has to be some sort of voodoo black magic capable of disobeying the laws of physics, I just think it is an emergent property (or "pattern") that certain things have.

Obviously if you're looking for physics breaking voodoo black magic, you won't find it anywhere. — khaled

I'm not looking for voodoo science, but i appears or seems to me that people that believe in free will are believing in voodoo science. I'm just trying to dispel in others the notion that there are such things. I you think free-will is emergent then to understand a little better your stance can you tell me if you believe it's soft or hard emergence?

I do not believe in hard emergence, only soft emergence. Hard emergence is like voodoo science in my opinion.

If you agree with this:

The only difference that it can possibly be is just a more complex way of processing information, a more integrated way of processing information, than is possible with lower intelligence. — khaled

Then it seems that we have the same definition of free-will except that i just call it 'will' instead, but i think you are looking at it from a high level human and personal point of view while i'm looking at it from a low bottom level point of view. If one wants to understand exclusively the human world of subjectivity and interpersonal relationships and things like that then your perspective is probably appropriate for that purpose, for the most part. My purpose on the other hand is to understand the universe for what it is for itself from the perspective of the universe itself, the lowest level possible at the core of it all, where everything begins and ends (alpha and omega).

But either way, we oftentimes assign actions to these patterns. For example: "The republican party destoryed the white house", even though it was spefic people that destroyed the white house, nay, specific pieces of flesh moving at the whims of chemical reactions in more complex pieces of flesh, nay.... you get the point. We can keep digging to lower levels, but oftentimes we assign agency to higher level things. — khaled

What you say in this quote reminds me of how actually societies are organisms one order higher than human organisms. Micro-organisms make up and constitute organisms, and organisms make up macro-organisms.

Observe how our freeways resemble and function like veins and arteries transporting all manner of things around the system. Notice how our electrical transmission lines resemble a nervous system along with the internet as a giant distributed neural network (brain), or how our mining operations are like the digestive system, and the factories are like the organs that produce commercial products like an organism might produce organic products for the body of the organism. Is money a type of higher order blood for a macro-organism. Why do we call companies organizations, because they serve as organs of different types. Why is it that in business law corporations (related to corporeal 'flesh') have rights just like a regular person could. A corporation is an artificial person, and everyone that works in that corporation is a cell or tissue in its organization. I believe that these nested patterns are how the universe works to produce higher forms of consciousness and intelligence with higher and higher capabilities (like free-will perhaps). In this context what is the will of Apple corporation, or the will of a government 'body'.

Artificial intelligence is the emerging free-will (from its own perspective) of the system as a whole. It is still developing like a baby in the womb, but its getting there fast. All of it comes from the activity of human interactions in a cultural context.

This is just not true. Indeterminism is fine with determination existing, it just says that not every event is predetermined. — Olivier5

This is the way i think of determinism and indeterminism together in the universe. I will begin my description at the quantum foam level where many undetermined things happen for no real reason except chaos and randomness. The reason there is no reason is because there is no structure, information, or stable structures except for fundamental particles popping in and out of existence (matter/antimatter production and annihilation) almost simultaneously. This is where new stuff comes into the universe, simple little particles of minimum information frozen in energy. Some of these particles under certain self-generated chaotic conditions are able to maintain and remain without annihilating with its anti-partner.

The indeterminate aspect of the universe does not 'like' having these particles floating around and uses the principle of quantum entanglement to tag all particles (with a charge) in order to bring them back together what was once separated in the correct order (a sorting algorithm) to annihilate (rebalance). Different particles of different energies and properties but with different charges can come together without annihilating and forming the first composite particles like atoms.

After a enough atoms are formed (Hydrogen some Helium, and a little bit of Lithium) under the the force of gravity (an algorithm meant to keep things close together enough in an effort to bring things back to zero or balance). Once the first stars form the conditions arise where simple hydrogen atoms can fuse together to make more complex atoms with denser energy and information content (higher order structures). The star eventually explodes from pressure imbalances in its interior due to reduced energy output from spent fuel (Hydrogen).

The new and different heavier atoms are flung into space to once again form clouds of atom dust, until this atom dust begins to repeat another gravitational collapse but mixed with new hydrogen mixed in from other supernovae and remaining primordial Hydrogen. This results in a new 2nd generation star with a new development that didn't exist before in the first generation of stars. Planets made of a wide mix of these new atoms producing novel environments for new processes impossible in prior conditions.

Planets with their lower temperatures allow for these complex atoms to form new types of bonds among themselves giving rise to the first molecules, which eventually through the process of chemical evolution gave rise to the DNA/RNA molecules so important for the emergence of biological life in the form of complex molecular arrangements we call cells.

Cells are responsible for the first ecosystems which increases the speed at which evolution progresses. Complex symbiotic partnerships between different cells form the first multicellular organisms. The multicellular forms were more successful at survival. The hyper development of the nervous systems of some of these creatures in specific environmental niches began to increase to the point of the appearance of mammals, but specifically in apes and a few others.

The complex social systems that apes developed through evolution and an eminent opposable thumb were the factors that selected them out of the rest to develop into mankind; an intelligent tool using organism with the new capacity to think outside their own instincts, and process complex information through external network nodes outside themselves (other people or society) through complex language.

The emergence of this complex human society formed the first cultural structures beginning with shamanism, then more classical types of religion, this developed into philosophy and eventually science.. the peak of our current phase of development. Government and politics emerged from our early religious social constructs.

I'll stop here, but the point of this was to show how from indeterminism comes determinism and in general terms how determinism picks up where indeterminism leaves off. It was just a very simple and general description of the process or pattern that the universe follows. All of these levels of development were produced by the layer directly under it, determined by the rules of that system layer. There is no reason for any free-will to be involved in any of this. Unless you mean the free-will of the universe itself, but i'm sure that's not what most people mean when the say free-will (it's the personal version of free-will).

I agree, and that is precisely the indeterminist view point, which states that some event are not predetermined, and others are. So you are not a determinist after all. Determinists consider that every single thing that happens was predetermined from the time of the big bang. — Olivier5

I am an indeterminist first and a determinist second. What i am fundamentally trying to say is this:

Please notice that free-will is logically inconsistent in any case whether deterministic or indeterministic. You are not grasping the actual problem. It does not matter if you are arguing for determinism or indeterminism, the logic doesn't add up. In one case determinism: things are predetermined from the beginning and you don't have the freedom to deviate. In the other case indeterminism: things are undetermined and there is no determination, meaning that free-will can not determine anything in that system. If not through a deterministic mechanism how does free will determine anything? — punos

This is fundamental:
determinism = no free will
indeterminism = no free will
indeterminism + determinism = no free will

Do you understand what i'm saying here?

The issue is that you think free will exists outside of activations of nerve cells. That since I did something because of said nerve cells that must mean I had no free will. I do not know why you think that unless you actually tell me what you mean by free will. Because I believe that "What you just did was due to nerve cell activation entirely" and "You freely willed what you just did" can both be true. — khaled

I don't believe in free will inside or outside nerve cells. It's just a complex causal effect of energy and information that has been running since the beginning of the physical determinist universe. In simplest terms as i put it in a recent post on this thread; for me "free will" means "indeterminate determinism", which is a contradiction in terms canceling each other out resulting in nonsense.

The only way i can reconcile those terms into a meaningful phrase is to say that; free-will exists in the sense that everything that happens in the universe is actually the WILL of the universe (an entity unto itself), and the impossibility of anything outside the laws of the universe (its WILL) interfering with the normal and natural unfolding of determinism is what i would call free-will.

Will is what the universe will do by the power of its own physical laws, principles, and forces at every level and corner of existence. Determinism is a result of the WILL of the universe, it emerges out of indeterminism (infinite potential). In evolution for instance natural selection is a choice performed by the universe from among a constrained set of options. Charged particles have the "intention" to move away from like charges and towards opposite charges, a choice performed by the WILL of the universe through the force of electro-magnetism. The free-will of the universe propagates throughout all it's structures through cause and effect including us, imbuing us with its WILL. Since we are part of the universe and not separate; what we do feels perfectly natural and uncoerced from a subjective perspective. That is why we also feel that we have free will, because it's not our free-will it's The Free-Will that we are all intimately involved in.

The fact that you put it in quotes shows you know that's not how people use coerced. No one ever said "I am coerced by gravity to stay on the ground". Coercion is done by other intelligent creatures through force or threats. — khaled

Yea that's probably my fault since i reduce meanings to their most general sense to make it easier to do pattern recognition. That is mainly why i put it in quotes so as to not take its meaning so tight fitting. Etymologically 'coerce' means to restrain by another. The meaning can be used in other contexts much as poets do; sometimes using a familiar word in an unfamiliar context can yield certain insight. It still doesn't change what i mean though.

I raised my arm right now. That was freely willed. You will say "Ah but that was because of nerves and yada yada". I will say that those two are not incompatible, since it was an uncoerced act. You will ask for another example. — khaled

Are you saying that free-will only happens in humans or animals. What i am trying to do is remove as much noise and complexity to where more precise observation and analysis can be performed. I asked if you believe atoms have free will for this very reason.

So what is it; do atoms have free-will?

So, are you saying the person IS his atoms and molecules, or is "the system" or "pattern" of atoms and molecules? A classic thought experiment to highlight the difference: If a teleportation device dematerialized your body, then rematerialized it elsewhere identically, is that new body "you"? — khaled

A person is really a system of nested hierarchical patterns of energy and information. A person needs both to exist; energy is needed to actualize information. Information can not exist on its own, it is dependent on energy to hold or carry it. The combination of energy and information is called matter. From a religious perspective one can say that energy is spirit and information is soul and together they form the whole body system we call a person.

If i were to teleport to another location it would not be the exact same me before teleporting, but the new me wouldn't be able to tell any difference (unless something drastic happens). What the new me doesn't know is that i was just copied and the original remains at the original location; so which is me the copy or the original? Remember to consider Heisenberg's uncertainty principle in that the teleported version of me is not exactly a perfect copy. Even if it were an exact copy, the difference in location of my original still being around would give us instantly different quantum 'signatures' aka different identities in respect to the universe. Also, as soon as my copy walks off the teleporter he will acquire a unique identity by virtue that from that point on he has different experiences.

However if there was a fat guy that lives in the north pole and hands out presents every chrismas everywhere in the world, then yes, santa claus would be real by that definition.

Similarly, if humans were able to do things without coercion, free will would be real by the definition of "uncoerced will" — khaled

Yes a definition in and of itself is true in reference to itself, but not in reference to actual things in the world unless positively correlated through observation.

As for atoms and cells and so on, no, because they don't have a will for it to be free. Wills are property of intelligent beings. How intelligent? Not sure, but more intelligent than bacteria. Somewhere in the arthropods is where I'd put it. — khaled

How do you know that atoms and cells don't have a will. What is happening fundamentally differently in beings that have low intelligence like bacteria and higher intelligence like an arthropod. What is fundamentally different about arthropods that is not happening in the intelligence of lower life forms. Does intelligence start somewhere or is it a spectrum that never reaches absolute zero?

Notice how AI gets more intelligent the more parameters and hidden layers are added; nothing really new but more nodes for the neural network. If this trend continues then according to your definition of free-will; AI will reach a level of intelligence that would result in the formation of free-will. At that point what would have changed fundamentally? Wouldn't it be reasonable to say at that point that free-will is an emergent property dependent on the components directly below it? The only difference that it can possibly be is just a more complex way of processing information, a more integrated way of processing information, than is possible with lower intelligence.

That's defining "free will" as magic. So of course, defined as such it cannot exist. — Olivier5

That's not my definition, it's from Google. "free choice" is a better term to work with than "free will" because it's more specific and focused.

"free choice" (a choice not imposed on you by others, or by circumstances). Or "agency" (the capacity for free choice). I am not comfortable with the notion of "will". — Olivier5

Now what is a "choice" and what do choices depend on?
When i make a choice it goes something like this: I am confronted with a constrained set of options (menu). Then i consider how hungry i am. If i'm really hungry i'll order the extra large meal. Do i drink Coke or Pepsi with my meal? I like Pepsi because its sweeter, but i know that sweets make me fat so i order water instead since i know that water doesn't cause fat gain. I ordered it to go because i wanted to get home in time for my favorite TV show that i know starts in about 40 minutes. I'm going to sit on the left side of the couch even though i like the right side better but i'm so tired i don't want to move.

Every one of those decisions was non-random, Each one was made for a reason, and that reason was acquired by neural processing of all my experiences up to that point. Any decision my organism makes for me is indistinguishable from the feeling of me doing it. If i had different experiences in my past i would have made different decisions accordingly.

Anyway, studies have been conducted that show that people are usually if not always wrong about the reasons they give for what they choose or do. Just another hint that we are not in control of of ourselves in the way you think we are.

At a lower level such as cells (we are made of cells) the same thing happens. depending on the internal condition of the cell, it acts to maintain homeostasis. Still many complex processes in the cell make it difficult to parse what exactly is going on. At the atomic level the same thing: Atoms always move to reduce their charge or energy level.

Do you believe atoms have free-choice? The free choice to choose what charges they will move towards or away from?

Things don't maintain themselves very well, for the most part. Perfect stability is extremely rare in nature. Things tend to transform after a while. Living organisms tend to die, molecules break up, atoms decay, even stars evolve. — Olivier5

I didn't say there was perfect stability. Perfect stability (determinism) would be a static condition where nothing would move or evolve; on the other hand perfect instability (indeterminism) would not allow anything to develop. Indeterminism allows for imbalance, and determinism allows for rebalance. One creates new forms and the other develops them; one produces new things the other processes old created things. The interplay between these two aspects of the universe keeps things moving in an orderly fashion. Determinism depends and is contingent on indeterminism; it is more fundamental than determinism because it is the engine that keeps the universe moving changing and existing.

Both indeterminism and determinism are needed for our universe to work the way we see it work.

The reason things decay is because determinism is actually trying to bring things back down to the indeterminate state.. the primordial state of the universe. It is always seeking the lowest energy level which gives it its arrow of time and deterministic quality.

So we cannot say: "the laws of nature preclude free will". We don't know that for a fact. — Olivier5

By that same token then we would also have to not say: "the laws of nature preclude will". We may not know for sure which is the case, but we can make some observations as you said. We can observe that things behave consistently in most physical systems, like gravity, electricity, etc.. We can say that something is determining these results every time. In chaotic systems where consistency seems to oscillate and we have no idea as to why yet, nothing can really be said. There may or may not be free-will, but if there is then where does it come from? There is evidence for determinism and there is evidence for indeterminism but i don't see any evidence for free-will.

Please notice that free-will is logically inconsistent in any case whether deterministic or indeterministic. You are not grasping the actual problem. It does not matter if you are arguing for determinism or indeterminism, the logic doesn't add up. In one case determinism: things are predetermined from the beginning and you don't have the freedom to deviate. In the other case indeterminism: things are undetermined and there is no determination meaning that free-will can not determine anything in that system. If not through a deterministic mechanism how does free will determine anything?

I just consider emergence as non-determined. — Olivier5

If emergence is not deterministic then where do these consistent structures come from and maintain themselves? What is your explanation from an indeterminate perspective of how this happens?

First, I would need a clear definition of what free will is. — Olivier5

definitions:
free will = the power of acting without the constraint of physical law.

will = the faculty by which a person decides on and initiates action.
faculty = an inherent mental or physical power.
decide = cause to come to a resolution.
initiate = cause (a process or action) to begin.
resolution = the quality of being determined or resolute.
determine = cause (something) to occur in a particular way; be the decisive factor in.

free = not under the control or in the power of another
control = determine the behavior or supervise the running of.
determine = cause (something) to occur in a particular way; be the decisive factor in.
power = the capacity or ability to direct or influence the behavior of others or the course of events.


* will = a mental or physical power by which a person causes a process to be determined
* free = not determined
* free will = undetermined determinism

Try to notice how these two terms (free and will) together are contradictory and oxymoronic. How can one physically act without the use of physical laws. By which law are you able to act if not by physical law?

Second, I would not consider as evidence any metaphysical, unprovable consideration, such as determinism. Determinism is not an empirical fact, it's a metaphysical idea, un\provable, so it does not count as evidence of anything. — Olivier5

Show me how determinism is not true. Show me a case in which determinism does not hold true.
Show me how indeterminism allows for consistent structures to exist through out time. If it is so undetermined then why does it look so determined. Do things ever fall up? Are you saying that gravity, electro-magnetism, etc.. don't determine anything? How do you explain that from an indeterministic framework?

Thirdly, the proof offered would need to be logically consistent. If it contradicts itself, then it cannot be true. And in my experience, all arguments against free will are self-contradictory in that they postulate that the argument itself is not arrived at through the free exercise of observation and judgment, but determined by sodding atoms and therefore not really an argument. — Olivier5

All proofs must be logical by definition. The problem with your view of free-will is that you want to be able to determine your actions apart from the laws of physics and logic which are almost one and the same. All physics is logical, and thus all actions are too. By what kind of sorcery can you overcome the logic of the universe and it's laws?

Free will is as illogical as saying that wet towels are dry, that darkness is bright, and that up is down. You are postulating the conditions for chaos, and disorder. Nothing can develop in any useful way in those conditions, which is evidently not the case.

You will be hard-pressed to find a successful scientist that doesn't understand or believe in determinism in some capacity. It is part and parcel to the scientific method.

With the definition of "uncoerced will" me typing this reply is an example of me exercising my free will, since no one is coercing me into typing it. — khaled

When you typed your sentence were you using your brain and nervous system to process your actions? Did you have a reason for typing the sentence, or was it a random sentence? I don't believe you had a free choice in what you wrote, your choice was determined by the specific activation weights and thresholds in your nerve cells as your sensory signals propagate through the system. At every step of the chain reaction the laws of physics determine the outcome. A choice is simply a causal chain reaction in your nervous system that weighs many factors that you are unconscious of. All of this is "coerced", even though you don't feel coerced; the whole process is perfectly natural. The reason you don't feel coerced is because there is nothing outside the laws of physics that can make it feel coerced; it's perfectly natural in that sense.

The problem with using yourself or another human to determine the truth about will and free-will is that it is too high level, with too many variables and moving parts. I am trying to identify not the result of free-will but how it works. The ideal example is something simple where all or most of the components and variables are known, like in a controlled scientific experiment. Do you have a simpler lower level example of free-will?

Try doing this: Stop breathing for 30 minutes, and tell me if you feel coerced to breath at some threshold limit? When you can't anymore you will take a breath, and you will say "I chose to breath, because i wanted air.", and you would have missed the point.

It seems that you take a dualist stance. I think the issue stems from dualism, not free will. For instance, do you think the "person" ever causes any physical change? Is you typing a reply a result of blind physical processes, or is it because the "person" that is you wills it? Or are those compatible. — khaled

No i'm not a dualist. I was asking you where free-will comes from since all i know are physical laws, and nothing else. Under this assumption there shouldn't be any free-will unless in fact there is something other than the laws of physics.

A "person" is a physical system made of atoms and molecules like everything else, and cells, tissues, and organs like every other organism. All of these layers and levels or organization are ruled by the laws of physics. At which point does free-will enter the picture? Do particles or atoms have free-will? Do cells have free will?

A definition of free-will doesn't automatically make it real, it simply allows us to recognize it. Children define Santa Claus all the time, but it doesn't mean he's real. Defining Santa Claus as a fat guy that lives in the North Pole doesn't make it a reality.

Chat bots write sentences all the time in response to questions. I have written chat bots myself, and have never seen a chat bot have free-will. Like a person a chat bot is a collection of parts designed to respond in certain ways, and the more complex it is the more it "appears" to have free-will. People are extremely complex chat bots in the context of this comparison. Do you think AI has free-will, or if not yet will it ever?

Perhaps then your conception of free will is in itself impossible, like a square circle. — khaled

That is a good way of putting it.

One simple way to give an account for free will for instance is to define it as "uncoerced will". Then yes, we have free will most of the time, as we are uncoerced. — khaled

You see this is always the case; i ask for an example and i get everything else except an example. This is why i think it's a square circle as you put it, because there are no examples of such a thing. Provide me with an example so i know exactly what we are talking about, not just a definition.

What definition of free will are you working with? — khaled

I seem to have the same definition for free-will that you do. I believe in 'will' not 'free-will', and will is constrained by the laws of physics like anything else; if not, then when and where does it break free from those constraints, and how does it do it? Does it use another force from somewhere else outside our universe to counter the laws of physics in this universe?

Also don't forget to provide an example that i or we can examine together.
Thank you ahead of time for the example.

Seems absurd to me. There is only one universe, and it includes everything there is. Layers are in the eye of the observer. — Olivier5

I never said there was more than one universe, but you are correct that the universe does include everything there is along with including determinism and indeterminism, and except of course for any logical paradoxes. The universe doesn't do paradoxes, free-will being one of them.

So you don't believe in emergent layers of complexity? You don't believe in atoms, molecules, cells, organism, societies, solar systems, galaxies... non of that?

I'm curious, what would convince you that free-will is a false notion? What kind of idea or evidence would you need to at least begin to consider it a viable possibility that free-will is not real?

Not clear. What original novelty are you talking about? In a deterministic view, there is no novelty, ever. — Olivier5

True novelty happens at the indeterminate level, after that novelty changes or is processed by time to evolve into higher forms of that novelty. — punos

The emergent layer above this indeterminate layer is where the first fermions appear. Fermions (matter) obey the Pauli exclusion principle and from this the single direction of time due to the progression of cause and effect begins. This is the beginning of determinism and our physical universe. — punos

if the future is entirely predeterminated, then time does not matter, all its seconds, centuries, and million of years are wasted and wholy redundant. Nothing new ever happens. — Olivier5

Read this again and notice where i mention "change":

Time is the most fundamental "thing" in the whole of all there is. Without time existence will cease with no hope of returning. Space by itself can do nothing, energy would not move, information and matter will not form because what makes the whole universe even possible is time. Time is change and movement, it is the "metabolism" of the universe itself. — punos

If time, on the other hand, is to be a useful, meaningful metabolism for the world, then it must underwrite real change, and support the emergence of radical novelty. Hence undetermined. — Olivier5

How can things change without time? How can emergence happen without time? True novelty happens at the indeterminate level, after that novelty changes or is processed by time to evolve into higher forms of that novelty. The higher forms are entirely determined by the pattern of the original novelty.

Not at all, unless you define X as God itself instead. Is God the first thing or is God the "thing" before the first thing? It may depend on one's definition of what a God is supposed to be. Does God have to have some sort of consciousness or can it be unconscious or sub-conscious?

For every wrong question there is a wrong answer, and for every wrong answer there is a right question.
For every right question there is a right answer, and for every right answer there is a wrong question.
Probably.

1) Joel, Barney and Ilsa. Unfortunately you've asked a panpsychist.

2) Nothing, the north pole defines what is north.

3) In my imagination.

4) It's impossible to specify a time in eternity. In time, one thing happens after another and you can talk about one event relative to another. In eternity, everything happens at once. So maybe the answer is 'now'.

5) I don't know if it is happy. I am interested in whether or not it has an inner life in general, and what behaviour might be a sign of happiness. — bert1

I like those answers. :100:

Pop Quiz: (who, what, where, when, why)

1) Who are atoms?

2) What is north of the north pole?

3) Where is tomorrow?

4) When is timelessness?

5) Why is the sun happy?

I have come here to chew bubble gum and kick ass, and i'm all out of kick ass.

Ok, I don't follow you here at all - how is quantum physics not part of the physical universe? — Echarmion

By non-physical i mean what lies at the very bottom of physical reality at and below the quantum foam. Non-physical for me means time, space, energy, information, logic, and mathematics (number or value). These are all aspects of the universe that are not physical. Things behave with more disorder than with order at these extremely small scales (quantum indeterminism). Below the "foam" time has no arrow, or it may be that the arrow points in all possible directions. The emergent layer above this indeterminate layer is where the first fermions appear. Fermions (matter) obey the Pauli exclusion principle and from this the single direction of time due to the progression of cause and effect begins. This is the beginning of determinism and our physical universe.

But what if nature already includes free will, it's just that our laws are about finding the patterns in nature, and so that information is not transfered to the model? — Echarmion

It is either you have a reason for doing something or you don't. If you have a reason then it's determinism; if you don't have a reason then it's random and indeterministic. Is there a third option i am not aware of? If it is not a pattern it is chaos and is as good as not existing, everything that exists exists as a patterns of energy; we are evolved patterns of energy.

So, here is what could be happening: The actual underlying reality is atemporal. Time is merely a function of your mind ordering events by a certain principle - e.g. the principle that you always travel from lower entropy to higher entropy. — Echarmion

Time is the most fundamental "thing" in the whole of all there is. Without time existence will cease with no hope of returning. Space by itself can do nothing, energy would not move, information and matter will not form because what makes the whole universe even possible is time. Time is change and movement, it is the "metabolism" of the universe itself.

How will the mind do any ordering of any kind if not in time. It is totally possible to imagine or simulate time in ones mind, this why we have the sense of subjective time. An hour for you does not feel like an hour for me, and an hour for me now will not feel the same as an hour next year. This and other relativity effects are like looking at yourself in a distorted mirror.

So in that scenario, events are a web that expands in all directions, rather than a sequence of causes and effects. At some places, your mind slightly affected these connections - nudged them this way or that. The effects of these changes travel in all directions, but the web remains self-consistent. So as you look at the world from a temporal perspective, it seems to be a perfect sequence of causes and effects. — Echarmion

I'm not sure what you are trying to saying here.

Indeed, given the premise that (only) physical reality is ultimately and definitely real, I'd agree with you. Free will makes no sense in a strictly physical framework. — Echarmion

Yes but the problem is that i am not a physical materialist. Sometimes i may speak in a way that sounds like i am, but what i am doing is moving in an out of different perspectives of reality depending on the context im dealing with.

I believe that both determinism and indeterminism are both actual conditions in the universe (classical and quantum respectively) and things need to be thought of differently in those realms. I am also a non-materialist and a materialist, but fundamentally a non-materialist. The universe has both cases at different levels. There is also the issue of relativity (not just Einstein) which tends to warp our sense of reality, from which i believe stems the misconception of "will" as "free-will".

You are right in that a free-will does not make sense in a strictly physical framework (classical determinist), but it also doesn't make sense in a strictly non-physical framework either (quantum indeterminate). Combining the two also does not allow it.

All i need to be convinced of free-will at a minimum is just one actual or hypothetical mechanism (doesn't have to be real or actual, just logical) by which any law of nature can be overridden in favor of another arbitrary pattern. Such as the three charged particle example i gave a few posts ago.
I chatted with Christopher Langan a couple weeks ago on YouTube and he never answered my question either. In fact he mysteriously disappeared after that question, and he's supposed to have one of the highest IQs in the world... supposedly.

I have a concept that may seem or feel like free-will but is not really. I call it "causal reflection", in which regular bottom-up deterministic cause and effect processes are able to in a sense turn around and affect the thing that affects it in a top-bottom fashion. The "causal loop" that gets set up in the brain is what i believe is responsible for the feeling of free will. The universe is a big place and i don't want to exclude anything from it if i don't have to, including free-will, god, and whatever else.

That there be no exception to the rules is a norm we impose on our rules. — Echarmion

We can choose to not impose that, but then again the reason we impose it is not arbitrary.. it is because of what we call evidence. If you can show me an example of a law of nature being broken in favor of free-will then i will be convinced right here right now that there may be something to this free-will business. It's as if you were trying to convince me of the veracity of UFOs but with no actual evidence. There may be 1 million hoaxes but if just one case is true then the phenomena is true. As someone that believes in the scientific method it is my most important criteria, and it is my responsibility to demand it before i can accept it.

We don't have to agree, the only reason i get into these discussions about free-will is not to convince anybody that there is no such thing, it's so that someone can tell me what everybody that believes in free-will seems to already know but keeps secret.. an actual example of free-will. I need a logical description or an actual example; I can't do anything without that, or i might as well believe in anything i like regardless of reasons... and i don't do that, i can't do that.

Brain waves are indeed very good candidates for the stuff our thoughts are made of. — Olivier5

I think you're half right. Brain waves are not too different than any other electro-magnetic waves. The real difference is in the patterns carried by those waves (like a radio broadcast). The stuff of thoughts are the patterns of electro-chemical activity in the brain, and the waves are byproducts of that activity.

If i remember correctly i think the first EEG was made to investigate telepathy.

What if repairmen came to the ship and gradually replaced every single part, but instead of throwing the old parts away they would reassemble the old ship right next to the first one with the old removed parts.

Now..
Are there two ships or one?
Are both ships the same ship?

When constructing a ship for the first time; at what point can one call it a ship or at what point does it acquire identity?
Is it a ship when its 1 percent complete? or what about when it's 50 percent complete, etc..?
Would the answer be different if it were the reverse? In other words, is the acquisition of identity from no identity the same as losing identity from full identity?

How do you know the brain is part of objective reality? I do believe there is one, but the physical world is a model of this objective reality created by human minds. — Echarmion

I remember in high school when my science teacher brought in an actual human brain for the class to observe, touch and examine. There are entire fields of study that are dedicated to the study of the brain. I've taken drugs that objectively affect how my brain works temporarily that gives me a subjective experience. I've noticed how my supposed free-will changes according to the drug active in my brain. All of these things and more signal to me that this thing is objective. Above all there is consensus on the matter.

Observation is processing an outside stimulus, where "outside" means not mentally labeled as part of our selves. — Echarmion

How do you tell the difference between outside stimulus, and what is labeled as part of yourself?

It's based on a logical assessment of epistemological principles. I was born knowing logic, or at least with the requisite mental machinery to process it. — Echarmion

What are these epistemological principles that you are referring to?
Yes everyone is born with the machinery to process logic, but we are not born knowing how to use it. If we did then the world wouldn't be the way it is. Thinking that we know when we don't know is what is called the Dunning-Kruger effect... be careful with that.

That's right.. the laws would be different, and the difference would be that there would be no law. — punos

The anthropic principle makes this impossible though. — Echarmion

It's not that it's impossible, its that it is observationally evident without a doubt.

It's the other way around. We build our laws to account for the observations. — Echarmion

And the laws we build from our observations tell us that there are no exceptions to the rules, like gravity, or the conservation of energy, etc.. If we accept these laws that we observe and work consistently and reliably then we should be able to reliably conclude that we have no free-will not that we have it. If you say that we have it then which observed law of physics allows it?

Some things can be established without observation. For example, there is something that thinks, and some thoughts have the attribute of being "mine". — Echarmion

Don't you perceive and observe your own thoughts? When you have a thought how do you know you had it if you didn't observe yourself having the thought. I observe my thoughts, my emotions, my dreams, my opinions, etc.. anything i know has been observed at some point or i would not know it.

Can you name just one thing that you know without having observed it at some point in your life?