But a thing with the perceptions and intellect to understand everything, whether or not it interacted with anything, is not a necessary part of an entirely deterministic reality. — Patterner

If assumed that LD has God-like abilities, that's a different issue. The basic idea didn't start from the entity have other abilities except perfect knowledge of the laws of nature and perfect knowledge of the data about everything. Nowhere is it hinted that LD is in control of everything, the idea is really that the LD can perfectly extrapolate from current data and knowledge what the future will be.

Well, naturally, the scientist tested it himself at first. I don't remember all the specifics of the conversation (it's been decades. But I have the paperback, so I'll check.), but I can't imagine he did not try to trick it. — Patterner

How does that go? The computer prints the paper first, then the person writes what should be in the paper, that was printed earlier. At least that's how you described it. Fine if it's the friend who doesn't know what is on the paper. But here if the scientist himself reads the paper, then writes, you do have the illogical causality where LD got it's name. Because if the printed paper then defines what the scientist does, he's not anymore in command of himself and lacks that free will: he has to write or do what the paper tells him. That's why basically LD is said to be a D (unlike Laplace himself). Yet seeing some piece of paper usually doesn't somehow control scientists, hence it cannot be. Just as nobody cannot write here what you are going to write (or @Ludwig V will write in his future posts) before you have written it.

You might check it, if you find the book.

Quite so. But nobody seems to be interested in teasing out the complexities. — Ludwig V

Hopefully this discussion thread (and PF in general) makes the exception. :smirk:

I think I am finally understanding you. :grin: I don't know if you changed your wording in such a way that I finally caught on, or if I was just too dense to figure it out until now. — Patterner

That's great! :blush: Yet in actuality, this is quite hard, especially to understand the link to the undecidability results in mathematics. The link to a more general consequences what this means (what I know) has been made first by just one mathematician David Wolpert at the start of this Century (actually). At least in Wikipedia in the text about Laplace's Demon in arguments against it in "Cantor Diagonalization" it's cited. But it's not yet something in the logic textbooks and hence people don't know about it.

Without ever trying it, you and I are smart enough to see the problem that will arise if the thing with the perceptions and intellect to understand everything [Maybe we can just call it Laplace's Demon (LD)?] declares what my next post will be. I don't see any reason to think LD would not also see the problem. — Patterner

Well, assuming LD would have quite an awesome knowledge base, it could give a year-long lecture about everything we have thought wrong about science. And likely many people would simply not get what it would try to explain to us. And just how many would be devastated when LD told us all the limitations of science and would refute any hopes of further advances! Poor LD with that perfect knowledge of science, a real party stopper.

It would, in fact, have perfect knowledge of what my response would be. And it would be unable to state that ahead of time without changing what I would have said. On and on and on. — Patterner

Exactly. You got it perfectly. It's a logical limitation on modelling or forecasting.

That doesn't invalidate the idea of determinism. Requiring LD to announce the forecast, and an endless chain of revised forecasts, is just setting up an impossible condition. LD wouldn't announce the forecast ahead of time. But it would know, if everything I think and do is the result of determinism. Maybe it could write it down, only to reveal it after I made my post. — Patterner

Yet notice that it's not anymore interacting. LD is then more of a historians ultimate event checker. But the issue of course is settled when LD doesn't interact with the World it's forecasting. But this naturally wasn't at all what Laplace had in mind. We are part of the universe ...and so are our models too.

There is a science fiction book called ]I]Thrice Upon a Time[/i], by James Hogan. A scientist puts his friend in front of a computer. A small piece of paper prints out. The scientist looks at it, but does not show his friend. Then the scientist tells his friend to type six characters on the computer and hit enter. After the friend does that, the scientist shows him the print out from a minute earlier. It matches what the friend just typed. The scientist found a way to send that amount of information back in time one minute. — Patterner

Sending information back in time, well, that's one way to say it ...but it's basically the LD argument. And the situation you earlier wrote (with the LD writing it down, but not showing to you).

And here you see the obvious difference: there is no negative self reference loop. The friend doesn't know the information. As I've not read the book, I think the friend doesn't then say to the scientist "Why don't you do it yourself? Are you going obey and write what the paper says you to, or can you write something else?". How the writer would continue on, would be interesting...

BTW, I think that the concept of free will is hopelessly loaded with metaphysical assumptions, and it would be much better to talk about freedom, free choices or free actions. — Ludwig V

This is a good point. Free will is quite a loaded term, especially when you juxtapose free will with determinism. I think that's one of the problems here.

And when you just talk about limitations to modelling and forecasting, the debate can avoid drifting to metaphysical questions.

So you are saying that the world is deterministic, even though our models will never demonstrate that? — Ludwig V

World being deterministic or not is a metaphysical question. If reality is actually a multiverse where the worlds are constantly changing, how would we know that from the determinist Block universe? And any way, how we model reality is the essential question.

You can assume that the World is deterministic, but that doesn't limit your free choice. You have that because it's simply impossible to model everything even if the World is deterministic. There are simply limitations on just what you can model from the deterministic World. And that's my point.

We cannot logical deduce or find out answers to metaphysical questions. If we could, they wouldn't be metaphysical.

Yes. Physics doesn't have the conceptual apparatus to describe or even acknowledge choices. Ordinary life requires a whole different way of thinking. — Ludwig V

Mmmh...how is it then with quantum physics and the use of probabilities.

But generally this is so: we use totally different models in economics or other social sciences. Even biology isn't so simple as Newtonian physics.

Why is that? — Patterner

Because you cannot do something you won't do or cannot do.

Whether I chose to write a comment or not, it is a decision. — Patterner

Yes. And obviously there exist then other decisions that you didn't make when you made a certain decision. A lot of others, actually.

If, in principle, something with the perceptions and intellect to understand how all those physical events interacting translates to decisions and actions, and can forecast what response I would type, why would it not be able to forecast that I would choose to not respond? — Patterner

Because there's the interaction! (If there would be NO interaction, if that something not part of this world, it could do it. At least the determinist would think so.)

Just think about it: if this something with the perceptions and intellect to understand everything would now write here what you @Patterner will say, how could it get it right? Because before you write you next comment you would read it, think about and comment on it. You usually do comment on what others write, you know. You have the ability to use the forecast itself and it isn't surely in control of you.

If you give any forecast m, which should correctly model what is going to happen, you cannot give the correct forecast when the correct model would be ¬m. That's the reason negative self-reference limits modelling the future.

I'm basically asking the same thing again. Does ordinary life require a whole different way of thinking in the same sense that we need to think of large numbers of air molecules as thermodynamics, because we simply can't perceive such a gargantuan number, much less calculate all the interactions that will take place between all of them within the space they occupy? — Patterner

In my view, definitely.

For classic physics you have objectivity and clarity, assuming you have enough accurate data. In other realms you have subjectivity and things like learning, which makes everything far more different. Also reductionism goes only so far. If I remember correctly, Zygmunt Bauman said that the difference between the social sciences and natural sciences is that the social sciences themselves are a subjective. (Meaning that what social sciences think the human society operates has an effect on how humans view the human society.)

This means that extreme reductionism usually falls flat. So you can make a diagram like below, but don't think you can skip some levels and explain everything from physics.

Yes, I understand. But why can't how a model takes itself into account be calculated? That's just more input fed into the algorithm. — Patterner

This question comes to the crucial point.

In a huge number of cases where there is self reference (or in other words, the model has to take itself into account), this is totally possible. But not when there is negative self-reference. You cannot write a comment that you don't write, even if obviously those kind of comments that you don't write do exist.

There's no way around this problem or a way to "input this fed into the algorithm".

The limitations to this is evident actually from the undecidability results from Gödel and Turing and show that this isn't just a trivial matter. There's no way around it (...except something that is illogical, perhaps). When a Turing Machine cannot compute it, that does actually mean a lot.

I'm asking for a definition. I've been expressing what I take determinism to be. I tried to be as clear as I could here:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/910043 — Patterner

I don't think that there's anything wrong in your expression about determinism. This isn't a question about a definition of determinism, it's a problem of modelling determinism.

Like what you described about throwing a pillow and hitting a glass. There your decision to throw the pillow, your movements and releasing the grip from the pillow where just taken as given. Naturally there your decision is just taken as a given too. And here lies your question: where's then your choice? Isn't the argument mean that there's no choice? Or did I misunderstand here?

Well, how many open choices do you see in history? There aren't any, there just are decisions what people have made. And the idea of alternative history, to ask what if, is just a way to study the actual events. But does that then mean that politicians don't have choices to make? Obviously not. In fact, they choose so much that basically history isn't treated as a science: the typical way a historian explains what has happened is to use the narrative approach. That's why historians describe historical events to be unique: it's not realistic at all to think that somehow we could regress into a time exactly like the 16th Century. But estimating where Jupiter was four hundred years ago and where it will be after four hundred years in the future is computable. Our computations don't have an effect on how Jupiter goes around the sun. Where the modern society will be in 2400 isn't so easy.

The crucial part here is that modelling the past there's no interaction and the model doesn't have to take itself into account. What has happened has happened. That you did make choices isn't relevant for the determinist model: your choosing to throw the pillow is just given. But you hopefully understand that it's different to model this when it hasn't happened, especially you know about the model before you have thrown it. Then a whole Pandora's box has been opened from the determinist view.

Though perhaps we might say that the causal network is sometimes a limit on what we can do, and sometimes an opportunity to achieve what we want to achieve. Which it is, depends on the context of what we value, what we want, what we need on different occasions. So our attitude to the fact (insofar as it is a fact, as opposed to an aspiration) of causal determinism depends on us, not on what the facts are. — Ludwig V

Exactly!

Our senses and our abilities are of course limits to us, but that actually is quite a different thing. A simplistic determinist might argue that as we can know how people behave in general, how they react to certain events, then in the future with better understanding or theoretically with a higher entity with more knowledge could then deduce how all humans behave and react in any occasion. Here the determinist is making a false extrapolation because he or she doesn't take into account the limits in making extapolations. From the fact that "people in general answer a short quiz if you ask them one" you cannot come to the conclusion that "people always respond to a quiz when asked" or to even the more outrageous idea "what people answer in a short quiz, can be known before". A police officer writing you a speeding ticket likely won't answer your quiz, he just wants your driving license and registration number.

Yes. This is essentially the argument against fatalistic or logical determinism, but chimes with the neutrality of the causal network. — Ludwig V

And do notice that it's a limitation due to logic.

If a "fatalistic" determinist argues that this kind of determinism (where all of our reactions can be forecasted) is perhaps possible in the future (as we don't know what the future holds and what kind of technological/scientific advances there are), then one has simply to remind them that this science then simply can't be logical. Let that just sink in for them for a while. And before he or she thinks that you are attacking the whole idea of determinism, it should be told that the issue in the limitations of modelling that determinism, not the determinism itself!

And if someone then argues, OK, it might be then an illogical procedure then, then for them there's the joke in math circles that goes like this: "The "strongest" system where everything is provable is with sytem where 0=1". Good luck with that!

But you don't seem to recognize that the importance of this. Insofar as we are rational, calculating (in the widest sense) animals, with goals and preferences, what we do needs to be explained in particular ways, which are not the same as the ways that we explain the way the world works. There are different, but related, language games here; our problem is to understand how they are related. — Ludwig V

Our questions define the models and the reasoning what we use to get answers. That someone thinks that everything could be computed just like we compute the movements of planets makes an obvious mistake. Once we use probability theory or game theoretic models, we have already accepted that our models aren't exact and just give some glimpses of the true reality, but surely not everything.

I think the real misunderstanding is to think that our models could vastly improve in time, that for example social sciences could develop more into what physics is now. That's not the case.

Why is determinism called determinism? What is deterministic about it? — Patterner

Well, I guess if you believe a multiverse or single universe or that there's "Chance" and "fate" that has an effect on our lives while others don't, I think there's enough differences to define some to be determinists and some others as indeterminists. Especially if one believes that there's events without causes, then those who disagree would be (I think) determinists.

There’s just something about determinism that seems odd to me. I keep coming back to asking what it is that determinists are doing when they argue. It seems as if they are trying to convince someone who believes in free will of the strength of their arguments – that a free willist will consider all the evidence and, in the end, choose to believe that determinism makes the most sense. But according to determinism, this is not what determinists are doing. — Thales

I think this is more of a way of argumentation, just like the person who insists that he bases his views on scientific facts and science, makes the not so veiled accusation that others don't believe in science. Or then the person makes the point that a lot of our behaviour is taught, is similar to others and hence our "Free Will" isn't so free as we want to believe. But this in my view doesn't approach the philosophical side of the World views.

Their arguments are the result of a chain of causes that go back to their births and social environments.

And this just seems odd to me. — Thales

Determinists in this way can make huge leaps like first you were a child and then you learned and was taught by experience that molded you to be the way you are now. Yet notice just how radical these changes are: the way you think about a lot of things has changed, the way you interact with people has changed, a lot has changed since you were a toddler. Yet something like learning is still quite a black box in social sciences.

At least historians understand this: they talk about the uniqueness of different historical times. And that history doesn't repeat itself, but it can rhyme. That someone calls a historical period unique just shows how difficult the determinism really is.

This is a promising approach, but nonetheless seems to leave our supposedly freely made decisions vulnerable to the apparently controlling force of determinism. It may not give me any information, but it will certainly influence the attitude of others to my decision, and may even influence my own attitude to my own decision. — Ludwig V

But that's the incredible thing: there isn't the influence or a controlling force with determinism!

It may not give me any information, but it will certainly influence the attitude of others to my decision, and may even influence my own attitude to my own decision. — Ludwig V

I'll try to explain my point by making the following thought experiment.

Let's assume that everything you have said has been recorded and written down into a book. Or if that's too unrealistic, then let's look at all the comments that @Ludwig V makes in the Philosophy Forum. The time I'm writing this you have been here 2 years and posted 1037 times. Now a determinist would argue that just as there's the 1037 exact unique comments that you make, there will be the n number of exact comments that you will make (or then no 1037 was the last one). And we all hope there's going to be 1038, 1039 and perhaps 1050!

Now, does this deterministic view of there being your answer 1038, 1039 and 1050 limit what you can write? No. Could they be forecasted? Again no, this isn't simple extrapolation from what has become for. Now if you're active on this thread, 1050 might come soon, yet you might have quite easily changed a lot of ideas that you have now when participate here in 2025 or 2026. At least I've change some thought since I first came (to the old, previous) PF.

And when you think of it, it would be totally impossible to show you all those next post that you haven't yet written. If it would be true, then you wouldn't have any free will: your post 1038 would be exactly what you have been shown, which would be quite absurd. This doesn't break determinism, it's simply shows that such future knowledge in this case is impossible. Hence there are the number n future post you do (or don't), but that cannot be simply modeled.

So one could argue that free will (or interaction) is a limit to making models, extrapolation or forecasting, but it doesn't refute determinism.

Back when I was young and innocent, I read an article by Richard Taylor, a Brown University philosophy professor. Taylor’s view was that some phenomena have “causes” and can be described accordingly, whereas others – namely, “actions” performed by “agents” – are different. “Agents initiate action,” he argued, while causes and effects are links in a long chain which, in principle, can be traced back in time indefinitely. — Thales

For the hard-core determinist, there's no difference between causes and "actions" performed by "agents". But of course this making the division between causes and actions does understand they have to thought of differently.

If all is deterministic, then every decision I've ever made was exactly as it was because that's the only decision I could have made. — Patterner

And that just shows how meaningless the idea is. Because you have to make decisions. That determinism says that with probability 1 you make or abstain from making a decision has no value, because it doesn't give you any more information.

We make models about reality and those models are useful if to give us some more information. The Block Universe model of determinism itself doesn't give us much. Newtonian physics gives us useful models for many things, but not to everything.

Is reality deterministic is a metaphysical question for the obvious reasons and itself isn't such helpful. But understanding our limitations that we have in models using mathematics or logic is important.

But, despite the different levels of complexity, the only actual difference is that I am aware of what's going on, and the glass is not. and if the determinists are correct, my awareness is also only physical events, and it doesn't have any causal power. — Patterner

But even if your awareness is an physical event, that's not the problem here. The problem is with the modelling when you have interaction. And obviously you have interaction when somebody is making a choice. If you have a choice to make, you obviously understand that there is a choice to make and you have to think about the alternate effects different actions would make. That's not extrapolation! The determinist model of you making a choice doesn't help you.

The question is this: Did I let go of the pillow in exactly the way I did because all the constituents of my brain - whether we examine them as particles and physics, or molecules and chemistry, or structures and biology, or whatever - acted in the only ways each of them could, all purely physical interactions driven by the physical laws? — Patterner

In physics, we know of this problem as the measurement problem: when the measurement itself effects what is measured, taking a classic measurement won't do. For example quantum models are preferred from Newtonian models.

The logical side here is self reference. It shows logically why here just a simple extrapolation won't do, as does it works perfectly for example in predicting the movements of planets. So yes, the question here is of the actor, who initiated something. When do you initiate the letting go, from what height do you drop it, etc.

The logical problem is when the model would have to take itself to account. Sometimes this can be done, but which is here crucial here, not always. Not especially when you have negative self reference. You cannot overcome that. Just as you cannot write and answer that you don't write. It simply goes against logic.

Did I throw the pillow because all the constituents of my brain acted in the only ways each of them could, all purely physical interactions driven by the physical laws? — Patterner

We do start from a courageous premiss that you are aware of what you are doing and you can decided when to throw the pillow. The basic problem comes when someone would have to forecast when you through the pillow with you hearing the forecast. That forecast might make you not to throw it or throw it another way you first intended. Hence the model itself has an effect on how you will act. How could an accurate forecast be made, when the forecast itself effects what it should model? Hopefully you see the problem is similar to the measurement having an effect on what is measured.

Does this refute the idea that you let go of the pillow in exactly the way I did because all the constituents of my brain? Actually not. The determinism holds. But it shows that this determinism isn't at all a limit here.

It seems to me that the idea of choices in a deterministic reality is a sham. Sure, it is possible for a human to choose cake over ice cream. But when one of us is actually presented with the two options, if we pick one up because the billion bouncing billiard balls landed that way, and we could not have picked up the other because the balls landed in the only way they could, then how is such a "choice" is of no greater value or interest than is the final arrangement of the rocks and dirt when an avalanche settles? — Patterner

What is the sham here is thinking that determinism limits your actions or you don't have the ability to choose... because it's somehow preordained, because there is the deterministic future.

Think about it this way: if we define that the future is what really happens, then there's that one defined reality. Now how does it limit your choices? Well, you make the choices you make, yet you cannot make the choices you don't make. That is actually what determinism requires. But is that a limitation on your choices? No!

As I've earlier (perhaps on other threads), you cannot give here a comment that you don't give. Yes, these kinds of comments exist and someone else can give them, but that doesn't limit what you can write here. It isn't a limitation on what kind of comments you can make.

So there is no convincing, no reasoning, no weighing different alternatives, no initiating action – it’s all billiard ball cause-and-effect. — Thales

Turn it around: can you then point to the event that didn't have any reason or cause to happen?

Yet this determinism (of everything being billiard ball cause-and-effect) still doesn't answer a multitude of questions. What's the insight if you cannot know for example the future even if there is one way things go? It's like saying that "There are specific dates when it rains and when the sun shines in the city of New York for the next 10 000 years." That doesn't help now an outdoors event planner that is looking arranging something for summer 2026.

Determinism doesn't say much. It also doesn't limit our choices.

But without proper interference in matters of the economy, it will be as though the means of the populace remain vacant, no less because individuals aspire toward great stature more than the freedom to manifest ideas amongst themselves and society as a whole. — EdwardC

Once the basic freedom of voting rights and equality under law have been accomplished, there's not that clear desire for more freedom than aspiring for more stature or wealth. For example feminism in the age of the suffragettes was totally different than today.

In fact liberalism has morphed into 'neo-liberalism' of today, yet in the 19th Century it was quite valid as a thought to be against the last bastions of feudalism. It's the curse of ideologies, which are successful and achieve their objectives. The next "wave" or generation after the achievement victories has to find something else, which usually isn't as obvious as a goal as the former objectives were.

Although it is harder to see how Trump, say, a member of the ultra rich and an obedient servant of corporate interests (lower taxes, deregulation, oligarchs, etc) will help any of the little guys who so love him. — Tom Storm

Trump is the perfect example: a rich playboy that desperately wanted be inside and part of the in-crowd, but who was ostracized because of his many failures as businessman. But who of his supporters will listen to that? You just have the Trump derangement syndrome and believing in the God-Emperor shows how strong you are for "the cause". Even if there isn't a cause, who cares.

Leftists in the West seem to be neoliberals, with the odd whiff of progressive social policy. As Cornel West said of Obama - he was the Citibank President 'a black mascot of Wall Street.' — Tom Storm

And that comes to the reasons just why democracy is in trouble. Democracy does mean the attempt towards consensus and making compromises. The common fallacy is to think that others think like you (and only are ill-informed or don't know the reality). If the political field is left to few parties without true change happening every once and a while (and for the parties in power understanding that they might lose it all), the stagnation creates anger. It doesn't get better if the parties encourage political polarization by portraying the other side as an enemy. People will then look at the whimsical and harmful fringe parties either on the right or the left. And what is worse, once they've committed to a populist, they won't admit what kind of disaster the guy is, because they don't want to hear the "I told you so" from the other side. And naturally, the other side is the enemy.

(Why, everything is great in Venezuela!)

While certain ages had more prevalent and identifiable characters, ours is one that hides its nature, and maintains its values in a sub-active manner, that is meant to say without a title, or a movement, or party representation.

In fact, the greatest and most powerful attribute of this age’s ethic is its invisibility. — EdwardC

In the era of the internet and social media? I think never before have you had such direct knowledge of what people think as this forum is quite the exception as we are anonymous. Yet we aren't so for the all seeing algorithms that can easily handle the vast amount of data that they mine on.

Now to the state of democratic nations. Known for their open structures, opportunities in industry, and unrestrained promulgation of the potential of the individual, they’re values are currently under assault and the populace mostly careless or without recourse. — EdwardC

What is happening is that many people are disillusioned on how entrenched the elites are of the democracies are and how it seems to go on without not taking them into consideration, but serving the richest people. Just look at how the US is run by a two-party system where the power is held by age, which shows how complacent the whole system is. Mr Biden is a perfect example, something similar to the Soviet Politbyro where the oldest take the helm if they just live long enough. Hence you have populism and populist who see democracy itself as the obstacle. Which is unfortunate, but that's what we have.

But my point is that the zeitgeist is very much one of dissatisfaction with the status quo. Perhaps ultimately the collapse of the liberal consensus, as Zizek puts it. — Tom Storm

When the status quo means that the ultra-rich few dominate, it's not so difficult to see why populism is so widely popular. Once in power, the leftist liberals and the social democrats in these countries are perfectly happy to mingle with the super rich and attend meeting like Davos and Bilderberg meetings. That hardly gives an impression that these leftists would be against the system to basically for the billionaires.

Or another way: that there is the subject matter, and also how we feel about it. — tim wood

And in something as logical and rigorous as mathematics, the last thing is for us to accept that we have feelings about how it should be. Or that they would matter. It's like the person who declares: "Philosophy is meaningless to me, I do just science" has a quite specific philosophical view about science.

If open and easy, good. If closed, and difficult, then either you freak out, blow up, or simply function in increasing error. — tim wood

In economics one way to model self reference or basic interaction of the variables is to use dynamic models. And there you have to make quite careful models that stay in some equilibrium. The amount of premises just increase.

The trick not to goggle at them. — tim wood

Hm, I'm not sure what you mean by this.

I just think they are quite interesting. For example, here's a thought experiment to clarify (hopefully) my reasoning why this is such a general finding:

Is there a limitation on what kind of answer you can write on PF?

- Obviously not, you can write anything you want (you might be banned later, but aside of that).

If so, can we deduce then from the above that you can write EVERY answer there exists, if you would have infinite time and the ability write anything, any kind of length answer (the typical Busy-Beaver argumentation etc.)?

- Actually not, because you cannot write an answer that you don't write.

Wait a minute! Wasn't it so that there isn't any limitation on what to write?

- Yes, but assuming that you can write everything isn't equivalent to there not being any limitations on what you can write.

As this is purely theoretical and I have infinite time and ability to write, how can there be any limitation?

- Because of diagonalization. From everything you written taken as whole, you can use this to create something you haven't written.

Is this totally trivial? Obviously a person cannot write what he or she doesn't write.

In mathematics when it comes to computing and proving something, it isn't so trivial. But the mechanism is the same.

As it's difficult for many of us to understand Russia, it's also perhaps for the Putinist living in Russia to understand the West, especially with the way the West is presented to Russians. For them the West portrays itself with it's public discourse far more weaker, lacking character or simply far more incompetent than it is, because it cherishes a totally different kind of rhetoric. And the true policies are obscured in a cacophony of various messages.

For example, just how long has the inevitable collapse of the Eurozone and more generally, the EU, been predicted? Starting from that, it's easy to construct a vision where the aid to Ukraine is faltering and in deep trouble.

Both sides underestimate each other.

What are your thoughts? — Frog

Fate and determinism don't actually impose a limit on free will. If you define the future as what will happen, then one can say you believe in determinism. Yet what you left out is that you can make choices...one of your choices (even the one where you don't do nothing) is the one that will happen.

And fate? Well, we all die. That should be enough fate for all of us.

What they mean is just that which they exactly say. Significance a different question. — tim wood

Exactly. And referring to the significance of Gödel's results usually gets a response of someone questioning you exactly how the difficult proof goes and repeating it (and sidelining the part that you were talking about: the significance of the results).

The trick is self-reference. But are there propositions in ω - or arithmetic - that are true but unprovable that do not involve self-reference? — tim wood

That's an absolutely great question.

Because now everything on this field does hang on the (negative) self-reference. Every undecidability result has it. Please correct me now (anybody) if it isn't so! One possibility I've been thinking about is that the procedure defines a whole realm of mathematics. Of course, getting an undecidability result without negative self reference would be really revolutionary and counter my idea.

Yet even to admit just how important the undecidability results are would be important too. The way that first the paradoxes and then the undecidability results are seen as something against the idea of logicism is the problem. I think that mathematics is certainly logical, yet logicism shouldn't be so controversial. The thinking should be turned around: these undecidability results are a cornerstone for mathematics to be logical. Not everything is simply computable and hence what defines non-computable mathematics is a very important law for all of mathematics. In my view if you get in mathematics a paradox simply means that your premises, or more properly the axioms you think are self evident actually aren't so. Yet it seemed that with the paradoxes, they were thought as of a mistake and with the undecidability results, people simply hope to avoid them and hope them to be not important. Hence the idea was first going with Type theory (like Russell did) or simply make axioms that ban the paradox (as ZF did). This didn't erase the issue, as the famous undecidability results showed. It's like when the Greeks at first thought that all numbers have to be rational, and then when confronted by irrational numbers, they didn't like it. Because math was perfect so everything had to be rational, right? The basic problem then in Russell's time (and even now) was the idea that all the essential building blocks of mathematics and it's foundations are already in place. I think they aren't. The paradoxes and then the undecidability results simply show this.

Which makes then you question even more important. It's still just a working hypothesis that everything is based on negative self reference, in the way of "with negative self reference, you can lose computability/the ability to give a direct proof". Obviously a good counter-question is what you asked.

Loved to hear comments.

Thanks for continuing this thread, Tim!

Indirect reductio ad absurdum proofs. Not sure what those are. Do you have an example? (In trust we both get the joke, here.) — tim wood

Lol, well, if math is consistent, you'll get the proof. :razz:

As I read our now-banned member, It seemed to me he was making a limited and ultimately trivial claim, that he had unfortunately persuaded himself was somehow general and significant. All I could do was ask him for clarity, which he could not provide. Tones on the other hand was setting him straight, which (in my opinion) he was too disturbed to accept, appreciate, or follow. — tim wood

It's typical to underestimate the people on this Forum. But the issue here is that there's still a lot of debate on exactly what the undecidability results mean. What exactly is the realm of "true, but unprovable mathematical statements" or the role of non-computable mathematics. Obviously something that at first mathematicians don't want to find their answers to be in the realm of.

It sounds like an oxymoron and for our banned member it was totally nonsense and he obviously didn't get even after your and @TonesInDeepFreeze's effort.

And the substance of the claim, as I read it, was that if you have a closed system/listing of propositions that are proved true (whatever that is), and your standard for inclusion in this listing is that the proposition be provably true and everything else false, then - and here insert his claims. The main difficulty being that while his claims may have been true for some closed system in theory, he wanted it to apply across-the-board - and never mind that his closed system was (I think) not even theoretically possible. — tim wood

This clearly shows the person simply doesn't grasp the Undecidability results. And just to repeat again and again that Gödel is referring to the Liar paradox (and hence you can disregard it) is the typical error here.

In my view many people just don't understand that negative self-reference a simply logical limitation, especially when your primary idea has refered to all or everything. Then you just show even one example that it's impossible and that's it.

Nice I wouldn't know, but otherwise I think you're exactly right, because I suffer that a lot myself - and could wish for even just a fewer trees here on TPF! So I feel gratitude to the mods for saving me from myself while I learn to do it for myself! — tim wood

Especially in logic, mathematics, but also in philosophy I think there's a good guideline. If someone says that you are wrong or misunderstand something, that isn't yet worrysome. But if two or more say that, you really have to consider going over what were saying. Now if people especially after some discussion simply fall silent, then you perhaps can have a point. Either nothing to add, or it goes totally over their head (which is also a possibility).

Hence I do urge the people here to correct mistakes, it truly is something that others can also learn from.

The crank usually is content with defending the point of view in its original, unde-veloped, metaphysical form, and he is not at all prepared to test its usefulness in all those cases which seem to favour the opponent, or even to admit that there exists a problem.

By this cranks would make great politicians. Yet a politician considers and adapts the message to whom he or she is talking, a crank doesn't.

Aaah... well, I'll guess that I won't get an answer from him.

I don't know about other threads, but in the Eliminating Decision Problem Undecidability it was clear how difficult it is for many to understand the Undecidability results. This simply happens because in general, we don't actually understand all the impact of these results. Many even academic people can misunderstand them and also there is also true nonsense about them out there. So in fact, these kind of threads do have a value. Unfortunately when people don't get the message, it's far too easy especially in a forum where everybody is anonymous (and hence you cannot know what the qualifications/knowledge level of others are) to insist on your view even if shown to be mistaken.

I'll tip my hat to @TonesInDeepFreeze and @tim wood for trying to explain to him, but when somebody doesn't understand it, the result can be that tempers rise and as you said yourself, "This isn't a particularly productive discussion".

I still do appreciate the willingness of people to correct others mistakes and give effort to it.

If there is no possible way to know that expression X is true then we can't possibly know
that expression X is true. AKA when X lacks a truth-maker then X is not true.

We must get through this key point first because it is the core foundation of everything
that I am saying. I oversimplified this a little bit so that you can get the gist of what I am saying. — PL Olcott

As I said, we know it from an indirect proof. We can prove that not-X is false, hence we assume that mathematics is consistent, hence X is true (as either X or not-X is true).

Cantor's diagonalization argument is one of the easiest examples of this.

Cantor start from the assumption that all reals are listed, and makes from this list a real number that cannot be on the list. Hence the reductio ad absurdum proof.

Either a mathematical statement S is true or not-S (the negation of S) is true. S and not-S cannot be both true in mathematics. (Either the statement 1+1=3 is true or then 1+1=3 is false is true. That 1+1=3 is false is true.)

A direct proof would be simply to prove S. And indirect proof is to prove not-S is false. Since we assume that mathematics (or logic) is consistent, we do admit the indirect proof and say that S is true if not-S is false. But it's not a direct proof.

There cannot possibly be any expression of language that is true and does not have a truth-maker making it true. — PL Olcott

Truth-maker making it true means that there's a proof that it is true? Sorry, with negative self reference you can easily do that.

Like try to give an answer here that you don't give here. Are there those kinds of answers? Obviously yes. Can you give them? No.

When it is said that G is true and unprovable it never means EXACTLY what it says. — PL Olcott

What do you mean by this? Again, the ability to give a direct proof and something to be true are two different things.

The logic behind negative self reference is quite easy to understand.

Then is never really was literally unprovable.
True yet cannot possibly be proved in any way what-so-ever
does not allow indirect proof. — PL Olcott

OK, it seems where the problem lies and just why you had this long argument with @TonesInDeepFreeze and @tim wood (both or one, some pages ago). This is very important to understand here. Giving a direct proof and giving an indirect proof aren't the same thing. Also proving something and a mathematical statement being true aren't exactly the same thing.

Because let's assume the following statement S

S = This statement is unprovable

So how can you prove this? Well, you prove it by reductio ad absurdum. So let's assume the opposite is true and hence statement S is provable and then go and prove that this cannot be. . Did you give a direct proof? No. You didn't prove S. You proved that not-S is false.

Hence I'll put again to you the last question:

Can an indirect reductio ad absurdum proof prove something in your view?

(Cantor's diagonalization is the easiest way in my view to understand this: with diagonalization we have shown that not all reals would be in the list, but of course this opens up questions like the Continuum Hypothesis.)

When I provide a simple yes/no answer all that I get is ad hominem attacks
without anyone even looking at what I said. — PL Olcott

I've not made any ad hominem attacks. Please understand that just repeating the same thing will get tempers to rise. Always true to really think what the other one is trying to say.

True and unprovable never means EXACTLY what it says:
We know that X is true and have no way what-so-ever to know
that X is true yet we know it is true anyway, as if by majick. — PL Olcott

But we do! We can give an indirect proof.

Do you understand how an reductio ad absurdum proof goes? That's why I asked the third question.

This is quite crucial here in my view.

This isn't a particularly productive discussion. — fdrake

I agree.

But sometimes a tree looks nice to bang your head into. I would be very thankful if someone gave their time to answer my ideas as @TonesInDeepFreeze and @tim wood have given to @PL Olcott on this thread.

Every expression of language x that is {true on the basis of its meaning}
can only be verified as true on the basis of a connection to this meaning.
This does enable a True(L, x) predicate to be defined where L is a formal
language of a formal system. — PL Olcott

Let's debate this from another angle.

In mathematics, do you think there can be true, but unprovable statements?

Do you think that all true statements are also provable?

And finally, can an indirect reductio ad absurdum proof prove something?

Yes on No answers would be appreciated (of course with reasoning too).

The first sentence defines determinism.

The second sentence describes an intellect as having a Law of Everything. The Law of Everything is the law that defines all the forces that set nature in motion and all the positions of all items of which nature is composed...

The second part of the second sentence describes the intellect as being vast enough to submit these data to analysis, or logic.

In this sense, the LoE and logic are different things. — Harry Hindu

This is pretty damning for Laplace, actually.

It seems to logically follow that determinism and free will in the sense that most people think of it as being a decision that was not determined, are incompatible. — Harry Hindu

Exactly.

They don't refute each other! You can have (and have) both determinism and free will. People find this strange because the unintentionally believe Laplace's idea (that a LD with LoE knows everything from the future). If you believe Laplace's idea, then you have a problem.

But decisions are made based on some reason and it is our reasons that determine a decision, or else we would say that we made an unreasonable decision.

To me, freedom entails options. — Harry Hindu

That's a good way to put it. Let me continue from this: How would you model this procedure? How do we get that "option" that entails "freedom"? How could you logically or mathematically model free will?

Here's an attempt. (I hope you follow and if you get lost or notice a mistake, please mention it.)

We do use algorithms, step-by-step procedures for solving a problem or an issue at hand, and then with the knowledge of the past of how our algorithms have worked, we can judge if the algorithm is optimal or if we have to alter it. For example, one algorithm could be how to stay dray when being outside when it rains. Let's say it's the "When in rain" algorithm (WIR).

Let's assume that the WIR algorithm that we have used to keep us dry and has given us the solution of carrying an umbrella.



But then we stumble into a situation that we have to do some work and use both hands in the rain on a boat at sea where the rain and splashes of water can come sideways. Even if we attach the umbrella to our body somehow to free our hands, the situation with the wind and being on a boat makes the umbrella solution not optimal (likely it would be a nuisance). We can instantly notice that our old algorithm doesn't give us the best answer, hence we start occasionally using a raincoat when at sea. Just an attachment to make a "hands free" umbrella won't do as being at sea on a boat is different from the past. The algorithm itself has to be changed.



Here's the radical thing we have just done.

Not only have we changed the WIR algorithm, but we have changed it quite radically and dismissed the idea of an umbrella to something else to WIR(sea). Using the WIR solution in the boat would be (or was) a bad choice, hence had to alter the algorithm itself. The prior WIR algorithm didn't at all mention using a raincoat (or pants). The solution doesn't have anything to do with an umbrella. This is something that computers have a huge problem with, because they follow algorithms. If a the engineer writing the algorithm (the computer program) for the computer doesn't take into account the totally different situation, the computer cannot adapt. But for us the easy thing "Do something else" is pretty hard for a computer: it needs to know just how does it change it's algorithm. "Do something else" isn't a computer algorithm.

So where's the Free will?

Hypothesis: Free will can modelled by having the ability to change the algorithm we use by negative self reference to the prior algorithm we have used. The basically the diagonalization part of the algorithm.

Why would this be free will?

Because the diagonalization part cannot be part of the original algorithm. Computers cannot follow the order "do something else". They have to have the order "how to do something else". Doing the diagonalization is for them impossible because of the negative self reference. They cannot follow an algorithm that states "don't follow this algorithm". All the results of Gödel, Tarski and especially Turing show this.

Why is this so important? Because when

And this comes back LD using LoE, where we agree that LoE isn't logical (or otherwise LD has this problem). Because our algorithm (when in Rain) WIR, which gave the solution of using an umbrella, is actually changed once we have the problems working on a boat in rain. The algorithm is now (WIR)sea and it didn't have the previously the solution. In other words, WIR(sea) is self-refential to WIR and has changed it, hence there's the negative self reference.

OK, so what's Laplace's misunderstanding?

We have talked about this already, but here's one way to put it: Simply that non-algorithmic mathematics exists and plays a crucial part in our lives. Laplace makes the mistake he assumes as premiss that everything can be handled by algorithmic mathematics. This is the basic idea behind LD using LoE and knowing then everything.

And also the link to the undecidability results is obvious, when we look at the definition of non-algorithmic mathematics:

Non-algorithmic math, also known as non-computable math, is a branch of mathematics that deals with problems that cannot be solved by an algorithm or computer program. These problems involve complex and unstructured data that cannot be easily broken down into a set of rules or steps.

Obviously something that a Turing Machine has difficulties with. Now non-computable math sounds like an oxymoron, but it isn't, yet that's the whole problem here. Mathematicians don't want to give much if any importance to such a field of mathematics like non-computable mathematics.

Of course interpretations of what Gödel's theorem actually shows vary.I read an article long time ago about how Gödel's theorem proves God's existence!(wtf?!!!?).People still debate for less complex things than that.So I guess this isn't a surprise. — dimosthenis9

For example in the case that I mentioned Raatikainen mentions in the philosophical implications of the incompleteness results the debate about if "Gödel’s theorems demonstrate that the powers of the human mind outrun any mechanism or formal system" etc.

There's not much if any talk of the above. Of course the above reply to @Harry Hindu comes actually close to Roger Penrose's and J.R. Lucas argument of the human mind not being a computer.

In 1961, J.R. Lucas published “Minds, Machines and Gödel,” in which he formulated a controversial anti-mechanism argument. The argument claims that Gödel’s first incompleteness theorem shows that the human mind is not a Turing machine, that is, a computer.

But note the catch, we are also limited by "the veto" as you stated, that for example I cannot write an answer that I never will write. But clearly the issue is here that the definition of a computer as a Turing Machine might be a limiting factor.

It absolutely has and I've seen Israel avoid conducting strikes because there were civilians around. I've seen them ship in boatloads of aid. — BitconnectCarlos

This is quite a whimsical statement.

FYI the UN or any aid organization didn't make the statements that the aid to the civilians of the cities where the US was fighting the insurgents was actively limited or said that the situation had lead to starvation.

It's been clear since day one that the logistical support given to the civilian populace isn't anywere close to avoid famine.

This is such a bonkers reply. That Israel is starving Palestinians in Gaza Isn't a rumour. Trying to equate that fact with rumours nobody even mentioned here is absolutely ridiculous. — Benkei

I think that here @BitconnectCarlos has to be given the strawman argument of the month.

* * *

On the positive side, Biden's proposals have been at least not been shot down immediately.

(REUTERS, 1st June) Hamas said it was ready to engage "positively and in a constructive manner" with any proposal based on a permanent ceasefire, withdrawal of Israeli forces, the reconstruction of Gaza, a return of those displaced, and a "genuine" prisoner swap deal if Israel "clearly announces commitment to such deal".

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said he had authorized his negotiating team to present the deal, "while insisting that the war will not end until all of its goals are achieved, including the return of all our hostages and the destruction of Hamas' military and governmental capabilities."

Yes, that's not much (if any), but at least it's something else than the "evil city" that has to cut of everything -rhetoric or the "We'll do Oct 7th again and again" -rhetoric.

If Israel is committing war crimes so has everyone and maybe war just is war crimes; you do shoot at the enemy, after all. — BitconnectCarlos

Actually not.

I've started from the reasonable (or at least in my opinion a reasonable) stance that Israel should show restraint against civilians and civilian targets like the US did while it was fighting against Al Qaeda and ISIS.

It hasn't. Proof: you didn't hear about civilians starving to death in Iraq or accusations of it used as a tool by the US while fighting the insurgents. Besides, the US was assisting the civilian populace at the same time it was fighting Al Qaeda and later ISIS.

Not something the IDF is doing... especially when it doesn't allow the normal flow food and supplies to the area it has all the ability to check.

But if it's too much for you that the IDF isn't "the most moral army" in the World as Bibi has said, then just defend them, if it makes you feel better.

Logic limitation was something that Gödel proved also with his theorem so i don't doubt about that. — dimosthenis9

Did he at the time? The undecidability results (Gödel, Turing, Tarski etc.) aren't so directly understood as you say.

For example, just read this article in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy done by Panu Raatikainen in 2013 (revised 2020) about the Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorems. Not only going through the two theorems of Gödel, Raatikainen also in the writes about of the "Philosophical Implications—Real and Alleged". Raatikainen writes nothing about this.

In fact, the only paper I find talking about this is from David Wolpert (from 2008) in his Physical limits of inference, where the abstract states the following:

I show that physical devices that perform observation, prediction, or recollection share an underlying mathematical structure. I call devices with that structure "inference devices". I present a set of existence and impossibility results concerning inference devices. These results hold independent of the precise physical laws governing our universe. In a limited sense, the impossibility results establish that Laplace was wrong to claim that even in a classical, non-chaotic universe the future can be unerringly predicted, given sufficient knowledge of the present. Alternatively, these impossibility results can be viewed as a non-quantum mechanical "uncertainty principle". Next I explore the close connections between the mathematics of inference devices and of Turing Machines. In particular, the impossibility results for inference devices are similar to the Halting theorem for TM's. Furthermore, one can define an analog of Universal TM's (UTM's) for inference devices. I call those analogs "strong inference devices". I use strong inference devices to define the "inference complexity" of an inference task, which is the analog of the Kolmogorov complexity of computing a string. However no universe can contain more than one strong inference device. So whereas the Kolmogorov complexity of a string is arbitrary up to specification of the UTM, there is no such arbitrariness in the inference complexity of an inference task. I end by discussing the philosophical implications of these results, e.g., for whether the universe "is" a computer.

As Raatikainen doesn't write at all about anything above what Wolpert is saying or perhaps isn't aware of this, this isn't a clear cut deal. Wolpert maybe just one of those "anti-mechanists" Raatikainen is talking about. So I think is really something still debated...and hence something really worthy of a discussion here.

Notice that the similarities aren't so easy to pick, even for Gödel it took a while to understand that his and Turings findings are equivalent. And quite often many people still attack Gödel's results accusing him of just finding the paradox of "this statement is false" and simply purpose banning all self referential statements. And not just on the PF site. These opinions just show how people haven't got around to understand the undecidability results.

But you are right about what Laplace had on mind about his Demon.He never mentioned LoE and stuff like that.
That's Hindu's Demon or maybe God :) — dimosthenis9

Exactly, "Hindu's Demon" or God is beyond logic.

Yet when we keep to the logic, it is a limitation because of logic, not just the assumption "that we don't have enough information" that hints that we may have, at least theoretically.

Supposing you are right,even that veto could occure randomly in human brains.And remember neither randomness is on favour of free will. — dimosthenis9

Where it occurs isn't the question, that it occurs is the important point. Remember that with Turing Machines nobody is suggesting they would have free will, but they fall to the same problem. Turing machines cannot compute functions that are not computable by any algorithm.

The important issue here is that we are talking about logical, mathematical limitation here.

As I pointed out before, you are speaking from a position of ignorance. You simply don't know what LD knows. As I said, LD has a "Law of Everything". You do not, yet here you are arguing what would be impossible for LD. — Harry Hindu

And as I pointed, Laplace never talked about and LD or a "Law of Everything" that we don't know, but assumed if some extremely well informed entity could make the extapolation from the present (or past), into the future. Laplace wasn't speaking of any divine power. As I said, what he was talking about is simple "Newtonian" physics extrapolation. That should be clear.

However coming back to your idea of LD having the "Law of Everything":

Let's first discuss this as this is one crucial factor here and should be discussed. Actually you aren't the first to make this argument.

Your argument (and please, do correct me if I'm wrong) is basically the "Black box" argument with LD: we don't know what logic, information and laws which LD is using (that we don't know, which is the Law of Everything. LoE) and hence for LD solving the problem is easy, even if it's not for us.

Ok,

The first question is then: If LD solves this problem using LoE, is then LoE equivalent to our logic that we use? Well, when one situation is that the correct forecast is a forecast that the LD doesn't give, obviously it isn't so, or then we really have understood very wrong basic logic.

I've never denied that determinism does not allow for free will. LD has no free will because it knows everything about everything in the present and can then extrapolate what it will do based on this understanding. — Harry Hindu

Well, now you went ahead of me. Assuming that LD has no free will because it knows everything about everything and can extrapolate the future from the past with (LoE) is definately not something the Laplace had in mind. The point that LD would have no free will is quite a statement.

In fact, this is my point: One can say it that our free will limits this kind of simple extrapolation. Yet is this the correct way to state that theorem? Would it be perhaps better to say that simply there are limitations to what we can compute (or give a direct proof or), because we have free will?

Now I am pro-Putin to the extent that I am anti-being-nuked and Putin hasn't nuked me yet, so he does have that going in his favour as far as I'm concerned. — boethius

If you would just listen to yourself, you would notice how crazy your specifications for being pro-something are. :smirk:

I was talking before the war. — BitconnectCarlos

When?

Prior to 1948? Or prior to the Arab revolt of 1936-1939?

. It is just not the same on the Israeli side. There's anger, of course, but it's not the same. — BitconnectCarlos

I think you should notice how Israel is changing too.

What would an inaccurate forecast be called? A weatherman's forecast is not always accurate. It seems to me that a forecast is simply a mental model of the future in the present. Whether it is accurate or not is a different matter. — Harry Hindu

In the strict sense, a model that is false.

Or simply a model that gives us something true, but it isn't a perfect example of the future.

Regarding "interact", LD is part of the universe it is forecasting so it's actions aren't any different than any other action it needs to account for in making an accurate forecast. — Harry Hindu

So can it say something that it doesn't say? No. Again, when the accurate forecast is the opposite of any forecast the LD gives, it simply cannot give an correct forecast.

The interaction part is when the whole way how such game is played out depends on the forecast, then you cannot just assume everything is fine and dandy and there's just some information missing, but LD has it so it won't be a problem.

With LD the solution would have included where the pilot would turn when they see the flash because the pilot is no different than any other obstacle, conscious or not, that might change the forecast between the moment one makes the forecast and the time the event that was forecasted to happen. — Harry Hindu

Again your not getting the point. That turn hasn't happened yet, it's in the future. The pilot is flying the aircraft ordinarily, because the aircraft hasn't been attacked. He's looking at the potential AA site, but as the pilot observes he's not fired upon, no reason for evasive manuevers. Maybe the site is simply a fake or the gunners simply haven't observed him. The LD giving the firing solution and the firing of the gun only alerts the pilot to make evasive maneuvers. The LD solution is defined from the LD solution itself, you cannot get around it, sorry.

Let's just remember how the LD makes the forecast in general. It knows everything at the present, and it can then extrapolate perhaps one nanosecond at a time to the future to millions of years from now. But this isn't anymore a simple extrapolation: here the correct model of future has to take into consideration the model itself. The LD solution happens partly because of the LD solution. That's circular reasoning. And here we come to the interesting philosophical issue at hand: here the LD has to make a subjective decision. It cannot be just an objective observer here. If it would be, then it wouldn't give any LD solution, the anti-aircraft gun wouldn't be fired and the pilot could perhaps fly aircraft in a straight line through the airspace where the AA gun could reach the aircraft. The gunners would angry at such fire control.

Again, the pilot alters his flight if the aircraft is attacked (sees the muzzle flashes), that happens only after the LD's firing solution, so LD cannot just extrapolate from the present something that isn't yet done.

Here's the most important issue: LD just cannot extrapolate from the past, it has to make a choice when to give the firing solution and what firing solution. That's different what Laplace had in mind. There's many ways to do this, but it isn't simple extrapolation.

This actually is very crucial to our usual way of looking at this: if there's determinism, can there be free will? That's the typical way to look at it. The LD example gives another way to look at this: here the LD has to make a subjective decision because it cannot be just an objective onlooker. And once it does, so, then not all computations can be done as earlier. A lot sure, but not all.

Perhaps in a way our free will simply limits our ability to calculate/prove/extrapolate everything about the future, if it is deterministic.