On 7/4/2017 9:00 PM, Adrian Chira wrote:
Hi Brent, thanks for your comments.
So it's an experience. But that's not what it is in a court of
law. Why isn't it a behavior? Can you not tell whether your dog
has free will?
I'm not saying that it's only an experience but just that experience
is simply a good starting point which, undeniably, is something. At
this point we might be wrong about the experience, it may be
misleading (for example, I believe that our experience of time is
completely wrong, time is not what we think of it, that redefinition
turns out to be solve quite a number of paradoxes in physics—I find
the topic fascinating but it's different topic altogether). But it's
self-obvious that we are experiencing something that we label "free-will."
It's not at all obvious to me that what we experience is unanalyzable.
My introspection reduces this experience to a reflective belief that I
could have done otherwise, which depends on the fact that I cannot
analyzed my own mental functions to the point of tracing the details of
my decisions. I'm upredictable, even to myself, and that's what feels
like "free will".
What's in a court of law is only a relevant question /after/ you've
answered the question about free will.
What question?
As I said, free will is not only an experience. It's possible that the
experience is only one of the manifestations of the free will.
But above you've defined it as an experience, which you assume we all
recognize and it is fundamental.
The experience itself is not too useful in the court of law, indeed.
But if we allow that free will is more than that then we may have a
basis to then build a legal system.
I don't see that there is any problem with building a legal system, as
we have done, on the idea that responsibility attaches to behavior and
mitigated by coercion.
/Behavior/ is usually used to refer to finding and predicting
/patterns/ of human actions. That's quite opposite to our
/experience/ of free will which implies the possibility of breaking
predictions and patters.
I don't believe that any other creature has free will except humans.
We can go on about why I believe so but I don't.
Yes, but of course you've heard the counters to those assertions;
mainly that your experience that your actions are not "mere
reactions" may be simply your inability to trace the complex
reactions to recent and long past events imprinted in your brain.
Yes, but it doesn't apply to this point because at this point I allow
the possibility that the experience although /very real/, undeniable,
may be misleading.
But problem is you haven't defined it so it does lead anywhere. Are you
defining it as a feeling that ones actions are not determined by
physical processes in the brain (so-called "libertarian free will"). I
don't think anyone can honestly say they feel that directly.
I will discuss this in a future blog. Due to comments on my first blog
on free will to the effect that free will is meaningless, I wanted to
first make the point that the assertion "I have an experience that I
label as free will" is not meaningless.
It is unless you say what it's meaning is.
It may end up, after later analysis, that it's misleading but the
experience itself is real and further discussion of this cannot simply
be dismissed as John Clark suggested.
Certainly if I built an intelligent robot I would not make that
kind of retracing the source of decisions a part of the robot
brain - it would be very wasteful of computational resources. And
in fact humans are notoriously bad at explaining their reasons for
decisions - c.f. split-brain blind sight experiments.
While you are right about the robot analogy, I believe the general
robot analogy fails in other ways (that I'll discuss in a future
post). Yes, I'm aware about split-brain blind sight experiments (and
that was in a way replicated in non split-brain cases) and you are
right about people being bad at explaining their reasons. Two points
though:
1. People having free will doesn't mean that they manifest their free
will all the time.
So now it's a behavior?
1. They certainly don't in cases of reflexive actions. Furthermore,
the best way to observe free will is not in relation to
/insignificant/ events (such as those in split-brain experiments
you mentioned or even Libet's experiments). Assuming that free
will exists, if the events are insignificant then it may not be
worth making an effort to manifest free will. We may as well let
our impulses take over. There is not much at stake there. To see
free will in action you have to look at important actions
particularly where conflict is involved (such as between long term
and short term interests, those that include moral judgments,
etc.). So insignificant events are not significant.
But they are the sort of thing people say proves free will because they
could have done something different. If you consider decisions of great
import, then it becomes questionable whether they could have made a
different decision. They are effectively coerced by circumstances and
who they are.
1. Yes, if you assume that free-will doesn't exist and throw in the
robot analogy then it makes sense (we have a confirmed prediction
and possible explanation) that we are bad at explaining our
decisions. But if free will does exist, then our inability to
explain our decisions may be simply due to our lack of experience
with the nature of free will outside free will (which is neither
determinism nor randomness).
It's not that the meter is defined in terms of the second.
Sorry, as you said it yourself "the distance light travels in vacuum
in 1⁄299792458 of a *second*."
Both [meter and second] are defined by a certain transition
between energy levels of the cesium atom. You can look at the
wavelength of the transition photon as defining the meter and then
get the second by using c as the unit conversion or vice versa.
The definition is an operational one.
There is no reference to cesium in the definition of meter but only in
the definition of second. Any definition must be either what you call
operational or calculated based on a formula form other known terms.
The /meter/ used to <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metre> be measured
"operationally" (based on certain emission line of krypton-86 in 1960,
a prototype in 1799 or the distance between equator and North Pole in
1793). But it was considered those were not good enough and in the
current SI definition this was switched to a /derived/ or calculated
measure (as opposed to a direct measurement or operational definition)
based on the known formula of velocity /s/ = /c/*/t/, where /c/, the
speed of light, and /t/, the second are taken as known.
But you are right in the sense that the vicious circle can be avoided
by an operational definition but that definition is that of second not
of meter. As I pointed out (and, if needed, I can go on to prove my
point), you /necessarily/ need a measurement of space in order to
determine a measurement of time. Any way you try to measure time you
will eventually end up with the same equation of velocity where you
take the speed of light and the unit of space as known.
No. One typically measures the unit of space by round trip "radar time"
which is measured in terms of oscillations of the cesium emission by
looking at phase differences in interference patterns. That's how LIGO
measures deflections smaller than the diameter of a proton.
Brent
But you are right, one may use the cesium's wavelength as the known
unit of space (and velocity) in order to determine the unit of time
(the second) and then you use the second (and velcity, /c/) to measure
the meter. But the problem is then that you have two fundamental units
of space: the meter and cesium's wavelength. Now they are related and
the former is ultimately based on the latter which makes the SI
definition rather silly, actually masking the real operational
definition based on cesium's wavelength. But this real operational
definition turns out that it's not that "real" because it requires,
among other things, a 0K temperature which has never been achieved so
it is a "corrected" measurement.
The problem with operational definitions is that they may be
susceptible to changing conditions. Some conditions are mentioned such
as "ground state", "0 K" but the operational length of a meter may end
up being affected by causes that we are not yet aware of.
But, which is what my point was, if you uphold the validity of SI's
definition of the fundamental unit of space (and not rely on cesium
wavelength instead) then you do end up in a vicious circle.
Adrian
On Wed, Jun 28, 2017 at 1:41 PM, Brent Meeker <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
On 6/28/2017 6:18 AM, Adrian Chira wrote:
But then you need an ostensive definition - an example of
free-will.
The problem with /ostensive/ is that requires something
/external/ to point to. Free will, however, is an
/internal/ experience. An /ostensive/ definition is needed when
the other person doesn't know what you are talking about. However
here you have the same experience of free will that I have.
So it's an experience. But that's not what it is in a court of
law. Why isn't it a behavior? Can you not tell whether your dog
has free will?
The matter is not that you don't know what I'm talking about. The
problem is that you can't comprehend to your satisfaction what
I'm talking about (aka what you are experiencing). Now calling my
experience "free will" should suffice to point to the same kind
of experience that you have.
Having said that, I could still go further in describing it.
While we all experience the passage of time we can't directly
point to it. It's an inner experience. But we can give enough
external clues to point to the same experience in the other person.
Therefore to spell out out this intuitive definition, it's the
experience that the outcome of my choices are /actions/ and not
mere /reactions/. That I can make a /difference/ in my life and
I'm not just a /spectator/ to my life. That the possible
alternatives that I'm facing are, until the moment of my
decision, /open-ended/ and not /predetermined/. That I'm an
/agent/ and not merely a /robot/.
Yes, but of course you've heard the counters to those assertions;
mainly that your experience that your actions are not "mere
reactions" may be simply your inability to trace the complex
reactions to recent and long past events imprinted in your brain.
Certainly if I built an intelligent robot I would not make that
kind of retracing the source of decisions a part of the robot
brain - it would be very wasteful of computational resources. And
in fact humans are notoriously bad at explaining their reasons for
decisions - c.f. split-brain blind sight experiments.
Are you not aware that since 1983, the metre has been defined
in the International System of Units (SI) as the distance
light travels in vacuum in 1⁄299792458 of a second? This
definition fixes the speed of light in vacuum at
exactly299,792,458 m/s.
Not only that I'm aware but that's exactly what I'm referring to.
As a matter of fact I have the exacted SI definitions and links
copied in my notes. What you are saying above is, of course,
correct. My challenge to you it to find a way to measure a second
in a way that satisfies the SI definition without involving
already knowing what the meter is (that's because, as you point
out the meter already relies on first knowing what a second is).
See http://www.bipm.org/en/CGPM/db/17/1/
<http://www.bipm.org/en/CGPM/db/17/1/> and
http://www.bipm.org/en/si/si_brochure/chapter2/2-1/second.html
<http://www.bipm.org/en/si/si_brochure/chapter2/2-1/second.html>.
But there's nothing circular about it. It's not that the meter is
defined in terms of the second. Both are defined by a certain
transition between energy levels of the cesium atom. You can look
at the wavelength of the transition photon as defining the meter
and then get the second by using c as the unit conversion or vice
versa. The definition is an operational one.
Brent
Regards,
Adrian
On Tue, Jun 27, 2017 at 10:56 PM, Brent Meeker
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
On 6/27/2017 7:55 PM, Adrian Chira wrote:
Brent, thanks for your comment as well as your suggestion, I
will look up Dennet's book. I will tell you why I didn't but
I agree with you that I should have been more clear and
should have included some my thoughts below.
While defining one's key terms is good practice and can be
even expected when there is any risk of ambiguity, I think
that free will is a special case. We do have a first hand
experience of free will. It's in a way similar to what St.
Augustine said about time: "What then is time? If no one
asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him
who asks, I do not know."
I'm not saying that a definition in terms is necessary. But
then you need an ostensive definition - an example of
free-will. I think that's hard too, unless you just define
it as the absence of external coercion as used in court.
We experience time regardless if we understand it or not.
(As a matter of fact I find the matter of time fascinating
and I did quite a bit of research on it, my conclusion is
that the way that second and meter are defined leads to
circular definition as both rely on the equation of velocity
c=s/t where c is given and you have two unkowns, /s/ and
/t/, but that's another topic).
Are you not aware that since 1983, the metre has been defined
in the International System of Units (SI) as the distance
light travels in vacuum in 1⁄299792458 of a second? This
definition fixes the speed of light in vacuum at
exactly299,792,458 m/s.
The same way we experience free will regardless if we can
properly define it or not.
I think that is a dubious proposition which you may also
discover when you try to define it ostensively. What we
experience is an inability to predict or even coherently
explain our choices, even to ourselves.
For the purpose of my first post on free-will I considered
that this intuitive notion of free-will suffices.
I know plenty of people who think is an illusion or
meaningless - but of course that depends on which
definition(s) one adopts.
Brent
Best regards,
Adrian
On Mon, Jun 26, 2017 at 1:09 AM, Brent Meeker
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
You write an essay on free-will without ever defining
what you mean by that phrase. I suggest you read Daniel
Dennett's "Elbow Room".
Brent
On 6/25/2017 5:32 PM, Adrian Chira wrote:
A discussion of what contributed to free-will denial:
Is Free Will an Illusion? Part 1 - The Origins of
Free-Will Denial
<https://adrianmchira.wordpress.com/2017/06/26/free-will-part-1/>.
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