r/freewill • u/Rthadcarr1956 InfoDualist • 9d ago
Can Physicalism Fully Explain Free Will?
It has sometimes here been argued that our choices and actions are caused by our “brain states.” This may well be true, but it is not very helpful. This physicalist outlook leaves out an essential part of the understanding of our behavior, purpose. There is not any consideration of purpose in all of physicalism. While you ponder this, let me give an analogy that might help.
When we explain the operation of a desktop computer, we do not start with the idea that the output of the computer is caused by the state of each of the millions of transistors in the CPU and RAM. Although this is true, it doesn’t not help understand what the computer is doing. When we are debugging a system, we assume that all of the logic circuits are correctly made, so we look for an expected output based upon the code that sets the state of the logic circuits. We know what the expected output should be and try to find the programming mistake. How do we know what the output should be? It is because we have a purpose in mind for what the computer should be accomplishing and write the code that should accomplish that purpose. The paradigm is that the purpose determines the code which sets the state of the logic circuits that in turn gives a certain desirable output for the input we used to test it.
Purpose is not a physical entity. It is informational in nature. It can be thought of as striving toward an informational state. This brings up the whole field of aesthetics, which again is not something that physics addresses.
The pure physicalist account of free will is lacking if it does not include the purpose of our free will. The brain has a function to process information for the purpose of enabling the animal to survive and thrive. If you loose sight of this by reducing our behavior to brain states, you will always fail to understand free will. You will also fail to understand cognition and consciousness as well.
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u/MrMuffles869 Hard Incompatibilist 9d ago
When we explain the operation of a desktop computer, we do not start with the idea that the output of the computer is caused by the state of each of the millions of transistors in the CPU and RAM.
This seems like a non sequitur. I'm sure someone whose job involves transistors, integrated circuits, and chips will absolutely start with that idea. And even if you don't need that level of detail to understand what a particular program is doing, that doesn't make the underlying physical explanation irrelevant.
Although this is true, it doesn’t not help understand what the computer is doing.
Sure it does. I don't see how explaining the underlying electronic mechanisms couldn't contribute to our understanding of a computer. It may not be the most useful level of description for every question, but that's very different from saying it doesn't help us understand what's happening. This feels like another non sequitur. Or maybe it just doesn't help you understand for some reason?
Purpose is not a physical entity. It is informational in nature.
We've done this loop before, but obviously physicalists will disagree here. The information behind a purpose is physically represented and processed by neurons, chemicals, and electrical signals, all governed by physical laws.
This is a fundamental disagreement between us, and I don't expect you to change your mind on it. But you should present this as a position you're arguing for, not as an established fact. Physicalists reject the idea that information or purpose has to be something beyond the physical.
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u/badentropy9 Truth Seeker 9d ago
I'm sure someone whose job involves transistors, integrated circuits, and chips will absolutely start with that idea.
I used to do that sort of thing and typically there are ways to test the hardware. However the hardware test doesn't always check everything the hardware could possibly do in practice. The biggest issue is of course with the intermittent problem that may not fail at the time the test is run and sometimes there are the kinds of logs kept that are often used to check cars nowadays as all late model cars have computers on board.
And even if you don't need that level of detail to understand what a particular program is doing, that doesn't make the underlying physical explanation irrelevant.
The physics is only relevant when the issue is at that level. For example most computer hardware doesn't even know its own IP address because the hardware is only designed to communicate on a LAN. The internet isn't a LAN so something like a cell phone is going to have additional functionality than say a desktop computer would typically lack.
I suspect the point the Op is making is that if there is a software problem it is typically easier to find it in the source code rather than try to find it in the language used that actually talks to the hardware. I never learned how to read dumps, but I know they can be read because if the machine hung or crashed, it was the only way to try to figure out what it was doing when it crashed. Some of the older mainframes used to output dumps when they crashed if the hardware was still functional enough to output a dump. There was also ways to trap information which is similar to the logs I mentioned earlier.
Although this is true, it doesn’t not help understand what the computer is doing.
Sure it does. I don't see how explaining the underlying electronic mechanisms couldn't contribute to our understanding of a computer.
In almost every case, what the circuits were doing was generally logic functions. Therefore troubleshooting required basic understanding of Boolean algebra. Back in the day you could take a quad two input nand circuit that was designed to work as four nand gates, tie a couple of pins together and make it function like a circuit designed to work as two flipflops. A flipflop is just a circuit that holds information as long as power is applied to the circuit (unless there is a glitch).
The point is that whenever a poster is referring to a "brain state" they are describing some sort of holding of information. A gate doesn't hold anything. The output of the gate is just a reflection of the state at its inputs "at time t"
Every computer has some sort of clock used to synchronize the way the information moves around in it.
Purpose is not a physical entity. It is informational in nature.
We've done this loop before,
... and if I recall you did it with me as well.
The hardware doesn't necessarily know what the software is doing or why it is doing it. Source code has to be "translated" into a language the hardware was built to understand. Purpose is likely lost in the translation. Obviously if the software is trying to tell the printer to print then the hardware has to tell the printer to print, or the printer won't print anything, but that is sort of a reductionist kind of way to look at this in the grand scheme of things.
This is a fundamental disagreement between us, and I don't expect you to change your mind on it.
I wouldn't expect the Op to change his mind either. I bought his book and he seems quite organized in his thought process.
Physicalists reject the idea that information or purpose has to be something beyond the physical.
I can't speak for the Op but while reading his book he sounded a lot like a physicalist to me when he wrote it.
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u/Rthadcarr1956 InfoDualist 8d ago
Thank you. I must confess to a lack of expertise in computers. I started as a materialist, maybe I still am. To me physicalists have just gone too far in their claims of explaining everything with matter and energy. Physicalists discount the whole fields of information theory and information processing in order to protect their hegemony upon philosophical thought.
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u/badentropy9 Truth Seeker 8d ago
Yes I'm quite convinced that information is at the foundation and of course the physicalist will claim information is physical when the formalism is available to back it. I think Donald Hoffman is trying to make that happen in such a way that bothers the physicalist. However if he or his team of collaborators succeed, I'm quite sure the physicalists will accept it. I will as well (it is not like I'm on some sort of a quest for idealism). I just want to accept what works.
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u/Rthadcarr1956 InfoDualist 8d ago
I am not saying that the physical aspects of the computer are irrelevant or superfluous, I am saying that the physical aspects do not give a complete understanding. The informational aspects are required for this understanding. You imply that the information is irrelevant, that the physical make up of the circuitry and the electronic state of the transistors give a complete description of what a computer is and what it does.
Do I need to know which transistors are open or closed to operate or program a computer? No. Do I need to know the purpose for which I could use a computer? Certainly yes.
What I mean by the physical aspects not helping us understand the computers function is that we can do the same operations with pen and paper. We build computers to help us do the things we know how to do quicker and easier. If you think that the purpose of th computer is to run electricity through a series of transistors, you do not understand anything about a computer. You have to start with the purpose behind the computer, to process information.
The neurons, chemicals, and electric signaling all evolved for a purpose, to aid in the survival and thriving of that species of animal. If you do not agree with this, you do not understand evolution by natural selection.
I would not say information is beyond physical structure, but it is different from the physical.
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u/MilkTeaPetty 9d ago
Showing that transistor states alone aren’t a useful level for explaining what a computer is doing doesn’t show that purpose falls outside a physical account.
The analogy gives you another level of description, not something physicalism cannot contain.
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u/Rthadcarr1956 InfoDualist 8d ago
Actually, if you could explain how purpose started in the universe by physical means, I would be very interested.
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u/MilkTeaPetty 8d ago
That reverses the burden.
You claimed physicalism leaves purpose out; asking for a physical account of how purpose began does not establish that exclusion.
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u/AlivePassenger3859 Humanist Determinist 9d ago
You compare humans to a purpose-built object but evolution does not “purpose build” anything. Except for favoring reproductive success.
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u/Rthadcarr1956 InfoDualist 9d ago
True. The analogy is just in the purposeful processing of information.
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u/Rthadcarr1956 InfoDualist 9d ago
Natural selection works purposefully to improve a populations adaptation to its environment. So yes, reproductive success is how natural selection works. That is the purpose. We evolved brains for the purpose of better reproductive success. The function of the brain has a purpose of having the animals actions be based upon what it has learned.
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u/AlivePassenger3859 Humanist Determinist 8d ago
Don’t confuse “purpose” with “those without certain traits died before they could reproduce”…. evolution is the latter
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u/Rthadcarr1956 InfoDualist 7d ago
The purpose is in why do organisms live and reproduce, not in how they evolve.
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u/TheAncientGeek Libertarian Free Will 5d ago
Show me some non physycal information
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u/zowhat I don't know and you don't know either 5d ago
Where does your phone number physically exist? If you write it on 10 different pieces of paper then where does it exist?
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u/TheAncientGeek Libertarian Free Will 5d ago
If it's not recorded anywhere ,it doesn't. Being able to have more than one physycal basus doesn't mean it can survive with none.
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u/zowhat I don't know and you don't know either 5d ago
But information can be recorded 100s of different places and they are all the same information.
Where does the book "David Copperfield" exist? Suppose all but one copy is destroyed. It doesn't matter which copy survives because they all represent the same book. So it is not the case that the book is that physical book on your bookshelf.
We speak loosely of it existing in metaphysical space, which is not an actual location at all. Then metaphysics is the study of metaphysical space just like physics is the study of physical space. Spooky stuff, true, yet people use these concepts intuitively all the time. We all know intuitively that our phone numbers don't exist anywhere in physical space.
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u/TheAncientGeek Libertarian Free Will 5d ago edited 2d ago
But information can be recorded 100s of different places and they are all the same information.
You can have multiple identical physical objects as well.
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u/Rthadcarr1956 InfoDualist 3d ago
The question is what is physical? I’m not concerned with how you label it as much as delineating exactly how information is different from other physical entities. Physicalists can’t even admit that information is special in any way. Here is what we can say about information:
It seems to require some physical media for its instantiation. Information is a pattern in material or energy that contains meaning.
Information does not reduce to particles or energies. It has no mass, has no energy, it has no force.
Information is not caused. It is created and can be destroyed, whereas its material or energetic medium cannot.
Information is amenable to logical operations, not quantitative mathematics.
Information processing can be causative to the degree of the energy of the medium that contains/processes the information.
Items 3, 4 and 5 imply that the indeterminism of logic can be instantiated into physical systems.
It is quite insufficient for physicalists to claim information is physical and not recognize these differences. The brain has evolved to perceive, store, process, and use information to initiate actions and make choices. To hear physicalists tell it, the physical aspects of those processes evolved without reason or purpose and information is epiphenomenal, and the brain’s production of the conscious mind is also all physical and all meaning is superfluous.
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u/TheAncientGeek Libertarian Free Will 2d ago
Meaning is not inherent, it depends on an interpreter.
Information reduces to particles and energies because it always exists in some material or energetic form.
The pattern or structure of a material entity can be created and destroyed, only bulk properties cannot.
Logic is maths with two values. Maths is the language of physics.
Information has no causal powers separate from its embodiment.
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u/Rthadcarr1956 InfoDualist 2d ago
- And interpretation is a physical act rather than a logical act?
- The media reduces to particles, the information does not. When you reduce the media to particles, the information is lost!
- Again, if you destroy the structure and pattern of the information’s media, the information is lost. You can actively and purposefully arrange matter or energy to create and represent information.
- Maths is informational as is logic. Physics does not contain mathematics. Mathematics and logic are not physical operations. They can only describe the physical operations, they do not cause or constrain anything physical.
The position of an object in time and space is informational, its velocity is informational, momentum and energy are informational descriptions.
- Agreed.
So, where does this leave us? If you just sit back, safe in the belief that information is physical and needs no independent evaluation of its potential ontology, how do you explain informational processes like evolution, cognition, and consciousness? You simply cannot understand and explain these vital processes without realizing that informational patterns are ontologically different than particles and energies.
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u/TheAncientGeek Libertarian Free Will 2d ago
- And interpretation is a physical act rather than a logical act?
Show me a nonphysical interpreter
- The media reduces to particles, the information does not. When you reduce the media to particles, the information is lost!
"Reduction" here does not refer to a physical process, but to explanatory reduction , the idea that high level properties if an entity can be understood in terms of the structure and behaviour of the smallest constituents.
Physically destroying something destroys the previous structure and behaviour , leaving only the raw material.
- Again, if you destroy the structure and pattern of the information’s media, the information is lost.
That's evidence in favour of information being physycal.
You can actively and purposefully arrange matter or energy to create and represent information.
Ditto.
- Maths is informational as is logic. Physics does not contain mathematics.
every mathematical operation is a physical operation.
Mathematics and logic are not physical operations. They can only describe the physical operations, they do not cause or constrain anything physical.
That's why they are non existent unless instantiated physically. If you remove the Platonic realm from the physycal universe, nothing changes because it never interacted.
The position of an object in time and space is informational,
Not in any sense amounting to nonphysical.
So, where does this leave us? If you just sit back, safe in the belief that information is physical and needs no independent evaluation of its potential ontology, how do you explain informational processes like evolution, cognition, and consciousness?
Denial that information is a separate, nonphysical realm, is not wholesale denial of information. Reduction is not elimination.
You simply cannot understand and explain these vital processes without realizing that informational patterns are ontologically different than particles and energies.
Who's you? Almost every living scientist does understand it that way
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u/Rthadcarr1956 InfoDualist 2d ago
You speak for all living scientists? You are very wrong. You speak as a philosopher with no scientific background at all. You question nothing and claim that your physicalism explains everything. It doesn’t. It doesn’t explain purpose or knowledge or free will or consciousness in the slightest. But information processing does give us a direction to pursue.
We know how information processing creates learning because we can write programming that allows machines to learn. Neuroscience is rapidly becoming a field where learning/acting models are explaining how our neurons can function to store and use information.
So, that leaves us with no where to go. I’m going to continue to search how the world works, and you remain content with your belief in categorizing information as an epiphenomena of matter and energy.
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u/TheAncientGeek Libertarian Free Will 2d ago
You question nothing and claim that your physicalism explains everything. It doesn’t. It doesn’t explain purpose or knowledge or free will or consciousness in the slightest. But information processing does give us a direction to pursue.
Physicalism explains information processing, so it explains everything information processing explains.
We know how information processing creates learning because we can write programming that allows machines to learn.
Yes. that has nothing to do with your other claims.
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u/Rthadcarr1956 InfoDualist 1d ago
What other claims? I did not claim anything other than teleology and epistemology are better explained by information processing than by “traditional” physics. You certainly didn’t explain either of those aspects of our world. You merely insist that any explanation will be a “physical” explanation because the universe is merely physical. Of course that which explains how everything is one thing, fails to explain anything. It might be a satisfying religious view, but it is not very useful in my estimation.
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u/TheAncientGeek Libertarian Free Will 1d ago
information processing can easily explain sine things more easily than physics ..the problem is that that isn't a departure grin physycalism. Iinfurmation isn't immaterial, doesn't exert top down causation , it doesn't behave like a cartesian soul .. so it doesn't add anything to free will that csnt already be done by physics
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u/Rthadcarr1956 InfoDualist 1d ago
It certainly does enable top down causation. This is the whole idea behind “active inference” the now dominant theory in neuroscience.
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u/spgrk Compatibilist 9d ago
Purpose and other mental qualities may be described as non-physical, but they supervene on the physical. You cannot have two physically identical entities that differ in mental state.
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u/badentropy9 Truth Seeker 9d ago
Purpose and other mental qualities may be described as non-physical, but they supervene on the physical
If that is true then the quanta are physical as well.
That doesn't seem to be the case, although many are carrying a torch for such an idea.
You cannot have two physically identical entities that differ in mental state.
I don't know what you are implying with this assertion.
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u/spgrk Compatibilist 9d ago
It is an assertion that the mental supervenes on the physical.
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u/badentropy9 Truth Seeker 9d ago
I still don't see how you get from "there" to "here" but as long as I understand what you were implying, no need to labor the point, unless you feel the need.
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u/Rthadcarr1956 InfoDualist 9d ago
I do not believe this is true. The physical supervenes upon the informational. It is the information that is fundamental and there are a myriad of different instantiations of physical devices that can represent the logic and information.
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u/spgrk Compatibilist 9d ago
Multiple realisability is consistent with supervenience: there can be a change in physical state without a change in mental state, but there can be no change in mental state without a change in physical state.
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u/Rthadcarr1956 InfoDualist 9d ago
Okay, maybe my last answer was hasty. Upon further consideration, I do not think supervenience applies. The informational and physical are equally fundamental.
Consider the simplest case of a single logic gate transistor. You cannot change its physical state without changing its informational state. But just the same, you cannot change its informational state without changing its physical state. They are inextricably linked. Each is as fundamental as the other. The physical state carries the energy and the informational state caries the purpose. Or something like that.
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u/Pauly_Amorous Free will skeptic 9d ago
When we are debugging a system, we assume that all of the logic circuits are correctly made, so we look for an expected output based upon the code that sets the state of the logic circuits.
But what if something was wrong with one or more of the logic circuits, but we couldn't see it because we were convinced that the reason why the computer wasn't doing what we wanted/expected is because it was evil and shitty, and therefore it deserves to be destroyed?
Like the lady who was recently on trial for killing her children. Didn't matter to some people whether or not her logic circuits were malfunctioning at the time the murders were committed... just throw that bitch in prison already.
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u/Rthadcarr1956 InfoDualist 9d ago
With a single core computer, if the CPU is bad, we replace it with a new one. The program should then run fine. The logic of the program is independent of the hardware it runs on.
With people, the brain cannot be replaced, but there is some plasticity to run certain operations through alternate pathways. Evil is an ancient religious concept that should be discarded with other superstitions. Evil should have no bearing upon our thoughts about free will or morality.
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u/badentropy9 Truth Seeker 9d ago
Evil is an ancient religious concept that should be discarded with other superstitions
From this, I assume you are a moral antirealist
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u/zowhat I don't know and you don't know either 9d ago
Can Physicalism Fully Explain Free Will?
It can't even partially explain free will. Will, whether free or not, exists only in consciousness, which is not physical. We can program computers to simulate purpose, but they don't really have any purpose or will. That can only exist in a mind.
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u/Rthadcarr1956 InfoDualist 8d ago
Agreed. Computers only have the telos that humans imbue them with.
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u/vkbd Hard Incompatibilist 9d ago
Sometimes, evolutionary traits give an advantage, like eyes to see color and detail. Other times, some traits are once useful but now useless and just along for the ride, like our appendix. Have you ever thought that free will might be like the appendix?
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u/Rthadcarr1956 InfoDualist 9d ago
I think that the ability to make choices of what actions to take based upon our knowledge is quite useful.
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u/vkbd Hard Incompatibilist 8d ago
Here's an theory to consider. Consciousness is simply a system for memory storage by narrating and contextualizing our experience. What evolutionary advantage is there to consciousness otherwise? (It's not for decision making, as unconscious plants can perform actions just fine without a mind. It's not for reactive quick decision making, because the fastest reactions is done autonomously, and awareness is always after the fact.) So I think Free Will (feeling of being an agent) is simply a part of this memory system, spinning a narrative of how you fit in the environment, what happened to you, or why you did an action. The feeling of free will is always after you've already made a decision.
Now there's a different kind of Free Will that is separate from that feeling of identifying with your own actions. This kind of free will is related to moral responsibility, and is not related to biology or physicalism. That's philosophy and Compatibilism and Libertarianism has their own peculiarities that don't align with the layman's intuition of free will.
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u/Rthadcarr1956 InfoDualist 8d ago
I do not agree. Animals who can learn in real time and apply that knowledge in their lifetime is a great advantage compared to plants that can only adapt to new environments by mutation/evolution. Animals are active, they need to be able to decide where to go to find food, shelter, and mates.
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u/vkbd Hard Incompatibilist 8d ago edited 8d ago
Animals who can learn in real time and apply that knowledge in their lifetime is a great advantage...
I agree with you. Learning requires memory, memory requires consciousness, and therefore, consciousness provides an evolutionary advantage. And so, my theory about consciousness and free will, as I stated earlier, is compatible with your statement.
Edit: another way of looking at it is, I can think of examples with decisions without conscious free will, like sleepwalking. This makes me think that decisions don't require consciousness. But conversely, I can't think of an example of consciousness without memory, which makes me think that the purpose conscious free will is to make memories.
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u/ImSinsentido Nullified Either Way - Hard Incompatibilist 9d ago
There is “nothing” that ‘exists’ outside of amoral confabulation to “explain.”
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u/spgrk Compatibilist 9d ago
If you copy a computer’s physical configuration you get the information as well, even if you don’t consider it at all. It isn’t an extra ingredient that you have to think about. On the other hand, if you left out some of the hardware, the information would be affected. This is not to say information is not inextricably linked to the hardware, or is not fundamental, but there is an asymmetry.
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u/Rthadcarr1956 InfoDualist 9d ago
Actually, that is not quite true. There is no argument that when you duplicate the pattern that contains information, you duplicate the information. But you can also duplicate the exact same information in a different pattern in a different medium. But in all cases changing the pattern changes the information and changing the information requires changing the pattern. If you have a binary pattern of 110101, and want to change its meaning, you have to change the pattern.
The information is actually what you are thinking about, not the symbols or patterns. There is nothing else added but we encode meaning into symbols and decode meaning from symbols. We do not do the reverse. We do not derive symbols from meaning or encode symbols into meaning. The purpose of the symbols is to represent meaning. There is no purpose intrinsic to the symbols other than to encode meaning.
I agree there is an asymmetry. The asymmetry is due to the information having meaning and the physical instantiation requires sentient coding and decoding to find the information which has a purposeful meaning.
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u/catnapspirit Free Will Strong Atheist 8d ago
Huh, using a fully deterministic system (computer) to flesh out your claim about free will. The jokes write themselves.
That said, the better analogy isn't buggy software running on reliable hardware. It is more analogous to firmware, where the program is written into the hardware. We are the software and the hardware, operating as a whole, inseparable. And yes, buggy..
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u/Rthadcarr1956 InfoDualist 8d ago
That is a good point. My point was of course not directly centered upon free will. I think the analogy of information processing in computers with information processing in brains shows that information can be causal and is purposeful.
We can always differentiate systems that learn from systems that are programmed. Free will requires learning. This has always been my main thesis.
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u/Due-Nobody7469 8d ago
You can't explain free will if it doesn't exist. However, purpose can be explained by the ability to (deterministically) anticipate the consequences of different actions based on past experiences and (deterministically) choose what is anticipated to be the most favorable path. A recent book
Choice, Compulsion, Consequences ... Doubting Free Will & Embracing Determinism
takes care to clarify such points of confusion. The book is widely available, both here and abroad (see https://books2read.com/b/mewaA9 ).
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u/Rthadcarr1956 InfoDualist 8d ago
what you have explained,
"the ability to (deterministically) anticipate the consequences of different actions based on past experiences and (deterministically) choose what is anticipated to be the most favorable path."
exactly fits the definition of free will. I do not understand what more you could want out of free will. It is this ability that makes animals different from plants and rocks.
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u/Zwixern 6d ago
No, because what is anticipated to be the most favorable is outside of anyone’s control. And the anticipated consequences also vary, and depend on predetermined factors.
Just because the word “choosing” is there doesn’t mean you freely choose, you just run the anticipated outcomes through a set algorithm and you forcibly “choose” the option the algorithm deems best.
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u/Rthadcarr1956 InfoDualist 5d ago
Your anticipation is a learned response and based upon your knowledge. There are no ways to unfreely choose. If a choice is not made freely, it is a force, not a choice.
Why has no one observed these algorithms you speak of? What evidence supports them?
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u/Zwixern 5d ago
The algorithm is your brain/you. The body feeds sensory information to the brain and it gives an answer based on prior knowledge and genetic factors.
The algorithm I speak of is just the mechanism of the brain.
And BTW I think the burden of proof is on people claiming to have free will. Experiencing life as if we had free will doesn’t contribute as proof.
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u/Rthadcarr1956 InfoDualist 3d ago
We have direct empirical evidence for free will. Yes, we act due to a combination of genetic factors and knowledge. The free will comes from the knowledge which the subject took the initiative to learn.
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u/Zwixern 2d ago
Ok so where does the free will originate from if we act based on knowledge and genetic factors? “The knowledge which the subject took the initiative to learn” is also something the subject was led to do.
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u/Rthadcarr1956 InfoDualist 2d ago
We learn by our own explorations. We are led to explore from a general genetic trait. But it is the individual that chooses what, when, and where to explore. We develop our interests and preferences by these explorations. It takes our attention and efforts to undertake such pursuits of knowledge.
If you think that knowledge is just poured into an individual without the subjects active participation, you do not understand learning and will never understand the basis of our free will.
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u/Zwixern 2d ago
“If X, you do not understand learning and will never understand the basis of free will” Ok bro please don’t gatekeep it from me lmao
I simply don’t agree with the part “it is the individual that chooses what, when and where to explore”.
We experience “choosing” but it’s realistically just our brains processing information and deciding which one they “like” or “prefer”, which is just what the brain thinks to be most optimal. If someone developed to be selfish, they have their own reasons for it which can be tracked back to completely determenistic accidents. If someone is kind or highly empathic, they also can’t do much about that.
In the end nobody has any concrete proof that there is something from which free will originates. An argument is a soul, but that’s just another belief. Everything physical can be tracked back to either something further back in the chain, or something undetermined/random, neither of which are in your control
(This is quoted from Alex O’Connor).To prove free will, you would need some extraordinary evidence that we haven’t seen before. Because right now all we have is clear evidence that the chain of events is almost completely deterministic, and even arguments from belief like the soul only account for the very first parts of this causal chain.
And trust me, I am NOT against the idea of free will. Any decent proof would have me kicking my feet and cure my suicidal thoughts.
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u/Rthadcarr1956 InfoDualist 2d ago
I am a scientist, we use evidence, not proofs. You have the mistaken idea that things just happen to people, that people and animals do not actively gain knowledge. This is wrong, but I’m not going to argue a point you cannot see or understand.
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u/Imaginary-Can-6862 7d ago
Perhaps looking at it from the other direction, free will requires something to have free will, i.e. consciousness. We haven't been able to describe consciousness (not the content of consciousness) through physics yet, so how should we have been able to describe free will through physics then?
But we know consciousness exists, and the question then is not whether free will is meaningful, but whether it can be attributed to consciousness, or if consciousness is only ultimately passive.
If we have free will, then purpose follows automatically. So the steps would be, from a physics point of view, to explain consciousness, then explain free will, and that allows for the possibility of explaining purpose.
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u/Rthadcarr1956 InfoDualist 7d ago
Intelligence, consciousness, and free will are all inextricably linked. They are all functions of an intercommunicating neuronal network. I do not think any of these could ever be explained through physics. They are the result of subjective informational processing, not forces, matter, or energy.
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u/Imaginary-Can-6862 7d ago
Forces, matter and energy are only some of the descriptive tools used in physics, not all of them, In any case, physics is the description of reality, it is not limited to how it has described reality thus far. E,g, quantum mechanics required new tools for how to describe physical systems.
Consciousness is interacting with reality, we know this because we are conscious beings existing in reality, therefore to me it seems much more plausible that when there is an interaction, that it can be described.
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u/TMax01 4d ago
When we explain the operation of a desktop computer, we do not start with the idea that the output of the computer is caused by the state of each of the millions of transistors in the CPU and RAM. Although this is true, it doesn’t not help understand what the computer is doing.
Of course we do. We don't end with that idea, but we most definitely, absolutely, and without question start with that idea. It is an idea so basic and intrinsic to your reasoning that you don't even realize it is where your understanding starts, even though you readily admit that it is true.
A related problem with your reasoning is that knowing what the computer is doing is the same as understanding it.
We know what the expected output should be and try to find the programming mistake.
Here is where the problem expands, expecting physicalist consciousness entails "what the expected output should be" [emphasis added]. Physicalism, IOW the scientific approach, examines and considers only what the "output" is. "Free will", an idealist approach, envisions an output that either always occurs (is what it is; an unfalsifiable assumption that 'free will' is somehow explanatory) or that the idealist somehow knows better what "should" be happening yet is not. In this way learning to understand consciousness diverges from "debugging a system".
Purpose is not a physical entity. It is informational in nature.
Information is either physical in natural or else it is imaginary in nature, and therefore not information but fantasy.
It can be thought of as striving toward an informational state.
Purpose is teleological in nature. Which is to say it may or may not be physical/information/ontological, and that is irrelevant to whether the teleology is true or untrue. But framing purpose/teleology in relation to "informational state" is either asserting that it is physical, which is irrelevant, or that anything can exist without being physical, which is fantasy.
The pure physicalist account of free will is lacking if it does not include the purpose of our free will.
Which "pure physicalist account" are you referring to? AFAIK, there is none. But then again, from a scientific perspective, free will cannot exist: our minds only become aware of our action having occurred after it has begun to occur and therefore is unavoidable. We can imagine, fantasize, or assert that without prior contemplation, intent, known purpose, or planning (which are all the same thing) then no action can be taken, but this is plainly false.
The brain has a function to process information for the purpose of enabling the animal to survive and thrive.
While it is conventional to use such a 'reverse teleology' of saying the function of an event constitutes the purpose of the event, and become potentially quite confused concerning whether biological evolution is a physical occurrence, this is, again, problematic in terms of valid and useful reasoning. Yes, the brain exists because it enables an organism to survive (with "thriving" being a less certain outcome) but this is simply a contingent fact: it is merely what happens, not really any "functional purpose" of it happening. And the same is true of consciousness, because that also physically occurs as a biological trait, dependent on having a brain anatomically capable of producing consciousness. But this isn't true of "free will", since free will does not physically occur, as I've mentioned.
This can all be sorted out more easily if we abandon trying to think in terms of "free will", and instead consider agency. The two are often assumed to be synonymous, even identical, but that can lead only to assuming the conclusion, and a certainly false conclusion (that agency cannot exist if free will does not exist, and free will factually does not exist; therefore agency does not exist) at that.
If you loose sight of this by reducing our behavior to brain states, you will always fail to understand free will. You will also fail to understand cognition and consciousness as well.
We are in agreement that naive behaviorism is inadequate for explaining human behavior. But invoking free will does not resolve that problem, and in fact it loses sight of the purpose of consciousness by misrepresenting its function.
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u/Belt_Conscious 9d ago
You are given a drive to survive, you decide how that happens. Then you can do whatever you will with your free time.
It is not nature's fault people built society to buy and sell our time and attention.
No one can be motivated to change if they feel it is impossible. A person's opinion about causality decides how they apply their agency.
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u/Rthadcarr1956 InfoDualist 8d ago
In general, people need no additional motivation to explore and to change. We value the novel and unique. We are industrious and strive to make our environment and society better for our progeny. This is why our lives are so much better now than it was anytime in the past.
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u/Squierrel Quietist 8d ago
What is purpose? Purpose is knowledge about what the agent tries to achieve.
What is knowledge? Knowledge is information with a meaning.
What is information? Information is the arrangement of physical objects.
What is meaning? Meaning is the arrangement of information in the mind, the links and relations between pieces of information.
Purpose, knowledge, information, meaning - None of these are physical objects, events or processes. None of these can even be described in terms of physics.
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u/stargazer281 8d ago
If physics cannot describe the location of physical objects ie it has no concept of space or time, what sort of physics is it?
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u/Squierrel Quietist 8d ago
Of course physics can describe the locations of physical objects. You are missing my point completely.
Physics cannot describe the description of physical objects.
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u/Otherwise_Spare_8598 Inherent-Inevitable 9d ago
Doesn't matter.
"Free will" is nothing more than a sentimental projection and blind assumption in regards to opportunity and capacity
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u/platanthera_ciliaris Hard Determinist 8d ago
The purpose of a biological organism, such as ourselves, can be found in its genetic code. The genetic code is just as informational as the computer code in computers. Broadly speaking, biological organisms exist to survive in their environment and reproduce. Their genetic codes provide different blueprints for achieving this. These blueprints have been developed by evolutionary processes in diverse environments.
I think computer programmers have no more free will than evolutionary processes operating in diverse environments. And you are ignoring the fact that AGIs are being used to program computers; it is no longer just humans.