[edoo]

We paradoxically could have free will and still live in a purely deterministic universe. Even if it is deterministic, we could never do the math to determine the exact state of everything. Our inability to model the universe (without a universe sized computer) means for all intents and purposes we do have free will. Even if the arrow of time runs backwards and our perception is forward, I'm still going to pick what I eat for dinner tonight.

[NOGDP]

What is the difference between you picking what to eat and a computer 'picking' what 2 + 3 is? What you pick to eat is determined by your taste, mood, available food, a bunch of subconscious processes in your brain that you're not aware of and many other factors. If we ran a simulation of the same deterministic universe you would pick the same thing every time. Just because you don't know exactly why you did something or you aren't able to fully rationalise your choice, doesn't mean you have free will.

[ryugarden]

There is so much wrong with this. It's clear that you're essentially presupposing there is either "free will" or "determinism" when in fact the right distinction to make is "free will" as opposed to "no free will".

Anyway, when you make a rerun of the universe from the same initial conditions, you get randomness because of quantum mechanics, so the future outcome is not exactly the same, and you can't predict anything with certainty because of probabilities. But look, all of this has nothing to do with free will. Neither determinism nor quantum mechanical randomness give you an absolute-metaphysical-libertarian superwill when you're not a subject to the laws of physics at all (unless you believe that you're a soul/cartesian ego/some other supra-physical mental entity with dubious ontological status). You're basically arguing against this abovementioned concept. But actually default, regular free will is just an effective description of reality where persons have volition, and it exists as an emergent rather than fundamental thing.

Before you start to make the same argument that free will doesn't really exist, consider the question: does Hacker News exist? Well, duh, of course not! There are no websites, no Internet and no computers, it's obviously all just fundamental particles acting in some ways, you know, just the wave function of the universe deterministically obeying the Schrodinger equation, etc. Naive reductionism. But here we are, reading Hacker News. Guess what, you don't live on a level of fundamental particles. Does, for example, chess exist? Your argument implies that it does not, but here I am, playing chess in a separate tab.

So, do persons exist?

Does free will exist?

It strikes me that people don't bother to make real arguments against free will, like a psychological one, for example.

[NOGDP]

> It's clear that you're essentially presupposing there is either "free will" or "determinism"

Yes, free will doesn't seem possible in a deterministic universe.

> Anyway, when you make a rerun of the universe from the same initial conditions, you get randomness because of quantum mechanics, so the future outcome is not exactly the same, and you can't predict anything with certainty because of probabilities

Then the universe is not deterministic.

> Before you start to make the same argument that free will doesn't really exist, consider the question: does Hacker News exist? Well, duh, of course not! There are no websites, no Internet and no computers, it's obviously all just fundamental particles acting in some ways, you know, just the wave function of the universe deterministically obeying the Schrodinger equation, etc. Naive reductionism.

No, there is a difference between something existing and free will. A computer can calculate an answer to some query, and the answer exists, doesn't mean it was generated through the computer's free will.

[perl4ever]

I never see people discussing the statistical aspects of free will.

For instance, I may decide to have an apple tonight, or spaghetti, or whatever. Thus, I seem to have free will. But if one collected statistics on what I ate over time, there would be patterns and it would be much more difficult for me to overcome those patterns with "will". The more time and events you look at the more you see things like unconcious maintenance of weight, preferences of types of food, and so on.

Yet the long term patterns are made up of the individual choices that seem free.

I have this vague idea that some further exploration of this might be compared to the statistical ideas of quantum mechanics.

[tsimionescu]

That's because it's not an interesting thought as related to the notion of free will. Everyone accepts that humans have subconscious biases that impact their decisions. The discussion of free will is higher level than that. The fact that you can't will yourself into not breathing is not a refutation of free will.

The question is essentially, when all biases are accounted for, is there some aspect of free will that remains? You experience free will constantly, and you assume it in all interactions with other agents. Is that an illusion, are we just puppets in a play? Many philosophers believe that it isn't, even if determinism is real. I'm not sure if super-determinism is still compatible or not, but it may well be.

[perl4ever]

I mean, I can will myself into not breathing. I used to hold my breath between subway stations. But that's about as long as I can do it.

I feel like there's some sort of analogy between how you can have local violations of conservation of energy where particles pop into existence from nowhere, but longer term it has to even out.

Bias isn't the word I would use.

[temppsychonaut]

My problem with compatibalism, is compatibilism is so rigid. Why can’t we just overtly define free will in such a way that we have “free will,” and at the same time acknowledge that we lack “free will” for another definition. I guess what I’m trying to say is compatibilism just seems to me like it takes a hard stance on a word game.

[AnimalMuppet]

I agree. Compatibilism either defines "free will" to be something I don't consider to be free will, or defines "determinism" into something I don't consider to be determinism (or both).

[GoblinSlayer]

Another definition like "nondeterministic free will" doesn't make much sense, so when you say such will does or doesn't exist, it's unclear what it means and what conclusions should follow from it. Some people assume it makes sense, but only until you question it.