[h0l0cube]

No downvotes from me, but where do you think the free will lives? What mechanism produces it? What about that mechanism, if not purely stochastic, is not predictable? If free will can have a real measurable physical effect on this universe, then why can't it be isolated?

[monero-xmr]

I believe our consciousness is separate from our physical body. This metaphysical line of thinking is embodied by “idealism” which is opposed to “physicalism” or materialism. I am also not a determinist and I don’t believe you can replay the universe from first principles and get the exact same timeline.

I’m also religious and I believe in God (and the Holy Trinity) in the core of my being.

[sufehmi]

In some kind of quantum space probably.

We still don't know so much, yet we claim so much.

[h0l0cube]

Even quantum space can be described by both deterministic and stochastic elements. The stochastic elements of quantum uncertainty are about as much free will as a PRNG – though even more predictable as they don't have a flat statistical distribution. And there are also known exploitable and predictable mechanisms behind quantum mechanics (emphasis added), so much so, that they can be leveraged for computation.

I think when most people say free will they mean dualism, in that there's some sentience in the spiritual plane that directs their bodies in the physical plane. But if this spiritual plane has no observable effect on the physical plane, it's completely incompatible with free will. And if it is observable, then it is indeed a measurable part of physical reality, but yet we haven't measured it - not even stochastic effects (which can still be observed statistically).

Sabine Hossenfelder has a much better informed take on this, and it's worth a watch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TI5FMj5D9zU

Also of interest, a study where fMRI readings were used to predict a persons decisions well in advance of them executing the decision. The success rate was only 60%, but still better than chance, and this study was way back in 2008:

> fMRI machine learning of brain activity (multivariate pattern analysis) has been used to predict the user choice of a button (left/right) up to 7 seconds before their reported will of having done so.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroscience_of_free_will#Neur...

[nipah]

Sabine believes in superdeterminism, so it is her own position, not an universal one, nor a very popular one amongst physicists. It is VERY hard to say quantum physics is deterministic. And the studies you are citing are famous for being extremely restrictive, always made in closed-bounds and drawing unclear conclusions, if this proved our decisions originated 7 seconds before our action action of consciousness it would be REVOLUTIONARY, but it was not, it was defended as a determinism enabling position by many philosophers*, and was scrutinized by many others. For example, by having 2 options only (the study mentions that) you already increase the probability of your machine having consonance with the persons previous decisions (you can, actually, decide for X and then just after decide for Y, even minutes before you actually do the thing, being consistent with your own internal decisions is not being "determined", and the fact that this is only 60% matching is a good indicator there's something more going on here).

Another plausible interpretation of the case is that our brain does have a predisposed intuition building about something, and so it is not a [surprise] that the person chose whichever his intuitions perceives as better or more desirable, it also explains why the 60% correctness and disproves this as being evidence for some "determinism". Nobody is saying, for example, that free will equates being unable to be influenced by something, it is not a surprise that someone that has a vice in crack is craving for crack and in "70% of the cases" (or whatever) decides for using more crack instead of not using. Or that, if I desire to eat X, and X is available, and I'm planning to do it, I will eventually do it, it is expected that my actions are in good relation with my previous intents, desires and knowledge. The same way, it would be impossible for those experiments to predict something before showing the subjects what is being tested, and people are known to acting very differently (like, trying to outsmart the scientists or show themselves as better than they are) when tested, so the own thought of "I need to chose X" could be in their minds way before they [state] their conscious decision (because, if I like chocolate ice cream, even if I stare to the menu for 30 seconds I will still probably chose chocolate ice cream, but sometimes I could chose mint, it is not a surprise that decisions follow some kind of pattern when it is reasonable to expect so). The question is always about to what extent this is a [determinant], and the free will defense merely needs to say "not 100%".

It is also extremely unrealistic and out of this world to think our decisions would be able to be "predicted seconds before they happen", if the decision was conditioned to specific reaction events this would be IMPOSSIBLE, your brain cannot decide 7 seconds ahead of time what is the correct decision for a problem that you have only 3 seconds to decide (like "press the green color" when it appears or "type the word being shown in screen when you see it"), no kind of predictability would realistically arise from this kind of behavior (because it is physically impossible) rather than "the brain is preparing to type".

[GoblinSlayer]

If you want randomness, why not flip a coin? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twoface

[idiotsecant]

Yes, for example we make wild claims like 'biological sentience is incomputable'

[nipah]

Or that it is, like most people working in projects like those believe without first proving.

[khimaros]

a random number generator in base reality? ;) really i'm just using this as a more accessible (to rational materialists) example of how processes can exist outside of our measurable physical reality.

[h0l0cube]

> processes can exist outside of our measurable physical reality

If it can't be measured in reality, how can it be relevant to reality?

> a random number generator in base reality?

How does randomness pertain to free will?

[khimaros]

they may have measurable effects in our physical reality, eg. the behavior of the individual and even be correlated with other physical processes.

however, there may be hidden variables outside of our physical reality that are actually mechanizing the result. some such processes may be non-deterministic, which is why i used randomness as an example.

what i'm implying is analogous but opposite to the concept of a philosophical zombie. there may be a ghost in the machine which no measurement can reveal.

[h0l0cube]

P-zombies, conceptually, actually have no ghost in the machine, but are indistinguishable from sentient beings. Sentience and free will are two different things.

> they may have measurable effects in our physical reality

If there’s something external that interfaces with the physical universe, such an externality could be observed. It’s strange that we haven’t found such a force. But if it were to exist, in some parallel universe, that external force would have its own mechanics and its own chain of causality – its own physics so to speak. Dualism doesn’t get you to free will, it just means there’s physics we can’t observe. (Or perhaps there’s some superset universe that interfaces with that universe, and then it’s still determinism or stochastic processes all the way down.)