At the atomic level, there is no such free will - specific condition + specific condition = same result, every time.

"God does not place dice with the universe."

So my guess is that even now, as I type this, if someone with exactly my atomic makeup were given exactly the same situations as I have experienced, he would be typing this.

God does indeed play dice...See quantum mechanics.

God does not play dice was Einstein's criticism of quantum mechanics in general and the probabilistic nature of it.

quote:

Originally posted by zsouthboy:
At the atomic level, there is no such free will - specific condition + specific condition = same result, every time.

"God does not place dice with the universe."

I think you don't really understand that quote. Einstein said it, but it was disproven. Its one of the few things he was completely wrong about.

Well ...

If the brain is really a nondeterministic system, then it's more like the Sid Meyer's Alpha Centauri quote from one of the advanced techs:

"Einstein would roll over in his grave. Not only does god play dice, but the dice are loaded."

quote:

Originally posted by Binny:
Why are people always so eager to assert science applies to non-physical, philosophical claims.

A nice point. Next time you're at a talk where some philosophy professor tries to spew some garbage about the Heisenberg uncertainty principle applying to human thought, ask him, "Excuse me, but could you tell me what two operators fail to commute in your example?"

Tethering fruit flies reminds me of a tongue in cheek article by Kaj Linderstrom-Lang 50 years ago on the "thermodynamics of the male fruit fly." In it, he describes some unique methodology and interpretation of the results, e.g. separating male fruit flies by using a mirrored surface: females will stop to look at the mirror where males will continue to fly on.

Not a politically correct work, but it's a fun read.

"They tethered the fruit flies (in the air) so that the researchers could electronically record whenever the fruit flies attempted to turn."

How does one go about tethering a fruit fly? This detail interests me much more than the purpose or results of the experiment. I guess that's why I'm an engineer and not a scientist/philosopher .

incidentally the "loaded dice" bit actually stems from a physicist

quote:

God plays dice with the universe, but they're loaded dice."
-- Joseph Ford, physicist; personal quote acknowledged in "CHAOS; Making a
New Science," James Gleick; Viking Penguin Inc, NY; 1987 (p314)

As for tethering a fruit fly, I believe they glue something to the top of the fly (I think I've heard about this in other experiments at least). ...indeed

quote:

God does indeed play dice...See quantum mechanics.

God does not play dice was Einstein's criticism of quantum mechanics in general and the probabilistic nature of it.

++

Skimming over the article, this looks like really solid work. It's too bad I don't have more time to try to understand it.

I do have a question, which, perhaps, the authors answered (or is answered in the references): It wouldn't invalidate the experiment, but I wonder how much the experimental set-up affected the flies' behavior. If some sort of non-linear circuit is causing the variability, putting a fly in an unfamiliar, agitated state (confined in a container, held fixed by a tether) might put the fly into a behavioral state that is not ordinary for the fly itself.


On a side note, I once saw someone tether an ordinary house fly using a long piece of human hair. He knocked the fly out (but kept it alive) and tied the hair around the fly's neck. Once the fly woke up he had a fly on a leash.

quote:

Originally posted by davis:

quote:

God does indeed play dice...See quantum mechanics.

God does not play dice was Einstein's criticism of quantum mechanics in general and the probabilistic nature of it.

++

The correctness of Einstein's quote in fact remains an unresolved issue. Schroedinger's equation (the basic description of quantum mechanics) is in fact deterministic. The probabilistic aspect of Quantum theory is invoked when a measurement (or "collapse" of the wavefunction) occurs. "No hidden variables" theorem's such as Bell's theorem tell us that the _particle being measured, by itself_ does not contain information fully determining the result of the measurement before the measurement is made. So in the current methodology of QM, in which the measuring device is not described fully, the results of measurements can be predicted only in a statistical sense. This does not, however, prove that our universe is indeterministic. It is possible that if the full system were described, including the state of the measuring device (and possibly other non-local influences, possibly a description of the whole universe is needed), that the measurement would in fact be describable as a deterministic process.

Determinism in our universe remains an open question. Einstein's quote was not made in ignorance of Quantum mechanics. It was describing Einstein's intuitive sense that Quantum Mechanics, as currently posed, remains incomplete. (In fact we know it's incomplete in certain ways, in particular it does not yet incorporate gravity). Whether Einstein's intuition was correct remains an open question.


Edit: I should clarify that the idea of "local realism" put forward by Einstein in the EPR paper is in fact proven wrong. But the more general idea of determinism ("God does not play dice"), remains an open question, but one must invoke the impact of the measuring device or other non-local influences.

quote:

Originally posted by Alfonse:
In what way? At the micro-scale, quantum mechanics, an inherently non-deterministic construct, governs the macro-scale.

As fil said, I think it is an open question whether or not QM is deterministic, see above

quote:

The brain is not a microchip; it does not operate on principles even remotely similar to that. The vagaries of organic brains means that virtually anything can affect how thinking happens. Whether you've eaten a good meal recently, how much exercise you get, the presence of various chemicals (made by the body or introduced externally), and so forth.

Maybe a particular neuron didn't quite get enough sodium or whatever, and thus can't fire fully at one moment in time. This has a cascade effect on other neurons further down the line. These kinds of minor variations produce a significant degree of unpredictability.

The brain itself, while obviously governed by physics, is not a deterministic system. You can't simply clone someone, introduce that person to all of the stimuli that the original had, and expect to get the same person.

I think it's interesting that all of your arguments about how "we don't know what the brain will do" are based on deterministic phyiscal processes that could (maybe not by us) all be measured and accounted for. e.g. eating a good meal, exercise, sodium content, etc. I'm not saying that the whole thing isn't too complex for us to understand, but that also doesn't mean it is non-deterministic.

quote:

Originally posted by Alfonse:
The brain is not a microchip; it does not operate on principles even remotely similar to that. The vagaries of organic brains means that virtually anything can affect how thinking happens. Whether you've eaten a good meal recently, how much exercise you get, the presence of various chemicals (made by the body or introduced externally), and so forth.

Maybe a particular neuron didn't quite get enough sodium or whatever, and thus can't fire fully at one moment in time. This has a cascade effect on other neurons further down the line. These kinds of minor variations produce a significant degree of unpredictability.

The brain itself, while obviously governed by physics, is not a deterministic system. You can't simply clone someone, introduce that person to all of the stimuli that the original had, and expect to get the same person.

I really think you should look up what nondeterministic means. You're assuming it means "really hard to predict". Thats not correct. Things that are solely functions of many completely predictable things such as "sodium concentration" or "inputs from other neurons down the line" are themselves deterministic.

For something to be nondeterministic, you'd have to have a nondeterministic input, not simply a lot of deterministic ones. I'm not saying you're conclusion is wrong, I simply do not know, however your reasoning absolutely is wrong.

@Alfonse:

I was taking issue with Binny's suggestion that science can't offer insights into "philosophical" issues like free will. Which is not to say that I think that science has solved the problem.

quote:

quote:
For one thing, we *feel* intuitively that we have some sort of free will. This is in contrast to what our knowledge of physics tells us about the world generally.


In what way? At the micro-scale, quantum mechanics, an inherently non-deterministic construct, governs the macro-scale. You can make predictions about the macro-scale, but these are only the most probable outcomes, not the only outcomes.

I think the common meaning of the term "free will" isn't the same as "non-deterministic". Instead it implies that there is an "I" that can choose to ignore outside influences and do what I want. The fact that outside influences (you mention alcohol, food, etc) can affect decisions means that we aren't free in the strong sense of the term (what Binny identifies as the "transcendental" theory).

But positing that the brain operates in a non-deterministic, or even non-algorithmic fashion isn't the same as explaining how that functioning is compatible with our experience of "free" will. For that matter, it doesn't explain anything about the brain. I can say that high-temperature superconductivity obeys the laws of physics, but that doesn't mean I understand it.

So while I (unlike Binny) think science has something to offer in the this case, I don't think the case is closed.

I was not saying there are no practical applications of scientific investigation into the question of "free will". I was merely saying that all experiments are phenomenological, and that strictly speaking these cannot answer philosophical questions regarding "absolute truth". I don't think philosophy can either. All science is the development of models based on observation. That we in practice tend to refer to well-established models as reality (atoms, photons, whatever) is in my opinion a natural psychological propensity to simplify in order to obtain a mental sense of security. Mechanistic models are good in that historically, predictions humans tend to make using them are pretty good, and such models often give pure scientists good ideas on where to look next. But that doesn't mean they are the "truth" in the colloquial sense. There is a widely held school of thought that strictly speaking, the correctness of the inductive process on which science is based is logically untenable/circular (search "problem of induction").

Psychologically accepting the validity of the claims I just described is very disconcerting and paralyzing in practice, and so for pragmatic/self-preservational reasons, we largely ignore them, and have 'faith' that our scientific models can predict the physical dynamics of systems we construct or otherwise encounter in the future.

All I'm saying is we can't answer the 'absolute' free will question any better than we can any other scientific question absolutely. All we have to work with are phenomenological inferences. Experiments may give us a strong intuitive sense about where 'free will', if extant, begins and ends. This of course has many pragmatic applications in the treatment of mental health conditions and substance addiction. Sociological/Economic studies based on where people are born and such already offer some material to play around with in addressing the free will question.

I believe one person asserted that the existence of apparent mental 'compulsions' knocks at the idea of free will. Treating my anecdotal experience as rigorously obtained statistical data, as a person with fairly severe OCD I'd say the draw to do a compulsion isn't much different from any other temptation (food, entertainment). So the observation of OCD or similar pathologies doesn't really offer anything new on the free-will front. As an aside, most of my compulsions are cognitive, meaning I get drawn into analysis paralysis if I let myself cogitate certain questions. I dunno why I'm relating that, I guess I just thought it interesting.

All Binny is asserting is that science does not have the last word, despite the rude and sophomoric protestations to the contrary by redleader.

I just want to take this moment to point out Occam's Razor...

All things being equal, that solution which is simplest, is most often correct

...and remind everyone that this applies only to science (actually, strictly it only applies to mathematics, but as science is based on logic and logic is a branch of mathematics...you get the picture). In other words, since "transcendental" free will, the existence of a human "spirit", and other such are not the simplest explanations, they are therefore not scientific.

Not...scientific...

Which says nothing about existence, merely that they are outside the realm of science. So, yes, if a philosopher tried to pull Heisenberg out of a hat during a talk, I would laugh at him. Similarly, if a scientist attempted to explain god with equations...well, again, I think you get the picture.

So then, what makes this article interesting? I think we should appreciate just what these authors accomplished (and no, managing to suspend a fruit fly in mid-air is not a major accomplishment...). First, the mathematical manipulations that they had to go through must have been immense. Second, I think the authors summed it up best in their discussion: "Even fly brains are more than just input/output systems"

Now, fruit flies are pretty dang simple animals. Still, they are more then just biological machines. For every potential biologist (or scientist of any field) just entering high school, who might be feeling rather discouraged because "all the big problems have been solved already", this is great news. There is much more science to do!

Binny,

I don't think the problem is the application of 'science' to philosophical questions. As the notorious philosophical difficulty of trying to define what makes something science illustrates science is not a neatly compartmentalized sphere of human knowledge but rather the process of using all the evidence available to us to guess at the nature of reality. People just shy away from this phrasing because it (correctly) suggests that it isn't intellectually coherent to buy into one epistemic framework during the week and a totally different one on Sunday.

The problem is that many scientists have learned to be sucpiscious of anything called philosophy, and I can't say they shouldn't be as continental philosophy is really a branch of literature. Also they are so used to fending off anyone trying to put the ghost back in the machine they don't bother to listen to the analytic philosophers who have an essentialy scientific point to add because they are saying something that sounds like these other views.

----

As far as this case goes I really don't see the problem. Free will has NOTHING to do with randomness. If a mother runs into a burning building to save her children from the fire we don't say she wasn't acting freely because we could have predicted from her personality that she would behave like that. It was a free action exactly because it flowed from who she was rather than being compelled.

This suggests an obvious and simple definition of exercising free will: someone has free will if had they wanted to do otherwise they would have. In other words you have free will if YOU always get to do what YOU choose to do. A notion that is eminently compatible with determinism.

The reason that people find the arguments about determinism problematic is merely that they aren't really willing to accept that 'they' are identical with the processes in their brain. Thus when they hear that the world might dictate what they will do in the future they don't interpret this as saying, "Ohh, given exactly the same situation I would always make the same choice," because they are conceiving themselves as outside the physical world and hence being forced to behave in a certain way by something external to them.

Rochefort...

quote:

As you point out, that doesn't mean that it's a tractable, soluble problem. It may well be that the functioning of the brain is more than we can assimilate consciously.

I think you mean "solvable", doesn't "soluble" mean "dissolvable"?