The (strong) free will theorem

[Zeta-Flux]

There is an interesting mathematics/physics paper that was recently published that demonstrates that if humans can perform actions which are not predicated on the previous states of the universe, then so can particles.

You can find it by googling (or going to the AMS website and looking in the journal Notices).

[Tarski]

There is an interesting mathematics/physics paper that was recently published that demonstrates that if humans can perform actions which are not predicated on the previous states of the universe, then so can particles.

You can find it by googling (or going to the AMS website and looking in the journal Notices).

Sounds about right. By the way, who would even want to perform actions that are not predicated on previous states. Such previous states would include brain states just prior to the action. If there were no connnection with immediately prior brain states, then the action could not have been done "for comprehended or considered reasons either intellectual or emotional" (the actor's reasons).

That's just a quick first reaction. What do you think?

[Zeta-Flux]

Tarski,

I don't think anyone wants to divorce prior brain states from the question; just make them insufficient to completely explain the state of affairs that occurs. The issue people have with absolute determinism is one of culpability.

For what it's worth, the current theories of quantum mechanics are non-deterministic.

[Tsuzuki]

Random behavior and free will are just two ends on a spectrum of complexity.

[Tarski]

For what it's worth, the current theories of quantum mechanics are non-deterministic.

Perhaps but I have two comments.

1) Whether or not quantum mechanics is to be thought of as a deterministic theory or not depends on which interetations you pick. The Bohm pilot wave interpretation has supposedly been shown to be empirically equivalent to the Copenhagen interpretation. Is is a deterministic interpretation. The many-worlds interpretation is also deterministic.

As Wiki puts it "although quantum mechanics has received thorough experimental testing, many of these experiments are open to different interpretations. There exist a number of contending schools of thought, differing over whether quantum mechanics can be understood to be deterministic, which elements of quantum mechanics can be considered "real", and other matters."

Indeterminism in QM is fine with me but this brings me to the next point.

2) Indeterminism of the sort we see in common interpretations of quantum mechanics is not the sort of thing that would seem provide for free will at all. A random choice is not a free choice. It is imposed as well and is outside of the control of the person.

If things happen at random (say in our brains) then that isn't really free will either (not that we should associate with responsibility anyway).

Who is responsible for a happening if at root it is based on unreasoning unfeeling quantum randomness?

In the Book "Elbow Room: The Varieties of Free Will Worth Wanting" philosopher Dan Dennett argues that, among other things, there are just as many reasons to think that indeterminism seems to rule out free will as does determinism. If we think very carefully about what free will means and think about it in a different way then we might break free of the determinism/indeterminism formulation of the issue.

Free will certainly isn't random. Looking to quantum mechanics (or indeterminism) doesn't really provide for free will of a sort "worth wanting" as he puts it.

In the book "Freedom Evolves" he argues that the whole issue has been misunderstood and that even determinism is not synonymous with inevitability in any sense that a creature like a human being should care about. "Evitability" is about the ability to avoid unwanted outcomes. A fly can "avoid", but not as well as a cat and a cat not as well as a human.

http://www.amazon.com/Freedom-Evolves-Dani..._pr_product_top

It is a long argument (two books) that I shall not repeat, but it should be read by anyone in the free will debate.

[Gillebre]

I believe that that all things existing spiritually (ie. everything) have the capacity to act with free agency in regards to whatever sphere God has put them in. Hence, Christ says peace be calm, and the waves/winds, recognizing their Creator, His Priesthood, choose to obey Him.

All in my opinion, of course.

[cjcampbell]

Abraham says that in creating the earth the gods watched until they were obeyed. While this implies that obedience was not necessarily immediate, it does not necessarily mean it was voluntary, either.

[LeSellers]

Foghorn Leghorn, playing Hide'n'Seek with the young (genius) son of a widowed hen, hides in the wood bin. The chick, seeking him, pulls out a slide rule (this is an old cartoon), and calculates the hiding place. He finds the rooster behind the barn door. As he walks past the wood bin, Foghorn stops, but resists the temptation to look inside, saying, "I'd better not. I just might be in there."

Shades of Schr

[Zeta-Flux]

Perhaps but I have two comments.

1) Whether or not quantum mechanics is to be thought of as a deterministic theory or not depends on which interetations you pick.

I agree. However, most people tend to pick non-deterministic interpretations; as the determinism doesn't seem to add any measurable quantity/property.

2) Indeterminism of the sort we see in common interpretations of quantum mechanics is not the sort of thing that would seem provide for free will at all. A random choice is not a free choice. It is imposed as well and is outside of the control of the person.

If things happen at random (say in our brains) then that isn't really free will either (not that we should associate with responsibility anyway).

Who is responsible for a happening if at root it is based on unreasoning unfeeling quantum randomness?

What do you mean by random? Quantum processes do not seem to be stochastic (from what I've heard).

In the Book "Elbow Room: The Varieties of Free Will Worth Wanting" philosopher Dan Dennett argues that, among other things, there are just as many reasons to think that indeterminism seems to rule out free will as does determinism. If we think very carefully about what free will means and think about it in a different way then we might break free of the determinism/indeterminism formulation of the issue.

Free will certainly isn't random. Looking to quantum mechanics (or indeterminism) doesn't really provide for free will of a sort "worth wanting" as he puts it.

In the book "Freedom Evolves" he argues that the whole issue has been misunderstood and that even determinism is not synonymous with inevitability in any sense that a creature like a human being should care about. "Evitability" is about the ability to avoid unwanted outcomes. A fly can "avoid", but not as well as a cat and a cat not as well as a human.

http://www.amazon.com/Freedom-Evolves-Dani..._pr_product_top

It is a long argument (two books) that I shall not repeat, but it should be read by anyone in the free will debate.

I read one of Dennett's books, and found some of his arguments very persuasive. That said, I think I can understand both sides of this debate. On the one hand, if something is not deterministic what can it be? I have a hard time even wrapping my mind around the concept of something truly random. On the other hand, if it all boils down to conditions we cannot ultimately control, that doesn't seem to be a pleasant thought either on many fronts (including "fairness", "accountability for 'choices'", etc...)

[Tarski]

I agree. However, most people tend to pick non-deterministic interpretations; as the determinism doesn't seem to add any measurable quantity/property.

What do you mean by random? Quantum processes do not seem to be stochastic (from what I've heard).

I read one of Dennett's books, and found some of his arguments very persuasive. That said, I think I can understand both sides of this debate. On the one hand, if something is not deterministic what can it be? I have a hard time even wrapping my mind around the concept of something truly random. On the other hand, if it all boils down to conditions we cannot ultimately control, that doesn't seem to be a pleasant thought either on many fronts (including "fairness", "accountability for 'choices'", etc...)

I will discuss the sense in which quantum phenomena are random later perhaps. but I think there is a pressing issue.

Namely, I am a little dubious that the mathematics can possibly say something about what a person can or cannot do since a person, I claim, is not a collection of atoms, molecules or any collection of elementary particles etc.

Just ask yourself, if I were a collection of atoms, which atoms would those be? I breath, I radiate, I eat and so on. Part of my former collection, that of five minutes ago, (the collection I claim is ill defined) is in the air right now.

So what am I that I might be "determined" even in a material universe?

[Zeta-Flux]

I will discuss the sense in which quantum phenomena are random later perhaps. but I think there is a pressing issue.

Namely, I am a little dubious that the mathematics can possibly say something about what a person can or cannot do since a person, I claim, is not a collection of atoms, molecules or any collection of elementary particles etc.

Just ask yourself, if I were a collection of atoms, which atoms would those be? I breath, I radiate, I eat and so on. Part of my former collection, that of five minutes ago, (the collection I claim is ill defined) is in the air right now.

So what am I that I might be "determined" even in a material universe?

I imagine that someone could come up with a meaningful definition for "you" that encompassed enough properties that the definition would apply to the discussion at hand. Even if the system that defines "you" is not closed, it is meaningful to talk about that system being determined when the material universe is determined by previous states.

[Tarski]

I imagine that someone could come up with a meaningful definition for "you" that encompassed enough properties that the definition would apply to the discussion at hand. Even if the system that defines "you" is not closed, it is meaningful to talk about that system being determined when the material universe is determined by previous states.

I'd like to see it.

Don't forget that even one atom can make a difference--perhaps a big one.

By the way, this conundrum is the subject of extensive debate in philosophy and from what I can see, it doesn't look good for those want to treat an animal as a precisely some definite physical system. It might be good for many purposes, but for the issue at hand, where the tiniest perturbations could make a difference in what I do, I don't think it is up to the task. I think the "casual net" bleeds past the boundaries of of any animal body in such a way that we are forced to talk about some large hunk of the universe being determined, rather than some vaguely defined open system.

There was a really good example, in Rorty's "Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature" that I can't access since my brother swiped my copy.

The idea was to think about a question like "why was I late coming home from work?".

Which has more "truth" among the following two kinds of explanations?

A. because the set of positions and velocities of some 10^30 atoms was such and such at time t and therefore the trajectories were determined such that whatever set of molecules constituted my my body at the time of my arrival was home were....etc. had to be such that I ...etc.

B. I was wondering if the critical review of my play had come out so I needed to get a newpaper, but they were sold out at the usual place etc...

Putnam argues that we will never have a complete purely microphysical explanation as to why a square peg will not fit in a round hole and perhaps even if we had one if would be uninformative compared to our usual way of looking at it.

Whether the universe as a whole is determined (in terms of positions of particles or the configuration of some grand quantum field) or not is so remote from what we really care about on the individual basis, especially when a microphysical determination of personhood is not in the offing.

Certainly Dennett and other compatiblists would say that this kind of determinism does not theaten human freedom any more than the mere fact that the future will happen and happen in a definite way. The future will be what it will be regardless of whether the procees was random or deterministic in the mathematical sense of differential equations or whatever. Presumably, God knows the future too!

[Connolly]

Abraham says that in creating the earth the gods watched until they were obeyed. While this implies that obedience was not necessarily immediate, it does not necessarily mean it was voluntary, either.

Or it could mean that obedience was a process rather than an event. Maybe the gods said 'let there be a whale' but that doesn't mean that at some point in time after that a whale suddenly appeared, the pesky thing about evolution is that it takes time.

[Zeta-Flux]

Whether the universe as a whole is determined (in terms of positions of particles or the configuration of some grand quantum field) or not is so remote from what we really care about on the individual basis, especially when a microphysical determination of personhood is not in the offing.

If that be the case, why assume determinism?

[Tarski]

If that be the case, why assume determinism?

I don't think I assume it. In fact, I suppose that indeterminism is the most natural for quantum mechanics.

But, the connection with free will is really really unclear. To make a cartoon example, consider the case that Joe is thinking of stealing some bread.

He is vacillating.

What if we let it be decided by whether some nucleus undergoes beta decay or not.

Is that free will? Does it help if the quantum event is in his brain or not? Is Joe any more morally responsible for his action than he would be if it were classically determined by his prior brain state? I think personal responsibility is easier in the second case where classical cause and effect are at work at the level of his nervous system. Why? Because we have reason to believe that his reasons, his thoughts, his emotions, his memories, his moral outlook, and indeed, who he is, is reflected in that brain activity. Intuitively, he must act for reasons that have something to do with who he is as a human being in a human context rather than as a quantum system. In short, looking to the physics is looking at the wrong level of organization I think.

[Tarski]

What a frustrating paper that is (for a couple of reasons).

I will report back if I can sort it out.

[johndoe]

I can't believe I've come back to the free will discussion...

I agree with Tarski. Free will based on quantum indeterminacy (or any indeterminacy, in my mind) is no better than compatibilist free will. Every attempt to argue otherwise that I've read seems to me to ultimately appeal to mystery.

Ultimately, I agree with philosopher Eddy Nahmias that the free will debate is really an extension of the Mind-Body Problem. Consider source incompatibilism. If the cause of a decision doesn't have its origin within what you consider you, then it is hard to imagine that it is free in a relevant sense. But we must then define what you are. Easier said than done.

[Brade]

If there were no connnection with immediately prior brain states, then the action could not have been done "for comprehended or considered reasons either intellectual or emotional" (the actor's reasons).

Tarski, I think that's an appropriate gut reaction to the proposition that human behavior is not determined by prior states of the universe. However, Robert Kane, sort of the modern champion of libertarian free will, offers a theory of libertarian free will that attempts to show that agent's actions are (1) not sufficiently determined by prior states of the universe (including prior mental states) and (2) the actions are still done "for comprehended or considered reasons either intellectual or emotional." (1) is just a restatement of libertarianism in general. (2) is the interesting bit. Kane draws on some relatively modern views on neural networks and parallel processing that I won't bother getting into in detail; mostly because I probably don't understand them well enough. Roughly put, Kane holds that free choices (and not all "choices" are truly free on Kane's view) happen when an agent has in their mind at least two competing goals that mutually exclude each other. His stock example is about a businesswomen.

On her way to an important meeting she observes an assault taking place in an alley. An inner struggle ensues between her conscience, to stop and call for help, and her career ambitions, which tell her she cannot miss this meeting. She has to make an effort of will to overcome the temptation to go on. If she overcomes this temptation, it will be the result of her effort, but if she fails, it will be because she did not allow her effort to succeed. And this is due to the fact that, while she willed to overcome temptation, she also willed to fail, for quite different and incommensurable reasons.

The businesswomen, on Kane's view, at that moment, is engaging in two efforts of will that exclude each other. Kane says that when this occurs, when we have two competing efforts of will, there is chaos that gets stirred up in our neural networks. And, that is the indeterminacy that libertarianism requires. Indeterminacy is a property of her overall effort. Kane spends time fleshing that out because it's important to overcoming luck objections. That the effort has the property of being indeterminate does not make it any less her effort.

Now, either way the story turns out, the businesswomen helps or goes on to the meeting on time, the result is one that she did "for comprehended or considered reasons." She had reasons for both outcomes and deliberated on both outcomes and made an effort for both outcomes. That's how Kane gets (2) in his story. (1) just means that there was nothing about the past, and that even means up to the very moment just before either goal was actualized, that was sufficient to determine the outcome.

I happen to find his theory quite compelling, although, in my seminar on free will I did argue against his theory. You may have thought of a very natural question at the end of that Kane explanation. Namely, if (1) is true, what did cause one effort to succeed over another? Basically, what caused her choice? Well, on Kane's story it wasn't chance. Chance, or indeterminacy, was just a property of the effort. It wasn't the sufficient cause of the outcome. Was it the women? Nope. Kane is explicit about this. Other libertarian views rely on some sort of agent stepping in and tipping the balance one way or another. Kane doesn't want that because, he says, it's too mysterious. Kane's view is called Event-Causal Libertarianism for the reason that it gets along without any appeal to agents and only to events. So, again, what causes the outcome? My considered answer is I don't know. And, I'm not sure Kane knows either. Actually, I think he basically admits that it's probably just quantum indeterminacy that causes one effort of will to succeed over another and he even goes further and admits that agents have no control over that.

But the really astonishing thing is that, while all these things can be truly said, it does not follow that the agent is not responsible for the choice, if the effort succeeds.

I think what Kane is saying here, although he doesn't make this distinction, is that we, or society, can hold agents responsible for their actions. But, it's not clear to me at all that agents are responsible for their actions on Kane's view.

Anyway, Kane's views are worth checking out whether you agree with them or not. I think he's the best thing libertarianism has going for it right now. His view is probably more compelling than I'm making it sound. However, right now I'm inclinded to side with Peter van Inwagen on this issue. Van Inwagen presents two arguments, the consequence argument and the intelligibility of libertarian free will argument. The consequence argument aims to show that free will is not compatible with determinism. The Intelligibility argument aims to show that libertarian free will is not intelligible. My objection to Kane's view is, I think, just a form of intelligibility argument. Van Inwagen, an Agent-Causal Libertarian, cannot find a problem with either argument; and that's a big problem. Here's what he ultimately says:

...But which argument is wrong, and why? (Or are they both wrong?) I do not know. I think no one knows...I believe I know, as surely as I know anything, that at least one of the two arguments contains a mistake. And yet, having thought very hard about the two arguments for almost thirty years, I confess myself unable to identify even a possible candidate for such a mistake...The first argument is essentially sound...Therefore, something [must] be wrong with the second argument. But if you ask me what it is, I have to say that I am, as current American slang has it, absolutely clueless. Indeed the problem seems to me to be so evidently impossible of solution that I find very attractive a suggestion that has been made by Noam Chomsky that there is something about our biology, somehting about the ways of thinking that are "hardwired" into our brains, that renders it impossible for us human beings to dispel the mystery of metaphysical freedom. However this may be, I am certain that I cannot dispel the mystery, and I am certain that no one else has in fact done so.

[johndoe]

Good post, Brade.

Regarding Kane, it seems to me that to assert that it does not follow that the agent is not responsible for the choice when there is no compelling reason to accept that it does not follow is another form of the appeal to mystery. In my opinion, Kane's idea does fall to the objection of luck. I know that there are many who would strenuously disagree with me.

Regarding Van Inwagen, I am somewhat partial myself to Galen Strawson's Basic Argument. It seems to wrap the whole thing up in a nutshell for me. I don't think that the libertarian view, when relying on indeterminacy, is any less susceptible to the Basic Argument than compatibilist free will. It would seem that if we insist that our having control over our decisions in some type of absolute sense is a necessary condition for freedom, then we simply aren't free no matter how much it may feel like we are.

That being said, I rather think that free will should be a useful concept, if nothing else legally and practically. Even laying aside the LDS positive affirmation that we are free, all of us act as if we were free, and I think we are right to do so. Perhaps we simply need to hit on a more practical formulation of what is a free decision and what is not. Once again, I think the root of the issue lies in the Mind-Body Problem. People seem to have a need to feel that their decisions originate somewhere inside their seat of consciousness in order for them to be free, but perhaps we simply do not understand yet what that means.

[a5m5a5d]

I believe that that all things existing spiritually (ie. everything) have the capacity to act with free agency in regards to whatever sphere God has put them in. Hence, Christ says peace be calm, and the waves/winds, recognizing their Creator, His Priesthood, choose to obey Him.

All in my opinion, of course.

I like this post. I agree.

[Zeta-Flux]

Does the mind/body problem really address the free-will issue? If our choices are seated in our consciousness/intelligence/spirit, which (for the sake of argument) we may even assume is independent of the physical universe (in some sense), wouldn't we still have to deal with the issue or whether or not our choices were determined by the previous aspects/states of said consciousness along with the inputs the universe presents?

[Tarski]

Does the mind/body problem really address the free-will issue?

No.

It only posits an extra dubious ingredient that is claimed to somehow solve the problem. It is hoped that no one will notice that the same issues are merely deferred and arise again in a new ontological realm of which we know nothing in terms of laws and mechanism or are we even sure that this realm is not just a set of folk concepts and vague intuitions that stand in for what is really going on (probably neurologically and at the level of language).

[ERMD]

2 Ne. 2: 13-14

13 And if ye shall say there is no law, ye shall also say there is no sin. If ye shall say there is no sin, ye shall also say there is no righteousness. And if there be no righteousness there be no happiness. And if there be no righteousness nor happiness there be no punishment nor misery. And if these things are not there is no God. And if there is no God we are not, neither the earth; for there could have been no creation of things, neither to act nor to be acted upon; wherefore, all things must have vanished away. 14 And now, my sons, I speak unto you these things for your profit and learning; for there is a God, and he hath created all things, both the heavens and the earth, and all things that in them are, both things to act and things to be acted upon.

Alma 12: 31

31 Wherefore, he gave commandments unto men, they having first transgressed the first commandments as to things which were temporal, and becoming as Gods, knowing good from evil, placing themselves in a state to act, or being placed in a state to act according to their wills and pleasures, whether to do evil or to do goodâ??

[johndoe]

Does the mind/body problem really address the free-will issue? If our choices are seated in our consciousness/intelligence/spirit, which (for the sake of argument) we may even assume is independent of the physical universe (in some sense), wouldn't we still have to deal with the issue or whether or not our choices were determined by the previous aspects/states of said consciousness along with the inputs the universe presents?

Ask yourself why is it relevant whether or not our choices are determined.

[The Nehor]

Or it could mean that obedience was a process rather than an event. Maybe the gods said 'let there be a whale' but that doesn't mean that at some point in time after that a whale suddenly appeared, the pesky thing about evolution is that it takes time.

Then the gods really should look into the infinite improbability drive, makes whale creation much easier and even adds in a free bowl of petunias.