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- Path: sparky!uunet!psinntp!kepler1!andrew
- From: andrew@rentec.com (Andrew Mullhaupt)
- Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc
- Subject: Re: Free will
- Message-ID: <1125@kepler1.rentec.com>
- Date: 27 Jul 92 22:06:17 GMT
- References: <1992Jul22.075422.27506@a.cs.okstate.edu> <1992Jul22.125508.10715@pellns.alleg.edu> <zlsiida.1039@fs1.mcc.ac.uk>
- Organization: Renaissance Technologies Corp., Setauket, NY.
- Lines: 62
-
- In article <zlsiida.1039@fs1.mcc.ac.uk> zlsiida@fs1.mcc.ac.uk (dave budd) writes:
- >It doesn't matter whether I or anybody else can predict what you will do
- >next, all that matters is whether your choice of what to do next is entirely
- >unconstrained.
-
- I would have thought the question was if what you do next is entirely
- constrained or not.
-
- Entirely unconstrained seems to imply that you could choose to spontaneously
- combust, etc... I think everyone would be likely to agree that there are
- some constraints on choice.
-
- >Are not biological systems ultimately constructed from atomic or sub-atomic
- >particles? Are not these particles subject to the laws of physics? are not
- >the laws of physics deterministic? (excepting *possibly* quantum theories)
-
-
- But if the laws of physics are essentially statistical in nature, then there
- is possibility of free will.
-
- Note that living things are 'reliable mechanisms' - i.e. they are large
- enough ensembles to keep the statistical fluctuations of quantum mechanics
- from _interfering_ with most normal processes. However, the law of large
- numbers is not a complete escape from statistics.
-
- Now one of the things we usually mean when we talk about free will is the
- conscious control over our limbs, etc. There doesn't seem to be anything
- 'statistical' about it when we will our arms to move, (barring diseases, etc.)
- when you want to raise your hand, up it goes. So this is not where the
- statistics seems to be important. In this sense, the numbers are large enough.
-
- But whence came this impulse to raise the hand? We can trace back through the
- causal linkage in the nerves, but then the picture becomes scientifically very
- blurry. There are significant involuntary motions, and not all the things we
- do with our bodies are clearly intentional. But surely _some_ of the things
- we do _seem for all the world to be intentional_, and this is what choice
- seems to be about. The physics underlying the origin of intentional choices
- may or may not be a huge nonlinear amplification of quantum noise. It might
- be a high dimensional chaotic, but essentially deterministic system.
-
- It is quite important to keep in mind that extrapolating human intentional
- behavior from first physical principles is not a serious option today.
-
- Recently, it has been noticed that a deterministic chaotic system can be
- very effectively controlled by a tiny input, strategically placed. In which
- case there is almost no practical hope of proving the human to be deterministic
- by finding a good deterministic model - essentially because the source of
- choice in the picture can be made arbitrarily small.
-
- Similar arguments can be based on computability. (Chaitin's omega number),
- and we should expect this, by the same token that we observed that the
- relatively orderly nature of life is connected to the fact that living things
- consist of considerable numbers of statistically connected objects. The
- organization of life entails low entropy. The low entropy means that all the
- essential information can be carried by a small part of the organism. Nature
- being efficient, we tend to observe this.
-
- Later,
- Andrew Mullhaupt
-
-
-
-