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I was into a choose your own adventure books when I was a kid, there was one in particular that you are told in the beginning that there is a perfect ending but you can’t get there by choice. There was no path in the book that got you to that page. You had to just decide to not follow the rules and turn to that page.
I think I remember that one, unless it’s a reoccurring element in choose your own adventures. It was about ice cream and parallel universes or time travel or something right?
It’s not the book that OOP was thinking of, but you’re probably thinking of Meanwhile by Jason Shiga.
Yep, that’s the one. Remember I picked it up in the library years ago because of the cover saying any path is correct. I remember If you open to the page not connected to anything it shows the main character riding a colossal squid with no context.
From all the discussions I’ve read about Free Will, I’m convinced the term actually doesn’t mean anything at all. What would a world with free will look like? What would a world without free will look like? How would a person with/without it behave? Would there be any tangible difference between them?
As far as I can tell, free will is supposed to be a property of a person, which may or may not have something to do with physics, either everybody has it or nobody has it, and nobody has a definition that would let them measure it (without reducing the question to a disagreement over semantics). I think that whether someone believes in free will is a trick question; you can’t believe or disbelieve in a something that isn’t even a real concept to begin with.
It’s like the “are we living in a simulation” question. It’s impossible to prove or disprove and ultimately does not affect our lives in any way that we can control. Just a thought experiment.
It may be possible to prove if one day we can prove whether universe is or isn’t deterministic.
It can in theory be disproved - if we ever manage to prove that universe is deterministic, free will by definition cannot exist.
What is the definition of free will that is only possible in a non-deterministic universe? Is non-determinism the only requirement for a universe to qualify as having free will?
What is the definition of free will that is only possible in a non-deterministic universe?
If the universe is deterministic, every particle has a mathematically determinable path, meaning you can fully predict where each particle will be in a billion years. Our thoughts and everything are carried by neurons in our brain, as is our will. So if the universe is deterministic, every neuron had to fire at exactly the same moment it did and it could’ve never happened otherwise, meaning every thought and action is predetermined.
Is non-determinism the only requirement for a universe to qualify as having free will?
No idea.
Slams book shut in disgust
Pretty sure that “free will” is just our monkey brains attempting to rationalize what we mostly do based on instincts.
Due to quantum mechanics, we know this is not true. There is a level of uncertainty and probability and the smallest level of our universe. The deterministic model of the universe has been put to rest a century ago.
Although it’s worth mentioning that randomness doesn’t make “free will” real.
To be unfunny:
The whole idea of a balls hitting each other universe went out the window when we hit the quantum era. We have had to adapt to a reality where matter is somehow a statistical phenomena, and the details are always hidden from us in one way or another. Entanglement is another confusing thing, and its super common - not just some rare phenomena in a lab, it’s more of a fact of particle interaction
So our brains are somehow statisical-chemical-electric sugar powered supercomputers that have entangled state. And the brain actually stretches across the body, with various chemistry being produced throughout
In short, nobody has any idea how brains really work, it’s way more elaborate than current AI. It’s also likely impossible to fully simulate a brain - it would have to BE a brain
There’s a separate question about the nature of randomness in the universe, but all we can know is that follows a normal distribution over time. It seems truly random from our point of view. Of course, who’s to say if God likes to fudge the numbers a little
Yes, but none of that refutes the argument that we lack free will. The trillions of interactions leading up to an ‘action’ on our part can be random, determined, or some mixture - but they still ‘cause’ our next action, rather than our 'free will ’ causing the action. If you believe in free will, you believe in a magical quality we possess which is somehow neither random (else it wouldnt be ‘will’) nor determined (else it wouldn’t be ‘free’)
I personally find all discussion around free will annoying. Whether or not I have free will I still have to decide to do shit. I can’t just go on autopilot.
