[2/3] S15, E12/1b: 'No-Free-Will' Whack-A-Mole/Sabine Hossenfelder
[2/3] S15, E12/1b: 'No-Free-Will' Whack-A-Mole/Sabine Hossenfelder
Series 15: How to Remain Blameless/ 'No Free-Will' Whack-A-Mole
In this run of sub-episodes (E12) I am countering the claims of several public intellectuals who say we have no free-will. This is a position I strongly oppose and have already written a good deal about. However, in this sub-episode (E12/1), I discuss one of the videos on the topic that Hossenfelder (a self-proclaimed ‘free-will denier’) has created for her YouTube channel (Science Without the Gobbledygook).
A link to the original video and the timestamps in the transcript excerpts have been provided for convenience. E12/1 is in three parts (a, b, c), this one being ‘b’. Here are the links to ‘a’ and ‘c’.
We do not guess, we know that brains are made 2:29 of particles. And we do not guess, we know, that we can derive from the laws for the constituents 2:36 what the whole object does. If you make a claim to the contrary, you are contradicting 2:41 well-established science.
“You don’t have free will, but don’t worry”, Sabine Hossenfelder, SWTG, YouTube
This is a bottom-up argument and I am unconvinced that science is ‘well-established’ for emergent phenomena such as consciousness or neuronal activity. But let’s get there from a different direction. Consider the particulates that exist within the composite materials including the alloyed metal elements of a can opener. It is true that the properties of the materials could theoretically be explained in terms of particle physics, but that does not explain the object’s design, manufacture, movement through the supply chain, or what tinned foods the eventual owner chooses to use it to open at any given time.
I can’t prevent you from denying scientific evidence, …
ibid.
Presumably because from a determinist perspective, ‘denying scientific evidence’ wouldn’t be a choice either. What I am denying is that the ‘evidence’ is scientific.
… but 2:46 I can tell you that this way you will never understand how the universe really works. 2:50
ibid.
I’ll take my chances, but meanwhile, she can ‘tell us’ without choosing to do so. If we ‘deny scientific evidence’ what does it mean to say, ‘this way you will never understand …’ if there is no other way for us? I don’t profess to know how the universe works which is the role of science to incrementally uncover, but it seems to me that on this occasion, she somehow managed to put the gobbledegook back in.
So, the trouble with free will is that according to the laws of nature that we know describe 2:56 humans on the fundamental level, the future is determined by the present. That the system 3:03 – in this case, your brain – might be partly chaotic does not make a difference 3:08 for this conclusion, because chaos is still deterministic. Chaos makes predictions difficult, 3:14 but the future still follows from the initial condition. 3:17
ibid.
If my understanding is correct, each possible future state could result from more than one set of initial conditions, given in chaotic systems the end state are known as attractors.
Consider Tim Palmer’s example of the ‘decision-making’ desk pendulum that I discussed in S15,E10B: Everything Determines But Us. The pendulum must settle on one of the four magnetic bases, yet for each possible end state there are theoretically an infinite number initial conditions.
I suggest that decisions create or contribute to initial conditions. Yes I know the determinist answer to that is the same as the answer to everything - ‘decisions are determined too’.
What about quantum mechanics? In quantum mechanics some events are truly random and cannot be …
ibid.
What about it? Free-will has nothing to do with randomness. Once you accept it’s a means to navigate uncertainty the confusion goes away.
You see, that thing you call “free will” should in some sense 4:18 allow you to choose what you want. But then it’s either determined by what you want, 4:23 in which case it’s not free, or it’s not determined, in which case it’s not a will.
ibid.
That comment is an -ism if ever I heard one - in this instance an observation that should not be mistaken for a complement. At least here she has made a concession to the possibility that what we want (by whatever means) can conceivably have an impact on what we do.
4:28 Now, some have tried to define free will by the “ability to have done otherwise”. 4:33 But that’s just empty words. If you did one thing, there is no evidence you could 4:38 have done something else because, well, you didn’t. Really there is always only your 4:42 fantasy of having done otherwise. 4:45
ibid.
I want to look the implications of this being true in three ways.
If in order to demonstrate we exercised a choice, it’s necessary to prove the existence of options that weren’t chosen, then free-will can’t be proven and determinism becomes unfalsifiable.
Probability theory must be a fiction because every outcome has a probability of ‘1’ and every other possibility must be illusory. The calculation of probabilities would still be a way to anticipate outcomes, albeit determined ones, but it seems that we would need a new explanation for statistical distributions.
Wave function collapse under observation, would amount to the unmasking of the counterfactual illusion, which may seem unremarkable. Just realise that this also suggests it would have been impossible for us to make any other measurement which begs the question of whether the wave existed in the first place.
None of this should be surprising to a determinist. Scientists, being pragmatic would surely ‘shut up and calculate’, but how would any of this advance our understanding of anything? What would be the implications on the future of science?
I therefore think it’s fortunate that the determinist argument is nonsensical and unsupported by anything that meets the definition of ‘scientific evidence’. If you are still unsure, remember the old saw, ‘absence of evidence not being evidence of absence’, because it will help you out.
In summary, the idea that we have a free will which gives us the possibility to select among 4:50 different futures is both incompatible with the laws of nature and logically incoherent. 4:56
ibid.
I have said ad nauseum, it’s the assumption that making a decision amounts to selecting for different futures, that is incoherent and in E12/1a I also said it needed a determinist to dream that up. As promised the explanation for that is here. It makes sense to determinists, because they are so locked in to the idea of one possible pre-mapped future, that the only alternative they can think of is there being more than one. Remember that their belief system already accommodates various elaborate explanations for denying their own operational sense of reality.
Many of our decisions are trivial and have little long-term impact on anything. As I discussed in a previous episode, the true lesson we can draw from the butterfly effect is that the influence butterflies have on the weather, average out to be pretty much nothing.
Complex chaotic systems are sensitive to initial conditions and unpredictable but linear ones are directly dependent on them and predictable.
I should add here that it’s not like I am saying something new. Look at the writing 5:00 of any philosopher who understand physics, and they will acknowledge this. 5:04
ibid.
I wouldn’t be one to wrongly accuse her of originality on this point, but to say it’s not possible to understand physics and believe in free-will, is a smear and not an argument. Also plenty of physicists are advocates for free-will including Nobel Laureate Roger Penrose, a physicist, mathematician and scientific philosopher. I have no idea if his thoughts on tubules are a possible explanation of free-will, but what I do know for sure is that the fact he holds those views, is not an indication that he does not understand physics. Yet that is the absurdity that Hossenfelder’s statement leads to.
So, yeah, if you want you can redefine “free will” to mean “no one was able to predict 5:38 your decision.” But of course your decision was still determined or random regardless 5:43 of whether someone predicted it.
ibid.
I have no need to do that. To define something is to specify meaning, but if the definition is bad, meaning is destroyed. Don’t be fooled into adopting the position that free-will is about whether our actions are externally predictable. This is a strawman and potential ‘piñata’ (explanation follows shortly).
Others have tried to argue that free will means some of 5:48 your decisions are dominated by processes internal to your brain and not by external 5:54 influences. But of course your decision was still determined or random, regardless of 5:58 whether it was dominated by internal or external influences.
ibid.
Bingo. ‘Internally determined’ is the same as ‘self-determined' aka free-will.
I find it silly to speak of “free 6:04 will” in these cases.
ibid.
Let’s park the discussion over what is really silly and instead look at the inescapable implications of what has been said. Whatever determines the operations and outputs, our neurological processes are in the causal chain, so what they do and what we think have a real world impacts.
6:05 I also find it unenlightening to have an argument about the use of words. If you want to define 6:11 free will in such a way that it is still consistent with the laws of nature, that is fine by me, 6:17 though I will continue to complain that’s just verbal acrobatics.
ibid.
My argument doesn’t rest on that, but I have to say that it does not seem an unreasonable aspiration to be linguistically coherent - assuming we have a choice of course. The reality is that this is not about redefining ‘free-will’ but re-engineering the language around its supposed absence. Those are the ‘verbal acrobatics’ I object to.
In any case, regardless 6:22 of how you want to define the word, we still cannot select among several possible futures.
ibid.
This is a great rebuttal to a suggestion nobody made. The future is created by decision-making and not selected, but we are are assumed to believe otherwise, which gives Hossenfelder license to say -
6:28 This idea makes absolutely no sense if you know anything about physics.
ibid.
The ‘if you know anything about physics’ schtick is disappointing and I refer to my previous comments. She does have previous convictions for condescending arguments from authority. When scientists say this sort of thing, it’s a slur on everybody else, but also a sleight of hand. If people can be convinced that free-will requires the adoption of bizarre beliefs they’ll likely reject it, without much deliberation, just to avoid the risk of appearing foolish.
For a trusted scientist and online educator to claim that free-will would require the existence multiple futures hanging on pegs, ready to be selected or become counterfactual, is to perform a disservice. It’s a retroactive assumption that’s being foisted on a trusting audience. There’s no reason to accept this and nobody’s belief in free-will need rely upon it.
This is what I call a ‘piñata’. Whereas a strawman is the tearing down of a fictitious argument that nobody made, I locally define the piñata as a false association planted in order to be broken open later, taking the form:
If you believe x then the science dictates you must [verb] y
To give some pertinent examples.
If you believe in free-will you must -
believe in magical thinking
advocate for a causeless cause
acknowledge the existence of selectable futures
accept the spawning of an infinite network of counterfactual dead ends
redefine your terminology to make it seem coherent
Don’t fall for accepting these donated arguments and their intentionally worthless assumptions.
Our thoughts must influence actions and outcomes, Hossenfelder says as much in her video. which makes free-will far more plausible than determinism. If true, it follows that our views on the existence of free-will must have an impact and again, she seems to agree with that too. Why else would she refer to an experiment that, according to her, suggests that not believing in free-will might be beneficial? Incidentally, what the study says is not as conclusive as Hossenfelder suggests, but I’ll clear that up in E12/1c.