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Rugged_as_fuck t1_jd3y0n1 wrote

I gotta say, I might be coming around, nobody with free will would choose to purchase and wear those glasses.

Other than that, this interview seemed odd. A good part of it is spent asking him generic so where did you grow up, what was your favorite food as a kid questions. I understand that his life experiences can be relevant to shaping his views, but it's all so mundane, including his answers. There's a few paragraphs in the middle actually discussing his viewpoints, and that's it. Then back to bullshit questions. Maybe that's what they were going for, and I'm the problem, expecting it to be focused on his viewpoints.

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bookish_2718 t1_jd6be3g wrote

To be fair - that is kind of the point of the site, most of the interviews are like that. It’s ‘What Is It Like To Be a Philosopher’, not ‘What do Philosophers Think’.

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TheBeardofGilgamesh t1_jd6l1jp wrote

Every sub atomic particle interaction since the Big Bang has predetermined that not only would someone design those glasses, but someone would buy it and wear it just to tell you he had no say in the matter, it wad preordained by the forces of the universe.

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shponglespore t1_jd89p33 wrote

What does "predetermined" mean in this context? It sounds like you're positing hidden variable theories, but those have been categorically debunked thoroughly enough to earn a Nobel prize.

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TheBeardofGilgamesh t1_jd8dzrj wrote

Oh I know. Was both poking fun at the glasses and the deterministic view most people who argue against free will hold (and yes I am aware free will could be an illusion in a probabilistic universe as well)

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3good5you t1_jd7h63v wrote

Except quantum mechanics only predict probabilities and sub atomic processes are - with regard to these probabilities - truly random, so I'm not sure what you mean.

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Michamus t1_jd7ttar wrote

We don’t understand QM well enough to know if they’re “truly” random. They appear random, but that doesn’t mean they are random.

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3good5you t1_jd7vs34 wrote

That is true, however you could say that about any scientific theory. As long as there is no sign of it not being true and the theory withstanding every known test, it might as well be true. The philosophical standpoint could be that we never know the truth but only get better models, which fit our observations, and I would agree, but I don‘t see how that is helping anyone and what to learn from it.

Maybe I‘m just not made to discuss with your philosophical standpoints, being heavily biased with a masters degree in particle physics. This is my first time reading some comments in this sub and actually commenting, so I‘d love to hear what you think and why. :)

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Michamus t1_jd8td42 wrote

Saying it is truly random has a higher burden of proof than saying it appears random. Sure, it may truly be random, but currently we just don’t know enough to say one way or another. If it really is random, it’ll be our first discovery of a truly random event.

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3good5you t1_jd8zqzf wrote

I see what you mean, in general, but that would lead us to basically not being able to say anything is something, wouldn't it?

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Michamus t1_jd90n5g wrote

Not really. We just don’t have enough data to conclusively make a claim like that. Especially since historically when claims of true randomness have been made, they’ve turned out to not be the case. It would be interesting if it turned out to actually be the case, though. Once we actually start relying on it functionally, we’ll know for certain if it’s really the case.

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TheBeardofGilgamesh t1_jd8enxx wrote

It’s good that we live in a probabilistic universe, id hate to live in a universe where your fate is sealed before it even happens

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Michamus t1_jd8vfyb wrote

Hate it or not, that’s very likely the case. If QM events turn out to actually be random, it’ll be the first truly random event we’ve ever observed.

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TheBeardofGilgamesh t1_jd9w1an wrote

Wait so you’re saying that there is almost certainly hidden variables? Because every experiment so far has failed to reveal any hidden variables and it really does appear that particular states really do randomly fall within a probability distribution. So yes the past and state of the universe does limit the possible future states but only within the probability distribution.

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EatThisShoe t1_jdj7q61 wrote

Just to be clear, there are experiments that show that quantum entanglement is not the result of a hidden variable. See this video for how those experiments work.

So there is evidence against hidden variables. And you are essentially arguing that this evidence is wrong or misinterpreted. The only deterministic interpretation of this is that entangled particles have faster than light communication, which as far as I know, does not have evidence supporting it.

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Michamus t1_jdk1wsn wrote

>Veritasium

lol. Okay.

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EatThisShoe t1_jdk2owu wrote

It's just an explanation of the experiment, it's not like it was his research. Do you have an actual criticism of the experiment or my interpretation of it?

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Michamus t1_jdk6cx2 wrote

>It's just an explanation of the experiment

In my experience, Veritasium loses accuracy in his effort toward simplicity. I watched the video and learned nothing new and rolled my eyes on a few parts. That's why I prefer just reading the paper.

If you're genuinely interested in the paper, here it is with confounding factors included.

>Strictly speaking, no Bell experiment can exclude all conceivable local-realist theories, because it is fundamentally impossible to prove when and where free random input bits and output values came into existence13. Even so, our loophole-free Bell test opens the possibility to progressively bound such less-conventional theories: by increasing the distance between A and B (for example, to test theories with increased speed of physical influence); by using different random input bit generators (to test theories with specific free-will agents, for example, humans); or by repositioning the random input bit generators (to test theories where the inputs are already determined earlier, sometimes referred to as ‘freedom-of-choice’9). In fact, our experiment already enables tests of all models that predict that the random inputs are determined a maximum of 690 ns before we record them (Supplementary Information).

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EatThisShoe t1_jdkb7d8 wrote

That paper's finding still appears to confirm the original Bell experiment though. So that's still evidence against that position.

There's always the potential for other models, but you argue as you expect further research to overturn these interpretations.

New models will inevitably come up, but that doesn't mean they will be deterministic. A deterministic model has a higher burden of evidence because it would still have to explain these experiments.

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Michamus t1_jdkdzoc wrote

>New models will inevitably come up, but that doesn't mean they will be deterministic.

You asked for the confounding factors of the experiment and I provided them from the paper authors themselves. I don't see any point in discussing this further. See ya.

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TheBeardofGilgamesh t1_jd8ee76 wrote

I was being sarcastic both with the glasses joke and the deterministic worldview of the glasses man.

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JimothyRedditAccount t1_jd71vkg wrote

I'm very new to all of this but if your only choices are confined to the cultures and rules around you, do you have free will? It's more like having privileges inside lines you cannot go outside of.

I probably sound dumb.

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Rugged_as_fuck t1_jd7m0kj wrote

If that was true, I suppose I would agree with you, but there's nothing stopping a person from leaving their life behind and starting a new life in another country, or going off grid and disappearing. If someone does that, do we then just say that he was predestined to do that?

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Michamus t1_jd7uzkz wrote

Sure. Why not? This is like saying people choose who they’re attracted to or choose what they believe. Sure, one could speculate about them deciding to be attracted to things they aren’t or believe things they don’t. The reality is that we really don’t actually control either of these things.

When you get down to it, we don’t really control anything. We may soon discover that what we call consciousness is just the communication between our multiple brains. That is, our consciousness is an observer of the brain’s decisions, rather than the controller. In other words, what we consider “self” could just be along for the ride. Purely output from the brain.

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Rugged_as_fuck t1_jd7zvrn wrote

Right, first of all your position isn't that your view is a possibility, it's that it's a fact. You aren't approaching it from a point of debate, there is no room for "I disagree" so there is effectively no point in engaging you.

That said, your take on it seems to be even more extreme than the interviewee, which runs up against the same problems. The interviewee himself acknowledges the problems inherent in the view. If we assume there is no free will, then no one is responsible for their actions, so there is no point punishing someone for any action or taking measures to prevent it. Guy shoots up an elementary school, tough shit, nothing we could do about it, he was always going to do that. Likewise, there is no point in praising great actions. A man invents a new method for clean, cheap energy and gives it away for the good of the planet instead of for profit. Who gives a fuck, he was already going to do that.

In addition to that being one of the most boring and passive "I'm just here waiting to die" takes on life, taken to the extreme it goes from an unimaginative, milquetoast viewpoint to detrimental to society as a whole. It's also no different than believing a higher power (God) controls all actions and outcomes regardless of human input, everything will always go according to His Plan, a belief that many philosophical individuals would consider small minded and naive.

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Michamus t1_jd8v6y8 wrote

What do you mean by “responsible for their actions?” If a machine is faulty, we don’t absolve it of blame for creating sub-optimal output conditions. If a person murders someone else, the murder still happened and they still committed it. We would still react deterministically to this event, whether by demanding capital punish enemy, imprisonment, or rehabilitation. You then can look at the conditions this murderer emerged in and see if patterns emerge. If mitigating those environmental conditions reduces the occurrences of murder, then what other conclusion could you draw?

That doesn’t even go into the myriad of data that decision making processes occur prior to conscious recognition of the decision. That is, fMRI data highly indicates that the “sub-conscious” structures of our brain make decisions and then what we call our “consciousness” is informed about it.

Then you have the fact that chemical and physical alterations to our brain structure cause behavioral and psychological changes to a person. For instance, chemical hemisphere separation creates two personalities with two narratives. If a blinder is used, and the one hand gives the other hand something, when prompted the person will make up a story about how they received it. Without separation, the person says they handed it to themselves.

Once you look at things beyond individual decisions, it becomes pretty clear that there’s nothing special about the human brain that could possibly separate it from natural determinism. There’s no “soul” to override our physical brains.

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JimothyRedditAccount t1_jd91qpg wrote

I do not know. It was really late and I was reading all sorts of comments here and I just kind of had a "Moment."

I believe that every choice we're able to make exist in the confines of what we're allowed to do. We step out of that line, society may praise or revile us. Our choices, unless we're completely alone, are always subject to scrutiny or praise based on constructs designed by the human imagination!

While it may seem like we can choose to do anything we want to, everything we could possibly think of is already paved by what is and isn't already acceptable.

I feel like i'm treading a fine line though and I may sound like I'm saying, "We don't have free will because I can't rob walmart without getting into trouble."

I'm not... although I would get how it sounds like that. It's an interesting subject and I'm not sure I'm convince of either outcome. I thank you for entertaining my thought though.

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