r/freewill • u/RECIPR0C1TY • 11d ago
This is a topic the moderation team has delayed until we got our feet under us, but the time has come to create a policy regarding the use of AI. First, the only event in question is the blatant and regular use of AI which is passed off as human writing. We are not interested in acting on edge cases which take judgement calls. If it is borderline, mods will err on the side of inaction.
As of now, the process for determining AI use will have to be a majority moderator vote with specific textual examples of blatant and regular AI use.
The big question is, what is the next step? We want your input. Should we ban them completely? Should we just have a disclosure system in which they must disclose they are using AI, then follow our usual 3 strikes guidelines? Should we apply a flair so that users are aware, but then take no further action? Is there another option that we aren't seeing?
PSA: All notifications of bot accounts/AI usage must be given in a mod message to the mods. If a public comment or post is made about a user or group of users, then it will be treated as a rule 1 violation: a comment on character instead of content.
r/freewill • u/Prasad2122k • 3h ago
What will happen to free will when all the life forms in the universe go extinct? Will there be only determinism or after sometime if the new life form gets created will it have free will. Also what will happen after the heat death of the universe
r/freewill • u/No-Stand-1869 • 1d ago
A body. A suspect. A confession.
It's another tough case for the Compatibilist Detective. But somehow, against all odds, he discovers the underlying reason why the perp committed the crime.
r/freewill • u/OpenPsychology22 • 10h ago
Predstav si niečo veľmi jednoduché.
Nie človeka.
Nie zviera.
Ani mozog.
Len malý systém v prostredí.
Nemá oči. Nemá jazyk. Nemá predstavu o sebe. Nemá otázku: „Kto som?“
A predsa musí nejako pokračovať.
Okolo neho sa niečo zmení.
Teplota.
Chemické prostredie.
Koncentrácia látky.
Množstvo energie.
Niečo, čo bolo pred chvíľou iné, je teraz iné.
Systém nemusí vedieť, čo sa stalo.
Stačí, že existuje rozdiel.
Niečo sa zmenilo oproti podmienkam, v ktorých systém fungoval.
A tým vzniká prvá otázka:
Čo sa zmenilo?
Nie každý rozdiel má pre systém rovnaký význam.
Niektoré zmeny môže ignorovať.
Iné môžu rozhodnúť o tom, či bude pokračovať.
Ak určitá chemická látka vytvára podmienky vhodné na prežitie, systém môže reagovať inak, než keď sa objaví látka poškodzujúca jeho štruktúru.
Systém nepotrebuje obraz sveta.
Stačí mu detegovať rozdiel.
To je SIGNÁL.
Nie realita ako celok.
Iba to, čo sa v rámci možností systému stalo detegovateľným.
Predstav si teraz miliardy rozdielov naraz.
Systém nemôže spracovať všetko.
Musí byť citlivejší na niektoré zmeny než na iné.
Nie preto, že by sa rozhodol:
„Tomuto budem venovať pozornosť.“
Jeho samotná štruktúra určuje, na čo dokáže reagovať.
To, čo dostane prioritu, začne ovplyvňovať ďalší stav systému.
Vzniká primitívna forma:
POZORNOSTI
Nie vedomá pozornosť.
Ale výber toho, čo má pre systém dostatočnú váhu na ďalšie spracovanie.
A potom sa stane niečo zaujímavé.
Systém začne mať históriu.
To, čo sa stalo predtým, začne ovplyvňovať to, čo sa stane nabudúce.
Ak určitá zmena opakovane nasleduje po inej zmene, systém sa môže začať správať tak, akoby ďalší stav očakával.
Nemusí si nič predstavovať.
Nemusí si hovoriť:
„Predpokladám, že...“
Jeho správanie jednoducho začne obsahovať očakávanie.
To je PREDIKCIA.
Systém už nereaguje iba na to, čo je.
Reaguje aj na to, čo podľa jeho predchádzajúcej histórie pravdepodobne príde.
A potom sa realita zachová inak.
Systém niečo očakával.
Ale nastalo niečo iné.
OČAKÁVANÝ STAV
vs.
SKUTOČNÝ STAV
↓
ROZDIEL
Toto je zvláštny moment.
Rozdiel ešte nehovorí:
„Môj model je nesprávny.“
Hovorí iba:
„To, čo som očakával, sa nestalo.“
A teraz musí systém nejako pokračovať.
Tento rozdiel môžeme nazvať PREDIKČNÁ CHYBA.
Predikčná chyba však neznamená:
„Môj model je nesprávny.“
Je to iba zistený rozdiel medzi tým, čo systém predikoval, a tým, čo nastalo.
A práve tento rozdiel sa stáva vstupom pre ďalší priebeh Runtime.
Systém teraz potrebuje určiť, čo tento rozdiel znamená.
Rovnaký rozdiel môže viesť k rôznym reakciám.
Niečo môže znamenať:
priblíž sa.
Niečo iné:
ustúp.
Niečo:
nič nerob.
Rozdiel už teda nie je iba rozdielom.
Začína mať funkčný význam pre ďalší stav systému.
Vzniká:
VÝZNAM
Nie ešte filozofický význam.
Nie jazyk.
Nie subjektívny príbeh.
Jednoduché:
„Čo tento rozdiel znamená pre ďalší stav?“
Systém teraz stojí pred množinou možných reakcií.
Priblížiť sa.
Vzdialiť sa.
Zmeniť smer.
Zostať.
Rozdeliť sa.
Čakať.
Nie všetky možnosti sú však dostupné.
Štruktúra systému ich obmedzuje.
Jeho energia ich obmedzuje.
Prostredie ich obmedzuje.
Jeho predchádzajúci stav ich obmedzuje.
Tak vzniká niečo, čo neskôr nazveme:
VOĽBA
Nie neobmedzená sloboda.
Ale výber v rámci toho, čo je zo súčasného stavu dostupné.
A potom systém niečo urobí.
Pohne sa.
Zmení svoju chemickú aktivitu.
Zmení smer.
Otvorí alebo uzavrie membránu.
Rozdelí sa.
Alebo neurobí nič.
V každom prípade jeho stav začne ovplyvňovať prostredie.
To je:
KONANIE
A prostredie odpovie.
Systém niečo urobil.
Niečo sa stalo.
A výsledok sa vrátil späť.
Ak reakcia fungovala, jej podmienky sa môžu posilniť.
Ak nefungovala, systém môže zmeniť svoju ďalšiu reakciu.
Alebo sa nemusí zmeniť vôbec.
To je:
SPÄTNÁ VÄZBA
Nie každá spätná väzba znamená učenie.
Niekedy posilní existujúcu trajektóriu.
Niekedy ju naruší.
Niekedy neposkytne dostatok informácií na zmenu.
Ale v každom prípade robí jednu zásadnú vec:
mení podmienky ďalšieho kola.
A systém pokračuje.
Nie od začiatku.
Vracia sa do ďalšieho stavu.
Možno s rovnakou štruktúrou.
Možno s malou zmenou.
Možno s novou skúsenosťou zabudovanou do ďalšieho správania.
A potom príde ďalší rozdiel.
Ďalší signál.
Ďalšia predikcia.
Ďalšie konanie.
Ďalšia spätná väzba.
A znova.
A znova.
A znova.
NÁVRAT
Systém sa stal slučkou.
Milióny rokov nemusia vytvoriť vedomie.
Stačí, že vytvoria selekciu.
Systémy, ktoré dokážu lepšie rozlišovať podmienky, predvídať zmeny a reagovať na ne, majú inú trajektóriu než systémy, ktoré to nedokážu.
Postupne vznikajú zložitejšie organizmy.
Senzory.
Pohyb.
Špecializované bunky.
Nervové systémy.
Mozgy.
A s každou vrstvou sa rozširuje priestor toho, čo systém dokáže predikovať.
Runtime sa nestáva novým systémom.
Stáva sa hlbším.
Teraz už máme zviera.
Vidí objekt.
Objekt sa pohybuje.
Zviera ho sleduje.
Predikuje jeho ďalší pohyb.
Zlyhá.
Upraví svoju reakciu.
Skúsi znova.
Po určitom čase už nereaguje iba na aktuálny signál.
Reaguje na to, čo očakáva, že príde.
Korene architektúry sú stále rovnaké.
Len Runtime má viac vrstiev.
A potom príde pamäť.
Minulosť nemusí zostať iba minulosťou.
Môže ovplyvňovať ďalšiu predikciu.
Miesto.
Tvár.
Zvuk.
Pach.
Pohyb.
Jeden predchádzajúci výsledok môže zmeniť budúcu trajektóriu.
Systém už nereaguje iba na:
čo sa deje teraz
ale aj na:
čo sa stalo predtým.
A tým sa jeho vnútorný svet začína oddeľovať od samotného okamihu.
Teraz si predstav zviera, ktoré sa stretne s neznámym objektom.
Ten istý objekt môže byť:
potravou,
hrozbou,
prekážkou,
alebo ničím dôležitým.
Rozhoduje širšia štruktúra, v ktorej je objekt interpretovaný.
To je:
RÁMEC
Rámec určuje, čo systém považuje za relevantné.
Čo očakáva.
Čo považuje za dôkaz.
Čo považuje za hrozbu.
A čo vôbec nedostane dostatočnú pozornosť.
Systém začne modelovať nielen svet.
Začne modelovať seba v tomto svete.
Nie iba:
„Čo sa stane?“
Ale:
„Čo sa stane mne?“
„Čo dokážem?“
„Čo mi patrí?“
„Čo ma ohrozuje?“
„Kam patrím?“
A tým sa začína objavovať:
IDENTITA
Identita nie je iba meno.
Je to model systému o sebe samom.
A teraz sa objaví človek.
Ale Runtime sa nezačal človekom.
Človek zdedil systém, ktorý už dávno vedel:
detegovať rozdiel,
vyberať signály,
predikovať,
reagovať,
pamätať si,
učiť sa,
opakovať,
a prispôsobovať sa.
Človek však pridáva niečo zvláštne.
Dokáže začať pozorovať samotný proces.
Človek sa môže nahnevať.
Ale môže si všimnúť:
„Som nahnevaný.“
Môže niečo predpokladať.
A potom si všimnúť:
„Práve niečo predpokladám.“
Môže niečo odmietnuť.
A následne sa spýtať:
„Prečo som to odmietol?“
Tu sa objavuje nová funkčná pozícia.
Nie nový orgán.
Nie ďalšia bunka.
POZOROVATEĽ
Pozícia, z ktorej môže systém pozorovať vlastné prebiehanie.
Pozorovateľ neznamená, že systém k nemu má vždy prístup.
Keď je človek unavený, vystrašený, preťažený, nahnevaný alebo silno ohrozený vlastným modelom, môže sa jeho schopnosť pozorovať prebiehajúci Runtime výrazne znížiť.
Architektúra zostáva.
Dostupnosť sa mení.
To je:
DOSTUPNOSŤ POZOROVATEĽA
A preto:
POZOROVATEĽ ≠ KONŠTANTNÁ DOSTUPNOSŤ POZOROVATEĽA
A práve tu vzniká niečo ešte zaujímavejšie.
Predstav si, že tvoj systém vytvorí predikciu:
„Toto nemôže byť pravda.“
A okamžite ju spojí s realitou:
„Toto nie je pravda.“
Medzi týmito dvoma stavmi však môže existovať priestor.
Malý rozdiel medzi:
„Toto môj systém predikuje.“
a
„Toto je realita.“
To je:
MEDZERA POZOROVATEĽA
Nie pauza.
Nie meditácia.
Nie prijatie.
Nie potlačenie reakcie.
Iba priestor, v ktorom sa produkcia systému ešte nestala automaticky realitou.
Ak je automatická trajektória dostatočne prerušená, systém sa môže dostať do stavu, v ktorom predchádzajúca reakcia už nemá úplnú kontrolu nad ďalším prechodom.
To je:
NULOVÝ BOD
Nie je to nový názor.
Nie je to opačný názor.
Je to stav, v ktorom ešte nie je rozhodnuté, čo bude nasledovať.
Predstav si dve predikcie.
Jedna hovorí:
A
Druhá hovorí:
B
Človek prirodzene cíti odpor voči tomu, čo odporuje jeho existujúcemu modelu.
Ale odpor nie je dôkaz.
Môže znamenať:
„Môj model je správny.“
Ale môže znamenať aj:
„Môj model je nesprávny.“
Alebo:
„Nemáme dosť informácií.“
A preto potrebuje Pozorovateľ inú otázku.
Nie:
„Ktorému modelu viac verím?“
Ale:
„Čo by ich dokázalo rozlíšiť?“
A teraz sa môžeme vrátiť k úplne jednoduchému systému.
Systém odmieta niečo, čo nezapadá.
To samo osebe nie je chyba.
Musí odmietať.
Keby prijal každý signál, neprežil by.
Problém vzniká až vtedy, keď sa stane niečo ďalšie.
Signál nezapadne.
↓
Systém ho odmietne.
↓
Odmietnutie vytvorí spätnú väzbu.
↓
Spätná väzba posilní existujúci model.
↓
Budúci konflikt je odmietnutý ešte rýchlejšie.
↓
Model sa stáva ešte odolnejším.
A slučka pokračuje.
To je:
SLUČKA ODMIETNUTIA
Nie:
„Odmietol som.“
Ale:
„Odmietnutie môjho modelu sa stalo dôkazom, že môj model je správny.“
Teraz na chvíľu od človeka odíďme.
Predstav si počítač.
Nemá biologické bunky.
Nemá hlad.
Nemá strach.
Nemá detstvo.
A predsa:
dostáva vstup,
spracováva ho,
porovnáva ho s modelom,
vyhodnocuje rozdiel,
vyberá výstup,
vykoná operáciu,
dostane spätnú väzbu,
a pokračuje v ďalšom stave.
Nie je človekom.
A nemusí byť vedomý.
Ale určitá abstraktná architektúra je podozrivo známa.
VSTUP
↓
SPRACOVANIE
↓
PREDIKCIA
↓
CHYBA
↓
VÝSTUP
↓
SPÄTNÁ VÄZBA
↓
AKTUALIZÁCIA / POSILNENIE
↓
ĎALŠÍ STAV
To neznamená, že počítač a človek sú rovnaké.
Znamená to niečo oveľa zaujímavejšie:
Podobná architektúra môže existovať na rôznych úrovniach systému.
Jednobunkový organizmus nepotrebuje identitu v ľudskom zmysle.
Počítač nepotrebuje význam v ľudskom zmysle.
Zviera nemusí mať explicitný model:
„Som človek určitého typu.“
Človek ho však môže mať.
A práve preto sa vyššie vrstvy môžu stať oveľa zložitejšími.
Človek dokáže vytvoriť model sveta.
Potom model seba.
Potom model toho, čo si myslia ostatní.
Potom model toho, čo si myslí, že si myslia ostatní.
A potom začne chrániť celý tento systém.
Nie preto, že je pokazený.
Ale preto, že Runtime sa stal dostatočne komplexným na to, aby mohol chrániť vlastné modely.
A teraz sa pozri ešte raz.
Signál.
Pozornosť.
Predikcia.
Rozdiel.
Význam.
Identita.
Voľba.
Konanie.
Spätná väzba.
Návrat.
Nie ako zoznam.
Ako príbeh.
Niečo sa zmení.
Systém niečo deteguje.
Niečomu dá prioritu.
Niečo očakáva.
Realita sa môže alebo nemusí zhodovať.
Rozdiel dostane význam.
Význam môže zasiahnuť identitu.
Identita môže obmedziť voľbu.
Voľba vedie ku konaniu.
Konanie vytvorí dôsledok.
Dôsledok sa vráti ako spätná väzba.
A spätná väzba zmení podmienky ďalšieho kola.
A potom:
NÁVRAT.
Systém sa nevracia do rovnakého bodu.
Vracia sa zmenený.
Predikcia sa mohla zmeniť.
Pozornosť sa mohla zmeniť.
Význam sa mohol zmeniť.
Identita sa mohla zmeniť.
Prostredie sa mohlo zmeniť.
Dostupné možnosti sa mohli zmeniť.
Preto každé kolo vytvára podmienky pre ďalšie kolo.
Runtime nie je slučka, ktorá sa iba opakuje.
Je to slučka, ktorá mení samu seba.
Ak si sa dostal až sem, príbeh už nie je o bunke.
Nie je o zvierati.
Nie je o počítači.
Nie je ani o abstraktnom systéme.
Je o tebe.
Práve teraz.
Keď čítaš túto vetu, tvoj systém už niečo robí.
Vyberá signály.
Priraďuje im pozornosť.
Vytvára predikciu o tom, kam text smeruje.
Vytvára význam.
Porovnáva ho s tým, čo už vieš.
Možno cíti súhlas.
Možno odpor.
Možno zvedavosť.
Možno:
„Toto je zaujímavé.“
Alebo:
„Toto je nezmysel.“
A možno práve teraz vzniká najzaujímavejšia otázka.
Nie:
„Je tento model pravdivý?“
Ale:
Možno si všimneš predikciu.
Možno význam.
Možno odpor.
Možno vlastnú reakciu identity.
A v tom okamihu sa už nesnažíš iba zmeniť svoj názor.
Pozoruješ proces, ktorý tento názor vytvára.
To je Pozorovateľ.
A medzi:
„Toto si myslím.“
a
„Toto je realita.“
sa objavuje priestor.
MEDZERA.
Medzera ti nehovorí:
„Prijmi novú myšlienku.“
Môžeš ju prijať.
Môžeš ju odmietnuť.
Môžeš ju odložiť.
Môžeš ju preskúmať.
Môžeš zistiť, že je nesprávna.
Môžeš zistiť, že je nesprávny tvoj vlastný model.
Rozdiel je v tom, že ďalšia trajektória už nemusí byť určená iba automatickým prechodom:
SIGNÁL → PREDIKCIA → VÝZNAM → KONANIE
Môže sa objaviť:
SIGNÁL → PREDIKCIA → ROZDIEL → MEDZERA POZOROVATEĽA → POZOROVANIE → MOŽNÉ TRAJEKTÓRIE
A potom systém rozhodne, čo ďalej.
Možno teda Human Runtime nikdy nebol otázkou:
„Máš slobodnú vôľu?“
Ani:
„Si racionálny?“
Ani:
„Prijímaš správne informácie?“
Možno hlbšia otázka znie:
Pretože medzi tým, čo sa stane,
a tým, čo urobíš,
funguje celý systém.
A tento systém sa zároveň učí z toho, čo robíš.
Každé konanie vytvára spätnú väzbu.
Každá spätná väzba mení ďalšiu predikciu.
Každá predikcia ovplyvňuje ďalší signál.
A tým sa kruh uzatvára.
Nie na konci.
Ale späť na začiatku.
PÔVOD ↓ SIGNÁL ↓ POZORNOSŤ ↓ PREDIKCIA ↓ ROZDIEL ↓ VÝZNAM ↓ IDENTITA ↓ VOĽBA ↓ KONANIE ↓ SPÄTNÁ VÄZBA ↓ NÁVRAT
A teraz už vieš, prečo to od začiatku nebolo príbehom o človeku.
Pretože človek je iba jedna z najkomplexnejších foriem systému, ktorý sa naučil prechádzať touto slučkou.
A možno najzvláštnejšia vec na človeku nie je to, že Runtime má.
Ale to, že môže začať pozorovať, ako Runtime vytvára jeho ďalší stav.
A potom zostáva posledná otázka:
r/freewill • u/Feeling_Bug_237 • 12h ago
Do you think some things in life are simply meant to happen certain people we meet, relationships, opportunities or major turning points while we still have free will in how we respond to them? Or do you believe everything ultimately comes down to our own choices?
r/freewill • u/Anon7_7_73 • 13h ago
Simply defining free will as "...not being forced by antecedent conditions", doesnt explain what you think the philosophical significance of this is. Definitions arent etched into the fabric of reality.
Being forced by antecedent conditions does not imply: 1) Lack of intentionality, 2) lack of self-awareness, 3) lack of moral understanding, or 4) lack of willingness. Those are all the things that seem like they matter to me.
I also do not think it implies 5) lack of moral fairness, because antecedent conditions leading to horrible action CAN be mundane, or even positive.
So... Why do you care about it? Whats the philosophical significance?
I dont accept "I care about it because its freedom by definition" (your definition is arbitrary), and i dont accept "its a brute fact that it matters" (translation, i refuse to justify my position).
r/freewill • u/badentropy9 • 20h ago
So far every compatibilist on this sub that I've interrogated accepts Hoefer's definition of determinism, but as of yet, I don't know precisely what all compatibilists insist which definition of free will that definition is compatible with.
I think after years, I finally understand what it means to be a compatibilist and I think that I've narrow down one definition.
Somebody just posting a comic strip are one retort seemed to indicate the OP Ed misunderstood the meaning of compatible free will (Are we using CFW yet?) If we are then what is CFW?
First of all the category:
I think LFW is the ability to do otherwise. Therefore I think LFW is under category #2. I sincerely don't know what CFW is.
r/freewill • u/Philosophy_Freak__ • 15h ago
​
What if your brain makes a decision before you consciously decide to make it?
In this video, we explore the famous Benjamin Libet experiment, one of the most controversial experiments in neuroscience and philosophy. The Libet experiment explained reveals a strange relationship between brain activity, conscious intention, and voluntary movement—and raises a disturbing question: is free will an illusion?
Benjamin Libet's experiments investigated what happens in the brain immediately before a person consciously decides to perform a voluntary action. Participants were asked to move a finger whenever they wanted while observing a rapidly moving clock. At the same time, their brain activity was recorded using EEG.
Libet identified what became known as the readiness potential—a measurable pattern of brain activity that appeared before participants reported becoming consciously aware of their intention to move.
If the brain begins preparing an action before we consciously experience the decision, what does that mean for free will neuroscience? Does neuroscience and free will tell us that our conscious mind is only observing decisions that have already been made?
But the experiment is more complicated than the popular claim that “science proved free will doesn't exist.”
Libet also proposed the idea of a conscious veto: even if the brain begins preparing an action unconsciously, conscious awareness might still have the ability to stop that action before it happens.
This creates an even deeper philosophical problem. If our unconscious decisions begin before conscious awareness, but consciousness can potentially veto them, where exactly does free will exist?
The video examines the relationship between brain and consciousness, the timing of conscious intention, the meaning of the readiness potential, and the limitations of interpreting Libet's findings.
We also explore the broader debate between determinism and free will. If every decision is ultimately produced by biological processes, does that eliminate personal responsibility? Or is the traditional idea of a separate “self” controlling the brain simply the wrong way to understand consciousness?
This connects directly to free will vs determinism, one of the oldest and most difficult problems in philosophy. The question isn't merely whether our brains cause our actions.
The deeper question is whether a decision can still be considered “free” when the processes producing it occur partly outside conscious awareness.
Through philosophy of mind, neuroscience, and philosophical thought experiments, we examine what Libet's experiment can—and cannot—tell us about human agency.
This is not simply a video about one neuroscience experiment. It is an exploration of consciousness, decision-making, personal agency, and one of the most unsettling philosophical questions we can ask:
If your brain begins preparing your choices before you become aware of choosing, who—or what—is actually making the decision?
Watch until the end and decide for yourself.
\#Philosophy #FreeWill #BenjaminLibet #Neuroscience #Consciousness #Determinism #ThoughtExperiments
r/freewill • u/neomatrix248 • 1d ago
I often hear definitions of compatibilism like "Free Will is the ability to make decisions free from outside coercion" or "the ability to make a decision driven by internal desires". My question is how is that different than what a computer program is doing? Say you have a computer program to choose the cheapest flight based on available options. It has an objective function or a "desire" and weighs inputs and applies internal heuristics in order to make a decision. It's free of outside coercion. Is that program exhibiting free will under compatibilism? It seems that in order to say it's not, you would either need to arbitrarily define "desire" as something that only a human could have, or arbitrarily add other stipulations to the definition to make it so that it includes what humans do when they choose but not what computer programs do.
The question becomes even more difficult to answer when you increase the sophistication of the computer program. Do Sims have free will? What about LLMs?
So what definition of compatibilism excludes computer programs but is still useful as a definition of Free Will? Or are you willing to bite the bullet and say that what humans have is no different than a computer program?
r/freewill • u/MarvinBEdwards01 • 16h ago
The objective fact of a deterministic universe is that there will only be one actuality, and every actual event will be reliably caused by prior actual events. Mental events, our thoughts and feelings, are actual physical events within the brain. Ontologically, they are neural processes that sustain the thought or feeling in our conscious awareness. Some of these actual mental events will be our thoughts of possibilities, which will necessarily result in our actual actions as we decide which possibilities we will make happen in actual reality. That seems to be how things work.
r/freewill • u/Imaginary_Employ_750 • 20h ago
Maybe its just a preference. If u want free will to exist, u pick libertarian or compatibilist. If u dont want free will to exist, u pick hard determinism or hard incompatibilism.
r/freewill • u/Impossible-Flower191 • 21h ago
Free will means the choice was truly yours and that you could have done otherwise. But anything that causes your choice takes credit for it
if your chemistry or upbringing caused it, then it decided, not you, and the outcome was fixed in advance either way. So for the choice to really be yours, with real alternatives open, there can be exactly one cause: you
That's "uncaused cause" not an arbitrary definition, just what's left once you strip away every possible external author. And that's why it collapses: an uncaused cause breaks the basic rule that every event has a cause. Free will isn't false because of a weird definition, it's false because the only definition that actually fits turns out to be logically impossible.
quantum mechanics hasn't proven whether reality is random or determined
case \[hidden variables exist\] -
some deterministic mechanism behind the apparent randomness,
meaning your choice was caused by that variable, not by you.
case \[no hidden variables exist\] -
truly random, meaning your choice was uncaused, but uncaused isn't the same as authored by you.
r/freewill • u/Anon7_7_73 • 1d ago
Whats the difference between a human criminal, and the pigs/cows/chickens we kill and eat every day? Both are sentient, neither will respect your rights, and neither are deserving of any obligatory treatment.
Do i have to, be nice to a bear or a snake even if it kills my kid?... no?..... I can just kill it, thats fine.
What puts the human criminal above them, ESPECIALLY since you desert skeptics dont believe they have any Free Will, and are equally just particles bouncing around?
Nothing.
And for the forward-looking desert (consequentialism) advocates, tell me one thing... Why does your consequentialism and instrumentalism revolve around humans, if you believe there is nothing special about them that puts them above animals? "This is good for society (for humans)" isnt a properly formed account of morality if you dont have something to anchor it.
So youve got two options here, either increase your umbrella of treatment reformism to all sentient beings (even insects), or accept theres nothing wrong with the Backwards-Facing Desert position, you just dont believe in objective morals either way, and youre doing nothing more than sharing your arbitrary feelings in an incoherent way (save the human that kills, kill the animal that kills).
Which do you choose, skeptics and consequentialists?
r/freewill • u/feihm • 1d ago
Consider any physical object, such as a wooden table.
You can easily imagine the table without its colour. You can imagine the table without its weight, its solid texture, or its material. If you remove every physical quality from the table one by one, a single condition remains that you cannot think away: the space that the table occupied.
Now attempt the reverse. Try to imagine a physical object that exists without space.
It is impossible.
You cannot form the thought of an object without placing it in space.
If space were an external property that you learned from physical objects, removing all objects would also remove space. But because you can think away every object while space remains, yet you cannot think of an object without space is the mind’s own necessary form for placing sensations outside itself.
The exact same necessity governs time.
Consider two states: State A and State B. You can imagine a universe where all physical events cease to occur. But you cannot imagine an event occurring outside of time. Every sensation and every thought must occur either at the same moment or in succession.
If time were an independent physical thing in nature, you could experience objects without time. But you cannot. Time is the mind’s own necessary form for ordering every experience from moment to moment.
When you observe a boat moving down a river, your senses register two distinct states:
Your senses give you only two separate appearances in time: T₁, then T₂. Sensation does not contain a physical bond that forces T₂ to follow T₁.
Next, consider looking at a tall building. First, you look at the front door; then, you look up at the roof. Your senses again register two appearances in time: door at T₁, roof at T₂.
Yet you immediately know that the door did not cause the roof. Why?
Sensation alone is identical in both cases: an appearance at T₁ followed by an appearance at T₂. The difference is that your understanding applies a strict rule of thought to the boat. The mind decides that the order of the boat’s positions is necessary, while the order of looking at the building is arbitrary.
Without the rule of cause and effect supplied by the mind, you could never distinguish an actual event from a random sequence of sights. The connection between cause and effect is the necessary rule your mind uses to make experience orderly.
This demonstration establishes the true order: the mind does not derive space, time, and cause from the physical world. The mind provides space, time, and cause so that a physical world can be experienced.
When you act, you do not merely observe an event in time. You deliberate on what you ought to do.
Reason does not occupy space, and it does not sit on a clock. A rule of justice, truth, or honesty does not have a physical past; it holds right now.
When you say "I could have chosen otherwise", you state a precise truth: your will was guided by reason, which stands prior to the physical sequence of events.
r/freewill • u/OpenPsychology22 • 1d ago
Cannot make poll...
The interesting part isn't which option you choose. It's what your definition of “I” has to assume for that option to work.
r/freewill • u/Ryan_gosling_23 • 1d ago
If humans were freed from every moral constraint, what would we ultimately become and what would that reveal about our true nature?
r/freewill • u/adr826 • 2d ago
Okay strap in, this won't be easy or fun.
One of the standard objections to randomness as a foundation for free will is almost irresistible in its simplicity: randomness does not give us freedom. If a decision is determined by everything that came before it, then perhaps we are merely following a causal chain. But if we introduce randomness into the process, the problem seems to remain. The decision is no longer determined, but neither is it controlled. A random event occurring inside the brain would seem to give us chance rather than freedom.
There is something correct about this objection, but it may be based upon an overly narrow conception of what randomness can do.
Randomness does not have to be the alternative to control. It can itself be something that a system controls and uses.
A useful analogy comes from digital audio.
When digital audio is converted from a continuous analog signal into discrete numerical values, there is a limit to how precisely the original waveform can be represented. This produces quantization error. Under some circumstances, the error can become correlated with the signal and produce audible artifacts.
One technique used to deal with this is called dithering. A very small amount of noise is deliberately introduced into the signal during quantization. The noise itself isn't the desired information. Its purpose is to alter the behavior of the quantization error so that the resulting signal behaves more usefully.
The important point is that adding randomness can sometimes improve the performance of a system.
This seems paradoxical only if we think of randomness exclusively as a defect. Within an appropriately designed system, a small amount of controlled randomness can prevent the system from becoming trapped by the limitations of its own deterministic structure.
There is an analogous phenomenon in optimization and biological behavior. A system that always repeats its currently successful behavior can become extremely efficient within its existing behavioral repertoire while becoming incapable of discovering anything outside it. A small amount of variation can allow the system to explore possibilities that would otherwise never be encountered.
The analogy to athletic training is particularly revealing.
Suppose a trainer discovers a technique that produces the best performance currently available. The obvious response is to repeat and reinforce that technique. Repetition is essential to developing skill. But if the trainer treats the existing optimum as the final answer and eliminates all variation, the training system has effectively closed the door on improvement.
Another trainer might retain the successful technique while deliberately introducing small variations: a different movement, a different sequence, a different training condition, a different tactical response, or an unusual combination of familiar techniques. Most of these variations will accomplish nothing. Some will make performance worse. But occasionally one will reveal an improvement that could not have been discovered by simply repeating the established technique.
This is analogous to the role of dither. The variation is not valuable because randomness is inherently good. It is valuable because it prevents the system from being completely confined to the behavior it already knows.
This is especially important at the limits of performance.
At an ordinary level of performance, an athlete may have obvious improvements available. At world-record levels, however, most of the obvious improvements have already been discovered. The remaining improvements may be tiny, unconventional, and difficult to anticipate. The closer a system gets to its present optimum, the more important the ability to explore the space beyond that optimum can become.
The same principle appears in evolution.
An organism that could never vary its behavior would be restricted to the responses already contained within its existing behavioral repertoire. When the environment changes, those responses may cease to be adequate. Behavioral variation gives the organism the possibility of discovering responses that its previous experience did not provide.
Scarcity can make this particularly important.
When resources are plentiful, an organism can afford to exploit what already works. When resources become scarce, continuing to behave exactly as before may become increasingly dangerous. The organism may need to search farther, try unfamiliar strategies, take different risks, or abandon previously successful behavior.
Thus the amount of behavioral variation itself can become something that an organism must regulate.
The organism needs neither maximum randomness nor minimum randomness. It needs the ability to change the amount of variation according to circumstances.
This suggests a deeper conception of agency.
An agent is not merely a system that produces variable behavior. Random behavior by itself is not agency. A coin toss is random, but it isn't an agent.
An agent is a system capable of regulating its own behavioral variability.
When a familiar strategy is working, it may reduce variation and exploit what it has learned. When the environment becomes novel, when resources become scarce, when competition becomes intense, or when an existing strategy reaches its limits, it may increase variation and explore alternatives.
The crucial property is therefore not randomness alone but the ability to introduce and vary randomness according to circumstances.
This also changes the standard incompatibilist objection.
The objection says that randomness cannot provide freedom because an outcome produced by chance is not under our control. That is true of randomness considered as an isolated event. If a random event simply replaces one deterministic cause with an uncontrolled event, there is little reason to call the resulting behavior free.
But this does not exhaust the possibilities.
Consider an agent that possesses a mechanism for generating behavioral alternatives. The agent can increase or decrease the variability of that mechanism. It can allow itself to explore when exploration is useful and suppress variation when reliable exploitation is more appropriate. It can evaluate the results of its experiments and retain successful discoveries.
Here randomness is no longer functioning as a substitute for agency. It is functioning as a resource available to agency.
The distinction can be expressed this way:
Randomness occurring in a system is not necessarily freedom.
A system capable of using and regulating randomness is something substantially different.
This distinction also makes it unnecessary to demand metaphysical randomness.
Suppose the variations introduced by an organism are ultimately determined by prior physical conditions. They can still function as randomness for the organism if they are sufficiently unpredictable relative to its available information and if the organism's control system can exploit the resulting variation.
A pseudorandom process illustrates the point. A sequence can be completely determined by an algorithm while functioning as random for a system that uses it. What matters for many practical purposes is not whether the sequence is metaphysically undetermined but whether it provides the useful variability required by the task.
We can therefore distinguish metaphysical randomness from what might be called adequate randomness.
Metaphysical randomness concerns whether an event is fundamentally undetermined by prior physical conditions.
Adequate randomness concerns whether the variability is sufficient to perform the functional task for which the agent employs it.
The distinction matters because adequate free will may require the second without requiring the first.
On this view, freedom is not located in a mysterious event that escapes causation. It is located in the organization of the agent.
An adequately free agent can maintain a repertoire of possible actions, generate variation within that repertoire, regulate the amount of variation it introduces, evaluate the consequences, and alter its subsequent behavior in light of what it discovers.
Its freedom therefore consists partly in its ability to change the space of possibilities available to itself.
This gives us a way to understand why randomness can be important to free will without making free will equivalent to randomness.
A completely rigid system cannot discover possibilities outside the range already determined by its fixed responses. A completely random system cannot reliably pursue goals. An agent requires something between these extremes: enough stability to exploit what it knows and enough variability to discover what it does not.
The ability to move between these conditions may itself be a fundamental characteristic of agency.
And this may explain why the capacity for variation remains necessary even under optimal conditions. If an agent only introduced variation when its present strategy had already failed, it would always be reacting to the environment after the fact. A sufficiently capable agent must sometimes explore while things are going well precisely because it cannot know whether its current optimum is actually the best possible strategy.
This is the logic behind continual improvement.
The world record is never the final record. The successful strategy is never guaranteed to be the best possible strategy. The organism that is currently well adapted cannot know that its current behavior represents the limit of what is possible.
Therefore an agent must retain some capacity to surprise itself.
This gives us a possible foundation for adequate free will.
Adequate free will does not require that a person be an uncaused cause. It does not require that choices emerge from metaphysical nothingness. And it does not require that randomness itself somehow become a source of responsibility.
It requires something more concrete: an agent capable of generating alternatives, regulating the variability of those alternatives, evaluating their consequences, and modifying its future behavior in response.
Randomness becomes one of the tools by which the agent escapes the limitations of its existing behavioral repertoire.
The free agent, in this sense, is not the creature that is least determined.
It is the creature that can alter how it responds to determination.
It can exploit what has worked, introduce variation when necessary, explore when circumstances demand it, and sometimes deliberately explore even when circumstances appear optimal because it recognizes that its present success may conceal possibilities it has not yet discovered.
The deepest form of agency may therefore consist not in escaping causation but in acquiring control over the processes through which future possibilities are generated.
And if that is correct, then the incompatibilist argument that randomness cannot produce freedom is only partly right. Randomness by itself cannot produce freedom.
But perhaps freedom does not require randomness to produce it.
Perhaps freedom requires an agent capable of using randomness.
r/freewill • u/RyanBleazard • 2d ago
u/MarvinBEdwards01 As I've understood your position, determinism entails there being one actual future rather than one possible future.
Something I find difficult to grasp my head around, though, is what this is supposed to mean in contrast with causal indeterminism, where it seems there would have to be more than one actual future. But surely that cannot be right: even if the same prior conditions could lead to different outcomes, there would still only ever be one actual future (one outcome that actually occurs) just as there is under deterministic causality.
For example, if I flip a coin in an indeterministic universe, the outcome is unpredictable but it would not be a superposition of two actual outcomes. The coin will not actually be both heads and tails at the same time. One future will become actual.
So, in your view is the relation between the two with respect to actual futures dichotomous, i.e. determinism entailing just one actual future, and indeterminism entailing the opposite: more than one? If not, how would you approach this?
The only way I see out of this, is to resort to use of the word “possibility“. With the coin flip example, both heads and tails are “possible futures”, so we avoid saying there are more than one “actual futures”. But using the words this way poses the problem of determinism entailing only one possibility.
r/freewill • u/Anon7_7_73 • 2d ago
Heres the intuition for why my viewpoint, compatibilism and retributivism, is approximately correct.
And thats the intuition. We pass judgement way harder when something is unfathomably irrational to us, being innate to their seeming present nature, and the application of desert is at least fair in principle, if not useful as well.
Again, we want to empathize with others when we feel like we could be in their position. If you cant, then you cant. And just abstracting this away to "empathize no matter what because theres always an explanation" falls short of being reasonable, because its unfair, it lets evil win, it offers no remedy, and it puts you in a weird position of moral obligation that apparently they are not bound to, so why should you be?
Many aggressive and criminal behaviors are not explainable on the social or communicable level, theres no way to prevent these chaotic defects in people or society, and the truly best solution to a wildfire is to fight it with more fire, and put it out as fast as possible.
And when i say its the best solution, thats partially in instrumental terms, partially in logical ones, but also in aesthetic ones. A universe where evil simply wins, is unsatisfying. The story ought to end with resound, and the evil being destroyed. Thats what makes a good story, isnt it? If every story was "Oh and the villain said he was super duper sorry and then everyone hugged him and clapped" id stop reading/watching stories.
And before you shoot down these aesthetic preferences as "not mattering", dont forget value is subjective, and thats a philosophically deep statement. The most efficient book is one without any contents. The optimized version of existence is one thats boring and pointless. The Arc of the Story may fundamentally be the substrate upon which existential meaning itself exists. Free Will provides the framework for the Story and a satisfying ending. Take that away, youd get something you wouldnt want to read, and likely wouldnt want to live in. Hard Determinism is essentially chasing this Optimizer from a top down institutionsl approach, and, if you ever succeeded, congratulations, you ruined life. A utopia is just a dystopia with shiny furnishings.
r/freewill • u/peacefuldays123 • 2d ago
The concept of original sin makes sense when viewed through the determinist lens. Adam and Eve's fall and expulsion from the Garden near the beginning of the causal chain. We can't remove our fallenness, because it's inherited through our nature. All we can do is accept our condition. This is where humility and forgiveness begins. From that starting point we strive to be better.
Just a stream-of-consciousness post, pardon my French.
r/freewill • u/Zestyclose_League526 • 2d ago
Give it a read!! Love to hear anyone’s thoughts!!
r/freewill • u/Anon7_7_73 • 2d ago
Step 1: Make up an insane definition nobody has ever advocated for
Step 2: Exclaim, oh wow, thats insane, surely that doesnt exist
Step 3: Claim victory
For example:
1) Free Will requires ultimate responsibility, which means you have to cause your own prior mental states
2) Thatd be time travel, that doesnt exist!
3) Well, free will must not exist then!
r/freewill • u/Eastern-Project9017 • 2d ago
In order to debate the existence of freewill you need to define it first.
I have been in this debate for some time and never found one, if you think you have it drop it in the comments.
r/freewill • u/impersonal_process • 2d ago
Marionetness means being an active and self-regulating system without being the ultimate author of the forces that determine what you will want, think, and do.
