Is the Scientific Method invalidated without Free Will?

[maddog]

If all of our actions/thoughts/behaviors are determined by prior events, we have no basis to assume that we are analyzing anything as an independent observer of data. We may individually (or as a group) react in a similar way to some observed data, but that does not mean it is connected to "reality" in any way. We are just reacting like a deer in the woods to a loud noise. It may or may not be a real danger, but the flight reaction is common to deer.

 

Free will would allow for independent analysis, even though our observations per se might not be truly independent (as discussed earlier).

So do you feel like a deer in the woods running from a loud noise ? Of course thinking

how to answer my question would require you to make a choice... ;)

 

Maddog

[maddog]

The determiists would also contend that your action to read this post and respond or not was not a decision either. Whatever you do is just the resultant of earlier events/actions.

 

As FsT mentioned, the only way "out" if you are a determinst is to allow that God separated free will from the cause-and-effect of nature.

Well I guess that is why I never bought all that much of denominational religions

anyway. I still do not see why denying Free Will prevent needing a God and the

existance of Free Will demands it. Seems silly to me. His/her existence (God) is a

personal belief has no proof and doesn't need it. You believe it or not. However

not believing in it requires it to exist to not believe in it. You cannot have not-it

without the it. Oops. ;)

 

Maddog

[Biochemist]

So do you feel like a deer in the woods running from a loud noise ? Of course thinking how to answer my question would require you to make a choice..

I am pretty much on record that I don't think this position squares with human experience. I do think the physical world is deterministic. I also think free will exists. This would mean (for me) that for free will to exist, one would have to be a theist. I am. This is one of the reasons.

[paultrr]

Very good Maddog. I'd also agree that free will does not to my knolwedge violate any laws of nature. If anything it tends to enforce them.

[paultrr]

I am pretty much on record that I don't think this position squares with human experience. I do think the physical world is deterministic. I also think free will exists. This would mean (for me) that for free will to exist, one would have to be a theist. I am. This is one of the reasons.

 

Not actually a requirement to accept free will and be a thiest. I grant that some of those who reject the God equation tend towards the deterministic camp. But even here that is not always the case. I'm not a thiest by definition, yet, I do think the physical world is deterministic at some levels and I also think free will exists. I find nothing in the scientific method that actually rejects either position. If anything, I rather find the two complement each other well. I think Maddog actually hit the core of what the scientific method is actually designed to be. Its a guideline, that depends upon the human ability to figure things out. The guideline works, it gets us if anything in the ballpark when it comes to our constructs. That has never implied that every model in itself will always turn out exact. If that was the case then one would not have theory, but proven in say the sence that a math theory can be proven. Nor would we be searching for something more exact beyond the standard model itself.

[TINNY]

Haven' any of you heard of operant learning theory? It is obvious, based on Skinner's learning theory, that human behavior is determined by external causes - the physical and social influence. There is no room for free-will.

 

Except, perhaps, if you include another source of influence in Skinner's construct - the inner speech. Only then would there be valid explanation for human actions as being based on free-will.

[Qfwfq]

What a volume!!! I had a quick go through now but I don't think I'll be able to keep up much, not after this weekend.

 

Seeing a star has no influence on the star. The photons absorbed by the retina or by the photographic emulsion were emitted anyway, and years before too. If a photon gets reflected back to the star, it wasn't absorbed by the retina or the emulsion. QM doesn't tell me there would be some influence albeit tiny, it tells me the opposite.

 

We could not observe something if it didn't interact with anything, e. g. scattering or emitting photons. This doesn't mean our observation causes said interaction. As I said in the first few posts here, the inference rule in formal logic is that A => B is equivalent to ~B => ~A, it isn't equivalent to ~A => ~B. The photons weren't emitted ad hoc, they were emitted by the star whether or not we had our pupils in their path just when they reached here.

 

QM is relevant because it goes quite against determinism, more strongly than classic chaos which doesn't really deny it. Apart from this determinism goes along with consequentiality and this gets along very well with SM, free will or no free will.

 

Behavior as though the electron is "choosing" which slit to go. Free Will ? I will grant you there is likely no sentience in the electron. Fill me in please.

http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0402103

B)

 

What was interesting is

one of these postulate was proved by a method never before seen anywhere. It was

even better than anyone else had done!!! So would you say Software has Free Will.

I don't think so.

I guess you mean the theorem about isosceles triangles, which the program proved by a symmetry argument not previously used. I call that creativity! The pov of many is that, although electrochemical and very complex, our thought is a mechanism like the execution of software.

 

A very good idea in AI was that a bit of chaos helps creativity. One Stephen Thaler tried this while working on neural networks and various accounts of this have spread through cyberspace. On Christmas Eve 1989, he typed the lyrics to some of his favorite Christmas carols into a neural network and then set off the "Grim Ripper" chaos mechanism which eventually grinds the neural network to a halt. The network was at first randomly spitting out perfectly remembered carols and then, eventually, new carols, each created from bits of the previous ones:

Its last dying gasp was, "All men go to good earth in one eternal silent night"

I did a bit of googling and apparently this guy has many patents, typically ideas obtained in his AI experiments, including one used with commercial success by a well known company.

[emessay]

Is the scientific method invalidated without Free Will ?

Is the 'conscious' Free Will invalidated without blood and oxygen for our neurons ??

Why intial life 'started' 4.5 bya and why initial universe 'ended' 13.7 bya ??

Why our sleeping time 8 hours compared to 24 hours ?

Why our earth land surface area 30% compared to 70% waters surface ?

[Fishteacher73]

One issue (although just a semantics one) is that I think many people confuse a deterministic universe as the same thing as a pre-determinied universe.

A deterministic universe could be illustrated by dropping a box of rubber balls on a concrete floor. If you could calculate all the collisions you would be able to determine why a specific ball ended up where it was as well as the direction of the next rebound. It is essentailly impossible too predict far into the future because there are too many unknowns (collisions with other balls chaoticly bouncing about).

 

A pre-determined universe would imply that the final outcome was known before the box was dumped. All the ending locations were already determined.

 

In a deterministic system each "step" combines with each prior step to determine the outcome. That outcome then in turn becomes part of the factors determining the following step. Kind of like a Goldbergian machine.

[Biochemist]

...I think many people confuse a deterministic universe as the same thing as a pre-determinied universe.

A deterministic universe could be illustrated by dropping a box of rubber balls on a concrete floor.....It is essentailly impossible too predict far into the future because there are too many unknowns ...A pre-determined universe would imply that the final outcome was known before the box was dumped. All the ending locations were already determined.

I do think "deterministic" and "predetermined" are the same thing. Even in your examples, if we knew enough about the intial states of nature of the system, we could predict the outcome. But predictability is not the issue.

 

I do think that we confiuse determinism with predictability. Many things cannot be predicted becasue of the underlying chaotics, but they are still predetermined. That is, there is exactly one endpoint, whether or not we can predict it.

[Qfwfq]

I do think "deterministic" and "predetermined" are the same thing.

So do I. The dumping is just as deterministic.

 

I do think that we confiuse determinism with predictability.

Right. Chaos exists despite the underlying dynamics being deterministic.

[Fishteacher73]

As I said it is semantics... To me pre-determined implys a degree of planning and stucture. In a pre-determined system every time you dumped the balls they would end up in the same place, while deterministic iterpretation would conclude that each event was unique and could be calculated if all the variables were known.

 

Not a huge difference, and probably even to a smaller extent someone that disagrees...Maybe its like arguing how many angels fit on a a pinhead w/ me.....

[Queso]

i'm with fishteacher on this one.

...if all the variables were known.

forgive me if i'm wrong but this pretty much means knowing the exact position of almost all of the atoms, right? calculate where the balls are going to fall, and if they fall on another ball you have to calculate how hard they will hit, and which direction they will go. and what balls those two balls hit, and so on....

and all of it must be EXACT.

 

that is what's standing inbetween the belief of free will?

[bumab]

Very good Maddog. I'd also agree that free will does not to my knolwedge violate any laws of nature. If anything it tends to enforce them.

 

Oh but it does violate laws of physics. Free will is independent of causality. Free will is saying: Given two identical situations, I could choose different things.

 

I also believe in free will, however, I understand that does not square with the laws of physics, thus making for some belief in the supernatural right off. I don't think one can believe in free will and NOT believe in the supernatural, because free will is, certainly, supernatural itself.

[Queso]

so we don't think for ourselves?

[bumab]

Not in a deterministic universe.

 

At least, I don't see how you can. You can "process information" for yourself, I suppose, much like a computer. If that's how you define "think," well, ok.

 

If you define "think for yourself" as choose your own life, pick a career, choose who you are going to marry, decide where to eat dinner, etc etc, then no, you can't think for yourself in a deterministic universe. All those statements require free will to have much meaning at all.

[Queso]

and this is where predicting the future comes in. although, that is such an insanely large scale....i doubt that will ever be possible.

you have have to know everything about everyone and everything.