I agree with Bob, the definition is elusive at best, and that's why I dismissed her lecture on it. I'd listen and take notes when she speaks physics, but philosophy is not her thing.

I can see your point of view, and am just offering some possible ways to help describe it more fully so it can be thought out more effectively. This may not solve it completely but offer a view of what we are up against.
In the idea of following a path of concise known events versus knowing that some things are not knowable, I have to think that free will is the latter while a mechanical non free will ideal would mean a path of concise, fully known events. In psychology I believe the idea is that some things are simply not knowable which leads to an event trail that cannot be precisely pinned down.
That leaves us with the choosing of whether we think every single thing will be someday known so we could backtrack every single event in history, or that some things will never be known no matter how much time goes by. This in turn I believe leads us to think that since if the latter is really true, then at least for the time being we know that it has not been proved yet, and may take a millennia or more time to get down, if it ever does pan out.
So at least for now, non-free will cannot be proven, and that means at least for the time being free will is real to us.

If you do not agree with any of this that's fine, no problem.
I'll try to check her video out again it's been a while since I viewed that and forgot most of it

BTW, it has been proven that the brain acts differently when making a decision that does not matter one way or the other, then when making a decision that has high significance.
You are given two coins. You can give them to either person A or person B.
In one group, they are told that whatever they decide, that person (A or B) gets and keeps those coins.
In another group, they are told that whatever the decide it does not matter because when one person gets two coins they immediately give one to the other person so that they both get the same amount anyway.
In the first group the brain acts differently than in the second group.

Another idea is that free will is useful. If we imagined we did not have free will, then why do anything. Why pick certain parts for a circuit, just apply a coat of glue to a PC board and throw a handful of parts at it, and that's the circuit

 

Well to me it seems obvious that if you have free will then you have the ability to make decisions based on only what you decide without any outside influence.

Have you thought about what “you” means in this paragraph yet?

Another idea is that free will is useful. If we imagined we did not have free will, then why do anything. Why pick certain parts for a circuit, just apply a coat of glue to a PC board and throw a handful of parts at it, and that's the circuit

Are you serious, or was that an attempt at humor?

 

In reference to the statement:
" Well to me it seems obvious that if you have free will then you have the ability to make decisions based on only what you decide without any outside influence. "

Have you thought about what “you” means in this paragraph yet?

It seems to be that everything is comparative there is nothing absolute, really. If true, that would mean that the only way we can understand one thing is by a comparison to another thing. We know that an apple is an apple because it is not the same as an orange, a pear, a squirrel (ha ha), etc. If an apple was the only thing that ever existed, we couldn't know what it was.
When I say 'you' I really mean 'anyone' in that situation, but we know what this means because if I say "you" meaning yourself (Bob) you know it is not me (MrAl), which is again a comparative relationship. Of course this could change because if you (Bob) say 'you' to me (MrAl) then the definition changes slightly because now 'you' means me MrAl no longer Bob.
So 'you' here means the person that is the target at the current time or that instant when the word is used.
Bob is a different person than MrAl, and 'you' here means either one but could collectively mean both as a group.
It is best taken here as a single person though, either one, as that simplifies the logic a little and should not change any conclusions.

But I am not really sure why you asked this question. Can you explain what 'you' means to YOU ?
If you don't know what 'you' means, how would you even know who I was asking this question to?
So, you must have some logic behind what you believe the word 'you' means. If you can explain your position on this, I might be able to understand your question a little better.

Are you serious, or was that an attempt at humor?

I'll wait on this one because the first one about the word 'you' is the most rudimentary.

 

Hello again,

Actually I think there is one line of thinking that SHOULD put this to rest. Of course there is always room for improvement though.

It starts with proving that free will is not possible due to determinism. But to do this we must prove that determinism exists.
In relation to the decisions we make, each one must be determined by some preceding thought or action if determinism is true. However, that also means that the preceding thought or action must have been preceded by one that occurred prior to that one. Moreover, that one also must have been preceded by another one. This leads to the chain of events I had been talking about previously.
To get to the point of the current event though we have to go all the way back to the moment of birth. From there, everything we had done would have had to have been predetermined. The problem now is, what caused the birth. We now have to go back into the parent's past and back to their birth, then back to the grandparents, etc. We end up going back to the first humans on earth. But it doesn't end there because what caused their arrival. We then end up going back to the beginning of the Earth, the Sum, the Solar System, the Galaxy, the Universe and you know what that means ... the Big Bang. Thus, we have to account for everything that happened to an individual from the moment of the Big Bang. Even that's not enough because what happened before the Big Bang, if anything. We don't really have to go back any farther though I don't think, because there is evidence that should be able to rap this up.
It's embodied in the arena of Quantum Physics, and that does not necessarily mean unusual activity in the brain but in the normal everyday physics that takes place everywhere in the Universe. Current theory holds that quantum physics is not deterministic, therefore any actions that took place prior to any other action cannot be distinctly accounted for.
Before QP came about we only had classical mechanics, and although there may be these kinds of limitations even there, we can imagine for a moment that we will deal with the raw theory that one action leads to another. That was before the 20th century though when some of the ideas against free will were being argued. Once QP came into the picture, classical mechanics had to take a back seat and so the arguments changed. Isn't that interesting in itself. When CM was the ruler of the day, arguments against free will were considered very valid, then after QP came they were not so sure. What changed? What changed was QP is considered to be ruled by probability not by determinism. That's what changed. This means that everything that happened since the Big Bang was partly due to a probability which if done over again, could turn out differently.

 

But I am not really sure why you asked this question. Can you explain what 'you' means to YOU ?

My definition is implicit in my post #138.

 

My definition is implicit in my post #138.

Ok thanks. I'm not sure I understand your view completely, like, what is it that you are rejecting because of that?
Are you rejecting determinism or free will, or that it cannot be decided yet which one is right or some combination of the two?
Why do you suppose in much of the writing by experts the issue of what 'you' is does not come up when talking about determinism or the lack of it?

I watched that gals video again about no free will.
She skips a lot of details, and concludes that things on the very, very small scale congeal into things on the larger scale, so calculations on the larger scale still hold. That would be in favor of determinism.
I cannot agree with that because of something like the Butterfly Effect. It seems to me that small things can cause a split which means it can branch out into separate paths, but only one can actually happen, and that one is partly due to a probability ergo nondeterminism. If we think of that as happening a long, long time ago, which it certainly would have, then we can allow the mechanism of how very small things congeal into larger things. The problem is, this is still happening, therefore things are still progressing partly due to probabilities that we cannot know. This means the larger things could change drastically in the future.

The video is interesting though because she does touch on most of the underlying mechanisms.

It's amazing how complicated this gets.

 

https://youtube.com/shorts/cXZqjCk7wWE?si=F15OjqVyPtQXZ-pS

 

https://youtube.com/shorts/cXZqjCk7wWE?si=F15OjqVyPtQXZ-pS

That's not really fact. The fact is, we do not know what came before the big bang, or if in fact anything did.
Saying that time, yada yada yada, did not exist is just for the convenience of not having to explain anything else that might have come before that because it is believed to not matter what came before that if all we have to deal with is what we have now, and the belief is that nothing before that could change that.

 

That's not really fact. The fact is, we do not know what came before the big bang, or if in fact anything did.
Saying that time, yada yada yada, did not exist is just for the convenience of not having to explain anything else that might have come before that because it is believed to not matter what came before that if all we have to deal with is what we have now, and the belief is that nothing before that could change that.

I like good science. I like good poetry.

I liked the poem.

 

Ok thanks. I'm not sure I understand your view completely, like, what is it that you are rejecting because of that?

I reject the @something@ in my definition of free will. I do not believe it exists. I believe all of my behavior is the result of the interaction between the physical components of my body according to the laws of physics. There is no “me” separate from that overriding physics and making “my” decisions.

In philosophical jargon, my position is called “hard incompatiblism.” meaning free will is incompatible with not only determinism, but non-deterministic physical law as in QM.

This is essentually the same as Sabine’s position. And no, I did not get it from her, I believed this before she was born.

 

https://youtube.com/shorts/cXZqjCk7wWE?si=F15OjqVyPtQXZ-pS

That was, súpercool ... thanks for posting

 

I reject the @something@ in my definition of free will. I do not believe it exists. I believe all of my behavior is the result of the interaction between the physical components of my body according to the laws of physics. There is no “me” separate from that overriding physics and making “my” decisions.

In philosophical jargon, my position is called “hard incompatiblism.” meaning free will is incompatible with not only determinism, but non-deterministic physical law as in QM.

This is essentually the same as Sabine’s position. And no, I did not get it from her, I believed this before she was born.

Ok thanks for your explanation.

 

 

WOW!:

That’s the emergent gravity of Dutch physicist Erik Verlinde, who tells us that it’s not a fundamental force or the curvature of spacetime that’s keeping you in your chair right now, but rather the rise of entropy on the boundary of the universe.

 

I reject the @something@ in my definition of free will. I do not believe it exists. I believe all of my behavior is the result of the interaction between the physical components of my body according to the laws of physics. There is no “me” separate from that overriding physics and making “my” decisions.

In philosophical jargon, my position is called “hard incompatiblism.” meaning free will is incompatible with not only determinism, but non-deterministic physical law as in QM.

This is essentually the same as Sabine’s position. And no, I did not get it from her, I believed this before she was born.

I've never been able to reconcile this view with the fact that a deterministic system, laws of nature, are themselves not explicable. To claim everything is subject to and governed by such laws is obviously untenable because one cannot explain the presence of laws by recourse to laws. If everything is the outcome of laws, what caused laws to exist? obviously something not itself subject to laws.

But what can possibly not be subject to laws? well free will is free of laws, it transcends law, transcends determinism, nothing else can possibly explain why laws, why determinism exists.

 

I've never been able to reconcile this view with the fact that a deterministic system, laws of nature, are themselves not explicable. To claim everything is subject to and governed by such laws is obviously untenable because one cannot explain the presence of laws by recourse to laws. If everything is the outcome of laws, what caused laws to exist? obviously something not itself subject to laws.

But what can possibly not be subject to laws? well free will is free of laws, it transcends law, transcends determinism, nothing else can possibly explain why laws, why determinism exists.

WOW!:

That’s the emergent gravity of Dutch physicist Erik Verlinde, who tells us that it’s not a fundamental force or the curvature of spacetime that’s keeping you in your chair right now, but rather the rise of entropy on the boundary of the universe.

It sounds like all this is just a trickle down, emergent situation brought about by us not by nature. Nature itself is not doing anything strange, we are.
We are constantly making things up that do not actually exist, so it's no wonder why we don't know everything for sure.

I turn back to the philosophical "hole in the ground" which I end up mentioning a lot. There's nothing there, yet we call it a noun which implies some sort of physical material. It's actual cause is because of the "lack of physical material", not because of having physical material, yet we still call it a noun just as a matter of convenience.
We call Laws 'Laws' even though we just made them up, just sort of like the hole in the ground. Is it any wonder that they can be wrong.

"Convenience" is the word of the day. We do everything to honor the God of Convenience. Make it easier for us, who cares if it's really like that or what the root cause is. The root cause just leads to the lack of yet another, deeper root cause. Maybe we are diving into a deep ocean with no bottom.

 

I've never been able to reconcile this view with the fact that a deterministic system, laws of nature, are themselves not explicable. To claim everything is subject to and governed by such laws is obviously untenable because one cannot explain the presence of laws by recourse to laws. If everything is the outcome of laws, what caused laws to exist? obviously something not itself subject to laws.

But what can possibly not be subject to laws? well free will is free of laws, it transcends law, transcends determinism, nothing else can possibly explain why laws, why determinism exists.

How about a changing universe? In other words, is it not possible for the physical laws themselves to change over time or under other unknown conditions? Take something like gravity. Our understanding of gravity is predicated on the supposed mass of relative bodies and the distance between them. But what happens if we take our measurements in another region of the galaxy or beyond? It stands to reason our instruments will read differently as they do on the moon. However, there is a problem here! We have never taken a measurement near another star or beyond! I fail to see how anyone can assert what happens in this scenario when no one has measured it locally.

This line of reasoning opposes determinism because no one has measured the entire universe either. I think it is shortsighted to postulate the universe is predetermined simply because we do not have the data. The most we can say is the laws we observe have appeared to remain constant over the last few hundred or so years of scientific investigation. As it currently stands, what we actually "know" about the universe extends a short distance into it and the data is still coming in. When it comes to abstractions like free will or determinism, I might as well believe in God because the same set of assumptions applies.

 

How about a changing universe? In other words, is it not possible for the physical laws themselves to change over time or under other unknown conditions? Take something like gravity. Our understanding of gravity is predicated on the supposed mass of relative bodies and the distance between them. But what happens if we take our measurements in another region of the galaxy or beyond? It stands to reason our instruments will read differently as they do on the moon. However, there is a problem here! We have never taken a measurement near another star or beyond! I fail to see how anyone can assert what happens in this scenario when no one has measured it locally.

This line of reasoning opposes determinism because no one has measured the entire universe either. I think it is shortsighted to postulate the universe is predetermined simply because we do not have the data. The most we can say is the laws we observe have appeared to remain constant over the last few hundred or so years of scientific investigation. As it currently stands, what we actually "know" about the universe extends a short distance into it and the data is still coming in. When it comes to abstractions like free will or determinism, I might as well believe in God because the same set of assumptions applies.

It's a known presumption in cosmology that laws are the same at all times and in all locations, the claim is of course unfalsifiable so ultimately cosmology is not a science, but this is also true of all theories in physics.

 

It's a known presumption in cosmology that laws are the same at all times and in all locations, the claim is of course unfalsifiable so ultimately cosmology is not a science, but this is also true of all theories in physics.

Well, cosmology is a science because it is an attempt to observe and measure the so-called universe. The word cosmology is a shorthand for the study of the cosmos and Google defines the "cosmos" as:

The universe seen as a well-ordered whole

So what exactly does one mean by well-ordered? Furthermore, the words universe and whole in this sentence are in effect synonymous because they appear to reference the same phenomenon. How can something be "whole" if it is in fact a "piece" of the universe? This suggests the only thing that can actually be "whole" is the universe itself otherwise a logical fallacy results. It may be convenient to say I ate a whole cookie but what exactly am I referencing when I use these words?

Here are my favourite words of Socrates concerning the nature of reality:

...The fact is that in our ordinary way of speaking we allow ourselves to be driven into most ridiculous and wonderful contradictions, as Protagoras and all who take his line of argument would remark.

He goes on to say:

...But since this is our feeling, and there is plenty of time, why should we not calmly and patiently review our own thoughts, and thoroughly examine and see what these appearances in us really are? If I am not mistaken, they will be described by us as follows:— first, that nothing can become greater or less, either in number or magnitude, while remaining equal to itself—you would agree?

Brilliant! What is he attempting to do here? Measure the universe of course! But he isn't doing it alone and he has predicated his presuppositions on fact that he is arbitrarily ignorant. His methods of measurement are primitive but they are measurements nonetheless. The brilliance in my opinion comes from recognizing that premature and uninformed conclusions are dangerous to the self and society.

 

Here is an interesting lecture on the topics of learning, knowledge and science.