[Bill S]

Free Will would imply that we generate new information all the time...

The information we generate may be new to us, but can we be sure it is new to the Universe.  Might we not just be recycling information?

[CliffordK]

Free Will would imply that we generate new information all the time...

The information we generate may be new to us, but can we be sure it is new to the Universe.  Might we not just be recycling information?

I would have to say that we are taking old information and combining it in new ways...  and thus creating new information, or successive generations of new information.

Modern computers wouldn't exist without the Eniac, and the Apple II and the TRS-80's and the Commodore PETS, and CPM.

But, had all the information to build today's microcomputers existed in the 1940's...  wouldn't people have just stared with a 2010 laptop rather than the Eniac?

Certainly humanity has forgotten many things.  We're still trying to figure out whether the Ancient Egyptians had access to technology that has been forgotten for thousands of years.  But, if we discover the secrets behind an ancient Druid anti-gravity device...  it still might be a "new" discovery.

[CPT ArkAngel]

The way i see it, no, unless we have no free will. Free will imply that we are a source of information that violates the Entropy Principle and the Information Principle. For Life, it seems to be the case regarding the Entropy Principle. If your will depend entirely on information of the material universe, it is not free. It may be the case, but i hope not because we would be like puppets in a strange freak show...

What about the Information Principle if the universe is infinite?

[Ellingtonlong]

Yes is the simple answer it does. However, I like the fact that it does. We do have free will, but what the whole Hell and Heaven thing is to teach us that in the long run, if you do something bad to someone, something will be bad to you. Basically it's the same as karma.

Erectile dysfunction spam removed by Moderator. Leave out the spam, or something very bad will happen to your karma

[Bill S]

What about the Information Principle if the universe is infinite?

An infinite cosmos does, at first glance seem to militate against free will, but this may not be the case if free will is relative. 
Here is an extract from some notes I made while I was trying to sort out my ideas about infinity.

Consider the following possibility.  The cosmos is infinite; therefore every part of the cosmos is the cosmos.  Everything, including our apparently finite Universe, is infinite.  The birth of the Universe and perhaps its ultimate death exist together in infinity, along with all the things that “happen” between those two points.  It is all there, in eternity, in an all-embracing now.  We perceive spatial differences, and the passage of time, because our minds need to make sense of the partial image to which we are restricted.  This sounds like a recipe for predestination, but I am not suggesting that we should abdicate all responsibility for our actions; far from it.  In eternity, things are as they are, permanently.  However, we cannot entirely rule out the possibility that they are as they are, to some extent, because of the choices we seem to be making now.

I think that what I was trying to get at here is that we have free will within our frame of reference, and, in this instance, that F of R is our Universe.

[Bill S]

Is this proof that we have free will?

I posted something which many people would find ridiculous, but which everyone has chosen to ignore. 

Free choice, free will, you saw it here.  [8D]

[SteveFish]

"Do humans have free will?" This question is nonsense because one can't say whether it is true or not unless the notion of free will is well defined. Otherwise it is just mental masturbation.

[sliffy]

sorry for my bad english...

i think that we are living in a world which is regulated by rules (phisical)... i don't see any entity which is independent from the rules... not even us, people...

if we know the current condition of a system which works in accordance with rules than we can compute its condition in the future... that's why i see the whole universe's future determined... i don't say that we or the designer has the ability to compute the future but it's determined

you may say that the designer can interfere... i say yes, but he lives in an upper level which should be determined as well...

so the free will is illusory only... nobody is responsible for his decisions... we are just robots in the theatre

[SteveFish]

Here is my problem with this whole free will issue. When looking at the “lowest,” most automatic of our brain functions, such as body homeostasis, movement control, balance, and so on, it is easy to understand this as determined because the brain mechanisms just take in sensory information and output an action without conscious thought. At the highest levels of brain function that include consciousness, cognition, emotion, and decision making, all the output of the much more complicated brain processing is based on sensory data, inborn and learned proclivities, and memory, so they are also determined. This is abundantly clear when looking at people who have suffered some kind of brain damage. Nobody can be free of this or would even want to be free of this. This is also determinism. Even in instances where one makes the decision to do something random because there is no basis for a decision is a determined action. What does anyone think is a thought or action that is outside of one’s brain processes or that they think would demonstrate free will? The free will/determinism issue is a false dichotomy.

[QuantumClue]

I believe determinism exists. Indeterminism is a concept where meaning does not exist. Using logical thought, since our universe follows a principle of least action ∫ Mv ds = ∫ p dq would have our universe work the most efficient way. Efficiency would result in some type of meaning, reducing a concept to its most simplistic form.

Because of this, one must assume that indeterministic universes cannot exist at this lower component of understanding.

[Christina]

if we know the current condition of a system which works in accordance with rules than we can compute its condition in the future... that's why i see the whole universe's future determined... i don't say that we or the designer has the ability to compute the future but it's determined

so the free will is illusory only... nobody is responsible for his decisions... we are just robots in the theatre

WHAT? OK, seems we need to define our terms here prior to any discussion on whether humans have free will. Obviously, we can't do Anything we want just because we want to; I am not free, for example, to jump over tall buildings in a single bound. However, given the choice between doing something that I desire to do and one I don't necessarily feel like doing, and assuming that I have the physical and mental capacity to do either, I've been known to totally forget about Newton's 3rd law and do the thing I FEEL like doing.  I am generally a hedonist, and although I may well know that said choice will eventually lead to a negative result, I exercise my free will to seek my pleasure now and deal with the effects at some future date.

"God" may have prior knowledge of the course that I will choose to follow, but he'll only have knowledge of the future that I CHOSE. It's almost as if he first turns to the last page of the autobiography he's reading, so even as he reads he knows what will eventually happen. But that does not mean that he caused the book to end as it does.

This human had the free will to make stupid decisions for years despite of her education and intellect. I wish that I had chosen to do things a bit differently, but without the freedom to make my own choices I might as well be a television set. [8D]

[SteveFish]

Christina, just going against what you think might be the best choice is not free will. You made your choice because you felt like it and there is a reason and history to your feeling. If we define free will as ones ability to make bad choices it makes the free will question trivial and suggests that self centered teenagers and criminals have the most free will. Steve

[sliffy]

Christina,

yes, you have free will... you can decide... but your decisions are computable so your free will is illusory
just think of a robot >> does it have free will? yes, it can decide and act free but it makes decisions by it's sense organs and it's program... that's why it's decision are computable and it hasn't real free will >> like us

we also have sense organs (ear, eye...) and program (dna) ...

[yor_on]

No, its good arguments but its still a clock work universe building on the concept that if we only knew it all. The only way to know it all is actually to look at what already happened. The problem being that even when we do so if we are three persons we will get three versions. I say free will exist, even though circumstanced by our beliefs and ideas etc etc.

Assume that you decide to do what you do by throwing a dice first, letting that symbol define you action? Assume also that the you don't know what the choices are, being someone else's? Your free choice is to be in this game or not. What happens once you join is a very free expression of that first choice. And there is no way for you to backtrack the action to your actual 'state of mind'. And I can easily think up any number of reasons to why you might join Also we have 'bifurcations' coming at some point in time, impossible to backtrack, and 'many paths' etc. I think indeterminacy is 'built in' in our universe.

[SteveFish]

Yor_on, your post is so difficult to understand that I have to think that it is meaningless. Perhaps someone would like to interpret it for me (Geezer?) so that I might be able to respond. Steve

[Geezer]

I think Yoron is simply pointing out that "Life is but a bag o'shells."

(Sorry about the poor pun, I should have said "Life is but a bagatelle")

[sliffy]

yor_on,

my native language is not english, please explain your opinion more detailed... i'd like to understand

1. imagine the whole universe working by it's rules but without material... is it's future determined?  i guess yes... it would remain as it is... vakuum forever

2. imagine the universe with 1 elektron only... push the elektron and let it move... is the future of the universe determined? i guess yes... even you could compute the elektron's position in the future

3. why do yu think that the result is not the same if the universe is filled with material? with planets and living being on them? the universe's condition in the future is determined because of the working rules... i think

[SteveFish]

So, Yor_on thinks that because there are many choices in life and, because once a choice is made it is impossible to backtrack, that the universe is indeterminate, and Geezer interprets this, in turn, as meaning that life is but a trifle. I am confused.

[sliffy]

it seems that the number of choices is infinity... but it isn't... your choice is computable >> there is one path in the time only... one event follows the other

do you think that animals have free will?
i think no... they have neither... they are bio robots as well... not so complex like us of course but they make decisions based on their inputs as well (eye, ear and other sense-organs...)

[yor_on]

Okay, it might have to do with my choice of English. Look at it this way then. We have an indeterminacy in all things physical, do you guys agree?

If you do, do you agree to that humans fall under the 'physical' category too?

If you, as me, think we all belong to a physical system called 'SpaceTime' and also accept the indeterminacy, what the he* does that have to do with free will?

To me the equivalence is there. Free will is something where you can't say what's going to happen just by looking backwards, when it comes to an individual.

But when using statistics we will still find certain patterns that makes it possible to plan ahead. And that makes us no different to the indeterminacy seen at a QM level that then still express itself in stable patterns like what we call 'matter'.

It's easy to prove 'free will' at a individual level, not as easy when looking at statistics as we then see this tendency of things to recur and 'stabilize'  

But let me turn it around, anyone ever proved the statement that you can 'predict' what a human will do, anywhere? Don't you think governments would love that idea? So perfectly behavioristic