[Coder-san]

[...]
@Coder-san: [color=#FFD700]Yes, but that doesn't change the free will. Imagine a computer algorithm, that takes a bunch of variables that describe some situation and it will either decide to "kill itself" or "survive". Things like spark of hope and seeing the harder choice are still parts of the "input". And based on how big the spark of hope is in relation to the depression, the algorithm will be swayed to "survive". If the spark of hope is lower, it'll decide to "kill itself".

If you created a complex computer algorithm that was able to work with information the way we do - essentially "think" and evaluate various concepts, even if that process looks like thinking and long evaluation before producing some result (or producing results continuously and changing and modifying them) it is still following the instructions laid down by the programmer. How are we different?
[...]

After the movie 'The Matrix' whenever there was a question "are we real?" it was answered yes, with the reason something along the lines of "because we have free will, emotions, and you can't program that".
Apologies for taking this to Sci-Fi, but it looks to me you at least disagree to the "free will" part.

Lets skip the suicidal guy jumping in front of the car.
Make it simple. There are two path ahead of you exactly alike. What makes you choose a single path? There is no basis to choose logically.

[...]
I am not sure why are you mentioning karma, since I don't believe it either (and in some cases it's disgusting - if some little child gets raped or even killed, karma says that it deserved that) and it doesn't have much to do with the topic. Why do you clump it with "determinism and fixed future"?

Sure it is. You say we do not have free will, which means either we blindly react on stimuli or it's determined/future is fixed.
Now, Karma (deed/action) implies what you do now determines your future. (Religiously it means it effects your rebirth, but lets just ignore that.)

Let me address these though: As I've said above, there doesn't have to be strict determinism, as certain on small scale events seem randomized, but like I explained in my article, that doesn't help us to get to free will.

The future then might not be "fixed", but if you were to "rewind" the universe and let it unfold again with the same initial state, it might end up being very different. Earth might not even form (but some other planets with different forms of life can and probably will) not even our Solar system. Would that imply that clumps of matter forming stars or space dust have free will though and they "choose" to behave differently?

There might be several different versions of the future, but you can't deny that things we see follow laws of physics. Even if they're uncertain, we still can calculate probabilities of some outcome, for example where will certain particle fall. It can't just decide to do something entirely else on its own, it still follows certain laws of physics, just some outcomes are somewhat "randomized".
[...]

I hope you are not going towards Astrology which is total hogwash.
Lets be clear of the difference between determining something and "guessing". You can calculate probabilities of an outcome but it's far from determining the outcome.
What you term as randomized, I call reason of free will/fair chance.

What you address with suffering and people behaving badly when you show you care, it doesn't have much relation to the topic, but yes, I encounter that as well. There's a lot of mean/bad/hostile (not necessarily aggressive though) people around, which is why I pick who I'll be friends with carefully.

Thank you all for your responses, I enjoy discussing this, I hope you do as well and I'm looking forward for what you have to say next :-)

This last bit I agree was out of proportions, only barely related to karma.

[Coder-san]

[...]
@Coder-san: [color=#FFD700]Yes, but that doesn't change the free will. Imagine a computer algorithm, that takes a bunch of variables that describe some situation and it will either decide to "kill itself" or "survive". Things like spark of hope and seeing the harder choice are still parts of the "input". And based on how big the spark of hope is in relation to the depression, the algorithm will be swayed to "survive". If the spark of hope is lower, it'll decide to "kill itself".

If you created a complex computer algorithm that was able to work with information the way we do - essentially "think" and evaluate various concepts, even if that process looks like thinking and long evaluation before producing some result (or producing results continuously and changing and modifying them) it is still following the instructions laid down by the programmer. How are we different?
[...]

After the movie 'The Matrix' whenever there was a question "are we real?" it was answered yes, with the reason something along the lines of "because we have free will, emotions, and you can't program that".
Apologies for taking this to Sci-Fi, but it looks to me you at least disagree to the "free will" part.

Lets skip the suicidal guy jumping in front of the car.
Make it simple. There are two path ahead of you exactly alike. What makes you choose a single path? There is no basis to choose logically.

[...]
I am not sure why are you mentioning karma, since I don't believe it either (and in some cases it's disgusting - if some little child gets raped or even killed, karma says that it deserved that) and it doesn't have much to do with the topic. Why do you clump it with "determinism and fixed future"?

Sure it is. You say we do not have free will, which means either we blindly react on stimuli or it's determined/future is fixed.
Now, Karma (deed/action) implies what you do now determines your future. (Religiously it means it effects your rebirth, but lets just ignore that.)

Let me address these though: As I've said above, there doesn't have to be strict determinism, as certain on small scale events seem randomized, but like I explained in my article, that doesn't help us to get to free will.

The future then might not be "fixed", but if you were to "rewind" the universe and let it unfold again with the same initial state, it might end up being very different. Earth might not even form (but some other planets with different forms of life can and probably will) not even our Solar system. Would that imply that clumps of matter forming stars or space dust have free will though and they "choose" to behave differently?

There might be several different versions of the future, but you can't deny that things we see follow laws of physics. Even if they're uncertain, we still can calculate probabilities of some outcome, for example where will certain particle fall. It can't just decide to do something entirely else on its own, it still follows certain laws of physics, just some outcomes are somewhat "randomized".
[...]

I hope you are not going towards Astrology which is total hogwash.
Lets be clear of the difference between determining something and "guessing". You can calculate probabilities of an outcome but it's far from determining the outcome.
What you term as randomized, I call reason of free will/fair chance.

What you address with suffering and people behaving badly when you show you care, it doesn't have much relation to the topic, but yes, I encounter that as well. There's a lot of mean/bad/hostile (not necessarily aggressive though) people around, which is why I pick who I'll be friends with carefully.

Thank you all for your responses, I enjoy discussing this, I hope you do as well and I'm looking forward for what you have to say next :-)

This last bit I agree was out of proportions, only barely related to karma.

[The Alchemist]

Is it fair to the person that the physical laws ultimately led to them behaving in that way and ending up locked down? It’s definitely not. But it’s not fair either for people who are being killed or harmed in other way if the person is left free. And after all, we all follow the laws of nature and if the killer has no actual free will and choice to do things he did, neither do other people who capture this person and put it in prison to protect others.

Ideally we should try to influence these people in a way that they can be reintegrated back to society and have better life themselves. More importantly we should look for ways to help other people in less fortunate circumstances to prevent harmful behavior happening in the first place.

I deal with a lot of people who I consider aren't good. They do things that may end up getting themselves as well as others into trouble. And people usually support them, why? Because what they do, people find it entertaining.
How do I influence them to stop doing such things? Or atleast the people around them. How do I influence them so that I can convince them that what they find entertaining may not actually be entertaining and may even be dangerous?

[The Alchemist]

Is it fair to the person that the physical laws ultimately led to them behaving in that way and ending up locked down? It’s definitely not. But it’s not fair either for people who are being killed or harmed in other way if the person is left free. And after all, we all follow the laws of nature and if the killer has no actual free will and choice to do things he did, neither do other people who capture this person and put it in prison to protect others.

Ideally we should try to influence these people in a way that they can be reintegrated back to society and have better life themselves. More importantly we should look for ways to help other people in less fortunate circumstances to prevent harmful behavior happening in the first place.

I deal with a lot of people who I consider aren't good. They do things that may end up getting themselves as well as others into trouble. And people usually support them, why? Because what they do, people find it entertaining.
How do I influence them to stop doing such things? Or atleast the people around them. How do I influence them so that I can convince them that what they find entertaining may not actually be entertaining and may even be dangerous?

[Frooxius]

@Geoff: That is similar to my own definition presented in the article. Although I would perhaps suggest that we shouldn't think about things in way too compartmentalized way - there's no implicit "inside and outside" it's just how we define things, but we're all just one huge soup of matter clumped and structured in various ways, interacting with each other.

Although the free will is more about if we are complicated biological machines that are subject to the laws of physics as anything else or if there's some "external source" that is not subject to causality (which there doesn't seem to be, I would leave any deities and such out of it, since there's no solid evidence for any of them).

Consider a computer algorithm and analogy to a person (and brain). On the outside, it has some inputs like arguments (and eyes, ears and so on in case of person), something happens inside - the actual structure and series of actions defined within the algorithm (and response of the neural network in case of person's brain) and then it provides some output - decision, action, whatever.

Does the computer algorithm have free will? If once the inputs are put inside, you don't consider them externally determined, then by that definition it has a free will according to that definition, since it can produce internally some decisions.

But there are external inputs coming all the time, especially in humans. We perceive and respond to things happening around us, we don't work in "vacuum" with no external stimuli. Everything can be boiled down to external influence - from the growth (genetics, chemical environment...) and all our experiences which sculpt and shape our internal brain.

So we could even say that everything about us is "external", because the way our brain grew and was shaped (the way the algorithm is written) is determined by external factors. The algorithm cannot disobey its programming - it has no choice in the way it is written and how it works with information and neither do we.

We had no true choice in how will our brain work and how it will think about things. For that to happen, there would have to be some external part of us that didn't come to existence by any series of actions within our universe, that would control the brain and body like it was a puppet. So we have no true free will.

But we do have illusion of free will and making voluntary choices. There's interesting thing - did you know about the experiment where researchers could predict a choice person was going to make a few seconds before the person became consciously aware of that decision? Simply by monitoring certain parts of the brain.

By monitoring the brain we can know sooner what are you going to decide, before you actually do. The experience of choosing is just us being aware of the other processes in our brain that make these decisions, being aware of what we are thinking about. There's a lot of things we take for granted about our behavior and the way our brain works, but when you start thinking about it, you'll notice interesting things.

I wouldn't include coercion into free will. It's a non-factor, because you can still decide against something or decide for something internally. Not having ability (either physically or because of possible bad consequences) to do that doesn't change the fact that you can decide about things.

Free will has more to do with escaping the causality and in that regard I don't think we do have such free will. We have illusion of it though. And we can attribute some decisions to various entities (humans) as I explained in my article and therefore attribute responsibility and deal with them somehow, even if there was no "true free choice" to do what they did.

However it's not about having a single direct external influence forcing your decision. If you make a very very complicated function with say... a million different arguments, each influencing the result only slightly, then there's no single direct, external influence forcing its decision. But it still follows a set of rules - the way it's been programmed.

And that's my point - our brains are very complicated and influenced by trillions bits of information, that they respond to in various ways. There doesn't have to be one large cause, but that doesn't mean they are not subject to causality like everything else is, just because they're overly complicated and entangled series of interactions.

[Frooxius]

@Geoff: That is similar to my own definition presented in the article. Although I would perhaps suggest that we shouldn't think about things in way too compartmentalized way - there's no implicit "inside and outside" it's just how we define things, but we're all just one huge soup of matter clumped and structured in various ways, interacting with each other.

Although the free will is more about if we are complicated biological machines that are subject to the laws of physics as anything else or if there's some "external source" that is not subject to causality (which there doesn't seem to be, I would leave any deities and such out of it, since there's no solid evidence for any of them).

Consider a computer algorithm and analogy to a person (and brain). On the outside, it has some inputs like arguments (and eyes, ears and so on in case of person), something happens inside - the actual structure and series of actions defined within the algorithm (and response of the neural network in case of person's brain) and then it provides some output - decision, action, whatever.

Does the computer algorithm have free will? If once the inputs are put inside, you don't consider them externally determined, then by that definition it has a free will according to that definition, since it can produce internally some decisions.

But there are external inputs coming all the time, especially in humans. We perceive and respond to things happening around us, we don't work in "vacuum" with no external stimuli. Everything can be boiled down to external influence - from the growth (genetics, chemical environment...) and all our experiences which sculpt and shape our internal brain.

So we could even say that everything about us is "external", because the way our brain grew and was shaped (the way the algorithm is written) is determined by external factors. The algorithm cannot disobey its programming - it has no choice in the way it is written and how it works with information and neither do we.

We had no true choice in how will our brain work and how it will think about things. For that to happen, there would have to be some external part of us that didn't come to existence by any series of actions within our universe, that would control the brain and body like it was a puppet. So we have no true free will.

But we do have illusion of free will and making voluntary choices. There's interesting thing - did you know about the experiment where researchers could predict a choice person was going to make a few seconds before the person became consciously aware of that decision? Simply by monitoring certain parts of the brain.

By monitoring the brain we can know sooner what are you going to decide, before you actually do. The experience of choosing is just us being aware of the other processes in our brain that make these decisions, being aware of what we are thinking about. There's a lot of things we take for granted about our behavior and the way our brain works, but when you start thinking about it, you'll notice interesting things.

I wouldn't include coercion into free will. It's a non-factor, because you can still decide against something or decide for something internally. Not having ability (either physically or because of possible bad consequences) to do that doesn't change the fact that you can decide about things.

Free will has more to do with escaping the causality and in that regard I don't think we do have such free will. We have illusion of it though. And we can attribute some decisions to various entities (humans) as I explained in my article and therefore attribute responsibility and deal with them somehow, even if there was no "true free choice" to do what they did.

However it's not about having a single direct external influence forcing your decision. If you make a very very complicated function with say... a million different arguments, each influencing the result only slightly, then there's no single direct, external influence forcing its decision. But it still follows a set of rules - the way it's been programmed.

And that's my point - our brains are very complicated and influenced by trillions bits of information, that they respond to in various ways. There doesn't have to be one large cause, but that doesn't mean they are not subject to causality like everything else is, just because they're overly complicated and entangled series of interactions.

[Frooxius]

After the movie 'The Matrix' whenever there was a question "are we real?" it was answered yes, with the reason something along the lines of "because we have free will, emotions, and you can't program that".
Apologies for taking this to Sci-Fi, but it looks to me you at least disagree to the "free will" part.

I don't see why you wouldn't be able to program free will and emotions. There doesn't seem a reason to prevent creating sufficiently complex program, which would make complex choices the way we do or react emotionally the way we do.

Our own emotions are highly influenced by our brain chemistry, which affects the way our neurons communicate. Consider someone with mental illness, who has a "glitch" and the brain chemistry doesn't respond appropriately, so they might be sad for no reason.

Emotions are just ways our brains respond to certain stimuli, which can be be beneficial for our survival. Sadness makes our avoid and prevent things that make us sad, because they are usually negative. Happiness makes us seek things that give us pleasure, because they're good for our survival. Fear makes our brain react to even slightest sound or shadow, because of possible danger.

We could explain why we have different emotions from evolutionary perspective - they developed for a reason and we react very similarly to similar stimuli. Emotions are complex responses of the brain, which also affect its function (as well as function of the whole body).

Lets skip the suicidal guy jumping in front of the car.
Make it simple. There are two path ahead of you exactly alike. What makes you choose a single path? There is no basis to choose logically.

Decisions might not be necessarily logically sound, but that still doesn't give you free will. The way our brains work are full of glitches and some influences can create odd responses. It's analogous to a bug in algorithm, where certain input makes it misbehave and produce odd results. It is still following a predetermined set of rules, but they're structured in a way that certain inputs don't produce desirable results (from our perspective). The algorithm didn't "choose" to rebel, it's just the way it's structured.

Sure it is. You say we do not have free will, which means either we blindly react on stimuli or it's determined/future is fixed.
Now, Karma (deed/action) implies what you do now determines your future. (Religiously it means it effects your rebirth, but lets just ignore that.)

I would say that we "blindly" react on stimuli. We just react to stimuli in the way our brains are structured and what state they are in and a lot of other things. Which means that future is sort of "determined", but we can't predict it accurately to complete detail, so from our perspective, it is unveiling and being shaped by our actions which we experience. There is probably also some randomness involved though, due to the quantum effects.

However this still has nothing to do with karma. Of course, what you do and what happens everywhere else determines the future, but karma talks about "deeds" and usually means that for a good deed, there's a good consequence. I am not talking about anything like that (because it's a bit nonsense - although if you're nice to other people there is a possibility they might be nice to you, but it's not relevant to the issue), I am talking about the laws of physics and how everything that happens follows them. They don't say anything about "deeds" or good/bad consequences for these. Things just happen, all based on the same fundamental laws of physics.

I hope you are not going towards Astrology which is total hogwash.
Lets be clear of the difference between determining something and "guessing". You can calculate probabilities of an outcome but it's far from determining the outcome.

Of course not! That's just ridiculous, I am not talking about anything like that at all. Have you read my whole article, since I already addressed this? It's not necessarily about determining something or probable outcomes, it's about us being subject to causality and the laws of physics.

And nothing about the determining says that motions of distant stars have any significant (or any at all) effect on our lives. Of course, things are somehow related, but there's just no shown link between position of starts and our decisions the way astrology says it for example, I never said anything like that.

It's more determining in sense: You have an item on the table. If you push it off the table, it'll fall. And you are able to determine that this will happen, because you know some of the laws of physics - there is a consequence to pushing it down from the table - falling off. That doesn't mean I would claim that it falls of because of alignment of some star constellation - there's just no connection and I find it quite arbitrary that you choose astrology, since there are more hogwash areas who try to find connections/correlations where they are none. They are completely irrelevant to my topic.

What you term as randomized, I call reason of free will/fair chance.

I already addressed this in my article. But how do you get from randomized to free will?

1) There's no reason to believe that the "randomized" effects on quantum scale have any significant effect on the decision making processes in our brains.
2) Even if there was significant effect, it doesn't give you free will. It just randomizes your behavior, but it still follows the laws of physics. It's like you had a dice and you rolled it to pick a shirt you want to wear today - the decision was made by chance, not conscious thought and you didn't really freely decide (it's analogy, so things like "You choose to roll the dice" are irrelevant, since you don't choose the quantum effects or the laws of physics).

This last bit I agree was out of proportions, only barely related to karma.

Well like I said above... you might find some correlation between your deed (which are only a subset of all things that are happening) and effects on you (which are again subset of all the things that are happening to you at any time), but it's not a strong rigid rule, since there are a lot of variables involved - and thus it's not relevant to my topic.

[Frooxius]

After the movie 'The Matrix' whenever there was a question "are we real?" it was answered yes, with the reason something along the lines of "because we have free will, emotions, and you can't program that".
Apologies for taking this to Sci-Fi, but it looks to me you at least disagree to the "free will" part.

I don't see why you wouldn't be able to program free will and emotions. There doesn't seem a reason to prevent creating sufficiently complex program, which would make complex choices the way we do or react emotionally the way we do.

Our own emotions are highly influenced by our brain chemistry, which affects the way our neurons communicate. Consider someone with mental illness, who has a "glitch" and the brain chemistry doesn't respond appropriately, so they might be sad for no reason.

Emotions are just ways our brains respond to certain stimuli, which can be be beneficial for our survival. Sadness makes our avoid and prevent things that make us sad, because they are usually negative. Happiness makes us seek things that give us pleasure, because they're good for our survival. Fear makes our brain react to even slightest sound or shadow, because of possible danger.

We could explain why we have different emotions from evolutionary perspective - they developed for a reason and we react very similarly to similar stimuli. Emotions are complex responses of the brain, which also affect its function (as well as function of the whole body).

Lets skip the suicidal guy jumping in front of the car.
Make it simple. There are two path ahead of you exactly alike. What makes you choose a single path? There is no basis to choose logically.

Decisions might not be necessarily logically sound, but that still doesn't give you free will. The way our brains work are full of glitches and some influences can create odd responses. It's analogous to a bug in algorithm, where certain input makes it misbehave and produce odd results. It is still following a predetermined set of rules, but they're structured in a way that certain inputs don't produce desirable results (from our perspective). The algorithm didn't "choose" to rebel, it's just the way it's structured.

Sure it is. You say we do not have free will, which means either we blindly react on stimuli or it's determined/future is fixed.
Now, Karma (deed/action) implies what you do now determines your future. (Religiously it means it effects your rebirth, but lets just ignore that.)

I would say that we "blindly" react on stimuli. We just react to stimuli in the way our brains are structured and what state they are in and a lot of other things. Which means that future is sort of "determined", but we can't predict it accurately to complete detail, so from our perspective, it is unveiling and being shaped by our actions which we experience. There is probably also some randomness involved though, due to the quantum effects.

However this still has nothing to do with karma. Of course, what you do and what happens everywhere else determines the future, but karma talks about "deeds" and usually means that for a good deed, there's a good consequence. I am not talking about anything like that (because it's a bit nonsense - although if you're nice to other people there is a possibility they might be nice to you, but it's not relevant to the issue), I am talking about the laws of physics and how everything that happens follows them. They don't say anything about "deeds" or good/bad consequences for these. Things just happen, all based on the same fundamental laws of physics.

I hope you are not going towards Astrology which is total hogwash.
Lets be clear of the difference between determining something and "guessing". You can calculate probabilities of an outcome but it's far from determining the outcome.

Of course not! That's just ridiculous, I am not talking about anything like that at all. Have you read my whole article, since I already addressed this? It's not necessarily about determining something or probable outcomes, it's about us being subject to causality and the laws of physics.

And nothing about the determining says that motions of distant stars have any significant (or any at all) effect on our lives. Of course, things are somehow related, but there's just no shown link between position of starts and our decisions the way astrology says it for example, I never said anything like that.

It's more determining in sense: You have an item on the table. If you push it off the table, it'll fall. And you are able to determine that this will happen, because you know some of the laws of physics - there is a consequence to pushing it down from the table - falling off. That doesn't mean I would claim that it falls of because of alignment of some star constellation - there's just no connection and I find it quite arbitrary that you choose astrology, since there are more hogwash areas who try to find connections/correlations where they are none. They are completely irrelevant to my topic.

What you term as randomized, I call reason of free will/fair chance.

I already addressed this in my article. But how do you get from randomized to free will?

1) There's no reason to believe that the "randomized" effects on quantum scale have any significant effect on the decision making processes in our brains.
2) Even if there was significant effect, it doesn't give you free will. It just randomizes your behavior, but it still follows the laws of physics. It's like you had a dice and you rolled it to pick a shirt you want to wear today - the decision was made by chance, not conscious thought and you didn't really freely decide (it's analogy, so things like "You choose to roll the dice" are irrelevant, since you don't choose the quantum effects or the laws of physics).

This last bit I agree was out of proportions, only barely related to karma.

Well like I said above... you might find some correlation between your deed (which are only a subset of all things that are happening) and effects on you (which are again subset of all the things that are happening to you at any time), but it's not a strong rigid rule, since there are a lot of variables involved - and thus it's not relevant to my topic.

[Frooxius]

(note: I hope you don't mind if I respond to each person in separate post, the responses are quite long and I want to keep it better organized)

@The Alchemist: I am not sure what to do in that situation. Psychology deals with these kinds of things and I don't know enough about psychology yet (I am reading a psychology textbook and other materials) to understand why are they behaving this way well.

I would perhaps show them the dangers of what they're doing and what they're missing and let them evaluate that, but that's because my way of convincing people is with rational, logical arguments and facts, but that only works on people who follow the same rules of rational, logical arguments (and there's a lot of people who don't for various reasons).

I don't have much experience dealing with people who don't care about such things and their decisions are based more on emotions, which might be more suitable in this scenario.

I am sorry, but I don't really know an effective way to influence these people.

[Frooxius]

(note: I hope you don't mind if I respond to each person in separate post, the responses are quite long and I want to keep it better organized)

@The Alchemist: I am not sure what to do in that situation. Psychology deals with these kinds of things and I don't know enough about psychology yet (I am reading a psychology textbook and other materials) to understand why are they behaving this way well.

I would perhaps show them the dangers of what they're doing and what they're missing and let them evaluate that, but that's because my way of convincing people is with rational, logical arguments and facts, but that only works on people who follow the same rules of rational, logical arguments (and there's a lot of people who don't for various reasons).

I don't have much experience dealing with people who don't care about such things and their decisions are based more on emotions, which might be more suitable in this scenario.

I am sorry, but I don't really know an effective way to influence these people.