GrahamH wrote:

John Platko wrote:
And I'm not sure what to make of some cat with a hat in a box trying to decide if it's dead or alive. It's like it's at a branching point of two histories which is about to, but hasn't yet, branched.

Are you playing your QM Joker card after all? Make up your mind!

John Platko wrote:

GrahamH wrote:

John Platko wrote:
And I'm not sure what to make of some cat with a hat in a box trying to decide if it's dead or alive. It's like it's at a branching point of two histories which is about to, but hasn't yet, branched.

Are you playing your QM Joker card after all? Make up your mind!

I play all the available cards when and where game theory teaches it's the best choice to make. And since you suggest we're talking metaphysics, there are a lot of cards to play. Accidental and Essential series of causes, metaphysics even has an "unmoved mover" card. Given that, I don't know why you balk at branching histories. I think you should stick to physics and/or neural science - the metaphysics deck is stacked before play, it's rule one of that game.

GrahamH wrote:

John Platko wrote:
My metaphysical speculations?

But if we're all prepared to admit we're just tossing around metaphysical speculations then I'm good with that. You go first.

Your adopted metaphysical speculations. Those you brought to this party.

Those you say are 'consistent with science' and prove the possibility of free will. Your apparent support for multiple histories, despite being unable to give a clear exposition of that.

JUst drop that nonsense and speculate on metaphysics as the abstract exercise it is.

John Platko wrote:

GrahamH wrote:

John Platko wrote:
My metaphysical speculations?

But if we're all prepared to admit we're just tossing around metaphysical speculations then I'm good with that. You go first.

Your adopted metaphysical speculations. Those you brought to this party.

When I go to a Halloween part I dress as a pumpkin. How could I not bring metaphysical speculations to a discussion about free will? We've established that science can neither test or observe such a thing. It's either metaphysics all the way down or having to break out my Ouija board.

Those you say are 'consistent with science' and prove the possibility of free will. Your apparent support for multiple histories, despite being unable to give a clear exposition of that.

A fairly clear explanation required 50 pages from two serious philosophers, it's no shame if I couln't cobble one together in a comment or two.

JUst drop that nonsense and speculate on metaphysics as the abstract exercise it is.

If you are not arguing the reality of choice using science, and I don't see how you can be since you admit that testability and observation are not possible. And if you're not arguing from metaphysics, which I gather from comment that you think you are not. Then from what school of thought are you arguing from?

GrahamH wrote:

John Platko wrote:
xxx had unique laws of physics that deterministically determined if a matrix positon was an x or an o at a given time t. (for some reason that baffled the alien physicists, time always incremented in integer units. But the physicists did work out the laws of how the matrix evolved over time and found a formula that was completely deterministic. The physicists took a lot of snapshots of the universe as it evolved here are a couple:

t=879999990

xoxoxxxxxx
xoxoxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxoxxxx
xxxxxxoooo
xxxxxxoooo

and t=100009933003

xoxoxxxxxx
xxxoxxxxxx
xxxxxxoxxx
xxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxooox
xxxxxxoooo

Cellular automata?

You do realise that demolishes the concept, don't you? Coarse grained structures on the board are multiply realisable, but a given state can only diverge is the fine-grained states are different == different history.

John Platko wrote:
Now can you please explain the mechanics of that to romansh.

GrahamH wrote:

John Platko wrote:

GrahamH wrote:

John Platko wrote:
And I'm not sure what to make of some cat with a hat in a box trying to decide if it's dead or alive. It's like it's at a branching point of two histories which is about to, but hasn't yet, branched.

Are you playing your QM Joker card after all? Make up your mind!

I play all the available cards when and where game theory teaches it's the best choice to make. And since you suggest we're talking metaphysics, there are a lot of cards to play. Accidental and Essential series of causes, metaphysics even has an "unmoved mover" card. Given that, I don't know why you balk at branching histories. I think you should stick to physics and/or neural science - the metaphysics deck is stacked before play, it's rule one of that game.

Bait and switch? It was "multiple histories" that was contentious. What does "branching histories" mean?
Is this the alternate history fiction genre? What if the Nazis had won the war, Man in the high tower sort of thing?

felltoearth wrote:Game Theory will in no way support a claim of free will.

As mentioned earlier, I assume that our best scientific theories of agency are some advanced versions of psychological decision theory, which, in turn, might be seen as vastly improved extensions of folk psychology. Just as folk psychology ascribes free will to people, in that people are assumed to be able to choose from more than one course of action, so our more sophisticated theories of agency are committed to free will, at least when they are interpreted literally. A central concept of any version of decision or game theory, whether we take the original versions of von Neumann and Morgenstern, Nash, and Savage or their latest, psychologically more advanced incarnations, is an agent’s set of possible actions or strategies. The decision-theoretic or game-theoretic explanation of many social phenomena relies crucially on the assumption that the agents’ action-or strategy sets contain more than one option. Sometimes the addition or removal of options can make a significant difference to what the agents are predicted to do even if these options are not ultimately chosen. Unless we accept that there is at least a thin, technical sense in which such options could have been chosen, it is hard to make sense of those effects.40

Of course, in analogy to the instrumentalist view in the philosophy of science, according to which unobservables such as electrons and magnetic fields are just instrumentally useful constructions, one might argue that the ascription of a non-singleton option-set to an agent is just an instrumentally useful way of making sense of that agent’s observable behaviour but has no ontological significance. But if we hold a naturalistic ontological attitude, this instrumentalist view is not available to us. To the extent that free will, in the sense of being able to choose from more than one option, is explanatorily indispensable in our best scientific theories of agency, we have to take it at face value.41

John Platko wrote:

GrahamH wrote:

John Platko wrote:

GrahamH wrote:

Are you playing your QM Joker card after all? Make up your mind!

I play all the available cards when and where game theory teaches it's the best choice to make. And since you suggest we're talking metaphysics, there are a lot of cards to play. Accidental and Essential series of causes, metaphysics even has an "unmoved mover" card. Given that, I don't know why you balk at branching histories. I think you should stick to physics and/or neural science - the metaphysics deck is stacked before play, it's rule one of that game.

Bait and switch? It was "multiple histories" that was contentious. What does "branching histories" mean?
Is this the alternate history fiction genre? What if the Nazis had won the war, Man in the high tower sort of thing?

I was born into a set of histories that all had the Nazis loosing the war, therefore it is impossible for me to answer your question historically. Using other means, imprecise mental simulation - it would have been very bad.

John Platko wrote:

felltoearth wrote:Game Theory will in no way support a claim of free will.

As the author explains, this the way Game Theory supports a claim of free will:

...
The decision-theoretic or game-theoretic explanation of many social phenomena relies crucially on the assumption that the agents’ action-or strategy sets contain more than one option. Sometimes the addition or removal of options can make a significant difference to what the agents are predicted to do even if these options are not ultimately chosen. Unless we accept that there is at least a thin, technical sense in which such options could have been chosen, it is hard to make sense of those effects.

GrahamH wrote:

John Platko wrote:

GrahamH wrote:

John Platko wrote:
My metaphysical speculations?

But if we're all prepared to admit we're just tossing around metaphysical speculations then I'm good with that. You go first.

Your adopted metaphysical speculations. Those you brought to this party.

When I go to a Halloween part I dress as a pumpkin. How could I not bring metaphysical speculations to a discussion about free will? We've established that science can neither test or observe such a thing. It's either metaphysics all the way down or having to break out my Ouija board.

Those you say are 'consistent with science' and prove the possibility of free will. Your apparent support for multiple histories, despite being unable to give a clear exposition of that.

A fairly clear explanation required 50 pages from two serious philosophers, it's no shame if I couln't cobble one together in a comment or two.

JUst drop that nonsense and speculate on metaphysics as the abstract exercise it is.

If you are not arguing the reality of choice using science, and I don't see how you can be since you admit that testability and observation are not possible. And if you're not arguing from metaphysics, which I gather from comment that you think you are not. Then from what school of thought are you arguing from?

I'm not the one who came here to argue for free will, am I?

John Platko wrote:
Ummm. I don't believe you are. Rather, you seem more like one of the many who came here to argue against free will. But which method of thought are you arguing from?

GrahamH wrote:

John Platko wrote:
Now can you please explain the mechanics of that to romansh.

You think romansh doesn't get that cellular automata are fully deterministic, that game states are multiply realisable, that any evolution of the board is single-threaded history and there is no free will there at all?

GrahamH wrote:

John Platko wrote:

GrahamH wrote:

John Platko wrote:

I play all the available cards when and where game theory teaches it's the best choice to make. And since you suggest we're talking metaphysics, there are a lot of cards to play. Accidental and Essential series of causes, metaphysics even has an "unmoved mover" card. Given that, I don't know why you balk at branching histories. I think you should stick to physics and/or neural science - the metaphysics deck is stacked before play, it's rule one of that game.

Bait and switch? It was "multiple histories" that was contentious. What does "branching histories" mean?
Is this the alternate history fiction genre? What if the Nazis had won the war, Man in the high tower sort of thing?

I was born into a set of histories that all had the Nazis loosing the war, therefore it is impossible for me to answer your question historically. Using other means, imprecise mental simulation - it would have been very bad.

What is the "set of histories"? It seems to me it is just "history".

Do you actually think there is a real world out there where Hitler won and some other sperm impregnated 'your egg'?

Is there one where your grandfather was miscarried and others where there are moonbases and human colonies on Mars?

Are you a fan of Sci-Fi?

GrahamH wrote:

John Platko wrote:

felltoearth wrote:Game Theory will in no way support a claim of free will.

As the author explains, this the way Game Theory supports a claim of free will:

...
The decision-theoretic or game-theoretic explanation of many social phenomena relies crucially on the assumption that the agents’ action-or strategy sets contain more than one option. Sometimes the addition or removal of options can make a significant difference to what the agents are predicted to do even if these options are not ultimately chosen. Unless we accept that there is at least a thin, technical sense in which such options could have been chosen, it is hard to make sense of those effects.

Why does he find that problematic? Being able to model probabilities for various actions influences what action is actually taken. Of course it is. Awareness of hypotheticals can feature in behaviour without requiring 'multiple histories' or 'realy-o-truly-o free will choice'.

But if we hold a naturalistic ontological attitude, this instrumentalist view is not available to us. To the extent that free will, in the sense of being able to choose from more than one option, is explanatorily indispensable in our best scientific theories of agency, we have to take it at face value.41

John Platko wrote:

GrahamH wrote:

John Platko wrote:

felltoearth wrote:Game Theory will in no way support a claim of free will.

As the author explains, this the way Game Theory supports a claim of free will:

...
The decision-theoretic or game-theoretic explanation of many social phenomena relies crucially on the assumption that the agents’ action-or strategy sets contain more than one option. Sometimes the addition or removal of options can make a significant difference to what the agents are predicted to do even if these options are not ultimately chosen. Unless we accept that there is at least a thin, technical sense in which such options could have been chosen, it is hard to make sense of those effects.

Why does he find that problematic? Being able to model probabilities for various actions influences what action is actually taken. Of course it is. Awareness of hypotheticals can feature in behaviour without requiring 'multiple histories' or 'realy-o-truly-o free will choice'.

I think this was his punch line:

But if we hold a naturalistic ontological attitude, this instrumentalist view is not available to us. To the extent that free will, in the sense of being able to choose from more than one option, is explanatorily indispensable in our best scientific theories of agency, we have to take it at face value.41

GrahamH wrote:

John Platko wrote:
Ummm. I don't believe you are. Rather, you seem more like one of the many who came here to argue against free will. But which method of thought are you arguing from?

Scepticism. You are making claims that you can't defend.

We don't have to explain history, we observe it.

You can't even explain what they mean!

"Compatible with science" doesn't cut it whne you make oblique references to fringe interpretations of QM and possibly some sort of retro-causlity.

Then you try to use cellular automata to defend superveninece as independent agency that make 'real choices'.

CA don't allow the complexity and smoke and mirrors you need to get away with that.