PHILOSOPHY - Metaphysics: The Problem of Free Will [HD]

In this Wireless Philosophy video, Richard Holton (M.I.T.) discusses the classic philosophical problem of free will --- that is, the question of whether we human beings decide things for ourselves, or are forced to go one way or another. He distinguishes between two different worries. One worry is that the laws of physics, plus facts about the past over which we have no control, determine what we will do, and that means we're not free. Another worry is that because the laws and the past determine what we'll do, someone smart enough could know what we would do ahead of time, so we can't be free. He says the second worry is much worse than the first, but argues that the second doesn't follow from the first.

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[kawaiipotatoes]

you turn the page of the book of life and it says: "you are still reading the book of life"

[VicDemise]

I CAN predict accurately- What I cannot do is to INDICATE accurately using my light bulb in the manner prescribed.

[LolsTheGreatAndPowerful]

predict lightbulb is off, break lightbulb.

[kikomihov]

Oh wow, so many intelligent people in comments. I see arguments without verbal offences. Hope in humanity restored :)

[putinstea]

'The frustration' is not an argument against determinism

If I had all knowledge I could ask for (was omniscient), I would know that you were going to trick me.

[demonstructie]

the paradox is not in the predictability of the future state, it's in the way you're required to announce that prediction. this experiment tells us nothing about whether or not future states can be predicted. the very restrictions put on the method of making your prediction known makes the prediction necessarily false but it proves nothing, the same way a traffic light would still work if we all agree to drive at red and stop at green.

[RogerBays]

Richard Holton: Problem of Free Will

In response to the claim near the end that "many things may be frustrators, particularly human beings."

If determinism is true and the book of life is not a fiction, but a book of fact (in keeping with the nature of the thought experiment) then a reader who reads ahead to a future page (lets say what they will be doing next Monday at 9 am) will find that at that time they will be doing exactly as the book says. There is no option for them to be 'a frustrator' as claimed. They would not be able to defy the book of life simply because they don't like the idea of them being a puppet (as mentioned). They might not like the idea, but in a deterministic world they are.

If, however, indeterminism is true then (assuming we agree that indeterminism introduces truly random events) then it would be impossible to write a book of life; so a book of life could not exist in an indeterministic world. Any book under this scenario could be nothing more than a book of fiction.

I think there was an accidental slight of hand labelling the light experiment as a frustrator, then labelling a person not wanting to be a puppet as a frustator.

Free will arguments often cite determinism and indeterminism. I personally believe that the notion of free will is false, no matter whether we are living in a deterministic or indeterministic world. To grasp this we need do nothing more than observe how one thought and emotion spontaneously appears after the next. It seems at first glance that there is a self that is somehow generating the next thought, that there is an I who is captain of the ship. But on reflection I (I being loosely termed here) have come to the opinion that there is no self, no I, but a brain that runs on auto-pilot. Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be). Wishing you an enjoyable conscious voyage, with calm waters.

[DeekerJones]

I have to agree with the people in the comments that indicate the only problem is being constrained to answering the question by means of the light bulbs. Since I am a human being, and have a hard time inferring that I cannot simply state my observation based on my knowledge of the conditions, to me it seems deceptive that my only means of communicating my prediction are the precise means by which my prediction will be thwarted. That is to say, since I am aware of the mechanism by which the light turns on and off, as was indicated in the experiment, not only can I predict the outcome but I can control it to 100% of my satisfaction. I can do this test every day for a million years and never be wrong except to the person that is only using the state of my light bulb as the answer to their question. This limitation seems farcical to me, and only serves to prove a point that has no bearing in reality. In that sense, it does nothing to answer the question of free will in reality, unless the whole of reality is a box, 2 lights, some set of conditions, and a person whose only means of communication is the condition of the light that proves them wrong every time. And before you grapple at me with the fact that it is a thought experiment and so the universe within it is basically as I described, I would retort... great, so what? It has no bearing on reality and does little that I can see to illustrate any larger point.

[HunsV]

In what capacity is this guy teaching at MIT? Is he a TA?

"You still can't come up with an accurate prediction" - The test isn't about my ability to predict. I'm not just being asked to predict; I'm being asked to predict and then communicate the prediction in such a way as to invalidate the prediction. *All the test proves is whether the person who built the box knew how to connect a cadmium sulfide cell to a transistor.*

[Sinclairelim]

Umm, no, yes you can predict whether the lightbulb will be on, it's just that you will modify the outcome by signaling your answer. It's not a problem. I mean, what's the point of that thought experiment? You can easily predict it, you just can't signal it in the way the experiment asks you to.

I suppose you could make it more complex by making it so that the machine that lgihts the lightbulb could read your mind and turns the lightbulb off as soon as you know it will be on. That would make it a paradox, a true frustrator, although in reality, knowing how the brain works, the lightbulb would just turn on and off real fast.

This whole video is disapointing. I have a lot respect for MIT, but this killed a little of it.

I mean, youtub user AntiCitizen X explained the problem of free will a lot better, and he isn't an MIT professor. His video is also more entretaing

[Aguijon]

Of course we have free will. We have no choice (Christopher Hitchens).

[darthkahn]

*"man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains"*
(I know that Rousseau wasn't talking about free will but what better way to sum up this subject?)
That frustrator part blew my mind.

[AntiCitizenX]

Logically speaking, you've effectively created a system where the outcome is not the prediction. 

O = ~P.

So by definition, the outcome cannot be predicted in advance.  The prediction is always wrong.

Another way to look at this is in terms of self-referential feedback.  The liar's paradox is a good example - "This sentence is false."  You can't assign a truth value to the system without contradicting that assignment.  You can't predict the future without the outcome contradicting your prediction.  So all your decision algorithm does is oscillate back and forth between states, never converging.  It's a textbook example of undecidability.

In a very roundabout way, this is why it is impossible to reliably predict the stock market.  The entire system is built around people trying to make decisions now on what they expect the future will be.  However, knowledge of the future is, itself, information that affects the decisions people make, thereby changing the flow of events.  Thus, knowledge about the future actually changes the rules by which the system is governed, thereby ruining the reliability of that knowledge.  The system may be deterministic in a sense, but any attempt to couple future predictions back to the inputs will immediately destroy those predictions.

To me this implies that determinism cannot be a true thing. It's as if deterministic systems can be engineered to create indeterminate systems. So maybe the universe just isn't deterministic after all.

[notyourbusiness]

This man should've studied hypnotism, his voice keeps putting me under hypnosis every time I try to watch this video.

[UnchainedEruption]

This was great listening to. The only one problem with the example you gave for the "humans are frustrators" theory is that someone can purposely "predict" what he knows to be false in order to motivate the person to do the opposite, thus fulfilling the real prediction. Basically like reverse psychology. In the light bulb example, this would be like a person predicting the bulb would be on, so he "tells a lie" by purposely putting a bulb that's off next to it. This is kind of like a self-fulfilling prophecy. You know what is going to happen, but in trying to avoid fate you cause the very end result that was predicted to occur in the first place.

[JohnathanSherbert]

The thing I hate about this whole free will debate is that nobody ever defines free will. Yes, of course we have free will if you mean it in the sense that our brain is able to do action based off of stimulus created as a reaction or recording of the memories of the past. That is, simply, reality. To say that we have no brain and are incapable of doing that which we are obviously doing in empirical reality is to deny reality.

The debate seems to be a semantic debate. "No, we do have foobar because foobar is defined as X and Y, and both X and Y exist"
"No, we don't have foobar because foobar is defined as Y and Z, and Z does not exist."

It's just a pointless and meaningless debate.

[MrCmon]

Yeah this wasn't about free will at all, but about knowledge.

I'd say that what people mean with free will is not only that they "could have chosen otherwise" all things staying the same, but also that they themselves (their conscious self) is the ultimate cause of their own actions, the ultimate "decider".
And that is self defeating, even though you might feel in control.

[franzferdinand]

It will be off at 12 because the constant switching will break the bulb

[magicaznkidz]

I think you make a good point that the frustrator compromise a person's decision entirely, so it seems unrealistic. But I think the purpose of the thought experiment is to show that there are cases, where no matter how much you know about every fact about a person prior to the point of deciding and all the laws of the universe but still wrongly predicts what the person will do next. The mismatch between the prediction and the eventual action can depend on the whim and impulse of the person.

[nicolasoccal]

If they ask me if I think to have free will, I answer: "I have no choice".