Noam Chomsky - Free Will II

Chomsky on Freedom of the Will.

[marcweeks]

Some people are likely to pass off Chomsky's mysterianism on the grounds of, "Hey, don't worry, we'll just build a bigger telescope or microscope or gravity wave detector and then we'll have things all figured out." In another video Chomsky uses the example of a rat running a maze based on prime numbers; e.g., the only way for the rat to exit the maze is for it make a turn at every pathway represented by a prime number. You'll never be able to teach a rat to do that, it's just not within its comprehension, Chomsky says. And we may be just like the rat, only with a much more difficult "maze."

[NinjaJKD]

These six minutes are incredibly valuable. Thank you for this video.

[alvarorodriguez]

The way I explained fields (which cause forces outside of contact) was by holding two sheets of papers and waving one so that the other moved with the air. So I explained that, if we spoke with peoples without a conception of air and wind, this would seem spooky. The same is true for electric and magnetic fields (and the rest). They are something that is there, and although it’s hard to sense we have succeeded in understanding.
I cannot honestly agree with Chomsky in maintaining what baffled people 300 years ago.
However, it is also impossible for me to believe that anyone thinks they have no will of their own.

[quadracept]

I think I have to agree with Noam, we simply don't know if Free Will exists or not, but I think I fall more on the side of determinism, but I can't claim to know for sure if that's entirely true.

[GainingUnderstanding]

We're trying to gain understanding on how it works as Chomsky put it at the 5 minute 15 second mark ;)

[devinokeefe]

Free will exists in quantium physics through the isolated quantium spin of particles, this is one of the basic rules of quantium physics, and the guy in the begining said somthing about how free will would not make sence due to our understanding of the it really annoys me how this guy thinks he understands the universe just because he has a basic understanding of classical mechanics yet COMPLETELY OVERLOOKS the entire field of quantium physics....

[scoogsy]

I cannot see how free will makes any sense.

If we are determinists, as in causes create effects, then we know free will doesn’t exist. If we believe things are random, nothing causes anything. That is not free will either. If we mix both determinism plus randomness, that is just a mix of finding yourself at a point because it was predetermined, or that a random event occurred along that chain. You still didn’t author any of those events yourself. You were at the end of those events.

Let’s move onto thinking. Or the idea that we author our thoughts, so that is an argument for free will.

When a thought appears in your head, it does just that, appears. One doesn’t decide to think the thought. If you decide to think the thought, that means you think to think the thought. It requires that you think the thought twice.

Firstly you decide to think about something (that is you think the thought), then you proceed to think the thought. It makes no sense what so ever. This is not our experience with thinking. And besides, where did the first thought come from?

What actually happens is your thoughts simply appear from the dark. We have no idea where they come from, but they do appear.

How about decision making? Let’s look at that case.

When you decide to pick between two glasses of water, with exactly the same amount of water, from the same tap, etc. basically identical glasses. You mill over the decision for an hour, but simply cannot make a solid judgment on which one you like more. So you decide to just pick the one on the left.

Why did you pick the one on the left?Ask yourself that question. Well if it truely were done on a whim, you don’t know why you picked it. You simply picked it. That is not free will. Not knowing why you did something is not an expression of free will. Free will implied that you authored the event, you made a choice based on preference. You acted based on your desires. However we’ve clearly described a situation where you thought it through and had no desire for one glass or the other. You hence then can not explain why you picked the glass. It is random.

However, maybe though you picked the glass on the left, because the sun was bouncing off that glass into your eye. So you wanted to stop that, and picked the left glass. That is determinism. You did it because of something. If you went back in time, were sitting in exactly the same place, had the sun shining in your eye, didn’t like the sun in your eye just as much as the first time it happened, you would still grab the glass on the left.

Free will is a non-sensical term.

[markstone]

If we decide that there is no free will, should we not hold people responsible for their actions? That question is hilarious. It assumes that we have the free will to decide what to do about not having free will.

[tookiedew]

Yes, greatest thinker of the 20th century and even the greatest going into the 21st thus far. However, also, Noam Chomsky is one of the greatest thinkers of the last 2500 years since Plato and dawn of western philosophy.

[RichardAlsenz]

I would argue that determinism does not rule out free will, but demands it. If the information we use for making a decision happened in the past, which we have accepted in some (most) scientific theories, . Therefore, conclusions will differ depending on when we get the information and whether irrational logic was used to process the information. This would apply to all animals, machines, when and what the information is, and how long the transformation of the information took to be transmitted, as well as the irrationality of the decision making processes.

This does not rule out nature's laws always being consistent. It only requires not having all information simultaneously. We are human and humans will err, of this we can be sure. Since we don't have a definition of time and of simultaneous events it is information which has not come to all of us at this time and it never will. This conjecture does not place free will and "cause and effect" as being exclusionary.

If we consider Gauss's statement that a correct electromagnetic theory will have to consider the information of potential (energy) from the past. The puzzle fits together in a more rational manner. This theory was subsequently used by Gerber to predict the perihelion of mercury with an amazing accuracy. The scientists of that age had free will to reject it, which most chose to do, regardless of its accuracy. We are, simply, free to err, and it is our decision which is generally more often our illogical preference based on false or illogical conclusions already made. Often it is justified as intuition.

[globaldigitaldirectsubsidi]

he is the greatest thinker of th 20th century

[jordangould]

Our immediate experience tells us the Earth is flat, that the Earth is the center of the Universe, there are only 3 dimensions of space and that matter is substantial. Why should I believe my impression that free will exists? just like most other impressions on our senses, free will is probably an illusion.

[adamtash]

the question for me is NOT: do humans have free will RIGHT NOW? rather it should be: is free will an acheivable state? i would say yes it is. that should be the focus.

[bntagkas]

so it seems to me that the way to have rebots do interesting things is, to allow them to ask questions, and to have them live in a conflicted world. the dissonance caused by so many contradictions in our way of trying to explain the world along with a bunch of randomization can make for a good several interesting parallel realities...probably...

just a random thought
and by definition at least 95% of the population will misinterpret it or totally not understand it.maybe 90...whatever

[mattavery]

If there is no free will than the people you're envious of ( people with more stuff than you have) are guilty of nothing.

[stevecoley]

X-Files
Native American human beings think that "free will" means freedom to appreciate this paradise planet lifeboat and the miraculous works of fine art called "life" that inhabit it. And not be imprisoned and enslaved by alien vampires (greed) and their ignorance (hate).

But the hostile evangelical vampires think That "free will" means freedom to suck the joy out of life and devour the planet like a ravenous cancer. And freedom to imprison and enslave humans.

[Muldoonite]

is there a link to this full interview?

[stevenhines]

The interviewer is blowing past very simple buy profound insights about the impact of the Newtonian revolution. Most people think the world can be explained; Chomsky is saying that Newton proved it can't and that the philosophy of science, ever since, has been forced to deal with that. Somehow, we are not taught that when we study the scientific revolution. Also, Chomsky states (and rightly so, in my opinion) that human beings are biological organisms with scope and limit.
I realize the interviewer is making a point/asking a question and needs to move along with the interview and that Chomsky himself doesn't obsess over these points - he just regards them as facts and continues to do science in those constraints - but I get blown away by that every time I hear him say it. I am not a scientist or academic but I get the sense that these elementary points are just missed to the detriment of cognitive science including psychology.

[stephenlawrence]

We don't experience free will if we pay attention to our immediate experience. What Chomsky says is he's not going to select the other options.
Well, no reason to think he's free to in the actual circumstances then. It actually seems like he isn't.
On the experience others report they report weighing up their options and acting on the bases. Well that's what we do but again, no reason to think we are free to select the options we don't select in the actual circumstances.
Bottom line is we are fated to select the option we do and that matches the experience.
This is all known. The debate goes on becauae people don't accept the conclusion and think there must be something we don't understand yet.

[stevekennedy]

Examine your choices and the choices of others. Don't you see a certain amount of repetitive choices? For instance, the grossly overweight person who can't stop eating. The cigarette smoker. The thousands of examples of people making negative choices over and over again. If free will existed, don't you think that we would all make better choices?