I probably shouldn't be replying to people who end sentences with "lol". But ok, I'll bite.
>You haven't even bothered trying to give a definition of what free will is
I assume you read the article and we're using that as context in our discussion as people do when they're discussing articles on HN.
>The definition of which is something for philosophers to debate.
Not really, there are three accepted mainstream philosophical views on free will: libertarian, determinism, and compatabilism.
>What I think you mean to say is, at the level of human perception, mainstream science maintains the universe is deterministic (as opposed to non deterministic (which quantum mechanics might be (or "super deterministic)).
Not sure what this exactly means, but the "universe is deterministic" is part of what mainstream science claims.
>You might think of each "choice" you make as a transition in a finite state machine. If you have more potential transitions from any given state, you have more liberty.
You're pushing a homunculus theory of free-will here. The idea that there is a "you" that is making a choice for you. That's libertarian point of view.
>well what would "free will" look like? A ghost ("soul") outside of the universe controlling your actions instead? How is that any better? Why does the ghost make it's choices?
Actually based on your previous sentence you seem to believe that -- not me.
>Not sure what you even mean by science maintains we aren't individuals?
The break-down of the "individual self" as a theory. Look into studies done on patients with severed brain hemispheres. It shows you that there is more than one competing selves.
I assumed you were assuming a "homunculus" definition of free will. (which is reasonable since you give three different philosophical positions on it yet didn't indicate which you subscribed to)
"Actually based on your previous sentence you seem to believe that -- not me."
If you really aren't an individual it's not that hard to extend... You are a collection of finite state machines... Same conclusions apply. However as far as people are concerned you might as well assume a "homunculus" theory since the transitions they care about happen inside a first person narrative (for the most part). Kind of like how classical mechanics isn't exactly precisely true, but still best at explaining macroscopic behavior.
"Look into studies done on patients with severed brain hemispheres. It shows you that there is more than one competing selves."
It shows you that each half of a brain is capable of qualifying as "human". It does not show you there are two competing selves in humans whose hemispheres are connected. Kind of like sometimes one twin absorbs the other in the womb. I bet if you take a random grown adult, partially lobotomize them, entirely remove half their brain, if they're not completely disabled they'll be more on par with dog than human level intelligence.
> Not sure what this exactly means, but the "universe is deterministic" is part of what mainstream science claims.
It doesn't. Quantum physics is as mainstream as they come, and so is chaos theory.
But determinism doesn't actually have much to do with "free will". There are many known indeterminate stochastic processes, yet nobody would claim that they possess free will, i. e. radioactive decay.
QM and chaos theory are both fully deterministic, even though future prediction is impossible in practice in some cases. We only call them non-deterministic because we can't ever hope to determine outcomes ahead of time in practice- NOT to say that the outcome isn't ultimately from a natural flow of causality.
In fact, ultimate causal determination is proven for both. Consider Broglie–Bohm.
There is no true randomness. Not in math and certainly not in QM.
>You haven't even bothered trying to give a definition of what free will is
I assume you read the article and we're using that as context in our discussion as people do when they're discussing articles on HN.
>The definition of which is something for philosophers to debate.
Not really, there are three accepted mainstream philosophical views on free will: libertarian, determinism, and compatabilism.
>What I think you mean to say is, at the level of human perception, mainstream science maintains the universe is deterministic (as opposed to non deterministic (which quantum mechanics might be (or "super deterministic)).
Not sure what this exactly means, but the "universe is deterministic" is part of what mainstream science claims.
>You might think of each "choice" you make as a transition in a finite state machine. If you have more potential transitions from any given state, you have more liberty.
You're pushing a homunculus theory of free-will here. The idea that there is a "you" that is making a choice for you. That's libertarian point of view.
>well what would "free will" look like? A ghost ("soul") outside of the universe controlling your actions instead? How is that any better? Why does the ghost make it's choices?
Actually based on your previous sentence you seem to believe that -- not me.
>Not sure what you even mean by science maintains we aren't individuals?
The break-down of the "individual self" as a theory. Look into studies done on patients with severed brain hemispheres. It shows you that there is more than one competing selves.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zx53Zj7EKQE