Randomness in Everyday Life
It looks to me that the Universe doesn't really prohibit anything, there are basically 4 fundamental laws in the Universe, the 4 forces which shape the Universe and everything inside it:
- Gravity (attraction on large scale, between celestial objects)
- Electromagnetism (light, radio waves, and the entire spectrum of it)
- Weak Force ( nuclear radiation)
- Strong Force (attraction on sub-atomic scale)
Of course we might add Dark Energy and Dark Matter since they are not quite well explained yet. But roughly these are the fundamental laws that shape nature.
And inside this framework, there is just randomness. I mean you have the elements inside the Universe playing by these rules, but in this framework itself, you just have random interactions.
So you just have objects, or subjects, behaving chaotically, unpredictably, from your average spacedust, right to your galaxy cluster. Humans behave randomly, of course given in their context (human instincts, psychology, environment), but nontheless pretty random.
Free Will
This actually proves free will, because if things are random, then things can't be predicted (by definition), which means that everyone is free to go down any path they want.
For example the life of your everyday man can be described by graph theory:
Where you can illustrate all your daily choices, and the path you actually choose to do. It may be your choice, but from an outsider's perspective it's unpredictable, random.
Certainly there are some biases, so it's not a normal distribution, since if you are an employed person, then at 7:00 there is a larger probability that you are preparing yourself to go to work, and not to the cinema. However it's not a certainty, since maybe if it's Sunday, then you are going to the Cinema at 9:00. Or if you have a day off.
So every choice of every human, and every other creature, follows a probability distribution that can be mapped out if you know that person, but on large scale it's random.
For example everybody's life will come to an end, but nobody knows when it will happen. It can be as sudden and as unpredictable as it can be. Maybe it's a car accident, maybe it's cancer, or maybe it's something else, but usually it's unpredictable.
So while there are biases, like if you got certain genetic markers, maybe you are more prone to cancer. But the exact event is still unpredictable.
So the event, we call it a random variable, is inside a probability distribution with a certain skew and kurtosis.
The skew defines where the median is in relationship to the mean, where the mean is the center average of the distribution, and the median is the density center of the distribution. The kurtosis defines the likelihood of low probability events, and how far it is probable to go away from the median.
Example:
- Throwing up a coin where the heads is 2x heavier than the tails side, will obviously be skewed towards the heads. Whereas throwing up a fair coin will have 0 skew, since both sides have equal chance.
- Driving a car where the driving wheel is malfunctioning is a high kurtosis scenario since, it should usually go left if you turn it left, but if it's malfunctioning, it might go right if you turn it left, so the unlikely events become more likely.
High Kurtosis, No Skew:
Low Kurtosis, No Skew:
High Kurtosis, Positive Skew:
Low Kurtosis, Negative Skew:
You get the idea. So basically everything in the Universe can be modeled like this, to describe their probability map. Either it's a discrete probability distribution, or a continuous one, but most likely it's a continuous one, since you can have infinite choices between variables.
So for example if you are walking down a stairway, the probability distribution describing that probably has a low kurtosis, since the unexpected event is that you are falling down the stairs, and most of the time you can climb a staircase without falling down on it. So that has a low variance, you walk down using similar movements every time, carefully putting your down feet on every step along the way, so the probability of slipping and falling is usually low.
So that is one example, and most of your life can be described like this. Most likely the kurtosis is always low, since humans have a natural risk awareness, so we tend to eliminate risks around us.
For example you won't climb that staircase in high-heels if you have stepped in oil, that will greatly increase the probability of you falling down the stairs. But usually as humans tend to minimize risks around them, the tails of the probability distributions of their actions start to become thin, just like here:
Most of the time you are doing what is expected, the mean, and there are some deviations of that, but the probability if unforeseen consequences are shrinking exponentially, although they never quire reach 0, it becomes infinitessimal.
So this is why the probability of getting struck by lightning is about 0.000357143 %, even though if you go out with some metalic object to a mountain peak, you will almost certainly get struck by lightning, but most people just don't do it. Because humans are risk-averse.
Also dying in a car accident has a 0.002115372% probability, but if you just always jaywalk on the red sign, you will certainly die of a car accident, but most people will just not do it, hence the probability remains low.
Risk Reward
So it looks like, being obedient and conforming will generate you a low risk life, where the probability of something bad happening to you will decrease.
However you will most likely not achieve anything in this lifestyle. There is a cost of assuming personal risks, risks are dangerous, but also rewarding.
It is your choice what kind of life you want, high risk & high reward, or low risk & low reward?
Sources:
https://pixabay.com
Nice breakdown and articulate as usual.
What you actually describe is system behavior prediction which can be related to free will but isn't the same. A system that can be predicted 100 % is deterministic and clearly has no free will. Your assumption that an unpredictable system has free will is the problem.
I'll demonstrate that assumption as false with a differently dichotomized set of premises. To start, I'll avoid the question of prediction entirely, because it has no necessary relation to the definition of free will. Free will is an imprecise term. I will clean it by asserting that what is meant is the act of choosing. On a spectrum, lack of free will is then one option, and absolute free will is a limitless number of options.
Further defining choice, I assert that a choice/decision has reasons as input and its output is a selected option. Causes/reasons result in effects/actions through the process called choice/decision.
For every choice you make you may choose to obey the reasons and select the option, reject the reasons and not select it or appeal to randomness and select an uncontrolled result.
I assert that random chance is not free will because you do not control the result.
I assert that obeying reasons is not free will because you do not control the reasons at the moment of the decision. i.e. you cannot control that you have observed a stop light to be red.
I assert that rejection of reasons is actually nothing more than a recursion of the decision making process and is a choice in its own right. You have no more control of the reasons present for that choice than you do for any other.
If you choose to obey, you have done so for a reason beyond your control. If you choose to reject, you have done so for reasons beyond your control. Objecting by claiming that you didn't receive your reason from an external source out of your control wins no reprieve. The neurons that carry it are the product of a physiology no more in your control than your parents were or the hierarchy of causes that is evolution is. If you claim control is injected somehow after and onto your physiology, then your cage is made from all you have learned in your past, and all of the past 'choices' you have made, which now, for the present situation, you cannot control that they exist and happened.
How about a god? Nope. A god makes a universe. It either had reasons to do it or it was random. Even if we allow it to change its reasons with super god power, it would either choose to change them for a reason or it would still be random. There is plenty of room for randomness in this recursion, but unfortunately a choice beyond control because of randomness is still uncontrolled.
Most people have no articulate idea what free will means. It exists as a fuzzy concept too indistinct to have rational symbolic meaning. It is only allowed to exist irrationally at an ambiguous distance - not fundamentally different than unicorns.
Apologies on repeating. I find most people reject it until it is presented in different contexts because it is incompatible with the instincts underlying self formation/cohesion.
Take care.
Very intelligent reasoning, however there is 1 problem:
Because there are 2 realms here: the object, and the subject
Randomness can't be subjective, because it's an observation of something other than yourself. Therefore what you are doing and the choices that you make, are not random. They might be influenced by biological or environmental effects (genetics,psychology, society, etc..), but it's clearly a subjective choice.
What we call randomness is just an observation of other events that are separate from us. We can draw a probability distribution and it looks like everything around us is random, except ourselves, because we control that realm.
So randomness is just an observation of objective reality, so for example the fact that your neighbor has a 50% chance of bringing out the trash at 7:00 AM looks completely random to you, but it is totally planned and controlled by him. You might not know the variables that influenced him to do that, but it's certainly not random from his point of view.
Now the problem is that I don't believe in objective reality. I think that reality is just a network of subjective realities, so what we call an object, may very well just be a subject from it's point of view.
And if that is true, then every single point of view has control over it's actions, which means that the entire Universe has free will, it's just that from limited subjective points of view, the "other" looks random.
This is the intellectual trap that most deterministic philosophers fall into, they totally ignore the subjective-objective metaphysical problem.
With respect, I can't parse what you mean by:
"Randomness can't be subjective, because it's an observation of something other than yourself. "
Randomness is either a complete lack of control or complete lack of predictability depending on if you associate it with a cause or effect. I don't understand why you think randomness helps an argument for free will.
The mind/body or more cleanly the semantic/syntactic idio-corpus doesn't grant free will.
Something can either act or not act. An act either has cause(s) or it is random. A cause arises from other causes in a web that either chains to infinity, forms loops or spontaneously|randomly arises from nothing. The process of information flowing through a causal system from cause to effect is called time. When we say something exists, we are saying it is in the causal web of reality and it can effect and/or be affected by something else in reality. Nothing more, nothing less. When you say that the mind or self exists, you are saying the same. You are connected and information flows in from sensation to chains of experience, feelings, thought and out through goals, intent behavior to action. It doesn't make any difference at all what symbols you use or what you call them. You can't use words, explain or even know something without participating in a system of symbols in relations. Unknowns, ambiguous symbols, or uncertain measurements are always present in such systems and they have the Goedellian quality of being either incomplete or inconsistent.
Whatever conception of the mind you have or ever can have, it cannot fail to be a system of symbols (however ill defined and ambiguous) in some relation to each other ( however deterministic or random) . Not only do you not have free will, you cannot ever even define free will in a complete or consistent way and even to the extent that you can, it will just another causal system seamlessly integrated into and indistinguishable from reality in general.
So, in that sense, you have free will, but I'm thinking its not what you thought it was.
Take care.
I parsed what you meant by randomness isn't subjective. I agree.
My argument isn't determinism. The abstraction barrier between subjective and objective is irrelevant with my approach. It unifies the mind/body problem. I haven't looked to see if anyone else does that, but if no one else has, it follows you wouldn't have seen it.
Let me put it this way, and explain it simply:
Imagine a quark, a subatomic particle, that is totally random, it can be used to generate perfect random numbers, it's randomness is not even questionable.
So there is that quark that is just jiggling inside the atom, obviously it's influenced by the strong force so it's movement is limited to jiggling in a narrow radius.
However in this field it's moving totally randomly, and you can't predict where it will be next. Now this movement from your perspective looks like it's some object that is moving chaotically, therefore the Universe must be deterministic, because how can an object move chaotically without a God throwing the dice?
The answer is that it's not an object. From the quark's point of view, it totally makes sense what it's doing. And it's limited reality is consisting of just jiggling inside an atom, but in that reality, it has total control over it's actions, that is why it's unpredictable to us.
So it's just an entity, whatever it is, that has total control over it's movement from it's subjective point of view, confined in that realm by the strong force, meanwhile from our point of view it just looks like an object.
If we treat every single entity in the Universe as a subjective entity, then suddenly the hard problem vanishes, and in fact determinism vanishes as well.
I see what you are doing there. My approach was constructed to remove dependencies from both subjective/objective and deterministic/random.
The question of predictability is often framed as entropy and order. A formalization of predictability as 'entropic relativity' with deliberate treatment of perceptual frames, is interesting.
It seems like you axiomatically are referring to unpredictable frames as having 'free will'. I might have that backward. Is it the orderly frames that have it? Regardless, it maps to entropy in my thinking. It remains a rich idea-space. It could even be cast in terms of entropy consumers. I'll give it some thought.
Very interesting post! ☆☆☆☆☆😎
Interesting article.. What are the probability of me saying the same thing as @michael... 😀
The narrowing of probability occurs when choices are made according to the environment. Kind of like predicting the future. A seer sees the most likely probability of the future according to the actions and choice being made in the present moment. But that future is still uncertain because different choices can still be made changing the course trajectory. I supposed that's why it's called predictions.
But people do shape their environments to remove unecessary risks. For example the probability of dying from polio is pretty low, but that wasn't the case 200 years ago. So there were a lot more possibilities, negative ones, than it is now.
In some sense conformism limits the risks, but in other sense it also limits the rewards. People are dirt poor now, because they are limited in making money due to all regulations. Some of them might make sense, but most of them doesn't.