RE: Jayrot
Now we get into strange territory with “I could’ve chosen to choose diferently.” But then one must ask, Why didn’t you? Sure you have the ability to stay home or go to the party, but why do you do what you choose to do? There are a whole string of prior factors, stretching back to infinity that determine what you did. People have the ability to do a number of different things, but why do they do what they do?
Isn’t it more accurate to say that it is unpredictable?
Free will is a concept of philosophy, not science. Better minds than you have debated the issue for millenia. It’s really more of a topic for GD.
What did you think random meant?
I’m not so sure that random and unpredictable are near to the same thing. Unpredictable is, basically and possibly, based on a defined set of parameters, where as random is … random? 
Dan
What I meant was, if something is random, it is unpredictable by definition. But no, something that is unpredictable is not necessarily random. It could be chaotic, like weather patterns.
RE: Better minds than you have debated the issue for millenia.
I resent that.
Well, they’re better minds than me, too, ok?
Alright, I feel better now.
The digits of pi are “probably” random:
Is it ok, therefore, to assume that we all feel better now???
From a philosopical point of view, I wonder how a series of numbers even running into the trillions or more in length that are obtainable by a finite, repetitive process, could be random…
Bear in mind that I am asking as a non-math head. Quadratic equtions give me pause to reflect…
Anybody wanna take a stab at 'splaining to a dunderhead?
Dan Dunderhead LOL!
By saying that the digits of [symbol]p[/symbol] are random, they’re saying that in any base, as you look at more and more sequences of n digits, the probability of finding any particular sequence approaches 1/10[sup]n[/sup].
Here’s a thread that deals with the random distribution of subsequences within pi: Pi – The Source Of All Information?
Ok well, possibly nobody wants a physics-based answer, but here it is , at least to the extent of my maybe old-fashioned-by-now physics knowledge, the answer is (drum roll, please): Nobody knows.
Well, to be a little more precise, most people think that there is randomness at a quantum level: the decay of an atomic nucleus, or the path of a single photon going through a double slit, has a defined probability, but it’s impossible to predict exactly when any one nucleus will decay or exactly what path a given photon will take.
On the other hand, we know that quantum physics is incomplete, so it’s possible some future theory will allow us to predict these things (though I think few physicists really expect that).
Once you start looking at bigger things, the randomness becomes a smaller and smaller factor. It’s very, very, very unlikely that the radioactivity of a gram of radium (with lots of atoms) is going to vary in any measureable way from what’s predicted – randomness on very small scales can get washed out when you look at totals.
However, on the fourth hand, many things on a human scale are strictly deterministic, but really, really hard to predict because tiny changes in the starting conditions lead to huge changes later on. For instance, think of a flat sheet of metal perfectly balanced on a knife edge. If you let it go, we all know it will quicly fall over left or right, but which way it falls will be determined by things like air currents in the room, vibrations in the room from trucks on the street outside, etc. In theory, if we knew exactly how all the air molecules in the room were moving, and which trucks were driving by, and how that interacted with the soil between the road and the room we’re in and the building foundation, etc., then we could predict exactly which way the sheet will fall. But in practice we can’t, so the sheet falling is practically random, even though it is strictly determined.
FWIW, I think most physicists would describe human behavior as ‘practically random’ in this last sense. I.E. if we could perfectly analyze and map every neuron in someone’s brain (and spinal cord, etc.) then we could predict how they’d react to any given stimulus. But since we won’t be able to do that in our or our great-grandchildren’s lifetimes, we can call human behaviour unpredictable.
“Neurological phenomenon” is a pretty big territory.
Shine a light in most people’s eyes and you get pupil contraction. Not very random by some definitions of the term. Same with simple reflexes.
Pull a neuron out and put it in a dish, and it will show some pretty coherent behavior. Again, not random.
Aside from those low-level examples, I think most neurological phenomena are random. Completely random? Depends what you mean by that.
The brain is pretty dynamic, chaotic, indeterministic at many levels (intracellular spaces, axon firings, rhythmic loops). Mostly it is really hard to measure in vivo.
I disagree with this. If we knew “how all the air molecules in the room…we could predict exactly which way the sheet would fall” just ain’t so. There is inherently unpredictable behavior in matter.
Sure. Random thoughts. I have them all the time; I more or less thought everybody did.
IMO free will exists because when I deliberate, it cannot be ascertained whether I am “really” deliberating or merely under the illusion that I am so doing. So I pick one. Thus, I make my conscious, considered choice after carefully weighing two or more options, and make this decision of my own “free will”. This means that my choice was neither random (I considered–or felt exactly as one feels when one considers, so it’s essentially indistinguishable from considering–the options first and did not make a whimsical or accidental decision) nor determined (no one or no thing forced me against my wishes to decide in a certain way). Now if one replies that yes, things DID force me to decide in a certain way, only I was not aware or conscious of it, so be it. Such discussions illuminate no facts and bring us no closer to a conclusion than does my own thought (if I truly exist) that I did indeed exercise my free will.
Another angle of approach might be that without free will, everything is either determined or random, so what’s the point of suffering the whole meaningless exercise called life? It would make far more sense, then, both logically and to ease the emotional and spiritual pain of our troubled souls, to just exterminate ourselves en masse. (But don’t tell Ben Leighdon and his buddy Al Kaydah.) Thus for the survival and perpetuation of our species, it behooves us to behave as if there is free will, since there is no proven way to ascertain beyond all doubt whether there is or not.
But that’s intellectually dishonest question-begging.
So where does that leave us? Right where we started? (A fairly common trait of philosophical discussions…)
Thus it appears the statement “For any given interaction, it’s either determined, and therefore not free, or it’s random, and therefore not traceable to an excercize [sic] of the actor’s choice.” is not necessarily true. In other words, indeterminism and determinism are not necessarily the only two options; free will could possibly or even probably exist. This is in no way intended to imply that Cliffy is not a certified genius, of course. He and those who know him would be the best ones to determine that–if they choose to, that is. >:^D)
Something that’s intrigued me in the past is the possibility that, for example, an atom of C-14 could decay at just the right time and place to deform a receptor or channel of a neuron in the brain, leading to just the wrong among of some chemical transaction, resulting in someone doing something other than what they would have done just a short time later.
I’m pretty sure now, however, that there far too many receptors and/or channels on each individual neuron for this to really affect whether or not other neurons “downstream” fired as they would have had the decay not occured. Otherwise, it would be an example of quantum phenomena affecting the macro world, would it not? Of course, even if it could happen, nobody would know it.
Or could this be responsible for some of those “what the hell was I thinking?!?” moments? 