Free will re-redux

Markov Chains seem, strictly speaking, to be stochastic. Are you suggesting that determinism underlies their apparent statistical nature?

Do they (agents) necessarily cause entropy, or is it possible (as seems often the case to me) that they reduce entropy?

Agents can have 3 distinct roles in effecting entropy.  Agents can take apart existing ordered structures (1) contributing to increased entropy.  The agent can even have intentions to this in a way that purposely harms others.  An agent can "forget" all of the information to begin a new thought process.  Landauer's Principal is where the past slate is forgotten creating entropy and is an essential tool in thinking and computation.  A fresh start is good for solving problems.  In real life a fresh start is an intentional act.

 Landauer's principle is a physical principle pertaining to the lower theoretical limit of energy consumption of computation. It holds that "any logically irreversible manipulation of information, such as the erasure of a bit or the merging of two computation paths, must be accompanied by a corresponding entropy increase in non-information-bearing degrees of freedom of the information-processing apparatus or its environment".[1] 

Agents can, as a possibility, not contribute in a meaningful way and not change its environments as an action (2) and agents can create negentropy (organization as a reduction in entropy) (3) by planning.  The point is - that a Markov process is abstractly always forgetting, by definition.

I have only the bare minimalist grasp of Markov chains, processes and blankets.  They are surely conceived as stochastic, just as you state, but do model randomness and their introduction to the process with clarity.

Agents without memories or prehension of the future are severely limited to change environments.  But in fact agents do have memories and anticipate the immediate future.  These two factors are where free will is active and informed selection is objectively measured.

Thanks for correcting me, with a little searching, the term I probably meant is Piecewise Markov Chains, where random jumps are separated from the determined elements.

I don't believe in randomness. [And I think it's inconceivable for everyone.]

Then why are you talking about glass reflection?

Are you claiming that the decay of individual particles is not truly random? There is some kind of mechanism that determines which particle will decay next? If so, why have we found no hint of that area of physics?

~~ Paul

Yeah, so, you're quite happy to go with "Random events just happen - it simply can't be explained how they happen" and "The application of 'necessitating' (though at the same time purely descriptive and non-prescriptive - no matter the inconsistency!) physical laws just happens - it simply can't be explained how they're applied or how they necessitate the events within their remit", but "Free will choices as the outcomes of agents holistically and coherently exercising their top-down agency in the full context of their situation just happen - how they happen can't be explained beyond that" is JUST NOT GOOD ENOUGH for you. Right. There's a black hole in your position that sucks all reasonableness and consistency into it.

Random events can't be explained because there is no causal explanation: they just happen. Physical laws don't happen, they are just explanations for the events we observe. If you think you are observing free decisions, then perhaps it's time to propose some laws for them.

Aw. Dude, you made this thread all about you right from the start: all along it's been about what you're willing to accept and what you find conceivable. All along, you have been rejecting and implicitly claiming "Not good enough" to all of the extensive efforts that Sci and I have made to present to you a credible and plausible defence of (and even an accounting for - much more Sci's work than mine) free will. Apparently, though, the real insult is not your blanket rejection of our efforts, which you scarcely seem to even consider, preferring rapid, brief responses which often ignore our strongest points; it's the thoughtful attempt to understand why you inevitably reject everything that we offer you.

What does this have to do with insults? Why don't you just say you don't care?

I have said multiple times that your explanations do not sound like explanations of how a free decision might be made, but instead sound mostly like new names for the agent making the decision.

It confers meaningful control to the agent, versus the two horns of the dichotomy you present, in which (1) necessitating causality is forced upon the agent, and thus is beyond the agent's control, and (2) supposedly "random" events occur to the agent, again, beyond its control, rather than being generated by the agent under the agent's control.

I understand that your goal is to confer meaningful control to the agent. What I'm missing is how the agent uses this control to make a free decision. In other words, I'll grant the agent any degree of control you like. But how does that help with a free decision?

~~ Paul

Right. And, as I wrote to Paul way, way back on the initial Skeptiko thread in which we first began these discussions, even allowing for a mutually exclusive dichotomy of necessitation and randomness, free will can anyway still be accommodated, which is why (as I wrote in that first thread) necessitation and randomness in the context of free will is a red herring: the real question is origination (external versus internal). It is possible that, rather than causal necessity being imposed upon an agent, that agent authors (at least to an extent meaningfully compatible with free will) the "necessitating" aspect of the causal processes in which it participates, just as it is possible that, rather than being subject to randomness, the agent authors randomness.

I'm fine with the agent authoring the decision. I can picture the author making the decision based on the past/current state of affairs. I can picture the author flipping truly random coins or consulting the quantum foam. What I can't picture is some other way to make the decision so that it can be considered free in any meaningful way.

Considering the very last step between no decision and decision: What is the repertoire of decisions steps available to the agent?

~~ Paul

[Laird]

Physical laws don't happen

I didn't say that they do. Reread what I wrote.

It remains the case that your position is inconsistent.

perhaps it's time to propose some laws for [free decisions].

Surely you're trolling.

What does this have to do with insults?

You're intelligent enough to understand the point.

A suggestion: spend some time thinking before you shoot off your hasty, from-the-hip replies. You claim, after all, to be seeking understanding. Your actual responses don't demonstrate that.

[Laird]

I'm fine with the agent authoring the decision. I can picture the author making the decision based on the past/current state of affairs.

And once we add the further stipulation that that decision was not necessitated by the past/current state of affairs, but was merely contingent upon them, then we have the full picture for free will. I've already explained why I think it is that you're unwilling to accept this picture.

Then why are you talking about glass reflection?

Are you claiming that the decay of individual particles is not truly random? There is some kind of mechanism that determines which particle will decay next? If so, why have we found no hint of that area of physics?

~~ Paul

We found they weren't truly random when we found the half-lives for the associated materials. Just as when we find a process/event is deterministic we just mean that we attribute 100% probability to a single outcome.

If the instances of decay were truly random there'd be no half-lives attributable to different materials - there'd be no discernible pattern at all.

One reason why the materialist Thomas Nail says Matter moves in ways that are neither random nor determined.

Random events can't be explained because there is no causal explanation: they just happen. 
~~ Paul

That said, one hell of a lot of engineering goes into making random number generators.  Random numbers don't just happen.  

There are no singular random manifest real-world events.  All seem to have relation in the totally of their existence.

 Anyone who attempts to generate random numbers by deterministic means is, of course, living in a state of sin. - John Von Neumann

I didn't say that they do. Reread what I wrote.

You wrote:

"Yeah, so, you're quite happy to go with ... 'The application of 'necessitating' physical laws just happens - it simply can't be explained how they're applied or how they necessitate the events within their remit'

I'm not sure where I suggested that you said that physical laws don't happen.

Surely you're trolling.

Why is it unreasonable to ask about laws for free decision-making? They are just descriptions of how free decisions happen.

And once we add the further stipulation that that decision was not necessitated by the past/current state of affairs, but was merely contingent upon them, then we have the full picture for free will. I've already explained why I think it is that you're unwilling to accept this picture.

I'm unwilling to accept it because I don't understand it. I understand that the decision was not deterministically produced by the past/current state of affairs, but was influenced by them. But exactly what do you mean by it being "contingent" on them?

contingent
adjective

Definition of contingent
 (Entry 1 of 2)
1 : dependent on or conditioned by something else
    Payment is contingent on fulfillment of certain conditions.
    a plan contingent on the weather

2 : likely but not certain to happen : possible

3 : not logically necessary
    especially : empirical

4a : happening by chance or unforeseen causes
b : subject to chance or unseen effects : unpredictable
c : intended for use in circumstances not completely foreseen
    contingent funds

5 : not necessitated : determined by free choice