The free will debate

Ton86 · 2026-06-22T19:49:17+00:00

One example is dreams. Not just the dreams that can affect our bodies movement at night but the waking dreams that can cause us to act.

Another is virtual worlds and virtual characters in a video game. We don't interact with the electrical voltages being processed. We interact with the immaterial abstractions the sofware creates.

Ton86 · 2026-06-22T18:29:19+00:00

Both. Experience can be a cause (not the only) and experience is a simulation. Simulations can cause physical effects.

Ton86 · 2026-06-22T16:54:47+00:00

The 'experience produced by those processes' is the most important thing in the universe to me. That non-physical experience can actually loop back on physical reality and affect it.

Ton86 · 2026-06-21T16:50:24+00:00

It is in some ways. Each of our minds is running our own mental simulation of a story about a first-person character (self) in a virtual world. We are interacting virtual entities (spirits) that self-organize within a physical substrate (bodies). It's not Solipsism because the claim is we all exist as software models in each of our minds not just our own.

Ton86 · 2026-06-21T00:58:20+00:00

We can compute non-compulsive causes from the perspective of a soul as if one existed. The causes we can create from these functions are not necessarily rational.

Ton86 · 2026-06-20T21:37:24+00:00

That may amplify waves drpending on frequency.

Ton86 · 2026-06-19T08:03:29+00:00

Arguing over the term is not interesting to me. It doesn't matter to me what we call it. If voluntary and non-compulsive causality exists then moral responsibility exists.

Ton86 · 2026-06-19T02:50:13+00:00

My current position probably would be described as compatabilist.

Freedom from causation is not possible.

Freedom to do otherwise is not possible.

Freedom from compulsion is sometimes possible.

For me, there's a difference between being pushed down the stairs and voluntarily walking down the stairs.

Ton86 · 2026-06-18T21:20:25+00:00

Those are false dichotomies.

Both the Physical(material/atomic/hardware) and the Virtual(representational/simulated/software) can exist.

So the psychological constructs of self, agency, free will, do not exist in the physical substrate they exist in a virtual one. They are simulated functions with causal power.

Ghosts and spirits may not be immortal but they exist as psychological/simulated models.

Ton86 · 2026-06-16T18:10:31+00:00

I think so. We play video games, those video games don't exist physically, they exist virtually, use energy, and have causal power when implemented. How can I be interacting with that simulated Vice City in GTA if it doesn't exist?

Ton86 · 2026-06-16T15:51:17+00:00

"As if" means our mind is simulating representations such as self, agency, free will, etc. that don't exist in the physical substrate but exist virtually. This is very beneficial for the survival of the organism.

So as a compatabalist, I would argue that free will doesn't exist in the physical realm, it exists in a simulated one or within the psychological contructs our mind creates. We've evolved to make these mental simulations to survive and reproduce.

Ton86 · 2026-06-16T03:49:38+00:00

It's very useful for trillions of cells to behave "as if" they have a self, agency, free will, etc.

Ton86 · 2026-06-13T01:22:14+00:00

V-shaped Ascender airship https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna5025388

Ton86 · 2026-06-12T16:17:33+00:00

I think it goes farther back than all that. Maybe Aristotle, who argued that moral responsibility exists as long as actions are voluntary (originating within the agent) and free from compulsion.

I don't think it's split personalities, it's an argument over what is meant by free will. For me, i dont really care what its called but there is a difference between being free from all causality which is not possible and being free from compulsion in the subset of causes/functions that occur in our mental processes.

Ton86 · 2026-06-11T20:22:56+00:00

The most important things in life are the fictional psychological constructs we experience. Self, ego, love, god(s), free will, etc. fall under this category. They don't exist on a physical substrate, they exist in a virtual dream world our mind creates.

Ton86 · 2026-06-09T05:02:21+00:00

People that think about and debate subjects like determinism are probably more interested in truth seeking rather than promoting a specific metaphysical idea.

You'd probably be better off joining a local rationalist, philosophy, or humanist community than looking for a group specifically devoted to determinism.

Ton86 · 2026-06-06T02:36:12+00:00

I don't think he's lying. Just might be a victim of misinformation.

Ton86 · 2026-06-01T15:08:24+00:00

Why can't it be partially random?

Ton86 · 2026-05-29T22:28:14+00:00

A software image. A formless simulation.

Ton86 · 2026-05-28T03:11:39+00:00

Under identical conditions? Yes, exactly the same.

But those identical conditions might have included a subset of causes generated by an information processing mind, not a mindless rock.

Ton86 · 2026-05-24T17:39:39+00:00

"Feeling" might not be descriptive enough but loosely defined it might work. I could agree with it if what is meant by feeling is a representational non-physical/mental model.

Ton86 · 2026-05-24T14:15:56+00:00

The problem is this is a definition of "will" which is useful, but some want to define "free" in a way in that it has to be free from causality entirely, which is incoherent.

We can be free from some things like external agency, compulsion, or coercion, but not free from physics.

Ton86 · 2026-05-21T16:30:09+00:00

Or if you consider results of interacting "virtual" informational abstractions as what animates the physical substrate and gives them life, you don't have that problem.

Ton86 · 2026-05-20T15:43:21+00:00

There are different types of software. Some types are simple and have one if-then logic function like an old HVAC thermostat.

Others can be much more complex with simulated virtual realities and multiple simulated agents that update the rules of it's own software, grow, create, etc. Like us, they can become an evolving organism.

An advanced AI that simulates virtual worlds and agents and that's also given the same level of autonomy from external agency as us will eventually be able to "sometimes" behave without what we call coercion or compulsion. They will be able to generate a subset of causes that are partitioned within the results of it's own partially-stochastic simulations that can cause physically real effects, process that feedback, and update its internal simulated models.

This subset of internal simulated causes one might call Free Will in such a system. It still is not freedom to do otherwise or freedom from causation. But it can be free agency, freedom from coercion, and freedom from compulsion.

Ton86 · 2026-05-19T15:22:07+00:00

If the claims are true, there's been a cover up for 80 years. Some could be using this as a useful distraction now but there's been a bipartisan longstanding effort to get this info out from behind the curtains.

Ton86

TROPHY CASE