Hili is at last grappling with the problem of free will. (The answer to her question is, of course, “no”, unless she’s been reading those misguided compatibilists!)
Hili: I have a serious problem.
Malgorzata: What problem?
Hili: Do I have free will to choose whether to disturb you or Andrzej?
In Polish:
Hili: Mam poważny problem.
Małgorzata: Jaki?
Hili: Czy mam wolną wolę przeszkadzania tobie, czy Andrzejowi?
If you allow free will to be undermined by determinism, don’t you also allow it to destroy the potential for random mutations – because randomness is incompatible with determinism? So evolution follows a pre-determined path rather than getting its impetus from random mutations and their interaction with the environment.
The idea of free will is undermined not so much by determinism as by the laws of physics as a whole (and those include quantum indeterminism). Even if we assume that certain natural processes are random and cannot be accurately predicted (only their probabilities can be predicted), we still have no conscious control over them.
In what sense do we “have no conscious control over them”? It seems to me that we have choice – which is an acceptable definition of free will. If you’re happy with the concept of natural selection as the driving force behind evolution, you should be able to accept free will because the process is the same. In both contexts, you need a random, unpredictable element – which as you say is a well-proven fundamental of modern physics – and a mechanism for selection (or choice). Free will is just your brain choosing which impulses and ideas survive and which perish. Some people might argue that “your brain choosing” is not the same as having conscious control, but for me these two things are very much the same thing and are absolutely what we mean when we talk about free will.
I am one of those people and I believe so is our host. Even if we assumed that the brain operates at the quantum level (and it’s not obvious to me that it does), the expression “free will” implies a conscious agent exercising the choice, not “being part of a random physical process”. So defined, free will cannot be compared with random mutations in evolution (and even less so with natural selection, which is a deterministic process).
According to your definition, electrons have free will :-).
Our lilacs aren’t even close to blossoming yet.
Nor mine. The jerk maple trees are flowering though & giving me sneezes & runny eyes. Grow your leaves already & stop bragging about all the tree sex you’re having! 😀
Check, I’m in Bozeman MT. Our lilacs aren’t there yet either. I once knew a climatologist, a scientist at MSU here in Bozeman, Joe Caprio, that had developed a map of the date of lilac bloom in the micro-climates across Montana. He had co-related his geographic data on date and location with solar and thermal data. He developed a “solar-thermal unit” that used the date of lilac bloom as a bio-indicator of the micro-climate at any given site.
I think Hili was just being cheeky! 🙂
Is it even theoretically possible for Hili to disturb either Małgorzata or Andrzejowi?
b&
of course cats have free will: it is just humans that lack it.