> What would that look like? Running away? Because that behaviour pops up in news often enough.
Exactly.
As I've said if they can't explain to us what they are doing and why, it is completely useless to try to frame or define it.
it would simply be what we think it is, but not the real thing
> Conversely, there’s learned helplessness — discovered by animal research and yet also demonstrated in humans. Do humans demonstrating this lack free will?
difference being humans can explain why they ran and we can rationalize post facto and learn from each other
children don't run if they see a gun
do they lack free will, chose to not move, or lack the ability (and the knowledge) to process that information?
free will probably does not even exists as consciousness, they are poor terms to describe what we already don't have a solid explanation for
but since we are able to process context, something cows are not capable of, I understood that OP meant the most common meaning of free will: acting in a non predetermined way (however bad or inexact as a definition it is)
cows don't
because we have selected them in centuries and only kept the most docile, so it is expected that they won't run or act in expectedly, we literally engineered them to be what they are, we can rake it for granted, the same way we can be sure that a car with an empty tank won't start
asking for a satisfying definition of free will in this context completely misses the point
yes they could still have free will in the sense that they chose to walk or eat orm ove their tail, of course
but in that sense a plant chose to grow towards the light or not?
I actually believe free will does not exists and everything is pre-determined.
We are born and have to die, don't get to chose our parents, how we look, where we are born, our gender etc. etc.
We can however micromanage the time in between being born and dying, as every other living creature in the World, but we have far more sophisticated micro managing tools
we also have vastly superior tools in general, we are the only animal on the planet that can control fire and have an opposable thumb thus we are the only animal on the planet that could evolve to the level we have reached
which also gave us the ability to entertain ourselves with intellectual riddles such as free will
> I'm not asking if animals understand free will, but if they have it
as I've said I don't believe free will exists, but a cow lack the machinery to process the concept of free will, which also involves guilt, morality, responsibility and deliberation AKA being able to determine the consequences of different courses of actions.
If cows have it, it's not like ours, it must be something far simpler.
the point about aggression is that cows still have their own personalities, but that doesn't qualify as freedom of choice
many people see cows behaving differently and assume they chose to act that way, but it's not like that.
it's simply the result of some random combination of DNA and environment
> As I've said if they can't explain to us what they are doing and why, it is completely useless to try to frame or define it.
You’ve not said why it’s useless though. Or what “free will” is. I can make a chat bot which will insist that it has free will, but I doubt it would be saying anything correct about its mind; and I have every expectation that someone whose language I do not speak would pass and fail exactly the same tests as me if there was a test that didn’t depend on language.
> difference being humans can explain why they ran and we can rationalize post facto and learn from each other
Humans demonstrably make up any old rubbish to justify their actions after the fact — that much is testable. And animals copy each other, so it’s not like non-humans in general can’t learn from each other, though I don’t know about bovines in particular.
> but since we are able to process context, something cows are not capable of,
You recon? Given how much context current vision AI can get, and that current vision AI is about the level of an insect brain, I absolutely expect cows to get context.
> I understood that OP meant the most common meaning of free will: acting in a non predetermined way (however bad or inexact as a definition it is)
> cows don't
Quick internet search of teaching cows tricks says they can act in a non-predetermined way… unless you want to dismiss all behaviour as skinnier boxes and operant conditioning, which would leave humans open to the same criticism.
They are relatively docile, but there were loads in and around Cambridge when I lived there, and no, they were definitely not like cars with no petrol.
> asking for a satisfying definition of free will in this context completely misses the point
I take exception to this. I started by saying “I agree this looks like slavery and torture”, the reply said the concepts didn’t apply because they didn’t have free will. I’m rejecting that, and you’re definitely still describing a situation that sounds like multigenerational slavery to me.
> as I've said I don't believe free will exists
You don’t? That wasn’t clear, but sure — as I said, every testable definition I’ve encountered has either been something animals and humans both have, or both lack.
If you weren’t even trying to change my mind, congratulations on merely confusing me about your intention. :)
> free will, which also involves guilt, morality, responsibility and deliberation AKA being able to determine the consequences of different courses of actions.
Why would it involve those things, and why do you believe cows can’t forecast the consequences of actions? If they couldn’t predict actions having consequences, they’d get stuck as often as hard-coded robots. Given the live in muddy fields, this would make them self-destructively useless as livestock.
(And also, current insect-complexity neural nets can do that, so it would be really surprising if a mammal can’t).
> it's simply the result of some random combination of DNA and environment
Yeah, and that’s true for us, too.
But, as you say, you don’t believe in free will, so that’s fine. :)
poor terms to describe what we already don't have a solid explanation for
> whose language I do not speak would pass and fail exactly the same tests as me if there was a test that didn’t depend on language.
it doesn't matter, cows lack the tools to explain themselves, we don't
namely, in this case, a language (any language!)
> Quick internet search of teaching cows tricks says they can act in a non-predetermined way
can you prove it? :)
And how do you know it won't end up like the Libet experiment?
> And animals copy each other, so it’s not like non-humans in general can’t learn from each other, though I don’t know about bovines in particular
They don't have history books though, and schools and teachers
DNA does not help much if the knowledge dies with its creator
> If you weren’t even trying to change my mind, congratulations
I don't believe in free will the philosophical tool
I think we have machinery that we still do not understand that make us what we are and most of what we are is due superior processing power
It doesn't matter to me ifnI chose to move my arm, when I am driving and see an obstacle I don't have to think to use the brakes and I am thankful that training built up new neuro-paths to react that way
> Why would it involve those things, and why do you believe cows can’t forecast the consequences of actions?
because to forecast the consequences of every action you need to be able to judge the consequences
if you don't have a framework to judge the consequences, you can't forecast them or at best you can simply forecast an action-reaction scenario: this happens and then this happens, but if you cannot give them a score, all scenarios are equal
> namely, in this case, a language (any language!)
I assert verbal self-narrative is not necessary for free will. You assert otherwise? Why?
> can you prove it? :)
In principle, sure: Watch them demonstrate a learned skill. I have no reason to believe the videos are faked, but if they are, in principle I could observe IRL.
> And how do you know it won't end up like the Libet experiment?
The experiment which showed a human brain reaches a decision before conscious awareness of that decision? It’s evidence that humans don’t have free will, FSVO “free will”, so I’m expecting the same result, including the meta-result of people arguing about the result.
> They don't have history books though, and schools and teachers
> DNA does not help much if the knowledge dies with its creator
True for most of humanity, except for “teachers”, but cows can mentor each other too. So… we agree humans and non human animals pass and fail the same tests?
> because to forecast the consequences of every action you need to be able to judge the consequences
You can do that with any positive-negative reinforcement mechanism, doesn’t need morality etc.
> I assert verbal self-narrative is not necessary for free will. You assert otherwise? Why?
Why don't you?
If higher cognitive functions are not necessary, than a virus can have free will.
bovines don't lack self narrative, they lack the ability to create complex communication systems.
> Watch them demonstrate a learned skill
and how do you know it's not merely imitation?
btw, insects can learn too
> The experiment which showed a human brain reaches a decision before conscious awareness of that decision?
the experiment that showed a lag between cerebral activity and actual action that was labeled as "brain takes a decision before we do" even though Libet never said it, but has been disproved 40 years later (the effect exists, but it doesn't show lack of free will at all)
> we agree humans and non human animals pass and fail the same tests?
not until their mentoring will include notions of ancient past civilazations that are long dead but transmitted their knowledge
also, not until they will be able to reconstruct their past history and of the entire universe by observing and studying remains, without any prior knowledge of what they are
see, if you look from afar a soapbox car and a real car look very similar
but if you look them closer, they are nothing alike
> You can do that with any positive-negative reinforcement mechanism, doesn’t need morality etc.
where's the freedom if the reactions have been engineered through training?
None of this is refuting to my core claim, that the concept of free will is always either (1) too poorly defined to be arguable, or (2) that humans are indistinguishable from other animals.
You are alternating between both of these problems, sometimes with references to higher cognitive function (itself poorly defined) other times by suggesting things where human and non human animals are passing and failing the same tests.
In particular:
> Why don't you?
Language seems neither necessary nor sufficient. If it was sufficient, computers would have it. If it was necessary, it would be denied to anyone who grew up alone in the wild, which happens occasionally.
For extra weirdness, given that language is notoriously difficult to pick up as an adult (both for such Wildermensch and for everyone else) if language learning structures was the test of free will, adults would necessarily have less free will than children.
> If higher cognitive functions are not necessary, than a virus can have free will.
There are many layers of cognition between these two things. Cognition is not Boolean.
> and how do you know it's not merely imitation? btw, insects can learn too
This demonstrates my point. All learned behaviour does. In fact, I would go further and say that the ability to copy another entity implies a mind has a model of itself as a separate entity within the world, and of the same category of entity as whatever it is copying. Certainly a limited model, and yet, again, this is no different from humans as we do not have perfect models of each other or ourselves.
> (the effect exists, but it doesn't show lack of free will at all)
Because the concept is too poorly defined to be testable, perchance? Because people keep trying to go “Well actually humans are special so that’s not what I meant” after the tests are done?
> also, not until they will be able to reconstruct their past history and of the entire universe by observing and studying remains, without any prior knowledge of what they are
Any single human would fail this test. Humanity collectively only just about passes, except for all the gaps in our history and the fact QM and GR are inconsistent with each other.
> where's the freedom if the reactions have been engineered through training?
Identical to humans. We have demonstrable biases towards the society — nation, religion, sports teams, languages, political parties, laws, cultural norms — that we grow up with. We have school precisely because we don’t spontaneously invent everything from scratch, and our instincts can be bad and need to be trained out. We are incapable of overriding other things, e.g. sexuality, and we don’t really even understand when and how sexuality becomes concrete.
Exactly.
As I've said if they can't explain to us what they are doing and why, it is completely useless to try to frame or define it.
it would simply be what we think it is, but not the real thing
> Conversely, there’s learned helplessness — discovered by animal research and yet also demonstrated in humans. Do humans demonstrating this lack free will?
difference being humans can explain why they ran and we can rationalize post facto and learn from each other
children don't run if they see a gun
do they lack free will, chose to not move, or lack the ability (and the knowledge) to process that information?
free will probably does not even exists as consciousness, they are poor terms to describe what we already don't have a solid explanation for
but since we are able to process context, something cows are not capable of, I understood that OP meant the most common meaning of free will: acting in a non predetermined way (however bad or inexact as a definition it is)
cows don't
because we have selected them in centuries and only kept the most docile, so it is expected that they won't run or act in expectedly, we literally engineered them to be what they are, we can rake it for granted, the same way we can be sure that a car with an empty tank won't start
asking for a satisfying definition of free will in this context completely misses the point
yes they could still have free will in the sense that they chose to walk or eat orm ove their tail, of course
but in that sense a plant chose to grow towards the light or not?
I actually believe free will does not exists and everything is pre-determined.
We are born and have to die, don't get to chose our parents, how we look, where we are born, our gender etc. etc.
We can however micromanage the time in between being born and dying, as every other living creature in the World, but we have far more sophisticated micro managing tools
we also have vastly superior tools in general, we are the only animal on the planet that can control fire and have an opposable thumb thus we are the only animal on the planet that could evolve to the level we have reached
which also gave us the ability to entertain ourselves with intellectual riddles such as free will
> I'm not asking if animals understand free will, but if they have it
as I've said I don't believe free will exists, but a cow lack the machinery to process the concept of free will, which also involves guilt, morality, responsibility and deliberation AKA being able to determine the consequences of different courses of actions.
If cows have it, it's not like ours, it must be something far simpler.
the point about aggression is that cows still have their own personalities, but that doesn't qualify as freedom of choice
many people see cows behaving differently and assume they chose to act that way, but it's not like that.
it's simply the result of some random combination of DNA and environment