Libet's half-second delay

[Math Is Hard]

For some reason I have never come across this until my teacher brought it up in phil class last night. I have been searching for information and reading a little bit this morning about research on brain activity and conscious experience done by Benjamin Libet and neurosurgeon Bertram Feinstein.

It seems Libet determined in his research with Feinstein that there is approximately a half-second delay between the direct stimulation of areas of the cerebral cortex and the actual report of the sensation from the patient. That didn't seem too odd. What did seem very peculiar is that they also noted in further tests that there were electrical signals in the brain (associated with whatever motor task the patient randomly chose to perform) that preceded the patient's conscious intent to move.

I was looking at this particular book review: http://www.the-aps.org/publications/tphys/2005html/FebTPhys/bookreview.htm and a few other web articles.

I'm sure many people here are very familiar with this subject. I find it baffling - it just doesn't seem possible - and I wondered what your thoughts were on this.

[selfAdjoint]

For some reason I have never come across this until my teacher brought it up in phil class last night. I have been searching for information and reading a little bit this morning about research on brain activity and conscious experience done by Benjamin Libet and neurosurgeon Bertram Feinstein.

It seems Libet determined in his research with Feinstein that there is approximately a half-second delay between the direct stimulation of areas of the cerebral cortex and the actual report of the sensation from the patient. That didn't seem too odd. What did seem very peculiar is that they also noted in further tests that there were electrical signals in the brain (associated with whatever motor task the patient randomly chose to perform) that preceded the patient's conscious intent to move.

I was looking at this particular book review: http://www.the-aps.org/publications/tphys/2005html/FebTPhys/bookreview.htm and a few other web articles.

I'm sure many people here are very familiar with this subject. I find it baffling - it just doesn't seem possible - and I wondered what your thoughts were on this.

Dennett, in Conciousness Explained cites Libet's research and uses it as part of his evidence that what we experience is not so tied to reality as we might believe, which I believe undermines most attempts to take the experience of consciousness as a primary datum.

You would do us all a big favor if you would post any relvant links you turn up, pro and con, on this forum. Thank you for the one you have already posted.

[Iacchus32]

It seems Libet determined in his research with Feinstein that there is approximately a half-second delay between the direct stimulation of areas of the cerebral cortex and the actual report of the sensation from the patient. That didn't seem too odd. What did seem very peculiar is that they also noted in further tests that there were electrical signals in the brain (associated with whatever motor task the patient randomly chose to perform) that preceded the patient's conscious intent to move.And yet when I attempt to do something, I usually try it out in my mind first, to the exent that I might send the signals (or query) and then inhibit myself from acting upon it, to see if that's what I really want to do. Does that make sense? While I suppose it could also entail some sub-conscious memory coming to the surface, in accordance with a similar experience you've reacted to in the past. In which case it becomes up to you to (consciously) override it or follow through with it.

[StatusX]

Dennett, in Conciousness Explained cites Libet's research and uses it as part of his evidence that what we experience is not so tied to reality as we might believe, which I believe undermines most attempts to take the experience of consciousness as a primary datum.

What can we take as the primary datum of experience besides experience? We might be wrong about how our experiences relate to the external world, like, for example, whether they cause our actions or not. But we can't be wrong about what we're experiencing, because the experiences are what we know.

[Math Is Hard]

Thanks for the responses. SA, I will try to post more links as I find them. I approached most of the links I found gingerly since it seemed there were many who wanted to take these findings and immediately apply them to their own agenda.

Iacchus, I am thinking about what you said, but the whole "mulling it over" process is still seems to be on the conscious level. If what Libet says is correct, the motor command that determines what you actually do happens at the pre/non-conscious level. The command to pull the trigger is well on its way to your finger before you decide to fire the gun.

[Royce]

We all do things without conscious intent. Its called reaction. Not knee jerk reaction which is a nerve thing but mental reaction. A simple example is typing on a keyboard. I often know I am making a mistake as I hit the wrong key but am unable to stop doing it and have to correct it. Our brains run on automatic so much of the time that it is only later, the half second, that we become conscious of it. Like muscle memory doing repetative motion. like a golf or bat swing. Even as we are doing it we may know something is not right but we are unable to stop or change it because it is automatic.

[Steve Esser]

The Journal "Consciousness and Cognition" devoted an issue to this (Volume 11, Issue 2, Pages 141-375 (June 2002). However it is not available for free on-line. I did find two of the papers which are on the authors' home pages:
http://cornea.berkeley.edu/pubs/160.pdf
http://web.gc.cuny.edu/cogsci/libet.pdf

[selfAdjoint]

So it appears from Stanley Klein's paper, the first one you linked to, that after Trevina and Miller's work and Klein's own analysis, the gap is reduced from .4 seconds to .2 seconds. But it's still there, and now on a more careful foundation.

[Doctordick]

This raises again the age-old question of whether free will actually exists. Libet believes that it does. He raises the ingenious and provocative hypothesis that there is in the time lags between the onset of the unconscious cortical electrical activity, the conscious awareness of the intent to act, and the execution of the voluntary movement, adequate time for free will to intervene to restrain the completion of the act. In other words, free operates not to initiate but to interrupt and prevent the completion of an action already initiated and underway unconsciously.
I have read about this gap on a number of occasions with various associated explanations. What I have always wondered is, why doesn't someone with the proper facilities do the following experiment to check Libet's hypothesis? Tell someone who is being tapped for this signal to push a button after some random delay up to them, unless a specific light comes on: i.e., don't push the button if the light is on. Then use the motor signal to turn the light on.

From what I have been told, someone with decent hand eye coordination can get their reaction time down to around a tenth of a second so even .2 seconds should produce some confusion as to what the test subject thinks is going on. I would almost bet money that the test subject would come to belive there was a motion sensor in the button.

If someone knows of such an experiment, let me know.

Dick

[Math Is Hard]

It seems more likely to me that the delay that is observed is between the conscious event and the report of the conscious event. I don't understand how that is ruled out.

[Doctordick]

It seems more likely to me that the delay that is observed is between the conscious event and the report of the conscious event. I don't understand how that is ruled out.I could be wrong as I am no expert but I have interpreted their data to imply that they are not speaking of a "report" of the conscious event but rather the conscious awareness of the decision. :biggrin: The big question in free will is, was the decision to act a subconscious event or was it a conscious event. :grumpy: If conscious awareness can be attached to activity of a particular specific area of the brain (which seems to be the case) then brain activity associated with conscious awareness is a measurable thing. o:) And, apparently, the act precedes conscious awareness of the decision which makes "free will" difficult to defend. :blushing:

Have fun -- Dick

[selfAdjoint]

conscious awareness can be attached to activity of a particular specific area of the brain (which seems to be the case) then brain activity associated with conscious awareness is a measurable thing. And, apparently, the act precedes conscious awareness of the decision which makes "free will" difficult to defend

As the links make clear, Libet's own defense of free will is that the individual can "veto" the brain's action after it has begun and before the actual physical action begins. This seems to me as much sheer desperate invocation of magic as every other explanation of strong free will.

[Math Is Hard]

I could be wrong as I am no expert but I have interpreted their data to imply that they are not speaking of a "report" of the conscious event but rather the conscious awareness of the decision. :biggrin:
Actually, those two things are exactly what I am concerned with: the conscious awareness of the decision and then the report of the conscious awareness of the decision. Maybe I didn't say this clearly in the last post. I am curious about the time between the two.

It seems to me the only way you could know if someone is experiencing the conscious awareness of a decision is if they do something to signal to that it is happening, and this would entail some kind of report or signal.

I can decide to push a button, but it could take me a fraction of a second to do something to indicate that I am making the decision, for instance to form and utter the word "now", or lift a finger, or tap my foot.

I find it very difficult to believe that I could make a decision to do something and simultaneously give a cue that I am making the decision. Maybe they adjust for that in the research, but I don't see how it could be done.

[Wilhelm]

I could be wrong as I am no expert but I have interpreted their data to imply that they are not speaking of a "report" of the conscious event but rather the conscious awareness of the decision. The big question in free will is, was the decision to act a subconscious event or was it a conscious event. If conscious awareness can be attached to activity of a particular specific area of the brain (which seems to be the case) then brain activity associated with conscious awareness is a measurable thing. And, apparently, the act precedes conscious awareness of the decision which makes "free will" difficult to defend.


I'm always amused by people who, acting out of a conscious decision, proclaim it's possible we don't have free-will. That is a rather absurd notion, but maybe those people can't help doing it: it's predetermined :smile:

I have never seen anyone approach the results of the Libet experiment from a really coherent perspective. There is an issue everyone seems to be overlooking: exactly what do we mean by "now"? Yes, because all our conscious decisions are made "in the present" and only have the power to change the physical world "in the present". But exactly how long does "the present" last, and isn't it really just a small slice of the past?

It is wrong to expect we should find a clear causal relationship between deciding and acting, other than what we experience on a subjective level. Libet compared a subjective report with an objective measurement, and no one should be too surprised if we find that it implies we may not have free-will, for it also implies we may have the power to change our past (and I mean "our subjective past" as opposed to "the objective past")

I'm afraid this is complicated, but I'd be happy to expand on this idea if someone is interested.

[Wilhelm]

I find it very difficult to believe that I could make a decision to do something and simultaneously give a cue that I am making the decision. Maybe they adjust for that in the research, but I don't see how it could be done.

If I remember it correctly, the subject is shown a series of images and asked to move a finger and then tell which image he was seeing when he decided to make the movement. They also use electrodes to measure the nerve impulse going to the finger. So the subject says "I decided to move my finger when I saw picture X", and by comparing the time picture X was shown with the time the nerve impulse was measured, they find that the latter precedes the former.

The methodology seems sound to me except, as I mentioned in my previous post, for the fact that its results may not make much sense. People may say whatever they want, but the fact remains that no amount of objective evidence can possibly convince someone that they don't have to think before they act. The notion is simply preposterous.

[StatusX]

What do the results of this experiment have to do with free will? If a nerve impulse caused the action, and if nerve impulses obey the laws of physics, then there is no strong free will, regardless of whether we were conscious of the impulse or not.

[hypnagogue]

What do the results of this experiment have to do with free will? If a nerve impulse caused the action, and if nerve impulses obey the laws of physics, then there is no strong free will, regardless of whether we were conscious of the impulse or not.

It seems to have more to do with ownership of action rather than 'freedom' of action. The experiment erodes our confidence that, for instance, when we decide to get up out of bed in the morning, that it is really "us"-- that mental construct of the self-- that is responsible for initiating the action. Rather (if we are to believe the implications of Libet's experiment and others), the action has been initiated subconsciously, and we only attach it to the concept of the self post hoc to give the illusion of agency to the self. Ownership of action is not all there is to be said about free will, but it seems like an important component.

As the links make clear, Libet's own defense of free will is that the individual can "veto" the brain's action after it has begun and before the actual physical action begins. This seems to me as much sheer desperate invocation of magic as every other explanation of strong free will.

I'm not sure why you say this. This suggestion is not invocation of magic, but rather of a complicated neural control system. Clearly, it is within the realm of possibility that there could exist some neural system that could inhibit certain neural activity based on its own complex neural algorithms. Indeed, the picture that seems to be emerging from the literature is that of conscious agency serving a primarily restrictive or editorial role on the impulses of the subconscious rather than a productive role.

[Doctordick]

It seems to me to be a very simple question. If it is a conscious decision of which we are aware of making, then that awareness should precede the action. If the action precedes our awareness of its existence, how can we claim to be the cause of the action? The settlement of the question lies entirely with the validity of the relationship between awareness and activity of a particular area of the brain. Either this is a valid relationship or a case of invalidity should be possible to find. This is not a philosophical matter; it is a matter for factual experimentation.

Have fun -- Dick

[Wilhelm]

Doctordick, I will reply to your post as I think you are approaching the issue from a coherent perspective, but not necessarily seeing all the implications.

It seems to me to be a very simple question.
A lot of things seem to be a very simple question. More often than not, that usually means we are overlooking something important.

If it is a conscious decision of which we are aware of making, then that awareness should precede the action.
If I may borrow from the vocabulary of physicists, which frame of reference are you talking about? You do realize that the perceived order of events may change depending on your perspective. More specifically, how can we find out if the conscious minds of two human beings are in perfect synchronism? If you rule out free-will, you must necessarily open the possibility that, for instance, I am experiencing the year 1998 despite the fact that you can interact with my body in 2005. See how absurd those ideas get?
If the action precedes our awareness of its existence, how can we claim to be the cause of the action?
Our awareness of the action never precedes our awareness of the conscious decision. From a subjective perspective we have every right to claim decision causes action.

What I think the experiment may imply is not that we don't have free-will, which is a rather hasty and poorly thought conclusion to reach, if I may say so. I don't know what it implies, but it does make me think about the relationship between conscious experience and time. Most people seem to think both our conscious experiences and our actions happens in the present, but the fact is that the present is just a small slice of the past. If our consciousness really exists in the present, then we don't need the Libet experiment to tell us we have no free-will; that would be a simple fact of logic.

That is why I find all those "Libet offers evidence that we don't have free-will" arguments simply silly. How can people possibly think they have free-will if they also think their consciousness exists in the past?

The settlement of the question lies entirely with the validity of the relationship between awareness and activity of a particular area of the brain.
That is only if you can prove that your conscious experience happens in the short portion of the past we call "the present". And that proof is impossible to obtain. Libet proves nothing other than we don't know much about the interaction between mind and matter.

Either this is a valid relationship or a case of invalidity should be possible to find. This is not a philosophical matter; it is a matter for factual experimentation.
This is purely a philosophical matter, as we have no access to a person's conscious experience, not even in principle.

[loseyourname]

I think this experiment makes a good deal of sense if you consider my take on the boundary problem. The seeming contradiction with personal experience arises only because of our likely illusory concept of the "self." If, in fact, a "self" is nothing more than a functionally connected neuronal array that, during some given span of time, displays the threshold conditions necessary for coordinated action-initiation and unity of experience, this situation can be explained. The explanation would look something like this (I'm going to use "neural network" rather than "self," because whether or not the network in question is an experiencing network isn't important to this explanation):

Consider two sets of threshold conditions in neural networks. The first is the set of conditions that must obtain for a given network to initiate a coordinated response to dynamic stimuli. The second is the set of conditions that must obtain for that network to also experience the stimuli and the responses. These sets likely overlap; in fact, they may even be the same set. I really have no idea, though this experiment certainly suggests that they are not the exact same set. Let us call the first set of conditions set 1 and the second set set 2. What happens in Libet's subjects might be this:

When shown the image that the subject is supposed to respond to, set 1 obtains in a dynamic neural network that includes at least the part of the visual cortex where the image is received, the part of the memory where the instructions are kept, and the motor control center responsible for finger flexing. This network initiates the action. Within 0.2 seconds, this network expands to include whatever parts of the brain are responsible for making verbal reports and set 2 obtains in the new network, which at that point the subject refers to as his "self."

[Doctordick]

I just received todays mail and in it was the Feb 28th issue of U.S. News. The cover is "The Secret Mind". It is a most interesting article and discusses much of what is being talked about here! :cool:

If I may borrow from the vocabulary of physicists, which frame of reference are you talking about? You do realize that the perceived order of events may change depending on your perspective.My Ph.D. is in theoretical physics and, if you understood relativity, you would understand that it is a very important aspect of Einstein's theory that this reordering does not ever violate the issue of causality. :rolleyes:
Our awareness of the action never precedes our awareness of the conscious decision.I am afraid this is exactly the issue being experimentally observed. :wink:
This is purely a philosophical matter, as we have no access to a person's conscious experience, not even in principle.We may not have access to a person's conscious experience, but we do apparently have access to the fact that he is or is no having a conscious experience. :bugeye: This subject is much deeper than you are apparently aware. I am afraid the arguments must be left to the experimenters themselves who are the only people who are aware of the actual constraints on their experiments. :frown:

Have fun -- Dick

[lyapunov]

[1] The seeming contradiction with personal experience arises only because of our likely illusory concept of the "self."

[2] These sets likely overlap; in fact, they may even be the same set. I really have no idea, though this experiment certainly suggests that they are not the exact same set.

[1] I think you're right there. I liked the general direction of your posting, and although my views may differ on details, I do think it's a much more fruitful path to making sense of the experiment.

[2] No, I don't think they're the same set either. I also think (internal) time delays play a great role here, but I'm still wracking my brain on that...
:grumpy:

[plover]

Our awareness of the action never precedes our awareness of the conscious decision.
I am afraid this is exactly the issue being experimentally observed.
Unless I misunderstand, it is not the awareness of the action which is observed to precede awareness of the conscious decision, but rather that the non-conscious processing which precedes a given motor impulse—and which implies that the decision to enact a given motion has been made—precedes awareness of the decision.

[Wilhelm]

My Ph.D. is in theoretical physics and, if you understood relativity, you would understand that it is a very important aspect of Einstein's theory that this reordering does not ever violate the issue of causality.

I am not impressed by credentials, sorry. We're not discussing relativity, I was just trying to make a subtle point which obviously eluded you. If I may make a suggestion, when you're having a discussion and until there is enough evidence to the contrary, it's always helpful to assume you don't understand what the other person is saying rather than assuming they don't know what they are talking about.

we may not have access to a person's conscious experience, but we do apparently have access to the fact that he is or is no having a conscious experience.

How so if all you have to go by is the person's conscious behavior and, according to you and the other Eastern mystics here, that behavior is not caused by consciousness? Isn't that position utterly self-defeating?

This subject is much deeper than you are apparently aware.

Exactly how much deeper?

I am afraid the arguments must be left to the experimenters themselves who are the only people who are aware of the actual constraints on their experiments.

Have you actually read Libet's paper? I did. So you're saying that we shouldn't comment on a scientific paper as only the writers really know what they did? What would be the point of publishing papers then? :confused: :confused: :confused:

[Wilhelm]

As a final thought on this subject, I see people divided in two camps: those who are keen to the "self as an illusion" point of view, which includes many materialists and all people of an Eastern mysticism bent, who promptly embrace the experiment as strong evidence that the human self is the biggest joke in the universe; and the rest of us who find the experiment just an amusing oddity, like so many other things.

I just find it very strange that there are so many people who seem excited at the notion that they are not free, that they are just the butt of a cosmic joke. That is very strange. I really don't understand it.

[Math Is Hard]

I just received todays mail and in it was the Feb 28th issue of U.S. News. The cover is "The Secret Mind". It is a most interesting article and discusses much of what is being talked about here! :cool:

Thanks for letting us know about that. I have been looking for an article related to this subject to bring to my phil class tomorrow night. I thought my classmastes might like to look at it. I didn't want to bring anything too heavy to read- just an overview - so I think this might be just right. Now, if the rain would just let up I could go to the newstand. :smile:

[StatusX]

I just find it very strange that there are so many people who seem excited at the notion that they are not free, that they are just the butt of a cosmic joke. That is very strange. I really don't understand it.

The view you take shouldn't be based on how you would like the world to be, it should be based on how it is. Unless you believe the laws of physics don't completely specify how the physical universe evolves (up to uncertainty, beyond which is randomness), then there is no room for any meaningful notion of free will.

[Wilhelm]

Unless you believe the laws of physics don't completely specify how the physical universe evolves (up to uncertainty, beyond which is randomness), then there is no room for any meaningful notion of free will.
Why?
undefined

[StatusX]

Why?

If everything we do is a result of atoms interacting under the laws of physics, I don't see any reasonable way we could be said to be in control, in that we could have chose to do other than we did.

[Wilhelm]

If everything we do is a result of atoms interacting under the laws of physics, I don't see any reasonable way we could be said to be in control, in that we could have chose to do other than we did.
If everything is atoms, then "we" are also atoms. Why is it that some atoms cannot be in control of other atoms? And if the behaviour of atoms is not deterministic, what's wrong in saying atoms have free-will?

[StatusX]

If everything is atoms, then "we" are also atoms. Why is it that some atoms cannot be in control of other atoms? And if the behaviour of atoms is not deterministic, what's wrong in saying atoms have free-will?

I don't know what you mean by some atoms not being in control of others. And if you want to call randomness "free" you can, but I don't see how it is meaningful.

[Wilhelm]

I don't know what you mean by some atoms not being in control of others.
I thought that should be simple enough. The conscious mind can perfectly have power over matter if the mind is also made of matter, just like a 150 lb. driver can impose his will on a 40 ton truck.

And if you want to call randomness "free" you can, but I don't see how it is meaningful.
Actually, my position on the problem of free-will is quite different from the average arguments pro or against it. The main reason I think this Libet experiment doesn't prove free-will doesn't exist is because free-will, in the context of that discussion, is quite a meaningless concept.

My position is that concepts only have meaning if both the concept and its opposite exist, not only as concepts but also as real entities. For instance, the concept "man" is only meaningful because it is the opposite of "woman". If every human being were described as "man", we would have no way to know what "woman" means, even if we defined it as "the opposite of man". Such a definition is meaningless if it has no counterpart in reality.

The opposite of freedom is constraint, and it is wrong to argue that either "freedom" or "constraint" can be meaningful if its opposite doesn't exist. That is, if the universe is all deterministic, then the concept of determinism is meaningless. Likewise for freedom. As such, out of logical necessity both freedom and constraint must be real in order to be meaningful. This is a very powerful line of reasoning as it allows us to know for sure that both freedom and constraint can be found in reality, and the only task left is to find out exactly what the two concepts mean.

This is also why I criticize Doctordick's attempt to deny the reality of causality. Basically if causality is not real then it is a meaningless term, but if it is a meaningless term then we cannot say it doesn't exist anymore than we can say it does.

I hope this post fills the vacuum left by some other posts I wrote in haste.

[Doctordick]

Well, there certainly have been a lot of posts since I last posted here. :smile:
Unless I misunderstand, it is not the awareness of the action which is observed to precede awareness of the conscious decision, but rather that the non-conscious processing which precedes a given motor impulse—and which implies that the decision to enact a given motion has been made—precedes awareness of the decision.That was my impression also. :biggrin:
I am not impressed by credentials, sorry.My comment had nothing to do with support via credentials; :rofl: it was there solely for your information so you would understand my education and comprehend where I would stand sound and where I would admit to inadequate education. :tongue:
We're not discussing relativity, I was just trying to make a subtle point which obviously eluded you.It was not I but you who brought up the issue of a physics perspective and the impact of frames of reference on timing. :devil: Having done so, you immediately demonstrated a fundamental misunderstanding of the subject. :yuck:
If I may make a suggestion, when you're having a discussion and until there is enough evidence to the contrary, it's always helpful to assume you don't understand what the other person is saying rather than assuming they don't know what they are talking about.You had already supplied enough evidence that you didn't understand frames of reference as seen by physicists. :uhh: I checked your profile and found no entry at all. :confused: This together with your inaccurate representations give me the strong impression you are not intellectually trustworthy. :wink: Now perhaps I have misunderstood you, but until you come up with a better explanation, I am afraid I am going to take anything you say with a big grain of salt. :biggrin:
Have you actually read Libet's paper? I did. So you're saying that we shouldn't comment on a scientific paper as only the writers really know what they did? What would be the point of publishing papers then? :confused: :confused: :confused:No, I haven't read his paper; I have only read Sokoloff's review of his book quoted by "Math is Hard". However, I have read other synopses of similar works and have always been left with the impression that the researchers felt that their results seriously undermined the idea that the decisions were consciously made. If you are correct about Libet then certainly I would agree with you that his work has produced no evidence that the subconscious decision precedes the conscious decision. Either that would firmly put him outside the realm of first rate work or, if indeed all the researchers at the "forefront" of neuroscience are making the same "error", one would have to say their work is amateurish and inexact. Since I am not a professional in the field, I can only go by the popular reviews of their work. If you are correct they certainly are pulling the wool over a lot of eyes. :rofl:

However, if you understood that paper as well as you understand modern physics, I suspect it is much more likely that you have misunderstood what you have read. Either that, or you are intellectually dishonest. :cool:

Have fun -- Dick

[Wilhelm]

However, if you understood that paper as well as you understand modern physics, I suspect it is much more likely that you have misunderstood what you have read. Either that, or you are intellectually dishonest.
I will reply to this comment as it sums up everything else you wrote to me. I don't know why you tend to focus on people's intellectual qualifications rather than their arguments; apparently you just scan people's posts to find if they seem stupid enough to deserve your scorn. So far everyone seems to qualify so I'm not in bad company.

The reason I brought up the relativity of simultaneity was not to imply that Einstein's theory implies causality can be violated. If you really want to know what I was trying to get at with my point, I'll be happy to explain as you seem to be quite smart despite your lack of manners. But if you already know, by some feat of magic, everything there is to know about me, then let this be our last attempt at dialogue.

(PS: emoticons are like salt: a little of it is wonderful, a lot is just disgusting)

[lyapunov]

If everything we do is a result of atoms interacting under the laws of physics, I don't see any reasonable way we could be said to be in control, in that we could have chose to do other than we did.

Do you also believe evolution is part of the law of physics? Or would they be perfectly happy to exist without any evolution at all?

I mean, if there is an inherent selection mechanism, why wouldn't there be an equally inherent mechanism to be able to bend the rules slightly by behaving randomly (by design or by error), which would normally lead to destruction but occasionally isn't, and keep any bonus find (serendipity)?

If you look at scientific progress, there are oodles of instances where the final product is (at least) as much a result of random trial and error as intentional design.

I find most people tend to forget that memory is a very strong tool against repetition, too. Both in the sense of being able to remember errors and good practice, but also in the sense that by starting with a clean slate, as every human has to do up to a point, gives the opportunity for novelty.

Just my two eurocents. :smile:

[StatusX]

I thought that should be simple enough. The conscious mind can perfectly have power over matter if the mind is also made of matter, just like a 150 lb. driver can impose his will on a 40 ton truck.

All atoms have equal standing. We only say the man is driving the truck because we know the particular arrangement of atoms in that man allow him to do complicated, intelligent tasks like drive, but the atoms themselves are nothing special.

My position is that concepts only have meaning if both the concept and its opposite exist, not only as concepts but also as real entities. For instance, the concept "man" is only meaningful because it is the opposite of "woman". If every human being were described as "man", we would have no way to know what "woman" means, even if we defined it as "the opposite of man". Such a definition is meaningless if it has no counterpart in reality.


If we can imagine a concept, it is valid. Why place unnecesary restrictions on our thought?


The opposite of freedom is constraint, and it is wrong to argue that either "freedom" or "constraint" can be meaningful if its opposite doesn't exist. That is, if the universe is all deterministic, then the concept of determinism is meaningless. Likewise for freedom. As such, out of logical necessity both freedom and constraint must be real in order to be meaningful. This is a very powerful line of reasoning as it allows us to know for sure that both freedom and constraint can be found in reality, and the only task left is to find out exactly what the two concepts mean.

I don't know about powerful. Maybe a better word would be "useless". Determinism and freedom are both meaningful concepts, and the question of which one accurately describes the universe is a valid one. I can't imagine what you mean by both concepts being "real" in any stronger sense then as abstract tools to help us describe reality. In that sense, every concept is real. Do you think numbers exist? Obviously they do, because I'm talking about them right now. " ...if the universe is all deterministic, then the concept of determinism is meaningless" Do you really believe that way of looking at things is helpful?

[StatusX]

I mean, if there is an inherent selection mechanism, why wouldn't there be an equally inherent mechanism to be able to bend the rules slightly by behaving randomly (by design or by error), which would normally lead to destruction but occasionally isn't, and keep any bonus find (serendipity)?


What makes you think the rules are being bent? If you can point out a case where the laws of physics aren't being followed exactly, you should publish it.


If you look at scientific progress, there are oodles of instances where the final product is (at least) as much a result of random trial and error as intentional design.

I find most people tend to forget that memory is a very strong tool against repetition, too. Both in the sense of being able to remember errors and good practice, but also in the sense that by starting with a clean slate, as every human has to do up to a point, gives the opportunity for novelty.


I'm not saying randomness can't contribute to progress, or creativity, or intelligence. I'm saying it can't open the door to free will.

[plover]

If everything is atoms, then "we" are also atoms. Why is it that some atoms cannot be in control of other atoms? And if the behaviour of atoms is not deterministic, what's wrong in saying atoms have free-will?
I don't know what you mean by some atoms not being in control of others.
The conscious mind can perfectly have power over matter if the mind is also made of matter, just like a 150 lb. driver can impose his will on a 40 ton truck.
How is this not begging the question? Okay, so by performing the requisite "driving actions", the atoms in the driver act on the mechanism of the truck to make it stay on the road, and by the requisite electrochemical impulses, the atoms of the driver's brain act on the mechanism of the driver's body to produce the aforementioned "driving actions". These electrochemical impulses are the result of ordinary thermodynamic motions among molecules in a complex biological system constructed without conscious intervention. So where is consciousness or "will" in any of this? You appear to be simply defining them into place—perhaps to correspond with some perceptual experience. Your construction hinges on the meaning of the phrase "in control of", but as far as it goes, there doesn't appear to be any way to distinguish a driver "in control of" a truck and a star "in control of" the bodies which orbit it.

I'm not arguing here in favor of a deterministic view; I'm just noting that your argument, as presented, does not appear to introduce consciousness or "will" as anything more than an a priori conviction.
I mean, if there is an inherent selection mechanism, why wouldn't there be an equally inherent mechanism to be able to bend the rules slightly by behaving randomly (by design or by error), which would normally lead to destruction but occasionally isn't, and keep any bonus find (serendipity)?
While this introduces consciousness as the result of a selection process, i.e. provides a role for consciousness, I don't see how it really does any more than the previous construction to provide a meaningful way to distinguish being "in control" from a deterministic process.
My position is that concepts only have meaning if both the concept and its opposite exist, not only as concepts but also as real entities.
Well, concepts, of necessity, are defined relationally, i.e. a given concept is what it is only because it is not a whole bunch of other concepts. But trying to work out this kind of idea based on some idea of "opposites" seems absurd. What's the "opposite" of the Pythagorean theorem? Does one arrive at better sense of the idea of "love" by knowing it is the "opposite" of "hate", or by knowing the distinctions between "love", "affection", "adoration" and "admiration"? Also, what do you mean when you distinguish between "concepts" and "real entities"? I'm not saying there's no difference, but without a definition that's more specific than whatever intuitive sense of that distinction a given person brings to the discussion, there's no way to know just how your construction is supposed to operate on things like e.g. love or the Pythagorean theorem.
This is also why I criticize Doctordick's attempt to deny the reality of causality.
I can only assume that you are referring to Doctordick's statement that "it is a very important aspect of Einstein's theory that this reordering does not ever violate the issue of causality". If so, you either misread or do not understand his point. What Doctordick is referring to here is that it is integral to Relativity Theory that events which (whether or not they actually are) could be causally related (which to a physicist means: in sufficient spacetime proximity that a lightspeed signal could travel from one to the other) are not seen out of order by observers in any frame of reference. Relativity theory in no sense whatsoever denies the "reality of causality". However, it is only events which can not affect each other for which the reference frame affects the order in which they are observed.

[loseyourname]

You know, we're getting into Hume territory here. We're being presented with two options in this thread: (1) The universe is deterministic and, given the initial state of being that we had, no event that occurs could have occured differently. (2) The universe is not deterministic. Some events are utterly random and cannot be completely entailed by past events.

How exactly does either of these options leave room for free will? If we accept (1), then we are saying every action we take is the determined result of past events and so we are not free to act otherwise. If we accept (2), then we are saying that some of our actions might be the result of no cause whatsoever. In some sense, I suppose these actions can be called free, but can they really be called willed events? How can you be said to be in control of a completely random event?

[selfAdjoint]

You know, we're getting into Hume territory here. We're being presented with two options in this thread: (1) The universe is deterministic and, given the initial state of being that we had, no event that occurs could have occured differently. (2) The universe is not deterministic. Some events are utterly random and cannot be completely entailed by past events.

How exactly does either of these options leave room for free will? If we accept (1), then we are saying every action we take is the determined result of past events and so we are not free to act otherwise. If we accept (2), then we are saying that some of our actions might be the result of no cause whatsoever. In some sense, I suppose these actions can be called free, but can they really be called willed events? How can you be said to be in control of a completely random event?

Well exactly. That's why there's so much fuss about these results! If they hold up, it's hard to see any reasonable way for free will to be saved. Compatabilism, including the involuted form that Dennett was plugging in Freedom Evolves seems to be the only way to save Truth, Justice, and the American Way.

[lyapunov]

[1] What makes you think the rules are being bent? If you can point out a case where the laws of physics aren't being followed exactly, you should publish it.

[2] I'm not saying randomness can't contribute to progress, or creativity, or intelligence. I'm saying it can't open the door to free will.

[1] Bent in the sense that if you keep the normal downward flow of entropy in mind, life has quite a distinct knack of trying to violate that trend. I also acknowledge that on a larger scale the 2nd law does not get violated, I'm not trying to go outside physics here in any way, but you will have to grant that there is a difference between just going with the flow and going against it.

[2] Ah, but if one extreme is not likely, how about the other end? Would you say on the contrary that everything is predetermined to the last iota? That would imply quite a few hard nuts to crack too, in my opinion.

[lyapunov]

While this introduces consciousness as the result of a selection process, i.e. provides a role for consciousness, I don't see how it really does any more than the previous construction to provide a meaningful way to distinguish being "in control" from a deterministic process.

They once performed an experiment on our close cousins, the chimpanzee, where they gave shocks to the animal with timed intervals. The animal developed stress syndrome with ulcers etc pretty quickly.

Then they gave the next batch a button to call this shock upon themselves, which hurt equally, but was by their own hand. If they failed to press the button, they would still get the 'normal' timed shock, so no cheating there.

Amazingly, the chimps that could decide to press the button, never developed such extreme stress syndrome with ulcers and all.

So what is control, indeed. It apparently can make a great deal of difference, but how to measure its existence, or degree...

[Tournesol]

As the links make clear, Libet's own defense of free will is that the individual can "veto" the brain's action after it has begun and before the actual physical action begins. This seems to me as much sheer desperate invocation of magic as every other explanation of strong free will.

Libet's "free-won't" is not a purely theoretical posit, it is based on evidence
where readiness potentials occur, but actions do not. You are also
overlooking objections based on timing (as given by Dennett in Freedom Evolves), and making the "no tactical input, therefore no strategic input"
assumption. (Even if conscious thought is not involved in momen-by-monment
decision making,it could still set the 'policy' by which unconscious reflexes
happen. Bosses are still said to run their companies, even though they
often do not know about the decisions of their subordinates until after
they have happenned).

[StatusX]

[1] Bent in the sense that if you keep the normal downward flow of entropy in mind, life has quite a distinct knack of trying to violate that trend. I also acknowledge that on a larger scale the 2nd law does not get violated, I'm not trying to go outside physics here in any way, but you will have to grant that there is a difference between just going with the flow and going against it.

The second law of thermodynamics isn't a law at all, but a statistical trend. Every single interaction in a living thing obeys the laws of physics, and as you noted yourself, the second law is not violated if you include its waste. You seem to think the laws of physics are like civil laws, and the atoms mainly follow them but sometimes get a little rebellious. They are always followed.


[2] Ah, but if one extreme is not likely, how about the other end? Would you say on the contrary that everything is predetermined to the last iota? That would imply quite a few hard nuts to crack too, in my opinion.

Quantum uncertainty puts an inherent limit on how well we can predict the future, so no, not everything is predetermined. But I don't see your point. What extreme?

[Tournesol]

If everything is atoms, then "we" are also atoms. Why is it that some atoms cannot be in control of other atoms? And if the behaviour of atoms is not deterministic, what's wrong in saying atoms have free-will?

Probably because FW needs to be distinguished from mere randomness--
it must include things like being able to rationally count for your actions.
The question is whether a complex system like the brain can utilise
randomness to obtain "elbow-room" (the ability to have done otherwise)
without sacrificing rationallity. Given the limits on de-facto rationallity,
Ithink the answer is yes.

[selfAdjoint]

Libet's "free-won't" is not a purely theoretical posit, it is based on evidence
where readiness potentials occur, but actions do not. You are also
overlooking objections based on timing (as given by Dennett in Freedom Evolves), and making the "no tactical input, therefore no strategic input"
assumption. (Even if conscious thought is not involved in momen-by-monment
decision making,it could still set the 'policy' by which unconscious reflexes
happen. Bosses are still said to run their companies, even though they
often do not know about the decisions of their subordinates until after
they have happenned).


Yes, Dennett says things like that in Freedom Evolves too, but I am not persuaded. Bosses cannot foresee everything, nor can consciousnesses. Did I issue my general ukase yesterday that I should be hitting these keys today? Or when? Strategy without tactics and "boots on the ground" is just gas.

[lyapunov]

[1] The second law of thermodynamics isn't a law at all, but a statistical trend. Every single interaction in a living thing obeys the laws of physics, and as you noted yourself, the second law is not violated if you include its waste. You seem to think the laws of physics are like civil laws, and the atoms mainly follow them but sometimes get a little rebellious. They are always followed.



[2] Quantum uncertainty puts an inherent limit on how well we can predict the future, so no, not everything is predetermined. But I don't see your point. What extreme?

Oh, I see that. I'm a true believer in physics fascism vs. democracy. :rofl:

Seriously, if it is a statistical trend, we still try to go against the stream, I hope you will grant me *that*, at least. We'll do anything to try and prevent its effects, high and low. Now why would that be?

[2] The extremes of Free Will and Total Predetermination. I seriously think that if you are consequent about determinism, and see no role for Free Will, you should not accept (even temporarily) the uncertainties of Quantum Mechanics. That would be just a lack of knowledge, for now. Free Will can only be ruled out if the opposite reigns supreme.

Otherwise you would create a kind of region where Blind Fate would rule, and I think that would be equally unacceptable as a solid scientific concept as Free Will is now.

Some people say it straight-up: randomness, even quantum, does not really exist:

http://peabody.vanderbilt.edu/depts/tandl/mted/thompson/PDFversions/PME02Randomness.pdf&e=9847

[Doctordick]

Yes, Dennett says things like that in Freedom Evolves too, but I am not persuaded. Bosses cannot foresee everything, nor can consciousnesses. Did I issue my general ukase yesterday that I should be hitting these keys today? Or when? Strategy without tactics and "boots on the ground" is just gas.Ah, but cannot evolution create built in rules of behavior? Deer run when they are startled and possums collapse. Now it is pretty well accepted that behavior like that leads to successful survival and very few would attribute it to free will. Now businesses are under exactly the same kinds of pressures; some survive and some don't. From what I have observed, businesses where the bosses tell the employees, "I don't care, do what ever you want!", don't seem to survive as well as those where the bosses are more involved. :tongue:

My point is, why is it necessary to invent this concept "free will" in order to justify the success of those who "squink" (http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?p=469169#post469169) they have it? There are very complex things going on here! Perhaps "free will" is no more than a label which is eminently suitable to specify a characteristic behavior (i.e., a very complex dependence on circumstance) which is quite successful. :rofl:

Have fun -- Dick

[StatusX]

Seriously, if it is a statistical trend, we still try to go against the stream, I hope you will grant me *that*, at least. We'll do anything to try and prevent its effects, high and low. Now why would that be?

What are you talking about? Grant you what? I'm saying everything in the universe, living or not, obeys the laws of physics. You can read whatever you want into the fact that life exists. Maybe there was intelligent design. But if so, the "design" was making the laws of physics what they are, which allowed life to flourish.

The extremes of Free Will and Total Predetermination. I seriously think that if you are consequent about determinism, and see no role for Free Will, you should not accept (even temporarily) the uncertainties of Quantum Mechanics. That would be just a lack of knowledge, for now. Free Will can only be ruled out if the opposite reigns supreme.

This is wrong. Just because there isn't total predetermination, that doesn't mean the undecided portion is up to our will. It's completely random, like I've said.

[lyapunov]

[1] You can read whatever you want into the fact that life exists. Maybe there was intelligent design. But if so, the "design" was making the laws of physics what they are, which allowed life to flourish.



[2] This is wrong. Just because there isn't total predetermination, that doesn't mean the undecided portion is up to our will. It's completely random, like I've said.

[1] Before we stomp off in search of 'intelligent design' or introduce anthropic principles, I'd really like to know why life does not give up the ghost willingly, ever. We could just accept our fate right from the start and give in to our eventual fate. We don't, and with a vengeance. Why? That's all I ask.

[2] OK, let's see. I must say your position is one I do not encounter often. Most see it through to the bitter end and renounce true randomness. Mmm.

But if a portion is undecided, like you say, or guided by Blind Fate, as I did earlier, what's preventing us from trying to outguess or outsmart it? Successfully, even? I mean, we're not doomed to eternal blissful ignorance, I hope? I see 'progress' as a distinct possibility, which would also be ruled out, wouldn't it?

(BTW my 'devil' quotes are not to troll or anything, I use them if I think a term is in itself something open to debate - hope you can be comfy with that)

[Doctordick]

We could just accept our fate right from the start and give in to our eventual fate. We don't, and with a vengeance. Why? That's all I ask.Why??? Because those who behave that way make very little contribution to the population. :rofl: :biggrin: :rofl:

Have fun -- Dick

[StatusX]

But if a portion is undecided, like you say, or guided by Blind Fate, as I did earlier, what's preventing us from trying to outguess or outsmart it? Successfully, even? I mean, we're not doomed to eternal blissful ignorance, I hope? I see 'progress' as a distinct possibility, which would also be ruled out, wouldn't it?

How exactly would you outsmart quantum uncertainty? I don't even know where to begin explaining what's wrong with that. And again, we're not talking about progress, we're talking about free will.

[Math Is Hard]

There's still something bugging me. If we think about the original experiment, a patient has been instructed to record a memory of a picture that is shown at the same time he/she decides to perform an action.
In advance of the experiment, the patient has already decided to perform an action at random intervals. This is a free choice to decide to perform these actions and was made by the patient before the experiment began. The patient could have decided not to do anything. I don't see any conflict with free will because of this. There was some thought, planning, and decision making that occured before the action took place - and it was before the experiment even began.

Here is another interesting finding from neuroscience that I came across today that I thought you folks might enjoy (this may or may not be relevant - just thought it was intriguing):

The same part of the brain activates whether performing or observing an action. (http://newsroom.ucla.edu/page.asp?RelNum=5903)

[Tournesol]

Yes, Dennett says things like that in Freedom Evolves too, but I am not persuaded. Bosses cannot foresee everything, nor can consciousnesses. Did I issue my general ukase yesterday that I should be hitting these keys today? Or when? Strategy without tactics and "boots on the ground" is just gas.

All that mean is that the system would be imperfect and "you" would be sometimes do things
unconsciously that "you", consciously, don't approve of. But then the
the system is imperfect and "you" will sometimes do things
unconsciously that "you", consciously, don't approve of.
What do you mean by "strategy without tactics" ? The tactics are supplied
by unconscius reflexes, following consious "policy". What would be the alternative ? Making a fully consious choice about every keystroke ?
That would be just as inefficient as a company where the president
takes every phone call and types every letter.

[Tournesol]

My point is, why is it necessary to invent this concept "free will" in order to justify the success of those who "squink" (http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?p=469169#post469169) they have it?

The simplest explanation for why people think they have it is that they
do in fact have it.

There are very complex things going on here! Perhaps "free will" is no more than a label which is eminently suitable to specify a characteristic behavior (i.e., a very complex dependence on circumstance) which is quite successful. :rofl:

Why can't FW be both what it is traditionally assumed to be and a "succesful behaviour" ?

[Tournesol]

This is wrong. Just because there isn't total predetermination, that doesn't mean the undecided portion is up to our will. It's completely random, like I've said.

Just because there is a undetermined ingredient to decision-making does not mean the whole thing is random -- any more than random mutation means evolution as a whole is random.

[lyapunov]

How exactly would you outsmart quantum uncertainty? I don't even know where to begin explaining what's wrong with that.

Maybe take a look at this, then (.pdf, bit slow download):

http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/CDMTCS/researchreports/248cris.pdf

because quantum randomness is not so clear-cut as you seem to think.

[Doctordick]

Why can't FW be both what it is traditionally assumed to be and a "succesful behaviour" ?Ok! Presume that is possible and give me a single consequence (other than the "feel good about it" attitude the concept produces) that you can "squink" (http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?p=469169#post469169) up. And that "squat" (http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?p=469169#post469169) we can think about. :rofl:

Have fun -- Dick

[antfm]

I'm probably wrong about my understanding of Libet's experiment. But from what I understand it measures the delay between neuronal readiness to perform an action and the thought of having the intention to perform it. Perhaps the experiment is showing a gap betwwen two different features of consciousness, one of the "raw consciousness", so to say, of some event and the other of the "thought consciousness" or thinking process about that event. What I mean is that being conscious of our action might not exactly mean being thinking of them.
As an example, if you asked me how I walked home today after work, I should admit that I was not thinking about it when I just walked. I wonder if this, as many other actions along the day that one performs without "thinking of them" have someting to do with this Libet's effect.

[lyapunov]

How exactly would you outsmart quantum uncertainty?

Step by step. Here's some more fun: :smile:

http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/releases/qubits.htm

[Tournesol]

Ok! Presume that is possible and give me a single consequence (other than the "feel good about it" attitude the concept produces) that you can "squink" (http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?p=469169#post469169) up. And that "squat" (http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?p=469169#post469169) we can think about. :rofl:


if we did not have FW we would have two options

1) to solve problems by some a-priori pre-programmed instinct

2) not to solve them at all

With FW, we have the further option to

3) Solve problems by trial-and-error experimentation

(which is an also an example of a succesful strategy, or rather meta-strategy).

You could claim that we can solve problems with strategies we learn
from our elders, rather than intinctively, but such strategies have to originate
from somewhere, so this is a variation on (3)

[selfAdjoint]

if we did not have FW we would have two options

1) to solve problems by some a-priori pre-programmed instinct

2) not to solve them at all

With FW, we have the further option to

3) Solve problems by trial-and-error experimentation

(which is an also an example of a succesful strategy, or rather meta-strategy).

You could claim that we can solve problems with strategies we learn
from our elders, rather than intinctively, but such strategies have to originate
from somewhere, so this is a variation on (3)

Not at all. Our brains, even if deterministic,, can have access to a pseudorandom number generator, which will stand in for a fair coin toss for all
practical purposes, and thus randomized strategies become available. Computer systems, which I don't suppose you consider to have free will, do this all the time. See genetic programming, monte carlo simulation, etc. etc.

[Doctordick]

With FW, we have the further option to

3) Solve problems by trial-and-error experimentationNow please explain why FW is neccessary to solve problems by "trial-and-error"? :confused: To my mind "trial-and-error" is the very definition of evolutionary elimination of failure. :rofl:

Have fun -- Dick

[Tournesol]

Not at all. Our brains, even if deterministic,, can have access to a pseudorandom number generator, which will stand in for a fair coin toss for all
practical purposes, and thus randomized strategies become available. Computer systems, which I don't suppose you consider to have free will, do this all the time. See genetic programming, monte carlo simulation, etc. etc.

It all depends what you mean by FW. For compatiblists like Dennett, PRN's are enough. OTOH, there is objective evidene of real randomness, and the
subjective feeling of elbow room -- why not use th eone to explain the other ?

[Tournesol]

Now please explain why FW is neccessary to solve problems by "trial-and-error"?

You need some way of settling what to do next in the absence of a pre-programmed methodology. Whether that is 'real' FW is matter of defintion -- see my other reply.

To my mind "trial-and-error" is the very definition of evolutionary elimination of failure.
Have fun -- Dick

Well, I was suggesting that FW is an evolutionary [ meta] strategey, asn't I?

[selfAdjoint]

It all depends what you mean by FW. For compatiblists like Dennett, PRN's are enough. OTOH, there is objective evidene of real randomness, and the
subjective feeling of elbow room -- why not use th eone to explain the other ?


Well, because there is no real basis for doing so. Strong free will is just a desire we have, and making up reasons for your desires to be true is deluding yourself.

[antfm]

I try again to get some help from someone reading this thread to understand a bit better Libet's experiment. My doubt is the delay it is actually measuring, as I said in earler post.
I guess it is a delay between the neuronal firing that indicates the beggining of a, supposedly intentional, action and the thought of having the intention to start that action.
Ok, it seems we start the action half a second before the thought of having the intention to.
But, in my view, perhaps a basic or raw feeling of having the intention is prior to the thought of having that intention. I mean, I can start an action when "I feel like doing something", as language says, which could be before "I think I feel like doing something".
An example: the athlete could start running when he hears the shot, not when he thinks "I've heard the shot" (it would be too late); the athlete starts running half a second before the thought, but not half a second before hearing the shot (otherwise he would be disqualified).
Something like that. I'd appreciate some help. Thanks.

[Tournesol]

Well, because there is no real basis for doing so. Strong free will is just a desire we have,

That isn't even correct as a definiton of FW. The feature of FW that creates problems
with regard to determinism is the ability-to-have-done-otheewise.

and making up reasons for your desires to be true is deluding yourself.

That is back to front. If you have reason to believe FW is impossible (such as
reason to belieive in determinism and to reject compatiblism) , then
you have reason to conclude FW can only be an illusion. But
you are cetainly not entitled to start off on that basis.

[selfAdjoint]

I have strong reason to believe the universe, including ourselves, is random where it isn't deterministic. This, as everybody agrees, destroys free will if we take it seriously and apply it to our conscousness. As a monist I do so. And Libet's experiment stands as an empirical demonstration of it.

[Tournesol]

I have strong reason to believe the universe, including ourselves, is random where it isn't deterministic. This, as everybody agrees, destroys free will if we take it seriously and apply it to our conscousness.

There are a few exceptions to that rule, such as Robert Kane, and yours truly

http://www.geocities.com/peterdjones

[Steve Esser]

I try again to get some help from someone reading this thread to understand a bit better Libet's experiment. My doubt is the delay it is actually measuring, as I said in earler post.
I guess it is a delay between the neuronal firing that indicates the beggining of a, supposedly intentional, action and the thought of having the intention to start that action.
Ok, it seems we start the action half a second before the thought of having the intention to.
But, in my view, perhaps a basic or raw feeling of having the intention is prior to the thought of having that intention. I mean, I can start an action when "I feel like doing something", as language says, which could be before "I think I feel like doing something".
An example: the athlete could start running when he hears the shot, not when he thinks "I've heard the shot" (it would be too late); the athlete starts running half a second before the thought, but not half a second before hearing the shot (otherwise he would be disqualified).
Something like that. I'd appreciate some help. Thanks.
I think we can divide self-consciousness into pre-reflective self-consciousness and reflective or introspective self consciousness. The pre-reflective kind is our mode (probably) a majority of the time, as we are immersed in our activity in the world. Asking the subject to monitor awareness brings things into reflective mode, which it is reasonable to assume introduces some (additional?) delay. Commentators who divide modes simply into conscious and unconscious miss this important nuance.

Now it still is a meaningful result that the self which is felt to exist in our reflective mode can't be responsible for initiating action. To the extent this really is the folk concept of free will, then it seems to be refuted by the evidence.

[antfm]

Thanks, Steve. We meet again. Yes, I totally agree. That is the part I thought that was missed from the usual interpretation of the experiment.

I am not especially interested in saving free will from refutation, but as much as the results of the experiment seem to prove that the folk concept of free will doesn't work, they could also point to the failure of the folk concept of self. As you say, we often dismiss that pre-reflective self-consciousness (and it would be a part of the self)

In the example of the athlete, she knows beforehand that she has to start running when hearing the shot. Start running when she hears it is part of her self behaviour, though it is not perhaps reflective self behaviour.

It is the same, I think, that when we drive in autopilot and in many other daily actions that happen without that reflective aspect. Even so, we claim that our selves are always in charge.

Anyway, I find your explanation very insightful. Thanks.

[loseyourname]

That isn't even correct as a definiton of FW. The feature of FW that creates problems with regard to determinism is the ability-to-have-done-otheewise.

That simply isn't true. An electron in any given state had the option and could-have-done-otherwise, according to quantum mechanics. This hardly means that the electron has free will.

[Tournesol]

That simply isn't true. An electron in any given state had the option and could-have-done-otherwise, according to quantum mechanics. This hardly means that the electron has free will.

That the electron could-have-done otherwise means there is an incompatibility between QM and strict causal deteminism.

That the people could-have-done-otherwise if hey have FW meansthere is an incompatibility between FW and strict causal deteminism.

If you are saying that could-have-done-otherwise is not sufficient for
FW, that would be correct, but I am not maintaining that it is.

[loseyourname]

If you are saying that could-have-done-otherwise is not sufficient for FW, that would be correct, but I am not maintaining that it is.

Yes, that is what I'm saying. Perhaps we should enumerate exactly what we think the sufficient conditions are for a freely willed action in a volitional agent.

[Tournesol]

Yes, that is what I'm saying. Perhaps we should enumerate exactly what we think the sufficient conditions are for a freely willed action in a volitional agent.

1) lack of external compulsion ( a gun pointed at ones head)

2) lack of internal compulsion (addicition) or other interference (sanity)

3) possession of the appropriate faculty of volition in the first place.

(1) and (2) are familiar from legal arguments, which take (3) for granted.

What (3) actually consists of is the philosophical point. Compatiblists and
incompatiblists disagree about whether could-have-done-otherrwise is a necessary
ingredient. Hardly anyone thinks it is sufficient.

[Doctordick]

The question is whether a complex system like the brain can utilise
randomness to obtain "elbow-room" (the ability to have done otherwise)
without sacrificing rationallity. Given the limits on de-facto rationallity,
Ithink the answer is yes.This brings to my mind a simple thought experiment. Suppose I have written a very complex computer program (one might think of virtual war game implementation or maybe even just a chess playing program) where extended computation of possible consequences are implemented at every step and reckoned against some value reference. Now, when the values at a step were equal and the computation power of the machine would be exceeded (or might take too long if all possible paths were followed and please note that such a thing might even occur during the value reckoning phase), suppose we use a random number generator governed by a phenomena within the Heisenberg uncertainty limitation. Now several things happen here. First, I can certainly have the computer print out that final result which yielded the scenario with the highest value (which we could call the computers hoped for final result). Second, I could also have the computer print out the sequence which it went through to reach that final scenario and where his doubts lay (the places he relied on the random number generator or he was "guessing") and finally, the result certainly would not be completely predictable as it depends directly on a number of absolutely random events.

Now the machine will make decisions for reasons it can list. Would one say it has "free will". I think it would at least act as if it had free will.

Have fun -- Dick

[Doctordick]

Why can't FW be both what it is traditionally assumed to be and a "succesful behaviour" ?I think I misunderstood you when you posted this originally. I thought you were asserting that it was exactly "what it is traditionally assumed to be". My position is, "of course, it could be." However, exactly "what it is traditionally assumed to be" needs to be considerably cleaned up before the meaning of the statement is clear.

Have fun -- Dick

[Doctordick]

That is back to front. If you have reason to believe FW is impossible (such as reason to belieive in determinism and to reject compatiblism) , then you have reason to conclude FW can only be an illusion. But you are cetainly not entitled to start off on that basis.Why not?

Have fun -- Dick

[Paul Martin]

Perhaps we should enumerate exactly what we think the sufficient conditions are for a freely willed action in a volitional agent.In my humble and specultive opinion, the sufficient conditions for FW are:
1. A two-way communication link between brain (or robot) and the conscious agent.
2. A working connection between perception-related components of the brain (or robot) and the output side of that link.
3. A working connection between the motor function components of the brain (or robot) and the input side of that link.

The necessary conditions are (again IMHASO):
1. The conscious agent must know that multiple options for action are available.
2. The conscious agent must know at least something about the probabilities of near-term consequences of at least some of the options in case they are acted out.
3. The conscious agent must be able to choose and execute one of the options in the folklore sense of FW.

[Paul Martin]

... I find it baffling - it just doesn't seem possible - and I wondered what your thoughts were on this.For what it's worth, here are my thoughts.

The delay is accounted for by the time it takes for information about the perception of the signal to travel on the link from brain to conscious agent, for the conscious agent to exercise a FW action, and for the signal to execute this action to travel back across the link to the brain. Part of the motor action is the expression of the report that conscious awareness of the stimulus and action has occurred.

What I would suggest people consider when trying to interpret this experiment is the possiblilty that consciousness is not seated in the brain but instead is somewhere that requires a measurable amount of time for a signal to travel between them. For an extreme analogy, think of the brain as the computer on a Mars rover and the conscious agent as the scientist at JPL driving the rover. The signal delay in this case is substantial.

If we perform Libet's experiment on the rover, we will stimulate the on-board computer and measure the reaction time. If the response can be made strictly from the rover without requiring communication with JPL, then this would be equivalent to a reflex action and consciousness would not be involved.

If the stimulation needs conscious attention before an action can be taken, then a round-trip communication with JPL must take place causing a long delay.

To duplicate Libet's "baffling" case, suppose the scientist at JPL wants to initiate some rover action, verify that the action occurred, and then report from the rover to an observer on Mars that the scientist knows that the action took place. The command would be sent to the rover initiating the action. The rover would then transmit back to JPL information about the results of the action. The scientist would then become aware of the action and send the signal back to the rover reporting that the action occurred. The delays involved would be obvious.

[Tournesol]

Why not?

It's begging the question.

[Doctordick]

It's begging the question.It's begging what question? If you are going to go around discounting possibilities, it seems to me that your position is quite closed minded. I certainly do not claim infalible knowledge on any point.

You seem so rational when you talk to others (at least, in the great majority of cases, I find your responces to be quite rational) but your responses to my comments almost always surprise me. The only explantation I can comprehend at the moment is that you just don't understand what I am saying and I don't know where the fault lies.

Totally in the blind --Dick

[Math Is Hard]

For what it's worth, here are my thoughts.

Hi Paul,
Thank you for your thoughts. I'm sorry I have been taking a long time to think through this. I am slow. :redface: I thought about this some this morning just as I was waking and then I got up and drew some diagrams and tried to understand your analogy better.

What I still can't get is that this "conscious agent" that you mentioned seems to be an un/pre/sub conscious (still searching for the right word) agent since it is acting before any processing that occurs in the physical brain. Can we still call it a conscious agent if its commands occur before conscious awareness of giving the instructions?

On another topic: Here is a possibility that I am considering. I send an instruction to the Mars Rover and this algorithm says, "over the next 3 minutes, at random intervals you will turn in a random direction". So consciously I have made the decision that the robot will perform random actions during the time span I have specified. This only happens because I decided it. This is why I don't buy any of these arguments against free will. No matter what the robot randomly chooses to do, it was I who gave the placed the order to act randomly (but in the desired fashion) in the first place.

I'd be happy to hear your thoughts on this. I apologize if I misunderstood any of your comments in my naivete. :redface:

[loseyourname]

In my humble and specultive opinion, the sufficient conditions for FW are:
1. A two-way communication link between brain (or robot) and the conscious agent.
2. A working connection between perception-related components of the brain (or robot) and the output side of that link.
3. A working connection between the motor function components of the brain (or robot) and the input side of that link.

The necessary conditions are (again IMHASO):
1. The conscious agent must know that multiple options for action are available.
2. The conscious agent must know at least something about the probabilities of near-term consequences of at least some of the options in case they are acted out.
3. The conscious agent must be able to choose and execute one of the options in the folklore sense of FW.

What's a "conscious agent" if you define it as necessarily separate from the brain and/or robot? If you take that phrase out of your formulation, the Mars rover meets your standards (unless you're using an experiential, rather than functionalist definition of the verb 'to know').

[moving finger]

The question is whether a complex system like the brain can utilise randomness to obtain "elbow-room" (the ability to have done otherwise)
without sacrificing rationallity. Given the limits on de-facto rationallity,
Ithink the answer is yes.
IMHO, "free will" is not in any way dependent on the presence of randomness.

Perhaps you would care to explain how you can take an agent bereft of free will, and then suddenly endow free will simply by introducing some randomness into it's thought processes?

The idea is a non-starter.

See this thread for a much deeper discussion of the concepts involved :

http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=71281

MF
:smile:

[moving finger]

Sorry to sound like a stuck record, but I've noticed that the debate in this thread revolves around the concepts of "free will" and "consciousness" - but have the participants agreed definitions of these concepts? (I quickly scanned the thread so I apologise if these definitions have been agreed already).

In so many debates I see people taking sides and arguing endlessly against each other, when in fact they are just wasting so much time because they are not defining things the same way.

Can anyone summarise the definitions of "free will" and "consciousness" that are pertinent to this debate?

Cheers!

MF
:smile:

[Tournesol]

It's begging what question?

Let me reconstruct....


That is back to front. If you have reason to believe FW is impossible (such as reason to belieive in determinism and to reject compatiblism) , then you have reason to conclude FW can only be an illusion. But you are cetainly not entitled to start off on that basis.

<<ie not entitled to start off on the basis that FW can only be an illusion>>

Why not?

It's begging the question

<<ie starting of on the basis that FW can only be an illusion is begging the question>>



If you are going to go around discounting possibilities,

Assuming FW must be illusory is discounting possibilities.

[Tournesol]

[QUOTE=moving finger]IMHO, "free will" is not in any way dependent on the presence of randomness.

Perhaps you would care to explain how you can take an agent bereft of free will, and then suddenly endow free will simply by introducing some randomness into it's thought processes?[QUOTE]

How can an agent have FW without the ability to have done otherwise ?

[moving finger]

How can an agent have FW without the ability to have done otherwise ?
Randomness ensures that an outcome is indeterministic. What does this have to do with "free will"?

How does the introduction of an indeterministic outcome suddenly endow "free will" to an agent that was previously bereft of "free will"?

Can you give an example?

MF
:smile:

[Tournesol]

Randomness ensures that an outcome is indeterministic. What does this have to do with "free will"?

It's to do with the ability to have done otherwise .

Again.

[moving finger]

It's to do with the ability to have done otherwise .
But INDETERMINISM DOES NOT ENDOW FREE WILL.

I note that you choose to attempt answers only to the questions that you can answer

I also asked :
How does the introduction of an indeterministic outcome suddenly endow "free will" to an agent that was previously bereft of "free will"?
and :

Can you give an example?
Both of which you ignored.

With respect, Tournesol, it seems obvious to me from your reluctance to provide explanations that you do not understand the problem.

This is why I asked you to give an example of how your “randomness” is supposed to endow an otherwise deterministic agent with “free will”. You have not given such an example (I suspect because you cannot give one).
MF
:smile:

[moving finger]

It's to do with the ability to have done otherwise .
The Libertarian hypothesises that indeterminism is supposed to somehow mysteriously "allow the agent to have done otherwise" - in other words that the action of indeterminism at some stage in the agent's decision-making process somehow (but mysteriously) endows "free will" upon that agent.

Conversely, I suggest that the association of "free will" with indeterminism is erroneous, and the MOST that can ever be accomplished by the introduction of indeterminism anywhere into the agent's decision-making process is ......indeterminism!

Let us try to examine how the Libertarian hypothesis could possibly work.

Let us assume that at a particular point in time an agent is able to follow one of many different possible courses of action, and hence needs to make a very generic decision about "which course of action to follow" from the alternative possibilities available. The Libertarian would say that the agent is able to make a "free will" decision if and only if we can somehow correctly introduce indeterminism into the agent's decision-making process.

Now, if we introduce the indeterminism into the process BEFORE the agent makes a decision (antecedent indeterminism), then this could possibly be translated to "throwing up a different alternative course of action" for the agent to consider in it's decision-making process. But there are in fact no "alternative courses of action" that indeterminism can "throw up" which would not also be accessible to the agent via a purely deterministic process. In other words, a purely deterministic agent would have just as many possible different alternative courses of action available to it as would the agent operating with antecedent indeterminsim.

The introduction of indeterminism BEFORE the moment of the agent's decision does not therefore necessarily lead to a different range of possible alternative courses of action, it simply "introduces indeterminism" into the proceedings prior to the decision-making process and cannot in fact make any difference to the agent's "free will" to choose between the different alternative courses of action.

Now the Libertarian may say therefore that the indeterminism needs to be introduced subsequent to (rather than prior to) the agent's decision-making process. But I hope it is transparently obvious (without me having to explain the details) that any indeterminism in the process subsequent to the agent's decision simply makes the outcome indeterministic, and cannot possibly have any bearing on any free will of the agent during decision making!

Conclusion : There appears to be no way that introducing indeterminism into the agent's decision-making process can actually endow the agent with free will, therefore if an agent does not already possess free will in the absence of indeterminism (as the Libertarian suggests), then no free will is possible. The Libertarian concept of free will is thus inconsistent.

MF
:smile:

[Paul Martin]

What's a "conscious agent" if you define it as necessarily separate from the brain and/or robot? I'm not sure how to parse your question. If you are asking what I mean by "conscious agent", I mean any agent capable of experiencing consciousness as I experience it.

If you are asking whether I require that the conscious agent necessarily be separate from the brain and/or robot, the answer is "no".

If you take that phrase out of your formulation, the Mars rover meets your standards (unless you're using an experiential, rather than functionalist definition of the verb 'to know'). I'm not sure I know exactly what you mean by the terms 'experiential' and 'functionalist', but when I said "The conscious agent must know..." I meant that it must have the same sort of experience I have when I realize that I know something. I do not consider that a thermometer "knows" the temperature in that same way, nor does the computer "know" my account number in that same way.

If you take the phrase "conscious agent" out of my formulation, you will have obliterated my standards altogether. In my view, a conscious agent is absolutely necessary for the concept of free will to have the meaning I would ascribe to it. No matter how sophisticated an algorithm you might incorporate into a machine, so that it can pass the Turing test, convince Dennett that it is as conscious as he, act and respond like an intelligent human, or better, I would still maintain that it would not have free will unless it actually experienced consciousness the way I do. It would have to meet my three necessary conditions and know what it was doing in order to have free will.

In my view, the Mars rover has free will as long as the JPL scientist is attending to its operation; the free will is just not seated in the rover vehicle. And, in my view, humans have free will as long as they are awake; I just don't think the free will (or the consciousness in general) is seated in the brain.

[Paul Martin]

Thank you for your thoughts. I'm sorry I have been taking a long time to think through this. I am slow. You're welcome. No need to be sorry; I assure you that you are no slower than I am.

What I still can't get is that this "conscious agent" that you mentioned seems to be an un/pre/sub conscious (still searching for the right word) agent since it is acting before any processing that occurs in the physical brain.Before I start, I should point out that my views are very different from those of most other people. So be careful if you try to reconcile what I say with other things you read.

I would suggest that you call off your search for the right word. I think we are heading for trouble whenever we think that words are magic and that if we only pick the right one, everything will become clear.

I think the notion of free will is that you can do something you want to do, if and when you decide to do it.

Now that statement is loaded with words we need to pick apart too so we don't get into trouble. First, I used the term 'you' to identify the actor in this scenario. We are making an assumption we should acknowledge if we consider that the actor, "you", is the same in all three actions. In my view, that is a bad assumption. I think that "you" are composed of two separable entities: Your consciousness, and your physical body/brain. If you don't acknowledge that separation, then my analogy won't make sense.

There are three different kinds of "action" going on here: "wanting", "deciding", and "doing". Since your concern has to do with timing let's consider the sequence of events. I think you would agree that wanting, deciding, and doing should occur in that order, even though some actions like impulse buying might interchange some of them.

But, as I listed in my necessary conditions for free will, in order to really be a free will action, at least the "deciding", and "doing" must be accompanied by conscious knowing. (The "wanting" may be below the conscious radar in some "un/pre/sub consciousness".) So the question is, where does the "knowing" fit into the sequence of "deciding" and "doing"? It may fit in several places. You may know you want to do something long before you do it. Or, you may not consciously know you want to even though you decide to do it. Then if you actually make a conscious decision to do the thing, then, by the very nature of consciousness you know you are making the decision all the while during the transition from indecision to decision.

There might be some delay between having made the decision and actually doing the thing. You might have decided to let the action be triggered by some stimulus or you might just go ahead and do it as soon as you decided. At any rate, you know that you are doing it as soon as you do it. And, finally, you probably get some immediate feedback so that you know that you have done it soon afterwards.

All of this "knowing" is going on in consciousness. We shouldn't be hasty in assuming how this knowing correlates with brain functions, or "processing that occurs in the physical brain" as you put it.

The whole point of my Mars rover analogy was to clearly separate the functions of consciousness and knowing (resident in the JPL scientist) from the "processing that occurs in the physical brain" (resident in the rover and its on-board computer) and to exaggerate the delays in communication between them. So it is clear, as you say, that the conscious agent is acting before any processing that occurs in the physical brain. But the conscious agent is involved in "knowing" at several points along the process, and there will be a delay in the reporting of any of these incidences of "knowing".

Can we still call it a conscious agent if its commands occur before conscious awareness of giving the instructions?Keep in mind that in my view conscious awareness occurs only in the conscious agent. The reporting of conscious awareness is a different thing. That would involve the conscious agent deciding to issue a report of the conscious experience and then doing it, along the same lines as we just discussed for doing anything else. Thus there would be a delay between the commands being issued and the reporting of the conscious awareness of the commands being issued. So the commands don't really occur before conscious awareness of giving them.

On another topic: Here is a possibility that I am considering. I send an instruction to the Mars Rover and this algorithm says, "over the next 3 minutes, at random intervals you will turn in a random direction". So consciously I have made the decision that the robot will perform random actions during the time span I have specified. This only happens because I decided it. This is why I don't buy any of these arguments against free will. No matter what the robot randomly chooses to do, it was I who gave the placed the order to act randomly (but in the desired fashion) in the first place.I think there are two things going on here that are pretty easy to separate: a willful action and a random action. This is the same as me deciding to flip a coin. The decision to flip and the action of flipping are the result of free will on my part. But the result, of a tail or a head, is strictly random and not the result of my will. I don't think this presents any argument for or against free will.

[moving finger]

The necessary conditions are (again IMHASO):
1. The conscious agent must know that multiple options for action are available.
2. The conscious agent must know at least something about the probabilities of near-term consequences of at least some of the options in case they are acted out.
3. The conscious agent must be able to choose and execute one of the options in the folklore sense of FW.

I hope you don’t mind if I suggest that we add a fourth necessary condition (which I know is implicit in your conditions, but here I am making it explicit) :

4. The agent must be conscious.

I would also respectfully suggest (IMHO) that “know” in the above is too strict, and in fact any agent which simply “believes that it knows” has the necessary condions for free will (reasoning : I suggest we can never have infallible foreknowledge, thus in a strict sense it is never possible to infallibly “know” about future options, the best we can do is to believe, or to believe that we know) and the 4 necessary conditions then become :

1. The agent must believe that multiple options for action are available.
2. The agent must know (or believe that it knows) at least something about the probabilities of near-term consequences of at least some of the options in case they are acted out.
3. The agent must be able to choose and execute one of the options in the folklore sense of FW.
4. The agent must be conscious.

Would you agree?

Would you also agree that all of the above necessary conditions are compatible with determinism?

If not, why not?

MF
:smile:

[Telos]

Wow, a potentially very interesting thread became yet another playground for word games on determinism/indeterminism. You would do good to make that discussion more fruitful by focusing on its practical implications.

For instance, what good is restricting the freedom of an individual to be in a particular building for at least 7 hours a day, 5 days a week, 3/4 year, for most of the first two decades of her life? In the same manner what is good about restricting the freedom of her mind to study the same things at the same pace and from the same person?

When you start talking about freedom philosophically, please apply it to something practical. It helps to elucidate what you're talking about.


Now that that's done with, the first time I read about this half-second delay was in Fred Alan Wolf's The Dreaming Universe. (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0684801590/qid=1113577042/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/002-0197621-1734461). The author attributes this delay to mystical phenomenon where our actions are actually guided by the future, therefore, time and space are not what we think they are and blah blah blah blah. He has a Ph.D. in quantum physics, but apparently that doesn't guard him from being slightly off the wall. I think his interpretation is contrived and practically useless, but someone mentioned earlier that he/she would appreciate all links on the subject. Perhaps someone else here could make better use of that book.

[selfAdjoint]

For instance, what good is restricting the freedom of an individual to be in a particular building for at least 7 hours a day, 5 days a week, 3/4 year, for most of the first two decades of her life? In the same manner what is good about restricting the freedom of her mind to study the same things at the same pace and from the same person?

It prepares her to sit in a cubicle for 8 or more hours a day, at least five days a week, for thrity or forty years, in order to earn her living. Unless she spend years cooped up in a house with immature children, which is almost worse!

Did you think we were called into this world to enjoy it?

[Paul Martin]

I hope you don’t mind if I suggest that we add a fourth necessary condition (which I know is implicit in your conditions, but here I am making it explicit) :

4. The agent must be conscious. I don't mind at all. Not only should this condition be included but I think it should be listed as number one. Furthermore, I think we should always use the adjective 'conscious' when mentioning the agent just so we don't lose sight of the important and necessary fact of consciousness.

I would also respectfully suggest (IMHO) that “know” in the above is too strict, and in fact any agent which simply “believes that it knows” has the necessary condions for free will Here I respectfully disagree. I tried to be careful in writing my conditions, and after reviewing them in the light of your suggestion, I stand by what I wrote. In my judgment, the 'ability to know' is the most fundamental of all of the aspects of consciousness. I suspect that most, if not all, the rest can be derived from the ability to know.

I suggest we can never have infallible foreknowledge, thus in a strict sense it is never possible to infallibly “know” about future options I agree with the fallibility of foreknowledge. I agree that in a strict sense it is not possible to infallibly know much if anything about future options. But I insist that the conscious agent must know *that* there are options available in order for there to be free will. If the conscious agent only suspected that there were options, or believed that there were options, then an action might be induced on that basis. But I would disqualify such an action as a free will action and lump it in with coin tosses.

2. The agent must know (or believe that it knows) at least something about the probabilities of near-term consequences of at least some of the options in case they are acted out.I would not agree to weaken this condition by including the parenthetical phrase for the same reason as above. I think I weakened it enough by including the "at least something about" and "at least some of" qualifiers.

Would you agree?No.

Would you also agree that all of the above necessary conditions are compatible with determinism?No. Not also, and not at all.

If not, why not?I am on thin ice here because I am never comfortable with any word ending in "ism". I just don't understand well enough what those words mean, and there is usually a society of specialists who claim ownership of those kinds of words, which together is enough to make me hesitant. But since you asked me, I'll try to answer your question.

First, let me define what I would mean if I were to use the term 'determinism'. To me, determinism means that the evolution of states over which determinism holds can follow only a single course. That is, there can be only one outcome in a deterministic system. In principle, this can be tested by restoring the initial conditions of the system and letting it evolve again. As many times as this is done, the outcome will always be the same.

If my necessary conditions for free will obtain, and you ran this "playback" thought experiment several times, the conscious agent could choose different options for the same conditions in different runs, thus producing different outcomes.

[loseyourname]

I remember reading a paper about a week ago (God, I wish I could remember where I found it) that was talking about this same issue, and how to create a machine that could emulate the apparent freedom of human behavior. You simply create a program that can develop hypotheses based on memory about the outcomes of different courses of action. Based on initial programming along with whatever it has learned through experience, it chooses the course of action that is most desirable. If multiple outcomes are equally desirable or multiple actions will bring about the same outcome, then a random number generator is used to select one arbitrarily.

This machine would display all of the behavior you guys want from a free agent. It weighs options, choosing the best based on its preferences, and it could, in principle, choose differently each time if the possible courses of action make little difference to it. Its behavior would not be any more predictable than human behavior. The only thing it is lacking is consciousness. Do we really want to say that being conscious of your behavior is all that is required for free will? Does that mean a conscious rock would have free will?

[Paul Martin]

This machine would display all of the behavior you guys want from a free agent. Behavior,yes. But behavior is a very unimportant aspect of this topic.
The only thing it is lacking is consciousness.But... that's the only thing that *is* important in a discussion of consciousness. I also happen to think it is the most important thing that exists in the universe, but you don't have to buy into that just yet. Do we really want to say that being conscious of your behavior is all that is required for free will?Not me. I specified earlier in this thread exactly what I think is required for free will, the most important of which necessary conditions is consciousness.
Does that mean a conscious rock would have free will?It would if and only if it met the other necessary conditions. The one about being able to execute a willful action would be the one where the rock would probably fail.

[Paul Martin]

Did you think we were called into this world to enjoy it?You didn't ask me, but I'll give you my answer to your question anyway. Yes. I think we were called into this world to enjoy it. I think there are three other reasons as well: To create new things to enjoy, To help others enjoy, and to figure out how it all works.

I think each of us has some in-born compulsion to do some weighted combination of these things, the weightings varying quite a bit from individual to individual.

You had to ask.

[kcballer21]

As the links make clear, Libet's own defense of free will is that the individual can "veto" the brain's action after it has begun and before the actual physical action begins. This seems to me as much sheer desperate invocation of magic as every other explanation of strong free will.
I would be interested to know what you mean by this. I agree with your general idea, and I was thinking that the 'veto power' is itself nothing more than an action of the brain, and therefore subject to the delay. Can't we say that the veto action also needs a readiness potential? And that the physical expression of that particular readiness potential (for the veto) is the supression of some former readiness potential (perhaps remaining motionless instead of throwing a punch)? This would support the illusion, but wouldn't Libet have thought of this?

[selfAdjoint]

I would be interested to know what you mean by this. I agree with your general idea, and I was thinking that the 'veto power' is itself nothing more than an action of the brain, and therefore subject to the delay. Can't we say that the veto action also needs a readiness potential? And that the physical expression of that particular readiness potential (for the veto) is the supression of some former readiness potential (perhaps remaining motionless instead of throwing a punch)? This would support the illusion, but wouldn't Libet have thought of this?

Well I have no problem with at least conjecturing that kind of thing subject to experimental investigation. But the point of Libet's expressed veto was that it be non-deterministic, that it have no explainable chain of causes. And as others have pointed out, that is really an incoherent desire.

[loseyourname]

Behavior,yes. But behavior is a very unimportant aspect of this topic.

What the heck? We're discussing whether or not actions are free. Are actions not a form of behavior? Don't you agree that being free to control your behavior against deterministic outputs should be manifested somehow in your behavior? Could a being with no behavior be free? Free to do what? It couldn't do anything.

But... that's the only thing that *is* important in a discussion of consciousness.

But . . . this is a discussion of free will, at least at this point. It isn't a discussion of consciousness. In order to make it a discussion of consciousness, we'll have to first conclude that no non-conscious being could ever have free will. Presumably this is because consciousness in this conception is a causal agent that is non-deterministic yet not competely random. So what does that mean? We're just back at step one. Saying something is free because it is conscious doesn't solve anything. Is conciousness an uncaused cause? Some kind of agent that makes decisions out of the blue according to no set of rules?

I also happen to think it is the most important thing that exists in the universe, but you don't have to buy into that just yet.

What is meant by 'important.' It's certainly important to me. Without it, I wouldn't have much else going for me.

Not me. I specified earlier in this thread exactly what I think is required for free will, the most important of which necessary conditions is consciousness. It would if and only if it met the other necessary conditions. The one about being able to execute a willful action would be the one where the rock would probably fail.

So what about our super Mars Rover, complete with learning software and a random number generator. Let's say that it is also designed in such a way that it is conscious. Its actions are still dictated by the same set of dynamic rules and random output and its behavior is exactly the same. Is it then free?

[moving finger]

Here I respectfully disagree. I tried to be careful in writing my conditions, and after reviewing them in the light of your suggestion, I stand by what I wrote. In my judgment, the 'ability to know' is the most fundamental of all of the aspects of consciousness. I suspect that most, if not all, the rest can be derived from the ability to know.
Then I believe there is a fundamental problem with your concept of free will.
By "the agent knows" (as opposed to "the agent believes that it knows") I assume that you mean "the agent knows infallibly"? ie that the agent's knowledge is guaranteed to be 100% absolutely correct with no possibility of it being wrong?
I believe that such infallible epistemic "knowledge" is in principle not possible for an agent. IMHO therefore this "necessary condition" could never be met.

I agree with the fallibility of foreknowledge. I agree that in a strict sense it is not possible to infallibly know much if anything about future options. But I insist that the conscious agent must know *that* there are options available in order for there to be free will.
This to me seems a contradiction.
Part of the "foreknowledge" of a future option is actually to "know whether it will be available or not". If infallible foreknowledge of future options is not possible (as you agree), then it seems to me that it follows trivially that the agent cannot know infallibly whether any particular future option will be available or not, ie it cannot know infallibly *that* there are options available. It can "believe that it knows" (I agree), but it cannot “know infallibly”.

If the conscious agent only …. believed that there were options, then an action might be induced on that basis. But I would disqualify such an action as a free will action …...
Such an action may indeed not qualify as free will under your definition of free will, but your definition is not the only possible definition, and as I said above I do not see how your necessary condition (2) can ever be met if you insist on infallible knowledge.

I would not agree to weaken this condition by including the parenthetical phrase for the same reason as above. I think I weakened it enough by including the "at least something about" and "at least some of" qualifiers.
My same reply as above.

I am on thin ice here because I am never comfortable with any word ending in "ism". I just don't understand well enough what those words mean, and there is usually a society of specialists who claim ownership of those kinds of words, which together is enough to make me hesitant.
OK, please rest assured I am not trying to pull any “tricks” here. Let me provide my definition of determinism :

Definition of Determinism : The universe, or any self-contained part thereof, is said to be evolving deterministically if it has only one possible state at time t1 which is consistent with its state at some previous time t0 and with all the laws of nature.

But since you asked me, I'll try to answer your question.

First, let me define what I would mean if I were to use the term 'determinism'. To me, determinism means that the evolution of states over which determinism holds can follow only a single course. That is, there can be only one outcome in a deterministic system. In principle, this can be tested by restoring the initial conditions of the system and letting it evolve again. As many times as this is done, the outcome will always be the same.
OK, I believe my definition agrees completely with this.

If my necessary conditions for free will obtain, and you ran this "playback" thought experiment several times, the conscious agent could choose different options for the same conditions in different runs, thus producing different outcomes.
Interesting.
Why do you say the agent “could choose different options for the same conditions in different runs”?

And is what you say here derived logically from your stated definition of free will and necessary conditions for free will (in which case can you show how it follows), or is it simply an intuitive feeling that you have?

Some things to ponder on :
If the world is operating deterministically then the agent is also covered by this, hence it follows that the agent could NOT in fact "choose different options for the same conditions in different runs".

Thus if you are suggesting that the agent can "choose different options for the same conditions in different runs" this would seem to imply that the world (at least the part that is concerned with the agent's choice) is not operating deterministically.

But if the agent's choice is not determinisitic, then what is it? Indeterministic?

Would you care to explain how the introduction of indeterminism into the agent's method of choice endows that agent with "free will"?

Thanks!

MF
:smile:

[moving finger]

Did you think we were called into this world to enjoy it?
I must be deaf, I never heard any call! :biggrin:

MF
:smile:

[moving finger]

I remember reading a paper about a week ago ....... how to create a machine that could emulate the apparent freedom of human behavior. You simply create a program that can develop hypotheses based on memory about the outcomes of different courses of action. Based on initial programming along with whatever it has learned through experience, it chooses the course of action that is most desirable. If multiple outcomes are equally desirable or multiple actions will bring about the same outcome, then a random number generator is used to select one arbitrarily.

This machine would display all of the behavior you guys want from a free agent. It weighs options, choosing the best based on its preferences, and it could, in principle, choose differently each time if the possible courses of action make little difference to it. Its behavior would not be any more predictable than human behavior.
Interesting.
All of what has been described above about free will in a machine (allowing for some woolliness in the language) I can see as being entirely compatible with a deterministic world.

The only thing it is lacking is consciousness. Do we really want to say that being conscious of your behavior is all that is required for free will? Does that mean a conscious rock would have free will?
It’s not suggested that being "conscious of your behaviour" is all that is required – read the “necessary conditions” posts above.

Show me a conscious rock, and if it also meets the other necessary conditions, then I'll show you a rock with free will. :biggrin:

MF

:smile:

[moving finger]

the point of Libet's expressed veto was that it be non-deterministic, that it have no explainable chain of causes. And as others have pointed out, that is really an incoherent desire.
That's a euphemism if ever there was one!

Let's call a spade a spade. If the veto is "non-deterministic" then this is the same as saying it is "random" or "indeterministic".

"Incoherent desire" is therefore a sugar-coated "random event".

MF
:smile:

[moving finger]

So what about our super Mars Rover, complete with learning software and a random number generator. Let's say that it is also designed in such a way that it is conscious. Its actions are still dictated by the same set of dynamic rules and random output and its behavior is exactly the same. Is it then free?
Whether it is acting with "free will" depends on your chosen definition of "free will" and (importantly) whether that definition is self-consistent or not (ie free will defined in a non-self-consistent way simply cannot exist, no matter how intuitively "right" it feels).

I'll show you mine if you show me yours.

MF
:smile:

[Paul Martin]

Then I believe there is a fundamental problem with your concept of free will.Good. I am eager to examine any beliefs that challenge my own beliefs. I figure that is the best way to change my own beliefs, if they are due for a change, to bring them closer to the truth. Let's have a look.

I assume that you mean "the agent knows infallibly"? Yes.

ie that the agent's knowledge is guaranteed to be 100% absolutely correct with no possibility of it being wrong?Yes, to the 100% part and following. I am not aware of any guarantee, though. I strongly suspect that at least there is not one in writing.

I believe that such infallible epistemic "knowledge" is in principle not possible for an agent. IMHO therefore this "necessary condition" could never be met.I can understand how that belief could lead you to that opinion. And if "such infallible epistemic "knowledge" is in principle not possible for an agent" then I agree that we could logically conclude that my "necessary condition" could not be met.

But I don't share your first belief here. What exactly is the "principle" on which you seem to base it?

This to me seems a contradiction.Yes. And I think I see reason it seems that way.

Part of the "foreknowledge" of a future option is actually to "know whether it will be available or not".The reason there seems to be a contradiction is that our definitions of 'foreknowledge' are inconsistent. Here you claim that knowledge of whether the option is available is part of foreknowledge. I specifically excluded that knowledge from being part of foreknowledge. Here's what I said:

I agree that in a strict sense it is not possible to infallibly know much if anything about future options. But I insist that the conscious agent must know *that* there are options available in order for there to be free will.

then it seems to me that it follows trivially that the agent cannot know infallibly whether any particular future option will be available or not, ie it cannot know infallibly *that* there are options available. It can "believe that it knows" (I agree), but it cannot “know infallibly”.It seems that way to you because you are using your definition of 'foreknowledge'. Since we are working on understanding my sufficient conditions, I must respectfully ask you to consider them using my definition for 'foreknowledge'. Otherwise my intent will be hopelessly confused and lost. Using my definition, the conscious agent can "know infallibly" that it has options.

Here's how I would sum up my view of this in plain words: The conscious agent could truthfully say the following about some free-will choice: "I know I can pick. I don't exactly know how to pick, and I don't know exactly what will happen if I pick. But I know I can pick." I say that the conscious agent has free will if and only if he/she can truthfully say something like that about a particular choice of action.


My same reply as above.As is mine, although I should explain that when I said "don't exactly know" I mean that at least something must be infallibly known.

OK, I believe my definition agrees completely with this.Yes, I think we see eye-to-eye as to what determinism is.

Where we might differ is in the identification of exactly what is deterministic and what is not. As I have said many times, but since it doesn't seem to take so it bears repeating, in my view reality consists of a conscious agent which has free will, and the thoughts of that conscious agent. Those thoughts constitute the *rest of* reality; it is the mysterious Void filled with nothing and at the same time physical universes.

So, in my view, free will inheres only in the conscious agent (hence the absolute requirement for consciousness in my conditions). The "rest of" reality, the universe(s), etc. may operate deterministically in part, or some actions within it may be determined by conscious will (always and only exercised by the one conscious agent.)

You can think of this picture as a person sitting at a computer running an implementation of a cellular automaton program. The program allows the person to hit a key at any time during the evolution of the patterns and stop the action, change any cell, and then resume the action. The evolution of the automaton's patterns are deterministic except for those times in which the person deliberately and consciously changes one or more cells. I think that's how reality works.

[moving finger]

if "such infallible epistemic "knowledge" is in principle not possible for an agent" then I agree that we could logically conclude that my "necessary condition" could not be met.

But I don't share your first belief here. What exactly is the "principle" on which you seem to base it?
Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle would be a good starting point – I guess you have heard of it? This principle basically says that the world is indeed epistemically indeterminable. How would you incorporate this principle into your philosophy?

Since you seem to believe that infallible knowledge of possible future options (contrary to Heisenberg) is possible, would you care to give an example of what you consider to be such infallible knowledge?

Part of the "foreknowledge" of a future option is actually to "know whether it will be available or not".
The reason there seems to be a contradiction is that our definitions of 'foreknowledge' are inconsistent. Here you claim that knowledge of whether the option is available is part of foreknowledge.
This issue seems trivial.
Either the choice has not yet been made, and the agent believes choice options to be available, in which case these are “future options”, hence any supposed knowledge about them is knowledge about the future, hence foreknowledge is required.
Or the choice has been made, in which case I agree no foreknowledge is involved, but neither are there any options available (the choice has been made).

I specifically excluded that knowledge from being part of foreknowledge. Here's what I said:

I agree that in a strict sense it is not possible to infallibly know much if anything about future options. But I insist that the conscious agent must know *that* there are options available in order for there to be free will.
With respect, all this achieves is that it includes the precondition “the conscious agent must know *that* there are options available” as part of your definition of free will. You have not actually shown that the precondition “the conscious agent must know *that* there are options available” can be met, you have simply asserted that this precondition needs to be met as part in order to render your definition of free will consistent.

Your definition of free will may be inconsistent.

Using my definition, the conscious agent can "know infallibly" that it has options.
Your agent “can know infallibly” only because you have defined that the agent MUST know infallibly as part of your definition of free will. But defining that the agent MUST know infallibly in order to have free will does not in fact allow us to conclude that the agent CAN know infallibly. In other words, it may be the case that your definition of free will is not consistent (eg if it is not possible for an agent to know infallibly).

An analogy : It is possible to define free will as “the ability of an agent to have chosen differently to what it did actually choose”. It follows from this definition that for an agent to have free will, it must have been able to choose differently from what it did choose. But this does NOT prove that the agent could have chosen differently. All it proves is that IF the agent could have chosen differently then it also could have had free will, whereas if the agent could not have chosen differently then free will (as defined) is not possible.

In summary : What I am suggesting is that free will according to your definition implies EITHER that an agent has infallible knowledge of possible future options (this seems to be your interpretation) OR that free will as you have defined it is not possible (my interpretation, since I do not believe that an agent can have infallible knowledge of possible future actions).

Here's how I would sum up my view of this in plain words: The conscious agent could truthfully say the following about some free-will choice: "I know I can pick. I don't exactly know how to pick, and I don't know exactly what will happen if I pick. But I know I can pick." I say that the conscious agent has free will if and only if he/she can truthfully say something like that about a particular choice of action.

Here is how I would re-phrase your summary in plain words :
The conscious agent could truthfully say the following about some free-will choice: "I believe that I know I can pick. I don't exactly know how to pick, and I don't know exactly what will happen if I pick. But I believe that I know I can pick." I say that the conscious agent has free will if and only if he/she can truthfully say something like that about a particular choice of action.

You can think of this picture as a person sitting at a computer running an implementation of a cellular automaton program. The program allows the person to hit a key at any time during the evolution of the patterns and stop the action, change any cell, and then resume the action. The evolution of the automaton's patterns are deterministic except for those times in which the person deliberately and consciously changes one or more cells. I think that's how reality works.
Unfortunately, though it is clear that the cellular automaton program works deterministically, this does not give a clear idea of how the “person” operates. It seems to me that you have simply moved the problem from one level to another – it is not clear whether the “person” operates deterministically or not. How this free will actually works is still (in your model) a mystery.
MF

:smile:

[loseyourname]

Whether it is acting with "free will" depends on your chosen definition of "free will" and (importantly) whether that definition is self-consistent or not (ie free will defined in a non-self-consistent way simply cannot exist, no matter how intuitively "right" it feels).

I'll show you mine if you show me yours.

MF
:smile:

I don't personally believe in any concept of strong free will. All it means to me for an action to be free is that it is compelled by something internal to my own psyche, rather than by external coercion or pathology.

[moving finger]

I don't personally believe in any concept of strong free will. All it means to me for an action to be free is that it is compelled by something internal to my own psyche, rather than by external coercion or pathology.
I have no idea what you mean by strong free will
(but from the rest of your post I suspect we have some similar beliefs)

May I ask - do you believe your concept of free will is compatible with determinism?
MF
:smile:

[Paul Martin]

Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle would be a good starting point – I guess you have heard of it? This principle basically says that the world is indeed epistemically indeterminable. How would you incorporate this principle into your philosophy?Yes, I have heard of it. I would incorporate it into my philosophy by saying that the Uncertainty Principle applies to the world, which includes the physical universe, human bodies/brains, and the information available to the bodies/brains. I would say that it does not apply to reality as a whole which includes CC in addition to the world.

Since you seem to believe that infallible knowledge of possible future options (contrary to Heisenberg) is possibleNo. You missed the distinction again. I said that I believe infallible knowledge *that* options are available is possible. I admitted that knowledge *of* future options is probably incomplete or wrong.

would you care to give an example of what you consider to be such infallible knowledge?The certain knowledge I have that I can continue typing this response or I can take a break and have lunch. (You should interpret my use of 'I' here as 'TEOPM'. Readers who may be baffled should see my discussions with Moving Finger in the General Philosophy thread "A Constructive Critique of Libertarianism" for a definition of 'TEOx'."

This issue seems trivial. Yes, I agree it is a trivial issue. Nevertheless, I don't think we have successfully communicated what we each have been trying to say about the issue.

Either the choice has not yet been made, and the agent believes choice options to be available, in which case these are “future options”, hence any supposed knowledge about them is knowledge about the future, hence foreknowledge is required. OK, let's say the choice has not yet been made. I say that the conscious agent *knows* that the choice is available. If not, then this example would not qualify as a free will option. And, yes, it is a "future option" in the sense that the conscious agent knows that the option exists before the choice is made to exercise the option. This knowledge, "that the option exists", is required in my view. Moreover, I require that it be infallible knowledge. So the trivial issue is whether we include this infallible knowledge in the scope of the definition of 'foreknowledge'. I really don't care as long as you understand that I mean the infallible knowledge *that* an option exists must exist in order to have free will, even though much or all of the rest of the foreknowledge related to the option may be in doubt or unreliable.

Or the choice has been made, in which case I agree no foreknowledge is involved, but neither are there any options available (the choice has been made).I agree. Furthermore, this case has nothing to do with free will.

With respect, all this achieves is that it includes the precondition “the conscious agent must know *that* there are options available” as part of your definition of free will. The respect is graciously acknowledged, and with respect, I would submit that including preconditions is an expected part of making a definition. That is all I was attempting to achieve.

You have not actually shown that the precondition “the conscious agent must know *that* there are options available” can be met, you have simply asserted that this precondition needs to be met as part in order to render your definition of free will consistent.True.

Your definition of free will may be inconsistent. True. That is why I invite anyone to demonstrate any inconsistency. I would like to be among the first to know about it.

Your agent “can know infallibly” only because you have defined that the agent MUST know infallibly as part of your definition of free will. But defining that the agent MUST know infallibly in order to have free will does not in fact allow us to conclude that the agent CAN know infallibly. True. and True.

In other words, it may be the case that your definition of free will is not consistent (eg if it is not possible for an agent to know infallibly). I can see how this would make my definition vacuous, but I don't see any inconsistency if in fact infallible knowing were impossible.

An analogy : It is possible to define free will as “the ability of an agent to have chosen differently to what it did actually choose”. It follows from this definition that for an agent to have free will, it must have been able to choose differently from what it did choose. But this does NOT prove that the agent could have chosen differently. All it proves is that IF the agent could have chosen differently then it also could have had free will, whereas if the agent could not have chosen differently then free will (as defined) is not possible.I agree. Both this definition and mine have the same "weakness" in that we can't prove that the definition is not vacuous.

In summary : What I am suggesting is that free will according to your definition implies EITHER that an agent has infallible knowledge of possible future options (this seems to be your interpretation) OR that free will as you have defined it is not possible (my interpretation, since I do not believe that an agent can have infallible knowledge of possible future actions).I agree with this summary (except that I would insert 'some' in front of the first appearance of 'infallible'.)

I would further summarize it by saying, Either free will exists as I have defined it, or there is no such thing. You believe the latter.

Here is how I would re-phrase your summary in plain words :
The conscious agent could truthfully say the following about some free-will choice: "I believe that I know I can pick. I don't exactly know how to pick, and I don't know exactly what will happen if I pick. But I believe that I know I can pick." I say that the conscious agent has free will if and only if he/she can truthfully say something like that about a particular choice of action.We disagree here. I'd say that if this is all there were, then there is no such thing as free will.

Ummm. I think I have a choice to stop here and have lunch or to keep typing, but I'm not sure. Can I decide or not? Hmmm. I don't seem to be able to. I just keep typing for some reason. I'll bet it is because the entire history of the universe and my history as a body/brain moving about in it has set the stage so that right now I am typing away even though I am hungry. That's probably it. I probably couldn't stop and eat if I wanted to. There is no free will at all.

Unfortunately, though it is clear that the cellular automaton program works deterministically, this does not give a clear idea of how the “person” operates. **Exactly!!!** This is one of the main messages I was trying to get across. I think there is very little hope of getting a clear idea of *how* CC operates. But the cellular automaton example clearly shows *that* the "person" operates in a way that interferes with the otherwise deterministic evolution of the automaton.

It seems to me that you have simply moved the problem from one level to another **Exactly!!!** That is exactly what my world-view does. It takes the great mystery of the Hard Problem and moves it to another level which is outside the physical world. That leaves the physical world explainable and understandable and it reduces the mysteries of reality as a whole down to just this single mystery. It's like moving the mystery of music coming out of a radio back to the transmitter where it really originates and where it belongs.

How this free will actually works is still (in your model) a mystery. Yes. But then again, it is a mystery in every model.

[Paul Martin]

What the heck? We're discussing whether or not actions are free. Are actions not a form of behavior? Don't you agree that being free to control your behavior against deterministic outputs should be manifested somehow in your behavior? Could a being with no behavior be free? Free to do what? It couldn't do anything.OK. OK. I should have said "relatively unimportant" rather than "very unimportant". Yes actions are a form of behavior, but by far and away most actions in this universe do not enter into the question of free will. What we are trying to figure out is the determinant for those actions which we suspect might be influenced or determined by free will. It is that determinant which I think is relatively important while the action itself (the behavior) is relatively unimportant. What the heck. I wasn't very clear. I'm sorry.

But . . . this is a discussion of free will, at least at this point. It isn't a discussion of consciousness. In order to make it a discussion of consciousness, we'll have to first conclude that no non-conscious being could ever have free will.Good point. I have certainly jumped to that conclusion myself as is evident from my list of conditions for free will. I will be glad to retreat if someone can tell me the difference between conscious free will and non- or unconscious free will that makes any sense.

Presumably this is because consciousness in this conception is a causal agent that is non-deterministic yet not competely random.For this to be the reason I think you would have to strengthen it by saying that consciousness is the *only* non-deterministic yet not completely random causal agent. But I agree that it is premature to make such a claim.

So what does that mean? We're just back at step one. Saying something is free because it is conscious doesn't solve anything.I agree. I think you have to include my entire list of necessary and sufficient conditions.

Is conciousness an uncaused cause? I think so.

Some kind of agent that makes decisions out of the blue according to no set of rules?I think it can do that.

What is meant by 'important.' What I meant was that I think consciousness is a necessary ingredient in any complete explanation for what goes on in reality, in particular for what goes on in the behavior of people.

So what about our super Mars Rover, complete with learning software and a random number generator. Let's say that it is also designed in such a way that it is conscious. OK.

Its actions are still dictated by the same set of dynamic rules and random output and its behavior is exactly the same.Not necessarily. If it is conscious, and if it met my necessary and sufficient conditions, then in different runs of my thought experiment the outcomes could be different even when the random number generator returned identical sequences in the different runs (which it must do if you run the thought experiment carefully and correctly).

Is it then free? In your scenario, where its actions were still dictated by the same mechanisms, then no, it is not free. In my scenario where some actions may be determined by my necessary condition number 3, then yes, it would be free. IMHO.

[moving finger]

would you care to give an example of what you consider to be such infallible knowledge?
The certain knowledge I have that I can continue typing this response or I can take a break and have lunch.
Please let me just clarify and replay your examples here (this is important to ensure there is no misunderstanding caused by any ambiguity). I hope you do not mind if I also re-phrase your example in terms of an independent (conscious) agent rather than “I” or “me” (because of the confusion this has caused already).

What you are actually saying (correct me if I am wrong) is the following :
1 : The agent has certain knowledge that it will be able to continue typing a response (ie it has certain knowledge that an option, the option “to continue typing a response”, will be available to it, as an option, in the future).
2 : The agent has certain knowledge that it will be able to take a break and have lunch (ie it has certain knowledge that an option, the option “to take a break and have lunch”, will be available to it, as an option, in the future).

Firstly : Can you explain how it is (what is the mechanism whereby) the agent can acquire this “certain knowledge” that these options will in fact be available (as opposed to it simply BELIEVING that they will be available)?

Secondly : I suggest that the agent does not in fact have “certain knowledge” that these options (or any other options) will be available to it. In an extreme (admittedly improbable, but nevertheless possible) example, the agent could be destroyed in the next instant by an asteroid which hits its home town. This would wipe out its ability both to continue, and to take a break and have lunch, and all other options. The agent in fact does not have certain knowledge that it will not be destroyed in this way (or any other way) in the next instant, therefore it does not have “certain knowledge” that the options you have described will in fact be available to it. Generalising, I conclude that no agent can have certain knowledge that any particular future option will be available.

I say that the conscious agent *knows* that the choice is available. If not, then this example would not qualify as a free will option. And, yes, it is a "future option" in the sense that the conscious agent knows that the option exists before the choice is made to exercise the option. This knowledge, "that the option exists", is required in my view.
I understand that you stipulate (as part of your definition of free will) it is REQUIRED that the “agent knows infallibly that the option exists” in order for the agent to have “free will” according to your definition of “free will”. With respect, this is not the issue. The issue is whether it is in fact POSSIBLE for an agent to know infallibly that an option exists. I believe that I have shown above such infallible foreknowledge is not possible. Conclusion : “Free will” according to your definition is not possible.

I would further summarize it by saying, Either free will exists as I have defined it, or there is no such thing. You believe the latter.
I believe free will exists. But I would define free will differently to you (as indicated already by my suggested changes to your necessary conditions, which changes you do not accept)..

Here is how I would re-phrase your summary in plain words :
The conscious agent could truthfully say the following about some free-will choice: "I believe that I know I can pick. I don't exactly know how to pick, and I don't know exactly what will happen if I pick. But I believe that I know I can pick." I say that the conscious agent has free will if and only if he/she can truthfully say something like that about a particular choice of action.
We disagree here. I'd say that if this is all there were, then there is no such thing as free will.
According to your definition of free will, yes. According to my definition of free will, this is exactly what free will is.

Unfortunately, though it is clear that the cellular automaton program works deterministically, this does not give a clear idea of how the “person” operates.
**Exactly!!!** This is one of the main messages I was trying to get across. I think there is very little hope of getting a clear idea of *how* CC operates. But the cellular automaton example clearly shows *that* the "person" operates in a way that interferes with the otherwise deterministic evolution of the automaton.
And if the person is also operating deterministically?

It seems to me that you have simply moved the problem from one level to another
**Exactly!!!** That is exactly what my world-view does. It takes the great mystery of the Hard Problem and moves it to another level which is outside the physical world. That leaves the physical world explainable and understandable and it reduces the mysteries of reality as a whole down to just this single mystery. It's like moving the mystery of music coming out of a radio back to the transmitter where it really originates and where it belongs.
Moving the problem around without actually addressing the problem seems (with respect) to be rather pointless?

How this free will actually works is still (in your model) a mystery.
Yes. But then again, it is a mystery in every model.
I disagree. It depends on how one defines free will.
If one takes an idealistic approach and defines free will such that free will is impossible (the intuitive feeling of free will), then explaining how such free will operates will also be impossible (this to me seems to be your approach).
If however one takes a pragmatic approach and defines free will such that free will is possible (even though it may not provide a very satisfying or intuitively “nice” result in terms of the "feeling" of free will), then explaining how free will operates is also possible (this is my approach).

MF
:smile:

[Paul Martin]

I hope you do not mind if I also re-phrase your example in terms of an independent (conscious) agent rather than “I” or “me” (because of the confusion this has caused already). Not at all. Sorry for contributing to the confusion.

Can you explain how it is (what is the mechanism whereby) the agent can acquire this “certain knowledge” that these options will in fact be available (as opposed to it simply BELIEVING that they will be available)?No. And after thinking more carefully, I should amend my example by saying, "The certain knowledge I have that[, barring any malfunction of the PNS of Paul Martin (PNSPM),] I can continue typing this response...".

As for the mechanism, it is probably similar to the mechanism used to acquire the certain knowledge in the agent, when, working through PNSPM, the agent knows what green looks like as reported to the agent via the sensory and perceptive mechanisms of PNSPM.

I suggest that the agent does not in fact have “certain knowledge” that these options (or any other options) will be available to it.Would you say that the agent does not have certain knowledge of what green looks like as reported by a PNS?

In an extreme (admittedly improbable, but nevertheless possible) example, the agent could be destroyed in the next instant by an asteroid which hits its home town.Not in my cosmos, it couldn't. In my cosmos the agent does not live in the home town. The asteroid could wipe out the PNS -- and I have just corrected for that eventuality -- but in my view, not the agent.

I believe that I have shown above such infallible foreknowledge is not possible.I believe you have not.

The issue is whether it is in fact POSSIBLE for an agent to know infallibly that an option exists.

I believe free will exists. But I would define free will differently to you (as indicated already by my suggested changes to your necessary conditions, which changes you do not accept)..I am beginning to waffle.

Your statement of the issue above got me wondering, "What does it mean 'to know infallibly'?". Simply to say "the agent knows" implies infallibility by the definition of the word 'know'. But that's hardly convincing. Your argument would say that it is never appropriate to assert "Y knows X" for any X or Y. But that would make the word 'know' useless.

But suppose the agent knows that it knows X. If indeed the agent knows X in the first place, knowing that it knows X in addition wouldn't strengthen the claim that it knows X. It would only provide additional knowledge which is outside or above the first circumstance, and which could in principle even inhere in a separate agent. We could have, for example, Agent B knows that Agent A knows X.

This led me in three or four different directions. First is to note that you and I, in this discussion, are in that circumstance. We are questioning whether we can know that Agent A knows X. That is a different question from, "Can Agent A know X". I think it may be possible that Agent A can know X while at the same time it is impossible for Agent B to know that Agent A knows X. If that possibility turns out to be the case, then we may not be able to resolve this issue here.

The second direction I am led is to extend the chain by supposing that the agent knows that it knows that it knows X. Does that help any? It seems to because now there is even more knowledge than before. What about extending the chain to a million links?

The third direction is to salt this chain with one or more 'believes': Can the agent believe it knows X? Know it believes X? Know it believes it knows? Know it knows it believes? Believe it believes it knows? Etc.

The fourth is to reintroduce Agent B to appear here and there in different versions of all those chains. For example, Can Agent B know that Agent A believes that Agent B knows X?

This is not meant to be silliness or sophistry, although it sounds like both. Instead, the point I am trying to make is that the issue you articulated is very complex. I think that to resolve it, we would need not only to identify X (the example of a fact that can be known), but we would also need to identify all the players (Agent A, Agent B, TEOMF, TEOPM, "I", "you", PNSMF, PNSPM) and the relationships among them, as well as the answers to many, if not all of those "chain" questions.

I am not prepared even to guess at the outcome of a resolution, but at this point I am willing to concede that my requirement for infallible knowledge may be unnecessarily strong. I'm not sure your proposed substitutions are the right ones either, however. Maybe it should be a longer chain of knowing and believing.

For the record, my view of the relationships among the players I listed are,

Agent A = Agent B = TEOMF = TEOPM = CC

PNSMF and PNSPM are separate and distinct chemical vehicles being driven by CC.

"I" and "you" are used ambiguously and should be identified with each use.

And if the person is also operating deterministically?The automaton was an analogy. Little is to be gained by staking much on the details of one of the analogs. But the analogy aside, you are asking about the consequences of the case where the conscious agent operates deterministically. I'd say in that case there is no free will.

Moving the problem around without actually addressing the problem seems (with respect) to be rather pointless?I don't think it is pointless. The point is that it provides a different hypothesis from which to work. My only suggestion is that we explore the hypothesis of a single consciousness and see where it leads. My suspicions are that it will be more fruitful than the hypothesis of "PNSx contains TEOx", or even "The physical world of PNSx contains TEOx".

If however one takes a pragmatic approach and defines free will such that free will is possible (even though it may not provide a very satisfying or intuitively “nice” result in terms of the "feeling" of free will), then explaining how free will operates is also possible (this is my approach).That may be true. But unless and until you actually produce that explanation for how free will operates, the mystery remains. As of this date, I still maintain that free will is a mystery in every model.

Much fun talking with you, MF. Thanks.

Paul

[Doctordick]

Hi Paul.

I just thought I would comment on this statement. I hope you don't mind.
But that would make the word 'know' useless.Not at all, everyone may agree that knowing means exactly what you want it to mean, and they may even "know" some things; however, all they can really be sure of is that they think they know. That is the central issue of my work.

Have fun -- Dick

[Paul Martin]

Not at all, everyone may agree that knowing means exactly what you want it to mean, and they may even "know" some things; however, all they can really be sure of is that they think they know. That is the central issue of my work.Yes, I agree there would still be a use for the word. But that's not the issue. I think the questions here are:

1. Is "knowing" the same thing as "knowing infallibly"?

2. Is it possible in principle to know anything?

3. Is it possible in principle to know that you know anything?

4. Is it possible in principle to know that another knows anything?

I think we all agree that 1=yes.

It sounds like you are saying 2=yes.

I think Moving Finger is saying 2=no.

I think you are saying 3=no, and that that is the central issue of your work.

I think MF would have to say 3=no since 2=no.

I think both of you would have to say 4=no since 3=no.

I would say that 1=2=3=yes and that 4 is a non-question since there is only one knower.

(Good to hear from you, Dick. I started another letter to you this morning, but I didn't get it finished or sent. You give me too much homework.)

Paul

[moving finger]

Can you explain how it is (what is the mechanism whereby) the agent can acquire this “certain knowledge” that these options will in fact be available (as opposed to it simply BELIEVING that they will be available)?
No. And after thinking more carefully, I should amend my example by saying, "The certain knowledge I have that[, barring any malfunction of the PNS of Paul Martin (PNSPM),] I can continue typing this response...".
Here you agree that a malfunction of the PNSPM could render the option unavailable to the agent, hence to ensure that the agent’s knowledge is infallible you need to add the constraint that there will be no malfunction of the PNSPM. Correct?
But (by the same reasoning that the agent cannot have infallible foreknowledge that an option will be avilable), the agent cannot have infallible foreknowledge that there will be no malfunction of the PNSPM.
In other words, the agent cannot be sure that the option will be available, because the agent cannot be sure that the PNSPM will not malfunction.
With your amended example you have simply replaced “uncertainty that the option will be available” with “uncertainty that the PNSPM will not malfunction”. The former is conditional upon the latter. The uncertainty (the fallibility) is still there.
Conclusion : The agent cannot have infallible foreknowledge.

As for the mechanism, it is probably similar to the mechanism used to acquire the certain knowledge in the agent, when, working through PNSPM, the agent knows what green looks like as reported to the agent via the sensory and perceptive mechanisms of PNSPM.
With respect, I suggest you are trying to compare different types of knowledge.
Knowledge of “what green looks like” is not foreknowledge, it is acquired knowledge. With all due respect to Nagel, IMHO an agent cannot “know” what green looks like unless and until it has experienced seeing the colour green. Once it has had this experience, then it also has acquired the knowledge of “what green looks like”.
It should be self-evident that the agent cannot use this particular experiential mechanism to acquire such “knowledge” about future options (ie about the possibility that a particular “option” exists that has not yet “happened”).
The question as to how your agent might acquire such foreknowledge thus remains unanswered.

BTW – to try and avoid introducing additional confusion I humbly suggest it may be better to focus our debate on discussing the nature of the “free will” of a 3rd-party “agent”, rather than discussing the free will of either PM or MF. Would you agree?

Would you say that the agent does not have certain knowledge of what green looks like as reported by a PNS?
As per above, these (the “acquired knowledge of what green looks like” and “the foreknowledge that a future option is available to it”) are different kinds of knowledge that the agent possesses, and they should not be confused with each other.
Your definition of free will is dependent on infallible foreknowledge, it is not dependent on infallible acquired knowledge.

In an extreme (admittedly improbable, but nevertheless possible) example, the agent could be destroyed in the next instant by an asteroid which hits its home town.
Not in my cosmos, it couldn't. In my cosmos the agent does not live in the home town. The asteroid could wipe out the PNS -- and I have just corrected for that eventuality -- but in my view, not the agent.
I do not understand your suggestion “The asteroid could wipe out the PNS -- but in my view, not the agent.”
Are you suggesting that the agent is immortal, indestructible?
That it is impossible for the agent to be destroyed?
Are you suggesting that the agent somehow exists outside of the physical world?
Can you elaborate please?

If you are indeed suggesting that an agent must necessarily be indestructible in order to have free will, then this needs to be explicit in your necessary conditions?

However, even postulating an indestructible agent does not avoid the problem. In the extreme example that I provided, the insertion of an indestructible agent simply changes the example to :

the agent’s PNS (plus associated material body and all causal contact between the agent and the physical world) could be destroyed in the next instant by an asteroid which hits its home town. This would wipe out its ability both to continue, and to take a break and have lunch, and all other options.

(explanation : even if the agent exists somehow “outside of the physical world”, the agent only acts via the physical world – the options “to continue typing a response” and “to take a break and have lunch”, are options dependent on the agent’s interaction with the physical world, and these options would no longer be available to the agent, even if the agent was somehow existing somewhere outside of the physical world and indestructible, if the agent’s PNS, body and all other associated links with the physical world were destroyed.)

Your statement of the issue above got me wondering, "What does it mean 'to know infallibly'?". Simply to say "the agent knows" implies infallibility by the definition of the word 'know'.
That is why I inserted the word infallibly.
Because there are two interpretations of “to know” – one is the interpretation that you wish to use (which is “the agent knows infallibly”), and the other is the one I offered but which you rejected (which is “the agent believes that it knows”).
These are very different. But when most people say that they “know” something then it can mean one or the other, depending on the source of their knowledge.
When an agent says “I know that it will rain tomorrow” then it actually means “I believe that I know that it will rain tomorrow” and not “I know infallibly that it will rain tomorrow”.
The same is true (IMHO) of all foreknowledge. Infallible foreknowledge (IMHO) is not possible.

But that's hardly convincing. Your argument would say that it is never appropriate to assert "Y knows X" for any X or Y. But that would make the word 'know' useless.
No, I did not say that no infallible knowledge is possible (but in fact it might be true that infallible knowledge is not possible). We simply need to be clear in definitions whether we are referring to infallible knowledge or not – it is important.
We are talking here specifically about foreknowledge. And IMHO infallible foreknowledge is not possible.

But suppose the agent knows that it knows X.
Does it infallibly know that it infallibly knows X, or does it believe that it knows that it believes that it knows X? Or maybe it believes that it infallibly knows X, or maybe it infallibly knows that it believes it knows X?

If indeed the agent knows X in the first place, knowing that it knows X in addition wouldn't strengthen the claim that it knows X.
Agreed. If the agent infallibly knows X, then that is the end of the issue.

It would only provide additional knowledge which is outside or above the first circumstance, and which could in principle even inhere in a separate agent. We could have, for example, Agent B knows that Agent A knows X.
And we could have 4 different permutations of this based on belief and infallibility.

This led me in three or four different directions. First is to note that you and I, in this discussion, are in that circumstance. We are questioning whether we can know that Agent A knows X. That is a different question from, "Can Agent A know X". I think it may be possible that Agent A can know X while at the same time it is impossible for Agent B to know that Agent A knows X. If that possibility turns out to be the case, then we may not be able to resolve this issue here.
And solipsism may be true. I may be the only conscious agent in the universe, and the rest of you exist in my imagination. But that leads us nowhere. We can only make sense of what is going on if we make some initial reasonable assumptions (axioms) and proceed from there.

The second direction I am led is to extend the chain by supposing that the agent knows that it knows that it knows X. Does that help any? It seems to because now there is even more knowledge than before. What about extending the chain to a million links?
Extending the chain (IMHO) does not help. Either the agent infallibly knows X, or it does not.

The third direction is to salt this chain with one or more 'believes': Can the agent believe it knows X?
Yes, I see no reason why an agent cannot believe anything it wishes to believe.

Know it believes X? Know it believes it knows? Know it knows it believes? Believe it believes it knows? Etc.
Exactly.

This is not meant to be silliness or sophistry, although it sounds like both. Instead, the point I am trying to make is that the issue you articulated is very complex.
I never thought otherwise!

I am not prepared even to guess at the outcome of a resolution, but at this point I am willing to concede that my requirement for infallible knowledge may be unnecessarily strong. I'm not sure your proposed substitutions are the right ones either, however. Maybe it should be a longer chain of knowing and believing.
I do not see what can be gained from a longer chain. The starting point is either “the agent infallibly knows that” or “the agent believes that it knows that”, and all else (IMHO) flows from there.

And if the person is also operating deterministically?
The automaton was an analogy. Little is to be gained by staking much on the details of one of the analogs. But the analogy aside, you are asking about the consequences of the case where the conscious agent operates deterministically. I'd say in that case there is no free will.
Can you explain why you think your definition of free will is necessarily incompatible with determinism?

(for the record, I believe your type of free will does not exist because your definition requires infallible foreknowledge, which I do not believe is possible, in either a deterministic or an indeterministic world)

It is possible to define free will such that it is compatible with determinism.

The point is that it provides a different hypothesis from which to work. My only suggestion is that we explore the hypothesis of a single consciousness and see where it leads. My suspicions are that it will be more fruitful than the hypothesis of "PNSx contains TEOx", or even "The physical world of PNSx contains TEOx"
I’m not sure what relevance those acronyms have to this thread. Can you explain what you mean?

If however one takes a pragmatic approach and defines free will such that free will is possible (even though it may not provide a very satisfying or intuitively “nice” result in terms of the "feeling" of free will), then explaining how free will operates is also possible (this is my approach)
That may be true. But unless and until you actually produce that explanation for how free will operates, the mystery remains. As of this date, I still maintain that free will is a mystery in every model.

MF definition of free will : the ability of an agent to anticipate alternate possible outcomes dependent on alternate possible courses of action, and to choose which course of action to follow and in so doing to behave in a manner such that the agent’s choice appears, both to itself and to an outside observer, to be reasoned but not consistently predictable.

I am not saying that the world is necessarily determinsitic, but I think you will find that the above definition is entirely consistent with determinism, and also consistent with the way that humans (who claim to have free will) actually behave. There is no mystery involved in this definition or in the way that free will operates. I agree the MF definition does not accord with the naïve conception of free will - but that is because the naïve conception of free will is based on unsound reasoning, and leads to a kind of free will which is not possible.

No mystery.

MF
:smile:

[Tournesol]

This is why I asked you to give an example of how your “randomness” is supposed to endow an otherwise deterministic agent with “free will”. You have not given such an example (I suspect because you cannot give one).


It is true that we would not consider an individual to 'own' a
an action or decision if it had nothing to do with his beliefs
and aims at the time he made it -- that is, if we assume
that indeterminism erupts in-between everything that happened
to make him the individual he is, and the act itself.

I call this the Burridan's *** model, in which the only
useful role indeterminism can have is as a 'casting vote'
when there are no strong preferences one way or the other.
An alternative is the Darwinian model, according to which
an indeterministic process plays a role analogous to random
mutation , in that it throws up ideas and potential solutions
to problems which another, more rational and deterministic process
selects between. This role of indeterminism places it where
it can do least harm to rationality; it is only called on
where creativity and imagination are required, and it does
not get translated into action without being being subject to a
rational veto. This answers the common charge that indeterminism
would lead to capricious behaviour in all circumstances,
which is equivalent to saying that Darwinian evolution would be
'just random' and unable to explain the orderliness of the natural
world. Both objections look at only the random process in isolation.

[moving finger]

It's to do with the ability to have done otherwise .
Can you clarify please just what you mean by "the ability to have done otherwise"?

Thank you

MF
:smile:

[Paul Martin]

With respect, I suggest you are trying to compare different types of knowledge.
Knowledge of “what green looks like” is not foreknowledge, it is acquired knowledge.Hmmmmm.

BTW – to try and avoid introducing additional confusion I humbly suggest it may be better to focus our debate on discussing the nature of the “free will” of a 3rd-party “agent”, rather than discussing the free will of either PM or MF. Would you agree?Yes, I agree. I think I have done that.

Your definition of free will is dependent on infallible foreknowledge, it is not dependent on infallible acquired knowledge.Hmmmmmm. It does appear that way.

I do not understand your suggestion “The asteroid could wipe out the PNS -- but in my view, not the agent.”The asteroid is in the physical world; the agent is not. Thus the agent is immune from the asteroid.

Are you suggesting that the agent is immortal, indestructible?
That it is impossible for the agent to be destroyed?No. Just not by an asteroid.

If you are indeed suggesting that an agent must necessarily be indestructible in order to have free will, then this needs to be explicit in your necessary conditions?No. It's just that as soon as the agent is destroyed, it no longer has free will.

Are you suggesting that the agent somehow exists outside of the physical world?Yes, absolutely. That is one of the most significant assumptions in my view of the world. It is probably second only to my assumption of the existence of only a single consciousness, since I think "a single consciousness" implies a non-physical world.

Can you elaborate please?Yes. I'd be delighted to do so. Thank you for asking.

I don't think it would be appropriate to go into elaborate detail here so I will give you some references and then address what I think you might be getting at by asking.

If you read my recent posts to other threads in this forum, virtually all of them express some notion or other of my world view. You can also check out my essays at http://www.paulandellen.com/essays/essays.htm and if you only want to read one, start with my "World-view 2004".

Now I suspect that what you are asking about is, Where, for heaven's sake, is that other "place" which is outside the physical world? In my view it is in manifolds in higher dimensional space/time which are separate from our 4D manifold and which have more than 4 dimensions. This, I know, I know, has been a very contentious idea since it was proposed to Einstein by Kaluza, and I know that it is falling out of favor today, but I have yet to hear any argument sufficient to dismiss it IMHO.

For more elaboration, I'll let you prompt me with questions or comments.

We are talking here specifically about foreknowledge. And IMHO infallible foreknowledge is not possible.I see your point.

Can you explain why you think your definition of free will is necessarily incompatible with determinism?I tried to explain that with my thought experiment of re-running identical circumstances and getting different results. Determinism would say that the results would be identical.

(for the record, I believe your type of free will does not exist because your definition requires infallible foreknowledge, which I do not believe is possible, in either a deterministic or an indeterministic world)Your points about foreknowledge are begining to sink in.

MF definition of free will : the ability of an agent to anticipate alternate possible outcomes dependent on alternate possible courses of action, and to choose which course of action to follow and in so doing to behave in a manner such that the agent’s choice appears, both to itself and to an outside observer, to be reasoned but not consistently predictable.Except for a small quibble, I find this definition to make sense and I would accept it.

I am not saying that the world is necessarily determinsitic, but I think you will find that the above definition is entirely consistent with determinism, and also consistent with the way that humans (who claim to have free will) actually behave.Yes, you are right. I did find it consistent with determinism and with human behavior.

There is no mystery involved in this definition or in the way that free will operates.OK, but there still remains the slightly nagging question of whether or not there is free will in the naïve sense. (Could I really have taken a lunch break? I just don't know.)

I agree the MF definition does not accord with the naïve conception of free will - but that is because the naïve conception of free will is based on unsound reasoning, and leads to a kind of free will which is not possible.That could very well be the reason.

No mystery.Not one worth debating anyway.

Thank you for the insights.

Paul

[moving finger]

An alternative is the Darwinian model, according to which
an indeterministic process plays a role analogous to random
mutation , in that it throws up ideas and potential solutions
to problems which another, more rational and deterministic process
selects between. This role of indeterminism places it where
it can do least harm to rationality; it is only called on
where creativity and imagination are required, and it does
not get translated into action without being being subject to a
rational veto.
Calling this a Darwinian model is IMHO (and with respect) a little insulting to Charles Darwin, and lends the mechanism suggested above a little too much scientific credibility. The processes underlying the evolution of species are completely compatible with determinism, the so-called “random mutations” need not in fact be due to any ontically indeterministic process. Out of respect to Mr Darwin I suggest the mechanism suggested above be re-named the Random Alternatives (RA) mechanism.

If I understand this RA mechanism correctly, the source of indeterminism is postulated to be introduced prior to the agent’s point of decision (prior to the agent’s moment of choice), and the agent’s choice is still intended to be a deterministic process? Indeterminism is supposed to “generate” a series of random alternative courses of action (much like a random number generator or RNG in a computer) for the agent to consider and from which to choose.

Thus, if we could “re-play” a particular choice that the agent had already made, keeping everything as it was before but allowing the RNG to generate different alternatives, then we may find that the agent “apparently” chooses differently in each re-play, depending upon the random alternative courses of action that are generated by the RNG. This “apparently” different choice by the agent in each re-play is then supposed to be a reflection of the agent’s “free will”.

In fact, if we re-play a particular choice that the agent has made, keeping everything as it was before but allowing the RNG to generate alternative courses of action apparently randomly, then we necessarily must observe one of two alternative scenarios :

EITHER (A) the RNG happens (probabilistically) to generate the same alternatives on the second “run”, in which case the agent (operating deterministically) will necessarily make the same choice as on the first run. In other words, if we could re-play the agent’s moment of choice with all of the conditions exactly as they were before including the alternatives that are generated for the agent to consider, then the agent will necessarily make the same choice as it did before. This is a completely deterministic scenario and is completely compatible with determinism (ie re-play with the same starting conditions and one obtains the same result).

OR (B) the RNG generates different alternatives on the second “run”, in which case the agent (still operating determinsitically) might make a choice which is different to the choice that it made on the first run. In other words, if we could re-play the agent’s moment of choice with all of the conditions exactly as they were before EXCEPT that the alternatives for consideration are different, then the agent will not necessarily make the same choice as it did before. This (the agent’s choice) again is a completely deterministic scenario and is again completely compatible with determinism (ie re-play with different starting conditions and one may obtain a different result).

The only difference between re-play (A) and re-play (B) is that in (A) the conditions are indeed set to the way they were the first time round, whereas in (B) the conditions (at the moment of choice of the agent) are not the same as they were before. THIS FACT ALONE (and not any supposed “free will” on the part of the agent) is the source of the agent’s ability to make different choices in each run.

In fact, we do not need the RNG in the proposed mechanism to be ontically indeterministic. It need only be an RNG in the sense of a computer software RNG, which operates to generate epistemically random, but ontically deterministic, numbers. What matters in the RA mechansim (the “apparent source of free will”) is ONLY that the agent is provided with DIFFERENT ALTERNATIVES in each re-play (this will ensure that the agent will not necessarily make the same choice in each re-play, scenario B above), and NOT that these alternatives are generated by a genuinely (ontically) indeterministic process.

To show how \"silly\" this notion of random generation of "free will" is, consider the following :

The Libertarian Free Will Computer
I could quite easily \"build\" such models of \"free-will\" agents using computer software, incorporating an RNG to \"generate\" apparently random alternatives for my deterministic software agent to consider, and from which to choose. Since I am generating the computer agent\'s alternatives randomly (thus ensuring that it\'s choice need not be the same each time) does that mean my computer agent now has \"free will\", where it had no \"free will\" before (prior to me introducing the RNG)? I think everyone would agree that this notion is very silly. And does it make any difference if the RNG is genuinely random (ontically indeterministic), or whether it simply appears to be random (epistemically indeterminable)? No, of course not. It does not matter what we do with the RNG, we cannot use indeterminsim to \"endow\" the Libertarian version of free will onto an otherwise deterministic machine

I think one will find that if one models the above RA mechanism and examines it rationally and logically, looking at the possible sequences generated, then one will find that the introduction of the RNG prior to the moment of choice acts in much the same way as introducing the RNG after the moment of choice. In both cases, there is a point at which a deterministic choice is made by the agent based on alternatives available, but in both cases the final result is in fact random. This is not free will. This is simply a random-choice-making mechanism.

MF
:smile:

[Tournesol]

OR (B) the RNG generates different alternatives on the second “run”, in which case the agent (still operating determinsitically) might make a choice which is different to the choice that it made on the first run. In other words, if we could re-play the agent’s moment of choice with all of the conditions exactly as they were before EXCEPT that the alternatives for consideration are different, then the agent will not necessarily make the same choice as it did before. This (the agent’s choice) again is a completely deterministic scenario and is again completely compatible with determinism (ie re-play with different starting conditions and one may obtain a different result).

No, this isn't completely deterministic , because determinism requires
a rigid chain of cause and effect going back to the year dot. One part
of the process, the selection from options may be deterministic, but
the other part, the generation of options to be selected from, isn't.
D-ism doesn't mean that cause cause effects every now and then,
it means everyhting happens with iron necessity and no exceptions.

The only difference between re-play (A) and re-play (B) is that in (A) the conditions are indeed set to the way they were the first time round, whereas in (B) the conditions (at the moment of choice of the agent) are not the same as they were before. THIS FACT ALONE (and not any supposed “free will” on the part of the agent) is the source of the agent’s ability to make different choices in each run.

But they are different becuase of indeterminism in the chain
of causes leading up to that moment, and in my naturalistic
account of FW, that indeterminism is one of the things that constitutes
FW. You seem to be assuming that FW is supernatural or nothing;
I am not making that assumption.

In fact, we do not need the RNG in the proposed mechanism to be ontically indeterministic. It need only be an RNG in the sense of a computer software RNG, which operates to generate epistemically random, but ontically deterministic, numbers. What matters in the RA mechansim (the “apparent source of free will”) is ONLY that the agent is provided with DIFFERENT ALTERNATIVES in each re-play (this will ensure that the agent will not necessarily make the same choice in each re-play, scenario B above), and NOT that these alternatives are generated by a genuinely (ontically) indeterministic process.


Pseudo-random numbers (which are really deterministic)
may be used in computers, and any indeterminism the brain
calls on might be only pseudo-random. But it does not have
to be, and if we assume it is not, we can explain realistically
why we have the sense of being able to have done otherwise.
People sometimes try to explain this as an 'illusion', but
it do not make it clear why we would have that particular illusion.


I could quite easily \"build\" such models of \"free-will\" agents using computer software, incorporating an RNG to \"generate\" apparently random alternatives for my deterministic software agent to consider, and from which to choose. Since I am generating the computer agent\'s alternatives randomly (thus ensuring that it\'s choice need not be the same each time) does that mean my computer agent now has \"free will\", where it had no \"free will\" before (prior to me introducing the RNG)? I think everyone would agree that this notion is very silly. And does it make any difference if the RNG is genuinely random (ontically indeterministic), or whether it simply appears to be random (epistemically indeterminable)? No, of course not. It does not matter what we do with the RNG, we cannot use indeterminsim to \"endow\" the Libertarian version of free will onto an otherwise deterministic machine

Naturalists think it is not impossible to artificially duplicate human
mentality, which would have to include human volition, since there
is not 'ghost' in the human machine. You are levelling down, saying huamns have
no FW and computers don't either. I am levelling up, saying humans have FW and appropriate computers could have it as well. It all depends on what
you mean by FW. The contentious issue, vis a vis determinism, is the
ability to have doen otherwise, and that is explainable naturalistically in an indeterministic universe.

I think one will find that if one models the above RA mechanism and examines it rationally and logically, looking at the possible sequences generated, then one will find that the introduction of the RNG prior to the moment of choice acts in much the same way as introducing the RNG after the moment of choice. In both cases, there is a point at which a deterministic choice is made by the agent based on alternatives available, but in both cases the final result is in fact random. This is not free will. This is simply a random-choice-making mechanism.

No it isn't the same. Intorducing randomness after choice removes 'ownership'.
The hypothetical AI wouldn't be able to explain why it did as it did.

[moving finger]

OR (B) the RNG generates different alternatives on the second “run”, in which case the agent (still operating determinsitically) might make a choice which is different to the choice that it made on the first run. In other words, if we could re-play the agent’s moment of choice with all of the conditions exactly as they were before EXCEPT that the alternatives for consideration are different, then the agent will not necessarily make the same choice as it did before. This (the agent’s choice) again is a completely deterministic scenario and is again completely compatible with determinism (ie re-play with different starting conditions and one may obtain a different result) .
No, this isn't completely deterministic , because determinism requires a rigid chain of cause and effect going back to the year dot.
Please read what I wrote.
“re-play with different starting conditions and one may obtain a different result”
This is completely deterministic.

One part of the process, the selection from options may be deterministic, but the other part, the generation of options to be selected from, isn't. D-ism.
Agreed - this is the point of “indeterminism”. But introducing indeterminism into the process simply introcduces indeterminism into the results – how do you think it introduced free will?

The only difference between re-play (A) and re-play (B) is that in (A) the conditions are indeed set to the way they were the first time round, whereas in (B) the conditions (at the moment of choice of the agent) are not the same as they were before. THIS FACT ALONE (and not any supposed “free will” on the part of the agent) is the source of the agent’s ability to make different choices in each run.
But they are different becuase of indeterminism in the chain of causes leading up to that moment, and in my naturalistic account of FW, that indeterminism is one of the things that constitutes FW. You seem to be assuming that FW is supernatural or nothing.
No, you seem to be assuming that introducing indeterminism also introduces free will.

Pseudo-random numbers (which are really deterministic) may be used in computers, and any indeterminism the brain calls on might be only pseudo-random. But it does not have to be, and if we assume it is not, we can explain realistically why we have the sense of being able to have done otherwise. People sometimes try to explain this as an 'illusion', but it do not make it clear why we would have that particular illusion.
You have not explained anything. You have assumed that indeterminism is equivalent to free will simply because indeterminism results in an indeterministic outcome.

Naturalists think it is not impossible to artificially duplicate human mentality, which would have to include human volition, since there is not 'ghost' in the human machine. You are levelling down, saying huamns have no FW and computers don't either.
I am not saying that humans do not have free will, I am saying that free will as defined by you cannot exist, period.

I am levelling up, saying humans have FW and appropriate computers could have it as well. It all depends on what you mean by FW.
Do you agree that the computer I have just described has free will? The computer “could have done otherwise” since it’s choices were dependent on a RNG input – therefore according to your philosophy it must have free will? Yes? Or no? And if no then why not?

I think one will find that if one models the above RA mechanism and examines it rationally and logically, looking at the possible sequences generated, then one will find that the introduction of the RNG prior to the moment of choice acts in much the same way as introducing the RNG after the moment of choice. In both cases, there is a point at which a deterministic choice is made by the agent based on alternatives available, but in both cases the final result is in fact random. This is not free will. This is simply a random-choice-making mechanism.
No it isn't the same. Intorducing randomness after choice removes 'ownership'. The hypothetical AI wouldn't be able to explain why it did as it did.
Incorrect. Why do you think the AI would not be able to explain why it did as it did? It operates deterministically, there is no reason why it should not understand the reason for its choices…..

MF

:smile:

[moving finger]

With respect, I suggest you are trying to compare different types of knowledge.
Knowledge of “what green looks like” is not foreknowledge, it is acquired knowledge.
Hmmmmm.
Hmmmmm? Is that a yes or a no?

Your definition of free will is dependent on infallible foreknowledge, it is not dependent on infallible acquired knowledge.
Hmmmmmm. It does appear that way.
Thank you.

I do not understand your suggestion “The asteroid could wipe out the PNS -- but in my view, not the agent.”
The asteroid is in the physical world; the agent is not. Thus the agent is immune from the asteroid.
Interesting. Can you please define what else your “agent” is also immune to? The common cold?

Are you suggesting that the agent is immortal, indestructible?
That it is impossible for the agent to be destroyed?
No. Just not by an asteroid.
“Just” by an asteroid? Thus, your agent can be destroyed by absolutely anything else…… but not by an asteroid?
Really?
Strange.

If you are indeed suggesting that an agent must necessarily be indestructible in order to have free will, then this needs to be explicit in your necessary conditions?
No. It's just that as soon as the agent is destroyed, it no longer has free will.
Well that does seem logical. You are not suggesting that your agent is necessarily indestructible then.

Are you suggesting that the agent somehow exists outside of the physical world?
Yes, absolutely. That is one of the most significant assumptions in my view of the world. It is probably second only to my assumption of the existence of only a single consciousness, since I think "a single consciousness" implies a non-physical world.
Perhaps you should therefore include this in your “necessary conditions” for free will?

For more elaboration, I'll let you prompt me with questions or comments.
OK, maybe later.

We are talking here specifically about foreknowledge. And IMHO infallible foreknowledge is not possible.
I see your point.
Thank you. Does that mean you “agree”?

Can you explain why you think your definition of free will is necessarily incompatible with determinism?
I tried to explain that with my thought experiment of re-running identical circumstances and getting different results. Determinism would say that the results would be identical.
Sorry, I still don’t understand how you introduce “different results”, unless this is purely due to indeterminism? (but if it is indeterminism, then what has this to do with free will?)

(for the record, I believe your type of free will does not exist because your definition requires infallible foreknowledge, which I do not believe is possible, in either a deterministic or an indeterministic world)
Your points about foreknowledge are begining to sink in.
Sink in? Does this mean you agree?

MF definition of free will : the ability of an agent to anticipate alternate possible outcomes dependent on alternate possible courses of action, and to choose which course of action to follow and in so doing to behave in a manner such that the agent’s choice appears, both to itself and to an outside observer, to be reasoned but not consistently predictable.
Except for a small quibble, I find this definition to make sense and I would accept it.
Wonderful!

I am not saying that the world is necessarily determinsitic, but I think you will find that the above definition is entirely consistent with determinism, and also consistent with the way that humans (who claim to have free will) actually behave.
Yes, you are right. I did find it consistent with determinism and with human behavior.
Even more wonderful!

There is no mystery involved in this definition or in the way that free will operates.
OK, but there still remains the slightly nagging question of whether or not there is free will in the naïve sense. (Could I really have taken a lunch break? I just don't know.)
If you would define “free will in the naïve sense” then I could tell you.

I agree the MF definition does not accord with the naïve conception of free will - but that is because the naïve conception of free will is based on unsound reasoning, and leads to a kind of free will which is not possible.
That could very well be the reason.
Wonderful!

No mystery.
Not one worth debating anyway.
Even more wonderful!

Does this mean that you now accept my suggested changes to your necessary conditions? (ie that agents "believe that thay have infallible knowledge" of options, rather than agents "have infallible knowledge" of options?)
MF
:smile:

[Paul Martin]

Does this mean that you now accept my suggested changes to your necessary conditions? (ie that agents "believe that thay have infallible knowledge" of options, rather than agents "have infallible knowledge" of options?)Yes. I accept your changes. I think you have improved on my original conditions. Thank you.

I am by nature slow but persistent. It took me a while but after thinking about your arguments, I finally saw that you are right. Sorry it took so long, and thank you for your effort.

Paul

[moving finger]

Yes. I accept your changes. I think you have improved on my original conditions. Thank you.

I am by nature slow but persistent. It took me a while but after thinking about your arguments, I finally saw that you are right. Sorry it took so long, and thank you for your effort.

Paul

You are most welcome.

We have arrived at our necessary conditions for free will :
1. The agent must be conscious.
2. The agent must believe that multiple options for action are available.
3. The agent must know (or believe that it knows) at least something about the probabilities of near-term consequences of at least some of the options in case they are acted out.
4. The agent must be able to choose and execute one of the options in the folklore sense of FW.

The above conditions (IMHO) are compatible with a deterministic world; they are also compatible with my definition of free will, as well as being (IMHO) an accurate description of exactly what humans experience when they claim to be acting as free agents.

MF definition of free will : the ability of an agent to anticipate alternate possible outcomes dependent on alternate possible courses of action, and to choose which course of action to follow and in so doing to behave in a manner such that the agent’s choice appears, both to itself and to an outside observer, to be reasoned but not consistently predictable.

As for the concern you expressed about the existence naïve free will :
OK, but there still remains the slightly nagging question of whether or not there is free will in the naïve sense. (Could I really have taken a lunch break? I just don't know.)
What I believe you mean here is : “If I had my time over again, could I have done otherwise than what I did?”. This IMHO is the naïve concept of free will, it is the concept usually espoused by Libertarians, and it is the concept we naturally think of based on “gut feeling” and “intuition” without really thinking rigorously about the issue.

My answer : Does it really matter whether you “could” have taken a lunch break or not? The fact is that “you were able to consider the option of taking a lunch break”, and "you believed at the time that this was an option available to you", and “you were able to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of taking a lunch break”, and at the time of your decision you were NOT coerced into NOT taking a lunch break, and (most importantly) you did what you wanted to do at the time, which was "not take a lunch break".

If you could replay that time over again, with literally everything the same way as it was before, then the same things would happen – you would consider the option, you would believe the option is available, you would evaluate advantages and disadvantages, you would not be coerced, and you would once again DO WHAT YOU WANT TO DO, which is "not take a lunch break".

What I believe most Libertarians ACTUALLY MEAN when they ask “if I could replay the same situation exactly as before, could I have done otherwise than what I actually did?” is in fact that they want the "freedom" to NOT replay it exactly as it was before, they want to be able to "choose differently" which means in turn they want to be able to "want to choose differently", which is NOT REPLAYING EXACTLY AS IT WAS BEFORE. The Libertarian who thinks he can replay and choose differently is therefore (IMHO) deceiving himself into thinking that he is actually replaying the same situation, when in fact he is not.

To the naïve question of free will expressed as “if I could replay the same situation EXACTLY as before, could I have done otherwise than what I actually did?” the answer is (IMHO) NO, YOU COULD NOT HAVE DONE OTHERWISE, BUT IT DOESN’T MATTER!

MF
:smile:

[moving finger]

I think one will find that if one models the above RA mechanism and examines it rationally and logically, looking at the possible sequences generated, then one will find that the introduction of the RNG prior to the moment of choice acts in much the same way as introducing the RNG after the moment of choice. In both cases, there is a point at which a deterministic choice is made by the agent based on alternatives available, but in both cases the final result is in fact random. This is not free will. This is simply a random-choice-making mechanism.

it isn't the same. Intorducing randomness after choice removes 'ownership'. The hypothetical AI wouldn't be able to explain why it did as it did.
Tournesol,

I just realised that I misunderstood your comment here. Apologies. Let me reply correctly this time :

I agree that in the case of the RNG after the moment of choice, the agent would not be able to explain why it chose what it did choose.

But on the other hand, in the case of the RNG before the moment of choice, the agent would not be able to explain why it considered the alternatives that it did consider – it would in fact have no control over the alternatives being considered because those alternatives are being generated, not by any rational process within the agent, but randomly.

In both case, the outcome is random.

In both cases, the agent does not completely control what it does.

MF
:smile:

[moving finger]

It's to do with the ability to have done otherwise .
Seems like a harmless expression doesn't it? Surely it stands to reason that all free will agents "have the ability to have done otherwise"?

I wish to show that this naive Libertarian concept of free will is an impossibility.

Libertarians seem to believe that "free will" is somehow associated with the fact that "if one could replay the circumstances exactly the same as before, then one must have been able to have done otherwise than what one actually did".

For example, one hour ago I could have chosen to take a lunch break, or I could have chosen to continue typing. In fact, I chose to continue typing. The Libertarian would say that if I could replay the circumstances exactly the same as before, then (if I have free will) I must have been able to choose to take a lunch break rather than to continue typing.

At first sight, this idea seems intuitively "right"; our naive impression of free will is surely that we can choose to do whatsoever we wish, and therefore (our intuition tells us), if we have free will then that also means that, given identical circumstances, we still must have been able to do otherwise than what we actually did?

Let us analyse this seemingly "obvious" statement a little more closely.

Firstly, what do we mean by "circumstances exactly the same as before"? Do we mean simply that the circumstances should be similar, but not necessarily identical? No, of course not, because obviously if the circumstances were even slightly different then that might affect our choice anyway, regardless of whether we "choose freely" or not.
Therefore, when we say "circumstances exactly the same as before" we do mean precisely the same, including our own internal wishes, desires, volitions.

Secondly, what do we mean by "able to have done otherwise"?
Do we mean "physically able", in the sense that one is physically capable of carrying out different actions? No of course not.
Do we mean "able to choose", in the sense that one is capable of selecting one of among various alternatives?
This seems closer to what we actually mean. But surely "our choice" is determined by "us"; we "freely" decide our choice based upon the prevailing circumstances.

Now combine these two. Repeat the scenario, with "circumstances exactly the same as before".

If circumstances are indeed exactly the same as before, then all of our internal wishes, desires, volitions etc will also be exactly the same as before. In which case, why one earth would we WANT to choose differently than the way we did before? Replay the scenario with exactly the same conditions, and any rational "free thinking" agent will choose exactly the same way each and every time. The only reason why it should ever "choose differently" in the carbon-copy repeat is if there is some element of indeterminism in the choice - but do Libertarians REALLY want to say that their free will choices are governed by indeterminism? I think not.

My answer to this naive Libertarian concept of free will : Does it really matter whether I “could” have taken a lunch break or not?

The fact is that “I was able to consider the option of taking a lunch break”, and in addition "I believed at the time that this was an option available to me", and even “I was able to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of taking a lunch break”, and furthermore at the time of my decision I was NOT coerced into NOT taking a lunch break, and (most importantly) I did what I wanted to do at the time, which was "not take a lunch break".

If I could replay that time over again, with literally everything the same way as it was before, then the same things would happen – I would consider the options, I would believe the options are available, I would evaluate advantages and disadvantages, I would not be coerced, and I would once again DO WHAT I WANTED TO DO, which is (because the circumstances are identical) "not take a lunch break".

What I believe most Libertarians ACTUALLY MEAN when they say "if one could replay the circumstances exactly the same as before, then one must have been able to have done otherwise than what one actually did" is in fact that they want to have the "freedom" to NOT replay it EXACTLY as it was before, they want in fact to be able not only to "choose differently" to the way they did before, but they also want to "want to choose differently", which is then NOT REPLAYING EXACTLY AS IT WAS BEFORE.

The Libertarian who thinks he can replay perfectly and still choose differently is therefore (IMHO) deceiving himself.

The naïve concept of free will is expressed as “"if one could replay the circumstances exactly the same as before, then one must have been able to have done otherwise than what one actually did"

- and the rational response is (IMHO) YOU COULD NOT HAVE DONE OTHERWISE THAN WHAT YOU DID, BUT IT REALLY DOESN’T MATTER!

MF
:smile:

[loseyourname]

I have no idea what you mean by strong free will
(but from the rest of your post I suspect we have some similar beliefs)

May I ask - do you believe your concept of free will is compatible with determinism?
MF
:smile:

Sure. I suppose I can formulate what I mean when I say that an action of mine is free:

Any action X is a freely willed action if, and only if, the impulse to carry it out was internal to my own psyche and I was conscious of this impulse. This basically just means that so long as I ordered the action, then it's freely willed. Even if this I is nothing more than a particular unique confluence of physical and historical forces networking to determine the behavior of my body, that's fine with me. It doesn't even matter if I couldn't have done otherwise. 'Strong' free will is just that and seems to be what everyone else wants - contracausal, non-deterministic, and could have done otherwise.

By the way, Paul Martin asked a while back what I meant by by distinction between 'experiential' and 'functionalist' knowledge. Functionalist isn't the best word to use, as it conjurs up images of psychological theories that I'm not endorsing, and these aren't accepted technical terms or anything, so I probably should explain. Maybe a better distinction would be between conscious and non-conscious knowledge, since the point that I was trying to make was simply that I don't agree that knowledge is just the experiential state that one is one when one acquires knowledge. For instance, everyone in this thread likely knows that 2+37=39, even though they may not have been thinking about it at that time. Given the results of hypnotic therapy and such, it's entirely possible that you have knowledge of the past that you are not and may never be conscious of. This knowledge (suppressed memories) would fit the non-conscious knowledge mold but wouldn't fit what I meant by functional knowledge, as functional knowledge has to be usable in some way. A good example of what I meant by functional, non-experiential knowledge, is a typist's knowledge of the keyboard. I know exactly where all of the keys are on the board and use that knowledge to type out words on a screen. Rarely am I conscious of where the keys are, however. I'm certainly not thinking about it; I'm just thinking about the words I want to produce. In the same way, a good pitcher never thinks about the mechanics needed to produce a good curveball; he just throws the pitch. Nonetheless, he must have knowledge of those mechanics in order to have the ability to throw a curveball in the first place.

[selfAdjoint]

And loseyourname, you could add that if some of those causes were randomly altered, that would change either the given parameters, or your desires, and you either would want to do differently because of the different causes, or else you would want differently because your desires were different, but in neither case would you be acting freely.

[loseyourname]

And loseyourname, you could add that if some of those causes were randomly altered, that would change either the given parameters, or your desires, and you either would want to do differently because of the different causes, or else you would want differently because your desires were different, but in neither case would you be acting freely.

Well, they'd be free under my conception, but I suppose not in a strong sense. I'm kind of with Stace's language analysis, though, when he demonstrates that the common usage of the term 'free' only denotes that an action was not compelled by an external force as a proximate cause. As someone said (I can't remember who), we may be free to do as we please, but we are not free to please as we please.

[moving finger]

......... in neither case would you be acting freely.
Can you please define what you mean by "acting freely"?

Thanks

MF
:smile:

[moving finger]

Sure. I suppose I can formulate what I mean when I say that an action of mine is free:

Any action X is a freely willed action if, and only if, the impulse to carry it out was internal to my own psyche and I was conscious of this impulse. This basically just means that so long as I ordered the action, then it's freely willed. Even if this I is nothing more than a particular unique confluence of physical and historical forces networking to determine the behavior of my body, that's fine with me. It doesn't even matter if I couldn't have done otherwise.
Agreed. And this kind of free will is indeed compatible with determinism.

My preferred definition of free will I think you will find agrees completely with your above description :
"Free will is the ability of an agent to anticipate alternate possible outcomes dependent on alternate possible courses of action and to choose which course of action to follow and in so doing to behave in a manner such that the agent’s choice appears, both to itself and to an outside observer, to be reasoned but not consistently predictable."

'Strong' free will is just that and seems to be what everyone else wants - contracausal, non-deterministic, and could have done otherwise.
This kind of “Strong” free will, IMHO, is a “will-o-the-wisp” and cannot exist. This seems to be the kind of “free will” that Libertarians want, but I have yet to find anyone who can both unambiguously define it and rationally defend it.

MF
:smile:

[moving finger]

As someone said (I can't remember who), we may be free to do as we please, but we are not free to please as we please.
Peter O'Toole, as the character T E Lawrence in the epic Lawrence of Arabia, says (in a memorable scene with Omar Sharif, where he finally comes to terms with his limited ability to change the course of history in the Arabian peninsular) :

"We are free to do what we want. But we are not free to want what we want."

MF
:smile:

[Tournesol]

Sure. I suppose I can formulate what I mean when I say that an action of mine is free:

Any action X is a freely willed action if, and only if, the impulse to carry it out was internal to my own psyche and I was conscious of this impulse.

But you can be consciously aware of impulses that are not your conscious wish. A kleptomaniac is consciously aware of an impulse to steal, originating within herself, but it is not her wish or will to steal.

This basically just means that so long as I ordered the action, then it's freely willed.

what does "I ordered" mean ?


My preferred definition of free will I think you will find agrees completely with your above description :
"Free will is the ability of an agent to anticipate alternate possible outcomes dependent on alternate possible courses of action and to choose which course of action to follow and in so doing to behave in a manner such that the agent’s choice appears, both to itself and to an outside observer, to be reasoned but not consistently predictable."

That is compatible with indeterminism as well as determinism. Depending on what you mean by "choose" it might even require indeterminism.

'Strong' free will is just that and seems to be what everyone else wants - contracausal, non-deterministic, and could have done otherwise.

If the universe is indeterministic, there is nothing miraculous about the ability
to have done otherwise.

[loseyourname]

But you can be consciously aware of impulses that are not your conscious wish. A kleptomaniac is consciously aware of an impulse to steal, originating within herself, but it is not her wish or will to steal.

That's a compulsion, not an impulse. Subtle difference.

what does "I ordered" mean ?

I made a decision to take any given particular action.

That is compatible with indeterminism as well as determinism. Depending on what you mean by "choose" it might even require indeterminism.

I don't think you were responding to me here, but I certainly don't view choices as indeterministic. They certainly can be, but don't have to be (go back to the Mars Rover example).

If the universe is indeterministic, there is nothing miraculous about the ability to have done otherwise.

There's nothing willed about it, either.

[Tournesol]

That's a compulsion, not an impulse. Subtle difference.

Yes, but the salient difference isn't made explicit by your definition. Consc. awareness is not enough -- consc approval is also required.

I made a decision to take any given particular action.

the problem of defining FW is to 'unpack' it, not just substitute synonyms.


There's nothing willed about it, either.

How do you know? Can you demonstrate that FW is not just a particular complex combination of deterministic and undetermined events and processes?
Do you insist, along with MF that it must involve a ghost ?

[Dmstifik8ion]

I am determined to inform those who give a differance that reality does not.
As for sub/conscious decisions being determined the subconscious is programmed beforehand both by experience and conscious deliberation and reasoning.

[moving finger]

Can you demonstrate that FW is not just a particular complex combination of deterministic and undetermined events and processes?
Do you insist, along with MF that it must involve a ghost ?
The determinist can demonstrate that the "feeling of free will" which many humans claim to possess is easily explainable on the basis of pure determinism, with no need to invoke any metaphysical concepts of libertarian free will. This then becomes a scientific "hypothesis", based on accepted understanding of how the world works, which explains the human feeling of free will. It is accepted scientific practice that scientific hypotheses are not proven true, they are only ever proven false.

See, for example : http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/%7Ewegner/pdfs/Wegner&Wheatley1999.pdf

The defender of libertarian free will is also free (no pun intended) to propose an hypothesis of how libertarian free will is supposed to work (ie how the human feeling of free will is explained based on the real existence of some kind of libertarian free will) - but as in the case of the determinist hypothesis, such a libertarian explanation should be based on accepted understanding of how the world works, and be free of metaphysical "sleight of hand" (otherwise it risks being branded as incoherent). Can the libertarian do this?

Best Regards

MF

If one pays attention to the concepts being employed, rather than the words being used, the resolution of this problem is simple (Stuart Burns)