Does Neuroscience Challenge the Existence of Free Will?

[Maui]

Empiricism, above all, does not escape the role of the observer. The role of the observer, and the way the observer perceives and processes information (i.e., their mind, see the catch?), is paramount to empiricism. But you should already know that.

And the fact is they have no idea what a mind is. Nor what an observer is and neither do they know what the environment is. It's all just a fight between(likely wrong) philosophies to keep the current prevelent but inconsistent views of existence. In a way, we have to teach our children stuff we know is flawed on many levels, just to keep the balance and their own sanity.

 

[nismaratwork]

Yes, and it is precisely that meaning I am using. The mathematics of quantum mechanics has observables corresponding to operators in a Hilbert space, and the bilinear forms they generate but I'm talking about what that mathematics means. Operators and bilinear forms exist independently of quantum mechanics, they are formal abstractions only. What makes them relevant to physics is how they relate to the interaction of an observer with the observed. Yes, even in quantum mechanics.
Yes, that is why it is so surprising you are using the language you are using to talk about quantum mechanics. Your language is not consistent with those basic philosophical lessons. That is also why I am not quoting sources-- what I am saying is inescapable and elementary, and frankly, people really have no business not recognizing the importance of an observer in an observation, even if the observer is a hypothetical extrapolation of a real observer.
Empiricism, above all, does not escape the role of the observer. The role of the observer, and the way the observer perceives and processes information (i.e., their mind, see the catch?), is paramount to empiricism. But you should already know that.

By the same token, there is no privelaged observer.

 

[nismaratwork]

And the fact is they have no idea what a mind is. Nor what an observer is and neither do they know what the environment is. It's all just a fight between(likely wrong) philosophies to keep the current prevelent but inconsistent views of existence. In a way, we have to teach our children stuff we know is flawed on many levels, just to keep the balance and their own sanity.

I'd say we teach it as a theory, which is always conditional, explain the conflicts AND the fact that both are marvelously predictive. It's not for lack of trying to be rid of it that we're saddled with QM!

 

[Ken G]

And the fact is they have no idea what a mind is. Nor what an observer is and neither do they know what the environment is. It's all just a fight between(likely wrong) philosophies to keep the current prevelent but inconsistent views of existence. In a way, we have to teach our children stuff we know is flawed on many levels, just to keep the balance and their own sanity.

There may be something to that-- do we do philosophy to establish truth, knowing we will probably fail, do we do it to obtain a soothing illusion of truth, knowing it is probably self-delusion, or do we do it because we simply would like to explore the territory, like a kind of mental nature walk?

 

[nismaratwork]

There may be something to that-- do we do philosophy to establish truth, knowing we will probably fail, do we do it to obtain a soothing illusion of truth, knowing it is probably self-delusion, or do we do it because we simply would like to explore the territory, like a kind of mental nature walk?

I vote nature walk.

 

[Ken G]

Me too.

 

[Pythagorean]

ah, nature walking amongst itself, pretending to be something else. A provocative sight!

 

[Pythagorean]

http://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html

 

[nismaratwork]

http://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html

I wasn't impressed by her work before her incident, nor are any I know at BI: Deaconnes, Mass General, or Harvard Med. Her work after is even less impressive, although like a smoker with a laryngectomy... long on impact, short on news.

What, smoking is bad for you? I never would have guessed!

Partial hemispherectomies are not new, and the plasticity involved (see work being done at BI: Deaconness, Mass General and Harvard), also studied in tandem with the effects of exercise on neural plasticity in Alzheimers patients. Frankly, this isn't good, or bad, just blaaaah.

 

[Pythagorean]

I wasn't impressed by her work before her incident, nor are any I know at BI: Deaconnes, Mass General, or Harvard Med. Her work after is even less impressive, although like a smoker with a laryngectomy... long on impact, short on news.

What, smoking is bad for you? I never would have guessed!

Partial hemispherectomies are not new, and the plasticity involved (see work being done at BI: Deaconness, Mass General and Harvard), also studied in tandem with the effects of exercise on neural plasticity in Alzheimers patients. Frankly, this isn't good, or bad, just blaaaah.

You're absolutely welcome to that view, but you might appreciate that ad hominem, appeals to authority and expression of distaste aren't going to convince me of anything. I would love to learn rather than hear fallacies. You sound informed, why not share?

 

[nismaratwork]

You're absolutely welcome to that view, but you might appreciate that ad hominem, appeals to authority and expression of distaste aren't going to convince me of anything. I would love to learn rather than hear fallacies. You sound informed, why not share?

I'm less informed than I sound, and really feel little desire to go further with this particular woman's views than contempt and ad hominem. Above all, her own style is an appeal to her own authority in several ways, offering little in the way of understanding how the brain adapts.

The exercise bit... I'm forgetting the last name... is Art... something. I'll talk to a guy at BI:D on thursday and get the name. Until then, I don't think I can properly address her fallacies... my knowledge is not so deep that I can pass the "teach it to anyone" test,a nd I'd rather not make a greater fool of myself and I already am.

 

[apeiron]

You're absolutely welcome to that view, but you might appreciate that ad hominem, appeals to authority and expression of distaste aren't going to convince me of anything. I would love to learn rather than hear fallacies. You sound informed, why not share?

You pasted a link to a video seminar that would not pass muster if it had been a peer-reviewed paper. Utter crank stuff. So what is the point you are attempting to make here?

Do you expect this to be taken seriously as evidence for something? What exactly?

If you want a neuroscientific explanation of her symptoms, that isn't hard to supply. A general state of disinhibition has this everything happening/nothing happening quality of raw potential experience. Attentional states are needed to suppress activity, creating a state of meaningful activity. The left brain is the lead player in creating focal attentional states.

Yes, there is a strong dichotomy expressed in the left~right brain. It is focus and fringe, event and context. A processing dichotomy. Left zooms in, the right pans out. But this woman soars way off into la-la land when it comes to a scientific view of what is going on.

 

[nismaratwork]

You pasted a link to a video seminar that would not pass muster if it had been a peer-reviewed paper. Utter crank stuff. So what is the point you are attempting to make here?

Do you expect this to be taken seriously as evidence for something? What exactly?

If you want a neuroscientific explanation of her symptoms, that isn't hard to supply. A general state of disinhibition has this everything happening/nothing happening quality of raw potential experience. Attentional states are needed to suppress activity, creating a state of meaningful activity. The left brain is the lead player in creating focal attentional states.

Yes, there is a strong dichotomy expressed in the left~right brain. It is focus and fringe, event and context. A processing dichotomy. Left zooms in, the right pans out. But this woman soars way off into la-la land when it comes to a scientific view of what is going on.

She was that way before she lost of a chunk of her brain; who'd have guessed that radical neurosurgery wouldn't have improved her grasp of reality?

 

[apeiron]

She was that way before she lost of a chunk of her brain; who'd have guessed that radical neurosurgery wouldn't have improved her grasp of reality?

She said she had a blood clot pressing on the language areas. And had that removed. So she may not have lost a lot of gray matter. On the other hand, her style is a bit wild...

I have to say I did very like her account of the stroke itself. That did seem accurately observed. It is the cartoon version of neuroscience - the right brain in tune with the cosmos, the left brain standing for the selfish self - which makes it invalid as a PF citation here.

 

[nismaratwork]

She said she had a blood clot pressing on the language areas. And had that removed. So she may not have lost a lot of gray matter. On the other hand, her style is a bit wild...

I have to say I did very like her account of the stroke itself. That did seem accurately observed. It is the cartoon version of neuroscience - the right brain in tune with the cosmos, the left brain standing for the selfish self - which makes it invalid as a PF citation here.

Agreed.

 

[Pythagorean]

So what is the point you are attempting to make here?

Do you expect this to be taken seriously as evidence for something? What exactly?

This:

If you want a neuroscientific explanation of her symptoms, that isn't hard to supply. A general state of disinhibition has this everything happening/nothing happening quality of raw potential experience. Attentional states are needed to suppress activity, creating a state of meaningful activity. The left brain is the lead player in creating focal attentional states.

Yes, there is a strong dichotomy expressed in the left~right brain. It is focus and fringe, event and context. A processing dichotomy. Left zooms in, the right pans out. But this woman soars way off into la-la land when it comes to a scientific view of what is going on.

It's not a scientific view... how can you think that? It's a phenomenological view. The assumption was that we already knew the neuroscience. Nismar was commenting on what people felt and experienced. We were talking about subjective experience.

I was demonstrating how the subjective experience of self that binds you to one location in your head requires functioning neural circuitry.

 

[apeiron]

I was demonstrating how the subjective experience of self that binds you to one location in your head requires functioning neural circuitry.

So please when you post links, make it clear what it is we are supposed to notice.

And you still don't make sense as she was talking about her emboddied experience. Subjectively she never felt located in a side of her head. But she did find her own hands and body start to feel alien. And then her own presence swell and break the physical bounds of her body.

If you wanted to talk about the psychophysics of body image, there is a ton of peer-review papers you know.

A recent one...
http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/4082/full

 

[Pythagorean]

So please when you post links, make it clear what it is we are supposed to notice.

A fair request.

It was in the heat of a discussion between nismar and I (the collective conscious vs. self discussion) that transcended a couple threads, so I had already habituated to the context and failed to continue to declare it.

 

[Darken-Sol]

No. All it really tells us, is that the decision making process is distinct from the self-reflective process. It actually makes sense that the latter would require more processing. Compare how much more difficult it is to learn to drive a car... than it is to drive one after you have learned. In the former case, you have to 'be aware' of everything you are doing. In the latter, your decisions seem 'more unconscious', even though a truly unconscious driver would be in a lot of trouble. The real problem is that the conscious/unconscious dichotomy is overly simplistic. We're only scratching the surface of what consciousness actually is, so this is not surprising.

my sensei says we train so we do not have to think. when we fight from "no-mind" we will always be faster than some one who has to process information and decide. when i learn and train a new technique i am making the decision then and there to use it if the situation ever arises.

 

[Ken G]

Yes, I think there are (at least) two kinds of being conscious-- one which is very self-reflective, possibly even internally verbal (like analysis of one's situation), and the other that is less verbal and more animalistic-- "in the zone", if you will. We might err to jump to the conclusion that the higher form of consciousness is the former because it is the more separate from animals-- the "in the zone" form actually feels like a higher consciousness, we feel more in tune with our surroundings and more able to act (and act faster, as we heard just above). I don't say that animals are "in the zone" the way people are-- it seems more like a person coming full circle to a kind of animalistic state of mind is still a higher or more complete self-awareness than what animals might experience. Perhaps the goal should not be to take our greater intelligence and achieve a state of mind as different from animals as possible, but rather, to take our greater intelligence that separates us from animals and find the road back that allows us access to both worlds.

In relation to the thread, if this is true, it means that what we mean by "free will" could be more than just one thing, so we should not study it as though we were studying just one thing.