What Price for Genuine Free Will?

[Billy T]

Free will is not free!

Before starting this thread, I read all of thread "On Free will," which Imparcticle created from thread "Can You prove you Exist" because it had converted into a discussion of "Free Will."His new thread seems to have converted into a discussion of "Random" - First reason for new thread.

In Imparcticle's post #6 he quotes from a long web page the following price someone was willing to pay for free will:

That person was suggesting " – the claim that the Laws of Nature are not of our choosing – is a relic of the earlier view that Laws of Nature are God's inviolable prescriptions to the Universe. If we fully abandon the view that the Laws of Nature are prescriptions, then the way is open for us to rescue the theory that Free Will exists.
6.7 Do Laws of Nature Govern the Universe?..."

He went on in section 6.7 of his long web page to answer his own question in the negative. He considers the "laws of nature" to be just man made "descriptions." - To me that is a high price to pay.

I have a Ph. D. in physics and believe the we discover existing laws of nature. I won't pay that price, yet like almost everyone, I feel I make real choices in life and want a rational bases for a belief in Genuine Free Will, GFW.

Unfortunately, my knowledge of physics (and biology) forced me (for many year) to conclude that Quantum Mechanics was actual determining the details of the neuro-chemistry in the release, transport and attachment of molecules in the synaptic gaps between my neurons. That in truth, I only had the illusion that "I" was deciding anything. - When I am being careful, I put quotes around I, me, we, us, you, etc. to indicate that the "I" I am speaking of is not my body nor any miracle (inconsistent with physics, such as a "soul.") (You will learn just what "I" is soon, be patient.)

After many years troubled by the inconsistence in my system of beliefs (Believing in both GFW and Physic but not miracles) I began to study vision. Quickly I realized that the theory accepted by almost all cognitive scientists is half right and half wrong. They teach: (1) that the 2D retinal image information is "neurally processed", first in V1, and later in various other parts of the brain, to extract "features" (such as color, motion etc.) that then (2) "emerge" to form our unified perception of a 3D world with discrete reconized objects in it. It is the second (2) part that I concluded is false. I too believe part (1). Eventually I replaced (2) with a new theory and publised the results in the Johns Hopkins APL Technical Digest. (I worked for JHU for almost 30 years.) Totaslly unexpectedly, my solution to the problem of visual perception presented me with a price for GFW that I was willing to pay. You may think the cost is too high. I invite you to consider the attachment, which is a condenstation of that JHU vision paper, with some additions to make the clear how it s possible to have GFW consistent with physics, if you are willing to pay the price as I was and am still. I hope you will comment on both the attachment and tell what price you would pay to make your system of beliefs free fo conflict between your understanding of phyics and a belief in GFW, if you do believe in GFW.

 

[Philocrat]

Free will is not free!

Before starting this thread, I read all of thread "On Free will," which Imparcticle created from thread "Can You prove you Exist" because it had converted into a discussion of "Free Will."His new thread seems to have converted into a discussion of "Random" - First reason for new thread.

In Imparcticle's post #6 he quotes from a long web page the following price someone was willing to pay for free will:

That person was suggesting " – the claim that the Laws of Nature are not of our choosing – is a relic of the earlier view that Laws of Nature are God's inviolable prescriptions to the Universe. If we fully abandon the view that the Laws of Nature are prescriptions, then the way is open for us to rescue the theory that Free Will exists.
6.7 Do Laws of Nature Govern the Universe?..."

He went on in section 6.7 of his long web page to answer his own question in the negative. He considers the "laws of nature" to be just man made "descriptions." - To me that is a high price to pay.

I have a Ph. D. in physics and believe the we discover existing laws of nature. I won't pay that price, yet like almost everyone, I feel I make real choices in life and want a rational bases for a belief in Genuine Free Will, GFW.

Unfortunately, my knowledge of physics (and biology) forced me (for many year) to conclude that Quantum Mechanics was actual determining the details of the neuro-chemistry in the release, transport and attachment of molecules in the synaptic gaps between my neurons. That in truth, I only had the illusion that "I" was deciding anything. - When I am being careful, I put quotes around I, me, we, us, you, etc. to indicate that the "I" I am speaking of is not my body nor any miracle (inconsistent with physics, such as a "soul.") (You will learn just what "I" is soon, be patient.)

After many years troubled by the inconsistence in my system of beliefs (Believing in both GFW and Physic but not miracles) I began to study vision. Quickly I realized that the theory accepted by almost all cognitive scientists is half right and half wrong. They teach: (1) that the 2D retinal image information is "neurally processed", first in V1, and later in various other parts of the brain, to extract "features" (such as color, motion etc.) that then (2) "emerge" to form our unified perception of a 3D world with discrete reconized objects in it. It is the second (2) part that I concluded is false. I too believe part (1). Eventually I replaced (2) with a new theory and publised the results in the Johns Hopkins APL Technical Digest. (I worked for JHU for almost 30 years.) Totaslly unexpectedly, my solution to the problem of visual perception presented me with a price for GFW that I was willing to pay. You may think the cost is too high. I invite you to consider the attachment, which is a condenstation of that JHU vision paper, with some additions to make the clear how it s possible to have GFW consistent with physics, if you are willing to pay the price as I was and am still. I hope you will comment on both the attachment and tell what price you would pay to make your system of beliefs free fo conflict between your understanding of phyics and a belief in GFW, if you do believe in GFW.

Ultimately, free will means:

BEING ABOVE ALL CAUSAL AND RELATIONAL LAWS OF NATURE (OR PHYSICS, IF YOU LIKE).

I am not quite sure if any thing with that sort of physical ability really exist, except maybe GOD. But even if things in Nature or in the Universe were causally and relationally restricted as so passively presupposed by the above definition, FREEWILL can still be understooded from the point of view of KNOWLEDGE. So, we can still redefine it as:

KNOWING HOW TO OVERCOME OR ELIMINATE ALL CAUSAL AND RELATIONAL OBSTACLES AND OBSTRUCTIONS FROM MY CAUSAL AND MUTATIONAL PATHWAYS.

Some Philosophers think of DETERMINISM as a buit-in obstacle to freewill. They argue that if determinism (predeterminism) is true, then freewill is impossible. I personally do not think that this is really the case. I always argue that:

IF KNOWLEDGE IS POSSIBLE AND PROGRESSIVE IN HUMANS THEN FREEWILL IS POSSIBLE.

If that is true, then determinism or predeterminism has no real effect on freewill, and even if there is one currently in play this should be construed as ephemeral in scope and in substance.

------------------------
THINK NATURE...STAY GREEN! MAY THE 'BOOK OF NATURE' SERVE YOU WELL AND BRING YOU ALL THAT IS GOOD!

 

[Billy T]

Philocat said:
"Ultimately, free will means:
BEING ABOVE ALL CAUSAL AND RELATIONAL LAWS OF NATURE (OR PHYSICS, IF YOU LIKE)."

Billy T replies:
I grant you the right to define free will as you do, but that is not the free will I am talking about. That is why I called my version Genuine Free Will, GFW.

Next Philocrat said:
"So, we can still redefine it as:
KNOWING HOW TO OVERCOME OR ELIMINATE ALL CAUSAL AND RELATIONAL OBSTACLES AND OBSTRUCTIONS FROM MY CAUSAL AND MUTATIONAL PATHWAYS."

Billy T replies:
Not sure I understand, but he seems to be converting even his "free will" into "knowledge." I started this thread because I want to discuss GFW, not "knowledge." Please stick closer to the thread in future posts.

Then Philocrat said:
"Some Philosophers think of DETERMINISM as a buit-in obstacle to freewill. They argue that if determinism (predeterminism) is true, then freewill is impossible. I personally do not think that this is really the case. I always argue that:
"IF KNOWLEDGE IS POSSIBLE AND PROGRESSIVE IN HUMANS THEN FREEWILL IS POSSIBLE.
If that is true, then determinism or predeterminism has no real effect on freewill, and even if there is one currently in play this should be construed as ephemeral in scope and in substance."

Billy T replies:
Now you really are way outside the thread. A basic assumption in this thread is that there is a conflict between GFW and Physic (Natural Laws). See attachment to first post of thread.

You are of course free to disagree, but in some other thread. This thread is about what price one must (or is willing) to pay to resolve this conflict. Perhaps you are saying that you "resolve the conflict" by denying it. OK, but not here.

 

[Mentat]

Welcome to the PFs, BillyT

I've got a question about one of your premises. You say that we do not consciously perceive the external world, but rather the simulation that such world produces within our brains, right? You also agree that the external stimulus produces that simulation, and is thus causally related, right?

If such premises are true, then it would be necessary for light to enter my retinae in order for me to newly perceive the simulation of that which emitted/reflected the light ITFP. That would mean that my eyes are still useful, because they convey the information to the "simulation center". If so, wouldn't I need eyes within that simulation center to perceive the simulation? If yes, then I should think that, since we are explaining the perception of external phenomena, and the simulation is "external" relative to the "inner eye" that it enters, and that they (the "inner eyes") must then relay that information to yet a deeper "simulation center", which has its own "inner inner eyes", et cetera ad infinitum...

Have I misunderstood what you were saying?

 

[Crosson]

This is called epiphenomenalism, the idea that our minds are an epiphenomenon (an inert byproduct) of our bodies. I agree with your analysis, but I have to remind you that, like all compatibilists (we are not genuinely free, but it is possible to speak of freedom in a meaningful sense), the argument is off the topic of genuine free will.

Oh, but I have to comment on that quantum babble. In philosophy, people like to whip out QM like a wild card that makes anything possible. Quantum indeterminate events are not random, in the sense that you use the word genuine (i would say ontological). They are epistemically random, and thus can never lead to genuine free will. Even more to the point, although the outcome of an event cannot be determined precisely before hand, the probability of a particular occurence can be precisely determined in advance (ruling out the possibility of influencing indeterminate events with free will.)

 

[Billy T]

Welcome to the PFs, BillyT

I've got a question about one of your premises. You say that we do not consciously perceive the external world, but rather the simulation that such world produces within our brains, right? You also agree that the external stimulus produces that simulation, and is thus causally related, right?

Right.

If such premises are true, then it would be necessary for light to enter my retinae in order for me to newly perceive the simulation of that which emitted/reflected the light ITFP. That would mean that my eyes are still useful, because they convey the information to the "simulation center".

Yes, very useful, but not essential in two ways.
(1)I think even the congentially blind run the real-time simulation I suggest.
(2)People with normal vision can close their eyes and have visual experiences, admitly not with the same detail as when actually looking at something with eyes open. For example, with your eyes shut you should have no trouble visualizind a tiger (assuming you have seen several before). You will be able to tell me if your mental image of it has the head to the right or the left. (low detail) but you will not be able to count the number of vertical stripes (higher resolution) which you would easily be able to do if you were actually looking ar one. Try it - you will "see" I am right.

I also note that when sleeping you have visual experiences with your eyes closed (dreams) There is strong evidence that Rapid Eye Movement, (REM sleep stage) is associated with these dreams (but not solid proof). Usually when REM activity exists there is also enhanced EEG signals from the visual cortex. These facts, support the idea that you are having a visual experience of the same kind as when your eyes are open, only it is a low resolution version.

If so, wouldn't I need eyes within that simulation center to perceive the simulation? If yes, ...

You did not give me a "no" option, but the answer is NO. You went on to correctly note that the yes responce leads direcly to the infinite regress, but did not cal it by its standard name. By chance, my last post prior to this one was a reply to Bolo in the thread "an idea about consciousness and materialism" (my post was #16 in that thread.) The essence of my earlier reply to Bolo was to warn him that he was on the "slipper slope of an infinite regress." He was concerened as to where the image is since the brain is just atoms etc. He wanted a "monitor" to produce the image and did not seem to understand that the monitor is also, just atoms. I will quote most of my post 16 repying to him to show that I understand well the infinite regress problem:

"...you are on a slipper slope by suggesting that since you can't preceive the image, you presume that you have some monitor that makes the perception possible. This leads to the obvious question: How does the monitor perceive? Well, it has a monitor with which it pecceives ...etc...etc...etc...without end or resolution of the original problem. (Usually called the "infinite regress trap.)"

 

[selfAdjoint]

Semi Zeki, perhaps the world's leading expert on primate visual systems, has authored with Andreas Bartels a theory (http://www.vislab.ucl.ac.uk/pdf/asoc.pdf) that the visual experience is constructed by a number of independent, asynchronous processes, and that neither the spatial organization nor the times of the visual experiences as we believe them to be are necessary a faithful representation of what our eyes and body experience. Daniel Dennett, of course, presented his theory of competing partial drafts in his book Consciousness Explained. It seems to me that your theory would go well with these. Do you think so?

 

[Billy T]

This is called epiphenomenalism, the idea that our minds are an epiphenomenon (an inert byproduct) of our bodies. I agree with your analysis, but I have to remind you that, like all compatibilists (we are not genuinely free, but it is possible to speak of freedom in a meaningful sense), the argument is off the topic of genuine free will.

I thank you for "agreeing" but since your "agreement" is a strong challange, I hope you never disagree with me

I am not very concerned with the names one stick on concepts so I will permit you to apply any labels you like. I do take strong exception to your unsupported statement that "we are not genuinely free." Perhaps your throwing me in the box with "compatibilists" is your "support." If that is thecase, and they agree that "we are not genuinely free," then you have definitely made a mistake to assume I belong in that box/croud.

The whole point of the attachment to the first post in this thread I started is summed up in the title of the attachment to that first post ("Genuine Free Will is Possible").

I cannot be sure to which "argument" you are referring in your last sentence above, but surely you do not think that a carefully reasoned, well supported argument, with several proofs in it supporting my claim that Genuine Free Will, GFW, is possible - one that also concludes the statement that one must pay the price of being non material to have GFWis "off the topic" in a thread whose very title is: "What Price Free Will" !

Oh, but I have to comment on that quantum babble. In philosophy, people like to whip out QM like a wild card that makes anything possible.

Having spent sever hundred hours turning the crank of QM formalism (both the matrix and analytic versions) while earning my Ph.D in Physics, I can hardly relate to a "quantum babble" concept. I bet anyone who thinks QM is "babble" has never ground thru a QM calculation and probably does not know a hamiltonian from a hamberger! I definitely know that QM is not a "wild card." It is a computationally difficulty and inflexible science. In the hands of one who actually can calculate with it, the results are without any freedom, just like the summation of three numbers has only one correct result.

BTW you state that you "have to comment" on QM, but the only "comment" I can see that you made is difficult to distinguish from simple name calling.

I would really enjoy reading any true comment from you on the substance of QM. There are good philosophical questions in QM. For example, please comment on what distinguish an "observation", which forces a mixed state wave function into one pure eigen state, from an "interaction", which only changes the relative strength of the eigen states making up the mixture. I anxiously await your reply!

Quantum indeterminate events are not random, in the sense that you use the word genuine (i would say ontological). They are epistemically random, and thus can never lead to genuine free will.

QM events are random, so I need not try to understand what you mean in the sentence that starts by denying this. By "events i assume we aree both talking about an event that we know something about -I.e. something that is "observed" (Don't go off into things like "if no human was looking was it an "observation" etc. An "observation" was made, for example, during the interaction of a cosmic ray with some photographic film transported to the high atmosphere even if when the balloon is recovered by some farmer he opens the film box and ruins the expeiment by excessive exposure of the film to light. I.e. no intelligent life form need ever participate in an "observation", but of course you will explain all that to me whne you comment on the difference between "observations" and "interactions."

Unlike me, you must be a real philosopher - you sure seem to worry more about the labels applied to concepts than the concepts to which they are applied. I don't want to get into fine discussions about what is epistemimology, babble, compatibilists, ontology, epiphenomen, etc. - I am a practical physicist who happens to be interested in one philosophical problem: "is GFW consistent with physics.

To question what I mean by "genuine" is fair enough. I thought it clear from "...Genuine Free Will, GFW, i.e. real choices made by one’s self..." which is part of the fourth sentence of the "Genuine Free Will is Possible" attachment. Much as I destest trying to give precise definitions of non-mathematical concepts, I will expand this "definition" by noting that "genuine" is used in oppsition to "illusionary." - Hope that helps.

Have you actually read the attachment and still not understood from this and the contex what I mean by "genuine free will"? Were all those words about QM making the real decisions at the molcular level in the complex bio-chemical system of our brains (and thus at best QM only permits the illusion of free will, but not GFW) lost on you?

Even more to the point, although the outcome of an event cannot be determined precisely before hand, the probability of a particular occurence can be precisely determined in advance (ruling out the possibility of influencing indeterminate events with free will.)

There is hope for you yet! YOU ARE 100% CORRECT HERE !

Many people have heard of the QM uncertainity principle and falsely conclude that QM is not deterministic. The equations of QM are completely deterministic (until and "observation" is made). As you correctly note, even the probability of each of the possible eigen states that an observation can force a mixed state into is exactly predictable from the QM equations (any thing exactly predictable is deterministic). Even the popular conception of the uncertainity principle is at least flawed. There are pairs of "observables" (things you can meaure) for which the product of the uncertainity in both measurements has a minium value. These pairs are the ones you compute with "Operators" that do not permute under the Hamiltonian. Pair of observable that do permute under the hamiltonian can both be measured as accurately as your skill (and budget) permits - there is not theoretic limit on the accuracy of simultaneous measurement of variables whose operators do commute under the hamiltonian. I bet this really does seem to be "babble" to you.

 

[Billy T]

Semi Zeki, perhaps the world's leading expert on primate visual systems, has authored with Andreas Bartels a theory (http://www.vislab.ucl.ac.uk/pdf/asoc.pdf) that the visual experience is constructed by a number of independent, asynchronous processes, and that neither the spatial organization nor the times of the visual experiences as we believe them to be are necessary a faithful representation of what our eyes and body experience. Daniel Dennett, of course, presented his theory of competing partial drafts in his book Consciousness Explained. It seems to me that your theory would go well with these. Do you think so?

Basically yes. BTW, when Dan's book came out approximately 12 years ago, even though I had paid extra for "expidited" shipment, I had to delay my vacation trip to a Mexico one day to receive it. I already knew I would enjoy it from his prior publications in the CogSci literature. - Less than 24 hours my copy was full of margin notes - I am probably the first menbe of the general bublic to have read that book. I have read many others that are related as well as the literature, but stopped that about 10 years ago when I moved to Brazil. The problem that I solve, and no cognitive scientist can even suggest a solution for (except to mutter the wonderful word "emerges") is how do all the "features" extracted from the retinal image information in very separated regions of the brain ever get unfied again to facilitate the emergence of our unified visual experience?

I will visit your recommed URL later - must quit now - wife is getting angry with me as we have house guests!

 

[Crosson]

I do physics also, so we are not so different other than that I am using apropriate vocabulary. [when you say: " I am not very concerned with the names one stick on concepts", you remind me of myself in high school biology].

How about some quotes of you:

"we are an informational process in a simulation, not a physical body"

"GFW does exist in the only world we exist in"

What is it about information processes that makes them free? That is, how does an information process think and choose?

How can we have free will if we are always in one to one correspondence with our causally determined physical bodies?

 

[godzilla7]

ok I tried closing my eyes and visualizing a tiger, I could quite easily present a photograph although not as high rez as seeing a tiger admitedly, I could not only count the stripes but I could count the leaves on the trees behind in my photo too, is there something wrong with me, cause you said it's not possible to do that, I am dyslexic which I believe gives me some advantage in visualising the world, didn't realize I had a gift like that, can anyone else who's not dyslexic do this?

Anyway that aside, we're referring to the fact that QM is random therefore thoughts can also be random are we? And if so then a quantum thought is out side the realms or dictates of predeterminism, probably true, the quantum throws and undeniable chaos into existence that may indicate that there is nothing predetermined as such, since we're all linked to the universe if one truly chaotic change happens in the universe, we should have a staggering potential even exponential for utter randomness and chaos. if every variable is subject to the quantum all be it rarely on the macro scale, then how can anything ever be determined in advance.

God plays dice with the universe, are we going to suggest those dice are loaded? we can't cause QM says that there are no definite answers just probable ones, even god doesn't have a predetermined idea; I'm not a big philosophy reader, but I do think if you accept QM laws then you can't equate determinism any more. Of course is what we're seeing the >truth< and if not then could we all just be deluding ourselves that there is anything there at all, could QM just be as predictable as classical physics is, are we programmed by nature to perceive things in a random manner to aid our survival, to prepare us for the unexpected on a subconscious level?

According to NASA and some notable biologists DNA uses quantum principles to locate base pairs quicker for faster replication I read this in a science magazine, but I'm not sure where the original paper is, probably in Nature, can we not then assume the rest of the body including the brain also uses the quantum for expediency, if it does and QM is erroneous, then can we ever see what's really out there, or are our minds trapped in a quantum cage. Please gentleman I make no claims that what I'm saying has any real evidence there just ideas, hypothetical postulates. we can argue both ways snot the argument that matters but the insight we get from such discussion, I think it was Socrates who advocated arguing on both sides of the fence.

thanks for reading my inane ramblings if you made it this far kudos to you

 

[selfAdjoint]

The best shot I have about quantum, the universe, and everything is that we encounter a mixture of deterministic chaos and stochastic determinism.

Deterministic chaos is all of that fractal and strange attractor stuff.

Stochastic determinism is what quantum physics brings us, not free probabilities, but probabilities constrained by unitary (i.e. deterministic) evolution between wave collapses;and in practice quantum interactions quickly diagonalize to something that at our scale and temperature looks just like classical physics.

 

[Billy T]

...What is it about information processes that makes them free? That is, how does an information process think and choose?
How can we have free will if we are always in one to one correspondence with our causally determined physical bodies?

Two good questions, but I think I can clarify both with one reply (at least my view):
"We" (I am using the quotes to indicate that I am speaking of "myself," the aware enity that is probably a sub routine in the parietial simulation,) are not in perfect one to one correspondence with our physical bodies. An exteme example of this is a phantom limb - something very real in the experience of the person suffering it. (for even 20 or 30 years) They of course know it is not there, but their experience of it is just as real / strong as the one that is there. "out of body" experiences are real experiences, but are not, IMHO, events that occurredwith bodies floating in space etc. In a less extreme case, the simulation causes us to perceive things a little different than they actually are. (illusions, sound seeming to come from the actor in a movie with lps moving when in fact it eminates from the speaker on the side wall, hallucinations, etc.) The presumption of "one-to-one" relationship between the physical world and the simulation I suggest we experience is your presumpt or missunderstanding of my claim.

Perhaps an analogy to a movie, made pixel-by-pixel, will help. Crude productions do not change the appearance of the character's hair even if struggeling in a wind storm. The best production have hundreds is strands of hair in their equations representating a head of hair, but none are exactly reproducing the real motion as the laws of nature would made it happen -too expensive and not needed. So it is in the simulation I suggest, but far better done than Pixel Co. ever dreamed of doing.

The point is: the simulation is not bound to follow the laws of nature exactly -hence it is not constrained to have a deterministic, or even only a QM probabilistic, future. GFW is possible - can be consistent with physics, but only if "you" are not the material body. (This price I am willing to pay - a paridigm shift about what I am)

Please note that I am not claiming we have GFW, only showing that we could and not violate physics.

To be more specifically responsive to your first question: I don't know how the sub routine that is "me" functions, but it sure seems to make choices. I suspect much of it's personality is actually stored in the frontal lobes and possible accessed by what in old fortran was a "call."

 

[Billy T]

ok I tried closing my eyes and visualizing a tiger, I could quite easily present a photograph although not as high rez as seeing a tiger admitedly, I could not only count the stripes but I could count the leaves on the trees behind in my photo too, ...

Interesting - never tried with a photo instead of an imagined tigre. Some people have "photographic memories" perhapse you are approaching that (or have one) Another possiblility may be important, and you can test this one. Neurons which have been recently active (last few seconds) are more easily excited. It is called idetic memory (spelling may not be correct). You probably have used it many times, when not paying much attention to someone talking and suddenly realize that yu need to. You can quasi "play back" the first part of the sentence.
This examle is not pure, because we understand sentences with storage of words which could have different meanings (or funtional use) in the sentence until later parts of the sentence contex make it clear which is correct. Great, well known, example of this is the following perfect sentence: "The horse raced past the barn fell." (Hint: "raced" is not the past tense of a verb.)

Thus try countng the windows on a large office building that you imagined, and with a photo source, try to count the windows at least one hour after last looking at the photo.

Anyway that aside, we're referring to the fact that QM is random therefore thoughts can also be random are we? And if so then a quantum thought is out side the realms or dictates of predeterminism, probably true, the quantum throws and undeniable chaos into existence that may indicate that there is nothing predetermined as such, since we're all linked to the universe if one truly chaotic change happens in the universe, we should have a staggering potential even exponential for utter randomness and chaos. if every variable is subject to the quantum all be it rarely on the macro scale, then how can anything ever be determined in advance.

God plays dice with the universe, are we going to suggest those dice are loaded? we can't cause QM says that there are no definite answers just probable ones, even god doesn't have a predetermined idea; I'm not a big philosophy reader, but I do think if you accept QM laws then you can't equate determinism any more. Of course is what we're seeing the >truth< and if not then could we all just be deluding ourselves that there is anything there at all, could QM just be as predictable as classical physics is, are we programmed by nature to perceive things in a random manner to aid our survival, to prepare us for the unexpected on a subconscious level?

According to NASA and some notable biologists DNA uses quantum principles to locate base pairs quicker for faster replication I read this in a science magazine, but I'm not sure where the original paper is, probably in Nature, can we not then assume the rest of the body including the brain also uses the quantum for expediency, if it does and QM is erroneous, then can we ever see what's really out there, or are our minds trapped in a quantum cage. Please gentleman I make no claims that what I'm saying has any real evidence there just ideas, hypothetical postulates. we can argue both ways snot the argument that matters but the insight we get from such discussion, I think it was Socrates who advocated arguing on both sides of the fence.

thanks for reading my inane ramblings if you made it this far kudos to you

Some physicists, despirate to resolve the conflict between their sense of GFW and physics have turned to the uncertainity of QM, but I never did. I won't pay that price for the type of "free will" you can get from chance. I would prefer to be a classical-physics biological machine, fully deterministic and trust that evolution has it reasonably well perfected by now. For more of my views - see my responce in my last post, #13.

 

[Billy T]

The best shot I have about quantum, the universe, and everything is that we encounter a mixture of deterministic chaos and stochastic determinism.

Deterministic chaos is all of that fractal and strange attractor stuff.

Stochastic determinism is what quantum physics brings us, not free probabilities, but probabilities constrained by unitary (i.e. deterministic) evolution between wave collapses;and in practice quantum interactions quickly diagonalize to something that at our scale and temperature looks just like classical physics.

If I understand you correctly, I completelyagree. I think QM plays no essential role in opening the possibility of GFW. That is, real-time simulation the mechanism I suggest opens the possibility of GFW would work just as well even if LaPlace's deterministic universe were phycical fact (except because once GFW exisit in the simulated world and "I" can interact with the physical world, then LaPlace can kiss his predictions good by.)

See my replies to others in my post 13 and 14 for more clarification.

 

[Philocrat]

A TT(Timeless Traveller) is 'Psychophysically Free' because He/She/It always travels and does everything at Time t = 0, regardless of the distance, curvature and dimensions of spacetime. This is consistent with my original definition:

Being over and above all causal and relational laws of nature or physics.

Maybe there is a universe where the laws of physics are completely different and what I am defining here is already possible. The question, which my entire philosophy is seeking, is whether this will ever be possible in our own universe? Will it? If the answer is yes, then I will take this to imply that:

A human being or anything CAN structurally and functionally progress (perhaps be scientifically redesigned) to a point in time where he/she/it KNOWS everything about the world such that it CAN think and act freely and unrestricted by anything else. This would be metaphysically equivalent to being 'Psychophysically Free'. For to be psychophysically free is to be totally free!

That would be the day!

NOTE: The Problem with GFW is that it may be a mere speculation locked up behind COP (Critical Observation Point), for a GFW, if it is truly genuine, must demonstrate (without any shaky foundation) how the mind animates the body of any size and scale of referece in spacetime unrestricted or unobstructed by anything else.

 

[Tournesol]

This is called epiphenomenalism, the idea that our minds are an epiphenomenon (an inert byproduct) of our bodies. I agree with your analysis, but I have to remind you that, like all compatibilists (we are not genuinely free, but it is possible to speak of freedom in a meaningful sense), the argument is off the topic of genuine free will.

Oh, but I have to comment on that quantum babble. In philosophy, people like to whip out QM like a wild card that makes anything possible. Quantum indeterminate events are not random, in the sense that you use the word genuine (i would say ontological). They are epistemically random,

No, on the standard (Copenhagen) view, they are ontologically random.

and thus can never lead to genuine free will. Even more to the point, although the outcome of an event cannot be determined precisely before hand, the probability of a particular occurence can be precisely determined in advance (ruling out the possibility of influencing indeterminate events with free will.)

That is back-to-front. The usual idea of QM in relation to naturalistic FW is that quantum indetermism supplies the needed elbow room , ie QM constitutes FW, not FW influences qunatum events.

 

[hypnagogue]

"We" (I am using the quotes to indicate that I am speaking of "myself," the aware enity that is probably a sub routine in the parietial simulation,) are not in perfect one to one correspondence with our physical bodies. An exteme example of this is a phantom limb - something very real in the experience of the person suffering it.

Your reply here seems to take something of a naive realist view. We do not have to suppose that our experienced mental models of our bodies are in perfect correspondence with our actual, physical bodies in the quite literal and straightforward way you suppose here in order to assert a correspondence from body to mind. The relevant correspondence to consider here is from parts of the brain to parts of the mind. For example, if we can show that the experience of phantom limbs is always accompanied by neural activation of a certain sort (and I don't think you would contest that it is), then we have our one to one correspondance from body (physical brain) to mind (experienced simulation).

I don't know if your view really solves the problem of free will. You claim that it shows us that free will is real and not illusory, but it seems to me that if anything, it suggests the converse. So long as you concede that the nature of one's experienced simulation of the world is determined by physical brain processes, and that these processes are determinant, it follows that every aspect of the simulation itself is determinant. It doesn't matter if the simulation faithfully tracks every aspect of the external world; what matters is whether the simulation faithfully tracks every relevant aspect of the human brain. And, of course, the simulation does faithfully track certain goings-on in the brain if the simulation is determined only by physical brain events.

More concisely: Nothing can happen in the simulation that cannot happen (in the appropriate corresponding sense) in the physical brain; no activity in the brain disobeys physical laws; therefore, everything about the simulation is bounded by physical law in the same way that the corresponding brain activity is bounded by physical law.

To take another angle, if the logic behind your claim that genuine free will is possible because it exists in simulation is accepted, what is to stop us from saying that genuine, unaided human flight is possible because we can fly in our dreams? This observation may grant us some sense in which we can fly, but surely not in a way that deserves the title 'real, as opposed to illusory' or 'genuine.'

 

[Billy T]

Your reply here seems to take something of a naive realist view. We do not have to suppose that our experienced mental models of our bodies are in perfect correspondence with our actual, physical bodies in the quite literal and straightforward way you suppose here in order to assert a correspondence from body to mind. The relevant correspondence to consider here is from parts of the brain to parts of the mind. For example, if we can show that the experience of phantom limbs is always accompanied by neural activation of a certain sort (and I don't think you would contest that it is), then we have our one to one correspondance from body (physical brain) to mind (experienced simulation).

I do NOT "suppose that our experienced mental models of our bodies are in perfect correspondence with our actual, physical bodies in the quite literal and straightforward way you suppose here..." as your restatement of my views claims I do. I do just exactly the opposite. - The following extract from my post #13 of this thread proves you have either not read it or havemisunderstood me:

"Perhaps an analogy to a movie, made pixel-by-pixel, will help. Crude productions do not change the appearance of the character's hair even if struggeling in a wind storm. The best production have hundreds is strands of hair in their equations representating a head of hair, but none are exactly reproducing the real motion as the laws of nature would made it happen -too expensive and not needed. So it is in the simulation I suggest, but far better done than Pixel Co. ever dreamed of doing.

The point is: the simulation is not bound to follow the laws of nature exactly -hence it is not constrained to have a deterministic, or even only a QM probabilistic, future. GFW is possible - can be consistent with physics, but only if "you" are not the material body. (This price I am willing to pay - a paridigm shift about what I am) Please note that I am not claiming we have GFW, only showing that we could and not violate physics."

I don't know if your view really solves the problem of free will. You claim that it shows us that free will is real and not illusory,

{insert by Billy T: no I think you are again stating exactly the opposite of my view as my view. Read my last sentece from post 13 extract above! I only claim to show GFW can be real, not that it is. The attachment to thread stating post also clearly states that GFW may be just an illusion. Please read more carefully what I say before rephrasing it to say the opposite.}

but it seems to me that if anything, it suggests the converse. So long as you concede that the nature of one's experienced simulation of the world is determined by physical brain processes, and that these processes are determinant, it follows that every aspect of the simulation itself is determinant. It doesn't matter if the simulation faithfully tracks every aspect of the external world; what matters is whether the simulation faithfully tracks every relevant aspect of the human brain. And, of course, the simulation does faithfully track certain goings-on in the brain if the simulation is determined only by physical brain events.

More concisely: Nothing can happen in the simulation that cannot happen (in the appropriate corresponding sense) in the physical brain; no activity in the brain disobeys physical laws; therefore, everything about the simulation is bounded by physical law in the same way that the corresponding brain activity is bounded by physical law.

I agree that "no activity in the brain disobeys physical laws." but not with the part that immediately follows: "therefore, everything about the simulation is bounded by physical law in the same way that the corresponding brain activity is bounded by physical law."(Perhaps "about the simulation" saves you from my objection. - I do agree that every neuron firing in the execution of the simulation is governed by the physical laws if that is all you ment. But if you mean the content/meaning/simulation itself is so governed, then my portest agains misquoting/misrepresenting me still stand.)

I hope that my above comments, taken from my post #13, makes it clear that in any advanced computer (the human brain's parallel processing one being far beyond any man can currently imagine) it is possible to simulate, pixel-by-pixel a fire, but leave out any representation of the heat being produced. I.e the simulation is NOT constrained to follow physical laws simply because the computer in which the simulation "runs" is constrained to follow physical laws. "I" live only in the simulation. Thus "I" can violate physical laws in this simulations which is the only thing "I" directly experience. I do believe that the physical world does exist and every material object in is is constrained by the physical laws, but "I" am not physical. Because some may misundstand that I am asserting that I have a "soul", let me clearly state that this is a possibility I will grant, but as an agnostic, I do not believe in "souls" and do not find them or God necessary to resolve the conflict between physics and GFW. Again I am not claiming to prove GFW is "real" - only presenting what I think is a proof that it could be.

To take another angle, if the logic behind your claim that genuine free will is possible because it exists in simulation is accepted, what is to stop us from saying that genuine, unaided human flight is possible because we can fly in our dreams? This observation may grant us some sense in which we can fly, but surely not in a way that deserves the title 'real, as opposed to illusory' or 'genuine.'

I think I can defend my claim to the title "real" better than you can defend the existence of anything in the physical world. How do you know there is a physical world (which we both do believe exists)?
I believe it because it is a reasonable and simple way to give a probably cause to all most all of my direct experiences. That is I infer from my direct experiences that the physical world exists. No such inferrence is required for me to know that my direct experiences are real. - Like Descarte -I can not logically deny them.
It is quite possible to logically deny the existence of the physical world. Bishop Berkeley did such a good job of doing this more than 150 years ago that no one has been able to demonste a flaw in his logic Most of his book is anticipation of many different objections he expected to his view that God gives him experiences and makes them quite regular (usually following what you and I would call the physical laws) because if they did not have a regular pattern and "miracles" were common, then miracles would lose they power to inspire etc.

Please do not misunderstand this citation of Berkeley - If the physical world does exist as you and I infer it does (Note that you and I could be making an error with this inferrence and Berkeley could be correct, but I prefer to run this risk instead of firmly accepting the existence of his God. - I remain an agnostic.) Thus I am quite certain even the most real and sincere "out of body" experience is not related to any physical body "floating in space" and doubt that it corresponds to a "soul" floating over the person's body also. I can not firmly deny the latter possibility, but again, I prefer to explain "out of body" experiences the same way I explain GFW - a very real experience in the rela-time simulation, just like the other experiences from which I somewhat less confidently infer there is "real" physical world.

Basically it comes down to this: we are debating what is more "real" (Both of us want to appropriate this word.) I claim that the directly experienced world is more real than anything which may be erroneously inferred from those direct experiences. I think you claim that "No the physical world is 'real'
and you are a part of it, especially poorly understood processes in your brain."
But again, I ask about the foundations of your belief in a physical world. - Does it have any bases other than your experiences? In not, then you must grant "real" to the experiences upon which you base the very existence of the physical world. Surely, you don't want to state/claim that these experiences are false/less real/etc. and then conclude anything strongly from a false/less real/etc. starting point do you?

I will conceed that 99+% of the population may use "real" as you do, and agree with you, but logic is not something one votes on, so until you can refute my logic, I will stand near, but not with Bishop Berkeley. I differ from him in that I think part of the physical world, specifically the parietal section of my brain,(with a lot of help from the frontal lobes as far as the "sub routine for "me") is creating "me" and my experiences in a real-time simulation, that is "by evolutionary development" nearly in accord with the physical world's laws, but not to the extent that GFW is impossible,in contrast to his use f God for the purpose of creating his experiences. (He thought he was a "lesser spirit" than God, but like God, immortal, so we also differ on this point. (I suspect that when die, it is all over, I even believe "I" ceast to exist every time my body is in a deep sleep state (sim is not running then.)

I am not well enough versed in philosophy to know is I should dispute the label you gave me at the start of your post ("naive realist") but labels are of little concern to me so I will not worry. Perhaps my strange position is too unusual to have acquired any correct label. Please read carefully what I say, without too many assumptions about it. When you disagree, quote my error back to me. Don't restate it, especially when my actual belief is just the opposte of your restatement. Thanks and I hope you will continue to challenge my position.

PS If you have the power and read my posts 14 of this thread, please correct the ] that should have been [ so hat the bold is correctly displayed in it. I can not longer edit 14 or I would do it. thanks.

 

[Tournesol]

. Thus, thanks to QM, a “probabilistic will” is at least possible. I.e. we can have the illusion of making “choices” that are actually made by the chance results of QM; however, Genuine Free Will, GFW, i.e. real choices made by one’s self, still appears to be impossible without some violation the physical laws that govern molecular interactions in our complex neuro-physiological processes.

IMO it is a mistake to think that a decision made by a process involving randomness is just random per se. Likewise, it is a mistake to say
evolution is random because it involves random mutation.

http://www.geocities.com/peterdjones/det_darwi.html

A real-time simulation of the environment can be achieved in a neural simulation by slightly projecting ahead the sensory information to compensate for neural processing delays.

Other humans, some of the more advanced animals, and ourselves are modeled in this simulation as having wishes and making choices, not as bio-mechanical creatures governed by physics.

Why this is necessary ? You could say that humans are unprecticable
and therefore cannot be "projected ahead", but that raises a
problem: it implies that there is real FW -- or at least
unpredictability -- out there, whereas the thrust of your argument is that
it exists only in an internal virtual reality. How is it possible ? You cannot
model an unpredictable system with another unpredictable system --
one die does not predict another ?

The point is: the simulation is not bound to follow the laws of nature exactly -hence it is not constrained to have a deterministic, or even only a QM probabilistic, future.

Insofar as it is implemented unmiraculously by the brain it must
be following *some* rules, just as a computer animation
must follow some sort of programme, even if it is not physically
realistic. How could it be any sort of "projection" otherwise ?

(Well, the brain or the computer could have a random component,
bu then we are back to FW in the real world).

 

[Billy T]

IMO it is a mistake to think that a decision made by a process involving randomness is just random per se. Likewise, it is a mistake to say evolution is random because it involves random mutation.

If you are saying that from many random event very predictable average come (like the half life of radioactive atoms or live insurance making money from their statistics about randome deaths) i FULLY AGREE.

IMO, the problem of having GFW is to "escape from predictability" that classical physics forced on LaPlace. Quantum Mechanics at least offered some unpredictability, and quite a few philosophers and physicists, have ceased this opportunity to try to rationalized their feeling that they have GFW with their understanding of physics. I for one was never tempted to go down that path, inpart for the very reason you point out (large number of QM events tend to become predictable). Since cells in my brain are dying all the time, and that does not seem to make much difference, no small set of quantum events can make any difference, (MHO). Even if this very reasonable objection of yours could be overcome, I don't want the type of free will that chance permits. "I" want to make my own choices.

Why this is necessary ? You could say that humans are unprecticable and therefore cannot be "projected ahead"...

Yes I could and again agree. However, the unpredictability does not come originally from any material body. It comes from two facts: (1) the "I" in their simulations probably does have free will in its own simulated world. and (2)when "it" decides to do something, for example kill someone, LaPlaces deterministic world just collapsed, without any reference to QM required. That is a "seconday" not primary, free will does exist in the physical world.

You appear to be a little consfused or misunderstanding what I am saying about "projecting ahead." The projection I speak of is just to "commensate for neural delays." Because of this misunderstanding I will ignore some of your questions based on thinking I was projecting behavior of other humans.

Sure we have expectations about what others will do, often forcasting months ahead. I was talking only about the fact we perceive "in real time" and can even hit "curve balls" with bats because we do not do what almost all cognitive scientists say we we do (neurally transform sensory signals, extracting their characteristics "features" in different parts of the brain until in some way none explain, they "emerge" unified as our 3D understanding of (experience of) the external world.

Insofar as it is implemented unmiraculously by the brain it must be following *some* rules, just as a computer animation must follow some sort of programme, even if it is not physically realistic. How could it be any sort of "projection" otherwise ?
(Well, the brain or the computer could have a random component,
bu then we are back to FW in the real world).

Excellent question! and frankly I don't know the answer. Some what like people who explain where the world came from with "God made it."
I "explain" how non random free will enters the real-time parietal simulation by saying there is a sub routine, probably running in the frontal lobes, that the simulation makes "calls" to (are you old enough to know about Fortrain's calls?) to model "my" psychological existence in the simulation. (My physical body is part of the parietal simulation directly.)
There is a lot of tissue up there in the frontal lobes, clearly a lot of it is doing planning, perhaps in it is some "value funtion" that like big blue "making a decision" about which of a large set of possible chess alternatives is "best" - I am just guessing. I need all the help I can get here.
I have always been careful to make it clear that GFW may be only an illusion until this question of yours is laid to rest. I have not the least confidence in how I make the real choice I talk about and think I do. Please help if you can. I do want to note that even if restricted to only the frontal lobes, that "wet ware" parallel processor is so far advance on any that man can even conceive of that is not not very safe to put limits on what it can and can not do. But again your question is the best yet thrown at me and I have to admit I am ducking.

 

[Tournesol]

If you are saying that from many random event very predictable average come (like the half life of radioactive atoms or live insurance making money from their statistics about randome deaths) i FULLY AGREE.

I'm not. I am saying that a random event may or my not have large
scale consequences. A random mutation may spread into the population,
but most die out.

IMO, the problem of having GFW is to "escape from predictability" that classical physics forced on LaPlace. Quantum Mechanics at least offered some unpredictability, and quite a few philosophers and physicists, have ceased this opportunity to try to rationalized their feeling that they have GFW with their understanding of physics. I for one was never tempted to go down that path, inpart for the very reason you point out (large number of QM events tend to become predictable).

Since it is possible to do physics with single particles, that is not invariably the case.

Since cells in my brain are dying all the time, and that does not seem to make much difference, no small set of quantum events can make any difference,

(MHO).

That is an interesting objection and not one I have heard before. But how do you know it is not making a difference ? None of us can give a complete causal account of our actions ? I could also object that there are computer
programmes which a) make use of randomness also programmes which are
b) robust against unexpected hardware failures, and AFAICS it is possible
to engineer a system which has both capacities.

Even if this very reasonable objection of yours could be overcome, I don't want the type of free will that chance permits. "I" want to make my own choices.

In my book "you" are the total outcome of Random Idea Generation and
Sensible Idea Selection, and the total "you" is making choices, just as
the total evolutionary process, and not mutation alone, decides a
species fate.

Yes I could and again agree. However, the unpredictability does not come originally from any material body.

If something does something which I witness and could not have predicted,
how could it fail to come from their material body ?

It comes from two facts: (1) the "I" in their simulations probably does have free will in its own simulated world. and (2)when "it" decides to do something, for example kill someone, LaPlaces deterministic world just collapsed, without any reference to QM required. That is a "seconday" not primary, free will does exist in the physical world.

I can't make much sense of that. What is "it" ? Why should my failure
to predict bring about the collapase of causality (epistemic indeterminsim is not ontological indeterminism).

You appear to be a little consfused or misunderstanding what I am saying about "projecting ahead." The projection I speak of is just to "commensate for neural delays." Because of this misunderstanding I will ignore some of your questions based on thinking I was projecting behavior of other humans.

If other humans are in your visual field, they are as in need of being projected
to make up for neural delays as anything else.

Sure we have expectations about what others will do, often forcasting months ahead. I was talking only about the fact we perceive "in real time" and can even hit "curve balls" with bats because we do not do what almost all cognitive scientists say we we do (neurally transform sensory signals, extracting their characteristics "features" in different parts of the brain until in some way none explain, they "emerge" unified as our 3D understanding of (experience of) the external world.

But how does treating people in our visual fields as unpredictable
help, any more than treating them as predictabe and getting it
wrong ?

Excellent question! and frankly I don't know the answer. Some what like people who explain where the world came from with "God made it."
I "explain" how non random free will enters the real-time parietal simulation by saying there is a sub routine, probably running in the frontal lobes, that the simulation makes "calls" to (are you old enough to know about Fortrain's calls?)

Yes

to model "my" psychological existence in the simulation. (My physical body is part of the parietal simulation directly.)
There is a lot of tissue up there in the frontal lobes, clearly a lot of it is doing planning, perhaps in it is some "value funtion" that like big blue "making a decision" about which of a large set of possible chess alternatives is "best" - I am just guessing. I need all the help I can get here.
I have always been careful to make it clear that GFW may be only an illusion until this question of yours is laid to rest. I have not the least confidence in how I make the real choice I talk about and think I do. Please help if you can. I do want to note that even if restricted to only the frontal lobes, that "wet ware" parallel processor is so far advance on any that man can even conceive of that is not not very safe to put limits on what it can and can not do. But again your question is the best yet thrown at me and I have to admit I am ducking.

I'm pretty lost as to where you are going with this. I don't see why we
need a virtual-reality FW in the first place, I don't see why it shouldbe called "genuine", and I don't see how it can be implemented without
either snaring us in delusion, or amounting to a thoroughly real and physical FW.

 

[Billy T]

I'm not. I am saying that a random event may or my not have large scale consequences. A random mutation may spread into the population, but most die out.

Good point I agree and it would certainly be possible to set up a suituation in which bomb goes off is atom A decays befor atom B even if someone does not believe in the natural process.

Since it is possible to do physics with single particles, that is not invariably the case. (MHO).

I missed your pont here. In the one you are responding to I was just trying to say why I looked for some solution to the determinisms vs free will problem without turning to QM as many have.

That is an interesting objection and not one I have heard before. But how do you know it is not making a difference ? None of us can give a complete causal account of our actions ? I could also object that there are computer programmes which a) make use of randomness also programmes which are b) robust against unexpected hardware failures, and AFAICS it is possible to engineer a system which has both capacities.

Another good point(s) I had never though about the possibility that clever evolution set up backups ("robust against unexpected hardware failures") to cope with cell death in the brain

In my book "you" are the total outcome of Random Idea Generation and Sensible Idea Selection, and the total "you" is making choices, just as the total evolutionary process, and not mutation alone, decides a species fate.

Certainly a reasonable view. What is the "total you" If you understand what i a trying to say with an "I" sub routine,can you contrast your "total you" with it?

If something does something which I witness and could not have predicted, how could it fail to come from their material body?

What you witness surely does. I think you missed "original" in my posts and later my distinction beween primary and secondar free will, the later being the free will in the quasi deterministic physical world.("quasi" = QM playing small role most of the tme but your first point showing "not always".)

I can't make much sense of that. What is "it" ? Why should my failure to predict bring about the collapase of causality (epistemic indeterminsim is not ontological indeterminism).

Nor I about "collapase of causality." Does 'collapase of causality" = rise of FW?
About my "It" - I was trying to refer to the primary FW that by killing someone, made "secondary" FW/ moral responsibility in the physical world obvious (an a reason for punishments etc, I might now add.)

If other humans are in your visual field, they are as in need of being projected to make up for neural delays as anything else.

Yes. everything natural (during evolution) that for example makes an image on the retina, (modern TV and movie images now excepted) makes continuous/smooth changes in the retinal image that can be projected to compensate for neural processing delays and permit all us a real time perception of the world as represented in the simulation.

But how does treating people in our visual fields as unpredictable help, any more than treating them as predictabe and getting it
wrong ?

I don't understand why you bring this question, but I do recognize animate objects in my field of view as less predicable than inanimate one, but so what? With what does it "help"? perhaps this is better dropped as neither of us seem to be communicatingto the other well on this point.

I'm pretty lost as to where you are going with this. I don't see why we need a virtual-reality FW in the first place...

I am reasonably sure that QM does not provide the GFW I wanted, and classical physics surely did not. (Unless God did grant some real primary choices to man who by acting on them made secondary FW in the physical world.) As the title to this thread states, there is a price to pay for GFW. I still think that price is that GFW must originate in some non-material enity. I don't think "souls" any more of an expanation that "God made it" provides an expanation for where matter (or BB now days) came from. At least "soul have free will" did not do it for me. My best stab at a non-material source of "primary GFW" is an information process in a very advanced computer. (the human brain). If someone can do better, i'll gladly sign on board his ship.

I don't see why it shouldbe called "genuine", and I don't see how it can be implemented without either snaring us in delusion, or amounting to a thoroughly real and physical FW.

Almos t wish I had not put the "g" adjective in front. All i am trying to do is distinguish GFW from IFW (illusionary free will), not more, not some guarantee etc.
BTW, enjoy your comments very much, but can't keep up this pace for long.

 

[hypnagogue]

I do NOT "suppose that our experienced mental models of our bodies are in perfect correspondence with our actual, physical bodies in the quite literal and straightforward way you suppose here..." as your restatement of my views claims I do. I do just exactly the opposite.

Sorry, I should have worded that more clearly. Let me try again: when you argue that the contents of the mind (the simulation) are not in perfect correspondence with the body, what you do is argue against a naive realist view. Naive realism is essentially the view that we directly perceive the world; for instance, if I were a naive realist, I would claim that what I see and feel as my arm literally is my arm as it exists in the external world. You are correct to point out that phenomena such as phantom limbs are very problematic to the naive realist view. As a result, most (if not all) thinkers do not take naive realism seriously (although thought processes symptomatic of naive realism do tend to pop up here and there even for those who disavow it; it seems our brains are naturally oriented towards viewing the world through a naive realist lens, for obvious evolutionary purposes).

The problem I wanted to point out in my last post is that, to argue against the concept that the contents of the mind are not in complete correspondence with the body, it is not enough to defeat naive realism. The dominant modern views (well supported by mounds of evidence) holds that the contents of the mind are in direct correspondence with the physical body, insofar as the activity of certain parts of the physical brain systematically covary with the contents of the mind. I do not doubt that you already grasp this, but you seem to fail to take it into account in the meat of your argument. Phantom limbs are enough to thwart naive realism, but are easily accommodated by the modern view; we can show that the experience of phantom limbs is always accompanied by a certain type of neural activation in the physical brain, and so we retain our correspondence from body to mind.

"Perhaps an analogy to a movie, made pixel-by-pixel, will help. Crude productions do not change the appearance of the character's hair even if struggeling in a wind storm. The best production have hundreds is strands of hair in their equations representating a head of hair, but none are exactly reproducing the real motion as the laws of nature would made it happen -too expensive and not needed. So it is in the simulation I suggest, but far better done than Pixel Co. ever dreamed of doing.

The point is: the simulation is not bound to follow the laws of nature exactly -hence it is not constrained to have a deterministic, or even only a QM probabilistic, future.

This analogy uses similar reasoning to your phantom limb example, and is similarly flawed. The relevant analysis here would not be to compare the 'physics' implied by a computer simulation of a set physical events to the actual physical laws that govern nature. We should not ask if the simulated world need imply a physics identical to 'actual' physics; obviously, it need not. Rather, we should ask whether the things that went into the creation of the simulation-- the computer hard drive, the monitor, etc.-- must follow actual physical laws, and obviously (unless we want to be radically skeptical), they must. The scene depicted by a computer graphics movie can well have objects falling 'up' away from the Earth, but the electrons shuffling around in the computer's transistors cannot do anything but obey quantum mechanical laws.

In this sense, the contents of the CG movie are strictly bounded by physical law-- we can make any kind of CG scene we want, whether it's one that depicts a scene that seems to strictly follow the laws of physics or not, so long as its contents are consistent with some kind of hard drive or other computing device that does in fact obey physical law. Likewise, the brain presumably cannot do anything to violate physical laws, and the activity of the brain systematically covaries with the contents of the mind, so the contents of the mind are similarly bounded by physics. If my brain were wired differently, I might well experience objects that tend to float away from the ground-- but only if this experience is consistent with some particular brain activity that obeys physical laws.

Consider things from the opposite direction. Suppose I have an experience as of having freely made a choice, seemingly unbounded by anything but my own will. All we can say with a fair degree of certainty is that my subjective experience has been mirrored in some manner by the activity of certain parts of my brain, and that this brain activity has obeyed physical law. Hence, nothing in the account thus far has violated physics. Now, it's a further question of whether or not my experience accurately represents what has happened (I presume that it must be an accurate representation if it's to be called 'genuine' free will). Just as my visual faculties can inaccurately represent physical objects in the case of visual illusions, however, it seems as though my experience of free will can be an inaccurate representation of the actual state of affairs. If my brain is rewired so that I see objects falling up, certainly my visual experience is genuine and real in its own right, but it is not a genuine account of what is actually happening in the external world. We can make an analogous case for free will; certainly, the experience itself is genuine and real enough, but its a further claim to assert that the experience faithfully depicts what has happened in the grand scheme of things.

GFW is possible - can be consistent with physics, but only if "you" are not the material body. (This price I am willing to pay - a paridigm shift about what I am) Please note that I am not claiming we have GFW, only showing that we could and not violate physics."

The problem here is that if GFW were possible, it should presumably have causal effects on the physical world. If these effects can be such that they do not violate known physical laws (as you claim), then we are lead to doubt whether the kind of free will we are talking about is really 'genuine.' You have tried to undermine this problem by asserting that the contents of mind do not exactly mirror the circumstances of the body/external world, but to effectively argue for this, you need to argue that there are some contents of mind that do not find correspondence (in some fashion) with brain activity.

Even if you could argue effectively for that proposition, it seems you'd still be in trouble. You'd have GFW-type goings-on in the mind that do not find reflection in the physical brain, and thus they would be cut off from having causal effects on your physical body and the external world.

I think I can defend my claim to the title "real" better than you can defend the existence of anything in the physical world. How do you know there is a physical world (which we both do believe exists)?

I generally agree with you that the ontology that asserts an external, physical world is just an inference, and that we must take our subjective experience as the most 'real' thing that we know. I certainly do not deny that, in our subjective experiences, it seems as if we have something like free will. I do not deny either that, in our visual experience, the two lines in the Muller-Lyer illusion seem to be of unequal length. The thing that both of these experiences have in common is that they are more than just raw experiences in themselves; they are experiences that we take to represent some structural (length) or functional (causation) properties. While we cannot doubt that we have the raw experiences in themselves, we can doubt that the structural or functional properties that they seem to represent actually exist, or rather, are consistent with other methods of assessing these properties (eg using a ruler to measure length, or reasoning about the nature of physical laws to come to conclusions about causality).

 

[Tournesol]

I am reasonably sure that QM does not provide the GFW I wanted, and classical physics surely did not. (Unless God did grant some real primary choices to man who by acting on them made secondary FW in the physical world.) As the title to this thread states, there is a price to pay for GFW. I still think that price is that GFW must originate in some non-material enity. I don't think "souls" any more of an expanation that "God made it" provides an expanation for where matter (or BB now days) came from. At least "soul have free will" did not do it for me. My best stab at a non-material source of "primary GFW" is an information process in a very advanced computer. (the human brain). If someone can do better, i'll gladly sign on board his ship.

But something that is not material in the sense of an information-process
(software, VR, etc) is always going be very strictly tied functionally
to the hardware that is implementing it -- it can never really take off an enjoy any freedom of its own because it doesn't really exist in its own right.
You can represent a different set of physical laws in VR, but they are still laws, and if they part company with the real reality to much or too often,
they are not going to enhance an organisms ability to cope with its environment.

 

[Billy T]

But something that is not material in the sense of an information-process
(software, VR, etc) is always going be very strictly tied functionally
to the hardware that is implementing it -- it can never really take off an enjoy any freedom of its own because it doesn't really exist in its own right.
You can represent a different set of physical laws in VR, but they are still laws, and if they part company with the real reality to much or too often,
they are not going to enhance an organisms ability to cope with its environment.

This is really your old question, which I have already admitted is (1) the toughest/best yet thrown at me and (2) that I am not confident in my defense, only hoping that the human parallel processor is so far advance from any man has dreamed of that we need to hesitate before proclaiming what it can and can't do. Despite this I will mount my counter attack:

I am not alone in thinking you are wrong that information can not exist without some hardware. Poper calls this disembodied information "the third world" and thinks it is as real as his worlds 1 &2. (I hope I am giving the credit where it is due - I work form memory and rarely search the web as I live in Brazil and local calls are charged by their duration and the line will not stay up long enough for long downloads.) One of his favorite examples is music.

I will admit before you correct me (You are too good, so I am sure you would) that this has essentially nothing to do with my simulation which is always stuck in a human brain. Also, since I am in conflict with almost if not all recognized athorities in cognitive science, it is a little ridiculus for me to go citing even as singular an authority as Popper.

Thus, I am force to my on devices:
What you say may very well be true in the physical world about information being embodied in hardware (brain be a "wet ware version of hard ware); But I think "I" don't exist in the physical world. "I" can control the actions of a body in the physical world that most of you think is "me", but it is not. "Me" and all my directly experience and perceived world are just information. "I" don't live in that physical world.

Would you agree that the relationship between some information (the "me logic" or sub routine if you like) in part of a great information system can be defined in acordance with laws/rules that have nothing to do with how the great information system is implimented in the physical world?

I don't know if helps or prove anything, but an analogy may help me try to make my thoughts clear: I claim that the relationship between the various subrountine that make up a complex piece of commercial software in the source code level, does not depend upon the implimentation of the machine language differences in the MAC and MS versions. So it is with the existence software that "I" am a part of. - Brain details, physical laws, etc. do not restrict the internal relations of the simulation soft ware.

I infer that (and do believe) that the information system that I am part of is indeed instanciated in part of the physica world (my brain) and that the physical world does indeed exist, but I can not be sure of this inference. (Bishop Berkeley thought it did not and it is impossible to find fault with his argument.) I am however completely sure about some things. For example if I am in pain, that pain is real. If I experience something else, even if it is not possible in the physical world (for example the illusion that a straight stick is bent at the surface of still water, in the non normal insertion case) that perception of the stick as bent is real.

Recall that "I" live/ exist (in my view) ONLY in that world I directly perceive, and indeed am a part of it. Thus for "me" the stick is bent in my world. (Yes, I assume it does exist in the physical world and is unbent.) That is everything I direcly experience has a better claim to being "real" than the things I can only infer about the physical world, which if Berkeley is correct does not even exist! (I don't think he is.)

Hope you will continue talking to one who has such "crazy by normal standards" ideas. Because my view about what I am, etc. is so far out in left field, it is hard to communicate them clearly, and I even get confussed sometimes when trying. In the world where "I" live, is it not possible that "I" have GFW? If I do, and can interact with the physical world, then a "secondary GFW" can exist there.

Note I am not claiming "I" have GFW because unlike pain etc, which are direct experience, very real, my GFW is only a belief, or predjuice "I" have. It very well may be an error or illusion. "My" pain is never an illusion. GFW is not a feeling/ perception, but an idea.

Did you understand any of this? If so did it have any impact on your arguement, which probably applies correctly in the physical world, but may not when transferred to the non physical world, where "I" live?

 

[Billy T]

Thanks for taking the trouble to re-express your objections more clearly and for your long and thoughtful attack on my ideas.

I will not reply to most of it because I agree fully with most of what you say about the mind/body relationship. It has been some years since I made a study of this, but as I recall, you are giving a good discussion of the fact that the mind “supervens” on the brain. Or more precisely: Our psychological states (fear, beliefs, etc.) superven on the physical states of the body, especially the brain part, and if two individuals were in the same physical state, they would of necessity be in the same psychological states. (I brought my copy of The Mind/Body Problem, ISBN =0-631-198085, to Brazil when I moved here 10 years ago as I had not yet finished it. -If you have not read it, it is a good collection of many authorities’ views on this subject. Most other related books I left in USA.)

It is partially because so many trees have already died to permit philosopher to discuss the mind /body problem that I never use the word “mind” (this sentence and prior paragraph being a necessary exceptions). I also do not like to use that term because Descartes, has got many people inclined to think of it as being “non material.” If I were to use that term, and also speak so much as I do about being non-material, almost everyone, would assume that what I am talking about with my “real time simulation” is some how related directly to that term (like you have, I think). Now to the parts of your post that I did not understand or do not agree with, omitting the rest to save space.:

... Hence, nothing in the account thus far has violated physics. Now, it's a further question of whether or not my experience accurately represents what has happened
{insert by Billy T: "in the physical world" I am assuming is where you mean for the"happening" to take place. Almost by definition, "experiences" are accurate in my simulation for "me."}
(I presume that it must be an accurate representation if it's to be called 'genuine' free will).

This presumption is at least misleading you or entirely wrong, and the cause of considerable communication failure between us in the remainder of your post. Perhaps every where I use "genuine" you should only understand "non illusionary" and that might reduce the communication failure. "Genuine" has nothing to do with the accuracy of the representations in the simulated world of physical world facts. We both agree that it usually good, but not perfect, due to evolutionary selection. Ancestors who perceived the tiger as just a large tame cat, did not leave many genes in the next genertion etc.

Just as my visual faculties can inaccurately represent physical objects in the case of visual illusions, however, it seems as though my experience of free will can be an inaccurate representation of the actual state of affairs.
{repeat my prior insert here and note I have made 4 of your words bold for future comment.}
If my brain is rewired so that I see objects falling up, certainly my visual experience is genuine and real in its own right, but it is not a genuine account of what is actually happening in the external world. We can make an analogous case for free will; certainly, the experience itself is genuine and real enough, but its a further claim to assert that the experience faithfully depicts what has happened in the grand scheme of things.

I do not make this "further claim." Instead I only observe that even in LaPlace's deterministic world, free will would exist if both of the following are true:
(1) GFW exists in the simulation (what I call "primary free will") and
(2) the "I" of the simulation can do anything in the physical world.
For example, if as a result of the GFW of (1), "I" control my body and use it to kill you, because you disagree with "me."
Again it is your reading too much into my use of "genuine" that is causing problems, which I don't think we disagree over. Your being dead by virtue of primary GFW is an example of "secondary FW" existing in the physical world.

I DO NOT have any "experience of free will." For me "experiences" are things like pain, fear, hunger, etc. I.e. things that I can not deny or escape from or decide they are wrong. I have a belief that GFW is is probably true, but would never claim that I have done with my attachment to the thread starting post done anything more than to make a reasonable case for the possibility that GFW might be true (as the "primary free will" which makes "secondary FW" in the physical world also true, it the primary FW can act thru my body.).

The problem here is that if GFW were possible, it should presumably have causal effects on the physical world. If these effects can be such that they do not violate known physical laws (as you claim), then we are lead to doubt whether the kind of free will we are talking about is really 'genuine.' You have tried to undermine this problem by asserting that the contents of mind do not exactly mirror the circumstances of the body/external world, but to effectively argue for this, you need to argue that there are some contents of mind that do not find correspondence (in some fashion) with brain activity.

Here you are presuming I am speaking of mind and employing your erroneous interpretation of what I mean by "genuine." I don't know what to reply other than to say we have a serious communication failure at this point. Try asking or stating whatever you are again.

Even if you could argue effectively for that proposition, it seems you'd still be in trouble. You'd have GFW-type goings-on in the mind that do not find reflection in the physical brain, and thus they would be cut off from having causal effects on your physical body and the external world.

I think I agree with you except for what I called secondary free will. I do not claim that the primary GFW is some psychological state that supervens on some brain state, but it might. What I think may be true (not sure because not sure "I" have GFW even in the simulation "I" live in - could be only an illusion "I" suffer under.) See my recent last post (made to Tournesol.)
Note I made that tree-killing, troublesome word, I avoid, bold in your text to call your attention to fact you are still presuming I am speaking about things I am not.

I generally agree with you that the ontology that asserts an external, physical world is just an inference, and that we must take our subjective experience as the most 'real' thing that we know. I certainly do not deny that, in our subjective experiences, it seems as if we have something like free will. I do not deny either that, in our visual experience, the two lines in the Muller-Lyer illusion seem to be of unequal length. The thing that both of these experiences have in common is that they are more than just raw experiences in themselves; they are experiences that we take to represent some structural (length) or functional (causation) properties. While we cannot doubt that we have the raw experiences in themselves, we can doubt that the structural or functional properties that they seem to represent actually exist, or rather, are consistent with other methods of assessing these properties (eg using a ruler to measure length, or reasoning about the nature of physical laws to come to conclusions about causality).

I agree with most of this, but I do not take Primary FW to "represent" secondary FW; but instead I think it is "functionally causal" of Secondary FW. Note the part of your text I have made bold.
The equal arcs of Muller-Lyer are causal for truly unequal arcs in the ontological primary world (the simulation). The GFW is causal for the secondary FW in the physical world. The cause-to-effect flow is reversed in these two examples, so it is hard for me to understand exactly what you are proving by this compairson.

 

[Tournesol]

What you say may very well be true in the physical world about information being embodied in hardware (brain be a "wet ware version of hard ware); But I think "I" don't exist in the physical world. "I" can control the actions of a body in the physical world that most of you think is "me", but it is not. "Me" and all my directly experience and perceived world are just information. "I" don't live in that physical world.

Well, if "you "are informational, and the relavnt information is instantiated
by your brain then "you" are in the world, just as surely as if
you are in Paris, then you are in France." You" are just not directly in the world...

Would you agree that the relationship between some information (the "me logic" or sub routine if you like) in part of a great information system can be defined in acordance with laws/rules that have nothing to do with how the great information system is implimented in the physical world?

Yes, with the proviso that to be useful the simulation needs to remain
in sync with the real world...there is no survival-value in idsappearing into
cloud-cuckoo land.

Recall that "I" live/ exist (in my view) ONLY in that world I directly perceive, and indeed am a part of it. Thus for "me" the stick is bent in my world. (Yes, I assume it does exist in the physical world and is unbent.) That is everything I direcly experience has a better claim to being "real" than the things I can only infer about the physical world, which if Berkeley is correct does not even exist! (I don't think he is.)

OTOH, what you directly experience has a worse claim to be
real becuase it is on the appearance side of the appearance/reality
divide. We have more than one criterion of reality, and different
criteria can and do run in different directions. Epistemic priority
is not only capable of being different from ontological priority, it i
is usually contrary to it.

Hope you will continue talking to one who has such "crazy by normal standards" ideas. Because my view about what I am, etc. is so far out in left field, it is hard to communicate them clearly, and I even get confussed sometimes when trying. In the world where "I" live, is it not possible that "I" have GFW? If I do, and can interact with the physical world, then a "secondary GFW" can exist there.

Any ability to free yourself from physical restraints in a virtual world is going to be brought back down to Earth with a bump as soon as you try to act.
You may imagine you can fly, but what happens if you jump off a building ?

 

[Billy T]

TO Tournesol:
(mainly, but all interested in this thread should read)

I agree the simulation is executing in the physical world, specifically in the brain that is legally owned by the person whose name is on my birth certificate. I am sure that you some times say, “He is in another world” when someone is very distracted by his thoughts. It is in this sense that I say “I” am in another world, but it is not that “I” am inattentive to the physical world or thinking my body can fly etc. Most aspects of the world “I” live in (permanently) have essentially one-to-one correspondence with the physical world’s tangible objects (in the vicinity of my neural sensors).

The “item” in the physical world most important (to most of us) is non-physical (our psychological selves). There is no item in the physical world for this important item to be in one-to-one correspondence with. You think that I am in the physical because you are certain that the brain producing the simulation is in the physical world. I am strongly inclined to believer this is true, but recognize that it might not be. That is the physical world may not exist. How can you be absolutely sure that your experience upon which you infer the existence of the are not misleading you?

It is easy to show that every one of the 5 or 6 senses of your presumed physical body are defective. (1)Under the assumption that the physical world does exist, or (2) if it does not, that they are sometimes self-contradictory. For example: Both hands in room temperature water after one has been for several minutes in hot water while other has been in ice water report very different temperatures for the same water Etc. (which in the second case does not even exist!)

Until you acknowledge at least the remote possibility that there is no physical world, I doubt if I will ever be able to persuade you that “I” do not live in it even if it does exist. (1)If the physical world does exist, “I” live in a simulated world created by the parietal part of my brain, not in the physical world. (2) If the physical world does not exist, then my best guess is that Bishop George Berkeley is correct. (Gave his full name, but any philosophy book worth the cost of binding it will tell about his well-argued view that the physical world does not exist.

In essence, I stand near, but not with, Berkeley. He has a God / “greater spirit” that creates experiences in Berkeley’s “lesser spirit.” I have an incredibly advanced parallel processor, which has sensory information about the physical world, delayed by up to nearly half a second when stimulus is weak in some sensory channels (Read about the Pulfrich pendulum to understand how signal strength causes delays in addition to the time required for neurotransmitters to diffuse across synaptic gaps.)

The “fact” that I can perceive the physical world in “real time” (Hit curve balls etc.) despite these delays is due to the “fact” that, contrary to the accepted view of almost all cognitive scientists, “I” do not perceive the “emerging” results of several stages of neural calculation done in widely separated parts of the brain to extract “feature” (position, color, motion etc). They never explain how these separated representations of the different features of each object seen are “reassembled” to provide the integrated 3D world we experience.

IMO they are correct about the extraction of features in different neural tissue, but these features only guide the simulation, and never are reunited. Because prior to TV and movies, there never was any temporal discontinuity in the visual input, our ancestors perfected the real-time simulation I speak of, exploded “Out of Africa” Killing all in their path, even the stronger, bigger brained Neanderthals, who still did function as modern cognitive scientist think we do, with a neurally delayed perception of their environment. (Not a good thing when ducking rocks our ancestors threw.)

Thus, I completely agree with you that:
……“to be useful the simulation needs to remain in sync with the real world…”
THREE QUESTIONS FOR YOU:

(1)How do you explain that our perception of the physical world is so synchronized, despite the demonstrable neural sensing and processing delays?

(2)Even if you accept that I am right (We project ahead neural information to perceive a real time simulation, not the sensed but delayed physical world representation in our brains) and the cognitive scientists are wrong; how can you continue to insist that you (a psychological entity) are not also part of that real time simulation?

(3)Surely, it would be truly useless for “you” to be psychologically temporally behind your own real time simulation of the physical world! Thus, why do you not agree with me that “you” live in the world of your simulation, if you do accept that we experience the real-time simulation?

You also say: “what you directly experience has a worse claim to be real because it is on the appearance side of the appearance/reality divide.”
I don’t speak of “appearance and reality” an if I did it would just lead to confusion. (You might have also noticed I never speak of “the real world”, but always use “the physical world.,” even the term ontological I avoid as hidden in it is the presumption that both sides of the conversation agree on what is “real” or “existent.” I could sling “philosophical jargon” with the best, and agree that it can be more efficient than my explaining what I mean when you know what assumptions / beliefs your reader holds.)

In post 24 of this thread, Hypnagogue agrees with me on my claim that my experience (in the simulation) have a better “claim to being real.” than the physical world. That is, I am on the “reality side” of your “appearance/reality divide” and by implication, you with your firm conviction that the physical world is real, (based only on the appearance of it being so in your experiences) are on the “appearance side“. He states:

I generally agree with you that the ontology that asserts an external, physical world is just an inference, and that we must take our subjective experience as the most 'real' thing that we know.

You are only asserting, without any support except that it is the commonly held view, that the physical world is “real” and that any perceptual experience in conflict with how we presume it to be, is unreal, an appearance or illusion. (I grant that is the widely accepted common view.) That is, you are presuming your conclusion that I have a lesser claim to the word, which we are both trying to claim (“reality”), for our side of the “appearance/ reality divide” as you expressed it.

I tell you I am 100% sure that my pain (and other direct experiences are) is “real” and only 99.999% sure that the physical world is. That is I acknowledge the remote possibility that Bishop Berkeley is correct. There is no flaw in his logic, but his case that the physical world does not exist remains an opinion.

FINAL QUESTION: Are you less than 100% sure your pain is “real” and 100% sure the physical world is “real“, despite having as evidence for the existence of the physical world, only your experiences, which are derived only from your demonstrably imperfect (sometimes erroneous) senses? If you can honestly say that your pain is less real than the physical world, then I will agree to let you have an equal claim to our contested word, “reality.” I know my pain is more real than the physical world, so I will not relinquish my claim to the experiences I am as being real.

Hypnagogue feels the same way and supports me in this, I think, and if he does not because I have miss understood his text quoted above, I hope he will set me straight. I think it your duty to challenge his similar view expressed in post 24, and take some of the pressure off me. - I already have enough work defending against “stones” thrown at my “crazy view.“ Please throw this one of yours at him.

 

[Tournesol]

The “item” in the physical world most important (to most of us) is non-physical (our psychological selves). There is no item in the physical world for this important item to be in one-to-one correspondence with. You think that I am in the physical because you are certain that the brain producing the simulation is in the physical world.

You must be at least fairly sure about this, because you argue for the existence
of the simulation in the first place oin the basis of how the brain works neurologicaly. If there is no physical world, there are no neurons.

I am strongly inclined to believer this is true, but recognize that it might not be. That is the physical world may not exist. How can you be absolutely sure that your experience upon which you infer the existence of the are not misleading you?

Firstly, I don't have to have 100% reliable experience of the world to know
that it exists. Secondly, the alternative is self-defeating.

It is easy to show that every one of the 5 or 6 senses of your presumed physical body are defective. (1)Under the assumption that the physical world does exist, or (2) if it does not, that they are sometimes self-contradictory. For example: Both hands in room temperature water after one has been for several minutes in hot water while other has been in ice water report very different temperatures for the same water Etc. (which in the second case does not even exist!)

If what you feel is wrong, there must be something else (presumably what a theromometer tells you) that is right. But if the world doesn't exist, thermometers
don't exist.

Until you acknowledge at least the remote possibility that there is no physical world, I doubt if I will ever be able to persuade you that “I” do not live in it even if it does exist. (1)If the physical world does exist, “I” live in a simulated world created by the parietal part of my brain, not in the physical world. (2) If the physical world does not exist, then my best guess is that Bishop George Berkeley is correct. (Gave his full name, but any philosophy book worth the cost of binding it will tell about his well-argued view that the physical world does not exist.

Most people think Berkeley's arguments are dreadful.

In essence, I stand near, but not with, Berkeley. He has a God / “greater spirit” that creates experiences in Berkeley’s “lesser spirit.” I have an incredibly advanced parallel processor, which has sensory information about the physical world, delayed by up to nearly half a second when stimulus is weak in some sensory channels

But the 'parallel processor' isn't in your experienced subjective world. So where
is it ?

The “fact” that I can perceive the physical world in “real time” (Hit curve balls etc.) despite these delays is due to the “fact” that, contrary to the accepted view of almost all cognitive scientists, “I” do not perceive the “emerging” results of several stages of neural calculation done in widely separated parts of the brain to extract “feature” (position, color, motion etc). They never explain how these separated representations of the different features of each object seen are “reassembled” to provide the integrated 3D world we experience.

But when you do that sort of thing, you have to make a concsious effort
to predict where the ball is going be. You don't literally see it there.

IMO they are correct about the extraction of features in different neural tissue, but these features only guide the simulation, and never are reunited. Because prior to TV and movies, there never was any temporal discontinuity in the visual input, our ancestors perfected the real-time simulation I speak of, exploded “Out of Africa” Killing all in their path, even the stronger, bigger brained Neanderthals, who still did function as modern cognitive scientist think we do, with a neurally delayed perception of their environment. (Not a good thing when ducking rocks our ancestors threw.)

I don't think our success is down to reacting to real-time events. Cats do much
better.

(1)How do you explain that our perception of the physical world is so synchronized, despite the demonstrable neural sensing and processing delays?

I don't think this stage of your argument is where the problems lie.

(2)Even if you accept that I am right (We project ahead neural information to perceive a real time simulation, not the sensed but delayed physical world representation in our brains) and the cognitive scientists are wrong; how can you continue to insist that you (a psychological entity) are not also part of that real time simulation?

I agree that there must be a "virtual me" inside the simulation, but it is
only a virtual me...how can you insist that it is the real me ? Isn't anything inside a virtual or simulated context automatically non-real ?

(3)Surely, it would be truly useless for “you” to be psychologically temporally behind your own real time simulation of the physical world! Thus, why do you not agree with me that “you” live in the world of your simulation, if you do accept that we experience the real-time simulation?

I don't agree that there is only one place where I am , or only one
sense of "me". How does this lead to FW, anyaway ?

You also say: “what you directly experience has a worse claim to be real because it is on the appearance side of the appearance/reality divide.”
I don’t speak of “appearance and reality” an if I did it would just lead to confusion. (You might have also noticed I never speak of “the real world”, but always use “the physical world.,” even the term ontological I avoid as hidden in it is the presumption that both sides of the conversation agree on what is “real” or “existent.” I could sling “philosophical jargon” with the best, and agree that it can be more efficient than my explaining what I mean when you know what assumptions / beliefs your reader holds.)

The distinction is implictit in a lot of what you say, eg that the thermometer
gives the 'righ't' temperature of the water, and my nerves the wrong one.

In post 24 of this thread, Hypnagogue agrees with me on my claim that my experience (in the simulation) have a better “claim to being real.” than the physical world. That is, I am on the “reality side” of your “appearance/reality divide” and by implication, you with your firm conviction that the physical world is real, (based only on the appearance of it being so in your experiences) are on the “appearance side“. He states:

One of the points I was trying to make is that there is not a single index
of reality.

I generally agree with you that the ontology that asserts an external, physical world is just an inference, and that we must take our subjective experience as the most 'real' thing that we know.

I disagree on a whole bunch of levels. For one thing, an exteranl/internal
distinction is given as a part of experience; the idea that experience
is all on the inside is artificial. For another the 'cetainty' of subjective
experience is bought at the price of triviality; I may be certaint hat I see
a red sphere, but what I am interested in is whether it is a tomato or a
billiard ball.

You are only asserting, without any support except that it is the commonly held view, that the physical world is “real” and that any perceptual experience in conflict with how we presume it to be, is unreal, an appearance or illusion. (I grant that is the widely accepted common view.) That is, you are presuming your conclusion that I have a lesser claim to the word, which we are both trying to claim (“reality”), for our side of the “appearance/ reality divide” as you expressed it.

Your claim is lesser because the conclusion undermines the evidence produced to support it.

FINAL QUESTION: Are you less than 100% sure your pain is “real” and 100% sure the physical world is “real“, despite having as evidence for the existence of the physical world, only your experiences, which are derived only from your demonstrably imperfect (sometimes erroneous) senses? If you can honestly say that your pain is less real than the physical world, then I will agree to let you have an equal claim to our contested word, “reality.” I know my pain is more real than the physical world, so I will not relinquish my claim to the experiences I am as being real.

There is no single index of reality.

 

[Billy T]

Tournesol is replying to my prior post and I do not know how to cause sections of it to reappear in my reply to him below, so I will insert into his reply between { and } as little as I can to make his references to "this" etc. clear to the reader.

You must be at least fairly sure about this, {We, our psychological selves, are non-physical.} because you argue for the existence
of the simulation in the first place on the basis of how the brain works neurologicaly. If there is no physical world, there are no neurons.

Almost correct. It is not my understanding of "brain neurology" but my understanding of how vision works, which differs very strongly from the standard view of cognitive scientists - See attachment to first post this thread for three proofs that they are wrong and a great deal of support for my view, but nothing can ever be claimed to be "proven", so I only say "lots of support."

...Most people think Berkeley's arguments are dreadful.

I do not base any of my view, on Berkley. I only mention him to admit that long ago others were holding my "crazy" view that we are neither Descarte' "spirit" nor the materialist's (brain-mind identity people) "physical body." (For new comers to the thread, I think we are "an information process" in a realtime simulatin that runs in the parietal section of our brains. Again see first post attachment for details.)

Despite the lack of any need to, I will however disagree with you about the general view of Berkeley:
For example, F. Max Muller, often recognized as having made the best translation into English of Kant states: "...but for Berkeley, Kant would never have been, and philosophy would never have reached the heights which he occupies."
Is your view to the contrary only your personnel opinion or can you cite someone else, preferrable a recognized authority on phlosophical matters, as I have? If what you ment to say is that in this age of materialism, very few read Berkeley, I agree with that.

But the 'parallel processor' isn't in your experienced subjective world. So where is it?

The answer is that it (the parietal section of my brain) is in the physical world, assuming that Berkeley is wrong and that the physical world, which I infer to exist from my more primary experiences, does in fact exist. If the physical world does not exist, then my theory is clearly wrong and Bishop Berkeley's explanation is the only alternative I know of, so I would be forced to agree with him.

But when you do that sort of thing, {hit curve ball, duck thrown rocks. etc} you have to make a conscious effort to predict where the ball is going be. You don't literally see it there.

I think I do. Conscious effort would be much too slow. That is the whole point of perceiving the "real time simulation" not the cognitive scientist's "emergent" transforms made and delayed up to 0.5 seconds by many stages of "neural calculations" each of which has only slow difusions of neurtransmitter across synaptic gaps to move the signal forward to the next processing stage.

They and I agree that these neural processes extract "features" of the visual field in many different regions of the brain. They never explain how these physically separated details, like color, motion, location, texture, size, etc. of a ball (image on the retina), are ever "reassembled" and unified into the 3D perception we all have of it. The best they can do is mutter their favorite word "emerge".

In contrast, I think these separated features are used like a pilot's check list to keep the simulation on course (when we are awake, but not when we are dreaming) The complex task of checking out a plane or keeping a simulation faithful to the external world is best done, detail by detail. In my view that is why the "features" were separated out from the integrated retinal data base in the first place. They have no idea why this selection of features occurs or why they should be set to different parts of the brain to make a unified 3D perception.

I note that during our evolution TVs and movies did not exist and consequently the image on our retinas (say of a rock approaching our head) was always a continuous changing variable and the powerful parallel processor in our heads can easily project ahead a fraction of a second the data currently available to compensate for the neural delays and let us have a real time perception of what is happing in the physical world, despite the unavoidable neural processing delays. If really interest in my theory of vision and and more details, read my JHU paper, first reference of the attachment.

I don't think our success {surviving and evolving}is down to reacting to real-time events. Cats do much better.

I never declared that our reaction time is faster than a cat's, but I will guarantee you that if we perceived the way cognitive scientists say we do (emerging after many stages of neural processsing with difusion delays) then tigers would have eaten many more of our ancestors, and pehaps we would not now be here and killing off the tigers as we are if most of those ancestors did not survived.

I don't think this stage of your argument is where the problems lie.

I did not ask for an analysis of "my problem." what I asked was:
"(1)How do you explain that our perception of the physical world is so synchronized, despite the demonstrable neural sensing and processing delays?"
You caimed that our perception must be synchronized with external events (and I agree). You reject the means I suggest by which this could be achieved. I am still waiting for your to reply to the question as to how, in your view, the synchronization is achieved. Certainly your above comment on "my problem" is not a reply to the question.

I will stop my responce here (not go on now to your comments on my other three questions) and see what you have to say about my above responce to your long post. If you respond, I will return to the remaining items of your post later.

 

[Tournesol]

Despite the lack of any need to, I will however disagree with you about the general view of Berkeley:
For example, F. Max Muller, often recognized as having made the best translation into English of Kant states: "...but for Berkeley, Kant would never have been, and philosophy would never have reached the heights which he occupies."

True -- in the sense that Berkely is one of the people Kant wants to refute (eg in the Refutation of Idealism).

I did not ask for an analysis of "my problem." what I asked was:
"(1)How do you explain that our perception of the physical world is so synchronized, despite the demonstrable neural sensing and processing delays?"
You caimed that our perception must be synchronized with external events (and I agree). You reject the means I suggest by which this could be achieved. I am still waiting for your to reply to the question as to how, in your view, the synchronization is achieved. Certainly your above comment on "my problem" is not a reply to the question.

One possible answer is that we react firs, unconsciously, and then notice
both the stimulus and our reaction consciusly. But my main problem is how
this is supposed to lead to FW.

 

[Billy T]

...One possible answer is that we react firs, unconsciously, and then notice both the stimulus and our reaction consciusly. But my main problem is how this is supposed to lead to FW.

There is a lot of support for the idea that well before conscious awareness on any decision, our brains have decided to act. (Libet's many experiments on alert patients with micro electrodes (and some gross ones on brain surface)) but I think you are confused or ignoring the question still.

Most of Libet's tests (if not all) have nothing to due with the sense of perception of an external stimulus that must pass thru many stages of neural transfoms. Instead the patient is nstructed to "at random" decide to push a button etc. and notice the position of a moving light, second hand, etc. when he made the decision etc. What Libet found was that brain activity related to the button push began before the conscious decision, which thus tend to suport the idea that conscuiousness is only an epiphomon, not the real caues of the act. (All this from memory - I have not read any of his papers for at least 12 years.)

My question did not concern voluntary acts. Your ability to duck a rock thrown at your head, is more of a problem than how you make a voluntary decision. If your only knowledge of the rock comes to your consciousness after many synaptic delays without my "real time simulation" in contrast to the standard cognitive science view that perception "emerges" following these synaptic delays, you are going to get your brains knocked out! Even if you start to duck before signals get to a conscious level, there will be many synaptic delays, before the "reflex" that moves your head but I grant this could be quicker and might save you.

The real time sim is achieved by the parallel processor that is your parietal cortex, and projects ahead the synaptic delayed sensory information (which prior to TV and movies) is always contiunously evolving and easy for that fantastically advanced processor to "project ahead" a fraction of a second to exactly compenstate for the sysnaptic delays. I think this is how you duck the rock. - Your perception is real time, despite the delays.

You agree, infact you first stated the we must have a schronized perception of the environment. You reject my concept of how it is done. My question is: if not by parietal computer projecting ahead the continuously changing, but neurally delayed sensory infromation, How is schronization between environment and perception achieved?

I am still waiting for an answer to this question.

ON your free will question: I have explained that it was my revision of the standard theory of "emergent" perception that lead me to postulate the real time sim. If "I" am to perceive the real time sim, the simplest and most efficient rapid way is if "I" am an intergal part of it. I.e. I am information, not a material body. Once I live inside a simulation, that is only approximately in accord with the laws that govern the physical world, I can have genuine free will without violating the physical laws (not claiming that I have it, only that I may.) That is, I did not start out to justify the possibility of GFW, that just fell out of my (I think better) understanding of how visual perception works.

 

[Tournesol]

Most of Libet's tests (if not all) have nothing to due with the sense of perception of an external stimulus that must pass thru many stages of neural transfoms. Instead the patient is nstructed to "at random" decide to push a button etc. and notice the position of a moving light, second hand, etc. when he made the decision etc. What Libet found was that brain activity related to the button push began before the conscious decision, which thus tend to suport the idea that conscuiousness is only an epiphomon, not the real caues of the act. (All this from memory - I have not read any of his papers for at least 12 years.)

OTOH, it must have been a real, if indirect, cause of the act,
since patients were respondig ot a prior verbal instruction.

You agree, infact you first stated the we must have a schronized perception of the environment. You reject my concept of how it is done. My question is: if not by parietal computer projecting ahead the continuously changing, but neurally delayed sensory infromation, How is schronization between environment and perception achieved?

If the stuff that needs to happen quickly, happens without conscious perception, there is no need for conscious perception to stay in sync, and it can simply lag. But what I am really interested in is the free will issue.

I am still waiting for an answer to this question.

ON your free will question: I have explained that it was my revision of the standard theory of "emergent" perception that lead me to postulate the real time sim. If "I" am to perceive the real time sim, the simplest and most efficient rapid way is if "I" am an intergal part of it. I.e. I am information, not a material body. Once I live inside a simulation, that is only approximately in accord with the laws that govern the physical world, I can have genuine free will without violating the physical laws (not claiming that I have it, only that I may.)

Which still runs into the problem that the more accurate the simulation is, the less FW you have in it, and the more FW you have in it, the less accurate it
is.

 

[Billy T]

...Which still runs into the problem that the more accurate the simulation is, the less FW you have in it, and the more FW you have in it, the less accurate it is.

I think it is very meaningful to speak of "accuracy" when one is perceiving the behavior of an external objects. We both, I think, believe that my perception of a rock approaching my head needs to be accurate.

I can't remember if you are really "signed on board" to the idea that we make a real time sim and perceive the representation of the rock in it or if you are still with the standard cognitive scientist's view that we perceive the neurally delayed "emergent" transforms of the sensory information, and only unconsciously react (reflex) to the approaching rock, but it does not matter, too much in a discussion of "accuracy," instead of speed and ability to not get hit.

But the concept of being accurate loses all meaning when applied to my psychological self (= "I" in my notation), instead of to some physical external object. "I" don't exist in the physical world, but "I" can control a body that does and many mistakenly think that body is "me."

On accuracy as related to Free Will:
I have noted that the sim is very good, in some ways much better than any transform of retinal image could be for representing physical world objects. (This is one of my 3 proofs, given in the attachment to the thread starting post, that the cognitive scientists are simply wrong.) The retinal image and neural impulses derived form it, have high resolution in less than 0.1% of the visual field, the part corresponding to the fovea. The perception is high resolution and nearly uniform resolution over most of the "forward hemisphere of vision." That is, it is much more accurate than it could be if it were simple transforms of retinal infromation. It is "I" that may have free will. (I am not so bold as to claim that I have proved "I" have free will, only that I could without violation of physics, but like most I think "I" do.) Accuracy of the simulation "I" perceive has nothing to do with the free will question.

 

[Billy T]

...{Genuine Free Will} GFW, if it is truly genuine, must demonstrate (without any shaky foundation) how the mind animates the body of any size and scale of referece in spacetime unrestricted or unobstructed by anything else.[/B]

Sorry I have taken so long to get back to you. Most of your post I did not understand and /or failed to see what it hadto do with GFW, so reproducing only the last part above, which clearly does relate to GFW.

You seem to have the mind very separate from the body as Descarte did. All "idealists" who (almost by definition) hold this view have trouble breaking down the physicalist's objection that nothing outside the realm of physics can enter into that realm and move even a single atom. Physicists think that to move an atom, a "force" must be applied to it. Now many non physicists will speak of psychic "forces and energy." These, from the physicist POV, are just empty terms. Physicists think there are only four forces and all four have the "action/reaction" nature. That is if "A" applies a force to "B" then "B" applies an equal and oppositely directed force to "A." As a consequence of this, if the mind could applied a force to move even a single atom, then on that non physical (massless) mind a force would also be applied. But then the mind, by hypothesis being massless non matter, would have infinite acceleration and the whole concept of it moving even a single atom is rejected as nonsense.

This admittedly leaves the physicist who wants to believe he has GFW in an awarkward position. If classical physics (pre quantum era) were true, then the state of the universe at any time (T1) determins it at all future times (T2, T3, etc.) and clearly if everything is predetermined, there is no GFW.

Quantum Physics recognize that the concept of a "definite state of the universe" at time = T1 is nonsense. QM permits unobserved components of the universe to be in "mixed states." The rules for QM calculations permit one to predict exactly what is the probability for realizing each of the possible pure state when an observation is made (I.e. when the mixed state is forced into a single state.) but this is little help with the GFW problem. At best, QM only permits a random selection of what is the state of the universe at T2. There is still zero opportunity for anyone to decide or chose anything.

This does not imply that we can not have a impression that we are deciding things. The future is no longer determined by classical physics, but indeterminant. We can for example believe that we chose to raise our right rather than left hand, but it is only an illusion of choice. The real decision was made by QM observations, probably a set of them associated with the Browian motion of neurotransmitters in the synaptic gaps and/or the attachment or not of these neurotransmitters to specific "receptor sites" on the post synaptic cell wall. (Actually the release of previously attached neurotransmitters is equally important in determining when that post synaptic cell fires as is the internal chemistry of the cell - for brief periods after its last firing, this chemistry is dominant - it can't fire again until the anti osmotic "sodium pumps" reestablish the interior of the axion potential to approximately -70mV by pumping the recent inflow of Na+ ions back outside.)

All this is troubled me for years because I wanted a non illusionary GFW yet I knew too much physics and about how the the brain works to see any solution that would permit GFW to be consistent with physics and biology. Finally I stopped thinking about it and added this mystery to the set of others (such as why is there something instad of nothing etc.) that were beyond human understanding (Collin McGinn's well defended view.) Then, I became interested in understanding how vision works:

How do we experience a 3D world from the 2D image on our retina? Why is this experience equally sharp and clear over most of the forward hemisphere, when the retinal data base is high resolution over much less than 1% of that forward hemisphere - the part of image illuminating the retina? And many other problems / obvious errors in the standard view of cognitive scientists as to how visual percption works. (They hold that after the retinal information is separated into "features" such as texture, color, motion, size, shape, etc. which are processed in entirely separate regions of the brain, the 3D perception "emerge" following all this "neural computation" but none suggest how or where the separated nformation is unified.)

I found a solution to this problem, which explains all these visual mysteries and many other things, like why one group of humanoids dominated all others in a less that 20 thousand year, after essentially nothing happening for millions (The "Out of Africa" event) and many other things that one would not even suspect were related including the possibility that GFW can be consistent with physics. That is my solution has great "explainatory power."

I have not attached it for sometime, and this thread seems to need some help now, so I will attach it again. Warning - it is about four pages long and requires an open mind about your very nature. It gives three independant proofs that the standard view of cognitive scientists as to how vision works is simply wrong. - this plus the supporting evidence is what makes it four pages.

 

[Billy T]

In earlier thread (On free will) Bolo said: "well, I like to separate everything into levels...level 1 is quantum mechanics, and level 2 is "our" level.
it all depends on if level 1 controls level 2, or vice versa.. see at level 1, it can either be random or not, it doesn't matter. It's what we experience at level 2, in our minds, that matter...at this level, i fully believe free will exists."
... { in relative long section here Bolo claimed humans were at level 2 a "closed system." to which g[x] said: "I beg to differ... Human beings are in no way closed systems." I agree with g[x] and for this reason have omitted everything about closed systems.} Bolo concluded with:...
"bottom line for me: you can't make subjective viewpoints based on a quantum level we know very little about. ... we need to stop thinking about it and see what's in front of us. people have been held responsible for their actions since the dawn of time, is this a coincidence? i think not. nature intended everyone to be responsible, and this is born into humans, we feel it and know it. we know it because we have thoughts and emotions, and we know it because we have all felt guilty when we have hurt someone. we took responsibility ourselves. now until i know more about the fundamental workings of the universe, I am going to go with the simple humanistic view of free will; we have it, we are responsible, this is all i know"

I want to comment on his concluding point(s):
I think societies that survive find practical ways to help themselves cope with the stresses of their environment (Social Darwinism?), not that "nature intended ..." The Eskimo son who helps his frail and aging father build his final igloo (without door) because the father can no longer travel with the group, does not feel guilty. He is doing his duty. Helping his society cope. We put people in prison etc. at least in the belief that it is a protection of society in their particular case and probably a deterrent to others who would disrupt smooth functioning of society.
I also want to note that Bolo's level 2 is to a large extent the statistical regularities of level 1.
For example, to take another complex case: The slope of the beach changes little with each wave breaking on it. Yet on the detailed level of each sand grain, it is entirely changed. The grains that were touching before the wave broke, are thousand of times their diameter apart after it breaks.
If we look at the gross level of human behavior we do not see the fine molecular details that are controlling it. If we think about what cause the beach to have the inclination it does or what causes a human to behave as he/she does, we understand that it is the net result of many details, not some high level "choice." We have the illusion of making a choice.
Our understanding of the probably consequences (Things society may do to us in its own survival interest, or things society has instilled in us before we were old enough to think that we call guilt when contradicted.) are also very effective in making our "choice." That is, the bag of chemicals we humans are is far from a closed system. Thus, I am not claiming, as some do, that we are just a bag of chemicals, following the laws of physics, but recognizing the our options are guided also by the wishes of our society. However it is true that via our memory etc, these "external factors" have to a large extent been incorporated into the bag of chemicals.

As a consequence of all this, for years I thought "free will" was an illusion. I now understand it can be genuine, if we cease to think of ourselfs as a physical body, which is ruled by the statistics of quantum mechanics. My new view, not only permits genuine free will but explains many other things that initially one would not suspect are even related - For example the explosion of one group of humanoids "Out of Africa" about 50K year BP and fact your visual perception is equally clear over the entire forward hemisphere and not just in the less than 1% which corresponds to the high resolution fovea are both explained by the same "paradigm shift" in understanding ourselfs. See attachment to post 1 or 36 for details of this new view of ourselves (Nothing to do with "souls" etc. - I am a Physicist.)

 

[moving finger]

Billy T

Can you please define what you mean by GFW? (I mean a rigorous definition).

I doubt that much progress can be made in understanding unless we agree definitions of the things we are trying to debate.

Cheers

MF

 

[Billy T]

Billy T Can you please define what you mean by GFW? (I mean a rigorous definition). I doubt that much progress can be made in understanding unless we agree definitions of the things we are trying to debate.

Let me try to sneak by a tough question with a negative reply. If really unhappy, I will think about it and see if I can do better, but honestly I have just been using GFW to contrast with FW that many others have justified as existing with various arguments - none of which I buy into.

Thus, off the top of my head:
1) No type of FW exist if future is determined.
2) No type of FW exists if "granted" by some powerful "spirit" who can violate physical laws at his will to permit you a miracle, at least none I consider worth having.
3)The type of FW, which is the macroscopic statistical average (regardless of how regular this statistical average may be at the macro level) is only an illusion of FW - In fact you are still just a very complex biological machine, but not a deterministic one, thanks to quantum physics being true. Often because of the fact that the macro level the results of many QM "observations" which force mixed states into "pure states" have reasonably predictable averages, you are almost in the case (1) determinism.

As a side note on this point, I would not want to prevent society from throwing the more disruptive members in jail etc, just because the "poor bloke, really had no choice" given his education, the way society treated him, his incompetent public defenders, etc.

4) No form of FW exist directly in any assembly of matter, except the illusion of FW that is quite possible, due to QM and discussed in point 3.

5) Secondary GFW can exist in an assembly of matter (even computers much more advance than any man has yet conceived) if it is the "secondary result" of FW existing in a non-material informational system which has the ability to control some material objects. For example a physical body or a robotic arm etc.

6) Point 5 only permits GFW to be manifest in the physical world, does not imply it need ever actually exist.

7) Any choices that can still be made by any organization capable making decision not ruled out by considerations 1 thru 5 or 6 I would consider genuine free will, GFW.

Hope that helps - just some thoughts without spending much time on it. I invite your comment, efforts at making a better definition etc.

 

[moving finger]

Let me try to sneak by a tough question .

I'm glad you think it's tough, because I do too. However, I strongly believe it is fruitless to debate FW unless we firstly define exactly what we are talking about.

1) No type of FW exist if future is determined.

I disagee that this necessarily follows. I think that depends on how one defines FW in the first place. That's why I'm saying we must define exactly what our terms mean before we can argue whether they exist or not.

2) No type of FW exists if "granted" by some powerful "spirit" who can violate physical laws at his will to permit you a miracle, at least none I consider worth having.

Need to resolve (1) above before we can make any progress on (2)

3)The type of FW, which is the macroscopic statistical average (regardless of how regular this statistical average may be at the macro level) is only an illusion of FW - In fact you are still just a very complex biological machine, but not a deterministic one, thanks to quantum physics being true. Often because of the fact that the macro level the results of many QM "observations" which force mixed states into "pure states" have reasonably predictable averages, you are almost in the case (1) determinism.

Whether a feeling of FW is an illusion of not cannot be addressed until we first answer (1)

As a side note on this point, I would not want to prevent society from throwing the more disruptive members in jail etc, just because the "poor bloke, really had no choice" given his education, the way society treated him, his incompetent public defenders, etc.

What is a "choice"? This gets back to what exactly do we mean by FW?

4) No form of FW exist directly in any assembly of matter, except the illusion of FW that is quite possible, due to QM and discussed in point 3.

Cannot resolve this until you define FW as in reply to (1) above.

5) Secondary GFW can exist in an assembly of matter (even computers much more advance than any man has yet conceived) if it is the "secondary result" of FW existing in a non-material informational system which has the ability to control some material objects. For example a physical body or a robotic arm etc.

Oooops. Now we are onto GFW. We need two definitions now :)

7) Any choices that can still be made by any organization capable making decision not ruled out by considerations 1 thru 5 or 6 I would consider genuine free will, GFW.

I'm not sure I understand your definition here (assuming this is intended to be a definition). Until we define FW how do we know what is or is not ruled out by 1 thru 5?

Hope that helps - just some thoughts without spending much time on it. I invite your comment, efforts at making a better definition etc.

I see where you are coming from, but from a rational and logical point of view it takes us nowhere until we define exactly what we mean by FW and GFW.

I'm very interested in the subject BTW, having done a lot of thinking about it myself.

MF

 

[Tournesol]

3)The type of FW, which is the macroscopic statistical average (regardless of how regular this statistical average may be at the macro level) is only an illusion of FW - In fact you are still just a very complex biological machine, but not a deterministic one, thanks to quantum physics being true. Often because of the fact that the macro level the results of many QM "observations" which force mixed states into "pure states" have reasonably predictable averages, you are almost in the case (1) determinism.

OTOH, suppose that there is significant indeterminism in your macrsocopic
behaviour due to micro-level interminsim in your brain. The suspicion that this
is not genuine FW seems to be based "you" have no control over such events.
But there is no reason to suppose that such an event gets translated into
action without going through a lot of other neural processing, which surely
constitutes such control. If your actions were determined by random events outside your brain, you would have a case that they would not constitute
genuine FW -- but the n you would if they were determinined by deterministic events outside your brain. OTOH, if deterministic events
inside your brain lead to "your" actions (for all that they might not be your free actions), why shouldn't indeterministic events inside your brain be yours ?

 

[Billy T]

I'm glad you think it's tough, because I do too. However, I strongly believe it is fruitless to debate FW unless we firstly define exactly what we are talking about...MF

Be my guest - feel "free" to put up your more positive definition. I was just trying to narrow the field by saying somethings FW and GFW are not.

 

[Billy T]

OTOH, suppose that there is significant indeterminism in your macrsocopic
behaviour due to micro-level interminsim in your brain. The suspicion that this
is not genuine FW seems to be based "you" have no control over such events.
But there is no reason to suppose that such an event gets translated into
action without going through a lot of other neural processing, which surely
constitutes such control. If your actions were determined by random events outside your brain, you would have a case that they would not constitute
genuine FW -- but the n you would if they were determinined by deterministic events outside your brain. OTOH, if deterministic events
inside your brain lead to "your" actions (for all that they might not be your free actions), why shouldn't indeterministic events inside your brain be yours ?

Not sure i followed you - I feel a little like Harry Truman when he concluded hearing a lot of economist try to help him - He said: "What I need is a one-handed economist."
But I got enough of it to note that you seem to be arguing that even though the ideas etc that "pop into your head" may be the result of some quantum process producing "stastical regularities" at the more micro level, "you" still have the option of veto or accepting and acting. If that is basically what you are saying then I would ask how do "you" decide. Are not "you" and your decision process, just the result of other "stastitical regularities" at the micro level also? How do "you" escape from these more fundamental processes. That is why I think quantum mechanics only permits the ilusion of free will - it, not "you" is "calling the shots" - I.e. making the decisions.

 

[Tournesol]

Not sure i followed you - I feel a little like Harry Truman when he concluded hearing a lot of economist try to help him - He said: "What I need is a one-handed economist."
But I got enough of it to note that you seem to be arguing that even though the ideas etc that "pop into your head" may be the result of some quantum process producing "stastical regularities" at the more micro level, "you" still have the option of veto or accepting and acting. If that is basically what you are saying then I would ask how do "you" decide. Are not "you" and your decision process, just the result of other "stastitical regularities" at the micro level also?

Yes. So what ? I am constituted by my body and nervous system, which are constituted by the physical processes that make them up, and so on. Nothing
that is not "me" is involved at any stage, so I am not being pushed around
by something else.

How do "you" escape from these more fundamental processes.

I don't need to. FW doesn't require a separate non-physical self.
It does require freedom from strict determinism, but that is already given
by the physics.

That is why I think quantum mechanics only permits the ilusion of free will - it, not "you" is "calling the shots" - I.e. making the decisions.

"It" is "me* under a different description.

 

[Billy T]

Yes. So what ? I am constituted by my body and nervous system, which are constituted by the physical processes that make them up, and so on. Nothing that is not "me" is involved at any stage, so I am not being pushed around by something else...

I never said you were, but while on the subject, you surely agree that someone stronger and perhaps willing to go to jail, could "push you around" don't you?

What you seem quite happy to accept is that the final result of a lot of microscopic processes, such a Brownian diffusion of neural transmitters across synaptic gaps, etc. is "you" and whatever this final cumulative effect of the deterministic part of the microprocess plus the quantum mechanically indeterminant part (if any) is also "you" and thus, by definition, "You" are always "acting freely."

By this logic, so is the computer I am typing on. As with you, it is subjected to some external "pushing around" (mainly key strokes and power line "glitches") but it also is just behaving as a cumulative result of many of its synaptic (should I say transistors?) switching on and off (like your nerves) under the control of the physics at a more fundamental level.

If your are happy with this "computer like" free will, good for you. I am not.

 

[Tournesol]

By this logic, so is the computer I am typing on. As with you, it is subjected to some external "pushing around" (mainly key strokes and power line "glitches") but it also is just behaving as a cumulative result of many of its synaptic (should I say transistors?) switching on and off (like your nerves) under the control of the physics at a more fundamental level

To say that being pushed around by an external force is a sufficient criterion for *not* being free, does not mean that *not* being pushed around is a
sufficient criterion for being free. Other necessary criteria IMO are
the ability-to-have-done-otherwise and the capacity for conscious reflection.

 

[moving finger]

Be my guest - feel "free" to put up your more positive definition. I was just trying to narrow the field by saying somethings FW and GFW are not.

Sorry, Billy T, but the whole point of the exercise is that you should define what you mean when you speak of FW and GFW. The point I am trying to make is that it is useless to try and debate whether something we call GFW or FW exists or does not exist unless and until we have a definition for these terms.

I can offer several (incompatible) alternative definitions of free will, some of which you may agree with and some of which you may not. But what I do not know is what YOU mean when you talk about FW or GFW (only you can tell me that).

I believe that the universe is deterministic and that (in the strict definition of determinism) there is no room for what many people naively believe is "genuine free will" (ie the ability to "do otherwise than what we actually did"). But I also believe that humans genuinely "feel" that they act with free will, and what we need to do to further our understanding of this feeling is to encapsulate this feeling of free will in a definition that is compatible with determinism (but such definition I know will likely not be acceptable to those who believe that humans possesses some kind of soul or other decision-making capability which transcends determinism).

In the interests of further debate, I therefore offer my personally preferred definition of free will, the kind that is compatible with determinism, the kind that people really do have and the kind that many of us naively (but wrongly) think gives us the ability to "do otherwise than what we did do" :

Definition : free will is the ability of an agent to anticipate alternate possible outcomes dependent on alternate 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 believe free will defined in this way (a) is compatible with determinism (b) is exactly what humans experience when they claim that they act with free will (it is entirely consistent with our psychological experience of free will) and (c) implies that free will is not an exclusively human characteristic (ie machines can also have free will).

Of course I accept that you may not accept the above definition. But whether you accept it or not, it is nevertheless a definition and free will defined this way does have the properties I have described.

MF

 

[Billy T]

...I believe that the universe is deterministic and that (in the strict definition of determinism) there is no room for what many people naively believe is "genuine free will" (ie the ability to "do otherwise than what we actually did").

I have more problem with this than your definition of free will, because, if one believes that quantum mechanics is valid, as I do, then it is easy to show mathematically that the universe is not deterministic. I doubt that you would object to the math that does this (assuming you can follow it) but you could object to the validity of quantum mechanics (to maintain your belief in "strict determinism." ) Consequently I will not bother with the math proof. Instead, I will offer an experimental /observational proof, trusting that at least you will accept empirical demonstrations:

The radioactive decay of various elements has been extensively studied. Hugh number of observations have permitted "half lifes" to be defined and they do not seem to influenced by external things like magnetic or electric fields. The interval between two activations of a detector is random. every thing about the decay is unpredictable, but I grant that it could be "deterministic" and we just are ignorant of the "hidden variables" that are making it appear to be "indeterment." (That was basically Einstein's view.) so I will build my demonstration at a higher level that exploits the well confirmed random statistics of the decay:

Suppose I place a small quantity of large half-life radio-active material equally distant from two detectors, A & B, and spend a few years observing the detection data (just to confirm it is more random than any random number generation program in any computer program - I.e. grant me the sequences of detections, ...AABABBBAB...etc. is truly random, even if the individual decays are the result of "hidden variables".) Then on your birthday I flip a switch which drops one of two stamped envelopes into a US post offices mail box. If detector "A" is activated before detector "B" then "envelope A" gets mailed, if "B" before "A" it is "envelope B" that is mailed. Once either is mailed the switch is disabled so only only one is mailed. (or some other means achieves "single mailing.")

You will be interested to know more about the envelopes as one is addressed to you. I can't tell to whom the other is addressed or he, a contract murderer, will kill me instead of you. Both envelopes have US $10,000 in them.
In summary, your "happy birthday present" or death (things that should be important to you) is purely random, and completely indeterminant, even if each individual decay of the radioactive material was deterministic by unknown "hidden variables." Never mind the universe, is your future determined or indeterminant?

...I therefore offer my personally preferred definition of free will, ...
Definition : free will is the ability of an agent to anticipate alternate possible outcomes dependent on alternate 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....MF

To compensate for putting your life at risk, I will accept your definition of free will (or most any reasonable one). The key problem, and why I have been avoiding making one of my own, is the two words I made bold. How is this choice made? Is it not the the net result of a lot of indeterminate small molecules banging into a larger one that we call a "neurotransmitter" and giving it the motion that botanist Brown first observed 180 years ago and we now call "Browian motion" - that random walk Einstein quantified in one of his 5 famous 1905 papers? It is the progress of these neurotransmitters across your synaptic gaps, not you, if you are a "physical body" that is randomly "choosing" what at some much higher level you will presume was your choice. - MHO.

 

[moving finger]

I have more problem with this than your definition of free will, because, if one believes that quantum mechanics is valid, as I do, then it is easy to show mathematically that the universe is not deterministic.

I think you are mistaken here. I also believe quantum mechanics is valid (as far as it goes), but I challenge you or anyone else to show that quantum mechanics implies the universe is necessarily not deterministic. All QM shows is that the world is not predictable. And there is a world of difference between the meaning of "not predictable" and "not deterministic". There are for example perfectly acceptable non-local hidden-variables theories which are consistent with the results of QM and yet are based on determinism.

I doubt that you would object to the math that does this (assuming you can follow it) but you could object to the validity of quantum mechanics (to maintain your belief in "strict determinism." ) Consequently I will not bother with the math proof. Instead, I will offer an experimental /observational proof, trusting that at least you will accept empirical demonstrations:

The radioactive decay of various elements has been extensively studied. Hugh number of observations have permitted "half lifes" to be defined and they do not seem to influenced by external things like magnetic or electric fields. The interval between two activations of a detector is random. every thing about the decay is unpredictable, but I grant that it could be "deterministic" and we just are ignorant of the "hidden variables" that are making it appear to be "indeterment." (That was basically Einstein's view.) so I will build my demonstration at a higher level that exploits the well confirmed random statistics of the decay:

Suppose I place a small quantity of large half-life radio-active material equally distant from two detectors, A & B, and spend a few years observing the detection data (just to confirm it is more random than any random number generation program in any computer program - I.e. grant me the sequences of detections, ...AABABBBAB...etc. is truly random, even if the individual decays are the result of "hidden variables".) Then on your birthday I flip a switch which drops one of two stamped envelopes into a US post offices mail box. If detector "A" is activated before detector "B" then "envelope A" gets mailed, if "B" before "A" it is "envelope B" that is mailed. Once either is mailed the switch is disabled so only only one is mailed. (or some other means achieves "single mailing.")

You will be interested to know more about the envelopes as one is addressed to you. I can't tell to whom the other is addressed or he, a contract murderer, will kill me instead of you. Both envelopes have US $10,000 in them.
In summary, your "happy birthday present" or death (things that should be important to you) is purely random, and completely indeterminant, even if each individual decay of the radioactive material was deterministic by unknown "hidden variables." Never mind the universe, is your future determined or indeterminant?

The answer is simple and self-evident, one or the other of the following must be true :
(A) if the radioactive decay follows some form of deterministic hidden-variables law then my future is determined (regardless of whether it can be predicted).
(B) if the radioactive decay is truly random and not deterministic, then my future is not determined.

Problem is, what we do not know is whether (A) or (B) above is true (though most followers of Bohr assume B is true).

To compensate for putting your life at risk, I will accept your definition of free will (or most any reasonable one). The key problem, and why I have been avoiding making one of my own, is the two words I made bold. How is this choice made? Is it not the the net result of a lot of indeterminate small molecules banging into a larger one that we call a "neurotransmitter" and giving it the motion that botanist Brown first observed 180 years ago and we now call "Browian motion" - that random walk Einstein quantified in one of his 5 famous 1905 papers? It is the progress of these neurotransmitters across your synaptic gaps, not you, if you are a "physical body" that is randomly "choosing" what at some much higher level you will presume was your choice. - MHO.

Yes – but so what?
A choice between two or more alternatives is the equivalent of simply taking two or more inputs and producing one output.
I can make a choice. A machine can make a choice. None of this implies that GFW (whatever that is – I am still waiting for your definition) exists.

Is there anything wrong with my definition, as a definition?
If you do not like my definition, please tell me why, and please do offer a better one?

The following question is not meant to be inflammatory or aggressive, so please take it in the spirit intended :

Can you please explain what is the point of debating the existence or non-existence of something you call "GFW" if you are unwilling to define what you mean by "GFW"?

MF

 

[Billy T]

...There are for example perfectly acceptable non-local hidden-variables theories which are consistent with the results of QM and yet are based on determinism.

I grant this, but you missed my point, so I will repeat it, slightly condensed:

"The interval between two activations of a detector is random. Everything about the decay is unpredictable, but I grant that it could be "deterministic" and we just are ignorant of the "hidden variables" that are making it appear to be "indeterminent." ... So I will build my demonstration at a higher level that exploits the well confirmed random statistics of the decay:
Suppose I place a small quantity of large half-life radio-active material equally distant from two detectors, A & B, and spend a few years observing the detection data (just to confirm it is more random than any random number generation program in any computer program - I.e. grant me the sequences of detections, ...AABABBBAB...etc. is truly random, even if the individual decays are the result of "hidden variables".)"

That is: all I am asking of you is to accepted the demonstrated fact that the sequence of detector responses is truly random, even though each decay was completely determined as you and Einstein believed.
If you reject well demonstrated facts, then our discussion is over. If you accept this demonstrated fact, then at least your future is indeterminant, not just epistemologically unknown (unpredictable).

Your argument (B) is irrelevant as it is the sequence ...ABBABBBAAAB... etc. that is important (and demonstrably random) not the deterministic or indeterministic individual decays. - Again, you missed this point.