Why Do Materialist Compatibilists Believe in Free Will?

[imiyakawa]

Assuming materialism;

I'm making this thread because I cannot understand the position that free will exists under materialism. There are a very large number of these philosophers and neuroscientists, I've read all (or most of) their arguments, and they've yet to show exactly where the Shroedinger equation breaks down in the brain, or where the laws of thermodynamics break down, etc.

I cannot understand how so many of them believe in free will under physicalism? Please, someone elucidate their position and exactly where the laws of physics breaks down in a complex system, I'm starting to go insane here.

I mean, the answer to me seems pretty straightforward:
1) Given that we have 0 reason to suppose that a complex system leads to the breakdown in physical law, and
2) Given that we have 0 reason to suppose that the brain can direct where the collapsed wave-particle to discrete-state "lands",
A) If collapse is determined, future brain states if modeled alongside environment are predictable, in principle [or perhaps not, but nevertheless], with 100% accuracy (you will think what you think no matter what).
B) If collapse is truly stochastic, the probability distribution of future brain states if modeled alongside environment is predictable, in principle [or maybe not even in principle, but this doesn't change the thought experiment], with 100% accuracy (i.e. you would have AT BEST random will).

Q.E.D., right? Or wrong?

I know that there exist some people that argue against 1). How? Do they have a reason to do so? And yes, apeiron, I have considered global~local, but this doesn't lead to a breakdown in physical law! A river's flow can still be predicted by modeling every particle in the water, banks of the river, stones in the river, etc.

Does anyone understand why there are a huge number of materialist compatibilists/libertarians, and where exactly they've found a circumvention to the above? I'm sure if I'm wrong, it'll have to do with my knowledge of physics, which makes this place a good place to post this question.

When I'm talking about free will, I'm talking about the free will notion that the average guy has on the street, the ability to "do otherwise".

 

[JoeDawg]

First, I think you need to understand where compatibalism comes from.

The history of the freewill argument in a western context, is based on sin. God gives you free will so that he can blame you for sin. This is essentially what the garden of eden story tells us.

Freewill, in this sense is a magical thing, something that exists separate from the physical world. The body, then, is just the tool for implementing the choices, which the soul endowed with freewill makes. (Many cultures don't even have a concept of freewill, what people do is governed by the whim of the gods, or fate.)

Magic... is problematic, especially when it comes to our more modern ideas of 'causation'. Now, if you remove the magic, then every decision one makes is caused... and for many that seems at odds with being free to choose. Some people thought that throwing in 'random chance' would solve this problem... allow for free will, but the philosopher David Hume showed why this is incorrect.

If an event is random, then it involves no choice. It is only if a choice causes a result, that one can say it was chosen. So a choice must be caused, for it to be a choice.

But if everything is caused, where is choice?

future brain states if modeled alongside environment are predictable, in principle, with 100% accuracy (you will think what you think no matter what).

This is what I like to call the fallacy of omniscience. It takes the view that complete prediction of complex systems is possible from a godlike perspective. But in order to get 100% accuracy, you would need more than just a model... you would need to recreate the system, and know every part and every state of said system.

This would be magic.

Another problem with freewill is the problem of counterfactuals. Some assume that for a choice to be free, one must be in a position to re-choose, or un-choose... choose something different than what one chose.

Again, magic.

These concepts of freewill are logically self-contradictory, so its no wonder people have problems with them.

The compatibalist view is both, less ambitious and less magical.
It relies on the idea that a person has an internal system that is distinct from the external system. When one makes a decision, one is doing what one's internal system is disposed to do. If you change the circumstances, or if you are different person, you might make a different decision, but its the logic of the internal system that makes the choice.

Think of it in terms of billiard balls. When one billiard ball hits another, only the solid nature of the balls is an issue. However, if a person punches another person in the face, the reaction will be more complex, and will depend on the internal system of the person being hit.

A person's ability to make a choice then, is there ability to do what they are disposed to do, in any given situation. No magic. And while general predictions can be made, the fact one can guess an outcome doesn't mean the outcome wasn't freely chosen.

 

[imiyakawa]

This is what I like to call the fallacy of omniscience. It takes the view that complete prediction of complex systems is possible from a godlike perspective. But in order to get 100% accuracy, you would need more than just a model... you would need to recreate the system, and know every part and every state of said system.

Yes, the counter-argument that a super-computer would have to be so complex to do these calculations that it wouldn't be able to be housed inside of the universe... therefore God and therefore the thought experiment doesn't apply.

But that doesn't change anything! We still need a reason as to why a complex system would lead to a break in the physical laws that we know about now before we ponder the notion of free will that people on the street think they have.

Right?

It relies on the idea that a person has an internal system that is distinct from the external system. When one makes a decision, one is doing what one is disposed to do. If change the circumstances, or if you are different person, you might make a different decision, but its the logic of the internal system that makes the choice.

Think of it in terms of billard balls. When one billiard ball hits only the solid nature of the balls is an issue. However, if a person punches another person in the face, the reaction will be more complex, and will depend on the internal system of the person.

A person's ability to make a choice then, is there ability to do what they disposed to do, in any given situation. No magic. And while general predictions can be made, the fact one can guess an outcome doesn't mean the outcome wasn't freely chosen.

Yeah but... if that person was going to act that way all the time (determinism), or if that person was going to act that way a certain % of the time (and that person's probability distribution of potential future brain states/actions is dictated by laws), how is it not a misnomer to say people have free will?

I know of the position you are talking about... That's not the definition of free will I'm talking about. I'm talking about the free will that people on the street think they have.

Considering that we've now straightened out what definition of free will I'm talking about, what argument is there for the position that a materialistic consciousness can think in a way not fully dictated by laws? Do you agree that physical law shouldn't break down in the brain and so free will cannot exist (the definition above)?

A person's ability to make a choice then, is there ability to do what they are disposed to do, in any given situation. No magic.

Magic? No. Misnomer? I think so. How are "they" (their consciousness, supposedly) doing anything?

In a determined universe:
They HAVE to act that way...
In a Copenhagen universe:
They have a probability distribution of future actions that they HAVE to adhere to...

Would you agree that free will - the thing that people on the street think they have, ability to choose that doesn't conform to either their brain's determined fate or their brain's future probability distribution - has been utterly Q.E.D.'d?

It relies on the idea that a person has an internal system that is distinct from the external system. When one makes a decision, one is doing what one's internal system is disposed to do. If you change the circumstances, or if you are different person, you might make a different decision, but its the logic of the internal system that makes the choice.

How would this enable free will? I thought compatibilists believed free will and materialism could be intermarried (off Stanford website)?

 

[Coldcall]

i just don't agree that the concept of free-will is necessarily based in a belief in "magic". QM offers a sound scientific rationale for the existence of free-will, depending on how one interprets it from a foundational point of view.

The idea of any *practical* determinsim is steeped in classical physics bias and has been proven false through both qm and chaos theory (at macroscale).

One must note that determinists hide behind two unfalsifiable conditions.

1)In qm they *pretend* the idea that a particle does indeed have defined properties before its measured/observed, ie hidden variables.

2) In macro scale (chaos theory) they depend on the old chestnut (if we could measure initial conditions to infinite accuracy). Well that's impossible so its quite a ridiculous statement.

Both of those conditions are nonsensical in that neither can be shown to be true. Magic? Sounds like it to me.

 

[imiyakawa]

QM offers a sound scientific rationale for the existence of free-will, depending on how one interprets it from a foundational point of view.

Hmm hold on..

I'll remain modest here, because my knowledge of QM is minute.

I was under the impression that in truly random QM interpretations, where the wave packet is a real 3D probability distribution interacting with other wave packets, you can still model probabilities, and those probabilities will eventuate as expected according to your model.

I.e. I thought all random QM-collapse interpretations gave agents/humans was random will, but still all actions are predicted within a probability distribution, and the % chance that the agent will act in a certain way (if QM has a causal role in consciousness) is simply determined by STOCHASTIC (out of the agent's control) collapse?

What I said prior (is this wrong?):

In a Copenhagen universe:
They have a probability distribution of future actions that they HAVE to adhere to...

For QM to offer materialist consciousness a way of free action, undecided by laws governing the physical, consciousness would have to control where the collapsed particle to discrete-state "lands", so to speak - but we have no reason to suspect this..

 

[Coldcall]

Hmm hold on..

I'll remain modest here, because my knowledge of QM is minute.

I was under the impression that in truly random QM interpretations, where the wave packet is a real 3D probability distribution interacting with other wave packets, you can still model probabilities, and those probabilities will eventuate according to your model.

I.e. I thought all random QM-collapse interpretations gave agents/humans was random will, but still all actions are predicted within a probability distribution, and the % chance that the agent will act in a certain way (if QM has a causal role in consciousness) is simply determined by STOCHASTIC (out of the agent's control) collapse?

What I said prior (is this wrong?):


For QM to offer materialist consciousness a way of free action, undecided by laws governing the physical, consciousness would have to control where the collapsed particle to discrete-state "lands", so to speak - but we have no reason to suspect this..

Like i said in my post, depending on one's favoured interpretation, one can take a dterminstic or non-detrminstic point of view re qm. And qm is a probabilities science so i don't understand your point.

My concern was not with what you said, but the idea that free-will is based on "magic".

 

[JDStupi]

Alright, come on with the determinist vs non-determinist stand-offs. Why doesn't anybody consider freewill as a continuum? Why is it always either/or? I always like to start from experience, not simply a model of phenomena that leads to a mind set that has proven to be faulty. Observing people you notice that some people are pre-disposed toward "following" and doing what everybody else does/ liking similar things etc, whereas others are more independant thinkers/livers. What is the point of your metaphysical demand based off an old deterministic model for naturalistic phenomena that everything is 100% determined from the beginning? Why bring QM into this? Do people honestly think that the brain is directly correlated with quantum effects still? It doesn't seem like you have truly considered the idea of a systematic perspective on the whole as you say you have, it seems like you briefly considered it and dismissed it, but it seeems that you did not try to truly get inside the thought process and simply looked at it from the perspective of a determinist.
What do you know of the perspectives brought by complex mathematics, why are you insisting on some apriori notion of philosophic necessity? Is it also determined that every complex adaptive system evolved in a specific manner based off of prior conditions?
Consider your river...as a river, not a theoretical entity. You honestly think you can predict everything "in principle?" from what boundary conditions? Did the river just get placed there and start to run, or did it form? Now you have to predict its conditions for forming. Think of systematic interactions, such as a river flowing (which is systematic and chaotic enough) mixed with the shadows and optical phenomena that appear as a result of it, is it determined that these things happen at that moment?
Now you go back to trying to predict everything as a result of prior conditions, again to the good old all the way ack to the BB idea. You think that the initial conditions of the BB contained all of the information of not only the particles, but also the complex adaptive systems and arrangements of things that were to form?
Finally, I don't even know what to say about your grotesque abuse of philosophic reasoning, just because you put your notions in numbered syllogistic form doesn't mean that the reasoning follows. 1) Not contesting 2) Where does this come from? sounds like a misunderstanding of QM, all this fuzzy vague talk of the brain not being able to "direct" collapse, no duh, I don't know anybody who is proposing that the brain directs collpase anyway. How do you jump to A? What makes you think that it is predictable in principle to 100% accuracy? Just because something is not quantum doesn't mean it is 100% predictable. What does "probability of future brain states" even mean? A brain state is not a well defined notion. You are reduced to "In Principle, if everything follows given a certain path, there is an absolutley enormous amount of probabilities of possible events, these probabilities exponentially increasing as the complexity of the system increases locally, therefore if you happen to end up one of these probabilities, which you must, then you have been determined and have no free will" Doesnt that smell a little odd to you? A little bit like an ill-reasoned or quite possibly pointless argument?
Sorry for the long unorganized post.

 

[Coldcall]

JDStupi,

I sort of agree in that the truth is probably somehwere in the middle, and as with religion/atheism and other such polarised subjects, humans tend to focus on the yes/no type results.

 

[imiyakawa]

Ok what I gathered from the first part of your post was

... Future states of large, complex systems are probably not predictable .. Why can't free will be a continuum .. Why are you approaching this from a deterministic perspective?..

Well, I'm not approaching this from a deterministic perspective, if you read what I said carefully. As you know, we don't know if something like the deBB interpretation is correct... so we have to consider the deterministic model.

I don't quite understand your position. I realize that it may not be possible to predict future states of an amazingly complex system. But as I said, what reason do we have to suppose that strict physical laws that govern future brain states (here I mean the assemblage of every wave packet in the brain as a result from interaction with the environment and within the brain) don't exist?

Do you think that free will, under the definition I provided, is possible? How? How can a complex system NOT be determined by physical law (be they deterministic laws OR NOT)?

(The first half of your post)

I'm willing to accept that certain complex systems may not be able to be modeled inside a computer made by humans of the future. I'm willing to accept that it future wavefunction states of the system may not be able to be modeled.

That's a far cry from supposing that the evolution of complex systems aren't governed by set laws, though... Which is what you seem to be proposing as a refutation to my proposition..

2) Where does this come from?

Because if it were true it wouldn't allow A) or B), so I felt compelled to mention it, even though it's ludicrous.

You are reduced to "In Principle, if everything follows given a certain path, there is an absolutely enormous amount of probabilities of possible events, these probabilities exponentially increasing as the complexity of the system increases locally, therefore if you happen to end up one of these probabilities, which you must, then you have been determined and have no free will"

What do you mean "if everything follows a certain path", did I ever say something like that?

I seriously cannot make sense of what you think is a summation of what I'm saying. If QM is truly random, you don't choose what state you end up at, the laws of physics do that for you... Therefore no free will. Or do you propose that complex systems aren't bound by set physical law?

I sort of agree in that the truth [about free will] is probably somehwere in the middle [of a continuum]

How? Either your actions are constrained to obey physical law no matter what, or they aren't. Mutually exclusive, right? That's the agreed definition of free will that we're discussing in this thread, at least.

Observing people you notice that some people are pre-disposed toward "following" and doing what everybody else does/ liking similar things etc, whereas others are more independant thinkers/livers.

This doesn't have anything to do with this discussion. I made the definition of free will we're discussion abundantly clear:

If conscious humans can think something that is not governed in all totality by physical law, they will have free will (under this definition). If they can't, they don't have free will - either they were going to think what they were going to think no matter what (say, de Broglie-Bohm interpretation), or what they were going to think was going to happen a certain % of the time and a God-like figure could calculate this probability distribution (say, Copenhagen interpretation).

t doesn't seem like you have truly considered the idea of a systematic perspective on the whole as you say you have, it seems like you briefly considered it and dismissed it

That's the opposite of true. In fact, I made this very thread because of this point. I want people to tell me exactly how a complex system can lead to a breakdown in physical law and thus enable free will (under the definition I clearly laid out), which some people seem intent on believing (such as yourself).

---------------

JDStupi, you're saying free will could be a continuum.

Are you seriously proposing that neural processes aren't governed in all totality by well defined, known or at present unknown, physical laws? Or are you proposing that there's some special physical law that can be broken by materialistic consciousness, and therefore free will becomes possible?

What am I missing.

Maybe you're proposing that the brain can somehow circumvent the laws that are governing it?

Hmm...

 

[imiyakawa]

My question isn't that hard...

Is there a way that the brain, as a complex system, can do something not governed by physical law (DETERMINISTIC OR NOT[I'm not claiming the former!]!), which would then allow free will under the definition I provided?

If the answer is no, which it seems to be (you haven't said why not if it isn't), my question has been answered.

Thanks :)

-------------------------------

Nor did I state that QM processes play a causal role in consciousness, which you seem to think I was doing.

I wasn't. Many people bring up QM as a circumvention that allows free will, though, which is why I brought it up.

 

[Coldcall]

imiyakawa,

"How? Either your actions are constrained to obey physical law no matter what, or they aren't. Mutually exclusive, right? That's the definition of free will we're discussing, at least."

well we already exist in an in-between of the two extremes. ie> our determinstic theories of science are not able to be tested. We can't measure initial conditions to inifnite accuracy so there is no way to prove "your actions are constrained to obey physical law".

Or what about randomness, which is a sort of in between, in that it inputs chance into the equation.

Perhaps the universe is determinstic and non-determinstic depending on different scales, or emergent properties. Were all laws perfectly formed at the BB or did some emerge during the evolution of the universe?

Does maths perfectly describe the physcial universe? I mean perfectly. No it doesnt; hence we have oddities such as singularities come up. If the universe is non computational at the most fundamental level then there might not be any simple answers to such questions.

 

[imiyakawa]

Or what about randomness, which is a sort of in between, in that it inputs chance into the equation.

Yes, of course... but free will (the definition I'm talking about) certainly can't be inferred. Nor can semi-free will (a continuum?) be inferred, which I think you and JDStupi wanted.

Perhaps the universe is determinstic and non-determinstic depending on different scales, or emergent properties. Were all laws perfectly formed at the BB or did some emerge during the evolution of the universe?

I don't see how this is relevant. A law is a law, my brain has to follow those laws, right?l It shouldn't matter if those laws are fundamentally random or determined. My brain follows them.

Does maths perfectly describe the physcial universe? I mean perfectly. No it doesnt; hence we have oddities such as singularities come up. If the universe is non computational at the most fundamental level then there might not be any simple answers to such questions.

I can fully accept that we may not discover all the laws of physics, there may be things that seem anomalous, we may only have approximations etc. Where can free will (under my definition) be inferred?

Still, enlighten me please >.<

What is a reason for us to think our brains are capable of decision making outside of bound laws, deterministic or otherwise?

I still have not gotten an answer to this question. I'm not saying such a feat is impossible, but can someone provide a reason to even consider this as a possibility?

I concede that the feat of computing future "states" (yes, that's probably a misnomer in this context of a super-duper complex physical system may not be possible, even in principle! (although it may become possible in the future).

But nowhere can free will be inferred from this. [remember the definition of free will I'm referring to].

 

[GeorgCantor]

i just don't agree that the concept of free-will is necessarily based in a belief in "magic". QM offers a sound scientific rationale for the existence of free-will, depending on how one interprets it from a foundational point of view.

Nothing about QM's indeterminism has anything to do with Free Will. In fact, free will isn't in any way whatsoever related to randomness. I am certain you don't think your thoughts are completely random, do you?

It is very apparent that Free Will is much too complex and no human mind can comprehend it at this time. I'd dare say that materialism/reductionism has reached its ends on this issue, and if we stick to their ideas, we either are zombies and are unconscious(i.e. we are forced to accept that we don't really exist), or if we are more moderate we have to say that free will is something 'emergent'(which would be a cop out, a sweep under the rug).

Anyway, QM has nothing to do with free will, and determinism has never been sucessful in explaining neither self-awareness nor free choice either. We basically have no idea what free will is, it's still a very deep mystery and probably a result of the intruments we use to reach conclusions. If we REALLY have free will, we will never be able to explain free will. That'd be like God explaining his free will or his existence(assuming God exists).

 

[imiyakawa]

or we are more moderate we have to say that free will is something 'emergent'.

I'm asking you this when I presumably have much less physics knowledge than you, so be nice to me, please.

If this occurred - the feeling of free will is real and not illusory (emergent will do) - wouldn't the consequence of this be that there aren't laws (random or determined..) governing brain processes? Or if that wasn't the consequence, the consequence would be that there are laws governing brain processes, but the emergent mind can somehow change/surpass them?

[As an aside, Jaegwon Kim has a "disproof" - he claims - of supervenience free will in his 2005 book]

We basically have no idea what free will is, it's still a very deep mystery and probably a result of the intruments we use to reach conclusions. If we REALLY have free will, we will never be able to explain free will.

What a magnificent answer.

 

[GeorgCantor]

I'm asking you this when I presumably have much less physics knowledge than you, so be nice to me, please.

If this occurred - the feeling of free will is real and not illusory (emergent will do) - wouldn't the consequence of this be that there aren't laws (random or determined..) governing brain processes?

We still have no idea what the "I" is that makes the decisions or how decisions are formed. .

Or if that wasn't the consequence, the consequence would be that there are laws governing brain processes, but the emergent mind can somehow change/surpass them?

Something is clearly missing from the tools we use. Those tools have been very successful in 99% of the cases, however free will and self-awareness aren't such. Reality is likely holistic, reductionism and materialism are very inefficient at such issues. I am not totally sure the Mind is 'emergent'. Emergent denotes simply that we cannot use reductionistic approaches here, so "emergent" is just a label for something we don't understand because our human logic is deeply rooted in reductionism. If we assume that Mind is different from Matter, we will have to find a new approach to understand hard emergence(which now seems like magic).

 

[imiyakawa]

We still have no idea what the "I" is that makes the decisions or how decisions are formed. .

Something is clearly missing from the tools we use. Those tools have been very successful in 99% of the cases, however free will and self-awareness aren't such. Reality is likely holistic, reductionism and materialism are very inefficient at such issues. I am not totally sure the Mind is 'emergent'. Emergent denotes simply that we cannot use reductionistic approaches here, so "emergent" is just a label for something we don't understand because our human logic is deeply rooted in reductionism. If we assume that Mind is different from Matter, we will have to find a new approach to understand hard emergence(which now seems like magic).

If we assume mind doesn't come from the brain, I'm absolutely happy with speculating that free will is possible. (or were you talking about property dualism?)

I'm specifically talking about the materialistic model.

There's still one question I really want answered from a physicist's perspective, though. If the mind does come from the brain - reducible or not directly reducible (supervenience? emergence?, multiple realizability?, etc) - and that mind can have free will in accordance with the definition I provided and what you were speculating on - wouldn't it mean that:
1. there aren't set laws governing the extremely complex system that is our brain, OR
2. there are these laws on the physical level, but the emergent mind somehow can break/loophole them and exert a downwards causal influence?

Those seem to be the only options that make JDStupi's and ColdCall's position a possibility.

I think JDStupi was saying #1 hasn't been ruled out...

Thanks for this :-)

 

[GeorgCantor]

If we assume mind doesn't come from the brain, I'm absolutely happy with speculating that free will is possible. (or were you talking about property dualism?)

I'm specifically talking about the materialistic model.

There's still one question I really want answered from a physicist's perspective, though. If the mind does come from the brain - reducible or not directly reducible (supervenience? emergence?, multiple realizability?, etc) - and that mind can have free will in accordance with the definition I provided and what you were speculating on - wouldn't it mean that:
1. there aren't set laws governing the extremely complex system that is our brain, OR
2. there are these laws on the physical level, but the emergent mind somehow can break/loophole them and exert a downwards causal influence?

Those seem to be the only options that make JDStupi's and ColdCall's position a possibility.

I think JDStupi was saying #1 hasn't been ruled out...

Thanks for this :-)

When I said "assuming Mind is different from matter" i really meant to say "assuming matter is different from Mind".


As for the rest of your questions - Free will is at least as mind boggling as the existence itself. There is nothing meaningful that can be stated with certainty about it except that it resembles a god-like ability(assuming that it exists and we are not dreaming up everything in a zombie-like, pre-determined state). The existence of a self-aware "I" is probably the greatest mystery there is. I want to have the answers you are looking for too, right now all we have are clues, hints and random pieces of information that add up to nothing meaningful. I don't think free will is logically consistent with materialism/reductionism and i don't consider those 2 approaches the ultimate in explaining reality in its fulness. There is range of phenomena that cannot be explained within the materialistic framework - self-awareness, free will, the existence of an "I", so it seems to me we are missing something truly fundamental or we are simply deficient in our ability to comprehend absolutely everything, incl. ourselves. I don't want to kill this thread, but free will is the thing we know least about, i.e. we don't know anything about it.

EDIT: It always seemed to me "free will" emerged in its full form around 35 000 BC, when the first cave paintings were carved. It is considered the beginning of art that could also be interpreted as the beginning of being fully aware of your own existence(i.e. the emergence of an autonomous "I" that consciously did the paintings). The rest of our history could all be down to pure animal instincts, but the paintings and art - I don't think so. This imo is where the animal could be said to have become a human being.

 

[JDStupi]

Ok, as a quick reply because I do not have the time right now...If you are defining free-will on the basis that mind does not break physical law, then yes we agree. If you go further to "every single action we have or ever could make has been completely determined" then no we do not agree. If your question is that given the assumption that mind does not break physical law, how could we NOT be determined, which I believe it is and was all along, I am not claiming I KNOW WE ARE ABSOLUTLEY FREE. I simply do not like the connotations of ABSOLUTLEY DETERMINED and quite frankly think we are jumping to a pre-emptive judgement regarding the issue, I do not necessarily endorse the position that we are free, nor the opposite. I simply do not think that at our present understanding of phenomena we can jump to the conclusion that there is no wiggle room in the debate. By continuum, I am essentially speaking of constraints in behaviour, I am not saying that some people break more physical laws or such nonsense I am saying that by observation some people in their behaviors do not have the free activity to not be swayed by social factors that play a role in their "freedom" of thought of perception. There are intricasies within perceptual experience that I do not think we should try to at this point in our understanding of physical law pen to being absolutley determined as is based off of the understanding provided to us by our current physical theories. (Moreover I think some people may be able to make a strong argument even including physical theories about a non-direct determinism non-direct meaning "not everything in your past and future has been completely determined")

* I noticed that much of what I think has been stated better by Cantor, I am just saying that he put much of what I was saying in a better manner, moreover I will apologize for my ambiguous terminology the "path" bit, this just referred to even after a specific quantum state collapses from uncertainty to a specific state, it doesn't follow that everything is %100 determined. I do agree that the question is very complex which is why I was not advocating a position simply stating why I do not believe it warranted to jump to the conclusion that if we believe in physical laws then we must give up free-will. Essentially saying that if we start from perceptual experience and look at the wide range of human experience, there are many things which i believe cannot be accounted for by a strict-reductionist perspective on reality. That is not saying I am saying everything we know is wrong, siply that it is not the full picture and that there is more to reality then simply our models. I will allow that possibly there is a huge probability of possible scenarios and in the process of adapting to our environment we choose one of them, but I'm simply not willing to take the jump of strict everything has been determined determinism.

 

[JoeDawg]

We still need a reason as to why a complex system would lead to a break in the physical laws that we know about now before we ponder the notion of free will that people on the street think they have.

Compatibilism is not about the freewill that people on the street think they have.

if that person was going to act that way all the time (determinism)

You are conflating determinism with prediction. A person, based on their internal system, acts certain ways at certain times. There is no, 'all the time'.

The fact that I know I went to work yesterday, doesn't limit the choice I made to go to work yesterday. Knowledge of an act doesn't limit freedom. Similarly, my reaction to an event will be based on my nature and how I view the situation.

I know of the position you are talking about... That's not the definition of free will I'm talking about. I'm talking about the free will that people on the street think they have.

Most people believe in a magical type of freewill that is self-contradictory. This is not the freewill that compatibalists believe in.

In a determined universe:
They HAVE to act that way...

In a determined universe, they choose to act that way, because you can't both choose and not choose.

In a Copenhagen universe:

People are not quantum particles, they are complex systems. You can't really equate the two.

I thought compatibilists believed free will and materialism could be intermarried (off Stanford website)?

Freewill for compatibalists is not magical.

 

[imiyakawa]

If you are defining free-will on the basis that mind does not break physical law, then yes we agree. If you go further to "every single action we have or ever could make has been completely determined" then no we do not agree.

We are in total agreement.

Although, would you disagree with me that if something like de broglie-bohm QM interp. is correct, which purports that everything is determined to the fullest extent, that whatever people think are only thinking that because of physical laws and nothing else? [This position seems, to me, to follow nicely off your first sentence in the quote above].

stating why I do not believe it warranted to jump to the conclusion that if we believe in physical laws then we must give up free-will. Essentially saying that if we start from perceptual experience and look at the wide range of human experience, there are many things which i believe cannot be accounted for by a strict-reductionist perspective on reality.

I'm not going to dispute this view.

Although I do have a question that follows. Wouldn't the antecedent of this perspective require us to consider physical laws that don't exist on the fundamental level but only 'kick in' in higher levels?

Thanks.

Most people believe in a magical type of freewill that is self-contradictory. This is not the freewill that compatibalists believe in.

I agree with your former statement, and after reading that latter sentence it makes so much sense... I couldn't understand how their arguments allowed free will but I was thinking about a different definition to what they were arguing.

People are not quantum particles, they are complex systems. You can't really equate the two.

Yep I just brought up QM to preempt the argument that "QM allows free will [the definition I was talking about]", which crops up a lot.

I don't think free will is logically consistent with materialism/reductionism and i don't consider those 2 approaches the ultimate in explaining reality in its fulness. There is range of phenomena that cannot be explained within the materialistic framework.

Very much satisfied with this answer.

When you say "can't be explained within materialism", does supervenience or emergence come under your definition of materialism?

Thanks guys.

 

[Coldcall]

Nothing about QM's indeterminism has anything to do with Free Will. In fact, free will isn't in any way whatsoever related to randomness. I am certain you don't think your thoughts are completely random, do you?

It is very apparent that Free Will is much too complex and no human mind can comprehend it at this time. I'd dare say that materialism/reductionism has reached its ends on this issue, and if we stick to their ideas, we either are zombies and are unconscious(i.e. we are forced to accept that we don't really exist), or if we are more moderate we have to say that free will is something 'emergent'(which would be a cop out, a sweep under the rug).

Anyway, QM has nothing to do with free will, and determinism has never been sucessful in explaining neither self-awareness nor free choice either. We basically have no idea what free will is, it's still a very deep mystery and probably a result of the intruments we use to reach conclusions. If we REALLY have free will, we will never be able to explain free will. That'd be like God explaining his free will or his existence(assuming God exists).

QM interpretations such as Copenhagen (as it was originally intended) and Von Neumann's Process 1, and Wheeler's Delayed Choice all explicitly involve free-will. So QM very much re-awoke the argument re free-will and how our choices today may have an effect on what happened in the distant past, a sort of non-informational retro-causality.

I don't agree that we can dismiss the idea of free-will being an emergent property. In fact i think its a very interesting and noteworthy concept, as we are accustomed to thinking that free-will was or was not made possible from some initial condiitons at the beginning of the universe.

 

[imiyakawa]

QM interpretations such as Copenhagen (as it was originally intended) and Von Neumann's Process 1, and Wheeler's Delayed Choice all explicitly involve free-will. So QM very much re-awoke the argument re free-will and how our choices today may have an effect on what happened in the distant past, a sort of non-informational retro-causality.

I don't agree that we can dismiss the idea of free-will being an emergent property. In fact i think its a very interesting and noteworthy concept, as we are accustomed to thinking that free-will was or was not made possible from some initial condiitons at the beginning of the universe.

When you say Von Neumann Process 1, do you mean the hypothesis that the Von Neumann chain ends in consciousness? (i.e. the hypothesis of wavefunction collapse to discrete-state as being caused by the which-path information entering consciousness itself?).

If that occurs, it would suggest an immaterial consciousness, but the collapse by consciousness in itself wouldn't allow free will - the immaterial consciousness would be the element that allows the free will.

If you don't mean that the wavefunction collapse is caused by human observers gaining which-path information, then how does the Copenhagen Interpretation enable free will? At best it would enable random will.. Right?

 

[GeorgCantor]

QM interpretations such as Copenhagen (as it was originally intended) and Von Neumann's Process 1, and Wheeler's Delayed Choice all explicitly involve free-will. So QM very much re-awoke the argument re free-will and how our choices today may have an effect on what happened in the distant past, a sort of non-informational retro-causality.

How do the DCE or the CI hint at free will? The outcomes of the DCE could well be predetermined. There is no way whatsoever to prove or disprove free will in a reality like ours, unless you found a fortune teller that made correct predictions all the time about the choices Coldcall makes.

The only thing i can draw as a conclusion from the DCE is that:

1. Time and space do not exist at the quantum level, or if they exist they are very different from our perceptions

2. Our conscious choice of measurement equipment affects the outcomes. It seems to me to be related to the observer's knowledge as the only changes made to the setup are the potential ability to excract information that is prohibited by the HUP.

Anyway, i see no way how free will has anything to do with these experiments.

 

[JDStupi]

Haha, glad to see that we're in agreement to a certain extent and that you were only arguing that the mind cannot break physical law. Regarding the "physical laws kicking in bit" I suppose you could say that something like this is possible as complexity of systems increase. Think about other sciences that hinge on physics, there is somewhat emergent behavior in a lot of them. The Chemical "laws" (just theories on chemical phenomena) and the biological "laws" couldn't be conceived of or deduced as being a consequence of the physical laws, that is not to say of course that our fundamental theories cannot accommodate for these other theories, simply that in considering the dynamics of say elementary particle fields we wouldn't be able to deduce much complex behavior of things from bio nd chem etc, so in that sense laws "emerge".
Even in strictly physical phenomena it is interesting to see how some theories point to the "emergence" of space-time from something more fundamental.
Finally, as always I cannot be certain, but even granting the Bohmian perspective on QM, I would still not say that it necessarily leads to 100% dtermination of everything that will happen or ever could happen. My basic reasons being that I am not hinging my belief in relative freedom of the will off of QM I'm hinging it off of observed feelings and my admittedly vague notion or feeling that our current understanding of the time-evolution of dynamically interacting emergent systems is not quite deep enough to be able to admit that eveything is determined. So even if Bohm was right, it wouldn' change anything observationally or empirically, due to the nature of the theory, so the natural phenomena that I feel we don't know, would still be unknown.

 

[imiyakawa]

/snip

I've never really considered the possibility that laws governing higher level (emergent) interactions (e.g. brain as a whole system) may not be able to be formulated from the lower level (fundamental) laws (physics).

Very interesting. Hard to envision a way how this is possible, but still an interesting way of looking at the problem.

2. Our conscious choice of measurement equipment affects the outcomes. It seems to me to be related to the observer's knowledge as the only changes made to the setup are the potential ability to excract information that is prohibited by the HUP.

First, what's HUP an acronym for?

Also, I was under the impression that physicists didn't think this. I.e. in Brian Greene's book he says nothing of the sort. If this is true, this has huge implications (probably) for consciousness. Why aren't physicists talking about this?

Or are the consequences reliant on which interpretation you're viewing the experiment from?

 

[GeorgCantor]

First, what's HUP an acronym for?

The uncertainty principle.

Also, I was under the impression that physicists didn't think this. I.e. in Brian Greene's book he says nothing of the sort.

Brian Greene is certainly free to disagree(if he does) as is anybody else. The DCE thought experiement was made by J.Wheeler to demonstrate that the universe might be participatory. If you expect everybody in the physics community to agree on a certain interpretation of a qm experiment, you may have to wait half a century or more. There is no generally accepted picture of reality yet and all experiments either don't add up to a coherent picture of reality, OR if taken too literally, they seem to imply that all that exists is just our(my?) observations.

If this is true, this has huge implications (probably) for consciousness. Why aren't physicists talking about this?

Do you think that the average hair dresser considers the fact that what he does takes away his free will? Or how about your local muffler guy? Does he worry that his cause-effect occupation robs hims of his free will?

What makes you think the average physicist spends much time wondering about the DCE? Or about the deep reality or the true nature of things?

Or are the consequences reliant on which interpretation you're viewing the experiment from?

I don't think the DCE can be coherently explained in any other way. You could posit some non-local hidden variable theories, but that's not an explanation at all, it's just moving the answer where we can't reach it, so that the more or less obvious conclusion be gone.


EDIT: I remember reading Brian Greene's Fabric of the Cosmos, i'll have to find the chapter, but he did say he gets out of bed in the morning with the idea that we are in a MWI multiverse and goes to bed at night thinking that only awareness exists.

 

[imiyakawa]

/snip

Interesting. The consequences would be... astounding.

Have a look at this:
http://www.bottomlayer.com/bottom/reality/chap2.html

Purports that;
1) Detector turned off;
- interference pattern
2) Detectors turned on, which-path information not stored onto hard-disk;
- interference pattern
3) Detectors turned on, which-path information recorded, then deleted before observing the back-wall;
- interference pattern
4)

Suppose we take our modified double slit set up -- with electron detectors at the slits -- and still leave everything intact. And we will still keep the electron detectors at the slits turned on, so that they will be doing whatever they do to detect electrons at the slits. And we will record the count at the slits, so that we will be able to obtain the results. But (this gets a little complicated), we will
(1) mix the data from the slits with additional, irrelevant garbage data, and record the combined (and incomprehensible) data;
(2) design a program to analyze data coming from the slits in one of two ways, either
(a) filtering out the garbage data so that we will be able to obtain clean results of electrons going through the slits, or
(b) analyzing the mixed-up data so that we will not be able to obtain the results of electrons going through the slits; and
(3) leave it up to a visiting politician which way we actually analyze the data from the slits.

The result upon final analysis by method (2)(a): a particle clumping pattern appears from the data.
The result upon final analysis by method (2)(b): an interference pattern appears from the data.

So it seems that an arbitrary choice (represented by the politician who has no personal interest in the experiment) made hours, days, months, or even years after the experiment is "complete," will change the result of that completed experiment. And, by changing the result, we mean that this arbitrary, delayed choice will affect the actual location of the electron hits as recorded by the electron detector at the back wall, representing an event that was supposed to have happened days, months, or even years in the past. An event that we suppose has taken place in the past (impingement of the electron on the detector) will turn out to be correlated to a choice that we make in the present. Imagine that.

the difference is not whether electrons were run through an electron detector at the slits. It turns out that, so far as experimentalists have been able to determine, the difference is whether the analysis of the results at the back wall is conducted when information about the electrons' positions at the slits is available, or not.

This is, if true, is revolutionary.

Or is it fraudulent?

Have 2), 3), and 4) ever been tried by another party?

 

[GeorgCantor]

This is, if true, is revolutionary.

Or is it fraudulent?

Have 2), 3), and 4) ever been tried by another party?

It has not been implemented so far AFAIK but a sizable portion of the physics community would not be surprized to see this result.


Edit: I found the chapter of B.Greene's Fabric of the Cosmos and he states that the "information" about the which-path is determining the outcome. He did not specifically say "observer's knowledge" but if you really think about it, information only exists when there is a mind.

 

[imiyakawa]

It has not been implemented so far AFAIK but a sizable portion of the physics community would not be surprized to see this result.

Why not? IT seems like a pretty simple way of dispelling or confirming the hypothesis that consciousness is causing the collapse.

Also, if it hasn't been conducted, doesn't that mean that the science writer that owns the website is lying?

Edit: I found the chapter of B.Greene's Fabric of the Cosmos and he states that the "information" about the which-path is determining the outcome. He did not specifically say "observer's knowledge" but if you really think about it, information only exists when there is a mind.

Yeah I'm inclined to agree. I'll have to re-read.

 

[GeorgCantor]

Why not? IT seems like a pretty simple way of dispelling or confirming the hypothesis that consciousness is causing the collapse.

Also, if it hasn't been conducted, doesn't that mean that the science writer that owns the website is lying?

Reading the website you linked to, i got the impression the authros were talking about a gedanken experiment. As far as i know, such an experiment has not yet been performed, BUT if it has been, it will hardly see any broad daylight. Why don't you ask in the quantum forum(link to to that site and ask your question), maybe someone knows or has heard something about such an experiment?

 

[imiyakawa]

Why don't you ask in the quantum forum, maybe someone knows or has heard something about such an experiment?

I did 8 months ago. They said it was probably a fraud, except didn't say if the experiment had been carried out anywhere else. Not really satisfied with that answer. I may re-post.

 

[GeorgCantor]

I may re-post.

When you do, mention the unobserved c60 molecule causing an interference pattern.

 

[imiyakawa]

When you do, mention the unobserved c60 molecule causing an interference pattern.

re-iterate? I'm noob.

 

[Coldcall]

When you say Von Neumann Process 1, do you mean the hypothesis that the Von Neumann chain ends in consciousness? (i.e. the hypothesis of wavefunction collapse to discrete-state as being caused by the which-path information entering consciousness itself?).

If that occurs, it would suggest an immaterial consciousness, but the collapse by consciousness in itself wouldn't allow free will - the immaterial consciousness would be the element that allows the free will.

If you don't mean that the wavefunction collapse is caused by human observers gaining which-path information, then how does the Copenhagen Interpretation enable free will? At best it would enable random will.. Right?

Yes i am in favour of observer dependent collapse theories, as that is where i feel the eviednece takes us naturally. The measurement problem is still completely baffling qm theory even today. Interpretations like MWI and decoherence don't solve the problem, they just offer a sort of classical objectiveness way of looking at wave reduction.

Well, subjective thought is certainly not material is it? Yes our brains are material, but from it emerges properties which in themselves cannot be reduced to simple physciality. This opens up the whole "systems" argument, the whole being greater than the sum of its parts.

We are so use to thinking that causality works only one way with the arrow of time as we experience it, and this enables a sense of determinism because a naturally follows b.

Even in cosmology today, we are taking retro-causality very seriously because it appears to be a legal property of qm. For instance what if the answer or causation for the big bang is actually retro-causal? If one takes Wheelers Delayed Choice seriously at face value, then it is quite possible that causes for past events can come from our future. That would really turn the idea of determinsim upside down.

 

[imiyakawa]

@ColdCall ^^^^

I don't see why we need a retrocausal/teleological Big Bang interpretation when there's more plausible models with less paradoxes. Although of course we can't rule it out.

And something like the transactional interpretation shouldn't enable free will.

Anyways I'm more than happy with JDStupis proposition that perhaps, even if it may not be plausible to our brains atm, higher order laws may not be able to be formulated from the fundamental laws.

 

[Coldcall]

How do the DCE or the CI hint at free will? The outcomes of the DCE could well be predetermined. There is no way whatsoever to prove or disprove free will in a reality like ours, unless you found a fortune teller that made correct predictions all the time about the choices Coldcall makes.

The only thing i can draw as a conclusion from the DCE is that:

1. Time and space do not exist at the quantum level, or if they exist they are very different from our perceptions

2. Our conscious choice of measurement equipment affects the outcomes. It seems to me to be related to the observer's knowledge as the only changes made to the setup are the potential ability to excract information that is prohibited by the HUP.

Anyway, i see no way how free will has anything to do with these experiments.

I agree that proving free-will is unfalsifiable. My point about qm was that choices appear to effect the past, hence making retro-causaltiy on a universal scale somewhat credible. So If the causal arrow of time works in both directions we would have to rethink our ideas of cause and effect, which is the basis for Determinism.

Of course that doesn't prove free-will :-)

 

[Coldcall]

@ColdCall ^^^^

I don't see why we need a retrocausal/teleological Big Bang interpretation when there's more plausible models with less paradoxes.

Although of course we can't rule it out.

well qm demsonstrates retro-causality so i think its just as credible as any of the more classical theories.

 

[GeorgCantor]

well qm demsonstrates retro-causality so i think its just as credible as any of the more classical theories.

If you think seriously about what happens in the DCE and especially - the quantum eraser, you'd likely reach for an ontology similar to that of RUTA - that nothing really went through the slits, and such statements are operationally meaningless until you get a detector click. It's tempting to intuitively think about solid balls going through one or the other slits in space and time, but... there appear to be just amplitudes of possible events(detections) in these two experiments.


If this is true, then we live in a reality of 'clicks' (good thing my beer detector has just clicked ).

 

[JDStupi]

Now, regarding the "conscious observer" ideas regarding the HUP and quantum state collapse, this is where I would disagree. I'm not claiming that you guys are wrong and I'm right, but I'm saying that I am inclined to disagree. I think that in sticking with the empirical, small steps type of scientific philosophy (by small steps I just mean taking small empriically veriviable steps rather than making huge hypothesis) I think that the "collapse" has nothing to do with us as special "conscious observers", I do not think that the fact that we are conscious plays a role in the collapse. I think that the fact that we are physical systems interacting with the outside world causes the HUP to exist, that the world exists in a kind of relational manner. From this, it follows that I think that other particles all are subject to a sort of HUP, that is everything is interacting as a physical system so can only form relationally, and that we can study the relationships between quantum particles and their environments and how through dynamic environment/system interaction the predominantly one macroscopic state of reality emerges. Entering complete speculation zone, possibly the relation between thermo and Info Sciences can be deepened and generalized at the quantum level and we can study how informational systems interact with their environment and settle in one state according to some type of "Informational/Thermo" equilibrium picture.

 

[Buckethead]

I wonder if free will could be examined at a more fundamental level and that is of true randomness. Causality is understood, but I'm not so sure that randomness is really understood and if one looks at the concept of randomness, it might shed some light on the concept of free will.

I do not believe that anything that is random follows any understandable laws. We can measure randomness using rules of probability, but if an event is truly random, it's outcome must be considered to be caused by something we cannot as yet comprehend. If it is random, this means it did not follow any of Newton's laws of motion or it would be deterministic. If something happens randomly, it happened for an incomprehensible reason.

We can apply the concept of randomness to the concept of free will in that if a random event is a result of an unknown cause, and if a free will decision is a result of an unknown cause, this unknown cause in both cases could be related. Studying randomness on it's deepest level could reveal something about free will.

 

[Coldcall]

If you think seriously about what happens in the DCE and especially - the quantum eraser, you'd likely reach for an ontology similar to that of RUTA - that nothing really went through the slits, and such statements are operationally meaningless until you get a detector click. It's tempting to intuitively think about solid balls going through one or the other slits in space and time, but... there appear to be just amplitudes of possible events(detections) in these two experiments.

If this is true, then we live in a reality of 'clicks' (good thing my beer detector has just clicked ).

Enjoy the beer :-)

I think the problem is we still don't know exactly what goes on before measurement. Some feel the wave function is totally abstract and in fact non-existent until observed/measured, and other interpretations claim there were pre-defined values before meausrement.

 

[Coldcall]

Now, regarding the "conscious observer" ideas regarding the HUP and quantum state collapse, this is where I would disagree. I'm not claiming that you guys are wrong and I'm right, but I'm saying that I am inclined to disagree. I think that in sticking with the empirical, small steps type of scientific philosophy (by small steps I just mean taking small empriically veriviable steps rather than making huge hypothesis) I think that the "collapse" has nothing to do with us as special "conscious observers", I do not think that the fact that we are conscious plays a role in the collapse. I think that the fact that we are physical systems interacting with the outside world causes the HUP to exist, that the world exists in a kind of relational manner. From this, it follows that I think that other particles all are subject to a sort of HUP, that is everything is interacting as a physical system so can only form relationally, and that we can study the relationships between quantum particles and their environments and how through dynamic environment/system interaction the predominantly one macroscopic state of reality emerges. Entering complete speculation zone, possibly the relation between thermo and Info Sciences can be deepened and generalized at the quantum level and we can study how informational systems interact with their environment and settle in one state according to some type of "Informational/Thermo" equilibrium picture.

well your view is probably the consensus view so you are certainly being safe :-)

I would argue that there is even stronger evidence today to support the view that our brains are quantum mechanical. If that were to be proven by isolating the quantum mechanical function in our brain (and perhaps other animals) then it would provide real support for the idea that "consciousness" or "mind" is a causal factor in collpasing the wave function or decoherence of a quantum state.

Why do i say there is stronger evidence for this today than a couple years ago? Max Tegmark's main argument against Penrose & Hammeroffs idea of quantum mechanics in the brain, was that the brain was too hot and wet for coherence to be sustained long enough for the necessary function to occur. In other words, biological systems were just too chaotic.

But hey ho, tegmark's argument has been falsified at the beginning of this year in the following study which showed that photosynthesis involved a quantum mechanical process in order to process solar energy to chemical energy with almost 100% efficiency. More importantly, the proteins involved in this mechanism operate at the same temperature as the proteins in microtubules or other components in the brain:

"What may prove to be this study’s most significant revelation is that contrary to the popular scientific notion that entanglement is a fragile and exotic property, difficult to engineer and maintain, the Berkeley researchers have demonstrated that entanglement can exist and persist in the chaotic chemical complexity of a biological system.

“We present strong evidence for quantum entanglement in noisy non-equilibrium systems at high temperatures by determining the timescales and temperatures for which entanglement is observable in a protein structure that is central to photosynthesis in certain bacteria,” Sarovar says."

http://newscenter.lbl.gov/feature-stories/2010/05/10/untangling-quantum-entanglement/

Leaving aside that this study is really interesting from an energy efficiency perspective (obviously helpful in the design of solar energy), this shows that a quantum mechncial function in our brains is viable.

It also shows that biology has evolved quantum mechanical functions to improve performance, survivability. So if plants have evolved this function then why would it not evolve in human biology? There really is no good reason to reject that possibility. In fact i think its more than possible; it would be almost perverse if more complex and evolved biologies scrapped quantum mechncial processes for the slower, less powerful classical processes.

There are plenty of other reasons why we should take the idea of quantum mechncial "consciounsess" seriously. We are now getting very close to builiding computers or AI which have the same raw classcial computational power as exists in our brains, but we are nowhere near delivering real synthetic consciousness. Why is that? Clearly we are missing something very important in our understanding of how consciousness can emerge.

So why are scientists so keen to develop quantum computing? Why do they say we will get performance increase of more than 1000 times our current computer architectures?

In my opinion, its pretty obvious conclusion that qm is the best place to look for what we call consicousness. Nothing else known to man can potentially offer that sort of computational power.

Hence if qm is responsible for consciousness, then it would start making a lot of sense that there is a mind to matter entanglement which could suggest "consciousness" is a causal factor in wave function collapse.

 

[JDStupi]

I'm not going to try to refute what you say because, of course, I do not know. That said, I do believe that the idea that consciousness has arisen due to some type of Quantum Mechanical effect that biology has evolved in order for us to have a selection advantage is too simplistic and reductionist an idea to account for consciousness. I feel as though it still looks at things from a reductionist, "this happens causing this" paradigm, whereas I don't know if this is necessarily the case with consciousness. I believe a more accurate approach, though I do not know much about it, is that of biosemiotics and the modern conceptual metaphor paradigm in cognitive science. Even if consciousness has some QM in it, it will be through similar processes to those described by environmental interaction/embodied mind theories and not simply some effect.

 

[Coldcall]

I'm not going to try to refute what you say because, of course, I do not know. That said, I do believe that the idea that consciousness has arisen due to some type of Quantum Mechanical effect that biology has evolved in order for us to have a selection advantage is too simplistic and reductionist an idea to account for consciousness. I feel as though it still looks at things from a reductionist, "this happens causing this" paradigm, whereas I don't know if this is necessarily the case with consciousness. I believe a more accurate approach, though I do not know much about it, is that of biosemiotics and the modern conceptual metaphor paradigm in cognitive science. Even if consciousness has some QM in it, it will be through similar processes to those described by environmental interaction/embodied mind theories and not simply some effect.

Well its an open debate. No doubt it will be many years before we get any real answers leading one way or another. But "consciousness" whatever it is, is special. And if we were ever in the position to understand it, and be able to replicate it, that would be incredible, a real technological singularity. That would be real AI.

 

[GeorgCantor]

re-iterate? I'm noob.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-slit_experiment


http://hexagon.physics.wisc.edu/teaching/2010s%20ph531%20quantum%20mechanics/interesting%20papers/zeilinger%20large%20molecule%20interference%20ajp%202003.pdf



It is no longer safe to state that unobserved atoms are 99.999% empty space.

 

[Mkorr]

Many compatibilists such as Richard Carrier or Daniel Dennett thinks that free will means the ability to predict the outcome of actions and act to avoid unpleasant outcomes. They do not think quantum mechanics enter the picture at all.

 

[Coldcall]

Many compatibilists such as Richard Carrier or Daniel Dennett thinks that free will means the ability to predict the outcome of actions and act to avoid unpleasant outcomes. They do not think quantum mechanics enter the picture at all.

Well *if* their brains are quantum mechanical then their ability to predict probabilities and make a choice of outcome would in itself be a quantum mechanical function. Of course Dennett rejects there is anything quantum mechncial about the human brain, but it would be the irony of ironies :-)

 

[tauon]

My question isn't that hard...

Is there a way that the brain, as a complex system, can do something not governed by physical law (DETERMINISTIC OR NOT[I'm not claiming the former!]!), which would then allow free will under the definition I provided?

I'm not a compatibilist but I'll join in anyway.

It seems that you're implicitly making assumptions that you never really state or clarify.
What is physical law? "Law"? The notion of "natural/physical law" as I see it is a remnant from a few centuries ago that has no place in science yet is constantly brought up by many because it is intuitively appealing...

But let's assume this hocus-pocus concept of "physical law", meaning that "somewhere" there is information "stored", that every natural process will inevitably address to "abide" by it.

Then maybe one (or more) of this laws states that if a physical system/process/etc. that is like this and does this and that, it must address some laws and not others, i.e. maybe there is a law of categorization/selection... a law that attaches some particular laws to a particular system. So the brain would follow natural laws, just not the same laws as say, a decaying atom would - altered ones, or different ones entirely. Problem solved.

Indeed, magical concepts like free-will are trivially explained when we assume magical concepts like physical laws.

 

[Mkorr]

Well *if* their brains are quantum mechanical then their ability to predict probabilities and make a choice of outcome would in itself be a quantum mechanical function. Of course Dennett rejects there is anything quantum mechanical about the human brain, but it would be the irony of ironies :-)

Perhaps, but as you noted, the general reply is that quantum mechanics may be not be very relevant on such a large scale. Dennett once candidly remarked in his book "Sweet Dreams: Philosophical Obstacles to a Science of Consciousness" in an early obscure footnote that

"Incurable optimist that I am, I find this recent invasion by physicist into the domains of cognitive neuroscience to be a cloud with a silver lining: for the first time in my professional life, an interloping discipline beats out philosophy for the prize for combining arrogance with ignorance about the field being invaded. Neuroscientists and psychologists who used to stare glassy-eyed and uncomprehending at philosophers arguing about the fine points of supervenience and intensionality-with-an-s now have to contend in a similar spirit with the arcana of quantum entanglement and Bose-Einstein condensates." (pp. 9-10)

He then goes on to make a tongue-in-cheek joke about theoretical physics.

 

[binbots]

Why does it always have to be one or the other? Why can't the universe be have a determined fate that follows certain rules. While life has free will in a un free world. Like watching tv, there shows on all the time at certain times. Yet we can choose which channel to watch. Free will within the rules of the universe.