A simple explanation of free will.

[DBT]

Nah, you are still equating non chosen random input into decision making on a micro scale as a choice....something which quite clearly is not chosen. You are just saying something that appeals to you * free will* - whoo Hoo - but has no apparent relationship to the means of production of conscious will.

Here's a scenario to explain how my argument can be reasonable.

Imagine scientists ask a subject questions that the subject has to make decisions about; they are subjective type questions regarding morals, preferences, beliefs, etc. Meanwhile, every part of the brain that is responsible for the subject's decisions are being recorded. Then after the decision had been made, they ask if the subject felt like he made the decision; he assures them that they were his conscious decisions. Then, upon reviewing the information, the scientists see that a part of the decision-making process that is always active when people make decisions had random behavior during the questioning.

So, the subject's decisions could have been different, and they were as free as far as the QM of the decision making goes.

This seems very much possible given certain assumptions/conditions.

Doesn't work, sorry to be so blunt. Feeling like you made the decision when the decision was made prior to conscious report/experience is not a freely willed decision.

Regardless of how it feels consciously, you do not choose the modification that a random quantum fluctuation inflicted upon the normal function of information processing that led to the decision that was made and experienced in conscious form.

Even if the World was under the sway of hard determinism, you would not know it through your experience of interacting with the objects and events of the world. Not having conscious access to the underlying process, you would believe that your decisions are freely made.. obviously, an action follows a given decision.

So either way, you have no conscious access to the underlying means of production, your conscious experience of the world, and feel that your thoughts and actions are freely chosen. They are certainly not consciously chosen under your proposition. Your thought processes are being acted upon by elements which you have absolutely no regulative control.

It's a dead end, ryan. Be happy with rational will.

 

[ryan]

Here's a scenario to explain how my argument can be reasonable.

Imagine scientists ask a subject questions that the subject has to make decisions about; they are subjective type questions regarding morals, preferences, beliefs, etc. Meanwhile, every part of the brain that is responsible for the subject's decisions are being recorded. Then after the decision had been made, they ask if the subject felt like he made the decision; he assures them that they were his conscious decisions. Then, upon reviewing the information, the scientists see that a part of the decision-making process that is always active when people make decisions had random behavior during the questioning.

So, the subject's decisions could have been different, and they were as free as far as the QM of the decision making goes.

This seems very much possible given certain assumptions/conditions.

Doesn't work, sorry to be so blunt. Feeling like you made the decision when the decision was made prior to conscious report/experience is not a freely willed decision.

Regardless of how it feels consciously, you do not choose the modification that a random quantum fluctuation inflicted upon the normal function of information processing that led to the decision that was made and experienced in conscious form.

Even if the World was under the sway of hard determinism, you would not know it through your experience of interacting with the objects and events of the world. Not having conscious access to the underlying process, you would believe that your decisions are freely made.. obviously, an action follows a given decision.

So either way, you have no conscious access to the underlying means of production, your conscious experience of the world, and feel that your thoughts and actions are freely chosen. They are certainly not consciously chosen under your proposition. Your thought processes are being acted upon by elements which you have absolutely no regulative control.

I don't care if you're blunt, as long as you are being honest with yourself.

I added in the "conscious feeling" part so that we look at a choice that was intentionally made and not made by a QM intervention on the decision-making process.

It's a dead end, ryan. Be happy with rational will.

The free will can still be rational.

 

[DBT]

Doesn't work, sorry to be so blunt. Feeling like you made the decision when the decision was made prior to conscious report/experience is not a freely willed decision.

Regardless of how it feels consciously, you do not choose the modification that a random quantum fluctuation inflicted upon the normal function of information processing that led to the decision that was made and experienced in conscious form.

Even if the World was under the sway of hard determinism, you would not know it through your experience of interacting with the objects and events of the world. Not having conscious access to the underlying process, you would believe that your decisions are freely made.. obviously, an action follows a given decision.

So either way, you have no conscious access to the underlying means of production, your conscious experience of the world, and feel that your thoughts and actions are freely chosen. They are certainly not consciously chosen under your proposition. Your thought processes are being acted upon by elements which you have absolutely no regulative control.

I don't care if you're blunt, as long as you are being honest with yourself.

As should you be. It may be that you are being honest with yourself except that your attachment to the concept of 'free will' (woo, hoo), may be distorting your belief in favour of your attraction and desire for free will.

I added in the "conscious feeling" part so that we look at a choice that was intentionally made and not made by a QM intervention on the decision-making process.

Decisions are made by the mechanism of information processing and experienced as being intentionally made.....that is the nature of conscious experience, which does not have access - being a representation or report - to its own means of production.

That is the illusion of 'free' will.

The free will can still be rational.

Free will is an illusion. Will does not have regulative control of the means of of its own production, therefore will is either rational or irrational, but not free.

Will itself emerges quite late within the cognitive process;

Objects and events in the external world ->input of information from objects and events ->propagation of information throughout the neural networks of the brain -> conscious perception of sensory information forms ->conscious feelings and emotions emerge ->conscious thoughts and deliberations emerge -> conscious impulse to respond (the conscious will to act) forms -> conscious action is performed.

 

[fromderinside]

There Is No Free Won’t: Antecedent Brain Activity Predicts Decisions to Inhibit
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0053053

Neuroscience cannot straightforwardly accommodate a concept of “conscious free will”, independent of brain activity [42]. However, the belief that humans have free will is fundamental to human society [43]. This belief has profound top-down effects on cognition [44] and even on brain activity itself [45]. The dualistic view that decisions to inhibit reflect a special “conscious veto” or “free won’t” mechanism [46] is scientifically unwarranted. Instead, conscious decisions to check and delay our actions may themselves be consequences of specific brain mechanisms linked to action preparation and action monitoring [19]. Recent neuroscientific studies have strongly questioned the concept of free will, but have had difficulty addressing the alternative concept of free won’t, largely because of the absence of behavioural markers of inhibition. Our results suggest that an important aspect of “free” decisions to inhibit can be explained without recourse to an endogenous, ”uncaused” process: the cause of our “free decisions” may at least in part, be simply the background stochastic fluctuations of cortical excitability. Our results suggest that free won’t may be no more free than free will.

This is interesting. Haggard has built his career out of the point that it's no use just talking about precursor processes, you actually have to study them and work out what they do. Last time I spoke to him he had been sharing a venue with the philosopher Mele, and they'd been talking about free won't experiments.

I feel he's rather missed Mele's point though...

The issue they were discussing was the point Mele had made, that you get the same precursor processes when you ask subjects to press a button, as you do when you ask subjects to choose a button to press, but then not actually press it. Which, Mele concluded, showed that whatever the Libet series experiments were showing, what they weren't showing was a decision to act. Haggard has put a bit more detail on this, and is comparing a button press with a delayed button press, but that's not really a veto, nor does it reveal the precursors to be a decision. Indeed what he's found is that, when measuring a decision to inhibit an action temporarily, the mechanisms involved turn out to be behavioural control and coordination mechanisms. Is that surprising? He's claiming to have disproved the role for a causeless mechanismless, independent of brain, veto to action, but that was never really in doubt. Because only determinists regard a free decision as being independent of brain in the first place.

What the study does appear to be is a fine extension to his already impressive work in tracing precursor processes to actions, identifying particular processes concerned with coordination and control over action, further cementing the view that these precursors are about action coordination, and not decision making.

Checkout the two bolded statements. Haggard et al's own words puts lie to your interpretation of Haggard. The brain provides an environment for stochastic background activity is not, strictly speaking, causal mechanistic brain activity. All the brain is relative to the activity is an environment where the stochastic activity takes place as far as they can determine. I'd have been happier had they said there was evidence ongoing stochastic activity present in the data, which is what can be logically inferred since there is no brain mechanism to which the activity can be attributed.

 

[ryan]

I don't care if you're blunt, as long as you are being honest with yourself.

As should you be. It may be that you are being honest with yourself except that your attachment to the concept of 'free will' (woo, hoo), may be distorting your belief in favour of your attraction and desire for free will.

My argument was never to prove that free will exists; it was only meant to break your certainty that free will can't exist.

The free will can still be rational.

Free will is an illusion. Will does not have regulative control of the means of of its own production, therefore will is either rational or irrational, but not free.

Will itself emerges quite late within the cognitive process;

Objects and events in the external world ->input of information from objects and events ->propagation of information throughout the neural networks of the brain -> conscious perception of sensory information forms ->conscious feelings and emotions emerge ->conscious thoughts and deliberations emerge -> conscious impulse to respond (the conscious will to act) forms -> conscious action is performed.

Remember what we defined "I" as. I need the decision-making process as a part of "I". If it is not inside of "I"/"me", then something is making a decision for "me"/"I". I also remember including the unconsciousness as part of "I". And it is also essential to include memories and the memory retrieval process in "I" - which is not fully understood yet. So much of what "I" am is my memories and my decision-making process.

 

[Togo]

There Is No Free Won’t: Antecedent Brain Activity Predicts Decisions to Inhibit
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0053053

Neuroscience cannot straightforwardly accommodate a concept of “conscious free will”, independent of brain activity [42]. However, the belief that humans have free will is fundamental to human society [43]. This belief has profound top-down effects on cognition [44] and even on brain activity itself [45]. The dualistic view that decisions to inhibit reflect a special “conscious veto” or “free won’t” mechanism [46] is scientifically unwarranted. Instead, conscious decisions to check and delay our actions may themselves be consequences of specific brain mechanisms linked to action preparation and action monitoring [19]. Recent neuroscientific studies have strongly questioned the concept of free will, but have had difficulty addressing the alternative concept of free won’t, largely because of the absence of behavioural markers of inhibition. Our results suggest that an important aspect of “free” decisions to inhibit can be explained without recourse to an endogenous, ”uncaused” process: the cause of our “free decisions” may at least in part, be simply the background stochastic fluctuations of cortical excitability. Our results suggest that free won’t may be no more free than free will.

This is interesting. Haggard has built his career out of the point that it's no use just talking about precursor processes, you actually have to study them and work out what they do. Last time I spoke to him he had been sharing a venue with the philosopher Mele, and they'd been talking about free won't experiments.

I feel he's rather missed Mele's point though...

The issue they were discussing was the point Mele had made, that you get the same precursor processes when you ask subjects to press a button, as you do when you ask subjects to choose a button to press, but then not actually press it. Which, Mele concluded, showed that whatever the Libet series experiments were showing, what they weren't showing was a decision to act. Haggard has put a bit more detail on this, and is comparing a button press with a delayed button press, but that's not really a veto, nor does it reveal the precursors to be a decision. Indeed what he's found is that, when measuring a decision to inhibit an action temporarily, the mechanisms involved turn out to be behavioural control and coordination mechanisms. Is that surprising? He's claiming to have disproved the role for a causeless mechanismless, independent of brain, veto to action, but that was never really in doubt. Because only determinists regard a free decision as being independent of brain in the first place.

What the study does appear to be is a fine extension to his already impressive work in tracing precursor processes to actions, identifying particular processes concerned with coordination and control over action, further cementing the view that these precursors are about action coordination, and not decision making.

Checkout the two bolded statements. Haggard et al's own words puts lie to your interpretation of Haggard. The brain provides an environment for stochastic background activity is not, strictly speaking, causal mechanistic brain activity.

Not seeing how that contradicts what I said,

I said he was claiming to have disproved a causeless free will. You're quoting him saying he's demonstrated a stoachstic set of factors that influence the precusor processes he's studying. Not seeing the contradiction, or why you're bolding causal mechanism. Can you expand?

 

[Kharakov]

About 6-7 minutes in he talks about how they can control whether someone perceives they are in control, and that people actually think they have more control when they are primed to do something than when they are not. It's an interesting effect...

You can also implant memories to control the reactions of mice:

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/innov...mplanted-false-memory-mouse-180953045/?page=1

You can even make someone who is otherwise intelligent believe in LFW....

 

[DBT]

There is no autonomous agency operating within the system that happens to veto decisions that have been made. The system as it is structured and how it functions, is it. No spooks, no ghost in the machine, no homunculus.

We feel that we can consciously veto a decision we made a moment ago because fresh input has altered the decision making process which becomes conscious report of a 'change of mind' - and not because of a free floating agency that has the ability to override the workings of the system.

Veto is consciously experienced, it happens, but it happens not because of some sort of inexplicable free agency but that the system is constantly being refreshed and altered by sensory input and memory interaction.

 

[DBT]

Remember what we defined "I" as. I need the decision-making process as a part of "I". If it is not inside of "I"/"me", then something is making a decision for "me"/"I". I also remember including the unconsciousness as part of "I". And it is also essential to include memories and the memory retrieval process in "I" - which is not fully understood yet. So much of what "I" am is my memories and my decision-making process.

As I have pointed out, you the experience of conscious self are the end product of the system. Not the regulator of the system. Not the decision maker. The system can function without your presence, when it puts you to sleep, when the focus of attention is on something else, a book or a movie, a game. Neither you as a conscious experience of self, or the system (brain) has regulative control over its own architecture (determined by DNA/environment interaction) or over any form of interference by quantum randomness from deep within the system. Not being under the regulative control of will, you cannot define will as being 'free will' - that would be absurd, of course.

 

[Juma]

Let me share a little story: some years ago I fell asleep while driving. I woke up driving in the ditch. I felt totally in control, i felt like i was steering the car, turning out of the ditch out on i small ravine and parking, up side down, against some trees. Funny thing is that i had smashed the steering wheel to pieces, braking my both hands, when the left front wheel hit a large stone just when I went off the road. So i was just holding the loose ring in my hands...

This experience made it very clear to me that the feeling of being in control is just a feeling, not an observation, and cannot be trusted.

Thinking back this make ne realize that very much of what we think of as knowledge is just feelings: when we say that we know that P, we just mean that we feels that way.

 

[ryan]

Remember what we defined "I" as. I need the decision-making process as a part of "I". If it is not inside of "I"/"me", then something is making a decision for "me"/"I". I also remember including the unconsciousness as part of "I". And it is also essential to include memories and the memory retrieval process in "I" - which is not fully understood yet. So much of what "I" am is my memories and my decision-making process.

As I have pointed out, you the experience of conscious self are the end product of the system. Not the regulator of the system. Not the decision maker. The system can function without your presence, when it puts you to sleep, when the focus of attention is on something else, a book or a movie, a game.

I thought I just explained this. "I", as defined it a long time ago, includes the decision maker and the decision-making process.

Neither you as a conscious experience of self, or the system (brain) has regulative control over its own architecture (determined by DNA/environment interaction) or over any form of interference by quantum randomness from deep within the system. Not being under the regulative control of will, you cannot define will as being 'free will' - that would be absurd, of course.

I never said that we choose our biological processes.

 

[DBT]

As I have pointed out, you the experience of conscious self are the end product of the system. Not the regulator of the system. Not the decision maker. The system can function without your presence, when it puts you to sleep, when the focus of attention is on something else, a book or a movie, a game.

I thought I just explained this. "I", as defined it a long time ago, includes the decision maker and the decision-making process.

Your definition is flawed.

I never said that we choose our biological processes.

That basically is the reason why your definition is flawed.

 

[Togo]

There is no autonomous agency operating within the system that happens to veto decisions that have been made. The system as it is structured and how it functions, is it. No spooks, no ghost in the machine, no homunculus.

I don't think anyone is suggesting otherwise. Ryan has indicated that he's willing to assume a material brain for the purposes of argument. The intangible decision maker as described by Haggard, and by you here, isn't something that anyone is proposing.

What is being proposed is that part (or all, I suppose) of the system might act to veto decisions being made. Which seems reasonable, and presumably you would agree, since you're not disputing that vetoes occur. The only controversy is whether such vetoes are determined. You're saying they are, because they are part of the physical brain. Ryan and I both dispute that point, not because we're proposing something separate from the physical brain, but because we dispute the brain is necessarily determined. Ryan due to possible involvement of QM-based microtubules, me because I don't believe determinism is a useful or likely thesis.

We feel that we can consciously veto a decision we made a moment ago because fresh input has altered the decision making process which becomes conscious report of a 'change of mind' - and not because of a free floating agency that has the ability to override the workings of the system.

That would be the deterministic explanation. Or you could say that we feel we can consciously veto a decision because that's how the brain works. The question is whether there is any evidence to support one over the other.

 

[DBT]

Crock. The fact is that you have no regulative control, whether neural architecture and condition or quantum activity, of the means that shapes, forms and produces the experience of self and perception of conscious agency.

This is not the work of 'free will'

 

[Togo]

Crock. The fact is that you have no regulative control, whether neural architecture and condition or quantum activity, of the means that shapes, forms and produces the experience of self and perception of conscious agency.

Well, we agree there is regulative control. It's in the brain architecture (presumably). So all we're disagreeing about is whether that brain architecture is a determined system. You're saying it is. Ryan's invoking QM microtubules as a known exception to the idea that physical systems are determined, thus suggesting that this brain architecture isn't determined, or more precisely, that it can't be demonstrated to be. I'm denying that physical systems are determined in the first place.

So we're all talking about the physical brain, we're all talking about the same means of regulatory control, we're just disagreeing on whether that physical system is determined or not.

 

[DBT]

Crock. The fact is that you have no regulative control, whether neural architecture and condition or quantum activity, of the means that shapes, forms and produces the experience of self and perception of conscious agency.

Well, we agree there is regulative control. It's in the brain architecture (presumably). So all we're disagreeing about is whether that brain architecture is a determined system. You're saying it is. Ryan's invoking QM microtubules as a known exception to the idea that physical systems are determined, thus suggesting that this brain architecture isn't determined, or more precisely, that it can't be demonstrated to be. I'm denying that physical systems are determined in the first place.

So we're all talking about the physical brain, we're all talking about the same means of regulatory control, we're just disagreeing on whether that physical system is determined or not.

Ten years and this crock is still being trotted out. You had no case the first time you tried to justify your faith, and you still have no case now...for the simple reason that whatever 'regulative control' exists within the system is determined by neural architecture, if the connections that are being made in the course of information processing, the thought or the decision is either experienced consciously (report) or carried out automatically, walking, reacting to danger, etc.

None which is consciously chosen or willed prior to processing and expression. All of which disintegrates, self awareness, self identity, the ability to think or act rationally, etc, etc, when connectivity fails, neural tangles, progressive memory function failure, yada, yada.

Not being willed or subject to will, brain condition, quantum fluctuations, chemical or electrical conditions and related feelings, thoughts, deliberations, actions and so on are not examples of 'free will'

You are flogging a dead horse.

But if you want to believe in the validity of a vague, poorly defined term that does not correspond to the physical system of the brain, that is your business.

 

[George S]

The conscious is a passenger on a bus they are not driving. The conscious is the spokesman for the body/mind responsible for explaining why the body/mind did what it did. Responsible for taking input from the environment and remembering patterns so the next time will be avoided or repeated depending on the feedback from the environment. Responsible for telling the driver where to go. Consciousness is the on-board computer capable of reasoning, capable of drawing inferences, capable of making plans; not merely reacting totally on instinct. The mind is embodied. No body, nobody, no mind, never mind.

 

[fromderinside]

... The brain provides an environment for stochastic background activity is not, strictly speaking, causal mechanistic brain activity.

Not seeing how that contradicts what I said,

I said he was claiming to have disproved a causeless free will. You're quoting him saying he's demonstrated a stoachstic set of factors that influence the precusor processes he's studying. Not seeing the contradiction, or why you're bolding causal mechanism. Can you expand?

Apparently all you see is the bolded enlarged. Read the statement again. It states ".... is not, strictly speaking, causal machanistic ... I've even bolded the not for you.

 

[fromderinside]

The conscious is a passenger on a bus they are not driving. The conscious is the spokesman for the body/mind responsible for explaining why the body/mind did what it did. Responsible for taking input from the environment and remembering patterns so the next time will be avoided or repeated depending on the feedback from the environment. Responsible for telling the driver where to go. Consciousness is the on-board computer capable of reasoning, capable of drawing inferences, capable of making plans; not merely reacting totally on instinct. The mind is embodied. No body, nobody, no mind, never mind.

Way too much True Detective for you.

 

[ryan]

I thought I just explained this. "I", as defined it a long time ago, includes the decision maker and the decision-making process.

Your definition is flawed.

Why didn't you say something when I defined it weeks ago?

I never said that we choose our biological processes.

That basically is the reason why your definition is flawed.

This doesn't seem to be a problem. I have always told you that there is freedom within the given structure. I was never saying that we are gods that can form into what ever we want.