A simpler explanation of free will.

[ryan]

Juma, if we have dualism, then everything changes. With dualism, maybe we can somehow peer deep inside someone's soul and see what the true intention was. If it does not align with the biological response, then no, the person should not be accountable for the action made. And maybe we can correct the person's biology so that it responds to the soul appropriately, seriously. But if all we have is a body that does whatever it does, then we don't really have a choice to hold that person accountable.

If the behavior is inconsistent with how that person normally functions, we put them in a psych ward. But if that person commits a crime that needed some thought and time to execute like dealing drugs or stealing, then it would be safer to say that it isn't a "glitch" in the person's system, and we try to change the behavior with jail.

Still not commenting my post.

Ya can't say I didn't try.

 

[Juma]

Still not commenting my post.

Ya can't say I didn't try.

Yes i can. There is nothing obscure about the points my post make and yet you havent touched them. You didnt even try.

 

[ryan]

Ya can't say I didn't try.

Yes i can. There is nothing obscure about the points my post make and yet you havent touched them. You didnt even try.

unbelievable

 

[DBT]

You can make all the assumptions in the World but the fact remains that you do not choose quantum interference, which may perhaps alter the course of information processing on occasion, but as the alteration is neither chosen or willed this is not an instance of 'free will' - therefore you have no case. Just another brain glitch.

So, let me just replace where you put "free will" with its definition, and let's see if it makes sense.

You can make all the assumptions in the World but the fact remains that you do not choose quantum interference, which may perhaps alter the course of information processing on occasion, but as the alteration is neither chosen or willed this is not an instance of the ability to have chosen differently - therefore you have no case. Just another brain glitch.

Like I told Juma, before the discussion went horribly wrong like usual, the "glitch" as you put it might actually be the difference between close decisions. Take the scenario I gave about a lion running after you while another lion runs after your friend, and you have only one bullet in your gun. Our "glitches" may be the difference in these kinds of close/tough choices. Furthermore it may still feel like we were in control of that decision since the mechanics of the decision-making process took a certain path.

This is not proof, and I am far from certain about all of this, but it does seem to be a reasonable possibility.

This where you go wrong - a neural glitch caused by a random quantum event is not a decision (nor is it freely willed). It's not a decision regardless of what it feels like to you (conscious self)..conscious report/narrator function is not the agent of decision making.

 

[Juma]

Yes i can. There is nothing obscure about the points my post make and yet you havent touched them. You didnt even try.

unbelievable

Yes it is amazing. I mean: with all the help I given, you still fail to see something else than what you currently are thinking of...

 

[ryan]

So, let me just replace where you put "free will" with its definition, and let's see if it makes sense.

You can make all the assumptions in the World but the fact remains that you do not choose quantum interference, which may perhaps alter the course of information processing on occasion, but as the alteration is neither chosen or willed this is not an instance of the ability to have chosen differently - therefore you have no case. Just another brain glitch.

Like I told Juma, before the discussion went horribly wrong like usual, the "glitch" as you put it might actually be the difference between close decisions. Take the scenario I gave about a lion running after you while another lion runs after your friend, and you have only one bullet in your gun. Our "glitches" may be the difference in these kinds of close/tough choices. Furthermore it may still feel like we were in control of that decision since the mechanics of the decision-making process took a certain path.

This is not proof, and I am far from certain about all of this, but it does seem to be a reasonable possibility.

This where you go wrong - a neural glitch caused by a random quantum event is not a decision (nor is it freely willed).

I agree. I am not saying that the glitch is a decision.

It's not a decision regardless of what it feels like to you (conscious self)..conscious report/narrator function is not the agent of decision making.

The search for a physical explanation started with humans reporting them, the report of a commonly shared experience of making a decision free or not free. Then scientists tried to explain those reports with, in general, what goes on mechanically. Thus, what we call a decision came way before what we found out its inner workings were, and we still don't have a complete understanding of the decision-making process.

 

[fromderinside]

Okay, insane or not, he still made that choice. ...

Of course you know he's the cause, the source of the action? I didn't think so. Retool and begin again sir.

Define "he" physically, and you will see that he made the choice.

Proximal cause cannot be the individual since that is only a perceiving macro-thing that has only subjective evidence after the fact available to it. For the most part even scientists presume cause as a set, not a singular, event and even with that you can't get to 'he' the individual.

 

[ryan]

Of course you know he's the cause, the source of the action? I didn't think so. Retool and begin again sir.

Define "he" physically, and you will see that he made the choice.

Proximal cause cannot be the individual since that is only a perceiving macro-thing that has only subjective evidence after the fact available to it. For the most part even scientists presume cause as a set, not a singular, event and even with that you can't get to 'he' the individual.

I am assuming more than just one-to-one causation, thus my need for objective randomness (some freedom) to be assumed. I also assume that if "he" has the property of freedom, "he" has freedom.

 

[Kharakov]

If you eliminate the center of a quantum duck, you get quack.

 

[DBT]

This where you go wrong - a neural glitch caused by a random quantum event is not a decision (nor is it freely willed).

I agree. I am not saying that the glitch is a decision.

That's exactly what you are saying.

A random alteration/interference of information processing activity is a glitch because the alteration is uncontrolled, non chosen and non willed. If it produces a beneficial result/selection, it's only through serendipity and not 'freedom' or free will. Hence, you are equivocating randomness with freedom and free will.

Which doesn't work.

 

[Togo]

I agree. I am not saying that the glitch is a decision.

That's exactly what you are saying.

That's not the impression I was getting.

 

[DBT]

That's exactly what you are saying.

That's not the impression I was getting.

I don't doubt it. It doesn't surprise me at all. I could have predicted your response.

 

[Togo]

Of course you know he's the cause, the source of the action? I didn't think so. Retool and begin again sir.

Define "he" physically, and you will see that he made the choice.

Proximal cause cannot be the individual since that is only a perceiving macro-thing that has only subjective evidence after the fact available to it.

Only if you choose to define the individual in that way. However, most people would not agree with a definition of self that eliminates the idea of self as actor a priori, let alone defining it as a 'perceiving macro-thing'.

For the most part even scientists presume cause as a set, not a singular, event and even with that you can't get to 'he' the individual.

Why not? Do individuals have to be single cells or single events?

That's not the impression I was getting.

I don't doubt it. It doesn't surprise me at all. I could have predicted your response.

Well of course you could. I've made the same point before.

Understanding other people's views is hard. Deciding they mean something different, something simpler, something easier to dismiss than their actual position, looks like a big time saver.

 

[fromderinside]

Togo my replies are:

1. OK. show me where the energy responsible is detectable and perceivable by the defining person. Not gonna happen.

2. No. Cause needs be the single thing acting that lead to the way things are thereafter. The more we look into cause the more we are certain we cannot identify it.

 

[Kharakov]

Togo my replies are:

1. OK. show me where the energy responsible is detectable and perceivable by the defining person. Not gonna happen.

2. No. Cause needs be the single thing acting that lead to the way things are thereafter. The more we look into cause the more we are certain we cannot identify it.

In certain cases, people waking from a coma have the same memories and personalities they had when they awaken many years later. Miraculously, they pick up where they left off (experience wise).

They aren't causing themselves....

 

[ryan]

I agree. I am not saying that the glitch is a decision.

That's exactly what you are saying.

No, I am saying that the decision is the output from the decision-making process. And the randomness is only a part of the decision-making process.

A random alteration/interference of information processing activity is a glitch because the alteration is uncontrolled, non chosen and non willed.

This doesn't make sense because the randomness helps give rise to what the will becomes.

If it produces a beneficial result/selection, it's only through serendipity and not 'freedom' or free will.

As I have said numerous times before, not all choices are beneficial.

 

[DBT]

That's exactly what you are saying.

No, I am saying that the decision is the output from the decision-making process. And the randomness is only a part of the decision-making process.

Which indicates that you either don't know the implications of your own claim, or you are building a strawman.

At no point did anyone say that quantum randomness is anything more than an aspect of the system (on a micro scale)...but randomness cannot be a part of the decision making process in terms of useful input into information processing and rational selection based on a given set of criteria.

So it is a part of the system in the form of misfiring, failed connections, etc, that alter the process of decision making but do not aid it....information not being random, decisions being related to specific articles and events.

So if a random quantum event happens to disrupt the rational (or irrational) process of decision making and something unrelated happens, it is specifically the random quantum event that caused the disruption and whatever unintended output was produced.

So you are in fact saying that the random event altered the process and produced something else, something that would not have happened had information processing/decision making not been disrupted.

You are saying that the glitch produced the decision whether you see it or not.

This doesn't make sense because the randomness helps give rise to what the will becomes.

Do you realize that you have just undermined your own case? If randomness to what will becomes, the shape and form of will is determined by whatever random event causes will to arise. Will is the puppet of random events, over which it has no regulative control.

There goes your claim. Gone. Burnt to ashes by your own explanations.

 

[Togo]

Togo my replies are:

1. OK. show me where the energy responsible is detectable and perceivable by the defining person. Not gonna happen.

Sorry, not sure what you're talking about. The energy of what?

2. No. Cause needs be the single thing acting that lead to the way things are thereafter. The more we look into cause the more we are certain we cannot identify it.

You can define cause in a such a way that it doesn't really exist. Why would you want to, and is anyone likely to agree with you?

 

[ryan]

No, I am saying that the decision is the output from the decision-making process. And the randomness is only a part of the decision-making process.

Which indicates that you either don't know the implications of your own claim, or you are building a strawman.

At no point did anyone say that quantum randomness is anything more than an aspect of the system (on a micro scale)...but randomness cannot be a part of the decision making process in terms of useful input into information processing and rational selection based on a given set of criteria.

So it is a part of the system in the form of misfiring, failed connections, etc, that alter the process of decision making but do not aid it....information not being random, decisions being related to specific articles and events.

So if a random quantum event happens to disrupt the rational (or irrational) process of decision making and something unrelated happens, it is specifically the random quantum event that caused the disruption and whatever unintended output was produced.

So you are in fact saying that the random event altered the process and produced something else, something that would not have happened had information processing/decision making not been disrupted.

You are using an old mechanical definition of the decision-making process, and not including the possible new findings. The new findings of QM vibrations mean that they had the mechanical definition wrong the whole time. What they thought produced decisions turns out to be more complex.

You would have an argument if only one person had the random property while making a decision, but this research suggests that all or most humans would have this. So, we wouldn't say that it has an impact on the decision-making process because it's already an element of the decision-making process and always has been.

You are saying that the glitch produced the decision whether you see it or not.

I can't believe you are saying this. It takes much more than the "glitch" to produce a decision. It is obviously a part of a much larger process in the brain.

This doesn't make sense because the randomness helps give rise to what the will becomes.

Do you realize that you have just undermined your own case? If randomness to what will becomes, the shape and form of will is determined by whatever random event causes will to arise. Will is the puppet of random events, over which it has no regulative control.

Once the will is set; it doesn't need to change anymore. The process to choose the will, the continuation to keep the will and the execution of the will is what I am trying to argue has freedom. But in the moment that the will is chosen it becomes a constant entity; it wouldn't have a will within it. And of course the agent may have an opportunity to change it but maybe not ever get an opportunity to change it.

 

[fromderinside]

There is no need for your quibble. Energy is the energy defined in physics. Cause and effect? Cause and effect are work in physical terms. Fundamentally, we are talking about is shifting energy from one system to another. I choose to go with known roots so I go with electromagnetic energy (either classical fields or modern photons). Presently a cause and effect would be a photon exchange or a field effect.

You want to go with the one who perceives cause and effect? Be my guest. Go back a few centuries and re-establish a basis for your rational views.

Otherwise we will remain in the 21st century where enough is known about energy and work to attribute it to photon exchange or field effects if we are talking about what causes what.