According to Robert Sapolsky, human free will does not exist

[steve_bank]

Food for thought for Jarhyn in his quest for profound understanding.

 

[DBT]

You cannot see an object before the eyes acquire the information from the external world, you cannot see the object before nerve impulses transmit the information to the brain and that information is processed and made conscious.

In a way, though, you can "see the object" before nerve impulses transmit information to the brain. Perception is active not passive, since the neural information has to be interpreted or integrated with a mental model of reality. Hence, we often see things that aren't real--like a piece of rope being mistaken for a snake. Illusionists often depend on active perception to perform magic tricks--to make people see phenomena that aren't there. Baseball players see a ball moving through the air, but they have to rush to a location where they expect it to land so that they can catch it. Expectations become a huge factor in how we perceive reality.

And this is why the low level discussion on the computational nature of awareness was important: we have DBT in here yet again pretending that they solved the hard problem from an armchair with the poorly understood claims of others (re: consistently misinterpreting Libet).

Awareness builds, it doesn't just suddenly happen somewhere. It's self-reference, recursion that "suddenly happens", and that recursive part isn't even directly necessary to the existence of wills and freedoms. As it is, many systems can accomplish it without recursion at all, by massively predicting how things worked elsewhere in a strongly correlated way (see also, how to "flatten" a finite recursive system; it costs a lot more in terms of model size, but it produces the same result).

It isn't "made conscious" magically at some point; the neurons of the eyes are conscious of the signal from the cones and rods; the neurons of the optic nerve are conscious of emerging patterns among those signals, and so on, until that is constructed into awareness of objects.

Like, how can he even claim that it is "made conscious" somehow without knowing what he even means when he says those words?

I wish I could say that I got something substantive about your hand waving at neurons and recursion, but I don't see how they relate to the topic of agency or free will.

It's not handwaving. The accusation is often used as a means of defense, a rationale.

The brain is the sole agency of volition.

The brain, it's neural networks, structures and lobes, is a parallel information processor.

As the brain is the sole agency of acquiring and processing information in order to construct a virtual mental map of the world and self in the form of consciousness in order to interact with its environment and respond to its events, the state of the brain in any given instance is reflected in its output in terms of thought and action, errors and glitched included.

I'm sure that you, like anyone attempting to simulate intelligent behavior, would find recursion a useful programming structure, especially if you were trying to mimic the behavior of neurons. But we are still interested in the nature of free will and how it operates in a chaotically deterministic reality.

It's not so much an issue of recursion when mind and consciousness is in fact the sole agency of consciousness and mind, thought and response.

There is nothing else at work, not soul, not an homunculus, not a 'you' who is the master and commander of your brain, no CEO, no central controller, no free will as a veto function (Libet), just the brain carrying out its evolutionary role, doing its job....often quite well/adaptive. sometimes badly/maladaptive.

 

[Jarhyn]

mind and consciousness is in fact the sole agency of consciousness and mind

And circular reasoning is circular...

 

[DBT]

mind and consciousness is in fact the sole agency of consciousness and mind

And circular reasoning is circular...

Another poor rationale.

What part of 'the brain is doing it' is hard to grasp? What part of 'you don't choose your fundamental state and condition?

Face the facts, the non chosen state and condition of 'your' brain is the state and condition of you.

In other words, you don't get to choose your condition. Which in turn is the element that that brings down the notion of free will and compatibilism.


If you accept regulative control as a necessary part of free will, it seems impossible either way:
1. Free will requires that given an act A, the agent could have acted otherwise
2. Indeterminate actions happens randomly and without intent or control
3. Therefore indeterminism and free will are incompatible
4. Determinate actions are fixed and unchangeable
5. Therefore determinism is incompatible with free will

First the very notion of free will, then the flawed definition that compatibilism uses - acting without being forced, coerced or unduly influenced - which fails to take inner necessity into account, where inner necessity is as much a constraint on the notion of free will as external force, coercion or undue influence.

 

[Jarhyn]

mind and consciousness is in fact the sole agency of consciousness and mind

And circular reasoning is circular...

Another poor rationale.

what part of "you are a chunk of a particular mass of brain matter" do you not understand?

I mean shit, I literally had a conversation this Tuesday with a close friend who actually described the first time a secondary self-conscious agency in his own brain told him that if he didn't leave his abusive ex, the only other path any of him saw was death, and what happened next happened on the basis of what his locality, not that other locality, decided about those options.

I feel sorry for people who don't understand the nature of communication and local decisions making within massively parallel systems, but yes, there are clearly in nature "homunculi", "automatons", "any rose by any other name that still smells as sweet".

I work on such things every day. The core of my career has been to learn about autonomous systems, how to build them and I wouldn't be able to build them if they couldn't exist.

To be clear, I can't build a wide variety of things, owing to that those things can't exist. Autonomous systems can and do exist, and their nature is such that they can, some of them, autonomously create a will, identify autonomous self-action with comparison to external violations of that autonomy, and select from provided wills which of them they will operate upon based on that autonomy and prioritization of autonomy.

You argue that autonomy, essentially, is a lie, simply because generally there is an initial condition to that autonomy existing.

Compatibilists say, rightly, that such a view is nonsense, and autonomy is real even if it had initial conditions.

If you cannot see how your claims connect to this discussion of autonomy, then please stop trying to pretend you understand anything about the claims of compatibilism.

As to @Copernicus, this is yet another reason why the discussion of a well understood type of autonomous system relates to disproofs of claims related to the possibility of autonomy in a deterministic system.

 

[Copernicus]

As to @Copernicus, this is yet another reason why the discussion of a well understood type of autonomous system relates to disproofs of claims related to the possibility of autonomy in a deterministic system.

Jarhyn, why do you keep saying this? When have I ever denied that human bodies represent autonomous or deterministic systems? I have been saying the opposite over and over. My entire discussion with you has gone completely over your head. My issue had to do with your focus on low level processes to talk about high level properties of human cognition. Please stop acting as if I denied the obvious--that mental function is a product of brain activity. AFAICT, we are all in violent agreement on that point, but we aren't in agreement on what the expression "free will" means. That's what the discussion should be about, not the trivial observation that minds are fundamentally a product of neurological activity.

 

[pood]

mind and consciousness is in fact the sole agency of consciousness and mind

And circular reasoning is circular...

Another poor rationale.

What part of 'the brain is doing it' is hard to grasp?

None of it. The brain is doing it. You are your brain. Therefore you are doing it.

What part of 'you don't choose your fundamental state and condition?

You don’t have to “choose” it. It is you. This is a line of attack against libertarianism, not compatibilism.

Face the facts, the non chosen state and condition of 'your' brain is the state and condition of you.

Right, but you don’t need to “choose” it.

In other words, you don't get to choose your condition.

You are your conditions.

Which in turn is the element that that brings down the notion of free will and compatibilism.

No, it brings down the dualism or homunculus of libertarianism.

If you accept regulative control as a necessary part of free will, it seems impossible either way:

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1. Free will requires that given an act A, the agent could have acted otherwise

He could have acted otherwise, and would have done so given different antecedents. You’re just restating the modal fallacy, confusing contingency with necessity.

2. Indeterminate actions happens randomly and without intent or control

Well, not wholly randomly, according to QM, but in conformance with probilities as defined by the Born rule. It’s an interesting discussion vis a vis free will in its own right, which I tried to initiate earlier.

3. Therefore indeterminism and free will are incompatible

Conclusion not established. Many would argue just the opposite.

4. Determinate actions are fixed and unchangeable

Compatibilism does not require that you change anything, only that you be part of the deterministic process that makes things be, as they are. “Fixed” and “unchangeable” are not synonyms.

5. Therefore determinism is incompatible with free will

Conclusion not established, obviously, as it stems from flawed premises.

First the very notion of free will, then the flawed definition that compatibilism uses - acting without being forced, coerced or unduly influenced - which fails to take inner necessity …

You use the term “inner necessity” and it’s just another modal fallacy. Nothing is, or can be, necessary about contingent acts or events.

… into account, where inner necessity is as much a constraint on the notion of free will as external force, coercion or undue influence.

Your inner inclinations, not necessity, just ARE you. You are never a constraint on yourself.

I’ve said this before: show me a case where I reach for a Pepsi and the invisible hand of Hard Determinism grasps my hand and forces it to choose Coke, and then I will agree with you.

 

[Jarhyn]

I’ve said this before: show me a case where I reach for a Pepsi and the invisible hand of Hard Determinism grasps my hand and forces it to choose Coke, and then I will agree with you.

This part right here always struck me as the most interesting thing to consider in discussing the subject with hard determinists because I expect that among the whole population of humans in the world, and because of how neurons work to overcome thresholds, it's entirely possible that the hard determinist who talks in such a way does have such an invisible hand.

To use a metaphor, maybe they as an individual may need 10 "electoral power" to overcome resistance and activate a motion of their arm, but they, within the ecosystem of nodes in their brain, only contribute 2 electoral power, wherein another part might contribute 15 or more electoral power... Or you could add in additional considerations over "remote" VETO power.

It may even end up that you might meet a human for whom the vast majority of what they try to physically do (with the possible exception of posting on internet forums), they have no actual power to do anything, even though they are embedded in a brain that DOES have that power.

In such a case it would be absolutely true that there is an "invisible hand" that picks up the coke no matter how hard they scream "Pepsi"... The problem here is that this would mean an argument from incredulity, namely incredulity that others have power over themselves that the original party lacks.

Even if they could example such an overriding concern that makes them as superfluous in their brain as a hard determinist will generally claim, it doesn't mean this is true for everyone.

 

[The AntiChris]

2. Indeterminate actions happens randomly and without intent or control

Well, not wholly randomly, according to QM, but in conformance with probilities as defined by the Born rule. It’s an interesting discussion vis a vis free will in its own right, which I tried to initiate earlier.

3. Therefore indeterminism and free will are incompatible

Conclusion not established. Many would argue just the opposite.

I think it needs pointing out that no compatibilist would argue any such thing.

I'm concerned that your response here will only reinforce DBT's deeply held conviction that compatibilists don't genuinely accept determinism.

 

[DBT]

mind and consciousness is in fact the sole agency of consciousness and mind

And circular reasoning is circular...

Another poor rationale.

what part of "you are a chunk of a particular mass of brain matter" do you not understand?

You as the brain, or you as the conscious entity the brain shapes, forms and generates? The former 'you' - the brain - is able to exist for a time without the latter, but the latter - the conscious you, a body of information stored in memory - cannot exist at all without that specific activity of a brain.

 

[Jarhyn]

you as the conscious entity the brain shapes

Take such dualism and pound sand. I said what I meant and if you cannot understand that that's your own issue, not mine.

The "conscious entity that the brain shapes" is "the chunk of brain that is me". There is no difference there: "the chunk of brain that is me" shapes "the chunk of brain that is me" through the recursive connections of "the chunk of brain that is me".

Of course, it's a little bit more complicated in that in that "chunks of brain that are me" compose a more general class because of how my brain identifies "self", but that's a topic for another thread.

Neither can exist without the former or the latter because the former IS the latter.

 

[DBT]

mind and consciousness is in fact the sole agency of consciousness and mind

And circular reasoning is circular...

Another poor rationale.

What part of 'the brain is doing it' is hard to grasp?

None of it. The brain is doing it. You are your brain. Therefore you are doing it.

Yes, the state of the brain is the state of you as a conscious entity. That's the point. The brain does not get to choose its own condition equates to 'you do not get to choose your own condition,' yet it is this very condition that determines your being, your strengths and weaknesses, how you think, what you think and how you act.

That is the point being danced around

That is the point that falsifies any notion of free will.

That is why many neuroscientists prefer to see it, rather than 'free will, as a rational system.

What part of 'you don't choose your fundamental state and condition?

You don’t have to “choose” it. It is you. This is a line of attack against libertarianism, not compatibilism.

Face the facts, the non chosen state and condition of 'your' brain is the state and condition of you.

Right, but you don’t need to “choose” it.

Given determinism as the compatibilist defines it to be, the decision that is made is inevitable, and this inevitability poses as much a challenge for compatibilism as external elements, coercion, etc. Necessity, be it external or internal, is not a matter of free will.

In other words, you don't get to choose your condition.

You are your conditions.

Which in turn is the element that that brings down the notion of free will and compatibilism.

No, it brings down the dualism or homunculus of libertarianism.

It also highlights the inadequacy of the compatibilist definition of free will, ''a quagmire of evasion,' as some have put it.

''William James said it was "a quagmire of evasion." Immanuel Kant called it "wretched subterfuge" and "petty word-jugglery." Compatibilism – the belief that free will is compatible with a world where every action is determined by the events preceding it –''

''The compatibilist readily admits that if determinism is true, then we clearly do not have physical alternatives open to us. But this does not matter, he says, for what really matters is that we have the right sort of alternatives open to us, and these are not physical alternatives.''

Given determinism as the compatibilist defines is, there are of course no alternatives, not physical, not mental...

 

[Jarhyn]

The brain does not get to choose its own condition

A switch sends out a signal. The signal goes into a delay line. The delay line emits the signal back at the switch: the switch's past state determined it's future state. The switch chose its own condition on the basis of its state.

A brain sends a signal. The signal has a phase delay. The brain's past state determined it's future state. The brain chose its own condition on the basis of its state.

How many times are you going to fail to understand that "regulatory control of self" is clearly proven by example?

 

[pood]

2. Indeterminate actions happens randomly and without intent or control

Well, not wholly randomly, according to QM, but in conformance with probilities as defined by the Born rule. It’s an interesting discussion vis a vis free will in its own right, which I tried to initiate earlier.

3. Therefore indeterminism and free will are incompatible

Conclusion not established. Many would argue just the opposite.

I think it needs pointing out that no compatibilist would argue any such thing.

I'm concerned that your response here will only reinforce DBT's deeply held conviction that compatibilists don't genuinely accept determinism.

I’m treating quantum indeterminism as a separate, hypothetical subject from the issue of adequate determinism and compatibilism. In no way am I retreating from my compatibilist position, while simply recognizing that indeterminism is in fact part of the world and it’s perfectly ok to discuss it in the contest of human freedom.

 

[Jarhyn]

2. Indeterminate actions happens randomly and without intent or control

Well, not wholly randomly, according to QM, but in conformance with probilities as defined by the Born rule. It’s an interesting discussion vis a vis free will in its own right, which I tried to initiate earlier.

3. Therefore indeterminism and free will are incompatible

Conclusion not established. Many would argue just the opposite.

I think it needs pointing out that no compatibilist would argue any such thing.

I'm concerned that your response here will only reinforce DBT's deeply held conviction that compatibilists don't genuinely accept determinism.

I’m treating quantum indeterminism as a separate, hypothetical subject from the issue of adequate determinism and compatibilism. In no way am I retreating from my compatibilist position, while simply recognizing that indeterminism is in fact part of the world and it’s perfectly ok to discuss it in the contest of human freedom.

In some respects this indeterminism helps add a "fog of war" that itself produces certain freedoms, by eliminating the ability to be certain about what preconditions are present or absent: it gives us a clear need for having multiple contingencies, and an exercise wherein we have to test out potential wills for whether they might be free without certainty of whether they are or are not.

In the context of the deterministic system of DF, there are nonetheless "internally indeterministic events", as a result of the pRNG: the system is mechanically deterministic, however part of that determinism involves a system that generates as purely chaotic output as is possible, such that outputs don't correlate predictably with each other or anything else observable.

It is this reason why I name DF an example of a superdeterministic system, and why the ability of entities within it to hold wills and decide between their identified degrees of freedom such as they do.

In short, quantum indeterminacy doesn't eliminate free will, not create it however it does tend to make the world more "interesting".

 

[Copernicus]

2. Indeterminate actions happens randomly and without intent or control

Well, not wholly randomly, according to QM, but in conformance with probilities as defined by the Born rule. It’s an interesting discussion vis a vis free will in its own right, which I tried to initiate earlier.

3. Therefore indeterminism and free will are incompatible

Conclusion not established. Many would argue just the opposite.

I think it needs pointing out that no compatibilist would argue any such thing.

I'm concerned that your response here will only reinforce DBT's deeply held conviction that compatibilists don't genuinely accept determinism.

I’m treating quantum indeterminism as a separate, hypothetical subject from the issue of adequate determinism and compatibilism. In no way am I retreating from my compatibilist position, while simply recognizing that indeterminism is in fact part of the world and it’s perfectly ok to discuss it in the contest of human freedom.

I wish that they had called "adequate determinism" by a different name, perhaps "practical determinism". The problem is that people keep confusing randomness with unpredictability. The future is inherently unpredictable, but we experience it as predictable in a practical sense. That is, we expect the light to go on when we flip a switch, but there could be a loose connection somewhere or a burned out bulb that we aren't aware of. That is different from quantum indeterminism, which appears to be random except for that troubling fact that it behaves probabilistically. And Everett's popular Many-Worlds Interpretation even restores a kind of determinism to the quantum realm. Nevertheless, quantum indeterminacy is something of a red herring in the debate over free will, since human beings don't normally interact with events at the quantum level.

The free will debate is at least partially a debate over the meaning of the expression. The meaning of free will is determined by how our bodies interact with reality--how we sense and manipulate it. The English expression "free will" only has meaning insofar as it describes some aspect of how speakers exercise their will or volition in everyday life. If the concept itself were meaningless, then people would not have created words to describe it. The real debate is over what the modifier "free" could mean in a practical sense. It seems intuitively obvious that it means freedom from compulsion, but determinism seems to rule that out in the sense that reality is composed of a fixed chain of causally connected events. Everything has a cause, and our bodies cannot ultimately step outside of that causal determinacy. Hence, "free will" should not be defined as freedom from causal determinacy. The incompatibilist takes that to mean that we don't really have free will. It is a total illusion. End of story. The compatibilist takes that to mean that there is some sense in which choice is not compelled, and the definition of the expression "free will" has to take that sense into account. In other words, free will is not an illusion. It is about a different sense of compulsion than causal determinacy.

Hard determinists are non-libertarian incompatibilists. That is, they simply deny free will, whereas libertarian incompatibilists deny causal determinism in connection with agents. I think that @DBT is arguing most of the time that compatibilists are really libertarian incompatibilists, but they just don't know it. At least that is the impression I get from what I read in this thread. Compatibilists claim to be determinists, but the concept of free will must inherently clash with determinism, no matter how hard compatibilists try to define themselves out from under it.

As I've said before, Patricia Churchland struck the right note when she said it is all about degrees of control. Compulsion is about losing freedom of control, and it is under compulsion of that sort that one's will is thwarted or compelled. I haven't read enough of Churchland to understand how she might go about defining free will, and I'm not sure that she ever does. However, languages have an enormous range of expressions to describe events and causation, many of which have to do with how much control an agent has over an action. For example, English has causal verbs like cause, make, force, let, permit, allow, help, enable, prevent, etc. The verb cause is the most neutral in terms of control, but all of the others express varying degrees of control. The concept of control is important in the definition of free will, because it is the basis that human beings use to define standards of responsible behavior. Philosophers talk about "moral responsibility", but I would broaden that to refer to any kind of responsible role in a causal chain of events. Our will is free to the extent that it allows us to satisfy our desires and goals, but it gets complicated when one realizes that individuals have all sorts of conflicting desires and goals. How we prioritize them is important when it comes to assigning a role of agentive responsibility in a causal chain.

 

[pood]

I wish that they had called "adequate determinism" by a different name, perhaps "practical determinism". The problem is that people keep confusing randomness with unpredictability. The future is inherently unpredictable, but we experience it as predictable in a practical sense. That is, we expect the light to go on when we flip a switch, but there could be a loose connection somewhere or a burned out bulb that we aren't aware of. That is different from quantum indeterminism, which appears to be random except for that troubling fact that it behaves probabilistically.

The entire world is quantum. Therefore the brain, and life, must exploit the quantum realm. There is growing evidence that they do. I will try to look up some of the research later, research which includes the brain. Maybe it should be a separate thread.

If we accept this, then we must accept that QM and free will, however defined, must be reconciled, or are irreconcilable,

The Schrödinger wave equation is fully deterministic, which means that the progression of the the wave state through time proceeds predictably and deterministically. Where it become probabilistic is when a measurement takes place. Prior to the measurement, an object — say, an electron — is a wave. When the measurement is made, it becomes a particle. That’s the so-called wave function collapse, and for that, probabilities for outcomes can only be calculated. It’s not a matter of ignorance of prior states — the probability nature is inherent.

It’s deeply weird, of course, because as I believe the physicist Brian Cox said, Newton and his three laws are not only wrong, they could not be more wrong. On its way to some eventual measurement, the particle as wave explores every possible route to an ultimate measured location, including paths that take it all the way to the other side of the observable universe.

What is interesting about Many Worlds is that it removes randomness or probability, or rather, makes what seems to be random/probable a function of our point of view. The wave never goes away, (and we are made of waves too) and all outcomes are actually realized. It’s just that when we take a measurement, the universe exfoliates into all possible outcomes as we do ourselves, so each possible outcome is measured by one of our doppelgängers across the quantum multiverse.

I find this fascinating because, if true, what does THAT say about free will? But what seems to be true is this: the many worlds, if accurate, decisively rules out hard determinism. Obviously it can’t be the case that for a given particular set of antecedents, only one outcome is possible, when in fact under MWI, EVERY POSSIBLE outcome occurs, including every possible choice that I might make.

 

[Jarhyn]

I wish that they had called "adequate determinism" by a different name, perhaps "practical determinism". The problem is that people keep confusing randomness with unpredictability. The future is inherently unpredictable, but we experience it as predictable in a practical sense. That is, we expect the light to go on when we flip a switch, but there could be a loose connection somewhere or a burned out bulb that we aren't aware of. That is different from quantum indeterminism, which appears to be random except for that troubling fact that it behaves probabilistically.

The entire world is quantum. Therefore the brain, and life, must exploit the quantum realm. There is growing evidence that they do. I will try to look up some of the research later, research which includes the brain. Maybe it should be a separate thread.

If we accept this, then we must accept that QM and free will, however defined, must be reconciled, or are irreconcilable,

The Schrödinger wave equation is fully deterministic, which means that the progression of the the wave state through time proceeds predictably and deterministically. Where it become probabilistic is when a measurement takes place. Prior to the measurement, an object — say, an electron — is a wave. When the measurement is made, it becomes a particle. That’s the so-called wave function collapse, and for that, probabilities for outcomes can only be calculated. It’s not a matter of ignorance of prior states — the probability nature is inherent.

It’s deeply weird, of course, because as I believe the physicist Brian Cox said, Newton and his three laws are not only wrong, they could not be more wrong. On its way to some eventual measurement, the particle as wave explores every possible route to an ultimate measured location, including paths that take it all the way to the other side of the observable universe.

What is interesting about Many Worlds is that it removes randomness or probability, or rather, makes what seems to be random/probable a function of our point of view. The wave never goes away, (and we are made of waves too) and all outcomes are actually realized. It’s just that when we take a measurement, the universe exfoliates into all possible outcomes as we do ourselves, so each possible outcome is measured by one of our doppelgängers across the quantum multiverse.

I find this fascinating because, if true, what does THAT say about free will? But what seems to be true is this: the many worlds, if accurate, decisively rules out hard determinism. Obviously it can’t be the case that for a given particular set of antecedents, only one outcome is possible, when in fact under MWI, EVERY POSSIBLE outcome occurs, including every possible choice that I might make.

I would say much of human cognition is based on effects that minimize probabilistic effects: there are many opportunities for the necessary and particular change to nucleate.

Imagine for a moment an event that only happens when an electron enters a specific orbital of a sodium ion in a sodium ion channel. A neuron requiring such an "accidental" or "probabilistic event" to fire would be, in a word, unreliable.

Often when we see quantum events being leveraged by biology, the result is that the leverage is to avoid such uncertainty: things are brought into superposition to improve the certainty of a reaction; a vibration along the center of a neural channel causes disruption ubiquitously along its length to force disequilibrium constantly and smooth reactions rather than having to wait*, and so on.

The result is that the indeterminatstic stuff is no longer a deal breaker, no longer a gridlock on the probability the system evolves into useful states.

If "many worlds" is accurate and events precipitate in every way they may, then this would cause events experienced by humans to constrain the evolution of those many words specifically with respect to our decisions: the quantum effects ensuring reliability of function keep the branching of reality "tight" to the instantiation of our wills and our existence would cause the universe to branch less willy-nilly, rather making us the arbiters of our fate more than probabilistics.

Of course, sometimes unpredictability is also useful, and maybe too there is some system set up to reliably dither across a boundary in an unpredictable way due to such fluctuations, so who knows.

*This is merely an educated guess pertaining to recently discovered quantum events in neural microtubules.

 

[Copernicus]

I wish that they had called "adequate determinism" by a different name, perhaps "practical determinism". The problem is that people keep confusing randomness with unpredictability. The future is inherently unpredictable, but we experience it as predictable in a practical sense. That is, we expect the light to go on when we flip a switch, but there could be a loose connection somewhere or a burned out bulb that we aren't aware of. That is different from quantum indeterminism, which appears to be random except for that troubling fact that it behaves probabilistically.

The entire world is quantum. Therefore the brain, and life, must exploit the quantum realm. There is growing evidence that they do. I will try to look up some of the research later, research which includes the brain. Maybe it should be a separate thread.

Yes, I think that quantum mechanics is largely irrelevant to the question of free will, so it probably should be in another thread. I would also maintain that QM has little to do with consciousness or self-awareness, as well. Again, not really germane to this discussion.

If we accept this, then we must accept that QM and free will, however defined, must be reconciled, or are irreconcilable,

I don't agree. That's sort of like saying that quantum physics needs to be reconciled or be irreconcilable with driving a car or eating a pizza. QM is a theoretical model that grounds everything physical, but it doesn't really provide answers to every question.

The Schrödinger wave equation is fully deterministic, which means that the progression of the the wave state through time proceeds predictably and deterministically. Where it become probabilistic is when a measurement takes place. Prior to the measurement, an object — say, an electron — is a wave. When the measurement is made, it becomes a particle. That’s the so-called wave function collapse, and for that, probabilities for outcomes can only be calculated. It’s not a matter of ignorance of prior states — the probability nature is inherent.

It’s deeply weird, of course, because as I believe the physicist Brian Cox said, Newton and his three laws are not only wrong, they could not be more wrong. On its way to some eventual measurement, the particle as wave explores every possible route to an ultimate measured location, including paths that take it all the way to the other side of the observable universe.

What is interesting about Many Worlds is that it removes randomness or probability, or rather, makes what seems to be random/probable a function of our point of view. The wave never goes away, (and we are made of waves too) and all outcomes are actually realized. It’s just that when we take a measurement, the universe exfoliates into all possible outcomes as we do ourselves, so each possible outcome is measured by one of our doppelgängers across the quantum multiverse.

Sean M Carroll goes into this subject in great detail in his book  Something Deeply Hidden. He makes the point that the equipment used to measure quantum events is also, in some sense, a quantum object, so the strange effects that equipment records can be explained in terms of the concept of entanglement. If we say that entanglement spreads outward like a wave at the speed of light, then the wave collapse merely reflects the state of the quantum field--it's collapse into a particle--when it becomes entangled with the measuring equipment. In any case, the term "particle" is a metaphor. One can use other physical metaphors to model reality--for example, fields. A probability field describing the potential location of a photon can be imagined to have different properties than an actual "particle" that describes status at a point inside of the field. So one needs to be careful about the metaphors that one uses to describe quantum phenomena.

I find this fascinating because, if true, what does THAT say about free will? But what seems to be true is this: the many worlds, if accurate, decisively rules out hard determinism. Obviously it can’t be the case that for a given particular set of antecedents, only one outcome is possible, when in fact under MWI, EVERY POSSIBLE outcome occurs, including every possible choice that I might make.

I think that human cognition depends a lot on the ability of an agent to predict future events but that the future events which agents predict are not really quantum events. The future only ever exists in the imagination, and imagined futures necessarily disappear as time progresses. There is little or nothing that QM tells us about the process of making choices in our everyday lives, because the ability to predict the future is limited to our imagination. Some of us are better at imagining the future than others, but we are all subject to the same quantum-grounded reality. You don't need QM to rule out hard determinism, just common sense.

 

[The AntiChris]

Compatibilists claim to be determinists

This sounds very much like DBT's attitude to compatibilists. It implies, rather uncharitably, that compatibilists may not be entirely honest when they "claim" to be determinists.

but the concept of free will must inherently clash with determinism, no matter how hard compatibilists try to define themselves out from under it.

This is straightforwardly wrong.

You, like DBT, start out with the assumption that any conception of 'free will' must necessarily entail a will that is not entirely the product of deterministic influences - this is a common conception but not one that is accepted universally and not compatibilism as it has been defended on this forum (see Marvin Edwards' excellent thread: Compatibilism: What's that About?).