Human Instinct and Free Will

[ryan]

Makes no difference. You don't get to choose the effects or the outcome.

You need to be careful when confronted with figurative analogies and literal analogies.

If the information relating to two or more options, to buy this model car or that model car, you like them both, is too close decisions being made is too close to make a decisive selection...this is not a ''superposition'' of decisions. It is ambiguity.

Some of these researchers so love their own jargon that it appears to verge onto equivocation.

The math does not lie, especially in the case of quantum probability. Classical probabilities amount to 1. Quantum probabilities can exceed 1 in the case of superposition. This is obvious in terms of probability densities. Between the outer spherical shell of a distance an electron is from the nucleus and the nucleus, there are an infinite number of places that the electron has, say, an 80% of being; any two possible positions from the outer shell to the nucleus has already exceeded 1. Classical probability cannot exceed 1. Exceeding 1 is easily testable.

But QC doesn't mean that the physical nature of the memories/decisions are actually in a superposition, so I don't know why you can't accept this part of my argument. It's the/a working definition of QC I need to be possible.

On the bright side, the answer to what can save us from ourselves might be randomness. Random forces allow us to see other possibilities that may be better than what we know.

Forget about it. Randomness doesn't help you at all. You are as much a puppet of random forces/events as with determinism, just that the former is not a fixed course.

As long as I report that I am consciously making a decision, then it is that phenomenon that needs a physical explanation, not the other way around. Randomness will be what we see mechanically and is what we should expect to see mechanically if we are going to satisfy "could have chosen differently".

 

[fromderinside]

The math does not lie, especially in the case of quantum probability.

From:  Mathematical formulation of quantum mechanics

we find:

Schrödinger himself initially did not understand the fundamental probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics, as he thought that the absolute square of the wave function of an electron should be interpreted as thecharge density of an object smeared out over an extended, possibly infinite, volume of space. It was Max Born who introduced the interpretation of the absolute square of the wave function as the probability distribution of the position of a pointlike object. Born's idea was soon taken over by Niels Bohr in Copenhagen who then became the "father" of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. Schrödinger's wave function can be seen to be closely related to the classical Hamilton–Jacobi equation. The correspondence to classical mechanics was even more explicit, although somewhat more formal, in Heisenberg's matrix mechanics. In his PhD thesis project, Paul Dirac^[2] discovered that the equation for the operators in the Heisenberg representation, as it is now called, closely translates to classical equations for the dynamics of certain quantities in the Hamiltonian formalism of classical mechanics, when one expresses them through Poisson brackets, a procedure now known as canonical quantization

Mapping onto seems problematic since it is probabilistic. Not a good thing in developing certainty and structured predictions. Notice such as quantization and canonical. I'm certainly not satisfied with uncertainty.

Yes I know it has to be so because we can't measure it because our universe isn't really infinite in time size, etc.

What?

As long as I report that I am consciously making a decision, then it is that phenomenon that needs a physical explanation,

R U kidding me. You reporting has nothing to do with reality even in the context of subjective appreciation. You reporting might just as well be some idiot spouting in a interview that he can do anything with women. Its not true, you know its not true, and we can prove it is probably not true. Ah there. Probably.

But then we're here on a science forum and not in some fantasy confessions forum so we don't argue that way.

 

[ryan]

From:  Mathematical formulation of quantum mechanics

we find:

Schrödinger himself initially did not understand the fundamental probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics, as he thought that the absolute square of the wave function of an electron should be interpreted as thecharge density of an object smeared out over an extended, possibly infinite, volume of space. It was Max Born who introduced the interpretation of the absolute square of the wave function as the probability distribution of the position of a pointlike object. Born's idea was soon taken over by Niels Bohr in Copenhagen who then became the "father" of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. Schrödinger's wave function can be seen to be closely related to the classical Hamilton–Jacobi equation. The correspondence to classical mechanics was even more explicit, although somewhat more formal, in Heisenberg's matrix mechanics. In his PhD thesis project, Paul Dirac^[2] discovered that the equation for the operators in the Heisenberg representation, as it is now called, closely translates to classical equations for the dynamics of certain quantities in the Hamiltonian formalism of classical mechanics, when one expresses them through Poisson brackets, a procedure now known as canonical quantization

Are you still trying to tell me that QM is determinable?

Mapping onto seems problematic since it is probabilistic. Not a good thing in developing certainty and structured predictions.

It's not as bad as it seems. Turn the disadvantages into advantages. Transistors, lasers, quantum computers, etc. all rely on QM.

Notice such as quantization and canonical. I'm certainly not satisfied with uncertainty.

Yes I know it has to be so because we can't measure it because our universe isn't really infinite in time size, etc.

What?

???

As long as I report that I am consciously making a decision, then it is that phenomenon that needs a physical explanation,

R U kidding me. You reporting has nothing to do with reality even in the context of subjective appreciation. You reporting might just as well be some idiot spouting in a interview that he can do anything with women. Its not true, you know its not true, and we can prove it is probably not true. Ah there. Probably.

But then we're here on a science forum and not in some fantasy confessions forum so we don't argue that way.

Historically the decision and a report about it came first, then came the interest of the physical processes involved with this reported decision.

 

[fromderinside]

Historically the decision and a report about it came first, then came the interest of the physical processes involved with this reported decision.

Historically animals have been known to respond to stimuli. Some Greek interposed a decision to avoid humans looking like machines. Not the invention of intervening variable but an early example of it used in argument. Such legend has built up on self evident things that science took a couple centuries to put animals back in the realm of physics to which they are clearly members. Your blathering about free will and mind and decisions causing things is just that, blather.

Finally this is a science forum.

QED

AS for QM is it is a probabilistic system of arithmetic used to deal with complex very small stuff. Outcomes describe satisfactory explanations of the very small for us to explore in understanding the universe. It is not a precise thing that finds points. its a system of calculation that describes things as points in probability conditions (uncertainty).

A speculation is not a possibility. It is a speculation. You've exhausted it.

 

[ryan]

Historically the decision and a report about it came first, then came the interest of the physical processes involved with this reported decision.

Historically animals have been known to respond to stimuli. Some Greek interposed a decision to avoid humans looking like machines. Not the invention of intervening variable but an early example of it used in argument. Such legend has built up on self evident things that science took a couple centuries to put animals back in the realm of physics to which they are clearly members. Your blathering about free will and mind and decisions causing things is just that, blather.

From, The American Psychological Association ( http://www.apa.org/research/action/glossary.aspx?tab=4 ) decision making: "The process of choosing between alternatives; selecting or rejecting available options."

This is clearly a legitimate psychological term. Its underlying mechanics is what is up for debate, not its actual existence. Finding out that QM is part of how decision making works does not change what decision making is and always was.

 

[DBT]

The math does not lie, especially in the case of quantum probability. Classical probabilities amount to 1. Quantum probabilities can exceed 1 in the case of superposition.

This has absolutely nothing to do with what I said in my last post, or at any other time, place or other thread.

I though I had made it clear. I'm not questioning the math. I'm pointing out the error your your equivocation, ie, information in the form of memory which represents actual objects and events of the macro world is not in a state of all possibility/probability like wave function in a double slit.

If you banged up your knee in Church on Sunday, there is no state superposition where you did not banged up your knee, unless that is expressed in a time line split, aka, many worlds.

In this time line you banged up your knee and your memory represents that event. If the event happened, it can not be otherwise.

But QC doesn't mean that the physical nature of the memories/decisions are actually in a superposition, so I don't know why you can't accept this part of my argument. It's the/a working definition of QC I need to be possible.

It doesn't work either way, for the reasons already given.

As long as I report that I am consciously making a decision, then it is that phenomenon that needs a physical explanation, not the other way around. Randomness will be what we see mechanically and is what we should expect to see mechanically if we are going to satisfy "could have chosen differently".

But you are not consciously making decisions literally. As pointed out numerous times, it is the prior information inputs, memory integration and processing that shapes decisions unconsciously to the point of readiness potential and conscious representation, with motor actions already underway.

 

[ryan]

But you are not consciously making decisions literally. As pointed out numerous times, it is the prior information inputs, memory integration and processing that shapes decisions unconsciously to the point of readiness potential and conscious representation, with motor actions already underway.

Is it a cog in a clock that gives the time or is it the whole clock? The decision-making has many parts including possible QM parts. Why would the QM parts now have to be singled out as what makes the choice in order for me to say that my choice is as free as what could possibly result from the QM parts? All of the parts combine to form what was first known as decision making.

 

[DBT]

But you are not consciously making decisions literally. As pointed out numerous times, it is the prior information inputs, memory integration and processing that shapes decisions unconsciously to the point of readiness potential and conscious representation, with motor actions already underway.

Is it a cog in a clock that gives the time or is it the whole clock? The decision-making has many parts including possible QM parts. Why would the QM parts now have to be singled out as what makes the choice in order for me to say that my choice is as free as what could possibly result from the QM parts? All of the parts combine to form what was first known as decision making.

The QM parts don't make the choice. The QM parts only enable connectivity within synaptic junctions, etc. It is neurons, their supporting glial cells and their networks that select options based on an interaction of available information (connectivity,memory) and inputs.

You are still invoking 'you' as a conscious entity, a construct of the brain, with the unconscious information processing ability of neural networks and claiming decision making agency.

Conscious self is whatever the brain is doing. If the brain is dysfunctional, so is conscious self.

 

[fromderinside]

Historically animals have been known to respond to stimuli. Some Greek interposed a decision to avoid humans looking like machines. Not the invention of intervening variable but an early example of it used in argument. Such legend has built up on self evident things that science took a couple centuries to put animals back in the realm of physics to which they are clearly members. Your blathering about free will and mind and decisions causing things is just that, blather.

From, The American Psychological Association ( http://www.apa.org/research/action/glossary.aspx?tab=4 ) decision making: "The process of choosing between alternatives; selecting or rejecting available options."

This is clearly a legitimate psychological term. Its underlying mechanics is what is up for debate, not its actual existence. Finding out that QM is part of how decision making works does not change what decision making is and always was.

As a neuroscientist who got his training in Psychology and Biology and one who has been very critical of social science research methods I find your claim of decisions being a legitimate scientific term baseless. Any time one stands 5 to 7 synapses from input-output and then one makes claims about such as consciousness and decisions using rankings and two by two Anovas one is subject to legitimate criticisms about the validity on what one finds.

The best information, to date, from cognitive science depends on the validity of oxygen uptake as an index of an event. Think about that.

All that is needed is to find a path from one going events and indirect evidence of brain loci metabolism, if it is that, of agency. Surely it is more rational to say something like sound came in the ear, and as a result of mechanical activity transmitter substances were released activating an auditory neuron in the cochlea.*

Even that is a stretch.

If you don't get it then you clearly don't understand how science works. Mine is surely a much safer finding.

* ^{_{I've only been publishing this type of study since 1968.}}

 

[ryan]

Is it a cog in a clock that gives the time or is it the whole clock? The decision-making has many parts including possible QM parts. Why would the QM parts now have to be singled out as what makes the choice in order for me to say that my choice is as free as what could possibly result from the QM parts? All of the parts combine to form what was first known as decision making.

Conscious self is whatever the brain is doing. If the brain is dysfunctional, so is conscious self.

The QM parts don't make the choice. The QM parts only enable connectivity within synaptic junctions, etc. It is neurons, their supporting glial cells and their networks that select options based on an interaction of available information (connectivity,memory) and inputs.

It might be both quantum processes and neural processes that are functionally relevant as per Fisher's research paper.

You are still invoking 'you' as a conscious entity, a construct of the brain, with the unconscious information processing ability of neural networks and claiming decision making agency.

No, for the purposes of this discussion, I have always maintained that the consciousness is physical. In other words, if you take my consciousness out of my brain, you will have taken out some matter/energy. You would have a hand full of brain.

Conscious self is whatever the brain is doing. If the brain is dysfunctional, so is conscious self.

We speak of the consciousness as a whole. What any specific part of the consciousness is doing is not necessarily what the consciousness is doing. The clock tells time, but one of its cogs don't. My consciousness makes the choice, but the QM alone doesn't make a choice. It's about not committing the fallacy of composition.

 

[ryan]

From, The American Psychological Association ( http://www.apa.org/research/action/glossary.aspx?tab=4 ) decision making: "The process of choosing between alternatives; selecting or rejecting available options."

This is clearly a legitimate psychological term. Its underlying mechanics is what is up for debate, not its actual existence. Finding out that QM is part of how decision making works does not change what decision making is and always was.

As a neuroscientist who got his training in Psychology and Biology and one who has been very critical of social science research methods I find your claim of decisions being a legitimate scientific term baseless. Any time one stands 5 to 7 synapses from input-output and then one makes claims about such as consciousness and decisions using rankings and two by two Anovas one is subject to legitimate criticisms about the validity on what one finds.

The best information, to date, from cognitive science depends on the validity of oxygen uptake as an index of an event. Think about that.

All that is needed is to find a path from one going events and indirect evidence of brain loci metabolism, if it is that, of agency. Surely it is more rational to say something like sound came in the ear, and as a result of mechanical activity transmitter substances were released activating an auditory neuron in the cochlea.*

Even that is a stretch.

If you don't get it then you clearly don't understand how science works. Mine is surely a much safer finding.

* ^{_{I've only been publishing this type of study since 1968.}}

I don't know what you are talking about or how it relates to what I posted.

 

[bilby]

As a neuroscientist who got his training in Psychology and Biology and one who has been very critical of social science research methods I find your claim of decisions being a legitimate scientific term baseless. Any time one stands 5 to 7 synapses from input-output and then one makes claims about such as consciousness and decisions using rankings and two by two Anovas one is subject to legitimate criticisms about the validity on what one finds.

The best information, to date, from cognitive science depends on the validity of oxygen uptake as an index of an event. Think about that.

All that is needed is to find a path from one going events and indirect evidence of brain loci metabolism, if it is that, of agency. Surely it is more rational to say something like sound came in the ear, and as a result of mechanical activity transmitter substances were released activating an auditory neuron in the cochlea.*

Even that is a stretch.

If you don't get it then you clearly don't understand how science works. Mine is surely a much safer finding.

* ^{_{I've only been publishing this type of study since 1968.}}

I don't know what you are talking about or how it relates to what I posted.

At last, we can agree on something.

 

[fromderinside]

I don't know what you are talking about or how it relates to what I posted.

Really? What you posted was that human decision making is a legitimate psychological term.

My post was my quaint little way of saying "no it's not".

 

[ryan]

I don't know what you are talking about or how it relates to what I posted.

Really? What you posted was that human decision making is a legitimate psychological term.

My post was my quaint little way of saying "no it's not".

Aside from the definition I gave from the American Psychological Association, the website also says that decision making is a subject for cognitive psychology.

"Cognitive psychologists also study reasoning, judgment and decision making."

 

[fromderinside]

What is it you can't seem to understand? do you not admit that mind, consciousness and human agency are all ad hoc, some call it self evident propositions, constructions in defense of man's need to be other than a machine, a standard part of nature, a physical law obeying thing? Myv iew is that psychology, a discipline through which I got a phd, is not a science, Not even the psychophysics side of the discipline where I made my academic bones is science. We are scientists but the study is still mostly an art with no encompassing theory around which and through which a consistent sequence of advances can be made through that experimental process.

Try to understand the scientific method. Look at the arguments around the social sciences concerning their status as sciences beyond some political decisions.

Your prattle in this natural science thread is purely philosophical. Possibility, speculation, adapting theories inappropriately, are not means to scientific end and nor are self evident propositions.

 

[ryan]

What is it you can't seem to understand? do you not admit that mind, consciousness and human agency are all ad hoc, some call it self evident propositions, constructions in defense of man's need to be other than a machine, a standard part of nature, a physical law obeying thing? Myv iew is that psychology, a discipline through which I got a phd, is not a science, Not even the psychophysics side of the discipline where I made my academic bones is science. We are scientists but the study is still mostly an art with no encompassing theory around which and through which a consistent sequence of advances can be made through that experimental process.

Try to understand the scientific method. Look at the arguments around the social sciences concerning their status as sciences beyond some political decisions.

Your prattle in this natural science thread is purely philosophical. Possibility, speculation, adapting theories inappropriately, are not means to scientific end and nor are self evident propositions.

This is from the same website (http://www.apa.org/research/index.aspx),

"Psychological science is the study of mind and behavior and their biological foundations. It includes basic research with humans and other animals as well as applied and translational research that seeks to improve the health and well-being of individuals, groups and societies. Psychological scientists use a broad range of research methods and often work collaboratively with scientists in other disciplines.".

But I am taking a monistic position on this and have been the whole time.

 

[Juma]

What is it you can't seem to understand? do you not admit that mind, consciousness and human agency are all ad hoc, some call it self evident propositions, constructions in defense of man's need to be other than a machine, a standard part of nature, a physical law obeying thing? Myv iew is that psychology, a discipline through which I got a phd, is not a science, Not even the psychophysics side of the discipline where I made my academic bones is science. We are scientists but the study is still mostly an art with no encompassing theory around which and through which a consistent sequence of advances can be made through that experimental process.

Try to understand the scientific method. Look at the arguments around the social sciences concerning their status as sciences beyond some political decisions.

Your prattle in this natural science thread is purely philosophical. Possibility, speculation, adapting theories inappropriately, are not means to scientific end and nor are self evident propositions.

This is from the same website (http://www.apa.org/research/index.aspx),

"Psychological science is the study of mind and behavior and their biological foundations. It includes basic research with humans and other animals as well as applied and translational research that seeks to improve the health and well-being of individuals, groups and societies. Psychological scientists use a broad range of research methods and often work collaboratively with scientists in other disciplines.".

But I am taking a monistic position on this and have been the whole time.

lol. You really dont understand fromderinside at all. But then that was expected.

You see: nothing of what you have said in this thread is science. It is wild speculation based on misinterpreted scientific articles.

 

[ryan]

This is from the same website (http://www.apa.org/research/index.aspx),

"Psychological science is the study of mind and behavior and their biological foundations. It includes basic research with humans and other animals as well as applied and translational research that seeks to improve the health and well-being of individuals, groups and societies. Psychological scientists use a broad range of research methods and often work collaboratively with scientists in other disciplines.".

But I am taking a monistic position on this and have been the whole time.

lol. You really dont understand fromderinside at all. But then that was expected.

You see: nothing of what you have said in this thread is science. It is wild speculation based on misinterpreted scientific articles.

No specifics just blah blah blah

 

[fromderinside]

Ryan and Reryan were in a boat. Ryan fell out. Who was left?

clue: ............ chirp ....................... chirp ...................... (sigh)

 

[ryan]

Ryan and Reryan were in a boat. Ryan fell out. Who was left?

clue: ............ chirp ....................... chirp ...................... (sigh)

Hey, at least you made it this far without resorting to poetic nonsense. That wasn't so tough was it?