In Free Will, What Makes it "Free"

[ryan]

A neuron is just the total of its particles and what each particle does. I don't see how can you argue this.

No, it's not a case of ''just'' - it's precisely how particles are arranged which determines the role and function of the structure...a motor car engine is composed of particles and motor car tyres are composed of particles but tyres cannot perform the functions of an engine and engines cannot be used as tyres.

It's not just particle position, ryan, but architecture and evolved (or manufactured) function.

I did not say it was just particle position. I said, "A neuron is just the total of its particles and what each particle does". What is going on here?

A tree is not the same thing as a person despite both being composed of particles.

You are really scraping the bottom of the barrel with this rationale, I have to say.

Your response does not address my post.

 

[DBT]

The position, state, energies, etc. that the particles of my consciousness randomly take definitely affects what other particles will do.

Even if that was true, which it is not, the mere randomness of the process would eliminate the possibility of rational thought and decision making, so not only would you have no free will, you (the brain forming you) would have no ability to process information (which is not random), and thereby form thoughts a make decisions on matters that are not random, probability wave function collapse, Copenhagen, etc, etc.

 

[DBT]

Your response does not address my post.

Yes it did. I said it's not the role of fundamental particles to process information, but the architecture of the object as a whole, neurons in this instance. Different structures, different roles and functions.

All composed of particles, but different roles and functions.

 

[ryan]

The position, state, energies, etc. that the particles of my consciousness randomly take definitely affects what other particles will do.

Even if that was true, which it is not, the mere randomness of the process would eliminate the possibility of rational thought and decision making, so not only would you have no free will, ...

The randomness would be the free will. I say "would be" because I am not making a positive claim; I am only saying that the door is at least open to free will.

 

[Juma]

Your choice to turn left or right comes down to what single particles do.

Lets look at how ridiculouls that idea really is:
Do you mean that a single particle is responsible for all your actions? Or it is different particles each time? How does such a particle get all information needed to choose?

No. Human begavior, and will, must be handled on a much bigger scale. If a single particle would decide anything it would be such a tiny part of the entire process that you wouldnt be aware of it at all.
It would be at most at the level of a comparison of a single bit.

Then we have the problem with that even quantum mechanical particles follows laws and their behaviour follows schrödinger equation to an extreme. So how could one particle behave with free will (that is: not following schrödinger equation)? Please explain!

 

[DBT]

Even if that was true, which it is not, the mere randomness of the process would eliminate the possibility of rational thought and decision making, so not only would you have no free will, ...

The randomness would be the free will. I say "would be" because I am not making a positive claim; I am only saying that the door is at least open to free will.

Randomness is not free will, it is just randomness.

Why not try to explain your belief in some detail. Begin with a working definition of free will and explain how randomness allows your definition of free will to form and to function on the principle of randomness.

 

[ryan]

Your response does not address my post.

Yes it did. I said it's not the role of fundamental particles to process information, but the architecture of the object as a whole, neurons in this instance. Different structures, different roles and functions.

All composed of particles, but different roles and functions.

This is what the limited randomness of particles looks like. Neurons are only the particles and the limited random behavior of each particle.

 

[DBT]

Yes it did. I said it's not the role of fundamental particles to process information, but the architecture of the object as a whole, neurons in this instance. Different structures, different roles and functions.

All composed of particles, but different roles and functions.

This is what the limited randomness of particles looks like. Neurons are only the particles and the limited random behavior of each particle.

Neurons are not an example of 'randomness' - they have well defined structure and function, they can be distinguished from each other, and other cell types, glial support cells, etc.

 

[ryan]

The randomness would be the free will. I say "would be" because I am not making a positive claim; I am only saying that the door is at least open to free will.

Randomness is not free will, it is just randomness.

I am not saying it is. I am only saying that there is no obvious reason why our biological systems cannot have free will. Free will is not falsified, IMO. This is a much softer stance than I took a while back.

Why not try to explain your belief in some detail. Begin with a working definition of free will and explain how randomness allows your definition of free will to form and to function on the principle of randomness.

Free will would appear to be random, but to the person making the choice, it would be by desire and would be expected. This holistic experience, possibly holistic by way of fields, we call "desire/choice" is expressed as trillions of limitedly random interactions.

 

[DBT]

Randomness is not free will, it is just randomness.

I am not saying it is. I am only saying that there is no obvious reason why our biological systems cannot have free will. Free will is not falsified, IMO. This is a much softer stance than I took a while back.

What exactly are you talking about when you say ''there is no obvious reason why our biological systems cannot have free will?'' And how does this 'free will' - whatever that is - relate to randomness?

Free will would appear to be random, but to the person making the choice, it would be by desire and would be expected. This holistic experience, possibly holistic by way of fields, we call "desire/choice" is expressed as trillions of limitedly random interactions.

There is no connection between 'randomness' and decision making. It is not randomness that shapes and forms a decision. You need to make some sort of connection and define your terms clearly.

What precisely is this 'free will?'' ....as a start.

 

[ryan]

This is what the limited randomness of particles looks like. Neurons are only the particles and the limited random behavior of each particle.

Neurons are not an example of 'randomness' - they have well defined structure and function, they can be distinguished from each other, and other cell types, glial support cells, etc.

Think about a thunderstorm. We can have such accurate predictions of the path it will take, the rain it will drop, the wind it will have etc. But the whole thing consists of so much chaos and is such an incredibly complex system that we still can't understand it in a more detailed way. We won't know what the lightning strikes will look like, where each gust comes from, the story behind each drop of water, the location and time of a tornado, etc. Most importantly to this analogy, we won't know the effects it will have on the environment.

The details of the neuron is also a very complex system that performs relatively simple functions.

As long as we only know particles to have a probabilistic nature, we will never know the details of any system.

 

[DBT]

Neurons are not an example of 'randomness' - they have well defined structure and function, they can be distinguished from each other, and other cell types, glial support cells, etc.

Think about a thunderstorm. We can have such accurate predictions of the path it will take, the rain it will drop, the wind it will have etc. But the whole thing consists of so much chaos and is such an incredibly complex system that we still can't understand it in a more detailed way. We won't know what the lightning strikes will look like, where each gust comes from, the story behind each drop of water, the location and time of a tornado, etc. Most importantly to this analogy, we won't know the effects it will have on the environment.

The details of the neuron is also a very complex system that performs relatively simple functions.

As long as we only know particles to have a probabilistic nature, we will never know the details of any system.

How does any of this relate to free will....and what precisely is 'free will?'

For example, does weather have free will because it is a chaotic system?

 

[ryan]

I am not saying it is. I am only saying that there is no obvious reason why our biological systems cannot have free will. Free will is not falsified, IMO. This is a much softer stance than I took a while back.

What exactly are you talking about when you say ''there is no obvious reason why our biological systems cannot have free will?'' And how does this 'free will' - whatever that is - relate to randomness?

If a robot had free will, it would appear to have random behavior to an observer. And there would be no consistent mechanical actions.

Free will would appear to be random, but to the person making the choice, it would be by desire and would be expected. This holistic experience, possibly holistic by way of fields, we call "desire/choice" is expressed as trillions of limitedly random interactions.

There is no connection between 'randomness' and decision making. It is not randomness that shapes and forms a decision. You need to make some sort of connection and define your terms clearly.

What precisely is this 'free will?'' ....as a start.

Oxford Dictionary has: "The power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate". http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/free-will?q=free+will

 

[bilby]

What exactly are you talking about when you say ''there is no obvious reason why our biological systems cannot have free will?'' And how does this 'free will' - whatever that is - relate to randomness?

If a robot had free will, it would appear to have random behavior to an observer. And there would be no consistent mechanical actions.

People don't appear to have random behaviour; Indeed, they are quite predictable as individuals, and even more so en masse.

Can we therefore conclude that your position is that people do not have free will?

 

[ryan]

Think about a thunderstorm. We can have such accurate predictions of the path it will take, the rain it will drop, the wind it will have etc. But the whole thing consists of so much chaos and is such an incredibly complex system that we still can't understand it in a more detailed way. We won't know what the lightning strikes will look like, where each gust comes from, the story behind each drop of water, the location and time of a tornado, etc. Most importantly to this analogy, we won't know the effects it will have on the environment.

The details of the neuron is also a very complex system that performs relatively simple functions.

As long as we only know particles to have a probabilistic nature, we will never know the details of any system.

How does any of this relate to free will....and what precisely is 'free will?'

For example, does weather have free will because it is a chaotic system?

If it intends on doing something, then maybe it does. But humans can agree on similar feelings that intentions bring. We can't "communicate" with thunderstorms this way.

 

[ryan]

If a robot had free will, it would appear to have random behavior to an observer. And there would be no consistent mechanical actions.

People don't appear to have random behaviour; Indeed, they are quite predictable as individuals, and even more so en masse.

Can we therefore conclude that your position is that people do not have free will?

Thanks to quantum mechanics, it is impossible to accurately predict what anything does, never mind a human.

 

[bilby]

People don't appear to have random behaviour; Indeed, they are quite predictable as individuals, and even more so en masse.

Can we therefore conclude that your position is that people do not have free will?

Thanks to quantum mechanics, it is impossible to accurately predict what anything does, never mind a human.

I knew you were going to say that.

The reality is that people are very predictable indeed. And quantum mechanics simply doesn't have significant effects at the scale of human beings - or even of human cells.

Unpredictability in macroscopic systems comes from chaos, not quantum uncertainty.

 

[DBT]

Oxford Dictionary has: "The power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate". http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/free-will?q=free+will

Doesn't work:

If our actions are caused by chance, we lack control.

"Recent developments in physical science [viz., quantum indeterminacy] have come into play here, and the freedom of the human will has been put forward as offering logical grounds for the acceptance of only a statistical causality operative in the physical universe. As I have already stated on other occasions, I do not at all agree with this attitude. If we should accept it, then the logical result would be to reduce the human will to an organ which would be subject to the sway of mere blind chance." - Max Planck

 

[ryan]

Thanks to quantum mechanics, it is impossible to accurately predict what anything does, never mind a human.

I knew you were going to say that.

The reality is that people are very predictable indeed. And quantum mechanics simply doesn't have significant effects at the scale of human beings - or even of human cells.

Unpredictability in macroscopic systems comes from chaos, not quantum uncertainty.

Most of the time I feel like I am in an idle mode. I feel like I made some rough plan for each day at some point in the past, or sent my self in some trajectory, and basically observe the motions. It is relatively rare that I actually feel like I am making a conscious choice. We do so much unconsciously that that would probably be our deterministic constraint. If I always felt like I was in conscious control of what I am doing, I would question the freedom of those choices because I know that I can't be totally unpredictable mechanically.

Remember, I am only saying that there is no obvious falsification to free will. I am not making the positive claim that it exists.

 

[DBT]

Unpredictable does not equate with 'free will'

John Searle describes the problem of fundamental particles/statistically predictable paths well enough:


''As far as human freedom is concerned, it doesn't matter whether physics is deterministic, as Newtonian physics was, or whether it allows for an indeterminacy at the level of particle physics, as contemporary quantum mechanics does. Indeterminism at the level of particles in physics is really no support at all to any doctrine of the freedom of the will; because first, the statistical indeterminacy at the level of particles does not show any indeterminacy at the level of the objects that matter to us – human bodies, for example. And secondly, even if there is an element of indeterminacy in the behaviour of physical particles – even if they are only statistically predictable – still, that by itself gives no scope for human freedom of the will; because it doesn't follow from the fact that particles are only statistically determined that the human mind can force the statistically-determined particles to swerve from their paths. Indeterminism is no evidence that there is or could be some mental energy of human freedom that can move molecules in directions that they were not otherwise going to move. So it really does look as if everything we know about physics forces us to some form of denial of human freedom.'' - John Searle (Mind, Brains, and Science, 1984, pp.86-7)