The Science and Mechanics of Free Will

[untermensche]

Sure it would.

Those are the specific parts of the brain that translate or process the reception.

That is contradicted by the fact that brain damages can make people change personality.

You see, today we know that everything that is supposed to be "in the mind" is really functions of the the brain.

The only thing uncounted for is the experience per se.

As I said the intact brain is needed for proper reception.

If a part of the brain is damaged either the signal is improperly received or it is improperly processed.

Without knowing what the mind is there is no way to know.

 

[untermensche]

As I said. Nothing is static. Not even so-called Static Spacetime.

But there is no way to make any kind of logical connection between this obscure mathematical concept and awareness.

In relativity, time is like a 4th spatial dimension. Things extend through time. A frog jumping is a static object. A change in position would just be an illusion.

If all a thing can do is extend through time then a thing cannot change.

I don't buy this interpretation, not demonstrated fact, at all.

 

[Juma]

That is contradicted by the fact that brain damages can make people change personality.

You see, today we know that everything that is supposed to be "in the mind" is really functions of the the brain.

The only thing uncounted for is the experience per se.

As I said the intact brain is needed for proper reception.

If a part of the brain is damaged either the signal is improperly received or it is improperly processed.

That does fit not with the type of changes that occur.

You are argumenting from your own ignorance.

 

[ryan]

In relativity, time is like a 4th spatial dimension. Things extend through time. A frog jumping is a static object. A change in position would just be an illusion.

If all a thing can do is extend through time then a thing cannot change.

I don't buy this interpretation, not demonstrated fact, at all.

Relativity is not fact, but it is demonstrated, https://einstein.stanford.edu/SPACETIME/spacetime2.html .

And what is so bad about it from your perspective; you can still have mind and matter. The mind could still be received by specific 4d objects instead of 3d processes.

 

[untermensche]

If all a thing can do is extend through time then a thing cannot change.

I don't buy this interpretation, not demonstrated fact, at all.

Relativity is not fact, but it is demonstrated, https://einstein.stanford.edu/SPACETIME/spacetime2.html .

And what is so bad about it from your perspective; you can still have mind and matter. The mind could still be received by specific 4d objects instead of 3d processes.

I don't think the mind is something received.

I merely am using that as a device to demonstrate how little we actually know.

We don't have the slightest clue how a mind is generated by a brain.

And to demonstrate this we can't prove the mind is not just something received by the brain.

 

[untermensche]

As I said the intact brain is needed for proper reception.

If a part of the brain is damaged either the signal is improperly received or it is improperly processed.

That does fit not with the type of changes that occur.

You are argumenting from your own ignorance.

It most definitely does fit with any kind of possible change.

If the brain were some receiver then damage to that receiver could result in any kind of change since the receiver would still have to process the signal in some way.

 

[Juma]

That does fit not with the type of changes that occur.

You are argumenting from your own ignorance.

It most definitely does fit with any kind of possible change.

No it doesnt. The types of damages that can occur are incompatible with the receive-hypotesis.

 

[untermensche]

It most definitely does fit with any kind of possible change.

No it doesnt. The types of damages that can occur are incompatible with the receive-hypotesis.

Nonsense.

The brain would still have to process the information in some way. Even if the mind were some kind of transmission.

Damage to the brain would result in faulty processing. Not damage to the mind.

 

[Juma]

No it doesnt. The types of damages that can occur are incompatible with the receive-hypotesis.

Nonsense.

The brain would still have to process the information in some way. Even if the mind were some kind of transmission.

Damage to the brain would result in faulty processing. Not damage to the mind.

Then how can division of the brainhemisperes result in two separate minds with different agendas/will?

 

[untermensche]

Nonsense.

The brain would still have to process the information in some way. Even if the mind were some kind of transmission.

Damage to the brain would result in faulty processing. Not damage to the mind.

Then how can division of the brainhemisperes result in two separate minds with different agendas/will?

Again if the brain is just a receiver than any kind of damage could result in an inability to properly process the received signal.

The only way to know the mind is not something received is to know what the mind is.

Is it some kind of electrical activity? Some kind of magnetic activity? Some kind of cellular activity? A quantum effect of some kind?

Nobody knows.

 

[ryan]

Then how can division of the brainhemisperes result in two separate minds with different agendas/will?

Again if the brain is just a receiver than any kind of damage could result in an inability to properly process the received signal.

The only way to know the mind is not something received is to know what the mind is.

Is it some kind of electrical activity? Some kind of magnetic activity? Some kind of cellular activity? A quantum effect of some kind?

Nobody knows.

So if the mind is physical/chemical activity, then it is not some other kind of substance. We would be back to physicalism/monism.

 

[untermensche]

Again if the brain is just a receiver than any kind of damage could result in an inability to properly process the received signal.

The only way to know the mind is not something received is to know what the mind is.

Is it some kind of electrical activity? Some kind of magnetic activity? Some kind of cellular activity? A quantum effect of some kind?

Nobody knows.

So if the mind is physical/chemical activity, then it is not some other kind of substance. We would be back to physicalism/monism.

Once we know what the mind is we can begin to address things like this.

Not before.

 

[ryan]

So if the mind is physical/chemical activity, then it is not some other kind of substance. We would be back to physicalism/monism.

Once we know what the mind is we can begin to address things like this.

Not before.

Do you believe that one of only the following three options is most likely: the mind is influenced by the brain, the brain is influenced by the mind or parallelism (eg: mind is a receiver and neither entity has an effect on one another)?

 

[untermensche]

Once we know what the mind is we can begin to address things like this.

Not before.

Do you believe that one of only the following three options is most likely: the mind is influenced by the brain, the brain is influenced by the mind or parallelism (eg: mind is a receiver and neither entity has an effect on one another)?

When you "will" your arm to move do you think that is your mind influencing your brain?

 

[ryan]

Do you believe that one of only the following three options is most likely: the mind is influenced by the brain, the brain is influenced by the mind or parallelism (eg: mind is a receiver and neither entity has an effect on one another)?

When you "will" your arm to move do you think that is your mind influencing your brain?

I am not sure, of course. All three options seem possible.

What is your answer to your question?

 

[DBT]

Why do you keep repeating worthless generalizations that explain nothing?

Because they aren't worthless because you say so. To say that what we do know about the structure of mechanism and its functions is worthless and explains nothing is false. It explains something. Something, contrary to your claim, is not nothing.

That alone makes your claim a false claim.

Tell me about these "patterns of firings".

I'm sure that you are aware of the work with fMRI, associating patterns of activity with reported thoughts and decisions...decisions that can be predicted before report on the basis of the build up of activity in one area as opposed to another area before the decision is consciously reported.

''By combining real-time functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and online pattern classification techniques, we show that it is possible to predict human behavior during social interaction before the interacting partner communicates a specific decision. Average accuracy reached approximately 70% when we predicted online the decisions of volunteers playing the ultimatum game, a well-known paradigm in economic game theory. Our results demonstrate the successful online analysis of complex emotional and cognitive states using real-time fMRI, which will enable a major breakthrough for social fMRI by providing information about mental states of partners already during the mutual interaction. Interestingly, an additional whole brain classification across subjects confirmed the online results: anterior insula, ventral striatum, and lateral orbitofrontal cortex, known to act in emotional self-regulation and reward processing for adjustment of behavior, appeared to be strong determinants of later overt behavior in the ultimatum game. Using whole brain classification we were also able to discriminate between brain processes related to subjective emotional and motivational states and brain processes related to the evaluation of objective financial incentives.''

Give me one specific "pattern" that corresponds to some aspect of the mind.

During auras, with altered consciousness, there were relatively few neurons that increased firing, with the estimate about 14% or twice as many as during a subclinical seizure. During the onset of a clinical seizure that involved loss of consciousness, movements and post-ictal confusion, many neurons were recruited into increased firing, with an estimate of approximately 36%. During this increased electrogenesis, neurons fired briefly in association with high-frequency local SEEG; however, the bursts were shorter than the SEEG seizure pattern. Apparently, other local neurons were recruited to fire in bursts to sustain sufficient axonal driving for widespread propagation of the seizure. When the focal SEEG slowed, the units stopped firing, which suggested that the 'focal' seizure need not be sustained for more than several seconds because propagated seizure activity was self-sustaining at distant structures. The data lead to the conclusion that SEEG seizures can be generated focally by synchronous firing of fewer than 10% of neurons in the 'epileptic pool.' However, when greater percentages of neurons are recruited in the 'epileptic focus' there is greater propagation to widespread sites, especially contralaterally, which will produce clinical partial complex seizures.''
And you can't even tell me with absolute assurance that the brain is what generates the mind. As I said it may merely be some kind of receiver.

And if you don't know that you really don't know one thing about the mind.

Stop pretending you do.

Stop making out that nothing is understood when in fact something is understood. Something, even if far from complete is not nothing. Making your claim of 'nothing is known' a false claim.

If the brain were a receiver then damage to it would also effect the mind. The brain would not be getting proper reception.

Receiver for what? Some broadcast of non detectable universal mind? How does this universal mind correspond exactly with an individuals character, makeup and personal experiences encoded in memory that is specific to that brain?

You are invoking aother version of the god of the gaps fallacy.....except that you yourself do not believe it.

There is absolutely no evidence for brain as a receiver.

Stop pretending you know one thing about what a mind is beyond saying that damage to the brain can sometimes result in a change of function. Which doesn't tell us one thing about what a mind is or whether it is being generated or received.

Stop using a completely unfounded concept, brain as a receiver, to support your argument that nobody knows anything about the mind. Which itself is a false claim, given that something is known and something is not nothing.

 

[DBT]

Do you believe that one of only the following three options is most likely: the mind is influenced by the brain, the brain is influenced by the mind or parallelism (eg: mind is a receiver and neither entity has an effect on one another)?

When you "will" your arm to move do you think that is your mind influencing your brain?

Modular brain/Narrator function;
''Experiments on split-brain patients reveal how readily the left brain interpreter can make up stories and beliefs. In one experiment, for example, when the word walk was presented only to the right side of a patient’s brain, he got up and started walking. When he was asked why he did this, the left brain (where language is stored and where the word walk was not presented) quickly created a reason for the action: “I wanted to go get a Coke.”

Even more fantastic examples of the left hemisphere at work come from the study of neurological disorders. In a complication of stroke called anosognosia with hemiplegia, patients cannot recognize that their left arm is theirs because the stroke damaged the right parietal cortex, which manages our body’s integrity, position, and movement. The left-hemisphere interpreter has to reconcile the information it receives from the visual cortex—that the limb is attached to its body but is not moving—with the fact that it is not receiving any input about the damage to that limb. The left-hemisphere interpreter would recognize that damage to nerves of the limb meant trouble for the brain and that the limb was paralyzed; however, in this case the damage occurred directly to the brain area responsible for signaling a problem in the perception of the limb, and it cannot send any information to the left-hemisphere interpreter. The interpreter must, then, create a belief to mediate the two known facts “I can see the limb isn’t moving” and “I can’t tell that it is damaged.” When patients with this disorder are asked about their arm and why they can’t move it, they will say “It’s not mine” or “I just don’t feel like moving it”—reasonable conclusions, given the input that the left-hemisphere interpreter is receiving.

The left-hemisphere interpreter is not only a master of belief creation, but it will stick to its belief system no matter what. Patients with “reduplicative paramnesia,” because of damage to the brain, believe that there are copies of people or places. In short, they will remember another time and mix it with the present. As a result, they will create seemingly ridiculous, but masterful, stories to uphold what they know to be true due to the erroneous messages their damaged brain is sending their intact interpreter. One such patient believed the New York hospital where she was being treated was actually her home in Maine. When her doctor asked how this could be her home if there were elevators in the hallway, she said, “Doctor, do you know how much it cost me to have those put in?” The interpreter will go to great lengths to make sure the inputs it receives are woven together to make sense—even when it must make great leaps to do so. Of course, these do not appear as“great leaps” to the patient, but rather as clear evidence from the world around him or her...''

 

[untermensche]

When you "will" your arm to move do you think that is your mind influencing your brain?

I am not sure, of course. All three options seem possible.

What is your answer to your question?

I think when you "will" your arm to move your mind is influencing your brain.

That is my whole thesis.

Mind as mechanism.

 

[untermensche]

Give me one specific "pattern" that corresponds to some aspect of the mind.

During auras, with altered consciousness, there were relatively few neurons that increased firing, with the estimate about 14% or twice as many as during a subclinical seizure. During the onset of a clinical seizure that involved loss of consciousness, movements and post-ictal confusion, many neurons were recruited into increased firing, with an estimate of approximately 36%. During this increased electrogenesis, neurons fired briefly in association with high-frequency local SEEG; however, the bursts were shorter than the SEEG seizure pattern. Apparently, other local neurons were recruited to fire in bursts to sustain sufficient axonal driving for widespread propagation of the seizure. When the focal SEEG slowed, the units stopped firing, which suggested that the 'focal' seizure need not be sustained for more than several seconds because propagated seizure activity was self-sustaining at distant structures. The data lead to the conclusion that SEEG seizures can be generated focally by synchronous firing of fewer than 10% of neurons in the 'epileptic pool.' However, when greater percentages of neurons are recruited in the 'epileptic focus' there is greater propagation to widespread sites, especially contralaterally, which will produce clinical partial complex seizures.''
And you can't even tell me with absolute assurance that the brain is what generates the mind. As I said it may merely be some kind of receiver.

This is not an aspect of the mind. It is an aspect of something the mind is aware of.

The mind is that which is aware. Not the "objects" it is aware of.

And consciousness, when awake, is an unbroken whole and very static and durable during a lifetime. It is incredibly unlikely this can be generated by some "pattern" that must be repeated over and over non-stop.

If the brain were a receiver then damage to it would also effect the mind. The brain would not be getting proper reception.

Receiver for what? Some broadcast of non detectable universal mind? How does this universal mind correspond exactly with an individuals character, makeup and personal experiences encoded in memory that is specific to that brain?

You are invoking aother version of the god of the gaps fallacy.....except that you yourself do not believe it.

There is absolutely no evidence for brain as a receiver.

Since what the mind is is completely unknown this cannot be ruled out.

And of course there is evidence.

When you damage the receiver the reception is disrupted.

This is not different from concluding the brain generates the mind based on the fact that damage to the brain disrupts generation.

If there is generation of a mind by a brain then the question is: Generation of what?

Generation of some electrical pattern? Some magnetic pattern? Some electrical effect? A magnetic effect? Does the bloodstream have something to do with it? Is it some quantum effect?

Simply choosing the generation hypothesis answers nothing and explains nothing about what the mind is.

Stop using a completely unfounded concept, brain as a receiver, to support your argument that nobody knows anything about the mind. Which itself is a false claim, given that something is known and something is not nothing.

It's a devise. A devise of argument.

If you can't clearly and quickly demonstrate that the mind is not some reception then it is clear you don't know what the mind is.

It is not a hypothesis. It is a device of argument to try to get people to see the weakness of their claims.

Which here is incredibly difficult.

 

[untermensche]

When you "will" your arm to move do you think that is your mind influencing your brain?

Modular brain/Narrator function;
''Experiments on split-brain patients reveal how readily the left brain interpreter can make up stories and beliefs. In one experiment, for example, when the word walk was presented only to the right side of a patient’s brain, he got up and started walking. When he was asked why he did this, the left brain (where language is stored and where the word walk was not presented) quickly created a reason for the action: “I wanted to go get a Coke.”

Even more fantastic examples of the left hemisphere at work come from the study of neurological disorders. In a complication of stroke called anosognosia with hemiplegia, patients cannot recognize that their left arm is theirs because the stroke damaged the right parietal cortex, which manages our body’s integrity, position, and movement. The left-hemisphere interpreter has to reconcile the information it receives from the visual cortex—that the limb is attached to its body but is not moving—with the fact that it is not receiving any input about the damage to that limb. The left-hemisphere interpreter would recognize that damage to nerves of the limb meant trouble for the brain and that the limb was paralyzed; however, in this case the damage occurred directly to the brain area responsible for signaling a problem in the perception of the limb, and it cannot send any information to the left-hemisphere interpreter. The interpreter must, then, create a belief to mediate the two known facts “I can see the limb isn’t moving” and “I can’t tell that it is damaged.” When patients with this disorder are asked about their arm and why they can’t move it, they will say “It’s not mine” or “I just don’t feel like moving it”—reasonable conclusions, given the input that the left-hemisphere interpreter is receiving.

The left-hemisphere interpreter is not only a master of belief creation, but it will stick to its belief system no matter what. Patients with “reduplicative paramnesia,” because of damage to the brain, believe that there are copies of people or places. In short, they will remember another time and mix it with the present. As a result, they will create seemingly ridiculous, but masterful, stories to uphold what they know to be true due to the erroneous messages their damaged brain is sending their intact interpreter. One such patient believed the New York hospital where she was being treated was actually her home in Maine. When her doctor asked how this could be her home if there were elevators in the hallway, she said, “Doctor, do you know how much it cost me to have those put in?” The interpreter will go to great lengths to make sure the inputs it receives are woven together to make sense—even when it must make great leaps to do so. Of course, these do not appear as“great leaps” to the patient, but rather as clear evidence from the world around him or her...''

These are fascinating but only so much can be concluded from damage studies.

Obviously the hemispheres need to be able to communicate for the mind to work fully and properly.

This would be true if the brain generates the mind or if it receives it.

And it tells us nothing about what the mind is.