The Science and Mechanics of Free Will

[Kharakov]

Why can a choice be determined but not random?

Because that's what the word CHOICE implies.
I can choose whether or not to have a beer - weighing up all the various factors: How thirsty am I; How much does it cost; Do I have enough money in my pocket; Will I need to drive later; Is the barmaid pretty; Was the last beer I was served here flat; Would I rather drink coffee; etc; etc - OR I can toss a coin, and accept the random result of the coin flip, INSTEAD of making a choice.

I can't visualize a way to eliminate choice from the above decision tree. In the above situation, you're just deciding whether to using external or internal forces to make the decision. And the decision to use internal or external forces is made by a complex interplay of internal and external forces.

You're centrally peripheral to the process, while you aren't the ultimate arbiter that you are.

Choice is under control. Randomness is, by definition, uncontrolled - it is the OPPOSITE of choice.

The nice thing about deterministically created chaos is.

Not only that, over time you can see certain patterns emerging over and over again, and sort of farm them.

 

[ryan]

For our purposes, "free" is just another term for undetermined. Like a photon going through a double slit. There is a certain space of possible places that it can end up. As far as we know, it could have ended up at any place in the space on the screen. Just like we may be able to have chosen differently.

No. If my action is random it is no willed.

I have yet to accept an invisible man who oversees things behind the stage - even from my own attempts to find him. If we stick with physics and leave out metaphysics, the issue is whether or not the choice was freely made - by who or what is not the issue here. By "free", I mean that the choice could have been one of at least two different possibilities.

The philosophy behind this is anyone's guess.

 

[OLDMAN]

Yes. You lifted your right arm. Why? Your interpretation of free will is local conscious impression of choice. Since consciousness is an amalgam of patched together awarenesses, those things to which our after the fact review committee records from all those things calling for attention from this input or that, are you sure you choose these things?

Not an impression.

A clear knowledge of making the choice. It is not fuzzy or dreamlike. It is as clear as a thing can be.

I "will" the arm to move.

If things get complex, like playing the piano, then "programs" beyond consciousness may have a part.

And there is no patchwork of awareness. There is a synthesis of awareness at a single point.

The same "I" is aware of all things it is possible to be aware of.

To have awareness you need this "singularity" that is aware. This separation from that it is aware of.

You just moved your arm did you. Tell us what brain synapses you processed, to trigger which command signal and fire which muscle groupings? Or did you have a little help from a friend. "You" are just a persona that your brain uses to gather information about it's surrounding and protect itself.

 

[untermensche]

Not an impression.

A clear knowledge of making the choice. It is not fuzzy or dreamlike. It is as clear as a thing can be.

I "will" the arm to move.

If things get complex, like playing the piano, then "programs" beyond consciousness may have a part.

And there is no patchwork of awareness. There is a synthesis of awareness at a single point.

The same "I" is aware of all things it is possible to be aware of.

To have awareness you need this "singularity" that is aware. This separation from that it is aware of.

You just moved your arm did you. Tell us what brain synapses you processed, to trigger which command signal and fire which muscle groupings? Or did you have a little help from a friend. "You" are just a persona that your brain uses to gather information about it's surrounding and protect itself.

I don't know what "I" am but when "I" "will" my arm to move "I" use my brain and peripheral nervous system to do it.

"I" just "will" it and the slave my brain does it.

You cannot just pretend the brain is the master. It is the slave here.

 

[OLDMAN]

You just moved your arm did you. Tell us what brain synapses you processed, to trigger which command signal and fire which muscle groupings? Or did you have a little help from a friend. "You" are just a persona that your brain uses to gather information about it's surrounding and protect itself.

I don't know what "I" am but when "I" "will" my arm to move "I" use my brain and peripheral nervous system to do it.

"I" just "will" it and the slave my brain does it.

You cannot just pretend the brain is the master. It is the slave here.

And if that slave determines there is only enough energy to keep the heart and lungs going, it will shut u down completely. In fact it does every night. One question you might consider....when a bug stops and goes, does it not exhibit all the illusions of free will? And finally you might want to read up on brain disorders and how they effect behavior.

 

[Juma]

No. If my action is random it is no willed.

I have yet to accept an invisible man who oversees things behind the stage - even from my own attempts to find him. If we stick with physics and leave out metaphysics, the issue is whether or not the choice was freely made - by who or what is not the issue here. By "free", I mean that the choice could have been one of at least two different possibilities.

The philosophy behind this is anyone's guess.

Why do you start talking about "invisible men"? The decision is an outcome of the brain.

If the action is random (even if only two possibilities) then you cannot talk about will.

If you either give the poor man money or not simply by chance then you cannot say it was a free choice. It wasnt even a choice.

 

[ryan]

I have yet to accept an invisible man who oversees things behind the stage - even from my own attempts to find him. If we stick with physics and leave out metaphysics, the issue is whether or not the choice was freely made - by who or what is not the issue here. By "free", I mean that the choice could have been one of at least two different possibilities.

The philosophy behind this is anyone's guess.

Why do you start talking about "invisible men"? The decision is an outcome of the brain.

If the action is random (even if only two possibilities) then you cannot talk about will.

You still seem to be keeping the door open for an agent overseeing the randomness. If you are the randomness, then you have chosen something. Other people would see the choice as being random. If there is a consciousness totally independent of the brain, then maybe I could see how we would not be able to "own" a choice. However, it would still be a free choice made by my brain, but it wouldn't be my mind's free choice.

If you either give the poor man money or not simply by chance then you cannot say it was a free choice. It wasnt even a choice.

Is there really a choice if there is only one possible outcome? In other words, you wouldn't have been able to choose otherwise.

 

[Juma]

If you are the randomness, then you have chosen something.

And here is where you go woo: you cannot have it boths ways, either quantum events are random or they are controlled by "you".
If they are random you cannot control them and they are not choices if you can control them they are not random and not your "free will".

Is there really a choice if there is only one possible outcome? In other words, you wouldn't have been able to choose otherwise.

Exactly. if you really think it through you will realize that this is the only possibility if we actually talk about willed actions.

 

[ryan]

And here is where you go woo: you cannot have it boths ways, either quantum events are random or they are controlled by "you".
If they are random you cannot control them and they are not choices if you can control them they are not random and not your "free will".

Please read the whole post. I explained that other people see it as random. It is not necessarily random for the randomness.

Is there really a choice if there is only one possible outcome? In other words, you wouldn't have been able to choose otherwise.

Exactly. if you really think it through you will realize that this is the only possibility if we actually talk about willed actions.

I was not making a distinction between will and choice. What difference are you using between will and choice?

 

[Juma]

Please read the whole post. I explained that other people see it as random. It is not necessarily random for the objective randomness.

What the heck is you trying to refer to by "objective randomness" here? Typo?

Besides that: This is exactly what I mean by your woo: you believe in some magic world where some entity (you) somehow have control over the outcome but that that causality is hidden for others and just looks random... Dont you realize how daft that is?

I was not making a distinction between will and choice. What difference are you using between will and choice?

To Choose is the action of selecting one of several options.

Will is the goal of an agent.

 

[ryan]

What the heck is you trying to refer to by "objective randomness" here? Typo?

Besides that: This is exactly what I mean by your woo: you believe in some magic world where some entity (you) somehow have control over the outcome but that that causality is hidden for others and just looks random... Dont you realize how daft that is?

It's random relative to other points of view. It's like if you tried to choose what number I am thinking without being able to analyze my brain. The information is cut off from you. It is random for you but not for me.

I was not making a distinction between will and choice. What difference are you using between will and choice?

To Choose is the action of selecting one of several options.

Will is the goal of an agent.

But can't I have will without achieving the goal? I slept on my arm, and when I woke up it was so asleep that it didn't even feel like I had an arm to move. I had a will to move my arm, but no will power.

 

[DBT]

Nevertheless, there are other definitions and the subject about free will. You might be better of dropping 'could have chosen differently' and try something else. If you could have chosen differently, you would have chosen not to make an error that you realise you made one second after.

I am not saying "can choose differently" because, as you say, it would mean that I can go back in time and choose differently. When I say "... could have chosen differently", the could is in the past tense.

If you can't choose a different option to the decision that is made in any given instance in time, you can't choose differently. The illusion of free will is generated by the progress of time and change, different decisions evolving over time, and a sense of conscious agency.

Both being 'free will' illusions formed by the disconnect between the means of decision making, inputs interacting with memory through neural information processing and the conscious experience that is formed as a result of that underlying activity.

That directly opposes their quantum cognition theory. You would have to review their work and point out why it's wrong. Then your review will have to be reviewed.

No it doesn't. You are interpreting the given quotes from your own perspective and beliefs. None of the described interactions between quantum wave/particles and brain architecture and chemistry is open to conscious choice. Instead, conscious experience is the product of this non chosen states, conditions and processes.

That is why the notion of free will fails. Of course we do have will as experienced by numerous drives and desires.

Please read,

"She used the example of Schrödinger’s cat—the thought experiment in which a cat inside a box has some probability of being alive or dead. Both possibilities have potential in our minds. In that sense, the cat has a potential to become dead or alive at the same time. The effect is called quantum superposition. When we open the box, both possibilities are no longer superimposed, and the cat must be either alive or dead.

With quantum cognition, it’s as if each decision we make is our own unique Schrödinger’s cat." .

Nope, doesn't work, sorry. Consciousness does not precede processing. Processing information is the means to conscious thought, deliberation, decisions made and actions taken.

Of course it does, that's the whole point of Schrodinger's cat. One very small and simple superposition causes its butterfly effects to be suspended in a superposition too, until the whole thing collapses.

There is no inner eye that collapses wave function inside the brain. Even if there was, particle position once collapsed is not a matter of choice. You can't choose where the particle will be by an act of will.

Decision making does not take place on quantum scale. That requires the presence and activity of a whole brain.

I can only trust that they are not lying. Please read

"To be functionally relevant in the brain, the dynamics and quantum entanglement of the
phosphorus nuclear spins must be capable of modulating the excitability and signaling of neurons—
which we take as a working definition of ‘‘quantum cognition’’.".

This doesn't signify what you think it signifies, for the reasons given above.

 

[Juma]

It's random relative to other points of view. It's like if you tried to choose what number I am thinking without being able to analyze my brain. The information is cut off from you. It is random for you but not for me.

I was not making a distinction between will and choice. What difference are you using between will and choice?

To Choose is the action of selecting one of several options.

Will is the goal of an agent.

But can't I have will without achieving the goal? I slept on my arm, and when I woke up it was so asleep that it didn't even feel like I had an arm to move. I had a will to move my arm, but no will power.

What? I never said that the goal has to be fulfilled. Will is simply the goalseeking of an agent. (And your failure to move the arm has nothing to do with will power but with arm muscle failure)

 

[Juma]

It's random relative to other points of view. It's like if you tried to choose what number I am thinking without being able to analyze my brain. The information is cut off from you. It is random for you but not for me.

Which is bullshit since that requires a totally artificially requirement that we will never able to analyze your brain.

You are just weaving incohorent phantasies.

 

[untermensche]

I don't know what "I" am but when "I" "will" my arm to move "I" use my brain and peripheral nervous system to do it.

"I" just "will" it and the slave my brain does it.

You cannot just pretend the brain is the master. It is the slave here.

And if that slave determines there is only enough energy to keep the heart and lungs going, it will shut u down completely. In fact it does every night. One question you might consider....when a bug stops and goes, does it not exhibit all the illusions of free will? And finally you might want to read up on brain disorders and how they effect behavior.

If you do not have the ability to move your arm at "will" I can understand.

But if you can, then you are the master and your brain is your slave, in this matter.

And you know it.

 

[DBT]

Deciding to lift your arm is not the simple matter it seems;

Neural agency;
''When it comes to the human brain, even the simplest of acts can be counter-intuitive and deceptively complicated. For example, try stretching your arm.

Nerves in the limb send messages back to your brain, but the subjective experience you have of stretching isn't due to these signals. The feeling that you willed your arm into motion, and the realisation that you moved it at all, are both the result of an area at the back of your brain called the posterior parietal cortex. This region helped to produce the intention to move, and predicted what the movement would feel like, all before you twitched a single muscle.

Michel Desmurget and a team of French neuroscientists arrived at this conclusion by stimulating the brains of seven people with electrodes, while they underwent brain surgery under local anaesthetic. When Desmurget stimulated the parietal cortex, the patients felt a strong desire to move their arms, hands, feet or lips, although they never actually did. Stronger currents cast a powerful illusion, convincing the patients that they had actually moved, even though recordings of electrical activity in their muscles said otherwise.

But when Desmurget stimulated a different region - the premotor cortex - he found the opposite effect. The patients moved their hands, arms or mouths without realising it. One of them flexed his left wrist, fingers and elbow and rotated his forearm, but was completely unaware of it. When his surgeons asked if he felt anything, he said no. Higher currents evoked stronger movements, but still the patients remained blissfully unaware that their limbs and lips were budging.''

 

[untermensche]

Deciding to lift your arm is not the simple matter it seems;

My point.

But the decision begins in the mind.

Which directs the brain in some way.

Without a doubt crudely exciting areas of the brain will have effects.

But these effects say absolutely nothing about the willful act of lifting your arm. Which is not a crude stimulation of nerve cells.

Neuroscience is reduced to information from stimulation because it does not understand what is happening in the natural processes. It can see areas of activity but does not have a clue what this activity is beyond "activity".

 

[DBT]

Deciding to lift your arm is not the simple matter it seems;

My point.

But the decision begins in the mind.

Which directs the brain in some way.

Without a doubt crudely exciting areas of the brain will have effects.

But these effects say absolutely nothing about the willful act of lifting your arm. Which is not a crude stimulation of nerve cells.

That's not what the evidence shows. It is the brain that is being stimulated to respond according to where the electrodes are placed and current applied. As the experiments show, the act of lifting your arm can be separated from a decision to raise the arm. Not only that, but the conscious perception of lifting your arm when your arm is not actually being lifted. Look at the phantom hand experiments.

The brain forms a 'map' of the body and location of its limbs, which can be fooled into including limbs that don't belong to the body.

Hence it is the brain that forms mind in response to the activity of multiple systems and their inputs.

 

[untermensche]

My point.

But the decision begins in the mind.

Which directs the brain in some way.

Without a doubt crudely exciting areas of the brain will have effects.

But these effects say absolutely nothing about the willful act of lifting your arm. Which is not a crude stimulation of nerve cells.

That's not what the evidence shows. It is the brain that is being stimulated to respond according to where the electrodes are placed and current applied. As the experiments show, the act of lifting your arm can be separated from a decision to raise the arm. Not only that, but the conscious perception of lifting your arm when your arm is not actually being lifted. Look at the phantom hand experiments.

The brain forms a 'map' of the body and location of its limbs, which can be fooled into including limbs that don't belong to the body.

Hence it is the brain that forms mind in response to the activity of multiple systems and their inputs.

Artificial electrical stimulation tells us little about the normal process of "me" lifting my arm. It cuts "me" out of the picture, so it is not surprising "I" am not seen.

Stimulation is just throwing a current into the middle of some process which travels out in all directions in an unnatural manner.

It can give crude information. Like if stimulation of an area has an effect on vision you can say that area has something to do with vision. But since vision is a process that draws from many areas and creates a unified whole that is apparent to the mind it only gives you a small piece of the overall picture.

In terms of something like the "will" to lift my arm, artificial stimulation tells us nothing about the natural process. Not one thing about what is going on in the natural process.

It shows the natural process can be thrown off by artificial stimulation, which is not the least bit surprising.

 

[Juma]

That's not what the evidence shows. It is the brain that is being stimulated to respond according to where the electrodes are placed and current applied. As the experiments show, the act of lifting your arm can be separated from a decision to raise the arm. Not only that, but the conscious perception of lifting your arm when your arm is not actually being lifted. Look at the phantom hand experiments.

The brain forms a 'map' of the body and location of its limbs, which can be fooled into including limbs that don't belong to the body.

Hence it is the brain that forms mind in response to the activity of multiple systems and their inputs.

Artificial electrical stimulation tells us little about the normal process of "me" lifting my arm. It cuts "me" out of the picture, so it is not surprising "I" am not seen.

Stimulation is just throwing a current into the middle of some process which travels out in all directions in an unnatural manner.

It can give crude information. Like if stimulation of an area has an effect on vision you can say that area has something to do with vision. But since vision is a process that draws from many areas and creates a unified whole that is apparent to the mind it only gives you a small piece of the overall picture.

In terms of something like the "will" to lift my arm, artificial stimulation tells us nothing about the natural process. Not one thing about what is going on in the natural process.

It shows the natural process can be thrown off by artificial stimulation, which is not the least bit surprising.

If you dont want to know then just say that and shut up.