The Science and Mechanics of Free Will

[untermensche]

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.

If you don't want to know just say so and shut up.

Boy things like that are easy to come up with. Actual arguments are different.

Are you claiming you are not able to lift your arm at "will"?

Are you claiming stimulating your brain somewhere is the same thing as you "willing" it?

Your "will" is just some electricity?

How does that work? How do you "will" electricity to exist?

 

[Juma]

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

If you don't want to know just say so and shut up.

Boy things like that are easy to come up with. Actual arguments are different.

Are you claiming you are not able to lift your arm at "will"?

Are you claiming stimulating your brain somewhere is the same thing as you "willing" it?

Your "will" is just some electricity?

How does that work? How do you "will" electricity to exist?

The brain host an ongoing electrochemical process. that process steers neurological signals and thus can steer muscles etc.

You, and I, are such processes.

 

[untermensche]

If you don't want to know just say so and shut up.

Boy things like that are easy to come up with. Actual arguments are different.

Are you claiming you are not able to lift your arm at "will"?

Are you claiming stimulating your brain somewhere is the same thing as you "willing" it?

Your "will" is just some electricity?

How does that work? How do you "will" electricity to exist?

The brain host an ongoing electrochemical process. that process steers neurological signals and thus can steer muscles etc.

You, and I, are such processes.

Sure.

Your mind "steers" the every present energy.

That is as good an analogy as exists.

 

[fromderinside]

The brain host an ongoing electrochemical process. that process steers neurological signals and thus can steer muscles etc.

You, and I, are such processes.

Sure.

Your mind "steers" the every present energy.

That is as good an analogy as exists.

So the mind is that thing that connects related and unrelated, true and untrue awarenesses into a story after the fact then? Gee. I thought it was just a machine sorting among inputs to generate something that makes it look good to those that might eat, shot, or otherwise, destroy it from what it gathers from among those others. IOW the mind is a Rodney King generating a "Can't we all just get along". Nothing free in that. No need to invent a humunculus (mind) for that. Just lash together decision devises with biases and wallah!

 

[Malintent]

If you do not lift your arm, the stove that is burning it will continue to cause increasing damage to the limb.. potentially permanent damage that causes you to loose the limb.
Are you free to leave your arm down?

The reflexes are there too.

But they don't negate willful action somehow. They are some other system to move the limbs.

So then in systems that have an "automatic override" capability, we have no freedom (or limited freedom - whatever that's supposed to mean).. "you are free to go, just as soon as you bite through those steel chains binding you".

The "somehow" in your post negates the response... the "somehow" is what the discussion is about. HOW is there free will? (somehow).

 

[ryan]

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.

You are still not understanding this. Once the choice has been made, I agree, there is no going back. After the choice is made, we question whether or not it had to be that choice due physical restrictions. In the working cognitive model, there are different choices that could have been made.

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.

Just because we don't remember making the choice just not mean we didn't make the choice. My unconsciousness is still me without the memory of selecting the choice.

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.

The veto might. And what I said immediately above applies to what you say here too.

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.

Assuming monism, what we are and how we are is due to whatever mechanisms that have the power to let us choose, behave, think, etc.

 

[ryan]

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.

You missed the point. The point is that what is random to one position is not random to another. Say, whether or not a die shows 6 after being thrown at a casino in another galaxy. Everyone at the table can see the outcome, but the information is not available to your brain. So the best thing you can do is guess that it didn't show 6.

 

[Juma]

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.

You missed the point. The point is that what is random to one position is not random to another. Say, whether or not a die shows 6 after being thrown at a casino in another galaxy. Everyone at the table can see the outcome, but the information is not available to your brain. So the best thing you can do is guess that it didn't show 6.

It is you that misses the point: either the events are random, and thus not willed, or they are caused, and thus not "free". You cant have both.

 

[ryan]

You missed the point. The point is that what is random to one position is not random to another. Say, whether or not a die shows 6 after being thrown at a casino in another galaxy. Everyone at the table can see the outcome, but the information is not available to your brain. So the best thing you can do is guess that it didn't show 6.

It is you that misses the point: either the events are random, and thus not willed, or they are caused, and thus not "free". You cant have both.

No, I just explained how an event can be random and also not random at the same time.

 

[untermensche]

The reflexes are there too.

But they don't negate willful action somehow. They are some other system to move the limbs.

So then in systems that have an "automatic override" capability, we have no freedom (or limited freedom - whatever that's supposed to mean).. "you are free to go, just as soon as you bite through those steel chains binding you".

The "somehow" in your post negates the response... the "somehow" is what the discussion is about. HOW is there free will? (somehow).

It is a survival mechanism.

And it has absolutely nothing to do with a conscious choice unless you can demonstrate a decision is nothing but a reflex.

My arm moves itself if it touches the stove.

I move it at "will" when it is not touching the stove.

 

[untermensche]

Sure.

Your mind "steers" the every present energy.

That is as good an analogy as exists.

So the mind is that thing that connects related and unrelated, true and untrue awarenesses into a story after the fact then? Gee. I thought it was just a machine sorting among inputs to generate something that makes it look good to those that might eat, shot, or otherwise, destroy it from what it gathers from among those others. IOW the mind is a Rodney King generating a "Can't we all just get along". Nothing free in that. No need to invent a humunculus (mind) for that. Just lash together decision devises with biases and wallah!

Yes the mind makes sense of that which it experiences.

It isn't a homunculus.

It is a mind.

Something you nor anyone else can find when looking at the brain and some therefore claim with their minds it isn't there.

 

[Juma]

It is you that misses the point: either the events are random, and thus not willed, or they are caused, and thus not "free". You cant have both.

No, I just explained how an event can be random and also not random at the same time.

Which is obviously false. Even your example show that it is wrong: it requires ignorance of the fact!

 

[ryan]

No, I just explained how an event can be random and also not random at the same time.

Which is obviously false. Even your example show that it is wrong: it requires ignorance of the fact!

Yes, it definitely requires ignorance of the fact; that is how something can appear random to certain observers but not actually be random.

 

[ryan]

Something you nor anyone else can find when looking at the brain and some therefore claim with their minds it isn't there.

You won't find a mind because you are the mind. It's like trying to see your eyeballs without using a mirror.

 

[untermensche]

Something you nor anyone else can find when looking at the brain and some therefore claim with their minds it isn't there.

You won't find a mind because you are the mind. It's like trying to see your eyeballs without using a mirror.

Finding the mind means finding the actual processes that give rise to one.

I don't want to sound like there is not a lot of good work being done in neuroscience. But it is elementary work.

There is no theory for how some specific activity of neurons is giving rise to the mind. Which would be ultimate explanation.

 

[ryan]

You won't find a mind because you are the mind. It's like trying to see your eyeballs without using a mirror.

Finding the mind means finding the actual processes that give rise to one.

I don't want to sound like there is not a lot of good work being done in neuroscience. But it is elementary work.

There is no theory for how some specific activity of neurons is giving rise to the mind. Which would be ultimate explanation.

You don't seem to be acknowledging what I posted.

 

[untermensche]

Finding the mind means finding the actual processes that give rise to one.

I don't want to sound like there is not a lot of good work being done in neuroscience. But it is elementary work.

There is no theory for how some specific activity of neurons is giving rise to the mind. Which would be ultimate explanation.

You don't seem to be acknowledging what I posted.

It is fully acknowledged in what I said.

The mind is the given.

How it arises is the question.

Saying "I" am my mind is a truism and explains nothing about how my mind arises.

 

[ryan]

You don't seem to be acknowledging what I posted.

It is fully acknowledged in what I said.

The mind is the given.

How it arises is the question.

Saying "I" am my mind is a truism and explains nothing about how my mind arises.

Then it begs the question: what isn't the mind or other minds? There is no evidence or reason to believe in non-mental substances.

Then we can just say that there is one substance in the universe, and we can either call it physical or mental; it doesn't matter.

 

[OLDMAN]

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.

You were holding a bottle and drinking it when you were a baby, are you saying you were aware of yourself even then. It was your brain that was making the connections for operating movements, you (self awareness) didn't exist until later.

 

[untermensche]

It is fully acknowledged in what I said.

The mind is the given.

How it arises is the question.

Saying "I" am my mind is a truism and explains nothing about how my mind arises.

Then it begs the question: what isn't the mind or other minds? There is no evidence or reason to believe in non-mental substances.

That is not a problem.

It is not the proposition of a new substance. It's the proposition of an effect of so called "substances".

The effect is clear.

The question is how does a brain do it?