The Science and Mechanics of Free Will

[untermensche]

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.

Like all things in a human the mind grows and matures. And the mind needs to learn the labels of things to make use of the language capacity for communication.

It is in one thing at birth and another at the age of 20 and another at the age of 50.

But it is there. It is that which we use to make decisions in the world. It is that which has an understanding of the world. And that which directs the brain in some way once a decision is made.

 

[fromderinside]

Oh. So you're saying the mind is a developed capability of the brain to reason. You mean that kind of looking at the brain? Why say what humans have accomplished, primarily using their brain, is a thing? Do you need a dualist human centered thing to claim does things?

 

[ryan]

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.

The question is how does a brain do it?

How do you know that the brain isn't the mind?

 

[DBT]

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.

Artificial Stimulation? It is stimulation of the mechanisms and means by which the mind is shaped and formed. That is shown by the experience the subjects are reporting in response. Stimuli via the senses is essentially no different in principle....the conscious experience that in response to this natural input is shaped and formed by the information being inputted and memory as past experience enabling perception, recognition and response. Mind/consciousness cannot precede the very stimuli and processing that gives it shape and form.

 

[Juma]

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.

It is not an analogy. The ongoing processes in the brain, those ARE you.

 

[DBT]

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.

It's not that I don't understand, it's just that you just don't have a valid argument. If the decision that is made is determined by conditions that are not subject to your control, let's say particle spin and position, you as a person have no means of making a decision that overrides or changes that process and that decision as it forms in your mind as thought. Nor is time your ally because each and every decision that is made by the brain as decision making evolves with input follows the same rules.

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.

You as the conscious experience of self didn't make the choice. Consciousness make the choice. What made the choice is the underlying information processing activity. Most of the brain's activity being unconscious, only what requires attention being reported in conscious form.

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

There is no magical veto. Decision change follows the same rules as any decision. You keep ignoring this point.

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.

There is no us and them. We are what the brain is doing. Turned on in the morning to perform our daily activity, switched off at night for maintenance.

 

[ryan]

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.

It's not that I don't understand, it's just that you just don't have a valid argument. If the decision that is made is determined by conditions that are not subject to your control, let's say particle spin and position, you as a person have no means of making a decision that overrides or changes that process and that decision as it forms in your mind as thought. Nor is time your ally because each and every decision that is made by the brain as decision making evolves with input follows the same rules.

Do you believe "me/you" is consciousness that thinks, feels and experiences what the brain is doing but has no effect on what it does?

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.

You as the conscious experience of self didn't make the choice. Consciousness make the choice. What made the choice is the underlying information processing activity. Most of the brain's activity being unconscious, only what requires attention being reported in conscious form.

I agree, but I also claim that "I" am the underlying information processing activity.

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

There is no magical veto. Decision change follows the same rules as any decision. You keep ignoring this point.

Then why can't they find evidence for readiness potential when a subject vetoes a decision?

Remember that in QM things can appear uncaused.

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.

There is no us and them. We are what the brain is doing. Turned on in the morning to perform our daily activity, switched off at night for maintenance.

I totally agree, but sometimes I wonder if you unknowingly divide the mind and brain into two different entities when you need to and then singularize them at other times. Like a bait-and-switch, only I don't think you are doing it on purpose.

 

[DBT]

It's not that I don't understand, it's just that you just don't have a valid argument. If the decision that is made is determined by conditions that are not subject to your control, let's say particle spin and position, you as a person have no means of making a decision that overrides or changes that process and that decision as it forms in your mind as thought. Nor is time your ally because each and every decision that is made by the brain as decision making evolves with input follows the same rules.

Do you believe "me/you" is consciousness that thinks, feels and experiences what the brain is doing but has no effect on what it does?

This implies separation and autonomy of consciousness. Does computer the pixel activity on computer screen have an effect what the computer does?

I agree, but I also claim that "I" am the underlying information processing activity.

You control the very means that are producing you and your abilities?

I totally agree, but sometimes I wonder if you unknowingly divide the mind and brain into two different entities when you need to and then singularize them at other times. Like a bait-and-switch, only I don't think you are doing it on purpose.

I have no idea how you can come to this view based on anything I have said. Are you taking the piss?

 

[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.

Artificial Stimulation? It is stimulation of the mechanisms and means by which the mind is shaped and formed. That is shown by the experience the subjects are reporting in response. Stimuli via the senses is essentially no different in principle....the conscious experience that in response to this natural input is shaped and formed by the information being inputted and memory as past experience enabling perception, recognition and response. Mind/consciousness cannot precede the very stimuli and processing that gives it shape and form.

It is entirely artificial.

It is throwing in some current into the middle of things.

That is not the same thing as willful action. Not by a mile. It is throwing off the mind, not understanding it.

And it tells us absolutely nothing about willful action or what happens when somebody uses their "will" to control their brain to lift their arm.

 

[untermensche]

Sure.

Your mind "steers" the every present energy.

That is as good an analogy as exists.

It is not an analogy. The ongoing processes in the brain, those ARE you.

"I" am that which is aware.

You can't just have some free floating awareness. It means something.

And awareness means:

1) That which is aware
2) That which it is aware of

You can't have that which you are aware of without what which is aware.

Saying it is a process of the brain is to say nothing.

It is also not a process of the sun. I have explained just as much.

 

[DBT]

Artificial Stimulation? It is stimulation of the mechanisms and means by which the mind is shaped and formed. That is shown by the experience the subjects are reporting in response. Stimuli via the senses is essentially no different in principle....the conscious experience that in response to this natural input is shaped and formed by the information being inputted and memory as past experience enabling perception, recognition and response. Mind/consciousness cannot precede the very stimuli and processing that gives it shape and form.

It is entirely artificial.

It is throwing in some current into the middle of things.

It's that application of current that gives us an insight into how the brain functions....unless someone happens hold preconceptions about brain/mind that are not related to evidence, preconceptions that appear to be based on ideology.

That is not the same thing as willful action. Not by a mile. It is throwing off the mind, not understanding it.

You are obviously not familiar with the experiments that have been carried out over many decades, wilful actions, thoughts, narrator function, etc, and a whole range of emotions turned on or off like a tap.

And it tells us absolutely nothing about willful action or what happens when somebody uses their "will" to control their brain to lift their arm.

It tells us a lot about brain function. Which regions are associated with the various aspects and features of conscious experience/mind.

I'd say that you can't accept or even consider the evidence because you do not want to question a cherished belief. You say that nothing is known about the mind but assert that it is the mind that directs behaviour, a mind that is inexplicably autonomous. How can mind act upon the brain, the very thing that is forming mind?

Can you explain?

 

[untermensche]

It is entirely artificial.

It is throwing in some current into the middle of things.

It's that application of current that gives us an insight into how the brain functions....unless someone happens hold preconceptions about brain/mind that are not related to evidence, preconceptions that appear to be based on ideology.

It tells you how the brain reacts to artificial stimulation.

Not how it functions.

It can give some information about areas involved in certain functions. But explains nothing about which function is leading to a mind.

 

[ryan]

Do you believe "me/you" is consciousness that thinks, feels and experiences what the brain is doing but has no effect on what it does?

This implies separation and autonomy of consciousness. Does computer the pixel activity on computer screen have an effect what the computer does?

Not a concern in your example, but feedback loops still happen, even by a computer screen. It just isn't noticeable at the macro scale until the computer heats up too much. The second law of thermodynamics practically guarantees some kind of feedback.

Or try running an unbroken stream of water onto your hand. You might see water ripples actually go up from your hand to the spout, which sometimes after a while will actually change the way the water comes out of the spout.

I agree, but I also claim that "I" am the underlying information processing activity.

You control the very means that are producing you and your abilities?

No, but there might be certain filtered effects going out of the system and returning to the system.

 

[fromderinside]

This implies separation and autonomy of consciousness. Does computer the pixel activity on computer screen have an effect what the computer does?

Not a concern in your example, but feedback loops still happen, even by a computer screen. It just isn't noticeable at the macro scale until the computer heats up too much. The second law of thermodynamics practically guarantees some kind of feedback.

Or try running an unbroken stream of water onto your hand. You might see water ripples actually go up from your hand to the spout, which sometimes after a while will actually change the way the water comes out of the spout.

I agree, but I also claim that "I" am the underlying information processing activity.

You control the very means that are producing you and your abilities?

No, but there might be certain filtered effects going out of the system and returning to the system.

I've seen scanning microscopic slides of molecules, large molecules, and they look like fuzzy balls. Care to explain how something within that goes out and returns to that system? I believe the energy used to scan was electrons. Obviously, since they were refracted from the molecule they didn't return to.

 

[ryan]

Not a concern in your example, but feedback loops still happen, even by a computer screen. It just isn't noticeable at the macro scale until the computer heats up too much. The second law of thermodynamics practically guarantees some kind of feedback.

Or try running an unbroken stream of water onto your hand. You might see water ripples actually go up from your hand to the spout, which sometimes after a while will actually change the way the water comes out of the spout.

I agree, but I also claim that "I" am the underlying information processing activity.

You control the very means that are producing you and your abilities?

No, but there might be certain filtered effects going out of the system and returning to the system.

I've seen scanning microscopic slides of molecules, large molecules, and they look like fuzzy balls. Care to explain how something within that goes out and returns to that system? I believe the energy used to scan was electrons. Obviously, since they were refracted from the molecule they didn't return to.

Why give such an extreme example? We are talking about a much more densely interactive material than just an electron microscope shooting electrons through a vacuum. And there still must be at least some information feedback in the form of EM.

 

[fromderinside]

there still must be at least some information feedback in the form of EM.

Maybe. However it's beyond measure.

Now don't go saying "Its possible then". If its beyond measure it's beyond detection by a sensor including the mind.

 

[ryan]

there still must be at least some information feedback in the form of EM.

Maybe. However it's beyond measure.

Now don't go saying "Its possible then". If its beyond measure it's beyond detection by a sensor including the mind.

But the "cognitive feedback" from choices is much much much more significant and effective. The feedback is a reflection of our choices.

This is a perfect solution to why the veto, as far as I know, cannot be found to have the same kind of readiness potential as the original choice. It might be the consciousness' reaction to the choice made in an open feedback-like loop.

 

[DBT]

It's that application of current that gives us an insight into how the brain functions....unless someone happens hold preconceptions about brain/mind that are not related to evidence, preconceptions that appear to be based on ideology.

It tells you how the brain reacts to artificial stimulation.

Not how it functions.

It can give some information about areas involved in certain functions. But explains nothing about which function is leading to a mind.

Your interpretation is based on your own preconceived belief about mind and not the significance of the experiments or the evidence.

Just as a matter of interest...what do you believe is the source of the mind?

 

[DBT]

This implies separation and autonomy of consciousness. Does computer the pixel activity on computer screen have an effect what the computer does?

Not a concern in your example, but feedback loops still happen, even by a computer screen. It just isn't noticeable at the macro scale until the computer heats up too much. The second law of thermodynamics practically guarantees some kind of feedback.

Or try running an unbroken stream of water onto your hand. You might see water ripples actually go up from your hand to the spout, which sometimes after a while will actually change the way the water comes out of the spout.

So you are saying a computer screen pixel pattern display has the ability to direct how the computer processes information and feeds into that display and effects what images are on the screen?

You are saying that conscious representation being generated and sustained by information input from various regions of the brain into its 'global workspace' has the autonomy and the ability to direct the information flow that is generating it?

No, but there might be certain filtered effects going out of the system and returning to the system.

Like what? What certain filtered effects? Is there a director of these proposed effects?

 

[untermensche]

It tells you how the brain reacts to artificial stimulation.

Not how it functions.

It can give some information about areas involved in certain functions. But explains nothing about which function is leading to a mind.

Your interpretation is based on your own preconceived belief about mind and not the significance of the experiments or the evidence.

Just as a matter of interest...what do you believe is the source of the mind?

I think the mind is some effect created by some activity of the nervous system.

But the effect and the activity are unknown. We do know a lot about the activity of the nervous system but we don't have any idea how any of this activity results in an experienced mind.

We can disrupt the activity with artificial stimulation or damage, and we can see the effects of this disruption.

But that tells us nothing about what specific activity is involved or what specific effect the activity is creating.

And I also think the mind can control the brain. This is clearly seen every time I willfully move or willfully express an idea. How it can do this is also unknown.

We would have to know what the mind is before we could even begin looking.

But it is possible the whole is more than the pieces so that even if the pieces are just "ants" as Dennett likes to say, the whole can be more than an ant.