The Science and Mechanics of Free Will

[fast]

The mind is an abstraction, abstractions are immaterial, so the mind is immaterial.

Is your mind an abstraction?

Yeah.

 

[untermensche]

Is your mind an abstraction?

Yeah.

Mine is real.

 

[Juma]

Yeah.

Mine is real.

How would you know? You dont know anything about the mind?

 

[fromderinside]

This is like saying: the apple did not take 5 seconds to hit the ground because there is a new theory that time doesn't exist. It's just as ridiculous to bring it up in this thread.

Which is like saying the object moves so far in a sequence of x minimum distances or sizes. What is ridiculous is to measure the number of steps in space in terms of time. Look we have a problem with time in QM. Remove time, insert location order and we can make sense of it even to the point of reconciling macros space with micro space physics.

do I actually have to go over all the things we deem self evident that are not to get you to to consider either the problem or probable solution.

As for mind some of you are stuck in duelist mode. Behavior is squirts and twitches. Squirt, twitch, we see behavior. Calling them behavior changes nothing, isn't even useful. Even a process in the brain is really just another duelist dodge to keep time in the game.

 

[untermensche]

Mine is real.

How would you know? You dont know anything about the mind?

I have direct experience of my mind.

We knew the sun was there before we knew what it was.

 

[ryan]

This is like saying: the apple did not take 5 seconds to hit the ground because there is a new theory that time doesn't exist. It's just as ridiculous to bring it up in this thread.

Which is like saying the object moves so far in a sequence of x minimum distances or sizes. What is ridiculous is to measure the number of steps in space in terms of time. Look we have a problem with time in QM. Remove time, insert location order and we can make sense of it even to the point of reconciling macros space with micro space physics.

Okay, I would like to understand this. If I have a quarter in my hand, and then I take it out and put a dime in my hand, what does this location order say about this that is different from a timeline?

 

[fromderinside]

Which is like saying the object moves so far in a sequence of x minimum distances or sizes. What is ridiculous is to measure the number of steps in space in terms of time. Look we have a problem with time in QM. Remove time, insert location order and we can make sense of it even to the point of reconciling macros space with micro space physics.

Okay, I would like to understand this. If I have a quarter in my hand, and then I take it out and put a dime in my hand, what does this location order say about this that is different from a timeline?

Just noodling mind you: Try doing a detailed spatial description of what you just said. The more physical you can make it referring to physical laws of space and matter the better. For instance, there will be representations in the space occupied by your hand of a quarter which changes position to somewhere in a series of spatial steps involving minimum physical size and distance using mechanics and a dime that is moved from somewhere else in another series of spatial steps. The difference is there are only spatial steps involving matter without any need to refer to a dimension, time, that doesn't exist.

Speed of light might be replaced by number of minimum space locations from location A to location B.

 

[ryan]

Okay, I would like to understand this. If I have a quarter in my hand, and then I take it out and put a dime in my hand, what does this location order say about this that is different from a timeline?

Just noodling mind you: Try doing a detailed spatial description of what you just said. The more physical you can make it referring to physical laws of space and matter the better. For instance, there will be representations in the space occupied by your hand of a quarter which changes position to somewhere in a series of spatial steps involving minimum physical size and distance using mechanics and a dime that is moved from somewhere else in another series of spatial steps. The difference is there are only spatial steps involving matter without any need to refer to a dimension, time, that doesn't exist.

Speed of light might be replaced by number of minimum space locations from location A to location B.

Say I have a 3 dimensional spatial coordinate system describing where everything is and has been. In this interpretation of physics, would the quarter look like a metal rod following the path that went from my hand to wherever I put the quarter? Is that kind of what this physicist is saying?

 

[fromderinside]

Just noodling mind you: Try doing a detailed spatial description of what you just said. The more physical you can make it referring to physical laws of space and matter the better. For instance, there will be representations in the space occupied by your hand of a quarter which changes position to somewhere in a series of spatial steps involving minimum physical size and distance using mechanics and a dime that is moved from somewhere else in another series of spatial steps. The difference is there are only spatial steps involving matter without any need to refer to a dimension, time, that doesn't exist.

Speed of light might be replaced by number of minimum space locations from location A to location B.

Say I have a 3 dimensional spatial coordinate system describing where everything is and has been. In this interpretation of physics, would the quarter look like a metal rod following the path that went from my hand to wherever I put the quarter? Is that kind of what this physicist is saying?

No. It would be more like enumerating locations of the quarter. A path would would be a sequence of dots in space recapitulating the locations as an abstraction. The attributes of matter in each location would be specified. 'Has been' has no meaning in this system since it is entirely spatial. There is no past or future.

 

[ryan]

Say I have a 3 dimensional spatial coordinate system describing where everything is and has been. In this interpretation of physics, would the quarter look like a metal rod following the path that went from my hand to wherever I put the quarter? Is that kind of what this physicist is saying?

No. It would be more like enumerating locations of the quarter. A path would would be a sequence of dots in space recapitulating the locations as an abstraction. The attributes of matter in each location would be specified. 'Has been' has no meaning in this system since it is entirely spatial. There is no past or future.

Would we still give the quarter, in my hand, an x,y,z position coordinate?

 

[Xyzzy]

Is your mind an abstraction?

Yeah.

Couldn't it be that your own thoughts about your mind are what is actually abstract? Maybe that's necessitated by the fact that your concrete mind is way to complex to actually be faithfully represented in any reasonable way by itself, and therefore you have to cut some corners to fit it in.

Your brain creates an abstraction to represent itself, forgets that the abstraction is not the real embodied concrete thing it abstracts, then gets lost in reasoning disconnected from the reality of the bits it originally described.

 

[DBT]

How would you know? You dont know anything about the mind?

I have direct experience of my mind.

What you have is an experience that the brain is shaping, forming and generating. A brain is generating 'you' having the experience of self awareness, an experience of 'you' as a construct of the information processing activity of a brain....which disintegrates with memory function failure.

 

[DBT]

The motor action to move the arm is initiated milliseconds before awareness of that intention and action is formed. That is what the evidence tells us. Please keep up with the research and don't just base your beliefs on subjective experience...what you feel is happening is not what is actually happening.

You simply label some activity in the brain, you don't understand, as "motor action" and then pretend you know something about what is going on.

No, it's you who have consistently shown a lack of knowledge or disregard of the experiments that have been done over a period of many decades by researchers such as Libet, Delgado, Hallet, Haggard, the Plank institute, etc, motor action and perception, timing and so on. Each time I point out your error, you just repeat the mantra - 'you don't know, nobody knows' - like a blanket term, like nothing whatsoever is understood about brain structures and their functions.

I have extensive training in human anatomy and physiology. I have dissected a human.

Don't try to pass this off as knowledge.

Again, your reply implies that nothing is understood, or can be understood. Which is simply not true.

That a lot about the brain is not understood doesn't mean that nothing is understood.

The articles and experiments referred are based on the results of experiments, tested and repeatable. It is the researches themselves who describe their results and inferences, not me, these are not my personal conclusions.

Something, we don't know what, happens in a brain, prior to voluntary movement, under some circumstances. It may just be a transition of attention.

There really is NOTHING we can make of this at this point. It isn't in any way knowledge of the "mind" or how the "mind" effects the brain.

Again, you imply duality...as if the brain and its activity is a vestigial organ that has little or no relationship to 'mind' and its activity. The evidence does not support this.

 

[fast]

Yeah.

Couldn't it be that your own thoughts about your mind are what is actually abstract? Maybe that's necessitated by the fact that your concrete mind is way to complex to actually be faithfully represented in any reasonable way by itself, and therefore you have to cut some corners to fit it in.

Your brain creates an abstraction to represent itself, forgets that the abstraction is not the real embodied concrete thing it abstracts, then gets lost in reasoning disconnected from the reality of the bits it originally described.

I think the issue as to whether something is or isn't an abstract object (a misnomer in and of itself) is a different issue than if something is or isn't an abstraction.

 

[Juma]

The difference is there are only spatial steps involving matter without any need to refer to a dimension, time, that doesn't exist.

This is just a play with words. In your model there are four space dimensions. One of which behaves differently than the others (as seen in the transformations of relativity).
Why not call that dimension time? That how most scientists see it anyway?

 

[DBT]

Mind is not an immaterial 'abstraction' because our experience of the world is a electrochemical activity/representation of the information gathered from the senses.

The senses may be flawed (or the neural wiring as the processor) and therefore the brains model of the external world and 'self' in relation to it is flawed. But that is clearly revealed when the person (body/brain/mind) can no longer interact and function, can no longer negotiate or interact with the objects and events of the external world.

 

[untermensche]

I have direct experience of my mind.

What you have is an experience that the brain is shaping, forming and generating. A brain is generating 'you' having the experience of self awareness, an experience of 'you' as a construct of the information processing activity of a brain....which disintegrates with memory function failure.

That is your hypothesis. Probably a good one.

Not worth much without a shred of evidence to support it.

 

[untermensche]

You simply label some activity in the brain, you don't understand, as "motor action" and then pretend you know something about what is going on.

No, it's you who have consistently shown a lack of knowledge or disregard of the experiments that have been done over a period of many decades by researchers such as Libet, Delgado, Hallet, Haggard, the Plank institute, etc, motor action and perception, timing and so on. Each time I point out your error, you just repeat the mantra - 'you don't know, nobody knows' - like a blanket term, like nothing whatsoever is understood about brain structures and their functions.

Actually it is you that shows a lack of understanding. And when I say "nobody knows" I am specifically talking about how a mind is generated, probably by the brain, and therefore what a mind is. We certainly know a lot about the anatomy and physiology of the brain. But as I said we don't have one shred of understanding to connect all this knowledge to the mind beyond saying if the brain is damaged the mind may be damaged as well, but not always.

But my ultimate point is that we make decisions with our minds, not our brains.

So if we are going to know if these decisions are "free" or "forced" we have to know what the mind is first.

You can't talk about "free will" without understanding the mechanism choices are made with. The mind.

 

[DBT]

No, it's you who have consistently shown a lack of knowledge or disregard of the experiments that have been done over a period of many decades by researchers such as Libet, Delgado, Hallet, Haggard, the Plank institute, etc, motor action and perception, timing and so on. Each time I point out your error, you just repeat the mantra - 'you don't know, nobody knows' - like a blanket term, like nothing whatsoever is understood about brain structures and their functions.

Actually it is you that shows a lack of understanding. And when I say "nobody knows" I am specifically talking about how a mind is generated, probably by the brain, and therefore what a mind is. We certainly know a lot about the anatomy and physiology of the brain. But as I said we don't have one shred of understanding to connect all this knowledge to the mind beyond saying if the brain is damaged the mind may be damaged as well, but not always.

That is not a problem with my understanding of brain function, which is entirely based on evidence and commentary of researchers in the field, but how you phrase your remarks.

When you say 'nobody know' this or that, you are implying that nothing is known or understood.

That is what 'nobody knows' means.

But my ultimate point is that we make decisions with our minds, not our brains.

Yert here you imply, state even, that you do know.....yet your remark is clearly wrong when compared to the evidence we have. That is, there is no mind without the activity of a brain forming and generating 'mind' - hence it is the information condition of brain that is the ultimate point of decision making.

 

[DBT]

What you have is an experience that the brain is shaping, forming and generating. A brain is generating 'you' having the experience of self awareness, an experience of 'you' as a construct of the information processing activity of a brain....which disintegrates with memory function failure.

That is your hypothesis. Probably a good one.

Not worth much without a shred of evidence to support it.

I have been providing the evidence for brain generated mind/conscious experience, Libet, Hallet, Haggard, Planck institute, Delgado, etc, etc. Which has been ignored or brushed aside without being addressed.