There isn't really a 'freewill problem'.

[Treedbear]

You completely miss the point.

There are genes that create structures, cells, that can create electricity thus allowing a brain to have electrical properties.

It would be the same for quantum properties.

You would have genes that create structures that somehow utilize quantum properties.

You would not have genes that create quantum properties.

One word 'emergence'.

I think the concept of emergence is over-exploited when used to explain things like consciousness, free will, or even life. It implies that there's something unique going on without needing to explain what. We may all now go tend sheep.

 

[Val]

No, only if you invoke the anthropic principle. No need for teleology.

 

[DBT]

I'm sorry, but it doesn't address what I said about brain agency.

You said, "all brains have the same underlying quantum substructure, cat brains, dog brains, mouse brains, horse brains, human brains and so on....all with their underlying quantum substructure, yet all producing sets of behaviour not according to their quantum substructures"

You also said, "Microtubules are not the decision makers".

Then I quoted from the document called, "Quantum Information Processes in Protein Microtubules of Brain Neurons":

"This orchestrated
OR activity (‘Orch OR’) is taken to result in moments
of conscious awareness and/or choice."

And you say that I did not address your statement? I addressed it, challenged it and later explained why your certainty is wrong in more detail.

Are you claiming that microtubules have the ability to think and reason? If so, is the rest of the brain there for just for scaffolding?

Everything is 'information' - the state of microtubules at any given moment is an information state....they don't choose their own information states. Nor does consciousness have access to or control of matter/energy states of the brain, not microtubules. not neurons, not connectivity, not chemical balance or electrical activity...

That is the point. That all brains have microtubules, that all brains have a quantum substructure but the brains of different species produce different sets of behaviours.

Ryan, you can't get around this.

 

[Subsymbolic]

You completely miss the point.

There are genes that create structures, cells, that can create electricity thus allowing a brain to have electrical properties.

It would be the same for quantum properties.

You would have genes that create structures that somehow utilize quantum properties.

You would not have genes that create quantum properties.

One word 'emergence'.

I think the concept of emergence is over-exploited when used to explain things like consciousness, free will, or even life. It implies that there's something unique going on without needing to explain what. We may all now go tend sheep.

Under normal circumstance I go into tedious detail, as you must have noticed, however, given who I was replying to there was no point.

 

[untermensche]

What the fuck? I asked you a question, not give you an answer. What do you think this is, dubba fockin jippirdy?

You asked an absurd question and got the answer you deserved.

Where did your arm come from?

From what did it emerge?

 

[untermensche]

You completely miss the point.

There are genes that create structures, cells, that can create electricity thus allowing a brain to have electrical properties.

It would be the same for quantum properties.

You would have genes that create structures that somehow utilize quantum properties.

You would not have genes that create quantum properties.

Nope. I pointed out what electrical consequences arise in cells.

Yes. There is electrical activity in the brain.

Electricity is consequent to cell function it is not what cells produce.

When you produce something it means it arises as a consequence of your activity.

The electrical activity of the brain does not arise because of some "electricity gene".

Just as there would be no "quantum effect gene".

There would be genes that produced structures that utilized a quantum effect.

- - - Updated - - -

I think the concept of emergence is over-exploited when used to explain things like consciousness, free will, or even life. It implies that there's something unique going on without needing to explain what. We may all now go tend sheep.

Under normal circumstance I go into tedious detail, as you must have noticed, however, given who I was replying to there was no point.

You used the term badly.

Better you say little.

 

[Treedbear]

I think the concept of emergence is over-exploited when used to explain things like consciousness, free will, or even life. It implies that there's something unique going on without needing to explain what. We may all now go tend sheep.

Under normal circumstance I go into tedious detail, as you must have noticed, however, given who I was replying to there was no point.

Obviously you mean that emergence recapitulates efficient cause, with a relatively homogeneous state evolving to a more complex, heterogeneous, and specialized endpoint. A mere by-product of the principle of increasing differentiation in development.

 

[ryan]

First, observed electrons can provide evidence about electrons that cannot in principle be observed, for example electrons that are too distant in space and time (e.g. outside our light cone) to be observed.

This can only be deliberately encouraging people to miss the point. It is merely conditionally impossible to study these electrons because they are too far away. If you were there you could study them as well as any others. Distance is the only problem brought up here. That's not the case with mental states which are in principle impossible to view both on logical and methodological grounds.

After reading this post a few times, I am jumping to here to explain something that might ease your contention with his overall support of the methodology.

Have you considered that he is taking monism (probably physicalism) as a given? This would at least make sense to me since I think I would agree with you that it would be hard, if not impossible, to find or detect a "ghost in the machine".

Why should we suppose matters are any different for consciousness?

Perhaps because the problem with studying consciousness isn't that it is too far away? FFS, this is schoolboy debating stuff and I'm disappointed that a philosopher I respect is coming out with it.

So if you look at the phenomenal consciousness as a physical function (functionalism using physicalism) or process or something physical (or something that supervenes on the physical in a one-to-one fashion (epiphenomenalism)) then the reports really are causally coming from a physical consciousness (or an exactly correlated epiphenomenal consciousness). But you must assume a certain philosophy.

And, I am taking a step outside of my comfort zone here by saying that I think this "axiom" might be so common and necessary when trying to structure the consciousness scientifically that it might be presumed that people know this going in. I am not at all sure, but it would make sense.

Second, there is no gold standard of evidence, here or in any area of science. ... "

Maybe, but we are not talking about Gold Standards here, we are talking about the absolute minimum standards that separate science from pseudoscience and mysticism - reproducibility, objectiveness, falsifiability and so on. Our reports of conscious experience are anecdotal; ubiquitous, sure, but anecdotal. More to the point, I hope my earlier point demonstrates that it's anecdote for a good reason.

I've taken a bit of time to make this really clear. I hope it's helpful.

Yeah, so, the more I think about it the harder it is for me to think that Ned is talking about the possibility of some sort of interactionalism and is probably talking about a monism or a very conservative epiphenomenalism.

And I will reply to your other reply soon, kinda busy today.

 

[ryan]

Under normal circumstance I go into tedious detail, as you must have noticed, however, given who I was replying to there was no point.

You used the term badly.

Better you say little.

No, better he/she say a lot. We have a cognitive scientist here, not to mention a rare nice person, so better you listen.

 

[Subsymbolic]

I think the concept of emergence is over-exploited when used to explain things like consciousness, free will, or even life. It implies that there's something unique going on without needing to explain what. We may all now go tend sheep.

Under normal circumstance I go into tedious detail, as you must have noticed, however, given who I was replying to there was no point.

Obviously you mean that emergence recapitulates efficient cause, with a relatively homogeneous state evolving to a more complex, heterogeneous, and specialized endpoint. A mere by-product of the principle of increasing differentiation in development.

Nope. Any emergence worth talking about is irreducible. See my earlier explanation.

 

[untermensche]

Under normal circumstance I go into tedious detail, as you must have noticed, however, given who I was replying to there was no point.

You used the term badly.

Better you say little.

No, better he/she say a lot. We have a cognitive scientist here, not to mention a rare nice person, so better you listen.

That is fine. But I tend to answer veiled insults with harshness. I am weak.

But it is consciousness that emerges in some way.

It is not any quantum effect of matter that emerges.

They are inherent to matter.

The other idea I like from Dyson besides his reasoning why quantum effects likely play some role in the production of consciousness was his reply to a tired argument from Daniel Dennett.

Dennett talked about breaking down the brain to smaller and smaller functional components until you had possibly something on the level of a bunch of ants. He went on to say how at no point would you find any "wonder tissue"

Freeman Dyson piped in and said that physicists deal with "wonder tissue" all the time. "Ordinary" matter.

 

[Emily Lake]

It's a pretty prevalent and pervasive shared delusion, I suppose. And one that doesn't suffer from the myriad of interpretations that we get with things like religion, where the codified version of "truth" is reinvented by consensus on a regular basis, reinterpreted by each adherent, and applied in wildly differing ways by every actor.

With the "illusion" of choice, however, there's a persistent perception that extends through every aspect of our existence. It pervades our language, our social structures, our view of justice, fairness, and responsibility. It is implicit in our every interaction with each other. It underlies the very discussion we're having at the moment. Even those who truly believe that it's fully deterministic and that choice is a mass delusion shared by quadrillions of people throughout the entirety of human history cannot help but interact and discuss the topic in a way that implicitly acknowledges the existence of choice.

Simply saying "Well, humans are frequently wrong about things" isn't really as compelling an argument as you might think... not when weighed against the entire body of human history, knowledge, and behavior.

Meh. People are consistently of the opinion that velocities can be added by simple arithmetic; that heavy objects fall faster than light ones; and that substance dualism is obviously true. But they are consistently and uniformly wrong about those things.

That they imagine themselves to have 'choice' requires no further explanation - unless and until you can demonstrate 'choice' as a real thing, needing an explanation. Identifying other errors wherein people are less consistent, falls a VERY long way short of demonstrating choice as a real thing.

It's neither consistent nor uniform. More to the point, there isn't an entire species that has evolved all of its ways of interaction and social organization on the premise that any of those things exist. Those are all irrelevant and immaterial with respect to how our species behaves, how our language works, how our societies work, and everything we know about how all humans function both currently and for all of known history.

I'd say it's a bit of a difference in magnitude, wouldn't you?

 

[Emily Lake]

Saying that two animals can perceive an "experience" is tantamount to saying that their perceptions are the same, which I think is wrong. Experience is an interpretation of perceptions.

.....

Perceptions are interpretations.

Have we reached a point of semantic argument here, rather than discussion of concepts?

You seem to have gone down the rabbit hole, picking apart my choice of specific words (even when the concept being represented by those words seems pretty clear). Then you lambaste me for using jargon... by using more jargon to show me how much more knowledgeable about that jargon you are. I'm not going to challenge that - my knowledge is admittedly entry level. It's not wrong, but it's still pretty basic.

Does your objection have anything more to it than that? If so, please elaborate so I can respond without the parsing and unnecessary sidebars.

 

[Emily Lake]

It doesn't follow...you still cannot manipulate conditions according to your will.

Who has claimed that anyone can manipulate conditions according to their will?

This is tantamount to saying "free will doesn't exist because you can't just decide to defy gravity!"

What you choose is not exempt from the underlying activity that is being expressed ....

And yet it's still being chosen.

 

[Emily Lake]

You wonder why people care if they think there is no ability to make a free choice, a choice that is not forced in any way?

If they honestly have the faith that nothing they do is a free choice then why try to convince another person of anything?

That we try and try to convince others of our thoughts is because we have freely chosen them and therefore think they are important and true.

These pretenders in not believing in free will can easily been seen through. They don't really believe it for a second. That is why they care what other people think.

Pretty much.

The fact that we're having this 30+ page argument rather implies that free will exists. Unless someone wants to make a compelling argument for how we're all destined to participate in this thread at this time, and are incapable of doing anything else? Because that seems far, far, far more like woo to me than simply acknowledging that choice is real.

- - - Updated - - -

You can do the multiplication trick with all kinds of shapes, at least the ordinary, non-pathological ones

... What's a pathological shape?

 

[Emily Lake]

I have repeatedly described the reasons why it is the structural and electrochemical state of a brain that determines or governs its behavioural output. Chemical changes alter consciousness. Structural changes alter consciousness. Electrical changes alter consciousness. Memory failure disrupts consciousness, and if progressive, completely unravels consciousness to the point where the sufferer no longer is able to recognize self or others, objects or events, only meaningless, unrecognizable sensation remaining, colours, shapes and events that cannot be understood...

Okay, I agree with all of that, but it's also incomplete - consciousness alters chemicals balances too. As woo as it sounds, there is at least some degree of effectiveness from things like meditation, visualization, and mental rehearsing.

 

[Emily Lake]

Sorry, I'm a recovering Grammar Nazi. I don't have a bug up there, I have a hive. I sell honey sometimes.

Yes, but is it organic grammar-nazi-honey?

 

[Emily Lake]

That. ^ No agency required.

Now that is odd! you see I'd say that learning and error correction strategies are most of what agency means.

I agree. Learning, adaptation, error correction, extrapolation, and prediction are (edit: some of) what makes up agency.

Non-agency is autopilot, instinct, and pure unadulterated thoughtless reaction.

 

[fast]

There are necessary truths, and there are contingent truths, yet while it's the case that there are contingent events just as there are contingent truths, it's not the case that there are necessary events just as there are necessary truths.

In summary:

Contingent truths ... yes
Necessary truths ... yes

Contingent events ... yes
Necessary events ... no

Free will from a soft determinist or compatibilist perspective is not in opposition to determinism but rather compulsion. Free will is the ability to act upon wants without compulsion. If I'm constrained to do that which I don't want, then the act is carried out against my will. If I'm restrained from doing what I want, then the non-action is against my will. Without wants, there is no compelling force against them and thus no violation of the will.

I can give multiple examples upon request.

Moving on:

If I must do something, then I will do something, but the inverse is not true.

The hard determinist views free will as in opposition to determinism (as opposed to compulsion), as if there are no true choices--as if we live in a mechanistic universe where free will is but an illusion, but that's based on the notion that all events are necessary events, as if every cell and interaction must follow suit causally. Causally yes, but must, no. The interplay in contemplation negates the preposterous idea that every event must therefore be necessary events. The complexity of volition is such that absolute prediction is impossible, as we can influence the outcome of our choices at will--so long as not compelled.

 

[Kharakov]

The fact that we're having this 30+ page argument rather implies that free will exists. Unless someone wants to make a compelling argument for how we're all destined to participate in this thread at this time, and are incapable of doing anything else? Because that seems far, far, far more like woo to me than simply acknowledging that choice is real.

Choice is real like gravity is real. Doesn't mean that you won't pick whatever you are more attracted to, even if the choice tree is a bit more complicated than selecting a gravity well.