There isn't really a 'freewill problem'.

[untermensche]

1) Abnormal architecture and brain chemistry can radically alter consciousness and thought in ways that are not willed. Consciousness and thought are expressions of the state of the system. Neural architecture and its electrochemical activity is a deterministic system (with perhaps some degree of random quantum interference).

The driver of the car cannot steer the car very well when one tire is flat. And consciousness is not a homunculus or thought of as a homunculus and does not necessarily have to be a homunculus. It is what it is. It is not a little man in the head. But it is that which is trying to steer the car.

Not a valid objection.

2)lesions and chemical changes alter perception, personality and conscious thought and will.

Ditto.

3)A failure of memory ( connectivity), means that this information is not consciously available, eg, you can't remember where you left your keys.

Yes. A memory is something consciousness can search for and sometimes find and sometimes does not find.

But the consciousness searches none-the-less.

4)A progressive and permanent loss of memory results in a progressive breakdown of consciousness and consequently, conscious will.

Both the memory and that which searches for the memory can degrade.

It does not make them the same thing.

And it does not mean the consciousness when vigorous and complete does not search and find memories all the time.

5)Conscious will ( the perception of conscious decision making) is related to physical and information condition of a brain.

Yes it is something created by some of the activity of the brain. What specific activity is completely unknown.

But that does not tell us in any way how it can influence other parts of the brain not involved in it's production.

6)'Conscious will does not itself think or decide, it has no autonomy. Will, being determined by brain state and condition, is a reflection of the physical/informational condition of a brain from moment to moment.

A conclusion pulled from your backside that does not follow anything you have said.

This represents your prejudice.

It is not a logical conclusion.

7)Conscious will does not choose to lose memory, make irrational decisions, illusions, errors, glitches, etc, any more than it chooses rational thought or adaptive behaviour. These being reflections of the physical condition of a brain, not will, whether conscious or unconscious.

Your consciousness chose the thoughts you just expressed. It picked them from all the possible thoughts that could exist. It edited them and refined them and then forced your hands to type it.

 

[Emily Lake]

Whether you agree or not, under the given definition of Determinism, there is no possible freedom for the inhabitants or the objects within a determined system;

Determinism: The world is governed by (or is under the sway of) determinism if and only if, given a specified way things are at a time t, the way things go thereafter is fixed as a matter of natural law.

Fixed means no deviation. Compatibalism is a failed argument.

Okaaaayyyyy... But none of my post was about determinism being compatible with free will. It was pretty clearly about INdeterminism being compatible with free will. See - I even bolded and colored the parts I was disagreeing with

The syllogism addresses indeterminism.....2. Indeterminate actions happens randomly and without intent or control.

Which does not allow - regulative control as a necessary part of free will

The brain is an information processor so random events within the system can only disrupt decision making. If random events happen in the external world, this must be processed by our neural architecture in the normal way....the state of the system at any given moment in time determining the decision made in that moment in time. Information processing and selection of an option based on a given set of criteria, which is not free will. Computers do it without will or consciousness. Even plants respond to their stimuli without conscious will, yet alone 'free will'

I'm beginning to think you're totally just ignoring any of my posts about learning algorithms, and the impact of small amounts of randomness on the outcomes of a well-defined decision-making process.

Here's my take: I think you're conflating the architecture with the process. The two are interdependent, but neither one alone produces action.

 

[Emily Lake]

No, I meant the status of freedom in general within a Determined World.

So, if I understand you correctly, you're saying that all references to freedom (e.g. "freedom of the press", "freedom of movement ", "freedom of information" etc, etc..), not just freedom of the will, are an "illusion" (I think you mean mistaken). Have I got this right?

The inhabitants of a Determined World may not know that their thoughts and actions are determined, they may be under the impression of being free agents, that they have regulative control, which is not only a mistake but an illusion based on their narrow perspective of the World...their experience of the World being based on sensory experience;

illusion
ɪˈluːʒ(ə)n/
noun
an instance of a wrong or misinterpreted perception of a sensory experience.

I do not understand the distinction you're making between "will", "free will", and "agency". You seem to accept both will and agency in passing... but you object to the term "free" being used... and I honestly can't make your stance on this make sense.

 

[Emily Lake]

'Inevitable' is only part of the 'problem', I think. As I said, it isn't that hard to say that at least in principle, randomness decouples events (all events, not just human actions) from determinism. If randomness operates at the macro level that is. Which I deem possible without knowing whether it is or isn't. If it isn't we'd have to use the word 'unpredictable' (as in incapable, perhaps even in principle, of being known in advance) which is a slightly different thing, since it's 'merely' about knowing (what will happen).

All things are stochastic. But most things have such incredibly low variance as to be materially indistinguishable from a deterministic model

The more complex a process, the more likely it is that the stochastic nature of the universe will have an observable impact... thus, the less likely it is to be able to be modeled effectively by a deterministic approach. It becomes imperfectly predictable.

Anyhows, decoupling is only 'stage 1'. 'Stage 2' (where the brain deterministically acts on whatever options are in front of it, including the ones potentially thrown up by a random swerve) is, I think, trickier. It might even be argued that your dice have the sort of free will you are talking about, even if only a tiny bit.

Sure, I suppose. Do the dice have a mechanism for evaluating and selecting from among plausible options within their dicey processes?

 

[Emily Lake]

On the idea of a spectrum...


To me, when I think about it, the capacity that we have that gives us more 'elbow room' as it has been called, more 'degrees of freedom' (a useful machine term for meat robots, imo) than, say, other meat robots (animals), seems to be that our systems (mainly brains) automatically generate predictions about what is about to happen. These are essentially a form of 'simulations', about both the future and the past (memories in the latter case). As I see it, our systems run these simulations mostly non-consciously ('in the dark'), but when we're consciously deliberating about something, they are occurring in 'daylight' (the activity seems to cross a threshold into consciousness for whatever varied reasons). In such cases, our brains can 'pretend' they have made a decision (about, say, whether to go to the beach tomorrow or do that bit of work that needs doing) and get feedback about probable outcomes. We may heavily rely on simulations from the past (memories) to inform these simulations of the future, because we can't easily imagine something that we have never before experienced, so only options from memory (or combinations of them) can arise, I'm thinking, and our systems are inducing (not deducing) the probable outcomes based on prior experience.

In other words, in that model, it's our capacity to not have to 'live in the present moment', to (non-literally) 'time travel', that gives us a lot of our sophisticated agency. It's not something a thermostat can do, even though a thermostat is arguably a very basic rational agent. And it doesn't seem to be something that other animals do as much as us.

The above capacity doesn't need randomness and may even operate better without it. Hard to say, maybe as you say randomness helps in some way.

The idea that our brains internally generate much more information which affects action than is coming in through the senses (and to which our systems react) is, I think, fairly well established. When we drop the raw egg onto the tiled kitchen floor, it seems we have already predicted that it will probably smash before it lands and that when we see it smashing we are just confirming a prediction, not waiting for it to smash and then reacting. If it were to stop a centimetre above the floor, we'd be stymied for a moment or two. Our brains' superfast inductive reasoning 'algorithms' would have failed us.

Agreed all around. I definitely agree that the ability to extrapolate the outcome of contingent (or even purely imaginary) future events is a fundamental aspect of human agency and intelligence (I also don't think the two are separable: our intelligence is in many ways defined by our agency).

I don't necessarily think that randomness would make it better or worse. But it would make it less predictable. That randomness is the difference between a deterministic and a stochastic process.

There's a LOT of advances in AI that hinge on that stochastic nature. Pattern recognition, evolving cluster algorithms, a whole host of them incorporate and are adapted to respond to an essentially random environment. Not random in the sense of "uniform distribution, everything you can think of has an equal probability of happening" sort of sense... just in the sense of not everything is perfectly foreseeable - in fact, *most* things aren't perfectly foreseeable. Many things are predictable to a high degree of accuracy... but even our most advanced models around well established sciences (general relativity, or even newtonian physics) incorporate an error bound.

 

[Emily Lake]

This is really quite frustrating. You said:

If the universe is deterministic, all references to freedom are an illusion.

So when you said "all" you didn't mean "all".

So my last 5 posts on this particular claim of yours were a complete waste of time.

Nothing that needs to be frustrating. I have pointed out that within a determined world any references to freedom relate to changing conditions within the determined system but not to the ultimate state off the system, which does not entail deviation or regulation in t
he sense that a person can do otherwise in any given instance in time.

Think of it as characters in Movie going about their business, talking about doing this or that, talking about freedom, but all of their actions are fixed, they have no freedom. Their actions can be replayed countless times and each and every time its exactly the same outcome.

What then is the nature of notion of ultimate freedom within a determined system?

And yet... as I've pointed out before and you seem to keep missing... Even a very small interjection of randomness can produce different outcomes, depending on how the system actually works. If you assume that all human decision-making is always completely exhaustive, then randomness would have no identifiable impact, and potentially none at all. But that's assuming that the decision-making mechanism in our brains is exhaustive - and I challenge that assumption. In many situations, there's not time to consider every possible option. And it's not at all uncommon for a person (even you, I'd bet) to look back on a decision and say "Golly, I should have chosen X, but I didn't think about it at the time!". So I think there's a very plausible argument that at least some aspects of decision-making within our brains uses a threshold or sufficiency condition.

And if there's a threshold or sufficiency condition in play, then even a very small amount of randomness means that replaying the scene countless times does NOT necessarily yield the same outcome each time.

 

[Emily Lake]

Whether it's necessary is different from whether it's compatible.

Ok.


Is it compatible? I don't actually know.

I think I could try to make a case that it's incompatible, as I've already alluded to, by saying it could frustrate or diminish our agency capacities.


I wouldn't bet on being right. I take on board Emily's comment about how AI scientists are, she says, finding that introducing randomness is improving decision-making abilities in artificial systems, and though I'm nowhere near up to speed on AI, it seems at least plausible and I have no good reason to doubt it.

As to whether or not it amplifies or diminishes our agency really depends on how the decision-making algorithm is structured. With some models or decision-making, it doesn't make it better or worse, it simply makes it more efficient (as well as not perfectly predictable). Sometimes it will lead to better outcomes, sometimes to worse. Probably never to a perfectly optimal outcome, because that takes an exhaustive comparison of all possible outcomes... and in that case randomness would probably result in no change to the outcome, making it perfectly predictable.

 

[Emily Lake]

Is it compatible? I don't actually know.

As far as I know, that's not a common question since it's not been presented as controversial. The question that's normally asked is if determinism is compatible with free will. The basic idea of determinism is simply that all (not some but all) events are determined. There's more to the story, but since you're not looking for an answer to the common question but instead whether indeterminsim is compatible with free will, we need only look to see if both can coexist. Indeterminism isn't to say no events are caused--just that not all events are.

I don't see an inconsistency with being in a world where not all evensts are caused and free will, so I would think they are compatible. That's not to say I believe we are in such a world; hence, I'm not espousing a personal view about what it is that I hold true but rather merely expounding upon the implications the way I see it.

I don't think that indeterminism implies that not all events are caused. Rather, it would say that some causes can lead to more than one outcome. It creates a stochastic scenario that leverages a distribution of potential outcomes (from which only one will occur) as opposed to a formulaic scenario in which each cause can produce only a singular outcome.

Call it parallel processing rather than series... Although that's a very poor analogy.

 

[fast]

I don't think that indeterminism implies that not all events are caused. Rather, it would say that some causes can lead to more than one outcome.

That would be determinism.

If there is an event without a cause, then the event is consistent with indeterminism.

Potential events are not kinds of events. Actual events are. If for every event there is a cause, then either way, a necessary event or contingent event, they are consistent with determinism.

 

[Juma]

The syllogism addresses indeterminism.....2. Indeterminate actions happens randomly and without intent or control.

Which does not allow - regulative control as a necessary part of free will

The brain is an information processor so random events within the system can only disrupt decision making. If random events happen in the external world, this must be processed by our neural architecture in the normal way....the state of the system at any given moment in time determining the decision made in that moment in time. Information processing and selection of an option based on a given set of criteria, which is not free will. Computers do it without will or consciousness. Even plants respond to their stimuli without conscious will, yet alone 'free will'

I'm beginning to think you're totally just ignoring any of my posts about learning algorithms, and the impact of small amounts of randomness on the outcomes of a well-defined decision-making process.

Here's my take: I think you're conflating the architecture with the process. The two are interdependent, but neither one alone produces action.

I dont think DBT is doing that. DBT just reslizes, as I do, that for calling something ”will” it must be controllable on a macro scale. If your choices are random then it is not the result of what we normally calls ”will”.
That stochastic processes can be useful when calculating a result needed for your decision is something else entirely.

 

[DBT]

I'm beginning to think you're totally just ignoring any of my posts about learning algorithms, and the impact of small amounts of randomness on the outcomes of a well-defined decision-making process.

Not at all. The brain has the ability to learn (algorithms), that is not being disputed. The idea of randomness enabling freedom of will is not logical.

Outcomes of random events within a brain can only alter decision making process in random ways. Random is not a choice. How randomness within the system effects thought and behaviour is not chosen.

Here's my take: I think you're conflating the architecture with the process. The two are interdependent, but neither one alone produces action.

There is no process without architecture. It is architecture that is the mechanism of the process. Cat brains produce different behaviour to Rat brains, etc, etc. Random quantum events do not play a part in rational decision making. Making decisions is not random...unless you decide on the flip of a coin.

 

[DBT]

The driver of the car cannot steer the car very well when one tire is flat. And consciousness is not a homunculus or thought of as a homunculus and does not necessarily have to be a homunculus. It is what it is. It is not a little man in the head. But it is that which is trying to steer the car.

Not a valid objection.



Ditto.

3)A failure of memory ( connectivity), means that this information is not consciously available, eg, you can't remember where you left your keys.

Yes. A memory is something consciousness can search for and sometimes find and sometimes does not find.

But the consciousness searches none-the-less.

4)A progressive and permanent loss of memory results in a progressive breakdown of consciousness and consequently, conscious will.

Both the memory and that which searches for the memory can degrade.

It does not make them the same thing.

And it does not mean the consciousness when vigorous and complete does not search and find memories all the time.

5)Conscious will ( the perception of conscious decision making) is related to physical and information condition of a brain.

Yes it is something created by some of the activity of the brain. What specific activity is completely unknown.

But that does not tell us in any way how it can influence other parts of the brain not involved in it's production.

6)'Conscious will does not itself think or decide, it has no autonomy. Will, being determined by brain state and condition, is a reflection of the physical/informational condition of a brain from moment to moment.

A conclusion pulled from your backside that does not follow anything you have said.

This represents your prejudice.

It is not a logical conclusion.

7)Conscious will does not choose to lose memory, make irrational decisions, illusions, errors, glitches, etc, any more than it chooses rational thought or adaptive behaviour. These being reflections of the physical condition of a brain, not will, whether conscious or unconscious.

Your consciousness chose the thoughts you just expressed. It picked them from all the possible thoughts that could exist. It edited them and refined them and then forced your hands to type it.

The only thing being pulled from a backside being your version of what I did not say. This strawman of your making certainly being pulled from some dark nether region that only you can access.

A gooey mash that has no foundation in reality. The reality being that it is the state and condition of a brain that is expressed in behaviour....not your illusion of smart consciousness operating a dumb brain,

 

[DBT]

1) Abnormal architecture and brain chemistry can radically alter consciousness and thought in ways that are not willed. Consciousness and thought are expressions of the state of the system. Neural architecture and its electrochemical activity is a deterministic system (with perhaps some degree of random quantum interference).

2)lesions and chemical changes alter perception, personality and conscious thought and will.

3)A failure of memory ( connectivity), means that this information is not consciously available, eg, you can't remember where you left your keys.

4)A progressive and permanent loss of memory results in a progressive breakdown of consciousness and consequently, conscious will.

5)Conscious will ( the perception of conscious decision making) is related to physical and information condition of a brain.

6)'Conscious will does not itself think or decide, it has no autonomy. Will, being determined by brain state and condition, is a reflection of the physical/informational condition of a brain from moment to moment.

7)Conscious will does not choose to lose memory, make irrational decisions, illusions, errors, glitches, etc, any more than it chooses rational thought or adaptive behaviour. These being reflections of the physical condition of a brain, not will, whether conscious or unconscious.

8) the term ''free'' - as defined above - does not represent the non chosen physical informational state of a brain: its structures and connections and electrochemical activity.

9)The word 'free' - as defined above- is in contradiction to the nature, role and function of 'will' - as defined - will being shaped and formed by brain state and condition not being free to do otherwise - free to do otherwise being the essence of freedom, to do this rather than that. Fixed by circumstances/ causality any given instance in time is not an example of freedom, as defined.

Your conclusions in 8 and 9 do not logically follow (they're not derived explicitly from your premises without exception).

Of course it follows. If will is being determined by elements beyond its ability to change, will is not free. Anything that is determined is not free.


Free;
a. Not affected or restricted by a given condition or circumstance

1. Freedom requires that given an act A, the agent (will) could have acted otherwise
2. Determinate actions are fixed and unchangeable
3. Therefore determinism is incompatible with freedom
4. Therefore will, determined by brain state, is not free.


That which is fixed and unchangeable is not free. Not by any definition of the word. Though some folk may want to redefine the word 'free' in order to suit their own need to rationalize.

 

[ruby sparks]

It might even be argued that your dice have the sort of free will you are talking about, even if only a tiny bit.

Sure, I suppose. Do the dice have a mechanism for evaluating and selecting from among plausible options within their dicey processes?

That depends on what we mean by mechanism. The dice have an arrangement of matter, a formation or system of let's say either atoms and/or forces, which are interconnected in a certain complicated way, and which respond in certain ways (including being susceptible to randomness) to what we might call 'the laws of physics'. Such responses might include, for example, the arrangement (system) responding to, let's say, being heated on one side, causing that side to expand (note that this involves internal movement of the 'parts'). We could, without too much difficulty, call that a basic mechanism, in the same way that we might say that a thermostat is a basic rational agent, even though it may only have the capacity to evaluate binary choices (do/don't's) at any given instant, though they can enact lots of these binaries in sequence (Do. Do. Do. Don't. Do. Don't. Etc). Which I think means that they (thermostats and dice) would have at least a little free will, as you (and you aren't alone) define free will.

 

[The AntiChris]

Anything that is determined is not free.

In a deterministic universe everything is determined.

Therefore, according to your premise, nothing in a deterministic universe can be described as free.

This is the absurdity of your argument.

 

[ruby sparks]

Anything that is determined is not free.

In a deterministic universe everything is determined.

Therefore, according to your premise, nothing in a deterministic universe can be described as free.

This is the absurdity of your argument.

Except that under a certain definition of 'free', she'd be right. So, not absurd.

(Why you can't get DBT to agree that there are other possible definitions, I don't know. He/she may even have already agreed, more or less. It's not entirely clear to me).

 

[The AntiChris]

Anything that is determined is not free.

In a deterministic universe everything is determined.

Therefore, according to your premise, nothing in a deterministic universe can be described as free.

This is the absurdity of your argument.

Except that under a certain definition of 'free', she'd be right. So, not absurd.

Of course. But DBT doesn't single out any specific sense of free.

DBT continually insists that there is no sense of free which can logically be used to describe will and justifies this by saying "Anything that is determined is not free" which leads to the absurdity I pointed out.

He/she may even have already agreed, more or less. It's not entirely clear to me

It really should be if you actually read our exchanges.

 

[ruby sparks]

As to whether or not it amplifies or diminishes our agency really depends on how the decision-making algorithm is structured. With some models or decision-making, it doesn't make it better or worse, it simply makes it more efficient (as well as not perfectly predictable). Sometimes it will lead to better outcomes, sometimes to worse. Probably never to a perfectly optimal outcome, because that takes an exhaustive comparison of all possible outcomes... and in that case randomness would probably result in no change to the outcome, making it perfectly predictable.

I can't help thinking that you're talking about predictability a lot of the time. Which is a slightly separate issue, imo.

Here, you'll like this, I think. Just now (right now if you like, let's not quibble about 'instant') something occurred to my brain. I remembered that I'm to go out this evening with a male pal for drinks in town. This is something I am looking forward to (that's the emotional content perhaps, or the 'affect'*). It also occurred to me that if I go offline (iow stop procrastinating) and get the work done that I need to get done, that later this evening I'll be able to enjoy going out for those drinks more than if I don't get the work done. So, I've decided (chosen) to go offline very soon and do some work.

You would say (and I might agree) that that's me (the system 'I' call 'me') exercising its (at least partial or conditional) free will (though I would definitely prefer to use the term human agency instead but we don't have to come to blows over terms). You and I would both agree that it all happened 'automatically' in accordance with what we might call 'the laws of physics' and that in reality there's no 'me' exercising personal or conscious control. We might also agree that my human capacities for agency are more sophisticated (and fun to experience) than those of either a pair of dice, a thermostat or most other animals (as far as we can reasonably tell).

On a side note, we might still disagree about the role of randomness (if it exists) and whether it really does or doesn't mean that I could or could not have either (a) chosen differently or (b) freely willed (ie with personal, conscious control) to choose differently. For the record I'm suggesting I couldn't (to both, shock horror!). To some extent, this will depend on when we 'stop the clock', I think.

But the big point I think is that as has been the case for ages and ages in this and many other similar threads, two people (in this case you and DBT, for example) are not talking about the same thing, and/or not using the same definition.

And on that bombshell (as Alan Partridge might have said)........to work!




* We're both (very) long-term married men in our late 50's with currently unsatisfactory sex lives so if nothing else we can talk about that while very discreetly ogling the totty and sharing private comments about it/them, some of which might be of a salacious nature. My wife, as it happens, is in Italy this week, so I'm not directly evading the better alternatives regarding the carnal issues in my otherwise happy marriage (which I hope to continue trying to address when she's back). When the cat's away, the mice will play, etc. Nothing that would infringe our wedding vows, you understand. Not too much 'Male Gaze' or sexual objectification either. We will try to be careful about that (we're not daft and we're more than our penises, so we will be thinking of them as lovely women in every sense). We're both well aware of the dangers of being or being seen as dirty old men. Intelligent conversation on general topics is not ruled out, should we chat to any of them, though we might still be secretly (we sort of or at least partly hope) admiring their legs and suchlike while checking for pupil dilation (while being aware that this can be brought on by mere mental concentration or dim lighting). We both have adult daughters too, so we won't be ogling or chatting up anyone that age. Personally I prefer women nearer my age anyway. Flirting. That's what I meant. Not ogling. My wife is probably ogling a young ski instructor anyway and good luck to her I say. Whoops this is all in the wrong thread.

 

[ruby sparks]

He/she may even have already agreed, more or less. It's not entirely clear to me

It really should be if you actually read our exchanges.

Possibly.

I'm thinking that a simple yes (I agree) or no (I don't agree) from DBT would help sort it out, for me at least.

 

[The AntiChris]

I'm thinking that a simple yes (I agree) or no (I don't agree) from DBT would help sort it out, for me at least.

What specific question would you want answered by DBT?