Free will and determinism

Idealism doesn't imply free will? Don't think I've ever said that. My point is the problem for Materialism is not equivalent to Idealism as the latter starts with something we already know we have -> Consciousness itself.

Even in materialism not sure why determinism is something to be escaped, given if all matter rests on the quantum level not clear where determinism is to be found.

The problem of consciousness is not equivalent, since idealism simply posits it. But I don't see what that has to do with a fix for free will. How does consciousness escape determinism + randomness to allow nonrandom indeterminism?

I agree that down deep there is no determinism. It is a product of the macro world. But it does exist, or else computers would not work (and they are pretty micro these days). This is why I say that decisions are a combination of determinism and throws of the dice.

~~ Paul

Hard to see what a new conversation would bring then.

Better for you to pick someone like Tononi, read his papers & watch his Youtube videos. Maybe email him your "how" question and see what he thinks?

Yes, perhaps I'll read some of the papers and see what he has to say. I haven't read his papers for a few years.

The only thing I was hoping is that someone would link to an answer in the big thread, or summarize their position.

~~ Paul

The problem of consciousness is not equivalent, since idealism simply posits it. But I don't see what that has to do with a fix for free will. How does consciousness escape determinism + randomness to allow nonrandom indeterminism?

I agree that down deep there is no determinism. It is a product of the macro world. But it does exist, or else computers would not work (and they are pretty micro these days). This is why I say that decisions are a combination of determinism and throws of the dice.

~~ Paul

I never said Idealism is a fix for free will?

Seems like determinism is illusory, so if Materialism is true all our mathematics and art and so on are built on lucky "throws of the dice" at the quantum level if it's all just random.

I go into greater length on my thoughts about all this in that 65 page thread.

I never said Idealism is a fix for free will?

Seems like determinism is illusory, so if Materialism is true all our mathematics and art and so on are built on lucky "throws of the dice" at the quantum level if it's all just random.

I go into greater length on my thoughts about all this in that 65 page thread.

I didn't mean to suggest that you claimed idealism is a fix for free will. I was just lamenting that it isn't.

Since quantum collapse to macro results is part of QM, I'm not sure why it's any more illusory than the rest of the theory. But I'm happy even to agree to a model where absolutely every event is a nonrandom indeterministic free event. Still doesn't help me understand what a nonrandom indeterministic event is.

It ain't determined but it also ain't arbitrary.

~~ Paul

I didn't mean to suggest that you claimed idealism is a fix for free will. I was just lamenting that it isn't.

Since quantum collapse to macro results is part of QM, I'm not sure why it's any more illusory than the rest of the theory. But I'm happy even to agree to a model where absolutely every event is a nonrandom indeterministic free event. Still doesn't help me understand what a nonrandom indeterministic event is.

It ain't determined but it also ain't arbitrary.

~~ Paul

I go into this in the 65 page thread, IIRC I even made a separate sub-thread for indeterminism.

The problem of consciousness is not equivalent, since idealism simply posits it. But I don't see what that has to do with a fix for free will. How does consciousness escape determinism + randomness to allow nonrandom indeterminism?

What is there to "escape"? Consciousness is not deterministic, because we can either follow along with patterns, habits of behaviour orwe can choose to consciously decide that we want to do otherwise. Consciousness is not random, precisely because habits and patterns of behaviour exist.

I'm not sure why you even entertain the idea of randomness at all, because there is no place for it in a world of physical laws, of determinism.

If you have determinism, you simply cannot have randomness, or vice-versa. They truly are exclusionary concepts.

I agree that down deep there is no determinism. It is a product of the macro world. But it does exist, or else computers would not work (and they are pretty micro these days). This is why I say that decisions are a combination of determinism and throws of the dice.

~~ Paul

Computers are not deterministic, either. If you even had a rudimentary understanding of how they work at a circuit level, you would know that computers are designed to output an "on" or a "1" at a certain level of charge. Below that is an "off" or "0". Scale that up, and you have a system that is generally reliable, but can occasionally break down.

It's why you hear about bit-flips in RAM modules which lead to data corruption. Or storage drives which can lose electrical charge after not being powered on for a long time, leading to data corruption. And so on and so forth.

A spirit does not clearly have free will. Again, the idea of a spirit is a proposed source of free decisions. But there is nothing about the idea that explains how free decisions work. You can simply define spirits to have free will, but that is not particularly satisfying.

If you don't like the word 'spirit', try 'intentionality'. Academia seems to have reached a strange point regarding consciousness where people take concepts like 'free will' and either try to claim they don't exist, or claim, for example, that free will comes in about 7 different flavours, and which type do you support - anything to get round the fact that practically everyone accepts they do have free will (obviously constrained in various practical ways), yet free will feels (and probably is) incompatible with conventional science.

I would argue that free will is an essential component of any scientific experiment. Take a simple experiment like verifying Ohm's law. We apply a voltage to a resistor and measure the current that flows. Then we draw a nice straight-line graph. However, we select the voltages at which we do the measurements. If we knew that the voltages had been selected by a machine, we might worry that the true relationship might be sinusoidal say. The whole essence of a scientific experiment is that the experimenters could use free will to control some aspects of the experiment so that it is reasonable to generalise from the particular set of measurements made to obtain a general law.

Thus discarding the concept of free will, really involves discarding science.
[QUOTE]

I do not hold that consciousness is an epiphenomenon nor that NDEs are best not talked about. I'm not sure what it means for consciousness to be an hallucination.

[\quote]

Well you do know that those  ideas have been floated by 'respectable' academic scientists.

Interestingly the idea of consciousness being purely epiphenomenal is not very popular even in academic circles nowdays. It doesn't make evolutionary sense.

Right - however that crazy idea came out of academia - it illustrates the lengths to which such people will go to protect the assumptions of Materialism.

I think that science shouldn't be about fighting a cause as hard as possible, it should be about exploring with an open mind.

What is there to "escape"? Consciousness is not deterministic, because we can either follow along with patterns, habits of behaviour orwe can choose to consciously decide that we want to do otherwise. Consciousness is not random, precisely because habits and patterns of behaviour exist.

I'm not sure why you even entertain the idea of randomness at all, because there is no place for it in a world of physical laws, of determinism.

If you have determinism, you simply cannot have randomness, or vice-versa. They truly are exclusionary concepts.


Computers are not deterministic, either. If you even had a rudimentary understanding of how they work at a circuit level, you would know that computers are designed to output an "on" or a "1" at a certain level of charge. Below that is an "off" or "0". Scale that up, and you have a system that is generally reliable, but can occasionally break down.

It's why you hear about bit-flips in RAM modules which lead to data corruption. Or storage drives which can lose electrical charge after not being powered on for a long time, leading to data corruption. And so on and so forth.

But where in this choosing to decide to do something else, and then doing something else, are the indeterministic decision(s)? And how are those decisions made?

I'm entertaining both randomness and determinism because that's what we see in the real world. Particle decay is random. Computers are deterministic.

I have a degree in Computer Science, so I have some understanding of how computers work. Indeed, computers can occasionally fail due to some random external influence. But when was the last time that happened to your computer? Computers are deterministic with the occasional random failure. If you want to argue that they are random, then please give us your definition of random.

~~ Paul

If you don't like the word 'spirit', try 'intentionality'. Academia seems to have reached a strange point regarding consciousness where people take concepts like 'free will' and either try to claim they don't exist, or claim, for example, that free will comes in about 7 different flavours, and which type do you support - anything to get round the fact that practically everyone accepts they do have free will (obviously constrained in various practical ways), yet free will feels (and probably is) incompatible with conventional science.

I would argue that free will is an essential component of any scientific experiment. Take a simple experiment like verifying Ohm's law. We apply a voltage to a resistor and measure the current that flows. Then we draw a nice straight-line graph. However, we select the voltages at which we do the measurements. If we knew that the voltages had been selected by a machine, we might worry that the true relationship might be sinusoidal say. The whole essence of a scientific experiment is that the experimenters could use free will to control some aspects of the experiment so that it is reasonable to generalise from the particular set of measurements made to obtain a general law.

Thus discarding the concept of free will, really involves discarding science.

I do not hold that consciousness is an epiphenomenon nor that NDEs are best not talked about. I'm not sure what it means for consciousness to be an hallucination.

[\quote]

Well you do know that those  ideas have been floated by 'respectable' academic scientists.

But practically every philosopher does not accept that we have libertarian free will. In the latest "What Philosophers Believe" survey (2020), only about 19% of those surveyed believe in libertarian free will.

But, again, I'm happy to assume it exists. I'd just like to know how it works.

~~ Paul