Free will re-redux

Are you saying you have nothing to offer as an answer to this question?

Huh? I've said once if not a few times in this thread I wasn't going to offer an affirmative case for free [will], I just wanted to challenge the idea that free will is incoherent.

My position's the same as it was at the end of the last 75 page thread - that it makes more sense to discuss causation before discussing free will.

I just replied because it didn't seem like anyone else was going to, and my guess was nobody really gets what problem you are trying to solve.

What happens? What does my mind do? What do I think? What steps occur? After all these years of pondering and discussion, we cannot fill in the gap between no-decision and decision with anything compelling?

I think "compelling" is in the eye of the beholder. Over the years the ideas of Aquinas, Von Neuman (+ Tononi if I recall Neil's argument), Whitehead, and a few other luminaries have been mentioned and from what I remmeber there've been readers who have come away satisfied with some explanation or another.

I mean IMO there's never been a compelling case for Physicalism circumventing its Something from Nothing problem, but that unfortunately doesn't seem to stop people from being physicalists.

Assume I'm willing to accept any kind of "how" answer at all. Granted, if the answer is simply "... a free decision is made ...", then I will not be satisfied. But just about anything else would be interesting. The final decision must be caused by something. What is that something, that is not just a deterministic step-by-step procedure?

I've read/listened/watched a lot of stuff about free will, since it ties into my interest in Philosophy of Causation...and I still don't know what kind of "how" answer you're looking for. I don't think I've ever seen the problem with free will presented this way. Usually it's a question of determinism, or physical closure, or the falsity of materialism. Every now and then I see someone mention the randomness/determinism exclusive dichotomy but no one's ever given an argument for [the dichotomy's] truth that I've seen.

[The usual argument for/against is whether one's feeling of making a decision lines up with a particular picture of reality. So the debate is usually about pictures of reality.]

I don't even see why "a free decision is made" is really a problem to be honest. It seems like if there is free will there's going to be a component to the decision making process that does involve mental causation selecting a possibility. Without that you either lose the free part or the will part [or both at once...depends if "unfree will" or "random freedom" make sense].

From what I've experienced the debate revolves around whether this is possible given some other assumptions about reality - so not a question of conceivabality but possibility.

I would make up an answer or two, but I truly have no notion how it might work. I don't know words to put in the gap that won't just obviously sound like an algorithm or a coin flip. I can muster up all the good feels about desires, wants, needs, will, agency, and so forth, but that does not bring forth anything helpful. Those words seem like either sources of the decision or more factors in the deterministic decision.

Seems like the issue is again the idea that there's a randomness/determinism dichotomy? Or maybe the idea that something can be indeterministic without being random?

I don't think there's a problem with the latter, rather the idea of something just happening for no reason at all is impossible for me to conceive...and I think determinism as usually presented is just a special kind of randomness.

Some folks appear to divide the world into the physical bits and the mental bits, and then attribute freedom to the mental bits simply because they are called "mental bits." I can grok dividing the world that way, but I don't associate freedom with the mental any more than with the physical.

Have to admit I don't really get this. I'm not an Idealist, but it seems to me that if Idealism was true then free will wouldn't have any issues.

I think it is most useful to think in terms of triads. The Will is between the two poles and since it is a liminal thing it is subject to the fuzziness and arbitrariness of all boundaries and integrates qualities of both.

Is the Will responsible for Determinism and Randomness, or are all three extant at the Ground of Being?

After all if God is the Ground of Being, then isn't God's Will what makes some non-conscious events determined or random?

IIRC we said Determinism was the pole of Fate/Necessity and Randomness was the pole of Hyper-Chaos, the latter describing how anything can happen including a universe that's deterministic for a billion years but then allows for quantum stochasticity again.

So arguably there's really just Hyper-Chaos and Will, since Determinism is indistinguishable from Hyper-Chaos unless something is ensuring that only possible Future arises from the Present...but if there is such a thing it seems it would have to be Will?

Another thing to consider is that "Will" exists in a goal-oriented feedback loop, and the complexity of goals and feedback loops increase with the complexity of the structure in which these are embedded. So perhaps the randomness in the quantum soup could be thought of as extreme simplicity of goals and therefore indistinguishable from randomness. But then simple goals create simple structure which then creates complexity which then creates more complex goals which creates more complex structure...etc... in a nested fashion. We have goals that only make sense within the context of the complexity of our structure as human beings. But it seems obvious to me that a layer of goals and complexity and therefore Will exists beyond us. So we are "free" within the bounds of our layer. The goals of our cells and the goals of the body of which we are a cell are foreign to us, yet we can approach an understanding of those goals by analogy. Totally free will would be meaningless chaos - pure randomness because there would be no opportunity to complexify. Total structure or determinism would mean the end of novelty and without novelty, we would never have arrived at this present moment. Free Will only has meaning in the tension between the two poles.

Can you describe the "goal oriented feedback loop" some more. I started Peter Tse's Neural Basis of Free Will, where he posits Patterns have causal effects that are top-down. Not sure it works that well, though it might if you put the Ghost in the Machine.

I do happen to think randomness is just the cross-purpose of conscious agents, which as interesting and perhaps disturbing implications regarding accidents and the like. It doesn't really solve Theodicy, and perhaps makes it more suggestive God's Will isn't necessarily concerned with our lives, though this suggests a distinction between the One ("God") and the Many that I am not sure is warranted.

Not sure total free will would be chaos, as I think "free will" is just a word choice in English for Conscious Possibility Selection. I mean is there such a thing as "unfree will"? I would rather think of total free will is that of the Ground of Being...assuming such an entity exists.

As for total determinism, I am not sure such thing can exist where we can rule out the possibility of it being "determinism up until some time T1".

They are polar opposites. It is impossible to consider one without the other. Perceptions (the third member of the triad in the middle) are what actualize them to a degree.

So it's Determinism, Will/Perception, Randomness?

Where it is helpful to think of poles IMO is it helps see how bizarre it would be to think of quantum indeterminism as true randomness, since the latter would at the least mean that probabilities aren't measurable. As Thomas Nail notes, we can see that quantum indeterminism does maintain some relation to the time/space context - for example if I throw a ball every electron's positional probabilities shift along the arc of the ball's trajectory.

And since the classical lies atop the quantum, we only have an "adequate determinism" which only further suggests all causation is dispositional rather than necessary. This means the behavior of reality more and more aligns with the idea of a mind, maybe the Mind...

Will reply on the other stuff in a bit.

Continuation from above ->

Partly because I like the alliteration of "God's GAN"... And I like that GAN means Generative Adversarial Network which basically has all the essentials of the Triad right there. Generative - Genesis, creation, novelty, dynamics. Adversarial - adversary, opposition, polarity is essential to creation. Network - collaboration, coming together, the synthesis of the polarity.

We exist within a nested structure of "GAN's" so I call it "God's GAN".

Thinking of the physical reality as being created by something like a GAN makes it easier to integrate anomalous phenomena which seem to have no local cause or seem to be discontinuous with normal causal chains of events.

Interesting sync - have you read Stephen King. All his books are part of a shared universe, and in that universe Gan is the word for "God". Gan arises from "Prim", the abyss of primordial chaos, and manifests as the Dark Tower which is the Nexus of Worlds.

So you think reality is at least partially generated by two neural networks competing in a game? I think it's that part that I get confused about. Who made the two NNs, are they gods or literally programs?

An apparition or other ghostly encounter might have varying degrees of integration with the complete agentive personality with which it is associated. In some cases ghosts seem to be an echo or a broken record repeating the same thing as if they are a fragment - a single memory of the deceased or a stressful recurrent dream with some physicality to it. Even when we are alive, our personality is not necessarily completely integrated at all times and some models of psychology present us as a set of sub-personalities.

To what extent the complete fully integrated agentive personality of the deceased can be reconstituted in a physical apparition probably varies.

Ah ok. I mentioned something similar in the Survival vs Super Psi thread, so I think I know what you're talking about.

Considering the fact that a great many NDE reports involve a continuation of a locus of perception as well as a life review (which is a larger scale feedback loop), I believe that a single life is "training" a "neural network" or "agent" that is analogous to the neural network of the brain but that is not the physical brain - perhaps we could call this the soul. The soul is the larger agent that is being trained towards achieving a goal or goals with each iteration (life). Actions taken during the life that receive positive feedback, reinforce those connections or "saves" them and negative feedback diminishes those or "burns them up". So this is heaven and hell with a fresh technologically current metaphor.

So this is not a GAN?

So I think the deceased can maintain their individual integrated identity as long as is necessary and that an integrated identity or locus of perception necessitates an environment, but I also think that what is learned by the deceased is integrated into a larger structure which is the "soul" which has goals that extend beyond a mere single lifespan.

Gotcha.

EDIT: another good thing to mention is the cases where people have something happen to them (brain injury, coma, NDE, or some other life transformative event) and afterwards they have something weird happen like they suddenly start speaking with a foreign accent or they have new musical talents, or they have some kind of download of info. These things are easier to understand if we think of them as saved neural networks which can be implemented or swapped out on the brain's hardware.

Neural networks as in patterns weighting toward certain preferences/aesthetics/etc?

As discussed above, we don't have completely free will. We have free will within the boundaries of the structures in which we are embedded which gives meaning to our choices. Our free will shapes probabilities. If we encounter a wall this might be a physical local boundary on our will. We might encounter a non-local structure which is local along another dimension - a semantic dimension. This non-local meaning object, is possibly a boundary on our free will, but does not eliminate it in other areas.

So a synchronicity or astrology or a presentiment might be representative of an a-temporal structure within which we have a certain amount of freedom, but they don't preclude free will in its entirety.

Kind of like an avoidable cut-scene or win condition in a game?

Desire (or preferences if you prefer) are what drives motion and desire cannot exist without a lack. A world without lack where desires are instantly fulfilled is a world without time or motion (where can you go if where you are is always where you want to be?). That is essentially merging into the Oneness and indistinguishable from no-desire. There might be worlds where it is easier to arrive at the fulfilment of desires than in this one, but could such worlds complexify the way this one has? What would a soul/mind/spirit that has complexified and learned from this world desire? Its desires would be on a level complexity similar to this world.

Gotcha.

So in the Mayfly's life review are you replaced with a generic NPC?

Perhaps...I sort of see what you're saying...I think....

To include necessarily excludes as well. To draw a boundary around a space, there must be an excluded space as well. To tell a meaningful story you must exclude an infinite number of irrelevant details. A neural network must strengthen or diminish connections based on feedback otherwise it fails to get closer to achieving a goal. If the next layer of complexity up from us is going to achieve or create anything it must also destroy that which got in the way during earlier attempts.

So do we repeat versions of our lives, some decisions remaining the same and others being open to Will again?

So there's that... and then there's the question of it even means to have something be actualized. QM tells us the observer plays a role in actualizing an event, but how much of what we observe is not focused upon or remembered? And if something is forgotten by all observers, did it ever happen? Could future information change the past if the past is forgotten or otherwise unobserved?

So I think it is a good question to ask: how much of the universe is retained in memory in some form and for how long and is it stored in a compressed state that can be upscaled (with God's GAN)?

Upscaled?

I think it is most useful to think in terms of triads.

The physicist Stapp's paper on the topic might be up your alley ->

Quantum Triality

...In spite of this claim that quantum mechanics can be understood without needing to understand the reality lying behind the rules, these rules themselves naturally specify a conceptual structure that is effectively invoked when applying them. The conceptual structure involves three processes: a physical process, a probing process, and a response process...

...Understanding these rules about how our human experiences are connected to the physically described aspects of nature, already involves a conceptual framework involving a three-leveled structure: 1), a bottom level consisting of the mathematically described quantum state of the universe; 2), a middle level consisting of enduring minds (of agent/observers) whose only specified capacities are to choose, and consciously intend to enact, specific probing actions, and then to experience the psychological aspects of nature’s response; and, finally 3), a top level consisting of a ‘nature’ whose only specified role is to select and deliver responses to the agent-generated queries. This conceptual framework involves three kinds of “realities”: 1), the physically described quantum state; 2), the probing agent/observers; and 3), the responding ‘nature’? But what are the ontological characters of these three putative “realities”?...

...As regards the agent’s choice of probing action, it is an important fact that this choice is not determined within the structure of contemporary quantum mechanics. Thus Bohr8described this choice as “the free choice of experimental arrangement for which the mathematical structure of the quantum mechanical formalism offers the appropriate latitude.” In actual practice this choice seems to come from “reasons”: from the reasonsthat the experimenter chooses to perform this particular experiment rather than some other one. Thus as regards process 1, both the psychological and physical sides seem to have an ontological character that is more idea-like than matter-like....

...As regards the ontological character of nature’s choice of the outcome of the agent-chosen probing action, the standard position is that nature’s choice is purely random. I find that position unacceptable: I consider it to be rationally incoherent for some definite choice to arise from nothing at all, completely “out of the blue”...

I've read/listened/watched a lot of stuff about free will, since it ties into my interest in Philosophy of Causation...and I still don't know what kind of "how" answer you're looking for. I don't think I've ever seen the problem with free will presented this way. Usually it's a question of determinism, or physical closure, or the falsity of materialism. Every now and then I see someone mention the randomness/determinism exclusive dichotomy but no one's ever given an argument for [the dichotomy's] truth that I've seen.

I'm not giving any argument for the dichotomy. I shelved it pages ago. I'm just looking for a description of a free decision.

I don't even see why "a free decision is made" is really a problem to be honest. It seems like if there is free will there's going to be a component to the decision making process that does involve mental causation selecting a possibility. Without that you either lose the free part or the will part [or both at once...depends if "unfree will" or "random freedom" make sense].

I agree there is a mental cause selecting a possibility. How is the selection made?

Seems like the issue is again the idea that there's a randomness/determinism dichotomy? Or maybe the idea that something can be indeterministic without being random?

Yes, what does it mean to be indeterministic but not random? In particular, what does it mean in the domain of making free decisions? What is the indeterministic method of making the decision? What steps lead you to indeterministically choosing A rather than B?

I'm not giving any argument for the dichotomy. I shelved it pages ago. I'm just looking for a description of a free decision.

Ah sorry I didn't think you were arguing for the dichotomy...I mean I've already negated the dichotomy argument earlier IMO.

My point was I've seen mention of the dichotomy, but I've never seen this "how" question phrased this way. Usually the question is whether or not consciousness has the power to select an outcome from a set of possibilities.

So the presentation of a for/against argument would be something like, "From your experience you believe you have the power to select from possibilities, but actually this cannot be the case because..." OR the last part is "and here's why you are right or at least could be right..."

Is there a direct argument against free will this "how" question is based on? That's possibly a faster way to move the conversation along as it seems no one has any understanding what "how" explanation is being looked for.

For example in the Physicalism Redux thread I'm awaiting a "how" explanation for non-conscious matter performing a Something from Nothing miracle and producing consciousness, but a direct argument against Physicalism could start with New Atheist Horseman and Neuroscience PhD Sam Harris noting Physicalism is nonsensical.

I agree there is a mental cause selecting a possibility. How is the selection made?

If the mental is the cause, where would an extraneous "how" come in?

Perhaps it would be more clear if you filled in this Mad Lib ->

"Free will is incoherent because _____".

Yes, what does it mean to be indeterministic but not random? In particular, what does it mean in the domain of making free decisions? What is the indeterministic method of making the decision? What steps lead you to indeterministically choosing A rather than B?

Isn't randomness the problem, rather than indeterminism? From Thomas Nail on pedesis, the undetermined but non-random movement of matter ->

"The very idea of a purely random motion presupposes that it was not affected by or related to anything else previously, which presupposes that it was the first thing and before it was nothing, which is a version of the internally contradictory hypothesis of ex nihilo creation: something from nothing. The ontology of random motion claims that from pure disorder of discrete nonrelational particles comes high-level composite order. Given the high level of order and complexity in our present age, randomness is demonstrably not the case."

Even quantum indeterminism, which resolves toward measurable probability distributions, seems like something between determinism and true "hyper chaos" where anything could happen. For example the "reflected four" photons out of 100 passing through a glass means there is a relation between at least these 100. How else can we know the probability of reflection?

So it seems clear to me there's events that are neither random nor determined. And since by physics what we seem to have is just adequate determinism at the higher levels, really it is all "Pedesis" in the physical.

So seems like free will could be described as "pedesis" driven by consciousness. If anything adding consciousness further grounds the selection of particular possibilities better as per Henry Stapp ->

"Stapp sees the physical world as a structure of tendencies or probabilities within the world of the mind. He thinks that the introduction of an irreducible element of chance into nature via the collapse of the wave function, as described in most forms of quantum theory, is unacceptable. The element of conscious choice is seen by him as removing chance from nature."

Penrose seems less sure, but also leans toward grounding quantum indeterminism in choice ->

“An element of proto-consciousness takes place whenever a decision is made in the universe,” he said. “I’m not talking about the brain. I’m talking about an object which is put into a superposition of two places. Say it’s a speck of dust that you put into two locations at once. Now, in a small fraction of a second, it will become one or the other. Which does it become? Well, that’s a choice. Is it a choice made by the universe? Does the speck of dust make this choice? Maybe it’s a free choice. I have no idea.”

I suspect you will continue to feel there's still a missing "how" here...if so maybe it's better to forget about the mental part and just focus on the indeterminism part. Is there a "how" to the indeterministic behaviors in the quantum realm, for example the following, that preserves the indeterminism? ->

1) The moment a photon makes contact with a window and the next moment it either passes through or becomes one of the "reflected four" out of 100?


2) The moment a particle is in superposition and the moment it actually ends up in a singular position?

3) The moments before & after a particle is emitted from an atomic nucleus due to radioactive decay?

Ah sorry I didn't think you were arguing for the dichotomy...I mean I've already negated the dichotomy argument earlier IMO.

My point was I've seen mention of the dichotomy, but I've never seen this "how" question phrased this way. Usually the question is whether or not consciousness has the power to select an outcome from a set of possibilities.

So the presentation of a for/against argument would be something like, "From your experience you believe you have the power to select from possibilities, but actually this cannot be the case because..." OR the last part is "and here's why you are right or at least could be right..."

Is there a direct argument against free will this "how" question is based on? That's possibly a faster way to move the conversation along as it seems no one has any understanding what "how" explanation is being looked for.

You constantly ask me for a proof of the dichotomy. First, I gave up the dichotomy pages ago. Second, I am not the one making the positive claim that there is a method of making a decision that is incompatible with determinism yet not random. Even if you could prove that it's not a dichotomy, that would not constitute an explanation of how a free decision is made.

If the mental is the cause, where would an extraneous "how" come in?

Perhaps it would be more clear if you filled in this Mad Lib ->

"Free will is incoherent because _____".

I gave up the claim that free will is incoherent. I am now waiting for a description of how that presumably coherent free decision is made.

Isn't randomness the problem, rather than indeterminism? From Thomas Nail on pedesis, the undetermined but non-random movement of matter ->

Keep randomness. Jettison randomness. I don't care. I'm looking for a description of what happens between the final moment of indecision and the first moment of decision.

I suspect you will continue to feel there's still a missing "how" here...if so maybe it's better to forget about the mental part and just focus on the indeterminism part. Is there a "how" to the indeterministic behaviors in the quantum realm, for example the following, that preserves the indeterminism? ->

1) The moment a photon makes contact with a window and the next moment it either passes through or becomes one of the "reflected four" out of 100?


2) The moment a particle is in superposition and the moment it actually ends up in a singular position?

3) The moments before & after a particle is emitted from an atomic nucleus due to radioactive decay?

Those events are stochastic: random with certain probabilities. Are you suggesting that a free decision is random with certain probabilities?

~~ Paul

You constantly ask me for a proof of the dichotomy. First, I gave up the dichotomy pages ago. Second, I am not the one making the positive claim that there is a method of making a decision that is incompatible with determinism yet not random. Even if you could prove that it's not a dichotomy, that would not constitute an explanation of how a free decision is made.

Huh? I wasn't asking for a proof in the last post. And doesn't someone have to prove a claim - why would I prove there isn't a dichotomy when it's up to you to prove there is one and it's exclusivity?

Anyway my point was no one seems to phrase things in this "how" manner, so perhaps if you could point to something you've read that is comparable as an argument it would help.

Huh? I wasn't asking for a proof in the last post. And doesn't someone have to prove a claim - why would I prove there isn't a dichotomy when it's up to you to prove there is one and it's exclusivity?

Anyway my point was no one seems to phrase things in this "how" manner, so perhaps if you could point to something you've read that is comparable as an argument it would help.

I've admitted that I cannot prove there is a dichotomy, assuming you won't accept that random = not determined.

But you are making a positive claim, so you also have a burden of proof. Surely all the philosophers discussing free will are doing so because they feel a burden of proof. Otherwise, as usual, any positive claim must be accepted.

No one else has asked how an indeterministic yet nonrandom decision is made? Are you sure? What are they talking about, then?


~~ Paul

....you won't accept that random = not determined.

I think that's obviously not true for the reasons given in my last-last post.

But you are making a positive claim, so you also have a burden of proof. Surely all the philosophers discussing free will are doing so because they feel a burden of proof. Otherwise, as usual, any positive claim must be accepted.

Well I already said my only point in this thread is I don't think free will is incoherent - I think the burden would then lie on the other side.

But regarding this "how" question, the point is nobody seems to get what you want so I was just thinking that since no one else seemed to reply to you it might help to find another way to say whatever you're requesting.

No one else has asked how an indeterministic yet nonrandom decision is made? Are you sure? What are they talking about, then?

Well obviously not sure since I don't know what you mean...I mean if you can quote someone who has a comparable stance it would possibly help, or even multiple people who might've said it in different ways.