Free will re-redux

I certainly experience any effects of the decision. But I simply do not experience the decision at any level of detail. I can make decisions in situations ranging from sleep to deep concentration on a problem. But in the latter case I experience only the gross steps of the decision. I talk to myself a lot while thinking about problems. I feel confident in saying that I am not directly experiencing whatever insights occur between one mumbling and the next. It's just a series of hops.

~~ Paul

Thanks for the sincere response.  So, we seem to agree that what happens in the moment - physically - is experienced with the 5 senses and can be recorded by instruments.  It is P=1 or 100% probable to have happened.

I hope we agree, on a sliding scale, that decisions made during sleep or dreaming are subconscious and that decisions made with ardent focus are fully conscious.  If we do agree, it will help describe the context of the information processes.

Sci has presented arguments for a kind of activity that is neither random or determined.  I take this for granted as the environment is interactive and creative when probed by agents.  Since the advent of chaos theory, the world is seen as having too many degrees of freedom to be limited to only deterministic patterns.  You are working on a dinosaur of an argument, but I understand your feelings about how does one know?

I suggest that an agent's activity of querying its environment organizes an independent reflective response.  The very search for mutual information, interferes with probabilistic patterns extant in the environment.  Decisions made at a subconscious level or worked-out during a dream, play forward just the same as decisions made with great thought.  That is because a decision is the structuring of information in reality.

I'm happy to agree that we don't know the ultimate source for what we call a predetermined event. However, we understand cause and effect well enough to be able to build microcomputers that behave almost completely as if predetermined. We even understand the essentially random nature of QM enough to build many devices based on QM principles, including small quantum computers.

Can I get a description of the free will "process" at a level even vaguely approaching the level of description I can give you for the internals of a computer? One explanation, I suppose, would be that every event is the result of something's will and that something is unusually cooperative with our technology.

~~ Paul

But an explanation for free will would be at the level of causal explanation, rather than taking advantage of patterns that exist because of causality.

I'm not saying free will exists here, I'm saying that the explanation is going to be at least one level lower than the explanation given for computers.

Said explanation will certainly not be of a similar kind.

edit: This already came up in the last 75 page thread, so I'd suggest rereading it rather than arguing further here. Or we just have to agree to disagree.

Though I guess if there is something new to be said -> How do you know those quantum movements are "random" rather the "pedetic", as Thomas Nail conceives matter moving in a non-random but also non-deterministic way?

Are these really two spaces?

They are if we define them as such. Patternism FTW.

Determinism that has no explanation is just a special kind of randomness.

If you're looking for the cause of causes, I think it is ultimately successively tighter loops of recursion wrapped around the notion of Will itself. There is the static principle and the dynamic principle... A.K.A.: Logos/Abyss, determinism/randomness, mechanism/failure, system/anomaly, computable/computationally irreducible. We exist on the boundary between the two fundamental principles. The force that drives the dynamism is the very subject of this thread: Will.

Another way to arrive at the fundamental nature of the Will:
Perception implies difference/similarity. To identify anything, boundaries are set at an arbitrarily decided threshold of similarity/difference. The "arbitrary" threshold is decided based upon usefulness in achieving some goal. Goal implies will/desire. These imply that the thing desired is not yet attained. The time lag between desire/will and attainment is what drives all motion and relative motion creates the notion of stasis or the static principle. Thus emotion is analogous to voltage potential. Steady controlled emotional discharge creates useful "work". Sudden short-circuits of emotion can cause improbable probability shaping (e.g. poltergeist activity).

So Will is fundamental; creates motion/stasis; drives the engine of existence, etc... but who's will? ...Depends on how you arbitrarily assign boundaries around identities based on what is most useful to you in accomplishing your goals.

And this all reminds me of a Dr. Seuss rhyme:
Who am I?
My name is Ish.
Upon my hand I have a dish.
I have this dish to help me wish.
When I wish to make a wish,
I wave my hand with a big swish swish,
And then I get fish right on my dish.
So, if you wish to wish a wish,
You may swish for fish with my Ish wish dish.

It seems to [me] this is just a confusion of mathematics for reality, since in math things are either modeled with a deterministic function where input/output are fixed or via random variables where an input can lead to a distribution of outcomes.

If the nested recursive theory of reality is the reality, then the rules of nature were not necessarily decided upon but might have been arrived at iteratively and are implemented by something like a GAN or a neural network or a graph. Which means that the gravitational constant along with every other habit of nature is a probability function that is truncated arbitrarily in a manner that is most useful.

If you put me in the Matrix and for a lark add the following rules:

1. If Sci sees a squirrel [today] and eats pizza, the moon will be orange for that night.

2. If Sci sees a sparrow [today] and eats a cookie, there's a 50% chance two moons will be seen.

I would conclude the "1" is deterministic and "2" is random, but I wouldn't know the actual source of causality for either. [I'm assuming you gave me a new identity ignorant of the Matrix.]

Our own assignment of the [two] terms is equally ignorant of actual causal explanation.

I'm saying "acutal causation" is axiomatic. It is the Will which is a fundamental principle of nature, which we share if we so choose to define ourselves as sharing it.

I think we could sum it up thus:

"Do I have free will?"

It's up to you.

I'm saying "acutal causation" is axiomatic. It is the Will which is a fundamental principle of nature, which we share if we so choose to define ourselves as sharing it.

I am admittedly a bit lost regarding the recursive part of this, as well as the last bit about choosing to define ourselves as sharing it.

But I do think we agree that all causation is fundamentally mental causation. And while there's a long argument involving hundreds and maybe even a thousand pages of philosophy, I'd note that when it comes to describing quantum level "random" behavior words like "decide" seem to creep in:

“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 wondered if Penrose’s theory has any bearing on the long-running philosophical argument between free will and determinism. Many neuroscientists believe decisions are caused by neural processes that aren’t ruled by conscious thought, rendering the whole idea of free will obsolete. But the indeterminacy that’s intrinsic to quantum theory would suggest that causal connections break down in the conscious brain. Is Penrose making the case for free will?


“Not quite, though at this stage, it looks like it,” he said. “It does look like these choices would be random. But free will, is that random?” Like much of his thinking, there’s a “yes, but” here. His claims are provocative, but they’re often provisional. And so it is with his ideas about free will. “I’ve certainly grown up thinking the universe is deterministic. Then I evolved into saying, ‘Well, maybe it’s deterministic but it’s not computable.’ But is it something more subtle than that? Is it several layers deeper? If it’s something we use for our conscious understanding, it’s going to be a lot deeper than even straightforward, non-computable deterministic physics. It’s a kind of delicate borderline between completely deterministic behavior and something which is completely free.”
  -Roger Penrose in Roger Penrose On Why Consciousness Does Not Compute

I think we could sum it up thus:

"Do I have free will?"

It's up to you.

The old man turns to her at last and says,

"You're as free as you think you are."

then he turns and walks away.
 -Euthanatos, 1997 edition

I am admittedly a bit lost regarding the recursive part of this, as well as the last bit about choosing to define ourselves as sharing it.

Everything is made of pattern. Pattern is composed of boundaries. Boundaries are assigned by choice. There is no choice without Will. So nothing can exist without Will.

The neural network in your brain assigns boundaries semi-automatically based on what has proved to be most useful to you in the past. But if you change your goals you change what is useful to perceive so you see a different pattern.

The universe is generative neural network and a perceptive neural network staring at each other each trying to reach an agreement on where to truncate fuzzy probabilities into discrete units in order to achieve some goal and this is the fundamental act of choice which is the fundamental act of creation.

The notion of absolute truth is equivalent to materialism... it is an extrapolation of the sensory experience of hardness into metaphysics and there is no reason to do this. Truth is an agreement based upon mutual goals.

A purely magical universe where will manifests instantly would be pure chaos and meaningless randomness.
A purely deterministic universe absent of will would be static, rock-like, immutable.
A universe composed of mental magic with a time-lag between will and manifestation of will is where we are.

It is the separation (in time) between desire and manifestation of desire that creates a gradient of potential energy along which we are sliding and that is what is creating everything we experience including all the rules and laws and habits of nature. Laws of nature and everything else are a product of the frustrated will of the creator.

Everything is made of pattern. Pattern is composed of boundaries. Boundaries are assigned by choice. There is no choice without Will. So nothing can exist without Will.

I don't really understand this - are you saying substances like a cheese sandwich are made of patterns, rather than expressing patterns? I feel like "stuff" can have patterns, but patterns cannot be expressed/actual without "stuff"?

The notion of absolute truth is equivalent to materialism... it is an extrapolation of the sensory experience of hardness into metaphysics and there is no reason to do this. Truth is an agreement based upon mutual goals.

I don't really get this either - Absolute Truth is like Matter + Energy + Laws of Physics?

Does it relate to:

A purely magical universe where will manifests instantly would be pure chaos and meaningless randomness.
A purely deterministic universe absent of will would be static, rock-like, immutable.
A universe composed of mental magic with a time-lag between will and manifestation of will is where we are.

Can't a purely deterministic universe be like a clock? Or do you mean that each step of the clock needs to be guaranteed by a Will of some kind?


I would agree with that much, though I'd say even a frozen immutable universe needs an explanation for why its possibilities remain constrained across the temporal sequence.

I don't think pure randomness is actually possible, though I'd say a "chaos universe" could be one where animism is true but there's no Harmony between the spirits controlling varied domains.

Anyway this is really interesting stuff. Usually these discussions end up boring as the same things get said over and over and almost no one changes their minds...

Addendum to the above reply, Arvan's New Theory of Free Will wherein he originally presented the P2P Simulation Hypothesis:

This paper shows that the conjunction of several live philosophical and scientific hypotheses –including the holographic principle and multiverse theory in quantum physics, and eternalism and mind-body dualism in philosophy –jointly imply an audacious new theory of free will. This new theory, "Libertarian Compatibilism", holds that the physical world is an eternally existing array oftwo-dimensionalinformation –a vast number of possible pasts, presents, and futures –and the mind a nonphysical entity or set of properties that "read" that physical information off to subjective conscious awareness (in much the same way that a song written on an ordinary compact-disc is only played when read by an outside medium, i.e. a CD-player). According to this theory, every possible physical“timeline” in the multiverse may be fully physically deterministic or physically-causally closed but each person’s consciousness still entirely free to choose, ex nihilo, outside of the physical order, which physically-closed timeline is experienced by conscious observers.

Admittedly the "ex nihilo" part is an issue, I'll have to ask him exactly what he means there.

But you'll notice that this explanation gets deep into the weeds, what Penrose [in the aforementioned interview] would call a deeper layer than conventional physics.

This to me is only natural as the question of free will is at the level of trying to understand/explain indeterminate quantum behavior. Free will should be argued for/against at the same level that the debate between Pedesis and Randomness occurs.

This is because just like Pedesis and Randomness the question of Free Will concerns possibility selection, specifically possibility selection by a conscious agent. Explanations of computers, quantum or otherwise, work at a "higher" level where the patterns of possibility selection are accepted and expected to hold across time.

One might even argue that Free Will is Conscious Pedesis, a non-determined mental event that is grounded via relations to the surrounded context of the decision maker.

But an explanation for free will would be at the level of causal explanation, rather than taking advantage of patterns that exist because of causality.

I'm not saying free will exists here, I'm saying that the explanation is going to be at least one level lower than the explanation given for computers.

Said explanation will certainly not be of a similar kind.

edit: This already came up in the last 75 page thread, so I'd suggest rereading it rather than arguing further here. Or we just have to agree to disagree.

Though I guess if there is something new to be said -> How do you know those quantum movements are "random" rather the "pedetic", as Thomas Nail conceives matter moving in a non-random but also non-deterministic way?

I'm happy to consider that some of what appears to be random is actually not random. Nail can conceive matter moving any way he likes, but can he explain how the movement is caused by an indeterministic yet nonrandom agent?

Again, there is a lot of talk of the source of such effects, and a lot of repetition that there might be such effects, but not much at all in the way of description. If the description is even subtler than quantum mechanics, then I certainly agree that it's going to be a bitch of a project.

~~ Paul