Free will re-redux

So in your first paragraph you are willing to take a proposition without any description (e.g., physicalism can't explain "how" consciousness works) with a promissory note (e.g., physicalism ultimately may explain it).

Yet, in your second paragraph you reject the notion of free will out of hand because a description of its process can't be offered?  (Perhaps there is no "process" as you think of it behind a free decision?)

If people want to say that they just don't have any idea how a free decision is made, then I won't keep asking. But that doesn't seem to be the path of this conversation. Meanwhile, scientists continue to work on the problem of consciousness; they haven't yet given up. And philosophers will continue to debate free will, perhaps waiting for the day when some sort of evidence arises that we can explore.

This objection of yours seems incoherent and, ultimately, pointless.  There's an embedded arrogance in insisting a description must (could?) be offered and even understood by you (or anyone else for that matter) based on our woefully modest level of knowledge.  How does your limited intelligence give you confidence that because you can't find a description of a free decision it must not exist?  Seems really odd to me unless I'm misunderstanding your consternation after all these pages and years of debate.

Sure, we could all just throw our hands up in the air. But what sort of conversation would that be? It is certainly possible that the way in which a free decision is made is incomprehensible to us. Or, it may be comprehensible to others but not to me. That is why I say "I have not yet heard a description that is coherent to me."

~~ Paul

If people want to say that they just don't have any idea how a free decision is made, then I won't keep asking. But that doesn't seem to be the path of this conversation. Meanwhile, scientists continue to work on the problem of consciousness; they haven't yet given up. And philosophers will continue to debate free will, perhaps waiting for the day when some sort of evidence arises that we can explore.

Sure, we could all just throw our hands up in the air. But what sort of conversation would that be? It is certainly possible that the way in which a free decision is made is incomprehensible to us. Or, it may be comprehensible to others but not to me. That is why I say "I have not yet heard a description that is coherent to me."

~~ Paul

Reasonable responses Paul.  I guess I had come away from your posting history on the topic with the sense that you are effectively denying the existence of free decisions due, fully or in part, to the lack of a descriptive process for such a free decision.  That was what hadn't made sense to me.

One definition for all of math and science? What do you think it is?

I'm not sure why you think I believe "random" is a state. But the definition you gave is reasonable in certain contexts.

"In probability theory and information theory, the mutual information of two random variables is a measure of the mutual dependence between the two variables. More specifically, it quantifies the "amount of information" obtained about one random variable through observing the other random variable."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randomness#In_science

Randomness is not a state, was my point.  It is a math value representing the relationship between two things.

Example in Biology:  Genetic mutations are random to fitness. 

Here are 2 variables with data that that can be computed as to randomness.  The mutual information (a formal measure as you have confirmed) about ecological fitness and the outcomes of mutations are declared to be independent.  Here is Nature, a Springer Publication, desperately  trying to hang-on as the tide of facts sweep this partly false idea away.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6280920/

 mutations occur randomly with respect to whether their effects are useful. Thus, beneficial DNA changes do not happen more often simply because an organism could benefit from them. Moreover, even if an organism has acquired a beneficial mutation during its lifetime, the corresponding information will not flow back into the DNA in the organism's germline. This is a fundamental insight that Jean-Baptiste Lamarck got wrong and Charles Darwin got right.

That the authors know this is stand that is in trouble and is covered in the following way.  The above wording meant to be read as "THE science"  -- BUT is preceded by the following statement...

 The statement that mutations are random is both profoundly true and profoundly untrue at the same time. The true aspect of this statement stems from the fact that, to the best of our knowledge, the consequences of a mutation have no influence whatsoever on the probability that this mutation will or will not occur. In other words, mutations occur randomly with respect to whether their effects are useful.

Ok - "true AND untrue"; "best of our knowledge" and my favorite, Darwin was right about fitness and Lamarck was wrong.

Working backwards - it is very  deceptive to assert that Darwin did not include Lamarckian results in his theory.  He did.  Darwin and Lamarck saw mind as influential.  Darwin was right about mental capabilities developing as a major aspect of Bio-Evolution in direct contradiction to the neoDarwinism view of the article.

Epigenetics IS a Lamarckian result.  And proving more influential everyday, based on data.  There are any number of other mechanisms now being parsed as the data is present to prove their effects.

Epigentics, horizonal gene transfer, symbiogenesis, and heritable instinct are the major discoveries in evolutionary theory.  All support that fitness is correlated with informational processes that create mutual information between organism and affordances in the environment.  Hence, nonrandom relations exist between organism needs and phenotype expression.  Mind is the source of the activity where influence is exerted.

Lynn Caporale gathered data that mutation rates can change when a species needs to adapt, due to stress in the environment.  From this she found ample data for mutation rates speeding-up adaptation in a non-random means.

https://ncse.ngo/review-darwin-genome

The data is clear - there exists measurable mutual information between outcomes of heredity (a variable) and outcomes for changing bio-chemistry that addresses challenges (a variable).

Hence, why the article is dancing like a guilty defendant when testifying.

Would you deny the variable of will, that if you wanted to lose weight (I do).  Deciding to do so - leading to selecting a different diet.  You can measure the the effectiveness of technique - but must admit it is personal will power that forms the outcome.

Reasonable responses Paul.  I guess I had come away from your posting history on the topic with the sense that you are effectively denying the existence of free decisions due, fully or in part, to the lack of a descriptive process for such a free decision.  That was what hadn't made sense to me.

A lack of a description of how the free decision can be made.

I'm also skeptical because I haven't read any papers that sound convincing. For example, I'm now reading Anjum and Mumford's "Causation Is Not Your Enemy." I think it's a pretty good paper. However, they argue that causation does not involve necessity using the example of a person throwing a ball at a window. It is not tightly predetermined that the window will break because a mattress could appear in front of it. Sure, if the system we consider includes only the person, ball, and window, that is true. But if we consider the actual system, which also includes the mattress and the rest of the universe, then it could be tightly predetermined (ignoring any random events). So I'm not convinced that causality does not involve necessity.

~~ Paul

Randomness is not a state, was my point.  It is a math value representing the relationship between two things.

Example in Biology:  Genetic mutations are random to fitness. 

I have no argument with anything you posted about biology. There is plenty of evidence that mutations are not uniformly random with respect to fitness. In particular, a useful gene is likely to mutate into a similar gene, which then has some chance of also being useful.

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. Are you arguing that which particle (in a large group of particles) decays next is not uniformly random?

If you are arguing that there is room in "randomness" for some sort of intentional causality, I'm happy to accept that hypothesis. But that still does not address the question of how that intention results in a decision.

~~ Paul

I have no argument with anything you posted about biology. There is plenty of evidence that mutations are not uniformly random with respect to fitness. In particular, a useful gene is likely to mutate into a similar gene, which then has some chance of also being useful.

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. Are you arguing that which particle (in a large group of particles) decays next is not uniformly random?

If you are arguing that there is room in "randomness" for some sort of intentional causality, I'm happy to accept that hypothesis. But that still does not address the question of how that intention results in a decision.

~~ Paul

I agree that particle decay is random.
I am not arguing any metaphysical idea about intentions and panpsychism.

I am arguing that science has two (or more) platforms mapping transformations in reality.  One is physics and materials science.

The other platform is the informational sciences, which study order, organization, logic, thermodynamics, communication, linguistics and psychology.  These track information objects transforming in an analogous manner as physical objects in their environment.

In the track of informational transformations, mutual information is the key formation for measuring communications and the use of knowledge.  I can try to walk thru the general steps where science can address and gather data on intention as an action in the real-world.  I am not qualified in any way to layout this pathway in other than most general terms.

We would need to agree on what is "an intention" in an objective fashion.  The terms of choice, selection and decision are loaded with backstory in Philosophy.  Please don't send me into my library to reference their nuances.  I could be lost in them for days, as in the past I did tackle the literature with all its picky distinctions.

In terms of the informational "object" perspective - can you imagine (or se as a heuristic) structured bits and bytes as corresponding to materials and intentions as corresponding to forces?

In this way, we can pull apart how instinct and intentions may work.

We would need to agree on what is "an intention" in an objective fashion.  The terms of choice, selection and decision are loaded with backstory in Philosophy.  Please don't send me into my library to reference their nuances.  I could be lost in them for days, as in the past I did tackle the literature with all its picky distinctions.

In terms of the informational "object" perspective - can you imagine (or se as a heuristic) structured bits and bytes as corresponding to materials and intentions as corresponding to forces?

In this way, we can pull apart how instinct and intentions may work.

You're suggesting I should imagine a force of intention? Is this a new physical force or some kind of biological "force"?

~~ Paul

You're suggesting I should imagine a force of intention? Is this a new physical force or some kind of biological "force"?

~~ Paul

Force values, as derivatives of the SI units of measures, specify physicality.  Intention is measured in terms of informational influence.  Intention and instinct deliver messages and meaningful context to real world environments.

It is a short and wonderful list of those scientific masterpieces of observation that extract essential nature as structured data points.

 The seven SI base units, which are comprised of:

• Length - meter (m)
  
  
• Time - second (s)
  
  
• Amount of substance - mole (mole)
  
  
• Electric current - ampere (A)
  
  
• Temperature - kelvin (K)
  
  
• Luminous intensity - candela (cd)
  
  
• Mass - kilogram (kg)
  

Intention is active in informational transformations.  Intention structures ecological data in computable terms that are specified as enforcing logical outcomes and information gain from perception.  Functionality comes from ordered events and organisms use intention to connect to affordances.  Perception allows response -- and responses are vectors carrying instructions to organize both inner and exterior environments.    

I think the problem starts with seeing intentional vectors of behavior as a natural variable in reality.  I think a list of those units that specify in information science would be helpful.  Nats, bits, nand etc......

[Laird]

But honestly this "how" question still makes no sense to me.

My best guess is that Paul's looking for a description something like this:

The mind's doohickey interfaces with its whatsit, while its gizmo dynamically generates a list of options to funnel through the thingummy for refinement, and as the dialogue between doohickey and whatsit over the gizmo-supplied, thingummy-refined list of options reaches a critical juncture, one in particular emerges victorious, and the decision is finalised and propagates fully through the mind.

That would make his claim that we don't have the equivalent knowledge of free will choices that science has of, e.g., computing processes, somewhat understandable: after all, we don't know anything about these doohickeys, whatsits, gizmos, and thingummies at even the most abstract level, let alone how they relate to and cooperate with one another in specifics, whereas when it comes to a computer we have a good understanding of how it works in terms of its logic gates, resistors, capacitors, etc, and their interrelations.

He would allow, of course, for the purposes of argument, that the whole process is neither necessitated nor random, but my sense is that he still wants some sort of describable process like that.

[Laird]

How'd I do, @Paul C. Anagnostopoulos ?