Free will re-redux

How would you know the difference between having the memory of having selected a possibility, and experiencing selecting a possibility?

Sorry Bart, but I don't think this matters?

You could ask this for any event - maybe I'm just a Boltzman brain who has actually experienced nothing up to this moment and only have memories of experiences.

The memory of the experience could be false, and the same mythical processes that Physicalists believe cause consciousness are actually responsible for decisions...but that still leaves the question of why when something happens all the other possibilities don't happen.

In any case the point [of that post] was not a proof of free will but rather arguing that free will - or at least the part that's under debate in this thread - is a singular nondeterministic [event] akin to certain similar events happening at the QM level.

Yeah, so, you're quite happy...
...
...rather than being generated by the agent under the agent's control.

Honestly if I knew years ago the "how" question criteria was one person's personal feeling of satisfaction...I don't think I'd have been all that motivated to participate.

But I think it's QED at this point regardless, given the original question was the metaphysical charge of incoherence, that free will is impossible in every possible world.

That position seems indefensible at this point, AFAICTell, since there's no proof of a randomness/determinism exclusive dichotomy and nothing empirical to point to. One can insist on projecting "randomness" onto the data of events observed at the QM level, but that is highly debatable given those events can be stochastically modeled. (In prior discussion this kind of nondeterminism was distinguished from the materialist "Hyper Chaos" where no distribution is applicable.)

As to the "how" question, as you note if there is free will it's at the fundamental level of causality. There has to be such a level since:

a) We know there's change, at least at the level of experience.
b) Randomness is incoherent/inconceivable
c) There cannot be sub-processes "all the way down" because that would mean there's no change. Impossible b/c a)

So "how" is always "How does a conscious agent possess this ability given some particular metaphysical aspect of the world?"

The Physicalist can't really reject the emergence of a new causal level for the conscious agent as without emergence there's no hope of explaining why the physical reality which has no consciousness miraculously produces it at a later date. [For the non-Physicalist, along with anyone who believes in Psi, I don't think is a problem at all.]

so basically...QED right?

Sorry Bart, but I don't think this matters?

You could ask this for any event

Exactly, and that why it does matter.

- maybe I'm just a Boltzman brain who has actually experienced nothing up to this moment and only have memories of experiences.

Or it may be that experiencing just works that way.

Exactly, and that why it does matter.
Or it may be that experiencing just works that way.

Sorry again Bart, I'm not sure what point you are trying to make?

Seems like you're making some argument against humans on planet Earth having free will?

That's not what I'm discussing, and pretty sure it's not anyone's central question here. We're discussing if free will is possible at all, as in the possibility of free will being real for some possible entity in some possible world. This includes God and the Ur-Mind of Idealism.

If you haven't done so, I suggest reading the entirety of this thread and the previous 75 page thread so as not to tread old ground.

But I'm not sure what this does for you. I don't think a satisfactory model of free decisions would be that each decision is random, but there is a predictable pattern to large groups of similar decisions.

~~ Paul

I still struggle with how a decision is random - "of its self" (such as a unitary state).  This "decision" you conceptualize as determined  --  is it random to what other variable?

I am moderately familiar with degrees of freedom in physics.  So, physics frames variables as having "freedom" to be selected.  Whatever you are trying to say about will - how is it a different kind of freedom.

Intention?  No comments.

 Degrees of Freedom in Physics Definition:
The degree of freedom for a dynamic system is the number of directions in which a particle can move freely or the total number of coordinates required to describe completely the position and configuration of the system.
It is denoted by f or N.

[Laird]

one person's personal feeling of satisfaction

Yeah. Any given individual's struggle to personally reconcile the concept of "a third option" with their existing worldview is irrelevant. Conceivability as I introduced it in context essentially just entails that the concept can be meaningfully described without contradiction, and we're still waiting for any hint of an actual contradiction with the concept (after having meaningfully described it). "Well, gee whizz, guys, I'm not sure that given my preconceptions this notion satisfies me" doesn't cut it. Where's the contradiction?

c) There cannot be sub-processes "all the way down" because that would mean there's no change.

If I understand correctly, here you're making an argument from infinite regress: that an endless reductive deferral of causal power means that nothing can ever be caused, because the power is only ever deferred, never actualised. Right?

You're arguing, then, for a basic level (of reduction) at which causality is actual(ised).

You go on to contend that consciousness almost certainly is causally effective at this basic level because it (consciousness) cannot be reduced to the existing (presumed to be basically causally effective) ontological category of matter, and that this is not just compatible with free will but seems very much to imply it.

Thus, the logical argument from incompatible dichotomy is defeated: free will is not just logically possible but logically plausible.

Am I understanding you aright?

Yeah. Any given individual's struggle to personally reconcile the concept of "a third option" with their existing worldview is irrelevant. Conceivability as I introduced it in context essentially just entails that the concept can be meaningfully described without contradiction, and we're still waiting for any hint of an actual contradiction with the concept (after having meaningfully described it). "Well, gee whizz, guys, I'm not sure that given my preconceptions this notion satisfies me" doesn't cut it. Where's the contradiction?


If I understand correctly, here you're making an argument from infinite regress: that an endless reductive deferral of causal power means that nothing can ever be caused, because the power is only ever deferred, never actualised. Right?

You're arguing, then, for a basic level (of reduction) at which causality is actual(ised).

You go on to contend that consciousness almost certainly is causally effective at this basic level because it (consciousness) cannot be reduced to the existing (presumed to be basically causally effective) ontological category of matter, and that this is not just compatible with free will but seems very much to imply it.

Thus, the logical argument from incompatible dichotomy is defeated: free will is not just logically possible but logically plausible.

Am I understanding you aright?

Well I didn't really try to contend consciousness is effective - in that post anyway. But yeah if it is causally effective it has to be in such a way that's irreducible in the same way determinism would have to "lock in" at this level.

So just as there's no lower/deeper process "how" explanation for determinism, and obviously not for randomness, neither is there for free will. [There can be a "how" explanation in terms of, say, causal powers metaphysics, where free will is shown to fit into the general description covering all causation. Why I've posted that list of papers a few times over now, with some admitted additions toward the end of this thread.]

Personally I think there's only mental causation, because the only metaphysics of causality that [make] sense to me have ground-level consciousness. (Theism, Cosmopanpsychism/Pantheism/Panentheism, Animism, Idealism, Liberal Naturalism...)

[Laird]

So just as there's no lower/deeper process "how" explanation for determinism, and obviously not for randomness, neither is there for free will.

Right. And, as I wrote to Paul way, way back on the initial Skeptiko thread in which we first began these discussions, even allowing for a mutually exclusive dichotomy of necessitation and randomness, free will can anyway still be accommodated, which is why (as I wrote in that first thread) necessitation and randomness in the context of free will is a red herring: the real question is origination (external versus internal). It is possible that, rather than causal necessity being imposed upon an agent, that agent authors (at least to an extent meaningfully compatible with free will) the "necessitating" aspect of the causal processes in which it participates, just as it is possible that, rather than being subject to randomness, the agent authors randomness.

Right. And, as I wrote to Paul way, way back on the initial Skeptiko thread in which we first began these discussions, even allowing for a mutually exclusive dichotomy of necessitation and randomness, free will can anyway still be accommodated, which is why (as I wrote in that first thread) necessitation and randomness in the context of free will is a red herring: the real question is origination (external versus internal). It is possible that, rather than causal necessity being imposed upon an agent, that agent authors (at least to an extent meaningfully compatible with free will) the "necessitating" aspect of the causal processes in which it participates, just as it is possible that, rather than being subject to randomness, the agent authors randomness.

With all due respect........

maybe I'm just being myself as a cranky older guy, But I am here at Psiencequest, for the connection between mind -- and information gain and transfer not currently defined by science (Psi).  Psi-philosophy is important, but (for me) is distracting to the goals in building those connections.  

In prior posts, I have attacked generalized ideas of randomness interfering with the science defined term.  In my limited understanding, I would point to necessity and determinism, as likewise, having a science based method of analysis - Markov Chains.  Randomness and relationships are measurable in the real world.

Free will has a vast backstory and for me it is all argued out.  Again, the science has been laid out in formal ways that (for me personally) mask out the ancient arguments.

https://www-physics.lbl.gov/~stapp/vNS.pdf

 4. The von Neumann/Stapp Approach 
Von Neumann quantum theory is a formulation in which the entire physical universe, including the bodies and brains of the conscious human participant/observers, is represented in the basic quantum state, which is called the state of the universe. The state of a subsystem, such as a brain, is formed by averaging (tracing) this basic state over all variables other than those that describe the state of that subsystem. The dynamics involves three processes. Process 1 is the choice on the part of the experimenter about how he will act. This choice is sometimes called “The Heisenberg Choice,” because Heisenberg emphasized strongly its crucial role in quantum dynamics. At the pragmatic level it is a “free choice,” because it is controlled, at least in practice, by the conscious intentions of the experimenter/participant, and neither the Copenhagen nor von Neumann formulations provide any description of the causal origins of this choice, apart from the mental intentions of the human agent.

A DOE (design of experiments) is a creative act outside of a Markov Chain.  The subject is now done - if intentions and designs are taken as a real-world natural events.

 As I have repeatedly stressed in many occasions, design is a crucial, epistemological process, hugely undertheorised, and which we need to understand much better, not only for its own sake, but also to make the most of it. It combines epistemic, logical, normative and practical aspects. It is a major form of innovation, and in our time probably the main one, when compared to the other two, discovery and invention. We design laws, institutions, environments, the products and services we use or consume. We increasingly design biochemical entities and new materials. Digital technologies make all this very easy. Our age really is the age of design, it should be the age of good design. - Luciano Floridi

https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/.../full/html

Agents exist in an environment of physical objects and changing energy transformations.  An agent's actions of intention are measured as information activity and the possibility for organization and the creation of informational structures.  In an informational environment, they are as traceable and effective as are physical events.

When you say that an agent can create randomness, it is done by having intentions that cause entropy.  An agent can act in accordance with the flow of culture with no disruption.  But - an agent can be creative and add new organization with intention.  A well designed sandwich or a well designed science experiment are both acts of free-will from a multitude of possible responses available to an agent.

Psi events need to be exposed as real world happenings within an information science context.

[Laird]

With all due respect........

Understood, although I'm not sure quite where our disagreement is.

I am here at Psiencequest, for the connection between mind -- and information gain and transfer not currently defined by science (Psi).

That's fine. We all have our priorities and perspectives.

In my limited understanding, I would point to necessity and determinism, as likewise, having a science based method of analysis - Markov Chains.

Markov Chains seem, strictly speaking, to be stochastic. Are you suggesting that determinism underlies their apparent statistical nature?

When you say that an agent can create randomness, it is done by having intentions that cause entropy.

Do they necessarily cause entropy, or is it possible (as seems often the case to me) that they reduce entropy?

An agent can act in accordance with the flow of culture with no disruption.  But - an agent can be creative and add new organization with intention.  A well designed sandwich or a well designed science experiment are both acts of free-will from a multitude of possible responses available to an agent.

Here, we are happily in agreement.