Neuroscience and free will
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(2019-03-08, 03:47 PM)Laird Wrote: Guys, I'm open to the possibility of a necessary decision - anybody? Just a simple example. Convince me. I'm the judge here. Who is making the decisions when a computer program runs? ~~ Paul
If the existence of a thing is indistinguishable from its nonexistence, we say that thing does not exist. ---Yahzi
(2019-03-08, 03:53 PM)Paul C. Anagnostopoulos Wrote: Who is making the decisions when a computer program runs? Golly gosh, I just don't understand it. I've been so accommodating. I've even allowed for the possibility that there could be a necessitated decision. I've given the hard determinists all the free rein they could want, and yet still nobody can give me an example of a necessitated decision. It's really most, most peculiar. Honestly, I just don't know how to explain this. Can anybody else? (2019-03-08, 03:22 PM)Paul C. Anagnostopoulos Wrote: Are you claiming that there is no possible world in which some events happen out of necessity? I thought that it was pretty much established that this was the case, given that an ice cube may or may not melt in a lava bed. If there is a world where events don't happen out of necessity, then there are no worlds where it does (necessity must be universal). Damned if I can explain why my CD player works, but folk intuitions are always right, right? Linda (2019-03-08, 03:53 PM)Paul C. Anagnostopoulos Wrote: Who is making the decisions when a computer program runs? The highly intelligent groups of hardware designers, and then a vast number of software programmers who build on top of their creations. Software and hardware don't make decisions, as they're not conscious nor sentient in any sense. They're designed with many, various layers of abstractions so that a programmer can create some input, which is fed into the CPU black box, which then processes, and spits out a result. At first, they used crude methods, like punch cards, then used those to eventually create assembly languages that could do that for them, and then used to those assembly languages to create far more production abstractions, so then something like C can be written, and fed into a compiler binary that does all of the hard work of outputting a end-user program. Layers, built upon more layers. It took some extremely intelligent human beings to design a modern computer. The sheer amount of effort and decision-making that goes into designing such a complex and complicated machine is basically unrivaled by almost anything else. The history of computer design, and how it has progressed from nothing to what it is today ~ that takes free will to accomplish. A computer cannot be designed through deterministic decision-making ~ it takes extremely intricate creativeness to even begin to do so. It takes a wild imagination to piece everything together so it works to the neat degree that it does today. So, don't underestimate the fact that free will is necessary to create something like a computer. It doesn't just... happen, like you seem to believe. It requires conscious individuals with free will, and the imaginative abilities that come as a result of being able to make choices and decisions.
“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”
(This post was last modified: 2019-03-08, 05:40 PM by Valmar.)
~ Carl Jung (2019-03-08, 05:38 PM)Valmar Wrote: The highly intelligent groups of hardware designers, and then a vast number of software programmers who build on top of their creations.Right, but who is making the decisions when it actually runs? After all, we are assuming that there are no necessitated events, aren't we? ~~ Paul
If the existence of a thing is indistinguishable from its nonexistence, we say that thing does not exist. ---Yahzi
(2019-03-08, 12:11 PM)Paul C. Anagnostopoulos Wrote: Right, but my question is whether physics is just admitting something that cannot be done at all, even with some sort of "free will theory." If that were the case I don't think we'd get pondering about the question from physicists like these: Today there is a wide measure of agreement, which on the physical side of science approaches almost to unanimity, that the stream of knowledge is heading towards a non-mechanical reality; the universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine. Mind no longer appears as an accidental intruder into the realm of matter; we are beginning to suspect that we ought rather to hail it as a creator and governor of the realm of matter... -James Jean =-=-= From The Wholeness of Quantum Reality: An Interview with Physicist Basil Hiley Quote:GM: In a sense, do we create that particle? =-=-= How observers create reality Brian Josephson Quote:Wheeler proposed that repeated acts of observation give rise to the reality that we observe, but offered no detailed mechanism for this. Here this creative process is accounted for on the basis of the idea that nature has a deep technological aspect that evolves as a result of selection processes that act upon observers making use of the technologies. This leads to the conclusion that our universe is the product of agencies that use these evolved technologies to suit particular purposes. =-=-= On Participatory Realism Chris Fuchs Quote:In the Philosophical Investigations, Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote, “ ‘I’ is not the name of a person, nor ‘here’ of a place, . . . . But they are connected with names. . . . [And] it is characteristic of physics not to use these words.” This statement expresses the dominant way of thinking in physics: Physics is about the impersonal laws of nature; the “I” never makes an appearance in it. =-=-= Temporal Platonic Metaphysics Aleksandar Mikovic Quote:We have presented a Platonic metaphysics where time plays the essential role: it serves to distinguish between real and abstract universes. This role of time together with our proposed mind-brain connection resolves the epistemological problem in platonism [1]. Namely, if the abstract ideas are outside of spacetime, then how can we do mathematics? According to our approach, the answer is that our mind, which is a temporal sequence of ideas contained in our brain, will contain the copies of these abstract ideas.
'Historically, we may regard materialism as a system of dogma set up to combat orthodox dogma...Accordingly we find that, as ancient orthodoxies disintegrate, materialism more and more gives way to scepticism.'
- Bertrand Russell
To continue from the last post:
Roger Penrose On Why Consciousness Does Not Compute Quote:As we probed the deeper implications of Penrose’s theory about consciousness, it wasn’t always clear where to draw the line between the scientific and philosophical dimensions of his thinking. Consider, for example, superposition in quantum theory. How could Schrödinger’s cat be both dead and alive before we open the box? “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.” =-=-= Is The Universe A Vast, Consciousness-created Virtual Reality Simulation? Bernard Haisch Quote:Two luminaries of 20th century astrophysics were Sir James Jeans and Sir Arthur Eddington. Both took seriously the view that there is more to reality than the physical universe and more to consciousness than simply brain activity. In his Science and the Unseen World(1929) Eddington speculated about a spiritual world and that "consciousnessis not wholly, nor even primarily a device for receiving sense impressions." Jeans also speculated on the existence of a universal mind and a non-mechanical reality, writing in his The Mysterious Universe(1932) "the universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine."... =-=-= Torah and the Thermodynamics of Life: An Interview with Jeremy England Quote:It has to be acknowledged that Tanakh is not trying to keep you comfortable with the idea of natural law, it is trying to make you uncomfortable with the idea of fixed, natural laws. That’s at least one current within it. (There are other ones that are countercurrents. There is also the Psalmist’s idea of mah rabu ma’asecha Adonai kulam be-chochma asita [how many are the things you have made, O Lord; you have made them all with wisdom]—the idea that Hashem made everything in wisdom and it has all this natural order and regularity to it. So, there are these currents in tension with one another.) But papering over that tension and saying, “It’s easy, we don’t have to worry about it”—that can come at a cost. Quote:Someone might say, “The rules of the universe are fundamentally mathematical and probabilistic. Furthermore, there is a very parsimonious mathematical theory that is the explanation of everything, and we are just trying to refine our understanding of that model. But the universe is mathematical.” That is, in a sense, a mystical claim. It is beautiful and nourishes the souls of people who devote themselves to it. And it’s a very common devotion in my line of work. =-=-= Physicist N. David Mermin on what the study of physics is about: Quote:In my youth I had little sympathy for Niels Bohr’s philosophical pronouncements. In a review of Bohr’s philosophical writings I said that “one wants to shake the author vigorously and demand that he explain himself further or at least try harder to paraphrase some of his earlier formulations.” But in my declining years, I’ve come to realize that buried in those ponderous documents are some real gems: “In our description of nature the purpose is not to disclose the real essence of the phenomena but only to track down, so far as it is possible, relations between the manifold aspects of our experience,” and “Physics is to be regarded not so much as the study of something a priori given, but rather as the development of methods for ordering and surveying human experience.”
'Historically, we may regard materialism as a system of dogma set up to combat orthodox dogma...Accordingly we find that, as ancient orthodoxies disintegrate, materialism more and more gives way to scepticism.'
- Bertrand Russell (2019-03-08, 05:42 PM)Sciborg_S_Patel Wrote: If that were the case I don't think we'd get pondering about the question from physicists like these:I didn't mean physicists, but physics itself. Anyway, I'll drop this issue. I'm just trying to find out whether, in fact, there can be no worlds in which there are any necessitated events. If that is the case, then I wonder which agent is running computers? Also, I can't help but wonder what stops the underlying agent from establishing automatic events. But perhaps that is a silly question. ~~ Paul
If the existence of a thing is indistinguishable from its nonexistence, we say that thing does not exist. ---Yahzi
(This post was last modified: 2019-03-08, 05:59 PM by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos.)
(2019-03-08, 02:34 PM)Paul C. Anagnostopoulos Wrote: I don't understand why other worlds matter, though I agree there could be worlds with no physical axioms. It just means if you can imagine it being different, it isn't axiomatic in the same way that something fundamental about change is axiomatic. Quote:Why did I choose chicken rather than fish? That is, the question you asked a few pages ago. Via free will to alter Final Cause. Quote:That would be a statement of the fact that the force is axiomatic. It would not explain how the force operates. We can do that with the four physical forces. Do forces explain causation? It seems to me they follow from causation already assumed - you take measurements then posit the force is the source of those measurements. Quote:So there is nothing to explain between the force and a particular result of the force? Well my point was this "force" explanation wouldn't be satisfying, I would rather say the thing to explain is the causation that has allowed us to assume there are forces. Quote:Some randomness has a uniform probability distribution. Some does not. I do not know why this is the case. So physicalism rests on Luck...seems like an odd belief system to adhere to...
'Historically, we may regard materialism as a system of dogma set up to combat orthodox dogma...Accordingly we find that, as ancient orthodoxies disintegrate, materialism more and more gives way to scepticism.'
- Bertrand Russell |
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