Neuroscience and free will

When determinism is mixed with a little randomness, why not creativity?

The observed creativity of human beings requires that new complex organized information come into the world. It is information that was not implicit in earlier states of the world. If everything created was predetermined, then all the works of Mozart would have had to be implicit in the first beat of a prehistoric drum, and Einstein's E=mc2 would have been implicit in the first Aristotle syllogism. Not so.

The determinist materialist response is that yes it was predetermined, except for random fluctuations. The source of the new information might be random fluctuations in ion gate channels in the brain. 

So then it has to be explained why the "creative" result isn't just random gibberish. The observed complex organized creative result would inherently require agency, a conscious sentient agent, which must select just the right random fluctuations to use to build the intended creative structure. 

But if this agent is just a predictable mechanism, then there is still no real new information, since the choices would still be the predictable results of causal chains. For instance, say a computer program is designed to select a certain sequence of numbers representing the faces of a die - this is a predictable causal chain. Then, regardless of how many throws of the die (which generate a random series of numbers), the mechanism's output of a selected sequence is predictable from the design of the program.  

So you can't get around it, human creativity requires that there exist the same true freedom of thought (generating possibilities) and action that is needed for true free will.

Because you refuse to acknowledge subjectivity. Determinism is purely objective: a physical causal chain. Feelings leading to choices and intent are subjective. They may have objective influences (maybe the weather is dismal influencing the mood of someone) but they are not objective in themselves.

I'm not sure why deterministic processes cannot lead to subjective feelings and so to feelings of intent.

Again, the term "subjective" seems to be loaded with some indeterministic aspects in a way that begs the question. I'd be okay with the begging if at least someone could describe how these subjective (non)processes might work.

~~ Paul

The observed creativity of human beings requires that new complex organized information come into the world. It is information that was not implicit in earlier states of the world. If everything created was predetermined, then all the works of Mozart would have had to be implicit in the first beat of a prehistoric drum, and Einstein's E=mc2 would have been implicit in the first Aristotle syllogism. Not so.

You're ignoring random influences. But I'm still not sure how you know that a new organization of matter is not "implicit" in earlier states of the world.

The determinist materialist response is that yes it was predetermined, except for random fluctuations. The source of the new information might be random fluctuations in ion gate channels in the brain.

It might also just be deterministic. A computer produces new information all the time, entirely deterministically.

So then it has to be explained why the "creative" result isn't just random gibberish. The observed complex organized creative result would inherently require agency, a conscious sentient agent, which must select just the right random fluctuations to use to build the intended creative structure.

No one is saying that the new information is entirely random. The new result might require agency, but, again, you seem to have loaded the agent with some indeterministic capabilities that are undefined.

But if this agent is just a predictable mechanism, then there is still no real new information, since the choices would still be the predictable results of causal chains. For instance, say a computer program is designed to select a certain sequence of numbers representing the faces of a die - this is a predictable causal chain. Then, regardless of how many throws of the die (which generate a random series of numbers), the mechanism's output of a selected sequence is predictable from the design of the program. 

Why do you think that you couldn't predict Mozart's works if you had perfect knowledge of the precursors and sufficient computing power (ignoring random effects)?

So you can't get around it, human creativity requires that there exist the same true freedom of thought (generating possibilities) and action that is needed for true free will.

I await a proof of this claim.

~~ Paul

I'm not sure why deterministic processes cannot lead to subjective feelings and so to feelings of indent.

Again, the term "subjective" seems to be loaded with some indeterministic aspects in a way that begs the question. I'd be okay with the begging if at least someone could describe how these subjective (non)processes might work.

~~ Paul

Again you seem obsessed with mechanism. However, the mechanism you seem to be proposing appears to me so contrived as to look like force-fitting to comply with a dogma. Perhaps I could turn your question around and ask you to describe your causal chain leading to one of those Picasso or Mozart creations as you seem to deny human creativity and novelty. I do try to imagine it but get so far and end up thinking: surely he can't be serious?

Was every Picasso creation inevitable? Determined at the outset in the Big Bang? What are the physical pre-conditions which lead to the inevitability of his imagination creating precisely that picture? How do particle collisions determine art? When Einstein pondered General Relativity he used his imagination - pure thought - to move our understanding of space and time away from established Newtonian mechanics to a new concept involving observers and curved space and the speed of light. All of this happened in his mind. How does this map to a mechanistic process which determines the thoughts of a creative genius? 

A just-so story just isn't good enough, I'm afraid.

Again you seem obsessed with mechanism. However, the mechanism you seem to be proposing appears to me so contrived as to look like force-fitting to comply with a dogma. Perhaps I could turn your question around and ask you to describe your causal chain leading to one of those Picasso or Mozart creations as you seem to deny human creativity and novelty. I do try to imagine it but get so far and end up thinking: surely he can't be serious?

Where did I deny human creativity and novelty? I'm simply asking why these terms have to be loaded with some indeterministic process for making decisions.

Computers generate art. Here are some examples. The causal chain for Picasso would be stunningly complex and impossible to trace. It would include all of the various ways that he was trained and influenced in his life. It's not as if a typical human ability is as simple as a table of billiard balls.

https://www.google.com/search?q=the+best...DH_jQO0y2M:

Was every Picasso creation inevitable? Determined at the outset in the Big Bang? What are the physical pre-conditions which lead to the inevitability of his imagination creating precisely that picture? How do particle collisions determine art? When Einstein pondered General Relativity he used his imagination - pure thought - to move our understanding of space and time away from established Newtonian mechanics to a new concept involving observers and curved space and the speed of light. All of this happened in his mind. How does this map to a mechanistic process which determines the thoughts of a creative genius?

The causal chain of Einstein's ponderings, possibly modified by random events, is so stunningly complex as to be impossible to describe. But do you deny that once he learned how to count, he could count mechanistically in his brain? Mathematics is just fancy counting.

A just-so story just isn't good enough, I'm afraid.

I agree, which is why I continue to ask for some sort of even vague description of this indeterministic method of making decisions. It doesn't have to involve a "mechanism," if that word somehow implies determinism. But it has to involve something.

~~ Paul

Where did I deny human creativity and novelty? I'm simply asking why these terms have to be loaded with some indeterministic process for making decisions.

Computers generate art. Here are some examples. The causal chain for Picasso would be stunningly complex and impossible to trace. It would include all of the various ways that he was trained and influenced in his life. It's not as if a typical human ability is as simple as a table of billiard balls.

https://www.google.com/search?q=the+best...DH_jQO0y2M:

The causal chain of Einstein's ponderings, possibly modified by random events, is so stunningly complex as to be impossible to describe. But do you deny that once he learned how to count, he could count mechanistically in his brain? Mathematics is just fancy counting.

I agree, which is why I continue to ask for some sort of even vague description of this indeterministic method of making decisions. It doesn't have to involve a "mechanism," if that word somehow implies determinism. But it has to involve something.

~~ Paul

Oh boy, I'm starting to think I'm arguing with a computer.   But that would be ascribing human qualities to computers. This discussion does have overtones reminiscent of the long debate you had with LoneShaman (about DNA code, IIRC) when you kept responding by repeating the same point over and over.

Computers don't generate art. They execute algorithms. They might generate images but they have no imagination, no innate talent, no creative impulse, no aesthetic sense, no intent or artistic insight. I have a painting hanging on my wall. Visitors have admired it asking who the artist is and I tell them the truth: it was painted by my son, when he was three years old. He too had no idea of art, he was just daubing paint but it happened to come out as a very appealing abstract. I'm no art historian or connoisseur so I can't be authoritative when it comes to describing what is or isn't good art but I'm sure that art involves creativity and imagination rather than random lines and patches or light and colour.

As for Einstein, you make a giant conceptual leap from learning to count to imagining the concepts of relativity - by the way, imagining this before he made a single calculation. So if you demand a method of bridging that leap, then so do I. 

When a Post correspondent interviewed Albert Einstein about his thought process in 1929, Einstein did not speak of careful reasoning and calculations. Instead —

“I believe in intuitions and inspirations. I sometimes feel that I am right. I do not know that I am… [but] I would have been surprised if I had been wrong

“I am enough of the artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”

As an aside on Einstein and counting, I like this little anecdote:

... while playing violin in a quartet, Einstein repeatedly made wrong entrances during the rehearsal. The exasperated pianist, Artur Schnabel, eventually turned to him and said: "For heaven's sake, Albert, can't you count?

We clearly start, each from a different premise. I start from the premise that subjectivity is part of human consciousness, arising, as Einstein stated there, from intuitions and inspirations. 

The premise you start with is clearly mechanistic with human consciousness as nothing other than an epiphenomenon of the mechanism. So you are looking to us to provide you with a mechanism according to your premise (I never really get the term you love to use, "begging the question", but doesn't that qualify?). I don't need to provide such a mechanism. Subjectivity is not subject to mechanism. It is, by definition, not objective.

You're ignoring random influences. But I'm still not sure how you know that a new organization of matter is not "implicit" in earlier states of the world.

It seems the general strategy is to double down on the claims for the magical powers of deterministic causal chains plus random factors, and depend on the impossibility of proving a negative without exhausting every possible (or impossible) resource. 

So it's "random influences" producing great works of human creativity? And you are claiming that maybe the complex organized information constituting artistic creative works by human beings actually exists in the earlier state of matter. Of course both these claims are preposterous. That for instance the works of Mozart are actually buried in the aboriginal drum "music making" of primitive men. How about actually finding and identifying them? It doesn't need to be in the sounds of an ancient drum - try with a recording of a modern drum for instance. Demonstrate this by an analysis of wave shapes. 

It might also just be deterministic. A computer produces new information all the time, entirely deterministically.

Preposterous again. How about actually demonstrating the creation of great musical or artistic works by computer? Actually show that algorithms can be artistically creative to produce actual great musical works, especially in the classical style (not postmodern stuff which often seems to be semi-random assemblages of patterns). Or maybe great literary works - that would be a real workout for your computer. 

Why do you think that you couldn't predict Mozart's works if you had perfect knowledge of the precursors and sufficient computing power (ignoring random effects)?
I await a proof of this claim. 

Preposterous yet again. And of course such perfect knowledge plus beyond titanic computing power are impossible, but then you know that, so this is a straw man. I also await proof that you could, and will be waiting forever.

Oh boy, I'm starting to think I'm arguing with a computer.   But that would be ascribing human qualities to computers. This discussion does have overtones reminiscent of the long debate you had with LoneShaman (about DNA code, IIRC) when you kept responding by repeating the same point over and over.

I'm asking the same question over and over in response to the just-so claim that there is an indeterministic way of making nonrandom decisions.

Computers don't generate art. They execute algorithms. They might generate images but they have no imagination, no innate talent, no creative impulse, no aesthetic sense, no intent or artistic insight. I have a painting hanging on my wall. Visitors have admired it asking who the artist is and I tell them the truth: it was painted by my son, when he was three years old. He too had no idea of art, he was just daubing paint but it happened to come out as a very appealing abstract. I'm no art historian or connoisseur so I can't be authoritative when it comes to describing what is or isn't good art but I'm sure that art involves creativity and imagination rather than random lines and patches or light and colour.

Again, you've used a lot of words that are apparently loaded with some sort of indeterministic "creative free will" or something.

As an aside on Einstein and counting, I like this little anecdote


We clearly start, each from a different premise. I start from the premise that subjectivity is part of human consciousness, arising, as Einstein stated there, from intuitions and inspirations. 

The premise you start with is clearly mechanistic with human consciousness as nothing other than an epiphenomenon of the mechanism. So you are looking to us to provide you with a mechanism according to your premise (I never really get the term you love to use, "begging the question", but doesn't that qualify?). I don't need to provide such a mechanism. Subjectivity is not subject to mechanism. It is, by definition, not objective.

I'm not starting with any particular premise. At the risk of annoying you by repeating my question yet again: I'm just asking for a description of how we might make indeterministic yet nonrandom decisions. You can make that description as nonmechanistic as you like; I have no investment in mechanism. You can make it nondeterministic, nonrandom, and creative.

If we simply assume that some word like "creativity" involves this indeterministic yet nonrandom method of making decisions, then we are begging the question of whether there is such a thing.

~~ Paul

It seems the general strategy is to double down on the claims for the magical powers of deterministic causal chains plus random factors, and depend on the impossibility of proving a negative without exhausting every possible (or impossible) resource.

Again, I'm not claiming to have a proof. But if you are going to chastise me for doubling down on claims, surely you have to chastise everyone claiming that there just is some way of making indeterministic yet nonrandom decisions.

So it's "random influences" producing great works of human creativity? And you are claiming that maybe the complex organized information constituting artistic creative works by human beings actually exists in the earlier state of matter. Of course both these claims are preposterous. That for instance the works of Mozart are actually buried in the aboriginal drum "music making" of primitive men. How about actually finding and identifying them? It doesn't need to be in the sounds of an ancient drum - try with a recording of a modern drum for instance. Demonstrate this by an analysis of wave shapes.

You are picturing some absurdly simplified causal chain. Of course it wasn't a straight path from aboriginal drum beating to a Mozart symphony. It was crazily circuitous, with millions of influences piling up, moving musical tastes in various directions, incorporating nonmusical events and information, running around in Mozart's mind, mixing with some randomness, that resulted in a symphony. It's not a table of billiard balls.

As far as complex organized information is concerned, I'm not sure we want to get into information theory here.

Preposterous again. How about actually demonstrating the creation of great musical or artistic works by computer? Actually show that algorithms can be artistically creative to produce actual great musical works, especially in the classical style (not postmodern stuff which often seems to be semi-random assemblages of patterns). Or maybe great literary works - that would be a real workout for your computer.

It would. But surely you're not suggesting that computers are as clever as they can ever be. It's rather like comparing a Mozart symphony to simple drum beating.

Preposterous yet again. And of course such perfect knowledge plus beyond titanic computing power are impossible, but then you know that, so this is a straw man. I also await proof that you could, and will be waiting forever.

And that's exactly why a Mozart symphony appears to be magically creative: Because we cannot, in fact, trace the deterministic and random events which led to it.

~~ Paul