Neuroscience and free will

This certainly and not unexpectedly shows your mindset - you automatically assume that your own self, your innermost being as a sentient agent, is probably a mechanism. With the corollary that mechanisms are implemented by physical machines - so the mechanism in this case most probably is the physical brain. Despite the various problems with that materialist position, starting with the well-known "hard problem" of consciousness. Of course, a mechanism is automatically deterministic isn't it. Oh well, back to square one.

This is a thread about free will. My only point is that I have not heard a coherent description of how an indeterministic decision-making method might work. That is it.

It is irrelevant whether I believe the mind is a mechanism, deterministic, semi-random, materialistic, or not-a-hard-problem. Beating up on those issues does not elucidate the free will problem.

~~ Paul

This is where science comes in.  They are not magical -- but natural events.  

Free will is not an experience!!!!  It can be defined as a program, where selection is based on agency and Bayesian Reasoning! Not based on forces or materials.

Agency is a proposed source of free will, not an explanation of how it works. Do you have an explanation that you can state in a paragraph?

~~ Paul

Agency is a proposed source of free will, not an explanation of how it works. Do you have an explanation that you can state in a paragraph?

~~ Paul

Here is a down the middle of the road statement.  The rest of the SEP article by Markus Schlosser can fill in the depth.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/agency/

 In very general terms, an agent is a being with the capacity to act, and ‘agency’ denotes the exercise or manifestation of this capacity. The philosophy of action provides us with a standard conception and a standard theory of action. The former construes action in terms of intentionality, the latter explains the intentionality of action in terms of causation by the agent’s mental states and events. From this, we obtain a standard conception and a standard theory of agency.

Here is a down the middle of the road statement.  The rest of the SEP article by Markus Schlosser can fill in  depth.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/agency/

"causation by the agent’s mental states and events"

I'm guessing that determinists would argue that this part of the quote suggests determinism. However, that would probably be based upon an assumption the mind=brain therefore providing some physical (neurological) causal chain along with external physical influences which are, themselves, part of a causal chain.

If we consider mind to be something other than the physical infrastructure of the brain, then other possibilities open up involving feelings and subjectivity not necessarily constrained by what has gone before.

This is where science comes in.  They are not magical -- but natural events.  

Free will is not an experience!!!!  It can be defined as a program, where selection is based on agency and Bayesian Reasoning! Not based on forces or materials.

Defining thoughts as structured information resulting in available affordances; and defining activities as executable algorithms, makes an understandable model.

I'm curious. "Structured information" seems to lack the crucial agency, and qualia of perception, that are defining characteristics of consciousness. And what is it that is processing this "structured information" using these "executable algorithms"? Without defining whatever this is it doesn't look like this is any kind of complete model of conscious free will.

I'm guessing that determinists would argue that this part of the quote suggests determinism. However, that would probably be based upon an assumption the mind=brain therefore providing some physical (neurological) causal chain along with external physical influences which are, themselves, part of a causal chain.

If we consider mind to be something other than the physical infrastructure of the brain, then other possibilities open up involving feelings and subjectivity not necessarily constrained by what has gone before.

I think the issue is what does mind do that is measurable and predictable.  Being a self concerned agent has little to do with even having a brain.  Plants exhibit agency.  Insects build cities.  Single celled organisms can have their behavior described in terms of affordances.

https://www.edge.org/response-detail/27002

 Psychologist James J. Gibson introduced the term affordance way back in the seventies. The basic idea is that the perceptual systems of any organism are designed to “pick up” the information that is relevant to its survival and ignore the rest. The relevant information is about opportunities  “afforded” by the furnishings of the world: holes afford hiding in, cups afford drinking out of, trees afford climbing (if you’re a child or a monkey or a bear, but not a lion or a rabbit), and so forth. Affordances make a nicely abstract category of behavioral options that can be guided by something other than blind luck—in other words, by information extracted from the world. Affordances are “what the environment offers the animal for good or ill,” according to Gibson, and “the information is in the light.” - Daniel Dennett

Dennett while grasping how import affordance is to understanding how behavior can be analyzed objectively - he rejects Gibson's premise that all the information is done by neurology, rather than thinking.

I'm curious. "Structured information" seems to lack the crucial agency, and qualia of perception, that are defining characteristics of consciousness. And what is it that is processing this "structured information" using these "executable algorithms"? Without defining whatever this is it doesn't look like this is any kind of complete model of conscious free will.

First; let me say there are folks who have developed the topic far beyond my range and background.  Here is the one I like the best, starting with William James's version.  http://www.informationphilosopher.com/fr...odels.html

"Structured information" doesn't define conscious experience.  It is just a measurable outcome of thinking.  The mind does the thinking, which is biological information processing.  There is a detected affordance of food in the environment.  The organism's mind connects the need to eat with the affordance and creates a new information object that is catalytic to its efferent systems (signals to activate behavior) as intention.  (an executable)

I think the issue is what does mind do that is measurable and predictable.  Being a self concerned agent has little to do with even having a brain.  Plants exhibit agency.  Insects build cities.  Single celled organisms can have their behavior described in terms of affordances.

https://www.edge.org/response-detail/27002


Dennett while grasping how import affordance is to understanding how behavior can be analyzed objectively - he rejects Gibson's premise that all the information is done by neurology, rather than thinking.

Again, I'm probably getting bogged down trying to follow the language but, in my simplistic understanding, free will (which is what we are discussing) has everything to do with choice. Informed choice, yes, but essentially the ability to make a choice rather than follow an established pattern of behaviour or an algorithm. Can we apply such decision making abilities to plants and insects when we have no idea if or how they think?

Can we apply such decision making abilities to plants and insects when we have no idea if or how they think?

I think it's certainly possible. Insects are easier to observe, but plants aren't too difficult, either. Both make choices, based on their perceptions of the world around them.

Jumping spiders are probably the most obviously inquisitive out of insects, due to their obsession with moving things.

Again, I'm probably getting bogged down trying to follow the language but, in my simplistic understanding, free will (which is what we are discussing) has everything to do with choice. Informed choice, yes, but essentially the ability to make a choice rather than follow an established pattern of behaviour or an algorithm. Can we apply such decision making abilities to plants and insects when we have no idea if or how they think?

I am not so sure that modern science has defined "how we think" as humans.  I have never read a paper tackling how humans or any living thing accomplishes the state of understanding as a thought process!  (please direct me to it if you have)

You seem to imply that algorithms have fixed outcomes.  There is a whole big money industry that develops them for decision-making.

 DSS technology levels (of hardware and software) may include:

1. The actual application that will be used by the user. This is the part of the application that allows the decision maker to make decisions in a particular problem area. The user can act upon that particular problem.
   
   
2. Generator contains Hardware/software environment that allows people to easily develop specific DSS applications. This level makes use of case tools or systems such as Crystal, Analytica and iThink.
   
   
3. Tools include lower level hardware/software. DSS generators including special languages, function libraries and linking modules
   

An iterative developmental approach allows for the DSS to be changed and redesigned at various intervals. Once the system is designed, it will need to be tested and revised where necessary for the desired outcome.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision_support_system

Back in the late 1980's I was invited to a joint DOD/TI vendor conference in Austin TX, where they beat us up about the reliability of their electrical components (specifically Printed Wiring Boards).  We were told that the output of the computations were responsible for decisions about aircraft flight patterns and about military targets. 

Where this has evolved since - with AI - is beyond me, but I have some small grasp of Bayesian based applications.

   

One important application of Bayesian epistemology has been to the analysis of scientific practice in Bayesian Confirmation Theory. In addition, a major branch of statistics, Bayesian statistics, is based on Bayesian principles. In psychology, an important branch of learning theory, Bayesian learning theory, is also based on Bayesian principles. Finally, the idea of analyzing rational degrees of belief in terms of rational betting behavior led to the 20th century development of a new kind of decision theory, Bayesian decision theory, which is now the dominant theoretical model for both the descriptive and normative analysis of decisions. The combination of its precise formal apparatus and its novel pragmatic self-defeat test for justification makes Bayesian epistemology one of the most important developments in epistemology in the 20th century, and one of the most promising avenues for further progress in epistemology in the 21st century.