Neuroscience and free will

OK, let's clarify that here we're talking about "physical laws" in general, rather than about some particular subset of them which we think we have approximated via the scientific method, such as those which we refer to as "the laws of physics". In the light of your objection, we could consider this to be a new term: we are not referring to "scientific laws" but more broadly to "physical laws", being the comprehensive set of actually true conditional descriptions of events in reality (whatever those actually true descriptions are, and regardless of whether we can ever know them - for more on this see my next post to Sci).

So, if we want this set to be comprehensive, then we have to allow for the possibility that for some members, the conditions pick out only one actual event in the world, right? If not, then on what basis would we exclude that possibility?

I think you need a new term. A law does not pertain to a single event, regardless of whether it is scientific or physical or immaterial. The point of a law is to describe patterns in multiple similar events.

Then what you're getting at is a meaningless tautology.

In the context of descriptive laws, to "follow" a law simply means to be described by that law, so your statement amounts to:

"...even though a law is descriptive, it may in fact be describing phenomena that are always described by their descriptions".

Well, of course that which is described by a description is always described by its description! You're simply restating in the second part of the sentence that which you stated in the first - you aren't saying anything meaningful.

Sigh.

All I'm getting at here is that even though a law is descriptive, it may in fact be describing phenomena that always operate according to the statement of the law.

Sometimes there might be steps, sometimes not. It would depend on how the freely willing agent freely willed the choice, which (the method by which to make the choice) might itself be (sometimes explicitly) freely chosen by the agent.

Okay, I'm looking for a logical description of the step(s).

The complement of "a decision made in steps" is not necessarily "a decision literally popping into your mind". That would imply that the decision came to you from outside and that you were not responsible for its entering and impacting upon your mind. Another possibility beyond this false dichotomy is "a decision made instantaneously by you". This could be a decision freely willed from within, which occurs in the context of and takes into account your "memories and the current state of affairs".

How could it take into account my memories and the current state of affairs in one step?

Forget the word "step."

I'm looking for a simple logical description of the way in which I make sub-decisions to accomplish a free decision.

Good. That'll stop you from objecting on the basis that you don't like the destination.

But I haven't been objecting on that basis. I'm asking for a description of how I make a free choice.

Good. I'll hold off on sharing my next contention with you until we've reached agreement on the definition of a "physical law".

How about "law or singular event description": LSED?

The problem with "law" by itself is that it implies we have analyzed a set of events and distilled out a general description of them. We have filtered down the set of events to their essence. For a single event we haven't done that, which means we don't even have confidence in our description of that one event.

~~ Paul

Quick question - what do you see as the difference between a Two-Stage Model for Free Will and a Randomized Algorithm where the sequential steps in the algorithm make use of randomness in order to give a good enough answer in a limited time/memory space?

I think I have nothing to add to the professional description of two-stage models by Bob Doyle.

 A paper in William James Studies on the two-stage free-will model of William James got Bob an invitation to the William James Symposium at Harvard in August, 2010 to present a 90-minute seminar (available on YouTube) on his ideas on free will, along with the similar ideas of a dozen scientists and philosophers since James. Since 2010, another dozen thinkers have been discovered who support the two-stage model of free will.


The compatibilist philosopher Daniel Dennett invited Bob to take part in his graduate seminar on free will at Tufts in the Fall of 2010. He submitted many short papers to the seminar on his positions relative to Dennett's.

Bob was invited to an "Experts Meeting" on Free Will at the Social Trends Institute in Barcelona, Spain in October, 2010, along with Robert Kane, editor of the Oxford Handbook on Free Will, Alfred Mele, who directed a program at Florida State University that studied free will with a $4.4 million grant from the Templeton Foundation, and Martin Heisenberg (a son of Werner Heisenberg), who claimed in Nature that even the lowest animals have a kind of "behavioral freedom." They are not biological machines reacting predictably to stimuli with programmed responses. They originate actions, stochastically.

Bob's presentation at the STI in Barcelona The Two-Stage Solution to the Problem of Free Will,” was published in Is Science Compatible with Free Will?: Exploring Free Will and Consciousness in the Light of Quantum Physics and Neuroscience, Springer Verlag.

I would be strongly in the camp of Martin Heisenberg ideas on the subject.

In my personal take - that there are real information objects  and- an agent can detect/experience two or more objects. Then select one to actualize.  I use the word select - because agents can decide on a future selection and not actualize it by mistake.

Quick question - what do you see as the difference between a Two-Stage Model for Free Will and a Randomized Algorithm where the sequential steps in the algorithm make use of randomness in order to give a good enough answer in a limited time/memory space?

I think I have nothing to add to the professional description of two-stage models by Bob Doyle.

 A paper in William James Studies on the two-stage free-will model of William James got Bob an invitation to the William James Symposium at Harvard in August, 2010 to present a 90-minute seminar (available on YouTube) on his ideas on free will, along with the similar ideas of a dozen scientists and philosophers since James. Since 2010, another dozen thinkers have been discovered who support the two-stage model of free will.


The compatibilist philosopher Daniel Dennett invited Bob to take part in his graduate seminar on free will at Tufts in the Fall of 2010. He submitted many short papers to the seminar on his positions relative to Dennett's.

Bob was invited to an "Experts Meeting" on Free Will at the Social Trends Institute in Barcelona, Spain in October, 2010, along with Robert Kane, editor of the Oxford Handbook on Free Will, Alfred Mele, who directed a program at Florida State University that studied free will with a $4.4 million grant from the Templeton Foundation, and Martin Heisenberg (a son of Werner Heisenberg), who claimed in Nature that even the lowest animals have a kind of "behavioral freedom." They are not biological machines reacting predictably to stimuli with programmed responses. They originate actions, stochastically.

Bob's presentation at the STI in Barcelona The Two-Stage Solution to the Problem of Free Will,” was published in Is Science Compatible with Free Will?: Exploring Free Will and Consciousness in the Light of Quantum Physics and Neuroscience, Springer Verlag.

I would be strongly in the camp of Martin Heisenberg ideas on the subject.

In my personal take - that there are real information objects  and- an agent can detect/experience two or more objects. Then select one to actualize.  I use the word select - because agents can decide on a future selection and not actualize it by mistake.

I think I have nothing to add to the professional description of two-stage models by Bob Doyle.


I would be strongly in the camp of Martin Heisenberg ideas on the subject.

In my personal take - that there are real information objects  and- an agent can detect/experience two or more objects. Then select one to actualize.  I use the word select - because agents can decide on a future selection and not actualize it by mistake.

I guess the question hinges on what someone thinks randomness is. It seems to me that which can be genuinely modeled by probability distribution is neither determined nor random, if by "random" we speak of the true opposite of determinism which would be Meillassoux's "Hyperchaos", that which has no possible probability distribution. This makes a certain intuitive sense looking at an electron cloud - we have a set of expectations about position but no one thinks the electron will become a dragon.

In that sense I could see Martin Heisenberg's research pointing to what process philosophers following Whitehead [would see] as the first kernels of Freedom in the animal kingdom, and perhaps our human intentionality - as per the neuroscientist Tallis - carves out a larger Possibiliy Space...after all we do something similar [to M. Heisenberg's stochastic modeling]  with an evaluation of a person's past choices - it could be said their assessed character is just a qualitative type of probability evaluation of how the person will act in future circumstance. So even externally, or so it seems to me, we can say a conscious agent is neither determined nor random.

All that said, I still think Final Cause is something worth looking at, especially the ongoing [discussion of the possible] relationship that particular type of cause has to Intentionality...

I guess the question hinges on what someone thinks randomness is. It seems to me that which can be genuinely modeled by probability distribution is neither determined nor random, if by "random" we speak of the true opposite of determinism which would be Meillassoux's "Hyperchaos", that which has no possible probability distribution. This makes a certain intuitive sense looking at an electron cloud - we have a set of expectations about position but no one thinks the electron will become a dragon.

In that sense I could see Martin Heisenberg's research pointing to what process philosophers following Whitehead [would see] as the first kernels of Freedom in the animal kingdom, and perhaps our human intentionality - as per the neuroscientist Tallis - carves out a larger Possibiliy Space...after all we do something similar [to M. Heisenberg's stochastic modeling]  with an evaluation of a person's past choices - it could be said their assessed character is just a qualitative type of probability evaluation of how the person will act in future circumstance. So even externally, or so it seems to me, we can say a conscious agent is neither determined nor random.

All that said, I still think Final Cause is something worth looking at, especially the ongoing [discussion of the possible] relationship that particular type of cause has to Intentionality...

I guess this is why I find Paul's struggle a bit nonsensical.  He struggles to give any credence to the abstract notion of free will because a logical description of it can not be provided.  How is that different than the abstract concept of "random", especially if one is unwilling to accept Max's "not yet understood" definition?

There is no logical description of random that seems satisfying to me.  Simply saying some event with no cause or other explanation seems like a hand wave.

free will because a logical description of it can not be provided.

Re: Logical description of free will...We might yet get to that.

There is no logical description of random that seems satisfying to me.  Simply saying some event with no cause or other explanation seems like a hand wave.

"Indeterminate", or "random", as a scientific discovery, is about as far from a hand wave as you can get, given that the last 100 years have been spent in intensive philosophizing, theorizing and experimenting in attempts to find a cause or other explanation. As a category, it's markedly robust.

Linda

Why are you doing this?

I think once you've committed to calling something "nutty" and "rubbish", it's difficult not to double-down on that narrative. And of course, some people don't even try not to.

Linda

So what I see so far is:

Something is "free" if the purview isn't revealed on casual inspection, it feels like it could have gone another way, and I'm willing to let my will take credit for it.

Isn't that compatibilism?

Linda