Neuroscience and free will

I hope that free decisions have causes. Otherwise they would be arbitrary, no?

I'm not sure.  Is it a binary choice?  Through a materialist lens it would seem to be binary.  Perhaps through a traditionally logical lens as well?  I'd need others better versed in logic to opine.  Perhaps there is an as yet understood mental/soul/whatever-you-want-to-call-it lens that, if understood, would show that while free decisions appear arbitrary from a physicalist perspective they have a causal "source" elsewhere?

(Now that last line is some hand waving, huh?!?!)

I'm not sure.  Is it a binary choice?  Through a materialist lens it would seem to be binary.  Perhaps through a traditionally logical lens as well?  I'd need others better versed in logic to opine.  Perhaps there is an as yet understood mental/soul/whatever-you-want-to-call-it lens that, if understood, would show that while free decisions appear arbitrary from a physicalist perspective they have a causal "source" elsewhere?

(Now that last line is some hand waving, huh?!?!)

As long as they have a causal source somewhere, I'm happy. It's that completely uncaused decision that sounds pretty darn arbitrary.

So now the question is: How can a causal source make a decision that isn't deterministic?

~~ Paul

The corollary to free decisions may actually be closer to your second definition for random: Decisions that have no causal (material) precursor.

Well if the last part were true decisions would be made without context, as Paul says that would be free in an insane way...but the things you're talking about do have causal precursors that factor into the indeterminism you mention. For example if I throw a ball the positional clouds of electrons helping to constitute the ball will adjust to the arc of the ball. So even within the limited language of probability projections this is neither deterministic nor random. (Though given you can even externally model the inner cause of the randomness-wrt-position via a probability distribution that's also somewhere between deterministic and random.)

At every time sliced moment of the ball's arc you look at it's the efficient, outer cause of me throwing the ball & final, inner cause actualizing one of the potential positions the electron can attain. The first kind of cause is what contexualizes the possibility space, the latter kind is what makes real one of the possibilities.


Of course the arc itself is assumed to be predictable/necessitated here, which itself needs to be explained, but you can bring in final causes here as well. So indeterminism would be final causality with increased degrees of freedom but not Hyperchaos where (almost?) anything can happen.

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".

If by steps you mean application of Rationality that would also be mental causation:

Popper contra computationalism

1. Materialism holds that thinking consists of nothing more than the transition from one material process in the brain to another in accordance with causal laws (whether these transitions are conceived of in terms of the processing of symbols according to the rules of an algorithm à la computationalism, or on some other model).

2. Material processes have their causal efficacy, including their ability to generate other material processes, only by virtue of their physical properties (i.e. those described by physical science), and not by virtue of any meaning or semantic content that might be associated with them.  (For example, punching the symbols “1,” “+,” “1,” and “=” into a calculator will generate the further symbol “2” whether or not we associate the standard arithmetical meanings with these symbols or instead assign to them some eccentric meanings, because the electronic properties of the calculator alone are what determine what symbols get displayed.  Similarly, neural processes that are in fact associated with the thought that all men are mortal and the thought that Socrates is a man would still generate the neural process that is in fact associated with the thought that Socrates is mortal even if these neural processes had all been associated with some other meanings instead, because the neurophysiological properties of the processes alone are what determine which further processes get generated.)

3. But one thought can serve as a rational justification of another thought only by virtue of the meaning or semantic content of the thoughts.  (For example, it is only because we associate the symbols “1,” “+,” “1,” “=,” and “2” with the standard meanings that “1 + 1 = 2” expresses an arithmetical truth.  Similarly, it is only because “All men are mortal,” “Socrates is a man,” and “Socrates is mortal” have the meanings they do that the first two sentences logically entail the third, and only when the neural processes in question are associated with the corresponding thoughts that the first two provide a rational justification for believing the third.)

4. So if materialism is true, then there is nothing about our thought processes that can make one thought a rational justification of another; for their physical and causal relations alone, and not their semantic and logical relations, determine which thought follows which.

5. So if materialism is true, none of our thoughts ever is rationally justified.

You can ideally (pun sorta intended) start to see why I am saying causation is mental causation.

If by steps you mean application of Rationality that would also be mental causation:

Popper contra computationalism



You can ideally (pun sorta intended) start to see why I am saying causation is mental causation.

"4. So if materialism is true, then there is nothing about our thought processes that can make one thought a rational justification of another; for their physical and causal relations alone, and not their semantic and logical relations, determine which thought follows which."

Why would he assume that physical relations are unrelated to semantic relations? It's almost as if he believes that semantic relations are necessarily nonphysical, which rather begs the entire question.

~~ Paul

"4. So if materialism is true, then there is nothing about our thought processes that can make one thought a rational justification of another; for their physical and causal relations alone, and not their semantic and logical relations, determine which thought follows which."

Why would he assume that physical relations are unrelated to semantic relations? It's almost as if he believes that semantic relations are necessarily nonphysical, which rather begs the entire question.

~~ Paul

That follows from step 1:

"Materialism holds that thinking consists of nothing more than the transition from one material process in the brain to another in accordance with causal laws (whether these transitions are conceived of in terms of the processing of symbols according to the rules of an algorithm à la computationalism, or on some other model)."

Whether I think something is rationally justified (regardless if true) depends on the bottom level constituents of matter interacting. One can make a longer argument (Ross's paper Immaterial Aspects of Thought) but it seems the very definition of materialism means mental concepts like syllogisms have no bearing on the causal sequences at the true level of what is happening in the world?

There is no way to prove that an event is random.

Paul,

You continue this exploration of a magic "sauce" that makes things determined or random in physical reality.  Why not try and go with how randomness is measured!!!

 Mutual information is one of many quantities that measures how much one random variables tells us about another. It is a dimensionless quantity with (generally) units of bits, and can be thought of as the reduction in uncertainty about one random variable given knowledge of another.   

High mutual information indicates a large reduction in uncertainty; low mutual information indicates a small reduction; and zero mutual information between two random variables means the variables are independent.

To express randomness, one needs to state what is random to what!  Then calling each a variable, the mutual information will be the measure of the probable correlation.  Here is a quote where the term makes sense and is not all juicy with metaphysics.

 Adaptive mutation states that rather than mutations and evolution being random, they are in response to specific stresses. In other words, the mutations that occur are more beneficial and specific to the given stress, instead of random and not a response to anything in particular.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_mutation


Actual data now proves that genetic mutations and the rates they appear, are not random to fitness.

and stick with "entanglement" or "states that are not independent" 

RIGHT

Ah, so the Reality Test guys!

And your definition of random? (I suspect it aligns with my own, but just to make sure we're on the same page...)

Random can be defined as two variables with no mutual information.

Love that article from '08!

It's a paper they did with Tomasz Paternek that has me going.  Logical Independence and Quantum Randomness

I kinda think it confirms the reality of structured information, such as an axiom.  https://arxiv.org/abs/0811.4542

Random can be defined as two variables with no mutual information.

Love that article from '08!

It's a paper they did with Tomasz Paternek that has me going.  Logical Independence and Quantum Randomness

I kinda think it confirms the reality of structured information, such as an axiom.  https://arxiv.org/abs/0811.4542

Thanks, will check out the paper!

So if I understand you correctly determinism [another kind of projected probability expectation] would be completely correlated information/expectation? (I assume the idea of informational entropy as expectation of "surprise" fits in somewhere...Huffman Encoding anyone?....anyone....??Buelerrrr??)