Neuroscience and free will

[Laird]

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.

[...]

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

I prefer "Generalised Conditional Description of an Event": GCDE.

The conditions, whilst generalised, might obtain in fact for only one event in the world, or they might obtain for many (or even all) events in the world. In the latter case, and only in that case, we (will, going forward, per your stipulation) refer to them as "laws". In all other cases, we don't/won't (refer to them as "laws"). OK?

One thing we'd need to clear up is the extent, if any, of the grey area in between GCDEs whose conditions obtain for only one event, and those whose conditions obtain for many (or even all) events: are there GCDEs whose conditions obtain for more than one but fewer than "many" events and which are not laws either?

In any case, here's what we need to be clear on, and I'll frame it as another contention for your (dis)agreement:

Given that GCDEs are descriptive, and given a descriptivist understanding of "laws" (which you, Paul, say is your own understanding), then: there is no fundamental difference - whether physical, metaphysical, ontological, or anything else - between those GCDEs which are "laws" and those which are not, other than that the former obtain for many (and potentially all) events in the world, whereas the latter do not.

Agreed?

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.

Restating a tautology in different words makes it no less of a tautology...

Your contention is that the following two propositions are simultaneously true:

(1) Laws are (merely) descriptive.
(2) It is possible that the phenomena described by (those descriptive) laws could not have been different.

I have explained why these propositions cannot be simultaneously true. You have provided no justification for your contention, nor any refutation of my explanation for why it is false, other than a tautology. So...

...keep on trying! Until then, sighs are on you, man...

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

You don't have to look far - step-wise, freely-chosen decision-making processes are all over the place; describe them logically yourself! It's hard to believe that you're looking seriously.

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

A better question is: why would you think that it couldn't?

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

Paul: But I haven't been objecting on that basis.

I know, and I didn't (intend to) say you had been. By "stop" I meant something like "forestall".

[Laird]

Sci,

You've given me a bunch to read, and it has taken a while to get through - interspersed with coding, a forum software upgrade, and the basics of living. That's mostly why it's taken me so long to respond in this thread.

Check out the Talbott paper - I'd say even if they exist without a God (I don't see how but assuming) they still run into issues even if one gets past the dualist interactionism.

Does it help if I clarify that I'm talking about those which I've suggested in my immediately previous post to Paul we describe as "GCDEs", rather than about (the more specific concept of) "laws" (as Paul, and probably you, defines that word)? It seems almost tautologically true that the comprehensive set of GCDEs comprehensively describes the world - at least insofar as the world consists in a series of events.

As for "laws" in the prescriptive rather than descriptive sense: I agree, it's hard to see how they could exist without a God.

And as for why the descriptions of the world are as they are; why the world is describable in the way that it is (and not some other): that's a closely related question (if it's not even just restating the same question in different terms), and again a difficult one to answer on a physicalist account, as you've been pointing out in this thread.

And I've now (finally) read the Talbott paper, which, if I'm understanding correctly, concerns itself with the question of whether and to what extent the world is (merely) "lawful" - and what that means. I likewise think that some (most?) of the problem(s) it raises go away if we replace "laws" with "GCDEs", but then we'd have the new problem of a tautological framing...

Yeah, I think you can go this route but I don't think you can have a p-value. This would be a state of "Hyperchaos", where the randomness does not submit to any probability distribution

You're quite right. I hadn't considered the need for, and lack of in this scenario, a probability distribution.

(see this thread on materialism without fictional "laws").

Ah. I've now read the paper and blog post at that link, although I skipped the Asimov story at the end of the paper - no offence to Isaac: I've read and enjoyed a lot of his stuff in the past.

Interesting. I haven't read David Hume, Immanuel Kant, or Karl Popper, so it was useful that Quentin summarised and contrasted the latter two's positions with respect to the problem raised by the former - and very clearly too. That which most piqued my interest though, especially in the context of this discussion, was this:

A third option for the resolution of our problem emerges here, which would no longer consist in establishing what cannot be established­ - the necessity of laws - but would consist, conversely, in establishing the effective contingency of natural con­stancies, then in confronting the major question that results from this: if the world has no necessity, how is its apparently impeccable regularity - more perfect than that of type-1 worlds - possible? But I will not confront this problem which I treat­ed elsewhere,¹⁰

Footnote 10 tells us that the "elsewhere" is in chapter 4 of his book After Finitude, which costs money. It seems worth the price, but before I purchase (if I even do): have you read this book/chapter, Sci, and, if so, did you find it relevant and, especially, compelling?

Positional clouds for electrons and other things regarded as "random" b/c they are modeled scholastically are in fact a blend of Order and Chaos, perhaps why I have difficulty understanding the problem of finding something that is neither determined nor random. Everything that can be modeled by a probability distribution fits that bill.
Odd for people to act as if Anu and Tiamat never blended their waters. ;-)

In fairness, I think Paul has allowed that there might be partly-determined, partly-random events, but he can correct me if I'm wrong.

[Donald Hoffman] suggests the interaction of free willed Minds is what brings about the rest of reality.

Ah, a sort of "participatory co-creation" model then. Does it involve God or any sort of hierarchy at all or is it fully egalitarian?

He also has an Interface Perception Theory, wherein he says our perceptions of reality have been driven by survival not truth.

Right, I remember reading a little about that in quotes/links you've posted here.

I think it depends on how one argues for the Ground (of Being). I'm more partial to the panentheistic takes, but a lot of what I've actually read on the subject relates to the writings of Aquinas where it seems the idea is God transcends all reality....but the God of Philosophers is such a strange entity it's hard to know what to make of it. Makes me recall Plotinus saying the One is not be worshiped, better to take one's petitions to the gods.

Panentheism sounds close to a view that I came to independently, so I'd say I'm more partial to it too.

Physicalism is a failure, not just in regards to Consciousness [and] Causation, but also in its inability to speak of relata. Hawkings' "fire" remains a ghost in the mathematical machinery. So Hard Problems of Consciousness, Causality, and even Matter.

All our discussions, I suspect, turn on this giant hole in the physicalist picture - What are the Things-in-Themselves that enter into the measured relations?

What sort of answer(s), if any, do you think are possible?

[Laird]

If by steps you mean application of Rationality

It was Paul who introduced the idea of "steps", so we'd be best off clarifying with him what he means. Here's what he wrote in the post to which I was responding:

I'm not really looking for laws, although that would be interesting. I'm looking for a simple logical description of the steps I take to make a free decision. I realize that "steps" sound mechanical, so feel free to substitute another word. There must be something like steps.

---

Popper contra computationalism

Interesting - that argument seems to be similar to (or a variant of?) anti-physicalist arguments from intentionality. I mean, "meaning" is a sort of "aboutness" or in other words a sort of (or related to) "intentionality" - but these terms and arguments are new to me, so maybe what I've said isn't quite correct.

[Laird]

if I constantly defined logic, I would be dead.

Fatal definitions! I deduce a typo.

I prefer "Generalised Conditional Description of an Event": GCDE.

The conditions, whilst generalised, might obtain in fact for only one event in the world, or they might obtain for many (or even all) events in the world. In the latter case, and only in that case, we (will, going forward, per your stipulation) refer to them as "laws". In all other cases, we don't/won't (refer to them as "laws"). OK?

One thing we'd need to clear up is the extent, if any, of the grey area in between GCDEs whose conditions obtain for only one event, and those whose conditions obtain for many (or even all) events: are there GCDEs whose conditions obtain for more than one but fewer than "many" events and which are not laws either?

If we can come up with a law-like specification of the events that holds for all of them and no other events, then we could call it a law, I suppose. I'm not sure it really matters.

In any case, here's what we need to be clear on, and I'll frame it as another contention for your (dis)agreement:

Given that GCDEs are descriptive, and given a descriptivist understanding of "laws" (which you, Paul, say is your own understanding), then: there is no fundamental difference - whether physical, metaphysical, ontological, or anything else - between those GCDEs which are "laws" and those which are not, other than that the former obtain for many (and potentially all) events in the world, whereas the latter do not.

Agreed?

It depends on how the single-event GCDEs are worded. If one of them is nothing more than a statement of the event, then I don't know why we'd call it a law. It's different in that it doesn't generalize, which is the point of laws. In fact, I don't know why would be interested in that GCDE at all. However, if all you are saying is that all GCDEs are descriptive, then that is true regardless of the number of events they describe.

Restating a tautology in different words makes it no less of a tautology...

Your contention is that the following two propositions are simultaneously true:

(1) Laws are (merely) descriptive.
(2) It is possible that the phenomena described by (those descriptive) laws could not have been different.

I have explained why these propositions cannot be simultaneously true. You have provided no justification for your contention, nor any refutation of my explanation for why it is false, other than a tautology. So...

...keep on trying! Until then, sighs are on you, man...

That was an incidental comment by me, so I'm not sure why it's important. All I'm saying is that even though a descriptive law does not prescribe a set of events, it is possible that all those events had to have happened the way they did. That is, they were entirely deterministic. I'm making no claim about whether there are, in fact, such sets of events in our world.

You don't have to look far - step-wise, freely-chosen decision-making processes are all over the place; describe them logically yourself! It's hard to believe that you're looking seriously.

If I could describe a free decision logically, we would not be having this conversation. Please don't turn this conversation into a homework assignment for me that I cannot complete.

A better question is: why would you think that it couldn't?

Take into account all the factors that are inputs to a free decision in one step? The only way that could be done in one step is to look up the decision in an n-dimensional table, where n is the number of factors.

There is no need to get hung up on the step idea unless you're going to claim that the free decision is snatched out of thin air with no contemplation of the precursors. But if that is the claim, then I hesitate to call it a description of how one makes a free decision.


~~ Paul

Fatal definitions! I deduce a typo.

Oops. If I constantly defied logic, I would be dead.

~~ Paul

[Laird]

It depends on how the single-event GCDEs are worded. If one of them is nothing more than a statement of the event, then I don't know why we'd call it a law.

We wouldn't, and I stipulated as much in the paragraphs above.

However, if all you are saying is that all GCDEs are descriptive, then that is true regardless of the number of events they describe.

So you agree with the contention?

That was an incidental comment by me, so I'm not sure why it's important.

I find that (my emboldening) hard to believe. You're not stupid.

All I'm saying is that even though a descriptive law does not prescribe a set of events, it is possible that all those events had to have happened the way they did.

And all I'm pointing out to you is that if the events "had to have" happened in accordance with a law, then that law is not descriptive but is prescriptive. You can't have it both ways. If laws are purely descriptive, then it necessarily follows that events could have happened in some other way. And to allow for the possibility that events could not have happened in some other way is to allow for the possibility that laws are prescriptive.

So, which is it?

If I could describe a free decision logically, we would not be having this conversation. Please don't turn this conversation into a homework assignment for me that I cannot complete.

Pick any multi-stage decision you've made where you weren't forced into it. List the stages.

There. You're done. Homework doesn't have to be onerous.

Take into account all the factors that are inputs to a free decision in one step? The only way that could be done in one step is to look up the decision in an n-dimensional table, where n is the number of factors.

Ha. Consciousness is not computation; the possibilities are far richer.

So you agree with the contention?

I think so. I'm not sure if I'm clever enough to know that there is no difference "whether physical, metaphysical, ontological, or anything else." But let's continue on.

I find that (my emboldening) hard to believe. You're not stupid.

And all I'm pointing out to you is that if the events "had to have" happened in accordance with a law, then that law is not descriptive but is prescriptive. You can't have it both ways. If laws are purely descriptive, then it necessarily follows that events could have happened in some other way. And to allow for the possibility that events could not have happened in some other way is to allow for the possibility that laws are prescriptive.

So, which is it?

I didn't say that the events had to happen that way. I'm pointing out that, nonetheless, they could have all happened as described by the law. Why did I point that out? Because the descriptive nature of laws is not an excuse to sneak something else into the relationship between the events and the laws.

This is not important unless I feel something sneaky is being done. I'll holler if I do.

Pick any multi-stage decision you've made where you weren't forced into it. List the stages.

There. You're done. Homework doesn't have to be onerous.

I cannot list the stages of a decision; they are much too complex and I don't fully experience the decision-making process. But what does "forced into it" have to do with this? We are talking about libertarian free will, not legal free will.

Ha. Consciousness is not computation; the possibilities are far richer.

Perhaps. I've not yet seen a proof that consciousness cannot be computation.

~~ Paul

[Laird]

I think so. I'm not sure if I'm clever enough to know that there is no difference "whether physical, metaphysical, ontological, or anything else."

Well then, let's qualify that with a parenthetical comment "to the extent that they are all GCDEs". There might be differences due to other factors, but insofar as they are GCDEs, there are no relevant differences (other than in the number of events for which their conditions obtain). Fair enough?

I didn't say that the events had to happen that way.

I know that. You said it's possible that they had to happen that way, and I pointed out the consequence of allowing that possibility: that it is incompatible with law being (merely) descriptive. Do you agree that these are incompatible?

I'm pointing out that, nonetheless, they could have all happened as described by the law.

Again with the tautology. Necessarily, they happened as described by the law because the law is nothing more than their description. You're still not saying anything meaningful, much less supporting your contention. This is getting old.

Why did I point that out?

Good question.

Because the descriptive nature of laws is not an excuse to sneak something else into the relationship between the events and the laws.

The only "sneaking" that seems to be happening is an attempt to smuggle prescriptiveness into ostensibly descriptive laws...

I cannot list the stages of a decision; they are much too complex

Mere assumption. Even if true, you could abstract the complexity.

But what does "forced into it" have to do with this?

How can a "forced" decision be an example of a "free" one?

I've not yet seen a proof that consciousness cannot be computation.

You don't need a proof; it's true by definition. They're in different categories. Consciousness could be associated with computation, but by definition it can't be computation.

I know that. You said it's possible that they had to happen that way, and I pointed out the consequence of allowing that possibility: that it is incompatible with law being (merely) descriptive. Do you agree that these are incompatible?

Again with the tautology. Necessarily, they happened as described by the law because the law is nothing more than their description. You're still not saying anything meaningful, much less supporting your contention. This is getting old.

Okay, let's drop it. I'll let you know if I think some question begging is sneaking in.

The only "sneaking" that seems to be happening is an attempt to smuggle prescriptiveness into ostensibly descriptive laws...

I'm not trying to do that and you know I'm not. I hereby promise that I'm not trying to smuggle prescriptiveness into laws.

Mere assumption. Even if true, you could abstract the complexity.

What? You think you can list the detailed steps that you go through to make a decision? What good does abstracting the complexity do? How do we know we aren't abstracting away critical aspects that distinguish determinism/randomness from freeness?

You said

"You don't have to look far - step-wise, freely-chosen decision-making processes are all over the place; describe
them logically yourself!"

Are you claiming you can give a logical description of a libertarian free decision? If so, that's all I've been asking for. Or do you mean something else by "freely-chosen"?

How can a "forced" decision be an example of a "free" one?

It can't, but that's not the only thing that matters for a libertarian free decision. Just because it is a non-forced decision doesn't mean it's a free decision. Heck, even if I'm forced to choose between two options, that choice could be free.

You don't need a proof; it's true by definition. They're in different categories. Consciousness could be associated with computation, but by definition it can't be computation.

Could you point me at this definition and then further point me to all the philosophers of mind agreeing that the computational theory of consciousness is false by definition?

Could we continue on with your exposition?

~~ Paul