Neuroscience and free will

I'm not sure how this duplicate showed up.

~~ Paul

[Laird]

Okay, let's drop it.

It's too important to drop, so I'll put it to you as part of the growing set of contentions I've been putting to you:

If laws are descriptive (and not prescriptive) then it is not possible that the events described by those laws "had to" happen the way that they did.

Agreed?

What? You think you can list the detailed steps that you go through to make a decision?

For some decisions, sure. Some of them, as I've already said, are even made in a single, instantaneous step. That's not to say that there aren't a lot of relevant details associated with those instantaneous decisions.

What good does abstracting the complexity do? How do we know we aren't abstracting away critical aspects?

How do you even know it's there in the first place if, as you initially wrote, you "don't fully experience the decision-making process"? If you don't fully experience it then how do you know that it's complex?

Could you point me at this definition

Consciousness: The state of being aware of and responsive to one's surroundings.

Computation: The action of mathematical calculation.

The one is a state of awareness; the other is an action. They're clearly in different categories; the one can't "be" the other, though they might have associations.

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.

Ah thanks! 

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.

"Generalised Conditional Description of an Event" does seem accurate, maybe a bit wordy though if people have to keep referring back to it.

I think "regular/predictable" or "seemingly determined" as a prefix for events works? It is, as you say, descriptive rather than enforced.

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...

Well the question of why the world is lawful can have an answer, but it suggests reconsidering causation and locating the causal reasoning for regularity/GCDE/predictability in the entities themselves. I think the key take away from Talbott is even if we had Laws they need something law abiding in the entities. I would consider this "something" as disposition/inner-cause/final-cause.

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

So you see probability distribution indicates something neither deterministic nor random, but on the spectrum of inexorable Fate and Hyperchaos?

Sci, and, if so, did you find it relevant and, especially, compelling?

Didn't read the book, I don't think we need it for our purposes? To me the value of the paper was showing "random" means Hyperchaos that defies stochastic modeling, with Fate/Necessity at the other end. It shows anything with a probability distribution actually is neither determined nor random.

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.

Well what I mean is what I mentioned to Silence - something like an electron cloud that is part of an atom making up a ball does have causal precusors. External causes set up the possibility space, inner cause selects from the possibilities.

So even prior to consideration of mental causation, you have an example where the past does figure into the indeterminism of the electron's position.

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?

Not sure, it seems one could say the actual entities are gods, and we are caught up in their wake....or perhaps we too are participants in the co-creation. I thought you were making a reference to Hoffman's' Idealism, so while it is an example where all causation is mental not sure we need to discuss it at the moment?

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

Well...IMO of course...we can see why consciousness is irreducible and at least potentially ubiquitous. We can see that phenomenal properties are akin to causal effectiveness, and receptivity to any causal power is akin to experiencing phenomenal properties. So all causation needs something very much like consciousness.

Beyond that we can see that causes need some possibility selector to actualize any potential state of affairs --> There is a gap to be filled when we note one set of events is the cause of another set of events. You can fill this in by re-evaluating the idea of Aristotle's Four Causes, specifically Final Cause.

But who sets the cause-effect relations for the seeming non-mental entities? This gets into potential theistic questions, but I don't believe - at this time at least - one can say anything definitive about this...at least not from philosophy alone...

It's too important to drop, so I'll put it to you as part of the growing set of contentions I've been putting to you:

If laws are descriptive (and not prescriptive) then it is not possible that the events described by those laws "had to" happen the way that they did.

Agreed?

Agreed.

For some decisions, sure. Some of them, as I've already said, are even made in a single, instantaneous step. That's not to say that there aren't a lot of relevant details associated with those instantaneous decisions.

Well, if you can describe one of your decisions in a way that includes a justifiable, coherent bit of freeness, then we may well have what I'm looking for.

How do you even know it's there in the first place if, as you initially wrote, you "don't fully experience the decision-making process"? If you don't fully experience it then how do you know that it's complex?

Because many decisions take into account dozens of factors. It seems fair to describe such a decision as complex. Again, if it's really a simple, 1-step process, then how could it be done other than by table lookup?

But if you don't like the idea that such a decision is complex, we can drop that adjective. Again, I'm just looking for a (simple) description of a free decision.

Consciousness: The state of being aware of and responsive to one's surroundings.

Computation: The action of mathematical calculation.

The one is a state of awareness; the other is an action. They're clearly in different categories; the one can't "be" the other, though they might have associations.

Sorry, you wouldn't let me get away with a "clearly" explanation. But I'm not sure it matters all that much. Even if I agree that the computational model of consciousness must be false by definition, I'm still not enlightened about free decisions.

(A robot is "aware of" and "responsive to" its surroundings. There must be more to consciousness. Possibly it lies in the meaning of "aware of.")

~~ Paul

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.

I dare-say that every big decision we make is partly random.

~~ Paul

Sorry, can you restate that last sentence? I don't understand what you're trying to say.

~~ Paul

I was thinking of an example Putnam gives. A pressure cooker is on the stove, I forget to turn the release valve, it explodes.

So from a human interest position the cause of the explosion is my negligence. But from the position of physics the cause is a variety of factors, Putnam giving the lack of holes in the cooker as an example.

It's the sort of thing Tallis seems to be thinking about when he notes cause-effect relationships are due to our carving of the world into discernable entities in our consciousness that we have thoughts about.

I agree that the swirl of atoms decides what thought comes next (sort of). What is a just-so claim is that the swirl of atoms cannot include meaning.


Why is the writer assuming that the causal sequences of matter do not create the semantic content of my thoughts? In other words, why is the writer assuming that there must be an immaterial meaning oracle?

I don't understand the mystery here. If there were no semantic content in my evolved thinking ability, then my actions would have no relation to the world. And, similarly, if I constantly defied logic, I would be dead.

Perhaps if you could explain exactly what is in this immaterial meaning oracle, I might understand better why you think it cannot evolve under physicalism.

~~ Paul

How many atoms are needed in the swirl to get meaning? Because there's no semantics at the physics level - all mental terminology has to be cashed out right?

[Laird]

"Generalised Conditional Description of an Event" does seem accurate, maybe a bit wordy though if people have to keep referring back to it.

I think "regular/predictable" or "seemingly determined" as a prefix for events works? It is, as you say, descriptive rather than enforced.

Well, the problem with "predictable" is that GCDEs needn't be predictable even in theory to other than an omniscient being - their conditions might pick out singular events. For the same reason "regular" doesn't always fit either. And "determined" is a word with too much baggage and too little precision. But I agree that the full phrase is too wordy, and I think new acronyms are unfriendly to casual readers (and even to active participants). So, I don't know what to suggest...

Well the question of why the world is lawful can have an answer, but it suggests reconsidering causation and locating the causal reasoning for regularity/GCDE/predictability in the entities themselves. I think the key take away from Talbott is even if we had Laws they need something law abiding in the entities. I would consider this "something" as disposition/inner-cause/final-cause.

Nice. That works.

So you see probability distribution indicates something neither deterministic nor random, but on the spectrum of inexorable Fate and Hyperchaos?

Argh, I don't find the whole deterministic versus random dichotomy to be useful in the first place, but to the extent that I do, I guess my answer to your question is "Yes".

Didn't read the book, I don't think we need it for our purposes? To me the value of the paper was showing "random" means Hyperchaos that defies stochastic modeling, with Fate/Necessity at the other end. It shows anything with a probability distribution actually is neither determined nor random.

OK. The interest for me in the book is that it is said to answer a question that does seem relevant here, even if only indirectly: "if the world has no necessity, how is its apparently impeccable regularity [...] possible?"

Not sure, it seems one could say the actual entities are gods, and we are caught up in their wake....or perhaps we too are participants in the co-creation. I thought you were making a reference to Hoffman's' Idealism, so while it is an example where all causation is mental not sure we need to discuss it at the moment?

You're right - it's not directly relevant to this conversation. Maybe we can talk about it elsewhere/elsewhen. :-)

Well...IMO of course...we can see why consciousness is irreducible and at least potentially ubiquitous. We can see that phenomenal properties are akin to causal effectiveness, and receptivity to any causal power is akin to experiencing phenomenal properties. So all causation needs something very much like consciousness.

Beyond that we can see that causes need some possibility selector to actualize any potential state of affairs --> There is a gap to be filled when we note one set of events is the cause of another set of events. You can fill this in by re-evaluating the idea of Aristotle's Four Causes, specifically Final Cause.

But who sets the cause-effect relations for the seeming non-mental entities? This gets into potential theistic questions, but I don't believe - at this time at least - one can say anything definitive about this...at least not from philosophy alone...

Nice, especially the "filling in of the gap" with final causation - an interesting idea.

[Laird]

Laird: If laws are descriptive (and not prescriptive) then it is not possible that the events described by those laws "had to" happen the way that they did.

Paul: Agreed.

Excellent.

So, since "had to" indicates necessity, and since you hold to be true the antecedent (that the laws of our world are descriptive), then you must, by simple modus ponens, hold the consequent to be true. With a little logical transformation / simplification of phrasing / retensing, the proposition that you must hold to be true then is:

The events described by laws do not happen necessarily.

Agreed?

I'll postpone a response to the rest until you've answered that question.

How many atoms are needed in the swirl to get meaning? Because there's no semantics at the physics level - all mental terminology has to be cashed out right?

I have no idea. How many atoms are needed to get a tornado? There are no tornadoes at the physics level, either.

It depends to a great degree on how you define meaning. If a simple organism can detect light, is it fair to say that the light detection apparatus has the meaning "light in that direction"? Or do you require that it be able to somehow state the meaning of X without actually experiencing/doing X? Does the meaning have to be symbolic? If so, let's say that organism also has a simple neural mechanism that can act like a latch: When the light detection apparatus detects light, the latch is set and lasts in that state for 1 minute. Does the latch represent the light symbolically?

~~ Paul

Nice, especially the "filling in of the gap" with final causation - an interesting idea.

Just to note, to me the gap filler can be called inner cause, final cause, or even dispositional cause. But what I like about the term Final Cause is its use in relevant philosophy like Whitehead's.

For him efficient cause is the drawing in of the external, and final cause is the possibility selection centered in the relevant entity. It fits nicely with Sartre's "Freedom is what you do with what is done to you". I suspect many mistake free will as an expression of efficient cause, essentially a "self-moving" soul divorced from causal chains...that way lies madness because how are your decisions in context to your world? Free will is, rather, the *effect* of the efficient causes that lead you to the Possibility Space where a decision - an application of final cause - needs to be made.

The above is why Whitehead says that the Actual Occasion, the "agent" in our terms being a succession of these "drops of experience", in some sense fossilizes - and thus becomes among the efficient causes for the agent in the Now. To quote Sydney Hooper (by way of Peter Sjöstedt):

"With the attainment of an actual entity's "satisfaction" the immediacy of final causation is lost, the subject perishes, and the actual entity passes into the state of "objective immortality" in virtue of which efficient causality arises.' "

All to say your own expression of final causes in the Present can/will be an efficient cause in the subsequent Now.

That said, dispositional causes do make certain sense on the efficient and final sides, as noted by our friends Mumford & Anjum:

There is, though, already an older tradition that acknowledges the dispositional nature of causation. Aquinas‟s philosophy of nature, according to Geach (1961), is one in which causes only tend towards their effects rather than necessitating them and the view presented in this paper is on that account neo-Aquinian.2 Many contemporary treatments of causation follow from Hume, however, as he was traditionally understood prior to the „New Hume‟ debate.Constant conjunction is there depicted as a necessary condition for causation having occurred. Dispositionalists have highlighted the weakness of constant conjunction, pointing out that there can be accidental cases that were not genuinely causal, and instead saw real dispositions as somehow imposing natural necessity on top of constant conjunction. We argue that a true dispositionalism, in contrast, is one in which a cause only tends towards its effect. For a general causal claim to be true, such as that smoking causes cancer, there need be no constant conjunction. And in particular causal claims, even if one cause indeed produced its effect, that doesn‟t mean it necessitated it. Something could have got in the way of the effect, even if it did not as a matter of fact.

It seems to me that here they speak of the Efficient Cause not being a necessary binder but rather a disposition, what I call the External Cause that leads the agent to a new Possibility Space, a "superposition" for consciousness where a decision needs to be made.

Understanding irreducibly probabilistically constrained causation is not easy unless one accepts that it involves a dispositional connection that is neither entirely necessary nor entirely contingent. Our coin tends towards a 50:50 distribution, but in a sequence of trials there could be any distribution of heads and tails. We know that an actual 50:50 distribution is unlikely, especially when the number of trails is low. But we also know that if the number of trials is high then a distribution wildly at odds with an equal distribution is highly unlikely. There is a principle of probabilistic distribution that, applied to this case,says that the proportion of heads and tails will tend to 50:50 as the number of tosses tends to infinity; or, the higher the number of tosses then the closer to 50:50 the distribution is likely to be. This principle is appealing and yet we might wonder why it is true. Is it just some brute fact about the world or does it have a truthmaker? The powers theory offers a truthmaker for the principle. The coin has a tendency to land heads and tails with equal chance, a tendency which manifests itself over a sequence of trails. But this is only a disposition towards such a distribution. It does not necessitate it, as we know when we acknowledge that any actual distribution is possible for any sequence of tosses. Yet the distribution is not entirely contingent either, as we know when we acknowledge that distributions at variance widely from 50:50 are unlikely, proportionate to the number of trails.

The case of probabilistically constrained causation thus corroborates our account. It is noteworthy in so far as the account seems to accord entirely with what we already accept pre-theoretically to be the data of chancy causes.

And here the disposition is in reference to Final Cause, the inner causal power of the entity.

I'd contend our causation buddies are trying to speak of Dispositional Causation as one type of cause driving all change, but it seems better to split this into Efficient and Final causation. Admittedly this stuff gets a bit complex, even if one started from a brick going through a window...

"Change is far more radical than we are at first inclined to suppose."
― Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution