Neuroscience and free will

Yeah, I still don't know what you are asking for.

Maybe read Chris Fuch's stuff about getting a Participatory Universe from physics?

I'll check it out.

I'm asking why the free agent chose chicken instead of fish. We agree it's not an algorithm. We agree it's not alpha particle decay sampling. We agree it's free in the sense of being incompatible with determinism. Apparently there might be some hierarchy of agents, with an axiomatic one at the bottom. We agree it's caused, in some sense.

But, still, I am left with no inkling of how the decision is made. I know attributes of the "method," as listed above. I don't know anything about how the method progresses, or even whether the word "progresses" makes sense.

~~ Paul

pid='26566' dateline='1552072968']We have randomness at the bottom, but the probabilities are such that we get consistency at higher levels. For example, even though the positions of electrons are random, they are found in predictable orbitals.

So neither deterministic nor random.

I'm suspending that dichotomy for this conversation. Otherwise it is rather difficult to talk about free will.

It doesn't exist, so no need to suspend it for any conversation.

This is an empirical issue as far as I'm concerned. We wait and watch.

I suggest reading Cartwright's writing on the subject, I feel we are talking about different things here re: Laws of Nature.

I'm not sure what that means. It sounds like it means

Change is the Actualizing of a Potential State, and because that which is a Potential state does not exist, the actualizing must be done by something Actual.

But then I don't know how you can actualize something that doesn't exist.

Sure, we can take something like that as an axiom. It doesn't help me understand anything about free will.

~~ Paul

It doesn't exist in the sense it's not existing in time yet. You need an actual heat source to get the potential state of water from a block of ice.

Still not sure what you are trying to understand - something about a "script"? Why would we need a script, and what does that mean exactly?

Like I said I realize free will is not possible under Physicalism (that physics facts are all the facts), that if that belief system were true all human life is worthless as there is no achievement and no moral responsibility.

But as Alex Rosenberg pointed out, if Physicalism is true we don't have thoughts about things so we can rest easy on that score. Additionally you can't get a causal account of Consciousness from the elements of physics so doubly good at the least...

I don't know - you're the one talking cause here.
What does cause have to do with necessary events?
Linda

Heck, what does consciousness have to do with free decisions? How do we know they aren't being made nonconsciously, even while agreeing that they are not governed by determinism? After all, doesn't everything, including the execution of a computer program, involve a series of free decisions?

~~ Paul

After all, who is making all the choices as a computer program executes?

I'm not sure that I'm following this line of reasoning. A computer program is merely the extension of the will of the programmer, surely? So the programmer determines the outcome by coding what happens in the event of this or that condition. If you want to draw an analogy with the universe at large, then you might be describing theological determinism - God's will - which I somehow doubt. The outcome of a program is, by definition, determined (programmed).

As I say, however, I'm probably missing the point.

Heck, what does consciousness have to do with free decisions? How do we know they aren't being made nonconsciously, even while agreeing that they are not governed by determinism? After all, doesn't everything, including the execution of a computer program, involve a series of free decisions?

~~ Paul

We know materialism has no free decisions, so it doesn't matter if there is consciousness (assuming materialism could explain consciousness). I think everyone agrees on that fact - if materialism is true life is worthless. (But we know materialism is false so no worries.)

And I think there's a difference between a continual series of free decisions and causation being set for non-mental entities by a conscious agent. I mean you could have something like atomic Monads (or Whitehead's Occasions) that are always making decisions, however limited, and that would be a series of free decisions of the constituents of whatever computer is running the program since programs have no consciousness.

Yet surely the alternative is more incredible, that under Physicalism the computer ultimately runs because we are just lucky enough subatomic particles behave themselves.

I'm not sure that I'm following this line of reasoning. A computer program is merely the extension of the will of the programmer, surely? So the programmer determines the outcome by coding what happens in the event of this or that condition. If you want to draw an analogy with the universe at large, then you might be describing theological determinism - God's will - which I somehow doubt. The outcome of a program is, by definition, determined (programmed).

As I say, however, I'm probably missing the point.

No you're right, computer programs can't be conscious because you need a mind to decide what the program is actually about.

It's also why neurons can't be about anything, there's no mind to decide what their aboutness is. Why the materialist Rosenberg rightly concludes materialism means you have no thoughts, but then wrongly insists materialism is still actually true.

So neither deterministic nor random.

I'm not sure I'd draw any conclusions from this. It is possible that some sort of indeterministic will is guiding every particle and every event. I'm not sure how we could know.

It doesn't exist, so no need to suspend it for any conversation.

There is a need for me to suspend it. If I agreed with everything in this conversation, I wouldn't be discussing it.

It doesn't exist in the sense it's not existing in time yet. You need an actual heat source to get the potential state of water from a block of ice.

Okay.

Still not sure what you are trying to understand - something about a "script"? Why would we need a script, and what does that mean exactly?

Why did I choose chicken instead of fish?

Like I said I realize free will is not possible under Physicalism (that physics facts are all the facts), that if that belief system were true all human life is worthless as there is no achievement and no moral responsibility.

Let's not go here. I don't need some Great Agent to grant my life worth. And if that Great Agent is required to give people moral responsibility, then I despair over the state of morality.

But as Alex Rosenberg pointed out, if Physicalism is true we don't have thoughts about things so we can rest easy on that score. Additionally you can't get a causal account of Consciousness from the elements of physics so doubly good at the least...

I'm not seeing a causal account from any direction. Which is why I wait.

~~ Paul

I'm not sure that I'm following this line of reasoning. A computer program is merely the extension of the will of the programmer, surely? So the programmer determines the outcome by coding what happens in the event of this or that condition. If you want to draw an analogy with the universe at large, then you might be describing theological determinism - God's will - which I somehow doubt. The outcome of a program is, by definition, determined (programmed).

As I say, however, I'm probably missing the point.

I believe the claim is that there are no necessitated events in the universe. This implies that every event it directed somehow, or willed, or whatever the correct term is. So all the events that we usually assume are deterministic, such as the execution of a computer program, are in fact directed by the free will of some agent. It may be that this agent is the lowest-level one, but it's an agent nonetheless.

~~ Paul

I'm not seeing a causal account from any direction. Which is why I wait.

~~ Paul

Pretty sure Efficient Cause provides opportunity for decision -> Free Will is Final Cause that makes a decision is a causal account?

It seems a better causal account then the how explanation you have for a circuit, which was an appeal to laws of physics?

We know materialism has no free decisions, so it doesn't matter if there is consciousness (assuming materialism could explain consciousness). I think everyone agrees on that fact - if materialism is true life is worthless. (But we know materialism is false so no worries.)

And I think there's a difference between a continual series of free decisions and causation being set for non-mental entities by a conscious agent. I mean you could have something like atomic Monads (or Whitehead's Occasions) that are always making decisions, however limited, and that would be a series of free decisions of the constituents of whatever computer is running the program since programs have no consciousness.

Yet surely the alternative is more incredible, that under Physicalism the computer ultimately runs because we are just lucky enough subatomic particles behave themselves.

Clearly we have different notions of what is incredible.

If I can get a very long series of billiard-ball-like causations in order to run a computer program, what is to stop the Agent from doing this for the entire universe?

As far as free decisions by microelectronic circuits goes, this is where we may part ways just a tad concerning the incredible.

~~ Paul