Neuroscience and free will

Is anyone feeling like progress is going to be made here?

I get what its like to struggle with something that others simply see as either axiomatic or not even worth considering.  That is what seems to be Paul (and Linda's?) conundrum.

I'll try this angle: If consciousness science had made material progress on the proverbial "hard problem" and specifically had proven it to fit nicely into a physicalist worldview, then I would be struggling with the question of free will/decisions.  I would want to square how a deterministic/random/combination-of-the-two reductionist understanding of consciousness still led me, in the first person, to feel as if I had free agency.  I'd want a description for my free decisions.

However, as it stands today (from my perspective) we know, seemingly, next to nothing about consciousness.  How it works, where from it stems, etc.  Because it is so poorly understood from a scientific perspective, I find it fruitless to stand tall and demand a description of our seemingly free decisions in logical or scientific terms.  For all we know, it may be completely fundamental.  It may stem from a source(s) completely unrevealed to us at this time.  It may be an illusion (if the physicalists end up being proven correct in reducing it to purely physical causes).

Again, it falls back for me to the similarly confounding notion of random: Both seem intractable to us based on our limited knowledge.

Is anyone feeling like progress is going to be made here?

I get what its like to struggle with something that others simply see as either axiomatic or not even worth considering.  That is what seems to be Paul (and Linda's?) conundrum.

I'll try this angle: If consciousness science had made material progress on the proverbial "hard problem" and specifically had proven it to fit nicely into a physicalist worldview, then I would be struggling with the question of free will/decisions.  I would want to square how a deterministic/random/combination-of-the-two reductionist understanding of consciousness still led me, in the first person, to feel as if I had free agency.  I'd want a description for my free decisions.

However, as it stands today (from my perspective) we know, seemingly, next to nothing about consciousness.  How it works, where from it stems, etc.  Because it is so poorly understood from a scientific perspective, I find it fruitless to stand tall and demand a description of our seemingly free decisions in logical or scientific terms.  For all we know, it may be completely fundamental.  It may stem from a source(s) completely unrevealed to us at this time.  It may be an illusion (if the physicalists end up being proven correct in reducing it to purely physical causes).

Again, it falls back for me to the similarly confounding notion of random: Both seem intractable to us based on our limited knowledge.

I agree randomness makes no sense - I actually think it is impossible. Also think determinism as usually considered is randomness of a special kind but the thread has gone through that.

And I believe we are in agreement that if Physicalism has no way to square human achievement and moral responsibility, it seems quite immoral to promote a worldview that has to lead to the conclusion human life is meangingless.

That said I do think we can have a logical place for mental causation in a metaphysical picture given every event has to have a specific outcome out of all possible outcomes...and it seems we disagree on that? (I make no claims to science, that seems to be a huge topic that occupies pretty much the entire forum.)

[Why I think I'll go to the other brick/window thread, ideally there can be some resolution if we start from first principles in layman terms.]

How is a decision - as in a single event - something fundamental if it can be broken down? From what I've read the problem with looking at introspection ("my decisions feel influenced by varied factors but are ultimately free") was the question of how free will fits into the causal sequences in a metaphysical picture. So:

1) Is everything deterministic/random by some logical necessity?

As discussed in the thread, this isn't the case, those terms refer to external projects of probability.

2) One feels like they are incorporating the past/present from the inside, but how to explain this in terms of some causal picture that allows for the influence of the past/present (otherwise it's random) but also not necessitated by past/present (otherwise it's determined?

As discussed Past/Present determine the Possibility Space, not the choice itself. The choice is found in the effect of those Past/Present factors, which was the point of dividing an event into Efficient & Final Cause.


The point would be to discuss the pictures of causation people are thinking about. At some point mental causation would presumably come back into the discussion.

Even now there's still disagreement on what it means to designate things as deterministic/random.

Why I didn't want to get into the free will question without digging more into causation, I just posted a sketch of Process Philosophy to break another conversational dead end it seemed this thread was in...

But what I think about causation in a deterministic/random world doesn't matter. I've agreed to give up the assumption that the world is that way, as has fls. So I guess we want to talk about causation in an indeterministic world, regardless of whether it includes free will.

~~ Paul

I'll try this angle: If consciousness science had made material progress on the proverbial "hard problem" and specifically had proven it to fit nicely into a physicalist worldview, then I would be struggling with the question of free will/decisions.  I would want to square how a deterministic/random/combination-of-the-two reductionist understanding of consciousness still led me, in the first person, to feel as if I had free agency.  I'd want a description for my free decisions.

However, as it stands today (from my perspective) we know, seemingly, next to nothing about consciousness.  How it works, where from it stems, etc.  Because it is so poorly understood from a scientific perspective, I find it fruitless to stand tall and demand a description of our seemingly free decisions in logical or scientific terms.  For all we know, it may be completely fundamental.  It may stem from a source(s) completely unrevealed to us at this time.  It may be an illusion (if the physicalists end up being proven correct in reducing it to purely physical causes).

Right, so I'm not sure why some folks are so sure that we have free will. I think it's an empirical question.

However, if we are going to talk about free will philosophically while we wait on the neuroscience, then all we have is logic. It seems to me, then, that asking for a "philosophical" description of how I make a free decision is not unreasonable. 

~~ Paul

And I believe we are in agreement that if Physicalism has no way to square human achievement and moral responsibility, it seems quite immoral to promote a worldview that has to lead to the conclusion human life is meangingless.

I might go along with this heavy-handed accusation of immorality if we could square human achievement and moral responsibility with some indeterministic model of the universe, but that has not yet been done. 

~~ Paul

But what I think about causation in a deterministic/random world doesn't matter. I've agreed to give up the assumption that the world is that way, as has fls. So I guess we want to talk about causation in an indeterministic world, regardless of whether it includes free will.

~~ Paul

But this very "how" question you are still asking makes no sense to me or Laird.

My only solution is to go back to looking at causation from a basic example that isn't bringing in human free will.

Right, so I'm not sure why some folks are so sure that we have free will. I think it's an empirical question.

Agreed although I think slipping in the term empirical may carry some perceptive baggage for some.

However, if we are going to talk about free will philosophically while we wait on the neuroscience, then all we have is logic. It seems to me, then, that asking for a "philosophical" description of how I make a free decision is not unreasonable. 

~~ Paul

Is the notion or concept of logic sufficient in this case? It seems that, again, so little is known about consciousness that logic in this arena sits on rather precarious ground, no? Even in studying the physical world, logic has proven to be a suspect tool in many cases.

It may be illogical to even be seeking an answer to your question. Again, I am appealing to the woefully inadequate starting point with which we ponder the question.

But this very "how" question you are still asking makes no sense to me or Laird.

My only solution is to go back to looking at causation from a basic example that isn't bringing in human free will.

I do not understand why it makes no sense to you. Doesn't there have to be some method by which a free agent selects from among the options? We agree it's not a coin toss. We agree it isn't forced. We agree it isn't algorithmic. We agree it could have been different. We agree that no other agent is making the selection.

So unless there really isn't any selection at all, there have to be factors that the agent uses to make the selection. There have to be inputs. There has to be some way of using those inputs to reach a decision. There has to be an actual decision made.

Let's try this:

What is the difference between the agent making the selection and the agent not making any selection at all?

~~ Paul

I used to play a similar game with my mum... she would pose a problem... I'd try to solve it for her... no answer was ever good enough... there was always another objection...  it took me a while to recognize the game for what it was, and then I learnt not to play it :-)

I'm happy to stop playing the game if someone simply asserts that there is no answer to my question. But apparently it's an important issue, since Sciborg thinks it is immoral (correct word?) not to agree that we have free choice. So surely I should continue to do my homework.

~~ Paul