eburacum, pleased to meet you. Aye I’m sure those pictures are pretty horrific, but then again they wouldn’t be much use in the experiment otherwise!
If I may ask, do you lean more towards the “emergence” school of consciousness or the “quantum consciousness” as advocated by Penrose etc., or some other hypothesis entirely?
Hi!
I really wouldn’t like to say.
Although I would like to say that consciousness was an emergent quality of the increasing complexity of the mammalian brain,
I wouldn’t like to rule out quantum effects, although these effects could seem to open the door to things like reverse causality, entanglement and perhaps psychic phenomena …
certainly the microtubules in the neural cells are within the size range that could experience quantum effects, that doesn’t mean that any coherent information can be processed using those effects.
The jury is out…
Agreed, although I was under the impression that entanglement and all its consequences would only be confined to the microtubules themselves and that decoherence effects appeared to rule out anything approaching “psychic” phenomena, or indeed any phenomena at all more than a fraction of a second in terms of “premeditation” or the like.
However, I’m really just an interested layman. May I ask if you are more of an “expert”? (Your profile isn’t particularly helpful!)
Good god, no. Just an erstwhile internet science fiction author.
The lowest of the low…
but this is all interesting stuff
not exactly on topic, so I’ll try to get BOT
if consciousness is a purely physical phenomenon, it is difficult to imagine how any intelligent entity achieves free will…we are martyrs to our internal states, while an imagined supercomputer would be a slave of the interactions between its programming (or self-programming) and the real world…
As a cognitive-psychologist-to-be, I feel obligated to point out that very few people within the field consider Penrose’s speculations to be particularly credible.
Is it impossible that quantum effects are directly responsible for human consciousness? I suppose. Is it a necessary hypothesis? Heck no.
I mostly refer to Penrose for an estimation of the maximum number of states which define the human brain…
about 10^15
He is a good cosmologist too
distant bell tolls…tumbleweed blows past
Heh heh, welcome anyway.
I know, Aide; Penrose, Hammerhoff and the like have had a good shoeing over the years. I’m just drawn to their sheer ambitiousness, and my deeply held “hunch” that the relationship between certain results in quantum mechanics and the presence of a conscious observer must be tackled far more “head-on” than current trends attempt. Plus I’m fascinated by experimental results like those of Libet’s work, which seems to be merely little quirks of limited interest in mainstream theories of consciousness, but are centrally important to “quantum consciousness”.
—In this scenario however neither humans nor computers have anything other than the illusion of free will either…—
No, there is no illusion. At least as I have been aruging, the concept is incoherent: it’s not that we have or lack it, but we don’t have any sort of workable concept of what “it” is. What we DO have: volition, is, in my opinion, every bit as satisfying as what we think “free will” might be.
The problem with Penrose is even if his speculations are true, and quantum effects are key to the function of decision making, he still hasn’t explained even speculatively how it all works, how it gives rise to an experience. Further, he hasn’t done what he seems to desire so badly: to escape the necessity of an underlying algorithm behind it all if we are to explain what’s going on when a choice is made. Indeterminancy doesn’t give us any extra elbow room: because again, the “elbow room” he seems to be positing is that same incoherent notion of freedom from ourselves.
On a personal note: if the sole purpose of a post is to bash someone else with lame personal insults, why post it at all? Surely if someone is being foolish or rude, everyone can decide that for themselves, and either pit it or keep it to themselves. What’s the need for a Greek chorus?
so… even with predestination, the illusion of free will is identical to free will?
I’d buy that…
on the proviso that the great simulator, the supreme being, the necessary existence doesn’t keep adjusting the timeline - you don’t have much freewill if another entity keeps rewriting the world around you…
I have a contradictory stance on this.
On the one hand, I find Hume quite hard to refute. Given that cause and effect exist, we must assume that, to some extent, our actions are governed by forces external to ourselves. We are certainly not about to overcome gravity by sheer force of will, nor the principles of Newtonian Mechanics or Quantum Electrodynamics. If everything has a cause and a noticable effect on the particulate level, then how much of what we do is actually us, and how much is just the random electronic ticking of the Universe Machine? The evidence points, seemingly, to the Universe Machine being all there is.
However, we have the idea of free will. It could be, as has been already stated, an illusion, albeit quite a nice one. On the other hand, it might not be. We have, in truth, no way of saying for certain.
The solution to this particular problem is given by one of my favourite fuzzy old philosophers, William James. The Dilemma of Determinism. In it, he admits, quite freely, to be making a decision based on his gut feelings, “There are some instinctive reactions which I, for one, will not tamper with.”
What conclusions does he reach? That whether or not this universe is deterministic or indeterministic, the only way we can act is to believe that we have free will. If we have free will, our “regrets” mean something. To be sorry about the way things were, or the results of our actions, is futile in a Deterministic universe. Nothing is our “fault,” and nothing we could have done will change it, so why regret anything? On the other hand, a belief in the self-determination of individuals brings with it certain resultant conclusions. If there is a choice, there is a choice between good and bad, be they arrived at through whatever means you deem fit. If there exist good and bad choices, it stands to reason that these can have good and bad results (and, indeed, this is the reason for their goodness and badness). Therefore, self-determination of individuals, to whatever extent it exists, provides us - that’s me and you - with opportunities to make the world a better place.
To bastardise Pascal’s Wager; if I believe in free will, yet do not have free will, this is not my choice anyway, so what does it matter? Yet if I do not believe in free will, and I do have it, I run a serious risk of being unable to do things to improve the world for myself and others.
The concrete result of determinism is exactly the same no matter what we decide. The concrete result of indeterminism is that our decisions matter, and must therefore be made in such a manner that we think they matter, weigh up the true costs in the best manner we can, and respond to our regrets by learning from our actions. It therefore makes sense to believe in maximum self-determination of the individual, regardless of what is true or not, because we cannot tell for certain what is true, but this is the most productive course no matter what the true state of reality is.
—However, we have the idea of free will.—
Do we? Really? THAT, I believe, is question.
When James asks us to act “as if” we had free will, what is he asking us to do? Does he even know? He certainly doesn’t tell us how it would change how we act. I don’t even have the slightest idea about how I’d go about acting as if I don’t have free will, because I have no idea what roll “free will” plays in my acts, and so no idea how to take it out of them.
—If we have free will, our “regrets” mean something. To be sorry about the way things were, or the results of our actions, is futile in a Deterministic universe.—
And a indeterministic one: which leaves us with… what? I think it leaves us with the realization that regret means something simply because it means something (doesn’t all meaning?). Regret serves some very important purposes, not the least of which is wisdom and humility for the future.
—Therefore, self-determination of individuals, to whatever extent it exists, provides us - that’s me and you - with opportunities to make the world a better place.—
Don’t we have self-determination no matter what?
—The concrete result of indeterminism is that our decisions matter—
How does indeterminism have anything to do with it?
And why wouldn’t our decisions matter under ANY circumstance?
Pavlov’s dogs probably thought they had free will and chose to salivate 
Along similar lines, it has been found that an action can be initiated by a person’s nervous system before there is a conscious choice to perform the action; the choice comes after the action.
Choices are based on your genetic makeup, your set of experiences, and your state of mind at the moment. Not to mention your health, influence of drugs, etc. Abovementioned emotions as distinct from intellect are nice ways to partition behavior for discussion but it is all a result of chemistry in the brain and elsewhere.
I can decide not to go to work today. Is that free will? Well, I have the freedom to go, or not to go–that is, nobody is physically taking me there. But supposed I have a headache; the presence of the headache in part determines my choice. Further, if I have a strong work ethic, I might go in spite of the headache and suffer. But my work ethic is a result of my upbringing, my environment, my culture, my experience in the benefits of a strong work ethic, and possibly some genetic disposition. If I have an important meeting today, I might decide to go when I otherwise wouldn’t, but that’s an external force. Perhaps not as strong as physical force, but effective pressure nonetheless.
We make decisions based on a huge number of factors, and we are not even always consciously weighing these factors. The decisions each of us make are inevitable based on who we are at the moment we make the decision. I happen to think free will is an illusion.
Even though what we are perceiving may very well be (and probably is) just an illusion, an illusion is not the actual, absolute truth. In order for us to perceiving anything at all right now, something concrete must exist. For an illusion to exist, there would have to be a truth to precede it.
But what precedes the truth?
But what precedes the truth?
uncertainty-
(perhaps?)
What is the truth?
If I may step in for leechow09, it seems he wants to make the point that, if everything is illusion, it makes no sense to label it illusion. The very concept of illusion is dependent on a concept of non-illusion (which leechow09 labeled ‘truth’). You may find the same argument in Nietzsche’s brief ‘essay’, ‘How the ‘true’ world finally became a fable’ in his ‘Götzendämmerung’ (Fall of the idols).
Just some clarifications:
The truth is what is actual, what is existent. The truth is the absolute real world. Unfortunately, we don’t know what that is, since we’re just limited to our illusion–or, hey! this may be the real world. (That would save a lot of trouble.) But we’d never know if it is.
And you’re all asking me what preceeds the truh. Nothing. 1) Actuality is as far as you can take it. 2) I didn’t mean preceed in chronological order; I meant that illusions depend on truth.
And no; not everything’s an illusion. Something real does have to exist. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be perceiving anything right now, even though what you’re perceiving right now is probably just an illusion. The fact that your mind is actively engaged in all sorts of processes known collectively to you as “perception” should prove it, shouldn’t it.
One more thing. You can’t prove anything to anyone. You can, however, prove to yourself that you are perceiving something, but try proving it to someone else, and he’d just think you were a solipsistic abstraction created his mind. That is, if he exists. So Rene Descarte was partially correct in saying “I think, therefore I am.” Except, that’s not completely accurate. So, “I perceive, therefore I am.” Or better, “I am, therefore I am.”
Aspos>
Yes we do. THUS the question. If we had no conception of free will/self determination, we would not ask “do we really have free will or not?” As has already been noted, even if everything is entirely determinist, we maintain through some mechanism the illusion of free will.
Well, James was the Big Name in Pragmatism, and, as a particular fan of the school, I always like aproaching things via the pragmatic line, ie “What concrete difference does it make?”
If the universe is deterministic, then there is no alternative to “the way things are.” The way things are is all that there is and all that there can be, and all that there will be is based on all that there is right now. Changing your future because of a decision you make is as likely as bending an iron bar because you decide it should be bent, but, above and beyond that, “good” and “bad” become meaningless concepts.
James again (from the link above)“Calling a thing bad means, if it means anything at all, that the thing ought not to be, that something else ought to be in its stead. Determinism, in denying that anything else can be in its stead, virtually defines the universe as a place in which what ought to be is impossible,–in other words, as an organism whose constitution is afflicted with an incurable taint, an irremediable flaw.”
In a deterministic universe, there is no “should” or “ought” our “could” or “maybe”. There is, or there is not, and this is the end of the affair. Therefore, the point of regret, as you put it here:
is no point at all. The future will happen whether we go into it with unbridled arrogance or creeping servility to the past. There is, in fact, no real choice in the matter. If I am to be a terrorist and blow up buildings, this is what I am to be. There is no method by which I can change my mind and say “I will not blow up buildings today.” If I am to spend my life in menial jobs, cleaning toilets and scraping fat off chip-pans, I cannot, in any way, do anything about this. If I am to murder someone, I shall do so, and if I get caught and sentenced for my crime, that, also, is unavoidable.
On the other hand, in an indeterministic universe, one in which endless possibilities exist for us to take hold of, what concrete difference does that have? Suddenly, there is a reason for the things we believe. There reappears the “oughts”, the “should haves”, the “might dos”. Whether I am successful or not, or a murderer or not, or a terrorist or not, is down to me and my own self. The way things are is not the be all and end all of my life, I have a very distinct possibility, if I am unhappy with my lot, to change it.
Er… no.
Because it’s the opposite of determinism? Free-will exists in an indeterministic universe, therefore in a discussion about free will I would expect to use the term, er, freely.
Good point, although I’m not entirely sure if you meant to make it. The flaw with the above position (the one I take) is that, in a deterministic universe, my decisions are not what I believe them to be. I have the illusion of deciding on a course of action, but the alternatives are not open to me. Although there may be many doors, only one is open, and I must go through it. Therefore, yes, technically “our decisions” matter in any circumstances, even if, in a deterministic universe, they are not “our decisions” as we commonly understand the term to be used.
The answer to this, though, is one of attitude. If life is deterministic, then our attitude is preset and it therefore doesn’t make any difference if we are resigned to the situation or approach it with vigour and a desire to see things change for the better. If, on the other hand, life in indeterministic, then the worst thing we can do is approach things with an attitude that they cannot get any better. If we believe this, we miss opportunities, we get pessimistic, we act according to our beliefs. If we are to be locked in a cycle of wars between nations forever, we might as well get on with it, get it out of the way, rather than all this haiging around. The best thing we can do is to constantly keep appraising the situation, saying “what is wrong?” “how can it change?” “how can I change it?”
You don’t know, in this situation, whether it is really you making the conscious decision to always seek the positive outcome to the situation, or whether it is merely the universe machine turning its cogs slowly. But, and this is where the “Pascale’s Wager” comes back in, in this situation you have lost nothing by assuming that it is possible for things to be different.
This is how “our decisions” matter in an indeterministic universe. They are really our decisions to make. The burden of responsibility for our actions is sqarely back on us, which means we can make a difference, for better or for worse. My decision to go with this, then, is an entirely emotional one, based on how I’d like the universe to be. However, given I can only win be choosing this path, I see no reason to believe it is a worse choice despite its lack of a pure logical proof.