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I just finished reading "The Neural Basis of Free Will" by Peter Ulric Tse.  I loved the book, but I also have mad respect for Jerry Coyne. 

"I will grant Tse one thing: I agree with him that the invention of aeroplanes wasn’t determined at the Big Bang.  For between that event and the Wright brothers there were lots of events in which quantum indeterminacy could have played a role.  The configuration of the universe right after the Big Bang, so Sean Carroll tells me, could have been profoundly influenced by pure physical indeterminacy. I’m also willing to grant that mutations—the raw material of evolution—could often be purely indeterminate. And if that’s so, then even the evolution of humans, or of any other species, might not have been inevitable had we, à la Gould, rolled back the earth 4.6 billion years ago, but leaving every molecule in the same place.

But that is not the same thing as saying that if I was planning a dinner party, and rolled back time a few minutes to the moment when I decided what to serve, I could have chosen meat rather than spinach.

Maybe I’m getting something wrong here, and maybe Tse is proposing a type of compatibilism with which I’m not familiar, but it seems to me that he’s simply stringing together a lot of words, mixing them with some findings in neuroscience, and coming up with a type of free will that doesn’t do what it purports to.—Jerry Coyne

A Strange Conception of Free Will

I thought I knew the answer, but now I'm not so sure.  Tell me…is free will real or an illusion?

Some definitions of "free will" selected from hither and thither, including that review:

(1) The power of making free choices unconstrained by external agencies.

(2) The ability to choose between different possible courses of action.

(3) The doctrine that human behavior is undertaken freely rather than being determined by prior causes or divine intervention.

(4) If there is such a thing as free will, it has many dimensions. In what follows, I will sketch the freedom-conferring characteristics that have attracted most of the attention. The reader is warned, however, that while many philosophers emphasize a single such characteristic, perhaps in response to the views of their immediate audience, it is probable that most would recognize the significance of many of the other features discussed here....

(5) Although Tse doesn’t define free will, he appears to conceive of it as the condition of human behavior when, in a given situation, with all else equal, you could have done otherwise if you reran the tape of life. I used to hold that definition, too, until I realized that if quantum indeterminacy really does play a role in our actions, then it’s possible for us to have done otherwise in a given situation—that is, with all the molecules in the universe aligned in the same way were the situation repeated—even though we’re not really affecting that decision through any kind of conscious rumination. I now prefer to define free will as Anthony Cashmore did [...]: "I believe that free will is better defined as a belief that there is a component to biological behavior that is something more than the unavoidable consequences of the genetic and environmental history of the individual and the possible stochastic laws of nature."

So it's potentially similar to the uselessness of asking "How many grains make a heap?" when (if) there is no standard or consensus agreement for what measurement signifies a heap.

Since the definition itself seems (ironically) left to being an exercising of personal preference / volition, I often define "free will" as referring to the autonomy of an agent producing its own decisions according to its own characteristics, as opposed to the heteronomy of something external making the decisions for it (like a puppeteer). This negates the significance of doing the same thing each time the universe is replayed, since such still exhibits the decision that I (or my type of identity) makes when placed under _X_ circumstances. It would actually be if I did do something different with nothing else changed that would seem to divest my distinct personality / individuality configuration of being responsible for the choice, and attribute the results to a mysterious, marionette artist.

The so-called "prior causes" that a determinism context frets over are just my temporal parts (antecedent body states) and thus still part of me (components of my identity). It would surely be ludicrous to select a particular age, millisecond, or stage of a person's life and assert: "This is who that individual is." Not until an instant before death is "who one is" completed by the addition of that final, living physiological / psychological change to one's record and sequence of temporal parts.

Randomness isn't necessary, but it can still be subsumed by my identity should it be a legitimate element contributing to the brain's decision-making process in a universe that features it. But a particle or atom's unpredictability obviously cannot be the complex, macroscopic relationships and dynamics which output a cognitive judgement and a bodily action it commences. It would merely be one of many contributing "butterfly effects" that get accumulatively amplified by neural structure to a greater level of influence, like causing forgetfulness about a dentist appointment during one replay of the universe, but then not forgetting in the next rerun.

Stephen L. Macknik: Remember that determinism is an unavoidable fact of the universe at the macroscopic but not the quantum level. Well what if the macroscopic universe is not deterministic because the brain is designed to amplify quantum level particle effects to the macroscopic level through the action of specialized neuronal channels that make decisions potentially truly stochastic?

There are chemical receptors on most neurons that receive neurotransmitters (globs of chemicals secreted by other neurons), that then respond by opening ion channels, causing neurons to create neutral impulses (aka: macroscopic real world events normal people call “brain activity”, or “thought”). Well, in a deterministic universe… so what? You could have predicted every idea I’ve ever had, before my birth, if had enough data about the universe. Right? Tse says no, because some chemical receptors, called NMDA receptors, are actually blocked by a single atom of magnesium, that must first be released before ions can flow to cause brain activity. Because macroscopic brain activity is therefore dependent on the position of a single atom, which is itself a quantum-level creature, it means that these neurons amplify the quantum level activity of the magnesium atom to the level of neural circuit behavior and real life. Thus our behavior is indeed subject to quantum effects and the universe cannot be deterministic. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/ill...ress-2013/

Coyne seems to have already made up his mind.

People like to deny free will based on either solely deterministic or solely indeterministic grounds. They seem to forget that thought is a global, aggregate process. Some of the neural inputs can be amplified, quantum indeterminacy, and some of them macro determinism based on external stimuli and stochastic activity. The aggregate is not only composed of these, but also the congruent history, which is completely subjective.

Supposed experimental evidence that free will is an illusion (Libet, Hayes, etc..) conveniently examine only random choices. The same sort of choices mentalists exploit with predetermined cues in the environment to predict what random choices people will make. It shouldn't be surprising that random choices involve neural correlates before awareness of choice.

(Feb 28, 2017 04:40 AM)C C Wrote: [ -> ]Some definitions of "free will" selected from hither and thither, including that review:

Here’s the thing, though, C C, people always assume that the fear of death is universal.  I don’t think it is, but I do feel that the fear of losing control is universal.  The question of free will may be unknowable and that bugs the shit out of me.

From the article that you linked…

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(Feb 28, 2017 06:23 AM)Syne Wrote: [ -> ]Coyne seems to have already made up his mind.

People like to deny free will based on either solely deterministic or solely indeterministic grounds. They seem to forget that thought is a global, aggregate process. Some of the neural inputs can be amplified, quantum indeterminacy, and some of them macro determinism based on external stimuli and stochastic activity. The aggregate is not only composed of these, but also the congruent history, which is completely subjective.

Supposed experimental evidence that free will is an illusion (Libet, Hayes, etc..) conveniently examine only random choices. The same sort of choices mentalists exploit with predetermined cues in the environment to predict what random choices people will make. It shouldn't be surprising that random choices involve neural correlates before awareness of choice.

Well, it’s not just Jerry Coyne, and it’s not only the omniscience of God and free will that are incompatible.  The science is paradoxical, too.

"Assuming that an indeterministic interpretation of quantum mechanics is correct, one may still object that such indeterminism is for all practical purposes confined to microscopic phenomena. This is not always the case: many macroscopic phenomena are based on quantum effects. For instance, some hardware random number generators work by amplifying quantum effects into practically usable signals. 

A more significant question is whether the indeterminism of quantum mechanics allows for the traditional idea of free will (based on a perception of free will). If a person's action is, however, only result of complete quantum randomness, and mental processes as experienced have no influence on the probabilistic outcomes (such as volition), this in itself would mean that such traditional free will does not exist (because the action was not controllable by the physical being who claims to possess the free will)." [1]

(Feb 28, 2017 05:10 PM)Secular Sanity Wrote: [ -> ]

(Feb 28, 2017 06:23 AM)Syne Wrote: [ -> ]Coyne seems to have already made up his mind.

People like to deny free will based on either solely deterministic or solely indeterministic grounds. They seem to forget that thought is a global, aggregate process. Some of the neural inputs can be amplified, quantum indeterminacy, and some of them macro determinism based on external stimuli and stochastic activity. The aggregate is not only composed of these, but also the congruent history, which is completely subjective.

Supposed experimental evidence that free will is an illusion (Libet, Hayes, etc..) conveniently examine only random choices. The same sort of choices mentalists exploit with predetermined cues in the environment to predict what random choices people will make. It shouldn't be surprising that random choices involve neural correlates before awareness of choice.

Well, it’s not just Jerry Coyne, and it’s not only the omniscience of God and free will that are incompatible.  The science is paradoxical, too.

Omniscience and free will are not incompatible. You'd have to posit that a god can do logically contradictory things (like create a spherical box) to have any hope of demonstrating the two incompatible.

Quote:"Assuming that an indeterministic interpretation of quantum mechanics is correct, one may still object that such indeterminism is for all practical purposes confined to microscopic phenomena. This is not always the case: many macroscopic phenomena are based on quantum effects. For instance, some hardware random number generators work by amplifying quantum effects into practically usable signals. 

A more significant question is whether the indeterminism of quantum mechanics allows for the traditional idea of free will (based on a perception of free will). If a person's action is, however, only result of complete quantum randomness, and mental processes as experienced have no influence on the probabilistic outcomes (such as volition), this in itself would mean that such traditional free will does not exist (because the action was not controllable by the physical being who claims to possess the free will)." [1]

Like I said, "People like to deny free will based on either solely deterministic or solely indeterministic grounds." "If a person's action is, however, only result of complete quantum randomness" is solely indeterminsitic grounds. These are weak arguments that seek to segregate the universe into isolated deterministic and indeterministic camps, since it is a false dilemma that it can only be one or the other.

(Feb 28, 2017 05:10 PM)Secular Sanity Wrote: [ -> ]

(Feb 28, 2017 04:40 AM)C C Wrote: [ -> ]Some definitions of "free will" selected from hither and thither, including that review:

Here’s the thing, though, C C, people always assume that the fear of death is universal.  I don’t think it is, but I do feel that the fear of losing control is universal.  The question of free will may be unknowable and that bugs the shit out of me.

From the article that you linked…

"If God is perfect and knows all our fates, the Jesuit quandary goes, then the future is known, at least to Him, and therefore how can there be free will since every decision for the entire expanse of eternity has been laid out, unchangeable? There can be no real decisions, if true, no matter how free they seem. No matter how random or how spur of the moment any given decision was made, God knew you were going to do that.

The scientific version of the same quandary is not too different. Laplace imagined a similar scenario based solely on a universe of particles. Think of the universe as a billiards table, and all the particles in the universe so many billiards balls. If you could know all of the vectors of all the balls on the table, and all of the physical rules by which balls interact with each other—and with the table itself—you could predict any future position for the balls on the table. All possible interactions could be simulated forward to any future point in time. But even in a billiards table (or other closed system, like, say, the universe) where you don’t know every vector exactly, this line of thought suggests that although you cannot to predict the future accurately, you nevertheless know that future is predictable. That everything in such a universe is fated to happen."

Someone with bipolar disorder (call her Sue Yogel) is constantly faced with the potential of "losing control" or thinking / feeling / behaving aberrantly if she forgets her medication or the latter loses effectiveness. But that's still who Sue Yogel is, it's part of her identity, it is her brain / body that is responsible for whatever she does, not some external agency or mastermind controlling and moving her. If she lacks a soul or transcendent self, then it is all the more that an "eccentric" state which her brain/body is in at a particular moment is still who she is, a temporal part of her overall being that subsumes both the supposed "normal" phases along with the supposed "abnormal" phases.

No matter what situation she encounters, her acts are an exhibition of "what this distinct individual Sue Yogel does when she is in _X_ physiological state confronted with _Y_ set of circumstances and _Z_ spatiotemporal coordinates". It's not what Margaret Thatcher would do, its not what Florence Nightingale would do. It doesn't matter whether the past/future is set in stone and fixed or there is a degree of randomness to it, this world still discovers what that identity of Sue Yogel does when her life converges with whatever particular XYZ happening.

If she instead existed in a different universe, minus the bipolar disorder, and experienced a completely different sequence of events in her life, then she would be a psychologically different person (and probably have at least subtle physical dissimilarities due to change of diet, changes in injuries, changes in environment, etc). Sue Vogel's identity is dependent upon the circumstances that shaped it in this life history.

The zygote her body developed from is about the only item that could be abstracted from this world, treated "as her" in the most elemental manner, be planted / substituted in an alternative reality or timeline, and some claim be made that the resulting person is still the original Sue Yogel formerly outputted in this world (despite the different mindset of memories, interests, etc). But who could relate to that basic, genetic material slash blueprint being "this is who I am"? In the end, it's the development of Sue Yogel over the course of her life span which more meaningfully constitutes the properties of her identity, and those are dependent upon (were shaped by) this specific history and version of this cosmos which she is embedded in.

In the context of physicalist beliefs, "free will" often seems to be an impotent, ambiguous, hand-waving expression. Unless it simply refers to the autonomous operation of a human body. Which is free from needing the assistance of an outer agency controlling it, like a ventriloquist manipulating a wooden doll. The latter can avoid responsibility for anything since it lacks an internal mechanism to even move on its own, much less have the capacity to sense and act out of either decision or arbitrary motor reflex. But a living brain/body can't deny its "will" and can't deny its "freedom" to select from available options or to even randomly act without thought (resulting responsibility either way).

If a terrorist holds a gun on Sue Yogel and orders her to do something or else be killed, she's still choosing when she decides to live (a mannequin in her place would allow its head to be blown off because it can't make a decision, can't even process the options).

If Sue Yogel destroys public property because she's having a bad bout with her disorder, then invented courts can exempt her from obligation if her situation qualifies for such. But in terms of the human-independent sphere of things, there's no getting around that Sue Yogel can move, feel, think, not think, and act autonomously on her own. Regardless of whether her bioelectrical chemistry is in a dysfunctional or a "functional / sane" mode at any particular time, it's yet a component of her identity and existence of temporal parts (especially if there's no "spooky stuff" available to defer the responsibility to, just the structural operation of the meat).

(Feb 28, 2017 08:16 PM)Syne Wrote: [ -> ]Omniscience and free will are not incompatible. You'd have to posit that a god can do logically contradictory things (like create a spherical box) to have any hope of demonstrating the two incompatible.

There are spherical boxes, Syne.  Maybe you mean spherical squares.

You’re stubborn, and a little close minded, but I have seen you change your point of view from time to time.  Your comprehension skills are good even with complicated issues.  Will you please read Peter Tse's book and tell me what you think?  If not, will you at least watch Jerry Coyne’s video and maybe a few of Peter Tse’s?



Philosophy of Free Will

Free Will: Where’s the Problem?

Free Will: Essence and Nature

Peter Tse’s Content

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(Feb 28, 2017 08:51 PM)C C Wrote: [ -> ]In the context of physicalist beliefs, "free will" often seems to be an impotent, ambiguous, hand-waving expression. Unless it simply refers to the autonomous operation of a human body. Which is free from needing the assistance of an outer agency controlling it, like a ventriloquist manipulating a wooden doll. The latter can avoid responsibility for anything since it lacks an internal mechanism to even move on its own, much less have the capacity to sense and act out of either decision or arbitrary motor reflex. But a living brain/body can't deny its "will" and can't deny its "freedom" to select from available options or to even randomly act without thought (resulting responsibility either way).

In his video, Coyne says that one of the biggest misconceptions in regards to determinism is that determinism means that it’s useless to try to change people’s minds.  This is a misconception because part of what builds your brain is what comes in from the environment.  We’re susceptible to the influences of other people, punishment, rewards, love, etc, but that doesn’t mean that we’re not determined.  What it means is that part of the influence that is physically impinged on our neurons and make us behave is our environment.

"The fact is, is that a brain is a complicated computer.  That’s a simplification, but it has evolved to run programs, and weighs varies factors even without us knowing about it.  There’s nothing free about this.  A computer does exactly that. You put in the moves and it considers all the possible ramifications of what could happen like you do when you’re worried about your future behavior, and then it makes a move.  Does a computer have free will?  Most people would say no.  Where’s the freedom?  The output is still deterministic."

"We’re all in agreement that we’re determinists, that we’re naturalists, that there is no ghost in the machine, and that at any moment except for quantum indeterminacy, we can only do what we are programmed to do by our environment or our genes.  So, we’re all in agreement with the scientific facts.  What we’re in disagreement with is what we call free will, and it’s a purely semantic argument."

That was great, C C, but this is what I really want to know. He said that free will has to do with being in identical circumstances, and then seeing if you could have decided differently.

Think about this, C C.  Think of any given situation and all the things leading up to it.  If nothing changed, could you have made a different choice?

(Mar 1, 2017 01:53 AM)Secular Sanity Wrote: [ -> ][...] but this is what I really want to know. He said that free will has to do with being in identical circumstances, and then seeing if you could have decided differently.

That's kind of like saying, "Let's place an ostrich in the room a second time and then see if it's a camel."

If the circumstances that fashioned the identity of a person the first time around are still the same circumstances the second time around, then the properties of the identity are also the same and will make the same decision. "Billy likes puppies more than ducks. Billy chose a puppy." Repeat.

It's a definition of free will which is crafted beforehand to fail. These concepts don't fall from the sky, they are invented, they're artificial. Thus there's nothing preventing those who desire free will from similarly crafting a definition that's more viable. For instance, the doctrine underlying the label of "materialism" has been intermittently revamped over the centuries to keep that label alive as science gradually discarded older ideas like corpuscularianism.

Quote:Think about this, C C. Think of any given situation and all the things leading up to it. If nothing changed, could you have made a different choice?

But I don't want to make a different choice, because I want to exist. That is, if I'm the ostrich that was in the room the first time, then I don't want a camel replacing me the next time.

In order to have it, that kind definition of free will indirectly implies that (minimum): "I want to be a slightly different version of myself who didn't make that decision last week (or whatever)." But to be a slightly different version who thereby made a different decision is to be referring to someone else.

And pointing out that it is not possible to make a different choice if the details of the timeline remain exactly the same is just to roundaboutly approve that one must indeed be someone else shaped by a different timeline in order to make a different decision.

No matter how much an identical sibling or clone might resemble me, I am still not going to be occupying their body because I am THIS body (there's no "spooky stuff" in physicalist beliefs that can make me independent of it). Similarly, a different version of myself in an alternative history, that was molded by different events -- and thereby has the potential to make different choices, is not really me. (We could be contended to belong to the same family, set, category, etc, though.)

I have to be this specific identity, and the latter belongs to a specific past / future. A definition of "free will" that revolves around wanting to be someone else (a different identity that makes different choices) doesn't even concern me. THIS me, THIS brain/body, these memories, these conditionings and habits, and this timeline / cosmos that such are embedded in and dependent upon.

Doesn't concern me apart from suggesting, beneath the veneer, that in order to be possible: "Let's replace you (eliminate you) with someone else, either a slightly or radically version of you -- which in turn also means either a slightly or radically different alternate history."

(Mar 1, 2017 01:53 AM)Secular Sanity Wrote: [ -> ]

(Feb 28, 2017 08:16 PM)Syne Wrote: [ -> ]Omniscience and free will are not incompatible. You'd have to posit that a god can do logically contradictory things (like create a spherical box) to have any hope of demonstrating the two incompatible.

There are spherical boxes, Syne.  Maybe you mean spherical squares.

No, I meant box - a container with a flat base and sides, typically square or rectangular and having a lid. If you think a box can be spherical then maybe we've found the crux of your problem.

Quote:You’re stubborn, and a little close minded, but I have seen you change your point of view from time to time.  Your comprehension skills are good even with complicated issues.  Will you please read Peter Tse's book and tell me what you think?  If not, will you at least watch Jerry Coyne’s video and maybe a few of Peter Tse’s?

I'm not sure how you think insults are going to help ingratiate yourself enough to warrant more of my time. If you have specific points, quote them.

(Mar 1, 2017 08:04 AM)C C Wrote: [ -> ]That's kind of like saying, "Let's place an ostrich in the room a second time and then see if it's a camel."

If the circumstances that fashioned the identity of a person the first time around are still the same circumstances the second time around, then the properties of the identity are also the same and will make the same decision. "Billy likes puppies more than ducks. Billy chose a puppy." Repeat.

It's a definition of free will which is crafted beforehand to fail. These concepts don't fall from the sky, they are invented, they're artificial. Thus there's nothing preventing those who desire free will from similarly crafting a definition that's more viable. For instance, the doctrine underlying the label of "materialism" has been intermittently revamped over the centuries to keep that label alive as science gradually discarded older ideas like corpuscularianism.

But I don't want to make a different choice, because I want to exist. That is, if I'm the ostrich that was in the room the first time, then I don't want a camel replacing me the next time.

In order to have it, that kind definition of free will indirectly implies that (minimum): "I want to be a slightly different version of myself who didn't make that decision last week (or whatever)." But to be a slightly different version who thereby made a different decision is to be referring to someone else.

And pointing out that it is not possible to make a different choice if the details of the timeline remain exactly the same is just to roundaboutly approve that one must indeed be someone else shaped by a different timeline in order to make a different decision.

No matter how much an identical sibling or clone might resemble me, I am still not going to be occupying their body because I am THIS body (there's no "spooky stuff" in physicalist beliefs that can make me independent of it). Similarly, a different version of myself in an alternative history, that was molded by different events -- and thereby has the potential to make different choices, is not really me. (We could be contended to belong to the same family, set, category, etc, though.)

I have to be this specific identity, and the latter belongs to a specific past / future. A definition of "free will" that revolves around wanting to be someone else (a different identity that makes different choices) doesn't even concern me. THIS me, THIS brain/body, these memories, these conditionings and habits, and this timeline / cosmos that such are embedded in and dependent upon.

Doesn't concern me apart from suggesting, beneath the veneer, that in order to be possible: "Let's replace you (eliminate you) with someone else, either a slightly or radically version of you -- which in turn also means either a slightly or radically different alternate history."

I like English muffins and wheat toast. I had an English muffin yesterday. It was fate.

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(Mar 1, 2017 09:38 AM)Syne Wrote: [ -> ]I'm not sure how you think insults are going to help ingratiate yourself enough to warrant more of my time. If you have specific points, quote them.

I chose those words yesterday. Today you will choose to either help me or not.