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Philosopher questioned "strange" free will measure in science paper + Lee McIntyre - C C - Jul 24, 2021
Interview with Lee McIntyre: Science denial & post-truth (on our new dark age)
https://www.scivillage.com/thread-10685-post-44752.html#pid44752
Philosopher questioned "strange" free will measurement in this science paper:
Quantum propensities in the brain cortex and free will
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biosystems.2021.104474
HIGHLIGHTS:
• Free will is the capacity of conscious agents to choose a future course of action among several available physical alternatives.
• Expected information gain from learning the choice of a conscious agent provides a quantitative measure of free will.
• Quantum indeterminism supports varying amounts of free will exercised in different quantum measurement contexts.
• Probabilistic release of synaptic vesicles from cortical synapses grants on average 0.934 bits of free will per synapse per spike.
• Unpredictability of animal behavior provides a survival advantage and allows for evolutionary optimization of manifested free will.
ABSTRACT: Capacity of conscious agents to perform genuine choices among future alternatives is a prerequisite for moral responsibility. Determinism that pervades classical physics, however, forbids free will, undermines the foundations of ethics, and precludes meaningful quantification of personal biases.
To resolve that impasse, we utilize the characteristic indeterminism of quantum physics and derive a quantitative measure for the amount of free will manifested by the brain cortical network. The interaction between the central nervous system and the surrounding environment is shown to perform a quantum measurement upon the neural constituents, which actualize a single measurement outcome selected from the resulting quantum probability distribution.
Inherent biases in the quantum propensities for alternative physical outcomes provide varying amounts of free will, which can be quantified with the expected information gain from learning the actual course of action chosen by the nervous system.
For example, neuronal electric spikes evoke deterministic synaptic vesicle release in the synapses of sensory or somatomotor pathways, with no free will manifested. In cortical synapses, however, vesicle release is triggered indeterministically with probability of 0.35 per spike. This grants the brain cortex, with its over 100 trillion synapses, an amount of free will exceeding 96 terabytes per second.
Although reliable deterministic transmission of sensory or somatomotor information ensures robust adaptation of animals to their physical environment, unpredictability of behavioral responses initiated by decisions made by the brain cortex is evolutionary advantageous for avoiding predators. Thus, free will may have a survival value and could be optimized through natural selection. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biosystems.2021.104474
RE: Philosopher questioned "strange" free will measure in science paper + Lee McIntyre - Zinjanthropos - Jul 24, 2021
Am I different or are people too consumed by free will? Personally I couldn’t care less about free will yet I’m always amazed how important it is to some people. Is there actually an answer?
RE: Philosopher questioned "strange" free will measure in science paper + Lee McIntyre - C C - Jul 24, 2021
(Jul 24, 2021 11:37 AM)Zinjanthropos Wrote: Am I different or are people too consumed by free will? Personally I couldn’t care less about free will yet I’m always amazed how important it is to some people. Is there actually an answer?
Free will is arguably a big deal from the standpoint of a justice/court system, correctional facility and rehabilitation approaches, formal institutional perspectives, and the all-around attitude of a government with respect to its citizens (i.e., just treat'em like dispensable robots rather than free agents when/if the need arises).
Much less so for the average person, though their various feelings with respect to how a perpetrator is punished or not (responsibility for their applicable deeds) indicates concern about FW being implicitly and behaviorally there, even if not conceptualized or made explicitly vocal.
RE: Philosopher questioned "strange" free will measure in science paper + Lee McIntyre - Syne - Jul 24, 2021
I can see not caring about free will, if you presume you have none. Why should anyone care about something they don't believe they have? I always wonder why atheists are so concerned about a god/gods they don't have or espouse. Even hypochondriacs genuinely believe they have the malady they're worried about.
RE: Philosopher questioned "strange" free will measure in science paper + Lee McIntyre - Zinjanthropos - Jul 25, 2021
Maybe evolution has shaped free will. Female Bower birds, do they exhibit free will in mate selection? A gazelle zigs or zags from a lion, one choice escape the other a chance of death. A lot depends on the other half, nice nest builder or trap set in wrong spot. Evolution has seen to it that we as top predator might have more decisions to make requiring serious analysis before implementing.
If there’s a god then so what? Imagine giving dirt the power to decide freely, pretty much that’s the way God chose it, some irony there. We can freely choose worthless endeavours, so do I give god credit for that also? Would God have free will?
RE: Philosopher questioned "strange" free will measure in science paper + Lee McIntyre - Syne - Jul 25, 2021
Claiming that random evolution determining traits, somehow grants an indetermined ability, like free will, is incoherent. Claiming human free will only differs from animals in complexity is hardly free will at all. It's just more steps or determining factors. Either way, you're not talking about genuine free will.
Thinking a god would view humans as we view dirt makes no sense other than to bolster your existing bias. We wouldn't give dirt free will, for the simple fact that it has no inherent means of doing anything at all, no matter how worthless, with it. Human endeavors are only as worthless as each individual human believes their own to be, and this would necessarily be true of a god's perspective.
RE: Philosopher questioned "strange" free will measure in science paper + Lee McIntyre - confused2 - Jul 25, 2021
One of the (current) problems with surveillance is that it needs rather more trackers than trackees. AI could reduce the number of trackers to zero. Everyone followed from the cradle to the grave via cameras, phones and so on. The detection of crime would be virtually instant with 100% accuracy. Would anyone care whether crime was the result of free will or any other cause?
An element of choice (free will?) ..
Automated message..
Law enforcement will be at your location in seven minutes. You can either lie face down on the floor with your hands behind your back (now!) or be shot while resisting arrest.
RE: Philosopher questioned "strange" free will measure in science paper + Lee McIntyre - Syne - Jul 25, 2021
Only fascists pursue a complete surveillance state. Some countries, where freedom and privacy are stilled valued, try to avoid treating law-abiding citizen as if they were criminals. And just like every other law or law enforcement measure that tries to limit the freedom of the law-abiding in the hopes of deterring criminals, like "gun free zones," the criminals will ignore or develop ways to thwart them...requiring ever more equally useless restrictions on the law-abiding. That's how you cede your freedom for safety. Even surveillance can be readily defeated by burner phones, face masks/tattoos/paint, etc.. Let's try not to evolve better criminals.
I wouldn't expect those in the UK to understand that though.
RE: Philosopher questioned "strange" free will measure in science paper + Lee McIntyre - C C - Jul 25, 2021
(Jul 25, 2021 12:38 PM)confused2 Wrote: One of the (current) problems with surveillance is that it needs rather more trackers than trackees. AI could reduce the number of trackers to zero. Everyone followed from the cradle to the grave via cameras, phones and so on. The detection of crime would be virtually instant with 100% accuracy. Would anyone care whether crime was the result of free will or any other cause?
An element of choice (free will?) ..
Automated message..
Law enforcement will be at your location in seven minutes. You can either lie face down on the floor with your hands behind your back (now!) or be shot while resisting arrest.
The human body can still choose to conform or not, and (if the latter) face the consequences of a Surveillance Society. Most people would not rebel, but fools or revolutionary crusaders do have the option (in contrast to a machine programmed to adhere to official rote).
Literal loss of autonomy would involve inserting a brain implant and totally hijacking the individual -- invasively overriding their internal processes and usual propensities from an outside source (heteronomy).
indeterminism: "Indeterminists do not have to deny that causes exist. Instead, they can maintain that the only causes that exist are of a type that do not constrain the future to a single course; for instance, they can maintain that only necessary and not sufficient causes exist."
However, the historical philosophical baggage attached to "free will" will inevitably rear its head and try to construe even "a cause with optional effects" or a "probabilistic-regulated randomness" as yet other varieties of external intruders. Rather than strictly a particular personality's native operational tendencies unfolding. The latter is actually not vulnerable to determinism -- i.e., your behavior and your decisions are yours regardless of predictability -- that's why we need the internal working parts that a wooden puppet doesn't have (we have the capacity to govern ourselves).
However, due to that past FW baggage (incompatibilism, especially) ultimately asserting itself in any discussion and muddling affairs up, I've switched to replacing the term "free will" with autonomy, to emphasize what matters. Though when in Rome (the public at large) one will still find one's self having to babble like the Latins, at least occasionally.
RE: Philosopher questioned "strange" free will measure in science paper + Lee McIntyre - stryder - Jul 25, 2021
(Jul 25, 2021 12:38 PM)confused2 Wrote: One of the (current) problems with surveillance is that it needs rather more trackers than trackees. AI could reduce the number of trackers to zero. Everyone followed from the cradle to the grave via cameras, phones and so on. The detection of crime would be virtually instant with 100% accuracy. Would anyone care whether crime was the result of free will or any other cause?Actually the police state is a slumbering beast, it already logs everything, reads everything, knows most things about a majority of people, however due to the surveillance methods being so invasive they can't be used as evidence of any criminal act.
An element of choice (free will?) ..
Automated message..
Law enforcement will be at your location in seven minutes. You can either lie face down on the floor with your hands behind your back (now!) or be shot while resisting arrest.
Using a Civil/Human right crime to justify catching a criminal was/is a legal quagmuire, however in recent years even that has slowly started to turn to allow the narcists in power even more control to get away with it. (e.g. MI6 being allowed to partipate in criminal acts under the pretense of national security etc.)
The same thing has been floated the otherside of the pond too, such as the "Snatch and grab" of rioters. (A technique imployed to remove clandestine law enforcement before things get to heavy so there isn't "Blue on Blue".)
To be honest most things pen that society is getting closer to it's ultimate collapse. Countries try to play wide, rather than tall and that will always lead to a breakdown of their societies. (Small countries, and I mean small as in less than a million populous, are more vibrant than their larger counterparts.) A quote I'm unsure of the attributation...
Quote:The failings of bureaucracy is the bureaucracy itself.
Why do you think people want "out" in a sense, while the rich might to try to buy islands (or yachts as big as one) the reality is we should probably look back to small groupings, tribalism as opposed to the consumer drenched, mass manufactured world we've been forced to endure. In small groupings we are more likely to find people like minded and less likely to be force to endure what is cartblanche for the current controlling oppressors.