(Mar 5, 2017 11:29 PM)stryder Wrote: Therefore to me it's not as simple as past-present-future, since it's actually an entwining string of events that interweaves with other strings to create the fabric of our reality.
(Mar 5, 2017 03:38 AM)Syne Wrote: Classical physics demonstrates determinism, and quantum physics demonstrates indeterminism, each within their own domains. To deny either seems foolish, and to deny that either is universally applicable is equally so. Our everyday experience seems to demonstrate free will. And if our agency were moot, why would anyone fret over any choice to the extent that they should have physiological reactions or consequences?
Free will; if it is an illusion, it's going to be harder to dispel than the god delusion.
I really want it, Syne. Help me pull a rabbit out the hole, will you?
"What exactly is determinism? Two centuries ago, French physicist Pierre Laplace pointed out that, according to Newtonian mechanics, the motion of every particle in the universe can in principle be predicted from the knowledge of its position, momentum, and the forces acting on it. This is the Newtonian world machine. Since, as far as physics is concerned, we are all just particles, then this would seem to make free will an illusion indeed.
However, we now can say with considerable confidence that the universe is not a Newtonian world machine. The Heisenberg uncertainty principle of quantum mechanics showed that, deep down, nature is fundamentally indeterministic. But does quantum indeterminacy play an important role in the brain, and thus open a way for free will? Probably not, and here’s why.
The moving parts of the brain are heavy by microscopic standards and move around at relatively high speeds because the brain is hot. Furthermore, the distances involved are large by these same microscopic standards. It is easy to demonstrate quantitatively that quantum effects in the brain are not significant. So, even though libertarians are correct that determinism is false at the microphysical, quantum level, the brain is for all practical purposes a deterministic Newtonian machine, so we don’t have free will as they define it."
The experiences exhibited by such itself are a potential rogue element. They play no uncontested, functional role in neurobiological explanations of human behavior. Due to our being able to substitute publicly observable / measurable factors like NCCs as the causal agents instead.
And yet despite their being left out or receptive to being proclaimed causally impotent, we nevertheless talk about these "showings" of the senses -- the qualitative properties and internal nature of feelings / sensations, and how they affect us. Accordingly, we seem left with the options of either the brain's physical mechanisms universally pretending on a 24/7 basis (if counting dreaming) that such are present when they really aren't (self-deceit)... Or having to admit that there's a trespassing influence flopping about in the system, a late add-on which doesn't incrementally fall of the pre-existing catalog of building blocks and relational effects in the sciences.
Quote:[...] tracks something that is deeply personal to us (i.e. Egocentric), while indeed we can at times share events that sculpture our perceived passage of time, we can also veer off and observe passages that are different from each other. Most of the time those differences aren't known unless we compare notes with each other from time to time about our observations.
At that point most of the differences between viewpoint often lead to the conclusion that someone's memory is slipping, not that they have observed and lived an alternative reality.
Therefore to me it's not as simple as past-present-future, since it's actually an entwining string of events that interweaves with other strings to create the fabric of our reality.
An unknown range of contributing factors could especially be playing in a Kantian perspective. But since that's prior in rank to the very naturalism that all these assorted philosophical models (nowadays) are usually crouched in (which touch or converge upon the issue of "free will"), then there's no need to venture down that road.
People want to make the whole brain out to be either macroscopically determined or microscopically indeterminate. This 'one or the other' scheme generally works well in the typical fields of physics, but the brain may be one of the very few places where these interact. Since quantum decoherence, especially in a warm, wet environment like the brain, would seem to deny the brain working as a quantum computer, it seems unlikely that the brain can be wholly reduced to stochastic quantum processes...not that free will can be recovered from wholly random (probabilistic) events. At the size of neuron activity, it's also unlikely that the brain is wholly a macroscopic, deterministic process.
So the brain is likely to work in an analogous way to how quantum measurements occur. There are several equally real probable outcomes, and deterministic processes, akin to consistent subjective history, contribute to the choice of measurement. And if that were the end of it, most people would be happy calling that determinism. But this occurs, on average, 200 times a second, for each of 100 billion neurons. IOW, choice of measurement is occurring in such a vast number of neurons at the same time that no physically deterministic history could hope to account for the overall outcome.
Just as we perceive ourselves to have freedom of choice in which complimentary quantum property we wish to measure, we have this perceived freedom in such abundance within the brain that true free will is all but a given. In such a system, there is no reason to expect consistent behavior...yet people seem to have very stable traits and motivations.
[Robert Kuhn] Ultimately, those choices that we think we’re making in some sense independent of the rest of the physical world is an illusion.
[Sean Carrol] It’s not an illusion any more than temperature is an illusion. It’s an emergent phenomenon that is consistent with the microscopic dynamics.
[Robert Kuhn] If the analogy with temperature is correct, it is in a sense an illusion because you’re just using a different term to describe the same thing.
[Sean Carrol] But that not the definition of an illusion. An illusion is something that you’re describing that is not there. Free will is an emergent phenomenon that is absolutely there.
[Robert Kuhn] But there’s a difference between something that’s emergent that can be predicted from the laws at a fundamental level, and something that’s emergent from the fundamental level that in principle could not be predicted.
[Sean Carrol] Right and I would call those the sensible and the silly notions of emergence. I’m using the sensible notion of emergence.
[Robert Kuhn] So, you would say that sensible is a pure reductionist point of view, that in principle every emergent thing of which free will is one, can ultimately in principle be predicted from a lower level more fundamental laws of physics.
[Sean Carrol] That’s right. It’s what is called sometimes weak emergence in the philosophy literature and it is the thing for which every experiment ever done by every scientist on earth is completely consistent.
[Robert Kuhn] And so, you should not be uncomfortable with someone else saying that there is no freewill.
[Sean Carrol] I think what they mean is that they don’t find it useful to freewill language and that’s fine with me.
[Robert Kuhn] Right, but principle you don’t disagree with them. I mean so in reality there’s no fundamental daylight between your position and someone who would say that there is no freewill because everything is determined by Schrodinger’s equation, or the structure of the universe, or whatever it is, and what we think we have in free will is not the case.
[Sean Carrol] My ontology is the same as someone who doesn’t want to use freewill talk, but I think they’re being just as silly as someone who I say, "What is the temperature in the room?" and they start listing the position and velocity of all the air molecules.
[Robert Kuhn] So, you’re using freewill as a shorthand to describe the totality of all those molecules.
[Sean Carrol]Exactly. In the same way we use words like planets, people, dogs, and cats to describe some emergent macroscopic phenomenon.
[Robert Kuhn] Well, there’s a little bit of a difference here because when you’re describing physical things that’s one thing, and that’s easy to understand, but when we’re talking about freewill, we have a sense that I can really make choices, that what is going to happen five seconds from now, I have a choice.
[Sean Carrol] Freewill is a feature of the way we talk about human beings in exactly the same way that conservation of energy is a feature of Newtonian mechanics.
[Robert Kuhn] And therefore, you’re ultimate conclusion about freewill?
[Sean Carrol] I think it’s a perfectly valid way to talk about how human beings behave. It’s perfectly valid to assign responsibility to people who make choices. There is nothing about it that in anyway contradicts the fact that we are parts of the wave function of the universe evolving according to the laws of physics.
[Robert Kuhn] Which to me, says there is no freewill.
[Sean Carrol]That’s okay. You can use the words in whichever way you want. It’s what we believe about the nature of reality that ultimately matters.
And…bada bing bada boom, the bottom line is that there is no freewill.
(Mar 3, 2017 04:54 PM)Ben the Donkey Wrote: Knowledge, or truth, versus Romanticism.
Tough call, isn't it.
Strange how things work out, sometimes.
Yes, yes, it is.
"You take the blue pill, the story ends. You wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes."
Hmm…did you know that Lewis Carroll hinted that the Hatter and the White Rabbit were very much the same? Both messengers, "one to come, and one to go". Fate and Fortune are also very much the same, and neither allow for freewill.
Alice was "curious–wildly curious, and with the eager enjoyment of Life that comes only in the happy hours of childhood, when all is new and fair, and when Sin and Sorrow are but names–empty words signifying nothing!"
And when we grow up, we learn that Life, too, is "but a walking shadow, a poor player. That struts and frets his hour upon the stage. And then is heard no more. It is a tale. Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury…Signifying nothing."—Macbeth
And the White Rabbit, what of him?
He was a contrast between youth and the elderly, between the bold and the timid, the vigorous and the feeble, and our swift directness of purpose vs. our nervous shilly-shally.
You know, he should’ve asked, "Why is a ravencrow like a writing desk?" Because after all, we all have to grow up and eat our words from time to time.
Rabbit stew anyone?
(Dec 19, 2016 03:21 PM)Secular Sanity Wrote: Wake up, dear! Why, what a long sleep you've had!
Welcome to scivillage, where the adults play.
Damn it! Where did I put my little rule book? Oh, yes, here it is.
Rule #1: Never underestimate your opponent.
Rule #2: Always keep your powder dry.
Rule #3: Trust no one.
Rule #4: Never play chess with a poker player.
Both games are complex, but poker has the elements of bluffs, tells, and of course, lady luck.
"Divorcing one's emotions from outcomes is one of the hardest lessons a poker player can learn. Ironically, it is likely also the most valuable lesson."
The End.
Now, on to my next question…
The only difference between a predeterministic and a deterministic universe is that one side of the board is ruled by an unlikely supernatural king, and the other, two queens, Fate and Fortune, who are very much real...and very much the same.
So, my dear Scivillagers, if freewill is in fact an illusion, what exactly are the psychological implications of such knowledge?
I swim in a sea of views that contradict mine on the daily. TV, movies, news, culture, academia, etc.. I can't really avoid it, but those who share the beliefs of the popular cultural run a serious risk of never having their assumptions seriously challenged. Something about "bliss" comes to mind.
(Mar 12, 2017 12:45 AM)Syne Wrote: I swim in a sea of views that contradict mine on the daily. TV, movies, news, culture, academia, etc.. I can't really avoid it, but those who share the beliefs of the popular cultural run a serious risk of never having their assumptions seriously challenged. Something about "bliss" comes to mind.
Most people intuitively feel that they possess free will. You're with the majority.
You need to cultivate your legitimate strangeness.—René Char
(Mar 12, 2017 03:27 AM)Secular Sanity Wrote: Most people intuitively feel that they possess free will. You're with the majority.
There's a vast difference between those who intuitively believe in things like free will and god and those who have the intellectual wherewithal to challenge the prevailing secular beliefs of others (which even if they do believe in such things, they don't really care whether the belief is justified).
Mar 6, 2017 12:43 AM
