How Consciousness Solves the Problem of Free Will.

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Toadny
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Re: How Consciousness Solves the Problem of Free Will.

Post by Toadny »

Renee wrote: As soon as you have finished typing whichever of the two, you can't change what you've typed. So it has been determined which of the two to type. If it were determined the other way, you would have typed the other string.
Can you tell me what I would have to do to demonstrate free will? Use the example of typing stuff, to keep things simple.
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Re: How Consciousness Solves the Problem of Free Will.

Post by Renee »

Toadny wrote:
Renee wrote: As soon as you have finished typing whichever of the two, you can't change what you've typed. So it has been determined which of the two to type. If it were determined the other way, you would have typed the other string.
Can you tell me what I would have to do to demonstrate free will? Use the example of typing stuff, to keep things simple.
That's a good question. I think it can't be demonstrated because it does not exist. It's like asking, "please tell me how to demonstrate an experiment which replicates an uncaused event in the universe."

Free will or the lack of it is not a scientific idea; it is an a priori sort of thing. It can't be proven or falsified with empirical means. Whether free will exists or not can only be proven or disproven in theory. This is why the concept is discussed by philosophers, not by scientists.

I am saying this, because you asked me a demonstration the occurrance of which would falsify the notion of "No free will". All scientific findings are falsifiable; some philosophical concepts are not.

That said, I think one demonstration to falsify the notion of "no free will" would be to show a process where there is no possible cause for a motivation which has been observed in action of being filled for its need. Caution: many brain and mind diseases will induce behaviour that demonstrate no possible causes, but there the real and true cause is the disease. So if someone says, "I want to paint the sky green, because my brother ate my cat", that is not rational, and there is no rational reason to say that, but it was still caused, possibly by the misfiring of neurons in his brain activity, which has known causes.

Sorry, this contained no reference to typing, but I wish you'll forgive me.
Ignorance is power.
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Toadny
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Re: How Consciousness Solves the Problem of Free Will.

Post by Toadny »

Renee wrote: That's a good question. I think it can't be demonstrated because it does not exist.
Ok, well that is the solution to the problem Renee: you (as a representative of the "no free will" side) have a different conception of "free will" in mind to those on the "yes free will" side of the debate. For me, the fact that I can decide for example to type XXX, and then change my mind and decide to type £££ demonstrates that I have free will. This won't satisfy you because your criteria for free will are different to mine.

Problem solved. Let's move on to something more interesting and worthwhile.

-- Updated December 16th, 2016, 7:54 am to add the following --

So happy to have been of assistance.
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Re: How Consciousness Solves the Problem of Free Will.

Post by Tashl2015 »

Belinda wrote:Dawson wrote:

which would you rather, have your country's foreign policy in the hands of a foreign secretary who randomly guesses what Iran is going to do about nuclear weapons, or have a foreign secretary who makes decisions based upon the very best information available?
The question of "Free Will" is very simple as this idea, added to the idea of a not material "Self" capable of divine power, is only an easy way used for millennia to explain humans' actions. Is our Universe deterministic or NOT does NOT matter. Physical events, including neural processes in humans' minds, were are and will be happening in their predictable or unpredictable (in principle) way, and human bodies will act according to the outcomes/impulses of those neural processes.

Some of those neural processes create sensations of thoughts, as of Free Wills and Self, and of various types of memories, and the neuroscience is/will explain the mechanisms of such effects, but there is NO place for the mysterious Self to exercise its Divine Free Will power.

Star in the Universe may explode, Clouds above my head may rain, Bacterium may penetrate my intestines, Dear may eat my flowers, Chimpanzee may spit on me from its cage, You may close my comment and a Foreign Secretary may conclude a good for Iran (but not to the US) treaty . Is there a different meaning in the words "decide to" (as a result of complex internal processes) if applied after "may" in these, the last specially, examples?
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Re: How Consciousness Solves the Problem of Free Will.

Post by Toadny »

Tashl2015 wrote: The question of "Free Will" is very simple as this idea, added to the idea of a not material "Self" capable of divine power, is only an easy way used for millennia to explain humans' actions.
That's what we call a straw man Tashl. My idea of a self is not capable of divine power and is not "not material".
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Re: How Consciousness Solves the Problem of Free Will.

Post by Cognitive Cape »

Toadny wrote:The Problem of Free Will is the problem of reconciling our ability to choose our actions with the apparent determinism of a world of cause and effect.

I propose that the solution to this problem is that consciousness allows a new kind of cause to create new kinds of effects, overcoming the constraints of determinism.

The universe is said to be deterministic because if we know the location and momentum of every atom in the universe, we also know their past and future values for any given time, because these can be calculated from the laws of classical mechanics. So it's already determined what is going to happen, and we can't really be choosing freely when we think we are.

Consciousness depends on the location and momentum of the atoms in the brain. In the nervous systems of the simplest conscious animals, whichever those are, and in the nervous system of a fetus when it first develops consciousness, the location and momentum of the atoms is still determined by classical mechanics.

However something novel is being done with the atoms in all living things. There's a new kind of force at work, as biology causes the atoms to form repeating patterns and go through repeating processes, the processes which cause the organism to survive as a discrete organism, to reproduce, digest, excrete, maintain its metabolism, all the activities we use to identify life. This force that causes organisms to develop, grow, survive, reproduce, is what I mean by "will". I am going to say all living organisms have a form of will, but in simple animals it is a mechanical, senseless, blind will.

But highly developed conscious organisms like us can direct the location and momentum of the atoms in our brains. That's what we do when we think and reason, and when we make active use of our memories. A conscious experience is correlated with a succession of brain states, with the atoms located and moving in particular ways, and when we for example actively retrieve a particular memory, or reason our way through some ideas, then we are causing those atoms to behave in a different way to that which would be determined solely by classical mechanics.

That is how consciousness overcomes the constraints of determinism and gives us free will.
Why should a world or universe of cause & effect violate or contradict free will? When it comes to free will, the cause of every individual's action & choices is his consciousness that comprises of his emotions, his values, his understanding of that particular situation, his beliefs, his skills, & above all, his philosophy. To illustrate -

A person who has never flown a commercial jet is almost guaranteed to crash land an airborne craft, particularly, if he is given no prior training, or immediate guidance, or immediate access to any documentation or manuals. On the contrary, a commercial air pilot with thousands of hours of training & experience is very likely to perform a safe landing. In this scenario, there is the external world of cause & effect. If the plane is flown correctly & with skill (cause), it will land safely (effect) despite a short runway, turbulent winds, & other environmental factors. There is also the world of a person's consciousness. The skilled pilot's consciousness has the knowledge, the memories, & the skilled experience (cause) to execute a safe landing (effect). All of those are lacking in the consciousness of an untrained lay person who has never flown an aircraft before.

The universe cannot be said to be deterministic even if we know the location & momentum of every atom in the universe. Why? Because the universe is literally unbound. The universe is infinite in scope & in the number of atoms in it. If someone were to claim that he has determined the precise location & momentum of every atom in the universe, that assertion would be a mathematical impossibility. There would always be some more atoms yet undiscovered whose precise location & momentum is unknown. Therefore, as long as there are atoms undiscovered ( & there always will be atoms yet undiscovered), it would be impossible to determine where all those atoms have been in the infinite past & where those atoms would be in the infinite future.

Consciousness does not depend only on the location & momentum of the atoms in the brain, including the human brain. Consciousness is the culmination of a complex arrangement of those atoms & molecules into multiple elements & compounds, all arranged in a specific manner that give rise to a unique conscious experience.
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Re: How Consciousness Solves the Problem of Free Will.

Post by Adventureland »

The sum of everything + The sum of now = now+

Where + is the smallest incremental increase.
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Re: How Consciousness Solves the Problem of Free Will.

Post by Fcacciola »

Renee wrote:That's a good question. I think it can't be demonstrated because it does not exist. It's like asking, "please tell me how to demonstrate an experiment which replicates an uncaused event in the universe."

Free will or the lack of it is not a scientific idea; it is an a priori sort of thing. It can't be proven or falsified with empirical means. Whether free will exists or not can only be proven or disproven in theory. This is why the concept is discussed by philosophers, not by scientists.
Your statements above are the perfect illustration of what I like to call "the REALLY hard problem of free will": we all debate this concept but we're all really talking about different things.

(Natural) scientific ideas are about the structure, properties and dynamics of the world. Whenever we wonder if we have free-will, we are wondering about properties of ourselves, and we are real objects (at a certain level of reality). Consequently, this really is a question that can, and in fact should, be explored scientifically. That is: what is it, ultimately "the fabric of consciousness", and does that, whatever it is, at all or some parts, shows a form of dynamic that would be best named "free-will"? if when we get there we do find that the discovered dynamics is something involving choices that are causally effected by previous events BUT not deterministically, and the choice making process is found to be based on exclusively internal subprocesses (relative to some discovered fundamental *unit* entity), then this would be "free-will", even if it is not quite like we might now think it is. Or maybe we'll call it, say, "internally effected causalism" or some such.
Or we do get to the bottom and the dynamics are something else entirely, perhaps, we're avatars in a huge computer program.
In any case, there is a scientific solution to this problem because it is ultimately about actual properties of actual entities.

We don't argue whether we humans have, say, "Intelligence" or "Love" or "Creativity", etc... (not remotely as much at least), and that is because with this concepts, we do the right thing: we put a name on something that *is* there, beyond question, even if we don't know what it really is. Just like "the weather".
But with free-will, we seem stuck trying to advance on the opposite direction: we first come up with a diffuse concept all by itself, then try to verify if it fits reality. In my opinion, that's totally upside down.

Interestingly, there are examples of abstractions constructed out of thin air which are then tried to match reality, such as String Theory. However, in this case the provisional abstraction is constructed with a certain method and formalism that allows the matching attempt to be possible. That's not the approach I see being taken with free-will.

I posit that free-will is a scientific problem that ought to be solved scientifically because it really is about the fundamental dynamics of whatever it is that makes up consciousness. In fact, if it were not a scientific problem, then it would not be a scientific model (determinism) the major thing getting in the way.
That said, I think one demonstration to falsify the notion of "no free will" would be to show a process where there is no possible cause for a motivation which has been observed in action of being filled for its need.
Precisely. If not that, something along the same line.
However, it needs to be shown at the right level, and as I mentioned in another post on the subject elsewhere, a human being is not (in my informed opinion).

Interestingly, contemporary science does explore free-will to the point that we currently have two scientific theories (in the field of physics, obviously) where free-will is at its very core.

(I posted references elsewhere and I can post it here if you want)
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Re: How Consciousness Solves the Problem of Free Will.

Post by Ranvier »

This topic of "free will" is so blown out of proportion that I begin to speculate if whomever started this silly debate in the scientific community, didn't have some alternate sociopolitical reason to prove that human "mob" is too dumb to be self determinate. Or perhaps some depressed individual was searching for an excuse to justify their plight in life as a deterministic cause of one's failure. It's similar to arguing none existence of intelligence, which is involved in manipulation of new information to formulate new abstract concepts.

Brain is physical matter encased by the cranium
Mind is brain's ability to physically collect and store information as memories, knowledge, and experiences that collectively creates current state of ego
Self awareness is a higher brain function of mammals and other animals with complex nervous system that is able to perceive and respond to the external environment. Protozoa, Fungi, or Plants can respond to the external environment but are not self aware.
Secondary awareness is only found in more evolved mammals : elephants, dogs, or dolphins that are able to think beyond their own self using their mind
Consciousness is multiple awareness and inherent process of abstract thinking, deductive reasoning, and ability for insight that is claimed only by one species on Earth. Consciousness is free will capable of acting against determinism, in spite of ego or even id (depending on individual intellect).
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Re: How Consciousness Solves the Problem of Free Will.

Post by Togo1 »

Renee wrote:As soon as you have finished typing whichever of the two, you can't change what you've typed. So it has been determined which of the two to type. If it were determined the other way, you would have typed the other string.
I'm not sure that follows.

What's important to free will is that which decision is made isn't pre-determined, that is determined in advance, and nor is it determined as it occurs, that is during the time decision is made. Whether or not is it changeable _after_ the event doesn't seem to be relevent.
Renee wrote:The power of determinism comes in the form that theoretically there is only one possible outcome in each case. History shows us that it is also empirically true, that there is only one possible outcome.
eh, History doesn't show this. It's not possible to emperically test how many outcomes are possible. Feel free to suggest such an experiment, should you disagree.
Renee wrote:You wrote, "I can decide to type %%%, and I can change my mind if I want to and type *** or nothing at all:"

The question is, WHAT exactly changes your mind to write this, or that, or nothing? You said you can change your own mind. Yes, parts of your mind will change other parts of your mind. But why would one part want to change, or be compelled to change another part? Wouldn't you say that the compelling comes for a reason? Or from a cause?
Ah, are you taking causation to be the same thing as determination?

To my mind they are quite different. Causation is merely that x event triggers an event. Determination is that X event triggers event Y such that it can occur with only one possible outcome. There's nothing inherent in the concept of causation to suggest that the outcome must be fixed.

Of course when dealing with such matters, it's important to bear in mind that causation is largely an abstraction in any case. in practice a Near Infinite combination of factors influence every event, so reduce something to a simple cause and effect is an effort of supreme simplification in any case. Determiniation becomes the idea that all the events will necessarily combine into a single possible outcome, rather than more than one possible outcome. It's an interesting idea, but you can't test for it, or observe it.
Fcacciola wrote:(Natural) scientific ideas are about the structure, properties and dynamics of the world. Whenever we wonder if we have free-will, we are wondering about properties of ourselves, and we are real objects (at a certain level of reality). Consequently, this really is a question that can, and in fact should, be explored scientifically. That is: what is it, ultimately "the fabric of consciousness", and does that, whatever it is, at all or some parts, shows a form of dynamic that would be best named "free-will"? if when we get there we do find that the discovered dynamics is something involving choices that are causally effected by previous events BUT not deterministically, and the choice making process is found to be based on exclusively internal subprocesses (relative to some discovered fundamental *unit* entity), then this would be "free-will", even if it is not quite like we might now think it is. Or maybe we'll call it, say, "internally effected causalism" or some such.
Well we could try and investigate scientifically, but we hit a problem.

What's the observable difference between a deterministic brain, and one that is merely reliable? What exactly is it that you test for? Predictability is no good, because a reliable but non-deterministic brain would pass, and a deterministic but unpredictable brain would not. I'm not convinced that there is any test or observation, even in theory, that would be able distinguish between the two.
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Re: How Consciousness Solves the Problem of Free Will.

Post by Fcacciola »

Togo1 wrote:What's the observable difference between a deterministic brain, and one that is merely reliable? What exactly is it that you test for? Predictability is no good, because a reliable but non-deterministic brain would pass, and a deterministic but unpredictable brain would not. I'm not convinced that there is any test or observation, even in theory, that would be able distinguish between the two.
They way you are putting it assumes that the key to free-will ought to be derived from that difference, but that is a presumption. If you read some of my other posts related to the subject, you'll see proposals (more than one, and each on its own) for free-will at the very fabric of the universe, and not merely as a property of the human brain.

On the other hand, I can generalize your question and ask for a way to distinguish deterministic from merely reliable agents, whether these refer to fundamental physical particles or whatever.
Indeed, a test for that would be a good starting point.
I do not subscribe to the usual view that this cannot be differentiated (that is, I consider p-zombies to be an impossible conceptual construct that is derived from incomplete models).

I've been spending a lot of time thinking about such a test myself, but I won't get in there here and now, for any test is completely dependent on the details of the underlying conceptual framework and models it is designed to test, and a presentation of that is out of the scope in this thread. Also, that I've been working on it doesn't mean I'm anywhere near a decent completion.

I can tell you, however, that I do adhere to the proposal that free-will is a fundamental property of everything (such as matter itself), so such a test is not to be limited to human subjects, and in fact, is better applied to the simplest of systems, for instance, fundamental particles. According to this view, a human being is way too complex a system to explore such a fundamental, building block property as free-will.
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Re: How Consciousness Solves the Problem of Free Will.

Post by Ranvier »

We confuse a deterministic probability with absence of free will. Even flipping a coin with 50/50 probability will result in free will, where in "n" th time it will be neither head nor tail.
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Re: How Consciousness Solves the Problem of Free Will.

Post by Eaglerising »

The term “free will” implies different choices. Choosing from all the variables is overwhelming. My love of simplicity prompted me to examine free will from a different perspective, one which would make my investigation manageable. I wondered if it was possible to reduce the number of variables to two or three.

Acknowledging “I don’t know” changes my mind’s focus. It examines things freshly, free of thought and what it knows. My objective is to see if it’s possible to reduce the number of variables to two or three, thereby making it making my investigation of free will manageable.

A quiet mind, free of thought is extremely alert and focused. It is free of all expectations. Therefore, I don’t have clue as to what will happen next, if anything. Out of that silence a question arises, “What is doing the choosing?”

If it is thought, it is unable to choose something different. Thought, being a product of knowledge can only choose what it knows, which isn’t the same as choosing something different.

Is thought the only chooser or is there another that isn’t a product of knowledge or thought? What presented the question, “What is doing the choosing?” It was different from thought and knowledge. Seeing this allowed me realize we have the ability to choose the chooser which radically changed my perspective and understanding of free will.

Those who are unwilling or unable to acknowledge they don’t know what they think they know will have difficulty with this discourse. The same applies to those who haven’t experienced a quiet mind.
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Re: How Consciousness Solves the Problem of Free Will.

Post by Woodart »

The substantiation of free will lies in emotion. Look no further than your feelings to know what volition is. Almost any mother will give her life for her baby. Why? - Because love is stronger and more powerful than the laws of physics.
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Re: How Consciousness Solves the Problem of Free Will.

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Woodart wrote:The substantiation of free will lies in emotion. Look no further than your feelings to know what volition is. Almost any mother will give her life for her baby. Why? - Because love is stronger and more powerful than the laws of physics.
Storms, volcanoes, asteroids etc ... perhaps that comparison does not quite work other than "pound for pound" :)
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