Brain workings and freedom

Discuss any topics related to metaphysics (the philosophical study of the principles of reality) or epistemology (the philosophical study of knowledge) in this forum.
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CIN
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Re: Brain workings and freedom

Post by CIN »

Gertie wrote: May 18th, 2018, 11:36 am We have also evolved systems for reasoning and weighing options and consequences - making mental choices (the brain is essentially our decision-making organ), so why do you dismiss the ability to make non-determined, non-random mental choices?
Because there is a good evolutionary (and therefore fully determined) explanation for our ability to reason and weigh options and consequences: organisms that can do this will have a survival advantage over those that can't. If the tiger goes behind a bush, the proto-human who can reason that it may come out from the bush on the other side has a better chance of not being eaten by the tiger than the proto-human that thinks the tiger has actually disappeared. So a degree of reasoning ability which helps to protect against dangers in the environment will be selected for and passed on. There are still stupid people, but there are few people stupid enough to think a tiger vanishes when it goes behind a bush; those that did think that have died out.
Philosophy is a waste of time. But then, so is most of life.
CIN
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Re: Brain workings and freedom

Post by CIN »

Gertie wrote: May 18th, 2018, 11:13 am You mentioned Searle earlier, he's someone who does believe free will is the correct interpretation of some human behaviour, that this is the correct other option. There's a summary of his argument here http://quantum-mind.co.uk/searle-consci ... -freewill/

I don't know if he's right, and neither do you, because we don't have knowledge of the underlying mind-body explanation.


I'll quote a passage from the article about Searle to which you have linked:

"In common with some other commentators, Searle points out that with a voluntary decision the reasons for the action are not sufficient to cause the action. In addition, the subject has to decide, to make up their mind to take the action. This is particularly so when there are strongly conflicting for or against reasons. The reasons are not causally sufficient to produce the actions. There is a gap between reasons and action that has often been explained in terms of the action of freewill. "

This passage contains two mistakes. The first is to confuse THE reasons for an action (i.e. all reasons that could be given in favour of the action) with THIS AGENT'S reasons for the action ON THIS OCCASION (i.e. the reasons that are present in the agent's mind prior to the action and which are causally operative in making the agent act as he or she does). The second mistake is to overlook causal factors that are not reasons, such as feelings. If you put together all the agent's reasons ON THIS OCCASION with the other causal factors, such as feelings, you have all the causes of the action, and therefore a fully determined action: there is no gap that needs to be filled by recourse to free will, as Searle supposes.
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CIN
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Re: Brain workings and freedom

Post by CIN »

Here's the bottom line objection to the hypothesis of free will; we don't need it to explain human behaviour.
Philosophy is a waste of time. But then, so is most of life.
CIN
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Re: Brain workings and freedom

Post by CIN »

... and, of course, we have no idea how it could possibly work. (Sorry aboút the disjointed posts.)
Philosophy is a waste of time. But then, so is most of life.
BigBango
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Re: Brain workings and freedom

Post by BigBango »

Gertie wrote: May 11th, 2018, 1:30 pm So QM was a paradigmatic shift in our understanding of how the world really works. And a shift which doesn't seem to fit with our classical logic. Something can apparently be in two places at the same time, can apparently concurrently exist as a wave and a particle, for example. Such things seem illogical to us, because we've evolved to usefully operate and understand things at the classical level. But ultimately, empirical reality trumps our notions of logic. And as we understand QM better, perhaps this will give us insight into whether mental causation is possible, and if we really do have choices which are neither completely determined or completely random
Let me say, just for clarification about QM, that you shouldn't say something can be in two places at the same time, unless you are talking about particles that were created at the same time. Like a positron and electron created in collision, No matter how far they get from each other they appear to be related as shown by Bell's theorem. If you change the spin of one it instantly changes the spin of the other as if they were somehow one related thing. Thus Einstein lost his argument with Bohr about "No spooky action at a distance".

If, however, you were describing "superposition" then it is, for example, two different states of a thing in the same place. The cat in the box both alive and dead, until observed. A state of matter called a Bose - Einstein condensate. The theory that as things get bigger matter itself, by exchanging photons is observing itself works to solve problems of solipsism. For example, by pure theory, the person who opens the box and observes the cat will stay in superposition to yourself as both observing the cat as dead and as alive until you observe that experimenter.

As to QM's effect on the argument about "free will", you need to consider two different formulations of QM. In Bohr's accepted theory the random distributions that are part of his theory do not conform to our general understanding of random variables. In the standard theory the random distributions are not based on the specific state of hidden variables of which could assume only a known "distribution". In Bohr's QM there are no hidden variables. The distribution is a pure mathematical abstraction of possibilities or positions in space where a particle may be found. The theoretical distribution is never influenced by some subtle state of things we don't see. It just always conforms to a pure abstraction of randomness. If you were to take Bohr's theory seriously it fails to leave one any hope that if we knew more about reality we could discover the hidden variables and predict their effect on the distribution of states. But NO' that would be futile.

Bohm's QM is quite different, it is based on the fact that there must be "hidden" variables. It works quite well but is considered a "deterministic" theory while Bohr's is thought to introduce Quantum Indeterminacy. It seems perverse to me. Why should theoretical randomness be better than what we would have if there were some point to digging deeper?

My answer is that standard QM is both a theory and a method of testing the theory that guarantees that the theory will be true.
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Felix
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Re: Brain workings and freedom

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CIN:
1) If my action was fully determined by previous causes, then I could not have done other than I did, so I had no free will.
2) If my action was fully undetermined by previous causes, then it was entirely random and unconnected with anything that preceded it, including my wishes and intentions, so it is simply something that happened to me, not something I did: and again, therefore, I had no free will.
3) If my action was partly determined and partly undetermined, then it was partly the result of previous causal elements over which I had no control, and partly the result of random and unpredictable elements over which I also had no control, and again, therefore, I had no free will.
1), 2) and 3) exhaust the available possibilities. Conclusion: I have no free will.
It only exhausts the possibilities if causal and noncausal (i.e., random) are the only two possible options, but they are not. There is a third option: acausal or causally indeterminate, which does not rest on your premise that the domain of physical phenomena is the whole of reality.
Here's the bottom line objection to the hypothesis of free will; we don't need it to explain human behaviour.
Actually we do, there could be no original creative thought or action without it.
"We do not see things as they are; we see things as we are." - Anaïs Nin
Belindi
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Re: Brain workings and freedom

Post by Belindi »

If I may I'd like to follow up BigBango's post where he mentions physicist David Bohm.
Implicate order and explicate order are ontological concepts for quantum theory coined by theoretical physicist David Bohm during the early 1980s. They are used to describe two different frameworks for understanding the same phenomenon or aspect of reality. In particular, the concepts were developed in order to explain the bizarre behavior of subatomic particles – behavior difficult to explain by quantum physics.

In his book Wholeness and the Implicate Order, Bohm uses these notions to describe how the same phenomenon might look different, or might be characterized by different principal factors, in different contexts such as at different scales.[1] The implicate order, also referred to as the "enfolded" order, is seen as a deeper and more fundamental order of reality. In contrast, the explicate or "unfolded" order include the abstractions that humans normally perceive. As he writes:

In the enfolded [or implicate] order, space and time are no longer the dominant factors determining the relationships of dependence or independence of different elements. Rather, an entirely different sort of basic connection of elements is possible, from which our ordinary notions of space and time, along with those of separately existent material particles, are abstracted as forms derived from the deeper order. These ordinary notions in fact appear in what is called the "explicate" or "unfolded" order, which is a special and distinguished form contained within the general totality of all the implicate orders (Bohm 1980, p. xv).
Bohm's theory is one of undivided wholeness, and is therefore compatible with religion.

Please see especially where Bohm explains brain and memory. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implicate ... cate_order
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ThomasHobbes
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Re: Brain workings and freedom

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Belindi wrote: May 19th, 2018, 4:58 am If I may I'd like to follow up BigBango's post where he mentions physicist David Bohm.
Implicate order and explicate order are ontological concepts for quantum theory coined by theoretical physicist David Bohm during the early 1980s. They are used to describe two different frameworks for understanding the same phenomenon or aspect of reality. In particular, the concepts were developed in order to explain the bizarre behavior of subatomic particles – behavior difficult to explain by quantum physics.

In his book Wholeness and the Implicate Order, Bohm uses these notions to describe how the same phenomenon might look different, or might be characterized by different principal factors, in different contexts such as at different scales.[1] The implicate order, also referred to as the "enfolded" order, is seen as a deeper and more fundamental order of reality. In contrast, the explicate or "unfolded" order include the abstractions that humans normally perceive. As he writes:

In the enfolded [or implicate] order, space and time are no longer the dominant factors determining the relationships of dependence or independence of different elements. Rather, an entirely different sort of basic connection of elements is possible, from which our ordinary notions of space and time, along with those of separately existent material particles, are abstracted as forms derived from the deeper order. These ordinary notions in fact appear in what is called the "explicate" or "unfolded" order, which is a special and distinguished form contained within the general totality of all the implicate orders (Bohm 1980, p. xv).
Bohm's theory is one of undivided wholeness, and is therefore compatible with religion.

Please see especially where Bohm explains brain and memory. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implicate ... cate_order
None of this is compatible with any religion I've ever heard of.
CIN
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Re: Brain workings and freedom

Post by CIN »

Felix wrote: May 19th, 2018, 12:19 am It only exhausts the possibilities if causal and noncausal (i.e., random) are the only two possible options, but they are not. There is a third option: acausal or causally indeterminate, which does not rest on your premise that the domain of physical phenomena is the whole of reality.
There is no evidence for any non-physical existence, and all the evidence we have indicates that all mental activity is caused by brain activity. All mental activity thus appears to be fully caused by physical events; there is no evidence that any of it is acausal. Besides which, if it were acausal, this would pose an insoluble problem for the free will advocate, because as I have already pointed out, for an act to count as a free will act it must be an act of the agent, and this is only possible if it is caused by personal features of the agent, such as desires and intentions. If the act were acausal, it could not be so caused, and would thus be unrelated to the agent qua agent. It would therefore not be a free will act, but a merely random or uncaused event.

More generally, if an event A brings about or helps to bring about an event B, then A is a cause of B, whether A and B are physical or not. There is nothing intrinsically or necessarily physical about the notion of causation.
Here's the bottom line objection to the hypothesis of free will; we don't need it to explain human behaviour.
Actually we do, there could be no original creative thought or action without it.
All so-called 'creative' thought and action is a synthesis of elements that preceded it. When we call a thought or action 'original', all we mean is that the synthesis is new; the elements that contribute to the synthesis are not new, and as far as we can tell, the act of synthesising from those elements is fully caused by the preceding brain-states of the synthesiser.
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Present awareness
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Re: Brain workings and freedom

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It was discovered in yoga, that breathing and thinking are linked and by controlling the breath, one could also influence the mind. The proof of free will is that one may choose to hold one’s breath. Since breathing is normally done unconsciously, if there were no free will, then holding ones breath would not be possible. In clinical studies, deep yoga breathing has been shown to alter brain wave patterns, which in turn would alter thinking.
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CIN
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Re: Brain workings and freedom

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Present awareness wrote: May 19th, 2018, 9:31 am It was discovered in yoga, that breathing and thinking are linked and by controlling the breath, one could also influence the mind. The proof of free will is that one may choose to hold one’s breath. Since breathing is normally done unconsciously, if there were no free will, then holding ones breath would not be possible.
This is free will only in the sense that the action is caused by the brain and not by coercive outside factors such as drugs or being physically forced by someone else. This is not the same as the notion of free will in metaphysics, which is that one could have acted differently. You hold your breath because events in your brain cause you to choose to hold it, and you are not free to choose that these events that cause your choice occur - by the time you choose to hold your breath, they have already happened, and it's too late.
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Eduk
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Re: Brain workings and freedom

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'I' think therefore 'I' am.
Unknown means unknown.
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chewybrian
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Re: Brain workings and freedom

Post by chewybrian »

CIN wrote: May 18th, 2018, 5:17 pm Here's the bottom line objection to the hypothesis of free will; we don't need it to explain human behaviour.
Would Occam or Sherlock Holmes give a different answer? Aren't you making an absurd assessment of reality without free will?

How could matter accidentally fall into this pattern of seeing meaning where there was none? Matter doesn't build bicycles, fight wars, or argue about philosophy. Change is scary, habits are easy, and people are predictable. But one Dali or Frank Zappa says a lot about our ability to choose, whether the rest of us get off our mental butts to try it or not.

Where science tends to point to a lack of free will, might we guess it is not perfectly informed? Why should we jump to a conclusion that makes no sense, rather than waiting or looking for a better answer?

If I jump in front of a bus, that would prove to you that this was my only option? So, why shouldn't I do it? How does the word 'should' have any meaning without free will?
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ThomasHobbes
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Re: Brain workings and freedom

Post by ThomasHobbes »

chewybrian wrote: May 19th, 2018, 10:48 am
CIN wrote: May 18th, 2018, 5:17 pm Here's the bottom line objection to the hypothesis of free will; we don't need it to explain human behaviour.
Would Occam or Sherlock Holmes give a different answer? Aren't you making an absurd assessment of reality without free will?
Free if what? Free from what? How '"free"? What do you mean 'free'?
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Felix
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Re: Brain workings and freedom

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CIN: There is no evidence for any non-physical existence
In the domain of strictly physical phenomena, it cannot be found, that should be obvious, science cannot interpret what it cannot observe and measure. In fact, your position is unscientific and nonsensical because there could be no advancement or evolution, scientific or otherwise, if reality was ruled strictly by physical causation.
CIN: Besides which, if it were acausal, this would pose an insoluble problem for the free will advocate, because as I have already pointed out, for an act to count as a free will act it must be an act of the agent,
It poses no problem to say that the will is physically indeterminate, only to say that it is not, for a wholly determined will is no will at all and thus has no agency (agent) behind it.
CIN: All so-called 'creative' thought and action is a synthesis of elements that preceded it.
And this synthesis is not initiated by an act of will? Do you not see how ludicrous this idea is?
Bohm's theory is one of undivided wholeness, and is therefore compatible with religion.
None of this is compatible with any religion I've ever heard of.
It is fully compatible with Vedanta/Hinduism.
"We do not see things as they are; we see things as we are." - Anaïs Nin
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