Free will redux: What is true free will?

[elliotfc]

Goodness, I've been away for three years and this thread is still going.

"Free will" is a subjective notion. The End.

All notions are dependent on the existence of minds. There are no objective notions. Without brains/minds, there would be no notions. Therefore all notions (contingent on the existence of individual brains/minds) are subjective.

-Elliot

 

[chriswl]

When speaking of the actions of the brain with relation to what matters most to human beings in everyday life -- thoughts, emotions, decisions, memories, plans -- it's clear that no complete meaningful model can be produced on the purely neural level. That is to say, we can't merely speak of chains of neurons.

To make sense of these phenomena, we have to speak in terms of larger structures, such as the amygdala, hippocampus, corpus callosum, and so forth. These structures are not merely places where neurons hang out. Their configurations are significant to their functions -- their macro-level architecture, above the mere neural level, matters.

We know that these macro-level structures, working as a unit, give rise to at least one significant emergent phenomenon -- the subjective self, the apparent experiencer that we all feel ourselves to be. For convenience, I'll call this the "i".

For me, the crux of the issue of free will is this: Does the interaction of brain "parts" operate in a manner which can be fully described without reference to i, or is i necessary?

In other words, do these non-conscious structures send all the chemicals and impulses whizzing around in a mechanistic (presumably deterministic in some ways, presumably random in other ways) fashion, while the i experiences an illusory sense of control? Or can it be said that i is ever the "cause" of action in these brain modules?

Or put yet another way, is this emergent phenomenon of "self" capable -- in real terms -- of "pushing" actions into the loop, or is it passive?

This is very simple to answer. The lowest level building blocks of nature behave according to the laws of physics. However complex the structure they are a part of they still do nothing more than operate according to these laws. If they ever behaved differently we would be able to observe it and we don't.

If we ignore quantum physics, then the world is deterministic, which means all human actions are deterministic. Whether this means free will is illusory depends on what you mean by free will.

 

[elliotfc]

This is very simple to answer. The lowest level building blocks of nature behave according to the laws of physics. However complex the structure they are a part of they still do nothing more than operate according to these laws. If they ever behaved differently we would be able to observe it and we don't.

What do you mean by "behave differently"? Do humans behave just like the lowest building blocks of nature?

If we ignore quantum physics, then the world is deterministic, which means all human actions are deterministic.

Do you mean that before we "discovered" quantum physics, the world was deterministic? And that a discovery made for an instantaneous polarity switch? I don't think you mean that. What do you mean exactly?

Whether this means free will is illusory depends on what you mean by free will.

The ability to make decisions is what I mean by it.

-Elliot

 

[Mercutio]

Implies choice.

Only if you have already decided that choice requires free will. So, your post should read "circularly implies choice. More below...

Free will - choice.

Do you have choice?

There is quite an extensive literature on "choice" in behavioral journals, all assuming that choice is not a function of free will, but a function of environmental variables. Any time there is more than one option, there is a choice situation. We can manipulate the situation, and find that organisms (including, but not limited to, people) lawfully respond to these manipulations, altering their choices accordingly. The choices are, demonstrably, constrained and not "free".

(We can also demonstrate that one's awareness of the contingencies is not needed; indeed, in some circumstances one's actions may be believed to be under the control of one thing, when they are demonstrably under the control of another.)

All notions are dependent on the existence of minds. There are no objective notions. Without brains/minds, there would be no notions. Therefore all notions (contingent on the existence of individual brains/minds) are subjective.

-Elliot

Again, nicely circular, and dependent on the assumption in your first sentence.

 

[Piggy]

Brainache, I would like to address some points of one of your posts, and then put my 2 cents in about why it matters.

I get the feeling that the "i" is a product of the various different components of the brain having to average out a lot of different inputs.
If I was aware of all the inputs at once I would be paralised not knowing what to react to and what to ignore. Some kind of filter is needed to make sense of it all.
The fact that this filter creates the illusion of free will or the fact that this filter actually has free will is irrelevant.

When we talk about the mind as the product of brain activity, we have to be very careful with our terms and make sure we're describing what's actually going on. Of course, given the early stage of research we're at, there are a lot of gaps in our understanding, so we must be careful to be up front about these and not fill them in with concepts from previous debunked models.

And to my eye, there's some theoretical Bond-o in your assessment here which bears scrutiny.

"Averaging out inputs" does not appear to be a function of the brain. Rather, it's more accurate (tho still somewhat metaphorical, but I don't object to that as long as we know what we're up to) to say that the "input" is "routed" (it flows via neural pathways to distinct brain regions/structures) and "processed". Some input is stored, some of it "dies" (that is, it leaves no discernable lasting impression). Some of it -- in a highly "processed" form -- becomes, we could say, available to the conscious self, or known to the "i".

Yes, threshold values are an important concept in understanding the activity of the neural network, but on a macro level, inputs aren't "averaged out". We could compare it (with the strong caution that this is highly metaphorical and dangerously homuncular) to secretaries and office managers in the front office of a CEO's suite deciding which people, postal mail, and email is forwarded to the boss, and whether certain data is passed on as-is or must be summarized into reports.

The paralysis (again, metaphorical) you refer to is certainly genuine. When the brain's pre-conscious/co-conscious structures and processes don't do their job in adequately processing and routing the input, the result can be a barrage of stimulus, absent emotional cues which help us prioritize, that has the effect of making all stimuli emotionally equivalent. This is the permanent condition of a few unfortunate people, and a temporary experience undergone by many at various times.

In fact, this may be an important phenomenon to scrutinize when trying to answer the question of whether the i is capable, under normal circumstances, of actually generating or pushing further stimulus back into the loop.

But even though a malfunction (or maladaptive functioning) of the routing/processing/associative "modules" of the brain can result in this kind of choice-paralysis, I don't think it's warranted to say that the "filter has free will" (or potentially could have it), although it might be meaningful to say that the illusion of free will is generated in part by the filtering apparatus of the brain.

If anything has free will, I think it can only be the experienced self, the i. I think that's what universally understood by the term "free will".

As far as relevance, it may be irrelevant in the sense that you personally aren't interested in the topic, but it's certainly relevant to an understanding of the brain and the nature of the experienced self which we all intuitively feel to be "us", even though certainly an understanding of what's real doesn't change what's real.

Whether or not the particular shape of the neurone structures within my skull determine what kind of choices I make is beyond my control. They might be different choices if my brain had different structures, or chemicals in there, or different neurons firing in different sequences.
I can't see how that means I am somehow forced to choose coke instead of pepsi.

You're right. The question of free will isn't answered by the fact that different brains do different things. It's certainly correct that, just because I would almost definitely live a very different life if certain brain structures regulating emotions were more "normal" in my head than they are, it does not follow that the choices I actually make are somehow "forced".

The issue is whether the activity of these structures -- in any brain at all -- is solely responsible for choice, with the felt experience of "I did that" being a post-fact illusion, or whether the emergent "i" is an active component in the process.

I think the complex stucture of the brain allows many solutions to any given problem and our memories and experiences influence which solution we chose in any given situation.
If I accept that I have no free will, what is the point of doing anything?
I must act as if I have free will. There is no other way to make it through the day.

Well, I'm not a philosopher or scientists either, but I can tell you why it matters to me.

The bottom line, however unsatisfying, is that it matters to me because I feel like it does.

Reading Skinner's "Beyond Freedom and Dignity" as a kid had a profound effect on me, because it challenged my notion of, if not who I was, then certainly what I was. It changed my life. And for years afterward, my reading in cognitive science and my college courses in the subject all were colored by Skinner's ideas, the questions he raised, and the questions I had about both.

Personally, I don't think there is a point to doing anything, whether we have free will or not. But still, I wake up every morning, and I either kill myself or I get on with what needs to be done. So far, it's been the latter.

And maybe that's why it matters to me. When the normal human motivations -- family, God, social aspiration -- are unimportant to a person, there's very little left to care about. Trying to crack as much of the code of this world as I can, to understand as much as possible about myself and what's happening around me, is just about the only thing that gives me any sense of purpose and direction at all.

And in the end, I think a clearer understanding of reality helps me (and all of us) make better decisions, whether or not the "i" is doing the deciding, or is just along for the ride.

 

[Piggy]

The lowest level building blocks of nature behave according to the laws of physics. However complex the structure they are a part of they still do nothing more than operate according to these laws. If they ever behaved differently we would be able to observe it and we don't.

Yes.

If we ignore quantum physics, then the world is deterministic, which means all human actions are deterministic.

Why ignore QM?

But aside from that, this does not follow. It is not true that higher-level structures must follow the same types of rules as the lower-level structures which comprise them. Or, if you know of a reason why this must be true, please explain.

Whether this means free will is illusory depends on what you mean by free will.

I'll stick with the definition I've used thus far. Free will would exist if the emergent entity "i", the experienced or conscious self present for all of us, can meaningfully be said to be responsible for altering the chemistry of the brain in ways that, for all practical purposes, result in directed choice, such as opting for paper over plastic, or moving an arm.

 

[Piggy]

The ability to make decisions is what I mean by it.

This definition is insufficient. We must be more specific than this. I can build an apparatus that makes decisions. But no one would say that it has free will.

 

[chriswl]

Why ignore QM?

Just as a simplification, because the question you were asking about the ralationship between high level and low level descriptions of the brain is not really affected by it.

But aside from that, this does not follow. It is not true that higher-level structures must follow the same types of rules as the lower-level structures which comprise them. Or, if you know of a reason why this must be true, please explain.

Are you suggesting that the low level rules could be deterministic and the emergent, high level ones might not be? That seems impossible to me.

For example, we know we cannot produce truly random behaviour from a deterministic system. This is why computers cannot produce truly random numbers, because they are deterministic. But a non-deterministic system would appear random to an outside observer and so would be something that you couldn't produce using a deterministic mechanism.

I'll stick with the definition I've used thus far. Free will would exist if the emergent entity "i", the experienced or conscious self present for all of us, can meaningfully be said to be responsible for altering the chemistry of the brain in ways that, for all practical purposes, result in directed choice, such as opting for paper over plastic, or moving an arm.

By that definition, I'd say there is no free will. It that would mean the physical brain acting contrary to the laws of physics. Or the brain containing some as yet undiscovered quantum mechanism that was brought into play to generate random behaviour in those circumstances where we made what we consider to be free choices. I don't think there's any evidence that this happens.

 

[chriswl]

The ability to make decisions is what I mean by it [free will].

But your decisions are surely informed by the information you have, the skills you have learnt in handling it, your feelings, aims, desires, etc. These things are what "determine" the decision you make.

Sometimes the decisions may not be clear cut. We may chose one option but accept that on an other day our decision may have gone the other way. But just because we are consciously unaware of why we chose one course of action over an other doesn't mean that this choice was undetermined. It may have been determined by brain activity that is below the level of conscious awareness. In fact it surely must have been determined in this way - our decisions lead to actions, actions are physical and all physical things have physical causes. So there are physical causes for our decisions which means they are determined (or maybe sometimes random).

 

[Jimbo07]

I like Seth Lloyd's take on the issue. It starts to go in the direction of 'only the universe can get to where the universe is going.' To predict where the universe is going you'd need a bigger or faster universe. He invokes the 'Halting Problem' to declare that only by doing the steps can you predict the steps.

That is, Free Will (or at least its appearance) can effectively exist in a completely deterministic universe.

BTW, don't ignore QM just because it seems to imply non-determinism. Some people equate this with non-physical, and QM most certainly deals with physical phenomena (or the appearance thereof, if we're brains in a vat).

My summary is that the universe may indeed be entirely physical, including human interactions, but that since we are not outside the universe, our interactions are indistinguishable to us from free will.

 

[Piggy]

Are you suggesting that the low level rules could be deterministic and the emergent, high level ones might not be? That seems impossible to me.

Yes, I am. Not suggesting that it necessarily is, but that it could be. It might seem impossible to you. But is it? Must it be?

For example, we know we cannot produce truly random behaviour from a deterministic system. This is why computers cannot produce truly random numbers, because they are deterministic. But a non-deterministic system would appear random to an outside observer and so would be something that you couldn't produce using a deterministic mechanism.

Wolfram seems to think we can. If Wolfram is right, then it's possible that a set of deterministic rules, when iterated and reiterated, could give rise to randomness within higher-level structures which eventually emerge from the continued elaboration of the program, so to speak.

This is not something we've been able to do with computers at this stage, of course. And perhaps Wolfram will turn out to be wrong.

But I don't see any reason to assume, given what we currently know, that it is impossible that a set of deterministic underlying fundamental laws of nature could indeed give rise to a universe in which true randomness was a characteristic of some of the macro-level structures and processes.

And if that's possible for a universe, then why not for a smaller-scale emergent entity which relies on deterministic structures.

It seems clear that the deterministic or random qualities inherent in x-scale entities do not "bleed over" into x+-scale phenomena emerging from them.

In other words, quantum randomness at the subatomic level doesn't imply that there will be randomness of a similar nature at the molecular-chemical level, even though the agents of chemical processes are ultimately composed of "stuff" which is subject to quantum randomness.

Similarly, merely examining the motions of individual molecules does not yield a complete and coherent explanation of larger-scale phenomena such as tides, waves, and vortices. Indeed, we can discuss these macro-scale phenomena with reference to macro-scale properties alone, such as temperature zones and viscosity, without reference to the micro-scale properties at all, despite the undeniable fact that these macro-scale properties depend upon the very different types of properties, such as chemical bonds, inherent to the micro-scale components of the physical substances that give rise to the emergent phenomena under consideration.

There's no doubt that activity at the neural level is pretty straightforward action/reaction deterministic stuff. And yet when we discuss the behavior of human beings, which depends on the mind, which is nondifferent from the supraneural activity of the brain (activity of brain structures such as those mentioned in an earlier post) we must speak in probabilistic terms.

So from level to level it seems apparent that we indeed move from probabilistic behavior to deterministic behavior to probabilistic behavior.

By that definition, I'd say there is no free will. It that would mean the physical brain acting contrary to the laws of physics. Or the brain containing some as yet undiscovered quantum mechanism that was brought into play to generate random behaviour in those circumstances where we made what we consider to be free choices. I don't think there's any evidence that this happens.

I don't know of any evidence of this either. But I also don't know that it's impossible, or that it would constitute a violation of the laws of physics, even if it seems to violate some assumptions we draw from them. And I don't see any need to invoke or require a quantum mechanism -- how any such thing could apply to the level of the emergent phenomenon of "i"... it just doesn't make sense to me (or to you either, I'm sure).

Perhaps it's time to examine the paper/plastic choice again, and see if there's any wiggle-room for free will there.

At the moment, my stance on free will is that it may be possible. I don't see that it has been proven illusory yet, and I also don't see that we can say with certainty that it's impossible that the emergent i could somehow be influencing the feedback mechanism on which it depends.

But that's a big "somehow".

 

[Piggy]

I like Seth Lloyd's take on the issue. It starts to go in the direction of 'only the universe can get to where the universe is going.' To predict where the universe is going you'd need a bigger or faster universe. He invokes the 'Halting Problem' to declare that only by doing the steps can you predict the steps.

Lloyd's logic is invalid regarding free will. Let's take this bit from the Web link:

Free will is safe. Even if the universe is completely deterministic, then we (and computers, and God knows who else) possess free will. At first, the deterministic nature of the laws of physics would seem to forbid free will: No choice is available. In fact, however, the computational nature of the universe actually guarantees free will.

Let me explain. Free will arises when we make decisions—decisions that we and we alone are responsible for. For example, every morning I decide whether to have coffee or tea. The decision is mine, and mine alone. Until I make it, I have no idea whether I will have coffee or tea. My decision process is a kind of computation: I weigh the relative merits of coffee or tea, thinking about my day ahead, and then make a decision.

But exactly because the decision process is a kind of computation, the outcome of this process is intrinsically unpredictable.

First of all, any definition of free will which insists that contemporary computers have it, defies all common-sense understanding of what the term normally implies.

For Lloyd, unpredictability = free will. This is nonsense.

It makes no difference that we can view the coffee/tea choice as "a kind of computation".

The important element is whether our conscious selves (these phenomena which we all inherently feel ourselves to "be") are directing our own actions, or whether the unconscious mechanistic bits of our brains are actually running the show, and it only feels like we're directing anything at all.

That is, Free Will (or at least its appearance) can effectively exist in a completely deterministic universe.

Ignoring the difference between free will and its mere appearance is just silly. Concluding that free will can exist if its appearance exists is like saying that something is a real unicorn because it looks like one.

My summary is that the universe may indeed be entirely physical, including human interactions, but that since we are not outside the universe, our interactions are indistinguishable to us from free will.

This is the same error. If we're discussing "true free will" here, as the stated thread topic stipulates, then it's insufficient to be satisfied with the trivial and obvious truth that, boy, sure seems like we got it.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Libertarian free will is defined to be will that is not deterministic. Libertarians would also like their free will not to be random. The question is: What does this leave for libertarian free will to be?

~~ Paul

 

[hodgy]

Libertarian free will is defined to be will that is not deterministic. Libertarians would also like their free will not to be random. The question is: What does this leave for libertarian free will to be?

~~ Paul

It leaves it to be a logical contradiction. You cannot have your cake and eat it. You cannot have your will directed and constrained by conciousness and simultaneously 'free'.

 

[RandFan]

Libertarian free will is defined to be will that is not deterministic. Libertarians would also like their free will not to be random. The question is: What does this leave for libertarian free will to be?

~~ Paul

Depends, flip a coin, if it's heads then free will is deterministic, if it is tails then it is not random. BTW, that's how I prove that I have free will. I flip a coin to determine all of my choices.

 

[hodgy]

Ultimately there is no 'free'. Even if we allow for a random factor, the random factor is ultimately just another constant pattern that we could not describe beforehand.

'free will' is an anachronism, we may usefully use the term but only if we first describe and agree what it means.

 

[Dave1001]

Ultimately there is no 'free'. Even if we allow for a random factor, the random factor is ultimately just another constant pattern that we could not describe beforehand.

'free will' is an anachronism, we may usefully use the term but only if we first describe and agree what it means.

Not necessarily. We could also be wrong on first principles with the logic here, and the common intuition that free will exists as a salient and not just perceptual phenomena could be correct.

 

[hodgy]

Not necessarily. We could also be wrong on first principles with the logic here, and the common intuition that free will exists as a salient and not just perceptual phenomena could be correct.

If true=false then you could be right.

 

[Dave1001]

If true=false then you could be right.

I think I have more room to be right than that.

 

[hodgy]

Ok - feel free to expound upon your differentiation of 'salient' and 'perceptual' and explain how that impacts upon the logic under discussion.