The unsolved problem of "free will"

[JoeTheJuggler]

Of course you can sometimes address mens rea without an analysis of consciousness or free will, but I am here to tell you, you can't always avoid it either. As I mentioned earlier, whether a person "can" quit smoking or not has been a central issue in some of the biggest trials in history.

You're kidding, right? Someone actually argued in court that it's impossible to quit smoking? Despite the evidence of many hundred of thousands (probably millions) of people who have quit smoking?

I always thought the smoking lawsuits dealt with the fact that nicotine is known to be addictive and that the tobacco companies willfully manipulated levels and lied to the public about the addictiveness of cigarettes and their link to cancer long after they knew about them.

I'm sorry--addiction can be discussed without resolving issues of consciousness and free will. Granted, resolving the bigger issues (once the issues can be formulated and defined) might shed some light on the issue of addiction, but it certainly isn't necessary.

 

[Mercutio]

Mr. Murcutio, you said intent was "mentalistic baggage" and you chastise me by saying I am arguing for "additional entities."

If it makes you feel any better, you are in good company around here.

The function of the brain does not involve, I am confident, additional entities or supernatural constructs. It is strictly material. However, as Loren Eiseley used to say, matter has strange properties indeed.

When you speak of freely choosing organisms, I suggest that a reductionist approach is not your best bet. Once you have put the level of analysis to which neural pathways are doing what, your next step is chemistry, then physics, and you have still not answered the question, because you are looking at trying to explain a person's actions by refering to ... a subset of a person's actions. The proper level of analysis will explain behavior in terms of environmental variables.

Think: if we ask "why did John Doe say or do that?", and our answer is "his brain did X, Y, and Z"--we have not answered our question at all. His brain doing that is part of John doing what he did, it is not the explanation for John doing what he did.

(Oh, you may enjoy this paper!)

One of those properties is to achieve some sort of self awareness called consciousness under the right circumstances. Consciousness appears to be an emergent property of neural interconnections. I reject your assertion that a thermostat has consciousness as hyperbole, or distortion of language.

Then please define consciousness, very carefully. As Randfan has noted, the thermostat is Dennett's example; if we define consciousness as awareness, then it is not hyperbole.

Please do not assume your conclusions in defining consciousness. We have a great deal of experimental evidence showing us that it is not at all what it appears to be (for one extreme but interesting view on this, see Blackmore's "the grand illusion of consciousness". Actually, here is a link to one of her talks--not the one I was looking for, so I have not yet heard this one.) So when you talk about "some sort of self awareness called consciousness", remember that this "sort" might be much much simpler than you think it is. Or not.

Under the pall of nineteenth century determinism, we (you?) have oversimplified "matter" and its potentials. The subjective view of intent is of equal validity, as a perspective, to the alternative. The goal, it would appear, is to understand intent and apparent or real freedom as a manifestation that matter is capable of, not to ignore it because of preconceived ideas about what matter can and cannot do.

You have grossly misunderstood me, if you think I am ignoring intent because of preconceived notions.

If the goal is to understand "intent", then the first thing to do is to be certain you are not merely circularly inferring it from behavior in the first place. You are, it seems, claiming a causal role for "intent"; would you care to flesh it out? And...under what conditions do we "intend"? Or do you feel that a behavior starts with intention, as an unmoved mover?

The Staddon piece was interesting and thank you for citing it. Staddon is a well known behaviouralist from Harvard, now at Duke. I admire his work, though he has no formal legal training, of course.

I would imagine very few legal scholars have training in Experimental Analysis of Behavior, either.

 

[Mercutio]

But what can it possibly mean to have "more than one option" (assuming you are not in quantum reality)? It is either an illusion (you had to do what you had to do, you just did not know it) or you really had more than one option. Is having more than one option unique to dogs and people, or do potatoes have it too?

You are at a vending machine. Unless they are out of everything but diet Mr. Pibb, you have more than one option.

You are a dog, meeting another dog. You could sniff one end or the other.

To the best of my knowledge, potatoes do not behave. They grow.

Ah... the bit about "illusion"... No. It is not an illusion. There are actually more options than Diet Mr. Pibb--there is A&W Root Beer, Diet Coke, Dr. Pepper, some vaguely luminescent green stuff...these things are all very real, and they are in the environment. We act in our environment, and choose things all the time. The reasons for our choices are also in the environment; we can look at our past history with these beverages (or even this machine--the one in the building next door to my office will not always work properly), and at our present circumstances (am I tired? Which of these has the most caffeine? Do I have enough money?).

There are two senses of "illusion" that are worth addressing. The first is the notion that if I choose A&W this time, that it was somehow predestined, and the choice was illusory. This, of course, is purely a faith-based position (no, not the god sort of faith); saying, after the fact, that something could not have been other than what it was, is untestable. It is a literally meaningless claim, circularly inferred from the outcome itself.

The second sense of "illusion" is a sort of "but my mind made these choices--I thought about my past and present, and made up my mind to get an A&W." That, yes, is an illusion--if you think that these thoughts are a causal element in your choice. They are part of your behavior--probably private behavior, but you may have been muttering aloud, I don't know... and as part of your behavior, they are not the explanation for your behavior, but something else that needs explaining. Your thinking (and weighing options, etc) was, likely, caused by much the same set of variables as caused your choice of beverage.

Not
A-->B-->C, (where A is environment, B is thinking, C is pushing the button for Dr. Pepper), but rather
A-->B
|
C (where A is environment, causing both B and C).

eta: In that last full paragraph, claims about "caused by" are empirical claims. By manipulating conditions and noting functional relationships between these conditions and behaviors, we can test these claims of causation.

 

[cooper1958nc]

Mr. Mercutio, I never fall into the trap of trying to "define" every term. Ordinary language is OK for me.

You said:
We have a great deal of experimental evidence showing us that it is not at all what it appears to be.

When a witness uses the "editorial we" I always ask, whom are you speaking for? You? The entire scientific community? The Illuminati? Left handed aliens?

Other than that, I do agree with some of the remarks. If you think I was being reductionist (after all I posted warning about that) then you have misunderstood my point.

Yes, I think you have reduced intent out of the world. But it seems from the citations you are a behaviourist.

When I have more time I will respond to the rest.

To the reader who argued that the issue of free will is not involved in addiction arguments, let me assure you it is, in spades. And yes, some people cannot quit smoking.

 

[Mercutio]

Mr. Mercutio, I never fall into the trap of trying to "define" every term. Ordinary language is OK for me.

You will find, then, that a good understanding of consciousness will elude you.

"Sunrise" is fine in ordinary language, but if you insist that the sun does rise, you limit your explanations to geocentrism. It is only when you admit the possibility of illusion, and define your terms accurately, that an explanation can be found. "Consciousness", "mind", "will", and the rest, are perfectly fine for ordinary language. But do not reject explanations that challenge the very existence of "ordinary language" experience. There is a reason that science uses precise terms.

An accurate map of Florida that happens not to show the location of the Fountain of Youth should not be rejected because ordinary language says it is there. An accurate understanding of human behavior that has no need for mentalisms should not be rejected just because ordinary language is mentalistic.

 

[Mercutio]

You said:
We have a great deal of experimental evidence showing us that it is not at all what it appears to be.

When a witness uses the "editorial we" I always ask, whom are you speaking for? You? The entire scientific community? The Illuminati? Left handed aliens?

It is the first person plural. In this case, it can refer to you and me (any more are welcome, too); we do have this evidence available to us. That's the thing about experimental evidence; they put it in journals for everybody to see...

 

[cooper1958nc]

Fair enough. You and I. A "good understanding of consciousness" seems to elude everyone, second person singular excepted apparently. However, I am interested in this experimental evidence that shows that consciousness is not what it appears to be. Do you mean split brain demonstrations? Blind sight experiments? Demonstrations of unconscious processes and abilities? All that is very interesting stuff, and shows, as we all know, that consciousness is not necessary for a lot of things that we normally attribute to it. No argument on that, but none of it stands for the proposition cited, i.e. that consciousness is not "what it appears to be." What does it appear to be to thee?

 

[Tricky]

Ahem.

The question of "free will" always resolves to semantics.

 

[Mercutio]

The "what it appears to be" for me is perhaps a bit odd, come to think of it. I have more than the average exposure to the history of psychology, so the century-old debates between the structuralists and functionalists play a part in this--as well as more recent influences up to and including Ramachandran, Sacks, and even Blackmore (and the "Mind, Brain, and Consciousness" seminar a couple of years ago in Los Angeles).

So... "what it appears to be" is, to me, a relatively consistent, unitary, roughly 180-degree hemispherical (visually), changing "present" in which "I" navigate. More to the point, it does not appear that, for instance, motion is a processed separately from other visual information, emotional valence is processed separately, color, shape, texture, each separately. Consciousness of memories is clear, even when I am remembering a conversation that did not happen. (The early psychology journals are a wealth of information on the introspective accounts of what consciousness "appears to be".)

Blindsight is indeed part of the evidence I am familiar with--I have Weiskrantz's "Consciousness lost and found" in the next room. Change Blindness is another; one of the hot new topics, of course, with lots of cool demonstrations. Memory research, Visual Perception research... oh, but I don't care for "unconscious processes", after Freud loaded that term up with baggage. I hope you will accept "non-conscious" as an alternative, but with that change, that is certainly part of it.

 

[Mercutio]

Ahem.

If a technical vocabulary exists, and someone chooses not to use it, is that semantics?

 

[cooper1958nc]

I will accept nonconscious, sure.

Your phenomenology is good. I think there is something to consciousness at its core that is unitary. Despite there being different processes for color and motion (I agree, and there is a lot of processing in the retina itself) there is something about consciousness that demands that it is one thing.

Consider this thought experiment: Assume high technology peoples have made a tele-transporter which can disassemble you, record your patterns, and beam your pattern to another location a la Star Trek. Most people would, after suitable hand waving, eventually believe that such a thing could possibly be done, maybe millions of years in the future, but at least not breaking any physical laws. And if you asked them what it would feel like to be "beamed" they would probably say, well, you would feell something weird then "wake up" in a new place. Nothing unusual about that, because we wake up in new places all the time when we sleep on buses.

But now, change the picture a little. Don't destroy the original! Uh oh. Now, do you wake up somewhere else? Are there two "yous?" Who is you? Its quite a conundrum.

 

[cooper1958nc]

And the old saw:

Question:

Who is this "I" that seems to stand behind all my perceptions, always there facing outward, experiencing all, unifying everything.

Answer:

Who is asking?

 

[Tricky]

If a technical vocabulary exists, and someone chooses not to use it, is that semantics?

The choice of whether to use a technical vocabulary or a more common vocabulary is indeed semantics. Of course, even agreeing on a technical vocabulary is going to involve a lot of... well... you know.

I agree it would save a lot of time if we just agreed that Merc is right about everything, but where's the fun in that?

ETA:
Just sniping, of course. I am unequipped to have a meaningful presence in a discussion such as this, but I'm enjoying it too much not to add the occasional snipe.

 

[Mercutio]

I will accept nonconscious, sure.

Your phenomenology is good. I think there is something to consciousness at its core that is unitary. Despite there being different processes for color and motion (I agree, and there is a lot of processing in the retina itself) there is something about consciousness that demands that it is one thing.

Demands? I quite disagree. This is precisely what I meant by my "fountain of youth" analogy. The assumption of "one thing" is an assumption.

Consider this thought experiment: Assume high technology peoples have made a tele-transporter which can disassemble you, record your patterns, and beam your pattern to another location a la Star Trek. Most people would, after suitable hand waving, eventually believe that such a thing could possibly be done, maybe millions of years in the future, but at least not breaking any physical laws. And if you asked them what it would feel like to be "beamed" they would probably say, well, you would feell something weird then "wake up" in a new place. Nothing unusual about that, because we wake up in new places all the time when we sleep on buses.

But now, change the picture a little. Don't destroy the original! Uh oh. Now, do you wake up somewhere else? Are there two "yous?" Who is you? Its quite a conundrum.

This question was brought up and discussed extensively a few years ago, in a thread started by "interesting Ian". I currently have two windows open trying to search for this thread, but thus far no results are forthcoming.

The short answer (as I wait for the search function) is that the question is only interesting from a dualistic perspective. From any coherent perspective, it is fairly straightforward.

This is the thread I was thinking of. I hope it was the right one. At the time, it was considered an interminably long thread--more recent threads may have changed that perception...

(It is also, of course, possible that I am thinking of the wrong thread. Any other veterans here, please correct me if I am wrong.)

 

[cooper1958nc]

Forgive me for not going back to old threads. I am sure Mr. Mercutio vanquished all comers.

Rather than belabour a shrinking point, let me take personal responsibility and in the exercise of freedom of the will take an unexpected turn: Consider this:

Perhaps, as the editorial first person pleural may find out one day, interconnected neurons exhibit queer behaviour. We shall be surprized, because our deterministic models are found wanting, much as Newtonians were surprized when quantum indeterminacy was revealed.

Perhaps, at a given level of processing, a form of spontaneity erupts that is perceived subjectively as free choice and is observed objectively as unpredictability within limits, i.e. human behaviour.

There is here no suggestion of anything "else," no spirit worlds, no souls, no dual reality. Lack of constraint, lack of rigid causality, is a property of complex interconnection, that's all.

An interesting hypothesis. I wonder what experiment proves it wrong?

 

[Mozybyte]

I have more than the average exposure to the history of psychology,

Thought it seems, does not use language... If I wanted to learn how to drive a truck, I wouldn't be going to see a theorist, nor read his books, but go straight to where it hurts and see any man behind a wheel.
knowledge is over rated if it only exists to satisfy our insecurities, for portraiture of our grandeur ism.
Credibility like words are just baggage born to Slavery of those no longer free.

 

[Dancing David]

And yet I can still give a deterministic description to every single physical interaction if I so wish.

You say, "We know that at the most basic level every physical interaction has an element of randomness." as if that were not exactly the sort of black-box assumption I told you one is forced to make that cannot constitute some-sort of absolute 'knowledge' about the actual mechanism of the box.

And this is one of the sticking points, is causal the same as determinism?

There is philosophical determinism, where you put an object in a setting it will do the same thing each time, a clock like universe. And then there is scientific detrminism in which causality can be determined.

My feeling is that there are alot of places in the brain that reflect signals to each other, and it seems that some are capable of making a choices. So there is the possibility of free will, within contrainst of reeality.

But it could be all illusion.

 

[Dancing David]

Mr. Murcutio, you said intent was "mentalistic baggage" and you chastise me by saying I am arguing for "additional entities."

The function of the brain does not involve, I am confident, additional entities or supernatural constructs. It is strictly material. However, as Loren Eiseley used to say, matter has strange properties indeed.

One of those properties is to achieve some sort of self awareness called consciousness under the right circumstances. Consciousness appears to be an emergent property of neural interconnections.

And it is assuming that the lump under the rug is a gorilla, the fact that that people use the word consciousness does not mean it exists. there are many processes that make up the lump under the carpet. Verbal cognition, 'awareness of perceptions', deliberative cognition, inuitive pattern recognition. There are many things that we call consiousness, but even in the medical terminology there are 'levels of consciousness. You are conscious up to the point you pass out or fall asleep.

I reject your assertion that a thermostat has consciousness as hyperbole, or distortion of language.

Under the pall of nineteenth century determinism, we (you?) have oversimplified "matter" and its potentials. The subjective view of intent is of equal validity, as a perspective, to the alternative. The goal, it would appear, is to understand intent and apparent or real freedom as a manifestation that matter is capable of, not to ignore it because of preconceived ideas about what matter can and cannot do.

I could argue that an agnostic would wait until they had devised an experiment to prove a case before assuming it to be correct. We appear to be conscious creatures capable of making choices, that does not mean that we are.

The Staddon piece was interesting and thank you for citing it. Staddon is a well known behaviouralist from Harvard, now at Duke. I admire his work, though he has no formal legal training, of course.

 

[Dancing David]

I will accept nonconscious, sure.

Your phenomenology is good. I think there is something to consciousness at its core that is unitary. Despite there being different processes for color and motion (I agree, and there is a lot of processing in the retina itself) there is something about consciousness that demands that it is one thing.

until you start destroying pieces of the brain and those things that make up that unity are changed. The word car is a useful object label it conveys meaning yet if we start taking the pieces off the unity is not maintained but the meaning of the concept can still be applied.

Consider this thought experiment: Assume high technology peoples have made a tele-transporter which can disassemble you, record your patterns, and beam your pattern to another location a la Star Trek. Most people would, after suitable hand waving, eventually believe that such a thing could possibly be done, maybe millions of years in the future, but at least not breaking any physical laws. And if you asked them what it would feel like to be "beamed" they would probably say, well, you would feell something weird then "wake up" in a new place. Nothing unusual about that, because we wake up in new places all the time when we sleep on buses.

But now, change the picture a little. Don't destroy the original! Uh oh. Now, do you wake up somewhere else? Are there two "yous?" Who is you? Its quite a conundrum.

Not really but only if you examine the following thought.

Is the you that starts the sentence the same you that ends it?

 

[Dancing David]

Forgive me for not going back to old threads. I am sure Mr. Mercutio vanquished all comers.

Rather than belabour a shrinking point, let me take personal responsibility and in the exercise of freedom of the will take an unexpected turn: Consider this:

Perhaps, as the editorial first person pleural may find out one day, interconnected neurons exhibit queer behaviour. We shall be surprized, because our deterministic models are found wanting, much as Newtonians were surprized when quantum indeterminacy was revealed.

Perhaps, at a given level of processing, a form of spontaneity erupts that is perceived subjectively as free choice and is observed objectively as unpredictability within limits, i.e. human behaviour.

There is here no suggestion of anything "else," no spirit worlds, no souls, no dual reality. Lack of constraint, lack of rigid causality, is a property of complex interconnection, that's all.

An interesting hypothesis. I wonder what experiment proves it wrong?

I share the same belief, however it is on the person making the hypothesis to determine the experiment to demonstrate it and eliminate the confounding factors.

Otherwise the agnostic is wiser.