A mental experiment about free will

[Guest]

Hello Hammegk;
just tell you that when copy-pasting "Monastic Idealism" from your post into google search, you can obtain some really fancy pages.
BTW, once I looked for "monistic" instead of "monastic" I got few hits, is monistic idealism an obscure idea or is it just unrepresented on internet?

Monastic refers to monks....

Try "mental monism"

 

[Peskanov]

Thanks UCE, I found more a few more hits under "mental monism"; still, there were just 80 hits for "mental monism" and 300 for "monistic idealism". It seems a really obscure topic...Interesting reading anyway.

BTW, did you read my reply for you yesterday?

 

[Guest]

Peskanov

Originally posted by Peskanov

Thanks UCE, I found more a few more hits under "mental monism"; still, there were just 80 hits for "mental monism" and 300 for "monistic idealism". It seems a really obscure topic...Interesting reading anyway.

BTW, did you read my reply for you yesterday? [/B]

That it is obscure is interesting in itself. It tends to be rejected on the grounds that it is 'ridiculous', rather than being given any proper thought. Materialists tend to point to dualism, moan about the binding problem, and say...."well that only leaves us with materialism, and it has no more problems than dualism so lets stick with it." Mental monism just gets 'forgotten' regardless of the fact that it solves the mind-body problem before it even gets started.

And I missed your reply yesterday. I will respond now.

--
quote:
There are actually an infinite set of paralell MWI worldlines - there are actually an infinite set of cosmoses with different laws of physics. So in this respect The Infinite actually exists .
--

Of course; actually exists in THESE models!
I'm aware of these theories, I was just pointing that all concepts are our creations; our mental creations and models, whichcould have or not an equivalent in the world.

They are our creations, but multiverse theory is important because it is the only way of arguing against the creationist/deist claims that God designed the cosmos - the 'just seven numbers'/fine-tuning argument for God. If you reject it then there is no way of rebutting that argument. One way or another you are left with a Infinite entity responsible for the existence of the Universe.

Of course Plato thinked otherwise
Anyway I think I am getting closer to understand your model of free will, I think it's just your language that confuses me; also English is not my native tongue, which helps my confusion

Philosophy gets difficult enough even in your native tongue. I'm trying to understand Hegel at the moment.

A person is pondering about to eat meat or vegetables. It's brain parlamient is so balanced that in a moment we can put the whole weight of the decision in the state of one electron.
As the universe splits, 2 new worlds born. In one, the electron contibuted to choose meat, in the other vegetables.

This is an MWI scenario. I don't actually accept MWI, for the precise reason that it makes Free Will impossible. I may have misled you with my examples about Infinity. I was trying to explain to Stimpson how a real Infinity could be said to exist. In fact the model of QM I go for is the Bohm/De-Broglie hidden variable interpretation.

Sorry to complicate things further...but my position on QM is more like this :

http://www.qedcorp.com/pcr/pcr/qmback.html

By the term "back-action" I mean that the quantum wave field is "directly affected by the conditions of the particles". It is qualitatively obvious that such a direct dependence is the counter-force or reaction to the quantum force. The combination of the quantum force of wave on particle with the counter-force or back-action of particle on wave forms a feed-back control loop which is able to control the formerly uncontrollable guidance of the particle by its wave. This results in a distortion of the statistical patterns of orthodox quantum mechanics. This is the mechanism of intent or free will.

For Free Will to work, there has to be a link between the thing we call "I" - our inner self - and the probabalistic outcomes of quantum events. In essence, it is us who are the 'hidden variable'. I am at the limit of my own understanding of this here.

 

[Peskanov]

UCE;

--
quote:
That it is obscure is interesting in itself. It tends to be rejected on the grounds that it is 'ridiculous', rather than being given any proper thought. Materialists tend to point to dualism, moan about the binding problem, and say...."well that only leaves us with materialism, and it has no more problems than dualism so lets stick with it." Mental monism just gets 'forgotten' regardless of the fact that it solves the mind-body problem before it even gets started.
--

I have to give it a good read, although the "mind-body problem" and "the hard problem" were unknown to me. I guess I will have to read a bit about them first, to understand better the intention of the model.


--
quote:
They are our creations, but multiverse theory is important because it is the only way of arguing against the creationist/deist claims that God designed the cosmos - the 'just seven numbers'/fine-tuning argument for God. If you reject it then there is no way of rebutting that argument. One way or another you are left with a Infinite entity responsible for the existence of the Universe.
--

I never heard of the multiverse as a theory which invalides the creator concept. I guess it's a model that explain well the existence of such a complex thing like life, because an infinite set of options makes it unavoidable.
If I understand you correctly, the multiverse would provide counter-evidence against those who afirm that the physical constants which caracterizes our universe are designed to raise complexity by itself. If I remenber well this was Martin Gardner position (universe it's desgned), correct?
It's a fascinating notion, although I fear that our knowledge of the universe it's too small to make such statements.
BTW, you could also adapt the multiverse theory to fit a designer just removing some propierties; and you could insert infinity posibilities in a "only 1 universe" model just using the "infinite sequence of consecutive big-bangs" theory which makes some buzz lately.

--
quote:
This is an MWI scenario. I don't actually accept MWI, for the precise reason that it makes Free Will impossible. I may have misled you with my examples about Infinity. I was trying to explain to Stimpson how a real Infinity could be said to exist. In fact the model of QM I go for is the Bohm/De-Broglie hidden variable interpretation.
--

Actually, I was going to point that the multiverse was a deterministic model of free will, as you can predict the result of any selection: all posibilites are chose.
However, this model was not looked when I thinked my experiment, and it really has some wonderful propierties...Thanks for bringing my atention about it.

About the QM interpretation, I am going for it. Hard reading, it will take me a while, but I will came back here for more

--
quote:
For Free Will to work, there has to be a link between the thing we call "I" - our inner self - and the probabalistic outcomes of quantum events. In essence, it is us who are the 'hidden variable'. I am at the limit of my own understanding of this here.
--

But this was what I sugested at the beginning of the thread. Supossing that "free will" makes itsel present in our physic model by quantum events...then you still have to specify the nature of the system which produced these quantum values, and this system will have to fall into determinisc/not deterministic. Which renders "free will" an slave of the system which produces it, whatever is it (with maybe some degree of randomnes).

Well, now I will take a view for that Bohm/De-Broglie hidden variable interpretation...

 

[hammegk]

For Free Will to work, there has to be a link between the thing we call "I" - our inner self - and the probabalistic outcomes of quantum events. In essence, it is us who are the 'hidden variable'. I am at the limit of my own understanding of this here.

Yup, idealistic monism may well turn to monastic idealism as a reasonable choice. You have moved from the philosophic extreme of solipsistic absolute control to absolute (atman) Non-control. Neither extreme provides a particularly useful worldview.

As atman, to brahman you are infinitely less than a termite is to its' colony, and are again faced with a no-free-will position.

Assuming Big Bang did occur, why would the initial, complete entanglement of everything ever be subject to any influence (brahman would be the hidden variable maybe?). Can atman have an influence is a question; I'd say no if materialism or dualism is the correct view, possibly (hopefully) yes if Idealism is the correct view.

Nope, we won't be building atom bombs with this worldview will we? Hmm, better not discount Ego (seems to be tied up with the bag-of-bones we perceive as our *me*) had we?

 

[Guest]

Peskanov :

I have to give it a good read, although the "mind-body problem" and "the hard problem" were unknown to me. I guess I will have to read a bit about them first, to understand better the intention of the model.

What is the mind/body problem?
The Hard Problem Considered Easy

I never heard of the multiverse as a theory which invalides the creator concept. I guess it's a model that explain well the existence of such a complex thing like life, because an infinite set of options makes it unavoidable.
If I understand you correctly, the multiverse would provide counter-evidence against those who afirm that the physical constants which caracterizes our universe are designed to raise complexity by itself. If I remenber well this was Martin Gardner position (universe it's desgned), correct?

That is correct. Many people have pointed to the physical constants and claimed that they are evidence of a designer.

--
quote:
For Free Will to work, there has to be a link between the thing we call "I" - our inner self - and the probabalistic outcomes of quantum events. In essence, it is us who are the 'hidden variable'. I am at the limit of my own understanding of this here.
--

But this was what I sugested at the beginning of the thread. Supossing that "free will" makes itsel present in our physic model by quantum events...then you still have to specify the nature of the system which produced these quantum values, and this system will have to fall into determinisc/not deterministic. Which renders "free will" an slave of the system which produces it, whatever is it (with maybe some degree of randomnes).

But I have suggested that thing which produces it is the One Thing which is a slave of no other system - it is the source of all systems. What you are arguing is exactly correct, and what I am arguing is the one and only exception which allows Free Will to exist. The only thing which cannot be a slave of a higher system is the root cause of all the systems. Infinity can be the only source of Free Will. This is quite interesting to me, because I argued this before and Franko insisted that Free Will only required and external input. I didn't challenge him at the time but now I think you may have demonstrated that he was wrong.

 

[Guest]

Yup, idealistic monism may well turn to monastic idealism as a reasonable choice. You have moved from the philosophic extreme of solipsistic absolute control to absolute (atman) Non-control. Neither extreme provides a particularly useful worldview.

As atman, to brahman you are infinitely less than a termite is to its' colony, and are again faced with a no-free-will position.

Assuming Big Bang did occur,

(I don't)

why would the initial, complete entanglement of everything ever be subject to any influence (brahman would be the hidden variable maybe?). Can atman have an influence is a question; I'd say no if materialism or dualism is the correct view, possibly (hopefully) yes if Idealism is the correct view.

Atman and Brahman are the same thing.

Nope, we won't be building atom bombs with this worldview will we? Hmm, better not discount Ego (seems to be tied up with the bag-of-bones we perceive as our *me*) had we?

Ego isn't discounted. It has plenty of control. It just doesn't have 'Free' Will because it is doing what TLOP tell it to do.

Although I was struggling to understand your post....

 

[Peskanov]

Thanks for the links UCE.
A note: reading about "What is the mind/body problem?" I found there where some bizarre asumptions about the materialist position. I have read several interviews with neurologists, and most of them (I would say nearly all) believe in a materialistic interpretation of the mind. However none of them denies the existence of "mental states". In fact, part of his work is finding them! (understand it's working).
How can this misunderstanding be explained? Maybe there are different branches of materialism and the current most common one is not reflected in the article? I read something about this in other thread, but I would thank you if you can point me in the correct direction.

About the Bohm/De-Broglie article, please look this quote:

"The combination of the quantum force of wave on particle with the counter-force or back-action of particle on wave forms a feed-back control loop which is able to control the formerly uncontrollable guidance of the particle by its wave. This results in a distortion of the statistical patterns of orthodox quantum mechanics. This is the mechanism of intent or free will. "

I am not going to pretend that I understood the whole article, because I didn't. Still, I have not found the origin of free will described. If I am undestanding correctly the above paragraph, this article is:
a) Describing a deterministic mechanism which it calls "free will".
or
b) Describing a deterministic mechanism which is used by "freel will" to interact with our known reality.

What do you think it means? A or B? Am I missing something important?


--
quote:
That is correct. Many people have pointed to the physical constants and claimed that they are evidence of a designer.
--

Yes, although an atheist myself, I found this view rational and worth of respect...

--
quote:
But I have suggested that thing which produces it is the One Thing which is a slave of no other system - it is the source of all systems. What you are arguing is exactly correct, and what I am arguing is the one and only exception which allows Free Will to exist. The only thing which cannot be a slave of a higher system is the root cause of all the systems. Infinity can be the only source of Free Will. This is quite interesting to me, because I argued this before and Franko insisted that Free Will only required and external input. I didn't challenge him at the time but now I think you may have demonstrated that he was wrong.
--

Ok; only that I still think this exception which allows free will can't be described without falling into an irrational assertion.
You say "Infinity can be the only source of Free Will". Since this quite a ambiguous assertion it is hard to reply; I can understand it as a metaphor in the multiverse model, but we already stated it was a deterministic model, and that you are not referring to it.
You seem to say that the source of free will is omnipotent. But still, this quality does not make it acausal. The multiverse proposed is also omnipotent, but still deterministic.
I think you are putting an intuition on top of your model, and I think it could be irrational idea .
Maybe we can get our ideas near if we answer this question:
Is acausal a synonim of random?

 

[wraith]

Infinity can be the only source of Free Will.

What does this mean Elephant?

Ive asked you this before, sorry, but you gave me a description about Hinduism

...so, do you mind explaining this concept to me?

 

[Guest]

Franko-Wraith :

I have described enough already. You know perfectly well what is meant.



Peskanov :

a) Describing a deterministic mechanism which it calls "free will".
or
b) Describing a deterministic mechanism which is used by "freel will" to interact with our known reality.

What do you think it means? A or B? Am I missing something important?

(b). The important word is 'statistical'.

Maybe we can get our ideas near if we answer this question:
Is acausal a synonim of random?

No. Materialists generally refer to two sorts of behaviour in this sort of discussion - random and deterministic. They then equate determinism with causality and declare everything else to be random. This leaves no room for Free Will by definition, before we have even started. Acausal just means non-deterministic.

And as for materialism being the denial of mental states - most materialists will deny this until confronted with a philosopher who examines very closely the relationship between brain/brain-process/qualia. They ultimately find that the only coherent position for them to take is to deny the existence of the qualia, otherwise they end up having to continually make the statement "Brain process = qualia", even though these two things are qualitatively completely different things and qualia are specifically defined to not be brain processes. I don't want to get bogged down in another one of those discussions though. We can do it by PM if you really want to.

 

[wraith]

Franko-Wraith :

I have described enough already. You know perfectly well what is meant.

well I dont actually
Hence me asking

Elephant, youre not trying to avoid answering the question are you?

 

[Guest]

Elephant, youre not trying to avoid answering the question are you? [/B]

Trying?

I should have thought an open declaration of "I have said enough already" makes my thoughts clear enough. The Upanishads provide the answer far better than I can. Unlike yourself, I do not see the neccesity to invent my own religion.

 

[hammegk]

(I don't)

Even if "universe" is closed?

Atman and Brahman are the same thing.

I look at it as a Zen koan.

Ego isn't discounted. It has plenty of control. It just doesn't have 'Free' Will because it is doing what TLOP tell it to do.

Agreed for Bag-o-bones *me*. But for *I*????

Although I was struggling to understand your post....

Doesn't seem so to me....

 

[Peskanov]

UCE, about QM interpretation:
--
(b). The important word is 'statistical'.
--

Ok, I just wanted to ensure that we were talking about the channel, not the emisor.

--
quote:
No. Materialists generally refer to two sorts of behaviour in this sort of discussion - random and deterministic. They then equate determinism with causality and declare everything else to be random. This leaves no room for Free Will by definition, before we have even started. Acausal just means non-deterministic.
--

Now we are getting somewhere; I always undestood random as lacking cause; from the wikipedia:

http://www.wikipedia.org

Randomness

"In ordinary language, the word random is used to express apparent lack of purpose or cause"

There is a lot more to be said about randomnes, but if you accept this definition, acausal is a synonim of random.
Accepting these semantics, if you want to negate a correlation of free will with quantum acausal phenomena and still say it lacks cause, you would need to find a propierty which differs "random in QM", from "acausal of free will".
Only this way you could get "free will" out of any physic model.
Of course if you prefer other semantics, I coud also deal with it. Just define causal, deterministic, random, and any other relevant word in a coherent manner and I will do fine.

About Qualia, I see you already have discussed long about it in these forums. I am not educated about this thinking field, so I will look at this question much later probably.

I think I will try soon to write and post an scheme containing my understanding of the problem; my position is still that the existence of free will is not a proof of limitations in current physics model.

 

[Guest]

hammegk

Even if "universe" is closed?

If it were demonstrated that the Universe was closed then I would see this as strong supporting evidence that Big Bang theory is the correct model.

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Atman and Brahman are the same thing.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


I look at it as a Zen koan.

Fair enough. Personally I consider them to be literally the same thing. They are indistinguishable.

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ego isn't discounted. It has plenty of control. It just doesn't have 'Free' Will because it is doing what TLOP tell it to do.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Agreed for Bag-o-bones *me*. But for *I*????

"I" may have Free Will. If/When "Me" uses that Will it is no longer Free.


Geoff.

 

[Guest]

Peskanov :

"In ordinary language, the word random is used to express apparent lack of purpose or cause"

There is a lot more to be said about randomnes, but if you accept this definition, acausal is a synonim of random.

There is indeed a lot more to be said about randomness. I consider it to be one the most poorly understood words in the English language.

We are also getting into the question of Infinite Regression and the Uncaused Cause. If we try to trace the path of causality back to its root we end up with Infinite Regression - there always has to be a higher system. I have defined the Uncaused Cause to be Infinity itself, which presumably is the only logical place to trace the Infinite Regress back to.

Accepting these semantics, if you want to negate a correlation of free will with quantum acausal phenomena and still say it lacks cause, you would need to find a propierty which differs "random in QM", from "acausal of free will".

I am not sure I understand what you mean by " if you want to negate a correlation of free will with quantum acausal phenomena"....

Free Will is not quantum randomness. Free Will and randomness are not the same thing...

QM is said to be random. If mind is involved in "loading the quantum dice" then it can appear random according to materialistic physics, but be influenced by Free Will. How can you tell whether the observer has any influence over whether or not Schroedingers cat lives or dies? It would look the same from the point of view of physics whether the observer has influence or not.

Try rephrasing it and I might find it easier to understand. From my perspective your semantics still seem to render Free Will meaningless by defining everything to be either random or deterministic.

 

[wraith]

Trying?

I should have thought an open declaration of "I have said enough already" makes my thoughts clear enough.

Not to me they arent

So do you mind explaining what you mean by Free-will comes from Infinity ?

 

[Guest]

Not to me they arent

So do you mind explaining what you mean by Free-will comes from Infinity ?

Franko....given the extensive clarifications of what this means which have been presented in this thread, I think this statement is about as clear as it could possibly be. If you want me to 'explain' anything else you'd better try asking me a more specific question.

 

[Peskanov]

--
quote:
There is indeed a lot more to be said about randomness. I consider it to be one the most poorly understood words in the English language.
--

I don't understand why don't you want to accept random and acausal as the same.
I suspect that you accept free will as acausal, but not as lacking purpose. Could this be the problem?

--
quote:
We are also getting into the question of Infinite Regression and the Uncaused Cause. If we try to trace the path of causality back to its root we end up with Infinite Regression - there always has to be a higher system. I have defined the Uncaused Cause to be Infinity itself, which presumably is the only logical place to trace the Infinite Regress back to.
--

Infinitine regression = infinite chain of causal events; unconceivable, but rational, I think.
Uncaused Cause to be Infinity = irrational?

--
quote:
I am not sure I understand what you mean by " if you want to negate a correlation of free will with quantum acausal phenomena"....
--

Sorry, I think I forced my english. In direct spanish translation, it makes sense, I swear.
I think it will get more clear with this quote:

--
quote:
Free Will is not quantum randomness. Free Will and randomness are not the same thing...
--

IMO, the result of my experiment is that what you are saying here is dogmatic.
With free will you define a source of acausal events.
The QM defines a source of acausal events.
You assert that these 2 sources are not the same, and define the QM events to be just the channel, not the source. Why? If you don't take evidence from somewhere we are in dogma territory.
You MUST find some quality which separates both phenomena, you must find a quality in free will not present in the QM model. But as you reject causality in free will our reason is on the frontiers of what can be argued.
If you bring "purpose" as a difference, this will get bring causality back into free will!

--
quote:
From my perspective your semantics still seem to render Free Will meaningless by defining everything to be either random or deterministic.
--

As I said earlier, you are invited to bring other terminology, or other semantics. I don't think I am forcing meanings, still we are all biased in some direction...

Talking about semantics, it think it is time to speak about what I think it's the root of the problem: the definition of "free will".
Thinking about the meaning and use of "free", it turns I find that "free" is used to talk about the lack of a restriction (or a set of restrictions). It's important to tell that these restrictions are often implicit on the context.
"Free entrance" refer to a payment restriction.
"The wagon is running free" could refer to a failure of brakes, which restricted it's movement in the rail. Still nobody says that the wagon is evading the rail, the physics model, or even causality!
In any use of "free" you will find a finite, understable context, which describes some restrictions, but still has others present.
Whe we create the term "free will", why are we trying to add ALL restrictions in the context? I can't think of any other use of "free" which is taken to that extreme. What evidence is making us think of an unlimited "will"? I can observe some restrictions in my will, and in other will as well.

 

[wraith]

If you want me to 'explain' anything else you'd better try asking me a more specific question.

omg!
ok Elephant

Do you mind explaining what you mean by Free-will comes from Infinity ?