Why materialism ?

[pchams]

There isn't much free will.
Our decisions are coerced by our family, boyfriends, girlfriends, peers, cow-orkers, camping buddies, neighbours, local courts, the IRS, and waste management engineers.

Free will in the west means a jail sentence in many cases, and ostrification in others.

The alpha males wins in our societies.

 

[rain]

I hope you are not being serious here. Getting different results from, if even yet so slightly different starting conditions is not very surprising. Test it out with a pRNG if you like.

And a study on bugs, even if exceptionally well done, can hardly control all factors involved. Cockroach A is not Cockroach B for a start. Some unpredictability in the observed behaviour bugs is a far cry from objective (or true) randomness.

Fair enough. I see now that my example was not very good.

The point I was trying to make was that the behavior found in simple organisms may not be truly deterministic, but using bugs made for a bad example because their brains are probably actually fairly complex and could possibly, as you mention, have some kind of framework to support pseudo-random behavior.

But if it is fair to say that Cockroach A is not the same as Cockroach B due to complexity of the brain and body which may allow for noticeable differences, this becomes a harder position to defend if we take the discussion to the level of micro-organisms. It seems to me that these creatures should be much less random as their potential for intelligence decreases IF there is a case to be made for determinism as the sole root of their behavior.

Therefore, let me give another example that may at least cast some doubt as to whether even single-cell organisms are governed by purely deterministic behavior. This passage is taken from an article regarding the difficulties of creating artificial intelligence that would mimic even the lowest level of creatures.

"Even the simplest living organisms do not display two-valued logical behaviour. Non-determinism is built in from the very bottom level. Consider a piece of the cell membrane of a paramecium in water, which has touched a possible food particle. In order for the food particle to be ingested, a reaction needs to take place between the food particle and some sort of receptor on the surface of the cell. The molecules of both the food particle and the receptor are large (probably proteins, or fatty acids). The reaction occurs when the reactive parts of the molecules of the reactants become close enough to each other [1]. Both reactants are in motion because of their temperature, and because of Brownian motion induced by the water molecules. The likelihood of a reaction occurring is directly related to the likelihood of the reactive surfaces meeting each other before the same random movement causes the food particle to move away from the cell. This whole process is essentially nondeterministic.
Virtually all the processes that occur at the cell membrane are of a related form:for example, ion channels which alter shape due to variations in the charge patterns surrounding them are actually continuously in motion, and their shape is essentially best described as a stochastic system [2]. Thinking of ion channel behaviour as being like transistor behaviour (as Mead suggests in his 1989 book [3]) can therefore be slightly misleading. We conclude that there is diversity in response in biological systems even at the lowest level."

http://www.cs.stir.ac.uk/~lss/recentpapers/AGI-08_lss_position.pdf

 

[rain]

Here is an excerpt from an interesting Wikipedia article on the process of chemotaxis in microorganisms which also calls strict determinism of even the most simple organisms into question:

"The overall movement of a bacterium is the result of alternating tumble and swim phases. If one watches a bacterium swimming in a uniform environment, its movement will look like a random walk with relatively straight swims interrupted by random tumbles that reorient the bacterium. Bacteria such as E. coli are unable to choose the direction in which they swim, and are unable to swim in a straight line for more than a few seconds due to rotational diffusion. In other words, bacteria "forget" the direction in which they are going. Given these limitations, it is remarkable that bacteria can direct their motion to find favorable locations with high concentrations of attractants (usually food) and avoid repellents (usually poisons).
In the presence of a chemical gradient bacteria will chemotax, or direct their overall motion based on the gradient. If the bacterium senses that it is moving in the correct direction (toward attractant/away from repellent), it will keep swimming in a straight line for a longer time before tumbling. If it is moving in the wrong direction, it will tumble sooner and try a new direction at random.
...
It seems remarkable that this purposeful random walk is a result of simply choosing between two methods of random movement; namely tumbling and straight swimming. In fact, chemotactic responses such as forgetting direction and choosing movements resemble the decision-making abilities of higher life-forms with brains that process sensory data."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemotaxis

There is also some evidence that some single-celled organisms such as the paramecium are capable of some kind of learning despite having no neurons or a brain.

 

[Lord Emsworth]

Fair enough. I see now that my example was not very good.

The point I was trying to make was that the behavior found in simple organisms may not be truly deterministic, but using bugs made for a bad example because their brains are probably actually fairly complex and could possibly, as you mention, have some kind of framework to support pseudo-random behavior.

Alternatively, let me give another example that may at least cast some doubt as to whether even single-cell organisms are governed by purely deterministic behavior. This passage is taken from an article regarding the difficulties of creating artificial intelligence that would mimic even the lowest level of creatures.

The way I understand it, this is still not objective randomness. It may be highly unpredictable, it may be best treated as stochastic process and all, but in the end all that is being described are chemical reactions and the behaviour of molecules.

I think that when the article says that the "whole process is essentially nondeterministic" the "essentially" is key.

But all this doesn't even matter. Even if you showed something in the strictest sense undetermined that would not help along free will, that is, libertarian free will. You'd just show something that happens the way it does for no reason at all.

 

[dlorde]

One problem with this is how does true randomness creep into a deterministic system of choices made by living beings? Studies in entomology have shown that insects, even when the environment is very limited and variables strictly accounted for, will still move in individualistic, unpredictable patterns.

It would be quite possible for parts of the neural network to be sensitive to random influences, such as noise in the system, or even generate random (or pseudo-random?) noise, and I would be surprised if simple organisms didn't make use of randomness in their tropisms. It's also possible that this kind of thing is used in higher animals (some sensory processing has been shown to use noise to raise the threshold of sensitivity). But the main point is that randomness is not necessary if the output of the processing is sensitively dependent on the initial (and ongoing) states of the processor and/or if self-referential processing is involved. Remember that this is not a passive system simply awaiting the inputs on which to make a decision, but a complex active system, with numerous continually changing states.

As for free will in more complicated beings like humans, I think you have to take things like cognitive dissonance into account. You make it sound as though a person's mind will constantly weigh out biases and information and come to a singular choice of absolute resolve, but I think you are oversimplifying it.

You inevitably have to simplify these things when describing them in a paragraph or two.

For example, the conscious mind often has a very different view of a given situation than the unconscious mind. Sometimes I make decisions I absolutely hate, knowing full well that I should not choose a given path even as I am making the decision, but yet I allow myself to cave to my unconscious fears. These unconscious fears are not just simply biases or prejudices; they are things my conscious mind absolutely 100 percent knows are no big deal and yet I sometimes allow them to have power over me. How can all decisions be described as a deterministic weighing-out process if there exists more than one part of the mind capable of making decisions?

You are quite right that there seem to be many sub-processes or sub-modules involved, each with competing priorities, and they all provide input into the evaluation. At some point an action must be initiated and it seems to me that it will depend on the status of the system at that time - crudely, which of these competing priorities has had the largest influence during the evaluation. It seems likely that preparation for one or more potential actions builds up as the evaluation is in progress, so that the appropriate behaviours can be initiated for the action that is best prepared for - just my speculation.

If you say that one side of the mind will always triumph over the other, what causes the success in light of the fact that on another day with a similar mindset, the other path may have been equally likely to occur? Sure, it could be a complex illusion to believe that both paths are equally likely to occur especially given so many variables in human life, but I don't see why if it is an illusion, the illusion should exist in the first place.

I don't really see the problem. It doesn't really matter which of the courses of action is selected or which of the internal modules 'wins out', the result is what we call our 'choice', and if we feel it was uncoerced, we call the process that gave that result 'exercising our free will'.

The system has evolved to resolve the competing priorities in a timely manner so that the most appropriate behaviours can be initiated. It's not necessarily a rational process, and the contribution from introspective conscious awareness complicates matters and can make it dangerously unreliable (although the benefits must outweigh the disadvantages, or we wouldn't be here). The system is arranged so that, in general, sufficient processing and evaluation is done to select appropriate behaviours, and these behaviours are initiated while they are still appropriate - we wouldn't survive long if we didn't think enough about what to do next, or if we thought so long that we missed our opportunities.

It seems to me that the nuts & bolts of this processing is below our conscious awareness - we will be aware of some of the competing priorities, some idea of the leading preference, and we can guide the focus of attention to particular areas, but there is evidence that the evaluation is completed and behaviours are initiated subconsciously, and the 'self' becomes aware of this after the fact and a plausible narrative is generated to explain it. It's still 'us' exercising 'free will', but we're not necessarily consciously aware of all the details of the decision making process, any more than we're aware of how we generate our utterances in conversation. Who hasn't blurted out some tactless comment or made some particularly clever quip and wondered where it came from?

If free will wasn't real, why would the mind need to create unpleasantness as a side effect for a decision we know we probably shouldn't have made? In this case, we should just be philosophical zombies who would experience emotions as mere attachment with no sense of "qualia." From an evolutionary standpoint, we don't need to have such feelings of dissonance to function and be successful so they should simply not exist because they actually get in the way of our pursuits.

I don't particularly see what unpleasantness has to do with free will. From an evolutionary viewpoint we do need to distinguish between what is desirable and what is undesirable, and the senses and the sensations they produce are the means by which this can be done. Unpleasantness crudely steers us away from things that may be detrimental - it's a fundamental principle in the evolution of living things. Without pain we wouldn't be aware of damage and learn to avoid the things that cause it. Without hunger we wouldn't eat, without fear we'd get into too much trouble. The mechanisms that manage these sensations are inherited from our earliest beginnings and haven't changed much in millions of years. Our fancy brains are built on top of these foundations.

As another example, if I had a nightmare last night or even daydream that I found extremely unpleasant, what allowed my unconscious mind to allow for something that my conscious mind would have vetoed?

Why do we dream? Why do we have nightmares? I don't think anyone really knows for sure, but in sleep the confabulator or narrative generator is allowed to free-associate with minimal constraints of logic and commonsense, perhaps to make connections between recent experiences and memories, or to produce new links between apparently unrelated areas (e.g. creativity?). Given the importance of unpleasantness to survival, it's not surprising it can appear in dreams, if dreams have some constructive purpose and survival value. Personally, I only seem to get nightmares when I'm too hot in bed - as if the subconscious uses the physiological effects to wake me up so I can throw off some bedclothes...

 

[rain]

The way I understand it, this is still not objective randomness. It may be highly unpredictable, it may be best treated as stochastic process and all, but in the end all that is being described are chemical reactions and the behaviour of molecules.

I think that when the article says that the "whole process is essentially nondeterministic" the "essentially" is key.

But all this doesn't even matter. Even if you showed something in the strictest sense undetermined that would not help along free will, that is, libertarian free will. You'd just show something that happens the way it does for no reason at all.

Last night I ended up reading several articles on the subject, and it seems as though there is no clear consensus among microbiologists as to whether or not the behavior of these creatures represents objective randomness or whether it's just easier to think of it as a stochastic system.

I'm not trying to prove free will because I don't feel that I have the capability. The reason I got caught up in the random/non-random debate was because somebody here equated non-randomness with determinism or at least implied an overlap between them. Personally, I am just trying to prove that behavioral randomness might exist because then, at least, it might make room for the possibility of free will. A person arguing against me could always just say "Oh, well, the seeming randomness is due to a hidden variable we haven't discovered yet." On the other hand, a lack of free should be easier to prove, at least on the micro-organism level, because one would simply need to predict the timing of its movements in reaction to stimuli. At some point, it would be fair to consider a micro-organism a biological robot if you could truly gain a full understanding of its timing and range of behavior.

 

[rain]

It would be quite possible for parts of the neural network to be sensitive to random influences, such as noise in the system, or even generate random (or pseudo-random?) noise, and I would be surprised if simple organisms didn't make use of randomness in their tropisms. It's also possible that this kind of thing is used in higher animals (some sensory processing has been shown to use noise to raise the threshold of sensitivity). But the main point is that randomness is not necessary if the output of the processing is sensitively dependent on the initial (and ongoing) states of the processor and/or if self-referential processing is involved. Remember that this is not a passive system simply awaiting the inputs on which to make a decision, but a complex active system, with numerous continually changing states.

I agree with your paragraph, and you bring up good possibilities; I definitely regret bringing up the insect example. However, in the case of the unicelluar organism, it does not have a brain or a typical nervous system beyond simple microtubules. As far as my limited knowledge of it, it seems as though it can't really process anything in the normal sense beyond basic chemical reactions, which is why the Wikipedia article I linked to probably keeps using words like "remarkable" to describe how its processes have the feature of masquerading as more complex behavior. If the appearance of randomness is based on noise or other factors in these one-celled creatures, I would assume that those factors should eventually be accounted for and fully explained by scientists.

Science is very advanced in some fields, but if we cannot even explain EVERY aspect including the timing of movements in a single-celled organism, how can we ever hope to understand something as complex as a human brain? I'm not saying that this would be an impossible feat, but I am suggesting that the study of objective human behavior is still in such a state of infancy that all debate supporting free will or lack of it is not just somewhat speculative, but rather incredibly speculative.

You are quite right that there seem to be many sub-processes or sub-modules involved, each with competing priorities, and they all provide input into the evaluation. At some point an action must be initiated and it seems to me that it will depend on the status of the system at that time - crudely, which of these competing priorities has had the largest influence during the evaluation. It seems likely that preparation for one or more potential actions builds up as the evaluation is in progress, so that the appropriate behaviours can be initiated for the action that is best prepared for - just my speculation.

All I can really do is speculate as well. To use an example of how I see it, imagine a contestant who is faced with a difficult question on the game show "Who wants to be a Millionaire." There are four choices for the answer: A, B, C, and D. The contestant reveals his thinking process to the audience by saying, "On an intellectual level, I feel torn between A and B. But my gut feeling tells me to go with C and I don't know why." He pauses for a moment. "Okay, now I feel like A seems like a better choice than B but my gut still says C." Then the host will say something like, "So are you going to go with your gut or you going to go with what your logic tells you?"

The point I'm driving it is that it seems as though competing priorities only apply to the obviously rational mind. I don't see any evidence either for or against the idea that there is a deterministic process that causes the subconscious to compete with the conscious. The gut subconscious feeling will not change, or at least is much harder to change by the very nature of what it is. Although this is highly speculative because it is based on my "feelings", the somewhat internally logical or condition-based mind seems to have multiple opinions which are being weighed out as you mention. The subconscious mind, assuming it is not reacting out of fear, offers alternative suggestions which are usually not coercive. (at least I don't ever feel coerced when I go with my intuition.) It just seems like another channel of possibility which is simultaneusly available to me. And since it feels like it is in a totally different realm that the competing priorities, it seems like a genuine choice, almost like a completely or partially illogical sublimation of the conscious mind to the totality of the whims of the universe. Maybe we have the ability to make random or pseudo-random decisions based on internal noise that we experience, but even if it's just noise, there could be a choice of whether to adhere to the randomness of noise or listen to your internal rational decision process.

I don't particularly see what unpleasantness has to do with free will. From an evolutionary viewpoint we do need to distinguish between what is desirable and what is undesirable, and the senses and the sensations they produce are the means by which this can be done. Unpleasantness crudely steers us away from things that may be detrimental - it's a fundamental principle in the evolution of living things. Without pain we wouldn't be aware of damage and learn to avoid the things that cause it. Without hunger we wouldn't eat, without fear we'd get into too much trouble. The mechanisms that manage these sensations are inherited from our earliest beginnings and haven't changed much in millions of years. Our fancy brains are built on top of these foundations.

I'm not talking about unpleasantness in general; I'm referring to the subjectively intense feeling of lingering unpleasantness that is to the detriment of the organism. For example, the kinds of feelings that lead to severe depression and even suicide are not beneficial and yet these feelings are actually not particularly uncommon in human society. The fact that we can commit suicide does not prove free will, but I think it raises interesting questions as to why evolution has not made humans more hard-wired against depression and suicide.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Again I agree. And when the scientists are unable to connect the two fundamental systems of physics even after 80 years, they eventually just give up by calling the problem "philosophical in nature" allowing them to ignore it, or they make up fanciful and fundamentally untestable "theories" such as String Theory so they can sleep more soundly at night.

You're not serious, right? Do you really think that scientists are ignoring the problem of unifying quantum mechanics and gravity? Quantum gravity, dude.

Also, I don't think there is a logical reason why nature has any obligation to cooperate in that endeavor.

~~ Paul

 

[rain]

You're not serious, right? Do you really think that scientists are ignoring the problem of unifying quantum mechanics and gravity? Quantum gravity, dude.

Also, I don't think there is a logical reason why nature has any obligation to cooperate in that endeavor.

~~ Paul

What I actually said was that some scientists are ignoring it and others are making up fanciful untestable theories like String Theory, which is of course a theory of quantum gravity.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

What I actually said was that some scientists are ignoring it and others are making up fanciful untestable theories like String Theory, which is of course a theory of quantum gravity.

Yes, that's what you said, apparently closing the door on the possibility that scientists are working on unifying QM and gravity in a way that is not merely fanciful.

String theory is a theory of everything, which encompasses quantum gravity and more. Loop quantum gravity is not a theory of everything. There are many other theories of quantum gravity, such as supergravity and twistor theory. It is possible that you are right and none of these will ever be testable. However, I don't think it is fair to write them off yet.

~~ Paul

 

[rain]

Yes, that's what you said, apparently closing the door on the possibility that scientists are working on unifying QM and gravity in a way that is not merely fanciful.

String theory is a theory of everything, which encompasses quantum gravity and more. Loop quantum gravity is not a theory of everything. There are many other theories of quantum gravity, such as supergravity and twistor theory. It is possible that you are right and none of these will ever be testable. However, I don't think it is fair to write them off yet.

~~ Paul

It may not be fair to write them off, but I whole-heartedly exhibit my disrespect to string theory and any other "theory" that dishonestly represents itself as anything more than a hypothesis, even if it is a very good hypothesis. As I recall from grade school on up through college, and here defined by Princeton's WordNet, "a scientific hypothesis that survives experimental testing becomes a scientific theory." Since when did scientists have the right to skip steps in their basic methodology?

The reason this annoys me so much is that, through their arrogance, these scientists are actually discrediting the whole scientific process to laypersons everywhere. It just reinforces the misguided beliefs of the average Joe Sixpack who keeps repeating "it's just a theory!" every time he sees a reference to even fundamentally proven theories such as evolution. This is why the rest of us who actually care about the public's understanding of science, no matter how dim it might actually be now, have actually resorted to having to constantly convince people that evolution is a fact. In my opinion, we wouldn't have to do spend so much time doing this if scientists agreed to replace terms like theory with "framework" or some similar word instead of trying to make their ideas sound more important even in the initial stages before they have been properly tested.

If and when string theory is at least partially discredited and eventually replaced by a better theory, and this indeed seems likely to me based on my readings, this will just fuel the fire of Joe's already flaming ignorance. (Sorry to pick on Joe so much, but I also reserve the right to diss him and his hypothetical gravy-stained shirt)

As for loop quantum gravity and some of the other attempts to reconcile the two leading systems of physics, I have read a bit but I don't know that much about them. If you think any of these "theories", have enough weight of evidence behind them to legitimately deserve the term, I'd love to hear about which and why.

Here's an example of how others agree that the term theory has been watered down, and yet they interestingly enough place none of the blame on scientists themselves. I agree that creationists contribute to the problem but it's time for scientists to also look in the mirror.

"Other commentators, focusing on the changes in species over generations and in some cases common ancestry have stressed that evolution is a fact to emphasize the weight of supporting evidence while denying it is helpful to use the term "theory":
R. C. Lewontin wrote, 'It is time for students of the evolutionary process, especially those who have been misquoted and used by the creationists, to state clearly that evolution is a fact, not theory.'"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_as_theory_and_fact

 

[RandFan]

Free Will: Don't know, don't care.
Materialism vs idealism: Don't know, don't care.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

It may not be fair to write them off, but I whole-heartedly exhibit my disrespect to string theory and any other "theory" that dishonestly represents itself as anything more than a hypothesis, even if it is a very good hypothesis. As I recall from grade school on up through college, and here defined by Princeton's WordNet, "a scientific hypothesis that survives experimental testing becomes a scientific theory." Since when did scientists have the right to skip steps in their basic methodology?

Oh those pesky tricksters! Look at all the people they have fooled into thinking that String Theory is a completed theory. Oh woe is me.

The reason this annoys me so much is that, through their arrogance, these scientists are actually discrediting the whole scientific process to laypersons everywhere. It just reinforces the misguided beliefs of the average Joe Sixpack who keeps repeating "it's just a theory!" every time he sees a reference to even fundamentally proven theories such as evolution. This is why the rest of us who actually care about the public's understanding of science, no matter how dim it might actually be now, have actually resorted to having to constantly convince people that evolution is a fact. In my opinion, we wouldn't have to do spend so much time doing this if scientists agreed to replace terms like theory with "framework" or some similar word instead of trying to make their ideas sound more important even in the initial stages before they have been properly tested.

How many people have you met who repeat "It's just a theory" because they are honestly confused about whether evolution is a theory or not, due to the influence of arrogant scientists? I would say that most people who repeat that canard do so because they don't want evolution to be a theory at all.

That said, sure, scientists could perhaps be more careful.

R. C. Lewontin wrote, 'It is time for students of the evolutionary process, especially those who have been misquoted and used by the creationists, to state clearly that evolution is a fact, not theory.'"

Evolution is a fact, and the Theory of Evolution is the theory that explains it. Lewontin is confusing people just as much as anyone else.

~~ Paul

 

[Belz...]

By overlooking possibilities, you are revealing your own particular biases again. Using "normal" logic, I would agree that it seems that an object that is both living and dead seems impossible. But you apparently don't know enough about quantum physics to realize that, although a controversial topic, it may be possible for simultaneous contradictory states to exist even on the macroscopic level.

So P and Not P can be true simultaneously ? Congratulations, you have just made the acquisition of knowledge impossible.

I wouldn't say there are just one or two things we don't know.

And some of the things we don't know are so pervasive and fundamental that in certain respects, it is actually quite embarrassing for many physicists

Puzzling, perhaps. Embarassing ? Such as ?

To use a crude analogy, if you had a character in a video game who could magically become sentient, how could he ever prove that there is a world outside of his limited frame of reference even though there might be clues but no solid evidence of a greater force?

Ah, yes. The Matrix analogy. How convincing.