167 replies to this topic

[platypus]

To me it seems too weird that "free will" would be some kind of an illusion. If we do not have "free" will, there's zero evolutionary benefit of generating such illusions. 

[Multivitz]

I found my intuition to be wierd when I payed close attention to my free will. It seem our desisions can be guided from an external force of nature. The appearance of synchronicity is amazing to observe, Carl Jung wrote about it. Most of us have experienced it.
I think there's no evolutionary gain to be had from believing free will, illusion or not. I think we are seeing the numbers of people increasing that apply a righteous sense of the free will, with noticing success. Some call it the law of attraction, I think it's just natures way. A few families have been organised with the law of attraction, and have claimed there is no god, or the one they worship lets them do things and they are more aligned to their gods way. All I see are righteous beliefs in people, or people with confused outlooks, no supreme God, but maybe demigods? We see natures way reflected in Quantum experiments, as soon as the scientists accept gravity is a form of magnetism and the Universe swims in it, the sooner Newtonian fluctuations will get understood fairly (not just hypothesized with ideas that hold no proof).
The change of Suns in our evolutionary history may be the reason for our lose of total emersion in a dominating mind set of intuition, or it could be as Stitchin says ( genetically engineered by a supreme being of sorts). We have the evidence of the hundreds of mining structures in East Africa, world wide accounts showing consistency of events throughout the ages. There is a mountain of coincidences that support both in terms of their influence on our genetic/behaviour evolution. The Roman empire may have it's inaccurate style of telling history, but real history is realised through the scholar. I hope the scholars involved with Quantum Theory will keep in mind it's past experiments and have the courage to drop inaccurate assumptions. There is Determinism to a point, that point is usually past our perception, but not for some experimenters I hope.

[johnross47]

To me it seems too weird that "free will" would be some kind of an illusion. If we do not have "free" will, there's zero evolutionary benefit of generating such illusions. 

 

The illusion arises from the fact that all our volitional acts appear to us to be the result of decisions we make. The actual decision making process is concealed. Clearly we can make decisions based on a carefully reasoned case, with proper consideration of the evidence etc., but that is not what we do most of the time.

[platypus]

 

To me it seems too weird that "free will" would be some kind of an illusion. If we do not have "free" will, there's zero evolutionary benefit of generating such illusions. 

 

The illusion arises from the fact that all our volitional acts appear to us to be the result of decisions we make. The actual decision making process is concealed. Clearly we can make decisions based on a carefully reasoned case, with proper consideration of the evidence etc., but that is not what we do most of the time.

 

Still, that does not mean that we are incapable of choosing and making decisions. In fact I'd argue that the whole point of being conscious is to enable the organism to choose between alternative courses of action. 

[johnross47]

To me it seems too weird that "free will" would be some kind of an illusion. If we do not have "free" will, there's zero evolutionary benefit of generating such illusions.

The illusion arises from the fact that all our volitional acts appear to us to be the result of decisions we make. The actual decision making process is concealed. Clearly we can make decisions based on a carefully reasoned case, with proper consideration of the evidence etc., but that is not what we do most of the time.

Still, that does not mean that we are incapable of choosing and making decisions. In fact I'd argue that the whole point of being conscious is to enable the organism to choose between alternative courses of action.

Or to allow the organism to know what it has decided? As I said above, you obviously can make carefully considered choices and examine everything consciously but most of the time the autopilot makes the choice and then you find out what it was. In most conversations you just rattle along and find out what you said only a fraction of a second sooner than your companion. Even when you are having a considered philosophical conversation the content of your contribution pops up from somewhere so you can weigh it up first. (Some people seem to miss out the second stage and go straight to air)

[platypus]

 

 

Still, that does not mean that we are incapable of choosing and making decisions. In fact I'd argue that the whole point of being conscious is to enable the organism to choose between alternative courses of action.

Or to allow the organism to know what it has decided? As I said above, you obviously can make carefully considered choices and examine everything consciously but most of the time the autopilot makes the choice and then you find out what it was. In most conversations you just rattle along and find out what you said only a fraction of a second sooner than your companion. Even when you are having a considered philosophical conversation the content of your contribution pops up from somewhere so you can weigh it up first. (Some people seem to miss out the second stage and go straight to air)

 

I do not disagree. However, if no choices are possible (everything that happens is what hydrogen tends to do given the initial conditions at the Big Bang), the organism does not need to be conscious, as it cannot affect even it's own behavior. 

Edited by platypus, 22 January 2016 - 03:11 PM.

[johnross47]

Consciousness may have evolved as a tool for integrating external sensory input with internal models and predictions. Consciousness is where the model is compared with reality and adjusted? There is massively more internally generated content, in your visual version of the world, than externally sourced information.

Edited by johnross47, 22 January 2016 - 03:16 PM.

[platypus]

Consciousness may have evolved as a tool for integrating external sensory input with internal models and predictions. Consciousness is where the model is compared with reality and adjusted? There is massively more internally generated content, in your visual version of the world, than externally sourced information.

Sure, but that sort of presupposes that the organism can "choose". Why be conscious of the comparison of internal models and sensory data, if one cannot "do" anything with it?

[johnross47]

Consciousness may have evolved as a tool for integrating external sensory input with internal models and predictions. Consciousness is where the model is compared with reality and adjusted? There is massively more internally generated content, in your visual version of the world, than externally sourced information.

Sure, but that sort of presupposes that the organism can "choose". Why be conscious of the comparison of internal models and sensory data, if one cannot "do" anything with it?

I didn't say that you can't choose, just that the process of choosing is often subconscious. There are plenty of experiments showing how people are prone to wrong choices because of unconscious algorithms.

[Julia36]

Sure, but that sort of presupposes that the organism can "choose". Why be conscious of the comparison of internal models and sensory data, if one cannot "do" anything with it?

 

 

 

Mixing perspectives: of the subject and of the objective system, and trying to argue jumping from from with the assumed axioms of he other ..ie making basic category mistakes.

 

Free will is a description of the person from their subjective states.

Not in objective descriptions.

 

It's not been clear from most educators that we use different models, and not one structure for describing things.

 

So you can say snow 'chooses' to fall off a roof, but there is no choice involved when you examine the particular process, you'll find it inevitable.

 

Choice is a shorthand.

 

It works if you stick to determinism where you can describe everything that you can observe and measure.

 

 

[platypus]

So why are people conscious? What is the point and how does "determinism" generate conscious experiences? 

[Julia36]

So why are people conscious? What is the point and how does "determinism" generate conscious experiences? 

 

 

 

So why are people conscious?

 

Must confer a survival advantage.

 

 

How does "determinism" generate conscious experiences?

Consciousness is a pre-science term for the workings of a brain that deasl with things like

 

• modelling the environment
• modelling yourself
• making predictions

 

As we are reverse engineered, measuring and scanning for working details, nested hierarchies and evolved sub-systems can be mapped of how we function.

It is conceivable that additional engineering can increase consciousness eg by adding brain to brain communication chips, by increasing brain capabilities with engineering to better model and predict the world, to calculate and image to further intensities.

 

 

Re: determinist v probability/some other model of how the world works giving consciousness....the model is just a way of looking at the fact.

We call the facts physical fact, which are movements of energy in our models. Everything is made of motion and energy.

 

Determinism is the view that everything exists by cause and effect, which is the law of motion.

 

There is a successful argument in Quantum Theory that everything exists by probabilities alone, and Causality is a poor model.

Both models are useful and are not in conflict, just different ways of viewing things, and best applied at different scales it seems.

 

What's the point?

 

If this is a general question, it has been answered in Existentialism, begun by

Kierkegaard ie you deal with angst by rational analysis and solution finding. By fear of death with finding a philosophical path eg Quantum Archaeology, a branch of de-extinction science, which probabilises resurrection via science and technology in the future .

 

Death by this view, is impossible, since the infinite future would always resurrect you.

 

• 1. List things that make you happy and do enough of them, minimising chores.
• 2.. Empdocles said happiness was only possible by living amongst friends, and longer life is seen in the groups who do eg the Okinawans.
• see also on this  :Top 5 Places for longevity

 

Those are pretty much true for me. There are other ways chartered: Some people find expanded consciousness enters areas studied in religion from the pre-science era.

 

 

Many paths to happiness. Observing yourself and deliberately structuring your world around what makes you happy is wise.

 

There is no intrinsic value I have found, only a self-referential looping.

 

 

 

Edited by the hanged man, 03 March 2016 - 04:06 PM.

[platypus]

How can consciousness generate a survival advantage if there are no real choices, but everything was decided at or before the Big Bang? In your model there's exactly zero benefit of being conscious of what one's brain is doing - so why are we conscious? 

[Julia36]

Conditional question? Usually an error in reasoning.

 

But true enough, a survival advantage can only be viewed retrospectively.

At the moment of split or mutation, the actions are indeed blind causation, and so they always are in Determinism.

The expression 'survival advantage' is a higher level description of what is going on from within evolution theory.

 

Attributing 'advantage' is short hand, perhaps misleading, for saying those mutations that the environment does kill or reduce, will continue, whilst the others clash with it and are wiped out.

 

Consciousness is itself causal. What it generates it never ab initio but part of a chain of inevitable events.

 

The difficulty is defining parameters as a calculus (provisional) to aid understanding.

 

We label certain processes as if they are separate, discrete 'things' when in fact they are dynamic interactions no beginning no end just constant change, like fractal patterns in a dynamic kaleidoscope.

 

It isn't all bad. Things may operate by laws.

 

That is a fundamental question, unsolved.

 

I prefer to think everything works according to laws, and this philosophy is highly successful.

 

I recall you think there are both laws and lawlessness. That may be but how would it be useful: if it was lawless it could not be talked about, for no existence is known that does not have something lawful eg can be observed because it has properties like it reflects light.

 

The onus is on you to show there are things that are lawless:)

Everything we can observe and measure is lawful, even in the quantum world which is predictable by probability.

The fact of existence involves motion and  energy in the universe.

 

Ancient peoples thought in terms of order and disorder, whereas we know there is just order and complexity which is still order.

 

Science and the age of reason is new, since the advent of farming with surplus and leisure,  but our early views still resonate and seem hardwired.

[Danail Bulgaria]

I have been thinking some times, that not only our choices, but the entire our brain work is determined. 

 

For example if a child is born with a Down syndroma, the child will be mentally retarded, and the workings of the childs brain will never be able to take the most correct choice, no matter what specialists you will use. And the Down syndroma is determined. It is genetic, and it involves trisomy of the 22-nd chromosome. 

 

How we think depends on how the neurons are connected within our brain. It is a neural network, that while works uses many laws - biochemical, electric, summings of the neurons. These are laws, that determine if the neuron will fire or not, it it fires they determine if it will activate the connected neuron or not. You may think, that you are taking a choice, but you may be simply following the rules, that govern your neural network. 

[platypus]

So it looks like consciousness - and in fact the complete human experience - is completely superfluous and useless, if one accepts the model that real choices do not exist. Nice!

Edited by platypus, 04 March 2016 - 10:00 AM.

[Danail Bulgaria]

Completely superfluous and useless? lol no  

 

Simply determinable per se, or calculatable, or whatever you name it. Simply can be predicted. If not now, then in the future, completely possible. 

[platypus]

Completely superfluous and useless? lol no  

So what is it useful for since it cannot change the behavior of the organism in any way, and therefore by definition it cannot bring an evolutionary advantage of any kind (only changes in behavior can affect evolutionary outcomes)?

[Danail Bulgaria]

I still can't understand the question. 

 

Taking a decision among several current options is usefull for survival, and maybe has been stimulated in the evolution, but this does not mean, that the decision can't be predicted. 

[platypus]

Why do we need to be conscious about the inner working of our brains? Why be conscious of "taking decisions" if freedom to choose is just an illusion? Are philosophical zombies impossible? 

[Danail Bulgaria]

I don't know. Neural networks can make decisions even without a consciousness. The consciousness seems to be a small bonus for us - to be happy and to enjoy life  

[platypus]

Oh the entire human experience is a "small bonus", heh heh. What if it's the other way around, i.e. evolution spent billions of years to give us this level of consciousness with the IMO accompanying increased capability to choose? In other words, perhaps the development consciousness and "free" will are a driving force in evolution, instead of consciousness being an unimportant sideshow with no tangible benefits?

[Danail Bulgaria]

The entire human experience is an important thing. Thanks to it the human kind still exists and it may overcome all possible obsticles and continue to exist. 

 

And lets say yes, the evolution has given us our brain capabilities. 

 

And it gave us the ability to choose between several current options the one, that the best will fit us. 

 

Everything that has played a role in the existence of homo sapiens. 

 

And all of this does not mean, that the consciousness can't be predicted and modelled with an artifitial neural network. 

 

Maybe some day after the human kind makes a computer, that can calculate thousands of brains thousands of times faster than our own brain, the usefullness of the human consciousness and the human mind will be lost. At this moment, however, it is still useful. 

[ceridwen]

Humans will not make such a computer. AI might.Also humans are not kind those 2 words next to each other are contradictory

[Danail Bulgaria]

Many artifitial neural networks are already constructed from people. There are softwares, that recognize speech, faces, text from scanned books. Making an artifitial neural network is a fact. Actually after taking a small course everyone can make some small neural network and axplore how it works. To be made bigger neural network, all its needed is more computer speed. And the computer speed is rising. It is plausable that some day the people will create a neural network big enough to simmulate an entire human brain. 

 

why human + kind is impossible? We are a biological specie. 

 

[ceridwen]

I want to correct your English. Would it help?

[platypus]

The entire human experience is an important thing. Thanks to it the human kind still exists and it may overcome all possible obsticles and continue to exist. 

 

And lets say yes, the evolution has given us our brain capabilities. 

 

And it gave us the ability to choose between several current options the one, that the best will fit us. 

I agree completely. However, the hanged man believes in total determinism that makes consciousness unnecessary and superfluous. Funny, that. 

[Julia36]

>>The entire human experience is an important thing.<<

 

ROTFL

 

 

That's the opposite of science for me! Though a humanist position, some religions are extreme humanist.

 

Humans are small events in the infinite fabric of the cosmos, but important to themselves, as other species, and dominant on the earth above certain sizes, over other forms. We may even get domination of the world, the galaxy, even the universe or many universes with coming technology. But to dominate the infinities, past cosmic membranes

(as far as we've calculated) from which universes bubble off

looks more difficult. And if we did, I fancy infinite regression and ever bigger cosmic sizes would be found...for ever...if time is a good way of viewing things:

 

M-theory - Wiki

 

Re Probability Vs Determinism

 

I see them as the same thing.

 

We make predictions, like the earth will go round the sun next year....well it may....but an asteroid could hit it and then it doesn't.

 

So predictions are probabilistic in full, but cause and effect in general.

If you can do probability statistics as well as in Quantum science, then the whole world can be explained probabilistically.

The calculations in QT are impressive.

Models have different best applicabilities. Some are great for the large, some are great for the small, and some are great for the human mind.

 

When we can figure all the vast variables in the quantum world, we can apply cause and effect there.

I doubt humans alone could do it because of its complexity.

 

But with A.I. that may be possible 

 

AGI must be built safely: it will do many things we can do, but faster.  Then safe Superintelligence, which will do things beyond what we can conceive or imagine, including making a TARDIS in your apartment on to your own universe.

 

 

As long as those kinds of machine intelligence are safe they will be invaluable tools.

They may not be the last tools, but 2 or an infinite number as we change our nature.

 

through all this law of physics will exist.

Law structure the small and the big and absolutely structure the mind of man as well.

 

The quest of physics is to get to know them.

 

Any event that can be spoken of, necessarily affects other events.

That is the law of Causation.#

 

In an hierarchical way, a group of events can be be said to behave in a general way.

That is the law of probability.#

 

In the quantum world we cant know what's happening because of the vast data, so we make probability predictions.

 

There is no difference between the big and small, just one gets stuck in your teeth, but the other is big to get i9n youjr mouth.

 

 

 

So I argue that probability and causation are different tools for complexity levels, and with enough particular knowledge you can assemble and disassemble anything.

 

anything possible. and that includes anything that has ever been (with enough knowledge.

 

The world is a lego set.

 

 

[Danail Bulgaria]

Why you don't think,that the entire human experience is not important? It includes all of the sciences and everything, that has been found or built by people. Even the determinism, on which you are building your views, also has been created from a human. The formulas, that some day may be used to calculate backwards the world are accumulated human knowledge from many sciences.

Edited by seivtcho, 09 March 2016 - 08:31 PM.

[Julia36]

Why you don't think,that the entire human experience is not important? It includes all of the sciences and everything, that has been found or built by people. Even the determinism, on which you are building your views, also has been created from a human. The formulas, that some day may be used to calculate backwards the world are accumulated human knowledge from many sciences.

 

I do. I had forgotten that perspective:)

I am exploring the notion that everything possible can be described by science.

And try top cross read stuff.

The place is big.