Free Will

[Sriram]

Hi everyone,

Nice video on Free Will.

https://www.bbc.com/reel/video/p086k2xk/the-strange-idea-that-we-are-not-in-control-of-our-minds

Cheers.

Sriram

[torridon]

The title of the film, "the strange idea that we are not in control of our minds", that alone, speaks volumes; that anybody would find it strange is a measure of how ingrained the notion of dualism still is.  The desire to control something is a feature of mind, ie it is therefore a feature of itself, and the notion is circular.

[Stranger]

Nice video on Free Will.

https://www.bbc.com/reel/video/p086k2xk/the-strange-idea-that-we-are-not-in-control-of-our-minds

I thought it was rather trite really. It seemed to be unsure even how it was defining free will. As somebody said in it; if you want to define free will as using conscious deliberation, then yes, it probably exists. That kind of skips over the issue though. As the endless discussion in the "Searching for God" thread shows, many people want to define it more along the lines of being able to have done differently (without any difference being random) which is simply incoherent.

It's the first in a series - the second one being about physics. I may well watch that later and comment further.

[Sriram]

We usually think that the conscious mind (wakeful awareness) is the free will.  If as Libet says, the unconscious mind takes decisions before the conscious mind is aware of it....that itself is enough to suggest that free will exits. The unconscious mind is not different from us.

In fact, the unconscious mind is what we really are IMO.  The conscious mind  is merely the process or mechanism by which the body is activated and made to do  its task.   Our identification with the conscious wakeful awareness, is the illusion.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

We usually think that the conscious mind (wakeful awareness) is the free will.  If as Libet says, the unconscious mind takes decisions before the conscious mind is aware of it....that itself is enough to suggest that free will exits.

That’s a non sequitur It doesn’t suggest “free” will in the non-deterministic sense at all.

The unconscious mind is not different from us.

Depends what you mean by “us” here, but essentially that’s right. There’s no good reason to assume “we” are other than our physical selves. 

In fact, the unconscious mind is what we really are IMO.  The conscious mind  is merely the process or mechanism by which the body is activated and made to do  its task.

Not really. The “conscious mind” – ie, the pre-frontal cortex – is the “executive” function. It manages reflexive behaviours like planning, decision-making, problem-solving, self-control, and acting with long-term goals in mind. Patients who suffer damage to the prefrontal cortex can still though display normal movement, sensory perception and intelligence.
 
They also suffer though deficiencies in the executive functions, along with personality changes, abnormalities in emotional responses, and general difficulties with functioning in their daily lives.

Our identification with the conscious wakeful awareness, is the illusion.

“Free” will in the colloquial sense of that term is the “illusion”.

[ekim]

In fact, the unconscious mind is what we really are IMO.  The conscious mind  is merely the process or mechanism by which the body is activated and made to do  its task.   Our identification with the conscious wakeful awareness, is the illusion.

I take it that you don't agree with the Advaita Vedanta view that the state of Turiya (pure consciousness)is what needs to be realised as the foundational Self or Atman.

[Sriram]

I don't subscribe to any specific labels or schools.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

I don't subscribe to any specific labels or schools.

"Woo" is a label.

[ippy]

Didn't 'Our Lord On High Hitch' sum up free will when he said, 'I have free will because I haven't got a choice'.

I have to admit after I heard him saying that it makes me think the argument for the idea has more to do with semantics rather than anything else it might have to do with reality.

ippy.

[Nearly Sane]

Didn't 'Our Lord On High Hitch' sum up free will when he said, 'I have free will because I haven't got a choice'.

I have to admit after I heard him saying that it makes me think the argument for the idea has more to do with semantics rather than anything else it might have to do with reality.

ippy.

I don't know the quote from Hitchens but it does sound very like this from Isaac Bashevis Singer

"We must believe in free will, we have no choice."

I think the point is that on a day today level, it's not a useful debate. In some contexts, it has impact.

[Sriram]

Sriram,

"Woo" is a label.

I know it is for you. And that is the problem....!   Microscopic thinking always focuses on labels and segregation. 

[Enki]

I know it is for you. And that is the problem....!   Microscopic thinking always focuses on labels and segregation.

Like your fixation with the label, 'scientism', for instance? 

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

I know it is for you. And that is the problem....!

Microscopic thinking always focuses on labels and segregation.

It’s not “the” problem, it’s your problem. Whether or not you call your various assertions and speculations “big picture” doesn’t remove your problem of there being no means to investigate or verify them. You might want to start with that rather than dismiss people who don’t just take your word for it for their supposed “microscopic thinking”. There's nothing "microscopic" about rationalism. 

[Sriram]

The physics of free will.....

https://www.bbc.com/reel/video/p086tg3k/the-physics-that-suggests-we-have-no-free-will

So...we are not really very sure if predeterminism is a fact or not...

Trying to understand everything in terms of physics is itself rather naive.

[Stranger]

The physics of free will.....

https://www.bbc.com/reel/video/p086tg3k/the-physics-that-suggests-we-have-no-free-will

So...we are not really very sure if predeterminism is a fact or not...

No, but if the universe is not deterministic, then some things must be undetermined, i.e. random, which really doesn't help with most notions of free will.

Trying to understand everything in terms of physics is itself rather naive.

True - but if you want to ask fundamental questions about what sort of things can or can't happen in the universe, then physics is the subject you need.

[Sriram]

Physics and mathematics are now examining more complex phenomena than matter. 

https://grin.news/why-the-universe-might-be-conscious-e4f8c4f6432e

***********

This is a pathbreaking conversation with Dr. Johannes Kleiner, a mathematician and physicist at the Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy. He works at the cutting edge of an ever urgent question — is the universe conscious? He explains to Grin why the answer could well be, yes.

In the previous thirty years, many ideas have been put forward for how models of consciousness could be constructed. Some are based on empirical results from neuroscience or psychology, others are based on purely theoretical ideas. The vast majority of these models is not mathematical in nature, but rather formulated in terms of ordinary (scientific) language. However, in the recent decade, some models have been proposed that are more formal in nature, among them a model called ‘Integrated Information Theory’, which is very successful.

Mathematical models of consciousness allow us to calculate the conscious experience of all sorts of systems. And while a final verdict is still pending of which model of consciousness describes reality correctly, it is a possibility that the universe as a whole has some conscious experience.

The more integrated a system’s information processing is, the more consciousness it has.

************


Someone wanted to know what I mean by New Science.  Well..... now you know.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

The physics of free will.....

https://www.bbc.com/reel/video/p086tg3k/the-physics-that-suggests-we-have-no-free-will

So...we are not really very sure if predeterminism is a fact or not...

We’re not “really sure” about anything. 

Trying to understand everything in terms of physics is itself rather naive.

Relativity and quantum mechanics are still both physics. In any case, “naïve” or not, physics is all we have at least to attempt the job. If you have some other process to justify your beliefs though, then why not tell us what it is?   

[Stranger]

Physics and mathematics are now examining more complex phenomena than matter. 

https://grin.news/why-the-universe-might-be-conscious-e4f8c4f6432e

...

Someone wanted to know what I mean by New Science.  Well..... now you know.

Yet another link about integrated information theory. It isn't particularly new (it was proposed in 2004), it is entirely speculative, and I don't think it really says what you want it to.

[Sriram]

Back to your comfort zone then......

[Stranger]

Back to your comfort zone then......

Oh, the irony. IIT is interesting speculation that I have no problem with. The big problem is actually testing it. It is rather you that keep clinging to a comfort zone - specifically of thinking that you know things about consciousness and trying to twist every article that looks like it might match what you 'know'.

I suggest escaping from it and just accepting that there are things we just don't know, and many people, with many different approaches, trying to work them out.

[Sriram]

Consciousness can be known only subjectively because it is the ultimate source of all subjectivity and personal experience.

Objective attempts at studying it can only help by pointing out the limitations in our current understanding of consciousness as merely a product of brain chemistry.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

Back to your comfort zone then......

The only "comfort zone" on display here is your own - you continue to assert your various conjectures and speculations to be facts, but never manage to propose a method to investigate them. There are two possible responses to this:

1. Do not accept your claims of fact just on your say-so pending some means to investigate and verify them; or

2. Accept all epistemically equivalent claims of fact (unicorns, aliens on Alpha Centauri, whatever) as true too.

Option 2 is incoherent, so that leaves only option 1.

QED   

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

Consciousness can be known only subjectively because it is the ultimate source of all subjectivity and personal experience.

Objective attempts at studying it can only help by pointing out the limitations in our current understanding of consciousness as merely a product of brain chemistry.

None of which gives you licence to assert anything else you like about consciousness and call it a fact.   

[Sriram]

Since consciousness is basically subjective, it cannot be observed or examined objectively. So, the constant attempt to find objective empirical evidence is a non-starter.

We have to therefore find ways of integrating experiential aspects of life with objective aspects. 

The dubbing of all experiential phenomena as imaginary and unreliable, needs to change. We have to learn to separate the noise from the real phenomena.

[Stranger]

Since consciousness is basically subjective, it cannot be observed or examined objectively. So, the constant attempt to find objective empirical evidence is a non-starter.

We have to therefore find ways of integrating experiential aspects of life with objective aspects. 

The dubbing of all experiential phenomena as imaginary and unreliable, needs to change. We have to learn to separate the noise from the real phenomena.

One thing we can objectively test is how reliable the concious (subjective) mind is with regard to its perception of the objective world. The answer being very unreliable, easily distracted from important details, prone to endless biases and preconceived ideas, very easily fooled, and so on, and so on.

If we then add that to all the endless claims of phenomena that seem to exist only in the subjective or magically disappear when subjected to objective tests, that these claims often give contradictory views of the world, and all we can really conclude is that we can't reliably conclude anything at all if all we can rely on is the subjective.