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Poll: Do you have free will?
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YES, I DO have free will, in the sense that it is ultimately up to me, or ultimately my choice, which actions I take and when.
59.38%
19 59.38%
NO, I do NOT have free will, in the sense that it is NOT ultimately up to me, and NOT ultimately my choice, which actions I take and when.
40.63%
13 40.63%
Total 32 vote(s) 100%
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Does free will exist?

Does free will exist?
(09-29-2019, 07:32 PM)Bucky Ball Wrote:
(09-29-2019, 03:26 PM)Free Wrote:
(09-29-2019, 04:49 AM)Bucky Ball Wrote: No wonder you believe in the historical Jesus. 
I can imagine he had a pet pink sparkly unicorn, so it must be true. 
ROFL2

Welcome to the good ship "Miss Under Stand," the failboat of comprehension.

ROFL2

Nice "retort" there sparky ... it is not a response to what YOU posted. Are you taking lessons from Drich ?

How is it not a response to what "I" posted? It's addressed to me and quotes me.

Facepalm
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Does free will exist?
(09-29-2019, 08:50 PM)Free Wrote:
(09-29-2019, 07:32 PM)Bucky Ball Wrote:
(09-29-2019, 03:26 PM)Free Wrote: Welcome to the good ship "Miss Under Stand," the failboat of comprehension.

ROFL2

Nice "retort" there sparky ... it is not a response to what YOU posted. Are you taking lessons from Drich ?

How is it not a response to what "I" posted? It's addressed to me and quotes me.

Facepalm

So ... you are taking lessons from him. 
How did it go when you told the Nobel Committee you had discovered the GUT ?
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Does free will exist?
(09-29-2019, 04:47 PM)Alan V Wrote: ...
the brain functions underlying our conscious decision-making process are completely material
...
Some variety of free will exists which is not completely dependent on material causes.  
...

Not quite.

Try this...

Some component of decision making is non-material. 

If we don't have a pinned-down definition of 'free-will' then how useful is it to talk about varieties of free will?

Using a light switch as an analogy... the switch is material and can be on or off ... the technology is material; the dark is not.

Or, again, using Information Technology as an analogy... the technology is material; the information is not.

And then there's a dimmer switch, which gives us degrees of non-material darkness or lightness. 

To use the earlier quote from Koch and Hepp, 2006:
"... Two key biophysical operations underlie information processing in the brain: chemical transmission across the synaptic cleft, and the generation of action potentials."

So, two parts:
1. The transmission is possible or it is not
The connectors / circuitry is there or it is not
The switch is on or it's off
Technology is working or it is not
Sense data is available or it is not
The service is available or it is not 

2. Given that the service, tech components, (switch, router, network, connectors, circuitry) are all functioning then... how much?
How well are they working?  To what capacity?  What are the thresholds? 

So this is about the biophysical operations utilising transistors and capacitors (which are material) to enable or constrain information (which is non-material).
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Does free will exist?
Quote:Some variety of free will exists which is not completely dependent on material causes.

.... and the moon is made of green cheese.
There is not one shred of evidence for that unsupported assertion.
It's nothing but woo, and there is nothing that has been presented to support it.

There was another assertion (without any evidence presented) that something about "life" was also more than "material".
Nothing but woo.

Turns out some here are woo-meisters.
Oh well.
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Does free will exist?
(09-30-2019, 12:02 AM)DLJ Wrote: the technology is material; the information is not.

The information is material also. 
In order for it to even be "information" data has to be read and interpreted, and that is done by physical brains processing, ... in light of what is materially stored in them by physical molecules,
laid down by learning and memory, (which makes neuronal connections) ... physical neuronal connections. A totally physical process. There is nothing immaterial about any of it, and no evidence for the claim.

The information is material, ("concepts" or "facts" or "ideas' which are physically stored in brains and other repositories), which can be shared or learned, both physical processes. There is no woo-woo level of immaterial anything.

If someone who is mathematically illiterate sees data that is arranged as math, it is not (even) "information" for that brain, ....
which does not contain the required (physical) neuronal connections needed to interpret it, which were never laid down by (physical) memory creation,
which are created by learning, (a physical brain process).

There is no such thing as an "idea" or "information" floating around in the ether, which is immaterial.
Information or interpretations of it are what is physically stored in various ways, and referenced by physical methods. It does not and cannot exist "immaterially".

The memories which are referenced in cognition are 100 % physical, and the reference of them is becoming understood.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/light-tri...-20171214/
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Does free will exist?
(09-30-2019, 12:02 AM)DLJ Wrote: If we don't have a pinned-down definition of 'free-will' then how useful is it to talk about varieties of free will?

And then you answered your own question:

(09-30-2019, 12:02 AM)DLJ Wrote: And then there's a dimmer switch, which gives us degrees of non-material darkness or lightness.

I imagine, like most things in the real world, that free will is a matter of degrees.  This especially may be so considering that decision-making is an art rather than a science.  The uncertainties of perception are such that some information is always missing, and must be filled in with imaginings or speculations based on experience. In other words, in terms of our actions, it's better to be generally right than very specifically wrong.

So I don't want the definition of free will to be any more exact than the rather vague information we have about it so far.  That's why I have consistently objected to any more definitive answers.  People like me, who like tackling problems from a generalist's perspective, want to get the proportions of the sketch filled in correctly before I concentrate too much on the details.  Otherwise the likeness will be off.
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Does free will exist?
(09-30-2019, 01:37 AM)Alan V Wrote: The information may be captured digitally, spread across networks of neurons.  But the uncertainties of perception are such that some information is always missing, and must be filled in with imaginings or speculations based on experience.  In other words, in terms of our actions, it's better to be generally right than very specifically wrong.

The process of "speculation" and "imaginings" to fill in missing information comes from experience, which is nothing but the pool of past "learned memories" which are laid down physically in molecular and genetic structures. The information remains digital.

Dualism used to be an explanation for how brains worked before they had tools available to see how the brains worked. With our current understanding of the brain, dualism is debunked.
They can see using EEG how certain specific groups of neurons activate when thinking and performing other tasks and visualizing objects. They know from physics that the conservation of energy doesn't allow physical objects to be affected by nothing, .... energy must be conserved.

If dualism were to be true, it would have to take the form of neurons to even have any effect on the physical body, making it materialistic, anyway.Sorry. Dualism is a thing of the past. Get over it.
There is nothing missing in neuro-biology that requires the superfluous introduction of any non-physical entity or concept to explain what is observed.
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Does free will exist?
(09-29-2019, 02:32 PM)Alan V Wrote:
(09-29-2019, 01:14 PM)DLJ Wrote: Would you be averse to a couple of diagrams that might narrow down what 'free will' might be in information governance terms?  Not the algorithms, I wouldn't do that to you.

Sure, that would be interesting -- though I likely won't understand all of it.

Cool.  OK, first one:

John Searle (of Chinese Room fame) in a few lectures I've seen, states (and I paraphrase): Raise your arm.  You want your arm to go up and it goes up.  What's the problem?

He's wrong.  Try it.  Focus all your 'conscious' attention on your arm and 'will' it to go up.  It won't.  

Therefore, there is no direct control over motion (behaviour) by the 'will' (the 'intent' thoughts).  From 'want to' to 'action' is not guaranteed.

It's a bit like a governing body that decides upon a policy (sets direction) but the workers might ignore it unless they are sufficiently incentivised (positively or negatively; rewards or penalties).   

Yet, that direction-setting capability is evident... i.e. choosing to do things (or not) based on wisdom, knowledge, information gleaned from data.  And of course, the quality of those directional instructions is dependent on the availability of and the quality of that data.  

So, if we break that down, what would it look like?  Something like this:

[Image: Consciousness-is-Presentation.jpg]

(Note: the diagram is adapted from Information Governance best practice: COBIT5.  From the original, I have changed 'Business' to 'Busyness' to make it applicable to a single organism (rather than an organisation) that needs to keep busy to survive and I have added 'Present' because I have a personal issue with the word 'Monitor' because it really means, "monitored information is presented to" or "Governance monitors Management" depending on the direction of the arrow).

So that's the diagram that indicates the 'top down' information flow.  However, we evolved 'bottom up'. 

Imagine a simple organism (our ancestor) that is capable of monitoring its environments (internal and external)... this is represented by the box at the bottom right: Monitor (MEA).  It has evolved, via natural selection, four objectives:
1. Its comfort zone:  Defining assurance and thresholds for fight, freeze and flight
2. External controls:  Capabilities for receiving and responding to external sense data (light sensitive cells, movement detectors etc.)
3. Internal controls:  Capabilities for receiving and responding to internal sense data (pain, hunger etc.)
4. Performance vs. Conformance:  Capabilities for determining whether fight, freeze or flight is the appropriate response to a threatening (discomfort) stimulus.  

(Side note: There are 40 of these objectives in the best practice manuals and each can be further broken down (explained, not reduced) into processes and algorithms and metrics etc. etc.  And yes, to get my qualifications I've had to learn them all.  But relax, I'm not going to that level of detail (unless you want me to))

On the path to becoming homo sapiens these capabilities have evolved (from Monitor to Run to Build to Plan to Govern) into group identities, social and internal immune systems (including ethics and morals) and survival (continuity) strategies as we have developed tools to move from monitoring our environments to controlling our environments (internal and external; present and future).

Second one:
If the above represents the information flows, what about the structure that underpins those flows?

I've mentioned before about the triune brain and that we should really be considering the whole (information) system(s) and not just the brain but let's take that evolutionary path and apply it to the above diagram.

The very earliest 'brain' was the stomach-brain, in that we were food processing machines long before we became information processing machines.  But once we'd started developing rudimentary nervous systems the triune model can be applied:
- Run (Operate)
- Management of Run (Operations)
- Governance of Management of Run (Operations) 

[Image: GMO-OMG.png]

(Note: again, the diagram is adapted from Information Governance best practice: COBIT5.  You can see the bits I've adapted, I'm sure)

We evolved from Operations and Execution machines to 
Managed Operations and Execution machines to 
Governed and Managed Operations and Execution machines.
O -> M -> G

Intelligent design is of course G -> M -> O  Big Grin


The Governing Body is reacting to input from its internal and external environments so for an individual the Owners and Stakeholders would include:
Internal:  Your genes and the bacteria that lives in symbiosis within you. 
External:  Partner(s), children, friends, your boss, your slave-owner (if you have one), and any organisation with which you are affiliated (company, state, religion, football club etc.). 

Of course, many of these external affiliations may be in conflict with each other e.g. state vs. religion or in my case...
Wales beat Australia in the Rugby World Cup yesterday.
I was born in England (although I've never identified as such, unless it irritates Murikans) 
My father is Welsh but I have only visited and not lived there.
I lived in Sydney for a couple of years and still get a sense of 'coming home' when I visit there but I don't identify as an Aussie.
Australian Rugby decided to reprimand a player recently who was openly anti same sex marriage (for god reasons) and had he been playing I think it possible that Oz would have beaten Wales so as an atheist and a supporter of equal rights it would have been pleasing to see Oz beat Wales without him. 
So where should my loyalties lie?  
Despite this rationalisation, I had no choice.  I found myself supporting Wales (against my will). 

So, when we talk about will, free will and how those relate to conscious decisions, what are we really talking about from a system perspective?

Will (or won't) is about policy / direction setting.  It is the 'Direct' on the first diagram and it is 'Set Direction' on the second diagram.  

Consciousness is akin to the Governance Dashboard i.e. the prioritised* knowledge (actionable information) that is presented by management ('Present' in both diagrams) and then evaluated ('Evaluate' in the first diagram).  Almost nothing of the raw data or information that is churning around in the Management and Operations spaces will be visible to the Governing Body.  
* priority = impact x urgency. 

And free will?  A useful illusion.  

Why is it useful?  Because we have evolved another useful illusion:  Essence / Agency.  

By imbuing / projecting / subjectifiying living creatures with agency / essence we distinguish between those that are of potential threat or of potential benefit to us and our comfort zone / assurance and those that are not. 
These entities have wills (and won'ts) conditioned by their own personal internal and external stakeholders but only the illusion of free will.  

It is useful to be able to predict the behaviour of these agents and it is as useful to have an in-built presumption that agents will behave unpredictably i.e. that they are free.
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Does free will exist?
(09-30-2019, 01:37 AM)Alan V Wrote:
(09-30-2019, 12:02 AM)DLJ Wrote: If we don't have a pinned-down definition of 'free-will' then how useful is it to talk about varieties of free will?

And then you answered your own question:

(09-30-2019, 12:02 AM)DLJ Wrote: And then there's a dimmer switch, which gives us degrees of non-material darkness or lightness.

Hehehe.  No. 

I'm more than happy to discuss 'degrees of' and 'varieties of' anything that has been defined even if that thing is imaginary.

I have asserted above that 'free will' is a useful illusion... so no problem talking about degrees of usefulness and varieties of illusion.
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(09-30-2019, 01:06 AM)Bucky Ball Wrote:
(09-30-2019, 12:02 AM)DLJ Wrote: the technology is material; the information is not.

The information is material also. 
In order for it to even be "information" data has to be read and interpreted, and that is done by physical brains processing, ...  in light of what is materially stored in them by physical molecules,
laid down by learning and memory, (which makes neuronal connections) ... physical neuronal connections. A totally physical process. There is nothing immaterial about any of it, and no evidence for the claim.

The information is material, ("concepts" or "facts" or "ideas' which are physically stored in brains and other repositories), which can be shared or learned, both physical processes. There is no woo-woo level of immaterial anything.

If someone who is mathematically illiterate sees data that is arranged as math, it is not (even) "information" for that brain, ....
which does not contain the required (physical) neuronal connections needed to interpret it, which were never laid down by (physical) memory creation,
which are created by learning, (a physical brain process).

There is no such thing as an "idea" or "information" floating around in the ether, which is immaterial.
Information or interpretations of it are what is physically stored in various ways, and referenced by physical methods. It does not and cannot exist "immaterially".

The memories which are referenced in cognition are 100 % physical, and the reference of them is becoming understood.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/light-tri...-20171214/

Apart from the assertion that "information is material" neither your comments nor the article are at odds with my position. 

In particular... Data and "Information or interpretations of it ... does not and cannot exist "immaterially"." Correct.  One cannot store data without a storage device and one cannot transmit or receive data without a transmitter or a receiver.  

A cat can be either on or off (with the exception of Schrödinger's cat which is both on and off).  Everything about that is material except for the state of on-ness or off-ness. 
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Your post no doubt contains all sorts of useful information, especially on the specialist level.  I will have to go over it again later to understand it better.

However, it misses several points about the big picture.

(09-30-2019, 04:25 AM)DLJ Wrote: John Searle (of Chinese Room fame) in a few lectures I've seen, states (and I paraphrase): Raise your arm.  You want your arm to go up and it goes up.  What's the problem?

He's wrong.  Try it.  Focus all your 'conscious' attention on your arm and 'will' it to go up.  It won't.  

Your objection is based on a misunderstanding in my opinion. Searle was correct.

My father was an amateur hypnotist. One of his tricks was to talk to a person in such a way that she lifted her arm without using her conscious volition. That seems a good argument for a lack of any conscious control, but it isn't. In fact, it is just the reverse. My father just inserted his own consciousness into the loop. Without having any direct physical control of her arm, he suggested that it was going to lift up without her doing it. Through repetition, that suggestion was taken as a command by the underlying habitual system, which responds to such conscious suggestions.

The management level doesn't have to do anything but issue commands, and the habitual level will respond, like so many good workers, if it is possible for them to do so.

So there are indeed times when our arms are raised consciously. All we have to do is make the suggestion to a habitual process.

Now take breathing as another example. We typically pay no attention to it; it runs on automatic, so some non-conscious process in the brain controls it. But we can control it when we hold our breath under water, at least for a while. So the control mechanism can be shifted in the brain when required.

You are over-extrapolating from limited information.

(09-30-2019, 04:25 AM)DLJ Wrote: And free will?  A useful illusion.  

Now you are failing at semantics, if you are hung up on whether free will is actually free. Freedom is a completely different idea. As I like to repeat, I have free will even if I only have two bad choices.
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(09-30-2019, 10:33 AM)Alan V Wrote: Your post no doubt contains all sorts of useful information, especially on the specialist level.  I will have to go over it again later to understand it better.  

However, it misses several points about the big picture.

(09-30-2019, 04:25 AM)DLJ Wrote: John Searle (of Chinese Room fame) in a few lectures I've seen, states (and I paraphrase): Raise your arm.  You want your arm to go up and it goes up.  What's the problem?

He's wrong.  Try it.  Focus all your 'conscious' attention on your arm and 'will' it to go up.  It won't.  

Your objection is based on a misunderstanding in my opinion.  Searle was correct.

My father was an amateur hypnotist.  One of his tricks was to talk to a person in such a way that she lifted her arm without using her conscious volition.  That seems a good argument for a lack of any conscious control, but it isn't.  In fact, it is just the reverse.  My father just inserted his own consciousness into the loop.  Without having any direct physical control of her arm, he suggested that it was going to lift up without her doing it.  Through repetition, that suggestion was taken as a command by the underlying habitual system, which responds to such conscious suggestions.

The management level doesn't have to do anything but issue commands, and the habitual level will respond, like so many good workers, if it is possible for them to do so.

So there are indeed times when our arms are raised consciously.  All we have to do is make the suggestion to a habitual process, and it works a lot quicker.

Now take breathing as another example.  We typically pay no attention to it; it runs on automatic, so some non-conscious process in the brain controls it.  But we can control it when we hold our breath under water, at least for a while.  So the control mechanism can be shifted in the brain when required.

You are over-extrapolating from limited information.

(09-30-2019, 04:25 AM)DLJ Wrote: And free will?  A useful illusion.  

Now you are failing at semantics, if you are hung up on whether free will is actually free.  Freedom is a completely different idea.  As I like to repeat, I have free will even if I only have two bad choices.

I don't see this as a contradiction.  My point was that conscious thought alone was not enough.  As you say, the management level issues commands, and the habitual (operations, the workers) level will respond.  That's the point.  

I know it's semantics but it's the 'free' part that is the issue, not the 'will' (or won't) part.  'Free will' is not the same 'decision-making' or 'choice'.  

I had not considered hypnotism at all.  Thanks for that.  I do wonder how that works from an information processing perspective.  Food for thought.  I remember now that when I was young I used to talk in my sleep a lot and people would say that they often had entirely coherent conversations with me, of which I remembered nothing on waking.  I wonder if that's similar.
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(09-30-2019, 11:01 AM)DLJ Wrote: I don't see this as a contradiction.  My point was that conscious thought alone was not enough.  As you say, the management level issues commands, and the habitual (operations, the workers) level will respond.  That's the point.  

I know it's semantics but it's the 'free' part that is the issue, not the 'will' (or won't) part.  'Free will' is not the same 'decision-making' or 'choice'.  

It's looks like I'll have to read what you wrote a couple times then.  I'll have to get back to you.
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(09-30-2019, 11:01 AM)DLJ Wrote: I know it's semantics but it's the 'free' part that is the issue, not the 'will' (or won't) part.  'Free will' is not the same 'decision-making' or 'choice'.  

According to Bucky, the "will" part was in question as well. But I'm glad I only have to argue the "free" part with you.

According to Google, "free will" is "the power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate; the ability to act at one's own discretion." That sounds like free and conscious choice-making to me.

You may recall the definitions for free will which Philosopher Alfred Mele offered, based on public surveys. We can drop the supernatural one (number 1) from consideration:
2) An ambitious concept is that free will is a deep openness to more than one option. In other words, even if all circumstances were the same a person could still decide differently.
3) A more modest concept is that free will means making consciously reasoned decisions without undue forces determining those decisions. Some say this is too modest, though it is still one of the most popular definitions in common usage.

And by the way, just because one is consciously reasoning doesn't mean one will do it well. People make bad choices all the time, and mentally ill people sometimes make choices with no reference to realities at all. As an example, Dr. Hobson told me the story of one of his psychiatric patients who ran down the hall and tried to leap through one of those windows in a door with wire mesh embedded in it. His face was lacerated for his effort. But I mention this to show the extremes of freedom possible for free will, when it drops its references to external realities.

What other definition of free will do you have in mind? (I have no problem with the idea that free will could be impossible if someone stipulates a special definition that makes it impossible, but why bother unless one can't address common usage?)

I'm still thinking about your longer post.
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Neither Google nor Alfred Mele are experts in any way in neuro-science and decision making.

Surveys are worthless ... surveys are not how science is done.

Science by survey is basically the ad populum fallacy, in action.

The concept of free will is worthless and meaningless as it does not take into account the VAST influence which unconscious and subconscious elements have on choices, (proven over and over in this thread).

This entire argument and concept is a left-over from the distant past when neuroscience didn't know what it knows now, nor have the tools it has now.
"Free" is inaccurate, and "will" is an ancient meaningless term. Used together they are undefined and signify nothing. There is no possible coherent definition of "free will".
https://www.psychologistworld.com/cognit...ice-theory
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(09-29-2019, 06:30 PM)Free Wrote:
(09-29-2019, 05:12 PM)SYZ Wrote: I sometimes imagine I have an 8½" penis.

Then the non-demonstrable image in your mind of your 8.5" penis exists in reality the same way as your demonstrable 2.5" penis exists on your body.

Uh... that 2½" is its diameter mate!      Big Grin
I'm a creationist;   I believe that man created God.
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(09-30-2019, 05:01 PM)Bucky Ball Wrote: Surveys are worthless ... surveys are not how science is done.

Science by survey is basically the ad populum fallacy, in action...

Totally wrong.  And scientific surveys have nothing to do with an any argumentum ad populum.

National Science Foundation, To Trust or Not?

(the NSF funds approximately 24% of all Federally supported basic research conducted by
the United States' colleges and universities. In some fields, such as mathematics, computer
science, economics, and the social sciences, the NSF is the major source of federal backing.)
I'm a creationist;   I believe that man created God.
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(09-30-2019, 06:28 PM)SYZ Wrote:
(09-30-2019, 05:01 PM)Bucky Ball Wrote: Surveys are worthless ... surveys are not how science is done.

Science by survey is basically the ad populum fallacy, in action...

Totally wrong.  And scientific surveys have nothing to do with an any argumentum ad populum.

National Science Foundation, To Trust or Not?

(the NSF funds approximately 24% of all Federally supported basic research conducted by
the United States' colleges and universities. In some fields, such as mathematics, computer
science, economics, and the social sciences, the NSF is the major source of federal backing.)

Further down this rabbit hole.

The survey in question was done by a philosopher and he had no scientific survey method.
He asked general members of the public.
One does not determine how brains work by surveying the general public about their (uneducated) opinions.
So yeah ... surveys of the public who are uneducated in neuro-science is not how neuro-science is done, and they are totally worthless.
What the public thinks about the neuro-science of decision making is irrelevant to the actual study of the subject.

From a review of Mele's book " Free: Why Science Hasn't Disproved Free Will"
"In chapter one, Mele explains what he means by "free will" and describes a sort of "light", "medium", and "heavy" version of it. The light version is something like what philosophers call Compatibilism; you are able to make rational and informed decisions so long as you are not subject to coercion. The medium variation is closer to what philosophers call "libertarian free will"; multiple options are not only open to your future, but you could choose any of them even in situations where the prior and current conditions would not change. The last is heavy not because it is in some sense more free than the medium but because it is tied to God and an individual's soul which, in this case, is supposed to have powers not stemming from our make up as biological beings resting on a purely physical foundation. Dr. Mele is non-committal on the subject of souls, but he says that he isn't going to discuss that sort of freedom limiting himself to more materialistic conceptions."
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(09-30-2019, 04:25 AM)DLJ Wrote: Imagine a simple organism (our ancestor) that is capable of monitoring its environments (internal and external)... this is represented by the box at the bottom right: Monitor (MEA).  It has evolved, via natural selection, four objectives:
1. Its comfort zone:  Defining assurance and thresholds for fight, freeze and flight
2. External controls:  Capabilities for receiving and responding to external sense data (light sensitive cells, movement detectors etc.)
3. Internal controls:  Capabilities for receiving and responding to internal sense data (pain, hunger etc.)
4. Performance vs. Conformance:  Capabilities for determining whether fight, freeze or flight is the appropriate response to a threatening (discomfort) stimulus.  

(Side note: There are 40 of these objectives in the best practice manuals and each can be further broken down (explained, not reduced) into processes and algorithms and metrics etc. etc.  And yes, to get my qualifications I've had to learn them all.  But relax, I'm not going to that level of detail (unless you want me to))

No, you don't have to go into the details, since I will concede they exist and have parallels with how the brain functions.

In general, I like the analogy of such a hierarchy with how the brain operates, since there is information processing at every level by human beings.  That's a big improvement over a computer analogy, which is purely mechanical.

I would like to emphasize two points.  First, just because the human brain evolved from the bottom up doesn't mean there is no top-down control.  In fact, I would assume higher levels of organization were required exactly to control the optimal operation of lower, more automatic levels.  Second, because of the bias of evolution toward survival and flourishing, one can see how less complex operations in the brain became more mechanical over time (they just divided into different functions), even while the executive function itself became more conscious of its abilities to chose between them.  More choices means greater varieties of possible responses to more complex situations.

To clarify this, I will offer a few quotes:

Quote:What lies at the heart of every living thing is not a fire, not warm breath, not a 'spark of life.'  It is information, words, instructions....  If you want to understand life, don't think about vibrant, throbbing gels and oozes, think about information technology. -- Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker

Quote:And these quotes are all from David Christian's Origin Story:

Energy causes change, so you can usually see it at work, but information directs change, often from the shadows.

The term information means more than rules.  It means rules that are read by some person or agent or thing -- in fact, by some complex adaptive system [which works in some specific local environment].

These environments had their own local rules that were not universal.  Local rules have to be read or decoded or studied....

Complex adaptive systems can survive only in very specific environments, so they need to be able to read or decode local information as well as the universal rules.

Local environments are unstable, so living organisms must constantly monitor their internal and external environments to detect significant changes.  And as organisms increase in complexity, they need more and more information, because more and more complex structures have more moving parts and more links between their parts.

Predators required more awareness than prey.  Similarly, social animals needed more awareness.  Humans who evolve culturally as well need yet more awareness, and even awareness of awareness, to make the best decisions in complex situations.

Consciousness shows the executive function at work at the level of interfacing with its external and internal environments. Add reason as a tool for evaluating such environments, and you have free will choices as a result -- the ability to reasonably choose between a range of options. Shall I eat lunch out at Applebee's or Ruby's or Miller's? Is my wife mad at me? What will I do with my free time today?
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Does free will exist?
Science has proven that 95 % of what is going on in brans is unconscious and subconscious. That is generally agreed on by Psychology and Neuro-science.
Consciousness itself does not show that executive function ALONE is at work interfacing with its external and internal environment.
The unconscious and subconscious 95 % are also interfacing with the environment both internal and external.

95 % of the internal environment is not accessible, and the effects of the external environment on the 95 % is therefore not (even) subject to "reason", (obviously). Choice is not binary. Choices have a myriad of elements (thousands if not millions or billions of neurons are firing) which go into the end-product, (the "choice") .... the vast majority of which are neither accessible nor even possibly part of conscious processes. Besides recent neuro-biology, this concept is not new, and familiar to anyone who knows how psychotherapy works, in which examination of possible (hidden/unknown) motives and factors has always been a well-known and accepted part of that process.

If the majority of the complex elements that result in a choice are NOT available to conscious thought, (and they have been proven NOT to be), then the use of the term "free will" is outdated and meaningless.

Edit : This is interesting : https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20...155130.htm
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(10-03-2019, 05:29 PM)Bucky Ball Wrote: Science has proven that 95 % of what is going on in brains is unconscious and subconscious. That is generally agreed on by Psychology and Neuro-science.  
Consciousness itself does not show that executive function ALONE is at work interfacing with its external and internal environment.
The unconscious and subconscious 95 % are also interfacing with the environment both internal and external.

True, the brain runs all sorts of things like breathing, coordination, vision, hearing, touch, and so on.  It also tells us when we are hungry, sleepy, or horny.  That's a lot that doesn't have to be directed consciously.  But such processes present information to consciousness so we can decide the best way to go about things.  We strategize to fulfill our needs in the right times and places. Nor are we always busy fulfilling our needs.

As I have mentioned elsewhere, it makes sense as an evolutionary strategy to make automatic everything which can safely be made automatic and leave the executive function to manage what is more complicated.

(10-03-2019, 05:29 PM)Bucky Ball Wrote: 95 % of the internal environment is not accessible, and the effects of the external environment on the 95 % is therefore not (even) subject to "reason", (obviously). Choice is not binary. Choices have a myriad of elements (thousands if not millions or billions of neurons are firing) which go into the end-product,  (the "choice") .... the vast majority of which are neither accessible nor even possibly part of conscious processes. Besides recent neuro-biology, this concept is not new, and familiar to anyone who knows how psychotherapy works, in which examination of possible (hidden/unknown) motives and factors has always been a well-known and accepted part of that process.

If the majority of the complex elements that result in a choice are NOT available to conscious thought, (and they have been proven NOT to be), then the use of the term "free will" is outdated and meaningless.

Edit : This is interesting : https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20...155130.htm

As I have also mentioned before, your picture depends on a summation of such inputs, which I do not think is how the brain actually works.  Consciousness works by selecting from among inputs.

I would be curious to know what variety of psychotherapy you believe is scientific.  I would also like to know how exactly you think habits are created, in your scheme of things.

A lot of people disagree with you about the term "free will" being outdated and meaningless.  As I have pointed out on several occasions now, it refers to a certain kind of activity at its own level of complexity, just as "table" refers to something real and not just to a cloud of particles.
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Does free will exist?
(10-03-2019, 11:37 PM)Alan V Wrote: As I have mentioned elsewhere, it makes sense as an evolutionary strategy to make automatic everything which can safely be made automatic and leave the executive function to manage what is more complicated.

What we observe today that we think "would have made sense" is not how Evolution works. There are countless examples in biology of that.
The argument from intuition is invalidated at every turn when actually examining Evolution. There NEVER EVER is anything "left to executive function".
The 95 % is operating ALWAYS behind the scenes. The brain works as a whole ... there is no "executive function" that works separately from the 95 %.
Your foundational assumptions are invalid.

(10-03-2019, 05:29 PM)Bucky Ball Wrote: 95 % of the internal environment is not accessible, and the effects of the external environment on the 95 % is therefore not (even) subject to "reason", (obviously). Choice is not binary. Choices have a myriad of elements (thousands if not millions or billions of neurons are firing) which go into the end-product,  (the "choice") .... the vast majority of which are neither accessible nor even possibly part of conscious processes. Besides recent neuro-biology, this concept is not new, and familiar to anyone who knows how psychotherapy works, in which examination of possible (hidden/unknown) motives and factors has always been a well-known and accepted part of that process.

If the majority of the complex elements that result in a choice are NOT available to conscious thought, (and they have been proven NOT to be), then the use of the term "free will" is outdated and meaningless.

Edit : This is interesting : https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20...155130.htm

Quote:As I have also mentioned before, your picture depends on a summation of such inputs, which I do not think is how the brain actually works.  Consciousness works by selecting from among inputs.

No. Obviously impossible. If 95 % of the inputs are unconscious and subconscious, the brain has no way of even knowing what to even begin to select. 

Quote:I would also like to know how exactly you think habits are created, in your scheme of things.

Learning and practice. Memory.

Quote:A lot of people disagree with you about the term "free will" being outdated and meaningless.  As I have pointed out on several occasions now, it refers to a certain kind of activity at its own level of complexity, just as "table" refers to something real and not just to a cloud of particles.

The ad populum argument ("a lot of people") is irrelevant to me. Who are these "a lot of people" ... are you quoting Donald Trump ? Are they even neuro-scientists ?
I reject the phrase "free will" having any legitimacy in light of what we know about brains. It does not have "its own level of complexity", as it has nothing "at its own" anything.
The decision making process that one can experience as "conscious" does not EVER exist "alone" or in the absence of the 95 %. It is totally 100 % enmeshed with and dependent on it.
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Does free will exist?
(10-03-2019, 11:37 PM)Alan V Wrote: I would be curious to know what variety of psychotherapy you believe is scientific.

Most of your answers are the same denials as usual, so our conversation can't progress.  But I see you chose to ignore the above question.

Psychotherapeutic perspectives are not scientific.  I don't think "subconscious motivations" have any scientific standing.  We consciously experience our hungers and emotions and deal with them consciously.
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Does free will exist?
(10-04-2019, 11:51 AM)Alan V Wrote:
(10-03-2019, 11:37 PM)Alan V Wrote: I would be curious to know what variety of psychotherapy you believe is scientific.

Most of your answers are the same denials as usual, so our conversation can't progress.  But I see you chose to ignore the above question.

Psychotherapeutic perspectives are not scientific.  I don't think "subconscious motivations" have any scientific standing.  We consciously experience our hungers and emotions and deal with them consciously.

Actually the conversation is stalled as you have no evidence at all for any of your assertions, and never reference anything you claim.
Yes I did ignore the question, just as you have totally ignored virtually all the scientific facts I have presented.

You actually stooped to the "a lot of people" argument. LMAO A lot of people believe in God.

If you think Psychotherapy is not scientific, you can take it up with the leaders in the field of Neuro-science.
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Chr...000000.pdf

Quote:We consciously experience our hungers and emotions and deal with them consciously.

You deal with the PART of "hunger and emotion'' that your brain allows into consciousness. 95 % of it is NOT conscious, and YOU are the outlier here. Neuro-science does not share your (ancient) views, and you are unable to support them.  

I'm done here. You *need* "free will" to be true.
That's OK. You can maintain your "free will". It's meaningless, and you have never once shown it to be real.
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Does free will exist?
An excerpt from the National Institutes of Health Search database;
26 June 2008
The Unconscious Mind
John A. Bargh and Ezequiel Morsella

For most of human history, only the concepts of conscious thought and intentional behaviour existed.
In the 1800s, two very different developments—hypnotism and evolutionary theory—both pointed to
the possibility of unconscious, unintended causes of human behaviour. But nearly two centuries later,
contemporary psychological science remains wedded to a conscious-centric model of the higher mental
processes; it hasn’t helped that our view of the powers of the unconscious mind have come largely
from studies of subliminal information processing. This research, with its operational definition of the
unconscious as a system that handles subliminal-strength stimulation from the environment, has helped
to perpetuate the notion that conscious processes are primary and that they are the causal force behind
most, if not all, human judgment and behaviour (EG: Locke & Latham, 2002).

We propose an alternative perspective, in which unconscious processes are defined in terms of their
unintentional nature and the inherent lack of awareness is of the influence and effect of the triggering
stimuli and not of the triggering stimuli (because nearly all naturally occurring stimuli are *supraliminal).
By this definition of the unconscious, which is the original and historic one, contemporary social cognition
research on priming and automaticity effects have shown the existence of sophisticated, flexible, and
adaptive unconscious behaviour guidance systems. These would seem to be of high functional value,
especially as default behavioural tendencies when the conscious mind, as is its wont, travels away from
the present environment into the past or the future. It is nice to know that the unconscious is minding
the store when the owner is absent.


*    A threshold is a point in which a stimulus is detected by
the subject. Stimuli that are perceived above the threshold
and are therefore detected at the level of consciousness are
called supraliminal.
I'm a creationist;   I believe that man created God.
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