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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Dec 21, 2017 - 09:30am PT
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this free will business holds zero interest or fascination for me...
Times have changed Healyje.
Breaking news! The subject of "free will" is now in the hands of scientists/engineers. It is no longer first and foremost in the hands of (feckless) philosophers. I for one am willing and able to give it 100 years, say, to see how the former group works through the subject and its relations (associated language, etc) and how pop culture then responds in thought and vernacular.
To be clear and to be fair, the subjects of "free will" and "determinism" and even "soul" have not been in the hands of modern scientists/engineers for 2,500 years. But for 50 yrs or so. Therein is not only the hope but the insight, if you care to see it.
As you've made perfectly clear time and again, delving into the subject of "free will" (and its varieties, if I might add) is not everybody's cup of tea.
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G_Gnome
Trad climber
Cali
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Dec 21, 2017 - 09:35am PT
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Let me help Werner out for once.
Slap
Slap
Slap
Slap
Slap
Slap
Ahhhhhh!
A lot of this going on by you gross materialists.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Dec 21, 2017 - 09:35am PT
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One of the great examples of how what we do know tells us something important that we don't know:
General Relativity and quantum physics treat time differently.
My vague notion is that on the small scale of quantum mechanics, there is no direction to time. On the much larger scale of relativity, things look different when played forward versus backward.
I don't know where it comes from, but I first heard it from a very bright grad student at Chicago; "Why do we remember the past but not the future?"
And there is a YouTube video of a physicist telling us that if you change a single plus (or minus?) sign in General Relativity, then we would be able to move around in time like we can move around in an x,y,z distance coordinate frame.
Anyway, maybe Ed can tell us better what's up with time in the two major physical theories.
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WBraun
climber
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Dec 21, 2017 - 09:35am PT
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The subject of "free will" is now in the hands of scientists/engineers.
You can't do anything with it nor can the philosophers.
Free will is on its very own self far beyond the reaches of gross material scientists, academics, and philosophers .......
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Dec 21, 2017 - 09:40am PT
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My next step is to prove there is no free will in a non-deterministic world.
Very good, Moose.
I hope to learn how your analysis might be affected by a Hugh Everett style many-worlds hypothesis.
Does a photon have a choice of which hole it goes through in the double slit experiment?
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Dec 21, 2017 - 10:00am PT
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So perhaps here's an idea or some food for thought if not an insight:
A few here actually experienced in science (incl applied science) have been critical of academic philosophy's largely feckless role - if not obfuscation - over the decades if not centuries... rightly so, imo...
and yet what do these "few" do:
they turn time and again to academic philosophy - and its AUTHORITY - for clarity on such subjects as "free will" and "determinism" and "compatibilism".
Latest example:
(1) https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/compatibilism/
If you think you can wade through all those encyclopedic, philosophic, academic entries step by step, methodically, systematically and then return here with a practical clarity and with the aim of making things clear for you and for others at ST you are fooling yourself.
All things considered, the majority of the times, (a) Academic Philosophy makes a mess of it; (b) Academic Philosophy remains a mega-source of confusion, obfuscation, frustration, fecklessness, demoralization, fatigue in the 21st century in regards to these subjects as many of us try to make sense of them.
I mean, anyone besides me appreciate the irony here? On the one hand, Philosophy, it is claimed, it is said, brings a conciseness of language, together with a conciseness of thought, to the subject at hand. And yet, on the other hand... (lol)
Academic Philosophy (as practiced traditionally): RIP.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Dec 21, 2017 - 10:28am PT
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re: "power to choose"
eeyonkee, I bet you enjoyed Terminator I. Am I right?
A clip comes to mind: The Terminator's in his motel room making repairs to his body. A cleaner outside the door says something like, Hey buddy, you got a dead cat in there or what? To which the Terminator selects from a number of possible responses: yes, no, f*#k you, f*#k you as#@&%e, etc and says F*#k you, Asshole.
Now compared to the old model HKs (Hunter Killers, which Kyle describes to Sarah at some point) the Terminator is way more advanced in function (iow, way more competent, evincing more levels of "freedom" in its software and hardware). So far so good? Or no?
So I claim, from a systems engineering, control engineering, robotics engineering perspective or frame, that the Terminator has a "power of choosing" (aka a power of decision-making aka a power of branching, a power of selecting) that the Old HKs (limited to y/n in above responses eg) didn't have. Can you see the terminology of art (eg., the "power of choosing") from this perspective? and how it legitimately expresses real-world functioning in the Terminator vis a vis the HK? Or am I "just" "playing" "word games" here?
...
One insight is this: Now and in the future, such concepts as choosing, deciding, intention, volition (will), perhaps even soul, spirit, etc, will be revisited by Systems and they will be seen by perspectives other than academic philosophical, then articulated; and the new ideas and insights of Systems, together with these articulations, will in time seep across culture, they will sort out, and they'll lead to new, "rebooted" understandings in culture and better communications in everyday vernacular.
In a way, just as now you won't (bother to) entertain "free will" from the frame or discipline of theology as our ancestors 500 years ago did. (Not even as a thought experiment, it seems.) But for many of them who accepted theology, its worldview and its dogma (incl a shitload of philosophers), whether (a) Betty herself killed her husband (with her own free will) or (b) the Devil made her do it (in possession of her will) was a very "real" and serious deliberation.
Maybe you've seen The Crucible, too, with Daniel Day Lewis.
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re: freedoms in automatic, mechanistic systems (e.g., automata)
Just as extra powers and freedoms (re speed, e.g., or jumping ability, or visual acuity) can result from added musculoskeletal (somal) functionality, thanks to evolution and darwinian selection, likewise extra powers and freedoms (re decision-making competence, e.g., or use of imagination) can result from added brain utilities (better hardware or software at pfc, for eg).
These are simply basic systems engineering principles. If not in the 19th century then certainly now in the 21st century.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 21, 2017 - 11:15am PT
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John Gill:
At first blush, the "deep intuition" that Bergson had per "duration" seems to be approachable - to lesser or greater degrees - through contrasting the difference between analogue and digital. To Bergson, experience was markedly analogue, and by extension, he might (remember I'm JUST digging into this) consider time in the same light.
A few reference points to ponder:
Definition of ANALOGUE
an·a·log
adjective: analogue
relating to or using signals or information represented by a continuously variable physical quantity such as spatial position or voltage.
Definition of DIGITAL
1: of or relating to the fingers or toes
• digital dexterity
2: done with a finger
• a digital rectal examination
3: of, relating to, or using calculation by numerical methods or by discrete units
4: composed of data in the form of especially binary digits
• digital images/photos
• a digitalreadout
• a digital broadcast [=a broadcast employing digital communications signals]
Analog waves are smooth and continuous, digital waves are stepping, square, and discrete.
Says one author:
We live in an analog world. There are an infinite amount of colors to paint an object (even if the difference is indiscernible to our eye), there are an infinite number of tones we can hear, and there are an infinite number of smells we can smell. The common theme among all of these analog signals is their infinite possibilities.
Digital signals and objects deal in the realm of the discrete or finite, meaning there is a limited set of values they can be. That could mean just two total possible values, 255, 4,294,967,296, or anything as long as it’s not ∞ (infinity).
I have to get on a plane in a few hours for a LONG flight to Zurich and I have Lund's paper and a bunch of other fascinating stuff to read. Hope to have something soon to toss onto this thread, which could use an infusion for the new year.
Happy Holidays Amigos!
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Dec 21, 2017 - 11:52am PT
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So, Moose, how then do you express - articulate - the difference in competences (abilities) between the Terminator and the HK?
Is it for you the "power of selecting" in lieu of the "power of choosing"? Or the "power of selection" in lieu of the "power of choice"?
Do you distinguish these terms. Aware of Terminators and HKs, or else more competent chess engines from less competent ones, there needs to be a way to articulate the differences between them when it comes to competence and decision-making powers, yes?
I asked you these same pin-point questions in a recent post. You didn't respond. They are simple straightforward questions. Please respond directly.
All decisions had been made at the beginning of the universe... -Moose
Okat, so "all decisions" ever decided in the Let's Make a Deal gameshow, eg., were "made at the beginning of the universe". Check. And yet, decisions were also made in real time during the show: Mary decided Door 2 at 3:47pm on 3 feb 1972 half way through the show (she got a goat, not a new car). Is this not ALSO true, valid and accurate as an answer? How do you distinguish these two characteristics of "decision making" if not by different spaciotemporal levels of operation?
It seems to me it is YOU who is not recognizing the two roles of (1) framing and (2) language in addition to (3) switching powers in complex systems (hardware and software) in all this.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Dec 21, 2017 - 12:02pm PT
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HFCS, my response is, no. All decisions had been made at the beginning of the universe, if it is 100% deterministic. Changing the pov can’t change that fact.
It's not merely point of view. (1) It's an entire frame (economics instead of biology, political science instead of ecology, and so forth). (2) It's language.
All decisions had been made at the beginning of the universe... -Moose
Really? then it just makes no sense huh? to speak of choosing door #2 in lieu of doors #1 and #3? as part of the Let's Make A Deal social game? No sense? Really? Not on any level?
Did you pay your speeding ticket? If so, (it seems) you ARE responsible (you took responsibility at the level of society and law, and you were held responsible at the level of society and law).
Changing the pov can’t change that fact...
...and none of us - three at least - is arguing that "changing the pov" changes "that fact" that we live in fated bodies as automata in a fated solar system in a fated universe.
Beta: Be more Systems minded, less 17th century philosophically minded. Key cognitive skill here: polyscopy: the ability to see something (to consider something) from many frames at once. cf: meta-cognition (e.g., "materialism" in relation to biology, "materialism" in relation to economics, consumerism)
...
Actually I'm inclined to think maybe you're playing me.
Because who - who's reasonably educated - cannot readily see that as one changes fields or frames, terms of art (like "materialism" or "free will" or "liberalism") can change meaning (legitimately and usefully) and furthermore, that terms of art, new ones (like aliphatic or aromatic or PCR or CRISPR) emerge.
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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Dec 21, 2017 - 12:18pm PT
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Thoughtful response, John. Have a good flight and Merry Xmas!
;>)
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Dec 21, 2017 - 12:32pm PT
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by the way, eeyonkee and moose, I decided a couple days ago...
I am NOT a "compatibilist" after all. I won't be identifying with it any longer. (The term just has too much noise to signal in social groups, esp those that are at cross-purposes with each other and with everybody within those groups trying to score.)
Rather... I AM a reconcilist. As I've reconciled the following: (a) we are all automata (as I've stated here since 2010) in accordance with all science textbooks and lab results (eg., biology); (b) we ARE NOT responsible for our bad decisions and bad behavior at the Big Picture level (as we are 100 per cent natural beings, no more or less than honey bees or hedgehogs) 100 per cent a function of our body architecture, system state and input; (c) we ARE responsible for our behavior at the social level (provided we are operating in what are deemed normal operating parameters; i.e., provided we are deemed competent) as judged by our social group.
Can you hold ARE RESPONSIBLE and ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE in YOUR head simultaneously? as a function of "level of operation" (Carroll) or "level of explanation" (Pinker). I can. Maybe that's what it means... to reconcile or not to reconcile.
hfcs, reconcilist
...
Further, I'll no longer speak of "free will" here. Same reason. Instead I'll speak of volition in three cases: (1) Volition free of outsider influence (an overbearing lover, e.g., or demonic possession, or untoward, antagonistic circumstances like pressure to enter a house on fire). (2) Volition free of disease or malfunction. (3) Volition free of physics, chemistry, biology (a superstition). In any of these three case "free volition" is excellent shorthand "term of art" for "volition free of X".
...
PS From my vantage point as a reconcilist, it seems you, EEyonkee, and you, Moosedrool, are both... irreconcilists. :)
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 21, 2017 - 12:36pm PT
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John, I'm out the door but I'm not letting you off the hook for trying to work up some equations per Lund's ideas. I read, or tried to read, that paper you did on time distortion (dilation??) so skill wise I know you can crack it if anyone can.
What appeals to me about this stuff is my native fascination for stuff that is "not in the guidebook," so to speak. Not woo or the fringe, kooky stuff but that which goes against accepted norms. More often than not there is something there, though it takes some sober work to tease out the gold ... if its there.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Dec 21, 2017 - 02:47pm PT
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I think the world is not 100% deterministic... -Moose
Fair enough.
But I still have eeyonkee to play with. :)
...
Speaking of free volition, beware the graymalkins...
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Dec 21, 2017 - 02:51pm PT
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MikeL: Show me the truth. What is mind? What is awareness?
Somehow missed this post. While no one can point to a direct or definitive biological basis for awareness or mind, we have come leagues in a hundred years towards that goal and in understanding the brain, awareness and mind normative behaviors and how they are impacted by injuries and pathologies. Discovery in this regard is more an exercise of creeping up on it from the physical side. Take fMRI's for instance. We're now getting to the point of being able to tell when you are subjectively experiencing red and we've identified color-specific neurons in the anterior fusiform gyrus which fire on red - i.e. you don't subjectively experience red without a physical basis for it in the brain. Again, lots of recent progress and it's more a matter of closing gaps than some grand leap.
Times have changed Healyje.
Yeah, but again, I'm more focused on brain / mind and issues like free will and time don't interest me outside of that context. Time for instance, I get that it's a conundrum from a physics / philosophy perspective but, be that as it may, there are endless time-based biological systems and behaviors which have a genetic basis. So that's my interest in time and in this case it's around how various aspects of both the brain and mind are time-based and time-synchronous in ways, without which, you wouldn't have subjective experience as we know it.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Dec 21, 2017 - 02:58pm PT
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A much more interesting world!
And here I thought the world was already interesting enough.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 21, 2017 - 03:11pm PT
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Healje, my sense of this is that we all inherently have assumptions about time and these are inexorably tied up in any investigation of mind/body, no matter what nook we are peering into. The issues might be so broad and fundamental that a new or revised understanding could reconfigure how we consider our immediate focus. Not that you should drop what you're doing and pivot toward the Mickey Mouse watch on Fruity's wrist, but don't rule out the chance that you might have interesting things to say in this regards - about time, that is, not Mickey Mouse.
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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Dec 21, 2017 - 03:15pm PT
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Peter Lynds tackles the ultimate question (PEQ): Why is there something, rather than nothing? Here is an excerpt in which he explains his approach.
After providing a summary of other approaches to tackling the question (placing a particular emphasis on ideas about quantum creation from nothing), in this paper I argue that such an answer is to be found through the conclusion that, contrasted to a universe with a beginning a finite time in the past, only an eternal universe can possibly provide an answer to the PEQ, because at no stage during its eternal lifetime is its non-existence ever an option. I then argue that, because of this and an inescapable need for a necessary explanation for existence (contrast to a contingent one or no explanation), the universe must also be eternal. The implications of this conclusion for cosmology and theology are then discussed.
https://arxiv.org/abs/1205.2720
I don't think Lynds' ideas about time can gain and hold traction, as had been the case with Bergson before him. Until the fateful Einstein-Bergson forum, however, Bergson had many followers. All this stuff is too metaphysical in my opinion, too dependent on intuition, and arguments involve questionable logic.
Toward the end of Lynds' time article he takes exception at "imaginary time", failing to understand it is simply an approach that sometimes works, and instead argues that time has no direction, certainly not perpendicular to regular time, as if this was a topic in high school geometry.
As for mathematics arising from this 2003 paper, there is none I can detect. My ridiculous example of imagining the projectile hitting an imaginary wall and dropping through an imaginary duration makes more sense.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Dec 21, 2017 - 03:20pm PT
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a new or revised understanding could reconfigure how we consider our immediate focus.
hey, that's been my riff the last couple of days, and no, you shouldn't be appropriating it - not without due credit. ;)
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WBraun
climber
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Dec 21, 2017 - 03:26pm PT
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While no one can point to a direct or definitive biological basis for awareness or mind
Classic brainwashed gross materialism consciousness on display again.
Like you know every person on this planet ........
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