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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Mar 23, 2015 - 09:21am PT
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re: decision-making ability
"It's not obvious at all. It feels obvious, but I'm not sure of it." -climbski2
Now your questioning whether we have (whether mechanistic or not) decision making ability (ability to decide) as agents?
Oh boy.
Curious, climbski2, what you make of the David Eagleman TED 2015 piece (he's a neuroscientist) posted previous page.
http://www.ted.com/talks/david_eagleman_can_we_create_new_senses_for_humans#t-73288
Any disagreements?
I keep hoping to see some new great insight in this thread.. but if it has happened I have missed it. -climbski2
How about simply posts in this thread pointing to "new great insight" - eg the Eagleman TED talk. I thought his talk was steeped in exciting new directions all of it btw requisite on hard-won expertise, knowledge.
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climbski2
Mountain climber
Anchorage AK, Reno NV
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Mar 23, 2015 - 09:25am PT
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This requirement of isolation of the quantum states provides a paradox for those who would try to apply it as an explanation of "free will" (or any other attribute), to wit, the quantum states have to be isolated, but as a part of the brain, they have to be connected... so some mechanism that lets you have both conditions have to be described.
Let me say that I haven't seen anything, even from "experts," who make a convincing case for it (or actually any case, most of it is speculation).
So well said ..Ed!
Gads it has been decades since I read Castenada but one of the things I remember is that He was asking his teacher what he thought of modern astronomy. The Teacher indian guy said something about astronomers missing a huge part (majority) of the actual universe that was unobservable and not anything like our part of the universe..and for him it was draining or dangerous to try in his spiritual way of observing..
Something like that..
Perhaps pure bullshit and coincidence..but When I first started hearing of dark matter/energy I immediately thought of Castenada.
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Mar 23, 2015 - 09:26am PT
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The behavior of ICs is predictable, even if they are small enough to be subject to quantum effects, as long as they are designed to take those effects into account.
Does our neural system also perform in a similarly predictable manner?
Gooood question.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Mar 23, 2015 - 09:32am PT
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So well said ..Ed! -climbski2
LOL.
So go back and re-read the first couple lines of your first post this morning (on this thread). lol
No, let me do it...
"Scientific principles do support the possibility of free will or at least imperfect predeterminism." -climbski2
:)
.....
Not an expert at all in this though... -climbski2
Yet you made a claim in regard to freedom of volition. (aka "free will") clearly a mind-brain mechanics (circuitry) subject... a claim you claim science supports... which it does not.
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climbski2
Mountain climber
Anchorage AK, Reno NV
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Mar 23, 2015 - 09:36am PT
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And then read this HFCS
Let me say that I haven't seen anything, even from "experts," who make a convincing case for it (or actually any case, most of it is speculation).
Yep speculation..because such a mechanism seems perhaps plausible although unlikely maybe.
I certainly never claimed to be doing anything more than speculating.. like millions have for millenia. When it comes to the experience of existing speculation is almost all I have ever seen. It is clearly possible to change your experience mechanically and chemically. It is also possible to rule out some speculation.
But what that experience fundamentally "is" still seems like mostly speculation.
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WBraun
climber
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Mar 23, 2015 - 09:40am PT
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climbski2 has a better brain than the ridged HFCS brain .....
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Mar 23, 2015 - 09:41am PT
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"And then read this HFCS..." -climbski2
Is there confusion here? That is Ed's statement (which you quoted) not yours.
I certainly never claimed to be doing anything more than speculating... -climbski2
Then perhaps re-write this...
"Scientific principles do support the possibility of free will or at least imperfect predeterminism." -climbski2
.....
Well, success, Climbski2! you got WB in your camp.
Here's a dollar. ;)
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climbski2
Mountain climber
Anchorage AK, Reno NV
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Mar 23, 2015 - 09:44am PT
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Yet you made a claim in regard to freedom of volition. (aka "free will") clearly a mind-brain mechanics (circuitry) subject... a claim you claim science supports... which it does not.
It does not support it except to say that it is perhaps plausible. Although no direct evidence of such a thing exists.
Uhhg I really have no interest in arguing with you or making a thesis paper here.. We are here haveing an enjoyable speculation regarding the mind
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Mar 23, 2015 - 09:45am PT
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How would you recognize free will if you saw it operating?
I think you would need to take a person, give them a choice, and see what happened.
Then you would need to take the same person, put them in the same situation with all physical details exactly the same as in the first instance, and if they made a different choice, that could be free will operating. Or it could be noise. If the person kept making the same choice, that would not be proof that free will does not exist, but it would be a kind of evidence.
In practice I don't believe it is remotely possible to give a person exactly the same choice under exactly the same conditions.
But how would I know? I am still stuck on page 56. Thanks, cintune.
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Mar 23, 2015 - 09:46am PT
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Has our neural system evolved robustly enough to take quantum effects into account and still maintain predictable function at the level of the neuron? Evolution would seem to favor a 'yes' answer, but then, evolution is also a 'good enough' kind of process.
I would find it hard to believe that 'free will' would hail solely from quantum mechanical errors, however.
That seems so...random.
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climbski2
Mountain climber
Anchorage AK, Reno NV
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Mar 23, 2015 - 09:46am PT
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MH2
yep thats part of the problem in a nutshell...
TVASH and then we are back to the "ghost in the machine" question either way it seems to me.
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Mar 23, 2015 - 09:47am PT
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It truly is a relativistic universe.
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WBraun
climber
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Mar 23, 2015 - 09:48am PT
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I think you would need to take a person, give them a choice, and see what happened.
No
Study your own self ......
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feralfae
Boulder climber
in the midst of a metaphysical mystery
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Mar 23, 2015 - 09:54am PT
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I offer this for consideration:
Quantum mechanics explains efficiency of photosynthesis
phys.org › Physics › Quantum Physics
Phys.org
Rating: 4.8 - 51 votes
Jan 9, 2014 - Light-gathering macromolecules in plant cells transfer energy by taking advantage of molecular vibrations whose physical descriptions have no equivalents in classical physics, according to the first unambiguous theoretical evidence of quantum effects in photosynthesis published today in the journal Nature ..
feralfae
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Mar 23, 2015 - 09:55am PT
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Werner, can't you pause for the cause?
Your posting on the thread is the equivalent of Oprah Winfrey ensconced in a sit harness at the end of a rope... stuck in something of a mangled rappel accident on the side of El Cap... yelling epithets.
Take a moment. Imagine that.
#outofonesdepth
#expertisematters
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climbski2
Mountain climber
Anchorage AK, Reno NV
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Mar 23, 2015 - 10:10am PT
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It's been a while since I dug into this. I got away from a key thing regarding "free will". Clearly if everything in the universe is cause and effect then free will is moot. But even if there is randomness in physical systems that does not mean "free will" It just means randomness which is no more satisfying a conclusion. Although randomness does seem at first glance like an opening for something "more".
The real question is the "ghost in the machine" type question. The only thing that seems like evidence for that is personal experience. The fact that "I" am experiencing something. Feels like strong evidence but is it merely confusing the map for the terrain?
Such a frustrating subject to get anywhere with..uhhg
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Mar 23, 2015 - 10:20am PT
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"Such a frustrating subject to get anywhere with..uhhg"
Seems to me you just got somewhere with it - did you not? - in this latest post of yours.
Which is exactly right.
That is the essence of where the science is right now. Under ever growing converging lines of evidence.
Now it's a matter of coming to terms with it. Or not. (Personal choice?) Which is an entirely different issue. It may be too difficult a subject for many at least at this stage (not unlike accepting evolution; we've all been witness to this; let alone in the Middle East under Arabic, imagine that; talk about ughh) - too difficult - leading to a backlash of sorts, or backlashes, incl an anti-science stance (maybe even unconsciously), etc, which we see all over the place even at home in American politics (R) these days and on these threads.
Envision a Ted Cruz or Mike Hucklebee... clearly they get great mileage out of their traditional bible stories and narrative for how the world works and how life works. No doubt, it's awfully appealing on many levels.
It'll be a long time coming before a Cruz or Huckleberry or one of their supporters envisions life in evolutionary physico-chemical cellular neuro terms - in other words mechanistic terms bound by rules, processes, causality. In fact, I think nigh impossible without years and years of hands-on science lab work or its equivalent where the processes and dynamics have a chance to sink into one's psyche or psychology (in this way not unlike pretty much every other subject or field, yes even climbing, that calls on expertise and the so-called 10,000 hrs of experience).
So where the hell does this leave us? Seems to me all over the place. Just as we see.
Coming to terms with out true nature, esp in the aftermath of a long standing institutionalized theology/theism that promised so much else (absolute morality by a Law Giver, eternal life in heaven; a ghost in the machine exempt from earthly constraints if not filth), not so easy.
Coming to terms. Perhaps the "crux of the biscuit" in turning any radically new chapter long term in human civilization?
.....
"All that’s left to do is find a wave that scares you, paddle out into the teeth of the beast, and absolutely soil yourself with fear. It’s like medicine!"
http://www.surfermag.com/features/fear-big-waves-good/#RjQO8xFX8lcepqQe.97
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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Mar 23, 2015 - 11:12am PT
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Ed: First of all, science takes as a basic premise that physical affects have physical causes. That would eliminate a large realm of imaginative possibilities.
As you say, . . . it’s a premise. (HFCS, are you hearing Ed?)
"Randomness" exists, but the particular nature of quantum "randomness" is not at work in the brain, which operates at a very high temperature, meaning the entanglement of quantum states necessary for the "spookiness" to happen is destroyed long before it can happen, by the interaction of those states with the environment.
Yes, perhaps, Ed, the brain . . . but the mind?
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Mar 23, 2015 - 11:15am PT
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HFCS, are you hearing Ed? -MikeL
This makes no sense.
Per usual.
Please, go read some science.
Somewhere. Figure it out. Some way.
Tips:
Start with the physics of a cam, camming action.
Start with Archimedes Principle. Start with rust as a chemical reaction.
Start with observing Amoeba or Paramecium in a drop of water under a microscope.
There's a million ways to start. Just do.
Over and out.
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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Mar 23, 2015 - 11:20am PT
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^^^^^^
Do you understand "premise?"
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