Half a second to consciousness

Just to be clear (sorry about 3 posts in a row): I have said only that E2 has a non-deterministic ("non-necessary") cause - not (as you claim in the above quote) that it has (or requires) any cause(s) further than that. It is only you who is not satisfied with a non-deterministic (non-necessary) cause, and who maintains that any non-deterministic (non-necessary) cause requires some other cause(s) too. I assume you stipulate these other causes so as to turn the non-necessary cause, which you cannot abide as an holistic explanation, into a necessary one - given the "extras" - which does satisfy you as holistically explanatory, but as per my post above, they are (should be, to you, the reductionist) truly no more satisfactory, because reductionism fails to explain necessary causes as much as it fails to explain non-necessary causes.
You misunderstand me. I am not insisting that an indeterministic cause requires prior causes. I will stipulate that it is a cause in its own right. I am asking how the agent makes an indeterministic decision and expecting to hear a story that sounds convincingly like the agent is making the decision in a way that is neither deterministic nor arbitrary.

I grant you that the story, by its very telling, would sound like there are prior causes to the indeterministic one (as long as it is not arbitrary). If you are going to insist that the indeterministic cause occurs ex nihilo, then I ask you to help me imagine such a cause as anything other than arbitrary. If the decision is related to my desires or my will, I don't see how it can be indeterministic.

Again, I believe reductionism does explain necessary causes, although not in some kind of "final way." That is because we cannot explain anything in a final way. But we can use the explanations to produce desired causes nonetheless.

~~ Paul
 
I have just stated that I don't know of a single chemical reaction that is determined as to empirical measurement. You seem to think anything physical is determined - even if our observation shows that there are "errors" and deviation on a regular basis. Are all the chemical reactions in the brain "perfect" and proceed to completion and not observed as in some state of equilibrium?
Of course not, but why would we assume these variations are due to something other than inaccurate measurement or the randomness of QM?

I am saying if you stay "real" with actual measurements - determined things - are not physical but are logical. If you measure the determininism of chemistry and physics - it is determined by the math information! Not by natural reactions in a real environment. I know what the behavior of an ideal gas will be -- but measuring real gases, or liquids or solids is not ideal.
This is because QM is inherently stochastic.

Your premise of "Every thing that is is not determined - is random" (not true mathwise) is not a fact of nature - it is a logical tautology. Natural events are jittery!
It is a tautology, because random = not determined. What is this math of which you speak?

~~ Paul
 
I would assert that artificial agents such as a mechanical or electronic devices could have deterministic output correlated to the programmed logic. However, people and living things can change probabilities whimsically, unconsciously, firmly, tentatively and furtively. How is your version of "determined" measured? I will again say; deterministic is a term of metaphysics. It is a descriptive word. Tell me about a real chemical reaction that is determined in a real world complex environment.
Yes, but do 'whimsical' decisions follow some sort of non-mechanistic, non-physical process? Paul thinks they don't - that the causes are there but deeply buried, I think they do - that the cause for much of what we do comes from a connection with a non-physical consciousness. I am never really sure what your opinion is.

David
 
You're willing to claim that there is a non-necessary cause of E2 without so much as a hint of any details of how that new sort of causality works?

It's not new; it's as old as consciousness. As for the details of how it works, you could try to introspect on your own decisions. When I do that, I find that I make decisions which have prior causes (in my being, as influenced by the external environment) but which could have been otherwise i.e. the decisions aren't necessitated even though they are causal. It's pretty simple. :)

Fascinating.

Huh. The ingratitude of it. You finally get an answer on your own terms to a question you've been asking persistently for years, and that's your attitude? You should be celebrating in the streets. "Hurrah! Hurrah! I have the answer! There are not only two, there are three! My riddle is solved! Hurrah! Hurrah!" ;-)

And yet we have no evidence whatsoever of another sort of "non-necessary causation." It doesn't appear necessary to explain the world we see.

See above (introspection). It seems necessary to explain my own decision-making at least.

You misunderstand me. I am not insisting that an indeterministic cause requires prior causes.

Can we use "non-necessitating cause" rather than "indeterministic cause" please? I ask because you have stated multiple times that indeterministic is in your mind synonymous with random/arbitrary, but the third category which I've pointed out is neither random nor arbitrary.

But let's go back to the statement to which I was responding:

You've done what most people do: Suggest that E2 might have "causes" other than deterministic ones, but said nothing about what those "causes" might be.

Another way to respond is this: they are causes within consciousnness, which - since it is immaterial - is not bound by the deterministic (and randomly indeterministic, in the case of quantum mechanics) laws of physics.

I will stipulate that it is a cause in its own right. I am asking how the agent makes an indeterministic decision and expecting to hear a story that sounds convincingly like the agent is making the decision in a way that is neither deterministic nor arbitrary.

I've given you that story in both symbols (E1 ->(n.n.) E2) and words (see above).

I grant you that the story, by its very telling, would sound like there are prior causes to the indeterministic one (as long as it is not arbitrary).

It is not just "like" there are prior causes to the non-necessitated effect: there really are prior causes, just like there are for necessitated effects... except that they are non-necessitating.

If you are going to insist that the indeterministic cause occurs ex nihilo

No no - that's the second category of causation which you originally thought was the only category of indeterministic causation, the one symbolised by:

-> E2.

That said, I am open to the possibility that consciousness can bring things forth into existence ex nihilo. It just confuses the issue to bring that into this discussion though.

If the decision is related to my desires or my will, I don't see how it can be indeterministic.

Perhaps that's because you are still thinking of the first category of indeterminism: the one you see as synonymous with "random" and "arbitrary", neither of which apply to non-necessitated causation?
 
Can we use "non-necessitating cause" rather than "indeterministic cause" please? I ask because you have stated multiple times that indeterministic is in your mind synonymous with random/arbitrary, but the third category which I've pointed out is neither random nor arbitrary.
Quite so. I think your third category is relevant and should not be dismissed. In general I don't enjoy these sort of debates, as the outcome is dependent on the initial assumptions, as such it is more of an intellectual game than a serious attempt at finding out about the real world. However, as in computing, the adage, GIGO (garbage in, garbage out) applies. The initial assumptions are important.
 
Yes, but do 'whimsical' decisions follow some sort of non-mechanistic, non-physical process? Paul thinks they don't - that the causes are there but deeply buried, I think they do - that the cause for much of what we do comes from a connection with a non-physical consciousness. I am never really sure what your opinion is.

David
Decisions and choices do follow both pathways in living things. There is a series of physical electrochemical events that happens during the time frame of the choosing. However, there is (as always) a separate measured set of processes that models the informational events.

Rather than a philosophic or mystical bent -- I am pushing that there are measurable information (non-physical) events. I don't think that the causal chain is "deeply buried"; just psychological in nature. What is at the root of things are: the ability to understand and the intent/desires that drives behavior to goals. The intensity and focus of goal-oriented behavior can be quantified by Bayesian inference.

This relates to what Ray Moody says about "nonsense". There can be clear prose in the language of the cultural environment. There can be sounds that are not actual speech, such as someone with a fever. However, besides the physical ability to speak - there is a logical "dimension".

A person can be speaking perfect English -- but in an environment where everyone understands Portuguese there is little communication. In this situation the English speaker is spouting nonsense. Professor Moody tells us-- that is what the dying may be facing, when discussing their dreams and ideas as they die. Its not just noise or scrambled thoughts - it could be nonsense when talking about a new and different environment.

Speaking scientifically about information processing, like it is completely mechanical, is nonsense. There is a truth to it - but it can not be understood outside of the context of information science parameters.
 
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Of course not, but why would we assume these variations are due to something other than inaccurate measurement or the randomness of QM?

The dimension of logic can be deterministic, in the environment of infospace. When operating in the three space and one time environment - material things, events and processes are ever only near deterministic. The idea of determinism of physics is bogus, from an empirical view! Facts are facts. Your whole argument is based on a metaphysical claim that is false. It works because the determinism possible on the information level is conflated with what we observe about mass and force. You simply have made the rule breakers of physical determinism,something non-physical. Randomness of QM - tell me what it is? Is it an observation or is it an emotional statement in reference to our knowledge.

I think the whole quantum weirdness is bullshit, it is doctrinaire emotional context to cover Physicalism. QM -- is what it is -- and when seen through the lens of a layered environment of multiple generative levels - it makes perfect sense!!!! Entanglement is normative and is the observation of structured information.
 
Rather than a philosophic or mystical bent -- I am pushing that there are measurable information (non-physical) events. I don't think that the causal chain is "deeply buried"; just psychological in nature. What is at the root of things are: the ability to understand and theintent/desires that drives behavior to goals.
Information is non-physical, though as far as science is concerned it is always stored in a physical way. Also, within conventional science, such information can only be used using a physical mechanism.

I don't think most people here are using the term 'non-physical' to refer to conventional information. Such information can't explain a wide range of phenomena - the awareness that some people have when a loved one is in physical danger far away, the awareness that some children have of a former life which is later verified, the process of remote viewing, etc.

I.e. there are strict limitations on what information can achieve, because to do anything it is still bound by physical laws.

Even the theoretical physicist Roger Penrose recognised that consciousness can't emerge from the running of a computer program (See his book, Shadows of the Mind), yet a computer program is composed of information.

David
 
It's not new; it's as old as consciousness. As for the details of how it works, you could try to introspect on your own decisions. When I do that, I find that I make decisions which have prior causes (in my being, as influenced by the external environment) but which could have been otherwise i.e. the decisions aren't necessitated even though they are causal. It's pretty simple. :)
No, it's really not simple. Just because you think you could choose A but then decide to choose B (or many other combinations of mind-changing) does not mean that the whole process wasn't deterministic and/or arbitrary. I don't think introspection does the trick. The "I could have decided differently" event does not require libertarian free will.

Huh. The ingratitude of it. You finally get an answer on your own terms to a question you've been asking persistently for years, and that's your attitude? You should be celebrating in the streets. "Hurrah! Hurrah! I have the answer! There are not only two, there are three! My riddle is solved! Hurrah! Hurrah!" ;-)
There was no answer. You simply said that when you thought about making a decision, you noticed multiple possibilities, perhaps changed your mind a few times, and then arrived at a decision. That process does not require libertarian free will.

Can we use "non-necessitating cause" rather than "indeterministic cause" please? I ask because you have stated multiple times that indeterministic is in your mind synonymous with random/arbitrary, but the third category which I've pointed out is neither random nor arbitrary.
Sure, we can call it non-necessitating cause. I don't see how it helps. There are plenty of individual causes that don't require a particular outcome, but when taken together do cause the outcome.

Another way to respond is this: they are causes within consciousnness, which - since it is immaterial - is not bound by the deterministic (and randomly indeterministic, in the case of quantum mechanics) laws of physics.
You can certainly make this just-so claim. However, you do not have proof that consciousness is immaterial nor that any so-called immaterial things are not bound by laws of physics. Even if they are bound by "laws of immateriality," you have no proof that those laws aren't deterministic/random.

No no - that's the second category of causation which you originally thought was the only category of indeterministic causation, the one symbolised by:

-> E2.
So you are saying that a non-necessitating cause can have prior causes? Are those non-necessitating, too? If so, then you are saying that the decisions comes ex nihilo. If you are not saying this, then I don't see how you've gained anything, since ultimately the decision was determined.

Part of the problem here appears to be that some people are assuming that their decisions that "surely feel free" are in fact free. This is begging the question.

~~ Paul
 
Quite so. I think your third category is relevant and should not be dismissed. In general I don't enjoy these sort of debates, as the outcome is dependent on the initial assumptions, as such it is more of an intellectual game than a serious attempt at finding out about the real world. However, as in computing, the adage, GIGO (garbage in, garbage out) applies. The initial assumptions are important.
I don't see why the outcome should be dependent on initial assumptions. I've given up my assumption that random = not determined. But I still need more than a just-so claim that

decision feels like it could have been different => decision was free

~~ Paul
 
Hi Paul,

It's hard to know how to respond to your post. This time, though, I am going to respond holistically rather than piecewise.

The first point I make is that you seem already to be retreating into a deterministic (necessitating) vs. non-deterministic (random/arbitrary) dichotomy, which I had hoped to have defused in my initial post to this thread. That you are recurring to this dichotomy seems evident in several of your comments, e.g. "[this] does not mean that the whole process wasn't deterministic and/or arbitrary", and "you have no proof that those laws aren't deterministic/random".

It seems, then - albeit, perhaps, for some, unnecessary and irritating - important to recap the trinary division of (a)causality that I proposed to supercede your deterministic vs random dichotomy:

1. "Necessitating causation", symbolised by "E1 ->(nec) E2".

2. "Acausality" aka (your preferred synonyms) "arbitrary"/"random" causality, for which, you also seem to suggest, you would also prefer/accept the synonym "ex nihilo" causality, symbolised by: "-> E2".

3. "Non-necessitating causation", symbolised by "E1 ->(n.n.) E2" (this is of course the sort of causality that I associate with free will).

It seems to me that you betray yourself as unwilling to accept the third category on its own terms. You seem to want to view it as some combination of the prior two: as some combination of "necessity" and "arbitrariness" - see, for example, that which you write here (emphasis mine): "So you are saying that a non-necessitating cause can have prior causes? Are those non-necessitating, too? If so, then you are saying that the decisions comes ex nihilo. If you are not saying this, then I don't see how you've gained anything, since ultimately the decision was determined".

Once again, we see that you resort to the dichotomy which, via my positing a reasonable third possibility, I would have hoped you would have admitted has been superceded.

But let's examine this possibility a little more closely, because, immersed as we all are in a culture sympathetic to determinism, augmented by that science which has so profitably influenced our powerful technology - quantum mechanics, in all of its acausal glory - it's easy to - as you do - reduce it to this dichotomy.

I think the key phrase that I would use to refute this reductionism is "freely responsible". Non-necessitating causality is not a determinism augmented by arbitrary randomness, as you would seem to want to argue, in which the "arbitrary randomness" of the indeterminism disqualifies any possibility of responsibility - as you would argue, and after all, if your decisions are just the outcome of a metaphorical rolling of the dice, then you can't be deemed responsible. Instead, non-necessitating causality is the process by which consciousness - with full personal liability and responsibility - freely (and not "randomly") chooses its course, without being forced into any particular outcome by the reputedly deterministic laws of physics, and instead, by its own uniquely unburdened process, forges its own creative path.

Now, in other parts of your post, you mount an implicit (perhaps even explicit) challenge: prove that we have free will; prove that my (Paul's) dichotomy is false. Of course, this is a challenge that is impossible to meet. I can no more prove this than I can prove that we are not all aliens dreaming that we are human. The existence of free will is not amenable to the sort of scientific study you imply, and nor is it philosophically provable. All I can do is:

(1) Point out (as I have done) that philosophical arguments which purport to disprove it (i.e. your argument-from-a-dichotomy-that-invalidates-personal-responsibility) fail, or at least that they have strong objections to them (i.e. that the dichotomy is actually triune).

(2) Point out that, introspectively, free will is (seems to be, if you prefer) self-evident, which bolsters the disproof of your dichotomy, and encourages us into a realistic conclusion.

All I'm saying in the end, Paul, is that I think that you are blinded by modern ideology from a conclusion which the majority of humanity has taken to be self-evident over the majority of its existence: that when we feel like we make a free yet personally responsible decision, we actually do. I do of course, though, appreciate the dialogue.
 
No, it's really not simple. Just because you think you could choose A but then decide to choose B (or many other combinations of mind-changing) does not mean that the whole process wasn't deterministic and/or arbitrary. I don't think introspection does the trick. The "I could have decided differently" event does not require libertarian free will.
I think you fail to realise what the idea of non-libertarian free-will does to science itself. The destruction it wreaks is almost Gödelian.

Suppose for example you do an experiment the relationship between X and Y. You choose a set of points X and obtain values of Y that indicate that Y is more or less independent of X. Fine - but suppose that you were not free to choose those X values - some algorithm inside your head chose the values of X - then it is entirely possible that Y is a periodic function of X, but the algorithm inside your head chose values that would select the peaks in the Y osscillation!

That might sound a bit contrived, but I think issues like this pervade science. For example, I think you accept that some areas of science have been damaged by politics. Well politics in this context, is if you like (and from your perspective), a shift in the algorithm scientists use to make decisions. Corrupted scientists still make their decisions using an algorithm, but they get the wrong result!

Think of all those areas of statistical science that can be distorted by cherry picking the data. We hope at least that those responsible for a piece of research have not done this - but what right have we to assume this of an algorithm?

As is often the case, you only see the ultimate consequences of an idea when you look at its consequences on the very processes that gave rise to it!

Science without libertarian free will is worthless!

David
 
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3. "Non-necessitating causation", symbolised by "E1 ->(n.n.) E2" (this is of course the sort of causality that I associate with free will).

It seems to me that you betray yourself as unwilling to accept the third category on its own terms. You seem to want to view it as some combination of the prior two: as some combination of "necessity" and "arbitrariness" - see, for example, that which you write here (emphasis mine): "So you are saying that a non-necessitating cause can have prior causes? Are those non-necessitating, too? If so, then you are saying that the decisions comes ex nihilo. If you are not saying this, then I don't see how you've gained anything, since ultimately the decision was determined".

Once again, we see that you resort to the dichotomy which, via my positing a reasonable third possibility, I would have hoped you would have admitted has been superceded.
Why would I admit this when you have not explained what non-necessitating causation is? I was asking questions in the hope of obtaining an explanation.

I think the key phrase that I would use to refute this reductionism is "freely responsible". Non-necessitating causality is not a determinism augmented by arbitrary randomness, as you would seem to want to argue, in which the "arbitrary randomness" of the indeterminism disqualifies any possibility of responsibility - as you would argue, and after all, if your decisions are just the outcome of a metaphorical rolling of the dice, then you can't be deemed responsible. Instead, non-necessitating causality is the process by which consciousness - with full personal liability and responsibility - freely (and not "randomly") chooses its course, without being forced into any particular outcome by the reputedly deterministic laws of physics, and instead, by its own uniquely unburdened process, forges its own creative path.
Now you can explain what "by its own uniquely unburdened process, forges its own creative path" actually means? How does the process arrive at a decision if it is unburdened, by which I take you to mean not deterministic? How does it decide what path to take?

The answer, of course, cannot be "it decides freely," because that just begs the question.

~~ Paul
 
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Suppose for example you do an experiment the relationship between X and Y. You choose a set of points X and obtain values of Y that indicate that Y is more or less independent of X. Fine - but suppose that you were not free to choose those X values - some algorithm inside your head chose the values of X - then it is entirely possible that Y is a periodic function of X, but the algorithm inside your head chose values that would select the peaks in the Y osscillation!
If you are concerned about this, then pick the X values at random.

Science without libertarian free will is worthless!
I agree that it is logically possible that certain experiments are distorted by the interaction of my thinking processes with external processes. I think it is quite unlikely that every experiment is distorted in this way. But if they are, then science is a fool's errand. I'm not going to conclude that there is such a thing as free will just because I want science to work. And even if there is free will, how do we know it applies to scientific experiment design?

~~ Paul
 
If you are concerned about this, then pick the X values at random.


I agree that it is logically possible that certain experiments are distorted by the interaction of my thinking processes with external processes. I think it is quite unlikely that every experiment is distorted in this way. But if they are, then science is a fool's errand. I'm not going to conclude that there is such a thing as free will just because I want science to work. And even if there is free will, how do we know it applies to scientific experiment design?

~~ Paul
The point is, the entire idea that (libertarian) free will doesn't exist only arose because of science, and even then only because science made certain assumptions. So if you deny genuine free will, you can't trust science, but that means you don't have to make the assumption that genuine free will doesn't exist!

Picking X values at random, might not 'please' whatever algorithm the brain used to do such things - perhaps because it (the algorithm) would not have control, perhaps because the data analysis would be made more complicated!

Science without free will, means nobody is actually responsible for any result - valid or invalid. It means that there may be blind spots for mathematics that can't be unpicked. Above all, it means that nothing is trustworthy!

There is always the idea in science that the experimenter is free to set up the equipment as he/she sees fit.

The strange thing about materialism, is that it starts out sounding like common sense, but as you dig in, it gets weirder and weirder. At some point, the sensible answer is obviously to back off and think again.

David
 
The point is, the entire idea that (libertarian) free will doesn't exist only arose because of science, and even then only because science made certain assumptions. So if you deny genuine free will, you can't trust science, but that means you don't have to make the assumption that genuine free will doesn't exist!
Philosophers have been discussing free will since forever. And even if science had something to do with it and you don't trust science, that does not mean you get to ignore the problem.

Picking X values at random, might not 'please' whatever algorithm the brain used to do such things - perhaps because it (the algorithm) would not have control, perhaps because the data analysis would be made more complicated!
Too bad. If you're worried about determinism biasing your choices, pick them in a nondeterministic way.

Science without free will, means nobody is actually responsible for any result - valid or invalid. It means that there may be blind spots for mathematics that can't be unpicked. Above all, it means that nothing is trustworthy!
That doesn't make the nonexistent description of free decisions to which we have been treated here any more coherent.

The argument appears to be: We just gotta have free will or I'm going to be really uncomfortable. Fair enough, but I still haven't seen any sort of description of how it might work. I don't mean some complex mathematical "physics of free will." I'm only looking for a couple of sentences that describe the free decision process.

Perhaps your mention of being responsible for choices might lead somewhere.

~~ Paul
 
Now you can explain what "by its own uniquely unburdened process, forges its own creative path" actually means. How does the process arrive at a decision if it is unburdened, by which I take you to mean not deterministic? How does it decide what path to take?

At this point, we're simply going around in circles. I've already told you that the process is not amenable to reductionism, but I have described it for you so far as is possible. I'm not sure why "a non-necessary causal process" is in principle any less explanatory than "a necessary causal process". We have experience with both - the first, introspectively; the second, scientifically, or, in other words, out in physical reality. (And yes, by "unburdened" I mean "not deterministic", in the sense of its outcome not being forced or necessitated).

ETA: Here's another way of answering your question: it decides which path to take causally. That causal process, though, is not a necessitated one.
 
The strange thing about materialism, is that it starts out sounding like common sense, but as you dig in, it gets weirder and weirder. At some point, the sensible answer is obviously to back off and think again.

The weird thing about materialism's competitors is they start out strange, and get even stranger... The point is, judging a model of reality by one's personal credulity is unlikely to get us anywhere.
 
The weird thing about materialism's competitors is they start out strange, and get even stranger... The point is, judging a model of reality by one's personal credulity is unlikely to get us anywhere.

Depends on your starting point. I don't think idealism is strange at all. Indeed, when I was much younger I scratched around in libraries and bookshops looking for something that made sense. I finally found it when I read about idealism.

Conversely, I was scratching around because the more I thought about a mechanistic universe and how it might have come about, the less it made any sense. All those coincidences. All that chance coming-together. All those empty explanations involving the law of large numbers. None of those contrivances are necessary if you think of reality as a manifestation of an infinitely creative mind. Mind is only strange if you insist it must be produced by matter.
 
Depends on your starting point. I don't think idealism is strange at all. Indeed, when I was much younger I scratched around in libraries and bookshops looking for something that made sense. I finally found it when I read about idealism.

Conversely, I was scratching around because the more I thought about a mechanistic universe and how it might have come about, the less it made any sense. All those coincidences. All that chance coming-together. All those empty explanations involving the law of large numbers. None of those contrivances are necessary if you think of reality as a manifestation of an infinitely creative mind. Mind is only strange if you insist it must be produced by matter.
This is my point about personal (in)credulity and what 'makes sense'. It varies so much from person to person (not to mention from philosopher to philosopher) that to use it in an argument is worthless. I try really hard to not use arguments from incredulity on here these days, even though they appear good enough for Chalmers to use ;).
 
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