The One where Riggerjack schools brute on Free Will

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enigmaT120
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Re: The One where Riggerjack schools brute on Free Will

Post by enigmaT120 »

I wish I had something clever to add, but all I get is that it feels like free will to me, so I'll act like it is.

Why didn't they have funny utube videos when I was in college?

Dragline
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Re: The One where Riggerjack schools brute on Free Will

Post by Dragline »

enigmaT120 wrote:I wish I had something clever to add, but all I get is that it feels like free will to me, so I'll act like it is.

Why didn't they have funny utube videos when I was in college?
The clever part to add is that this is a consequence of the emergent property of the human brain known as "theory of mind", which is programmed in from birth and has been found in human babies. (Emergent means that it cannot be predicted or "found" through any direct study of the brain itself, yet its existence is undeniable from observation.) "Theory of mind" compels us to project agency or thought patterns on other humans, animals and even objects that we see acting in a certain way or even appearing a certain way. It is almost uniquely a human trait -- whether animals possess it at all, and to what extent, is still a matter of great conflict and controversy among experimenters.

Theory of mind leads to the very real perception/experience/feeling in our mind's eye that any actions taken by an observed actor are taken through the volition (or free will) of the observed actor, or at least are not connected with the observer, and also may lead us to act preemptively based on those observations. For human beings to behave successfully in groups and form societies, this perception and mutual projection must be accounted for and tends to be an important building block of interpersonal relationships and societal rules, including law, especially as it governs personal responsibility for one's actions.

daylen
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Re: The One where Riggerjack schools brute on Free Will

Post by daylen »

Anyone know any good books on emergence?

Dragline
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Re: The One where Riggerjack schools brute on Free Will

Post by Dragline »

In this context, read this one: https://www.amazon.com/Whos-Charge-Free ... 0061906115 and this article: https://www.quantamagazine.org/20140403 ... -the-mind/

In broader contexts, read Mark Buchanan's "Ubiquity" and "Forecast", P. Bak's "How Nature Works" and Beinhocker's "Origin of Wealth." Best general resource on complexity theory is probably the Sante Fe Institute, although its not that user-friendly: http://santafe.edu/

Some of the nonsensical ravings of my own lunatic mind, including other references:

http://www.prospectingmimeticfractals.c ... -lens.html

http://www.prospectingmimeticfractals.c ... c-fractals

Riggerjack
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Re: The One where Riggerjack schools brute on Free Will

Post by Riggerjack »

does Riggerjack think that his belief in human agency (or shall brute say HUMAN ACTION) is caused by libertarianism? brute has encountered many libertarians and especially randroids that can't stand the idea of determinism, because their entire ethical system is based on free will (or so they think).
I do self identify as libertarian, but I acknowledge the weaknesses of libertarian thinking on several subjects ( pollution comes to mind)

No, I don't believe in agency to support my political philosophy. As I've mentioned in other areas here, I come from the bottom social strata. 3 uncles are lifers, been homeless as a kid, several times. Blah, blah.

I'm now pretty firmly entrenched in the middle class. And the biggest difference between the two is the proportion of people who believe in agency.

I cannot count the number of people who, when I was young, pushed the "you have to have an in" angle for why better jobs, Union jobs, or other opportunities were not available to my kind. And how many times, I saw people sabotage friends and family, justifying the action with,"kicking out the ladder hurts less if he doesn't have as far to fall.

In the middle class, determinism, and other arguments to rob folks of agency, like:
"the man is keeping us down"
Opportunities just aren't there
The system is set up to screw the little guy
The middle class is stagnant
All the good jobs have gone overseas
Etc ad nauseum
Don't really do much damage. In the middle class, you have both storylines, and people will choose that which fits their needs.

These same storylines do real damage at the bottom. Our poor have it better, materially than the poor anywhere else. But the real problem with being poor in America is too much time, with too much unavailable to you, with the knowledge that nothing will get better, ever.

It is that certainty that I am fighting by pushing agency.

Toska2
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Re: The One where Riggerjack schools brute on Free Will

Post by Toska2 »

I'm reading my deterministic tarot cards. They say everybody in this thread will give me $50.

Dragline
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Re: The One where Riggerjack schools brute on Free Will

Post by Dragline »

They said to forget the $50 and complete the languishing month-old blog post. So I did:

http://www.prospectingmimeticfractals.c ... n-fractals

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Ego
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Re: The One where Riggerjack schools brute on Free Will

Post by Ego »

Riggerjack wrote: These same storylines do real damage at the bottom. Our poor have it better, materially than the poor anywhere else. But the real problem with being poor in America is too much time, with too much unavailable to you, with the knowledge that nothing will get better, ever.

It is that certainty that I am fighting by pushing agency.
Rigger, you don't like the what it would mean if we live in a deterministic world. The fact that you don't like it is no argument against the truth of it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_consequences

Toska2
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Re: The One where Riggerjack schools brute on Free Will

Post by Toska2 »

But then to what degree does this happen? A loss means it was once there.

http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shot ... way-to-sin

BRUTE
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Re: The One where Riggerjack schools brute on Free Will

Post by BRUTE »

behavior change doesn't mean old behavior was free will?

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Ego
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Re: The One where Riggerjack schools brute on Free Will

Post by Ego »

Toska2 wrote:But then to what degree does this happen? A loss means it was once there.

http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shot ... way-to-sin
The me who decided to organize this sentence in this precise way is the sum of my genetics plus all the things that happened the me up to this point. Losing one of my social filters does not represent a loss of free will. It represents either a loss of an innate filter (nature) or, more likely, one that I learned over my years operating in the world as I experienced it (nurture).

Riggerjack
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Re: The One where Riggerjack schools brute on Free Will

Post by Riggerjack »

Rigger, you don't like the what it would mean if we live in a deterministic world. The fact that you don't like it is no argument against the truth of it.
What truth? It's a comforting storyline. It helps people feel superior to others because it "feels scientifical". Much like free will. Again, just a storyline, because we have nothing better. My point wasn't that we CAN prove free will, or that we can't. It is that scientifical sounding, plus quantum woo is no more valid than feelings of free will.

We don't know. There isn't even much evidence either way. Prefences are just that.

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Ego
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Re: The One where Riggerjack schools brute on Free Will

Post by Ego »

Where is the quantum woo? If anything, the quantum woo comes in with the idea of free will. Where is the evidence showing free will? If you are saying something exists with no evidence of its existence, then woo. You're they one saying free will exists.

Spartan_Warrior
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Re: The One where Riggerjack schools brute on Free Will

Post by Spartan_Warrior »

I've had this discussion somewhere recently, not sure which thread, but despite the typical conflation of the two, IMO there is a significant and important difference between fatalism and determinism. Indeed, it is this difference that allows me to simultaneously hold both of these beliefs with no incoherence: determinism is true and free will is false, and yet what I do today determines my future.

It is my opinion that folks who disagree with this--those who believe that determinism provides "a convenient excuse to fail/not try", whether they think that's good or not--simply have not fully grokked the meaning of determinism, which is centered on causality. If you think what you do today has no effect on tomorrow, that is incompatible with determinism, almost oppositional to it. That the events of today are the causal inputs of tomorrow is just as necessarily entailed by determinism as the fact that the events of today were caused by the events of yesterday.

BRUTE
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Re: The One where Riggerjack schools brute on Free Will

Post by BRUTE »

brute remembers this discussion as well.

now in the context of what was brought up earlier with regard to emergence, brute would suggest that "fatalism" in Spartan_Warriors sense is the idea that there is determinism but no (strong) emergence - so that the future can be exactly predicted. whereas determinism in the sense brute believes in it still allows for strong emergence. meaning even though brute is convinced the universe is deterministic, he has no idea what will happen in the future, because it's just too complex to extrapolate from carbon atoms.

does that sound about right to Spartan_Warrior?


@Ego:

coming from the other side here, brute could look at it this way: there is an experience that almost all humans have and mostly agree upon, and they call it free will. so far, no quantum woo.

is there room between determinism on an atomic level and this relatively high-level, observed phenomenon?

as an analogy, Ego can imagine this: brute refutes the idea of dogs, because clearly, everything's just carbon atoms. yeeeaaa, but... humans clearly experience "dogs" from time to time. maybe it makes sense to build abstract concepts that were created through many layers of strong emergence.

there are at least these layers between atoms and "free will":

biological cells
biological organs
brain/mind (very poorly understood at this point)
psychology

in a way, it's fascinating that science has an easier time understanding the fundamental building blocks (atoms), even though they're "further away" on the abstraction scale. maybe similar to how it's easier to understand bricks & mortar than complex architecture and load analysis.

ps: brute is somehow arguing for the wrong side now.

ThisDinosaur
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Re: The One where Riggerjack schools brute on Free Will

Post by ThisDinosaur »

>Free will is demonstrated when you make a decision and act on it.

>Your decision is determined by how you value the assumed outcome of the decision.

>Your opinion of the relative value of the outcome is determined by :
(a)your genetics/initial condition + (b)environmental influences on your condition.

Absent a third factor (soul?) I don't see where free will can be expressed. Even if you try to *prove* you have free will (by, for example, doing the opposite of your natural impulses) you still have to account for the origin of your desire to do so.

7Wannabe5
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Re: The One where Riggerjack schools brute on Free Will

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

It is my understanding that the brain processes information about future me in the same manner, or at the same level, that it processes information about others. Therefore, I would suggest that the concept of the self possessing free will may be consequent to the assumption that others possess free will. IOW, considering,planning and then carrying out behavior that will influence the state of future me seems like a higher level function than responding in the moment to the behavior of others based on the assumption that they have free will, but it only needs the same underlying building blocks to exist.

For example, I am a primitive creature trying to find some food, and I observe a boulder rolling down the hill towards me in one direction, and a sharp-toothed predator coming towards me from the other direction. It would be helpful to my survival to recognize that the rock does not possess something like "free movement", but the predator does. Then all I have to do is have a concept of self, and recognize that I am more like the predator than the rock to also assign "free movement" to myself. Add the concept of the future to my bag of tricks, and I can also assign "free movement" to future me.

Anyways, this is my theory based on observations of human infants attempting various tasks with poorly developed motor skills, but powered by huge amounts of WANT!WANT!WANT! in the moment. For instance, I highly doubt that my son at the age of 10 months was able to form a thoughtful intention along the lines of:

"They think they can keep me caged in this prison of a crib just because I am yet unable to stand firmly upon these weak chubby legs, but they are wrong!! MY PLAN FOR THE BENEFIT OF FUTURE ME:

1) Continue to scream, because the soft, leaky one might cave and come to the rescue.
2) Stretch, stretch, stretch until top bar can be grasped.
3) Heave, heave, heave. Do not give up although the damned cloth diaper is heavy.
4) Roll! Roll! Roll! Right over the edge.
5) Attempt safe landing upon cushioned bottom rather than soft head.
6) Freedom!
7) Exhibit gumless grin of victory when the soft-leaky one arrives at the door."

However, it still appeared to me that he was in possession of free will and to an even greater extent than the soft-tired-leaky one.

Spartan_Warrior
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Re: The One where Riggerjack schools brute on Free Will

Post by Spartan_Warrior »

@BRUTE: I must admit I haven't read every article in this thread nor am I very familiar with the term "emergence" and all its meanings. My understanding is that emergence in this context refers to the fact that consciousness (which is the reason we experience the sense of "free will") is an emergent property from the physical systems of the brain/body. "Strong emergence" appears to imply that an emergent property like consciousness is able to exert "direct causal action on its components". Thus, the consciousness is able to exert influence on the brain/body. Ta-da, free will! Right...?

I don't have any particular stance on that except to agree with Mark Bedau from the Wiki article in that it seems like a very strange, "magical" sort of causation. It goes against my layman's understanding of causality, as it appears to require an interaction between physical substances (brain/body) and the non-physical emergent substance, whereas causality to my knowledge is exclusively between physical substances.

Bottom line, no, I don't believe the concept of emergence is necessary either way for the distinction I draw between determinism and fatalism. (That's not to say emergence is impossible or irrelevant to the discussion as a whole.) Again, I think the distinction is logically entailed simply by the definitions of determinism and fatalism.

The fatalist says, "It doesn't matter what I do today, the future is set." The determinist says, "What I do today is (partly) what determines the future."

Now, what's troubling you is the fact that "What I do today" is also determined. Note that I'm not arguing against that. I am not saying, "I am free to choose what I do today." Nor is free will at all required for what I do today to (partly) determine the future.

It's hard to explain, but I almost find determinism to be an empowering, if not "freeing", belief. Granted, I didn't choose who I am. I don't get to influence the causal laws that brought me to the present state of things. I didn't shape the factors that influence the way I make decisions. Et cetera. And yet, my unique life path brought me to enough knowledge to understand the concept of determinism, which says that preceding events combined with physical laws combine to cause the future. From this it also occurs to me that the events of today are the preceding events of tomorrow. So, to the extent that it occurs to me to make decisions (System 2 thinking?), I should make those decisions that I suspect will most likely cause the future outcomes I desire.

Perhaps this is the best way I can put it. Suppose I want to compete in a triathlon. In a metaphysical sense, I didn't choose this desire. Through deterministic causality, the prior events of my life led me to this particular desire. As it happens, the prior events in my life also converged such that, at approximately eleven o'clock today, the physical structure of my brain becomes arranged such that I experience the conscious thought, "Hey, should I train for the triathlon today?" Thanks to my knowledge of determinism, ironically arrived at through deterministic processes, I am aware that if I don't train today, I may never compete in that triathlon in the future. Because that's how causality works.

Thus, my belief in determinism actually motivates me more to take control of the causal inputs of my life to whatever extent possible. Even if that control turns out to be illusory, the causal inputs themselves are not.

I think there are probably different levels or layers of "control/agency" and even "choice", for that matter. Perhaps these concepts should also be distinct from the metaphysical idea of "Free Will".

Perhaps this is all just incoherent compatibilist nonsense, but it seems to work for me. By the way, this distinction strikes me as most useful in combating the "appeal to consequences" argument. I don't believe fatalism, which to me is that particular sense of existential helplessness to play any role in one's own future, is necessarily entailed by determinism, and certainly not synonymous with it.

BRUTE
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Re: The One where Riggerjack schools brute on Free Will

Post by BRUTE »

7Wannabe5 wrote:I would suggest that the concept of the self possessing free will may be consequent to the assumption that others possess free will.
brute agrees 100%. this is actually an important tenet of Dennett's theory of consciousness. he says that humans have likely developed the idea that they themselves are conscious from the observation that other animals (and humans) seem conscious.

brute likes to describes this phenomenon as humans anthropomorphizing each other, and then themselves.

let brute rephrase the debate about "the illusion of free will" a bit.

maybe the illusion isn't the "free will" (i.e. the choice being made), as much as the alternative options? humans experience free will because they saw a number of options, and they only acted upon one of them. but did they really have a choice? could a human who dislikes vanilla really have chosen the vanilla ice cream? it certainly seems to this human that he could have, but (in this case, biological/psychological rather than atomic) determinism says he could not.

if a human is faced with x options in any given situation, and experiences himself, half consciously and half subconsciously, dismissing one option after another until only one is left and "chosen", this decision making process could be considered the expression of the "free will". but these types of decisions are made by plenty of entities that humans usually consider not to have free will - for example, computer programs.

BRUTE
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Re: The One where Riggerjack schools brute on Free Will

Post by BRUTE »

@Spartan_Warrior:

brute is also new to the whole emergence thing. the aspect of "strong emergence" he meant was that it's not easily possible to simulate/tell the effects.

i.e. the emergence of a stomach ache after eating a wide variety of hamburgers is easy to determine beforehand (silly example of weak emergence). but the biological design of an animal brute knows to be built out of carbon atoms is much more complicated, if not impossible, to predict/simulate.

for the record, brute also finds determinism very freeing in a sense. brute thinks there's a type of individual that finds "understanding" relaxing and freeing. maybe because it displays a level of control over the environment. every time brute understands something, he starts to feel good about this domain, even if his physical situation didn't at all change.

one more attempt at understanding Determinism vs. Fatalism:

determinist: knows that his performance in triathlon will be the sum of effects his training has had
fatalist: knows that he will win the triathlon, so he doesn't even train

or: determinism says the future will be a function of the present, but doesn't say how that future will look (emergence). fatalism says the future will look a certain way, no matter how the present or any in-between state will look like. insofar, the two really are incompatible unless one has an emergence-predicting crystal ball.

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