Free Will

GrahamH · **#8321** by **GrahamH** » Apr 18, 2017 8:14 pm

John Platko wrote:
GrahamH wrote:
romansh wrote:
Motl wrote:
All the evidence about the world – about anything – that I may really trust fundamentally boils down to my perceptions. Similarly, all the evidence that you should trust comes through your perception. You are observing the world but the information gets to your knowledge through your nerves and brain cells.

My perception of this is that it is incredibly naïve.

edit
I got this bit of knowledge through my nerves and brain cells, especially after I read it back to myself.

I agree, it does seem naïve. Even JP is acknowledging a strong role for "the unconscious", which is not perception, is it? It seems inescapable that reality defines most, if not all, of what we are, and even our perceptions are shaped by things not perceived. The idea that all we "know" "comes through perception" can't be right.

How do you know that perception (mental impression) is right. Maybe "the committee" just wants you to think it's right. Who knows what "the committee" is hiding from you, or what you would think if they weren't hiding it.

Cartoon nihilism and paranoia from you now? If you can't have absolute reason and free free will you can't face the world at all? :roll:

John Platko · **#8322** by **John Platko** » Apr 18, 2017 8:25 pm

GrahamH wrote:
John Platko wrote:I'm having even more trouble trying to sus out the ramifications for the folks who concede they have no free will and that their choices are made by some currently mysterious mechanisms in their brain which control them. These mysterious mechanisms are so powerful that they can give people the illusion that they are free. So what other illusions might they create? It seems to me that once we concede that our thoughts are not the product of conscious activity but rather mysterious mechanisms that can delude us about a basic experience like choice then perhaps we're also deluded about other conscious activity that we might take for granted.

Your reasoning seems sound. Yes, perhaps that is the case. But there is no need to speak of "mysterious mechanisms". We know what the mechanisms are in some detail. All we have to do is understand them.

We really don't know how this all works. We don't even know how to approach knowing. Chomsky wasn't even willing to concede that it was all about neurons. We'll know when we know and not before. (JP Deepity #1) All these posts and that's my first deepity :scratch:

perhaps not.)

John Platko wrote:The underlying mysterious mechanisms that make our choices for us are perhaps neither rational or skeptical - how could we know? We are under their power - which as we've seen, is indeed great. Oh the plot thickens.

Surely you have it backwards. The mechanisms are our power. We are not apart from the "substrate" that makes it all happen. We are not separate entities imposed on by our brains, our selves, our wills are what our brains construct. What were you saying about model of self?

No backwards. We are souls (snippets of knowledge) instantiated in a human body. We are not the substrate, we are the knowledge that organizes the substrate. That knowledge is ultimately our self. I suppose I should capitalize that. That knowledge is ultimately the Self.

from

The Self in Jungian psychology is one of the Jungian archetypes, signifying the unification of consciousness and unconsciousness in a person, and representing the psyche as a whole.[1] The Self, according to Carl Jung, is realized as the product of individuation, which in his view is the process of integrating one's personality.

John Platko · **#8323** by **John Platko** » Apr 18, 2017 8:33 pm

LucidFlight wrote:In Blade Runner, did Rachael know she could play the piano? She had the memory from Tyrell's niece, but Rachael herself says she didn't know if she could play — yet, she remembered lessons. Is knowledge simply having the memory, or is it the perception of knowing recalling and that you have using that memory (i.e., playing the piano)? Is knowledge simply the possession of information or is it the ability to recall and perceive one's own possession of said information?

Edited: see strike-out bits.

ETA

Rachael perceives herself playing the piano; therefore, she confirms she has that knowledge, through perceiving that she has it.

I'm talking about objective knowledge. It could be a memory but it's a more fundamental information structure. For example, DNA has the kind of knowledge that I'm talking about. A bit of a refresher for your convenience.

2.15 Knowledge

The most important kind of abstract constructor is knowledge. Knowledge is information which, once it is physically instantiated in a suitable environment, tends to cause itself to remain so: it survives criticism, testing, random noise, and error correction. (Here I am adopting Popper’s (1972) conception of knowledge, in which there need be no knowing subject.) For example, the knowledge encoded in an organism’s DNA consists of abstract genes that cause the environment to transform raw materials into another instance of the organism, and thereby to keep those abstract genes, and not mutations or other variants of them, physically instantiated, despite the mutation and natural selection that keep happening. Similarly, the ideas constituting the abstract constructor for preserving the ship of Theseus would have had to include not only some relatively arbitrary information about the historical shape of the ship, but also knowledge of how to cause Athenians to preserve those ideas themselves through the generations, and to reject rival ideas.

Now consider again the set of all physically possible transformations. For almost every such transformation, the story of how it could happen is the story of how knowledge might be created and applied to cause it. Part of that story is, in almost all cases, the story of how people (intelligent beings) would create that knowledge, and of why they would retain the proposal to apply it in that way while rejecting or amending rival proposals (so a significant determinant is moral knowledge). Hence, from the constructor-theoretic perspective, physics is almost entirely the theory of the effects that knowledge (abstract constructors) can have on the physical world, via people. But again, the prevailing conception conceals this. 2

GrahamH · **#8324** by **GrahamH** » Apr 18, 2017 8:39 pm

John Platko wrote: That knowledge is ultimately our self. I suppose I should capitalize that. That knowledge is ultimately the Self.

I can almost agree with that equivalence. Self is knowledge. Self is what is known of it. But what is it that builds knowledge and therefore self? There is no self except in the work done by the substrate. Substrate can exist without knowledge, but knowledge cannot exist without substrate.
[/quote]

John Platko · **#8325** by **John Platko** » Apr 18, 2017 8:44 pm

GrahamH wrote:
John Platko wrote:I'm not questioning that. I'm saying if the demonstrated reality is that people are not consciously making their choices, if they are being deluded by some mysterious mechanism that is ultimately in control of them, then how can they know that what they believe to be rational actually is rational. Maybe the mysterious mechanism is deluding them into believing that their irrational ideas are rational.

That's what science is for, to apply reality tests to reason, to try applying knowledge to see if actually means what we think it means, to see if the thing you think you understand is actually just nonsense. As Cito is very fond of saying - "bend a spoon".

Newton "bent spoons" but he was still deluded into thinking things that were fundamentally just not true. We do the best we can with the experiments we can do. But science is good. Perhaps you should try doing some experiments to test if you have free will.

Edit (So I have Carroll, Dennett, Deutsch, Motl, and Chomsky on my side and you have Blackmore and Cito? :lol:

)

romansh · **#8326** by **romansh** » Apr 18, 2017 8:53 pm

John Platko wrote:So we got Motl and Chomsky and I guess Platko who are incredibly naïve. Anyone else? Dennett? Deutsch?

I don't recall calling anyone naïve John ... certain expressions of ideas yes. But it is an interesting point where does an expression of an idea end and a person begin?

John Platko wrote:I can't imagine what it must be like to not be able to trust your own experiences. I'm not saying it's not good to check your own experiences against the experiences of others but that only gets you so far. Sure, we can delude ourselves into thinking all kinds of crazy stuff, but we can do that with scientific theories too.

I trust my Newtonian perception of reality although I have good reasons to believe it is an approximation and is generally fit for purpose.

How do you know you have not deluded yourself John?

John Platko wrote:It doesn't seem like people yet understand quantum mechanics enough to say one way or the other if the world is deterministic - although I gather Sean Carroll is convinced it is. For me it doesn't really matter. I don't find it to be that interesting a question. The far more interesting question is how much can I influence these mysterious inner mechanisms. Some days, it seems more than others. Maybe you've pounded this problem enough for now and it would be worthwhile to pound that (what can I do about it) problem a bit.

Again it does not matter whether the universe has deterministic, indeterministic or just plain probabilistic properties, so long as our wills have a mechanism that fit into some combination of these properties then our will is not free from that mechanism.

This is a central point you steadfastly do not address.

John Platko · **#8327** by **John Platko** » Apr 18, 2017 8:54 pm

GrahamH wrote:
John Platko wrote:
Chomsky only believes in the Carroll, Dennett kind of free will - he doesn't make any claims about the non free free will. Chomsky didn't go full Motl.

Are you suggesting free free will now? How about free free free will?

I was suggesting ((non free) (free will)).

Isn't Dennett's free will the non free free will kind?

The language is a bit confusing. I prefer to call your kind of free will "no free will", and my kind of free will "free will".
Dennett mostly talks about my kind of free will. Saying things like: it's irresponsible to tell people they don't have it.

John Platko · **#8328** by **John Platko** » Apr 18, 2017 8:56 pm

GrahamH wrote:
John Platko wrote:
GrahamH wrote:
romansh wrote:
My perception of this is that it is incredibly naïve.

edit
I got this bit of knowledge through my nerves and brain cells, especially after I read it back to myself.

I agree, it does seem naïve. Even JP is acknowledging a strong role for "the unconscious", which is not perception, is it? It seems inescapable that reality defines most, if not all, of what we are, and even our perceptions are shaped by things not perceived. The idea that all we "know" "comes through perception" can't be right.

How do you know that perception (mental impression) is right. Maybe "the committee" just wants you to think it's right. Who knows what "the committee" is hiding from you, or what you would think if they weren't hiding it.

Cartoon nihilism and paranoia from you now? If you can't have absolute reason and free free will you can't face the world at all?

I'm just saying that if you think people are being deluded into thinking they have free will it seems like the next step is to wonder what else they are being deluded about. :scratch:

romansh · **#8329** by **romansh** » Apr 18, 2017 9:07 pm

John Platko wrote:
Edit (So I have Carroll, Dennett, Deutsch, Motl, and Chomsky on my side and you have Blackmore and Cito? )

and
Hawking
Mlodinow
Darrow
Clemens (Samuel)
Einstein
Wegner
Harris
Eagleman
Russell

Just to name a few
And don't forget Archi

edit a few more

Bruce Waller
Owen Flanagan
Derk Pereboom
Stephen Morse
Janet Radcliffe Richards
Galen Strawson
John Bargh
Melissa Fergusson
Francisco Varela
Robert Wright
Robert Gulack

John Platko · **#8330** by **John Platko** » Apr 18, 2017 9:12 pm

GrahamH wrote:
John Platko wrote: That knowledge is ultimately our self. I suppose I should capitalize that. That knowledge is ultimately the Self.

I can almost agree with that equivalence. Self is knowledge. Self is what is known of it. But what is it that builds knowledge and therefore self? There is no self except in the work done by the substrate. Substrate can exist without knowledge, but knowledge cannot exist without substrate.

A constructor builds knowledge. The knowledge instantiated in our DNA bootstraps the process and defines some limits around what knowledge is possible and what knowledge is impossible for us to construct, and then our interactions with the physical world, sometimes with knowledge instantiated in it, builds the self. Being a nuts and bolts sort of guy there's something rather appealing of it all just happening through initial conditions and laws of motion.

GrahamH · **#8331** by **GrahamH** » Apr 18, 2017 9:29 pm

DNA pre-existed genomes. Substrate first. Mutation precedes selection, form precedes knowledge. How does knowledge "bootstrap" anything? If knowledge can do that what are substrates for?
Knowledge that is impossible for us to construct may be found by existing in the world. The trick is being in the right place at the right time to be the conduit that can combine information into knowledge. It's not a matter of will, unless you can demonstrate creation of new knowledge by nothing but an act of will...

John Platko · **#8332** by **John Platko** » Apr 18, 2017 9:32 pm

romansh wrote:
John Platko wrote:So we got Motl and Chomsky and I guess Platko who are incredibly naïve. Anyone else? Dennett? Deutsch?

I don't recall calling anyone naïve John ... certain expressions of ideas yes. But it is an interesting point where does an expression of an idea end and a person begin?

You're right. I was being sloppy.

But I would answer: a person is the sum of all their knowledge - some of that knowledge is in the form of ideas. One idea does not represent a whole person. Although depending on the idea - it can speak volumes.

John Platko wrote:I can't imagine what it must be like to not be able to trust your own experiences. I'm not saying it's not good to check your own experiences against the experiences of others but that only gets you so far. Sure, we can delude ourselves into thinking all kinds of crazy stuff, but we can do that with scientific theories too.

I trust my Newtonian perception of reality although I have good reasons to believe it is an approximation and is generally fit for purpose.

How do you know you have not deluded yourself John?

I feel certain that I have some delusions. I doubt that's a delusion. It's not easy to remove them all. And not clear how wise it would be to do so if I could. I'm rather sure that many of our delusions are protecting us from seeing what we would have difficulty dealing with.

John Platko wrote:It doesn't seem like people yet understand quantum mechanics enough to say one way or the other if the world is deterministic - although I gather Sean Carroll is convinced it is. For me it doesn't really matter. I don't find it to be that interesting a question. The far more interesting question is how much can I influence these mysterious inner mechanisms. Some days, it seems more than others. Maybe you've pounded this problem enough for now and it would be worthwhile to pound that (what can I do about it) problem a bit.

Again it does not matter whether the universe has deterministic, indeterministic or just plain probabilistic properties, so long as our wills have a mechanism that fit into some combination of these properties then our will is not free from that mechanism.

This is a central point you steadfastly do not address.

Now we're back to the chicken and egg problem, does our knowledge drive the mechanism or does the mechanism drive the knowledge. I find the explanation that our knowledge drives the mechanism more useful. I can work with that explanation. I don't know what to do with the explanation that the mechanism is in charge and I'm just strapped in and going along for the ride. In the final analysis they're are just both explanations we have in 2017 for what we experience. 100 years from now who knows what the explanations will be. I imagine much better. But for now, if you assume he knowledge drives the mechanism and you know there are unconscious processes that are strongly deciding what you do it seems sensible to try to sus out what's up with those processes. And there's no way to do that in 2017 without getting woo on your hands.

John Platko · **#8333** by **John Platko** » Apr 18, 2017 9:36 pm

romansh wrote:
John Platko wrote:
Edit (So I have Carroll, Dennett, Deutsch, Motl, and Chomsky on my side and you have Blackmore and Cito? )

and
Hawking
Mlodinow
Darrow
Clemens (Samuel)
Einstein
Wegner
Harris
Eagleman
Russell

Just to name a few
And don't forget Archi

edit a few more

Bruce Waller
Owen Flanagan
Derk Pereboom
Stephen Morse
Janet Radcliffe Richards
Galen Strawson
John Bargh
Melissa Fergusson
Francisco Varela
Robert Wright
Robert Gulack

You have to present them one at a time and give plenty of time for debate before you I'll give you credit for them.

Do you really want Hawking on your side. :scratch:

He's not so credible when it comes to these kinds of subjects. :no:

romansh · **#8334** by **romansh** » Apr 18, 2017 9:38 pm

John Platko wrote:
I'm just saying that if you think people are being deluded into thinking they have free will it seems like the next step is to wonder what else they are being deluded about.

Let me answer this ... philosophical dualism and pluralism in their various forms.

romansh · **#8335** by **romansh** » Apr 18, 2017 9:49 pm

John Platko wrote:
Do you really want Hawking on your side. He's not so credible when it comes to these kinds of subjects.

What is your evidence that Hawking is not credible?

OK try Galen Strawson

John Platko · **#8336** by **John Platko** » Apr 18, 2017 10:00 pm

GrahamH wrote:DNA pre-existed genomes. Substrate first.

The raw materials were available for genomes before there were genomes so yes, the substrates were there first and then knowledge organized those raw materials. i.e. the knowledge instantiated itself in a suitable environment.

Mutation precedes selection, form precedes knowledge. How does knowledge "bootstrap" anything? If knowledge can do that what are substrates for?

Substrates provide the suitable environment for knowledge "to cause itself to remain so: it survives criticism, testing, random noise, and error correction."

Knowledge that is impossible for us to construct may be found by existing in the world.

I buy that. We're not the only knowledge constructors.

The trick is being in the right place at the right time to be the conduit that can combine information into knowledge. It's not a matter of will, unless you can demonstrate creation of new knowledge by nothing but an act of will...

Well that's how my program creates a new lick. An act of the will is a choice based on the creation of new knowledge about that choice.

John Platko · **#8337** by **John Platko** » Apr 18, 2017 10:02 pm

romansh wrote:
John Platko wrote:
I'm just saying that if you think people are being deluded into thinking they have free will it seems like the next step is to wonder what else they are being deluded about.

Let me answer this ... philosophical dualism and pluralism in their various forms.

What if the delusion is thinking you have no free will?

felltoearth · **#8338** by **felltoearth** » Apr 18, 2017 10:19 pm

John Platko wrote:
romansh wrote:So it boils down to Chomsky does not know whether he has free will or not, but he feels he has it.

I think that's fair. And he thinks we should place our highest confidence in our experience, and our second highest confidence in the experience of others who are like us, and 0 confidence in theories that we have insufficient knowledge to develop.

It all seems rather rational to me.

As one of Chomsky's roles is holding people to a moral standard of behaviour, it doesn't surprise me that he falls on the side of having to believe in free will.

felltoearth · **#8339** by **felltoearth** » Apr 18, 2017 10:20 pm

John Platko wrote:
GrahamH wrote:
John Platko wrote:
GrahamH wrote:

I agree, it does seem naïve. Even JP is acknowledging a strong role for "the unconscious", which is not perception, is it? It seems inescapable that reality defines most, if not all, of what we are, and even our perceptions are shaped by things not perceived. The idea that all we "know" "comes through perception" can't be right.

How do you know that perception (mental impression) is right. Maybe "the committee" just wants you to think it's right. Who knows what "the committee" is hiding from you, or what you would think if they weren't hiding it.

Cartoon nihilism and paranoia from you now? If you can't have absolute reason and free free will you can't face the world at all?

I'm just saying that if you think people are being deluded into thinking they have free will it seems like the next step is to wonder what else they are being deluded about.

How about things they have no rational basis to believe in?

romansh · **#8340** by **romansh** » Apr 18, 2017 10:27 pm

felltoearth wrote:
How about things they have no rational basis to believe in?

You mean like [strong] free will?

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