Posted: Nov 14, 2017 10:29 pm
archibald wrote:
Ok, I've had time to read that and the article it refers to (I think it's a New Scientist article and not the book itself).
Coyne says the article is behind a paywall, but I've found a free pdf copy:
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~peter/pdf/AA.pdf
Sadly, I haven't yet had time to watch all the Tse videos yet. So I'm just going to comment on what the article says and what Coyne says about it.
I confess I see nothing much new in the article. There's a new neuroscientific mechanism for what we might call 'stage 1' indeterminacy, but near the end of the article (in the middle of the thought experiment about spinach lasagne, about halfway down the last - right hand - column, to be exact just when he uses the phrase 'intentional manipulation') there's what I see as an unsubstantiated jump to a free will conclusion that imo just isn't warranted. I'm not even sure it's warranted for pseudo free will, though I might have to read it again. What exactly is 'intentional'? It can't be anything subconscious. He's already said just above that if consciousness plays no part then it's not a sort of free will worth having.
He explains the role consciousness plays in that article. You imagine serving steak, that's a conscious activity. Then a memory constraint about your guest sends a message to your consciousness - he's a salad muncher. Then your consciousness sets further constraints on the meal.
I think I agree with everything Jerry Coyne said.
(by the way Jerry has been open to the possibility of indeterminism for quite a while, in fact I personally don't remember when he wasn't, but it might have been before I came across him).
I'm actually disappointed. I genuinely hoped that Tse might have opened the door for Libertarian free will or at least something like it, or closer to it. Obviously, I wasn't expecting him to go all the way.
I'm still puzzled by how or why so many experts seem determined (no pun intended) to call what they've 'discovered' (or explained) free will. It's as if it's about wanting to be the first to discover how to turn base metals into gold, or maybe there's funding and/or publicity exposure to be gained by using the term. Whatever the reasons, and I'd be speculating about them, why they can't just describe and explain the rather amazing and sophisticated capacities they think we might have and admit it's not really gold, I don't know.
