Another Free will vs determinism comment

      Free will vs determinism comment

Was listening to Molyneux's audio book:
Universally Preferable Behavior


Molyneux argues that if you're not responsible arguing with you is like arguing with a television set.   But that does not follow,  A TV normally has no way to causally interact with complex language in a meaningful way.    A language interaction, like a physical interaction with a bunch of rocks, can change the configuration and the responses of more complex matter in a causal manner.    Causality, and meaningful interaction, cares not about personal responsibility.

All that is required for arguing to be effective, is that the entity being argued with has the capacity to understand the language and arguments being made and be causally affected by these.    When you set a clock, it matters not whether the clock has free will, it only matters that the knobs are able to causally influence it.  Likewise,  an argument received upon the sensory organs interact with the nervous tissue, and causally influences it.

There are several lines of attack against free will, a few examples follow.

1. Relativity of simultaneity seems to imply block time, or the existence of a 4 dimensional chunk of space time where both future and past are identical in quality and immutable.

2.Postdiction, there is evidence to suggest that conscious sensation occurs after an event has taken place, if you're conscious of past events, we all know the past is proven immutable.   Thus any idea that you're changing what you're conscious of, if it refers to the past, is nothing more than an illusion.

3.It is believed there are mechanisms producing action selection.  If a bunch of components following rules create a mechanism that chooses action, it is the components and the mechanism that explain your choice, and cause your choice, your sensation of choice is but an illusion.

That said if  there is any basis to have preferable behavior, or preferable long term goals, determinism would ensure the optimal outcome if one or more entities increased in capacity and knowledge without bound.   If there is anything that allows deviation, in an infinite universe with potentially vast numbers of entities with unbound growth in capacity, optimal outcome might not be guaranteed.

PS
More on free will

free will molyneux youtube series link

Our capacity to reason and compare, does not mean we somehow transcend the mechanisms that should be explainable in a reductionist manner.  Mechanisms that result from the interaction of our components.  We can posit a computer program with similar capacity, yet it can't transcend the limits of computation.

That said, it still may be preferable to behave as if people are responsible and there is morality.   Eventually we may be able to rewire brain circuitry to behave more in accordance with our "moral standards".  We will be able to tell whether a criminal will behave "morally" or "immorally" with high probability, and detain them indefinitely if they do not rewire to behave "morally" with high probability, if there's high probability of "immoral" serious criminal behavior if they're released.

if you could rapidly put something in the way of the falling bolder, or fire a projectile at the bolder it may change its course. Nervous tissue can react and change in response to an argument that falls upon the sensory organs. 

If the TV had true ai, you could argue with it. But your exchange of information with a tv, is usually more meaningful through the buttons or knobs, it may respond to basic voice commands but not complex language interaction. A clock if you want meaningful change, you turn the knobs. A human, you can change through exposure to arguments. 

I think we can potentially have determinism and preferable behavior by some standard. And things can change but in a determined manner. Emotions can be elicited in a determined manner, and as said change too. That said determinism changes the perspective on "Moral" wrongdoing from punishment and blame to rehabilitation and help. 

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Humans have language, perhaps some other kind of animal has some kind of language, but it is unreasonable to use language with entities that lack the capacity for language.   Humans also have general intelligence.  It is expected artificial machines may eventually have general intelligence and the ability to use language.

A rock can't change its mind but its path can be changed if a gust of wind, a projectile or something gets in its path.   The mind can be changed in the same way, the underlying mechanisms behind it, can take a different turn upon exposure to external information.

The question with regards to changing mind, is whether given a set of information the outcome is determined or not.  Say you were planning to invest on X company, and you got information X company is a scam, from a very reliable source, your decision to still invest or not, is it determined?  Or is there any way the outcome regards your decision is not determined? Regards determinists and changing minds, they simply believe whether they'll succeed in changing someone's mind or fail is already predetermined, not that they can't change minds but that the outcome of the attempt is already set in stone..

Comment on free will and the brain

free will brain

"Their study showed that although injuries disrupting volition — the desire to act — can occur in many different locations, they fall within the same brain network. Injuries disrupting agency — the feeling of responsibility for carrying out those actions — also can occur in many different locations, but they fall within a separate network. "

https://neurosciencenews.com/free-will-brain-networks-9947/

This is the problem for those trying to defend free will, and moral responsibility.    An agent that is divisible, that is an agent who has various components that follow rules and generate behavior, in the end is not responsible for its actions.   This inner environment, these cogs in the machine, they are the causal roots of its behavior, no different in kind from external elements or causes.

True Free will requires an indivisible agent external to the causal chain of the world, but such a being may not make sense.

RESPONSE TO DETERMINISM DEBUNKED video

RESPONSE:

The problem is "What" is doing the comparing. If it is machines, either random or deterministic, these "MACHINES" or cells, are an internal cause no different than an external rock or push or gun moving you in one direction or another. A computer program can follow algorithms similar to those coded by the genes and implemented in the neural tissue, able to learn and think. 

There is nothing to preclude the possible existence of agi, which would be a being able to debate.


 There are individuals with defects in the neural tissue that significantly increase their probability of deviancy, criminal activity, gambling, etc.


 If a person be it by genetic engineering or artificial implant, is made such that they have a high probability of consenting to say X activity, that does not make it a free decision on their part. The inbuild biases, and limitations, in normal humans also make their decisions not free. Doesn't matter if the causal chain is random, deterministic, from natural or artificial sources, in any case there is no true freedom. 


True freedom of choice necessitates, an undivisible non-machine agent, but all conscious agents are the product of algorithm following machinery.


PS EDITAGAIN INTERNAL TO THE BRAIN IS STILL 'EXTERNAL' to you as a person in the sense of free will.  An implant that causes you to consent to X, does not mean you freely chose X.  It is internal to your brain. The various cells and brain regions are no different from natural implants causing each and every one of your actions.  And just like an implant, when it comes to the natural tissue, there are biases and limitations that alter your probability of doing any action.

Tumors, Brain damage, or more subtle molecular or wiring differences can lead to serious differences in the probability of different outcomes in different situations.   This is entirely out of your control.

PPS
You can think and evaluate, but the process follows internal causal chain of algorithms, and cannot be changed by you.   This is without talking about ideas like the "relativity of simultaneity", and eternalism, that say the 'present' is no different from the 'past', and as locked in stone as the past.

High level phenomena and being dependent on the flow of underlying processes

When you exist at a certain level, but processes underneath guide your actions and determine your fate, you're a prisoner of fate.   Factors outside your control determine what you can and cannot do, they also determine your decisions, not just what choices are open to you but the very choice itself is determined by the underlying factors.

At the least if it was possible for the loop to be completed by gaining control of all relevant underlying factors, the 'freedom' of the individual could be conceivable.   But as it stands, the world, reality it is a prison without exit.   Only the illusion of choice hides this reality.

Would Feynman be a digital physicist if he were alive today? articles, and videoThrough the Wormhole - Wave/Particle - Silicon Droplets

 We choose to examine a phenomenon which is impossible, absolutely impossible, to explain in any classical way, and which has in it the heart of quantum mechanics. In reality, it contains the only mystery. We cannot make the mystery go away by “explaining” how it works. We will just tell you how it works. In telling you how it works we will have told you about the basic peculiarities of all quantum mechanics.-lectures http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/III_01.html

Yet the impossible has been done an a classical example of this kind of behavior shown. An analogous experiment with photons as well as one with droplets appears to go along with bohm.


New Support for Alternative Quantum View

An experiment claims to have invalidated a decades-old criticism against pilot-wave theory, an alternative formulation of quantum mechanics that avoids the most baffling features of the subatomic universe.....That may sound like a throwback to classical mechanics, but there’s a crucial difference. Classical mechanics is purely “local” — stuff can affect other stuff only if it is adjacent to it (or via the influence of some kind of field, like an electric field, which can send impulses no faster than the speed of light). Quantum mechanics, in contrast, is inherently nonlocal. ...
By comparison, the Bohmian view sounds rather tame: The electrons act like actual particles, their velocities at any moment fully determined by the pilot wave, which in turn depends on the wave function. In this view, each electron is like a surfer: It occupies a particular place at every specific moment in time, yet its motion is dictated by the motion of a spread-out wave. Although each electron takes a fully determined path through just one slit, the pilot wave passes through both slits. The end result exactly matches the pattern one sees in standard quantum mechanics.-https://www.quantamagazine.org/20160517-pilot-wave-theory-gains-experimental-support/

Another with droplets

“This is a classical system that exhibits behavior that people previously thought was exclusive to the quantum realm, and we can say why,” said John Bush, a professor of applied mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has led several recent bouncing-droplet experiments. “The more things we understand and can provide a physical rationale for, the more difficult it will be to defend the ‘quantum mechanics is magic’ perspective.”...
The great 20th-century physicist Richard Feynman said that this double-slit experiment “has in it the heart of quantum mechanics,” and “is impossible, absolutely impossible, to explain in any classical way.”
Some physicists now disagree. “Quantum mechanics is very successful; nobody’s claiming that it’s wrong,” said Paul Milewski, a professor of mathematics at the University of Bath in England who has devised computer models of bouncing-droplet dynamics. “What we believe is that there may be, in fact, some more fundamental reason why [quantum mechanics] looks the way it does.”-source wired
https://www.wired.com/2014/06/the-new-quantum-reality/