Eise

Well, normally one starts with the simple cases. If even these do not work, you know from the beginning that it is no use. When these work, you can go and try to apply one's ideas to more difficult cases, border cases being one of a kind of difficult cases. Another problem is that borderlines may be vague: in clear cases, it is not difficult to see the difference between orange and red. But if we see a spectrum there is no clear borderline for which light counts as orange, and where it becomes red. Famous in this respect is the 'paradox of the heap'. I think both consciousness and free will belong to the category of 'vague concepts': it is not all or nothing. Has a worm consciousness? A dog free will? Same with the free will of a person: the more a person acts from his own reasons, not influenced by the reasons of others, the freer he is. Now to your example. The opiod-addict has a problem: where he knows what to do, the urge for taking opiods is so strong, that it overrules all other motivations, even those that rationally would be the best motivations. The addict knows he should stop, but he is not able to translate this knowledge in an action (not taking opiods anymore). So he wants to stop, but cannot. So he is not free: he cannot do what he wants. Another way of seeing this: the functioning of the brain has changed in such a way that it does not function anymore in such a way that it does not work correctly anymore. It is similar to persons with brain damage: when e.g. the capability to anticipate results from possible actions has lessened, the person is less free, in the extreme case the person cannot act freely anymore at all. I am not sure why you think that opiod-addiction would show that free will is an illusion. That free will (and consciousness) are dependent on the brain is an open door (for naturalists). If the brain is distorted in such a way that a person's will is not influenced by his motivations and world view, then of course such a person is not free anymore. But that does not say anything about a person with a healthy brain: he can act according his motivations and world view. Seems to me the only thing one can conclude is that there is no independent soul controlling the brain. That would mean again, that you have not argued against free will, but against the existence of the soul. Which is also an open door for naturalists.

Sure, one can say a lot more about it, and there are some difficult border cases. But I think that would go too far now.

Yes, it is, when it we are talking a byproduct. But I related it to epiphenomena. So, yes, forget that. My point is that this capability of animals to anticipate the future dependent on their possible action is consciousness. And if you recognise an action as your own, i.e. you do it because of reasons you see as your own, then you are acting according your free will. Nice hyperbole. No, it would suffice if you say that there is no soul that is controlling the brain. Because that is in fact what you are saying, nothing more. So anybody who believes we need a soul to have free will be irritated, the rest can just go on. And don't you think that many not-philosophically-inclined people will say what free will is: 'Being able to do what you want'. And that is the simplest description of compatibilist free will. It is the naive philosophy of neuroscientists that make them say that they discovered* that we have no free will. (See my disclaimer.) I also remember Simon van der Meer (Nobelprice winning physicist), who said that free will is possible because of the 'noise in the brain' (pointing at Heisenberg's uncertainty principle). Another victim of naive philosophy. It cannot exist without some very complex structure in which it is implemented. I do not believe that computers are conscious (yet), but maybe they once will be. I see no principal impossibility for that, at most (huge) practical difficulties. So the fact is that only of some organisms, with complex brains, especially human animals, we know they have consciousness. *No, they did not discover that, it is in the basic assumption of science that every event has a cause.

'Emergent phenomenon' and 'epiphenomenon' are not the same. Emergent phenomena can have causal effects, epiphenomena can't, per definition. So if you see consciousness as an emergent phenomenon, then it can have causal impact, and to describe it as just a 'byproduct' does not suffice. You lost me there. I'm the last person you'll find arguing for existence of a soul, yet you claim I'm presupposing one to justify my position. I meant it in the negative: The kind that implies a type of ghost in the machine; some supraconscious self or soul beyond / untethered to the underlying neural substrate and activity. If you say 'free will is an illusion', you mean the kind of free will that needs a ghost in the machine. We agree here: that kind of free will really does not exist. Two things: First, it is a misunderstanding, as explained above. Second, if people were always clear about the basic assumptions of their thinking, there would not be any need for philosophy. To give an example, from 'new age trash': people defend that body and soul are one, and at the same time believe in personal reincarnation. Obviously, they do not see that an assumption for personal reincarnation is that the soul cannot be one with the body. So they do not understand their own thoughts. I want to point you to two things: When you deny the existence of free will, you only do this in the meaning described above: that there is no soul controlling the body/brain. But there are better definitions of free will that on one side are not touched by the fact that (for all practical purposes) we are determined, and on the other side fits to the way we experience free will without its ideological, metaphysical extensions. A sweeping generalisation 'free will does not exist' is therefore wrong. Consciousness has impact on what we do, but it can do it, not because it causally influences the brain, but because it is the functioning brain. (And no, this is not just semantics.)

My thought too. But if they are not planetary nebulae, what are they?

I've not argued that it has no influence. Yes, you have. Implicitly. By calling consciousness a byproduct, by accepting the word 'epiphenomenon' for it. These have no causal influence per definition. I think the important lesson at least is that there other concepts of free will, that are practicable in daily life, that fit to a naturalistic world view, and that are not effected by such neurological discoveries. So you original 'free will is an illusion' is only valid for one kind of concept, namely that presupposes that a soul rules the body, and can do this without being completely determined by previous causes. But that does not fit in a naturalistic world view anyway.

Yep. Now how is this possible if consciousness has no influence at all? If 'nature' is not able to distinguish between organisms with consciousness, and those without, how can there be selected for? (Or against)? And did your neurons already decided to answer on the rest of my posting? ('Epiphenomalism' is not a viable option, because it is self refuting.)

I don't think so. If a neuronal pattern represents a decision can only be concluded from the fact that a participant reported his choice. So what we can possibly find out are the neural correlates of a decision, and obviously parts its causal 'foreplay'. But predictability is not in conflict with what in my opinion is the relevant concept of free will: acting according your own wishes and beliefs. Can you show me where predictability conflicts with free will (in the sense I just mentioned)? Also, these kind of experiments have little application in real life applications. There is no reason for the participants to choose one of the green or red patterns. But reasons are essential in free will. If I drive my car, I e.g. do this because I want to go to work (my action fits to my will). Therefore it is a free action. And I would not be disturbed at all if a neuroscientist would find out that I will drive my car with his equipment. It is a mistake to assume that none-predictability is a necessary condition of free will. Ah, the 'nothing but' (also known as the 'just') operator! Everytime somebody uses this operator I know that he leaves out something important, mostly the essence of what is discussed. What is a steam train if not a heap of steel, coal and plenty of water? But only in the way these elements are working together we have a train. Maybe we could build a train with aluminium, oil and ethanol. The material is not the essence of the steam train. It is the way the parts are connected and are working together. So no, a computer is not a collection of flip-flops: it is an ingenious with each other connected, and correctly steered system of flip flops. Flip flops cannot play chess, computers can. When you understand how flip flops work, you still understand nothing of chess. And that where I accuse you of mixing levels, using concepts that do not fit to the descriptive level they belong to. I have already shown you what the definition of coercion is. Here are the relevant definitions again: Actions that are not free, are actions that are according the will of somebody else, against your own. Neurons, bacteria in my digestive system, do not have a will, do not have any knowledge how to force me to do something. Therefore 'coercion' does not apply for them. With neurons, the extra problem is that they constitute me. How then can they 'force' me to do anything? I am those active neurons!

From Wikipedia: Even if you are right, if there once was a star burst time, several billions of years ago, were there so many stars with about the same lifetime (~ starting mass), that happened to blow up alltogether right now? Maybe, but it seems a bit unlikely to me. I would be happy to hear some more (scientifically based!) speculations that explain this multitude of planetary nebulae, or a complete different explanation of what these rings are.

It is functionally wrong: just looking into the brain, how neurons fire dependent on other neurons or sense input, will never show you what a decision is, just as you will never know the rules of chess if you only analyse how flip-flops of a chess computer change their values dependent on each other. The flip-flops do not play chess, the computer does. In the same manner, the flipping over of a scale is not a decision. Say a stone roles downhill. First question: does it want to roll down, or is it forced to roll down (by gravity)? Now imagine there is lying a bigger stone in its way, and the rolling stone is stopped by it. Is the bigger stone blocking the way of the stone? Is the stone forced to stop? Or is it saved for gravity by the bigger stone? I assume you agree such questions are nonsensical. But it is just as nonsensical to call the tipping of a scale a decision. It is just a physical process: there are no 'arguments' in favour or against tipping over. Coercion can only occur between 2 different things: but there is no separation between the functioning brain and consciousness. Again, as in the other thread, your viewpoint only makes sense in a dualistc world view. You are right insofar as that not liking the consequences (no free will, no responsibility, no justification for punishment) is not an argument against an honest scientific world view. Still one can use our practice of praising and punishment to ask a philosophical question: is some view of free will a precondition to justify this practice, and if so, in which meaning? I would say yes. But libertarian free will (e.g. a view based on a 'free soul' reigning over the brain) we can exclude, because it does not agree with science. But I am convinced that a compatibilist concept of free will fits the bill. (That is e.g the reason for the subtitle of Daniel Dennett's book: Elbow Room: The Varieties of Free Will Worth Wanting.)

I am not sure if I understand you. You agree that consciousness at least for certain animals was advantageous (specially human animals)? I'd have no quarrel if you did. This is, IMO, broadly accurate and largely synonymous with calling it an emergent phenomenon (as I previously described it many times here and elsewhere). You should have a quarrel with it. I think I already gave the argument against it, in one of our previous discussions (it was about an article on free will). Writing about mental phenomena would be selfcontradictory: explaining that consciousness is an epiphenomenon, i.e. consciousness is caused by the brain but in itself causes nothing, can not account for an article that explains consciousness as epiphenomenon. A philosophical zombie, an organism that works and behaves exactly like us, but really has no consciousness, would never write an article in which it tries to explain consciousness: it does not know what it is, per definition. There is also a related huge problem with epiphenominalism: in what metaphysical domain does this consciousness exactly exist? If it is our normal material world, it cannot explain how some subsystem is causally effected by the brain, but has no causal effects in itself. The only way out is to propose a domain that is not material, but then you are back to dualism. My viewpoint is clear: the brain does does not cause consciousness, a class of brain processes is consciousness. The capability of an organism to picture its environment, its place in that environment, and evaluate how both can change dependent on its possible actions is consciousness: it needs a form of imagination. So there is no separation between 'me' and 'my brain'. That means also there is no 'me' that can be coerced by the brain, because 'me' is exactly that brain. Both extreme forms of incompatibilism, libertarian free will and hard determinism only make sense in a dualistic world view. That is the point where a neuroscientist, saying humans have no free will, goes astray: his view is still dualistic.

Comment not needed... The article is here. Do not forget to follow this link (from the article) for the zoomable version. What are all these ring structures? I thought planetary nebulae do not exist that long, so to see so many seems impossible. But what else are they?

Yep. And therefore one should neither ascribe features belonging to persons to the level that lies underneath, nor search there for such features, and then on not finding them there, say that persons do not have these features. It is what is called in philosophy a category error.

Ah... Do neurons decide or choose? 'Decision', 'choice' are higher level descriptions of what the brain as a whole does. Firing neurons only effect, causally, other neurons. You do not find decisions or choices in the brain. Persons make decisions and choices. To call the tipping of the scale a decision is, well, a bit of a stretch. But that, mutatis mutandis, is a just as big stretch when you apply it to neurons. Just to follow-up: I’m curious to better understand your thinking on this part.  I do not agree to call these examples of coercion. According to Wiktionary: So it is, again, a bit of a stretch, to apply 'coercion' on lower levels of description. 'Coercion' simply does not apply on the level of the examples you mention: it applies to persons only. And persons, a bit simplified, are the complete functioning brain. Pity, I have not much time now. But maybe you like this. This is the so called 'four case argument' of Derk Pereboom, also known as 'the cases of Professor Plum'. For more read the accompanying text from this website where I took the illustrations from. (Click to see full size). Would that agree with your position?

Are your sure? I agree that we agree that not every trait organisms have is (or was) evolutionary advantageous. BUT: this is what I said: Do you then also agree that consciousness is evolutionary advantageous? If so, how does this work when consciousness is just a byproduct? Or why shouldn't we call it an 'epiphenomenon'?

Input to what? Note that you also mention 'neural structure'. To what is the neural structure input?

You should know me better, that I would defend that all organisms are conscious. And I think it should be clear from my followup sentences: So consciousness is an evolutionary advantage, just as the trunk of the elephant, eukaryotes, the ever growing of new teeth of sharks etc. In short, I would say that consciousness is the capability of an animal to anticipate possible futures dependent on what it will do.

This is not about free will. It is about predictability of our choices. But predictability and free will have next to nothing to do with each other. To give a simple example: my wife knows I like whiskey more than brandy. So if tomorrow there is a party, and there is a choice between whiskey and brandy, she will already know a day in advance what I will choose. I am very predictable in this respect. But it is still a free choice of me to drink whiskey. But under the thread of somebody to kill my wife if I do not drink the brandy, I will drink the brandy. But then I do not act according my own wish (whiskey!), but the wish of that person that I drink brandy. And that makes the action coerced, so not from my will. I think the general critique on such 'Libet-like' experiments is still valid, even if 'prediction 11 seconds before' sounds impressive.

Yep. But as you said some postings above, the kind of free 'free will' you are referring to is one that does not fit to a causally closed universe: This is a nice rhetorical trick, especially this 'expansive'. Is it also 'expansive' that e.g. the colour of objects only apply at molecular (or even higher) level, but not to electrons? But still, these electrons are still responsible for the colour of the objects where they are part of: but it is the relationship with their environment (nucleus, other electrons...) that makes that objects have colours. If you have a naturalistic world view, e.g. that you think that the universe is causally closed, then none of the discoveries of neuroscience is a surprise in this respect. Science, which includes of course neuroscience, has as one of the big assumptions, that more or less everything is determined, i.e. develops according to laws of nature. So not finding a soul, or a non-causally determined subsystem in the brain, is a no-brainer (). (Of course, I am convinced that the non-determinism of QM has nothing to do with free will.) Neuroscience discovers how determinism works its way through the brain, but not that it works its way through the brain: that is the presumption behind any science, otherwise science would be impossible. Well, if I understand you correctly, when this 'labeling' is done consistently by somebody who acts, and by his social environment, and even more, when the label itself has causal impact ('He did it voluntary, so he is guilty'), then the causality of the labeling is given, even when it is implemented in a 'deterministic machine'. One cannot understand a chess-playing computer, when one studies the quantum physics of the semiconductors in the computer. That is true, but I do not think consciousness is a byproduct, but an essential factor in evolution. The capability to picture your environment, see possible futures dependent on how you will act (which then of course includes the capability to distinguish between yourself, as actor, and your environment) also based on previous experiences seems a terrible evolutionary advantage to me. And I have great difficulty not to call these capabilities 'consciousness'. I fully agree. But I am not driven by romanticism to my viewpoint, but by the drive to understand the world around, and in me. Can you elaborate more? I do not get your points.

Why do you use 'predetermined'? Is determined not enough? Or what would be the difference according to you? Well, without the 'pre': yes of course. 'Free' does not mean not-determined (or not predictable...). It means that you can act according your own motives and world view. When you are forced to act against them you are not free. If an organism or object has, cannot have, motives and a world view, then the concepts 'free' or 'not-free' simply do not apply.

Here is the methodological problem: the discourse about free will is only concerned with humans, not with their interiors. So the question if some action was free only applies to the bag of water and chemicals as a whole. If I introduce you to Keith Jarrett, the great jazz pianist, would you say he is no piano player, because you do not find a 'piano playing capable neurons'? So if we are capable to act freely, i.e. according our own motives and world view, should you then look into the brain for a 'free will neurons'? You see the trees, but you do not see the forest. Another way of seeing it: if you dive into the brain, you surely find no 'free neurons': but you do not find a none-free soul either. But when there is no 'soul' inside, there is also nothing to which free or none-free even applies. So on this level these concepts simply have no meaning. Another point you should consider is that we, as conscious organisms, were somehow selected for in evolution. This is difficult to understand when consciousness has no impact on the survivability of organisms. That means that somehow consciousness must have causal impact, so it can't be as passive as you think. Maybe not as mind-boggling as you think. It is a fact that you did not choose your genes, the parents and culture where you were born etc. All these made you to who you are. But that is not what free will is about. Free will is about your capability to act according to your motives, values, and world view, wherever they come from. It could be genetically determined that you do not like Brussels sprouts. But if you decide to eat them yourself (e.g. as demonstration that you have a strong will...), or are forced to eat them, is the difference between a free or forced action. So you are doing exactly what I warned you for:

Why? If I am sure I want to do something, and then I do it, then it is a free action. Being able to do free actions means you have free will. I do not see what a 'nondeterministic function' would have to do with it. Or do you think free actions are random actions? The problem with your thinking, is that you stick to the 'fundamental level'. It is a bit like "evolution does not exist, because the components of which organisms are built, cannot copy themselves, let alone introduce 'copy errors', so if there is no evolution on the basic level, there can't be at higher level". This is obviously wrong. Therefore I invited you to first look at your daily life, and see how you differentiate between free and coerced actions. Again, I am sure you do. You know when you are forced to do something against your will, by somebody or by circumstances, and when you did something from your free will. In case of penal laws, the difference can be to go into prison or not! However as soon as you dive into the chemical details, you will be lost.

Really? If you think about your life, you do not see any difference between coerced actions ('Your money or your life') and a free action (Spending money to Oxfam)? Let's take an absurd example: 'there is no difference between objects at all, they all have mass'. Or: 'reading is the same as running' because the underlying chemistry is consistent'. If you abstract enough, everything is the same. The 'sameness relationship' is always under a certain abstraction, otherwise things are only the same with itself. Sure, neurons work the way they do in all kind of actions: but that does not make all (kinds of) actions the same. So I would like you to flesh out how a coerced action differs from a free action. I am 100% sure you make this distinction in daily life. I call the kind of abstraction you use here a 'symptom of the philosopher's disease'. Abstract ideas ('it's all chemistry') do not match ideas one uses in daily life, and so one defends the theoretical idea in (philosophical) discussions, but keeps on using concepts in daily life that show you do not live according those abstract ideas. I am sure you hate it to be forced (by somebody, by circumstances) to do something.

Fully agree. That kind of free will does not exist. One could say, this concept went already overboard when we departed from the idea that we have a soul. But does that imply e.g. that there is no distinction between coerced and free actions? Or between actions following from an addiction or followed by a conscious reasoned decision? How differs simulation of intelligence differ from intelligence? What has randomisation to do with being free? Aren't you mixing up predictability and free will?

Thanks to you. Still, I think you make it a bit too simple. I know you have a naturalist world view, just as I do. It would quite be possible, that if we would extendedly discuss our world views, we would come very close. We might agree on which capabilities humans (or human brains) have, but still... I would say we have free will, and you say we don't. So I think it is essential when you write such things as above that you add what you understand under free will. Just as a stupid example: say somebody says he believes in God. When you ask him, he explains that all the laws of nature he calls 'God' (So God for him is not the 'historical' Yahweh or Shiva, it is an abstract concept.) You can oppose him that he uses the word 'God' in this way, you might even say you do not believe in God (but then you must say you mean 'entities' like traditional gods), but that doesn't make you a disbeliever in laws of nature. So in my opinion you should explicitly define the kind of free will is that you deny. I think you would discover that it is not the same concept as most people use in daily life, or in political discourse. PS The first one who tries to stop the discussion with 'it is just semantics' gets a negative reputation point from me...