Current state of the debate between free will and determinism in philosophy and neuroscience

[iNow]

4 hours ago, AIkonoklazt said:

of course I can't demonstrate such a thing, much less show what "interactions" are between those things. <…> I can't demonstrate any of it <…>  I can't "lay out pluralism."

That was obvious from the start. It’s nice to see you acknowledge it, but would be even nicer if you inserted some uncertainty into your stance as a result. 

Instead, we have post after post after post of you saying little more than, “Nuh uh, because… reasons!”

[Eise]

23 hours ago, iNow said:

I note still the question remains unanswered. If physical and biochemical events are NOT the sole cause of mental events, then what other variables do you suggest ARE involved?

But I answered it! Here the complete citation, not just the first part:

On 11/9/2023 at 8:39 AM, Eise said:

On 11/8/2023 at 4:14 PM, iNow said:

If physical and biochemical processes are not responsible for cognition and mentation, then what other variables are you suggesting are?

But they are! But again you are using a vague word, 'responsible'. (you used 'driven' before, also vague). What is this 'responsible'-relationship? You say it is causation, I say it is supervenience. So my answer to your question is simple: there are no other variables. But there are different ways we can look: from the low levels like atoms, molecules, and neurons; or at the higher level of persons, (true) beliefs, actions, motivations, (free) will etc. The latter we are using in day-to-day life, the former by neurologists, biologists etc.

And to epiphenomalism:

23 hours ago, iNow said:

Lots of folks keep saying I'm arguing for epiphenomenalism, and I simply used those exact words found in the definition of epiphenomenalism. They're not my words, and in fact I'm fairly certain you're one of the people who posted the wiki link from which they were drawn. Here it is for reference: 

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Epiphenomenalism is a position on the mind–body problem which holds that physical and biochemical events within the human body (sense organs, neural impulses, and muscle contractions, for example) are the sole cause of mental events (thought, consciousness, and cognition).

In the fist place, I highlighted the important word: 'cause'.

In the second place you left out what more is written there, immediately after your citation:

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According to this view, subjective mental events are completely dependent for their existence on corresponding physical and biochemical events within the human body, yet themselves have no influence over physical events. The appearance that subjective mental states (such as intentions) influence physical events is merely an illusion.

So what is this: mental phenomena are caused by physical processes, but they miss the other half of what causality is: that events, mental events in this case, are caused, but cannot cause other events themselves?

And isn't this just evading:

23 hours ago, iNow said:

On 11/9/2023 at 8:39 AM, Eise said:

You say it is causation

I actually haven't. I've said "it depends on how you define it."

If not causation, what is it? Or what is then the applicable concept of causation, according to you?

23 hours ago, iNow said:

One final point of clarification: I'm not arguing for epiphenomenalism and all of the baggage which comes with it. I'm saying our mentation is rooted in chemical and biological processes, physical processes.

I agree with your second sentence. But you have found another word to describe the relation between physical processes, which is again more vague, 'rooted'. I was more specific: it is a relation of supervenience. And everything you wrote about your views on the matter, show for me that you mean causality. And if you want it or not, this stance is called 'epiphenomanilism', with all its problems.

From the same Wikipedia article:

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The most powerful argument against epiphenomenalism is that it is self-contradictory: if we have knowledge about epiphenomenalism, then our brains know about the existence of the mind, but if epiphenomenalism were correct, then our brains should not have any knowledge about the mind, because the mind does not affect anything physical.

 

[iNow]

12 minutes ago, Eise said:

So what is this: mental phenomena are caused by physical processes, but they miss the other half of what causality is: that events, mental events in this case, are caused, but cannot cause other events themselves?

As I’m not arguing epiphenomenalism, I’m also NOT arguing that mental events cannot lead to other events themselves. 

13 minutes ago, Eise said:

Or what is then the applicable concept of causation, according to you?

It’s not my position, so I’m technically not evading support of it. I’m saying the decision event occurs prior to conscious awareness. You’re the one who keeps trying to shoehorn the concept of causality into the discussion. 

15 minutes ago, Eise said:

you have found another word to describe the relation between physical processes, which is again more vague, 'rooted'. I was more specific: it is a relation of supervenience.

And I applaud you for your specificity, sir. Well done. You win the prize today. 

[TheVat]

I think I mentioned downward causation yesterday (to massive yawns, apparently).  Epi forbids it, in ways that do seem to create logic problems.  How would we ever discuss such things as qualia, if they had no causal role?  Epi is like emergence without downward causation .  

[Anirudh Dabas]

16 hours ago, iNow said:

20 hours ago, Anirudh Dabas said:

I believe the mental realm is emergent, and its properties are not simply determined by the physical realm.

I don’t know what a realm is in context of neuroscience, but if mental events are not solely due to physical inputs, then what else do you recommend we measure and look at to better understand them?

There are a number of different theories about what might be responsible for mental events. This is a question that philosophers and neuroscientists have been grappling with for centuries.

Like I said, 

20 hours ago, Anirudh Dabas said:

it's right to challenge those who disagree to show what else could lead to mentation besides physical processes

My way to think about it is that the mental realm may be emergent from the physical realm, but not reducible to it. There is no scientific consensus on whether or not the mind is emergent, only some evidence to suggest that it is. We do have some ways of measuring and looking at mental events, but none of these methods can directly measure mental events. Instead, they measure physical processes in the brain and body that are correlated with mental events.

While there are a number of different theories that have been proposed. The idea that mental events are not solely due to physical inputs is a complex one, and there is no single agreed-upon explanation for why this might be the case.

As it stands today, there is no way to definitively argue that something other than physical processes lead to mentation. This is a pessimistic view, but it is not entirely unfounded.

5 hours ago, StringJunky said:

What we have today is what we have to work with.

This is because we do not yet fully understand how the brain works or how it produces consciousness. However, I believe that it is important to remain open to the possibility that there may be more to consciousness than just physical processes. Even if they challenge our current understanding of the mind.

Moving on,

17 hours ago, iNow said:

20 hours ago, Anirudh Dabas said:

It could be that consciousness arises from the complex interactions of information-processing systems, such as the human brain. (I know, it isn't very likely.)

I struggle to agree with you here. Why would that be unlikely?

Well...We don't have any good examples of information-processing systems that are conscious. We have computers that can process information very quickly and efficiently, but they don't seem to be conscious in any meaningful way. They don't have subjective experiences, and they don't seem to be aware of themselves or their surroundings.

It's not very clear how information-processing alone could give rise to consciousness. But then again, who knows.

20 hours ago, Anirudh Dabas said:

Consciousness could be a product of information processing.

 

[AIkonoklazt]

6 hours ago, iNow said:

That was obvious from the start. It’s nice to see you acknowledge it, but would be even nicer if you inserted some uncertainty into your stance as a result. 

Instead, we have post after post after post of you saying little more than, “Nuh uh, because… reasons!”

I was saying that your stance of "physical cause the mental and that's that" is indeed epiphenominalism.

I don't get what you said regarding the "baggage" of epiphenominalism, since the position is simply that of "physical causing the mental and that's it."

I accept my theoretical nothingburger, and I don't see why you can't also just accept what your position directly entails.

4 hours ago, Anirudh Dabas said:

Well...We don't have any good examples of information-processing systems that are conscious. We have computers that can process information very quickly and efficiently, but they don't seem to be conscious in any meaningful way. They don't have subjective experiences, and they don't seem to be aware of themselves or their surroundings.

It's not very clear how information-processing alone could give rise to consciousness. But then again, who knows.

 

Okay, FINALLY something I can definitively talk about.

Technological parallels of the mind have always failed and will continue to fail: First hydraulics, then telephones, then electrical fields, and now computers and "neural networks" that aren't remotely "neural."

Information processing itself is a evidently a bad analogy of what the brain does: https://aeon.co/essays/your-brain-does-not-process-information-and-it-is-not-a-computer

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We don’t store words or the rules that tell us how to manipulate them. We don’t create representations of visual stimuli, store them in a short-term memory buffer, and then transfer the representation into a long-term memory device. We don’t retrieve information or images or words from memory registers. Computers do all of these things, but organisms do not.

From the point of view of computer science and engineering, machines don't deal with referents at all, and thus the mind isn't a machine and a machine could never be a mind. The following is an illustration of what an algorithm is and how one operates:

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You memorize a whole bunch of shapes. Then, you memorize the order the shapes are supposed to go in so that if you see a bunch of shapes in a certain order, you would “answer” by picking a bunch of shapes in another prescribed order. Now, did you just learn any meaning behind any language?

Machines don't and can't deal with referents while the mind does, which explains perfectly "bad" but expected machine behaviors such as vulnerability of deep "learning" networks to adversarial attacks which place pixels invisible to the naked eye into images to completely scramble identification (e.g. Have a machine label a panda as a gibbon):

...as well as so-called "hallucinations" of LLMs when all they do is similarly find the nearest zone in the mathematical landscape (read carefully to see what went "wrong" in this example):

Contrary to what some companies and experts may try to tell people, these categories of "errors" are fundamentally unfixable because according to the programming of the algorithms these are NOT ERRORS; They are the results of how the deep "learning" works. (How "machine learning" isn't actual learning is yet another topic)

[iNow]

1 hour ago, AIkonoklazt said:

machines don't deal with referents at all, and thus the mind isn't a machine and a machine could never be a mind

This is non-sequitur and mistakenly asserts that referents are required to meet some arbitrary definition of mind. 

1 hour ago, AIkonoklazt said:

these categories of "errors" are fundamentally unfixable because according to the programming of the algorithms these are NOT ERRORS;

They are actually fixable. Just need to train it on a different data set and feed new more representative data into the model. 

[AIkonoklazt]

3 minutes ago, iNow said:

This is non-sequitur and mistakenly asserts that referents are required to meet some arbitrary definition of mind. 

I'm using these terms:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mind

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/referent

Referents are what feelings, perceptions, and thoughts actually refer to. You are welcome to dispute this via argumentation.

[iNow]

Your own link refutes your claim 

[AIkonoklazt]

Just now, iNow said:

Your own link refutes your claim 

How? Explain.

13 minutes ago, iNow said:

 

They are actually fixable. Just need to train it on a different data set and feed new more representative data into the model. 

Nope. It will settles on unintended adjacency all the same.

[iNow]

You’ve misrepresented the definition you shared. The mind is the complex of element processing in an individual, but the referents being processed there are not prerequisite to having a mind as you seem to be suggesting. 

The mind exists even in the absence of external referents (like those you cite). 

This all off topic in a thread about freewill though

Edited November 10, 2023 by iNow

[AIkonoklazt]

2 minutes ago, iNow said:

You’ve misrepresented the definition you shared. The mind is the complex of element processing in an individual, but existence of the referents themselves are not prerequisite to having a mind as you seem to be suggesting. 

It's not regarding a mind's prerequisite but what a mind does via its definition. What is a thought without a referent?

[iNow]

You said a computer can’t have a mind bc it doesn’t have referents. Inherent in that claim is that referents are required for a mind. That’s plainly false. This is all still off topic too

[AIkonoklazt]

1 minute ago, iNow said:

You said a computer can’t have a mind bc it doesn’t have referents. Inherent in that claim is that referents are required for a mind. That’s plainly false. This is all still off topic too

I said a computer doesn't deal with referents. Something that doesn't deal with referents isn't a mind at all (see definition- it "feels, perceives, thinks, wills, and especially reasons")

[iNow]

You have yet to establish that referents are prerequisite to having a mind, but it’s not any more on topic now than it was earlier. 

[AIkonoklazt]

55 minutes ago, iNow said:

You have yet to establish that referents are prerequisite to having a mind, but it’s not any more on topic now than it was earlier. 

The definition of a mind establishes that it "feels, perceives, thinks, wills, and especially reasons," none of which would be possible without a referent. As I've pointed out before, there aren't any feelings, perceptions, thoughts, nor reasons without referents.

[iNow]

4 minutes ago, AIkonoklazt said:

The definition of a mind establishes that it "feels, perceives, thinks, wills, and especially reasons,"

It does more than just those. Those often happen too, but aren’t prerequisite 

[AIkonoklazt]

1 minute ago, iNow said:

It does more than just those. Those often happen too, but aren’t prerequisite 

I'm talking about what the definition of a mind is. Let's put it this way- A referent is actually a part of the mind. There isn't such a thing such as "yellow" in the world "out there." Color is all in your head. If you need an explanation, see this: https://www.extremetech.com/archive/49028-color-is-subjective

[iNow]

28 minutes ago, AIkonoklazt said:

There isn't such a thing such as "yellow" in the world "out there." Color is all in your head.

This same logic applies equally to the concept of a mind. There isn’t such a thing as “a mind” in the world “out there.” The concept of a mind is all in your head. 

But again… what does this have to do with freewill?

[AIkonoklazt]

3 minutes ago, iNow said:

This same logic applies equally to the concept of a mind. There isn’t such a thing as “a mind” in the world “out there.” The concept of a mind is all in your head. 

But again… what does this have to do with freewill?

Think about it. If you can't have thoughts about anything at all, where does that leave freewill? Specifically, freewill regarding what?

Also, you're conflating the concept of a mind with the reality of one.

Edited November 11, 2023 by AIkonoklazt

[iNow]

22 minutes ago, AIkonoklazt said:

If you can't have thoughts about anything at all

Who said anything about not being able to have thoughts about anything at all?

Are we reading the same thread?

22 minutes ago, AIkonoklazt said:

you're conflating the concept of a mind with the reality of one.

Please explain to me in what ways they’re different. 

Can you show me a picture of your mind? Maybe point to it on an fMRI?

[AIkonoklazt]

13 minutes ago, iNow said:

Who said anything about not being able to have thoughts about anything at all?

Are we reading the same thread?

Would it hurt you to talk like a normal adult instead of constantly shooting barbs?

Without referents, there couldn't be any thoughts since no thoughts are without content. Therefore, without referent there couldn't be any freewill to speak of either.

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Please explain to me in what ways they’re different. 

Can you show me a picture of your mind? Maybe point to it on an fMRI?

Your mind's operation is basically independent of your conception of it.

I don't have to show you a picture of my mind, nor you show me yours. Without a mind, neither of us would be able to make sense of any of these words.

[iNow]

This concept of a mind is just as much as a post-dictive narrative as freewill is, yet you treat it as something tangible. The mind is just as arbitrarily modeled as the idea of yellow is, but at least with yellow we can use tools to measure and confirm frequency. The mind however is just a concept, similar to  love in this regard. Yellow is paradoxically more real. 

26 minutes ago, AIkonoklazt said:

Your mind's operation is basically independent of your conception of it.

Please elaborate. The conception a mind comes directly from the operation of it, so it’s invalid to suggest any independence whatsoever, yet that’s precisely what you’ve done here. 

Edited November 11, 2023 by iNow

[StringJunky]

If a person calls a colour 'yellow', it can be backed up or refuted with a colour analyser. It's associated with an objective measurement. It has a defined frequency range.

Edited November 11, 2023 by StringJunky

[AIkonoklazt]

1 minute ago, StringJunky said:

If a person calls a colour 'yellow', it can be backed up or refuted with a colour analyser. It's associated with an objective measurement. It has a defined frequency range.

It's not even about confirming or refuting what a person sees. It's about what a person sees. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_dress

22 minutes ago, iNow said:

This concept of a mind is just as much as a post-dictive narrative as freewill is, yet you treat it as something tangible. The mind is just as arbitrarily modeled as the idea of yellow is, but at least with yellow we can use tools to measure and confirm frequency. The mind however is just a concept, similar to  love in this regard. Yellow is paradoxically more real. 

Please elaborate. The conception a mind comes directly from the operation of it, so it’s invalid to suggest any independence whatsoever, yet that’s precisely what you’ve done here. 

Again, let's look at the definition. Is there an element in you that "that feels, perceives, thinks, wills, and especially reasons"?

Well, no matter how you conceive a mind, it's going to operate as it does no matter how you conceive it.