Since we have no free will, what purpose does/did consciousness serve?

[Outrider]

40 minutes ago, iNow said:

Citation needed

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4684-2196-5_8

Quote

 

… interpreted to be a direct emergent property of cerebral activity, is conceived to be an integral component of the brain process that functions as an essential constituent of the action and exerts a directive holistic form of control over the flow pattern of cerebral excitation.

… although the mental properties in brain activity, as here conceived, do not directly intervene in neuronal physiology, they do supervene.... The individual nerve impulses and associated elemental excitatory events are obliged to operate within larger circuit-system configurations of which they as individuals are only a part. These larger functional entities have their own dynamics in cerebral activity with their own qualities and properties. They interact causally with one another at their own level as entities. It is the emergent dynamic properties of certain of these higher specialized cerebral processes that are interpreted to be the substance of consciousness.

 

 

57 minutes ago, iNow said:

This bag of water and chemicals that form each of us as an entity. 

So...if "this bag of water and chemicals that form each of us as an entity" hold the beliefs that drive the decisions that mold our lives then we do have control. 

[iNow]

That appears to support my position that it’s all chemistry and to contradict your position that consciousness is somehow removed or above it; a separate phenomenon itself capable of affecting that chemistry. 

[Outrider]

It seems the opposite to me. I may try to find you another sometime.

[Ten oz]

On 11/10/2017 at 2:29 PM, iNow said:

Yes, I do remember writing that, and this is a very fair criticism. I wrote the qualifier “to a large extent” in anticipation of exactly this response, and (also to a large extent) language itself fails me here. I acknowledge the seeming contradiction in my point. 

We call it “control” and we frame our will as “free,” but I cannot escape the importance of the copious evidence to the contrary.

Hold a warm cup in your hands and you perceive others more kindly. Skip a meal and you react to a harmless passing comment viciously. Sleep a bit more or a bit less and all of your responses and capabilities are affected.

Add to this our problem with blind spots and illusions and also the massive impact of the gut microbiome and we see that the point only gets further reinforced and entrenched.

We look to the scans and monitor the electrical signals, the blood flow, the action potentials... No matter how carefully we design the study or how many different methods we use to explore this, the results are every time the same. Our decisions are already made well before the other areas of our brain responsible for sense of self, awareness, consciousness, and executive function ever show any activation whatsoever.

We assert control when instead it’s the concentration of ions and the conductivity of nerve cells or thickness of myelin sheathing and density of the dendrites that drive it all. We are like boats in the ocean claiming to control the weather as we simultaneously get swept along passively by the currents, waves, and winds. 

Theres no avoiding the conclusion that free will is an illusion once you study the underlying dynamics and neuroscience, and this IMO remains true even if I do still sometimes get tripped up with language and word choices.

I rather created a thread about this a while back:

 

The original post I opened with was poorly constructed. At the time I didn't conceptually have any conclusions just thoughts and questions. Through the thread I did develop a line of thinking which did satisfy me. The line of thinking is that consciousness provides humans an evolutionary advantage with reproduction by allowing us to have personalities. A projection of self to influence other humans. Consciousness is not where our reasoning or decision making happens but is merely window dressing making us more attractive to a mate. Intelligence, physical symmetry, health, and etc all play a big role in being attractive to a mate but when all biological factors close a good sense of humor makes all difference. Personality appears to be one of the primary things humans select for. Provided a person doesn't have obvious disabilities a good personality can make them successful as someone with numerous more exhibited abilities or healthy physically traits. The cool factor often being a huge trump card.

In order for consciousness to have fully flushed out personality capable of being projected complete with intangibles like self confident, ability to lie, greed, sarcasm, irony, and etc consciousness needs to believe it is its own entity (lack of a better word) making its own decisions. So strong is the conscious minds sense of singularity that most people have a difficult time even accepting that it dies with the brain. People actually believe consciousness is above biology itself and can exist beyond it somehow; very powerful delusion. Our consciousness does whatever our brains decide based on a multitude of inputs but believing it is in total control provides a better outward display for other humans. Best way I can convince you I am who I say I am is if I believe it too. It is less "to be or not to be" and more "to be or I am".

 

 

[iNow]

2 hours ago, Ten oz said:

So strong is the conscious minds sense of singularity that most people have a difficult time even accepting that it dies with the brain. People actually believe consciousness is above biology itself and can exist beyond it somehow; very powerful delusion.

Agreed. I find myself pushing back against that very idea here, but stipulate that I’m unsure the degree to which various respondents feel that way. 

[Endercreeper01]

Without any mainstream scientific theories to describe the nature of consciousness and how it arises, your question cannot be answered from a strictly scientific point of view. You seem to be trying to find the answer to questions that you can't explain with your own preconceptions about reality. If you want to answer such questions as your own, you need to keep an open mind and consider all the possibilities, and put aside your own beliefs.

Edited November 12, 2017 by Endercreeper01

[Endercreeper01]

3 hours ago, iNow said:

Agreed. I find myself pushing back against that very idea here, but stipulate that I’m unsure the degree to which various respondents feel that way. 

 

5 hours ago, Ten oz said:

I rather created a thread about this a while back:

In order for consciousness to have fully flushed out personality capable of being projected complete with intangibles like self confident, ability to lie, greed, sarcasm, irony, and etc consciousness needs to believe it is its own entity (lack of a better word) making its own decisions. So strong is the conscious minds sense of singularity that most people have a difficult time even accepting that it dies with the brain. People actually believe consciousness is above biology itself and can exist beyond it somehow; very powerful delusion. Our consciousness does whatever our brains decide based on a multitude of inputs but believing it is in total control provides a better outward display for other humans. Best way I can convince you I am who I say I am is if I believe it too. It is less "to be or not to be" and more "to be or I am".

 

 

This looks like a leap in thinking. How does the fact that people are influenced by biological factors negate the idea of a consciousness separate from a brain?

[Ten oz]

9 hours ago, Endercreeper01 said:

Without any mainstream scientific theories to describe the nature of consciousness and how it arises, your question cannot be answered from a strictly scientific point of view. You seem to be trying to find the answer to questions that you can't explain with your own preconceptions about reality. If you want to answer such questions as your own, you need to keep an open mind and consider all the possibilities, and put aside your own beliefs.

There are well regarded scientific models out there for how consciousness evolved.  Attention Schema Theory is testable and being peer reviewed:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4407481/

https://www.princeton.edu/~graziano/Consciousness_Research.html

8 hours ago, Endercreeper01 said:

 

This looks like a leap in thinking. How does the fact that people are influenced by biological factors negate the idea of a consciousness separate from a brain?

There is no example in history of a single person every having consciousness without a brain. Doctors regularly recommend those who have been determined to be brain dead be removed from all support systems and their bodies allowed to die. There is no medical/scientific theory out there which supports human consciousness existing free from the human brain. I can't prove that a tree falling in the woods with no one around to hear or record it makes noise but there is absolutely no reason on earth to assume it wouldn't.  Asking people to prove negatives doesn't provide supporting evidence for anything. It merely attempts to make the threshold of evidence more burdensome.

[Eise]

20 hours ago, iNow said:

Not certain I follow. Please clarify... That WHAT is not the relevant concept of control?

There is a kind of control that certainly exists: thermostats controlling the temperature, Google software controlling the driving of a car, animals walking to a river to drink, humans planning their next vacation, or building the LHC. What I am saying all the time is that in this concept of control, we can distinguish between free actions and forced actions (against your will).

What you are talking about when denying free will is control of consciousness over the brain. But I, just as you, see consciousness as a (very complex) function of the brain, with a lot of unconscious, causal pre- and post-processing. The examples of research you give support that view. I fully agree. But I do not agree that this is saying anything about free will. 'Free will' is an attribute that can be applied to the interactions of an organism with its environment. When an organism can act according its own wishes an beliefs, it is free, otherwise it is not.

So denying that consciousness has no control over any brain process has simply nothing to do with the question if an action is free or forced. 

So I can split my question in two points:

1. Do you agree that we have at least some control over our lives? (You in fact already said this: 'in large part you do control your life')
2. That this control has nothing to do with control of our consciousness over our brains, but only with the control of us over our environment?

 

21 hours ago, dimreepr said:

Of course, since my position on control is it's illusory. 

So your life does not change when you stop controlling it? Try. Let us know when you are close to starvation.

[dimreepr]

56 minutes ago, Eise said:

So your life does not change when you stop controlling it? Try. 

 

It's much more nuanced than that, this from my inner peace thread:

Quote

 

The best analogy I can use is, you can control where you plant a random seed but you can't control what plant it becomes. 

The more control we think we have the more pernicious the illusion, take Nelson Mandela as an example, South Africa thought they could control him and his movement by locking him up and controlling his every move, they controlled what he did but not what he thought.

 

 

56 minutes ago, Eise said:

Let us know when you are close to starvation.

What good is your control if there's no food available?

I'm not saying we have no choice, just that we don't control what those choices are.

Edited November 12, 2017 by dimreepr

[Ten oz]

46 minutes ago, Eise said:

 I fully agree. But I do not agree that this is saying anything about free will. 'Free will' is an attribute that can be applied to the interactions of an organism with its environment. When an organism can act according its own wishes an beliefs, it is free, otherwise it is not.

So denying that consciousness has no control over any brain process has simply nothing to do with the question if an action is free or forced. 

So I can split my question in two points:

1. Do you agree that we have at least some control over our lives? (You in fact already said this: 'in large part you do control your life')
2. That this control has nothing to do with control of our consciousness over our brains, but only with the control of us over our environment?

 

So your life does not change when you stop controlling it? Try. Let us know when you are close to starvation.

How would one prove that their wishes and believe originated from free will and not from biological signals in the body? Once a thought emerges in ones consciousness ownership of it is immediately assumed consciously. I don't see how we could consciously know the true origin of any though. Every thought I have is a thought I have all are experienced equally despite the fact we know some are reflexive and biologically triggered.  I think one of the challenges in this discussion is that our consciousness doubles as our identity or understanding of self. If consciousness isn't in control than we feel free will doesn't exist. That isn't true though. If one can accept that consciousness is merely part of a larger network/system than it doesn't really matter whether the control resides in consciousness our other parts of the mind. A person's choices do not need to be conscious produced to be individual but merely individually individual to that person. A rose by any other name is still a rose. A choice I make consciously or as a biological reaction is still a choice; everyone doesn't make the same choices.

Your two questions:

1. As entities (whole body and neurological system) I believe we control ourselves and our interactions with the world. Consciousness playing the slave role to the master (brain, genes, biology, etc) which has unidirectional control. 

2. That control is experienced via our consciousness; not exclusively originating their. 

[iNow]

2 hours ago, Eise said:

Do you agree that we have at least some control over our lives?

Short answer? No. 

More complete answer? I’m deeply unsure, and find myself struggling with this very question. I accept that my being...this entity described as myself...acts in distinct ways from the environment surrounding me...That there are activities and actions with me as their locus, eminenting from within me and radiating outward into the broader cosmos. It’s when I dig deeper into that “me” that the view becomes cloudy. I’m just a part of the universe and subject to chemical reactions. My sense of self and control and consciousness stem from those chemical reactions as their source. The idea of control seems to be a narrative applied after the fact, an illusion as elucidated in my previous posts. 

This all gives me pause. It prevents me from answering your question in the affirmative. 

2 hours ago, Eise said:

That this control has nothing to do with control of our consciousness over our brains, but only with the control of us over our environment?

Again, no. We can interact with our environment and affect it with our behaviors, but control is not the word I’d select to describe this exchange. 

[dimreepr]

Why does it matter what control/free will we have if that control/free will is limited?  

 

[Eise]

1 hour ago, iNow said:

I accept that my being...this entity described as myself...acts in distinct ways from the environment surrounding me...That there are activities and actions with me as their locus, eminenting from within me and radiating outward into the broader cosmos.

Right. Stop here. Here is where you really have control. Limited, but you have. As I said before, life is all about control. If organisms would not somehow control their environment they would die. The least they have to do is keep the bad chemicals outside, and let the good chemicals in. You do not need control over your brain. Your brain is a way of having control. It makes no sense to dig deeper:

1 hour ago, iNow said:

It’s when I dig deeper into that “me” that the view becomes cloudy. I’m just a part of the universe and subject to chemical reactions. My sense of self and control and consciousness stem from those chemical reactions as their source.

Just as you find no 'you' in your brain, you will not find a control centre there. It is the mechanism that makes 'you' possible. But the 'you' is the whole mechanism, and you can only assign control to the system as a whole.

So it makes no sense to seek for a source of free will in the brain, just as there is no 'you' point in the brain that dictates how the chemical reactions run. That does not mean that you do not exist! If you act freely, it means you can realise what your brain is coming up with. If you want to write a contribution to this thread, you can do it. If you do not want to do it, you can leave it. But writing this I am writing to you, not to some subsystem of your brain.

If you deny free will on basis of neurology, then you consistently must also deny your existence, because there is no 'you' in the brain. And when there is no you, there is nobody to apply the category free/not-free to. Who is the 'you' that is free or not? But if you take your existence as granted, then you get it together with free will, for free. 

23 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

Why does it matter what control/free will we have if that control/free will is limited?  

Your car can also drive only 120 mph, so it is limited. Therefore it doesn't matter that it can drive at all. 

I am free to react on your posting, or let it be. I am not free to jump to the moon. I am also not able to let me like Brussels sprouts. So free will is limited. But it matters.

2 hours ago, dimreepr said:

The best analogy I can use is, you can control where you plant a random seed but you can't control what plant it becomes. 

So therefore do not plant the seed? As I said, if you give up giving up the little control you have over your life, you will die.

[dimreepr]

8 minutes ago, Eise said:

I am also not able to let me like Brussels sprouts. So free will is limited. But it matters.

 

Only if you'd starve without them.

[Eise]

2 hours ago, dimreepr said:

I'm not saying we have no choice, just that we don't control what those choices are.

This is a category error. Look at the menu card in the restaurant: there are the choices. What you choose if of course determined by your brain, but that does not mean you do not choose. The brain is exactly that: a mechanism that is able to evaluate possible paths the futures can take, dependent on how you act. Some of these choices can be completely driven by some unconscious processes (I have no idea why I hat Brussels sprouts; I do not exactly know if I would like, a schnitzel or a cordon bleu now. So I just pick one.), others are complete conscious ("Ups, I have only $20, so I can't choose the beef menu...").

Just now, dimreepr said:

Only if you'd starve without them.

No, I still would not like them. But I would eat them. 

[dimreepr]

1 minute ago, Eise said:

This is a category error. Look at the menu card in the restaurant: there are the choices. What you choose if of course determined by your brain, but that does not mean you do not choose. The brain is exactly that: a mechanism that is able to evaluate possible paths the futures can take, dependent on how you act. Some of these choices can be completely driven by some unconscious processes (I have no idea why I hat Brussels sprouts; I do not exactly know if I would like, a schnitzel or a cordon bleu now. So I just pick one.), others are complete conscious ("Ups, I have only $20, so I can't choose the beef menu...").

Can you control what choices are on the menu, if you're just a customer?

[Eise]

1 minute ago, dimreepr said:

Can you control what choices are on the menu, if you're just a customer?

No. So what? 

[Ten oz]

1 hour ago, iNow said:

Short answer? No. 

More complete answer? I’m deeply unsure, and find myself struggling with this very question. I accept that my being...this entity described as myself...acts in distinct ways from the environment surrounding me...That there are activities and actions with me as their locus, eminenting from within me and radiating outward into the broader cosmos. It’s when I dig deeper into that “me” that the view becomes cloudy. I’m just a part of the universe and subject to chemical reactions. My sense of self and control and consciousness stem from those chemical reactions as their source. The idea of control seems to be a narrative applied after the fact, an illusion as elucidated in my previous posts. 

This all gives me pause. It prevents me from answering your question in the affirmative. 

Again, no. We can interact with our environment and affect it with our behaviors, but control is not the word I’d select to describe this exchange. 

People exerts no conscious control over their heart beating, hair growth, calcium absorption, or any number on things going on within their physical form yet imply someone went to sleep because of biology and not free will and suddenly life loses meaning..hahahaha. Identity exists in our consciousness and we tend to have a hard time attributing things which happen beyond our conscious control to ourselves even when it is ourselves do it. An example would be dreams. We all understand we manifest our own dreams but don't understand why or how and as a result generally don't feel responsible for them. We are aware of them, think they are weird, but are otherwise disassociated from them. 

[Prometheus]

4 hours ago, Eise said:

There is a kind of control that certainly exists: thermostats controlling the temperature, Google software controlling the driving of a car, animals walking to a river to drink, humans planning their next vacation, or building the LHC. What I am saying all the time is that in this concept of control, we can distinguish between free actions and forced actions (against your will).

As far as i can tell, you would say a machine learning algorithm to choose photos with cats in it is exerting free will. Do i understand you correctly?

[Eise]

2 minutes ago, Prometheus said:

As far as i can tell, you would say a machine learning algorithm to choose photos with cats in it is exerting free will. Do i understand you correctly?

No. I am just arguing here against the idea that we have no control. I try to show that there is no contradiction between exerting control and determinism.

For free will a system must have some additional futures: the capability to picture its environment, to evaluate different possible futures against its own interests, how these possible futures might arise dependent on its own actions, have a self image. I other words, I think it is only possible to exert free will when a system is conscious.

[Ten oz]

19 minutes ago, Eise said:

Right. Stop here. Here is where you really have control. Limited, but you have. As I said before, life is all about control. 1- If organisms would not somehow control their environment they would die. The least they have to do is keep the bad chemicals outside, and let the good chemicals in. You do not need control over your brain. Your brain is a way of having control. It makes no sense to dig deeper:

Just as you find no 'you' in your brain, you will not find a control centre there. It is the mechanism that makes 'you' possible. 2 - But the 'you' is the whole mechanism, and you can only assign control to the system as a whole.

So it makes no sense to seek for a source of free will in the brain, just as there is no 'you' point in the brain that dictates how the chemical reactions run. That does not mean that you do not exist! If you act freely, it means you can realise what your brain is coming up with. If you want to write a contribution to this thread, you can do it. If you do not want to do it, you can leave it. But writing this I am writing to you, not to some subsystem of your brain.

3 -If you deny free will on basis of neurology, then you consistently must also deny your existence, because there is no 'you' in the brain. And when there is no you, there is nobody to apply the category free/not-free to. Who is the 'you' that is free or not? But if you take your existence as granted, then you get it together with free will, for free. 

4 -Your car can also drive only 120 mph, so it is limited. Therefore it doesn't matter that it can drive at all. 

I am free to react on your posting, or let it be. I am not free to jump to the moon. I am also not able to let me like Brussels sprouts. So free will is limited. But it matters.

So therefore do not plant the seed? As I said, if you give up giving up the little control you have over your life, you will die.

1 - Organisms are born and hatched with this ability. Genetics leading the way and not conscious choice. Did you consciously choose to take your first breath?

2 - We do not have control over the whole system. One cannot control their genetics. A short person cannot will themselves tall, a bald person will new hair growth, will away cancer, will  20/20 visions, and on and on and on. There are many more things we can empirically say we do not have control over than there are things we can anecdotally say we do have control over. 

3 - This makes no sense.

4- What does and doesn't matter is purely relative. If the car is needed to travel at 130 mph than it wouldn't matter at all that it can travel at 120mph. 

[Prometheus]

4 minutes ago, Eise said:

No. I am just arguing here against the idea that we have no control. I try to show that there is no contradiction between exerting control and determinism.

A single cell organism can exert control over its environment, by chemotaxis for instance - a completely determined process. But that doesn't mean it has free will, does it? Is the only difference that humans have a self image?

 

4 minutes ago, Eise said:

For free will a system must have some additional futures: the capability to picture its environment, to evaluate different possible futures against its own interests, how these possible futures might arise dependent on its own actions, have a self image. I other words, I think it is only possible to exert free will when a system is conscious.

So you might say that a dog has free will, but that a spider does not (if we make the assumption that spiders do not have a self image)?

[Ten oz]

10 minutes ago, Eise said:

No. I am just arguing here against the idea that we have no control.

What is control; does a teacher have control over a students grades or do students have control over their grades? Sticking with that analogy studies show teacher to student ratio, parenting, school budget, and etc all impact grades so can any individual fact truly said to be control?

[dimreepr]

47 minutes ago, Eise said:

No. So what? 

Indeed.

Edited November 12, 2017 by dimreepr