With some trepidation! I’m intensely aware I don’t know enough.
“Why do I believe I have free will? It’s the simplest explanation!” (Nothing in neurobiology is simple. I replace Occam’s Razor with a metaphysical growth restriction: Root causes should not be increased without dire necessity).
OK, that was flip. To be more serious:
Considering just one side of the debate, I ask: “What cognitive architecture would give me an experience of uncaused, doing-whatever-I-want, free-as-a-bird Capricious Action that is so strong that I just can’t experience (be present to) being a fairly deterministic machine?”
Cutting it down to a bare minimum: I imagine that I have a Decision Module (DM) that receives input from sensory-processing modules and suggested-action modules at its “boundary”, so those inputs are distinguishable from the neuron-firings inside the boundary: the ones that make up the DM itself. IMO, there is no way for those internal neuron firings to be presented to the input ports. I guess that there is no provision for the DM to sense anything about its own machinery.
By dubious analogy, a Turing machine looks at its own tapes, it doesn’t look at the action table that determines its next action, nor can it modify that table.
To a first approximation, no matter what notion of cause and effect I get, I just can’t see any cause for my own decisions. Even if somebody asks, “Why did you stay and fight?”, I’m just stuck with “It seemed like a good idea at the time!”
And these days, it seems to me that culture, the environment a child grows up within, is just full of the accouterments of free will: make the right choice, reward & punishment, shame, blame, accountability, “Why did you write on the wall? How could you be so STUPID!!?!!”, “God won’t tempt you beyond your ability to resist.” etc.
Being a machine, I’m not well equipped to overcome all that on the strength of mere evidence and reason.
Now I’ll start reading The Solution, and see if I was in the right ball park, or even the right continent.
There is some confusion about the meaning of free will. I can decide freely whether to drink a coffee or a tea, but you will see me allways choosing the coffee. Am I free to choose? Really?
I’m free to choose whether to use my bycicle to go to work, or take the bus. Well—it’s raining. Let’s take the bus.
A bloody moron stole my bike—now I’m not free to choose, I’m forced to take the bus.
There are inner and outer conditions which influence my decision. I’m not free to stop at the traffic light, but if I take the risk to pay the penalty, I’m free again. Maybe I internalized outer pressure in a way, that I can’t distinguish it from inner whishes, bias or fear and animus.
The second problem is, that as a model of our brain we look at it, if it was a machine or a computer. We know there a neurons, firing, and while facing our decision making process that way, it get’s something foreign to us—we don’t see it as part of ourself, like we see our feet in action while walking.
If you would tell somebody, that he isn’t walking, it’s his feet which walk, everybody laughs. Yes—the feet are part of him. He cannot walk without his feet. And firing neurons are the same thing as thinking.
The process of thinking is this machine in our head in action. It’s your machine—it’s you! And mine is mine, and it’s me.
So we don’t fall into the fall of distinction between ‘me’ and ‘my thoughts, my brain, some neurons, firing’. And we know, that there are inner and outer influences to our decision. We have a history, which influences whether we like the idea of driving by bus, or going by bicycle. There are some stronger and some not so strong influences, and maybe millions, so the process, to make a decision is too complex, to make a prediction in all cases.
I know, I drank coffee for the last 20 years and not tea—but on the other hand, if there is a strong influence, I might drink tea tomorrow. Mainly a disruption of my habits.
I might get forced to do something I don’t like, so it will be someone else’s decision, someone else’ freedom of choice.
Is it his brain, or is it my brain, which decides? It’s freedom, if you can decide. If your neurons decide. Your brain. It’s you.
HOMEWORK REPORT
With some trepidation! I’m intensely aware I don’t know enough.
“Why do I believe I have free will? It’s the simplest explanation!” (Nothing in neurobiology is simple. I replace Occam’s Razor with a metaphysical growth restriction: Root causes should not be increased without dire necessity).
OK, that was flip. To be more serious:
Considering just one side of the debate, I ask: “What cognitive architecture would give me an experience of uncaused, doing-whatever-I-want, free-as-a-bird Capricious Action that is so strong that I just can’t experience (be present to) being a fairly deterministic machine?”
Cutting it down to a bare minimum: I imagine that I have a Decision Module (DM) that receives input from sensory-processing modules and suggested-action modules at its “boundary”, so those inputs are distinguishable from the neuron-firings inside the boundary: the ones that make up the DM itself. IMO, there is no way for those internal neuron firings to be presented to the input ports. I guess that there is no provision for the DM to sense anything about its own machinery.
By dubious analogy, a Turing machine looks at its own tapes, it doesn’t look at the action table that determines its next action, nor can it modify that table.
To a first approximation, no matter what notion of cause and effect I get, I just can’t see any cause for my own decisions. Even if somebody asks, “Why did you stay and fight?”, I’m just stuck with “It seemed like a good idea at the time!”
And these days, it seems to me that culture, the environment a child grows up within, is just full of the accouterments of free will: make the right choice, reward & punishment, shame, blame, accountability, “Why did you write on the wall? How could you be so STUPID!!?!!”, “God won’t tempt you beyond your ability to resist.” etc.
Being a machine, I’m not well equipped to overcome all that on the strength of mere evidence and reason.
Now I’ll start reading The Solution, and see if I was in the right ball park, or even the right continent.
Thanks for listening.
There is some confusion about the meaning of free will. I can decide freely whether to drink a coffee or a tea, but you will see me allways choosing the coffee. Am I free to choose? Really?
I’m free to choose whether to use my bycicle to go to work, or take the bus. Well—it’s raining. Let’s take the bus.
A bloody moron stole my bike—now I’m not free to choose, I’m forced to take the bus.
There are inner and outer conditions which influence my decision. I’m not free to stop at the traffic light, but if I take the risk to pay the penalty, I’m free again. Maybe I internalized outer pressure in a way, that I can’t distinguish it from inner whishes, bias or fear and animus.
The second problem is, that as a model of our brain we look at it, if it was a machine or a computer. We know there a neurons, firing, and while facing our decision making process that way, it get’s something foreign to us—we don’t see it as part of ourself, like we see our feet in action while walking.
If you would tell somebody, that he isn’t walking, it’s his feet which walk, everybody laughs. Yes—the feet are part of him. He cannot walk without his feet. And firing neurons are the same thing as thinking.
The process of thinking is this machine in our head in action. It’s your machine—it’s you! And mine is mine, and it’s me.
So we don’t fall into the fall of distinction between ‘me’ and ‘my thoughts, my brain, some neurons, firing’. And we know, that there are inner and outer influences to our decision. We have a history, which influences whether we like the idea of driving by bus, or going by bicycle. There are some stronger and some not so strong influences, and maybe millions, so the process, to make a decision is too complex, to make a prediction in all cases.
I know, I drank coffee for the last 20 years and not tea—but on the other hand, if there is a strong influence, I might drink tea tomorrow. Mainly a disruption of my habits.
I might get forced to do something I don’t like, so it will be someone else’s decision, someone else’ freedom of choice.
Is it his brain, or is it my brain, which decides? It’s freedom, if you can decide. If your neurons decide. Your brain. It’s you.
[comment removed by author]
Yes: this page contains a link to his solution.