Re: ODP: Free will/consciousness/ineffabili
Brent Meeker wrote: Hello Charles On 23-Oct-01, Charles Goodwin wrote: -Original Message- From: Brent Meeker [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, 24 October 2001 12:06 p.m. To: Charles Goodwin Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: ODP: Free will/consciousness/ineffabili My intuition doesn't tell me whether or not I would have a 'feeling' of free will if I were aware of my subconscious decision processes; but it's pretty clear that I could be completely un-conscious and still behave with 'free will'; whatever it is. My suggestion is that it's lack of knowledge of these subconscious processes which gives you a feeling of free will. If you don't know what a feeling of free will means (hence the quotes?) I'd suggest it's the feeling that you reached a decision uninfluenced by anything external to yourself. You're right, I don't think I know what 'free will' feels like. Do you? Have you ever had a feeling of no-free will? The only think like that I can think of is having a cramp, or a tremor or a tick. I suppose Dr. Strangelove must have had a feeling like that as his right hand tried to strangle him. I can't agree that it's a feeling that I reached a decision uninfluenced by anything external to me. Would that mean putting on a sweater when I'm cold, or because I like the way it looks wouldn't be free will. Suppose your consciousness were delayed even more than in the Grey Walter carousel experiment (more than you now compensate for). Suppose there were a 3sec delay instead of 0.30sec. I think you'd feel out-of-control; even though nothing had changed about your decision processes. However if you could follow all the subconscious processes (you couldn't of course, by definition your consciousness isn't aware of them) This discussion appears to not take in account all the observables of consciousness. If one assumes facilities of observation and self observation support consciousness, then if someone closes their eyes, does that mean their that part of their consciousness that was associated with interpreting visual input has now become part of the subconscious? If one plugs their ears, are they less conscious than before? If one shuts off their symbolic reasoning facility are they less conscious still? I'd argue they have just changed the manner in which consciousness can express. then you'd see that what felt like an 'uninfluenced' decision was actually the result of past numerous influences, which had caused your brain to have a particular configuration. Yes, presumably you *could* be unconscious and have free will, in the sense that your actions couldn't be predicted accurately by some other agent. (Try to swat a fly and you will see what I mean!) What if your subconscious decision processes became known to you *after* you had made your decision and 'felt' that free will. Would you feel something different then? I assert that you cannot detect freewill with a consciousness constrained to temporal thinking and expression. I don't see what you mean. You'd probably feel different from how you felt when you made your decision whether you became aware of the subconscious processes or not. It's just a thought experiment. I imagine that I'm in some amazing brain scanner that is connected to a computer that has analyzed all my past decisions, so that when I make a decision (like putting on my sweater) the computer immediately displays a list of the reasons and how they contributed to my decision. I suspect such a machine would reveal that thoughts look like a picture being moved behind a plate with holes drilled in it, where each hole is representative of a neuron. Robert W. _ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com
Re: ODP: Free will/consciousness/ineffabili
Hello Charles On 23-Oct-01, Charles Goodwin wrote: -Original Message- From: Brent Meeker [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, 24 October 2001 12:06 p.m. To: Charles Goodwin Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: ODP: Free will/consciousness/ineffabili My intuition doesn't tell me whether or not I would have a 'feeling' of free will if I were aware of my subconscious decision processes; but it's pretty clear that I could be completely un-conscious and still behave with 'free will'; whatever it is. My suggestion is that it's lack of knowledge of these subconscious processes which gives you a feeling of free will. If you don't know what a feeling of free will means (hence the quotes?) I'd suggest it's the feeling that you reached a decision uninfluenced by anything external to yourself. You're right, I don't think I know what 'free will' feels like. Do you? Have you ever had a feeling of no-free will? The only think like that I can think of is having a cramp, or a tremor or a tick. I suppose Dr. Strangelove must have had a feeling like that as his right hand tried to strangle him. I can't agree that it's a feeling that I reached a decision uninfluenced by anything external to me. Would that mean putting on a sweater when I'm cold, or because I like the way it looks wouldn't be free will. Suppose your consciousness were delayed even more than in the Grey Walter carousel experiment (more than you now compensate for). Suppose there were a 3sec delay instead of 0.30sec. I think you'd feel out-of-control; even though nothing had changed about your decision processes. However if you could follow all the subconscious processes (you couldn't of course, by definition your consciousness isn't aware of them) then you'd see that what felt like an 'uninfluenced' decision was actually the result of past numerous influences, which had caused your brain to have a particular configuration. Yes, presumably you *could* be unconscious and have free will, in the sense that your actions couldn't be predicted accurately by some other agent. (Try to swat a fly and you will see what I mean!) What if your subconscious decision processes became known to you *after* you had made your decision and 'felt' that free will. Would you feel something different then? I don't see what you mean. You'd probably feel different from how you felt when you made your decision whether you became aware of the subconscious processes or not. It's just a thought experiment. I imagine that I'm in some amazing brain scanner that is connected to a computer that has analyzed all my past decisions, so that when I make a decision (like putting on my sweater) the computer immediately displays a list of the reasons and how they contributed to my decision. Just the sort of thing that is done with some AI decisions programs. Would I feel any different? I don't think so. If you DID become aware of the s.p.s it could only be as the result of years of laboriously tracing through neural connections inside some map that someone made of your brain while you were making the decision. (And presumably more years of tracing through previous maps of your brain which showed how various events in the past caused it to be configured the way it was at the time, if you want a FULL understanding.) I'm not sure that you could ever become aware of all this in any realistic sense of the word. Perhaps a super-intelligent alien could apprehend the processes in your brain at a glance and see what was going on, and THEY would feel that your decision was an inevitable consequence of how your brain was configured, but YOU couldn't. It seems to me there are two cases: In one case the circumstances and who you are lead to a unique decision. So the decision is 'deterministic'. It may be to complex to comprehend, but at least in principle it is explicable. In some other cases it may be that the decision is a close one and it goes one way and not the other because of some quantum event that is *in principle* uncaused. Brent Meeker Before we can know whether a thing exists, we must know its properties. --- Jurgen Ehlers
RE: ODP: Free will/consciousness/ineffabili
-Original Message- From: Brent Meeker [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, 24 October 2001 12:06 p.m. To: Charles Goodwin Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: ODP: Free will/consciousness/ineffabili My intuition doesn't tell me whether or not I would have a 'feeling' of free will if I were aware of my subconscious decision processes; but it's pretty clear that I could be completely un-conscious and still behave with 'free will'; whatever it is. My suggestion is that it's lack of knowledge of these subconscious processes which gives you a feeling of free will. If you don't know what a feeling of free will means (hence the quotes?) I'd suggest it's the feeling that you reached a decision uninfluenced by anything external to yourself. However if you could follow all the subconscious processes (you couldn't of course, by definition your consciousness isn't aware of them) then you'd see that what felt like an 'uninfluenced' decision was actually the result of past numerous influences, which had caused your brain to have a particular configuration. Yes, presumably you *could* be unconscious and have free will, in the sense that your actions couldn't be predicted accurately by some other agent. (Try to swat a fly and you will see what I mean!) What if your subconscious decision processes became known to you *after* you had made your decision and 'felt' that free will. Would you feel something different then? I don't see what you mean. You'd probably feel different from how you felt when you made your decision whether you became aware of the subconscious processes or not. If you DID become aware of the s.p.s it could only be as the result of years of laboriously tracing through neural connections inside some map that someone made of your brain while you were making the decision. (And presumably more years of tracing through previous maps of your brain which showed how various events in the past caused it to be configured the way it was at the time, if you want a FULL understanding.) I'm not sure that you could ever become aware of all this in any realistic sense of the word. Perhaps a super-intelligent alien could apprehend the processes in your brain at a glance and see what was going on, and THEY would feel that your decision was an inevitable consequence of how your brain was configured, but YOU couldn't. Charles
