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CoachAlan

I can point you to a thread in which the philosophical ramifications of this line of reasoning are discussed. As for books, I haven't really read one that I think adequately discussed free will from this point of view. I'm sure there are many books like that out there, but I have only come to this topic recently and am unaware of what they are.

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CSflim

Consciousness Explained by Daniel C Dennett is a wonderfully profound and thorough book (and is written to be accessible to non-specialists, but is still moderately heavy going at times).

Freedom Evolves also by Dennett address the problem of Free Will specificially. Also recommened.

The Astonishing Hypothesis by Francis Crick (the co-discoverer of DNA) talks about consciousness from a neurobiological perspective.

The Conscious Mind by David J Chalmers argues against materialism in favor of what he calls "non-reductive functionalism". If you feel that you have been the victim of a bait and switch after reading Dennett and others, perhaps this would be more to your taste.

Other authors to check out: Douglas Hofstadter (esp. Godel, Escher, Bach), Steven Pinker (esp. How the Mind Works), Paul Churchland, Patricia Churchland, Gerald Edelman, Bernard Baars, Christof Koch.

EDIT:
Another book which is supposed to be very good is Consciousness: An Introduction by Susan Blackmore. I have not read it, though I certainly plan to. It is more of a textbook rather than a book putting forward a specific theory. It is apparently very well written (Susan Blackmore is a great writer imho), and very comprehensive.

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Zdragva

well this universe is only a collection of quarks and leptons plus a force and some spacetime, you ever watched the aurora borealis? heard of the great barrier reef? and whats to say we dont have a soul just cause we now know what our bodies are made of when we didnt a 100 years ago.

Zdragva

honestly im getting a bit sick of people thinking things are wrapped up just cos we arnt so ignorant, has anyone yet come up with a reason as to why we are here? no.

Journeyman

The best I could ever get out of the whole hubbubb is the really horrid problem of how I can have a subjective experience when I am composed entirely of objects. Free will or not, I'm still experiencing things in a manner that goes beyond atomic billiard balls reacting to one another.

Halx

That's one way to look at it. However, what we call Free Will is merely a survival instinct. Many animals have free will. You can tell this because even our pets have different personalities (caused by the random arrangement and availibility of chemicals). We use our free will to get us out of difficult situations and to work in teams. Extra stuff that we create from free will (art, music, etc) is intended for pleasure. Pleasure is a survival instinct.

It all fits together if you let it.

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roboshark

But why assume we are here for a reason? Because we think we're so special and unique? We're so conceited, we simply can't accept the possibility that humans, or Life, as we know it, can very well have come about through coincidence and "evolution". So people can sing, and love and write novels and shoot their own kind in cold blood: how do any of these things require free will, or a soul of any kind, or even a reason?

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roboshark

That's a faulty premise: you assume you know enough about atomic billiard balls to conclude that the interaction of billions of them is not sufficient to define, describe and quantify the person that you think you are. The lack of sufficient knowledge is not sound basis for the rejection or acceptance of an idea. Just because the Sun moves through the sky doesn't mean it orbits the Earth

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CoachAlan

I'm with roboshark on this one. But I've already spent too much time typing about it here.

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CSflim

Hear hear!

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Halx

roboshark is kicking ass and taking names

go logic!

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asaris

The problem with roboshark's argument is that he presupposes that the burden of proof is on the person who asserts that we are more than just atoms bouncing around (and, based on the first post, I'm assuming he's counting property dualists as well as substance dualists in this category). But it seems to me that in fact the burden of proof is on the reductionist. The natural tendency is to believe that we have something called a 'mind', and that its properties are quite different from the properties of the stuff we call 'matter'. This can be illustrated by the poster's first post -- (s)he only started thinking this way after (s)he had been educated to do so.

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"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

Mephisto2

This simply sounds like a rehash of Logical Positivism, as promulgated by the so-called Vienna Circle in the early parts of the 20th century. Karl Popper, despite his self-agrandising crooning, did indeed debunk this entire idea and introduced perhaps the most important philosophical advance in the philosophy of science with his theory of Falsificationism.

So, before we descend into some rather esoteric debates on the nature of truth, proof and first principles, I would suggest we avoid rhetorical statements such as these and proceed based on generally accepted a priori statements.


Mr Mephisto

adysav

Surely it's just the case that you have an objective experience but have a subjective perception of it.

CSflim

Journeyman made an explict statement that materialism was false, but provided no real argument. "I'm still experiencing things in a manner that goes beyond atomic billiard balls reacting to one another."
Roboshark pointed out that this was essentialy an argument from ignorance. He did not attempt to argue materialism is true, merely that Journeyman provided no argument that it was necessarily false.

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asaris

But the problem with that is that Journeyman makes a good point, though perhaps not as well as it could be made (not that I can make it any better). One of the core problems with reductive materialism can be summed up with the following question: How can an electrical impulse be red? Yes, I know I'm oversimplifying. We've had a similar debate before...

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"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

CSflim

How can air molecules bouncing off each other be music?

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zen_tom

What does it matter? You're asking a non-question. Red-ness or music-ness are collections of similar and associated sensations (or inputs) to which you've applied a text-based label (or output). It's what brains (and other massively inter-connected networks) do.

Likewise, souls, gods and various other intangibles would appear to be labels initially applied to other collections of sensations but which, once labelled, seem to take on a life of their own. Possibly due to the runaway feedback effect that occurs often when the output side of a process is fed back as the input.

asaris

But 'red' is neither an electrical impulse nor a text-based label; it's a color. And I did say I was oversimplifying.

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"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

zen_tom

OK, so was I (oversimplifying) - But a colour is still a representation of the *experience* of light of a certain wavelength hitting the retina and stimulating the brain. We label that experience as red so as to better talk about it with other people.

If your point was to use the example to show that there must be something more to life than electrical impluses by demonstrating the wonders of subjective experience, then I would disagree. But then, I missed the discussion when it happened somewhere else, so if I'm drudging up old stuff, apologies.

What I'm saying (rather obliquely) is that it's reasonable to believe in a billiard-ball world, and to enjoy experiencing the subjective sensations that we have access to without resorting to any hobgoblinry.

roboshark

Oh, please! I just pointed out that Journeyman's statement about how he experiences things in a manner that goes beyound atomic billiard balls reacting to one another is bogus in and of itself.

On the other hand, it's not entirely clear to me what the problem was with my statements, rhetorical or otherwise. Care to elucidate?

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CSflim

I think Mephisto must have misinterpreted what you wrote. His response does not make a whole lot of sense, given what you wrote.

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mo42

That's kind of funny, actually. About 5 years ago, I thought of the exact same argument as CoachAlan (if you had enough data and positioning of all the chemicals and everything in the brain, you could predict and individual's response) but came to the opposite conclusion, in that I do in fact, have free will, and by inference, a soul.

I guess until such time as we have sensing devices and knowledge of physics enough to scan a person's entire atomic makeup we won't ever know whether there is some slight deviation in the brain's predicted chemistry, which would be indicative of a soul.

Somewhat off topic, there was a study a while back where a group was attempting to prove/disprove telekinesis on a small scale. The group had a number of people attempt to make a computer give out more 1s than 0s in a random string, basically willing electrons to the '1' position. The experiment revealed that only like 50.02% of the numbers were 1s, but given the sheer quantity of numbers, that was something like a million standard deviations off of the control. This might suggest that some metaphysical element is cabable of directly affecting physical objects, which would imply the existence of a soul.

zen_tom

It also might be pretty conclusive proof that the opposite is the case. And what do you mean by a soul anyway? What properties does it have?, And what type of experiment has a standard deviation so low that a value of 0.02% get's to be millions off the control?

mo42

I believe that the number of random digits generated was in the trillions and trillions; some massive number. So something off by that small amount is actually quite significant.

A soul would be something like a conciousness; something that makes you who you are. In this theory, it would have a limited effect on the workings of the brain, perhaps by pushing an electron here or there, or a chemical one way or the other. Obviously it would have to be very slight or someone probably would have detected it already. Or maybe it could be a bit more significant because we just don't have any way of detecting what *should* be going on vs. what *is* going on in the brain.

zen_tom

If you test the properties of a HUGE number of objects, or you perform a test a HUGE number of times, you will get results with HUGE numbers. That the numbers are huge, does not make them significant. But that's statistics.

Other questions about souls. Is a soul a separate thing to the brain, and if so, is the brain just the place where it 'lives' - Where does a soul come from? Where do they go? At what point does a foetus 'get' a soul? Can a soul be created or destroyed? Do animals have them? If not, why not. What about my cat? Insects, plants? What do souls actually do? And why are they so hard to spot?

mo42

Well, if you had 100 trillion 1s/0s, the average (as shown in the control) is 50 trillion of each. If in reality you get 50.02 trillon 1s and 49.98 trillion 0s, that ends up being very, very far off of the standard deviation. The odds of such an event happening naturally are about something like one in ten million; and it has been a few years since I read the report and I don't remember the details of the experiment as to number of times repeated, variations between subjects, ets.

I think that the soul is a separate thing, different from the brain. It doesn't necessarily have to live in the brain, though I suppose that would be where most of the interactions between it and matter would be. For all I know, it's on a separate plane of existence and is affecting this universe remotely.

I suppose souls origninate from God somehow, but religious texts fail to explain the origin of souls properly, so I don't have a lot to go on.

I myself am a Christian, and so follow the standard afterlife go to heaven if you're good theory.

I am unsure at what point a fetus gets a soul; that's an important issue for abortion, and I haven't properly resolved my views on it.

Souls in animals is a very good question, I've been wondering about that myself. If having self-awareness means that you have a conciousness, and having a conciousness becomes equivalent to having a soul, then we would already know that Dolphins would have them. If cats were self-aware, perhaps they would have them too. Tuna, almost certainly not self-aware, would not, nor insects nor plants.

What souls actually do... an interesting question, and much tougher to answer than I would have orignally thought. I think that perhaps they are the essence of a person and were created by God to create joy in the universe. But now we're starting to spread into a wide variety of topics.

Why souls are so hard to spot... well, lots of things are hard to spot. Gamma radiation is hard to spot. So is gravity, on the small scale. So are quantum variations. Heck, the soul could be a being of energy on another plane which has quantum entanglement with the atoms of a person's brain.

zen_tom

Averages are funny things - a standard deviation from the average normally allows for 34% of the population either-side of the median figure. I can't think how I'd measure the standard deviation of a group of 1's and 0's but will leave this part of the conversation alone now in deference to the more interesting part...

I've been trying to work this one out for the last week. It's been so long since I properly exercised my brain, but after reading the post on using the teleporter (also on this board) I got to wondering what it was that conciousness actually is, how it develops and how it is capable of being aware of itself - or more personally, what *I* am, how *I* develop and how can *I* be aware of myself. The thoughts kind of take you off into a strange self-referential world where it's hard to hold on to anything concrete, as soon as you feel as though you've latched on to and understood something important, it slips away - and you can't find it again.

This seems to be the problem with imagining a conciousness without the concept of an external soul - but just because it's difficult doesn't mean it can't be done - If it is the case, it makes the hard to answer questions posed earlier much easier (in most cases) to answer.

Compared to soulness, gravity, quantum fluctuations and entanglements have all been much easier to find - in fact in many cases they were predicted by mathematical models that suggested certain things with certain properties could be found under certain conditions.

I suppose the main question is, if a soul is the essence of a conciousness - where did it come from, and what is the method by which it attaches itself to people (or animals) here on earth (what would happen to a person or animal that got left-out?) There are so-many people and creatures being born, that to match-up souls to brains would be more than a difficult task. Do the souls know where they're going to get 'posted'? Do they choose, or does something else? If they go to heaven once the person they've occupied dies, there must be a separate place where they are made. Who decides how many to make? What if there are too many? Or not enough? Why go to all the effort in the first place? In short, how does this soul machinery work?

mo42

This delves into the question "Why is there anything at all?". If souls exist, and are created by an omnipotent being such as God, they must have been created for some reason. Why would God create a universe? Why not just be alone and perfect for all eternity? Perhaps joy and good can be found in interactions between concious beings? Perhaps God seeks companions in Heaven and life is some kind of entrance test?

I don't know, anything is possible.

As for how soul machinery works, I'm not sure. If a very small direct kinetic force was applied to various chemicals, electrons, and energy packets, it would be nearly impossible to detect from the chaos of a natural chemical process. This could be one mechanism; I'm sure there are others.

zen_tom

Does there have to be a reason? What if it all just *is*? My thinking (and my fascination) is that on the one hand, there's the soul-world which for me throws up so many unanswerable questions, while on the other, there's the material world which all seems relatively simple.

What makes a person choose one side of the fence over the other?

mo42

That's more of a personal preference, I think. One could make the case that I choose to believe in souls simply because I find the idea that my own conciousness as an illusion too uncomfortable.

However, due to a variety of factors, I think that the idea of God existing is likely enough for me to put my faith in Him, and thereby souls. These reasons may not be sufficient for everyone, though.

There's a lot that can't be explained no matter what you believe, though. The fact that the universe exists at all has always been amazing to me. I would think that there would just be nothingness, but here we are, in a universe filled with lots of stuff.

zen_tom

Please don't think I'm making an argument for or against - matters of this sort are not up for logical debate - I am just interested in understanding other people's points of view. When I ask questions, it's just to find a deeper understanding of another's point of view, and, I suppose, it also displays to some extent my own point of view.

You mention that the thought of your conciousness as an illusion makes you feel uncomfortable. Does conciousness have to be an illusion if there is no such thing as a soul? My conciousness feels pretty real to me, it may not be everlasting, but there is a time before which I do not remember, and, I suppose a time after which I will no longer be. But it doesn't feel illusionary.

mo42

I think that conciousnesses and souls are, by definition, both necessary if one is to exist. "I think, therefore I am" means that either a) "I" is an entity, which thinks, or b) "I" is a collection of chemicals which is not actually thinking, but behaving in a predictable (provided you had an insanely powerful computer with the best chemical program ever) manner.

You can program a computer to output "I think, therefore I am", but it does not actually exist as a concious entity. It's merely a collection of magnets and electrons. If the human brain is merely a collection of chemicals and electrons, we are the same as the computer, saying "I think, therefore I am" but not actually "thinking". Your thought process would be an illusion.

In order to be different from the computer, outputting in a predictable manner, and thus actually be thinking and be concious, there must be some kind of outside influence on the decision making and thinking process, suggesting some form of soul.

I cannot prove that this soul is immortal, nor that it is linked with any particular religion; this is something that one has to just believe in. Since I have come to the conclusion that it is reasonably likely that I do indeed have a soul of some kind, I choose to believe in the Christian faith. Others might believe in Buddhism, but since I do not believe that life is suffering, that holds no truth for me.

But yes, I think that conciousness and souls are definitely inseparably connected.

CoachAlan

Firstly, mo42, I think your analogy to the computer is right on the money. Indeed when you enter "2+2" in to a computer, it may think it is exercising free will by returning "4", but the programmer knows otherwise. Likewise, when someone calls our name, we may think we turn our head of our own free will, but the "insanely powerful computer" you mention would know otherwise.

Secondly, as a side note, the First Noble Truth is that there is suffering in life. The Second Noble Truth is that suffrering has causes. The Third Noble Truth is that there is a way to address the causes. The Fourth Noble Truth is the way. To say that Buddshists believe that life is suffering is a perversion of what Buddshism is really all about. Buddshists do not dwell on suffering. They acknowledge their suffering so that they can look at it and figure out how to alleviate it in themselves and others.

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mo42

Ah. I suppose I got a mistranslated lesson in Buddhism during high school then.

CSflim

When it takes place inside computers made of silicon we call it "processing", when it takes place inside computers made of meat we call it "thinking". Bit of a double standard if you ask me.

/Devil's Advocate

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zen_tom

I'm interested in this notion of predictability and its link with free-will. If we are 'machines' does that necessarily mean we are mechanical/predictable?

If we have free-will, does that prove that we are not 'machines' i.e. that we have external soul-like things pulling our strings? (I digress, but if we do have cosmic puppeteers, what are they made of, and where do they get their free-will from?...anyway...)

There's a problem called the three-body problem where 3 objects influence one another by gravity (imagine 3 planets, or 1 planet, a sun and a moon, or two suns and a grain of dust, whatever) While the maths are reasonably simple to do, tiny differences in the initial conditions rapidly spiral out into entirely different results. There are other examples of this kind of behaviour to be found in nature, where an unmeasurable difference in initial conditions causes two entirely separate outcomes - the idea has been called 'The butterfly effect'

Now consider the quantum world - a world you can never accurately measure because the act of measuring drastically changes whatever it is you're looking at (imagine trying to work out the contents of a china-shop while blindfolded by wildly swinging a baseball bat - Crash! "Ahh, that was a nice georgian vase" Crash! "Ohh, genuine China teacup" etc..)

Now tie the two things together 1) Many things in nature (possibly EVERYTHING in nature if viewed over a long enough time-period) deny prediction due to the butterfly effect messing up the results and 2) It's IMPOSSIBLE to collect EXACT information about anything in enough detail so as to avoid the problem of number 1)

This suggests that many things will always be unpredictable, and that many of natures systems could be said (either literally, or at least metaphorically) to "have a mind of their own". I'd go further and suggest that the whole of existance relies on this fact. But that's for another post.

So back to the point, is free-will distinguisable from 'non-computability', if so, how? And if not, doesn't it suggest that at least there is a possibility for conciousness to develop without the requirement of a soul?

CSflim

Firstly, it's important to distinguish between the practical notion of predictability and the ontological notion of determinism. (A "random" number generation algorithm is deterministic but unpredictable).

Secondly, it needs to be made quite clear what indeterminacy has to do with free will in the first place.
An argument could perhaps be made that determinism implies no free will (I would probably disagree with it, but at least it would be coherent).
But now that physics seems to have moved beyond determinism, people keep trotting out the same completely BIZZARE argument that indeterminacy implies free will.
"A implies B, therefore, not A implies not B" is of course a completely fallacious argument.

Surely RANDOM, undirected behaviour is the complete antithesis of free will?


In my opinion the determinism/indeterminism of the brain is irrelevant to discussions of free will.

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