Consciousness: A physicist believes in free will (General)

by David Turell , Tuesday, June 09, 2020, 19:38 (1626 days ago) @ David Turell

Essay by George Ellis:

https://aeon.co/essays/heres-why-so-many-physicists-are-wrong-about-free-will?utm_sourc...

"The structure of these molecules is truly the secret of life, as Francis Crick and James Watson exclaimed when they discovered the double helix structure of DNA, helped by the work of Rosalind Franklin...And all this functioning follows from the details of the complex shapes of these proteins.

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"So the actual question is: does the Schrödinger equation, together with the initial state of the wave function describing everything that existed in the early Universe, determine everything I think today because it determines the states of all the biomolecules in my body?

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"In the case of the biomolecules that underlie the existence of life, it’s the shape of the molecule that acts as a constraint on what happens. These molecules are quite flexible, bending around joints rather like hinges...Any particular such molecular ‘conformation’ (a specific state of folding) constrains the motions of ions and electrons at the underlying physical level. This can happen in a time-dependent fashion, according to biological needs. In this way, biology can reach down to shape physical outcomes.

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"Ion channels are proteins imbedded in the cell wall, controlling the flow of ions in and out of the cell. They can be open or closed, depending on the position of their hinged parts. They thereby either allow movement of ions into or out of the cell...

"This gating plays a crucial role in brain functioning...These ion channels are a biological analogue of transistors in computers, which allow currents to flow or not, based in the voltage difference between two parts of the circuit.

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"The gating function, then, is a consequence of the detailed shape of the ion channel.

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"The broad structure of that network is the same for everyone, but the details are not. It’s the detailed structure in each brain that embodies the differences between us, and specifically our long-term memories. The details of which neuron is connected to which, and the strength of each connection, have been shaped by our own history and memories.

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"mental states change the shape of proteins because the brain has real logical powers. This downward causation trumps the power of initial conditions. Logical implications determine the outcomes at the macro level in our thoughts, and at the micro level in terms of flows of electrons and ions.

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"At molecular scales, the processes at work forget initial data due to billions on billions of collisions between molecules every second. Biology thrives on that disorder – a ‘molecular storm’, as Peter Hoffman calls it in his book Life’s Ratchet (2012). Molecular machines do work, such as kinesin moving cargos from one place to another in the cell, extracting order out of the chaos.

"As explained by Denis Noble and Raymond Noble in their paper for the journal Chaos in 2018, molecular randomness gives cellular mechanisms the option of choosing the outcomes they want, and discarding those they don’t. This power of choice enables physiological systems such as the heart and brain to function in a way that isn’t enslaved by the lower-level interactions, but rather choosing the outcomes of the preferred interactions from a multitude of options. In this way, a layer of order can emerge from the disorder – and micro data – at the lower level. This isn’t conclusive proof that free will exists, but at least it opens up a way for it to exist.

"For the sake of argument, let’s suppose I’m wrong. Let’s ignore all these issues and take the deterministic view seriously. It implies that the words of every book ever written – the Encyclopaedia Britannica, Das Kapital, the Harry Potter series – were encoded into the initial state of the Universe, whatever that was. No logical thinking by a human played a causal role in the specific words of these books: they were determined by physics alone.

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"Genuine mental functioning and the ability to make decisions in a rational way is a far more persuasive explanation of how books get written. That this is possible is due to the extraordinary hierarchical structure of our brain and its functioning.

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"there are still physicists today who confidently proclaim that we can’t have free will because physics determines everything, including brain functioning – entirely ignoring the complex context and the power of constraints."

comment: this is a purely materialistic view of brain function, but it certainly allows for free will. Enormous article filled with explanations worth studying.