Information and free will (Introduction)

by dhw, Friday, October 14, 2011, 15:52 (4767 days ago) @ romansh

DHW: Originally your objection was to the prerequisite of consciousness, so I’m pleased to see you’ve now shifted your ground.

ROMANSH: Not at all, I still think it is an unnecessary prerequisite.

ROMANSH: I don't think a computer makes any free choices or that it's will is free. Also your argument works both ways. The computer is self aware even if it is not conscious. Ultimately two snooker balls colliding have an even more rudimentary self awareness.

I defined consciousness as:“awareness of one’s own thoughts, perceptions, actions and environment”. I’d be interested to know how you distinguish between consciousness and self-awareness, and in what "rudimentary" way computers and snooker balls are aware of themselves. You still haven’t explained how we humans can make decisions without being conscious of the information on which they will be based or of the alternatives between which we must choose. (That is not an argument for free will, but an argument for the need to include consciousness in our definition.) Computers also make decisions, but since you agree that they do not have free will, how can you distinguish between them and us in your definition of “free will” other than through consciousness as I’ve defined it? (Remember, the definition can’t say whether we have free will or not.)

Dhw: No matter how much freedom I have, I cannot make decisions that will go against the constraints of Nature, which includes my own nature as it is now: I can’t decide to fly, jump fifty metres, become dictator of the world, or eat a thousand bars of chocolate at one go. None of these “decisions” are within the compass of my current identity, and so they represent given constraints. Similarly with situation: if I’m locked up in prison I can’t decide to go shopping. I can, however, decide whether to sing “Please Release Me” or “Baby, It’s Cold Outside”.

ROMANSH: I'll ask the same question I tried to ask David just. Are our thoughts a reflection of the chemistry going on in our brains? Some seem to think it is the reverse. Some might argue that certain neural pathways get strengthened because of our thoughts. But are not our thoughts a product of the brain's on-going chemistry? So which came first the thought or the brain chemistry?

You challenged me on what I meant by “Nature”, and you’ve quoted my response but then asked a totally different question! This one, of course, is unanswerable because it relates to the nature of consciousness, which nobody knows. It therefore reinforces the alternatives I offered you. I’ll rephrase them: 1) we are at the mercy of our chemistry and other influences beyond our control, so we do not have free will; or 2) the chemistry among other influences IS us, and we control it, so we do have free will. I don’t see how it’s possible to go beyond those alternatives, nor do I see how your argument shows that consciousness is not a prerequisite in my choice between the two songs.

ROMANSH: I think I posted this link of Susan Blackmore's before. An interesting take on the absence of consciousness.

http://www.susanblackmore.co.uk/Books/Tenzen/question1.htm

I’m afraid its convolutions leave me cold. We don’t know the nature of consciousness, but if you accept that it includes awareness of one’s own thoughts, you will also have to accept that if our thoughts are about awareness, we are aware of our awareness. We will also be aware of our awareness of our awareness, and so on. There are layers of consciousness, and Susan Blackmore appears only now to have realized it. I would say that animals have far fewer layers than we do, and that computers and snooker balls have no layers at all, but I need to know your distinction between consciousness and self-awareness before we discuss that (if we really want to).

You still haven’t told me why, in my example of choosing a TV programme, a) consciousness is not integral to the process, and b) in what way my decision is forced on me by influences beyond my control. If now your only answer to b) is that I’m at the mercy of my chemistry, we’re back to the alternative views expressed above.

In your earlier post you argued that all choices are dependent on the information we get from our environment. I pointed out that free will relates to the conscious ability to use that information in order to make decisions. Without x and y, there can be no choice between x and y, but free will (if it exists) is the conscious ability to choose between x and y – in other words, x and y are the trigger that sets free will (if it exists) in motion. Again you have not responded.

I suspect that you’ve used your conscious ability to control your decision-making process in order to ignore certain arguments, but on the other hand, you may prefer to attribute it to your brain’s ongoing chemistry! (“My brain made me do it!” as the man says on the video.)