Well of course anything that happens must be possible.
You wrote "Freewill, based on science, is a mere selection from the 'set of actions allowed'."
There are an infinite number of selections that can be chosen in any situation that would be allowable. Give me any number of possible selections and I'll give you one more. Where consciousness differs from a mechanical device is the exercise of creativity and willfulness -- the refusal to be limited by any given set of selections.
James,
I like convergence rather than emergence and spontaneity rather than randomness. The coming together of nature and consciousness you describe seems more unifying. I just wonder about the "medium" example you give of space roiling with "virtual particles." In our atmospheric world, do our quantum components converge from an environment of space? Maybe we need an Einstein thought experiment.
My essay also speaks of the quantum meeting the macro but is perhaps less ethereal.
Hope you have a chance to check it out.
Jim Hoover
Thank you for your comments, Jim
The "convergence" concept was necessarily brief. I should have made it clear that the "Nature" that converges is everywhere, not just in "empty" space. I would like to elaborate on systematic aggregates as being more-or-less transient, amorphous, pre-individual convergences. Human aggregates, being combinations of highly advanced individuals, are illustrative: culture, a choir, even loving relationships bring an unconscious, amorphous Nature into being.
I'll read your paper later today. Thanks again!
James -
An excellent essay, thanks. I'd be quite interested in discussing with you the contrast of spontaneity with intentionality - a key concept in my essay The How and The Why of Emergence and Intention. I would characterize spontaneity as the ability of an agent to make a choice that is not determined - yet intentionality suggests that choices are made that cluster behaviors around attractor states, yielding a physical reality that is anything but spontaneous in its structure and operations. Very interesting stuff!
I did stumble over one statement you make - "given a precision-made coin-tossing machine and precisely minted coins, placed in a vacuum chamber and insulated from all outside influences, one can get heads 100% of the time." This is, of course, a deterministic process under the conditions described. But I think it quite a bit harder to know whether something we observe is deterministic or spontaneous, random or intentional. If you observe a large number of random coin tosses, man arbitrarily long string of heads can be found --- if one tosses the coins long enough. In my essay I use the metaphor of the 100 typing monkeys to test out that concept.
Regards - George Gantz
James,
The contest is drawing to an end, and I am reviewing those I've read and am not sure that I rated. Yours I did on 4/1. Short memory.
Hope you enjoyed the interchange of ideas as much as I did and still do.
Jim Hoover
Dear James,
I very much enjoyed your essay, including the addendum that you posted March 28.
I strongly agree with your approach to the philosophical issues. I am a neuroscientist, and I think that misconceptions about philosophy (the big questions) have been the primary barrier to understanding the brain. Even the importance of philosophy is generally dismissed, so it is not surprising that the problems you identify have persisted.
Your ideas about the physical basis of intentionality appear to be remarkably similar to my own, although we use different terms and it is difficult to know how similar they actually are. In your post on my essay, you disagreed with my use of 'knowledge.' But since I see similarities in our views, and since I don't understand exactly what you mean by some of your terms, I have tentatively interpreted several of your ideas and terms to be synonymous with my own. (Not coincidentally, I have given your essay the top rating, and if you win, I will try to see it as a personal victory.)
I interpret your term "spontaneity" as an attempt to overcome the problems associated with the concept of "randomness" or "indeterminacy." To me, all of these terms denote the uncertainty associated with a state of knowledge (for example, given the present position and velocity of a particle, its future location is uncertain). Another such term could be "freedom." I do not see fundamental distinctions between these terms with respect to math and physics. If you do make a distinction that concerns more than connotation and semantic preference (which certainly do matter), I wonder how you would define them with respect to math and physics.
These terms have been the source of a great deal of confusion, which I think comes from a diversity of scientists, each working implicitly with distinct states of knowledge. I interpret your preference for 'spontaneity' as to way to overcome these past misconceptions, whether or not that was your conscious intention and understanding. I myself make a strong effort to minimize my use of the term "random," because its clear implication is to wrongly attribute to an object what is actually a property of an observer of that object.
I interpret your 'spontaneity' as uncertainty about the future given knowledge of the present. That knowledge (information) constrains the future, thereby limiting spontaneity. But there is always uncertainty about the future, and therefore the dynamics of a system have a spontaneous component.
I interpret your 'individual' as information that is local in space and time, and therefore at least partially distinct from all else. I presented my views in detail in a 2012 open-access article in the journal "Information." My understanding of information and logic (knowledge and reason) comes from Jaynes (2003 textbook), although I have my own understanding of its relation to physical systems.
I also believe that a proper understanding of knowledge resolves the problem of free will. It does exist, because no observer has omniscience with respect to the future. It often appears not to exist, because scientists imagine omniscience, with the result that every event appears to be causally determined, or random, or a combination of these. If one abandons the pretense of omniscience (not so hard to do), the future is not fully determined by present knowledge, and thus we have "free will."
You suggest that the spontaneity present at the quantum level is relevant to mental processes and free will. I agree with that, since I think that the principles are the same, whether it is a particle or person choosing a trajectory. The quantum uncertainty present at the level of a particle is negligible at the macroscopic level, and therefore can be ignored in considering brain function. But like the case of the quantum particle, the macroscopic future is uncertain due to partial information in the present, and therefore there is spontaneity and free will.
I have just now responded to your comments on my essay. Thank you for both your essay and comments.
Best wishes,
Christopher
Thank you, Jim. I'm half-way through your essay, then house guests. Will return to it today.
Hello George
I like your definitions of spontaneity and intentionality. I'd add, of their relationship, that whereas spontaneity is innate even to quanta, intentionality derives from a spontaneity equipped with a cognitive faculty.
About randomness, I would say that it is always deterministic, but it may be affected by such a large number of "conjunctive" influences that the term is useful, as is probability theory.
I look forward to reading your essay.
Hello Christopher
Thank you for your very interesting comments and your rating. I rated yours highly as well.
I think the basic difference in our approaches is that yours is epistemological while mine is ontological.
I see spontaneity as an autonomous capability of an individual entity. As autonomous, an individual can be influenced, but not determined. Knowledge is one of the influences on a cognitive individual.
You wrote "spontaneity", "randomness" and "indeterminacy" "denote the uncertainty associated with a state of knowledge" and spontaneity is "uncertainty about the future given knowledge of the present" so "knowledge (information) constrains the future, thereby limiting spontaneity."
Because of my ontological perspective, I disagree with your idea that spontaneity is uncertainty (an epistemological category). I would say knowledge might inhibit (i.e., influence) spontaneity, but it can also disclose future possibilities, which can empower a spontaneous individual.
Regarding "free will", I think "willfulness" avoids the objection that will (the exercise of intention) is not absolutely free, but inhibited in some degree, although genuinely spontaneous (undetermined). And so I don't understand your contention that will is just the product of uncertainty.
Agree or not, thank you for the stimulating thoughts!
Dear James Robert Arnold
I appreciate your essay. You spent a lot of effort to write it. If you believed in the principle of identity of space and matter of Descartes, then your essay would be even better. There is not movable a geometric space, and is movable physical space. These are different concepts.
I inform all the participants that use the online translator, therefore, my essay is written badly. I participate in the contest to familiarize English-speaking scientists with New Cartesian Physic, the basis of which the principle of identity of space and matter. Combining space and matter into a single essence, the New Cartesian Physic is able to integrate modern physics into a single theory. Let FQXi will be the starting point of this Association.
Don't let the New Cartesian Physic disappear! Do not ask for himself, but for Descartes.
New Cartesian Physic has great potential in understanding the world. To show potential in this essay I risked give "The way of the materialist explanation of the paranormal and the supernatural" - Is the name of my essay.
Visit my essay and you will find something in it about New Cartesian Physic. After you give a post in my topic, I shall do the same in your theme
Sincerely,
Dizhechko Boris
Hello
I've already read and rated your essay. I believe I wrote about it too, but I'll have to go check.
Dear Sirs!
Physics of Descartes, which existed prior to the physics of Newton returned as the New Cartesian Physic and promises to be a theory of everything. To tell you this good news I use «spam».
New Cartesian Physic based on the identity of space and matter. It showed that the formula of mass-energy equivalence comes from the pressure of the Universe, the flow of force which on the corpuscle is equal to the product of Planck's constant to the speed of light.
New Cartesian Physic has great potential for understanding the world. To show it, I ventured to give "materialistic explanations of the paranormal and supernatural" is the title of my essay.
Visit my essay, you will find there the New Cartesian Physic and make a short entry: "I believe that space is a matter" I will answer you in return. Can put me 1.
Sincerely,
Dizhechko Boris
James,
I was delighted with the excellent way your essay refutes the idea that subjective experience and intentionality don't exist, and also the excellent way that your essay refutes the idea that AI "will eventually be indistinguishable from human minds". As you say: "to imagine they can constitute a holistic intelligence out of separate and indifferent parts is to forego scientific thinking for a divergence into the magical."
Regarding emergence, I agree that "liquidity" is not an example of emergence: "Liquidity is just a manifestation of objective relationships between molecules, but on a larger scale." I also agree that consciousness is not something that emerges: "Consciousness is not a system of extrinsic objective relationships; it is intrinsic, it has a subjective interiority." I would say that the content of the consciousness of living things is a whole structure of categories of information and their relationships to other categories: I would claim that the knowledge aspect of reality is a primitive, logically necessary aspect of reality, possessed by the things of reality, even particles.
What you call quantum "spontaneity", I would identify as "free will" or "creativity": true emergence in the sense that a new rule has been added to the system (so to speak). I would claim that we are literally embedded in the fabric of the universe-system, and that free will (e.g. to step by step navigate towards a goal) is like creating and adding new local initial-value rules to the system (so to speak).
Regards,
Lorraine
Hello Lorraine
Thank you for your comments.
I don't disagree that "spontaneity" could be described as "free will" (my "willfulness") or "creativity." But they run the risk of being criticized as anthropomorphic. "Spontaneity" seems the most basic, natural description.
I used to be a programmer too. I've never met a programmer who believed in AI.
I look forward to reading your essay.
Dear James,
My proposal concerns both epistemology and ontology. I think that there is only knowledge and reason. The challenge is to understand the knowledge here versus the knowledge there (how it is distributed across space and time). We need to distinguish the knowledge in a particle from our knowledge about the particle.
"I see spontaneity as an autonomous capability of an individual entity. As autonomous, an individual can be influenced, but not determined."
Yes, I agree (although I use different terms to describe this).
"Knowledge is one of the influences on a cognitive individual."
I believe it is the only influence. I would distinguish internal knowledge in the form of inertia (momentum) from external knowledge in the form of forces. The knowledge of an individual (analogous to inertia in this case) is only a partial cause of the individual's future. Other causes are external forces. And all of those causes together are not sufficient to fully determine the future. The undetermined portion is 'spontaneity' (according to my interpretation of your ideas). I would call it uncertainty.
If we consider all the information of an individual as well as the environment, then the uncertainty about the individual's future is further reduced (relative to only the information of the individual). However, I believe that the there is uncertainty about the future even if all the information in the universe is considered. Therefore spontaneity and free will exist with respect to both epistemology and ontology (I believe these are not fundamentally distinct, although obviously an individual has only a small portion of the information in the universe, and thus cannot be certain of reality).
Thank you again for your essay, and I hope to continue our discussion in the future.
Best wishes,
Christopher
