dinoiii
March 19th, 2006, 06:58 AM
Dinoiii's Rant VIII: Sketch of Some Thoughts in Progress - Free Will
[author's note: the complexity of this topic choice may disuade readers - its simply thoughts at a moment in time...stream of conscious sometimes plays into the complexity - so my apologies in advance.]
Free Will is a complex issue that is made even more tangled when we are unclear about which of its two major aspects we are arguing -- its existence or our belief in it. We would do well to differentiate the two.
Belief in free will is the factor that gets people hot, particularly when its threatened. Belief is also where humans have most obviously benefited throughout our Darwinian history. Indeed, the evolutionary advantages of free will can be argued to have been gained through our belief in it. There is considerable force of reason to positions that the lack of such a belief would be selected against, and that this belief is a predominate feature of human beings.
Once beyond the belief arguments, we can focus on the existence of free will. This is a job for cool heads, for the arguments are as convoluted as the cerebral cortex. On the other hand, we can argue that a set of neural circuits behaved as it did according to a large body of natural laws, some of which are known, and some of which are yet to be discovered. Therefore determinism is ex jure, if not demonstrably ex facto, the only logically acceptable state of affairs. On the other hand, there resides in the human nervous system sufficient complexity and interconnectedness for alternatives, lots of them, to exist right up until the time when a decision is taken -- or when the event occurs, if you prefer.
Where I'm tending is a position that notices free will exists before the fact in the very nature of a complex, heavily interconnected nervous system where predictions are best given in terms of moment-to-moment shifting patterns of probabilities that each of a large set of events may occur. After the fact, we can look back into the system (fancifully, if not in fact) to see that a single and unique path -- albeit a complex one -- was put in service, and we can use that knowledge to support a determinist position.
But isn't that just how it is? Free will exists for the future; it is defined in terms of options that might be exercised, and the best free will arguments are made in terms of the future. Those that focus on the past are weak and easily overcome by deterministic positions. Contrariwise, determinism arguments are best framed around events that have already happened and can be explained by, say, the neural connections that were made. But the determinism arguments are weak when applied to the future. Gordon Globus played this all out quite nicely for us: The deterministic prediciton does NOT hold for us if we have a knowledge of it, for we can always behave in a contrary fashion -- or not. Either way, the before-the-fact deterministic position is faulted.
So far, this is what we have: Both free will and determinism have support -- but for different times. Free will holds for the future, and determinism holds for the past. Some people will have trouble with this conclusion. They won't be able to accept that one explanation holds for one time and another for a second. My advice is that they reflect on their own puberty and consider the explanations that worked for, say, their behavior toward members of the opposite sex before and after that event. By comparison, grasping this formulation of free will and determinism should be a piece of cake.
Now, consider just what (or who) exercises free will. When free will is invoked, there is often a large decision to be made. For these major matters of moment, might it be the emergent mind that exercises -- indeed embodies -- free will? Free will is a large responsibility and may well require the largest mind, the one that is the emergent whole from all the complexity and interconnectedness that characterize our biological selves, most particularly our brains?
The future over which we esercise free will holds options toward which we turn our awareness, our consciousness. So could free will be a function of phenomenological mind, that portion of emergent mind of which we are privately, self-ly aware? I doubt it. Phenomenological mind is to ego involved, too focused on self-in-the-moment to attend to all the working brain's richness of experience and genetics, of complexityand inerconnectedness, of furious flux and shifting probabilities. Phenomenological mind would get the news of course, and might believe it played a major path in the decision, as it may indeed have. But for ultimate power of choice, I'll cast my vote with the larger, emergent mind.
At least that's how I choose to understand the matter for the moment. As Scarlet O'Hara and I both know, "Tomorrow is another day," and upon looking back, I may determine I was wrong.
I will live to rant again...
D_
[author's note: the complexity of this topic choice may disuade readers - its simply thoughts at a moment in time...stream of conscious sometimes plays into the complexity - so my apologies in advance.]
Free Will is a complex issue that is made even more tangled when we are unclear about which of its two major aspects we are arguing -- its existence or our belief in it. We would do well to differentiate the two.
Belief in free will is the factor that gets people hot, particularly when its threatened. Belief is also where humans have most obviously benefited throughout our Darwinian history. Indeed, the evolutionary advantages of free will can be argued to have been gained through our belief in it. There is considerable force of reason to positions that the lack of such a belief would be selected against, and that this belief is a predominate feature of human beings.
Once beyond the belief arguments, we can focus on the existence of free will. This is a job for cool heads, for the arguments are as convoluted as the cerebral cortex. On the other hand, we can argue that a set of neural circuits behaved as it did according to a large body of natural laws, some of which are known, and some of which are yet to be discovered. Therefore determinism is ex jure, if not demonstrably ex facto, the only logically acceptable state of affairs. On the other hand, there resides in the human nervous system sufficient complexity and interconnectedness for alternatives, lots of them, to exist right up until the time when a decision is taken -- or when the event occurs, if you prefer.
Where I'm tending is a position that notices free will exists before the fact in the very nature of a complex, heavily interconnected nervous system where predictions are best given in terms of moment-to-moment shifting patterns of probabilities that each of a large set of events may occur. After the fact, we can look back into the system (fancifully, if not in fact) to see that a single and unique path -- albeit a complex one -- was put in service, and we can use that knowledge to support a determinist position.
But isn't that just how it is? Free will exists for the future; it is defined in terms of options that might be exercised, and the best free will arguments are made in terms of the future. Those that focus on the past are weak and easily overcome by deterministic positions. Contrariwise, determinism arguments are best framed around events that have already happened and can be explained by, say, the neural connections that were made. But the determinism arguments are weak when applied to the future. Gordon Globus played this all out quite nicely for us: The deterministic prediciton does NOT hold for us if we have a knowledge of it, for we can always behave in a contrary fashion -- or not. Either way, the before-the-fact deterministic position is faulted.
So far, this is what we have: Both free will and determinism have support -- but for different times. Free will holds for the future, and determinism holds for the past. Some people will have trouble with this conclusion. They won't be able to accept that one explanation holds for one time and another for a second. My advice is that they reflect on their own puberty and consider the explanations that worked for, say, their behavior toward members of the opposite sex before and after that event. By comparison, grasping this formulation of free will and determinism should be a piece of cake.
Now, consider just what (or who) exercises free will. When free will is invoked, there is often a large decision to be made. For these major matters of moment, might it be the emergent mind that exercises -- indeed embodies -- free will? Free will is a large responsibility and may well require the largest mind, the one that is the emergent whole from all the complexity and interconnectedness that characterize our biological selves, most particularly our brains?
The future over which we esercise free will holds options toward which we turn our awareness, our consciousness. So could free will be a function of phenomenological mind, that portion of emergent mind of which we are privately, self-ly aware? I doubt it. Phenomenological mind is to ego involved, too focused on self-in-the-moment to attend to all the working brain's richness of experience and genetics, of complexityand inerconnectedness, of furious flux and shifting probabilities. Phenomenological mind would get the news of course, and might believe it played a major path in the decision, as it may indeed have. But for ultimate power of choice, I'll cast my vote with the larger, emergent mind.
At least that's how I choose to understand the matter for the moment. As Scarlet O'Hara and I both know, "Tomorrow is another day," and upon looking back, I may determine I was wrong.
I will live to rant again...
D_