Henry Bemis: I don't think you're making sense on this. Here's why.

In response to my suggestion that perhaps our conscious experience derives from a sort of aggregation of billions of "micro-consciousness" as they each exist in a neuron (or maybe in all cells), you wrote:

"Your proposal is not only entirely speculative it does not add the least bit of explanatory power to the problem of consciousness. In fact, it makes the problem even more difficult."

---My proposal is no more "speculative" in principle than the proposal that *other human beings (or worms or mosquitoes or anything else) are conscious*. The reason why is that we can only *infer* consciousness in others; when we apply the same standards for our inferences to other living beings, we must similarly conclude that they have subjective experience. You have not yet responded adequately to this point. So far, your response has been that consciousness cannot be inferred either from structure or behaviour - but the point is that that would eliminate our ability to infer consciousness in other human beings, so your response does not work.

When I asked, "what do you believe (consciousness) *can* be inferred from?", you wrote, "behavior that evidences an inner life" - but that begs the question, because what I am asking is *what can an inner life be inferred from?"

You continued: "I.e. in Nagel's terms, that there is something that it is like to be that conscious things" - but this is another question-beg. You continued: "Such evidence might include language communication, i.e. reports, in humans" - but "language communication" IS a form of *behaviour*. You are contradicting yourself. Moreover, without blatant special pleading, you cannot infer consciousness in humans from *human* language communication, but then deny consciousness in non-humans *even though they also have their own types of language communication*.

You wrote:

"Instead of taking the starting point of explaining how consciousness arises in human beings, which we know have consciousness, you propose that we will make progress if we first assume that neurons themselves are conscious."

--I am starting from the fact of human conscious experience and working backward from there.

"So, now we have a problem of explaining two things rather than one thing: (1) how do neurons generate consciousness, and (2) how does the consciousness of human beings emerge from the consciousness of neurons."

---Strictly speaking, I am not sure that neurons "generate" consciousness. I think that consciousness might simply inhere in neurons, as well as in other cells. Maybe life entails consciousness; maybe "subjective experience" of some type, no matter how limited or non-human-like, is just an inherent property of life (we could put it in Latin so it sounds fancier: "ubi vita est , mens est" :)

You wrote:

"So, you have not simplified the problem, or explained anything at all, you have made matters much more difficult."

---That's possible; but so what? Lots of scientific ideas and theories have "made matters much more difficult" - like, say, quantum physics. That doesn't mean the quantum world does not exist.

"And unnecessarily so for three reasons: (1) there is absolutely no reason to assume that neurons are conscious (see below);

---Neurons, as well as single-celled organisms like amoebae and even individual yeast cells, do things which we attribute to mind in other living things. For example, they discriminate, they make inferences about the unobserved based on the observed, etc. Your response is to deny that mentality on grounds (A) it is not *required*, and that (B) these organisms lack the support structures; but (B) is not true, and with (A), you again seem to be missing this point - using your standard, we should have to deny consciousness to human beings, which you do not do. Moreover, it is debatable whether mentality is not required for the complex functions we observe in humans as well as "lower levels" of organism. In any case, the point remains that you have not provided any defensible standards for attributing consciousness to other human beings while denying it to living organisms which, mutatis mutandis, behave in pretty much the same ways, and possess sensitive perceptual/sensory systems which could plausibly enable subjective experience.

You wrote: "(2) if biological complexity is related to consciousness, then brains are far more complex than neurons"

---A brain is pretty much a giant assemblage of cells, Henry. What is your point here?

You wrote: "(3) it is the neuron networks of the brain that correlate with conscious experience, not isolated neurons. So, what you have offered is an explanatory non-starter."

---Henry - It is odd that you should complain about explanatory power, because your own "theory" is dualism; and not only dualism, but an unexplained dualism. I would even say it is not only an unexplained dualism, but a dualism which appears to be completely unexplainable in principle. It seems almost unintelligible.

Why? Because on the one hand, you contemplate that "human beings at rock bottom are real autonomous agents, making real choices...We actually chose to leave Mormonism, and were not otherwise determined to do so by unknown deterministic forces"; yet on the other, you contemplate mind as a physical system in a law bound universe: "I see no way of answering this question without dualism of some sort, *even if the mind turns out to be some sort of expanded understanding of the physical". And you wrote, "since that system must accommodate mind in some way, which we currently have no understanding of within the context of modern science, it would seem that any ultimate explanation (of mind) will most likely will involve natural laws, and entities, that we are not yet familiar".

So...according to you, mind is the result of "dualism"; but that "dualism" is actually a form of "monism", because mind might actually be a physical thing governed by laws we don't know about yet - even though it is entirely "autonomous". So, mind comes from a dualism which is actually a monism which is a mystery which is a contradiction.

To the extent that is intelligible, it explains precisely *nothing*. So what are you busting my gerbils for? I'm trying to gain some sort of conceptual purchase on this issue; I'm looking for some tiny bit of progress. It seems to me that you're spinning around in a circle.

You wrote:

"Now, other than your post hoc attribution of consciousness simply for purposes of theory, if neurons are to be deemed conscious, this implies that there is something about the functionality of neurons that is mysterious such that consciousness is needed to complete an explanation of such functionality. With humans, consciousness is a given; a fact, data. Consciousness itself is what needs explanation. Consciousness is the data of humans, not the data of neurons."

---I think you are missing the point here, and this statement is objectionable for several reasons.

Our conscious experience is what I am trying to understand. That understanding requires, first, the identification of a proximate cause of some sort. Inferring that our conscious experience might somehow trace back to the collective, amplified experiences of many micro-consciousnesses as located in the brain's neurons to me is at least sensible - certainly more sensible than a dualism which is a monism which is a mystery which is a contradiction. Moreover, your objection that neurons don't "need" consciousness to perform their functions once again invokes special pleading, in that I could easily counterargue that humans cannot then be presumed to be conscious on grounds that they don't "need" consciousness to send messages, solve math problems, walk, etc., either, since robots can do those things.

You and I agree that robots are not conscious. We also agree that humans are conscious. My challenge to you is simply to give me a defensible standard from which to attribute subjective experience to some living things (like horses or lobsters), but deny it to other living things (like, say, the single-celled testate amoebae, or even a yeast cell). Can you do it?

You wrote:

"Moreover, neurobiologists understand quite well how neurons work. This includes virtually all of the electro-chemical processes that generate action potentials, including polarization and depolarization across ion channels. Neurobiologists also understand how neurotransmitters are generated and cross cell synapses to bind to receptor cells, etc. etc. Consciousness has no role to play in neuron functionality. As such, you are adding mystery solely to boot-strap your theory."

---It is you who is the proponent of mystery, and one of almost Nicene proportions: a dualism which is a monism which is a mystery which is a contradiction. Your take is like Colin McGinn's mysterianism on acid, steroids, magic mushrooms, ayahuasca, and Catholicism.

It is true that no neurobiologist can show that a neuron has subjective experience; but then, no neurobiologist can show that your dog has subjective experience, either. We can only *infer* consciousness in others - and such inference is not scientifically objectionable at all. We have inferred the existence of lots of things based on observed phenomena.

More than that is that if we apply the standards from which we infer subjective experience in other living things, we should have to infer it in neurons. That the idea that neurons possess a sort of mentality should be discounted on grounds that mentality (in your view) is not "required" for a particular task leads you logically to a difficulty: if you deny awareness to a neuron *even though* it recognizes Jennifer Aniston, on what grounds can you *attribute to awareness* your friend Rob's ability to recognize Jennifer Aniston? And the problem is even worse for you, in that *Rob's brain is pretty much just *a bunch of neurons*. Like, where is Rob's consciousness *coming from*, *if not the neurons*? The dualism which is a monism which is a mystery which is a contradiction?

No.

I am proposing it can come from only one place - the massively amplified power resulting from an aggregation of billions of lower-level consciousnesses. As Sherlock Holmes said, when you've eliminated every other possibility, the one remaining, however unlikely, must be true. What are the other actual possibilities here? Does someone want to give me a list? What are the coherent, plausible explanations for consciousness, which deny awareness/consciousness/subjective experience to the brain's cells? How do you get *human consciousness* from the experiential equivalent of a rock?

You write:

"The entire face recognition function is encompassed by a representation and recognition neural network as a whole, not a single neuron."

---And where would the power of a neural network come from, if not the combined powers of its component neurons?

You wrote:

"You suggest in response to the above objection that such an objection, "without special pleading" would deny consciousness to every other animal, including human beings. Nonsense."

---If it is "nonsense", simply provide a standard on which we can infer consciousness in any other living being, and we'll go from there.

You write:

"The 'hard problem' is how and why consciousness and subjective experience should arise at all, from ANY physical system, regardless of how complex."

---Yes.

You write:

"Whether I, or anyone else, have an alternative theory is entirely beside the point."

---So, a proposition about the proximate source of our conscious experience is no better than than NO proposition at all? I don't think so.

You write:

"It is therefore not helpful as an explanation, however interesting it might be, or even how true it might turn out to be. It is speculative metaphysics and nothing more."

---If so, it is likewise "speculative metaphysics" that your next-door-neighbour is conscious, since you can only draw that conclusion via inference.

You write:

"But, your assumption about the laws of nature not accommodating emergence is just false."

---That's not what I said (or meant to say, at least). I said there is no conceivable "emergentist" theory which could explain how consciousness can "emerge" from an absence of consciousness, in the same way that there is no conceivable "emergentist" theory which can explain how matter "emerges" from an absence of matter.

You wrote: "Emergence means that a property (function) has emerged that cannot be attributable to the properties (functions) of its parts."

My wording could have been better, but the point is that there are many viable conceptions of emergence. The example I gave of the intelligence of Francis Galton's crowd is one example, just as the solidity of H20 is at low temperatures, or a zillion other things.

Now...to me, the real point is:

In your view, what criteria should determine whether we infer consciousness in another living being?



Edited 12 time(s). Last edit at 03/23/2015 12:48AM by Tal Bachman.

I know I'm inserting myself into this converation, but while we're speculating:

What if it's the case that each and every particle of matter has consciousness, just like each and every particle has position or momentum (or a quantum mechanical wave function). And what if your consciousness is the consciouness of one of these particles. What if your brain acts to feed memories and sensations to the consciousness of that particle, like inputs from a computer to a computer monitor. Under these assumptions, you wouldn't have to solve the problem of how the one consciousness of yours arises from multiple conscious things or from multiple unconscious things. You would have one single conscious thing. In addition, you would have a model that explains the connection of the brain to the consciousness.

But, sad to say, under this speculative model, when you die, your brain ceases to function, and so, while the particle that houses your consciousness would continue to exist, as most particles appear to do, it would no longer receive sense or memory data from your brain. And it would go back to being a memoryless, senseless particle in the universe's sea of particles.

Wierder still, what if there was no single, special particle in your body that alone recieved memory and sense data from your brain. What if each of the conscious particles in your body received memory and sense data from your brain. Then there would be a large number of conscious particles living your life. Each would think they are you, would share your memories and experience your sensations.

How's that for speculation?

It kind of makes you wonder what happens at CERN when they hurl protons together at extremely high energies, like kids smashing toy cars, and the result is a soup of debris that gets recorded by huge instruments and analyzed by massive compute farms.

Maybe a proton getting smashed is like you getting smashed, complete with a hangover lasting femtoseconds. Something to think about with your next brewski.

I've never inserted myself into a conversation that I didn't like.

Shummy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I've never inserted myself into a conversation
> that I didn't like.


Is this a first then?

Do ant colonies and beehives have consciousness?

How about cities? They certainly have personalities. NYC is different from Paris, though they are clearly related and have strong similarities.

In short, is distributed consciousness possible, and how would it be manifest?

Just trying to supply some fresh horses to beat.

Hey Phelps and others, for my part, I'm totally fine with people joining in here :)

If I may, I'd like to resound to Henry Bemis in this thread. the following is from:

http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1540417,1542514#msg-1542514

HUMAN: Science is very far away from anything concrete in any of this, very very far away. And as I've said elsewhere, science should stop pretending it is learning anything about "mind" & "consciousness" & "self" & "free-will" and simply go about pursuing *brain studies*. There is still plenty to learn about the brain itself as a thing before it makes any leaps into what are non-existing existing things like "self" etc. --"non-existing existing things" is my clumsy way of indicating the nature of mind etc., but I'm all for the possibility of an "expanded understanding of the physical", as quasi-mormon as that could turn out to be ;^/

COMMENT: Well, this strikes me as a bit impatient, and dismissive of science. I think science is learning something about mind when it does cognitive neuroscience. Moreover, it is not science's fault that the brain is linked to the mind. To ask or expect science not to inquire about mind, and thereby create inevitable third person theories about mind, however, false, is unrealistic. Moreover, as stated, we can be sure of our Self, our freewill, etc. while still engaging science. And I think we will be the better for it.




Henry, you've caught me out more than once on this and I always appreciate it. I am too dismissive. More likely than not, at bottom, the reason is that I'm on the losing side of Snow's 'two cultures' lecture.

But hold for a moment.

This study is extremely important:

http://pss.sagepub.com/content/22/5/613.abstract

Abstract:

The feeling of being in control of one’s own actions is a strong subjective experience. However, discoveries in psychology and neuroscience challenge the validity of this experience and suggest that free will is just an illusion. This raises a question: What would happen if people started to disbelieve in free will? Previous research has shown that low control beliefs affect performance and motivation. Recently, it has been shown that undermining free-will beliefs influences social behavior. In the study reported here, we investigated whether undermining beliefs in free will affects brain correlates of voluntary motor preparation. Our results showed that the readiness potential was reduced in individuals induced to disbelieve in free will. This effect was evident more than 1 s before participants consciously decided to move, a finding that suggests that the manipulation influenced intentional actions at preconscious stages. Our findings indicate that abstract belief systems might have a much more fundamental effect than previously thought.


I've seen a few posters here on RfM talk about *believing* they haven't free will, often because Sam Harris convinced them that they haven't free will. This is extremely troubling, no?

Yes, I know you agree. And I know that this in no way justifies my impatience or dismissiveness of science, especially since the study I site is a scientific study. But given the choice between teaching people poetry or science, I think science is more dangerous and poetry more helpful to the actual living of our daily lives. That is a different thing that asking and seeking answers to 'what is true', yes; but sometimes things that are true aren't very useful...YIKES!

Human

Yes. we rarely see someone on the Board, like Phelps for example, who rejects freewill but can also articulate his position and debate the issue, even if you and I strongly disagree with him. Most people here simply read the populist skeptical literature, and if some point is deemed anti-religion, they are on board with it. I say this not out of arrogance, but simply because when challenged they cannot articulate their point of view, or engage substantively in the discussion. Instead, they offer sound bites,like one poster who keeps insisting that freewill doesn't make any sense to her, without the slightest offering of any articulated reasons for such a view. Some posters go a bit farther misstating the literature as being conclusive on a point, and they venture out just far enough to demonstrate that they haven't even read the literature, and do not understand the related issues.

Like you have pointed out, if there ever was an issue that placed a burden of proof on skeptics, freewill should be it. It just floors me to see how willingly it is given up, especially when it is at the very root of all that it means to be human. God forbid we have freewill; what's next a soul. Now that is way too close to religion to even think about. Thank God for Sam Harris. Oh, and by the way, I am sure glad I educated myself out of Mormonism, and made that wonderful free choice to reject it, notwithstanding the fact that at one point all of my brain cells were screaming its truth. How did I do it? What made me pick up that first book, or read that first post? I am so grateful that my neurons figured it out!

As I stated before; I don't like this, but I can't disprove it. In fact when I look back on my life and my siblings lives, Sam Harris is correct. Just because I don't like his conclusions, doesn't mean he isn't correct.

Henry Bemis Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I am so grateful that my neurons figured it out!

Oh Jesus Henry, that is a funny line!

Well actually I made a terrible mistake, when I said, " I am so grateful that my neurons figured it out!" For there is, of course, no real "me" such that "I" have any neurons to figure it out with. So, let "me" rephrase:

I am so grateful that some set of neurons in the universe created an illusion of a self, which by happenstance appears now to be "me," but really is not any real me at all, and then these same wonderful neurons proceeded to figure out for my illusory self that Mormonism is not true, so that my illusory self no longer suffered by that despicable illusion that Mormonism was true.

O.K. I think I got it right, now. Everything is now quite clear. Thank you for your patience.

This I can relate to. I'll concede that maybe we don't have free will, only the illusion of it. We experience the illusion of having free will. I can live with that.

Within the "one mind", maybe actual free will isn't even possible. Waking life becomes a collective dream, where you control things in your dream, but your awake and aware self (the transcendent you) participates in and scripts the dream.

I wish I could separate the thinking element of consciousness from the feeling part, but it doesn't work for me. The problem with modern society is in placing much higher value on one part over the other rather than finding a balance.

I think there was a compliment there, so thanks. But just to clarify, I, for one, don't give up free-will because I wish to believe I don't have a soul or because I'm embarrassed to consider, or be seen considering, the existence of souls or the non-material or religion. (In fact, I like religion, though this may be due to my current distance from religion, which allows me to idealize it.) I just don't understand what it is people believe they are asserting when they assert the existence of free-will. That's it, mostly.

This brings me to the point about reduced readiness potentials. I see no reason why disbelief in free-will should reduce readiness potentials. If a person understood clearly that free-will was a special kind of will, a type of will (in fact, a theoretical type of will), not will itself, nor the ability to choose itself, nor the ability to act itself, then I don't see why a person would be any less ready to will, choose, or act. If it were clear to a person that they could will, choose, and act, why would that person's readiness potentials be reduced, just because they can't will, choose, or act by certain mechanisms (for lack of a better word)? But, if, instead of being induced to disbelieve in free-will, the study participants were actually induced to disbelieve that they had the power to will or choose or act, then it may make sense that readiness potentials would be reduced. If you don't believe that you can will, choose, or act, then maybe you will be slow to will, choose, or act.

So, it seems to me that this study may be entirely consistent with my view that people mistake their sensed abilities to will, choose, and act for possession of the theoretical free-will. I suspect that the study participants did what I think almost all people who insist on free-will do, they confused free-will with will itself. I think that people who assert free-will know they have will and that they choose, and they confuse that knowledge with the assertion that they have free-will.

In addition, I disbelieve in free-will because I believe that my beliefs, my mind, my character, the whole of my person, acts to determine my will and my choices. I believe that the state of my person at time t, determines my will and the choices I make at time t+dt. This is the kind of true freedom to will and choose that has any draw for me. If quantum mechanics interferes with this, so much the worse, as far as I'm concerned. Fortunately, quantum mechanical effects seem slight at best on a day to day basis.

I would also hold others responsible for their actions precisely because their person, their character, determined their actions, even if they could not have acted otherwise. How can I hold a person responsible for their actions if their character did not determine their actions?

But just to clarify, I, for one, don't give up free-will because I wish to believe I don't have a soul or because I'm embarrassed to consider, or be seen considering, the existence of souls or the non-material or religion. (In fact, I like religion, though this may be due to my current distance from religion, which allows me to idealize it.) I just don't understand what it is people believe they are asserting when they assert the existence of free-will. That's it, mostly.

COMMENT: I understand your position. You think freewill is conceptually problematic. I don't see that, for reasons as previously stated. I admit, however, that it is metaphysically difficult, but so are a lot of things in science, like quantum uncertainty and non-locality.

____________________________________________

This brings me to the point about reduced readiness potentials. I see no reason why disbelief in free-will should reduce readiness potentials.

COMMENT: Well, freewill would be able to instantiate readiness potentials outside of classical physics. So, if you deny freewill, readiness potentials would be limited to entirely physical causes.

________________________________________________

If a person understood clearly that free-will was a special kind of will, a type of will (in fact, a theoretical type of will), not will itself, nor the ability to choose itself, nor the ability to act itself, then I don't see why a person would be any less ready to will, choose, or act. If it were clear to a person that they could will, choose, and act, why would that person's readiness potentials be reduced, just because they can't will, choose, or act by certain mechanisms (for lack of a better word)?

COMMENT: I do not understand what you mean by "special kind of will" or "theoretical type of will." For me conscious will or freewill represents the ability of a conscious self to initiate mental causation that affects physical events. Again, if a person lacked such a capacity, they would not have the capacity to mentally cause readiness potentials outside of physical causation. Now, a human being as an organism, including an assumption of epiphenomenal mentality, could still induce readiness potentials through complex physical processes, but they would have solely physical causes, and the causal closure of the physical would be maintained.

_____________________________________________

But, if, instead of being induced to disbelieve in free-will, the study participants were actually induced to disbelieve that they had the power to will or choose or act, then it may make sense that readiness potentials would be reduced. If you don't believe that you can will, choose, or act, then maybe you will be slow to will, choose, or act.

COMMENT: Yes. That is the only way I understand it too. And frankly I am skeptical that this would occur, because regardless of our metaphysical views, and in this case doubts, the compulsion to exercise "freewill" even if believed to be illusory, is nonetheless compelling. But, we do not have the benefit of the entire study.
____________________________________________

So, it seems to me that this study may be entirely consistent with my view that people mistake their sensed abilities to will, choose, and act for possession of the theoretical free-will. I suspect that the study participants did what I think almost all people who insist on free-will do, they confused free-will with will itself. I think that people who assert free-will know they have will and that they choose, and they confuse that knowledge with the assertion that they have free-will.

COMMENT: Whether people are mistaken about their metaphysical views of freewill, one way or the other, should not affect either their sense of freewill, or their actual exercise of freewill, and thus should not affect their activations of readiness potentials. (At least not very much) And, countering your point, I would say that people who deny freewill still act as if they have freewill, and thereby activate related readiness potentials. So, one's confusions, whatever they are, should not affect the reality of the exercise of freewill. But, the study cited by Human seems to say otherwise.

_______________________________________________

In addition, I disbelieve in free-will because I believe that my beliefs, my mind, my character, the whole of my person, acts to determine my will and my choices. I believe that the state of my person at time t, determines my will and the choices I make at time t+dt. This is the kind of true freedom to will and choose that has any draw for me. If quantum mechanics interferes with this, so much the worse, as far as I'm concerned. Fortunately, quantum mechanical effects seem slight at best on a day to day basis.

COMMENT: Freewillers do not deny, or should not, that their character is largely shaped by environmental and neurological circumstances, and that such circumstances play a substantial role in what they will and what their subsequent actions will be. All they say is that there is another component, in my view a conscious self, that has power to some extent over such circumstances, such that what is otherwise dictated by physical environmental events and circumstances can be trumped by the power of freewill.

_____________________________________________

I would also hold others responsible for their actions precisely because their person, their character, determined their actions, even if they could not have acted otherwise. How can I hold a person responsible for their actions if their character did not determine their actions?

COMMENT: I find this inconsistent. Absent freewill, a person's character seems to be entirely determined. They could not have molded their character in any way and to any extent by free choices. If a person could not have acted otherwise based upon a pre-determined character, how are they responsible?

Finally, I used "readiness potentials" as a description of the effect of freewill for convenience. I do not know the actual mechanism where mental causation, or freewill, meets the physical brain.

Henry Bemis Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> COMMENT: Yes. That is the only way I understand
> it too. And frankly I am skeptical that this
> would occur, because regardless of our
> metaphysical views, and in this case doubts, the
> compulsion to exercise "freewill" even if believed
> to be illusory, is nonetheless compelling. But, we
> do not have the benefit of the entire study.
____________________________________________

> So, one's confusions, whatever they
> are, should not affect the reality of the exercise
> of freewill. But, the study cited by Human seems
> to say otherwise.

For PhELPs and Bemis, on how belief in free-will and disbelief in free-will affects our ability to choose:



There are lots of studies on this, easily got at via google. I remember a Dennett lecture I once posted on free-will wherein he highlighted a study with very dramatic results using 'Francis Crick's Astonishing Hypothesis' as the catalysis for disbelief.

Here's a study, unfortunately behind a pay-wall (would that Aaron Swartz was able to persevere, RIP), by Roy F. Baumeister and Lauren E. Brewer:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2012.00458.x/abstract

The Abstract:

"Some people believe more than others in free will, and researchers have both measured and manipulated those beliefs. Disbelief in free will has been shown to cause dishonest, selfish, aggressive, and conforming behavior, and to reduce helpfulness, learning from one’s misdeeds, thinking for oneself, recycling, expectations for occupational success, and actual quality of performance on the job. Belief in free will has been shown to have only modest or negligible correlations with other variables, indicating that it is a distinct trait. Belief in free will has correlated positively with life satisfaction and finding life meaningful, with self-efficacy and self-control, with low levels of stress, and (though not entirely consistently) with internal locus of control. High belief in free will has been linked to a punitive attitude toward wrongdoers and lower forgiveness toward them. The belief seems to involve a sense of agency and expecting others to behave in morally responsible fashion."

Our old friend robertb turned me onto Baumeister's "Willpower":

http://www.amazon.com/Willpower-Rediscovering-Greatest-Human-Strength-ebook/dp/B0052REQCY

In the book, Baumeister clearly shows that willpower can be trained, increased and strengthened. If it isn't an actual free-will that is being strengthened, PhELPS, what is it?

And the opposite is apparently true, too, one's free-will can be weakened and manipulated and perhaps removed. If it isn't an actual free-will that is being manipulated, what is?

Obviously either way, the old quote mis-attributed to Mr. Henry Ford holds:

"Whether you think you can or whether you think you can't, you're right."

Here's an old groaner:


Thinking

If you think you are beaten, you are
If you think you dare not, you don't,
If you like to win, but you think you can't
It is almost certain you won't.

If you think you'll lose, you're lost
For out of the world we find,
Success begins with a fellow's will
It's all in the state of mind.

If you think you are outclassed, you are
You've got to think high to rise,
You've got to be sure of yourself before
You can ever win a prize.

Life's battles don't always go
To the stronger or faster man,
But soon or late the man who wins
Is the man WHO THINKS HE CAN!

--Walter D. Wintle--

For my part, the world of athletics is enough to demonstrate every-day free-will. I agree with PhELPS that when thought about deeply the idea can become muddled, but that's the *idea* not the thing itself.

Lastly, here's Robert Wright and John Horgan going at it a few years ago:

http://bloggingheads.tv/videos/3053?in=16:41&out=32:38

I sympathize with Horgan's exasperation with Wright just as I agree with Wright's utter dismissal of Dennett's "Freedom Evolves", a book that has fooled a lot of very smart people, including a very smart past RfMer.

Anyway, cheers

Human

Thank you for the links. I will look into them as soon as I can. I suspect, however, that my reaction is going to be that the study descriptions fail to assure me that the study participants are properly distinguishing between free-will and the ability to will or choose. It seems that people have a difficult time separating a theoretical concept of "free-will" from the having of a will.

I don't have time to provide all the comment I would like to provide, but I will comment on one thing.

You said that "[f]or me conscious will or freewill represents the ability of a conscious self to initiate mental causation that affects physical events." While this is slightly different than your previous definition of free-will, it is similar. And so I have a similar reaction: It's not a definition that captures the essence of what most defenders think they mean by "free-will." I can almost assent to the existence of your free-will. I'm not sure what you mean by "mental causation" (though I have my suspicions), but setting that aside, I feel pretty comfortable with the your defintion. And I don't find it subject to the same kind of confusion that exists in the more mainstream "free-will." But I think that your definition departs enough from the more common concept of free-will that most people will think that you aren't talking about the same thing at all.

Phelps:

I reviewed my resources and could not find anyone whose position seemed to coincide with yours, i.e. that seemed to be based upon a logical (conceptual) argument against freewill, such that the concept of freewill is deemed incoherent. If you have a reference that might help me to understand your position I would like to read it.

Thanks,
HB

This idea has arisen throughout the history of philosophy, in a number of contexts in which the concept of free-will becomes important. One well-known paper would probably be the 1955 paper by J.L. Mackie, entitled "Evil and Omnipotence." While he is mostly concerned with a theological issue, he alleged the incoherence of "free-will" in section 4. You can find a copy of the paper here: http://www.ditext.com/mackie/evil.html

In addition,I understand that the following has some good write-ups by Strawson, Pereboom, and Smilanski. Kane, Robert, ed., (2002). Oxford Handbook on Free Will. New York: Oxford University Press.

"This idea has arisen throughout the history of philosophy, in a number of contexts in which the concept of free-will becomes important."

COMMENT: Well, concepts are always important in philosophical discussions; and, of course, often questioned or challenged. What I was looking for was a formal paper that takes the same or a similar position as you have articulated; namely that the concept of "freewill" is incoherent.

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"One well-known paper would probably be the 1955 paper by J.L. Mackie, entitled "Evil and Omnipotence." While he is mostly concerned with a theological issue, he alleged the incoherence of "free-will" in section 4. You can find a copy of the paper here: http://www.ditext.com/mackie/evil.html";

COMMENT: Well, this is going back quite some time. You're right, Mackie does state: "I think that this solution is unsatisfactory primarily because of the incoherence of the notion of freedom of the will: but I cannot discuss this topic adequately here, although some of my criticisms will touch upon it." But, then he goes on to discuss the notion of freewill in the context of theology as if the idea does make sense, and never really gets around to "touching upon it" at all, much less providing any kind of an incoherence argument.

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In addition,I understand that the following has some good write-ups by Strawson, Pereboom, and Smilanski. Kane, Robert, ed., (2002). Oxford Handbook on Free Will. New York: Oxford University Press.

COMMENT: You previously cited Strawson, Pereboom and Smilanski in the Kane volume, so I reviewed their contributions to that volume, and none of them took that position. However, they did point to metaphysical and ontological problems with freewill, which, of course, is quite different from conceptual problems. It would appear to me that an argument (like yours) might provide a couple of dismissive paragraphs, but then no substantive follow-up discussion which would imply that the concept of freewill does at least make some sense after all.

I am not trying to pin you down on this. I realize in the contexts of RfM it is sometimes difficult to find essays that you remember reading at some point. However, if you recall something, I would be very interested in a formal presentation of this point of view.

Henry Bemis - What's your answer to my question?

"In your view, what criteria should determine whether we infer consciousness in another living being?"

Tal, I have already addressed this question with you, repeatedly, and you apparently disagree. I do not know what more to say.

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TB: "My proposal is no more "speculative" in principle than the proposal that *other human beings (or worms or mosquitoes or anything else) are conscious*. The reason why is that we can only *infer* consciousness in others; when we apply the same standards for our inferences to other living beings, we must similarly conclude that they have subjective experience."

COMMENT: So, you are saying that an inference that other human beings are conscious is no more speculative than your suggestion that neurons are conscious? What can I say to that?

It is just so obviously false. I can observe the behavior of human beings, and can consider their reports of their subjective experiences, and I can look at their brains as see that the same neural networks they have are associated with the same neural networks I have when we report the same experiences. I have none of that with individual neurons.

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TB: "You have not yet responded adequately to this point. So far, your response has been that consciousness cannot be inferred either from structure or behaviour - but the point is that that would eliminate our ability to infer consciousness in other human beings, so your response does not work."

COMMENT: The inference, of course, is never certain. What I said, or meant to say, is that there is nothing in the structure or behavior of neurons that warrants an inference of consciousness, in my view. In humans that is a different story. If you interpreted me as saying, or if I said, that structure and behavior were per se irrelevant to an inference of consciousness, then I was either unclear in my comments, or misspoke.

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When I asked, "what do you believe (consciousness) *can* be inferred from?", you wrote, "behavior that evidences an inner life" - but that begs the question, because what I am asking is *what can an inner life be inferred from?"

COMMENT: It is not question-begging. Assuming that consciousness and "inner life" are roughly equivalent (for our purposes) any inference for one would be an inference for the other. And I never have said that any such inference was logically deductive in any sense. The inference is inductive, and therefore imperfect. So, the question is what inferences of consciousness (or an inner life) would be reasonable based upon the evidence. An inference of human consciousness would be reasonable for reasons stated above. An inference for the consciousness of neurons would not be, because there is no, or little, evidence to support such an inference.

But again, your proposal may be right. My main point was not just that there was insufficient evidence to support an inference of conscious neurons, but that the proposal does not advance the discussion of consciousness, simply because it remains unexplained. There is no explanation of how neurons are conscious, and there is no explanation as to how human consciousness (and the complexities of the same) arise or emerge from underlying less complex conscious neurons.

I do not know what more to say about this, and would like to move on. If my language or comments were misleading, I apologize. I am essentially always in a hurry when posting.

HB

It's not that I "disagree" with your answer, because that implies there is some content there to disagree with. In fact, in the end, there is not really any content or argument - only a facile and brute assertion that we are conscious, but our component parts are not.

Oh - there is one additional claim: that because neurons largely constitute brains, but themselves do not have a brain like we have, they can contain no particle of subjective experience. But this is to presume that "an organ structured like a human brain" (or maybe, a mammal brain) is necessary for subjective experience, when there is every reason to believe that that is simply not true. Wasps, leeches, octopi, worms, spiders, bats, birds, etc., all have brains quite different than human brains, yet manifest every sign of subjective experience: memory, problem-solving, planning ahead, etc. Hell, even the nematode, with only 302 neurons, performs complex tasks. This should not be surprising now that we know that even individual neurons do things like recognize people

*Of course* you are begging the question when you claim that we can reasonably infer an inner life from "behaviour that evidences an inner life". That is not an answer. It's no wonder you "want to move on"; you'd rather talk about a dualism which is a monism which is a mystery which is a contradiction, instead of answering this simple question:

On what defensible grounds may we attribute subjective experience to some living things (like humans or horses or lobsters), but deny it to other living things (like, say, the nematode, the snail, the single-celled testate amoebae, or even a yeast cell)?

For various logical and empirical reasons, neither "having a human-like brain", nor "having language communication", nor "we're just conscious, and they're not" are adequate answers.

In any case, speaking of "reading the literature", a tour through any biology textbook reveals that cells - all different types of cell - evince every sign of being AWARE of themselves vis-a-vis their environments. They process information; they choose between different options; they anticipate, etc.

Of course, a cell's subjective experience must be very different than our own; but since you already concede that there is something it is like to be a bat, and that it is very different to what it is like to be a human being, it shouldn't be all that hard to go from a bat to a worm to a nematode to a cell conceptually, not least because at every level of cellular organization, we see *the same sorts of output*, AND we see (contrary to your strange assertions) fantastically sensitive perceptual and sensory systems which could plausibly (and no doubt, do) enable that awareness.

This is why a growing number of biologists agree with the views of cell biologist Lynn Margulis and Dorian Sagan (Carl's son):

"Not just animals are conscious, but every organic being, every autopoietec cell is conscious. In the simplest sense, consciousness is an awareness of the outside world. And this world need not be the world outside one's mammalian fure. It may also be the world outside one's cell membrane. Certainly some level of awareness, of responsiveness owing to that awareness, is implied in all autopoietic systems". (see "Microcosmos: Four Billion Years of Microbial Evolution", page 122.) (Margulis also later commented: "I do think consciousness is a property of all living cells...Bacteria are conscious." (see http://discovermagazine.com/2011/apr/16-interview-lynn-margulis-not-controversial-right).

And Ramanathan and Broach said essentially the same thing about yeast cells in the research piece I referred to in an earlier post. You glibly dismiss these conclusions on the baseless assumption that these biologists don't mean what they say; yet they do. In fact, that entire section of the Ramanathan and Broach describes complex thought on the part of the yeast cell. Christof Koch himself has published research on the astonishing feats of object recognition by *individual neurons*. (For a discussion of this, see Chapter Seven of "Mind and Its Evolution" by Allan Paivo).

A brute denial holds no weight against accumulating evidence of cellular (and neuronal) awareness, and the conclusions of increasing numbers of cell biologists and brain researchers.

Now, how the individual awarenesses of billions of cells throughout our bodies, and in our brains, all work and connect together to produce the unified field of subjectivity we experience, is a big question; but it is not an impossible question, and it is being answered more and more fully as each year passes. By contrast, what IS impossible, is a dualism which is a monism which is a mystery which is a contradiction, just as much as the claim that Mind and Consciousness "emerge" from a complete void of mind and consciousness.

Just my two cents.

Tal, if you will permit me, I will tell you of the difficulties I see with your conscious cells. It's not that I have a problem with the idea that cells are conscious.

First, when one quotes a scientist asserting cells or yeast, or every living, is conscious, one need to be careful to understand what the scientists is saying. Now, I don't claim to know what the scientists you quoted were trying to say, and they could have meant to say what you seem to think they are saying. But they might mean something different. They may have in mind a deliberately mechanistic understanding of consciousness. For example, you quote Margulis and Sagan to support the idea that cells have consciousness of something outside their cell walls. But within the quote you provide M and S associate consciousness with "some level of awareness." So, suddenly, within a couple sentences, consciousness has been reduced by M and S to "some level of awareness." What does that mean? It seems significantly less impressive than "consciousness." Could it just mean that the cell recieves stimuli from the outside world outside its cell walls. It think that is probably exactly all they meant. And nothing more. But, then, I don't have the entire text.

More importantly, however, as I understand it, your cell hypothesis was meant to address the problem of how consciousness arises in a human being. Well, let's assume that it cures that problem. But then the question is, how does consciousness arise in the cell. Same problem, different location.

In addition, there is one glaring biological fact your hypothesis seems to ignore. Human consciousness is more connected to the brain than to any other part of the human body. If you lose a leg, you can still be conscious. If you lose your heart, you can still be conscious (if you're connected to the appropriate machinery, of course). Etc. But if your brain becomes even slightly damaged, you might lose all consciousness. So, if we attempt to locate human consciousness indescriminantly in every cell, we must ask why the loss of some cells doesn't seem to affect consciousness, whereas the loss of others can be catastrophic to consciousness.

Yikes, the spelling and grammar above are terrible. Please forgive. I'm working on a deadline.

PhELPs

Good thoughts.

As far as Margulis goes, she is explicit that she believes that cells possess consciousness (see the interview I linked to above). That she describes consciousness as "some awareness" I think is entirely unobjectionable, for to have "some awareness" is to possess some sort of consciousness - and all we need for a starting point here is one minute speck of consciousness.

The objection that the identification of consciousness in cells only shifts the problem is to say that we should ignore or trivialize Step One of a problem because we don't know the answer to Step Eight - the point is that we can never get to Step Eight without taking Step One. Step One is what I am trying to get some sort of idea about.

On your last point, I'm sorry, I'm not sure I follow, because the brain is the body's main processing and command centre. It receives information from all parts of the body, and its operation is subserved by multiple levels of cellular mapping, decision-making, and information- and conclusion-sharing occurring throughout the body. A leg is just a leg; just a part of the whole thing. If you lose it, the results will not be as catastrophic as losing your head :)

The brainstem can maintain the basic physiologic functions of life (temporarily). That is not consciousness, practically, or legally. Edit. Let's take it one step further, if we are to assign consciousness to cells, I can think of no better example than the liver. The liver manages an unfathomable amount of complex reactions to chemical stimuli. Is it conscious? Your liver can be placed in a suitable candidate and function just fine. Does it exert some sort of consciousness upon it's recipient?



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/27/2015 03:19AM by ladell.

I'm going to have to start getting stoned before visiting RFM from now on.

Snickers. (Going to have to start).



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/27/2015 03:38AM by lastofthewine.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/27/2015 08:30AM by doctorlove.

doctorlove...who are you, and what did you do with Tal?