Posted by alexandra_k on December 4, 2004, at 20:08:55
In reply to Free will conundrum explored, posted by 64bowtie on December 4, 2004, at 12:11:18
Hmm. Penrose is indeed a funny (and controversial) one. I have heard people say that that is what you get when neuroscientists turn philosopher in their retirement... however, best not go there :-)
FREE WILL
There are experiments that were done by Benjamin Libet. (I am sorry but I haven't managed to track these in their original, but I read about them firstly in Daniel Dennett's "Consciousness Explained" and they are much discussed in philosophical circles)
Libet discovered that at the point in time that we consciously experience making a 'free choice' scientists could, just BEFORE that point measure that the muscles had already started to contract. What this means is that both conscious experience of free choice and initiation of action are BOTH caused (or produced) by prior, non-conscious brain processes. I agree with the psychologists and philosophers who maintain that this is evidence for epiphenomenalism. That is the view that consicousness is a by-product of earlier processes, and it is these earlier processes that determined the 'free choice' that we consciously experience.
Does this mean that there is no free will?
Most people accept (after a bit of thought) that ones environment and ones genes COMPLETELY determine ones beliefs and desires. And the strongest beliefs and desires that one has COMPLETELY determine what one will do.
Genes + environment -> beliefs + desires -> action.
Where in this process is there room for free will?
If we appeal to quantum indeterminacies and hope that we can find free will there then the 'free choice' seems to be constrained by RANDOM indeterminate factors. Whether my choice is determined by a deterministic (Newtonian) world, or whether my choice is determined by an indeterministic (Quantum) world; in each case it seems that the 'free choice' is determined by factors outside my control. So how is it that I am supposed to have free will?
In order for a 'free choice' to be MY choice then it seems that it must somehow be determined by me. But then if I do not choose my beliefs and desires, if I do not (in effect) chose myself then how is it that I can take ultimate responsibility? There still seems to be no room for free will.
CONSCIOUSNESS
Consciousness is a big issue in philosophy of mind. To quote John Searle "The Rediscovery of the Mind" : 'the trouble with cognitive science is that it leaves out the mind'. To see how I shall have a look at Kripke's argument to show that mental states cannot be (as in they are not one and the same thing) as brain processes. (You can find this in lecture 3 of "Naming and Necessity".
PREMISS ONE: Pains are essentially painful.
PREMISS TWO: Brain states are not essentially painful.
CONCLUSION: Therefore, by Leibniz law of identity mental states cannot be one and the same as brain processes.Now the idea is that what is essential to consciousness states (of redness, sweetness, painfulness etc) is the certain special qualitative way that they appear (their qualitative nature, or their quale). What is essential to brain processes, however, is to be determined by physics (and that description will be purely physical, something to do with fields of force and charge). The notion is then that if we have x (conscious states) and we have y (brain processes) then IF x and y have different properties then they cannot be the same thing.
A way of seeing that brain processes are essentially different to conscious states is to consider David Chalmer's zombie thought experiment "A Fundamental Theory of Consciousness". It is (or at least it seems to be) perfectly possible for there to be a possible world which is a complete physical duplicate of this world but where the beings there (our counterparts) have NO CONSCIOUS EXPERIECE WHATSOEVER. As soon as psychologists try to operationalise consciousness as being essentially connected to certain kinds of behaviour which is objective and measurable they have changed the topic, they are missing the point, becasue the only thing that is essential to consicous states is the certain special way that they feel. But it is perfectly possible for brain processes to be accompanied by no conscious experience whatsoever. Trying to show how consciousness fits into our picture of the natural world is a hot topic at the moment. Many eminent philosophers have been given substantial grants to do just this (e.g., Frank Jackson) - and the point of this is that quantum mechanics (as a physical description of the world) does not seem to assist us with bridging the conceptual gap between consciousness and the rest of the physical world. Indeed, perhaps it cannot be done unless we change the meaning of 'consciousness' thereby changing the topic.
Just my own rambling thoughts.
Feel free to ignore completely.
But reading your post brought this stuff to mind for me.I am not so sure that consciousness and free will can be accounted for and I don't think that there are any even remotely satisfactory accounts of these phenomena that do not change the topic in order to explain them...
poster:alexandra_k
thread:424323
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20041202/msgs/424456.html