[FRIAM] Free Will in the Atlantic

Wed Apr 7 21:07:55 EDT 2021

If the brain is like a planet, then simulate the planet on a deterministic computer.   A temperature knob or a field can help coax a fixed system from one phase of in-silico matter to another, and will give indistinct roles for microstates that don’t directly indicate macrostates.    I see how this has complicated reductionism a little but I don’t see how it facilitates free will.

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Frank Wimberly
Sent: Wednesday, April 7, 2021 4:19 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Free Will in the Atlantic

If you have access via a library this article by Glymour might be of interest:

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/521968?seq=1
---
Frank C. Wimberly
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Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Wed, Apr 7, 2021, 4:47 PM Marcus Daniels <marcus at snoutfarm.com<mailto:marcus at snoutfarm.com>> wrote:
No, it isn't ideal to pin free will on determinism.   There's some consensus reasonable people can come to about the physical world, and we can either agree that humans are a part of the physical world or that we are decoupled or partially decoupled from it.   If such a decoupling is suggested, then I think it is reasonable to want to know how that decoupling would work, and what experiments could shed light on that decoupling.   Why can't we just go beyond the Standard Model to understand that decoupling?   What is this pantheism and why can't we take it apart or study it?

So, sure, it is possible to pull the rug out from under the whole debate with other metaphysics where anything can happen.   If one is arguing with someone who insists that analysis of their metaphysics is not possible, then that's the end of the conversation.   To continue, there has to be some ability to reason about what happens in that metaphysics and what cannot, and why that is, and there has to be some rationale for how things we observe in our (physical) world could map to that metaphysics.  Otherwise why waste their time, they can go back to their important business with Q-Anon.

Maybe the physical world really is random.   On the other hand, superdeterminism does seem to address the measurement problem. [1]
Either way, how does one get to free will, as in It Could Have Been Otherwise?  The real or illusory randomness collapses to definite measurements either way.   There has to be a magical homunculus that is shifting that random distribution around somehow if there is free will.   Or if the physical world is actually deterministic all the way down, then there is a big problem because Mind just defies causality.

I'm an atheist, not an agnostic, because I have no patience for implausible models.   If you want to understand the world, you follow the evidence, not what you want to be true.

[1] https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphy.2020.00139/full#h5

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com<mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com>> On Behalf Of jon zingale
Sent: Wednesday, April 7, 2021 2:33 PM
To: friam at redfish.com<mailto:friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Free Will in the Atlantic

"Or do we assert, as the Free Will contingent do, that Will is above the fray?"

Ok, so I continue to struggle with what it is that concerns me about the assumption of determinism. Marcus's point about the loci of *will* requires serious consideration. From where I stand, arguments opposing free will to determinism are instances of dialectical argument, where the former is posed as the pure negative to the latter[!]. The particular choice here then is seen to be part of a class of such opposites: chaos and order, irrationality and rationality, randomness and computability, non-representation and representation, absence and substance,...
Each negative object then is presented as either failing to have scrutable qualities or have qualities explicitly defined relative to their positive counterpart. What follows is an asymmetry that is baked into the form of the argument, regardless of its content.

Now, as far as I can tell, an argumentative *mode* arises when we relate positive objects to positive objects via metaphor, for instance, when we say that determinism is computation or determinism is pure order, etc...
An effect of such metaphor making is the attribution of an object as a quality of another (comprehension), i.e., ascribing determination to a computation or tracing out a determination by a computation. Meanwhile, in the opposite category, free will comes to be identified with randomness.

My concern, then, is that positive theories are objectifying whereas negative theories are reflective[!], and since *will* here is presented in its negative form, we are denied access to speak directly about its qualities. Instead, we come to know *will* in terms of randomness via coming to know determination in terms of computation. Ultimately, it leaves me feeling like I am looking for my keys (will) under some nearby streetlight (determination).

[!] Evoking Raymond Guess in his analytic exposition "The Idea of a Critical Theory".

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