[FRIAM] free will

[Russell Standish]

On Sun, Feb 23, 2025 at 03:58:57PM -0700, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
> 
> I put a comment Jochen's blog.   Why dont we carry on over there and help him
> generate traffic.  I have attached here a couple of papers that support the
> view that people are lousy predictors of their own behavior.  If we [and only
> if] we take free willed actions to be those that are caused by conscious
> thoughts, then surely we must know what we are going to do before we start to
> do it and be much better at making such predictions than are the people around
> us.

I think "cause" is perhaps the wrong word, unless you mean in the
sense of teleological causation (cf Aristotle's 4 causes). Even then, unpacking what teleological cause even means is controversial.

The predictive notion is closer to the mark - when the first person
model predicts actions better than the 3rd person, we have free will.

My own thought about how this happens is the exploitation of quantum
randomness in the synaptic junction by amplification through chaos. I
have a few sections on this in my book "Theory of Nothing".

I usually try to stay out of free will discussion, though - there is
usually far too much tripe written about it.


Cheers
-- 

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Dr Russell Standish                    Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
Principal, High Performance Coders     hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au
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