The subject of intention and action has come up few times, so I thought I’d start a thread.
From my point of view as a cognitive neuroscientist, decision-making (which action to take) is best conceived of as a kind of winner-take-all arm-wrestling competition, in which competing programs (represented as networks of active neurons) of action exert a mutually inhibitory effect on on the other, while each receives excitatory input from various other other networks, each of which in turn are engaged in a kind of subsidiary arm-wrestling match with some networks and a mutually cheer-leading match with others.
The more activation in any one network, the greater the inhibitory effect it has on competing networks, and so the system is, in a technical sense, “chaotic” – two competing programs can be finely balanced at one moment, but once one gets ahead by more than a critical amount, its inhibitory effect on the other increase, reducing its activation and releasing its reciprocal inhibitory control. At this point, activation in the winner rises rapidly towards “execution threshold” – the point at which outflow to the muscles involved in the action are activated.
Of course this is a continuously looping process, and the actions can be as slight as an eye movement, which then brings new input to the decision-making process, or a gross-motor action, which also provide new input, so the decision-making process is constantly informed by new data. However, it is also informed by endogenous processes – processes that trigger activations in networks involved in goal-setting and reward prediction, and established through life-long learning, in which neural firing patterns that result in success become more probable and those that result in failure, or penalty, become less likely.
As the brain’s owner, of course, we call these processes “pondering”, “hesitating”, “deciding”, “exploring”, “testing”, “changing my mind”, “exercising will power”, “considering the long term effects of my actions”, “considering the effect of my actions on someone else”, etc.
Which is exactly what they are. But at a neural level they operate very like evolutionary processes, in which what replicates most successfully (neurally) is most likely to be repeated, and what replicates least successfully is least likely to be repeated. The interesting part is that this “neural Darwinism” takes place prior to actions actually being performed – and often the”winning” program does not actually reach execution threshold, but instead is fed back as input, so that we are able to imagine the results of our actions before we actually execute them, and use that information before actually allowing an action to take place.
That means that we, unlike evolutionary processes, are capable of intentional action. We can simulate the results of potential courses of action, and use those simulated results to inform the decision-making process. This allows us to take shortcuts, and pursue, in actuality, only those courses of action we deem likely to be successful. In contrast, evolution is stuck with trying anything that presents itself as an option, learning by actual, not simulated, errors. It cannot be said, therefore, to exhibit intentional behaviour, and is much slower and less efficient that we are. However, by the same token, it will often explore possibilities that a simulating – intentional – agent would reject, on the grounds that the simulations looked unpromising. As a result, some spectacular solutions are missed.
Which is why evolutionary algorithms are used by intentional designers – us – so that we can, intentionally, use the power of unintentional design to find solutions we ourselves would reject as not sufficiently promising to explore.
Except they don’t make any sense when not stoned.
When you’re young and drunk, questions like “is the perception of free will predetermined?” are absolutely fascinating. Today, the notion of clusters of competing neurons at multiple levels having the emergent property of thought is so, you know, practical. Which is to say, testable.
And William’s perspective that the operation of the brain is so delightfully irrelevant to what he actually thinks, lends a sort of surreal glow to the whole discussion. I’m reminded of Twain’s observation that the Americans and British are separated by a common language.
William J Murray,
I really hope you’ll answer this question because I think the whole ID worldview hinges on this one point, that for some reason, only some people are “chosen” to have “free will” and recognize “the truth”.
What makes you different enough, that before a conclusion is even reached by either of us, makes only you receptive enough to recognize that we have a “common purpose”?
Please explain what decides that.
I would be really interested to see WJM explain how his personal proprietary libertarian free will accomplishes perception, processing and responding to experiences independent from biological mechanisms.
I think William is contemplating right now, on whether 1) he is biological, and if so 2) he has a brain; and if so 3) if it works. If he gets past that, maybe he can discuss what it does.
No, we really don’t. We just have to act, and think, and intend, and consider, and debate, make laws, and hold people responsible for their actions as if regular old free will exists. Fortunately that’s easy, because it does.
During heated discussions it cools the blood.
I’m going to pretend that this piece of dismissive sarcasm was a serious response, against my better judgment, which means I’ll make a real attempt to make sense of it.
The problem with it not being a serious response is that it didn’t refute my statement, so I’m not even sure there’s anything to respond to. But, I’ll read it as if there is.
First, by putting yourself on the “outside looking in”, you are certainly not fooling yourself, unless you think that trying to understand a question from another person’s point of view is equally schizophrenic and foolhardy. So tell me, William — is empathy also schizophrenic?
Empathy is really the foundation, I suspect, of what allows us to model potential choices from the perspective of an outsider. It’s one of those side effects of evolution, where a capability that develops serving one function finds itself useful and coopted for something very different. With empathy, we can put ourselves in another’s shoes, understand and react to their emotional experiences, and imagine ourselves in the same situation. Once we have that ability, it’s relatively straightforward to model other types of consequences from that “other” point of view. Combine that with our memory of similar experiences that either we or others have encountered, and our ability to make predictions based on past experiences and observations of others, and the concept of objective analysis becomes almost inevitable.
I’m not going deny that I think, intend, believe, and consider whatever my biological system commands. But why in God’s name would it command me to do totally insane and destructive things unless it was seriously off kilter? My biological system is the descendant of a long line of other biological systems that survived because they had the ability to respond correctly to life-threatening situations in the world around them. It stands to reason that my biological system is evolved to NOT command me to bark like a dog, but my biological system DOES command me to study my surroundings carefully, learn from my observations, and make predictive models based on the best information I can access. The ability to stand outside myself and try to examine facts or predicted outcomes from the perspective of another is one of those skills that has tangible survival value. I don’t know what incentive you would have to deny it.
I must say that I don’t know that this is true. I suppose it depends – and the discussion now seems to be centering upon this point – what one means by “free will”, but in any event I know of no way to accurately determine that free will or determinism exist.
I use the term “libertarian” to distinguish the kind of free will I’m talking about from “compatibilist” free will.
From Wikipedia:
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There is no exact method it can be determined. Generally speaking, those that say the do not have libertarian free will, I accept at their word. Generally, when people are unable to “will as they will”, or “believe as they wish”, IMO they do not have libertarian free will. There are some general characteristics I associate with such people, like denial of the obvious, denial of the necessary, and immunity to correction about certain things, such as when I state that my position is X, and they refer to my position as “not-X” repeatedly, even after having been corrected multiple times.
I don’t know.
I try to answer all questions I find to be non-repetitive and which contextualize my position/statements correctly, and which I find to be of value to continued debate. Some posters consistently ask questions that contextualize something I said completely erroneously. If I’m interested, for some reason, in correcting them, I will, but since they do not have libertarian free will (by their own admission), it’s hardly my job to try and reprogram their biological software that keeps reading key words or phrases and functionally outputting the same inappropriate responses and challenges over and over.
I mean, who else here has libertarian free will? Joe, I imagine, might. Does anyone else here even claim to have it? Outside of Joe, I pretty much consider my time here as means of exploring concepts by knocking them around with computer generated NPCs (non-player characters) – like playing chess against a computer to hone your sklls and increase your understanding of the game. I’ve come to some really good epiphanies in forums/blogs like this by competing with the NPCs I find there. However, I hardly feel obligated to respond to all the repetitive, inappropriate and nonsensical commentary and questions produced by such entities.
For the record, just because you don’t have LFW doesn’t mean you’re incapable of gaining it, or that you are a “lesser” commodity in the scheme of things. IMO, there are two essential commodities at work in existence, the mind of god (free will), and the body of god (psychoplasm). The body of god acts according to the will of god, but it is all god at the end of the day.
It appears that William doesn’t believe in emergent properties. Well, maybe he does for ubermensch such as himself.
I should perhaps amend the rules of this site to say, not simply “assume the other person is posting in good faith” but “assume the other person is an autonomous human being”.
harrumph.
It doesn’t have to accomplish those things independent of biological mechanisms, it only has to be uncaused by biological mechanisms. When I used the term “independent’ before, it meant “not caused by”.
Although I might use a computer to accomplish the task of writing this post, my writing of this post is not caused by the computer, internet, etc. Those mechanisms allow me to do certain things; they do not cause me to do them.
Hmmm. I think I’ve just noticed a pattern here. As with the Natural Selection debate, it seems Darwnists often conflate a substrate or mechanism that allows a thing to happen with a sufficient cause for that thing to happen. Interesting, and actually, it makes sense that an NPC would make such an error.
Mistaking provided potential towards X as cause of X. NPC’s would be blind to the origin of their programming, and only be capable of seeing the substrate or mechanism the program is operating on or through, so they assume the substrate/mechanism is causing the programming itself.
Now that’s really interesting.
You also don’t appear to be obligated to define your terms, and typically those repetitive questions flow from that initial error. Which you then can ignore on that basis and feel justified in doing so.
And so what is in fact the true cause of this “programming” then?
The intelligent programmer?
William J Murray,
Why would a “claim” of free will have anything to do with actually having it?
You might be absolutely right about the existence of a god and a common purpose for humans.
That means that we would also have to accept that if you have free will, we evos do too, not because “we” are right, but because “you” are.
Please define what you mean by “Darwnists “. Who are they and what do they believe?
Aww c’mon Lizzie…if you do that you are implying that you are not assuming WJM is posting in good faith. 🙂
If William (and perhaps others) thinks that he and a few others are the only “real autonomous beings” in the world and all other entities are just zombies, possessed vessels, or robots, is that any different than certain fundamentalists and born again folks who see themselves as blessed by some god while nearly all other folks are seen as sinners actually burning in the world? To be sure it’s a rather whacky view of reality to take and makes genuine, fulfilling discussion all but impossible, but is it an act or some form of dishonesty?
I’m being partially facetious here btw. 😉
If this is what he really believes then I would in fact expect him to be one of the richest people in the world. How could zombies compete?
Yet, somehow, I don’t believe that is the case.
WJM:
Within your world view, by what means do some come to possess free will, and others not?
Is the faculty of free will chosen? Or is it determined?
I did intend (heh) this thread to be about intention, not “free will”, because I think the concepts are separable.
By “intend” I mean: select an action on the basis of its likely consequences.
Whether you regard such a process as “free” or not (or necessarily free or not) is a different issue. I am simply talking about the difference between a reactive process, such as evolutionary processes, in which what happens is a function simply of what has gone before, not a function of a simulation process by which likely future consequences serve as input into the decision.
In that sense, it is perfectly reasonable (IMO) to refer to a robot like ASIMO as intending something (to reach a target object) without bumping into obstacles) and using forward models of the likely consequence of each of a range of possible actions to inform action selection.
This is not how evolution is supposed to work, although what it does is very effective, and is a form of learning (trial and error learning). It differs from intentional behaviour though, because the trials are not selected with the benefit of input from simulated outcomes.
I’ll maybe start another thread on “free will” (scare quotes intentional – I think the expression is intrinsically incoherent).
Yeah, I think I’ll leave the rule as it is 🙂
I believe that humans, cats, dogs and evolution itself all embody free will, I just think it probably doesn’t mean what WJ think it means.
My definition is operational and can be observed as a property of a system rather than as something felt.
Any system that can generate multiple alternative behaviors and test them for consequences has free will. The testing can be actual, as with biological evolution, or virtual, as in brains.
What makes it free and will is not mystical or metaphysical, but simply the ability of a system to learn from consequences. A system that always generates the same alternatives would not be considered free. There must be a stochastic element in the generation of alternatives, and there must be some level of uncertainty in the outcomes.
This is a narrow definition, but it has the advantage of being testable.
It all comes down to courage I think.
The creationist side needs the comfort of a “father” who will guide them and never leave them, and so they create one.
In real life, we outlive our parents and we have to go on without them.
So, do creationists have the courage to accept that they might be wrong about their god?
I don’t see any evidence of that.
William, your own analogy illustrates the problem with your model – the computer is independent of you. Or are you suggesting that you control what is typed on all computers and systems all over the world? And do you not get up and walk away from your computer? Your car? Your tv? Or are these devices all a part of your supposed “LFW” makeup as well? Furthermore, I don’t know about you, but in my world my computer can and does do things while I’m away, completely independent of any input on my part whatsoever. So I really don’t understand what you are getting at with your analogy.
And oddly, I don’t see you providing any evidence that you have any will over your perception, processing and responding to experiences independent from biological mechanisms anyway.
Methinks you are projecting…
A very practical and functional definition Petrushka. I like it. Thanks!
I thought that up one day while watching one of the endless nonproductive debates at UD. If you step back from a learning system it appears to be driven by consequences rather than by antecedents. It looks a bit paradoxical, which is what you would expect from a system called “free.”
It might, to some, appear to violate the c2LoT.
I like it. I still think there is a degree of additional freedom conferred by the capacity to forward model – what I tend to call “freedom from immediacy”.
It confers the ability to weigh up present benefits against future benefits, and/or benefits to entities other than the deciding agent. It confers the concept of “ought” in other words.
That’s the advantage of brains over generational evolution. Brains have the ability to evolve advantageous solutions for individuals, as opposed to populations.
But the “ought” depends on the model, which may not predict all that well. You should be careful to note that you’re talking about predicted future benefits, benefits to others, etc. After all, the whole Christian model is predicated on preparing your “soul” (which exists ONLY in the model) for life after death (which also exists ONLY in the model).
Evolution, limited to whatever works right now, is immune from wishful thinking. And throughout these discussions, we see considerations at every level being evaluated and qualified according to how well they fit nothing but wishful thinking – and generally redefined or nebulated as necessary to do so.
William J Murray,
As your skills get better, do you think you’ll ever be able to earn a win against an “NPC”?
I think it’s still incomplete. What’s missing is the actual freedom in the result set. Sure, any intelligent entity can model outcomes and pick what it perceives to be the best one, but it’s not truly free if “best” is not also a flexible concept. For instance, if my only criteria for evaluation is my individual benefit, then no matter how thorough my modeling of consequences, what it all comes down to is a cost/benefit analysis concerned with maximizing my personal benefit. Once that equation is set up, then my actual choice is mandated by the input variables. It’s not really free at all.
However, if I can voluntarily hold values that legitimize other choices in addition to or separate from my personal benefit, then I can weigh the inputs against those separate values, prioritize them, and make a decision that is not predictable from a maximal personal benefit perspective.
I guess what I’m saying is that for free will to operate, you ought to have a hobby. 🙂
This really deserves it’s own thread. My view on the difference between free will, and compatibilist will, and how it is “acquired” and used could fill up a book —- oops! It already has! Three in fact!
This NPC has not been programmed to want to read your books. How unfortunate.
I thought about this caveat too, but then I reconsidered. I don’t think that Patrushka’s definition prohibits or negates such an arbitrary value addition. The example that came to my mind was evaluating what I want for a meal based on something completely subjective like, “what do I feel eating.” Say you’re choosing breakfast – oatmeal vs poached eggs (or substitute two things you do like if not the above). I could choose based solely on which ultimately is “better for me” or I could also include the “virtual test” of “what will taste good right now”. I think the definition can incorporate that (and thus a freedom component) without change.
Interestingly enough, while the example you cite seems to be an “all other things being equal” test, there’s a good possibility that such mood-based decisions really aren’t a part of free will, but are actually mandated by internal biological needs that the diner may not be aware of. Suppose your body is a little short in its protein balance at the moment — you might be “in the mood” for poached eggs, but the choice is actually imposed onto your will, not freely derived from it.
So it’s really hard to negate the possibility that this cost/benefit analysis is still operating and mandating your choices, while disguising itself as freedom.
That might also be a problem with my addition as well — do we know that these other held values might not be mere misdirections at what are really completely selfish motivations?
I think stuff like this is what makes “free will” discussions so perilous, but interesting.
I see my model as context free. What is necessary is the ability to “invent” and test variations. What merits the label “free” is the observable generation of novelty. What makes such a system interesting is that it can invent; it can produce objects or behaviors that did not previously.
It has some similarities to the metaphor of water flowing downhill or filling all the crevices in the bottom of a pond, but it adds something: emergence. A free system produces structures or behaviors having emergent properties. Properties not foreseeable.
It is orthogonal to logic. Logic is entirely deterministic. Logic is what computers do. Any logical syllogism can be expressed as a computer program. There is no way a logical system can be free. Rewind the tape and it will always repeat, with no variation.
What you need for a “free” system is an iterative process of stochastic variation and selection. I am aware that some people have looked to quantum indeterminacy as a source of free will, but I am not convinced that this is relevant. Any system that has a method for generation variants, testing them and storing them differentially is a learning system and can produce novelty.
The “oracle” that does the selecting is important. Dawkins’ Weasel is not a free system because the target is fixed and entirely knowable. The social environment that rewards or punishes humans is not entirely knowable. It is too complex and too impermanent to allow detailed predictions. Humans have an ability (which I think differs from other animals only in degree) to form complex and detailed projections of possible consequences. We tend to label people as smart or wise based on the quality and complexity of these abilities.
The space of genetic coding sequences presumably has some permanence based on the laws of chemistry, but in practice, coding sequences are interpreted by an impermanent and varying set of cellular machinery. Not to mention environmental (evo/devo) issues.
So a free system is one capable of probing the future. It cannot see the future, but it can predict it and behave accordingly. Evolution is wasteful because it scatters its predictions much the way plants scatter seeds. It works (when it does) because it can produce so many variants. Apparently microbes can test every nearby variation.
Brains are somewhat less wasteful because they can do virtual probing. I think it is fairly obvious that both populations and individuals differ in the ability to generate variant behaviors, and differ in the quality and complexity of their virtual selectors.
So oddly enough, I agree somewhat with WJM’s assertion that individuals differ in regard to free will. My metaphors and models, however, are rather different
William J Murray,
But wouldn’t someone who “doesn’t” have free will, immediately “acquire” free will as he makes the decision to acquire it?
What I mean is, the “border” between “free will” and “NOT free will” dissolves upon making the “decision” to cross it, thereby negating the need for any further movement.
I’m not sure why someone would want to have libertarian free will. It seems to impair the ability to understand science.
The whole business of choosing to disbelieve in conventional science without actually understanding it seems to me rather odd. It’s a bit like choosing not to like some exotic food that one has never see or tried.
It’s a common and understandable human tendency, but it just seems odd to call it free will.
And we inevitably reach an impasse. This is why so many people hate these sorts of free will discussions, because they use the same words but are saying different things. Our senses of the word “freedom” see incompatible in this case — neither one is really wrong, but they “intend” different meanings.
Your stochastic sense of freedom is one that Dennett would probably agree with, while my usage at the moment is a bit more restricted to the motivational side of it. Yours looks at the observable output, while mine looks at the factors influencing the output. The reason I tend to prefer the latter approach is that, if we just look at degrees of freedom in decision space, and observe how it appears that different points are being explored, we get a pattern that’s very similar to the evolutionary process itself, where actions are being mapped instead of morphologies/traits. Over time, in its ability to generate the appearance of design, evolution mimics the results of intelligence, yet we wouldn’t say that evolution has the capacity for free will. Using your approach, I suspect that even a non-intelligent actor can generate responses that would mimic free will. You’ve included prediction as an extra filter that other exploratory processes don’t have, but that’s not really any different than the natural selection portion of the evolutionary processes. Both produce variations that may not work, mental modeling keeps them in the mind, while evolution puts them into the world.
Also, your approach evaluates decisions in the aggregate, while mine looks at each decision individually. Basically, we are both looking at degrees of freedom, but I’m not sure I necessarily would tie yours firmly to the concept of “will”. One individual decision may bear the hallmarks of free will, while another coming from the same person may not.
On the other hand, I could be completely off-base, so treat my post accordingly…
Beating all this around in my head clarifies to me why Elizabeth wanted to focus on “intention and action” rather than “free will”!
I am congenitally unable to focus on concepts that can’t be operationalized. I listen and read, but it’s just a jumble of words.
I am aware of an inner world of intention, but I don’t see much point in arguing about it.
When people trust each other they can sometimes profit from discussing differences of meaning and interpretation, but this doesn’t happen in debates, which are mostly wand waving.
I would agree that there are qualitative differences between a process like evolution and conscious processes. My own understanding is that consciousness mimics evolution and not the other way round. that is to say, consciousness embodies a virtual evolutionary process.
Perhaps if the AI guys succeed in producing artificial consciousness, it will become clear. I’m not holding my breath for this to happen, but I do think that artificial inventing is already in its early stages. It will creep up on us like the machinery that extends our muscles.
I completely agree here. Whether or not we make machines that we can have the “free will” debate about will be a matter of whether we choose to, not whether it’s possible to be done.
This is an interesting discussion, so thanks, guys.
One thing – I don’t know as I go much for the unconscious guiding of menu choice by a bodily need for e.g.protein.
What would make a young child, whose brain had as yet no way of knowing which foods are high in protein or in carbohydrate, choose an egg over a plate of porridge? I’m fairly sure it would not be unconscious guidance from a temporary protein debit – just as likely that the choice of an egg is made because the yolk is a pretty colour.
(Elizabeth – is it possible to induce this software to accept English spellings without argument? – Harrumph!)
Regarding the egg or porridge quandary, I would argue that WJM is not entirely wrong, that people do differ in how they make decisions, and some people are more free than others.
We have all kinds of concepts covering this. We have the concept of duress. we have the concept of informed decision. And so forth.
A person who cannot virtually experience the consequences of an action is not free, at least in my sense of the word. So ignorance of the likely outcome of choices is a bar to freedom. Learning systems can become more sophisticated. Evolvability can evolve.
My sense of the word does not require any speculation on the feeling or experience of being free. My “definition” is purely limited to the observable characteristics of the system as a whole. I’m afraid I tend to be a black box guy. I do know that there are such a things as feelings. experience and consciousness, but I see no way to talk objectively about them.
Even worse, research seems to indicate that decisions are made before people become consciously aware that they have been made. Whatever that means.
This is partly guesswork on my part, but I have read that the stomach and surrounding digestive organisms have an unusually high density of sensory nerve endings, and the hypothesis I had seen was that they were to analyze food content. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that at least some of our food preferences at any moment are dictated by current nutritional needs, or that those feedbacks between cravings and nutrient status are learned through experience, even if the experience is unconscious. It would also be obvious that there are lots of ways of hijacking that system.
As long as we are speculating, I’m going to opine that if you eat unprocessed food, your body tends to crave things you need.
Processed foods have flavors and sugars and salt added to subvert this.
This could well be BS, but I have lost 70 pounds in the last year, and the main component of my diet is avoiding junk food and fast food. I don’t pay much attention to the carb rules, although I lost most of the weight while avoiding bread and potatoes. Mostly, it’s if I don’t cook it, I don’t eat it.
Very impressive! Congrats.
OT: What’s with the comment editor? I no longer see a preview underneath the edit box.
WJM said: “It doesn’t have to accomplish those things independent of biological mechanisms, it only has to be uncaused by biological mechanisms. When I used the term “independent’ before, it meant “not caused by”.”
Uhm, yes. That’s how I was using the term. Your point is?
WJM said: “Although I might use a computer to accomplish the task of writing this post, my writing of this post is not caused by the computer, internet, etc. Those mechanisms allow me to do certain things; they do not cause me to do them.”
Fine. That’s not an answer to my question.
WJM: “Hmmm. I think I’ve just noticed a pattern here. As with the Natural Selection debate, it seems Darwnists often conflate a substrate or mechanism that allows a thing to happen with a sufficient cause for that thing to happen. Interesting, and actually, it makes sense that an NPC would make such an error.”
Haha. Way to project, WJM, to keep avoiding to answer the question. I didn’t conflate anything, and I didn’t make any claims regarding *sufficient causes*.
WJM: “Mistaking provided potential towards X as cause of X. NPC’s would be blind to the origin of their programming, and only be capable of seeing the substrate or mechanism the program is operating on or through, so they assume the substrate/mechanism is causing the programming itself.”
Yes, that’s nice, WJM. Think of me as a computer program, if somehow that makes you feel better. Now it would be nice if would actually answer the question. Here it is again: how your personal proprietary libertarian free will accomplishes perception, processing and responding to experiences independent from (as in: not caused by) biological mechanisms.
I only lost 15, but my approach was similar. I gave up ice cream completely, stopped adding all salt to my food, and concentrated on the produce section. My wife having a real talent for cooking didn’t hurt either. I have noticed that my own preferences have adjusted, and my tastes are different than they used to be. I eat more often, but less, and what I do eat tastes better than it ever has.
I hope this is not a derail, but it does seem as though my digestive system knows what it’s getting, and knows what I need.
William, that whole “NPC” thing is getting old. I thought it a bit cheeky at first, but now you’ve overused it to the point of obnoxiousness. No, your fellow humans are not non-player-characters in your first-person adventure. Try to come up with a less patronizing metaphor for your contempt. On second thought, no, don’t.
Why not open such a thread? Begin by providing your answer to my question: Is the faculty of free will chosen? Or is it determined?