Consciousness as the Solution to the Problem of Free Will

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

The Problem of Free Will is the problem of reconciling our ability to choose our actions with the apparent determinism of a world of cause and effect.

I propose that the solution to this problem is that consciousness allows a new kind of cause to create new kinds of effects, overcoming the constraints of determinism.

The universe is said to be deterministic because if we know the location and momentum of every atom in the universe, we also know their past and future values for any given time, because these can be calculated from the laws of classical mechanics. So it’s already determined what is going to happen, and we can’t really be choosing freely when we think we are.

Consciousness depends on the location and momentum of the atoms in the brain. In the nervous systems of the simplest conscious animals, whichever those are, and in the nervous system of a fetus when it first develops consciousness, the location and momentum of the atoms is still determined by classical mechanics.

However something novel is being done with the atoms in all living things. There’s a new kind of force at work, as biology causes the atoms to form repeating patterns and go through repeating processes, the processes which cause the organism to survive as a discrete organism, to reproduce, digest, excrete, maintain its metabolism, all the activities we use to identify life. This force that causes organisms to develop, grow, survive, reproduce, is what I mean by “will”. I am going to say all living organisms have a form of will, but in simple animals it is a mechanical, senseless, blind will.

But highly developed conscious organisms like us can direct the location and momentum of the atoms in our brains. That’s what we do when we think and reason, and when we make active use of our memories. A conscious experience is correlated with a succession of brain states, with the atoms located and moving in particular ways, and when we for example actively retrieve a particular memory, or reason our way through some ideas, then we are causing those atoms to behave in a different way to that which would be determined solely by classical mechanics.

That is how consciousness overcomes the constraints of determinism and gives us free will.

2

Sorry to say, you have no idea what you are talking about.

You should study the psycholigical phenomenom “groupthink/conformaty” also “sheeple”.

3

That is a very poor response Druzuz, even allowing for the fact that (I assume) you are writing in a second language.

I already know about group conformity etc, it isn’t very relevant to the issue. I’m not saying that we have unconditional free will in all aspects of life, I’m saying that we sometimes have the ability to choose freely, and I’ve explained why.

4

Will can’t be free from reality and the all. Religious free will means internal self-cause. It means self is real, and also is a causal creative and determining force. These are old philosophical problems which people should already have a handle on.

5

I’m not saying will is free from reality. I don’t care what religious free will is, religion is twaddle. Self is real, but I don’t know what you mean be “It means self is real”.

People didn’t have a handle on this old philosophical problem until I came along, which I’m sure you will agree is both amazing and great!

6

Tortis, you are correct. Free will is nothing but a certain kind of determinative causality. There is no “freedom” in the sense that any part of consciousness is not entirely determined by its preceding causes, rather consciousness consists of many numerous “layers” and “tiers” of causal patterns, instincts, reactions, heuristics, learned responses, thoughts and feelings.

Determinism is the law, there is nothing that is not determined, nothing that is uncaused. But there are different kinds of causalities. In humans, higher-order emergent logics and causal tendencies develop due to how we learn, think, feel, how ideational and affective forms take shape in the psyche, and these layers of causality directly influence and change what is going on at the level of the “atoms” that are operating by "classical laws:, as Tortis correctly notes.

Free will does not mean literal freedom from causality, it means a different kind of causality. And a large part of the success of “free will” is the fact that we are unable to unwind and expose it, we cannot understand it very well at first. This ignorance acts as another level of causality in consciousness, potentiating many things, determining many things, as Nietzsche also noted.

7

Thank you Chainofbeing.

In order to characterise determinism I said “the universe is said to be deterministic because if we know the location and momentum of every atom in the universe, we also know their past and future values for any given time”.

I said, and you agreed, that our “thoughts” change what is going on with the atoms in the brain. Therefore it would not be possible to know the location and momentum of the atoms in my brain from the location and momentum of every atom in the universe at some time prior to my thoughts. Therefore the universe is not deterministic.

8

No, wiki’s explenation is more misleading than leading, it’s not even close to the essense of group think, nor will it display all famous experiments.

My first answer was sufficient.

But if you indeed know what group think is, then please tell me what is the dangerous aspect of it?

9

I don’t know why you are talking about wikipedia, unless you are trying to be funny?

Group think is irrelevant to this topic.

No, it was irrelevant and made you look like a weirdo.

10

Again…
A useful post works in the assertions it is making with the topic. Posts that dismiss, as you first one did, and toss out an idea without relating it to the OP, are a kind of trolling. Now you are asking for more information about his or her knowledge without having interacted with the ideas in the OP. In your first post you say that he or she does not know what he is talking about. This is not useful. It is either an implicit ad hom or a simple insult. A useful post mentions something specific in the OP and then either supports or argues against it. Doing makes it easy for the person to see if you understand what they wrote, what Point you are responding to and where you disagreement lies, if any. It sets things up for a dialogue of substance.

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Tortis,[/size]
You say that consciousness creates or is Another cause. Why isn’t it, therefore, simply Another cause in a determinist universe? Why couldn’t a determinist simply absorb your idea and say that one of the causes in the determinist universe is consciousness. (unless you are arguing that it is a causeless cause. If so, see below for the issue of randomness)

An overlapping questions is: what leads to the choices this consciousness makes? Let’s assume you are correct, that consciousness allows Control of all relevent atoms. What would make consciousness decide to Control them in X direction as opposed to Y direction? If it is personality, well this could be argued to be utterly determined by the combination genes and nurture. If it is a completely free choice, not dependent on anything in the given individual, then how is it not simply random? If it is some other ‘thing’ - other than personality - that determines what consciousness chooses to do to those atoms, what is it, and how is this factor not determined?

11

You are very right, but in 80% of the times, people disregard a very carefully explained post, because they simply doesn’t have the knowledge nor the cognitive abilities.

If a person here in anno 2013 begins to babble about blood letting, fairies and what not, then it would be a total waste to explain things carefully to such person, as the mental state is very questionalable.

Just look at the nonsens thread of “does red light exist” it very selfexplanatory, yet EVERYBODY continues to babble and rave, it’s very very …very heartacheingly to behold how the WANT to endulge themselves in navelgazing mental mastubation! It’s OCD, it’s sheeple, it’s selfdelusion!!!

12

You could make the kind of Point I am making in the same amount of Words as your dismissive post and certainly in the two posts you have made. I am nto sure what value you find in how you did contribute.

But let’s look at what seems implicit in your post: if they have ‘the wrong idea’ then their mental state is questionable, so there is no Point in discussing things with them. I hope that is a fair, partial paraphrase. 1) again, I am not sure what value their is in insulting such a person, especially since it seems you are a determinist. IOW you see no liklihood of a valuable discussion. You consider them to be utterly determined in their mental state. Why insult them? Now of course, as a determinist, you can say that you are compelled to do this, but once it is pointed out that this seems to be a rather abrasive waste of time, rather than a respectful one, perhaps you will end up not repeating this kind of pattern.

It seems like the idea here is, you know the right answer, if people do not agree to the right answer rather quickly, then they are wasting time, and even being immoral - at least it is hard for me not to read

as anything other than a moral judgment.
To me this is problematic in a number of ways. 1) it assumes that philosophy is having the correct beliefs, now. Rather than, for example, Learning to reason and demonstrate and write well about something. It’s not a process for you that one can become better at, but simply the holding of various correct opinions OR doing something you consider immoral (or, oddly, a mental illness like OCD). 2) It seems to leave you out of the process. You have nothing to learn dicussing something with someone who you see as holding what is obviously the wrong opinion, you can simply dismiss them, rudely. However as far as I can tell, one can learn a lot about how to present ideas and interact with them, even if the other person is wrong. and while that person may argue poorly, others may join in who can argue their positions well and or offer a critique of yours, even if they agree with your conclusions. Philosophy is not just about having the right opinion.

So it seems to me you are letting down the thread and yourself.

This becomes ironic I Think in thread about determinism, since this might lead to more compassion on your part.

13

You don’t understand what i am getting at, because you are a cozy chatter, you don’t care about results. Nor do you understand the concept of relevance or elitism. Therefore you reject my attitude and my insisting on certain concepts and results.

Yes, I do know the answer, and every reasonable intelligent person should do, yet everybody jumps to the beat in a glaring conformatism, only revealing that you don’t understand it’s glaring irrelevance of questioning the existance of a well known color.
You sure have a superior knowledge to mine, but you don’t know how to use it.

Try look at it this way, if anyone in a big buisness begins to babble about if red color exist, they would get fired for being kuku, it’s really that simple.

14

Hi Moreno,

I am just about to leave for a week’s holiday, I will respond to your interesting questions when I return.

15

Drusuz, please cease trolling. Either address the OP with cogent arguments, or stay out of the discussion.

16

I don’t troll, look at all those other posts where you accused me of trolling or highly disagreed with, needest I say “The Academy” thread? I am right in what I do and say, if anyone is trolling, it’s Monero, open your eyes!

17

Hi Moreno,

Sorry it took a little while to get back to you, I’ve been busy with other things.

I understand a deterministic universe to have the characteristic I mentioned in my initial post, that knowledge of the location and momentum of every atom at a given time would allow one to state their location and momentum at some future time. My suggestion is that a consciousness like ours allows us to move the atoms in our brains (and elsewhere) in such a way that it would no longer be possible to predict their future location and momentum in that way. For example, I don’t believe it is possible to predict from the state of the universe yesterday that I will type a 5 here today. The relevant information to make that prediction is simply not there in the state of yesterday’s universe.

In the cases i have in mind and in the examples I give, nothing leads to the choices, nothing makes the atoms go in direction x, except the will of the person making the choice. The choices are not predetermined, that’s why this is “free will”!

It’s not simply random, and it is dependent on something in the given individual, namely his or her will.

18

I understand that. This leaves the issue of what causes consciuosness to do Z rather than A. And if it is not the physical state of the universe, how is it not random? If it is random, how is this free will? If it is not random, but also not caused by physical things, how does consciousness choose? Wouldn’t it be choosing based on experiences, desires etc. - iow things with physical correlates, things that are part of what is determined?

So there is this consciousness, one that chooses, what drives it to choose vanilla over chocolate - maria over Sue? If it is not because of physical interactions that it has already had, what criteria does it use?

19

The conscious agent causes the changes in the physical state of the universe.

Your questions seem to assume a dualistic universe in which we have physical and non-physical things, which are assumed not to be able to interact. The word “physical” causes some problems in this discussion, because of the notion that the mental cannot interact with the physical. My position is that there is just one universe with innumerable aspects, including what we call the mental and the physical.

It doesn’t matter. There might not be any criteria, it might not be a choice between alternatives (indeed the notion of choices being between specified alternatives is questionable in this context), but in any case it could just be a decision to act in a certain way, or just to think a certain thought.

20

This is grabbed out of thin air, any social study would suggest that our choises are bound by both genetic memory and eviroment. If you actually knew about group think, sheeple etc, you would know that only few very strong people may make own choises, and in very special situations even strong people will resort to groupthink.