[Al_U_Card]

Quantum dynamical philosophy 101

Reality is what you make of it.

[helene_t]

Al_U_Card, on Jun 25 2007, 12:07 AM, said:

Quantum dynamical philosophy 101

Reality is what you make of it.

I think that the "constructed reality" is a general philosophical principle that is not related to quantum mechanics. I might have missed something, though.

Even if one subscribes to the interpretation of quantum mechanics that a conscious observer influences the observed, it does not necesarilly follow that the the observer excercises conscious control on the object. The observed state may be completely random. After all, if you could decide if Schroedinger's cat is dead or alive, there's no reason to observe it since you already know that it is whatever you want it to be.

Constructed realities are at a different level. In the multiversum theory, you can define the other universes as existing or not, according to your taste. Just like in mathematics you can chose the axioms that appeal to you.

[Al_U_Card]

helene_t, on Jun 25 2007, 03:54 AM, said:

After all, if you could decide if Schroedinger's cat is dead or alive, there's no reason to observe it since you already know that it is whatever you want it to be........you can define the other universes as existing or not, according to your taste.

Well, now that we have elucidated the meaning of life, we can all sleep better. QED

[mikeh]

I am way, way late to this thread.. I stopped reading the watercooler a while ago.

But, touching upon the free will issue, I have been trying to recall where I read of a study that monitored brain activity in connection with the timing of a so-called conscious decision to manipulate an object and the start of the electrical impulse that actuated the movement. The details are vague, but I seem to recall that the authors of the study had found that the electrical impulse, triggering the movement of a limb (or finger) actually started before the conscious decision was made. So our conscious brain is retroactively rationalizing a response that began automatically, and creating the illusion, within our minds, that 'it' (or "I") chose to intitiate the action.

[goobers]

mikeh, on Jun 26 2007, 07:15 PM, said:

I am way, way late to this thread.. I stopped reading the watercooler a while ago.

But, touching upon the free will issue, I have been trying to recall where I read of a study that monitored brain activity in connection with the timing of a so-called conscious decision to manipulate an object and the start of the electrical impulse that actuated the movement. The details are vague, but I seem to recall that the authors of the study had found that the electrical impulse, triggering the movement of a limb (or finger) actually started before the conscious decision was made. So our conscious brain is retroactively rationalizing a response that began automatically, and creating the illusion, within our minds, that 'it' (or "I") chose to intitiate the action.

Hume! David Hume I say!

[DrTodd13]

mikeh, on Jun 26 2007, 04:15 PM, said:

I am way, way late to this thread.. I stopped reading the watercooler a while ago.

But, touching upon the free will issue, I have been trying to recall where I read of a study that monitored brain activity in connection with the timing of a so-called conscious decision to manipulate an object and the start of the electrical impulse that actuated the movement. The details are vague, but I seem to recall that the authors of the study had found that the electrical impulse, triggering the movement of a limb (or finger) actually started before the conscious decision was made. So our conscious brain is retroactively rationalizing a response that began automatically, and creating the illusion, within our minds, that 'it' (or "I") chose to intitiate the action.

That's not the only interpretation. You could just as easily say that your free will made the decision and your consciousness only became aware of it 500ms later. There was also a recent report about the study of some insect. They were put in a completely white room with no visible landmarks...no edges, nothing to tell one direction from another. Then their movements were monitored. The idea was that if you remove all sensory clues then there would be nothing in a deterministic insect "mind" to cause a change of direction. Therefore, if we remove determinism then one might think all that is left is randomness. However, they determined that the insects' movements were not random either. Thus, they conclude that this insects' brains were neither wholly deterministic or random. What else is there? Free will? I don't know that much about the experiment but it is intriguing.

[helene_t]

mikeh, on Jun 27 2007, 02:15 AM, said:

But, touching upon the free will issue, I have been trying to recall where I read of a study that monitored brain activity in connection with the timing of a so-called conscious decision to manipulate an object and the start of the electrical impulse that actuated the movement. The details are vague, but I seem to recall that the authors of the study had found that the electrical impulse, triggering the movement of a limb (or finger) actually started before the conscious decision was made. So our conscious brain is retroactively rationalizing a response that began automatically, and creating the illusion, within our minds, that 'it' (or "I") chose to intitiate the action.

Yes, those experiments were discussed in Denett's book as well. His main conclusion was that there seems to be no unique time point at which information reaches the "consciousness" - consciousness is spread out over a distributed system, and the time it takes form information to travel from one module to another can be as much as 0.4 secs.

I'll have to agree with Todd that this does not necesarily settle the "free will" dispute. But maybe that depends on ones definition of the free will. If your "true" free will must necesarilly be identical to your own perceived (in effect, reported) free will then your interpretation sounds correct. I don't think that is a reasonable model when it comes to "tough" decisions inviolving ethical dillemas and such - the well-known psychological phenomena of sublimation, i.e. people make up justifications of their decisions in retrospect (and actually believe in those justifications) in order to feel good about what they have decided, contradicts that as I see it. But for the less value-loaded decisions studied in the experiment you mention (it was about pushinh buttons in response to sound signals) maybe the researchers who conducted the experiments would say that they can trust the subjects' reports and therefore disproved free will.

Todd said:

The idea was that if you remove all sensory clues then there would be nothing in a deterministic insect "mind" to cause a change of direction. Therefore, if we remove determinism then one might think all that is left is randomness. However, they determined that the insects' movements were not random either. Thus, they conclude that this insects' brains were neither wholly deterministic or random. What else is there? Free will? I don't know that much about the experiment but it is intriguing.

I wonder what "not random" means in this context. Sounds to me more of a case for either a very complex model for what is going on (different self-organized patterns in the insects' behaviour arise purely due to differences in random seeds) or some initial information stored in each insects' memory prior to the experiment. Then again, I don't know about this experiment. Certainly sounds interesting.

[DrTodd13]

Fruit fly free will.

Link to the story I mentioned.

[Al_U_Card]

DrTodd13, on Jun 26 2007, 08:30 PM, said:

Thus, they conclude that this insects' brains were neither wholly deterministic or random. What else is there? Free will?

Instinct.

Consciousness replaced it to allow the extension of ourselves into our environment in an intentional fashion.

If you need groceries, how you get to the store depends on what method of transportation is available, how you choose to use it to get to the store and even what you decide to buy.

But don't get the victuals and you will not succeed with the rest of the plan...

[joshs]

DrTodd13, on Jun 20 2007, 02:17 PM, said:

hrothgar, on Jun 20 2007, 10:32 AM, said:

DrTodd13, on Jun 20 2007, 09:06 PM, said:

I almost launched into a discussion in the quantum mechanics thread because I do think it ties in.  Helene...there is a reason to believe physics may play a role in the brain.  Penrose's argument is that the human brain can do things that are provably un-doable for a classic computer/turing machine.  This statement is so important I should say it again.  Humans have performed mental tasks that it has been proven that a turing machine could never complete, no matter how complex it was.

Actually what you should say is that Penrose claims that Humans have performed mental tasks that a Turing machine could never complete.

You should probably also note that very few scientists accept Penrose's claim...

"Scientists" shouldn't really get a vote in this matter. A climatologist would be quite unqualified to voice an opinion. Same for physicists and biologists. They can say they don't believe it all they want. They can say they don't see how it could possibly work. What they need to do is show the flaw in his argument based on computer science. I've yet to see a convincing refutation.

Ooh, I am going to have a field day with this. Penrose is a Mathematical Physisist. He important work is in Differential Geometry and the Structure of Space Time. He is most famous for his work on Black Holes. Now while some people's brains do in fact remind me of Black Holes, I have to remark that he has no special expertese in Cognitive Science, although one of his students did change fields and do work on AI and on a bridge playign program (GIB). I in fact, did my thesis research in a similar area to much of Penrose's work (his work on twister's and on minkowski space)- I certainly don't think that that qualifies me as an expert on the brain (any more than it qualifies him). In fact most people I have read who do work in the field of Cognetive science (For instance Richard Hofstader, Daniel Dennet, etc.) don't agree with Penrose at all. I personally think penrose's argument is poppycock. Why can't a turing machine prove Godel's theorem? That penrose asserts that there are things that a computer can't do, doesn't make it true. Where you don't see a conclusive refutation, I don't even see a claim. As far as I am concered this is like my claiming that God is a Blue guy from a planet orbiting Riga, and saying we should accept God is Blue and from Riga unless you can prove otherwise.

Anyway Godel's Theorem a very formal theorem that can be stated and proven in a very formal system. It just happens to have meta system conclusions. We proved it in a finite number of steps in my theory of computation class, probably a monkey could get this one right eventually with a little luck...

Anyway, what the heck is this argument Todd? WHo exactly are you claiming is qualified to make an argument about conciousness.

[DrTodd13]

I'm saying that computer scientists are qualified. Cognitive scientists are not qualified to refute an argument based on computability. I think you miss the point here. You can't say a turing machine can prove Godel just because you did it because the supposition here is that humans can do things that turing machines can't.

[mikeh]

helene_t, on Jun 26 2007, 11:59 PM, said:

mikeh, on Jun 27 2007, 02:15 AM, said:

But, touching upon the free will issue, I have been trying to recall where I read of a study that monitored brain activity in connection with the timing of a so-called conscious decision to manipulate an object and the start of the electrical impulse that actuated the movement. The details are vague, but I seem to recall that the authors of the study had found that the electrical impulse, triggering the movement of a limb (or finger) actually started before the conscious decision was made. So our conscious brain is retroactively rationalizing a response that began automatically, and creating the illusion, within our minds, that 'it' (or "I") chose to intitiate the action.

Yes, those experiments were discussed in Denett's book as well. His main conclusion was that there seems to be no unique time point at which information reaches the "consciousness" - consciousness is spread out over a distributed system, and the time it takes form information to travel from one module to another can be as much as 0.4 secs.

I'll have to agree with Todd that this does not necesarily settle the "free will" dispute. But maybe that depends on ones definition of the free will. If your "true" free will must necesarilly be identical to your own perceived (in effect, reported) free will then your interpretation sounds correct. I don't think that is a reasonable model when it comes to "tough" decisions inviolving ethical dillemas and such - the well-known psychological phenomena of sublimation, i.e. people make up justifications of their decisions in retrospect (and actually believe in those justifications) in order to feel good about what they have decided, contradicts that as I see it. But for the less value-loaded decisions studied in the experiment you mention (it was about pushinh buttons in response to sound signals) maybe the researchers who conducted the experiments would say that they can trust the subjects' reports and therefore disproved free will.

Intriguing issue: can there be 'free will' that operates on a level of which we are not aware? Is it even meaningful to define free will in this fashion?

To the 'me' who read your post, the answer has to be NO.

If I am a puppet whose strings are being pulled by some hidden and inaccessible puppet master.. then 'I' certainly don' t have free will.

And there seems to be no plausible reason why the puppet master has to have free will. Occam's Razor suggests, to me anyway, that the puppet master is more plausibly reacting due to a combination of randomness coupled with hard-wired responses that have evolved in our life-forms over time... the startle response, for one.... i.e. instinct. We know that there are such hard-wired behaviours... even if we refuse to see it in ourselves, we surely see it in other creatures... and we know that there is an element of randomness to physical activities if we descend deeply enough in scale. So why superimpose, on these known and sufficient explanations, the added and inexplicable element of 'free will' on the part of the puppet master?

Anyway, I appreciate that I should shut up and read those authors who have thought longer, harder, and better than my sophomoric meanderings Thanks to those, such as yourself, who have posted more meaningful comments

[Al_U_Card]

mikeh, on Jun 27 2007, 02:51 PM, said:

Intriguing issue: can there be 'free will' that operates on a level of which we are not aware? Is it even meaningful to define free will in this fashion?

To the 'me' who read your post, the answer has to be NO.

If I am a puppet whose strings are being pulled by some hidden and inaccessible puppet master.. then 'I' certainly don' t have free will.

And there seems to be no plausible reason why the puppet master has to have free will. Occam's Razor suggests, to me anyway, that the puppet master is more plausibly reacting due to a combination of randomness coupled with hard-wired responses that have evolved in our life-forms over time... the startle response, for one.... i.e. instinct. We know that there are such hard-wired behaviours... even if we refuse to see it in ourselves, we surely see it in other creatures... and we know that there is an element of randomness to physical activities if we descend deeply enough in scale. So why superimpose, on these known and sufficient explanations, the added and inexplicable element of 'free will' on the part of the puppet master?

Anyway, I appreciate that I should shut up and read those authors who have thought longer, harder, and better than my sophomoric meanderings Thanks to those, such as yourself, who have posted more meaningful comments

I usually regret not agreeing with you Mike, but your opinion is more valuable to me than all of those other ones combined.

[joshs]

DrTodd13, on Jun 27 2007, 12:16 PM, said:

I'm saying that computer scientists are qualified. Cognitive scientists are not qualified to refute an argument based on computability. I think you miss the point here. You can't say a turing machine can prove Godel just because you did it because the supposition here is that humans can do things that turing machines can't.

OK, so you are
1. clearly saying that Penrose in NOT qualified, since he is not a computer scientist. Its very interesting that you are praising his argument, and then saying other people with similiar background do not have the background to make an argument about the subject.

2. Further, you are saying that someone who studies computers is capable of making a statement that compares computers and brains, but someone who studies brains is not qualified. Facenating.

3. What supposition? You are making a supposistion that humans can do things that turning machines can't. I have never seen any proof of this statement. Hence your argument is based on a premise without any foundation. Why exactly can't a turing machine prove godel's theorem? Or some other interesting statement starting from the same axioms. As a mathematician, with some expertise into what constitutes proofs, I would dispute that a sequence of statements that are not translatable into something tha can be described in a formal language, and proven sequentially, was a proof to begin with. So almost by definition, a proof is a sequence of statements that a computer can devlop. So the main question is "does the brain have to use something from outside the formal system, to realize what the correct sequence of steps was?" Further, is that extra thing the brain is using from outside the formal system its self just part of a slightly largely formal system (and hence can be part of a turing machine) or does the key ingrediant come magically from someplace other than the formal physics rules that govern the neurons in the brain.

[hrothgar]

joshs, on Jun 28 2007, 02:05 AM, said:

3. What supposition? You are making a supposition that humans can do things that turning machines can't. I have never seen any proof of this statement. Hence your argument is based on a premise without any foundation. Why exactly can't a turing machine prove godel's theorem? Or some other interesting statement starting from the same axioms. As a mathematician, with some expertise into what constitutes proofs, I would dispute that a sequence of statements that are not translatable into something that can be described in a formal language, and proven sequentially, was a proof to begin with. So almost by definition, a proof is a sequence of statements that a computer can develop.

Hi Josh

Couple quick comments:

1. I very much agree with your statement that Penrose is asserting that humans can do things that a Turing machine can't. I am still waiting for anyone to provide some kind of proof of this assertion.

2. There is a lot of documentation regarding Turing machines and incompleteness. Back in the 1930s, Turing proved that there isn't a general solution to the "halting problem". This was one of the "big" results in the field. There is a decent write up available at

http://en.wikipedia....Halting_problem

[helene_t]

mikeh, on Jun 27 2007, 09:51 PM, said:

And there seems to be no plausible reason why the puppet master has to have free will. Occam's Razor suggests, to me anyway, that the puppet master is more plausibly reacting due to a combination of randomness coupled with hard-wired responses that have evolved in our life-forms over time... the startle response, for one.... i.e. instinct.

I agree with this.

I don't need the concept of a free will. Then again, in principle I don't need the concept of sentience either, since for the purpose of understanding behavior in terms of neurophysiology it doesn't matter to me if a computer that passed the Turing test would be sentient, or if the question about it being sentient is even meaningful.

And yet I "belive" in sentience, partly because I "feel" myself being sentient, partly because my moral sense relies on sentience in other humans and higher (whatever that means) animals. Besides, I have the idea that sentience is a better candidate of one day becoming a scientific concept than is free will, which to me sounds metaphysical.

This may be completely subjective. In fact I haven't seen any useful account on sentience (as distinct from the illusion of sentience). If I read and thought a lot more on this subject, and some milestone progress is made in consciousness research, I might change my view on sentience (and/or on free will) completely.

[helene_t]

joshs, on Jun 28 2007, 01:05 AM, said:

I have never seen any proof of this statement. Hence your argument is based on a premise without any foundation. Why exactly can't a turing machine prove godel's theorem? Or some other interesting statement starting from the same axioms. As a mathematician, with some expertise into what constitutes proofs, I would dispute that a sequence of statements that are not translatable into something tha can be described in a formal language, and proven sequentially, was a proof to begin with. So almost by definition, a proof is a sequence of statements that a computer can devlop.

That was one of my problems with Penrose's argument as well. But we have had this discussion in
another thread.

[DrTodd13]

What is the evolutionary benefit to sentience in a deterministic universe? It seems like it would only cause a feeling of helplessness if you realized that you were merely a captive spectator to life and couldn't influence anything. Sentience combined with illusory free will might convince you you had some control when you didn't but I still don't see the evolutionary benefit of it. Sentience is just an accident of increased brain power?

[DrTodd13]

joshs, on Jun 27 2007, 03:05 PM, said:

DrTodd13, on Jun 27 2007, 12:16 PM, said:

I'm saying that computer scientists are qualified.  Cognitive scientists are not qualified to refute an argument based on computability.  I think you miss the point here.  You can't say a turing machine can prove Godel just because you did it because the supposition here is that humans can do things that turing machines can't.

OK, so you are
1. clearly saying that Penrose in NOT qualified, since he is not a computer scientist. Its very interesting that you are praising his argument, and then saying other people with similiar background do not have the background to make an argument about the subject.

2. Further, you are saying that someone who studies computers is capable of making a statement that compares computers and brains, but someone who studies brains is not qualified. Facenating.

3. What supposition? You are making a supposistion that humans can do things that turning machines can't. I have never seen any proof of this statement. Hence your argument is based on a premise without any foundation. Why exactly can't a turing machine prove godel's theorem? Or some other interesting statement starting from the same axioms. As a mathematician, with some expertise into what constitutes proofs, I would dispute that a sequence of statements that are not translatable into something tha can be described in a formal language, and proven sequentially, was a proof to begin with. So almost by definition, a proof is a sequence of statements that a computer can devlop. So the main question is "does the brain have to use something from outside the formal system, to realize what the correct sequence of steps was?" Further, is that extra thing the brain is using from outside the formal system its self just part of a slightly largely formal system (and hence can be part of a turing machine) or does the key ingrediant come magically from someplace other than the formal physics rules that govern the neurons in the brain.

Sheehs...you're a stickler for subtlety. Let me try again. Here is what I'm saying. If Penrose says the brain is more than a turning machine and offers a proof from computer science then it makes no sense to respond by saying that the brain is wholly deterministic with randomness based on some theory from cognitive science. I'm just saying you have to address the argument directly and not ignore it and counter with "nuh uh" cause my psychology book said so. I'd venture to say Penrose understands computability better than I do and I took graduate level courses in it. So just because his degree is not in computer science does not mean he doesn't understand computability. In this sense, I was calling him a computer scientist.

If someone is told "a brain is just a high power computer" then yes, only someone that understands computability is in a position to make an argument that the brain can compute things that are not computable by a turning machine. They are looking strictly at brain input/output and using that to infer something about function. If the argument is sound then I don't care how much those cognitive scientist or philosophers disagree they are wrong. Philosophers certainly can't decide on monism/dualism since those have been around thousands of years. Monist cognitive scientists certainly would have a very difficult time proving beyond doubt there aren't quantum effects in the brain. They may say it would be hard to imagine it but if a prove from a different perspective is offered that something interesting is going on they should listen.

It has been a while since I read Penrose's argument....I'll try to reread it soon...definitely by the weekend. I think you are asking the right questions but obviously nobody agrees on the answer. The size of the formal system doesn't matter. There are always true statements that no formal system can prove true. If a human could somehow do it then that would seem to be proof of magic.

[helene_t]

DrTodd13, on Jun 28 2007, 02:04 AM, said:

What is the evolutionary benefit to sentience in a deterministic universe?

Tough one. The (partial) answers I have encountered so far are:
1: Sentience is beneficial to itself, not to humans. It's a mental parasite that invaded our minds.
2: Sentience is not real.
3: Sentience arises automatically as a spin-off whenever a mind aquires particular faculties (say, self-awareness).
4: Sentience is an unlikely evolutionary accident but as long as it's probability is non-zero (think of a gene with clearly selective disadvantages that survives for million of years because the non-holders of the gene tend to get hit by meteorites), if one believes in the Multiversum theory it follows from the anthropic principle that WE must be sentient. Thinking about it, maybe the infinity improbability device from Hitch-hiker's Guide must be invented for the same reason.

1: may in some sense be more plausible than a theory based on fitness of the mind, but as I see it it just replaces one mystery with another one that is equally perplexing. Maybe it will one day form the basis of a cool theory but so far I don't see the light.

2: would certainly make things easier but as said, it doesn't appeal to me.

3: seems to be the best candidate so far but I'm not sure if it solves anything, see 1:.

4: Is scientifically unsound and besides the hard problem seems to be how this probability could be non-zero. If it could be 10^(-10000000) we might as well speculate that it could be 50%, or 98% or whatever.

Consider the two models I proposed for Gerben's cat that sometimes wants to get petted and sometimes not:
1) a mechanistic model, taking the behavior of the human and the emotional state of the cat as input, and a decision as output.
2) the cat creates mental images of scenarios involving each of its alternatives, evaluates the emotions induced by those images, and selects the alternative that induces the most positive emotions.

Now 2) may be most efficiently (or most evolvably) implemented by recycling the emotion-inducing, emotion-evaluating and imagination faculties that already evolved to serve more basic functions.

This is all speculative, I do not argue that it's plausible, it's just one of many possible models. But if something like that model gained support, I would say that we have pinpointed some biological phenomena that seems somehow to be related to sentience and/or free will (whatever those things really are). And the evolution of what model 2) describes is something that can be addressed scientifically.