Bahman wrote: ↑March 23rd, 2023, 8:26 am
Gertie wrote: ↑March 22nd, 2023, 4:08 pm
Bahman wrote: ↑March 22nd, 2023, 11:58 am
Gertie wrote: ↑March 22nd, 2023, 6:44 am
To understand the issue, first you have to consider what it is that people think makes the universe deterministic. Whether that is correct or not, and whether there can be exceptions.
Many assume the universe is deterministic because we see predictable patterns, which Physicalism has modelled as laws, or forces, acting on matter. QM introduces an underlying probabilistic element, but that isn't really what we mean by options, choices, or mentally willing our behaviour in contrast to physicalist determinism.
In your post you point to pausing for thought, mentally weighing options and making choices based on mind somehow intervening in these physical processes when it comes to brains.
As far as we know, there are no physical brain processes which are in principle not following physicalist deterministic laws in response to physical stimuli. The pause then could reflect the complex physical brain processes taking time, or perhaps never, hitting the threshold to instigate motor neuron behaviour.
But - we don't understand the relationship between mind and body. And we can just as easily point to the evolutionary utlitity of being able to mentally reason through decisions, weigh options, imagine the consequences of different decisions, etc. Not to mention the obvious evolutionary utility of feeling hunger, satiety, lust, care, comfort, pain, memory, etc. There's an obvious functional (evolutionary) account of the role of our mental states which makes sense of our behaviour too. And creates room for options which at least escape physicalist determinism, but perhaps raises an issue of psychological determinism - my psychology is such that it is inevitable I will make specific choices, that I will prioritise this over that option, just like I will remove my hand from a burning fire. (Some see a 'compatabilistic' approach to options making sense here). Never-the-less, this raises the possibility we can in effect mentally intervene in the physical brain processes, mind over matter. And if mental experience is simply causally redundant epiphenomenal baggage, why does it look so well attuned to utility...
These two explanatory accounts, the mental and physical, run in parallel. And as far as we can tell are closely related through our observations of neural correlation. Raising the additional problem of over-determinism.
Without understanding the mind-body relationship, which we don't, the question and apparent paradoxes remain unanswerable.
The mind becomes important when it comes to making a decision when there is a conflict of interest in options. That is an interesting but different problem. My point however is how options could possibly be real in a deterministic world. I have an argument for the realness of options though. The heart of my argument is the coincidence of subjective experience of options and the pause in our physical and mental activity. I am arguing that this coincidence can not be due to chance so we can trust the subjective experience and be sure about the existence of options.
In the context I gave I don't think noting one type of correlation is enough to draw conclusions from. And Libet and subsequent similar experiments offer a different perspective on a 'readiness potential' pause you might want to check out.
I am aware of Libet experiment. By pause I don't mean the readiness potential but the time between facing options and making a decision.
Gertie wrote: ↑March 22nd, 2023, 6:44 am
I also disagree that there's a pause in physical brain activity or mental activity when we consider options - did you really mean to say that?
But anyway I gave an alternative possibility to that point within my post -
As far as we know, there are no physical brain processes which are in principle not following physicalist deterministic laws in response to physical stimuli. The pause then could reflect the complex physical brain processes taking time, or perhaps never, hitting the threshold to instigate motor neuron behaviour.
My question is why the brain processes should take the time or perhaps never end if options are not real. Why do these two phenomena, the pause and the subjective experience of option coincide? It could not be a matter of chance.
I assume the pause you refer to is the pause in
behaviour - I might stay sitting for a few seconds while I decide if I fancy a coffee or tea, before I go to the kitchen and make a cuppa?
If we assume neural correlation holds, then the time I mentally mull the options is mirrored by correlated neural activity.
Physicalist determinists would say the neural interactions make the 'decision', based perhaps on the strengths of previously established neural patterns of connections. These neural interactions being re-sparked in slightly different circs take a bit of time before they in turn spark the motor neurons which get me to the kitchen. Libet (controversially) claims on top of that, there's a pause between the physical neural processes (in quick decisions at least) becoming conscious, the neurons have made the 'decision' before I'm consciously aware. But there was never really an option or decision, just neurons physically reacting to physical stimuli. The correlated conscious experience being useless epiphenomenal baggage.
The case of a complex choice which takes a long time is similar in principle I'd think. Say I'm thinking of changing career because I don't like my job, but it has a lot of perks and I'm not sure I should. I might think over the pros and cons for weeks on and off. That thinking over is similarly correlated to neural interactivity, which physicalist determinists say will make the actual 'decision'. But it takes weeks for a pattern of neural activity to be strong enough to spark the motor neurons to tell my boss I resign. Perhaps it took a final straw argument at work, or particularly bad day to strengthen the required neural connection to instigate the behaviour of resigning. And again Libet-arians might say I don't consciously know I've told my boss until very shortly after I've done it.
So for physicalist determinists at least, the pause in the behaviour of enacting a choice which coincides with mentally considering options doesn't make the options real. I would always do the same thing, behave the same way, if the same physical stimuli caused the same physical neuronal activity.
Of course physicalist determinists don't understand the mind-body relationship any better than anybody else, so they could be wrong. And many physicalists believe they can mentally choose options and mentally will their actions. It certainly feels that way. They just don't know how that could work. And neither do you when you claim options exist.