Proactive Behaviour and Causality

[Dragonfly]

Note that they did not send Bill Dwyer to Dissent, and others who agree with most of Objectivism except for certain points, and others who have significant disagreements. I suspect there is something of a personality conflict here.

I remember how Rowlands venomously attacked Jonathan while the latter defended the sculpture of Allison Lapper. Soon afterwards Jonathan was also banned to dissent. Having a different taste in art seemed to be reason enough.

[Rodney]

Sorry, I don't mean to hijack this thread. By the way, I happen to agree with Mawdsley's project of integrating free will with causality. (I discuss this issue in my essay "667" that I mentioned in another thread.)

Perhaps another factor in putting a poster in Dissent at Rebirth of Reason is putting forth multiple positions that are judged to be in conflict with Objectivism, while maintaining that they are compatible. I can see how that would be seen as just as disruptive as continual anti-Objectivism.

Apart from the rightness or wrongness of the poster or of the forum administrator on the issues in question, I think such a policy makes sense. The only thing to do in such a case is for each side to go its own way.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

For all I know he may have written the most outrageous bullshit elsewhere. But I liked the fact that he (at least in these posts) didn't pontificate and didn't scoff at other people, but that he was more or less thinking aloud, not dogmatic and pretending to have all the answers.

Dragonfly,

I suggest you read more of him. (On a personal evaluation note, he thinks I am a looter. )

Michael

[Jonathan]

Note that they did not send Bill Dwyer to Dissent, and others who agree with most of Objectivism except for certain points, and others who have significant disagreements. I suspect there is something of a personality conflict here.

I remember how Rowlands venomously attacked Jonathan while the latter defended the sculpture of Allison Lapper. Soon afterwards Jonathan was also banned to dissent. Having a different taste in art seemed to be reason enough.

Right, and I even defended the sculpture on the grounds that it is "romantic" in the Objectivist sense -- that it represents a heroic, pro-volitional view of existence -- just as I had done so about other works of art. Amusing, isn't it, that I was tagged a "dissenter" on an Objectivist site because I defended or admired works of art for their anti-deterministic qualities, yet some of RoR's most frequent posters are still free to preach determinism there (not to mention infanticide and cannibalism)?

J

[Paul Mawdsley]

Dragonfly always makes me think. It would be so much easier to agree with him than to disagree. All the measurable evidence, the known physical laws and the concept of causation that is the backbone of physical theorizing support his case. And I know this to be true. So why do I disagree with his contention that free will is an illusion? When Dragonfly sees the conflict between the introspective evidence of free will and the deterministic concept of causation (quantum indeterminism notwithstanding) that has shaped the modern physics worldview, he finds fault with the introspective evidence. I find myself challenging the deterministic concept of causation and the modern physics worldview. Why? Why do I stake my claim on unmeasurable evidence? Why, in my own mind, is my desire to hold onto my sense of free will so impassioned that I have been driven to overturn deterministic causation and the worldview that has been created by physicists who's mind's I hold in very high esteem?

When I began to think about a response to Dragonfly I quickly realized this is about more than just a cerebral discussion on the meaning and existence of free will. My mind leaped in so many different directions that I found it difficult to put together anything that resembled a cohesive post. I found myself thinking about the nature and dynamics of the psyche and the idea that there is a central core-- that in myself I identify most closely with-- which is aware and is asserted. I found myself thinking about issues involved with the nature/nurture debate and my own experience of self-determination. I thought about a discussion between Dragonfly and Ellen some time ago on the loci of sensations, which triggered a thought in me that awareness is distinct from sensation and thus, that which is aware is distinct from that which senses. I considered the concept of qualia and about how the qualitativeness of experience is fundamentally out of reach for a computer and is fundamentally necessary in the dynamics of my own psyche. And I found myself thinking about a worldview I have slowly been putting together, based on a different concept of causation, which is an attempt to integrate the modern physics worldview with evidence– such as our experience of willing and choosing without an antecedent chain of necessitation– that doesn't fit deterministic causation.

These thoughts suggest some of the context from which I choose to hold onto my sense of free will while overturning deterministic causation and the worldview that has been created by physicists. One reason I hold onto my sense of free will in the face of todays almost overwhelming cultural pressure to accept determinism and the worldview of modern physics is because I have explored the nature and dynamics of my psyche and found an "I" that can be conceptually separated from the "me"; a core that is aware of and able to focus on information processed by different parts of me; a core that is asserted via different parts of me. This core has spent a lifetime resisting external forces so I could be self-determining rather than merely a product of my genetic and environmental programming. It is hard for me to say this core does not exist.

A second reason I hold onto my sense of free will is because I see nothing particularly persuasive in the idea that we are fundamentally the same as computers. Much of what my brain does is very analogous to the workings of a computer I readily admit. But the operation of my core (which can perhaps be found in the processes of the reticular formation and the reticular activating system) is fundamentally different to the operation of a computer. It is aware. It chooses. It wills. Its operations are experiential and qualitative. (I am not the first to suggest that the core of consciousness or the soul could be found in the workings of the reticular formation. See Penfield or Penrose.)

A third reason I hold onto my sense of free will is because I have been reasonably successful, at least according to my own standards, at putting together a new concept of causation, reinterpreting the worldview presented by modern physics and integrating evidence that deterministic causation tells us we should ignore. Surely, an attempt at a more integrated view of existence is worth the effort.

Paul

[BaalChatzaf]

A second reason I hold onto my sense of free will is because I see nothing particularly persuasive in the idea that we are fundamentally the same as computers. Much of what my brain does is very analogous to the workings of a computer I readily admit. But the operation of my core (which can perhaps be found in the processes of the reticular formation and the reticular activating system) is fundamentally different to the operation of a computer. It is aware. It chooses. It wills. Its operations are experiential and qualitative. (I am not the first to suggest that the core of consciousness or the soul could be found in the workings of the reticular formation. See Penfield or Penrose.)

Penrose. He rejects the computational model of the brain.

I think "the soul" is the doing of the pre-frontal cortex.

Your assumption is largely materialistic and physical which I applaud. Democritus and Luecippus were right. All there is are atoms and motion in the Void.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Brant Gaede]

A second reason I hold onto my sense of free will is because I see nothing particularly persuasive in the idea that we are fundamentally the same as computers. Much of what my brain does is very analogous to the workings of a computer I readily admit. But the operation of my core (which can perhaps be found in the processes of the reticular formation and the reticular activating system) is fundamentally different to the operation of a computer. It is aware. It chooses. It wills. Its operations are experiential and qualitative. (I am not the first to suggest that the core of consciousness or the soul could be found in the workings of the reticular formation. See Penfield or Penrose.)

Penrose. He rejects the computational model of the brain.

I think "the soul" is the doing of the pre-frontal cortex.

Your assumption is largely materialistic and physical which I applaud. Democritus and Luecippus were right. All there is are atoms and motion in the Void.

Ba'al Chatzaf

There is also ice cream--and sex! Don't forget sex! Especially sex AND ice cream!

--Brant

[Paul Mawdsley]

There is also ice cream--and sex! Don't forget sex! Especially sex AND ice cream!

--Brant

I've never tried ice cream with sex. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm! That just might increase the motion of the atoms in the void. One more thing to put on the To-Do list.

Paul

Edited September 16, 2007 by Paul Mawdsley

[Paul Mawdsley]

I think "the soul" is the doing of the pre-frontal cortex.

Your assumption is largely materialistic and physical which I applaud. Democritus and Luecippus were right. All there is are atoms and motion in the Void.

Ba'al,

Thanks for the applause. I would change one thing from Democritus and Luecippus: All there is are "atoms" in perpetual motion in the void-- all moving at a constant speed affected by other atoms only in how that speed/energy is directed. (Newton's laws of motion are an emergent property of these "atoms" in perpetual motion and Einstein's relativity is a description of this emergence.)

As far as the "soul" being located in the prefrontal cortex, I don't disagree. At first glance this may appear like I am contradicting my previous statement about the core of my psyche being located in the reticular formation. Again, a more complex treatment of causation can resolve this apparent contradiction. When the reticular formation is connected with other areas of the brain via the action of the reticular activating system and the prefrontal cortex, and these components behave as an integrated holistic system, the assertive properties of the "soul" emerge. The key point though is that the proactive element, the location of intrinsic energy that provides the impulse of the will, is in the reticular formation, at least in my theoretical model. The prefrontal cortex provides direction for this energy.

Paul

[Dragonfly]

A second reason I hold onto my sense of free will is because I see nothing particularly persuasive in the idea that we are fundamentally the same as computers. Much of what my brain does is very analogous to the workings of a computer I readily admit. But the operation of my core (which can perhaps be found in the processes of the reticular formation and the reticular activating system) is fundamentally different to the operation of a computer. It is aware. It chooses. It wills. Its operations are experiential and qualitative.

Being aware, choosing and willing all correspond to certain activities in your brain. Why can't these activities be necessitated by earlier states and activities in your brain (and indirectly by your environment)?

[Roger Bissell]

Mind and will are no more an "illusion" than is the color red. Both are the form in which we are aware of what certain things are doing and, at the same time, those things as we are directly aware of them. Mind, will, and colors are all real--just as real as the things of which they are attributes and forms of our awareness of those attributes.

That, however, is where I draw the line. I do not believe that color has causal efficacy, and I do not believe that mind has causal efficacy, nor that will is "free." What has causal efficacy is an entity. What is free or not free in some respect or other is an entity. I think that many Objectivists and others badly understand this issue.

REB

[Paul Mawdsley]

Being aware, choosing and willing all correspond to certain activities in your brain. Why can't these activities be necessitated by earlier states and activities in your brain (and indirectly by your environment)?

The context of causal necessity needs to be clarified. In deterministic causation, no matter how complex the processes are leading to an event, the final action of an entity --i.e.: the direction and amplitude of the action-- is determined by the transfer of energy from the system to the entity, combined with the state of the entity at the point of transfer. In this sense the action of the entity is necessitated by the antecedent action of the system of which it is a part. Based on this model and the computer model of the brain, when I interact with my environment it transfers energy to me via my senses, which is processed by my genetic and environmental programming, and necessitates an action in me. Apparently, different possible action alternatives are triggered, which I see as choices, some algorithm kicks in to determine the best alternative, a choice is made completely deterministically and an action is taken. Thus, I have the illusion of breaking causal determinism because I experience the existence of alternatives but the outcome is completely deterministic.

But this is not what I experience. I don't experience myself as passively witnessing this process. I experience myself as expending effort and energy to resist an automated response, to explore and evaluate my action alternatives, to create new action alternatives if I judge the existing ones to be unsatisfactory and to set a given choice in motion. This effort and energy seems to be something outside of the deterministic chain of necessitated action. In fact, it seems capable of breaking that chain and/or starting a new one.

Just to be clear, I am not suggesting some supernatural alternative. I am suggesting that our understanding of physical reality and the nature of causation may be more subtle and more complex than we currently understand. I use words like "soul" and "will" and "spirit" but, ultimately, I think everything is just physical things in motion. I'm just trying to figure out how physical things in motion can account for all that I am aware of. I've been playing with the idea that things might ultimately be physical things who's motions are an intrinsic property rather than the result of a transferred stuff called energy. This creates a possible natural way to have an entity that can break classical causal chains and initiate new ones. It also requires that the foundations of physics would have to be reinterpreted in a way that fits with existing knowledge of the physical universe.

Paul

Edited September 17, 2007 by Paul Mawdsley

[Paul Mawdsley]

Mind and will are no more an "illusion" than is the color red. Both are the form in which we are aware of what certain things are doing and, at the same time, those things as we are directly aware of them. Mind, will, and colors are all real--just as real as the things of which they are attributes and forms of our awareness of those attributes.

That, however, is where I draw the line. I do not believe that color has causal efficacy, and I do not believe that mind has causal efficacy, nor that will is "free." What has causal efficacy is an entity. What is free or not free in some respect or other is an entity. I think that many Objectivists and others badly understand this issue.

REB

Roger,

I agree with placing "will" in the same category as "mind" and "red". I agree that these are not entities and thus, do not technically have causal efficacy. However, I still say there is something at the core of my psyche, an entity that I have come to associate with the descriptions I have read about the reticular formation, that has causal efficacy. From its interaction with other parts of the brain emerges will that is free from deterministic necessitation.

Paul

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Paul,

What you just described is self-generated action, one of the cornerstones of the Objectivist definition of life.

There are two ways of looking at the things that generate causes: top down and bottom up.

I will apply this to a single entity to make it clear. Top down would mean looking at the whole entity and analyzing its impact on its different parts. From the bottom up, one looks at the parts and analyzes their impact on the whole. In medicine, to give an example, a top down approach to a liver disease would be to have a good attitude, engage in healthy habits, etc., in short, make the whole body work as well as possible. Often this helps the body to cure the liver or even avoid disease in the first place. From the bottom up, one sees how the liver is affected by a disease, then sees how it works in relation to the rest of the body and treats the symptoms on that level.

Science is usually more concerned with a bottom up approach. The most common top down approach from a scientific lens I have seen is to say that a whole is made up of a, b, c, d, etc. Then it ends. Once focus is on a part, work stays on trying to figure out its impact on the whole (and on other wholes).

The concept of "synergy" (the whole is more than the sum of the parts) is a form of trying to look at a top down approach from a bottom-up angle, but at least it hints at principles beyond those operating from the bottom up.

These two perspectives (top-down and bottom-up) can be used for micro and macro levels, and other forms of organization.

Getting back to what you described above, you are experiencing awareness from the top down (as you should). The key is to find top down principles that are more than religious speculation or new age holistic stuff. As usual, I think the truth is in a proper balance rather than go exclusively one way or the other.

(I also think we do not have all the sense organs needed to experience certain parts of reality. The more I read about quantum physics, the more I see the likelihood of this possibility.)

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

Paul,

What you just described is self-generated action, one of the cornerstones of the Objectivist definition of life.

That violates two laws of thermodynamics. Living systems require energy from the outside. They do not self generate their actions.

Living systems may be -self regulated- through a complex of homeostatic processes. A homeostatic process is one that operates on the principle of negative feedback, like a steam engine centrifugal governor or the thermostat-furnace system that keeps your house in a desired temperature range. Notice that these regulator systems fail when the energy source fails. To regulate the speed of a steam engine one needs a heat source. To regulate the temperature of the house one needs fuel for the furnace. Both come from -outside- the system. Our regulator systems fail when we die. We can no longer keep our internal temperature at 98.6 degrees F. (or there abouts). Our bodies cool to the ambient temperature.

See -Cybernetics- by Norbert Weiner. Also see

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybernetics

You might find it useful to review the laws of thermodynamics.

See

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_of_thermodynamics

The most important characteristics of a living system is that living systems can replicate parts of itself, from materials and energy gathered from outside and can even produce a biotic prototype that either duplicates the original organism (non-sexual reproduction) or nearly duplicates the original organism (sexual reproduction). Replication and self-regulation are what make living systems living systems. Both processes require an outside source of energy and material.

The Objectivist defintion of life as completely at odds with the best grounded part of physics, thermodynamics. Relativity may yet be falsified and so might quantum theory. If thermodynamics goes, physics is done for. The Objectivist definition of life is formulated in ignorance of biological science (not surprising!).

Now you know why I tear at my hair and rend my garments when I read CRAP like this. Squash-rot like this can only flourish in ignorance of science. How can any philosophy that is -so right- about economics and governance be -so dumb- when it comes to science? Maybe C.P.Snow was right. There are two cultures.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Edited September 17, 2007 by BaalChatzaf

[BaalChatzaf]

Science is usually more concerned with a bottom up approach. The most common top down approach from a scientific lens I have seen is to say that a whole is made up of a, b, c, d, etc. Then it ends. Once focus is on a part, work stays on trying to figure out its impact on the whole (and on other wholes).

That is Reductionism, which has historically been the main strategy and form of scientific theorizing and investigation, also the most successful approach to understanding nature ever devised. Western science tries to divide nature up at the joints and look at the pieces. In more recent decades a more holistic approach and an emergentist view has been growing, not because reductionism is wrong but because it has its limitations. We are unable to reduce complex living systems, explicitly to the underlying quantum electrodynamic laws governing fields and particles. The failure to make the reduction is probably because we are not smart enough. As a result, molecular biology and chemistry starts with postulates and laws that work at a less fundamental level than quantum theory. These higher level laws are not at odds with the underlying physics (that would invalidate them), but deal with phenomena that are way more complicated than those observed at the quantum level. There does not exist (or does not yet exist) a comprehensive mathematical model of living systems.

In general, science asks what, when, how and why (in the sense of causes, not ends or purposes). Science does not deal directly with ends, purposes and values. At most, biology deals with -functions- which can be looked at from the p.o.v. of final cause (the way philosophy does) or as a manifestation of efficient cause. So a biologist might say that the heart is -for- pumping blood, but in fact what is observed is -that- the heart pumps blood which carries oxygen and nutrients to the various cells of the body. An evolutionist might say that having a circulatory system gives a certain class of organisms the ability to reproduce more successfully than other organisms sharing the environment or niche. Purpose and end have a shadow presence in the theory of evolution.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Edited September 17, 2007 by BaalChatzaf

[Paul Mawdsley]

Paul,

What you just described is self-generated action, one of the cornerstones of the Objectivist definition of life.

That violates two laws of thermodynamics. Living systems require energy from the outside. They do not self generate their actions.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Seeing Ba'al and Michael's posts on opposite sides of the issue is like stepping inside my own mind. I can find points of agreement with both and want to create an integrated perspective.

What Micheal says does not necessarily violate the first law and the second law may be incomplete if inertia is an emergent physical state.

There may still be hope for the Objectivist worldview.

Paul

[Dragonfly]

Lasciate ogni speranza.

[BaalChatzaf]

What Micheal says does not necessarily violate the first law and the second law may be incomplete if inertia is an emergent physical state.

Paul

If. If. Az die bobbah hat beytzim, gevayne wolt mein zedah. If my grandma had balls, she would be my grandpa.

Write us when inertia is shown by empirical evidence to be an emergent physical state and the laws of thermodynamics really do not hold. I really would have to see that for myself.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Edited September 17, 2007 by BaalChatzaf

[Paul Mawdsley]

Uh-oooooh! It seems I've hit that Looney Tunes button again. No more credibility for me. :frantics:

If you are willing to play along, I'll put together a thought experiment of a completely imaginary universe to see if it might connect some dots in this universe.

Paul

[BaalChatzaf]

Uh-oooooh! It seems I've hit that Looney Tunes button again. No more credibility for me. :frantics:

If you are willing to play along, I'll put together a thought experiment of a completely imaginary universe to see if it might connect some dots in this universe.

Paul

I love games. But I differentiate games from serious business. If you can show a system of physics in which the laws of thermodynamics do not hold, but are consistent with all the physical facts heretofore known, don't talk to me. Contact a journal. Get in line for a Nobel Prize.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Roger Bissell]

Paul,

What you just described is self-generated action, one of the cornerstones of the Objectivist definition of life.

That violates two laws of thermodynamics. Living systems require energy from the outside. They do not self generate their actions.

Living systems may be -self regulated- through a complex of homeostatic processes. A homeostatic process is one that operates on the principle of negative feedback, like a steam engine centrifugal governor or the thermostat-furnace system that keeps your house in a desired temperature range. Notice that these regulator systems fail when the energy source fails. To regulate the speed of a steam engine one needs a heat source. To regulate the temperature of the house one needs fuel for the furnace. Both come from -outside- the system. Our regulator systems fail when we die. We can no longer keep our internal temperature at 98.6 degrees F. (or there abouts). Our bodies cool to the ambient temperature.

See -Cybernetics- by Norbert Weiner. Also see

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybernetics

You might find it useful to review the laws of thermodynamics.

See

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_of_thermodynamics

The most important characteristics of a living system is that living systems can replicate parts of itself, from materials and energy gathered from outside and can even produce a biotic prototype that either duplicates the original organism (non-sexual reproduction) or nearly duplicates the original organism (sexual reproduction). Replication and self-regulation are what make living systems living systems. Both processes require an outside source of energy and material.

The Objectivist defintion of life as completely at odds with the best grounded part of physics, thermodynamics. Relativity may yet be falsified and so might quantum theory. If thermodynamics goes, physics is done for. The Objectivist definition of life is formulated in ignorance of biological science (not surprising!).

It does not follow from the fact that outside energy and matter are ~necessary~ for a living organism to initiate an action, that the organism is not generating that action.

You even concede that living systems ~replicate~ and ~regulate~ themselves. Are these not actions that living systems ~generate~? Matter and energy do not ~generate~ those actions, they ~supply~ (the physical basis for) those actions.

Just because the material/energy for those actions comes from outside them, does that mean that they do not themselves ~cause~ those actions? That is what I take "generate" to mean. Self-generated = self=caused, in the sense of efficient causation. The living system is the nexus and proximate source of its actions. A living system is the efficient cause of its actions, and matter and energy is the material cause of its actions.

From my readings of Arthur Koestler, Bertalanffy (sp?), and others, I understand living systems to be "open systems" thermodynamically, which means that they are not just little "black boxes" which operate in isolation from the rest of the world, true, but are also not just a one-way downhill slide to greater and greater entropy as the 2nd Law says the universe is. Living systems have a very specific arc of physical development which is characterized by a great amount of building up of order and complexity, before gradually decaying and dying. As they engage in this buildup of order, and attempt to sustain it, they take in matter and energy from the environment, but it is ~they~ who are taking in the matter and energy and converting it to what they need to continue living in seeming defiance of the 2nd Law (which applies only to closed systems, anyway). It is ~they~ who generate their continued actions. Yes, the environment, including what they take in from it, exercises the ~gross~ control over what organisms do, but it is the organisms themselves that exercise the ~fine~ control. The environment supplies matter/energy for the actions, the organism generates the actions.

REB

[BaalChatzaf]

actions. A living system is the efficient cause of its actions, and matter and energy is the material cause of its actions.

From my readings of Arthur Koestler, Bertalanffy (sp?), and others, I understand living systems to be "open systems" thermodynamically, which means that they are not just little "black boxes" which operate in isolation from the rest of the world, true, but are also not just a one-way downhill slide to greater and greater entropy as the 2nd Law says the universe is. Living systems have a very specific arc of physical development which is characterized by a great amount of building up of order and complexity, before gradually decaying and dying. As they engage in this buildup of order, and attempt to sustain it, they take in matter and energy from the environment, but it is ~they~ who are taking in the matter and energy and converting it to what they need to continue living in seeming defiance of the 2nd Law (which applies only to closed systems, anyway). It is ~they~ who generate their continued actions. Yes, the environment, including what they take in from it, exercises the ~gross~ control over what organisms do, but it is the organisms themselves that exercise the ~fine~ control. The environment supplies matter/energy for the actions, the organism generates the actions.

REB

The external world provides the energy. The organism regulates itself provided the conditions externally do not exceed the capacity of the homeostatic regulators to do their thing.

There is only efficient cause. Materials efficiently cause the effects on the systems that use them.

The various causalities of Aristotle have gone the way of aether. Causality is interaction.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Paul Mawdsley]

I love games. But I differentiate games from serious business. If you can show a system of physics in which the laws of thermodynamics do not hold, but are consistent with all the physical facts heretofore known, don't talk to me. Contact a journal. Get in line for a Nobel Prize.

Ba'al Chatzaf

That would be a larger project than me. I will settle for being an eccentric on OL and hope that I can tease out some interesting ideas.

Paul

[Dragonfly]

Just because the material/energy for those actions comes from outside them, does that mean that they do not themselves ~cause~ those actions? That is what I take "generate" to mean. Self-generated = self=caused, in the sense of efficient causation. The living system is the nexus and proximate source of its actions. A living system is the efficient cause of its actions, and matter and energy is the material cause of its actions.

But that is equally true for computerized machines, robots and even for a simple thermostat.