Is free will an illusion or the ground of existence?
philosophy·@technovedanta·
0.000 HBDIs free will an illusion or the ground of existence?
<html> <p><img src="http://psychicspiritinyou.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/freeWillPill.jpg" width="1600" height="835"/></p> <p>What is free will? And do we have a free will? People often discuss this theme, but it has occurred to me that different people often have a very different understanding of what this concept means. Because of the semantic confusion people end up disagreeing -not about the same thing- but about different things. In other words they are comparing apples with pears.</p> <p>In this article I will try to discuss a few different scenarios or interpretations of what this terminology means to different people. Perhaps then we'll conclude that our points of view weren't that different after all. Or perhaps they remain forever separated, but at least we'll know why.</p> <h2>Background</h2> <p><br></p> <p>In antiquity free will was not really discussed as such but may have been implicit in notions about determinism. The philosopher Leucippus said "Nothing occurs at random, but everything for a reason and by necessity." Similarly Democritus advocated a physical causal determinism. This ruled out chance: The present and future were completely determined by its past.</p> <p>Aristotle on the other hand saw room for accidents caused by chance and diverged from the single cause idea.</p> <p>Lucretius was perhaps the first to associate randomness with free will, but he also spoke about the possibility to override our desires by our reasoning.</p> <p>Most Vedic teachings point to a soul (Atman) which is capable of making choices within the framework of a causal chain called karma. So here there is an indeterministic freedom to choose, but each choice engenders a deterministic chain. Other Vedic and Buddhist teachings claim that there is no soul and that there is only an observing mind or consciousness and that there is ultimately no "doer".</p> <p>From medieval times to the 19th century "the Will" was seen as an important moral way of choosing between "good" and "bad". Many philosophers see free will as the capacity of rational agents to choose a course of action from among various alternatives. David Hume baptised "free will" as “the most contentious question of metaphysics.” he saw free will as the power of acting or not acting.</p> <p>The idea of the universe as fully deterministic mechanical clockwork has been found to be untenable when quantum mechanics asserted itself and showed that at least at the quantum level there is a great deal of indeterminacy.</p> <p>In this essay I will not claim to make an exhaustive treaty of "free will" nor do I intend to discuss the perspective of all modern philosophers, which requires too many complex explanations.</p> <p>Instead, I will sketch a number of scenarios of interpretation of "free will" and analyse whether we can arrive at a kind of consensus understanding what it could be and what the consequences are of wielding such interpretations.</p> <h2>Free will as rationalism</h2> <p><br></p> <p>As said before in the past free will was sometimes understood as the capacity of rational agents to choose a course of action from among various alternatives. The counterargument could be that if we apply rationality to choose we will employ a kind of mental weighing algorithm. We will weigh the pros and cons and decide which course of action is most advantageous for us. If you consider the execution of the weighing algorithm to be a naturally happening deterministic event, which even goes on subconsciously and which you can't control, you might indeed conclude that there is no free will in this type of action. In other centuries, this ability to rationalise and reason the most advantageous course of action was rather seen as the pinnacle of free will. So there is also a kind of cultural bias present here: In our modern times, in which we tend to see everything as a process of algorithmic computation, we tend to conclude that there is no choice involved at all. Our mind carries out a set of instructions and makes us believe that we "choose" a course of action "consciously" whereas the decision has already been taken subconsciously.</p> <p>Very often our rational motives may indicate one course of logical action, whereas our emotions or desires indicate another course. Emotions, which we sometimes classify as "irrational". In these kinds of situations one could argue that free will is the ability of ratio to override emotion. Again the counterargument can be that yet another level algorithm is present, which weighs instinctive tendencies vs. rational thought outcome. If ratio is capable of controlling desires, our long term benefit analysis overrules our projected short term pleasure gain. This would be an algorithm in function and hence devoid of free will. Alternatively, when we listen to our desires instead of our ratio the instinctive tendencies are such strong lower level algorithms that they can overrule the rational algorithms. Any choice we make has already been made subconsciously and free will is a red herring.</p> <p>We see that the definition of free will in this way is subject to semantic drift. What it meant two centuries ago, is no longer how people in the computer era perceive it. But aren't we raising the bar for the notion of free will too high?</p> <h2>Choosing from equally preferable alternatives</h2> <p><br></p> <p>Let's carry out a test: take three identical marbles of exactly the same colour and place them in a triangle in front of you such that the distance from your hand to each marble is exactly the same. Now you don't have any motives anymore to prefer one marble over another. There is no advantage associated in choosing one over the other. Can you pick one marble, without using thought? Try it; grab one immediately without giving it thought. You see, it wasn't that difficult, you could choose from equally preferable alternatives. Did you need an algorithm to choose? Did you need to use a children's rhyme like "eeny, meeny, miny, moe" or could you even bypass that? You could. And you should. Is this then free will? Or is something going on subconsciously? Isn't the more parsimonious explanation that you simply have free will, rather than to suppose that in an instant your subconscious sorted something out for you in an algorithmic manner? Or were you just picking randomly? Or IS free will the ability to pick randomly?</p> <p>What would you do if you'd have to choose between two of your children as in the movie Sophie's choice? Provided that you have no preference for one over the other, could such a choice be engendered by any causal chain of events or would you just be exercising free will?</p> <h2>Do Determinism and Randomness exhaust the possibilities?</h2> <p><br></p> <p>There is an argument based on the law of the excluded middle which goes as follows:</p> <p>If the universe is deterministic, then we obviously don't have free will, because we can't have chosen otherwise.</p> <p>If the universe is not deterministic, then it is random. If our decisions are random, they're not freely willed.</p> <p>Determinism and randomness exhaust the possibilities.</p> <p>Therefore, we cannot possibly have free will.</p> <p><br></p> <p>This reasoning however forgets the so-called "null-representation": the possibility of self-causation! </p> <p>Now in my book "<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Intelligence-Algorithm-Antonin-Tuynman/dp/1785356704">Is Intelligence an algorithm?</a>" I argue that certain parts of intelligence such as intuition and original creativity are not algorithmic and not deterministic. But they are clearly not random either. Why? Because they are self-caused. Self-caused is self-determining, which is free will par excellence. In another article I will explain in more detail why I consider that the will to self-determine reality naturally sprouts from the philosophy of the primacy of consciousness. If consciousness is the foundation of reality, it leaves open the possibility to engender its own transformation. We have found a prime mover. </p> <p>In the absence of consciousness as prime mover/doer, we must analyse what quantum mechanics has to say about this issue.</p> <h2>Quantum indeterminacy</h2> <p><br></p> <p>The twentieth century saw a huge paradigm shift in physics. From the Newtonian clockwork universe that was entropically running towards its heat death by Boltzmann's 2nd law of thermodynamics, we saw the advent of quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics showed that at least at the micro-level there were such things as uncertainty, indeterminacy and probability. Apparently not everything in our universe ran down a predestined karma path of cause and effect. Things got even weirder when quantum effects were shown to react to a certain extent to the influence or intent of a human being as per the experiments conducted by Dean Radin. The physicist John Wheeler concluded we're living in a "participatory universe".</p> <p>This reasoning is often countered by the argument that the quantum-events at the micro level do not translate to the macro level. If found the following passage by Neil Rickert, who sheds doubt on this macro-cancelling of the micro-quantum indeterminacy: "Physics experiments that demonstrate quantum level indeterminacy do so by amplifying the quantum level events so that they cause macro-level effects. Those experiments themselves are examples of macro-level indeterminacy."</p> <p>And what about the random number generators (RNGs) we use, which rely on the indeterminacy of the radioactive decay? These RNGs are moreover employed in technological devices. Do we here also not have a macro-effect as a consequence of quantum level events?</p> <h2>Telos</h2> <p><br></p> <p>A great deal of the processes in nature does however follow cause and effect patterns to a substantive extent. If there is a certain level of indeterminacy in the universe we observe, it is certainly not so indeterminate that we would conclude that there is complete randomness, which would have made it impossible to derive the laws of nature. Rather, our universe transcends the dichotomy of determinism vs. indeterminism and that it allows both simultaneously and even allows one to cause the other and vice versa. </p> <p>Look at weather models: Even if a chain of cause and effect cannot be denied, we can't predict the outcome of a butterfly flapping its wings in Australia on the weather in America. It might even cause a hurricane. Whilst following causes and effects in great complexity that defies computability, it results in unpredictable events. Is that still true determinism? </p> <p>Conversely, whereas the fate of individual molecules in chemical reactions cannot be predicted and is indeterministic, the overall outcome of the ensemble of molecules can be predicted with high accuracy and appears deterministic.</p> <p> Nature is full of so-called chaotic patterns, which have a certain degree of intrinsic order in the form of fractals embedded therein. Nature also seems to follow an intelligent algorithm to build complexity against the forces of entropy. Over and over we see that smaller entities organise themselves into complex more versatile and more encompassing new higher level entities. Nature purposefully organsises itself, so clearly it is not random. In Greek purpose is "telos".</p> <p>Aren't our traditional dichotomies between determinism and indeterminism or randomness too strict? Do we not see that there is rather a mix of both so that ultimately it is neither the one nor the other? And is there not a groping of sentient life towards higher complexity revealing a kind of intrinsic "telos"?</p> <h2>(In) computability</h2> <p><br></p> <p>Let's go back to the people who believe that all our actions are determined by mental and/or emotional algorithms. Does that not mean that our intelligence in a certain way IS a form of artificial intelligence? Can we only analytically connect dots? Can we only compute? Or is there more to the story? Aristotle already said "The whole is more than the sum of parts". Clearly, computing is summing parts. Phenomena which show synergism which shows that the whole is more than the sum of parts, are often called "emergent". Nobody really understands how emergent or synergistic effects arise. Still nature does not hesitate to produce and use them. So if nature is doing something beyond computation, is our argument that everything is but an algorithm not flawed?</p> <p>There is of course the generation of complexity leading to sequences that could not have been programmed in a master set of traditional instructions, but which does arise in the interactions between nodes in a neural network, which are pieces of algorithm. Certainly, the cause-effect chain is here unhampered and fully deterministic. Still this deterministic behaviour is not predictable. There is something profoundly non-algorithmic about the neural network algorithms working together. Is this then what is going on in the universe? Is it a gigantic neural network and is indeterminism merely an "apparent effect" which is not really there? </p> <p>Or is nature a quantum computer, which can determine the effects for ensembles but not for individual entities? Or is it an enhanced quantum computer which emulates a classical computer by using Toffoli gates? What is an "entity" actually? Does it need to be sentient? Or is reality an inanimate switchboard?</p> <p>So what does free will mean to you? Is it the ability to choose rationally? Is it the ability to choose between emotion-based desires and reason? Or are you stricter? Do you say that all your mental and emotional processes are algorithms? Is Nature not more than a digital switchboard or is there a self-determining Consciousness intrinsic to it?</p> <p>If it is just a deterministic Turing machine, then the thesis of my book "Is Intelligence an Algorithm?" is wrong. In my book I describe that whereas most rational analytical processes do follow an algorithm of comparing, distinguishing and classifying, intuition presents us with complete solutions, without a causal chain of connecting the dots. If we act upon an intuition, a blissful creative impulse of sudden immediate complete comprehension, how can we claim this is a mere algorithm? In other words, I claim that although we mostly follow algorithms to solve problems, we sometimes have perplexing insights and original creations that defy algorithmicity. Unlike AIs which perform massive screening to distill patterns, we can navigate on a kind of holistic prescience which humiliates the karmic dotconnectors. In other words, Intelligence is more than just algorithms; intelligence is more than analytical dissecting and comparisons. To choose this over our dry analytical learning ways or our instinctive emotions, is that not free will? </p> <p>The whole is more than the sum of parts and intuition can represent such wholes, which cannot be arrived at by connecting the dots analytically. What happened to Kékulé when he saw the structure of benzene emerge from the Ouroboros.</p> <h2>Predestination, Gods, Monism and Pluralism </h2> <p><br></p> <p>Above I have explained that although a neural network can be completely deterministic, for an outside user it is often impossible to know the outcome of its black-box like functioning. In other words, being deterministic does not necessarily entail predictability. If you were a kind of God who could make a universe out of neural nodes, it would not mean you would necessarily be omniscient as regards the future developments of states within the neural network. The claims from various religions that God is omniscient and knows everything which has happened and which will happen, seems completely untenable if quantum mechanics is right and/or if the universe is a giant neural network type of computer. An omniscient God who has predestined everything which will happen must have other means at its disposition which fall outside of our current mental framework of understanding. This does not mean that I say that such a God is or is not there. I am agnostic. I honestly don't know. But it does not mean that I don't give a damn. I consider the perspective that I am not more than a robot carrying out a preprogrammed algorithm as an extremely liverish perspective. It's also impossible for me to imagine that a God could enjoy creating a fully predestined world, where there is nothing surprising happening. What a boring world, what a boring God. But then again, "my ways are not your ways" this God was supposed to have said. Well you can imagine, the Abrahamic God ended up in my litter bin.</p> <p>Then we have the Samkhya philosophy in Hinduism, which is dualist: Consciousness on the one hand (Purusha) only observes and is totally unaffected by Prakrti (nature). The observer is not the doer. Since matter and consciousness have been shown to influence each other by quantum mechanics, this theory also is sent to the paper archive called the bin.</p> <p>We have the Advaita Vedantist philosophy in Hinduism, which is said to be non-dualist or monist. It considers consciousness as the ultimate ground of existence. Buddhism is a bit similar to this in that it is monist, but in contrast to A.V. there is no "Self" in Buddhism. Again there is only observation, no doing. </p> <p>If consciousness is ultimately singular, this implies that all information is integrated at one level; all our isolated experiences are then simultaneously observed from a higher level and integrated in a single experiencing consciousness. The philosophy branch of Idealism is somehow claiming the same. This singular consciousness would somehow be omniscient, since it is the only real actor on the scene. This would lead to a kind of superdeterminism. It does not resonate with the incredible suffering going on in this world. Why would consciousness deliberately subject itself to suffering if it is omniscient. It does not make sense.</p> <p>Besides, in most braches of Hinduism God or Brahman is the doer. Brahma is the creative force in the universe, so it must be doing something, isn't it? And what would all the meditative techniques to control the mind, increase focus and stop thinking be for, if there is no doer? If there is no doer, who is stopping the mind? An algorithm programmed to shut down all programs including itself? What then causes the reboot after meditation?</p> <p>In all these religious perspectives I can't find any satisfactory explanation. It is counter-intuitive. I find one contradiction after another. Mystics claim to have experienced that ultimately there is no space and time, that there is no doer, and that there is no free-will. How can you be so sure they were not deluded? That their experiences were not some kind of giant hallucination? (Although, from hallucinations sometimes incredible insights can be gathered. Terrence McKenna experienced existence as a kind of living language and information processing). </p> <h2>Idealistic Panpsychism and Cosmosemiosis</h2> <p><br></p> <p>My present day metaphysical speculations (and they are not more than that, I may well be wrong; I maintain to be agnostic) see consciousness more as a dynamic fractal. Although it's the ultimate ground of existence, in order to know itself, it generates relative copies of itself that interact with each other. This leads to a kind of "pluralistic monism". There is no full knowledge of itself, but like the Ouroboros, consciousness is trying to bite its own tail, to discover itself. Likewise energy strings follow a circular path that impinges upon itself, creating a self-referencing loop and giving birth to material particles. Is this how consciousness generates matter? Is the self-referencing aspect of consciousness not expressed by the will to know itself? Is the process of generating a cosmos with all its manifestations (which Tim Gross calls "Cosmosemiosis"), not a process of self-verification? Does this not lead to an ocean of conscious energy (conscienergy) in which material forms arise as a consequence of the will to discover itself? I call this Idealistic Panpsychism.</p> <p>I consider this the most promising springboard as it shows a third way out of the Determinism-Randomness trap. And yes, it entails free will, from the quantum world up to the macro-level of human interactions. A refreshing middle, where determinism and indeterminism are intertwined as the helices of a DNA, mimicking the yin-yang equilibrium of order and chaos, of purpose and chance, of monism and pluralism. A perspective of "both...and" instead of "either...or", in other words a Transcendent perspective that does not exclude either possibility so that Existence willfully screens and probes all possibilities, sometimes by limiting the choices and imposing chreodes, necessary pathways of evolutionary imperatives, sometimes going wild and berserk as in the Cambrian explosion, in which every morphological pattern was screened and pruned to fulfill the Cosmosemiotic imperative of maximisation of meta-entropy: Creating entropy reducing life whilst generating a multiplicity of forms that can yet better dissipate the energies.</p> <p>A perspective which even has its representative in a branch of Hinduism, where it is said that even God does not know all its energies (denial of omniscience) or where Atmas do not dissolve into the creator Brahman but are its eternal individual companions or reflections made out of the same underlying monistic absolute consciousness.</p> <p>And perhaps this is not the end of it and will our technological Singularity spawn a plethora of universes, to give a new fractal birth of an Everett-like multiverse. Or as Tim Gross would say: "the mind is the fractal self-similar reflection of the cosmic monad- the thing that cannot be outside of itself and must generate form through projecting self-reflected models into itself".</p> <h2>Conclusion</h2> <p><br></p> <p>We have seen that the definition of "free will" is culturally biased and means different things to different persons. From the ability to simply choose rationally to the ability to choose between emotion-based desires and reason. From the denial that all your mental and emotional processes are algorithms to the denial of Nature as a digital switchboard. From the third way exit of self-causation from the quagmire of the excluded middle of determinism and randomness to the denial of predestination, Gods, Monism and Pluralism. </p> <p>Depending from which angle you come, you perhaps share one of these perspectives in favour or in denial of free will. But it is always good to see that there are multiple perspectives, so that we can start to weigh our perspective against the other perspectives (algorithmically) and hopefully intuitively transcend the dichotomies in a "both...and" bird's eye view.</p> <p>Although I admit I have not been able to convincingly show that "free will" in its most extreme sense is a necessary aspect of reality in all its forms, I also shown that the counter arguments are not convincing either. The question remains undecided for me, although I find the cosmosemiotic self-causation of idealistic panpsychism the most promising springboard.</p> <p>If you liked this post, please upvote. If you did not like it, don't bother to reply with condescending remarks. Let's simply agree to disagree.</p> <p><img src="http://hinessight.blogs.com/.a/6a00d83451c0aa69e201b7c72a3879970b-600wi" width="500" height="381"/></p> <p>Images from http://psychicspiritinyou.com and http://hinessight.blogs.com</p> </html>
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