Free will or lack of.......

[WesD]

How does a thought just be with no reaction to being a thought, can we just think? If so is this proof of will?

[Vespasian]

32 minutes ago, WesD said:

How does a thought just be with no reaction to being a thought, can we just think? If so is this proof of will?

I suppose what I am saying is thoughts can come into existence without an appeal to predeterminismn..  thus your following actions are not tied to what predetermined that thought...

 

So free will of sorts..  

 

[onetruth]

55 minutes ago, Vespasian said:

No, thoughts can have no cause..   thought can just be.   no need for a cause...   which is not to say that all thoughts come out of thin air, but that they can....

I can't agree with this.  Thoughts can't just be - they are always in reaction to something.  You can't have an empty thought.

[Vespasian]

26 minutes ago, onetruth said:

I can't agree with this.  Thoughts can't just be - they are always in reaction to something.  You can't have an empty thought.

Might not of put that as best I could..  I wasn't talking about an empty fought, but that a thought can come into your mind without a previous cause..

 

 

[onetruth]

Just now, Vespasian said:

Might not of put that as best I could..  I wasn't talking about an empty fought, but that a thought can come into your mind without a previous cause..

Thoughts are always about something.  That thing could be considered the cause.

[Vespasian]

1 hour ago, onetruth said:

Thoughts are always about something.  That thing could be considered the cause.

Well I'll be working on it and see what I can come up with...   I might just of got ahead of myself, I'll have to think on it..

[Billhook]

 

[the village idiot]

22 minutes ago, Billhook said:

 

A good example of why we need to be exceedingly careful in our progress with AI. Something we are not being at the moment.

 

It's all fun and games until an immensely powerful computer algorithm believes itself to be God!

[Rough Hewn]

Nicely put billhook
[emoji106][emoji106][emoji106]

[Khriss]

On 29/12/2017 at 22:22, the village idiot said:

Hi Wes,

 

From my persective, the reason why you are struggling with ironing out these issues (and they are bloody mind boggling) is because you are still occasionally holding onto the notion that there is a 'self' in the mix. Some sense of a chooser located in the head or brain that has the power to assess the brain's outputs and make some form of informed choice.

 

Please correct me if I have misrepresented you.

 

My argument is based around the premise that although it feels absolutely that there is a 'chooser' that is 'me' in the head, this is actually not the case in reality. The sensation/felt experience that there is a chooser muddies the waters when trying to get to grips with this stuff.

 

I think the brain, from which all our thoughts, emotions, impulses and actions arise is a 100% automatic, identityless computer composed of neurons. It takes in unchosen inputs from the senses, processes them automatically, and automatically generates outputs based on its pattern recognition software. A small proportion of those outputs (the ones we call thoughts) appear in conciousness. Automatic thought outputs themselves become inputs back to the brain for the next phase of continuous processing.

 

Conciousness is the only other facet to the autonomous brain. Conciousness or awareness is an identityless space where some brain outputs (thoughts) appear. Conciousness is 100% passive. It can do nothing to summon, choose or change it's contents. It is just aware of them. 

 

This is all there is, a fantastically capable, identityless automatic computer and a 100% 'hands off' state of awareness. Nothing else, no chooser, no locus of 'I'. Insights from mindfulness meditation practice strongly support this conclusion too.

 

The automatic brain, sometime in early childhood, starts to attach 'I' files to thought emails and sends them to the conciousness inbox (which opens them but takes no action) From this point on humans begin to experience a contrived awareness that they are a 'me'.

 

In other words, You are a figment of your computer's imagination!

In terms of the coin toss. Even though it is 50/50, the brain doesn't delegate a choice to a 'you'. It will come up with its own answer based on hidden processing using some unfathomable blend of past experiences, neuro transmitter saturation, stored memories of consequences of similar past experiences and all manner of other factors. It will then alert your conciousness of the 'decision' and instruct your vocal chords, lungs and oral muscles to articulate it's commandment.

  This makes it sound like the brain has an agenda, but it all blind automation, producing the only result it can given everything that has happened to it up to that point in it's existence, the existence of all it's ancestors, and potentially (if you want to be exactly precise) anything that has happened anywhere to anything in the universe ever!

Consider that next time you blurt out heads or tails.

 

 

The brain is 'supposed'  to develop the illusion of self. The tendancy for it to develop would have been naturally selected for (also automatically) way back when, because it helped us survive to reproductive age in more hazardous times.

 

 

 

 

Hmmm, just watched the Matrix last night and just read this now, might stay in today 😳 K