Summations Only

An interesting subject came up in the "Does science ask and answer "why" questions?" thread:In Message 349In Message 350If neither of them have done so, yet, I'd like to propose a thread that can address this.I'd like to see more on how the Illusion (or a non-illusory manifestation of it as alluded to in 1.6180339's quantum entanglement) of Free Will may also help in understanding things like self-awareness.Would computers never be able to have anything more than the illusion they had free will, if somehow we had something a little less negative in connotation than "illusion", perhaps along the way of disentanglement? How would we know the difference? What would it matter anyway?Thank you.

Thread copied here from the The Illusion of Free Will thread in the Proposed New Topics forum.

Hello Xongsmith, Free will has many definitions. So I suppose the best place to start any discussion is to define in your words what do you mean by freewill? As Straggler has pointed out freewill is a dilemma.
It is paradoxical in that strict hard determinism implies no free will and random events implies no free agent. Either way there is no true freewill in either regard in a Compatibilistic view point.It could be a loop of deterministic events feeding into a cascade of random events further cycling more deterministic causal events.Although Straggler hates the idea of dualism, sometimes imo things are 'both'. Maybe we need a new term.causality -->effect+random events=causality-->effectA computer is a complicated turing device. It can generate random strings of numbers. But for a computer to develop free will it would have to decide one day to not do a calculation it was programmed to do simply because it didnt feel like it. Will computers ever become sentient and develop freewill. I personally think they will. I mean it happened to our organic processor, it is just a question of when imo.

Some have suggested that the internet will one day become sentient and self-aware.Does the WWW dream of electric sheep?

Nah, just sheep shaggers! Edited by 1.61803, : No reason given.

I think at least a part of what makes us sentient is quantum mechanics. When you think, certain neurons fire, sending electrical signals down other neurons. Whenever you have an electrical signal, there is a non-zero chance that the electron will tunnel to a different neuron. I think this is partially how our "leaps of logic" come about. When you're thinking of something, it can trigger, almost mysteriously, a different thought. Quite often, this different thought is similar in some way to the one you were originally pursuing. It's how House solves almost all of his medical cases on TV.Some of this is caused by the tight clustering of neurons and the fact that the chenicals that cross synapses are not specifically directed, but some of it, I'm convinced, comes from quantum tunneling.So, before a computer or the internet could become "aware" there would need to be a chance of signals triggering other signals unintended by anyone, not just by being hacked or stolen, or likewise and if you want this aware computer to not be schizophrenic, the triggered "thoughts" should be at least tangentially related to the original thought, not merely random musings.

Why? Well, this is untrue simply by definition. By definition, the compatibilist viewpoint is that one can have determinism and free will simultaneously. You may argue that this viewpoint is wrong, but you cannot argue that this is not the compatibilist viewpoint, because that is exactly what the compatibilist viewpoint is.

Is there any evidence to suggest that the brain uses quantum superposition, tunnelling etc. to function? As far as I am aware there is no evidence that the brain is anything more than a chemical computer of the classical sort operating at the axon/cellular level rather than any quantum scale.Frankly the determined effort to assert that quantum mechanics must provide some as-yet-unknown explanation for things like free-will seems to be borne from the unshakeable yet essentially baseless notion that there is something called freewill that is neither compatible with determinism nor quantum randomness.Quantum conciousness is a very contentious and not even those scientists pursuing it avidly would describe their views as the scientific consensus. What convinces you of this?

No.

This is the article I was thinking of: LinkUnfortunately you have to pay for the rest via the New Scientist website. Unless anyone can find the full article for free?Consider it an exercise in demonstrating your own sentience as superior to that of the internet.

Is there any other electrical system where quantum effects are not present? They may not interfere much with the process, but they exist. I don't believe in free will. I'm a determinist. I'm just considering that electrons tunnel, full stop. It doesn't give free will, it only adds a probability rather than a strict determinism to a person's action. The probability may even be close to 100%, assuming that quantum effects are tiny, but I'm not going to rule them out completely as a method of affecting our actions. When a neuron releases the chemicals into a synapse between enurons, they're close to another neuron, and most will float over and cause that one to fire, but not all of them do. Some end up being reabsorbed by the initial neuron, and some end up hitting other neurons.

Yes, by strict definition you are correct.Your right. I contend in any view, mine included free will poses a paradox that is not reconcilable. Edited by 1.61803, : spelling

One important thing to know about free will... Absolute free will would mean we make every choice completely anew, without any influences. This is impossible of course.What are the possible influences for our actions? I personally can only our intrinsic properties, outside influence as the cause of our actions. Anything else would amount to randomness.The intrinsic properties are a important thing to note though. They limit our free will. We can't have intrinsic properties while having true free will to be anything we want. And it needs to be that way. Because intrinsic properties.. is our identity, our personality. Our way of making choices defines us as a person, makes us a individual. It's the natural order of things. And besides, it needs to be this way to make decisions properly. If we would decide every action completely unbiased, we would sit in the same place all day, stare, or get killed by animals. It's no way to live.

Well exactly. Quantum effects are always present but not always relevant. Quantum effects are absolutely fundamental to the semi-conductor devices that make up the internet but seem to have little relevance to the neurological workings of the human brain.Yet you say you are convinced that quantum effects are responsible for human sentience but dismiss the notion that something like the internet could be sentient on the same quantum basis.I still don't see what it is that convinces you of some quantum effect is responsible for human sentience. There seems to be no evidence for this at all. Oh. OK. From the cheers you got I am guessing that others thought you were attempting to make a case for dualistic freewill on the "something quantum" basis. That is the route I thought you were starting down. Indeed. Others advocating a "something quantum" as a basis for saving their notions of freewill should take note. Sure. But if it's still deterministic (albeit probabalistic) I am not sure how relevant that is here.

Well I seem to manage OK.The way I look at it, my actions are determined, by the state of my brain, which is me, i.e. my actions are determined by me, which is what I mean by free will. Anyone asking for more "freedom" is in effect asking that their will should be so free that it's free of them, in which case it wouldn't be their will.So I'm perfectly happy with compatibilism.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.