Re: Free-will

["James N Rose" <***>]

On Tue, 11 Nov 2003 16:37:20 -0500, Tim Gwinn <***> wrote:

>Hi James,
>
>Welcome to the list!
>

Hi Tim,  and thanks.

First, ... help!   Am not receiving postings thru email (my preferred way to
post/read) so some advice from the knowledgable would be appreciated. :-)

Will do my best to answer your reflections ...

>>
>> Is it reasonable, reliable, or even valid, to go the Liar's
>> Paradox one-better, and enunciate:
>>
>> Can a fixed deterministic rule (presumed to preface and
>> frame the existence of this or any possible universe)
>> specify the existence of perfect open indeterminancy?
>
>
>This is indeed the fundamental problem of free-will, as viewed from a
>perspective of Newtonian physics. If all material particles follow some laws
>of physics, then how can the sum of those particles (constituting a person)
>possibly do otherwise than necessarily follow those same physical laws?
>
>This dilemma is based on a premise of reductionism, whereby the law-like
>motions of the constituent particles must necessarily dictate accordingly
>law-like motions of any sum of such particles. This leaves no "leeway" for
>free will to operate in. Some people have looked toward the indeterministic
>nature of quantum mechanics formulations as way to equivocate on this
>necessity, but substituting law-like probabilistic (0 < P < 1) motion for
>deterministic law-like motion (P=1) still leaves one with entirely law-like
>operation and still no "leeway" for free will.

The meme 'free will' is an alluring one.  It has a mystic that is right up there
with the sex urge.  Humans in fact raise it to the status of almost supreme
importance for our life and behaving, as if to not have it makes us no
better than rock and dirt.  That's pretty amazing.  Subliminally, we've even
demarcated the rest of the animal world to 'that other side' by casting
their behaviors as 'instinctive', as if it were some animated category
of no-free-will rocklike-ness.

So I had to wonder, that very long ago, ... why?  What's the grip that
sense and perception has on us?, and, where does it stem from?, and,
what would it mean, what would our behaviors be like if it weren't
'important' to us?

Long story short, I see us existing in a universe that 'makes sense', there's
a reason for everything.  Even 'emergence' has a lineage.  And so must
the percept and meme of 'free will'.  Even in unbounded domains.

>In the Rosennean view, the underlying premise of reductionism simply does
>not hold. Therefore, the notion that the operation or motion of a system
>(e.g., human being) can be reduced to the motion of the constituent
>particles does not hold.

I would hold that that's essentially true.  With the caveat, that the
old-paradigm reductionism needs to be more than challenged,
it needs to be superceded -and- placed in a wholly new context
of improved conceptions/criteria.

>The other Newtonian premise underlying the seeming paradox of free-will is
>that there can be no closed loops of causality. However, this is just an
>artificial restriction of the Newtonian formalism.
>
>Combining the removal of these two premises, we are free (pun intended!) to
>envision systems which - as whole systems - contain closed causal loops, and
>the operation of which is thereby not reducible to the operation of the
>constituent particles.
>
>The problem of free will, in my view, is not solved by finding some way to
>escape causal determinacy. The problem of free will is solved by an opposite
>method of maximally utilizing causal determinacy: by creating causal loops
>such that the system has pulled all the requisite organizational causal
>entailments inside itself. In this way, a human, or more generally, an
>organism, is not susceptible to impressed external forces as the causal
>basis for its actions. In other words, it can have free-will.

Sorry.  Can't go there with you.  It takes a friendly universe to have a satisfying
and safe and amenable 'so-called free-will' life.

My 'definition' of free-will goes to the extreme of its basic
operative principles.  I require the standard for an act to
qualify as 'free-will' to be one which can happen -in spite of-
extant conditions, not 'nicely within conditions' .. not 'the
ability to take advantage of options'.   Though, I should add,
this last is probably 'sufficient free-will' compared to the first
kind which is 'absolute/true free-will'.

>And Rosen's anticipatory systems demonstrate how there can be systems which
>not only contain these closed causal loops, but also utilize such loops to
>incorporate internal predictive models so that "free-will" can have some
>internal causal basis for decision-making. By this view, free will may -
>perhaps - be limited to the degrees of freedom of the internal predictive
>model.

Quite the astute ( am I allowed to say the word? ...) 'model'.

I applaud the notion of anticipatory systems.  And I thank you for
explicating my case, Tim.

>> Substitute the word 'specify' with the word 'model'
>> and Rosen's Rule rises to the fore.
>
>What is this "Rosen's Rule" of which you speak?

No model (old reductionist style) will ever be inclusive enough to
map the completeness of a natural system.  [paraphrased and labeled
by yours truly]

Ie., rules work ok when you really trap and limit the variables, but heaven
help you if you think you've lassoed forthcoming behaviors with absolute
precision.

That's why the Rosenean view is problematic to Complexity
practitioners.  They hit the ground running, hawking their equations
to the economics crowd, promising guaranteed profits from their
new caches of 'secret  formulae'.  Rosen was the good natured
guy standing in the corner holding up a sign saying 'Watch Out!".


>>
>> Or, is determinism a limitform afterfact of indeterminism?
>>
>> Again, a Rosen Rule situation.
>>
>> Or,
>>
>> Does it even make sense to talk about partial v. complete?
>> Why fret over perfect 1 to 1 mapping?
>>
>> Whether partial or complete, model or nature, there is
>> indisputable relation between them, and its those aspects
>> which are of priority.  In truth, there are no perfectly
>> closed systems, only virtually closed or sufficiently closed
>> ones.
>>
>> Rose Reasoning insists that its the 'translations of
>> information between classes and sets' that's important.
>> The performance rules of information and communication
>> engagements and transformations, rather than 'does one
>> content account for some other content?'.
>
>
>I don't quite follow. In the material world, there are no "sets" and
>"classes". What are the material occurrences of these to which you are
>referring? Maybe an example case would help.

I'll give it a go, but apologize ahead of time.  I'm going to need
you to drop some preconceptions you have and try some of
mine for a bit.  You don't have to agree, or even hold on to them,
but just accede to them for a bit if you would.

The first thing we have to do is throw out and rebuild extant notions
about 'information'.   The model for doing this comes from energy
mechanics: transduction, the activity of energy moving through
different forms or incarnations and being retrievable.  Eg, audible voice,
to vibrating molecules in a receiver, to electrical impulse(s), then
to vibrating molecules in conductor, back to audible air vibrations
as sound.  Where the 'message content' is "deshaped" and
retrievably "reshaped".

Through any such transforms, an 'intrinsic' information remains
even through all the changes.

With this in our kitbag, we turn to the Calculus .. integration
and differentiation.  By doing these functions we generate
different numerical groups - different 'information's as it were.
For example, a linear slope is not a curve is not the area
under a curve and so on.  Different information.  But is it?

In the first instance of 'transform' some kind of information
stays invariant even through the changes.  So why can't the
same be reasonably happening in the transforms of the
Calculus, where you can move through different transformations
and yet come back and retrieve the original 'extrinsic'
information form.

What starts taking precedence is not the mappings
between the considered 'extrinsic' informations, but the
consistently applicable operators that the different contents,
forms or extents are subject to.

That's sort of the Short Course, Tim, for looking toward
the 'relations' between states and systems rather than
their comparative completeness.

>> If the performance rules are applicable in alternatively
>> renderable domains, that trumps mapping.
>>
>> Closure v. non-closure  and model v. nature becomes
>> secondary.  Not unimportant, just 'secondary'.
>>
>> If the performance lifetime of a system never feels its
>> limitations, then whether there -are- limitations or not
>> is moot.
>>
>> If a system is functionally self coherent and consistent
>> and never experiences or enacts a conflict of fundamental
>> performance (sudden cube of the distance rather than
>> square of the distance behaving in some partial sector
>> of its whole, for example), then no forced impositioned
>> actions are interpretable as 'free will'.
>
>
>The idea of performance rules as the basis of (at least the appearance of)
>free will is an interesting one. I am disinclined to agree since on my view
>above regarding free-will, such performance rules would probably be
>superfluous.

We disagree.  no problem.

>However, in discussing the notion of optimality principles,
>telos and accepted physics, Rosen notes: "Thus, the Principle of Least
>Action, say, which is at the very heart of theoretical mechanics, looks more
>telic than mechanics itself allows....But these facts point to a perhaps
>deep relationship between the nature of optimality principles in general and
>the things we do not understand about organic phenomena." [EL 216] Rosen
>never elaborates elsewhere on this comment; perhaps this was yet another
>"sideroad".

I would have agreed with him 100% and could only now wish that
he had pursued the ideas further.  That 'deep relation' is exactly the
quarry I'm after.  No 'sideroad' at all, but the maintrunk.


>> At least that's the view from this orbit.  :-)
>>
>> Jamie Rose
>> Ceptual Institute
>> <http://www.ceptualinstitute.com>
>
>Regards,
>Tim

Mine too,
Jamie
11/11/03
4:50PM nevada time