Is Langton's Ant deterministic? Does Langton's Ant have free will?

[Traitorfish]

I think neuroscience has largely proven that free will is a lost battle.

Depends how you define "free will", really. We have a habit of reading "free will" as the absolute liberty of the concious mind, but that's not how philosophers have actually discussed it since the 19th century.

 

[Kozmos]

Depends how you define "free will", really. We have a habit of reading "free will" as the absolute liberty of the concious mind, but that's not how philosophers have actually discussed it since the 19th century.

How do they see it then? (I ask because I'm not knowledgeable that much in philosophy) From my point of view the conscious mind is mostly an observer, there to override natural impulses that would result in the destruction of the biological unit in certain scenarios.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

The idea of an 'observer' sounds as mythical and ultimately wrong as the idea of the freedom of will.

The way I see it - there is some kind of process happening within your physical selfs which makes us do stuff and be stuff. Which makes neurons fire, makes glances produce hormones, makes muscles stretch and blood pump. And for whatever reason, that whole process creates noise. Metaphysical noise. And that noise is designed to call itself a self and to percieve itself as an entity which wants things and decides things. But in the end - it is just noise. It also is meaning. And every subjective thing there ever was. But it is also just is noise. Because it just happens and proceeds by the rules of a side product.

That sounds depressing. It is depressing, I guess, if you dwell on it. From what I can see, that is the most plausible explanation of what we are. There may be more. It is kinda suggested by the fact that we have no explanation for the ecistence of that noise. But we have no actual good reason to think so. All we got are questions which tell us nothing other than that we have a huge gap in our understanding.

Free will has nothing to do with it. That is just a term which in various ways encapsulates human desires akin to how religion does so. And it offers as much insight as religion does.

 

[Kyriakos]

Depends how you define "free will", really. We have a habit of reading "free will" as the absolute liberty of the concious mind, but that's not how philosophers have actually discussed it

+2

since the 19th century.

-1

Indeed. Abstract terms are most of the time not defined crucially more than just for practical reason. And 'free' can connote anything, from not being obviously bound, to being entirely devoid of any tie to anything else. Ie one could mean (by free will) that the will somehow is not part of the rest of the mental world, but acts a bit like a human does when using a computer. That is false (perhaps evidently to all here).
However, bypassing for the moment the 'free' epithet (as Terx also did in the previous page), will indeed exists, and moreso it can be argued to be the most fundamentally important conscious ability a human has. Of course it can reach clear limit, but usually- or always- those appear when a person tries to harm his/her own self.

 

[Kozmos]

The idea of an 'observer' sounds as mythical and ultimately wrong as the idea of the freedom of will.

The way I see it - there is some kind of process happening within your physical selfs which makes us do stuff and be stuff. Which makes neurons fire, makes glances produce hormones, makes muscles stretch and blood pump. And for whatever reason, that whole process creates noise. Metaphysical noise. And that noise is designed to call itself a self and to percieve itself as an entity which wants things and decides things. But in the end - it is just noise. It also is meaning. And every subjective thing there ever was. But it is also just is noise. Because it just happens and proceeds by the rules of a side product.

That sounds depressing. It is depressing, I guess, if you dwell on it. From what I can see, that is the most plausible explanation of what we are. There may be more. It is kinda suggested by the fact that we have no explanation for the ecistence of that noise. But we have no actual good reason to think so. All we got are questions which tell us nothing other than that we have a huge gap in our understanding.

Free will has nothing to do with it. That is just a term which in various ways encapsulates human desires akin to how religion does so. And it offers as much insight as religion does.

Almost right. Except neurons do not fire spontaneously by themselves, only in response to external stimuli. The switch cannot flip itself. Most interesting theories that I have read about consciousness either posit its use as an override or some kind of hack so we could tap into the reward feedback of the brain at will.

 

[Kyriakos]

Almost right. Except neurons do not fire spontaneously by themselves, only in response to external stimuli. The switch cannot flip itself. Most interesting theories that I have read about consciousness either posit its use as an override or some kind of hack so we could tap into the reward feedback of the brain at will.

"The switch cannot flip itself" seems wrong to me, cause people who do not interact with others virtually at all can still have a very active mental life (many of the famous writers were in general close to that or like that). But the last sentence you posted is part of that indeed, only it is not a 'hack', but another ability of the human to use 'rewards' in the mental/emotional world without seeking to trigger them through external phenomena.
Keep in mind that the mind can exist without other people around you. Anything external is by virtue of the internal manner of the mental world, secondary. This doesn't mean it is calculated consciously as to how it will be used or not used- most people identify some source of positive/other needed emotion, and keep going after it.

 

[Traitorfish]

How do they see it then?

Ask two philosophers and you'll get three answers. Point is, philosophy of mind in the twentieth century has been all about responding critically to the older dualist/idealist models of conciousness, so discussion about free will is cast in more complex terms.

 

[Ayatollah So]

I don't think it's necessary in the thread to thoroughly define free will. That term and its close cognates have many ordinary, everyday uses in decision-making, legal proceedings, and moral praise and blame. The uses all hang together pretty well. And for none of them does determinism make a damn bit of difference.

Determinism probably isn't true (but only probably). The best interpretations of QM seem to be indeterministic (but if you're completely sure, you're overconfident). And human decision making is probably subject on some occasions to amplified quantum noise. But that isn't why we're free.

We're free because we can anticipate the consequences of multiple actions before we choose one, and because that choice typically determines the outcome. Earlier events, which are causes of the choice, do not nullify that point. Events do not exercise power over each other - only agents do that. Agents, meaning physical systems which make choices.

Nothing mysterious or spooky is implied by "choice". It just means that the agent endorses one set of events (say, X) over the anticipated other sets - And, that endorsement brings it about that the agent does X rather than something else. This is all "just" the activity of a whole lot of neurons, in roughly the same way that Beethoven's Fifth is "just" some sounds - a very unjust use of "just". (Other sorely abused words are "only" and "mere".)

 

[Kozmos]

"The switch cannot flip itself" seems wrong to me, cause people who do not interact with others virtually at all can still have a very active mental life (many of the famous writers were in general close to that or like that). But the last sentence you posted is part of that indeed, only it is not a 'hack', but another ability of the human to use 'rewards' in the mental/emotional world without seeking to trigger them through external phenomena.
Keep in mind that the mind can exist without other people around you. Anything external is by virtue of the internal manner of the mental world, secondary. This doesn't mean it is calculated consciously as to how it will be used or not used- most people identify some source of positive/other needed emotion, and keep going after it.

Yeah, but your brain is still receiving external stimuli. The brain is a survival machine, when you isolate from most of its senses it will start to make things up to fill in the blanks, isolate it completely as in from its body and the world and it stops computing. The end.

 

[timtofly]

When you say isolate it from it's senses, what do you mean? People in a coma can stay that way for years and the brain does not end. The only thing that ends is the brains ability to make use of the rest of the body. You can isolate it from taking in new information, but killing a brain is killing a brain, not isolating it from it's capabilities. The brain controls the body and it's functions as long as it gets the calories to keep functioning. The brain cannot manufacture nor perpetuate it's own existence. A lack of new information does not necessarily mean the death or end of a brain.

Current studies on the brain show that the brain stores and retains information better when it is not taking in new information, but actually processing what it took in previously, while the rest of the body is experiencing down time without any stimuli.

Going so far as to say the brain starts making things up, imo begs to question if that is true. It may rearrange and store information that is already there, but "making things up" is about as implausible as the ability to gain new information without the known five senses that humans think they have control over. The brain has the ability to take in more information than we our selves are consciously aware of, and we have very little control over what is retained and what is not.

Experts agree that we do not "know" where thoughts come from, but the logical explanation would be the brain recorded that information without us actually thinking about it at the time it was being recorded.

I doubt any one knows how long it would take a brain to finish rearranging and turning data into long term memory after all stimuli has been cut off. For all we know, when it gets to a "finish" point, it may start all over, doing it again differently the next time.

Bringing up philosophical reasoning like metaphysical noise and outside forces, imo takes away from the brain's ability to work it's own magic. Neither would I rule them out, but it would seem to me they would fall under the term "stimuli".

 

[Kozmos]

People in coma are still attached to their bodies and resources are being brought in and waste disposed of. Without external stimulation like the body reporting yo we're here it would stop.

I'll assume you're referencing to sleep here. It's a maintenance mode more than anything else, clean-up and defragmenting. There is a brain disorder where our brain can tell our body to catch something thrown at us even when we can't technically see or at least our conscious part. Begging the question uh huh consciousness...what is it good for?

Try meditating for a couple of hours in a dark, soundless room or try a sensory deprivation chamber. You'll see for yourself. Do it long enough and the Self disappears. Don't mistake me for a poster-boy of Buddhism however.

We're free because we can anticipate the consequences of multiple actions before we choose one, and because that choice typically determines the outcome. Earlier events, which are causes of the choice, do not nullify that point. Events do not exercise power over each other - only agents do that. Agents, meaning physical systems which make choices.

Nothing mysterious or spooky is implied by "choice". It just means that the agent endorses one set of events (say, X) over the anticipated other sets - And, that endorsement brings it about that the agent does X rather than something else. This is all "just" the activity of a whole lot of neurons, in roughly the same way that Beethoven's Fifth is "just" some sounds - a very unjust use of "just". (Other sorely abused words are "only" and "mere".)

How is that freedom? What you described is an AI expert system or even a conditioned animal. Sure it has choice, but it's a rather predictable alley. Consciousness or free will isn't required for it. Just 'intelligence'.

 

[Ayatollah So]

How is that freedom? What you described is an AI expert system or even a conditioned animal. Sure it has choice, but it's a rather predictable alley. Consciousness or free will isn't required for it. Just 'intelligence'.

"Anticipation" implies consciousness, so the expert-system-AI is out. But I do think some intelligent animals - birds and mammals - have rudimentary free will. Not enough to support moral responsibility, really - although we still talk about reward and punishment for dogs - but they have choices. They do some small amount of reasoning (conditioning isn't enough - but reasoning is). We shouldn't denigrate everything animals can do - it distorts our view of humanity. Admittedly, humans have way more flexibility, thanks to a runaway feedback loop between language and reason. But we don't have to make animals out to be zeros in order to make ourselves the heroes. That leads to stupid and desperate distinctions - especially when we look at (other) great apes.

 

[Kozmos]

Interestingly enough, I think most apes don't even recognize themselves in the mirror. One study managed to get a macaque monkey to do it, but through training. At most I am convinced of a will (not free) that is sufficiently unpredictable enough to confuse predators. Same goes for us.

 

[El_Machinae]

Almost right. Except neurons do not fire spontaneously by themselves, only in response to external stimuli. The switch cannot flip itself. Most interesting theories that I have read about consciousness either posit its use as an override or some kind of hack so we could tap into the reward feedback of the brain at will.

Neurons fire spontaneously as well. Upstream stimulation increases the odds of a firing within a certain timeframe.

But, to counterpoint the idea of 'we can just sit and think'. We can think without stimulation, but it can also be seen as further processing of previous stimulations. We only gain the ability to think by putting developing brain into a stimulating environment. I can't think of any group that posits that an unstimulated brain can think

 

[Terxpahseyton]

@Ayatollah So
The first problem I see is that you describe an ideal rather than a reality.
The ideal is this stream of consciousness which reflects on its situation and possibilities and then makes decisions accordingly.
The reality is a jumbled mess. And ultimately you will not even get to decide how close that mess is to the lofty ideal.

The second problem I see is the dualistic representation this approach to the question of freedom uses. There is a you and then there are choices this you makes. But in reality, there is just a stream of consciousness. And the 'you' is as muchj your preferences as it is your decisions.
This is important, because it means that there is not actually a decider which can be free. But you seem to say that you are in so far free as you are free to make sophistaced decisions. But how much sense makes it to base the statement "our will is free" on a distinction which is not even real?

 

[timtofly]

People in coma are still attached to their bodies and resources are being brought in and waste disposed of. Without external stimulation like the body reporting yo we're here it would stop.

I'll assume you're referencing to sleep here. It's a maintenance mode more than anything else, clean-up and defragmenting. There is a brain disorder where our brain can tell our body to catch something thrown at us even when we can't technically see or at least our conscious part. Begging the question uh huh consciousness...what is it good for?.

I think that most would agree that the "self" is the part of the brain that is the result of stimulation to the brain. Brain maintenance is the part of the brain that maintains the brain for the "self". There are disorders though that interfere and cross wire this ability to maintain the brain properly, and they also become part of the "self"

Try meditating for a couple of hours in a dark, soundless room or try a sensory deprivation chamber. You'll see for yourself. Do it long enough and the Self disappears. Don't mistake me for a poster-boy of Buddhism however.

It would seem though that the brain can go on without the "self" even if just in maintenance mode. We also see that sometimes the "self" comes back intact and sometimes it seems there is a different "self" that returns.

This would seem to indicate that they are separate but dependent on each other. If they were not separate, then the brain should "die" without the self, yet it can continue on in a "selfless" state or so it seems from all indications.

To say that free will does not exist, would be true to the extent it only exists in a physical boundary. That is why it seems to me free will only involves the choices made within that physical boundary. Compared to the rest of known beings with brains, we have the ability to choose the outcome of what we take in via the senses which forms who the "self" actually is.

@Terxpahseyton

What is the problem with attaching an ideal to a reality? The whole concept of government is an ideal that humans came up with to keep the reality of chaos at bay. The current physical condition demands that if every one did what they wanted to do, there would be chaos and not order. Order can only result in the control of free will. Order is not the product of free will. The whole point with free will is that we can change the outcome without some external force. We can choose to live in peace, but the choice is to give up control over others, even if they cannot control themselves. Faith and trust are flimsy concepts, but they do serve a purpose.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

@Terxpahseyton

What is the problem with attaching an ideal to a reality? The whole concept of government is an ideal that humans came up with to keep the reality of chaos at bay.
[...]
Faith and trust are flimsy concepts, but they do serve a purpose.

The problem depends on what you want so say. I do not want to deny the concept of free will its use. I think for the individual as well society this concept is a useful, yes necessary concept to embrace, to some extend.
However, what would be harmful is to embrace it as an immediate reality. Because that would mean the decision to live in a world of fantasy, and hence to to cast aside realities for nothing but their inconvenience.
To illustrate: One the one hand - it is necessary to demand people to take responsibility for their actions. Not because such responsibility actually, fully, truly, exists. But because doing so, because the mere assumption of it gives beneficial incentives, beneficial to overall everyone.
But - if we want to do justice to us and our fellow beings - that is not the whole truth. So if we care about justice, realizing this is essential. So that, for instance, we don't just shrug off biographical failures as individual failures, but also consider exterior factors which benefited such failures.
That is a balancing act, and one lacking a clear guideline. There is always to danger o encourage people to act wrong or to look over their natural disadvantages. It comes down to balancing very different and even opposite dimensions. One founded on educating or disciplining us. Another on understanding and compassion.
Both is needed. And so is their understanding for their justification.

The current physical condition demands that if every one did what they wanted to do, there would be chaos and not order. Order can only result in the control of free will. Order is not the product of free will. The whole point with free will is that we can change the outcome without some external force. We can choose to live in peace, but the choice is to give up control over others, even if they cannot control themselves. Faith and trust are flimsy concepts, but they do serve a purpose.

Hah, this sounds very similar to a piece on the freedom of will by Karl Popper I have read.
But as Popper, I think you are dead wrong in your assumption that freedom of will was a prerequisite for order. Rather, in my opinion, the prudent assumption is that our constraints of will are the source of order. For the reason that this is the way more simple and less presumptuous explanation, while being just as good. Saying - our brain is wired to serve order. Because order means survival. While chaos means unpredictable risks.

 

[Mise]

I'm pretty satisfied that most of my actions are predictable, because it usually means I'm not doing something stupid.

 

[timtofly]

@Terxpahseyton

I think we are in agreement then. I do not fully agree that free will is the ability to do everything. I limit it to the ability to make choices within a range of abilities. If one only has one choice, the will is severely limited.

I think we agree that limiting the will allows order.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

I'm pretty satisfied that most of my actions are predictable, because it usually means I'm not doing something stupid.

That is fine. But that also says nothing about the freedom of your will. It just means a to you comfortable alignment of your decision-process with your satisfaction of the outcomes of it.
And see the fallacy I just committed myself? I treated the 'you' as an independent instance. The proper wording would be: It just means a comfortable alignment of your decision-process with your satisfaction of the outcomes of it. Now spot the freedom in that.

@Terxpahseyton

I think we are in agreement then. I do not fully agree that free will is the ability to do everything. I limit it to the ability to make choices within a range of abilities. If one only has one choice, the will is severely limited.

I think we agree that limiting the will allows order.

So free will is the mere process of being able to consider options? I admit, that is some kind of freedom. But ultimately that doesn't seem very free to me. And moreover, this understanding still depends on an IMO merely artificial division of yourself.