On the existence of options in a deterministic world
This is a problem that has bothered me for a long time, several years if not more! To elaborate consider that you are in a maze and face a fork. You immediately realize that there are two options available for you, namely the left and right path. This realization is due to neural processes in the brain. Neural processes however are deterministic. So I am wondering how can deterministic processes lead to the realization of options.
I am sure we realize two objects in infancy after we realize one object. But first, how do we realize one object? I think that happens in the early stage of infancy. If you present an unmoving object to an infant it cannot realize it unless that object was realized and memorized in the past. So, the infant needs a moving object to realize the object from the background since otherwise she/he just perceives an image although the image has a texture the infant cannot realize different objects within the image. The realization of an object from the background could also be the result of minor movement of eyeballs. So here is the first question: What does happen at the neural level when the infant realizes the object, and distinguishes it from the background?
The next step is when the infant is presented with two same objects. I don't know in which stage of her/his life she/he realizes the difference between two objects and one object but the knowledge of one object is necessary to understand two same objects. So here is the second question: What does happen at the neural level when an infant realizes two same objects?
I would like to invite @Pierre-Normand here since he is very knowledgeable in AI. Hopefully, he can help us answer these questions or give us some insight.
I am sure we realize two objects in infancy after we realize one object. But first, how do we realize one object? I think that happens in the early stage of infancy. If you present an unmoving object to an infant it cannot realize it unless that object was realized and memorized in the past. So, the infant needs a moving object to realize the object from the background since otherwise she/he just perceives an image although the image has a texture the infant cannot realize different objects within the image. The realization of an object from the background could also be the result of minor movement of eyeballs. So here is the first question: What does happen at the neural level when the infant realizes the object, and distinguishes it from the background?
The next step is when the infant is presented with two same objects. I don't know in which stage of her/his life she/he realizes the difference between two objects and one object but the knowledge of one object is necessary to understand two same objects. So here is the second question: What does happen at the neural level when an infant realizes two same objects?
I would like to invite @Pierre-Normand here since he is very knowledgeable in AI. Hopefully, he can help us answer these questions or give us some insight.
Comments (78)
BECOMING
We humans mirror and recapitulate
All of evolution while growing in our mothers womb,
Racing through the stages in which life evolved.
During this nine months and even beyond that
We move from mindlessness to shadowy awareness
To consciousness of the world around us
Onto consciousness of the self
And then even to becoming conscious
Of consciousness itself.
For the first two and one-half years of life
The inexplicable holistic world
Is experienced less and less holistically
As the child discovers the
Bounds of discrete objects.
[hide="Reveal"]The holistic right brain remains of course
For us to take in the overall view,
While the logical left brain is also there to recognize
The detailed relationships between objects.
As such, so goes the universe,
Since we are formed in its image.
So then this gives us a clue
To the nature of the universe.
Seeing that the brain is
Divided into two hemispheres,
Each with their own
Characteristic mode of thought,
Which can communicate with each other,
Means that we are looking very deeply
Into the way that reality itself is constructed.
These two complimentary aspects
To the cosmos are thus absolutely essential,
One being of the whole:
The apparently indivisible,
Continuous fluid entity
Although discrete at unnoticeable levels,
The other being the interrelationships of the parts.
Each interpretation may not appear
At exactly the same time,
But the Yin ever gives way to Yang
And ever then back to Yin, and so on,
The rounded life of the mind
Thus continuing to fully roll,
As the cycle of this symmetry
Turns and returns;
If not, one either gets totally lost
In the details or prematurely halts
After but an apparent whole.
The holistic right brain mode is unfocused,
As we see in some people
Who are unconcerned with details,
It always building the scene in parallel
To form a single entity;
Whereas, the focused left side of brain
Isolates a target of interest and tracks it
And its derivatives sequentially and serially.
Yet the two sides of the overall brain
Are connected to each other
And so the speed of the juggling act
Can meld them together
Into a complete balance like that
Portrayed by the revolving Yin-Yang symbol,
Each ever receding and giving rise to the other
Such does the universe go both ways too,
Its separate parts implicated
With everything else in the whole.
During conscious observation
The hereness and nowness
Of reality crystalizes and remains,
We establishing what that reality is to some extent.
We define and refine the nature of reality
That leads to the minds outlook.
Counterintuitive? Cyclical?
Yes but it is the universe in dialog with itself;
The wave functions and yet the function waves.
The universe supplies the means of its own creation,
Its possibilities supplying the avenues
And the probability and workability
That carve out the paths leading to success.
So here we are, then and now,
The rains of change falling everywhere,
The streams being carved out,
The water rising back up to the sky,
The rain then falling everywhere,
The streams recarving and meandering
Toward more meaning and so on.[/hide]
Can't comment on neurological development, but from how I understand what the option is, I would say that an option always requires another option for it to be an option. Only if I know that I can also take the left path, does the right path become an option. Otherwise, it's just a path. Or rather, the path, I should say.
I would create a primary single object from the two options taken as a whole. And you yourself offered a fork in a maze as a starting point. The fork is this single object. You realize it is a fork, a decision-point, the sudden blur of the way further. And then you Quoting MoK
So my answer would be that the fork always precedes the options. To understand an option, one first experiences a moment of unclarity. And then grasps the elements that make up this unclarity, like how a wave has ascending and descending parts.
As the single fork precedes the multiple options, you get this single object as a starting point. A single option is just a part of a fork, which you always extract later, already knowing there will be multiple options as it comes from recognizing the fork as being a fork.
And because options are always multiple by the very nature of a fork, it doesn't matter if the process of picking an option is always deterministic. They are still options because they are multiple.
I'd like to comment but I'm a bit unclear on the nature of the connection that you wish to make between the two issues that you are raising in your OP. There is the issue of reconciling the idea of there being a plurality of options available to an agent in a deterministic world, and the issue of the cognitive development (and the maturation of their visual system) of an infant whereby they come to discriminate two separate objects from the background and from each other. Can you make your understanding of this connection more explicit?
I'm sorry, but I can't follow you. Could you please write your opinion in plain English so I can understand what you're discussing?
I say that you have only one option available when there is only one path available to you.
Quoting Zebeden
Could you please elaborate here?
Quoting MoK
Then, I would say that I have no options at all. I think that the only option is not an option, but rather a mere necessity.
Quoting MoK
First, you experience a situation that requires decision-making. Once you're in such a situation, only then do you start examining options. Before that, everything was clear and certain (I was just going forward on this single path), and now I'm weighing my options at the crossroads, hence the uncertainty.
Ok, I will try to make things more clearer for you.
Quoting Pierre-Normand
First, I have to say that De BroglieBohm's interpretation of quantum mechanics is correct since it is paradox-free. The motion of particles in this theory is deterministic though. By deterministic I mean given the state of the system at a given point in time the state of the system at a later time is uniquely defined by the former state. So, the motions of particles in the brain are deterministic as well accepting De BroglieBohm's theory. What bothers me is that we for sure know that options are real. We also know for sure that the existence of options is due to neural processes in the brain. Neural processes are however deterministic so I am wondering how options can possibly result from neural processes in the brain. I think we can resolve the big problem in the philosophy of mind, the problem is that hard determinists claim that options cannot be real. Of course, the hard determinists cannot be right in this case since we can obviously distinguish between a situation in which there is only one object and another situation in which there are two objects. I studied neural networks in good depth in the past. My memory on neural networks is very rusty now but I would be happy to have your understanding of this topic if you can explain it in terms of neural networks as well. Can we train a neural network to realize between one and two objects and give outputs 1 and 2 respectively? If yes, what does happen at the neural level when it is trained to recognize two objects?
Quoting Pierre-Normand
Please let's focus on one object first. If we accept the Hebbian theory is the correct theory for learning then we can explain how an infant realizes one object. Once the infant is presented with two objects, she/he can recognize each object very quickly since she/he already memorized the object. How she/he realizes that there are two separate objects is however very tricky and is the part that I don't understand well. I have seen that smartphones can recognize faces when I try to take a photo. I however don't think they can recognize that there are two or more faces though.
Quoting Pierre-Normand
I tried to elaborate the best I could. Please let me know what you think and ask questions if you have any.
I am interested to know what happens at the neural level when we realize that there are two paths.
Take a step.
Count the ways forward (don't include the way you came)
If 0, it's a dead end. Only option is to turn around.
If 1, continue that one way
else there are multiple options.
It's that easy. The realization of multiple options is as simple as counting, and there is even multiple options with case 1 since a good maze following program might conclude it to not be productive to follow the current path to its unseen end.
Almost all computer programs are fully deterministic and are great models to simplify what might otherwise be a complex subject.
What you need to worry about is not the realization of options, but how determinism always results in the same choice given the exact same initial state. So our program might be crude and uses the right-hand rule, in which case it doesn't even count options, it just takes the first rightmost valid path and doesn't even notice if there are other options. A better program would be more optimal than that, but then complexity is required, and it still does the same thing given the same initial state.
So realization of options is one thing, but no matter how many options there are, only one choice can be ultimately be made, even if determinism is not the case. You can follow a choice in the maze, and if it dead ends, you go back and take the other way, which is 'doing otherwise'. Even the right-hand robot can do otherwise in that sense.
As for the infant process of neural development, that's an insanely complex issue that likely requires a doctorate in the right field to discuss the current view of how all that works. It seems irrelevant to the topic of determinism and options.
Quoting MoK
All the interpretations are paradox free. None of them has been falsified (else they'd not be valid interpretations), and some of them posit fundamental randomness, but several don't.
I don't like Bohmian mechanics because it requires FTL causality and even retro-causality, forbidden by the principle of locality, but that principle is denied by that interpretation. That makes it valid, but it doesn't make me willing to accept it.
Not quite. That realisation is neural processes in the brain. It is not seperate from yet caused by those neural processes.
And a babe's brain is pre-wired to recognise faces and areola.
Hebbian mechanisms contribute to explaining how object recognition skills (and reconstructive episodic memory) can be enabled by associative learning. Being presented (and/or internally evoking) a subset of a set of normally co-occurring stimuli yields the activation of the currently missing stimuli from the set. Hence, for instance, the co-occurring thoughts of "red" and "fruit" might evoke in you the thought of an apple or tomato since the stimuli normally provided by by this subset evokes the missing elements (including their names) of the co-occurring stimuli (or represented features) of familiar objects.
In the case of the artificial neural networks that undergird large language models like ChatGPT, the mechanism is different but has some functional commonalities. As GPT-4o once put it: "The analogy to Hebbian learning is apt in a sense. Hebbian learning is often summarized as "cells that fire together, wire together." In the context of a neural network, this can be likened to the way connections (weights) between neurons (nodes) are strengthened when certain patterns of activation occur together frequently. In transformers, this is achieved through the iterative training process where the model learns to associate certain tokens with their contexts over many examples."
I assume what you are driving at when you ponder over the ability to distinguish qualitatively similar objects in the visual field is the way in which those objects are proxies for alternative affordances for action, as your initial example of two alternative paths in a maze suggests. You may be suggesting (correct me if I'm wrong) that those two "objects" are being discriminated as signifying or indicating alternative opportunities for action and you wonder how this is possible in view of the fact that, in a deterministic universe, only one of those possibilities will be realized. Is that your worry? I think @Banno and @noAxioms both proposed compatibilist responses to your worry, but maybe you have incompatibilist intuitions that make you inclined to endorse something like Frankfurt's principle of alternate possibilities. Might that be the case?
I agree that one can write code to help a robot count the number of unmoving dots in its visual field. But I don't think a person can write code to help a robot count the number of objects or moving dots.
Quoting noAxioms
I searched the internet to death but I didn't find anything useful.
Quoting noAxioms
It is relevant.
Quoting noAxioms
Copenhagen interpretation for example suffers from the Schrodinger's cat paradox. It cannot explain John Wheeler's delayed choice experiment. etc. Anyway, I am not interested in going to a debate on quantum mechanics in this thread since it is off-topic. All I wanted to say is that for this thread the motion of particles in a brain is deterministic.
We have a slight difference here. I am a substance dualist and it seems to me that you are a physicalist. But please let's focus on the topic of the thread and put this difference in view aside.
Quoting Banno
Do you have any argument or know any study to support this claim? I am asking how an infant can distinguish between one object or two objects. I would be interested to know how an infant's brain is pre-wired then. So saying that an infant's brain is just pre-wired does not help to have a better understanding of what is happening in her/his brain when she/he realizes one object or two objects.
Yes. I am wondering how we can realize two objects which look the same as a result of neural processes in the brain accepting that the neural processes are deterministic.
Quoting Pierre-Normand
@noAxioms suggests that we are counting objects. I don't think that is the case when we are presented with two objects. We immediately realize two objects as a result of neural processes in the brain. We however need to count when we are presented with many objects.
@Banno suggests that an infant's brain is pre-wired. That could be true. But that does not answer how an infant could possibly realize two objects since it does not address how the brain is pre-wired.
Quoting Pierre-Normand
Yes. We are morally responsible if we could do otherwise. That means that we at least have two options to choose from. The options are however mental objects, like to steal or not to steal, which are slightly harder to discuss but I think that we are dealing with the same category when we realize two objects in our visual field or when we realize two mental objects. So I think we can resolve all the discussions related to the reality of options if we can understand how the brain can distinguish two objects in its visual field first.
A compatibilist says that free will and determinism are compatible with each other, but I would need both words more precisely defined were I to agree with that.
Quoting MoKI was showing the counting of options, not objects.
Quoting MoKYou are complicating a simple matter. I made no mention of the fairly complex task of interpreting a visual field. The average maze runner doesn't even have a visual field at all, but some do.
All I am doing is showing the utterly trivial task of counting options, which is a task easily performed by a determinsitic entity, answering your seeming inability to realize this when you state "So I am wondering how can deterministic processes lead to the realization of options".
The solution is to count the options (in the maze example, paths away from current location) and if there is more than one, options have been realized. If there is but one, it isn't optional. The means by which these options are counted is a needless complication that is besides the point.
I wrote code that did exactly that. It would look at a bin of parts and decide on the next one to pick up, and would determine the angle at which to best do that. This was 45 years ago when this sort of thing was still considered innovative.
Nonsense. Just because you don't know how it explains a scenario doesn't mean it doesn't explain it. Copenhagen was developed as an epistemological interpretation which means the observer outside the box doesn't know (wave function describing state) the cat state and the observer inside has a more collapsed wave function state. Super easy.
Sure, off topic, so I'll leave off the delayed-choice thingy.
But your assertion that Bohmian mechanics is the only valid interpretation (a deterministic one) is on topic, and thus the falsification of the other interpretations is very much on topic.
Again, I counted six kinds of determinism, and some of those are almost certainly the case and some of them are almost certainly not the case. Bohmian mechanics was number 2.
Quoting MoKMoral responsibility is far more complicated than that, as illustrated by counterexamples, but the core is correct. There being more than one course of action available, and it is very hard to come up with an example where that is not the case. I am in a maze, but find myself embedded in the concrete walls instead of the paths between. I have no options, and thus am not responsible for anything I do there.
Stealing and not stealing are physical actions, not mental objects. Bearing moral responsibility for one's mental objects is a rare thing, but they did it to Jimmy Carter, about a moral person as they come.
The fallacy seems to be in the assertion that determinism somehow takes away choice, which of course is nonsense since we'd not have evolved large (and very expensive) brains if not to make better choices. I cannot think of a single way that a choice can be made better by a non-deterministic process than by a similar but deterministic process. I invite such an example, but a deterministic algorithm implemented on a non-deterministic information processor is still a deterministic process.
We don't count options if a few are presented to us. We just realize the number of options right away as a result of neural processes in the brain. I am interested in understanding what is happening in the brain when we are performing such a simple task.
Quoting noAxioms
No, you consider the existence of options granted and then offer a code that is supposed to work and counts options. Thanks, but that is not what I am looking for.
Quoting noAxioms
I am talking about available options to a thief before committing the crime.
I imagine it entails pattern recognition: seeing the same image pattern against a relatively constant background. Artificial neural networks learn patterns, and they are considerably simpler that biological neural networks because they lack neuroplasticity (the growing of new neurons and synapses).
Quoting MoK
Options that are before us lead us to mentally deliberate to develop a choice. If we could wind the clock back, could we actually have made a different choice? Clearly, if determinism is true, then we could not. But if determinism is false- why think our deliberation would have led to a different outcome? The same mental factors would have been in place.
I did an extensive search and I found many methods for object recognition. Here, you can find two main methods, namely CNN, and YOLO. Granted that objects are recognized I am interested to know methods for counting objects. I did an extensive search on the net and got lost since it seems that the literature is very very rich on this topic! The current focus of research is to find the best method for counting the very high dense number of objects where objects could overlap for example. Here is a review article that discusses the CNN method for crowd counting. I am interested in a simple neural network that can count a limited number of isolated objects though. I will continue the search and let you know if I find anything useful.
Quoting Relativist
I am not interested in discussing the decision here. I am interested in understanding how we realize two objects so swiftly. If I show you two objects, you without any counting realize that there are two objects in your vision field. The same applies when you are in a maze. You realize that there are two paths available to you without counting as well. The mechanism is completely deterministic though. Two objects, two paths in a maze, etc. we are dealing with the same topic, and although the mechanism is fully deterministic we could recognize two options. So that part of the puzzle is solved for me.
No, here I am interested in understanding how we realize objects/options in our vision fields. Please read the previous post if you are interested.
I think you may be using the word "realize" meaning "resolve" (as used in photography, for instance, to characterise the ability to distinguish between closely adjacent objects.) Interestingly, the polysemy of the word "resolve", that can be used to characterise an ability to visually discriminate or characterise the firmness in one's intention to pursue a determinate course of action suggests that they are semantically related, with the first one being a metaphorical extension of the second.
Quoting MoK
We were considering a fork in the path of a maze. Are they not a pair of options?
Sure, one cannot choose to first go down both. Of the options, only one can be chosen, and once done, choosing otherwise cannot be done without some sort of retrocausality. They show this in time travel fictions where you go back to correct some choice that had unforeseen bad consequences.
I guess I don't know what you consider to be options.
So you do grant the existence of multiple options before choosing one of them. What part of the maze example then is different than the crime example?
Quoting Patterner
A Roomba wouldn't work if it didn't realize options. If there are two paths to choose from, it needs to know that. If it always picked the left path, there would be vast swaths of floor never visited. It needs awareness of alternative places to go.
What fundamentally do you do that a Roomba doesn't? If you mean it is not remote controlled, I'll agree. It makes its own choices. The RC car on the other hand is remote controlled and has no free will of its own. That's a fundamental distinction between the Roomba and the RC car, but I ask about the Roomba and you, because I suspect you're the RC car, a puppet of another.
[I]A Roomba wouldn't work if it didn't realize it has options.[/I]
I'm afraid you've lost me, regarding the puppet.
Yes, the bibliography also lists the references which could be useful. I will go through them after I finish the thesis.
I am unsure whether we first realize two objects and then distinguish/resolve them from each other upon further investigations or first distinguish/resolve them from each other and then count them and realize that there are two objects. The counting convolutional neural network works based on later.
We can indeed perceive a set of distinct objects as falling under the concept of a number without there being the need to engage in a sequential counting procedure. Direct pattern recognition plays a role in our recognising pairs, trios, quadruples, quintuples of objects, etc., just like we recognise numbers of dots on the faces of a die without counting them each time. We perceive them as distinctive Gestalten. But I'm more interested in the connection that you are making between recognising objects that are actually present visually to us and the prima facie unrelated topic of facing open (not yet actual) alternatives for future actions in a deterministic world.
I found this useful thesis about counting objects by a convolutional neural network.
Quoting noAxioms
Sure they are.
Quoting noAxioms
The point is that both paths are real and accessible, as we can recognize them. However, the process of recognizing paths is deterministic. This is something that hard determinists deny. The decision is a separate topic though. I don't think that the decision results from the brain's neural process. The decision is due to the mind. That is true since any deterministic system halts when you present it with options. A deterministic system always goes from one state to another unique state. If a deterministic system reaches a situation where there are two states available for it it cannot choose between two states therefore it halts. When we are walking in a maze, our conscious mind is aware of different situations always. If there is one path available then we simply proceed. If we reach a fork we realize the options available to us, namely the left and right path. That is when the conscious mind comes into play, realizes the paths in its experience, and chooses one of the paths. The subconscious mind then becomes aware of the decision and acts accordingly.
Quoting noAxioms
By options, I mean a set of things that are real and accessible and we can choose from.
Quoting noAxioms
In the example of the maze, the options are presented to the person's visual fields. In the case of rubbery the options are mental objects.
Correct. There is however a limit on the number of things that we can realize without counting. I think it is related to working memory and it is at most five to six items.
Quoting Pierre-Normand
I was interested in a neural network that can realize the number of objects. I found this thesis which exactly deals with the problem of realizing the number of objects that I was interested to. The author does not explain what exactly happens at the neural level when the neural network is presented with many objects and it can realize the number of objects as I think it is a complex phenomenon. I think we are dealing with the same phenomenon when we face two options in the example of the maze, left and right path. So, although the neural processes whether in our brain or an artificial neural network are deterministic they can lead to the realization of options. By options, I mean things that are real and accessible to us and we can choose one or more of them depending on the situation.
I think it depends on the working memory of the person which is at most 5 to 6 items.
Makes sense.
Strikes that. What do you mean by working memory? I'm thinking someone could glance at, say, a max of 10 randomly arranged items, and immediately know there are 10, without counting. Someone else might only be able to do that with up to 5 items.
Working memory is the memory of the conscious mind which is temporary.
I think it is related. You can realize a few objects in your visual field immediately without counting. These objects are registered in your working memory. If the number of objects surpasses your the size of working memory then you cannot immediately report the number of objects and you have to count them. You might find this study interesting.
I'm fine with that.
You didn't answer the question asked "What fundamentally do you do that a Roomba doesn't?" when you imply that a Roomba doesn't realize options.
Quoting MoK
How can a determinist deny that some physical process is determisitic? You have a reference for this denial by 'hard determinists'?
I mean, even in a non-deterministic universe, the process of recognizing paths (biological or machine) is deterministic. I cannot think of a non-determinstic way to to implement it.
Ah, so you think that this 'mind' is separate from neural processes. You should probably state assumptions of magic up front, especially when discussing how neural processes do something that you deny are done by the neural processes. Or maybe the brain actually has a function after all besides just keeping the heart beating and such.
Tell that to Roomba or the maze runner, neither of which halts at all.
No, it makes a choice between them. Determinism helps with that, not hinders it. Choosing to halt is a decision as well, but rarely made. You make a lot of strawman assumptions about deterministic systems, don't you?
The maze options are also 'mental' objects, where 'mental; is defined as the state of the information processing portion of the system. A difference in how the choice comes to be known is not a fundamental difference to the choice existing.
The difference is I am aware that I have options. The Roomba goes one way or the other at the command of it's programming, never aware of [I]how[/I] the decision was made; [I]that[/I] a decision was made; or even that there are options. It has no concept of options. It does not think about the choice it made two minutes ago, and wonder it if might have been better to have gone the other way. And it certainly doesn't regret any choice it ever made.
I wanted to say that determinists deny the existence of options rather than determinism.
Quoting noAxioms
Sure, I think that the mind is separate from neural processes. To me, physical processes in general are not possible without an entity that I call the Mind. I have two threads on this topic. In one of the threads entitled "Physical cannot be the cause of its own change" I provide two main arguments against the physicalist worldview. In another thread entitled "The Mind is the Uncaused Cause", I discuss the nature of causality as vertical rather than horizontal. So no Mind, no physical processes, no neural processes.
Quoting noAxioms
I am not denying the role of neural processes at all. It is due to neural processes that we can experience things all the time. The existence of options also is due to the existence of neural processes. The neural processes however cannot lead to direct experience through so-called the Hard Problem of Consciousness. So, to have a coherent view we need to include the mind as an entity that experiences. The Mind experiences and causes/creates physical whereas the mind, such as the conscious mind, experiences ideas, ideas such as the simulation of reality, generated by the subconscious mind. The conscious mind only intervenes when it is necessary, for example when there is a conflict of interests in a situation.
Quoting noAxioms
Sure. No brain, no neural processes, no experience in general, whether the experience is a feeling, the simulation of reality, thoughts, etc.
Quoting noAxioms
That is because Roomba acts based on the instruction that a human wrote it. We don't act based on a preprogrammed instruction. We are constantly faced with options, these options have different features that we have never experienced before. We normally go through a very complex process of giving weights to options. Once the process of giving weights to options is performed we are faced with two situations, either options do not have the same weight or they have the same weight. We normally choose the option that has higher weight most of the time but we can always choose otherwise. When the option has the same weight we can still decide freely choose the option we please. In both cases, that is the conscious mind that makes the final decision freely by choosing one of the options.
Quoting noAxioms
Not at all. Please see above.
Quoting noAxioms
The maze options become mental objects if you think about them otherwise they are just something in your visual field.
:100: :up:
The programming is part of the Roomba, same as your programming is part of you (maybe, opinions differ on the latter. You make it sound like a program at the factory is somehow remote controlling the device. It could work that way, but it doesn;t.
Also true of both.
Quoting PatternerAs I said, the device couldn't operate if it wasn't aware of options. It has sensory inputs. It uses them to determine options, including the option to seek the charging station, just like you do.
Actually it does, but I do agree that some devices don't retain memory of past choices. How is that a fundamental difference? You also don't remember all choices made in the past, even 2 minutes old. The Roomba doesn't so much remember the specific choices (which come at the rate of several per second, possibly thousands), but rather remembers the consequences of them.
Quoting PatternerGot me there. The human emotion of regret probably does not enhance its functionality, so they didn't include that. The recent chess playing machines do definitely have regret (its own kind, not the human kind), something necessary for learning, but Roombas are not learning things.
Quoting MoKIf they do that, they're using a very different definition of 'options' than are you.
Your definition (OM): the available paths up for choice. There are usually hundreds of options, but in a simplified model, you come to a T intersection in a maze. [Left, right, back the way you came, just sit there, pause and make a mark] summarize most of the main categories. Going straight is not an option because there's a wall there.
I am putting words in your mouth, so if I'm wrong, then call it ON (Option definition, Noaxioms) and then give your own definition with clear examples of what is and is not an option.
OK, said hard determinist with the alternate definition OD: The possible subsequent states that lead from a given initial state. If determinism is true, there is indeed only one of those, both for the Roomba and for you. There is no distinction.
Thing is, there is no empirical way to figure out if determinism is the case or not. The experience is the same. If you want to go left, you go left. If you want to go right, you go right. That's true, determinism or not, and it's true regardless of which definition of 'options' is used.
Side note: Using OD:, there is one option only with types 2, 5, and 6, but 1,4 and 6 are not especially considered 'hard determinism'.
Quoting MoKOK. Then it's going to at some point need to make a physical effect from it's choice. If you choose to punch your wife in the face, your choice needs to at some point cause your arm to move, something that cannot happen if the subsequent state is solely a function of the prior physical state. So your view is compatible only with type 6 determinism, and then only in a self-contradictory way, but self contradiction is what 6 is all about.
Fine. Work out the problem I identified just above. If you can't do that, then you haven't thought things through. Do you deny known natural law? If not, your beliefs fail right out of the gate. If you do deny it, where specifically is it violated?
How is the Roomba mind fundamentally different than yours? It's a physical process, and you assert above that such process is not possible without a mind. A rock cannot fall without a mind.
I suppose that works under idealism, but determinism (or lack of it) has pretty much no meaning under idealism.
So Roombas are the mental equals of humans? The only thing separating us is emotion?
By options, I mean things that are real and accessible to us and we can choose one or more of them depending on the situation.
Quoting noAxioms
Sure, I disagree. This thread's whole purpose is to understand how options can exist and be real for entities such as humans with brains. I was just looking to understand how we could realize options as a result of neural processes in the brain. I did an extensive search on the internet and found many methods for object recognition. I also found a thesis that deals with a neural network that can realize the number of objects presented to it. So the existence of options is well established even in the domain of artificial neural networks.
Quoting noAxioms
The mind can only intervene when options are available to it. Once the decision is made, it becomes an observer and follows the chain of causality until the next point where options become available again.
Quoting noAxioms
Sure, I agree with the existence of physical laws.
Quoting noAxioms
Not at all. The Mind is in constant charge of keeping things in motion, in this motion, the intrinsic properties of particles are preserved for example. The physical laws are manifestations of particles having certain intrinsic properties.
Ask MoK. He's the one that said that "hysical processes in general are not possible without an entity that I call the Mind", which implies that a Roomba is not possible without a mind. It's apparently how he explains the action resulting from an immaterial decision.
Quoting MoKI think that pretty much matches the wording I gave. It works great for the Roomba too.
The difference between a human and a Roomba is that a human has a conscious mind that makes the decisions whereas, in the case of a Roomba, all decisions related to different situations are preprogrammed.
I deem this the crucial premise in the OP that needs to be questioned.
IFF a world of causal determinism, then sure: neural processes are deterministic (just as much as a Roomba). However, if the world is not one of causal determinism, then on what grounds, rational or empirical, can this affirmation be concluded?
A living brain is after all living, itself composed of individual, interacting living cells, of which neurons are likely best known via empirical studies. As individual living cells, neurons too can be deemed to hold some sort of sentience this in parallel to that sentience (else mind) that can be affirmed of single-celled eukaryotic organisms, such as ameba. Other that personal biases, there's no rational grounds to deny sentience (mind) to one and not the other. And, outside a stringent conviction in our world being one of causal determinism, there is no reason to conclude that an ameba, for example, behaves in fully deterministic manners. Likewise then applies to the behaviors of any individual neuron. Each neuron seeks both sustenance and stimulation via its synaptic connections so as to optimally live. Its by now overwhelmingly evidenced that neuroplasticity in fact occurs. Such that it is more than plausible that both synaptic reinforcement and synaptic decay (as well as the creation of new synaptic connections) will occur based on the (granted, very minimal) volition of individual neurons attempts to best garner sustenance and stimulations so as to optimize its own individual life as a living cell.
And all this can well be in tune with the stance that neural processes are in fact not deterministic (here, this in the sense of a causal determinism).
To this effect, linked here is an article regarding the empirically evidenced intelligence, or else sentience, of individual cohorts of neurons grown in a petri dish which learned how to play Pong (which can be argued to require a good deal of forethought (prediction) to successfully play). Some highlights from the article:
Quoting https://neurosciencenews.com/organoid-pong-21625/
Again, if one insists in the world being one of causal determinism, then all this is itself determinate in all respects. Fine. But if not, empirical studies such as this strongly indicate that neural processes are indeed indeterministic, aka, not deterministic.
The inquiry into options available and the act of choice making itself would then follow suit.
In this thread, I really didn't want to get into a debate about whether the world at the microscopic level is deterministic or not. There is one interpretation of quantum mechanics, namely the De BroglieBohm interpretation that is paradox-free and it is deterministic. Accepting this interpretation then it follows that a neuron also is a deterministic entity. What happens when we have a set of neurons may be different though. Could a set of neurons work together in such a way that the result of this collaboration results in the existence of options? We know by fact that this is the case in the human brain. But what about when we have a few or some neurons? To answer that, let's put the real world aside and look at artificial neural networks (ANN) for a moment. Could the ANN realize and count different objects? It seems that is the case. So options are also realizable even to the ANN while the neurons in such a system function in a purely deterministic way.
Quoting javra
An ameba is a living organism and can function on its own. A neuron, although is a living entity, its function depends on the function of other neurons. For example, the strengthening and weakening of a synapse is the result of whether the neurons that are connected by the synapse fire in synchrony or not, so-called Hebbian theory. So there is a mechanism for the behavior of a few neurons, and it seems that is the basic principle for memory, and I would say for other complex phenomena even such as thinking.
Quoting javra
I would say that an ameba has a mind, can learn, etc. but I highly doubt that a single neuron has a mind and can freely decide as it seems that the functioning of a neuron is not independent of other neurons. Please see the previous comment.
Quoting javra
Neuroplasticity, to the best of our knowledge, is the result of neurons firing together. Please see my comment on the Hebbian theory.
Quoting javra
That was an interesting article to read. But there are almost 800,000 cells in the DishBrain. I don't understand the relevance of this study to the behavior of one neuron and whether a neuron is not a deterministic entity.
My bad then.
Quoting MoK
In other words, look at silicon-based systems rather than life-based systems in order to grasp how life-based systems operate. Not something I'm myself into. But it is your OP, after all.
Quoting MoK
I'll only point out that all of your reply addresses synapses - which are connections in-between neurons and not the neutrons themselves.
So none of this either rationally or empirically evidences that an individual neuron is not of itself a sentience-endowed lifeform - one that engages in autopoiesis, to include homeostasis and metabolism as an individual lifeform, just as much as an any self-sustaining organism does; one that seeks out stimulation via both dendritic and axonal growth just as much as any self-sustaining organism seeks out and requires stimulation; one which perceives stimuli via its dendrites and acts, else reacts, via its axon; etc.
As I was previously mentioning, there is no rational or empirical grounds to deny sentience to the individual neuron (or most any somatic cell for that matter - with nucleus-lacking red blood cells as a likely exception) when ascribing sentience to self-sustaining single celled organisms such as amebas. Again, the explanation you've provided for neurons not being in some manner sentient falls short in part for the reasons just mentioned: in short, synapses are not neurons, but the means via which neurons communicate.
But back to the premise of neural processes being deterministic ...
I am sorry. But I elaborate a little on quantum mechanics in my reply to your post. I hoped that that was enough.
Quoting javra
As I mentioned, I was interested in understanding whether a few or some neurons work together such that the system can realize the options. I think it would be extremely difficult to make such a setup by living neurons. That was why I suggested to focus on the artificial neural network.
Quoting javra
That is a very important part when it comes to the neuroplasticity of the brain. A neuron mainly just fires when it is depolarized to a certain extent.
Quoting javra
I highly doubt that a neuron has a mind. But let's assume so for the sake of the argument. In which location in a neuron is the information related to what the neuron experienced in the past stored? How could a neuron realize options? How could a group of neurons work coherently if each is free?
This overlooks the importance of dendritic input. which culminates in the neuron's nucleus. As to neuroplasiticiy, it can be rather explicitly understood to consist of new synaptic connections created by new outreachings of dendrites and axons. Otherwise the brain would remain permanently hardwired, so to speak, with the neural connections it has from birth till the time of its death. And I distinctly remember the latter being the exact opposite of neuroplasticity in the neuroscience circles I once partook of. So understood, neuroplaticity is contingent on individual neurons growing their dendrites and axons (via most likely trial and error means) toward new sources of synapse-resultant stimulation.
Quoting MoK
Same questions can be placed with equal validity of any individual ameba, for example. Point being, if you allow for "mind in life" as it would pertain to an ameba, there is no reason to not then allow the same for a neuron. The as of yet unknown detailed mechanism of how all this occurs in a lifeform devoid of a central nervous system being completely irrelevant to the issue at hand.
Quoting MoK
Free from what? All I said is that an individual neuron can well be maintained to be sentient, hence hold a volition and mind (utterly minuscule in comparison to our own though it would then be). As to the issue of how can a plurality of sentient lifeforms work "coherently" - assuming that by "coherently" you meant cooperatively - I'm not sure what you're here expecting? How does a society of humans work cooperatively? A multitude of hypotheses could be offered, one of which is that of maximizing the well being of oneself via cooperation with others. Besides, as liver cells are built to work cooperatively in the liver as organ, for example, neurons are built to work cooperatively in the CNS as organ.
What is a mind? What does a mind do? This is from [I]Journey of the Mind: How Thinking Emerged from Chaos[/I], by Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam:
They talk about the amoeba, which has the required elements.
Obviously, these definitions of mind and thinking are as basic as can be. But it's where it all starts.
Can a neuron be said to have a mind, to think, by these definitions?
Or do you say a neuron has a mind because of some other definition?
I don't see why not.
The sensor aspect of thought so defined: the neuron via its dendrites senses in its environment of fellow neurons their axonal firings (axons of other neurons to which the dendrites of the particular neuron are connected via synapses) and responds to its environment of fellow neurons by firing its own axon so as to stimulate other neurons via their own dendrites.
The doer aspect of thought so defined: the neuron's growth of dendrites and axon (which is requisite for neural plasticity) occurs with the, at least apparent, purpose of finding, or else creating, new synaptic connections via which to be stimulated and stimulate - this being a neuron's doing in which the neuron acts upon its environment in novel ways.
To me, it seems to fit the definitions of mind offered just fine.
BTW, so its known, what I just wrote is a simplified model of the average neuron.
Different neurons will have different physiology. Some neurons, for example, do not have an axon, at least not one that can be differentiated from its dendrites. (reference) Other neurons have over 1000 dendritic branches and the one axon. (reference) Still, they all (to my knowledge) sense dendritic input and act upon their environment in fairly blatant manners - thereby staying accordant to the definition of mind you've provided.
Also: in fairness, my own general understanding of mind follows E. Thompson's understanding pretty closely, which he explains in great detail in his book "Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind". The first paragraph from the book's preface given the general idea:
Quoting https://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Mail/xmcamail.2012_03.dir/pdf3okBxYPBXw.pdf
But the definitions of mind you've provided are far easier to express and to me work just fine.
I think that amoebas evolved in such a way to function as a single organism. Neurons are however different entities and they function together. Moreover, scientific evidence shows that a single amoeba can learn and remember. To my knowledge, no scientific evidence exists that a single neuron can learn or remember.
Yes, but I don't see how that is significant to neurons being or not being sentient.
Quoting MoK
Here's an article from Nature to the contrary: Neurons learn by predicting future activity.
Quoting javra
I should edit this as follows: this is so for certain aspects of mind such as those that pertaining to single-celled lifeforms, be they somatic cells (e.g. neurons) or else individual organisms (e.g., ameba) and somewhat less so for others: finding far more complexity than the book offers in relation to the workings of a human mind, for example (which weve previously briefly discussed in another thread).
As one good example of this approach in regard to the sentience of an organism and that of its individual constituent cells:
Most including in academic circled will acknowledge that a plant is sentient (some discussing the issue of plant intelligence to boot): It, after all, can sense sunlight and gravity such that it grows its leaves toward sunlight and its roots toward gravity. But, although this sensing of environment will be relatively global to the plant, I for the life of me cant fathom how a plant might then have a centralized awareness and agency along the lines of what animals most typically have such that in more complex animals it becomes the conscious being. I instead envision a plants sentience to generally be the diffuse sum product of the interactions between its individual constituent cells, such that each cell with its own specialized functions - holds its own (utterly miniscule) sentience as part of a cooperative we term the organism, in this case the plant. This, in some ways, in parallel to how a living sponge as organism itself being an animal is basically just a communal cooperation between individual eukaryotic cells which feed together via the system of openings: with no centralized awareness to speak of. This general outlook then fits with the reality that some plants have no clear boundaries as organisms despite yet sensing, minimally, sunlight and gravity - with grass as one such example: a field of grass of the same species is typically intimately interconnected underground as one organism, yet a single blade of grass and its root can live just fine independently as an individual organism if dug up and planted in a new area. I thereby take the plant to be sentient, but only as a cooperative of individual sentience-endowed plant cells whose common activities result in the doings of the plant as a whole organism: doing in the form of both sensing its environment and acting upon it (albeit far slower than most any animal). I dont so far know of a better way of explaining a plants sentience given all that we know about plants.
Whereas in animals such as humans, the centralized awareness and agency which we term consciousness plays a relatively central role to out total mind's doings obviously, with the unconscious aspects of our mind being not conscious to us; and with the latter in turn resulting from the structure and functioning of our physiological CNS, which itself holds different zones of activity (from which distinct agencies of the unconscious mind might emerge) and which we consider body rather than mind. So once one entertains the sentience of neurons, one here thereby addresses the constituents of one's living body, rather than of one's own mind per se.
My bad if this is too off-topic. I won't post anymore unless there's reason to reply.
That was an interesting article to read. I however have a serious objection to whether that is a collection of neurons that learns and adopts itself or each single neuron has such a capacity. Of course, if you assume that each neuron has such a capacity and plug it into the equation then you obtain that a collection of neurons also have the same capacity but the opposite is not necessarily true. I don't think that they have access to individual neuron activity when it comes to experiments too (although they mentioned neuron activity in the discussion for Figures 4 and 5). So I stick to what I think is more correct, a collection of neurons can learn but individual neurons cannot.
If you're willing, what are the "serious objections" that you have to the possibility that individual neurons can learn from experience?
I read about plant intelligence a long time ago and I was amazed. They cannot only recognize between up and down, etc. they also are capable of communicating with each other. I can find those articles and share them with you if you are interested.
Quoting javra
To me what you call the unconscious mind (what I call the subconscious mind) is conscious. Its activity most of the time is absent from the conscious mind though. But you can tell that the subconscious mind and conscious mind are constantly working with each other when you reflect on a complex process of thoughts for example. Although that is the conscious mind which is a thinking entity, it needs a constant flow of information from what was experienced and thought in the past. This information of course registered in the subconscious mind's memory. The amount of information that is registered in the subconscious mind's memory however is huge so the subconscious mind has to be very selective in the type of information that should be passed to the conscious mind depending on the subject of focus of the conscious mind. Therefore, the subconscious mind is an intelligent entity as well. I also think that what we call intuition is due to the subconscious mind!
Quoting javra
I cannot follow what you are trying to say here.
I don't understand how in the case of Ameba they could possibly interact and learn collectively.
Quoting javra
I try to be minimalistic all the time when I try to explain complex phenomena. The behavior of an electron is lawful and deterministic to me. The same applies to larger entities such as atoms and molecules. I try to be minimalistic even in the case of a neuron unless I face a phenomenon that cannot be explained. If I find myself in a troublesome situation where I cannot explain a phenomenon, then I try to dig from top to bottom questioning the assumption that I made trying to see where is the fault assumption. I would even question the assumption that I made for electrons as well if it is necessary.
In regards to the subject of this thread, the existence of options in a deterministic world, I found there is a simple explanation for the phenomenon once I consider a set of neurons each being a simple entity and deterministic.
I'm relatively well aware of this. Thank you. :up: It gets even more interesting in considering that, from what we know, subterranean communication between plants seems to require their communal symbiosis with fungi species. In a very metaphorical sense, their brains are underground, and communicate via a potentially wide web connections.
Quoting MoK
I in many ways agree. I would instead state that the unconscious mind - which I construe to not always be fully unified in its agencies - is instead "aware and volition-endowed". So, in this sense, it could be stated to be in its own way conscious (here to my mind keeping things simple and not addressing the plurality of agencies that could therein occur), but we as conscious agents are yet unconscious of most of its awareness and doings. This being why I yet term it the unconscious mind: we as conscious beings are, again, typically not conscious of its awareness and doings.
Quoting MoK
I basically wanted to express that, if one allows the neurons being sentient, their own sentience is part and parcel of our living brain's total physiology, this as aspects of our living bodies. Whereas we as mind-endowed conscious beings of our own, our own sentience is not intertwined with that pertaining to individual neurons of our CNS. Rather, they do their thing within the CNS for the benefit of their own individual selves relative to their community of fellow neurons, which in turn results in certain neural-web firings within our brain, which in turn results in the most basic aspects of our own unconscious mind supervening on these neural-web firings, with these most basic aspects of our unconscious mind then in one way or another ultimately combining to form the non-manifold unity of the conscious human being. A consciousness which on occasion interacts with various aspects of its unconscious mind, such as when thinking about (questioning, judging the value of, etc.) concepts and ideas - as you've mentioned.
Hope that makes what I previously said clearer.
Quoting MoK
I haven't claimed that amebas can act collectively. Here, I was claiming that the so-called "problem of other minds" can be readily applied to the presumed sentience of amebas. This in the sense that just because it looks and sounds like a duck doesn't necessitate that it so be. Hence, just because an ameba looks and acts as thought it is sentient, were one to insist on it, one could argue that the ameba might nevertheless be perfectly insentient all the same. This as you seem to currently maintain for individual neurons. But this gets heavy into issues of epistemology and into what might constitute warranted vs. unwarranted doubts. (If it looks and sounds like a duck, it most likely is.)
Quoting MoK
No worries there. But why would allowing for neurons holding some form of sentience then disrupt this general outlook regarding the existence of options? The brain would still do what it does - this irrespective of how one explains the (human) mind-brain relationship. Or so I so far find.
Cool! :wink:
Quoting javra
Correct.
Quoting javra
A neuron is a living cell. Whether it is sentient and can learn things is a subject of discussion. I believe a neuron could become sentient if this provided an advantage for the organism. This is however very costly since it requires the neuron to be a complex entity. Such a neuron, not only needs more food but also a sort of training before it can function properly within the brain where all neurons are complex entities. So, let's say that you have a single neuron, let's call it X, which can perform a function, let's call it Z, learning for example. Now let's assume a collection of neurons, let's call them Y, which can do the same function as Z but each neuron is not capable of performing Z. The question is whether it is economical for the organism, to have X or Y. That is a very hard question. It is possible to find an organism that does not have many neurons and each neuron can perform Z. That however does not mean that we can generalize such an ability to neurons of other organisms that have plenty of neurons. The former organism may due to evolution gain such a capacity where such a capacity is not necessary and economical for the latter organism.
Quoting javra
Thanks for the elaboration.
Quoting javra
I said that for amebas to learn collectively, such as neurons, they need to interact.
Quoting javra
I agree.
Quoting javra
I agree that considering neurons to be sentient and can learn may not disrupt the function of the brain but I think that it might become very costly for the organism when a small set of simpler neurons can perform the same function, learning for example.
Alright. While I still disagree with neurons being insentient, I can now better understand your reasoning. Thanks. If its worth saying, neurons do in fact require a lot of energy to live, and learning can very well be a largely innate faculty of at least certain lifeforms. But for my part, I'll leave things as they are. It was good talking with you!
It was very nice chatting with you too! :wink:
The weights are all 1 and the inputs are 0 or 1. I thought that you might be interested so I shared it with you.
Thank you, but the image isn't displayed. You may need to link it differently.
However, Ogas and Gaddam seem to agree with you:
The italics are theirs, and the phrase is a link to a quote from [I]The Computational Brain[/I], by Patricia Churchland and Terrence Sejnowski:
I think my difficulty lies in the fact that I haven't been at any of this for very long. I always took mind and consciousness to be pretty much the same thing. Intellectuality, I see a difference. But my feeling that they are the same still intrudes at times. I'm working on it. :grin:
I feel like I get it. Thanks for the explanation.
Maybe this is worth expressing as a follow-up. Especially when considering the dire need humans have for nurture in the formative years after birth - without which we either perish or at best become insane and then perish on our own - humans too require a community of fellow humans in order to live. This, though, doesnt take away from the individuality of human minds. In certain respects only, the same roundabout situation could be potentially claimed of neurons.
In terms of molecules and minds, I certainly wouldnt claim that individual organic molecules are minds either. Going by the notion of autopoiesis which Ive previously pointed out indirectly, the very life of any single-celled lifeform (to include metabolism, awareness, and sentient doings) in a sense supervenes on the structure and functioning of the single-celled lifeforms organic molecules. Take away one lipid from an ameba and the ameba will continue living and doing what it does just fine. However, take enough individual lipids away from an ameba and the ameba will cease living. As an amebas life supervenes on the organization and functioning of this bundle of organic molecules, so too then will the amebas mind so supervene. The same could then be potentially claimed of a neurons sentience.
As to hydras, theyre weird, in no small part due to being virtually immortal as far as we know this of course barring environmental mishaps with extreme regenerative abilities (including the ability to regenerate their heads). Yet even here, I presume that the activities of their nervous system though far, far less complex than that of a mammals (having a few thousand neurons tops) will be that upon which the hydras mind supervenes. Such that the hydras mind will not of itself be conjoined with the sentience of the hydras individual neurons but will instead supervene upon the totality of its nervous systems doings (if not a totality resulting from other somatic cells as well).
But yea, this perspective maintaining that neurons are not insentient is by no means common staple in todays world. So I get why I can be very hard to entertain.
Quoting Patterner
Yea, its common practice around these parts to address mind and consciousness as though they were the same thing. I'm thinking maybe it's in part because one sense of "consciousness" is that of "awareness" and all aspects of mind, the unconscious very much included, are aware in one way or another. But, yes, if (at least our human understanding of) consciousness is contrasted to a co-occurring unconscious mind upon which consciousness is dependent, then consciousness can't be equivalent to a mind in total - for it excludes the far larger portion of mind which we are not conscious of. Whereas I don't find reason to believe that something like an ameba (or a neuron :wink: ) has any such dichotomy of mind to speak of.
Quoting MoK
I too am interested. The link or image however is still not displaying.
Maybe the "options" are illusion.
The determinism in neural processes seem obvious to us since science has constructed that Narrative and it is conventional; i.e., that synapses are triggered by xyz, and there is no moment of an agent choosing to take a certain path.
But the same could go for the so-called Mind, where the illusion of option exists. Even in a decision seeming so free as which road to take at a fork, was ultimately the last domino to fall in a series of autonomously structured triggers. To oversimplify, a thought emerges, "the heart is on the left,"--like I said, over simplified--all the way to "ini mini miny moe", structures and structures signifiers of constructed meaning snap like dominoes until you move. The positive feeling in the body that is triggered by the "settlement," or what we think of as "belief", we also call a choice.
For each individual mind the result is different, but not owing to a free agent making a choice out of options, but by the conditioned process of signifier structuring at each specific locus in History where these triggers are built. Some might not think of the left as superior but the right because it is the hand that's raised. All of these pieces of data stored at various loci in History act in accordance with a highly evolved system of conditioning. If not, find the moment of choice that did not involve a thought, image, language, a final trigger which is silent. That could just be that feeling in the body, designed to end the dialectic; also a conditioned response. And if you deliberately "choose" to defy the triggers, and go the opposite, it was just those antithetical triggers that got you there, triggered by something daring you to defy it, releasing a positive feeling because your locus is conditioned by History that way. And so on.
Ultimately that suggests, if so called decisions are autonomous movements of stimulus and conditioned response, the self has no free will. But actually further, there is no self. Body is an organic process, Mind is a process functioning with images.
Options cannot be an illusion. If I show you two balls that look similar, you will realize that there are two balls and that they look identical. There are even artificial neural networks that can count similar objects.
Quoting ENOAH
I am not talking about decisions in this thread.
The existence of possibilities is that which follows from the fact that any course of action is not given in advance. That is, that in a sense the world is always in play. No matter how well our expectations or predictions are fulfilled there is always something not given in becoming. We can foresee that the sun will die in X years, but nevertheless it is not given. To the extent that there is something not given, thought is able to think of possibilities, there is always something left over that escapes prediction.
The determinist has to explain how the future is given. But that is something that cannot be done, since predictions are always possibilities and are representations of becoming. How does a prediction turn out to be true? Even if it turns out to be true, it is still a representation of becoming and not becoming itself. That is why we cannot say that things are determined, because they are only determined in the representation but not in becoming itself.
The standard model was confirmed experimentally and it is a deterministic model. The experiment is performed very carefully so we are sure about how particles interact with each other. That is however true that when it comes to a system we cannot know the exact location of its parts so we cannot for sure predict the future state of the system but that is not what I am talking about. I am mostly interested in understanding how we could realize options given the fact that any physical system, for example the brain, is a deterministic entity. I am sure that the realization of options is due to the existence of neurons in the brain but it is still unclear to me how neural processes in the brain can lead to the realization of the options.
Quoting JuanZu
We can for sure say that the physical systems are deterministic since physicists closely examine the motion and interaction of elementary particles. Anyway, the purpose of this thread was not to discuss determinism but to understand how we can realize options given the fact that we have a brain.
I think you have missed my point. If you tell me that there is a deterministic system that will end up in X state you are making a prediction. But if the system is not in its state X the system prediction cannot be confused with reality. That is, the prediction is a representation not reality itself. The prediction is one possibility among others, even if it is confirmed. And this is due to the non-givenness of becoming. We could only be absolute determinists if all the processes of reality were already given. But that is not the case. No matter how many experiments you do, predictions will always be imagined representations of what will happen, i.e. possibilities among others. And reality will always be in a state of not-given. Basically This is the problem of inducción.
I am saying that given the system in the state of X and the laws of nature, one always predicts and finds the system in the state of Y later.
Quoting JuanZu
I don't understand why you assume the system is not in the state of X. The system cannot be in another state but X which was predicted.
Quoting JuanZu
The prediction is about what is going to happen in reality and the system always ends up in Y given X in a deterministic system.
Quoting JuanZu
The is no other possibility in a reality. The determinism is tested to great accuracy.
Quoting JuanZu
We don't need to test all processes of reality to make sure that reality is deterministic and that is not possible too.
Quoting JuanZu
We couldn't possibly do any science if this statement was true. For example, the computer you are using right now always works in a certain way. It doesn't work in one way one day and in another way another day.
Scientific work also works with possibilities, but the scientist believes that what is represented in the imagination is going to happen. This implies that one thinks in possibilities precisely because the becoming is not given. The fact that the becoming is not given is the opportunity to be right or wrong in predictions. But a prediction is never a given. They are ontologically different things.
We would have to say the opposite of what You say (ad consecuentiam btw) that the fact that becoming is not given is that which obliges us to do science with the difference that we must believe in the uniformity of nature, but this is a belief that can never be confirmed universally, because becoming is never given. No matter how many experiments we do, the possibility of failure is always there. It is a possibility, like that of succeeding in our predictions.
Physical behavior has been the subject of careful examination for almost 400 years. To date, there has been a fantastic correlation between physical theories and experiments/observations. Moreover, nature has always behaved in a deterministic way; without this, no form of life was possible.
Quoting JuanZu
Ok, so let's wait for that day!