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The constraints on my actions because of internal or external forces/blinders do not violate my sense of free will at the level that I am concerned with. I can't defy fate nor stand in the heart of the sun but that does not rob me of free will so much as defines the arena.

I am wondering about volitional body movements---breathing, the interface between voluntary and autonomic nervous system, etc. In my construct I have a physical body which exists in a physical world characterized by matter and energy; space and time (and mind). I have the impresssion that there is an I, an incarnate identity, ego that is what I call me---I am my sense of being me, (when I am only a sense of being is it called bliss?). Anyhow, accept that I think I exist as an I.

It seems to be the case that I have direct control over matter and energy as demonstrated by moving my hand. And it seems as if it was only my will which determines whether it is my right or left hand, fast or slow, etc. Do I really have this control or is it illusion?

-- Anonymous, March 29, 2000

Answers

My take is that you do move your hand. Just like Newton, commonsense or folk models work well in "normal" applications.

Problem seems to me to emerge more when we dive into what is meant by "you". When I'm testing to see if we're in some state of rapport by scratching my head, then I take it as a cue that "you" are in this state too, when "you" reach up and do something similar. However, I don't think that this "you" is identical to the "you" that picks up a pen when I explicitly ask you to hand it to me.

A computer metaphor might be a computer with an operating system and a whole bunch of "background" programs running. All programs share the same hardware, and the operating system can even invoke certain background routines, more by practicing "esoteric" disciplines. This model might even stretch to encompass Jung's archetypes and collective unconscious as referring to those inherent routines we are all bequeathed with... When we normally talk of "you" it strikes me that we are referring to the "operating system" component.

So - under this sense, there are things that you can do from your "operating system", and even know that you are doing (reflective self-consciousness). And there's lots of room for other parallel stuff to go on.

Such a conception fits my experience of NLP (neuro-linguistic programming) practice in the world but admittedly the NLP model was loosely based on such a metaphor to begin with...(The model evolved from "strategies" - linear sequences of internal activity, to "states" about the same time as "object oriented programming" became relevant in the software domain. Synchronicity?)

-- Anonymous, March 29, 2000


I was told (and I can't prove it's wrong) that your will moves your arm, but it is your intent that fires your will; and that intent runs both consciously (foreground) and uncounciously (background).

My father gave me a weird education while growing up. He would repeatedly ask me "why is that person doing that thing? what are they feeling? what does it feel like to be them?" Then later he would explain, people were in their curent situation or circumstance because THEY WANTED IT THAT WAY. They had spent much time, effort and money to be in that state at that time, and that I was not to interfere, whether I approved of their situation/circumstance or not.

So it seems to me their intent was running backgrorund for a great while, arranging all the little things necessary to evoke the circumstance desired.

What free will now?

-- Anonymous, March 29, 2000


"It seems to be the case that I have direct control over matter and energy... "

If "you" are an emergent property of the matter and energy constituting "you" then there is no conundrum here. You are moving yourself.

Strikes me that the conundrum arises if we posit a "you" separate from the operation of the "machinery" and then have to explain how this separate "ghost" in the machine manages to control the machine and receive sensory information back.

You know "If each of the three boarders received $9 and the stableboy kept $2 what happened to the remaining $1?" sort of thing.

-- Anonymous, March 29, 2000


Okay.

We're back to the seat of consciousness again.

Tom, you've never said, what are your thoughts regarding the point-of- origin for individual consciousness?

-- Anonymous, March 29, 2000


Sorry - not trying to be coy.

I think it is an emergent property of higher brain functioning associated with languaging (and therefore a socialised upbringing). Lots of definitions for consciousness, but the self-consciousness that I think we're referring to is regarding observing yourself in action and asking "Why do I do that?". There's another kind of self-consciousness which I remember a description of - an primate was anesthetized and a red dot affixed to his forehead (it was a male gorilla I believe) in a position where he couldn't view it directly. Upon being woken, he was directed to a mirror. When he observed his image in the mirror, he reached up and touched the spot affixed to himself, not to the image in the mirror. So something reflexive ("self" consciousness) is going on here. Maybe a more succinct definition is a capability of perceiving ourself as an agent with "agent" properties similar to what we expect from other people.

By emergent property I mean something like "wetness" is an emergent property of combining oxygen and hydrogen to make water. The wetness is there with the water, and exists because of how the polar molecule formed by the combination of hydrogen and oxygen interact with adjacent water molecules (producing effects like surface tension) and other substances (capilliary action, etc). The "wetness" does not exist apart from the water, it's not a property like paint that is added to the structure afterwards.

I believe that we can trace the bulk of normal operation to structures in the brain. I don't mean that there is a residue that we have to seek non-physical explanations for, I mean that non-trivial portions of our "thinking" goes on in parts of the body (like the vestibular balancing system and musculature, patches that line a portion of the digestive part of the gut, etc) other than that above the shoulders.

(Semi-related joke: God wakes Adam, says I have some good news and bad news. The good news is that I've given you two heads, one for thinking and one for pleasure. The bad news is that I've only provided you enough blood to run one at a time.)

The Miller article "The Magic Number 7 plus or minus 2" talks of how the typical person can only maintain 5-9 pieces of discrete concepts simulataneously, beyond that they have to delete or group. (Test for your own number if you do internal visualization: how many bricks in a row can you visualize and maintain an individual sense of each brick -- maybe see it distinctly. Start with one brick and add. After a certain point there is either a loss of bricks or a "chunking" into vaguer groups which you can then track until you get too many.) There is an old story that this is why telephone numbers were configured around 7 digits for a local call - this is how many an average person could retain in short-term memory easily.

Phenomelogical examples like this (as well as trance phenomena where you are mediating behaviour "below" consciousness)seem to point to distinct characteristics of consciousness, and further - characteristics that are modified by brain injury.

Is that enough enough to get a sense?

-- Anonymous, March 29, 2000



A good start.... I get 12 - 13 bricks, depending on how they are arranged. Could get more if I could zoom out a bit, but my mind's eye needs glasses (big ol' Grin>.

So, do you think higher brain functions are a result of an evolved bigger brain, or of necessity to accommodate social grouping?

-- Anonymous, March 29, 2000


I think that this guy is onto something: http://www.williamcalvin.com/1990s/1998AGU.htm he posits both a reason and a something that drives the reason, as well as what sort of behaviours would drive evolution of a brain structure that supports languaging. (Goes into quite a bit of detail, and puts copies of his text books online.)

The "big" brain evolved as a preferred solution to ??? and eventually hit a point where it would sustain languaging. Then we opened up a whole new domain and took off with cultural evolution as opposed to physiological.

I'm not sure how much size is a direct indicator. Dolphin brains (tursiops)are our size. Orca (killer whale) and other whales must hae even larger brains. Even elephants have larger brains. I think it may be something more to do with certain structures? The neocortex - the latest layer?

Still finding lines of reasoning - feels more like dashed lines at present...

-- Anonymous, March 29, 2000


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