Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site pyuxn.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gamma!pyuxww!pyuxn!rlr From: rlr@pyuxn.UUCP (Rich Rosen) Newsgroups: net.philosophy Subject: Torek on Skinner (free will & determinism co-existence) Message-ID: <1173@pyuxn.UUCP> Date: Tue, 2-Oct-84 15:36:31 EDT Article-I.D.: pyuxn.1173 Posted: Tue Oct 2 15:36:31 1984 Date-Received: Wed, 3-Oct-84 20:14:18 EDT References: <376@wucs.UUCP> Organization: Bell Communications Research, Piscataway N.J. Lines: 106 > My point in that article had been to point out that behaviorist objections > to the term "mind" were based on overloading that term with connotations > that they don't like. Thus they assume -- falsely -- REPEAT: FALSELY -- > that "mind" implies "nonphysical", "soul", etc. [PAUL TOREK] This may be true. Others have proposed the notion that the "mind" is not a physical or extraphysical entity, but is analogous to a program (software) running on the hardware (brain). Remember though, that programs exist as load modules (physical entities). The mind, too, if it is to be thought of as the "program" which "runs" the brain, is also a physical entity, composed of the chemicals/etc. that make up the "mind" (just as a program running on a computer occupies physical space in memory for the instructions/data/etc.). >> Free will implies some agent of choice doing the choosing. No one is >> denying the swirling around in the brain. It's just that there is no agent >> that makes a "choice" as to how the chemicals will swirl. [RICH ROSEN] > Yes there is: THE SAME agent who is constituted by those chemicals. What an > agent chooses to do determines how the chemicals will swirl. The chemical- > swirling correlated with choice A is different from that associated with > choice B. Let me put it this way for you: the agent IS those chemicals; > or more precisely, is constitued by (or if the "mind as program" view is > correct, is instantiated by) those chemicals. [PAUL TOREK] This would mean that a program "chooses" to do certain things based on the "current" state of its "chemicals" (e.g., the CPU instruction address counter, the data in "memory" and input through sensory channels). Can the program "choose" arbitrarily to do something (like set fire to the disk drive, or cause the computer to explode----just like in the movies!!) or can it only make the "decision" it is programmed to make based on the contents of its "chemicals". As you say, the agent of decision making in the brain is in fact the chemicals, and the successive current states of the chemicals themselves (the ones that "make the decisions" causing other chemical/physical actions in the body) are DETERMINED by the same physical laws that govern action in rocks and trees! >> Given the capacity of the human brain to impose its >> own preconceived patterns on those things it does not fully understand, and >> to interpret based on that often faulty patterning (look at the evidence >> AGAINST viability of hypnotic recall), the subjective perspective simply >> isn't worth looking at from an analytical viewpoint. > Let's put it this way: if, contrary to fact but consistent with many people's > beliefs, the freedom of an action were a matter of its FEELING free, then the > subjective perspective would be valid. And there ARE some things for which > subjective (i.e., in the subject -- NOT equivalent to "biased",etc.) feelings > ARE decisive. For example, if I feel like I'm in pain, I AM in pain. And to > make matters worse (for behaviorism), being in pain IS IMPORTANT. And that is > what is wrong with spurning the subjective. This has nothing to do with the > free will issue, but I felt it was worth picking this bone too. This is akin to saying "if enough people believe there is a god, there is one". Yes, feelings are decisive. But when you feel like you are in pain even if there is no direct physical cause (nerves from a damaged area of the body sending a message to the brain constitutes a direct physical cause), the root cause may lie deeper; e.g., a psychological phenomenon [of course, manifested physically---a psychological problem is just a chemical problem with the "program" of "mind" rather than with the brain per se] ... a psychological phenomenon that physically results in a simulation of the direct physical symptom: the "mind" hooks into the hardware and sends a bogus message. It's wrong to say "the subjective isn't real". Within the brain it simulates real things happening, but remember it is only a simulation. Someone once asked "when you think about a duck, have you created a real duck?" or something like that. This assumes that the entirety of the essence of a physical object is YOUR sensory perception of it. A duck, or any object, is more than just your or my sensory perception of it; all we "see" or sense in our brains is a SIMulation of the STIMulation of brain centers by outside sensory input. Instead of being stimulated from the "outside", the mind simulates the stimulation from within. >> What "willed" the chemicals in your brains to move in a certain way to >> cause movement/action? And what "willed" whatever process in your brain >> that caused that chemical movement to start? > Again, the agent and the chemicals are one and the same. Viewed on one level, > we have an agent (me) making a decision; viewed on a lower (component) level, > we have certain chemical processes. To deny that there is an agent on the > ground that it is "just" a bunch of chemicals makes about as much sense as > denying that there is warmth in the room on the ground that there is "just" > a bunch of molecules moving around. Again, this is like saying that a program has free will. On the contrary, barring system errors, a program's functions are deterministic. You may ask "How can you say this when you don't know what external data will be present?" Well, that's the point. Based on the external data, the program makes a deterministic "decision", though not necessarily "pre"-determined or "designed" to occur in a certain way. A program, for example, may expect arithmetic data and get alphabetic data at some point, and the program may not be "designed" to handle it, but given the same set of external and internal variables it will always handle it in the same way! (The human brain seems more naturally prone to "system errors", but that resulting randomness also does not imply free will.) *Now* you might say, "that's a bogus restriction: saying that all the variables must be the same in order for it to be guaranteed to act in the same way". Well, that's what determinism is: given the same set of external and internal variables, things will act in the same way. You might say "but then, there's an agent of choice: the chemicals themselves 'choose' based on the external input data!" Sorry, again. The chemicals just do what they're supposed to do given a certain set of circumstances (external variables). Thus, it's the world around you, consisting of external variables input into the brain through sensory channels, that is the agent of your free will. And that's not free will at all, is it? -- AT THE TONE PLEASE LEAVE YOUR NAME AND NET ADDRESS. THANK YOU. Rich Rosen pyuxn!rlr