Friam

Subjective experience & free will

Classic

List

Threaded

16 messages Options

Jochen Fromm-5

Subjective experience & free will

I am reading a book about Leibniz and started to wonder if the hard problem of consciousness could be the reason why we have the illusion of free will and can not predict how others will act.

From the outside a person seems to have free will in principle. From the inside everybody feels something different and is controlled by emotions based on subjective experience, which is unknown to others, because the individual is not transparent and the history is not known.

Once we investigate the life of a person, for example by a detective as part of a criminal investigation, or as movie viewers in a cinema, we start to understand why a person acts they way it does. The more we step into the footsteps of a person, the better we understand the feelings, goals and motives.

Could it be that the same thing which prevents us from understanding the subjective experiences of others also creates the illusion of free will?

-J.

- .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam
un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/

Jochen Fromm-5

Re: Subjective experience & free will

Leibniz tried to reconcile determinism and free will. He used the metaphor of "windowless individuals": we can not see the personality of another person - unless we experience how a person acts and reacts, i.e. if we do not know the personal history, there is no window where we can observe the character of someone.

In this sense the hard problem of consciousness appears to be a problem but is in fact a solution of another problem: the combination of determinism and free will. The actions of a person are determined, but it is normally unknown to others by what influences. Because of this lack of knowledge the actions seem to be undetermined, although they are not.

Is this an interesting idea or just nonsense? What do you think?

-J.

-------- Original message --------

From: Jochen Fromm <[hidden email]>

Date: 2/27/21 22:29 (GMT+01:00)

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>

Subject: [FRIAM] Subjective experience & free will

I am reading a book about Leibniz and started to wonder if the hard problem of consciousness could be the reason why we have the illusion of free will and can not predict how others will act.

-J.

thompnickson2

Re: Subjective experience & free will

In reply to this post by Jochen Fromm-5

Jochen,

FWIW, I think free will is mostly a legal fiction used to determine who is responsible for the various calamities that we inflict on one another. All behavior is either determined, or free, and there is no useful distinction to be made between free and determined action. I have wanted for many years to make a connection between the calculus and mental concepts like motivation. Just as the derivative is a slope at a point, so a motive is the slope of behavior at a point. Motives are the limits of behavioral differentials. The only hard part of the hard problem is that I have a hard time seeing why people worry about it.

Nick

Nick Thompson

[hidden email]

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Jochen Fromm
Sent: Saturday, February 27, 2021 3:29 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: [FRIAM] Subjective experience & free will

I am reading a book about Leibniz and started to wonder if the hard problem of consciousness could be the reason why we have the illusion of free will and can not predict how others will act.

-J.

thompnickson2

Re: Subjective experience & free will

In reply to this post by Jochen Fromm-5

It’s certainly an interesting problem. It has bedeviled me all my life

Not to go all monistic on you, but …. Why not just conclude that a persons “personality”,as a lens cloud above a mountain is just a standing wave in a relation between airflow, moisture, and altitude, is a standing wave in the relation between a person’s repeated responses to situations and the societal norms for how to react in those circumstances. We wouldn’t invoke a Lensic Spirit to explain the cloud; why we invoke a personality to explain the stableness of a person’s behavior. What we see is what we get.

Nick Thompson

[hidden email]

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Jochen Fromm
Sent: Saturday, February 27, 2021 3:54 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Subjective experience & free will

Is this an interesting idea or just nonsense? What do you think?

-J.

-------- Original message --------

From: Jochen Fromm <[hidden email]>

Date: 2/27/21 22:29 (GMT+01:00)

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>

Subject: [FRIAM] Subjective experience & free will

I am reading a book about Leibniz and started to wonder if the hard problem of consciousness could be the reason why we have the illusion of free will and can not predict how others will act.

-J.

Marcus G. Daniels

Re: Subjective experience & free will

In reply to this post by thompnickson2

https://arxiv.org/abs/1912.06462v2

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of [hidden email]
Sent: Saturday, February 27, 2021 3:08 PM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Subjective experience & free will

Jochen,

Nick

Nick Thompson

[hidden email]

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

I am reading a book about Leibniz and started to wonder if the hard problem of consciousness could be the reason why we have the illusion of free will and can not predict how others will act.

-J.

Eric Charles-2

Re: Subjective experience & free will

In reply to this post by Jochen Fromm-5

Skinner had the book "Beyond Freedom and Dignity" (1971) that made a similar argument. Basically, he argued that while we didn't have full explanations of behavior yet, we had made enough progress to be confident that behavior could be explained in various ways - development, immediate causation, etc. - in all situations. If we can agree on that, or even mostly-agree on that, what happens to concepts like "freedom", which seem to be applied primarily in situations where we can't obviously explain someone's behavior?

When I train a rat to press a lever when the light in the cage illuminates, is the rat free? If your life has trained you to put on your right sock first, then the left, are you free? Etc., etc. And certainly sometimes people feel as if their choices are more "free" or less "free", but what do we do with that? Presumably we can also train people to generally feel free or not, under ostensibly identical current circumstances? (Note how many conversations about White Privilege, or Wealth Inequality, focus on how people who were given great benefits early in life often feel as if they were independently successful based on initiative and merit.)

The issue of variation in feeling "free" under ostensibly similar circumstances, is a huge dilemma for me, as I don't feel social pressures in many situations where others do. "I wasn't free to talk in the meeting", someone says. And I look confused, because so far as I could tell they were clearly free to talk in the meeting, but chose not to for various reasons.

"You don't understand how hard it is to X, under circumstances Y!" Well... I do understand why it might feel hard... but that sounds like an explanation for why you chose not to. We aren't talking about how hard it is to run a sub-6-minute mile, or sing an Opera, we are talking about how it can feel hard to call someone out for a racist comment in the middle of a meeting (or something like that). In fact, I often have people come to me before key meetings and ask me to bring up points they don't feel free to bring up. Am I "free" because I find that relatively easy? Are they "not free" because they find it hard? Does it matter that, as Jochen points out, one could certainly look into my and the other person's past, or into my and the other person's physiology, and construct an explanation for why each of us behave-in-meetings the way we do now? Or is it, as Skinner suggested, time to just move "beyond" such questions?

[hidden email]

On Sat, Feb 27, 2021 at 4:29 PM Jochen Fromm <[hidden email]> wrote:

I am reading a book about Leibniz and started to wonder if the hard problem of consciousness could be the reason why we have the illusion of free will and can not predict how others will act.

From the outside a person seems to have free will in principle. From the inside everybody feels something different and is controlled by emotions based on subjective experience, which is unknown to others, because the individual is not transparent and the history is not known.

Once we investigate the life of a person, for example by a detective as part of a criminal investigation, or as movie viewers in a cinema, we start to understand why a person acts they way it does. The more we step into the footsteps of a person, the better we understand the feelings, goals and motives.

Could it be that the same thing which prevents us from understanding the subjective experiences of others also creates the illusion of free will?

-J.

- .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam
un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/

Marcus G. Daniels

Re: Subjective experience & free will

The basic question is whether probabilities arise only from factors unaccounted for – entanglement with particles going back to the big bang. Can we adapt to a world where nothing is falsifiable?

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Eric Charles
Sent: Saturday, February 27, 2021 9:05 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Subjective experience & free will

On Sat, Feb 27, 2021 at 4:29 PM Jochen Fromm <[hidden email]> wrote:

I am reading a book about Leibniz and started to wonder if the hard problem of consciousness could be the reason why we have the illusion of free will and can not predict how others will act.

From the outside a person seems to have free will in principle. From the inside everybody feels something different and is controlled by emotions based on subjective experience, which is unknown to others, because the individual is not transparent and the history is not known.

Once we investigate the life of a person, for example by a detective as part of a criminal investigation, or as movie viewers in a cinema, we start to understand why a person acts they way it does. The more we step into the footsteps of a person, the better we understand the feelings, goals and motives.

Could it be that the same thing which prevents us from understanding the subjective experiences of others also creates the illusion of free will?

-J.

- .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam
un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/

Jochen Fromm-5

Re: Subjective experience & free will

In reply to this post by Eric Charles-2

Spinoza, a Dutch contemporary of Leibniz, argued as well in his book "Ethics" that it is the lack of knowledge & awareness that helps to create the illusion of freedom:

"Experience teaches us no less clearly than reason, that men believe themselves free, simply because they are conscious of their actions, and unconscious of the causes whereby those actions are determined".

What I like about these 400 year old philosophers is that they have tackled the really big questions. And they worked interdisciplinary, because fields like psychology or physics have not been invented yet.

-J.

-------- Original message --------

From: Eric Charles <[hidden email]>

Date: 2/28/21 06:05 (GMT+01:00)

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Subjective experience & free will

[hidden email]

On Sat, Feb 27, 2021 at 4:29 PM Jochen Fromm <[hidden email]> wrote:

I am reading a book about Leibniz and started to wonder if the hard problem of consciousness could be the reason why we have the illusion of free will and can not predict how others will act.

From the outside a person seems to have free will in principle. From the inside everybody feels something different and is controlled by emotions based on subjective experience, which is unknown to others, because the individual is not transparent and the history is not known.

Once we investigate the life of a person, for example by a detective as part of a criminal investigation, or as movie viewers in a cinema, we start to understand why a person acts they way it does. The more we step into the footsteps of a person, the better we understand the feelings, goals and motives.

Could it be that the same thing which prevents us from understanding the subjective experiences of others also creates the illusion of free will?

-J.

- .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam
un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/

Frank Wimberly-2

Re: Subjective experience & free will

In reply to this post by Eric Charles-2

I think Spaniards think Spinoza was a Spanish Jew (Espinoza). I realize this could probably be resolved to my satisfaction by Wikipedia.

---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Sun, Feb 28, 2021, 6:50 AM Jochen Fromm <[hidden email]> wrote:

Spinoza, a Dutch contemporary of Leibniz, argued as well in his book "Ethics" that it is the lack of knowledge & awareness that helps to create the illusion of freedom:

"Experience teaches us no less clearly than reason, that men believe themselves free, simply because they are conscious of their actions, and unconscious of the causes whereby those actions are determined".

What I like about these 400 year old philosophers is that they have tackled the really big questions. And they worked interdisciplinary, because fields like psychology or physics have not been invented yet.

-J.

-------- Original message --------
From: Eric Charles <[hidden email]>
Date: 2/28/21 06:05 (GMT+01:00)
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Subjective experience & free will

Skinner had the book "Beyond Freedom and Dignity" (1971) that made a similar argument. Basically, he argued that while we didn't have full explanations of behavior yet, we had made enough progress to be confident that behavior could be explained in various ways - development, immediate causation, etc. - in all situations. If we can agree on that, or even mostly-agree on that, what happens to concepts like "freedom", which seem to be applied primarily in situations where we can't obviously explain someone's behavior?

When I train a rat to press a lever when the light in the cage illuminates, is the rat free? If your life has trained you to put on your right sock first, then the left, are you free? Etc., etc. And certainly sometimes people feel as if their choices are more "free" or less "free", but what do we do with that? Presumably we can also train people to generally feel free or not, under ostensibly identical current circumstances? (Note how many conversations about White Privilege, or Wealth Inequality, focus on how people who were given great benefits early in life often feel as if they were independently successful based on initiative and merit.)

The issue of variation in feeling "free" under ostensibly similar circumstances, is a huge dilemma for me, as I don't feel social pressures in many situations where others do. "I wasn't free to talk in the meeting", someone says. And I look confused, because so far as I could tell they were clearly free to talk in the meeting, but chose not to for various reasons.

"You don't understand how hard it is to X, under circumstances Y!" Well... I do understand why it might feel hard... but that sounds like an explanation for why you chose not to. We aren't talking about how hard it is to run a sub-6-minute mile, or sing an Opera, we are talking about how it can feel hard to call someone out for a racist comment in the middle of a meeting (or something like that). In fact, I often have people come to me before key meetings and ask me to bring up points they don't feel free to bring up. Am I "free" because I find that relatively easy? Are they "not free" because they find it hard? Does it matter that, as Jochen points out, one could certainly look into my and the other person's past, or into my and the other person's physiology, and construct an explanation for why each of us behave-in-meetings the way we do now? Or is it, as Skinner suggested, time to just move "beyond" such questions?

[hidden email]

On Sat, Feb 27, 2021 at 4:29 PM Jochen Fromm <[hidden email]> wrote:
I am reading a book about Leibniz and started to wonder if the hard problem of consciousness could be the reason why we have the illusion of free will and can not predict how others will act.

From the outside a person seems to have free will in principle. From the inside everybody feels something different and is controlled by emotions based on subjective experience, which is unknown to others, because the individual is not transparent and the history is not known.

Once we investigate the life of a person, for example by a detective as part of a criminal investigation, or as movie viewers in a cinema, we start to understand why a person acts they way it does. The more we step into the footsteps of a person, the better we understand the feelings, goals and motives.

Could it be that the same thing which prevents us from understanding the subjective experiences of others also creates the illusion of free will?

-J.

- .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam
un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/

- .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam
un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/

Merle Lefkoff-2

Re: Subjective experience & free will

Baruch ("blessed in Hebrew) de Spinoza was born in Amsterdam in 1632. His grandfather, Abraham, was a refugee from the Inquisition in Portugal.

My mother helped edit a biography of Spinoza written by Abraham Wolfson, published in 1932 by Modern Classics Publishers. (I have a copy dedicated to my mom.) A facsimile reprint came out in 2007, published by Kessinger Publishers, because "this scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature..."

Chapter XIII is especially interesting to me and begins with a quote from Goethe: "Truth is a torch, but a terrible one...The natural instinct is to give a sideglance, lest, looking it fairly in the face, the strong glare might blind us."

On Sun, Feb 28, 2021 at 7:08 AM Frank Wimberly <[hidden email]> wrote:

I think Spaniards think Spinoza was a Spanish Jew (Espinoza). I realize this could probably be resolved to my satisfaction by Wikipedia.

---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Sun, Feb 28, 2021, 6:50 AM Jochen Fromm <[hidden email]> wrote:
Spinoza, a Dutch contemporary of Leibniz, argued as well in his book "Ethics" that it is the lack of knowledge & awareness that helps to create the illusion of freedom:

"Experience teaches us no less clearly than reason, that men believe themselves free, simply because they are conscious of their actions, and unconscious of the causes whereby those actions are determined".

What I like about these 400 year old philosophers is that they have tackled the really big questions. And they worked interdisciplinary, because fields like psychology or physics have not been invented yet.

-J.

-------- Original message --------
From: Eric Charles <[hidden email]>
Date: 2/28/21 06:05 (GMT+01:00)
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Subjective experience & free will

Skinner had the book "Beyond Freedom and Dignity" (1971) that made a similar argument. Basically, he argued that while we didn't have full explanations of behavior yet, we had made enough progress to be confident that behavior could be explained in various ways - development, immediate causation, etc. - in all situations. If we can agree on that, or even mostly-agree on that, what happens to concepts like "freedom", which seem to be applied primarily in situations where we can't obviously explain someone's behavior?

When I train a rat to press a lever when the light in the cage illuminates, is the rat free? If your life has trained you to put on your right sock first, then the left, are you free? Etc., etc. And certainly sometimes people feel as if their choices are more "free" or less "free", but what do we do with that? Presumably we can also train people to generally feel free or not, under ostensibly identical current circumstances? (Note how many conversations about White Privilege, or Wealth Inequality, focus on how people who were given great benefits early in life often feel as if they were independently successful based on initiative and merit.)

The issue of variation in feeling "free" under ostensibly similar circumstances, is a huge dilemma for me, as I don't feel social pressures in many situations where others do. "I wasn't free to talk in the meeting", someone says. And I look confused, because so far as I could tell they were clearly free to talk in the meeting, but chose not to for various reasons.

"You don't understand how hard it is to X, under circumstances Y!" Well... I do understand why it might feel hard... but that sounds like an explanation for why you chose not to. We aren't talking about how hard it is to run a sub-6-minute mile, or sing an Opera, we are talking about how it can feel hard to call someone out for a racist comment in the middle of a meeting (or something like that). In fact, I often have people come to me before key meetings and ask me to bring up points they don't feel free to bring up. Am I "free" because I find that relatively easy? Are they "not free" because they find it hard? Does it matter that, as Jochen points out, one could certainly look into my and the other person's past, or into my and the other person's physiology, and construct an explanation for why each of us behave-in-meetings the way we do now? Or is it, as Skinner suggested, time to just move "beyond" such questions?

[hidden email]

On Sat, Feb 27, 2021 at 4:29 PM Jochen Fromm <[hidden email]> wrote:
I am reading a book about Leibniz and started to wonder if the hard problem of consciousness could be the reason why we have the illusion of free will and can not predict how others will act.

From the outside a person seems to have free will in principle. From the inside everybody feels something different and is controlled by emotions based on subjective experience, which is unknown to others, because the individual is not transparent and the history is not known.

Once we investigate the life of a person, for example by a detective as part of a criminal investigation, or as movie viewers in a cinema, we start to understand why a person acts they way it does. The more we step into the footsteps of a person, the better we understand the feelings, goals and motives.

Could it be that the same thing which prevents us from understanding the subjective experiences of others also creates the illusion of free will?

-J.

- .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam
un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/

- .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam
un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/

- .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam
un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/

Merle Lefkoff, Ph.D.
Center for Emergent Diplomacy
emergentdiplomacy.org

Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA

mobile: (303) 859-5609
skype: merle.lelfkoff2

twitter: @merle110

Jochen Fromm-5

Re: Subjective experience & free will

Oh this Spinoza biography looks like an interesting book. If I would have a time machine, then Darwin, Pascal and Spinoza would be on the list of persons I would like to visit, although I do not understand French. Gauss, Goethe, Humboldt and Leibniz too.

Who would be on your list? George Washington or Abraham Lincoln? Herman Melville or William James?

-J.

-------- Original message --------

From: Merle Lefkoff <[hidden email]>

Date: 2/28/21 18:46 (GMT+01:00)

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Subjective experience & free will

Baruch ("blessed in Hebrew) de Spinoza was born in Amsterdam in 1632. His grandfather, Abraham, was a refugee from the Inquisition in Portugal.

On Sun, Feb 28, 2021 at 7:08 AM Frank Wimberly <[hidden email]> wrote:

I think Spaniards think Spinoza was a Spanish Jew (Espinoza). I realize this could probably be resolved to my satisfaction by Wikipedia.

---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Sun, Feb 28, 2021, 6:50 AM Jochen Fromm <[hidden email]> wrote:
Spinoza, a Dutch contemporary of Leibniz, argued as well in his book "Ethics" that it is the lack of knowledge & awareness that helps to create the illusion of freedom:

"Experience teaches us no less clearly than reason, that men believe themselves free, simply because they are conscious of their actions, and unconscious of the causes whereby those actions are determined".

What I like about these 400 year old philosophers is that they have tackled the really big questions. And they worked interdisciplinary, because fields like psychology or physics have not been invented yet.

-J.

-------- Original message --------
From: Eric Charles <[hidden email]>
Date: 2/28/21 06:05 (GMT+01:00)
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Subjective experience & free will

Skinner had the book "Beyond Freedom and Dignity" (1971) that made a similar argument. Basically, he argued that while we didn't have full explanations of behavior yet, we had made enough progress to be confident that behavior could be explained in various ways - development, immediate causation, etc. - in all situations. If we can agree on that, or even mostly-agree on that, what happens to concepts like "freedom", which seem to be applied primarily in situations where we can't obviously explain someone's behavior?

When I train a rat to press a lever when the light in the cage illuminates, is the rat free? If your life has trained you to put on your right sock first, then the left, are you free? Etc., etc. And certainly sometimes people feel as if their choices are more "free" or less "free", but what do we do with that? Presumably we can also train people to generally feel free or not, under ostensibly identical current circumstances? (Note how many conversations about White Privilege, or Wealth Inequality, focus on how people who were given great benefits early in life often feel as if they were independently successful based on initiative and merit.)

The issue of variation in feeling "free" under ostensibly similar circumstances, is a huge dilemma for me, as I don't feel social pressures in many situations where others do. "I wasn't free to talk in the meeting", someone says. And I look confused, because so far as I could tell they were clearly free to talk in the meeting, but chose not to for various reasons.

"You don't understand how hard it is to X, under circumstances Y!" Well... I do understand why it might feel hard... but that sounds like an explanation for why you chose not to. We aren't talking about how hard it is to run a sub-6-minute mile, or sing an Opera, we are talking about how it can feel hard to call someone out for a racist comment in the middle of a meeting (or something like that). In fact, I often have people come to me before key meetings and ask me to bring up points they don't feel free to bring up. Am I "free" because I find that relatively easy? Are they "not free" because they find it hard? Does it matter that, as Jochen points out, one could certainly look into my and the other person's past, or into my and the other person's physiology, and construct an explanation for why each of us behave-in-meetings the way we do now? Or is it, as Skinner suggested, time to just move "beyond" such questions?

[hidden email]

On Sat, Feb 27, 2021 at 4:29 PM Jochen Fromm <[hidden email]> wrote:
I am reading a book about Leibniz and started to wonder if the hard problem of consciousness could be the reason why we have the illusion of free will and can not predict how others will act.

From the outside a person seems to have free will in principle. From the inside everybody feels something different and is controlled by emotions based on subjective experience, which is unknown to others, because the individual is not transparent and the history is not known.

Once we investigate the life of a person, for example by a detective as part of a criminal investigation, or as movie viewers in a cinema, we start to understand why a person acts they way it does. The more we step into the footsteps of a person, the better we understand the feelings, goals and motives.

Could it be that the same thing which prevents us from understanding the subjective experiences of others also creates the illusion of free will?

-J.

- .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam
un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/

- .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam
un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/

- .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam
un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/

Merle Lefkoff, Ph.D.
Center for Emergent Diplomacy
emergentdiplomacy.org

Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA

mobile: (303) 859-5609
skype: merle.lelfkoff2

twitter: @merle110

Merle Lefkoff-2

Re: Subjective experience & free will

In reply to this post by Merle Lefkoff-2

I would have to research my preferred choices--all women :) Hannah Arendt and Mary Wollstonecraft come immediately to mind.

On Sun, Feb 28, 2021 at 11:48 AM Jochen Fromm <[hidden email]> wrote:

Oh this Spinoza biography looks like an interesting book. If I would have a time machine, then Darwin, Pascal and Spinoza would be on the list of persons I would like to visit, although I do not understand French. Gauss, Goethe, Humboldt and Leibniz too.

Who would be on your list? George Washington or Abraham Lincoln? Herman Melville or William James?

-J.

-------- Original message --------
From: Merle Lefkoff <[hidden email]>
Date: 2/28/21 18:46 (GMT+01:00)
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Subjective experience & free will

Baruch ("blessed in Hebrew) de Spinoza was born in Amsterdam in 1632. His grandfather, Abraham, was a refugee from the Inquisition in Portugal.

My mother helped edit a biography of Spinoza written by Abraham Wolfson, published in 1932 by Modern Classics Publishers. (I have a copy dedicated to my mom.) A facsimile reprint came out in 2007, published by Kessinger Publishers, because "this scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature..."

Chapter XIII is especially interesting to me and begins with a quote from Goethe: "Truth is a torch, but a terrible one...The natural instinct is to give a sideglance, lest, looking it fairly in the face, the strong glare might blind us."

On Sun, Feb 28, 2021 at 7:08 AM Frank Wimberly <[hidden email]> wrote:
I think Spaniards think Spinoza was a Spanish Jew (Espinoza). I realize this could probably be resolved to my satisfaction by Wikipedia.

---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Sun, Feb 28, 2021, 6:50 AM Jochen Fromm <[hidden email]> wrote:
Spinoza, a Dutch contemporary of Leibniz, argued as well in his book "Ethics" that it is the lack of knowledge & awareness that helps to create the illusion of freedom:

"Experience teaches us no less clearly than reason, that men believe themselves free, simply because they are conscious of their actions, and unconscious of the causes whereby those actions are determined".

What I like about these 400 year old philosophers is that they have tackled the really big questions. And they worked interdisciplinary, because fields like psychology or physics have not been invented yet.

-J.

-------- Original message --------
From: Eric Charles <[hidden email]>
Date: 2/28/21 06:05 (GMT+01:00)
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Subjective experience & free will

Skinner had the book "Beyond Freedom and Dignity" (1971) that made a similar argument. Basically, he argued that while we didn't have full explanations of behavior yet, we had made enough progress to be confident that behavior could be explained in various ways - development, immediate causation, etc. - in all situations. If we can agree on that, or even mostly-agree on that, what happens to concepts like "freedom", which seem to be applied primarily in situations where we can't obviously explain someone's behavior?

When I train a rat to press a lever when the light in the cage illuminates, is the rat free? If your life has trained you to put on your right sock first, then the left, are you free? Etc., etc. And certainly sometimes people feel as if their choices are more "free" or less "free", but what do we do with that? Presumably we can also train people to generally feel free or not, under ostensibly identical current circumstances? (Note how many conversations about White Privilege, or Wealth Inequality, focus on how people who were given great benefits early in life often feel as if they were independently successful based on initiative and merit.)

The issue of variation in feeling "free" under ostensibly similar circumstances, is a huge dilemma for me, as I don't feel social pressures in many situations where others do. "I wasn't free to talk in the meeting", someone says. And I look confused, because so far as I could tell they were clearly free to talk in the meeting, but chose not to for various reasons.

"You don't understand how hard it is to X, under circumstances Y!" Well... I do understand why it might feel hard... but that sounds like an explanation for why you chose not to. We aren't talking about how hard it is to run a sub-6-minute mile, or sing an Opera, we are talking about how it can feel hard to call someone out for a racist comment in the middle of a meeting (or something like that). In fact, I often have people come to me before key meetings and ask me to bring up points they don't feel free to bring up. Am I "free" because I find that relatively easy? Are they "not free" because they find it hard? Does it matter that, as Jochen points out, one could certainly look into my and the other person's past, or into my and the other person's physiology, and construct an explanation for why each of us behave-in-meetings the way we do now? Or is it, as Skinner suggested, time to just move "beyond" such questions?

[hidden email]

On Sat, Feb 27, 2021 at 4:29 PM Jochen Fromm <[hidden email]> wrote:
I am reading a book about Leibniz and started to wonder if the hard problem of consciousness could be the reason why we have the illusion of free will and can not predict how others will act.

From the outside a person seems to have free will in principle. From the inside everybody feels something different and is controlled by emotions based on subjective experience, which is unknown to others, because the individual is not transparent and the history is not known.

Once we investigate the life of a person, for example by a detective as part of a criminal investigation, or as movie viewers in a cinema, we start to understand why a person acts they way it does. The more we step into the footsteps of a person, the better we understand the feelings, goals and motives.

Could it be that the same thing which prevents us from understanding the subjective experiences of others also creates the illusion of free will?

-J.

- .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam
un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/

- .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam
un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/

- .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam
un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/

--
Merle Lefkoff, Ph.D.
Center for Emergent Diplomacy
emergentdiplomacy.org
Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA

mobile: (303) 859-5609
skype: merle.lelfkoff2
twitter: @merle110

- .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam
un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/

Merle Lefkoff, Ph.D.
Center for Emergent Diplomacy
emergentdiplomacy.org

Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA

mobile: (303) 859-5609
skype: merle.lelfkoff2

twitter: @merle110

Jochen Fromm-5

Re: Subjective experience & free will

In reply to this post by thompnickson2

Such a "calculus of motivation" sounds interesting but complicated. It reminds me of Rodney Brooks, who is known in robotics for his "subsumption architecture". For example:

• Level 1: Avoid Obstacles
• Level 2: Wander around
• Level 3: Explore unknown locations

If we apply it to Sigmund Freud's distinct levels of ego, id, and super-ego (Ich, Es & Über-ich), then we get the following picture for normal people:

• Level 1: Listen to super-ego - avoid breaking the law
• Level 2: Listen to id - follow your emotions
• Level 3: Listen to ego- explore unknown stuff

For narcissists and psychopaths level 1 and 2 would appear in the wrong order 2-1-3. Celibate scientists would be characterized by 1-3-2. A simple model that already explains some basic personality types.

The "id" as the voice of our body/our genes is probably the most interesting part because it is slighty different for everyone. It changes over time and it is path-dependent, whereas the super-ego is similar for everyone, because it is the voice of society that tells us what to do.

-J.

-------- Original message --------

From: [hidden email]

Date: 2/28/21 00:09 (GMT+01:00)

To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' <[hidden email]>

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Subjective experience & free will

Jochen,

Nick

Nick Thompson

[hidden email]

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

I am reading a book about Leibniz and started to wonder if the hard problem of consciousness could be the reason why we have the illusion of free will and can not predict how others will act.

-J.

jon zingale

Re: Subjective experience & free will

This post was updated on .

In reply to this post by Jochen Fromm-5

"Who would be on your list?"

I put more thought into this question over the last week than I thought
I would. It is funny what questions bite us. The sad reality is that
given a time machine (or better a T.A.R.D.I.S so that I can rely on its
translator and mobility in space) I would very quickly realize that
history has forgotten exactly those I would wish to meet. I would need
a methodology for searching the past and updating what it is I value in
meeting new people. I am unsure whether I would want to find those
thinkers for whom I am simply a poor repetition or those whose ideas
would move me closer to some as-of-yet undefined way of being. Maybe,
I would seek those individuals so different from myself that I am
inevitably executed only to regenerate back in the warm bosom of my
T.A.R.D.I.S. What is funniest of all is that I could probably scrap
the whole time thing altogether if I could find whom here on Earth today
I would want to meet. So far I am thinking Yo-Yo Ma or Katya Clover.

--
Sent from: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/

- .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam
un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/

Steve Smith

Re: Subjective experience & free will

Jon -

I like the practical nihilism (as I read it) in your reply.   There is
something deflating (of the ego?) about honestly contemplating/answering
these kinds of questions I think. Deflating ~= Freeing?

I was most recently confronted via Ted Chiang's short story in his
recent collection "Exhalation" wherein a quantum-facilitated device is
invented which minimally allows people to communicate laterally with
parallel worlds.   The technical conceit of the story involves a "fully
shielded" pad of qubits such that when you first turn it on, you burn a
qubit which splits your multiverse line into two threads...   then
subsequent qubits can be used to exchange 1-bit messages with yourself.
As the qubit pads got larger and larger, the possibility of
text-message, even voice/video became possible (albeit expensive) with
one's dopple-self.   The (long) short-story explored the social
consequences of being able to have such communications, ranging from
being able to pick up communication with the dopple-self of a dead loved
one (one who died in your thread but not in another) to being able to
team up with your alternate self(ves) to build a leveraged work team who
makes leveraged progress in each parallel line, to assembling ensembles
of fantasy sports-teams across parallel threads with the *realization*.
No longer would it be "my team won the superbowl this year" but rather
"my team won 93% of all superbowls across an ensemble of N worlds".
Another side-effect would be to have a the tip of your fingers a perfect
confidante... your dopple-self(ves) bifurcated when you start a new
qubit-pad knows your every intimate existence right down to the
quantum-state level, but then slowly diverges into an alternate
experience, etc.

I suppose some might want to believe that our current quantum computers
ARE in some sense establishing this kind of formalizeable "Garden of
Forking Paths" or "Library of Babel".... Marcus?

- Steve

> "Who would be on your list?"
>
> I put more thought into this question over the last week than I thought
> I would. It is funny what questions bite us. The sad reality is that
> given a time machine (or better a T.A.R.D.I.S so that I can rely on its
> translator and mobility in space) I would very quickly realize that
> history has forgotten exactly those I would wish to meet. I would need
> a methodology for searching the past and updating what it is I value in
> meeting new people. I am unsure whether I would want to find those
> thinkers for whom I am simply a poor repetition or those whose ideas
> would move me closer to some as-of-yet undefined way of being. Maybe,
> I would seek those individuals so different from myself that I am
> inevitably executed only to regenerate back in the warm bosom of my
> T.A.R.D.I.S. What is funniest of all is that I could probably scrap
> the whole time thing altogether if I could find who here on Earth today
> I would want to meet. So far I am thinking Yo-Yo Ma or Katya Clover.
>
>
>
> --
> Sent from: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
>
> - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam
> un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
> archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/

Prof David West

Re: Subjective experience & free will

In reply to this post by jon zingale

List? Singular?

I have a list of FRIAMers that I would like to share a week of conversation, beer, coffee, [hallucinogens] and music while exploring Lake Powell on a houseboat or floating the Colorado through the Grand Canyon.

A list of people I suspect are assholes, but whose image I am enthralled by, e.g. Timothy Leary.

A topical list: e.g. Genghis Kahn on social order and governance.

People who have shaped my own thoughts and ideas the most, e.g. Brigham Young, Alfred Korzibski, Carl Jung.

Probably semi-fictional folk like Hermes Trismegistus.

So many folk, so little time. And yes, there are a lot of women on my various lists.

And yes, T.A.D.I.S. or holodeck or universal translator absolutely essential.

davew

On Tue, Mar 9, 2021, at 10:47 AM, jon zingale wrote: