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Do you believe in free will? (lemmy.world)

submitted 4 days ago by Dr_Box@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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There is an argument that free will doesn't exist because there is an unbroken chain of causality we are riding on that dates back to the beginning of time. Meaning that every time you fart, scratch your nose, blink, or make lifechanging decisions there is a pre existing reason. These reasons might be anything from the sensory enviornment you were in the past minute, the hormone levels in your bloodstream at the time, hormones you were exposed to as a baby, or how you were parented growing up. No thought you have is really original and is more like a domino affect of neurons firing off in reaction to what you have experienced. What are your thoughts on this?

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[–] TempermentalAnomaly@lemmy.world 2 points 14 hours ago

Sorry for the long delay. I think engaging with the material and what you wrote requires some reflection time and, unfortunately, my time for that is limited these days. And so while I was hoping to offer a more robust response after having read the links you provided, I think engagement was more necessary to keep the conversation fresh even if I've only had a glance at the material.

The brain in the dish study seems to be interesting and raised new questions for me. "What is a brain?" comes to mind. For me, I have a novice level understanding of the structures of the brain and the role in neurotransmitters, hormones, neuron structures, etc. But I've never really examined what a brain is and how it is something more than or other than it's component parts and their operations.

Some other questions would be:

What is the relationship between brain and mind?
What do we mean by mind? Do all brains create a mind?
Or, in context of this conversation, do all brains have a CPM?
Does adaptive environmental behavior by species without a brain indicate a CPM?

So those are some of the initial thoughts I had and would read the paper to see if the authors are even raising that question in their paper.

But more fundamentally, we still have to examine the mind-body problem. Recontextualizing it to a CPM, "what is the relationship between a CPM and either the brain or the mind?" I am unclear if the CPM is a mental or physical phenomena. There seems to be a certainty that the CPM is part of the brain, but the entirety of it's output is non-physical. I imagine that we assume a narrative where the brain in the dish is creating a CPM because it demonstrates learning, adaptive behavior based upon external stimuli.

Ultimately, I bring it back to a framing question. Why choose weak emergence prematurely? It limits our investigation and imagination.

Well... that's my set of issues. I'll try to find time to read those articles in the next few days!

Cheers!