Sam Harris versus Free Will

[Parodite]

MN: "So I've been thinking. It's not that I have questions or answers, but since you do what about actual events?

The conclusion seems to be that trying to understand them as the product of past events does not suffice. Right? Causal determinism and causal indeterminism can't tell you what will follow next exactly. Just approximations, no 100% accuracy. Always something is missing.

Trying to understand events as the product of only probability, sort of a pull from the future, does not change that. It actually adds to the argument. It gives you the options and the probability for each option to be actualized with no hidden causes or "variables" necessary. A good chance there aren't any hidden causes. Either way it doesn't matter.

Lastly, trying to understand actual events as the product of causality (the past) and probability (the future) won't do the magic trick either. One can imagine past and future sort of shaking hands creating an actual event, but it all remains safely hidden in the black box, the wiggle room.

It seems impossible to fully understand actual events in terms of past and/or future. Is this the situation?"

M: "Looks like it!"

MN: "So assume there is some sort of past-future handshake occuring in the black box. Then what?"

M: "The problem, it seems to me, is that it is very unlikely there is such a thing as a handshake. That the reality is the reverse."

MN: "The reverse?"

M: "Yes. If in fact all there is are those actual events, then past and future are secundary, more like abstractions. Like a cell that splits in two. The two new cells do not create the one cell from which they were created, it is the other way round."

MN: "Continue please. It sounds like magic."

M: "It occured to me last night while smoking a joint, that we all the time look in the wrong direction. We try explain things backwards. It is what also created the hard problem. How we ended up with an explanatory gap where the answer is not ahead of us at the other side of a gap, but behind us."

MN: "Hmmm"

M: "So there is no handshake between past and future creating a present/actual event, rather there is an actual event that splits into a past and a future. Using the handshake analogy it is like two hands separating instead of joining. What happens in the black box is more like nuclear fission where both past and future are products that escape the box and become available to us. Radioactive knowledge, the stuff that makes up the mind."

MN: "Sounds poetic. Continue son."

M: "There is the caveat of course that time is not an absolute. It just is a function of space. Events are by default occuring at different locations so they have different time frames as well. There exists no simulteneous "now" for anything in the universe."

MN: "Right, I was just wondering about that. The "present" seems as illusive as past and future."

M: "But it means that the smaller the amount of space you investigate, the closer you get to an actual event and its now-moment. This becomes apparent in the quantum world. The more you zoom in, the smaller the space volume, the closer you get to a local "now". But you won't ever get there really."

MN: "That seems right to me. Also the "now" in the quantum world is an approximation and in larger volumes of space relativity starts to kick in where all local approximate nows become relative as a function of their distance in space, where all is expanding.

As the saying goes: with one clock you hardly know what time it is, with two clocks you never know."

- tbc

[Parodite]

So I went to PG and ask about actual events, past and future. The things MN revelaled to me.

M: "So I've been talking to MN. I came to realize that my initial way of thinking about past, present and future was wrong. That I had it all reversely wrong.

So this was wrong:

causal-past -> event <- probability-future

Actual events are not created by some handshake between past and future; actual events split into a past and a future, like this:

causal-past <- event -> probability-future

You think I'm on the right track?

PG: "Never thought about things that way, but yes. Why not? On the other hand it doesn't change anything. Still the same black box and wiggle room with abstractions to the left and right of it. Not sure this is progress son. You can drive a round-about clockwise or counter clockwise, you always end up where you started."

M: "Yea, maybe you are right. But it just feels the second, reversed one is more like it is."

PG: "You said somewhere, and with that I agree, that all we seem to have is a present that is ever changing, never the same. If that is what it is, than that's it. It is what-is."

M: "Yes, ultimately, but what-is seems to always come with a past and a future. Past and future cannot be wished away. You think there exist actual events independent from past and future?"

PG: "Well, the answer to that question is a bit MN and my dirty little secret. Our code word for it, which we will not explain any further to you we promised each other because you are still too young, but here it is: conception."

M: "Hu? WTF is that."

PG: "Past and future are your thing my son. It is the canvas on which the world projects itself. Neuro-science will show you how the brain creates pasts and futures, space-time as you know it. Look around! Everything you see you is a representation of things that happened in the past. Some things you see, the representation if them, happened a few nanoseconds ago. Like the PC screen in front of you is a representation of that screen, of how it was a few milliseconds ago. Stars you see in the sky are representations of how they were millions of years ago. The "oldest memories" are the furthest away too, 13.6 billion light years.

And it may be shocking for you to hear, but even the thoughts that you are aware of are in the same way memories, just extremely fresh ones. A stream of representations of actual events, but the actual events have changed already by the time they became representations. Thoughts are as much memories as are far away stars."

M: "Makes sense! So we will never be able to experience actual events you say, only memories."

PG: "Not really. Actual events are the illusion, at best an assumption. You know of past and future and from that you create the theory of a present. But it is for a reason that the present ended up in a black box. What is the most likely reason you think?"

M: "I don't know. But if there is only past and future it would be like this:

past <-> future

No actual events, no present. I find that hard to accept. But it seems reasonable. Given the black box and that we can't completely totally a 100% control and predict things anyways. After removing the present from the equation, how do past and future relate?"

PG: "The future is just the next past so to speak; only the past is real. To predict a future event doesn't of course mean that it already exists in some futuristic waiting room until the moment has come for it to become a memory.

The future is just a model that predicts how the past will change. It is a function of your brain in order to anticipate change."

M: "But is memory creation not just a function of the brain? What about reality independent from the brain?"

PG: "That is of course the big secret between MN and me again. Conception."

M: "Seems like useless concept to me. Doesn't reveal anything! Nice poetry.. but other than that.. I don't know. And you talk about representations all the time, being memories.. but of what? It doesn't seem to make sense talking about representations or memories.. if we have no idea what it is they represent. Is there anything they represent to begin with?"

PG: "They do represent something son.. but it is not as simple as a picture of your mother. You easily see the similarity between your mother and the representation of her on a photo. But the memories you experience are representations of things that are completely different from how they are represented. If they were very similar you wouldn't need something complex as a brain to produce these representations. You will never be able to recognize the original. The representations and what they represent are so different that it wouldn't be obvious to talk in terms of representations. You would maybe opt for using words like transformations, transmutations, translations. But without loosing correspondence."

M: "I don't understand what you mean with correspondence and not loosing it."

PG: "I still don't fully get it either, it is actually something you mother told me once. Right after conception there is correspondence she murmured combing her hair. Ask her, it beats me too!"

- tbc

[Parodite]

M: "PG talked about the future saying:

The future is just a model that predicts how the past will change. It is a function of your brain in order to anticipate change.

Was he right?"

MN: "Believe it or not, but sometimes he is."

M: "But it seems to fly in the face of cause-effect thinking as it would reverse the arrow of time.

The classical: a causes -> b causes -> c causes -> d

However from a local sub-system's point of view, its relative now-state (eigenstate) becomes a function of the space(-time) that surrounds it.

Expanding space is like a growing memory, an obituary and the story keeps getting longer, older.

This reversed world where the corpses just keep piling up can be called, without too much insult, a retro-classical world.

The relative now-state (eigenstate) of a classical system I will call the relative present, RP. It changes all the time and leaves a trail of corpses behind. These corpses I call RiPs.

The classical cause-effect model a->b->c->d becomes in the retro-classical world:

~ RP
RiP(d)<-RP
RiP(c)<-RiP(d)<-RP
RiP(b)<-RiP(c)<-RiP(d)<-RP
RiP(a)<-RiP(b)<-RiP(c)<-RiP(d)<-RP


If this is a good representation, it would make sense to honor your forefathers because all RiPs surround you. "

MN: "I don't know son. Better sleep on it."

- tbc

[Parodite]

M: "PG said you told him once:

Right after conception there is correspondence.

What you meant with that?"

MN: "Conception is our secret. He told you that too?"

M: "Yes. So you can't say anything about it?"

MN: "Only in fancy ways. It is the way of creation. How things happen that never happened before and never will thereafter.

You believe there is anything that can happen more than once in exactly the same way?"

M: "Doesn't look like it."

MN: "And it is true. Nothing that happens is so similar to another event that these events can be called 100% identical. There are similarities, but always differences. Similar differences and different similarities. "

M: "But that means that creation always continues without beginning or end!"

MN: "What-is, is always new. Differences are always different.

Conception is like the breaking of symmetry. Not that symmetry existed before conception, just that conception is what keeps symmetry broken. Reality is fundamentally a-symmetric.

Conception keeps symmetry at bay to avoid the halting and death of creation.

It keeps the world spinning. Spin is everywhere, its spatio-temporal memory trail a spiral. It is not a co-incidence that DNA is a double helix."

M: "And what about correspondance? You said if follows conception."

MN: "It means that no matter the changes that occur, the transmutations of patterns as with the world of experience that comes with the human brain, there will be correspondance."

M: " You are loosing me mom."

MN: "Think of it like this. In your experience two bricks in a wall look very similar and what you know about them tells you they are very similar: they come from the same production process of a certain brick factory. Like you can say two hippos are very similar because they are animals that look the same and are from the same DNA reproduction process."

M: "So far so good Ma. What are you heading at."

MN: "Hang in there son. I'll get there in a moment.

So you see two similar bricks and two similar hippos:

brick[a] <similar to> brick

hippo[a] <similar to> hippo


Brick[a] and brick are similar, but not identical, right? They are just similar enough to call them of same type, size and material. They are different, but not that much different. Same for hippo[a] and hippo, similar, but not identical.

Now compare one of the bricks with one of the hippos. You would consider them very different, right? And no question they are not identical here!

brick[a] <very different from> hippo[a]

If you list all the similarities and differences, you'd get:

Group 1
brick[a] <similar to> brick
hippo[a] <similar to> hippo

Group 2
brick[a] <very different from> hippo[a]
brick[a] <very different from> hippo
brick <very different from> hippo[a]
brick <very different from> hippo

In group 1 you 2 different similarities.
In group 2 you have 4 differences that are similar: similar differences.

Hence the "different similarities and similar differences". This is how we categorize things based in differences and similarities.


So far so good?"

M: "Yes. all kinda obvious. But where is the correspondance thing?"

MN: "The correspondance thing comes in when you start to talk about experience independent reality.

Those bricks and hippos are representations/transmutations/translations of something else; the bricks and hippos as they exist independent from human brains creating these representations. Our old friend Emanual Kant called that the "noumenal world" which is the experience-independent world, and the experiential version, the "phenomenal world".

There is a correspondance between the bricks and hippos in our experiential world and the bricks and hippos in the experience independent world. More importantly, the similar differences and different similarities correspond similarly."

- tbc

[Parodite]

M: "MN, I like to continue later about how similar differences (SDs) and different similarities (DSs) in the experiential world correspond to similar differences and different similarities in the experience-independent world.

It seems to that to find how they correspond is not an easy challenge! And what about science, can it help here? Would things change for science, technology? I just don't see how anything would change, other than how to think about certain things, about the nature of reality perhaps."

MN: "That's fine. We have all the time in the world. You had another question?"

M: "Yea, was thinking about free will. After all that is the subject of our conversation. Would like to hear your opinion about the Libet experiments. And some newer experiments that strongly suggest that our choices are made unconsciously and before we experience making a conscious choice which renders the latter an illusion. SH uses this to support his claim that free will is an illusion. That there is no way around this conclusion."

MN: "Ah yes, poor Libet. You think these experiments show and take into account all that involves making a choice, even a very simple one like randomly lifting your left hand or right hand every 30 seconds?"

M: "Maybe not, but the fact that the choice is made before you are aware of it seems to stand rock solid."

MN: "False, because it leaves out an essential part of decision making. In which btw conscious, unconscious and pre-conscious processes are involved during decision making. How much of decision making requires the conscious part and how much of that could be called free is of later worry."

M: "But what essential part is left out?"

MN: "What is observed during the Libet experiments is not interpreted correctly. The things that are observed to happen before the by the subject reported conscious choice, is that motor neurons are potentiated to, say, raise your left hand. Right?

M: "Indeed. The decision has been made already, you will raise your left hand."

MN: "No! There are also potentiations possible of neurons that control muscles making the opposite movement of your arm. So lets say the neurons that control the muscles to lift your left hand are in the process of being potentiated. But then, for whatever reason, it is being blocked and taken over by another potentiation that keeps your left hand grounded, or force it to land again if it already was air born."

M: "Hmmm yes. But that doesn't change anything: whatever happens, the final decision made is not under the control of conscious free will."

MN: "You go too fast. Just pay attention. What do you experience just before you raise your left or right hand? You are actually able to sense this potentiation of the motor neurons. Especially because you have enough time to consider the options. When you seriously consider raising your left hand, the mental image of raising it already potentiates the motor neurons involved in raising your left hand. If before raising your left hand you start to seriously consider raising your right hand, neurons that control the muscles involved in lifting your right hand will get potentiated instead."

M: "Yes makes sense. So what Libet et-al found, is that potentiation always preceeds action."

MN: "Right. That's all. But also that potentiation change when you consider two (or more) different possible actions. One can override the other until the final decision is made. Potentiation come with thresholds; there is a point of no return of course. This point of no return is when the decision is made and where the question of free will matters. Libet's experiment doesn't explain anything about how the actual decision comes about at that point of no return. Not to mention that there are many different types of choices and circumstances in which different choices are made. There is a whole spectrum and mix of unconscious, preconscious and conscious processing involved. Burning your hand on a stove and deciding to pull it back is a reflex; smoking a pipe sitting in a lazy arm chair considering coffee or tea is a different baby."

-tbc

[Parodite]

PG: "I heard you talking to MN. It seems time for you to investigate some details, since that is where usually the devil hides.

What Neuroscience Says about Free Will
- Adam Bear, Scientific American

Perceiving causality after the fact: Postdiction in the temporal dynamics of causal perception
- Hoon Choi, Brian J Scholl Department of Psychology, Yale University

Distinct Neural Representation in the Dorsolateral, Dorsomedial, and Ventral Parts of the Striatum during Fixed- and Free-Choice Tasks
-Makoto Ito and Kenji Doya, Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University

Contributions of the Ventral Striatum to Conscious Perception: An Intracranial EEG Study of the Attentional Blink
- Slagter, H.A.; Mazaheri, A.; Reteig, L.C.; Smolders, R.; Figee, M.; Mantione, Mariska; Schuurman, P.R.; Denys, D, Univeristy of Amtserdam "

M: "Damn"

-tbc

[Parodite]

M: "PG, thanks for the links. Once you start digging into the neuroscience of decision making, an unfathomably large and complex landscape emerges. With hundreds of more links begging for attention, like this on:

Piercing of Consciousness as a Threshold-Crossing Operation

... which is like a more advanced version of the Libet expriments. From the summary section:

Thus, conscious awareness of having reached a decision appears to arise when the brain’s representation of accumulated evidence reaches a threshold or bound. We propose that such a mechanism might play a more widespread role in the “piercing of consciousness” by non-conscious thought processes.

It is impossible for an ordinary Joe like me to grasp every detail of all this research, so I need short cuts."

PG: "I know son. In your next life you will do the serious work. I just wanted you to realize that without sufficiently knowing what you are talking about, doing no hard labor of studying all you have is hearsay and sniffing around, believing what you want to believe because it feels right or sounds like common sense."

M: "Ok, but I'm just exploring the territory and some things do become apparent rock solid already! Just need your feedback on that."

PG: "You should take that up with MN. I'm here just to tell you nothing comes free of charge. And in the end I do pay all the bills for this family so it matters to me that our investments in you do pay off at some point."

-tbc

[Parodite]

M: "PG put me to work with some very interesting links to research that pertains to how free will may or may not be part of the the neurology of decision making. But it is too much! And he started to talk about paying bills."

MN: "Oh yes! He is grumpy again, because income tax is due. Every 7 thousand years we have judgement day in this household. Tax collectors go door by door to get the files with what people have done with their lives. But don't fear these tax collecting angels, they are just there to scare you a bit. Danger motivates. But all debt is reset to zero for free because the alternative is simply too expensive.

That you are forgiven is not out of empathy but for divine economic reasons. Think bankruptcy law. Here no-one is too big to fail. Not even PG! You will understand why he is stressed again lately. The archetypal grey long beard he has speaks volumes of his daily worries. Don't ever think judgment day is any fun for PG. It pains him to no end to scare people but with no weapon to back it up."

M: "Can't imagine the weight that is on his shoulders! Especially when you add all dark matter in the universe."

MN: "True. But even Gods are not given more than they can handle. He'll be OK. And remember, that after 6 days of creative hard core orgasmic conception he needed a day to rest too. Here all needs are met."

M: "You sound kinky MN! Don't want to imagine you and dad going hard core. Yikes.
Anyways, he referred me to you again for some feedback about the neuroscience of decision making."

MN: "I understand you quick-scanned some major research but stumbled over the details."

M: "Yes. But a general picture emerges, wonder what you say about it."

MN: "Continue son."

M: "Well, there seems to be rock solid evidence that many different brain regions are involved in decision-making. Not just one! A network of networks. Some decisions do not seem to involve much conscious brain process, if at all. Others do require conscious processing but it is not so clear how the causal arrow flows between conscious and non-conscious processing. The causal arrow being non-linear and very complex. Extremely difficult to chase cause and effect here! Maybe if neuroscience "goes Xi Jinping" all the way too and inserts millions of detectors into the brain for mass neuronal surveillance!

Especially the timing and synchronizing of networked events is interesting. How do consciously experienced decisions and non-conscious processes synchronize with motor output behavior in the world, so you won't hit your head or hit a ball with your foot in exactly the right moment making the actual (noumenal/objective) ball go precisely where you want it to go? The compensation of latency between representation, motor behavior/ action and the actual world out there is fascinating.

MN: "Quite right. The neurosciences started scratching the surface and only recently managed to penetrate deeper into the brain with measurement devices that are actually operated deep into the brain. Expect much more to come out of this research! It is only a few decades old.

Remember we discussed how the brain creates models of the future to predict and anticipate a changing past? These predictive models are the result of learning and are statistical in nature and evidence based. It is the bedrock of empirical science too. Your experience is what keeps these models up-to-date. The brain has a degree of plasticity to adapt, to reconfigure and change these models while learning. It is what changing your mind means."

M: "Also interesting is how we experience everything as some undivided, non-interrupted conscious stream of events. Despite the fact that so many non-conscious processes are always involved too. We can only self-identify with the conscious part. The difference between conscious and non-conscious seems like a rather hard border or threshold."

MN: "Yes, that is what some philosophers call "the binding problem". But as with many philosophical problems it is a non-problem."

M: "Why is that?"

MN: "If boiling milk comes with milk spilling over the edge and the milk spilling over constitutes conscious milk, then of course if you, the conscious self, is that spilling milk going over that threshold, and you are unaware of the milk that did not spill over, or not spill over yet.

Or compare it with a standing sinus wave. If only the hills constitute conscious experience and the valleys unconscious activity, then the hills become "glued together" and appear like an unbroken stream. Not much different from how conscious experience during the day is glued together with the previous conscious day when unconscious sleep is subtracted naturally, logically from the experience; 8 hours of sleep is experienced as only a moment between awareness. During daytime the brain also sleeps but the refresh is just much much higher and different regions sleep at different moments and speeds."

M: "Indeed!"

MN: "Understanding this it also becomes obvious how silly it is to divorce conscious experience, analogously the hills of a sinus wave, from the valleys. Regarding consciousness as some detached non-causal witness would be as stupid as ignoring the valleys of a sinus wave. But it does show how they only appear detached if you are the hills. Where are the valleys? They are as much part of you as the hills."

M: "But that is what people find problematic about conscious free will. Usually they want free will to exist independently from unconscious valleys. Because only God knows what happens in the valleys. They control the hills if you don't keep an eye on them!"

MN: "For analytical purposes hills and valleys can be distinguished but no real separation is possible. The insistence that conscious events, free will included, should only be hills, turning them into divine air balloons that hover somewhere above physical reality is also a leftover from the idea of PG being an all powerful man with grey beard sitting on a cloud."

M: "So you are saying that if you identify only with your own conscious experience you will be lost?"

MN: "Oh yes! You might feel god-like, or the opposite and feel like a disabled witness forced to watch without power to any action. Two sides of the same coin. Delusions of grandeur and delusions of insignificance. That coin has no real currency."

- tbc

[Parodite]

MN: "Btw, you must have realized that the neurology of decision making and the earlier discussed actual events that occur in some black box/wiggle room during quantum measurements must be related. Because the same quantum equations hold for any quantum system, also classical many-particle systems like human body-brains."

M: "Yes, that is understood."

MN: "That nothing is decided until it is decided, and that what is decided can only be predicted in terms of probability, not as exact outcomes. Uncertainty as discovered by Heisenberg stands rock solid. So far so good?"

M: "Appears to be that way yes."

MN: "What would that mean for free will, the fact that uncertainty and probablity are fundamental?"

M: "SH would argue that free will is only rendered more nonsensical because control is by definition impossible."

MN: "Yes, but it was clear from the beginning that his definition of free will as some god-like control center is idiotic. You don't even need quantum mechanics to realize that."

M: "True. But maybe there is something like good news too in quantum mechanics where probability and uncertainty "rule" so to speak. Uncertainty and the impossibility to accurately predict one single event, i.e. only the probability over a series of outcomes, would at least mean that also conscious choice events are free in the sense that what is decided is not 100% constrained either. That freedom is possible thanks to uncertainty and only constrained by probability. Willed or not really willed won't make a difference to that fundamental freedom."

MN: "You are getting very close son. I'm proud of you."

M: "If free will meant that I would exactly know in advance what I will decide and also know the exact consequences, freedom would be killed on the spot. Deterministic will without freedom is dictatorship. A devil trapped in a dream of freedom and total control."

MN: "It would be a pretty good description of Hell actually. No freedom, no curiosity, no free inquiry, no play, no surprises, no discoveries, nothing new, no free speech. Just Gulag Archipelago. Who would want that? Be careful what type of free will you wish for!"

M: "But is this the whole story then? Uncertainty and probability?"

MN: "Well, according to one of our anointed prodigy physicists, Richard Feynman, that's all. I recommend this lecture where he sums it all up brilliantly:

2mIk3wBJDgE

M: "Yes I have watched it a number of times."

MN: "He is right, but there is a huge elephant in the room that he doesn't mention (but was certainly aware of) that one day will become relevant to all those weird quantum phenomena."

M: "What could that possibly be?"

MN:"It is of course always possible that one mystery is being solved by an even greater mystery. But sometimes you are just being played tricks by a magician. Magicians distract you from where the real action is so that cause and effect become absurd to you. The prophets of quantum mechanics have always told to seek no further, but that is because they are under the spell of the trick that nature played on them."

M: "You talk about hidden variables?"

MN: "No. Particle-waves don't need them. The relevant action that does the final trick is not in particle-waves and their quantized interactions, but in empty space - that is neither an "ether" nor some absolute nothingness.

Of course you can be deceived in believing that these particle-waves are all there is, totally forgetting that they occupy only a tiny fraction of a space-time volume that is packed with mysterious fields and force vectors. Only a fool believes he can understand the behavior of a swarm of bees without understanding the environment in which they behave. Studying the behavior of quantized wave-particle interactions is no different from studying bees. At one point you have to forget the bees and look around to find out how their environment creates them.

The elephant in the room is the room."

-tbc

[Parodite]

PG: "I hear MN say that the elephant in the room is the room."

M: "Yes. That those weird quantum events cannot be understood without the environment, of "empty space"."

PG: "I think you discovered Bell's Theorem without realizing it. It states that:

No physical theory of hidden variables can ever produce all the predictions of quantum mechanics. (wiki)

It says what is also intuitive common sense: you can't understand local(-ized) events without taking the environment into account. In qm terms: you can't get to the quantum predictions with only local information, no matter how many hidden variables you would want to stuff into it. This also touches the measurement problem and Heisenberg's uncertainty principle.

M: "I always thought these types of troubles/limitations come from the fact that we can't freeze reality into some definite state. You cannot make pictures (measurements) without blur/loss of information because reality is always on the move. In the quantum world making pictures is even harder. Detecting an electron with a photon is like applying a sledgehammer on the head of your neighbor. That picture doesn't look too great as a memory of his joyous birthday party."


PG: "Yes. Total accuracy, full control of initial conditions and 100% predictability for each and every event is an illusion. It would be super-determinism and it isn't real. Those who believe that their conscious choices are under full control of deterministic forces are living in that illusion.

For those who love free will and don't wanna loose it: consider the blessings of uncertainty and probability. There is a free space there. Degrees of freedom. It is so fundamentally free that you can't even fully control or predict yourself either, which is such a blessing! Your will is freed from super-determinism. A divine gift."

M: "Well said dad, amen!"

[Parodite]

M: "MN, what about being free from super-determinism. PG claims that is what constitutes free will."

MN: "Sometimes I remember why I married PG. When will is freed from super-determinism it renders free will not into a freaky control maniac but into a creative and protective force to recon with.

That is what we MN females like about powerful men who can build, maintain and renovate. PGs who can turn every new day into a new house if they want to. Who at every turn apply their creative engineering skills making what is good even better and stronger. Who always want to protect our vulnerable children and are willing to even die for them. These self-sacrificing powerful PGs make the entire congregation of MNs smile cheek to cheek. Conception time again!

PGs who believe they have no such a free will are likely to be discarded by MN. Female force fields and potentials want new dreams to be born not from guys who believe they are victims, puppets on somebody else's strings. In female MN space they joke: "Just follow the sperm count!" Only second best after "just follow the money" of course.

PGs sperm count was so high though that he had to be calmed down to not become a danger to himself and others. Which is why we gave him this Divine Accountancy role, doing income tax and such. Throwing around empty threats, counting sins for no reason really. Extremely boring stuff. But it reduced his sperm-count with 60% and he is way more balanced now."

[Parodite]

PG: "Son, now that you have discovered stuff about free will, what's new?"

M: "Well, it feels great!"

PG: "But like our paper shredding machine Ben Shapiro says, facts don't care about your feelings. What changed apart from it feeling great?"

M: "Don't understand why you are asking. Feelings aren't important too?"

PG: "Feelings are like climate change son. Sunshine won't protect you from cold, rain or drought. The night that falls at the end of a day. And ten years from now you might conclude you were wrong about free will. And so on. The present ever changes, creation never sleeps."

M: "Are you saying it doesn't make any difference what people believe about free will?"

PG: "It makes a difference, but not that much. Much less than people like to believe."

M: "Well, if you mean it didn't change the taste of tea or how to cut wood... I know about your flirtations with Zen Buddhism. But that seems to me something for old guys whose windows of opportunity are closing one by one. Who try to be happy still with the little that is left for them. When nothing else is left but dying, they even turn that into a party. I don't buy it!"

PG: "You may be right, but you only know when you are at the end of your road yourself. How is it to be where you are not?"

M: "How is it to be where you are not?!? To me that is just another crazy zen koan. There is no question to that answer. So it is totally silly. Just a contradiction that poses as a question. A deception that is."

PG: "But earlier you couldn't come up with a question like that. A question for which you have no answer. A question where the answer, if at all it exists, is sealed in a black box."

M: "Right. But I'm not impressed with your geriatric wisdom. Like the Alzheimer patient asking the nurse who explained his condition: "Alzheimer? What is that again?"

PG: "You are close son."

M: "You mist be kidding dad."

PG: "Since you don't have Alzheimer, as of yet, you will remember we talked about past, present and future. How actual events appear sealed in a black-box that we can't open due to uncertainty and probability. That perhaps there even isn't a black-box. Like there is no real explanatory gap, no hard problem with consciousness. Just mirages."

M: "The connection escapes me."

PG: "I asked you what changed. Apart from the excitement that you discovered some things that you believe matter a lot. My coffee still tastes the same though. A lot of the same things annoy me that always annoy me. Your mother especially. As some things can still move me to tears. Or the bliss of goodness and beauty that suddenly strike out of nowhere. When everything shimmers and shines with happy promise as if baby Jesus is about to be born."

M: "Maybe you need take your medication dad. You start to sound unhinged, like a poet lost and his ending near."

PG: "Sigh.. the cruelty of youth. But it has to be so. The sweet taste of victory. Go out and conquer the world son! But remember, one day you have to give it all away again. Your present to eternity."

[Parodite]

M: "MN, I'm a bit worried about dad. He is all poetic, talking about death and sacrifice. Playing me with zen koans and kindly reminding me I will die one day too."

MN: "Yea I know. Seasonal mood swings. Don't worry. He is always like this after doing the income tax. If it were up to him he would sacrifice himself today. The voluntary sacrifice of his anointed son Jesus did not exactly do the trick intended. That frustrates him to no end. My big fear is that one day he will step in front of a train hoping that might do the trick. Of course I can not allow that to happen. But people should know that the love for his children is so big that he would, if only he could. He hates me for standing in the way. His sperm count did drop dangerously too, 5% tops. But he will hit the road again soon."

M: "I was a bit rude to him, now I feel sorry."

MN: "It is not easy to live forever, can tell you that! Be careful what you wish for."

M: "I also want to ask you about JBP, Air Jordan. He really is on a roll now. Is he a prophet?"

MN: "He is an extremely good son. Part of a tradition of prophets we like to call The Window Cleaners. He is a particularly thorough and articulate one. It is not a coincidence he tells people to clean up their rooms when he cleans their windows. The idea is to provide a clear uncluttered view. Nothing more, nothing less. And an answer to the question if scientists can be dreamers too. Of course they can.

Everybody dreams."

[Mr. Perfect]

Fantastic thread P, keep it going. Will chip in where I can.

[Parodite]

M: "MN, I'm worried about Syria. How do the probability distributions stack up there? Will there be war getting out of control?"

MN: "Uncertainty rules son. Don't you ever forget that. But there are probabilities that turn into inevitability - even though nothing is decided until it is decided."

M: "So? Anything inevitable here yet?"

MN: "Don't expect a big escalation yet. But the pressure will rise with increasing arsenals of weaponry being ready to fire on many sides. With that the potential costs, not only in lives, will grow exponentially."

M: "And then??"

MN: "Then it will be operation butterfly."

M: "You resort to poetry again. Doesn't fly! Too much is at stake."

MN: "You are right that too much is at stake. Which is the point and why operation butterfly will follow."

M: "Like to hear more about that, preferably before intercontinental nukes start flying around and I still have ears to listen!"

MN: "Most big wars started when people didn't look too far ahead, so they didn't foresee the costs coming. It can start with ideas, ideologies too shortsighted to see the consequences. Blow back and blow out with millions paying the price.

But there are millions not paying the price too, especially next generations. They rebuild lives on the ashes and suffering of those who payed. Part of human history."

M: "Doesn't sound promising for us here now."

MN: "For those who believe the future exists; it too is fighting for its life. It doesn't want to inherit the bullshit of your generations and pay for your sins. It might decide that it is better to let the past scorch itself and start something new on fertile virgin ground."

M: "So innocent people from the future would not mind sacrificing innocent people who live now to save their own future asses? How can that be a fair and reasonable solution."

MN: "Which is why operation butterfly will kick in."

M: "Sounds very mystical .. so of no use."

MN: "It doesn't matter if people think it is of any use or not. It is a natural event that will happen anyways."

M: "Explain that!"

MN: "Normally PG answers these types of questions, but he is out fishing recharging his battery so I'll give it a try.

When people don't see the consequences of their actions, things from our divine perspective here look rather... predictable. This is both true for terrible things that will happen, but also for good things. When people do bad things out of ignorance and abide by their lower instincts we call it stupidity. Remember Jesus asked PG to forgive his executioners because they didn't know what they were doing.

Similarly, people can do good things not because they know exactly why but because they jump over their own ignorance as an act of faith and trust. Or they are in general less inclined to listen to their lower instincts because they are able to look down the road further and therefore self-regulate better.

Self-preservation drives all this; empathy and care for others only when they are very close to you."

M: "Sounds like Dr. Phil would agree with you, but where is the butterfly?"

MN: "Stupidity, faith, trust, self-regulation is business as usual when things are rather predictable, with not too many options on the daily table. All things are relatively stable. When instability increases many more options will be on the table. Suddenly many more things could come down the road that don't seem to be in your interest. Many coins could fall in many different ways and combinations. Which is what you experience now, right?"

M: "Well, yes of course. Things could go terribly wrong, or resettle to the usual protracted lavender, but also some really good stuff could come from it."

MN: "So you have increased instability, growing numbers of possible outcomes and the road ahead more blurred as a consequence. Little events could trigger an avalanche that could trigger more avalanches. Or maybe it all dies out fast without much changed.

With so much uncertainty and the probability distributions getting richer with more possible outcomes, it is butterfly season again.

You must know about "the butterfly effect" where a butterfly can change weather patterns around the globe. When a very small event can trigger a cascade of bigger events.

When many butterflies are in the air and their number growing, we always switch on TV!"

M: "I see. So operation butterfly is just a like a plague of butterflies. How romantic."

MN: "A good way of seeing it yes. Like I said, it is all natural. If you are sensitive to patterns you see butterflies all around now."

M: "But butterflies are usually considered very sweet fairy-tale like creatures. Your operation butterfly doesn't seem to announce wonderful things. Might as well be horror in the making!"

MN: "Nobody is spared from horror. Innocence is sacrificed on a daily basis already, just the scope and numbers vary."

M: "So why do you guys switch on TV and watch operation butterfly? Looks like war-porn to me."

MN: "No. We watch because these are the moments of hope. Nothing changes when not enough changes. When a lot can change, with a plague of butterflies chaotically flying through probability space, all bets are off. When all bets are off we just have to watch because we care.

M: "If you say so mom, what can I say.

By the way dad just called, he will come home a bit earlier from fishing. Too many annoying butterflies at the river side."

[Mr. Perfect]

JvemuO2mL14

[Typhoon]

Given that we have no idea how consciousness is constructed, for someone to claim that free will does not or does exist seems speculative at best.

[noddy]

if we dont have free will and it is all a deterministic simulation, yet so many of us believe we do have free will.

what does that say.

[Mr. Perfect]

Yes, we can't help believing in free will. It's almost like we have no choice. I used to tell Ymix that I am a white blood cell searching out liberal cancer and I have no say in the matter, so get mad at evolution not me.

I never met a person I didn't like.

But, free will is what they take away in Cuba and North Korea and increasingly US Universities.

[Simple Minded]

Who (or is it whom?) is making you people post in this thread?

[Parodite]

Who (or is it whom?) is making you people post in this thread?

Best question so far.

[Parodite]

Given that we have no idea how consciousness is constructed, for someone to claim that free will does not or does exist seems speculative at best.

Indeed.

[Simple Minded]

Who (or is it whom?) is making you people post in this thread?

Best question so far.

Yep. Until we answer that question, all the rest is hyperbole......

Great cartoon. Thanks for posting.

[Parodite]

Yep. Until we answer that question, all the rest is hyperbole......

That, and me thinks my free will is totally privy to my own opinion. Anyone coming along saying "hey bro..you have/you aint free wiw because a/b/c/" is basically just a burglar trying to take what is not his, or a dis-invited santa who brings stuff i don't need; especially poorly compiled definitions of free wiw and pseudo-scientific arguments.

It is also quite possible I have free wiw, whereas you don't. A free will tax and then redistribution of it for the common good? I also see a lot of potential for a placebo that will give you free will and/or make it grow.

[Simple Minded]

Parodite,

Four of my long term favorite quotes are:
"The greatest battles of life are fought out daily in the silent chambers of the soul."
"Just as the battle is within, so is the victory."
"Life seems like one long obstacle course, with me as the chief obstacle."
"Conquer yourself, not the world." **

Whether one has free will or not, does seems to be a personal choice. A godlike power indeed. As Kanye West so recently noted.

** - as one commentator noted, What Decartes meant at the base, is actually the same thing.

I like the idea of Viagara for one's ego. It is a billion $ idea. I would suggest it be offered in creams, pills, and liquid forms.