About determinism

Javier

Registered Senior Member
Seems clear that in the macroscopical(and most part of the microscopical range)natural realm,the physical laws produce an unavoidable (as the sense of law here used:imperative)chain of causes and effects:

Now,is Mankind totally ruled by this process,or has some capability to "twist"the logical natural(as no human) process initiating new" branches" of causality
origined in its (independent)will?

First argument:If only man is not absolutelly ruled by causalism,then what differentiates men from the rest of Nature?

Bioscientists are very generally of the opinion that the only important differentiating feature is the development of the neocortical area of the brain,
which gives us our characteristic intelligence;but as intelligence is essentially a causalist procedure ,the hability to link an event with its cause and to foresee its effect,then all of Nature would be causalist...

Second argument:If a person is the sum of the DNA features,which are considered a fixed causalist inheritance, and the environment,this environment consists of the non human Nature,totally causalist,and the other people s DNA, each of which is preprogrammed,i.e. causalist...

But tough the intellect is rather complex,as long as it is much lesser than the (inner and outer)world to interpret,is this undetermination towards the future which gives us the sense of decision,IMHO;check that looking back to the past,as our mind collects information of the outer and inner worlds from it(and tries to project the invisible future from this experience) we can see its causalist progression,i.e. its fixedness...
 
Seeing as you asked...
Originally posted by Javier
Seems clear that in the macroscopical(and most part of the microscopical range)natural realm,the physical laws produce an unavoidable (as the sense of law here used:imperative)chain of causes and effects:

Now,is Mankind totally ruled by this process,or has some capability to "twist"the logical natural(as no human) process initiating new" branches" of causality origined in its (independent)will?
My feeling: mankind - like every other organism - is totally ruled by causality. The fact that we're not aware of the myriad factors that influence our every decision can give the impression of free will, but in truth we're just computers; we're fed a whole bunch of input, and our output depends on that input. Why is the world so full of assholes? GIGO. The brain is a fantastically complex organism, but is flawed; the fact that some (I'd say all) humans are neurotic messes attests to the fact that all isn't well in brain town. It does quite well, though; it takes a phenomenal mass of input every day, and processes this in a more or less meaningful way. The results of this processing manifest themselves in our future behaviour.

Genetics? My feeling is that the role of the genome is vastly overrated. My take on the nature:nuture ratio would be about 1:49.
 
Mankind evolved by the process of random chance occurences of genetic mutations that gave him/her the ability to survive. I don't see the relation between "chance" and cause and effect being simultaneously. What came first the chicken or the egg? Not everything has a cause. For example, what was the cause of the Big Bang? What caused time? What caused my teacher to suddenly lose her train of though and pause for a moment before continuing? What caused the existence of possibly up to fifteen dimensions in space? You can always say, "We don't know yet," but that's a circular argument. Random events, like quantum particles that exhibit wavelike behavior or as particles can never be precisely determined because there is no definite cause that you can determine. Same is true of Heisenberg's Uncertainy Principle: "The more precisely the position is of an electron is determined, the less precisely the momentum is known." No cause: no effect. Also Brownian motion.
 
I think Valich is assuming “something caused” is “something predictable” at least in principle, when he asserts that “Not everything has a cause,” “Heisenberg's Uncertainy Principle,” “Brownian Motion” etc. For example, Brownian motion is very clearly caused by the random collision with atoms.

(Einstein’s 1905 paper, predicted the vertical distribution of Brownian particles based on the hypotheses that atoms exist. Prior to confirmation of his predictions several years later by French researchers, most physicist and all lay persons thought that matter was continuous. - Hard for us, who learned about atoms in elementary school, to believe, but true.)

For years, I believed that people are just complex biological machines. Any “free will” they might have was Either (1) just the chance results of quantum mechanic events amplified to the macro level of behavior, but I very seriously doubt QM event are significant in the brain; OR (2) something very close to Brownian motion chance. - I.e. to fire any brain nerve, the thousand or so excitory and the 1000 or so inhibitory synaptic inputs on its dendritic tree randomly add to produce (or not) its “Brownian Movement” = a discharge (usually called an “action potential”). Personally, I would rather have no “free will” if it could only be “chance free will.” I. e. I would prefer to be Skinner’s deterministic biological machine - trusting in evolution’s long testing and refinement of the design to usually give reasonable responses to environmental stress, etc.

My views changed as a result of considerable study of the human visual system. I recognize that some logical processes must exist in addition to “random” and ‘”law following” such as computer code for “Genuine Free Will”, GFW, to exist by the mechanism I suggest in the attachment. There are aspect of logic I do understand well. For example “self referencing logic” such as statement: “This sentence is false.” (If sentence is true, then it must be false, but if sentence is false, then it must be true, etc.) Perhaps there are other types of logic I do not even know exist, whiich may permit the existence of GFW by the mechanism (completely consistent with physics) I suggest in the attachment.


I tried the two steps below and attachment does not open (for me anyway) so will copy and post it in one or more new posts here, if that is possible.

(Having great trouble making attachment as I do not use word. I posted it some time ago, prior to expiration of my free grace period of word. - It is an attachment to my post of 2-17-05 in forum General Philosophy's thread "Consciousness Thought experiment".)

How to find attachment:
1) Do "advanced search" of forum "General Philosophy" with No entry in the "key words box", but "Billy T" in the name box, any post. Set for "6 months" & "older" and also change to the "show post" button.

2) It is the only post on 2-17-05. If you click on the underlined "I am not really replying...." you will go right to post with the attachment at end.
 
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AS I have not been able to attach a 4 page paper (see end of prior post) I post summary here. If any interest is expressed, I will post fully.

Summary: This definition of one’s self as an informational process in a simulation, not a physical body, permits you to have GFW and make other violations of physical laws, especially in your dreams, when sensory guidance of the simulation is weak or absent. For example, some people sincerely report “out of body” experiences etc. These physically impossible experiences and GFW are directly experienced and thus have a strong claim to being “real.” In contrast, the existence of a physical world is only inferred from these direct experiences. Bishop Berkeley argued consistently that it may not exist, but he required a God to give him his experiences. My view is similar to his in some aspects (I do not exist as a physical object in the material world.) but it makes no reference to God. Instead, a brain-based simulation is creating both my experiences and me. Being non-physical is the price one must pay for GFW if one rejects miracles that violate physics.

Question: Are you a complex bio-mechanical machine without GFW or only an informational process that has GFW in a simulated world? If you believe the former and that belief is correct, you must. I.e. you can make no real choices without postulating a “soul” or other miracles that violate physics, but if the latter is correct, I can chose to believe it (or not) and still be consistent with physics and logic. Some who believe they have free will and yet reject the second alternative of the question may find in this dilemma a strong argument for the existence of God and miracles, but if they do their “free will” is not GFW. Instead it is the potentially capricious and reversible gift of a greater being, whose postulated existence is not supported by any physical evidence. In contrast, there is a large body of physical evidence (some given above) supporting the simulated world in which I postulate we exist with GFW. See the first reference for more of this evidence. Consider also how many of the strange aspects of human psychology easily fit within the framework of a simulated world and being (phantom limbs, multiple personalities, false memories, sincere denial, déjà vu, hallucinations, etc.).


References and Notes:

1) For reprint, contact the Johns Hopkins University / Applied Physic Laboratory (helen.worth@jhuapl.edu). "Reality, Perception, and Simulation: A Plausible Theory" appeared in the JHU/APL Technical Journal, volume 15, number 2 (1994) pages 154 - 163. The last two pages (Philosophical Implications and Speculations) give the above solution to the freewill vs. determinism problem.
 
Yes, sorry about that slip. Brownian motion has a cause.

I don't see that we have to postulate a soul in either of the alternatives in your "Question" paragraph above. In the later, the world doen't necessarily have to be a "simulated world," with or without GFW. In what sense are you suggesting that it is simulated?
 
valich said:
...the world doen't necessarily have to be a "simulated world," with or without GFW. In what sense are you suggesting that it is simulated?
Since you asked, I post the paper to explain. I wish I could make it an attacment as it is long but have wasted more than one hour trying to attach. Sorry about the length.

Genuine Free Will is Possible

Before the advent of Quantum Mechanics, the future appeared to LaPlace to be exactly determined by the past state of the universe, even if it was clearly unpredictable. Chaos theory and measurement errors plus ignorance about small asteroid orbits, rupture stresses in tectonic faults or vascular systems, etc. makes LaPlace’s future unpredictable, perhaps fatally so in only a few seconds for some individuals. Quantum Mechanics destroyed LaPlace’s deterministic world. Thus, thanks to QM, a “probabilistic will” is at least possible. I.e. we can have the illusion of making “choices” that are actually made by the chance results of QM; however, Genuine Free Will, GFW, i.e. real choices made by one’s self, still appears to be impossible without some violation the physical laws that govern molecular interactions in our complex neuro-physiological processes.

If GFW does not exist, it is perhaps the most universal of all human illusions. This article will show that GFW is physically possible, even probable, without any violation of physics if one is willing to drastically revise the usual concept of one’s self. Furthermore, it argues that the required revision is a natural consequence of a better understanding of how the human visual system functions and the fact that we are highly visual creatures. The possibility that GFW is only an illusion is not excluded, but is made less probable, by the arguments presented in “Reality, Perception, and Simulation: A Plausible Theory”1. This text extracts from that article some aspects related to the existence of GFW.

That article focused almost entirely on the human visual system. How the brain uses a 2 dimensional array of information (neural activity present in the retina) to form a 3 dimensional perception of the environment is the central mystery of vision. The most accepted general concept is that this 2D data array is “computationally transformed” in successive stages neural processing until the 3D perception “emerges.” This processing begins in the retina itself where data is compressed by almost 100 fold. (Retinal photo detectors greatly outnumber optical nerve fibers.) The first cortical processing area, V1, extracts some “features,” (mainly line orientations and intensities) that are present in the visual field. Color, motion, and other primary features are extracted later in entirely separate regions of the brain. These separated features are processed further in other regions of the brain, but no one knows how they are reassembled into the unified 3D perception we experience. I concur with this feature extraction and segregation model, but do not think the 3D perception we experience is the “emerging result” of automatic computational transforms of the retinal data array as the standard theory suggests.

I contend that the visual features extracted in separate regions of the brain are never “reassembled” and do not “emerge” to form our unified visual experience. Instead, I believe that currently available sensorial information and one’s memory are used to construct, probably in the parietal region of the brain, a real-time simulation of the visual world. We experience that simulated world, not the physical world. Evolutionary selection has forced this simulation to be a nearly perfect model of our immediate physical world. (Excepting electromagnetic waves and other features for which we lack neural sensors.) Thus, continuous detailed guidance is required from the senses, but hallucinations and illusions can be, and occasionally are, created in the simulation that conflict with the physical world. These “errors” together with dreams and visual images formed with eyes closed are difficult for the conventional view of vision to explain in terms of automatic transformations of retinal data. Hallucinations, visual dreams, etc. are easily understood with the concept that what we experience is an internal simulation of the world, not an emerging transform of the retinal data.

Now I reproduce three of the several arguments I presented in above cited article to support this simulation concept and to demonstration that the standard concept of 3D perception as the emerging end result of automatic neural computational transformations of retinal data is surely wrong:

1) Our visual experience is uniformly rich in details over a wide area. That is, we see / experience the environment in front of us everywhere with high resolution, but the optical system of the eyes has very low resolution, except for one extremely small (solid angle slightly more than one degree) part, the fovea. How can high-resolution perceptual experiences, spanning a large part of one hemisphere, emerge from such low resolution input data? Clearly what we experience is derived from some inter construction, not the computational transform of retinal data. I am referring to our visual experience, not our ability to perceive fine details far from the point of fixation. Our perception of fine details is limited to that part of the image falling on the fovea. If our visual experience emerged from successive neural transforms of the retina data, it would be like looking through a lightly frosted sheet of glass, which had only one small spot completely clear (without frosting).

2) One’s perceptual experience when viewing a movie can also prove that the conventional view of visual processes is simply wrong. Imagine that a motion picture camera, held by someone seated in an extreme left seat of a theater, is filming actors on the stage and that doors on the left and right sides of the stage are equally large. Now suppose that this film is projected in a movie theater from a centrally located projection booth. The image projected on the screen will have doors of different size. Assume the left one is 25% larger. If you are seated on the right side of the movie theater in a location that is exactly symmetric to the location of the camera that filmed the movie, then the two doors will form equally large images on your retinas, but the standard theory’s “automatic computational transforms” will compensate for the 25% greater distance to the screen image of the left door and you will correctly perceive that the left door image is 25% larger. (This is correction for distance called “perceptual size constancy”) 2 Likewise if a movie character, who is 80% as tall as the real stage doors, should enter right door, and exit the left one, his height should be perceived as changing by 25% as he walks from one door to the other, according to the convention theory. Regardless of where they are seated, people never perceive an actor’s height as changing as his movie image moves from one side of the screen to the other. If one of the stage actors had walked from the extreme right rear of the stage to the extreme front edge, directly towards the camera making the movie film, the size of his film image could easily have increased by 50%. When you see this walk in the movie, his image on the screen will grow larger by 50%, but its distance from you remains constant so that the automatic computational transforms applied to this retinal image also remain constant. (The convergence angles of your eyes, etc. do not change during his walk.) Consequently, if the standard theory were correct, his perceived size should increase by 50% as he walks, but his perceived size is constant regardless of where he walked on the stage. Clearly the conventional view of how visual perceptions are produced (emerging end result of automatic computational processes) is simply wrong and needs to be replaced. My JHU/APL article gives several other reasons why I believe we experience the results of an internal simulation of our environment, not automatic transforms of our retinal images. It also explains, at the neural level, how we segregate objects (parse them) from the continuous visual field and how we then identify these parsed objects, but these processes are not discussed here because this article concerns only the existence, or not, of GFW.

3) The primary task of living organisms is to stay alive, at least long enough to reproduce. Neural computations require time. The world we would experience, if our experiences were the emergent results of many successive stages of neural transformations would be delayed by a significant fraction of a second. During our evolutionary history nothing truly discontinuous ever happened in our visual environment. (The discontinuous changes in movie and TV scenes did not exist.) None the less, it was essential for our ancestors to have a real-time understanding of their surroundings despite nature’s temporal continuity and our neural delays. - Try ducking a rock thrown towards your head if your only visual experience of it is a display projected into the eyes (electronic goggles) that delay the image by 0.1 seconds! A real-time simulation of the environment, can be achieved in a neural simulation by slightly projecting ahead the sensory information to compensate for neural processing delays.

A real-time simulation would have great survival value. Perhaps the Neanderthals still experienced slightly delayed “emerging transforms” of retinal data when our smaller brained and weaker ancestors perfected a real-time simulation of their environment. (Ecological pressure from the larger and stronger Neanderthals would have accelerated the rate of evolution in our ancestors.) Likewise, the “Out of Africa” mystery, (Why one branch of hominoids, expanded and dominated all others approximately 50,000 years ago.), which is often assumed to be related to the acquisition of “autonomous language” (no gestures required - hands free and education facilitated), might better be explained by the development of the real-time simulation of the environment.

Furthermore, I think everything we perceive as being “real” in our environment, including our physical bodies, is a part of this same simulation, not an emerging result of neural transformations of sensorial data from any of our neural transducers. That is, all of the senses only guide the simulation, feature by feature, to keep it highly faithful to the current external reality. When an abrupt external event unexpectedly occurs (hidden firecracker exploding, etc.), it significantly conflicts with the events projected in our simulation for that moment. We are startled and the simulation must be quickly revised to conform to the unanticipated external reality. This revision requires approximately 0.3 seconds. I think it probable that the simulation is paused while the revision is in progress, but we do not notice as we are also “paused” during this brief interval, just as we are not aware of hours passing while we sleep. I think the unusual electrical activity in the brain associated with the re-initiation of the simulation produces the EEG signal commonly called “P300,” or the “startle spike.” P300 is strongest over the parietal region.3

Why the continuous natural environment should be dissected into “features” and separately processed as a means of achieving a unified perception of the world is a great and unexplained mystery for most cognitive scientists, but easily understood if a simulation of the world is constructed by the brain. The physically sensed world is dissected into “features” for the same reason that a pilot uses a checklist before takeoff. Dividing a complex task into its component details and separately checking each, item by item, feature by feature, improves task performance accuracy. Thus, both the real-time simulation and the dissection of the visual field into features have significant survival value and consequently are probable natural developments in the evolution of creatures as complex as man.

In order to compare the features derived from retinal data with those derived from the simulation, they must be brought to the same neural tissue. Clearly it would be advantages to make this comparison as early as possible in the sequential stages of “computational transforms” of the retinal information. If the simulation is constructed in the parietal region of the brain, then one would expect that the number of neural fiber leaving the parietal cortex and returning to the visual cortex would at least equal those coming there, via the LGN, from the eyes. In fact they are somewhat more numerous. They are called “retrograde fibers” and no plausible reason for their existence has been suggested. Some of the comparison may be made even earlier in the LGN, which is usually considered to be mainly a “relay station” between the eyes and visual cortex. (Both areas have large projections into the parietal cortex, so it can easily “know” when, where and what difference has been detected.) The quantity of retrograde fibers from the visual striate cortex to the LGN slightly outnumbers the number of fibers coming there from the eyes. About this second set of retrograde fibers, DeValois4 states: “It is by no means obvious what function is subserved by this feedback.” (from V1 to LGN) About the retrograde set from the parietal to V1, they state: “Even less is understood (if that is possible) about these feedback connections...” They also note that both sets are “strictly retinotopic,” which is the neuro-physiologist’s way to compactly state that each small part of the visual field is mapped in one-to-one correspondence with neural tissue. That is, the retrograde fibers return to the same small area of processing cells that the prograde fibers enter and these cells are concerned with only a small part of the image on the retina. This approximately equal number of retinotopic retrograde fibers entering the visual cortex, is not only explained by the theory I am suggesting; they are required for the simulation to rapidly correct for unpredictable external events!

If a buzzer sounds while one is watching the steady predictable movement of a small light spot and one is asked: “Where was the light spot when the buzzer first began to sound?” the location indicated is later than the true location. Thanks to the predictive simulation, the subject is continuously aware of the true location of the light in real-time but he only becomes aware of the sound later after the simulation has been revised to include the sound of the buzzer and he associates it with that later location of the light. Retrograde fibers project back to early sensory processing stages for all of the senses to make correction of the simulation as rapid as possible but perception of new events is still delayed enough to be easily demonstrated in this type of psychological test. - For example, a reasonable competent computer programmer can program his computer to move a light pixel across a stationary grid displayed on the monitor and to randomly make a brief sound. With fine pointer, he quickly points to the light spot location where the light was when the sound started. A few seconds later, the computer displays where the light pixel actual was when the sound started. Note how quickly he moves the pointer (his reaction time) does not matter. The delay measured is the time required to revise the simulation to include the new sound. This small revision will not produce a “P300” EEG signal because the simulation is not paused while it is made. Only major environmental discontinuities, usually sudden unexpected loud noises, pause our existence (startle us).

Thus the only reality we directly experience is this simulation and we are part of it. That is, we are an informational process in a simulation, not a physical body. When we are in deep dreamless sleep the simulation is paused and we do not exist - only our physical bodies exist. Our bodies are at all times completely governed by physical laws, like any other physical object; but if we are only an informational process in a slightly imperfect simulation of the physical world, then we need not be deterministic (or quantum mechanical) beings. That is, we may not exactly follow physical laws just as the creatures modeled in modern computers making movies, pixel by pixel, without actors or optical cameras do not exactly follow the physical laws. The meaning of symbols manipulated in a computer does not depend upon the physical construction or deterministic details of the computer. The human brain is a parallel processing computer, much more advanced than any man has yet conceived, and is fully capable of making a real-time simulation of the world we experience.

Other humans, some of the more advanced animals, and ourselves are modeled in this simulation as having wishes and making choices, not as bio-mechanical creatures governed by physics. That is, the simulation in which we live and exist assumes GFW exists for some of the more advanced creatures. Thus, GFW does exist in the only world we exist in and directly experience. Neither we, nor GFW exists in the physical world. From our direct experiences in the world we exist in, the simulation, we infer (I think correctly) that the physical world does exist, but as Bishop George Berkeley noted, the existence of a physical world may be only an erroneous belief, commonly deduced from our direct experiences. That is, the directly experienced GFW has a stronger claim to “reality” than the inferred physical world!

Summary: This definition of one’s self as an informational process in a simulation, not a physical body, permits you to have GFW and make other violations of physical laws, especially in your dreams, when sensory guidance of the simulation is weak or absent. For example, some people sincerely report “out of body” experiences etc. These physically impossible experiences and GFW are directly experienced and thus have a strong claim to being “real.” In contrast, the existence of a physical world is only inferred from these direct experiences. Bishop Berkeley argued consistently that it may not exist, but he required a God to give him his experiences. My view is similar to his in some aspects (I do not exist as a physical object in the material world.) but it makes no reference to God. Instead, a brain-based simulation is creating both my experiences and me. Being non-physical is the price one must pay for GFW if one rejects miracles that violate physics.

Question: Are you a complex bio-mechanical machine without GFW or only an informational process that has GFW in a simulated world? If you believe the former and that belief is correct, you must. I.e. you can make no real choices without postulating a “soul” or other miracles that violate physics, but if the latter is correct, I can chose to believe it (or not) and still be consistent with physics and logic. Some who believe they have free will and yet reject the second alternative of the question may find in this dilemma a strong argument for the existence of God and miracles, but if they do their “free will” is not GFW. Instead it is the potentially capricious and reversible gift of a greater being, whose postulated existence is not supported by any physical evidence. In contrast, there is a large body of physical evidence (some given above) supporting the simulated world in which I postulate we exist with GFW. See the first reference for more of this evidence. Consider also how many of the strange aspects of human psychology easily fit within the framework of a simulated world and being (phantom limbs, multiple personalities, false memories, sincere denial, déjà vu, hallucinations, etc.).
References and Notes:

1) For reprint, contact the Johns Hopkins University / Applied Physic Laboratory (helen.worth@jhuapl.edu). "Reality, Perception, and Simulation: A Plausible Theory" appeared in the JHU/APL Technical Journal, volume 15, number 2 (1994) pages 154 - 163. The last two pages (Philosophical Implications and Speculations) give the above solution to the freewill vs. determinism problem.

2) For example, if a father is standing three times farther from you than his half grown son, his image on your retina is smaller than that of his son, yet you perceive their relative sizes correctly. Standard theory suggests that we automatically correct retinal image sizes to compensate for distance. “Perceptual size constancy” is usually reasonably accurate. The most notable natural exception is the moon illusion. The near horizon moon appears to be larger than the overhead moon because humans conceive of the “sky dome”, on which the moon and stars appear to move, as more distant near the horizon than at the zenith. Why this is so, is partially caused by the slowing of the angular rate of movement of clouds, birds, etc. we watch as they move towards the horizon.

3) There are many other reasons to suspect the simulation takes palace in parietal cortex, but I will only briefly mention two. First is the geometric efficiency of the brain’s structure for a parietal simulation. The simulation requires four main inputs. Tactical sensory cortex contacts the anterior parietal; Visual cortex contacts the posterior, Auditory input contacts it laterally and the primary tissue associated with memory is directly below the parietal cortex. This minimizes neural conduction delays and “white tissue” (nerve fibers) brain volume requirements. Even stronger support is found in the sequela of parietal strokes, which result in “unilateral neglect.” Victims of these strokes do not recognize the existence of the contra lateral half of the physical world. They eat only the food on one side of their plate, etc. Their visual system can be shown to continue functioning perfectly. For example, if one briefly flashes a small light in that part of the world that does not exists (for them), and then demands that they guess whether this non-existent light was red or green, they perform far above chance, while complaining that it is silly to name the color of something that did not exist. This proves their visual system is functioning well, at least through the stage where small color features are extracted. I explain unilateral neglect sequela by postulating that the undamaged side of the parietal brain is continuing to make a simulation, but only of its half of the world. Because their personality is not drastically changed, I believe frontal cortex is utilized to construct much the “psychological self” included in the simulation but their physical body image is a parietal construct. - If they happen to turn their head and see their leg, whose existence is no longer represented in the simulation as part of their body, they may try to throw this “foreign leg” away – it is disgusting close to them.

4) Page 101 of Spatial Vision, first edition, Oxford Psychology Series No. 14, by R.L. & K.K. DeValois Oxford University Press (ISBN 0-19-505019-3)
 
Thanks! Since its so long I'll have to print it out and read it when I get a chance over the weekend.

Yeah, I hate that. Yesterday I posted a reply that I researched from five different sources and each time I tried to send it, I somehow accidently deleted it. This happened five times in a row. Then I had to go back and reresearch all the articles and copy and paste the sections quoted, titles, authors, and websites - took hours, but I felt it was worth it rather than totally wasting my initial time.
 
The title of the article "GFW is Possible" sets the stage as far as the argument for GFW goes. He then states that he intends on showing that GFW is physically possible by "available sensorial information and one's memory..."

He then states that "I believe that currently available sensorial information and one’s memory are used to construct, probably in the parietal region of the brain, a real-time simulation of the visual world. We experience that simulated world, not the physical world. Evolutionary selection has forced this simulation to be a nearly perfect model of our immediate physical world. (Excepting electromagnetic waves and other features for which we lack neural sensors.)."

This his his initial assumption that I would dispute. He admits that he is basing his evidence on visual perception, but he does not show any reason to believe that his socalled "simulated world" is not the same as the physical world that we experience except by suggesting that it is only a mere partial interpretation (simulation in the brain) of what we really do experience in the physical world. I think he is creating his own definition of the word simulation to further justify the fine points in his preceding arguments, i.e., that we cannot know the fine points of physical reality through our visual sensations, etc.

We can all view a movie, see at different angles, but still come together and agree on what we saw, thus establishing the physical reality that we have experienced.

He's just using the word "simulation" to describe the difference that we each perceive in viewing the same real physical reality.

Then he goes on to further justify this "simulation" mode by referring to what we experience in dream stages of sleep.

GFW is determined in part by our past experiences that determine our neurological makeup, our predispositions influenced throughout our experiences in the world, random neuroligical processes, brain function, but also by contemplating all of the above and then making a choice based on that. There is a point where we have to decide "do this or do that." And when we contemplate on that decision point, and then consciously decide to make it, that is GFW. If we have to contemplate it then it is not predetermined.
 
valich said:
The title of the article "GFW is Possible" sets the stage as far as the argument for GFW goes. He then states that he intends on showing that GFW is physically possible by "available sensorial information and one's memory..."

He then states that "I believe that currently available sensorial information and one’s memory are used to construct, probably in the parietal region of the brain, a real-time simulation of the visual world. We experience that simulated world, not the physical world....
I do not take strong exception to anything you say but think there is a little misunderstanding of what I am trying to say. I do mean by "simulation" something very much like a computer simulation of some real event, for example a building burning. That simulation makes no real high tempertures, may be false in other ways, etc. -I.e. it is a different world's fire.

Of course it is strange to call it a "different world," but the simulation I am speaking of is not just some aspects the the "real physical world" it is the only real world we ever experience and very good approximation to what I presume, but can not prove actually exists.

That the simulated world I experience is not exactly the same as the physical world is easy to demonstate - any standard "illusion" will do this. For example, a straight stick stuck into calm water pool at an angle to the surface is not experienced as a straight stick any more. - you understand this - that is not the point. I am speaking of your experience. There may be some aspects of this you do not understand. For example, if you want to shoot a fish in that water, do not aim your rifle at it, aim below him. (You must know his size to know how far below etc.) There are some illusion I am almost sure you fail to understand are only illusions and consequencly believe they are true "facts" about the "real physical world." - I noticed one a few years ago that I had failed most of my life to recognize is illusion, not a true characteristic of the "real physical world." I have subsequently seen this illusion, not true "fact," in at least two paintings that were trying to be very realistic. - True to nature, but actually only reflecting the artistic perception of nature. I.e. he was painting his experience, which included this unrecognized illusion. This is a little long winded attempt to prove that the simulated world I speak of is in not the same as the "real physical world" but clearly a different thing - a different world, in which "I" exist.

I infer that the "physical real world" exists only because my brain's simulated world (including creature "me" created in that simulation) does exist. That is a little too stong a statement. - my point is that even to refer to "my brain," I am making an indefensible presumption. All that I know about "first hand" IMO is the events of the simulations I am part of. That is why I state "I" do not exist when my body is in deep sleep state. (I have often adopted a policy of using quotes around me or I when I want to clealy distinguish between the ordinary use of me or I from the "I" or "me" created in the simulation.)

Again I am making some presumptions to speak of "my body" etc. I do not know to what extent you are familiar with Bishop Berkeley's view point that nothing physical exists. It is a logically very secure position (but I don't believe it true.). For about 300 years, no one has been able to point at a logical flaw in his argument. He of course does not prove the non existance of matter (no one can prove any neagative out side the realm of mathematics -see next paragraph.) He only establishes that the "no matter" view is a possible state for "experiencing beings." He has God to make these expererience for the lesser "experiencing being" - he probably believes they are some type of "soul" - Been years since I read him, so I do not remember all. I thought his reason why the laws of physic exist (he does not use this phrase, but it is his idea in modern translation) was very clever. If they did not exists i.e. the experienced world lacked regularity, then God could not work miracles, occasionally!

(No "negative proof" is possible: For example, you can not show "false" my claim that the sun will not rise tomorrow. - Perhaps a massive compact dust cloud is now rapidly approaching on the far side of sun, undetected, not blocking out our view of stars, and will hid sun for a week before passing by the Earth etc.)

Back to the pont: as my simulation is very like that of a computer (made by brain - a natural computer, a very advanced, parallel multitask processor, only a very small part of whose activity is available to the "me" created part of the simulation). I do, however, have a serious logic problem in trying to fully defend the possibility of GFW. (In fact, I am inclined to bet GWF is another "unrecognized illusion" of the "physical world"1) Even the "random" routines of most computers are just "rule following logic." If my brain's logic is also "just rule following logic" acting on "physics law following inputs" (both current ones and those remembered from the past) then there is no GFW.

Some computers use radioactive decay to make more (we presume) random events instead of rule following. (I will not go deeply into why I said "presume" but it envolves quantum mechanically "entangled" events that could even reach backwards in time and make the whole history of the universe like a movie film already finished which we are now "deterministically viewing" at the "now" point of the film.) Thus, my simulation, thanks to the possibility that Quantum Mechanics, QM, opens up (if QM is not deterministic by entangled events) with its "probalistic out comes" can grant me a "random free will" in addition to a determistic illusion of free will, but neither is the GFW I seek.

That is, if GFW is to exist, the must be some "logic" that the simulation in a brain can follow that is neither "random chance" nor "rigidly rule following." I don't know what it could be and this, IMO, is the weakest part of my idea as to what our real nature is. I don't understand all parts of logic. Perhaps some forms have yet to be discovered. Russel and Whitehead (I think) put self reflective logic onto firmer ground less than 50 years ago. An example of "self reflective logic" is: "THIS SENTENCE IS FALSE." I do not know how to evalute the truth or or falseness of this simple statement, do you? There are much more complex sets in the "self reflective logic" field. My hope is (As I want GFW to be a possible consequence of the "logic" employed in the simulation) that some form of logic exists that is neither "QM random" nor "rule following."
 
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A computer simulation of some really event is not the same as our real world experience (sight, touch, feel, smell, sound) of that real event. If I hit my finger with a hammer and my finger turns black-and-blue, that's not a simulation of that real world experience that I just had - and I've got the hammer and my black-and-blue finger to show to anyone else to prove to them that it was real. But if I hit myself with a rubber hammer instead, then that would be a simulation of that real physical world experience.

The author of the article is changing the meaning of the word simulation to suit his needs. Webster defines simulate as "to give or assume the appearance of, often with the intent to deceive" or "a sham, something counterfeit."
 
valich said:
Webster defines simulate as "to give or assume the appearance of, often with the intent to deceive" or "a sham, something counterfeit."
You are using a dictionary definition in a science forum!
 
Actually Ophiolite, in his last posting brought up a good point. I was using the "hard" definition of simulation that is more common in layman terms, but your point about simulation as in "computer simulation" wouldn't apply to that definition. Nevertheless, it is a philosophical paper and not a scientific one so one has to wonder what definition of the word the author wants us to use. It is of interest that the origin of the word comes from the Latin word "simulatus," meaning "copy, represent, feign." Philosophers usually look to the origin of the word before they choose to use it as a critical basis in their argument.
 
valich said:
...The author of the article is changing the meaning of the word simulation to suit his needs. Webster defines simulate as "to give or assume the appearance of, often with the intent to deceive" or "a sham, something counterfeit."
I assume you are referring to me and the article "GFW is possible“, so I will reply:

I am not trying to change the meaning of "simulation" nor to deceive. What I am suggesting is so strange that you appear not to be able to break from the normal thought patterns enough to comprehend it. Thus I will first agree completely that human experience (your hurt finger/ pain etc. example) is entirely different from a IBM (or MAC if you prefer) computer simulation of smashing a finger.

What I am suggesting is that the standard model of cognitive science relating to how humans form their experiences (the steps of brain processing) is demonstrably wrong. I showed with three different numbered examples for visual processing that a visual experience of a 3D world "out there" from the 2D images on our two retina, is NOT formed by successive stages of neural transformations of retinal data from which emerges the visual experience (the std view).

To quickly repeat one of these three demonstrations: - We visually experience a 3D world, approximately a full hemisphere of it, centered on our current direction of gaze, WITH ESSENTIALLY EQUAL RESOLUTION, yet the high information resolution capacity of the eye is limited to approximately only that one degree of the visual field that happens to fall on the fovea. To borrow from the GIGO idea, it is if a miracle were occurring on every gaze: Instead of GIGO we get "Garbage In (except for the one degree of the fovea) and Quality Out, GIQO ! The resolution off the fovea is very poor. Try to read the largest head line of a newspaper while looking 45 degrees from it. Contrast this with you experience when looking at a wall covered with fine detail wall paper or multitude of images of Marylin Monrow etc with fixed gaze direction. If what you experience were the direct result of neural computational transforms (using convergence angles etc. of both eyes to get to 3D for the 2D data source) you experience would be very blurry except to a very small clear spot (one degree) at the point of gaze fixation. I.e if visual input directly created the experience, the GIGO rule would apply and you would experience the world as if looking thru frosted glass, except for one tiny clear spot. Please read the other two visual system examples also. I could give many more that prove the same point - We experience some "inter construct of the brain" not the direct transform of the sensory data.

If you like replace my use of the word "simulation" everywhere in the article with "inter construct of the brain." I do not care to argue over definitions of "simulation."

I am trying to get you to understand a very strange idea, which I was forced to accept by many facts I learned while becoming reasonably knowledgeable about human visual system during a year's sabbatical in the cognitive science department of The Johns Hopkins University. The published paper (ref.1 of the article) is basically a summary of that knowledge but contains two new ideas. (One explaining, at the neuronal level, how the continuous visual field/ retinal image is "parsed" into separate objects, and the other explaining, at a higher symbolic level, how the parsed objects are then identified.) The human visual experience of recognized, discrete, 3D objects from a continuous (un parsed) 2D input is a very complex unsolved problem. Few appreciate its complexity, because few lay people have even paused to think about it. Only a small concluding part of the paper touches on the GFW problem.

It was only an accidental result of this investigation of the human visual system that I was forced to conclude we experience an "inter construct of the brain" that is very much like the physical world activating our neural sensors, except for illusions, hallucinations, dreams etc.. For convenience, I shorten this to say we experience a "simulation" of the physical world, not the physical world. Obviously no brain experiences the physical world. It receives only a stream of nerve impulses and then, in ways very poorly understood, (certainly erroneously described by standard cognitive scientist's view that it "emerges from neural computational transforms") we gain our "experiences of the 3D world from that data stream.

My basic view is that the sensory data stream is used only to keep a parietal simulation of the physical world quite accurate. It is especially embarrassing for the standard "emergence view" that all agree that the visual field is promptly (mainly in v1 and v2) dissected into different "features" like motion, color, angles, contrast, texture, intensity, line intersection, line terminations, edge orientations, etc. - About 15 to 20 "features" have been discussed in the literature, and these "features" are processed in entirely separate/ distinct parts of the brain, yet never "reassembled" in one place. For example: the shape, color, motion, surface texture, seam orientations of a thrown yellow tennis ball are features all separately processed ("recognized" by dedicated set of nerves, not consciousness) in different parts of the brain, yet you experience an integrated yellow tennis ball in motion at a particular point in space "now"!

Try to open your mind to the very strange idea I was forced to adopt, or at least consider the idea without becoming too hung up on the particular word "simulation" - repalce it with "inter construct of the brain" if you can not accept my use of the wrd as I do. Thanks.
 
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valich said:
"Determinism" is a philosophical subject. Philosophy is not a science.

Two things:
1. Philosophy is a science. In fact, you can't have science without philosophy.
2. determinism is a well known subject also in 'hard' science. Such as genetic determinism in developmental biology.
 
Philosophy is a liberal art, not a science. One is often asked when young whether they want to study the humanities or science. Philosophy is categorized in the arts and humanities category, not science. It does not follow scientific methods and there are no physical experimentations. Philosophy includes the study of logic, aesthetics, ethics, and metaphysics. Aesthetics is the appreciatiopn of art. Metaphysics is highly speculative.

Let's put it another way: Do you know of ANY university that offers a Bachelor of Science in Philosophy?

I really find it hard - near impossible to believe that you have a doctorate, less it was from a study-on-line mail-in university. So tell me then. What was your major that you do not even know that philosophy is a liberal art and not a science. And what university did you graduate from. I'd like to find out more about this socalled university: that they could grant a PhD to such a vulgar, prone to belligerent argument, incredulous person. By the way, among my many degrees, I also have a B.A. in Philosophy.
 
We all know what a "monkey" is.

Let's see here. Definition of "spurious": from the fr. "spurius" meaning "bastard," "something without having genuine qualities; FALSE; of falsified or erroneously attributed origin; of a deceitful nature."

Yes. That certainly does sound correct.
 
I actually picked the name myself. That suggests that I kind of know what spurious means.

I had a PhD supervisor once who was Professor in the philosophy of science. I guess he was past his bachelors. Does that count?
 
Well, before we all turn into ignorant fools by listening too much to Valich.

I have a PhD.

Do you know what PhD stands for?

Doctor of Philosophy

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), an abbreviation for the Latin "Philosophiæ Doctor" (or alternatively Doctor philosophiæ, D.Phil.) was originally a degree granted by a university to a learned individual who had achieved the approval of his peers and who had demonstrated a long and productive career in the field of philosophy. The appellation of "Doctor" (from Latin: teacher) was usually awarded only when the individual was in middle age. It indicated a life dedicated to learning, to knowledge, and to the spread of knowledge.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phd

And what did they used to call science????

Natural philosophy is a term applied to the objective study of nature and the physical universe before the development of modern science.
In other words, all forms of science historically developed out of philosophy or more specifically natural philosophy. At older universities, long-established Chairs of Natural Philosophy are nowadays occupied mainly by professors of physics.

Natural philosophy was the term whose usage preceded our current term science in the sense that prior to the replacement of the term "natural philosophy" with the term science, the term science was used exclusively (and comparatively rarely) as a synonym for knowledge or study and when the subject of that knowledge or study was 'the workings of nature', then the term "natural philosophy" would be used.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_philosophy
 
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