Charlie Rose

mikegriffin  04/20/2012 08:51 AM Report

My maple tree in the back yard has broken a new record for its amount of seedlings produced by many thousands. They fly everywhere and somehow clump in clusters of 5 or 6, and one of them will root and start a new tree. I will be pulling up seedling trees all summer long. They have designed themselves to break off easily when they are yanked up. The roots remain and they come back twice as strong, and now they must be dug out. Have they have figured out free will?

topazgirl  04/19/2012 06:52 AM Report

goscience:

What a beautifully articulate explanation of Gazzaniga's ideas of free will in respect to the brain processes...

No, I don't entirely "get it", but I sincerely want to. My seemingly simple-minded questions stem from remarks he made concerning instinct, and cultural norms (or accepted expectations?). I tend to focus more on the emotional or metaphysical aspects of free will, and find it harder to understand the scientific-motor-neuron-brain-synapse reasons for it. If we seem to take this lightly, we really do not! The banter that J.Gelles and I play is due to mutual respect and affection for "the other" who is 1,200 miles away.

Thank-you for an intelligent and concise explanation of a complicated physiological process...

John... As to REMant, I truly respect his intelligence. I find the "devil's advocacy" to be thought-provoking. But I am, more than not, frustrated by the constant negativity, and the belittling of every person interviewed on this program... I believe him to have some good points, but wonder why he insists on always "throwing the baby out with the bathwater"...

JohnGelles1  04/19/2012 03:55 AM Report

Evidently, the posts I recall are the very ones below in this discussion of Gassaniga's book. I'm sorry to be working without my Google tools and HTML editor. REM went to far. But he may have supported pre-scientific genius that we all respect.

goscience  04/19/2012 03:48 AM Report

Are people getting this? Gazzaniga's point is that there is a subset of mind in the left hemisphere--the interpreter or story teller module that views our thoughts and actions plus existing memory and constructs a story that attempts to knit it all together into a theory of self and selves. That in a sense, "we" don't independently exist except as a kind of reproducible pattern in a portion of the brain.

Both this module and larger brain and "mind as software" can be thought of as an automated function, processing inputs and creating output, which drives action and is also sampled by the interpretive module which constantly updates. The system certainly has the capacity for growth through feedback as a result of experience and learning and the self is a constantly updated projection of this process.

The idea of free will lies in the interpretive module and the theory of self it constructs. Not all cultures have comparable theories of free will and behavior is constrained in different ways in different cultures.

Experiments on volition have shown that what seems like conscious decision making is not that at all. For example, experiments monitoring the brain have shown that a decision to take a physical action, say move an appendage, is first shown in the brain circuitry by mobilization of motor neuron potentials at a point in time prior to the time the subject signals a decision to take action. I.e., the decision to act is made before the subject consciously decides to do so See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroscience_of_free_will).

If it turns out to be the case that free will is an illusion constructed by the brains interpretive module can we ever escape from or even recognize the absence of choice by a conscious identity?

Don't know. In addition to our own self-creation story telling we also construct stories of other selves and the world. Cultures provide a commonality of indoctrination and shared experiences and story construction that coordinates behavior and self-worth, which plugs into the emotions and helps regulate well-being (I assume).

What would we be like if our narratives were seen to be synthetic; if we understood ourselves to be merely automata? Is this why religion has such a strong hold on so many by providing a principle that at least partially trumps the concept of free will or constrains behavior along certain prescribed avenues?

One could say that decision-making takes place in the "unconscious" but then is it free will without conscious intention or rational participation.

JohnGelles1  04/19/2012 03:43 AM Report

Dear Topazgirl and good friend ~

In another post of mine I hope I find, I demand we respect the rules of science over the rules of brilliant "minds". But I do not deny science is only now venturing into realms of knowledge it could not penetrate that artists currently dominate.

Flapdoodle is an exaggerated defense of our dominant beliefs. Many of such beliefs will be abandoned. Is REMant as out of line as I have claimed? Yes. He questions the path Gazzaniga has chosen, when the scientific path has proved its worth beyond such naked rejection.

Yet we are all puzzled -- even puzzled beyond words.

I hope I find my defense of science in a very recent post. We may have to see a scintilla of merit in the REM acting as devil's advocate.

topazgirl  04/18/2012 10:28 PM Report

...But we CAN agree that REMant is a curmudgeon who dislikes, and is opposed to EVERYTHING...

topazgirl  04/18/2012 10:19 PM Report

...Or is free will opposed to the laws of nature, or animal instinct? Could basic human instinct be part of my free will without me knowing it? Can't women today "choose" to have a baby or not, even though procreation in an ancient human instinct!... See! Now I'm becoming obsessed with this notion....

topazgirl  04/18/2012 10:05 PM Report

I would jump in here, Gentlemen, but I have to admit this conversation is a bit over my head... It FEELS like "free will" is in my DNA (and brain). It tends to be my first choice, until reason, and respect for societal norms and laws kick in. Or is it that my "free-will" is to CHOOSE to follow those norms, or not! Maybe I'm confused about what "free will" really IS... Is it only opposed to God's will, or is it opposed to society's, or my family's will for me, as well? ...It all gets too abstract for me, and it is now making my head spin!

...Sorry, John, I wish I could help... I even looked up "Whig" on Wikipedia, and now I am more confused than ever..... ;D

JohnGelles1  04/18/2012 07:17 PM Report

"Free will" may be a notion not in our favor. Perhaps the scholars who search for a better outcome than free will suggests ought to abandon the phrase? Certainly, it is not an element we can find or a commodity we can use in its pure form.

JohnGelles1  04/18/2012 07:08 PM Report

Why, we ask ourselves, do we not already follow the GR. The answer seems to be sibling rivalry at birth. AI may aid in the research necessary to cure sibling rivalry in the womb.

The mechanism that carries sibling rivalry in our genes, and perhaps in our DNA, cannot be understood without science.

Skeptics will say even science won't make such a cure possible. We, on the positive side of the argument, agree our goals are far away, often out of reach. But the pursuit of virtuous goals remains the reason to live and try.

Let us get on with the revolutions in biology, materials, and knowledge acquisition and sharing. Yet, as skeptics will demand, revolutions in language, law and economics, at the common level, cannot cease in favor of better instruments that help us examine the deepest levels of bio-chemistry.

tabs  04/18/2012 06:52 PM Report

If there is no "free will" then mans thinking will be bound to the conventional wisdom of the day, which will determine how men react to events. Thus one can figure out what the end will inevitably be.

JohnGelles1  04/18/2012 06:48 PM Report

The idea of a "Singularity", defined as a moment after which artificial intelligence betters our own, may offer paths to human learning that will be less self-destructive than ours has been in the past.

Although AI appears to be our obedient slave, it may help to make clear to each and all of us the need and rewards for and of the Golden Rule.

TodSpence  04/18/2012 03:31 PM Report

REMant is a bonafide idiot.

JohnGelles1  04/18/2012 02:49 PM Report

Dear Jeweled TG,

I note my first sentence needs to say "human beings ... that are capable ...".

Anyway please join these comments. We may not have free will outside our brain. The thought of what such words mean today is stunning. So we are all a little stunned -- certainly not stoned, as we test its waters. REMdoodle, our Whig from out the past, sees "flapdoodle" in the air. There is none. Its all clean air. Let's take a few breaths.

JohnGelles1  04/18/2012 02:35 PM Report

This discussion of the science of mind, a science determined to understand how the universe of material substance evolved into human beings -- who alone on this planet, and presumably alone in the universe, developed language, the special language of quantity, the additional languages of music, and even science, itself, that is capable of undertaking learning -- via the science of mind.

To reduce this new science to the wisdom of the ages before the present intellectual revolutionary period, is to be blind to the facts we are studying.

Yes, we had drama and all the arts and sciences of yesterday. And REM-doddle makes the most of them he can. But, in relation to this discussion, his contribution is out of touch with future model development aimed at details never before exposed to view.

REM-doodle offers negativity, to be expected, always, when the NEW is discovered, and which negativity must always be completely ignored.

Positive thought of the contribution of the past to present and future study of mind, brain, languages, models, realities, and meanings in the largest sense, is, of course always welcome. As comment on this discussion proceeds, let us build on positive positions.

I first got interested in cognitive science 25 years ago. I first got interested in computer science 60 years ago. I first got interested in the power of artificial intelligence a decade or so before I found cognitive science.

These sciences, combined with language and literary arts and earlier sciences too, are as exciting as anything one can imagine -- and they lead to the science of the mind. Whigery has no place in this appreciation of life as it exists. Life's beginnings and endings will never be known. But the middle, where we may be, demands the exacting work of science not the dismissive prejudice of "know-it-all's".

REMant  04/18/2012 12:20 PM Report

Leaving aside deprivations, bells, shocks and rewards, behaviorism means treating subjects as black boxes. And it is a far better way to approach the subject than looking at brains through a microscope, which amounts only to sophisticated phrenology. The former immediately reveals that ppl either look at rationality from the point of view of emotions, or at emotions from the point of view of rationality, and you can categorize all the sociological and psychological literature under one rubric or the other. As an example of the rational position you will find Adam Smith in his 1759 Theory of Moral Sentiments refer to seeing ourselves as a third party would, which draws attention to its cognitive connection.

If, on the other hand, you wish to denigrate rationality, you can call it a story, a narrative, an interpretation, simply a value, tho that begs the question of the origin of the value, "interpreter" or no. Like the schoolmen you could have argue against the existence of universals. These days that would probably be accorded to some supposed algorithm, which then would fall under the heading of emotion, or belief in creation, for it is in fact very religious. Yet this is skepticism masquerading as science. "Creativity" would have no point. Nature no design. Why, indeed, would brains have evolved to ask the question?

The effect is primitivism. The Victorians assumed the innocence of children in the same way, which is why Freud bothered them so much. It may explain as well the often-noted facade they maintained, like the French and their lovers. Freud's interest was in this, yes, liberal disease, not in authoritarianism or whatever liberals choose to call it nowadays. He was no Whig. He realized their problems were the result of lack of self-confidence, rationalizations and other defenses. The fact that Freud was so quickly forgotten or easily dismissed I think explains volumes about American culture, and perhaps Santa Barbara's, with all its Hollywood types, in particular.

And it misses the whole point of the free will debate, which was to counter exactly this tendency in Catholicism, with roots in the conflict between skeptics and Stoics in ancient and medieval times. In order to affirm free will, it was necessary first to get ppl to accept predestination, i.e., design, as something not in our hands, to convert them from passion to reason. For will comes in two varieties as well. There are those who see it as reason, and those who see it as passion. No word in any language is more confused, and I'm sure it drives students in lit classes crazy. Once will was no longer passion, it could be considered rational, hence free, if, as they used to say, nevertheless following the last act of the understanding, and science a number one exhibit of it. And that's why people like Kandel and Brooks can't understand free will, nor individualism. I would hope the courts are smarter.

But, as I've written here before, all the evidence points to intelligence manifesting itself within a world that is losing energy and so in that respect must be considered occurring after the fact, and hence rationalization of a sort, the question being only over its verisimilitude. So what, then, is the point of being objective, of solving problems? Obviously to prolong life, tho die we must. Which is, of course, ultimately what these folks are denying with all this flapdoodle.