Mike

First of all .... peace to you too. Second, I am not aware of hiding anything at all. I really am SO INNOCENT of hiding things, that I can't imagine what you mean? Do you mean about my personal life? Someone asked me the other day if I was on TWI payroll. ABSOLUTELY NOT! I am definitely getting a tiny bit closer to them at HQ, and I have mentioned here I am already quite close to the local leaders in recent years. Is that what you mean about hiding things? I am wildly guessing on this. Do you think I am starting a ministry or a corporation or anything like that? I just don't have a clue what you mean by me possibly hiding something. */*/*/*/* As for Daniel Dennett I am glad you are a fan of his. I have studied his 2 books on free will, and if you have them, my next chapter will give you an extensive guide to reading his free will ideas. Dennett's 2 books on free will are "Elbow Room" and "Freedom Evolves." I met him in 1995 when he was a guest speaker at the UCSD group. He had a top best selling book then, Consciousness Explained, that we read as a group and discussed before his visit. He has an odd reputation for being dense and unintelligible in just his 2 free will books, while in all his other books he is looked at as a master explainer and deep thinker. I expand on this in my chapter 4, which is next. I made a mistake in a previous post, saying it was chapter 5.

I thought I'd limit my response to where where we can agree. I think you have a point here. That kind of respect for all is properly called for. We at TWI would sometimes get that attitude that since we had so many pure fixed doctrines, that we in this "household" were superior beings, and those who "tripped out" of the household were scum of the earth, and those without spirit were "empties" and mere beasts. I could see this attitude growing as the years went by. What I decided to do is respect all humans as either family with spirit, or respect them as possibly future family with spirit. Similarly with heretics: they can someday turn around and come back to like-mindedness. */*/*/* I don't know how to comment on your other text, because it seems to have nothing to do with my Free Will posting here in this thread. I do seem to remember we clashed at times in the past, like YEARS ago, but I am sorry to say I don't remember what the issues were. */*/*/*/*/* Much more than being focused on convincing anyone here, I am focused on just making certain alternative thoughts available. I can accept people rejecting what I say, and I am thankful that I can say it anyway.

I was thinking more on this. I got many ideas from Daniel Dennett, as I have a whole chapter (4) on him. I may have "gotten wind" of the idea from all the confusion in Dennett's writing, that I also mention in chapter 4.

That’s such a sublime analogy, Mike – did you come up with that yourself? It kinda blows my mind also. I should say "thanks," but of course, I have to search for “who gets the credit?” with it in mind that there are no real new ideas, that all good ideas come from God. But somehow the idea ended up in my word processor, and I am not sure who came up with it. I definitely have no book or article or person in mind telling that idea to me. But I do know all the pieces were swirling around in my head like a vortex a few years ago. I wasn’t expecting it, but it came in just months before the Pandemic started, I think, without checking records. Best my memory serves me, the sailboat idea just plopped out of many fierce debates I had for years in forums devoted to free will, both for and against. Since I am in between, and I have a new idea, I got fierce resistance from both sides. At this minute I honestly can’t remember if I put the pieces together or if they were jammed together in the heat of battle, and I just noticed it. I’ve been so busy working the idea that I haven’t stopped to remember where it came from. The swirling around in my head I mentioned is from two friends I have. One who is very excited about sailing and it was from him I might have picked something up. He was the one who impressed on me that sailboats can go faster than the wind. THAT got my attention, especially since I had ignored sailboats for a lifetime. The other friend is a Deadhead friend, a fellow fan of the Grateful Dead. He plays great Dead covers with other musicians in their basements. He also happens to be a world famous sailing author. So, as the sailboat freedoms were being hyped by friend #1, I could bounce any technical ideas off Deadhead friend #2. It was in homage to him that I included the Grateful Dead in my Chapter 2. */*/*/*/*/*/*/*/* Also a question on the first sentence I bold reded : "When a sailboat goes against the wind, every step of every process is 100% deterministic." when a sailboat goes AGAINST the wind - wouldn't that be the opposite of deterministic? Something has intervened to counter the force of the wind. To be more full in the description, a sailboat goes against wind DIRECTION. The wind, being a major deterministic force here, is what powers the boat in whatever direction it goes. The boat uses the Bernouli Principle to convert wind energy in THAT direction into wind energy in THIS direction. So it is the wind itself that intervened, along with the sail shape etc, to force a different DIRECTION on the boat’s motion. Because the Bernoulli Principle is involved, this sailing process is just as complicated and just as “magical” as how airplanes fly. The Bernoulli Principle gives airplanes a sense of “freedom” from gravity determinism, but that is just at first glance. But a sailboat and an airplane COMPLETELY obey all the Laws of Physics, which is where determinism comes from. I explain this more in chapter 5. */*/*/*/*/*/*/*/* also, on a side note are you thinking of publishing your work? If so, aren't you concerned about presenting it on an open forum, at the risk of someone stealing your work? . As you know I have some peculiar attitudes towards copyrights, originality, and other related issues. As I mentioned above, the way I hammered out this theory was in public forums. If I had been paying attention to hoarding the ideas I had for self-purposes and copywriting, then I probably would have not gotten them into fairly decent written form. Plus, copyright paperwork is a bore. I’m too old to bother with all that. I’d rather DONATE the ideas to humanity, as I state in chapter 1, this free will thingy has become a cultural EMERGENCY! That is one reason I jumped at the chance to “publish” here. It is one more way the ideas can get out there. Maybe someone else can put these same pieces together better than me, and add more pieces to boot. I just feel honored to participate, and that’s been my attitude all along. Plus, if someone stole my ideas that would be GREAT !!! If they can market them, more power to them. Hey, maybe I could collaborate with them if they were thinking that much like me that they would invest in such a heist.

Minimalistic Free Will Chapter 3 - Minimal Robot Selves ######################### On the Essence of Minimalness The classic image of free will, or Libertarian Free Will, has it being instantaneous in time and above the laws of physics. Often implied with this LibFW is it always being thorough, effortless, never failing, never needing improvements, requiring no physical energy, and not requiring intelligent maneuvering. Sharply contrasting is minFW, which offers a very small amount of comparable freedom, and comes it at a very high price! Plus, it’s not freedom WHEN you want it; you must wait for it. Not a metaphysical bargain by a long shot, but that’s biology for you! The freedom in minFW comes in being able to self-adjust our synapses, so that we are better robots the NEXT time we need to perform. But that self-adjustment is difficult, and not guaranteed. It takes good DNA and good teachers, and energy, and applied smarts. It also often takes repetition, and clever settings of our human rudders and sails, much like the sailboat’s limited. So, minFW is not at all the glamorous kind freedom most FW theorists and poets want, which is on-the-spot and immediate. LibFW can be made to sound beautiful, but that’s not the type of freedom that is really needed in everyday life and survival. Too much of that kind of freedom can even be dangerous. The needed freedom is the kind that is restrained for safety. I have slowly come to view immediate, total LibFW as more of an excessive lust, and in the category of religion/philosophy/poetry. It just doesn’t seem to have any value as an everyday tool for real life. Who would hire a worker who was known for their wild unpredictable behavior on the job, when highly constrained behavior within well-defined limits is what is needed of them? By contrast, minFW is NOT the ability to suddenly make a “free” move out-of-the-blue, but to gradually and carefully nudge one’s life course in a desired, pre-set direction, using determinism in the process. This mechanism is, again, similar to how a sailboat operates. It is highly constrained freedom, within well-defined limits. */*/* So why does minFW and its deep minimal-ness sound like it’s a degradation of human life down to the clunky level of a robot? It’s because this needs to be more thoroughly thought through. It’s new and unfamiliar, with lots of distortions in the background. But really, think deeper, what’s so wrong with being a wet robot? I used to dread it, until I thought it through. Sometimes robotic is good, if it’s high enough quality robotics. Forget clumsy, rigid, un-resourceful, old fashioned robots. Nobody wants THAT in their life! But when I play at sports or dance fast, I actually DO WANT some good robotic behavior coming from my cerebellum. Of course, I also want careful deliberative action in my head at times, as well. There seem to be two modes of thought possible, and both are good. What seems most interesting to me is the possibility that both what we feel to be robotic and feel to be deliberative, are actually this simple minFW mechanism operating in different brain systems and at different levels. */*/* Everything in the human body is gloriously complicated and it functions awesomely. However, it is a biological entity, and not a metaphysical one. Every seemingly perfectly glorious part and system in the body has approximations involved, and each degrades with use and disease, and operates less efficiently with time. The deliberative functions of the brain are no exception. Since minFW takes work and smart efforts, it can fail and it can be neglected. It’s not the impossibly perfect, cosmic, or effortless thing that metaphysical theories want it to be. It’s biological free will, not metaphysical free will. */*/* Part of the false glory of LibFW is the way it supposedly eludes understanding. Can you imagine where we’d be today, medically, if processes other than free will in the human body were regarded as untouchable by science? Let’s take digestion: A very strong case could have been made 400 years ago that digestion was clearly of God and had His stamp of complexity on it, and that humans had no business trying to figure out how it works. Actually, I’ll bet there was this kind of opposition from the religious leaders of that day. I vaguely remember remnants of it in my Roman Catholic youth of the 1950s. I think FW is going to unravel before us soon, in neuroscience, as being remarkably simple. It will still be marvelous (like digestion) but not supernatural (like LibFW). */*/* In real life we lack “will power” more often than not. We discover that our operation of FW fails regularly, and that it is a lot of work to make a minFW decision, or mold one’s own will from state A to state B. Sometimes a lot of work is put into molding one’s will, and it STILL FAILS, in spite of the efforts. This is everyone’s experience in life: we all lack the free will we WANT to have! Usually, in real life people talk about “will power” more than the idea of “free” will. We all can relate to the everyday problem of not having enough will power. The freeness in FW pops up more in the theoretical philosophical world, than in the everyday world of chores, and strong bad habits, and weak good habits. It seems that within the will there can exist many competing desires. Sometimes it’s a war between mutually exclusive desires. This is why some writers say they hate the term “free will,” and feel it is anything BUT free, as long as this war continues. There is a war within the will. This makes the word “free” strange to many. When I use the word “free” here in minFW, I associate the idea of freedom with ability. freedom = ability to change freedom = ability to learn partial ability = partial freedom Usually FW is thought of as an exotic, grandiose phenomenon, far above the category of “mechanism.” Usually, in this context, “skill learning” is thought of as only a simple, bland mechanism. This minFW theory says that FW is also that same bland mechanism that makes simple skill learning possible. minFW = Learning */*/* I do not see any metaphysical “fairness” built into FW at all. Like most biology, there’s some kind of bell curve distribution describing “how much” minFW people have, like there is for muscle strength. So, “how much” minFW people have in play is related to the DNA-supplied equipment they have to begin with, as well as to how well that minFW “muscle” has been exercised and developed, and what kind of teachers were involved. Not everyone has the same intensity of minFW happening. Some are good at it, and some are not, but that in itself can be an evolving situation. People can gain and lose skills over a lifetime. */*/* I see minFW as not cheap; it’s very expensive free will. It takes effort, and smart effort at that, plus diligence in persistent application. It can fail, even when we put our best efforts into it. It is partial. It doesn’t look glamorous as it is explained. The more you look at minFW the more it looks to be mere learning in complicated garb. I can exercise my free will to shoot a better basketball hoop next time, than I did last time. It works if I try it often enough. Likewise, I can exercise my free will to perform better in ethical dilemma XYZ next time, than I did last time XYZ came up. It works if I try it often enough. */*/* I must be up-front on this, though. This minFW will NOT deliver the thrilling epiphany you are looking for, IF that sought-after epiphany is rooted in the glamorous, metaphysical flavor that Libertarian FW has. By design, that kind of “thrilling epiphany” has been deliberately removed, deleted, and avoided in all of this minFW theory. The glamorous and quick part was deleted because it is not needed in biological life, and can even be detrimental to biological. The reason we have any kind of a biological “decision mechanism” is for survival, not for artistic and poetic beauty. THAT’S what I mean by MINIMAL. I use the word “bland” to describe this theory because, by design, it SHALL not give you the “grandiose” element that has always been associated with free will. I can relate, though, to those who harbor a great desire for that grandiose key idea. I sought that exact same thing for many decades, until the well ran dry. That is why I decided several years ago to turn around and search in the opposite, bland, and minimal direction. So minFW is not cosmic, not perfect, not effortless, but it DOES have a chance at being biological! */*/* This minFW is merely a partial freedom from some undesirable MACRO PATTERNS of that micro determinism. Exactly like the odd freedom in sailing, minFW manipulates SOME useful patterns of determinism, in order to gain some partial freedom from some OTHER detrimental patterns of determinism. It’s a “route to freedom” for important things that matter to survival, like gaining independent of some “other wills,” as well as from some previous versions of ourselves. These are macro patterns of determinism. Micro-determinism is unimportant to us in everyday life. Effective macro patterns of determinism must be used to overcome other macro patterns that are undesirable. I don’t NEED to be free of the machinations of micro determinism. I do very much need to be free of other wills (some of them), and be able to change my own will, sometimes. */*/* Though minFW comes at a cost, you could look at it as an exchange of one freedom for another. Nature is economical. When I designed minFW I was asking myself what is the LEAST amount of freedom that could still be useful. Asking for the minimum is a little like Feynman’s “Principle of Least Action” for systems evolving along a route that requires a minimum of energy. */*/* It’s not only in free will theory that things get OVER-HYPED these days. The general phenomenon of human consciousness as a whole has acquired an undeserved metaphysical and grandiose reputation over the centuries. This acquisition went unchecked, until modern neuroscience started looking seriously at the brain. It is humbling for us to be reduced down to mere biology, but it is also realistic. I think a long time ago intellectuals started worshiping their own brains a little too much. It happens. In developing Philosophy, they wrote into the human mind all sorts of perfections and beauty that are not really there. By Descartes time it was being secularized and made to sound scientific. Thus, for a long time the human mind was over-exalted, until recently when the tools were invented (MRI and CAT) that could start to scientifically analyze it. It is nice to have a mind, but it is not the glorified “knower” that we poetically want it to be. It is humbling to think our mind is made of dirt. This is the essence of the title to Francis Crick’s last book, “The Astonishing Hypothesis.” It is astonishing to think that our wonderful consciousness, qualia, and will are mere mechanisms. */*/* The subjective feeling of FW seems far less robust than qualia, to me. And who can deny consciousness? Yet, I’ve been learning that they, too, are deterministic mechanisms, and now we know tricky determinism can produce some pretty exotic things. I suspect that sailing and minFW are not the only ones. I think qualia and consciousness are like a shell game. It looks like magic, but it’s just a lot of complicated tricks that work well together, in order to get some everyday chores done. When the chores are finished, then maybe we can kick back and play with qualia and consciousness, and then try to theorize on them. But that’s not what they are primarily all about. But like with minFW, I will be looking on the minimal side first when I try to picture the workings of consciousness and the formation of a self. This may seem uncomfortable to you, and it one time it was very uncomfortable for me. But I’ve just learned in recent years it’s better to de-glorify and demystify human consciousness. I think consciousness, qualia, free will, and subjective first-hand experience have all been over glorified in previous centuries by mystics and religion, and science is now just getting around to dealing with this problem. All these items (qualia etc.) are fabulously wonderful, especially if we humans have good software installed in us. In other words, I’m shifting the real glory from the human brain over to the software that can be installed in human brain. If a human has bad software installed (teaching/experience) then it’s not so glorious. */*/* I think the glory and the grandiosity and the fabulous complexity of consciousness and free will have been hyped to the stars, and THUS made inaccessible to clear thought. Consciousness is a tool to be used in everyday life and survival. It should be probed with this in mind. In other words, in the Dark Ages thinkers got tricked into worshipping their own brains, and we are still suffering from it. Modern science looks at the brain as NOT as an object of worship, but as a challenging object for analysis. Analysis is taking something complicated and cutting it up into pieces for study. That’s what Neuroscience is right now doing. Every now and then some of the pieces are understood and put together, but the whole puzzle is far from solved. When Consciousness and the human mind are figuratively cut up into pieces, it’s easier to stop worshipping them. The pieces are not as complicated and intimidating as the whole. Of course, re-assembly of the pieces after analysis is the essential NEXT step, in order to see the “emergent properties” emerge. */*/* I totally appreciate having good teachers or “programmers” for my “software.” The operation of minFW augments this appreciation with the realization that I, MYSELF can ALSO be a participate in my own programming. I can BE one of those programmers if I work it right. Admittedly, as children we are at the mercy of our initial programming, and in many ways, this is not fair! But later on, we can participate in this process and teach ourselves. We can somewhat change our behavior patterns, and THAT is our free will, our minFW. We have the ability to over-write our own biological programming. We don’t always use this ability well. */*/* I figure you may still be in shock at the idea of being called a sophisticated robot. Yes, I know this does feel a little a little bit like being stuck in the movie “Blade Runner” but SNAP OUT OF IT !! If it feels better to think of yourself as stardust, fine. But, that’s still pretty much the same as star dirt, isn’t it? If we work our minFW to produce love, THAT is still genuinely special. Let me expand on that: If we (not special) work (not special) our minFW (not special) to produce love, THAT is still genuinely special. We have the freedom of will in minFW to nudge our robot lives towards love, over and over, RIGHT! Isn’t that more important than what kinds of gears, levers, fluids, bones, carbon, etc. into which we install our Love Software? It’s not what we are, it’s what we DO that really matters. */*/* There is some consolation for all this harsh minimal-ness. There is a hidden BENEFIT to having less than total freedom, on the spot, to act or decide. I think, as a culture, going over-board with the ideology of American freedom can sometimes become confusing in issues where freedom comes up in practical ways. The idea that too much freedom can be bad or unsafe is too often automatically rejected, and never thought through. But in theorizing about the mechanisms of the brain, it’s good to remember that too much spontaneous freedom of thought can be VERY bad in survival situations. Lots of freedom sounds great for artists, but for survival IS cosmic freedom really useful? We live in a culture with excess free time, and we don’t think through much about how FW and consciousness must work in austere circumstances. But even logically, shouldn’t a totally “free” thought or action be viewed as dangerous to the thinker? To me it sounds like a great way to lose my place in a complicated set of thoughts. I want solid markers in my mind as I explore complicated ideas. A thought, totally uninfluenced and guided by any past experience, may be poetically attractive at first, but WHO’S TO SAY there can be any practical, everyday-life benefit to such a type of freedom? Entropy would predict the opposite! */*/* And now for your Daily Deterministic Devotional I want my free thoughts to NOT be influenced by lots of proven energy-wasting routes. But I very much DO want my free thoughts to be guided, influenced, and even filtered by proven worthwhile teachers. It’s fun being a robot with good teachers! */*/* Last year I started a comedy thread with this initial post: I am NOT a robot! (my mother board assures me of this on every boot-up)” Later on, in the comments I went on to joke: “But REALLY folks.... all seriousness aside, I assure you that I’m fully human, but I just haven’t found a water tight proof of that for my Real ID yet. Are there any genuine (certified) humans out there who can help me with this? ………. But while I’m at it, just between you and me, has anyone figured out what to think about all these billions of little, tiny, wet, squirmy micro-robots that make up our brains?” Yes, that is the harsh truth, the astonishing truth, that our mechanical consciousness is not as mystical and special as we sometimes wish or exaggerate it out to be. Now, in addition to all that, if we want to DO special things with our limited equipment, then we can to seek special programming that is MORE SPECIAL than we are. We can’t lift ourselves up by our own bootstraps. Instead we must be given a special bootstrap program that is more clever than we are, because it is written by a programmer cleverer than we are. THEN, and only then, can we do special things, via the special software’s teaching, with our un-special equipment. Teachers rule! */*/* If we have a mechanistic, deterministic, MINIMALISTIC free will then why can’t robots (someday) have the same thing? I fully DO expect robots to someday have this kind of minFW. It is a totally deterministic mechanism, and so, robots with sufficient input/output skills should be able to do it. People once thought that a robot could never discern faces, or be able to read the handwriting on a postal envelope. Robots nowadays are highly specialized. It may not be economical (yet) to give them totally general abilities yet. They need to pay for themselves. This minFW theory aims to accept determinism 100% for human biological free will, and still find a mechanism that squeezes out a little freedom. Since there is nothing magical in how this minFW idea works, extending it to robots merely requires that we give them the necessary inputs, outputs, training, and a jump start program (teaching). */*/* I figure that when we walk into a situation, we behave exactly as our synapses dictate, and it’s a totally robotic response in real-time. We bring with us all the synapses of our growing up AND any character-building synapse adjustments we PREVIOUSLY engaged in. This way, as we develop our real time robotic responses more and more, eventually we can become a primary agent responsible for our robotic responses. This only happens to the degree that we successfully operate minFW over a long period of time. This is the emergence of a genuine new “self.” */*/* Confabulation in the brain emerges in MANY contexts, including normal conversations, meditation, and many brain diseases, and many injuries. It seems to be going on all the time, and sometimes leaks out. For the most part, since minFW is not commonly worked anywhere near its potential, many people who think they are an independent “self” are really an amalgam of their most dominant teachers. Like free will, I see no natural guarantee that genuine selves are a robust phenomenon. It’s complicated developing all those synapses deliberately, and it’s much easier to “go with the flow” when life gets difficult and busy. Many neuroscience researchers have put forth notions that a lot of what we call consciousness is hyped and massively inflated, and most properly called confabulation. */*/* I believe minFW describes what is going in the brain and in our lives. We have a large potential to have a small bit of freedom, but unfortunately few humans are clearly aware of this, and most of this potential is often wasted. In times when self-discipline is not a popular theme, genuine selfhood declines. For the most part we act robotically, and then try to actuate some minFW when the robotic behavior is not working well. Because there is so little known here, few succeed, and when they do, teaching others is another challenge. */*/* I have been settling with the idea that the “self” is that set of taught internal standards or expectations, PLUS the “wanting” nerve-ware being pretty much inherited, PLUS the experiences and ideas that have been focused on most. A person must WANT to operate minFW to have it work successfully. A person must ACTUALLY operate minFW to have it develop and mature. */*/* I haven’t yet specifically addressed “wanting” in all this yet, and how much freedom we may have in sculpting our own desires. My focus has been on individual choices or performances. In the background is the notion of “wanting” in the sense that we compare our performances with an internalized “want list” or a set of standards or expectations. How that set of wants or expectations gets there, for children, is a matter of teaching. After childhood this internalized set of wants may have a sense of freedom or “free will” in that we may be able to modify and sculpt it to some extent. */*/* I think the main reason free will and consciousness have been so resistant to analysis is because for centuries intellectuals have been over-hyping it in a sort of self-worship. So, man pumps in artificial glamour, and then consciousness eludes scientific explanation. The common objection to any good theory on consciousness is: “But there’s no glamour in your explanation of consciousness, so it must be deficient.” But the glamour doesn’t belong there to begin with. So, good theories develop only slowly, until recent modern neuroscience came along, and then the Internet came along. There is survival value to people having consciousness and qualia in teaching children about the existence of other minds. Wondering about WHAT someone else’s qualia feels like, leads to more empathy and cooperation. This kind of wonder is something young children are capable of spontaneously discovering. Young children of 9 years can think about their own thinking, AND they can think about other people’s thinking. */*/* end of Chapter 3

BRAVO to your video link, Rocky! Sean Carroll, being a Physicist, has VERY GOOD insights into this issue. The part that I am working on comes up in the video under "Compatibilist" approaches. He admits that most of the work done in compatibilism has been "loosey goosey" and I agree. That is why I took the compatibilist approach; it seemed to need help. I was surprised at how many concepts he corralled from this wild topic and brought into that one short video. It was obviously well written and thorough. I have used his overviews in my research. He had a good one out a few years ago comparing Free Will to Baseball. https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2011/07/13/free-will-is-as-real-as-baseball/ https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/free-will-is-as-real-as-baseball

Minimalistic Free Will Chapter 2 - The Theory ##################### A new approach to the free-will problem is to ask for drastically less freedom in exchange for a “peace treaty” with determinism. Advocates of free will have been asking for way too much freedom, and it has led only to dead ends in the face of modern neuroscience. The way free will has often been defined puts it direct defiance of the well-established determinism in Physics and Chemistry. Modern scientific determinism is used all the time to give us marvelous benefits in technology. Should we then expect that Biology is unable to exploit determinism in much the same way to give us consciousness, qualia, and will? It is the well-founded assumption of modern neuroscience that determinism fires ALL the nuts and bolts of the human brain’s consciousness. I am in total agreement with this. In addition, I wish to assert that surprisingly free choices can be made, if the right tricky manipulations are made on these same deterministic factors. In other words, there are ways that determinism can be turned on itself, and the result can be viewed as a “weak” form of free will. However, some long-standing intuitions on how freedom works will be challenged by this new form of Minimalistic Free Will, so prepare for a bumpy ride. To keep them clearly separate, I’ll call this new and deliberately weakened form “minFW” to distinguish it from classical Libertarian Free Will, or “LibFW.” The old, semi-magical idea of free will has pretty well dominated the thinking world for many centuries. It is also called Contra-Causal Free Will by some. Daniel Dennett brought up the idea that we should pursue the “varieties of free will worth wanting” and it was this tip from Dennett that started me thinking of minFW. I purposely designed my theory to ask for MUCH LESS, in hopes of finding a new kind of freedom, one that is in 100% agreement with determinism. My thinking is that even a very small amount of freedom can add up significantly, through repeated applications. */*/* For many years now, various strategies to clarify free will regarded determinism as an enemy, and searched for ways to elude or nullify it. The long-term failure of Roger Penrose (see Chapter 5) to find any real determinism relief like this with Quantum Mechanics (also with Gödel’s Theorem) has convinced me to look in other directions. This new minFW theory abandons those kinds of efforts to nullify determinism, but befriends it instead, and tries to use determinism, like it’s used all time in engineering and science. */*/* A brief preview of minFW: . It is the ability (or freedom) to adjust one’s own synapses, in order to perform better the next time. . */*/* In this theory, ZERO freedom is to be found at the time of a performance. All performances are accepted as robotic, and completely determined by prior synapse settings. Any small “amounts” of freedom come a little later, after this fully robotic performance… maybe. It must be done with sufficient energy and precision. Put in discrete steps: (1) ALL of my performances are robotic. (2) I can somewhat observe my own performances. (3) If I judge a performance to be sub-standard, then I can prepare for my next robotic performance, and possibly achieve a better one. All of my actions in all 3 steps are assumed to be robotic, including the judging and preparation. I do have the biological abilities to TRY all this, and sometimes achieve success in modifying my own behavior. Since all this is 100% deterministic, there is no inherent reason why this can’t be installed in an A.I. based robot that could handle all the inputs. The practical reasons that prevent this, are now dissolving with modern technology. */*/* The kind of minimal freedom or ability I am proposing in minFW is FAR less grandiose, when compared to LibFW. This Minimalistic FW is NOT the same kind of magical, powerful, instantaneous freedom that LibFW promises. Quite the contrary, minFW takes time, effort, and if the effort isn’t smart enough it can fail. There is no guarantee that minFW will work at all. When it does work it’s usually partial. However, partially successful minFW performances can add up. Multiple attempts to behave contrary to the deterministic synapse settings that are inherited from yesterday can sometimes succeed, with just the right efforts. */*/* I contend that Libertarian Free Will is physically impossible, in that it requires a magical waiver from the laws of physics to operate. This is the classic free will versus determinism dilemma. This theoretical LibFW is a type of free will that is somehow immune to the determinism of natural Biological laws of past learning wrapped up in the Chemistry and Physics. But free wills that can overrule Physics are not really needed for common, everyday living, nor can they be seen in real life. Magically free wills are not at all what is needed for us to responsibly control our lives, and function independently, and improve as we grow. I am proposing a bare-bones model for free will here that will fill the bill for what we NEED in effectively operating our lives, YET it has no conflict with determinism. In fact, it uses determinism to operate, as we will soon see. */*/* Acting robotically is easy and sometimes preferable. When acting robotically you don’t have to think so much about what’s going on, and going with the flow like this is a pretty normal mode of mind. But some other situations are not so easy, and require some clear focus and thought, and require some sort of appropriate response. We sometimes walk into situations that require ethical decisions, and THAT’S when we usually think about using our best thinking, and that’s when free will might be most useful. So, when I walk into an ethical situation it seems reasonable that I could use these two modes of thought: robotics and deep thought free will. But are we really in that fine-tuned control of our brain and mind? Let’s explore a few such situations with this new theory of minFW. */*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/ */*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/ */*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/ A MOTORCYCLE ANALOGY Please allow me to give an ULTRA simplified analogy for this new model of free will, this Minimalist Free Will, or minFW. It doesn’t actually explain very much of the theory, but it can show how it differs from LibFW, and will be useful in keeping track of timing issues. Imagine you are riding a small motorcycle late at night on empty roads, and are stopped at a red light. After waiting some time, you realize that your bike is not big enough to trip the sensing ground wires to the stoplight. This is hampering your freedom to ride. Your bike can’t trip the green light for you. In this analogy your bike’s small metal content represents the settings of your brain’s synapses. It represents all that you have ever learned and experienced. This is pretty much an oversimplified analogy, but I think it will still work for what it’s designed. I plan to merely use it as a guide or template as we proceed, and NOT as an explanation of the brain’s functioning. So, with your small motorcycle, let’s first see how Libertarian Free Will (LibFW) would work in this analogy. You arrive at the stoplight, and as soon as you realize that the bike can’t trip the switch, YOU magically trip the stoplight with nothing but the power of your LibFW, in spite of the bike’s low metal content. This use of LibFW constitutes an override or a waiver from the electrical determinism of the sensing ground wires, bike metal, and stoplight circuitry. It takes no effort to exercise this kind of free will. You engage this magical LibFW, causing the stoplight to soon change to green, and you are now FREE to ride through the intersection. If this LibFW sounds silly, it’s because I’m being purposefully dismissive. I have come to see it as resembling a scene in the old TV comedy series “Bewitched” where Samantha twitches her nose, and FLASH! … a magical event occurs! Libertarian Free Will means freedom from all the Physics, Chemistry, and Neurobiology that would otherwise “force” us to act differently. LibFW is a lot like magic or a mini-miracle, and this is one reason it is unpopular in a lot of science circles these days. */*/* Now, in this ultra-simplified motorcycle analogy, let’s switch over to my new Minimalist Free Will model. This is surprisingly simple at first. With minFW you are SIMPLY STUCK when you reach the stoplight. That’s the end of this story with minFW. There is no way to trip the light with your will. There is nothing in your minFW powered will that can affect the metal content of your bike, or cause the sense wires to trip the stoplight circuitry. So far, you are not experiencing any freedom at this intersection. However, (and this is key) you ARE ABLE TO OBSERVE this dire situation, and realize that your freedom to ride your bike is being thwarted. Being a law-abiding citizen, you must turn around and give up in defeat, find another route, or wait for a car to come by to trip the light for you. This is not a good situation and there is no freedom to ride here. However, upon later remembering your observed failure, and planning ahead for the NEXT time you want to ride through this intersection, you can bring some extra metal with you. Or, you could use a heavier bike. The next time you come to this same stoplight you can gain some freedom to ride, because the extra metal helps trip the traffic light's sensors! The extra metal interacts deterministically with the electrical sense wires buried in the pavement, and so the next time you successfully trip the light, and are free to exercise your will to ride. This freedom to ride took some alert observations, and it took some work, and planning, and time, but eventually freedom to ride happened. Plus, it could have failed if not enough extra metal was brought. By bringing enough extra metal you have gained freedom from being stuck at the light; but not instantaneously, not effortlessly, and not magically. You used determinism to execute your will. It took some effort and it took some time and repetition. You paid for this freedom; this freedom was not free of cost. So, minFW is expensive; it ain’t cheap. In this analogy that illustrates the strange timing of minFW, we see zero freedom displayed in real time when first encountering the stoplight. The freedom showed up later, after a change in the configuration. This delayed timing of the freedom in minFW is both crucial, and a hard lump to swallow. */*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/ */*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/ */*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/ HOW minFW WORKS When I walk into a situation that involves simple ethics, my instantaneous response is going to be 100% robotic, and fully determined by the brain synapses with which I carry into it. Physical determinism dictates that I have NO ability or freedom to act otherwise; only what my prior settings dictate my response to be in this situation. It’s like a knee-jerk reflex, only many small such reflexes smoothly joined to produce smooth robotic motion. This is not freedom. Being stuck at the stoplight on the small motorcycle is analogous to being stuck in this kind of robotic performance. Suppose, in this ethics situation, I was unprepared for the complexities and I fumbled my response in some way. My prior synapse settings failed me! That is life. However, I am able to observe my inappropriate (robotic) response to the situation, and realize that it did not go according to my wishes. I had previous expectations as to how I ought to act in such a situation, and I am unhappy with my performance. I failed to act according to my expectations, my creed, my principles, my training. HOWEVER, the NEXT time I encounter a similar situation it can turn out different. Being unhappy with my performance means I compared it with my internally stored “will” or expectations, and my performance did not line up properly. I had built some expectations of how I’d handle that kind of situation, and it was obvious to me that I fell short. These expectations are like a written will, or a credo, or a set of guiding principles that I had built within me from parents and family, from all my teachers, and all my life’s experiences. How these expectations were built is not important here. We all get this by relatively accidental means as children, and then we can tinker with it some as we grow. What is important here is that I can HAVE such a set of guiding principles or expectations pre-installed in my mind before walking into that ethics situation. What is also important is that I can observe and evaluate my robotic performance in that situation, the first time I encountered it. I can’t do anything about it but respond robotically. I just accept my actions as inevitable. HOWEVER, the NEXT time I encounter a similar situation it can turn out different. */*/* I can rehearse in my mind how I will behave better that next time. I can memorize reasons why it is important for me to behave better. There are many other ways I can adjust my own brain synapses to prepare for the next event. This takes work, and smart work at that. Bringing extra metal to the stoplight is analogous to this work. With my newer set of synapses, all interacting deterministically in the next similar situation, my next robotic performance can be a little better, or maybe right on target! This second time I walk into the situation, I’m ready to perform my robotic, “smooth knee-jerk” reaction, but THIS TIME with some different synapse settings, ones that line up better with my internal expectations. It might take a few more repetitions before I can finally succeed in smoothly performing according to my expectations. It often takes some smart work, and planning, and diligence in repetition. By working my mind with new learning and synapse weightings I have gained freedom from being stuck in my previous mode of behavior. But none of this came instantaneously, effortlessly, and magically. I had to use determinism to execute my will. It took some effort and it took some time to evolve, and some repetition. I paid for this little bit of freedom; this freedom was not free of cost. */*/* Because this is SO radically different from classical free will, let’s quickly review it. Here in a nutshell how this theory works: Oops! My robotic performance just failed to match up to my standards !!! Ok, NEXT time I’ll be ready for it, and I’ll do better. That’s it! It’s a pretty minimal theory. */*/* Below are some lyrics to the song “Stairway to Heaven” that look a lot like minFW. “If there’s a bustle in your hedgerow, don’t be alarmed now. It’s just a spring clean for the May queen. Yes, there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run There’s still time to change the road you’re on.” This is almost the same as minFW 1 - wrong road is chosen (robotically). 2 - Wrongness of that road is recognized (robotically). 3 - With a time delay, and some smart synapse adjustment, the right road can be chosen (robotically). */*/* I can now think of my minFW as having some partial control over the route I take. Of course, other factors will still have their strong say-so, as well. My steerage may be skiddy and partial, like driving on mud, and it requires my skills to be sharpened for maximum effect of this route freedom. It takes practice and work to exercise this kind of Minimalist Free Will. This kind of free will is important to us, so we can improve ourselves, and learn how to behave in more happy ways, and thus inspiring others to do the same. It’s a freedom (or ability) to LEARN and change our own synapses in DESIRED (or willed) direction, but it takes effort and time. */*/* In previous sections, I used an ethics situation to illustrate minFW in action, as I walked into the situation and responded. My response, in first encountering that ethics situation was an un-free, destined, determined performance, in other words a totally robotic performance. As first encounters often go, I was unhappy with my performance as I compared it with the set of ethics scenarios I had been trained on. So, compared to my internal expectations, I failed that first round, and I clearly noticed my robotic failure. Afterwards, I had a chance to plan and rehearse my NEXT performance, and become ready to encounter similar circumstances differently. This is all that is really needed in free will; freedom to perform better in life’s situations; freedom to LEARN how to steer a better course. This is the amount of free will worth wanting, to me. */*/* This is a very bland model for minFW that I am proposing. It’s all synapse dependent and determined, yet it gives me a little bit of a rudder to steer my boat. There is nothing mystical or dualistic in here. It is 100% deterministic, yet it still affords me a little bit of control over my life, in spite of the obstacles, setbacks, and bad decisions. This much freedom is impressive in a 100% deterministic world! Still it seems like a bland idea, compared to Libertarian FW. This model of Minimalist Free Will is almost boring, because it’s so non-mystical, so non-grandiose. Centuries of thought went into building ridiculous expectations of free will, and this puny minFW deflates them all. But we don’t NEED very much free will! Having a large repertoire of good pure robotic responses is convenient and sufficient most of the time. Life would be too cumbersome if many long lasting free-will decisions were demanded of us. Not only are robotic behaviors easier, but sometimes can be more fun as well. I’m thinking of dance as a prime example. What about sports? Repeatedly making OUR OWN minor adjustments in our own synapses can sometimes effectively compete with all the other deterministic forces that would, otherwise, be the major controlling and steering for our destiny. This is how a competent “self” arises. With a boat, repeatedly making minor adjustments in the motor and rudder can effectively compete with all the other deterministic forces (wind & water) that would otherwise control and steer our boating destiny. */*/* This minFW that I am describing is like a muscle and it needs exercise in order to become strong. With repetition, it can sometimes become stronger than prior training influences and inherited DNA influences. Thus, we can slowly become the ultimate captain of our own ship. (no guarantee, though) I can even see animals and robots having this kind of minimalist free will, but not in nearly as rich a form as ours… yet. They probably don’t have as complex an internal will to compare their performances to, and probably less ability to smartly prepare for improved performances. Still, I see the same principles can work for them (animals and robots) as for us. For centuries models of free will have been metaphysical, mystical, dualistic, and grandiose. This minFW is a simple garden variety type. */*/* The “amount of freedom” in minFW is partial and weak, and takes a lot of effort and repetition to make it happen. That sounds like real life where people struggle with their own will and will power. */*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/ */*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/ */*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/ SHOOTING BASKETBALL HOOPS The following surprised me late in the process of developing this theory. I did not expect it, but there it was one day. It was a simple logical consequence to what minFW was hammered out to be. This surprise situation will be very similar to previous pages, except for the ethics situation I’m going to substitute shooting basketball hoops in its place. In other words, I want to now apply this minFW theory to learning how to shoot basketball hoops. This is NOT an analogy; it’s an application. Instead of an internal set of complex principles or expectations that revolve around an ethical situation, this merely involves a few of the rules of basketball hoop shooting. This GREATLY simplifies the situation down from complicated ethics to simple motor skills. The only “ethical” principles here are (1) stand on the line and (2) throw the ball through the hoop. */*/* Imagine yourself to have never tried to sink a basket in this sport. When you walk into this hoop-shooting situation you respond to it robotically with no freedom to depart from what your “throwing synapses” are pre-set to determine in your performance. You possess zero basketball skill in your real-time response, your first throw, but in REPEATED OCCURRENCES it (skill) can show up indirectly, as a learned behavior. You shoot; you miss! You are unhappy with your awkward shot, but a few seconds later you have ANOTHER chance to respond better. You note where your shot went wrong and imagine your muscles tipping slightly to compensate. Being unhappy with your first performance means you compared it with your internal, stored “will” and the two did not line up properly. You had clear hopes of sinking your first shot, but a second later it was obvious to you that you fell short. These expectations are the set of two rules in basketball hoop-shooting that you had built within your memory from seeing others do it. How this was built in you is not important here. What is important is that you can have such a set of guiding principles or expectations pre-installed in your mind before walking into this hoop-shooting situation. What is also important is that you can observe and evaluate your robotic performance in this situation, this first time you encounter it. Your failed performance in that first situation was a destined, determined, failed performance; a 100% robotic performance. HOWEVER, you have a chance to plan and mentally rehearse your NEXT performance, and make yourself ready to encounter a similar situation differently. This can possibly be the emergence of a new basketball throwing skill for you. You retrieve the ball after your miss, and your next time comes very quickly. Maybe it will take 10 repetitions to alter your synapses enough to get your throwing performance to please you. You are able, with repeated effort, to contribute to the synapse weighting with which you aim and shoot the ball, more and more successfully. This is all that is really needed in learning to shoot hoops in basketball; it’s freedom to do better, the ability (the freedom) to learn how to steer your repeated shots accurately. */*/* This is an exciting development! It looks like minFW is just ultra-complicated learning, but learning non-the less, and IDENTICAL to learning a simple motor skill! In this analysis, learning a basketball throwing skill has been shown to be EQUAL to exercising some simple minFW. */*/* Though bland in its design, minFW takes a highly sophisticated notion like ethical behavior and reduces it to the simplicity of rats running a maze or humans shooting baskets. It seems that if minFW is biologically correct, free will is nothing but complex learning! Put another way, this minFW is just a super complicated amalgamation of learning micro skills. It’s a freedom (or ability) to learn and change our own synapses in DESIRED (or willed) directions. This reduces minFW to lots of small learned skills and the ability to learn more. So, if laboratory inquiries happen to verify this kind of minFW as the true biological variety, that means our collection of these tiny skills demonstrate the “amount” of free will we have accumulated so far in life. In other words, our free will changes every day according to what tiny skills we learn and build into it, daily. */*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/ */*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/ */*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/ SAILBOAT FREEDOM This new model for minFW is very counterintuitive, especially if one is very familiar with the concepts and timing of LibFW. It is not easy to visualize this new type of freedom, but I’ve been working on some ways to help. Pointing out the timing is one such way to help. Thinkers have been totally accustomed, via LibFW, to the idea that freedom MUST happen immediately, that is, simultaneous with the performance. Less insistent, it seems, are classical thinkers on the idea of LibFW’s efficiency. I think that most of them feel their idea of FW is more metaphysical than physical, and it’s guaranteed to work 100% of the time, once invoked. But even when we get it straight that minFW happens a little later, AND that it is only partial, AND that it takes energy to invoke, AND must be “smart” energy for efficiency, AND must TAKE energy to invoke, as well as repetition, AND… we STILL have a hard time believing that any freedom can actually be squeezed out of a 100% deterministic mechanism. We have a profound bias against determinism, as being a freedom robber. Many of our circuits are saying that such a novel minFW idea must be CRAZY! And then it becomes even harder to visualize how it can happen. These green and red sections need some re-writing: But a marvelous thing happened in the world of sophisticated technology one day, and I suddenly now have a new ADDITIONAL way to visualize genuine freedom emerging from another 100% deterministic mechanism. This sophisticated technological mechanism is new to me, but it’s been around for a while. Actually, it’s been around for about 22 centuries! I am talking about SAILBOATS. I was a Physics major fifty years ago, but never understood (or cared about) how sailboats worked. Now, I recently have come to see them as marvelous demonstrations of tricky determinism manipulation, being used to squeak out a useful amount of freedom. I had not known that when the wind blows to the East, a sailboat can journey to a port directly West. I had not known that sailboats could sail a course that is directly AGAINST THE WIND. Getting a deep feel for how a sailboat is a determinism converter promises to give greater understanding as to how minFW can squeak out a useful amount of freedom. With minFW we can actually sail our lives almost directly AGAINST THE WIND of our own synaptic sets of lifelong learning and habits. What I see happening with the sailboat is that, through a tricky use of determinism (wind), the sailboat can achieve motion that APPEARS to defy that same determinism (wind). That is the core of my sailboat analogy. I think we humans can sometimes achieve a performance that SEEMS to defy determinism, through a tricky use of determinism. */*/* With sailboats the deterministic mechanisms used trickily are wind/water currents, the shape of the rudder and keel, and the shape and angles of the sails. In the human use of minFW the deterministic mechanisms used trickily are one’s own synaptic brain settings, one’s own memory, and consulting others. Determinism can be used to make physical systems APPEAR to have a little freedom from determinism. This is the essence of minFW theory. It is also the essence of how a sailboat works. */*/* This minFW is NOT freedom FROM determinism at all; it just looks that way at first glance. Partial freedom from the “self” of the past is what actually can be done with tricky determinism manipulations. It is only an illusion that sometimes in life it might look like our biological equipment offers a little freedom FROM determinism, itself. If accounts of these seemingly free performances are magnified enough by poetry and philosophy, LibFW theories thrive. The deterministic freedom that minFW allows is freedom or ability to move in life toward a desired goal, in spite of the past, and it does it by manipulating determinism in tricky ways. Ditto the above for sailboats. It is only an illusion that sailing against the wind might look like a little freedom FROM determinism (wind). The freedom that sailing allows is freedom or ability to sail a course toward a desired goal, in spite of the wind direction, and it does it by manipulating determinism (wind) in a tricky way. For sailboats determinism makes some freedom possible, and the same is true in humans. Determinism HELPS us human robots to be a little bit free. */*/* The minFW theory says we are basically complicated robots, but wonderful robots that have the freedom to change, can have an internal will, and can improve it. We can be responsible robots. We can even be free robots, free of some constraints, but not all. The freedom comes in being able to self-adjust our synapses, so that we are better robots the NEXT time we need to perform. But that self-adjustment is difficult, and not guaranteed. Like the sailboat, it takes repetition, energy, and it must be smart energy for it to work. */*/* I think that, for our brains, there is a surprising amount of freedom available WITH determinism’s help. It starts out very small, but it can add up. It’s not the immediate, cosmic, magical, total freedom from Physics that LibFW promises. It’s tiny and weak but it can surprisingly add up to substantial change. Sailboats enjoy a similarly surprising degree of freedom in the ability to sail INTO the wind. It’s all done with Newtonian Physics and its simple determinism. */*/* Because this freedom is SO counterintuitive, I will repeat this idea from as many angles as possible. Please bear with the repetition if you already get the idea. Tricky determinism can make physical systems APPEAR to have freedom from determinism. Actually, it is a configuration change that gives rise to a deterministic change. Tricky determinism in sailboats allows them to sail up-wind, and appear to violate where the Physics would force them to go. But the magic here is an illusion. This is a type of “sailing freedom” from the domination of “wind direction” determinism. Tricky determinism in humans allows us make decisions against our previous learning and habits, and sometimes even appear to violate where older synapses would have forced us to go. But the magic here is an illusion. This is MERELY a type of “will freedom” from the domination of past learning... through new learning. */*/* When a sailboat goes against the wind, every step of every process is 100% deterministic. There’s no magic freedom from Physics. In minFW theory, every step of every process is 100% deterministic. There’s no magic freedom from Physics here, either. One problem is that most people’s minds are SO primed with LibFW that they can tend to accidentally assume it, or drift over to it in the middle of a discussion about minFW. It’s new. It takes time and repetition to get used to all this. */*/* Like minFW, sailboat freedom is only partial. You can’t sail DIRECTLY into the wind. Just partially, but then you tack the other way, and it’s another partial gain in the desired direction. And all these partial freedoms in sailing add up: Wind goes from West to East; sailboat goes from East to West (with tacking). It LOOKS like a sailboat is not determined by the wind and is free to travel the water. It looks like it has a “waiver from the wind,” but actually there is no magic at all happening. It is an illusion that the boat is free of these wind forces. It uses these forces. Sailboats are natural and follow natural laws. Their motion is not miraculous in any way. Humans are natural and follow natural laws. Our motion is not miraculous in any way. We can have marvelous benefits from pure robotic performances AND from minFW improvements, in between those performances. The boat can literally defy the wind’s DIRECTION. The wind threatens to “own” the boat, but the boat goes where IT wants to go, not where the wind wants it to go. I think we humans have a similar setup. */*/* When I say “tricky” I mean complicated enough to elude our intuitive understanding. But if we think hard and get educated, some of this tricky complication can be untangled. All my life I had dismissed sailboats as too simple to bother with. Boy! Was I wrong! If I had not been seduced by powerboats and waterskiing while young, and had played with small sailboats a lot, then things may have gone different. But I was into exotic new Physics like Relativity and Quantum then, so sailboats were considered “finished” and old-fashioned Physics to me. It was several recent strokes of luck that first brought sailing to my attention, right at the time when tricky uses of determinism were the focus of my study. Sailboat technology is awesomely tricky! Even the ANCIENT parts of it! Explaining the Physics of how sailboats work is an ominous task, especially in this limited text medium. I can give it a try, though, and also refer to some useful You-Tube videos. But first, before we go through the intense labor of following a text discussion of all this COMPLICATED stuff, actually seeing the magic is called for. The SIMPLE magic of sailing, the ancient part, can be seen in videos and even in homemade models. The full determinism story in sailing is so complicated that, on first encountering it looks like magic. The reason for this is the overload of such new information causes a breakdown of our intuitions on how things work. The apparent magic in sailboats is due to our inexperience with the nuts and bolts, the Physics and determinism of sailing. The ancient marvel of sailing is the ability to sail AGAINST the wind. The wind says to the boat “Go East” but with this ancient trick the boat can go West! This looks like a miracle when it is first seen and grasped. It’s complicated, but we CAN see it in videos. The more modern “magic” of sailing is that some boats can go even FASTER THAN the wind! The wind says to the boat “Go 20 knots” but with this new trick some special boats can go 40 knots! This modern advance in sailing technology is not as easily visible in videos. The best SIMPLE video I’ve found so far is at You-Tube and titled “Exploratorium Science at America’s Cup: ‘Sailing 101’” and is at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oODen08FGU&t=113s It shows sailing perpendicular to the wind at the time of 1 minute, 35 seconds. It shows sailing against (diagonally) against the wind at 1 min, 45 sec. It shows sailing against (diagonally) against the wind at 4 min, 11 sec. There are other videos… many others. */*/* Let’s paint a more vivid picture of this sailboat analogy. There happens to be a very large imaginary body of water named Lake Ripple, and it has very dependable wind that always blows from West to East, thus its name. There is a town at the Western end of the lake named Terrapin, and another town on the East end named Fennario. It might help to draw a crude map as you read. It’s important from the start, though, to not slide off this boat, and fall into the water, by missing this analogy’s aim. This analogy has nothing to do with the sailboat captain’s free will or any decisions made on board. If you looked at the video suggested above, you saw that there was NO CAPTAIN on that toy boat, yet it went through the step of moving against the wind. A tiny “computer” made of rubber bands and tinker toys could be made to change the rudder and sails to complete a second tack, to correct the error part in the diagonal path of the boat. So forget about the captain of the boat and his free will. He is not needed. He is on board for decoration ONLY in this analogy. The freedom in this analogy is NOT about mental free will freedom of the captain’s brain, but is about SAILING FREEDOM, or geometrical navigational freedom. There is zero free will in this analogy; only sailing freedom. This mysterious, odd type of “sailing freedom” can teach us something about the even more mysterious and odd kind of freedom we have via minFW. */*/* On this very large lake, a sailboat captain is FREE to sail to any other dock on the lake, regardless of fact that the wind direction is directly into Fennario. You are standing at the dock in Fennario right now, looking West, out at the huge Lake Ripple and the wind is in your face. You want to go to Terrapin, barely visible on the other side. The ripples look a bit large today. The sailboat captain tells you, “Sure, I can take you to Terrapin! No problem. It’ll be easy in this nice wind.” And he points DIRECTLY into the wind saying, “See that smokestack? That’s Terrapin Station.” Do you believe him? Can he really get you there, sailing against the wind, with no motor? */*/* The boat is now in Fennario, and the goal is to sail West to Terrapin, which is AGAINST THE WIND. The boat is actually NOT able to go directly in a straight line to Terrapin, directly West, and completely against the wind. Patience is required, because like minFW, the freedom comes a little later. What the captain does is launch off to the side a little, to the Southwest, in a diagonal path, somewhat AWAY from Terrapin’s direction. This path is also aimed somewhat TOWARDS Terrapin. and the movement away from the goal can be corrected in the captain’s next move. But so far, it’s a diagonal path across the lake at the start, and not due West at Terrapin. After a several minutes on this course it becomes time to change the sails and rudder angle, so that the boat points the OTHER diagonal path (Northwest) to partially miss Terrapin. This SUBTRACTS from, or erases the earlier lost footage, while this angle’s partial success ADDS to the earlier one’s partial success. This tricky adding of partial successes and subtracting of partial errors is called “tacking.” The boat makes a zig-zag course with this kind of tacking to eventually sail against the wind... TO GET TO Terrapin! Inspiration! Tacking consists of many partial failures, along with many partial successes. The failures cancel each other out, and the successes add together! It all looks like magic when real boats are sailing, but it is all due to the use of totally natural determinism… tricky determinism. This is very similar to how totally natural determinism HELPS us enjoy the benefits of minFW, which I think is our biological free will. */*/* Do you get it? Going upwind in a sailboat is analogous to the ILLUSION of exercising Libertarian Free Will on the macro scale, going against previous synapse settings, but it’s all still 100% deterministic. In both cases, it looks like magic at the macro level but it is not; it’s only tricky determinism. When you look at the micro situation all the books balance, and no cheating was involved in granting some small amount of genuine freedom. If the determining force of wind says “Move West!” and yet a boat moves East, that would initially LOOK like some kind of freedom from the wind’s influence. But a sailboat traveling AGAINST the wind is NOT doing it by getting a waiver from the Laws of Physics. The boat is just using tricky determinism to create that illusion. It’s the same with brains. There’s still more to the details of this Physics, but what we have seen already is a good start. We’ve seen that mechanical systems that are 100% deterministic can do some interesting and exotic things. The way sailing into the wind works involves some deeper things like how the wind wraps around the sail in an uneven manner on each side (called the Bernoulli Principle). This makes the sail operate like an airplane wing in generating forces through shapes and motion. This advanced technology has been in our midst for a little over 2,000 years. */*/* And sailing gets even more exotic with modern advances in its technology. The way a sailboat can sometimes go faster than the wind is a LITTLE like how simple mechanical levers work. A famous quote by Archimedes on levers is: “Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.” This is the power side of using levers. He suggested that for great power to move very heavy things, you must push a long distance on the long lever arm, and then the short arm moves a tiny bit, but very powerfully. This is exactly how a crowbar or a hammer’s “nail puller” works. For sailboats to move faster than the wind, the backwards version of Archimedes’ suggestion is needed. If you push on the SHORT lever arm, the long arm moves at a FASTER speed than your pushing moves. This is what some sailboats can do. Somehow, the boat gets pushed by the long lever arm, and the wind pushes on the short lever arm. Where these lever arms are exactly in the setup I am still pondering as this is still an open study for me. I am pretty sure, though, that the fulcrum action is done by the keel. This is also similar to how a surfer, who rides along the wave, can pick up speeds greater than the wave. The term “scissoring” comes to mind. There are many ways that determinism can produce surprising results. */*/* The sailboat freedom is its ability to SEEMINGLY defy the determinism of wind. The human minFW type of freedom is the performer’s ability to defy her form of determinism: prior synaptic settings. Our perception of both forms of freedom can be seemingly magnified when the details of this tricky use of determinism are not known. Neither sailboat nor human actually do defy determinism in any way, though. It just looks that way when you don’t know the whole micro story. But in both instances, sailboat and human, a small amount of ACTUAL freedom is squeezed out, for all practical purposes. This is not a defiance of determinism, just defiance of what determinism is often expected to do. The sailboat can go against the wind, and the human can go against her synapses. Both require smart work, and both are partial. Our human freedom is in the ability to change our own synapses, and thus move our performances (via learning) in a desired direction. The freedom a sailboat has is the ability to move in a desired direction, and thus change the direction that the wind would have it move. Since both of these types of freedom take work and smart efforts, they can fail, and can be neglected entirely. I define minFW’s freedom aspect as being able to free oneself of one’s own synaptic “prison.” To be free of even just one habit is a big deal! It’s the ability to go against the flow of one’s own nature AND nurture. It’s your ability to steer a course like a sailboat against some of what your DNA dictates and your teaching dictates. */*/* Here is a short poem I wrote for how minFW can crank out a little freedom, yet totally “roll” with determinism. Here, since this is an artistic expression, it is permissible for me to blend the captain’s free will with the sailboat’s freedom. Also, with that same poetic license I commission YOU to be the captain. A sailboat is ruled from above and below. Wind and currents DETERMINE its way. Yet clever sail and rudder settings, Can still get you where YOUR will will will its way. */*/* I have a small collection of songs containing free will references. One was mentioned above from “Stairway to Heaven.” Here is another, “The Wheel,” from the Grateful Dead. It seems to depict both the robotic and the going further toward better. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzGWYShgmfk The wheel is turning and you can’t slow down You can’t let go and you can’t hold on You can’t go back and you can’t stand still If the thunder don’t get you then the lightning will Won’t you try just a little bit harder Couldn’t you try just a little bit more? Won’t you try just a little bit harder Couldn’t you try just a little bit more? Round, round robin run round, got to get back to where you belong Little bit harder, just a little bit more A little bit further than you gone before The wheel is turning and you can’t slow down You can’t let go and you can’t hold on You can’t go back and you can’t stand still If the thunder don’t get you then the lightning will Small wheel turn by the fire and rod Big wheel turn by the grace of God Every time that wheel turn ‘round Bound to cover just a little more ground The wheel is turning and you can’t slow down You can’t let go and you can’t hold on You can’t go back and you can’t stand still If the thunder don’t get you then the lightning will Won’t you try just a little bit harder Couldn’t you try just a little bit more? Won’t you try just a little bit harder Couldn’t you try just a little bit more? */*/* Another song by the Grateful Dead is “Victim or the Crime,” but it only asks free will and determinism questions, with no solution suggested. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lygh4jxfvl4 Patience runs out on the junkie The dark side hires another soul Did he steal his fate or earn it? Was he force fed, did he learn it? Whatever happened to his precious self control? Like him, I’m tired of try’n to heal This tomcat heart with which I’m blessed Is destruction loving’s twin? May I choose to lose or win? Maybe when my turn comes I will have guessed. These are the horns of the dilemma What truth this proof against all lies? When sacred fails before profane The wisest man is deemed insane Even the purest of romantics compromise. What fixation feeds this fever? As the full moon pales and climbs Am I living truth or rank deceiver? Am I the victim or the crime? Am I the victim or the crime? Am I the victim or the crime, or the crime? And so I wrestle with the angel To see who’ll reap the seeds I sow Am I the driver or the driven? Will I be damned to be forgiven? Is there anybody here but me who needs to know? What it is that feeds this fever As the full moon pales and climbs Am I living truth or rank deceiver? Am I the victim or the crime? Am I the victim or the crime? Am I the victim or the crime, or the crime? */*/* This one is not about minFW at all, or even FW, but it sounds like it is. It’s more about the freedom you can feel out in the country, far from cities. It’s more like the “navigational freedom” that was seen in sailboat physics earlier. The famous Philosopher Daniel Dennett wrote a book on free will titled “Elbow Room” and I learned a lot from him. “Elbow Room” here sung by Iris Dement https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjRFhQmfWo8 */*/* End of Chapter 2

Thanks for the encouragement. This next chapter is twice as long. I hope it doesn't break the software

Here is a Table of Contents for what I have written so far in this book “Minimalistic Free Will.” Chap. 1 - Introduction to the Need Chap. 2 - The Theory Chap. 3 - Minimal Robot Selves Chap. 4 - Origins of minFW Chap. 5 - Determinism Chap. 6 - A General Theory on Deterministic Freedoms

It looks to be the case that in the Middle Ages Thomas Aquinas confused the study of free will by putting it into the spiritual realm, instead of simple Biology. My hunch is that he used this verse addressed to Christians as a central idea in his free will analysis: 1 Corinthians 10:13 There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it. It appears that there can be a spiritual boost that comes from being born again with spirit inside. The Enlightenment Philosophers tried to secularize this notion, but it ended up confusing the situation. The form of free will that Western Science has struggled with for the past couple hundred years still had the supernatural attached to it. This is why I opted to start out with the simple Biology of simple body and soul humans. Later, we can try and figure out how spirit interacts with the flesh.

I actually put a lot of thought into NOT disturbing things too much.

I can completely sympathize, and not at all from a distance. I think everyone has self control issues like this. I had to blast through my edginess to discuss free will at Starbucks with strangers, only to often see the edginess in their faces. I think Romans 7b keys in on this universal self discouragement with added spiritual stakes, and everyone can relate to it.

And you, Rocky, get your dopamine fix from Opening your 2nd floor window shutters, sticking your head out with Scrooge stocking cap waving in the breeze, and yelling loudly "You kids, GET OFF my lawn and my carefully manicured topic garden!"

Thanks much for that. I value critiques. The edgy part comes in where people, sometimes even scientists, who have political or personal bias. Many think the judicial system is skewed due to outmoded ideas of free will. Others see their own personal failings as in the spotlight when free will is discussed. Many feel discouraged with their attempts to quit smoking, to eat better and exercise, and free will means weak will power to them. I see lots of personal and political edginess in the faces of people I discuss free will with. The rest of the book is pretty wild, IMO. I was surprised at every turn in this project. The beginning was especially surprising, because it was in the solution to the mirror riddle that I saw this new strategy for dealing with free will. This was one of the biggest surprises of my life. It happened quite accidentally.

Yes, and sometimes you just need to get away from it for a while to do a real proofread.

Yes, I do. I never got a satisfactory explanation for that stuff, and I thought it was pretty ignorable. In the early years the Reverends and the Robes were, from what I heard, supposed to be #1) temporary due to the large population of very young people. #2) for the non-ministry family members of grads at weddings, funerals, baptisms (lol) etc. But it seemed to me that a lot of protocols seemed not best as the years progressed. I disagreed with all the flowers at all the events. I disagreed, at times, with VPW, and still do. I'm still processing a lot of that stuff. VPW himself, admitted 4 days before PFAL'77 that God had scolded him for undertaking a mission to replace the film class with out His consultation. VPW admitted that he and his top men had come up with the idea and it turned out to NOT be from God. This VPW said at lunch, 4 days before PFAL'77 started. I was there. A hundred others were there. So, I figure that if VPW was out in left field on cranking up PFAL'77, it wouldn't surprise me if he made other bad decisions. I think the decisions that went into the collaterals were his best decisions, and that was with a team of other believers.

Are you referring to my "Please disregard. I was in the wrong thread." post?

BTW, my approach to FW is not the usual philosophical one where I try to make the words sound elegant. To me our biological mechanism for making decisions is NOT something grand and spectacular, like philosophy and religion have tried to make it sound. Just the opposite, my hunch is that it is simple and biological, AND that it barely works. */*/*/*/* In addition to thinking of it to be LIKE a muscle, I think free will is LITERALLY complicated learning. The concept of free will got real complicated, unnecessarily, around the year 1200 A.D., and my efforts are largely to unravel those complications. So minFW is like a muscle, but literally minFW is learning.

Please disregard. I was in the wrong thread.

My theory can be a little bit rambling, because I am developing the ideas as I write, sometimes. The next effort will be more elegant, hopefully. The name I gave to the kind of Free Will (FW) that I am proposing is "Minimalistic Free Will" or minFW for short. It is different from what people commonly think about when FW is the topic. The first thing for you to know is that, at the moment, my research is addressed primarily to laboratory scientists who work with brain cells. I want to inspire them to look for the kind of mechanism I am theoretically proposing. So, this is NOT addressed to believers, yet, but the results are simple and can be used for getting better results. Oddly, the Bible seems to have very little to say about FW. It documents decisions a lot, but not about how free each decision was. I did get 3 tips from VPW, though, that I mentioned last week. These 3 tips are: 1 - FW is not supernatural or spiritual. It is a biological function that even natural men have, and need to believe Romans 10:9 2 – You cannot control the thoughts that hit your mind, but you can control whether or not they can lodge there. 3 – Loss of muscular control is not good. We use our FW to move our muscles, lips, and throat, as we were taught how to SIT. So, this approach I am taking is to explain things for the simple, animal, biological, brute beast WITHOUT spirit, and how they can make free will decisions. I am thinking of simple, mundane, boring decisions….and not crucial life decisions. The way science works is to start with the most simple situation, so this analysis completely omits any spiritual abilities and augmentations we enjoy, having spirit. It’s starting at the beginning with simple animal decisions. */*/*/* Here is a short summary of where I am going with all this: Minimalistic Free Will is the ability to self-sculpt one's own will, desires, and activities to match another's will. This sculpting process is difficult and requires persistent efforts. This process is really just complicated, self-directed learning. */*/*/* My position is that FW was poorly defined around the 1200s by theologians like Thomas Aquinas, and then secularized by the Enlightenment Philosophers around 400 years ago. This terrible definition has saturated Western thinking, and complicated it immeasurably. We humans do NOT have free will, as it has been classically defined. We can, however, learn and progress in the area of making better decisions. More explicitly, I believe that we have no Libertarian Free Will. Our biology only supports a weak, delayed form of Minimalistic Free Will, that I am seeing more and more as a complicated configuration of self-directed learning. This minimalistic FW is sufficient to get the job done.

LoL Well, now you know I'm not very religious.

That is chapter 1 of my book. It should start off some discussions. I'll explain more about this book soon.

Minimalistic Free Will Chapter 1 - Introduction to the Need ############################### If you think free will is complicated or mysterious right now, this is just the beginning! It’s going to get worse, and soon. Free will has always been an edgy item, but with the rapid advance of A.I. and robots, all public thought about free will is poised to plunge over a Niagara Falls of churning confusion. Free will is one the most heavily used “mechanisms” in everyday human life, and yet, it’s also one of the least understood ideas in the entire scientific world. This is not a coincidence! It was bound to be. But this will take a long time to explain, so let’s save it for a later chapter. Right now, I want this discussion of free will (FW) to be useful to people in real life, as well as useful to the scientific community. We need to talk practicality in everyday life, and we need to get to some clarity that is consistent in scientific terms. Both need to happen. Free will is one of the most baffling mysteries in the whole world. It’s been that way for thousands of years, so don’t feel bad if it’s confusing to you now. It’s that way with everybody. What can be exciting is making some significant progress in understanding a few pieces of it. */*/* One of the confusions that plagues FW discussions is the fact that the phrase “free will” is rather poorly defined in most people’s heads. I’ve guessed at several possible reasons. One reason is that FW is complicated and confusing, so people don’t talk about it for very long. When they do, they don’t do it in a very organized fashion, and it jumbles up. Scholars go about it with great organization, but they easily go overboard it seems, and they make it pretty much inaccessible to everybody else, by camouflaging it with too much technical jargon. Not only is FW confusing, but there can even be negative emotional associations with it. For some people, FW can be a topic associated with personal failure and shame, because of a perceived lack of “will power,” or the memory of a particularly bad decision. Few people are able to state in much detail anything about it with confidence, and people spend their time wondering about it with each other, at most. */*/* Whenever I have an extended FW related conversation, I find it useful to poke around to see what usage of the phrase “free will” the other person prefers. From this activity I have found that there are MANY different usages of the phrase “free will” floating around out there. I have noticed that many people have pet definitions for FW. They can invent their own attributes or parameters for FW, and thus have a “personalized” definition. Sometimes these definitions drift around from decade to decade, or from context to context. I know that mine SURELY did. I even suspect that many invent details and parameters on-the-fly for FW, as the topic pops up in conversation. I did not know there were so many varieties of FW theories until I started discussing it intensely with people in recent years. A few months ago, I saw some charts detailing around 20 varieties of FW. But don’t worry. The LAST thing I want to do here is to start groping through those kinds of things. PARAMETERS OF DEFINITION There are lots of different varieties of FW because people have different ideas as to how it works. Just how free they can be, or how many types of freedoms that they enjoy is up for grabs when it comes to theorizing about it. Often, I’ve seen that people pick and choose the kind of FW they imagine to be ideal or fair to everyone. When it’s actually being performed in the real world, it seems that FW is an entirely different kind of beast to contend with, compared to theoretical FW. It looks good in flowery words, but often in real life it seems to be not so free at all. To me, it looks like a chaotic war of competing desires; not fun; lots of failure. */*/* We can collect a few of the FW parameters hidden in people’s definitions by asking them specific questions about FW. Adding to “how much” FW we can have, we could ask exactly OF WHAT is FW actually free? Or, what is it independent from? This is a big question to consider. Some people think it’s free of every possible influence; some think less. HARDLY anyone nails it in any specific, consistent way! Hardly anyone even gets to this specific a question. */*/* How about asking “when” FW happens? Does FW happen at one point in time or is it spread out over a duration of time. In other words, is it a real time instantaneous event, or does it appear later as a change? Is it sudden or gradual? Does it take repetitions to make it work, or it does it work the first time, every time? Another parameter: When do people get FW? Does it happen when you’re born? Or when you reach age seven? Or after you get a degree in philosophy? Is FW a thing that’s automatically installed? Or do you have to work for it, or wait for it? How often do we use FW? Once a day? Or is it hundreds of times per day?! Once a month? All these issues are the sorts of parameters that get built into a lot of people’s definitions, but are very subconscious and well hidden. I’ve seen people get surprisingly uncomfortable when pressing them on too many details like this. */*/* More parameters: How much effort goes into exercising FW is another thing to consider. Is FW effortless? Or does it take a little bit of work? Or a lot of work? Can you fail at free will? Can you say, “Okay, I’m going to exercise my free will now,” and …whoops! It didn’t work that time! Can that sort of thing happen according with your definition of free will? And what about will power? What makes it strong or weak? Why do we have free will? Or seem to have it? What are its benefits, if any? These are things to ponder and prepare for more discussion later. */*/* Still more parameters: Do some people get “more” FW than others? Or is it given in equal amounts to all? Do we want to say that Free Will should also be called FAIR Will? It’s surprising how many want to inject the element of fairness into their definitions of FW. It’s probably old religious influences. */*/* Another parameter: Pureness of FW Some people’s version of FW has it operating 100% of the time. Others recognize that SOME robotic actions are possible, and some even WANT them for efficiency. So, there’s a “Pureness Ratio” that can be included in a FW theory/definition. Actions proceeding from FW compared to robotic actions indicate this pureness of FW action. Differing people’s definitions of FW can have differing pureness ratios built in or expected. */*/* I have been experimenting with actually asking people these kinds of questions as part of my research. I also study their facial expressions and body language when hitting them with these probes. Here are some more examples: Are you able to tell the difference between your robotic decisions and your FW decisions? When was the last FW decision you made? Does it take more effort to make a FW decision than a robotic one? Have you ever tried to make a FW decision, but failed, and responded robotically? Can you tell if someone else has made a FW or a robotic decision? Do you think, with advanced technology of future neuroscience, we will ever be able to tell the difference between robotic decisions and FW decisions in a living human? */*/* I find that FW advocates often ask for WAY too much in their definitions, and this has been going on for many centuries. It gets magical, how much freedom they ask for. These mystical forms of theoretical FW insist that it is instantaneously available, and that it imparts a kind of limited immunity to the laws of physics, chemistry, and learning. This is akin to a miracle happening (or a bunch of micro miracles) every time a FW decision is made. Often religious people want a kind of FW that is able to overcome all temptation to sin. This FW, they might theorize, happens with someone becoming spiritually enlightened. */*/* Another set of polling questions is: If FW were an immunity to the laws of physics, is it a partial immunity or total one? Which parts? Is it all the time, or just some of the time? Does it work for some things and not work for other things? All these types of questions need to be asked and cataloged in future work. In some of these mystical definitions, it requires no physical energy at all to operate FW, as if FW is not fully participating in the physical universe. Yet it can still actuate muscles! A magical one-way connection, no doubt. In classical FW definitions there are no prior physical causes of a freely willed action. The action just pops in out of the blue, and is completely different than the action which all the collective brain/nerve/muscle systems were poised to act out. Here, the action of FW is considered outside the normal lines of causation. It’s the essence of the miraculous FW mentioned above. In some definitions FW is so mystical and magical that it is thought to be beyond explanation, and that it eludes comprehension in principle, and with great efficiency. Then there’s the scientific community where many regard FW as an illusion, or at best, a useful fiction. There seem to be a variety of ways FW is scientifically regarded as pretty much obsolete. A few scientists will still stand up and give a valiant defense for FW. Another problem I see is the mixing of several kinds of very technical definitions for FW with everyday life types of definitions. Philosophers use the term “free will” in their ways, as do the workers in the neuroscience fields, as do workers in the justice system. There seems to be a very wide range of descriptions people want FW to be (or not be). The more I read and discuss FW, the more I sense an entire spectrum of meanings. */*/* Another very ODD part of the confusion, wrapped up in centuries old debates on FW versus determinism, is that the thoughts generated in such debates can trick some people to drift into a mini cognitive dissonance. This is where people accidentally try to hold two opposing thoughts in their mind at once. The result is massive confusion, and even mild fight-or-flight reactions. Learning how to avoid this is easy if you know what to look for. Again, discussion on this phenomenon will be in a following chapter. */*/* But which definition, theory, or model of FW (or lack of FW) will eventually be verified in the laboratory of scientific measurement as the type we humans have? Many scientists feel that whatever does happen to emerge from neuroscience, it will need an entirely new word coined to facilitate clear discussion about it, and to avoid associations with the many wrong models of FW. I somewhat agree with this drive to find a new word to use, but at the same time I don’t want to confuse people who are far removed from neuroscience. The term “free will” happens to be a part of their lives, and has been for centuries. I feel it will be easier to tell non-scientists that their “free will” definition needs to be MODIFIED, and the parameters fixed a bit. Much more difficult IMO, would be to try and tell the general population “You people don’t have free will at all. You never did! Now, we scientists have got this technical stuff for you, that you might like hearing about…” and SLAM! goes the door. But I’m willing to compromise, because the need for a new word is great in the science community. Scientists, too, can have the same flakey set of FW definitions I described above floating around in their heads, even in neuroscience. Not everyone in science is up to the challenge of FW, and many would greatly prefer to work in their specialty where FW doesn’t come up. My desire is moving towards order in this issue so things can be discussed better. This is a need in our society. The phrase that I’m using for my theory is “Minimalistic Free Will” or “minFW” to distinguish it from all the others. Soon I’ll explain better what is minimal and why. Briefly, though, this is a result of my seeing that a pretty much “maximum” model has been used, traditionally, and things got very messy. */*/* My ultimate concerns in this matter are the: (1) advancement of neuroscience, (2) better medical treatments for some mental illnesses, and (3) clearing the muddy waters regarding personal responsibility. I see (3) as a raging need in all levels of society, and for people of almost every IQ level, as well as for the justice system and institutions of education. */*/* Now, here are a couple of simple and more common definitions (thanks to a friend) for FW as the idea usually pops up in everyday language: “The ability to choose between more than on viable option or action, in which that choice was up to the chooser.” And: “The ability to have, of one’s own accord, chosen otherwise than they did.” Some call this Libertarian Free Will; some call it Contra-Causal Free Will. It’s where the chooser ALONE, and none of the laws of physics or neurobiological synapses interfere or participate. This kind of theoretical FW could involve many such miraculous decisions daily! This is the kind of FW many scientists aim at, as they demonstrate that FW does not exist, and that it is an illusion, or at best a useful fiction. */*/* I soon will be explaining a minimal model for FW that will be fundamentally different, and might also be called “internal will” or “gradually built will.” This model will be 100% deterministic, as well as Minimalistic. This model allows the will to grow in its ability to resist some outside influences like OTHER WILLS, but it starts out totally dependent on the nature/nurture programming that it is given. This internal will has the ability to edit or modify itself, but not easily. The most important thing about ANY kind of FW is that it should help make a person free of other wills and unwanted MACRO influences. The micro activity of a brain’s workings are not the kinds of influences over us that we care about, when we live life and make decisions. The micro machinations of the brain are the LEAST important things to want freedom from. For the most part, we do NOT experience these micro phenomena one bit at all. They are invisible to us. How are we to make viable decisions regarding micro brain circuitry if we can’t experience that world. We can’t; but we also don’t need it to live life. I think we are biologically endowed with a system that grows a will in us, and it starts very shortly after birth for human babies. By age 6 many children are able to edit their own internal wills a little bit through memorization. Some humans are sadly not very good at this for various reasons. There is a bell curve on these skills. just like all skills. I also believe that the simple model for FW that I will be proposing can be designed and installed in crude ways into computer AI programs. If this proposed model is ever verified in the laboratory, it will mean robots could eventually have the same level of FW as humans. This will dramatically affect society, more than we can estimate. */*/* I see one last chance to say this before we begin: Why talk about FW? It’s because it’s an emergency! This topic that I’m analyzing, free will, is not a normal one. This topic has been in hot debate for thousands of years, but instead of clearing up over the centuries, it has gotten even more out of hand in recent decades. For 25 years I’ve been anticipating the days we are living in right now with Artificial Intelligence all around us and growing fast. It’s just a short time away and children will be asking adults if robots have feelings or free will. Adults will not know the answers any better than the kids, though. Sermons will be preached on whether God can hear the prayers of a robot… or not. People will feel cheated if they think they are talking to a human, and it turns out to be a robot. This can even lead to violent situations, if you consider the cognitive dissonance I mentioned earlier. We are heading for a cultural crunch that will be very confusing to everyone. Even Robots’ Rights may become a real political force at some point. I am personally against this, but it looks like many could want it. In addition to these unique scientific advancements in machinery, is the strange situation that EVEN SCIENTISTS have pretty much no idea what is really going on in the area of free will, neither in humans, nor in animals, nor in machines. The top intellectuals of our culture have no firm consensus on whether we even have any such freedom. The best they can offer is that classical FW does not actually exist. They analyze endlessly on whether we should (or should not) assign credit or blame in human behavior, if we are all automatons like robots. */*/* Every human being has a vested interest in learning how to improve their own will power, and possess the ability to sculpt their own consciousness and habits. Everyone struggles with issues of their own self-control, or sometimes worse, with the self-control problems of other people. So, in addition to my own personal excitement in finding some new clues to this whole gigantic puzzle, I also feel a sense of cultural urgency is attached to it. Understanding better, both artificial intelligence and our own intelligence is quickly becoming a necessity. */*/* It seems academic people are on a hair trigger for discussions on free will; pro or con. It’s a gnawing curiosity in the scientific age. It’s endlessly popping up in discussion and life. Our whole culture is wondering if free will exists or not. Will power (or lack of) is a daily issue with just about everyone. I think it’s the sudden ubiquitous emergence of robots and A.I. that has everyone backed into an existential corner, asking lots self-referential questions. Are we just wet robots ??? */*/* end of Chapter 1

3/4 through the short one. It seems he is totally into confabulation, but just not using the word.