What causes us to change our minds?

[Piggy]

Not a very good thread title, but hopefully it will draw the right crowd.

This thread spins off from other recent threads regarding consciousness, and adapts a sort of algebra proposed in one by another poster. Links provided upon request, but the topic is sufficiently different that I think links would most likely be a distraction.

What can be said, scientifically, about the causal chain of activity in the brain as we make decisions?

To be more precise....

I am buying groceries and the bag boy asks "Paper or plastic?"

I consider whether I need liners for my small wastebaskets and then respond "Plastic".

Let B1 represent everything that could possibly be known about the state of my brain upon hearing "Paper or plastic?" (ignoring, unless a reason can be shown not to, the fact that determining a precise moment for this state is impossible).

Let B2 represent everything that could possibly be known about the state of my brain upon saying "Plastic" (ignoring, unless a reason can be shown not to, the fact that determining a precise moment for this state is impossible).

Let W represent the changes occuring in my brain between states B1 and B2.

What can we say about W?

It is not sufficient to chalk it up to "free will". This is a mere label.

Yet tracing the neuron-level brain activity also falls short of full explanatory power.

How does the brain get from B1 to B2? What can be said scientifically about the causes of this change?

[TV's Frank]

This doesn't neccessarily answer your question, but I suppose it doesn't take intelligence to make a decision. For example, computers and be easily programmed to make decisions:

if (some condition is met) then (do something), else (do something else).

And this higher-level decision can be mapped to low-level machinery, where it's just a matter of electrons being in the right place at the right time.

There are many people figuring out how the low-level functioning of the brain translates into higher-level decision-making. I think your question fits into the wider scope of this problem.

[Piggy]

This doesn't neccessarily answer your question, but I suppose it doesn't take intelligence to make a decision. For example, computers and be easily programmed to make decisions:

if (some condition is met) then (do something), else (do something else).

And this higher-level decision can be mapped to low-level machinery, where it's just a matter of electrons being in the right place at the right time.

There are many people figuring out how the low-level functioning of the brain translates into higher-level decision-making. I think your question fits into the wider scope of this problem.
You're right that this doesn't answer the question, but it's certainly pertinent.

The issue of mapping is very important. While it's true that there will always be brain activity associated with activity of the mind (which all evidence points to being an emergent phenomenon totally reliant upon the activity and physical structure of the brain) it does not appear to be true that neural activity alone can provide a fully explanatory model -- in other words, we cannot just describe a chain reaction such as the physical chain of events which led from the crashing of airplanes into the WTC towers to their eventual collapse. For this, we must appeal to larger structures such as the amygdala, hippocampus, corteces, etc., and, it seems, to more abstract entities such as images, memories, and emotions.

It seems to me impossible to get from B1 to B2 without reference to something akin to free will. And yet merely asserting that the change is somehow caused by free will is totally insufficient.

[TV's Frank]

I think you can go from B1 to B2 without using anything even sounding like "free will".

I mean, animals make decisions all the time. Do they have a free will? It seems animals are closer to computers when it comes to decision-making abilities (i.e. "instinct" is like high-level programming, instructing what neurons to fire when...or something....I'm getting fast and loose with my analogies here).

But I do agree that it isn't easy to get from neurons to "hmmm...paper or plastic?". But just like a computer, there are many many layers of abstractions and stuff going between capacitors filled up with electrons and "play a dvd".

I think the brain is incredibly complicated, and much more so than we used to think. However, I think it is only a matter or time (and lots of research) before we can bridge that gap between electrical signals and thoughts.

As an aside (or not), my (low-level college) philosophy professor would argue: "if free will 'causes' thoughts, then what made those electrons move around? If it wasn't F=ma, like every other electron in the universe, then don't we have a miracle going on in between our ears every second of every day?" I think brining free will into this is a very large and unattractive can of worms.

Are there any attractive cans of worms?

[Piggy]

I think you can go from B1 to B2 without using anything even sounding like "free will".
I think so, too. But I also think that the term may be useful as a short-hand, if and when a coherent physical model is available.

I mean, animals make decisions all the time. Do they have a free will?
I think many of them do.

But let me be clear, "free will" is a descriptive term. It's not a cause, just a label.

What I mean by "free will" is that, theoretically, whether I eventually choose paper or plastic, it is physically possible for me to have selected either. Unlike, say, a simple chemical reaction, there's an option there which appears to be determined in part by what we would call conscious volition. However, that appearance may be deceptive, however dear it may be to our human hearts.

I think it is only a matter or time (and lots of research) before we can bridge that gap between electrical signals and thoughts.
I hope so, although I'm not very hopeful that it'll happen during my lifetime.

As an aside (or not), my (low-level college) philosophy professor would argue: "if free will 'causes' thoughts, then what made those electrons move around? If it wasn't F=ma, like every other electron in the universe, then don't we have a miracle going on in between our ears every second of every day?"
Actually, I think it's possible to posit an emergent phenomenon that could be legitimately labeled "free will" without invoking miracles. That said, it seems scientifically ridiculous to posit this "free will" as a causative agent. And yet, if an emergent entity is making decisions, it certainly seems that this entity, whatever we may call it, is somehow triggering tangible physical reactions.

But if this emergent "I" is in fact making a decision, what can be said about this "I" and this process?

Seeing relatives succumb to dementia, I've observed the breakdown of this emergent "I" which is capable of directed action. The actions of these more randomized brains are undeniably and profoundly distinct from the actions of more coherently organized brains. The loss of conscious volition correlates with observable changes in behavior and decision-making capacity.

There is no denying that this breakdown is the result of changes in the physical brain. And yet, if we look only at the most basic neurological level, certainly we would expect the demented brain to obey the same physical laws as the healthy brain. In other words, if we narrowed our scope to only following signals from neuron to neuron, could we even tell if a brain were healthy or not? I doubt it. Similarly, if we looked only at the movement of molecules and followed the exchange of energy from one to another, we would not be able to tell if the molecules were part of a coherent larger-level phenomenon such as a wave or a vortex, or just milling about in a chaotic churn.

Same goes for aphasias and other results of damage to the system.

If we, and perhaps other animals, do in fact "decide" -- if this deciding is not merely an illusion (and I'm not ruling out that possibility) -- then what can be said about the entity doing this deciding, and how it relates to physical reactions at a more granular level?

Does the neural level not really matter? Could a "deciding" brain be built of other stuff, as long as the larger-level brain strcctures were present and could exchange information? I reckon so.

[Ducky]

What causes us to change our minds?


Answer:

Evidence.

[TV's Frank]

All very interesting thoughts, Piggy, but I'm afraid I'm going a little bit too far from what I consider my safe territory of knowledge. Anything I say beyond what I've aready said will be largely made up, and probably very very wrong. I'm sure there are many other folks on the forum better equipped to handle a discussion like this.

I, do, however, think you hit a couple good points: I don't think we can distinguish, at a molecular level, between a healthy and unhealthy brain (except the most extreme cases...such as a living versus dead one). Once again, the beauty of the brain lies somewhere in between the electrical signals and the thoughts and actions produced. I'm sure there are whole buildings chock full of scientists just trying to figure that kind of thing out.

I do remember that Douglas Hofstadter had interesting things to say about such things in Godel, Escher, Bach, and continues to research the way new ideas are created. He's specifically interested in the way we use analogies to ferment new ideas. All good stuff. He is also much smarter than I am, so that's as far as I'll go.

[BeholdTheTruth]

I am inclined to believe that the answer to your question of how we get from B1 to B2 will turn out to be a lot like the from x to y solution of Yalel per his "Change-as-Exchange" paradigm where one, in order to change his or her mind from x to y, exchanges sets of beliefs x for sets of beliefs y -- where x and y are opposite views (either all x or all not x, and where y is some first instance of not x.)

By the way, http://philogosophia.org/Generalities.pdf seems to be the latest articulation of Yalel's proposed answer to your great question. But be forewarned that while it is at times funny, he is at best an odd duck cognitive science explorer in woo-woo-wolf's clothing. And at worst, a punster run amok. For example, he points out somewhere that "day, night"; "der, nicht'; "da, nyet", etc. are clues to a deep-seated cognitive pair of complementary guarding x/guiding y mechanisms of a very trans-cultural general nature.

You're right that this doesn't answer the question, but it's certainly pertinent.

The issue of mapping is very important. While it's true that there will always be brain activity associated with activity of the mind (which all evidence points to being an emergent phenomenon totally reliant upon the activity and physical structure of the brain) it does not appear to be true that neural activity alone can provide a fully explanatory model -- in other words, we cannot just describe a chain reaction such as the physical chain of events which led from the crashing of airplanes into the WTC towers to their eventual collapse. For this, we must appeal to larger structures such as the amygdala, hippocampus, corteces, etc., and, it seems, to more abstract entities such as images, memories, and emotions.

It seems to me impossible to get from B1 to B2 without reference to something akin to free will. And yet merely asserting that the change is somehow caused by free will is totally insufficient.