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Questions and Answers
What is the essential aspect of the 'capacity to do otherwise' concept in the context of free will?
What is the essential aspect of the 'capacity to do otherwise' concept in the context of free will?
Who proposed the idea of 'rational deliberation' as a key feature of free will?
Who proposed the idea of 'rational deliberation' as a key feature of free will?
What is the primary difference between indeterministic and deterministic theories of free will?
What is the primary difference between indeterministic and deterministic theories of free will?
What is the primary distinction between exploration and exploitation in decision-making?
What is the primary distinction between exploration and exploitation in decision-making?
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What is the organism that is commonly used to study genes related to aging and longevity?
What is the organism that is commonly used to study genes related to aging and longevity?
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What is the term for the process by which bacteria like E. coli change their direction of movement?
What is the term for the process by which bacteria like E. coli change their direction of movement?
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Who proposed the idea that free will involves 'wanting what you want'?
Who proposed the idea that free will involves 'wanting what you want'?
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What is the term for the idea that our behavior is governed by internal or external forces that we cannot control?
What is the term for the idea that our behavior is governed by internal or external forces that we cannot control?
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In the context of random walks and Thorndike's puzzle box, what do cats initially use to get out of the box and get to the food?
In the context of random walks and Thorndike's puzzle box, what do cats initially use to get out of the box and get to the food?
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What is similar to bacteria like E. coli in terms of behavior?
What is similar to bacteria like E. coli in terms of behavior?
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What is the purpose of neuromodulators like norepinephrine and dopamine?
What is the purpose of neuromodulators like norepinephrine and dopamine?
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What is channel noise, and how does it affect behavior?
What is channel noise, and how does it affect behavior?
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What is the concept of 'Hobbesian capacity to do otherwise' related to?
What is the concept of 'Hobbesian capacity to do otherwise' related to?
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What is the result of sensitivity to initial conditions at the edges of chaos?
What is the result of sensitivity to initial conditions at the edges of chaos?
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What is redundancy in the context of cognitive processes?
What is redundancy in the context of cognitive processes?
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What was the task in the experiment by Baddeley et al. (1998)?
What was the task in the experiment by Baddeley et al. (1998)?
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Study Notes
Free Will
- Can be defined as the ability to be free from one's past and simultaneously act in accordance with one's will
- Involves having a historical identity, but being able to show how to be ahistorical
Design Features of Neurocognitive Free Will
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- Capacity to do otherwise (Hobbes, 1839)
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- "Wanting what you want" (Frankfurt, 1971)
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- Rational deliberation (Locke, 1768)
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- Self-awareness: the real self-view (Wolf, 1993)
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- Consciousness, effortful (executive processing) (Knobe & Nichols, 2011)
Indeterministic Theory
- Suggests that will is free and that deliberate choices and actions are not determined by or predicted from antecedent causes
- Past does not predict the future
Deterministic Theory
- Suggests that the past predicts the future, implying that free will is an illusion
- Behavior is governed by internal or external forces that we can't control
Capacity to Do Otherwise
- Hobbes, 1839
- Exploration vs. exploitation:
- Exploitation involves choosing the best known option based on past experience
- Exploration involves trying out new options that may lead to better outcomes in the future
Examples of Exploration and Exploitation
- Dating: moving from exploration to exploitation
- Caenorhabitis elegans: used for studying genes to understand aging, age-related diseases, and mechanisms of longevity
- E. coli: random reorientation, rotating flagella clockwise or counterclockwise
- Thorndike's puzzle box: a hungry cat learning to get out of a box to get food
Unpredictability in Adversarial Interactions
- Combat escalation games: wasps
- Evasion: Dominici et al., 2008
- Evolution and the theory of games: John Maynard Smith
Stimulus-Response with Tunable Randomness
- Adding dice to the stimulus-response solution
- Hobbesian capacity to do otherwise
Channel Noise and Neuromodulators
- Channel noise: molecular noise in neurons, responding to outside noise
- Examples: busy train station, taking a different path
- Neuromodulators: norepinephrine and dopamine, releasing and making people focus more
- Dopamine controls exploitation
Sensitivity to Initial Conditions
- At edges of chaos, small differences in initial conditions lead to drastically different outcomes
- Quantum fluctuation: taking advantage of the universe's indeterminism, generating solutions, and amplifying noise
- Sensitive to differences of "arbitrarily small size"
- Liberation, free will because it's indeterministic
Redundancy
- A measure of reduction from maximum entropy caused by repeating transitions between numbers
- Examples: not being able to think clearly, being taught how to ride a bike, and being distracted by a conversation
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Description
Explore the concept of free will, its definition, and the design features of neurocognitive free will, including capacity to do otherwise, wanting what you want, rational deliberation, and self-awareness.
