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From: b.schafer@ed.ac.uk (Burkhard)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Making your mind up
Date: Mon, 8 Apr 2024 13:26:46 +0000
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Martin Harran wrote:

> On Sat, 6 Apr 2024 17:48:09 -0500, DB Cates <cates_db@hotmail.com>
> wrote:

>>On 2024-04-06 2:38 AM, Martin Harran wrote:
>>> On Fri, 5 Apr 2024 16:29:20 -0500, DB Cates <cates_db@hotmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> On 2024-04-05 11:05 AM, Martin Harran wrote:
>>>>> There was quite an interesting discussion a few weeks ago on Free Will
>>>>> vs Determinism but it died a death, at least in part due to the
>>>>> departure of some contributors to the Land Beyond GG. I'd like to take
>>>>> up some of the issues again if anyone is interested.
>>>>>
>>>>> One point made by Hemidactylus that didn't get developed any further
>>>>> was the way that we sometimes give a lot of time and effort into
>>>>> making a decision - he gave the example of buying a car. It's also
>>>>> common for someone to want to "sleep it on it" before making a
>>>>> decision where the decision is important but it is not clear what
>>>>> decision is best. If a decision is essentially predetermined then what
>>>>> is the point of that time and effort or sleeping on it?
>>>>
>>>> Do you not see that this argument depends on the belief that there was
>>>> an *option* to make the decision earlier under different conditions
>>>> (lack of 'thinking it over' and/or 'sleeping on it'). IOW that free will
>>>> exists. You are 'begging the question'.
>>> 
>>> It's actually the complete opposite, I am starting with the assumption
>>> that there is no free will and asking what then is the point in
>>> deliberating over the various options.
>>
>>See, right there. My claim is that 'deliberating over the options' is 
>>what you are determined by the circumstances to do and is part of the 
>>circumstances that determines what you follow it up with. Assuming that 
>>there is some "point" beyond this is assuming that free will exists.
>>
>>  You seem to be taking things a
>>> bit further and saying that if determinism exists then there aren't
>>> any options to begin with but that is just a variation in emphasis, it
>>> doesn't address the question of why we spend so much time pondering
>>> those options when they don't even exist.
>>
>>It's because the "pondering" is part of the determined action.

> That just takes us full circle back to my original question - what is
> the point or the value of that pondering if the decision is
> predetermined?

> In evolutionary terms, I can see various disadvantages to that
> pondering. The brain is the most demanding organ in our body,
> consuming around 20% of the total energy used. Pondering a decision
> can often distract us from other important things we should be using
> our brain for and can indirectly have a very negative affect on our
> lives. It seems to me that it would make sense to weed out unnecessary
> demands unless they have a clear evolutionary advantage. I can't see
> any such evolutionary advantage in pondering being added to a
> predetermined process.

"And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of though"

sure, procrastination, or Hamlet-syndrome, can be 
wasteful, and even dangerous - though in Hamlet's
case it also prevented him from committing suicide, 
and there you'd have part of the answer. 

The main problem with your analysis is that 
it assumes that evolved traits come cost-free. But
that's of course not the case - they are typically messy
compromises. An influential recent book has been
Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. He differentiates
 between two modes of thought: "System 1" is fast, 
instinctive and emotional; "System 2" is slower, 
more deliberative, and more logical. In Neurosymbolic
AI, we try to replicate this these days on machines.

The "fast mode" works often, but we need to learn when
to switch to "slow mode". But of course we can never
be sure if, at any given point in time, we have
all the relevant information, and identify all
they implications. So "taking time off" works
often enough to counteract System 1 reasoning
to be an advantage, and prevent us from 
premature decisions, even if it sometimes means 
wasted effort - and when it becomes pathological, 
it can of course be positively harmful and require
professional intervention. 






>>> 
>>>>>
>>>>> Tied in with that is our ability to change our minds after we have
>>>>> made a decision - has determinism some convoluted way of working that
>>>>> predetermines what way we will make a decision but also predetermins
>>>>> that we will change it?
>>>>
>>>> Having made a decision plus time (other things happening) have changed
>>>> the environment, so why not a different decision being determined?
>>> 
>>> We have been redecorating recently. The choice for wallpaper for a
>>> particular room came down to two papers. My wife (who finally decides
>>> these things <smile>) picked paper A and we bought it. Two days later,
>>> she changed her mind and decided she's rather have paper B. We hadn't
>>> even opened the paper so we were able to take it back to the shop and
>>> get it swapped. I can't see any change of environment in that.
>>> 
>>Your wife went into suspended animation for two days!? Amazing.
>>Seriously, do you not think it possible, nay, probable that she 
>>continued to 'ponder' her decision, observed the room in different 
>>lighting conditions, paid heightened consideration to the existing 
>>colours in the room, etc. and that this might have led to her changing 
>>her mind?

> I'm actually pretty sure she didn't do any of those physical things
> because of other things we were doing that weekend. We made our
> decision in the shop on Saturday, and she was completely satisfied
> with it (there was actually very little to choose between the two
> papers, both were a jungle theme with exotic birds and plants in
> similar colours). We brought the paper home and left it aside for me
> to start papering later in the week. My wife passed no further remark
> on it until Monday morning when she announced "I've changed my mind, I
> think I prefer the other paper." I chuckled and asked her why and she
> said she didn't know, she "just liked the other paper better."
> Obviously, there was some rethinking process but I believe it was
> entirely sub-conscious, there was no real"pondering" in any active
> sense involving the input of new information. The exact details of the
> process are  irrelevant, my question is not *how* she changed her
> mind, it's what was the point of determinism leading her to a decision
> on Saturday that was going to change on Monday?

>>>>>
>>>>> A reminder that in the Libet experiments so beloved of determinists,
>>>>> there was no precursor activity found in regard to making *major*
>>>>> decisions or changing one's mind so how does that fit in?
>>>>>
>>>> I personally don't think those experiments have much to say about it one
>>>> way or the other.
>>>>
>>> 
>>> I agree with you but they do seem to be a mainstay for those who argue
>>> in favour of determinism.
>>>> -- 
>>> 
>>
>>--