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>We feel that our actions are voluntary when they follow a decision and involuntary when they happen without decision. But if a decision itself were voluntary e

by laotzu 11y ago

>We feel that our actions are voluntary when they follow a decision and involuntary when they happen without decision. But if a decision itself were voluntary every decision would have to be preceded by a decision to decide - An infinite regression which fortunately does not occur. Oddly enough, if we had to decide to decide, we would not be free to decide. -Alan Watts, Way of Zen

humanrebar 11y ago
In the same vein, here's an alternate title for this post: "How Our Brains Think Your Brain Decides Without You"
robinhoode 11y ago
> An infinite regression which fortunately does not occur. Even when this regression is finite, it has a name: anxiety.
- cryoshon 11y ago
  In other words, your idea is that anxiety is the repetitive regression of meta-thought?
criddell 11y ago
How is that different than Zeno's Paradox?
- marklgr 11y ago
  Zeno's paradoxes are about convergence of infinite series, something quite puzzling back then. But the infinite regress problem here (or in related free will questions) is not about convergence.
- drostie 11y ago
  When Lewis Carroll discusses a similar logical problem in "What the Tortoise Said to Achilles" it comes from the perspective of a Zeno paradox which cannot be resolved in the same way. Essentially, Achilles says "A, therefore Z." Tortoise says, "Well, suppose I don't see the connection here, you have some symbols on this side and some symbols on that side, could you help me?" So Achilles modifies this to, "A, and A implies Z, therefore Z." And the Tortoise says, "well, that sounds very good and I trust your proof that A implies Z but I'm still not seeing the connection here. Could you help me connect those left hand things to the right hand thing?" So Achilles modifies this to "A, and A implies Z, and (A and A implies Z) implies Z, therefore Z." And the Tortoise says, "aha, of course '(A and A implies Z) implies Z' ... but wait, now that I've written that down, I again don't see the connection here...". Essentially the point is that our generic rule that replaces "x and x implies y" with "x and y" is a process which lives outside the declarative scope of formal logic. (In the Curry-Howard isomorphism: you can have a value of type `x` and a function which turns values of type `x` into values of type `y`, but these are definitions, and there is no way to capture the true process of applying the function to the value -- just another declaration of another function which has type `x → (x → y) → y` which is by itself never involved in a process.) (As an amateur physicist, I hasten to remind everyone that Zeno won in the end; there is a context which Zeno could have never foreseen where a Zeno paradox makes a certain kind of motion impossible. The reason nobody can travel faster than light is that if you take your spaceship and try to race a light beam, first you throw down a beacon, and then you accelerate to speed c/2 relative to that beacon -- in your shiny new reference frame, due to the constancy of the speed of light in inertial reference frames, the light beam is still moving at speed c away from you.)

by laotzu 11y ago

humanrebar 11y ago

In the same vein, here's an alternate title for this post: "How Our Brains Think Your Brain Decides Without You"

robinhoode 11y ago

> An infinite regression which fortunately does not occur. Even when this regression is finite, it has a name: anxiety.

cryoshon 11y ago
In other words, your idea is that anxiety is the repetitive regression of meta-thought?

criddell 11y ago

How is that different than Zeno's Paradox?

marklgr 11y ago
Zeno's paradoxes are about convergence of infinite series, something quite puzzling back then. But the infinite regress problem here (or in related free will questions) is not about convergence.
drostie 11y ago
When Lewis Carroll discusses a similar logical problem in "What the Tortoise Said to Achilles" it comes from the perspective of a Zeno paradox which cannot be resolved in the same way. Essentially, Achilles says "A, therefore Z." Tortoise says, "Well, suppose I don't see the connection here, you have some symbols on this side and some symbols on that side, could you help me?" So Achilles modifies this to, "A, and A implies Z, therefore Z." And the Tortoise says, "well, that sounds very good and I trust your proof that A implies Z but I'm still not seeing the connection here. Could you help me connect those left hand things to the right hand thing?" So Achilles modifies this to "A, and A implies Z, and (A and A implies Z) implies Z, therefore Z." And the Tortoise says, "aha, of course '(A and A implies Z) implies Z' ... but wait, now that I've written that down, I again don't see the connection here...". Essentially the point is that our generic rule that replaces "x and x implies y" with "x and y" is a process which lives outside the declarative scope of formal logic. (In the Curry-Howard isomorphism: you can have a value of type `x` and a function which turns values of type `x` into values of type `y`, but these are definitions, and there is no way to capture the true process of applying the function to the value -- just another declaration of another function which has type `x → (x → y) → y` which is by itself never involved in a process.) (As an amateur physicist, I hasten to remind everyone that Zeno won in the end; there is a context which Zeno could have never foreseen where a Zeno paradox makes a certain kind of motion impossible. The reason nobody can travel faster than light is that if you take your spaceship and try to race a light beam, first you throw down a beacon, and then you accelerate to speed c/2 relative to that beacon -- in your shiny new reference frame, due to the constancy of the speed of light in inertial reference frames, the light beam is still moving at speed c away from you.)