Re: Making your mind up

Burkhard <b.schafer@ed.ac.uk> wrote:

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.
 

Is rumination (overthinking) the curse of System 2 deliberation? Maybe it
cannot be helped so either it’s not free will or instead free will as a
catastrophizing train wreck?

Paralysis by analysis is also detrimental, but so is System 1 impulsiveness
or shooting from the hip in some instances.

What is it called when System 2 deliberation is applied so many times that
the result in a given circumstance becomes habit or second nature? Does it
become the intuitive backgrounding of System 1?