I think I know, rather than repeating things I have said before, what I would like to ask specifically to break away from simply repeating this question in a circle that grants common-language usage more self-contained “meaning” than I believe it has.
Probably the answer to whatever I say next is already in Nick’s and Laird’s papers, which I have not had time to read. I don’t have a Claude account, or else I would know that Claude already has the answer to this too. I raised my objection a few weeks ago to ways of using language, and I think Marcus responded right on the point, about an LLM’s handling of conflicts between entrainment in whatever trajectory it had been on, and inputs through its interface that pushed in some different direction. Anyway, the question: Since specific lesions can occur anywhere in the brain… and to the extent that we interpret fMRI data as “locating” conflict-handling in human thought in or around the amygdala and anterior cyngulate cortexes… we could do a cross-sectional study of patients with lesions in these areas, and a differential comparison of their handling of either the language or the responses to language in word-clouds associated with framing of free-will concepts. This would of course be confounded, because all these things are learned over a lifecourse. So adults who got lesions (from, e.g. strokes) after having learned the patterns of usage, would be some odd mix of learned habits and autonomously-driven motives in the use of such terms and concepts. It would thus be helpful to do differential comparisons of late-lesion patients with any children who evidenced congenital abnormal or impaired formation of these regions that then affected their receptiveness to all subsequent usage templates that the culture gave them for such terms. Those cases, too, of course, would be confounded, probably monstrously so, since neurodevelopment can use the same mechanics in many areas. So a “clean” impairment of amygdala or AC in an otherwise-modal brain is probably an oxymoron, developmentally speaking. But, one could start with such analyses, and see in how far they seem to admit interpretations that stay clustered around these terms and concepts (as opposed to just requiring that we throw up our hands and say “whole diffierent world for these people”). I have this image that, for example, non-social fish would never develop a hand-wringing philosophy of free will. They just do what they do, and then do the next thing, and such questions don’t come up. If one could limit further to parthenogenic cases, it would be even cleaner, because they would never have to engage in the negotiations associated with mating. A purely solipsistic life. Eric > On Feb 24, 2025, at 6:27 PM, Marcus Daniels <mar...@snoutfarm.com> wrote: > > If a LLM had constant inputs from cameras, microphones, chemical sensors, and > sensiomotor feedback, and was continuously training and performing inference, > could it have free will? > > From: Friam <friam-boun...@redfish.com> On Behalf Of Jochen Fromm > Sent: Monday, February 24, 2025 1:08 PM > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam@redfish.com> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] free will > > Actually I don't care much about views or traffic. I don't think many people > read it except the ones from this list. But I like discussions about > interesting topics. I mentioned the blog post here because I wasn't sure if I > have (maybe unconsciously) stolen an idea from one of you. Humans often > forget where they have first seen or heard an idea. Daniel Dennett mentions > in his book "I've been thinking" that he was afraid of plagiarism (on page > 61-63) and describes it as the great academic sin. > > I believe LLMs work like humans in this respect: they are like money > laundering machines for copyrighted ideas who wash away the copyright. They > also tend to hallucinate, like we do in dreams at night. And they are > excellent in predicting the next word in a sentence (or action in a > sequence), similar to the motor cortex. They are in many ways similar to us. > It is fascinating and a little bit frightening what these LLMs and AIs can do > already today. > > To come back to the question of free will: I am not sure if free willed > actions are only those that are caused by conscious thoughts. I believe > conscious thoughts can be used to prevent actions that we do not want. The > first steps to a free will is to become aware of all the hidden influences > that try to control it. > > We have an "Influenceable will". When we become aware that our will is > influenced by ads or propaganda or some kind of marketing, we can take steps > to reduce this hidden influence for example by making the conscious decision > to stop doing what the ads ask for (for example stop buying McDonald's Big > Macs although the ads promise us happiness and joy if we do it). > > -J. > > > -------- Original message -------- > From: Nicholas Thompson <thompnicks...@gmail.com> > Date: 2/23/25 11:59 PM (GMT+01:00) > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam@redfish.com>, > Jochen Fromm <j...@cas-group.net> > Subject: free will > > > I put a comment Jochen's blog. Why dont we carry on over there and help him > generate traffic. I have attached here a couple of papers that support the > view that people are lousy predictors of their own behavior. If we [and only > if] we take free willed actions to be those that are caused by conscious > thoughts, then surely we must know what we are going to do before we start to > do it and be much better at making such predictions than are the people > around us. > > > N > > > -- > Nicholas S. 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