The Will Before the Thought

@Bones-O,

I can tell when I am being strung along friend.

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@Pathfinder,

Pathfinder, are you implying that we are governed by an unconscious will or wills?

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@Pathfinder,

Pathfinder wrote:

Paul Hanke'

you must be a carpenter my friend cuz u hit the nail on the head big time.

Eggszactically

... so what leads you to conclude that the mind/will must be immaterial - existing somewhere beyond the physical world, yet able to affect the physical world with its intentions? ...

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@Pathfinder,

I buy into the whole "will before thought" idea, but it leads me to some sort of epiphenomenalism, not to immaterial causal force of intent.

1 Reply

@Mr Fight the Power,

Mr. Fight the Power wrote:

I buy into the whole "will before thought" idea, but it leads me to some sort of epiphenomenalism, not to immaterial causal force of intent.

... I think that in order for the mind/will to qualify as an epiphenomenon, there would need to be electrical impulses in the brain that are constitutive of that epiphenomenon ... given that Pathfinder is asserting that no electrical impulses occur until after the mind/will has established its intentions, epiphenomenon does not seem to be an applicable explanation ... (that's not to say that I agree with Pathfinder - it's merely that I'm trying to see Pathfinder's point of view and its implications) ...

1 Reply

@paulhanke,

paulhanke wrote:

... I think that in order for the mind/will to qualify as an epiphenomenon, there would need to be electrical impulses in the brain that are constitutive of that epiphenomenon ... given that Pathfinder is asserting that no electrical impulses occur until after the mind/will has established its intentions, epiphenomenon does not seem to be an applicable explanation ... (that's not to say that I agree with Pathfinder - it's merely that I'm trying to see Pathfinder's point of view and its implications) ...

Well yes, I am a physicalist; I believe that there are electrical impulses underlying all mental functions.

I honestly don't see how the presence of these devices says anything about the mechanism behind intent.

1 Reply

@Pathfinder,

Pathfinder wrote:

I can tell when I am being strung along friend.

Not at all, it's a genuine point. You seem to be of the impression that the brain has to be triggered. The brain is always working. What we have in the brain-consciousness interaction is basically a cycle. Brain functions manifesting thoughts triggering brain functions manifesting will triggering brain functions manifesting decisions triggering brain functions... Add in interfaces with environment triggering more brain functions and I challenge anyone to tell the head from the rear-end. You take away the brain function and you lose the corresponding thought. You take away the thought and the corresponding brain function is gone. It's a package deal.

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@Mr Fight the Power,

Mr. Fight the Power wrote:

I believe that there are electrical impulses underlying all mental functions.

... and I think that's where your view differs from Pathfinder's - Pathfinder seems to be asserting that will comes before (thus independent of) any electrical impulses in the brain ... that the electrical impulses in the brain merely do the grunt work of carrying out intention - they do not create intention ...

1 Reply

@paulhanke,

paulhanke wrote:

... and I think that's where your view differs from Pathfinder's - Pathfinder seems to be asserting that will comes before (thus independent of) any electrical impulses in the brain ... that the electrical impulses in the brain merely do the grunt work of carrying out intention - they do not create intention ...

Ya im not too sure what his point is exactly. At first I thought he was simply talking about how the BCI uses the EEG to "read" the persons thoughts and wouldnt function without specific processes but now it seems he is trying to advocate some sort of metaphysical property to the mind. If the latter is the case I wonder where the causal relationship takes place...:perplexed:

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@Pathfinder,

Well, you guys have a good grasp on what I am trying to point out. That is obvious.

Yes, I am suggesting that before the brain can transmit any electrical impulses that will stimulate a reaction, there must first be a will or thought of the person to trigger the brain to respond. This can only mean that there is an independent force working before the brain responds and controlling the brain as well. This is not to say that there are not involuntary brain functions, we all know there are. But this is speaking to the deliberate effort a man makes to provoke a thought to intention and than having the brain perform that task.

In the case of the person attached to BCI/HCI unless they actually think what they want to perform thyere is no reaction.

I am not sure what you guys are prposing though. Are you guys suggesting that the brain is always in a state if electrical impulses and that there is always one waiting to be used when the person wanst to perform a specific action? Like a " scratch the nose" impulse that is floating around in the brain waiting to grabbed and used?

1 Reply

@Pathfinder,

A very interesting topic, indeed. Now, before I go theading through the tulips, being ever so cautious so as to create no needless debedding of those fine entities, please do allow me to make some effort to come to an understanding of the flowerbed layout.

I would think that it would be good to firstly focus on the ' actual spark of the thought process' matter. It would seem to me, that this extremely delicate of a complexity is going to have to boil down to even further inspection. For the purpose of this single, particular thread, how are we to define the term 'thought?' That might be a good place to start.

1 Reply

@KaseiJin,

KaseiJin wrote:

A very interesting topic, indeed. Now, before I go theading through the tulips, being ever so cautious so as to create no needless debedding of those fine entities, please do allow me to make some effort to come to an understanding of the flowerbed layout.

I would think that it would be good to firstly focus on the ' actual spark of the thought process' matter. It would seem to me, that this extremely delicate of a complexity is going to have to boil down to even further inspection. For the purpose of this single, particular thread, how are we to define the term 'thought?' That might be a good place to start.

Exactly!

This is my whole point; that people tend to only go so far when considering a matter and because of that never get to the real arguments.

Some are contending that thought is simple electrical impulses of the brain and are the same as those impulses that trigger and stimulate body function, both voluntary and involuntary. And their unwillingness to go further makes them put up this barrier where they pretend to not understand the dynamics.

There is certainly a vast difference between the involuntary functions of the brain to control breathing and blood circulation, and the actual desired, concentrated and determined follow-through of a thought to act.

The brain is not going to bring the person to moving that chair in the middle of the room without first the person desiring to do so, which then requires a deliberate will to move their body to that location, to pick up the chair, and than to move it to another position.

But before any of that function can be performed, there must be a will to perform it. There are no electrical brain impulses or neurons firing that are going to move that chair, or move your body to accomplish said task, until AFTER the thought or desire to act.

So thought comes before the electrical impulses and is therefore not a part of the brain function at all. Mind and brain are separate entities.

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@Pathfinder,

Pathfinder wrote:

In the case of the person attached to BCI/HCI unless they actually think what they want to perform thyere is no reaction.

I am not sure what you guys are prposing though. Are you guys suggesting that the brain is always in a state if electrical impulses and that there is always one waiting to be used when the person wanst to perform a specific action? Like a " scratch the nose" impulse that is floating around in the brain waiting to grabbed and used?

There is nothing about that device that shows that the thought exists prior to the action. It could be that the electrical impulse is simultaneous and inseparable with the corresponding "thought". There is also a wealth of testing that shows we often act in a manner we would consider conscious, yet there is a minute delay between the action and the subsequent awareness of the action.

My take on the issue is that all actions are these electronic impulses, and that the mind tries to make sense of them as soon as it is aware that they have occurred.

Quote:

But before any of that function can be performed, there must be a will to perform it. There are no electrical brain impulses or neurons firing that are going to move that chair, or move your body to accomplish said task, until AFTER the thought or desire to act.

So thought comes before the electrical impulses and is therefore not a part of the brain function at all. Mind and brain are separate entities.

I don't see how you have proven this.

I don't see why intent would not be a separate impulse that is not tapped by the machine, or why intent could not be built into the impulse, or even why intent must be a part of the impulse altogether.

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@Pathfinder,

Thank you for the further explanation, Pathfinder. I think I can see the presentation point you are making there--and by extension, in this thread. To be honest, I had been hoping to get a bit more of a working definition on the term 'thought.'

From what I gather, we could say (as I see it being presented so far) that the sensory perception that is projected to consciousness (being used here as a general 'threshold' above a certain level of conscious [meaning active brain]①) would not be considered a thought process, or a thought. The sensory projection that is cognized as noise, when cognized alone, is not a thought process, or a thought. The commands directing muscles for fine-tuning saccadic movement of the eye, so as to keep an intentional image in the folva (apologies for the spelling, and lack of drive to go check it...sorry) is not a thought process, or a thought. The sensory projection cognized as pain, is not a thought process, or a thought; and so on and so forth.

Yet, for our definition, if only for the purpose of this thread alone, would we be required to see a thought process, or a thought, as being a phenomological process (or event) involving a language application--as in self-talk? Or can we say that a thought process, or a thought can be a phenomological process (or event) free of linguistical application as well--as when, for example, we take parallel and adjust our tactile and spatial positioning with focus before acting to release the dart towards the bull's eye?

As far as I have come across it, what you are presenting about the millisecond reaction time delays for performing tasks is correct--to various degrees in various ways--Mr. Fight the Power. There have been a few exchanges between Libbet and some others, though, which do delimit some interpretation of his experiments (although some other, almost double-blind-like tests have been done which tend to give differences [and it has been caught onfMRI along with single photon equipment, as best I recall without double checking.]

① Please note that is use 'brain' as a collective, non-countable noun, as in the collective substance that makes a brain.

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@Pathfinder,

Pathfinder wrote:

It means that without intention there can be no action, no electrical impulse, no further forward motion.

The chair across the room is not going to be moved by someone who does not first intend to move it.

Yes, there are involuntary functions that require brain output, but that has nothing to do with the deliberate focus that we are talking about here.

This is a discussion of the fact that before anything else is accomplished by an electrical impulse revealing itself in the brain, there must first be the will and intention of the person's mind to create that impulse.

Therefore there is a self behind the biological function. A self that is not bound to the physical limitations of a healthy body. And it reveals itself in this BCI, HCI situation as the will behind the mechanics and the biology.

Again, why? How do you know that? That's an old assumption, without any basis. Consider this; to will could be nothing more than your experience of the electro-chemical reaction in the brain: i.e. when you will, you are really just experiencing phenomena that you have no control over, that would occur regardless. The world is perfectly deterministic, you are a limited part of that world, which beleives itself to be the cause of certain occurances as it experiences its own existance.

1 Reply

@BrightNoon,

BrightNoon wrote:

Again, why? How do you know that? That's an old assumption, without any basis. Consider this; to will could be nothing more than your experience of the electro-chemical reaction in the brain: i.e. when you will, you are really just experiencing phenomena that you have no control over, that would occur regardless. The world is perfectly deterministic, you are a limited part of that world, which beleives itself to be the cause of certain occurances as it experiences its own existance.

And what basis do you have that the world is perfectly deterministic, that our experience is just an illusion, that we don't have free will, dynamic choice? What makes you so sure we don't have the control, and that whatever would happen regardless?

This illusion of choice - why would we have it?

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@Zetherin,

The car does not start until you willfully turn the key!

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@Zetherin,

Zetherin wrote:

And what basis do you have that the world is perfectly deterministic, that our experience is just an illusion, that we don't have free will, dynamic choice? What makes you so sure we don't have the control, and that whatever would happen regardless?

This illusion of choice - why would we have it?

I didn't say that the world is deterministic, I was suggesting that as a logical possiblity. That said, I do think that the world is perfectly deterministic. Why? Mostly because the concept of 'free-will' is completely meaningless; it is not that we lack free-will, it is that there is no such thing as free-will. Also, I never said that "experience is an illusion," quite the opposite; experience is all, and exactly what it appears to be. Our thoughts are the thoughts we think they are, and our feelings are the feelings we feel, etc.

Re your final question:
The appearance of free will (this is all that we have ever known; we do NOT know, have experience of, free will as we imagine it to operate, i.e. ex causality) is based in our assumption of authorship for certain events that we experience. Why do we assume authorship in certain cases? A choice is characterized by an intention and then an act; i.e. a mental image or representation of the act is experienced before the act itself. There is no reason to assume that said mental image is the cause of the act. No doubt that sounds strange. Am I suggesting that intentions (images) precede acts by coincidence? No. Consider a human being as a system of reaction (a system of complex mechanics), which can react to present external stimuli with reference to, in terms of, its internal state, which manifests the effects of previous external stimuli. Because this system is sensative to only a certain range of stimuli (reacts in a limited number of ways), the reaction to X will be similiar to the reaction to x; the system was effected by x, such that the later reaction to X includes aspects of the reaction to x. Life as lived is the experience of these reactions. Therefore, an image of 'what is about to happen' (intention) is generated because the process of reaction in progress includes aspects of similiar, previous reactions; the image is really a memory.

That's it in a nutshell, before I go nay farther, let's see if your interested, willing to accept my premise.

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@Pathfinder,

Recall is exactly the reason we have free will.

What you are trying to get your head around is merely what we call imagination based upon recall of previous experiences.

A dog that has never hunted a rabbit in the forest cannot get that image into its mind, no matter how close it is to the first actual hunt. But you can be damned sure that when a rabbit runs by it, that dog has a choice to either chase it or lie down.

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The Will Before the Thought

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