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<DIV>Dear Howard,</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I am up to my ears in work, but am working towards "that book". I could not
help notice the discussion below, for "free will", has a few biological kink of
its own. One can make a fair case that "free will" is in good part a
delusion and that we are far more programmed, far more tightly controlled by
unconscious programs than we care to admit. We have no difficulty admitting that
when, say, we walk that automatic systems do most of the work and we provide at
best a little guidance. When walking up a stairs we have spatial control so pat,
that our toes miss the steps by less than a cm. And its easy to test for: raise
one step by half a cm and see everybody catch their toe and fall on their
face. In decades past the physiologist Sherrington showed on decerebrated dogs
that - without brain-control - the dog, when tickled, led its foot with
great precision for a scratch. That is, there were complex programs of motion in
the spinal cord and we called them then reflexes. Studies of Sherrington's type
showed a hierarchy of systems reaching from the spinal chord into the brain-stem
and, finally, on into the cerebral cortex. The great advance by Lorenzian
ethology was to make us aware that large, innate behavioral programs
controlled much of what we did, and from studies of large mammals it became very
clear that we shared mega-systems of behavior of all mammals with some of them
leading on into reptiles, amphibians and fishes. My next book will probably be
entitled "<EM>Condemned to Art</EM>", and one can show how hopelessly - and
haplessly! - we are tied to, blindly, follow internal esthetic programs (mostly
adaptive!), that we make decisions based on these that defy reason, and are
quite embarrassing when we, so to say, find out! It's embarrassing, but
Paleopsychology at its best! It also fills one with apprehension to discover
that we can duplicate tools used by people of our Cro-Magnon etc lineage, but
that we are stumped figuring out - most - tools used by Neanderthal! These
physically quite different people thought (with their huge brains) so
differently from us, that we have great difficulties determining just how some
of their tools were used, let alone have the physical strength to duplicate the
wear-patterns. Somehow we can climb out of what in the past I called "Darwin's
cage", that is the innate structures that so readily channel our thoughts, but
its tough to determine just when we are climbing out! </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>On another, parallel matter: in re-examining past and present evidence
about our most ancient past when Neanderthal and we formed two lineages, it
becomes more and more evident that we, the moderns, were an insignificant
side-branch playing second fiddle to the powerful and ubiquitous Neanderthal,
who always took the best for himself forcing us to make do with what Neanderthal
was not interested in. It's eerie how the pattern is falling out. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Cheers, Val Geist</DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
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<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=HowlBloom@aol.com
href="mailto:HowlBloom@aol.com">HowlBloom@aol.com</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A title=paleopsych@paleopsych.org
href="mailto:paleopsych@paleopsych.org">paleopsych@paleopsych.org</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Monday, May 16, 2005 8:19 PM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> [Paleopsych] free wills and
quantum won'ts</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV><FONT id=role_document face=Arial color=#000000 size=2>
<DIV>
<DIV>This is from a dialog Pavel Kurakin and I are having behind the
scenes. I wanted to see what you all thought of it. Howard</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>You know that I'm a quantum skeptic. I believe that our math is
primitive. The best math we've been able to conceive to get a handle on
quantum particles is probabilistic. Which means it's cloudy. It's
filled with multiple choices. But that's the problem of our math, not of
the cosmos. With more precise math I think we could make more precise
predictions.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>And with far more flexible math, we could model large-scale things like
bio-molecules, big ones, genomes, proteins and their interactions. With
a really robust and mature math we could model thought and brains. But
that math is many centuries and many perceptual breakthroughs away.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>As mathematicians, we are still in the early stone age.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>But what I've said above has a kink I've hidden from view. It
implies that there's a math that would model the cosmos in a totally
deterministic way. And life is not deterministic. We DO have free
will. Free will means multiple choices, doesn't it? And multiple
choices are what the Copenhagen School's probabilistic equations are all
about?</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>How could the concept of free will be right and the assumptions behind
the equations of Quantum Mechanics be wrong? Good question. Yet
I'm certain that we do have free will. And I'm certain that our current
quantum concepts are based on the primitive metaphors underlying our existing
forms of math. Which means there are other metaphors ahead of us that
will make for a more robust math and that will square free will with
determinism in some radically new way.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Now the question is, what could those new metaphors be?</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Howard</DIV></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT lang=0 face=Arial size=2 PTSIZE="10"
FAMILY="SANSSERIF">----------<BR>Howard Bloom<BR>Author of The Lucifer
Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of History and Global
Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind From The Big Bang to the 21st
Century<BR>Visiting Scholar-Graduate Psychology Department, New York
University; Core Faculty Member, The Graduate
Institute<BR>www.howardbloom.net<BR>www.bigbangtango.net<BR>Founder:
International Paleopsychology Project; founding board member: Epic of
Evolution Society; founding board member, The Darwin Project; founder: The Big
Bang Tango Media Lab; member: New York Academy of Sciences, American
Association for the Advancement of Science, American Psychological Society,
Academy of Political Science, Human Behavior and Evolution Society,
International Society for Human Ethology; advisory board member:
Youthactivism.org; executive editor -- New Paradigm book series.<BR>For
information on The International Paleopsychology Project, see:
www.paleopsych.org<BR>for two chapters from <BR>The Lucifer Principle: A
Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of History, see
www.howardbloom.net/lucifer<BR>For information on Global Brain: The Evolution
of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century, see
www.howardbloom.net<BR></FONT></DIV></FONT>
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