It was very nice chatting with you too! :wink:

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I'm relatively well aware of this. Thank you. :up: It gets even more interesting in considering that, from what we know, subterranean communication between plants seems to require their communal symbiosis with fungi species. In a very metaphorical sense, their brains are underground, and communicate via a potentially wide web connections. — javra

Cool! :wink:

I in many ways agree. I would instead state that the unconscious mind - which I construe to not always be fully unified in its agencies - is instead "aware and volition-endowed". So, in this sense, it could be stated to be in its own way conscious (here to my mind keeping things simple and not addressing the plurality of agencies that could therein occur), but we as conscious agents are yet unconscious of most of its awareness and doings. This being why I yet term it the unconscious mind: we as conscious beings are, again, typically not conscious of its awareness and doings. — javra

Correct.

I basically wanted to express that, if one allows the neurons being sentient, their own sentience is part and parcel of our living brain's total physiology, this as aspects of our living bodies. Whereas we as mind-endowed conscious beings of our own, our own sentience is not intertwined with that pertaining to individual neurons of our CNS. Rather, they do their thing within the CNS for the benefit of their own individual selves relative to their community of fellow neurons, which in turn results in certain neural-web firings within our brain, which in turn results in the most basic aspects of our own unconscious mind supervening on these neural-web firings, with these most basic aspects of our unconscious mind then in one way or another ultimately combining to form the non-manifold unity of the conscious human being. A consciousness which on occasion interacts with various aspects of its unconscious mind, such as when thinking about (questioning, judging the value of, etc.) concepts and ideas - as you've mentioned. — javra

A neuron is a living cell. Whether it is sentient and can learn things is a subject of discussion. I believe a neuron could become sentient if this provided an advantage for the organism. This is however very costly since it requires the neuron to be a complex entity. Such a neuron, not only needs more food but also a sort of training before it can function properly within the brain where all neurons are complex entities. So, let's say that you have a single neuron, let's call it X, which can perform a function, let's call it Z, learning for example. Now let's assume a collection of neurons, let's call them Y, which can do the same function as Z but each neuron is not capable of performing Z. The question is whether it is economical for the organism, to have X or Y. That is a very hard question. It is possible to find an organism that does not have many neurons and each neuron can perform Z. That however does not mean that we can generalize such an ability to neurons of other organisms that have plenty of neurons. The former organism may due to evolution gain such a capacity where such a capacity is not necessary and economical for the latter organism.

Hope that makes what I previously said clearer. — javra

Thanks for the elaboration.

I haven't claimed that amebas can act collectively. — javra

I said that for amebas to learn collectively, such as neurons, they need to interact.

Here, I was claiming that the so-called "problem of other minds" can be readily applied to the presumed sentience of amebas. This in the sense that just because it looks and sounds like a duck doesn't necessitate that it so be. Hence, just because an ameba looks and acts as thought it is sentient, were one to insist on it, one could argue that the ameba might nevertheless be perfectly insentient all the same. This as you seem to currently maintain for individual neurons. But this gets heavy into issues of epistemology and into what might constitute warranted vs. unwarranted doubts. (If it looks and sounds like a duck, it most likely is.) — javra

I agree.

No worries there. But why would allowing for neurons holding some form of sentience then disrupt this general outlook regarding the existence of options? The brain would still do what it does - this irrespective of how one explains the (human) mind-brain relationship. Or so I so far find. — javra

I agree that considering neurons to be sentient and can learn may not disrupt the function of the brain but I think that it might become very costly for the organism when a small set of simpler neurons can perform the same function, learning for example.

I understand you disagree and can find alternative explanations to a single neuron learning. One could do the same for ameba is one wants to play devil's advocate. — javra

I don't understand how in the case of Ameba they could possibly interact and learn collectively.

If you're willing, what are the "serious objections" that you have to the possibility that individual neurons can learn from experience? — javra

I try to be minimalistic all the time when I try to explain complex phenomena. The behavior of an electron is lawful and deterministic to me. The same applies to larger entities such as atoms and molecules. I try to be minimalistic even in the case of a neuron unless I face a phenomenon that cannot be explained. If I find myself in a troublesome situation where I cannot explain a phenomenon, then I try to dig from top to bottom questioning the assumption that I made trying to see where is the fault assumption. I would even question the assumption that I made for electrons as well if it is necessary.

In regards to the subject of this thread, the existence of options in a deterministic world, I found there is a simple explanation for the phenomenon once I consider a set of neurons each being a simple entity and deterministic.

Most – including in academic circled – will acknowledge that a plant is sentient (some discussing the issue of plant intelligence to boot): It, after all, can sense sunlight and gravity such that it grows its leaves toward sunlight and its roots toward gravity. But, although this sensing of environment will be relatively global to the plant, I for the life of me can’t fathom how a plant might then have a centralized awareness and agency along the lines of what animals most typically have – such that in more complex animals it becomes the conscious being. I instead envision a plant’s sentience to generally be the diffuse sum product of the interactions between its individual constituent cells, such that each cell – with its own specialized functions - holds its own (utterly miniscule) sentience as part of a cooperative we term the organism, in this case the plant. This, in some ways, in parallel to how a living sponge as organism – itself being an animal – is basically just a communal cooperation between individual eukaryotic cells which feed together via the system of openings: with no centralized awareness to speak of. This general outlook then fits with the reality that some plants have no clear boundaries as organisms – despite yet sensing, minimally, sunlight and gravity - with grass as one such example: a field of grass of the same species is typically intimately interconnected underground as one organism, yet a single blade of grass and it’s root can live just fine independently as an individual organism if dug up and planted in a new area. I thereby take the plant to be sentient, but only as a cooperative of individual sentience-endowed plant cells whose common activities result in the doings of the plant as a whole organism: doing in the form of both sensing its environment and acting upon it (albeit far slower than most any animal). I don’t so far know of a better way of explaining a plant’s sentience given all that we know about plants. — javra

I read about plant intelligence a long time ago and I was amazed. They cannot only recognize between up and down, etc. they also are capable of communicating with each other. I can find those articles and share them with you if you are interested.

Whereas in animals such as humans, the centralized awareness and agency which we term consciousness plays a relatively central role to out total mind's doings – obviously, with the unconscious aspects of our mind being not conscious to us; and with the latter in turn resulting from the structure and functioning of our physiological CNS, which itself holds different zones of activity (from which distinct agencies of the unconscious mind might emerge) and which we consider body rather than mind. — javra

To me what you call the unconscious mind (what I call the subconscious mind) is conscious. Its activity most of the time is absent from the conscious mind though. But you can tell that the subconscious mind and conscious mind are constantly working with each other when you reflect on a complex process of thoughts for example. Although that is the conscious mind which is a thinking entity, it needs a constant flow of information from what was experienced and thought in the past. This information of course registered in the subconscious mind's memory. The amount of information that is registered in the subconscious mind's memory however is huge so the subconscious mind has to be very selective in the type of information that should be passed to the conscious mind depending on the subject of focus of the conscious mind. Therefore, the subconscious mind is an intelligent entity as well. I also think that what we call intuition is due to the subconscious mind!

So once one entertains the sentience of neurons, one here thereby addresses the constituents of one's living body, rather than of one's own mind per se. — javra

I cannot follow what you are trying to say here.

Here's an article from Nature to the contrary: Neurons learn by predicting future activity. — javra

That was an interesting article to read. I however have a serious objection to whether that is a collection of neurons that learns and adopts itself or each single neuron has such a capacity. Of course, if you assume that each neuron has such a capacity and plug it into the equation then you obtain that a collection of neurons also have the same capacity but the opposite is not necessarily true. I don't think that they have access to individual neuron activity when it comes to experiments too (although they mentioned neuron activity in the discussion for Figures 4 and 5). So I stick to what I think is more correct, a collection of neurons can learn but individual neurons cannot.

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Same questions can be placed with equal validity of any individual ameba, for example. Point being, if you allow for "mind in life" as it would pertain to an ameba, there is no reason to not then allow the same for a neuron. The as of yet unknown detailed mechanism of how all this occurs in a lifeform devoid of a central nervous system being completely irrelevant to the issue at hand. — javra

I think that amoebas evolved in such a way to function as a single organism. Neurons are however different entities and they function together. Moreover, scientific evidence shows that a single amoeba can learn and remember. To my knowledge, no scientific evidence exists that a single neuron can learn or remember.

My bad then. — javra

I am sorry. But I elaborate a little on quantum mechanics in my reply to your post. I hoped that that was enough.

In other words, look at silicon-based systems rather than life-based systems in order to grasp how life-based systems operate. Not something I'm myself into. But it is your OP, after all. — javra

As I mentioned, I was interested in understanding whether a few or some neurons work together such that the system can realize the options. I think it would be extremely difficult to make such a setup by living neurons. That was why I suggested to focus on the artificial neural network.

I'll only point out that all of your reply addresses synapses - which are connections in-between neurons and not the neutrons themselves. — javra

That is a very important part when it comes to the neuroplasticity of the brain. A neuron mainly just fires when it is depolarized to a certain extent.

So none of this either rationally or empirically evidences that an individual neuron is not of itself a sentience-endowed lifeform - one that engages in autopoiesis, to include homeostasis and metabolism as an individual lifeform, just as much as an any self-sustaining organism does; one that seeks out stimulation via both dendritic and axonial growth just as much as any self-sustaining organism seeks out and requires stimulation; one which perceives stimuli via its dendrites and acts, else reacts, via its axon; etc.

As I was previously mentioning, there is no rational or empirical grounds to deny sentience to the individual neuron (or most any somatic cell for that matter - with nucleus-lacking red blood cells as a likely exception) when ascribing sentience to self-sustaining single celled organisms such as ameba. Again, the explanation you've provided for neurons not being in some manner sentient falls short in part for the reasons just mentioned: in short, synapses are not neurons, but the means via which neurons communicate. — javra

I highly doubt that a neuron has a mind. But let's assume so for the sake of the argument. In which location in a neuron is the information related to what the neuron experienced in the past stored? How could a neuron realize options? How could a group of neurons work coherently if each is free?

I deem this the crucial premise in the OP that needs to be questioned.

IFF a world of causal determinism, then sure: “neural processes are deterministic” (just as much as a Roomba). However, if the world is not one of causal determinism, then on what grounds, rational or empirical, can this affirmation be concluded? — javra

In this thread, I really didn't want to get into a debate about whether the world at the microscopic level is deterministic or not. There is one interpretation of quantum mechanics, namely the De Broglie–Bohm interpretation that is paradox-free and it is deterministic. Accepting this interpretation then it follows that a neuron also is a deterministic entity. What happens when we have a set of neurons may be different though. Could a set of neurons work together in such a way that the result of this collaboration results in the existence of options? We know by fact that this is the case in the human brain. But what about when we have a few or some neurons? To answer that, let's put the real world aside and look at artificial neural networks (ANN) for a moment. Could the ANN realize and count different objects? It seems that is the case. So options are also realizable even to the ANN while the neurons in such a system function in a purely deterministic way.

A living brain is after all living, itself composed of individual, interacting living cells, of which neurons are likely best known via empirical studies. As individual living cells, neurons too can be deemed to hold some sort of sentience – this in parallel to that sentience (else mind) that can be affirmed of single-celled eukaryotic organisms, such as ameba. — javra

An ameba is a living organism and can function on its own. A neuron, although is a living entity, its function depends on the function of other neurons. For example, the strengthening and weakening of a synapse is the result of whether the neurons that are connected by the synapse fire in synchrony or not, so-called Hebbian theory. So there is a mechanism for the behavior of a few neurons, and it seems that is the basic principle for memory, and I would say for other complex phenomena even such as thinking.

Other that personal biases, there's no rational grounds to deny sentience (mind) to one and not the other. And, outside a stringent conviction in our world being one of causal determinism, there is no reason to conclude that an ameba, for example, behaves in fully deterministic manners. Likewise then applies to the behaviors of any individual neuron. Each neuron seeks both sustenance and stimulation via its synaptic connections so as to optimally live. — javra

I would say that an ameba has a mind, can learn, etc. but I highly doubt that a single neuron has a mind and can freely decide as it seems that the functioning of a neuron is not independent of other neurons. Please see the previous comment.

It’s by now overwhelmingly evidenced that neuroplasticity in fact occurs. Such that it is more than plausible that both synaptic reinforcement and synaptic decay (as well as the creation of new synaptic connections) will occur based on the (granted, very minimal) volition of individual neurons’ attempts to best garner sustenance and stimulations so as to optimize its own individual life as a living cell. — javra

Neuroplasticity, to the best of our knowledge, is the result of neurons firing together. Please see my comment on the Hebbian theory.

To this effect, linked here is an article regarding the empirically evidenced intelligence, or else sentience, of individual cohorts of neurons grown in a petri dish which learned how to play Pong (which can be argued to require a good deal of forethought (prediction) to successfully play). — javra

That was an interesting article to read. But there are almost 800,000 cells in the DishBrain. I don't understand the relevance of this study to the behavior of one neuron and whether a neuron is not a deterministic entity.

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I think that pretty much matches the wording I gave. It works great for the Roomba too. — noAxioms

The difference between a human and a Roomba is that a human has a conscious mind that makes the decisions whereas, in the case of a Roomba, all decisions related to different situations are preprogrammed.

Your definition (OM): the available paths up for choice. There are usually hundreds of options, but in a simplified model, you come to a T intersection in a maze. [Left, right, back the way you came, just sit there, pause and make a mark] summarize most of the main categories. Going straight is not an option because there's a wall there. — noAxioms

By options, I mean things that are real and accessible to us and we can choose one or more of them depending on the situation.

OK, said hard determinist with the alternate definition OD: The possible subsequent states that lead from a given initial state. If determinism is true, there is indeed only one of those, both for the Roomba and for you. There is no distinction. — noAxioms

Sure, I disagree. This thread's whole purpose is to understand how options can exist and be real for entities such as humans with brains. I was just looking to understand how we could realize options as a result of neural processes in the brain. I did an extensive search on the internet and found many methods for object recognition. I also found a thesis that deals with a neural network that can realize the number of objects presented to it. So the existence of options is well established even in the domain of artificial neural networks.

OK. Then it's going to at some point need to make a physical effect from it's choice. If you choose to punch your wife in the face, your choice needs to at some point cause your arm to move, something that cannot happen if the subsequent state is solely a function of the prior physical state. — noAxioms

The mind can only intervene when options are available to it. Once the decision is made, it becomes an observer and follows the chain of causality until the next point where options become available again.

Fine. Work out the problem I identified just above. If you can't do that, then you haven't thought things through. Do you deny known natural law? — noAxioms

Sure, I agree with the existence of physical laws.

If not, your beliefs fail right out of the gate. — noAxioms

Not at all. The Mind is in constant charge of keeping things in motion, in this motion, the intrinsic properties of particles are preserved for example. The physical laws are manifestations of particles having certain intrinsic properties.

:100: :up:

How can a determinist deny that some physical process is determisitic? You have a reference for this denial by 'hard determinists'? — noAxioms

I wanted to say that determinists deny the existence of options rather than determinism.

Ah, so you think that this 'mind' is separate from neural processes. — noAxioms

Sure, I think that the mind is separate from neural processes. To me, physical processes in general are not possible without an entity that I call the Mind. I have two threads on this topic. In one of the threads entitled "Physical cannot be the cause of its own change" I provide two main arguments against the physicalist worldview. In another thread entitled "The Mind is the Uncaused Cause", I discuss the nature of causality as vertical rather than horizontal. So no Mind, no physical processes, no neural processes.

You should probably state assumptions of magic up front, especially when discussing how neural processes do something that you deny are done by the neural processes. — noAxioms

I am not denying the role of neural processes at all. It is due to neural processes that we can experience things all the time. The existence of options also is due to the existence of neural processes. The neural processes however cannot lead to direct experience through so-called the Hard Problem of Consciousness. So, to have a coherent view we need to include the mind as an entity that experiences. The Mind experiences and causes/creates physical whereas the mind, such as the conscious mind, experiences ideas, ideas such as the simulation of reality, generated by the subconscious mind. The conscious mind only intervenes when it is necessary, for example when there is a conflict of interests in a situation.

Or maybe the brain actually has a function after all besides just keeping the heart beating and such. — noAxioms

Sure. No brain, no neural processes, no experience in general, whether the experience is a feeling, the simulation of reality, thoughts, etc.

Tell that to Roomba or the maze runner, neither of which halts at all. — noAxioms

That is because Roomba acts based on the instruction that a human wrote it. We don't act based on a preprogrammed instruction. We are constantly faced with options, these options have different features that we have never experienced before. We normally go through a very complex process of giving weights to options. Once the process of giving weights to options is performed we are faced with two situations, either options do not have the same weight or they have the same weight. We normally choose the option that has higher weight most of the time but we can always choose otherwise. When the option has the same weight we can still decide freely choose the option we please. In both cases, that is the conscious mind that makes the final decision freely by choosing one of the options.

No, it makes a choice between them. Determinism helps with that, not hinders it. Choosing to halt is a decision as well, but rarely made. You make a lot of strawman assumptions about deterministic systems, don't you? — noAxioms

Not at all. Please see above.

The maze options are also 'mental' objects, where 'mental; is defined as the state of the information processing portion of the system. A difference in how the choice comes to be known is not a fundamental difference to the choice existing. — noAxioms

The maze options become mental objects if you think about them otherwise they are just something in your visual field.

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Right. I'm thinking this specific thing is less about working memory than what the ability to recognize numbers of randomly arranged objects is called. No? — Patterner

I think it is related. You can realize a few objects in your visual field immediately without counting. These objects are registered in your working memory. If the number of objects surpasses your the size of working memory then you cannot immediately report the number of objects and you have to count them. You might find this study interesting.

Working memory is the memory of the conscious mind which is temporary.

I would think there's a limit to this. We might recognize the number of dots on a die because of the specific arrangements that we've seen so many times. Would we do as well with five or six randomly arranged objects? Or ten or fifteen? — Patterner

I think it depends on the working memory of the person which is at most 5 to 6 items.

When can indeed perceive a set of distinct objects as falling under the concept of a number without there being the need to engage in a sequential counting procedure. Direct pattern recognition plays a role in our recognising pairs, trios, quadruples, quintuples of objects, etc., just like we recognise numbers of dots on the faces of a die without counting them each time. We perceive them as distinctive Gestalten. — Pierre-Normand

Correct. There is however a limit on the number of things that we can realize without counting. I think it is related to working memory and it is at most five to six items.

But I'm more interested in the connection that you are making between recognising objects that are actually present visually to us and the prima facie unrelated topic of facing open (not yet actual) alternatives for future actions in a deterministic world. — Pierre-Normand

I was interested in a neural network that can realize the number of objects. I found this thesis which exactly deals with the problem of realizing the number of objects that I was interested to. The author does not explain what exactly happens at the neural level when the neural network is presented with many objects and it can realize the number of objects as I think it is a complex phenomenon. I think we are dealing with the same phenomenon when we face two options in the example of the maze, left and right path. So, although the neural processes whether in our brain or an artificial neural network are deterministic they can lead to the realization of options. By options, I mean things that are real and accessible to us and we can choose one or more of them depending on the situation.

I know you're talking about mental processing of visual data, but that's far more complex than anybody here is qualified to answer, so I am instead picking statements that seem to be falsified by a simple, understandable model. — noAxioms

I found this useful thesis about counting objects by a convolutional neural network.

We were considering a fork in the path of a maze. Are they not a pair of options? — noAxioms

Sure they are.

Sure, one cannot choose to first go down both. Of the options, only one can be chosen, and once done, choosing otherwise cannot be done without some sort of retrocausality. They show this in time travel fictions where you go back to correct some choice that had unforeseen bad consequences. — noAxioms

The point is that both paths are real and accessible, as we can recognize them. However, the process of recognizing paths is deterministic. This is something that hard determinists deny. The decision is a separate topic though. I don't think that the decision results from the brain's neural process. The decision is due to the mind. That is true since any deterministic system halts when you present it with options. A deterministic system always goes from one state to another unique state. If a deterministic system reaches a situation where there are two states available for it it cannot choose between two states therefore it halts. When we are walking in a maze, our conscious mind is aware of different situations always. If there is one path available then we simply proceed. If we reach a fork we realize the options available to us, namely the left and right path. That is when the conscious mind comes into play, realizes the paths in its experience, and chooses one of the paths. The subconscious mind then becomes aware of the decision and acts accordingly.

I guess I don't know what you consider to be options. — noAxioms

By options, I mean a set of things that are real and accessible and we can choose from.

So you do grant the existence of multiple options before choosing one of them. What part of the maze example then is different than the crime example? — noAxioms

In the example of the maze, the options are presented to the person's visual fields. In the case of rubbery the options are mental objects.

I am unsure whether we first realize two objects and then distinguish/resolve them from each other upon further investigations or first distinguish/resolve them from each other and then count them and realize that there are two objects. The counting convolutional neural network works based on later.

Yes, the bibliography also lists the references which could be useful. I will go through them after I finish the thesis.

@Relativist Ok, after a long search, I found an interesting thesis that deals with a neural network that can count. I read up to chapter 3. It is late now and time to go to bed! :wink:

It seems to me you are talking about the Hard Problem of Consciousness. — Patterner

No, here I am interested in understanding how we realize objects/options in our vision fields. Please read the previous post if you are interested.

I imagine it entails pattern recognition: seeing the same image pattern against a relatively constant background. Artificial neural networks learn patterns, and they are considerably simpler that biological neural networks because they lack neuroplasticity (the growing of new neurons and synapses). — Relativist

I did an extensive search and I found many methods for object recognition. Here, you can find two main methods, namely CNN, and YOLO. Granted that objects are recognized I am interested to know methods for counting objects. I did an extensive search on the net and got lost since it seems that the literature is very very rich on this topic! The current focus of research is to find the best method for counting the very high dense number of objects where objects could overlap for example. Here is a review article that discusses the CNN method for crowd counting. I am interested in a simple neural network that can count a limited number of isolated objects though. I will continue the search and let you know if I find anything useful.

Options that are before us lead us to mentally deliberate to develop a choice. If we could wind the clock back, could we actually have made a different choice? Clearly, if determinism is true, then we could not. But if determinism is false- why think our deliberation would have led to a different outcome? The same mental factors would have been in place. — Relativist

I am not interested in discussing the decision here. I am interested in understanding how we realize two objects so swiftly. If I show you two objects, you without any counting realize that there are two objects in your vision field. The same applies when you are in a maze. You realize that there are two paths available to you without counting as well. The mechanism is completely deterministic though. Two objects, two paths in a maze, etc. we are dealing with the same topic, and although the mechanism is fully deterministic we could recognize two options. So that part of the puzzle is solved for me.

I was showing the counting of options, not objects. — noAxioms

We don't count options if a few are presented to us. We just realize the number of options right away as a result of neural processes in the brain. I am interested in understanding what is happening in the brain when we are performing such a simple task.

You are complicating a simple matter. I made no mention of the fairly complex task of interpreting a visual field. The average maze runner doesn't even have a visual field at all, but some do.
All I am doing is showing the utterly trivial task of counting options, which is a task easily performed by a determinsitic entity, answering your seeming inability to realize this when you state "So I am wondering how can deterministic processes lead to the realization of options".

The solution is to count the options (in the maze example, paths away from current location) and if there is more than one, options have been realized. If there is but one, it isn't optional. The means by which these options are counted is a needless complication that is besides the point. — noAxioms

No, you consider the existence of options granted and then offer a code that is supposed to work and counts options. Thanks, but that is not what I am looking for.

Stealing and not stealing are physical actions, not mental objects. Bearing moral responsibility for one's mental objects is a rare thing, but they did it to Jimmy Carter, about a moral person as they come. — noAxioms

I am talking about available options to a thief before committing the crime.

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I assume what you are driving at when you ponder over the ability to distinguish qualitatively similar objects in the visual field is the way in which those objects are proxies for alternative affordances for action, as your initial example of two alternative paths in a maze suggests. You may be suggesting (correct me if I'm wrong) that those two "objects" are being discriminated as signifying or indicating alternative opportunities for action and you wonder how this is possible in view of the fact that, in a deterministic universe, only one of those possibilities will be realized. Is that your worry? — Pierre-Normand

Yes. I am wondering how we can realize two objects which look the same as a result of neural processes in the brain accepting that the neural processes are deterministic.

I think @Banno and @noAxioms both proposed compatibilist responses to your worry — Pierre-Normand

@noAxioms suggests that we are counting objects. I don't think that is the case when we are presented with two objects. We immediately realize two objects as a result of neural processes in the brain. We however need to count when we are presented with many objects.

@Banno suggests that an infant's brain is pre-wired. That could be true. But that does not answer how an infant could possibly realize two objects since it does not address how the brain is pre-wired.

but maybe you have incompatibilist intuitions that make you inclined to endorse something like Frankfurt's principle of alternate possibilities. Might that be the case? — Pierre-Normand

Yes. We are morally responsible if we could do otherwise. That means that we at least have two options to choose from. The options are however mental objects, like to steal or not to steal, which are slightly harder to discuss but I think that we are dealing with the same category when we realize two objects in our visual field or when we realize two mental objects. So I think we can resolve all the discussions related to the reality of options if we can understand how the brain can distinguish two objects in its visual field first.

Not quite. That realisation is neural processes in the brain. It is not seperate from yet caused by those neural processes. — Banno

We have a slight difference here. I am a substance dualist and it seems to me that you are a physicalist. But please let's focus on the topic of the thread and put this difference in view aside.

And a babe's brain is pre-wired to recognise faces and areola. — Banno

Do you have any argument or know any study to support this claim? I am asking how an infant can distinguish between one object or two objects. I would be interested to know how an infant's brain is pre-wired then. So saying that an infant's brain is just pre-wired does not help to have a better understanding of what is happening in her/his brain when she/he realizes one object or two objects.

This is trivially illustrated with the most simple code. — noAxioms

I agree that one can write code to help a robot count the number of unmoving dots in its visual field. But I don't think a person can write code to help a robot count the number of objects or moving dots.

As for the infant process of neural development, that's an insanely complex issue that likely requires a doctorate in the right field to discuss the current view of how all that works. — noAxioms

I searched the internet to death but I didn't find anything useful.

It seems irrelevant to the topic of determinism and options. — noAxioms

It is relevant.

All the interpretations are paradox free. — noAxioms

Copenhagen interpretation for example suffers from the Schrodinger's cat paradox. It cannot explain John Wheeler's delayed choice experiment. etc. Anyway, I am not interested in going to a debate on quantum mechanics in this thread since it is off-topic. All I wanted to say is that for this thread the motion of particles in a brain is deterministic.

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We couldn't possibly reason if what we perceive was random. So, let's focus on perception. Why things that you perceive is coherent?