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J
1.2kHere’s a little mind/body puzzle that occurred to me recently.
I’m one of those people who sometimes kicks during sleep (much to the dismay of my wife). This kicking is almost always accompanied by a dream in which I’m also kicking – my Kung Fu skills in the dreamworld are amazing!
The standard sleep-disorder explanation of this involves a loss of the normal inhibitions on bodily movement that allow us to dream safely, without acting out everything in the dream. Leaving aside many details about this explanation, I want to point out that, in every version of it I’ve read, the assumption is that a dream about kicking causes the body to kick. Or, if we’re not happy with mental events causing anything, we can say that the kicking supervenes on the dream – there would be no physical kicking without the mental dream-kicking.
Now consider a much more familiar nocturnal experience. We all know what it’s like to have a full bladder during the night, and then to begin a dream that in some way involves urination. Here, it is surely the case that the causal (or supervenience) relation is reversed: My full bladder (a physical event) leads to my dream involving urination. To suppose otherwise – to posit that by chance I’m having a dream involving urination and therefore my bladder fills, or I feel it to be full – is unlikely to the point of absurdity.
But why couldn’t the kicking phenomenon be like the full-bladder phenomenon? Do we in fact know that the dream precedes, or grounds, the kicking? Might it not be the case that my legs kick for some independent, strictly neurological reason, which then causes me to dream about kicking, in the same way that a full bladder causes me to dream about urination?
I’ve been using “cause” and “supervene” (or “ground”) to describe the same relation, but now let’s discriminate it. We have three possibilities:
1. Dream X is caused by physical event Y. (the full-bladder explanation)
2. Physical event Y is caused by dream X. (the kicking explanation)
3. Neither dream X nor event Y can be said to cause the other. The relation between X and Y is not a causal one, but rather one of supervenience or grounding.
As is now apparent, this is a little microcosm of the whole mental-causation problem. But I offer it because it’s curiously amenable to analysis, and makes me wonder whether any sleep researchers have actually used brain scans to look into this. -
fdrake
7kAs is now apparent, this is a little microcosm of the whole mental-causation problem. But I offer it because it’s curiously amenable to analysis, and makes me wonder whether any sleep researchers have actually used brain scans to look into this. — J
Nice post. I want to add 4. to that list:
4. Neither dream X nor event Y can be said to cause the other. The relation between X and Y is not a causal one, but one in which they supervene on or are grounded in some further Z.
As in the kick and the dream are two aspects of the same broader state, rather than a relation between mind and idea. They don't need to be reactions to each other. They can be part of the same action done by the body. -
Christoffer
2.3k
If dreaming is the result of our predictive coding being cut off from sense information and instead relies on virtual sense simulations to form consistent experiences of dream sequences, that forms the experience we have in dreams. But if the body have problems subduing the normal predictive coding behavior, getting actual sense data, I would assume that there becomes a point of confused state between the two; you have both simulated senses grounding the generated experience of reality, as well as actual senses coming through from your body in bed.
Maybe this has to do with how the different regions of the brain controls the body. That the region for motor control and the region for bladder control doesn't function on the same principles and therefore when the brain is scrambled between two states of sense data and tries to predict behavior and actions, it takes two different actions.
And you know, some people wet themselves during sleep, so maybe it's just a matter of automatic self-control that is programmed in our long term memory due to how emotional values attached to memories create stronger biases. That the emotional intensity of wetting yourself is so strong that compared to just "kicking", the bias forms two different intensities in whether or not to let the body act.
Sorry if I didn't engage with the X or Y event, but I think the science may hint at the reasons. -
J
1.2kyou have both simulated senses grounding the generated experience of reality, as well as actual senses coming through from your body in bed. — Christoffer
Yes, I guess that's another possibility -- dream and body may switch roles, mutually reinforcing the experience. At one point the bodily sensation informs the dream, then at another point the dream that unfolds influences the body. -
Christoffer
2.3kYes, I guess that's another possibility -- dream and body may switch roles, mutually reinforcing the experience. At one point the bodily sensation informs the dream, then at another point the dream that unfolds influences the body. — J
Yes, it's very interesting what happens to our conscious experience when our body are unable to regulate the chemicals that suppose to keep us sedated during sleep.
Another syndrome that happens because of this is sleep paralysis. I've suffered this experience and it is terrifying. Basically it lets dream experiences into our real world, a hallucinatory state in which I'm more in the awake state than sleeping, so the opposite of sleepwalking, being paralyzed while experiencing dream experiences forming hallucinations within the room I'm sleeping in. And since sleep also controls breathing, a state of fear doesn't register in the same way and leading to the same reactions in breathing, so you feel out of breath, which in turn led to the many artworks featuring suffocation in the state of sleep paralysis.
-
J
1.2ksleep paralysis. I've suffered this experience and it is terrifying. — Christoffer
Wow, it certainly sounds like it. -
Joshs
6k
Do we in fact know that the dream precedes, or grounds, the kicking? Might it not be the case that my legs kick for some independent, strictly neurological reason, which then causes me to dream about kicking, in the same way that a full bladder causes me to dream about urination? — J
My guess is if one kicks without volition while asleep, one’s dream will not likely incorporate the kicking into a narrative where one has chosen to kick. Instead, the dream might consist of one’s legs being manipulated by someone or some thing. This argument assumes the dream state knows the difference between passive sensory impingement and sensory feedback from intentional acts. -
J
1.2kI like this. So, just to play it out, would that mean that, in waking life, we can acknowledge both "mental-to-physical" and "physical-to-mental" stimulation, with "volition" being a key parameter? That is certainly what we want to say, in giving a standard account of what it's like to experience things: Sometimes we get the idea to do a thing, and lo, it is done, while at other times the thing is done (to us, in the case of a leg moving involuntarily), and lo, we construct the image or idea of it. In very loose talk: either the idea or the event can cause the other, depending on volition.
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T Clark
14.3k
Strikes me that the mechanisms and processes of dreaming are not a suitable subject for philosophical speculation. As you have hinted, the answers to your questions can be examined empirically - there are facts of the matter.
Having said that, I have always been intrigued and amused when I watch sleeping dogs moving their legs in their sleep. I have always speculated they are dreaming of running across a field. -
unenlightened
9.5ksleep paralysis. I've suffered this experience and it is terrifying.
— Christoffer
Wow, it certainly sounds like it. — J
I was going to mention this too. My experience of sleep paralysis is that one can learn to recognise it, and to struggle less and just wait for awareness to grow and the paralysis to wear off. And this relates also to my experience of learning to stop bed-wetting, which involved, in my experience, learning that a dream of urination should be 'a wake-up call'. Once the alarm is set, the problem is solved.
All of which seems to me to favour explanation 1, but also suggests that wakefulness and sleep are not a dichotomy in the first place, but rather related, graded and complex conditions.
I can add to the phenomenology an occasional grand-mal epileptic fit, which begins with a sort of shaking or palsy noticeable in hands or eyes and the jaw, that precedes a total loss of consciousness during the fit proper, followed by a confused state that one does not remember in which one might try to get up and wander but with no memory thereof. The return of awareness is gradual and memory is absent and then vague and patchy for several hours.
This makes clear that wakefulness in the normal condition involves voluntary muscle control, presence to sensory information including proprioception, but also crucially, the activity of memory, all integrated to produce a continuing narrative of experiential flow. Whatever I do not remember in some way, hasn't happened for me, whether it be dream or reality.
That picture is so evocative! -
Metaphysician Undercover
13.6k1. Dream X is caused by physical event Y. (the full-bladder explanation)
2. Physical event Y is caused by dream X. (the kicking explanation)
3. Neither dream X nor event Y can be said to cause the other. The relation between X and Y is not a causal one, but rather one of supervenience or grounding.
As is now apparent, this is a little microcosm of the whole mental-causation problem. But I offer it because it’s curiously amenable to analysis, and makes me wonder whether any sleep researchers have actually used brain scans to look into this. — J
You could consider the case of sleep apnea. Suppose a person is asleep, and quits breathing. At the same time, that person is dreaming that they are sinking in a pool of water, and is holding their breath.
Since a person who quits breathing in one's sleep doesn't necessarily have a corresponding dream, we can conclude that the dream is not the cause of the cessation of breathing. And, it may well be the case, that the cessation of breathing triggers the dream of being under water, as the cause of that dream. However, there may be a sort of feedback relation where the dream causes the person to hold their breath, and increase the length of time that the stoppage lasts for. A feedback relation is not straightforward causation, nor is it a relation of supervenience. -
J
1.2k. A feedback relation is not straightforward causation, nor is it a relation of supervenience. — Metaphysician Undercover
Right, this connects with @Christoffer's idea, above, that the dream and the physical event may mutually stimulate each other.
Does anyone know whether there is a term for this "reciprocal causality"-type phenomenon, in either the scientific or the philosophical literature? -
J
1.2kStrikes me that the mechanisms and processes of dreaming are not a suitable subject for philosophical speculation. As you have hinted, the answers to your questions can be examined empirically - there are facts of the matter. — T Clark
There is certainly a possibility that a scientific investigation would show which comes first, the REM event (dream) or the physical event (leg-kicking). Do you think the entire mental/physical causation problem may be similarly resolved? I could imagine that happening if it is indeed causation that we're dealing with, because we could demonstrate a temporal gap between cause and effect. But if we discovered no such gap, we'd be left with the problem of how to understand the supervenience of the mental on the physical, or vice versa.
In any case, I agree with your term "speculation" -- that's all it is. And of course that dog is running! :smile: -
Hanover
13.3kThe other option (and my apologies if already mentioned) is that free will is just a post hoc justification for why we do things. Support for that theory:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001094521730062X
That is, you kicked in your dream as the result of a spasm and convinced your dream self you chose to strike your enemy in order to maintain the free will illusion we're programmed to have.
If dream states can be interpreted to be just like real life states, then we'd conclude free will is just a rationalization and not a true cause. Some do believe dreams can be used to explain real life, repeating over and over and over that life is but a dream (row row row your boat).
The potassium and magnesium of bananas are said to reduce night kicking. Worth a try, but that would of course eliminate the higher plane of perception you've achieved through essential mineral depletion. -
J
1.2kThat is, you kicked in your dream as the result of a spasm and convinced your dream self you chose to strike your enemy in order to maintain the free will illusion we're programmed to have — Hanover
Yes, that would draw the arrow of causation from physical to mental, with an interesting twist: As may happen in waking life, I came up with a rationalization that posited a mental choice. If dreams really do contain important symbols, then the symbolism of "choosing to do something" is powerful. It would reinforce my desire, in waking life, to see myself as an agent with genuine choices.
The potassium and magnesium of bananas are said to reduce night kicking. Worth a try, but that would of course eliminate the higher plane of perception you've achieved through essential mineral depletion. — Hanover
Oh yes, tried that one. Couldn't find any correlation. I would gladly keep the kicks in exchange for that higher plane of perception . . . if I can persuade my wife not to make me sleep on the couch. -
fdrake
7kreciprocal causality — J
Feedback isn't reciprocal causality. On the level of a system feedback relationships occur sequentially from one variable at time t to another variable at the next time point t+x. People will use feedback more loosely though.
But you can find reciprocal causality, the term, used in social studies. People use it the same way as cocausality, the pairing "construct and enact" you might find in enactivism, and "coconstitute". "Reciprocal dependence" also.
I know originally all of these terms meant something different, eg coconstitution isn't causal and feedback doesn't care about whether it's read in a constructionist manner, but people never gave a fuck. -
T Clark
14.3kDo you think the entire mental/physical causation problem may be similarly resolved? I could imagine that happening if it is indeed causation that we're dealing with, because we could demonstrate a temporal gap between cause and effect. But if we discovered no such gap, we'd be left with the problem of how to understand the supervenience of the mental on the physical, or vice versa. — J
I don't think there is any mental/physical causation problem that needs to be resolved. Let's not dive into a "hard problem of consciousness" discussion. -
fdrake
7kThe other option (and my apologies if already mentioned) is that free will is just a post hoc justification for why we do things. Support for that theory:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001094521730062X — Hanover
Nice. That's the flavour of account I gestured toward with my response earlier.
4. Neither dream X nor event Y can be said to cause the other. The relation between X and Y is not a causal one, but one in which they supervene on or are grounded in some further Z. — fdrake
The further Z being a functional state of the body, the choice to kick is a flavour of quale that came along with the leg kicking, neither caused the other since they were parts of the same event. -
T Clark
14.3kThe other option (and my apologies if already mentioned) is that free will is just a post hoc justification for why we do things. Support for that theory:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001094521730062X — Hanover
Other empirical studies have been performed similar to the one you linked that purport to cast doubt on free will. This is from Wikipedia.
One significant finding of modern studies is that a person's brain seems to commit to certain decisions before the person becomes aware of having made them. Researchers have found a delay of about half a second or more (discussed in sections below). With contemporary brain scanning technology, scientists in 2008 were able to predict with 60% accuracy whether subjects would press a button with their left or right hand up to 10 seconds before the subject became aware of having made that choice.[6] These and other findings have led some scientists, like Patrick Haggard, to reject some definitions of "free will". — Wikipedia - Neuroscience of free will
I find this kind of argument unconvincing. It seems that people assume that an act can't be considered free unless conscious awareness of the decision takes place before the act itself - as if the consciousness somehow pushes a button that makes the muscles move. It's that little man inside our heads again. That doesn't make sense to me. The neurological process described in the Wikipedia excerpt, some of which is conscious and some of which isn't, is the freely made choice. We're responsible for the action. It is clear that our minds do significant mental processing at a pre-conscious level.
I've said it before and I'll say it again (and again and again). The free will vs. determinism issue is one of metaphysics. There is no fact of the matter, only a perspective.
4. Neither dream X nor event Y can be said to cause the other. The relation between X and Y is not a causal one, but one in which they supervene on or are grounded in some further Z. — fdrake
I think this is plausible, but I don't think it's relevant to the situation @Hanover was describing. What you've described is relevant to any two events that may or may not have a causal relationship. -
fdrake
7kWhat you've described is relevant to any two events that may or may not have a causal relationship. — T Clark
Yeah. The account of choice where a choice is an experiential component of an action is just an instance. The action in the OP is the body's evolving state during kick, and the choice to kick is part of experiencing that evolving state. The choice and the movement are "grounded" in the action, "supervene" on it, or are otherwise inseparable parts of it.
That would hold so long as what constitutes the choice to move that leg as it was moved, in the body, is causally implicated in the leg movement and vice versa. Whether it construes choice as a spectator on what's already happened, or whether some actions count as choices and some don't based on other bodily processes.
I think the paper @Hanover linked ultimately sides against seeing choice as purely post hoc, since the experiment elicited a greater degree of intention to actions when a subtle pain signal was given to the body prior to making a choice. A bit like someone almost imperceptibly shouting "GO!" at the beginning of a race, you'll find your body moving as if on its own, even though you choose to run. "GO!" makes you experience your legs moving of their own accord as an act of your will.
I quite like that idea for horror purposes, it brings to mind a machine you can put someone in to make them experience random crap as their own choice. -
Hanover
13.3k
I've been searching for papers for the finding that electrical stimulation of the brain that results in involuntary movement is interpreted by the subject as resulting from free will.
The best I could find si far: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/electrical-stimulation-produces-feelings-of-free-will
In this, a subject's brain was stimulated which caused him to want to move his arm and he actually thought he moved his arm (although he did not). This would suggest the feeling of volition is simply a sensation that precedes certain activity, but not that it has special ontological status.
That is, the feeling of free will that precedes the act is just that - a feeling - and not s cause. Our attribution of the will as the cause is just our programmed interpretation.
What might challenge this interpretation of the study is whether the subject always maintained the power to stop the urge to act, but that's not apparent from this study. -
fdrake
7kThis would suggest the feeling of volition is simply a sensation that precedes certain activity, but not that it has special ontological status. — Hanover
Aye. I think it's quite clear at this point that "free will" as a concept is a theological atavism. The body's volitional processes are nothing like a soul making a decision in accordance with its essential nature. -
fdrake
7k
I just have a take.
1) Free will as a concept arose as a response to the theodicy. AFAIK this is just true. As a concept it was never meant to make sense of the human on its own terms, it was meant to make sense of our relationship with god and the world's evil.
2) Educated minds started thinking of the will as what is essentially human, roughly equating it with the action of the human soul in the world. {This is me speculating}
3) Laws use intention {mens rea} as a metric for culpability, connecting the presence of an intent to the outcome of an action. Culpability is diminished when an agent is coerced, even if the intention is present.
The way people talk about the will pretheoretically is effectively some hodgepodge of the concept in ( 3 ) - uncoerced choice - and the concept in 2 - undetermined choice, even though the concept of determination behaves like it does in ( 1 ), total causal isolation from all that is thingly, a mental uncaused cause. There is no faculty corresponding to "the will", volitional signals couple with every signal in our nervous systems, and they can be messed with experimentally. It's a fairytale, honestly.
Which isn't to say we don't have freedom of choice, or determinism is true, or whatever, it's just that the way people describe free will is a fairytale masquerading as common sense, masquerading as a model of human conduct, then partially enshrined in law. -
MoK
1.3k
That is an interesting article. I however think that the conclusion, assigning free will to neural process, is wrong. The main reason for this is that the conscious mind is absent during anesthesia. The subconscious mind is however active always. Stimulating the parietal cortex produces a pulse. This pulse then propagates to different parts of the brain depending on the exact point of the electrodes. When the subconscious mind receives a pulse coming from that center it acts accordingly and also registers the command in its memory. The person can only report the activities during anesthesia after she/he is conscious again. A conscious person however only has access to the subconscious memory therefore what he reports is not what he freely performed but only a memory that was registered in the subconscious mind during anesthesia. -
Hanover
13.3k) Free will as a concept arose as a response to the theodicy. AFAIK this is just true. As a concept it was never meant to make sense of the human on its own terms, it was meant to make sense of our relationship with god and the world's evil. — fdrake
I find this doubtful. Omnibenevolence, omniscience, and omnipotence are idiosyncratic of Western monotheistic religion. The problem of theodicy arises from that, asking how there can be evil if a perfectly good and all powerful being created it.
If you can show that societies that developed outside that tradition (e.g. rain forest, Sub-Saharan African, and Native American societies) emerged with no sense of free will, then that would be supportive of your position, but I question if that's true.
That is, if free will theory exists as the result of theodicy, why would societies that have no problems with theodicy still have free will? There are plenty of polytheistic societies that have dozens of gods, all with various flaws and weaknesses, all with I'd assume an acceptance that free will exists. -
frank
16.7k1) Free will as a concept arose as a response to the theodicy. AFAIK this is just true. As a concept it was never meant to make sense of the human on its own terms, it was meant to make sense of our relationship with god and the world's evil. — fdrake
I have a German friend who's fluent in English and Russian. She read War and Peace in each language and says it's a different book depending on the language. In German especially, she said, it sounds psychoanalytic, like we're looking at unconscious motivations which play out. In Russian, she said it sounds more like each character is propelled by external forces, and that all slavic languages are like this. What a German would speak of as personal property, a Russian says is "upon me."
Moses Finley says the Homeric epics were like Russian depictions. When a goddess showed up on the battlefield to give someone courage, Finley says Bronze Age people really believed that was how it worked. Gods made people do things. Gods invented things like fire, paper, smelting, etc, and gave them to humans..
2) Educated minds started thinking of the will as what is essentially human, roughly equating it with the action of the human soul in the world. {This is me speculating} — fdrake
Maybe as old religions died out, people lost the old explanations for things. So today we would say it's crazy that they thought a god invented paper. We know humans invented it. As we pulled all that creativity within us (as our property), the concept of the human will appeared. The last vestiges of the old way shows up in the way an artist talks about inspiration, as if it's coming from somewhere else.
There is no faculty corresponding to "the will", volitional signals couple with every signal in our nervous systems, and they can be messed with experimentally. — fdrake
All I would say is that we don't fully understand how the universe ends up being conscious of itself. There may be weirdness we don't know about.
it's just that the way people describe free will is a fairytale masquerading as common sense — fdrake
We're saying we're divine. That's Schopenhauer's point in WWR. We're identifying with the forces that move the whole universe when we take responsibility for the simplest thing. Tolstoy was a giant Schopenhauer fan, btw. -
Hanover
13.3kMy view on free will is (I think) consistent with Kant's:
"In Critique of Pure Reason, Kant had argued that although we can acknowledge the bare logical possibility that humans possess free will, that there is an immortal soul, and that there is a God, he also argued that we can never have positive knowledge of these things (see 2g above). In his ethical writings, however, Kant complicates this story. He argues that despite the theoretical impossibility of knowledge of these objects, belief in them is nevertheless a precondition for moral action (and for practical cognition generally). Accordingly, freedom, immortality, and God are “postulates of practical reason.” (The following discussion draws primarily on Critique of Practical Reason.)"
https://iep.utm.edu/kantview/
This is to say, to be able to engage in practical cognition (i.e. the ability to meaningfully reason), you must believe (i.e. accept as a given, even if not rationally or empirically supported) in free will.
This is consistent with doxatic volunteerism, the belief you can choose your beliefs. The reductio conclusion for one who disbelieves in free is that they don't believe in free will because they are determined not to. They'd be similarly forced to accept a believer believes because he must. If that's the case, we argue not to persuade or effectuate our opponents to choose our way of thinking, but because we simply must argue and bend as programmed. That is, the very concept of deliberation and consideration collapse in a determined world because the thought processes and conclusions were just another set of pool balls colliding. We don't choose option A bc it's most rational. We choose it because we're compelled.
That is, free will is required for not just moral responsibility, but for practical cognition as well (i.e. rational thought itself).
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