Minority Report

At any given time the mind has to take decisions and multiple unconscious actions are done. Our conscious mind continuously confabulates making up the illusion that it is in charge. But, who is actually in charge?

Can science tell us what is exactly the human nature? Can we reproduce that in artificial machines? Consciousness and free will have been typically evading the scientific arena. However, in the latest decades, philosophers and scientists have begun to work together in the search for a scientific explanation of the mind. In a review of Dennett’s Book, Freedom Evolves [1], by Simon Blackburn [2], it is pointed out why scientists need philosophers. Libet’s experiments show that:

[…] neural activity that begins an action starts up around a third of second before the agent’s conscious decision to act.” […]

Usually, neuroscientists have interpreted this as the illusion of being in charge. Dennett supports that this is a mistaken view. Instead, a conscious agent must be seen as a continuum, where there is no single moment of decision. The interventionist conception deduced from Libet’s experiments usually lead scientists to think that evolution and culture have created a prison for the mind. Dennett argues the contrary, as he thinks evolution and culture are the key differentiators that make us humanly able to shape responses of reason and imagine the future. In relation with the link between thought and action:
“We have the power to veto our urges and then to veto our vetoes,” he said. “We have the power of imagination, to see and imagine futures.”  

According to the neurologist Mark Hallet [3], free will doesn’t exist: “Free will does exist, but it’s a perception, not a power or a driving force. People experience free will. They have the sense they are free. The more you scrutinize it, the more you realize you don’t have it.” Then, are we just biological robots? Well, some physicists argue that free will does actually exist. Anton Zeilinger, a quantum physicist, said that quantum randomness was “not a proof, just a hint, telling us we have free will” [3].

There are two main factors why some scientists establish a link between quantum mechanics and theories of consciousness. On the one hand, it is believed that a conscious mind plays an important role in the process of quantum measurement, and any theory of consciousness should account for that. On the other hand, some authors think that classical physics cannot explain by itself the properties of mind, but it could be explained based on the special features of quantum mechanics [4]. The trick here is that conscious observation play a crucial role in quantum effects. I am not an expert on quantum mechanics, but I would say that a mere (unconscious) observation would play the same role.

Focusing now on our main concern, conscious robots, can they have free will? According to Seth Lloyd, an expert on quantum computing, there is a kind of free will that machines and us share [3]. As Kurt Gödel demonstrated, in any formal system of logic there are statements that cannot be proven either true or false. Unless you wait and see the actual outcome, I would say. For a machine, as Lloyd explains, the only way to find out is to set it computing and see what happens. So, even if the actions of the machine (or ours) are determined, we don’t know what they will be until they actually take place. This leaves room for a kind of free will for machines.

[1] Daniel Dennett. “Freedom Evolves”. Viking. 2003.
[2] Simon Blackburn. “Who’s in Charge”. American Scientist, Volume 91. 2003.
[3] Dennis Overbye. “Free Will: Now You Have It, Now You Don’t”. The New York Times. Science. January 2, 2007.
[4] Hameroff, S. R. y Penrose, R. (1996). Orchrestated reduction of quantum coherence in brain microtubules: A model for consciousness. Toward a Science of Consciousness. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

 

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Comments (6)

1  Written by This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it , on 13-07-2007 17:10 I am afraid I don’t know the details about the Libet’s experiments. According to [2], I think the scientists actually don’t know what the neural firing which causes the decision is. What they know is the neural firing that corresponds to an action, and they see this firing pattern around 300 ms before the subject has any conscious decision about the action. As I have understood it, the scientists calculate the time of conscious decision by the patient report (not by seeing it in the brain imaging). This is an excerpt from [2]:    […] the neural activity that begins an action starts up around a third of second before the agent’s conscious decision to act. Neuroscientists have frequently interpreted this as showing that decisions are somehow illusions: Consciousness is “out of the loop”. They maintain that the action is originally precipitated in some part of the brain, and off fly the signals to muscle, pausing en route to tell you, the conscious agent, what is going on (but like all good officials letting you, the bumbling president, maintain the illusion that you started it all). […]

3  Written by This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it , on 10-07-2007 16:16 The hypothesis is based on the assumption that the brain builds a false illusion of agency. Even though we tend to perceive an action as caused by a conscious – volitive – thought, it is actually the other way around. The brain produces the action unconsciously, then the illusion is produced that the action was performed because you wanted to. What the experiments demonstrate is that this is true in some cases. How do they know? Because they detect that the decision has been taken earlier than any conscious knowledge about it. What happens, according to Dennett is that a story is written to tell the self a version of what happened. And usually the brain tells the self that it is in charge. The conscious perception of time is also distorted; therefore, you cannot consciously know what was first, your conscious decision or the action.

5  Microsoft Surface Written by This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it , on 03-06-2007 12:04 Not really related with the topic of free will, but related to the kind of user interface that appears in Minority Report movie:  Microsoft Surface. http://www.microsoft.com/surface/

6  Predicting decisions from human brain ac Written by This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it , on 09-05-2007 15:47 In relation with free will, some experiments conducted on humans demonstrate that decisions are taken unconsciously some time before we are aware of them. For instance, the research projects directed by John-Dylan Haynes (BCCN Berlin) person thoughts are seen in the fMRI before the subject is aware of them [1]. Also, in relation with consciousness, the same team has demonstrated that remote areas of the brain cooperate in mediating awareness and attention.     [1] Haynes, J and Rees, G (2006).   Decoding mental states from brain activity in humans.   Nat Rev Neurosci 7(7):523-34.

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