tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post8536112483772735961..comments2024-03-27T20:37:09.185-05:00Comments on Alexander Pruss's Blog: Prediction of choicesAlexander R Prusshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05989277655934827117noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-68303158065036878262008-04-16T07:54:00.000-05:002008-04-16T07:54:00.000-05:00Vlastimil:You may be right. But then I will make ...Vlastimil:<BR/><BR/>You may be right. But then I will make a different move: it seems to me that these kinds of button-press cases are ones we would hardly call "decisions". There are, as far as I know, no significant consequences. They feel more like a mental coin-flip. The phenomenology, for me, is that the decision is as it were made by my hand. Now the 100% data would be incompatible with that, and even the 60% data is somewhat in tension.<BR/><BR/>However, I am also not sure that in a case like that we identify a conscious decision point, except in contrived circumstances where the experimenter asks us to identify it. The phenomology of such choices need not, I think, include a conscious decision point. So when we're forced to identify one, it's not a surprise that we get it wrong.Alexander R Prusshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05989277655934827117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-59269116887517642212008-04-16T02:31:00.000-05:002008-04-16T02:31:00.000-05:00Thanks, Alex.Assume for now that the scanner-predi...Thanks, Alex.<BR/><BR/>Assume for now that the scanner-predictions are right 100% of the time. I think that what is then interesting about the experiments like the one mentioned above, as I understand them, is that, *in the specific setting* of frequent choosing between few (say, two) alternatives which are trivial (say, pressing left/right button, or lifting up left/right hand), *the phenomenology suggests* that we make many decisions only a tiny interval before they are manifested (i.e., only a tiny interval before we press the button or lift up the hand). But, as the experiments suggest, the respective brain signals occur earlier (several seconds before the manifestation).<BR/><BR/>So, the phenomenology plus science plus freedom display some tension.<BR/><BR/>You claim that "on phenomenological grounds, I don't think we can identify a "time of decision"." <BR/>But it seems your talk about decisions in a different setting - as you wrote, about the cases when we "think and think about the question."<BR/><BR/>VlastimilAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-21707324683632307892008-04-15T09:43:00.000-05:002008-04-15T09:43:00.000-05:00Well, the phenomenology of decision making often s...Well, the phenomenology of decision making often seems something like this. You think and think about the question. Then eventually you realize: "Hey, I've come to a decision." This realization seems to come after a decision. In fact, sometimes the thought is: "I've known for a long time that I was going to do this." (Whether that's literally knowledge or not is a different question.) So on phenomenological grounds, I don't think we can identify a "time of decision".<BR/><BR/>If the subjects in the experiment were identifying the "time of decision" with the time of the realization that they have decided, then of course that would come after the actual decision.<BR/><BR/>It seems to be a part of ordinary experience that sometimes we have already made a decision, but do not know that we have done so.Alexander R Prusshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05989277655934827117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-45901368580755783972008-04-15T08:35:00.000-05:002008-04-15T08:35:00.000-05:00Alex,What if the scanner was right 100% of the tim...Alex,<BR/><BR/>What if the scanner was right 100% of the time, so that we would have (2') Unconscious factors a significant amount of time before the conscious decision deterministically affect the likelihood that we will consciously make one decision rather than another?<BR/><BR/>Could we then, in our reply, say something other than that the awareness of the decision is plausibly later than the decision?<BR/><BR/>VlastimilAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com