I just found this your post in my email, and the mention of "free will" caught my interest as it can dissimulate in such curious ways. Coming from a phenomenological background, I'm sensing the thinking in your paper is very deeply based on von Bertalanffy's General System theory, which is derivative of theoretical Thermodynamics and — as such — is a particular type of temporality characterized as synchronic. It also appears you’re further delimiting temporality as the notorious "arrow of time,” which only moves forward with its implicit assumptions of “free will” based on definitions of an independent self. This is compared to general synchrony temporality that functions as the “infinitely, eternalized equal sign” that metaphorically can be thought of as a digital video file that can be played forwards and backward.
While I certainly don't mean to be negatively critical, I should mention this notion of "radical free will" vs. "situated freedom" articulated by the Economic Philosopher Charles A. Taylor. Particularly since I'm sensing your image of temporal Asymmetry is a negative dialectic of the diachronic existential temporality Heidegger attempted to explicate as his “care structure of comportment” in Being and Time he was deriving from Henré Bergson's “Durée” and his colleague Heisenberg articulated as the “uncertainty principle.” But, of course, Heidegger didn’t complete his masterwork as he hadn’t sufficiently thought through temporality; instead, he brought the Nietzschean shift to psychological understandings of temporality in an age of “post-truth” into sharp relief that your writing about. At least, that’s my sense reading your paper.
More to the point is that phenomenologically your notion of Temporal Asymmetry is very reminiscent of Emmanual Levinas' notions of Time and the Other that fleshes out synchronic temporality as derivative of existential diachrony — where the future is unknown and arises from what his colleague, Maurice Blanchot, articulated as the Infinite Conversation from which all notions of an independent individual with free-will are “always, already situated in” as “the there” — which both thought of as the “Impossible of the Possible.” Personally, I understand this as what Martin Burckhardt refers to as the "dividual" that must be considered within the context of the "Psychology of the Machine,” meaning the rational edifice’s digital metaphysics of Modernity.
Having "said" that, I think you're quite right in noticing how digital metaphysics simulacrums dissimulate as rational machinations without any inherent notion of value, and “as such,” always require human discrimination to give them meaning (which is not to side-step the arguments of AI's achieving sentience — just for all practical purposes, they are currently "dumb" assistive tools that extend human “creation ex nihilo.”) And that humans are always required to make choices without totally understanding the implications of their choices; more importantly humans are not “fated things” as we live in an open filigree of coherency full of possibility, which I think is what you’re articulating as Infinite Computational Medium; and that this design of coherency is a reflection of our inherent antilogy. What I think is possibly missing is understanding how the notion of an independent self is a kind of artifice reflecting the shifting from “rappresentare to representatio” in the Renaissance, which becomes the Cartesian subject/object split. As you continue investigating your question, you may want to consider how the independent individual exercising free will is always derivative of the community background from which the “dividual” sense of self arises. And, more importantly, how our continued transition into Modernity’s digitalization, as Social Media and the like, continues to bring this into sharper relief.
heideana t1_jbpu3qb wrote
Reply to I just published an article in The Journal of Mind and Behavior arguing that free will is real. Here is the PhilPapers link with free PDF. Tell me what you think. by MonteChristo0321
I just found this your post in my email, and the mention of "free will" caught my interest as it can dissimulate in such curious ways. Coming from a phenomenological background, I'm sensing the thinking in your paper is very deeply based on von Bertalanffy's General System theory, which is derivative of theoretical Thermodynamics and — as such — is a particular type of temporality characterized as synchronic. It also appears you’re further delimiting temporality as the notorious "arrow of time,” which only moves forward with its implicit assumptions of “free will” based on definitions of an independent self. This is compared to general synchrony temporality that functions as the “infinitely, eternalized equal sign” that metaphorically can be thought of as a digital video file that can be played forwards and backward.
While I certainly don't mean to be negatively critical, I should mention this notion of "radical free will" vs. "situated freedom" articulated by the Economic Philosopher Charles A. Taylor. Particularly since I'm sensing your image of temporal Asymmetry is a negative dialectic of the diachronic existential temporality Heidegger attempted to explicate as his “care structure of comportment” in Being and Time he was deriving from Henré Bergson's “Durée” and his colleague Heisenberg articulated as the “uncertainty principle.” But, of course, Heidegger didn’t complete his masterwork as he hadn’t sufficiently thought through temporality; instead, he brought the Nietzschean shift to psychological understandings of temporality in an age of “post-truth” into sharp relief that your writing about. At least, that’s my sense reading your paper.
More to the point is that phenomenologically your notion of Temporal Asymmetry is very reminiscent of Emmanual Levinas' notions of Time and the Other that fleshes out synchronic temporality as derivative of existential diachrony — where the future is unknown and arises from what his colleague, Maurice Blanchot, articulated as the Infinite Conversation from which all notions of an independent individual with free-will are “always, already situated in” as “the there” — which both thought of as the “Impossible of the Possible.” Personally, I understand this as what Martin Burckhardt refers to as the "dividual" that must be considered within the context of the "Psychology of the Machine,” meaning the rational edifice’s digital metaphysics of Modernity.
Having "said" that, I think you're quite right in noticing how digital metaphysics simulacrums dissimulate as rational machinations without any inherent notion of value, and “as such,” always require human discrimination to give them meaning (which is not to side-step the arguments of AI's achieving sentience — just for all practical purposes, they are currently "dumb" assistive tools that extend human “creation ex nihilo.”) And that humans are always required to make choices without totally understanding the implications of their choices; more importantly humans are not “fated things” as we live in an open filigree of coherency full of possibility, which I think is what you’re articulating as Infinite Computational Medium; and that this design of coherency is a reflection of our inherent antilogy. What I think is possibly missing is understanding how the notion of an independent self is a kind of artifice reflecting the shifting from “rappresentare to representatio” in the Renaissance, which becomes the Cartesian subject/object split. As you continue investigating your question, you may want to consider how the independent individual exercising free will is always derivative of the community background from which the “dividual” sense of self arises. And, more importantly, how our continued transition into Modernity’s digitalization, as Social Media and the like, continues to bring this into sharper relief.