Giulio Tononi - Integrated Information Theory and Its Implications for Free Will

That last question summed it up: sure, Tononi's work is essential; but it's about the contents of consciousness, more than about consciousness per se.

I feel like Im in one of the rooms in the classic and astoundingly forward thinking short story The Machine Stops. Just had to stop right at the beginning to say that. Please continue I cant wait....

This is actually not unlike Leibniz’s monadology in many ways. Also, I think the necessary indeterminism is the key to the freedom here, as it must be in any (true) theory of freedom.

In YouTube suggestion. Full week now. Must watch. Can not resist.

amazing video :) loved it

I Must be able to envision multiple courses of action. I must be able to choose based on reasons I must be able to decide and intend and action I must be able to cause, control and execute… Besides the use of the word “control”, I think this is a fine compatibilist definition of free Will.

Awesome!!!

he is a genius

Not sure if this is explained in a more in-depth review of the material, however, I don't see how free will is afforded to an observer simply because they have processes like evaluating options, choosing an option, etc. This is just a physical surveyance of the network of weights in a neural network. A neural network has millions of options it "surveys", however, the act of choice is the one with the highest weights associated with the objective outcome. Similarly, a person will not choose any options they believe are exactly opposite its goals, unless it is under malfunction (mental illness, etc). The choices you COULD make are an illusion because you won't make most of them. Similarly, a quantum experiment says that many outcomes are possible, however, only one happens upon measurement. The fact that we are aware of our possibility spaces (the choices) is simply the ability to survey the weights along the way. If we were more primitive beings, decisions would still occur under the same mechanisms, we would just lack the symantic formalism to discuss them and "watch" the ideations along the way. This is very well backed up by the fact that there are studies that show that you can know relatively little about a person and determine which choice they are going to make or answer to a question they will give with shockingly high accuracy.

Thanks for the presentation. =)

Hey, what are the 4 basic theoretical vantage points mentioned (unclearly) in the intro? Anyone? Thanks so much!

Almost nobody denies the subjective phenomenology of free will (but listen to Sam Harris!). Translating experience into physics like Tononi does in this talk (and like IIT does in general for subjective experience) does by no means prove (libertarian) free will. Phycis does just not allow any physical change (movement, reaction etc.) outside of the laws of nature. If it comes to physical changes (of course, including behavior) the phenomenon is in principle completely explainable by the four known "powers" (weak, strong nuclear power, electromagnetic power, gravity/mass) just leaving neither need nor space for proper psychological causes. I totally agree that there must be some physical (neural) processes that share fundamental properties with subjective experience (to be identical or the "inside" and "outside" of the same "thing") but these physical entities will strictly follow the laws of nature. Subjective experience thus is an epiphenomenon of these physical structures with no causal power on its own; the "inside" only eventually participates in the causal power of the underlying physical process/structure, the "outside".

Indubitably.

‘Thought’, ‘mind’, ‘intelligence’ & ‘consciousness’ are all information-related phenomena and it is not difficult to show that one of the principal (& completely inexcusable) reasons why we have not so far come to any good & proper - nor fully verifiable - understanding of these otherwise greatly sought-after yet still highly mysterious phenomena is due in great part to the simple fact that we do not presently also have a good & proper - that is, we do not presently also have a clear & fully verifiable - understanding/science of ‘information’  itself. Although I have personally had the (altogether dubious) fortune of having been able to figure out ‘information’s’ correct (& fully verifiable) ontological identity, and although I’m not going to divulge its formalistic definition here in this YouTube comment (without which formalistic definition it is not possible to establish a full & accurate science of the phenomenon, but with it it is) nevertheless I can assure you that with it in hand - that is, with ‘information’s’ correct ontological identity within one’s investigative arsenal - the exercise of determining the ontological identities of all of the other directly information-related phenomena such as ‘thought’, ‘mind’, ‘intelligence’ & ‘consciousness’ (to far less than exhaust the list) becomes one of no great difficulty. Obversely, once ‘information’s’ correct (verifiably correct) ontological identity is properly recognised, not only do the correct ontological identities of all of its most closely related cousins (as above) become nicely elucidated, but so also does the woeful incorrectness - the hopeless & excruciatingly embarrassing incorrectness - of all of information’s current imposters, along with ‘consciousness’s’ own struggling wanna-bees too. So much so that it becomes fully & quite verifiably obvious that (i) digits are not information, that (ii) thinking is not a computable phenomenon, & (iii) that computers do not because they cannot, think. Let alone do so either intelligently or consciously. Even less so with full cognitive self-conscious awareness. And (iv) our own nature-built, real live flesh & blood, internal thinking machine is not a computer. Although it pertains to millions & millions of different things - things which we ourselves call colour, sound, taste, odour, texture, temperature, balance, love, hate, joy, happiness, the feeling of the need to micturate & defecate, vomit, sneeze, cough, choke etc, etc, etc in its generic form ‘information’ turns out to be a completely knowable, identifiable, measurable, quantifiable phenomenon & it is also simple. And our universe is chockablock full of it. It’s also something staring at you right in your face. Hiding in plain sight. Knowing information’s correct ontological identity allows any kind & amount of it to be both identified, & to be traced & tracked if moving (that is, if being transported by some one or another fast moving medium such as light) when- & wherever any of it resides & moves during transportation, here in our universe, including any of it being operated on inside our own internal, nature-given, flesh & blood thinking machine. Performing this identifying//tracing-&-tracking exercise on any of the information that eventually makes it into our own conscious awareness is not only a fully doable task, but it is the one which readily highlights the exact ontological identity of all of our mental phenomena - including ‘thought’, ‘mind’, ‘intelligence’ & ‘consciousness’. ((Seeking a sponsor !))

The theorems of Integrated Information prove that Consciousness exists, but (going back to Aristotle and the Neo-Platonists), say nothing about Consciousness "In-Itself" as a substrate in the non dual sense. Bu no problem. we can directly experience Pure Consciousness (Sat-Chit-Ananda) when the mind is transcended in the state of Samadhi. Access "Mahamritunjaya mantra - Sacred Sounds Choir" and listen to it for 5 min per day for at least two weeks. Dive and merge into Pure Consciousness.

I am happy. Von Neumann architecture is outdated so state of the art computers have consciousness.

Big thanks Guilio. IIT proves brain determinism is a fallacy and therefore I hope this will bring relevant adjustments to social behavior contraining ongoing initiatives. Thanks GOD for all the hidden gifts you granted to humans, brain is only one among many.

❤❤❤❤❤

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As a lay man this helps me understand free will by linking it to consciousness. for me consciousness is a manifestation of my soul where where true freedom resides and my will can be linked to that true freedom in its ultimate expression.