Human agency...

[Bucky]

As if we had not discussed this ad nauseam... I apologize for possibly repeating things that have already been said.

When I hear neuroscientist claiming that there is no such thing as so called "free will" (let's call it something else... human agency?) I am always terribly perplexed.

See this quote:

Moments of insight are detectable with an EEG up to 8 seconds before a person is consciously aware of it. These are moments when the brain comes to realisations and new conclusions when trying to solve an abstract problem. Conscious volition seems to sit on top of this process, accepting it, but not in itself facilitating deep thought processes.​

(source)

Leaving aside that I doubt we already know how realisations or conclusions about abstract problems look like in the brain (!!) ... The above statement is self-defeating ( no mercy for you, poor beaten, dead horse :) )

If we grant the above quote all our efforts to conduct our thought processes go out the window and we become mere spectators of the unfolding of our brain chemistry.

Which in turn results in us being utterly unable to say anything about the world that really makes any sense, as our mental faculties have no intention or agency. We don't steer the wheel, the wheel steers us. 100% of the times.

Fortunately even materialists such as John Searle has the intellectual honesty to concede that we have highly conflicting evidence ... that is, data from our experience vs a bunch of experiments done in the labs. And thus it is ridiculous to jump to conclusions.

By the way even the oft-cited Libet experiment has its own problems: it takes in consideration very minimal aspects of conscious decisions and it suggests that conscious intention manifests as a single event... but this is far from settled:

Most current interpretations of the research inspired by Libet assume that unconscious neural decision processes build up until they cross a threshold which then enables the instantaneous appearance of a full-blown conscious intention (Soon et al., 2008; Fried et al., 2011). However, this instantaneous appearance of conscious intentions might be an artifact of the method used for assessing the contents of consciousness. Studies using alternatives to the Libet clock have suggested that intention consciousness is a multistage process just as the neural mechanisms of motor decisions​

(source)
Heck, there isn't even a decent consensus in how the phsycal correlations work!

I have no idea why well educated scientists and thinkers would make such an extraordinarily unwarranted jump taking Libet's test and generalizing it to such absolute terms... well, unless it's just metaphysical propaganda. That would pretty much explain it, but it's pretty sad.

It is one thing to be immersed in the materialistic metaphysics of these times and go along with the tide, even in that case there would be little grounds to claim the absolute inexistence of human agency.

Time to go back to whatever my neurons command ... I salute you, my synaptic overlords! :D

ETA: fixed a helluva typos

 

[Bucky]

This is exactly the kind of BS I am talking about:

And this is John Searle's take:

cheers

 

[Max_B]

As if we had not discussed this ad nauseam... I apologize for possibly repeating things that have already been said.

When I hear neuroscientist claiming that there is no such thing as so called "free will" (let's call it something else... human agency?) I am always terribly perplexed.

See this quote:

Moments of insight are detectable with an EEG up to 8 seconds before a person is consciously aware of it. These are moments when the brain comes to realisations and new conclusions when trying to solve an abstract problem. Conscious volition seems to sit on top of this process, accepting it, but not in itself facilitating deep thought processes.​

(source)

Leaving aside that I doubt we already know how realisations or conclusions about abstract problems look like in the brain (!!) ... The above statement is self-defeating ( no mercy for you, poor beaten, dead horse :) )

If we grant the above quote all our efforts to conduct our thought processes go out the window and we become mere spectators of the unfolding of our brain chemistry.

Which in turn results in us being utterly unable to say anything about the world that really makes any sense, as our mental faculties have no intention or agency. We don't steer the wheel, the wheel steers us. 100% of the times.

Fortunately even materialists such as John Searle has the intellectual honesty to concede that we have highly conflicting evidence ... that is, data from our experience vs a bunch of experiments done in the labs. And thus it is ridiculous to jump to conclusions.

By the way even the oft-cited Libet experiment has its own problems: it takes in consideration very minimal aspects of conscious decisions and it suggests that conscious intention manifests as a single event... but this is far from settled:

Most current interpretations of the research inspired by Libet assume that unconscious neural decision processes build up until they cross a threshold which then enables the instantaneous appearance of a full-blown conscious intention (Soon et al., 2008; Fried et al., 2011). However, this instantaneous appearance of conscious intentions might be an artifact of the method used for assessing the contents of consciousness. Studies using alternatives to the Libet clock have suggested that intention consciousness is a multistage process just as the neural mechanisms of motor decisions​

(source)
Heck, there isn't even a decent consensus in how the phsycal correlations work!

I have no idea why well educated scientists and thinkers would make such an extraordinarily unwarranted jump taking Libet's test and generalizing it to such absolute terms... well, unless it's just metaphysical propaganda. That would pretty much explain it, but it's pretty sad.

It is one thing to be immersed in the materialistic metaphysics of these times and go along with the tide, even in that case there would be little grounds to claim the absolute inexistence of human agency.

Time to go back to whatever my neurons command ... I salute you, my synaptic overlords! :D

ETA: fixed a helluva typos

Libet's famous paper is generally misused to provide support for ideas, that it actually doesn't provide any support for. If you've ever had to use the second hand hitting 12 on a watch to start a race, you quickly realise how silly are the conclusions often drawn about Libert's paper.

As soon as you test using any periodic, and/or repetitive activity, we're bound to see some anticipation building up in the brain based on past periodicity.

Novel sensory data experiments show Information breaking into concious awareness quicker, when it's unexpected. Therefore expected (not new etc) information should break into awareness more slowly.

That goes along with 'learning' being a key reason to do with why we have any experience at all.

As you say, these experiments certainly don't tell us what some researchers think they tell us...

 

[Sciborg_S_Patel]

Yeah even Dennet, who thinks everything is deterministic (not sure what he thinks about QM), notes Libet's experiments don't tell us anything one way or the other about free will. I believe Massimo, another free will skeptic, has made the same critiques.

Of course these guys accept compatibilism which is nonsense. Their idea that reality is indeterministic or deterministic isn't actually able to explain reality:

One would lean toward indeterminism because of the empirical realities of quantum mechanics.

One would lean toward determinism because of the seemingly logical ground that whatever happens has to happen for a reason.

Until someone manages to find a definitive deterministic theory for QM (assuming such is possible) we can accept that it is indeterministic while allowing for the possibility that it isn't necessarily random (happening for no reason at all).

Yet if we look at determinism at some point - whether at the level of atoms, sub-atomic particles, quantum foam, etc - things have to happen just because or because of natural laws.

But natural laws are dualistic, and also just a stop gap. So the determinist, committed to the idea that things happen for a reason, ends up having to accept that at some level of reality some things happen one way rather than another for no reason at all. But that's indeterminism!

Thus for the regularity we see in this reality an inner cause, a "telos", is necessary. This is final causation. So free will, by which I mean the real deal, works out perfectly well and follows from Aristotle's notion of final causation.

A more in depth take, where consciousness is the carrier of causation, can be found here.

 

[Hurmanetar]

As if we had not discussed this ad nauseam... I apologize for possibly repeating things that have already been said.

When I hear neuroscientist claiming that there is no such thing as so called "free will" (let's call it something else... human agency?) I am always terribly perplexed.

See this quote:

Moments of insight are detectable with an EEG up to 8 seconds before a person is consciously aware of it. These are moments when the brain comes to realisations and new conclusions when trying to solve an abstract problem. Conscious volition seems to sit on top of this process, accepting it, but not in itself facilitating deep thought processes.​

(source)

Leaving aside that I doubt we already know how realisations or conclusions about abstract problems look like in the brain (!!) ... The above statement is self-defeating ( no mercy for you, poor beaten, dead horse :) )

If we grant the above quote all our efforts to conduct our thought processes go out the window and we become mere spectators of the unfolding of our brain chemistry.

Which in turn results in us being utterly unable to say anything about the world that really makes any sense, as our mental faculties have no intention or agency. We don't steer the wheel, the wheel steers us. 100% of the times.

Fortunately even materialists such as John Searle has the intellectual honesty to concede that we have highly conflicting evidence ... that is, data from our experience vs a bunch of experiments done in the labs. And thus it is ridiculous to jump to conclusions.

By the way even the oft-cited Libet experiment has its own problems: it takes in consideration very minimal aspects of conscious decisions and it suggests that conscious intention manifests as a single event... but this is far from settled:

Most current interpretations of the research inspired by Libet assume that unconscious neural decision processes build up until they cross a threshold which then enables the instantaneous appearance of a full-blown conscious intention (Soon et al., 2008; Fried et al., 2011). However, this instantaneous appearance of conscious intentions might be an artifact of the method used for assessing the contents of consciousness. Studies using alternatives to the Libet clock have suggested that intention consciousness is a multistage process just as the neural mechanisms of motor decisions​

(source)
Heck, there isn't even a decent consensus in how the phsycal correlations work!

I have no idea why well educated scientists and thinkers would make such an extraordinarily unwarranted jump taking Libet's test and generalizing it to such absolute terms... well, unless it's just metaphysical propaganda. That would pretty much explain it, but it's pretty sad.

It is one thing to be immersed in the materialistic metaphysics of these times and go along with the tide, even in that case there would be little grounds to claim the absolute inexistence of human agency.

Time to go back to whatever my neurons command ... I salute you, my synaptic overlords! :D

ETA: fixed a helluva typos

Maybe one explanation for all these studies that claim we unconsciously decide before we consciously know it could be that "now" is a bit fuzzy. I imagine normal waking consciousness as like a dirt devil swirling around the now but dipping forwards and backwards in time a bit. As one enters a decision nexus it is like entering a vortex where both decisions being true and false gradually give way to one or the other being true or false. So maybe like in pre sentiment experiments the body is reacting to the future decision

In other words, instead of free will being over turned it is linear causality that is being overturned.

 

[Sciborg_S_Patel]

Maybe one explanation for all these studies that claim we unconsciously decide before we consciously know it could be that "now" is a bit fuzzy. I imagine normal waking consciousness as like a dirt devil swirling around the now but dipping forwards and backwards in time a bit. As one enters a decision nexus it is like entering a vortex where both decisions being true and false gradually give way to one or the other being true or false. So maybe like in pre sentiment experiments the body is reacting to the future decision

In other words, instead of free will being over turned it is linear causality that is being overturned.

This is sort of the idea the Hammeroff proposes, that the living being is somewhat unmoored from the linear time the surrounding world is subjected to.

Three lines of evidence for brain backward time effects are presented. Regarding problem 3, Penrose OR (and Orch OR) invokes non-computable influences from information embedded in spacetime geometry, potentially avoiding algorithmic determinism. In summary, Orch OR can account for real-time conscious causal agency, avoiding the need for consciousness to be seen as epiphenomenal illusion. Orch OR can rescue conscious free will.

And it does seem to coincide with a Yogic conception of the subtle body:

"This bears repeating: the subtle body is not a transcendent, time-free entity. This again entails a flexibility in terms of the capacity of the subtle body to access past and future, though in a limited way, since the notion of freedom, svātantrya, entails a fundamental openness and newness always available."

-- Beyond Physicalism: Toward Reconciliation of Science and Spirituality (Kindle Locations 6837-6845). Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Kindle Edition

While I like Hammeroff's work personally I think the feeling that things must be made to fit into our current conception of physics - which doesn't even have an adequate place for the Present Moment - is overblown.

Of course as Smolin notes in Time Reborn consciousness seems to be directly linked to the idea of the present being different from future and past and thus to the reality of time. This I think is the correct thread to follow to show how free will is plausible if not the more reasonable explanation for causality itself.

 

[Bucky]

I feel like Noam Chomsky nails it pretty darn well in this brief excerpt:

Interesting the reference to Russell's "grades of certainty" which I didn't know about ( but hey, I am philosophy ignoramus :D )
Many of the self professed "critical thinkers" super stars out there could use a little Russell:

Metaphysics, or the attempt to conceive the world as a whole by means of thought, has been developed, from the first, by the union and conflict of two very different human impulses, the one urging men towards mysticism, the other urging them towards science. Some men have achieved greatness through one of these impulses alone, others through the other alone: in Hume, for example, the scientific impulse reigns quite unchecked, while in Blake a strong hostility to science co-exists with profound mystic insight. But the greatest men who have been philosophers have felt the need both of science and of mysticism: the attempt to harmonise the two was what made their life, and what always must, for all its arduous uncertainty, make philosophy, to some minds, a greater thing than either science or religion.​

More here... https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/05/13/bertrand-russell-mysticism-logic-time/

 

[Sciborg_S_Patel]

Free will discussion started getting long in the "There is no Evil?" thread, thought it might have more relevance here? ->

That is a good question. I can of course only talk about what I experienced and how I interpret these experiences. First off, I think that we are all bound to the physical laws that govern our universe and therefore our lifes. There may be further laws that we do not know, yet, but I guess we can agree that life is not pure chaos, but somehow structured. How our brain and body work is to a larger or lesser degree, depending on one's viewpoint, structured. Not like a machine, but in a certain kind of way predictable. Lots of things that neuroscientists "found" out in the past decades, I can confirm with my own experience. Like how hard it is to change for example one's desires or thoughts, because they are imbedded in our brain structure. There are pathways that get stronger the more you use them or weaker if you do not. When I take everything into account, what science and experience has taught me, I can only come to the conclusion that our choices are no real choices or better that they are very limited. I feel more like a train on a railway than a plane in the air :)

On your first point I don't think physical laws govern the universe or force it into a deterministic process. In fact I'd say there are issues with trying to explain how that would work as noted in Tablott's Do Physical Laws Make Things Happen and Vojinovic's Farewell to Determinism. I think covers the failure of law governed determinism from the philosophical and scientific perspectives - IMO anyway.

Sorry you have trouble changing your thoughts and habits, though it seems clear many people do change their behavior -at times making fundamental life changes? In fact some use this neuroplasticity as an argument against materialism - Jeffery Schwartz takes this angle IIRC - though I don't think that is necessarily the case. At least I'm still not convinced though I can see it as an avenue worth exploration.

I don't think thoughts can be accounted for by brain changes. The materialist Alex Rosenberg agrees with me but he believes this means our thoughts are illusory:

Perhaps the most profound illusion introspection foists on us is the notion that our thoughts are actually recorded anywhere in the brain at all in the form introspection reports. This has to be the profoundest illusion of all, because neuroscience has been able to show that networks of human brain cells are no more capable of representing facts about the world the way conscious introspection reports than are the neural ganglia of sea slugs! The real challenge for neuroscience is to explain how the brain stores information when it can’t do so in anything like the way introspection tells us it does—in sentences made up in a language of thought.

I prefer to take what I see as the more rational route, that our thoughts are something other/more than matter. This opens to the door to Freedom-via-Intentionality argument the neuroscientist Tallis makes in How Can I Possibly be Free?

 

[Illusion]

Free will discussion started getting long in the "There is no Evil?" thread, thought it might have more relevance here? ->

On your first point I don't think physical laws govern the universe or force it into a deterministic process. In fact I'd say there are issues with trying to explain how that would work as noted in Tablott's Do Physical Laws Make Things Happen and Vojinovic's Farewell to Determinism. I think covers the failure of law governed determinism from the philosophical and scientific perspectives - IMO anyway.

Sorry you have trouble changing your thoughts and habits, though it seems clear many people do change their behavior -at times making fundamental life changes? In fact some use this neuroplasticity as an argument against materialism - Jeffery Schwartz takes this angle IIRC - though I don't think that is necessarily the case. At least I'm still not convinced though I can see it as an avenue worth exploration.

Yes, I guess it better fits here. Didn't want to highjack the other thread :)
I wouldn't say that the laws force the universe into a determinstic process, but they give it a certain kind of structure, as I wrote previously, so it is no complete chaos. I have never experienced anything in my everyday life that came totally out of the blue or wasn't explainable by physical laws. What I want to say is that I still believe, even in a indeterministic universe, that the future builds on the past in a profound way and that therefore our decisions are never isolated, always influenced by something, especially from things we are not aware of consciously. There have been experiements that confirm this: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3150863/
It is the first webpage I found. I watched a documentary in German, but I hope the page conveys what I mean :)

It is of course possible to change your thoughts and habits, but it is often not a dynamical process, but a longterm endeavour, where you constantly have to work on it. Especially with habits that you followed for years or even decades, like e.g. smoking (I never smoked though). But also with thoughts, if you think more positively or more negatively. If you want to change that, you have to put energy into it. It won't change in a mere day.

I don't think thoughts can be accounted for by brain changes. The materialist Alex Rosenberg agrees with me but he believes this means our thoughts are illusory:

I prefer to take what I see as the more rational route, that our thoughts are something other/more than matter. This opens to the door to Freedom-via-Intentionality argument the neuroscientist Tallis makes in How Can I Possibly be Free?

I strongly believe that our thoughts have an influence on our brain structure. Isn't learning also done via thoughts? And the more we deal with the stuff we have to learn, the better we remember it. The more and longer we think about a complex topic, the better we are able to comprehend it.

Thanks again for all the links, I haven't even finished Tallis article, yet...

 

[Sciborg_S_Patel]

Yes, I guess it better fits here. Didn't want to highjack the other thread :)
I wouldn't say that the laws force the universe into a determinstic process, but they give it a certain kind of structure, as I wrote previously, so it is no complete chaos. I have never experienced anything in my everyday life that came totally out of the blue or wasn't explainable by physical laws. What I want to say is that I still believe, even in a indeterministic universe, that the future builds on the past in a profound way and that therefore our decisions are never isolated, always influenced by something, especially from things we are not aware of consciously. There have been experiements that confirm this: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3150863/
It is the first webpage I found. I watched a documentary in German, but I hope the page conveys what I mean :)

It is of course possible to change your thoughts and habits, but it is often not a dynamical process, but a longterm endeavour, where you constantly have to work on it. Especially with habits that you followed for years or even decades, like e.g. smoking (I never smoked though). But also with thoughts, if you think more positively or more negatively. If you want to change that, you have to put energy into it. It won't change in a mere day.


I strongly believe that our thoughts have an influence on our brain structure. Isn't learning also done via thoughts? And the more we deal with the stuff we have to learn, the better we remember it. The more and longer we think about a complex topic, the better we are able to comprehend it.

Thanks again for all the links, I haven't even finished with Tallis arcticle, yet...

I think the question is what explains the laws? Why do we think there are laws at all - because we observe regularities that somehow arise and maintain themselves despite the chaotic, paradoxical quantum foam from which they arise? So we don't find laws, we extrapolate them from our observation even though we don't know why reality at the classical level isn't as bizarre as reality at the quantum level.

I don't disagree that there are myriad influences - like temperature - on our behavior, that it is conditioned in many ways. Yet I've found that I can repeatedly adjust my behavior via application of will assisted by reason.

I get there are at least three levels to the question ->

1) Is free will possible in any reality for any conscious entities?

2) Do we live in one of those realities?

3) Even if we live in a reality where free will is possible, is it plausible given our make up that humans have it?

I think the answer to all three questions is "Yes", if we define freedom as Sartre does -> "Freedom is what you do with what has been done to you."

 

[malf]

If this thread doesn't get Paul out of retirement, nothing will...

 

[malf]

Yet I've found that I can repeatedly adjust my behavior via application of will assisted by reason.

Isn't the point that "you" might be the least qualified person to assess this. Even the adjustments you make are possibly (almost certainly?) still related to the sheer mass of prior experiences and inputs you've had.

 

[Sciborg_S_Patel]

Isn't the point that "you" might be the least qualified person to assess this. Even the adjustments you make are possibly (almost certainly?) still related to the sheer mass of prior experiences and inputs you've had.

Who would be more qualified?

Prior inputs are no doubt related, but as per my first post in this thread seems to me the determination of relevant inputs is still insufficient to explain any event let alone willed ones?

It would be terrible if prior experience wasn't related to present decision making, as then our actions would be just be random and we'd be insane.

 

[malf]

Who would be more qualified?

This is the key point of difference between "proponents" and "non-proponents", isn't it? The sanctity of the experience. If it "feels" like free will it must be free will. No matter how much Bernardo I read, I find that unconvincing. Is it any less likely that you are underestimating "the material"?

It would be terrible if prior experience wasn't related to present decision making, as then our actions would be just be random and we'd be Kanye West.

Fixed.

 

[Sciborg_S_Patel]

This is the key point of difference between "proponents" and "non-proponents", isn't it? The sanctity of the experience. If it "feels" like free will it must be free will. No matter how much Bernardo I read, I find that unconvincing. Is it any less likely that you are underestimating "the material"?

Fixed.

Hmmmm last I checked Bernardo doesn't believe in free will, at least not the kind we're talking about here.

I don't think the feeling of freedom is proof of free-will. I just think arguments that attempt to show free will is impossible rest on assumptions that, when examined, are themselves if not incoherent inadequate to explain what we know about reality.

And Kanye isn't random - seems pretty consistent to me:

 

[malf]

I don't think the feeling of freedom is proof of free-will. I just think arguments that attempt to show free will is impossible rest on assumptions that, when examined, are themselves if not incoherent inadequate to explain what we know about reality.]

I think it can be argued that the arguments in favour of free well are (at least) equally burdened with similar assumptions.

 

[malf]

Hmmmm last I checked Bernardo doesn't believe in free will, at least not the kind we're talking about here.

Bernardo will bend over backwards to leave the door open to anything (as I think we saw with his recent interview with Alex).

On freewill:
http://www.bernardokastrup.com/2014/05/freewill-explained.html

 

[Sciborg_S_Patel]

I think it can be argued that the arguments in favour of free well are (at least) equally burdened with similar assumptions.

I'd be curious to read this argument as it seems to me an insistence that it's impossible for causal power to reside in a conscious entity leads to a variety of potential problems (depending on how one wishes to argue against free will):

- Making every chain of thoughts dependent on external factors, even though a logical chain relies on the semantic content of thoughts.

- Explaining causal regularity through Platonic laws, which raises the dualist interactionism problem and/or an infinite regression of meta-laws.

- An insistence on superdeterminism, wherein the experimenter's choice of how to examine reality is biased in such a way as to give empirical results at odds with how the universe really works.

- Either a "truest" isomorphism between thoughts and brain stuff, or the rejection of all thought as illusory.

- An insistence that time is illusory. But an illusion of change is a changing illusion, which indicates the reality of time.

On the other hand the free will proponent just needs to argue for the existence of causal power and the centering of the causal power in the individual. Depending on how one argues the universe works this can possibly even be done in a non-mechanistic materialism.

 

[malf]

I'd be curious to read this argument as it seems to me an insistence that it's impossible for causal power to reside in a conscious entity leads to a variety of potential problems (depending on how one wishes to argue against free will):

I'm just walking out the door but this I don't see why this is a problem:

- Making every chain of thoughts dependent on external factors, even though a logical chain relies on the semantic content of thoughts.

But I wonder if you are loading the word "semantic" with some of those assumptions I was talking about ;)

Also:

An insistence on superdeterminism, wherein the experimenter's choice of how to examine reality is biased in such a way as to give empirical results at odds with how the universe really works.

C'mon any theory that neatly explains "spooky action at a distance" needs to be cut some slack... I don't understand what you mean by, "the experimenter's choice of how to examine reality is biased in such a way as to give empirical results at odds with how the universe really works."

 

[Sciborg_S_Patel]

I'm just walking out the door but this I don't see why this is a problem:

But I wonder if you are loading the word "semantic" with some of those assumptions I was talking about ;)

Also:

C'mon any theory that neatly explains "spooky action at a distance" needs to be cut some slack... I don't understand what you mean by, "the experimenter's choice of how to examine reality is biased in such a way as to give empirical results at odds with how the universe really works."

The issue with determinism being responsible for all mental processes is that there need not be any genuine ground for reason. You have a thought about X, and then because of determinism you believe Y follows logically when this isn't the case at all.

As for assumptions, it seems - unless you've got specifics - this is an argument from intuition? Which would be an argument from feeling, in which case what separates belief in free will due to intuition from disbelief due to intuition?

Regarding superdeterminism I don't really think it explains anything as it just creates a kind of super conspiracy, as the physicist Vojinovic notes:

This kind of explanation, while logically allowed, is anything but reasonable, and rightly deserves the name of superconspiracy theory of the Universe. It is also a prime example of what is nowadays calledcognitive instability [12]. If we are predetermined to skew the results of our own experiments of Bell inequalities, it is reasonable to expect that other experimental results were also be skewed. This would force us to renounce experimentally obtained knowledge altogether, and to the question why to even bother to try to learn anything about Nature at all. Anton Zeilinger has phrased the same issue as follows [13]:

“[W]e always implicitly assume the freedom of the experimentalist … This fundamental assumption is essential to doing science. If this were not true, then, I suggest, it would make no sense at all to ask nature questions in an experiment, since then nature could determine what our questions are, and that could guide our questions such that we arrive at a false picture of nature.”

I think it raises the question of an Intelligent Designer, or at least Intelligent Conspirator.

Further it's not clear this would really close the door on free will as it would mainly effect those quantum consciousness theories relying on quantum effects. That said while at least some metaphysical arguments don't require quantum indeterminism its existence does make any argument against determinism more compelling.