Whats your arguement for Free Will?
Blockhead
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Determinism is roughly defined as the view that all current and future events are causally necessitated by past events combined with the laws of nature.
I believe in determinism. For those of you who believe in free will, how do you explain it or defend it? Is there a part of your brain that has the ability to freely pick between two different choices?
I believe in determinism. For those of you who believe in free will, how do you explain it or defend it? Is there a part of your brain that has the ability to freely pick between two different choices?
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there's an Ed quote for everything got to love him!
I personally can't fathom the thought that I came to this message board and looked at this particular thread and I'm typing these words not by my own choice. It's mind boggling. And if this were the case, I'd never be responsible for anything I ever did in my entire life, nor is anyone else.
I feel free. I have no substantiated argument at this time but that.
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Everyone always have the choice to do something different. It is simple to try and predict the reaction of a person after a new set of stimuli if the person trying to predict looks at how the person has reacted in the past to similar circumstances. But no one can predict with 100% certainty. We are always free to choose what path we go down. Some just never venture off their comfortable path and thus it can be said that their life was predetermined.
It is terrifying when you are too stupid to know who is dumb
- Joe Rogan
...are those who've helped us.
Right 'round the corner could be bigger than ourselves.
I will choose freewill
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That's the beauty of philosophy i guess
Accepting determinism doesn't take away anything from who we are, but helps us to understand 'why' we are. Many social problems can be solved, or at least understood through a determinist perspective (through modification of behavior rather than punishment). For a simple example (there are millions upon millions) - sleep deprivation in an individual can explain irregular changes in behavior and choice.
I have yet to hear an argument which successfully refutes determinism.
Look up Dennet on determinsm on youtube.
Typo Man: "Thanks kidz, but remembir, stay in skool!"
By advocating chaos I would like to think that I am disputing the whole notion of determinism. There are hundreds of stories and and mythology examples of people fighting the entire notion; Prometheus and Eris are good mythological examples... Markoff Chaney is a good modern-fiction example. The simple action of one person who creates chaos would then change the deterministic reality of future events.
Furthermore, quantum mechanics has disproved the whole concept of determinism, there is an infinite number of possibilities and if you believe in determinism you'd also have to believe in an infinite number of universes (alternate realities)...
But in the end, all of this is a verbal jack-off. You choose to believe in one or the other... if you choose free will that is a winner's script. If you choose determinism you're living a loser's script.
I'm always a little confused when people try to drag QM into this discussion as it has nothing to do with it.
Alright, so generaly the Uncertainty Principle is brought up in conversations like this. Despite it having not been directly named yet, that is what you are vaguely talking about. Now the issue with uncertainity is that it doesn't at all state that things on the quantum level are random, not even close. What it states is our issues with measuring such systems, nothing more. It only applies to the measurements to a system and says nothing about how the system works. So the entire thing is a failure from the very start.
However just for a minute lets pretend it really did apply the way some of you are thinking and things really did work randomly. Okay, so what? Its deterministic, its random, so? Either way you still can't control the effect so it doesn't matter. You aren't in control, its either going to happen in a specific manner (deterministic) or its just going to be some randomly drawn value. Either way its going to be doing whatever the hell it feels like doing, not what you want it to do. So it doesn't matter.
Now moving on from uncertainty there are issues with flucuations. I'll spare the details here, but there is a difference between a flucuation and uncertainty. But the issue here is that your brain is set up to avoid them anyways. The receptors, the membranes that produce the voltage gradient, the vesicles, they are all too big to be subject to them. These aren't little tiny molecules, these are big *ss proteins. They are big enough that flucuations play a minimal part in their activity. Its worth pointing out that some of them are big on purpose. As in functionaly they could be much smaller but they actually have sections added on that do nothing but make them bigger. The simple reason being that a computer thats subject to flucuations isn't all that great. You're data will be garbled part of the time, and that's just not very useful. So evolution has actually helped design parts of your brain to be large simply to get around this. It would seem that there is one way around this though, that being that many neurotransmitters are small molecules. However again your body gets around this by simply dumping millions of molecules at once, so its pretty much guaranteed that ones going to bind to the receptors.
So, QM isn't random. Even if it was random it wouldn't matter anyways. Your brain is actually set up to be as deterministic as possible so it won't screw up as often. And physics is pretty much going go cock block you at every chance on the free will issue. The only possibility you have of free will existing is for your brain to somehow have a nonphysical part. In other words, you'll have to fall back on the concept of a soul. You'll have to completely step out of the science aspect of this conversation if you want free will to be true; and move into the spirit/soul/whatever camp.
I only read your first sentence and stopped. If you'd read up on quantum mechanics you'd never that almost every interpretation either disproves determinism or claims an "agnostic" approach. Using science and logic is the best way to approach this question... and in my mind the only way. Taking a philosophical look at the question is pointless, because I think the only philosophical question worth answering is: should we kill ourselves or not?
Wait... didn't you just excercise Free Will with your admission in your belief of Determinism?
Hail, Hail!!!
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You choose... first response wins.
I will expound after the response.
wings and beers. then you'll have no choice but to do laundry.
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So generally, I think psychologists should take a little step of their high horse when claiming determinism. The knowledge we have is nowhere close to a conclusion on the matter. Thinking scientifically and experimentally, you can't help but find determinism, since otherwise you wouldn't find anything. In other words, stuff that aren't deterministic will forever avoid being found by deterministic science. (and science is by default deterministic looking for laws and iron rules in all things. And you can only find that which you look for.)
Determinism in some cases borders on arrogance, since those claiming it also usually implies that there are rules, and they know what they are. I am not denying that psychology is a field in development where new exciting stuff is uncovered all the time, but the field also suffer from the hubris suffered by any field of science in a current good flow. "Since new things seem to be explained all the time, it's just a matter of time until we have it all figured out." Somewhere along the line, it usually (I'd wager to say always) hits a wall that eventually lessens the hubris.
Do I believe in free will? Well I think for the most part we follow "the programming" so to speak, but it is very hard to determine whether we always do, which is the bold claim of determinism. Practically, knowing how differently human societies may choose to live and think, I find that a possible argument against the strong determinism. If we're so determined, we should always tend to the same culture and organizations. We really don't apart from the very basic level where things tend to be similar but not even here identical.
I'm not necessarily in favour of "strong free will", but I am definitely opposed to strong determinism. I might go along with a soft determinism that allows room for variety and some sort of influence. It may be small, but I think it significant enough to matter.
That's my 5 cents anyway.
Peace
Dan
"Every judgment teeters on the brink of error. To claim absolute knowledge is to become monstrous. Knowledge is an unending adventure at the edge of uncertainty." - Frank Herbert, Dune, 1965
So... genetically speaking, if your parents are prone to, as an example, cowardice... because of genetics and/or past experiences... then, you are pretty much going to also show cowardice in a situation where heroism or cowardice are the options, correct?
Determinism sounds like a means to excuse yourself of any responsibilities or accountability for your actions. "I choose not to jump in the lake to save that child because my genetics passed down from my parents determined my selection of safety on land, rather then risk in water."
And just to be fair, the heroism scenario can be replaced in this example... where the parent's genetic hand me downs were responsible for your heroic act, not you, yourself.
Hail, Hail!!!
I agree w/ Cosmo. Using genetics to determine outcomes doesn't prove anything to the individual who completely changes who he/she is or how they think as they evolve. It gives excuses to those who choose not to grow.
Peace
Dan
"Every judgment teeters on the brink of error. To claim absolute knowledge is to become monstrous. Knowledge is an unending adventure at the edge of uncertainty." - Frank Herbert, Dune, 1965
I agree with this one.
If you are afraid of dogs today... beacuse a dog bit you when you were 6, has nothing to do with anything other than a dog bit you when you were 6. You will either grow to fear all dogs as hostile animals to be feared... or that one dog bit you when you were 6 and sometimes, dogs will bite. From that time the dog bit you at age 6, did NOT determine your reactions to dogs for the rest of your life... or pass on that fear genetically, to your kids. Yeah, you can pass on your fear of dogs (or cats or snakes or black people or Gays or monsters) to your kids through verbal warnings... but, that is your choice... which is subject to your Free Will.
Hail, Hail!!!
Just because you don't like the way something looks from a value standpoint doesn't mean you get to decide it can't be that way.
Saying that the amazing things we accomplish can't be done with our brains alone is selling biology a little short.