Free-Will

justam

Ahnimus wrote:

I mean, if you guys have any faith in science.

Using Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, basically stimulating neurons non-invasively by a magnet, scientists can control what you do and you believe you made the choice.

And yet, that sounds so hokey doesn't it? Like those old films of Russian spoon-benders.

Ahnimus

justam wrote:

And yet, that sounds so hokey doesn't it? Like those old films of Russian spoon-benders.

Well, that was a film. But at the same time, Start Trek had those flat-panel LCD monitors that seemed pretty hokey 20 years ago.

jeffbr

Are you into determinism?

If one has no free will, does one have moral responsibility? Can't have one without the other.

jeffbr

Ahnimus wrote:

See, the thing is, everything else operates independant of free-will. The earth revolves around the sun, the leaves turn brown in autumn. Absolutely everything happens independant of free-will, except us?

There are things which are unique to humans and therefor allow us to be free agents - among them intellect and volition or will.

Ahnimus

jeffbr wrote:

Are you into determinism?

If one has no free will, does one have moral responsibility? Can't have one without the other.

I think morallity is subjective.

I simply theorize that we are all machines, it is referred to as Hard Determinism.

I was reading Chaos Theory earlier and I got into Cellular Automaton. I won't go into to many details, but it's actually believed that small fragments of machine code are generate where they have no purpose, but are relative to the instructional code. Almost like a level of awareness, this has led to much speculation of the consciousness of computers. Prior to reading that scientific research, I never considered machines having consciousness. But this theory is actually the basis for the movie "I, Robot" amazing how scientifically informed Sci-Fi writers are.

Ahnimus

jeffbr wrote:

There are things which are unique to humans and therefor allow us to be free agents - among them intellect and volition or will.

Where does intellect come from? Is it generated from absolute nothingness?

What does will, intellect and volition depend on to make it so variable from person to person?

gue_barium

Free will is the hard-on that won't go away, and the passion of a wife leaning back over a wooden fence, not yours. Free will is sexual and surprising. It cripples the unwary, it fortifies the believers.

Ahnimus

gue_barium wrote:

Free will is the hard-on that won't go away, and the passion of a wife leaning back over a wooden fence, not yours. Free will is sexual and surprising. It cripples the unwary, it fortifies the believers.

I thought that was Lust

jeffbr

Ahnimus wrote:

Where does intellect come from? Is it generated from absolute nothingness?

Irrelevant. Cognition exists in us.

Ahnimus wrote:

What does will, intellect and volition depend on to make it so variable from person to person?

Reason, desire, perception.

justam

Ahnimus wrote:

I thought that was Lust

It is, but I can kind of see his point.

Ahnimus

jeffbr wrote:

Irrelevant. Cognition exists in us.

Reason, desire, perception.

Ok, so, will is dependent on "reason, desire, perception" what is "reason, desire, perception" dependent on?

See the problem with free-will is there is no causality for it, no explanation, you can only say that it does exist, you can't explain how. It's a philosophical belief par with religion, but it's so widely accepted that it's integrated into all of our lives.

When someone commits a crime, we blame them, we assume that they made the decision, that they have free-will. I'm not saying they shouldn't be accountable, we have to protect society from them. But we assume that their "will" is variably different than ours. We make the same assumptions concerning addiction, many people can quit smoking, many people can not. This is solely attributed to "will", why is it that some people have strong "will-power" and others do not?

justam

Ahnimus wrote:

Ok, so, will is dependent on "reason, desire, perception" what is "reason, desire, perception" dependent on?

See the problem with free-will is there is no causality for it, no explanation, you can only say that it does exist, you can't explain how. It's a philosophical belief par with religion, but it's so widely accepted that it's integrated into all of our lives.

When someone commits a crime, we blame them, we assume that they made the decision, that they have free-will. I'm not saying they shouldn't be accountable, we have to protect society from them. But we assume that their "will" is variably different than ours. We make the same assumptions concerning addiction, many people can quit smoking, many people can not. This is solely attributed to "will", why is it that some people have strong "will-power" and others do not?

As a parent, sometimes the phrase "impulse control" comes up.

My son has trouble with "impulse control" which essentially means that he doesn't have as much of a barrier between what he wants to do and what he does even when he knows he shouldn't do something.

I think a lot of "crimes of passion" can be attributed to people with less impulse control than others.

jeffbr

Ahnimus wrote:

Ok, so, will is dependent on "reason, desire, perception" what is "reason, desire, perception" dependent on?

See the problem with free-will is there is no causality for it, no explanation, you can only say that it does exist, you can't explain how. It's a philosophical belief par with religion, but it's so widely accepted that it's integrated into all of our lives.

When someone commits a crime, we blame them, we assume that they made the decision, that they have free-will. I'm not saying they shouldn't be accountable, we have to protect society from them. But we assume that their "will" is variably different than ours. We make the same assumptions concerning addiction, many people can quit smoking, many people can not. This is solely attributed to "will", why is it that some people have strong "will-power" and others do not?

Part of our disconnect will be your belief in strict causality. Post-newtonian laws like Quantum machanics, probability, chaos, etc... have introduced unpredictability and uncertainty to your nice, neat, causality.

And my common sense shows me that I can make choices any time, all day long. I can decide to continue to sit here, or I can go take a piss so my bladder can relax. You'll say my will or choice is just an illusion, but I see your belief in a sort of predeterministic thinking as equally religiosly and philsophically based as you see my "belief" in free will.

Ahnimus

justam wrote:

As a parent, sometimes the phrase "impulse control" comes up.

My son has trouble with "impulse control" which essentially means that he doesn't have as much of a barrier between what he wants to do and what he does even when he knows he shouldn't do something.

I think a lot of "crimes of passion" can be attributed to people with less impulse control than others.

It's still variable, it's not a universal constant, which is what I'm looking for as causality.

For example, if I press "C" on my keyboard, "C" comes up on the screen, this is true for every computer/keyboard as long as another constant is true, that is the "C" key is in the right place.

However, in the human psyche, things aren't that simple. If I say "Hey, your an asshole" to my brother, his response will be different than that of a stranger, the response isn't constant, the stimulus is, so there must be other variables affecting the response, because it's not linear.

Saying that will depends on reason which depends on impulse control, means, one variable is dependent on another variable dependent on another variable, but there are no constants.

If I say to my brother "Hey, your an asshole" and you say to your brother "Hey, your and asshole", then we have a constant, the receiving participant of the statement share the same relation to the individual delivering it. However, due to other variables affecting personality the response will ultimately be different. For example, if my relationship with my brother is good and that statement is unusual he might respond "Huh? Why would you say that?" if your relationship with your brother is bad and that type of statement is usual, the response may be "Fuck you, I'm tired of your shit!".

Does that make sense?

Ahnimus

jeffbr wrote:

Part of our disconnect will be your belief in strict causality. Post-newtonian laws like Quantum machanics, probability, chaos, etc... have introduced unpredictability and uncertainty to your nice, neat, causality.

And my common sense shows me that I can make choices any time, all day long. I can decide to continue to sit here, or I can go take a piss so my bladder can relax. You'll say my will or choice is just an illusion, but I see your belief in a sort of predeterministic thinking as equally religiosly and philsophically based as you see my "belief" in free will.

Don't over-estimated Quantum Mechanics, most of the observations aren't substantial. Quantum Mechanics is simply indicative of our primitive understanding of the universe. After watching the move "What The BLEEP?" I was inclined to believe as you do, but I was put in my place by further study and talking to others who have studied it.

gue_barium

C'mon Ahnimus, give us some idea of your humanity. Anything. I'm a newbie here, so maybe I missed it. The neice or nephew on your knee, the son or daughter, the way you defended your little brother from a bully, anything, anyting at all...

I think it's important.

Ahnimus

gue_barium wrote:

C'mon Ahnimus, give us some idea of your humanity. Anything. I'm a newbie here, so maybe I missed it. The neice or nephew on your knee, the son or daughter, the way you defended your little brother from a bully, anything, anyting at all...

I think it's important.

Hmm, Well, for those exact things, I don't have a neice or a nephew, though I think that would be cool, my bro is settled down so maybe I'll have one soon. I'm single and never had many serious relationships and always used protection, so I don't have any children. I'm pretty sure I stood up for my brother a few times and I'm pretty sure he stood up for me. Actually, I know a time he stood up for me...

It was right after my ex and I broke up from a 2 year on/off relationship. She had moved out and was renting a room in a townhouse with some weird middle-age guy. I guess she said some things to this guy about me, probably because we weren't getting a long and she liked to bitch. So, anyway I guess my bro and his gf are over visiting my ex and the dude she's staying with finds out they know me and starts trash talking me, giving them all kinds of personal information. Of course they already know all of it because I'm really open about my personal life (most of the time). My brother got really upset and put the guy in his place, I was impressed, of course I only heard about it.

How's that?

Ahnimus

"Everything is determined by forces over which we have no control. It is determined for the insect as well as for the star. Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust - we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper." -- Albert Einstein

"The initial configuration of the universe may have been chosen by God, or it may itself have been determined by the laws of science. In either case, it would seem that everything in the universe would then be determined by evolution according to the laws of science, so it is difficult to see how we can be masters of our fate." -- Stephen Hawking

"There are a lot of myths which make the human race cruel and barbarous and unkind. Good and Evil, Sin and Crime, Free Will and the like delusions made to excuse God for damning men and to excuse men for crucifying each other." - Clarence Darrow

"Everything in nature is the result of fixed laws." --Charles Darwin

"The enormous value of the concept of free will in relieving parental shame and guilt is the only and overriding reason, in our opinion, that the lie of free will is well nigh universally taught to all children. If and when we can convince parents of total determinism, so they are freed from their own shame and guilt, they will no longer need to teach the vicious lie of free will to the world's children. A new world will be born." -- Peter Gill

"You will say that I feel free. This is an illusion, which may be compared to that of the fly in the fable, who, upon the pole of a heavy carriage, applauded himself for directing its course. Man, who thinks himself free, is a fly who imagines he has power to move the universe, while he is himself unknowingly carried along by it." -- Baron d'Hobach

"Whether or not we have personality disturbances, whether or not we have the ability to overcome deficiencies of early environment, is like the answer to the question whether or not we shall be struck down by a dread disease: "it's all a matter of luck." It is important to keep this in mind, for people almost always forget it, with consequences in human intolerance and unnecessary suffering that are incalculable." -- John Hospers

"Everything, including that which happens in our brains, depends on these and only on these: A set of fixed, deterministic laws. A purely random set of accidents." -- Marvin Minsky

"The first dogma which I came to disbelieve was that of free will. It seemed to me that all notions of matter were determined by the laws of dynamics and could not therefore be influenced by human wills." -- Bertrand Russell

"A self is a repertoire of behavior appropriate to a given set of contingencies." -- B. F. Skinner

"To say that a man is sinful because he sins is to give an operational definition of sin. To say that he sins because he is sinful is to trace his behavior to a supposed inner trait. But whether or not a person engages in the kind of behavior called sinful depends upon circumstances which are not mentioned in either question. The sin assigned as an inner possession (the sin a person "knows") is to be found in a history of reinforcement." - B. F. Skinner

"In the mind there is no absolute or free will; but the mind is determined to wish this or that by a cause, which has also been determined by another cause, and this last by another cause, and so on to infinity." - Baruch Spinoza

"Everything happens through immutable laws, ...everything is necessary... There are, some persons say, some events which are necessary and others which are not. It would be very comic that one part of the world was arranged, and the other were not; that one part of what happens had to happen and that another part of what happens did not have to happen. If one looks closely at it, one sees that the doctrine contrary to that of destiny is absurd; but there are many people destined to reason badly; others not to reason at all others to persecute those who reason." - Voltaire

The real irony of all this, is science leading to God. Steven Hawkings one of the foremost physicists says in A Brief History of Time Pg. 127 "It would be very difficult to explain why the universe should have begun in just this way, except as an act of God who intended to create beings like us"

That's a pretty good argument. But, it doesn't explain what God is.

OutOfBreath

I am intrigued by the subject matter you bring forth here, ahnimus. I have also read about those experiments. Also, I enjoy a good voluntarism/determinism debate. And for the most part I cannot do away with the determinist view as that is rather impossible. But I think I would lean more towards a weak determinism, really. I agree that much of our responses and so on are conditioned by environment, learned responses and so on. But is it all? I'm not as ready to accept that.

And even if it were true, that all is determined, what would it do to the human psyche to realize that? Wouldn't that render everything meaningless for most people? Also having in mind a centerpiece of depression leading on to suicide is the loss of meaning, wouldn't free will at least be a necessary illusion for us to go on?

Besides, scientists are gonna find determinist results all the time they look for "laws" which imply determinism by their very existence. If you look for laws, you will find some, but then you are looking for determinism from the outset.

But some degree of determinism is good to have in mind. I just don't think I'm buying the hard determinism. But interesting to shake it up, and see what happens. By the way the experiment shows that we can be fooled into believing we did something out of free will. It doesn't say that we thus are always fooled, and the will always coming after the impulse. But it is quite sobering to realize how easily we may think wrongly.

Peace
Dan

Ahnimus

OutOfBreath wrote:

I am intrigued by the subject matter you bring forth here, ahnimus. I have also read about those experiments. Also, I enjoy a good voluntarism/determinism debate. And for the most part I cannot do away with the determinist view as that is rather impossible. But I think I would lean more towards a weak determinism, really. I agree that much of our responses and so on are conditioned by environment, learned responses and so on. But is it all? I'm not as ready to accept that.

And even if it were true, that all is determined, what would it do to the human psyche to realize that? Wouldn't that render everything meaningless for most people? Also having in mind a centerpiece of depression leading on to suicide is the loss of meaning, wouldn't free will at least be a necessary illusion for us to go on?

Besides, scientists are gonna find determinist results all the time they look for "laws" which imply determinism by their very existence. If you look for laws, you will find some, but then you are looking for determinism from the outset.

But some degree of determinism is good to have in mind. I just don't think I'm buying the hard determinism. But interesting to shake it up, and see what happens. By the way the experiment shows that we can be fooled into believing we did something out of free will. It doesn't say that we thus are always fooled, and the will always coming after the impulse. But it is quite sobering to realize how easily we may think wrongly.

Peace
Dan

Dan,

The social advantages of determinism are mutual happiness. Really. Without free-will there is nothing to support hatred, blame, envy or pride. When a person realizes that they act because of prior events, then they will seek events to improve their actions. When they realize that others act because of prior events, they will understand them. If everyone understood this no one would commit serious crimes. Crimes are committed because people believe they have free-will, envy, vengeance, pride, reasons irrelevant to determinism. They will not regret decisions, nothing will affect their self-esteem, they will live in a state of happiness knowing they have no control. This does not negate God, in-fact it can be seen as quantifying God. The alternative is a loop, where the universe begins where it ends.

In Quantum Mechanics when they talk about the double-slit experiment they aren't exactly sure what they are observing, if they are observing all the variables, so things don't seem to work. But Schrödinger proved that as long as quantum mechanics was observed as a wave, instead of particles, causality does exist and determinism is true. Because all of matter follows these fixed laws, the matter that operates within our bodies and our brains follows these laws as well.

By the way, I just read a lot of this, this idea of determinism is kind of new to me, although I've always felt that past experiences determined my present and future. I would look back at my own actions and ask why I did them, looking for variables within my psyche that provided causality and I always found them. I found them whenever I learned something new that opened my eyes to greater reality. From what I've read on cognitive science and psychology, there is no possibility of indeterminism.

But we are determined to pleasure ourselves by tantalizing our taste buds, sexual interaction, pleasant audio experience, pleasant visuals, social status, etc.. This is the basic law of organisms, even the single-cell organism performs actions to seek pleasure and avoid pain. It's when we are surrounded by pain that we give-up seeking pleasure in the classical sense. When surrounded by pain we seek only to end the pain.

Salaam,
Ryan