Cad
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The Free Will Thread
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Jive Turkey
Karen
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The fact that we can, and frequently do, ask the question "do we have free will" means that human beings have somehow evolved the capacity for metacognition.
We can identify our patterns of thoughts and behaviors, correlate them with their outcomes, and if we don't like those outcomes, we make a conscious choice to try to change those patterns.
This is rare for most people, and when free willisexercised, it still takes time to change those patterns. It doesn't happen instantly.
Most of the time we're just on autopilot; a ball of sensation, biology, circumstance and causality.
We can identify our patterns of thoughts and behaviors, correlate them with their outcomes, and if we don't like those outcomes, we make a conscious choice to try to change those patterns.
This is rare for most people, and when free willisexercised, it still takes time to change those patterns. It doesn't happen instantly.
Most of the time we're just on autopilot; a ball of sensation, biology, circumstance and causality.
Lendarios
Trump's Staff
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We are more bound to our learning experiences as a child, than to chemical relations in the brain. This has been constantly all across human history.
Free will, yes, there is free will, the software has reach a certain level of independence from its hardware. Hardware is the brain, and software is our minds. This is also truth in highly developed animals.
Free will, yes, there is free will, the software has reach a certain level of independence from its hardware. Hardware is the brain, and software is our minds. This is also truth in highly developed animals.
Jive Turkey
Karen
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These two things are inextricably linked. This says nothing about free will. If anything, it enforces the fact that it doesn't exists
Jive Turkey
Karen
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pharmakos
soʞɐɯɹɐɥd
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of the two things he pointed out i didn't read that he criticized me for, one was the article linked in the OP, and i'm sure many of the other posters did not read more than the three quoted paragraphs before commenting. i'm just the only one brave enough to admit it without fear of austist attack.
the second thing that i gave "commentary" on was simply to say iannis' ideas reminded me of the summary i read of a book. which is not even really commentary.
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Trump's Staff
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The two ideas are opposite. Free will, even as ideas that your parent tells you to do, is still free will.
On one side we are prebounded by out brain chemistry, on the other side, we are not. That is the crux of the argument right?
pharmakos
soʞɐɯɹɐɥd
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just to humor, i read the whole article from the OP. other than some of the names of the people making the arguments, and Sam Harris' (very interesting, still processing) argument that we are better off NOT believing in free will -- no new concepts to me, nothing i haven't been exposed to through my other readings or my philosophy courses.
being a philosophy major for a year was dumb but it sure does save me a lot of time in rerolled threads on philosophy.
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getting back towards some constructive posting:
being a philosophy major for a year was dumb but it sure does save me a lot of time in rerolled threads on philosophy.
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getting back towards some constructive posting:
having a hard time finding a good link for the concept, but what you're describing is known as "limited free will." free will to the extent that our physical processes will allow.
Jive Turkey
Karen
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No. the argument isn't that your actions are purely decided by your brain chemistry, it's that they are decided by your brainstateat any given time. A subtle difference, but when you say brain state, it implies that it's subject to outside influences (like your parents). The argument is that you have zero control over your brain state at any given time and are only able to act in the way that brain state dictates. You have no free will to act any other way. You aren't in control of what thoughts and ideas pop into your mind.
Cad
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Jive Turkey
Karen
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Of course
No. I was merely making the distinction to allow for outside influences. Brain chemistry, prior experience, external stimuli all contribute to your current brain state and you have no control over any of it
pharmakos
soʞɐɯɹɐɥd
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this is still kind of blowing my mind. i think a lot of it even holds true in a universe WITH free will.
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Trump's Staff
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So what is free will defined under that argument?
The simple counterargument is that brain state since it takes into account experiences, is non reproducible, even for the same individual. So it actually becomes your free will, just under a different name.
For example the same individual will never experience the same brain state twice in his life. So the output of his brain state is his free will manifestation.
The simple counterargument is that brain state since it takes into account experiences, is non reproducible, even for the same individual. So it actually becomes your free will, just under a different name.
For example the same individual will never experience the same brain state twice in his life. So the output of his brain state is his free will manifestation.
Jive Turkey
Karen
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Your experiences are
a) a direct result of 'choices' you made prior, of which you had no real conscious choice to make, and
b) outside influences of which you also had no say over.
Any way you look at it, you have no control over your precise brain state at any given moment. You can only ever act in a way in which your brain state dictates and no other.
Watch the most recent Sam Harris video I posted. It makes it quite clear that we have no control over what ideas come into our heads. We feel like we do until we really examine what's going on and what 'choices' we're actually presented with
Lithose
Buzzfeed Editor
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This argument has always seemed to be like what Cad said on page two--difference with little distinction. Even if my cognition of the event was formed AFTER the neurological determination to do the event--I'm still doing it. The neurological determinism behind the event is still me. Harris is almost making a 'soul' argument (In the city video link), that the biological foundation of us is separate, and our cognition is some kind of ethereal observer.
Again, how useful is this distinction? The biological components which make up the cognition, also are responsible for the choice made. Both these things are part of the same organism, and thus both of them are 'you'.
In short, a big part of this free will debate always comes down to semantics on what you mean by free will. The will of an 'organism'? Or the 'will' of some abstract cognition of the action of said entity. Given the complexity of neural networks, it's obvious the organism is making choices based on very complex energy and chemical combinations (And not simply acting on what's most likely to happen chemically, like a cell would). That communication between systems, changing chemicals and electrons to formulate strategies and choices, even if it does not strike us consciously? Is will. Our consciousness is just an abstraction of that, but it's not some separate thing. It is a direct result of that process.
Again, how useful is this distinction? The biological components which make up the cognition, also are responsible for the choice made. Both these things are part of the same organism, and thus both of them are 'you'.
In short, a big part of this free will debate always comes down to semantics on what you mean by free will. The will of an 'organism'? Or the 'will' of some abstract cognition of the action of said entity. Given the complexity of neural networks, it's obvious the organism is making choices based on very complex energy and chemical combinations (And not simply acting on what's most likely to happen chemically, like a cell would). That communication between systems, changing chemicals and electrons to formulate strategies and choices, even if it does not strike us consciously? Is will. Our consciousness is just an abstraction of that, but it's not some separate thing. It is a direct result of that process.
Jive Turkey
Karen
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The argument was never for any sort of dualism (Harris of all people would never come close to that side of the fence). The argument is whether or not you have conscious free will; are you consciously making these decisions for yourself or are they coming from the darkness of your mind and you have no real conscious authorship of them.
If I'm not mistaken, Daniel Dennett makes a similar case for free will, in that it's the free will of the biological system, whether or not we're conscious of it. But whether or not we have conscious decision making is an important question and one that deserves to be explored. We all assume we have this capability
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Exactly. If 'we' are just an abstract observer of our own purely physically/biologically deterministic course of events, what evolutionary advantage does that observer represent if it cannot affect some change in return?
Hence my argument. I don't really believe in 'free will' in the kind of moment-to-moment idea that we are freely in control of every one of our actions and decisions. But I do believe that in developing metacognition, humans are able in some way to observe and then, consciously decide to engage in steps over time to alter the chain of causality created by our thoughts and behaviors, and therefore alter the course of our otherwise biologically deterministic lives.