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Think You're Operating on Free Will? Think Again

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Re: Think You're Operating on Free Will? Think Again

#31

Post by bugmenot »

joshkaufman wrote: post #22

Here's a re-framing of "free will" that I find very useful - it's more like "free won't." The technical term is Inhibition. Our physical and mental processes may make us inclined to act in a certain way, but we have a limited ability to inhibit that initial response long enough to do something different by using willpower. Think of a lion in the brush, ready to pounce on an unsuspecting antelope. The lion wants to po…

While I can appreciate your sentiment, it does indicate a complete lack of understanding in the depth and scope of determinism.

Determinism proposes there is a predetermined unbroken chain of prior occurrences back to the origin of the universe.

This in 'complete totality' includes every primary impulse, every secondary reaction (e.g. willpower) to that impulse and every course correction that may follow.

tl:dr; causality includes what you think is free-will.

Re: Think You're Operating on Free Will? Think Again

#32

Post by prewett »

qubit wrote: post #26

I honestly don't understand how anyone can question that we lack free will unless one believes in a soul or some other kind of "magic". If all of our actions are governed by our brains, and our brains are simply a collection of particles obeying the laws of physics, where is the room for free will?

Physics may not be entirely deterministic. At the quantum level physics starts being about probability. (In fact, quantum physics is all about probability, something my grades wish I had understood while taking the course...) Maybe particles have free will: do I tunnel now or not? Not now, maybe later. Maybe the Heisenberg uncertainty principle is a reflection of the free will: you can determine either a particle's position or velocity as much as you want, but you give the particle an equal amount of free will to choose the other one.

Re: Think You're Operating on Free Will? Think Again

#33

Post by prewett »

Lousy title: the article doesn't seem to contradict free will at all. If people are more likely to keep a clean desk with the smell of cleaning fluid in the air, that still means that some people were not affected. Obviously those guys have free will. Nothing in the studies they referenced said "whenever this stimulus is introduced, people always do X"; that would demonstrate lack of free will. The cited studies demonstrate the opposite of the title.

Re: Think You're Operating on Free Will? Think Again

#34

Post by [deleted] »

dasil003 wrote: post #27
dkimball wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I looked at this article, but I don't think the experiment proves as much as Libet claims it does. Neither he nor subsequent researchers seem to have gone beyond toy problems (what EEG activity appears in someone writing or programming?). Also, I find it hard to believe that free will "lives" in one or another part of the brain; neither determinism nor randomness is freedom, and a physical "organ of free will" would…

We get angry when theologians try to overstep their bounds into science, so we should also get angry when scientists overstep their bounds into philosophy with all kinds of hamfisted assumptions. I mean just because an assumption is necessary and reasonable for exploring the mechanics of the universe does not mean you can simply extrapolate to something as mysterious as the nature of consciousness and free will.

[deleted]

Re: Think You're Operating on Free Will? Think Again

#35

Post by yason »

The article doesn't seem to be much about free will but rather about which choices are conscious and which are not.

Free will means that, out of all life's choices, I can choose whichever I want.

It doesn't mean I'm always conscious about my choices.

It doesn't mean I would not want to limit my choices consciously or unconsciously: suicide is very well within the free will of each person but few choose to exercise their free will that way.

It means there are no "don't"s or "can't"s. For example, if you think you can't act in some controversial way in some social situation, you're wrong. You surely could, if you wanted to. You might have internal limitations such as that you fear too much. It still doesn't rule out that you absolutely could.

As long as there's no gun pointing at you, you can choose whatever you want. In fact, if there is a gun pointing at you, you can still choose your own way, even if you end up dead.

Re: Think You're Operating on Free Will? Think Again

#36

Post by dasil003 »

[deleted] wrote: post #34
dasil003 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We get angry when theologians try to overstep their bounds into science, so we should also get angry when scientists overstep their bounds into philosophy with all kinds of hamfisted assumptions. I mean just because an assumption is necessary and reasonable for exploring the mechanics of the universe does not mean you can simply extrapolate to something as mysterious as the nature of consciousness and free will.

[deleted]

Aside from the fact that people didn't talk that way back then, the converse argument also holds true. We always have believed ourselves to be at the apex of knowledge. In 1610 the hubris belonged to the church, today the hubris belongs to those who believe science has all the answers.

The nice thing about science is at least it is actively questioning itself all the time. However individual scientists can easily subscribe to a philosophically materialist viewpoint without adequate evidence simply because they've spent their whole lives devoted to physics. The study of the correlation between the brain and consciousness needs to go much much deeper before they even hope to come close to having a crack at the free will debate.

Re: Think You're Operating on Free Will? Think Again

#37

Post by a-priori »

dasil003 wrote: post #27
dkimball wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I looked at this article, but I don't think the experiment proves as much as Libet claims it does. Neither he nor subsequent researchers seem to have gone beyond toy problems (what EEG activity appears in someone writing or programming?). Also, I find it hard to believe that free will "lives" in one or another part of the brain; neither determinism nor randomness is freedom, and a physical "organ of free will" would…

We get angry when theologians try to overstep their bounds into science, so we should also get angry when scientists overstep their bounds into philosophy with all kinds of hamfisted assumptions. I mean just because an assumption is necessary and reasonable for exploring the mechanics of the universe does not mean you can simply extrapolate to something as mysterious as the nature of consciousness and free will.

Philosophy ceases to be philosophy when its claims can be tested empirically. The major branches of science (physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, etc.) were once considered topics in philosophy, but are no longer. It appears that Philosophy of Mind is currently making this transition.

(Edit: Changed "Theory of Mind" to "Philosophy of Mind"... psychology lingo crept in there for a second)

Re: Think You're Operating on Free Will? Think Again

#38

Post by dasil003 »

a-priori wrote: post #37
dasil003 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We get angry when theologians try to overstep their bounds into science, so we should also get angry when scientists overstep their bounds into philosophy with all kinds of hamfisted assumptions. I mean just because an assumption is necessary and reasonable for exploring the mechanics of the universe does not mean you can simply extrapolate to something as mysterious as the nature of consciousness and free will.

Philosophy ceases to be philosophy when its claims can be tested empirically. The major branches of science (physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, etc.) were once considered topics in philosophy, but are no longer. It appears that Philosophy of Mind is currently making this transition. (Edit: Changed "Theory of Mind" to "Philosophy of Mind"... psychology lingo crept in there for a second)

Absolutely true, however it's a bit overzealous to jump from starting to understand how the brain works to materialistic assumptions about the nature of consciousness of free will.

Re: Think You're Operating on Free Will? Think Again

#39

Post by eirene »

I'm digging the fact that scientists are finally catching up with the meta-humanity thinkers & tinkerers (philosophers, artists, writers, etc) i.e. unconscious will can be & has been extrapolated from first principles, i.e. this is old news. Still, exciting!

1) Rigors-of-academic-inquiry(oldnews) = new data = new model = new algorithms

2) Makes moving my research forward that much easier. Similar case: I went from getting an orders of magnitude brush-off from a theoretical physicist on the topic of string configurations and cellular-level biochemical reactions. A few years later, I see he is working with David Albert on Subjective Experience as a Window on Foundational Physics http://www.ctnsstars.org/enews/news_team5.html

+ the recent the quantum entanglement in DNA paper on arxiv http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/25375/...

Embodied cognition, ghosts in biological machines, feels a bit like racing toward god. I can see how it can make some people feel uncomfortable. Still, it's what we're made to do, what the amalgam of our biology+experience gifts us with.

Re: Think You're Operating on Free Will? Think Again

#40

Post by a-priori »

dasil003 wrote: post #38
a-priori wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Philosophy ceases to be philosophy when its claims can be tested empirically. The major branches of science (physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, etc.) were once considered topics in philosophy, but are no longer. It appears that Philosophy of Mind is currently making this transition. (Edit: Changed "Theory of Mind" to "Philosophy of Mind"... psychology lingo crept in there for a second)

Absolutely true, however it's a bit overzealous to jump from starting to understand how the brain works to materialistic assumptions about the nature of consciousness of free will.

See, from my perspective it's overzealous to assume that the conscious mind is not materialistic in nature.

With a question as ill-posed as the nature of consciousness, what's reasonable and what's overzealous depends entirely on your perspective.

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