[Science] - Free will could all be an illusion

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Do we trick our brain when we change Focus or consciously make a different outcome?
I kind of wish they would include Jedi in some of these studies to see the difference in scope. not every ones a drone and thinks on the same patterns.

Jedi dont have the market on being 'unusual' in the ole brain pan, lol...

Interesting, but didn't those scientists have the free will to do this study? :silly:

Free will kind of seems to introduce a separateness between individual humans and themselves, other humans and nature. We can will something all we want, make choices based on options presented to us by the environment around us that we think will lead to that will being fulfilled, but you never know what will come to you or where you will end up.

It's something to think about for sure. I think that it really is the environment that presents us choices, it's not like I choose in my own inner being to do this or that because I couldn't know about potential choices with knowing the environment my conscoiusness was born into and exposed to in order to realize what I may choose or do.

I suppose some people may have more options of choices presented to them, depending on the perception of their overall experience.

I'd love to see this experiment done where the subjects are asked to look at the circle they chose (checked with a retina monitor). It would alleviate the risk that the subjects say they had picked the 'right' circle - when they knew full well they hadn't.

Assuming the subjects were 100% truthful, the phenomena identified in this study could also be interpreted as precognition (see: http://www.wired.com/2010/11/feeling-the-future-is-precognition-possible/). I am skeptical of such findings - but who knows - maybe it is a 'thing'.

Interesting stuff!

I still think that until we can PROVE that free will does not exist that believing that it doesn't is just a way to make excuses for poor behavior and making bad choices. A belief that there isn't free will absolves one of all responsibility because they don't believe that they had a choice. It is better for society to believe that we have a choice because otherwise we won't strive to make better choices. In my opinion at least.

Goken wrote: I still think that until we can PROVE that free will does not exist that believing that it doesn't is just a way to make excuses for poor behavior and making bad choices.

The universe can only turn out one way. You making good or bad, friendly or malevolent choices along the way is part of that. We can only do what the universe has set us up to do.

It is better for society to believe that we have a choice because otherwise we won't strive to make better choices. In my opinion at least.

If you believe you had no choice in negative decisions, you also believe it in positive ones. I had no choice but to adore my child, hug my dogs, and wave the guy waiting to turn into traffic in front of me. I had no choice but to join the army and become a celebrated hero. I had no choice but to join TotJO and dedicate my life to peace and seeking wisdom.

There are positive results of lacking free will. Those who are prone to finding ways to escape responsibility will do it no matter what philosophy you give them. Lying to them about whether or not we have free will isn't going to save them from themselves.

I'm wondering how many people they tested and how many times they followed the same procedure. 30% might be a huge difference if you tested 1000 people 100 times each, but may not seem all that strange if they only tested 10 people 5 times each.

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I tend to view free will as becoming more manifest as we entertain abstract ideas, such that;



Here 'free will' and 'feelings' together represent 'arousal', and 'emotions' and 'passions' together represent 'affect'. The psychology definitions as stated in wikipedia as "is the physiological and psychological state of being awake" and "is the experience of feeling or emotion", respectively. That is when using my own working definitions for feeling, emotion and passion though...

So I think it depends on how and where our 'focus' is, or perhaps better, how our focus is contorted to relate to its awareness versus react to it.

I think it might be germane to look closer at the definitions. I don't think "free will" in this discussion means the same that we might bandy about over coffee.

If we are chemical-based-consciousness, carbon-life-forms, a logical extension is that our decisions arise from a sea of chemical-reaction. If there is a chemical basis to thought, and that can be manipulated by altering our chemistry, then one might argue a lack of free will. However, just because you can artificially constrain a process doesn't necessarily mean it isn't novel in it's wild-state...

It is interesting, but somehow seems redundant to say we are chemical beings and then decide that since thought has a chemical basis, it isn't original or unique.

Even if we are the deterministic end result of predictable outcomes of every event since the big bang, our minds will never be sufficient to encompass a formula which would reliably predict all eventualities and it is therefore sufficiently random enough to be called free-will....

If the universe is "Maya", then so too everything within?