[Science] - Free will could all be an illusion

Sam Harris has actually published some work on this subject that I've found interesting. I'd recommend his book "Free Will" if you haven't read it.

The point I think really boils down to a combination of the problem of inception and external influences.

If it's cold you put on a sweater. Did you choose to put on the sweater? Why? Was it your past experience with being cold? Why did you choose a sweater and not turning up the thermostat? Why was that the best option? Where did the idea that you were cold come from in the first place? Was that a choice you made?

If we really analyze human action it can be hard to see what was a choice and what was simply a reaction to something else.
At what point are we just reacting based on experience?

Maybe a more important question is not is it really a free choice, but what experiences and training are we giving our brains so that they respond in a certain way? If we train ourselves to respond calmly to stressful situations it becomes easier over time. It's not necessarily free will to be calm, as much as we programmed ourselves to respond in that way. We can understand that our actions have consequences and if we desire a certain set of consequences then we program ourselves to react in a particular way to bring about that set of consequences. We still have the ability to effect change on the environment around us based on our ability to analyze past consequences and predict future ones.

But training is meant to prepare our bodies and minds for different situations, so we can decide which course is best in the least amount of time. When an animal has the ability to reason, they can then choose a best course. I see it in the training of dogs. Some dogs have to be trained until they do something automatically the same every time, no matter what. Then there are some smart dogs that will intelligently disobey. A dog you tell to come, refusing because there is a danger in the way, then that dog finds the unforseen "other way around" do get to you, because, you know, he's really wanting to obey.

This is what you would be looking for in a free will experiment. Telling a subject to do one thing, and them intelligently doing something else. It is those people that think outside the box that (I think) prove we have free will.

And yet what made them think or act outside of the box? And what made the box? If someone acts differently than expected, does that mean that there was some sort of will tinkering with their brains or may it be that our expectations were based on insufficient information? I am way too fallible to assume that I could not have simply miscalculated and instead something other than the physically necessary went on. A suspension of natural law to me sounds far less believable than human error on my own part.
In the end it boils down what we mean by free will. We can mean the ability to act in unexpected or seemingly unintuitive ways, and then any example of it would be... well, an example of it. The statement that free will is a reality would become something of a triviality at that point, and I reckon many would not say that this is all they mean by the effectively defunct term.
Those who read Sam Harris' Free Will will recognize my reasoning as heavily influenced by it. Yet, in all fairness, Sam does presume a specific definition of free will, one that is so strict as to require some kind of implied supernatural component and to make a case against that is about as easy as to make a case in favour of reasoned decisions. Disagreement then really boils down to false equivocation. The kind of free will that does not seem to exist is not the same as the kind of free will that is borderline undeniable and we are doing the discussion something of a disservice by referring to both as "free will" when what we mean are so different things.

No summary on his definition?



tease...

I think the idea of what we are trying to discuss, is as 'loose" (i know that doesnt set right with you, lol) as the idea of what we mean by "destiny" or "predestination"....

These are always the two competing ideas in my melon...

You are right, (obviously, ), it may never be known, and it doesnt really matter, but I find the internal wrestling match fun, and the discussion equally so...

I would say most of us argue from personal definitions, thinking we are all sorta similar in our understanding, but, trying to define this, to come to a common denominator, likens back to your and my discussion on 'faith'... I notice a similar 'vein' in certain conversations of mine, and am noticing it in others as I keep watching, and that is "we only look to find a common denominator to discuss a topic, when it suits us", and instead, we should always agree on a common denominator before we begin...

"Set the terms" of the "debate", lol...

Back on topic...;

My personal definition would follow along with OB1's; "the recognition of available options and the ability to choose between them" or maybe "the ability to recognize potential outcomes, choose one which is preferable, develop steps to achieve it, and follow those steps"

Versus my definition of "the lack of free will" or as I have always referred to it, "predestination", which is "the idea that everything already has a destiny laid out, and we are moving toward it..."

So what if some things are generated randomly and are neither chosen by agents nor are predestined? It would neither fall under free will nor under lack thereof, yet it is at least not on the surface internally contradictory. So it must either be a third category or a part of at least one of the others. Then of course we need to decide whether these categories have any overlap with each other. It would seem, unless we define them as disjoint, that an awareness and conscious decision, for instance, can still be the part of a predestined fate or a result of random influences in part or in full...

Jestor wrote: My personal definition would follow along with OB1's; "the recognition of available options and the ability to choose between them" or maybe "the ability to recognize potential outcomes, choose one which is preferable, develop steps to achieve it, and follow those steps"

Versus my definition of "the lack of free will" or as I have always referred to it, "predestination", which is "the idea that everything already has a destiny laid out, and we are moving toward it..."

I would agree to those definitions. I would add to the first one that we do that independently of any predetermination. I would only add that because one could say that even in a world that is predetermined we might feel as though we are making choices when they are actually predetermined.

Well, this is my logic trail....

1. I was born, I had no choice, I will die, this is my destiny... I cannot escape it... I am predestined, regardless of anything I do between these two points....

2. However, i can have some say in how, and (to a degree) when it happens, eating right, looking both ways crossing a street, no pistols in the mouth... Treating my fellow humans nicely....

But, there is no escaping this destiny...
__________________________

3. I want to be happy...

4. My choices I make today, will get me to that destiny, should I apply intelligent decisions to my path...

In this way, based on my definitions, I have a free will to make this happen, or the free will to not make it happen, and hope my 'destiny' is to be happy....

It is due to this version, that I say, "I have the destiny to live out the results of my free will"... Although I say it different each time I say it, lol.... :lol:...

My take on free will is that it is not so much a cut and dried issue of either free will OR destiny, but a range of probability that narrows down the closer you get to any given event. Weather prediction is a good example of this. Even the supercomputers that have millions of inputs and simulate the entire planet cannot determine the exact course a storm will take. It should be a mathematically predictable course, but any storm can suddenly turn at the last minute and do something totally unexpected (I'm not saying the storm has free will, but it's an illustration of how something can appear to be destiny, and yet behave in a totally unpredictable manner).
When a choice has been made, we can look back on it and identify the apparent causes or motivations that led to that choice. I think this is what reinforces the notion of free will. We can see that it was ultimately our feelings or ideas that led to make that choice, therefore, it must have been my free will. But just like the storm, even if you could see all of the inputs, including a person's entire life experience and all outside influences, they still could surprise you and do something totally unexpected.
That being said, I believe that almost everything we do does follow a plan or "destiny," but within that destiny, we have the ability to rebel and do "our own thing" any time we choose.
The only possibility that I can see that free will does not really exist is in the notion that God knows everything that will ever happen and therefore has, technically, already happened in his mind. However, even within this apparent path of destiny, it could be that God just knows the entire multiplicity of timelines that could play out as a result of human choices. So, he knows what will happen no matter what we choose. He knows the entire timeline after that choice and knows everything that will happen with either choice.
In any case, I know that we are responsible for the individual choices that we make even if it is all predestined. And from a spiritual perspective, it behooves us to make choices that will lead to a better situation for our neighbor and for ourselves.

You know… :huh:

I may be predestine to believe that I have free will.

But, I may just think that I have the free will to believe that I have a destiny. :pinch:

Of course, it could just be that I was predestined to believe I have the free will to be believe that I am predestined to believe my free will is destined! :ohmy:




Wait a sec…

Now I’m all confused! :ohmy:

hahahahhahha :woohoo: :laugh: :silly:

CableSteele, I have a very similar outlook on life as what you've said!

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CableSteele wrote: My take on free will is that it is not so much a cut and dried issue of either free will OR destiny, but a range of probability that narrows down the closer you get to any given event. Weather prediction is a good example of this. Even the supercomputers that have millions of inputs and simulate the entire planet cannot determine the exact course a storm will take. It should be a mathematically predictable course, but any storm can suddenly turn at the last minute and do something totally unexpected (I'm not saying the storm has free will, but it's an illustration of how something can appear to be destiny, and yet behave in a totally unpredictable manner).

First of all, this goes back again to this false dichotomy of "either determinism or free will" and the weather example is perhaps a good illustration indeed of why it doesn't work. If everything that has no free will is determined, then how can anything at all have free will? And is everything that is not pre-determined necessarily free to make choices? Do we even call something a choice if there was no thinking involved or if it appeared to come randomly, independent of any inputs?
Now, on to a more related note, I'm no meteorologist and I understand that as any science, this, too, only has predictive models with a finite inaccuracy, not perfect mathematical models. Ontop of that, if we had perfect models, a perfect prediction could only be made by taking into account each and every input, irrespective of how little impact it has on the outcome, and to do that we would have to know absolutely everything about the entire universe, from the turbulences of our own sun's EM output to the orbital mechanics of all the billions of stars in the Milky Way and their respective radiation patterns to the same detail about all the countless galaxies far beyond what we can even detect. So no, we cannot expect computing power alone to result in perfect weather predictions. What we can expect is that some models are more refined than others, and some computers are faster than others and some input databases are more exhaustive than others. We can predict, by understanding how much information is available to us, the maximum probability for every given maximal deviation of reality from the predicted value and we are pretty damn good at it. I dare suspect, albeit not assert, that even the most unexpected course of a storm was one that was predicted yet deemed unlikely by the insitute tasked with plotting it.

But just like the storm, even if you could see all of the inputs, including a person's entire life experience and all outside influences (emphasis added), they still could surprise you and do something totally unexpected.

Source, please. We don't know of any person who's entire life including all outside influences was documented. Again, this would require us having exhaustive knowledge of the entire universe. Yet even without it we can predict behaviour with astounding precision suggesting that there is a strong correlation between the inputs and the outcomes.

Gisteron wrote: Free will in the sense that there is some kind of "me", some fundamental essence of my person that is to any part something other than an outcome of chemical processes governed strictly by the laws of nature ... that is something I have yet to see some indication of.

we have an enduring sense of identity - i wouldnt try to make an argument that there is any immortal or eternal bit of "self" that exists independent of the body, much less that survives it, but i dont see any reason to feel that we must be MORE THAN biology in order to believe that there is a "self"

i doubt we'll ever find a "soul" in the way that we can find a liver but when we say "human" we dont just mean a liver or a brain or a heart

i think the buddhists have the right idea with the skandhas , at least insofar as to suggest that "we" are the result of multiple, overlapping processes, at work simultaneously

remove any of the individual process and you remove the person

but i think we have a case of "greater than the sum of the parts"

i know that there are a lot of people who are very attached to the traditional idea of "souls" and that there is contention over the issue, but personally im not really into it, i think we're culturally passed that debate and i dont see any reason to hold onto it for or against

we know that the intelligences are highly genetic , but "nurture" can either help us to get the most out of our intelligence, or not

and that [http://www.washingtonparent.com/articles/1001/temperament.php]temperament also has got a strong genetic component[/url], but again, "nurture" and environmental lessons and experiences can help to bring out or suppress things like patience, empathy, and social confidence, ect

after the basic foundations of inherited genetics and the conditions of the prenatal environment, we seem to develop ATTACHMENT STYLES as a reaction to the effectiveness of our care-givers

these styles can persist throughout life, but also can be modified a great deal as a result of growth

all of these processes shape us, and a lot of the shaping is beyond our control

but one of the very first lessons that i picked up from intro to psych was that psychology is a discipline based on the belief that people are capable of change

i am interested in the part that changes, and i think that it is here that we find whatever freedom or free will may exist, and here where we find whatever the best term our personal identity might be

some part of us can change to some degree

my main interest is in the questions "exactly which part, and exactly how much can it change?"

Since it is hard to tell what the sum of our parts is, to gauge whether we are indeed any more than that is tough and while in a more casual context where the specifics wouldn't matter I might sincerely assert that we are, I wouldn't make any argument hinge upon it.
The reason I bring this up is two-fold. First, of course, the free will argument is often times tied to religious matters and matters of immortal souls. In terms of how well they are supported and how much they are claimed to affect, free will and the soul are pretty much interchangeable. However, a more pressing issue is that whenever we speak of us making choices, especially free choices at most partially influenced by outside and inside stimuli and underlying neurobiology, we imply that there is any such thing as an "us" to begin with. I do that mistake myself often, too, when I say that "I" didn't choose what thoughts occur to "me" or what feelings catch up with "me". Free will in any and every sense that is in defiance of natural law, be it deterministic, random, or a combination of the two, necessitates this kind of essence - call it a soul if you must - as do many discussions about it, and while I am happy to entertain hypotheticals, I caution to remember to come back and recognize that this is what they are and that for now the sort of free will that we would consider "free" in any kind of absolute sense hinges upon something that falls apart under any amount of any intellectual, let alone scientific, scrutiny.

I didn't read the original article (sorry J)... but I saw this article about neuroplasticity today and thought it probably fit here in this discussion... http://discovermagazine.com/2013/nov/14-defense-free-will

Edan wrote: I didn't read the original article (sorry J)... but I saw this article about neuroplasticity today and thought it probably fit here in this discussion... http://discovermagazine.com/2013/nov/14-defense-free-will

That was very interesting. It was also good to see names that I've seen tossed around in this thread such as Harris. I think I prefer Schwartz in this though. It is my choice, after all.

allowing for the assertion that cognitive-behavior therapies only offer effective treatment for relatively small range of medical conditions, the fact that they are effective AT ALL indicates something of a self, to my way of thinking

the basic premise of CBT is to develop new thought and behavior patterns in the individual - in some cases these treatment methods work better than the medications which are associated with the illnesses

again, im not suggesting a "soul" in the traditionally religious sense, but it does seem that if we can identify a situation where "altering the thought and behavioral patterns" will provide more effective relief than medication alone, (pure biology), or even will help increase the effectiveness of the medication, then doesnt that suggest some validity to the idea of the "self"?

Gisteron wrote: So what if some things are generated randomly and are neither chosen by agents nor are predestined? It would neither fall under free will nor under lack thereof, yet it is at least not on the surface internally contradictory. So it must either be a third category or a part of at least one of the others. Then of course we need to decide whether these categories have any overlap with each other. It would seem, unless we define them as disjoint, that an awareness and conscious decision, for instance, can still be the part of a predestined fate or a result of random influences in part or in full...

Well, lol...

There are lots of 'what ifs', and the 'weather' example kinda shows some, true...

As the weather has no intelligence as we currently define it, then, it has neither free-will, or predetermination...

But, if a plant can grow toward the light, because that is what it needs/desires/wants, then I would consider that freewill, lol...

IN the same manner that a human has it, although a lot more simplistic, and less philosophical, :lol:...

Yea, well, a "some kind of self" I have no problem conceding to, again, if no argument hinges upon specifics. What I say is not indicated is the kind of self that is actually beyond the body. One that actually wouldn't be affected by either therapy or medication. Now, of course we can point to people who received treatment to little or no effect, but that is again missing the point. The kind of self that is outside of our chemical nature couldn't be affected by it, even in principle, in any detectable way, because such are the limits of investigation. We are talking about beings that are us, yet in control of us, controlled by us yet out of our control. The list of absurdities goes on. Some weaker kinds of self (and by weaker I mean weaker in their definition) may indeed be demonstrable, and associated with respectively weaker kinds of free will. The question at that point is whether it still makes sense to refer to the things by these labels, seeing as colloquially we usually mean more...

i transcribed this from a video lecture, which you can find in the spoiler

“Swanson shows that there are these layers in the nervous system that go from the spinal cord upward. The first ones are the somatomotor neuron pools, and the second are locomotor pattern generators, and the third are locomotor pattern initiators, and then the fourth are locomotor pattern controllers. It’s a hierarchy. The way to kind of lay Piaget over top of this, in some sense, is to think of the somatomotor neuron pools as “simple actions that can be implemented automatically”. And then, the locomotor pattern generator has taken those simple actions and chained them into relatively more complex melodies of action, so kinetic melodies, and then the locomotor pattern initiator more or less decides when those kinetic melodies should be implemented. And even that can be unconscious. So its still at that level of brain organization, its still more or less automatic. Stimulus/Response is a way to think about it. And then you go one level higher and that’s where you get the ability to voluntarily use these automated things.

So, I can show you an example of how this works:

This is called a Ballistic movement. So, I’m gonna take my hand and I’m gonna bring it down really fast right towards that edge. Ok, so [mimes slamming fist on the table] Alright, now, so that’s very fast movement. Now, one of the things that’s cool about that movement is that ... once that action starts, it happens so fast that its done by the time the information about the action actually gets to my brain. So, once I let that go, I cant control it. What Im basically doing is disinhibiting the motor control systems that I already have established in my psychophysiological being. Im disinhibiting one of those and then it runs automatically. And so that’s what youre doing all the time, when youre acting in life.

Its very interesting to think about free will in relationship to these hierarchies because it sort of goes like this: out there in the future you’ve got free will. But as the future moves towards the present, you don’t. Like once it gets close to the present, you have to have initiated something automatic that will happen. And so I can give you an example. People who play the piano very well, they look ahead of where they are playing in the music. Because they know how to do this [mimes playing piano with hands] they don’t have to think about it. What they have to do is look ahead, so that the part of them that knows how to do this gets ready to do it. And all of you are experts in that way, likely, all of those who drive, are experts in that way because when you’re driving, where do you look? If youre a good driver, on the highway, you look like at least half a second or a second ahead. Why? Well because fifty feet ahead has already happened, right? Its too close in time for you to do anything about it. So basically what youre doing is youre looking at the road and then youre disinhibiting sequences of action that are the ones that are going to correspond to what you want to do with the road most adequately. And the closer you get to executing one of those motor behaviors, the more automated it is. So by the time you manifest the action, theres no free will there at all. But you set it up to be released in some sense. So I could say “well, this isn’t theres no free will in THAT” [mimes slamming his fist on the table] but there was [free will] in deciding to do it at that point. So, and so that’s sort of how your automaticity your freedom. You gotta think about it as something extending across time.”

Thank you for that...

"you have the destiny to live out your free will choices"

Thats what I have said, lol...

Edit: Imma watch that tonight...