Is free will possible, or are we always affect by some level of determinism
354 replies, posted
[QUOTE=Zenreon117;43754043]So free will must be magical in order for it to exist? Is that basically what you are saying?[/QUOTE]
Essentially. Any other definition doesn't really capture what the term implies. According to most of the definitions you seem to have given, I'd agree that they exist, but those definitions are devoid of meaningful content.
[editline]1st February 2014[/editline]
[QUOTE=Zenreon117;43754316]This is what I mean though, you are being non-sensical.
You are defining free will as something that is impossible by definition.[/QUOTE]
Why is that necessarily impossible? Plenty of people believe in the supernatural. I do not, so I don't believe in free will.
[QUOTE=Zenreon117;43754316]Secondly, if those indeterminates are part of you, then how is it not you choosing? They are producing indeterminate action within you, and that IS YOU.[/QUOTE]
"Part of you" is very, very vague. Part of all of my body? Part of my central nervous system? What about interdeterminacy that is brought about as a result of interactions in the environment. Where's the distinction between part of me and part of the environment?
[QUOTE=Zenreon117;43754316]This is what I mean though, you are being non-sensical.
You are defining free will as something that is impossible by definition.
Secondly, if those indeterminates are part of you, then how is it not you choosing? They are producing indeterminate action within you, and that IS YOU.[/QUOTE]
Because you're defining free will as something that is more than what it is so when you hear my definition you reject it.
No it isn't you. You are as far as we know, a lucky happy accident of existence, your conciousness as I have said before might not be anymore than an illusion, and again, under a determinist universe(like we know we live in so far) doesn't work with free will unless free will is a form of magic essentially.
I'm just taking the most realistic and physical based version of reality as I possibly can because as far as I can tell this is the truth.
[QUOTE=JohnnyMo1;43754321]Essentially. Any other definition doesn't really capture what the term implies. According to most of the definitions you seem to have given, I'd agree that they exist, but those definitions are devoid of meaningful content.[/QUOTE]
Why are they devoid of meaningful content?
You are defining free-will as magical, and therefore are just claiming it is impossible, that it would exist outside of physics. And I say that is poppycock.
Free will isn't the ability to be an entity utterly seperate from your own body, free will is the ability for you, which is constituted by your body, to act indeterminately and according to it's own dictates.
[QUOTE=Zenreon117;43754351]Why are they devoid of meaningful content?
You are defining free-will as magical, and therefore are just claiming it is impossible, that it would exist outside of physics. And I say that is poppycock.
Free will isn't the ability to be an entity utterly seperate from your own body, free will is the ability for you, which is constituted by your body, to act indeterminately and according to it's own dictates.[/QUOTE]
Repeating "indeterminate" like it separates a part of the body from the rest and pinpoints it as a manner of true choice is not making it clear HOW that happens to myself or Johnnymo it seems.
[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;43754345]Because you're defining free will as something that is more than what it is so when you hear my definition you reject it.
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;43754244]So it's an argument you can't lose because everything proves you right?[/quote]
If you define something as impossible and then ask me to prove it then you are being unfair. I say to you free will exists in the indeterminacy of the human system, and you say it lies in being a magical ghost bubble floating above your head that makes decisions without refernce to the brain. This is seperating the entities that you physicalists so completely want to keep together. Remain consistent and admit that Free-will needn't be a ghost in the machine, because there is no ghost in the machine, it is only a system called a person.
[QUOTE=Zenreon117;43754351]Why are they devoid of meaningful content?
You are defining free-will as magical, and therefore are just claiming it is impossible, that it would exist outside of physics. And I say that is poppycock.
Free will isn't the ability to be an entity utterly seperate from your own body, free will is the ability for you, which is constituted by your body, to act indeterminately and according to it's own dictates.[/QUOTE]
By that definition anything can have free will. A tree could be said to have free will in regards to how it grows. Even a rock could have free will if it decided to fall off a cliff.
It's a ridiculous definition for free will.
[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;43754378]Repeating "indeterminate" like it separates a part of the body from the rest and pinpoints it as a manner of true choice is not making it clear HOW that happens to myself or Johnnymo it seems.[/QUOTE]
I am not pinpointing anything. This is EXACTLY what I was ranting about earlier, you are look at the wrong scale. I am not isolating anything. I am saying the whole SYSTEM has free will, not some magical decision gooseberry floating in a seperate realm of existence.
I define something as needing proof to be real. I do not see where you are getting "indeterminents" from in relation to the human mind. Please stop acting like i'm trying to ignore you or call you a crack pot. I'm asking what they are and how you know they exist and how you understand this so that we can verify the claim.
I'm not stipulating anything that isn't backed up by our best understanding of the world as being purely causal and deterministic at the most understood levels.
[QUOTE=carcarcargo;43754423]By that definition anything can have free will. A tree could be said to have free will in regards to how it grows. Even a rock could have free will if it decided to fall off a cliff.
It's a ridiculous definition for free will.[/QUOTE]
No, because those do not have a will which can be expressed intelligently. They aren't people and acting indeterminately involves something within yourself to act, not something from outside.
[editline]1st February 2014[/editline]
[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;43754435]I define something as needing proof to be real. I do not see where you are getting "indeterminents" from in relation to the human mind. Please stop acting like i'm trying to ignore you or call you a crack pot. I'm asking what they are and how you know they exist and how you understand this so that we can verify the claim.
I'm not stipulating anything that isn't backed up by our best understanding of the world as being purely causal and deterministic at the most understood levels.[/QUOTE]
I put a conditional in my argument, that entails that it requires a certain state of affairs in order to work.
[QUOTE=Zenreon117;43754427]I am not pinpointing anything. This is EXACTLY what I was ranting about earlier, you are look at the wrong scale. I am not isolating anything. I am saying the whole SYSTEM has free will, not some magical decision gooseberry floating in a seperate realm of existence.[/QUOTE]
But how? My elbow hurts so my choice to pick up an object is now determined by that? But is that not at the very heart of it a cause of determinism?
If the whole system contains the choice, then why is it that I need my brain to live, even if not intact?
You are your brain. You are your body. You may be both, but they are distinct whilst being one with each other. Understanding this is important. Because at the end of the day the world you know and the thoughts you have, again, as far as we know aren't much more than an illusion from all the working parts moving together in a manner that allowed it to best survive.
The choice lays in indeterminates which the system itself moves on, but to me, this doesn't seem like a strong description of free will.
[QUOTE=Zenreon117;43754439]No, because those do not have a will which can be expressed intelligently. They aren't people and acting indeterminately involves something within yourself to act, not something from outside.[/QUOTE]
That's a completely arbitrary distinction. You could argue a tree does express its growth intelligently as it is a complete system, just like a human is.
[QUOTE=Zenreon117;43754439]No, because those do not have a will which can be expressed intelligently. They aren't people and acting indeterminately involves something within yourself to act, not something from outside.
[editline]1st February 2014[/editline]
I put a conditional in my argument, that entails that it requires a certain state of affairs in order to work.[/QUOTE]
which is why in the meantime whilst we wait for the proof that this is what happens, i'm fine with believing the mechanical truth that i'm aware of currently.
[editline]1st February 2014[/editline]
[QUOTE=carcarcargo;43754459]That's a completely arbitrary distinction. You could argue a tree does express its growth intelligently as it is a complete system, just like a human is.[/QUOTE]
You could say a potato growing in the dark seeking out the best form of light(through a maze perhaps even) is expressing free will and intelligence in a potato like standard as it's guiding it's growth with a goal
[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;43754458]But how? My elbow hurts so my choice to pick up an object is now determined by that? But is that not at the very heart of it a cause of determinism?
If the whole system contains the choice, then why is it that I need my brain to live, even if not intact?
You are your brain. You are your body. You may be both, but they are distinct whilst being one with each other. Understanding this is important. Because at the end of the day the world you know and the thoughts you have, again, as far as we know aren't much more than an illusion from all the working parts moving together in a manner that allowed it to best survive.
The choice lays in indeterminates which the system itself moves on, but to me, this doesn't seem like a strong description of free will.[/QUOTE]
Why though? Why does free-will have to mean that the body is just pilotable meat suit for a soul? Why can't the soul, and brain be the same thing, and those, in of themselves, have an intelligent indeterminacy about them which we call free will.
[editline]1st February 2014[/editline]
[QUOTE=carcarcargo;43754459]That's a completely arbitrary distinction. You could argue a tree does express its growth intelligently as it is a complete system, just like a human is.[/QUOTE]
Is the tree self-aware of it's decisions? Is it conscious? Free will requires consciousness AFAIK.
Don't use the word soul without taking into consideration it's actual meaning in relation to the body, aka, an ethereal extra part containing your humanity.
Because we KNOW the brain is where we(as in the stream of conciousness that persists as you) come from. Because for the form of free will that is defined in classic religious contexts we would have to exist in a different universe with different rules than this one. because for the version of free will you defined just recently here we would be defining anything and everything that is itself whole and capable of variations that aren't easily predictable as having free will.
I just don't see why you should be right over just believing that the universe is self consistent in regards to all things that have to follow it's rules.
[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;43754591]Don't use the word soul without taking into consideration it's actual meaning in relation to the body, aka, an ethereal extra part containing your humanity.
Because we KNOW the brain is where we(as in the stream of conciousness that persists as you) come from. Because for the form of free will that is defined in classic religious contexts we would have to exist in a different universe with different rules than this one. because for the version of free will you defined just recently here we would be defining anything and everything that is itself whole and capable of variations that aren't easily predictable as having free will.
I just don't see why you should be right over just believing that the universe is self consistent in regards to all things that have to follow it's rules.[/QUOTE]
No, no and no.
Let me lay it out for your
Free will requires:
-The potential for externally indeterminate action.
-Consciousness/Self-awareness (Meta-cognition)
[QUOTE=Zenreon117;43754623]No, no and no.
Let me lay it out for your
Free will requires:
-The potential for externally indeterminate action.
-Consciousness/Self-awareness (Meta-cognition)[/QUOTE]
What if the latter is an illusion and the former doesn't happen?
what if that happened to be the world you lived in
By the way, I was saying that your definition for free will requires a soul, not mine. You are the one who thinks we must be on a separate plane of existence in order for us to have freedom of will.
[QUOTE=Zenreon117;43754631]By the way, I was saying that your definition for free will requires a soul, not mine. You are the one who thinks we must be on a separate plane of existence in order for us to have freedom of will.[/QUOTE]
well yes,
[QUOTE=Zenreon117;43754549]Why though? Why does free-will have to mean that the body is just pilotable meat suit for a soul? Why can't the soul, and brain be the same thing, and those, in of themselves, have an intelligent indeterminacy about them which we call free will.[/QUOTE]
Because that doesn't jibe with what I think of when I hear the term "free will." I think that the thing which I consider "free will" is a silly idea and that's why I reject it. I have no drive like you do to preserve it in with a redefinition in physical terms because I think the term itself connotes something else.
We're not defining it as possible because there are people who believe that it is possible! However, I don't agree with their ideas about supernaturality, and I reject free well as a consequence.
I don't think we have free will and I think that if you want to speak about free will in a deterministic universe, you must be invoking magic or the soul or something
[QUOTE=Zenreon117;43754043]So free will must be magical in order for it to exist? Is that basically what you are saying?[/QUOTE]
Depends on the definition of free will.
I feel like part of the debate around free will is an attempt to distinguish humans from other structures in the universe with some fundamental property only we can possess. We intuitively feel we are special, that we are conscious observers making internal decisions seemingly independently from our environment. We experience things in a way that we can't imagine any subjectively lesser entity could; be it animal or automaton.
But we know now that there isn't really anything particularly special about our existence from an objective standpoint. We are controlled by a large and and highly connected neural network, the internal workings of which are mostly governed by classical physics but with a minor element of indeterminacy in cases where a neuron is on the cusp of excitation. This indeterminacy only really applies when two options being considered are equally favoured, but does not factor in when excitation thresholds are exceeded or fallen short of by any significant amount. This means that you as a system will largely act in a deterministic way when presented with choices that matter to you, but will be susceptible to indeterminacy when making a choice you feel is arbitrary. What's more, you as a system can't predict the outcomes of such random choices despite the selection mechanism being internal. Even if all indeterminacy in our minds was collapsed to hard determinism we would still act in an indistinguishable way. It would be the difference between us blinking at some time rather than 50ms later, while all of our major decisions are essentially predictable anyway (given enough knowledge of the system).
That doesn't need to matter because you can define free will to be whatever you like, depending on how special you want humans to be. The fact that our decision making process is supported in its entirety by a physical mechanism doesn't matter to me much, because it involves a system so complex that its outcome cannot be feasibly predicted. Our future may be carved in stone, but we are not aware of that future and so don't need to feel constrained by it.
You may have some problems if you are out to prove that humans are objectively special, as a definition of free will that only allows it to apply to us would have to have some contrived clause explicitly aiming to do so. Otherwise it would either apply to vast swathes of the animal kingdom and constructed automata, or neglect a subset of the human race.
For me, free will as a concept doesn't have much meaning because I've yet to come across a definition that both applies to us and exposes an interesting property of our existence. I'm okay with being an automaton that can generate and store natural language sequences from prior stored sequences or external percepts, I don't need to be anything more.
[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;43754628]What if the latter is an illusion and the former doesn't happen?
what if that happened to be the world you lived in[/QUOTE]
Meta-cognition is a phenomenological thing. If I say to myself that I am doing it, and I realize it, then I am doing it. That is the very definition of it. It exists.
Indeterminacy. Yeah what if I'm wrong and your right. What I'm right and your wrong. So far things seem to be leaning towards indeterminacy in humans due to our ability to do otherwise.
[QUOTE=Zenreon117;43754662]Meta-cognition is a phenomenological thing. If I say to myself that I am doing it, and I realize it, then I am doing it. That is the very definition of it. It exists.
Indeterminacy. Yeah what if I'm wrong and your right. What I'm right and your wrong. So far things seem to be leaning towards indeterminacy in humans due to our ability to do otherwise.[/QUOTE]
how does that definition not also fit an illusion?
What does "do otherwise" mean without a frame of reference that is basically regarded as fortune telling or seeing the future? You can't know what one would "do" or "do otherwise" to impose indeterminacy as a manner that free will is expressed in because you can't know the path that would happen deterministically, or indeterminately through some manner of choice you're describing.
[QUOTE=Zenreon117;43754549]W
Is the tree self-aware of it's decisions? Is it conscious? Free will requires consciousness AFAIK.[/QUOTE]
That's an arbitrary distinction created by you. What you described before could be applied to anything.
[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;43754687]how does that definition not also fit an illusion?
What does "do otherwise" mean without a frame of reference that is basically regarded as fortune telling or seeing the future? You can't know what one would "do" or "do otherwise" to impose indeterminacy as a manner that free will is expressed in because you can't know the path that would happen deterministically, or indeterminately through some manner of choice you're describing.[/QUOTE]
All you are saying is that we can't see multiple time-lines. Which I agree with you, it is one of the problems of free will. We can't both watch Timmy buy the fudgepop and then roll back time to 5 minutes before he did so and then see whether or not he buys the fudgepop again.
[editline]1st February 2014[/editline]
[QUOTE=carcarcargo;43754695]That's an arbitrary distinction created by you. What you described before could be applied to anything.[/QUOTE]
It only stands to reason that something with free will must have meta-cognition, otherwise there is no element of reflecting upon different choices and thus UTTERLY no possibility for free-will.
[QUOTE=Zenreon117;43754714]All you are saying is that we can't see multiple time-lines. Which I agree with you, it is one of the problems of free will. We can't both watch Timmy buy the fudgepop and then roll back time to 5 minutes before he did so and then see whether or not he buys the fudgepop again.[/QUOTE]
so claiming indeterminacy is based on what then?
you're claiming to know that there's actual multiple options weighted at the same value and applicable in the situation in an equal manner and are brought to attention in an equal manner by the brain to make a choice
This may not be the case and the so called "proper" course of action is a person flip flopping 20 times before they made a decision that was always going to be that way, the flip flop was just part of that decision over time that we look at as "variable" due to a total inability to be truly impartial.
[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;43754628]What if the latter is an illusion...[/QUOTE]
Cogito ergo sum.
Consciousness is my "self".
[QUOTE=carcarcargo;43742330]Again not at all, this would suggest you could go against the natural laws that govern your brain which would make you 100% responsible. But this doesn't make any sense at all.
I mean as in, if the brain has wired in a way that the person will say commit a theft, all the QM coin flips go that way as well, that somehow this person could go against their own brain.[/QUOTE]
i'm just gonna step in real quick and say that no brain anywhere is wired to commit theft
all your brain can do is compel you to do things, how strong your willpower is to carry or not carry out those compelling urges is what determines whether or not you actually do it
you can't say that you stole something because "that's just the way i am" since the brain cannot "possess" you, it can only emit urges of varying intensity
these urges then are affected by other variables such as the person's values, upbringing, environment, mental state, life situation, hell, even weather can affect it
once all of these are accounted for the final intensity of the urge is discovered but even then it cannot be 100% sure that it'll happen
I can't say this proves free will but your statement of brains being wired to do theft is just plain wrong on a factual level
[QUOTE='[Green];43760437']i'm just gonna step in real quick and say that no brain anywhere is wired to commit theft
all your brain can do is compel you to do things, how strong your willpower is to carry or not carry out those compelling urges is what determines whether or not you actually do it
you can't say that you stole something because "that's just the way i am" since the brain cannot "possess" you, it can only emit urges of varying intensity
these urges then are affected by other variables such as the person's values, upbringing, environment, mental state, life situation, hell, even weather can affect it
once all of these are accounted for the final intensity of the urge is discovered but even then it cannot be 100% sure that it'll happen
I can't say this proves free will but your statement of brains being wired to do theft is just plain wrong on a factual level[/QUOTE]
So you're implying that I'm somehow outside of my own brain?
I mean what exactly am I if not my own brain? What exactly am I thinking with if not my brain?
Everytime someone new comes in to post it always jumps us back to the beginning of the discussion
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