Free Will

[Sternwallow]

ubs wrote

But even if you have perfect knowledge, the chemical reaction that comprises your thought must have an origin, and thus be "predestined."

Basically it goes

I sense that I am an independent agent. My independence must originate somewhere, so there must be an element of the supernatural even though I can't sense it.

OR

I don't sense the supernatural so there is no free will even though I sense that I am an independent agent.

..both positions are very circular and neither can be proved.

Introspection proves that we sense our independence yet it does not prove the reality of that independence. We must feel independent in order to function.

[Sternwallow]

DOMi wrote

maybe free will existing in more than 4 dimensions that we can not measure do to our limitations of our tools? What do you folks think of quantum conciousness and that book quantum enigma? Just curious. I'm in the very beginning stages of trying to understand quantum mechanics, however my math is horrible. Thanks for all your replies.

All that quantum effects can do is to add undirected randomness. It does not enable free will.

[ghoulslime]

Uh...hem!

We have already discussed Free Will in the Free Will thread.

Here is an excerpt:

ghoulslime wrote

KIP denies the diverse parameters which govern his thought. He has bridged the gap in his reckoning between the known and unknown universe by relegating reality to an abstraction.

He denies that our thoughts are the product of an evolution of human thinking over centuries and centuries of time - an evolution in which no single organism ever had the ability to exercise complete free will. Any human who grew up completely isolated from other humans or human ideas would still be the biological heir of a developmental process affected by customs and cultures and ideals.

He eats only when he decides it is time to eat. He drinks only when he wills it to be so. He shits only by the most punctilious endorsement of his intellect.

He is not a small and inconsequential mass of matter caught in the tempestuous dynamics of a vast and mind-boggling universe. Atoms displace at his mere suggestion.

He has rendered himself omnipotent in his self-important mind.

But his will is a slave to his ego. He wears his pride as chains upon his volition. He is a self-contained refutation of his own argument.

Did somebody believe that they were free to start another free will thread?

[lostsheep]

Sternwallow wrote

You are getting hung up on the term "decision".

Every decision you or I make is dependent on the various influences active at that moment. I choose to respond to your post because I WANT to make my position on free will generally known, I WANT that because I am interested in what others may offer as contrary ideas. I am INTERESTED because I know that my analysis and knowledge, as fine as they are, are not perfect....

Sternwallow wrote

Introspection proves that we sense our independence yet it does not prove the reality of that independence. We must feel independent in order to function.

This is what I was saying that the neurologists are saying about consciousness and self-awareness. The brain doesn't really know how it decides, it constructs a logic that makes it think it knows how it decides, in order to increase efficiency and processing (supposedly). The actual decision is a statistical phenomenon, and like all random events, there are certain emergent consistencies that can be observed. For example, through learning a brain learns to "make decisions" that increase its chance of survival. It is easier to understand on simpler organisms: less neurons means less complexity. But these understandings can be extrapolated to our own brains by analogy.

Note: keep in mind I am translating stuff I read a while ago, but I think it is pretty close. Some neurologist can probably correct me like Choobus did on the physics thread...

[ghoulslime]

Lily wrote

Well, no, he doesn't *have* to. There is nothing to keep him from walking away, although animals are ruled by their appetites. We humans seem to have a faculty that makes distinctions between appetites, which is why you don't usually see humans copulating in the park next to the dogs.

..or dogs eating like a pig next to Lily at Denny's.


WE'RE not animals!

[lostsheep]

ghoulslime wrote

Uh...hem!

We have already discussed Free Will in the Free Will thread.

Did somebody believe that they were free to start another free will thread?

Oops sorry I'll shut up now...

[ghoulslime]

lostsheep wrote

Oops sorry I'll shut up now...

As if it was your option!

You will continue to talk. Destiny demands it of you!

[ghoulslime]

Notice how Lily’s moral choices frequently involve boom boom – the ultimate wickedness! She can’t seem to see through her delusion-colored glasses to consider that her choices to hump like a horny dog or wither away like a barren nun are influenced by her desire to receive an eternal reward and her fear of divine punishment for acting upon her own biology.

[calpurnpiso]

Sternwallow wrote

Don't worry too much about Cal, he thinks that thoughts are generated in his brain and that, being an atheist brain, nothing incorrect can possibly enter it.

Every decision or choice is critically dependent on the state of the brain at that moment. Even changing your mind merely sets the moment a little later thus slightly changing the aggregate state. There is no mechanism other than this deterministic consequence so there is no way for free will to function.

I see, but we are all atheists at birth & the brain will make lots of mistakes in cognition...plus there is always that bump in the head that would screw up everything, including determinism & free will..

having a healthy ( atheist) brain would not exclude us from making mistakes in reasoning, the key is to be aware of them.

[calpurnpiso]

DOMi wrote

I would think that chimps have free will. Give it two bannanas of the same size and freshness. The chimp will have to choose one.

here is an interesting example of "free will" on chimps.

Place a walnut on a container that has a small opening fitting only to a chimp's hand. The container is attached to a chain.
Show it to the chimp whose hand barely can pass through the opening. Would the chimp have the free will, after grabbing the walnut finding himself a prisoner since he will not let the walnut go, to release the walnut and scape? Remember we are dealing here with a chimp's brain...

[ghoulslime]

calpurnpiso wrote

here is an interesting example of "free will" on chimps.

Place a walnut on a container that has a small opening fitting only to a chimp's hand. The container is attached to a chain.
Show it to the chimp whose hand barely can pass through the opening. Would the chimp have the free will, after grabbing the walnut finding himself a prisoner since he will not let the walnut go, to release the walnut and scape? Remember we are dealing here with a chimp's brain...

Wanna hear another nut story? Lily grabbed onto the tired old walnut of Christinsanity, and can't seem to loosen the grip of her fat, sweaty palm upon it.

That's fucking nuts!

[ghoulslime]

Somebody help me out here. If the Leprechauns want me to dance a drunken jig while molesting a pig in a wig with a twig, and I am all, "Fuck you, little people! You make me sick! Suck my dick!", have the leprechauns exercised their divine free will over me or has my free will trumped theirs? These divine concepts always confuse me. Where is a witchdoctor when you need one?

[calpurnpiso]

ghoulslime wrote

Wanna hear another nut story? Lily grabbed onto the tired old walnut of Christinsanity, and can't seem to loosen the grip of her fat, sweaty palm upon it.

That's fucking nuts!

....down to earth statement my friend...

[ubs]

Victus wrote

...rats, I was beaten to it.

Still, I committed to a position, and you know how wrong that is.

Lily wrote

Free will involves moral choices. It has nothing to do with whether I wear my pink pajamas tonight or the yellow ones or whether I spread butter or peanut butter on my toast tomorrow.

Can't every choice be presented as a moral choice? Butter rewards livestock husbandry which starves people that can't afford meat. Peanut butter will give you salmonella.

Lily wrote

(I would argue that everyone believes in their own free will in practice, even if they deny it in principle),

Agreed. People who don't believe embrace the illusion are still in bed, but as lostsheep pointed out, all of the same problems apply to our sense of consciousness. That is to say, it is a necessary fiction.

Lily wrote

So, I think those who want to deny free will are on the spot to give a coherent account of morality (the idea that it is some sort of adaptive mechanism rooted in evolution is not coherent. Just sayin').

Why don't you think it's coherent? We like living. Clawless and fangless our survival is dependent on the herd. Our relative morality has facilitated group cohesion so we adapt to the morality of our day.

Sternwallow wrote

There is no mechanism other than this deterministic consequence so there is no way for free will to function.

Hello stranger!

lostsheep wrote

Oops sorry I'll shut up now...

NO! No. I loved what you said about the illusion created by not being able to see our own thoughts. Very nice. As GS said Keep Talking!

ghoulslime wrote

Notice how Lily’s moral choices frequently involve boom boom – the ultimate wickedness!

Dude, you're so happy to see her that I'm embarrassed.

[Node18]

ghoulslime wrote

Notice how Lily’s moral choices frequently involve boom boom – the ultimate wickedness! She can’t seem to see through her delusion-colored glasses to consider that her choices to hump like a horny dog or wither away like a barren nun are influenced by her desire to receive an eternal reward and her fear of divine punishment for acting upon her own biology.

Lily just wants to get it anal by one of us here at the forum