Free Will

[psychodiva]

if you GIVE it two you can expect to get none back

[ubs]

DOMi wrote

Well, since I TRY and base all my beliefs on reason, my reason states that we simply do not have enough information yet to fully explain how free will works and its interactions with the Universe.

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.

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.

[Mog]

Free Will the Game?

[calpurnpiso]

DOMi wrote

Yes to calpurnpiso.but no matter how much you mess with the brain you will always have something inside that makes a descision, either choosing on or off.

Not independently if a neurologist is manipulating it. The decision will be that of the one manipulating the brain. If I give you scopolamine you'll do what I tell you to do, your brain will be unable to make decisions. It's all in the brain my friend.

I'll love to give Diva, NKB & Smelly some Scopolamine (i,e Datura & Brugmansia all having muscarinic effects)..then seat back enjoying their verbal intercourse...
I know wtf will be uttered by this self appointed psychologist and her adoring fans.......

[lostsheep]

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.

Honestly if you don't have good math skills you will probably never get a good grasp of QM. Just say'n (from experience). Even physicists don't necessarily understand QM in terms of a physical picture or verbal descriptions, like you can often acheive w/ Newtonian physics. You are better off (IMO) trying to read watered down interpretations written by legitimate scientists or science teachers in the field (which is what I do). What you are referring to sounds like metaphysics, or like new-age quasi religious ideas which have taken QM and attempted to apply the concepts to modernize religious ideas.

In any case, I am not sure that free will exists: it may be an illusion created by our brains, just as consciousness may be an illusion. Consciousness may be an emergent property of interconnected neurons, and when we come to a decision we may think we know how we arrived at that decision, but in fact our knowing is simply the brain's reconstruction of the event, and not an accurate representation of the event. There are lots of neurology books dealing with the subject of consciousness/free will. Fascinating stuff though, I agree! I'd read more about it if I had more time! Currently I am trying to find time to read up on the non-locality principle of QM. Too busy w/ work and school, and other extracirriculars...

Yes but when the neurologist is done with it, it still makes its own decisions....

[ubs]

lostsheep wrote

...you can often acheive w/ Newtonian physics. You are better off (IMO) trying to read watered down interpretations written by legitimate scientists or science teachers in the field (which is what I do).

Feynman

DOMi wrote

Yes but when the neurologist is done with it, it still makes its own decisions....

Does an amoeba have free will?

hrmm...i wonder then, at what point does an organism have free will (if it does exist)

[ubs]

I thought of a better one. Does one of your skin cells have free will?

[Victus]

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.

If it HAS to choose one, its not really free will. (heheheh).

If that's the test, one might could probably argue that single celled organisms have free will/ Do they?

...rats, I was beaten to it.

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.

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.

But I digress. Your banana example is not really an example of free will, as theologians and philosophers use the term. 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.

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.

You can't be serious! Does anyone really make either of those arguments? They are very weak.

From a Christian perspective there is no one answer about free will but a number of different views with a very long history of argument. Some say no. Others, like the adherents of "open theology" say yes because God does not know the future until it happens (or some such thing. I have no doubt that I am not stating their position quite accurately). Most of us, I think, hold to a variant that says that God foreknows our free moral choices but that God's foreknowledge does not CAUSE our free moral choices, rather our free moral choices cause God's foreknowledge.

The fact that the effect seems to precede the cause here is nullified when we understand that God exists outside of time and space (as the cause of both). Thus it only appears that the effect precedes the cause, whereas from a timeless perspective this is not the case.

I must say that free will is a problem for the deniers, as well. In fact, if materialism (or naturalism) is true, we are all just products of our biological makeup and have no more free will than a fruit fly-- a fact that would eliminate any coherent account of morality, as well. But some materialists hold that we do have free will (I would argue that everyone believes in their own free will in practice, even if they deny it in principle), and that morality is a real, and not just an imaginary, phenomenon. 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').

[Sternwallow]

DOMi wrote

Yes to calpurnpiso.but no matter how much you mess with the brain you will always have something inside that makes a descision, either choosing on or off.

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.

[Sternwallow]

DOMi wrote

So if you decide to make a decision, the out come of deciding to make that descion is the descision itself? uhh..does that make sense or am i just crazy lol

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....

Note that the alternative to determinism is not rational free choice, it is uncaused randomness.

Choice is all deterministic.

[lostsheep]

DOMi wrote

Yes but when the neurologist is done with it, it still makes its own decisions....

True...but even a brain w/ only a few neurons "makes decisions"....would you call that free will?

Oops...what ubs said.