Free Will

[ubs]

KnowledgeIsPower wrote

Let me sum up your argument and you can tell me if it's a straw man or not. I don't want to get it wrong so forgive me if it is.

Are you saying that since chemical reactions aren't "free" and we are made of chemical reactions that means we can't be "free" either?

Yes (she says cautiously). The chemical reactions in our bodies are executing in response to our environment as prescribed by our genetic make-up and memory.

[Tenspace]

KIP, are you familiar with David Deutsch? His book, "The Fabric of Reality" does a good job of exploring the line between physical reality, computation, and information. He deals extensively with the concept of causality.

[Kate]

happywarrior wrote

Yeh but it doesn't taste very good.

Might the argument be phrased, We are the sum of our parts(no free will) vs. We are more than the sum of our parts(free will)?

I guess that would raise the question, where did the "more" come from and how does it work?

[Kate]

ubs wrote

Yes (she says cautiously). The chemical reactions in our bodies are executing in response to our environment as prescribed by our genetic make-up and memory.

Ok well if you treat freedom like that instead of as a process then I can see why you would think that. The problem is that when talking about processes this creates a fallacy of division.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_division

Chemical reactions don't think either but we do. At least, I hope we can agree on that much...

happywarrior wrote

Might the argument be phrased, We are the sum of our parts(no free will) vs. We are more than the sum of our parts(free will)?

I guess that would raise the question, where did the "more" come from and how does it work?

If you take a plane apart, no single piece of it can fly. When you put the pieces together, it can fly.

That's a form of emergence.

Kate wrote

hassenpfeffer! Thanks Kate.

I guess this also proves causal effect. I post (A) and then Kate posts a picture with a rabbit(B). See! No free will KIP. LOL

KnowledgeIsPower wrote

If you take a plane apart, no single piece of it can fly. When you put the pieces together, it can fly.

That's a form of emergence.

But the plane doesn't fly by itself. If I take a plane to 15000 ft and let it go, it doesn't fly, it acts pretty much like what it was before it was put together, it just does it with style.

[Kate]

Kate wrote

See how this works KIP.

[Tenspace]

KnowledgeIsPower wrote

If you take a plane apart, no single piece of it can fly. When you put the pieces together, it can fly.

That's a form of emergence.

That's not really the essence of emergence, though. Yes, out of an airplane you get flight, but emergence is about self-organized systems. Here's an example:

Self-replicating RNA

Or this:

Craig Reynold's "Boids"

[Kate]

I wuv you to kate.

Tenspace wrote

That's not really the essence of emergence, though. Yes, out of an airplane you get flight, but emergence is about self-organized systems. Here's an example:

Self-replicating RNA

Or this:

Craig Reynold's "Boids"

That's a form of emergence. So was my example.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/properties-emergent/

You'll find only passing references to self-organization. So I would call it incorrect to say "emergence is about self-organized systems" exclusively which seems like what you were implying.