Mind over Matter

[Beth]

Oh, right. Sorry, I forgot to answer this.

The problem here is that the debate here is about whether or not a free will exists at all, not whether or not it can change a human's destiny.

I'm saying that because we can change our destiny by changing how we think, specifically by making a decision on how to act in the future, that fact provides support to the argument that free will exists.

I think, perhaps, you are saying it is not established that we can change our destiny by changing our minds. The idea that we can and do change our lives by changing our minds is well supported by the empirical evidence and I am comfortable with considering it as a given. If you disagree, is it based on empirical evidence, or is it based on the some theoretical axiom regarding how the universe works.

You start your explanation by the claim " If I consciously decide to make a change in my life, I can do so." and go on to use that as the basis for your argument. However, it's that very basis which is at question here. Certainly, you can decide to make a change in your life, and you may either succeed or fail in it. But the question is whether you making that decision was an act of free will, or something inevitable. After all, we know that our decisions are created as a result of physical events inside our brains (or I do, anyway. You may disagree, of course). And since those events are subject to natural laws, it's not really us determining what decisions we make, but the laws of nature.

So while you certainly are free to make the decisions you do, be those decisions losing weight or running for president, it would appear you never had the choice of making any other decision

No, I don't think it appears that way at all. Why do you feel it 'appears' we could never make any other choice than the ones we actually did?

I think it appears that we make choices and our lives change as a result of the choices we make. That those choices are constrained by the laws of nature is no more an impediment to the concept of free will than the constraint that we must eat or we will die.

I would assume you disagree with this view. However, the post above doesn't really address it.

Yes, I do. I think, please correct me if I'm wrong, that your concern is not that the decisions are inevitable (clearly, given QM, they cannot be), but that if they are the result of probabilitic processes, how is that free will? That is the question I was trying to answer.

If we are not fated to any particular destiny, then we have a choice of possible destinies. If we can, through the choices we make and the ways we behave, affect which actual destiny we arrive at, then we are exercising choice about how we will behave in the future. If we can exercise choice about how we will behave in the future, well, that is how I define free will.

If you claim we cannot exercise choice in our behavior, well, you would have to have a very good argument to convince me that is the case as all evidence currently indicates that we are able to do so. What evidence do you have that we do not?

As for deliniating between the brain and the mind, well, I suppose an apt comparison would be a body and a dance. One is something the other does. One is a physical object, one is an abstract concept representing a series of actions by that object. In a sense, you could say neither a mind nor a dance really exist, but are just labels that make it easier to discuss the phenomena involved.

Thanks. I just wasn't sure how you were using the terms. Sometimes people use 'mind' to refer to conscious processes only. Sometimes it refers to a supposed supernatural aspect of humans. BTW, I fall into the camp that feels that mind and dance would both exist. I class them as non-material things, rather than non-existant things.

 

[Mirrorglass]

I'm saying that because we can change our destiny by changing how we think, specifically by making a decision on how to act in the future, that fact provides support to the argument that free will exists.

I think, perhaps, you are saying it is not established that we can change our destiny by changing our minds. The idea that we can and do change our lives by changing our minds is well supported by the empirical evidence and I am comfortable with considering it as a given. If you disagree, is it based on empirical evidence, or is it based on the some theoretical axiom regarding how the universe works.

Not quite. I don't really like the word 'destiny', but to use it here, what I am saying is that whenever we change our minds, doing that was part of our 'destiny'.

No, I don't think it appears that way at all. Why do you feel it 'appears' we could never make any other choice than the ones we actually did?

Well, have you ever seen that happen?

I think it appears that we make choices and our lives change as a result of the choices we make. That those choices are constrained by the laws of nature is no more an impediment to the concept of free will than the constraint that we must eat or we will die

.

I'm not questioning the fact that our choices do result in our lives changing. That is certainly true. However, I don't see any reason to think we could have made any other choices than we did.

Yes, I do. I think, please correct me if I'm wrong, that your concern is not that the decisions are inevitable (clearly, given QM, they cannot be), but that if they are the result of probabilitic processes, how is that free will? That is the question I was trying to answer.

Yes, essentially. I don't see how it matters if the decisions are decided by probabilistic rules. They're still decided by rules, not by the humans themselves.

If we are not fated to any particular destiny, then we have a choice of possible destinies. If we can, through the choices we make and the ways we behave, affect which actual destiny we arrive at, then we are exercising choice about how we will behave in the future. If we can exercise choice about how we will behave in the future, well, that is how I define free will.

Yes, I understand the definition. For any practical purposes, it's an acceptable definition of free will. However, it seems to me it isn't strictly true.

The problem is in your first sentence. If we are not fated to any particular destiny, it doesn't necessarily follow we have a choice - it could simply mean that our destinies are decided by random chance. And indeed, as the original claim was that we are not fated to any particular destiny because some of the laws governing reality are not determinant, but probabilistic. So it only proves that the future is uncertain - not that we can affect it in any way.

If you claim we cannot exercise choice in our behavior, well, you would have to have a very good argument to convince me that is the case as all evidence currently indicates that we are able to do so. What evidence do you have that we do not?

It's not really a matter of us not exercising choice in our behaviour; that is something we do. However, that act of choosing itself is a phenomenon subject to physical laws. When you dig deep enough, the decision is caused by a series of causal events, and possibly some random events as well. In either case, it isn't really the human making the decision.

Thanks. I just wasn't sure how you were using the terms. Sometimes people use 'mind' to refer to conscious processes only. Sometimes it refers to a supposed supernatural aspect of humans. BTW, I fall into the camp that feels that mind and dance would both exist. I class them as non-material things, rather than non-existant things.

Well, I also consider those things to exist as abstract concepts. Essentially, they exist, but only in the minds of observers. Saying they are non-material things seems to mean the same thing.

 

[Dancing David]

I know that free will may be an illusion, I may be preprogrammed and predestined. yet when I am off my medication, I live with compulsions, so I feel I have more freedom to choose when I am on my medicine.

Doesn't mean that I do, I still also disagree with the dualistic premise of the OP, of course the mind effects matter, the mind is matter.

 

[Mirrorglass]

I know that free will may be an illusion, I may be preprogrammed and predestined. yet when I am off my medication, I live with compulsions, so I feel I have more freedom to choose when I am on my medicine.

Doesn't mean that I do, I still also disagree with the dualistic premise of the OP, of course the mind effects matter, the mind is matter.

This is a very good point, and I was going to raise it eventually if no-one else did. My views on the matter are similar. Whether or not our minds are preprogrammed is hardly as important as our own feelings.

I'd say free will exists as an experience, or an abstract concept. It's not real in any strict sense, any more than a dance or a mind are. But as long as there is a human perceiving them, they exist. It's an interesting thought experiment to show free will is an illusion, but it's not at all relevant to real life, and certainly not relevant to judicial systems and morality.

 

[Beth]

Not quite. I don't really like the word 'destiny', but to use it here, what I am saying is that whenever we change our minds, doing that was part of our 'destiny'.

If you acknowledge that our decisions are not absolutely predetermined, why would you believe that to be the case?

No, I don't think it appears that way at all. Why do you feel it 'appears' we could never make any other choice than the ones we actually did?

Well, have you ever seen that happen?

It subjectively appears to me that I make choices constantly, all day long. It subjectively appears to me that other humans do as well. Does it appear subjectively that you have no choices, but follow a predetermined path regarding every action you take?

I think it appears that we make choices and our lives change as a result of the choices we make. That those choices are constrained by the laws of nature is no more an impediment to the concept of free will than the constraint that we must eat or we will die

.
I'm not questioning the fact that our choices do result in our lives changing. That is certainly true. However, I don't see any reason to think we could have made any other choices than we did.

So when the waitress offers you a choice of coffee or tea, you think, despite the appearance of choice, that your ‘choice’ was predetermined by everything that went before it?

Yes, I do. I think, please correct me if I'm wrong, that your concern is not that the decisions are inevitable (clearly, given QM, they cannot be), but that if they are the result of probabilitic processes, how is that free will? That is the question I was trying to answer.

Yes, essentially. I don't see how it matters if the decisions are decided by probabilistic rules. They're still decided by rules, not by the humans themselves.

Perhaps this is the disconnect. Those decisions aren’t decided by probabilistic rules. The probability of each different possible outcome is described - not dictated - by probabilistic distributions.
We can, through our thought processes, alter the parameters of those probabilistic distributions, thus changing the probability of various outcomes more to our liking. In essense, I think we define and alter the 'rules' that the random processes within our brain will follow to arrive at decisions.

If we are not fated to any particular destiny, then we have a choice of possible destinies. If we can, through the choices we make and the ways we behave, affect which actual destiny we arrive at, then we are exercising choice about how we will behave in the future. If we can exercise choice about how we will behave in the future, well, that is how I define free will.

Yes, I understand the definition. For any practical purposes, it's an acceptable definition of free will. However, it seems to me it isn't strictly true.

The problem is in your first sentence. If we are not fated to any particular destiny, it doesn't necessarily follow we have a choice - it could simply mean that our destinies are decided by random chance. And indeed, as the original claim was that we are not fated to any particular destiny because some of the laws governing reality are not determinant, but probabilistic. So it only proves that the future is uncertain - not that we can affect it in any way.

Okay. Does the above help clarify why I feel we are able to make decisions that affect our fates.

If you claim we cannot exercise choice in our behavior, well, you would have to have a very good argument to convince me that is the case as all evidence currently indicates that we are able to do so. What evidence do you have that we do not?

It's not really a matter of us not exercising choice in our behaviour; that is something we do. However, that act of choosing itself is a phenomenon subject to physical laws. When you dig deep enough, the decision is caused by a series of causal events, and possibly some random events as well. In either case, it isn't really the human making the decision.[/quote] How are you defining a human being such that we are someone separate from the past events that shaped our current selves? I don’t think you can meaningfully separate those previous causal events and distributions of random events from the human being who is making the choice. Since those previous causal events and the probability distributions that describe the possible outcomes are a part of who we are, it is still the human making the decision.

Thanks. I just wasn't sure how you were using the terms. Sometimes people use 'mind' to refer to conscious processes only. Sometimes it refers to a supposed supernatural aspect of humans. BTW, I fall into the camp that feels that mind and dance would both exist. I class them as non-material things, rather than non-existant things.

Well, I also consider those things to exist as abstract concepts. Essentially, they exist, but only in the minds of observers. Saying they are non-material things seems to mean the same thing.

Yes. Well, I wouldn’t agree that certain concepts (such as numbers) exist only in the minds of observers, but that’s another discussion.

 

[timf1234]

Unfortunately, our objective is not necessarily to feel good at the expense of truth but to find out the truth.

So you now get to decide what the common objective of mankind is? Do we have the choice to disagree?

Your post implies, that it is OK to cover up the truth for some other motive.
If you bring up counter argument then that is OK.

1) I am not deciding but merely presenting my arguments.
2) I was not talking about common good for mankind but just trying to find out which of the following is closer to the truth.
a) We have Free Will
b) We do not have Free Will

Did the truth seeking Galelio did a bad thing finding out Earth revolves around the Sun and not vice-versa. A lot of people's religious feeling got hurt at that time.

Do you think this forum or any other thread is about "feel good" or people debate to find out the truth, or to understand the truth more clearly?

Tell me which one you are after?
I am really curious.

 

[timf1234]

In the bathtub of history the truth is harder to hold than the soap and much more difficult to find." — Terry Pratchett (Sourcery).

I would argue, that there is no truth, only approximations. Validity is a seperate concept. There is no 'truth'.

There could be no absolute truth in certain thing, I agree but still one idea/explanation/model can be closer to the truth than another.
What matters is the coherency, constancy of all ideas. Reality, truth is nothing but a set of coherent explanation of the world we live in. Coherent, consistent not only by experimental data but also by logical/mathematical proof.
Even if we just live inside Matrix as software codes, it doesn't matter. What matter is the consistency of the rules in the Matrix. If one set of rules is more consistent than other then we should go by the more consistent one.

Although not perfect, but the best available methodology to get closer to the truth is "Qualified, 3rd Party, Double Blind, Successive Approximation, Statistical Methodology"
Of course, this is basically the same thing as Reason, Logic, Science

 

[timf1234]

Beth and I have a long history. There is no point in my saying more than that to her.

Also, your style of discussing this subject has put me off of investing much time or energy in writing a lengthy and thoughtful post for this thread.

So, if you don't mind, I'll spend my words where I think best.

Can you please elaborate a little bit on this?
Which part of my style you did not like?

 

[timf1234]

1)
4) As a matter of fact, unless you are redefining "affect" and "reality", whether my mind is physical or not when I think about it my hand begins typing.

Bill,

Your thinking/awareness/conscious emergence shows up a lot later after the underlying matter already started the move. Please see Libet's experiment on Free Will. There is a tens of milliseconds between the ECR/MOM (Electro-Chemical Reaction and Movement Of Matter in your body and brain. Your thought always lag behind the actual ECR/MOM.

Warning: However, Libet interpreted his experimental result in favor of Free Will.
Libet's bias in favor of free will is exposed in the last 3 paragraphs of his research report. In addition, his "conscious veto" argument doesn't make sense because the question recycle what makes conscious veto decision? Obviously, the next chain of ECR/MOM.

 

[timf1234]

I'm saying that because we can change our destiny by changing how we think, specifically by making a decision on how to act in the future, that fact provides support to the argument that free will exists.

Beth,

It is true that if and when our thinking change then outcome will change.
What made you think you can change your thinking?

If there is X then there will be Y.
But the question remains what will cause X to happen in the first place.

The whole universe is a flow of happenings on which no one has any control.
No control at all. Not even iota of Free Will. There is no Free Will at all, zip, nada, zero.

Words like "can", "choices", "decides" and many other has implicit built in "Free Will" idea behind it. English and all human languages are evolved with a bias toward the unproven idea of Free Will. That is why we have to be very careful when arguing against or for Free Will. Instead of processing just the words, we must process thought behind the words. We must dissect the relevant words and identify the stealth creeping of Free Will behind the words.

I think, perhaps, you are saying it is not established that we can change our destiny by changing our minds.

If your mind changes then yes, the outcome will change. It is happening all the time. But you have no authority to change your mind. It will just happen due to zillions of reasons. Your mind changes and you might think (illusion) you changed your mind but in fact changing of your mind was beyond your thought.

No non-material thing can interact with matter.
If it can then it can interact with matter non only inside your body but outside your body too. Then you very well believe in Telepathy, Clairvoyance, Precognition, and Psychokinesis.

If your thought could interact with matter then have millions of people to meditate at the same time hoping you will stop a major earth quake. As a matter of fact people try that too.

Abusing QM uncertainty and many interpretation new age, mumbo-jumbo pseudo science attempt to sell a lot of stupid ideas. There is no shortage of buyer. Because it feel good. Truth vs. Feel Good. Which one would you buy?

The idea that we can and do change our lives by changing our minds is well supported by the empirical evidence and I am comfortable with considering it as a given. If you disagree, is it based on empirical evidence, or is it based on the some theoretical axiom regarding how the universe works.

There is no empirical evidence for Free Will.
As a matter of fact Libet's experiment proves there is No Free Will.
And actually, more importantly the most powerful is the logic behind the No Free Will concept that supersedes the flawed interpretation of any empirical test data on this subject.

No, I don't think it appears that way at all. Why do you feel it 'appears' we could never make any other choice than the ones we actually did?

I think it appears that we make choices and our lives change as a result of the choices we make. That those choices are constrained by the laws of nature is no more an impediment to the concept of free will than the constraint that we must eat or we will die.

Of course it appears. Appearance is not equal to reality.

Yes, I do. I think, please correct me if I'm wrong, that your concern is not that the decisions are inevitable (clearly, given QM, they cannot be), but that if they are the result of probabilistic processes, how is that free will? That is the question I was trying to answer.

If we are not fated to any particular destiny, then we have a choice of possible destinies.

If we can, through the choices we make and the ways we behave, affect which actual destiny we arrive at, then we are exercising choice about how we will behave in the future. If we can exercise choice about how we will behave in the future, well, that is how I define free will.
[/quote]

"Can Exercise"?
But you don't, you can't.
That would a violation of laws of nature.
Laws of nature has two components 1) Strict CAE (Cause and Effect) 2) Probabilisitic
We (thought) control neither one of those two.

If you claim we cannot exercise choice in our behavior, well, you would have to have a very good argument to convince me that is the case as all evidence currently indicates that we are able to do so. What evidence do you have that we do not?


as all evidence currently indicates that we are able to do so.

There is no evidence at all.

500 years ago people had far more evidence, logic, and direct sensation of what they thought is fact of Sun revolving around the Earth. They could have you drag out on the street and show you up in the sky that Sun IS revolving around the Earth. They saw it they felt the heat and it was intuitive.

Only when you dig deeper when you find out things are not as it appears to be. You are taking free will in its face value.
I say, dig deeper. Put everything under the microscope.

Thanks. I just wasn't sure how you were using the terms. Sometimes people use 'mind' to refer to conscious processes only. Sometimes it refers to a supposed supernatural aspect of humans.

That is correct. until you clearly explain what is consciousness, what is thought, what is awareness mean to you we can't say if it is consistent.
But regardless of what you think of consciousness, if it is matter then you do not have free will because all matter follows laws of nature. If you think consciousness as non-material abstraction then non-matter can't interact matter.

No Free Will is a bullet proof conclusion.

BTW, I fall into the camp that feels that mind and dance would both exist. I class them as non-material things, rather than non-existent things.

Of course non material thought exist but it has no influence on matter. Only the underlying material that is responsible for that thought in the first place will have influence on other matter.

Thought, consciousness, awareness are non-material passive thingy exist but has no effect on the real world.

 

[Mirrorglass]

If you acknowledge that our decisions are not absolutely predetermined, why would you believe that to be the case?

That is precisely why I don't like the word 'destiny', or one of the reasons, anyway. No, I don't think the decisions are absolutely predetermined. I believe they are determined by both deterministic and probabilistic elements.

Let me try to illustrate it with an example. The Batman supervillain Two-Face often flips a coin to decide whether or not he'll kill his victim. Let's imagine he did that with me. My fate would not be pre-determined; there'd be an equal chance of me living or dying. However, it would still not be me making that decision.

Similarly, even if there are processes in my brain that are probabilistic, it's still not me that's guiding those processes, but random chance. And I don't see how that's any closer to free will than full determinism.

It subjectively appears to me that I make choices constantly, all day long. It subjectively appears to me that other humans do as well. Does it appear subjectively that you have no choices, but follow a predetermined path regarding every action you take?

But you never make a choice that you didn't make. That's my point; there's no evidence that suggests we ever could have made a different choice in any situation.

I do believe that the subjective experience of free will exists. I also believe that this subjective experience is real, in the same way other abstract concepts are real. But I don't believe the concept of free will has a real, physical counterpart. We feel like we are making choices, yes. But it's actually just our brains operating according to the laws of physics, creating the illusion of free will. Of course, for that matter, we are actually just our brains operating, creating the illusion of self.

So when the waitress offers you a choice of coffee or tea, you think, despite the appearance of choice, that your ‘choice’ was predetermined by everything that went before it?

Determined by everything that went on before and possibly random chance. With that, yes.

Perhaps this is the disconnect. Those decisions aren’t decided by probabilistic rules. The probability of each different possible outcome is described - not dictated - by probabilistic distributions.
We can, through our thought processes, alter the parameters of those probabilistic distributions, thus changing the probability of various outcomes more to our liking. In essense, I think we define and alter the 'rules' that the random processes within our brain will follow to arrive at decisions.

This is indeed the disconnect. What you're saying isn't precisely wrong. It's true that some of our thoughts do alter other processes in our brains, affecting the decisions we make. However, those thoughts are subject to the natural laws as well. They arise as a consequence of physical processes. They are partly determined by those processes, partly by random chance - and in no part by us ourselves.

Okay. Does the above help clarify why I feel we are able to make decisions that affect our fates.

Again, I'm not denying our decisions affect our fates. However, I am denying that we have control over those decisions. There's only the illusion of control.

How are you defining a human being such that we are someone separate from the past events that shaped our current selves? I don’t think you can meaningfully separate those previous causal events and distributions of random events from the human being who is making the choice. Since those previous causal events and the probability distributions that describe the possible outcomes are a part of who we are, it is still the human making the decision.

That's also true. Any line separating 'us' from the past causal events leading up to us would be completely arbitrary. However, without that line, there isn't any 'us' at all, anymore - just a bunch of causal events, a minor consequence of which happens to be a planet whose crust is covered in a very complex self-sustaining chemical reaction. There isn't really a meaningful distinction between 'human' and 'non-human' either.

Of course, to take the idea so far is quite meaningless. We need the concepts of 'me', 'mind' and 'free will' to function. They do exist as concepts inside our minds. But they do not physically exist. That doesn't matter at all, but it is an interesting thought experiment, and quite difficult to wrap one's mind around.

Yes. Well, I wouldn’t agree that certain concepts (such as numbers) exist only in the minds of observers, but that’s another discussion.

I think this is actually quite relevant, as may be evident from the rest of this post. However, I'm not certain what you're saying here. Do you mean to say that all concepts that exist inside the minds of the observers also exist in the real universe, or just that some do?

 

[timf1234]

I know that free will may be an illusion, I may be preprogrammed and predestined. yet when I am off my medication, I live with compulsions, so I feel I have more freedom to choose when I am on my medicine.

Doesn't mean that I do, I still also disagree with the dualistic premise of the OP, of course the mind effects matter, the mind is matter.

Of course, if you think mind as matter then yes, mind effect matter. basically only matter effect matter.

The word mind was invented to convey a special idea, a special thought. The special thing is, mind is NOT matter. The urge to express some thing that you can't touch , see, or detect is "mind". That is the way most people think of mind. Mind is manifestation of brain.

Example, "Beautiful Flower."
Flower is noun, material thing. But the beauty is not material thing.

So, you shouldn't think of mind as matter. That would be unfair. Leave the meaning of mind in place why it we needed the word in the first place.
But we can say that mind doesn't effect the matter.

It took you 5 pages of argument to realize that we do not have any free will, whatsoever, not even an iota.

 

[timf1234]

This is a very good point, and I was going to raise it eventually if no-one else did. My views on the matter are similar. Whether or not our minds are preprogrammed is hardly as important as our own feelings.

I'd say free will exists as an experience, or an abstract concept. It's not real in any strict sense, any more than a dance or a mind are. But as long as there is a human perceiving them, they exist. It's an interesting thought experiment to show free will is an illusion, but it's not at all relevant to real life, and certainly not relevant to judicial systems and morality.

I beg to differ in several points.
1) Under the influence of LSD we experience a lot of unreal thing. Schizophrenic person experience a lot of weird things. A Muslim suicide bomber who kills thousands of innocent people not only think Allah directed him to fly the plane on 9/11 but also fee the presence of Allah and Mohammad. Case is not different for some extreme Christians.

So, no, we can't afford feeling based reality when it is in conflict with objective reality. We must dig dipper.
No. We can't follow experienced based truth when it is contrary to objective truth.

2) It does matter if people think we have or do not have free will. It does have impact on our crime and punishment system.
First when majority of the people thoroughly understand that we do not have free will and its implication then we will have legal system that will award prison sentence not as punishment or revenge or retribution but for deterrent and restitution.

Death penalty could be dramatically reduced if not completely abolished. We would have more institutional style prison than today's prison.

Instead of spending close to a trillion dollar in Iraq and Iran wars we would spend 10% of that money ($100 billion) to reprogram those brain washed Muslims who are up on arm to destroy the world. We would have a better return in our investment.

So yes, there are impact on how we think. But alas, we have no way to control how we will think of Free Will. If it happens, happens, it it doesn't it won't.

Still, we are helpless like just another brick on the wall.

 

[Mirrorglass]

Unfortunately, our objective is not necessarily to feel good at the expense of truth but to find out the truth. So you now get to decide what the common objective of mankind is? Do we have the choice to disagree?

I know it was probably a mistake, but please take more care when quoting someone. Putting your own words in a quotebox with my name on it is extremely bad form.

What I said was 'So you now get to decide what the common objective of mankind is? Do we have the choice to disagree? '. The rest was from your previous post.

Your post implies, that it is OK to cover up the truth for some other motive.
If you bring up counter argument then that is OK.

It implies no such thing. It implies my wonderment at you making a statement like 'our objective is not to feel good but to find out the truth'. If you meant to say 'my objective etc.' Then my response was undue, but it's kind of your fault for referring to yourself in the plural.

1) I am not deciding but merely presenting my arguments.
2) I was not talking about common good for mankind but just trying to find out which of the following is closer to the truth.
a) We have Free Will
b) We do not have Free Will

Well, if your 'us' did not refer to the whole of mankind, then I did misunderstand.

However, I haven't really seen you 'trying to find out' anything. You've just been insisting that your idea is correct. That much is fine, if a bit arrogant. However, you've also been repeatedly implying that anyone disagreeing with you must be an idiot. That is not good argumentation or good manners. That, along with your confusing use of the plural first person, led me to believe you were presenting your opinion that everyone on Earth should accept that they have no free will. And that statement I strongly disagree with.

Of course, if that's not actually your stance, then this is irrelevant. So is it?

Did the truth seeking Galelio did a bad thing finding out Earth revolves around the Sun and not vice-versa. A lot of people's religious feeling got hurt at that time.

Goodness. Now you're talking about 'religious feelings'? I'm sure I never referred to any such thing. Nor did I imply that finding out whether we have free will is bad because it 'hurts someone's feelings'. I do believe that understanding free will is unimportant, and that there's no need to cram the idea down people's throats if they aren't interested. What possible gain is there in knowing the truth about that? It's an interesting thought experiment, but nothing more.

Do you think this forum or any other thread is about "feel good" or people debate to find out the truth, or to understand the truth more clearly?

Tell me which one you are after?
I am really curious.

Sigh. Why does it always come to evaluating the person, not the arguments?

But I suppose I don't really mind. I certainly think one reason for this forum, it's threads and it's debates is to get closer to the truth. Another reason, quite possibly more important, is having fun and socializing, or in other words, feeling good. Yet another reason is spreading information, another promoting critical thinking, scepticism and good argumentation. But the most important function of this forum is to provide a place for discussing skepticism, critical thinking, the paranormal and science in a friendly and lively way. So 'finding out the truth' is only a small part of it. And the goals aren't mutually exclusive either.

To get closer to the actual point you seemed to be making, I also don't believe truth is the most important thing in the 'real world' (meaning outside this forum). Good, reliable information is often useful. 'Truth', however, is mostly an unattainable ideal. We can only ever have approximations of it.

And that isn't just pointless sophistry, either. The fact that we can't know everything - or anything - absolutely has some important consequences. Notably, we do not need to know everything. Not all pieces of information are relevant or useful. There are quite a few we can safely ignore forever. Many of those may be interesting, of course, and there's no reason not to find out about them. But it's kind of silly to expect others to care about them.

And yes, one of those things is the question of whether or not we have free will. It is an interesting question to many, and has sparked an endless amount of interesting debates. But it's also a completely useless piece of information, and irrelevant to almost anyone. If you want to find out the answer, go for it. But before claiming others should, too, you should show a single instance where that knowledge can improve anyone's life.

 

[timf1234]

I do believe that the subjective experience of free will exists. I also believe that this subjective experience is real, in the same way other abstract concepts are real. But I don't believe the concept of free will has a real, physical counterpart. We feel like we are making choices, yes. But it's actually just our brains operating according to the laws of physics, creating the illusion of free will. Of course, for that matter, we are actually just our brains operating, creating the illusion of self.

Of course, the subjective experience of Jesus talking to me also exist.

Presence of Allah who order me to fly the planes into the WTC also exist.

Subjective experience of schizophrenic mind of Russel Crow in the movie "Beautiful Mind" about feeling, touching, smelling, and seeing that little girl is far more real than Beth's experience of Free Will. Beth at least doubt about Free Will a lot more often than a schizophrenic person.

So, no, we can't go by the subjective experience only, specially when a subjective experience contradicts the objective reality AND logically violates the laws of nature.

 

[timf1234]

Mirror Glass,

I fixed the error in the quotation that you were talking about.
I agree with most of the things you said in your previous post except that uselessness of understanding of the fact that we have No Free Will.
I addressed this issue in my previous post on this page.

 

[Mirrorglass]

I beg to differ in several points.
1) Under the influence of LSD we experience a lot of unreal thing. Schizophrenic person experience a lot of weird things. A Muslim suicide bomber who kills thousands of innocent people not only think Allah directed him to fly the plane on 9/11 but also fee the presence of Allah and Mohammad. Case is not different for some extreme Christians.

So, no, we can't afford feeling based reality when it is in conflict with objective reality. We must dig dipper.
No. We can't follow experienced based truth when it is contrary to objective truth.

This is starting to get quite irrelevant to the topic. Anyway, sure, those bad things are caused by the mind perceiving something not objectively there. But so are a lot of good things. An artist will fell like he is in the 'flow' when painting. A charity worker will feel pleasure for helping those in need. A man whose father has died will get solace by thinking a part of that father lives on in him. A boy reading an exciting novel will feel like he is seeing the landscapes painted in it. All of those things conflict with reality as well. Are they bad, then?

Of course they aren't. There's nothing inherently wrong with a 'feeling-based reality', as you put it. The bad things you mentioned aren't bad because they're 'feeling-based' - they're bad because they cause death, pain and suffering to people. It's those things we need to fight against, not feelings.

2) It does matter if people think we have or do not have free will. It does have impact on our crime and punishment system.
First when majority of the people thoroughly understand that we do not have free will and its implication then we will have legal system that will award prison sentence not as punishment or revenge or retribution but for deterrent and restitution.

Death penalty could be dramatically reduced if not completely abolished. We would have more institutional style prison than today's prison.

Instead of spending close to a trillion dollar in Iraq and Iran wars we would spend 10% of that money ($100 billion) to reprogram those brain washed Muslims who are up on arm to destroy the world. We would have a better return in our investment.

So yes, there are impact on how we think. But alas, we have no way to control how we will think of Free Will. If it happens, happens, it it doesn't it won't.

Still, we are helpless like just another brick on the wall.

The problem of free will is really quite irrelevant to those problems. It's not necessary for people to understand that the criminals 'didn't have free will'. They have precisely the same amount of free will everyone else does, so why should they be treated differently? And the idea could even be used to further quite horrible outcomes. After all, if the criminals have no free will, what value do their lives have?

The idea of prison as not a punishment but a deterrent is a good one. In fact, I've promoted it in one of my threads just a few months ago. However, presenting philosophical arguments against the idea of free will is not a good way to get people to agree to it. Much better is to teach people empathy and forgiveness and downplay old ideas such as vengeance or punishment. Even better is to show the figures that clearly show how much better everyone will do when the judical system is not here to punish, but to reach the optimal outcome for the society.

The idea of 'reprogramming those brain washed muslims', on the other hand, shows both a questionable moral stance and a flawed understanding of the situation in Iraq.

First of all, do you really consider it moral to 'reprogram', or as it is often called, 'brainwash' people who oppose your political views and are in war with you (in their own country's land, as well)? Pretty much every nation on Earth has signed treaties the forbid such things. What you are suggesting goes against pretty much any idea of individual rights there is.

And even if we were to ignore the immorality, how exactly would you carry out the reprogramming? The people fighting against the US troops are still fighting against the US troops. How does one go around reprogramming people when one does not know their precise location or number, and when those people shoot at one on sight? The kind of reprogramming you're suggesting could only be achieved with all the enemies in captivity. And if all the enemies were in captivity, well, the war would be over already, wouldn't it?

 

[Mirrorglass]

Of course, the subjective experience of Jesus talking to me also exist.

Presence of Allah who order me to fly the planes into the WTC also exist.

Subjective experience of schizophrenic mind of Russel Crow in the movie "Beautiful Mind" about feeling, touching, smelling, and seeing that little girl is far more real than Beth's experience of Free Will. Beth at least doubt about Free Will a lot more often than a schizophrenic person.

So, no, we can't go by the subjective experience only, specially when a subjective experience contradicts the objective reality AND logically violates the laws of nature.

I actually already addressed this. See above.

Mirror Glass,

I fixed the error in the quotation that you were talking about.
I agree with most of the things you said in your previous post except that uselessness of understanding of the fact that we have No Free Will.
I addressed this issue in my previous post on this page.

Thanks. It's not a big deal, really, but it was making me look kind of schitzophrenic to a lurker that just came in?

 

[Bill Thompson 75]

Bill,

Your thinking/awareness/conscious emergence shows up a lot later after the underlying matter already started the move. Please see Libet's experiment on Free Will. There is a tens of milliseconds between the ECR/MOM (Electro-Chemical Reaction and Movement Of Matter in your body and brain. Your thought always lag behind the actual ECR/MOM.

Warning: However, Libet interpreted his experimental result in favor of Free Will.
Libet's bias in favor of free will is exposed in the last 3 paragraphs of his research report. In addition, his "conscious veto" argument doesn't make sense because the question recycle what makes conscious veto decision? Obviously, the next chain of ECR/MOM.

Technology has outdated Libet's methodology.
I have not heard of current research which claims that thought, as opposed to the perception of thought, follows action.

 

[Beth]

That is precisely why I don't like the word 'destiny', or one of the reasons, anyway. No, I don't think the decisions are absolutely predetermined. I believe they are determined by both deterministic and probabilistic elements.

Okay. We're in agreement on this point. That there is a probabilistic aspect to those decisions is what provides the space for free will to exist in. Strict determinism has no space within which free will can exist, but our universe is not strictly deterministic, therefore it is possible we have free will.

Similarly, even if there are processes in my brain that are probabilistic, it's still not me that's guiding those processes, but random chance. And I don't see how that's any closer to free will than full determinism.

This is where we disagree. Yes, random chance is a part of it, but I think we do guide those processes. Some of us do manage to make choices that change the way we behave. People choose to stop smoking and sometimes succeed. That, to me, is an example of free will in action.

But you never make a choice that you didn't make. That's my point; there's no evidence that suggests we ever could have made a different choice in any situation.

Ah, now I understand what you are getting at. Of course there's no evidence that suggests that. Just as there is no evidence to suggest that we could not have made a different choice either. Given that the options appear to be available, that there is no evidence that suggests that I could NOT have ordered tea instead of coffee, etc. Why should I assume the opposite of what all sensory experience indicates? You must have some reason for concluding that what we experience is not what it appears to be, but I'm not clear on what that reason is.

I do believe that the subjective experience of free will exists. I also believe that this subjective experience is real, in the same way other abstract concepts are real. But I don't believe the concept of free will has a real, physical counterpart.

Did somebody claim free will was a physical thing? I haven't been arguing that it exists in a physical sense.

We feel like we are making choices, yes. But it's actually just our brains operating according to the laws of physics, creating the illusion of free will. Of course, for that matter, we are actually just our brains operating, creating the illusion of self.

It seems to me as if you are arguing that oceans don't exist, only water. Yes, oceans are composed of water, but that doesn't mean that the Pacific is an illusion. Why should I conclude that free will doesn't exist just because my brain operates according to the laws of physics?

This is indeed the disconnect. What you're saying isn't precisely wrong. It's true that some of our thoughts do alter other processes in our brains, affecting the decisions we make. However, those thoughts are subject to the natural laws as well. They arise as a consequence of physical processes. They are partly determined by those processes, partly by random chance - and in no part by us ourselves.

So....you agree that our thoughts can alter other processes in our brains, affecting the decisions we make, but you don't think that is evidence of free will because it isn't 'us' that's using our thoughts to alter those other processes in our brains? What, exactly, is a human being if that isn't us thinking those thoughts and altering those brain processes?

Again, I'm not denying our decisions affect our fates. However, I am denying that we have control over those decisions. There's only the illusion of control.

How is this 'illusion' of making decisions different from actually making decisions?

That's also true. Any line separating 'us' from the past causal events leading up to us would be completely arbitrary. However, without that line, there isn't any 'us' at all, anymore - just a bunch of causal events, a minor consequence of which happens to be a planet whose crust is covered in a very complex self-sustaining chemical reaction. There isn't really a meaningful distinction between 'human' and 'non-human' either.

This is starting to sound pretty mystical. We are all part of the greater oneness, made of stardust and to stardust we shall return. That sort of thing. Is that what you are trying to get across?

Of course, to take the idea so far is quite meaningless. We need the concepts of 'me', 'mind' and 'free will' to function. They do exist as concepts inside our minds. But they do not physically exist. That doesn't matter at all, but it is an interesting thought experiment, and quite difficult to wrap one's mind around.

Who is arguing that they physically exist? I agree, they are concepts, but they are concepts that are tied directly to a specific physical form. I am not my body, which remains after I die. However, I cannot exist without it. It is an integral part of who and what I am. Thus, while the 'self' may not physically exist, it also doesn't exist separate from the physical body. At least, not in my opinion.

I think this is actually quite relevant, as may be evident from the rest of this post. However, I'm not certain what you're saying here. Do you mean to say that all concepts that exist inside the minds of the observers also exist in the real universe, or just that some do?

You'll have to define what you mean by 'real' in this context.

Some concepts, such as counting - 1, 2, 3, ... seem observer independent and therefore, presumably, not something that exists solely in human minds.They are not solely the invention of the human mind, but rather the human mind has evolved to be able to observe those conceptual spaces. I think that those concepts, like numbers, spheres, etc. are discovered by explorers in those abstract spaces rather than being created by human minds.