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Biology of free will

Her Dark Star

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Feb 16, 2010
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Split from the thread - is free will an illusion, yet necessary for ethics.

I would like a discussion, evidence for/against, suggested reading etc on whether free will is physically possible. Is the brain capable of producing a choice that isn't predetermined?


To give some context - I'm not asking about philosophy or theological arguments but the mechanics of the brain/mind. I believe in limited free will (purely based on my own experience) that although we are limited by all kinds of constraints and have all kind of influences upon us within those boundaries we have the power to make a choice. However I'm not a neurologist.

The counter point was brought up (I hope that I summarise it accurately) that the brain is a set of deterministic principles based on physics/chemistry and that every 'choice' is the result of those principles - that at the moment of choice it is in fact already made for you.

Lastly whether or not the brain is capable of producing a free choice what kind of experiment could there be to evidence it?
Many thanks.
 
Split from the thread - is free will an illusion, yet necessary for ethics.

I would like a discussion, evidence for/against, suggested reading etc on whether free will is physically possible. Is the brain capable of producing a choice that isn't predetermined?


To give some context - I'm not asking about philosophy or theological arguments but the mechanics of the brain/mind. I believe in limited free will (purely based on my own experience) that although we are limited by all kinds of constraints and have all kind of influences upon us within those boundaries we have the power to make a choice. However I'm not a neurologist.

The counter point was brought up (I hope that I summarise it accurately) that the brain is a set of deterministic principles based on physics/chemistry and that every 'choice' is the result of those principles - that at the moment of choice it is in fact already made for you.

Lastly whether or not the brain is capable of producing a free choice what kind of experiment could there be to evidence it?
Many thanks.

I'll take a swing.

Any discussion that speaks of the brain as a 'set of deterministic principles' is philosophical, not neurological. It is a discussion of things 'in principle'--which is the only perspective from which our behaviour looks completely determined in advance.

The brain/body is a complex self-observing system, and it is capable of modifying its behaviour based on observing its past behaviour, and based on beliefs or personal principles.

Dennett, in Elbow Room, the Varieties of Free Will Worth Having makes the point that philosophical determinism is a bogey-man based on images of machine-like, doll-like, or Sphex-like (insect-like) behaviour. In other words, we fear a caricature that is always smuggled into the discussion.

In reality, most of us have (some degree of) agency and the ability to modify our own behaviour--barring outside coercion or brain injury or abnormality.

We may have a tic, but we can do something about it--suppress it, conceal it, walk away, etc.

We may lose a degree of self-control because of lust or intoxication, but we can regain it.

We may be coerced, imprisoned, threatened, impoverished, compelled by hunger or pain.

Those are the areas where degrees of free will are living issues, not abstractions like the theoretically determinate action of matter--which is a philosophical determinism.

The observation that rationalization and confabulation seems like agency to the rationalizer--but not to the researcher--says something about neurology, but nothing about determinism. It only speaks to whether things are the way they seem to us. They're not, mostly.

After all, we could, in principle, be acting freely or randomly or arbitrarily or chaotically, but confabulating afterwards.

It's obvious that motivation, effort, belief-in-oneself can play a role in a kind of self-mastery, even if that self-mastery isn't total.

So--in the ways worth caring about--we have some 'free will'--even if from a detached perspective, we are just a bundle of competing drives, as Nietzsche seemed to think.

Those competing drives feed back in a (somewhat) self-aware system. We can become what we are, and try to become what we're not.

(The frontal lobes seem to be crucial.)

I have to try to practice now. No choice, really.
 
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Thank you for that post - this is an area where I struggle, and that made a lot of sense.
 
The observation that rationalization and confabulation seems like agency to the rationalizer--but not to the researcher--says something about neurology, but nothing about determinism. It only speaks to whether things are the way they seem to us. They're not, mostly.
I find this paragraph too confusing. I had started out interpreting it one way, but on rereading it, it appears it could have the exact opposite interpretation. Could you clarify what you mean?

In particular, "rationalization and confabulation seem like agency to the rationalizer" does not make sense to me, and is ambiguous. Do people rationalize that rationalization seems like agency? And do they rationalize that confabulation seem like agency? (Both of these seem quite odd).

But if I assume that's not what you mean, it still sounds odd (or at least off). Are you saying that to a researcher, rationalization and confabulation look like how agency works?
 
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"Any discussion that speaks of the brain as a 'set of deterministic principles' is philosophical, not neurological. It is a discussion of things 'in principle'--which is the only perspective from which our behaviour looks completely determined in advance."

I am sorry, but neurologically, there is *nothing* going on beyond physical and chemical reaction. To say the contrary is an article of faith. that a system is complex , self modifying, and learning, do not make it less based on physical and chemical property.

If you start to pretend there is something beyond the chemical reaction , well pelase tell us what it is and propose an experiment to falsify it.

The brain system is not fully deterministic since there is always some sort of fluctuation (temperature distribution of motion, or QM fluctuation) which even if starting with the iniatial state MIGHT make a few difference if neuron are near a trigger level, but beyond such random fluctuation the brain is as deterministic as it goes.

If you chose (haha) to call those random fluctuation free will , it is up to you. But it certainly is not what people define as free will.

So really, let us cut the chase, and let me ask you WHAT is the entity which make the "choice", you say we have, and WHERE is it located, and WHAT is its mode of function.

I can't bear philosophy. So spare it to me.
 
Thank you indeed and that seems to fit with what I understand and is kind of what I mean by limited free will.

The brain/body is a complex self-observing system, and it is capable of modifying its behaviour based on observing its past behaviour, and based on beliefs or personal principles.

You make reference here to the systems of the mind that allow us to change and modify, crucial to making a new choice. However I think there's a question over where the principles/comparisons used for such a process would come from, if these principles aren't the result of free will then any choices/modifications based on them would be tainted? Hmm possibly turtles all the way down territory but I'm hoping that there's an end point to this with the physical brain itself.

You mention the competing drives, where I believe its referenced that all conscious thought is simply the surface result of underlying systems - like bubbles on the top of boiling water. In the other thread I tried to give an example whereby you're faced with a choice in which these drives aren't taking part - Completely alone, throw a ball into the air. Decide to catch it or not. There are no consequences good or bad, no other people involved, no need for food, shelter etc involved. Will your decision to catch it or not be a free one? With all consequences removed I think that there still might be some psychological pressures, internal values, social conventions to catch balls etc in play and its very difficult to come up with a scenario where you can say a decision is truly free.

Of course as you said, not all of the degrees of freedom matter:D As long as you are aware of these influences you have some choice over their effect. Maybe. Argh, I'm going to tie myself in knots.

The other answer I think is that I need to go and do some reading on neurobiology and the latest ideas for how consciousness is formed from the brain at all....
 
I find this paragraph too confusing. I had started out interpreting it one way, but on rereading it, it appears it could have the exact opposite interpretation. Could you clarify what you mean?

In particular, "rationalization and confabulation seem like agency to the rationalizer" does not make sense to me, and is ambiguous. Do people rationalize that rationalization seems like agency? And do they rationalize that confabulation seem like agency? (Both of these seem quite odd).

But if I assume that's not what you mean, it still sounds odd (or at least off). Are you saying that to a researcher, rationalization and confabulation look like how agency works?

Yeah, my writing sucked there.

I meant to refer to this:

http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2008/04/14-03.html

Which shows, I think, that people make a decision before they are aware that they've made a decision.

My sucky sentence was trying to say that this doesn't have ramifications for the issue of Free Will as such, it only disproves that we know what we're thinking before we think it consciously.

Just because there's a machinery we're not aware of doesn't mean that we're robots--robots in the sense of limited machines with no self-modifying ability.

Rather, we're complicated self-modifying machines.

In principle, machines could be 'free' this way too--but they wouldn't be much like the simple machines we now think of.

Calling Pixy Misa.

You were right to challenge that. I was in a hurry.
 
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I don't think it's meaningful to even discuss free will outside of an abstract philosophical context. Our brain chemistry comes from a combination of genetics and experience modified by some physical factors such as nutrition as it affects neural development. It's a feedback loop of nature and nurture.

Can you usefully separate "you" from your brain chemistry? Speaking simply, your choices, your aversions, your identity, etc., flow from predilections based on the dynamic contents of your skull case. You are born with a personality and a basic set of biases, and this determines how you react to the world around you from day one.
 
"Any discussion that speaks of the brain as a 'set of deterministic principles' is philosophical, not neurological. It is a discussion of things 'in principle'--which is the only perspective from which our behaviour looks completely determined in advance."

I am sorry, but neurologically, there is *nothing* going on beyond physical and chemical reaction. To say the contrary is an article of faith. that a system is complex , self modifying, and learning, do not make it less based on physical and chemical property.

If you start to pretend there is something beyond the chemical reaction , well pelase tell us what it is and propose an experiment to falsify it.

The brain system is not fully deterministic since there is always some sort of fluctuation (temperature distribution of motion, or QM fluctuation) which even if starting with the iniatial state MIGHT make a few difference if neuron are near a trigger level, but beyond such random fluctuation the brain is as deterministic as it goes.

If you chose (haha) to call those random fluctuation free will , it is up to you. But it certainly is not what people define as free will.

So really, let us cut the chase, and let me ask you WHAT is the entity which make the "choice", you say we have, and WHERE is it located, and WHAT is its mode of function.

I meant to say that Dennett seems persuasive to me. That is, what we care about when we talk about free will is not the ultimate basis in physics and chemistry--which I don't dispute--but that we don't act like dolls or simple machines that are not aware of themselves. They seem absurd and incapable of modifying their own behaviour.

The confusion about 'what people define as free will' is precisely the point.

What people fear is being 'less free' in the mundane, non-philosophical sense.

That is, they fear coercion, pain, injury, brain damage, poverty, being beholden to others. They fear loss of 'autonomy' in the ordinary-language sense, not in some sense of ultimate principle.

I suck at philosophy, but Dennett makes sense to me. Up to a point. Beyond that, it gets too technical.

The entity that chooses is a whole brain-body operating in a culture, and its 'choices' are limited but real.
 
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I am sorry, but neurologically, there is *nothing* going on beyond physical and chemical reaction. To say the contrary is an article of faith. that a system is complex , self modifying, and learning, do not make it less based on physical and chemical property.
I agree that what happens in the brain is purely a set of chemical and physical interactions, however it does seem to me that the system that arises from these interactions is capable of incredibly complex things. You cannot change how a neuron works but what causes that particular neuron to spark as opposed to another? (I don't actually expect an answer to that) You can trace many thought processes backwards through competing values, previous experience etc I guess the gaps in understanding of that process might be where the sensation of making a choice resides. Free will as the god of gaps.

The brain system is not fully deterministic since there is always some sort of fluctuation (temperature distribution of motion, or QM fluctuation) which even if starting with the iniatial state MIGHT make a few difference if neuron are near a trigger level, but beyond such random fluctuation the brain is as deterministic as it goes.
Interesting, obviously I'm aware of how the brain is a physical process and is therefore influenced by physical process but I'd always thought of it in terms or nutrition, brain damage etc rather than such random effects but indeed there's no reason why they shouldn't (not sure how you'd prove quantum foam interference in the brain but an interesting thought!)

So really, let us cut the chase, and let me ask you WHAT is the entity which make the "choice", you say we have, and WHERE is it located, and WHAT is its mode of function.
My mind, in my skull as the sum of my brain, the last is perhaps harder, I'll think about that for a moment.
 
I don't think it's meaningful to even discuss free will outside of an abstract philosophical context. Our brain chemistry comes from a combination of genetics and experience modified by some physical factors such as nutrition as it affects neural development. It's a feedback loop of nature and nurture.

Can you usefully separate "you" from your brain chemistry? Speaking simply, your choices, your aversions, your identity, etc., flow from predilections based on the dynamic contents of your skull case. You are born with a personality and a basic set of biases, and this determines how you react to the world around you from day one.

I agree, mostly.

However, confusion or intermingling of philosophical, technical, psychological, and ordinary-language sense of our words is so common that we might as well address it.

Hello, I must be going. I cannot stay I came to say I must be going.
 
It's worth understanding that lack of determinism in no way leads to contra-causal free will, which after all is the kind of free will most people, who have not thought about it much, think they have, and want to have.

This interview is a pretty good introduction to the subject:

http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=9458

The guys @ Reasonable Doubts podcast have a couple of new shows on determinism and free will:

http://doubtreligion.blogspot.com/2010/06/rd-extra-jeremy-on-don-johnson-radio.html

http://doubtreligion.blogspot.com/2010/06/episode-69-determinator-4-rise-of.html

This is a great audio lecture precisely on the subject:

http://www.teach12.com/ttcx/coursedesclong2.aspx?cid=4235

The homepage of The Center for Naturalism:

http://www.centerfornaturalism.org/

And:

http://www.naturalism.org/

:)
 
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"but that we don't act like dolls or simple machines that are not aware of themselves. They seem absurd and incapable of modifying there own behaviour."

We are very complex machine. But only machine. Self aware machine. But still machine.
 
"but that we don't act like dolls or simple machines that are not aware of themselves. They seem absurd and incapable of modifying there own behaviour."

We are very complex machine. But only machine. Self aware machine. But still machine.

Agreed.

'Machines' used to mean something like looms, now it could mean computers of the future capable of passing a Turing test.

But they can't, as of 2010.
 
Thanks for the links Kuko 4000.
Aepervius - yep we are a machine but does being a machine preclude us from free will or does that self awareness provide us with an opportunity to to decide something apart from our programming?
 
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Here's an interesting article that attempts to dig into the "taxonomy" and mechanisms underlying the various feelings we have related to the topic of free will, which may be of assistance in getting a feel at what we're doing:
Pacherie [pdf]
I think simple digging into the mechanics of agency as Pacherie does is much more productive in terms of figuring out what's going on, than trying to chase down naive implications such as the pseudo-problem of "how the brain overcomes predeterminism".
 
Aepervius - yep we are a machine but does being a machine preclude us from free will or does that self awareness provide us with an opportunity to to decide something apart from our programming?


I realise this was not aimed at me, but we, as a whole, do make choices all the time, it's just that, all things equal, you couldn't have chosen differently at any point.

This means that the kind of free will many, if not most, people think they have, is an illusion.

This has serious implications on humanity and how we treat each other. I for one can't wait until we start using this understanding more and more for the benefit of our societies.
 
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Thanks for the reading material, working my way through it and those lectures do sound interesting once I can afford to get them. I've always understood that free will is far more limited than many think but I also (perhaps irrationally) cling to an ego based belief that we do have some free will. To not have any type of functional free will I have to admit is a highly disturbing idea to me, I may well be wrong of course and I'll just have to get used to the idea! Interesting stuff but I'm not yet convinced, I'll have to keep reading.
 
Aepervius - yep we are a machine but does being a machine preclude us from free will or does that self awareness provide us with an opportunity to to decide something apart from our programming?


How would we be able to tell which was the case?

If we look at the brain as being a machine for making decisions, governed by chemical reactions, then the laws of thermodynamics might imply that whatever decision is most energetically favoured will result, and that identical circumstances will give rise to identical decisions. But it isn't testable because the same circumstances cannot happen twice - quite apart from anything else, on a second occasion the results of the decision taken on the first occasion can be known.

We have no way of knowing whether we are compelled to make particular decisions. We're dealing with incredibly complicated sets of facts for any decision, including several decades of experience. My decision about whether to go to the pub this afternoon will depend on a number of conscious factors, such as what the weather is like, whether or not I fancy watching the Arsenal match that will be on the telly there (which will in turn partly depend on whether or not the test match I'm watching at home has finished), and the fact that they ran out of my favorite beer the other day and so may not have it on again yet. But it will also depend on all sorts of unconscious factors such as all of my conscious and unconscious memories relating to my home, the pub, and the journey between the two, or perhaps even whether a slight and undetected wrinkle in my underwear is making my chair marginally less comfortable to sit in and therefore making me less inclined to stay in it. If we're considering the thermodynamics of the chemical reactions in my brain, it will also depend on exactly what state my metabolism is in - we're dealing with a highly complex set of reactions that can be influenced by all sorts of factors. There is no way all of the factors involved in even the simplest decision could be controlled for.

Sorry if this has gone into the sorts of areas your O/P said you wanted to avoid in this thread, but your question had already gone there.
 
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I realise this was not aimed at me, but we, as a whole, do make choices all the time, it's just that, all things equal, you couldn't have chosen differently at any point.
I don't think that's true. It appears to me that I could easily have made different choices. Further, it's an unfalsifiable premise; we can not determine whether we could, or could not, have chosen differently at any point in time, so any firm belief one way or the other is a faith-based belief.

Why do you think that we could not have made a different choice?
 
Her Dark Star- Why does this interest you?

Short answer? I'm a geek :D

I'm not looking for answers to existential angst but it is an interesting area, the neurology came up in another thread about free will and it struck me as something I don't know as much about as I'd like to. Though from the material I've looked at no one else seems to have a good answer yet either, I guess it is kind of waiting on the answer to how does that lump of grey matter produce consciousness at all.
 
Short answer? I'm a geek :D

I'm not looking for answers to existential angst but it is an interesting area, the neurology came up in another thread about free will and it struck me as something I don't know as much about as I'd like to. Though from the material I've looked at no one else seems to have a good answer yet either, I guess it is kind of waiting on the answer to how does that lump of grey matter produce consciousness at all.

Yeah, nobody's quite figured that out yet. The most interesting theory I've heard to date, with some experiment evidence supporting it, is that consciousness is not localized within specific parts of the brain, but is, instead, an emergent property of various concurrent actions going on within the brain and the interactions of those concurrent actions.
 
I don't think that's true. It appears to me that I could easily have made different choices.

<snip>

I agree. There is randomness and feedback within the brain, so it will probably always be impossible to predict what the output will be for a given set of inputs and initial conditions.
 
I don't think that's true. It appears to me that I could easily have made different choices. Further, it's an unfalsifiable premise; we can not determine whether we could, or could not, have chosen differently at any point in time, so any firm belief one way or the other is a faith-based belief.

Why do you think that we could not have made a different choice?


Yeah, it probably appears intuitively like that to most of the people around, and it did for me too for a long time. Personally, I'm way more impressed and convinced by the idea and data that all of our actions have a cause, or rather long intervening chains of different causes, than the idea that we could somehow break the chain of causes that demonstrably guide our feelings and actions.

I'm not trying to dodge the question, my answer continues below, but where do you think your particular decision comes from if not from previous causes and experiences? Could you give me the simplest example of a case where you feel that you could've chosen otherwise? I would like to discuss this in order to challenge my own thinking about this, maybe you too would get something out of it.

To continue my answer, in brief, if we accept that we live in a natural world where things are causally connected, there seems to be no way out of the chain-game. The other explanation (contra-causal free will) would require the breaking of the causal chain. It is also important to understand that truly random causes (the quantum of the gaps argument of free will) for our actions does not help the case for free will - in those situations the relevant actions would just be random. Anyways, my understanding is that those effects are very weak / non-existent in our everyday life, certainly they are very weak compared to the multitude of concrete causes that we can track down ourselves, everything "from blinks to winks". Contra-causal free will would mean that we could somehow break the causal "chains" (or random "chains") of everything that happens in and around us. I haven't seen any good evidence or solid reasoning to support this view.

On the other hand, I've seen much good evidence and solid reasoning that points to the naturalistic conclusion. For example various priming studies in psychology that actually show how the actions of the subjects are predicted and changed with good accuracy without the subjects ever being conscious of the real influences that guided their actions. Or the neurological studies that show how our decisions are made before we are actually aware of making them.

I just bumped into this post at Jerry Coyne's blog when I was looking for something recent to reference you about those kind of studies:

http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2010/07/28/the-free-will-experiment/

And, you're probably already familiar with some of the priming studies:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priming_(psychology)#Priming_In_Daily_Life

Or what about how different hormones such as oxytocin affect some of our most valued behaviours:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxytocin#Actions_within_the_brain

Female rats given oxytocin antagonists after giving birth do not exhibit typical maternal behavior.[39] By contrast, virgin female sheep show maternal behavior towards foreign lambs upon cerebrospinal fluid infusion of oxytocin, which they would not do otherwise.[40]


Are you familiar with the www.naturalism.org site that I linked a few posts back? I find it a great resource on all things free will.
 
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Short answer? I'm a geek :D

Fair enough.

I find Benjamin Libbet's research re action potentials intriguing.
At one level , the answer to the consciousness question is "Hardware all the way down" - but that fails to satisfy.
I suspect brains have many processes running in parallel, any of which may / may not be conscioius within itself- ie aware of itself as a process- only one of which is the one we think of as "us". Communication between them varies and is not always visible to "us". That bleedover of experience and data is (to my guess) what some interpret as intuition or even psychic awareness. For example, the presence felt in hypnogogic dreaming , I suspect is "us" becoming directly aware of a normally subconscious neural process. All guesswork and hypotheses.

I find "free will" a concept of questionable value, to be frank, and would be happy to see it dumped. How much that's influenced by my innate distaste for philosophy and religion, I dunno.

When you are freefalling towards a rock you have few choices. Free will or not, you are in free fall and you will hit the rock. Standing still, you are equally subject to the constraints of gravity / spacetime. So do you choose that ? Or does the universe care no more for your will than for the will of the rock?
 
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Thanks Kuko 4000, I am familiar with the priming studies and I've started checking out naturalism.org, does look like a good place.

The first link to the MRI based study, I've heard of similar results but found it interesting. However it is of absolutely no surprise to me to find that the subconscious is working on the problem of which button to press (or actually decided) 10 seconds before you need to press it. The subconscious is a very powerful thing and is why I talked about a person being subject to all kind of influences, I'd be interested to see more on that study, for example have the subject make a conscious decision to only press with one hand throughout or call out a conscious decision each time rather than leaving it to the subconscious and see if the process still happens the same way.

Thanks for the links (again) I'll definitely have to keep an eye on them, they mention that a more complex decision process (while more complex to interpret) could reveal more and I hope they do. I've seen a few things about the power of oxytocin and I think no one would be surprised to learn about the effects of things like adrenaline and testosterone on behaviour either. At no point do I question that the brain is a physical process or that it is effected by such things, it is fascinating.

Perhaps I have to admit to having my own brand of woo when it comes to free will, the evidence is pushing me towards a purely deterministic view but my ego isn't ready to let go of the idea of having some conscious control yet:o
 
I suspect brains have many processes running in parallel, any of which may / may not be conscioius within itself- ie aware of itself as a process- only one of which is the one we think of as "us". Communication between them varies and is not always visible to "us". That bleedover of experience and data is (to my guess) what some interpret as intuition or even psychic awareness. For example, the presence felt in hypnogogic dreaming , I suspect is "us" becoming directly aware of a normally subconscious neural process. All guesswork and hypotheses.

I would certainly agree that the brain has many processes running at the same time and I guess to many people that may seem strange, especially if you only identify with one conscious process as being you. You may be using guesswork but I think it fits with the data so far and certainly with my own experience. I have often been aware of competing values and drives going on in my head and it is possible to become aware of the 'background noise' if you like (at the risk of sounding schizoid).

I agree that many psychic delusions, 'sixth sense' feelings and such are due to the delay and or limited bleeding of information from the sub to the conscious.

When you are freefalling towards a rock you have few choices. Free will or not, you are in free fall and you will hit the rock. Standing still, you are equally subject to the constraints of gravity / spacetime. So do you choose that ? Or does the universe care no more for your will than for the will of the rock?

Of course the physical forces don't care for your will at all, they don't care for anything they just are. Perhaps subconsciously you say 'few choices' implying that you still have a choice :D Just kidding. No of course your will cannot influence gravity or rocks but you do have a choice about what you do until you hit the ground or pass out. Do you think about death? Make a phone call (not that they'd be able to hear you most likely), think happy thoughts, recall a memories, flail about screaming?
A comical example but just because will can't influence the external world doesn't mean it can't play a part internally.

Shrug, as I've said, perhaps free will is an ego based woo that the evidence will dissuade me off, I think that I'm changing or better defining my ideas on it. We'll see. Thanks for the input Soapy Sam.
 
Kuko 4000,

I don't think Beth was disputing the causal chains you describe, but rather the fact that what we actually choose to do at time T=t is not entirely predictable from the inputs and initial state of the brain at T=0. This lack of predictability is what gives us the illusion of having free will.
 
Kuko 4000,

I don't think Beth was disputing the causal chains you describe, but rather the fact that what we actually choose to do at time T=t is not entirely predictable from the inputs and initial state of the brain at T=0. This lack of predictability is what gives us the illusion of having free will.


Yeah, I think I understood her correctly, that's why I asked her to give me an example so we could discuss it and compare our arguments:

Could you give me the simplest example of a case where you feel that you could've chosen otherwise? I would like to discuss this in order to challenge my own thinking about this, maybe you too would get something out of it.


Right?
 
Been reading quite a few articles linked from naturalism.org and other sources and it seems that I'm actually much further down the path towards to naturalism or determinism than I might have thought. From a very young age I was aware that people are heavily influenced by emotional reactions, chemistry and cultural programming, constant media bombardment and it always annoyed the hell out of me. I didn't want to have my conceptions of beauty programmed into by adverts, I didn't want my notions of other social groups to be preconceived by gossip so I always strived against it. But I never believed in the metaphysical puppeteer, that ghost in the machine, I was aware that my mind was a reflection or summary of the processes in my brain. I'm actually quite startled to find that a common assumption in these articles is that alot, if not most, people seem to hold the belief that consciousness is somehow separate from the brain. I guess its why the 'soul' is such a common idea then.

I am beginning to understand the subject better now, its actually far more interesting to look at it from a neurological point of view than the purely philosophical, so thanks to everyone for your input. Nice to be able to challenge a notion that I'd forgotten I even held :D

Edit - The difference between determinism and fatalism is also key to some of my discomfort as is the issue over whether lack of free will implies lack of any responsibility. I think I actually misunderstood the importance of the question in the original thread.
 
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One of the articles I've come across that I like. Doesn't actually say much different to the others but I quite like how it characterises it, may appeal to a lot of people on the board as it couches the believe in free will in terms of an atheist argument. It's not very long but it is interesting.

http://www.naturalism.org/atheism.htm#littlegod
 
Yeah, it probably appears intuitively like that to most of the people around, and it did for me too for a long time.
Yes. My question is what changed your mind regarding why you think that it is not as it appears.
Personally, I'm way more impressed and convinced by the idea and data that all of our actions have a cause, or rather long intervening chains of different causes, than the idea that we could somehow break the chain of causes that demonstrably guide our feelings and actions.
I don't find the idea that our actions have causes to be incompatible with the idea that we are able to choose our actions from a plethora of possible actions.
I'm not trying to dodge the question, my answer continues below, but where do you think your particular decision comes from if not from previous causes and experiences?
That's not what I think. What I think is that there are various options that are available to us us based on our past experiences and current situation and we choose among those options. Previous causes and experiences constrain the possibilities we choose from, but do not determine what choice we ultimately make.
Could you give me the simplest example of a case where you feel that you could've chosen otherwise? I would like to discuss this in order to challenge my own thinking about this, maybe you too would get something out of it.
I decided to respond to your post this morning. I decided to type these words. I could have chosen to respond differently. In fact, I made changes to this post prior to submitting it. Do you believe that each and every letter I have typed was deterministically set prior to my starting it? Prior to my waking this morning? Prior to my birth? It seems to me as if I choose each word as I type them and they are not set because I go back and change them as I write more.
To continue my answer, in brief, if we accept that we live in a natural world where things are causally connected, there seems to be no way out of the chain-game. The other explanation (contra-causal free will) would require the breaking of the causal chain.
Perhaps I should point out that I am speaking of compatiblist free will, as Ivor correctly surmised.
It is also important to understand that truly random causes (the quantum of the gaps argument of free will) for our actions does not help the case for free will - in those situations the relevant actions would just be random.
I disagree with this. I think that truly random events, such as QM indicates, do allow us to escape from strict determinism wherein everything we do and say and experience are determined prior to our birth. If strict determinism does not hold, there is room for individual choice.
 
Kuko 4000,

I don't think Beth was disputing the causal chains you describe, but rather the fact that what we actually choose to do at time T=t is not entirely predictable from the inputs and initial state of the brain at T=0. This lack of predictability is what gives us the illusion of having free will.

You are right in that I'm not disputing causal chains. I don't agree about free will being an illusion though. Because part of those causal chains involve the inner workings of our brains - the thoughts we think - and because we can consciously direct the thoughts we think and make choices based on them, I think that constitutues free will, not an illusion of having free will.
 
One of the articles I've come across that I like. Doesn't actually say much different to the others but I quite like how it characterises it, may appeal to a lot of people on the board as it couches the believe in free will in terms of an atheist argument. It's not very long but it is interesting.

http://www.naturalism.org/atheism.htm#littlegod

I have a problem with the statement
We have, it is widely believed, the power to think, choose, and act in some crucial respect independently of those causal factors that create us as persons, and that surround us each moment of our lives.
from that article.

I don't think of free will as being independent of our past experiences and our physical state. Perhaps some do, but I've never met anyone who seriously claimed that humans had such an ability. It seems a straw man argument to me. Who claims that free will is independent of the causal factors that bring us to the point of making a choice and constrain the possible actions open to us at that point?
 
I don't think of free will as being independent of our past experiences and our physical state. Perhaps some do, but I've never met anyone who seriously claimed that humans had such an ability. It seems a straw man argument to me. Who claims that free will is independent of the causal factors that bring us to the point of making a choice and constrain the possible actions open to us at that point?
You're right, free will is not an illusion. Our choices are shaped by our past experiences and current brain chemistry, and constrained by the laws of physics. Beyond that, if we are conscious, we still have the the power to choose.
 
You are right in that I'm not disputing causal chains. I don't agree about free will being an illusion though. Because part of those causal chains involve the inner workings of our brains - the thoughts we think - and because we can consciously direct the thoughts we think and make choices based on them, I think that constitutues free will, not an illusion of having free will.

It certainly feels like we consciously control our flow of consciousness. But what controls the "we"?
 
It certainly feels like we consciously control our flow of consciousness. But what controls the "we"?

We can control ourselves. Sometimes, anyway :) That, to me, is the essence of 'free will'. The ability to control ourselves and make conscious choices.
 
We can control ourselves. Sometimes, anyway :) That, to me, is the essence of 'free will'. The ability to control ourselves and make conscious choices.

The problem with that is that experiments show brain activity significantly before we are conscious of our thoughts or decisions.

So when I think "I'm going to think about Beth", some part of my brain was already 'thinking' about Beth before I consciously became aware of wanting to think about Beth. I.e. consciousness appears to be an observation rather than a control of brain activity.
 
I don't buy free will.

Beth, you said that chains of causation present us with options. To say we have options is to say that the chooser is outside the chain of causation and thus supernatural. I see no evidence for things outside of natural law thus I don't believe in free will.
 

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