Mind over Matter

[Complexity]

Yes, random chance is a part of it, but I think we do guide those processes.

How?

 

[Dancing David]

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

And yet there is no truth, and reason is often a poor tool for approximating it, and logic an even poorer tool.

There is no truth, there is approximation. A thoery need not be rational or logical to be correct, the history of physics shows that 'reason and logic' are often social norms and mores.

And there are many variables to the idea of free will, so saying that there is a truth out there is sort of, well, poorly stated.

The scientific method works well, regardless of ontology.

So as of yet I see no reason to suggest that thought is not part of the universe and therefore not capable of effecting it. You have yet to demonstrate a basis for saying either that free will does exist or does not exist.

I call MU.

 

[Dancing David]

How?

My theory is that there is more of a cascade in decision making than anything, as the neural network is like a democracy. So that the deliberate verbal cogntition may have a role to play. (When there is not a huge amount of habituation involved.)

But quite possibly any effort of will is an illusion, so all those times I did anything to keep from responding to the ploys of my crazy ex-wife were all determined. I think not.

But it could all be an illusion.

 

[Complexity]

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

No, it is not.

 

[Complexity]

But it could all be an illusion.

It is.

 

[timf1234]

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.

Do you have another experimental result that shows opposite of Libet's experimental results?

Many other experimental result in different fields of science are also outdated but until you have another experiment to counter the first experiment's results your argument has no meaning.

In addition, most powerful proof against Free Will is not the experimental data but the logical one.

Logic, on the basis of all scientific experimental data, dictates only material world interact with material world unless you believe in ghost. Ghost, non-material entity, in haunted house in haunted universe interacts with matter. I have seen few scary movies like that.

 

[timf1234]

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?

Of course ocean (mind or thought) exist but ocean doesn't create the wave. Wind (actually air), water, salt water density differential do.

Of course, thought/awareness/consciousness exist but if you think of it as non-material thing (mind) then it doesn't not effect the matter (brain).
If you think of it material thing (brain) then matter (brain) strictly follows laws of nature a) CAE (Cause and Effect) AND b) HUP. We do not control either one of it.
Therefore, we do not have the free will.

 

[Complexity]

Why should I conclude that free will doesn't exist just because my brain operates according to the laws of physics?

Because there is no evidence whatsoever of free will.

Because you can't explain what a non-physical, supernatural mind is or provide a plausible mechanism for how such a mind interacts with and influences/controls a physical brain.

 

[Beth]

But it could all be an illusion.

It is.

You have no way of knowing that. It is an article of faith to believe that you know the truth of the matter, one way or the other.

 

[Beth]

Because there is no evidence whatsoever of free will.

I'll have to disagree with you there. i think there is plenty of evidence for the existance of free will. People make choices and change their behavior as a result. Smokers who quit smoking. Alcoholics who stop drinking.

Because you can't explain what a non-physical, supernatural mind is or provide a plausible mechanism for how such a mind interacts with and influences/controls a physical brain.

No one here has been discussing a supernatural mind except for people claiming it doesn't exist. Mirrorglass provided a definition earlier - the mind is what the brain does. There's nothing supernatural about that definition.

 

[dlorde]

We are talking about science, the truth not morality or right or wrong.
I don't even consider it as philosophical subject but a scientific one. If we are trying to know the truth then ALL topic is scientific (based on reason, logic, mathematics, and empirical data.). These includes understanding of love, hate, perception, soul (if any), god, life, art, entertainment, music, social issues or anything under the sun. However, if you are not interested in the truth then just call your witch doctor.

Sorry, I thought it was fairly clear from my description that the concept of free will is philosophical one, not a scientific one. No doubt it is possible to describe the reasons it is thought necessary or useful in scientific terms, but unless you can supply a scientific definition of it, I can't discuss it in scientific terms.

As I understand it, science is not about trying to know the 'truth'. The concept of truth is about as arbitrary and vague as the concept of free will itself. Science is about gathering knowledge through observation and creating coherent structures to generalise that knowledge and describe how the universe behaves. Unless, of course, you are using 'truth' as a faulty synonym for the accuracy and precision of the description.

You left Red holes above to muddy the water.

The water is muddy - our use of these concepts is vague, subjective, and inconstant. That was my point.

Internal and external stimuli and the state of your brain (depend your past history, upbringing etc.) determines the outcome. There exist just "Flow of Happenings" (FH) in the universe. FH includes everything what goes on inside your and my brain, in the Sun or in societal evolution.

I agree, in principle. However, in practice, we do make broad and arbitrary distinctions between internal and external, just as we make broad and arbitrary distinctions between child, youth, mature adult, and elderly, to usefully distinguish categories in a continuum.

There is no such thin as "undue" in this context of scientific investigation.

No more than there is 'free will', as I pointed out above.

Of course there is cultural, societal, crime and punishment consequences for things happens as act or even for thoughts in the head that doesn't materialized in action immediately.

Sorry, I can't make sense out of that.

Just like God, Free Will is an illusion. After several days of debate when still people can't see No Free Will then it becomes delusion.
Delude yourself to have Free will and feel good.

Free will is a concept. Brian and I have explained the way we feel the concept can make sense practically, and it rests on what an individual (or individuals) judges to have significantly influenced their actions, i.e. it's an arbitrary and subjective judgement call. For what it's worth, I tend towards the fully deterministic and causal (at macro scales) view of the universe, and can find no justification for any dualistic definitions or explanations of free will.

However, I also acknowledge that as humans, we arbitrarily divide the continua of our experience into useful chunks, and integrate them with our socio-cultural behaviours; so we arbitrarily divide the causality of our actions into internal vs external, long-term vs immediate, and preferred vs imposed and encapsulate these relations as a measure of the concept of 'free will', which can be applied to the socio-cultural problem of moral responsibility.

That's the way I see it. Calling free will an illusion because it has no direct scientific basis is fine, and in a sense, all such concepts could be called illusions, because they are abstract mental constructs (right, wrong, truth, happiness, frustration, etc). but that doesn't explain why it is considered to be such a useful concept by so many. In a scientific sense, I've observed its use and utility, and I'm attempting to explain that observation - can we find suitable semantics for free will that provides an explanation for its utility and a suitable description of our observations of its use - and also fits our existing framework of knowledge without resorting to dualism and the super/paranormal.

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

'Our objective' do you mean your objective, or are you claiming to speak for the forum, or perhaps for scientists?

So anyway, how will you tell when you have found the 'truth'?

 

[Bill Thompson 75]

Do you have another experimental result that shows opposite of Libet's experimental results?

Many other experimental result in different fields of science are also outdated but until you have another experiment to counter the first experiment's results your argument has no meaning.

In addition, most powerful proof against Free Will is not the experimental data but the logical one.

Logic, on the basis of all scientific experimental data, dictates only material world interact with material world unless you believe in ghost. Ghost, non-material entity, in haunted house in haunted universe interacts with matter. I have seen few scary movies like that.

My claims:
1) Libet is outdated.
2) There is not current research to support Libet.


Your claims (and my interpretation of them):
1) The claims against Libet have no meaning.
(They are incomprehensible but somehow, someway I seem to have special comprehension.)

2) The claims against Libet need experimental results.
(Libet's claims are still valid)

3) Libet's experimental results are outdated.
(My bad, I guess his results aren't valid).

4) Free will does not need experimental data, it uses logic.
(My logical arguments don't need evidence.)

5) The logic is based on experimental data.
(My bad again, my logic does need evidence.)

6) The experimental data shows that ghosts cannot interact with the material world.
(There is experimental data on ghosts.)

 

[dlorde]

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.

I agree, assuming the universe is deterministic at macro scales. However the complicating problem with this explanation is that (short of philosophical speculation) it really only becomes apparent with hindsight, and then only with an unfeasibly complete knowledge of the brain/mental state and internal/external environmental influences over the period of the decision process.

We are such complex decision making entities that even if we assume determinism without randomness, many of the contributory processes are unpredictable, not just because of the lack of knowledge of the initial state, or of all the tiny internal and external influences on that state during the decision process, but unpredictable in principle - because, given the multiple interacting levels of feed-forward/back, the processes incorporate chaotic features.

Even in a deterministic universe, we have no choice but to act as if we have free will

 

[timf1234]

I agree, assuming the universe is deterministic at macro scales. However the complicating problem with this explanation is that (short of philosophical speculation) it really only becomes apparent with hindsight, and then only with an unfeasibly complete knowledge of the brain/mental state and internal/external environmental influences over the period of the decision process.

We are such complex decision making entities that even if we assume determinism without randomness, many of the contributory processes are unpredictable, not just because of the lack of knowledge of the initial state, or of all the tiny internal and external influences on that state during the decision process, but unpredictable in principle - because, given the multiple interacting levels of feed-forward/back, the processes incorporate chaotic features.

Even in a deterministic universe, we have no choice but to act as if we have free will

Whether we are acting as we have free will or not is debatable.
But we for sure know, some of us think we do not have free will and most of us think we have free will. Both group are functioning fine although their brain neural network is slightly different.

 

[dlorde]

Whether we are acting as we have free will or not is debatable.

Is it? What would acting as if you don't have free will look like?

But we for sure know, some of us think we do not have free will and most of us think we have free will. Both group are functioning fine although their brain neural network is slightly different.

Yes; and as is usual with free will debates, if you don't define what you mean by free will (as I have done) you'll find contrary opinion simply because you're talking about different things. BTW, what do you mean by free will?

 

[Complexity]

I'll have to disagree with you there. i think there is plenty of evidence for the existance of free will. People make choices and change their behavior as a result. Smokers who quit smoking. Alcoholics who stop drinking.

That is not evidence of free will. Think about it.

No one here has been discussing a supernatural mind except for people claiming it doesn't exist. Mirrorglass provided a definition earlier - the mind is what the brain does. There's nothing supernatural about that definition.

Nonsense.

If the mind is an aspect of a functioning brain (which I maintain it is), then the brain/mind is entirely physical and is subject to all of the laws of physics. If the universe is deterministic (and it is), then the brain/mind is deterministic.

Dualists (who I consider you to be, even if you don't seem to understand what it means) maintain that the mind is not physical, the mind is not subject to the laws of physics, the mind is not deterministic even if the universe is, and the mind can affect the physical brain in order to control its behavior.

Dualists are wrong. They believe in a supernatural mind. There is no such thing.

You seem to be straddling the fence, but that is not a defensible position.

Learn more and pick a side if you wish.

 

[Complexity]

I agree, assuming the universe is deterministic at macro scales. However the complicating problem with this explanation is that (short of philosophical speculation) it really only becomes apparent with hindsight, and then only with an unfeasibly complete knowledge of the brain/mental state and internal/external environmental influences over the period of the decision process.

We are such complex decision making entities that even if we assume determinism without randomness, many of the contributory processes are unpredictable, not just because of the lack of knowledge of the initial state, or of all the tiny internal and external influences on that state during the decision process, but unpredictable in principle - because, given the multiple interacting levels of feed-forward/back, the processes incorporate chaotic features.

Even in a deterministic universe, we have no choice but to act as if we have free will

Stating that the universe is deterministic neither suggests nor requires that prediction be possible or feasible.

 

[Mirrorglass]

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.

Well, no. The very point I'm trying to make is that removing determinism isn't enough to allow free will. To have free will, you'd have to have some unit, most likely a mind, that was independent of the universe around it, yet able to affect it.

I'm also making the point that the very concept of 'free will' is simply something that exists inside human minds. It's not even possible to define free will in materialistic terms.

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.

Yes, this is the cruncher. You believe there is some 'we' guiding the processes. I believe that 'we' are those processes. We do not guide them; they make us what we are.

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.

It's a philosophy thing. A personal experience of something is a poor reason to assume that something actually exists, and is in any way similar to the experience. From my point of view, there's no reason to think there is a free will. And I don't really think I've ever had a sensory experience that suggested I could have done something differently - I can think about that, sure, but I can think about flying as well.

On the other hand, if I reason it out from a purely logical standpoint, it seems obvious that there is simply no room for free will in a materialistic universe. In such an universe, there exist only deterministic and random events. There is no 'me' that could affect these events; any 'me' is simply an arbitrary subset of these events.

Perhaps it's wrong of me to say 'there is no free will'. Rather, I should say that the concept of 'free will' is meaningless. It cannot be defined without a contradiction.

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

Well, if we were to say free will exists in the same sense a mind, a dance or a moral do, I'd have no problem with that. I consider them all human constructs, not real in the strictest sense, but useful, and usually more important than actual truth.

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? 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?

Yes, now that you put it that way, that's precisely what I am saying. An ocean or a person is really just a chunk of the world we arbitrarily lined off as a unit and gave a name to. The lines don't exist physically, which, from a materialistic worldview, is synonymous to saying the don't exist, at all. I suppose what I'm getting to is that a human worldview is not a materialistic one, but composed of imaginary lines. This argument about free will rises when humans using their ordinary worldview meet other humans who also understand a materialistic worldview.

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

It isn't, really, at least not the person making those decisions. The distinction could be important in some situation where one wishes to affect other people's decisions, though.

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?

Please don't take me for a fool. I'll admit I am getting fairly metaphysical here, but I have no intention of bringing in any mystical entities like a 'greater oneness'.

Also, while I'm somewhat ashamed to admit it, it's not so much that I'm trying to get a point across, anymore. That was my original intention, but this discussion has actually made me rethink some of my views. Right now, I'm just trying to make sense of them. I realize it may make my text seem rather incoherent.

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 agree with that. The self is a concept that depicts a part of the physical world that creates the experience of self, along with that experience. If the physical part is destroyed, the experience ends and the concept disappears.

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.

Well, I'm not so sure about that. The very idea of counting relies on the assumption that there can be more than one of the same thing. But that assumption has no counterpart in the physical world. If there was no observer, there wouldn't be two atoms; there would just be objects, separate from one another.



Anyway, I'm starting to give myself a headache with all this metaphysical silliness. This has been an interesting conversation, and it has made me rethink some basic concepts, of which I'm glad. An unfortunate side-effect may have been making me appear rather insane. Thus, I think it might be a good idea to wrap this discussion up.

If you still want to ask about something I've posted, I'll be happy to reply. But I won't mind just agreeing to disagree, either.

 

[Mirrorglass]

I agree, assuming the universe is deterministic at macro scales. However the complicating problem with this explanation is that (short of philosophical speculation) it really only becomes apparent with hindsight, and then only with an unfeasibly complete knowledge of the brain/mental state and internal/external environmental influences over the period of the decision process.

We are such complex decision making entities that even if we assume determinism without randomness, many of the contributory processes are unpredictable, not just because of the lack of knowledge of the initial state, or of all the tiny internal and external influences on that state during the decision process, but unpredictable in principle - because, given the multiple interacting levels of feed-forward/back, the processes incorporate chaotic features.

Even in a deterministic universe, we have no choice but to act as if we have free will

Quite. Which brings me to the only opinion on free will I'm quite certain about: that any debate or deep thought on the subject, while interesting, is really quite meaningless.

 

[Complexity]

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

In most discussions on free will that I have been aware of, an assertion that free will exists involves the physical world and is an assertion that there is a mind that is not subject to physical laws but is somehow able to influence the brain.

All of my statements regarding free will are in this context.

You apparently have been talking about something else.

Regardless of the variety of free will that may be under discussion, however, I do not think that claiming that there is free will because some people can stop smoking makes any sens.