free will and causuality

@emergent monkey,

In think we have been here before..I can see it being no different.It comes down to the final choice being classified as yours or your influenced reactions...We live this life for what ? because we just do or is it for some higher reason? If you can say we have a mind or a soul that makes the final decision then we have free will..Take a train ride once we step onto that train we are commited to that journey and the sites we see and people we meet are predetermined to a certain degree..we have no control but we can exert our will if we choose to look or speak, just as we can choose not to like your brothers music..Each choice we make is by the choices that are given to us .We elect to choose what experience is valid and how it will make us make other choices.Making one move of free will does not exclude the rest..There is distinct difference from not being given all the choices and only a selected few.. Life restricts our free will but it does not destroy it..Well thats the best i can do as an amateur.

1 Reply

@xris,

xris wrote:

In think we have been here before..I can see it being no different.It comes down to the final choice being classified as yours or your influenced reactions...

I personally don't believe in free will, and I know personal references don't hold much weight with most people.
But the mind only makes it appear as though its making its own decisions..
Take the scientific researching Benjamin Libet he attempted to demonstrate this scientifically:
Benjamin Libet - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Libet has done research on free will using scientific methods.
His results are pretty interesting:
"Libet's experiments suggest unconscious processes in the brain are the true initiator of volitional acts, therefore, little room remains for the operations of free will. If the brain has already taken steps to initiate an action before we are aware of any desire to perform it, the causal role of consciousness in volition is all but eliminated."

Libet discovered that, before a person was aware they were making a decision, they're brain were already in the process of making that decision before it ever even crossed the barrier of conscious thought. I think his work in a way proves free-will is illusion. But brings up another question, whats the point of fooling ourselves into beliving we make our own decisions? Perhaps free-will is just another negentropic obstacle, volunteerly created by ourselves, to help guide ourselves towards the realization that there is no free will, by subjecting ourselves first to the idea of free will. There is a law in the mind, you cannot know one thing without knowing its opposite, and maybe thats all free-will is - that opposite side of the knowledge required to realize there is no free will. You cannot know what light is without knowing what dark is. You cannot know you don't have free-will, without first having the thought that you do.

2 Replies

@l0ck,

l0ck;41053 wrote:

I personally don't believe in free will, and I know personal references don't hold much weight with most people.
But the mind only makes it appear as though its making its own decisions..
Take the scientific researching Benjamin Libet he attempted to demonstrate this scientifically:

It doesn't matter whether we ACTUALLY have free will or not.

The only thing that matters is whether or not we believe it.

At some level beneath our consciousness, a big neurological computer may be pulling our puppet strings.

But the thing is, we operate and evaluate our actions and decisions at a conscious level. And it is constantly reinforced that there is a sequential relationship between our decisions and our actions.

Thus, at an operational level, free will is apparent to us whether or not it is truly free. And if we believe through experience that we have free will, then it really doesn't matter if we're blissfully ignorant about the cellular puppet strings beneath our consciousness.

0 Replies

@l0ck,

l0ck wrote:

I personally don't believe in free will, and I know personal references don't hold much weight with most people.
But the mind only makes it appear as though its making its own decisions..
Take the scientific researching Benjamin Libet he attempted to demonstrate this scientifically:
Benjamin Libet - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Libet has done research on free will using scientific methods.
His results are pretty interesting:
"Libet's experiments suggest unconscious processes in the brain are the true initiator of volitional acts, therefore, little room remains for the operations of free will. If the brain has already taken steps to initiate an action before we are aware of any desire to perform it, the causal role of consciousness in volition is all but eliminated."

Libet discovered that, before a person was aware they were making a decision, they're brain were already in the process of making that decision before it ever even crossed the barrier of conscious thought. I think his work in a way proves free-will is illusion. But brings up another question, whats the point of fooling ourselves into beliving we make our own decisions? Perhaps free-will is just another negentropic obstacle, volunteerly created by ourselves, to help guide ourselves towards the realization that there is no free will, by subjecting ourselves first to the idea of free will. There is a law in the mind, you cannot know one thing without knowing its opposite, and maybe thats all free-will is - that opposite side of the knowledge required to realize there is no free will. You cannot know what light is without knowing what dark is. You cannot know you don't have free-will, without first having the thought that you do.

I dont see this experiment as destroying the idea of free will. Is it the brain or the mind that is being questioned.Has this experiment considered the possibility of the mind? One suppose does not exclude another suppose or if you suppose so to can i..It could be argued that the brain is our contact with reality and the mind is the overseer of our free will.The brain could evaluate, give the consequences, feed the mind desires .. Be allowed to make mundane decisions but the mind has the moral obligation to exert free will for the souls purpose.

1 Reply

@xris,

Yeah, Libet's experiments do not destroy the idea of freewill, only the way in which most people conceive of free will. Libet found that we have free will, or at least choice, because humans have the ability to decide not to act, even after the unconscious initiates the action. We have a filter on the unconscious impulse to act, and this filter is tantamount to volition, if not free will.

Libet showed conclusively that we have the ability to act otherwise if we so chose. That's all that is needed for man's freedom, for man to not be restrained by determinism.

1 Reply

@Didymos Thomas,

Didymos Thomas;41087 wrote:

Libet showed conclusively that we have the ability to act otherwise if we so chose.

Oh, no, no, no!!
Not only has Libet never shown that anything can be other than what it is, but the notion has never been so demonstrated; no evidence whatsoever!
What is, is, and there is no evidence (ever) that what is can ever be otherwise.

1 Reply

@nameless,

nameless wrote:

Oh, no, no, no!!
Not only has Libet never shown that anything can be other than what it is, but the notion has never been so demonstrated; no evidence whatsoever!
What is, is, and there is no evidence (ever) that what is can ever be otherwise.

Too many isss for me can you be more precise ?

1 Reply

@xris,

xris;41095 wrote:

Too many isss for me can you be more precise ?

You seek 'precision' sans what 'is'?
Sorry, seems quite concise and 'precise'. Do you really have a disagreement with, or don't understand what I said?
Isss this humor?
Get used to the 'isness', as every moment of existence as 'is' is as it is.

2 Replies

@nameless,

nameless wrote:

Oh, no, no, no!!
Not only has Libet never shown that anything can be other than what it is, but the notion has never been so demonstrated; no evidence whatsoever!
What is, is, and there is no evidence (ever) that what is can ever be otherwise.

I did not make any claim that contradicts you assertion about what is. I said that Libet's experiments show that humans have the ability to override the unconscious initiation of an action, thus giving humans to at least not act according to the unconscious initiation of action.

1 Reply

@nameless,

nameless wrote:

You seek 'precision' sans what 'is'?
Sorry, seems quite concise and 'precise'. Do you really have a disagreement with, or don't understand what I said?
Isss this humor?
Get used to the 'isness', as every moment of existence as 'is' is as it is.

IS that a without "sans" or with an is..disagree with an is or a concise is is not my problem..is it?

0 Replies

@Didymos Thomas,

Didymos Thomas;41100 wrote:

I said that Libet's experiments show that humans have the ability to override the unconscious initiation of an action,...

Again, I say that this claim is both unsubstantiated but unsubstantiatable. The evidence presented by the experiment showed no such thing. 'Interpretation' of the evidence/data of the experiment can be varied...
The 'evidence' was consistent in showing that action preceeded 'will', as I interpreted it.
I do not wish to argue 'free-will', i'm just questioning your 'interpretation' of the experiment with regard to the actual data.

New neuroscience findings re; 'free-will'

0 Replies

@emergent monkey,

It's definitely a experiment that can be interpreted in many ways, as many people have done, and its easily to misinterpret as well, as im sure many people have also done. Other people recently have furthered Libets experiment with modern scanning techniques. John-Dylan Haynes for example, has measured prearranged decisions in a persons mind up to 10 seconds before they actually choose from those decisons and act. He set up an experiment where a person chooses to click a button with either their left or right hand, and can accurately predict up to 10 seconds before they decide to use a hand, which hand they are going to use.

Now ofcourse, this is a different type of choice. A very simple choice involving motor skills. It's hard to apply this data to other types of choices, but in this case, it does further our concept of free-will being an illusion. If anyone has 90 minutes of spare time, which I know alot of us dont or are not that interested, but here is a video lecture by Haynes where he goes into great detail about unconscious determinants of free decisions:
Unconscious determinants of free decisions in the human brain

The way I interpret Libets experiements though, is the decisions you can freely decide to choose from are created in a different area of the brain, which is what Libet measured through the EEG, and then that set of prearragned decisions are pushed into your awareness, thus giving you a choice, however, a choice from pre-arranged choices, giving you the illusion of free-will. No, it doesn't elminate free-will, it simply shows its illusive aspects. The expirment only furthers our knowledge of how free-will works. Yes, we are still making choices, but free choices from a set of choices we have already decided to choose from, becuase that set of choices comes from a area that is unaware, and is pushed into awareness for further processing. The expirement doesn't elminate the fact that we can also not choose any of the choices we so desireably want to choose from. So, if anything, free will is just like a separate program involved in determining what choice to choose, or not to choose, from our unconscious prearranged choices. That is to say, to supress our desires or not.

2 Replies

@l0ck,

nameless wrote:

Again, I say that this claim is both unsubstantiated but unsubstantiatable. The evidence presented by the experiment showed no such thing. 'Interpretation' of the evidence/data of the experiment can be varied...
The 'evidence' was consistent in showing that action preceeded 'will', as I interpreted it.
I do not wish to argue 'free-will', i'm just questioning your 'interpretation' of the experiment with regard to the actual data.

New neuroscience findings re; 'free-will'

Ah, you disagree with the researcher's conclusions. I suppose that's fine, but I'm not an expert in the field, so I tend to trust their findings on authority given the fact that they actually carry authority on the matter.

1 Reply

@Didymos Thomas,

Didymos Thomas;41274 wrote:

Ah, you disagree with the researcher's conclusions. I suppose that's fine, but I'm not an expert in the field, so I tend to trust their findings on authority given the fact that they actually carry authority on the matter.

There is no "fact" of them "carrying any authority" to interpret the results of their experimental results.
Thats the cognitive fallacy of an 'appeal to authority'.
The scientist/technician formed and performed the experiment. He has no more authority to evaluate the results and implications than anyone capable of critical thought, such as a philosopher, who just might be better equipt to make that evaluation of the data from the experiment, then the designer of the (simple) experiment.
If you don't care to give it 'thought', and yet desire an 'opinion', then accepting the 'thoughts' of others certainly saves the energy expended in actual critical thought. That energy saved might be well used in other endeavors...

0 Replies

@l0ck,

l0ck;41241 wrote:

...unconscious determinants of free decisions

If there are any "unconscious determinants" then there is no 'free-will/choice'. Fully 'free' = fully Conscious.
If you believe in a 'spectrum of freedom' then there would be an inversely proportional relationship between "unconscious determinants" and 'freely made decisions'; the more of one, the less of the other.

1 Reply

@nameless,

Actually, appealing to the authority of a scientist regarding questions of science is not an example of the fallacious appeal to authority.

2 Replies

@Didymos Thomas,

... where does the assertion that "free will" has to be a function of consciousness come from? ... let's assume for the moment that Libet has decisively demonstrated that there are times when subconscious processes can precede the conscious experience of "free will" ... let's also assume that it can be proved that mental processes - both conscious and subconscious - are in some way independent of the physical substrate ... under these assumptions, aren't we in full possession of "free will"? ...

0 Replies

@Didymos Thomas,

Didymos Thomas;41560 wrote:

Actually, appealing to the authority of a scientist regarding questions of science is not an example of the fallacious appeal to authority.

It surely is said fallacy when the opinions of whomever you feel is an 'authority' are accepted wholesale, rather than you using those 'opinions' as 'data' for your own critically thoughtful examination and the formation of your own 'informed' and 'thoughtful' opinions, at the moment.
Accepting the opinions of whomever you consider an 'authority', on the grounds of that perceived 'authority', is certainly a cognitive fallacy.
Of course, we all have differing capacity for 'critical thought' and there are many with no option but to 'accept' the opinions of those whom we find 'credible'. It is a wide spectrum. Such acceptance is, nevertheless, to whatever extent we practice it (from the Perspective of philosophy and science) a fallacy.

1 Reply

@nameless,

You can assert whatever you like about logical fallacies, nameless, or you can do some research and find that your assertions are false. This is Philosophy 101, nameless. Go find a text book.

1 Reply

free will and causuality

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