is the frontal lobe of the brain , the essence of free-will ?

@north,

north wrote:

so is the frontal lobe of the brain the essence of free-will ?

thoughts

Let's say that there's an aspect of existence we call free will... volition.

The frontal lobe would have to be involved in thinking about it.

But we recognize volition in creatures which don't have frontal lobes... or even brains. What we're seeing is movement, the source of which is inside the creature.

So a firecracker would be an example of that, except we don't accept firecrackers as living creatures. We assume that animal creatures move according to what's called final causes... which means purposefully. So however purposeful a firecracker's movement might look, we won't accept it as volition.

So why isn't bamboo understood to have volition? It's alive and the source of its movement in terms of growth is within it. And there's a final cause: to access light for photosynthesis. So we answer: if a bamboo root comes to a rock, it doesn't make a choice, it grows however it can.

An earthworm, on the other hand doesn't seem to make choices exactly... doesn't it move pretty much like the bamboo root? ... however it can?

The thing is an earthworm and go in one direction and then back up and go in a different one. And we immediately know: volition. I'm going to say that however technical we get in defining volition, it's always going to come down to intuition. It's something basic.

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@north,

north wrote:

so is the frontal lobe of the brain the essence of free-will ?

thoughts

The essence of free will is not being compelled to do what you don't want to do, or not being restrained from doing what you want to do. Is that in the frontal lobe?

1 Reply

@kennethamy,

Quote:

The essence of free will is not being compelled to do what you don't want to do, or not being restrained from doing what you want to do. Is that in the frontal lobe?

If so then my cats must had one hell of large lobes in their small heads!!!!

1 Reply

@BillRM,

BillRM wrote:

Quote:
The essence of free will is not being compelled to do what you don't want to do, or not being restrained from doing what you want to do. Is that in the frontal lobe?

If so then my cats must had one hell of large lobes in their small heads!!!!

From which it follows that either cats don't have free will, or it is nonsense to talk about free will being someplace. Or, of course, both. Free will is not the name of some thing. It is not being under constraint or restraint.

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@north,

The frontal lobe is where all the logical and wisdom thoughts are processed. This is the last area to form thus teenagers act crazy as their front lobe has not formed yet.

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@north,

north wrote:

so is the frontal lobe of the brain the essence of free-will ?

thoughts

Which lobe? Right or left? Shocked

1 Reply

@Miller,

Miller wrote:

north wrote:

so is the frontal lobe of the brain the essence of free-will ?

thoughts

Which lobe? Right or left?

Actually, there is a middle lobe, but those who want to conceal the existence of free will don't tell you about it, so that if you look into either of the other two lobes, and you don't find free will, you will think there is no free will. It is a plot!

Those who believe that free will is the name of some kind of object are those who go around looking for it in some location. And since they cannot really imagine where it would be located, they land on the brain. Why not the left toe is not clear. It is just as likely to be there as in the brain. Free will is not a thing which has a location. It is a set of circumstances by which a person is not forced to do what he does not want to do, or forced not to do what he wants to do.

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I'm thinking that free will exists as an expression of self. The idea that it resides in some particular space just doesn't seem viable.
One argument I can think of for the existence of free will would be the ability to commit suicide, this act appears to contradict all instinctive influence and , as far as I know, only occurs in the human species.

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@wayne,

wayne wrote:

I'm thinking that free will exists as an expression of self. The idea that it resides in some particular space just doesn't seem viable.
One argument I can think of for the existence of free will would be the ability to commit suicide, this act appears to contradict all instinctive influence and , as far as I know, only occurs in the human species.

As a matter of fact lemmings, for example, commit mass suicide. But I don't see what suicide has to do with it. Free will is, after all, the ability to do what you want to do, and a person may (and sometimes does) want to commit suicide. So, a person who is not forced to commit suicide commits suicide of his own free will.

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@kennethamy,

I had forgotten about lemmings, although I cannot be certain of their having any real choice in the matter.
How does one force someone to commit suicide without providing some sort of choice in the matter?

1 Reply

@wayne,

wayne wrote:

I had forgotten about lemmings, although I cannot be certain of their having any real choice in the matter.
How does one force someone to commit suicide without providing some sort of choice in the matter?

What makes you think you cannot force people to do things and also give them a choice? There are stories (and films) about people who were about to be exposed as thieves or worse, and chose suicide rather than exposure. This is a case of what is called, "choosing the lesser of two evils". Not all choices are without compulsion. True, we often say about people who choose what is by far the lesser of two evils that "he had no choice in the matter" but that should not be taken literally. What we mean when we say that kind of thing is that although the person did have a choice, one of the choices was so much worse that the other, that it would have been unreasonable of the person to have made any other choice than the one he made. So what we mean is not that the person literally had no other choice, but that he had no other reasonable choice.

1 Reply

@kennethamy,

kennethamy wrote:

As a matter of fact lemmings, for example, commit mass suicide.

Lemmings do not commit mass suicide. They can swim, but some accidentally drown while crossing water in large numbers during mass migrations.

1 Reply

@ACB,

ACB wrote:

kennethamy wrote:
As a matter of fact lemmings, for example, commit mass suicide.

Lemmings do not commit mass suicide. They can swim, but some accidentally drown while crossing water in large numbers during mass migrations.

Then I was misinformed. But that is irrelevant to the main point of the post.

1 Reply

@kennethamy,

kennethamy wrote:

ACB wrote:

kennethamy wrote:
As a matter of fact lemmings, for example, commit mass suicide.

Lemmings do not commit mass suicide. They can swim, but some accidentally drown while crossing water in large numbers during mass migrations.

Then I was misinformed. But that is irrelevant to the main point of the post. But no matter, it is still subjectively true that lemmings commit mass suicide.

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@north,

The evidence points to the involvement of the frontal lobes in many areas of cognitive function. But to attempt to locate one particular area with something as nebulous as "free will" is likely to be extremely difficult. Furthermore, "free will" has a social connotation as well as a psychological one (see the free will threads) and hence any hypothetical brain locus is likely to be necessary but not sufficient in accounting for "free will".

1 Reply

@fresco,

fresco wrote:

The evidence points to the involvement of the frontal lobes in many areas of cognitive function. But to attempt to locate one particular area with something as nebulous as "free will" is likely to be extremely difficult. Furthermore, "free will" has a social connotation as well as a psychological one (see the free will threads) and hence any hypothetical brain locus is likely to be necessary but not sufficient in accounting for "free will".

How could the frontal lobe of the brain account for whether or not we are compelled to do what we do?

1 Reply

@kennethamy,

Do you want to borrow my spectacles ?

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@fresco,

fresco wrote:

Do you want to borrow my spectacles ?

Not if they are opaque.

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@kennethamy,

kennethamy wrote:

wayne wrote:

I had forgotten about lemmings, although I cannot be certain of their having any real choice in the matter.
How does one force someone to commit suicide without providing some sort of choice in the matter?

What makes you think you cannot force people to do things and also give them a choice? There are stories (and films) about people who were about to be exposed as thieves or worse, and chose suicide rather than exposure. This is a case of what is called, "choosing the lesser of two evils". Not all choices are without compulsion. True, we often say about people who choose what is by far the lesser of two evils that "he had no choice in the matter" but that should not be taken literally. What we mean when we say that kind of thing is that although the person did have a choice, one of the choices was so much worse that the other, that it would have been unreasonable of the person to have made any other choice than the one he made. So what we mean is not that the person literally had no other choice, but that he had no other reasonable choice.

The point is that while you can force someone to make a difficult choice you cannot force them to make a particular choice. Stubborn people make unreasonable choices all the time.
I still think the suicide example is a good demonstration of the existence of freewill. I am attempting to remove instinct from the equation, which I think is the only sound argument that can be made against freewill.
As far as the essence of freewill residing somewhere, if there is an essence of freewill and it resides somewhere, then it seems reasonable that it resides in choice and the ability to make a choice, unreasonable or not.

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is the frontal lobe of the brain , the essence of free-will ?

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