What is free will?

Good video. I completely agree with this guy. I particularly like the experiment of picking a city. It is an easy scenario to see that a thought for something will come out of thin air from a subjective point of view. He even uses the expression "choose to choose a choice"(or something along those lines.)

Heres a video I came across trying to find more concrete evidence for determinism. This guy only has about 30 secs of short term memory and cannot form new long term memories. Watch this video and look at his behavior and some of the things he says. Everytime his wife walks into the room it is essentially the same reaction. And when he talks about his condition he uses the same words, "I don't dream, its like being dead, etc..." There are several other videos about this guy. Look at his behavior. At the end of another video his wife talks about how he kept having the same conversation with her over seven years, using the same inflection and wording. (I'll try to get that video too.)



You free will guys have to admit that this doesn't look good for your argument. And I'll admit its not conclusive, but its only a matter of time before this happens to someone and this repetitive behavior is really analyzed. Maybe by performing repeat experiments similar to the "pick a city" experiment from the movie. Or having them arranging a series of pictures to tell a story or some such thing. If I lose my memory I'll be the first to volunteer. You all should sign up too.

(Sorry about Mickio Kachu, he is unavoidable.)

Heres that other video:



The part where his wife talks about him have the same conversations with the same inflection is at 40:50.

I'm not sure how one individual's ability to remember anything beyond 30 seconds is relevant to the discussion of free will.

The world just doesn't work that way.

His inability to remember short term only allows us to learn about what happens when we are "reset" into the world. When our memories are held constant in number and limited to a previous time frame, new memories aren't made and so they cannot influence our decisions. This question has been asked repeatedly in all these freewill/determinism threads: What would happen if you were put into the exact same situation again? Every memory being the same would be a requirement of that scenario. That is what is happening to the man in the video to some degree. His wife describes his experience as constantly waking up.

Also I think I edited a new video into that previous post after or just before you posted. It adds to this idea.

Excuse me, but why on hell the very same matter we are all built with would sometimes be under the influence of causal relations while some other times behaving randomly ? Either matter is subjected to cause n effect or it isn't. If you can't understand that then I rest my case with you as it seams pointless to continue. Suffices to say there is no reputable free will advocate who takes your position as a starting point.
...furthermore in any case with determinism or indeterminism there is no free will.

That's where claims about predetermination falls apart; "what if" scenarios can be based only on someone's imagination, and not on what most of us perceive as our reality. "What if" everybody had the same brain? We know for a fact that even animals don't. Having a scholastic aptitude does not assure financial success. Many who have left college started their own companies, and became billionaires. An individual with a high IQ turns out to be a mass murderer.

Were they all "pre-determined?" Prove it?

The majority on this planet do not have the opportunity to advance their education or have job opportunities.

Why do some succeed, and many don't?

I might miss your point, but... The what if scenario that I gave is just an illustration of what it would mean to be determined. In the case, that you must repeatedly choose the same thing given all factors like memory and external influences are the same. That outcome of the what if scenario is saying the same thing that the definition of determinism would say. You had to make the choice you made.

But your example is a unique one, and not representative of memory skills for the majority of humans while mentally healthy. How many people do you know whose memory lasts only 30 seconds?

Go to any big city during commute hours; they're all going their own way to their jobs or other activity. If their memory span was only 30-seconds, we wouldn't be living in the world of today.

Some people lose their memory from disease, but that's an entirely different issue.

Reply to this simple question if you can understand it CIC. Does your brain when it wills something is able to transmit the will into a bodily action ? Say you will to eat an ice cream, do you believe if not constrained by any other person or physical or mental deficiency you are able to go and materialize the craving for an ice cream ? If so you do believe in determinism but you haven't take it to its full consequences...the point in these thread is to not be a god damned hypocrite n take consequences to the full instead of going for the light so so approach on which most people fall in any category of knowledge they take, that is to mean, most of us believe something so long it is convenient and apparently benign and as soon the matter we take for logical starts to pose complex counter intuitive and frankly annoying questions we drop it or worse go for a mix soup of all is a go all has a green light kind of approach. I am not one of those persons and obviously I make a great effort to take to the full extent the logical consequences of some very basic assumptions I have...in any case it has been explained several times that either with determinism or indeterminism there is no free will.

You are missing the point indeed in giving credit to it...Forecasting the future is of NO RELEVANCE to the problem of determinism...complexity of calculation is not an argument for indeterminism, it is an argument for complexity alone.

So let me ask you this: Has someone who has no short term memory somehow lost his free will, or are you just saying I cannot use this case because a majority of people have their short term memory intact? If you mean that this guy actually may have damaged the part of his brain that gives him free will then you may have a point. But to say that people with intact STM are the only people we are allowed to examine to help us understand how we are making decisions is unreasonable. If it can give us a perspective and insight that we could not have gotten otherwise then we should use that information. I admit one case is hardly scientific and the case I gave was not a science experiment to begin with. But I think you can see that the behavior looks inconsistent with the idea of have functioning free will.

This what I said to CI on page 8. I think we pretty much agree on this.

Not all thoughts translate into bodily action. You mean to tell me you didn't know that? LOL

As for ice cream, I have frozen fruit bars in our freezer most of the time. The flavors may differ from week to week, but I usually have 4-cartons of frozen fruit bars and a quart or two of ice cream.

Even I don't know what flavors will be in the freezer next month, next year, or ten years from now - and that's if I'm still above ground.

What allows me these choices? The reason that I live in the US where our options are many, and they're offered at most supermarkets in our neighborhood.

All those choices for me screams 'FREE CHOICE.'

First I didn't suggest all thoughts translate into bodily actions, instead, I asked you if you believe the thoughts you want to translate into bodily actions can in fact in your belief be translated into bodily actions, which then again you managed to avoid to answer...its a shame you seam unable to grasp that such belief implies you believe in determinism. As for flavours of ice cream I really hope you are not as schizophrenic ice cream chooser n better have reasons on why you get to choose the flavours you choose which in turn on close inspection ends up being an argument against free will and not in favour of it.

I have paid special attention to 27:50 mn. and more of this video, which I had seen before (took me some time to realize that... :-), and I am sorry to say that I remain unconvinced.

You asked if I was a compatibilist. I am not, technically, since I don't believe in determinism, but it matters little to the issue of free will whether one allows random events or not, as you rightly pointed out. But another place I differ is with their 'naive materialism'. Our thoughts are to a degree determined by the hardware (genes, gender, age, hormones, diseases, etc.), they are also and to a much larger degree determined by software (prior thoughts, culture, education...). I believe our thoughts are written on our neurons like they can be written on a page. It's mind over matter, sometimes at least, like when we learn something, or decide to raise our hand.

I think we agree the world of ideas exists, and can behave in a causal way, one train of thoughts leading to another, or you wouldn't be reading this post.

And it matters not to me that my thoughts are the result of previous thoughts, or that I remain unconscious of many motives and thoughts. They are me.

I don't understand much about myself and how I think and make choices, but that's not a proof I can't make or have them. Do you fully understand everything your body does, like how each one of your organs work?

This 'chose a city' experiment is funny. He asks in essence: how do you make a random choice? (not a reasoned choice, he says pick a city, any city)
I don't know exactly how I generate an haphazard pick without any consequences in 3 seconds... but I can still chose to chose a city at random, or not at random, which I chose to do. Or chose not to chose a city after all...

All the time, piece of cake...

I need to understand the question in order for me to answer it.

I'm sure my "beliefs" has something to do with my bodily actions. Otherwise, I would never have traveled to over 190 countries during my lifetime. It also includes, but not limited to, enjoyment, experience new sites, sounds, food, beverage, meet new people, and "see the world."

That I have the financial ability to travel 5-6 times a year is based on my ability and devotion to save and invest well.

That I'm not sure which countries I'll travel to next year out of the many options is not "determined" by anything other than my ability to travel.

That you believe that I don't determine which flavor of ice cream I pick from the many varieties available is based on my free will to choose regardless of your belief in determinism.

Quantum physics disagree with you. Why can't reality behave randomly at a certain scale (quantic) and not (or less or differently) at another level?

If you can't think of a mixture of chance and cause & effect, does it mean reality has to obey your predetermined thoughts, or is it that your imagination and understanding simply are limited?

Think of probabilities and statistics. Are they unscientific?

You missed the point of the exercise. The point is not just to say you can choose a city in 3 seconds (By the way there was more time than that.) You can take a few minutes if you want. But the point is to give attention to the process of choosing and to recognize that the desire for one city over others and the reasons for the that choice arise without your consideration. Just like if someone else told you what you want(but in your inner voice).

Bottom line you are a compatiblist alright and that is the most reasonable argument for free will advocates one can take. Nevertheless the illusion that the property of choice is "yours" is not prove the cause of choice resides in you...in fact you would have to go all the way back to the any "prime mover" of your own preference to tackle the problem of original causes and even there you can make the argument that whatever is the case to be the prime mover be it nature or God such prime mover cannot escape is own existential nature and therefore could not chose what he/it itself is before he/it is...in resume you and I well know the idea of "choice" is naive and you, at this point, are just trying to put up a fight on the matter to make for some interesting intellectual debate/conflict but bottom line are by now convinced otherwise...so I rather bypass all that process n concede I believe you are an intelligent although stubborn interlocutor and settle with that...

Nobody really believes it that's why we say QM is "odd"...it is absolutely implausible matter can both behave in determined and undetermined ways...I thought you were aware the matter is "politically" sensible for science...in fact I could present you with a couple of videos that have several good hipothesis on QM being deterministic but merely poorly explained...Have you heard about pilot waves ?

...but then again, just to clarify it once more, even if it was the case both indeterminism and determinism can be true, which honestly is total schizophrenic sort of thinking, where does the argument for free will becomes improved in any way ? I cannot see any scenario on which free will becomes more plausible by this argument.

That anyone can commit suicide tells me free will is available to each individual.