What is free will?

@tomr,

Quote:

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).

That person you hear is you. It only looks like it's a different person doing the thinking. And perhaps it is something like another stream, network or center of thoughts or whatever, different from the one listening. Because as soon as you chose to focus your attention on watching your own thought process, you opt for the position of spectator or auditor of yourself. You double up.

But you can also opt for a less self-conscient approach and focus more on the action, like when you drive. And then you become the actor, and you may not keep too many mental notes of what happens in your mind, when you make those choices. You're in a different mental place then, in the driver seat.

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@cicerone imposter,

Are you suggesting people suicide themselves without reasons to suicide ? I think not...

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@Olivier5,

Olivier5 wrote:

Quote:
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).

That person you hear is you. It only looks like it's a different person doing the thinking. And perhaps it is something like another stream, network or center of thoughts or whatever, different from the one listening. Because as soon as you chose to focus your attention on watching your own thought process, you opt for the position of spectator or auditor of yourself. You double up.

But you can also opt for a less self-conscient approach and focus more on the action, like when you drive. And then you become the actor, and you may not keep too many mental notes of what happens in your mind, when you make those choices. You're in a different mental place then, in the driver seat.

Common pleeease...actor of what ? you are totally being driven by billions of processes that you are not aware of and that totally condition what emerges in your conscience...whatever, moment by moment, conditions what"you" are being is totally absent of your own willing..."you" are the top emergent process of a damn vast ecosystem of causal relations that merge you n dilute with and in the world...

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@Fil Albuquerque,

EDITED

Quote:

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 ?

Implausible... Odd... Very implausible words in a philosophical debate. Our understanding of the world is inherently limited. I can hear those bishops telling Galileo: 'highly implausible we're all moving at '000'000 leagues per day sir'...

Quote:

...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.

Nor does it become less probable mind you. Determinism is largely irrelevant to free will. As I see it it's an unnecessary hypothisis, hardly provable scientifically, one way or another. But it seems to lead to contradictions and I don't like condradictions.

Current science does point to a role for chance in the universe. I don't see what's so shocking... Of course anything is possible. One theory chases another...

Maybe we could discuss what you call indeterminism. Is it necessarily pure chaos, or can there be some limited order and chaos in some sort of intertwined way?

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@Fil Albuquerque,

But the "reason" can be based on misinformation. That's 'free will' at play.

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@Olivier5,

Discussing indeterminism is a damn vast very vast metaphysical issue that I rather bypass...it would take forever to explain why I don't believe in it...in fact the very idea of freedom is shocking to the deepest level reason can ever hope to go. It suggests moving through nothingness to put it mildly in metaphor which is worse then moving through vacuum where at least a measure of size n dimensions can exist thus establishing some sort of limiting potential on the number of events that can fit in and correlate...

...just imagine to the full what infinite degrees of freedom would imply...worst far worse then total chaos...it would be the evolution of chaos into more chaos exponentially...the principle of no communication in any sense...a world of isolated autistic islands totally devoided of any hope of sense...particles would be complex organized things in such a world...

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@Fil Albuquerque,

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@Fil Albuquerque,

(sorry for the POP illustration)

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Quote:

Common pleeease...actor of what ? you are totally being driven by billions of processes that you are not aware of and that totally condition what emerges in your conscience...whatever, moment by moment, conditions what"you" are being is totally absent of your own willing..."you" are the top emergent process of a damn vast ecosystem of causal relations that merge you n dilute with and in the world...

That's not the point. Your function in this world is to take decisions based on the limited information brought to your attention and in limited time. Nothing more or less. Well, you can seek more information of course. And the information that comes in does not entirely determine the choice. There is a judgement made about the relative relevance or importance if the different sources of info, and jigsaw puzzle moments when pieces suddenly fit. There's genuine info and knowledge mngmt process involved in a choice, including consciously made random choices.

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@Fil Albuquerque,

You wrote,

Quote:

infinite degrees of freedom .

We do not have infinite degrees of freedom; we are all limited by our genes and our environment. All living things are limited by their genes and environment.

Human biology has many limitations even though it is believed that humans utilize 100% of our brains 24/7.

Our senses are not all that well developed compared to many other animal life.

We have handicaps, but we can use technology and develop/create machinery to improve our biological limitations.

That humans can send machinery to other planets, and fly 40,000 feet above the surface of our planet on a daily basis, our abilities to expand our experiences that expands free will and choice are only limited by - our genes and environment.

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@Olivier5,

What you mean is that a judgement emerges out of this unconscious processes n then you become aware of it n not the opposite...your choosing fits your conditions but you did not could not peak them...time n again your are a "victim" of a vast chain of processes from where your judgement n evaluations emerge...whether the conscious part of yourself then acts in reason an according to the emergence of such aware states has nothing to say on how you come to have such drives n wills in the first place from where your awareness of such states did emerge...I rather opt to say you react don't act. And judging by statistics quite predictably... Wink

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Plants love Fibonacci series. I know, it's striking. An argument for intelligent design BTW.

But indeterminism is not that dark. It's just like a determined universe, only a bit fuzy on the margins...

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@Fil Albuquerque,

That's not true.

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@Olivier5,

...read back it was edited...by the way there are plenty of EMR testing n proving just what I said but even before EMR we could get to that conclusion easily, what I am saying its not like guess work its is psychology 101.

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Our "drives and wills" are the result of the subjective perceptions of our experiences.

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@cicerone imposter,

...which then again are causally bounded to make you act the way you do n similarly why do you beg the question when backwards ? How come you can deterministically cause your hand to bring food to your mouth n simultaneously believe there are no other external deterministic causes conditioning your will to do A n B which you are not aware of ?

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@Fil Albuquerque,

The research you talk about is of the "push a button" category where scientists can tell ahead of you committing to the left or right button seconds before you're conscious of your choice.

Committing to a choice is a staged process, during which you first establish what you want to do, then you consciouly check with different 'committee members' (e.g. the moral department, the joker, the smart guy) that this is really what they all agree and commit to do. There can be several iterations, several version of the draft dcision. That's one of the things conscience is made for: pull together all relevant variables, all considerations and information that may have a bearing on a choice. This process can take from a second (in the simple case of chosing between two buttons) to... well, quite a while in more complex cases.

During this process, in simple cases (e.g. press the left or right button, the likelihood of the ultimate choice can be perceived by the scientists scanning your brain as increasing steadily seconds before the conscious commitment is made, plus the time necessary to perceive consciously that the choice has been made, and look up the time at the clock... Most studies claim to predict choice by half-a-seconds or so. Some studies have tried to predict several seconds in advance but their success rate is much lower, at 60%, which is slightly better than tossing a coin would yield...

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@Fil Albuquerque,

If humans don't eat, they starve to death. Some can last up to a week without food, but they say water is needed more frequently.

That's part and parcel of our biology; it requires nourishment and water to survive.

Some have three meals a day. Many people in this world are lucky to have one meal in a day, and many of those same people earn less than US $1/day.

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@Olivier5,

The point is that you are not aware of what your choice will be...even when you really try to make an impartial random decision...secondly relevant data is relevant subjectively...furthermore the truly relevant data like avoid the speeding car is evidence of determinism n not the opposite.

I just like you to properly explain at what point is the given choice "yours" only because you feel so ? When rationally calculated it is a necessary consequence when imaginarly not rational its is the product of unconscious processes which you cannot control, where is your alternative when alternatives are always an a posteriori judgement upon how you acted ? If anything study s show most people invent reasons to justify how they act n feel n mostly tell a story which when properly investigated was never the reason to start with...for instance a nice warm cup of coffee can put in the mood to like some random person far more easily then you would without, chemistry, but when asked people will say stuff like he seamed a nice guy or I liked the way he smiled...

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@Fil Albuquerque,

When you decided to participate on this thread about free will, who made the decision for you?

1 Reply

What is free will?

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