Is free-will an illusion?

If you are not aware of how your brain creates thoughts, how can you know your choices are not completely determined by external factors. The subjective experience does not give us access to this knowledge. I cannot tell you how my brain creates the subjective experience and so I do not know what is truly producing what options are called to mind and why. Or that I was capable of actually picking alternative options under identical circumstances. Don't you ever experience thoughts that just kind of pop up in your brain for no real reason or remember something just because you see something similar to that memory. If you do not control these thoughts who is to say this is not how the brain operates entirely. If nothing else you can admit that these types of experiences do exist and would seem to be triggered by factors that you do not control. If these aspects of your mind are completely delivered by external factors why could not external factors control the thoughts that you deem to be your own. Thoughts just kind of appear in ones head, do you really know you have originated them from nothing but your will. If so how?

Consider what happens to people who have brain injuries. When a certain part of the brain is injuried they lose memories just as if a computer's memory were to be damaged. If you were to lose your visual cortex you would no longer be able to see. Just like if you took out some device from your computer, it would lack that function. What if we took all the pieces away except the component that makes your will. You would have no access to memories, sensations, emotions, or any subjective phenomena. You would have no options not even the option not to choose. If you hypothetically isolate the will from the "devices" of the brain, it cannot operate. So the will must need this access and these inputs to make choices. It feeds off external inputs and produces a choice. It is not apart of your memories they are external to it, it is not apart of your sensation or emotion these are all functions or data of the brain that can be taken away. But they are necessary for the conscious will to function.

A man dreamt that he was a butterfly. When he awoke, he was no longer sure that he wasn't really a butterfly, having a dream that he was a man.

You arrive at your subjective conclusions from your biology, environment, and all the experiences you have had from the time you are born until you reach an age when you can manage your own activities.

Is this a true story or something else?

I think this is a fair statement. But you know I do not believe in free will.

All stories are true in some sense.

That is a Zen ko-an.

If you do not believe in free will, then do you claim responsibility for your actions?

Yes I claim responsibility. As much as anything can be responsible in a deterministic world. The word kind of loses its absolute meaning though, since inputs beyond my control do ultimately force what I do.

What "inputs" are you talking about?

Data coming from sources outside my consciousness that are needed for it to function: Memories, external stimuli or forces producing sensations, and all other functions of the brain that I do not choose to initiate influence with but rather they initiate their influence on my consciousness without my consent.

The use of the coin is to show that one's actions aren't determined, and as a corollary, that determinism cannot be rationally supported. For the full story, first demonstrate a freely willed action, this already commits us to the view that free will is observable or we must abandon at least one of three essential principles of experimental science. Nevertheless, the demonstration can be objected to on two grounds: that the world is determined or that the choice is completed pre-consciously by a deterministic algorithmic process. The coin argument disposes of the first objection and there's a reductio for the second.

What I was trying to explain was that a coin toss only allows two choices, but in real life, it's not limited to only two, and the resultant subjective choice goes beyond our ability to predict 1 or 2.

However, I understand your point.

Here's my koan:

Every stone on the ground when thrown may make a sound
But out of all the stones that come to be none throw themselves into the sea.

I think I failed.

I would love to here these three essential principles of experimental science.



What about the objection that two infinitely long sequences matching or not matching tells us almost nothing about how they were generated. There are only two conclusions that can be draw from your exercise:

1.) If the sequences match they were probably copied somehow.
2.) If the sequences do not match their methods of generation are independent of each other.

No other information can be drawn from your scheme. So how again does either 1.) or 2.) show that determinism does not exist.

Okay, I see.

1) researchers can repeat defined experimental procedures
2) conditions are such that experiments can be repeated
3) observations take precedence over theories.

Problem with 2) and 3)

You think your observations prove free will exists. How? Your observations do not show you that under identical circumstances you could have chose something other than what you chose. To prove you could actually realize those alternatives you would have to repeat the event of the choice and prove you could pick something else. Having options to pick from at any point in time is not a proof that you could have picked something else under identical circumstances. Because you cannot recreate such circumstances you have not performed the necessary experiment to make your observations from.

3) should be: observations based on an appropiate experiment take precedence over theories.

I have not made that claim. Free will is observable in the scientific sense of observation. Naturally you can still maintain that it doesn't exist, as science is metaphysically neutral. However, it is observable and to deny that you will need to abandon experimental science.

No what you are talking about is pseudo-science. Free will requires us to have realizable alternatives from your definition. To verify that scientifically we should have to recreate the identical conditions of some choice and show that we could make a different choice. If we do not have identical conditions then we are not testing for all possible influences on the choice whether external to the chooser or not. Because we cannot reproduce identical conditions then we have not proven that free will has been observed or that it even exists.

Now I understand you have a problem with the identical conditions part of this. But for the test to be valid and include all possible factors it must be a near perfect recreation of the original choice. Because the human brain and body are constantly changing with time. No test could be given to ensure the conditions are equivalent. Also having knowledge of a previous choice impairs ones ability to provide a valid demonstration in being able to choose realizable alternatives when confronted with that choice again.

You will probably say it is absurd to expect this because no experiment in science requires identical conditions. You are right. But most experiments in science are designed to test generalizations from simple phenomena which can be extrapolated to many cases. Your proposal is not that. It is a very specific inquiry on a highly complex system that we are not even close to understanding. But an alternative experiment for you might be to show that as the experimental conditions grow closer and closer to the original conditions of a choice, the choices are seen to differ with undiminished variety and hence choices are not seen to be continuously repeated. To what degree of closeness between the experimental and original conditions of a choice is needed to verify free will really depends on the complexity of the human mind and how sensitive it may be to these possible factors.

The only case that comes to mind would be to test someone with only short term memory. You know those people that wake up day after day repeating the same day and memories of some time just before a traumatic brain injury took place. Place such a person under as similar as possible conditions day after day noting that it would be extremely hard to control factors like bodily functions, illness, etc. Then provide him with the same choice day after day or a series of choices each day. Then see what would happen. Its not ideal but that would at least be scientific which is better than what you propose.

on the contrary u r proving the point by meanin to reject it

if a person has a head injury logical ends if freedom wasnt existing, is the adaptation reality of the brain without meanin anything else then the chaotic now since even now cant b perceived correctly nor positively

why would the head injure go to live through past memories where positive was sensible, bc positive essence is freedom fact so the brain goes free to b positive in whatever left of free ends as positive there

while meanin to condition another being to prove free will in general sense of ur presence observin it, is exhibitin the pervert u r in all terms abusin freedom intelligence truth and intelligence freedom facts absolutely known

u keep repeatin the same will, the will to give life to the biggest monster existence before superiority truth became a fact as the exclusive truth, so havin to mean that monster inferiority in meanin any existin point

u belong to the freedom that want to prove the right existin sense being what is inferior to u, as if anything inferior to u could exist before u and ur present eyes

while the true right existin sense is the freedom that know being less then what it can see or conceive, know that only true superiority can b totally objective so to realize an object outside of its fact freedom perceptible by else in same fact terms as it is true

what is before u is always superior
u r then more true as being urself only but then too what is before could b objectively perceived as also more true