Is free-will an illusion?

You are not arguing honestly. If unshakable addiction is an argument against agency, how is shackable addition NOT an argument for agency?

"Critical mass" is of essence in each subject. Either one has enough computing power and instinctive and emotional strength to overcome a now perceived problem or one hasn't. Sometimes people can't perceive there is a problem, other's they deny there is a problem, furthermore in other occasions they lack the emotional resolution or the instinctive strength to shake it off...in all those instances failure to get there was not their fault but the natural outcome of genetic specificity and environmental and educational processes who stopped them on their tracks.

Just saying, people need to learn to see both sides of an issue or argument. Brian's got issues there; he's so deeply into his own groove that he can't escape it any more. He can't even hear what people outside of his hole are telling him.

I guess he is the best possible example of his own thesis: he will never be able to free himself from his conditioning. He'll be forever a little soldier for the behaviorist cause.

I guess we can only be free if and when our spirits are not broken, if and when we can still find the energy to question and revolt and reinvent ourselves. Otherwise, we're just damaged goods, slaves, black box zombies.

Well if this isn't the pot calling the kettle black. You reframe my position to your liking so you can attack it. I'm satisfied with your earlier acknowledgment


But what's the matter? Are you squeamish now by your comment that there are 2 year olds that choose their autism? If you have an ounce of rationality, then I hope you can see the absurdity of such a statement.

Listen Brian, either you play the game in a reasonnably fair way, and you might even gain something out of it, or you keep crying that you are being slanted, and ignoring what I say, in which case you will never gain anything out of the exchange. Your.... err.... choice?

If unshakable addiction is an argument against agency, then it follows that shakable addiction must be an argument for agency. This thing I use here is called logic. You can of course disagree but then it's incumbent on you to explain why you disagree.\


For the record, I said that some mild forms of autism could in some cases reflect some kind of choice or preference. Not that I am sure of it, mind you, and it's clearly not true for the most pathologic cases. So don't go ballistic about it. I did explain that I know next to nothing about the topic, in order for the reader to take what I say with a ton of salt... That's only fair i think. If you want to misrepresent that, well, go ahead.

No one can. Saying this is as much of an insult as is saying we are descended from ancestors related to chimpanzees. But to you, a change in perception informed by science is an insult.

You want special creation added to evolution. In order to preserve your faith-based belief in your internal creator you blame 2-yr-olds for having autism. Or can you muster up the courage to admit that your statement doesn't make sense?

So you think you've preserved some sort of integrity by saying that only some children choose to be autistic? Wow!?! And these children would choose this because....?

No...this thing is called a false dichotomy...a fallacy of logic

At least I am not trying to misrepresent what you say. That's part of "integrity", you know?

How would a behaviorist define "integrity" by the way? I thought moral judgments were wrong because we all react mehanically to whatever stimuli we get? So why would you make a difference for little me? :-)

Care to elaborate?

I'm pressing you on your concept of free choice/agency/free with examples because the standard arguments have been discussed at great length by many philosophers and others. I agree with Phil's earlier statement that the topic is mostly a dead end when going this route. I picked a couple of examples that I have not seen addressed well (if at all) by free will proponents. I have not come across any good accounts for addiction using a free will argument. I stuck with specific examples such as lotto tickets or slot machines because there isn't an introduction of chemicals into the body, which could then be used to lazily hypothesize bio-chemical changes in the organism as the explanation for addiction. Your response to the other example was a real surprise though. To say that there are some children choosing to be autistic just seems like doubling down on ridiculousness. It's a supremely ignorant and insensitive thing to say. Rather than just lobbing a statement like that out there, why not stick with the other part of your message; you just don't know anything about autism. You don't need to know everything about every topic. It's perfectly fine to be ignorant about things in the world. I have said as much about myself here on certain points that have been discussed. When children express clusters of symptoms in language, social, and other behaviors they are given the diagnosis of autism; but they do not choose their symptoms or choose to be autistic. This thought has important implications for other possible outcomes.

On the topic of addiction.
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/info/addiction/

But these examples prove nothing. That our mind and body are programmed by nurture and nature to do certain things in certain circumtances, like buying a ticket, duck an incoming missile or have a hard-on in front of a beatiful naked female is a given. I accept that. It doesn't mean that we are compulsed to hit on said female. So even the person who can't stop buying kitery tickets can be free to make choices in other circumstances/domains.

In short, nobody ever said that human beings are absolutely free from ANY AND ALL determination.

I agree. The examples have not been used to suggest that people are compelled (coerced or otherwise) to behave in a given way. That would be closer to reflex-like behavior (e.g., strike the knee just right and it kicks) or instinctual behavior (chicks imprinting on mother bird and following) .

The lottery example is a demonstration that the consequences of playing has increased the probability of playing again. We see the effects in a change in frequency of play. Some people increase to the point of pathological gambling. It can be interfered with, however. One study looked at the pairing of a word like "lost" with near wins, and gambling went down. The INFLUENCE of the environment on behavior is seen when, experimentally, the behavior is turned "on and off" (it covaries) with the experimental changes. The more the effects are repeated, the less it can be said that the person is deciding something. Most often, in these types of behavioral studies, the subjects have no idea what is being manipulated, yet their behavior changes in a predictable way, and similarly to other subjects exposed to the experimental conditions and who are also blind to the experimental conditions. We can change our own behavior by changing the environment. Our use of language comes into play too because we can become aware of or describe contingencies. But this ability has also developed from our personal experiences with the language that we are using. It didn't exist prior to being taught how to describe future actions. And because of the temporal sequence of events and the occasional absence of salient cues for behavior it will look like and feel like the things we do are person-initiated (coming from within).

Of course it's person-initiated. If the person was unconscious, she would not respond to stimuli much... And the response will change depending on the person.

With or without respect to history?

If the person is passed out, drunk, heavily sedated, or Just in a bad mood, she won't play your little behaviorist games. Hence the psychological state of the person is a variable you cannot ignore.

Was this supposed to be an answer to my question? Here's another question that you won't/can't answer: why is it that people's behavior changes when they're largely unaware of the experimental conditions and cannot describe the contingencies that have been arranged? The natural follow up is, what is the role of consciousness in something for which the person is unaware (I.e., the experimental conditions )?

What would happen if the person was unconscious? Do you think your little conditioning games would work? Since you ignore the question, let me tell you the answer: NO, it wouldn't work. Hence consciouness is an important factor, which you can't neglect.

Just stating the obvious, really.

Most conditioning takes place without awareness. As I said in my question before, how do you account for repeatable behavior change during experiments when the subjects are largely unaware of the experimental conditions?
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/feeling-our-way/201401/consciousness-explained