Is free-will an illusion?

@Fil Albuquerque,

Quote:

...personally I feel the need to be more honest with myself

Well, Fil, it is easy enough to "posit" an ontological/metaphysical premise that "everything happens by strict necessity," and many do. Nothing "wrong" with that.

But, if one were to be "honest," he would have to admit that such a position is not "logically necessary," nor has it ever been empirically proven. It that sense, you might say that choosing to adopt such a premise is a "free choice," eh?

2 Replies

@FBM,

Quote:

How is a subjective anecdote proof? You have no idea what went on in your subliminal mind in the seconds before any of those decisions.

It's something that we do everyday: communicate through symbolic language, and I don't see how a purely mechanistic view of the brain can explain how we do it... Can you?

Quote:

You have no idea what went on in your subliminal mind in the seconds before any of those decisions.

Neither do you, nor even the scientists that conduct RMI studies. Nobody knows how the brain-mind complex works.

Quote:

You seem to be admitting that decisions are made subconsciously. Am I reading that right?

Not really. I am saying there is bound to be a delay between our mental events and our awareness of them, even in events that are happening within the "sphere of consciousness". That should not come as a surprise because information always takes some time to travel and be analysed.

1 Reply

@layman,

The whole red herring about what one "believes" in this regard is reminiscent of the interminable debates about what "atheism" means in other threads.

My position, often stated (and often objected to) is that there are 3 (not just 2) positions one may take on the question of whether a god of some kind or another exists.

1. Yes, God exists
2. No, God does NOT exist, and
3. Hell if I know

Some claim that position 3 is incoherent. They say that if you don't actively "believe" in God, then you have to be an "atheist."

In my view, this too is a false dichotomy, and is based on a misunderstanding of what "agnosticism" means. It not does refer to a lack of "belief," rather it refers to a lack of pretense to KNOWLEDGE about the issue.

Many past and present philosophers claim to be "agnostic" about the issue of strict determinism. Others, akin to the atheist in religious matters, claim to KNOW that strict determinism governs the universe.

They never really explain how they KNOW, they just kinda do.

2 Replies

@layman,

There are other areas of this debate where personal "belief" seems to direct the discussion. There is an acknowledged category of informal logical fallacies that is commonly referred to as "arguments from personal incredulity." The idea is along the lines of: You haven't convinced me that you are right, therefore you are wrong."

Quite a convenient approach to take, eh? If you can't prove me wrong (to my satisfaction), then I am right. By that standard millions of people holding diametrically-opposed opinions on a topic would ALL be right.

0 Replies

@layman,

Quote:

Many past and present philosophers claim to be "agnostic" about the issue of strict determinism.

I take my clues on this issue from Karl Popper's “An argument for indeterminism”, a philosophy masterpiece I read years ago. It actually presents many distinct arguments against strict determinism. The most powerful of them IMHO being that if strict determinism was the case, the entire history of the universe would have been written in the first split second after the big bang, and the universe would thus be a humongous waste of time.

0 Replies

@Olivier5,

Olivier5 wrote:

Quote:
How is a subjective anecdote proof? You have no idea what went on in your subliminal mind in the seconds before any of those decisions.

It's something that we do everyday: communicate through symbolic language, and I don't see how a purely mechanistic view of the brain can explain how we do it... Can you?

We also make mistakes every day. We mis-remember, misattribute, etc. The brain fills in gaps in perception with what "ought" to be there, like with the eye's blind spots. Science reveals oodles of things that are counter-intuitive, so going solely on common sense contra experimental data doesn't seem to be the wise way to go. Not if you're interested in learning something new, that is. If you're just interested in confirming your bias, then I suppose it is.

No, I can't explain how the brain does what it does and haven't tried. You're making an ad ignorantiam. What I have presented is experimental evidence, which you seem keen on avoiding.

Quote:

Neither do you, nor even the scientists that conduct RMI studies. Nobody knows how the brain-mind complex works.

Argumentum ad ignorantiam. Libet and Hayne, et al, know a lot more than either of us, and their experiments cast some strong doubt on the conventional understanding of free will. Experimental evidence, not just a priori arguments.

Quote:

Not really. I am saying there is bound to be a delay between our mental events and our awareness of them, even in events that are happening within the "sphere of consciousness". That should not come as a surprise because information always takes some time to travel and be analysed.

Those mental events that happen before we become aware of them. Are they conscious or subconscious? I mean, really. C'mon. I'm trying to discuss this in good faith. Help me out here.

As I said before, I don't have any vested interest in either side of the debate. I've run across some experiments that suggest good reasons to be skeptical about the conventional understanding of free will. I've presented those experimental results. So far, all I've gotten in response is attempts to refute experimental results with a priori reasoning based on naive realism and work-a-day common sense, and much of which is begging the question or other fallacies.

If you don't have anything more substantial, something that can compare with the experimental results I've presented, I'm not sure there's much point in continuing the discussion. You seem determined to defend free will regardless of what the neuroscientists' efforts have shown. I'm saying that I'm open to whatever the evidence points to. So far, the evidence points to good reasons to be skeptical. You haven't presented any evidence at all, and don't seem to be inclined to.

2 Replies

@FBM,

Quote:

I've presented those experimental results. So far, all I've gotten in response is attempts to refute experimental results with a priori reasoning

Jeez, Ollie. Tell him if he really wants a response to his over-reaching presentations about what "science" says, then he should take me off "ignore" and read the multiple responses I have already posted in that regard.

0 Replies

So, the bottom line is:
If you are supercilious, you really have no control over it.
If you are sciolistic, it is because you stopped a baseball with y0ur head.

1 Reply

@neologist,

Quote:

If you are sciolistic, it is because you stopped a baseball with y0ur head.

Is that a neologism, Neo, or did you just mean "spastic?"

1 Reply

@layman,

Cool word, eh?

sciolism
/ˈsaɪəˌlɪzəm/
noun
1.
(rare) the practice of opinionating on subjects of which one has only superficial knowledge

Shouldn't be labeled rare, considering its commonality on a2k.

1 Reply

@neologist,

Quote:

(rare) the practice of opinionating on subjects of which one has only superficial knowledge

That's me!

I have heard that word before, now that I think about it. That's what those shrinks, in their candy-ass while lab coats, called me at the mental hospital, years ago. That, and a shitload of other things like paranoid, schizophrenic, sociopathic, manic-depressive, kleptomaniacal, and a lot of other words that I don't recall offhand.

Those fools are probably still there, but I aint! I busted out. So who's the smart one, I ask ya?

0 Replies

@FBM,

Quote:

We also make mistakes every day. We mis-remember, misattribute, etc. The brain fills in gaps in perception with what "ought" to be there, like with the eye's blind spots. Science reveals oodles of things that are counter-intuitive, so going solely on common sense contra experimental data doesn't seem to be the wise way to go. Not if you're interested in learning something new, that is. If you're just interested in confirming your bias, then I suppose it is.

Yes, life is full of misunderstandings, and even right now you are misunderstanding me.

Perhaps Brian, as a behaviorist, would understand what I mean when I present daily experiences of human behavior as scientific data, and ask and seek for a scientific explanation of them. Science often happens in labs but its work still needs to be applicable outside them, in 'real life'.

In real life, as in labs, complex instructions are given and correctly understood and followed all the time. Sure, misunderstandings also happen but we find ways to control that. And I am not talking of anecdotal evidence here. This is SCIENTIFIC, replicable and reliable evidence that symbolic language can motivate ('cause') actions/behaviors. This fact needs to be accounted for, just as much as any experiment by Libet. (I'll come back to them)

Quote:

Those mental events that happen before we become aware of them. Are they conscious or subconscious? I mean, really. C'mon. I'm trying to discuss this in good faith. Help me out here.

Is consciousness a state of affairs, an immutable quality, or is it a process? If the former, some thoughts are conscious and others are not by virtue of some essential difference in them. If the latter, thoughts are all essentially the same but a sort of mental camera moves around illuminating and filming some of them and leaving others in the dark. That's my view. In it, the awareness of a thought always come after the thought, because awareness is a form of perception, always post factum.

4 Replies

@Olivier5,

Quote:

the awareness of a thought always come after the thought, because awareness is a form of perception, always post factum.

It is my understanding that in Libet's experiment, no subject ever failed to report his intention to make a movement until after it was done. The announced intention ALWAYS preceded the action.

Again, subsequent experiments have shown that the so-called "readiness potential" measured by Libet does NOT indicate the time at which a decision is made. It is presumed to indicate that the brain is "paying attention" and prepared to perform on command.

1 Reply

@Olivier5,

Quote:

Perhaps Brian, as a behaviorist, would understand what I mean when I present daily experiences of human behavior as scientific data, and ask and seek for a scientific explanation of them. Science often happens in labs but its work still needs to be applicable outside them, in 'real life'

There are two broad focusses of many of the scientific disciplines. The focusses may be "basic" or "applied." Basic research may seek to identify principles that function relative to some phenomenon; applied research (at least in behavioral science) is geared to solving issues of importance for people by using the principles learned in basic research. My description here is drawing a greater distinction than may actually occur in basic and applied sciences, but I think is a fair contrast.

1 Reply

@layman,

layman wrote:

Quote:
...personally I feel the need to be more honest with myself

Well, Fil, it is easy enough to "posit" an ontological/metaphysical premise that "everything happens by strict necessity," and many do. Nothing "wrong" with that.

But, if one were to be "honest," he would have to admit that such a position is not "logically necessary," nor has it ever been empirically proven. It that sense, you might say that choosing to adopt such a premise is a "free choice," eh?

...happens ???
In spacetime EVERYTHING HAS HAPPENED !!!
...Hence the necessitty...as there is no real flow of time.

...also mind this: There is no true nothingness, no open-ness, no actual empty future waiting for choices...the alternative, everythingness, is unavoidable, fact, done !

0 Replies

I am a lazy poster, with lack of enthusiasm for providing details where none is needed for the right eyes...I am so certain, so convinced of my stance on this matter I would bet my neck on it anyday...

...anyway digest it, give it some actual proper thought or drop it and keep it at neat bureaucratic vacous pompous posting...

...personally I go straight to the heart of the matter without info noise and literature...getting old for **** reasoning...

1 Reply

Nothingness isn't any thing at all, funny enough by definition isn't itself...less then space, less then time, less then void...

....this is paramount to understand that Realitty is only the ensemble, the order of all that it is present....no past no future...only existing !!!

With such an understanding there is no space left for any kind, any degree of freedom..

Freedom is layman's coinage for the mind meeting its necessitty in the order of the whole...(now give me a nobel and **** off ya all mindless info noisers.)

1 Reply

@Fil Albuquerque,

Quote:

this is paramount to understand that Realitty is only the ensemble, the order of all that it is present....no past no future...only existing !!!

Fess up, Fil. Ya done stole that line from Parmenides, dincha?

1 Reply

@Fil Albuquerque,

Quote:

I am so certain, so convinced of my stance on this matter I would bet my neck on it anyday...

It must be comforting to be that cocksure of understanding "everything," eh, Fil.

1 Reply

@Olivier5,

Citing everyday experience is not doing science. Behavioral sciences may observe everyday activity, but the subsequent analyses are subject to theoretical constraints, not opinions based on common sense.

If it happens in the brain before or without the individual's awareness of it, it's subconscious.

It appears that you feel more intensely about this than I. You seem to have a preferred outcome to defend. I'm trying to approach it without such a bias.

From here on out, I'm just going to scan the thread from time to time to see if anyone brings some controlled, peer-reviewed experimental data that rivals Libet and Hayes, et al. Until then, I'm respectfully bowing out.

1 Reply

Is free-will an illusion?

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know