That’s how it is for me too. Things that are too perfect should be viewed with suspicion.
I was just thinking of my cats as I was walking home from work. I’m always amused when they seem to behave in an intentional manner. Like, I’ll be watching one of them grooming himself, and then abruptly he’ll stop and go into another room, as if he just remembered he’d forgotten to do something important. And this will always amuse me. “Oh, how cute. Look at the little guy acting like he knows what he’s doing!”
Because I assume he doesn’t have free will. I assume that because I can’t confirm that his brain works like mine, this must mean he doesn’t have a brain like mine. He has a brain of a robot. He’s driven by programs no more complicated than what a first-year programming student could come up with.
And then it occurred me that some other organism may be studying me the same way I study my cats. “Oh, how cute. Look at the little human acting like she knows what she’s doing!”
If you tell me the guy in front of me sought out counsel from a wise friend, and listened well before factoring it in when consulting his internal store of previous experience, after which he engaged in a decision-making process within an internal moral structure, and you tell me he can explain and excuse his subsequent conduct like a guy who reasons and can be reasoned with, such that he can be held ACCOUNTABLE, then I’ll say, great, I’ll treat him accordingly.
And if you say But I didn’t yet tell you whether he has free will, I’ll say I’m going to treat him the same way regardless.
Not yet, no. I mean, until I know what “colorless green” means, as opposed to “colorless but not green”, I’m unclear on how you’re defining the term.
I use the word – uh, pretty much the way you’re using that sentence, I guess: if I don’t know how you define a term, then I can’t figure out how you’re using it and so I don’t understand statements you make if they’re built around it. But if I do know how you define a term, then I can (a) figure out how you’re using it, and (b) understand terminology-laden statements you make.
Sometimes one, sometimes the other. Certainly our thought processes are more unconscious than most people realize. Don’t think it matters. In any event, it’s us making the decisions. I was making a narrower point, though. I didn’t expect you to find my model persuasive, - this is a subject over which reasonable minds have differed for centuries - but I hope you’ll grant that it’s coherent.
BTW, if you haven’t already, you might want to read Michael Gazzaniga’s Who’s In Charge? (Published just after I posted that thread.) He’s a neuroscientist who argues a thesis similar to mine.
To clarify: I would personally say that “free wilp” has not been defined.
A string of words was given. A string of words was given as the supposed definition. In that sense, someone might insist that the word was defined. Technically, a “definition” was offered, in the sense that words were provided as if those words were to clarify the meaning.
From my perspective, the problem is that the given definition is meaningless. So I would say that it hasn’t actually been defined.
How is this complicated? A thought is a pattern of neuron activity in the brain. Some neurons control large muscle groups. Other neurons can trigger those neurons. The part of my brain that says, “Geez, it’s hot in here” sends a message to the part of my brain that tells my arm to reach for the lemonade.
How does a thought cause an action? By communicating to the acting element.
We know that nerve impulses can cause actions without the mediation of thought: the old knee-jerk reflex. So why not permit the middle stage? The doctor hits your knee, you think, “That damned creep has done that for the last time,” and you bash him in the nose. The thought directly leads to the action.
You’ve mentioned that – how did you put it? – people are ACCOUNTABLE; that interests me, because, y’know, I deal with people, and so make decisions about whether to treat 'em as if they’re all-caps ACCOUNTABLE. I’m not especially interested in cause; I could go my whole life without much bothering with the stuff.
You’ve said a man can be persuaded by an appeal to a decision-making calculus within his internal moral structure. If that’s true, that’s awesome; I don’t need to know why it’s so, I just need to know that it’s so. Is it because he has free will, or because he acts like he’s got free will? I don’t know; I don’t care; I can’t even imagine caring about that splendid irrelevance.
Why? Did you see me claim that it does? Did you see me claim that it doesn’t? I don’t believe I’ve offered an opinion, since it’s a matter of indifference to me.
Oh, no! I won’t be able to answer a question I find irrelevant and uninteresting? Fun story: I’ve heard that Achilles was invulnerable except in one heel. Which heel? I can’t answer that question. Was it both heels? I don’t know; I also don’t care. There are plenty of things I care about; this just doesn’t happen to be one of 'em.
One thing is for sure- you will never do philosophy. Philosophy is meant to get to the root of a matter whereas you are just interested in drive by smart ass comments.
Once more I will try:
“Free Will” is a claim that thoughts and experiences in a person’s head cause actions in the physical world.
No-one has ever produced any evidence for this.
Most people who have considered the question in depth have fallen back to a position where we can analyse Human Action “As if” it were the case that thoughts caused action. That is like claiming that analysing cosmogony was done on the basis that it is as equally valid to talk of Evolution on the one hand or “As if” God created the universe on the other. It is not a rational empirical answer but an emotional reaction.
A thought is a pattern of neural activity in the brain, agreed. A thought is conscious, whereas there are many other neural activities that are not conscious- probably well over 99% of them in fact!
Is it likely that the experience of a volition itself causes a change in the physical world or is it the case (as neuroscience creeps ever closer to proving) that the experience of Free Will is not part of the causal chain.
There is considerable evidence that unconscious neural mechanisms cause change in the real world. There is no evidence that the experience of volition is part of that change rather than being outside of it.
No one is addressing the contradiction involved in a mental (ideal) experience affecting the physical (material) world. If one is to suggest that volition is causative of action rather than associated with it, one needs to suggest the empirical science that shows what mechanism links a thought to an action. Despite the best effort of Philosophers and Scientists, this link remains unproven- it is a mere conjecture, and like most non-empirical conjectures in the past will be eventually abandoned as a valid explanation.
I have just written a long assessment of the history of Vitalism from the Pre-Socratics to its death in the early twnetieth century and its partial rehabilitation as Emergence recently. This shows a pattern where children believe innately in Vitalism (that living bodies have a special essence that separates them from mere matter). With few exceptions (Descartes being one) Vitalism was supported by almost all common people and professional thinkers until the beginning of the last century. Once people started creating organic molecules (Urea first) out of non-organic salts, the facade began to fall and we now tend to explain life in terms of complexity of organisation rather than Vital Essence. Free Will shows every sign of going the same way with future analyses being likely to hold that “Free Will” is a useful metaphor, but not an object in the causal world. It will in all probablity go the same way as “Vital Essence”. Just as we have cast off the magical properties suggested by Vitalism, so shall we do the same for the Magic of Free Will.
Isn’t that like asking for evidence disproving solipsism or Last Thursdayism? Determinism can’t be disproven; it also can’t be proven. There isn’t, and cannot be, any disproof of these ideas, but that doesn’t make them true.
When you define an idea that cannot be examined objectively, empirically, and experimentally, it stops being of any scientific interest.
It still is of philosophical interest, but, at that point, you can’t demand evidence, only make arguments based on comparisons to other ideas.
It just doesn’t follow that I’m interested in everything, is all. I mean, given that you helpfully lead off by saying it’s a question that can’t be answered, how much interest would you expect me to have in answering the question?
I’d say it’s more like – well, say we’re talking about cosmogony, and I suddenly tell you I’m thinking of a number between one and ten. Which one is it? Is it seven or is it three? Or am I thinking of eighty? You don’t know; I hope you don’t care; after all, it’s completely irrelevant to what’s under discussion – and, frankly, you could go the rest of your life without wasting any time on the question.
Yes, even if you’re philosophical about stuff that actually matters.
That is the crux of the matter. Most critical thinkers about the subject now hold that causative Free Will (that a disembodied thought causes change in the physical world) is a myth- a useful and evolutionarily utilitarian one, but a myth all the same- a creation of cognition that has no direct causative effect on the world save as a metaphor. There are vanishingly few Libertarians remaining.
The massive majority of Philosophers now discuss how moral and rational it is to treat people “As if” they had some sort of Free Will- most current professional thinkers on the subject are compatibilist determinists- they accept that the universe is unaffected by disembodied thoughts, but believe that it is rational and moral to talk about Persons “As if” they had thoughts which caused actions.
Empirical Science has been a series of paradigm changes where mysterious unknown forces with unknown mechanisms have been exchanged for undefined forces with known mechanisms- we can predict the behaviour of matter under Gravity, Electromagnetic Force, Atomic Forces etc- we have the equations to predict their behaviour but cannot really define what a ‘Force’ is other than it just is. Similarly we have replaced atoms which were basic but with unknown constructions with complex descriptive mathematics that reduces them to quarks and possibly to strings vibrating in eleven dimensional space. The Aether has been replaced by action at a distance and Phlogiston by thermodynamics. Science exchanges mysterious objects with mysterious behaviour with mysterious objects with predictable behaviour.
Free Will is possibly the last such conundrum left and has yet to be described by science in the same manner as above. Although we still lack the lawful relationships that underlie human action there are increasing signs that Free Will is following all the other mysterious objects of apprehension above.
Well, this doesn’t apply to anything I’ve said here, as I’m speaking of embodied thoughts. Thoughts as contained in brains. Thoughts as patterns of information in a medium.
I have no idea what a “disembodied thought” could possibly be.
This thread is really a pip for people talking past each other!
ETA: I do not exclude myself! I am just as guilty as anyone else here of misunderstanding what others are intending to say.
But what is an embodied thought and where is your proof that this embodied thought caused the action and that it was not cause by another part of the brain without consciousness.
Benjamin Libet’s experiments Neuroscience of free will - Wikipedia
suggest that unconscious processes precede both the experience of Free Will and the initiation of action. Additionally recent brain scans which can recognise particular thoughts from electromagnetic measurements suggest that the consciousness of a concept is preceded by the creation of that concep unconsciously (I will find the reference.) There is increasing evidnece that awareness of intention is not necessarily causative, but is either contributory as I described above or an epiphenomenon.
10.1 Implications for morality and the law
It is difficult to escape some implications of the thesis put forward here, but I will make only a brief comment. Free will exists, but it is a perception and not a force driving movement. If there is no free will as a driving force, are persons responsible for their behavior? This appears to be a difficult question, but it is really not. It is difficult only for the dualist. A person’s brain is clearly fully responsible, and always responsible, for the person’s behavior. Behavior, like all other elements of a person, is a product of that person’s genetics and experience. A person’s behavior should be able to be influenced by specific environmental interventions, such as reward and punishment. Fisher has discussed this in detail.(Fisher, 2001) In the end, if society is not happy with a person’s behavior, it is a societal decision as to what to do about it, punishment or medical remediation or something else.
10.2 What has been demonstrated
The mechanisms for the production of voluntary movement are becoming elucidated. There does not appear to be a component process for producing voluntary movement that might be called “free will” in the ordinarily sense of the word. Free will, volition, appears to be a quale that is often distorted in different neurological conditions. What has been the providence of philosophy, has now become legitimate discourse for neurology and neuroscience.
Do you disagree that the majority of people are introduced to the concept of “free will” in church and Sunday School? That you don’t consider this your definition doesn’t mean that the whole concept isn’t conventionally framed as such.
Do you think this discussion would be that controversial if it were not for how steeped society is in Western perspectives of morality, at the very least?
Didn’t say your ideas are insane, because I think our ideas are more similar than they are different. But I think that by continuing to promote that we have “free will”, you are unintentionally encouraging a wrong-headed view. If I’m in full support of funding NASA and space exploration and yet I still teach my children that the sun revolves around the earth , I’m perpetuating old-fashioned nonsense. Similarly, even if I’m in full support of social programs and medical research focused on human behavior and being non-judgmental towards others, and yet I still teach my children that they possess “free will” (rather than teaching them that they have choices and that they, like everyone else, makes a choice for a particular reason, so lay off on judging people too harshly), then I’m helping to promote a falsehood. Even if I don’t sincerely believe in that falsehood given my actions.
I’m sorry I offended you. Wasn’t my intention.
If neither theological beliefs or philosophical views are based on fact or empirical observation, then why should a scientist be swayed by either? Why shouldn’t a scientist consider both of them equally “problematic”?
Do you disagree that the majority of people are introduced to the concept of “free will” in church and Sunday School? That you don’t consider this your definition doesn’t mean that the whole concept isn’t conventionally framed as such.
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It’s also possible, monstro, that a majority of people would readily join Trinopus in disagreeing with – well, what you consider your definition of “free will”.
This wikiarticle on the neuroscience of free will provides an overview of research showing a disconnect between thought and action.
Sam Harris’s point is that we don’t consciously generate a thought. We become conscious of a thought, but we–our conscious minds–aren’t the author of that thought. Nor are we the author of the feellings. We are just the recipient of these messages.
If action is predicated by thought+feeling, and we don’t consciously generate our thoughts and feelings, then when exactly does the “free will” happen? I suppose we have a “choice” to pick between the few conflicting thoughts that we get in our head. But those thoughts aren’t going to be weighed down by the same emotional charm. If we choose the thought that has the heaviest emotional charm (whether it be because we like this choice the most or because it’s the one that has the most fear-of-consequence associated with it), then again, we didn’t really make a “free” choice. We were coerced. If we intentionally go with the thought-option that has the least amount of emotional charm, we STILL aren’t making a free choice. Because we’re still responding to coercive forces, just in a rebellious manner.
When I was depressed a few year ago, I dealt with catatonia. It was mild enough that I didn’t have to be hospitalized, but it still made life a bit interesting. Like, I’d freeze in the middle of intersections during my walks. It took me awhile to understand what was happening to me. Now that I have a better understanding of both depression and “choice”, I’ve think I’ve finally gotten it. I was overwhelmed by thoughts lacking emotional charms. Whenever I was seized by a frozen moment, the choices to “stay put” or “move to the other side” were completely neutral to me. I would debate these thoughts over and over and over and over. But without a specific compulsion to force me, I couldn’t make up my mind. Even the honking horns of cars and cussing people wouldn’t move me, because I was completely numb.
And then something in me would eventually click. A thought would come that would break the impasse. Only then could I move with ease.
Was it my free will that “clicked” back on? Perhaps. But I certainly didn’t click it on. Nor did I shut it off. If free will can shut on and off like that without me having any awareness or control over it, then how do I really know that it’s working right now. Or five minutes from now? It’s not like I ever knew I was “frozen” while it was happening.