# Another "Free Will" debate. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 28, 2006, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-free-will-debate/385885 "2006-12-28T17:51:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 16
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2007, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-free-will-debate/385885/301 "2007-01-06T04:38:25Z")
[QUOTE=Sapo] I think you are just taking my figures too literally. I am not saying any electrons, nor I am saying “just cus”. I am saying that our morals are the product of a natural process. Do we agree on that? [/QUOTE] You are placing special significance on the “natural” part though. There isn’t one. Our morals HAVE to be the result of SOME distinctive process. ---
**Author:** ![Sapo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@Sapo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sapo)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2007, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-free-will-debate/385885/302 "2007-01-06T05:09:47Z")
[QUOTE=Apos] You are placing special significance on the “natural” part though. There isn’t one. Our morals HAVE to be the result of SOME distinctive process. [/QUOTE] Is this distinctive process natural? the product of matter and energy acting in accordance to the laws of nature? ---
**Author:** ![the\_PC\_apeman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ac8455/32.png) [@the\_PC\_apeman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_PC_apeman)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2007, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-free-will-debate/385885/303 "2007-01-06T16:26:13Z")
[QUOTE=Sapo] Well, no. In the case of the hallucination, there is an internal stimulus that the brain perceives as an external stimulus. In the case of free will, there is an internal stimulus that the brain perceives as an absence of stimulus (producing the impression of spontaneity) [/QUOTE] Hallucinations are not always total. They can mask as well as add to external stimuli. Also, our sense of free will may not be a masking of stimuli. It could be an erroneously generated experience of “I made a decision.” They’re both tricks of the brain. ---
**Author:** ![the\_PC\_apeman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ac8455/32.png) [@the\_PC\_apeman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_PC_apeman)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2007, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-free-will-debate/385885/304 "2007-01-06T16:29:10Z")
> [@exar](#): > > Or better yet, what if I’ve two objects (I’m sick of pencils :D) for one to choose, but laid sufficiently far that one can just distinguish the bare outline of them. There would be insufficient visual information to bias one towards or away any of them then. I could postulate many examples- the point I’m trying to make is that I’m sure that to bring abstractions to reality, it is possible to establish a situation when two objects are similar in everyway to the mind. > > With such a situation then, decision making would be then down to either random picking, or free will. I’m not sure how one’s to distinguish the above two, but anyway, I’ve got to head off to the library for a full, exhilarating, day of memorising bacteria. Imagine a pachinko machine where a ball falls on a pin in perfect circumstances with no bias left or right. Which direction will the ball go? Improbably, it just sits there on the pin. How do we know your thought experiment can only have two outcomes? Would threatening the subject really help? Actually, I think your experiment could yield interesting information. Maybe we would find a correlation to handedness. Or to the side of the road we drive on. Or the direction our language is written. Or which way we faced during gestation. We might never know. This is what determinists mean by _the universe is deterministic but not determinable_. To conduct such a thought experiment, we would have to suppose a subject with no experience of any kind. (Since, as a thought experiment, there is no way to account for all the possible determinant variables.) Can we say such an entity has free will any more than the pachinko ball? To be useful, the experiment would have to be run many times. Would we do it with the same subject each time? How do we control for previous experience influencing succeeding runs? (“I haven’t chosen B very much” thinks the subject. Is he a repetitive or contrarian person by nature? What caused that?) If we used different subjects, do we assume that all free wills are equal and can be aggregated in a meaningful way? But let’s say we actually conduct the experiment and are able to control all variables in one subject. If the results fall within the expectations of random chance, how is free will distinguishable from randomness? What utility is there in labeling that “will”? If there is inexplicable bias in the results, what utility is there in labeling that as “free”? ---
**Author:** ![exar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f475e1/32.png) [@exar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/exar)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2007, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-free-will-debate/385885/305 "2007-01-07T14:08:51Z")
Hello I’m back. Right I agree with both of you, Sapo and the PC apeman. I’m not sure how one would distinguish randomness from freewill in the experiment I proposed - it was just a random brainwave. But one thing Sapo said left me a little confused: > [@](#): > > I don’t think it isn’t too strong an example of free will since there is no significant consequence to choosing one alternative over the other. If there is a “significant consequence” between choosing one over the other, it could easily be argued that the consequence would be propelling the choice, thus eliminating free will again. In this case, how can one ever have a situation in which “free will” is isolated for display? Does this make free will something that unexperimentable? Sorry if I’m being silly here, like I said, I’m a little confused… ---
**Author:** ![Sapo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@Sapo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sapo)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2007, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-free-will-debate/385885/306 "2007-01-08T01:13:19Z")
[QUOTE=exar] If there is a “significant consequence” between choosing one over the other, it could easily be argued that the consequence would be propelling the choice, thus eliminating free will again. In this case, how can one ever have a situation in which “free will” is isolated for display? Does this make free will something that unexperimentable? Sorry if I’m being silly here, like I said, I’m a little confused… [/QUOTE] Well, the “decider” knows that there will be no consequence to either choice, so there is no need to ponder it and make an actual choice. Take our often abused vanilla vs chocolate example (assuming they are tied in your top favourite flavour spot), they are not indifferent. Or say choosing between going jogging vs going to a movie (feel free to throw whatever modifiers are needed to make them equally desirable). In these, the decision has a measurable effect in your future life. It is just that they are not only conmeasurable but also equally desirable. Reason alone cannot make the decision for you. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-free-will-debate/385885.md?page=15)