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+--- Thread: My take on the free will [Science, Philosophy] (/Thread-My-take-on-the-free-will-Science-Philosophy)
RE: My take on the free will [Science, Philosophy] - unnamed - 10-31-2013
(10-31-2013, 07:57 AM)Frooxius Wrote:
So no matter action you think of, it is still an illusion of free will.
As far as my understanding goes I could say that motor activities are done unconsciously but what about more complex activities?
They would require a lot of thinking before acting.
If free will is an illusion then supposedly in the future we should be able to calculate every action before it happens.
It may sound unachievable but science has already done it to an extent, with different objects.
It definitely is confusing to my eyes, and I have to do a lot of research before getting to a significant point.
I would suggest posting this to /r/philosophy and/or to /r/askphilosophy ,
as you would get more interesting responses there.
RE: My take on the free will [Science, Philosophy] - unnamed - 10-31-2013
(10-31-2013, 07:57 AM)Frooxius Wrote:
So no matter action you think of, it is still an illusion of free will.
As far as my understanding goes I could say that motor activities are done unconsciously but what about more complex activities?
They would require a lot of thinking before acting.
If free will is an illusion then supposedly in the future we should be able to calculate every action before it happens.
It may sound unachievable but science has already done it to an extent, with different objects.
It definitely is confusing to my eyes, and I have to do a lot of research before getting to a significant point.
I would suggest posting this to /r/philosophy and/or to /r/askphilosophy ,
as you would get more interesting responses there.
RE: My take on the free will [Science, Philosophy] - The Real Slim Shady - 10-31-2013
So what youre really telling us is that you believe in determinism? Is this piece supposed to be your way of convincing us? or convincing yourself?
Personally, i have a rather confusing mix of both deterministic and free will beliefs i suppose. I believe that the future is fixed. It will happen. We might not know what the future is now but it will be the culmination of a series of decisions by both yourself and society. Those decisions are influenced by past and current experiences.
However, my interpretation of free will is the ability to make a decision without direct control of a 3rd party. For example, at work, if decisions need to be approved by a superior or peer then there is no free will in this regard. However if this person is making decisions that require no outside approval, he has made the decision of his own free will. His decision may be based on past experiences and current emotion, however the experiences and emotions of others are not making any impact on his decision.
Same goes for life in general. If we are making decisions, even if they are essentially predetermined and destined to happen based on our own lives... it is still free will. No other will is being opposed on us.
RE: My take on the free will [Science, Philosophy] - The Real Slim Shady - 10-31-2013
So what youre really telling us is that you believe in determinism? Is this piece supposed to be your way of convincing us? or convincing yourself?
Personally, i have a rather confusing mix of both deterministic and free will beliefs i suppose. I believe that the future is fixed. It will happen. We might not know what the future is now but it will be the culmination of a series of decisions by both yourself and society. Those decisions are influenced by past and current experiences.
However, my interpretation of free will is the ability to make a decision without direct control of a 3rd party. For example, at work, if decisions need to be approved by a superior or peer then there is no free will in this regard. However if this person is making decisions that require no outside approval, he has made the decision of his own free will. His decision may be based on past experiences and current emotion, however the experiences and emotions of others are not making any impact on his decision.
Same goes for life in general. If we are making decisions, even if they are essentially predetermined and destined to happen based on our own lives... it is still free will. No other will is being opposed on us.
RE: My take on the free will [Science, Philosophy] - Coder-san - 10-31-2013
I believe events only guide us in a direction. There is an easy choice and there are the harder choices.
Like the jumping in front of a car situation. Things become so bad that a person just says "that's it. I'm outta here." To get relieved from the suffering most people (if he/she has been through true "hell") opt for the easy choice. But if there is even one tiny spark at the end of the tunnel, the person really is able to see the other harder choice (which was always there), continue/start again/improve/live.
I do not believe in determinism, fixed future, karma.
Karma is the biggest lie there can be. You do good and expect good? This is not a fable? This is real life.
Suffering is all what you will get once you show others that you "care", they think you are "weak", label you as stalker, possessive, and what not. Unless you have a good reason and/or name for a real relationship with a person, you should not care for the person or anyone else for that matter.
If you can't help it, join the club. You will get only suffering in return, but that you already knew.
RE: My take on the free will [Science, Philosophy] - Coder-san - 10-31-2013
I believe events only guide us in a direction. There is an easy choice and there are the harder choices.
Like the jumping in front of a car situation. Things become so bad that a person just says "that's it. I'm outta here." To get relieved from the suffering most people (if he/she has been through true "hell") opt for the easy choice. But if there is even one tiny spark at the end of the tunnel, the person really is able to see the other harder choice (which was always there), continue/start again/improve/live.
I do not believe in determinism, fixed future, karma.
Karma is the biggest lie there can be. You do good and expect good? This is not a fable? This is real life.
Suffering is all what you will get once you show others that you "care", they think you are "weak", label you as stalker, possessive, and what not. Unless you have a good reason and/or name for a real relationship with a person, you should not care for the person or anyone else for that matter.
If you can't help it, join the club. You will get only suffering in return, but that you already knew.
RE: My take on the free will [Science, Philosophy] - Frooxius - 10-31-2013
@Ergo Proxy: Yes. Again, every action we do can be traced down to processes occurring in the brain. This is what I explained in my article: Even thinking is an "algorithm" - a series of events following the physical laws that responds to certain stimuli.
If you created a complex computer algorithm that was able to work with information the way we do - essentially "think" and evaluate various concepts, even if that process looks like thinking and long evaluation before producing some result (or producing results continuously and changing and modifying them) it is still following the instructions laid down by the programmer. How are we different?
Regarding calculating future... because of quantum uncertainty it might not be possible to calculate exact future as certain events seem random, but we might calculate probable futures. But theoretically. There is so much information and influences that we can't keep track of all of them, which makes the calculations for anything large technically impossible.
However even if we focus just on the major influences, we can still predict the way people might act. Similarly we can determine possible outcomes of interactions of a few particles and the only thing that prevents us from doing the same for many more is that the amount of particles that even make up one human is unmanageable to track down to every single one, but theoretically there's no difference as we should be able to calculate both.
So the problem is really, like I said, not having any mechanism by which our mind would exist outside of the causality, influencing our actions like our physical bodies were just puppets.
@Geoff: Not quite. This piece is supposed to make you think about the topic and evaluate arguments I posed. "Convincing myself" sounds nonsensical to me, I don't need or even want to convince myself, as I constantly evaluate and think about things and my goal is to encourage people to do the same.
As you can see, I've talked a bit about randomness, which makes certain outcomes non-deterministic, but simply put, in some way it is deterministic.
If you believe in free will, would you mind explaining where does this free will come from? Because that's important issue, since what we know about ourselves and the world we live in seems to point against it.
Yes, future is unfolding right in front of us, influenced by many factors. It can all be boiled down to interactions of particles following the laws of physics, but since we can't be aware of all that, we have the illusion of free will and future is unknown to us. We can make semi-accurate predictions based on some bits of information and the way world works, but since we can't track everything because of the overwhelming amount of information.
Free will depends on how you define it of course. The way you are describing it is a specific example of what I described in my article - we have free will in the sense of being and consciously experiencing some parts of the decision making "algorithm" - we are part the "decision making algorithm", which is why we feel that we think and evaluate things, even if these are deterministic.
However free will doesn't require people to allow you to do what you do. You can't also for example decide to just fly (without wings or some device), because it's physically impossible, but you can choose to wish to fly and think about it the way you want.
@Coder-san: Yes, but that doesn't change the free will. Imagine a computer algorithm, that takes a bunch of variables that describe some situation and it will either decide to "kill itself" or "survive". Things like spark of hope and seeing the harder choice are still parts of the "input". And based on how big the spark of hope is in relation to the depression, the algorithm will be swayed to "survive". If the spark of hope is lower, it'll decide to "kill itself".
No matter how many details in choices you think of and the influences that change the decisions you think of, it still doesn't help to support free will - there's no known mechanism to escape causality. And that's the point by the way - there are so many influences, small and large and our behavior is very complex and convoluted so we can't track it really well and everything that influences us, which is one of the things that contributes to the illusion of free will.
I am not sure why are you mentioning karma, since I don't believe it either (and in some cases it's disgusting - if some little child gets raped or even killed, karma says that it deserved that) and it doesn't have much to do with the topic. Why do you clump it with "determinism and fixed future"?
Let me address these though: As I've said above, there doesn't have to be strict determinism, as certain on small scale events seem randomized, but like I explained in my article, that doesn't help us to get to free will.
The future then might not be "fixed", but if you were to "rewind" the universe and let it unfold again with the same initial state, it might end up being very different. Earth might not even form (but some other planets with different forms of life can and probably will) not even our Solar system. Would that imply that clumps of matter forming stars or space dust have free will though and they "choose" to behave differently?
There might be several different versions of the future, but you can't deny that things we see follow laws of physics. Even if they're uncertain, we still can calculate probabilities of some outcome, for example where will certain particle fall. It can't just decide to do something entirely else on its own, it still follows certain laws of physics, just some outcomes are somewhat "randomized".
Question is if these quantum events have any significant effect on the function of our brain (there was someone trying to explain it with microtubules, but that was busted) so our brain might be much more predictable in terms of its general behavior - and we can, knowing only a fraction of all the variables make probable predictions on behavior.
What you address with suffering and people behaving badly when you show you care, it doesn't have much relation to the topic, but yes, I encounter that as well. There's a lot of mean/bad/hostile (not necessarily aggressive though) people around, which is why I pick who I'll be friends with carefully.
Thank you all for your responses, I enjoy discussing this, I hope you do as well and I'm looking forward for what you have to say next :-)
RE: My take on the free will [Science, Philosophy] - Frooxius - 10-31-2013
@Ergo Proxy: Yes. Again, every action we do can be traced down to processes occurring in the brain. This is what I explained in my article: Even thinking is an "algorithm" - a series of events following the physical laws that responds to certain stimuli.
If you created a complex computer algorithm that was able to work with information the way we do - essentially "think" and evaluate various concepts, even if that process looks like thinking and long evaluation before producing some result (or producing results continuously and changing and modifying them) it is still following the instructions laid down by the programmer. How are we different?
Regarding calculating future... because of quantum uncertainty it might not be possible to calculate exact future as certain events seem random, but we might calculate probable futures. But theoretically. There is so much information and influences that we can't keep track of all of them, which makes the calculations for anything large technically impossible.
However even if we focus just on the major influences, we can still predict the way people might act. Similarly we can determine possible outcomes of interactions of a few particles and the only thing that prevents us from doing the same for many more is that the amount of particles that even make up one human is unmanageable to track down to every single one, but theoretically there's no difference as we should be able to calculate both.
So the problem is really, like I said, not having any mechanism by which our mind would exist outside of the causality, influencing our actions like our physical bodies were just puppets.
@Geoff: Not quite. This piece is supposed to make you think about the topic and evaluate arguments I posed. "Convincing myself" sounds nonsensical to me, I don't need or even want to convince myself, as I constantly evaluate and think about things and my goal is to encourage people to do the same.
As you can see, I've talked a bit about randomness, which makes certain outcomes non-deterministic, but simply put, in some way it is deterministic.
If you believe in free will, would you mind explaining where does this free will come from? Because that's important issue, since what we know about ourselves and the world we live in seems to point against it.
Yes, future is unfolding right in front of us, influenced by many factors. It can all be boiled down to interactions of particles following the laws of physics, but since we can't be aware of all that, we have the illusion of free will and future is unknown to us. We can make semi-accurate predictions based on some bits of information and the way world works, but since we can't track everything because of the overwhelming amount of information.
Free will depends on how you define it of course. The way you are describing it is a specific example of what I described in my article - we have free will in the sense of being and consciously experiencing some parts of the decision making "algorithm" - we are part the "decision making algorithm", which is why we feel that we think and evaluate things, even if these are deterministic.
However free will doesn't require people to allow you to do what you do. You can't also for example decide to just fly (without wings or some device), because it's physically impossible, but you can choose to wish to fly and think about it the way you want.
@Coder-san: Yes, but that doesn't change the free will. Imagine a computer algorithm, that takes a bunch of variables that describe some situation and it will either decide to "kill itself" or "survive". Things like spark of hope and seeing the harder choice are still parts of the "input". And based on how big the spark of hope is in relation to the depression, the algorithm will be swayed to "survive". If the spark of hope is lower, it'll decide to "kill itself".
No matter how many details in choices you think of and the influences that change the decisions you think of, it still doesn't help to support free will - there's no known mechanism to escape causality. And that's the point by the way - there are so many influences, small and large and our behavior is very complex and convoluted so we can't track it really well and everything that influences us, which is one of the things that contributes to the illusion of free will.
I am not sure why are you mentioning karma, since I don't believe it either (and in some cases it's disgusting - if some little child gets raped or even killed, karma says that it deserved that) and it doesn't have much to do with the topic. Why do you clump it with "determinism and fixed future"?
Let me address these though: As I've said above, there doesn't have to be strict determinism, as certain on small scale events seem randomized, but like I explained in my article, that doesn't help us to get to free will.
The future then might not be "fixed", but if you were to "rewind" the universe and let it unfold again with the same initial state, it might end up being very different. Earth might not even form (but some other planets with different forms of life can and probably will) not even our Solar system. Would that imply that clumps of matter forming stars or space dust have free will though and they "choose" to behave differently?
There might be several different versions of the future, but you can't deny that things we see follow laws of physics. Even if they're uncertain, we still can calculate probabilities of some outcome, for example where will certain particle fall. It can't just decide to do something entirely else on its own, it still follows certain laws of physics, just some outcomes are somewhat "randomized".
Question is if these quantum events have any significant effect on the function of our brain (there was someone trying to explain it with microtubules, but that was busted) so our brain might be much more predictable in terms of its general behavior - and we can, knowing only a fraction of all the variables make probable predictions on behavior.
What you address with suffering and people behaving badly when you show you care, it doesn't have much relation to the topic, but yes, I encounter that as well. There's a lot of mean/bad/hostile (not necessarily aggressive though) people around, which is why I pick who I'll be friends with carefully.
Thank you all for your responses, I enjoy discussing this, I hope you do as well and I'm looking forward for what you have to say next :-)
RE: My take on the free will [Science, Philosophy] - The Real Slim Shady - 10-31-2013
free Will:
Quote:the apparent human ability to make choices that are not externally determinedThis is how i define free will. I dont consider past experiences to be externally determined, coercive, influenced by gods, etc.
the ability to make a choice without coercion
free and independent choice; voluntary decision.
the doctrine that the conduct of human beings expresses personal choice and is not simply determined by physical or divine forces.
Yes your past experiences will influence your decisions. And yes these decisions will ultimately lead one to his "fate". But if no one thing is influencing that decision directly than I would call that free will.
It boils down to free will, by definition, is essentially the ability to make decisions without external influences. Whats going on in your brain. the chemical reactions and electrical pathways we call memories and experiences are internal, even if they once began as external influences. The whole process of decision making is taking the sum of all those experiences and coming to a conclusion. The outcome may be fixed/expected based on the inputs, however there is no single direct, external influence forcing your decision. If there was then it would not be free will...
RE: My take on the free will [Science, Philosophy] - The Real Slim Shady - 10-31-2013
free Will:
Quote:the apparent human ability to make choices that are not externally determinedThis is how i define free will. I dont consider past experiences to be externally determined, coercive, influenced by gods, etc.
the ability to make a choice without coercion
free and independent choice; voluntary decision.
the doctrine that the conduct of human beings expresses personal choice and is not simply determined by physical or divine forces.
Yes your past experiences will influence your decisions. And yes these decisions will ultimately lead one to his "fate". But if no one thing is influencing that decision directly than I would call that free will.
It boils down to free will, by definition, is essentially the ability to make decisions without external influences. Whats going on in your brain. the chemical reactions and electrical pathways we call memories and experiences are internal, even if they once began as external influences. The whole process of decision making is taking the sum of all those experiences and coming to a conclusion. The outcome may be fixed/expected based on the inputs, however there is no single direct, external influence forcing your decision. If there was then it would not be free will...