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From: RG on 16 May 2010 11:59 In article <hsp41v$256$1(a)news.eternal-september.org>, Raffael Cavallaro <raffaelcavallaro(a)pas.despam.s.il.vous.plait.mac.com> wrote: > On 2010-05-16 07:37:36 -0400, Nicolas Neuss said: > > > So, by Occam's razor, I am in favor of free > > will. > > Occam's razor only applies when theories have equal explanatory power. > The theory of free will cannot explain these experiments at all: > > <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroscience_of_free_will> Of course it can. One has only to suppose that free will operates on time scales of longer than one second. The illusion of free will on short time scales does not rule out the possibility of actual free will on longer ones. "Note that these results were gathered using finger movements, and may not necessarily generalize to other actions such as thinking or other motor actions in different situations." rg
From: Raffael Cavallaro on 16 May 2010 14:52 On 2010-05-16 11:59:40 -0400, RG said: > The illusion of free will on > short time scales does not rule out the possibility of actual free will > on longer ones. Only if we redefine free will into meaninglessness. We can even constrain "choice" by means external to the subjects body, yet he still perceives his choice as totally free. from the same wikipedia page: "Related experiments showed that neurostimulation could affect which hands people move, even though the experience of free will was intact. Ammon and Gandevia found that it was possible to influence which hand people move by stimulating frontal regions that are involved in movement planning using transcranial magnetic stimulation in either the left or right hemisphere of the brain. Right-handed people would normally choose to move their right hand 60% of the time, but when the right hemisphere was stimulated they would instead choose their left hand 80% of the time (recall that the right hemisphere of the brain is responsible for the left side of the body, and the left hemisphere for the right). Despite the external influence on their decision-making, the subjects continued to report that they believed their choice of hand had been made freely." Here a causal influence is even exterior to the subject, yet the subject continues to perceive himself as the free will author of the action. We know that the subject is in fact constrained in a way that is incompatible with free will, yet his perception is one of undiminished free choice. The most economical explanation of all of these data is that all of our choices are constrained (i.e., not free) and that our subjective perception of free will is merely an illusion. IOW, free will means that we are choosing our own acts unconstrained by other influences, not that our acts have unconscious (or even extra-somatic) constraints of which we are unaware and that we are retroactively made aware of our supposed choices after they've already been determined, and given the false impression that we are the unconstrained originators of these acts. warmest regards, Ralph -- Raffael Cavallaro
From: Pascal J. Bourguignon on 16 May 2010 17:53 Raffael Cavallaro <raffaelcavallaro(a)pas.despam.s.il.vous.plait.mac.com> writes: > On 2010-05-16 07:37:36 -0400, Nicolas Neuss said: > >> So, by Occam's razor, I am in favor of free >> will. > > Occam's razor only applies when theories have equal explanatory > power. The theory of free will cannot explain these experiments at > all: > > <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroscience_of_free_will> I don't see how this would go against the notion of free will. On the contrary, that would tend to prove the existence of the Soul, directing the mind. A posteriori justification is not a new phenomenon... -- __Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/
From: RG on 16 May 2010 18:23 In article <hspesu$dkv$1(a)news.eternal-september.org>, Raffael Cavallaro <raffaelcavallaro(a)pas.despam.s.il.vous.plait.mac.com> wrote: > On 2010-05-16 11:59:40 -0400, RG said: > > > The illusion of free will on > > short time scales does not rule out the possibility of actual free will > > on longer ones. > > Only if we redefine free will into meaninglessness. We can even > constrain "choice" by means external to the subjects body, yet he still > perceives his choice as totally free. > > from the same wikipedia page: > > "Related experiments showed that neurostimulation could affect which > hands people move, even though the experience of free will was intact. > Ammon and Gandevia found that it was possible to influence which hand > people move by stimulating frontal regions that are involved in > movement planning using transcranial magnetic stimulation in either the > left or right hemisphere of the brain. Right-handed people would > normally choose to move their right hand 60% of the time, but when the > right hemisphere was stimulated they would instead choose their left > hand 80% of the time (recall that the right hemisphere of the brain is > responsible for the left side of the body, and the left hemisphere for > the right). Despite the external influence on their decision-making, > the subjects continued to report that they believed their choice of > hand had been made freely." > > Here a causal influence is even exterior to the subject, yet the > subject continues to perceive himself as the free will author of the > action. We know that the subject is in fact constrained in a way that > is incompatible with free will, yet his perception is one of > undiminished free choice. The most economical explanation of all of > these data is that all of our choices are constrained (i.e., not free) > and that our subjective perception of free will is merely an illusion. > > IOW, free will means that we are choosing our own acts unconstrained by > other influences, not that our acts have unconscious (or even > extra-somatic) constraints of which we are unaware and that we are > retroactively made aware of our supposed choices after they've already > been determined, and given the false impression that we are the > unconstrained originators of these acts. I guess I should have gone broader: the illusion of free will under certain circumstances does not preclude the existence of actual free will under different circumstances. Though I concede that does beg the question of what "actual free will" actually means. rg
From: His kennyness on 16 May 2010 18:27
Raffael Cavallaro wrote: > On 2010-05-16 07:37:36 -0400, Nicolas Neuss said: > >> So, by Occam's razor, I am in favor of free >> will. > > Occam's razor only applies when theories have equal explanatory power. > The theory of free will cannot explain these experiments at all: > > <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroscience_of_free_will> > > warmest regards, > > Ralph > Is there an inverse law associating the difficulty of a research area with the intelligence of the researcher? That is the most useless stuff i have ever seen. Hopefully the grant put food on someone's table so the money was not a complete waste. hth, hk |