Elements of Style in English
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From: Raffael Cavallaro on 17 May 2010 00:36 On 2010-05-16 17:53:43 -0400, Pascal J. Bourguignon said: > 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... You seem to have missed the bit about extra-somatic influences on what is nevertheless perceived as free choice. I suppose this means that the "soul" is subject to magnetic fields... warmest regards, Ralph -- Raffael Cavallaro
From: Pascal J. Bourguignon on 17 May 2010 06:50 Raffael Cavallaro <raffaelcavallaro(a)pas.despam.s.il.vous.plait.mac.com> writes: > 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. Actually, free will is defined with respect to God. What having free will means, is that God will not interfer with our choice between loving Him, or hating or ignoring Him. Free will is not a property of a subsystem of the universe, creation of God, it's an absence of action on the part of God on this subsystem of the universe. In this experiment, you have one subsystem interacting onto another subsystem to influence his decision. First the decision influenced is not that of loving or not loving God, so it's irrelevant to free will. Next, even if the choice in the experiment was between God and �God, free will would still be preserved because it's not God that would have influenced the decision. However, I would think that God would perhaps object to such an influence. If such technical means were used in large scale to impose anti-God choices dictatorially over the whole population, I'd bet God would intervene, to 'save' us again from this jail. On the other hand, if such technical means where used in large scale to impose the buying of more coca-cola, I'm sure God wouldn't give a dam. If it wasn't possible to enslave (or impose) the will, it wouldn't be a qualifier, you wouldn't have two words "free" and "will", you'd have "fwrill". But it's not because you can do something that you must do it. -- __Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/
From: Raffael Cavallaro on 17 May 2010 11:03 On 2010-05-17 06:50:47 -0400, Pascal J. Bourguignon said: > Actually, free will is defined with respect to God. Not so, although those who believe in god have certainly thought in these terms. Free will is unconstrained choice, whether that constraint be the flying spaghetti monster ^H^H^H^H god, the laws of physics, or astrological influence. warmest regards, Ralph -- Raffael Cavallaro
From: Tamas K Papp on 17 May 2010 11:16 On Mon, 17 May 2010 11:03:37 -0400, Raffael Cavallaro wrote: > On 2010-05-17 06:50:47 -0400, Pascal J. Bourguignon said: > >> Actually, free will is defined with respect to God. > > Not so, although those who believe in god have certainly thought in > these terms. Free will is unconstrained choice, whether that constraint > be the flying spaghetti monster ^H^H^H^H god, the laws of physics, or > astrological influence. So if you are told to pick (x,y) such that x^2+y^2<=1, the fact that you can't pick (9,42) tells you that there is no free will? Amazing. I expected the question to be more difficult to decide. Anyhow, the whole debate reminds me of a philosophy class I took in college, which I dropped after two lectures and took some math instead. Beats me why the best CL programmers I know are participating in it. Maybe it takes a large amount of free will to just abandon debates like this? :-) Cheers, Tamas
From: Bob Felts on 17 May 2010 11:27
Raffael Cavallaro <raffaelcavallaro(a)pas.despam.s.il.vous.plait.mac.com> wrote: > On 2010-05-17 06:50:47 -0400, Pascal J. Bourguignon said: > > > Actually, free will is defined with respect to God. > > Not so, although those who believe in god have certainly thought in > these terms. Free will is unconstrained choice, whether that constraint > be the flying spaghetti monster ^H^H^H^H god, the laws of physics, or > astrological influence. > I think I have to side with Pascal here as I was going to write the same thing until I saw his post. When you say that "free will is unconstrained choice", how, exactly, do you mean that? If we are just meat machines, then our thoughts are the result of physical processes. Thoughts exist in a "substrate" of physicality, which are constrained by the laws of nature. If you're going to posit thought absent physical constraints, what are you suggesting? What doesn't obey the laws of nature? Knuth, in his book "Things a Computer Scientist Rarely Talks About", wrote: Indeed, computer scientists have proved that certain important computational tasks can be done much more efficiently with random numbers than they could possibly ever be done by an deterministic procedure. Many of today's best computational algorithms, like methods for searching the Internet, are based on randomization. If Einstein's assertion ("God does not play dice with the universe") were true, God would be prohibited from using the most powerful methods. Personally, I suspect that quantum randomness is the "engine" which powers our imagination and that we use a number of heuristics to decide which random throw of the dice we will use (i.e. how we go from the random "ought" to a particular "is"). In any case, I think you have to make the distinction between internal and external contraints. In a fully naturalistic universe, our minds obey the laws of physics. That's a constraint on what our will can do. And if our imaginations are powered by quantum randomness, I suspect that there's an upper limit to what we can imagine, since our minds have only so many neurons, and therefore possible states. I don't really care about external constraints, such as Ron's "I can't buy a gulfstream jet, no matter how much I wish to choose to do this." That, typically, isn't what is meant when talking about "free will." That leaves the external constraint of God. And, in fact, historically, the issue of free will has been one that has been developed in a religous context. It seems like you're advocating "thought stuff" that is unconstrained by physical law. That puts it in the realm of the theological. If it isn't constrained by physical law, is it constrained by God? |