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From: Raffael Cavallaro on 17 May 2010 16:59 On 2010-05-17 15:11:42 -0400, Nicolas Neuss said: > I don't think that there is a single person on this planet believing > what you think to be "free will" (please feel free to prove me wrong by > naming someone who stands behind it [*]). So discussion does not make > much sense. You, like Tamas, are confused. When we say that free will is choice unconstrained by the laws of physics, it doesn't mean that you are free to choose things that are physically impossible. It means that, given a choice among two or more entirely physically possible things, (e.g., pressing a button with either your right or left hand) that you are free to choose either. It stands in opposition to the notion that all of what you feel to be free choices are, in fact, determined at a level below your awareness, by physics, chemistry, neurobiology, and the like. As to what it would mean to believe in such a free will: "Non-physical theories hold that a non-physical mind overrides physical causality, so that physical events in the brain that lead to the performance of actions do not have an entirely physical explanation. This approach is allied to mind-body dualism in philosophy. According to this view, the world is not believed to be closed under Physics. An extra-physical will is believed to play a part in the decision making process. According to a somewhat related theological explanation, a soul is said to make decisions and override physical causality." <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_will> Like it or not, many, maybe most people in the world naively believe precisely this. I think many correspondents here overestimate the proportion of the general population who have what I would call a scientific world view. Consider that a majority of americans do not believe in darwinian evolution, believe literally in the devil, etc. Many people's thinking is straight out of the 19th c. Hell, even Pascal B. was arguing in favor of a "soul" making free choices. Sheesh! warmest regards, Ralph -- Raffael Cavallaro
From: Nicolas Neuss on 17 May 2010 17:33 Raffael Cavallaro <raffaelcavallaro(a)pas.despam.s.il.vous.plait.mac.com> writes: > On 2010-05-17 15:11:42 -0400, Nicolas Neuss said: > >> I don't think that there is a single person on this planet believing >> what you think to be "free will" (please feel free to prove me wrong by >> naming someone who stands behind it [*]). So discussion does not make >> much sense. > > You, like Tamas, are confused. When we say that free will is choice > unconstrained by the laws of physics, it doesn't mean that you are > free to choose things that are physically impossible. It means that, > given a choice among two or more entirely physically possible things, > (e.g., pressing a button with either your right or left hand) that you > are free to choose either. It stands in opposition to the notion that > all of what you feel to be free choices are, in fact, determined at a > level below your awareness, by physics, chemistry, neurobiology, and > the like. > > As to what it would mean to believe in such a free will: > > "Non-physical theories hold that a non-physical mind overrides physical > causality, so that physical events in the brain that lead to the > performance of actions do not have an entirely physical explanation. This > approach is allied to mind-body dualism in philosophy. According to this > view, the world is not believed to be closed under Physics. An > extra-physical will is believed to play a part in the decision making > process. According to a somewhat related theological explanation, a soul is > said to make decisions and override physical causality." OK, this is something from which we can maybe work. Note the wording "... do not have an _entirely_ physical explanation". So experiments which show an _influence_ of magnetic fields or drugs are not able to settle this question. Probably there is _no_ experiment which can decide "free will" in this formulation. What I think: I don't know for sure if there is a soul existing independently from Physics, or if, alternatively, all information is already contained in the physical world. But: I have this strange feeling of self-awareness which I have not seen mentioned in physics, chemistry or biology lectures. And this makes me think. Maybe you share this feeling of self-awareness, or maybe you don't and only say you do. You have to decide for yourself how real it is. Nicolas
From: Raffael Cavallaro on 17 May 2010 18:54 On 2010-05-17 17:33:47 -0400, Nicolas Neuss said: > Maybe you > share this feeling of self-awareness, or maybe you don't and only say > you do. You have to decide for yourself how real it is. I do share it. I also understand that it is the subject (i.e., viewer, watcher, perciever) of a fairly elaborate perceptual show, not all of which is reliable. For an example, with demonstration: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_spot_(vision)> The subjective perception of free will is like the visual blind spot - if we consider the science we know (intellectually) that the blind spot is there, but we don't, as a consequence of this knowledge, suddenly percieve a large gap in our visual field. Similarly, knowing that free will is an illusion does not do away with my subjective feeling of making free choices. warmest regards, Ralph -- Raffael Cavallaro
From: Nick Keighley on 20 May 2010 08:33 On 14 May, 16:27, Raffael Cavallaro <raffaelcavall...(a)pas.espam.s.il.vous.plait.mac.com> wrote: > On 2010-05-14 11:04:22 -0400, Bob Felts said: > > > Experimental scrutiny doesn't withstand experimental scrutiny, either. > > If it did, you wouldn't have put "real" in quotes. > > I put it in quotes because it can mean different things, specifically > what we subjectively perceive to be "real," and what we can > experimentally show to be "real," independent of our subjective > perceptions of "reality." > > > Man doesn't have free will. > > That is my whole point. We have the *illusion* of free will. This > illusion flows from the theory of mind. The theory of mind predates > language (because chimpanzees and other non-human species have it as > well). Language evolved in the context of an illusion of agency, so > this illusion of agency, the subject-verb-object distinction, pervades > language. > > As a result, sentences which violate this illusory grammatical and > semantic norm are closer to scientific reality than sentences that obey > it. > > Rather than saying "John throws the ball," it is more scientifically > accurate to say "the ball is thrown while John has the subjective > illusion of being the agent of that throwing, but really, the throwing > just happens, much as the rain just happens, or the grass just grows." > However, John would be a dreadful predictor of the actions of his > conspecifics and other creatures if his cognitive worldview began and > ended with the notion that everything just happens. how can it be meaningful, in your universe, to speak of the actions of other creatures. Just as John doesn't take actions nor does anything else. The very fact that this information is useful implies it *isn't* based on an illusion. If John gets too near a rattle snake it rattles. John can predict it's going to try and bite him. All this stuff about illusions of conciousness doesn't alter the fact that John is successfully predicting the action of the snake. The snake acts as if it is a stateful object. That's because it is a stateful object. It is a noun object carrying out verb actions. > In stead, John has a firm illusion that the world is filled with agents > with goals[1], which allows John to have some predictive success in > anticipating the actions of others. He forms this theory of mind by > treating himself as an agent, and extrapolating his (fictive) free will > to others. It is a useful fiction, but a fiction nonetheless. > > [1] the goals exist in the sense that organisms have neurobiological > systems that push them in various ways; the agent/author of actions > does not exist.
From: Nick Keighley on 20 May 2010 08:36
On 16 May, 19:52, Raffael Cavallaro <raffaelcavall...(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. we also maintain the legal fiction of free will even though you claim the neurobiology is against it |