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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
 Posted - 06/15/2008 : 19:55:05 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by filthy
Free will might be defined the ability to concieve and perform actions independant of outside influences, and to be able to choose among, or ignore entirely the suggestions those inluences might put forth. |
That's what I would say.
The question is: is that at all possible, or are we nothing more than vastly complex stimulus/response machines?
The Christian idea of free will seems to be just that: that God endowed us with some ability that no other animal has - to be able to break out of the stimulus/response "robotics" and into something (undefined) else. I don't buy it (either with or without a 'god' in the picture).
Creativity, originality, spontenaity and whims all come from somewhere. If the source is nothing more than randomness in the brain, it's still not free will. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 06/15/2008 : 20:00:05 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Zebra
As filthy said, predetermination requires an outside influence. Predetermination requires there being something which experiences time in a different way than we do, in some manner other than a unidirectional unidimensional vector. That something would either have to record, in some manner, what is going to happen - if there's no record of that, there wouldn't be a way to determine whether a sequence of events is occurring as "predetermined" - or, it would have to influence what is happening so that it comes out in a certain manner. Both of these are outside our experiences, & it seems to me, are outside our ability to investigate & detect. (And, if there were predetermination, our efforts to detect it would be predetermined, as would the outcome of those investigations.) |
If the universe is deterministic, then what "predetermines" the next universal state is nothing more than the previous state coupled with the laws of physics.
If the universe isn't deterministic (and I'm pretty sure it isn't), but brains are, then what determines one's next thought is one's previous brain state coupled with the way that the neurons are interconnected and coupled with whatever stimulus the brain is receiving. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Zebra
Skeptic Friend
USA
354 Posts |
Posted - 06/15/2008 : 22:51:39 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
If the universe isn't deterministic (and I'm pretty sure it isn't), but brains are, then what determines one's next thought is one's previous brain state coupled with the way that the neurons are interconnected and coupled with whatever stimulus the brain is receiving. |
How could you determine whether or not this is the case?
I don't think sapient brains function wholly in a deterministic manner, though people are on "autopilot" some fair fraction of the time. Don't know why the sapient brain seems to offer a chance to escape from deterministic paths, but I'm sure we can come up with a number of situations which seem like counterexamples.
One person can have essentially the same upbringing & experiences as other people yet come up with a new idea which revolutionizes some aspect of life in that culture. Something noone else in that culture has thought of, or at least something which noone else in that culture has discussed or brought to fruition.
People have the opportunity to make life-altering decisions at many points in their lives, including deciding whether or not to go on living (and, the outcome - whether or not one succeeds at suicide - depends on a number of factors including the method and location/time chosen by the person, and that outcome necessarily has a profound impact on whether or not that brain has any further thoughts).
We could each decide to make new & different choices tomorrow, on purpose, after reading this discussion. We'd have multiple opportunities to act in a manner unlike our usual patterns, & might enjoy some of the novelty and/or might be annoyed at the departure from our usual tried & true patterns. But we each COULD decide to do that, then make it happen (until we got tired of it, or forgot, or decided to stop).
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I think, you know, freedom means freedom for everyone* -Dick Cheney
*some restrictions may apply |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 06/16/2008 : 03:31:29 [Permalink]
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Ok, this ain't science. It has nothing to do with brains nor genetic chemistry, nor quantum physics (two Ex-Lax & a dose of salts?), nor anything of the sort. Hell, this ain't even religion, no, it's much, much worse. This is Philosophy! This is the number of pinhead angels possibly dancing on something or other. This is the sort of unanswerable question that philosophers put forth to brain-washed acolytes in order to bind them more closely to their followings, and to the in-bred, high nobles of their lands to make them feel intelligent and thus put a little gelt in their purses whilst having their own egos fluffed. History is full of 'em.
By definition, Michael d'Notradame was a philosopher as was Rasputin. Comes to that, so was L. Ron Hubbard, albeit a more greedy one than most. This threesome had one thing in common; they were full of shit. Bill Dembski is a philosopher......
What is a definition of free-will? The ability, indeed the ardent desire, to ignore cheap philosophy and those who spout it.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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| Edited by - filthy on 06/16/2008 03:37:56 |
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 06/16/2008 : 04:57:52 [Permalink]
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Welcome KgB, As with all things we humans like an either/or reality, when in fact nothing has a one sentence explanation. We are products of nature and nurture, while you cannot choose to grow opposable thumbs, you may decide to use them in ways that evolution did not guide. In your case that would be hitchhiking cross country to Height/Ashbury.
So you are both partially correct. |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 06/16/2008 : 05:01:34 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Killer Bud
I need to be more careful. I hit a deer head on last night doing around 70 mph, and totalled the front end of my car. I only had about a half a second to react and brake. It wasnt enough time, and I saw the deer bounce off my bumper from the impact doing flips head over heels off the side of the road.
I started getting all philosophical immediately afterwards. I thought if only I had driven about 15 mph slower, (the speed limit was 55). It was foggy, and I knew that deer are in the area I hit it at, because I drive the road almost everyday and have seen them.
Taking in all these variables, it almost seems like I set myself up for failure in a predetermined sense, simply because I was in a hurry. It was almost like I could see the odds increasing in my mind, everytime I make a trip with these variables, eventually Im gonna hit one, and finally I did.
So now, I am dealing with the consequences, I live 75 miles from work, and now I have to drive my other vehicle, which means instead of 25 dollars in gas round trip it is going to double, because my other vehicle is a gas hog. heh
I have also been recently pondering moving closer to my job or changing jobs closer to home, because of the spike in fuel prices. These types of variables mixed in with my deer incident have almost been a catalyst to resolve my situation in a time frame now quicker than I had originally anticipated.
All in all these variables seem like they are tying into predetermined circumstances.
The only free will that I have been able to ascertaine related to the incident, is I made a choice earlier that evening, to leave a couple hours later to work than I usually do. I had the option because a employee had to take an extra 3 hours to get to work the day before, so I had a 3 hour window to return when I did.
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Sounds like post-determination to me. You could just as easily abandon everything, catch a bus to Panama and become a barnacle removal specialist/part-time assassin. You seem to think having a job removes free-will from the equation.
Edit: It wasnt predetermined for you, but by you. The desire to do what is nessisary to keep your current job produces the illusion of predetermination |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
| Edited by - BigPapaSmurf on 06/16/2008 05:04:13 |
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Hawks
SFN Regular
Canada
1383 Posts |
Posted - 06/16/2008 : 06:22:25 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
Originally posted by Hawks
Quantum mechanics, however, makes this impossible, since there appears to be truly random events occuring (at the quantum level). Predeterminism would, therefore, seem to be ruled out. |
But the stochastic (and macro-) nature of the brain isn't dependent upon individual quantum events. Neurotransmitters flood through synapses by the millions, meaning that (for example) a single C-14 decay within a single dopamine molecule (presumably "breaking" it) in a single synapse isn't going to change a person's behavior.
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Quite possibly. Over human life spans, any real such randomness might not have any real consequences at all. However, if you "choose" to start measuring predetermination from an earlier point in time, say 1,000 or 1,000,000 or 1,000,000,000 years ago things might be different. |
METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL
It's a small, off-duty czechoslovakian traffic warden! |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 06/16/2008 : 08:27:15 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Zebra
How could you determine whether or not this is the case? |
It is testable in principle. If a modern desktop PC can real-time simulate 100 neurons, then we only need to network together a billion of them to simulate a whole brain. Then we can save the state, offer a stimulus, stop the simulation, restore the old state, offer the same stimulus and see if the "brain" comes to the exact same end state again.
(I recall about four years ago reading about the processing power required to accurately simulate one neuron, and calculating back then that a desktop PC could do about 50. Moore's Law suggests that a current PC doing 100 wouldn't tax the machine.)| I don't think sapient brains function wholly in a deterministic manner, though people are on "autopilot" some fair fraction of the time. Don't know why the sapient brain seems to offer a chance to escape from deterministic paths, but I'm sure we can come up with a number of situations which seem like counterexamples. |
It's the word "seems" that gets to me. We look like we have free will, but that doesn't mean that we do.| One person can have essentially the same upbringing & experiences as other people yet come up with a new idea which revolutionizes some aspect of life in that culture. Something noone else in that culture has thought of, or at least something which noone else in that culture has discussed or brought to fruition. |
Yes, but even twins don't receive the exact same input to their brains - ever. Even in the womb, one twin might get the "I stubbed my toe" stimulus while the other twin gets the "I've been kicked in the face" stimulus. Outside the womb, since they don't share a brain or even a head, twins necessarily see and hear things slightly diffently from each other. And as mathematical chaos shows, given entriely deterministic processing, a slight diffence in input can lead to massive changes in output.
Think about it this way: if I and an opponent play perfect chess (wholly deterministic), how different would the end position be if I kick the King's pawn forward one square instead of two to begin the game?| People have the opportunity to make life-altering decisions at many points in their lives, including deciding whether or not to go on living (and, the outcome - whether or not one succeeds at suicide - depends on a number of factors including the method and location/time chosen by the person, and that outcome necessarily has a profound impact on whether or not that brain has any further thoughts). |
Indeed, any decision one comes to depends upon a huge (and currently unknown) number of stimuli which, over time, rework neural connections as a person forms and loses memories. And those memories themselves become part of the decision-making environment.| We could each decide to make new & different choices tomorrow, on purpose, after reading this discussion. We'd have multiple opportunities to act in a manner unlike our usual patterns, & might enjoy some of the novelty and/or might be annoyed at the departure from our usual tried & true patterns. But we each COULD decide to do that, then make it happen (until we got tired of it, or forgot, or decided to stop). |
I submit that any such changes would be, in part, because of the stimuli provided by this very discussion.
I could throw my arms in the air and shout "wooga wooga wooga" and claim that such a thing is an expression of free will, but I only thought to do it at all because I was thinking about free will and what it means, and I was only thinking about those things because of this thread, which I (probably) only read because years ago I thought the SFN was a pretty nifty spot on the Web, which I have access to because I'm a middle-class American, etc., etc.. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 06/16/2008 : 08:54:24 [Permalink]
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I have to go with filthy on questions like freewill. I doubt that philosophers will ever work it out and I doubt that it matters if they do to their satisfaction, which is unlikely to happen. In the meantime, what neural-biologists and neural-psychologists have to say in the matter may be of interest to me. Everything else, from an evidentiary point of view is probably crap. Just my opinion...
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 06/16/2008 : 09:49:03 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Kil
Everything else, from an evidentiary point of view is probably crap. |
But that's my point: the evidence for free will is lacking. Our observations are consistent with a vastly complex but still deterministic brain. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Killer Bud
New Member
5 Posts |
Posted - 06/16/2008 : 10:03:15 [Permalink]
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I branched out a little further and started researching neuropsychology sites to try and find evidentiary proof tying in the philosophical context and the scientific context. I found a discussion pertaining to the evolution of the brain.
It had mentioned that "From a strictly neurological perspective, consciousness is a manifestation of recent brain elements supported by primitive components of brain structure. As suggested by evolution, consciousness evolved in brain structure about 540 million years ago (about 3 billion years after the first forms of planetary life)."
http://www.neuropsychologycentral.com/interface/content/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=862
So, we evolved and we eventually became conscious, and we eventually became self aware. Up to the point we acquired self awareness, has everything taken a predetermined path? If that is the case, wouldnt everything that has ensued afterwards be predetermined as well, or do we become masters of our own universe in a sense, because this is what we evolved into, and now have free will?
Perhaps the evolution to self awareness, is a variable caused by predetermination, to allow free will to exist.?
Taking what I just said a step further, if we use the double slit experiment for example, where they observe a single photon splitting from a beam into a particle, they can observe it splitting, but do not know how it splits off, which basically poses the question, is it a particle or a beam or both at the same time?
Perhaps through evolution, to the point of self awareness, predetermination and free will would have been able to split off, and become both at the same time as well? |
| Edited by - Killer Bud on 06/16/2008 13:26:03 |
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 06/16/2008 : 11:56:56 [Permalink]
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I think preconsious life is predetermined in another sense, a roll of the dice is predetermined to have one of six results, the result however is any of the six. Life is rolling millions of these dice(and other dice) every second, how they come out is predictably unpredictable.
Life may follow a predetermined path but the path is a web of interconnecting paths with an seemingly infinite number of possible routes. Then we come along with road graders and make it even more confusing. |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
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Zebra
Skeptic Friend
USA
354 Posts |
Posted - 06/16/2008 : 18:49:54 [Permalink]
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Originally by Dave W.
It is testable in principle. If a modern desktop PC can real-time simulate 100 neurons, then we only need to network together a billion of them to simulate a whole brain. Then we can save the state, offer a stimulus, stop the simulation, restore the old state, offer the same stimulus and see if the "brain" comes to the exact same end state again.
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Reminds me - reading "responses" by no1nose and MuhammedGoldstein recently, I had a laugh wondering whether their responses were just being spit out by a very basic AI program. A bad one, which wouldn't have passed a level 100 computer science course.
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I think, you know, freedom means freedom for everyone* -Dick Cheney
*some restrictions may apply |
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Hawks
SFN Regular
Canada
1383 Posts |
Posted - 06/16/2008 : 19:30:36 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Hawks
Originally posted by Dave W.
Originally posted by Hawks
Quantum mechanics, however, makes this impossible, since there appears to be truly random events occuring (at the quantum level). Predeterminism would, therefore, seem to be ruled out. |
But the stochastic (and macro-) nature of the brain isn't dependent upon individual quantum events. Neurotransmitters flood through synapses by the millions, meaning that (for example) a single C-14 decay within a single dopamine molecule (presumably "breaking" it) in a single synapse isn't going to change a person's behavior.
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Quite possibly. Over human life spans, any real such randomness might not have any real consequences at all. However, if you "choose" to start measuring predetermination from an earlier point in time, say 1,000 or 1,000,000 or 1,000,000,000 years ago things might be different.
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Saying that, I just remembered this article I read in New Scientist recently:
A quantum trick might be behind birds' ability to navigate using Earth's magnetic field lines.
Some researchers think birds might be able to "see" the magnetic field via photosensitive proteins in their retinas. The theory is that when a photon strikes one of these proteins, it creates a pair of oppositely charged ions, which separate for a fleeting moment before recombining. Each of these ions contains electrons with a quantum property called spin. Initially, these spins point in opposite directions - but in a magnetic field, they tend to become aligned. When the ions recombine, this alignment triggers a specific biochemical reaction, which gives the bird information about the magnetic field. |
I won't even try to pretend that the hypothesis (or more likely speculation) presented above has a lot of backing or experimental verification. It doesn't. It's still interesting, however, that rather than interfering (however slightly) with biological processes, perhaps certain quantum phenomena are actually used by living organisms on a regular basis. |
METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL
It's a small, off-duty czechoslovakian traffic warden! |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 06/16/2008 : 19:40:27 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Zebra
Reminds me - reading "responses" by no1nose and MuhammedGoldstein recently, I had a laugh wondering whether their responses were just being spit out by a very basic AI program. A bad one, which wouldn't have passed a level 100 computer science course. |
I am fairly certain that ELIZA has been modified for malicious intent on at least a few Internet forums. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Predetermination or Free Will?
