No Free Will?

[Sephiroth]

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Keep in mind, will is defined as "the faculty by which a person initiates an action." Can you describe how you would initiate an action without thought?

That is only regarding "will" though. So if we grant that everyone has will, what does it mean to say if that will is "free will" or not?

What is free will supposed to mean? What is the will free from? Keep in mind that "free" isn't a word that stands on its own, it must refer to something. An item can be free of charge, a person can be free from oppression, etc. and these terms are often implicit, so we can forget that there must be something being referred to when we use the word.

So is a "free will" one that is free from direct manipulation by another? That doesn't seem particularly meaningful. Is it free from the effects of causation? I'm not sure if that could fully be made sense of, plus empirical evidence stands against it.

So would someone care to explain what it is that's actually being discussed?

 

[Cornu Ammonis]

That is only regarding "will" though. So if we grant that everyone has will, what does it mean to say if that will is "free will" or not?

What is free will supposed to mean? What is the will free from? Keep in mind that "free" isn't a word that stands on its own, it must refer to something. An item can be free of charge, a person can be free from oppression, etc. and these terms are often implicit, so we can forget that there must be something being referred to when we use the word.

So is a "free will" one that is free from direct manipulation by another? That doesn't seem particularly meaningful. Is it free from the effects of causation? I'm not sure if that could fully be made sense of, plus empirical evidence stands against it.

So would someone care to explain what it is that's actually being discussed?

This is why I've been avoiding calling it "free will" in my posts. The only true free will would be one capable of absurdity. Even most religions regard God's will to be transcendent and unchanging.

 

[Ironmandoc]

This is why I've been avoiding calling it "free will" in my posts. The only true free will would be one capable of absurdity. Even most religions regard God's will to be transcendent and unchanging.

A very smart physicist friend of mine said that true free will would be tantamount to magic.

 

[JABWS]

That is only regarding "will" though. So if we grant that everyone has will, what does it mean to say if that will is "free will" or not?

What is free will supposed to mean? What is the will free from? Keep in mind that "free" isn't a word that stands on its own, it must refer to something. An item can be free of charge, a person can be free from oppression, etc. and these terms are often implicit, so we can forget that there must be something being referred to when we use the word.

So is a "free will" one that is free from direct manipulation by another? That doesn't seem particularly meaningful. Is it free from the effects of causation? I'm not sure if that could fully be made sense of, plus empirical evidence stands against it.

So would someone care to explain what it is that's actually being discussed?

Everyone has will, because everyone has the faculty to initiate an action. The question becomes, is that faculty amenable to the conscious mind?

Cornu, I can't get off of this point. Somehow you are isolating will from thought, when in fact will is derived from thought. I'm sort of playing devil's advocate here, but let's look at the example you gave comparing seeing to speaking. You say the latter is voluntary, although you concede it does require unconscious processing. But is it truly voluntary? You have to think first before you speak, and my question is, what spurred you to think? No matter what the action, whether it is perceived as being voluntary or involuntary by your conscious mind, it always begins with a thought; that is the eventual end point of any mental regression. Where does the thought originate? It originates in the unconscious brain, which leads me back to the deterministic conclusion.

I feel like you're on to something here, but I can't quite get it out of you. How, if everything is derived from an initial thought, do we isolate will from the subconscious brain?

 

[DrHouse579]

Why don't you masturbate? At least it would culminate in something tangible.

If your going to jerk around on SDN, why don't you go do it at home with a moist towel.

 

[Cornu Ammonis]

Everyone has will, because everyone has the faculty to initiate an action. The question becomes, is that faculty amenable to the conscious mind?

Cornu, I can't get off of this point. Somehow you are isolating will from thought, when in fact will is derived from thought. I'm sort of playing devil's advocate here, but let's look at the example you gave comparing seeing to speaking. You say the latter is voluntary, although you concede it does require unconscious processing. But is it truly voluntary? You have to think first before you speak, and my question is, what spurred you to think? No matter what the action, whether it is perceived as being voluntary or involuntary by your conscious mind, it always begins with a thought; that is the eventual end point of any mental regression. Where does the thought originate? It originates in the unconscious brain, which leads me back to the deterministic conclusion.

I feel like you're on to something here, but I can't quite get it out of you. How, if everything is derived from an initial thought, do we isolate will from the subconscious brain?

Again, it is access through experience that leads me to this conclusion, as well as the experience of the opposite being true for comparison. Volition even seems to be mapped onto certain parts of the frontal lobe, and there are conditions in which lesions efface the will and leave a person reacting entirely unconsciously and relatively to their environment.

You could argue that will is just a program itself, then, but experience tells me otherwise, just as experience tells me that sight and hearing are not just equivalent electrical impulses differing only in their sites of impact on the cerebrum. I have never experienced will as a thought, but only thoughts to and from the will.

 

[JABWS]

Again, it is access through experience that leads me to this conclusion, as well as the experience of the opposite being true for comparison. Volition even seems to be mapped onto certain parts of the frontal lobe, and there are conditions in which lesions efface the will and leave a person reacting entirely unconsciously and relatively to their environment.

You could argue that will is just a program itself, then, but experience tells me otherwise, just as experience tells me that sight and hearing are not just equivalent electrical impulses differing only in their sites of impact on the cerebrum. I have never experienced will as a thought, but only thoughts to and from the will.

Interesting thought. I'm actually getting a headache trying to sort all of this out in my mind. You bring up the idea of a person reacting entirely unconsciously, relative to their environment. I guess what I lost in all of this is that whatever the conscious mind is (we don't exactly know), it's entangled with the material brain, and not a separate entity.

I feel like I need to learn more about consciousness in general, but here's some food for thought. When someone loses consciousness but is still partially responsive to external stimuli, they are still able to initiate actions and maintain certain homeostatic functions, but obviously are unable to make plans, set goals, act on ideas etc... So there is clearly something about consciousness that endows us with the ability to act differently than if we were without it, which seems to throw a wrench in the idea that everything is controlled by the unconscious brain.

 

[Sephiroth]

Again, it is access through experience that leads me to this conclusion, as well as the experience of the opposite being true for comparison. Volition even seems to be mapped onto certain parts of the frontal lobe, and there are conditions in which lesions efface the will and leave a person reacting entirely unconsciously and relatively to their environment.

You could argue that will is just a program itself, then, but experience tells me otherwise, just as experience tells me that sight and hearing are not just equivalent electrical impulses differing only in their sites of impact on the cerebrum. I have never experienced will as a thought, but only thoughts to and from the will.

I don't think just looking at your own personal introspection is what such conclusions should be based off of. You have only experienced your ocular and auditory nerves being wired to your brain in one way. But for those with synesthesia, senses are interpreted differently, and that is due to how the brain is wired. And sight and hearing, are in fact electrical impulses. That is the only way your brain can receive information from your eyes and ears. Light hitting your retinas cause the optic nerves to transmit particular electrical impulses to a particular part of your brain, which your brain interprets as an image. Your experience with what you see to be your will is equally unreliable. The empirical data available suggests that what we interpret as conscious decisions are those tied to the verbal centers of out brain (prefrontal lobes), and actually a lot of post-hoc rationalization occurs

 

[Cornu Ammonis]

Interesting thought. I'm actually getting a headache trying to sort all of this out in my mind. You bring up the idea of a person reacting entirely unconsciously, relative to their environment. I guess what I lost in all of this is that whatever the conscious mind is (we don't exactly know), it's entangled with the material brain, and not a separate entity.

I feel like I need to learn more about consciousness in general, but here's some food for thought. When someone loses consciousness but is still partially responsive to external stimuli, they are still able to initiate actions and maintain certain homeostatic functions, but obviously are unable to make plans, set goals, act on ideas etc... So there is clearly something about consciousness that endows us with the ability to act differently than if we were without it, which seems to throw a wrench in the idea that everything is controlled by the unconscious brain.

This is why the example of erythropoiesis was a poor one; my bone marrow is about as 'me' as my shoes or the dirt underneath them, and to expect willful control over one is to expect it of any arbitrary thing. This is, indeed, magic! Hardly much about your body is controlled by the mind, conscious or otherwise. A man with a midbrain lesion may respond to pain, but not through any sort of thought, just as your spinal cord doesn't think when it carries out reflexes.

We've all experienced inchoate thoughts, unbidden imagery, even words or sounds originating unconsciously, and it is obvious that we do not process and control every sensation, thought, and motion consciously. It is equally obvious through experience that we do consciously decide things, or else we would not experience the former cases as being different. This professor sounds like Chico Marx from Duck Soup: "Well, who you gonna believe, me or your own eyes?"

 

[Cornu Ammonis]

I don't think just looking at your own personal introspection is what such conclusions should be based off of. You have only experienced your ocular and auditory nerves being wired to your brain in one way. But for those with synesthesia, senses are interpreted differently, and that is due to how the brain is wired. And sight and hearing, are in fact electrical impulses. That is the only way your brain can receive information from your eyes and ears. Light hitting your retinas cause the optic nerves to transmit particular electrical impulses to a particular part of your brain, which your brain interprets as an image. Your experience with what you see to be your will is equally unreliable. The empirical data available suggests that what we interpret as conscious decisions are those tied to the verbal centers of out brain (prefrontal lobes), and actually a lot of post-hoc rationalization occurs

So do people with Broca's aphasia experience avolition, then? You've got synesthesia confused, too; no one sees a sound, they see sights caused by sounds. It is fallacious to assume that "post-hoc rationalization" precludes volition or even is not volition itself. In fact, demanding temporal and causal identity between brain states and experiences leaves you inextricably stuck in a mess of unanswerable questions.

 

[sacrament]

A very smart physicist friend of mine said that true free will would be tantamount to magic.

It'd be the very definition of magic. The only explanation for free will, as traditionally understood, would be some non-physical entity which had the ability to "push around" physical matter (i.e. your neurons) without needing to expend energy. If somebody believes in gods and souls than I guess they might as well believe in free will, but anybody else should carefully examine that belief.