Determinism

[The_Winner]

But if "you" are just another deterministic cog in the machine of reality, then it IS you who decides. Since, after all, you are the result of your experiences and some other variables, probably only biochemical, which already exist

So you do, in fact, exert will. The control is real, we just follow our programing to figure out how to exert it. "A man can often get what he wants, but cannot want what he wants".

Why do you think the the so called "will" is not another result of preceding events? What makes it escape the determinism?
Is it the fact, that you believe humans to be something more, than just physical?

 

[Raw Evil]

Why do you think the the so called "will" is not another result of preceding events? What makes it escape the determinism?
Is it the fact, that you believe humans to be something more, than just physical?

It doesn't escape determinism. In what way is will incompatible with deterministic operation? My will is that of my choosing, and simultaneously, my choices are based on past experience.

 

[Vader]

If your choices are completely based on past experience, i.e there is only one way they can go, then it isn't really free at all.

 

[TheAppleCore]

^ Yes.


Even if you had so-called "free will", which would allow you to make a decision completely independent of past or current circumstances, you would never exercise this ability, because to progress your life in any meaningful way (or even to simply survive) you have to base your decisions entirely on reality.

 

[Raw Evil]

Even if you had so-called "free will", which would allow you to make a decision completely independent of past or current circumstances, you would never exercise this ability, because to progress your life in any meaningful way (or even to simply survive) you have to base your decisions entirely on reality.

Precisely.

If your choices are completely based on past experience, i.e there is only one way they can go, then it isn't really free at all.

Which is why I have carefully avoided using the word "free" in the first place

 

[The_Winner]

I don't really get what you mean, Raw Evil. You seem to be agreeing, that we live in a deterministic reality, but then you also claim us to have a real choice. Can't have both imho.
I read a good example a while ago I'll try to retell. Let's say there's a situation where you have two equally good choices and you choose the first of them. If we could simulate that very situation, would you ever pick the second one and why? If not, couldn't we say, that the choice you made was determined (not that someone already knew what you're gonna choose, cause we still have no slightest clue, how to "calculate" the future).
Even tho we don't know the exact reasons, why you picked the first one, we can still understand that you would pick the first one every time, if you believed our existence to be deterministic. And this also proves us to really have no will, but just an illusion of it.

 

[the black sun]

hmmm my views on this are very up and down.
i don't like to think that every choice i make in this life is predetermined. the reason for this is because it makes me feel that life doesn't have a purpose. if anything it seems selfish to the ways of the universe. i guess i'm more for free will. i don't like the fact that i'm controlled but then again maybe it could be a good thing.
am i meant to stay in bed days on end and going on blue light and looking at philosophy which got me to look at this post. it has some meaning. the only meaning is that i want to see other peoples views on different subjects within philosophy. i feel that my purpose in life is to fulfil my wisdom to the highest possible way. that is my choice i choose to do it.
i cant see in anyway shape or form that i was set out to do this. then again doesnt all human life want to know more and more to the life they live in. through evolution and the questions that we've constantly asked ourselves is probably more determinism.
sorry i cant fully explain myself in some areas, very complicated.

good thread OP, it really got me thinking about this, i will be thinking about this for a good few weeks now

 

[qwe]

because to progress your life in any meaningful way (or even to simply survive) you have to base your decisions entirely on reality

this assumes that all thoughts and sensations come from the biochemical systems we know of in the spacetime we know about

consciousness is so "something else" and the universe so fractally-crazy i'm not sure information transfer itself can lead to it, and i'm not sure it's localized in this spacetime. maybe that's not the most scientific attitude because it leaves empiricism behind (until we get the technology to be able to investigate such "realms", assuming i may be right)

 

[Raw Evil]

I don't really get what you mean, Raw Evil. You seem to be agreeing, that we live in a deterministic reality, but then you also claim us to have a real choice. Can't have both imho.

Where we disagree is in our definition of "choice". Would you say that choice includes a decision made by a computer (which by its design is fully deterministic)? I would. I see my own choices as nothing more than complicated versions of the same execution conditions my computer checks billions of times every second. Output is determined by input, just as the future depends on the past.

As far as your "two equivalent choices" thought experiment goes, the deciding factors would be those of state - having nothing to do with the parameters of the choice itself, but based on incidental factors like mood, room illumination, ambient sound, personal attitudes and memories brought up by these factors (another example of the future being the result of the past).

 

[Vader]

If you're no more free than a computer does having a choice really matter?

 

[The_Winner]

Where we disagree is in our definition of "choice". Would you say that choice includes a decision made by a computer (which by its design is fully deterministic)? I would. I see my own choices as nothing more than complicated versions of the same execution conditions my computer checks billions of times every second. Output is determined by input, just as the future depends on the past.

You're getting me even more confused. :D
If what you choose is determined by all kinds of different conditions, then how can you call it a choice.

As far as your "two equivalent choices" thought experiment goes, the deciding factors would be those of state - having nothing to do with the parameters of the choice itself, but based on incidental factors like mood, room illumination, ambient sound, personal attitudes and memories brought up by these factors (another example of the future being the result of the past).

As I said in that post "If we could simulate that very situation", meaning everything, including "mood, room illumination, ambient sound, personal attitudes and memories brought up by these factors".

The purpose of this thought experiment is to show you, that there really is no 'real choice'/will (only illusory), but just a chain of events that keep unfolding and can be in theory tracked back to the big bang.

I guess we agree about determinism in theory, but we just like to express it differently.
Or as you said yourself, we define choice differently.

 

[Raw Evil]

I guess we agree about determinism in theory, but we just like to express it differently.
Or as you said yourself, we define choice differently.

Yep. In the ethereal definition that exists inside my head, choice itself is deterministic.

 

[B9]

If we were logical beings then I'd be more inclined to consider Determinism - from what I observe many of us are not logical beings.

 

[qwe]

^ emotions are just as bound to this physical realm. they are related to neurotransmitter levels which fluctuate as a whole system and indirectly (or directly) influence the logical processing going on (which isn't really logical in the first place, it's evolution's product doing what it can to make sense of the immediate environment, which is why what we consider "logic" changes over time)

our logicalness AND illogicalness both arise from our physical makeup, which as far as we can tell is totally deterministic or at least probabilistic

 

[Quantum Perception]

Just wanted to discuss this one here. What's your opinion on it?

I've believed this all my life but never thought to look into it. I used to think, as I'm sure everyone must at one point, that I was the only person who thought like this until I actually studied it.

Anyway, counter arguments are welcome as I've only ever spoke to people who agree.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Determinism if you're interested.

An interesting neurological experiment was carried out by Benjamin Libet in 1985. While observing the firing rates of motor neurons in human subjects conducting a willed conscious action, he noticed that 350 milliseconds before the intent of the action, the brain prepaired for the action.

How could the brain prepare for an action that has not even been thought of yet?
Interestingly, this does not occur for involuntary actions.

And that is neuroscience's two cents for the question of free will.

 

[The_Winner]

An interesting neurological experiment was carried out by Benjamin Libet in 1985. While observing the firing rates of motor neurons in human subjects conducting a willed conscious action, he noticed that 350 milliseconds before the intent of the action, the brain prepaired for the action.

How could the brain prepare for an action that has not even been thought of yet?
Interestingly, this does not occur for involuntary actions.

And that is neuroscience's two cents for the question of free will.

With today's technology they can see your decisions even more earlier than 350ms.
It's shown in a Horizon episode, called "The Secret You".
In an experiment, where they let a person choose between two random buttons to press, they claim to be able to "predict" your decision up to 6 seconds, before you make up your mind.

 

[B9]

our logicalness AND illogicalness both arise from our physical makeup, which as far as we can tell is totally deterministic or at least probabilistic

I have no argument against probabilistic.

It seems to me that advocates of Determinism would only ever accept freewill as having (possibly) existed at the outset of consciousness, or maybe not even then.

 

[the black sun]

wow, thats totally changed my veiw on determinism. i know he says someone else can see what he is thinking before he is concious of it but im saying more about the fact that ur being controlled without even knowing it. this totally shits all over free will.
this is gonna bug me for some time until i get my own clear answer towards determinism in ym head. thanks for the link man much apreciated.

 

[CoffeeDrinker]

An interesting neurological experiment was carried out by Benjamin Libet in 1985. While observing the firing rates of motor neurons in human subjects conducting a willed conscious action, he noticed that 350 milliseconds before the intent of the action, the brain prepaired for the action.

How could the brain prepare for an action that has not even been thought of yet?
Interestingly, this does not occur for involuntary actions.

And that is neuroscience's two cents for the question of free will.

Yeah but those impulses that were recorded 350milliseconds before the person made an actual decision offer no insight as to the actual decision the person made. They could just be used to predict when decision will be made (approx 350 milliseconds after the initial impulse).
It doesn't really offer any deep insight into free will in our brains as far as I know. I am familiar with that study.

 

[Quantum Perception]

How does it not offer any insight?
Sure when this study came out, people where rocked, and came to attack it, claiming there were methodological limitations.
Nevertheless, the empirical evidence shows that the brains SMC does anticipate what we would call, an intended conscious action.

This shows that our decisions are not a result of free will, but part of a causal chain which we have no say in.

If free will is the is the ability to make a choice not influenced by any temporal event, then our brains do not posses it.
Our thoughts and actions are part of an unbroken chain of actions and thoughts, that our consciousness oversees. It doesn't really make free willed choices.