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Determinism

All they can do is predict when a person is going to make a decision, provided they have hundreds of electrodes tied to a person's head. It doesn't predict why or how these decisions are made.

It'd be ridiculous to think that any quantifiable mental process measurable with an EEG or anything else DOESN'T have a logical chemical reaction in the brain. Maybe the free will is something less mystical-seeming than people give it credit for?
Am I just a robot programmed to deny my reality over the internet with you?
 
The link in the chain before the intent lies in the motor area of the brain. That's whats so shocking. If it was just any other place, then I would agree with your point.

And yea, it could look like we are all robotic biological structures. No real free will, just following a laid out path.
 
hmm...what is it about the motor area that makes it so much more deterministic than any other area? Aren't these "areas" in the brain way more complex than we currently know? Aren't these "areas" way less defined and set-in-stone than something like this picture would have us believe?
brain-picture.jpg


I think that there is determinism in biological or physical entities to a large degree, but it's certainly not this predictable laid out path like Newton's ideal. He was of the belief that if we just knew the locations of every particle, and their current conditions, we'd be able to predict their destiny with perfect accuracy until the end of time.
Quantum mechanics proves you can't know all the conditions of even one particle at the same time, much less all the particles of a complex system. Note: This is a conclusion drawn from experimentation, so this isn't Quantum Theory (which often rudely gets interjected in philosophical debates when it doesn't belong). When we observe physical objects like electrons or protons or Bucky-Balls we realize that a more probabilistic interpretation of reality is called for. Determinism, as Newton and his followers have defined it, just doesn't hold up under scrutiny.
 
>>hmm...what is it about the motor area that makes it so much more deterministic than any other area?>>

he was referring to "where the intent came from" as far as science can tell. he said we can only apparently trace it to the motor area. that means

1) the motor area is also involved in the "emotion" of free will and it is involved in our decision making heavily, but we can't trace the circuit past motor circuits, and haven't found this mechanism in the motor area yet (or haven't found a tract of cords leading out of it that could bring in signals that represent physically the intent to move a muscle, from another brain area)

OR

2) whatever causes the intent to move the muscle may be something as yet unseen by science, and in some manner it influences the motor area of the brain to act as it does. a "soul" puppeteer controlling our muscles. making the fact that are "motor movements" start in the "motor section" a fact that is incomplete

i imagine that's what he imagined
 
Look I agree that brain's functional areas are not set in stone; brain plasticity is an example of that. But localized areas of the brain do contribute to certain functions. Yet, they can be changed due to injury or mutation.
So if an area of the brain which regularly processes motor functions (the sensory motor cortex for example) is activated 330 milliseconds before the intent to act, that lays some pretty heavy implications to the problem of free will.

And I guess you could add an Newtonian label on this kind of deterministic relationship. However, it desensitizes the basic fact that reality follows a causal temporal path. The matter could be different if we had another type of brain. But with the one we have, reality seems to move forward, ahead of the events that it precedes.

Now as for mystic awareness of space time, I do understand that culture heavy influences how we perceive the universe. But I speak from the scientific/quantitative perspective.
 
guess i read too much into what you said

seems to me like something less detectable would go on in the cortex or wherever, leading to the -330ms increase in motor area activity, leading to the action... something like that

anyway that concept (the brain working up until the act is performed) as it relates to free will can also be explored purely existentially. if i am thinking a verbal thought, i notice that i know how the sentence ends before i "say it" in my head. (i can stop saying it halfway through, though that seems to annoy my mind and it usually tricks me into going through with the sentence somehow)

trying to trace were thoughts come from in one's mind doesn't really lead anywhere (you can't follow the trace down to biochemical levels and you can't follow it below consciousness) except you notice that you have a huge computer doing a bunch of seemingly purely deterministic thinking for you, and then you "catch" the thought as it floats up and *feel like* you came up with it yourself

with how much of our behavior is not even understandable to our consciousness (addicts wondering why they keep using something eg) implies this too. the current thread question i guess is, is there something special about the "consciousness" part of the brain? when it directs the activities below, efficiently or not, is it a deterministic player as well? (as far as we can tell, probably) if not, free will would have room there
 
Quote from qwe:"with how much of our behavior is not even understandable to our consciousness (addicts wondering why they keep using something eg) implies this too. the current thread question i guess is, is there something special about the "consciousness" part of the brain? when it directs the activities below, efficiently or not, is it a deterministic player as well? (as far as we can tell, probably) if not, free will would have room there"

In research done with split-brain patients (Gazzaniga 1992, p. 124), commands given to the right ear, (which can not be processed by the intellectual left brain) that are then carried out, are given explanations. These explanations cant be true, because the working memory does not have access to what the right ear heard.
So maybe our intellect does not chose what happens to us, but instead weaves up stories to fit along side the actions we experience.
 
Quantum mechanics proves you can't know all the conditions of even one particle at the same time
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That's an epistemic objection more than a metaphysical one to my mind. Practically, we can't know the position and velocity of a particle, but there's nothing logically impossible about it. Just because we can't know all the conditions, it doesn't mean those conditions don't exist.
 
Those conditions are ever changing because just the act of observing them has proven to alter them, so, in effect, they don't exist.
This part of my argument is basically: "we, as humans, physically can't know all there is to know in order to predict with 100% accuracy the outcome of all events" so the idea of determinism is pretty much moot for all practical purposes. There will always be some level of randomness or probability to account for.

That being said, there is still the question of if the underlying nature of the universe in general, or of the human mind in particular, is deterministic. This is more difficult. On one hand you might say that it's obvious that every event stems from a prior cause, but does every cause have to lead to a particular event?
I think there is a middle ground between determinism and total randomness that does lead to free will, but also allows for generally predictable outcomes. It might not be a neat and tidy theory philosophically, but it seems to be supported by reality.
 
CoffeeDrinker said:
I think there is a middle ground between determinism and total randomness that does lead to free will, but also allows for generally predictable outcomes. It might not be a neat and tidy theory philosophically, but it seems to be supported by reality.
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Could you please elaborate on what makes you feel, that it's supported by reality?

I'm asking, cause to me, it is determinism, which seems to be supported by the reality. :)
 
we, as humans, physically can't know all there is to know in order to predict with 100% accuracy the outcome of all events" so the idea of determinism is pretty much moot for all practical purposes
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I'm more than happy to accept that. Does determinism have to be practically useful in order to be true? The epistemic limitations of humans are a separate issue from that of metaphysical determinism.
 
The thing I don't like about the determinism debate is the idea that the feeling of free-will is a total illusion. It's not a falsifiable position to take, therefore it can't be proven wrong. You could say anything except your own existence is an illusion and you'd have no way of proving that idea wrong.

If you think long and hard about a decision, isn't it possible to act in such a way that would seem to have no prior causes that would lead to that action?

If you point a gun at someone and demand their money, most people would give them the money, a few people would run away, Bruce Lee would kick that person's ass and take the gun, some guy with a death-wish and a bad attitude might dare the gunman to shoot him, and so on. There's no way to predict that the same cause will lead to the same effect.

Another example: I got into philosophy in the first place after reading lots of books about buddhism. I got into buddhism because I was really into The Beat Generation and Beat Poetry. I got into those guys because I was into counter-culture idealism. I was into the counter-culture because my Dad was a hippie. Thus, I am destined to be debating this with you all just because Bob Dylan got extra stoned one day and decided to write "Blowing in the Wind."
That's an extremely condensed and abridged version of mine and my dad's lives, but you get the idea.
I accept the fact that a large part of what makes us up is due to previous causes, but let's say, just to spite the determinists, I go out and buy a random book and have no idea what it's about until I bring it home. Reading that book, I stumble across ideas I never would have otherwise, but it could have been any book.
I know that my decision to actually get the book was based on a prior cause (spite of my philosophical opponents), but the actual results of such a decision could not have been predicted at all because I purposely walked into the bookstore blindfolded and picked up a random book. Then the ideas and consequences stemming from that might be wholly new and different from anything that I've ever though of before, all because of randomness.
 
CoffeeDrinker said:
I accept the fact that a large part of what makes us up is due to previous causes, but let's say, just to spite the determinists, I go out and buy a random book and have no idea what it's about until I bring it home. Reading that book, I stumble across ideas I never would have otherwise, but it could have been any book.
I know that my decision to actually get the book was based on a prior cause (spite of my philosophical opponents), but the actual results of such a decision could not have been predicted at all because I purposely walked into the bookstore blindfolded and picked up a random book. Then the ideas and consequences stemming from that might be wholly new and different from anything that I've ever though of before, all because of randomness.
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Not knowing the exact reasons does not mean the system isn't deterministic.
When you blindfold yourself and pick something "randomly", there are still reasons for you to pick, what you pick.
Don't get me wrong tho, I'm not saying there is some unknown force making you pick what you pick, I'm just saying the cause still exists.
Even if it's just "I'm gonna just spin myself around 3 times and walk forward and pick", these thoughts still were connected to what you had experienced before. Or even if you don't think anything at all and "just pick", there are still reasons for you to act the way you do. If there wasn't, you wouldn't act.
 
The "reason" I picked a random book was because it happened to be the one that my hand landed upon. In that sense it is determined, but I am assuming we are talking about something deeper than pointing out the trivial. I thought we were talking about determinism in the sense that nothing other than what did happen could've happened. If not, then I agree with you.

You assume there are reasons other than simply doing something randomly for the sake of doing something randomly, but what proof of that is there?
This is what I mean when I say the argument against the free-will isn't falsifiable. We can always say "well, there's an even deeper unknown reason," but there's no proof of the existence of these reasons. Why argue about something if you're just going to keep saying that?
 
CoffeeDrinker said:
The "reason" I picked a random book was because it happened to be the one that my hand landed upon. In that sense it is determined, but I am assuming we are talking about something deeper than pointing out the trivial. I thought we were talking about determinism in the sense that nothing other than what did happen could've happened. If not, then I agree with you.

You assume there are reasons other than simply doing something randomly for the sake of doing something randomly, but what proof of that is there?
This is what I mean when I say the argument against the free-will isn't falsifiable. We can always say "well, there's an even deeper unknown reason," but there's no proof of the existence of these reasons. Why argue about something if you're just going to keep saying that?
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I'm just expressing my understandings.

I just believe there to be no randomness in such a situation you described, cause it sounds the most logical/sensible to me, that's all.

Even when you roll a dice, the outcome of one roll depends on all kinds of physical conditions. So in theory, if you're a badass at physics and can measure all those conditions, you could calculate the outcome.

As I have already said in this thread before - we can't know if determinism is true or not, before we know all the rules that govern existence.
 
CoffeeDrinker said:
let's say, just to spite the determinists, I go out and buy a random book and have no idea what it's about until I bring it home. Reading that book, I stumble across ideas I never would have otherwise, but it could have been any book.
I know that my decision to actually get the book was based on a prior cause (spite of my philosophical opponents), but the actual results of such a decision could not have been predicted at all because I purposely walked into the bookstore blindfolded and picked up a random book. Then the ideas and consequences stemming from that might be wholly new and different from anything that I've ever though of before, all because of randomness.
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So you walk into a bookstore blindfolded - how far outside the store did you blindfold yourself? How far do you walk, and which hand do you use? How high do you reach? Do you reach a book immediately, or do you bump into something first? These conditions are all based on your state before making the decision to "spite the determinists", and the outcome of these conditions determines which book you end up grabbing.
 
Raw Evil said:
So you walk into a bookstore blindfolded - how far outside the store did you blindfold yourself? How far do you walk, and which hand do you use? How high do you reach? Do you reach a book immediately, or do you bump into something first? These conditions are all based on your state before making the decision to "spite the determinists", and the outcome of these conditions determines which book you end up grabbing.
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Actually I don't even go into the bookstore at all. I program a computer code to randomly download an e-book from any website on the internet, whether or not they are password protected.

The outcome cannot be predicted.

Even if there was no blindfolds or randomized robots I could still exercise free-will if I put sufficient thought into it and not just go based on first impressions or gut instincts, but I'm trying to show you at least one instance where the outcome really is random.
 
^I was under the impression that it was impossible to program a computer to generate a truly random sequence, is this mistaken?
Besides, actions made at random aren't free either. If I make my decisions based on a roll of a (truly random) die, I'm not really choosing at all.
 
Well yeah, I wouldn't be choosing and it wouldn't be free-will, but it would also not be determined. But that's just an extreme example that shows there are instances in which no prior causes are sufficient to fully explain the outcome. Some things are just random.

I am advocating a blend of circumstance, personal choice, and randomness that lead to our decisions and destinies.
I am trying to not discount the obvious strong point of determinism that everything that happens has some cause, and is itself the cause of another thing happening.
 
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