Free will

[elemenohpee]

qwedsa, what I meant by that was, you can't use the universe as an analogy for a human being. Yes, casual matter, unbound to a living, willing being follows the laws of physics. But from what I have read, there is more to a human being than meets the eye - or the laws of physics.

Did you read it in a scientific journal? Because people can write anything, it doesn't make it true. And many neuroscientists would disagree with you.

Imagine you had the good fortune to see someone bend scientific laws.

Like a man walked on water like it was land - or sunk into solid land like it was water - or they willed themselves to float in the air.

Would you believe me that a human being can transcend the laws that deal with casual matter?

See, a person like this would change Schopenhauer's saying: 'man does what he wills out of conditioning - he CAN will what he wills under certain inner conditions.'

I have not seen it done, but have read books written last century of first hand accounts where things like this have been observed - by a westerner.

The book is named: Life and teaching of the masters of the far east - by Baird T. Spalding (6 vol. set)

You're making a HUGE assumption, one that most scientists in the world would not agree with. As long as you hold on to this assumption, you will never accept determinism. Physicalism has been discussed in other threads I'm sure, so this is where we will have to agree to disagree.

 

[elemenohpee]

The universe itself apears to be dead and incapable of action.

Why would you say this? Things are happening all around us, all the time. Not to mention that you are a part of the universe, not seperate from it.

 

[Dyno_oz]

Did you read it in a scientific journal? Because people can write anything, it doesn't make it true. And many neuroscientists would disagree with you.

Yes that is true. Keep in mind true things exist outside science journals too. :D

You're making a HUGE assumption, one that most scientists in the world would not agree with. As long as you hold on to this assumption, you will never accept determinism. Physicalism has been discussed in other threads I'm sure, so this is where we will have to agree to disagree.

It's all about perspective. There is an irony about this. In my teens and early twenties, I used to think exactly the same way - that mysticism was a load of bull and science could explain it all.

Well, things happened in my life to show me that science is a very useful tool, but true things exist outside it's scope.

I wish you all well in your quest for truth - wherever you find it.

 

[Medatripper Tates]

fuck yes man, there is just too much going on outside of science to stay confined within it. having experiences, seeing other people's experiences, is all the proof i will ever need.

when people are connected enough, what we perceive as reality can be altered on the external by our will, and it will be seen by all. i have had a profound experience like this, which forever changed the way i perceive reality and i will never look back.

 

[Pegasus]

^Well those thing don't really happen outside the scope of science; science just might not be able to explain them yet. There really are no bounds to science; if it happens, then there is science behind it.

At least that's my understading of it.

 

[qwedsa]

^yes, science is any attempt to get knowledge. unless something happens for absolutely no reason at all, there is science behind it

i have had a profound experience like this, which forever changed the way i perceive reality and i will never look back.

care to elaborate?

p.s. why is everyone on at 4 AM? i guess im not the only insomniac philosopher

 

[Medatripper Tates]

^Well those thing don't really happen outside the scope of science; science just might not be able to explain them yet. There really are no bounds to science; if it happens, then there is science behind it.

At least that's my understading of it.

So if science cant explain them, why can’t we know them through experience?

 

[Medatripper Tates]

care to elaborate?

it should take me some time to form it into words..

 

[doesntmatter]

^Well those thing don't really happen outside the scope of science; science just might not be able to explain them yet. There really are no bounds to science; if it happens, then there is science behind it.

At least that's my understading of it.

see this is where i think we disagree. science is man made, it has limitations. if we can't prove it through science, its called philosophy, not misunderstood science. that exact need to explain everything is science's flaw. it will never be able to in my opinion, and i think most scientists realize that.

in other words, for it to be science, it has to be understood by man. unless you believe that man can understand and known everything there is to know, you've leaving up a situation where there would have to be another outsider who can understand it.

 

[elemenohpee]

see this is where i think we disagree. science is man made, it has limitations. if we can't prove it through science, its called philosophy, not misunderstood science. that exact need to explain everything is science's flaw. it will never be able to in my opinion, and i think most scientists realize that.

in other words, for it to be science, it has to be understood by man. unless you believe that man can understand and known everything there is to know, you've leaving up a situation where there would have to be another outsider who can understand it.

I agree that science has limitations, I think any scientist would. However, I don't think we are anywhere near this boundary. Just look at how much we have learned since we've been on this planet, using the scientific method. Its a very powerful tool that we can use to tell us about the world we live in. Look at how fast the fields of neuroscience, cognitive science, neural networks, AI, etc, are advancing. Its very probable that we will figure out how a human brain works in the next 100 years. What happens if we put human consciousness into a computer? All these beliefs about a supernatural free-will will be put to rest, just like every supernatural belief that came before it.

 

[elemenohpee]

So if science cant explain them, why can’t we know them through experience?

Its my opinion that the scientific method is the only way of fixing belief. You can perceive things through experience, but the scientific method is the only way you can come to conclusions about those experiences. So our perception of consciousess itself doesn't really tell us anything, especially as it is so biased, since it is perceiving itself. We feel emotions, even though its been proven that they are caused by chemicals in the brain. We don't really get an accurate picture of whats going on through our limited means of perception. Any false premises acquired here will render your conclusions useless, so its not really the best way to come to conclusions.

 

[Pegasus]

elemenohpee, what limitations do you see on science? It seems that going along with determinism would suggest that everything can be broken down to science. Could you explain? Are you talking about the human understanding of the science that is happening?

 

[qwedsa]

So if science cant explain them, why can’t we know them through experience?

if we know them through experience, that means we know them empirically, which means they are scientifically valid (unless you're the only one that sees it, in which case there's probably a psychological rather than ontological explanation)

 

[satricion]

^^
This is not really the case, especially for free will.

The reason that free will is a philosophical and not a scientific or empirical question is because it is not operationalisable as a scientific phenomena. You can not test free will.

Free will doesn't fit in to the scientific paradigm. It is a question that can be addressed (and solved) from the armchair, so to speak. How would you test free will using the scientific method? Ask people why they did something? Science is not a paradigm that can address free will. It is not empirically testable.

That's why we use logic to address this question, and that's why whether or not the human brain is like a computer or whatever is completely irrelevant. Free will is logically impossible. It just can't exist for the reasons I've already said:

Determinism is either true or false. If it is true then free will is false, and if it is false then free will is still false because determinism being false means that we operate in a random world and hence can't have free will.

The determinism/indeterminism dichotomy is a logical dichotomy. One of these conditions must obtain in any universe, and free will doesn't work with either of them. It's not a matter of testing out a scientifically operationalised concept like for example operationalising colour as the subjective perception of different wavelengths of light affecting photoreceptors in the retina. It's not that kind of idea.

Every human being goes through life as though they have free will, making free decisions and what have you. But if experience was all that was required to decide whether or not something is true then the debate wouldn't exist.

The idea that free will is self evident because we perceive it is akin to the idea that all schitzophrenics are correct about their delusions because they perceive them, or that acid visuals are real or that the train I saw heading towards me after I'd had three pills and a couple of bongs is real because I perceive it, or whatever. The argument is exactly the same, it is bullshit.

Free will is impossible I'm afraid, but as humans we have no choice but to go through life behaving as though we have free will. I personally don't find the idea particularly difficult to take on board. Free will is logically impossible but to accept that on an intellectual level and allow it to fuck up your self concept are different things.

Just get over it people...the only new argument that has been thrown in to the free will debate in the past hundred years is Strawson's 'basic argument' about the infinite regress free will would require (this argument is another reason why determinism or indeterminism are irrelevant). Before this the same arguments had existed for hundreds of years. You can't prove free will, it's just impossible.

 

[doesntmatter]

^^
This is not really the case, especially for free will.

The reason that free will is a philosophical and not a scientific or empirical question is because it is not operationalisable as a scientific phenomena. You can not test free will.

Free will doesn't fit in to the scientific paradigm. It is a question that can be addressed (and solved) from the armchair, so to speak. How would you test free will using the scientific method? Ask people why they did something? Science is not a paradigm that can address free will. It is not empirically testable.

That's why we use logic to address this question, and that's why whether or not the human brain is like a computer or whatever is completely irrelevant. Free will is logically impossible. It just can't exist for the reasons I've already said:

Determinism is either true or false. If it is true then free will is false, and if it is false then free will is still false because determinism being false means that we operate in a random world and hence can't have free will.

The determinism/indeterminism dichotomy is a logical dichotomy. One of these conditions must obtain in any universe, and free will doesn't work with either of them. It's not a matter of testing out a scientifically operationalised concept like for example operationalising colour as the subjective perception of different wavelengths of light affecting photoreceptors in the retina. It's not that kind of idea.

Every human being goes through life as though they have free will, making free decisions and what have you. But if experience was all that was required to decide whether or not something is true then the debate wouldn't exist.

The idea that free will is self evident because we perceive it is akin to the idea that all schitzophrenics are correct about their delusions because they perceive them, or that acid visuals are real or that the train I saw heading towards me after I'd had three pills and a couple of bongs is real because I perceive it, or whatever. The argument is exactly the same, it is bullshit.

Free will is impossible I'm afraid, but as humans we have no choice but to go through life behaving as though we have free will. I personally don't find the idea particularly difficult to take on board. Free will is logically impossible but to accept that on an intellectual level and allow it to fuck up your self concept are different things.

Just get over it people...the only new argument that has been thrown in to the free will debate in the past hundred years is Strawson's 'basic argument' about the infinite regress free will would require (this argument is another reason why determinism or indeterminism are irrelevant). Before this the same arguments had existed for hundreds of years. You can't prove free will, it's just impossible.

well to follow along with your black and white view of free will. you can't disprove it either. there is no way that you can disprove free will with science.

give me an example of how you can predict a humans actions, give me an example of how things have to either be deterministic or indeterministic. how can you say that just because we see things as either having a cause or being random that those are the only two options. i don't understand that with everything there is going on in science, why can't you look at all of it and realize that it goes far beyond what we can comprehend. it seems infantile to believe that everything that is around us and happening can be understood by us.

 

[satricion]

Jesus christ man, didn't you read whole my post at all? Or any of my other posts in the thread?

You can't disprove free will with science. That's what I said. You can however disprove it with logic. Which is what people have been doing for hundreds of years.

FREE WILL IS NOT A SCIENTIFIC QUESTION. THAT IS WHAT MY POST SAID.

It doesn't matter whether or not I can predict someone's actions (although we have psychology and other social sciences which set out to do just that).

I don't think you understand the argument at all but I'll try again.

Determinism or indeterminism HAVE to be true. That's just how it is. Stuff in the universe either works according to laws or it doesn't. What other option is there?

Determinism is incompatible with free will because it means that our thoughts and actions are the product of the operation of natural laws beyond our control, and hence free will is false.

Indeterminism is incompatible with free will because it means that our thoughts and actions are the product of completely random events, which we by definition can't control and hence free will is false.

So there you go...

Also, free will is a logically incoherent concept because it requires an infinite regress of causality. Since you can't cause yourself, you can't cause your own very first thought, and hence free will is logically incoherent even if we didn't have the determinism/indeterminism argument. Strawson outlines this 'basic argument' argument in the papers he wrote on the subject so if you're a university student you should be able to get at them. They're very readable, largely because the argument is very elegant, simple and ultimately difficult to contradict.

I think a lot of people in this thread would benifit from reading this very short, very readable overview of the debate by Galen Strawson. His 'basic argument' is outlined in the section on 'pessimism':

http://www.rep.routledge.com/article/V014

That's a short but readable intro to the debate and since the question is really, underneath it all, a very simple one to answer given all the attention that's been paid to it, it basically goes over all the arguments.

 

[elemenohpee]

elemenohpee, what limitations do you see on science? It seems that going along with determinism would suggest that everything can be broken down to science. Could you explain? Are you talking about the human understanding of the science that is happening?

There's a few limitations I see. One being that we are always working off of assumptions which may or may not be true. This means that the conlcusions we draw from these assumptions are always subject to revision. We can't really be sure of anything.
The other limitation is that we are a part of the system and so can never view it objectively. There is a finite amount of matter in the universe, and since it takes matter to store "knowledge," a being can never know itself completely. Of course I have no idea what the future has in store for us, it could be far weirder than we could imagine. But these are the problems I see, based off what we know now.

 

[Dyno_oz]

Determinism or indeterminism HAVE to be true. That's just how it is.

Thats a bit presumptious... Isn't the idea to reach conclusions at the end ??

Determinism is incompatible with free will because it means that our thoughts and actions are the product of the operation of natural laws beyond our control, ....

Indeterminism is incompatible with free will because it means that our thoughts and actions are the product of completely random events, which we by definition can't control ...

I don't see why there can't be a third option where living beings are seen differently to casual matter and free acts of will is part of the distinction.

If anything, the above two points could be used to say free will is true, determinism is false, and indeterminism is false.

 

[doesntmatter]

Jesus christ man, didn't you read whole my post at all? Or any of my other posts in the thread?

You can't disprove free will with science. That's what I said. You can however disprove it with logic. Which is what people have been doing for hundreds of years.

FREE WILL IS NOT A SCIENTIFIC QUESTION. THAT IS WHAT MY POST SAID.

It doesn't matter whether or not I can predict someone's actions (although we have psychology and other social sciences which set out to do just that).

I don't think you understand the argument at all but I'll try again.

Determinism or indeterminism HAVE to be true. That's just how it is. Stuff in the universe either works according to laws or it doesn't. What other option is there?

Determinism is incompatible with free will because it means that our thoughts and actions are the product of the operation of natural laws beyond our control, and hence free will is false.

Indeterminism is incompatible with free will because it means that our thoughts and actions are the product of completely random events, which we by definition can't control and hence free will is false.

So there you go...

Also, free will is a logically incoherent concept because it requires an infinite regress of causality. Since you can't cause yourself, you can't cause your own very first thought, and hence free will is logically incoherent even if we didn't have the determinism/indeterminism argument. Strawson outlines this 'basic argument' argument in the papers he wrote on the subject so if you're a university student you should be able to get at them. They're very readable, largely because the argument is very elegant, simple and ultimately difficult to contradict.

I think a lot of people in this thread would benifit from reading this very short, very readable overview of the debate by Galen Strawson. His 'basic argument' is outlined in the section on 'pessimism':

http://www.rep.routledge.com/article/V014

That's a short but readable intro to the debate and since the question is really, underneath it all, a very simple one to answer given all the attention that's been paid to it, it basically goes over all the arguments.

this being philosophy, that still brings it down to one or another. its either we don't have free will because determinism is correct, or we don't have free will because indeterminism is correct. that is not philosophy, that is science. if it is or it isn't , that is science. philosophy doesn't deal with definites.

that link did enlighten me on the views of determinism. however nothing there proved anything to me about how science works in relationship to determinism in proving its validity in philosophy far less science (if you dont strive towards sceince, you can't have a theory.)

how can you prove that just because something could be predicted that it is forced. you can predict an outcome of an experiment, but you did not make it so. you didn't create things in order that they happened that way. therefor you don't know how it was done at the deepest level. this is not possible in determinism. determinism relies on the fact that everything moves and acts in the ways that humans see them. it IS either black or white to us. however determinism requires omniscients to be correct. so either humans can be omniscients or they can't. i don't believe they can.


the fight for either a deterministic or indeterministic view of choice holds back so many things that we can see. you can't say that its random at the levels we can observe in the stars, and you can't say its predictable in the levels you can see in an atom.

that being said, do you really believe that it ends there. we can take a step further, but its already pretty well known that we won't be able to observe things as small as they get.

the argument that random activity to humans says that even those random actions don't prove anything about free will is the same as saying the predictable actions don't either. you can't have one or the other. if something is random and can be predicted, then something that can be predicted COULD be random.

you're not disputing my points.

1. for determinism ( the philosopohy that everything has already happened in theory) to work, you would have to know EVERYTHING THERE IS TO KNOW (in the past and the future. if you don't know whats going to happen, you can't say it will happen as a human. unless humans can be all knowing.)

2. IF we can be all knowing, the argument that free will is attached to determinism or indeterminism would work. i won't dipute that.

3. determinism is saying that everything is here in front of our eyes. thusley can be related to science. i don't belive that myself, but then again i could be wrong. i feel like i discussed this earlier though.

i'm a Christian. i don't always act that way but i agree with it and feel that is how i should be.

i can see easily that if you break it down in terms of what we call science it can be so cut and dry. i mean if you believe that everything can be discovered and layed out on a graph by man then yeah, it could eventually be predicted. I don't see it that way. I see so much in math and science that has never pointed to humans ever being able to comprehend it all.

i know i'm obviously biased in my posts because of what i believe, but i never mentioned it until now.

technically free will comes down to whether or not we have a "soul" to me.

just as a poke at it, you can never prove everything through science as a human if you believe there is a limit to what we can know, store, and understand in our brains. if determinism relies on science as humans see it, it can't be right. if it relies on the fact that humans discovered math and science therefor everything must act in a certain way, it could deffinately be right. i don't believe that just because we've discovered these things it means that EVERYTHING acts this way.

overall i think that the system that we live in is so complex that to us, it doesn't have an effect on free will. as humans i think we have free will, thus we are responsible for our actions. viewing our world as omniscient, you could still see free will, just instantly. i do agree that we don't choose to have free will, but we have it in my opinoin, and what we do with is is our decision.

 

[Dyno_oz]

The infinite regress of self-causation can be solved.

Before we exist within a body and mind, we are outide of time and space, in an absolute state which could be called 'disembodied cessation'.

This state is unobserveable as it is free from attributes. At this point, the mental nature could be seen as 'emptiness'.

By mysterious processes, one wills oneself into existance, with an 'empty' mental nature N0. Mental processes begin.

At that point the regression begins. One builds their own mental habits by sensation and conditioning. Countless eons later, they are the person they are today, with mental nature N.

A person can return to 'disembodied cessation' by working towards an 'empty' mental nature.

Eventually, by their own efforts, a person reaches 'emptiness' - in sync with 'disembodied cessation'. Mental processes stop. When they die, they cease to exist in time and space.

This shows that one can indeed cause themselves to exist, and cause themselves to no longer exist. The infinite regress is a misconception, as we are in 'eternity' - outside of time and space - before and after we exist.

This shows we are responsable for who we are and free will is true.