Do we have free will?

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I'm not making a false dichotomy. If I have a bit of free will, however the logical or material mechanics allow it to be so, then I have free will. If I don't, whatever the logical or material etc mechanics are, then I don't. I grant my rhetoric may have exagerrated the 'strength' of the predetermined, but free will remains a dichotomy.

Your assumption that free will is 'now a scientific question' presumes that it is something open to being framed and understood in whatever our present understanding and conception of applicable science is. It begs the question. William James called this the 'psychologist's fallacy' - the idea that what is to be understood about a phenomena is whatever a given experiment about said phenomena discovered.

Is anyone ever aware of any processes in their brain? I don't experience anything like that. The phenomenology of my conscious life is not made up of brain processes. At best, I may read some research that suggests a given brain state is associated with, say, sadness. Next time I'm sad I may think, oh, this is probably brain state x'. That's still not the same as being aware of it, as I am aware that I am typing, but is something more akin to an imaginative effort.

Hopper they have have fMRI experiments proving that decisions can be predicted before awareness of a choice.

Self is a function of the brain. Metaphysics is redundant. It has not produced predictive models, which is what really counts.

Free will does not exist, except in an relativist "minds eye" way.

Our evolution, chaos, environmental factor all go into brain activity.

This has nothing to do with morality though. We still make choices and have to take responsibility for them as part of society. The lack of free will is not a get out jail card.

Doctrines like to have their cake and eat it too. They have free will when it suits and determinism when it doesn't. However this is not a meaningful explanation.

The 'proof' is one based on certain metaphysical assumptions and question-begging.

There's always metaphysics, just as there's always philosophy. It's just sometimes these things aren't noticed, and are thought to be part and parcel of 'Science' or 'Just How Things Are'. The set up of a scientific enquiry makes certain metaphysical assumptions, and the interpretation of those results do so even more.

Morality relies on free will. That is, agency. Otherwise it makes no more sense for me to be held morally responsible for my shooting Jimmy James than one would gravity or the weather if a piece of stone masonry worked loose in a storm, fell and caved his head in as he walked by. Both, apparently, are the results of deterministic physical processes.

How do you distinguish between free will and our being able to make choices? My point is that, precisely, we can and do make choices. We can choose one thing where/but we could have another.

As I once heard it put - such a view would have us think that there is no difference between researching and writing a book on epilepsy, and suffering an epileptic seizure.

(Of course, the idea that others can meaningfully decide whether or not I'm morally responsible for James's death, or that we can meaningfully debate the matter, rely on an assumption of us having free will).

The most important thing about any discipline of "truth", is if it has predictive capability. If it hasn't demonstrated that its models are not comparable modeling reality.

Predictive capability is the cornerstone of the study of nature. It is really that simple.

Anything else it more an internal game. It can influence the brain positively in some cases, but it is not a study of truth or nature.

Last edited by 0_equals_true on 08 Feb 2016, 3:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Not absolute free will. The standard we follow in a society is your personaility is you. You chose to kill Jimmy James. You may well kill again. You will be tried for the crime.

However we are all subject to chaos, much has gone into you makeup. However it is your self that we judge.

If someone in not compos mentis that means they are not aware. You are aware, you can make decisions.

Lack of absolute or single source determinism doesn't mean you have absolute free will. However absolute or single source determinism negates free will.

Unless of course you are a Deist, so intervention is not constant.

But I didn't choose. I was always going to kill Jimmy James. It is written into the playing out of existence. The playing out of existence may well include there being what we understand as a society which has laws and which will punish me for the matter. Frankly, at this level of thought it makes no sense to refer to me or Jimmy or the act of killing.

That is not the same thing as my having chosen to kill poor Jimmy, nor society reflecting on the matter and choosing to (rightly) hold me morally responsible.

If I could have not killed Jimmy, if I could have chosen otherwise, I have free will.

A part of the brain associated with intention of movement showing activity before a decision is consciously made does not negate free will, outside of certain assumptions and definitions and parameters and interpretations, all of which are up for debate - that would be philosophy, as is deciding what is and isn't 'science'. There is, as yet, no room for intentionality or awareness in the brain. My senses are not a photographic plate or recording device onto which any amount of sense-data is projected by the world. Rather, I can discern and decide what and how to look at and listen to what is around me. Indeed, that I can look and listen - both are intentional.

I am not arguing for any sort of dualism, lest that be thought. I am arguing that, at least at present, matters remain open.

That is pre-determinsim. I don't buy into that.

I'm pointing out the fact that neurologically your self is a function of your frontal lobe and other parts. That is you.

The brain activity happens before you are aware of it, however you are making choices in your mind.

You've lost me. I can't parse what you're saying or what you think. It seems both contradictory and circular. I probably disagree.

Your life is not predetermined or written out for you. It is not absolute free will, just relative free will.

This is the best explanation based on neurology, it is not circular at all. Metaphysics doesn't relate to neurological models, it comes personality trait of subjective understanding such as from schizotypal spectrum (broader than schizotypal disorder).

I formulated a theory about this before I was aware of Robert Sapolsky
https://philosophyandpsychology.wordpre ... otypalism/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WwAQqWUkpI

I don't think schizotypal spectrum is either abnormal or "bad", I should be clear. It is a normal variation in neurology, than can intersect.

As far as you are concerned you are making choices, however your "self" resides in your brain frontal lobe largely.

Just be on a micro level quite a lot goes into that brain activity, doesn't mean you can claim you don't have responsibility for your actions as far as society is concerned. It wouldn't be practical to do that. We judge people on their actions, which is down to personality (which can have genetic and developmental aspects). Of course mental illness can be mitigating, because it can affect your awareness.

There is very little you can say is absolute anyway, it is all relative. Morality itself is relative.

I'm going to try this a different way.

Proposition: what I eat at dinner tonight, how I eat it, and what time I finish was decided at the big bang.


If that's a naive assumption what details or arguments destroy it?

Hang on - is this a trick question where it turns out you're really, really old and you've always organised your eating habits by an unbreakable routine?

It's a test to see whether this thread is actually a discussion on free will vs. determinism or whether it's implicitly a religious belief poll and perhaps I was too aspie to read between the lines.

I wonder if a majority of agnostics/atheists are on the deterministic side of things? I suspect religious folk generally believe that god gave them free-will to decide good versus evil for themselves.

A soul seems a pretty easy way to slip free will into what otherwise seems a deterministic universe, though it comes with its own denomination-dependent difficulties.

I'm (apathetically) agnostic, though atheist in practise. I believe in free will.

(techstepgenr8tion & 0_equals_true - I got too tired to work on deeper, thoughtful replies)

I wasn't necessarily aiming at what you were saying - it just seemed like everyone was saying 'I believe' but not really debating or questioning back and forth. I also rather sadly can't tell whether people understand my posts or not because it seems like they'd be just as likely to ignore them either way; sometimes I really have to push buttons to even get constructive criticism and see if my thoughts are worth anything.

My problem with the soul inserting anything is that it's operating within time. To me if it's operating in what we understand as time it's in our chain of causality and it has to deal with our chain of causality.

I figure that if I could grab five minutes of my life, replay it as many times as I like and have no environmental, chemical, or any other queues to do anything differently then I'd do not only roughly the same thing every time but never more precisely again in my life than on rewind and replay of that five minutes.

For a soul to jump in and change something - would my karma be any different during any of those five minute replays if my behavior and thoughts are carbon-copy identical? Would my higher self or HGA (Holy Guardian Angel) want to suddenly, on replay of the exact same me, decide to pursue a different agenda on replay 5,120,692 when it's dealing with precisely the same working ingredients in the same exact state? The last question becomes particularly interesting if you view reincarnation from the standpoint of the alchemical Great Work - ie. would a chemist want to throw an acid on a reagent before they've properly formed that reagent?

thank you for the welcome auntblabby i found it interesting in regard to intelligence and savantism so much we don't know neurologically!

just did a little more research the man i mentioned he was using vedic maths tricks it was aired on the history channel in the uk i hate that the supposed factual part of tv discovery etc has become entertainment/fiction.

if you search stan lees superhuman the whole series is a fraud from what i can tell more fantasy like the comics with the intended view as factual just plain old smoke and mirrors illusion

i would class myself agnostic not truly an atheist but was brought up religious.



In science everything has a half life it's all about decay when it comes to biology, this goes out of the window as we interact with carcinogens, that damage can shorten that half life further creating cancer/illness which would increase the amount of decay which ends in biological death the half life.

how the above has relevance

Do a simple thought experiment, everything has a half life it degrades so you eat food, if you stay still you're not depleting energy your life is probably not at risk unless you keep eating food and don't exercise then the risk could be heart attack eventually disease that risk is pre determined and down to dna and how robust it is.

Now go to the gym and work to burn off the meal in calories, you become hungry again energy has been lost you get hit by a car going to get some food to replenish the lost energy now, was the way your body uses energy the cause of your death or was it free will, consciousness/freewill is just a biological process of cause and effect.


or alternatively you send someone else to get the food and they get killed

Or because of previous interactions in life they know how to cross a road safely, but then someone shouts their name they get distracted crossing the road and killed, if it was not for this interaction they would have lived this interaction only took place because a previous interaction happened they made friends previously/cause so in effect it's all cause and effect.
think newtons cradle.

just like how sound reverberates or throwing a pebble in still water creates waves

so both could result in death

it's either free will is predetermined and entirely illusionary because we only have the present moment to live in which seems like free will and seems like you're making choices but in effect you're not, morality is learned by interactions with other peoples opinions your biology/dna determines your personality/self via interaction.

if you're evaluating the future outcome by living in the present and evaluating the past to determine future outcome it makes you think free will is illusionary if your belief that is that of pre determinism.

i personally have never found a way to resolve this, so freewill or not it's pointless even trying to think about it and becomes a point of procrastination, life happens if you like it or not, i'm quite content with this view some people will find it disconcerting .