Determinism vs Free Will
 

I was discussing this with a friend the other day. His point was that the brain is governed by physical laws which determine sequences of physical events in the brain. Mental thoughts ride in tandem with such neural activity but it is the physics which does the work, therefore we are effectively automatons lacking Free Will. I know that sounds pretty bad, but we are saved by being extremely complex systems, and as such we behave in a way that we can say we are individuals with distinct characteristics and personalities. I think I'd have to agree with him in the end.

Is Flint your friend? :)

I'm afraid I don't really know Flint, and I've certainly never met him IRL. I take it he's a Determinist then...?

And yet, you instinctively want to compare ideas and/or convince us of our lack of free will. If you truly believed we all had no free will, you would view this conversation as meaningless: each of us would already be biologically predisposed to agree with you, or not. In a deterministic outlook, how does one categorize that inherent urge to spread your internal physics to others?

In any situation my reaction can be a myriad of possibilities, but being a reasonably sane person would narrow them down to ones of my benefit.
Those few are further narrowed by the society I live in down to at most two or three.
So it's modified free choice unless I'm at the point where I'm mad as hell and hand grenade time.

I don't personally believe this conversation is meaningless, but I suppose I would never have had it if I hadn't spoken to my friend about it. There is a causal chain which links back to that prior event. Its' memory popped into my mind when I was thinking of what thread I could start on here, which was also part of a causal chain. The thing about free will is it requires that thoughts can 'come out of thin air' and become physical actions, but there is currently no physical evidence or scientific theory which can support that as far as I'm aware. The urge to spread ideas I would say is a psychological trait, but when you get down to the nitty gritty perhaps psychology can be reduced to physics. For example, when we are using a computer program such as a word processor we see a piece of paper on a screen containing text, but underpinning that are binary code operations in the computer's processor.


Sanity and social norms certainly moderate our behaviour. But I think the deterministic argument is saying that everything moderates our behaviour, to the extent that ultimately we don't have any choice.

Right... My question is what happens to the determinist who becomes "self aware" of his determinism. You say you brought up the topic because of a cause-and-effect chain--but *knowing* that fact inherently alters the chain. It's not about "what made you do X," it's about "what is STILL making you do X now that you know what made you do X?"

You want to convince me of determinism, right? But as a determinist, you have to believe that whether I will agree with you is preordained by the chain of events that led ME here. Determinism, in this case, means the outcome you desire has nothing to do with you, and everything to do with me. You can't actually have any effect on me, because I'm already primed for the outcome I always would have had. A true determinist has no reason to bother interacting with anyone. And yet you are--which means either determinism isn't real, or else you don't really believe in it like you think you do.

Chicken and the egg

chickegg. Now what?

I can't really see how anything you've said is an argument against determinism. Whether I believe myself to be a determinist or not does not in my view change the fact of the matter. I like to think of myself as a free agent, but that's not to say that I actually am. People often hold beliefs which are false or contradictory. And subconscious thought processes can sometimes be the true drivers of behaviour, despite our conscious attributions. I don't like the implications of determinism, but I have mentioned it here because it seems to be a strong argument. I'm happy to hear counter-arguments and I'm prepared to be convinced that I'm wrong.

It's mental exercise. Thinking about something with a brain you've constructed out of things you've eaten, heard, and seen... It all goes around in a circle. The choices you made about what to eat hear and see led to the thoughts you think. But the choice was influenced by the result of previous choices.....

Tasting your own tongue.

We have Free Will granted by God and nothing can change that.
http://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/...out-Free-Will/

I no longer subscribe to Christian mythology.

I'm sorry.

Evolution instructs animals, and us, how to behave by having many generations succeed or fail. Animals are bound within that structure and do not have much free will. But humans then evolved a new trick: we imagine and play out different outcomes in our heads, without having to actually experience them.

~ it is why we write fiction and enjoy compelling stories; we are fulfilling evolutionary destiny ~

This was such an advance that humans immediately had a tremendous advantage, and were then able to survive and thrive on every location on earth

Free will is built in, it's part of the design. But the evolutionary lower levels still exist within us; and so, without realizing it, we are bound to use our free will to fulfill the same evolutionary goals as every other beast: survive, reproduce the dna, eat and drink, have comfort, raise the young, build tribes, kill the opposing tribes.

that was a little unclear. we can change our behavior based on our imagined outcomes, that is what is new to humans. It is freer will, really, if not exactly free will

Animals can't conceive of the option to end their existence either. Well most.... Whales do it rarely. And we do it more.

That's the proof of free will being a thing.

I like the contention that if you believe in quantum mechanics and the uncertainty principle, you can't really believe in determinism.

Nice.

I guffawed.

The fact that we have a mental life and are capable of conceptual thought, including suicide, does not I believe rule out determinism per se. As well as responding to and acting upon environmental cues, our conceptual abilities can be considered as internal functions of the brain. The central issue is that the brain is governed by physical laws, and by implication it is the brain which is the driver of behaviour, and not the mind.

As far as I am aware, neuronal activity is still considered to operate at the macro level of physics. I haven't heard of any evidence of quantum mechanics being involved.

I'd turn to page 57.

Not directly. Indirectly, via quantum theory, they're working on it...

NOTE: Even the subtopic below, from the article on Quantum Cognition is too long to reproduce in its entirety here; so, I took a little from the beginning and from the end. END NOTE.

How many variables would you say this device has? Even relatively simple outcomes are not easily predictable. Complex outcomes are nearly indecipherable.
If we understood every physical law of the universe, a full-physics simulation of even a single biochemical reaction would be quite a technological feat.

How many variables go into the decision of what to make for breakfast?

That reminds me of an old math joke, for which you may disregard the inherent cis- and hetero-normative aspects, if you would like to enjoy it

Two dudes, one a mathematician and the other an engineer, are lined up on one wall of a room, and on the opposite wall is a beautiful lady. They are told to advance toward the lady by half the distance separating them every ten seconds, and when they reach her, they will receive a kiss.

The mathematician says, "According to Zeno's paradox, after one move I will be 1/2 as close; then, 1/4 as close; then 1/8 as close; but I will never actually reach her, because the series will be infinite."

The engineer says, "In about a minute I will be close enough for all practical purposes."

(free will = for all practical purposes)

For all practical purposes = Good enough for me = I'm willing to compromise = Close enough for horseshoes and hand grenades = That's a gimme = dozens of other expressions of being practical especially when it's to your own advantage.

But there is no time where you can know all the possible things affecting the situation.
You can only go with what you know and keep track of the emergency exits.

I think the crux of the issue is this--

Asking "does free will exist" is not a practical purpose.

It's not meant to be pragmatic, or a 'guide to behavior/making choices'-- it's an immaterial absolute. But insomuch as absolute truths exist, they don't care what their effect on an individual's personal philosophies would be. That's my whole soapbox on this-- I can't intellectually reconcile a universe that doesn't have logical parameters.

That's my little focus, itself just a culmination of nature/nurture/free will/divine intervention/subconscious impulses/effort and discipline/quantum fluctuations/what I ate for breakfast

It can have logical parameters and free will.
It may be like a giant fun-house with set openings and obstacles that are constant, but you get to choose how to navigate them and it.

Something is wrong when you get that many balls in the front tray.