free will

[DanielBrown]

From a science magazine I read a few years ago they made an article about free will. As I recall it the conclusion was that we probably don't have free will. Believe the reasoning for that being that the signals that control our actions come before we actually think of doing them.

Tossed all those magazines out just the other day, unfortunetly. This is the article, though it's in Swedish and they want you to register to read it, which I can't be arsed to do:
http://illvet.se/manniskan/var-fria-vilja-kan-vara-en-illusion

 

[Yopaz]

So lets say that you're right and genes, experience, and surroundings completely dictate every action a person makes.

In theory that would mean that since a parent has the same genes as their child, and shares their child's surroundings, and knows all of their child's experiences up to a certain age (lets say it's a stay at home parent with a single child, and the child doesn't go to school yet), then that parent should be able to predict that child's behavior with 100% accuracy.

Talk to any parent in the world and they will all tell you that children are unpredictable as hell.

Bam, free will.

Actually each person (even twins) have a different genetic composition and their own unique DNA, recombination means we have no way of predicting what we'll transfer, environment is definitely different for my nieces and nephews than for me despite my sister living close to where we both grew up so of course they won't be the same as her.

OT: Genetic determinism is quite silly and is actually coming more from people who don't understand genetics. Some traits are relatively simple to determine, but we make a distinction between phenotypic effect and genetic effect. Now I am writing this on an iPad so I don't want to go into detail because typing is a pain, but physical traits are too complex to boil it down to simple genetics, and even simple genetics and simple physical traits linked to them is incredibly complex on its own. Using data we have about genes we can still be wrong in estimating how tall a person can be because the genetic expression depends on too many factors.

Applying genetics in the question of free will is utterly pointless because genes depend on too many factors to be deterministic. Maybe we have free will, maybe we don't, we have the ability to define free will and definitions are pointless because they're applied to pretty narrow situations. We can define free will in a way to make it something we can never have. Free will? Human concept of no real use.

 

[PromethianSpark]

If we don't have free will, that means we know everything that will happen, when they happen, and have our actions already pre-destined for others actions. This means, that we would all be psychic. I'm not Psychic. You are not Psychic. Nobody is Psychic.

Sorry, but where did this idea come from? Really? How exactly does not having free will give us prior knowledge of all our future actions, and the actions of others? How does this even translate into being psychic where it true?

I really think you need to rethink your argument here, as it makes no sense at all.

 

[Vale]

no

Oh, wait that will get me banned.
Whether there is or is not free will (quantum science allows for probabilistic free will technically, which is almost as good as actual free will), a person's personal belief in it will determine their ability to act and change things around themselves.
In other words:
It doesn't matter if it exists, but believing strongly in free will and that we all make our own destinies (believing in such a destiny is also useful) and that anyone that doesn't do the absolute maximum to make the best for themselves is just self-pitying and worthless, and that mental illness is a pathetic lie by pathetic people, is probably the most powerful sort of psychological acrobatics available to us as humans.
So if you don't believe in it, just lie to yourself until you do. It's actually, literally good for you, regardless of what you think.

(it's a lie)
(worth it though)
(like love)

 

[PromethianSpark]

OT: Genetic determinism is quite silly and is actually coming more from people who don't understand genetics. Some traits are relatively simple to determine, but we make a distinction between phenotypic effect and genetic effect. Now I am writing this on an iPad so I don't want to go into detail because typing is a pain, but physical traits are too complex to boil it down to simple genetics, and even simple genetics and simple physical traits linked to them is incredibly complex on its own. Using data we have about genes we can still be wrong in estimating how tall a person can be because the genetic expression depends on too many factors.

Applying genetics in the question of free will is utterly pointless because genes depend on too many factors to be deterministic. Maybe we have free will, maybe we don't, we have the ability to define free will and definitions are pointless because they're applied to pretty narrow situations. We can define free will in a way to make it something we can never have. Free will? Human concept of no real use.

Yes, Genetic determinism is a ridiculous idea, as are many of the deterministic arguments when you consider them in isolation. What makes them bad though, isn't the idea of determinism, but the idea that human behaviour is reducible to this single factor. A hypothetical synthesis of all these theories would have no such trouble in dispelling of free will, and accounting for the myriad complexities and variation of human life. Of course, such a theory is no doubt beyond our human intellect, but this does not mean that it isn't true.

 

[Lightknight]

Free will is merely the ability to choose between available options. Just because you are who you are because of your environment and your genes doesn't make you any less you. It is still YOU choosing amongst the options.

The discussion of you being made up of your environment and genes is totally separate from whether or not you have the ability to choose between options. It is just defining how "you" came to be.

Let's take AI for example. There is a difference between a robot who is programmed to perform a task and does, vs a robot who is programmed to learn and grow who then does and gains it's own personality accordingly.

 

[Single Shot]

Ah, Determinism Vs Freewill.

Let's look at this on a universal scale. If you replicated the universe atom by atom exactly the same right down to nuclear spins and energy states, then left the two alone for any amount of time, Determinism suggests that both universe would still be exactly the same as each other no matter how much they had changed, while Free Will suggests they would both have diverged down their own path's, which in turn suggests that one universe's basic laws are slightly altered in some way. Humans, as a mere construct of the universe should also follow those rules.


Determinism is a wonderful thing though because while it says the outcomes of every event are both predictable, or at least as predictable as a cluster of chaos systems can be, and fixed while still implying that as an individual my choices do matter to the whole since I don't know what their effect will be. I could skip class next, or I could go, what I do is already known because of what is going on around me, but because I don't know what has been determined it is still a decision I make.

Determined actions aren't based on genetics to any real extent in day-to-day life though. they're based on past actions, memories, knowledge, mood, emotion, and everything else. All that determinism states is that each thing will effect us the same way if experienced in the same conditions, and that because we can never get out of the same cycles our actions might as well be pre-determined, critically not that they are in fact pre-determined until we generate Psychohistory (look it up). Such a system could in theory be achieved only by generating a full map of the universe at the sub-atomic level (impossible) in a single yoctosecond (double impossible) using every law of nature, even the ones we don't know about or understand yet, (not quite impossible, but certainly extremely difficult to achieve on a universal scale) and any single change made to the physical world because of it would both be pre-determined, and break our model of the universe forcing us to remake the map again from scratch. Making the whole exercise impractical as well as impossible.

At the end of the day this debate comes down to weather you believe humans are just a construct of organic and inorganic molecules arranged in a form able to comprehend higher thinking and maintain the chemical balance needed for 'life', or if you think we are somehow special and able to exist on a plain higher than the physical world. I myself think we are purely physical constructs and thus believe in determinism.

If you want to read a nice long story loosely based around the challenges of free will Vs determinism I suggest the foundation series by Asimov. It deals with the potential ramifications of the deterministic system being fully understood, and how actions can seem like free will even if they have been predetermined. It does dive off the deep end in latter books though so be warned, it is still fundamentally sci-fi.

 

[spartan231490]

There is no scientific data either way. I believe in free will, but maybe it is all causality, thanks to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle the world may never know.

 

[Yopaz]

Yes, Genetic determinism is a ridiculous idea, as are many of the deterministic arguments when you consider them in isolation. What makes them bad though, isn't the idea of determinism, but the idea that human behaviour is reducible to this single factor. A hypothetical synthesis of all these theories would have no such trouble in dispelling of free will, and accounting for the myriad complexities and variation of human life. Of course, such a theory is no doubt beyond our human intellect, but this does not mean that it isn't true.

That was more or less directed to the OP's way of explaining it rather than at the question of free will, your logic on the other hand is flawless. My point is that the discussion is pointless because free will isn't anything but a concept defined by humans and we can easily apply a different definition to explain why we have/do not have free will.

There won't be any good studies of free will because it's an abstract concept.

From a science magazine I read a few years ago they made an article about free will. As I recall it the conclusion was that we probably don't have free will. Believe the reasoning for that being that the signals that control our actions come before we actually think of doing them.

Tossed all those magazines out just the other day, unfortunetly. This is the article, though it's in Swedish and they want you to register to read it, which I can't be arsed to do:
http://illvet.se/manniskan/var-fria-vilja-kan-vara-en-illusion

That's not a science magazine, it's a magazine that writes articles about science. You should also be hesitant to trust that magazine as it is written by freelance journalists rather than scientists. What they write isn't always things they understand or even correct. It's a magazine with the goal to sell copies meaning they focus on sensationalism and sometimes exaggerate some things. Just a heads up, the magazine is entertaining and it presents some ideas, but be careful to actually discuss using that as a source.

 

[GundamSentinel]

Free will is merely the ability to choose between available options. Just because you are who you are because of your environment and your genes doesn't make you any less you. It is still YOU choosing amongst the options.

Except that you're not actually choosing. You do one thing and under the exact same circumstances you will always do that same thing. Under different circumstances you might do something else, but if the circumstances were different, it wouldn't be the same 'choice' to begin with.

The discussion of you being made up of your environment and genes is totally separate from whether or not you have the ability to choose between options. It is just defining how "you" came to be.

How 'you' came to be is at the absolute core of the question. How 'you' came to be is exactly what decides the things you do under which circumstances. Having burned your fingers might make you not put them in the fire again. Knowing you like chocolate might make you eat it in the future. Generally it's not as obvious as that, but theoretically it can all be traced back.

Let's take AI for example. There is a difference between a robot who is programmed to perform a task and does, vs a robot who is programmed to learn and grow who then does and gains it's own personality accordingly.

Then again, it could easily be argued that having a robot learn and grow is just a different way of giving it instructions, and that in essence there is no difference at all. It's just that this time, it's the environment giving the instructions, not the programmer. After all, programming a robot to walk and letting it learn to walk by example give the same end result: a walking robot.

 

[PromethianSpark]

My point is that the discussion is pointless because free will isn't anything but a concept defined by humans and we can easily apply a different definition to explain why we have/do not have free will.

There won't be any good studies of free will because it's an abstract concept.

Quite

From a science magazine I read a few years ago they made an article about free will. As I recall it the conclusion was that we probably don't have free will. Believe the reasoning for that being that the signals that control our actions come before we actually think of doing them.

Tossed all those magazines out just the other day, unfortunetly. This is the article, though it's in Swedish and they want you to register to read it, which I can't be arsed to do:
http://illvet.se/manniskan/var-fria-vilja-kan-vara-en-illusion

That's not a science magazine, it's a magazine that writes articles about science. You should also be hesitant to trust that magazine as it is written by freelance journalists rather than scientists. What they write isn't always things they understand or even correct. It's a magazine with the goal to sell copies meaning they focus on sensationalism and sometimes exaggerate some things. Just a heads up, the magazine is entertaining and it presents some ideas, but be careful to actually discuss using that as a source.

Though this particular magazine might be disreputable, I am actually aware of this study and its results. It does produce some very damming evidence against free will. Not from a genetic or cause and effect perspective, but it seems to add to the idea that consciousness is only a small part of us, and probably an illusion as well.

That being said though, despite publishing the results, the scientist in question has publicly refused to accept its conclusions.

 

[Yopaz]

Though this particular magazine might be disreputable, I am actually aware of this study and its results. It does produce some very damming evidence against free will. Not from a genetic or cause and effect perspective, but it seems to add to the idea that consciousness is only a small part of us, and probably an illusion as well.

That being said though, despite publishing the results, the scientist in question has publicly refused to accept its conclusions.

I'm not questioning the article itself or the study. I'm simply telling him to question the validity of what he reads and take it for what it is. I find mistakes in a good deal of the articles in there or inaccuracies which can be forgiven, but it's also a subject to exaggerations.

Then there's the thing that even with an actual scientific article you have to question the quality because there are some amazing ones out there which aren't accepted by the majority of the experts in the field. Some turn out to be correct, a good deal never gain acceptance.

 

[DanielBrown]

Though this particular magazine might be disreputable, I am actually aware of this study and its results. It does produce some very damming evidence against free will. Not from a genetic or cause and effect perspective, but it seems to add to the idea that consciousness is only a small part of us, and probably an illusion as well.

That being said though, despite publishing the results, the scientist in question has publicly refused to accept its conclusions.

I'm not questioning the article itself or the study. I'm simply telling him to question the validity of what he reads and take it for what it is. I find mistakes in a good deal of the articles in there or inaccuracies which can be forgiven, but it's also a subject to exaggerations.

Then there's the thing that even with an actual scientific article you have to question the quality because there are some amazing ones out there which aren't accepted by the majority of the experts in the field. Some turn out to be correct, a good deal never gain acceptance.

I wasn't aware that I wrote that as a fact.
Further proof of free will being a lie!

 

[Flatfrog]

I am not going to elaborate on an absurd question like this, as there is no point. There is little chance to sway someone who so devotedly believes that free will doesn't exist that it actually does. Let them believe everything is "written in stone". I will be over here living my life to the fullest that I can.

That's a pretty dismissive attitude to one of the most debated philosophical questions of all time.

Care to explain why you're so sure that a huge proportion of people here are wrong?

 

[Jon Solmundson]

Woah, hey people slow down here.

You can't discount free-will, scientific backing or no, lest you want to destroy the fundamentals of society.

Human society posits on a tenuous agreement for us not to destroy or harm one another. For the most part anyway.

If you say there is no such thing as free-will, then a murderer's only possible course of action is to murder, hence what crime did they commit? None, since they were compelled to do it. So now there's no law, or if we can read people's genes we destroy them before they become a problem. Whoops, we're Nazis again.

Or, let me put it in less hypothetical terms. If we had no free will, there would be a method to perceive everyone's future actions. Should such a thing even potentially exist, the free market would have found it. It would be impossible to ignore. The potential for profit is too great.

You have free will, don't try to offload your responsibilities and achievements onto your ancestors. Your failures are your own, as are your successes.

 

[Phrozenflame500]

I don't believe in anything I don't have evidence for. Until we entirely understand the mechanics of consciousness and how it interacts with our thoughts I feel there is no way to prove anything in either direction.

I dislike philosophical questions like this because it entirely comes down to opinions and what people "feel" is right with no facts to back it up.

 

[Yopaz]

I wasn't aware that I wrote that as a fact.
Further proof of free will being a lie!

I wasn't really arguing against you, simply pointing out that you should be careful about what sources you cite. The magazine is good, but it's filled with mistakes and inaccuracies that makes it hard to take it completely seriously. I read it myself and I would recommend it to people interested in science, but just because it's easily digestible and entertaining. If I find something that I find interesting I check out the source material. Sometimes it's well reported, sometimes it isn't. That's the problem when it's written by freelancer journalists.

I am not going to elaborate on an absurd question like this, as there is no point. There is little chance to sway someone who so devotedly believes that free will doesn't exist that it actually does. Let them believe everything is "written in stone". I will be over here living my life to the fullest that I can.

That's a pretty dismissive attitude to one of the most debated philosophical questions of all time.

Care to explain why you're so sure that a huge proportion of people here are wrong?

The chicken and the egg is also one of the most debated philosophical debates despite the fact that we have a definite answer for that question. Or the falling tree when no-one is around to listen. The fact that it's widely debated doesn't mean it's actually a good subject. Although the free will is quite interesting.

 

[shirkbot]

-Mostly Snip-

At the end of the day this debate comes down to weather you believe humans are just a construct of organic and inorganic molecules arranged in a form able to comprehend higher thinking and maintain the chemical balance needed for 'life', or if you think we are somehow special and able to exist on a plain higher than the physical world. I myself think we are purely physical constructs and thus believe in determinism.

I'm responding to everything, but it's an interesting view so I kept it.

The universes will continue to be identical at the macro, physical level, but there's no way to prove that any organic life won't eventually diverge, and no way to absolutely determine what caused it.

I agree that humans are physical beings, but sometimes humans are arbitrary. Language, for example, has a specific quality called arbitrariness. There is nothing connecting the word "dog" to the physical creature. I think that if one of the most fundamental functions of human beings can have an arbitrary origin, it's hard to say that humans can't be arbitrary, and thus have free will.

Thirdly: Doesn't the entirety of most modern legal systems hinge upon the idea that people have free will? If they don't, if everything is going to fall into place eventually with no deviation, then how can you hold anyone accountable for anything? They committed the action, but they are just reacting to forces nobody can see, and so it's not their fault.

In the end, I don't think any of this matters because we can't really tell one way or the other. I like to think we have free will because it means people can be arbitrary, and thus make the world an interesting place, but there's really no way to prove it one way or the other.