Is Free Will an illusion?
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My worry stems from the fact that you were reading the Daily Mail in the first place! If other papers and journals ran the story, you should quote them. They would have done it much more succinctly. I mean, what was that 'folk science' bullshit all about?
Well I read about the topic in G2 today (The Guardian) and it was mentioned in a tiny paragraph as a "brain bender". I was intrigued, and consequently ran a google search.OurGloriousLeader said:
If you want a really boring version:
http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/106/3/623
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/aug/28/mindovermatter
Can't be arsed reading long articles or writing huge rants this late at night. So how's about I just sum up an answer to the topic question? OK!
Free will exists, but this free will is ultimately crippled. Whether it's from outside sources or deep within your own brain.
Free will exists, but this free will is ultimately crippled. Whether it's from outside sources or deep within your own brain.
See, that G2 article was much, much better. It discussed the limits of the scientific experiment, and didn't even try to find the answer. I demand that you delete the Mail quote and replace it with this! Maybe just the experiment paragraph for those too lazy to read.
When you think about free will you have to factor in something called predestination, if you don't know what that is, then it is the belief that it is determined whether or not you will go to hell (no I'm not throwing religious crap in here). What I'm basically about to say is that you either have free will, or everything you do is already predetermined-you have no real control over your actions since they are decided anyway. You can't really prove either one, though.
OK, so we're learning about Paradise Lost in my English class, which has to do with free will and what not. Our argument is whether or not free will exists, or are your actions predetermined (i.e. one knows what will happened, but the course you take is undetermined, which constitutes free will)
My English teacher (to illustrate to us free will and the concept of predestination) told us about how he would put something like a Snickers Bar on a stool in the middle of a room, and have a bunch of other candy lying around the room elsewhere. He would then tell his son, "Ok, you can eat any piece of candy in that room, you just can't eat the Snickers Bar." Then he would go away to watch what his son would do. He KNEW his son would take the Snickers, and he basically was proving the point that everything is predetermined, but what happens along the way is free will.
Of course, his son would take the Snickers, at which point he would jump out and be like "Aha! I caught you!" lol but anyway, I don't think you can prove that free will does or does not exist, so I would stay away from that argument. Well, I mean, say you think free will exists. How are you gonna go about proving that? You could just say, you have no control of your actions, that's all predetermined. You can't prove that either. It's just this really big chicken or the egg thing, which leads me to all these philosophical though processes that make me wonder "Why are we here?" (Which believe me guys, if you sit there and think about it, you will hurt yourself and you will never again understand why you do anything). It's fun though to.
OK, so we're learning about Paradise Lost in my English class, which has to do with free will and what not. Our argument is whether or not free will exists, or are your actions predetermined (i.e. one knows what will happened, but the course you take is undetermined, which constitutes free will)
My English teacher (to illustrate to us free will and the concept of predestination) told us about how he would put something like a Snickers Bar on a stool in the middle of a room, and have a bunch of other candy lying around the room elsewhere. He would then tell his son, "Ok, you can eat any piece of candy in that room, you just can't eat the Snickers Bar." Then he would go away to watch what his son would do. He KNEW his son would take the Snickers, and he basically was proving the point that everything is predetermined, but what happens along the way is free will.
Of course, his son would take the Snickers, at which point he would jump out and be like "Aha! I caught you!" lol but anyway, I don't think you can prove that free will does or does not exist, so I would stay away from that argument. Well, I mean, say you think free will exists. How are you gonna go about proving that? You could just say, you have no control of your actions, that's all predetermined. You can't prove that either. It's just this really big chicken or the egg thing, which leads me to all these philosophical though processes that make me wonder "Why are we here?" (Which believe me guys, if you sit there and think about it, you will hurt yourself and you will never again understand why you do anything). It's fun though to.
...but I did.D_987 said:
I demonstrated an alternative course of action that everyone could take... not to undermine the thread, but to champion free will.
I don't know if what i'm about to say makes any sense but deal with it. You can make yourself do things that will bring you pain and know that it will bring you pain. Say you touch a hot pan or heater a few times, it hurts doesn't it. Now under normal circumstances you probably wouldn't do so again unless you're into pain or extremely thick, right. The thing is that you can still do it if you wanted to even though you know that it brings pain and pain is bad. You can do whatever you want even though you will be telling yourself nooooooooooo. Like i said before this probably doesn't make any sense but i've never thought about this before and just thought it up on the spot. I usually have to ponder a question like this for at least a few months if i am to come up with a decent response or answer. I apologize if this makes no sense.D_987 said:
I can see why you think that, but actually you've got it the wrong way around.D_987 said:
Consciousness, the "voice in your head" if you like, just reports the results of your real, hidden, mind. This is so it can 'go into memory'.
This hidden mind, consists of many layers and aspects, you could call it the Subconscious, but what most regard as the Subconscious is just a deep layer of the mind which yields urges, etc. so the terminology is not a perfect fit.
The aspects of the hidden mind operate 'in parallel', giving you "many minds". The layers then filter out the dominant voice from this mess and you get the impression that the thoughts you are thinking are newly, decisively, created when in fact they lag behind.
You cannot use determinism against a process that exhibits non-linear dynamics (i.e. chaos theory) and which is based in part on quantum indeterminacy - i.e. if you cannot observe the initial conditions and even if you could some predictions would succumb to 'the butterfly effect' and diverge into inaccuracy.
I still didn't read the OP, but I hope that stimulates the discussion.
I'm not quite sure what you're trying to say, here? To clear up the chance of misinterpretation, I've been defining "conscious thought" as the process of thinking things in words, and "subconscious thought" as those vague, wordless concepts that appear, epiphany-style, from your brain. Since words are the only thoughts we have actual, conscious control over, I think that this is the intended definition?D_987 said:
Conscious thought is useful for conveying our intentions, feelings, and decisions to others. It allows us to put our emotions into words; internally, it has little use. This is not a complicated concept. If conscious thought is internal language, and the purpose of language is communication with others, the reason that we interpret our feelings with language would be..?
The only way to determine if there is free will would be to competely understand the brain, to competely understand the brain you would have to understand every electron, proton and atom in the brain and how they react with one each other. To understand that PERFECTLY you would have to understand every force that may interact or change these reactions which could be anything from solar flares, electromantic waves and any other force that could alter the outcome no matter how small the change(even if the change was like 10 to the power of
-100000000000000000). Then you would have to determine what affects these forces so that you know how it affects those forces. This cycle would continue until we came to a force beyond our understanding(it would be equal to explaining Nuclear Physics to a cockroach... we just couldn't fathom it). At that point we would have to accept the fact that things are truely random chance and can't be completely figured out.
-100000000000000000). Then you would have to determine what affects these forces so that you know how it affects those forces. This cycle would continue until we came to a force beyond our understanding(it would be equal to explaining Nuclear Physics to a cockroach... we just couldn't fathom it). At that point we would have to accept the fact that things are truely random chance and can't be completely figured out.