Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
What a vague statement . . .
ok, so here is the deal
it appears to me that this conversation is revolving more around the nature of what it means for a will to be "free".
However, I would argue that the neuroscience of human action and decision making processes require us to redefine what it means to have a "will", and in fact, given that most of our preperation to act and internal motivations/thoughts/feelings/consciousness are built in a bottom up way by parts of the brain that we are never aware of, the concept of will and volition that will arise is one that philosophical freedom is no longer applicable to.
It is like asking a series of dominos if they have free will. Sure, we could argue about potential choices that the dominos could make and whether the deterministic qualities of dominos themselves make a multitude of choices akin to freedom, but ultimatly, them mechanisms by which the actions of dominos are governed are not congruent with the ideas of freedom.
Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Weren't you just having a discussion about the problem of coming up with useless definitions?
god, welcome to every neuroscience seminar this term....
basically, we have a language built on enlightenment ideas of self that do not hold up to science. Eastern philosophy is a little better at some aspects, but also generally limited.
The only way for me to communicate anything of meaning to you about the brain and human action is through meaningless abstractions, because we don't know enough yet
its ok, i might post it, its just LATE and I'd rather be doing anything but...
its for a neuropsych seminar, but instead of expanding on a concept, I'm discussing the complete social/moral vacuum that scientists seem to think they do research in and how modern psych/neuroscience can and is abused by power systems...
its actually ok though, just you know, totally not what I was supposed to do
Ryan
Having a variety of choices allowed does not preclude the idea that you will definitely only choose one of them because of a multitude of factors which lead up to this point.
my problem is solved.
Want a Cookie?
basically, we have a language built on enlightenment ideas of self that do not hold up to science. Eastern philosophy is a little better at some aspects, but also generally limited.
Originally posted by Red Nemesis
inimalist, do you have an idea about a solution to this problem?
not really...
so like, I could talk about colour information getting to the optic tactum and influencing the FEF indapendent of V1 activation, and in fact, producing behaviour to visual stimuli that the aware part of the brain is never conscious of. This is the basic theory behind blind sight.
But like, even that is simplified, and I know it means nothing to people who don't have the requisite knowledge. Its like someone trying to explain a car to me, even if you simplify it, I barely understand.
Its really bad to, like, I have a better than average Undergrad education (I had some perks from working as an RA), but because of the areas that I have specialized in versus some of my profs, even ones that study perception, I would know far more about the most recent research on, say, the path from retina to LGN to V1 than they would.
neuroscience lacks something like "newtonian physics" or "quantum physics" or whatever, there is no real discoursive framework to try and explain how things work. It makes being in the field exciting, but the amount of times I've read a results section and just started laughing because of how messed up (as in, holy shit how did they get such unexpected results) they have been.
But all this hinges on the fact that science would inform how people believe about the "self", which is laughable in the first place. People are way more likely to look to Chopra than Gazzaniga for answers to this, so the conversation scientists are having and the one regular folk are will almost certainly move further and further apart.
Originally posted by inimalist
ok, so here is the dealit appears to me that this conversation is revolving more around the nature of what it means for a will to be "free".
However, I would argue that the neuroscience of human action and decision making processes require us to redefine what it means to have a "will", and in fact, given that most of our preperation to act and internal motivations/thoughts/feelings/consciousness are built in a bottom up way by parts of the brain that we are never aware of, the concept of will and volition that will arise is one that philosophical freedom is no longer applicable to.
It is like asking a series of dominos if they have free will. Sure, we could argue about potential choices that the dominos could make and whether the deterministic qualities of dominos themselves make a multitude of choices akin to freedom, but ultimatly, them mechanisms by which the actions of dominos are governed are not congruent with the ideas of freedom.
While interesting I think it's worth point out that even Relativity, which fundamentally uprooted physics, didn't necessitate changing our vocabulary.
There's the old concept of "Lies To Children" that you have to keep in mind. While the mind, will and self may not be real as far as neuroscience is concerned but in everyday conversation that is irrelevant.
In fact you summed it up nicely:
Originally posted by inimalist
But all this hinges on the fact that science would inform how people believe about the "self", which is laughable in the first place. People are way more likely to look to Chopra than Gazzaniga for answers to this, so the conversation scientists are having and the one regular folk are will almost certainly move further and further apart.
Trying to force lay language to fit the language of science is futile, even moreso than creating a "logical language". It also strikes me as a really scary path to go down.
quote in the OP is right.
I have the choice to go to work and earn some bread, or to stay home and play some CoD6! But my son and wife and pets starve if i do the latter, so i MUST go to work. S'not a choice at all really. On this world in this life, freewill has it's limits, physical constraints. Need cash. Need medical care, need food, need stimulation, we need to much not to get locked into a routine of mundane tasks that while - go against what we actually would like to be accomplishing - go towards feeding those physical restraints.
If you get what i mean.
Originally posted by Bardock42If there is only one possible outcome there's no choice involved. For there to be choice there'd have to be some sort of, as of yet not understood, or metaphysical thing that could go either way. At least that's how it is if you define free will and choice as opposed to determinism. I am sure you could define choice in different ways, perhaps the way you did, but to what end would you do that?
There's also a few discussions on free will here already, I am sure, maybe you should have done a search.
For free will not to exist, life would be reduced to a movie script; excuse the pun. Who's living your life, if not yourself?