Free Will

Originally posted by Mindship
Is 'free will' being equated with, 'I can do whatever I want - nah nah nah nah nah'?

No.
If you cannot chose something due to the fear of being ostracised by your community or loved ones, such as marrying into a different clan, 'race', ethnicity or religion then your free will is limited.

In a religious sense, if there is a free will indeed, religion is altogether pointless as well as God sending down messengers and prophets. Unless, of course, as I already stated, God gave us free will to use it as he commands us to.

Originally posted by lil bitchiness
Unless, of course, as I already stated, God gave us free will to use it as he commands us to.

Originally posted by Mindship
Perhaps, via 'free will', Man is God testing Himself.

I like that idea. I'll have to meditate on it a bit...but...interesting.

Neither randomness nor determinism allow for free will.

YouTube video
regardless the relativity of simultaneity means that in some sense we all lie in the past of some observer, the future of another. And if we lie in the past we are set in stone, as we know hitler is dead and einstein too, their fate set in stone by being in the past, we don't talk about the freedom of hitler to make different choices and win the war, his choices are immutable elements of our past, his loss a certainty.

Originally posted by En Sabah Nur X
Neither randomness nor determinism allow for free will.

regardless the relativity of simultaneity means that in some sense we all lie in the past of some observer, the future of another. And if we lie in the past we are set in stone, as we know hitler is dead and einstein too, their fate set in stone by being in the past, we don't talk about the freedom of hitler to make different choices and win the war, his choices are immutable elements of our past, his loss a certainty.

Or perhaps all of the possible pasts exist, but we only see the one that is connected by cause and effect to the our present.

Originally posted by Shakyamunison
Or perhaps all of the possible pasts exist, but we only see the one that is connected by cause and effect to the our present.

even if this were the case, free will is still problematic if you want acausal will intervening in physical reality. There are memories, there are real world considerations, and all aspects of behavior must in all likelyhood accounted by brain activity, the brain is governed by physical laws.

Originally posted by En Sabah Nur X
even if this were the case, free will is still problematic if you want acausal will intervening in physical reality. There are memories, there are real world considerations, and all aspects of behavior must in all likelyhood accounted by brain activity, the brain is governed by physical laws.

I don't believe in free will.

Originally posted by Shakyamunison
Punishment for crimes (or sin) seems to be in conflict with free will.

If we have free will, then society as a whole is capable of deciding that certain acts are wrong and warrant punishment. If we don't have free will, then neither does society and any "choices" it makes about right and wrong are as inevitable as the wrong-doers committing those acts.

From every argument I've seen the only possiblity for "true" free will is if it comes by means of our consciousness being capable of existing outside of the laws that seem to govern the Universe, somehow allowing us to have an effect, i.e. a choice, without any causation. Otherwise the very atoms that make us up were destined to be a part of us from the time of the Big Bang or however it is that we originated. Their energy and velocity determined their course, save any minute random chance as quantum theory applies, and we are who we were always going to be.

It's interesting though, because if that's the case those who believe in God can't help but believe, those who believe in gods can't help but believe, those who believe this life is all there is can't help but believe as they do. My $0.02.

We have to define what we mean with free will in and the framework which it applies in. The ability to choose isn't specific enough, you have to define what a choice is. Because at a microscopic level your consciousness is just a network of electrochemical signals, there's no intangible over-mind that keeps track and analyze these signals, they analyze themselves. But of course questions like: "You've already made the choice." may affect the outcome of that choice. So you can't see the question as an external factor to test it.

That said, the current model of quantum field model has very little to do with the subject.

It has to do with the fact that aside from random occurence the present state of all atoms was determined as soon as the Universe came into being. It is not amazing that we are on the third rock from the sun, sentient and having discussions about philosophy; it was completely inevitable and set on course in those first moments.

the debate doesn't even need to get to the level of physics.

scientists can look at fMRI images and know what choices you are going to make before you do. This means your brain has already determined your choices before "you" become aware of them, the conscious "you" has no control over them.

Similarly, the motor system has already planned and prepared your body to perform an action before you become motivated to do it. The "free-will" that "you" might have, in the light of modern neuroscience, is incredibly limited, and really amounts to decisions to stop actions, themselves almost certainly determined preconsciously, meaning you really aren't in control of these decisions either.

Originally posted by Ascendancy
It has to do with the fact that aside from random occurence the present state of all atoms was determined as soon as the Universe came into being.

Originally posted by Ascendancy
It is not amazing that we are on the third rock from the sun, sentient and having discussions about philosophy; it was completely inevitable and set on course in those first moments.

Originally posted by inimalist
scientists can look at fMRI images and know what choices you are going to make before you do.

Originally posted by inimalist
This means your brain has already determined your choices before "you" become aware of them, the conscious "you" has no control over them.

Originally posted by inimalist
Similarly, the motor system has already planned and prepared your body to perform an action before you become motivated to do it. The "free-will" that "you" might have, in the light of modern neuroscience, is incredibly limited, and really amounts to decisions to stop actions, themselves almost certainly determined preconsciously, meaning you really aren't in control of these decisions either.

Originally posted by Astner
That's not how functional magnetic resonance image mapping works.

Unless you're doing an experiment specifically to test that kind of thing.

In fact you don't even need a fMRI to recreate Libet's experiments, he did it with an EEG. Neurological precursors to action occur before the conscious feeling of deciding.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Unless you're doing an experiment specifically to test that kind of thing.

In fact you don't even need a fMRI to recreate Libet's experiments, he did it with an EEG. Neurological precursors to action occur before the conscious feeling of deciding.

Originally posted by Astner
I wasn't saying that the subconscious isn't a factor in our decision making. Please read what you reply to.

Don't pull a dadude.

You said "fMRI mapping doesn't work that way". I responded to that.

Under tightly controlled circumstances, you very much can use an fMRI to determine what people will do before they do it. With the use of an fMRI Libet's original results of something like .75 seconds before the action were improved to several seconds. It is, in fact, a very elegant demonstration of the dominance of deterministic forces in the brain.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
You said "fMRI mapping doesn't work that way".

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
I responded to that because, under tightly controlled circumstances, you very much can use to to see what people will do before they do it.

With the use of an fMRI Libet's original results of something like .75 seconds before the action were improved to several seconds.

Originally posted by Astner
That's not how functional magnetic resonance image mapping works.

I... I wasn't describing how an fMRI works, though I'm interested in what you mean. The scientists looked at fMRI images... this is something that can be done in a host of software, including MSPaint if you export the images from Brain Voyager or something similar.

Originally posted by Astner
Then how come you can affect people after they've made their choice by adding influence.

because you have added stimuli into the individual's cognitive system that is processed pre-consciously and already processed for meaning long before they become aware of it?

I'm not sure what you are getting at...

Originally posted by Astner
Such as: "I know that you're going to take the red pill."

This doesn't really follow from the sentence you typed before it...

Are you asking about just basic demand characteristics a subject might pick up?

Originally posted by Astner
Once more, you'll have to define what a choice is.

in that case I was talking about the motor readiness potential, that prepares your muscles to move prior to you knowing your intent to move. Sure, this is Libet, but has been replicated not only through ERP/EEG but also fMRI studies, to the point that we can identify areas in the frontal and pre-motor cortex that are involved in action planning pre-consciously.

The choice, in this context, comes from your awareness of a specific action that your body is already prepared to do. Your choice basically comes down to "should I stop this action?"

However, given the stuff about Yes/No, A or B choices that we already know, this choice of whether to stop a prepared action is almost certainly produced from memory and other systems over which one has little to no conscious control.

oh, wait

Astner, you thought I was describing some type of real-time reading of fMRI while the person is actively in the magnet?

because, then, sure, you can only even see very broad scale things like "motor cortex" or whatever in the sort of 'live feed'

Originally posted by Astner

You misunderstand the experiment. Libet's experiment centers around preforming a given action. Through that, the result shows that there's a lag between brain activity and conscious actions. It has nothing to do with knowing what a person will choose when presented with two options.

Libet's and Kornhuber's experiments were used to examine what impulses in the brain occur when someone is told to complete an action vs being allowed to complete the action "randomly." It was shown that brain activity occurs in the same way for both, with scientist able to know that someone was about to take action before the actor was conscious of the decision himself. The impulse is there before the person decides to act. Being able to choose when to do something would certainly be an indication of Free Will and it seems we lack the ability to actually do that in the way that we believe.

There are debates around this even recently and we're here to do just that so I'd be glad to hear what you have to say about it.

We also have experiments showing that people's brains can be stimulated in such ways that their bodies can be made to move and though it is the scientist administering the stimulation that causes it the person believes that they are voluntarily doing it. This leans very heavily towards Free Will being much more a matter of perception than reality.