Free Will

[durangodawood]

The idea of being, 'not completely bound by the rules of physical reality', seems incoherent when talking about what we do in physical reality. In fiction, it's fine.

It should sound incoherent in terms of purely physical reality rules. I dont think that means its necessarily wrong. Its just got different rules governing it and if correct operates in a reality that both physical reality, plus this extra overlay.

The question of what comprises 'physical reality' is another matter. I'm quite prepared to accept that there are aspects of physical reality we haven't yet discovered that may not precisely conform to the rules we currently accept. General relativity did this for classical mechanics, as did quantum mechanics. But whatever lies undiscovered, it can't be significantly inconsistent with our current observations. For example, both GR and quantum mechanics are consistent with our everyday human-scale observations.

Im not proposing a different physical reality - I dont think. Just something that I think is compatible with our current observations. I dont think we can free-will ourselves the capacity to reduce net entropy or similar no matter how much we'd like to.

The idea of strictly material reality giving rise to a "higher level" system that's not completely bound by the rules of physical reality sounds like 'Strong Emergence', the idea that the behaviour of a system can't ultimately be reduced to the interactions of its parts and their properties. I've seen various claims of strong emergence, but none that don't seem reducible to multiple levels of weak emergence.

For sure this is a strong emergence claim, if true. Do you have a good example of the bold part? Im interested.

I can understand the feeling that some things are too complex & mysterious to be reducible to simpler things interacting, but close investigation of apparent examples in nature suggests that they are so reducible and that the intuition is misleading. We're making slow but steady progress on working out how the brain does what it does, and I think we'll eventually come to some understanding of how subjective experience is generated - just as we discovered that life itself didn't require some mysterious vital force.

Intuition. Common sense. Way overrated on average. But I do think theres instances where they can lead us to good places.

 

[Neogaia777]

@FrumiousBandersnatch and others...

Ok, let's just try to take this one thing at a time for now, ok, and let's go back to @Bradskii's argument for a minute, ok...

If you could go back say ten years or so, and make all your choices or actions or decisions, etc, all over again, etc, but only you could not at all take any of the knowledge and/or experience that you have now, etc, not any of it at allwith you, etc, would you still make the very same choices/actions/decisions that you did back then if you got to go back, but not with anything that you have now, would you still make the very same choices/actions/decision, or even have the very same thoughts/feelings you did back then, if you could go back, but without any of what I mentioned just now, etc...?

Yes or No...?

And "why", etc...?

Because if the answer to that is "yes", then there would be no such thing as other possibilities or other ways things could happen or go, correct...?

And you don't see how that creates a problem, etc...?

Other issues involved that I might bring up later, one involves having to believe in a truly all-knowing from the beginning intelligence or entity who gave rise to all of this, and us, etc, which may or may not apply to some of you, etc, and another has to do with physics, and how if things on one level, like the level of atoms example I used in the other thread, etc, most definitely is deterministic, and behaves deterministically always and in every single case, etc, then how can not that which makes up it, or that is built upon it, or is made up of it, etc, not also always be deterministic also, etc...?

Same could be said for maybe the level of cells, or the animal kingdom as well maybe, etc, unless you think that there is something unique about humans that sets them apart from that, etc, but then that could almost be like a religious or spiritual belief also, since you would have to define just exactly what that is, etc, and where it comes from, etc, which can almost be deemed a religious or spiritual belief, etc...

Or if you think we have a higher consciousness than those other creatures, where that comes from, if it comes from something that is separate from this physical or material world, of which almost all of the physical and material world is deterministic, except from your argument, just not us human beings, etc, anyway, what makes you think that? because it sounds like it borders on a religious or spiritual belief to me, etc...?

Anyway, what about all of these things so far, etc...?

Are you going to say we evolved a consciousness that is different from all of the other creatures or the rest of the material world around us, etc? because that almost sounds like a religious or spiritual belief that has to be taken on faith if you ask me, etc...?

God Bless!

@FrumiousBandersnatch, and others...

It seems to me that if you say we have nothing that goes beyond this physical or material world, and also say that the rest of that world is deterministic, etc, then in order to have any kind of free will at all, that we would have to have or possess something that goes beyond it, etc...

And that almost sounds like a religious or spiritual belief to me, etc...?

God Bless!

 

[Neogaia777]

I have other reasons for believing the way I do as well, like seeing just how God knows absolutely everything by Him showing me it in real time many, many, many times in or by using all of the things around me, literally thousands of different times in my life, etc, but I'm leaving that out for now, etc...

Knew right where this or that was going to be when this was going to approach that and have this or that happen, etc, etc, etc, so on and so forth, literally over and over again, etc, etc, etc, and I'm not joking when I say literally multiples of thousands of times now, etc, and one right after the other and after the other, being only split seconds apart in some cases, etc...

He knows/knew/already knew what was going to happen, when and where, and where everything was already going to wind up or be, at all times, and at any time, and every single time, including you and me, etc...

Now how could He know all of that, etc...?

Bible says He knows all of your thoughts afar off, or long, long before you ever even have them, etc, and boy have I been shown this a lot as well, etc...

God Bless!

 

[Neogaia777]

Yes I am still doing this from my phone right now, I'm waiting on a friend who brought me into town right now, so I had a minute, etc...

God Bless!

 

[Neogaia777]

For me it is not required to define if we have anything about us that goes beyond this physical reality or not, etc, as God's being fully omniscient makes it a mute point really, any choice He already knows fully already you cannot choose otherwise, etc, and He has shown me this personally, over and over again, many many times, so that determinism is the only answer for here, etc...

God Bless!

 

[TedT]

My position is that human brain activity, which in my view is the seat of consciousness, is effectively deterministic, so the decisions and choices we make are, FAPP, deterministic.

Human brain activity is caused by the spirit as it interfaces with the body...brain activity does not cause thinking but only shows mirrors of the spirit's thinking...

If the spirit is holy its thinking is by a free, uncoerced, will.

IF the spirit is sinful then its thinking is enslaved to the addictive power of evil which can only be broken / cured by a rebirth into Christ to be free, ie uncoerced.

As I thought was clear, it depends on what you mean by 'free will'. This is why I ask people what they mean by it.

OK...

IF GOD set it up so HIS new creation had no coercion or constraints upon their choices, forcing them to choose anything, they had free will.

The Elements of a True Free Will Choice:

1. Free will can't be coerced:
Nothing in their created nature could FORCE them to choose love or hate, good or evil, including all genetics...

Nothing in their experience could FORCE them to choose love or hate, good or evil, including all, cultural or familial experience...

Nothing in their understanding or knowledge of reality could FORCE them to choose good or evil, love or hate.

In other words, they had to be completely and truly ingenuously innocent.

[Ref: definition of ingenuous: ingenuousness as: 1. Lacking in cunning, guile, worldliness; artless. 2. Openly straightforward or frank; candid.

2. Consequences must be known but not proved:
The person must understand the full consequences of their choice or it is a guess, not a true choice. “What will happen if I choose left or right, the red pill or the blue pill?” must be answered in full detail.

But "PROOF" of the nature of the consequence would compel or coerce the person to choose what was proven to be the best for them. If the answer “death here,” “life there,” was proven, which would you choose? The weight of knowledge would destroy the effect of a true ‘free will’ choice.

If it were proven you would die if you went left, are you truly free to choose to go right? No, you are forced by your knowledge to go right. Therefore they must know, but without proof, the nature of the consequences of their choice.

Only then are they following their desires, their deepest hope in the nature of reality, defining the reality they most hope to enjoy.

Peace, Ted

 

[TedT]

Is There Life after Death? - The Mind Set Free

contends that
... science has shown that it is truly the brain that is in charge.
This hypothesis is only suggested, not shown nor proven, and my answer is...

that the spirit uses the brain as the interface with the physical body...and I get to logically accept this pov until it is proven false. The spirit causes the electrical activity in the brain which then affects the movements of the body. Thoughts originate in the spirit (not discernible by physical methods) and then are manifested in the brain as electrical impulses which then show up on computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and positive emission tomography (PET) scans, etc.

I can't prove my contention but you can't disprove it...and it does show that an alternative to your secular materialistic definition of reality which is not proven, but only suggested, exists.

 

[doubtingmerle]

contends that
... science has shown that it is truly the brain that is in charge.
This hypothesis is only suggested, not shown nor proven, and my answer is...

that the spirit uses the brain as the interface with the physical body...and I get to logically accept this pov until it is proven false. The spirit causes the electrical activity in the brain which then affects the movements of the body. Thoughts originate in the spirit (not discernible by physical methods) and then are manifested in the brain as electrical impulses which then show up on computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and positive emission tomography (PET) scans, etc.

I can't prove my contention but you can't disprove it...and it does show that an alternative to your secular materialistic definition of reality which is not proven, but only suggested, exists.

Sorry, I have given you seven evidences that it is the brain that thinks. You have not attempted to address a single one. All you did is declare victory.

Again, the seven are listed here: Is There Life after Death? - The Mind Set Free in the section, Have you got Soul?

 

[Neogaia777]

contends that
... science has shown that it is truly the brain that is in charge.
This hypothesis is only suggested, not shown nor proven, and my answer is...

that the spirit uses the brain as the interface with the physical body...and I get to logically accept this pov until it is proven false. The spirit causes the electrical activity in the brain which then affects the movements of the body. Thoughts originate in the spirit (not discernible by physical methods) and then are manifested in the brain as electrical impulses which then show up on computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and positive emission tomography (PET) scans, etc.

I can't prove my contention but you can't disprove it...and it does show that an alternative to your secular materialistic definition of reality which is not proven, but only suggested, exists.

@TedT

It's possible that we could have a consciousness or spirit that operates from another place or another realm, like you say, etc...? That is, or can be, in "both places at once", etc, and our thoughts can come from there, etc...? Maybe when we are truly born again maybe, etc...? But, if so, does (or did) God fully know everything about it when He created it and/or made it...? Or did He make it choosing to not know everything about it...? Or did He make it choosing to remain ignorant of certain things about it, etc...? Like how and what it would think, etc, or how it would do and act and behave and choose and feel, etc...? Because all of these things are all a part of the consciousness, and the will, etc... And to have true free will, then there has to be not anyone fully knowing everything about it, etc, even including God or the One who created and/or made it, etc...?

I guess the real question is: Are you willing to accept that God is not fully all-knowing...? And this could be by His choice if you want, if it makes you more comfortable thinking of it and/or believing it that way, etc...

But the way I see it, all knowledge, about everything, from the very beginning, etc, makes true free will not possible, etc, but only having an illusion of it based on what we "don't know" is the only kind of free will that is possible, etc... But it's not true free will, etc, because it would only be the illusion of it only based on what we right now "don't know" right now, etc...

What do you think...?

God Bless!

 

[Bradskii]

@FrumiousBandersnatch
If you could go back say ten years or so, and make all your choices or actions or decisions, etc, all over again, etc, but only you could not at all take any of the knowledge and/or experience that you have now, etc, not any of it at allwith you, etc, would you still make the very same choices/actions/decisions that you did back then if you got to go back, but not with anything that you have now, would you still make the very same choices/action?

Yes or No...?!

It has to be Yes.

There are two options when it comes to making a decision. The first is that it is based on reasons - which can be extremely nuanced, complex, certainly subconscious in most cases and almost certainly and entirely beyond our ability to understand the numerous causes and interactions between them. But they must exist.

Because otherwise there are no reasons or causes. Which makes the decision random which cannot by any stretch of the imagination be described as free will.

So if you had exactly the same causes and reasons for making a second choice as you did the first, what caused the different decision? Nothing IS different so there is nothing that will change the decision so it must be the same. Hence no free will.

 

[partinobodycular]

So if you had exactly the same causes and reasons for making a second choice as you did the first, what caused the different decision? Nothing IS different so there is nothing that will change the decision so it must be the same. Hence no free will.

Not that I believe that free will exists, but I fail to see how this argument disproves its existence. For example, if you give me a choice between eating liver or eating a cheeseburger, I'm going to choose the cheeseburger every time. But the mere fact that under the same circumstances I'd always make the same choice doesn't in and of itself mean that I couldn't have chosen otherwise, it just means that I wouldn't have.

Making the same choice under the same circumstances doesn't disprove free will, it simply means that our free will choices are based upon a certain set of conditions, and if the conditions are the same then the choice will be the same.

 

[Neogaia777]

Not that I believe that free will exists, but I fail to see how this argument disproves its existence. For example, if you give me a choice between eating liver or eating a cheeseburger, I'm going to choose the cheeseburger every time. But the mere fact that under the same circumstances I'd always make the same choice doesn't in and of itself mean that I couldn't have chosen otherwise, it just means that I wouldn't have.

Making the same choice under the same circumstances doesn't disprove free will, it simply means that our free will choices are based upon a certain set of conditions, and if the conditions are the same then the choice will be the same.

A few others might have chose the liver (with grilled onions) I know a few of my relatives that would have, or might have, and if they could go back, but with nothing changing, etc, then they could not have chose the cheeseburger ever no matter what, etc, so that choice never really existed, but just the illusion of it, hence, no free will, etc...

It is the same with everything else, etc...

It not just that you wouldn't, but it's that you couldn't ever, no matter what, etc...

We're talking about going back in time, but not being able to take anything with you, etc, so it wouldn't be just trying to create/recreate the same conditions with a future choice again, which are never exactly the same in any instance no matter how hard you try, etc, but actually going back in time when they will always be the exact same no matter what, and it was that, that actually made yours/mine/our choices for us, etc, and still is now even though we can't possibly know just exactly everything about it right now, etc...

God Bless!

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Some choices I make are simply because: 'I want to'. I don't have any clue as to why I want to, nor do I choose to think about why I want to. The motivation there is undistinguished and is preserved as undistinguished, by some kind of truly obstinate 'something', there.

Sure my consciousness has deterministic explanations, (ie: genetics, physics, biology, etc) but the basis of my above mentioned 'sometimes' choices, are unknown to me .. (and anyone else for that matter).

It seems such choices are rendered impervious to the intrusions of deterministic reasoning and thus they cannot be claimed as being determinstic choices(?)

Conscious reasoning is the least part of it - conscious thought is generally thought to account for around 5% of brain activity - the vast majority of the determinants of your actions are below conscious awareness, and the majority of conscious reasoning is to act on or justify those feelings, which emerge from a combination of bodily feedback (interoception) and the unconscious habits, heuristics, beliefs, etc., that run the show from 'behind the curtain'. Being unaware of the reasons for your 'sometimes' choices doesn't make them any less deterministic.

It's interesting that we feel consciously in control of our actions, but our language is peppered with admissions that we're not - "I didn't mean to...", "The words wouldn't come...", "I couldn't help myself ...", "I don't know why I did that...", and so on.

 

[SelfSim]

.. Being unaware of the reasons for your 'sometimes' choices doesn't make them any less deterministic.

Well ok then ..
So where's the evidence for them being deterministic in the first place?
Thus far in all of these sub discussions, all I've seen are continual assertions that 'they must be'?
Where is the evidence for that, which is not based on some hypothetical?

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

@FrumiousBandersnatch and others...

If you could go back say ten years or so, and make all your choices or actions or decisions, etc, all over again, etc, but only you could not at all take any of the knowledge and/or experience that you have now, etc, not any of it at allwith you, etc, would you still make the very same choices/actions/decisions that you did back then if you got to go back, but not with anything that you have now, would you still make the very same choices/actions/decision, or even have the very same thoughts/feelings you did back then, if you could go back, but without any of what I mentioned just now, etc...?

Yes or No...?

And "why", etc...?

No. My brain and body would be 10 years or so older, so even without any of the experience and knowledge I'd gained since then, I wouldn't be the same person I was.

But if you meant that I could go back to that identical situation exactly as I was at that time, then yes, if everything, including me, was identical, I would obviously make identical choices/actions/decisions.

But, to paraphrase Heraclitus, "No man ever steps in the same river twice, for its not the same river and he's not the same man". I suspect that is why people feel that they 'could have chosen differently' in some situation - they could have if they'd felt differently about it. IOW they don't consider their own (mental) state as part of the 'same situation'.

Because if the answer to that is "yes", then there would be no such thing as other possibilities or other ways things could happen or go, correct...?

And you don't see how that creates a problem, etc...?

What problem do you think it creates? A particular state of affairs is that state of affairs and not another. It's the identity relation. We can certainly postulate or imagine counterfactuals, ways in which things might have been different, but we developed the means to do this as a way to learn from experience, so that we can make different decisions in similar circumstances in future. But as Heraclitus realised, they won't be the same circumstances, and we won't be the same person.

... if things on one level, like the level of atoms example I used in the other thread, etc, most definitely is deterministic, and behaves deterministically always and in every single case, etc, then how can not that which makes up it, or that is built upon it, or is made up of it, etc, not also always be deterministic also, etc...?

I agree - it might become complex enough to be unpredictable and appear random, but it would still be deterministic. Mathematical chaos is a good example of such a thing. It's worth noting that the world isn't completely deterministic at the atomic & subatomic level, but at human scales, it is deterministic for everyday purposes.

Are you going to say we evolved a consciousness that is different from all of the other creatures or the rest of the material world around us, etc? because that almost sounds like a religious or spiritual belief that has to be taken on faith if you ask me, etc...?

Being different or 'better' by some measure needn't imply anything religious or spiritual. All creatures are unique in their own way, and if you compare their traits there will always be some species that is the 'best' by some suitable measure - the fastest, the longest, the oldest, the largest, the smallest, the cleverest, etc.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Well ok then ..
So where's the evidence for them being deterministic in the first place?
Thus far in all of these sub discussions, all I've seen are continual assertions that 'they must be'?
Where is the evidence for that, which is not based on some hypothetical?

There are some assumptions backed by supporting evidence - e.g. consciousness is a function of the brain; the brain is constructed of elements (cells) that behave, for all intents and purposes, deterministically.

There is also the issue of what 'counts' as deterministic at a given scale, because there can be pseudorandom or chaotic influences that can be effectively random perturbations from the perspective of a given system. The functioning of a healthy brain suggests that it is relatively resilient and robust to such influences (e.g. thermal and electrical noise).

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

It should sound incoherent in terms of purely physical reality rules. I dont think that means its necessarily wrong. Its just got different rules governing it and if correct operates in a reality that both physical reality, plus this extra overlay.

I'm not proposing a different physical reality - I dont think. Just something that I think is compatible with our current observations.

Sounds to me like you're just suggesting that physical reality is more complex (has more rules) than we give it credit for, which is quite possible, but we should be wary of positing special rules for special cases, or rules that significantly break or contradict those that seem fundamental. I don't see the justification for asserting that there's more than physical reality - what would that even mean?

I dont think we can free-will ourselves the capacity to reduce net entropy or similar no matter how much we'd like to.

I sense a 'but'...?

For sure this is a strong emergence claim, if true. Do you have a good example of the bold part? Im interested.

Nothing springs to mind atm, besides life, which I already mentioned, and consciousness itself - which is, as yet, unresolved.

Intuition. Common sense. Way overrated on average. But I do think theres instances where they can lead us to good places.

Sure - intuition is like muscle memory, good for things you have lots of experience of. Common sense generally involves simple heuristics - useful at times but can be dangerously unreliable.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

It seems to me that if you say we have nothing that goes beyond , and also say that the rest of that world is deterministic, etc, then in order to have any kind of free will at all, that we would have to have or possess something that goes beyond it, etc...

Yes; but I think you need to coherently explain & justify both the idea of something 'beyond this physical or material world' and 'free will'.

And that almost sounds like a religious or spiritual belief to me, etc...?

Yes, I imagine it does.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

I have other reasons for believing the way I do as well, like seeing just how God knows absolutely everything by Him showing me it in real time many, many, many times in or by using all of the things around me, literally thousands of different times in my life, etc, but I'm leaving that out for now, etc...

Knew right where this or that was going to be when this was going to approach that and have this or that happen, etc, etc, etc, so on and so forth, literally over and over again, etc, etc, etc, and I'm not joking when I say literally multiples of thousands of times now, etc, and one right after the other and after the other, being only split seconds apart in some cases, etc...

He knows/knew/already knew what was going to happen, when and where, and where everything was already going to wind up or be, at all times, and at any time, and every single time, including you and me, etc...

Now how could He know all of that, etc...?

Bible says He knows all of your thoughts afar off, or long, long before you ever even have them, etc, and boy have I been shown this a lot as well, etc...

Sounds like you've been experiencing too much deja-vu!

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

For me it is not required to define if we have anything about us that goes beyond this physical reality or not, etc, as God's being fully omniscient makes it a mute point really, any choice He already knows fully already you cannot choose otherwise, etc, and He has shown me this personally, over and over again, many many times, so that determinism is the only answer for here, etc...

Well, sure, a God can explain anything and everything for everyone. Yours tells you your choices are deterministic, other people's tell them they have 'true' free will. It's a great invention.