Is Free Will Incompatible with Neuroscience?

[lewisnotmiller]

Well your brain is part of you just as every other part of your body is. If we were allowed to choose for ourselves you would have nothing but extremely good looking people with the intelligence of Einstein walking around.

I'm not sure about that.

Whether we have actual free will or the illusion of it, doesn't really make any difference for a person as an individual.

Basically agree.

There is a moral issues though, which is the same one as to whether or not it is justice to blame a mentally ill person for committing a murder or whatever. That person didn't choose to be born that way, yet we punish them for it.

I don't really see it in the same terms. My wife, on the other hand (who works in mental health, and liases with Justice Department) would agree whole-heartedly, and we tend to avoid this topic now, due to mutual frustration...lol
Let me summarise a couple of points we hash over and do agree on...

1) Current processes are heavily focused on punitive considerations.
2) Prison should be an ideal time to prepare prisoners for their release (since they are working towards that from the time they are locked up)
3) Prison not only doesn't effectively prepare prisoners for release, it commonly exposes them to issues and bad influences.

In short, I don't think prison should be primarily about punishment. The separation of an individual from society is a safety consideration, as well as to provide some sense of natural justice to the victim(s) and discourage vigilantism.

My guess is that in the far future, people will look at us today and point out how unfair that way of doing things is, and probably shake or wonder why we couldn't simply fix these issues at an early stage, because its brain science 101 for 5th graders . Just as we look back at those before us and wonder why the hell they would burn people for being witches or whatever.

There will be an element of that, I think.
But Psychology is a pseudo-science at this point. We're really a long way away from understanding things to the level this would require. So I think it more likely that people in the far, far, far distant future will look back at people in the far, far distant future and shake their heads...lol

Incidentally, witch burning is still happening, right now.
I lived in Papua New Guinea, and you can count the deaths in the hundreds per annum. Sounds crazy, but there it is.

 

[Rational Agnostic]

I've had the same thoughts for a while.
I've basically decided that belief in 'free will' has utility, even if ultimately I am finding it less likely. I'm not inclined to invest in properly studying this area of neuroscience, and suspect there is not ultimately definitive answers in place anyway. So I shall continue to live my life as if I have free will, and consider concepts like 'personal responsibility' as important.

A sort of "Pascals wager" for free will belief?

 

[lewisnotmiller]

A sort of "Pascals wager" for free will belief?

Hah!!! I like that. Sort of, yes. My main issue with Pascal's Wager are;

1) Surely God could detect 'faking' belief. You believe what you believe to some degree. You can act as if you hold a true belief, but...
2) It assumes a binary decision (God vs no God)

In this case there is no omnipotent being refereeing. And it kind of is a binary decision.
But yes, it's all around utility rather than belief, so I think the comparative you are making is somewhat valid.

 

[sun rise]

What is "subconsciousness" and if one is not conscious of a decision, then how can it possibly be freely chosen? It sounds to me like the brain does all of the decision making automatically and unconsciously based on its physical characteristics and then later gives itself the "illusion" of having made a conscious, free decision.

Definition of SUBCONSCIOUS

If I'm going to say, buy a car, I do a lot of research about cars, costs, features, resale value etc. Then when I've done all that research a decision is made and I become aware of it. But that does not mean that my conscious research did not predetermine the outcome. It means that the final step is not made first by the conscious mind.

This is an argument that neither free will nor determinism are adequate but that both operate.

 

[Heyo]

So theoretically if Charles Manson and Mother Theresa traded brains, what do you think would have happened?

I don't think it would by a very enlightening experiment, replacing one psychopath with another.

 

[Heyo]

Definition of SUBCONSCIOUS

Remember that that is colloquial use. There is no subconscious in psychology. The terminus technicus is unconscious.

 

[Polymath257]

Yeah, I think you're right. But no one's brain chooses its own chemical composition. So in that sense I'd say we certainly don't have free will. But it's mostly just a semantics discussion.

Well, in general, free will is limited. If you step outside of an airplane, you don't have the 'free will' to not fall. If someone pushed you, you didn't have the 'free will' to not go out the door.

We accept those as not being relevant to the question of 'free will', but why? They clearly show that there are cases where no matter what we want, we can only do as we do.

What is remarkable is that there are times when we *can* do what we want to do. That our wants are determined mostly by our internal state (our neurology) doesn't deny the fact that we are making the choice and doing what we want in those cases.

 

[Aupmanyav]

Whether we have actual free will or the illusion of it, doesn't really make any difference for a person as an individual. There is a moral issues though, which is the same one as to whether or not it is justice to blame a mentally ill person for committing a murder or whatever. That person didn't choose to be born that way, yet we punish them for it.

Interesting. Yes, a person has the free will to choose his actions within a few options. It is never completely free. Also the person lives in a society and is bound to follow the rules of the society/country, otherwise the person will be punished according to the laws of the society. Does that involve any God or Allah?

 

[Heyo]

Maybe. I think the universe may be completely deterministic, though, but I certainly could be wrong. I can imagine that if there were some super-intelligent entity (this is just a hypothetical of course), then he/she/it could predict what we do just as easily as we predict when the next solar eclipse will be. I think that chemistry is applied physics, biology is applied chemistry, and thus ultimately applied physics, so if we were smart enough to discover the laws of physics that govern the behavior of biological organisms, we could predict their behaviors with the same accuracy as we predict the rotation of planets around stars. In the end, it's all just physical "stuff" following the laws of physics, it's just that biological organisms follow way more complex physical patterns. At least, that's my idea.

If quantum events are truly random (and there is no evidence that they aren't), the universe can't be fully deterministic. It may look deterministic on a macro scale but through the butterfly effect even quantum events can have massive influence on a large enough time scale.
I.e. if the universe was started again in a new Big Bang, with exactly the same conditions, it would produce stars and galaxies as this one. It would look superficially the same but be different in detail.

 

[Polymath257]

If quantum events are truly random (and there is no evidence that they aren't), the universe can't be fully deterministic. It may look deterministic on a macro scale but through the butterfly effect even quantum events can have massive influence on a large enough time scale.
I.e. if the universe was started again in a new Big Bang, with exactly the same conditions, it would produce stars and galaxies as this one. It would look superficially the same but be different in detail.

Yes, at the quantum level, the universe is truly probabilistic.

But even at the level of neurons, the quantum effects are going to be very small. And it really isn't clear to me that having decisions made by random processes is all that much kinder to free will than determinism. Unless, that is, there is a way for us to determine the results of quantum events. At this point, that seems to be denied by the evidence.

In general, for quantum effects to have a macroscopic impact, there has to be some sort of amplification mechanism where some small effect cascades to produce a large effect. The only place I know of where that sort of thing happens in humans is in the eyes: we can, in a dark room, see individual photons.

 

[Heyo]

IMO it is not just the hardware. It is also the information stored by the hardware.

The brain doesn't store information like a computer. Information isn't stored by the hardware, it is stored in the hardware.

 

[Aupmanyav]

In short, I don't think prison should be primarily about punishment.

It will vary from one country to another. In India, we cannot dally with crime with a population of 1380 million people. We need to tackle crime harshly. We do not have the resources to pander to the criminals. Though the number of prisoners in India is not very high (466.084 reported last) and the incarceration rate is 34 / 100,000 (12th from the bottom, compare with US which tops the list, 2,121,600, 655 / 100,000). I am surprised that US has so many prisoners.

 

[Heyo]

Yes, at the quantum level, the universe is truly probabilistic.

But even at the level of neurons, the quantum effects are going to be very small. And it really isn't clear to me that having decisions made by random processes is all that much kinder to free will than determinism. Unless, that is, there is a way for us to determine the results of quantum events. At this point, that seems to be denied by the evidence.

In general, for quantum effects to have a macroscopic impact, there has to be some sort of amplification mechanism where some small effect cascades to produce a large effect. The only place I know of where that sort of thing happens in humans is in the eyes: we can, in a dark room, see individual photons.

I wasn't arguing for free will, I was arguing against total determinism.

Even if neural activity is driven by quantum events (and there is evidence for that*) it makes decisions random instead of deterministic. I don't see "freedom" in either case.

* The ion pumps of the synaptic gap are on the scale of single molecules. Differences in the opening that are on a quantum scale can determine if an ion gets through or not.

 

[Thief]

It seems to me that the concept of "free will" or the idea that we have control over actions is incompatible with a materialist understanding of neuroscience. We know that our neurophysiology is what determines our actions, and no one chooses her/his neurophysiology, therefore, no one is ultimately in control of her/his actions. If you were to replace all of my brain cells, neuron for neuron, with those of a psychopath, I think it's safe to say I would make vastly different decisions. So how can one believe in the notion of "free will" while simultaneously believing in modern neuroscience? How can a person truly be in complete control of their actions if their brain is what makes their decisions and they did not choose the physical makeup of their own brain?

I don't think so.....answering the op title

if the willfulness of mind were in control
we would be able to heal our damaged nerves
reconnect any severed
fine tune our senses
and decide when to ignore an input (pain)

it seems the design was intended to be used .....as is

try not to damage the goods

 

[Heyo]

The brain makes decisions before you are aware of them but that does not mean that free will is an illusion - only that free will might happen out of conscious awareness

Brain activity predicts decisions before they are consciously made.

Your brain makes up its mind up to ten seconds before you realize it, according to researchers. By looking at brain activity while making a decision, the researchers could predict what choice people would make before they themselves were even aware of having made a decision.

There have been many repeats and refinements on Libet's experiments and all agree that a decision to act is prepared by unconscious processes before the conscious part of the brain realises them.
What I find interesting is that the same seems not to be the case for decisions not to act. As one experimenter put it: "We don't have free will, but we may have free won't."

 

[Heyo]

It seems to me that the concept of "free will" or the idea that we have control over actions is incompatible with a materialist understanding of neuroscience. We know that our neurophysiology is what determines our actions, and no one chooses her/his neurophysiology, therefore, no one is ultimately in control of her/his actions. If you were to replace all of my brain cells, neuron for neuron, with those of a psychopath, I think it's safe to say I would make vastly different decisions. So how can one believe in the notion of "free will" while simultaneously believing in modern neuroscience? How can a person truly be in complete control of their actions if their brain is what makes their decisions and they did not choose the physical makeup of their own brain?

Free will can't be found by neuroscience.
If you try to find a holistic, abstract concept by reductionism, you are bound to fail. There is no "freedom" in the mechanics of the brain.
(And there is no "antenna" to connect the brain to the "soul", so if that was the goal, you have reached it.)
Free will, or as I like to call it, to make a distinction, free choice, can be found as an emergent property on the level of psychology were the neurology remains a black box. We have a very persistent illusion of free will and it is useful for our interactions with other people.

 

[Nimos]

I don't really see it in the same terms. My wife, on the other hand (who works in mental health, and liases with Justice Department) would agree whole-heartedly, and we tend to avoid this topic now, due to mutual frustration...lol

I can understand how this topic could cause some heated debates, its not exactly one that is black and white

 

[Nimos]

Interesting. Yes, a person has the free will to choose his actions within a few options. It is never completely free. Also the person lives in a society and is bound to follow the rules of the society/country, otherwise the person will be punished according to the laws of the society. Does that involve any God or Allah?

As far as I see it, the only limitation we have are biological ones and that they have to be realistic. Whether you live in a society with certain rules, is not a limitation on free will. You executing your free will, might have consequences as others might disagree with how you make use of it. But you can choose to break the law at any point you want, and in fact a lot of people does this constantly

I don't really think that God is important in this, unless they are influencing our free will.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

It seems to me that the concept of "free will" or the idea that we have control over actions is incompatible with a materialist understanding of neuroscience. We know that our neurophysiology is what determines our actions

The bolded part above is at odds "with a materialist understanding of neuroscience" and indeed introduces a kind of dualism into cognitive neuropsychology and the brain sciences more generally. In a materialist, reductionist approach to neuroscience, our actions cannot be seperated from our neurosphysiology. This point is made particularly well in a paper by M. Donald:
"A monist stance on consciousness must therefore assert that brain activation and experience reflect a single underlying reality. Every experience must therefore have a corresponding brain state. No neuroscientist will question this.
If a given brain state and its corresponding experience are aspects of one and the same event, viewed from different vantage points, there can be no direction of causality involved. Neither aspect could precede the other in the causal chain leading to awareness—they are one and the same link in that chain. Nor could there be a temporal lag between brain and phenomenal experience. A specific brain state could not ‘‘precede,’’ ‘‘lag,’’ ‘‘trigger,’’ or ‘‘lead toward’’ its corresponding subjective aspect. This has consequences for experimental design. An experience does not, could not, and should not be expected to follow or precede its corresponding brain aspect, as if it were crossing some mysterious ethereal divide. The two aspects, physical and phenomenological, must be simultaneous and identical." (pp. 13-14; italics in original)
Donald, M. (2010). Consciousness and the Freedom to Act. In R. F. Baumeister, A. R. Mele, A., & K. D. Vohs (Eds.) Free Will and Consciousness: How Might They Work? Oxford University Press.

If you were to replace all of my brain cells, neuron for neuron, with those of a psychopath, I think it's safe to say I would make vastly different decisions.

If your replaced all the parts of my car with those of a Ferrari, it's safe to say it would operate differently. It would also be a different car.

So how can one believe in the notion of "free will" while simultaneously believing in modern neuroscience?

Because free will is an assumption of all empirical science, including neuroscience. Additionally, all one could learn from neuroscientists that assert we have no free will is that they believe themselves to be mindless.

How can a person truly be in complete control of their actions if their brain is what makes their decisions and they did not choose the physical makeup of their own brain?

Complete control and free will are not the same.

 

[Nakosis]

The brain doesn't store information like a computer. Information isn't stored by the hardware, it is stored in the hardware.

by and in, what do you see the difference as being?