Lets solve Free will once and for all!!

[Nimos]

A string of influences, yes. But as conscious agents, we have, it appears self-evident, some agency over how we respond to those influences.

I might have a morbid dread of the beach (let’s say I was once attacked by a shark), but still choose to go there. It may take a supreme effort of will to do so, but perhaps I have sufficient motivation to overcome my reluctance; maybe just to prove to myself that I can overcome my fears.

Agree, but this is where I raise the question.

Why do you want to overcome your fear?

At some level, there must be emotional reasons for it. If there wasn't then you probably wouldn't care about the experience in the first place or even to overcome your fear.

Maybe that is what free will really is. Meaning we don't really have free will in the sense we think, but rather we have the ability to suppress influences. This could potentially also explain how free will could evolve from what I can see, or rather the ability to suppress influences given the capacity of our brain compared to early humans, and therefore we became better at it.

 

[muhammad_isa]

Care to elaborate on that?

What don't you understand?

When we talk about a "determined" future, we mean one which is inevitable.
When we talk about how & why we make choices, then that is not NECESSARILY due
to a determined future.

OK?

 

[Bear Wild]

What would be an example of this? - which is not absolutely determined by that environment

I have tried thinking of some, but have been unsuccessful


Just how would it play out.

Let's take a crab living at the beach, I think we agree that it probably doesn't have a lot of free will, but rather driven by instincts and do whatever a crab does. Meaning it doesn't suddenly decide that it wants to go on a vacation beyond the beach.

If we compare that too early humans (assuming that free will evolved here), at some point one of them looked at the beach and the mountains and thought "Screw this I want to go mountain climbing today, that sounds fun". Now go back X amount of evolutionary generations and the ancestor to this early human would just move around like a crab, driven by instincts.

What I don't seem to understand, is when or how did the ability to decide that mountain climbing was more fun than not to?

If what you are saying, free will as I see it, must have evolved out of something and must be connected to the brain capacity.

Obviously, not your fault, but to me the explanation of how free will could evolve seems a bit vague, like there are a huge amount of gaps here. Because I can fully understand the logic, behind how an eye could evolve and all the intermediate states to me, seem extremely logical and that it is a process that takes millions of year. Yet with the concept of free will, it seems very odd how that would have taken millions of years as well, given the definition, that it is about making a choice.

Lets look at your example of a crab on a beach.
the definition you provided.
the power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate; the ability to act at one's own discretion.

The crab is making decision of action while on the beach and comes across something on the beach it does not immediately recognize. The crab will take action to make a decision which is influenced by its environment, past experiences, and activity around it but it will make a choice to approach or stay away from the object. The word free is a problem since the decision is not absolutely free influences of the situation but it is free in the sense that the crab as an individual will weigh the information to make a decision. I feel it is better to see this as a paradox of a free choice imbedded in a situational environment. No choice is made external to an environment and the is always enough chaos in the world that no environment will always predict the choice.

 

[Stan77]

I like that you are now focused on the topic, friend.

Maybe few others can see you as an example on how to proceed in a more serious discussion., Nimos.

At some level, there must be emotional reasons for it. If there wasn't then you probably wouldn't care about the experience in the first place or even to overcome your fear.

I propose you consider that even though life at its earliest stage so graciously and freely gives a glimpse/taste into a state bereft of Fear but it is most likely in the nature of things to get lost in the mists of Time. Which is what life also wants. So what one is seeking is to re-live what has now become a fuzzy instinctual memory. Just a thought, eh.

 

[Nimos]

What don't you understand?

When we talk about a "determined" future, we mean one which is inevitable.
When we talk about how & why we make choices, then that is not NECESSARILY due
to a determined future.

OK?

If the Universe is determined, then it is irrelevant how we make choices. So I agree, it depends on whether that is the case or not.

 

[Nimos]

Lets look at your example of a crab on a beach.
the definition you provided.
the power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate; the ability to act at one's own discretion.

The crab is making decision of action while on the beach and comes across something on the beach it does not immediately recognize. The crab will take action to make a decision which is influenced by its environment, past experiences, and activity around it but it will make a choice to approach or stay away from the object. The word free is a problem since the decision is not absolutely free influences of the situation but it is free in the sense that the crab as an individual will weigh the information to make a decision. I feel it is better to see this as a paradox of a free choice imbedded in a situational environment. No choice is made external to an environment and the is always enough chaos in the world that no environment will always predict the choice.

That wasn't what I meant, rather we would say that a crab is acting according to its instincts. I don't think it is correct to think that it is making a choice as that would mean that it should be somewhat able to rationalize.

 

[Nimos]

I propose you consider that even though life at its earliest stage so graciously and freely gives a glimpse/taste into a state bereft of Fear but it is most likely in the nature of things to get lost in the mists of Time. Which is what life also wants. So what one is seeking is to re-live what has now become a fuzzy instinctual memory. Just a thought, eh.

Sorry don't understand what you mean, to many poetic phrases, im not native English speaking, so prefer direct speech, I even suck at it in my own language

But if you can rewrite it that would be appreciated.

 

[ChieftheCef]

It's not binary like pratically everything else. Yes, you have some freedom to do what you do. But you'll always be making the most of what your body can do, which restrains your freedom even though you do have options with your behavior. That is also, non binary, it's much more complex than a number, it's natural. So you are(n't) free.If you ask I'll try to explain better, but I am recovering from a car crash, so that might be the best I can do.

 

[muhammad_isa]

If the Universe is determined, then it is irrelevant how we make choices..

It depends what you mean by "determined".
I mean .. why can't the future be "determined" by our choices?

 

[Nakosis]

In my chat with the AI, I actually raised the exact same issue.

But there are some flaws with this I think, because then free will is limited by our knowledge, which seems wrong. A more correct way of putting it I think is how we can utilize our free will depending on our knowledge, we simply have a larger range of choices to draw on, but the concept is exactly the same. You freely choose between several options, but some options might simply not be available due to the lack of knowledge.

For instance, we can speculate and imagine traveling to other solar systems, we can make movies about it, write books etc. But we don't have the technology. But if we could do it, nothing prevents us from making the choice, the concept is the same. Just as it would be for the early humans, their understanding of the Universe was simply more limited than ours, so these choices might not have occurred to them. In the same way that we can't imagine what we could do if we knew what happened before the big bang, but if we imagine we knew, then the concept of free will is exactly the same.

If knowledge is limiting free will, I think one runs into issues, with the partly free will thing. Which to me is an odd concept. Meaning that modern humans can use free will in regards to things we do now, but if we knew what happened before the big bang, then our free will simply wouldn't work here. That seems extremely unlikely, or at least I think there has to be an explanation for why that would be true.

IDK what happen before the "Big Bang" so I can't really make an argument about that.

 

[Kfox]

That is the question. As I wrote to someone else just now, if we can predict atoms and our brain is made of atoms, why couldn't we in theory also predict them?


Yes, but the brain is made up of atoms that follow rules.

WE are the atoms you speak of. You're asking how come we don't control the atoms that are ourselves; my answer is we do.

 

[siti]

Agree, assuming we could calculate all atoms is probably not realistic

But wouldn't that be irrelevant, in regards to this?

I'm not sure it would entirely, because the ability or inability to determine the brain's (or the atoms therein) future would in some measure partially determine that future - if you see what I mean.

Obviously, we are talking on a theoretical level here.

Meaning whether we could calculate it or not, the issue would still be the same. That if it is deterministic we are on a railroad track as in the article and free will is an illusion.

If it is truly deterministic then free will is an illusion - what I'm still trying to grapple with is whether being indeterminable means it is, in fact, indeterminate...it (whether or not we can predict something) certainly makes a difference to how we think about things and how we think about things certainly makes a difference to the brain's future states...none of that is entirely free in the sense of being completely random - that much I am sure of...but is there any genuine volition involved? Is it really will? And even if it is volitional, it our own volition at work? Or some partially randomized probabilistic function of the universe we find ourselves acting as "agents" within? All of which is probably just a very long way of saying I don't know.

The question then becomes whether we care, I guess. If we can't tell the difference anyway?

I don't think we should "care" for any practical purposes - its an intriguing and mildly entertaining philosophical puzzle, but in real life I think we have no choice but to assume we do have free will even if we really don't.

Another thought is also that maybe it is not necessary to calculate each atom, we simply need patterns or enough information to make the predictions. We don't calculate each atom for a planet's orbit either to predict it. The brain might simply be slightly more complicated at the moment.

No - but that's the other way round...I was suggesting that if we can't predict the future of the brain, we can't predict the future of its constituent atoms...so in the case of a planet, if we couldn't predict its future orbit we would not know where its constituent atoms are...and, it turns out, that the precision with which we can predict future planetary motion is not great over very long timescales...orbital chaos, resonance effects and slight errors (as small as a few meters) in pinpointing the exact location of a planet now make it utterly impossible to predict their orbits in a couple of hundred million years.

Maybe, after all, its the orderliness of the universe rather than the capriciousness of free will that is an illusion...but who knows?

 

[Nimos]

It's not binary like pratically everything else. Yes, you have some freedom to do what you do. But you'll always be making the most of what your body can do, which restrains your freedom even though you do have options with your behavior. That is also, non binary, it's much more complex than a number, it's natural. So you are(n't) free.If you ask I'll try to explain better, but I am recovering from a car crash, so that might be the best I can do.

Sorry to hear that.

But please explain. When I say binary, it's simply that either we can make free will choices or we can't. If we can make them (Again ignoring biological limitations) then I can't see why we couldn't make all types of choices?

 

[muhammad_isa]

If it is truly deterministic then free will is an illusion..

No .. that is the illusion.
i.e. The feeling that a determined future somehow removes our power to choose.

What you need to remember, is that our choices can be the thing that is determining it !

 

[siti]

No .. that is the illusion.
i.e. The feeling that a determined future somehow removes our power to choose.

What you need to remember, is that our choices can be the thing that is determining it !

Well OK but that's not what "deterministic" means in the context of a discussion about free will - in that context, in the context of a scientific objective realist materialist view of the universe, the future trajectory of all events in the universe is fully determined by its past - there is nothing we can do in the present to change that and any "choice" we make is not a real choice at all but an inevitable consequence of the natural unfolding of the reality of the material universe.

Not saying I agree with that, but if that - which is what is meant by "determinism" - is true, the free will is an illusion.

 

[Nimos]

It depends what you mean by "determined".
I mean .. why can't the future be "determined" by our choices?

That is kind of the opposite of what determined means.

Definition:
following or relating to the philosophical doctrine of determinism, which holds that all facts and events are determined by external causes and follow natural laws, and that there is no free will

The way you can look at it, is to imagine you kick a footfall and it lands somewhere (lets just ignore all wind etc. just to keep it simple). The force and angle you hit it with are following natural laws, so these will always be the same. Now you keep kicking the football all over the place and we do that 1000 times.

Because the natural laws by which we kick the football are fixed, that means that we can now go backward using the same rules and eventually we will end up exactly where we started. Now as you kick this football around you try to kick it in different ways believing that this affects how far it goes, but it always follows these natural laws, so the distance is always the same.

Now in theory we can do the same with the Universe, eventually, we end up in the Big Bang. The question is since all atoms etc. seem to follow natural laws could things be any different? or is the Universe simply following the natural laws and given we as everything else are also made up by atoms we are also restricted to them. This means that everything including how neurons in our brains are firing is determined by former states and if that is the case, then there is no free will. This is a simple explanation of hard determinism.

Keep in mind that people do not agree on this, that is basically what it is all about And then it goes into quantum mechanics and stuff like that.

So to answer your question, your choices are determined by these former states that you ultimately had no say in.

 

[Nimos]

IDK what happen before the "Big Bang" so I can't really make an argument about that.

I know

But let's assume you did, would that prevent you from using free will here? This was in relation to knowledge limiting free will. I just don't see why that would be the case, humans invent new things constantly and it doesn't seem to affect our free will in any way, the concept is exactly the same,

 

[Nimos]

WE are the atoms you speak of. You're asking how come we don't control the atoms that are ourselves; my answer is we do.

How do you demonstrate this? Can you give an example of where you see this happening? (Not saying I disagree, just want to make sure I understand what you mean)

 

[muhammad_isa]

..in the context of a scientific objective realist materialist view of the universe, the future trajectory of all events in the universe is fully determined by its past - there is nothing we can do in the present to change that and any "choice" we make is not a real choice at all but an inevitable consequence of the natural unfolding of the reality of the material universe..

..and why have you put "choice" in speech marks?
It really doesn't MATTER if "matter" evolves in a predictable manner or not. ( too many matters )

eg. we all must die
What I'm saying is that we are still a PART of that, as are our choices.

Not saying I agree with that, but if that - which is what is meant by "determinism" - is true, the free will is an illusion.

It really isn't .. there is no such thing as free-will being an illusion .. it's a meaningless concept.
The illusion is people imagining that a determined future means that we are just automatons following a script .. it's about the way we perceive the passage of time .. if Einstein was still with us,
you could ask him about it.

 

[muhammad_isa]

That is kind of the opposite of what determined means.

Definition:
following or relating to the philosophical doctrine of determinism, which holds that all facts and events are determined by external causes and follow natural laws, and that there is no free will

Well that's not accurate.
That is an opinion of so-called determinists, that free-will is not compatible with a determined future.
Their view is flawed, and is no more than a feeling due to human perception.
See my last post.

Keep in mind that people do not agree on this, that is basically what it is all about And then it goes into quantum mechanics and stuff like that.

Mmm .. no more than conjecture, and the blind leading the blind.

So to answer your question, your choices are determined by these former states that you ultimately had no say in.

No .. you are the one saying "I had no say in it", as if it were obvious.
It's not .. it's just that it appears to be the case .. a bit like a paradox .. I'm not at all confused.