Adina Roskies - Does Brain Science Eliminate Free Will?
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- čas přidán 24. 10. 2022
- Who's the boss, me or my brain? Brain data does not favor free will. In the famous Libet experiment, my brain makes decisions prior to my conscious sense of making that decision-brain activity precedes personal awareness. But there seems to be more to me than my brain? Is that illusion? How to judge among the diverse and competing claims about free will?
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Adina Roskies is a Professor of Philosophy at Dartmouth College. Her areas of specialization include philosophy of science, philosophy of cognitive science, and philosophy of mind.
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At first I read this as "does brain science eliminate free wifi?" And I was like "NOOO!!!" But I calmed down when I realized it was just free will being eliminated. 😊
Not free to say this?
Lol that's funny, but then I'm bound to say that!
made me LOL. Thanks.😄
THANK YOU Lawarence for recognizing that most discussions about free will are 90% about what each person really means by free will, and steering the conversation in that direction.
Which is sad, given that there is an obvious common conception of free will, the experience of deliberation and authority of choice in our minds...
And it's an illusion that is easily nullified. You don't need to make weak phosophical arguments for free will. Just pay attention to your thoughts arising and you will realize you don't have complete authority over your mind like everyone thinks you do.
Your thoughts just arise without your authorship.
Real Example of Free will is not when you chose from existing preferences, but when you create new preferences that do not exist yet.
which will always be preferred from our previous encounters
@@ManiBalajiC not to sure what you mean, but what I say is that we can not have a reason for something that does not exist yet. The only reason for that can be free will - error.
How do I create a preference? Via thought? Where are thoughts produced? Many people, particularly those suffering from OCD, insist they are not in control of their thoughts.
@@yourlogicalnightmare1014 idea is example of spontaneous activity of neurons so it’s just random event, temporary neurons connection
Most people think they have 100% free will. Which of course is wrong if you know how the brain works. We could never get anything done if we all had 100% free will. The question becomes just what part of it is ours and what part is auto. I have a hard time finding that number. We DO have a large percentage of awareness. We are aware that systems are at work and pushing us towards decisions. But it is a fascinating experience.
Truth is, "most people" don't give seconds pause to contemplate the phenomenon.
All is auto, duh!!!
I love Adina Roskies. She is so reflective and deep, without jumping to conclusions.
Three arguments against free will with further explanation in the references. 1. Particles are deterministic. Brains are made of particles. Therefore, brains are deterministic. (CZcams, Sabine Hossenfelder: You don't have free will but don't worry)
2. You do things for one of two reasons. You are forced to (obviously not free) or you want to... but you can't choose what you want. (CZcams, Cosmic Skeptic: Why free will doesn't exist)
3. The future already exists. (CZcams, Paralaks: The illusion of time : past, present and future all exist together)
1. Particles are passive objects, they don't determine anything. 2. You generate behaviors that you predict will get you what you want. 3.If the future already exists, show me or STFU (no offense).
@@caricue : 1. Correct. Deterministic means that one instant is the direct and inevitable result of the previous instant. 2. You generate those behaviors because you want something but you don't control what that is. Would you rather eat bark or cake? Try to want to eat bark. You can eat it but only if you wanted to for some other reason and it to would be determined.
3. As noted, I provided the details in the videos. Of course you don't have to watch them or agree but there is no need for rudeness.
@@lrvogt1257 Did you seriously just admonish me for being rude? Maybe you do believe in free will after all if you think I could have chosen to not be rude. If you have any complaints you should take it up with Mr Determinism. In fact, he is telling me now that your position is ridiculous. I guess we can directly blame that one on the previous instant. As you say, it's inevitable.
1. Particles are not deterministic-quantum physics proves this (unless you believe in superdeterminism-which seems to me to be a weak hypothesis)
1a. Even if this was true-this is the fallacy of composition. A whole is not going to necessarily act in accordance with its parts. We're made of cells. Cells can't read. That doesn't mean we can't read.
2. Arguably-your wants are an expression of your free will. You are also in charge of weighing the value of your desires against other factors such as duty to actively create your wants.
3. Unproven. We don't know if the future exists or even if it does-if it is set or if there is only one future.
@@anakinthemannequin69 : I'm just presenting three arguments besides the neurological one that all point in the same direction. I recommend the videos. They're fairly entertaining.
1. So, particles have agency? I don't think so. Even if there is randomness, there is no choice involved. Fallacy of composition is a good point but not "necessarily" the case. 2. Yes, "arguably" wants are expressions of free will... but again, not necessarily since you don't know what you want until you want it and you can't simply decide to want something you don't want. There are too many factors; physical, psychological, social, environmental, conscious and subconscious etc at play to know what makes you want something. 3. Brian Greene and Albert Einstein make a strong case for the block universe based on Relativity. Since "now" is relative to the observer, so is the past and the future.
The scientists whom choose to believe we don't have freewill, just ask them what freewill should be than or is then?
What would freewill look like than ?
There is an obvious common conception of free will, the experience of deliberation and authority of choice in our minds...
And it's an illusion that is easily nullified. You don't need to make weak phosophical arguments for free will. Just pay attention to your thoughts arising and you will realize you don't have complete authority over your mind like everyone thinks you do.
Your thoughts just arise without your authorship.
Won't be trying to catch your drift here. You're welcome to explain why you feel man has no Will or freedom of thought to act and seek.
You can first define what you believe freewill to be, and explain how that thought arised and why you choose to believe it.
Non-existent. An illusion.
No. Now the main argument for materialist approach to this question is that the brain processes things in the way it does and that we have no control over this; that you are likely to act in a predetermined way because of past influence or choices. Some even go on to say that we have no control of our thoughts -- "our thoughts" denotes that we possess thoughts, as if they belong to us, and even define us.
There's the Soul, consciousness, the Intellect, the mind, the senses, emotions, and the subconscious, Will.
The mind, dependant upon the Intellect, is a contruct of the phenomena plane from a realitive pov, because of the sense perception organs relation to the outside world, conforming & organizing the subconscious contruct -- this is the lower mind
The higher mind -- entering within, as in going up into the Intellect, the place of no thoughts -- disobjectification -- when you close the door off from the outside world, stopping the stimulation of the sense perception organs from being affected by, the quarrels of the world.
This Intellect is a power of the Soul, allowing for Reason, intuition, creativity, imagination.
Nowhere's in the brain is it a fixed processing mechanic that a person must think, believe, imagine, wonder in a specific way. Sure we precieve all phenomena in a specific way because of the brain, but what you do with that is of the Soul's power of the Intellect.
You can be mystical, imaginative, creativity, applying Intuition, along side with logic, facts, evidence, science. You have the ability to change your perspectives and watch the tables turn, you can choose to 'believe' and give yourself hope where once it was not.
Where in the brain is the Intellect, this Divine light, the intuition, creativity, imagination, the Reasoning ability, the Will; where is this mystical union and longing towards that which is above, the very sense of wonder.
The brain may be like hardware, however what is this ability that allows us to change or work on the software? This would be object -- subject relationship and is only a false notion from the phenomenal plane and realitivity. The Soul is not the hardware( brain), nor the software( belief system), but is in Intellect.
I recon the Soul, and choose to believe because of my findings, that freewill is of the Intellect.
This is the analogy I like to use. If you program an ai for collision detection it has to make decisions and thus seems to have free will but the program doesn’t have free will therefore there isn’t free will just the illusion of it.
Libet experiement was based on random choices. The example she gives is presonal preferences. What a genius!
Before any discussion takes place, first define what it is you're discussing! Define Freewill, THEN challenge it?
3:29 *"I think it's just clear that we are physical systems and we're causal systems and nothing about those particular facts I think should make us doubt that we have free will"*
Except for the fact that the brain being a physical system means it is made up of particles whose behaviour are described in detail by the laws of physics. Using differential equations we can predict the state of those particles at any moment in time, future or past. So in theory, we can predict the state of the brain at any point in time, including the future which eliminates free will.
I am going to ask you as well: Ok, to whom is the feeling of hunger directed? I don't have a free will, brain operates automatically due to the matter interacting, so how I am supposed to react to hunger? Brain will go and take some food, or not, depending on the status of the neurons, or all that stuff. No need for a hunger feeling. Why there is a hunger feeling? Why there is a sense of pleasure? Is it a motivation system? Who is being motivated? Lifeless atoms can feel pleasure? What does it even mean
Well, I think it would take a lot more math than just differential equations as there are multiple particles interact simultaneously.
Even a system of 2 planets in orbit has very complex and chaotic order, so trillions of particles would be so much worse.
But yes, theoretically our future behaviour could be predicted, assuming there's no randomness at quantum scales to make the outcome unpredictable.
But either way, I see no room for free will in an absolute sense, libertarian I guess you could call it.
No the collapse of the wavefunction cannot be predicted with certainty only a probability distribution can be known
@@colinjava8447 There is room for free will in QM
Well said, sir, well said. Respect!
Could free will precede conscious awareness in human mind / brain? also explain experiments showing brain activity before conscious awareness?
I forget the author of the experiment but an experiment was done monitoring people's sweating, pulse, etc. Then they'd show a bunch of happy photos with random disturbing photos thrown in.
They found that about 10 seconds before a disturbing image was shown that people's physiology would show a stress response.
So somehow we can detect danger before it even happens.
But there's no reason to place the activity before the event even though that correlation does not eliminate free will. Furthermore the antithesis could be the case. In otherwords this could be the case, namely that the mental event preceded the neurological event.
What it says brain activity precedes the conscious decision. It might be the case that free will just decides to go forward with the solution the brain comes up with.
The mental event preceding the neuro event means the brain is required to interface with the body because we know that suppressing the brain suppresses experience. So whatever part of the brain simply keeps it “all” running , because you need “all” to sense “free” , would be responsible for “free” will. The basal ganglia.
What exactly you want to solve?
good interview. imo there is no objective answer to the question "what is free will". many people use different definitions. but the question "do we have free will" does have an objective answer and depends on how you defined free will in the first place.
good on her drawing attention to how people tend to define free will before trying to answer it.
as a suicide survivor its difficult for me not to believe in free will. I am determined to bring forth that which lives in me to this reality we share. I might not be original I do share and enjoy many things we all do but this body is mine there are many like it but this one belongs to me.
What is Me?
@@neilc4544 look up sartre's theory of the look.
Understanding that free will is an illusion doesn’t mean people should “not be determined to bring forth that which lives then to this reality we share”.
The slave system will not work unless some of the slaves enforce slavery on the others. 🤫Full Metal Jacket (1987) This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine. My rifle is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life. My rifle, without me, is useless. Without my rifle, I am useless. I must fire my rifle true. I must shoot straighter than my enemy who is trying to kill me. I must shoot him before he shoots me.
"I can't think of any experiment that I've seen that makes me disbelieve in free will."
This is when someone thinks that free will is at bottom an empirical problem.
The real problem is, however, conceptual, in my view. I, for myself, can't think of any argument that I've seen that makes me believe that there is some mysterious "third way'" between determinism and randomness, neither of which supplies us with the kind of freedom we want to have.
Quantum mechanics in my opinion makes it possible. We are the particles that we are made of, and those particles appear to be fundamentally nondeterministic. They appear to choose one state out of many, which, in my opinion, is pretty much the definition of free will. Under the same circumstances, you could have made a different decision. The particles choose, and we are the particles, so therefore, we choose.
@@epsilonjay4123 Quantum randomness is the basis for our free will?… “I know what free choice to make. Whichever the dice choose”.
@@007SuperSoldier What if you are the dice?
@@epsilonjay4123 Precisely. Perfectly predictable with sufficient knowledge of the initial state.
@@007SuperSoldier but if you had a set of quantum dice, it wouldn't be the same. We are the quantum dice.
Which other animals have free will? At about what age does human free will emerge? How many minutes per day do we exercise our free will? (Sarc)
As someone who believes in free will, I would say free will probably emerges to some degree int he 27th week of pregnancy. Maybe sooner. For animals, anything with a more complex nervous system than a jellyfish probably has some degree of free will but I don't know. I am mostly basing my estimations on when consciousness emerges. Consciousness in it of itself seems to provide some evidence of free will. Not conclusively but none of the anti-free willers have been able to adequately explain the phenomenon except for a banal dismission of it as an illusion. An explanation that seems relatively circular in my opinion. What would the illusion of consciousness be for?
@@anakinthemannequin69 That's why I deny both free will AND consciousness. Animals are nothing but biological machines.
@@djacob7 WTF how do you unironically deny the existence of consciousness. Its pretty much one of the few things we can be sure is real to at least some degree.
"We are like an old ship - it is still floating, because the elements from which it is built are made up exactly in such a way that they form a ship… It seems to some parts that they will do without the whole and after the collapse of the ship will not enter any more structure. Illusion - because the choice exists only between disappearance and structure, whatever. The board, confident that when the ship falls apart, it will cease to be a shipboard and will lead a free and proud life of the board as such, the board "by itself" - will disappear and disappear or someone will build a stable out of it.
But for now we are cracking."
(Mrozek, Short Letters, fragment).
"The hardest thing is to get rid of the feeling that you are always right. No, getting rid is too high a requirement. Get rid of him even for a minute…
Oh, how stupid, blind, limited everyone is around, and they all do not act the way (from my point of view) they should, but quite the opposite… That's why most of the time I get annoyed.
There is an annoying assumption that they are as right as I am. After all, I don't see what they see, they don't see what I see…
But why, in fact, should I get rid of the feeling that I am the only center of any situation? Why fight it, since I have it innate?
Firstly, to protect against boredom…
Secondly, for your own safety... to limit yourself to one emotional reaction to your neighbor - negative or positive, anyway - means to cut off your path to the truth, which, alas, I suspect, does not converge on me alone..
By nature, we tend to become tyrants, but we have important reasons to refrain from doing so. Are these reasons also natural?
Even if they are artificial, then a little artificiality will not hurt."
(Mrozek, Short Letters, fragment
Brain-Science is a very different perspective,
than Mr. Kuhn and the neuro-recearchers.
The Will, is Eternal, (free ?)
always in a Circuit, from Minimum to Maximum performance..
How is it that the usage of the term free will is not equivocal? If the folk concept is incoherent, what then is meant by "free will"? Surely not something analogous to the folk concept(otherwise it would be analogically incoherent). So, there's a new concept equivocal to the folk concept, and then why refer to that concept with the term "free will", given that it is a different concept?
It’s your free will that programs your brain to react in various ways. I know because I had to reprogram all of my responses to various stimuli in order to recover from schizophrenia.
Fact is you programming your brain was also a programming, why do some schizophrenic patients never get to "reprogram" their brain? Does that mean they don't have free will or their free will chooses not to? Its certainly not possible that only you have free will..
@@ShanksTyata I had a lot of truth that a lot of people don’t have.
@@ShanksTyata Schizophrenia is tough. It’s not easy for anyone.
@@ShanksTyata Some levels of schizophrenia are worse than what I had… even though I had severe hallucinations and delusions. I saw written out in front of me in colored letters the words that I was hearing.
@@ShanksTyata It is true that a lot of schizophrenics like their hallucinations so it’s hard for them to reject them.
This is the way of language. The terms we choose are attempts at highlighting the features of what we hope to do justice to. In that respect they are only guides. This is also the way of our conceptual system.
Closer To Truth regularly tries to exploit this. I say this because it doesn't seem able or willing to step back and see the pattern. That, or it assumes we won't notice. In the meantime we get clip after clip after clip of Lawrence never really advancing, despite his constant reminders of his lifelong fascination with this or that problem.
Is it possible for any thinker to get so little out of so much?
Is Closer To Truth as much about philosophical enquiry as it is about content sustainability?
I don't believe it is.
Yep. They may as well be talking about Bigfoot. But, I like watching because I feel smart listening to smart people talking themselves in dumb circles, that they pretend is a straight line.
@@jhuisenga6022 Yes! Ever since I was boy I've been fascinated by bigfoot. Is bigfoot just an illusion? Does science rule out bigfoot? Is bigfoot incompatible with science? Dr. Craig, is there a hairy bipedal being than which no greater hairy bipedal being can be concieved?
Anyone think that “free will” is not real? Let’s see them try to get me to eat Okra. 🤭
Free will has nothing to do with the brain, but consciousness. What happens in the brain may restrict consciousness in such a way that may affect our decisions but do not absolutely determine consciousness ability to decide freely. I'm not claiming we have 100% free will, I'm just saying that the brain is not responsible for it.
Buddhism says karma is intention. While intention is heavily affected by our habitual thinking. It is thus up to our own free will to either change that habitual thinking or to further enhance it. The experiments that denounce free will, from what I have read seem to be on specific tasks, and doesn’t seem convincing enough to confirm that free will is indeed non-existent. But again I might not understand the experiments enough to comment either way. My free will is rather ill informed and undecided…
Habitual thinking is conditioning which is causality.. deconditioning happen also on causality
You can't explain why one makes one choice over another. If you did, that would just enforce choices are caused.
When you think solely in terms of bottom-up causation, free will makes no sense at all. Free will only makes sense in the context of top-down causation, where agents make choices from the options presented to them by the collective. For example, humans choosing from culture, or neurons choosing from the brain collective. Why does it work this way? It's because top-down causation informs the agents comprising a collective, "how to be". For example, Heidegger's Dasein. Bottom-up causation, by contrast, merely constrains what the top-down can command. Free will is essential to agency (self/identity) and the making of the choices that are consistent with the collective. Keyword: Dasein (Being in culture). So no, true brain science does not eliminate free will, but represents it throughout all levels, in the context of agency theory - see Delafield-Butt (2021) and Sharov (2018).
At 5:43 - "Those people who think that you need souls, will not be happy..." and at 5:48 - "And those people who think that you need uncaused causes also won't be happy..." Yup, looks like Adina Roskies and I might be on the same page, despite coming at the issue from different perspectives.
Delafield-Butt, J. (2021). Agency and Choice in Evolution. Biosemiotics 14, 79-85.
Sharov, A. (2018). Mind, Agency and Biosemiotics. Journal of Cognitive Science 19(2):195-228
Bottom-up or top-down, either are causation. What's the difference between them? This is just arbitrary distinction which in terms of free will have nothing to do.
@@MRnormi98 Definitely not. The distinction is fundamental. Not sure what it is about my clear explanation that you don't understand, but for your benefit, I'll unpack a little further. Bottom-up causation is about many parts somehow self-assembling into a functional unit. It's what engineers do when they design things (I know, cos my first degree is in engineering). This kind of assembly can never occur, in any productive way, by itself. Neo-Darwinian determinism is based on the same source, bottom-up, materialist narrative (genes cause complex stuff).
Complex structures might occasionally occur in nature, by accident, in very rare circumstances. But their persistence across time, despite the forces of entropy assailing them from every direction, is what needs to be taken seriously. It is the *persistence* of complexity across time that is the deal-breaker. Bottom-up causation, by itself, is impossible because of entropy. Only by factoring in top-down causation can we address the entropy problem.
Agents that are motivated *to be* are motivated to make the choices most appropriate to their survival - and these happen to be, more often than not, the choices that are most appropriate to the survival of the collective itself, whether as neuro-plastic brains or human-plastic cities, or termite-plastic termite colonies.
@@TheTroofSayer "But their persistence across time, despite the forces of entropy assailing them from every direction, is what needs to be taken seriously."
Well, we die. We disintegrate into uniform dust eventually. If we were immortal then I would take this seriously. So no problem here.
There is no possibility that a "whole" is something more than the sum of it's "parts".
It would violate the fundamental law of conservation of information. Denying that principle would put you at a lost position scientifically. Top-down causation would mean that there is something more that you couldn't deduce it from it's "parts". That would mean that the "whole" has a information that the sum of it's "parts" don't.
She's sharp and fun! Love her.
Finally, someone smart on the q of free will.
0:00
_"... I can't think of any experiment ... that makes me disbelieve in free will ..."_
Yeah.
In the practical sense it's not really important
how much hard you worked to prove or disprove free will.
Anybody, the most basic mind can realize
that we are not the makers of our thoughts and feelings.
And even if that recognition was false,
then we do that totally unconsciously.
In the practical sense,
what is "free" in something what is totally unconscious ?
Nobody thought or felt anything willingly.
The only thing what you can do is becoming aware of them.
To be conscious about them. Nothing more.
(If you are lucky enough.)
We are only the slaves of our thinking and psychology.
And even those who learn to be free of their thinking and psychology
by for example meditation
(by a long sequence of automatic functioning, thinking and feeling)
they will be only the masters of the big fkng nothing.
In the practical sense we will never be free.
We are bl@@dy determined.
We all are just
the slaves of this dsgstng universe.
Brain science, along with every other way of trying to acquire knowledge, depends on choices.
I guess I'm commenting because it's my choice? At the moment this is the only video available to comment on so that narrows down my choice. I guess it's 50/50 do or don't? Besides other choices like randomly throwing my phone out the window. I guess each window I walk by there a 50/50 chance. I think our choices are narrowed down to what's possible with each movement. It may be freewill but still only a limited amount of options in the moment. I mean where does my subconscious come up with this stuff lol
If we accept "The Block Universe" concept of Einstein to be true then there is no free will.
Einstein wrong.
Consciousness is inconsistent with evolutionary theory?
Are you a "common" person? Do you think of yourself as a "common" person? What is that, a "common" person? Is it "the average guy" or the "man in the street"? Maybe, it's "just plain folk." Does one have to have a PhD to lose the "common" descriptor? Can a "common" person be interested in free will and perhaps even be intelligent and thoughtful, and even contribute something significant to the free will discussion? I think so. If so, would they not be "common" anymore?
Perhaps Robert meant to say, "persons not involved in free will studies." 🙂
Without free will, we would all be puppets on a string.
Consider that you might be. As an educator in public schools, we were taught to always give students two pre-determined choices. This offered the illusion of control to the student while either decision would benefit the teacher’s agenda.
We only have two real choices in life: accept pain and suffering or seek to avoid it at all costs. The plurality of ways we have to avoid suffering would seem to be irrelevant, wouldn’t it? But wow, does it ever give us the appearance of freedom.
* edited to fix typo
@@sirrevzalot however you try to narrow the possiblities, its still free will.
@@shelwincornelia2498 I think the point was missed. If there’s a god (i.e., a decision maker) and we’re only accepting or avoiding suffering in life, the plurality of means for avoiding suffering would appear irrelevant. I fail to see free will in that.
@@sirrevzalotfree will has nothing to do with the limitation of choises but the freedom to decide for oneself. The only time when there would be no free will is when there is only one choice one could make. Even in this case one can still decide to not make any choice.
@@shelwincornelia2498 I completely agree. My point is aligned with yours I think. The point where we may diverge is how many choices we have. You seem to see many. I see only one.
Where pleasure is merely the absence of pain, we either accept pain or avoid it. The means of avoidance would appear to be irrelevant next to the sought-after result. I see no difference between ice cream or curry for dinner. The point is to avoid starvation, which is pain.
I appreciate your volleying with me 🙂
intuition pumps being activated in many isn't evidence.
The best part of the Free Willy soundtrack was the Michael Jackson song.
Never believed in free will or altruistic behaviour.
Seems like these discussions cloud the issue. The question should not be is there any evidence to disprove free well, but rather is there any evidence to explain how there can possibly be free will. Back in Catholic school days we were taught Freewill was a "gift" from God. Seems like even then there was no rational explanation for the concept of free will so once again God was used to explain the unexplainable.
@Danny Holland exactly to the point. There is no way to prove a negative.
Simply stated: given that our conscious mind is nothing more or less than a "meat computer" excluding the super natural, where does free will come in to play? It is not determinism (quantum mechanics is fundamentally indeterministic) but simply causality which gives us the illusion of free will. I would agree its not a comforting conclusion.
@@josephdragan7734
You seriously think mind is an arrangement of matter? Just subatomic lego blocks properly stacked?
You see zero ontological difference between mind and matter?
If you genuinely believed your claim of no free will, it must be terrifying to be trapped in a body you have no conscious control over. For all you know, you may find yourself in a situation where you're next to a child and your body decides to strangle it, putting you in a tiny prison cell for a long time
@@yourlogicalnightmare1014 So as I understand it the mind resides exclusively in the brain which is made up of matter, organic matter arraigned through evolution in a most sophisticated design. As individuals we can take no credit or blame for the nature of our decision making computer . No magic or spiritualism here as I can find evidence for. As for being in a trapped body you have a point. It must be torture for some.
I see no reason not to live one's life as if free wheel truly existed.
@@josephdragan7734
"mind resides exclusively in the brain which is made of matter"
Without delving into Epistemology and what you actually know, are you aware of any scientific evidence that shows brain activity causes mind, rather than simply correlated with mind, such as an EKG or fMRI reading.
@@yourlogicalnightmare1014 I do not. Afraid I really don't understand the question. I am interested in any link to any evidence you feel is relevant. I will read it with an open mind
Predictive is determinism.
I have worked out the answer to everything....
ME
There is no evidence for determinism in the first place. All physics is only statistics. And statistics is sun of random events.
Determinism makes them feel comfortable. It gives them a sense of order.
Even if you don’t have free will, every sane person thinks they have it so what does it matter?
As usual, no distinction is made between "will" - that causes an action or reaction, and "free will" that is involved in moral decisions, choosing between right and wrong. While having free will won't prove the existence of God, when one exercises their free will, that can be used by the spirit fragment of our Divine Father-friend to build our soul, something most people are never conscious of during their life in the flesh.
No.
Free Will would require supernatural forces. That needs serious evidence.
the boss is the ballot-box
Her argument for free will argued against it.
As soon as you try to define what free will is, you see that it's an absurd idea: czcams.com/video/zpU_e3jh_FY/video.html Yet people continue "arguing" by waving hands in the air and talking about something wague.
There is absolutely no free will.
And why should we trust a random aggregation of particles to obtain truth?
@@ksdogg We're not random
You don't know that.
@@maxwelldillon4805 why?
"If you probe folk concepts of free will they're incoherent, but there's still free will" -- this always sounds to me like somebody saying, unicorns are real, even domesticated!, except it turns out that they don't have horns. The anti-free will position is precisely that the folk concept is incoherent. But just redefining the phrase doesn't do anything to make free will real: you just end up talking about something else, only in a far more misleading fashion than you could otherwise.
Being able to have a discussion about whether we have free will or not, itself proves we have freewill.
No
I always wondered if they base everything on neurons firing and wiring, and evolution is our best theory we have, then isn’t the only objective of neurons to ensure health and reproduction of the species? We can see how this is false being that 70-80% of western society is using their free will to become overweight and obese (and choosing to poison themselves with alcohol and drugs). Going against the evolutionary pattern of all their being is neurons firing and wiring to ensure the “animal” is healthy. Also people choose to not get married and even get married and choose to not have children when married. This completely goes against the theory of evolution and survival of the fittest and all their being is neurons firing and wiring to ensure survival and reproduction of the species. Also I do believe in evolution but also believe in free will in humans.
Sarcasm is high humor
Our lived experience gives us no choice but to believe in free will.
@@Ajay-jh7th Im sure the comment wasn’t a threat to your survival in any way, yet you still chose to respond huh
You wish
Not at all, but it surelly eliminate brains of scientists that believe it does
Can you actually predict reality?
In some degree. That's why we are making simulations and doing science. To predict reality. Which is useful of course.
brain science emanates from free will...
Nope.
Yes, there is free will, but there's also no doubt in my mind that it can be influenced by things outside my control, especially when certain beliefs are ingrained from childhood.
Growing up in a devoutly Catholic family and attending Catholic school, it controlled a lot of my choices, like what I did with myself on Sunday mornings, whether or not I ate meat on certain Fridays, and what I thought about Protestants, Jews, and Muslims.
I thought it shaped my moral choices, but even before school I knew it was wrong to hurt and steal from others, and my father's belt had just as much if not more influence in that regard.
Ultimately it was my brain and my free will that allowed me to reject a lot of the flawed thinking that influenced my choices.
if it influenced by things outside your control - how can that be free?
@@GaryMooreAustin by my ability to unlearn or relearn things. But I get the argument that every decision/choice I make is influenced by every single moment of my life that ended up to that point. Maybe I'll choose chocolate tonight, because I had strawberry last night, and my stomach, tongue, and brain want something different and they all conspired to make the decision for me. Still, those organs are part of me, and thus still me. I'm not a neuroscientist and don't claim to know the ultimate truth (if there is one to be found). This was just my humble thought of the moment and a way to make myself feel relevant, I guess. You might choose to replay again, and I might choose to do the same, but I also have the attention span of a midge, so I might be off on another meaningless social media crusade by then.
Hi. I think that the concept of free will is going to dissolve just like ether, alchemy, divine creation and all other things that for one reason or another we just got wrong. As for right now i didn't saw any reason to believe in free will. Not in the way people presented it to me. Am i wrong? Maybe. Most likely the answer if we ever find it will be very exciting. But realisticly i don't think that our technological society will survive long enough to answer this question.
Every concept of free will can disappear and this will have no effect on reality. Concepts are just mental constructs, not reality.
@Steve C Thats a very good point. This is way i think that the proper answer will be something other then the concepts that we had for centuries. Is quantum mechanics intuitive ? Does it follow our concepts. Nope. Does it work? Yes. And thats way i suspect that we can't gues work the answer about the so called free will today. We just have to wait for more data and what discusion it may spark. What i am trying to say is that concepts work for our mental reality, they are useful for obvious social reasons etc. but thats it. Nature will do whatever it is doing no matter what we think. At least thats my simplistic point of view. Thank you for your comment Steve C. Ps. I had this thought some time ago. Obviously there is instinctive behaviour and learning behavior. Why nature would sometimes favour learning behaviour instead of instincive if both are devoided of free will? There must be something else thats happening here.
@@Kefir-fw2qf I think the real problem is that people start out looking for ultimate responsibility, which naturally leads to investigating free will, but this basis is flawed. There is no "ultimate" in nature, so they have already predetermined their conclusion. If you start out by looking at nature and seeing what is there, you observe that people generate behaviors that they anticipate will get them what they want based on what is going on around them in the environment. The thing that they don't realize is in order to have ultimate responsibility, you would have to have an ultimate judge. I don't think that the average determinist realizes that he is fighting this ancient battle, and will deny it if you point it out.
Libet experiment shows your thoughts/actions can be deduced/known before you are aware of having/doing that thought/action.
And as such, we can't really take credit for these things as they are decided before we even know about it.
Yeah, decided by you in the form of your subconscious life experiences and beliefs
Can anyone precisely define what is meant by “free will”? I’ve never found anyone who can.
"Free will" is that ability to act free from any constraints such as cause and effect, randomness or physics. Conversely "will" is the inability to act outside the constraints of cause and effect, physics or even chaos (randomness). "Will" is acting in accordance with determinism or indeterminism, while "free will" is acting in violation of determinism or indeterminism.
A natural phenomenon does not get a definition. When you observe a thing in nature, you give it a name and a description. If you conceptualize this observation, then the concept needs a good definition in order to be useful. Since a concept is just a mental tool, its only purpose is to be helpful to think about the phenomenon, so you can use whatever definition you like. Just remember though, you cannot use your concept or definition to negate the very thing on which it is based. Nature doesn't go away just because you can't figure out how it works.
@@caricue How does my definition negate the very thing on which it is based? I'm not sure what you mean, perhaps you didn't understand my definition. It's not that i can't figure out how nature works, it's that i think i do know how nature works in a general sense at least in this aspect of it.
@@mnp3a That bus came and left with me on it a while ago. So that's the way to do philosophy?, just check to see what some philosopher said over 2000 years ago and go with that, ignoring 2000 years of new understanding. What about original thought and thinking for yourself, are there any philosophers that speak on that?
What about the Socratic method? Why don't you ask me about what you don't understand or don't agree with? Instead of telling me that definitions are not definitions according to your definition of course.
@@alexgonzo5508 Long ago people observed that humans make choices and decisions based on whatever was going on around them in the environment. This was given the name of free will. No matter how you conceptualize or define this, it will still be the same. That's my point.
At this point when talking about free will anything goes. It's painful to listen to this.
Yknow how theres those memes depicting a stick and it says lets start an argument this is a stick well heres mine, women are more emotional than men and i feel this means alot of women would not like the idea they dont have free will and would side with emotion over logic whether knowingly or unknowingly we ARE the result of gentics, upbringing, environment etc and the only reason free will is a debate is because of some book some random dude wrote after compiling a bunch of fkn papyrus childrens stories that were meant to make children behave and today we call this thing a bible and it is used to control the masses, just like the media, just like politics, just like the one percent getting richer and we get poorer, and to assume we have free will when obvious examples of the contrary exists and people exploit them daily your just naive
I am posting my response that I made to Sean Carroll's CZcams video on free will. It also applies here.
Very nice, Sean, but I humbly disagree on a couple of points. (Sean made the statement that after the fact humans could have decided differently when making decisions.)
(1) You could not have done differently, because you did what you did after considering the options at a point in universal time. Your statement is hypothetical and cannot be tested. .
(2) To understand "free will," we must understand what "you" and "me" are. We are that which emerges from patterns of neural networks, both of which obey the laws of physics (the emergence and the neural networks). Let's label that emergence, "X". X must have the capability to modify the other neural networks in the physical system that make up a human being. It is the conscious controller of the physical system (remember that X is an emergence from patterns of neural networks). We also call this the "self" ("me").
X has access to memories and other states of neural activity in the physical system (the person). Thus, X has preferences and biases based on genetics and experiences that come from memories and the system state.
X is also subject to influences in the immediate environment that may subconsciously determine a decision, thus the decision is not free. For example, suppose X is making a choice between chocolate and vanilla ice cream. Traditionally, X would choose vanilla since that is X's favorite (it produces good internal feelings of pleasure). However, there is a sign in the ice cream shop showing someone having a chocolate ice cream and they are having a great time. This scene triggers a reward system in the nucleus accumbens (it releases dopamine) such that X chooses chocolate without being aware of what caused the choice. The choice was not free. Given the same circumstances, X would again choose chocolate.
X-Files
Free Will
Earthling human beings (love) think that "free will" means freedom to appreciate this paradise planet lifeboat and the miraculous works of fine art called "life" that inhabit it. And not be imprisoned and enslaved by hostile alien vampires (greed) and their ignorance (hate).
But the hostile alien vampires (greed) think that "free will" means freedom to suck the joy out of life and devour the planet like a ravenous cancer. And freedom to imprison and enslave humans.
Vampires (greed) are blind and cannot see the ignorance of transforming heaven (peace) into hell (war). The capitalist counting corpses are also blind and cannot see the ignorance of destroying the planet.
Unlike earthling human beings and creators of joy...the capitalist counting corpses that rule US can't create harmony (real intelligence) because vampires (greed) are far worse than stupid.
The loveless, lifeless parasites are ignorant (dead).
Vampires (greed) who suck the joy out of life have joined the zombies who eat the futures of their children.
Zombie Apocalypse is here and happening now.
No matter how the brain operates and rises to consciousness. We have two issues. If Einstein is correct and we live in a block universe. Where all time, past and future exist at the same time. Then how do we get free will? Also if we knew all the math required to rollback the Universe forward and backwards in time. Then how can us, this small speck in the universe work outside of the "film reel" by having free will?
Does she want to believe in free will enough to have confirmation bias?
Bull-crap. If you have free will and are right-handed, simply use your free will to become totally and completely left-handed. You can't and I defy your do it. If you cannot do that, then there are neurological forces in play that exert control beyond consciousness, beyond "free will".
You can’t defy reality just cause you want it to happen. That is like saying I can fly because I “willed” myself to fly. I can use my left hand to write that doesn’t mean I will be good at it. The thing about “free will” is that you can make choices that follow the laws of physics and the universe. I know I can make choices weather good for my being or bad because I simply can. The thing about intelligence is that your experience of the free will becomes more profound, since you can chose to react to a stimuli instinctively or not.
There is no "freewill." We're conscious observers of our thoughts. That's all. They arise. We observe. If we were in fact the authors of our thoughts that would require that we "think them before we think them"
Isn't that what one is doing while thinking about something before deciding.
That's not what free will is. You can't just define free will into a paradox and pretend you've debunked free will. lol.
The guy in the street lives in a real world and you not
Her closemindedness and confidence is somehow very attractive philosophically. Her eyebrows reject any argument that questions her authority on the subject of free will.
Anti-free willers of all people calling anyone else-let alone her- close minded for healthy skepticism? Is this a joke?
Her brain is choosing words before she says them, so this would suggest the sentences are preordained? Utter nonsense!
I don't think you can find evidence of "free will" with our current understanding of science. Certainly quantum mechanics doesn't seem like it would be useful. Probability states are not equivalent to volition. So, until proven otherwise , I don't think we have free will , which if true is some type of hell.
They are in denial, like an anthropogenic climate change denier.
"We're causal systems...but that shouldn't contradict ideas of free will!". SMH. Another annoying compatibilist here to offer nothing. Compatibilism is like worshipping the Flying Spaghetti Monster unironically.
Compatibilists offer you reasonable definition of free will. That others are not preventing you from making your own choices. If you want more probably you will never get.
@@MRnormi98 But it's not reasonable. Read Sam Harris's article, the Marionette's Lament for a concise argument.
@@davidhoggan5376 I think I'm overall familiar with Harris position. I have listened to him many times. I don't see any special thing about this article that I didn't know. So, tell me what is no reasonable in my statement on what free will is "That others are not preventing you from making your own choices."
@@MRnormi98 Because the statement addresses one's volition, not free will. It circumvents everything important about the discussion to point out the obvious as though there's nothing to gain by working through how determinism impacts mind, self, consciousness, etc. It's diversionary, not reasonable.
@@davidhoggan5376 Your choices (volition) are free from other persuasions. You have ability to choose between options. I don't know what else do you want from that definition. "How determinism impacts mind, self, consciousness."
Well obviously it impacts in a way that those things are determined by your brain. It's reasonable in a sense that it doesn't contradict laws governing the world.It doesn't contain supernatural phenomenon so in that sense it's reasonable.
There is no way she is a scientist
No.
No.