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Neuroscience, Psychology Eroding Idea of Free Will
pragueexpat writes "Do we have free will? Possibly not, according to an article in the new issue of the Economist. Entitled 'Free to choose?', the piece examines new discoveries in the fields of neuroscience and psychology that may be forcing us to re-examine the concept of free will. The specifically cite a man with paedophilic tendencies who was cured when his brain tumor was removed. 'Who then was the child abuser?', they ask. The predictable conclusion of this train of thought, of course, leads us to efforts by Britain: 'At the moment, the criminal law--in the West, at least--is based on the idea that the criminal exercised a choice: no choice, no criminal. The British government, though, is seeking to change the law in order to lock up people with personality disorders that are thought to make them likely to commit crimes, before any crime is committed.'"
to put into practice the most invasive practices of the "free" world.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
-b.
Typical Slashdot parroting of horrible science reporting. One mildly interesting case does not do much to advance a theory - it may provide a starting point for further investigation, but that's about it.
I won't claim to be smart enough to solve the whole 'free will' debate, but personally I hope free will exists - it (in theory) allows us to help people improve themselves. Otherwise, as soon as someone is shown to have criminal tendencies you might as well just put a bullet in their head and dump them in a hole somewhere.
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And, anyway, the legal system already accounts for physical disorders causing people to commit crimes. There's such a thing as a "not guilty by reason of insanity" - you get confined until you're declared "cured" - this guy obviously *was* cured. The level of compulsion required for a successful insanity defense varies by country and even by US state.
-b.
The British government, though, is seeking to change the law in order to lock up people with personality disorders that are thought to make them likely to commit crimes, before any crime is committed.
I think I speak for EVERYONE on the planet, except the idiots that lead us, when I say: What The Fuck???
If we have no free will, then you also can't blame people for their actions. Though a new application of it, this concept has surfaced as one of the key problems philosophers have had with the Abrahamic religions - If god has even the teensiest capacity for mercy, it can't very well send you to some form of hell for doing what it already knew you would do, and indeed made you to do.
The same applies to a society's criminals. If a person has no free will, then they exist purely as a product of genetics and their social conditioning. Unless the UK wants to start a eugenics program, that leaves us with laying the blame on how society raised someone in the first place.
Thus, without locking up everyone for creating the conditions that lead to criminal behavior, you need to stay well clear of that particular slippery slope.
And all of that presumes the government would act in the best interest of the people, rather than its own perpetuation and the self interest of our leaders. Which, if you believe that, I have a bridge for sale on the cheap...
I see the following possiblities:
1) All Human desires and activities are controlled by things like this tumor. No one had free will, everyone does what the secret biochemical commands tell us to.
2) Someone with that particular tumor loses their free will and is forced to abuse children. If you get it, you will abuse them, no matter what. This would not mean that normal humans don't have free will, just those with that tumor
3) Someone with that particular tumor is subject to strong, but resistable biochemical commands to abuse children. If you get it and are not strong willed, you will abuse them. You have Free Will still, but are going to find out how strong a person you really are.
4) Someone with that particular tumor enjoys abusing children, but has no 'biochemical command' to abuse them. If you get it, you only abuse the children only if you are weak willed. This is no different than what happens when you find a briefcase of money. Some will keep it, others with more ethics will turn it it. Why? Because both people have free will.
Without a lot more evidence, this incident says little about free will. Assuming that the worst case #1 is true is ridiculous. There is zero evidence to indicate it is true. My experience in the real world indicates that #3 is most likely to be the case.
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It's interesting to see how many people have been brainwashed into believing that there really is a dichotomy here between free will and determinism, like you absolutely have to have one or the other. Same deal with the cogito.
I tend to side with Wittgenstein on this one: these questions are a problem of language, not of reality. It's like, "Can god create a stone so heavy god can't lift it?" Who cares?
Does having free will mean anything? No. Does having no free will mean anything different? No. We live our lives like our actions are the result of our desires, and there is no other way we could exist and still have a functioning society.
So why worry about it? It's mental masturbation.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
If it does, then we are behaving appropriately.
If it doesn't, then we never had a choice anyway.
Step into a huge movement. Don't Tread In Me.
You have little to no understanding of the topic of discussion, which is not surprising since you say you don't care and consider it all "mental masturbation".
Where do our desires come from? If they come from the our bodies and ultimately the universe, then that's determinism. If they come from nothingness, then you have free will. It is not a false dichotomy. There is either causality or there is not.
"To whoever modded this as troll: 1. Britain has the most public cameras per capita. 2. It is illegal in Britain to refuse to surrender encryption keys to the police if they ask for them. 3. The proposal to jail people who committed crimes is now entering (even if does not pass) the consiousness of the mainstream. In any other "free" country, it would only be considered by the fringes of society. So was I really trolling? Is pointing out a trend in society trolling? As a comment to THIS article? Really?"
Slashdot is made up to a large extent of fairly conservative types--engineers and corporate IT folks especially--who, beyond their geekiness, are really rather unsophisticated believers in the status quo and anybody who suggests that the latest technological "advance" may not be the best thing for civilization is often modded down as "troll," whether they are actually trolling for any specific kind of reaction or not. There's no moderation category for "doesn't agree with my worldview." Just watch what happens to this posting.
When Orwell wrote, there were still enough brains on the Left to read his work as a warning.
The post-modern Left reads Orwell as if he wrote instruction manuals.
Most of the attack on free well I have seen coming from the neuroscience front assume that you must have Cartesian dualism to have free will. In a nutshell, this is Descartes' belief that the soul resides in the body essentially as a "ghost in the machine". The Christian concept of the human person is rather a unity of body and soul, and the concept of strict duality, against which the neuroscientists argue, is clearly inadequate. This situation is not black and white. I believe it is obvious from a moment of introspection that "free will" is neither absolute, nor nonexistent. Certainly, the condition of the body influences the degree to which any decision is "free". Illness, inebriation, addiction, and even simply habit reduce the degree of freedom we have in our actions. To the belief that neuroscience will somehow prove that free will that free will does not exist, I would say that this is silly. Does the body influence our decisions? Absolutely -- anyone who has ever had a drink too many knows this. Does this mean free will does not exist? To assert this is deny all of the evidence of your own existence. Take a look at http://www.nd.edu/~afreddos/papers/soul.htm for greater depth.
Actually, I have so much knowledge of the topic of discussion I have actually gone through to the other side, and am now looking back going, "What kind of fricking moron would waste his time even thinking about this crap?"
Seriously. Where is the point? It's just another crazy brain puzzle bequeathed down to us by the pretzel-minded religious scholars of antiquity. I have heard so many arguments for and against free will...I used to think it was an important question. I remember reading Freedom Evolves, which is a well written piece by Daniel Dennett defending free will from the point of view of a physicalist who doesn't believe in mind/body separation. I remember working his arguments over in my head, trying them out against some of the dualist perspectives, who claim we'll lose things like objective morality when we "lose" free will.
And finally, it just occurred to me that "losing" free will is like losing the fricking tooth fairy. Who cares? There are a lot of really smart people who have devoted their whole lives to solving a question that has no fricking answer, and even if it did have an answer, it wouldn't matter!
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
> What possible explanatory purpose is served by adding or removing free will?
Dignity as a human being. Without free will, we are all helpless automatons.
I don't know about you, but I take responsibility for my bad decisions AND my good ones. I wouldn't want to live any other way. (And I am not religious in any sense.)
It's not a lie. It's the truth with lossy compression.
But that's not what he says. cogito ergo sum, I think therefore I am, because if I think there must be a thing that thinks, and that thing that thinks must exist, because otherwise it couldn't think. At no point does he observe himself or anything else, because all observational data is suspect to Descartes.
This is the problem. He proved he exists, but then got stuck there. In his actual argument, he followed that up with, "If I exist, then god must exist, and if god exists then the world must exist, because god wouldn't fuck with me like that" which is pretty weak.
The only way to deal with the cogito is to throw it out the window at the start, because you can never prove the existence of anything but yourself a priori.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Yea, that's a classic religious argument: "God has to exist, because if he doesn't you got no free will, and your existence is base and meaningless" yadda yadda yadda.
The practical answer is, either way, you still have to get up and go to work in the morning. The same world will exist. The same physical laws will apply. The only difference is we'll be missing something that we can't even perceive in the first place, and which very well may not exist at all.
From a religious standpoint you can make the same argument with God and/or the immortal soul in the place of free will and it reads exactly the same.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Alas, it doesn't work to say, "Free will must exist, because I think it would suck if it didn't."
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased