Brain Study Calls Free Will Into Question

siddster notes an account up at Wired of research indicating that brain scanners can see your decisions before you make them. "In a study published Sunday in Nature Neuroscience, researchers using brain scanners could predict people's decisions seven seconds before the test subjects were even aware of making them... Caveats remain, holding open the door for free will... The experiment may not reflect the mental dynamics of other, more complicated decisions... Also, the predictions were not completely accurate. Maybe free will enters at the last moment, allowing a person to override an unpalatable subconscious decision."

Comments

Predict the prediction.

[0100010001010011]

So there's a 7 second 'thought to action' lag. When they start predicting what the scanner is going to say call me.

Re:Predict the prediction.

[Simon Simian]

I was going to call you, but then I didn't.

Re:Predict the prediction.

[infonography]

I was going to call you, but then I didn't. I knew you were going to say that.

Re:Predict the prediction.

[Simon Simian]

Shingle Donkeys

Re:Predict the prediction.

[siddster]

Actually the lag can vary. In another one of Benjamin Libet's experiments (not mentioned in the article) he stimulated different areas of the human brain (he had a neursurgeon friend that he worked with during surgeries) and asked the subject to press a button when he perceived the stimulus.

It turned out that no one pressed the button until 500 milliseconds after the stimulus. So, there appeared to be at least a 500ms lag between stimulation and conscious acknowledgement of the stimulus.

Here's the funny bit: a 500ms lag time to perception is incompatible with a whole bunch of human activities. Take tennis for example; if there's a 500ms lag between watching the ball getting hit and actually perceiving it as getting hit the ball has already flown past you. (assuming a ball hit at 200km/h=55 meters/sec)

Yet we play tennis.... Intriguing eh?

Re:Predict the prediction.

[Simon Simian]

When they start predicting what the scanner is going to say call me.

You're suggesting that we build a scanner scanner. Presumably it would know which button the subject's subject is going to press 14 seconds before the act.

Then we build a scanner scanner scanner, and so forth.

The answer is left.

Re:Predict the prediction.

[RockoTDF]

Most great athletes say that they rarely, if ever, "think" about what they are doing. They just do it. Ever play an FPS (or paintball, or whatever) and get off a really good shot because it seemed like your finger had a mind of its own? That is basically what happens. The nervous system in your body can do (and learn to do) a lot without any input from the brain whatsoever.

Re:Predict the prediction.

[BungaDunga]

Conscious parts. Your muscles can't pull a trigger at the right moment without having input from your eyes. It may bypass conscious "areas" of the brain entirely, but something has to happen in the brain for you to do anything (even breathe).

Re:Predict the prediction.

[zappepcs]

This is decision making through trained thought processes. We hit the ball with some expectation of where the opponent will return the ball, or at least most professional tennis players do. Given that we have already predicted the likely return path of the ball, reacting to visual signals based on the other players body actions gives us quite a large lead time in terms of milliseconds in that process. By the time the other players racket hits the ball we are already headed toward the most likely direction of the return of the ball. You will see in pro games where a player totally fucks up that process and just lets the ball go. It is the high tension precision of play/guess/play/guess that makes sports the exciting thing that brings fans. The ability to mentally guess based on available knowledge where to be and when is what amazes us, though to the players it's as much reaction as it is a trained instinctual movement.

I write code, and some of it relies on the predictable processes of other code. That is how things work. We all use the best information we have to make decisions of free will. What was painful decision making process becomes trained reactive processes after time and practice. Some people seem to have a 'knack' for some things... they usually become professionals. This happens in every walk of life. Sales people are different than engineers and both are different from sports players. Each has a set of decision making processes that are honed to a certain group of tasks. There is a reason that sports players don't generally retire to become insurance sales people.

Free will is the ability to use available information to arrive at good outcomes of any decision. This, at it's most basic, is seen in survival situations. This, survival situations, is what I like to call failure-mode analysis. It works for code, it works for anything. Break it down to failure mode and see what happens, how each component reacts. In sports we see failure mode use repeatedly. Tennis is basically run that way the entire match. Each mistake is a failure. Each failure leads to one of two outcomes: further failure or success. This is survival mode.

In that mode, we have to use free will as simply repeating what we have done before leads to failure. We have to learn and use free will to assert that learning to gain success... unless you simply wish to surrender, and that is free will also.

I choose not to replace main bearing seals on my car's engine... I surrender. If I had to, I could learn how and do it, but I CHOOSE not to.

In most cases in life where there seems to be no free will, we simply have chosen to surrender or not learn what is needed to complete the task or defeat the puzzle.

500ms is a long time in some respects, yet it is a very short time. It has been scientifically proven that when adrenaline is pumping, our body clocks (sense of time) is sped up. That is, 500ms under physical duress seems like it was 3-4 seconds, giving our brains time to react faster than what we normally perceive.

The measurements of 500ms are common in vehicle safety parlance. Seldom does anyone speak of that 1/2 second lag under duress. In sports, it's all under duress. Predictive analysis of the current events gives us the ability to see and react faster than the 500ms being discussed.

Re:Predict the prediction.

[RockoTDF]

Right, but what I am saying is that you can be well trained enough so that your nervous system can cause behavior (such as hitting the tennis racket) without the frontal lobes having any input.

Re:Predict the prediction.

[BungaDunga]

I thought so, but you said you could do "a lot without any input from the brain whatsoever" which isn't, strictly speaking, true. Lots of things happen without input from the conscious areas of the brain.

The weird thing about this study is that what looks like a conscious choice (a reflex doesn't feel like a decision), made practically instantaneously "I shall press this button *PRESSED*" is actually chosen up to seven seconds before we _subjectively_ decide to press the button. This is strange. I wonder what happens in the brain if subjects are asked "Please hit a button, but you have two seconds to choose which. Go!"

Re:Predict the prediction.

[eno2001]

I'm reading a great book that addresses this. Julian Jaynes' book entitled, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind works through a lot of examples to prove that nearly all human activities are done in the absence of conscious thought. The general theory he puts forth in the book is that human consciousness only happened 3,000-3,500 years ago. He suggests that before this change (over a great deal of time, not instantly) humans had split minds where one half would communicate it's type of information to the other half via auditory and visual hallucinations. To support his theories he uses early written language examples which lack the concept of free will, let alone will at all. He argues that it was much more than just a literary device, but was in fact an accurate representation of human thinking in that time.

Re:Predict the prediction.

[Gibbs-Duhem]

First, I want to compliment the GP of this thread. He hit the nail on the head -- seven second lag between a decision and realizing you've made a decision is very different from not having free will. I can very easily imagine people subconsciously (or even consciously) knowing what their decision will be well before they "decide". I find personally that most of my "decision making" is trying to understand why I feel a particular choice is correct, not deciding which choice is correct.

Secondarily, to comment on the parent. I teach karate, and in fighting matches I have observed this in quite a bit of detail. If you try to decide what to do, you are invariably ~100ms too slow in reacting (varies from person to person and experience level).

One of the most critical elements of training is to move intellectual responses into the automatic response regime, which gradually reduces the reaction time while simultaneously freeing conscious brain-power for higher level guidance. For example, at a low level, your body is handling blocking and striking without your conscious intervention while at a high level, you're observing the rhythm of the fight and observing your opponent's posture and techniques.

Then, you set up a "trigger" in your reactions so that as soon as a particular opening appears again, you immediately capitalize. Usually you do this by repeating a motion many, many times, but it eventually happens. That capitalization definitely happens in under 100ms (I can punch about 6 times in one second, and in order to break the rhythm you need to get at least a factor of four faster than that).

To see this (maybe), imagine that your opponent does a quick punch. If you notice that he's a bit slow to recover, a good option is to sidestep and punch before his punch is over -- but a punch is over in 200ms, tops. You have to start your punch in at most 50ms after she starts hers (switching genders for the sake of the female karateka in my club). Of course, I might be convinced that this is more a matter of picking up on a rhythm and predicting a punch... but if you do this then you're screwed by a fake, and it wouldn't explain quick responses to the very first attack of a sequence, so I'm fairly sure it's a real reaction time.

p.s. Can you tell I teach at an engineering school? It's always entertaining when the class is completely at a loss to understand a move until I draw a force diagram.

Re:Predict the prediction.

[Gibbs-Duhem]

I mean, I feel like the answer is intuitively obvious. If you were told to press one of two buttons within two seconds, you would bypass the "decision making" phase and just push whichever one you felt like. I'd bet a lot of money that people would have no difficulty pushing one that fast.

Although, your idea does raise the interesting idea of whether or not the button choice would be more or less random. Small, subconscious preferences would probably be exhibited on a much larger level.

Re:Predict the prediction.

[schnikies79]

I remember from psychology class that certain reactions are processed in the spinal cord and executed before the information has even made it to the brain. If I hadn't sold my book on amazon after the class, I'd look it up. Something along the lines of say, burning your finger. You will pull away before the signal has even made it all the way to the brain.

Re:Predict the prediction.

[TapeCutter]

In (200km/h) tennis you try to trick the opponent into thinking you will hit the ball in a certain direction using your 'body language', if successfull you will win the point because your opponent is alreay commited to moving the other way BEFORE you hit the ball.

The brain is always a few hundred ms ahead but it does a very good job of making everything appear seamless and in sync. It's very hard to observe this in real life unless you need to change a decision fast. For example when closing the car door you see your keys in the ignition, your brain says STOP but your hand continues to close the door.

In a more serious situation (say a car crash) your brain will work overtime and it may appear that everything is in slow motion, this helps to make decisions fast but it still can't overcome the brain to body action latency.

Re:Predict the prediction.

[Cassius Corodes]

Furthering what you are saying, there are some interesting experiments referenced in steven pinkers book "The blank slate", which are done on patients that had the connections between the two brain hemispheres removed (due to crippling epilepsy) - they instruct one side of the brain to do something (ie go out of the room) and then ask the other side of the brain why they did it. The other side never says "I don't know" it always makes up a reason, and the patients can get quite heated insisting that they had a reason. This would suggest that consciousness is a story telling device to explain our actions rather than the source of our decision making.

Re:Predict the prediction.

[ultranova]

The general theory he puts forth in the book is that human consciousness only happened 3,000-3,500 years ago. He suggests that before this change (over a great deal of time, not instantly) humans had split minds where one half would communicate it's type of information to the other half via auditory and visual hallucinations.

Well, that's one theory which is absolutely impossible to prove either way. It is, after all, impossible for anyone to prove that they have subjective consciousness, rather than being puppets being guided by hallucinations - which, I presume, would still originate from a consciousness of sorts, but whatever.

Then again, it might be easy to disprove: if it happened so recently, long after the current main groups of humanity split from each other, there should still be plenty of people in this split-mind state today. So make predictions about the difference between us and them, and go find them.

To support his theories he uses early written language examples which lack the concept of free will, let alone will at all. He argues that it was much more than just a literary device, but was in fact an accurate representation of human thinking in that time.

Of course, it could simply be that writing at that time was mainly used for bookkeeping, not to mention philosophy hadn't yet developed to the point of making this a problem... And besides, as far as I can tell, my dog has free will, and stubborn one at that.

Anyway, this theory is very likely rubbish, because plenty of old kingdoms - such as ancient Egypt - already existed far before 3000 years ago, and it's hard to imagine how merely following hallucinations without conscious forethought could build and upkeep large and complex societies; for that matter, it is hard to imagine just how the heck such a double-mind could develop. Getting sudden hallucinations while you're hunting woolly mammoths is not a good thing.

Re:Predict the prediction.

[eonlabs]

Just to clarify your statement some, a tennis court is about 23m long from end to end, making an object moving at 55m/s take just under 500ms.

Now, a question... Who can return a volley in tennis at that speed.

Someone untrained in the sport might, but it's not likely. With training, do people realize they are about to hit the ball before they do? What is the last point in time that someone in a tennis match can be told to not hit the ball, and respond appropriately?

If you're predicting the movement of the ball based on the behavior of your opponent, which people who are experienced at tennis do, and you limit your options automatically because you've trained your mind as well as your body in the art of playing tennis, and you don't need to think about whether you hit the ball unless you didn't, then you no longer are limited to the 500ms barrier between realizing that an action has taken place. The key here isn't response time, it's throughput, and it's the only reason that humans are capable of monitoring so many vital systems at the same time as performing conscious thought. Fewer channels to think in would make 500ms to realization matter.

Out of curiosity, who would be horrified at the idea that we don't have free thought?

Who would stop making decisions as a result?

Who would be left afterward?

Darwin's law wins?

Re:Predict the prediction.

[infonography]

Shingle Donkeys ok, thats as far as I am going to go with you.

Re:Predict the prediction.

[police inkblotter]

How much of that is time to push the button (since the time between the beginning of the push and when the push is actually completed isn't taken into account) and the time it takes for the signal to be acknowledged, though? I assume the time for the signal to be acknowledged is just about negligible, but the time to fully push the button sure as hell isn't.

Re:Predict the prediction.

[thebrieze]

Its the Hypothalamus, or the little brain, making these decisions. Any activity that we practice enough to the point where reactions become second nature (think braking while driving) really involves handing off that decision making process from the frontal lobes to the hypothalamus. Being directly linked to the nervous system, these decisions become reflex actions with a much quicker response time. I would guess an order of magnitude less than the 500ms.
That's why athlete's don't "think" about what they are doing

Re:Predict the prediction.

[tubapro12]

Then how the heck do I make split-second decisions when playing a FPS, reacting to the unknown factors like enemy movements?

Re:Predict the prediction.

[Anonymous Coward]

when closing the car door you see your keys in the ignition, your brain says STOP but your hand continues to close the door. ignisecond, n:
The overlapping moment of time when the hand is locking the car door even as the brain is saying, "my keys are in there!"
-- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"

Re:Predict the prediction.

[Plazmid]

Now that's bleeping 'creepy'.

Re:Predict the prediction.

[Elad Alon]

"We wanted to include a chapter on free will, but then decided not to - so here it is."

Re:Predict the prediction.

[ceoyoyo]

Your point is correct, but there are some muscle actions that don't require the brain's intervention. The heart beats on its own for example. There are also some local loop reflexes that are managed by the spinal cord. By the time your brain finds out about it your leg has already kicked the doctor in the crotch.

A lot of other reflexes, including breathing, are managed by the brain stem. Technically it's usually classified as part of the brain. A lot of very well learned muscle coordination tasks are believed to be managed by the cerebellum. You don't need to think about walking, your conscious brain can just say "walk" and the cerebellum takes care of the details.

The other problem with the parent's (grandparent's?) observation is that direct brain stimulation is an unexpected stimulus. When you play tennis you see the racket swing, see it hit the ball, then see the ball come toward you. If someone just whacks a ball at you and you don't start watching until its on its way then you probably WON'T be able to hit it.

Re:Predict the prediction.

[Fallen Kell]

Actually, there have been many studies that have proved that there are things which your muscles/nervous system will do without interaction from the brain. Many of these involved reflex actions as well as trained reflex actions where-in the muscles started to perform their actions faster than the time it takes for the nervous system to transmit the signal to the brain, let alone receive one back from the brain.

Re:Predict the prediction.

[wolferz]

"It is the high tension precision of play/guess/play/guess"

That stops working in say... baseball. In baseball the pitches body language and stance (intentionally) tells you nothing about the coming pitch. The only thing that changes between different kinds of pitches (and their angle) is the position of his fingers on the ball (hidden by the the glove until the pitch begins) the way he releases the ball (the pitch itself takes less than .1 seconds and thus is too fast to see), and very minute differences in the angle of the pitching arm's down stroke (imperceptible to the naked eye). From experience I know that only after a pitch has traveled 1/5th of the way to you do you have any idea which way the ball is traveling. In the case of a curve ball or a slider you also can note the pitch required a lot of effort but the ball is moving too slow for a fastball, but you still cant be certain how much or how little the ball will change direction. You literally have to start your swing and continue making adjustments to the angle of your swing while reading the ball. The bat you are trying to hit the ball with is about the same thickness as the ball itself, thus require a near perfect alignment to get a clean hit. Guessing isn't good enough.

Add to this that you also have to predict the exact moment that the ball will pass in front of you and how long it will take for your swing to bring your bat in front of you so that the bat and ball are passing in front of you at the same moment.

To put some numbers into all this a 95 mph fast ball travels from the pitchers hand to the catchers glove in just over .4 seconds. A curve ball, usually 65-70mph, travels the same distance (actually a little more) in just under .6 seconds. A difference between your swing and the ball of greater than .08 seconds will put the ball in the left or right bleachers.

Oh... and no, "the ability to use available information to arrive at good outcomes of any decision" is not free will. That is called reason. Free will comes in when you knowingly chose not to take the better of two options... such as a randomly deciding to use a nail gun to attach your hand to a wall. Free will is the ability to choose in SPITE of the known outcome.

Re:Predict the prediction.

[Mr. Slippery]

I remember from psychology class that certain reactions are processed in the spinal cord and executed before the information has even made it to the brain.

Yes, but spinal reflexes are extremely simple - "hot! drop it!" or "muscle tearing! contract!". IIRC, they're usually just a three neuron circuit - input, one interneuron, and output. The sort of complex behaviors exhibited when we perform a trained athletic feat can only be coordinated by the brain.

Re:Predict the prediction.

[Leftist Troll]

If America becomes a fascist state, expect that post to be used against you in the interrogation room.

Re:Predict the prediction.

[genericpoweruser]

What about automatic batting machines? Is there any warning before one fires? I know people hit those a lot and I bet it's faster than 500ms.

Re:Predict the prediction.

[fferreres]

That's why we pre-program responses, so that we don't need to take that much time to come to an answer. That's why walking is a struggle when 1-2 years old, and afterwards, it becomes as easy as ot having to reason one bit. But then again, that leads to a lot of problem, because we end p being programed to "react" in a way that seems to the obvious response, even though we are not really aware consciously of what we are doing. That's why, I guess, I have read some books about Buddism that tell you to start walking consiously as much as you can. Feel all the movements, sense them...all of them, direct them again in a conscious non-automatic way. To start thinking again with the heart and the part of the brain that is more reasonable.

And thats also why many people dislike other football teams except the one they have chosen. Or why a religion ultra-pro pacifist as Christianism ended up supporting crusaders, or wars. And why the spiritual leader became the King of Kings for at least some centuries. We forget that we are reacting automatically. We make the decision in less than 500ms for sure, and then produce a lot of activity in the cortex (or higher brain) to support what our programming tells us.

The higher brain fucntions merely become great at finding the right arguments to support you higher beliefs. Beliefs programmed during the early stages of existence. After that, changing is very hard, as you need to discard your previous view of the world, you mental model of the world and that of yourself...

We could do better if we stopped thinking we are thinking when we are merely looking for excuses to support our view and export our view (or wanted reality) to others.

Unrelated, studies like this can never prove that free will does not exist. They are merely achieve a reading of intention up a level, from the external manifestation, to the actual "internal voice". Until they can prove the reactions are merely random, or totally predictable (given sufficient power), free will existence will remain a mystery. I tend to believe there is not free "will", but autonomous intent...something like "each person can process a sets of inputs and arrive at different interpretations and actions to be followed". You'd need to understand all inputs and all the alternatives paths that may be triggered in the brain, and add up probabilities all over the paths (eg. if the person's memory is not very good, past information will be distorted, affecting the outcome for good or for bad, etc.).

I think that it's more probable that someone that knows you really really well, and that is very good at reading people will be the best approximation to what someone will think or do. A machine will take much longer, and will only do good with large numbers of people, or for very basic behaviors that can be easily be predicted through statistics (but that can never know the real why's).

Re:Predict the prediction.

[zappepcs]

See my other post: I agree that free will allows you to choose the worst of available choices. My post here was to argue that the .5 second lag is not presented correctly in argument. There are many things that allow us to mitigate that lag, in sport, in business, and in survival. The skill that some use in doing so in sport is what draws fans. Remember, the batter and pitcher et al are under duress during the 1.2 seconds of a pitch. During that time the human brain makes decisions in an accelerated rate. Free will is to subject oneself to that duress, and then make the decisions necessary. Just as cornering a wooly mammoth for next week's dinners is a free will decision. After that, it's all about decisions, with a winner take all kind of outcome... if you can envision what I mean. We animals are built for this, human and others. It is not something specific to humans, nor is free will specific to humans. Choosing to survive any given situation is free will, be it sports, business, or killing to survive. What you say is true if you ignore the dilations of reality due to duress. Add those in and the game of baseball fits the profile I tried to explain.

Re:Predict the prediction.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's very hard to observe this in real life unless you need to change a decision fast. Every time I've taken LSD I've noticed it actually. Hard to remember specifics, but even listening to somebody talk, your brain makes assumptions about what words would make sense next giving you the illusion that you know what people are going to say just before they say it, like their words are on the tip of your tongue.

Re:Predict the prediction.

[Anonymous Coward]

... asked the subject to press a button when he perceived the stimulus.

It turned out that no one pressed the button until 500 milliseconds after the stimulus. So, there appeared to be at least a 500ms lag between stimulation and conscious physical response to the stimulus. Fixed that for you :-)

From the description you provided 500ms is the time for the round trip processing:

stimulus -> sensation -> intent -> actuation

Re:Predict the prediction.

[Anonymous Coward]

That book, while somewhat interesting, is very outdated (the 70s if I remember correctly). Nobody really takes it seriously anymore, though it was an interesting read. Nonetheless I found the theory improbable.

Re:Predict the prediction.

[Alarindris]

Out of curiosity, who would be horrified at the idea that we don't have free thought? I'm not, it's what I believe actually, we are just amazingly advanced computers.

Who would stop making decisions as a result? Not me.

Who would be left afterward? Still here :D

Darwin's law wins?

Re:Predict the prediction.

[Old Wolf]

So the book of Genesis was written by robots? That explains a lot.

Re:Predict the prediction.

[Thanshin]

Then how the heck do I make split-second decisions when playing a FPS, reacting to the unknown factors like enemy movements? You've subconsciously learned the way people move in FPSs.

In every situation the possibilities seem infinite, but only one is optimal. The better a player is, the more often he'll choose that optimal path.

That's why between two very skilled players, the results are consistent (the less skilled loses every time they encounter) but between a skilled player and an unskilled one, they are more random.

The unskilled player surprises the skilled one by constantly choosing unoptimal paths; those actions usually end up costing him a loss, but, sometimes, the weirdness of his movements gets him a kill.

Re:Predict the prediction.

[Anonymous Coward]

I can do it just because I'm that good at pwning. Other people can do it because they are using aim-bots. Simple, really.

Re:Predict the prediction.

[zmollusc]

I would see that as a 500ms lag between wanting to press a button and your muscles pressing it(if that is the way the experiment recorded when the person felt the stimulus). Like when you play a game and see imminent disaster, you want to press shield or hyperspace or whatever (and may have a finger over that button throughout the game) but cannot press it in time. Apologies if it was done differently.

Re:Predict the prediction.

[glittalogik]

Not just Genesis, the whole Torah. (photo)

Re:Predict the prediction.

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay I'm not a biologist or a neuro-scientist, but I'm pretty sure that theres a difference between conscious thought and cognitive actions. Sure, you can play tennis after practice, but not straight away. Everyone trains in a variety of subtle muscular movements from when they're born, but we don't need to consciously think about them when we're invoking them.

Re:Predict the prediction.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wasn't "Shingle Donkeys" in the predictions of Nostradamus?

Re:Predict the prediction.

[bytesex]

Human consciousness only happened 3000-3500 years ago ? I wonder what he could mean with 'consciousness' then - there are 50000 year old cave drawings in France, does he know that ? Also, a lot of Chinese and Egyptian people might just be a tad offended by this notion.

Re:Predict the prediction.

[ShakaUVM]

>>That's why we pre-program responses, so that we don't need to take that much time to come to an answer.
>>Or why a religion ultra-pro pacifist as Christianism ended up supporting crusaders, or wars.

Really? Pope Urban made the decision in less than 500ms? That's impressive. He had "crusade!" pre-programmed, even though there hadn't been a crusade before?

Nifty.

Not really very historical though.

Re:Predict the prediction.

[zentagonist]

I know at least one study attempted to find out if the perceived slowing of time leads to faster reaction time. While subjects generally remembered the situation to have lasted about one third longer than it actually did, they were not able to process information any faster than they normally would. http://www.physorg.com/news116655680.html

Regardless, I don't see how this study has anything to do with what I consider free will; just because my mind may subconsciously come to a decision before I'm consciously aware of it doesn't mean I wasn't the one making the choice.

Re:Predict the prediction.

[foobsr]

Your muscles can't pull a trigger at the right moment without having input from your eyes.

There might be other input channels, gravisensing comes to mind here, which directly control body motions. At the time being, this might sound implausible, but so did the idea of mirror neurons (which is still not quite mainstream). Besides, my personal opinion is that generally too much processing power is dedicated to visual input.

something has to happen in the brain for you to do anything

Patellar reflex, quote: "This reflex helps maintain posture, allowing one to walk without consciously thinking about each step." Which, BTW, helps you to activate other (body-)senses, even more so if you are able to maintain proper posture effortlessly.

CC.

Re:Predict the prediction.

[Kerstyun]

there are 50000 year old cave drawings in France

That's 44 thousand year's older then the earth you dumbass.

Re:Predict the prediction.

[Weedlekin]

"To support his theories he uses early written language examples which lack the concept of free will, let alone will at all. He argues that it was much more than just a literary device, but was in fact an accurate representation of human thinking in that time."

I also have a theory which says that pissing and crapping didn't happen in ancient times because the texts that we have don't say things like "And the Pharoah Ramses said unto the Hittites, Lo, I have marched many a day eating of dried dates and figs, so hold ye the battle, for my bottom runneth over."

Only a tiny fraction of the documents written in the remote past have survived, and many of the ones we have are both fragmentary and difficult to decipher due to the fact that the people writing them didn't bother to waste space on stuff that they reckoned was obvious to the rather small number of people who were educated enough to read it. Building a theory about the emergence of consciousness in our species around such sparse and possibly non-representative evidence is akin to judging the consciousness of modern man from a couple of worm-eaten pages from a scientology text, a 17th century recipe for making bread, a nearly complete version of "Hansel And Gretal", and some bricks with fragments of graffiti on them.

Re:Predict the prediction.

[pbhj]

it's definitely in the Bible Code!

Re:Predict the prediction.

[ampathee]

... I don't get it. So peoples' reaction time was 500 milliseconds. Fingers don't move at the speed of light. How fast can you hit a button when I flash a light at you?

And I don't think tennis players wait for the ball to be hit before they "react".

Re:Predict the prediction.

[Cruise_WD]

It seems obvious that the brain operates on various levels of detail - right down to, as has been mentioned, almost immediate local decisions by nerves or spinal cord.

Our "conciousness" is simply the filtered, sanitised highlight reel of everything that our body is doing and sensing. Of course it will lag behind the actual decision. It's like any leader. Most of the work is done by the administration section, but the leader gets to vet and occasionally over-rule big decisions.

It seems more amazing to me that anyone thought something as complicated as the body could be run any other way...

Re:Predict the prediction.

[TapeCutter]

I've never had LSD but I have hallucinated from illness, sleep depravation and certain fungi, I imagine it's similar but I'll wait until my 80's before trying it. There is a theory that cave paintings represent 'visions'. Dots and geometric lines often cover the pictures and it's thought that these represent the spots and lines that are often percieved as overlaying (or segmenting) hallucinations in a dimly lit environment.

I've had the ESP thing with dope and a group of people, I've also watched it while straight - it's an hallucination alright, but a lot less dangerous than the beer hallucination of leading the pack in the Paris to Daka while actualy just driving home from the pub.

Re:Predict the prediction.

[RonTheHurler]

After reading all the comments herein, I was disappointed that no one mentioned the two experiments in physics which demonstrate that the future is equally fixed as the past. One is a quantum experiment, involving entangled particles and a time delay for one of them. I don't recall the details. The other is a relativistic scenario demonstrating that there's no universal "now" moment, and that a distant observer will see either our future or our past merely by changing his direction of travel. Again, the details elude me, but they are spelled out in a chapter of Brian Greene's book: The elegant universe.

In both cases, the implication is that since the future is pre-established (from our perspective). So then, where is "free will".

As for the religious/philosophical experience, I highly recommend a talk by Jill Taylor on TED.com. She's an intellectual, a neuroscientist who has a profound near-death experience. It's different than what you might expect.

So, what's this "life" thing all about if it's all pre-ordained? Consider this possibility: The universe could be an egg. God didn't create the universe, but rather, the universe is in the process of creating God (or something like that). Basically, what Ray Kurzweil says in his book: The Singularity is Near.

Reality is something you rise above - Liza Minnelli

I finally figured out that the only reason to be alive is to enjoy it. - Rita Mae Brown.

Re:Predict the prediction.

[Anonymous Coward]

I was going to reply to this, but seven seconds ago, I changed my mind, and decided not to...

Re:Predict the prediction.

[salec]

Oh... and no, "the ability to use available information to arrive at good outcomes of any decision" is not free will. That is called reason. Free will comes in when you knowingly chose not to take the better of two options... such as a randomly deciding to use a nail gun to attach your hand to a wall. Free will is the ability to choose in SPITE of the known outcome.

Hmm, If that is a correct definition, than the overall lack of free will could be inferred from Anthropic principle, as such defined free will, when exercised, sooner or later gets you a Darwin Award!

Re:Predict the prediction.

[Anonymous Coward]

I was going to call you, but then I got high!

ahahhahah...I couldn't help it!

Re:Predict the prediction.

[Anonymous Coward]

I love that book so much... it was written so nicely, that most "normal" not psychology-literate people could understand most of it.
It's a shame he didn't let it get peer-reviewed.

And yes, he talks a lot about how most of our decisions just pop out of our subconsciousness - not our active-conscious part of the brain.
The whole free will discussions just seems stupid to me - I mean we sure are not guided by god, neither is it possible to be hard wired to all decisions - so what's left? Throughout our lifetime we form ourselves based on our whole experience, which makes each one of us different, and makes us be and react our own way.
I don't decide like I did a week ago, and in a week my decisions will be different from the ones I would take now.

Oh and in the end there will be cake :)
--Bobby digital

Re:Predict the prediction.

[raduf]

There's a great book by Marvin Minsky on the subject, "The Emotion Machine". It basicaly dispels the myth of the brain of a big black box which somehow thinks. When you play tennis (or do anything else) there's a lot of mechanisms at play, all of them equally "you". The part which we call counscious is... well, it doesn't really make sense to talk about such a "part".

Re:Predict the prediction.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think Tennis disproves a 500 ms lag time. Part of any ball played sports is anticipating what's going to happen before it happens.

Re:Predict the prediction.

[kalirion]

Who needs thinking? According to lots of anime, people can win intense boxing and martial arts matches after being knocked unconcious. How? Muscle memory.

Re:Predict the prediction.

[vertinox]

Anyway, this theory is very likely rubbish, because plenty of old kingdoms - such as ancient Egypt - already existed far before 3000 years ago, and it's hard to imagine how merely following hallucinations without conscious forethought could build and upkeep large and complex societies; for that matter, it is hard to imagine just how the heck such a double-mind could develop. Getting sudden hallucinations while you're hunting woolly mammoths is not a good thing.

Hold on there. Sanitary and nutritional conditions up until the 19th century left something to be desired. A great deal of the witch craft issues that cropped up during the 15th century were most likley due to mass hallucinations due to contaminated mills which let mold spread to everyones bread (back then mill stones were shared by villages which usually meant if someone brought in some contaminated wheat it got on everyones flour).

Considering you are talking about people who lived in 10,000 BC, they often ate just about anything they could get their hands on (what doesn't kill me, feeds me) and they were also not cooking meat that well and living in filth and squalor.

I don't think what they are saying is that cavemen sat around and did mushrooms to hallucinate just to get high, but its possible that these people were tripping most of the time because they didn't understand what they were eating (by the way did you know the reason why most people's potraits from the 17th century have rosy cheeks? It was because everyone was drunk off their gord because you coudln't drink the water and everyone drank alcohol all the time. Considering that was the case for most of our history up until the 18th century, most of our greatest historical figures were most likley high on alcohol most of the time)

The reasoning behind the idea is that society got its start when man kind started believing in things that weren't actually there or happening which caused a communal bond of religion.

The fact of the matter is that most of our ancestors were crazy because of what they ate and drank and luckily for us civilization formed because or despite of it.

Re:Predict the prediction.

[cromar]

Vanilla Ice also predicted this. Vanilla Ice: spiritual leader and prophet.

Re:Predict the prediction.

[tgibbs]

... I don't get it. So peoples' reaction time was 500 milliseconds. Fingers don't move at the speed of light. How fast can you hit a button when I flash a light at you?

And I don't think tennis players wait for the ball to be hit before they "react". It's not the reaction time between deciding to act and doing it--it is the reaction time between the moment that your brain makes the decision (based on electrical activity) and the the time when the decision enters your conscious mind.

Re:Predict the prediction.

[jdgeorge]

there are 50000 year old cave drawings in France

That's 44 thousand year's older then the earth you dumbass. While I wipe the coffee off my monitor, I will observe that remarkably, this was modded down as a Troll, instead of being modded up as Insightful.

Re:Predict the prediction.

[RKBA]

If I recall correctly, it requires from 200 ms to 300 ms to activate a muscle(s) once the decision is made to do so. The transmission speed of neural fibers is relatively slow, plus the muscle takes time to contract, etc. The scale of the abscissa on the graph in the article wasn't labeled, so I have no idea how much time they allocated for physical reaction time (as opposed to purely mental decision making).

Re:Predict the prediction.

[king-manic]

Conscious parts. Your muscles can't pull a trigger at the right moment without having input from your eyes. It may bypass conscious "areas" of the brain entirely, but something has to happen in the brain for you to do anything (even breathe).

The nervous system/brain simply takes other indicators to anticipate a situation that requires an action. See ball approaching roughly at angle X distance Y, put arm at position Z to intercept. etc... FPS's are similar, hear food step, prime yourself to shoot, see dark pixel shoot! Decent FPS internet latency is between 50ms to 200 ms. since at this latency the change of state of the game is faster then our reaction time and thus it doesn't feel like our the game is lagging behind our reaction and perception.

Re:Predict the prediction.

[fferreres]

Not the pope decision, but those that followed the "orders". They were not aware of the stupidity of their decisions for sure.

Re:Predict the prediction.

[Brad Eleven]

I'm very glad to see Jaynes' book cited, but it really has nothing at all to do with free will. You refer to the first argument of the book, which merely proves that conscious thought is for decisions and not task performance. I believe the quintessential example is of the pianist performing Flight of the Bumblebee, who will very likely make a mistake if s/he becomes aware of his/her fingers.

You do correctly cite the general argument, which is that consciousness is a trick that we have learned, rather than a default feature of the human machine. This has nothing to do with free will, e.g., I can be completely self-aware without being able to make my own choices.

It is also possible that my self-awareness is incomplete, such that I believe that I am making my own choices, but am indeed fulfilling another's orders.

I strongly recommend the book, but you may want to complete it before referencing it in an unrelated discussion. Other topics that Jaynes uses to demonstrate his argument are hypnosis, schizophrenia, and religious rituals. The latter is very likely the source of the confusion, as the philosophical concept of free will is often conflated with religious opinion on the subject.

Jaynes' work is not at all philosophical; it is scientific, and includes biological references to the structure of the human brain. I found the chapter on glossololia to be most interesting.

Re:Predict the prediction.

[Anonymous Coward]

Congratulations, you are the lucky winner of today's Total Internet Bullshit Award. Now, proceed to Wikipedia and claim your prize.

Re:Predict the prediction.

[ceoyoyo]

Automatic batting machines fire to pretty much the same location each time. Same with tennis machines. Try hitting a ball (with no strikes) that travels from the batting machine to your bat in under 500ms and fires at random intervals and to random locations.

If you swing at everything (lots of strikes) then you are implicitly making the assumption that the ball is going to go through the strike zone, which puts some pretty strong constraints on the important parts of its trajectory.

I've never seen anyone hit the FIRST ball shot by a batting machine anyway. Everybody waits a couple until they've got a feeling for when the thing is going to fire. With a pitcher it's obvious -- you can see them wind up, which takes a lot longer than 500 ms.

Also note that pitchers take advantage of the uncertainty in trajectory all the time: that's how you throw a strike. If you can fool the batter into thinking the ball is going to fly through the strike zone (even when it isn't) then he'll swing. If we could actually follow trajectories with very high resolution then you'd never be able to throw a strike.

Re:Predict the prediction.

[Anonymous Coward]

I was going to point out all the things you just said that were wrong, but the previous AC put it much better. And, you don't drink much do you?

Re:Predict the prediction.

[ChrisMaple]

Take a look at table tennis, where the ball can cross the net four times in a second. Try to explain that in terms of prediction with a 500 ms lag.

Re:Predict the prediction.

[lamer01]

Obviously you do not play tennis at a high enough level. A 120+mph serve is indeed unreturnable by ALL common humans. Pro tennis players "read" the direction of the serve before the server has actually hit it and have already started to prepare to return it. When the "read" is wrong the serve becomes an ace. The best servers have serves that are hard to read. I remember seeing a show where Jeremy Clarkson was shown to have the same reaction time as Michael Schumacher. I think what we do with our reactions is what matters. I wonder if anyone has looked into how training impacts out the outcome of the subconscious mind is. Also, do you know the feeling of last second indecision? I know that tennis players sometimes change their mind of where to hit the ball at the last second (many times this results in an error). I wonder if this is the conscious mind trying to override the subconscious mind's decision.

Re:Predict the prediction.

[Anonymous Coward]

500ms is a long time in some respects, yet it is a very short time. It has been scientifically proven that when adrenaline is pumping, our body clocks (sense of time) is sped up. Actually, that was recently DISproven.

Re:Predict the prediction.

[vertinox]

I was going to point out all the things you just said that were wrong, but the previous AC put it much better. And, you don't drink much do you?

I usually don't reply, but what parts are exactly wrong? I'm confused. The vast majority of western civilization drank alcohol instead of water up until the 1800's because water was intolerable to drink because of commutable diseases like dysentery which basically killed anyone who drank well water. Tea as a popular drink didn't take off until after 1750s which was only suitable because of the idea of boiling water.

During the middle ages everyone in Europe drank alcohol regardless of class and wealth. Yes there was a watered down versions for daily usage but it still alcohol which has some type of chemical modification to the mind.

Re:Predict the prediction.

[Anonymous Coward]

I knew you were going to say that. Shingle Donkeys

Anagram: Sends Hokey Lingo.

Free will huh? Creepy!

Re:Predict the prediction.

[sjames]

It means that we cannot play tennis using only the conscious mind. It's why a person who has watched the game and knows the rules will fail miserably when they consciously try to play tennis. They won't stop failing until hey successfully train the subconscious parts of themselves in what is expected and how to accomplish it.

At that point, they will be "in the flow" and play reasonably well UNLESS they unintentionally get the conscious part too involved in the low level play again. They will play GREAT when they find that exact threshold of conscious involvement that doesn't interfere with the parts they're too slow for but does provide tactical and strategic guidance.

Re:Predict the prediction.

[Anonymous Coward]

Which leads to a quote I would like to see catch on- namely "Humans are not rational creatures - we are creatures that rationalize."

Re:Predict the prediction.

[Anonymous Coward]

More on your topic here: http://www.martialdevelopment.com/blog/precognition-and-psychic-martial-arts/

Re:Predict the prediction.

[Saxerman]

The Origin of Consciousness is from back in 1976, so it's not exactly cutting edge these days. Julian Jaynes was a controversial psychologist, and his book made him even more controversial. He had planned to write a follow up on the book to address the many complaints, but died (in 1997) before he could complete it. And (from an Amazon review) his theory IS that:

He also posits that many sophisticated civilizations were created by men and women who were all directed by these godlike voices. What is not very clearly explained (a serious gap in his theory) is how all the voices in these "bicameral civilizations," as he calls them, worked in harmony. But his theory is that ancient Greece, Babylon, Assyria, Egpyt, and less ancient but similar Mayan and Incan kingdoms were all built by people who were not "conscious" in our modern sense.

You're right to be critical of his theories, but I don't think he's quite the crank you seem to suggest. Last year a new book "Reflections on the Dawn of Consciousness: Julian Jaynes's Bicameral Mind Theory Revisited" came out which included some of his work before his death, as well as ideas and articles from others in the field which more critically examine his ideas.

Re:Predict the prediction.

[Orgasmatron]

You might want to read the book, rather than that very short summary of it. You are right that it is essentially unfalsifiable, making it not-science. (Note that most history and anthropology are similarly not-science).

To quickly address some of the issues you mentioned:

There are essentially no groups left on the earth where the split mind is "normal", but there are isolated cases. Some forms of schizophrenia, for example, can be considered as very similar to the split mind. One big reason they are gone today is that the societies they could survive in are gone, replaced with our familiar conscious societies. Another reason is that they were regularly hunted down and killed (many examples in the old testament).

I think you underestimate the quantity and quality of very ancient literature. Take a look at the Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature: http://www-etcsl.orient.ox.ac.uk/ Some of it is quite good, and most of it is very, very alien to modern readers. There are plenty of examples from other cultures, I just use that as an example because of my interest in cuneiform writings.

The hallucinations involved weren't like the impression of a drug trip that you see on TV, and they weren't random. Think of it like your intuition having a personality and shouting commands in your "ear". More like Baltar's visitors (from the new Battlestar Galactica series) than like Reefer Madness.

In that context, the hallucinations can be a good thing. What if the voice tells you the right time to strike? Or if it tells you to duck because it noticed a sabretooth tiger hunting you while you hunted the mammoth? But even that is misleading, because it assumes someone with our modern narritive/conscious mind with the addition of voices from the reasoning/analyzing portion of our brain.

7 seconds

[iamhigh]

In a study published Sunday in Nature Neuroscience, researchers using brain scanners could predict people's decisions seven seconds before the test subjects were even aware of making them ... a bunch of stuff about brain activity...

Taken together, the patterns consistently predicted whether test subjects eventually pushed a button with their left or right hand Who the hell takes 7 seconds to decide left or right? I hope they all took the bus... or maybe the shortbus?

Re:7 seconds

[Anonymous Coward]

Making a decision is a process. There may be early indications of which way you decide before you make the actual decision.

Re:7 seconds

[The MAZZTer]

If you had read your first quote more carefully the second one would have made more sense. What it's saying is the scanner picked up on unconscious decisions people made. In this case the decision was trivial with no (known) consequences either way so the subjects likely didn't hesitate and just picked one consciously. What this is saying is that they had actually subconsciously decided which one they were going to pick seconds in advance and the scanner was able to see that.

Re:7 seconds

[Architect_sasyr]

What thought process do you go through to come to the decision of choosing left or right? Ignoring reactions (i.e. something throws a large object at you) in which you'll probably respond a hell of a lot faster, I can see how 7 seconds would work. Countdown:

7 seconds: Hmm that person is reaching out to grab the news paper. They are in my path.
6 seconds: /me glances around
5 seconds: There are $x people also on the path with me, I must go around them
4 seconds: Only two people are in my immediate way after shifting right to miss the first person.
3 seconds: his trajectory will put him there, hers will put her there
2 seconds: optimal position will be to go right again and pass between them
1 second: feet, you heard the brain, do it.
0 seconds: Action performed.

Ok that's a very basic example and I for one would suggest that my own thought process' move a lot faster than that, but having grown up with a bunch of tradesmen and truck drivers around me, I can see how seven seconds works out.

Re:7 seconds

[Anguirel]

Who the hell takes 7 seconds to decide left or right? You do. That's the entire point of the study. The people thought they were taking a second at most to make the decision, but there was precursor activity in the brain which accurately predicted the final choice well before conscious deliberation on that choice occurred.

Re:7 seconds

[Anonymous Coward]

The theory is (and it's not a new one) that your conscious mind merely interprets and rationalises decisions that your subconscious mind already made in a non-free-will manner. You fondly imagine that your conscious mind is doing the decision making - when in fact it's merely organising those decisions into a consistent result.

Our conscious minds have been shown to reorder events in order to 'edit out' the effects of prolonged reaction delays and other processing artifacts.

The brain does this kind of thing all the time - for example, if you look off to your left - then very quickly look off to the right - your conscious mind makes it appear as though you saw continuous 'video' as your eyes traversed the intervening distance. In truth, once the rate of motion gets more than some certain amount, your eyes turn off and your brain fills in the intervening imagery from memory or imagination.

(Actually - that's an over-simplification - this effect is called 'Saccadic Masking' and there is a great Wikipedia page that describes an experiment you can do with no more equipment than a mirror and a friend.)

Re:7 seconds

[TheRealMindChild]

I took a research study doing tests like this at UPMC. A lot of it was horrible tests such as:

A green or red square will appear every 15 seconds, along with an arrow that points right or left. If the square is green, you press the mouse button that corresponds with the direction of the arrow (if it points left hit the left button. If it points right, click the right button). If the square is red, you press the button opposite the direction the arrow is pointing.

Now, imagine doing this for an hour or more straight, with wet electrodes attached to your head. After about 10 minutes (at most), you can't help but completely wander off mentally and stop paying attention to what you are doing. Maybe that is the intention. Your goal is to do your best, because this is a "worth while" study after all on how the brain operates. Things start to flash up and you consciously don't pick up what just flashed, so you spend a good part of those 15 seconds trying to dig up any memory of the past 15 seconds. Maybe you had to be there. You don't even want to know the torture of doing these kinds of tests for HOURS inside an MRI machine.

Re:7 seconds

[Metasquares]

But who says the unconscious decision process isn't an exercise of free will? The big assumption in the article is that free will cannot exist in the subconscious. I think that free will is a property of the whole mind, and all they're doing is demonstrating that they can predict decisions by reading the choices already made within the brain.

Oh, and since this is a binary classification problem (left/right), 50% accuracy means you're not doing any better than guessing - 60% isn't very good in that light.

Re:7 seconds

[Belial6]

That's what I was thinking. The news article should read. "People subconsciously think ahead" I'm not sure that this should be a big surprise, and I don't see what it has to do with free will.

Well, really it should read "Sometimes people subconsciously think ahead"

Re:7 seconds

[RockoTDF]

If you think of the brain as a machine with inputs and outputs (but not a von Neumann computer, that analogy needs to die so computer geeks will stop thinking they understand the brain more than neuroscientists) free will falls out of the equation pretty quick. The point of this study was to show that the brain made a decision, and not the "mind." The mind isn't quite a real thing. There is no neuron or group of neurons that is "you."

And with regard to the 60% part...there are statistics that are run to check for chance. 60% out of dozens or hundreds of trials can be damn good. They don't just say "sweet, we were more than half right! We're getting published!"

Re:7 seconds

[Anonymous Coward]

subconscious? thanks freud. subconscious is a tad outdated if you ask me...

Re:7 seconds

[Anonymous Coward]

What is this "free will" you speak of? Does my brain break some law of physics when I make a decision? How could I have made the decision any other way?

Re:7 seconds

[mrbluze]

Maybe free will enters at the last moment, allowing a person to override an unpalatable subconscious decision. Maybe, but it's far more likely that decision modification at the last moment is due to something smaller and less easy to detect. Truly free will (in the philosophical sense) has to depend on something that cannot be physically manipulated (and isn't something that science can prove the existence of). Basically, free will is a religious concept, and a threatened one. Science has not left many shadows here.

Re:7 seconds

[Jarjarthejedi]

I think he was more pointing out that taking 7 seconds from input to output for such a simple choice is indicative of something else...

Personally I think the summary is just absurd. So the fact that we can make simple decisions up to 7 seconds before we know we made the decision shows we're not making a decision, it's being made for us? Free Will can exist at a sub-conscious level if you accept the subconscious as part of your thinking process.

Did every subject make the same choice when presented with the same stimulus? Now that's a good question of free will right there, not 'Can we determine what they're thinking before they know they're thinking it?'. I've had plenty of moments where I realized I'd been thinking about a problem, and solved it, before even consciously trying to think about it. Does that imply my solutions didn't involve any free will? Or, perhaps, that the human brain is capable of thinking on a couple of levels, some of which are outside conscious detection but still individual?

Re:7 seconds

[Jarjarthejedi]

"If you think of the brain as a machine with inputs and outputs free will falls out of the equation pretty quick"

Well except for the fact that different brains presented with the same inputs come to a different output, even at the subconscious level, is indicative of different wiring, which is so close to free will so as to be debatable the same thing (if your brain is wired differently from mine, and that's partially because of choices you made, which were made because your brain is wired differently from mine, which led to it being wired differently from mine ad infinitum, then what's the difference between having your brain alter itself to work in a certain way and you altering your brain to work in a certain way? Is there really any way to detect the difference?).

I've made plenty of decisions on a subconscious level. I can't think of a certain one that I wouldn't have made the same way had I done so consciously. My subconscious and my conscious minds don't usually disagree. Is that because neither one has free will, or both have the same free will? Is there any way to experimentally check which it is?

(If you understood the end of that second paragraph I hereby grant you one internet nickel, good for one you-tube video search, in honor of your ability to understand horrible writing :P)

Re:7 seconds

[jimmux]

We often think we are making a conscious decision which is in fact unconscious. I have been studying and practicing hypnosis lately, and the reason it is effective (in some people) is that the subconscious mind acts before the conscious. If we program the subconscious mind to behave a certain way, the conscious mind will go along with it unquestioningly (unless it conflicts with the will of the subject).

It's like the old schoolyard trick:

A: "Milk, milk, milk, milk,..."

B: "What do cows drink?"

A: "Milk. No, wait..."

Re:7 seconds

[timeOday]

IMHO it has no bearing on free will at all. Besides, people don't know (much less agree) what free will is anyways, so I don't see how a study could have any bearing on it.

Re:7 seconds

[TechForensics]

Agree completely.

Why must we insist free will can be exercised only when we are aware of the existence of a choice? In programming terms, awareness of choice and of choosing may be a separate register where data gets written for reflection after the choice has been made. The original choice can be freely made even if unconsciously made, can it not? An unconscious process is not necessarily dictated by biology, particularly if the algorithms for choice-making were constructed with much soul-searching and labor of thought. If it were otherwise, our being good only because of possible punishment also disproves free will. If I weigh and reject a bad act based on, say, an oath I've taken rather than on a re-evaluation of whether the act should be classed as good or bad, have I suffered the abrogation of my free will? E.g. I agree with my buddies in AA that drinking is bad and I will never do it again, and then turn down a social glass of wine, in knee-jerk fashion, that probably would not be harmful under the circumstances-- I had freely chosen to make my reaction automatic, and it is automatic. Was there no free will in making it?

This refers back to TFA's observation that some more complicated processes, unlike a simple button-press algorithm we set up in advance, may be fundamentally different from the kind of process involved in the experiment. To oversimplify, if we take more than seven seconds; if, in fact, we take seven days, to reach a major decision, such that consciouness of making the choice overlaps extensively with the unconscious process that informs it-- why would we think the decision bereft of free will? Does not the overlap mean there is a refinement of intention in the mental feedback loop between the conscious and the unconscious? And if the conscious is a part, therefore, of an unconscious process, then the entire process must be one the self is aware of, something we can claim we have chosen.

Maybe our big decisions are formed out of many smaller, some more automatic, decisions, but it is not logical that we have no awareness of the process and cannot exert conscious influence. If that is not choice, what is?

Re:7 seconds

[Cassius Corodes]

I agree with you that the 7 seconds part doesn't actually relate to free will, however if the thinking process is mechanistic then there is no free will, as you are therefore just a complicated decision making machine (sort of like a expert machine in AI fields). Hence there is no real free will, and anyone who could see how your brain functions at the lowest level, could predict your reaction to any given scenario.

Re:7 seconds

[Cassius Corodes]

It wouldn't be free will because your brain starts off wired in a way not of your choosing when you are born. You are right that the brain changes as you go thru life, which impacts on future decisions, but since the original set-up was out of your hands you are more like a ball throw, bouncing off walls. Each ball will have a different trajectory but that's because they were thrown differently to begin with, not because they chose to go down a certain way.

Re:7 seconds

[AKAImBatman]

What is this "free will" you speak of? Does my brain break some law of physics when I make a decision? How could I have made the decision any other way?

Did someone fail Quantum Physics 101? We live in a universe of probability, not determinism.

Re:7 seconds

[Mr. Slippery]

Basically, free will is a religious concept, and a threatened one. Science has not left many shadows here.

If you want to cut through the whole free will/determinism "dilemma", read Raymond Smullyan's Is God A Taoist?:

MORTAL: Wait a minute now, do I have free will or don't I?

GOD: I already told you you do. But that does not mean that determinism is incorrect.

MORTAL: Well, are my acts determined by the laws of nature or aren't they?

GOD: The word "determined" here is subtly but powerfully misleading and has contributed so much to the confusions of the free will versus determinism controversies. Your acts are certainly in accordance with the laws of nature, but to say they are determined by the laws of nature creates a totally misleading psychological image which is that your will could somehow be in conflict with the laws of nature and that the latter is somehow more powerful than you, and could "determine" your acts whether you liked it or not. But it is simply impossible for your will to ever conflict with natural law. You and natural law are really one and the same.

Re:7 seconds

[node 3]

But who says the unconscious decision process isn't an exercise of free will? The big assumption in the article is that free will cannot exist in the subconscious. If it happens in the subconscious, then it *can't* be free will, it's merely will.

The *free* means you are making a conscious decision.

Re:7 seconds

[kae_verens]

yeah, and I bet that at about minute 40, someone in a gorilla suit walked straight in front of the MRI machine and you didn't even see it.

seriously, though - I think you've answered yourself. If you are studying the subconscious mind, then you need to somehow get the conscious mind out of the way - the best way being to bore the mind into reacting instead of thinking.

Re:7 seconds

[Omestes]

I don't think of the brain this way. Therefore your argument collapses. :)

Seriously though, I don't like the I/O models that so many people run around with. Its a model, only a model, and more often than not when we confuse models with reality we are led astray. A model is only useful as long as we realize that we're dealing with only an abstraction.

My brain is not a computer, it is not even like a computer. My brain is like a brain. Its like comparing a horse to a car, and trying to get useful information, all we get are analogies, but not real answers.

I have issues with people who put too much stock in reductionism. Its useful, but I don't know if it is a good way of getting meaningful data.

If we must run with the computer analogy (and I will not bring up Searle's chinese box), then we must accept that the brain has almost unlimited inputs, since it mirrors its own functioning internally, and mirrors external systems internally as well, meaning more than half its inputs are internal. Also we must then realize that half of these internal inputs are NOT logical inputs, but creative factors. This starts making the computer model not at all computer like.

There is no neuron or group of neurons that is "you."

Again, I disagree. The gestalt of neurons (the full set) is "you". Obviously there is a difference between "you" and "~you", and as you say we are all brain, and no mind, this difference must exist in the neurons, or more precisely, the arrangement of them. Or in a smaller sense, the connection of groups to other groups, and the connections within each group.

And, as an interesting mind game, try to live a day of your life as if you did not have free will. The idea (if not the thing itself) is innate.

Re:7 seconds

[YeeHaW_Jelte]

You present it as fact, but that assertion is in fact only your opinion.

Some (if not most) decision are made subconsciously. The 'free' part may only consist of an ability to override subconscious decisions.

And then again, the conscious/subconscious terms (AFAIK) originate with Freud and are only a model, and not a very usefull one at that, in my opinion.

Re:7 seconds

[Anonymous Coward]

Another problem I see with this test is, that there isnt really much to decide consciously here. Two buttons, no additional information given to base the decision on. It should be a random choice , but we all know humans are bad at being really random. Somehow we still always come up with a "random" choice. So maybe all they did was to expose the random choice generator thought process, which takes its time to be performed. Oh and the fact, that they link a decision to a motoric action might also influence the outcome of the decision. Because its such a random decision any detail could be the one that had the critical impact.

Re:7 seconds

[node 3]

You present it as fact, but that assertion is in fact only your opinion. Close. I present it as a definition, because that's what it is. The idea of free will is that you get to make a conscious choice.

To illustrate what I mean, imagine our will exists entirely in the subconscious, and that by the time we're aware of our choices, we cannot alter them. In such a case, we'd still have a will (after all, we still make choices and act upon them), but that will is not free, because we are not free to consciously control it. The notion of freedom (in this context) is meaningless if it exists entirely outside the realm of the conscious mind.

Some (if not most) decision are made subconsciously. The 'free' part may only consist of an ability to override subconscious decisions. I suspect that you're quite right. But still, it's the ability to consciously alter our choices that constitutes free will.

And then again, the conscious/subconscious terms (AFAIK) originate with Freud and are only a model, and not a very usefull one at that, in my opinion. You're probably thinking more about the id, ego, super-ego, which constitute a psychological model which is of questionable validity. The idea of conscious and subconscious (while originating around the time of Freud, and being critical to his psychological theory) is fairly well established.

In order to discard the notion of a conscious vs subconscious would seem to require either showing that we are either consciously aware of everything that goes on in our minds, or that we are not consciously aware of anything that goes on in our minds. Neither of which seem even remotely defensible.

Re:7 seconds

[B5Fan]

I have been studying and practicing hypnosis lately, and the reason it is effective (in some people)...

While I agree with your message, I'm a certified hypnotherapist and it's been effective in all my clients so far.

I can put anyone into a trace once I establish rapport with them (in a situation when they know it's safe to relax). I can then get them to do or think anything that they perceive as safe at the unconscious level. Behaving like a chicken is perceived as harmful (e.g. embarrassing) by most of an audience, which is why a stage hypnotist will select and invite on-stage those who are okay with behaving that way.

I will always check with a client in advance that what I'm going to suggest, when they're in a trance, is considered safe by them. Otherwise it won't work and we're both wasting our time.

And now you are wide awake and alert again and fully aware of your surroundings. (just in case I'm better than I thought).

Re:7 seconds

[Sobrique]

Anyone who's ever learned to drive will be able to tell you that you don't actually get to conciously think about what you're doing when driving, any more than you're thinking about lifting your leg, moving your knee, etc. when walking.

That doesn't imply free will, or any lack thereof, it just implies delegated processing - generate request, and hand it off to the subconcious to complete.

Re:7 seconds

[UKRevenant]

I agree totally. How the test and free will were ever linked I will never understand. I mean if I stamp on someones foot I can predict with a better than 60% accuracy that they will probably move their foot and complain at me! The only option in the test to exercise free will is when told 'push a button' is to refuse to push the button at all. However, when you set up with 'push the button on command with either you left or right hand' most people taking part in the test would follow the instructions and not plainly refuse to do anything on command.

Re:7 seconds

[Peter H.S.]

The experiment you took part in is an old one. I think A.R. Luria explained what is happening at these experiments sometimes in the early 1970's; The short version is, that what is measured with the electrodes/MRI etc, is nothing else but the body's "gearing up" for some action, and has nothing to do with free will.

You knew a square would appear (even at regular intervals), therefore your body and brain geared up for action (pressing the button). The same thing with a runner preparing for the start shot, or the batter waiting for the ball to be thrown; they gear up in anticipation, and that can be measured in both their muscles and their brain.
Or to use a car analogy; a car gets faster out of the starting position if it starts with the motor running 2000 RPM instead of 0 RPM.

Benjamin Lippet (from the TFA) is the originator of these kinds of experiments and his original experiment was murdered in peer review.
The TFA experiment is just a variation on Lippet, and therefore just as bad.

Among the many fallacies one has to buy into if accepting this experiment is that consciousness is just a projector screen for the subconscious (epiphenomenology) : What "you" see, hear or do is just a "film" of what happenend X seconds ago. Your consciousness is a computer screen (and not even a touchscreen;-) where the end results of the subconscious is displayed, and therefore NO feedback from you consciousness to your subconsciousness is possible.
One has to wonder how these "no free will" pundits can explain why natural selection ever developed consciousness since it is used for nothing at all.

--
Regards

Re:7 seconds

[Anonymous Coward]

> If it happens in the subconscious, then it *can't* be free will, it's merely will.

Unless of course the subconscious reaction is a result of your subconsciousness having been "programmed" somewhen before by the conscious part of the brain. Of course it did not have all information back then, so it is disputable if this counts as free will or not, even according to this (IMO too limited) definition.

Re:7 seconds

[bytesex]

Hey. What happens in the subconscious, STAYS in the subconscious.

Re:7 seconds

[shutdown -p now]

And, as an interesting mind game, try to live a day of your life as if you did not have free will. The idea (if not the thing itself) is innate.

The perception of it is always there, sure. But whether it is true or not is another question.

Re:7 seconds

[mdwh2]

But who says the unconscious decision process isn't an exercise of free will?

I agree - in particular, studies of these types seem to assume that free will if it exists must be part of our memory. But if you think about it, making a decision should be a higher priority than recording that we made a decision in our memory, so it stands to reason that the brain would only write the information to our memory later. This hardly rules out free will though.

Imagine if we could build a robot that had a CPU that had free will. This study would be like taking note of when information about the CPU's actions were written to RAM, and concluding that it doesn't have free will.

Re:7 seconds

[mdwh2]

To illustrate what I mean, imagine our will exists entirely in the subconscious, and that by the time we're aware of our choices, we cannot alter them. In such a case, we'd still have a will (after all, we still make choices and act upon them), but that will is not free, because we are not free to consciously control it.

This doesn't follow - just because the decision is only written to my memory later does not mean I had no ability to control it. If I get blind drunk, and have no memory of what happened the next day, does this mean I didn't have free will? As much as I might like to claim that, it isn't true. Although we think of "us" as being equivalent to our memory, this isn't really accurate.

All this study shows is that the mind is not a single entity where all parts interact infinitely fast. But for people like me who don't believe in souls, this isn't anything surprising. Obviously different parts of the brain are going to take time to communicate, but this doesn't mean free will doesn't exist.

Re:7 seconds

[ENIGMAwastaken]

Cows do drink milk. What do you think the udders are for, humans?

Re:7 seconds

[sjames]

The experimental apparatus is interesting and tthe methodology is sound. In the original experiment, the subject is given an oscilloscope with a dot tracing across it. They are to decide to press a button within some timeframe and notewhere the dot was when they made the decision. meanwhile, an EEG monitors their brain.

The interpretation of the results (much like the graph shown in TFA) is considerably open ended.

It shows that a decision is somehow arrived at (perhaps an unpredictably collapsing wave of quantum probability) and that the end result is measurable in the frontal lobes at t-8. In the next 7 seconds, the subject realizes that a decision has been reached and decides to comply with the experimental protocol. Then, the visual pathway figures out where the dot is and that position is noted in short term memory at t-1. Somewhere in that time, a command goes to the top of the motor pathway to implement the initial decision. The motor pathway proceeds (probably in parallel) to implement the command and press the button at t.

The research IS interesting and well done. It does NOT tell us anything about the decision making processs or free will. For all we know, the "realization" that a decision is made happens before the EEG shows anything at all (say at t-8.1) but the second decision to comply with the experiment and the visual processing delays take additional time.

The whole thing is complicated by the need for introspection in the subject. He's not just making a decision, but actively appreciating that he has made a decision, making another decision, and implementing both.

In the process he may also be thinking about getting a few beers with the money he's making, worrying about an upcoming exam and checking out a research assistant.

We have long known that perception and action takes time and that we have many neurological mechanisms that can take action more quickly below the level of consciousness. The experiment does tell us something about how bad off we would be if every action required conscious thought rather than being accomplished by those mechanisims leaving us to realize it after the fact.

Re:7 seconds

[Omestes]

The perception of it is always there, sure. But whether it is true or not is another question.

I agree and disagree. As a warning, I did go to school for philosophy, so expect me to weasel around a bit.

From the western empirical tradition, you are completely right, of course. If it is ever proven as true, which we are far from doing.

From the continental position, this doesn't matter as much, since at least the perception of free will would still be a fact of being. It is subjectively necessary. Thus pure scientific validity doesn't invalidate the concept.

I could argue that, in at least this case, that science is abstract, and what is truly true, is the world we experience.

Truth be told, I'm not quite sure where I fall. I view science as an important tool, but I also view it as somewhat arrogant. Science connects facts, the facts are true, but the models we use to explain the facts are just that; models. On somedays I am a full fledged science nerd, and revel in the wealth of discoveries that we've found, and on others I ponder if they really have changed how we subjectively interface with reality.

Re:7 seconds

[Iron Chef Unix]

That's what I was thinking. I knew you were thinking that seven seconds ago.

Re:7 seconds

[Coryoth]

Of course the question then becomes: exactly how does pure quantum randomness qualify as my "will", let alone conscious will? How is an utterly random choice of "spin up" or "spin down" actually any better than a purely predetermined one? Quantum physics gets you out of determinism, but it doesn't get you to free will.

Re:7 seconds

[sjames]

Except that we have no evidence that the initial wiring is in any way random or out of control of the mind. We do know that whatever thought process (if any) that may exist in the developing brain is not recorded into memory accessible by the time we reach verbal development.

All we can conclude is that free will does not enter into our current understanding of the brain one way or the other.

Re:7 seconds

[sjames]

Religeous truths are in themselves immune to scientific thought. Only particular religeous explainations or stories are vulnerable.

For example, While all this ID stuff is in conflict with science, I can say "God, in his infinite wisdom, set the universe in motion knowing in his infinite knowledge that the big bang would surely lead to evolution on Earth and that that would produce the modern world".

It cannot be proven or disproven. It doesn't even matter to science one way or the other. Nothing science can discover can disprove the statement.

Similarly, free will is the ghost in the machine. It cannot be proven or disproven. It cannot be touched by science and need not matter to science one way or the other. Particular thoughts on this ghost's interaction with neuroanatomy are what are susceptible to science.

The religeous person's belief that science or other's beliefs threaten their beliefs says more about their faith than it does about science or religeon.

Re:7 seconds

[jahudabudy]

The problem I have with relying on science as the end all be all is that it is inherently impossible to take the observer out of the equation. There is no "human knowledge" that is not put through the incredibly subjective filter of human perception. So, while science has been seen to be a very useful tool, it has limits. It offers a predictive model of the world around us as filtered by human perception . So, when you start in on trying to scientifically analyze things such as the subjectiveness of human thoughts/perceptions, well, the recursiveness lends a large amount of doubt to the results.

Re:7 seconds

[aricusmaximus]

But who says the unconscious decision process isn't an exercise of free will? The big assumption in the article is that free will cannot exist in the subconscious. I think that free will is a property of the whole mind, and all they're doing is demonstrating that they can predict decisions by reading the choices already made within the brain.. A good point. Free will is not disproved by this study all it does is remove the conscious brain from the discussion (argument appended below).

However, it used to be free will was thought to be conscious. Now we have clear evidence to doubt that. Science has taken another step forward to shrinking the possible area for "free will" to exist. The trend is clear and where it is heading is (1) to increasing insight and predictability of decision making and by extension(2) to the point that the area where "free will" might exist is vanishingly small and eventually irrelevant to rational discussion. You think free will is in the unconscious? Fine -- now it's time to refine our understanding of the human brain and to figure out (based on previous decisions) how a human will react to stimuli. As the models, sensors, computing power and algorithms improve (and assuming society continues to provide resources to work on this question), it is only a matter of time.

Of course many people react with fear, disgust (related to fear), or anger (which is another side of fear) to this kind of thinking. Why? Because they (unconsiously!) make several critical errors/assumptions/mistaken associations which are the source of their fear.

#1 - that without "free will" they may continue to make the same bad decisions and be unable to change their bad decisions by force of will

#2 - That without "free will" they have lost some sort of "magic totem" or "spark" or whatever that will allow them to overcome the pain and obstacles in their lives

#3 - No "free will" means no "good" and no "evil". If people's choices can fundamentally (with enough computing power, resources, etc.) be pre-determined then we cannot them accountable for their actions.

#4 - The idea that "free will" is fundamentally tied to the concept of spirituality.

I personally feel this "in my gut" when talking about the "loss" of free will. At the end of the day I realize that these concerns are irrelevant because:

- how I make "good" choices (and in particular whether or not someone could predict them) is ultimately irrelevant to me - what matters is that I continue to learn how to make good choices

- Whether or not it can be predetermined, humans can and do learn how to improve their choices

- That spirituality has been shown scientifically to be wired into our brains and that therefore the pursuit of "sacred moments", spiritual states and the general effects of spirituality is not tied in any way to "free will".

So I shrug my shoulders, take a few deep breaths, and trust in my genetically and evironmentally developed brain to make the correct decisions (including those built-in tendencies for compassion, empathy, love) as I travel along the path of life.

----

Reason why conscious decision is not part of free will:

Assume this definition of free will:

"The power of making free choices that are unconstrained by external circumstances or by an agency such as fate or divine will"

Then free will is (by definition) unconstrained.

But conscious decision (according to this study) can be determined (and is therefore constrained by) the unconscious brain processes prior the "conscious choice". Therefore the conscious choice cannot be part of free will.

Re:7 seconds

[n dot l]

Your consciousness is a computer screen (and not even a touchscreen;-) where the end results of the subconscious is displayed, and therefore NO feedback from you consciousness to your subconsciousness is possible. I'm not sure why the idea that consciousness is a reactive process precludes the presence of feedback. Your conscious mind (whatever that is, I've never really understood the distinction between conscious and subconscious thought very well) may not have made this decision, but it observes and reacts, and that process and the story it tells itself are recorded (remembered), which influences the next decision made under similar circumstances.

One has to wonder how these "no free will" pundits can explain why natural selection ever developed consciousness since it is used for nothing at all. It could be argued that "consciousness", or at least the idea of it, developed to facilitate communication and social interaction. It doesn't make any decisions, it just describes the decision-making process to itself in order to build connections between concepts and words. There's more to the idea than that, but I've tried writing this sentence eight times and I just can't find the words to express the concept.

At least that's the way I've always experienced my own mind. Maybe others are wired differently, I don't know. Feel free to dismiss me as insane, I'm often tempted to do the same myself ;). And my apologies if this all came out as gibberish. It makes sense to me, but the words I know don't really fit the ideas I have in mind and I'm afraid that I've yet again lost my meaning in translation.

Re:7 seconds

[zoips]

The point of this study was to show that the brain made a decision, and not the "mind." The mind isn't quite a real thing. There is no neuron or group of neurons that is "you." Well, that's certainly philosophically debatable. I'm comfortable with believing that "I" am my brain, so taken as a whole, my brain is "me". Of course, I'm also comfortable with believing that capturing a given "state" and then running it on functionally equivalent hardware produces two "me's" which diverge, so whatever...

Of course, some believe in dualism...I think my point is that one should never make a blanket statement like "There is no neuron or group of neurons that is "you."" because you don't actually know that. You just happen to believe one way or another.

Re:7 seconds

[mrbluze]

I can say "God, in his infinite wisdom, set the universe in motion knowing in his infinite knowledge that the big bang would surely lead to evolution on Earth and that that would produce the modern world".

Except that there might not have been a big bang. Recent findings are already casting some doubt on that one.

Similarly, free will is the ghost in the machine. It cannot be proven or disproven.

Well, when the day comes when criminals receive brain implanted electrodes to prevent impulsive/criminal behaviours or those with 'personality disorders' have those modified in a similar way.

In the Sistine Chapel painting depicting Man and God - the bent finger one - there is already a hint that the will of man is little more than the slight movement of a finger.

Yes, free will is the 'ghost in the machine' as you say, but people are fools if they think it's any more than that. If science is threatening a religious person's beliefs, then the person's religious beliefs are the problem, not science. If people don't believe in the dogged and humble pursuit of truth, before anything else, then all that will result is the perfection of hypocrisy.

Re:7 seconds

[sjames]

Except that there might not have been a big bang. Recent findings are already casting some doubt on that one.

You forget, I'm talking religeon. If no big bang, I can ask why God wanted us to contemplate a non-existant big bang, or I can just say such is the subtle nature of God, we were wrong but He never is, we now know that God set (theory of the day) in motion to create us.

Equally, if you wire up a convict, I can either choose to believe that he DOES have free will, but man has created a disconnect between that and action (nothing more than a finely tuned and subtle version of paralysis) or even that he suffered a neurological defect before that occluded his free will and we have mercifully eliminated that interference with his free will.

Again, science can support one story over another, but the basic form of religeous faith cannot be touched. They are two seperate spheres of thought that have very little intersection.

When a scientist says free will is religeon,he means it is not within the realm of science. We do not know how to construct an experiment to prove or disprove it in an absolute sense. We can say if there is free will, it's not here or here, but not that it doesn't exist in some imagined spiritual realm. At most, Science could say if there is free will, it is no longer expressed if we do X. The religeous will say it is still expressed in the soul and in the afterlife.

Thus I say, if a religeous person feels threatened by science, he has a weak faith (not to mention a weak grasp on reality). Personally, I would think if someone believes a God created the world, they would want to understand all they could of the creation to better understand the creator.

Perhaps evolution is God's way of saying "NO stupid, read BETWEEN the lines!" :-)

Re:7 seconds

[jimmux]

Poor choice of words on my part. I've seen trained hypnotists work very effectively under the conditions you describe.

My previous father-in-law is a certified hypnotherapist (scary or what?) and I've seen him at work.

My experience has been more with self-hypnosis, which of course is less likely to work when you're as inexperienced as the people I have studied with. Nonetheless, I am amazed at what can be done even then (and hence my continued interest).

Re:7 seconds

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhh, but cows do drink milk. In fact, that is the whole reason for cow milk, evolutionarily speaking.

Adult cows are much less likely to drink milk than juvenile calves, but adult consumption of milk right from the teats is readily observed on dairy farms.

I have free will

[Lucas123]

I've chosen not to comment on this story. There's my free will. Wait, I mean, I'll comment but I'm not leaving an opinion, except for the one that states that I have free will. Hold on. OK. I'm not leaving an opinion as much as statement. Oh, forget it. You're right. I have no free will.

Re:I have free will

[MightyYar]

Forget it - that line of reasoning didn't work for me in front of the judge after the whole girl scout thing, either.

Re:I have free will

[Anonymous Coward]

You can choose a ready guide
In some celestial voice
If you choose not to decide
You still have made a choice

You can choose from phantom fears
And kindness that can kill
I will choose a path thats clear
I will choose free will

Re:I have free will

[kalirion]

Forget it - that line of reasoning didn't work for me in front of the judge after the whole girl scout thing, either.

Don't blame the judge, it's not like he had the free will to acquit you.

Will or Wii?

[blantonl]

For a second or two there... I thought for sure the study called my Wii into question.

My "will" is rock solid... my "Wii" challenges me evey day.

Re:Will or Wii?

[Mastadex]

Thats alright, I thought it was calling into question a movie that was made some 15 years ago.

Re:Will or Wii?

[Anonymous Coward]

Purity of bodily fluids! It's a communist plot.

(I only drink grain alcohol and pure rain water.)

Re:Will or Wii?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bah, I thought somene was giving away free wiis. I was hoping to score one.

Re:Will or Wii?

[SolitaryMan]

So, you have a free Wii?

Re:Will or Wii?

[Anonymous Coward]

I read that as "My 'wii' is rock solid". That gives the sentence a completely different meaning.

How does this eliminate Free Will?

[mudetroit]

Just because there is a delay in the person being able to be cognizant of making the decision doesn't eliminate the potential that there was free will in making it. To put this in terms the programmers among us can relate to. This is the difference between generating a result and outputting the result. They aren't necessarily directly tied together.

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[Anonymous Coward]

"There's a difference between knowing the path and walking the path." -- Morpheus

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[Anguirel]

In programming terms, it's exactly that difference. However, the person thinks their conscious decision is 1 second before the press. Consider that an I/O interrupt request after the output has been generated but before it can be displayed. The conscious mind (the OS in the metaphor) thinks it is making the decision to output something specific, but that decision was made by the subroutine well before the OS got involved. In flow chart terms...

(unconscious decision is made in background processes) -> (person thinks they make a conscious decision using their own Free Will) -> (action occurs which matches the unconscious decision)

Under that model, Free Will is "eliminated" because the final result matches activity that occurs before they consciously deliberate on it and can utilize conscious Free Will. Essentially, Free Will becomes an unconscious process of some sort.

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[Admiral Ag]

No. There is a real problem here. Our ordinary conception of personal decision making is that it is conscious and occurs at the time the decider is aware of making the decision. This experiment goes a long way to proving that conscious experience of making a decision is epiphenomenal.

Let's conduct a simple thought experiment. We'll hook you up to a machine that replicates the experiment and which predicts pretty much everything you choose before you are aware of it. How long is it going to take you, personally, to become convinced that you, as a conscious being, have no free will? Not long, I'd wager.

The only reason people believe in free will is that much of religion makes no sense without it, and some people believe that libertarian politics makes no sense without it. The first is true, the latter is not, since political freedom and metaphysical freedom are distinct.

This is another in the series of nails being driven into the coffin of the religious conception of humanity. Evolution was the first major one. Brain science threatens to complete the project.

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[nanostuff]

How does this eliminate what never existed in the first place? To put this in programming terms, both the generation and the output of the result are side effects of the program. How can a program be 'free' of it's own operation?

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[Anonymous Coward]

I knew you would say that.

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[Azarael]

I agree, but I think it's more accurate to say that, we can see part of the result before it is outputted, and correlate that to a likely value. So basically, what they're showing (in a novel way) is that some conditions make you predisposed to make a certain decision. This is one of the aspects of how neural networks operate.., so the idea isn't really new.

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[a whoabot]

But if the decision was made before you were conscious of it, was it really free will on your part? Sounds more like it was the work of something in your brain and then your mind only becomes aware of it, but doesn't make it.

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[mudetroit]

Personal religious opinions aside, the free will question and the question of religion are not tied to one another. And, in fact, the question of free will is one that can actually lead to a dilemma in many religions, omnipotent or omniscient god anyone?

The debate of free will is one that provides a number of problems for human society as it is currently constructed. If people truly lack free will can you punish them for crimes that they commit, or honor them for accomplishments made?

Bottom line, don't make this discussion about something that it isn't really about.

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[Lemmy Caution]

I know continental philosophy isn't popular in the US, but Alain Badiou's account of the emergence of a subject in what he calls a "situation" which calls forth a deliberative reorganization of one's worldview, one's priorities, etc. is probably going to be the best you can get for "free will." The continent gave up on free will for decision-making ages ago, and Heidegger recognized the rote nature of most so-called "decisions."

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[mudetroit]

This is the common complaint I have with arguing against free will, and one I partially walked myself into by making the programming example in the grandparent post.

The problem here is that you are equating the programming techniques that we have at our disposal currently with all possible programming techniques.

I don't doubt that there is some equivalent to "programming" locked in the human mind. What I do question is whether or not the programming is of the sort that we are currently using, where the results can always be predicted by present state plus inputs, or if there is something else slightly more complicated at play.

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[mudetroit]

Argument of consciousness vs awareness, you are equating the two of them. But while we haven't come to an absolute concrete definition of what consciousness really is, ignoring the poor attempts in dictionaries. I question at times whether tying consciousness, as a scientific term, directly to awareness.

Perhaps this is just related to my own personal biases and views on the subject that I want to study for the rest of my life, but take it for what it is worth.

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is another in the series of nails being driven into the coffin of the religious conception of humanity
Err, no. If you believe in any of the major religion, then the physical phenomena regarding decisions in the brain are manifestations of some kind of transcendent supernatural process.
Getting data before the consciousness of a decision itself forms does not invalidate this. Otherwise you would have to make a hypothesis how the "soul" works which itself would be by definition unscientific.
Basically you are walking in the same trap a Dawkins does by equating religious beliefs to scientific hypotheses.

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[rohan972]

From TFA: "Your decisions are strongly prepared by brain activity. By the time consciousness kicks in, most of the work has already been done,"

I think most of us would hope that decisions are strongly prepared by brain activity, regardless of our view of free will.

For example: Someone instructs you "Kill that innocent person." I would hope that your decision is prepared by brain activity. Preferably brain activity that occured well before you became aware of the instruction, let alone the decision.

The only reason people believe in free will is that much of religion makes no sense without it,

This is another in the series of nails being driven into the coffin of the religious conception of humanity.

I Corinthians 1:21 For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.

At least in Christianity, there is no requirement for the religion to make sense. In any case, you might need to do some more research, as belief in predestination is not uncommon in religions.

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[nanostuff]

Results can't be predicted, that's why they are computed. If the resulting output could be predicted without the intermediate processing, what purpose would the whole 'processing' function serve? Results can be estimated, much like what is being done in this case, but in neither case is there any form of 'supercausal' interference in the operation of the architecture.

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[Derosian]

Unfortunately for you, you fail to understand why religion is important, of course that will be resolved soon by brain science. What I meant though is, Science tells us the how, Religion is for the why. They don't need to conflict.

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[wellingj]

At the heart of your metaphor is the question of self modification. A program could be 'free' of it's own operation if it were free to change itself.

If you want to become a better person (Smarter, Stronger, More Compassionate, More Understanding, fill in your own desire here) then I hope you believe in free will. If you believe that all intelligence and ability is static, I doubt much can be done to make you see the benefits of free will because you've already given up yours.

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[aztektum]

I'm going to have to go with you on this. There is a process in my brain that conjures these thoughts and presents them for selection. Ultimately I can say "Yes, that one." and disregard the rest. Being able to deduce what I'm going to think versus the path I take once I think it is two different things.

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[aztektum]

This machine can tell the operator what they're thinking. NOT how they will react. And even the blurb says it isn't very accurate.

If the machine spits out I was thinking about mowing down 12 people in the street with an Uzi, I confirm "Yes I thought about it." but never do it, that means despite the thought, I chose not to act on it. THAT'S free will.

Just because this machine can deduce enough from the biological processes in my brain that create a full formed, coherent thought, doesn't mean it can say with certainty I will ACT on that thought.

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[Anonymous Coward]

The only reason people believe in free will is that much of religion makes no sense without it, and some people believe that libertarian politics makes no sense without it. The first is true, the latter is not, since political freedom and metaphysical freedom are distinct. You're just wrong.

Classical philosophers such as Democritus and Aristotle were not associated with any particular form of religion, and they came down on opposite sides of the matter of free will.

In Europe of the 18th and 19th centuries, the Protestants of the Calvinist variety absolutely denied the existence of free will, while the Arminians (and others) asserted free will.

If you look at the present and historial divisions in Buddhism, opinions on free will diverge quite a bit.

Personally, I think that people believe in free will because it is one of the most basic and immediate sensations that we have. People can only deny it when they consider the idea in an abstract and metaphysical sense.

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[nanostuff]

A program could be 'free' of it's own operation if it were free to change itself. The changes would result out of the operation making such changes. All a brain is, fundamentally, much like a computer, is a physical system bound by cause and effect. There is no altering of results beyond the processes from which they were derived. Nothing particularly surprising about the fact, it's disembodied decision making that doesn't make sense.

If you want to become a better person (Smarter, Stronger, More Compassionate, More Understanding, fill in your own desire here) then I hope you believe in free will. I don't, but I do these things nevertheless as a result of being fortunate enough to have a brain with a network structure that gravitates to such a function.

If you believe that all intelligence and ability is static I don't, but I understand the misconception.

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[bug1]

My subconscious is still a part of "me", if _my_ subconscious exercises free will, then i exercise free will.

I dont have to know i have free will to have free will.

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[Cassius Corodes]

The "do we punish people if they have no free will" is a false dilemma, because punishing people for crime reduces the incidence of crime, irrelevant if there is free will or not, and after all that is what we are trying to achieve. Hopefully what such a question might encourage is to seriously look at rehabilitation rather than punishment as the main vehicle of dealing with criminals.

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[Cassius Corodes]

Not really, free will is a hypothesis which, with the right machines and if you are clever enough may be tested. The only things that cannot be tested are those notions that have no agreed definition or properties, such as a "soul" or "god". Once you give these notions fixed properties (i.e. souls give us free will) then they because testable.

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[Cassius Corodes]

I hear this often but this is just a load of feel good mumbo jumbo. Religion doesn't tell us why - it tells us nothing. Science tells us how and why - however sometimes people don't know or don't like the answer so they just make it up. If they don't need to conflict then you aren't paying attention to either current or historical events.

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[iabervon]

Why shouldn't there be a lag between when your decision is fixed and when you know you've made it? This fits perfectly with the idea that you propose an option to yourself and then spend some time trying to think of any flaws with it. And if you do think of some flaw, you won't instantly choose a different option; you'll consider that one for some time. In any case, you'll generally not finalize anything until you've spent some time with that as the most favored option, so it's not too surprising that they can pick that out before you commit.

It's like taking a test. You think of yourself as finishing the test when you turn it in. But the answers you will turn in are on the paper since before you started checking them over. You can predict with high accuracy what answers people will give long before they consider themselves done just by reading what they've written. The only new thing here is that we can read people's answers when the answers are in their heads.

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[Anguirel]

Actually, you do. Free Will must be a conscious act for it to matter in all the senses that philosophy cares about -- if agency is to exist, it must exist in a conscious form. If some subconscious process is "making" your decisions prior to your "self" (where "self" is your conscious and self-conscious awareness), you don't really have Free Will, since conscious deliberation on possible actions has no effect on the resulting action you take.

If you haven't, I suggest looking into some Philosophy of Self and Philosophy of Mind books and essays, since I certainly don't have the time right now to get into it as deeply as a subject like this deserves.

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[meatmanek]

Perhaps the operating system starts initializing the random number generator 7 seconds before, but the button press program doesn't actually make the API call until 1 second before the button press.

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[msuarezalvarez]

Unless you are a character in a James novel, saying `continental' is silly...

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[khallow]

This is opinion. I notice lines such as:

Minimally, to say that an agent has free will is to say that the agent has the capacity to choose his or her course of action. But animals seem to satisfy this criterion, and we typically think that only persons, and not animals, have free will. Let us then understand free will as the capacity unique to persons that allows them to control their actions.

Unfounded assumptions, artificial distinctions between "animals" and "persons". And we haven't even started discussing free will.

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[Anonymous Coward]

Science tells us the how, Religion is for the why.

Religion is the wishful thinking. Organized religion is for control.

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[Martian_Kyo]

I disagree with that definition of free will.

I think the problem here isn't the existence of 'free will' but with out definition and our perception of it. Just because a definition exists it doesn't mean it can't redefined or proclaimed as invalid.

So maybe the title should be 'Brain Study Calls current definition of Free will into question.', but that's not as sensational.

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[Lemmy Caution]

Unless you are referring to, oh, I don't know, continental philosophy.

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see you getting moral and ethics from the first and second law of thermodynamics.

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[Omestes]

The continent gave up on free will for decision-making ages ago, and Heidegger recognized the rote nature of most so-called "decisions."

I'd say Sartre's philosophy pretty much implicitly depends on the concept of "free will", but then again I often hear the debate that Sartre is really a through back to post-Nietzschean rationalism, and that the most innovative thread of continental philosophy was Nietzsche->Heidegger->Foucault, since it follows a path of removing the dependence on conscious objects of thought. I'd agree, but it as I read Heidegger there is still a bit of old-fashioned free will involved with Authenticity, since it somewhat denies (or at least comes to terms with) Mitsein (doing as one does, etc), this, though, to be authentic in-itself would have to be free.

I prefer Foucault's epistemes, personally. We are linked to the structures of the world, and the freest we can be is still dictated by these structures, and boils down to the mere consciousness of our being enmeshed with them.

Thank you for putting a continental spin on this, though. It's so rare that this debate is EVER put into the continental context. It's alway shades of naive empiricism, positivism, and naive reductionism. Mentioning Heidegger in any western debate is akin to going to a relatives funeral naked, you get odd looks, but are completely ignored.

I haven't read any Badiou, have any books to recommend? Gilles and Deluize put a bad taste in my mouth.

Its rare that /. caters to both my interests, philosophy and science... I must savor this.

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[Omestes]

Ermm... Philosophy is academically divided into Continental, and Anglophone philosophy. Continental is more colloquially called "existential" philosophy. Anglophone philosophy closely follows the path of Russel, Popper, and Whitehead, where continental is following Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Sartre. Anglophone focuses on logic and pragmatism, mostly, and continental on being, existence, and experience.

I alway hoped that these two branches would merge, since they both are on to something (except maybe pragmatism... kidding!). But Rorty was too weak, and moronic to do so.

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[Omestes]

You answered your own question.

Compare religion with "faith-based adherence to ancient mythology", whats the difference?

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[Lemmy Caution]

Deleuze and Guattari, writing together, are being playful and often contradictory. I enjoy their work, but I don't think it's the most substantive stuff in the world: it's a little too giddy. From Deleuze, I actually really like his "What is philosophy?", even if it makes strange claims at times. The most succinct expression of Deleuze is his early Empiricism and Subjectivity: An Essay on Hume's Theory of Human Nature. Deleuze, at the end of the day, is strongly tied to the English (or rather Scottish!) empiricist tradition.

Badiou's main book is "Being and Event" (clearing trying to put himself after Heidegger and Sartre - I think of Sartre as something of a misapprehending populizer of Heidegger, but even though he's not popular in continental philosophy any more and is dismissed as a lightweight, I can't help but be fond of him, and suspect that some of his work will enjoy a revival some day.) To some extent, he's kind of negotiating a rapprochement between Althusser and Heidegger/Sartre, but it is there that his idea of the event as a situation that produces subjects. He suggests that most of the time, we are not subjects - we just bumble along following the contours of the episteme (he uses a different term and framework for it, but it's pretty much a similar idea) - but certain events call us forth to choose, such as falling in love or committing to a resistance.

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry but religion is way ahead of you there. There's quite a large part in the protestant church that believes everything we do is guided by god. Everything is predetermined but only god knows the decisions beforehand. And being saved or not is not based on who you are or on the good works you perform but only on the grace of god. Having no free will wouldn't faze them a bit. And that's been the case for close to 400 years now.

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[Omestes]

Deleuze, at the end of the day, is strongly tied to the English (or rather Scottish!) empiricist tradition.

I had some suspicions of this from my readings. But I couldn't be too sure since I only read it once, and, as in all philosophical matters of late, had no one else to discuss it with.

As for his collaborations with Guattari, I can't even tell. Anti-Oedipus was almost unreadable to me. The Marxist/Machine images got a little... To be honest I could only comprehend one out of two paragraphs, and had to reread that one paragraph 10 times for it to be seemingly senseful. It was like reading Kant, without the pay-off. I kept on picturing images of a disjointed early Baudrillard.

I disagree with your assessment of Sartre though, in a lot of American circles he is still taken as the penultimate Continental philosopher, while Heidegger is always (fallaciously, IMO) dismissed for his Nazi ties. Generally his philosophy as seen as an apology for Nazism, even though it predates his turn. It is somewhat a shame. Heidegger has the best potential of connecting the various threads of philosophy.

Speaking of, what is your thoughts on Rorty? Is the pragmatic take on Continental philosophy a valid one, in your opinion? Ignoring the trite, and oft repeated, "philosophy is dead" sentiment.

From what you say, I see the relation of Badiou with Foucault. Without have read him yet, he seems like a Foucault with a smaller dosage of Marx and conflict.

Always nice to run into a philosoph in an unexpected setting. If you don't mind my asking, did you go to school for it, and where did you study? My main course of study was philosophy of science (discovering the relation between Kuhn and Foucault was momentous!), but I found continental studies to be completely lacking. I lucked out to find wandering Canadians, who replaced our required cryptochristian, and Wittgensteinian chair.

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[Tom]

But philosophy isn't a science. It's jacking-off-with-words. Very few of what philosophy does has much to do with the real world. That's the difference to metaphysics (philosophies predecessor) which actually understood itself as part of science.

The problem is that philosophy writes a lot of words about other words. You can write a lot about free will and consciousness and self without ever actually defining those terms in a non-circular way. Most importantly: Without ever making your claims falsifiable.

If it can't be disproven, it's not science.

Also, if it can't be disproven, why should I care?

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[Adaptux]

Why is it that proponents of religion think that the only way to understand the why of morality and ethics is via faith-based adherence to ancient mythology?

The Bible describes human experience, including the possibility of entering into a personal relationship with God, so much better than the mumbo-jumbo of philosophical notions like "free will" or the mumbo-jumbo of modern psychology.

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not neccessarily. This assumes the influences on the subconscious decision are all external. If there is an internal feedback loop however, whereby your conscious mind can influence your unconscious mind, you may effectively have free will to decide what broad automated logic your subconsciousness would follow.

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[Admiral Ag]

Aristotle is a compatibilist you lemon. At least in the Nichomachean Ethics, where he discusses responsibility.

Compatibilist does not = libertarian w/regard to free will.

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[maxume]

Some people are profoundly uncomfortable with being "the result of complicated chemical and physical reactions in the matter encased in their skull". If you aren't profoundly uncomfortable with a physical basis for the brain(i.e., the possession of a soul isn't what gets you out of bed in the morning), you aren't going to care much.

It's at least an interesting question, if what we think of as our conscious thought processes aren't simply a result of our brain structure, what are we going to need to do to simulate them? Also, in that case, can they even be simulated?

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[firewood]

If some subconscious process is "making" your decisions prior to your "self" (where "self" is your conscious and self-conscious awareness), you don't really have Free Will, since conscious deliberation on possible actions has no effect on the resulting action you take.

The last assertion is unproven, AFAIK. Conscious deliberation may have an effect on an unconscious decision leading to a taken action. The 7 seconds may only be about a temporary "blind spot" in awareness between when our last effective conscious deliberation was made leading to our decisions and when we are aware of our decided actions. Free will may not depend on one's "reaction time" being zero.

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[Anonymous Coward]

That is extremely arrogant of you. Who cares what your definition of free will is. My guess is that you cannot formulate it into a cohernent system, which is what everyone that matters has done with the subject, that is why their opinions matter.

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[msuarezalvarez]

No, not really.

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[msuarezalvarez]

That division is so eurocentric as to deserve little attention... That's one aspect of `silly'.

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[Deliveranc3]

Ah but it's so easy to compare that to an actual value. Can't one simply say "if this decision seems to offer $5 without effort then do it, less than that consider the consequences?"...

Or some other check, "if girl == 10{ buy flowers}; else think hard about it;"

This type of reasoning failcheck system would be the easist to implement (think Java accepting variable ranges) and would allow for free will.

So while I personally don't believe free will exists I think this article fails to prove that.

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[tgibbs]

Actually, you do. Free Will must be a conscious act for it to matter in all the senses that philosophy cares about -- if agency is to exist, it must exist in a conscious form. If some subconscious process is "making" your decisions prior to your "self" (where "self" is your conscious and self-conscious awareness), you don't really have Free Will, since conscious deliberation on possible actions has no effect on the resulting action you take.

If you haven't, I suggest looking into some Philosophy of Self and Philosophy of Mind books and essays, since I certainly don't have the time right now to get into it as deeply as a subject like this deserves. Not really. The fact that the immediate decision is made without the conscious mind being aware of it does not prove that the conscious mind has no effect on that decision. The input from the conscious mind to the unconscious processes that make the immediate decision could have occurred long before.

For example, the conscious mind could function like a company executive who sets policy. He may only find out about specific decisions a bit after the fact, but he will evaluate whether they are in accord with his intentions, and modify policies to take corrective action with respect to future decisions if they are not, so overall, the decisions made by the company are in response to his will.

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[Omestes]

How so?

This is a pretty well accepted view in all philosophical circles, not just the European ones. Neither side of the pond really addresses the issues of the other, much. So it is as much a Anglocentric view, as a Eurocentric one.

Please explain you reasoning.

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[Luyseyal]

If it can't be disproven, it's not science.

It is philosophy that tells you disprovability is a necessary axiom for science. Science uses the axiom, but is indifferent to why it is there.

Scientists engage in philosophy of science every day. That doesn't make it science and it doesn't make it verbal masturbation. The scientific method is an invention of philosophy for performing science. It itself is not science.

The biggest crime against philosophy was when the universities split philosophy and psychology and allowed glorified English and French majors to turn philosophy into pap.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

-l

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a physicalist and I believe my personality is shaped from physical items such as genomes, hormones and input I've had through my five senses. There is nothing special about me. I'm a product of my environment. My "free will" is based on a personality shaped by my environment. That is what I call free will anyway..

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[plague3106]

Sorry, that's absolutely wrong on philosophy. Indeed, there's an entire set of philosophies based ONLY on what it does for you in the real world. You should read David Hume, for example. Also, other areas of philosophy include human rights and how you can come to them without need for relying on a mythical being, and debate what whether it is best to let individuals exercise their rights or not.

The US was founded by those that engaged in philosophical debates. To dismiss philosophy is pretty silly.

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[jahudabudy]

Once you give these notions fixed properties (i.e. souls give us free will) then they because testable.

I'm afraid I don't understand this assertion. If science can not observe a force called the soul, then how does assigning an unobservable action to this unobservable force give us a handle on testing either the force or its actions?

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[sjames]

However, the person thinks their conscious decision is 1 second before the press.

Actually, by the time the subject decides when they decided, it is now 1 second before the action.

Once you add in consideration of the introspection (realizing you have decided), the second decision (comply with the protocol), the second action (make the required observation to determine the time), it is then t-1 None of that shows in any way that the conscious decision itself didn't happen before the EEG reacted at t-8. The EEG reaction could, in fact, be the brain commanding the motor pathway as a result of the initial decision.

The experiment may, in fact, simply tell us that the motor pathways are slower than the visual pathways.

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[Lemmy Caution]

Reducing the incidence of crime is only one of the reasons for punishment. Retribution/restitution is another, at least for those who ascribe to an idea of moral agency that at least implies a principle of free will.

But yes, the act of punishing to create disincentives for crime (and thus causing people to be disinclined to do them) and remove criminals from the social body is completely consistent with an account of human decision making that is completely deterministic.

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[Anonymous Coward]

In programming terms, if there is any level of uncertainty, you're wrong.

You're conflating implementation issues with fundamental principles.

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[Derosian]

Seems more and more like we have to worry less about Religion's intolerance of Science and more about Scientist's intolerance of religion.

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[Cassius Corodes]

Maybe this is true in bizzarro world where you obviously live, but here in the real world its slightly different. If you look in the middle east you will find people being killed for opposing revealed truths, in the US good christians lying to their children about the state of science and the vatican banning condoms, and local priests spreading lies about their effectiveness despite the fact that it prevents the transmission of AIDS.

Tho I'm willing to hear your sob stories at the hands of brutal science.

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[Cassius Corodes]

Ok, as I mentioned earlier free will is a testable hypothesis. For free will to exists the universe cannot be mechanistic in nature (ie. imagine a giant clock - its actions are always predictable despite the fact that it might be too complex to understand) - so if one can show that the universe to be mechanistic in eliminated the possibility of free will (because if you actions can be predicted ahead of time, it means all the "choices" you are going to make have already been made and its just a train arriving at its inevitable conclusion).

Now if you combine this with a soul, and say that a soul gives you free will it becomes testable because if there is no free will then for my example definition of a soul it is false as it claims to give something that doesn't exists. Do you see what I'm trying to get at?

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[Tom]

The US was founded by those that engaged in philosophical debates. To dismiss philosophy is pretty silly. I'm not dismissing it, nor its historical effects.

But taking your example, I do hold that the core ideas of the US constitution are pretty silly. For starters, "all men are created equal" is provably false. First, men aren't created. Two, they aren't equal, neither at start nor later on. Ignoring the differences between men is the source of quite a lot of troubles in this world.

But that's the problem: The founding fathers had a pretty good idea of what exactly they meant. But they didn't write down what they meant, they couldn't because meaning is unspeakable, in the words of Korzybski. They wrote down a verbal representation of the meaning. But that mapping isn't 1:1, there are multiple meanings that can be expressed with the same verbal representation, and multiple verbal representations to express the same meaning.

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[Tom]

Interesting argument there.

I do agree in part, except that I draw the boundary elsewhere. Where you see the split at the universities, I see the split where philosophy moved away from science. As metaphysics (the term I choose for science-oriented philosophy, maybe a better term would be meta-science) it is the core and structure of the scientific method and everything that comes from that.

Modern philosophy, however, is an abomination. I've read a couple of the most lauded 20th century philosophers. They're no smarter than your average kid, they can just express themselves in more interesting and complicated sentences so that you never quite really know what they're talking about and it all sounds very intelligent and deep.

Popper, for example, had about three really meaningful sentences in all his books I've read and if you look for what his arguments are based on you almost always find that the foundation is - other arguments of his. And that's typical.

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[Luyseyal]

I'm not going to go out on a limb and defend a bunch of boring, useless philosophers. I just hate for people to throw the baby out with the bath water. There is a lot of decent philosophy out there. Sure, not all of it is testable (in the same way that science fiction dreams, but not always with testable premises), but there are important contributions being made in Philosophy of Mathematics, Logic, Emotion, Ethics, and Education. Most of the good stuff draws from science and makes predictions and lays out logical consequences. You can usually tell a bad philosopher when they try to wrap the whole world in a tiny box.

Mathematics is a good example of one kind of philosophy in action.

-l

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[jahudabudy]

Gotcha. However, my understanding is that quantum theory says that the universe is not mechanistic, but rather apparently random. While true randomness wouldn't be free-will any more than determinism (mechanism) would be, if there is an unobservable force generating an unobservable influence on reality, it would still appear random to us.

I'll admit, though, my understanding of quantum theories is at best rather shaky, so maybe the possibility of a mechanistic universe is still on the table.

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[plague3106]

Huh? Men are created; maybe not in the way the bible explains it, but being born or conceived (depending on when you think life truely begins) certainly is being created. Second, they didn't literally mean all men are equal, as in abilities, they mean all men share the same set of rights. There's nothing inherent in you that should allow you to decide my life.

If you actually read more than a few paragraphs and try to pick them apart, it's immediately apparent what they meant. You realize that most of the founders wrote volumes on various topics, usually between each other. They were having philosophical debates, and the result is our unique (at the time) Constitution. Personally, I think they were on the right track; treat everyone fairly and equally, and let them be.

Ignoring context just makes you look stupid, and it doesn't prove a point.

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[Anonymous Coward]

However, if our conscious deliberations affect our subconscious decision-making for the next decision, then don't we still have free will... just not in "real time"?

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[Tom]

Second, they didn't literally mean all men are equal, as in abilities, they mean all men share the same set of rights. And that's my point. They didn't write "all men share the same set of rights". They probably meant that (I share your interpretation), but the words they used were different, and can be read differently. As with all words.

Which is why you're essentially fucked by definition if your entire work is only words, as in philosophy. And sorry, the reference to context doesn't solve that problem, it only complicates it because it increases the amount of words that need interpretation. Only an actual, factual context, as in physical reality, can dissolve ambiguities finally.

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[Tom]

Mathematics is a good example of one kind of philosophy in action. I couldn't disagree more, but that might just be a problem of definition. In mine, mathematics is absolutely not a branch of philosophy. In fact, little could be further from the truth.

And maybe that's the whole source of this disagreement.

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[Derosian]

I made note of a changing view, obviously you haven't been following trends in history or else you would know that religion as a whole has become much more tame than it was at one time. While science has become more persecutory of religious beliefs. I am not saying that religion trying to undermine the truth doesn't happen, I am just noticing a general trend towards a different way of thinking. Your bias against religion shouldn't cloud your perspective that the world is slowly leaning towards a more tame religious belief and a more dominant scientific basis as a whole. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, what isn't necessary though is for scientists to try and correct the basic man in his beliefs based on religion. You call me out on a sob story and yet you spew me one yourself.

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[Luyseyal]

Then what is mathematics? If one says "it is the language of science" or "it is the language of the universe", one restricts mathematics in a way that mathematicians by and large do not. Mathematicians use math to describe metaphysical and non-physical properties all the time, neither of which are the proper domain of science. Cosmology is a good example of using metaphysical modeling to predict physical results. The cosmologist asks, "If there are 10 dimensions, what physical phenomena could we observe?" Philosophy and mathematics provide the tools to ask the question and do the model, science provides the tools for checking the universe.

Grounding mathematics on first-order logic was a major philosophical project of the late 19th and early 20th centuries (Wittgenstein, Russell, etc.). It was half-successful: math was shown to be sound, but Godel killed any notion that mathematics was complete.

Plato, Pythagoras, Kant, Russell, Wittgenstein were all mathematician-philosophers.

Logic and mathematics are tools developed by philosophers and mathematicians for analyzing thought, reasoning, as well as the universe.

This is why I think it is properly a branch of philosophy. There are a ton more.

If your real concern is that some whackos say some entirely moronic things and manage to get Ph.D's in whackoness, that's a cultural criticism of philosophy. Philosophy has always encouraged open-minded thinking and is more like, say, the Unitarian Church (all are welcome, even the whackos) versus science where it's more like the Catholic Church (all are welcome, except for the electric universe, cold fusion, aether, etc.). However, 10 poststructuralists do not undo 2600 years of history, in my opinion. I think math is still a good result of philosophical inquiry over the years.

Cheers,
-l

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[Tom]

You're pretty close, actually. Mathematics is a language. I would call it the language of thought, not the language of physics. From what I know about the mind, math models it more closely than any other language.

Your base assumption is that math and philosophy are closely related, which is why you mention them side-by-side in every other sentence. I don't think I can bridge that fundamental difference. To me that difference lies in the very fact of expression. If math is a language, but philosophers write in english, german, french, etc. - then these two subjects are pretty far apart.

I also hold that you have history backwards. Philosophy didn't start math - math (more precisely, logic) started philosophy. And then philosophy got lost in the maze and decided that if you can't find the exit, then wandering around aimlessly is just as well.

The test is simple, really. Math has had tremendeous advances in the meantime, and is putting out useful products by the dozen even in fields you'd not think about at first, whereas philosophy starts all over again all the time, and contributes next to nothing even to "its" fields such as ethics and understanding of the human condition. A single good science book about the brain and how it works gives you more understanding about yourself as half the university libraries' philosophy section.

And I don't even think it's the Ph.Ds in whackoness. As I said in an earlier comment, on a critical reading I found some of the most lauded philosophers of the 20th century embarassingly shallow. I've found almost a dozen fundamental flaws in the pseudo-science it was based on in a 30-minute review of a bestseller philosophy book, for example. That was in 1991. But that's not a problem of a specific era, post-structuralist or not. After I read Plato I couldn't contemplate how his fame goes beyond the purely historical. His famous cave allegory is so ridiculous viewed in the light of today's knowledge about mind internals (I don't blame Plato, in his time even simple truths and half-truths were hard to come by).

I think that's the problem with Philosophy: It never abandons a concept for good. It might get out of fashion for a while, but you can be sure someone, someday revives it. I like science exactly because it has it's "ether", but it gets over it and tells the young students all about where it was wrong. Philosophers have serious problems admitting they were wrong, and that's not just the wackos.

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[Luyseyal]

You're pretty close, actually. Mathematics is a language. I would call it the language of thought, not the language of physics. From what I know about the mind, math models it more closely than any other language.

I must note that that is a philosophical claim. At least with calling it the language of science or physics you could have said that physical models demonstrate coherence with math.

Your base assumption is that math and philosophy are closely related, which is why you mention them side-by-side in every other sentence. I don't think I can bridge that fundamental difference. To me that difference lies in the very fact of expression. If math is a language, but philosophers write in english, german, french, etc. - then these two subjects are pretty far apart.

That last sentence doesn't make any sense. Is there a word missing? It sounds like you are claiming that "Math is a language. Philosophers write in languages. Therefore, they're different.".

I suggest taking a logic class or reading a book on it. The history of logic is clearly:

1. Plato & Aristotle
2. rediscovery of Plato & Aristotle
3. Medieval and Middle Age development of logic
4. concerns that math is illogical
5. attempt to ground math on first order logic
6. set theory
7. partial failure of grounding math in logic
8. Attempts to axiomitize language and thought

The history of math is:

1. Pythagoras, Plato, Euclid
2. Rediscovery of Greeks
3. Medieval and Middle Age development of math
4. concerns that math may be inconsistent or worse unsound
5. Attempts to axiomitize math
6. Attempt to ground axioms in first order logic
7. Set theory
8. Partial failure of grounding math in logic

Frankly, I'm not a huge fan of Plato, either. He gets read cause he was there and his writings are available. That's about it. I will note that there are a number of mathematicians who are platonists, even today, who believe even strange mathematical concepts are objects in the universe.

I think the problem is that you see the problem-space of philosophy as "not math" and include logic within the confines of mathematics. Historically, this is erroneous as both developed simultaneously, with cross-pollination, and the logic-centered portion of philosophy has always been considered part of philosophy. All mathematical foundations leverage logic developed by philosophers for proofs. For example, the axiom of choice.

There is a cadre of philosophers interested in stealing the love of wisdom back from the morons. I'm just saying you shouldn't discount legitimate contributions and people who are interested in serious contributions (cognitive science, for example).

As long as philosophy is seen as a bullshit degree that stoners take, though, it will never receive the accolades it deserves for its contributions. (Attention stoners: chemistry is far better cause you can make your own drugs).

-l

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[Cassius Corodes]

This is a common misunderstanding, while quantum theory and quantum uncertainty are true, their limitations only apply to their scope(at extremely small scales), once you zoom out a bit the uncertainty disappears, and predictability is restored.

Furthermore, other theories such as string theory would eliminate some if not all (my understanding is limited as well so I can't say for sure if it would eliminate all) of the uncertainty.

However, in no way am I saying that we now know for sure if the universe is mechanistic, but simply that once such a fact is established (or rebuked) one way or another with certainty the question would be resolved.

As you pointed out even in a random universe its no more free will then in a predictable universe. The only thing lost is the ability to predict your actions ahead of time. You are still in no more control of your actions, and now have to deal with the insult that you are at the mercy of random factors in the universe :(

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[Cassius Corodes]

Ok, I think we just disagree on this statement

"the world is slowly leaning towards a more tame religious belief and a more dominant scientific basis as a whole"

While in the early part of the 20th century the first part of your statement would be correct, in all areas (perhaps with the exception of western europe) religion has been getting more assertive in public life. Islamism which until the 6-day war was a small group has now massively expanded. The religious right in America has gotten influence in government thru groups such as the moral majority, and other evangelical associations. The "controversy" over evolution in education only goes to demonstrate the power they have. In Africa the catholic church efforts against condoms and sex-education shows the power they have gained in a short time. In Russia after the fall of the USSR, the orthodox church has spread and is now successfully lobbying government for things like banning certain TV stations and changing education standards. Even in England there has been a reversal of a trend away from religions schools.

I asked you to give me an example of a story involving scientists becoming "more persecutory of religious beliefs" as you have put it, as I have done above with religion, - as this is a common claim but is simply not true. I would welcome your response on this, and to change my views if you belive them to be wrong.

As a final point I didn't call you out on a sob story, rather I was inviting you to provide examples to back your arguments up, apologies if you have taken this the wrong way.

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[plague3106]

And that's my point. They didn't write "all men share the same set of rights". They probably meant that (I share your interpretation), but the words they used were different, and can be read differently. As with all words.

Which is why it's important to understand their philosophy. If you do, you realize what they meant. Their writings are not meant to be independant and taken out of context. I don't know why someone would suggest that.

Which is why you're essentially fucked by definition if your entire work is only words, as in philosophy. And sorry, the reference to context doesn't solve that problem, it only complicates it because it increases the amount of words that need interpretation. Only an actual, factual context, as in physical reality, can dissolve ambiguities finally.

Sorry, that's not true. You're talking about a legal document verus a philosophical one. Philosophic writings will go into great depth on the topic; unless you're reading the cliff notes version, or only one small work, its almost impossible to totally misunderstand the philosophy. Much of philosophy is logic.

Going back to the Declaration, that was an open letter to the king / parlament. Since I don't think they subscribed to the founders philosophy, its likely that anyone living at that time would understand what is meant by "all men are created equal." It's hard to read Shakespear; no one uses that form of english anymore, but it's not that words have changed meanings, its because the memes of the day have changed. In the philosophy I've read (I minored in Philosophy), I haven't come across many memes.. they are trying to be clear so that others understand.

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[Tom]

Hm. You've got me partially convinced. Logic should be considered a part of what I call metaphysics and you call philosophy. Basically you are right that I see "philosophy" as that part which is not metaphysics anymore, but only blabla - the wackos in your words. You think of philosophy in broader terms, or rather include that which I call metaphysics.

Essentially, what I'm saying is that which was called "philosophy" a very long time ago has split into two parts. One part that stayed close to logic, math and science and is useful. And a second part that concentrated on the daydreaming and mental masturbation and is a shocking example of how to waste brainpower by going round in circles.

I think you agree on that, except that you call both parts philosophy and I don't.

I also think we can agree on math and logic co-developing, and neither being the source of the other.

Pet peeve: Zeno is missing from your list of logic founders. Sorry, personal preference, I find his paradoxes a lot more interesting than anything Plato ever wrote and a lot less damaging to the human race than Aristotle.

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[Derosian]

OK, in hindsight I hadn't heard of the matter in USSR and Africa. I do not have specific stories except for the basic derogatory attitude I see everyday even something like the Great Flying Spaghetti monster is a jab at religion.

What I meant by my above statement was in comparison on a larger scale. Things like the Crusades, and organized church controlling an entire country, as in The Church of England. Programs in Russia and other countries of persecution of Jews. I wasn't entirely pointing at religious persecution of science but a more general trend of religion taming itself down, something I consider good. The truth is religion is in a tough spot right now, and any strikes they actually make toward science are flawed as it only makes religion look bad. Science on the other hand is based on logic and experimentation something very solid that requires only a basic faith in a personal belief for you to make a new hypothesis. Religion on the other hand is a hypothesis for why we are here what we need to do with our lives, which doesn't exclude scientific pursuits.

I'm sorry I rambled off.. Basically I concede this argument to you as I cannot recall a story to give you, but I also make amend based on the fact that I was noticing an empowerment of science and a reduction of religion belief among modern Americans.

Re:How does this eliminate Free Will?

[Cassius Corodes]

Thanks for being man enough to concede the argument. :)

I understand your offence at things like the FSM and IPU, but these are signs of a healthy society - all beliefs must be available for ridicule, and this means that inevitably some things you feel strongly about will come under fire. What you need to keep in mind is that if you are strong in your belief, other people ridiculing you will just seem petty and irrelevant rather then threatening.

Things might go overboard one day, and religion may be persecuted, but it will not be because of "science" per se (keep in mind that "scientists" are very timid, isolationist people who just want to do their research and be free to share their result with the public - outspoken people like Dawkins are rare and are the result of the scientific community realising it needs to engage the public or risk losing ground to various fundamentalist causes) it will be due to dictators, or (looking at history as precedent) more likely another religion getting a monopoly.

How does this call free will into question?

[Anonymous Coward]

So we just make decisions seven seconds before we act on them. How does that destroy free will?

They admit they were wrong sometimes, but won't say how much.

The only thing this study shows if that our brain begins choosing an answer well before it acts, and even then you can't know for certain what action is taken.

How in the hell does that question free will?

Its like saying I saw someone start to draw their gun, and I predicted they were going to fire it. Then a few seconds later they took a carefully aimed shot.

Yeah that DESTROYS free will.

Re:How does this call free will into question?

[Anonymous Coward]

1) Yes, this is not evidence against free will.

2) Free will is still a stupid idea. Every decision is the result of a calculation by your brain based on environmental inputs and its current internal state. If you want to call that "free will" you're free to, but it's also no different from what a computer does.

Re:How does this call free will into question?

[aGuyNamedJoe]

It's not that we take seven seconds to act after making decisions -- rather, we make the decision and about seven seconds later tell ourselves we made the decision. That's when we update our internal model of ourself that we call "me" and is what we mean by "consciousness".

I don't think most people, including scientists, have a clear understanding of how "consciousness" relates to the body. I think these experiments will make it much clearer.

Those of us educated primarily in the sciences often fail to recognize the parts of ourselves that aren't part of our internal dialog, and it's not easy to do. I think that'll change as we try to build autonomous robots -- and then we'll discover where we've misunderstood the proper relationship between "science" and "mysticism". Statements like like "the way that can be told is not the real way" are not really as weird as most of us think they are -- it's a simple truth -- think about riding a bicycle vs. talking about how to ride a bicycle.

That should tell you something about the delay between doing something (like turning the wheel to keep from falling over) and being aware that you decided to do that.

Jedoc

[Anonymous Coward]

Free will is an important concept because it FEELS like we've got free will.

I hypothesize that a society with a widespread belief in free will would produce a higher proportion of "moral" behavior (based on local ethics and standards) than one which believes that free will is an illusion. If we take the concept of free will out of the decision-making process, even if it is only as a theoretical construct not backed up by neuroscience, we remove one more barrier to society-damaging behavior.

Of course, this entire theory depends on my ability to convince anyone of anything.

Re:Jedoc

[NIckGorton]

Except that since I know free will is an illusion, when the kid last night took a swing at me in a drunken stupor, I understood that as no more his decision than my decision was to treat him decently, and make sure he didn't injure himself or others as he metabolized himself to freedom in the morning.

Its more of a Buddhist concept of suffering and the necessity of working to end the suffering of others (or at least think you are doing so) that motivates moral action in people who don't believe in free will. How much better of a world would it be if when someone broke into your car to steal, you saw that person as someone less fortunate than you and felt it was your responsibility to, instead of punishing him, make his life better?

Though lucky for us, people who have the insight to understand a world without free will are also people who are more often endowed with that kind of sentiment.

Re:Jedoc

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact that you think those terms are mutually exclusive just shows you are either ignorant or simply trolling.

Re:Jedoc

[LordLucless]

I don't know about better, but I'm pretty sure it would be a world with a lot more car thieves.

Re:Jedoc

[Anonymous Coward]

If we take the concept of free will out of the decision-making process, even if it is only as a theoretical construct not backed up by neuroscience, we remove one more barrier to society-damaging behavior.

Billiard balls affect each other but they don't have free will. If a society implements a system of rewards and punishments then there will generally be an effect on individual behavior. The notion of free will is only relevent if you want to claim that people "deserve" to be rewarded or punished rather than taking the pragmatic approach of affecting individual behavior regardless of "deserving".

Re:Jedoc

[Lemmy Caution]

What is your point of reference for a claim of superiority or inferiority?

Nietzsche thought that simple "truth" was a less important category for the value of a statement or belief that whether that statement or belief affirmed and enhanced life.

Putting aside the absolutely historically and empirically incorrect claim that there is no logic behind Buddhism, on what basis do you privilege what you are calling, here, logic as making anything superior or inferior?

Re:Jedoc

[shawnap]

I believe that hypothesis has been shown (at least in some part) empirically.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080129125354.htm

_going out on a limb_
It may be the case that feeling like you have free will is an adaptive behavior, and won out over the alternative.

Re:Jedoc

[MightyYar]

How much better of a world would it be if when someone broke into your car to steal, you saw that person as someone less fortunate than you and felt it was your responsibility to, instead of punishing him, make his life better? It makes for a nice platitude, but your question (which is rhetorical) makes a lot of assumptions.

The major assumption is that the thief is indeed less fortunate than the victim by some measure. He may very well be stealing a Honda Civic from a recently divorced single mother living out of a Super 8 motel and working the night shift at Arby's.

Re:Jedoc

[spazdor]

That does make free will more useful to believe in, but it doesn't make it any more likely to exist.

Re:Jedoc

[MightyYar]

_going out on a limb_
It may be the case that feeling like you have free will is an adaptive behavior, and won out over the alternative. I think you might be on to something there. Would we meet with a stranger and make an economic agreement with them with no feeling of free will? If I have a ton of grain and a stranger has a ton of fruit, I might use my "free will" to trade some of my extra grain for his extra fruit. We both come away satisfied from the exchange. Contrast this with lions, where the biggest lion just takes all of the meat he can eat, then the others follow.

So maybe free will, or the illusion of free will, is one of the keys to our social interaction?

Re:Jedoc

[wellingj]

Just because he is less fortunate does not automatically grant him the moral right to what I have done for myself. Being less fortunate does not automatically grant him any moral authority whatsoever to commit crimes against any one. Letting is slide does not make his life better, it only makes mine worse. Only him choosing to make his life better of his own accord will truly set him free from the life he now leads. Until he does so, he will be a parasite to those like you that allow yourself to be the willing victim. The only thing I ask of you is that when you are victimized, do not come to me and try to forcefully take away from me what was taken from you, I have no sympathy for any one who finds it proper and good to allow the theft of their property and uses that as moral justification to steal from me in turn.

Re:Jedoc

[Anonymous Coward]

The buddhist believes he will be rewarded for doing good in the cycle of reincarnation, eventually reaching Nirvana. An atheist does not expect reward, thus he is the better person. Besides, I feel a lot smarter as an an atheist, taking comfort in the fact that the greatest minds agree with me.

Re:Jedoc

[NIckGorton]

Just because he is less fortunate does not automatically grant him the moral right to what I have done for myself. My comments supposes you understand and accept the fact that there is no free will. Understanding that the guy who breaks into your Honda does not have free will but then supposing you do (and thus have 'done for yourself') kind of misses the whole point.

Re:Jedoc

[wellingj]

My comments supposes you understand and accept the fact that there is no free will. Understanding that the guy who breaks into your Honda does not have free will but then supposing you do (and thus have 'done for yourself') kind of misses the whole point. My argument is that both of us have free will. It was by my free will that I avoided the situation that he is in, and by his shirking the responsibility of free will that put him in such a situation. But if the thief wants to make his life better, he must find that responsibility and take charge of it.

Re:Jedoc

[coyoteblues]

How much better of a world would it be if when someone broke into your car to steal, you saw that person as someone less fortunate than you and felt it was your responsibility to, instead of punishing him, make his life better? Except that your statement about what would be "better" implies I have a free will to choose to do so. But since I don't have a free will to choose anything, I slugged him in the face instead out of no choice of my own. And I shouldn't be held responsible for what I don't have the free will to choose, should I?

Re:Jedoc

[NIckGorton]

It makes for a nice platitude, but your question (which is rhetorical) makes a lot of assumptions. Actually, my 6 year old beat up honda civic has had a window popped four times in the past year. Each was while I was in San Francisco where I go two days a week to volunteer at a free clinic to see people not unlike the ones who probably popped my windows. The time that was the hardest to process for me was the one where they stole $2 in quarters and left several pre-packaged pastries in the back seat. Its easy to fool myself with the 'they were probably hungry' idea. However, its a lot harder to have that happen and then say 'well, it was probably for drugs, but withdrawal can be incredibly painful and so they were seeking relief from their suffering regardless.'

The major assumption is that the thief is indeed less fortunate than the victim by some measure. He may very well be stealing a Honda Civic from a recently divorced single mother living out of a Super 8 motel and working the night shift at Arby's. And there is a randomness in the system. Just like there is a randomness to who gets killed by a drunk driver. However that doesn't mean that you can't find patterns. Who gets T-boned by a drunk driver may be unpredictable, but it is easily predictable that you are more likely to survive a crash with a seatbelt. It is certainly the case that this might happen as you describe. However it is more often than not that the thief (in non white-collar-crime) is worse off by many measures of socioeconomic status than the victim.

Re:Jedoc

[pavon]

Its more of a [concept] of working to end the suffering of others (or at least think you are doing so) that motivates moral action in people who don't believe in free will. I would extend that to say that it is true of all people, not just ones that don't believe in free will. You don't have to believe that someone had no choice in order to choose for yourself not to retaliate. You don't have to believe in the lack of free will to believe that escalating a problem will cause more suffering that than turning your cheek.

But lets be honest here - the reason that we work to end the suffering of others is because it makes us feel better when we do so, and we feel worse when we stand by and do nothing. Self justification is a way of blowing off these feelings, or redirecting them in anger towards the people we think are "telling us whats right and wrong". In my experience I have seen many more people use the concept of no free will as a means of self justification than I have seen react in the manner that you have.

As as side note, it was the selfish self-justifying attitudes of most of the atheists that I knew which kept me searching for meaning within the church for as long as I did. Of course, most Christians did this as well, but I blamed that squarely on them as the Bible didn't seem to support it, whereas with the atheists it was a stated part of their doctrine, so to speak.

Re:Jedoc

[rohan972]

My comments supposes you understand and accept the fact that there is no free will.

If you do not have free will, you are incapable of understanding something and choosing how to act based on that understanding. You are merely acting as you are predestined to act, any sense of understanding being purely coincidental.

Re:Jedoc

[crashfrog]

Besides, I feel a lot smarter as an an atheist, taking comfort in the fact that the greatest minds agree with me.

Really? As an atheist, I feel a lot smarter simply being right. (In all likelihood.)

Re:Jedoc

[rohan972]

An atheist does not expect reward, thus he is the better person.

Or stupid, depending on your value system.

Besides, I feel a lot smarter as an an atheist,

Your feeling being an accurate measure of intelligence, of course.

taking comfort in the fact that the greatest minds agree with me.

Using what criteria for judging who are the greatest minds? There are plenty of great thinkers who have not been atheist.

Re:Jedoc

[pavon]

Hehe, I just noticed that both of the replies I made in this thread were to you:) I'm not picking you - you just had some of the more interesting comments in the thread I guess.

And to add to this post, I think it is probably the teachings of Buddism as a whole, of which the lack of free will is just a component, that leads you to react the way you do, and that the concept of no free will in other contexts will lead to other behavior.

Re:Jedoc

[Cassius Corodes]

Where can I find this atheist doctrine? Perhaps with the many people who use no free will as a means of self-justification in straw-man land?

Re:Jedoc

[Anonymous Coward]

In all likelihood, he was speaking of solutions that are more truly beneficial and generally applicable than giving that one thief all of your possessions without reporting him.

This is operating on the assumption that car thieves are driven to become car thieves by adverse conditions. By alleviating those conditions you prevent people from needing to become car thieves and therefore you have no more (or at least drastically fewer) car thieves.

Re:Jedoc

[fferreres]

No, if you take away free will you become a rat, pigeon or any other killable animal considered a thing. What we need to learn is that free will exists at more levels, including plants, animals, etc. If we become machines, than anything that happens is just OK, because we are not really choosing anything.

Re:Jedoc

[karmatic]

Free will is an interesting subject, isn't it?

The brain is a physical machine, subject to physical rules. This is apparent when things like drugs, alcohol, tumors cause it to behave in atypical manners.

As an example, I know of a case where a man lost his family, job, etc. because of him swearing, behaving violently, etc. Turns out he had a tumor, and once it was removed, his behavior went back to normal.

To accept the concept of free will, one should accept that there is something above and beyond the physical processes involved, that there is something beyond the physical processes going on here. Were it not, you would be defined entirely by who you are (genetically speaking), and the experiences you go through.

I've writeen software using neural networking (warcraft bot). It's capable of "learning", and it's behaviors will change as a result of what it's been through. Were it capable of thinking, it might feel that it's "free" to make whatever choices it wants. However, if one could go back in time and do it over again, it would give the same output, given the same input. Fundamentally, that's what it is.

How, ultimately, is it different from humans?

I have a sibling who is nearly 8 years old. Were I to offer him a cookie, he would accept it. If I could go back in time, and make that same offer a million times, he would accept it a million times. Each time, he is "free" to reject it, but he will not because of who he is.

This, of course, presents a dilemma - if a human is, in fact, nothing more than the product of his genetic makeup and his experiences, how can you truly blame to anyone for anything?

This also leads to an interesting shift in "corrections". If people don't, in fact, have free will, then how can it be just to punish them for behaving as is their nature? The correct purpose of the justice system would then be to adjust the cost-benefit ratio of crime (deterrant), as well as to provide for restitution for the victim, and protection for society.

Re:Jedoc

[lazy genes]

If you keep practicing you will be able to see the future in your dreams.Free will happens 3 months before the event takes place. I can see future events in my dreams. Its not a pretty site and I would not wish it on anyone. Since humans are still ignorantly evolving, survival depends on discrimination . It works well in dealing with a changing enviornment,But it really sucks when its that clear and noone else can see it.

Re:Jedoc

[fferreres]

I don't think you really need to kill free will to support your vision. Yes, you do need improve the concept of free will, and introduce true consciousness and understanding of why outcomes are as they are. You need to challenge all your assumptions, and you need to reduce your automatic reactions. And you need to stop the internal chatty voice that is not really oneself.

On the other hand, free will, as understood by most of us in the west, is that the thief was fully aware this was mine, and could have not done that. So knowingly he made his bets and I caught him, so he must be punished. In this mentality, punishment is the right solution. And if you take away free will, you cannot punish because he can't be guilty. He had NO choice. And so, to hold up society you'd need to agree that people that are not chossing must be punished.

In the west you think in terms of "justice" and "free will". For many in the east (gross simplification) you may be something having to do with "suffering" and no "free will".

But in the end, true consciousness of order of things and the irrelevance of most of the thing that we do, and most of the things that others do, is what brings balance. Ignorance and lack of understanding become the enemy.

A few hours ago I was watching a documentary about Cuba involvement in the Angola. Both sides (socialist vs capitalist) though they were doing the right thing to do. Also the rebels though they were doing the right thing. When you add up all that happened, it makes a lot of sense (predictable) and it still makes no sense at all. To become free and stop abuse, rebels start organizing. There are several leaders. So in order to fight Portuguese Colonialism, parties ask for help from either capitalist factions, or communist factions. If one party gets help, then the other also gets help, because their adversaries are already implanting their ideology to a other relebs and the country will become another enemy. It's a bit more complex, but all in all, it's total lack of understanding from the Portuguese, and the three rebel factions, adding in the Southafricans that would have not like the Cubans training more rebels mean to work in favour of liberating "South Africa" as well. The right thing there is letting the people from Angola make a choice, and trying to provide a fair description of what kind of outcome you can expect either regime.

So most everyone was reacting there, and using..yes..will, that was not very free, as it was really shortsighted and biased towards their personal interests. So I think what the worlds lacks is consciousness and a little bit of decency. World politics and economy is a reflexion of sports. We chose party and stick to it, abhorring the other teams, "for our own good". That's why I don't usually talk about politics, economics nor sports with people that have already made up their minds (which means 95% or more of everyone I know).

Re:Jedoc

[Anonymous Coward]

How much better of a world would it be if when someone broke into your car to steal, you saw that person as someone less fortunate than you and felt it was your responsibility to, instead of punishing him, make his life better? If you reward negative behavior, you're likely to get more of it. If a criminal believes he'll be rewarded everytime he commits a crime, I doubt the world would be improved.

Re:Jedoc

[Anonymous Coward]

His life will be better if he learns to correct his behavior. Maybe we could send him to a correctional institution for a period in some way proportional to the extent of his error.

The world is not totally arbitrary you know. We do many things largely because they work.

Re:Jedoc

[pavon]

Gah, I knew this was going to happen, but I get sick of having to pepper my writing with so many qualifiers that it becomes nothing but.

So to make it absolutely clear - no I don't think that there is a Universal Atheist Doctrine apart from the obvious disbelief in god. However, the individuals who I knew, like most people who have spent time thinking out their beliefs, had developed them into a fairly coherent system. This included, for example, thoughts on how everything can be explained without the need for god and how all human traits, even ones people like to think of as higher than nature and thus evidence of human spirituality, are the result of evolution. All well and good. This framework for explaining their beliefs was, for all practical purposes, their doctrine. Yes, I know the word is not a perfect fit, hence the phrase "so to speak". Furthermore, these specific individuals were always quite quick to use this framework to explain away any faults they might have rather than admit that there is anything about themselves or their behavior that they might want to change.

This is not a strawman, nor an indictment of all atheists (I consider myself one) - it is a anecdote, nothing more nothing less. I could give other anecdotes about how the behaviors of people of various political bents caused me to have poor initial opinions of those groups as well. The purpose in sharing any of these is not to stereotype all members of the group, but to let them know how the actions of some affect the reputation of the whole. Hopefully, those to whom the criticism applies will think more about their behavior, and those to whom it doesn't will consider speaking up more to avoid being drown out by a vocal minority.

Re:Jedoc

[Omestes]

To accept the concept of free will, one should accept that there is something above and beyond the physical processes involved, that there is something beyond the physical processes going on here. Were it not, you would be defined entirely by who you are (genetically speaking), and the experiences you go through.

No. To accept free-will is not to accept dualism, or any higher "spiritual", or "immaterial" cause. I recommend looking up, within this context, the idea of "emergence". The complexity of the process itself can bring in attributes not causally linked to the sum of the components. Think chaos theory, turbulence, or such. Instead of bringing in something "higher", it denies base reductionism.

It would also be absurd to state that there is any such thing as perfect freewill. Any freedom would be constrained by the laws of physics, and basic anatomy. If I removed you Brocca's region, you can't talk, no matter how much you want to. If I give you a tumor somewhere, you can't control the effects. Freewill will be more of a weighted decision process, where you decide against a finite list of actions, each weighted by certain pre-disposed (experience, biology, and genetic) characteristics.

Re:Jedoc

[Omestes]

Why would it have to be? Without free-will would it matter if we felt we could trust another? Could we decide not to?

Not saying anything about whether I think it exists or not, but in this argument the concept is superfluous.

Re:Jedoc

[lareader]

Erhm... I don't get your crime / punishment argument. First you argue that punishing someone for doing something according to their nature is wrong if free will is eliminated, but then you start talking about adjusting the cost/benefit ratio of punishment when, in the "no-free-will" scenario, there is no reason to apply any punishment since punishment does not affect the will to crime.

Free will is a philosophical construct.
In day-to-day life we ourselves reduce the unlimited amount of choice down to our perceived choices, with the perceived choices weighted according to our indoctrination/upbringing and experience. Within this small subsection of choice we may have "free choice/will", if the weights of several choices are considered as roughly equal.

*However* because we do weigh choices, and because we can change perceptions (over time), we can change the behaviours of ourselves and others. Because people are not particularly rational, however, the cheapest way to reduce crime is by "bringing them up right" (indoctrinating them with socially beneficial views) while deterrents often do not work until a person has been caught.

It is true that saying "Free Will is an illusion" would make it hard to argue why punishing crimes are needed, but it is merely because we have defined "Free Will" to be something that does not match reality.

Re:Jedoc

[Omestes]

No, if you take away free will you become a rat, pigeon or any other killable animal considered a thing. What we need to learn is that free will exists at more levels, including plants, animals, etc. If we become machines, than anything that happens is just OK, because we are not really choosing anything.

How does it make it less true, though? Just because it wouldn't be convenient doesn't make it false.

"If our DNA mutated, it would lead to bad effects, like cancer, and the pain caused by these effects. Therefore DNA can't mutate"

You present an argument from emotion, it doesn't carry any weight. The truth is the truth, no matter how we feel about it.

Re:Jedoc

[Anonymous Coward]

In my opinion this is, why punishment is still necessary, although there is no free will. We should just stop to think of punishment as an act of revenge or punishing any "guilt". The goal of punishment should rather be the prevention of behavior that is harmful to others, so punishment should be "educational" of some sort and not based on some irrational concept like "guilt".

Re:Jedoc

[Anonymous Coward]

Reminds me of this story: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89164759

Re:Jedoc

[btgreat]

How much better of a world would it be if when someone broke into your car to steal, you saw that person as someone less fortunate than you and felt it was your responsibility to, instead of punishing him, make his life better? I don't know about you, but my world would suck if every time I got something I wanted someone less fortunate got to take it away.

Re:Jedoc

[Anonymous Coward]

How much better of a world would it be if when someone broke into your car to steal, you saw that person as someone less fortunate than you and felt it was your responsibility to, instead of punishing him, make his life better? That line of thinking is both hopelessly naive and completely divorced from reality. Call me cynical, but it sounds to me like what you're really talking about, once all the crypto-religious platitudes have been stripped away, is creating an even greater incentive for theft. I don't think that rewarding people for theft, murder, etc. by 'making [their] lives better' would create a better world at all. I think it would give bad people even more reason to be bad, and make good people think twice about bothering to be good at all. If that's your idea of a better world, then you and I don't want to live in the same kind of world at all.

Re:Jedoc

[Weedlekin]

"It was by my free will that I avoided the situation that he is in"

This is only true if every human in a society is born in identical circumstances, all are biologically similar enough to be considered equivalent according to the standards of that society, and there is no possibility of random events favouring some individuals over others.

Re:Jedoc

[Weedlekin]

"The correct purpose of the justice system would then be to adjust the cost-benefit ratio of crime (deterrant), as well as to provide for restitution for the victim, and protection for society."

But this just raises further dilemmas, because in the absence of free will, people become crime victims because they are predisposed to be prey for the predators, so there's no justification for either compensating them for what they are, or for that matter protecting them from said predators who, like lions, hunt some animals, but very quickly learn to leave others such as porcupines alone.

Re:Jedoc

[LordLucless]

Yes, it is, and I'd object to that assumption as well. People who hold it seem to believe that the universe is not only deterministic, but that people are rational, which seems contrary to all evidence - car thieves are more likely to be kids out for a cheap thrill and a joyride than a down-and-out destitute looking for a quick buck. But more than that, when you assume a purely deterministic model like the one presented, it totally removes any sense of personal responsibility for your actions - all your actions are pre-ordained, and therefore, not under your control. This means that, as the grandparent posted, it's not actually just to punish anyone, because you're punishing them for things they had no control over. The removal of a judicial system alters the set of factors that influence people (in the purely deterministic model), so that they are now more likely to commit crimes. That model just leads to social collapse. So, like others have said, even if reality is purely deterministic, actually letting that influence your actions or your policy is counterproductive.

Re:Jedoc

[Ozric]

The act of stealing is against the 5 precepts. One could say the punishment is an expedient means to help the thief along the 8 fold path.

Suffering is a condition of life and not an excuse for wrong action.

To put the Thief in Jail is the right action, so he can no longer increase the suffering of others.

Once the Buddha killed a man to prevent him from murdering others.

Re:Jedoc

[MightyYar]

Let me state that I do not believe in "free will" in the religious sense. I do not think that their is a soul that is somehow independent from the biological processes in the brain. Thought is just a chemical process, as far as I can tell.

That said, free will or the illusion of free will could very well be essential to certain behaviors that have given us a competitive advantage over our ancestors who did not have it. I was merely providing an off-the-cuff example, not trying to sound like an expert in evolutionary sociology :) (Is there such a field?)

Re:Jedoc

[Anonymous Coward]

How much better of a world would it be if when someone broke into your car to steal, you saw that person as someone less fortunate than you and felt it was your responsibility to, instead of punishing him, make his life better? Wouldn't making him not to steal and not to lessen his possibility to free himselft from suffering be a more like a Buddhist ideal? The way to prevent him from stealing (that is, helping him) is a matter of not hurting ourselves (unnecessary violence, anger) while helping. The specific way should be a matter of politics and custom while holding prementioned conditions (no violence, but protection; no anger, but compassion).

Re:Jedoc

[Deliveranc3]

But morally the thief is inferior, if he has guilt then the moral inferiority might manifest as discomfort.

He's at a marked disadvantage from the get go...

My problem with it is that people really do enjoy the suffering of others.

Dosteyevsky defines the grandparent's line of reasoning as dividing men (people who act according to their instinct and with little consideration of others) and mice (people who don't follow the above).

A world of mice works fine, but throw a few men in and it goes to shit.

Of course for some reason not everyone is a man either... meh... literature.

Re:Jedoc

[fferreres]

No, it's not an argument of emotion but an argument of choice. You either believe in choice or you don't.

Re:Jedoc

[Omestes]

That said, free will or the illusion of free will could very well be essential to certain behaviors that have given us a competitive advantage over our ancestors who did not have it. I was merely providing an off-the-cuff example, not trying to sound like an expert in evolutionary sociology :) (Is there such a field?)

Your probably on the ball there. I would guess that all human characteristics (barring religious intervention, of course) would have to have arisen from some evolutionary pressure, even free will, or the perception of it.

Sorry for harping on your statement. It was late, and this topic makes me cranky. I read it as "the illusion of free will leads us to make better decisions"

I think there is such a field emerging. I'm not sure what its academically called though. Dennett, and Dawkin's books on religion as evolutionary features fall into the category. I think I also once read a book putting human ethics into an evolutionary light, sadly I forgot the title and author (might have been Pinker, not sure though), though. It is an interesting topic.

Re:Jedoc

[Omestes]

Belief does not make something true. No matter how this debate ultimately falls we will still have the subjective experience of choice, whether this choice is based in reality or not. The subjective does not influence the truth value of the objective.

Re:Jedoc

[ChrisMaple]

People can be in very different circumstances and still choose not to be thieves. Generally, being poor is the result of immorality, not the cause.

Re:Jedoc

[glasshalfemptylc]

How much better of a world would it be if when someone broke into your car to steal, you saw that person as someone less fortunate than you and felt it was your responsibility to, instead of punishing him, make his life better? This is a perfect example of being idealistic to the point of insanity.

Re:Jedoc

[MightyYar]

But morally the thief is inferior, if he has guilt then the moral inferiority might manifest as discomfort. Maybe, but it is not immoral to steal for survival.

My problem with it is that people really do enjoy the suffering of others. Yes, we certainly appreciate revenge. So much so that religions that do NOT include revenge are the exception AFAIK.

Men and mice, lol. Yeah, it's fun to ponder, but at the end of the day the ideology needs to sit in the back and let pragmatism drive. :)

Re:Jedoc

[Weedlekin]

"Generally, being poor is the result of immorality, not the cause."

And generally, those who are in fortunate positions tend to mistake their own smug and self-righteous prejudices for facts. Furthermore, by writing this, I have conclusively proven that you aren't the only one who can post pieces of utter tripe to /.

Re:Jedoc

[wellingj]

I think Poor people can be moral, but they won't stay poor for very long.

Re:Jedoc

[fferreres]

Disbelief does not make something true either. And we are more than centuries away before the question can be answered. So yes..you have to choose.

SO the truth is one. Yes. So place your bet.

Re:Jedoc

[robsie]

I think you thought you thunk you did, no wait maybe I did. Then I slipped and fell anyway because some idiot turned a high frequency pitch on...

Re:Jedoc

[Weedlekin]

I was borned in 1960, then I caught abneeza.

Re:Jedoc

[Deliveranc3]

I agree with your pragmatism statement however I think you missed the point about the unmotivated vindictiveness of people.

I propose you experiment.

And to continue backwards yes the thief may not feel any moral qualms but he's more likely to feel some than the person who was stolen from.

Re:Jedoc

[MightyYar]

I agree with your pragmatism statement however I think you missed the point about the unmotivated vindictiveness of people.

I propose you experiment. Unfortunately, I don't need to. I feel the same way sometimes :(

Um, not so much of a newsflash

[NIckGorton]

Um, not much of a newsflash. Hell the major monotheistic religions figured this out way back. If God is omniscient, then he knows what I am about to do and everything I will do in my life. If he knows that, than I can't truly have free will. (Even if you try to weasel out that God decides to blind himself to my future, if it is knowable then its pre-ordained.) So unless you are willing to say God isn't omniscient, then there is no free will, kids.

The only chance we have of any free will at all is in quantum weirdness which is not much free will to speak of, and certainly not enough to be palatable to the average American who thinks his success or failure is a product of his own decisions rather than the sum total of a very complicated system that he has little control over and basically just experiences as the phenomena of his mind. We think we are in control, but largely we are along for the ride.

Used to freak me out, and it was hard to swallow since I have that Horatio Algeirs kind of narrative: Grew up on welfare in a house without indoor plumbing and now have a doctorate and am typing this on the toilet I picked (the best... I loves me a good quality toilet) in the house I just remodeled. It would feel very nice to think that I did all of this and deserve this wonderful throne. And to be honest my experience is that I think I have free will in my day to day life. But that's probably because the sum of my experiences also made me, after gaining understand that I don't have free will, accept that I live my life with that illusion and navigate life in such a way that I feel comfortable with the 'moral decisions' I think I make. So I pretend I have free will, and think I make moral choices based on that understanding.

Now I've given myself a headache. No. Wait, I was destined to have this headache as long as that electron spun to the left last Tuesday in Portugal. I'm going to go pretend to decide to take an ibuprofen.

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[Todd Fisher]

The only chance we have of any free will at all is in quantum weirdness which is not much free will to speak of, and certainly not enough to be palatable to the average American who thinks his success or failure is a product of his own decisions rather than the sum total of a very complicated system that he has little control over and basically just experiences as the phenomena of his mind. I knew you were gonna say that.

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[idiotwithastick]

Um, not much of a newsflash. Hell the major monotheistic religions figured this out way back. If God is omniscient, then he knows what I am about to do and everything I will do in my life. If he knows that, than I can't truly have free will. (Even if you try to weasel out that God decides to blind himself to my future, if it is knowable then its pre-ordained.) So unless you are willing to say God isn't omniscient, then there is no free will, kids. Actually there's an argument (by St. Augustine, I think) that says that there is no contradiction between an omniscient God and free will. The idea is that God is just an "observer"; every decision we make in our lives are still our own, even though God knows how the result will turn out. Essentially, God is just "watching a replay" of what actually happened, so although God knows what happens God does not know it in "advance" because our notions of time do not apply to God.

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[Oligonicella]

News flash. A whole lot of people don't believe there's a god. That means they don't see any conundrum there.

No. We are not floating, completely out of control. Nothing prevents us here (U.S.) from just up and leaving and starting over. You simply have to be willing to endure the consequences. The whole topic of lack of free will is bogus as it hinges on the supernatural or extreme pedantry.

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[largesnike]

During the early 1600s there was an argument amongst various protestant faiths about whether there was free will or not, particularly in England. It all comes down to your vision of what God is and what omniscient means. I think the grandparent was being a bit absolutist there, implying that there was no room for discourse.

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[Jurily]

Laplace's demon comes to mind.

While Laplace saw foremost practical problems for mankind to reach this ultimate stage of knowledge and computation, later interpretations of quantum mechanics, which were adopted by philosophers defending the existence of free will, also leave the theoretical possibility of such an "intellect" contested.

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[Anonymous Coward]

You may enjoy reading some of the material published by Gregory Boyd on God's ability to see the future. He uses quantum mechanics as an anology to describe how one could know all possible outcomes and allow someone to have free will in determining which one to take. The argument for an omniscience and omnipotent God requires that he possess the mental capacity to see all these possibilities.

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[Anonymous Coward]

So... kind of like random access memory vs linear access?

That fucker has some 1337 tech, I want it.

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[taupin]

No. Just no. Belief in God is neither necessary or sufficient to justify a belief in complete determinism. Not sufficient, since as others have pointed out, many believe in both God and free will; not necessary, since many atheists don't believe in free will (myself, for example). In no way does the topic of free will "hinge on the supernatural or extreme pedantry". News flash: an all-knowing God is not the only reason that people don't believe in free will.

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[Anonymous Coward]

As a member of a sect within one of those monotheistic faiths (Southern Baptist) I just wish others within my faith would stop pretending that free will, particularly in the philosophical libertarian sense, actually exists. You are dead right that in order for God to be truly omniscient the particularity of His knowledge necessitates preordination of all things or at the very least of their essential causes. The issues of God's proximity to various events is debatable I suppose, but in the end God is still the uncaused cause of all things within creation.

Yet experientially we perceive that we possess a will and that it is to some extent "free." But this is merely a perception. The question all this begs is where then does meaning come from, if all things are determined then how can anything have significance? All that depends on your understanding of the God Hypothesis. If you adopt a theistic position then God is the source of meaning just as He is the source of all things and so even the predestined things of creation have meaning because of God who works them together in a meaningful way, this makes passages like Genesis 50:20 and Romans 8:28 intelligible in light of the manifest suffering of all persons. So, granting a deterministic universe only two options exist regarding meaning: (1) meaning is derived from theistic revelation that reveals the meaning of all things in relation to the God who created or (2) because there is no God there is no meaning and all we have is nihilism or hollow atheistic existentialism.

As a Christian I actually derive some solace from knowing that all things, even the seemingly insignificant are woven into a grander scheme. How I pity though the person who recognizes the nature or things and their orderly, determined, arrangement yet neglects knowledge of the creator. I pity such a person because they truly have no cause for hope or any reason to acknowledge their own significance because they possess no basis for such things given there is no source of meaning in their worldview.

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[ragincajun1337]

Um, not much of a newsflash. Hell the major monotheistic religions figured this out way back. If God is omniscient, then he knows what I am about to do and everything I will do in my life. If he knows that, than I can't truly have free will. (Even if you try to weasel out that God decides to blind himself to my future, if it is knowable then its pre-ordained.) So unless you are willing to say God isn't omniscient, then there is no free will, kids.

The only chance we have of any free will at all is in quantum weirdness which is not much free will to speak of, and certainly not enough to be palatable to the average American who thinks his success or failure is a product of his own decisions rather than the sum total of a very complicated system that he has little control over and basically just experiences as the phenomena of his mind. We think we are in control, but largely we are along for the ride. I call bullshit! The only thing monotheistic religions have ever managed to do right is... well, nothing, but I won't go that far because all I simply have to state is that they took a stab in the dark and just happened to guess something that would later be proven by scientists thousands of years later. And furthermore, I don't think any of these religions or their founders had any real idea what they were talking about when they started spouting stuff out left and right. I think it's simply a mere coincidence that they decided that God gives us no free will and that suddenly scientists have proven that our actions are predisposed to our subconscious decision that was made slightly ahead of our conscious decision.

Furthermore, I think that we do, in fact, still have free will. Perhaps just not conscious free will. Free will of the subconscious to make a decision is still free will, is it not? I think humans are perfectly capable of interpreting, understanding, and manipulating the subconscious on a conscious level. We simply have not figured out the proper way to do so yet.

So does this take away free will? It depends on your definition of free will. But I think a free will decision made unconsciously is still a free will decision nonetheless because our brains, which are uniquely and inseparably a part of each of us, made that decision. And therefore, it is indeed ourselves that made the decision, and so it is can still be considered free will.

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[93 Escort Wagon]

During the early 1600s there was an argument amongst various protestant faiths about whether there was free will or not, particularly in England. Whether free will exists, or not - why would that fact differ in England as compared to the rest of the world?

Sincerely,
Mr. Pedantic

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[CodyRazor]

I'm god. You just cant tell because your notions of what god is dont apply to me.

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[nawcom]

I pity such a person because they truly have no cause for hope or any reason to acknowledge their own significance because they possess no basis for such things given there is no source of meaning in their worldview.

I dunno, I pity people who lack self-esteem who need to find their supernatural purpose in order to live their life. Once you find out where other natural species' purposes are in the bible, let me know. NEWS FLASH! Other living things have "consciousness" as well.

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[Artefacto]

That's not right. "Omniscient" should be understood as meaning "to know everything that is possible to be known". Therefore, if there is free will, God won't be able to predict our actions.

At least in Christianity, free will is assumed. If there were no free will, our love for God would mean nothing, because we wouldn't have any alternative.

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[focoma]

Let me get this straight: our actions can be predicted beforehand (by other people), and is in fact known beforehand (by an omniscient Creator), ergo we do not have control (i.e. free will) over our actions?

I think there is some sort of confusion going on here, caused by the fact that people are using a useless definition of free will, one that is either overly ambiguous or obviously contradictory (making the "refutation" of free will a piece of cake). Let me explain:

Suppose there is a person Bob who actually does have free will according to your definition. (Go on, think of your definition of free will right now, and assume that Bob has it.) So he goes on with his life deciding things for himself. Now suppose you recorded every action he made in his life, then time-traveled back to when he was born. At that point, if your time-traveling self does not actually interact with Bob, you could certainly observe all his actions being played out as you recorded them. So, for example, you'll know that he will punch a school bully in the face at exactly 12:30PM, three days after his 10th birthday. You'll know that he will decide to marry his least favorite female co-worker after a particularly productive team-building exercise. You'll even know what his last words will be.

Now you have to ask yourself: since you know what Bob is going to do next, are you contradicting your previous assumption that he has free will? If so, your definition of free will is flawed.

In other words, I would like to ask: is there really a valid reason to doubt free will just because we can know with certainty what someone will do a few seconds from now? Or is it possible that, while others can predict my decisions, my decisions are still my own because I still made them? God knows what we will do, yes...but does that make him a Puppeteer, or could we see him as a wise Father, giving his children instructions, but letting them explore and discover what lies ahead on their own, sad that some of them will fall on the wrong path due to their own unfortunate flaws, yet happy to see those who will triumph?

Free will is simply someone's ability to decide what to do. That others can see in advance what he'll decide does absolutely nothing to question the ability.

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[Nikkos]

So you assume there's only one Universe?

While I'm not religious myself, if there are truly multiple versions of me making every possible decision, isn't free will a moot point? This path of thought also has bearing on the idea of heaven and hell, if "you" are a psychopathic killer in one universe, and the second coming of Buddha in the other, which version of you does God accept? Do the consciousnesses of "you" rejoin after death into a higher-order being?

I don't have the answers, but to me being Atheist is as silly as believing a literal interpretation of Genesis.

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[Anonymous Coward]

The fun part comes when you start realizing that if god is omniscient and omnipotent, then he is the cause of all evil as well as good. So now you just have some bastard sitting up in the sky putting babies on spikes and raping defenseless women, and then having the gall to torment the person he created to do so for all eternity..for shits and giggles I guess.

Science isn't even close to disproving free-will, most especially if you're religiously inclined. For all anyone knows you could have some spirit/soul that makes all decisions and the brain just acts as a communication device.

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[Anonymous Coward]

Given the capacity that humanity collectively and individually possess for cruelty I'm not sure I want to jump too quickly to esteem myself or anyone else too highly. I've never committed any action that could be labelled particularly heinous but I have spoken hatefully towards others without cause. I have cheated in order to secure my own desires and in various other ways acted in ways that would not be considered good. And I have no doubts that you and others would relate the same given sufficient introspection. And granting that I question the merits of any notion of self-esteem, what is there in man that he should esteem himself?

Also, I don't pretend to know my "supernatural purpose" as you so derisively try to put it. But to know that my life has meaning beyond any existential meaning I might merely like to create for it is not worthy of pity. When I reflect on my life, informed by the revelation of the God of the Bible, I don't have to invent meaning for myself, the meaning for all things exists whether I acknowledge it or not. God gives meaning to all things and apart from Him there is not meaning, that is the sad estate of philosophical naturalism.

Regarding other living things and their purpose: they exist to the Glory of God. They reveal the wondrous creative capacity of God who creates the multiplicity of living and non-living things. They possess purpose and their existence has meaning and worth just as humans do, merely in a different sense. Read the Psalms and you will gather the place that all of creation has in relation to the purposes and meaning that comes from God.

Other things having consciousness is not terribly interesting or germane. Consciousness does not have to be unique for humanity to be unique among living things, at least not in a theistic system. Naturalism is subjectively unsatisfying at this very point in that it has no room for regarding humanity as distinct from other living things even though we seem to possess an innate desire or understanding of ourselves as distinct, special or set apart from other living things. Only theism satisfies this subjective need. Our "consciousness" doesn't make us human, what it means to be human is deeper than that. Naturalism is shallow in that it seeks to reduce things in simplistic ways, in ways that are unpalatable to many if polling and research of such matters can be trusted.

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, not much of a newsflash. Hell the major monotheistic religions figured this out way back. If God is omniscient, then he knows what I am about to do and everything I will do in my life. If he knows that, than I can't truly have free will. (Even if you try to weasel out that God decides to blind himself to my future, if it is knowable then its pre-ordained.) So unless you are willing to say God isn't omniscient, then there is no free will, kids.

Actually, that is not true. Several religions believe that God exists outside of time. As such, He is able to perceive the entire universe including what we would label the past, present and future in a single glance. He can do this due to (a) His omnipotence and (b) the fact that He exists outside of time. Thus, God perceives the universe before, during and after your decision. Hence, He can be omniscient and still grant us free will.

For example, I had the option of eating pork or chicken tonight, depending on what I told the chef. I freely chose the pork (and enjoyed it). I could have chosen the chicken. Since God perceived all of the universe, he knew the choices that I had, as well as what I would decide. If God were to exist inside of time and be omniscient, then He would know the outcome of my decision before I would (and you would be correct). Since God exists outside of time, He knows the situation that I encountered, the choice that was presented to me, the decision making process in which I engaged and the outcome of the decision as the result of a single "observation". Since this observation happens outside of time, it is completely compatible with the omniscience of God. The mechanics of God's observations/knowledge remain a mystery, since God's ways are mysterious.

All major religions that have an omniscient God and the concept of free will have solved this problem. Otherwise, the theological tradition would have to cast aside one of the two doctrines (as you have suggested). They've also cast aside the unwritten premise stating that it is possible for a person to know everything in the universe, including the "mechanics of God".

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[Empiric]

No. If our behavior is deterministic, God would know the outcome of our decisions. If it is not, He would not have to in order to have "omniscience", as "the future" is purely an abstraction--knowing it is not a precondition to knowing "all". There would be no future existents or attributes of those existents which, well, exist to know. If it is not deterministic, God would know the accurate fact that is is not deterministic, not the error that it is. Certainly, theists fall in both camps regarding predestination, but it would be inaccurate to say that only one position is held within monotheistic religions.

You're actually making a statement as to the nature of reality (deterministic or not), and implicitly asserting that as impinging on God's knowledge. Usually, this is done for some fairly stock atheistic arguments (and is really begging-the-question), but apart from that, it leaves behind general confusion anyway (as stances which would have no value even if accepted in full tend to do). So, to cast this into a generalized philosophical context, toward the relationship of free-will/determinism and knowledge, here's a thought experiment:

In 1000 years, technology advances to the point where one can directly connect their consciousness to a supercomputer which "knows all" (or, can calculate all), rendering complete knowledge of everyone's behavior insofar as it is possible. At this point in history, would the nature of everyone's will be instantaneously transformed? Or, might we fairly say, that whether someone knows what you will choose or not, you still chose it?

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[Anonymous Coward]

God is, in some sense, the source of evil for it could not exist unless He willed it to. Put if God is the source then evil has purpose and meaning. If God isn't the source then evil is truly senseless. Evil with meaning, purpose and design is more palatable than the senseless evil that exists when a libertine notion of the will is accepted.

Science won't ever disprove free-will because it is so amorphous in its philosophical conception that it defies both proof and the contrary. And yes, we could posses some external substance that gives rise to the will but this sort of dualism has not often been accepted within Christianity and if this separate seat of the will is not eternal then how can even its decisions escape causation? This sort of conception of the will won't square with Christian theology and has its own weaknesses at other points as well.

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[Falladir]

Nice analogy. I might use that someday.

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[Anonymous Coward]

At least in Christianity, free will is assumed.

Not in every sect of Christianity. Calvinists do not believe in free will as it is commonly understood.

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[jd]

It has to do with tea and crumpets. If free will truly existed, would they have not have had beer instead?

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[powermacx]

Your post reminds me of this short SF story by Ted Chiang, published 3 years ago on Nature: http://www.concatenation.org/futures/whatsexpected.pdf (warning: PDF link, but only a single page long) I guess they built the Predictor after all. They didn't need a time machine and are even 7 seconds ahead instead of just 1.

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[jd]

Well, if you accept the multiple universe model of quantum mechanics (all possibilities are true, across the multiverse as a whole) then if something is physically a possible history for you, then yes, one or more of you have experienced that history. Such a model totally buggers up the notion of free will, as even if it exists in some sense, every possible decision you could make will be made - just not necessarily in any given universe.

If that is not a valid QM model, could free will exist? Free will, if it exists, resides in the brain and the structure of the brain (the internal wiring and the thickness of the outer layers) is determined through biology and experience. Thus, your capacity to make and evaluate decisions is based on external factors. In which case, free will cannot be entirely free, but must be significantly controlled by non-intelligent mechanics. (The garage I used to take my car had many of those.) The brain is then fed sensory data which is processed in a virtual space controlled by externally-programmed components of the brain, before being fed into wherever the conciousness resides. If, indeed, it does. (There have been many debates as to whether you need a conciousness to exist. If there is no free will, merely a virtual will, then a true conciousness is unnecessary. There'd be nothing for it to do.)

Alternatively, you could think of the Chinese Room Puzzle. This is one invented to disprove artificial intelligence, but can also be used to disprove the need of a true conciousness or a free will.

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[dmartin]

Predestination is not necessarily incompatible with free will. There some philosophers (collectively the compatalists) that maintain you can have determinism and free will.

To see how, consider reason that we consider them incompatible. If I have free will, I should be able to choose what I have for breakfast tomorrow. (By choose, I mean within some reasonable constraints -- I am not going to have scambled Dodo eggs, for example.) If the future is pre-determined, then I have no choice at all in what I have for breakfast; I simply have what I must have. The argument is made that I don't have free will because I have no choices available to me.

This all seems reasonable. But a compatalist would point out that we have not exhausted all the opinions. For example, most people would believe that just because you cannot change what you had for breakfast yesterday does not imply you do not have free will. So why does the fact that you must have some particular item for breakfast tomorrow necessarily deny free will? Whatever you did have for breakfast yesterday (which was presumably the outcome of free decisions you already made, and you could have made others but chose not to) is not problematic. Why is it problematic that the (logically possibly) free decisions you will make will lead to a particular breakfast tomorrow, and it is preordained because you will not make other choices?

The argument essentially boils down to pointing out that free will comes about from figuring out what or how the decisions are made. Determinism is an argument about when the decisions are made. These philosophers are simply making the point that having the decisions all made freely (if not knowingly) but not "in real time" is a logically consistent position.

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[NIckGorton]

The only chance we have of any free will at all is in quantum weirdness which is not much free will to speak of, and certainly not enough to be palatable to the average American who thinks his success or failure is a product of his own decisions rather than the sum total of a very complicated system that he has little control over and basically just experiences as the phenomena of his mind. I knew you were gonna say that. And I knew you were going to say that.

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[NIckGorton]

I call bullshit! The only thing monotheistic religions have ever managed to do right is... well, nothing First, I'm a gay, pro-choice, green, secular humanist. And I just pried the gun out of Charlton Heston's cold dead fingers. Second, go to any Jewish Deli in NYC and you will experience one thing one of the major monos did right. But I agree beyond the food and a few artists, they ain't worth the paper their holy books are printed on.

The point of my post was see, even the kids who ride the short school bus get it.

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[NIckGorton]

At least in Christianity, free will is assumed. If there were no free will, our love for God would mean nothing, because we wouldn't have any alternative. Exactly.

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[monoqlith]

Yes, but many of these arguments(by St. Anselm, St. Aquinas, St. Augustine, Descartes etc) are ways to justify or rationalize our common-sense intuition that we are free agents in the world. There is plenty of merit in discussing them. But when you read them you come to realize that these philosophers tend to start off with an idea from their religious or common-sense beliefs and then seek a rational means with which to justify them. Of course the arguments at first don't appear this way, but upon further inspection, they tend to fall apart once you locate the step that they derived from their religious faith. Of course they all follow very good logic and they are very good philosophers, but there have been serious(I think fatal) objections to many of their arguments. I think belief in free will is much more problematic if you throw away ALL of your preconceptions and beliefs and reason from the only evidence you have - your immediate thoughts and perceptions. Many more modern philosophers have done this and come to the conclusion that we are not only not free - we are not even truly agents. The freedom of our thought and behavior are mere sensations. "I" is a concept of our mind, which scientists will most likely argue(and are increasingly discovering) is an emergent phenomenon of our brain. Of course philosophers have always disagreed on these matters and will never answer the question reliably. The way we're going to find justifiable hypotheses is through scientific inquiries into the workings of our brain. And even then, in the end, we're not going to ever finally settle the question - science is always free to be challenged. As it should be.

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[Anonymous Coward]

You throw purpose and meaning around awfully willy-nilly. If everything is pre-ordained then there _is_ no purpose or meaning except for the entertainment of the creator. It would be like me creating some overly complex Rube Goldberg device and showing no one. Throw in the fact that my super awesome machine tortures and kills people, and then punishes those doing the torture and killing indefinitely, and you have one pretty fucked up creator and creation.

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[Anonymous Coward]

Hell the major monotheistic religions figured this out way back. If God is omniscient, then he knows what I am about to do and everything I will do in my life. If he knows that, than I can't truly have free will. (Even if you try to weasel out that God decides to blind himself to my future, if it is knowable then its pre-ordained.) So unless you are willing to say God isn't omniscient, then there is no free will, kids.

This is off topic but Catholics still believe in free will and last I checked they were a major monotheistic religion. A major break between Catholics and Protestants is that many of the latter do not believe in free will. The Protestant argument follows the one you have put forth. The Catholic arguments read like advanced quantum physics and their complexity is one of the reasons that Protestants reject them.

The above is a fact. What follows is a clumsy attempt at an explanation.

To put in in very simple terms , if I understand the Catholic argument,(and I probably don't), God is outside time and so knows simultaneously, past, present and future. To say an individual chose this action or that action AND THEN GOD responds by doing this or that is nonsense. God already took your action into account before you were born, presumably at the moment of creation. From eternity the universe is a single object,past present and future, all the various particles and the various paths they take in one gigantic Feynman diagram of effectively infinite complexity.

You are a big collection of particles and paths in this design. God has worked your actions into His overall design like working a thread into a rug. God has left room in his design for whatever choices you wish to make, good or bad. He knows your choices and the outcome before you make it (He is still omniscient), but your choice is not forced by Him directly or indirectly by, say creating a certain environment around you that pre-disposes you to certain actions. On a large scale, the design and physical laws of the universe will point you in a certain direction but once you arrive at a decision the choice is still yours. It has to be this way because you have to be responsible for your actions so that when you sin you feel guilty about it. Otherwise you wouldn't be Catholic ;)

So, you come to a decision point in your day. Everything about the make up of the Universe says you should zig, not zag, but you zag anyway. That is free will. God's initial design or desired design has someone down as zigging. He really wanted you to zig but he left room for you to zag. The fact that you zagged probably would screw up his whole design but he has anticipated this and arranged everything to balance out your choice. As far as He is concerned you can zag for the rest of your life. Ultimately though, God is going to win because his ultimate design works out in the end. Your part in the design just won't be what He would like it to have been. Not because he couldn't force you to zig. He is still omnipotent. He chose to let you choose. He has free will too and we are made in his image. In fact to say he must control your every action to prove His omnipotence is to take away His free will. He might have intended for you to be Mother Teresa but you instead decide to kill yourself at age 14. Killing yourself is not God's plan for you but letting you decide to kill yourself is part of His plan. Instead of you playing Mother Teresa's role someone else goes to Calcutta and cares for the poor. The path is there in God's design, someone else just chooses to follow it.

This is rambling on and is probably inaccurate. I do know for a fact it is a central doctrine of Catholic Theology that we all have free will, even if you choose not to believe you do. (Or maybe I was pre-determined to believe I have free-will despite not actually having it.)

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[Nikkos]

I would look at it differently in the sense that, yes, you make your decisions based on external factors and experience, but that doesn't preclude you from doing the opposite, or unreasonable action.

Your brain/body has a reflex action programmed into it to pull away from something hot. Your experience tells you that putting your finger into a blowtorch is not a good idea. However, you can make the conscious decision to override your experience and reflexes and burn your finger off.

The only limiting thing for free will is physical objects/properties themselves

The puzzle is interesting, but it doesn't scale correctly for the Turing test.

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[Alarindris]

Alternatively, you could think of the Chinese Room Puzzle. This is one invented to disprove artificial intelligence, but can also be used to disprove the need of a true conciousness or a free will. Never seen that before. Unless you can prove humans are doing something other than shuffling symbols (language) then this is a point for the human supercomputer idea.

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[meatmanek]

I call that very complicated system my "mind", and the output of it "decisions."

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[Anonymous Coward]

No, God having knowledge of your actions has no bearing on free-will.

Let me explain. According to Judaism, which is the founder of the monotheistic religions, God is not limited by time. If you are not limited by time, you are aware of actions that will happen in what, to us, is the future, but to God, is not the future.

Therefore, it's simple for God to know what you will do, without you having no choice in the matter.

To provide an example:
I know full-well the actions taken by various people in History. For example, I know that a friend of mine got a speeding fine last month. Because, to me, it happened in the past. However, my knowledge that he got fined last month doesn't mean that I therefore took his free will off him and *forced* him to get a fine last month. It's simply a question of perspective.

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[booch]

The fact that God does not have the same (or any) notion of time supports the theory that we do NOT have free will. Our notion of God and time is that God sits "outside" of time, or can experience all time "at once". So it's as if God can see the whole movie at once. So God sees the end of the movie at the same time that he sees the beginning.

If that's the case, then if you ask God what decisions you will be making tomorrow, he can tell you. So if he's able to tell you the decisions that you will make, with certainty, then you do not have free will to make them.

But since we generally do not talk to God -- or if we do, he generally doesn't tell us specifics about our decisions in the future, from our own perspective, we do have free will. To me, this is the key -- perspective. Put yourself as the observer of your own movie. Now looking at the movie, you already know what you were going to decide yesterday. But yesterday you did not know that. So from just your own perspective, the same event was freely chose, and at the same time, already determined.

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[Anonymous Coward]

During the early 1600s there was an argument amongst various protestant faiths about whether there was free will or not, particularly in England. Whether free will exists, or not - why would that fact differ in England as compared to the rest of the world?

Sincerely,
Mr. Pedantic He just used bad grammar.

He should have said the following:

"During the early 1600s, particularly in England, there was an argument amongst various protestant faiths about whether there was free will or not.

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[aeschenkarnos]

Actually, that's a good question. Philosophically speaking there is no reason why, if the English have free will, anyone else therefore should; nor, if the English are deterministic, should anyone else be deterministic also. Usually the question is cut more finely, ie "me" vs "you", but any separation of entities you can come up with is valid: "men" vs "women", "England" vs "France", "activity at night" vs "activity during the day", "things done to please Satan" vs "things done to please God". It may not even matter: we could have free will in England, and not in France, and never know the difference.

The problem facing philosophers is not how to come up with new questions, it's finding answers to old ones.

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[dasunt]

You can have free will and still have an omniscient deity if the deity's consciousness transcends time.

Or, to put it another way, it is free will that will decide what you will do tomorrow, but God knows because he's already there.

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[fferreres]

This is my opinion on how I undertood my catholic education on free will.

>If he knows that, than I can't truly have free will.

It's not like that at all. His knowing of your choice in no way affected your ability to freely choose what you were going to do. If you regard that from someone that lives in a universe made of time and space, you may think it's like cheating: if he can anticipate my choice, and always be right, then I am not really choosing but complying. But this perspective, then one you are talking about, is not what's really happening.

Now...

The reality is that God's existence is outside time (and space). NO TIME AT ALL for him. He is not bounded by time. So he "knows what you'll do" is exactly the same as saying that "he saw you when you did it" or that "he remembers what you have done". If for free will to exist he had to not know what you were going to do, then he must be bound by time. But he created time in the first place, and is of course not limited by space/time. So your assumption implies that God should be bounded by time for us to have free will, which is not really God...but another mortal thing (according to how I understood what they - my teachers - were trying to teach us).

So in the end, the point is that it's really difficult to try to really understand what God is really (if you believe in God at all) and it's very easy for most students to get it all wrong.

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[Captain Segfault]

At least in Christianity, free will is assumed. If there were no free will, our love for God would mean nothing, because we wouldn't have any alternative.

So a mathematical theorem means nothing, because starting from those axioms there is no alternative to it?

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[ZombieRoboNinja]

The most common "solution" to this dilemma among modern academic philosophers is some form of "compatibilism," the belief that free will is compatible with a physically-determined world.

For example, my friends could tell you with probably 99% assurance that I will go to work tomorrow. As I'm on my way to work, I'll bike past a busy road and not even worry about the possibility that a driver will decide to veer into me; in fact, I'd consider it more likely that one of the factory-tested parts in a car would break than that one of the drivers would utilize his free will to arbitrarily decide to hit me.

None of this is philosophically problematic to anybody. But suggest that somebody with 100% perfect knowledge of the world would be able to perfectly predict my actions, and all the sudden it's a huge metaphysical quandary.

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[PMBjornerud]

Used to freak me out, and it was hard to swallow since I have that Horatio Algeirs kind of narrative: Grew up on welfare in a house without indoor plumbing and now have a doctorate and am typing this on the toilet I picked (the best... I loves me a good quality toilet) in the house I just remodeled. It would feel very nice to think that I did all of this and deserve this wonderful throne. You do, so feel nice.

Free will is not required. You were born as just you, with a brain capable of juggling all that quantum mayhem into order and manage to come out on top of things. Even if you were largely in for the ride, a different person might not have been as good at adapting to things, and wouldn't have made it.

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[jd]

Wel, if "free will" does not exist, then all the brain is doing is shuffling symbols and applying rulesets. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean a regular supercomputer can simulate it. If (and it's a big if) the brain is a quantum computer, then it will require a quantum computer to simulate it correctly. However, some computer must be able to do so. Whether it's turing or quantum is merely a matter of degree. If "free will" were to exist, we have a problem. Each and every rule becomes optional and new rules can be added at any time. I don't see a whole lot of evidence for that, though. I see evidence that the rules are capable of creating chaotic (in the mathematical sense) behaviour, in which case the output cannot be directly inferred from the input, it must be calculated, but that's about it.

Incidently, if free will does not exist (ie: the mind is a set of rules, possibly self-referential and thus chaotic), I wonder if that implies Asimov's "Psychohistory" does. After all, a large enough set of chaotic systems produces the appearance of a stable system. Jupiter's "Red Spot", for example, or the Mandelbrot Set.

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[TuringTest]

Actually I think what he meant to say is:

"During the early 1600s there was an argument, particularly in England, about whether there was free will amongst various protestant faiths or not.

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[Turn-X Alphonse]

Or to put it a better way.

God sees the results of the decisions we make, but as we change our mind and try to decide things, he sees the results of those actions. So he sees everything we choose to do, but also much we don't.

I'm not religious but that makes sense to me at least.

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[theheadlessrabbit]

although God knows what happens God does not know it in "advance" because our notions of time do not apply to God. this is not an argument that an free will is possible with an omniscient God.

All this shows is that god is not omniscient. If he needs to watch it to know how it turns out, he is not all knowing.

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[bentcd]

If God is omniscient, then he knows what I am about to do and everything I will do in my life. If he knows that, than I can't truly have free will. There is no conflict between predestination and free will. Even if I could predict with absolute certainty how you would act in any given situation, that still does not mean that it is I (or anyone else) who is making that decision for you - the decision is still yours. That your decision is predictable is just an indication that you are, indeed, free to act according to your nature rather than forced to act randomly.

As an example, if I know that you are seriously hydrophobic I can know with 100% certainty that given the choice of swimming across a canal and taking the bridge, you are always going to use the bridge. You are this predictable exactly because you /are/ free to choose the mode of crossing you find the most desirable (i.e. you are acting according to your nature).

(Of course, it doesn't really help matters that we have yet to come up with a generally acceptable definition of "free will" so any discussion of this topic is necessarily confusing and prone to misunderstandings.)

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[Tom]

Um, not much of a newsflash. Hell the major monotheistic religions figured this out way back. Err, no, they didn't. If they had, then you would have been right and they would have abandoned either the concept of omniscience, or of free will. They did neither. On the contrary, they made them interdependent.

The only chance we have of any free will at all is in quantum weirdness Unlikely. Observation causes the wave function to collapse, but the observer doesn't get a choice in it. If free will requires something that is too complex to be held in a single quantum state, and very likely it is, then there simply is no way that free will could influence anything "quantum" at all.

So I pretend I have free will, and think I make moral choices based on that understanding. Pfft. What if "free will" wasn't some kind of magic "thing", but simply the term for all the complexity that goes on when you make something that feels like a choice? You don't "pretend to see the sun", even though you know that the photons that reach your eye aren't "the sun", and don't even properly represent its internal complexity. You don't "pretend to drive the car" when you fully understand that "driving the car" is a simplified term for a highly complex interaction between man, machine and environment that you don't consciously comprehend to its entire extend (because if you did, your reactions would be too slow to actually do it).

Free will is of the same kind. It's a simple term for a complex conglomerate of things and events.

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[ampathee]

If God is omniscient, then he knows what I am about to do and everything I will do in my life. If he knows that, than I can't truly have free will. (Even if you try to weasel out that God decides to blind himself to my future, if it is knowable then its pre-ordained.) So unless you are willing to say God isn't omniscient, then there is no free will, kids. Even assuming an omniscient god exists, how do we know that the future is knowable? We must assume that even "all-powerful" beings cannot break the laws of logic - if they can there's no point us talking about them. Therefore, I assume that an omniscient being would know only all knowable things. And the future may not be knowable.. for all we know.

In any case, whether the future is pre-ordained does not affect our free will (IMO). If we could analyse the human brain so closely that we could tell what was going on, and predict what decision you were going to make - does that actually mean you didn't make a decision? No-one else made it for you. You still feel as if you made a decision. You think, therefore you are.

Disclaimer: IANAPhilosopher :)

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[pbhj]

You can take my free will but you cannot take my unity!

>>> "'I' is a concept of our mind"

If you mean that perception of self is a process of mind, granted. If you mean "I" don't exist except in my mind, then what's this body thing attached to me, it seems pretty distinct from other items.

Now doubting other minds, that's cool, welcome to skeptics-ville, doubting your own mind seems pretty contradictory. Or is someone else doubting your mind for you?

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[Anonymous Coward]

A reformed theologist called it, Free Will, "the luxury of indifference". I am not free to choose any course of action, I am not indifferent. Anyone who knows me well can "push my buttons" to get a "reaction"; they will not witness a "free action". People run predictably true to form precisely because of a lack of free will.

When the doctor slaps the bottom of a newborn, the newborn does not cry out as an act of free will -- he reacts to the complex state of events that determine his reality at that moment in time. He would not, I'm certain, debate whether to cry out.

Still, I act as though I have free will. It's a pleasant delusion.

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[Anonymous Coward]

Whether free will exists, or not - why would that fact differ in England as compared to the rest of the world?

Sincerely,
Mr. Pedantic Because no other place in the world has as many video cameras watching your every move =)

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[knell1906]

God is omniscient, however, there are infinity possible futures. You have to choose but there is a reason why you choosed that future based on your past. Yet you have the power to completly make a new choice that doesn't coincide with past decisions.

I think we have a combination of no freewill and freewill.

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[Anonymous Coward]

So God knows which souls will spend eternity in Hell before they are born but refuses to intervene? How could a 'loving God' allow a person to be born whom he knows will suffer eternal torment?

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[mdwstmusik]

Or to put it a better way.

God sees the results of the decisions we make, but as we change our mind and try to decide things, he sees the results of those actions. So he sees everything we choose to do, but also much we don't.

I'm not religious but that makes sense to me at least. This puts me in mind of the Many Worlds theory?

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[monoqlith]

It's quite possible that someone is doubting my mind for me. I can't prove otherwise. In this regard we must go farther than Descartes in his first meditation. For some reason he concluded that he could think - but he didn't truly know that his thoughts originate in him. All I know is that it feels like I am doubting my mind. The only thing I an be certain of is that I do experience my thoughts and sensory reality.

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[pbhj]

The only thing I [c]an be certain of is that I do experience my thoughts and sensory reality. Do you?

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[pbhj]

The only thing I [c]an be certain of is that I do experience my thoughts and sensory reality. Do you?

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[Raenex]

Suppose there is a person Bob who actually does have free will according to your definition. (Go on, think of your definition of free will right now, and assume that Bob has it.) I don't think anybody has a good definition of what it is. Or what consciousness is. However, it seems tied to our physical brains, which are just following the laws of physics. Even if their are some random dice being thrown.

Now suppose you recorded every action he made in his life, then time-traveled back to when he was born. At that point, if your time-traveling self does not actually interact with Bob, you could certainly observe all his actions being played out as you recorded them. If you are going "back" in time, then there's this idea that reality is being replayed -- is there consciousness during this replay? If not, then it's like watching a playback of a movie -- you don't assume any consciousness or free-will is happening at the time of playback.

Or is it possible that, while others can predict my decisions, my decisions are still my own because I still made them? But what are you? Are you just a machine following the laws of physics? Does the clock pendulum swinging back and forth have free will? Does a river winding it's way downstream?

God knows what we will do, yes...but does that make him a Puppeteer, or could we see him as a wise Father, giving his children instructions, but letting them explore and discover what lies ahead on their own, sad that some of them will fall on the wrong path due to their own unfortunate flaws, yet happy to see those who will triumph? If you create a smart and powerful computer that is indistinguishable from a human, does it have free will, even though it's operation is completely deterministic? Will you, as the creator, fully understand it?

What if you created a universe for it to "live" in. You could choose to influence it's behavior, or just sit back and watch the show. Maybe at some point it'll start asking deep questions about itself, and the nature of reality, and dream up an all-loving, all-powerful God. Or <insert-your-religion-here>.

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[fishthegeek]

I disagree. Given the assumption that God exists outside of time where he perceives all things to happen at once has nothing to do with free will. In your example God wouldn't be telling you what decision you would make in the future because, to Him, you have already made that decision and the outcome of that decision was already experienced by God in what you might call an "infinite now" (read: the closest thing God experiences to a past) What you are really describing is postcognition (as opposed to precognition) and heck even I can do that in a small way. You retain the will to choose what you want to choose. The virtue of being able to have already seen your chosen act does not in any way impact your ability to choose that act initially.

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[focoma]

I don't think anybody has a good definition of what it is. Or what consciousness is. However, it seems tied to our physical brains, which are just following the laws of physics. Even if their are some random dice being thrown.

You might also want to consider the concepts of responsibility, justification, and ethics, all of which are linked to free will but have very little to do with the laws of physics (just like free will!).

If you are going "back" in time, then there's this idea that reality is being replayed -- is there consciousness during this replay? If not, then it's like watching a playback of a movie -- you don't assume any consciousness or free-will is happening at the time of playback.

No, it's not like a playback. Remember, you are *in* the past. You can interact with the theoretical Bob, but you decide not to so that you can act as an "omniscient observer". Suppose you decided to interact with the past by approaching Bob just as he was about to choose a drink from a vending machine. Suppose you wrote down "I know you will pick Coca-Cola" (which you know is correct) on a piece of paper, folded it, and gave it to Bob just as he pressed the Coca-Cola button. Will you therefore be able to tell him, like the scientists in the article, "Ha! I knew you would get a Coke! That writing is proof! You don't have free will!!!" Somehow I think there's something odd about that line of thinking. Somehow I think it just doesn't follow.

But what are you? Are you just a machine following the laws of physics? Does the clock pendulum swinging back and forth have free will? Does a river winding it's way downstream?

What am I? I am a sentient being, aware of myself, and able to decide.

You use the phrase "following the laws of physics" without realizing that, for pendulums, rivers, etc., it is merely a metaphor. What do we really mean when we say that a pendulum follows the laws of physics? Did the pendulum decide anything? Was it aware of the laws that it "follows", or of anything at all for that matter? What is it that motivates the pendulum to be so obedient, when it can simply break free and rebel from the shackles of these laws and follow another, much more interesting path? Etc, etc... It's just a figure of speech!

When we say that such and such computer program, for example, is "making decisions" based on such and such algorithms, sometimes we forget that we don't really mean that, as well. The story-teller in all of us like making characters, and so we give human-like characteristics even to inanimate things. At least it's an easy way to explain concepts, certainly better in this case than talking about logic gates or automata theory. Yet do you really expect me to answer such a fairy-tale question as "does a pendulum have free will"?

If you create a smart and powerful computer that is indistinguishable from a human, does it have free will, even though it's operation is completely deterministic?

Here we are again playing with words. "Indistinguishable from a human" is a useless phrase because it does not answer the important questions: Is it *actually* human, or not? Is it aware, or not? Does it feel responsibility for its actions, or does it not? Should I treat it with respect, or not?

There are two things that some fail to realize: First is that you can ask these questions to the people around you as well. Is Raenex human, or a cleverly programmed bot? Am I inside a machine that feeds fake data into my brain, such that the people I think am seeing are actually fake? The second thing is that, in the end, the only person you can trust to answer that question correctly is yourself. You know that you are aware. You know that you can take responsibility. You know. You think. Therefore, you are...Human. No matter if it turns out that you were programmed by some alien scientist using advanced technology...you are still a human being with free will.

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[monoqlith]

Yes, "I"(whatever I am in actuality) have qualitative experience of thoughts, sights, tastes, smells, sounds, and touches. This cannot be doubted, even if it is not me who would be doing the doubting anyway. It is perhaps the only thing we can be certain of. We can't even be certain of that our certainty is ours.

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[Trinn]

Why does free will have to reside fully within the brain? Why could it not reside spread out through space in such a way that the quantum weirdness as someone put it has a chance to affect your apparently rote decisions? Just because a physical boundary encloses most of your self, why does one have to enclose the rest?

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[Raenex]

You might also want to consider the concepts of responsibility, justification, and ethics, all of which are linked to free will but have very little to do with the laws of physics (just like free will!). If you believe in evolution, and believe evolution is just a result of physics, then all of these concepts fall out. What we feel is a result of our physical brains.

Remember, you are *in* the past. But I can't make sense of that. If it is the past then it cannot happen again. Is it being replayed, and what, re-experienced? Is there free will in the replay? Doesn't make any sense to me. If it is not a replay, then it is not the past.

Suppose you decided to interact with the past by approaching Bob just as he was about to choose a drink from a vending machine. Illustrating the dilemma of being *in* the past. If it can be interacted with, that destroys the concept of time, and what it means to be a conscious, free-will being living from moment-to-moment.

You know that you are aware. Sure, but it doesn't answer deeper questions about the nature of awareness.

No matter if it turns out that you were programmed by some alien scientist using advanced technology...you are still a human being with free will. Most people cannot accept "free will" if they are merely running inside a computer following simple rules, any more than you would prescribe "free will" to the winding river.

Good day. You too.

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[kabrakan]

I disagree.. free will can only exist *because* of god. Without god, then we are a naturalistic process just, as you say, along for the ride, and self-reflexively experiencing our consciousness as exhibiting free will. Only through a god can free will be 'given' to us. And this is what most atheists don't see-- Free will is really a supernatural ability, or at least it really doesn't fit in to the natural order of the universe. If determinism works for every other object in the universe (save, perhaps, quantum trickery) then it should certainly apply to our brain states.

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[Anonymous Coward]

Bender: "So, do you know what I'm gonna do before I do it?"
God: "Yes."
Bender: "What if I do something different?"
God: "Then I don't know that."

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[joNDoty]

If God is omniscient, then he knows what I am about to do and everything I will do in my life. If he knows that, than I can't truly have free will. If God is outside of time, I don't see the problem here. God could assume a future perspective (e.g. after your death), and see all the decisions you made in your lifetime. That doesn't mean he controlled you or took away those decisions.

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[jd]

Then you get into philosophical arguments as to what defines conciousness, and indeed what defines the brain. If the brain is defined as the seat of conciousness, then conciousness exists entirely within the brain, regardless of how distributed it is. You simply modify how you define the brain. You also get into philosophical arguments as to whether an event (quantum or otherwise) is "outside the brain" and perceived by it, or "inside the brain" and manipulating it.

There's also the question of what we mean by conciousness, which implies an individual existance. Quantum mechanics, taken literally, defines everything as probability functions. A particle doesn't exist at a point, it exists everywhere but with different probabilities, or possibly degrees. You'd need to look up research on diffraction at very low particle rates to see what the current thinking is on whether duality exists because of statistics or because the particle really does have partial existance at multiple points. I think it's the latter, that diffraction patterns are observed even with what are nominally single photons, but I'm not certain.

Assuming it is the latter, then you literally exist everywhere. So do I. So does CowboyNeil (scary thought!). We merely exist at specific points to a greater degree than others, but at the most fundamental level, those are just a bunch of numbers with no "meaning" above and beyond any other set of numbers. As soon as you get to this level, the most fundamental view of the Universe possible, all that exists are functions and values. Matter, energy - these are simply how the functions are organized. Unless a single function, in and of itself, can be said to be concious, then at this level, conciouness does not exist, and individuality is merely an inequality in state machines. Well, presupposing that there is nothing external to physics and mathematics. If you add a paranormal dimension, then things get more complicated.

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[Begs]

You have a problem in the concept of omniscience. Omniscience means knowing all that is knowable. If you have free will, what you will do in any given circumstance is not necessarily knowable to a certainty. Omniscience is knowing to a certainty that which is knowable.

It is the same with omnipotence. Can god make a rock so heavy that he/she can't lift it? That's just a paradox of language; not doable.

All these linguistic paradoxes are actually the outlines of our reality. God's reality maybe a superset of our own.

BTW, I don't much believe... God can think and choose what he/she wants. Thank God (or whatever) I can think and choose what I want.

P.S. God can't make a square-circle either. It doesn't make God less than omnipotent. Since God probably doesn't exist, it probably makes no difference.

Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash

[entropiccanuck]

Unless you define omniscience to be "God knows everything that's knowable." If the future doesn't yet exist, then it's doesn't diminish his omniscience if he doesn't know what's not there to know.

1..2..3..4..5..6..7

[dedischado]

1..2..3..4..5..6..7..oh okay, it took me seven second to decide and start writing this..

Re:1..2..3..4..5..6..7

[baegucb_18706]

took me 8 seconds (I'm old and slow ;)

But what if you choose not to decide?

[sticks_us]

You can choose from phantom fears
And kindness that can kill
I will choose a path thats clear
I will choose free will!

--oblig.

Re:But what if you choose not to decide?

[Anonymous Coward]

You can choose a ready guide in some celestial voice

If you choose not to decide, you still haven't made a choice

*note/trivia* Geddy sings "still HAVE made a choice" but Neil wrote "still haven't made a choice"

Re:But what if you choose not to decide?

[dwye]

> *note/trivia* Geddy sings "still HAVE made a
> choice" but Neil wrote "still haven't made a choice"

Changing the lyrics, thus exercizing his free will.

Unless that was deterministically required because Geddy's version of the line makes more sense. And scans better. And can be sung better, in concert.

Nothing to do with free will!

[robinsonne]

Looking at brain scans they were able to predict which hand would be used? No kidding. Last time I checked, every time we move a muscle something (the brain/spinal cord in case of reflex) has to tell the muscle to move and would amazingly show up on their nifty scan.

Re:Nothing to do with free will!

[Rallion]

Not several seconds in advance of the person even consciously knowing which hand they were going to use...

The Expirament:

[Anonymous Coward]

I haven't RTFA, but....

If all they did was put a geek in front of a computer with net access, smart money says they'll be jacking off to porn in seven seconds weather they think about it or not.

Duh.

Rigged

[yomology]

Personally, I don't see how this experiment can even remotely call into question "free will." You see, free will and conscious rationality are very nearly the same. Now, when choosing between using the left or right button, there is little to no information to be considered rationally, or consciously, and so this experiment is only testing a choice that is already devoid of free will. The choice is, in effect, subconsciously decided making it easy to predict.

Re:Rigged

[monoqlith]

Not at all. 'Conscious rationality' is the deterministic(or if you wish, probabilistic) process of the biochemical reactions of your brain. Why would your brain be exempt from the physical laws of the universe? Having had a neurological disorder myself, which has affected the workings of my frontal cortex at times(thankfully not permanently), I have become acutely aware of this. I have come to the opinion a priori that even my most conscious thoughts merely feel spontaneous - but my apprehension of them is no different than my apprehension of my sense perceptions, and I have very little control over my sense perceptions. Even though qualitatively my thoughts are diffferent than, say, my vision, in the end, everything I see, hear, touch, taste, smell, and think is a mere representation of my mind - and I cannot locate the origin of these representations no matter how hard I try. My best hypothesis(since I take my sense representations to originate in empirical reality - that is something that we must assume, for philosophical proofs of this fact have been scandalously weak) is that they are the workings of my brain. Thus even my concept of myself is an elaborate orchestration of my brain's physical functioning. The sentence "I will choose by own free will to open the bathroom window" is not incorrect because there is no "will" - it's meaningless because there is no intelligible "I" that we can locate as separate from physical reality. Now, I know this admission opens me up to criticisms - most problematically, how can you rely on the word of someone who admits to having had a brain disease? To this I answer: how can you rely on the word of anybody? You can't. You have to reason from first principles yourself.

Re:Rigged

[yomology]

I'm going to assume that your illness has given you an insight into the workings of the brain. Even if the "self" is just an elaborate illusion created by a ball of neurons and fats in your head, one cannot deny that it exists. Same as a theme park is just made up of rides, food stands, people, carny's, and vomit, one cannot deny that a theme park is more than the sum of its parts. To farther my point, a person exists as a self beyond the brain because the idea of self is "apprehended" (as you put it) just as the external perceptions are; these you labeled as part of an empirical reality. So, in summary, the self outside the brain exists because you perceive it with the same tool you use to comprehend external reality. Also,in response to the "scandalously weak proponents of empirical reality", I believe Thomas Nagel described a fairly eloquent solution in his paper "What is it Like to be a Bat?"

Re:Rigged

[Tom]

You see, free will and conscious rationality are very nearly the same. Why assume that?

If I make an instinctive choice, is that not free will? Why not? Just because my consciousness wasn't involved? What if it was, it just decided that the instinctive decision was good? Does it matter if it made that decision before or after the instinctive choice was put into motion?

Also, how are you gonna make the distinction from the outside?

Free will is, first and foremost, a weakly defined word. It's not a thing.

Re:Rigged

[monoqlith]

What I meant to say really is that the self is not metaphysically differentiable from our physical bodies, which flies in the face of Cartesian dualism. It is an emergent phenemonon of our physical brain, and in that sense the self is not just not an idea, it is quite real. So I agree with you. Kant also had a quite compelling proof of the empirical world, called transcendental idealism. I happen to believe in the reality of the external world, as I'm sure you do. But it's weird that Cartesian skepticism is not seen to have been adequately refuted by many philosophers.

Re:Rigged

[Raenex]

If I make an instinctive choice, is that not free will? Why not? Just because my consciousness wasn't involved? It's a pervasive idea. People have been acquitted for murder committed while sleepwalking.

Most decisions are automatic

[3arwax]

I am a person who believes very strongly that God gives us agency and that agency is essential to our progression through life. I also believe that most decisions are made automatically. Our brain acts just like a muscle. We train it and it has reflex like decisions. But there are many times when we exercise a higher consciousness to make decisions. But who would ever accuse Slashdot of having over-sensationalized headlines?

Re:Most decisions are automatic

[nawcom]

um. last time i checked, muscles are controlled via electrical signals. from the brain. not from an automatic condition or signal from an invisible superman. People who lack or lose muscular support can NOW get artificial support, which interacts with the brain. yeah.

Why are you trying to link ancient text to current scientific studies? You mind as well claim that our brains are not just a muscle, but a little spirit capsule made out of either fire, water, wind, or earth.

News flash: our brains aren't muscles! they are neural tissue linking many, many neurons together, carrying essentially electricity!

Though if you are really serious about this crazy idea, the next time you talk to your super man, tell him to give us humans a break with his sadistic humour. if he really insists on picking and choosing a single person's fate based on how he feels that day, tell him to go create another 6 millennium old universe to piss on. and give women a more important purpose than serving men. and if he drinks to much and floods the planet with his own piss, don't flush the toilet, we want some decent evidence to support his bullshit claims. 'nuff god ranting for tonight.

Re:Most decisions are automatic

[3arwax]

That was a lot of assumptions. My religious beliefs are somewhat different than you describe. I wish to explain them, not to belittle you, but to hopefully increase your understanding if you wish.

First, my religion teaches that we were spirits before this life and must get bodies to progress. My understanding is that these bodies are hard things to master. They have appetites and passions. Part of that body includes the brain. This also has appetites and passions and is something that we must also master. Think of somebody who is lazy in their mind. They must discipline their mind through study. I find the brain very much like a muscle, even though it is made of different matter. But I also believe there is something higher, our spirit, which is controlling it.

What is a spirit made of? I don't know and I am OK with that. Just imagine trying to explain radio waves to people 500 years ago. They would have thought you were crazy. Just because we don't understand how it works doesn't mean it doesn't exist and isn't possible.

The God I believe in is not changing. He doesn't change law based on what we call a mood. But He does give us agency to make our own decisions. Sometimes those decisions help alleviate the suffering of others and sometimes they cause it.

When does God come in and destroy a people with something like a flood? Think of it as an orchard with trees. When a tree is so full of disease and rot that it cannot provide any more good fruit wouldn't you destroy it? This happens when people cannot make a choice for good because that society will not allow it.

As far as women, our church has the largest women's organization in the world. We are constantly taught that we should treat our wifes as our equals.

I do not solely rely on ancient texts for my information. We believe in modern scripture, modern prophets, and modern personal revelation. Knowing God is a very personal experience but there is an order established with a hierarchy of leaders to prevent false prophets and confusion.

As I have said knowing God is a very personal experience. This knowledge must be obtained by each person. I have seen plenty of evidence in my own life as to the love, mercy, knowledge, and power of God.

Why does God choose to do things this way? My understanding is that we wouldn't have agency unless God allowed us to choose and come to Him. He is all powerful and by making that power completely obvious would not allow us a proper choice.

Please respond if you have further questions. I hope I have been able to expand your understanding.

Re:Most decisions are automatic

[Anonymous Coward]

*clap* *clap*

Thank you for that amazingly one-sided description. Without me wasting my time, please revisit each of your statements and attempt to look at them from the other side. Then, kindly dig through your Bible and find each of the contradictions to your statements.

Now, remember this lesson so you don't have to go through this again.

Re:Most decisions are automatic

[3arwax]

I'm sorry but I don't understand what you are saying. Did you even read what I wrote? If you want to have a conversation with me about this then go ahead but don't post some general insult as an AC that show you haven't even bothered to read what the other person says. This only shows ignorance.

Re:Most decisions are automatic

[Anonymous Coward]

This only shows ignorance.

Says the one with the God delusion...

Re:Most decisions are automatic

[Raenex]

I wish to explain them, not to belittle you, but to hopefully increase your understanding if you wish. Different poster here, but I hope you won't mind if I jump in.

We believe in modern scripture, modern prophets, and modern personal revelation. Knowing God is a very personal experience but there is an order established with a hierarchy of leaders to prevent false prophets and confusion. I have to ask: Have you considered the alternative view that all organized religion is just man-made philosophy wrapped in mythology? As a theory, where do you think it fails?

Re:Most decisions are automatic

[3arwax]

One theory for the multitude of religions is that many different men have made attempts to try to explain what is going on around them. Another is that there is some fundamental truth that people have departed from. So let us assume there is a true religion which has all truth. When people fall away from that religion they take many pieces, which they agree with, and substitute those they disagree with with other things. Once you have one corrupted religion many others break off and try to reform it but without proper authority they cannot reform. This is a start into a discussions but I cannot do it justice right here. When you have a firmer understanding it is amazing how it all fits together. If you would like to continue this discussion please email me at mulhollandj@gmail.com.

I, for one, DO have free will

[Anonymous Coward]

...and I will NOT pay a lot for this muffler!

Free Will

[AstrumPreliator]

If the universe is ordered, that is there are a set of physical laws which govern the outcome of particle and energy interactions, then wouldn't free will as currently defined be impossible? Perhaps our actions are chaotic in the mathematical sense but still deterministic. Anyone else have any thoughts on this?

Re:Free Will

[Orange Crush]

There's no way to know. On one hand, you could say that the first planck second into the big bang everything that would ever happen in the universe was already determined. This assumes that even seemingly random quantum effects are the results of some underlying deterministic principles.

I feel our observations so far all seem to suggest that there's more than enough "white noise" and randomness on all scales from quarks to quasars that we'll never have the ability to predict anything beyond a probability distribution. I don't believe the universe is deterministic. It feels like I have free will, so honestly, who gives sh*t if I really don't? Even if we uncovered all the physical laws and could perfectly model the future, you still can't predict your own future--model your next action, but then revise your model to include what you did modeling your next action, then revise the model again . . . etc. Infinite loop.

Re:Free Will

[The_Wilschon]

Only if the Theory of Everything turns out to be nonlocal. Any deterministic theory which is consistent with the predictions of quantum mechanics (and thus also with experiment) must be a hidden variable theory, and only nonlocal hidden variable theories can agree with experiment. See the EPR paradox and Bohm's pilot-wave (an example of a nonlocal hidden variable theory).

Furthermore, IIRC (although I can't find the reference), nonlocal hidden variables place a pretty sharp limit on the amount of computation that the universe can do, and thus may be excluded quite soon (by a quantum computer that can factor numbers greater than ~10000).

Re:Free Will

[Hojima]

Actually that's exactly right. For far too long, people have been equating entropy as free will, when in fact "free will" can only be defined by the biological mechanisms that occur to make the decision (that's what the whole concept of "choosing" is based on). It's probably because people equate anything they don't understand as "magic" rather than mystery.

Re:Free Will

[BungaDunga]

Hey, you just said what I was going to say, until I scrolled down. It'll be cool if/when we can prove the nonexistence of nonlocal hidden variables. Wouldn't that (more or less) prove the lack of a perfectly omniscient god? If even God doesn't know what's happening in a quantum particle, then he can't read our quantum-encrypted messages (well, while they're in transit). Ergo, God doesn't know everything and is a lot less impressive.

Re:Free Will

[rohan972]

It is interesting to consider the concept of "spirit". It seems that it will always be in the realm of mythology, even if true, due to the apparent impossibility of measuring or observing it.

If such a thing as "spirit" exists, and is not subject to physical laws, then it could be the origin of decisions and free will could also exist.

The question of whether it exists or not does not seem to have any objective answer. "There's no evidence of it, so it doesn't" is insufficient for something that by its nature would not provide physical evidence even if true. "It's in my book" is also insufficient.

Re:Free Will

[ceoyoyo]

Quantum mechanics throws a pretty convincing unknowability wrench into the works of the classical clockwork universe.

Neurons also have some intriguingly small structures that some have suggested may have important quantum mechanical properties.

Re:Free Will

[theheadlessrabbit]

i thought that quantum physics has proven that the universe is probabilistic, not deterministic.

and since its quantum physics, that means you can have free will, and be subject to fate at the same time!

Re:Free Will

[rohan972]

and since its quantum physics, that means you can have free will, and be subject to fate at the same time!

... and yet if you made a similar apparently contradictory statement regarding religion, you would be considered illogical. Quantum physics is science though, so it is ok.

Seriously, I don't understand quantum physics. It seems that any sufficiently advance knowledge automatically appears to be foolishness to those not prepared to learn it. (Using prepared as in mental preparation, not willingness)

+5 Predetermined

[Shaitan Apistos]

If you don't mod me according to my post's title I'll understand, you didn't have a choice.

Quicker trigger response?

[sweet_petunias_full_]

Scenario: There's a war and a soldier is holding a rifle, but instead of a finger on the trigger, there's a cable going from the brain directly to the rifle. The soldier is alert. A bad guy could pop up from behind a rock at any moment.

Since the decision to shoot can be measured more quickly by this device, this shooter will win all the gunfights... (or at least that's how the Pentagon might see it, if they are funding it).

Once friendly fire becomes a problem, the standard excuse will be: "Oh, that wasn't me, the device must be malfunctioning." So then they'll take it out of the military and just sell it to some less critical force like law-enforcement or something.

Re:Quicker trigger response?

[Anonymous Coward]

Since the decision to shoot can be measured more quickly by this device, this shooter will win all the gunfights... (or at least that's how the Pentagon might see it, if they are funding it).

Air force.

See Clint Eastwood in the 1982 movie adaptation of Craig Thomas' novel Firefox. (For the "you must think in Russian" meme, for the airport scene that -- with security thugs tamer than the TSA -- was intended to illustrate how oppressive Soviet Russia was, and of course, for the thought-controlled weapons system that eliminated the delay between "deciding to fire" and "pulling the trigger".)

PROTIP: Thomas got closer to the truth with the novel than he knew... or did he?

Cue the Mr Subliminal cracks

[LrdDimwit]

They don't even try to account for the Insightful same situation where the Halting Problem fails Insightful. I ask the scanner what I'm going to do Funny, then do something else Hot sex or flip a coin. Let alone anything where the truly interesting Troll aspects of free will. For example, Insightful doing this brain scan on someone who thinks he has discovered a way to embezzle a million dollars Flying chair without getting caught, but isn't sure. Do I do it? Will I get caught? Insightful Even if I will get away with it, should I? How badly do I need the money?

If they could predict THAT before the person makes the actual decision -- not in a simulation, in the actual situation -- then this scan might shed light on the idea of free will. Flamebait Otherwise it's a giant leap.

Re:Cue the Mr Subliminal cracks

[i.of.the.storm]

Err, is this supposed to be a poor attempt at subliminal messaging to get moderators to mod you the way you want, thus proving that there is no free will? WTF is the hot sex for then?

Re:Cue the Mr Subliminal cracks

[scooter.higher]

http://snltranscripts.jt.org/88/88msubliminal.phtml

And just how...

[Samuel Dravis]

So how does this affect anything? Last I heard, what we called "choosing" to do an act was very specific and has nothing at all to do with brain states. That these states correlate with decisions are... accidental. I may be Wittgensteinizing here, but what it means for me to choose to do something is not the same as what it means for some sort of activity to be present in my brain. That both situations are called "choosing" may present some confusion, but they don't appear to have much to do with one another otherwise. This kind of article seems to be much hype over absolutely nothing...

Sigh. Not determinism vs free will again.

[gargletheape]

- I wish neuroscientists would stop getting free press just for saying they observed someone doing something, and (gasp!), there was brain activity. I mean, what did they expect? Unless these people are closet dualists, of course...

- Hume basically killed the silly notion that somehow randomness or chance could give us "extra" free will. Imagine that you have access to some source of perfect randomness, say a radioisotope sample whose individual decays you can observe. This is useful, but basically it just gives you the difference between a pseudo-random number generator and a truly random number generator. This isn't an insignificant difference, mind you, but surely that's not where the difference between volitional and forced deeds lies!

- I think many people who think they object to determinism actually object to lawfulness, or even to the idea of a universe that makes sense. This is why the same problem crops up in theology where people endlessly contrast divine predestination and human free will. What such people really want is magic - just about any problem can be resolved if you allow for mumbo-jumbo and squint hard enough.

- Any chance Hollywood will ever make a film about championing Compatibilism?. In that context, I've always enjoyed Schopenhauer's formulation of human free will:

" you can do what you want, but you can't want what you want"

Re:Sigh. Not determinism vs free will again.

[markov_chain]

My gut feeling is that the universe is a discrete process, like in Wolfram's book, our actions are deterministic, and as such there is no free will. However, that really doesn't say much, since there is a small practical difference between a obscenely, insanely huge search space and an infinite one. It is still extremely rare for something like the human brain to arise, that can operate on that search space continuously and with such capacity.

Re:Sigh. Not determinism vs free will again.

[Afecks]

Do we have free will? No. Do we make choices? Yes. Do our choices affect ourselves and others? Yes.

Be glad you don't have free will. People that act randomly, without a cause, we call crazy.

Re:Sigh. Not determinism vs free will again.

[fferreres]

>Hume basically killed the silly notion that somehow randomness or chance could give us "extra" free will.

I think randomness in terms of unexpected exposure to different scenarios or situations leading to a better understanding of things, enhances understanding. And better understanding leads to fact-based free will. If you use randomness in that sense, it's not really improving "free will", but inproving the substrate on which free will operates, and the two may be confuded by some.

Re:Sigh. Not determinism vs free will again.

[Trinn]

I believe in [a form of] magic, you insensitive clod!

Obliq Matrix reference

[phreakincool]

The Matrix has you. There is no spoon. You think that's your free will?

Re:Obliq Matrix reference

[electricbern]

You've already made your choice, now you get to understand it.

Precognition

[Anonymous Coward]

You may think you decided to read this story -- but in fact, your brain made the decision long before you knew about it. But I clicked on the story even before 7 seconds. So, do I have some kind of precognition?

Free wont.

[Anonymous Coward]

Jeffrey M. Schwartz in his book The Mind and the Brain discusses the concept of what he called "free wont" and how it could be observed by brain imaging.

Study doesn't define free will

[Anonymous Coward]

The study mentions implications for free will but doesn't define what "freewill" means. Conscousness is merely the state of percieving time and being self-aware, all decisions are made by some form of pre-determination.

Re:Study doesn't define free will

[Oligonicella]

Pre-determination by self is free will.

Re:Study doesn't define free will

[Anonymous Coward]

But what if your "self" is the way it is because of forces beyond your control?

Re:Study doesn't define free will

[BungaDunga]

My self certainly is, I don't know about yours. Experiences I've had, how I was raised, people I've met, random accidents... I am under no delusion that I can determine who I am. Influence, sure, but not determine.

Re:Study doesn't define free will

[sydneyfong]

Why are you sure you could influence who you are?
(That's where the debate is, not whether past experiences are a factor to who you are, but whether they determine it 100%)

Re:Study doesn't define free will

[BungaDunga]

The problem is that it's circular: if anything I do to influence myself was done on my own initiative then (if my actions are predetermined) any results of said actions are also predetermined. Oh well. Off to go read Slaughter House Five, the Trafalmadorians have a lot to say on the matter.

Define god and free will again, I missed that part

[moteyalpha]

If you can define free will, then you could prove it or disprove it. It is such an open ended concept that it cannot be considered until all facts about the process is known and it is premature to study the psychological effects of using a tele-port until you have one. --Absolute stupidity, disrupts absolutely--PLM

Please define free will.

[Vellmont]

If you actually wanted to answer that question, you'd have to define what "free will" is, in a concrete, scientific way. That means defining what choice is, likely what "you" are, and other things that are essentially undefinable except using other non-concrete definitions you can't nail down.

This experiment raises some interesting questions about the nature of existence, consciousness, and being. I don't think it's going to give us any answers on whether we have "free will" though, whatever that means.

Re:Please define free will.

[Tablizer]

you'd have to define what "free will" is,

It's like "free trade": you run up a deficit, creating a credit bubble, and then all comes crashing down and finger pointing runs rampant.

Re:Please define free will.

[dbcad7]

Free will as I understand it, means that there is no outside force controlling your decisions.
In the religious sense, this means that god is not in control of your decisions.. so when you make a bad decision.. even though god is all powerful, it is your fault, because you have free will.

However, medically it is known that there is a conscience of sorts hardwired in the brain. I think it was 60 minutes or some thing with Diane Sawyer, where they showed this little boy who was missing it (was pretty scary)... tried to find, but couldn't.. although this may help.. http://www.amazon.com/Hardwired-Behavior-Neuroscience-Reveals-Morality/dp/0521860016
So if your brain is hardwired to tell you that killing is wrong, then the idea of free will, is a little less free.

Re:Please define free will.

[CokeJunky]

Total agreement here. I suspect that the whole free-will angle is just a great way to get press. Sure it might have been the goal of the experiment to study decision making and the impact of will, but the conclusion drawn is pure sensationalism and has nothing to do with science.

Re:Please define free will.

[Vellmont]

Free will as I understand it, means that there is no outside force controlling your decisions.

That's a definition, it's just not a very rigorous one. What counts as an outside force? What counts as controlling? Is influencing the same as controlling? When? Where do you draw the line between "you" and "outside"?

Change all the answers to those questions, and you can come up with totally different answers to whether there's "free will". That's why it's important to have concrete, definitive answers in science. People (sane people) don't really disagree about what an electron is, for instance.

That's not to say these aren't interesting or good questions to be asking. I just don't think it's a very good scientific question.

Re:Please define free will.

[dookiesan]

The person claims "I decided to hit the left button at 12:00:01 pm", but then we show evidence that you would hit the left button at 11:59:54 am. We can demonstrate this to you with near 100% accuracy. Now you looked at the clock at 12:00:00 and had no idea what you would press. Then at 12:00:01 you (think you) decided which one to hit.

In the face of this evidence even I would admit that I had no free will in that decision; it was an illusion. They knew which button I would hit before "I" knew which one I would hit. Maybe at 12:00:00 I even said to myself in my head "It's 12:00:00 and I have yet to decide which button I will press".

I don't see anything ambiguous about this. One person pointed at that they choice involved is meaningless. Maybe I flipped a coin at 12:00:00 because I had no more intelligent way to make the choice. It so happened that the random number generator was seed 6 seconds ago and they peeked at that. If the choice was something I cared about, I might have based it on some reasoning and they wouldn't be able to predict as far in advance.

Re:Please define free will.

[dbcad7]

I guess that I'm saying that the only people with free will, would be psychopaths.. and even then, if there are consequences that affect the decision, that is an outside influence.

The person with a conscience would not purposely kill a stranger if they knew there were no consequences, or outside influence.(for example fighting in a war, protection etc)
The person without a conscience, might or might not, if there were no consequences, or outside influence.. seems the closest thing to what free will would be.

Re:Please define free will.

[Vellmont]

Right. So where's the definition of "you" that doesn't include your subconscious? Why not? What's "decide", and why does it automatically involve only your conscious thought process? You can give answers to these questions, but that doesn't mean they're any more meaningful than anyone else's answers.

That's why "free will" is such a meaningless question, at least scientifically speaking. There's no real answers to these questions, because most of what we're talking about isn't concrete, and can be defined arbitrarily.

Re:Please define free will.

[oni]

So if your brain is hardwired to tell you that killing is wrong, then the idea of free will, is a little less free.

Well, our brains are hardwired to make us want to reproduce, but many people choose not to.

If you believe in determinism, then you respond to that with "well, those people's brains are wired differently, therefore they don't have a choice, it was determined that they should choose not to reproduce."

This is why these "debates" are so frustrating. I want (I demand that) the people who believe in determinism specify an experiment that would falsify their belief. Let's imagine a hypothetical being with free will. Show me an experiment that proves it has free will.

Because I can think of an experiment that determinists would use to prove there is no free will! We put our hypothetical free-will being under a heavy weight that has a mechanism with a clock and a button. If the clock counts down to zero then the weight will be dropped, killing the free-will being. But if they push the button, the clock will stop.

Do this experiment 100 times and every time, the being will push the button. See? See there? They don't have free will!

Except that they do.

The purpose of this exercise is to show that it's possible to design an experiment that appears to show determinism, even when we've stipulated that there is a free will component. If you constrain a person enough - if you give them only one choice, then you shouldn't be surprised that they choose that choice.

Re:Please define free will.

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, the definition you are looking for seems most unscientific. "Free Will", as it is commonly conceived of, appears to be the ability to make a decision by some unobservable process. That is to say that such decisions are not based or formulated upon 1) the physical constitution of our brain or any other physical system, 2) prior knowledge, 3) established thought processes, or 4) external stimuli.

It must be assumed that such decisions are manifestations of some Cartesian notion of a separate yet integral entity -- a soul, if you will -- operating outside the scope of the physical brain to affect what will become the observable physical phenomenon of decision making. We are left, in this case, with the same problem of the invisible unicorn, flying spaghetti monster , or even God: man's creativity, having spurned unobservable, untestable, and unfalsifiable ideas has left us with ideas that are equally un-disprovable.

Call it a failure of logic, but regardless the feats of science and the growth of our knowledge and understanding, we'll always have to put up with ideas such as "free will". These ideas, by their very nature, are not susceptible to invalidation via some university study. We can only find them less and less likely to be true until whatever likelihood remains is so infinitesimal that we no longer see any need to point out how study X is another nail in the coffin for idea Y as the idea itself will have been relegated to the dustbin of the irrational, joining the likes of Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, Ra, Xenu, and the various gods representative of celestial bodies in the heavens.

Re:Please define free will.

[fishthegeek]

Free will is not inherently quantifiable. Much like other forces it can not be observed directly. An example is a soldier who willingly lays his body on a grenade. This action is decidedly not in the soldiers best interest yet that is still the choice that is made. We're quite ready to accept the presence of dark matter without even so much as a standard definition of what it is never mind direct evidence of it. Why is it so difficult to accept that this is true for free will as well? Free will IMHO is a process of thinking and not so much a thing in and of itself. We process information and choose a course of action based on whatever mitigating factors are in our value systems.

Re:Please define free will.

[Anonymous Coward]

Free as in Freedom, not beer.

Horrible summery

[wizardforce]

" Brain Study Calls Free Will Into Question"
what utter nonsense. The ability to predict an action by looking at what your brain is doing has nothing to do with whether or not free will exists. From TFA:

In the seven seconds before Haynes' test subjects chose to push a button, activity shifted in their frontopolar cortex, a brain region associated with high-level planning. Soon afterwards, activity moved to the parietal cortex, a region of sensory integration.

sounds to me that the decision making is started before people think it is, nothing more, nothing less.

Re:Horrible summery

[Lemmy Caution]

What the problem is partially that philosophy in the US withdrew from historical- or cultural-scaled problems, and started turning itself into the boundary between mathematics and cognitive science. The framing of the question of "free will" thus become wrapped up in the question of decision-making. Too many trivial examples ("whether I decide to wash the dishes", "freedom to decided whether to drop this glass," etc) displaced actual existential decisions (do I fight against an occupying army and risk death, or do I keep a low profile, collaborate possibly, and survive? Do I pursue a career over family, over vice-versa) which are the places where "will" and "choice" really matter.

It doesn't

[itistoday]

Wonder why this debate is still around after hundreds of years of argument? It's because it's nearly an identical analogy to the question: "Is it a particle or a wave?"

Re:It doesn't

[Falladir]

No, it's not. Not even a little bit. The wave-particle duality question has been answered *very* satisfactorily. The answer ("both*") has opened up new questions, many of which have been answered and so on.

The question of free will is still as much a chicken and egg as ever (then again, physics is my field and philosophy is only a passing interest, so maybe I'm not well-enough informed to say this).

Re:It doesn't

[0111 1110]

[quote]The wave-particle duality question has been answered *very* satisfactorily.[/quote]
Only quantitatively. But we cannot truly see beyond the equations to get any sort of insight into what is really going on there. While looking at electromagnetic "stuff" as either a particle or a wave may work out mathematically, it does little to explain what it "is" per se. The human brain just cannot really imagine such a non-thing. There is no picture for something that can be simultaneously both a particle and a wave. That does not invalidate the math or the concept. But to say that the question has been answered seems the height of hubris.

Re:It doesn't

[colmore]

So "truly see beyond our equations" "what it 'is' per se" "there is no picture"

that kind of language has nothing at all to do with science. the wave particle question has been answered as thoroughly as gravity. the fact that you have more trouble seeing wave/particle than you do seeing gravity isn't a terribly big philosophical problem for science.

you're asking for someone to come along and give you a better metaphor. it's not an invalid request. but for people who spend decades studying the stuff, the math is a much more accurate picture and mental model than any quasi-visual metaphor. just because it can't be pictured doesn't mean it isn't understood.

maybe you're a visual learner.

Re:It doesn't

[msuarezalvarez]

[quote]The wave-particle duality question has been answered *very* satisfactorily.[/quote] Only quantitatively. But we cannot truly see beyond the equations to get any sort of insight into what is really going on there.

"What is really going on there" is something physics, or science in general, is not about.

While looking at electromagnetic "stuff" as either a particle or a wave may work out mathematically, it does little to explain what it "is" per se.

Can you provide an example of any explanation of what something "is"? Does the fact that there are in fact no examples tell you something?

The human brain just cannot really imagine such a non-thing. There is no picture for something that can be simultaneously both a particle and a wave. That does not invalidate the math or the concept. But to say that the question has been answered seems the height of hubris.

I would say that it only shows that the question was ill-posed. In general, the question "what is that?" means nothing: what you can answer is "how does that behave?", which needs to be made precise into "how does that behave when I do this?", and there this inimaginable situation in which you picture the brain dissolves into irrelevance.

Re:It doesn't

[Paradise Pete]

to say that the question has been answered seems the height of hubris.

Really? You must have some rather short hubris where you come from.

Re:It doesn't

[itistoday]

Come on guys... I know all about this physics stuff, you don't have to lecture me on it. ;-)

I didn't want to outright say it because I thought it'd be fun to see if anyone could figure out what I meant. Particle here is taken to be "free will", and wave equals...? And then the same lesson is applied from the physical debate to this philosophical debate.

People on drugs?

[billy901]

What if this were used on people using drugs. It would be quite interesting. If you get someone high enough, they don't appear to have any control over themselves and just do whatever happens, plus it would make some whacky readouts when they're doing the tests.

this only confirms free will.

[timmarhy]

the brain makes the choice, not any other factor. isn't that the very essence of free will?

Re:this only confirms free will.

[Ironpoint]

the brain makes the choice, not any other factor. isn't that the very essence of free will? Maybe for a brain, but not a mind.

hope they don't get paid for this dumb conclusion

[amped]

Anyone else notice they're only acheiving 60% reliability, and that number actually DROPS? Seems far from reliable evidence to me, especially given a totally random prediction should be expected to hit 50% reliability. What they're really doing is measuring first impulses, which would rationally be more likely to be chosen when the decision has absolutely NO real importance. (Left or Right button? Are you even kidding me?)

Free will is a religious concept

[at_slashdot]

Free will is a religious concept, it means that God doesn't interfere in the process of personal decision, but if we take God out of equation (scientists do that anyway, right?) what remains? What is it free from? I really don't understand this...

Re:Free will is a religious concept

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that without religion, free will becomes the concept that behavior is not purely determined by nature and nurture, but rather by a third mysterious force.
I think freewill existing or not is irrelevant if behavior can't be predicted. Like a random number generator, the fact that it's not really random is irrelevant, because to the average person it simulates randomness perfectly, and cannot be distinguished from what is truely random. Probability doesn't even exist. If you have all the information, you can predict 100% of the time whether a coin will land heads or tails, but it is a useful science, as no-one has knowledge of the subtle factors which influence a coin landing heads or tails. Probability is still a useful science though, as people are not ominiscient and don't have all the information.
In my life, due to numerous unpredictable factors, I cannot know what decisions I will make in the future, so I might as well believe I am making them based on free-will. Unless people can accurately predict 100% of the time the behavior of other people in any scenerio, free-will doesn't matter.
When I play Monopoly on my computer, and the game uses a pseudo-random number generator instead of the theoretical true number generator, that doesn't make a difference because to me, the dice rolls would still appear random. Same thing with the existence of free-will, doesn't matter to me. It's existence/non-existence won't affect my daily decisions. Those decisions may be pre-determined, but like the pseudo-random number generator, I cannot know of the outcome ahead of time.

Re:Free will is a religious concept

[fferreres]

My answer would be that it means it's not deterministic. That if you could create "time" in a lab, and put a person inside the time chamber, and repeat an experiment, you'd see that the person may be inclined to respond in some way, but that it would not always be the same. PLUS, and this is important, that his choice will always depend on internal choice, not external conditions (like humidity changes, atmosphere charge, air pressure, etc.).

In the end it means that given a human being that's about to make a choice, and NO matter what the circumstances are (like education, mental state, physical conditions, etc.), he is always capable of choosing any of the available paths, and that no formula will explain each choice (yes for a series, as a probability).

The belief is that choice correlates to intent, as in something internal that doesn't just react to external conditions. Free will is that any choice is possible given any set of external conditions. Of course, "free will" seems to be an assertion that human choices are not random nor deterministic. This rules our "will" to some power beyond our known universe, and links it with our true "self", supposedly our esense that's located in the spiritual land for lack of a better word.

Hehe.

Re:Free will is a religious concept

[Miltazar]

Most people consider free will as something that was not pre-ordained. As in without free will everything you do, or did, was meant to happen and given enough information could have been predicted long ago.

With free will then only you know for sure what you are going to do. Its not a random choice, and its not certain untill you make that choice.

Personally I don't really care one way or the other. Whether we have free will or not, my life is going to be the same. If I do have free will then I will continue to make choices the way I always had, if not then it still remains the same. The only thing I worry about is people using an argument of no free will to skirt the moral responsibility in their actions.

To give a clear example of free will, lets say person X killed someone. If he had free will then he could have NOT killed someone. If he doesn't, then he was going to kill someone no matter what.

Re:Free will is a religious concept

[at_slashdot]

"If he had free will then he could have NOT killed someone. If he doesn't, then he was going to kill someone no matter what."

The murder is either determined by something (brain, education, disposition) or random, or a combination of these two things, I don't see any separate third way. I would personally think that a person is responsible if what he did was determined by his brain and education rather then being a random event. It means that the person is flawed and needs correction or medical help (in case the "hardware" AKA brain is damaged) also this is how the punishment works as deterrent too, possibility of being caught and punished is a part of input, the assumption is that it modifies the output (behavior). If we'd think that people thoughts are independent of inputs then we wouldn't think of punishing somebody in order to deter somebody else, right?

I see here people replying that free will means lack of determination, not being pre-ordained, but there's an actual word for that, it's "random", why avoid it? It's pretty obvious that the thinking process is a combination of deterministic things (no system that has a purpose can be completely random -- unless randomness is the purpose of such system) and random elements (that cannot be avoided since at quantum level everything is pretty random as far as I understand). I can't pretend to know how much is the influence of random elements, but that's not the point, the point is that I don't see any third way... it's either deterministic process, determined by brain structure (hardware + some burnt in software), education (software), disposition (variables) and some random processes, I don't see any place for something else there. As I said "free will" has a specific religious meaning that I can understand, if we take God out of the picture it doesn't make sense as concept, free from what? From outside influence? From inside hardware+software constraints?

I'm saying this because to make a case for or against something you need to understand what that is, and to bring scientific argument the hypothesis should exist in the first place (and be falsifiable) I don't think there's a falsifiable definition of free-will or at least I haven't seen one.

Re:Free will is a religious concept

[at_slashdot]

I see here people replying that free will means lack of determination, not being pre-ordained, but there's an actual word for that, it's "random", why avoid it? It's pretty obvious that the thinking process is a combination of deterministic things (no system that has a purpose can be completely random -- unless randomness is the purpose of such system) and random elements (that cannot be avoided since at quantum level everything is pretty random as far as I understand). I can't pretend to know how much is the influence of random elements, but that's not the point, the point is that I don't see any third way... it's either deterministic process, determined by brain structure (hardware + some burnt in software), education (software), disposition (variables) and some random processes, I don't see any place for something else there, do you? As I said "free will" has a specific religious meaning that I can understand, if we take God out of the picture it doesn't make sense as concept, free from what? From outside influence? From inside (hardware+software) constraints?

I'm saying this because to make a case for or against something you need to understand what that is, and for bringing scientific argument for or against, the hypothesis should exist in the first place (and be falsifiable). I don't think there's a falsifiable definition of free-will or at least I haven't seen one.

Anyway, free will is not always spontaneous

[ghostbar38]

And no one can affirm that neither refute it. But my believe of free will is that is just not spontaneous but built from the way we think and we always think in the same way, is not that you could just think different in 10-20 minutes, even hours so your brain should be working in a similar way.

I've been waiting for this....

[zappepcs]

Apologies now for not looking up references, just some rambling here.

For several years we have come to know that there are new 'discoveries' every day regarding the brain or human behavior. This has caused me some serious existential angst, to be honest.

Without belaboring the point, lets just name a few items that have been claimed. Google them for yourselves if you want more info: The gay gene, the sociopath gene(sort of), the cancer genes, the cure-ish for alzheimers, genes that are linked to just about any hot-topic-behavior that there is.

Now we find out that violent video games actually calm us down (mostly), and the ready availability of sexually explicit materials is associated with lower incidences of rape and violent sexual attacks.

Genetic discoveries to protect us from radiation, some advanced in regrowing limbs, growing meat and organs in petri dishes, and on to other esoteric things like the brain events that cause spiritual events in the person experiencing them, the god-gene so to speak, no explanation for ghosts yet, but we do have string theory and the higgs-bosen experiments, quantum computing research, and various other 'discoveries' that come dangerously close to explaining all that we have (until now) held in the realm of the unexplained and mysterious: things that god must be responsible for.

Now, we are gaining a much better insight in to how the brain works, or at least some aspects of it. Imprints of dangerous predators in the minds of babies, links from what we thought only to be animal behaviors to human behaviors.

Not to try to turn this story into a religious discussion, but it looks more and more like we are losing all the mystery, and with it the reason for having a god. Unless of course you wish to blame god for giving some people that genetic sequence that seems to be linked to them being predisposed to homosexuality? Perhaps god is also to blame for the genetic predisposition to autism or dwarfism?

I'm very glad to see that we are making exponential leaps of discovery into how our minds and brains work. Only with such information can we cure things that have brought us down. The longer that we keep the feeble alive, the more it costs us as a society, yet in doing so we learn how to turn their lives into productive ones, and in the long run help ourselves. Science, for all it's involvement with morality and politics will lead us to a place that is not so much unlike what Star Trek (original series) intended for us to understand. Not sure if that is a chicken and egg thing or not, but seems like self fulfilling prophecy really.

Free will is the end result of what we do with all the information that we have at hand and feel the need to use. There are those among us that give up free will to instead do whatever the church of our choosing wants us to do, despite what others might tell us is a better course of action.

Free will is in all animals, humans included. We all have reactive components to our thinking. A pro boxer will react differently to an attack whle walking the street at night than say your or I might. This is trained reactive thought process. We are born with some (so some scientists say) and we learn others. For instance: many people will simply reboot a Windows system that hangs or is running slow as we now have a trained reactive thought process for that action. Free will was used to do that, even though it is reactive. Free will with no trained reactive processes will investigate or surrender.

Free will: My dogs have it, and it is only through training that they learn to do something different than their free will tells them. The thought of pain vs. investigating the strength of this new fence is a process of free will, after some training, my dogs freely modify their behavior. Until I got the fence repaired, they followed free will. Now, they measure natural curiosity and free will against pain, and make a more informed decision.

All of us, animals and humans make informed decisions... shamefully

Re:I've been waiting for this....

[anilg]

no explanation for ghosts yet Ghosts arent real (same way Santa Claus isnt)

things that god must be responsible for God isnt real (same way Santa Claus isnt)

more and more like we are losing all the mystery, and with it the reason for having a god You say losing the mystery like its a bad thing. We are actually understanding the world around us, actually understanding, rather than saying a magic man in the sky dunnit. And I'm not so sure about losing the mystery part either. Every new fact brings more questions... thats the way science has worked.

Re:I've been waiting for this....

[fferreres]

Free will has nothing to do with external conditions. If somebody tells me "give me 1 dollar tomorrow or I will kill you", and I believed the "advise", I'd probably give him the one dollar. Free will means that I can still choose not following the direction. At most, they can force you body to do things, not your spirit or mind.

Now mental tampering like today's top notch marketing is another thing. You are not even aware of what is happening.

So yes, you need to be informed for free will to deliver the right results. If your free will operates based on biased premises and wrong interpretations, then free will becomes irrelevant, as you end up serving masters, unaware of.

Obey!

[goombah99]

7 seconds! ha!. I knew minutes ago you would post a reply to this. Prove me wrong. I dare you. (I knew that too)

Most wills aren't free

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you priced an attorney lately? Even the online will kits aren't $0.

Free will is an illusion

[hlomas]

Of all the possible realities, structures, and designs in the world, why does human society happen to be the way it is? Why is it even "human" society? The universe goes about its way according to physics and you are an extant result of that mindlessness, which just so happens to be weaved into complexity through natural selection and historical 'accident' (occurrence). It's a fact that six billion humans all run on nearly the exact same software and have, generally, the same hopes, fears, pleasures and passions. Ever listen to music lyrics? Isn't it amazing how they often express your innermost thoughts in such a succinct way? How could they capture such a feeling so well? Because they are having the exact same feelings as you. You're all human and you're all operating on the same rules that have been programmed over, technically, billions of years. The mere fact that "society" exists, a vast and incomprehensibly complex interplay of innumerable factors, surviving entire generations and lifespans indicates that the world is marching forward according to the laws of physics and human civilization is the current result of that. All the world's a stage, and you're just an actor. Call me when someone free will's up some anti-gravity. That said, the mind and the world is so complex to us at this point that we can assume and use 'free will' in conversation and practice. Even if we recognize strict determinism, we're still going to continue acting as if we have free will so who cares?

Re:Free will is an illusion

[fferreres]

>Call me when someone free will's up some anti-gravity.

This shouldn't make you change you mind. We may end up being able to directly alter gravity...so what? There are animals that can produce electricity at will, so what? The same for photons. So what? As long as you can explain how, you are back at your conclusions.

>All the world's a stage, and you're just an actor.

Good example, as actor can choose not to follow the script, and it has happened many times over with great results (for some films at least).

That is what people mean with free will. They know they are acting, and they resist inertia, or following the script.

It's a way of saying that at our level, we can program ourselves internally disregarding all external influences, and therefore, that each of us is responsible for our choices. Not because of the action, but because we can choose.

Criminal Court :)

[davidwr]

High Priced Trial Lawyer: Your honor, my client pleads not guilty by reason of no free will.

Judge: I sentence him to life in prison.

High Priced Trial Lawyer: But...

Judge: Don't look at me, I don't have free will either.

I, for one...

[charlesbakerharris]

welcome our new inner overlords.

Standard hidden agenda - extinguish metaphysics

[ribman]

Yet again, this is not so much interesting as a scientific investigation as being yet another roll of the "Ah, now we have proof of [anyone's choice of God]'s non-existance" dice. Dream, dream, dream ... You won't extinguish humainity's natural mytaphysical bent that easily. "Bring me the severed head of the dead God and then I will believe you." :)

Re:Standard hidden agenda - extinguish metaphysics

[halivar]

Or, this report is just telling us Calvanists what we already knew. ;P

Determinism does not invalidate free will.

[Repossessed]

The idea that physical forces control us is silly unless you believe in dualism, we *are* those physical forces.

Re:Determinism does not invalidate free will.

[Plutonite]

Yes, except that should be "does not invalidate the illusion of 'free will' ".

Physics works, there is no magic in the human brain (just some very complicated chemical interactions), film at 11.

Re:Determinism does not invalidate free will.

[Repossessed]

Please provide an explanation of why you think that statement contains anything other than "I'm right and you're wrong." Free will is not magic, simply an acknowledgment that we are (semi) autonomous agents.

Well, I am anyway, the rest of you may or may not be robots.

Re:Determinism does not invalidate free will.

[AstrumPreliator]

The idea that physical forces don't control us is silly. You're correct, we are bits of matter and energy glued together by the physical laws of the universe. To think that the physical laws of the universe apply everywhere except inside our brain is dualism, not what I was suggesting. Free will is a macroscopic concept. The idea that I can macroscopically choose between rocky road ice cream and mint chocolate chip ice cream. At a microscopic level there's no such thing as ice cream, just bits of matter and energy interacting with each other. The only "choice" is at the quantum level, and I'm not sure you can actually define that as a choice since you don't actually choose anything.

Re:Determinism does not invalidate free will.

[kasperd]

The only "choice" is at the quantum level, and I'm not sure you can actually define that as a choice since you don't actually choose anything.

You can't really be sure about that. Sure physics says the outcomes of certain quantum mechanical events are random, but how can you really be sure they are random? But frankly I don't care much for studies claiming we have no free will. We have a free will, and claiming otherwise is just a bad excuse for doing things we know are wrong. Before I will even consider what their study really says, I'd like them to write down a definition of what free will means, then we'll see if that definition is something I can agree with.

Re:Determinism does not invalidate free will.

[Alarindris]

If you choose not to decide you still have made a choice.

Re:Determinism does not invalidate free will.

[Plutonite]

"Free will is not magic, simply an acknowledgment that we are (semi) autonomous agents."

Autonomous agents programmed, and continuously in effect of, our environment. Our decisions are not the result of something originating in us and separate from the universe... our mind (the DNA that created it, the factors that affect it)is subject to universal causality like everything else. It's either that or magic. I understand you are trying to equate sentience with "free will", and I agree with what you are saying (because that is where the illusion comes from). But none of this changes the fact that we are a the product of physical processes, and we ourselves, and our minds, are comprised of (probabilistic) physical processes that are deterministic, albeit quantum mechanical at the lowest level.

In my initial response I was trying to agree with you while making a small correction. Determinism is just science, and "free will" is just an observation on our state of affairs. See, even robots can be poets :)

Re:Determinism does not invalidate free will.

[Tyler Durden]

Thank you!

To me that's the key to answering the whole free will vs. determinism debate right there. The question for establishing free will is not whether our choices are predetermined or unpredictable. The question is whether our choices are made by us or forced by events outside of us. And if what we are is completely determined by the laws of the universe and the subset of events which form us, then those events are merely a definition of what we are as a person. They are not what we are some victim to.

That's my take anyways. Determinism does not exclude the existence of free will.

L. Bob Rife?

[Rinisari]

Now we just wait for some well-known religious figure to come along and unleash the nam shub of Enki in its purest form and brainwash the masses...

Predictability has nothing to do with free will

[explodingspleen]

It's no more problematic for free will if one knows what the choice will be beforehand than if one knows it after the fact. If my choices were random, that would be the opposite of free will, because then the chosen outcome would having nothing at all to do with my sense of self.

It's also not any kind of news that the physical properties of your brain relate to your choices. If I get amnesia I will make different decisions for wont of access to that previous domain of acquired knowledge than I would have otherwise.

The question is whether there is an entity to which the brain's data storage and processing capabilities are merely a tool--not whether these physical aspects of the brain exist and have effect. And the only way we will ever answer that question is to produce a full simulation of the brain.

Not exhaustive

[debrain]

This study, while ostensibly demonstrating that free will may not exist based on empirical evidence, is not an exhaustive examination of all choices an individual makes. Perhaps a certain subset of our choices are not predetermined, and these choices constitute what we commonly accept as "free will". That leaves the complimentary set of choices as predestined. For example, in a repressed situation or when under duress, there are strong physiological forces which determine the outcome of our choice. Chemicals and the need to survive trump enlightened decisions. In the absence of repression or duress, the choice is made "freely", or at least of physiological stimuli that interfere with our higher order of consciousness.

It is my personal belief that the higher the number of free choices an individual has in life and the greater the meaning those choices have in significance to the individual, the closer that persons life is to a maximization of the person's spiritual potential. I believe we have a limited number of discrete free-will choices, and that these choices manifest themselves only in the absence of a physiological forces which work against them. I also believe that there is a correlation between the freedom to make choices and the maximization of an individual's spiritual (as opposed to carnal) existence, which has an intrinsic value.

For that reason, I conjecture that the purpose of society ought to be to maximize free will. I believe a society that maximizes each individual's free will (insofar as it does not infringe on others' free will) is a transcendent society, an enlightened society.

A caveat, while having thought about it, I'm pretty naive about the topic, and curious about thoughts you may have, or philosophers who have contemplated this.

Random thoughts

[kreyg]

If the human brain is simply a computing device, then problems such as the halting problem should apply to it.

The human brain is involved in a feedback loop with the environment around it. The complexity of this feedback loop is significant enough that it might not actually be predictable (giving the illusion of free will) but that doesn't mean that it's not deterministic.

Of course, this study would suggest that, not only is it deterministic, but is constrained to few enough parameters that it may also be predictable if you watch the right variables.

WHAT is exactly free will ?

[aepervius]

On the lowest physical level there are only individual atoms the link they form with their neighbors, or not, forming molecules and electrodynamic interaction. A level higher we have molecule interacting each other forming protein, and various substance. A level higher we have neuron which discharge their neurotransmitter if they reach a certain level, neuro-transmitter which lead to lower or higher the level of other neurons. Up to now I described only physical process which don't per see have any "free will". Then comes a level higher with even more complexity where neuron form complex path and mass, and that is the brain. Show me an ounce of free will. All I see is a very complex system, which accept information from outside, and using chemical pathway, send output to the outside. There is no reason to imagine that for the same input, at the same state, the system would react otherwise , except if some physical phenomenon change subtely the potential of some neuron : aka brownian motion make more or less neurotransmitter reach their target site. Again a physical phenomenon. I contend that free will is an illusion. I contend that it should be called non-deterministic will. Or chaotic will. Or anything. But we aren't really "free" to chose. All those neuron with their potential and physical reaction do it.

Re:WHAT is exactly free will ?

[QuantumG]

I can use the same argument to indicate that dice are not "random".. and yet that's exactly how "random" is defined.

Re:WHAT is exactly free will ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone mod up the parent.

The difference between Free Will or not is in our ability to predict.

I guess, if we end up having a machine to predict everything - we will still be left to solve quantum uncertainty. Whether we have Free Will or not, thus, depends on if that little uncertainty is relevant for the bigger picture.

I personally believe that it is (with the chaos theory and all), and so we have free will.

Re:WHAT is exactly free will ?

[Empiric]

Thing is, materialist reduction of consciousness results in paradoxes which have remained unsolved throughout this history of Western Philosophy, such as the Mind-Body Problem.

Given that history, one might plausibly conclude that such materialist reduction is insufficient.

Re:WHAT is exactly free will ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Er, your paradox is...not. Mental states have been shown to directly correspond to electro-chemical states in the brain. You can stimulate certain portions of the brain and create the feeling of 'euphoria', or 'rage', etc.

The 'mental' does not exist outside of physical processes in the brain.

The fact that we can communicate about 'feelings' stems from the fact that we're all running on the same physical hardware and (surprise) wired to generally feel the same things under the same circumstances.

So, statement 5 is wrong. Given a complete picture of the universe (including the chemical balances inside someone's head) you could in fact say if someone was in pain (examining histamine levels, etc).

In any event, whatever abstract concept is going on in your head is, in fact, physically represented in your brain. There is no little man looking through a magic window. When your brain stops, so do you.

Sorry.

Re:WHAT is exactly free will ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, no unmoved movers in science.

Free will is a religious concept (and therefore largely uninteresting) and a legal fiction (and therefore one of the basis of justice and society).

The legal system expects people to behave as if they had free will. That they can choose to be good or bad. If they choose wrong, we punish them. The fact that it's a fiction ought to make the "it's his upbringing / genetics / psychological condition / etc..." argument irrelevant when it comes to sentencing. The only thing that evidence is undermining is something that science doesn't say exists in the first place. It's just a convention. Something we just agree to demand of people. Such cases should really incur harsher sentencing than normal due to the offender needing a higher motivation than usual to prevent them breaking the law.

Re:WHAT is exactly free will ?

[The Famous Brett Wat]

On the lowest physical level there are only individual atoms... Up to now I described only physical process which don't per see have any "free will". Then comes a level higher with even more complexity where neuron form complex path and mass, and that is the brain. Show me an ounce of free will. All I see is a very complex system...

That's because your model of the world is rooted in determinism: the idea that the universe behaves in a mathematically predictable way. If this is true, then you need only know the laws of physics and the exact state of the universe at any moment, and predicting the future becomes a matter of doing the sums. [See Laplace's demon ]

The model has tremendous appeal for the mathematically and logically inclined, but there are many reasons why one might object to it. The first and most obvious is to object to the assumption of determinism at its roots. In this age of Quantum Mechanics, it seems quaintly classical to believe in ultimate determinism. Still, scientific wisdom is a moving target, and you can hope for the eventual triumph of determinism over quantum hocus pocus if you so desire -- good luck to you.

Beyond that, we have niggling little problems such as our inability to measure the state of the universe (even locally) without altering its state in unknown ways. Precise measurement is necessary because many of the deterministic laws have chaotic properties. But even if we could know exact values, how would we represent them in computers? To make matters worse, many of the physical laws are such that we can not compute exact answers, but only find approximations. These problems are merely practical barriers to the production of Laplacean demon, though; they are not arguments against the incompatibility of determinism and free will. This incompatibility can be addressed by weakening the definition of "Free Will", but can we take the bull by the horns and reconcile determinism and free will without playing semantic games? I think so.

It seems that there is a chink in the armour of determinism: the initial conditions of the system. Given initial conditions and laws, the fate of the system is sealed, but whence come the initial conditions? This question can not even be answered in deterministic terms unless you hypothesise a deterministic meta-system which produced our system, and commit to an infinite regress of such systems. Thus, the setting of initial conditions looks like a good escape from determinism, even if we grant that the system is entirely deterministic in every other respect.

But what does this say for free will? That some free will was responsible for setting the initial conditions of the universe? How could such a remote possibility impact whether I have free will here and now? This brings us to another set of assumptions: those relating to personal identity . If you consider the extent of your "self" to be the matter of which you are composed, then this remote exercise of free will was certainly not yours. A lump of matter, such as yourself, can not possibly have a free will, since its behaviour is fully determined by environmental considerations. Indeed, the notion of "self" under such circumstances is quite vague, since the material "self" has no precise physical bounds, but interacts with the remainder of the environment under exactly the same set of rules that it operates internally.

So what sort of thing must the self be in order to possess free will in a purely deterministic universe? Clearly it must be the sort of thing that influenced the initial conditions of the deterministic universe (or perhaps its laws, but "initial conditions" will suffice). Thus the "self" must be something at least partially outside the universe as we know it, and the universe as we know it is simply t

Re:WHAT is exactly free will ?

[Empiric]

Nope, reread it. There's a direct requirement for statement 5 for specific logical inference--that is, you need to show "euphoria" not as a generalized associated phenomenon in a particular brain (correlational effects equally applicable with to N mental entities), but the -specific- content of "euphoria" as distinct from any other mental referent, e.g. "joy", and precise differentiation of such across all brains, to the level of a neuron. Correlation of given brain phenomena with mental entities is wholly insufficient, akin to saying the conceptual content of "fear" is fully captured by an individual running away from something.

While I wouldn't object if you solved the Mind-Body Problem right here and now, personally outperforming the whole of Western Philosophy, I'd still have to object to your sheer unbacked assertion that any level of biological resolution would cause such a bridge--you're simply hoping such is the case. There are direct reasons to think not, e.g. as called out by this paper (apparently by a rather strident atheist Professor of Philosophy, if it helps assuage a perception of bias with respect to the core issue):

"New discoveries in physics and biology are not helping - merely adding more detail to physical descriptions does not bring us any closer to being able to derive mental statements from them, and I can see no significant progress over the past 300 years."

Re:WHAT is exactly free will ?

[fferreres]

Think of it as the capability of the system having the capability to reprogram itself at will. And this will depends on internal more than external conditions.

Yes, you can't rule out the reprogramming drivers to be material. But there is chance to trigger and chance to not trigger that internal change.

In the end, I think the body/person/mind/whatever can sense good from bad (at different levels of understanding and correctness). Like if "karma" was something programmed in our DNA, then free will will end up being our capability to reprogram ourselves for good or bad.

Re:WHAT is exactly free will ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't personally disagree with you, however your argument very clearly ignores quantum mechanics. There are two things there. Firstly, more complex particle to particle interactions and secondly the special state of the "observer" which I don't think has been adequately explained. "Free" will could simply be quantum mechanical randomness and that might not satisfy you, but you cannot reasonably use pure newtonian physics to discuss the limits of possibilities.

Re:WHAT is exactly free will ?

[Alsee]

There is no paradox. Emergent properties are found everywhere, often with many towering layers of emergence building upon the layer below.

When a number of items interact, those interactions may self-organize in complex ways and generate higher layer patterns and structures and behaviors and properties that cannot be directly found in the isolated item itself, the only way to find the emergent property it logically or physically carrying out that mass interaction.

Does an atom possess the property or behavior "hurricane"?
No.

An atom does not even possess the properties of temperature, pressure. An atom does not even possess the properties of solid liquid and gas. These properties only exist within the interactions themselves between a number of atoms. A snowflake is a complex highly ordered emergent structure, one which spontaneously arises out of the chaotic interaction of large numbers of atoms.

You cannot find "snowflake" within atoms, other than logically or physically working through those vast interactions. "Snowflake" itself has no meaning and no intrinsic reality down in the properties-of-atoms layer. "Snowflake" is nothing more than a label we place upon certain patterns atoms sometimes tend to wind up in. As far as physical-properties-of-atoms goes "snowflake" doesn't exist, it's merely an bunch of atoms no different than any other bunch of atoms. At the level of atoms, "hurricane" has no meaning or reality. Hurricane and snowflake are purely emergent properties that arise spontaneously out of the large scale interactions and structure of numbers of atoms.

Snowflake and hurricane only "exist" when you look at the structure and behavior of those vast number interactions as a group.

Actually protons and neutrons are themselves an emergent property of quarks, and atoms (and various elements) themselves are an emergent property of electrons protons and neutrons.

The solid state is an emergent property of atoms. Tensile strength, elasticity, electrical conductance/resistance, hardness, thermal conductivity, and countless other emergent properties only exist at this layer.

One particular arrangement of solid atoms has the emergent property of causing an amplified a voltage at one point based upon a voltage at another point, and we call it "transistor". The concept "transistor" does not inherently exist within the lower layer, other than looking at the collective average behavior across large numbers of electrons in that solid. The properties of "off" and "on" do not exist within within the physics of atoms and solids. Large numbers of transistors can be arranged in logic gates with the emergent properties of "adding" and "multiplying" and other logic operations. Windows Media Player is an emergent property of a certain arrangement of large numbers of "adding" and "multiplying" and other logic operations. An MP3 is an emergent property that does not exist or have any meaning below the Windows Media Player layer of emergence. Beethoven's 5th Symphony is emergent, only existing out of the arrangement and interaction of elements within the MP3 layer.

A computer playing Beethoven's 5th Symphony is nothing more than a particular arrangement of silicon and other atoms, but Beethoven's 5th Symphony is entirely meaningless and non-existent within the physics of atoms themselves. Just as the property "forest" does not exist within the physical properties of a seed, plant that seed and watch the results and large scale interactions, and a forest will emerge. Just as a "hurricane" does not exist within atoms, it will spontaneously emerge as a large scale structure and behavior.

So based upon your link, that would be "A fifth view is that mental phenomena are, surprisingly, a subset of physical phenomena". However it is only "surprising" in the same sense that a "hurricane is, surprisingly, a subset of physical phenomena".

Your link calls this "the mind/brain identity theory" and that it wou

Re:WHAT is exactly free will ?

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no reason to imagine that for the same input, at the same state, the system would react otherwise So the system in deterministic.

[...]except if some physical phenomenon change subtely the potential of some neuron : aka brownian motion make more or less neurotransmitter reach their target site Brownian motion is inherently non deterministic and therefore non computable. Even with the biggest computer, knowing all input states it could not be computed.

I contend that it should be called non-deterministic will. So the system is non deterministic.

You see the contradiction? The system cannot be deterministic and non deterministic at he same time. I think your mistake is, that you don't fully understand what it means when a system is non deterministic and therefore not computable. I think you mix this up with a complex system. A complex system can stay at the same level of entropy. A non deterministic system has increasing entropy.

The difference is quite simple: If you know the state of a complex bute deterministic system, you can compute all future states. In a non deterministic system you can't compute any future state.

So in a non determinisitc environment, there could indeed be something like a free will.

Re:WHAT is exactly free will ?

[Wavebreak]

Exactly. There's no such thing as random in the macroscopic world. There is, however, such a thing as chaotic, ie. something that is influenced by initial conditions in such a complex manner that the result is impossible for us to predict. This, I would argue, is exactly what the brain is, deterministic but impossible to predict.

Re:WHAT is exactly free will ?

[Wavebreak]

Dammit, this was meant to be a reply to "Dice are not random" in this thread. Sorry 'bout that.

Re:WHAT is exactly free will ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are not "All those neuron with their potential and physical reaction" part of what you would call "me"?

Re:WHAT is exactly free will ?

[Anonymous Coward]

But we aren't really "free" to chose. All those neuron with their potential and physical reaction do it. Those neurons ARE us.

Re:WHAT is exactly free will ?

[Anonymous Coward]

There remains on the other side the unbacked assertion that there is a need to resort to explanations outside of the physical to explain mental phenomena. Whatever we perceive mentally -has- to be an effect of physical interactions- there is no evidence to support that there is a magical outside force at work.

'Fear' and 'Euphoria' -are- physiological responses. The specific inputs that trigger these responses may vary between individuals, but that is merely because each brain has slightly different structure based on the feedback it has received.

In other words, the brain is a state machine. Just because for a given set of external stimuli 'a' you cannot predict what response- or state- might come about as a result, does NOT mean that there is something magical happening.

Re:WHAT is exactly free will ?

[Lost Race]

I take "free will" to mean "decision in the absence of coersion." It is only meaningful in a social or political context, where the individual is treated as an irreducible "black box", an atomic constituent of society. What it is supposed to mean in the context of the experiment in TFA, I have no idea.

Re:WHAT is exactly free will ?

[Lost Race]

Argh! "Coercion," not "coersion." Duh.

But ...

[Anonymous Coward]

God: My greatest gift to you is free will.

Man: But I never asked for it in the first place.

Wolfram161

[Anonymous Coward]

How does predetermination call the validity of the decision into question? I know there's always been a huge debate about this, but aren't free will and predetermination mutually exclusive?

I predict peoples' decisions every day, with startling accuracy. It's part of my job. Yet whether I can predict something or not, that person grew to be the person they are based on their genetic code and how they were raised, and now they're making decisions that are dependent on what they learned and how they think. Isn't that what free will is based on? The validity of a person's thoughts? And if we predict these thoughts, it doesn't negate their validity, does it?

Oblig.

[Anonymous Coward]

In John Locke's Soviet Russia, Free Will chooses you!

Mind Body Dualism

[Anonymous Coward]

This is disgustingly guilty of the mind-body dualism that has haunted philosophy for 3000 years.

It doesn't call "free will" into question, it calls "intentionality" into question.

The test proves that transcendence is primordial intentionality, as opposed to intentionality.

Heidegger already explained this in the late 1920s.

Determinism and Free Will

[pavon]

The only chance we have of any free will at all is in quantum weirdness which is not much free will to speak of Here's a thought experiment I've had in the past - I'd be interested in more mathematically inclined folks chiming in on whether it is valid or not. Godel's Incompleteness Theorem states that any sufficiently complex formal system cannot be both consistant and complete. Now if we were to assume a deterministic world, like Einstein and Newton believed in, then our universe is a consistant formal system, where the state of the universe is a statement in system, and the laws of physics are the rules for deriving other valid statements. By Godel, this means that there are states of the universe that are true (consistant with the system), but cannot be derived by the rules of physics. Now as an observer, upon seeing this state, you would simply assume that your understanding of the laws of physics were lacking, and you would then amend your understanding physics to encompass this new behavior. However, this is indistinguishable from the situation where the rules never existed at all prior to the state occurring. In other words you could have an active being outside of nature that kept adding rules to the system as he went along, but all his miracles would be explainable in retrospect. Of course this puts limits on this god - he cannot contradict the rules he has already proclaimed. Or more poetically, when god speaks, the very core of the world adjusts itself to the fulfillment of that word and the word cannot be broken.

Now what is Free Will other than the idea that we are more than biological automatons - that we have the ability to act outside of the laws of nature, that we are gods in a limited sense? Now imagine that each of us has a small walled off black box that we are gods over, whose laws are determined by the choices that we make over time. We don't determine the interfaces of these black boxes - that is the realm of the general laws of the universe, just what goes on inside them. And like god, we can't unchoose the choices we have made - they have shaped us permanently - but we can continue to make choices.

And this is where it gets interesting. If there is only one supernatural being, the difference between him making up the rules as he goes verses him creating a world with all the rules in place and let them play out, is just splitting hairs. However, if there are multiple supernatural beings then it makes all the difference. And yet if the influence of these other beings on the laws of physics was very subtle because it only acted locally, the difference would still appear superficially to be non-existant even though a difference did exist. We would not be aware of the existence of these smaller realms for a very long time. In the mean time they would look random, and once discovered they would appear to follow rules that were very complex, and varied from realm to realm.

What is this black box? I don't know. It could be the branes or tiny rolled up dimensions of string theory, hidden in some "quantum weirdness" or any other number of things. But now were getting into a "god of the gaps" argument - I can't prove that these exist, nor am I trying to. I don't even necessarily believe that this is how the universe works - it's just an example that shows that while determinism and free will are concepts that sound completely and utterly in contradiction with one another, they don't have to be. And I'm no quantum physicist but I'd have to imagine that the determinism + randomness that it expouses if anything has even more wiggle room for free will.

Re:Determinism and Free Will

[msuarezalvarez]

The only chance we have of any free will at all is in quantum weirdness which is not much free will to speak of Here's a thought experiment I've had in the past - I'd be interested in more mathematically inclined folks chiming in on whether it is valid or not. Godel's Incompleteness Theorem states that any sufficiently complex formal system cannot be both consistant and complete. Now if we were to assume a deterministic world, like Einstein and Newton believed in, then our universe is a consistant formal system, where the state of the universe is a statement in system, and the laws of physics are the rules for deriving other valid statements.

Where did you get this "the universe is a consistent formal system" from? Do you know what a formal system is, in the context of GÃdel's theorem?

Re:Determinism and Free Will

[Coryoth]

I'm mathematically inclined. Your argument starts falling apart at about the point where you suggest that the universe is a consistent formal system. Setting that aside for the moment, there's the "sufficiently complex" part -- the formal system has to be able to encode the natural numbers and natural number arithmetic. That's not as straightforward as you might think (there exists, for instance, a consistent and complete axiomization of the real numbers). Setting that aside for a moment there's the issue of how to interpret incompleteness anyway. A valid way is to simply say that there are different models that satisfy the axiom system; take Euclid's first four axioms (i.e. less the parallel postulate) -- that's incomplete in that there are different geometries that satisfy it. In this sense one could claim that, despite incompleteness we are simply inhabiting one particular model (and remember, that's ignoring the first two points).

Free will is an incoherent concept

[Ardeaem]

Free will is not a coherent concept. It is rooted in the idea of dualism, that something is "controlling" our body/brain, that is somehow separate from our body/brain. It used to be called a soul, now it is called a mind. The "mind" has free will to somehow control the body. This makes no sense.

The brain is a complex physical system like any other, and is subject to the same rules as any other physical system, like weather. There is no free will. There is only the interaction between our bodies/brains and the environment. Free will is just an illusion caused by the fact that humans are self-aware and that the brain is an extremely complex, dynamical system.

Re:Free will is an incoherent concept

[allmanbro2]

I think it's interesting that many are willing to acknowledge consciousness and self-awareness (which are pretty metaphysical concepts when you think about them) and the physical world's effects on them. Why is this necessarily a one-way relationship?

Re:Free will is an incoherent concept

[Anonymous Coward]

That is a good explanation, but I think does make sense. My theory is that the brain functions by many virtual zones, each interacting somewhat, but not completely with each other. That way, if we are hungry, we still think of other things. We can tell ourselves that we can wait (one virtual zone communicating to the other), or we can run to the nearest food (the hunger virtual zone overcoming and telling the be patient and wait for dinner virtual zone to shut up and feed the cake hole.)

so sometimes I cry because I burned my arm, and sometimes I tell myself to not cry because there is a really hot chick nearby. Each virtual zone interacts with each other, and sometimes one over comes the other, and sometimes not. Sometimes I imagine that I am sick -- a virtual zone creating a virtual world where this is the case, and tells my "consciousness" this, and sometimes I am sick -- the virus causes changes in my body that tells my consciousness that I am sick.

Is this "free will?" Not sure. One virtual zone in my brain says yes, and another virtual zone is telling me no. After they fight it out, I'll let you know who the winner is.

Re:Free will is an incoherent concept

[CougMerrik]

The best way to determine if there is such a thing as free will is to try to take it away. If you can take it away, then it exists. If you cannot, then it still may exist. Either way, you can't prove that it does not come into play, somewhere. The most you could say is "There is no evidence to suggest that free will exists."

I'm not sure why you think it's an incoherent concept. Is it because such an outside controller would apparently lack a physical, examinable component? Otherwise, free will/the mind/the soul is to the brain as the brain is to the arm. It's not incoherent to say that the brain controls the arm, so why is it incoherent to suggest something controls the brain?

The weather is a poor analogy in this case. The weather does not make choices, learn from past experience, or play at philosophy on the weekends.

Re:Free will is an incoherent concept

[earthbound kid]

"It's not incoherent to say that the brain controls the arm, so why is it incoherent to suggest something controls the brain?"

"Free will" is a very poorly defined term. However, generally speaking the term is distinct from the theory that there are immaterial forces which control the brain (a soul or spirit). I'm sympathetic to that theory, but not to the theory of free will as it generally described.

A provisional definition of free will might be, "I am the cause of my decisions, not prior (material) conditions." However, if one asks what is the cause of the I's deciding the way it does, the answer is either "there is no cause" in which case our actions are random (meaningless) or there is a cause. If there is a cause, it must be the I itself for us to have free will. If it is the I, then either the I has a "state" which gives rise to its decisions or the I does not. If the I is without a state, then the I's deciding would either have circular causation, which is typical considered impossible, or it would be random, which means that I don't really have free will. If the I has a state, then that state is either based on prior conditions or not. If it's not, then it's random. If it is then the decisions of the I are determined by prior events, which goes against the definition of free will used provisionally here.

So, there is a dilemma: either our choices are caused by our internal state, which is determined by the interaction of prior events and our prior state (character, personality, etc.), or our choices are caused by nothing and thus are random.

Of the two, I find the first preferable, since it makes my choices due to me, even if the existence of me is due to other things out of my control.

In any event, I'm not sure why our culture considers free will to be an intrinsic good. We only need to make choices when we don't know what course of action is best. If we knew what was best, it would be perverse to choose the second best thing. If there are multiple choices of equal value, then it doesn't make a difference what is chosen. Free will is a fancy name for ignorance.

Much more important in terms of making human being a valuable and unique organism in the world is the fact that we have moral feelings which we sometimes act on. For example, if you kick a dog and then give it a bowl of food, the dog will eat it. If you kick a man, then offer him wealth, some (but not all) men will turn you down. If a monkey sees one monkey kill another, he will hide from the killing monkey. Sometimes (but not always) men choose to be killed for a principle.

It's not our thinking that makes us better than animals, and it's certainly not our deciding (which again, is a fancy name for ignorance). It's our ability to cultivate our moral feelings that makes us special.

Re:Free will is an incoherent concept

[PMBjornerud]

It's not incoherent to say that the brain controls the arm, so why is it incoherent to suggest something controls the brain? Occam's Razor.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_Razor

If "something" controls the brain, it could be anything. Including an army of malevolent pink unicorns or anything else. Keeping track of an infinite amount of possibilities isn't sensible.

Re:Free will is an incoherent concept

[ampathee]

Determinism is compatible with free will.

Just because my decisions are "predetermined", in that my body (including my brain) is a normal physical system subject to the laws of physics, does not mean that I do not possess a consciousness. I think, therefore I am. If I had no free will, I do not believe I would *be*.

Re:Free will is an incoherent concept

[Anonymous Coward]

You are correct in writing, that the "free will" os rooted in the idea of dualism.
But with the statement, that "there is only the interaction between our bodies/brains and the environment" your are implying dualism between "body/brain" and an "Environment" too...which is also an illusion.

Re:Free will is an incoherent concept

[Ardeaem]

Consciousness and free will are distinct concepts. You can be conscious without having free will.

Re:Free will is an incoherent concept

[Anonymous Coward]

Is the universe a mechanistic system of knowable, purely physical phenomena or are there certain metaphysical components possessed of as much reality as their empirical counterparts?

Before you authoritatively answer the question, please turn to the left where you can witness the following scene: Two men are standing across from each other. A large curved lense is suspended in a fixed position between them. "This lense is convex," says the first man. "You're either blind or dumb," says the other, "it is clear as day that the lense is concave." The argument has continued for some hundreds of years with no resolution in sight. Can you help?

Re:Free will is an incoherent concept

[Ardeaem]

You are correct in writing, that the "free will" os rooted in the idea of dualism. But with the statement, that "there is only the interaction between our bodies/brains and the environment" your are implying dualism between "body/brain" and an "Environment" too...which is also an illusion. This is not dualism in the typical sense of the word. I know what you mean though, and agree to an extent. However, the person/environment split is not so much an illusion as it is arbitrary. Some rules for dividing the two are better than others, but none are really completely adequate.

Re:Free will is an incoherent concept

[Alsee]

consciousness and self-awareness [] the physical world's effects on them. Why is this necessarily a one-way relationship?

It is no more one-way than the physical world's effect on a hurricane. Given a huge number of atoms in the atmosphere, under the right conditions a hurricane spontaneously emerges. Under the right conditions, from a growing cell a brain and consciousness emerges.

A hurricane is created by the physical world around it. All that a hurricane is, is shaped by the physical world that spawned it. That hurricane then has an enormous effect upon the physical world around it. The entire growth and life of that hurricane is a constant ongoing interaction with the world around it.

If a hurricane runs into a mountain range, it will do what it will do, perhaps it will turn northward to go around the mountains.

If you see someone in a burning building, you will do what you will do, perhaps you will run in and risk your life trying to save them. What is "free will"? The idea that if somehow in absolutely identical circumstances, that it is random - sometimes you'd run in and sometimes you're walk away? That in absolutely identical circumstances, sometimes randomly you will steal money and sometimes you won't?

Maybe you're feeling sick one day or maybe some noise distracts you and affects whether you choose to run into the burning building to save someone or not, but we're not talking about that. We're talking if you could somehow rewind the day, every atom of your being is identical and everything you sense of your surrounding is identical and all of your memories and your initial frame of mid are identical. The "free will" notion is that it is random whether you will try to save the person or not? Whether you will steal or not?

Doesn't your character, who you are as a person, pretty much fix whether you would or would not try to save that person? Wouldn't it pretty much fix whether you will or will not steal in some circumstance?

The idea that under absolutely identical circumstances an absolutely identical you might do something different that you did, that sounds pretty even less like free will to me. That there is something involved other than the identical you acting in the identical world, that you are the puppet of some other influence that changes/controls whether you do or do not try save the person in a burning building, whether you do or do not steal.

-

Re:Free will is an incoherent concept

[Ardeaem]

The best way to determine if there is such a thing as free will is to try to take it away. If you can take it away, then it exists. If you cannot, then it still may exist. Either way, you can't prove that it does not come into play, somewhere. The most you could say is "There is no evidence to suggest that free will exists." The ability to take something away, in this case, doesn't necessarily mean anything. You could kill me and claim you took away my free will. What you probably mean is taking free will away without taking anything else away. Well, in order to do that, you'd have to define free will. Try to define it and you'll see that it disappears in a puff of smoke.

I'm not sure why you think it's an incoherent concept. Is it because such an outside controller would apparently lack a physical, examinable component? Otherwise, free will/the mind/the soul is to the brain as the brain is to the arm. It's not incoherent to say that the brain controls the arm, so why is it incoherent to suggest something controls the brain? The brain doesn't control the arm. The brain and arm are part of a complex system which involves "control" both ways. For instance, when you accidentally touch a hot pan, the sensation of extreme heat induces changes in the receptors in your hand. These are transmitted to your spinal cord, which contracts a muscle to jerk your hand away. Your brain later registers this, and creates a memory about it. In this case, it appears that your arm was the ultimate cause of all the changes in the system, and so one could say that your arm "controlled" your spinal cord and brain. But the reality is that everything "controls" everything else in a sense, and we simply perceive control because we are conscious.

The weather is a poor analogy in this case. The weather does not make choices, learn from past experience, or play at philosophy on the weekends. None of these except the first is relevant to free will. And the first assumes that free will exists, so it is circular.

Re:Free will is an incoherent concept

[cromar]

Right, even if everything is predetermined, what other choices would you make besides the ones you do? It's an interesting question.

7 seconds ago...

[sjs132]

I wasn't gonna post anything, but my cat gave me a freaky look, and now I'm posting...

I think this phewy, free will definatly still exists.... But I'm in the mood for tuna now, so I'll have to come back and explore this topic more after a snack.

Apparently they already know this in the future

[nameendingwith]

Farnsworth: Behold, the death clock. Simply jam your finger in the hole, and this readout tells you exactly how long you have left to live.

Leela: Does it really work?

Farnsworth: Well it's occasionally off by a few seconds, what with free will and all.

I am sure that this is true...

[hamster_nz]

If people were fully aware of everything going on in their lives then they would be unable to function.

Most of everything has to be on auto-pilot, we just don't think that fast.

But we are in control of the autopilot. We program our own responses allowing us to push as much as possible out of the higher levels.

Don't believe me? Then learn to juggle five balls. It is more than you can deal with, but still you can still learn how to do it.

Determinism, the illusion of free will, the Matrix

[bigtangringo]

I'm something of a determinism guy, aside from the quantum jazz, which last I heard and so I understand is actually random. On the macro scale, thinking, as it were, I'm not so sure that's supremely relevant.

Anyway, I think what we have is the illusion of free will, and that suffices just fine for the my purposes and the purposes of the human condition IMHO.

Now, my Matrix reference:

Free will is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.
What truth?
That you are a slave. Like everyone else, you were born into bondage, born inside a prison that you cannot smell, taste, or touch. A prison for your mind.

From the "division of precrime"dept

[kylehase]

I can't believe nobody mentioned Minority Report. The whole plot was based on the idea of preemptive arrest and trial before the crime based on what you 'would' have done.

Re:From the "division of precrime"dept

[^_^x]

Yeah, really. Especially now - the current political climate in America is not the best time to introduce a technology that can even be CONSIDERED to predict actions. I expect it's already been abused by now.

The free will debate is pointless

[Tetrad_of_doom]

If we don't have free will, then what's the point? If all of our decisions are predetermined, why debate the origins? Without free will our lives are meaningless. I take the existence of free will as an axiom, because the alternative is stupid.

Re:The free will debate is pointless

[Raenex]

I take the existence of free will as an axiom, because the alternative is stupid. That's why many take religion and an afterlife as an axiom. I wouldn't call the alternative "stupid", but certainly disconcerting. However, if you have an inquiring mind it's hard to avoid these kinds of questions.

You can just ignore them for awhile because they don't lead anywhere, but eventually you're mind wanders back to them. Enter the "failed atheist" who finds religion later in life.

Re:The free will debate is pointless

[Tetrad_of_doom]

I don't really see what free will has to do with religion. I know religious people who believe in free will and I know religious people who believe that everything is preordained. Ditto for non-religious people.

Re:The free will debate is pointless

[Raenex]

I don't really see what free will has to do with religion. I was playing off of this point: "Without free will our lives are meaningless."

If you're just going to die in the end, with all of your memories destroyed, then what's the point? That's why many people accept religion on "faith", in the same way you just take free will as an "axiom". Even people who used to be atheists.

This assumes there's a "you" that decides

[Ralph Spoilsport]

People like Ramachandran have come up with interesting evidence that the "you" that you think you are is not really more than an epiphenomenon of the brain - a way to ride herd on a bunch of zombies in your brain that allow you t osurvive by taking very complex activities and accomplishing them automatically. The "conscious" mind is thus an illusion.

Assuming this is so, then the notion of "free will" is of no consequence. It's not that you don't have it, it just doesn't matter, because there is not "you" to have "it".

RS

So the FCC had it right all along

[iminplaya]

with the "7 second delay" on live programming.

Particles of change

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course we don't have freewill. Considering the fact your reactions to events in the present are influenced by your reactions to events in the past. We are all particles of change that interact with and influence one another. We create the future based on how we map out the events in our life. $0.02

Its pretty simple, really

[Anonymous Coward]

When you model human behavior in terms of deterministic principles (i.e. the laws of physics and the metaphysical assumptions that underlie them), you shouldn't be surprised to find no room for the expression of free will.

If your first premise is "not A" then any subsequent premise which affirms "A" will be seen as the logical contradiction that it is.

So long as reduction is king, we shouldn't expect to find "free will" lurking among the emergent phenomena either...wherever it emerges it will just again be reduced to deterministic expressions, and hence seem to be deterministic (and hence profoundly unfree).

Our analysis of the brain doesn't disprove free will anymore than the English language disproves that nouns have tenses. Nor, by the same token, does any mystical tradition prove it.

The key is in how you model it, and whether or not your model is useful. That is all.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[el americano]

Which begs the question, does free will exists or not?

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[colmore]

Give me a scientifically meaningful definition of "free will."

Something that could be tested as present or not in a defined experiment.

If such a definition cannot be found, then questions about "free will" are unscientific and better left to philosophy and religion.

The mystical associations people have regarding the very words surrounding the study of cognition is a great hindrance to meaningful research.

Marvin Minksy has a great deal to say about this.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[rprins]

No ofcourse not. I don't know why this isn't general knowledge, but something like will can only be 2 things:

- Completely determined process, action -> reaction.
- Completely random process, governed by random quantum effects.

Our brain ofcourse is somewhere in between. I don't know how you define free will, but it can not be different from these 2 things.
If it were..
Then there would somehow be a reaction without an action, but it would NOT be random!
This is obviously impossible.

Everybody should know there is no such thing as free will.
One of the most interesting corollaries is the responsibility paradox:
- You have no free will.
- Thus you are not responsible for your actions; All your actions are the result of the total sum of your past, surroundings and genes.
- You could do whatever you like, because you are not responsible.

People say, "If I can not control what I do, I'm not responsible, so I can do anything."
They forget that 'they' are part of the action-reaction process. There is a part where you are conscious of the choices you make.
What this simply means is that you know you choose. But how you make that choice is determined but all kinds of factors you do not control.
"Will I eat this?"
-yes, because it looks tasty (instinctive)
-no, because it will make me fat (logic, cultural knowledge)
-etc..
Your choice process is then thinking of and weighing the factors, but again these weights are not controlled by anything like free will.
It's controlled by randomness, (neural) logic and cultural influences.

The "I can do anything" phrase is simply a loopback to the choice process, however as you consider the consequenses of this new factor, you realize you are bound by external factors in everything you do.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[fbjon]

I think the definition is very simple. If the universe is entirely predictable, then there cannot be free will. If truly random events can occur, then "free will" is possible, though not necessary.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[Omestes]

Thank you.

I always hated the cog-sci cultists (Dennet, mostly) attacking free will, as if it was his personal calling to do so. I think the very discussion is rather dumb.

If freewill isn't real, it doesn't matter, we subjectively must still act as if it is true. If free will is real, we must still act as if it is true. We must, too, in any case, also treat others as if they have free will (as it is the basis of law, society, and most human empathy and ethics). The idea of free will, if not it-itself, is built into our head, and all of our actions.

I think the freewill/not-freewill debate is just like the "God doesn't exist" debate, trite, and the grounds for amateur philosophers. It makes a good argument, but not much truth value. For one it isn't falsifiable.

In the current result (which isn't new), we could claim that the act of free-will happens with a seven second lag, or that certain potential centers are activated before the act of choosing a branch. Etc... I think, also, there is a large cultural element to the debate, the current trends in cultural interpretation is towards removing all individual culpability and responsibility (as we can see in the rise of psychotropic drug prescriptions, and "Twinkie" defenses).

As a philosophy buff, lets leave it to religion. It doesn't add to any argument.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[easyTree]

When you model human behavior in terms of deterministic principles (i.e. the laws of physics and the metaphysical assumptions that underlie them....

As is usually the case, my mod points have expired before I'm able to find anything really worth modding. Then your post appears...

+1 on each axis: { insightful, interesting, underrated }

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[professionalfurryele]

That is a little nieve, what if you are a dualist and believe every 'soul' gets a say in the initial conditions of the universe, enough that it affects what decisions they make while they are bound to thier mortal coil?

Besides unpredictability doesn't imply free will. Random events do not seem to me to offer any more opertunity for free will than non-random ones, that is if I cant influence either. What is necessary for free will is the ability to change events. If the universe always follows some prescribed rule over which I have no say, and I cant pick the initial conditions of the universe, then I have no free will.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[it0]

You could be more open minded.
Any discussion about anything seems sensible to me.

The free will debate or if god exists debate both seem to be though provoking. since a lot of people have a hard time understanding there own existence, doesn't mean it's food for amateurs only.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[Sobrique]

Ah, but if it's deterministic but unpredictable, then where does that leave us? If the universe is entirely set on it's course, from Event One, and given identical starting conditions would end the same way, why does this matter if we can't predict the pattern? I mean, you need something more complex to analyse a system, which means it's quite possible that we'll never be able to model the universe accurately, even if it was entirely deterministic.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[jotok]

Here's some questions for you since you seem to know what you're talking about...

One, I have a friend, an aero engineer, who believes wholeheartedly that any kind of free will can be boiled down to the deterministic movement of particles. However, there are two problems with this--first, it seems like he is making the philosophical mistake you pointed out: if you assume that free will does not exist, you will not find it (I think we're talking way beyond simple "null hypothesis" caution here). Second, while chemistry might be reducible to atomic interactions, is it useful or meaningful to discuss chemistry in this manner? Is it useful to reduce biology to Newtonian motion? Useful meaning, "Does it help us understand what's going on?" What's your take?

Second, I have noticed more and more lately people attacking the concept of "free will." Noted feminist and "Battlestar Galactica" fan Amanda Marcotte has been pushing this idea that free will is a meaningless concept, or at least not useful, and probably doesn't exist. Where is this coming from? Has there been an ongoing debate about this, or is this something new--something riding along with the scientific backlash against the religious conservatives, perhaps? If you can suggest any reading on the history of the debate, I would like to read it.

Finally...why so often do we see people dedicated to science who are completely unfamiliar with its philosophical underpinnings? I don't know how many researchers I know who don't really know what "empiricism" is, but who will deride religion as "magical thinking" when they themselves maintain question-begging tautologies all the time. It bothers me when I meet people who have their PhD, and so have supposedly been taught experimental design and have contributed to the body of knowledge, but who turn out to be glorified technicians :\

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[pbhj]

Neither side of your dichotomy is "free will".

Predictability and randomness (perhaps you meant chaos)?

I suspect most here don't believe in free will as they have a "scientific" determinism that requires that the _local_ state of the universe once known be computably determined by a ToE.

But I don't know what the hell I'm on about either.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[illaqueate]

"I always hated the cog-sci cultists (Dennet, mostly) attacking free will"

uh, have you read Elbow Room? I think you're somewhat confused about his view.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[TimMD909]

All of what you said is well and good and makes sense, but they're forgetting to take into account: outside influences.

How often has your opinion changed after speaking with a friend, parent, plant. Jedi, or sock puppet?

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[26199]

You are very close to an answer! At least, IMHO...

I am deterministic but my actions cannot be predicted 100% without recreating an incredibly complicated system, i.e., me. So somebody could predict my behaviour by copying me, putting me in the same situation, and waiting to see what I'll do.

Do I find it problematic that somebody could predict my actions by waiting to see what I'll do? Not in the slightest!

In fact the question comes down to: can my actions be predicted by any means that does not experience consciousness?

And there I suspect the answer is "no". If it is even worth answering, since it is obviously not measurable :)

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[oliverthered]

I've been having this argument with my friend for a few months now. Free will is the ability to change the course of the universe through without that choice being the result of the inputs.

And just like God it doesn't exists. Everything we know about the brain shows that it's deterministic, the results of it's inputs and structure. everything that we know about the universe shows that it's probabilistic based on true randomness, based on it's inputs. There's no room for free will there either. It's not that there isn't any evidence for free will, it's that there's a large body of evidence against it. By saying that it's unscientific you are showing that you don't know what science is (the study of things that are true) you are saying it is not truth and therefore should be something left to fiction

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[nschubach]

The issue I have with viewpoints like the GP;

If it's proven not to be true:
No harm lost ...but if it is true:
I win.

Is that they never look at the restrictions placed upon them by assumption in the first place. You obviously have different actions based on your belief that free will/something is granting you choice and ignore the thought that it could be pattern based. If you come into a study thinking that you might be offending some "higher being" you will also likely change the outcome of your report based on this.

Personally, I wouldn't doubt that we do follow a set of patterns, but those patterns have so many variables and are based on other patterns so recursively that we just can't comprehend it at this time.

As a programmer, I imagine it like a program that has evolved over millions of years and everyone forgot what the original intent was, but they keep going with it because it works and never question why.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[Eivind]

It's not that easy.

If the events are truly genuinely RANDOM, then they also aren't influenced by your "will" whatever the hell THAT means.

"free will" requires events to be NOT pre-determined, but also NOT random. It's a tricky one.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[Anonymous Coward]

Give me a scientifically meaningful definition of "free will."

The ability of a process (herein defined as "you") to influence the physical world but not have its choices determined by the physical world?

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[Anonymous Coward]

If the universe is entirely predictable, then there cannot be free will. If truly random events can occur, then "free will" is possible, though not necessary.

Random is not "free". Hence free will is impossible, as well as unneeded and unwanted:

In criminal trials, we first establish defendants factual perpetration of crime, then their freedom of will (if they can prove that they had no free will, they are usually abolished), then we PUNISH them for that freedom-gone-into-forbidden. I guess, they should not have had completely free will to start with, because it boils down to it - they were not afraid (their will was free, or underconstrained from that fear) of getting caught and punished, which they should had been.

However, IMHO, nonexistence of free will releases none from personal responsibility for their own actions. Consequences and retaliations are there EXACTLY for sole purpose of keeping individual wills in check. Those wills which ignore reality of those consequences are, for all practical social purposes, broken and will be repaired if possible, or destroyed or neutralized otherwise.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[nschubach]

Consciousness itself could be a very complex set of patterns that the outcome from all it's inputs could SEEM to be alive. Take a step back to 1734. (Just a "random" year) [actually, it's not so random. I tend to favor numbers that any two numbers within them equal another internal number, or are even... good events in my life tended to fall on even years, whatever.]

Sorry, I'm off track here. You're in 1734 and you see this future walking dog robot on the floor. It looks, sounds, feels, and acts like dogs you are used to. Is it alive? It accepts thousands or millions of inputs from sounds (microphone), sights (camera), touch (built in sensors in the "skin"), and tastes (based on chemical composition of material.) Even with those 4 "senses", it has to browse it's back catalog of events. It processes those inputs to the best of it's internal machinery can and an event is formulated within a time set forth by trial and error in the lab. (The response time let the robot get through an obstacle course in the shortest time.) It has accumulated, cataloged and retained it's previous actions as a good/bad action and sequence of events. It can process up to 10,000 of those previous events to determine if it's next action is good. It knows that if it licks a bare wire, it's going to do damage to itself. Does it's computer have the ability to tie that event with the state of a light switch on the wall? Do we? If I randomly flipped the light switches in your house, would you feel confident touching bare wires? We enact standards which fit our being. We dictate how we live our lives by rules so we don't have to question our actions.

It's not measurable because we don't know how to measure it... yet. If it were 1734, even I would probably assume it was a "real dog". (Are we real humans or just organic computers honed over the years to perform self sustaining tasks in the shortest period of time?)

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[Devin Jeanpierre]

Actually, only some scientists believe that. Others believe that science is based on skepticism -- even if it possible to discover the truth, we would not be able to know if what we know was the truth, or something that just looks like it. As an example, what if we're all dreaming? More popularly, what if there is something similar to The Matrix going on? It's completely possible, and completely infalsifiable, and yet also a part of that philosophy of science. How fortunate that the philosophy of science isn't science, huh? These scientists believe that the purpose of science is to model what we observe, which may have absolutely no indication as to the truth of things, or may actually be the model of the truth of things. But there's no way to tell.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean, you need something more complex to analyse a system, which means it's quite possible that we'll never be able to model the universe accurately, even if it was entirely deterministic. We have mathematics with the concept of continuum.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[fbjon]

I see your point, and I'm really too tired to be thinking about these things, but looking at your conditions for free will: we can't affect the laws of physics, and we can't choose the initial conditions for the universe. This means that according to you, we don't have free will. In essence, either 1) the universe is entirely predictable from initial conditions, or it isn't because of 2a)random events or 2b) something other that laws of physics affecting the universe.

2b) requires some god-like figure(s), while 2a) is already known to happen, and in the latter case it's not really by human willpower that things change unpredictably, though it could appear that way (hence "free will, sorta"). The only way out that I can see is 2b), where universe-changing power could hypothetically be funneled into humans somewhere from the outside, so to speak. Or, like you say, having a say about the initial conditions, but that is also outside the universe as we know it right now.

IOW, true free will requires religion, if my argument is correct.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[multi io]

When you model human behavior in terms of deterministic principles (i.e. the laws of physics and the metaphysical assumptions that underlie them) What else did you want to model it with?

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[Anonymous Coward]

It's controlled by randomness, (neural) logic and cultural influences. I would say that's a pretty good definition for Free Will.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[dedalus2000]

IOW, true free will requires religion, if my argument is correct.

You've obviously never visited the southern states in the US.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[Tyler Durden]

So under your definition, if someone's actions are dictated by determined events beyond their control they have no free will. But as long as the events beyond their control determining their actions are random, they have free will?

Bad definition.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[firewood]

If the events are truly genuinely RANDOM, then they also aren't influenced by your "will" whatever the hell THAT means.

If "will" is not determined, can an experiment be designed which would falsify any relationship, such as influence, between "will" and and random outcomes from a system proposed as containing this "will".

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[Anonymous Coward]

We must, too, in any case, also treat others as if they have free will (as it is the basis of law, society, and most human empathy and ethics). The idea of free will, if not it-itself, is built into our head, and all of our actions. In this context, the free-will asumption is simply a description of the lack of perfect knowledge of the situation and understanding of the other's mental state. It is an useful abstraction in any cultural blender, say U.S.A or colonial UK of the past.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[vertinox]

Ah, but if it's deterministic but unpredictable, then where does that leave us?

Its only unpredictable if you went around with a true random number generator and made your daily decisions based off what it told you. Of course, your questions are always predetermined so half of your decision making process is deterministic.

So I suppose you'd have to have a random question generator and a random answer to each of those to have a truly unpredictable (or non deterministic) way of living.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[BarryJacobsen]

But if we're all in the matrix (or all dreaming) then we have no control over the world anyway (the machine does, or the part of our brain that creates our reality but isn't the active object in question). I have trouble picturing a scenario where I'm in control of my actions "freely" (the active me, doing this wondering - not a subconscious dream world controlling part me) and the world as I see it is a deception.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[FlyingOrca]

I agree completely; this is the conclusion I reached before dismissing all talk of "free will vs. determinism" as ill-defined nonsense.

There is no discernible difference in the real world.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[kalirion]

I think the definition is very simple. If the universe is entirely predictable, then there cannot be free will. If truly random events can occur, then "free will" is possible, though not necessary.

How would randomness make free will possible? So there are three possibilities for where your decisions come from:

1. Predetermined through cause and effect.
2. Random through quantum phenomena or some other process.
3. Some combination of the above.

Where exactly is there room for "free will"? Where is the room for choice? Is a random choice really "free will"? That's like saying the cat chooses to be either dead or alive when the box is opened.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[Evil Pete]

Everybody seems to ask whether free will exists or not. But I myself do not know what "free will" is. What is it? Do you mean that decision making is random? Doesn't sound like something I want to have. Or that after much thought you come to a logical decision ... doesn't sound like it. Or that the decision can be a mix of logic, emotion and hormone levels at the moment ... ahhh still doesn't sound like it. Well you know I don't really think the question makes sense because it's so vague it is meaningless. I haven't come to an epiphany about this, I have felt this for many years and I really don't see what all the fuss is about. Are we biological machines ... yes. Are our decisions pre-determined? No, how can they be it depends on a vastly complex set of factors in our heads. If you are obsessed by something, then yes your decisions may be lacking in free will in the sense that you have no control over the process. But the fact that you can introspect about the topic at hand means that your mind will be influencing the decision. Is this free will? Beats me.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[oliverthered]

Science usually works by observation or thinking about something and then making a test to see if you can observe it.

all those observations are facts, they did really happen they are the truth. Even if we are in the matrix or just dreaming there's no way to get away from those observations, they must happen somewhere.

and all of those observations say that there's no place for free will, well at least not in anything anyone perceives.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[mrogers]

I think the definition is very simple. If the universe is entirely predictable, then there cannot be free will. If truly random events can occur, then "free will" is possible, though not necessary.

OK, now define "truly random". :-)

Here's my definition of free will: behaviour that cannot be predicted far in advance by anyone (including the actor), but that can be recognised as the outcome of a decision-making process (which allows the actor to learn). The first clause excludes non-chaotic deterministic processes; the second clause excludes non-cognitive chaotic processes such as the Brownian motion in a nice hot cup of tea.

I like this definition because it doesn't rely on "true randomness" (which as far as I can tell is just a way of saying "effects that originate outside the current level of description") or a "central executive" that gives orders to the rest of the brain; it allows the brain to be what it clearly is - a decentralised, modular, subsumptive system with chaotic (i.e. deterministic but unpredictable) dynamics.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[cromar]

Not really. There're plenty of things we don't understand to be deterministic. At least not yet. (E.g. the collapse of wave functions.) That's not to say they are deterministic, but don't go jumping to conclusions.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[Chrononium]

"Then there would somehow be a reaction without an action, but it would NOT be random!"

This is a strawman. Of course, there cannot be a reaction without an action because of the definition of reaction. Perhaps what you are claiming is impossible is the lack of causality, which folks in the quantum world haven't had too many problems shedding. Why? Just as it is difficult to empirically define free will (and we are indeed assuming that empirical evidence == only reality worth talking about), it is empirically difficult to define causality. We can only observe the high degree of coincidence and at some point call it causal, but we CANNOT directly observe causality.

Furthermore, I think it's important to note that by the latter part of your argument, instinct, logic, cultural knowledge is just random anyway. If your choices are completely determined by "external factors" (which implies something "internal", but your definition does not seem to admit for such a possibility), then knowledge does not change anything at all, for there is still no responsibility inherent in it.

Perhaps the most important thing for you and any reader of this post to consider is how empirical evidence forms your understanding of "truth." Is it 1:1 (and therefore dependent on interpretation)? Or do you admit some metaphysics to be truthful (the most famous of which, in my own opinion, is mathematics)?

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[cromar]

The problem with your argument is that you assume we have to be able to interact with reality to have free will, when in fact the definition of free will is quite different.

The power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate; the ability to act at one's own discretion. (OAD)

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[ENIGMAwastaken]

No, it really isn't that simple. Here, watch: OK, say we live in a universe with random macro events (we might), and that these random, acausal, macro events often influence our decision making. So you're standing there holding the pen deciding whether or not to buy the car, and then, out of the blue, a random, totally acausal, switch flips in your brain, forcing you to buy the car. If the switch would have flipped the other way (as it easily could have) you wouldn't have bought the car. Now, tell me where, in this random scenario, the "free will" enters into the equation? Are you saying that "free will" is the equivalent of a cosmic coin flip? I don't think you actually believe that. So then how is it that random events, events that could not have been predicted causally, can be your free will? That wouldn't make us free, that'd make us human slot machines.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[BarryJacobsen]

If I am unable to interact with reality - in what sense to I have any "power of acting"? Presumably any power of acting worth having occurs in reality - if the only power of acting I have is to act in a fictional dream world, then I don't have free will in THIS world, only in the dream world.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[dogmatixpsych]

Yes! Someone who has taken philosophy (and logic) or at least understands it. Thank you for your post; it really was one of the most enlightening I've read on Slashdot in quite a while.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[pomakis]

Are you saying that "free will" can exist in a universe that contains only "entirely predicable" events and "truly random" events? I don't think most people's conceptual view of free will is compatible at all with that conjecture. Saying that somebody's decision to do something was actually at a fundamental level a (set of) truly random event(s) doesn't sound like free will at all. For true free will, there needs to be something else going on in the universe, something beyond deterministic events and beyond random events. So like what then? It seems quite likely to me that free will is an illusion (although a very effective one, honed over millions of years of evolution). Saying this, however, isn't satisfactory in actually explaining the illusion of free will, or of the greater parent phenomenon of consciousness itself. No, philosophers will be busy for many years yet trying to get a grip on these things.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[cromar]

You have free will in this non-dream world, you just don't have anything to act on. Sure, it's useless to have that capacity, but a "robotic overlord VR prison" restraining your actions doesn't have an affect on the way you make decisions, only what decisions you are presented with.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[N1ck0]

I would say the best definition of free will and fate would be:

Free Will: The ability to alter events by conscious decision or chose. To not be subject to a pre-determined fate.

Fate: A event, chain of events, or state of existence which cannot be altered by any knowledge, decision, or action.

So the downside is fate/free will questions the nature of the universe itself. And without an objective viewpoint it would be very hard to determine.

The only method for testing I could think of is testing the non-existence of fate. To do so one would have to know a future event to an absolute level of certainty with enough time that one could still alter that state of events. Given that pre-knowledge if one is unable to alter events so that that state no longer comes into existence then one cannot be a subject of fate.

This of course assumes that you can tell the future without influencing its state, and with absolute certainty. As if the universe is one of fate you may encounter a scenario were observing the future with depict false pre-knowledge with the exact information needed to cause the events of a true future event. (e.g. I tell you if you move from this spot you will get hit by a bus, but the 'true future' is that you get hit by the bus because you stayed in one place. The 'false pre-knowledge' was created to bring about the fated response).

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[master_p]

Free will is bound by the physical conditions at the point of decision...I have the free will to take route A or route B, but when it's time to decide, I'll choose route A, due to what I have in my brain at the time. If the sequence of events is different, then I might choose route B, and all this does not violate the concept of free will.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[N1ck0]

The question for the matrix theory is 'can you make a non-deterministic system inside a deterministic system'.

Which if you think about it is the exact question of our brains/body/universe (as we know them right now). If everything behaves in a deterministic faction based on a set of physical laws, can 'free will' (a non-deterministic system) exist within those conditions. Is there the ability to have a "ghost within the machine"?

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[king-manic]

One, I have a friend, an aero engineer, who believes wholeheartedly that any kind of free will can be boiled down to the deterministic movement of particles. However, there are two problems with this--first, it seems like he is making the philosophical mistake you pointed out: if you assume that free will does not exist, you will not find it (I think we're talking way beyond simple "null hypothesis" caution here). Second, while chemistry might be reducible to atomic interactions, is it useful or meaningful to discuss chemistry in this manner? Is it useful to reduce biology to Newtonian motion? Useful meaning, "Does it help us understand what's going on?" What's your take? So in the vein of Williams James "will to believe" by assuming free will exists you can unearth the proof of it's existence? Sounds like exactly the logical fallacy you are assuming your friends is guilty of. I find most proponents for free will back the idea because they have a need to elevate humans beings above animals of just can't accept that the universe is deterministic. I have seen no compelling argument on the mind being anything but physical and deterministic. I have seen legions of information suggesting it is deterministic and physical.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[pclminion]

How would having my actions dictated by complete random chance, be any different than having them dictated by rigid rules? In neither case am I in control of what happens.

Free will is not something which can be defined in terms of the outward expression of reality. It is something which occurs subjectively in the mind. That answer is disappointing but I have nothing better.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[N1ck0]

To determine with certainty if a complex system is deterministic you would need to have a model as complex as the real thing, and observe the states in over a long period or their entirety.

So this means the only real way you could determine if our universe was deterministic, would be:

a) observe the universe as a whole outside of time
b) create a complete model of our universe within our universe that could have a outcome prior to our universe.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[JoeInnes]

Sorry, on what basis are those two initial statements formed? (completely determined process, action -> reaction; completely random process, governed by random quantum effects.) You cannot say definitively that there is not a third class of action, mostly undetermined process, governed by a choice. Fifty years ago, people had no concept of quantum randomness. What makes you so sure that we have reached the pinnacle of understanding here? And anyway, even if you are right, and there are only two possible types of process, perhaps "choice" is the ability to combine the processes in such a way that it produces a different outcome For example, water flowing down a hill chooses the path of least resistance. This is simple action -> reaction stuff, but even though water is flowing down the hill in a predictable way, it is still random where each electron in the stream will be, within reasonable boundaries. You can't say that any individual electron is DETERMINED to be in any particular place, but equally, you can't say that it is completely random. Using a combination of the two possible processes leads to the potential for us to randomly choose between a set of predetermined outcomes. Now that the possibility to choose between possible outcomes has been established, we can further choose to eliminate possible outcomes, until we arrive at an outcome we are happy with. I believe my reasoning is sound, although I'm prepared to accept that I may have misunderstood what you were saying, or I may have made an error. If this is the case, I apologise, please point it out to me for reconsideration.

Note: I'm sorry I didn't use a car analogy. I tried to think of one, but I wasn't able.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[joNDoty]

unpredictability doesn't imply free will. The GP didn't say that. He said that predictability precludes it. In other words, it may be possible to disprove free will scientifically, but not to prove it.

Your idea about having a say in the initial conditions of the universe is interesting. If that were the case, we would have a say in our actions. But for that to work we would require complete foreknowledge of every event before it happened. That would include foreknowledge of everyone else's actions. In which case their decisions would be predetermined.

The only way I could see your idea working is if all our souls sat down before the creation of the universe, fired up the universe simulator, and played out the course of everyone's lives in one giant game. Then they reverse-engineer the entire resulting universe into a set of "initial conditions" (assuming one such set exists), hand the plans over to God and say, "start 'er up!".

So now that I think of it, yes, it's perfectly plausible!

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[benhattman]

I think, that if such a thing as freewill exists, it would need to be defined as the brain's ability to alter its own state. Time for a bad analogy; consider the "Evil Dead" when Ash's hand gets possessed. The hand has it's own 'will' because it is now capable of acting independent of the state that the rest of his brain is now doubt stimulating.

So, if a region of the brain is ever proved to (consciously?) alter the brain's state, without conforming to determinism, I think we would be forced to call that freewill.

Alternatively, even if no such part is discovered, we might figure out that such a region simulates freewill via a massive probability function.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[oliverthered]

but they have studied how the brain works and it's deterministic, for wave function collapse refer to my earlier post about the universe being probabilistic and random but still based on it's inputs.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[oliverthered]

the universe isn't deterministic (due to quantum mechanics) it's probabilistic. But still fated.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[gyroidben]

We are a part of the process of extracting the complete Universe from it's initial conditions. This could not be done without bringing our consciousness into existence since simulation of the process would duplicate everything that went along with it including our thoughts and decision-making. It doesn't feel to me that this removes free-will as long as we are comfortable identifying ourselves with a deterministic process.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[cromar]

No one has what could be considered to be even remotely a complete understanding of brain function. And in fact, there can be no free will without a person's actions being based on inputs (otherwise there is no decision). You also claim to know that a god does not exist, although that is infalsifiable. The fact is that, given quantum theory, we can longer say that the universe is deterministic. This doesn't prove that we have free will, but it leaves the possibility open.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[rprins]

Folks in the quatum world shed causality for randomness. The beauty of this statement is, it doesn't matter if you can not directly observe it, it doesn't matter if you can't proof it empirically, it even doesn't matter if you talk metaphysics! Something either has a cause, or it doesn't. Even if that cause is metaphysical, it's still a cause. Hence God is bound by either causality or randomness. If there was "something" inside each of us, an internal factor, a soul if you want, then would "it" base its actions on something else? or not?

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[crazyeddie740]

I'm a philosophy student myself. Part of the problem with the Free Will debate is that the term 'Free Will' is so ill-defined. The focus in the debate is Free Will vs. determination, but if our actions were completely random and non-predictable, decided by some sort of fair die, then that wouldn't be 'Free Will' either. Dennett has suggested (in "Giving Libertarians What They Say They Want," IIRC) that we "author" our actions. He says that this "authoring" has a creative phase and a editing phase. In the creative phase, we randomly or psuedo-randomly spawn a relatively small set of alternative plans, and in the editing phase we select the best of these alternatives against some set of selection criteria.

You see, if we selected the absolute best alternative from the entire set of possible alternatives, then that would be determinate, since we would always pick the best option (possibly doing a coin-toss in the case of a tie). But because we're choosing from only a limited, finite set, there is room for variation - we would only choose from the best of our particular lot, somebody else would have a different lot. The idea of a limited set of alternatives also makes sense from a practical standpoint - generating an (near) infinite list of possible alternatives would presumably require a (near) infinite amount of computational resources. With a limited set, we might not get the best choice, but we should get a "good enough" choice. If the "creative" phase is only psuedo-random, it might be possible to perfectly predict a person's action. But this would require dropping out of the intentional stance and using the physics stance, and Dennett has provided reasons elsewhere for why that would be a Bad Thing. Using the intentional stance, we can provide some predictions - for example, if we give somebody the choice of pushing the right button or the left button, we can predict that they won't stab themselves in the eye, barring suicidal tendencies. But beyond that, our ability to predict is limited.

Under this account, it still makes sense to hold people ethically accountable for their actions, since punishment or reward modifies the selection criteria we use. We might be excused for not finding the best alternative - "I didn't think of that" is a valid excuse - but we are definitely accountable for wildly bad decisions. ("Wildly Bad" might be defined as "being worse than taking time out to come up with more alternatives.")

This experiment seems to suggest that our hypothetical "creative" phase is subconscious, and that our subconscious also tries to predict which alternative we will decide and takes preliminary actions along those lines. The scientists are guessing that the conscious mind only becomes involved in the "editing" phase, in the form of a veto - but there doesn't seem to be any experimental evidence to support this, just the intuition that our conscious selves are involved in the process *somehow*.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Not really. "Spiritual" free will is a nonsensical concept to begin with.

You have "free will" in that your brain, a fantastically powerful deterministic processor, makes decisions based on inputs and memories, including thoughts about planning, and knowledge about likely consequences, including punishments.

There isn't even room for "free will" in the theological sense. What would it be? A mysterious "decider" in some spiritual world that makes decisions based...on what?

Can't be deterministic.

Can't be random. While that shoots down determinism, it doesn't have anything more to do with free will than determinism.

So what would it be besides determinism and/or randomism?

Blank.

And in any case, punishments (which is what Hell is) and threats thereof are used to modify your decisions in a deterministic way.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

1. Randomness does not grant free will. It just adds randomness to the mix, and in the process, shoots down pure determinism.

2. If free will is randomness, then there isn't free will -- just randomness. A deterministic brain + some weighted influence on decisions that is purely random.

3. Therefore free will, if it exists as the spiritual types claim, must be something besides (only) determinism and randomness.

What would that be?

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[Anonymous Coward]

At least spell his name right you piece of shit.

Pimp Dennett will eat your soul and floss with your spirit.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[fifedrum]

so we really are descended from Cylons and the new BSG series is a documentary.

cool!

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[Omestes]

Don't get me wrong, I went to school for philosophy, there is nothing I love more than a large, never ending debate. Keeping this in mind, I get suspicious when someone slams the book shut, and yells "My interpretation, of a somewhat small result, on a oddly set up experiment, PROVES EVERYONE WRONG!"

No. They just expanded the topic slightly, it isn't by any means over. It's hubris to say otherwise.

It's somewhat like claiming that Newton explained gravity. He just added a new level to the discussion, which others could later add to.

Sorry for my harsh tone, it was late, and I've gotten into endless flame wars over this topic before. I suppose a better way to have phrased it would have been; that this discussion is like the atheism/theism debate, only amateurs know they have an answer.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[Omestes]

As I stated to the guy your replying to: I'm sorry for the harsh terms, it was late, and this debate is one that rather annoys me.

If it's proven not to be true:
No harm lost ...but if it is true:
I win. A slight correction, its more like:

If its proven not to be true, everything is the same...
but if it is true, everything is still the same.

This is the cause of my problem with the discussion. If we definitively proved that there was no free will (or visa versa) tomorrow, it wouldn't make a damn bit of difference in our subjective relationship with reality. We still must act as if it is true, even if it is objectively not true.

As I stated previously, as well, it is hubris to claim that YOU KNOW THE ANSWER. We're not even close to knowing it yet, if ever. Sure, the results of this experiment are interesting, but not even close to being nearly as definitive as they claim.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[Omestes]

Haven't read that one, I'm going mostly from Freedom Evolves, where he confused !determinism=freewill, rather weakly. If I had to pick a cog-sci person to even half agree with it would be Hofstadter.

I'll go this book down.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[Chrononium]

What do you mean by "it doesn't matter"? As in: it effects no physical change? Or: it effects no metaphysical change?

It is interesting that you should bring up the concept of a metaphysical God (although this is certainly separate from the concept of free will and determinism), in that it has been argued that this metaphysical God is the first-mover, the one who is the final cause. So indeed, God is wrapped up in this causality business, but not necessarily "bound" by it.

In any case, my point is that if you subscribe to the belief of causality, then determinism is going to play a role. If you do not subscribe to the belief of causality (a decision that logic cannot prove or disprove), then the whole discussion of free will is going to be moot, as the term "cause" loses its meaning.

Free will is going to matter if an ordinary action has multiple actors and not a single actor (i.e. if there is a metaphysical God, then such a being does not guarantee the existence of free will). Certainly, if we attribute all actions to the actor of "randomness", we don't have free will. However, if we do not attribute all actions (merely some of the actions) to "randomness," then that leaves open a path for free will.

The point of my posts is simply to help dispel the notion that a reasoning human being is silly to believe in the concept of free will. On the contrary, I believe that at least considering free will is a completely rational action of said human being, as long as the concept is given a fair mental evaluation.

Your arguments hinge upon many concepts constructed by Hume and others (which are mostly good rational dissent of the prevailing metaphysical arguments) in epistimology. I find that people are not even aware of such large reliance that they indeed proclaim to "know" for "certain" that things such as free will are bunk and folks should move past them.

I do want you to know that I don't intend to personally attack with the above arguments, but I know that I fail sometimes in that respect. Hopefully my presentation at least helps you to consider what you may be relying upon as axiom, when it is merely hypothesis (in my own opinion).

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[jafac]

It also depends on what one's definition of "truth" is.

Truth can have different definitions, depending on context - in this context (because there are many contexts under which one would want to define truth, i.e. including the "model" of reality that is formal logic).

In the context of philosophy - what role does Truth or Falsehood play? Truth is not a thing to be defined in this context - instead, it defines something else: How I Decide to Act.

If I believe that it is TRUE that I will burn in hell eternally, if I sleep with my best friend's wife, (for example) then I will likely choose not to do so; no matter how hot she is, and no matter how much of a dork he is.

On the other hand, I may not believe that is TRUE, and I may believe that sleeping with my best friend's wife might lead to some bad consequences for our families, our children, society in general, and there's a high likely hood of some undesirable side effects, just from the hurt-feelings perspective, then again, I will likely not choose to commit this act, even if it is a purely deterministic, predictable choice, there would be consequences that I would be unhappy with, and regret (which is not exactly the same as moral guilt).

Either way, I'm making a choice, based on values and reasoning, and weighing likelihood of consequences. Neither possible TRUTH upon which I might make this decision, will alone determine my actions - though they'll influence the decision.

So one might define TRUTH as; a belief value that informs decisions. No truth, in this context, is binary. Nobody believes in such abstractions either, 100%. The most faithful among us have doubts about hell, if not now, at other points in their life. And in the "moral atheist" scenario, one might still be tempted to give into the physical lust, even with the high likelihood of these horrible material consequences.

Can you plug these values into a mathematical model of human behavior, and theoretically predict the outcome, without a human being?

This is the question they're trying to answer by proving or disproving the existence of "free will" - (and attached to that, the existence of a "soul" and the existence of "God", etc.) So, of course there is a hidden agenda in this very question. Just as there is also a hidden agenda in propagating the "hell" idea.

Is Free Will a Truth?
Are my decisions influenced by the fact that I believe that free will exists, or does not exist? - well, yes, in this sense it is. And the degree to which my decisions are influenced, DEPENDS on how strongly, on that day, I believe that Free Will (and moral consequence) exists!

I can say that, in the past, during a time where I was an atheist, and I believed that Free Will did not exist, I made choices that I would not make today, based on a supposed lack of moral consequence.

Because I chose NOT to believe in the existence of Free Will (and personal responsibility for actions)?

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[Omestes]

As a note, I phrased my original response rather too strongly. This debate makes me cranky.

I'm going to have to look up this Dennett article. Most of my views on his take on this topic are from Freedom Evolves, in which I found him almost a religious adherent to !determinism=freewill. Apparently he is a moving target.

Part of my issue with Dennett ideas, such as the one you recount, is that there still is a bit of wishful thinking involved. I don't think that "pseudorandom" can be stated as freewill, as everyone else defines it. This doesn't make it true or false, I just think his choice of vocabulary is wrong.

Though, obviously, any version of free will (or intention) is going to be constrained. I have no issue with this. The problem is the selection mechanism for the small array of possible choices, this is where intention either enters the argument, or leaves it. If we see a pseudorandom choice in intentional terms, then we still don't clarify if it IS intentional, we just say that we see it as such for whatever reason.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[illaqueate]

Freedom Evolves is an extension of his earlier view. Dennett is actually a compatibilist so I think you may be projecting somewhat with the supposed confusion. He does lean on explanations that diminish control, hence the metaphors about the self as the center of narrative gravity, or like a symphony, and some silly views about qualia; however he is a compatibilist and does think we do exercise control (maybe less than others would tend to think) hence the subtitle "varieties of free will worth having"

I prefer a compatibilist view more similar to the one expressed by Jenann Ismael:

http://www.usyd.edu.au/time/ismael/papers/5.freedom&determinism.pdf
http://www.usyd.edu.au/time/ismael/papers/selves.pdf
http://www.usyd.edu.au/time/ismael/papers/6.causation_perspective_agency.pdf

also:

http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1745-6916.2008.00057.x?cookieSet=1&journalCode=ppsc

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[crazyeddie740]

I haven't read Freedom Evolves yet. This semester is a bit hectic and my education is getting in the way of my learning.

Part of the problem of the free will debate is that amateur philosophers tend to define free will simply as non-determination. One of Dennett's beginning points in that article is that simple randomness and non-predictability are not sufficient for free will. His method of describing free will is at least a stab in the right direction.

There does seem to be a slight difference in terms here. "Intentional" refers to an object that has beliefs and desires and acts on the basis of those beliefs in order to satisfy those desires. For Dennett, the "intentional stance" is not a theory that is either true or false but a methodological approach that is either useful or not useful in a given context. An example that he uses is that a podium can be treated as a degenerate and uninteresting intentional system - the podium doesn't move because it doesn't "want" to move.

Given access to the entire set of possible alternatives, any intentional system would become a determinate one - the system would always pick the best choice. Limiting it to a relatively small set of alternatives causes it to become a somewhat indeterminate one - at the very least, it pushes the problem of determination to whatever system generates the alternatives, which would be specified in the design or physics levels of description. At the same time, the moral dimensions of free will, including accountability for choice, are retained.

This "authoring" process has some fairly obvious parallels to evolution (variation + selection). Nothing about evolution rules out "intelligent design" being a source of variation, it's just that evolution powered by simple random mutation is sufficient to explain all the apparent design in the biological world. The *real* "intelligence" is in the selection. (Programing the selection criteria in genetic algorithms is a real bitch.) A similar thing seems to be happening here - our subconscious is apparently doing the creative function (which may or may not be pseudo-random - any theory about how different alternatives are generated are so much handwaving at this point, AFAICT). Our conscious minds seem to be involved only in the selection process. Of course, if the decision is non-trivial, then our conscious minds might get involved in "intelligently designing" alternatives.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[professionalfurryele]

I didn't say that my idea was plausible, it was a thought experiment. I'm not a theologian, you want to base a belief system that isn't crazy sounding you will need someone smarter than me. However, you yourself have presented one theoretical manner in which free will could be realised in a deterministic universe. I only need one example.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[professionalfurryele]

The poster after you gives an example when in a deterministic universe you can still have free will, which I think is exactly the scenario you are describing. It is certainly an interesting topic.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[Anonymous Coward]

Although true, that doesn't really have anything to do with what what the parent was rpins about. I'm sure they would say that, regardless of whether or not the universe is deterministic or not, 'free will' is still a contradiction in terms.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[Xaedalus]

"And just like God it doesn't exists. Everything we know about the brain shows that it's deterministic, the results of it's inputs and structure. everything that we know about the universe shows that it's probabilistic based on true randomness, based on it's inputs. There's no room for free will there either. It's not that there isn't any evidence for free will, it's that there's a large body of evidence against it. By saying that it's unscientific you are showing that you don't know what science is (the study of things that are true) you are saying it is not truth and therefore should be something left to fiction" Actually you can't posit this argument successfully until you can demonstrate that Man do es indeed know EVERYTHING there is to know about the universe. You are making this statement based upon an assumption that modern science knows everything, that there are no more mysteries, and that everything is falsifiable. You could also provide me with an accurate margin of error for your statement and then I will take it seriously. The universe is far more complex than we can imagine, and to state with complete sincerity that "the brain is deterministic" based upon "everything we know about the brain" is flawed in its integrity, to put it lightly. We, as Man, know a lot, but we don't know everything. What you are stating here is a psuedo-dogmatic belief based on science-based materialism as a religion, and not actual fact. Or if you are indeed one hundred percent certain that what you said is true (and can prove it with no margin of error), then you, sir, are God and I will take my hat off to You - and then promptly point You in the direction of the hundreds of millions of enraged atheists who will promptly want to have a few words with You.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[Stormy Dragon]

Truly random events wouldn't be free will either... Whether I'm being forced into one action by entirely deterministic laws of physics or being forced into one of several acts by entirely random ones, it's hard to describe either as being intentional.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[Lemmy Caution]

There are, oddly enough, religious traditions that believe something analogous to that, from some schools of Vedic and Buddhist belief to some versions of Gnosticism. And they conceived it for many of the same motivations that are at play here: to reconcile the recognition that mental states also responded to the laws of cause and effect while preserving a basis for moral judgment.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[DM9290]

In the current result (which isn't new), we could claim that the act of free-will happens with a seven second lag, or that certain potential centers are activated before the act of choosing a branch. Etc... I think, also, there is a large cultural element to the debate, the current trends in cultural interpretation is towards removing all individual culpability and responsibility (as we can see in the rise of psychotropic drug prescriptions, and "Twinkie" defenses).

As a philosophy buff, lets leave it to religion. It doesn't add to any argument. Free Will only affects the definition of 'culpability and responsibility'. It doesn't affect its existence.

There are no current trends in cultural interpretaion towards removing individual culpability and responsibility.

Current trends in cultural interpretation lean strongly towards increasing individual culpability and responsibility. For example: we now prosecute people who suffer from a mental illness, (pedophilia) as if they freely choose to be sexually addicted to children. We utter the word 'pedophile' with loathing and hatred, even while we picture an individual who is suffering from some kind of mental insanity.

On the one hand almost everyone agrees that pedophiles and sex criminals are dangerous because they CAN'T CONTROL THEMSELVES, going so far as to create a sex offender registry, and on the other hand we have drastically increased the punishment for sexual crimes. This suggests that we believe individuals are morally responsible for their actions regardless of whether there is free will.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[Omestes]

Freedom Evolves is an extension of his earlier view. Dennett is actually a compatibilist so I think you may be projecting somewhat with the supposed confusion. He does lean on explanations that diminish control, hence the metaphors about the self as the center of narrative gravity, or like a symphony, and some silly views about qualia; however he is a compatibilist and does think we do exercise control (maybe less than others would tend to think) hence the subtitle "varieties of free will worth having"

I might have read a bit into it. Its been a long while since I truly focused on this issue. I always preferred Hopfstader's "strange loopiness" explanation, though, myself. It always seemed to me that Dennet was arguing about something completely different, but couched it in terms of "free will vs. determinism", and then supported his constraints with weakly with the arguments that were actually the point of the book.

Thanks for the links, I'll read through them next time I have time devoted to "weighty" issues.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[Anonamused Cow-herd]

I think the freewill/not-freewill debate is just like the "God doesn't exist" debate, trite, and the grounds for amateur philosophers. It makes a good argument, but not much truth value. For one it isn't falsifiable. I was with you until there. While I agree that the arguments are often trite, I think there is obviously value, or people wouldn't be so upset about the prospect of determinism. As for falsifiability, free will/determinism is just as falsifiable (in many forms) as anything else we know about. Say, for example, that material monism is correct, and I somehow decipher all of physics. Then, working backward or forward, I am able to determine, mathematically, any past or future event (let's say I've got a really nice computer).

This would, for all reasonable purposes, prove determinism. If such a system existed, and encountered some sort of magic field around rational human decisions that its predictions could not penetrate, that would be pretty good evidence of free will, wouldn't it? Now, maybe free will can't be proven absolutely, but determinism could definitely be established with as much scientific rigor as any other of our dearly-held theories. As such, it would certainly also be falsifiable -- if we DID have the perfect physics system and an accompanying superdupercocmputer, and we could prove that any event was NOT subject to its predictions, then that formulation of determinism is certainly wrong.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[vampire_baozi]

I always hated the cog-sci cultists (Dennet, mostly) attacking free will, as if it was his personal calling to do so. I think the very discussion is rather dumb. Well, without free will, it's not like he has any choice but to attack free will. It is his calling!

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[DM9290]

These scientists believe that the purpose of science is to model what we observe, which may have absolutely no indication as to the truth of things, or may actually be the model of the truth of things. But there's no way to tell. And linguists only concern themselves with words that are used in languages, but they don't make any claims about words that are not part of any language.

How shallow minded are the people who believe a$UDDlkj!!$% isn't a word! a$UDDlkj!!$% has put a seal on their hearts and that is why they do not believe!

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[Omestes]

Sorry for being a bit rusty. This is a topic I haven't given much thought to of late. My interest flagged a bit when I realized it was a very bitter morass, with limited potential for polite argument, everyone is invested in it a bit too much to be truly dispassionate (myself included).

For Dennett, the "intentional stance" is not a theory that is either true or false but a methodological approach that is either useful or not useful in a given context.

This might be part of my problem. The various tendrils of pragmatism in western thought are rather... I have some issues with them. I don't see how usefulness can lead to truth, nor even validity.

Limiting it to a relatively small set of alternatives causes it to become a somewhat indeterminate one - at the very least, it pushes the problem of determination to whatever system generates the alternatives, which would be specified in the design or physics levels of description. At the same time, the moral dimensions of free will, including accountability for choice, are retained.

I have issue with this too. Most of the determinism debate (or whatever we want to term it) is based on reductionism. The reductionism in science is what gave rise to the debate itself. Pushing the determinism down to a further layer doesn't really add much to things that wasn't there before. "Your actions are indeterminate, but the mechanism for this is determined by the rules of a lower level" isn't really saying much.

I still don't see how accountability arises from this (not that accountability influences the truth of anything). Perhaps I'm missing the point (a real possibility), but by saying you make "free" decisions based on lower determinations is a cop-out. I suppose the accountability problem is a larger problem than mere determination itself.

Again, sorry for being rusty. :)

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[DM9290]

No ofcourse not. I don't know why this isn't general knowledge, but something like will can only be 2 things:

- Completely determined process, action -> reaction.
- Completely random process, governed by random quantum effects. why not 50% of each or 2/3 and 1/3?

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[Omestes]

There are no current trends in cultural interpretaion towards removing individual culpability and responsibility.

I disagree. Everything is a disorder now, and everything has a drug attached to it, with the innate preconception that all of our personality problems (and thus personality) is based on chemistry, and not individual choice.

Think of the number of people who blame their quirks on "depression", or "adult AD/HD", or "Aspergers", recently, when these personality traits were considered in a normal range just 10 years ago, but are now grounds for medication.

Think of the amount of people who check into rehab for things we not long ago considered to be personality flaws, but are now "illness"... Like that Spitzer guy deciding he's a "sex addict", and going to rehab, since he (as implied) can't help himself. (in reality, who wouldn't be a sex addict...)

Yes, there is a double standard. Never claimed otherwise.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[DM9290]

I can say that, in the past, during a time where I was an atheist, and I believed that Free Will did not exist, I made choices that I would not make today, based on a supposed lack of moral consequence.

Because I chose NOT to believe in the existence of Free Will (and personal responsibility for actions)? The only thing keeping you from hurting people is the fear of punishment?

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[Omestes]

I was with you until there. While I agree that the arguments are often trite, I think there is obviously value, or people wouldn't be so upset about the prospect of determinism. As for falsifiability, free will/determinism is just as falsifiable (in many forms) as anything else we know about. Say, for example, that material monism is correct, and I somehow decipher all of physics. Then, working backward or forward, I am able to determine, mathematically, any past or future event (let's say I've got a really nice computer).

I think part of the reason people get so heated with this issue is that there is a large emotional investment. An attack on free-will can be taken as an attack on the very nature of self-hood. Supporting free-will, though, to a large extent puts you at odds with our modern scientific system, and its preconceptions, thus at odds with "our understanding of the world", for lack of better terms. Both sides are massively personally invested, and to see either basis fall would be disastrous.

I'm not sure if it is falsifiable. An equation will never be as internally valid as our perception of self. I can get 5000 people to choose a number, and all will state a choice, and I can get brainscans of 5000 people saying it was determined. Which wins?

As for the predicting all events... to be pedantic, at least part of the functioning of the universe is probabilistic, and symmetric. Thus predicting back in time will be as problematic as predicting forward.

This would, for all reasonable purposes, prove determinism. If such a system existed, and encountered some sort of magic field around rational human decisions that its predictions could not penetrate, that would be pretty good evidence of free will, wouldn't it? Now, maybe free will can't be proven absolutely, but determinism could definitely be established with as much scientific rigor as any other of our dearly-held theories. As such, it would certainly also be falsifiable -- if we DID have the perfect physics system and an accompanying superdupercocmputer, and we could prove that any event was NOT subject to its predictions, then that formulation of determinism is certainly wrong.

I often wonder how complete we can ever make our understanding of the universe. Science is a system, and has no guarantees of being capable of understanding everything. Not to say it isn't, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were objects completely outside of its scope and possible comprehension. Can science be complete? This is a fun question for another day. The other problem is the actors in science, us. Our brain is wired to see things in certain ways, this does not mean that these are the "true" ways. I don't think we can ever escape our involvement in the universe coloring our understanding of it, this is even more vexing when we turn to ourselves. Science, also, is nothing but a modeling system, with certain rules to connect facts, and rule to choose what rule we use in this. Is parsimony built into the cosmos, or is it merely convenient to us.

What I'm getting at is questioning the idea that science is the "be-all-end-all" of understanding, or knowledge. And if such a thing is even possible.

What if all of science is wrong? Don't take that at face value, but it is an interesting philosophical question. How could we prove it is wrong? How can we prove it is correct?

Sorry for the tone, I'm being rather playful.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[Anonymous Coward]

> Something that could be tested as present or not in a defined experiment
Free will is not present if a choice can always be correctly predicted or duplicated by a model. It's a weak definition of course: we can't correctly predict how clouds evolve hours from now, so clouds could be shaped by will (free or a god's).
Weak but not unscientific IMHO

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[DMUTPeregrine]

The Free Will Theorem basically says that if we have free will, the whole universe has free will, if we don't nothing does. Thus, there must be a relationship if our current understanding of the universe is correct in some very important ways.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[Anonymous Coward]

If freewill isn't real, it doesn't matter, we subjectively must still act as if it is true. Why?

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[Dr.Ruud]

If the resources that your "free will" actions on, is limited (like "matter"), than your "free will" limits everybody elses "free will", and v.v.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[oliverthered]

well your pretty much arguing that I can come up with anything that you can't prove without any proof and say that there's a change that it exists. (like a flying spaghetti monster). I don't think people should be saying that things may exist when there purely cunjoured up in their imagination without any evidence, or using evidence that has been show to be something else.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[KDR_11k]

Your definition of fate is problematic in that it doesn't match determinism, by introducing new knowledge, actions or decisions to the initial state of the system you change the outcome, however that change remains deterministic. With these definitions we could conclude that free will exists and is perfectly deterministic which would be silly by most people's understanding of free will.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[cromar]

I am saying that anything COULD be true. That's an important part of training yourself to keep an open, scientific mind: infalsifiable arguments simply do not belong in the realm of Science. Ignore them and get on with life, you know? :)

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[Anonamused Cow-herd]

As for the predicting all events... to be pedantic, at least part of the functioning of the universe is probabilistic, and symmetric. Thus predicting back in time will be as problematic as predicting forward.

No, that's not necessarily or even likely true -- more likely, we just don't understand the processes that govern events we currently model as "probabilistic". It's funny how we chip away at those things as we find more well-defined theories that deterministically prove cause and effect. And symmetry in physics in no way creates a problem for predicting back in time -- if we're able to understand and account for the phenomenon with our underdeveloped understanding of physics, it would probably be even easier with a more advanced understanding.

I think part of the reason people get so heated with this issue is that there is a large emotional investment. An attack on free-will can be taken as an attack on the very nature of self-hood.

I agree -- but that's exactly why I think it has value. Yes, people may continue to act as if they were free even with an understanding of/belief in determinism, but there's obviously another level of rationalization at work. It's similar to arguments of skepticism or existentialism -- yet they end up meaning something to people too, and still inform our popularly accepted epistemology.

I'm not sure if it is falsifiable. An equation will never be as internally valid as our perception of self. I can get 5000 people to choose a number, and all will state a choice, and I can get brainscans of 5000 people saying it was determined. Which wins?

Yeah, that's the "reasonably sure" I was talking about. The brainscan study is immaterial -- such things don't have any real effect on the philosophy of determinism. There are scant few Cartesian dualists left, and those who are pigheaded enough to hold onto it certainly can adapt these findings to their system. But we can be just as "certain" of determinism or free will as we are of gravity, magnetism, or conservation of energy. Certainly, any of those things could be falsified -- tomorrow, perhaps, gravity will cease to function, and life as we know it will end. Seems unlikely, though, doesn't it? (Even though we certainly can't measure that probability).

Science is a system, and has no guarantees of being capable of understanding everything. Not to say it isn't, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were objects completely outside of its scope and possible comprehension. Can science be complete?

Definitely not. There's no way that any empirically-founded system can be 100% complete -- see any reasonable critique of inductive reasoning. The only kind of knowledge that science handles is inductive, and we have no idea when the rules will change, if there even are rules; science can certainly only be a description of a certain set of phenomena, nothing more. It so happens that it's been a very effective description, but that in no terms means it's correct, and it definitely can't ever be "complete" in the way many people think it can.

What if all of science is wrong? Don't take that at face value, but it is an interesting philosophical question. How could we prove it is wrong? How can we prove it is correct?

This is what undergraduate degrees in philosophy are all about =P -- sweeping questions that seem deep, but in fact aren't. If science is wrong, then we pick up the pieces and move on -- find a new mode of understanding the world around us. How do we prove science wrong? That's easy -- any truly scientific knowledge is falsifiable, as it is determined by the real phenomena around us. Any scientific theory could be disproved tomorrow. Proving it, on the other hand, is quite a bit trickier. As it's inductive, we can't _prove_ it in the logical sense. Fortunately, that's not really what we mean by "prove" anyway -- we just want a reasonable assurance that science's theories and pr

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[oliverthered]

well there's a large body of evidence for free will and god not existing and there's absolutely no evidence for them existing. I would say that they live in the land of fiction so I'm going to call them that.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[Omestes]

No, that's not necessarily or even likely true -- more likely, we just don't understand the processes that govern events we currently model as "probabilistic".

I don't currently have access to my old notebooks, but I remember that there was an experiment with the probabilistic nature of electron spin, that proved (pretty) much that the probability was an innate part of the system, that could not be explained by missing data (the theory is "complete"). I think it was the EPR experiment, though. Google at will.

Your probably right on the symmetry not interfering with looking back.

yet they end up meaning something to people too, and still inform our popularly accepted epistemology

I don't think this is important. Though I do agree that it might help some people inform their actions, but since it is lacking in truth value (at the moment, or forever), this is all pretty secondary, and amounts to a statement of faith. It will happen, though. And has.

There are scant few Cartesian dualists left, and those who are pigheaded enough to hold onto it certainly can adapt these findings to their system. But we can be just as "certain" of determinism or free will as we are of gravity, magnetism, or conservation of energy. Certainly, any of those things could be falsified -- tomorrow, perhaps, gravity will cease to function, and life as we know it will end. Seems unlikely, though, doesn't it? (Even though we certainly can't measure that probability).

I can't understand the last of Cartesians... I would have though the "bridge" problem to be insurmountable. Though I suppose the belief in an discorporeal soul would help things along a bit. Though I have noticed that Cartesian dualism is still endemic in much of our language and literature (even academic), so I guess it still is accepted on some level by many people.

As of now the free-will debate doesn't fall into the same category as gravity. I can test gravity, I know it exists, even if the explanations vary. Gravity is a fact. Right now I don't know an unequivocal, or definitive, way of proving determinacy. Right now it is largely nothing more than a logical proposition based on the acceptance of earlier, and more accepted, propositions. This isn't to dismiss the argument, just to cast it in a different light than gravity, or the old "transference of forces" argument that bothered philosophers in the enlightenment.

This is what undergraduate degrees in philosophy are all about =P -- sweeping questions that seem deep, but in fact aren't.

LOL! I do think I built a fallacy into that statement. I forgot my coherence theory of epistemology for a moment, that and the term "science" is about as broad as the term "philosophy". I guess the question is more one posed as one of general epistemology in general, rather than one of science. Sometimes I just wonder if we're just eating our own tail, my undergrad in philosophy did nothing to really fix this suspicion, just to make me ponder it in more amusing ways... that an it gave me the urge to scream "DAMN YOU WITTGENSTEIN!" in the middle of silly debates.

In my readings of the history of philosophy, they always point to the fact that logical positivism is dead. I still sit around wondering if we really replaced it (much less killed it). Finding Kuhn's small book was one of those life-changing moments, especially since I was studying Foucault at the same time.

I do agree that science is the best thing we have right now... We just lose scope of the fact that it is a LONG process, and not immediate. Often I think its moving more and more towards classical metaphysics (ala the Monadology). I even read a string theorist, who mentioned something along the lines of "we don't need empirical or experimental evidence, and we will probably never have it, but this doesn't matter towards the validity of the theory"... I think it was Leonard Susskind, or such.

Very nice debating with you, btw. Since leaving college its been harder and harder to find people with philosophical interests. Very pleasurable, and relaxing.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[cromar]

There's no such thing as evidence to/against when you are dealing with an infalsifiable hypothesis. Go ahead and say they're fiction, but saying you know they're fiction makes no sense at all.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[Anonymous Coward]

"- Completely determined process, action -> reaction."

The mistake in our thinking is presumption of the "CAUSE -> EFFECT" (action-reaction) concept. It seems very reliable at our Macro-level (Newtonian) experience of the universe, but with the developing underlying Micro-level (Sub-atomic) understanding of quantum type foundations, we begin to see that the appearance of large scale stability is actually just the statistical averaging of trillions of unstable fluctuations.

However, your dialectic statement:
"- Completely random process, governed by random quantum effects."

This is also incorrect, quantum processes are not truly RANDOM, they are probabilistic, altho the probabilities apparently fluctuate across time scales so small that the effects seem RANDOM.

Therefore the proper perspective might be to think of the PROCESS OF CREATION as an ONGOING enterprise, with an infinite infinity of virtual possibilities condensing into our experienced reality at each moment. This perspective not only leaves room for a type of FREE WILL, it also explains the seeming flow or ARROW of TIME.

I suspect the brain is much more complex than we suspect even now, but if the experiment is accurate, it only shows what we already know, that our conscious perceptions (even of our own consciousness) lag behind the actual events.

We live our lives in the past using memory, only perceive the present after it has happened, and predict the future only by inference and inductive logic, which is totally dependent upon our natural genetic ability to reason and our nurtured abilities programmed by individual experiences. The fact that we perceive our will as free is due to the reflective nature of our consciousness, the brain's ability to model our universe, including itself our selves, and proactively adjust our actions to choose those probable futures we most desire. The only limitations on this type of free will is the accuracy of the models and the efficiency of the predictions, i.e. education and intellegence.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[philosopher3000]

Misconceptions...

Determinism-
"- Completely determined process, action -> reaction."

The historic mistake in our thinking is presumption of the "CAUSE -> EFFECT" (action-reaction) concept at the center of much of science and engineering. It seems very reliable at our Macro-level of Newtonian experience of the universe, but with the developing relativistic Micro-level (Sub-atomic) understanding of underlying quantum type foundations, we begin to see that the appearance of large scale stability is actually just the statistical averaging of trillions of unstable fluctuations.

However, your dialectic counter statement:
"- Completely random process, governed by random quantum effects."

This is also incorrect. As I understand it, quantum processes are not truly RANDOM, they are probabilistic, altho the probabilities apparently fluctuate due to complex forces across unlimited distance on time scales so small that the complex effects seem RANDOM, and may be undeterminable.

Therefore the proper perspective might be to think of the PROCESS OF CREATION as an ONGOING enterprise or ETERNAL event, with an infinite infinity of virtual possibilities condensing into our experienced reality at each moment. This is a BLOCK form of the "MANY WORLDS" Thesis, an infinite number of possible universes, and our conscious experience a path among them. This perspective not only leaves room for a type of FREE WILL, it also explains the seeming flow or ARROW of TIME. The "other worlds" are inaccessible or virtual to us, except as our actions take us toward or away from them as we 'move' through time.

I predict the brain is much more complex than we suspect even now, but if this experiment is accurate, it only shows what we already know, that our conscious perceptions (even of our own consciousness) lag behind the actual events.

We live our lives in the past using memory, only perceive the present after it has happened, and predict the future only by inference and inductive logic, which is totally dependent upon our natural genetic ability to reason combined with our nurtured abilities as programmed by individual experiences. The fact that we perceive our will as free is due to the reflective nature of our consciousness, the brain's ability to model our universe, including itself and our 'selves', and then proactively adjust our thoughts/brain/actions to choose those probable futures we most desire. The only limitations on this type of free will is the accuracy of the models and the efficiency of the predictions, i.e. education and intellegence.

Is that clear? If I can't even tell if I'm making sense, how am I supposed to be free? OK, I try again.

We can have free-will, the ability to choose our future path through our thoughts and actions (or inactions), even if our brains react to what has come to be, because their are an infinite number of possible universes and our consciousness are such that they move through time and our individual potential future paths are apparently undetermined (do to ONGOING PROCESSES OF CREATION). By accurately modeling reality, we can predict where we are headed, and thus effect our individual actions (including thoughts) to take us in a different direction. From our perspective the choice ripples out through physical effects and seem to change our world, directly and indirectly, creating a future we predicted.

How much CHOICE we have depends upon the accuracy of our model and our ability to handle the complex variables (i.e. education and intelligence). We may make mistakes or move randomly out of ignorance, especially at first, but given enough experience data we can usually predict at least general probabilities instinctively, if not specific outcomes.

Interestingly, from an eternal perspective, such as many spiritual traditions proclaim, the "World Path" of any individual is just one version of the possible. As from this perspective we each essentially create a universe through our choices, but only experience

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[jafac]

"Moral Consequence" != "punishment"

It's not that simple.

But my point is that, words mean different things to different people. Among anti-theists, the definition of moral consequence is often conflated wrongly with punishment. That's simply not the case in the minds of moderate theists. (although, it's probably true among the fundies).

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[colmore]

How very Shinto / animist.

Re:Its pretty simple, really

[N1ck0]

Are you positive the universe is not deterministic. What if we find out that quantum effects are only unexplained deterministic effects caused by our inability to observe enough dimensions (or other aspects) of the universe's space.

It comes down to another basic philosophical concept, you can't really prove anything is anything (or even exists) without proving everything else first. Without a known point of reference everything is based on an unknown. Thus Descartes's quest for the only thing he could prove as his reference..."Cogito, ergo sum" (Latin: "I think, therefore I am")

Apple fanboys

[heroine]

With Apple fanboys, predictions R accurate 6 months in the future.

This is such an old argument.

[jordyhoyt]

"If a man is sitting, it is necessary that the opinion which concludes that he is sitting is true; and on the other hand, if the opinion about the man is true, because he is sitting, it is necessary that he is sitting. There is necessity, therefore, in both statements; in the one that the man is sitting, and in the other that the opinion is true. But it is not because the opinion is true, that the man sits; rather, the opinion is true because it is preceded by the man's act of sitting. So although the cause of the truth proceeds from the one side, there is, nevertheless, a common necessity in either side. Clearly the same reasoning applies to Providence and future events." -Anicius Boethius (ca. 480-524)

Granted, this is an argument for the compatibility of Free Will and God's foreknowledge of all human action, but I think the argument transfers cleanly over to counter the main thrust of TFA. Merely because it is true that the person decided to press a specific button AND that the scanner predicted which button they would press does not say a thing about where the cause of the truth of these statements comes from.

this doesn't really settle anything

[Trepidity]

The story assumes that everyone agrees determinism (or at least some sort of predictability coming close to determinism) implies lack of free will. This has been debated for centuries, and is far from agreed upon; if anything, the position that free will and determinism (or something like it) are compatible, termed compatibilism, is probably the more widespread position in contemporary philosophy.

See the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article for more detail than you could possibly want. Among writers likely to be familiar to many Slashdotters, this is the position Daniel Dennett takes.

I'M NOT RELIGIOUS!!!!

[NIckGorton]

I. Don't. Believe. In. God. I was saying the slow kids even get this.

I'm a secular humanist, pro-choice, anti-gun, queer, pacifist, card carrying Green Party member. Jesus H Christ-on-a-Cracker... I would probably have a seizure if I walked into a church, or at the very least some nasty hives and need to take a few hits from my inhaler.

Re:I'M NOT RELIGIOUS!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

How can you be "pro-choice" if you don't believe the "free-will" to make a choice exists? If you don't believe in free-will you must be either pro-abortion or anti-abortion.

that's not really true in philosophy

[Anonymous Coward]

No philosopher would have agreed to let this article be published as is. What you might call it is "brain scientists doing naive pseudo-philosophy". Among actual philosophers, there is a lively debate about whether free will and determinism are compatible; this article basically assumes that it's somehow accepted that they aren't, and therefore that if we can prove decisions are deterministic, this disproves free will. That position, termed incompatibilism, is far from universally held. For the opposite, compatibilism, see this article. Famous people to hold that point of view include David Hume, and more recently, Daniel Dennett (along with a lot of less-famous academic philosophers).

Re:that's not really true in philosophy

[Lemmy Caution]

I'm a former student of Searle. I'm pretty familiar with the state of Anglo-American philosophy. I've simply come to the conclusion that, while certain thinkers such as Putnam, Austin, Strawson, Ayers, Feyeraband and such have produced interesting work, that the analytical tradition is not really the mainstream of philosophy, and that it is increasingly consigned to a "god of the gaps" position by its ahistoricism and positivist posture (even when its content isn't positivist, its rhetoric is.)

Too often there are claims made that should be made empirically, such as Dreyfus' insistence that computers could never become competent chess players, or accounts of choice that assume rationality (that is, the conscious or symbolic representation of possible outcomes before choice.) There is a profound reluctance to do real metaphysics, and so much of the analytic work strikes me as moving chairs around the desk of the Titanic.

Why aren't there thinkers of the scope and profundity of Hegel, Heidegger or Merleau-Ponty? Why is Deleuze's reading of Hume so much more compelling than those of any of the anglo critics? When did philosophy become so timid and twee?

Dice are not random

[aepervius]

They are non-deterministic. The big difference, is that if you could have the computational power and the instrument to measure every bit of air the dice will travel, and the interaction with all surface, you could theoretically predict 100% of the time how the dice will fall. Just like some guy using a laser, speed measurement , and some statistic, could bet against a wheel in a casino and get better odds. I am not sure by any token that there is anything truly random, but rather complex enough that it can be called non-deterministic.

Furthermore , nobody say dice have free will. But that mostly is because dice are not complex in comparison to our brain, and most dice are smaller than our own ego.

Re:Dice are not random

[QuantumG]

Whooosh.

That was the point, going over your head.

Re:Dice are not random

[Dr_Banzai]

Determinism breaks apart once you reach the subatomic level. Quantum events are completely random, or at least not influenced by anything in this universe. They are also non-computable (ie, it's impossible to precisely simulate the outcome of a quantum event using any computer, no matter how powerful). If we can show that quantum effects are important in the functioning of the nervous system, this would demonstrate its non-deterministic nature.

Re:Dice are not random

[Anonymous Coward]

To explain a little further, just think of this: the observation changes the state of what is being observed. Now that... is like a loop - isn't it?

A machine may observe me and predict something - may be that observation leads to another consequence, thus making it by itself incorrect?

The only way to NOT have a free will, is:
1) Such observation does not change the outcome at all. (0 % failure rate is required because we are disproving something). We need to prove this yet.
2) The machine is able to calculate its own outcome (impossible, and we have a theorem for it).

Re:Dice are not random

[Anonymous Coward]

the observation changes the state of what is being observed. Now that... is like a loop - isn't it? The uncertainty principle exists because our current method of observing fundamental particles involves colliding them with photons (hence changing their position or momentum), not because the universe is non-deterministic; this has not and can never be proven with science.

1) Such observation does not change the outcome at all. (0 % failure rate is required because we are disproving something). We need to prove this yet. You're assuming that the uncertainty principle supports the universe being non-deterministic. Although it only indicates that we are a part of the system we are observing, making it impossible to fully predict an event since we do not know the initial conditions that created it.

Regardless, even if the universe is indeterminable it doesn't prove free will, largely because the uncertainty principle hasn't even been observed beyond the quantum level.

The fact we're discussing it hurts its cred

[Anonymous Coward]

From the article

"Real-life decisions -- am I going to buy this house or that one, take this job or that -- aren't decisions that we can implement very well in our brain scanners," said Haynes.

Personally I'm increadibly happy that my brain figures most of that stuff out for itself to leave my thoughts free to think about things that actually matter.

Also, have you ever watched a child interact with anything? It's increadibly cute. First they look at the object, then they look at their hand and realize they have control over it. They then use this newfound insight to move this thing they have control over to touch the object.

At best all this article shows is that the human subconscious mind is constantly figuring out how to interact with the environment around it. So instead of being purely reactionary beings it looks like our brain is analyzing a lot of data without our conscious regulation of it.

I doubt without that specific function of our brain we would even be having this discussion. Instead we would be flying towards the light...

Defining free choice

[Adam1213]

If you define free will as "the doctrine that humans (and possibly other entities) are able to choose their actions without being caused to do so by external force" the ability to know what someone will do in advance by reading brain wave activity does not change the fact that the action chosen was not caused by external force, free will not having been violated.

If however one defines free will as being able to make choices without the choice being known before its made, the experiment was unable to disprove free will. Brain activity 7 seconds before the button was pressed decided the hand to use, the choice was simply read in advance, unable to disprove free choice

Prediction is not free will

[aepervius]

Some computer can make very good prediction (we programmed them to check the weather for example and many other things). Does that means computer have free will ? no. What you call prediction is again a functionality of those neuron put together and reacting in a way, that with the input "current situation" they output "future situation". Like how good we are at guessing where a ball thrown in the air on a curve path will land. It ain't even a conscientious calculation.

Furthermore let us take down that problem the other way around. Let us take a neuron. You apply a potential to it. it changes its own potential, emit some neuro-transmitter. Has this single neuron free will ? I don't think anybody will pretend so. Add a few more neuron. The system get more complex. But still nobody would pretend there is a free will in it. Only our ways to calculate and predict how the system will react , will lower in details, emerging global property will be easier to predict. This is why this is a non-deterministic system. But nowwhere you will find "free" will. Even quantum uncertainty is a physical phenomenon/property of matter.

Re:Prediction is not free will

[Anonymous Coward]

You didn't understand what I was saying. I am not saying prediction is Free Will, I am saying what cannot be predicted is free will.

I guess, if we end up having a machine to predict everything - we will still be left to solve quantum uncertainty. Whether we have Free Will or not, thus, depends on if that little uncertainty is relevant for the bigger picture.

What I mean here is that, for example, I am thinking now that I will go to a bar tonight and write "bla bla" on a piece of paper there. If an omnipresent super powerful brain scanner scans my brain and predicts it, then it is not free will. What I am saying is that the machine will not be able to do so (theoretically impossible), even if it is fed infinite data of all the universe, because the universe is fundamentally "uncertain", and that uncertainty has influence of a macro system (which I compare to chaos theory).

Your second paragraph mixes science with philosophy. So, uncertainty is a property, so what? It is uncertain never the less! If it were not, then theoretically a machine could have predicted the exact coordinates for each and every cell in your body, for tomorrow. Then to me, you wouldn't have "free will".

If you argue that sentence, then you have effectively laid down the scientific mind to rest. Then it is philosophy, which involves a lot of hand waving :) But it is not science anymore.

no ghost, no machine and no inside

[grikdog]

Perhaps insisting on metaphysical perspective diminishes the concept of what it means to be human, and denies an entire realm of fascination to the poetry of "mere" machines. Remember, George W. Bush has already failed the Turing test.

Latency

[Nullav]

How exactly does this dismiss any notion of 'free will'? All I gathered from TFA was that our brains process information in multiple areas before higher processes, like subvocalization, begin. Perhaps it disproves 'visible' decision-making, but that doesn't seem too essential to free will.
I'll make sure to blame the horrendous lag next time I get into a car accident, however. (Or perhaps my bran decided it before I could decide on that myself...with whatever else I would think with.)

Free Will?

[Anonymous Coward]

Given a sufficiently accurate model of my brain and all my prior experience there's no doubt that you could predict any decision I make. The way I see it, my brain is an incredibly complex function and state machine.
How does this study really prove anything related to free will? In order to believe in free will, methinks you have to believe in souls and/or gods and/or something besides the physical. This does nothing to bring any of that into question...
Interesting nonetheless as far as understanding the way the mind works.

Debates on Free Will are Pointless

[cait56]

I don't care what evidence you have. I'm pre-destined to believe in free will, so no evidence can change my mind.

Free will is not an issue for a long time

[Anonymous Coward]

I see a lot of slashdot posts about
why free will "maybe" doesn't make
sense. Correct if I'm wrong, but
free will is not part of serious
philosophy for centuries now. If
you are interested in that, you can
read "Ethica Ordine Geometrico
Demonstrata", from Spinoza. It's
available here:

www.gutenberg.org/etext/3800

As far as I know, after that book
no one ever tried to resurrect
free will except as an historical
curiosity.

Doesn't disprove free will

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with these experiments or I should say the interpretation of these experiments is that they fail to take into account all the complexities of choosing. There have been other experiments which have been interpreted as questing free will. The main point is to try to separate the conscience mind from the choice. The problem is that if the conscience mind was not involved the person could not follow the instructions of the experimenter. Consider the following sequence of events:

1) Person volintirees to participate in experiment

2) Person listens to instructions of expirimenter and choses to follow them.

3) Some mesured unconcience brain activity is found.

4) person thinks they make the choice

5) person preforms the given action.

To conclude that free will doesn't exist one would need to show that 4 is responsible for the action without 1,2, or 3. The only thing these experiments show is that our choice isn't really made at 4. That isn't that unlikely. I imagine that the person is really making the choice at the time he hears the instructions. At least he decides how he is going to make the choice. Random? Mental algorithm?

Good way of puting it....

[ztcamper]

When I think about thinking, threads come to mind.
Unfortunately after pondering about it for 10 minutes or so I figure my unconscious decision making background processes came to following conclusion:

catch (WtfException omgwtf)
{
        generateHeadache(MIGRAINE);
}

as cleverly named stack popped something other than its element.

What is "free will" anyway?

[Rui del-Negro]

The article is sketchy (to say the least) about the details of this test. Were people told they were going to have to press a button? How long were they told to wait before pressing it? Did they start thinking about pressing it before they were even asked to do it? Was any of the test subjects a Jedi?

Just because you start thinking about making a "random" decision a few seconds in advance, that does not mean you cannot change your mind a fraction of a second before, if something else happens (ex., a sudden external stimulus). In fact, the article points this out:

"Also, the predictions were not completely accurate. Maybe free will enters at the last moment, allowing a person to override an unpalatable subconscious decision."

I think it's pretty obvious that people can react to external stimuli in less than seven seconds, including stimuli that they had no way of predicting.

Anyway, unless our brains have some sort of mystical particles, they are essentially very complex and highly parallel (but still fundamentally deterministic) electro-chemical computers, with an insane amount of inputs. So this really boils down to consciousness and a concept of present.

What this study shows is that decision-making isn't an instant process (did anyone think it was?), that we are not conscious of the early stages of that process (did anyone think we were?) and that there is a significant subconscious stage to random decisions, possibly because our brain tries to "validate" its decisions before submitting them to the "conscious" mind, and random ones have a low confidence level, making them go through extra sanity checks.

Subconscious: Tell Mr. Conscious to hit the left button!
Mr. Conscious's P.A.: Did you say something or was that just random noise?
Sub.: I said "tell Mr. Conscious to hit the left button"!
P.A.: Why should I tell him that?
Sub.: Because he asked me to make a random decision.
P.A.: Not good enough. Mr. Conscious will need assurance that that is the ideal course of action. Please produce the complete paper trail that led you to that decision.
Sub.: What paper trail? This is a *random* decision, you idiot.
P.A.: I'm afraid you will at least have to find some evidence that hitting the left button will not have any negative effects. If Mr. Conscious simply followed every random advice he got, how would he justify his salary?
Sub.: Look, the guy conducting the study hit the button just now and nothing happened to him, right? It's safe. Just hit it.
P.A.: Well, alright. The left button, you said?
Sub.: Yes!
P.A.: I'll transmit that to Mr. Conscious.
Sub.: About bloody time, too. Wasted seven seconds of my life.

P.S. - Several studies have shown that top athletes don't have particularly faster reflexes than other people; they just do the "Jedi trick" of starting to react before something happens. How can they react to something that hasn't happened? Experience. Their brain knows what are the 5 or 6 most likely developments, and it starts to plan ahead for all of them. When the times comes to send the decision to the body, the actual action is already buffered. On top of that, frequently we react to indicators rather than to the event itself (ex., in tennis the other player's body position will generally allow you to guess how he's going to serve before he hits the ball; if you wait for the ball to be hit, you won't get to it on time). To put it in computer terms: speculative execution and intelligent branch prediction.

P.P.S. - In Stanislaw Lem's short story "137 seconds" a news-gathering computer develops the ability to predict reality 137 seconds in advance, so this brain scanner still has a long way to go. ;-)

Somewhat off target, if you ask me.

[CokeJunky]

It seems to me that the TFA is using a fairly limited definition of free will -- i.e. that it must take place in the concious mind -- to draw the conclusions that they are.

I don't think the research is bad... but I suspect that the conclusion drawn is kinda hokey (but great for getting press, like /. and others.)

It is interesting that they have developed decent prediction models that connect a limited decision making situation to the brain activity leading up to it. To state that it implies that there is no free will is pushing it. Then they leave bolt holes about the experimental data claiming that maybe it happens at the last minute.

It's poor scientific writing, at any rate.

Subjective vs Objective

[LS]

The concept of free will is actually relative. People other than yourself are in the objective world, which is made up of external testable deterministic processes. You on the other hand are the subjective experience of these processes. When you make a decision, you are actually deciding the fate of the universe. To an outside observer it appears deterministic; that you would have made that decision all along. But your choice actually caused the universe to cohere and take that particular path.

A major flaw in scientific models of thought is that the subjective experience of "I" and the objective observation of "you" are not differentiated, and are just treated as the singular concept of "human being". There is actually a huge difference.

LS

self and brain the same?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just a random pick from TFA, not really to do with the core of the topic:

"The unease people feel at the potential unreality of free will, said
National Institutes of Health neuroscientist Mark Hallett, originates in a
misconception of self as separate from the brain."

As a computer scientist, I would say the software is separate from the
computer. We say it runs "on" the computer, not "in" the computer, and
there is a reason for this. The software is not dependent on the computer;
it is an abstract structure that would do the exact same thing if run by a
large group of people doing the calculations by hand.

That this is a scientific way of looking at computer software is not
really worth disputing -- we see that software can run on a "virtual
machine", the virtual machine sent to a different computer, and the
virtual machine can pick up right where it left off. This is empirically
possible.

And so, the "self" *is* separate from the "brain".

Why don't people get this? The self isn't the brain, it's a bunch of
patterns in the brain.

That's not what free will is

[SourGrapes]

No article I've ever seen on here relating to "Free will" has seemed to really understand anything about what the concept actually means. Probably the scientists involved in the studies or the journalists writing the articles didn't take enough philosophy in university. Nobody thinks that free will means that some of our actions are uncaused. Nobody asserts that free will requires that all our actions be fundamentally unpredictable; behaving in a way that follows no rational pattern is actually known as insanity, which generally is understood to mean the person behaving that way has something interfering with his or her ability to make free will decisions. It's also important to realize that not every decision we make is considered to be a free will decision, even by proponents of free will. Choosing vanilla ice cream over chocolate is not a matter of free will if I just like vanilla better -- that's freedom of preference, and I suspect that's closer to what this experiment was actually measuring. Making an arbitrary decision between one button and another has nothing to do with free will. A free will decision is one where we cause ourselves to do something that we may or may not prefer, as a result of ascribing a superior value to following the principle that would command such a decision. So (continuing with the ice cream example) choosing vanilla over chocolate is not a free will decision; choosing not to get ice cream at all, even though you want to, but because you're a vegan for moral reasons and that principle overrides your strong natural preference -- that's a free will decision. They should try measuring that.

Simply put, cognitive dissonance is a ...

[layer3switch]

"...the predictions were not completely accurate. Maybe free will enters at the last moment, allowing a person to override an unpalatable subconscious decision."

C...C...C...Combo Breaker!

Between the Mind and the Monkey. . .

[Fantastic Lad]

As I understand things. . .

The human monkey is a vehicle for the soul. Left to its own devices, it is an automatic, albeit complex machine which is a sort of bridge between states of existence. --That is, souls grow and need work to develop, and the human monkey is the vehicle for this process.

If there is no exertion of the Will, then the human monkey basically is just a reaction machine, responding to stimulus and being generally predictable in its behavior as demonstrated by the neurologists in the article. The Spirit sits between the mind and the body. If the spirit is not exercised, then the monkey is happy to run on autopilot, usually being selfish in nature, seeking pleasure, avoiding pain and thinking of no other individual other than itself unless in a manner to better attain pleasure and avoid pain. The psychopath is just a broken monkey which has learned how to feed on others but with a failure of its own survival circuits. (Psychopaths are very good at feeding, but their actions are ultimately self-destructive. Regular monkeys are more balanced and know how to survive better).

With the introduction of the soul, which as it grows learns how to care and feel for others, the whole equation becomes more complex and more interesting.

When you, as a soul, choose to be aware of the flow of instructions between mind and body, and decide to act in a manner different than that which would be automatic, then you are exercising your Will. This takes effort and the monkey and mind push back because it is no longer acting along the path of least resistance, as it were. But the monkey will obey, (that's what it's there to do), and through continued exertion, the spirit and soul grow and become strong and increasingly self-aware.

A note of interest. . . The point of alchemy is not, as I see it, about turning lead into gold; I think those are just metaphors for the creation and purification of the soul; the effort and resistance of exerting the Will creates 'heat'. In the various alchemical texts, repeated heating of the 'crucible' are described. With repeated heating, the soul is purified until enlightenment comes within reach.

Anyway, it seems to me that if one pays attention, then one can become ever more aware of the mind/body communication, (during the seven seconds indicated by the experiment under discussion?) Perhaps I am fooling myself in this, but that's the sensation I seem to experience when I observe my own mind in its workings.

-FL

News?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm, don't have a link at hand, but I'm sure I have read about this already 1-2 years back, most likely in Scientific american!?

free will

[FonkiE]

come on the free will is not determined by being aware of decisions. the brain calculates and we do. some lag in between and also the choice in the last moment, does not cancel "free will"... *sigh*

I'd argue that...

[msimm]

free will is important for those that would argue determinism makes it otherwise. I'm a big fan of the human machine theory myself, but just like you I've sat with decisions that could have gone at times tragically one way or the other. I've struggled with good and bad decisions and tried to learn the difference. So if we are a reasoning machine which makes decisions based on patterns then maybe free will is the result of determinism, spread out over time.

But really I think anything that tries to distill things down to their simplest elements will often miss things that compose a bigger picture. It's the price we pay for the incredibly useful Occam's razor.

Conway's Free Will Theorem

[erikkemperman]

I recall, though it was a while ago, reading about something called 'the free will theorem' -- I wouldn't have taken it seriously if it were not written by John Conway (he of the Game of Life).

The main point was essentially that if free will exists at all, it exists everywhere, in particular it does not require 'life' or 'consciousness' or similarly ill-defined conditions.

How can they measure that??

[giles hogben]

I don't get this. How can they possibly measure when the person THINKS they made the decision? That is not the same as when they press the button, obviously. In order to do that, wouldn't they need another button or something so they could say "now I'm making a decision" - and then the whole thing becomes circular. Ramachandran presented something very similar at the Reith lectures in 2003 http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/reith2003/

Homeland security and all that

[codeButcher]

Not as free as you thought? Well, what's new?

What's Expected of Us

[Yeef]

Reminds me of What's Expected of Us by Ted Chiang.

Actions or potential actions?

[HertzaHaeon]

This seems too simple to me. Can they distinguish between actions and action potentials? It would make sense that the choice of pressing the button would appear before it's pressed. Imagining something and doing it could be similar in the brain. Do they detect the possibility of pressing the other button, or for that matter not pressing any button?

What? My brain is thinking for me?

[PhilHibbs]

Stupid brain, getting in the way of my free will. I should have it removed.

Free will and this kind of study

[jandersen]

Two things: What does this study show us? That we make a large part of our decisions before we are conscious of it - but conscious thought is not the only kind of thought we have. The article interprets this as if consciousness and subconscious were two sharply dissociated things, while the reality is that the boundary, if it is at all meaningful to talk about a boundary, is blurry. It would be much more scientifically interesting to talk about what consciousness actually is in that context. It is not as if a person is only the conscious part of his/her mind - so if you make a decision unconsciously, it is still a decision you have made; thus there is no question about the freedom of your will.

The other thing is of course the question of what free will is. It could be 'free' as in 'totally un-influenced by anything except the person him-/herself' or it could mean 'free' as in 'under no subjective duress'. I don't have much faith in the first variant - free will simply means that you feel that you have no been forced by others to make a certain choice.

Original research abstract

[FleaPlus]

For the curious, here's the research abstract for the original article the Wired news bit is based on (unfortunately the article itself is behind a pay/subscription-wall):

http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/nn.2112.html

Unconscious determinants of free decisions in the human brain

Chun Siong Soon1,2, Marcel Brass1,3, Hans-Jochen Heinze4 & John-Dylan Haynes

There has been a long controversy as to whether subjectively 'free' decisions are determined by brain activity ahead of time. We found that the outcome of a decision can be encoded in brain activity of prefrontal and parietal cortex up to 10 s before it enters awareness. This delay presumably reflects the operation of a network of high-level control areas that begin to prepare an upcoming decision long before it enters awareness.

Free-willed power of veto over own actions

[Adaptux]

Also, the predictions were not completely accurate. Maybe free will enters at the last moment, allowing a person to override an unpalatable subconscious decision.

"We can't rule out that there's a free will that kicks in at this late point," said Haynes, who intends to study this phenomenon next. "But I don't think it's plausible."

Actually the experiments of Benjamin Libet suggest that whatever precisely is the reality that the philosophical model of "free will" approximates, it kicks in at that late moment which Haynes considers so implausible.

See Benjamin Libet: "Do We Have Free Will?", Journal of Consciousness Studies, 6, No. 8--9, 1999, pp. 47--57

I think of my subconscious mind as a kind of computer which tries to compute useful answers to the various challenges of life in the form of proposed actions. Our moral responsibility is in the areas of training our subconsciousness to produce proposed actions which are morally acceptable, and in the area of exercising what Libet describes with the words that the "conscious function ... can veto the act".

Maybe its more about the DEFINITION of "free will"

[w4rl5ck]

than about whether free will "exists or not".

How can any pre-programmed system, which is just a sum of input parameters - and our brain is NOTHING more, otherwise it would break most important rules of physics - somehow "decide" something - other than based upon the input parameters.

Whether this so-called "decision" is made "conscious" or "subconscious" does not really matter. From a "logical" perspective, it's all the same - input parameters leading to output values.

"Free Will"

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a virtual concept, like consciousness. We now know that our self is a vast neural network that makes decisions based on input.

"Free will" is just the feeling we get when we are faced with multiple courses of action and need to decide for one of them.

Cows DO drink milk

[giafly]

It's like the old schoolyard trick:
A: "Milk, milk, milk, milk,..."
B: "What do cows drink?"
A: "Milk. No, wait..."

Yes they do. In fact some cows survive almost entirely by drinking milk, or artificial milk which is cheaper these days.

It took me about 100msec to realize your error, but my reaction time in writing a comment was more like 20 minutes, which illustrates the weakness in TFA: deciding!=reacting. Imagine what conversations would be like if everyone needed 7 seconds do decide what to reply!

confusion of terms

[Tom]

The more I think about it, the more I tend to agree that philosophers are the porn stars of mental masturbation.

Look, there is no actual problem here, only a perceived problem due to a confusion of terms. Someone, somewhere, once came up with the term "free will", or even just "will". Through the years (and books) it got meddled up with "consciousness". Not difficult, since both terms are ill defined.

Nothing in the study indicates that you don't have free will. What it does show - and what has been the state of scientific knowledge for years - is that consciousness isn't the source of our decisions. Not really a surprise given the fact that consciousness is a complicated thing and complexity usually arises later rather than earlier. Also given the fact that consciousness is comparatively slow.
Nothing in here is surprising in any way. We just have problems "digging" it, because we've been brought up with this outdated view of humans as having a "soul" or some other atomic core part where magic like free will and consciousness simply "happen" without any complexity, requirements or hard work of brain cells.

Random thinking, or robots ?

[RavhinPt]

This delay doesn't prove by itself if we have or not free will. What makes me wonder is if there is a random element on our thought or not. If there is no random element, than as long as we are able to map, our brain, it should be possible to know how we will react to any given input. In other words we could just be advanced automatons with self learning ability, but no real free will, just a really big and complex decision making tree. Anyone's decision to reply to this thread or not, may be based on free will, or it may be based on past experiences and knowledge that bring you to that action. Who knows ! To counter this we either have to find some element of randomness (and we generally are not that random), or something completely different and away from our current understanding. Either way it's totally unknown and unproven. Fascinating thoughts.

"Free will" is not part of the Christian faith.

[Adaptux]

The only reason people believe in free will is that much of religion makes no sense without it.

I don't know what precisely you mean when you refer to "much of religion", but it can't be the Christian faith as described in the Bible, which makes very clear that belief in "free will" is not part of the Christian faith, see e.g. Exodus 9:16 and Romans 9:17ff.

However moral responsibility for one's actions is an essential part of what the Bible teaches. You can be morally responsible for what you do even if your will isn't totally, entirely free. Such moral responsibility requires only the ability to consciously veto proposed actions that the unconscious part of the mind is proposing, and this veto ability has in fact been experimentally observed, See Benjamin Libet: "Do We Have Free Will?", Journal of Consciousness Studies, 6, No. 8--9, 1999, pp. 47--57.

Therefore, free will and moral responsibilty are not the same thing. It is true that some people have been preaching a version of Chrstian religion which is based more on philosophical assertions like "free will" than on what the Bible actually says, but that is not a valid argument against religion. It only demonstrates the foolishness of listening to people who try to base religion on human philosophy instead of focusing on what the Bible says.

Re:"Free will" is not part of the Christian faith.

[susano_otter]

Actually, the Christian faith, taken as a whole is much more complicated than that. It consistently asserts opposite and contradictory truths, often in its core doctrines: A god of infinite justice and infinite mercy. Total predetermination and total free will. Absolute obedience to the Law, and absolute freedom from the Law. Etc.

Re:"Free will" is not part of the Christian faith.

[ittybad]

Bravo. You found two sentences out of nearly a thousand pages in an attempt to support your argument; however, I would hold that those verses say noting of freewill (just of God's plan). Alternatively, verses that support the concept of the ability to choose (read free agency or free will) is supported in the following verses: Deuteronomy 30:11, Deuteronomy 30:15, John 14:15, John 15:7, 1 Corinthians 9:24-25, 1 Timothy 6:12, 2 Timothy 2:21, 1 John 5:1. Despite what my reply may insinuate about my philosophical or religious stance, I fall under the category of agnostic. I just can help myself when I see blatant misuse of information in an attempt to skew an argument towards one's behalf. Please provide better "evidence" next time. ;)

Re:"Free will" is not part of the Christian faith.

[Adaptux]

Actually, the Christian faith, taken as a whole is much more complicated than that. It consistently asserts opposite and contradictory truths, often in its core doctrines: A god of infinite justice and infinite mercy. Total predetermination and total free will. Absolute obedience to the Law, and absolute freedom from the Law. Etc. What you quote as "core doctrines" is a list of philosophical assertions that may be helpful as approximations, just like the notion of "free will" is an approximation, and like the various theories of physics are approximate descriptions of various aspects of reality.

I do not at all agree with the idea of giving up the principle of logical consistency by endorsing a set statements as "core doctrines" which includes any such pair of contradicting absolute statements.

It is true that there are Christians who do not value logical consistency as highly as I do, and who don't really mind giving it up. However, I assure you, it is quite possible to come to an understanding of what the Bible is trying to tell you, and into the experience of getting to know God as a father, without giving up logical consistency in how one thinks about things.

For example, I don't see how I could possibly define the terms "total predetermination" and "total free will" without creating a contradiction if I endorse both of them as "core doctrines". However if instead you view both of these as approximations, i.e. you believe that instead of "total free will", there is a vast amount of degrees of freedom in human action among which people are able to freely choose, that leaves room for the degree of predetermination which is actually asserted in the Bible.

Re:"Free will" is not part of the Christian faith.

[Adaptux]

What I'm arguing against is the view that "free will" in an absolute sense is taught by the Bible or logically required by moral religion.

I quite agree that we have the ability to choose.

However, what the study that we're discussing here shows is that a very large part of the mental process which leads to these choices is unconscious. That invalidates a particular philosophical notion of "free will" which presupposes 100%-conscious decision-making. GP asserted that "much of religion" is based on this kind of notion of "free will" which is invalidated by this research, and I just wanted to clarify that he is wrong if he thinks that the criticism applies to Bible-focused Christian faith.

analogous headline

[BorgCopyeditor]

"Study showing things reliably following from other things calls indeterminacy into question."

raises the question?

[Anonymous Coward]

NOT begging the question: http://begthequestion.info/ *twitch*

Re:raises the question?

[el americano]

Too subtle for you? He was describing an argument that begs the question. I'd elaborate further, but apparently you know what it means.

This kind of study...

[Nathrael]

...was done multiple times before. It's nothing new that it is thought that there is some kind of "lag" between thinking and doing something (however, a few posts above, Adam1213 already explained pretty well the reasons why such a study is not to be considered as trustworthy).

From the Institute's Press Release

[hknust]

"In contrast, Haynes and colleagues now show that brain activity predicts even up to 7 seconds ahead of time how a person is going to decide. But they also warn that the study does not finally rule out free will: "Our study shows that decisions are unconsciously prepared much longer than previously thought. But we do not know yet where the final decision is made. Especially we still need to investigate whether a decision prepared by these brain areas can still be reversed."

Press Release

A Turing like test for free will

[hey!]

In a computer science framing, we are arguing about whether the human brain implements a feature called "free will".

Naturally, we can only do this if we have a definition of free will that captures every aspect that fuzzy concept. The first question, which is a purely philosophical one, is whether there is a self-consistent definition of "free will".

Let's presume for a moment there is such a definition, and it requires consciousness to influence decisions. What we have here is proof that an individual decision is made before consciousness can process it. It would seem to be an open and shut case of disproof.

But it's not. Not necessarily.

You see, our specification says nothing about how consciousness participates in decision making. It is quite possible for consciousness to influence decisions before it comes into play, as I will show in a moment.

Let's imagine there are two classes of animals: non-conscious animals and conscious animals, which evolved from them. Both make process information to make decisions, but the conscious animal has this extra cognitive step after the decision has been made, that evaluates the decision in terms of a sense of an individual self, in time and place. Is this just some kind of side effect of having more powerful brain, or does it serve (speaking loosely) some kind of purpose?

Why not both?

Animals, it is well known, make decisions based on prior conditioning. It is not necessary to be conscious to learn. Suppose you are an animal that, as a side effect of having developed consciousness, has developed shame. Let's say that you make a decision, and when you become conscious of that decision you experience shame. Since shame is an unpleasant experience it serves as a form of aversive conditioning.

Now suppose you have two animals, one of which is "conscious" in the way this study suggests we are at least under the conditions studied. We have another animal that is conscious of a decision as or even before it is made, which we will call a super-conscious animal.

We place both animals in a series of situations in which they must make decisions. Each decision is novel, and involves a choice between a pair of actions, one of which has features which are sure to evoke negative self-evaluations like shame, guilt, or cognitive dissonance.

Could an observer, not knowing which animal was which, tell the difference from a single decision? From a sequence of decisions?

I would expect that all things being equal, a super-conscious animal's free will might be more effective at balancing the demands of maintaining it's self-image than a normally conscious one. However, there is no intrinsic reason why a sufficiently intelligent, normally conscious animal might not make a sequence of choices that is indistinguishable from what we'd expect of a super-conscious animal. It is quite possible that there is no behavioral test that could, short of looking into the animal's brains and determining how the decision is being made. However that begs the question we are examining, which is whether the means by which the decision is made matter.

Therefore, while it might be possible that a kind of pre-cognitive involvement of consciousness in decision making might make better use of a given amount of brain power, such a kind of consciousness doesn't necessarily influence decisions in a measurably different manner than post-cognitive awareness would.

cigarettes?

[sckeener]

I'm not surprised by this study. I think adults are built around their past free will decisions. What I learned, whether consciously or subconsciously, influences my decisions, consciously and subconsciously.

Take cigarettes. I'm willing to bet the researchers could predict when someone was going to lite up before they did it.

Likewise I think an interesting study would be scanning people as they unlearned a behavior. Give them a reward for doing an action and do it a few times to get them use to the reward and then change it to watch how their brain rewires itself to receive the same fix.

Free will I'm sure does still exist...I'm pretty sure my free will was absent when I responded to this thread...I thought it was a cool topic and felt a need to respond...I enjoy (get a fix) responding to topics I like....

However I equally sure that I had free will in writing this post.

I might have the simple parts (words & punctuation) to writing this post hard wired, but it takes some complex decisions to put all the words in a some what right order ;)

Neither is causality

[Anonymous Coward]

Causality is not a coherent concept either. As Hume correctly observed so many years ago, we do not observe causal links between events, only the conjunction and correlation of events. The notion of a scientific law (even probabilistic laws and chaos theory) relies on a mysterious and unseen "force" which "governs" not only all the particular instances of the law we have observed, but all those we ever could observe and even those we couldn't. Hume points out that our standards for naming a regularity a "law" never meets the necessary standards for it to be a law - the regularity could always conceivably (one might say logically or possibly) fail in the future.

We are never justified in thinking of the world in terms of "governing forces" for the very standards by which we apply the word "causality" shows that it means only a regularity that has so far been persistent. The reason why free will can appear to be called into question by science is that we make the mistaken move that a physical description of our interaction with the world is rigidly controlled, governed, or determined by laws. A world determined by laws makes as little sense as a mind which controls a body - we can see this very concept of a law which determined what will happen as a remnant of dualistic and theistic theories. Laws describe regularities that we have found and that we are confident (i.e. we'd bet money on them, but we'd also bet money on the Senators not winning the playoffs) will continue.

Why do they continue? Will they always? These are not scientific questions and cannot be answered by scientific methods - in that sense, it can be said that they are not even questions. How does a world without determination make room for free will? Well, we understand ourselves to be free by similar standards that we take scientific laws to be established. The standards are insufficient to show that laws "determine" events and they are similarly insufficient to show that our will "determines" our actions. Yet this does not stop us from assuming that the universe is causal or that we have free will, because all these terms mean for us in practical and non-metaphysical (i.e. non-incoherent) terms is that we feel confident in predicting events in the world and that we feel confident that our experience of partaking in decision making-processes will remain subjectively the same.

So...

[multi io]

If somebody showed me two randomly chosen numbers and asked me to come up with a number between those two, it would take me at least 7 seconds to do that? I doubt it.

Who did they test?

[R3d Jack]

Seven seconds to decide which hand to use to push a button? I would have already had to have decided to click the link to this article before it appeared on my screen.

Brain activity == thinking, duh!

[corvi42]

This study can't dismiss free will. Basically they are able to predict, in a very limited context, what people's responses will be from their brain activity. But brain activity IS the decision-making process! So yes, naturally, if you could through a window into someone's thought-process, you could probably see what decision they will make once this process is sufficiently complete. All they've shown is that they can get a good guess at what someone will say as they get close to deciding but before they open their mouths. They can't predict what people will say just based on the stimuli that they give them (but even that isn't too hard - assuming that people mostly behave "rationally" and in accordance with social norms), so clearly their behaviours aren't pre-determined solely by environment. They need to look at brain activity, which has to be an indicator of decision making (what else could brain activity be?). They can't claim to know what you will decide before you start thinking about a question, only what you're likely to decide as you get close to being done thinking about it.

I do not love this interpretation

[bram452]

[begin: mean spirited sarcasm] Gee. Decisions are made at a preconscious level before we are aware of having made them. Groundbreaking, if you're pre-Freudian. [end: mean spirited sarcasm] Apart from saying that we aren't consciously aware of everything that goes into making a choice (interesting, but not surprising), I'm not convinced this shows much. The interpretation "there is no free will" seems over the top. "If there is free will, it operates at a preconscious level" seems more likely. "We don't quite know what we mean by the term free will, but we're working on it" seems best of all.

Is this really news?

[Giant Electronic Bra]

It has been known for quite a long time. Probably more like there may be a number of areas of the brain that develop 'plans' based on different inputs, goals, etc. Higher level centers may then integrate or redact based on inputs from other areas, and finally the reticular formation in the brain stem acts as a sort of master 'mode selector' (IE will I fight or run). The only things we experience as 'conscious' are the parts of the process available for recall later.

Really not all that super revolutionary.

Thank you

[oni]

Every time this comes up, the "debate" goes the same way. People argue back and forth without ever actually defining what they are arguing about.

Creepy voodoo scanner...

[elodoth]

I think the real story is this scanner that can predict the future! It certainly doesn't take me 7 seconds to arrive at most decisions.

Not conscious = not free?

[tgibbs]

I've never understood what this is supposed to have to do with free will. Whoever said that "free will" (whatever that is) must be conscious?

So there is some delay before the final execution of a decision is logged by the conscious mind. So what? How could it possibly be otherwise?

I think the dismay at results like this comes out of a residual vestige of obsolete dualistic thinking about the mind and the brain, as though conscious awareness were some magical unitary phenomenon instead of the culmination of a probably complex and time consuming computational process--which pretty much has to be the case if consciousness is not entirely trivial (and if it were, we'd have had conscious computers long ago). If consciousness involves significant computation, then it stands to reason that it should be possible to detect early events of a decision before it enters the conscious mind.

That does not eliminate a role for the conscious mind in decision making, it just places it at a different level., The conscious mind may well program decision making in advance, basically setting the weights on the various inputs that ultimately determine the decision and its timing. In this view, consciousness becomes more like the programmer than like the "PRINT" routine that ultimately sends the output to the outside world.

hmmmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

To ask the question... do i have free will? already implies that you do. Otherwise how could you ask it.

Isn't the Scanner Just Proving We Use our Brains

[murnshaw]

To make decisions? I can predict what my father will order in a restaurant and do it far more in advance than seven seconds but I don't see how that detracts from his ability to decide what he wants to eat. So he likes bacon and actively chooses to have some whenever he's in a restaurant. Does the fact that I know this prove that he can't decide for himself? Likewise, does the fact that a piece of machinery "know" I like to and do click a button with my left hand prove I can't decide for myself which hand to use? I've known for a long time now that I use my brain to think and make decisions. Were the people who are involved with the free will debate not aware of this? Or do their definition of free will state that the decision making process must not involve using one's brain at all? I love how Scott Adams has managed to turned part of the scientific community into brain-dead scandalous attention whores with his bullshit about the non-existence of free will. He doesn't even define it, and people are scrambling to prove him correct.

Giordano Bruno

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny, but you're misreading the line, "Mr. Pedantic".

It's not free will itself, but the expression of anything related to thought/memory/choice that is of importance.
Given that, the choice of England here seems VERY appropriate.

In England's 1600, if you discussed anything of controversy you might get published.
In Italy's 1600, you might get burned at the stake.

See here.

Uh, what?

[pclminion]

First, just because there is an inherent lag between the action of the brain and our conscious awareness of that action, doesn't mean the action is not willful. Second, even if the action was being planned by the unconscious brain, again, how does that make the action unwillful? I am not conscious of every calculation my brain performs when I decide to lift my coffee cup to my lips, but this does not mean I did not consciously decide to do it.

Our brains are chemical devices. Our sense of self has evolved to mask the fact that we are actually "lagging behind reality" by a little bit, because being aware of the lag would serve no purpose except to distract us. That a scientist could leap from this to the "insight" that we are not in control of our own actions is ludicrous.

Re:Uh, what?

[davidjohnburrowes]

> I am not conscious of every calculation my brain performs when I decide to lift my coffee cup to my lips, but this does not mean I did not consciously decide to do it.

I'm not certain what you mean by "consciously". To me, that means that there was a decision to lift the cup that you were aware of at the moment it was made, and that you (however briefly) consciously thought about it and decided it was a good idea. Further, it *implies* to me that there was some process you were aware of leading up to that decision where you consciously noticed you wanted the cup at your lips and considered how to satisfy that wish by analyzing various possibilities (moving your head to the cup, lifting the cup, getting someone else to move the cup, etc).

My personal experience is that neither the meaning nor the implication I listed above is accurate for how my mind and body work. I often operate with an illusion that this is true, but the actual decision to lift the cup is made without conscious awareness. Once the decision is made, I have opportunities to consciously notice the action has started, but most often I run with the illusion that the conscious part of me (meaning, the subsystems of my mind that can "see" and comment on sensory input) is in control of decisions etc. It is convenient, but not at all real in my own experience.

Re:Uh, what?

[pclminion]

My personal experience is that neither the meaning nor the implication I listed above is accurate for how my mind and body work. I often operate with an illusion that this is true, but the actual decision to lift the cup is made without conscious awareness. Once the decision is made, I have opportunities to consciously notice the action has started, but most often I run with the illusion that the conscious part of me (meaning, the subsystems of my mind that can "see" and comment on sensory input) is in control of decisions etc. It is convenient, but not at all real in my own experience.

But that isn't the point of argument, which is whether the decision has been made through free will or not. I still don't see why a decision being unconscious makes it not a free decision.

Re:Uh, what?

[davidjohnburrowes]

That I don't disagree with. It depends on what one considers "free will". I think that without an agreed upon definition of what these words (free will, determined) mean, it's not very useful to say one or the other is or is not involved. I think the original article is suggesting that "free will" is the same as conscious awareness of some decision. By that self-declared definition, then of course they are right that there is no free will involved, because they've defined "free will" as conscious awareness of the decision. Since unconsciousness is not consciousness, then by their definition it can't be free will. I don't have the same definition, so I don't agree with the way they phrase their conclusion.

Michael Gazzaniga worthwhile read

[petrossa]

In his book http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/1932594019.html he poses (in the last chapters) some very thought provoking ideas concerning free will/consiousness. Haven't yet read anything that feels more adequate....

Try LSD if the fungi didn't bother you

[Anonymous Coward]

I've tried LSD and mushrooms each a couple of times, which isn't enough to be a really strong recommendation, and set and setting and dosage obviously matter a lot. But here's my advice - try it, don't wait til you're 80.

I liked mushrooms better - they seemed to be a happier and less stressful experience. LSD was a bit more neutral and a bit edgier, but more interesting. The big annoyance with LSD is that it lasts too long; you've basically got to plan on spending the whole day tripping and unable to drive yourself, even more than mushrooms. Really inconvenient, probably easiest if you're a college student. Both of them were way cool - aside from tweaking your brain chemistry so that you think everything's really amazing ("Wow! Shiny Things!"), they also give you some insight into how much of your perception of things is your brain's choices of what sensations to listen to; you're normally ignoring lots of sensation that's not usually useful but cool to pay attention to on occasion.

As far as safety and purity go, with mushrooms you need to be careful about what species they are, and that they're really what they're supposed to be (not usually a problem if people grow them, as opposed to picking wild mushrooms that they think look like the ones in the book.) Fortunately, most of the hallucinogenic ones either aren't poisonous, or if they're poisonous you'll be sick for a couple of days, as opposed to some of the non-hallucinogenic poisonous mushrooms which will cost you a liver. LSD's active in such low doses that you'll either get pure LSD, or badly-cooked LSD relatives that's safe but not effective, or if somebody's ripping you off it's just pure blotter paper.

Interpreting Libet's Work

[billstewart]

I was recently at a Conference on Science and Consciousness. (There are two conferences with roughly the same name; this is the neurologists-and-academics conference, not the Deepak Chopra one.) There was a morning's worth of sessions looking at followups on Libet's work. Most explanations have been been about following neural signals from one brain region to the next, trying to figure out which areas deal with conscious awareness, and how do different signals interfere with each other. (On the other hand, some researchers were looking into the possibility that causality can extend into the past by 100-200ms :-)

Old news

[Tronil]

There was a story about this a year ago (though without the sensationalistic title): http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/09/0425237

Free Will, Responsibility, Randomness

[billstewart]

There's a story that says that Socrates's servant stole something, and tried to excuse himself by saying that he was fated to steal it and therefore shouldn't be responsible. Socrates's response was that he was fated to beat him, so stop trying to weasel out.

It's not very satisfying philosophically, but if free will doesn't exist, we don't have much choice about acting as if it were true.

Free Will

[Jaguwar]

I choose not to believe this story. A thristy old prospectorwalks into a small mountain town; there are two bars, one named The Free Will Saloon and the other The Determinist lounge. He walks into the Determinist Lounge and orders a drink, the bartender asks him what brought him in. The old prospector says he saw there were two bars so he chose this one. The bartender throws him out. The old prospector still thristy then goes across the street. The bartender there asks the old prospector what brought him in, the old prospector says 'I had no choice', so the bartender throws him out.

Dualism, Randomness, Quantum Physics

[billstewart]

Unpredictability doesn't necessarily imply free will, but predictability does imply non-free-will. As you say, randomness doesn't necessarily imply free will either, but at least it leaves you some wiggle room. And Quantum Mechanics is the most convenient current source of randomness around, so dualists, whether they're serious philosophers or kooks, tend to like it.

Unfortunately, the common syllogism works like this

• Free will requires something non-predictable and mysterious.
• Quantum mechanics is non-predictable and mysterious.
• Therefore, Quantum Mechanics gives us free will.
• And if you're a New Ager, Quantum Mechanics also is how Consciousness lets us create the universe we want to see if we recite all our affirmations every morning and do stuff with our Chakras!

There are some serious researchers who are looking into how quantum processes affect the brain. The brain's pretty large for quantum effects to show up, but it's still within range, and there are smaller features or processes that are much more within range of quantum effects - but that doesn't mean there's a mechanism to do anything useful with it, and what effects it might have is still a research topic.

This information is at least 17 years old!

[chuhwi]

In the book Consciousness Explained, published in 1991, Daniel Dennet described an experiment that had been done in which people were given a button that would cause something to happen when pushed, while their brains were being scanned in some way. However, in reality the button did nothing, and it was the scanning that triggered the result. The scientists found that if the set the delay between the scanning and the result short enough, people would feel like the result happened before they had actually decided to push the button.

Subconscious Free Will

[Trinn]

Well, thinking on this (and I doubt anyone will even read this post as its below the fold at this point), subconscious free will makes a lot of sense to me.

Conscious free will would mean (most likely) it would be very hard to figure out "why" we made a decision, "I just did" would be thousands of times *more* common than it is.

Yet sometimes we do have that feeling of having a decision thrust upon us by no outside force. I think *this* is free will (coupled with things like unacknowledged desire and such too, but lets try to keep this simple).

Free will, and whatever process runs it, seems to necessarily exist outside the mechanistic realms, as the idea is free will can do things a Turing machine *cannot*. Perhaps this means quantum weirdness (possibly not localized to any part of our body, more likely spread throughout the cosmos), and/or perhaps it has something to do with a weird twist of meaning from Godel's famous incompleteness theorem, or who knows. Anyway, the point is, free will is not a conscious process. Consciousness has a lot more to do with taking the information from those layers and integrating it, "rationalizing", priority sorting and enforcing, planning, all those things that are fine to do in mechanistic ways. It also has to do with how we forge these disparate things together to form one single identity, which is clearly rather fragile. It makes perfect sense that consciousness doesn't get ahold of the decision until seven seconds later, since it is far more about reacting than acting, and of course about long term planning and general cohesion.

Well, anyhow, I'm sure I've just said what others have said better, but I've never read their works and that's my excuse.

Sort of

[wurp]

But all of the possible solutions happen, we are just (mostly) restricted to interacting with a slice of the wavefunctions (Hugh Everett demonstrated this in 1957).

So the universe (multiverse?) is *completely* deterministic; we just happen to live in a thin 'quantum' slice of it. Quantum mechanics and the randomness of it is purely an artifact of how the processes that are us are formed of thin slices of the deterministic quantum wave functions, and the fact that any of the different slices yield an 'us'. (Since the slices can't interact with one another (again, see Hugh Everett), each slice yields one 'us' that appears to have just observed a random event.)

The main thrust of Everett's 1957 PhD thesis was demonstrating that the physics of QM shows that the whole universe "sees" (again, mostly) the same slice, i.e. the same result of the "random" interaction.

The opposite I say....

[cappadocius]

I disagree. If the universe is entirely predictable, then my actions may be deterministic, deriving entirely from my internal processes, making me relevant to what I do -- free will. If truly random events can occur, then my actions may simply be the rolls of dice, unrelated to my own will.

Simple Question

[AlgorithMan]

If free will didn't exist - how could you plan doing something later?

It's not free will, it's free choice

[Xaedalus]

I don't believe 'free will' exists. I think that stating that consciousness and the brain are one is correct. That being said, I believe (emphasis on believe here) that we have 'free choice'. We ARE able to make choices in our lives. Now, given the example in this article, they were comparing choices made in advance of clicking a button. Yes, they were able to predict which button the subject would click seven seconds ahead of time... but at the moment of cognition, the subject had the ability to make that choice independent of what his subconcious chose. There was a margin of error built in there, which allowed for this. So to summarize: what we term 'free will' may be nothing more than our perception of consciousness, and therefore a false concept. But we DO have Free Choice. And I think in the long run, that's far more important.

what does this have to do with the point

[Trepidity]

I'm as up for a good continental/analytic rollick as anyone else, but I don't see what your reply really has to do with the point. You were pointing out a "problem" with "philosophy in the US" that isn't really responsible for this particular shoddy article, since analytic philosophy doesn't actually make the naive determinism-invalidates-free-will claims that the article seems to assume.

As for "profundity", part of the problem is that it's quite difficult to separate "profundity" from "bullshitting". See, for example, anything written by that armchair philosopher (and Debord recycler) extraordinaire, Baudrillard. You can basically get rigorous and inconsequential/boring on the one hand, or you can get high-minded and grandiose but essentially opinion on the other hand.

Analogous schisms happen in other fields, for what it's worth. In artificial intelligence (my field), you have on the one hand statistical machine learning, which tackles fairly narrow problems but in a rigorous way that gives us information about when it fails and when it succeeds. On the other hand, you have more classical AI, which tackles much larger and more interesting problems, but usually in a way that leaves it hard to determine if the problem was actually solved (or at least addressed interestingly), and if so what information we ought to glean from the result. The two camps tend not to like each other. (I'm not really in either one myself.)

Re:what does this have to do with the point

[Lemmy Caution]

I like Baudrillard (and he's not exactly a Debord recycler, though the two have things in common) but I think of him as a cultural commentator (and Debord a more politicized version of the same) than as a philosopher per se. Too much of the response to these thinkers is to assume they're all doing the same thing - I've seen people attack Latour, Foucault and Derrida without realizing that they are largely in different fields, and when their fields abut, they are very mutually critical (and Latour considers himself a positivist.)

But as far as the point, it's that much analytic philosophy has such a narrow and dessicated ontology of action and decision - by trying to be "analytic" and formal, it tries to move to some kind of completely neutral action (x chooses to do y) that robs the actual phenomenon of choice of all the context, scale and circumstances by which we can get a handle on it.

The problem appears in the way that compatibilist accounts are set up, which is itself introduced by this gesture of formulization: most compatibilist accounts still rely on a fairly uncritical account of action as represented in consciousness, conflating meaning with conscious representation, then introducing conditions in this model under which a subject could be said to be acting freely (unconstrained from multiple activities, capable of representing those options as available, and then choosing one course of action over another.) Continental philosophy is much more comfortable working with things like ideology, the "unconscious," the base/superstructure, interpellation, etc. in which real questions about how choices are produced and how decisions occur without their conscious representation.

I'm not going to say that "analytical philosophy is rubbish" or anything. I think it can rightly take credit for much of the progress in computer science, for example, and artificial languages. I'm all for learning and teaching logic (part of the problem is that logic is taught rather early on in the educational system in France and Germany, so it isn't considered part of philosophy per se: it's a prerequisite to it. In the US, at least, training in logic occurs only in selected undergraduate courses - it tends to get foregrounded as the object of philosophy itself.) I find a lot of work on reference and meaning in the anglophone tradition to be worth reading and intriguing. But when it comes to the human subject - including philosophies of action and ethics - its ahistoricism and desire to be "pure" knowledge leads to cul-de-sacs.

Free will, schmee will

[CopaceticOpus]

Everyone just does what they think will make them happy. It really is that simple.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Free will is all about choice

[houghi]

Choose no life. Choose sysadminning. Choose no career.
Choose no family. Choose a fucking big computer, choose hard
disks the size of washing machines, old cars, CD ROM writers
and electrical coffee makers. Choose no sleep, high caffeine
and mental insurance. Choose fixed interest car loans. Choose
a rented shoebox. Choose no friends. Choose black jeans and
matching combat boots. Choose a swivel chair for your office
in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose NNTP and wondering why
the fuck you're logged on on a Sunday morning. Choose sitting
in that chair looking at mind-numbing, spirit-crushing web
sites, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose
rotting away at the end of it all, pishing your last on some
miserable newsgroup, nothing more than an embarrassment to
the selfish, fucked up lusers Gates spawned to replace the
computer-literate.
Choose your future.
Choose sysadmining.

ONLY 60% ACCURACY? -- CONCLUSION DEEPLY FLAWED

[kwilliam]

I did some cross referencing, and learned that the computer model only predicted the correct decision 60% of the time. You can see this by either examining the chart on the linked article's page, or by reading the New Scientist version (http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13658-brain-scanner-predicts-your-future-moves.html). Quote:

"By deciphering the brain signals with a computer program, the researchers could predict which button a subject had pressed about 60% of the time - slightly better than a random guess."

Also, all the "predictions" were done after the fact, by looking over the recorded data.

To be honest, I am disappointed. Disproving free will would have radically change the world - I'd have loved to see the media coverage.

60% ACCURACY? Their conclusion is BAD.

[kwilliam]

I figure most people won't see my post at the bottom, so I'll steal a slot higher up.

Here's the scoop. That the computer model only predicted the correct decision 60% of the time. You can see this by either examining the chart on the linked article's page, or by reading the New Scientist version (http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13658-brain-scanner-predicts-your-future-moves.html). Quote:

"By deciphering the brain signals with a computer program, the researchers could predict which button a subject had pressed about 60% of the time - slightly better than a random guess."

Slightly better than a random guess does not disprove free will. You'd need close to 100% accuracy. To me, 60% merely suggests that the subconsious had at best a 10% influence on those decisions.

Did any of you people research this story any further? Google News, people. I thought you were smarter than this. Slashdotters are supposed to be better than sheep.

Fight the urge to itch!

[Anonymous Coward]

This makes some sense. This is probably why we say 'fight the urge to itch' ... your brain tells you to itch but your ego can jump in and stop it. This is an important ability for anyone in the military ;) I wouldn't say it pre-empts free-will really. Your brain might prepare suggestions, sort of like underlings preparing suggestions for the CEO. Often the CEO may do what they suggest, but sometimes he'll do the exact opposite for complex reasons (for better or worse).

No worries

[Anonymous Coward]

If you have free will, great. If you do not have free will, it does not matter - you never had a choice in the beginning.

In either case, if you assume free will, the answer is not important...(although still interesting).

Method & Conclusion from article

[Anonymous Coward]

[[[[Method:]]] Here we directly investigated which regions of the brain predetermine conscious intentions and the time at which they start shaping a motor decision. Subjects who gave informed written consent carried out a freely paced motor-decision task while their brain activity was measured using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The subjects were asked to relax while fixating on the center of the screen where a stream of letters was presented. At some point, when they felt the urge to do so, they were to freely decide between one of two buttons, operated by the left and right index fingers, and press it immediately. In parallel, they should remember the letter presented when their motor decision was consciously made. After subjects pressed their freely chosen response button, a 'response mapping' screen with four choices appeared. The subjects indicated when they had made their motor decision by selecting the corresponding letter with a second button press. After a delay, the letter stream started again and a new trial began. The freely paced button presses occurred, on average, 21.6 s after trial onset, thus leaving sufficient time to estimate any potential buildup of a 'cortical decision' without contamination by previous trials. Both the left and right response buttons were pressed equally often and most of the intentions (88.6%) were reported to be consciously formed in 1,000 ms before the movement. [[[Conclusion:]]] Taken together, two specific regions in the frontal and parietal cortex of the human brain had considerable information that predicted the outcome of a motor decision the subject had not yet consciously made. This suggests that when the subject's decision reached awareness it had been influenced by unconscious brain activity for up to 10 s, which also provides a potential cortical origin for unconscious changes in skin conductance preceding risky decisions. Our results go substantially further than those of previous studies by showing that the earliest predictive information is encoded in specific regions of frontopolar and parietal cortex, and not in SMA (supplementary motor area). This preparatory time period in high-level control regions is considerably longer than that reported previously for motor-related brain regions, and is considerably longer than the predictive time shown by the SMA in the current study. Also, in contrast with most previous studies, the preparatory time period reveals that this prior activity is not an unspecific preparation of a response. Instead, it specifically encodes how a subject is going to decide. Thus, the SMA is presumably not the ultimate cortical decision stage where the conscious intention is initiated, as has been previously suggested. Notably, the lead times are too long to be explained by any timing inaccuracies in reporting the onset of awareness, which was a major criticism of previous studies. The temporal ordering of information suggests a tentative causal model of information flow, where the earliest unconscious precursors of the motor decision originated in frontopolar cortex, from where they influenced the buildup of decision-related information in the precuneus and later in SMA, where it remained unconscious for up to a few seconds. This substantially extends previous work that has shown that BA10 is involved in storage of conscious action plans and shifts in strategy following negative feedback. Thus, a network of high-level control areas can begin to shape an upcoming decision long before it enters awareness.

There's nothing intriguing about your limitations!

[luisosio]

If the scanner can detect it before the brain does, it's because it's there, because the decision has been taken at the source and the source is not the brain! Could it be simpler? Can you think of a better proof for the soul? Being deterministic is dynosaurish, the quantum did away with that eons ago. The idea of having to choose between deterministic and random or something in between is closing yourself out from the solution. You are the lab, and if you can't intuit it, don't try to reason it. Being overcompÃcated is a way of being foolish.

Re:Milk, Milk...

[Herve5]

I knew it in a more contorted way:
- Pork, pork, pork...
- what do you eat your soup with?
- a FFork, idiot! you didn't...now, wait a minute...

A silly story

[dcvchicago]

So, if I can predict a choice that a person will make, there is no choice? I predict that the pedestrian next to me will not step in front of the oncoming bus. and lo and behold, they don't. Therefore, they had no choice in the matter.