Freethought & Rationalism Archive

tronvillain · 11-22-2002, 03:51 PM

You never actually defined free will in that argument. Since my definition of "free will" to be perfectly compatible with determinism the argument does nothing against it.

Devilnaut · 11-22-2002, 05:22 PM

Great post Zadok! I think that this is about as clear and concise as this particular argument gets. I think that Kind Bud's reformation omits some important steps. When we get right down to it, most arguments can be reduced to just a couple of premises and a conclusion, it's just a matter of how much of the reasoning you'd care to include, and personally I found the OP very easy to follow.

I do think Tron makes an important point though, in that often people speak about free will in a different sense than what you're attacking.

Quote:

Kind Bud:
Handwaving! You haven't demonstrated any chain of events going back to before my birth. You haven't even demonstrated a chain of events back to three minutes ago. Nor have you demonstrated that my decision to shout "BOO!" was caused or uncaused. This is handwaving, not an argument.

Furthermore, I asked earlier for a definition of "event", and you haven't provided one. I do not think a mental event is at all equivalent to a physical event when talking about the causes of events. You'll need to definre "event" such that the mental event we are calling my decision to shout "BOO!" is equivalent to the physical event of the sound waves striking my neighbor's eardrum. Otherwise your argument falls apart.

Forgive me for butting in, but it seems like you're completely ignoring the argument itself. It doesn't matter whether or not Zadok can demonstrate the causal chain which led to your decision, as long as it is ultimately dependant upon either randomness or another event beyond your control. Can you offer another alternative?

[ November 22, 2002: Message edited by: Devilnaut ]

Zadok001 · 11-22-2002, 06:30 PM

Devilnaut:

Thanks, man.

And you nailed my response to Bob:

That's not handwaving, that's a clear argument. Your decision to shout "Boo!" is the event I choose to start with. If I wanted to, I could go to the soundwave striking their ear, or whatever. But all those can be traced back to you choosing to shout "Boo!"

Despite the fact that this argument really doesn't require this, I'll give you an example of just such a train. You choose to shout "Boo!" Now, why? Were you reminded of Scream, for some reason? Did your friend do the same thing to you two weeks ago? Doesn't matter - Either way, there are causes. (Just for the record, it doesn't matter if there are causes or not - No causes means it was a 'random' choice, and therefore you had no true control over it. It happened in your mind, but it wasn't your CHOICE.)

So let's say it was Scream that caused it. Now let's go back and deconstruct Wes Craven's life going back into why he wrote Scream. Eventually, one of his causes is going to go back to before your birth - And *bing!* No free will for you.

Clearer now?

tronvillain, you're right, I didn't do a definition. That was actually a conscious decision: I felt "free will" was too complex a term to describe easily. Thus, I set up the question differently. Every person who reads the thread has a personal definition of it. For some of them, the argument I presented will work and give them a reason to think about it. For others, like you, it won't.

In that case, I say you've won - Your definition avoids my argument, so I really can't defend my argument against it. You win!

[ November 22, 2002: Message edited by: Zadok001 ]

beausoleil · 11-23-2002, 04:24 AM

Since you asked about the effect on society, I will offer this...

Just now I made a choice to make a cup of coffee. Whatever the underlying mechanism is, what I did is what we mean by 'making a choice'. This is independent of any considerations like those you make above. Hence the effect on society would be nil.

Zadok001 · 11-23-2002, 05:14 AM

(Aside to beausoleil:

Isn't that what makes it so interesting? We'd have no reason to change our behavior. But you can't tell me that if everyone *BELIEVED* there was no such thing as free will, things wouldn't change. I'd almost expect it to be apocalyptic.)

11-23-2002, 05:31 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Zadok001:
(Aside to beausoleil:

Isn't that what makes it so interesting? We'd have no reason to change our behavior. But you can't tell me that if everyone *BELIEVED* there was no such thing as free will, things wouldn't change. I'd almost expect it to be apocalyptic.)

But it doesn't matter much what you or the whole world thinks about free will because it does not exist in the world. Free will only exists in heaven where we do not have to think but can just be who we really are without any rational ideas to push us around. Get it?

In other words, it is only because we are rational animals that we are not free and our faculty of reason is the only limiting factor to our freedom. This means that we are non-rational animals first and only as such can we be free.

So heaven is when our faculty of reason is placed subservient to our intuit mind.

Zadok001 · 11-23-2002, 08:41 AM

Amos:

There's been a disconnect here. Fact: Most people in this world LIKE the idea that they have free will. A majority of individuals have no reason to believe they DON'T. Now, consider what the reaction would be if the earthly massives became convinced they had no free will. There might not be riots in the streets, but you can assure yourself of a rash of suicides the likes of which the world has never seen. There WOULD be consequences.

Keith Russell · 11-23-2002, 12:36 PM

Amos said: There's been a disconnect here. Fact: Most people in this world LIKE the idea that they have free will.

Keith: I remain unconvinced that this is a fact. I would wager (and good money, too) that most people on earth now, or who lived previously, have/had probably never given much thought to free will.

Amos: A majority of individuals have no reason to believe they DON'T.

Keith: Again, I would wager that a 'majority of individuals' wouldn't have a clue what you're talking about.

Amos: Now, consider what the reaction would be if the earthly massives became convinced they had no free will. There might not be riots in the streets, but you can assure yourself of a rash of suicides the likes of which the world has never seen.

Keith: Really? They would protest the [fact?] that they don't have free will, by freely choosing to commit suicide? Funny...

Amos: There WOULD be consequences.

Keith: Again, I would wager that the 'knowledge' wouldn't ruffle very many feathers at all...

Keith.

[ November 23, 2002: Message edited by: Keith Russell ]

Zadok001 · 11-23-2002, 02:58 PM

Well, first of all, I said that, not Amos. Amos agrees with you wholeheartedly.

It's clearly, though, that this question becomes simply one of opinion - We can't predict reactions to such an event. I've spoken to a few people on this subject, presented the argument I made in the first post, and seen them walk away very dejected and upset. I believe, in general, people tend to like free will. When presented with the knowledge they have none, I think many people would lose hope and just off themselves in the most convienent way possible.

sweep · 11-24-2002, 08:19 AM

zadok001, have you considered these points:

1. we are not passive recipients where sensory information is concerned. consider apriori; did time cause us, or do we cause time?

2. how do we look? there is a difference between looking and seeing. What causes us to pay attention to something?

3. the human agent is a prerequisite for building society, and the tools of that society. We are not free to will, but what was willed by others sets the constraints for our lives. (input AND output)

4. that you need to do a lot more thinking on this subject.

Quote:

I believe, in general, people tend to like free will. When presented with the knowledge they have none, I think many people would lose hope and just off themselves in the most convienent way possible.

5. that your belief is not reality. there are some individuals (on this board), specifically, that have much greater knowledge than you, or I. You do not possess the ultimate knowledge on free will. Now go and read some of the other threads on 'free will', and be careful what you accept.

Here is some food for thought *for you* by one of my fave posters:

Quote:

Regardless of whether "choose" is the right word, though, I am saying that whatever the conclusion we come to, we couldn't have come to any other. Our belief systems being what they are, based on lots of experiences and embedded in other cognitive schemes that we don't even know are in place, at any point in time, we "end up" with certain parameters (bullshit detectors) that information has to be fed through before we arrive at an answer.
Get-Rich-Quick schemes, sales pitches, political messages in the media, science and technology news, declarations of love - all of this stuff has to be evaluated in relation to other "facts" that have already been evaluated as true. On the way home, I pass a sign that says "Puppies for sale." I make an instant evaluation, maybe not even a conscious one, that is based on "facts" I know about puppies, myself, my family, long-range plans,etc. I don't have the freedom to go in there and rearrange my priorites arbitrarily; I can't change "My husband would NOT like a new puppy" to "My husband would like a new puppy.", because the fact that my husband would not like a new puppy has automatically been invoked in the thousands of memory data attached by associated code to the stimulus of the "Puppies for sale" sign.
Similarly, I can't rearrange "facts" about what I know about mythology, history, cause-and-effect, etc., when I evaluate the validity of religious claims.
Helen: I think there are choices we make which relate to our beliefs or lack thereof.
I don't think people do usually 'suddenly' come to believe something; or, rather, I think that if looked at analytically, they may have appeared to have a sudden change in belief, but underlying that was a process somewhat akin to placing small weights on one side of some balance scales on the other side of which is a heavy object.

Agreed. You're talking about "valance"; a process by which information is tagged "+ or -" according to automatic emotional memory, and adds up to become a motivational force in our behavior though dopaminergic channels in the brain. This plays up the fact that there is no such thing as purely cognitive decisions; as Damasio says, emotion is always in the loop of reason. Without it, we couldn't act.
Value is a function of positive and negative feelings attached to memories and is accomplished through chemical transmitters that jolt the brain with a signal that is translated as rewarding or not. There is no such thing as reasoning without this emotional phenomena, which supplies motivation to choice. While we don't know exactly how the brain interprets a certain chemical arrangement as "good", we know that it does and that when this function goes wrong, people are unable to make decisions. For instance, when I contemplate whether I want orange juice or grapefruit juice for breakfast, I conjure up the memory of the taste I want and compare it with the memory of the taste of each. If the taste I am craving is orange juice, I don't get that little "yes" jolt from thinking about grapefruit juice, as I do from thinking about the o.j., so I choose the o.j. It's the same with elves. When I think of them as being real, my brain goes "Bzzzt; wrong! No biscuit for you!"

Opinions may be different than *wondering* about the world and my existence in it. Would you not agree?

Sure; we arrive at these opinions because of our propensity toward problem-solving behavior (i.e., curiosity, wonderment, questioning, pattern-searching, etc.). But none of these behaviors are opinions. Opinions are formed as a result of experience gained by use of these behaviors, and they are "stored" as memories (the neural groups involved in the conception of that opinion generate a chemical potential for reactivation following an associated firing (i.e., those groups involved in detections of lightning, in the question, "Will it rain?", etc.). We don't have the option of not considering the effects of certain memories because they are physically tied to perceptual triggers.
Maybe that's because we honestly or perhaps subconsciously don't "believe" at all. Instead we "observe," and simply decide which observation is most satisfying, which in itself in just another observation. Belief becomes just another ether through which observations propagate. Belief isn't really there.

I agree that we have been using the term "believe" imprecisely. I think that, as someone posted earlier, "conclude" is a better term, or even "compute" (which would really provoke resistance!), because of the burgeoning scientific understanding of dopamine's computational role in decision-making. See one such reference here, in a Baylor Medicine Newsletter.
quote:

Electrical impulses made by these neurons travel down small wires, or axons, to widespread reaches of the brain. When an impulse hits, dopamine delivery is changed. More impulses equal more dopamine, while fewer impulses result in less dopamine. It is believed that these dopamine neurons measure future uncertainty, and Montague has shown that the way these neurons make electrical impulses is consistent with the way they guess at the likely goodness of the immediate future.
What makes you think a determined judgement is meaningless? You seem to have the idea that if there is no Little ManM up there in your head with a megaphone directing the script, that no choices are being made. How does Little ManM find out what he wants to choose? I'll tell you how; the receiving neuron picks up information about the environment and that info is reflected in the tranmission signal (firing pattern) from the "bottom up"; it's kind of like smoke signals. Then, after the signal goes all the way up, there is a "back signal" that goes all the way back to the receiving neuron and the back signal reflects information from the target neurons. So the receiving sensory neurons that started the transmission find out what the target neurons have to say about the overall state of the organism as relating to that signal, and depending upon what the overall state is reflected to be, the sensory neuron adjusts its response (keeps signaling, changes signaling or stops signaling). In this way, the organism and the environment form a loop. You've got a big disconnect here between the stimulus coming in and the response going out - how does LIttle ManM find out about all the neural signaling and what does neural signaling mean to Little ManM? And what does he do with the information when he gets it? Unless you just don't think we need a physical connection.
I'm saying that you choose chocolate and I choose vanilla because you get a bigger reward through the reward pathway when the "chocolate cells" in your memory are activated than I get when MY chocolate cells are activated. My bigger reward comes from the vanilla ones. The same mechanism that weighs the variables for solving the "chocolate or vanilla" problem, informs motor cortex cells that these special cell groups win, and your internal dialog goes 'Chocolate; yes!", and then your jaws move up and down and you say "I'll have the chocolate."
Now, regarding your stance on THIS issue, yes; you get a bigger reward jolt from comparing the idea of "free choice" with the the way you know and love to feel, than you get from comparing the idea of "automatic choice" with it. That doesn't mean your dopamine is working wrong, of course; it's working the way it's supposed to work by telling you on a cellular level what has worked in the past. How well our method of knowing things conforms to reality depends upon how much each issue NEEDS to conform to reality in order to continue being utilized in decision-making. Take evolution; how important to survival is it that people understand evolution? It's NOT important, and obviously people who don't understand it are not hindered by their lack of understanding; at least survival-wise.

11-22-2002, 06:30 PM	#13
Zadok001 Veteran Member Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Two Steps Ahead Posts: 1,124	Devilnaut: Thanks, man. And you nailed my response to Bob: That's not handwaving, that's a clear argument. Your decision to shout "Boo!" is the event I choose to start with. If I wanted to, I could go to the soundwave striking their ear, or whatever. But all those can be traced back to you choosing to shout "Boo!" Despite the fact that this argument really doesn't require this, I'll give you an example of just such a train. You choose to shout "Boo!" Now, why? Were you reminded of Scream, for some reason? Did your friend do the same thing to you two weeks ago? Doesn't matter - Either way, there are causes. (Just for the record, it doesn't matter if there are causes or not - No causes means it was a 'random' choice, and therefore you had no true control over it. It happened in your mind, but it wasn't your CHOICE.) So let's say it was Scream that caused it. Now let's go back and deconstruct Wes Craven's life going back into why he wrote Scream. Eventually, one of his causes is going to go back to before your birth - And bing! No free will for you. Clearer now? tronvillain, you're right, I didn't do a definition. That was actually a conscious decision: I felt "free will" was too complex a term to describe easily. Thus, I set up the question differently. Every person who reads the thread has a personal definition of it. For some of them, the argument I presented will work and give them a reason to think about it. For others, like you, it won't. In that case, I say you've won - Your definition avoids my argument, so I really can't defend my argument against it. You win! [ November 22, 2002: Message edited by: Zadok001 ]</p>

11-23-2002, 12:36 PM	#18
Keith Russell Veteran Member Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Overland Park, Kansas Posts: 1,336	Amos said: There's been a disconnect here. Fact: Most people in this world LIKE the idea that they have free will. Keith: I remain unconvinced that this is a fact. I would wager (and good money, too) that most people on earth now, or who lived previously, have/had probably never given much thought to free will. Amos: A majority of individuals have no reason to believe they DON'T. Keith: Again, I would wager that a 'majority of individuals' wouldn't have a clue what you're talking about. Amos: Now, consider what the reaction would be if the earthly massives became convinced they had no free will. There might not be riots in the streets, but you can assure yourself of a rash of suicides the likes of which the world has never seen. Keith: Really? They would protest the [fact?] that they don't have free will, by freely choosing to commit suicide? Funny... Amos: There WOULD be consequences. Keith: Again, I would wager that the 'knowledge' wouldn't ruffle very many feathers at all... Keith. [ November 23, 2002: Message edited by: Keith Russell ]</p>

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11-22-2002, 03:51 PM	#11
tronvillain Veteran Member Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Alberta, Canada Posts: 5,658	You never actually defined free will in that argument. Since my definition of "free will" to be perfectly compatible with determinism the argument does nothing against it.

11-23-2002, 04:24 AM	#14
beausoleil Senior Member Join Date: May 2002 Location: US and UK Posts: 846	Since you asked about the effect on society, I will offer this... Just now I made a choice to make a cup of coffee. Whatever the underlying mechanism is, what I did is what we mean by 'making a choice'. This is independent of any considerations like those you make above. Hence the effect on society would be nil.

11-23-2002, 05:14 AM	#15
Zadok001 Veteran Member Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Two Steps Ahead Posts: 1,124	(Aside to beausoleil: Isn't that what makes it so interesting? We'd have no reason to change our behavior. But you can't tell me that if everyone BELIEVED there was no such thing as free will, things wouldn't change. I'd almost expect it to be apocalyptic.)

11-23-2002, 08:41 AM	#17
Zadok001 Veteran Member Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Two Steps Ahead Posts: 1,124	Amos: There's been a disconnect here. Fact: Most people in this world LIKE the idea that they have free will. A majority of individuals have no reason to believe they DON'T. Now, consider what the reaction would be if the earthly massives became convinced they had no free will. There might not be riots in the streets, but you can assure yourself of a rash of suicides the likes of which the world has never seen. There WOULD be consequences.

11-23-2002, 02:58 PM	#19
Zadok001 Veteran Member Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Two Steps Ahead Posts: 1,124	Well, first of all, I said that, not Amos. Amos agrees with you wholeheartedly. It's clearly, though, that this question becomes simply one of opinion - We can't predict reactions to such an event. I've spoken to a few people on this subject, presented the argument I made in the first post, and seen them walk away very dejected and upset. I believe, in general, people tend to like free will. When presented with the knowledge they have none, I think many people would lose hope and just off themselves in the most convienent way possible.

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