Kent Stevens

We exhibit a broader range of behaviours than other animals do. We have more options but that does not qualify as free will. A cat for example has choice in a variety of different ways. It can like or dislike a particular person. It can chase after rats and mice or vege out on the sofa. It can fight neighbouring cats or avoid fights.

Perhaps cats can also have discussions with other cats about humans inability to make choices. Cats think that humans being dumb enough to provide food and milk to otherwise useless cats are not capable of choosing. Humans merely respond to stimuli such as cats meowing.

Bill

Genetic predisposition (the "nature" part of the "nature versus nurture" classic argument) is frequently overrated in its effects. Your genes give you predispositions to acquire abilities. But without the stimulus of environment, many abilities that your genes would allow you to acquire cannot in fact be acquired.

Language is one such ability. Some ancient king (I think it was Louis XIV of France) went to the trouble of conducting an experiment wherein he caused a group of children to be raised without any external "input" whatsoever. It was an attempt to determine exactly what "the natural state of man" really was. The kids were fed, but otherwise left totally free of all cultural influences (language, religion, etc.). Needless to say, these kids grew up to be a herd of wild animals. They did not possess any language skills at all because those skills had never been developed during their childhood. And once they reached adulthood, they lacked the ability to acquire language skills due to the depriviation of the appropriate training in their youth.

But most "cycles of behavior" (or, "habits") are not at all based upon genes. They are entirely learned. Human genes give us very little in terms of natural behaviors. When we are born, we know how to cry as a scream for attention; how to feed; and how to eliminate bodily waste. Beyond that, virtually all behaviors are learned from our environments. If there are any other innate human behaviors, they do not occur to me now.

And again, a large quantity of learning occurs before we are even born! A child learns not only the sound of its own mother's voice, but many of the rudiments of its own language, even before it first sees the light of day. It is now an accpeted practice to tell pregnant women that they ought to talk to their babies while they are still in the womb. This is useful for developing the mother-child bond and for developing the language skills of the child. Isn't it wonderful how English-speaking parents give birth to English-speaking children, while Spanish-speaking parents give birth to Spanish-speaking children? Well, there aren't "English" or "Spanish" genes; but rather, these are mental conditions that children begin to acquire even before they are born.

Ultimately, I believe that there is damn little of human behavior that is attributable to genetic influences. You might get some predispositions in there; such as a predisposition towards violent behavior due to some hormone imbalance due to a genetic defect. But you won't get any sort of complex human behavior (such as a repetitive "habit" of some sort) that is ultimately found to be the product of genetic influences.

== Bill

Kent Stevens

It is easy enough to get into semantic arguments as to what choice and free will means. My definition of choice does not include sentience.

Computing programming uses the notion of choice or decisions. Seemingly all programs can be represented by the three different types of statements namely sequence, decision, and looping constructs. So computer scientists use the metaphor of choice or decision in their non-sentenient programs.

If we were talking only about intention there may be less disagreement. I can intend to do things while the weather does not. Plants do not intend because they have no mental representation of things. If choice simply meant intention there would be not an issue here.

However plants do have "goals". Again I am stretching the meaning of the word goals but a plant does "try" to do various things in the interests of survival and reproduction just like every other organism does. A system can have goals and choice such as a plant does with no sentience going on at all.

excreationist

Mageth:
I did say that their paralysis was due to some accident, so I assumed they developed their intelligence through their former capacity for interactions with the world. If they didn't lose their original intelligence in the accident, why would they have to redevelop it?
I didn't say they would have to redevelop their intelligence...

And if they can't, as I proposed, interact with the world in any way, how can they express free will, in spite of their intelligence?
Through their thoughts. They would appear to others to be mindless vegetables... kind of like in the "Awakenings" movie... I think those people still were supposed to be thinking while they were paralysed.
The people would still be able to have a will... but if that desire involved affecting their environment then they wouldn't be able to do it.

Anyway, they would still be exercising "free will" (i.e. make decisions) I think, just not externally by interacting with the external environment...

Bill

That we have a choice is indisputed. The question is to what degree is our choice predetermined by the prior state of affairs that comprises our entire mental state.

It is true that humans are not bound to their "instincts" as much as other animals appear to be bound. But, as you recognize, "there must be some other factor which fills in this gap to make us as equally determined as other animals." That other factor is a complex one, which accounts for the complexity of human behaviors. That factor is the entire mental state which results from human culture.

Humans really are <a href="http://www.secweb.org/bookstore/bookdetail.asp?BookID=625" target="_blank">The Symbolic Species</a>, as Deacon suggests. We can retain a mind full of abstract symbols and order them into complex relationships. That entire library of thought becomes a strong factor in our behavior patterns. And that entire library of thought, derived as it is from human culture, largely overwhelms our natural human instincts in most normal situations. Who among us today would choose to "go potty" whenever we darn well felt like it? No, we have "potty trained" both ourselves and our household pets. In all cases, such behaviors result in the overcoming of instinct through ingrained training.

But does this body of human culture make our actions any less "determined" than the actions of lower animals? NO WAY!

Yes, this entire body of thought which has been inculcated into our brains represents exactly this "other factor which fills in this gap to make us as equally determined as other animals." And because of that situation, we are still absolutely and totally deterministic in our actions. It is just far harder to predict what our actions will be, at least in individual terms, because of the very individual nature of the thoughts which have been inculcated into each individual human brain.

== Bill

excreationist

Demosthenes:
To me, free will means having the ability to make decisions based on past knowledge and experience and also are unique during the moments they're made.

That's the crux of free will, at least for me, making unique decisions.

Making unique decisions could just mean that some random noise is added to the decision-making process...

But I think for many people, "free will" means more than that - they'd think it means being able to truly *choose* rather than following deterministic rules like a machine with a bit of randomness thrown in...

It's about feeling like a living human person and not like a system of dead atoms...

Though the idea of having real conscious (not wholly matter-dependent) choice mightn't make sense, I can understand the emotional reasons for wanting to think that way...

Bill

This is, plain and simple, a word game. You are defining behavior that crosses some undefined line of complexity as being "free will" because it can no longer be predicted. Well, the weather can't be predicted either, and there is no way we would characterize the weather as possessing "free will" in any way.

The "emergent complex behavior" you refer to does exist. But to simply label that "emergent complex behavior" as "free will" is an act of semantic incoherance. You will need to show us more than that if you expect me to switch over to your side.

== Bill

Bill

Yes, people don't like to admit that they are merely robots executing complex sets of programming; nor do most of them care to admit that there is no giant sky fairy who watches over them and promises them eternal paradise after a life of Hell on Earth.

People are far happier believing that they possess free will and that some diety or another will make them happy after they die. None of that is true, but it is easier (and more pleasing) during your life if you choose to believe in these two fallacies.

That explains the persistance of these two errors.

== Bill

Demosthenes

Allow me to modify my earlier statement. I definitely don't believe that the strong version of free will exist.

As for the weak version of free will, I feel that included in that definition is also the ability to make your own decisions seperate from external intelligent agencies and free from cocercion.

I'm skeptical by whether the above statement would prove to be accurate. The current psychbiological research suggest that the mind is much like an ecology with complex interrelating elements with emergent complexity properties playing an important role. Even if we knew all the programming and influences, we may still find significant divergences from the predictive models.

Undoubtly, the future research will eventually settle the physical issues though the same thing can't be said about the philosophical issues.

I can understand the emotional reasons too, but since you already feel like a living human person that should be all that matters. Does it really matter, aside for philosophical understanding, whether you possess free will or not, as long as you experience that you're making useful, functional, and worthy decisions?

[ August 17, 2002: Message edited by: Demosthenes ]</p>

dostf

Bill:

No matter what we do in our lives, our doing it is a product of what we have experienced prior to our doing. (bill)

- again this is a "time dependant" statement whos validity is based on the premise our "past" contains our "future"
-if an individual is able to "wipe clean" his "supposed past" the "prior experience" base of reference does not apply to that individual as a determining factor in "current behaviour outcome"
- does this mean we will somehow become idiots and unable to do anything?
- no the information needed is there to be used for our "normal functioning" - it however does not dictate whether we do or do not take a certain action

What I can conceive of is a product of:

my past experiences;
my internal "programming" (again, based upon my past experiences; because scientific experimentation has clearly shown us that the development of certain kinds of mental capabilities do depend upon our having certain experiences at certain ages);
and the current stimuli that I am experiencing (or at least, recently have experienced). (bill)

- again the idea of "past". "Time" is also a "perception". One's "past" may or may not dictate ones "present" depending on one's "relationship" to that "past"
- internal "programming" formed by past experiences shares the same difficulties as said above
- current stimuli effects us more or less again depending on the degree to which we are "tied" to previous thoughts or experiences

While you assert that my actions are something other than the product of the above pre-existing circumstances, I see nothing offered by you in the way of actual evidence. (bill)

- i do not assert that YOUR actions are a result of any other process than that you have described
- i am asserting that a different type of "living" is possible with a different set of "rules"- unfortunately words are not sufficient here as it is a "living"

Your assertion that "prayer, fasting, narcotics, ritual, 'sacred' dance, etc..." amounts to operations that are in some way NOT a function of my current mental state of mind, or which in some way overrides my mental state of mind, obviously is obscured by your misunderstanding of the broad meaning of the word "programming" in my prior post.(bill)

- the idea here is that these methods have been attempted in order to "go past" our "ordinary" mind or way of thinking, not that they are unrelated to our mental processes or "outside" them

If I engage in "prayer" I am engaging in a learned ritual. If it affects my behavior in any way, it is due to the force of the internal "programming" which this ritual of prayer exerts.(bill)

- i am not entirely sure what is meant by this statement so i will refrain from commenting...

Other ritual behaviors can have similar results IF I EXPECT SUCH RESULTS FROM SUCH RITUALS! Such expectations are a product of my prior environment (culture, religion, etc.).(bill)

- results from such activities ( prayer, fasting) are often different than expectations of what results from them (if anything)
- this one can verify for oneself

And just as obviously, the use of anything that changes my chemical state (fasting, narcotics, exercise or other stimulating activity, etc.) will just as obviously operate as part of the prior causal factors which influence what it is that I can (or will) do.(bill)

- certainly to a more or less degree

Just because our brains are complex, and have a plethora of nuances that can shove our decisions in one direction or another, does not in any way mean that our decisions are not determined by the state of affairs which exists at the time when the decision is made. To assert otherwise is to assert that we are connected to some external realm from whence such decisions are fed into us. That is a theistic claim, and it has NO SCIENTIFIC FOUNDATION!(bill)

- i would never state that we are somehow influenced by "some external realm" or "god" or "spirit" or whatever belief system people might choose
- By "state of affairs at the time the decision is made" i assume you mean "based on our past experiences"
- this is the point i would disagree on

So, while you ultimately make the claim that "the human being is NOT the 'total sum of its programming" and nothing more,' you offer us no evidence whatsoever upon which we might base a decision to agree with that claim. (bill)

- words are often inadequate to explain a "living" correctly and fully.
-the idea is that the human being as a sum of attributes which are based on "programming" (experience, genetics, upbringing, education,, etc.,) is incorrect- they are not "you"

I, on the other hand, have the whole of the field of psychology behind me, which asserts that human actions are something that can be controlled, in some cases by changing a chemical factor and in other changes by influencing a behavioral factor, but in all instances, by introducing some change to the environment of the individual which causes some change in the behavior of that individual.(bill)

- i certainly would not disagree with the ability to alter human action by a variety of outside influences
- i will not comment on the "phychological field of study" "backing you up",- only to state it does not have all the answere as I'm sure you would agree-still a valuable resourse nonetheless

Be seeing you...