Do we have free will? (originally posted on Science & Society)

You are intiteled to your own opinion, and you may never agree with me because you really have no choice. I was working under the assumption that choice alone does not imply free will even though it may be common sense to think of choice as an act of free will. But, I made the choice that it doesn't imply free will even though it would be apparent that making choices could give the "illiusion" of free will. By seperating choice from free will, then you can determine if free will is just really an "illusion" of predetermined choices.

 

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Wow. You took my advise but still managed to mangle it into incoherence. What on earth are "predetermined choices"? How can you call those any kind of choice at all? Seems you are equivocating. You do not seem to have the wherewithal to debate this subject, or any subject from what I have seen.

 

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That's illogical nonsense, nothing more.

Now... Let's see you answer the TWO questions I've posed here recently. The one about the shirt and the one about the steak dinner. Can you possibly be honest just long enough to answer them?

 

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A predetermined choice would be a choice that is made that would have come out to one single outcome or decision. There is no way to know if the choice you made is not the only choice to determine a certain action. You could think you made a choice but in fact under the given circumstances, you could have only made that one single choice. For instance, you have to make a choice to go to point A or point B. You then choose to go to point B. Under the same exact circumstance, could you ever really know that you would not have picked A instead? But, then if you are confronted with the question again, you could pick A. That does not mean at the time you picked B that you could have picked A. It just means that after being asked it a secound time that you made the choice to pick A instead. There would then be no way to know if would ever pick A if confronted with the question for the very first time.

 

I think it could be possible even though I suffer from a delusion that I do have free will. I have had deja vu many times where I determined that the events in deja vu occur the first time in dreams. I would then make a note to self that I had certain dreams, then I would later experience the event exactly the same way as I did in the dream. It was diffucult to retain the information long enough in order to prevent the event since I would forget about it and then end up doing the same exact thing. But, then I was able to remember the events by constantly reminding myself of the events and would think about it anytime entering a similar situation. But then I would end up having thoughts in the original dream that pertained to me doing this. Eventually, I ended up having slightly different events happen at the time I would have deja vu. After doing this I no longer had dreams that lead to having deja vu.

 

So, where is the physics and math? Or even some credible references? This is an old rehashed discussion that belongs in philosophy or psychology...

 

Science does not yet even understand how the brain really works. There is no math of this nature. I told a buddy about it a long time ago and then he had the same experiences. The only evidence of this would be picking out dreams that you have that you think are actual events that can take place in your future. Then remember that dream until the time you then have deja vu. I wasn't aware that anyone has ever claimed that deja vu comes from dreams. I think it is a miracle that we can have human consciousness when it is only the fireing of electrical impulses in our brain. I think the particles that have these interactions are displaced in time, so then while we sleep we can pick up on impulses at different times. So I think deja vu could be a result of some type of entanglement inside of the brain. I don't have any evidence or links to show about it because I am only speaking from personal experience. It sounds kind of crazy, but if you do it, it will freak you out and possibly change your perspective on things like free will and fate.

 

I see you made NO attempt to answer the question at all. Therefore we have no choice but to label you a HIGHLY dishonest individual. That's pretty sad - you could have at least attempted an answer instead of showing your lack of intelligence in attempting to dodge the issue completely.

Oh, well, just another useless forum member who has no personal integrity at all. <shrug>

 

So you require time travel to disprove free will, huh? Good luck with that.

People can and do act against their instincts and desires (their natural inclinations) all the time. Otherwise, what are you resisting when you exercise self-control?


I agree. This topic does not belong in Physics & Math, and should probably just be merged with its duplicate and moved to philosophy. Or even easier, just delete it.

 

I vote for the latter. The "believer" have done nothing but fill it with double-talk and nonsense.

 

I don't see any other way you could have the right scientific controls.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_control

So then since we don't have access to time travel then there would be no way to have appropriate scientific controls. But even so, I think determining the correct controls for such an experiment would be in the realm of philosophy. Then again I don't think you would be capable of such a discussion so it should probably just be deleted as well.

Just because someone acts against their own instincts doesn't mean they have free will, the choice they made to do so could be predetermined. There would be no way to prove that, except maybe my hypothetical experiment.

 

If you do that then you will have no choice but to not agree with anything I say even when it is factual and true. If you can't beat them, join them. Maybe I would even care about my own personal integrity if I was treated with even the least bit of respect. Your talking to a man with nothing to lose.

 

@ Read-Only

Wow. Apparently your just determined his integrity for him. Try not to let the power go to your head.

 

Then one day you will remember a dream that was exactly the same as an instance you had deja vu, and then like a time bomb waiting to go off it will completely destroy everything you think you know about science and reality. Muahahhahahahah....

 

Must be the glee of insanity.

 

Excellent, he is still falling into my little trap.

 

Heh!

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Thing is, when someone *obviously* avoids answering direct questions, they are completely dishonest and worthless. And he's about as bright as a burnt-out lightbulb.

 

It's clear that they must have values when they interact - only we can not determine them with any accuracy. Hence indeterminism but without violating cause and effect.
That is my point.
Whether you subscribe to some idea of hidden variables or not is moot with regard this point.

 

As I have previously mentioned, I consider the key thing to do is ensure that you are first referring to the same conception of free-will, whether one is talking only about the conscious experience of making a choice, or whether one is talking about the concept that one's consciousness is the initial cause of actions (i.e. is not driven wholly and exclusively by underlying causes).

If you hold to the former then it is self-evidence that free-will exists.
This appears to be your concept of free-will, Read-Only.

But in doing so you limit your discussion only to matters of conscious perception, not to the wider philosophy nor to the science behind consciousness and free-will.

Free-will, to me, is an illusion: it exists, but it is somewhat different than the "consciousness is the ultimate cause of activity" that we consciously perceive it to be.
This is where the science leads me.
It is certainly not baseless - but based very much on the evidence that we have of the interactions between atoms and molecules.
If one concludes that all we are is atoms and molecules etc, albeit one that is of such complexity that consciousness has arisen (without the need for introduction of non-material causes such as soul, spirit etc) then it is a logical conclusion that what we consider / perceive to be our consciousness being the ultimate cause of activity is merely illusory, and that the underlying causes are the interactions of the molecules... that free-will is merely a perception, an illusion.

Personally I find those that hold to the concept of free-will that assigns consciousness as the ultimate arbiter of activity to be naive.
However, given that we operate, and can not help but operate, at the level of consciousness, and that our consciousness perceives itself to be the arbiter, then we have no option but to operate at a practical level as if it is the ultimate arbiter - and thus such things as responsibility, ethics, morality all remain in tact. To argue that the position requires otherwise is to misunderstand the position.
Therefore I do not hold that anyone who concludes that we have no free-will does so to abdicate responsibility - and the idea that it is a prevalent reason is to grossly distort the picture, not to mention a false dichotomy.

If one does not hold to the idea of free-will (as in consciousness being the ultimate arbiter) then there is no need to conclude on determinism... it is not (as far as I understand) a logical conclusion from the "no free-will" position due to randomness - where outcomes are not determined but no less "free". There is an argument for concluding one logically leads to the other: if one holds to the idea that "randomness" is merely due to our lack of knowledge of the process. But one does not need to hold to this.
So please do not equate one with the other.

 

We use perturbation theory to model most fundamental particle interactions because they cannot be solved exactly, and must be approximated. This is a result of inherent quantum uncertainty, not the observer effect (which is often naively conflated with quantum uncertainty). This is due to the complexity of modeling the probabilities.

Generally, quantum mechanics does not assign definite values. Instead, it makes a prediction using a probability distribution...

However, quantum mechanics does not pinpoint the exact values of a particle's position and momentum (since they are conjugate pairs) or its energy and time (since they too are conjugate pairs); rather, it only provides a range of probabilities of where that particle might be given its momentum and momentum probability. -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mechanics​

So your attempts to shoehorn determinism into quantum systems is not justified. You must fall back to nebulous notions such as "randomly determined" or "probabilistically determined".