Does free will exist?

[Ursa major]

There's no need to be rude....

[RJM Corbet]

Sometimes it seems to me that we are all like fleas trying to understand the nature of the dog we live on ...

[Huttman]

Woof!
It's Worf.

[RJM Corbet]

Originally Posted by Huttman

Woof!

Perhaps the difference is that, unlike fleas, we do try to understand?
Maybe they do?

[Huttman]

I think it is safe to say fleas have more of a action/reaction instinct to them. I think humanity has something special in the understanding our place in existence thing. Human kind are special, unique. But don't take my word for it...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XZH3e6-mPc

[hopewrites]

whether it does or not, we (as humans) wish very much for it to.
I was thinking the other day about paradoxes and why they are uniformly forbidden. What is so taboo about creating a paradox? and then it hit me. paradoxes confirm predestination, predestination excludes free will. If I build a time machine and go back in time to pick up a pebble that I would otherwise trip on walking down the street, free will is now no longer an option. I am predestined to walk down the street and not trip on the pebble just as I am predestined to build a time machine and go back in time to pick it up.
It's no longer a matter of chose, but something I must do.

That I believe strongly enough in free will that I have a 'natural' disinclination to create or perpetuate a paradox which would negate the free will I believe in, is strong enough evidence for me that free will is something that humanity will protect for a long time to come.

[RJM Corbet]

Originally Posted by hopewrites

... I am predestined to walk down the street and not trip on the pebble ...

Hmmm ... I've applied my flea brain to this one and come to the conclusion that the difference between FATE and DESTINY is more than just semantic.

Free will allows us to control our own fate. You can decide which side of the street you walk on.

But not the day of your birth or, I believe of your death, or the children you will have, etc. Those things are destiny.

You know, like Christopher Reeve was paralysed in a riding accident. He might think: Oh, if I hadn't done that ...

But if he hadn't been on that horse, perhaps he would have been hit by a car or something, that day. Somehow God needed that to happen to him, for his soul's development, which is what we're really here for?

The common theme of all religions is that we're not in this world for fun.

There was a time in John Lennon's life apparently, when he'd just walk across the road through New York traffic without looking, to the screeching of tyres and blasting of horns, testing the belief that he wouldn't die that day unless he was meant to.

And when he did die, he was shot in the back on his way to the corner shop for milk. Nothing he could have done about it.

Perhaps by exercising our free will wisely, in the direction of inner not outer things -- being 'in but not of the world' -- we may be able to soften certain hard strokes of destiny.

Something like that?

EDIT: Huttman, sorry I didn't ignore your post but found nothing to add to it. Agree fully ...

[hopewrites]

I agree that fate and destiny are similar yet separate. For me it is perspective that separates them. I chose not to ask my fate of any who might provide it to me, because I don't want knowing to bring it about. For me destiny is the fate one actively seeks. For example the person whos death is foretold to them can attempt to escape their fate or peacefully embrace their destiny.

What I was trying to point out with the paradoxes is that because of free will one can nether travel to the past or future, as nether could happen the same way more than the way they happen when they are given the chance to be the present.

"You can never step in the same river twice" kind of deal.

[RJM Corbet]

Originally Posted by hopewrites

... What I was trying to point out with the paradoxes is that because of free will one can nether travel to the past or future, as nether could happen the same way more than the way they happen when they are given the chance to be the present.

Or because we exist in the dimension of nature?

Nature in the sense of all that we can perceive and know, including the stars, dark energy, quarks, etc.

All that exists in nature exists by virtue of time. We try to measure the time to the big bang, the age of the earth, etc. We can't see beyond time. The room of nature is defined by walls of time, within a greater house that surrounds and contains and permeates the time/space dimension of nature, but is not contained by it?

The greater wheel that turns the lesser wheel of nature. Call it spirit, doesn't matter the name?

[j. d. worthington]

Here's an interesting bit of information on this one. The relevant portion begins at 4:42....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qX_d...feature=relmfu

[HareBrain]

Not so much "an interesting bit of information" as a summary of mine and others' arguments throughout this thread, and from someone with the scientific background to give it serious credibility. The video is excellent generally (not the most visually innovative I've seen, but that's actually quite refreshing).

[Moonbat]

That was interesting. It seems, if I understood right, and from a neuro-physiological POV, that the decisions we make, in the micro sense, like moving our arm, are precipitated by an un-conscious thought. The fact that the thought rises un-consciously before I (the witness) have a chance to realise it does not stop it from being my thought, but it does suggest that I had no conscious control over it.

I think when you get to the Macro part of the decision, like choosing to go to a specific university the descision can be made logically and the pros and cons weighed up and then a descision reached.

For example, I recently moved to Honiton. My GF (now Fiancee) and I had decided to move to Devon, we looked at lots of towns and ended up with 5 in a shortlist. We then used a scoring method to see how each one rated on a set of different aspects, then looked at which one came out top (Honiton)

Now, although I can't say why we chose exactly which numbers for each aspect, or why those specific aspects, at some point an un-conscious decision was made to use those aspects, but at a larger level I can see why we chose Honiton.

Sam also said that if neuroscientists were wathcing my brain they could decide which arm I would move seconds before I was aware of it, I'm not sure that it is truly seconds, some descisions are made in less than a second (I'm thinking of sporting descisions) and although I'm sure there could be a similar pre-cognition that is detected in the brain before I jink right past a defender, I don't think it would be seconds before I did it, the defender's movements would have dictated what I would do and only when I have observed it (even if my actual observation was un-conscious and prior to my conscious realisation that I can go past him on the right)

There is, it seems, a line draw below the I that is conscious, and because many descisions within my own body and brain happen beneath this line they cannot be ascribed to me (the consciousness of Moonbat) yet the body and brain are mine and the descsions come from within me. I don't consciously breathe, in fact to hold my breath takes conscious effort, but would you say that I (the conscious Moonbat) don't breathe, I guess not.
I don't consciosuly digest my food, in fact I have no conscious control over it, but the food is digested by me and my body.

Before I became self aware (around the age of two whilst looking in a mirror in my Mother's bedroom - it could be a false memory) were my actions and thought conscious when I have/had no 'I' to witness them?

It seems it all comes down to the line between consciousness and unconciousness, which is a poorly understood line (I think) and so maybe my unconscious mind is affected by my conscious mind.

[HareBrain]

Originally Posted by Moonbat

Sam also said that if neuroscientists were wathcing my brain they could decide which arm I would move seconds before I was aware of it, I'm not sure that it is truly seconds, some descisions are made in less than a second

I really don't think he said seconds, but I can't quickly find the bit to check.

Re your decision to move, the argument is that the entire rational process you went through was generated by your unconscious mind, even your apparently conscious contributions to it. What we tend to think of as our conscious self, the "I", is only an observer of what has already arisen in the brain (thought as well as sensory information) and its effects. If you've ever attempted meditation, you quickly realise that the mind generates thought without any prompting by the conscious; it chatters like an agitated monkey. Rational thought is just the same activity, but more closely focused. We cannot choose what to think, because we are only aware of a thought once it has arisen. The closest to free will would appear to be to decide how we react to what we think, but even this reaction is a thought, and again, we haven't decided to have it.

What I find interesting is the idea that the highest states of consciousness, the goal of meditation, are those in which no thoughts arise at all.

So if even our rational decision-making isn't the exercise of free will, what would free will be like if it existed? How would we know it? To be free of influence by a brain, it seems to me that it would have to be a quality possessed only by an entity without a brain, which is a matter for philosophical or spiritual speculation.

[Moonbat]

What we tend to think of as our conscious self, the "I", is only an observer of what has already arisen in the brain

This is what I was trying to refer to as the line between consciousness and unconsciousness, the self/observer/witness/I may not be aware of the descision, but the unconsciousness is still part of my brain, it resides inside my brain. Although a descision to move a limb registers unconsciously before I realise (consciously) that I will do it isn't that just because the way the brain is wired? If we all had to consciously focus on moving a limb to the point where we thought about it and could 'hear' (not really the right word for thought) that thought in our minds, as the 'I' the observer, then we would suffer from much slower reaction times, and an inability to walk and talk or listen at the same time.

If a descision is made at a neuronal level then I wouldn't expect to know about it until a short while after the firing of that neuron. My consciousness could never be so precise or fine tuned to notice/witness every neuron that fires, and consicously be aware of it. I guess we don't know enough about the path of a thought through the brain to really see when a cascade of firing neurons turns into a conscious thought, and even if we do (and I'm sure one day we will) can it be said that the firings prior to that point are unconscious and therefore outside of the influence of the I that witnesses consciousness. - I hope that made some sense

I might be straying from the argument of free will, but I think I'm still in the ball park.

He says 'would allow scientists to predict which hand I was going to move seconds before I'm consciously aware of it.' at about 9:02

[j. d. worthington]

The thing is (and the research is increasingly supporting this): there is no "I". "I", the ego, is a construct, an emergent property of ongoing processes in the brain. It can be altered by drugs, injury, illness, any number of things. There are, for instances, cases of patients whose brains have had to be split, who develop into two distinctly different personalities. One case I've heard spoken of (by the physician involved) became, on one side, devoutly religious, whilst the other was atheist. Fully developed personalities, mind you; two different egos.

The idea of the "I", or what Daniel Dennett has called "Cartesian theatre", is quickly being dismantled, and is going to force a reassessment of how we think about consciousness in general. Sam Harris addresses this in either this or the companion video (I cannot recall which) and, again, neuroscience is confirming this more and more....

EDIT: Ah, I see this point has already been addressed. Still, "I" hope the above isn't entirely useless....