Free Will and Science

[SirNitram]

Okay. My brain, according to science and the little stint in the hospital when I was a wee cute bugger, is run by chemical/electrical reactions. No problem. But I've heard some say this contradicts Free Will. Why? Free Will, as far as I know, is the ability to make choices(Which I do. I look at my wallet, I look at munchies, I buy munchies. Or I don't.), and comprehend whether a choice is right or wrong(It is wrong to let your girlfriend off-road in a Dodge Neon..). So.. Um.. Where's the great conflict?

[Darth Wong]

Okay. My brain, according to science and the little stint in the hospital when I was a wee cute bugger, is run by chemical/electrical reactions. No problem. But I've heard some say this contradicts Free Will. Why? Free Will, as far as I know, is the ability to make choices(Which I do. I look at my wallet, I look at munchies, I buy munchies. Or I don't.), and comprehend whether a choice is right or wrong(It is wrong to let your girlfriend off-road in a Dodge Neon..). So.. Um.. Where's the great conflict?

<VADER>There is no conflict.</VADER>

[SirNitram]

Okay. My brain, according to science and the little stint in the hospital when I was a wee cute bugger, is run by chemical/electrical reactions. No problem. But I've heard some say this contradicts Free Will. Why? Free Will, as far as I know, is the ability to make choices(Which I do. I look at my wallet, I look at munchies, I buy munchies. Or I don't.), and comprehend whether a choice is right or wrong(It is wrong to let your girlfriend off-road in a Dodge Neon..). So.. Um.. Where's the great conflict?

<VADER>There is no conflict.</VADER>

Somehow, I could tell a Star Wars quote would appear.

[Rye]

Okay. My brain, according to science and the little stint in the hospital when I was a wee cute bugger, is run by chemical/electrical reactions. No problem. But I've heard some say this contradicts Free Will. Why? Free Will, as far as I know, is the ability to make choices(Which I do. I look at my wallet, I look at munchies, I buy munchies. Or I don't.), and comprehend whether a choice is right or wrong(It is wrong to let your girlfriend off-road in a Dodge Neon..). So.. Um.. Where's the great conflict?

<VADER>There is no conflict.</VADER>

Somehow, I could tell a Star Wars quote would appear.

On this board? you must be kidding.[/sarcasm]

[Companion Cube]

So..question answered then?

[kojikun]

your actions are entire random. freewill IS negated by determinism, but fucked up by quantum randomosity. So youre a big ball of random shit happening.

But who cares? All that matters is you get that nice feeling when you jerk off.

[Kuroneko]

Okay. My brain, according to science and the little stint in the hospital when I was a wee cute bugger, is run by chemical/electrical reactions. No problem. But I've heard some say this contradicts Free Will. Why?

The argument is if that your 'decisions' are made by chemo-electrical reactions, it is was not truly 'your' decision. There is an underlying assumption--that 'you' have a consciousness separable from those reactions (some sort of soul). Obviously, if you cannot make decisions with something other than the reactions in your brain, there is no real contradiction, because those decisions and choices are then as 'yours' as anything can be. Another other objection could be from determinism, but those reactions are not truly deterministic, and those uncertainties escalate in the long-term in something as complex as a brain.

Besides, what's so bad about determinism rather than free will, anyway? It makes for an interesting philosophical question, certainly, but pragmatically it makes not one whit of a difference in real life.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Okay. My brain, according to science and the little stint in the hospital when I was a wee cute bugger, is run by chemical/electrical reactions. No problem. But I've heard some say this contradicts Free Will. Why? Free Will, as far as I know, is the ability to make choices(Which I do. I look at my wallet, I look at munchies, I buy munchies. Or I don't.), and comprehend whether a choice is right or wrong(It is wrong to let your girlfriend off-road in a Dodge Neon..). So.. Um.. Where's the great conflict?

No conflict at all. There's so many electrochemical reactions going on inside your cranium at once that reliably predicting all the possible outcomes of your thought processes would require a computer of fairly significant computational power. So, unless one has the computing power to throw at it the problem, it looks like you have complete free will. And furthermore, there's no conflict because all your thought processes arise as a result of the electrochemical reactions going on in the top few layers of neural mush. So there is no such thing as a seperate free will. It's all integrated.

(P.S. Yes, it's wrong to let your girlfriend off-road in a Dodge Neon. Not if you like the Dodge Neon. )

[Wicked Pilot]

So.. Um.. Where's the great conflict?

As long as those chemical reactions are telling you to send me a large check in the mail, then there is no conflict.

[LadyTevar]

your actions are entire random. freewill IS negated by determinism, but fucked up by quantum randomosity. So youre a big ball of random shit happening.

But who cares? All that matters is you get that nice feeling when you jerk off.

SirNitram doesn't need to jerk off. He's one of the few on this board with a steady girlfriend.

[UltraViolence83]

Consciousness arises from nonthinking cells. Sprituality ("Soul") revolves around the very idea of consciousness...Thus, even philosophically, matter and mind, determinism and free will are all interconnected.


There is no conflict, my son, only confusion.




However I will remain a staunch supporter of the possibility of disembodied conciousness, paradoxically screwing up what I just said.

[Darth Wong]

SirNitram doesn't need to jerk off. He's one of the few on this board with a steady girlfriend.

So I take it that he is not allowed to jerk off onto his girlfriend?

[kojikun]

So I take it that he is not allowed to jerk off onto his girlfriend?

Damn, what a bitch girlfriend.

[UltraViolence83]

Veering more off-topic, how do you pronounce "bukkake," since we're on the subject of jerking off and its usual conclusion?

[kojikun]

book-ock-eh

technically its boo-kah-keh but some people dont grasp that hence the above.

[UltraViolence83]

Sweet. I was right all along.

[kojikun]

heh. i SHOULD go on to explain that the double k means that as you say the k you should pause then continue to make the k twice as long

[Darth Wong]

To return to the original subject:

Okay. My brain, according to science and the little stint in the hospital when I was a wee cute bugger, is run by chemical/electrical reactions. No problem. But I've heard some say this contradicts Free Will. Why?

Free will is a myth. It is impossible for you to make decisions without being influenced by various forms of determinism working together.

Free Will, as far as I know, is the ability to make choices

If that's how you define free will, then you have free will. Most people define it as the ability to make choices without being coerced or controlled, which is not possible due to the enormous impact that environment and various other factors have on our behaviour.

(Which I do. I look at my wallet, I look at munchies, I buy munchies. Or I don't.), and comprehend whether a choice is right or wrong(It is wrong to let your girlfriend off-road in a Dodge Neon..). So.. Um.. Where's the great conflict?

Comprehending whether a choice is right or wrong is a reasoning process based on certain premises which are the foundation of a system of ethics. You can make a choice based on that reasoning, but your decision to employ logical principles or certain ethical premises is not due to truly "free will"; it is a result of your environment (in Martin Luther's time, logic was not prized the way it is today; people freely assailed reason as the enemy of the church and a friend of evil). Free will is not related to the objectivity or logic of a decision-making process.

[UltraViolence83]

Pure free will isn't possible in the universe. You have the ability of well...determining your deterministic behavior. Short-term gratification or long-term benefits? Or do nothing at all? That is free will in my opinion. Simply choice.

Morbid Example of This Model of Free Will:
I think the kind of free will being discussed is the kind that lets you decide on things that you have complete (or at least a good amount of) control over the decision-making process. Like whether or not to kill that convient store clerk just for the hell of it. Weigh consequences of capture, versus the orgasmic thrill of the kill. You can kill him, you have the free will to do so even if you've been raised in a moral fashion; albeit if you're not Ted Bundy you may feel it is wrong to do so. Nonetheless, this feeling of guilt can be overcome with enough willpower.

[UltraViolence83]

I just needed to get that little bloodlust off of my chest. Lack of violent media prevealent in current life. Urge to kill...rising!


There's a reason why I'm named...Ultra-Violence.

[Trytostaydead]

Mmmm.. I think I understand the contradiction.

In some animals, all their behavior is in a Fixed Action Pattern (FAP), meaning when they encounter a releasor or a signal, they will enact into a pre-programmed behavior in their genetic code.

Other animals have a combination of both. Where they have to learn their behavior, but can either only learn it a certain way or has to fit a very rigorous template. For example, songbirds have to hear ONLY their species song at a crucial period or never learn it at all.. of course there are other rules and exceptions to this but that's oversimplified.

Then in even more advanced animals, there are particular 'preferences' made when given a choice but there's also a contradiction to what we normally believe as in "ingrained" behavior as well that is purely social.

For instance, baby monkeys will choose comfort over nutrition in isolation and when raised in isolation will actually not know how to have sex and if they are impregnanted will not engage in so-called 'maternal instinct' either.. they will abandon the baby or try to kill it.

So the conflict in higher-order animals isa very fuzzy line as to where we draw the line between genetically ingrained 'preferences' (or choices) and to what we believe is free-will. But also the other factor that comes to play in free-will compared to our genetic make-up, is that our learning mechanism is also so strong that some preferences and actions become innate and automatic rather than "free."

Hope this cleared it up some..

[Kuroneko]

Free Will, as far as I know, is the ability to make choices

If that's how you define free will, then you have free will. Most people define it as the ability to make choices without being coerced or controlled, which is not possible due to the enormous impact that environment and various other factors have on our behaviour.

A curious dichotomy. I've usually seen it defined pretty much as SirNitram put it--that people have the capacity to make a choice of action from alternatives. At face value, it seems obviously true, though I still wonder if that's simply a convenient illusion. After all, there is always only one path taken.

[Admiral Valdemar]

The question gets even better when you throw in the fact that "you" are made of trillions of little machines, especially your brain, so what exactly is self anyway let alone whether it is making your own decisions.

[LadyTevar]

So I take it that he is not allowed to jerk off onto his girlfriend?

Damn, what a bitch girlfriend.

Please do not insult me until I have had a chance to respond/refute or to tell Wong that it's none of business.

[Sriad]

Mmmm.. I think I understand the contradiction.

In some animals, all their behavior is in a Fixed Action Pattern (FAP)...

And so the thread comes full circle again. fap fap fap