Free Will

[Shane Roach]

Someone once tried to tell me that our eyes actually see things upside down and our brains flip the image around, but that can't be true since it flies in the face of what I percieve. Ask anybody, they'll tell you the same thing. We preceive seeing things right side up, so of course our eyes do see things right side up.

Riiiiiiiiggggght?

Which part of your brain is the "top" where its perception of vision is concerned? What is this me that the brain in interpreting to? What the heck difference does it make to begin with? It works, that's the point.

This sort of argument is exactly why I took the stance I did on the epistemological skepticism thread. Tossing indovidual examples around of where perception may seem misleading or where someone indeed mispercieves something is nothing more than a reaffirmation that perceptions actually WORK, because the minute you percieve that you previously had a wrong perception, you change your ideas.

You know good and well your perceptions work most the time. If you have a real reason to doubt that we have the freedoms we seem to have, that's one thing. To sloppily throw every conceivable cause for any decision into a vat and label it "reasons", then bounce around and yell triumphantly that all decisions have reasons and therefore are controlled by reasons and therefore out of the control of the decision maker is absurd.

 

[David Gould]

The point is that you don't "interpret" perceptions. There are situations where they can be misleading, and if you ever got around to explaining why it is they would be so in this case it would be interesting,

I think we are simply using different terms for the same thing here. What you call someone being misled, I call someone wrongly interpreting their perceptions. So I do not actually think we disagree here.

As to the misleading thing with free will, I am happy to give a brief outline here. I strongly recommend the book 'The Illusion of Conscious Will' by Daniel Wegner if you are interested in looking at this further.

The illusion is perpetrated through us being mislead as to the cause of our decisions (or misinterpreting our perceptions of the process).

In my mind, and likely this works for you, too, I perceive a process where I choose the words I want to type, for example. In other words, various options present themselves and I choose between them.

Ignoring my questions regarding the nature of this I, what is that I actually detect here?

I detect options. I detect a narrowing of options (which I interpret as me choosing between them). I detect a result (which I interpret as me making my final decision). I act on that result.

If we remove the interpretations, we have options, a narrowing of them, a result, and an action.

If I had no free will, would there be any differences? In other words, if I did not do the narrowing, pick the result or take the action but something else did - let us say fancifully that it was someone controlling my mind with telepathy - would I perceive any differences?

Options would be presented to me. I would experience them narrowing (with that narrowing taking place within my mind). I would experience a result being chosen (again, within my mind). And I would act on that result.

In other words, there is no way to differentiate between me being the cause of my thoughts and thought processes and someone - or something else - being the cause of my thoughts and thought processes.

The illusion of free will is in fact built-in to the brain.

At the heart of your argument appears to be an assumption that we are programmed inside and cannot help but react in certain ways to certain stimuli, but this flies into the face of what I percieve. If my perception is wrong, then why should I trust perceptions that lead me to even so much as believe in non-contradiction? If the world is so unreliable that I can't trust the very faculties I use to detect the world around me, then all this is pretty much moot.

I think you are overreacting here. Just because your faculties cause you to perceive free will where there is none does not mean that your faculties cannot distinguish between a planet and a duck, for example.

In fact, the illusion that is free will is a very special illusion indeed, because it is contained within the mind and arises from the way the very way the mind operates. In other words, being fooled on this issue is like being fooled by a master magician who is working very hard to fool you. The rest of the world does not operate in that way.

 

[Shane Roach]

In other words, there is no way to differentiate between me being the cause of my thoughts and thought processes and someone - or something else - being the cause of my thoughts and thought processes.

The illusion of free will is in fact built-in to the brain.

It's funny that you should say this, because we were just having a discussion, I think I mentioned it, about Epistemological Skepticism .

Several times people say that the concept of being a brain in a vat, as they put it, is just an extreme example of what it means to be an epistemological skeptic, but you are here basically saying that that is exactly what the problem is here, that we can not tell the difference between self determination and having no ability to self determine.

I find the assumption that there is an illusion there untenable, but at the same time I would like to say thanks for at least coming out and saying what you mean. I have been aware of the idea for a long time, probably since high school, being a sci fi buff for a while and all.

I do not say that I have some sort of proof that this is a wrong way of looking at the world, but I do not believe it and I do not see, again, what with all the depth and complexity involved, how one could be as sure as you seem to be that it is somehow physically impossible.

I find no reason to just assume something is an illusion. I even think that what emotional connection I have to the idea of free will comes more from the seeming absurdity of it that anything to do with religion, because I am aware of some ways of looking at the Christian religion that are themselves deterministic. I do not buy into them, but there are scriptures that come so close to saying everything is pre-determined that it is hard really to see another interpretion of those individual verse. In fact, if there were anything that I might see as a real problem in the whole Biblical contradictions, it is precisely this issue of some verses holding people accountable and speaking of people's choices, and the others that speak of predestiny.

I think there is a LOT that is simply not known or understood about perception and thought and will, but just on its face I am unwilling to just forsake what actually seems to me to be the most obvious answer, which is that we percieve ourselves to be acting independantly because we are.

 

[David Gould]

It's funny that you should say this, because we were just having a discussion, I think I mentioned it, about Epistemological Skepticism .

Several times people say that the concept of being a brain in a vat, as they put it, is just an extreme example of what it means to be an epistemological skeptic, but you are here basically saying that that is exactly what the problem is here, that we can not tell the difference between self determination and having no ability to self determine.

We cannot empirically determine the difference, correct. But if one explanation is in fact logically impossible and the other not logically impossible ...

I find the assumption that there is an illusion there untenable, but at the same time I would like to say thanks for at least coming out and saying what you mean. I have been aware of the idea for a long time, probably since high school, being a sci fi buff for a while and all.

I do not say that I have some sort of proof that this is a wrong way of looking at the world, but I do not believe it and I do not see, again, what with all the depth and complexity involved, how one could be as sure as you seem to be that it is somehow physically impossible.

Not physically impossible; logically impossible.

I find no reason to just assume something is an illusion.

I did not just assume that free will was an illusion. I have been a believer in free will for all my life excepting the last three years.

I even think that what emotional connection I have to the idea of free will comes more from the seeming absurdity of it that anything to do with religion, because I am aware of some ways of looking at the Christian religion that are themselves deterministic. I do not buy into them, but there are scriptures that come so close to saying everything is pre-determined that it is hard really to see another interpretion of those individual verse. In fact, if there were anything that I might see as a real problem in the whole Biblical contradictions, it is precisely this issue of some verses holding people accountable and speaking of people's choices, and the others that speak of predestiny.

I was an Arminian Christian, although I had never heard the term 'Arminian' before becoming an atheist. Calvinism is interesting in some ways, but in other ways it is a little bit odd ...

I think there is a LOT that is simply not known or understood about perception and thought and will, but just on its face I am unwilling to just forsake what actually seems to me to be the most obvious answer, which is that we percieve ourselves to be acting independantly because we are.

Fair enough. I should point out, though, that in areas where we do not know much the obvious answers have often turned out to in fact be incorrect. Relativity and quantum mechanics are two prime examples. The fact that with a limited understanding of the brain the majority opinion is that we have free will is, in my view, actually a strike against the position.

 

[Shane Roach]

Fair enough. I should point out, though, that in areas where we do not know much the obvious answers have often turned out to in fact be incorrect. Relativity and quantum mechanics are two prime examples. The fact that with a limited understanding of the brain the majority opinion is that we have free will is, in my view, actually a strike against the position.

I don't think relativity or quantum mechanics goes against any sort of common belief. I think specifically quantum mechanics, or at least QED, begins to give us some insight into things like exactly what we are talking about, specifically how observation itself affects actual physical phenomenon. It is the first mechanism ever actually observed where something that seems insubstantial actually effects the physical world.

These are actually just examples of observing more and having some old ideas based on theory and logic trashed by observation.

 

[Shane Roach]

We cannot empirically determine the difference, correct. But if one explanation is in fact logically impossible and the other not logically impossible ...

Well, my point was that on that thread defenders of epistemological skepticsm began slowly to distance themselves from the brain in a vat concept as anything real, but here we are discussing the possibility that we are basically brains in living vats fooled by none other than our own brains.

Would have been hard to get that point without reading a lot of that thread though, so I can't really blame you for not getting the reference.

 

[David Gould]

I don't think relativity or quantum mechanics goes against any sort of common belief. I think specifically quantum mechanics, or at least QED, begins to give us some insight into things like exactly what we are talking about, specifically how observation itself affects actual physical phenomenon. It is the first mechanism ever actually observed where something that seems insubstantial actually effects the physical world.

I think this is a huge misinterpretation of quantum mechanics. I should note, though, that you said 'seems insubstantial'.

These are actually just examples of observing more and having some old ideas based on theory and logic trashed by observation.

Another misinterpretation. There is nothing logically impossible about things becoming heavier as they get faster. It is just counter-intuitive.

It seems to me that we have very different views on very many things. Interesting, don't you think?

 

[Shane Roach]

I think this is a huge misinterpretation of quantum mechanics. I should note, though, that you said 'seems insubstantial'.

I'm no quantum physicist....

Another misinterpretation. There is nothing logically impossible about things becoming heavier as they get faster. It is just counter-intuitive.

It seems to me that we have very different views on very many things. Interesting, don't you think?

I actually think you're outright wrong on this one. It would have been thought logically impossible until experiment and observation changed accepted ideas that had grown to be held as nigh axiomatic.

Where axioms and logic find themselves in opposition to observed reality, it is actually assumptions, axioms, and flawed logic that need to give way and not the other way around.

 

[David Gould]

I'm no quantum physicist....

I actually think you're outright wrong on this one. It would have been thought logically impossible until experiment and observation changed accepted ideas that had grown to be held as nigh axiomatic.

There is a difference between the average person thinking something to be logically impossible and actually demonstrating that fact.

Can you, for example, show that it is logically impossible for things to increase in mass as they get faster?

I do not think that you can - in other words, I do not think that observed reality can contradict logic.

Where axioms and logic find themselves in opposition to observed reality, it is actually assumptions, axioms, and flawed logic that need to give way and not the other way around.

I note that you said 'flawed logic' here. I agree: flawed logic is what gives way. However, if there is no flaw, logic rules out incorrect interpretations of data. This is, in fact, what science does.

 

[Shane Roach]

There is a difference between the average person thinking something to be logically impossible and actually demonstrating that fact.

The problem is that it was not just the average person. It was logic based on ideas that happened to be false.

I note that you said 'flawed logic' here. I agree: flawed logic is what gives way. However, if there is no flaw, logic rules out incorrect interpretations of data. This is, in fact, what science does.

I think the flaw in your logic and also the error in your opinion about what science does is that you do not properly separate ideas from demonstrated facts. If you start out with bad assumptions, it doesn't matter how flawlessly you deduce from there. You are deducing from wrong axioms. That is what actually happened in the past when accepted ideas were overthrown by science. They were not at all overthrown by logic. People have been using formal logic for centuries and informal logic since whenever man began to be a thinking creature. There's nothing magic or infallible about simply deducing things from ones understanding of observations.

Your assumption is that my observations are wrong. My assumption is that yours are wrong. There is no room for logic in this discussion at all. It is purely a matter of opinion.

 

[David Gould]

The problem is that it was not just the average person. It was logic based on ideas that happened to be false.

I have never seen a logical argument that showed that it was logically impossible for things to increase in mass as they moved faster. I am pretty certain that no such argument was ever presented - the idea was not actually considered, in fact.

I think the flaw in your logic and also the error in your opinion about what science does is that you do not properly separate ideas from demonstrated facts. If you start out with bad assumptions, it doesn't matter how flawlessly you deduce from there.

I agree. But this is the key point: if we all agree on the assumptions, then we have no choice but to agree with the logical conclusion, correct?

You are deducing from wrong axioms.

Am I? What are these axioms and why don't you agree with them?

That is what actually happened in the past when accepted ideas were overthrown by science. They were not at all overthrown by logic.

Yes, they were. For example, the famous experiments to detect the medium through which light moved detected no such medium. To use that to eliminate the medium from consideration requires logical analysis:

P1: If the medium exists, when we do X, Y will happen.
P2: When we do X, Y does not happen.
C: The medium does not exist.

This is the core of the scientific method - falsification. It completely relies on logic.

People have been using formal logic for centuries and informal logic since whenever man began to be a thinking creature. There's nothing magic or infallible about simply deducing things from ones understanding of observations.

I agree.

Your assumption is that my observations are wrong. My assumption is that yours are wrong. There is no room for logic in this discussion at all. It is purely a matter of opinion.

Um, no.

You see, we can analyse those observations (and more to the point the interpretations of them) in the same way that the observations to examine whether there existed a medium for light to travel through.

1.) If free will exists, X must be the case.
2.) X is not the case.
3.) Free will does not exist.

alternatively:

1.) If free will does not exist, Y must be the case.
2.) Y is not the case.
3.) Free will exists.

I believe that I have done the first of these. For the argument to follow, obviously the premises have to be true. But if we all agree on the premises and have found them to hold in other situations, the conclusion logical follows.

 

[Gracchus]

Cause and effect and free will are illusions.

If we see Schroedinger's cat walk by a slit behind the fence we see first the nose, then the head, then the body, then the tail. So we say that the head causes the tail. We have no reason to doubt causality until a tailess cat walks by. Then we say that sometimes the hind legs don't cause a tail.

We say that we have free will, but we always do what we want to do, except when we are prohibited by circumstances. Even the founder of Christianity, Saul of Tarsus, was aware of the problem.

Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.

KJV Romans 7:20

His excuse seems to be that the devil made him do it. In fact, he, like the rest of us, did just what he pleased, save when prevented by circumstances, and he cannot choose what pleases him. Some people believe in free will, but they have to.

Right and wrong are the illusions we project onto reality.

 

[Shane Roach]

This is the core of the scientific method - falsification. It completely relies on logic.

No, it does not. It completely relies on observation to establish what is and is not falsified, not logic.

You see, we can analyse those observations (and more to the point the interpretations of them) in the same way that the observations to examine whether there existed a medium for light to travel through.

1.) If free will exists, X must be the case.
2.) X is not the case.
3.) Free will does not exist.

alternatively:

1.) If free will does not exist, Y must be the case.
2.) Y is not the case.
3.) Free will exists.

I believe that I have done the first of these. For the argument to follow, obviously the premises have to be true. But if we all agree on the premises and have found them to hold in other situations, the conclusion logical follows.

We don't agree on the premise though. That's the entire problem. You have simply thown willful choices in with all the other reasons, then I guess "begged the question" or whatever, by arguing that no one has any control over their own reasoning abilities.

 

[Shane Roach]

Cause and effect and free will are illusions.

If we see Schroedinger's cat walk by a slit behind the fence we see first the nose, then the head, then the body, then the tail. So we say that the head causes the tail. We have no reason to doubt causality until a tailess cat walks by. Then we say that sometimes the hind legs don't cause a tail.

We say that we have free will, but we always do what we want to do, except when we are prohibited by circumstances. Even the founder of Christianity, Saul of Tarsus, was aware of the problem.

KJV Romans 7:20

His excuse seems to be that the devil made him do it. In fact, he, like the rest of us, did just what he pleased, save when prevented by circumstances, and he cannot choose what pleases him. Some people believe in free will, but they have to.

Right and wrong are the illusions we project onto reality.

If I see a cat passing by a crack in a fence, I by no meals think the whiskers cause the tail...?

I think you're all off on how you are using Schrodinger there too, though I may be missing something.

Anyhow, as for the verse above, I have already said it is something of a mystery to me, but it seems we have some strange mix of predestiny and free will going on in the Bible.

 

[KCDAD]

Cause and effect and free will are illusions.

If we see Schroedinger's cat walk by a slit behind the fence we see first the nose, then the head, then the body, then the tail. So we say that the head causes the tail. We have no reason to doubt causality until a tailess cat walks by. Then we say that sometimes the hind legs don't cause a tail.

This is pre-operational thinking in Piaget's description of cognitive development.
The more mature brain recognises and anticipates reality. The oncoming of the head is a precursor to the tail but does not cause it for the cat may discontinue its route or in the case of a Manx, be tailess.

 

[TeddyKGB]

No, it does not. It completely relies on observation to establish what is and is not falsified, not logic.

Observation determines whether or not a premise is said to be true, but the structure of falsification is strictly deductive.

 

[Shane Roach]

Observation determines whether or not a premise is said to be true, but the structure of falsification is strictly deductive.

I'm not sure if that doesn't break down though when you are speaking of immaterial things. Non-contradiction and the like are fine if you are speaking of the material world, but for example, how can we have both choice and predestiny? It doesn't really matter if you believe your will is free or not, there is this niggling fact that we make choices. Why do we choose? Why are we not just riding along an experiential highway with no illusions about choices?

How can physical processes create this non-physical phenomenon of consciuosness? Why are we even aware of anything? Strict logic would tell me, at least, that there should be no tie between the physical and perceptions. We would simply be walking around behaving in complex but predetermined ways completely oblivious to the fact that we are doing so.

The very definition of the physical vs the immaterial would seem to suggest that neither can work on the other, yet there it is happening. It defies strict logic.

It is one thing to accuse people of hiding God in the gaps of knowledge. It is quite another to make sweeping generalizations about something that we actually have almost no understanding of to begin with.

 

[TeddyKGB]

I'm not sure if that doesn't break down though when you are speaking of immaterial things. Non-contradiction and the like are fine if you are speaking of the material world, but for example, how can we have both choice and predestiny?

We can't if those terms entail mutually exclusive qualities.

It doesn't really matter if you believe your will is free or not, there is this niggling fact that we make choices. Why do we choose? Why are we not just riding along an experiential highway with no illusions about choices?

Well, we have limited epistemic access even to our own mental processes. What may appear to be the case may not actually be the case at a deeper level of abstraction, as exemplified by the earlier example of visual oddities made by Todd and myself.

How can physical processes create this non-physical phenomenon of consciuosness? Why are we even aware of anything? Strict logic would tell me, at least, that there should be no tie between the physical and perceptions.

There is quite a bit to be said about this, but it is not easily summarized. Daniel Dennett is perhaps the foremost authority on naturalistic models of consciousness, should you wish to further investigate.

We would simply be walking around behaving in complex but predetermined ways completely oblivious to the fact that we are doing so.

Is that not the case?

The very definition of the physical vs the immaterial would seem to suggest that neither can work on the other, yet there it is happening. It defies strict logic.

It seems more a case of definition and presupposition. As Dennett argues, there does not need to be anything "immaterial" (or at least something that contradicts naturalism) to account for the processes that make up consciousness.

It is one thing to accuse people of hiding God in the gaps of knowledge. It is quite another to make sweeping generalizations about something that we actually have almost no understanding of to begin with.

It is unfair to dismiss the anti-free will position with a "sweeping generalizations" handwave. I could say much the same about the way you have been conflating perceptions and mental processes.

 

[chrispykreme]

No one has made asolid argument against free will here. If you don't believe in free will, don't even give Christians a bad name by calling yourself one. Sorry guys, I'm just stating the truth in love...

God is love. He created us so that He could have a body to be in perfect fellowship with and direct that love toward. He couldn't fellowship with us in true love if we had no choice in the matter! This is why Eve and Adam sinned. They chose from their free volition to go against God's promise and jump into sin. They thought that there was something better. God knows the choices we are going to make, and He works all of those choices to our good in some way, but He is not up there saying "oookayyy, today you are going to...., tomorrow I think you should..."

Sillyness...

 

[TeddyKGB]

No one has made asolid argument against free will here. If you don't believe in free will, don't even give Christians a bad name by calling yourself one. Sorry guys, I'm just stating the truth in love...

God is love. He created us so that He could have a body to be in perfect fellowship with and direct that love toward. He couldn't fellowship with us in true love if we had no choice in the matter! This is why Eve and Adam sinned. They chose from their free volition to go against God's promise and jump into sin. They thought that there was something better. God knows the choices we are going to make, and He works all of those choices to our good in some way, but He is not up there saying "oookayyy, today you are going to...., tomorrow I think you should..."

Sillyness...

I think the best advice I can give is to suggest that you challenge your own deeply-held notions of free will. Instead of starting from your presupposition - namely that "free will" has some obvious, intrinsic meaning - try unpacking the words and concepts involved.

Gould's syllogism is as good a place as any to start.