Free Will

[Satans_Serrated_Edge]

All that said I find it paradoxical since hard determinism is falsifiable.

I don't think 'falsifiable' means what you think it does. If you meant it has been falsified, I for one would like to see the peer reviewed physics paper in question. Got a link?

 

[Shadow Wolf]

While free will certainly is not so much free as many think it is, but I have yet to see conclusive evidence that suggests choice is an illusion.

 

[Satans_Serrated_Edge]

The idea of choice relies on faith, not reason. Every event follows from (a) previous event(s) according to Newtonian physics, so to say 'you could have done otherwise' not only implies that the laws of physics don't apply to humans, it is to also make a completely unfalsifiable claim(as it can only be made after the fact).

If you are comfortable believing human beings operate according to 'special magic', have at it. I for one find little gain in such thinking.

 

[Banjankri]

Where does free will originate? How does it work, exactly?.. Is it dependant on the brain, at all?

Free will is a socially beneficial concept. In other words, individuals who believe in free will are more socialized. It is build on responsibility.
Brain is just a platform, culture is the software in which idea of free will is the core component. So, free will originate in culture. It works based on assumptions which are taken as true, creating reference points.

 

[Sees]

Seems like with so many other topics - people can't help but see it as either determinism or free-will...and free-will must mean 100% independence and separation or else it's not real or valid.

I think a good example for free will is :beach: sitting there and ignoring impulses/urges...aches, itching, hunger, full bladder, etc. not allowing anything to move you. Since the duality or dichotomy doesn't exist - circumstances, environment, condition of your body, and other factors still have influence on whether it can be done or for how long.

The existence and power of will isn't an old religious superstition.

 

[idav]

But the only place where determinism may be moot is at the quantum level, which is below the atomic/molecular level at which we operate.

As Max Erik Tegmark, a Swedish-American cosmologist said.

"The main argument against the quantum mind proposition is that quantum states in the brain would decohere before they reached a spatial or temporal scale, at which they could be useful for neural processing. Michael Price, for example, says that quantum effects rarely or never affect human decisions and that classical physics determines the behaviour of neurons."
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In a brain which is electro-chemical, the electro part would be quantum which would be a fundamental way the brain operates.

 

[Thief]

If someone follows your every word without fail....does he have freewill?

Choice is the only way to know.
So.....partake and die.

We ARE that creature.
We seek to know even as death is pending.

And it is this quality that renders a spirit that might be able to survive the last breath.

 

[idav]

I don't think 'falsifiable' means what you think it does. If you meant it has been falsified, I for one would like to see the peer reviewed physics paper in question. Got a link?

The double slit makes it falsifiable and much to Einsteins dismay, hidden variables have been ruled out as far as I know. I am not sure it proves it false, I kinda like the hidden variables idea but dont even think it would help even if we could no the spin and velocity at the same time. The main thing messing everything up is general relativity, a photon doesnt listen to newtonian physics and space-time becomes of little consequence. Spacetime seem to be why there is a when and where which is very important in determining causality.

 

[Satans_Serrated_Edge]

Yes, only causality is observable, in fact, all of our science depends on it. Sure, some freaky stuff happens at the sub atomic level, but there is literally no evidence(and plenty to the contrary, some available in this very thread) that any of that sub atomic freaky stuff negates causality. In fact, many speculate 'causality' could not operate sans 'sub atomic freaky stuff'.

The idea of human freewill is simply religion.

By the way, 'falsifiable' means that there is a conceivable finding that could disprove a theory. All scientific findings must be 'falsifiable' else they cease to be science.

 

[Willamena]

Seems like with so many other topics - people can't help but see it as either determinism or free-will...and free-will must mean 100% independence and separation or else it's not real or valid.

I think a good example for free will is :beach: sitting there and ignoring impulses/urges...aches, itching, hunger, full bladder, etc. not allowing anything to move you. Since the duality or dichotomy doesn't exist - circumstances, environment, condition of your body, and other factors still have influence on whether it can be done or for how long.

The existence and power of will isn't an old religious superstition.

Ignoring is one way of demonstrating free will, because it's a verb that a subject "I" does (any verb that the subject "I" does is an example), but it's not at the expense of cause and effect if your desired effect is to ignore aches, itches, hunger, full bladder, etc. and you cause that to happen.

Free will is nothing more "you cause that to happen. You."

 

[idav]

The idea of human freewill is simply religion.

By the way, 'falsifiable' means that there is a conceivable finding that could disprove a theory. All scientific findings must be 'falsifiable' else they cease to be science.

What I would like to see to negate free will is the idea that our thoughts charge toward a choice, which experiments show, and we decide before we are aware. However that doesnt help knowing how many influences can be simultaneously influencing the brain, even with left and right brain alone can lend to negation. When the frequencies are firing they are waves and variable and if the electrical impulses can be parralel in the brain it lends to free will being possible. There must he parallelism happening its how the billions of neurons know what the others are doing in a split second. Hard to test, they are measuring nueron communication to the micro second. However all their tests of delayed awareness say nothing of how the choice was made, just how we are aware of it.

Yes hard determinism is false afaik in the micro realm. One issue being the micro realm is what makes the macro state we are familiar with. At the core we are frequencies, everything is similar to a wave function.

 

[Willamena]

What I would like to see to negate free will is the idea that our thoughts charge toward a choice, which experiments show, and we decide before we are aware.

The whole world, including decisions made, necessarily takes place before we become aware. We cannot become aware of things until they exist, even thoughts. It cannot negate free will.

 

[JM2C]

A sailor inside a submarine can walk back and forth or from end to end of that submarine but no matter how much he desires to go beyond the walls of this submarine his Free Will won’t allow it. IOW, these walls bind or chained his Free Will or his Free Will is not really Free at all because he cannot go beyond what his Free Will would allow.

In reality, human’s Free Will is bound by sin and not capable of choosing God by means of this so-called Free Will, because man’s Free Will is not really Free at all because they are chained by sin, just as the sailor’s Free Will is chained inside of a submarine.

Free Will should have no limitations, no boundaries, or nothing in between Man and his Will otherwise; his Will is not really Free at all.

 

[idav]

The whole world, including decisions made, necessarily takes place before we become aware. We cannot become aware of things until they exist, even thoughts. It cannot negate free will.

What can negate it is an influences happening one at a time in the brain which I find hard to believe. If these single influences chrage to a decision then it negates free will because, even with the micro issue, the brain would be stuck in the wave function produced by the brain which is influenced via newtonian cause and effect. Besides the influences within the brain the very idea that the brain can be seen as a wave function does leave some hope.

 

[samosasauce]

Who can tell? Why worry?

 

[Nakosis]

Freewill is the ability to do what you want.
It's not being able to chose what you want.

Doing what you want is easy. You have a number of choices before you and you decide according to your desires.

Deciding what you what, I'd think you'd have to choose to be someone other then you are. A person wants what they want. All one's experiences growing up, books, movies, people you admire etc...

Your past determines your will/desires. You now choose among the possibilities according to your will/desire.

 

[Willamena]

What can negate it is an influences happening one at a time in the brain which I find hard to believe. If these single influences chrage to a decision then it negates free will because, even with the micro issue, the brain would be stuck in the wave function produced by the brain which is influenced via newtonian cause and effect. Besides the influences within the brain the very idea that the brain can be seen as a wave function does leave some hope.

I don't understand this version of "quantum free will," then.

 

[roger1440]

It’s only when we are free from desire that we have free will. With desire comes compulsion. We are always held captive by compulsion. The only way out of the loop would be contentment or stillness.

 

[Nakosis]

It’s only when we are free from desire that we have free will. With desire comes compulsion. We are always held captive by compulsion. The only way out of the loop would be contentment or stillness.

Is God free of desire?
Apparently God has the desire to create. The desire to be obeyed.

Perhaps God can choose his will? But what would cause God to desire to create such desires?

I think it is important to control your desires not be controlled by desire. Yet with without any desires why is anything done?

Can will exist without desire? Such is difficult to fathom.

 

[Skwim]

In a brain which is electro-chemical, the electro part would be quantum which would be a fundamental way the brain operates.

No it wouldn't. Electro-chemical actions occur at the atomic/molecular level, not at the quantum level.

Here, from a Wikipedia article on quantum mechanics.

"Quantum mechanics (QM – also known as quantum physics, or quantum theory) is a branch of physics which deals with physical phenomena at nanoscopic scales where the action is on the order of the Planck constant. It departs from classical mechanics primarily at the quantum realm of atomic and subatomic length scales"
source
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And even if such actions influenced "super-atomic" events they would be completely random, and thus not helping the notion of freewill one iota.