Free Will, Decision making and religion

[Whateverist]

Problems of solipsism & inference, as far as I know, have no firm solutions.

Am I the only person who finds that strange?

Not unless that is the only thing that strikes you as strange. Lots of phenomena are remarkable but then you get used to it. Then it just becomes one more thing which is what it is, and now becomes the norm of what to expect.

[Ignorant]

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Am I the only person who finds that strange?

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Not unless that is the only thing that strikes you as strange. Lots of phenomena are remarkable but then you get used to it. Then it just becomes one more thing which is what it is, and now becomes the norm of what to expect.

Well that is the thing. It isn't that there is a particular phenomenon that is striking, it is THE phenomenon of phenomena (which may not even exist) that is odd.

[JuliaL]

So do I! But if there is no "thing" (e.g. Descartes's soul, some metaphysical unity, whatever) which remains "itself" under one aspect while changing in other aspects, then there can be no "self" understood as we commonly understand it.

We experience that we have a continuous identity, but if there is nothing actually continuous about what we are (which, according to the worldview of the first post, seems to be the case), then there is no actual "I". It is merely the illusion of continuity.

I have no idea what "it" would be. According to physical determinism (or other similar models), what is the identifying continuity (if any) in a bacterium?

This is why I wasteinvest time and lurk or post here. It is to view others reasons and infer their reasoning, and to give and defend my own. I was not considering any temporal discontinuity of the self, only that the self existed (exists?) at the time in question.

Regarding continuity of the self/mind/soul over time, I think it is unsupported to say that there is none, rather that we do not fully observe and understand the basis of such continuity. I have a similar problem with the arguments, generally from theists, that the soul is not material and transcends the physical universe. We are approaching an understanding of how consciousness emerges, though haven't yet fully pinned it down. This is that mind is a product of brain activity which is a complex series of parallel and sequential chemical reactions. Hence, the continuity of self is dependent not only on the molecules, but their locations and interactions as well. It is a painting, not a box of paints. The continuity here lies in not the molecules of the brain, these are interchangeable, but their relations one to another. This is the ship of Theseus only a million times more complex. The self is continuous because we recognize that organization of matter as the self and while the atoms may change, the organization doesn't.

The identifying continuity of the bacterium is our recognition of the organization of complex bio-molecules being examined as a bacterium. The individual atoms change, the bacterium persists.

Am I the only person who finds that strange?

No, but I consider it a condition of my existence not under my control and so resolve to carry on regardless.

[Angrboda]

Is the self necessarily unchanging? The Buddhists make a lot of arguments that there is no unchanging thing in consciousness which would serve as the self. But I wonder why the self has to be considered unchanging; why can't it change along with everything else about us?

[Whateverist]

Necessarily? I don't know. But I do think there is something essential which can reveal many different aspects to us, all of which are internal and part of our subjective phenomenology. I do tend to regard it as a whole whether or not that is warranted.

[JuliaL]

Is the self necessarily unchanging? The Buddhists make a lot of arguments that there is no unchanging thing in consciousness which would serve as the self. But I wonder why the self has to be considered unchanging; why can't it change along with everything else about us?

If there is no unchanging thing in a self, why do we keep using the same word?
There has to be some continuity or we should be using a different word.
Or does the definition of self change with the changes in self so we can keep using that word?

Seriously, the self could be looked at as a composite object in which some aspects change and some do not. So, changing and not changing yet still under the same descriptive term because that term's definition remains fuzzy. I've only been considering the self at one moment and as that thing that is you. That moment could be now---except that now is also a fuzzy concept. Now for your foot is not the same as now for your hand (propagation delay) is not the same as now on the surface of the sun (general relativity weirdness.)

[Wyrd of Gawd]

Decisions are based upon the options available at the time for dealing with the particular situation. When a person is hungry he can eat a variety of foods to sastify his hunger. But he can only eat those foods that are available at the time and that are options from which he can choose from based upon his particular circumstances. Likewise a person can decide if he wants to help someone based upon the options and relationships. In otherwords, a person's decisions are based upon his options and circumstances. And everyone has different options and different circumstances.

[Smaug]

Wait. Are you saying that free will never exists because in fact there is always a trajectory leading to just one outcome? Or are you saying sometimes the choice of possible resolutions for a decision really can be rich in some cases and few in others?

What I've tried in my post is to define the Free Will. When people speak of Free Will they usually have not even a slightest definition of it. Basically my definition means what you've said in the latter part of your question. Yes, Free Will is when you have more than one possible choices. To add to it, the posibilities of these choices must be roughly the same. Strictly speaking in a fully deterministic model there will be no possibilities and no room for anything we may call Free Will. But if we take our Universe (or Solar system) as a deterministic dynamical system, such a system is so complex and full of interconnections that for us it technically does not differ from a truly stochastic one. It's a vague definition but I've not been able to come up with something better for now.

I'm a little confused by this. Is it that there appear to be multiple possible choices but in fact there is only one trajectory rendering all other of those choices void?

In a fully deterministic model there's only one trajectory which theoretically may be computed from 'now' to infinity. The other possible trajectories are to be meant as "alternative histories" which could've taken place if the conditions at some selected moments of time (decision-making moments) were slightly different. This means no Free Will at all. However this never works in real life problems because even if we consider our world to be fully deterministic we never know the exact initial conditions to solve the problem with. Here it's good to remember that complex dynamical systems prone to be sensitive to initial conditions (which means that if two trajectories start from aproximately the same points after a period of time they may end up far apart from each other). There is also such a thing as bifurcations of trajectories. This is a complex topic in a Theory of Dynamical systems and I'm not able to go further right now without having to prepare to discuss it beforhand.

Speaking of a stochastic model, each act decision-making (this may be called bifurcation, but not in the same sence as in deterministic models) involves some probabtilities.

If we consider a more common intuitive definition of Free Will as a possibility "to do whatever you want" then you may arrive at a conclusion that there's no such thing. Both of the models I proposed deny Free Will in this intuitive sence. If we imagine decision-making as passing some points (junctions) on a railroad track then the difference is that in the first case you are potentially able to know the position (left or right) of all the points and in the second case the points flip left and right sporadically and you know only the probabilities. But in both cases it's not you who choose the tracks but the laws of Nature, deterministic or stochastic ones.

[JuliaL]

. Lots of phenomena are remarkable but then you get used to it.

Right On! (age dependent anachronistic idiom recognized)

It is no more remarkable that genes can guide the production of proteins that interact to build muscle to form a leg which is useful in locomotion than that genes can guide the formation of neural nets which take inputs from the environment and produce behaviors intended to predict the future.

But it is certainly no less remarkable.

[Angrboda]

Is the self necessarily unchanging? The Buddhists make a lot of arguments that there is no unchanging thing in consciousness which would serve as the self. But I wonder why the self has to be considered unchanging; why can't it change along with everything else about us?

If there is no unchanging thing in a self, why do we keep using the same word?
There has to be some continuity or we should be using a different word.
Or does the definition of self change with the changes in self so we can keep using that word?

The continuity would be in the set of things that make up the self, not the instantaneous values. For instance, if I've been practicing law for 30 years, I might consider myself a lawyer. However if I'd retired from practice 10 years ago, I'd say that I'm no longer a lawyer; I'm retired. The qualities that make up the self don't change, but the contents of those qualities do.