Another Free-will poll, please bear with me!

[Whateverist]

Pursuing an answer to this question has always felt like a dog chasing its tail.  The one thing of use to come of this thread has been the coining of "whateverish" which I kind of like.  Thank you Aurora.

[Lemonvariable72]

Other. We do not yet have enough knowledge of the universe to give a meaningful answer

[robvalue]

I think in the end a view of free will boils down to this: is a supervenient quality greater than the sum of its parts?

I'd argue that when the supervenient quality is relational (as in mind), the answer is necessarily yes. For every two parts you bring together, you now have 2 kinds of information: that of the original parts, and that of their relation. Where does this information exist? Not in the parts-- it's not actually created by them, or of them, but exists in a superset. Now, take out a part, and the superset collapses, so in that sense it is dependent on its parts-- but they are only placeholders for that relational information.

Mind, then, transcends neurons even though it is fully dependent on them. The same goes for body: physical systems aren't about a collection of QM particles but about their interrelation. I'd argue that to the degree we see a single personal agent as A thing, rather than a collection of things, free will can be seen as the interrelationship of mental processes which themselves need not be free, but which is itself still free.

If we stare at words long enough, we can convince ourselves that there's no free will. But then we step away from the computer and actually live life, and free will is as real as every other part of what it's like to be a living human being.

Sure, when we see things as a whole, we notice different things about that whole. But does that make it real? Isn't that just us arbitrarily finding patterns and qualities by looking at things in certain ways? Just because we view something a certain way, does that make this configuration somehow "exist" any more than the sum of its parts? It may seem that way, but do we have any evidence that it does?

I guess what I'm saying is that what you observe depends on what "zoom" level you are using. Why would every possible level of zooming exist independently and gain extra qualities above the sum of its parts? Because there may be even more zoom levels, and zoom levels in between... assuming something "extra" gets added each time seems to create a kind of crazy regression which doesn't sit right with me.

I'm just brain storming. I don't know a whole lot about the details of this. I just wonder if our pattern spotting makes us attribute qualities that only exist in our minds. Are these "qualities" just themselves observations of convenience for dealing with things en masse?

[emjay]

If you ask yourself what phenomenal consciousness is as part of the larger system of the mind, then one possible answer is that it is a planning centre able form plans based on one or more data streams/channels of your choice. Each data stream/channel is one of the phenomena available to you in real time in consciousness. But you can't focus on them all at any given time so you focus on what's important to the task at hand, with the act of focus itself being the means to connect these disparate channels into a coherent plan. For instance you focus on a memory of something to look for, then you might have to focus on action to move your body or eyes to search a scene for it, then you focus your attention within the visual field of your eyes etc. So if it is something like that then I would assume that any phenomenal channel in consciousness has a reason for being there, including the sense of will. So the question is, what does it signal? And one possible explanation is that it is present to signal that the 'plan' is working as intended. But if something like a reflex action interferes, which you did not will, it alerts you to the fact that something outside the considered plan of action might have affected the plan, so in that view it could be kind of like an error signal. Just musing here - please ignore me if I'm not making any sense

[henryp]

I keep seeing this free will vs justice argument, and I don't think it's an issue.

If we say/discover there is no free will, then the very concepts of justice and responsibility are meaningless. No one is making any justice or non justice decisions, as free will has been removed from this also. We're doing what we would do anyway, be that locking someone up or releasing them. So I see it as a non issue. You can say they go "out the window", but they are still there exactly as before, we've just found out there are no choices behind them and so are meaningless. We can't "change" anything given the information that we have no free will, unless that information is actually false.

You've said something similar in a  few threads, and I don't see it adding up.


There is external input that will change our behavior.  There is also internal analysis that can do the same.  

Determinism doesn't mean no decisions.  It means that we have no input on the decisions.  Just like a chess program 'chooses' what to do next with the goals of making the best move and winning the game, so does our brain with a whole array of objectives.  One of which, for many, is behaving rationally.  

And just like a chess program that finds a better move when it looks 8 moves deep instead of 7, our brains can find a more rational way to live by analyzing the implications of a world with no free will.

The interesting part of course, is that our brains have created the sense of self which allows us to think abstractly enough that we can imagine how we should behave in the event we are just fancy robots.  And that seems to be where your brain (for now) is departing from some other brains.  My brain says "Okay, you figured out that you have no control over your behavior.  How should we proceed?"  And while I have no 'real' say in this line of thinking, like a chess computer, I'm still going to continue down this new path in an effort to find an answer with my default objectives in mind.  That's how I was programmed.  A programming that includes the knowledge that I am programmed.

In the end, we are self-aware artificial intelligence.  It's not magical free will beings, but it's still pretty neat.

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Re Justice and Responsibility, they don't become meaningless ideas, they just are no longer applicable. Interestingly enough, we could actually maintain a similar system, and view it as holding the 'machines' responsible. Since the idea of responsibility would register in the brains as a deterrent. It's an interesting question of how we treat the programming behind the scene.

[bennyboy]

Sure, when we see things as a whole, we notice different things about that whole. But does that make it real? Isn't that just us arbitrarily finding patterns and qualities by looking at things in certain ways? Just because we view something a certain way, does that make this configuration somehow "exist" any more than the sum of its parts? It may seem that way, but do we have any evidence that it does?

Apparently, my computer really "exists" as more than the sum of its parts, because I have a lot of trouble watching video on QM particles, except when they are configured in computer-like patterns. At the least, that pattern exists, or where is all this Asian schoolgirl porn coming from?

I guess what I'm saying is that what you observe depends on what "zoom" level you are using. Why would every possible level of zooming exist independently and gain extra qualities above the sum of its parts? Because there may be even more zoom levels, and zoom levels in between... assuming something "extra" gets added each time seems to create a kind of crazy regression which doesn't sit right with me.

It's not really an assumption. It's more a definition of "thingness." A thing is something which, by bringing parts into relation, takes on a property not found among any collection of its parts. Unless you are arguing that there are not things, then the only thing which is maximally coherent would have to be the entire universe. The universe must be greater than the sum of all its parts-- so what, exactly, is that "extra something" that goes beyond galaxies, stars, black holes, etc.? I would assume that it must be an expression of top-down reality, rather than bottom-up, since it consists of qualities which do not exist at the bottom.

I'm just brain storming. I don't know a whole lot about the details of this. I just wonder if our pattern spotting makes us attribute qualities that only exist in our minds. Are these "qualities" just themselves observations of convenience for dealing with things en masse?

If stoplights aren't really red, and cars aren't really heavy, then I could be getting to work a lot faster than I have been.

[Anima]

If stoplights aren't really red, and cars aren't really heavy, then I could be getting to work a lot faster than I have been.

HA HA!!!!

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Mod Note
Fixed quote for you - Stimbo

[cocunningham]

I at one point was a libertarian. I know that our decisions are made in a beautifully complex biochemical reaction, but I always thought of that as the vehicle in which we come to the decision. It has since occurred to me that we can alter the variables anatomically and so a person may have a different response to the same inquiry. So that's why I voted for determinism. I don't think anything is preordained and I do think punishment is still important because that is one of the variables used in our decision making. To remove it and you will see a change in behavior.

[Angrboda]

I think free will is as real as anything else in mind, which is to say that it is an illusion. The mind creates a model of the world which includes real world objects, like ships and telephone poles, but it also creates a range of entities that only exist in the mind: pain, feelings, concepts, moral judgements. These make-believe entities are not 'as real' as ships and telephone poles, they exist only as elements of a model of the world that includes them. They are not 'real' in the sense of being as real as perceptions of ships and telephone poles. They are constructs of the mind. While they might 'appear' as real as ships and telephone poles, there is a better way of describing them than to say that they are 'real objects', and that is the language of the brain's neurology. A language in which objects like pain and feelings and will are constructed out of whole cloth inside the mind. They are illusions because they appear as natural features of the mental landscape, but they aren't natural features; they are mental constructs.

[Whateverist]

Well put.