Determinism.....

[Godless]

Do animals have a free choice, although not aware of themselves as beings?
If a bird sees two pieces of bread what thought process decides which piece of bread to hop to?
Albert.

[binny]

Having 3 dogs that are completely not self aware I would say that the bird doesn't see 2 pieces of bread, it see's one at a time and will go for the first piece it sees then the other because animals are always hungry. All animals are programed to eat and have sex to survive, even humans which is one reason why I have such a hard time keeping my weight down. I seem to be failing at that. Anyway there is no thought process in the birds brain (ha, bird brain, I made a funny), we on the other hand have a more complex brain and are able to think so we take the biggest piece of bread. Weather our existence is predetermined or not I don't know, but I'd like to think we have a choice

[solarwave]

Im quite supprised by how many have clicked free will actually.

Yes, and the day they show that the results of the experiment are wrong, or that we can somehow overcome our subconsciousness, I will probably switch back again. So far, all the evidence looks like we are just natural machines. The only difference is that we have self-awareness, and the illusion of choice.

So when you say the subconscious decides before the conscious do you mean it decides while we are still thinking 'maybe I should do this or maybe that', or do you mean it decides just before us, meaning it chooses the act just before we decide that is the best action to take?

So does that mean you owe Lacie Green an apology Adrian. :p

Lacie Green from youtube is that? Shes cool

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My opinion on this is that on the naturalistic world view we are most likely determined by physics. My reasoning is because if we and our minds are made of just atoms then the state of our brain depends upon the state it was last in and any stimulus comming from outside (such as sight or touch). So if every thought we have just just a movement or placement of particles wouldn't it make us determined?

I think we are free though, that our minds (somehow non-physical) are somehow a cause in themselves which would have to mean our mind would have to affect the brain somehow which may become detectable by science if it is true.

[fr0d0]

It just struck me...

I've agreed with Evie that there is no real free will because we do what we are programmed to do. Our influences/ instincts determine our actions and there's really no possible decision we could possibly make against these influences.

It strikes me now... that 'no free will' actually means the enforcement of a choice potentially against what our influenced choice would have been. (It could be the same but still, not our choice).

Does that sound plausible?

[solarwave]

Dont you often go against your instincts? Isn't that part of trying not to sin? Also people who have had more or less the same influences can turn out as different people.

[Tiberius]

So when you say the subconscious decides before the conscious do you mean it decides while we are still thinking 'maybe I should do this or maybe that', or do you mean it decides just before us, meaning it chooses the act just before we decide that is the best action to take?

It means that even if we think we are making the decision to pick up the ball, our subconscious mind has already made the decision, a few nanoseconds before we think we have. I forget the research paper that convinced me (it was quite recently though), but the experiments involved watching people's brains react as they make decisions.

[amw79]

So when you say the subconscious decides before the conscious do you mean it decides while we are still thinking 'maybe I should do this or maybe that', or do you mean it decides just before us, meaning it chooses the act just before we decide that is the best action to take?

It means that even if we think we are making the decision to pick up the ball, our subconscious mind has already made the decision, a few nanoseconds before we think we have. I forget the research paper that convinced me (it was quite recently though), but the experiments involved watching people's brains react as they make decisions.

Dan Dennett covered some of these experiments in 'Freedom Evolves'. Roughly speaking it involved people hitting a button when a quickly moving hand on a clock hit a certain point on the clock face, while also mentally noting when (on the clock face) they actively 'decided' to hit the button.

The results of brain activity monitoring concluded that a decision was made in the brain, fractions of a second before the subject subsequently repoted making the decision, which in turn was fractions of a second before the button was hit.

Obviously this type of thing isn't conclusive, as it relies on the subjects accurate reporting, post-experiment.

Adrian, if you're thinking of a different, more recent paper on this, I'd greatly appreciate it if you could point me in the right direction to this paper.

[fr0d0]

Dont you often go against your instincts? Isn't that part of trying not to sin? Also people who have had more or less the same influences can turn out as different people.

Yes. I think 'the knowledge of good and evil' is the over riding of instinctual action. Influence can be very finely tuned. Small variance can produce different resultant actions.

[Tiberius]

I'll try and find the paper. It was released in the last few months, so it wasn't the example given in Dennett's book.

[solarwave]

I dont think that proves we don't have free will, cant it just mean that we make decisions before we realise we do?