"Free Will" Belief/Disbelief Poll

[Anomalocaris]

Randomness is just as non-free as determinism, in either scenario you did not have contra-causal responsibility for your choices.

That's why I like to distinguish unpredicatable will from free will.

[theVOID]

Of course. So what is your view on free-will?

[Anomalocaris]

Of course. So what is your view on free-will?

No such thing. If you can predict your own will, in principle so can another.

[theVOID]

Nice to see another person following logically from naturalism

Can you expand on the idea of predicting your own will? And wouldn't someone need all of the information you have (including physiological events) to do the same?

[Anomalocaris]

II think thought and will are governed by neural chemical state of the nervous system, which interacts with sensory and physiological inputs from the body. If one could determine another's neural chemical state in sufficient detail at a given moment, and read the continuous sensory and physiological input from that moment forward, then one could in principle accurately simulate the other person's changing neural chemical state and thus the other person’s thoughts and will. If one has an accurate picture of another person's neural chemical state at one moment, and is able to accurately forecast the other person's sensory input for some period into the future, then one could simulate, or at least define useful bounds for, the other person's will and thought ahead of real time. This is what I meant by will being in principle predictable by another.

I think memories, psychological events and other factors normally thought to influence a person’s behavior does so by influencing the person’s neural chemical state. If one could read another’s neural chemical state at a given moment, one would not need to know per se, or reconstruct, the memories and psychological factors that led to that moment in order to model the person’s will and behavior going forward.

This does not address the tremendous technical difficulties involved in doing this in a way that allows prediction sufficiently far into the future to be generally useful. But I don’t see any fundamental reason why technical difficulties can not eventually be overcome.

[theVOID]

Cool, That's my thoughts exactly.

[ib.me.ub]

@EvidenceVsFaith, I would like to publicly extend an apology to you for the things I said earlier in this post. It was uncalled for & unthoughful, so, I am sorry.

If anyone would like to comment on my apology, please feel free!

Do animals have free will too, or is this something that only evolved in us?

Yes, other animals possess it as well.

Does it apply to elephants and apes that have a distinct sense of self?

Yes.

The idea i just described has been known for hundreds of years as the idea of caused will, which is not free.

Please show your references. I can find nothing about 'caused will'.

Do you distinguish between random will and free will?

Random Will, as defined by Evans Boney in 2009, is a redefinition of "free will" as defined by "self-generated actions". This is pursuant to a Nature correspondence on Free Will in which Heisenberg (the author) claims that microscopic chance can lead to "self-generated actions" and thus free will. The change in nomenclature (to 'random will') is meant to emphasize that, while not deterministic, certain processes are also better not termed "free will", as that confuses the issue of philosophical interest.

[ib.me.ub]

Very interesting. Perhaps coincidense, but I came across this little piece by accidently clicking on the wrong link. It does make sense after all, perhaps because of the way it is explained. Short and precise.

Wired Science News for Your Neurons

Is Free Will an Illusion?

Choices.

Long before you’re consciously aware of making a decision, your mind has already made it.

If that’s the case, do people actually make decisions? Or is every choice — even the choice to prepare for future choices — an unthinking, mechanistic procedure over which an illusory self-awareness is laid?

Those questions are raised by a study conducted by Max Planck Institute neuroscientists and published Sunday in Nature Neuroscience. Test subjects chose whether to push a button with their right or left hand;
seven seconds before they experienced making the choice, their brain activity already predicted their final decisions.

Link: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/0...e-will-an/

After reading more about this subject, I have now learnt that 'free will' as defined in the dictionary, is in part, false.

"free will" being a brain function, and hence physically determined and not free at all!

This makes sense with the current definition of free will.

free will
 –noun
1.
free and independent choice; voluntary decision: You took on the responsibility of your own free will.
2.
Philosophy . the doctrine that the conduct of human beings expresses personal choice and is not simply determined by physical or divine forces.

As described in part two, free will is false.

This leads into greater questions though, which I have thought about. This phenomenon of the sub-concious, and the 7 second delay, could be one of the resons for the belief in god/gods/devine beings.

Could it be possible that people are confusing the sub-conscious with god!

[ChromodynamicGirl]

Free will is a total non-concept. Squared circle. God. Married bachelor. Souls.
I have a post on the subject on my blog.

[Edwardo Piet]

@EvidenceVsFaith, I would like to publicly extend an apology to you for the things I said earlier in this post. It was uncalled for & unthoughful, so, I am sorry.

If anyone would like to comment on my apology, please feel free!

I don't know what you're apologizing for because I didn't see what you said, because I wasn't around at the time. I'm just curious now as to what the fuck you could have said!