Sentience, free will, and that which makes us tick

spoohunter · #1 07-05-2005, 03:05 PM

Please, I do not want this to turn into a relgious debate. While the question of God is important, it is also far too difficult to get an open discourse on the matter, for obvious reasons. Besides, there are 99 other threads to go choose from on this board that deal with religion : )

Assumption A :
Our decisions are made by our brain, and nothing else. No soul, no spirit, so liver taking over the body and deciding it wants to go to the store, the brain is the sole factor in making decisions. Yes, it is influenced by outside experiences (by all sensation in fact, which is the route of knowledge), but that at the very moment that you have to make a decision the brain is the item that decides.

Assumption B :
Our brain is composed of a collection of atoms, cells, what ever you want to call it, but a collection of many small parts. If any of those parts were changed, the brain would function differently.

Assumption C :
If we take a look at an exact moment in space and time, an exact decision, where I decide to pick up a pencil, and we duplicate all conditions EXACTLY, have an identical copy of that snap shot of space and time made, I will make the same decision to pick up that pencil. IE. if all the components are exactly the same the brain functions in the exact same manner.

Conclusion : Given the above, I cannot possibly have free will.

Bodhi · #2 07-05-2005, 03:29 PM

Well, duh. Free Will is a moral or political concept, and has no place in science and empirical investigation as a real entity or phenomenon to be researched.

What is always missing from these discussions is the realization that it is the job of science to explain our "experience of free-will", not do away with it. No scientific theory should ever make anyone stop talking about free-will or holding people responsible for their actions, in the same way that quantum theory should never make anyone worry about the floor's solidity beneath their feet.

SpearsBritney · #3 07-05-2005, 04:29 PM

Yeah, I tend to agree with this. Quite a mind-fcuk though.

Here's another one I struggle with;

At what point does the past meet the future? How can you possibly measure how short the present moment really is? A milisecond, a nanosecond?

This leads me to believe that although past and future do not exist by definition, niether does the present moment.

Therefore, nothing, not time nor matter, can possibly exist, yet it somehow does.

The older I get, the more I realize just how contridictory "science", or atleast our understanding of it, really is.

drudman · #4 07-05-2005, 07:12 PM

Yes.

Note that a lack of free will does not necessarily imply determinism however, because of the possibility of randomness on the quantum level.

maurile · #5 07-05-2005, 07:21 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Conclusion : Given the above, I cannot possibly have free will.

[/ QUOTE ]
Why not?

Determinism doesn't prohibit free will; it enables free will. Free will doesn't mean that your actions will be decidedly randomly; it means that your actions will be caused (i.e., determined) by your wants.

What could be more free than you doing what you want because there's a deterministic cause-and-effect linkage between wanting and doing?

If you want ham, you order ham. If you want turkey, you order turkey. That's free will, and determinism is what allows it.

maurile · #6 07-05-2005, 07:28 PM

I think the notion that free will and determinism are incompatible comes from the assumption of Cartesian dualism -- that your brain is just a collection of molecules and atoms acting in accordance with the laws of physics, but the real you is something different -- a non-physical soul.

If what your body does is caused by physical events, but the real you is a non-physical soul, then the real you has no control over what happens and free will is impossible.

But if the real you isn't a non-physical soul, but is a bunch of physical events, then the fact that your actions have physical causes in no way implies that the real you isn't in control. You are in control; your actions are caused by your physical brain state; and that is free will.

SpearsBritney · #7 07-05-2005, 07:37 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Conclusion : Given the above, I cannot possibly have free will.

[/ QUOTE ]
Why not?

Determinism doesn't prohibit free will; it enables free will. Free will doesn't mean that your actions will be decidedly randomly; it means that your actions will be caused (i.e., determined) by your wants.

What could be more free than you doing what you want because there's a cause-and-effect linkage between wanting and doing?

If you want ham, you order ham. If you want turkey, you order turkey. That's free will, and determinism is what allows it.

[/ QUOTE ]

What ever it was that made him "want" turkey in the first place was determined since the beginning of time, and could not have happened any other way. His argument is that because of the causal nature of things, things can only happen one way, in one particular order.

The fact that he can "choose" whether to have turkey or not, is just another causal link in the chain, and can ultimately ONLY be decided one way and not the other, regardless of the fact that in retrospect he had two choices.

You may believe that you "chose" to respond to his post, but how could you have done so if he had not posted it in the first place? Sure there were other factors involved, but they all culminated (ultimately through pure physical reaction) into that exact moment when you "decided" to reply.

drudman · #8 07-05-2005, 07:38 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Conclusion : Given the above, I cannot possibly have free will.

[/ QUOTE ]
Why not?

Determinism doesn't prohibit free will; it enables free will. Free will doesn't mean that your actions will be decidedly randomly; it means that your actions will be caused (i.e., determined) by your wants.

What could be more free than you doing what you want because there's a deterministic cause-and-effect linkage between wanting and doing?

If you want ham, you order ham. If you want turkey, you order turkey. That's free will, and determinism is what allows it.

[/ QUOTE ]

You're just calling the decision making process "free will". It is not the same as what is actually implied when people use the term.

maurile · #9 07-05-2005, 08:05 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Conclusion : Given the above, I cannot possibly have free will.

[/ QUOTE ]
Why not?

Determinism doesn't prohibit free will; it enables free will. Free will doesn't mean that your actions will be decidedly randomly; it means that your actions will be caused (i.e., determined) by your wants.

What could be more free than you doing what you want because there's a deterministic cause-and-effect linkage between wanting and doing?

If you want ham, you order ham. If you want turkey, you order turkey. That's free will, and determinism is what allows it.

[/ QUOTE ]

You're just calling the decision making process "free will". It is not the same as what is actually implied when people use the term.

[/ QUOTE ]
I disagree. I think that's exactly what is actually implied when people use the term.

Imagine two killers -- one who chooses to murder in cold blood, and one who sleepwalks and has no idea what he's doing.

We'd say that the first one acted according to his free will and the second one did not -- precisely because the first one engaged in a decision-making process and the second one did not.

maurile · #10 07-05-2005, 08:13 PM

[ QUOTE ]
What ever it was that made him "want" turkey in the first place was determined since the beginning of time, and could not have happened any other way.

[/ QUOTE ]
"Could not have happened" is a counterfactual -- it talks about what happens in other possible worlds where some things are different and some things are the same. Certainly there are possible worlds where he didn't want ham, like the ones where he is Muslim.

Whenever we say something could or couldn't have happened differently, there's implicitly an "if only X" in the statement. So what's the "X"?

It seems to me that for purposes of assessing moral responsibility (which is usually the context of discussions about free will), "X" is simply "he wanted to." If a man is a killer because he wanted to be one, then he could have not been one if only he'd wanted to not be one. So he's responsible. If, on the other hand, he was coerced and became a killer even though he didn't want to be (for instance, because he was drafted into an army) then we can't blame him for it.

Ultimately, there are two different kinds of freedom: the freedom to do whatever you like, and the freedom to choose what things to like. I'd say we have the first kind, and that is what is meant by "free will." We probably don't have the second kind.