I have absolute 100% control over my actions. Don't you?

The Citizen Kane dig was superficial. No biggie. (get past the period correct ridiculous acting and the flick is as deep as they get)

Hard determinist checking in; randomness is the unmoved mover.

Again, we're clearly working with two different definitions, both of which are correct by their own standards. The difference is, I believe mine is helpful in the scientific sense, whereas yours is merely helpful for one's peace of mind (i.e. accepting responsibility for one's actions).

Consider the justice system. By your definition, criminals have made choices that they should be punished for. They could have done "the right thing", but did not, and should pay the consequences for it.

According to my definition of free will, criminals are not responsible for their actions---the concept of responsibility being archaic in general, since it is reliant upon actions made using free will---and should therefore not be treated with the eye-for-an-eye form of justice that our society pretends that it has transcended.

Instead, criminal acts would be analyzed for possible aberrant behavior. Some crimes can be explained away for some reason or another (e.g. crimes of passion or desperation), but others are the result of mental functions that are harmful to themselves and/or society in general. Instead of punishing them, the logical solution would be to introduce stimuli targeted at correcting this behavior in much the same way that you would fix a computer.

Education for criminals without economic opportunities due to a lack of a degree or diploma. Training in trades to give criminals economic opportunities. These things are already happening, and they're a step in the right direction. They're also unintentionally working on the incompatibilist concept of free will, where the brain is a computer that involuntarily responds to stimuli.

Who knows how we can improve prisoner treatment if we recognize this concept. There may be near infinite ways to introduce positive stimuli to these people that would otherwise go ignored by clinging to the common, compatibilist concept of free will. We might also be able to get rid of the stigma attached to criminals that encourages people to treat them as failures and second-class citizens not worthy of our help.

*farts*

FREE. WILL.

Well, it's hard to argue with that.

This discussion is too deep and involved for me to get into, but I would like to say that for someone who is generally taken for a videogame-playing, metal-listening headbanging slacker, you argue your case well Batty. You come across as much more intelligent and thoughtful than many of us, myself included, give you credit for. Ever considered a debating society?

Nah. I'm perfectly happy just knowing I'm smarter than all of you dumb ****s.

Speaking of free will, I keep getting intrusive thoughts, it's really annoying. It's so annoying how it seems like my brain is in control of me, and not the other way around. It sometimes seems to have opinions different from mine.
Same goes for the frequent lucid dreams I have, I'm barely in control.

I also hate how it's impossible to stop thinking, since I automatically overthink things, usually negatively.

who is the "i" in this statement? are you your entire body, or just your brain, or just some manifestation of consciousness within your brain, etc?

personally i prefer the concept of an "escape from ny" style prison colony instead of rehabilitating prisoners for re-entry into society.

See, psychobabble.

I = the dude sitting in front of the keyboard at this very moment.

that answer is insufficient

oh well, it's cool if you don't wanna think too hard i guess

No, I'm asking why you are over thinking this?

Free Will is a very simple concept. You are trying to make it way more than that. I'm not taking the bait.

I'll use my brain power on stuff that is worthy. Like the France killings.

i would say you're under-thinking it. it's not such a simple concept and there is an extensive debate on the subject in philosophical literature. you can ignore this and say i don't care i have free anyway nananana if you like but that's not me making up bull**** that's you refusing to entertain the discussion at hand.

There's an an extensive debate on the subject of masturbation in philosophical circles too.

I'm not going to debate something so simple as free will. I have it. You have it. We decide many times a day if we choose to use it. Where's the debate other than the choosing in the moment for each of us?

The concept of free will and human consciousness has an expansive and rich philosophical history - overthinking anything in that realm is impossible.

imo the debate is in how the choice happens and who is really in control. that is why i asked you to define "you" as an agent or entity. certainly you must think of yourself as having some type of agency. it is actually kind of tricky to define our own agency which is why i was asking you to do so.

if "i" am jwb, the organism, then i am responsible for a whole range of tasks including producing the red blood cells in my veins to transport oxygen etc. but to me, anyway, it seems like these are just things that happen in my body. "i" don't do them. at least not "i" in the sense of the agency i was speaking of above.

you can apply the same logic to a lot of the work that your brain does, really. when you think of yourself as an agent you are most likely referring to the stream of consciousness that your brain produces.

so questioning free will to me is questioning whether that stream of consciousness is the actual captain of the ship that is your mind, or if it is just an interface for your brain to deal with the external world in a macroscopic way

I = me. I wake up every day, piss, walk the dogs, take a ****, walk the dogs, shave, take a shower, go to work for 9 hours, go to the market and buy sh*t, stock the shelves, walk the dogs again, pour a drink, watch the TV, go to sleep.

Sometimes I do this note for note.

Sometimes I alter it a bit.

Exactly WTF are you talking about? I have the free will to not walk the dogs and let them **** on the rug. I have the free will to not buy milk when we need it. I have the free will to blow off work and lose my job if I choose to do so.

WTF are you talking about? Give it to me in nuts and bolts, day to day verbiage. No psychobabble.

I don't think your definition of psychobabble matches others...

Agreed. I just can't find a better word right now.

Free will has somehow devolved into cell reproduction????

alright it seems we need to go a different route

let's try a thought experiment instead. what would you think if some scientist was able to scan your brain and predict your decisions before you were even aware of your choice? would that be compatible with your idea of free will?

Living is just a constant assessment of your wants and needs. You have a reason for walking the dogs, buying milk, going to work, etc., and every day your conciousness decides whether or not to do them. And if it suddenly decided that your wants/needs could be better fulfilled by taking another course of action, then you'd take that different course of action. You might see this as you actively making choices, while others see it as you simply following your mental programming. Just like how a computer processes and analyzes information in a certain way, the human brain does the same thing.

So what JWB is essentially asking is do humans really decide what we do, or does our programming already have it's reaction to stimuli ready, making our own personal reactions an illusion? For instance, you say that you had the choice to either walk the dog or not, but you very well may not. You were only ever going to take the course of action that you took, using the information that you had. Your brain may have noticed an imbalance of neuro-chemical feel-good signals spurred on by a feeling of powerlessness in your life, and decided that you needed to express a sense of dominance by refusing to do chores and passing them off to others, even if it seemed in hindsight like a needlessly mean thing to do. Or your brain may have concluded that the best way to improve your odds of social survival was to follow your set routine. The argument can be made that either way, with the factors surrounding you, your brain was only ever going to decide to take the course of action that you ended up taking.

Tomorrow morning I'm gonna wake up and go through my normal routine. After that I have two choices.

#1 - Do laundry, clean up the patio, vacuum the rugs, wash the SUV, scrub the bathrooms, organize the fridge, buy groceries, balance the checkbook, take a nap.

#2 - Drive to White Sands Beach, set up a chair, read a book while listening to the ocean and the wind and birds, take a nap, - blowing off all of the stuff I should be doing.

How do I decide?

Free will.

Why are you all trying to make it so much more than it is?

But how is it that you come to make your decision? What exactly goes into the thought process? And if the reactions to stimuli that we hold are pre-conceived, meaning that our brain examines the information around us and decides what to do before higher thought processes even have a chance to start up, can you really claim to have been able to do anything other than what you ended up doing? I feel like you're over-simplifying an interesting subject, simply because you dislike the feeling that comes from self-examination. To put it simply...

What we're asking : "What makes a car work? The internal components are fascinating, and it's interesting to examine how all of the pieces work together to function as they do."

How you're responding : "What makes a car work? That's easy. You just turn the key and it starts up."

Hey, I'm just the dude waking up tomorrow and having to make the decision. What makes me work? I don't have enough hours to chat that one up. It is what it is. If you want to TRY and explain it, have a blast.

PS. I'm not going to the beach tomorrow.

Lack of free will does not imply lack of conscious though, deliberation, decision making, etc.

Here is one of many over-simplified examples of how we don't have complete free will: Brain Games - You Decide (S02E02) - Vídeo Dailymotion - This is an awesome show you should check out some of the other episodes if you find the time.

I get what you're saying but there is also a lot of brain functions we have ZERO control over that go into making us decide things that limit the sort of absolute free will you're trying to explain.

Dude, that's awesome. If you know a way to use free will to wake yourself up then I need that ****. It's involuntary for me and I was always missing the bus back in high school.

You decide based on a combination of biological wiring schemes (induced by genetics and development), long-term expectations in reward seeking and avoiding punishment and some random permutations of your "default mode network" [1]. Variation doesn't need to be explained by free will - deterministic systems can be unpredictible (such is the case with chaotic systems) and the default mode (along with some understanding of transient mechanisms in neuro function [2]) can be responsible for a lot of variation in day to day activities.

[1] Default mode network - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
[2] Robust Transient Dynamics and Brain Functions

Protagonists of free will are claiming that they make decisions independent of cause and effect; as you can see from the evidence I posted in the OP, neuroscientists can predict a subject's spontaneous" decision before they've spontaneously made the decision. This suggest that the feeling that you've made a decision was really just the feeling that your brain made a decision and you (whatever that is) got to experience the decision-making process.

Exactly.

Considering that you're not giving the slightest consideration to differing opinions, and not attempting to give well-thought-out counterarguments, I'm not even sure why you're engaging in this discussion. What is interesting to you about this debate?

Just exercising my free will.

Not giving my slightest to differing opinions? No well thought out counterarguments? What exactly are you looking for?

To me it's a really simple f*cking concept. You don't agree? Fine. What do you want me to do? Wax poetically for a few paragraphs about how simple a concept it is?

And exactly what is the debate? Are you debating the definition of free will? The concept of free will? The science of free will? The psychology of it? Spell it out for me.

^ s-h-u-t.u-p.

Plugging.

And I care? You said spell it out fer you so I went letter by letter.

You got a problem?

If only you could see th "bitch you crazy" look Im giving you.
No I aint got a problem. You asked someone to spell it out for you. Be careful what you wish for.

"bitch you crazy" right back at ya.

Lots of great tunes in the plug room right now.

Lotta good apples in the orchard too.