Your avatar would be 10x hotter if it was the Bride dressed as Princess Leia. It would also be more Roxy.

Sigh* I know.A break in routine is good for the soul.
I'll go back to the bride.Don't you trouble your pretty little head about it any more then you already have sugar.I got your 6 homie.

We agree that it's simple, it's just not what we're talking about so its irrelevant... you're the only one causing a debate over the definition (i.e. arguing semantics) because you only understand the simple laymen definition of free will and don't seem to get the deeper discussion. Don't confuse us finding your posts ignorant and banal with us not getting your point.

Existence of free will is the debate. But there is no debate since everyone pretty much agrees, and those that don't haven't formulated a reasonable argument (that I noticed) We don't know if you actually agree or not since the question is already over your head.

You say spell it out for me, but when it was spelled out you just trivialized it as psychobabble. Kind of hard to put effort into willful ignorance.

No.

I choose to accept the simple definition at face value and not muddy the waters with a bunch of BS metaphysics.

But ya'll have at it. Knock yourselves out.

Like I said, I'll debate topics that I deem worthy of debate. This is not one of them in my opinion. I'll stay out of the thread from here on out.

Nice insults BTW.

Insult or not, willful ignorance is a good fit. You chose to be antagonistic, where you could have just stayed out of it in the first place if you weren't interested or made a serious inquiry about things you don't understand. You're still trivializing things as "BS metaphysics" which is no different than plugging your ears and going "NA NA NA".

Anyway, it's not just metaphysics anymore; it's also physics and biology. The language of metaphysics is incorporated into the question because for a long time (thousands of years) we didn't have the equipment and analytical tools needed to peer into the brain, but we still talked about it. Now we do, so the evidence is interpreted on the variety of different ontological frameworks presented by people that were guessing before - we're stuck with those schemas - deal with it.

The dualist stance that is strongly associated with the claim that free will exists (i.e. an entity independent of the brain evades cause and effect). This is generally used to argue for the existence of a soul (mind and brain are two separate things) whereas most neuroscientists are monists (they believe mind is a product of brain) and accept that the brain obeys classical physics (which is deterministic) and physiological evidence supports these stances. Everybody has a philsophy - if you aren't aware of it, you're toting around unchecked philosophical baggage. Most scientists are empiricists.


Deterministic is formally defined from mathematics in this case. A system is deterministic if, for every state in the system, there is only one possible future state (i.e. the solutions are "unique"). We can also consider the stability of a system that is mostly deterministic with a small stochastic term and determine whether the stochasticity changes anything about the behavior of the system. Further, some stochastic models are just simplifications of complicated deterministic systems (statistical mechanics) and sensitivity to initial conditions (i.e. chaos) means that even deterministic systems can be unpredictible.

Can I try a different approach Chula? How do you explain free will when you tell yourself you want to do something but you brain just prevents it from happening? Here's a simple example:

-When I was younger my friends and I would all go to this bridge where they jumped into the river.. The lowest spot was about 20' and I really wanted to jump in, I love swimming but I hate heights. I couldn't bring myself to jump even though I knew it was safe and watched people do it 100s of times.

How do you take your idea of the concept and make it fit this scenario?

Edit: Or how about not having the balls to ask out a girl you like?

But this still confuses the issues of (let's call it willpower) with will. Let's divide the process between two events. First the will is constructed, then the will is carried out. What you and Chula are talking about is carrying out the will, not the origin of will. That would have more to do with "willpower" - obviously Chula couldn't negate gravity and fly unaided just because he wanted to. And sometimes competing brain regions will make it harder for you to achieve your will (your flight or fight response takes over when you try to talk to a pretty girl). But these are all about what you do once you have the will, not the origin of the will itself.

"Free Will" implies that our will is freely constructed based on... nothing, basically. Just the whim of some spiritual entity that can act independently of the cause and effect events taking place in the brain. Behavioral determinists, like myself, or Sam Harris (to appeal to a known neuroscience authority) are saying that the evidence points to our will being constructed deterministically as a result of our biopsychosocial history.

I'm on your side. I was trying to start with a simpler example and see how he uses his definition to explain it. I understand and agree with your previous posts.

honestly though that example isn't a good one for lack of free will. which is what i think x was saying

I dont belive in free will.How bout dat?

Well, you're a Christian, so you shouldn't. Free will is impossible with an all-powerful, all-knowing God.

woah hey now.....That has a small amount to do with it.Very small.

If you believe in God, but not free will, then I should think that would be a pretty big thing to ponder when praying to the Ol' Man.

Who says I pray?

No point if there isn't free will I guess. If God wants to guide you he'll just do it without your consent, and trying to appeal to him to change something is pointless if the outcome is pre-determined.

Thought precedes action. It is in thought one might run through several possible consequences in his or her mind.There are several things to consider, if there is a possibility of something harmful happening or perhaps a lack of confidence that there will be a safe outcome, in which case there would be a fear of the unknown. Whatever the fears are, and whether the fears are from biological, or psychological causes, those fears would only influence ones judgement in one's decision making process. That influence is one of many things that contribute to making a decision, and though they can be understood through a bio-psychosocial history I don't think that negates "free will." There is nothing that say one who has fear will act a certain way. One can overcome fear. "Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear." –Ambrose Redmoon

Yes, thought precedes action; but it's more than thought! Neural processes that aren't part of conscious thought also precede action. Making decision and overcoming fear are all deterministic processes in which different brain regions compete. People with an overactive amygdala will have more trouble overcoming fear. People with overactive social reward systems (somewhere in the frontal lobes) will be extroverts. People with broken social reward systems will be psychopaths. And it's more complicated than that - if a normally strong social reward system is being inhibited by another brain region (which is responding to a minute novel stimulus) then the fear system may over come the brain (whereas usually, for that person, it doesn't).

There is "degeneracy" in that different underlying neural processes can lead to the same conditions - and there is sensitivity in the transients, whereby small differences can lead to different outcomes, but they can all be accounted for deterministically. Again, the argument is that the brain is deterministic and mind comes from brain.

You have to remember that the brain is very complex system. Every point you've raised does not require free will, just complexity that allows for a diversity of responses based on novel differences in stimuli.

Of course, this would just be speculation if there wasn't evidence that suggested the merit.

I don't see a problem with it. If you can't carry out an action you desire because of some preventative brain function that is a loss of free will. Xurtio is just using a more complex theory and getting at the real roots of the issue.

@JWB - You don't think the events I made examples of when added up overtime are part of this biopsychosocial history of development?

Well the issue is that something like shooting laser beams out your ass is physically impossible. But we're interested in whether people's motivations and decisions come from some entity (i.e. that our "self" is independent of our brain), not whether they can shoot lightning out their ass. So dividing the two processes into will vs. What you do with that will is helpful for understanding what we're really after.

For instance, we may have free will (we magically decide things in a whim) and still not be able to shoot lightning bolt out our ass, so whether or not we can shoot lightning bolts out our ass doesn't really tell us anything about free will. We still have to determine where the desire to shoot lightning bolts out our asses came from in the first place.

You clearly have a better understanding and knowledge about the topic than me, I'm just making observations based on your comments. You don't think there is a grey area or a need for separation between the will to do possible tasks vs impossible tasks? Would seem like poor science if there wasn't.

I assume our motivation/decision making is dealt with much differently in the brain when comparing lasers from the butt to my examples.

Lasers from the butt is meant to be a stand-in for any physically impossible task. There is a need for separation, but only to isolate the two questions so that you can focus on one at a time. Otherwise people get confused and conflate the two. But the study of willpower (competition between competing brain regions) is not so philosophically difficult. We know the general idea there and just need to work out details. The question of free will is a tougher and more philosophically challenging discussion that is only just now getting scientific evidence behind it.

What about if I have to fart (physical restraint)? I can make the decision to let it out, or hold it in.

Religious - God will forgive me (fart)
Legal - It is legal to fart within the city limits (fart)
Ethical - It is not ethical to fart when people are close by (hold it)
Scientific - It's not healthy to hold it in (fart)

A compatibilistic approach.

I'm out.

*drops mic*