[Science] - Free will could all be an illusion

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Do we trick our brain when we change Focus or consciously make a different outcome?
I kind of wish they would include Jedi in some of these studies to see the difference in scope. not every ones a drone and thinks on the same patterns.

Jedi dont have the market on being 'unusual' in the ole brain pan, lol...

Interesting, but didn't those scientists have the free will to do this study? :silly:

Free will kind of seems to introduce a separateness between individual humans and themselves, other humans and nature. We can will something all we want, make choices based on options presented to us by the environment around us that we think will lead to that will being fulfilled, but you never know what will come to you or where you will end up.

It's something to think about for sure. I think that it really is the environment that presents us choices, it's not like I choose in my own inner being to do this or that because I couldn't know about potential choices with knowing the environment my conscoiusness was born into and exposed to in order to realize what I may choose or do.

I suppose some people may have more options of choices presented to them, depending on the perception of their overall experience.

I'd love to see this experiment done where the subjects are asked to look at the circle they chose (checked with a retina monitor). It would alleviate the risk that the subjects say they had picked the 'right' circle - when they knew full well they hadn't.

Assuming the subjects were 100% truthful, the phenomena identified in this study could also be interpreted as precognition (see: http://www.wired.com/2010/11/feeling-the-future-is-precognition-possible/). I am skeptical of such findings - but who knows - maybe it is a 'thing'.

Interesting stuff!

I still think that until we can PROVE that free will does not exist that believing that it doesn't is just a way to make excuses for poor behavior and making bad choices. A belief that there isn't free will absolves one of all responsibility because they don't believe that they had a choice. It is better for society to believe that we have a choice because otherwise we won't strive to make better choices. In my opinion at least.

Goken wrote: I still think that until we can PROVE that free will does not exist that believing that it doesn't is just a way to make excuses for poor behavior and making bad choices.

The universe can only turn out one way. You making good or bad, friendly or malevolent choices along the way is part of that. We can only do what the universe has set us up to do.

It is better for society to believe that we have a choice because otherwise we won't strive to make better choices. In my opinion at least.

If you believe you had no choice in negative decisions, you also believe it in positive ones. I had no choice but to adore my child, hug my dogs, and wave the guy waiting to turn into traffic in front of me. I had no choice but to join the army and become a celebrated hero. I had no choice but to join TotJO and dedicate my life to peace and seeking wisdom.

There are positive results of lacking free will. Those who are prone to finding ways to escape responsibility will do it no matter what philosophy you give them. Lying to them about whether or not we have free will isn't going to save them from themselves.

I'm wondering how many people they tested and how many times they followed the same procedure. 30% might be a huge difference if you tested 1000 people 100 times each, but may not seem all that strange if they only tested 10 people 5 times each.

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I tend to view free will as becoming more manifest as we entertain abstract ideas, such that;



Here 'free will' and 'feelings' together represent 'arousal', and 'emotions' and 'passions' together represent 'affect'. The psychology definitions as stated in wikipedia as "is the physiological and psychological state of being awake" and "is the experience of feeling or emotion", respectively. That is when using my own working definitions for feeling, emotion and passion though...

So I think it depends on how and where our 'focus' is, or perhaps better, how our focus is contorted to relate to its awareness versus react to it.

I think it might be germane to look closer at the definitions. I don't think "free will" in this discussion means the same that we might bandy about over coffee.

If we are chemical-based-consciousness, carbon-life-forms, a logical extension is that our decisions arise from a sea of chemical-reaction. If there is a chemical basis to thought, and that can be manipulated by altering our chemistry, then one might argue a lack of free will. However, just because you can artificially constrain a process doesn't necessarily mean it isn't novel in it's wild-state...

It is interesting, but somehow seems redundant to say we are chemical beings and then decide that since thought has a chemical basis, it isn't original or unique.

Even if we are the deterministic end result of predictable outcomes of every event since the big bang, our minds will never be sufficient to encompass a formula which would reliably predict all eventualities and it is therefore sufficiently random enough to be called free-will....

If the universe is "Maya", then so too everything within?

I'd be surprised if (actually) free will existed.

Free will is one of those old arbitrarily decided upon questions that since became so ingrained that we recognize them as intuitive. Really, when ever a thought occurs to us, we have no say in it occurring to us, because there is no recognizable person absent the working brain with all its uncontrolled thoughts and wants. Free will doesn't intuitively make any sense, nor does it considering what we know about how the brain does indeed work. Chemical processes are a product of either exclusively deterministic laws or partially deterministic ones with some set of random elements by their side. Neither case could be made into a case for free will and I for one find it high time that we stop pretending that free will is the default notion and a lack of it has to be demonstrated when of course the opposite has been the case all along.

Gisteron wrote: Neither case could be made into a case for free will and I for one find it high time that we stop pretending that free will is the default notion and a lack of it has to be demonstrated when of course the opposite has been the case all along.

Ooo, examples please?

I find lack of evidence (really substantial evidence I mean) for either argument, but, am willing to learn...

I have been saying for years, that "we have the destiny to live with our choices."

The results of a test can be interpreted many ways depending on one’s focus. What I would be interested in seeing is the actual thought processes involved, or not involved. I would have to lean towards Adder’s view on this one.

I also appreciate Lightstrider’s question, “didn't those scientists have the free will to do this study?”

Free will is a lot like the question of destiny or fate; or, at least related to the same lines of thinking.

It would not be hard to believe that people have a kind of autonomic response to questions or tasks that do not involve higher reasoning. Such as, pick a random whatever. I’m sure we’ve all struggled with a difficult choice at some point in our lives. I want to do this, but I think/know this option is the better choice. Which do we choose? Why?

I don’t know… maybe if we could time travel we could learn the outcome of an individual’s choices, then go back and see if we could persuade them otherwise or tell them the consequences of their choice and see if they would choose otherwise. Then, perhaps we could definitively conclude rather destiny, fate, free will actual had some kind of hold over us. Design some kind of experiment where we have a control where the result is predictable to base the variations on. As is, we have an experiment that compares results to mathematically expected results and we are surmising the cause. Which is probably a good starting point based on current technology… I’m just rambling.

Perhaps record the subjects results from an EEG while taking the test to see what parts of the brain are responding to the task at hand could help to explain the process and reasoning behind it? Then, we might be able to come to a more comprehensive conclusion of the results. Maybe?

We may never know in my life time.

i know that there are moments where i technically have a choice, but i dont really have a choice

if i start mentioning castaneda every time an idea comes up that he talked about you guys are going to get annoyed fast lol

but thats because hes talked about so many

the idea that i got from his books is that the universe itself presents situations to us, and we are either too blind or weak to recognize or to accept our responsibility for acting appropriately in those situations, (even though we want to, or would if we understood) or we realize the obligation to which we are being called, and we accept it

basically, he said that the only real freedom that we have is to accept gracefully the obligation of the moment, and to commit ourselves to it fully, and without reservation

he called that "impeccability"

its an interesting discussion!

Your post reminded me of the measuring of light...

And, has altered my view a bit, although I do await Gisteron's response...

In some tests, it is a wave, in others, a particle...Just depending on how we measure it...

The 'free will v. destiny' debate seems to follow this idea...

As does many other things...

Gisteron and I have gone round on topics, and he likes his 'peer reviews', not trusting personal observation (I hope I said that correctly, lol), where I support 'peer review', but also i support personal evidence... Which is often times, not repeatable... In the same breath, I do know my senses can be fooled, so, my personal evidence is always suspect, :pinch: ....

Just 'toying with a string', lol....

so its either a burnt chicken or an opportunity to show my wife how much i love her, depending on how we look at it?

(im not actually married - its just a joke lol)

Jestor, I'd love to give you examples I have, yet I do not know of what. The passage of mine you quoted was not proposing any sort of mechanism or postulate any kind of model at all. I was just pointing out that often times in conversation one catches oneself challenging the notion of free will that seems widely accepted by the general public without either a shred of evidence nor a sound argument leading to it. I happen to find that the burden to justify a model featuring unnecessary assumptions that raise more questions than they answer is on those asserting it. It isn't so much that I have means to prove a negative (nor should anybody be required to); rather there is no need to assume a ghost in the machine and it is for this reason that any model featuring one is inherently less believable.
What even is free will? If you had two beings, identical in appearance and behaviour, one with free will and one without, how could you possibly tell them apart?
And if your neighbor cannot tell that you have free will, how can you? The only way to argue free will is to assert that it is, and that it is necessary and indubitable. As it stands, it still is vague to the point of meaninglessness and thus it is unfalsifiable, for otherwise we could test for it and know whether any person has it.

Gisteron wrote: If you had two beings, identical in appearance and behaviour, one with free will and one without, how could you possibly tell them apart?

The being that has free will thinks about or evaluates options presented to it and makes a choice based on it's own reasoning and inner processes.

The being that doesn't have free will is a passive being, a blade of grass bending whichever way the wind blows.

Maybe? :whistle:

So, going with the flow cannot be a choice? Based on reasoning and inner processes?

How would you know it was or wasnt?

To which, it doesnt matter.

We do what we do and for myself, I give no time to whether its free will or not, because im doing it anyway.