Does Free Will Exist?

[Slytovhand]

2 immediate thoughts..

First - the suicide idea... what has been presented infers that the 'me' or 'self' is non-physical.. by the quote "...severing my ties to the physical world?" (my emphasis). If the self is the consciousness, and the consciousness is completely physical, suicide only has the same effect as turning off a light-switch... with as much consequence (as far as this debate is concerned...). Turning off a light-switch has no significance in the 'free-will' debate. The analogy, I now realise after typing it, is extremely appropriate, as all the brain is is a big pile of electrical conductors (oh, and a stack of chemical storehouses and receptors). Flick the switch, no more electricity... no more consciousness. What leads up to that flick... that still brings us back to the initial argument, and hasn't moved it's position in any way.


Second thought (and still in development - I type on the fly...) -

The conscious mind is incapable of directing the flows of eletricity within the brain (if you wish to claim it is, then please provide a citation).

This doesn't really help the discussion, as far as a purely secular argument goes, but how about meditation specifically tuned towards addressing how one thinks? The brain does change. New processors are made. New pathways formed. These are because, as DrT did point out, pathways are made and used over and over and over again, gaining some advantage (bad word... typing on fly), and thus, various 'thoughts' are more ingrained. But new thoughts are possible, new ways of thinking are possible. Although I'm not aware of anyone specifically meditating on 'let's create a new neural pathway from here to there', they do think the idea of 'let's change how I think about XYZ'.

We do know that meditation does have an effect on sensory input, and reactionary output. Good meditators can change a variety of physical actions in the body normally considered involuntary.

Thoughts???

NB: this argument doesn't actually change the free will idea... after all, some determination was in place to have the thought to change one's thoughts in the first place....

[DrT]

Interesting paper for the most part, but it does not manage to draw any definitive conclusions. In fact, about all that it manages to say amounts to "I read someone else's work, thought it was interesting, did some of my own testing, and can't tell for sure if I did better or worse than him."

It's possible I've not understood all of what he said, though.

It basically says that the jury is still out, and tell sus why the old experiments have still a bias to them.

I doubt this will convince you, so let's put it another way: If the conscious mind is the one that directs the flow of electricity, then one of the thoughts that would have to occur is "Okay, time to drop the voltage to that area now." Since that thought does not occur (well, not in anybody that I've ever spoken with, I admit), this electrical flow is under the direction of something else.
.

Erm, I'd give you the old 'not yet'.
Since the understanding of the brain is only at its beginning, these thoughs cannot really be everyday, and thus we can't know for sure they are possible.
You however have people pretending they can control which part of the brain they are using, and direct themselves towards heightened awareness, sleep, and such things.
So I wouldn't rule it out just yet.

Let's see, if you kill yourself, do the atoms making up your body spontaneously disappear? No? Then no, you are still here. Not functioning the way you were before the suicide, but definitely still here.
So no, your ties are not severed. Good try, though.

Well, it depends what I am. And more importantly: what is life.

Am I a bunch of atoms put together ? Yes. But any bunch of atoms doesn't make a living being. You need something to hold to together, and that's the flow of energy. In a human it's so complex that you get a brain, with a flow of electrical energy added to the rest, but in a basteria, for instance, the flow of energy is purely biochemical.
Nevertheless, if you interrupt that flow, the bactery dies.

Now, the question is: does the individual stop being after the energy flow is stopped ?
If yes, the suicide thing stands. Because if you kill yourself, the energy flow stops. Remains a pile of atoms without direction, which structure will destroy itself to be recycled.
If not, it makes for an interesting phylosophical debate: what are we ? If we still are that body without an energy flow, then were to we go when the body decomposes ?

Personnaly I tend to believe that life is that flow of energy holding us together.

Nope, not a thing. However, I have an interesting thought experiment for you. If the conscious mind is in control of the electrical flows throughout the body, and if those flows are required for life (as we understand it) to continue, then, through no more than free will, you should be able to end your life. You should not have to use anything more than the power of your mind.
Personally, I've not heard of people doing such things. Whenever an unusual death is fully investigated, there's always some physical cause. The body stopped.

Well, I don't see why we should be forbidden the use of tools in order to commit suicide for the theory to hold, but ok.
Controlling death with the power of your mind ? You should look up monks, particularly the Tibetan ones. Their control of their bodily functions are extreme, and some are believed to be able to stop their life at will.

However, it goes back to my first answer: at the state of today's knowledge, such a level of control hasn't yet reached everyday life. That is just a matter of time, not a limitation of the means.
A nice example of the control of the mind on the body is the placebo effect. Take it forward in time, what wonders can you get ? I think it goes in the 'not yet explained' bin, not in the 'impossible' one

Until it is possible to kill ourselves with a though (which for all I know already is), then why should the use of a tool be forbidden for the theory to work ? You control that tool with your mind...

Do suicides happen? Sure. The collection of electrical impulses that power the brain eventually lead to a state wherein the brain's decision making centers caused a set of actions that ended the electrical impulses in question.
That does not mean that the person chose it. It only means that things happened inside the brain to cause it. Big difference.

So, you're infering that people commiting suicide didn't chose it ?
Well, you're going there alone, then.
I believe this action is one of the hardest there is, and only an iron clad will can pull it through. It therefore requiers all the power of the conscious mind to control the body until the trigger is pressed, the jump is made, etc.
I don't think the unconscious part of the brain can pull it off alone.
Sure, the mind can be altered to be pushed to suicide, but in that case the experiment is biased.
Healthy individuals can consider suicide. They generally chose not to perform it, because the benefits of stiking around outweight the benefits of leaving, but that's a conscious choice.


Slytovhand:
The fact that suicide ends the self doesn't mean that this action is unconscious. Humans are one of the few known entities that can voluntarily end their existence (I'm working on the premise that suicide is a voluntary and highly conscious act). Sooner of later in his life, a human will be faced with the choice to keep on living, or not.
With the 'not' choice being the easiest and painless one.

I infer that the only thing making that choice is the conscious mind, us. we are free to make that choice, at any time. free.

Here's my idea: we come to our consciousness in a universe rules by the lwas of physics, and in order to live there we need to obey them. Unlike all other known species, we are given the choice to stay or leave (at around the middle of teenage, I think. That would answer your 'when does free will come', Sly)
We chose to stay, with our conscious mind, probably because since we're going to leave this universe anyway (death is a 100% occurence, the only probability that is so certain) we might as well make the best for it.
Some of us, when it becomes too hard, decide to take their leave early.
It nevertheless boils down to the fact that the choice is ours, and nothing can make it for us. We are not forced to live here.
If we were forced, then yes we wouldn't be free. But since we aren't...

Sure the sensation of freedom would be greater if we knew there was something else after death. But the lack of information doesn't change the fact that we have the choice.

[Boozy]

Controlling death with the power of your mind ? You should look up monks, particularly the Tibetan ones. Their control of their bodily functions are extreme, and some are believed to be able to stop their life at will.

Tangent!

It's amazing what some of the Zen monks can do. For example, some can stand in the ice and snow for days and not get frostbite.

Obviously, there's some sort of "mind over matter" argument to be made here, but I'm not sure what it is in the greater context of this thread. I haven't been following very closely. Carry on.

[Flyndaran]

Tangent!

It's amazing what some of the Zen monks can do. For example, some can stand in the ice and snow for days and not get frostbite.

Obviously, there's some sort of "mind over matter" argument to be made here, but I'm not sure what it is in the greater context of this thread. I haven't been following very closely. Carry on.

Consciously controlling so called unconscious body functions is not mind over matter. It's simply the forebrain poking the basal to do what it want's it to do.

As a child I could control my internal body temperature, to make it higher at least. Certainly not supernatural.

[DrT]

Consciously controlling so called unconscious body functions is not mind over matter. It's simply the forebrain poking the basal to do what it want's it to do.

As a child I could control my internal body temperature, to make it higher at least. Certainly not supernatural.

mind over body, more like

and since the whole thread is about the fact that the body controls the mind (ie: no free will) and not the other way around (ie:free will), it takes some importance

[Boozy]

As a child I could control my internal body temperature, to make it higher at least. Certainly not supernatural.

Did I say it was "supernatural"?

No, I did not.

I used the colloquial phrase "mind over matter" which to me simply implies that the brain has a great deal of control over the body's sensory mechanisms. That is all.

[Flyndaran]

Did I say it was "supernatural"?

No, I did not.

I used the colloquial phrase "mind over matter" which to me simply implies that the brain has a great deal of control over the body's sensory mechanisms. That is all.

Ahh. I've never hear that phrase used in any other way than to show that a human mind can override some aspect of physicality and usually of physics itself. I've certainly never heard it used to simply describe that the conscious mind can sometimes exert some control over normally unconscious aspects of the mind.

[Flyndaran]

mind over body, more like

and since the whole thread is about the fact that the body controls the mind (ie: no free will) and not the other way around (ie:free will), it takes some importance

I would say that the mind is a product of the body, not that the body controls the mind.
No free will simply means that there is no aspect of yourself outside of body and body created mind.
Making choices is an aspect of life itself. Making difficult choices and sticking to made decisions is what is often called willpower or free will, but is also an aspect of complex life.

For example, growing up in an abusive household makes you FAR more likely to abuse, even if you don't want to. Calling it a moral weakness or inability to exert self-control is a copout to avoid dealing with the fact that our choices and even our very mind itself are compiled from our environment, and genetics and how those interact with the world through our behavior alone.

[DrT]

I think Pedersen took it a tad further
But he'll tell you better than I

[Pedersen]

This one took me a few days of thought to figure out what I had said/done wrong, actually. Especially with a quote like this, I found myself having to ask "Am I actually wrong?"

We do know that meditation does have an effect on sensory input, and reactionary output. Good meditators can change a variety of physical actions in the body normally considered involuntary.

Right after reading that, I remembered reading of these feats accomplished by seemingly no more than the power of the mind. So, I took a couple days away while I pondered this, and re-read my posts looking for where I was wrong. It took me a while, but I found it.

In a purely secular argument, the brain houses the consciousness, and is the sole location of the consciousness. The conscious mind is incapable of directing the flows of eletricity within the brain (if you wish to claim it is, then please provide a citation). The end result is that the conscious mind is completely subject to the electrical flows within itself, thus removing free will.

That is where I was wrong, because I made an incomplete statement. I might still get it wrong, but I will now attempt to rectify.

In a purely secular argument, the brain houses the consciousness, and is the sole location of the consciousness. The consciousness is comprised of several physical pieces, but all of them are physical (in a purely secular argument). As a result, the conscious mind is no more nor less than the interaction of these pieces. Now, these pieces are amazingly powerful in what they can do. Their power, though, does not give them the ability to act independently of their components. The end result is that the conscious mind is completely subject to the physical components within itself, thus removing free will.

Suicide.
That would indeed sever my ties to the physical world, wouldn't it ?

Suicide simply stops the functioning of the body parts. Those body parts are still very much tied to the physical world. So, no, your ties are not severed.

So, you're infering that people commiting suicide didn't chose it ?

In case it is less than explicit so far, I'll state it explicitly now: Since there is no free will, any and all actions are unable to be chosen. This includes suicide.

One thing bothers me tremendously, DrT. I've posted the following logical progression twice before, and you have failed to address it. Disproving me is simple, since all you have to do is conclusively break this progression. I posted it on the first page of this thread. I posted it again a dozen or so posts ago (within the thread). I now post it again.

I await your debunking.

• I have a body.
• In that body is a brain.
• The brain is exclusively composed of physical matter.
• All physical matter is affected by other physical matter in some way.
• The brain is responsible for all decision making processes.
• The brain, being affected by physical matter, therefore has its decision making processes affected by physical matter.
• Any idea of free will relies on the brain being able to make a choice independently of outside influence.
• The brain is unable to completely ignore physical matter (its own or other) during decision making processes. If the electrical impulses move in one direction, one decision will be made. If they move differently, a different decision will be made.
• Since the brain is incapable of acting independently from the physical matter that composes it, and since the brain is purely physical matter, and since free will requires the ability to act independently of outside influence, there is no free will.

[DrT]

I didn't debunk it because you're still saying, in that last sentence:
the brain cannot act independently of itself, therefore there is no free will.
since that makes no sense, I didn't bother noting it.

The physical matter making the brain IS the brain. you cannot take the two appart. Since you time and again do so (separate the object from its component) this is getting nowhere.

"In case it is less than explicit so far, I'll state it explicitly now: Since there is no free will, any and all actions are unable to be chosen. This includes suicide."

Well, now I though free will was the concept being questionned? You now ascertain its absence and use it to prove a point now....
Well, if free will didn't exist, then how can you explain suicide ?
Because suicide does exist, and if definately a conscious decision.

In a purely secular argument, the brain houses the consciousness, and is the sole location of the consciousness. The consciousness is comprised of several physical pieces, but all of them are physical (in a purely secular argument). As a result, the conscious mind is no more nor less than the interaction of these pieces. Now, these pieces are amazingly powerful in what they can do. Their power, though, does not give them the ability to act independently of their components. The end result is that the conscious mind is completely subject to the physical components within itself, thus removing free will.

that is saying: something cannot act indenpendantly of itself. do you see where it is wrong, or not ? Because if you don't there's no point in continuing.

Suicide simply stops the functioning of the body parts. Those body parts are still very much tied to the physical world. So, no, your ties are not severed.

yes, they are. Because I defined me, my life, as the flow of energy holding these parts together.
After suicide, the energy is gone. I am not. Therefore my ties are severed. What remains is just trash.

[Pedersen]

I didn't debunk it because you're still saying, in that last sentence:
the brain cannot act independently of itself, therefore there is no free will.
since that makes no sense, I didn't bother noting it.

The physical matter making the brain IS the brain. you cannot take the two appart. Since you time and again do so (separate the object from its component) this is getting nowhere.

That, though, is the crux of the argument. I am not separating anything. I am openly admitting that the consciousness is part of the brain, the brain is physical, the consciousness is physical, and therefore the consciousness is subject to the dictates of the physical. Since it cannot become separate, it cannnot override the lower components, which means that there is no free will.

"In case it is less than explicit so far, I'll state it explicitly now: Since there is no free will, any and all actions are unable to be chosen. This includes suicide."

Well, now I though free will was the concept being questionned? You now ascertain its absence and use it to prove a point now....

I'd like to welcome you this debate, since it's obvious you're new here. One thing that might be of interest to you would be this quote I made way back when, the very first post in the thread, in fact:

Free will does not exist. In order for it to exist, the processes that lead to the making of a choice would have to be divorced from the processes occurring within the body, existing somewhere else. Unless you believe that it is something other than our brains which are responsible for making the choices that our body carries out, free will cannot exist.

I have stated this as nothing less than factual throughout the thread. And have yet to be shown that, in a purely secular debate, it can even possibly be wrong.

Well, if free will didn't exist, then how can you explain suicide ?

How do I explain walking, breathing, etc? All the same way: Our brains respond to various inputs, and perform outputs. In the case of suicides, the inputs leave the brain incapable of doing anything other than taking its own life.

that is saying: something cannot act indenpendantly of itself. do you see where it is wrong, or not ? Because if you don't there's no point in continuing.

So, you are stating that something can act independently of itself? That's a pretty fascinating assertion. Perhaps you have an example of this behavior to back it up?

In other words, no, I don't see anything wrong with that statement. Seems pretty factual to me.

yes, they are. Because I defined me, my life, as the flow of energy holding these parts together.
After suicide, the energy is gone. I am not. Therefore my ties are severed. What remains is just trash.

Interesting choice of words there. "After suicide, the energy is gonne. I am not." So, you are still here, though the energy is gone. In other words, your ties are not severed.

I can't help but wonder at what's next, though. After all, I didn't see where that one statement was wrong, aand you aserted there was no point in continuing if I didn't see the error. We shall see if that, too, was misread by me.

Oh, and Slyt, your best bet is going to be to book your flight to Newark International Airport in New Jersey, USA. Airline tickets are usually cheapest if you wait three weeks. So, I guess I'll see you in about a month, right? Let me know the flight, so I can make it easier to find and assault me