Free Will and Evolved Behavior

[Jayjay]

Let's suppose there is a totally omniscient being who understands and is aware of all the minute inputs which create the output of a particular decision. This being is also honest and without guile.

I am faced with some simple choice and the being tells me which I will choose.

Do I have to abide by the being's prediction?

You don't have to, but you will. Because if you didn't, the being would not have been able to tell you what you will choose.

This is like a simplified version of the Monty Hall problem. Game show host gives you two doors, behind one is a goat and behind the other one is a car. You choose one door, and the host opens the other to reveal a goat. Your chances of winning a car are 100%, even though you could have picked either door. How come?

I don't see the parallel. Once the choice is made and the goat alternative is revealed, chance is no longer relevant.

Ok, maybe the analogy was a bit flawed.

In the case of the omniscient being's prediction, I now have a small piece of information which informs my choice. Why would that compel me to act as the being said I would?

The omniscient being could have easily taken that piece of information into account when it made its prediction. In fact, it would have had to: otherwise it could not honestly make any prediction. This added piece of information may or may not compel you to make your choice (you could have decided in advance that you will choose X regardless of what the omniscient being says). The choice is as free as any choice you make. But we know what the choice is because that's what the scenario says.

 

[DBT]

We don't choose how we think or what we think, conscious thought is being produced or generated by underlying neuronal activity even while it's being experienced.

 

[Tigers!]

We don't choose how we think or what we think, conscious thought is being produced or generated by underlying neuronal activity even while it's being experienced.

Does seem to give the racists (as an example) a way out.

"It not my fault I had those thoughts or did those deeds. It was my uncontrollable neuronal activity."

 

[fromderinside]

things at time t........and what follows is determined......

Who/what clocked time t?

Something with a memory function that can conceive of a past, present, future self.

If my future is predetermined can I still 'want' to be free at a given point of my life? Can my seeking be a state I'm in while moving across time? I may not have control over the outcome but can I still desire a more limitless life and consciously strive for one?

Want, desire derived. Processing or cataloging not willful just play with what is already there. Not useful given what hasn't taken place yet. Still, using past to predict/prepare for future useful even though not freely made in determined world. Determining repetitive behavior eases costs permitting niche.

 

[rousseau]

things at time t........and what follows is determined......

Who/what clocked time t?

Something with a memory function that can conceive of a past, present, future self.

If my future is predetermined can I still 'want' to be free at a given point of my life? Can my seeking be a state I'm in while moving across time? I may not have control over the outcome but can I still desire a more limitless life and consciously strive for one?

Want, desire derived. Processing or cataloging not willful just play with what is already there. Not useful given what hasn't taken place yet. Still, using past to predict/prepare for future useful even though not freely made in determined world. Determining repetitive behavior eases costs permitting niche.

Sounds about right. Sometimes I think of the world at large as a kind of theater which distracts us from our interior - the interior that really drives our lives. Need for calories, water, warmth, positive social relationships, regular and consistent stimulation, sex, and exercise fundamentally drives most of what we do, while the world distracts us from noticing.

It feels so good too quell craving that we aren't inclined to dwell too much on the source and limitations of our own behavior.

Personally I'm starting to internalize this more and more, feel ok with it, and recognize that inputs I source myself contribute to my well-being. It's fun to be successful, so why not be healthy and ride it out.

 

[fromderinside]

Except for the healthy part pretty much my philosophy.

 

[DBT]

We don't choose how we think or what we think, conscious thought is being produced or generated by underlying neuronal activity even while it's being experienced.

Does seem to give the racists (as an example) a way out.

"It not my fault I had those thoughts or did those deeds. It was my uncontrollable neuronal activity."

Why are they racists in the first place? How did they become to be racists? Are they looking for a way out? If they are looking for a way out, why can't they just drop their perception of other races through an act of 'free will' as their way out?

 

[Tigers!]

We don't choose how we think or what we think, conscious thought is being produced or generated by underlying neuronal activity even while it's being experienced.

Does seem to give the racists (as an example) a way out.

"It not my fault I had those thoughts or did those deeds. It was my uncontrollable neuronal activity."

Why are they racists in the first place? How did they become to be racists? Are they looking for a way out? If they are looking for a way out, why can't they just drop their perception of other races through an act of 'free will' as their way out?

You do not seem to accept 'free will' as existing so could they exercise it?

 

[DBT]

Why are they racists in the first place? How did they become to be racists? Are they looking for a way out? If they are looking for a way out, why can't they just drop their perception of other races through an act of 'free will' as their way out?

You do not seem to accept 'free will' as existing so could they exercise it?

What exactly is free will?

 

[Treedbear]

Why are they racists in the first place? How did they become to be racists? Are they looking for a way out? If they are looking for a way out, why can't they just drop their perception of other races through an act of 'free will' as their way out?

You do not seem to accept 'free will' as existing so could they exercise it?

What exactly is free will?

Just like the concept of God, it is the pre-scientific explanation for why things are the way they are due to there being as yet no direct cause-and-effect relationship having been discovered, or else there are just so many factors that contribute to the effect that the relationships are obscured. Therefore it's a substitute for saying "I don't know" why something occurred. It's the "uncaused cause" for why animate objects act in certain as-yet unexplained ways. The "sense of free will" that rousseau talks about as an evolved awareness is an example of understanding feelings as a mode of knowledge, when how we feel about things is actually due to unconscious perceptions which result in a reduced or increased level of anxiety within the brain. "Free will", like the idea of a benevolent, all powerful God, is the feel-good substitute for understanding how the world works. And just like the idea of God it doesn't need a cogent definition.

 

[rousseau]

Except for the healthy part pretty much my philosophy.

At thirty-four years old it's vanity, mostly.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

The usual discussion we have about free-will concludes like this:

• Man is a machine whose output is a result of prior input
• Therefore we do not have free-will

However, I like going further and including that we have a feeling of freedom:

• Man is a free actor in the world, giving him a sense that he is free
• Therefore he is free

But I've been thinking a lot lately about how our brain and nervous system has evolved in a way to dictate most of our behavior. For example, if we're a heterosexual male we are basically unfree from our sexual attraction to women, and are unfree from the desire to have relationship with them. Taking this line of thinking, being a social being, we are also unfree from our desire to have friends and companions.

Another example of a reality we are not free from is the need to survive and avoid pain. This forces us to put our best foot forward throughout our lives, we are in a constant tension of needing to maintain social relationships around us for the benefit of our own survival. Basically meaning that we are a kind of actor, that needs to constantly choose behavior that works in our own benefit.

And so on. The number of evolved traits we carry that we are not free from could take a while to list.

So put in this light you get this logic re: free will:

• I am a deterministic animal moving through time / space
• However I am free in the world and have a sense of freedom
• But lastly, I am still not free from my own instincts and cognitive reality

It's interesting when you put free will in this light, because it raises the question of what is true freedom. In what way could we behave that is not somehow linked to our evolved cognition?

When you take a birds eye view of humanity it's striking how consistent our behavior is in certain fundamental things, like sexual attraction, marriage, and so on. For most, marriage and relationships are completely normalized, but it does a great job of highlighting that our cognitive make-up dictates largely who we are, and how we spend most of our lives.

I read in someone else's post ages ago that we don't actually feel freedom, but rather we feel a constraint, and we feel when that constraint is lifted.

To be meaningful, any use of the terms "free" or "freedom" must reference, either explicitly or implicitly, some meaningful constraint. To be relevant, that constraint must be something that can be present or absent, that is, it must be a constraint that we could actually be free of. Here are a few examples of freedoms and their meaningful and relevant constraints:

1. We set the bird free (free from its cage).
2. We enjoy freedom of speech (free from political censorship).
3. Lincoln freed the slaves (free from the ownership of their masters).
4. I participated in Libet's experiment of my own free will (free from coercion and undue influence).​

There are some "freedoms" that are impossible, for example: "freedom from oneself", "freedom from causation", and "freedom from reality". We cannot be free from ourselves without being someone else. We cannot be free from causation without losing the freedom to do anything else. We cannot be free from reality without losing our ability to deal with reality. Because these "freedoms" are impossible, no use of the terms "free" or "freedom" can be taken to imply any one of them.

This is especially true of the "free" in free will. If we were free from ourselves, then it would be someone else's will. If we were free from causation then we could never carry out our intent. And if we were free from reality, then it would not be a will, but only a wish, within a dream.

Universal causal necessity/inevitability is neither a meaningful nor a relevant constraint. It is not meaningful because what we will inevitably do is exactly identical to us just being us, choosing what we choose, and doing what we do. And it is not a relevant constraint because there is nothing anyone can, or needs to, do about it.

Technically, we are not machines. Machines are tools we create to help us do our will. Machines we build have no will of their own.

However, we are a collaborative collection of reliable causal mechanisms that keep our hearts beating and our thoughts flowing. Thinking, like walking, is something we do. And anything we do requires reliable causation. It is the source of our freedom and our control.

 

[rousseau]

The usual discussion we have about free-will concludes like this:

• Man is a machine whose output is a result of prior input
• Therefore we do not have free-will

However, I like going further and including that we have a feeling of freedom:

• Man is a free actor in the world, giving him a sense that he is free
• Therefore he is free

But I've been thinking a lot lately about how our brain and nervous system has evolved in a way to dictate most of our behavior. For example, if we're a heterosexual male we are basically unfree from our sexual attraction to women, and are unfree from the desire to have relationship with them. Taking this line of thinking, being a social being, we are also unfree from our desire to have friends and companions.

Another example of a reality we are not free from is the need to survive and avoid pain. This forces us to put our best foot forward throughout our lives, we are in a constant tension of needing to maintain social relationships around us for the benefit of our own survival. Basically meaning that we are a kind of actor, that needs to constantly choose behavior that works in our own benefit.

And so on. The number of evolved traits we carry that we are not free from could take a while to list.

So put in this light you get this logic re: free will:

• I am a deterministic animal moving through time / space
• However I am free in the world and have a sense of freedom
• But lastly, I am still not free from my own instincts and cognitive reality

It's interesting when you put free will in this light, because it raises the question of what is true freedom. In what way could we behave that is not somehow linked to our evolved cognition?

When you take a birds eye view of humanity it's striking how consistent our behavior is in certain fundamental things, like sexual attraction, marriage, and so on. For most, marriage and relationships are completely normalized, but it does a great job of highlighting that our cognitive make-up dictates largely who we are, and how we spend most of our lives.

I read in someone else's post ages ago that we don't actually feel freedom, but rather we feel a constraint, and we feel when that constraint is lifted.

To be meaningful, any use of the terms "free" or "freedom" must reference, either explicitly or implicitly, some meaningful constraint. To be relevant, that constraint must be something that can be present or absent, that is, it must be a constraint that we could actually be free of. Here are a few examples of freedoms and their meaningful and relevant constraints:

1. We set the bird free (free from its cage).
2. We enjoy freedom of speech (free from political censorship).
3. Lincoln freed the slaves (free from the ownership of their masters).
4. I participated in Libet's experiment of my own free will (free from coercion and undue influence).​

There are some "freedoms" that are impossible, for example: "freedom from oneself", "freedom from causation", and "freedom from reality". We cannot be free from ourselves without being someone else. We cannot be free from causation without losing the freedom to do anything else. We cannot be free from reality without losing our ability to deal with reality. Because these "freedoms" are impossible, no use of the terms "free" or "freedom" can be taken to imply any one of them.

This is especially true of the "free" in free will. If we were free from ourselves, then it would be someone else's will. If we were free from causation then we could never carry out our intent. And if we were free from reality, then it would not be a will, but only a wish, within a dream.

Universal causal necessity/inevitability is neither a meaningful nor a relevant constraint. It is not meaningful because what we will inevitably do is exactly identical to us just being us, choosing what we choose, and doing what we do. And it is not a relevant constraint because there is nothing anyone can, or needs to, do about it.

Technically, we are not machines. Machines are tools we create to help us do our will. Machines we build have no will of their own.

However, we are a collaborative collection of reliable causal mechanisms that keep our hearts beating and our thoughts flowing. Thinking, like walking, is something we do. And anything we do requires reliable causation. It is the source of our freedom and our control.

In the context of this thread I think this drills down to the essential part of our lives, and the life of (most) animals. We are free to move about time and space, basically doing what we want. But:

• We can't be free from the bounds of our culture
• We can't be free from our basic, biological needs

From Leonard Cohen's Book of Longing: 'we are born to live in chains, though every atom's free'

Or a more fun quote:

'I gave in to the iron laws of the moral universe, that make a boredom of everything desired'

 

[DBT]

The usual discussion we have about free-will concludes like this:

• Man is a machine whose output is a result of prior input
• Therefore we do not have free-will

However, I like going further and including that we have a feeling of freedom:

• Man is a free actor in the world, giving him a sense that he is free
• Therefore he is free

But I've been thinking a lot lately about how our brain and nervous system has evolved in a way to dictate most of our behavior. For example, if we're a heterosexual male we are basically unfree from our sexual attraction to women, and are unfree from the desire to have relationship with them. Taking this line of thinking, being a social being, we are also unfree from our desire to have friends and companions.

Another example of a reality we are not free from is the need to survive and avoid pain. This forces us to put our best foot forward throughout our lives, we are in a constant tension of needing to maintain social relationships around us for the benefit of our own survival. Basically meaning that we are a kind of actor, that needs to constantly choose behavior that works in our own benefit.

And so on. The number of evolved traits we carry that we are not free from could take a while to list.

So put in this light you get this logic re: free will:

• I am a deterministic animal moving through time / space
• However I am free in the world and have a sense of freedom
• But lastly, I am still not free from my own instincts and cognitive reality

It's interesting when you put free will in this light, because it raises the question of what is true freedom. In what way could we behave that is not somehow linked to our evolved cognition?

When you take a birds eye view of humanity it's striking how consistent our behavior is in certain fundamental things, like sexual attraction, marriage, and so on. For most, marriage and relationships are completely normalized, but it does a great job of highlighting that our cognitive make-up dictates largely who we are, and how we spend most of our lives.

I read in someone else's post ages ago that we don't actually feel freedom, but rather we feel a constraint, and we feel when that constraint is lifted.

To be meaningful, any use of the terms "free" or "freedom" must reference, either explicitly or implicitly, some meaningful constraint. To be relevant, that constraint must be something that can be present or absent, that is, it must be a constraint that we could actually be free of. Here are a few examples of freedoms and their meaningful and relevant constraints:

1. We set the bird free (free from its cage).
2. We enjoy freedom of speech (free from political censorship).
3. Lincoln freed the slaves (free from the ownership of their masters).
4. I participated in Libet's experiment of my own free will (free from coercion and undue influence).​

There are some "freedoms" that are impossible, for example: "freedom from oneself", "freedom from causation", and "freedom from reality". We cannot be free from ourselves without being someone else. We cannot be free from causation without losing the freedom to do anything else. We cannot be free from reality without losing our ability to deal with reality. Because these "freedoms" are impossible, no use of the terms "free" or "freedom" can be taken to imply any one of them.

This is especially true of the "free" in free will. If we were free from ourselves, then it would be someone else's will. If we were free from causation then we could never carry out our intent. And if we were free from reality, then it would not be a will, but only a wish, within a dream.

Universal causal necessity/inevitability is neither a meaningful nor a relevant constraint. It is not meaningful because what we will inevitably do is exactly identical to us just being us, choosing what we choose, and doing what we do. And it is not a relevant constraint because there is nothing anyone can, or needs to, do about it.

Technically, we are not machines. Machines are tools we create to help us do our will. Machines we build have no will of their own.

However, we are a collaborative collection of reliable causal mechanisms that keep our hearts beating and our thoughts flowing. Thinking, like walking, is something we do. And anything we do requires reliable causation. It is the source of our freedom and our control.

Universal causation is the ultimate constraint. A constraint that nothing can escape. There are no loopholes, no back door, no special pleading. A bird may be freed from its cage, but the bird is not free from its environmental or the events that sweep it from life to death. To say the bird is free from its cage, the bird is free to fly is a description of relative conditions, which is not related to the nature of reality, if determined.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

The usual discussion we have about free-will concludes like this:

• Man is a machine whose output is a result of prior input
• Therefore we do not have free-will

However, I like going further and including that we have a feeling of freedom:

• Man is a free actor in the world, giving him a sense that he is free
• Therefore he is free

But I've been thinking a lot lately about how our brain and nervous system has evolved in a way to dictate most of our behavior. For example, if we're a heterosexual male we are basically unfree from our sexual attraction to women, and are unfree from the desire to have relationship with them. Taking this line of thinking, being a social being, we are also unfree from our desire to have friends and companions.

Another example of a reality we are not free from is the need to survive and avoid pain. This forces us to put our best foot forward throughout our lives, we are in a constant tension of needing to maintain social relationships around us for the benefit of our own survival. Basically meaning that we are a kind of actor, that needs to constantly choose behavior that works in our own benefit.

And so on. The number of evolved traits we carry that we are not free from could take a while to list.

So put in this light you get this logic re: free will:

• I am a deterministic animal moving through time / space
• However I am free in the world and have a sense of freedom
• But lastly, I am still not free from my own instincts and cognitive reality

It's interesting when you put free will in this light, because it raises the question of what is true freedom. In what way could we behave that is not somehow linked to our evolved cognition?

When you take a birds eye view of humanity it's striking how consistent our behavior is in certain fundamental things, like sexual attraction, marriage, and so on. For most, marriage and relationships are completely normalized, but it does a great job of highlighting that our cognitive make-up dictates largely who we are, and how we spend most of our lives.

I read in someone else's post ages ago that we don't actually feel freedom, but rather we feel a constraint, and we feel when that constraint is lifted.

To be meaningful, any use of the terms "free" or "freedom" must reference, either explicitly or implicitly, some meaningful constraint. To be relevant, that constraint must be something that can be present or absent, that is, it must be a constraint that we could actually be free of. Here are a few examples of freedoms and their meaningful and relevant constraints:

1. We set the bird free (free from its cage).
2. We enjoy freedom of speech (free from political censorship).
3. Lincoln freed the slaves (free from the ownership of their masters).
4. I participated in Libet's experiment of my own free will (free from coercion and undue influence).​

There are some "freedoms" that are impossible, for example: "freedom from oneself", "freedom from causation", and "freedom from reality". We cannot be free from ourselves without being someone else. We cannot be free from causation without losing the freedom to do anything else. We cannot be free from reality without losing our ability to deal with reality. Because these "freedoms" are impossible, no use of the terms "free" or "freedom" can be taken to imply any one of them.

This is especially true of the "free" in free will. If we were free from ourselves, then it would be someone else's will. If we were free from causation then we could never carry out our intent. And if we were free from reality, then it would not be a will, but only a wish, within a dream.

Universal causal necessity/inevitability is neither a meaningful nor a relevant constraint. It is not meaningful because what we will inevitably do is exactly identical to us just being us, choosing what we choose, and doing what we do. And it is not a relevant constraint because there is nothing anyone can, or needs to, do about it.

Technically, we are not machines. Machines are tools we create to help us do our will. Machines we build have no will of their own.

However, we are a collaborative collection of reliable causal mechanisms that keep our hearts beating and our thoughts flowing. Thinking, like walking, is something we do. And anything we do requires reliable causation. It is the source of our freedom and our control.

Universal causation is the ultimate constraint. A constraint that nothing can escape. There are no loopholes, no back door, no special pleading. A bird may be freed from its cage, but the bird is not free from its environmental or the events that sweep it from life to death. To say the bird is free from its cage, the bird is free to fly is a description of relative conditions, which is not related to the nature of reality, if determined.

A constraint that nothing can escape is irrelevant. There is no reason to bring up a constraint that cannot be lifted.

The bird's ability to fly is made possible by reliable causation. Otherwise, he'd flap his wings and nothing would happen.

It's kinda like the glass being half-empty or half-full. You can view reliable causation as a prison, or you can view reliable cause and effect as the very source of all of our control and all of our freedoms. It enables the bird to fly where he wants to.

 

[DBT]

Universal causation is the ultimate constraint. A constraint that nothing can escape. There are no loopholes, no back door, no special pleading. A bird may be freed from its cage, but the bird is not free from its environmental or the events that sweep it from life to death. To say the bird is free from its cage, the bird is free to fly is a description of relative conditions, which is not related to the nature of reality, if determined.

A constraint that nothing can escape is irrelevant. There is no reason to bring up a constraint that cannot be lifted.

The bird's ability to fly is made possible by reliable causation. Otherwise, he'd flap his wings and nothing would happen.

It's kinda like the glass being half-empty or half-full. You can view reliable causation as a prison, or you can view reliable cause and effect as the very source of all of our control and all of our freedoms. It enables the bird to fly where he wants to.

An absolute constraint cannot be dismissed simply because it cannot be lifted. If the World is determined, which is the absolute constraint that determines everything that happens, every event, thought and action.

That the bird is freed from its cage is a relative description of the birds condition in the progression of time and fixed as a matter of natural law events, the absence of the constraint of a cage being a trivial reference that has no bearing on the actions of the bird within or without the cage within a determined system, which is the ultimate constraint.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

Universal causation is the ultimate constraint. A constraint that nothing can escape. There are no loopholes, no back door, no special pleading. A bird may be freed from its cage, but the bird is not free from its environmental or the events that sweep it from life to death. To say the bird is free from its cage, the bird is free to fly is a description of relative conditions, which is not related to the nature of reality, if determined.

A constraint that nothing can escape is irrelevant. There is no reason to bring up a constraint that cannot be lifted.

The bird's ability to fly is made possible by reliable causation. Otherwise, he'd flap his wings and nothing would happen.

It's kinda like the glass being half-empty or half-full. You can view reliable causation as a prison, or you can view reliable cause and effect as the very source of all of our control and all of our freedoms. It enables the bird to fly where he wants to.

An absolute constraint cannot be dismissed simply because it cannot be lifted. If the World is determined, which is the absolute constraint that determines everything that happens, every event, thought and action.

That the bird is freed from its cage is a relative description of the birds condition in the progression of time and fixed as a matter of natural law events, the absence of the constraint of a cage being a trivial reference that has no bearing on the actions of the bird within or without the cage within a determined system, which is the ultimate constraint.

The bird does not experience reliable causation as a constraint. All he knows is that when he flaps his wings he rises into the air and travels faster than when he walks. To him, as well as to us, reliable causation is the source of his freedom and his control.

 

[fromderinside]

It doesn't matter whether the bird experiences anything. It isn't free from determinism. Period. End of discussion.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

It doesn't matter whether the bird experiences anything. It isn't free from determinism. Period. End of discussion.

Fortunately, the bird has no need to be free of determinism. He only needs to be free of the cage.

 

[DBT]

An absolute constraint cannot be dismissed simply because it cannot be lifted. If the World is determined, which is the absolute constraint that determines everything that happens, every event, thought and action.

That the bird is freed from its cage is a relative description of the birds condition in the progression of time and fixed as a matter of natural law events, the absence of the constraint of a cage being a trivial reference that has no bearing on the actions of the bird within or without the cage within a determined system, which is the ultimate constraint.

The bird does not experience reliable causation as a constraint. All he knows is that when he flaps his wings he rises into the air and travels faster than when he walks. To him, as well as to us, reliable causation is the source of his freedom and his control.

What the bird experiences or feels has absolutely no bearing on its ultimate condition or fate.

Being free from its cage, the bird may feel free, yet it is not free from its condition or its fate....being a caged bird, having no skill in surviving in the wild, the bird is taken by a predator or starves to death in a matter of days.

Regardless of what it does, how free, unrestrained or uncoerced it feels, Its fate is sealed. That is the nature of determinism.

Special definitions of freedom alter nothing.