Free Will And Free Choice

[untermensche]

What purpose is served by knowing the banana is there to something that has no power to go get it?

There is no doubt when we experience the banana it is there.

We know we experience it.

What a shame we have to wait for the dumb brain to go get it.

What a shame when we see the bear we have to wait for the dumb brain that creates a consciousness for no reason to move the legs.

 

[fromderinside]

Yes you can claim. No one denies you can claim.

It's simply not what is taking place. Any attempt to justify otherwise requires the hard evidence of material proof which is way beyond that of any rational argument.

One can argue "If the street and sidewalks and cars are wet it has been raining." Proving so requires closing out arguments that others may have watered the place down and material evidence that the water came from either source for beginners.

From what I've observed at trials it may even be that what you were shown as a juror did not reflect the scene of the crime either in time or place. Compilation of material evidence is an odious and trying task with many parameters needing be settled before it can be considered either material or evidence.

So go for your second hand personal testimony if you like. It is neither material, nor proof meeting even the skimpiest of requirements.

As for your theory and that of those suggesting tubule quantum activity is the basis for anything in decision making they need show the processes that keep such choice distinct to human behavioral time. It's my understanding one can argue lifetimes of decisions at the quantum level take place between picoseconds and tenth's of seconds. Wave collapse is a very specific physical process with distinct time frame.

I leave you with  Neuroscience of free will which while it doesn't rule out free will it does show a preponderance of evidence to the notions of free will as an illusion or human behavior is determined.

Regardless of objections one cannot expect one who lives after the fact - senses and measures report after after the fact - can produce activity reflecting choice when most of what one presently is processing won't be available to one's decision making processes for seconds. I'm saying one is living in a probabilistic, behind what is currently taking place, environment at best. For one to evolve production of free will decision making is unlikely.

In other words the most likely behavior to evolve would be one constrained by the reality that what one does is thrown in to an environment that has changed since one sensed it. To opine other wise would produce mechanisms, processes, which change rapidly over generations, altering formulae for current decision making processes. Instead a a pretty reflexive articulation of behavior - a nervous system that is built upon of evolving from a set of pretty fixed bases - is being supported with many components adapted to work in more modern environments.

One may evolve mechanisms for believing one is acting feely to cover the terror that would be produced if one knew what it was doing was yesterday's news. Still one must consider realities. When one looks at the nervous system one would probably conclude, as I just did, since more tissue is involved in automated behavior than is in choice behavior.

The requirement is very specific, Given conditions at time t = 0 everything thereafter is determined. Other conditions before, after, at almost the same time are irrelevant.

 

[DBT]

You ignore a critical point: nothing is conscious before information is acquired, processed and made conscious.

Yes there is consciousness before some of the information acquired.

You must realize the error of comparing earlier states or unrelated information to consciousness as it is being experienced. Sure there are prior states, consciousness, while active, is an ongoing process. a physical process.

It is physically impossible to be aware/conscious of a body of information, event, etc, before the brain acquires and processes that information.

We are not talking about magic.

Aren't you acquiring information now, and didn't you yesterday, and a week ago? And yet isn't it also true that you were conscious a month ago, and a year ago, and 10 years ago?

So how can you say that no consciousness can ever precede the acquiring information?

As I said earlier, there is constant acquisition of information, which is processed and some of that information feeds consciousness.

Cognition, an ongoing millisecond sequence of events;

Objects and events in the external world >input of information from objects and events > propagation of information throughout the neural networks of the brain > conscious perception of that information forms/conscious feelings and emotions are experienced > conscious thoughts and deliberations emerge > the conscious impulse to respond (the conscious will to act) is experienced > a conscious action is performed.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

... and then we find one who, after many diseases have been controlled, argue inoculations aren't safe because she fears them.

translation: If there's anything in the world which is not perfect, or there's any mistake or bad decision by someone, that is proof that there's no free will. In order for there to be free will, there can't be one tiny microscopic or subatomic error of any kind anywhere in the universe.

This is simply a misrepresentation of what "free will" means. There is free will in the world even though people make some bad mistakes and misjudgments, get bad information, etc.

You can wrap any context you want around a 'decision' and it will still not be freely determined.

translation: There are no facts, or possible facts, or possible observations, or possible conditions of any kind under any circumstance which would be evidence of anything happening freely. Free will (or "freely") is an inherent impossibility which could never be demonstrated as true in any possible universe of any kind. The very term "free will" or "freely" should never have been invented because it's impossible for it to ever apply to anything that could ever be, and this term can never be used correctly in any sentence (except maybe to pronounce it as nonexistent and inherently impossible).

I see you stumble as well.

translation: As long as anything unintended can ever happen, or as long as anything is not absolutely perfect anywhere in the universe with not one atom or subatomic particle out of place, free will (or "freely") is an impossibility.

t = 0 is pretty specific.

translation: As long as any event in the universe happens later than any other event, there can be no free will or free act of any kind.



You can't make up your own rules how a word is to be used and force something to not exist because you define it out of existence.

legitimate meaning of "free will"

It's a "free" act if the subject makes the choice (i.e., a selection process happens (which no one denies does happen)), and if the choice happens at a point in time when the subject is conscious (which also no one denies happens).

AND, the choice must not be caused by a coercive threat (from an intruder who makes the chooser worse off by interfering), in which case the choice is not "free" even though it happens and the subject is conscious of it.

Such "free" acts sometimes happen and sometimes do not happen. It depends on what the facts are in a given case whether the act is "free" or not. It does not depend on rules imposed onto the universe which dictate that it cannot ever be no matter what the facts are.

Or, such "freedom" sometimes happens but other times is suppressed, depending upon the facts.

This is not contradicted by any scientific facts or research.


illegitimate meaning of "free will"

It is contradicted only by dogmatic decrees which would ban the word "free" or "freely" or "freedom" from ever being used in a sentence, and which would impose Absolutes disallowing any verification/falsification as is required by legitimate science.

It is not legitimate to prove something by making it inherently unverifiable/falsifiable or by defining it so that it could not possibly be true in any imaginable universe of any kind.

 

[untermensche]

If you have no free will then you can have no opinion that is meaningful. No opinion that you arrived at with reason.

Every word you say is just a brain reflex and it means nothing.

You can't even hope to have something like comprehension of the world.

An unfree zombie proposing there is no free will is not proposing an idea. It is just something the zombie is forced to think.

People that make arguments about how they don't have the intellectual freedom to make or recognize good arguments are perhaps the most deluded people on the planet.

 

[fromderinside]

Other than what I state being the definitions of the matter it is the statement of definition put forward by the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/determinism-causal/#Int .

Yes your statement about my statement is correct.

Also your statements about free will can be true if you use self defined conditions to make your definition. However we live in the world which has found to be pretty much determined IAC natural law as specified by SEP. Free will is not be be one of the elements of natural law.

I don't think we agree on what is choice, we disagree on whether it can be freely made IAC natural law.

My argument comes down to can a being who lives in the past construct a choice free from determination. My answer for many reasons is it cannot.

Your rationales always violate determination while never being bedded in material evidence. If you are having a problem with determination,- and you are definitely having problems establishing reality as a basis for your 'choice' paradigms - you are substituting for reality self referent statements. Reality is decision is t = 0 IAC natural law.

For some reason you are perfectly happy with conditions at time t = 0 not being related in any way with either the reality of humans being respondent in nature nor privy to relevant information at the time they make decisions about the present t = 0, when they act.

 

[untermensche]

An unfree entity can trust no thoughts. It cannot distrust any either.

It does not have the freedom to trust or not trust.

Words expressed by unfree entities can be totally ignored.

An unfree entity just reflexively spews words.

There is nothing sentient that constructed them and nothing that believes them.

Like Trump supporters mad believers that they have no freedom should be ignored and kept from your children.

 

[DBT]

If you have no free will then you can have no opinion that is meaningful. No opinion that you arrived at with reason.

Every word you say is just a brain reflex and it means nothing.

You can't even hope to have something like comprehension of the world.

An unfree zombie proposing there is no free will is not proposing an idea. It is just something the zombie is forced to think.

People that make arguments about how they don't have the intellectual freedom to make or recognize good arguments are perhaps the most deluded people on the planet.

Your post suggests that you haven't yet grasped the distinction between the ability to make decisions - which nobody denies - and the incoherent notion of free will.

The brain makes decisions based on neural architecture/capacity, information input and sets of criteria developed through experience/memory. A simple failure of memory function and its all over.

 

[fromderinside]

If you have no free will then you can have no opinion that is meaningful. No opinion that you arrived at with reason.

Every word you say is just a brain reflex and it means nothing.

You can't even hope to have something like comprehension of the world.

An unfree zombie proposing there is no free will is not proposing an idea. It is just something the zombie is forced to think.

People that make arguments about how they don't have the intellectual freedom to make or recognize good arguments are perhaps the most deluded people on the planet.

Your post suggests that you haven't yet grasped the distinction between the ability to make decisions - which nobody denies - and the incoherent notion of free will.

The brain makes decisions based on neural architecture/capacity, information input and sets of criteria developed through experience/memory. A simple failure of memory function and its all over.

There is nothing is the argument against free will that precludes decision making. Computers use algorithms to resolve problems. Problem solving and result obtaining are the very essence of decision making. Free will is precluded form objective problem solving and decision making by design, some call it protocol.

Reflexes can be be stated as decision making and problem solving, but never accused of being either conscious or the result of the exercise of free will.

When one make the argument that behavior is the result of evolution which trends to fitness one is embedding enhanced decision making in resulting organisms. One does not then make the argument that it is just reflex built upon reflex.

What was once a reflex becomes a processes which becomes an behavioral algorithm responsive to a larger class of inputs and conditions. Those conditions and inputs come to produce outputs proportional or informative to combinations of stimuli to specific and general ends depending on what combinations are generated in the evolved process.

Meaning is judged by the interaction between beings, not the mere content of expression. Meaning, a subjective condition, is irrelevant to will, decision making or evolution.

 

[DBT]

If you have no free will then you can have no opinion that is meaningful. No opinion that you arrived at with reason.

Every word you say is just a brain reflex and it means nothing.

You can't even hope to have something like comprehension of the world.

An unfree zombie proposing there is no free will is not proposing an idea. It is just something the zombie is forced to think.

People that make arguments about how they don't have the intellectual freedom to make or recognize good arguments are perhaps the most deluded people on the planet.

Your post suggests that you haven't yet grasped the distinction between the ability to make decisions - which nobody denies - and the incoherent notion of free will.

The brain makes decisions based on neural architecture/capacity, information input and sets of criteria developed through experience/memory. A simple failure of memory function and its all over.

There is nothing is the argument against free will that precludes decision making. Computers use algorithms to resolve problems. Problem solving and result obtaining are the very essence of decision making. Free will is precluded form objective problem solving and decision making by design, some call it protocol.

Reflexes can be be stated as decision making and problem solving, but never accused of being either conscious or the result of the exercise of free will.

Yes, it's not that hard to grasp. Yet some folk show an incredible degree of resistance toward understanding the basics of decision making.

 

[untermensche]

If you have no free will then you can have no opinion that is meaningful. No opinion that you arrived at with reason.

Every word you say is just a brain reflex and it means nothing.

You can't even hope to have something like comprehension of the world.

An unfree zombie proposing there is no free will is not proposing an idea. It is just something the zombie is forced to think.

People that make arguments about how they don't have the intellectual freedom to make or recognize good arguments are perhaps the most deluded people on the planet.

Your post suggests that you haven't yet grasped the distinction between the ability to make decisions - which nobody denies - and the incoherent notion of free will.

The brain makes decisions based on neural architecture/capacity, information input and sets of criteria developed through experience/memory. A simple failure of memory function and its all over.

To MAKE a decision requires the freedom to make it.

To have an educated opinion requires the freedom to choose between competing ideas.

You simply deny the freedom you have.

You are an absurd creature claiming you have the proper opinions but did not have the intellectual freedom to arrive at those opinions or the intellectual freedom to decide if the ideas are good.

Your absurd charade is quite funny.

 

[untermensche]

People that claim they have no freedom are saying they have chosen none of the ideas they believe. They have no freedom to choose.

They just spew ideas because they are forced to do it by a brain that is forcing everything.

Those that claim they have no freedom are blind to the absurdity inherent in the claim.

They have no clue what "no freedom" means. They don't comprehend the consequence of the claim.

Because they have had the freedom to choose which ideas to accept their whole life.

They freely chose to believe they have no freedom proving they do have freedom.

If they did not freely choose to believe they have no freedom then the opinion is meaningless.

Any opinion not freely chosen is meaningless.

The computer that randomly says you are brilliant when you hit a button is not expressing a meaningful opinion.

 

[untermensche]

For a scientific study to be valid several things must be present.

The researchers must have the freedom to choose the topic of research.

They must have the freedom to create a research design that will address the topic.

They must have the freedom to make accurate measurements.

They must have the freedom to make valid conclusions.

No freedom = No science.

 

[DBT]

To MAKE a decision requires the freedom to make it.

To make a decision requires a mechanism capable of acquiring and processing information - in this instance the neural architecture of a brain - according to a given set of criteria.....without which there is no decision making capability.

Your absurd charade is quite funny.

You don't have a clue abut the subject matter. You dismiss the work of qualified researchers in the field in favour of fringe philosophy.

 

[fromderinside]

It is a brain about which we're talking. It is composed of trillions of biological switches. So we are making decisions all the time. The analogy that comes to mind is a computer. It is designed to make decisions through use of electronic switches. No will there.

I will accept the notion of will, consciousness, and self as biologically designed processes which function to keep the dauber of a person up in the face of it being in a world running several seconds ahead.

It's impossible to make a choices about states that now exist when only information about the past has been obtained upon which to make those decisions about behaving in the world now. So will, choice, consciousness, can be no more than historical functions. Thus seen they cannot be freely made nor can they be currently applicable.

Humans clearly aren't in control. The choices they make cannot be freely made because the ones they make can only be about the past.

As I pointed out a long time ago a human's reaction to a bear crashing toward her through the forest is delayed for about half a second before she can begin to analyze it.

We know that nature provides for the quickest responses possible via natural selection. We have measured these times, We accommodated for them in sport for example with reaction time corrections.

You can't post we have choice when you know that we are acting in response to the past.

All that is available when its biologically informed decisions execute responses are made enter in to a world that that has moved on. All it can do is presume the state of the world continues to remain the same as when the information it has arrived.

If there is a conscious executive function it is operating in a nether world.

Apparently evolution had responded to provide mechanisms which prop up hope in the form of illusions. This serves one to be confident about one's ability to control things now using information already past.

However with respect to operating among humans and other life we are adequately equipped to react to with them in a shared imaginary present. Our acts are seen by other beings as being current and their acts are seen by us as current as well. So with respect to behaving with living things we can say we are in control and current. We aren't. We think we are.

Fiction of course, but it's here where we, from armchairs, discuss choice consciousness, and self.

In the material world there is no space nor set material of laws of human nature linked to a real t = 0.

 

[untermensche]

To MAKE a decision requires the freedom to make it.

To make a decision requires a mechanism capable of acquiring and processing information - in this instance the neural architecture of a brain - according to a given set of criteria.....without which there is no decision making capability.

That is a decision occurring.

It is not MAKING a decision.

And NOTHING you say has any meaning.

You have no freedom.

You have no control over the ideas you believe. You don't have the freedom to know if they are rational. Your brain could just be lying to you about that too.

The pathetic fool that utters "I have no freedom" is a creature to ignore. They are so lost and deluded you will not get any sense from them. They are claiming they are not free to make conclusions about your arguments and do not control their arguments so there is no reason to waste your time listening to their arguments.

If the fool that utters "I have no freedom" actually believed their nonsense they would quickly understand they couldn't trust a thought in their head.

 

[DBT]

To MAKE a decision requires the freedom to make it.

To make a decision requires a mechanism capable of acquiring and processing information - in this instance the neural architecture of a brain - according to a given set of criteria.....without which there is no decision making capability.

That is a decision occurring.

It is not MAKING a decision.

And NOTHING you say has any meaning.

You have no freedom.

You have no control over the ideas you believe. You don't have the freedom to know if they are rational. Your brain could just be lying to you about that too.

The pathetic fool that utters "I have no freedom" is a creature to ignore. They are so lost and deluded you will not get any sense from them. They are claiming they are not free to make conclusions about your arguments and do not control their arguments so there is no reason to waste your time listening to their arguments.

If the fool that utters "I have no freedom" actually believed their nonsense they would quickly understand they couldn't trust a thought in their head.

Where to start? Practically everything you say is skewed in favour of your own beliefs.

Rather than deal with the actual mechanisms of decision making, neural networks acquiring and processing information, you wander off into irrelevant beliefs. Faith instead of facts.

Decision-making is the function of a brain or a processor. In the case of biology, decisions that are made are determined by an interaction of neural architecture, information input and sets of criteria formed through experience: memory function. Animals make decisions based on their own needs, wants, fears according to the ability and capacity of their brain.

It's not magic. It's not quantum consciousness, it is neural architecture and its function.

 

[untermensche]

Those that claim they do not have free will are very blind pathetic creatures.

They don't have the slightest clue what it means to not have free will.

They try to persuade proving they have a free will that wants to get some truth they have freely arrived at across.

But if you don't have a free will you do not have the ability to know if something is true or false. Every thought that something is true is a forced thought not a thought freely arrived at.

Knowing if something is true requires the freedom to make judgements and to follow conclusions.

A conclusion that is not freely made is not worth anything.

The creature that does not have freedom cannot freely come to conclusions. All conclusions about all things are forced upon them, as is every idea in their head.

They spew stupidity to put it bluntly.

 

[DBT]

Those that claim they do not have free will are very blind pathetic creatures.

They don't have the slightest clue what it means to not have free will.

They try to persuade proving they have a free will that wants to get some truth they have freely arrived at across.

But if you don't have a free will you do not have the ability to know if something is true or false. Every thought that something is true is a forced thought not a thought freely arrived at.

Knowing if something is true requires the freedom to make judgements and to follow conclusions.

A conclusion that is not freely made is not worth anything.

The creature that does not have freedom cannot freely come to conclusions. All conclusions about all things are forced upon them, as is every idea in their head.

They spew stupidity to put it bluntly.

You still confuse the ability to make decisions - which nobody denies - with the poorly defined term: 'free will.' However, you can believe whatever happens to float your boat.

 

[fromderinside]

Ahem

Those that claim they do not have free will are very blind pathetic creatures.

They don't have the slightest clue what it means to not have free will.

They try to persuade proving they have a free will that wants to get some truth they have freely arrived at across.

But if you don't have a free will you do not have the ability to know if something is true or false. Every thought that something is true is a forced thought not a thought freely arrived at.

Knowing if something is true requires the freedom to make judgements and to follow conclusions.

A conclusion that is not freely made is not worth anything.

The creature that does not have freedom cannot freely come to conclusions. All conclusions about all things are forced upon them, as is every idea in their head.

They spew stupidity to put it bluntly.

First: Pardon me DBT for leaving out your correct rebuttal statement.

Since 5/29 I've given up viewing Untermensche posts

So I took your post which included his post to respond since he completely ignored, as usual, to provide evidence to dismiss my post without mentioning to whom he was responding.

I post here what got his rant machine going.

It's impossible to make a choices about states that now exist when only information about the past has been obtained upon which to make those decisions about behaving in the world now. So will, choice, consciousness, can be no more than historical functions. Thus seen they cannot be freely made nor can they be currently applicable.

Humans clearly aren't in control. The choices they make cannot be freely made because the ones they make can only be about the past.

As I pointed out a long time ago a human's reaction to a bear crashing toward her through the forest is delayed for about half a second before she can begin to analyze it.

We know that nature provides for the quickest responses possible via natural selection. We have measured these times, We accommodated for them in sport for example with reaction time corrections.

You can't post we have choice when you know that we are acting in response to the past in the present.

Untermensche needs to explain how anything can be freely chosen when the world upon which it is based was the present is in the past before the choice was made.

I've suggested a relative reality consisting of living beings around the decider who are privy to information at similar times to those of the one who chooses. Unfortunately such would be after t = 0 which determines the now of the material world IAW natural law.

Untermensche has two problems:

1. What are the the laws governed by human time outside the material world, the one determining the existence of individuals

2. How can any action by a human which operates in the past be freely chosen.

Think of it this way. The choice of the bare rock made by the man probably has moss on it by the time the man choses.

That is clearly because ..."you do not have the ability to know if something is true or false"