“Reality Goes Beyond Physics,” and more

[DBT]

You can go through 4 years of college and not take a philosophy class. If you do it could be just the the intro class to fulfill a humanities requirement.

In common terms freedom of choice means being able to choose a Ford over a Honda without direct coercion. Ignoring how we are influenced by culture and advertising.

In psychology, the branch that studies decision making is called cognitive psychology. It examines the mental processes involved in selecting a course of action from multiple options, considering factors like emotions, biases, and how individuals evaluate information to make choices.
Key points about decision making in psychology:

Focus on cognitive processes:
Cognitive psychology studies how people perceive, process, and interpret information, which is central to decision making.

Rational vs. emotional decision making:
Psychologists often distinguish between a rational system (based on logic and analysis) and an emotional system (driven by feelings and intuition) that influence choices.
Decision biases:
Cognitive biases, like anchoring bias or framing effect, are studied to understand how people might make suboptimal decisions.
Real-world applications:
Understanding decision making psychology can be applied to various fields like consumer behavior, organizational management, and public policy.

We are debating here on the edges of the topic.

Decision-Making

Chocolate or strawberry? Life or death? We make some choices quickly and automatically, relying on mental shortcuts our brains have developed over the years to guide us in the best course of action. Understanding strategies such as maximizing vs. satisficing, fast versus slow thinking, and...

www.psychologytoday.com

That the brain acquires and processes information and makes decisions is not being disputed.

 

[steve_bank]

You can go through 4 years of college and not take a philosophy class. If you do it could be just the the intro class to fulfill a humanities requirement.

In common terms freedom of choice means being able to choose a Ford over a Honda without direct coercion. Ignoring how we are influenced by culture and advertising.

In psychology, the branch that studies decision making is called cognitive psychology. It examines the mental processes involved in selecting a course of action from multiple options, considering factors like emotions, biases, and how individuals evaluate information to make choices.
Key points about decision making in psychology:

Focus on cognitive processes:
Cognitive psychology studies how people perceive, process, and interpret information, which is central to decision making.

Rational vs. emotional decision making:
Psychologists often distinguish between a rational system (based on logic and analysis) and an emotional system (driven by feelings and intuition) that influence choices.
Decision biases:
Cognitive biases, like anchoring bias or framing effect, are studied to understand how people might make suboptimal decisions.
Real-world applications:
Understanding decision making psychology can be applied to various fields like consumer behavior, organizational management, and public policy.

We are debating here on the edges of the topic.

Decision-Making

Chocolate or strawberry? Life or death? We make some choices quickly and automatically, relying on mental shortcuts our brains have developed over the years to guide us in the best course of action. Understanding strategies such as maximizing vs. satisficing, fast versus slow thinking, and...

www.psychologytoday.com

That the brain acquires and processes information and makes decisions is not being disputed.

No kidding, the open question is whether or not decisions are deterministic or not.

In this area psychology has superseded the old philosophy detonates, IMO. Psychology puts it on a scientific experimental basis.

 

[Elixir]

No kidding, the open question is whether or not decisions are deterministic or not.

Let’s assume our choices are not deterministic. Our choices are determined by us, with our free will. Where within us then, does free will reside? The brain? Is there a part of the brain that can be physically altered without effecting it? Or is it like jellyfish neurology where it persists even without most of its component parts?
At what point does neural function degrade to where degradation can be said to override “free will”?
Reality constrains our choices. All of them. But there are always still choices as long as we are conscious.

 

[bilby]

You can go through 4 years of college and not take a philosophy class. If you do it could be just the the intro class to fulfill a humanities requirement.

In common terms freedom of choice means being able to choose a Ford over a Honda without direct coercion. Ignoring how we are influenced by culture and advertising.

In psychology, the branch that studies decision making is called cognitive psychology. It examines the mental processes involved in selecting a course of action from multiple options, considering factors like emotions, biases, and how individuals evaluate information to make choices.
Key points about decision making in psychology:

Focus on cognitive processes:
Cognitive psychology studies how people perceive, process, and interpret information, which is central to decision making.

Rational vs. emotional decision making:
Psychologists often distinguish between a rational system (based on logic and analysis) and an emotional system (driven by feelings and intuition) that influence choices.
Decision biases:
Cognitive biases, like anchoring bias or framing effect, are studied to understand how people might make suboptimal decisions.
Real-world applications:
Understanding decision making psychology can be applied to various fields like consumer behavior, organizational management, and public policy.

We are debating here on the edges of the topic.

Decision-Making

Chocolate or strawberry? Life or death? We make some choices quickly and automatically, relying on mental shortcuts our brains have developed over the years to guide us in the best course of action. Understanding strategies such as maximizing vs. satisficing, fast versus slow thinking, and...

www.psychologytoday.com

That the brain acquires and processes information and makes decisions is not being disputed.

No kidding, the open question is whether or not decisions are deterministic or not.

It really isn't. That question is irrelevant to compatibilism.

That the brain acquires and processes information and makes decisions is compatible with either determinism or indeterminism.

And if it is undisputed that the brain acquires and processes information and makes decisions, then all those present in the debate are, by definition, compatibilists.

I make decisions. They are my decisions. That they would be hypothetically 100% predictable if we had a "god's eye view" of the entire state of my brain and all of its inputs prior to the decision, down to the elementary particle and force level; and infinite time in which to calculate the exact way in which all of these particles and forces must interact until I arrive at a decision and begin to act on it, is completely irrelevant.

Whether the outcome of that godlike understanding is determined, or indeterminate - whether or not there is one physically and mathematically possible result, or many - the decision remains mine.

That's your compatibilism, right there.

 

[peacegirl]

To me free will and making decisions are two different things.

Free will is a political and philosophical abstraction not subject to objective proof. Politically free will means government is not going to tell me what to do. Libertarians.

Decision making can be objectively tested.

I read a NASA human reliability study from the 60s. Astronauts were in top physical and mental condition. They were all educated. Most or all had militray pilot experience.

Astronautics were put in a capsule mock up with panels of switches and buttons. They learned a particular sequence of pushing buttons and thrown switches.

A percentage of the time they would make a mistake going by memory. We are not machines that will not always make the same decision given the same circumstances.

What does making mistakes have to do with not being machines? Humans are fallible. Brains don't always remember sequences. So what! Where in the world have you gotten the idea that determinism means perfect memory?

There is a TV series that runs periodically on aviation crashes. There are various causes. Sometimes an experienced pilot makes a choice inconsistent with established procedure resulting in a crash.

That is why pilots need backup systems so that they have double safeguards and are not totally dependent on memory. I ask you again: What does this have to do with not being machines? No one said we are machines. It's your misunderstanding of determinism that is messing you up.

Anyone who has worked in a high stress environment knows stress without relief can affect decision making. It is biological. Stress increases stress hormones like adrenaline, the fight or flight mode.

There are stages of fight or flight. In a threatening situation in the last stage stress hormones override reason and logic areas in brain and you are fighting for your life. Kill or be killed. There is no choice, it is automatic.

Cortisol is a powerful hormone that can disrupt natural biological functions.

In sexual foreplay and in the act there is a point where hormones take over and you can not pull back. No ‘free will’ and no choice.


Nothing controversial with this.

There are automatic biological impulses through our autonomic system. It's the process of decision making that compatibilists and libertarians believe is not fully determined because they are willful choices. The problem has only to do with definition, not with determinism.

Every motion, from the beating heart to the slightest reflex action, from all inner to outer movements of the body, indicates that life is never satisfied or content to remain in one position for always, like an inanimate object, which position shall be termed ‘death.’ I shall now call the present moment of time or life here for the purpose of clarification, and the next moment coming up there. You are now standing on this present moment of time and space called here, and you are given two alternatives: either live or kill yourself; either move to the next spot called there or remain where you are without moving a hair’s breadth by committing suicide.

“I prefer...”

Excuse the interruption, but the very fact that you started to answer me or didn’t commit suicide at that moment makes it obvious that you were not satisfied to stay in one position, which is death or here and prefer moving off that spot to there, which motion is life. Consequently, the motion of life, which is any motion from here to there, is a movement away from that which dissatisfies; otherwise, had you been satisfied to remain here or where you are, you would never have moved to there. Since the motion of life constantly moves away from here to there, which is an expression of dissatisfaction with the present position, it must obviously move constantly in the direction of greater satisfaction. It should be obvious that our desire to live, to move off the spot called here, is determined by a law over which we have no control, because even if we should kill ourselves, we are choosing what gives us greater satisfaction; otherwise, we would not kill ourselves. The truth of the matter is that at any particular moment, the motion of man is not free, for all life obeys this invariable law. He is constantly compelled by his nature to make choices, decisions, and to prefer of whatever options are available during his lifetime that which he considers better for himself and his set of circumstances.

As to QM and free will – decision making I’d have to do some reading. I know there are logic thresholds and other parameters for neurons that affect when a neuron activates.

It is electrochemical. I am sure it has all been studied and modeled.

Free wiil versus determinism seems inadequate to describe how we really are. A simplistic dichotomy.

It's a very important dichotomy and holds great promise for our world when the reconciliation of determinism (i.e., could not have done otherwise) with moral responsibility (i.e., the responsibility for one's actions) has finally been solved, which thankfully has been.

When you claim free will or determinism you have to precisely state the exact conditions that apply.

In common usage I think free will simply means the freedom to choose as you see fit.

The freedom to choose as you see fit is not the definition of free will in this debate. That is only a layman's definition. I can choose this or I can choose that, therefore I'm free. Very superficial reasoning even for you Steve.

 

[steve_bank]

Peacegirl

You lack the ability to comprehend meaning. What I said was in cocoon usage free will and free choice has political and cultural context.

You appear to be narrowly conditioned by a life long pursuit of yourr book in a very narrow scope.

There have multiple definitions on the thread for free will. Free will and free choice to the average person is contextual, people to whom determinism has meninges. If you said two people meeting was kismet, they would understand.

It was kismet when pood met peacegirl. IOW fate, predetermined.

Humor me and say in one or two simple sentences what free will means to you. Free will as choice without any conditioning or influence from experience and past events is impossible. It is not how our brain works. Free will is an impossible mketaphysical abstraction.

Hey!! I thought you were not talking to make anymore. I understand, my animal magnetism is hard to resist.

To come up to speed in modern cognitive psychology and decision making I'd probably to read two or three books.

The empirical approach is to characterize how people make decisions and the influences. It is what political science consultants do, figureo0ut how deacons to vote are made.

The science of decision making is a well developed field in marketing, the milliliter, and politics.

 

[Elixir]

Free will as choice without any conditioning or influence from experience and past events is impossible.

Not impossible, but meaningless.
A newborn has their free will - they can cry when hungry. Hypothetically, they COULD choose not to, but astonishingly, virtually every single one of them makes the same choice!
Almost like grown humans.

 

[peacegirl]

In common usage I think free will simply means the freedom to choose as you see fit.

If you want to think that, that’s your choice. Or at least, your right. Right?
The illusion of free will is still free will.

The definition of free will gives the illusion that we are free, but it does not exist, which is why we call it an illusion Elixir.

 

[peacegirl]

You can go through 4 years of college and not take a philosophy class. If you do it could be just the the intro class to fulfill a humanities requirement.

In common terms freedom of choice means being able to choose a Ford over a Honda without direct coercion. Ignoring how we are influenced by culture and advertising.

In psychology, the branch that studies decision making is called cognitive psychology. It examines the mental processes involved in selecting a course of action from multiple options, considering factors like emotions, biases, and how individuals evaluate information to make choices.
Key points about decision making in psychology:

Focus on cognitive processes:
Cognitive psychology studies how people perceive, process, and interpret information, which is central to decision making.

Rational vs. emotional decision making:
Psychologists often distinguish between a rational system (based on logic and analysis) and an emotional system (driven by feelings and intuition) that influence choices.
Decision biases:
Cognitive biases, like anchoring bias or framing effect, are studied to understand how people might make suboptimal decisions.
Real-world applications:
Understanding decision making psychology can be applied to various fields like consumer behavior, organizational management, and public policy.

We are debating here on the edges of the topic.

Decision-Making

Chocolate or strawberry? Life or death? We make some choices quickly and automatically, relying on mental shortcuts our brains have developed over the years to guide us in the best course of action. Understanding strategies such as maximizing vs. satisficing, fast versus slow thinking, and...

www.psychologytoday.com

That the brain acquires and processes information and makes decisions is not being disputed.

No kidding, the open question is whether or not decisions are deterministic or not.

It really isn't. That question is irrelevant to compatibilism.

That the brain acquires and processes information and makes decisions is compatible with either determinism or indeterminism.

And if it is undisputed that the brain acquires and processes information and makes decisions, then all those present in the debate are, by definition, compatibilists.

I make decisions. They are my decisions. That they would be hypothetically 100% predictable if we had a "god's eye view" of the entire state of my brain and all of its inputs prior to the decision, down to the elementary particle and force level; and infinite time in which to calculate the exact way in which all of these particles and forces must interact until I arrive at a decision and begin to act on it, is completely irrelevant.

Whether the outcome of that godlike understanding is determined, or indeterminate - whether or not there is one physically and mathematically possible result, or many - the decision remains mine.

That's your compatibilism, right there.

It is your decision, but it is not either/or when there are meaningful differences to consider, which is the very purpose of deliberation. Compatibilism says you could have done otherwise. This is a crock of you know what.

 

[pood]

It is your decision, but it is not either/or when there are meaningful differences to consider, which is the very purpose of deliberation. Compatibilism says you could have done otherwise. This is a crock of you know what.

You simply cannot follow an argument.

Compatibilism says you did what you wanted to do, given antecedent circumstances. Under different circumstances, you would have done differently.

Nevertheless, it remains logically possible you would have done differently, even under the same circumstances. This is why it is never correct to say, as a matter of logic, that one could not have done differently.

All of this has been explained to you again and again, and it continuously eludes you. This is because of your emotional investment in a silly book that is a pile of unsupported dogma at best, and at worst, as in the case of light and sight, garbage.

 

[Elixir]

This is why it is never correct to say, as a matter of logic, that one could not have done differently.

Are you saying that PG could have understood that?

 

[peacegirl]

It is your decision, but it is not either/or when there are meaningful differences to consider, which is the very purpose of deliberation. Compatibilism says you could have done otherwise. This is a crock of you know what.

You simply cannot follow an argument.

Compatibilism says you did what you wanted to do, given antecedent circumstances. Under different circumstances, you would have done differently.

No one is saying any different. If circumstances were different, this would obviously change the antecedents, and your decision based on those changes. You're moving the goalposts again.

Nevertheless, it remains logically possible you would have done differently, even under the same circumstances.

You cannot prove it. It's just speculation to support your other worlds modal logic, which is nothing more than a thought experiment that has no corresponding reality.

This is why it is never correct to say, as a matter of logic, that one could not have done differently.

Your logic doesn't hold a candle to what is observed in the real world.

All of this has been explained to you again and again, and it continuously eludes you. This is because of your emotional investment in a silly book that is a pile of unsupported dogma at best, and at worst, as in the case of light and sight, garbage.

It is you who is dogmatic. Why are you bringing up light and sight in a discussion about free will? You're out in left field.

 

[steve_bank]

The debate is old.

In Buddhism I took primordial mind to mean an unconditioned mental state. Karma is a mental thought causal chain. Awareness is understanding your conditioned karmic attachments. Behavioral triggers in psychology may be similar.


Peacegirl is stuck in a karmic conditioned causal loop. Probably unaware. Repetitive conditioned responses. Deterministic predictable responses.

 

[Elixir]

Peacegirl is stuck in a karmic conditioned causal loop. Probably unaware. Repetitive conditioned responses. Deterministic predictable responses.

Are you saying hard determinism is self fulfilling? That’s a kind thought. Let it be true for PG, since she is determined to believe it. But the same quality (self fulfilling) must be granted to the free willies as well, right?
Or are we all, or just some of us, allowed to impose our beliefs upon others? That gets pretty messy.

 

[peacegirl]

Peacegirl

You lack the ability to comprehend meaning. What I said was in cocoon usage free will and free choice has political and cultural context.

I'm not interested in your cocoon usage of the phrase "free will" that does not pertain to this discussion.

You appear to be narrowly conditioned by a life long pursuit of yourr book in a very narrow scope.

Of course, any new discovery has a narrow scope until the benefits become widespread.

There have multiple definitions on the thread for free will. Free will and free choice to the average person is contextual, people to whom determinism has meninges. If you said two people meeting was kismet, they would understand.

Again, you are mixing up how the word is used in the context of this debate, which cannot be exchanged for another definition midstream. We have to be on the same page with what we mean by words or there is no discussion.

It was kismet when pood met peacegirl. IOW fate, predetermined.

Humor me and say in one or two simple sentences what free will means to you. Free will as choice without any conditioning or influence from experience and past events is impossible. It is not how our brain works. Free will is an impossible mketaphysical abstraction.

Hey!! I thought you were not talking to make anymore. I understand, my animal magnetism is hard to resist.

I am compelled to answer the posts, not you personally, because you are just mimicking what you read from compatiblists. Free will does not mean without any conditioning or influence. We are all socially conditioned to a certain degree, and we are all influenced as a result, but that does not give us free will. Free will means we could have chosen otherwise looking back. We were under no compulsion which, by the way, IS the meaning of free will being used in this discussion. IOW, according to compatibilism, given the same antecedents in some other imaginary world, we could have shot a random person without any justification. It's very easy to ignore anything that does not fit into one's neatly packaged belief system. The reasoning here is so off, it's hard to believe people can't see or don't want to see the impossible.

To come up to speed in modern cognitive psychology and decision making I'd probably to read two or three books.

The empirical approach is to characterize how people make decisions and the influences. It is what political science consultants do, figureo0ut how deacons to vote are made.

There is no denying that people are easily influenced by their nuclear family as well as the messages received from their environment, which can be proved empirically. The empirical proof of determinism, however (that we can only move in one direction which is not to hurt others with a first blow) will be observed when the corollary to this law is put into practice on a global scale.

The science of decision making is a well developed field in marketing, the milliliter, and politics.

It is but this is not what we are debating.

 

[steve_bank]

Peacegirl is stuck in a karmic conditioned causal loop. Probably unaware. Repetitive conditioned responses. Deterministic predictable responses.

Are you saying hard determinism is self fulfilling? That’s a kind thought. Let it be true for PG, since she is determined to believe it. But the same quality (self fulfilling) must be granted to the free willies as well, right?
Or are we all, or just some of us, allowed to impose our beliefs upon others? That gets pretty messy.

Determinism and free will for the devotees is fulfilling in the sense a belief in god is fulfilling.

Also from Buddhism the trick is to get above tt all and avoid going down 'illusory' butterfat holes. Easier said then done.

 

[steve_bank]

Papergirl, you are not compelled to respond. You are conditioned beginning with how you grew up to respond as you just did.

In his book Center Of The Cyclone Lilly compared it to internal subconscious tape loops .

That past events and experience can subconsciously affect choice and behavior is not controversial. It is called behavioral science.

Your dogged attachment to a very narrow view form is staggering.

 

[peacegirl]

Peacegirl is stuck in a karmic conditioned causal loop. Probably unaware. Repetitive conditioned responses. Deterministic predictable responses.

Are you saying hard determinism is self fulfilling? That’s a kind thought. Let it be true for PG, since she is determined to believe it. But the same quality (self fulfilling) must be granted to the free willies as well, right?
Or are we all, or just some of us, allowed to impose our beliefs upon others? That gets pretty messy.

Determinism and free will for the devotees is fulfilling in the sense a belief in god is fulfilling.

Also from Buddhism the trick is to get above tt all and avoid going down 'illusory' butterfat holes. Easier said then done.

How can we easily get above murder, especially if it is our loved one that is murdered? Teach me how enlightened Buddha?

 

[peacegirl]

Papergirl, you are not compelled to respond. You are conditioned beginning with how you grew up to respond as you just did.

In his book Center Of The Cyclone Lilly compared it to internal subconscious tape loops .

Your loop-de-loop circles are dizzying.

That past events and experience can subconsciously affect choice and behavior is not controversial. It is called behavioral science.

Your dogged attachment to a very narrow view form is staggering.

If that's what it takes to get this very narrow view form (which doesn't make it wrong) heard, that is what I'll do.

 

[peacegirl]

Peacegirl has no choice, she has to respond. It is her destiny.

I wonder if she believes in astrology.

No. There is no scientific backing to the conclusions drawn by astrology, and I believe in science.

Science will have to take the lead in affirming the accuracy of these principles before they can be applied worldwide. The truth will be very easy to convey once it is understood and acknowledged by scientists because it involves undeniable relations such as two plus two equals four, but when people have been taught for centuries that man’s will is free, it becomes more difficult to break through these beliefs since the long tenure of preempted authority has confused opinions with facts and dogmatically closed the door to further investigation.