What is free will?

[steve_bank]

Free will is beginning to sound like a myth one believes in. It gives the believer a sense of control over his or her situation.

Analogous to a belief in god.

Come up with a definition that suits you, and believe it is real.

 

[pood]

Then the debate should be how what we are exposed to and experince from the start affetcs how we make a decison.

The argument is free will exist, no it doe not. Yes it does, no it doesn't.....

In the end it comes down to the brain.

Yes, what we are exposed to and experience from the start affects how we make a decision. No one chose their genes. No one chose their memes. No one chose their nature or nurture. No one has any affecton the past. DBT keeps reminding us of all this as if any compatibilist here disagreed with it.

So you might ask yourself this: Because I have no control over my genetic makeup, and no control over how I was raised, and no control over deterministic events since the big bang, does that mean that I am … unable to choose what to have for dinner?

 

[Copernicus]

Then the debate should be how what we are exposed to and experience from the start affects how we make a decison.

The argument is free will exist, no it does not. Yes it does, no it doesn't.....

In the end it comes down to the brain.

Do you recall the last time you were in a restaurant? Did you choose your meal of your own free will, or did someone else choose it for you?

That would be my wife. But I let her make the choice. I was ok with either dish.

 

[steve_bank]

I don't think genes have anything to do with the abstract debate on free will.

At this point after watching the long debates on free will over the years, I see free will as a myth.

It is something you believe in and have faith in.

All I can say for myself with certainty is I have to make choices every day. The choices have consequences.

I'd say the same about the American hyper individual who lives free and independent from all else. A myth.

 

[pood]

And, once again, (sigh) the compatibilist position is NOT that we live “free and independent from all else.” It’s just the opposite.

The idea that the big bang forced us what to have for dinner tonight is the real faith-based myth.

 

[steve_bank]

Then the debate should be how what we are exposed to and experience from the start affects how we make a decison.

The argument is free will exist, no it does not. Yes it does, no it doesn't.....

In the end it comes down to the brain.

Do you recall the last time you were in a restaurant? Did you choose your meal of your own free will, or did someone else choose it for you?

Why do you pick steak over fish or a bugrer or a hot dog?

In the 70s when I was living in Hartford Ct a fast food chain had a radio abd TV adertsinf blitz. There was a catchiy jingle yiu heard day after day on radio and TV.

I heard a little kid singing it in a grocery store walking around with his mother.

Repetitive adverting is propaganda. Repeated messaging connecting an image with a product. Over time it hes hard wired into yiur subconscious. Which is why I do not see any experiment that can demonstrate an abstract free will.

So when you pick a menu item, why? We have free choice in that nobody is going to tell you what to eat. what to wear. or who to vote for.

Feree will philisopically is a enboulos thing akin to hte Christian god. They talk about it as if they all know what it is without defining it.

I think free will philosophically leads to the question of what is self. Free will implies an active agent with properties. In tems of scince it comes down to how our brain worj=k, or which there is yet a working model that explains personality and so on.

 

[bilby]

Why do you pick steak over fish or a bugrer or a hot dog?

It doesn't matter why. The only important thing is that it's you that picks, and not someone else who forces their choice onto you.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

Free will philosophically is a nebulous thing akin to the Christian god. They talk about it as if they all know what it is without defining it.

Free will is when a person decides for themselves what they will do, while free of coercion and other forms of undue influence.

It does not require freedom from prior causes. It does not require freedom from oneself. It does not require freedom from your own brain.

I think free will philosophically leads to the question of what is self.

Most people understand self as the person's body and brain. That body and brain can walk into a restaurant, browse the menu, and decide what it will order for dinner. The waiter will bring the dinner and the bill.

 

[steve_bank]

Is obsessive compulsive behavior an expression of free will?

Is habitual behavior free will? Is continually posting on a 4000 post thread free will or does it become a conditioned habit?

Is free will inherent in our physical brains or is it a learned attribute?

There is experimental psychology that tries to put these kinds of issue s on on an objective experimental basis.

What would be an experiment to determine free will? Experimental psychological expreiments demonstrate animals can make value based decisons. One coud copare that to human free choice. Can free will in say a chimp be experimentally demonstrated? Can such an experiment be free of subjective human interpretation?

Experimental psychology - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Experimental psychology refers to work done by those who apply experimental methods to psychological study and the underlying processes. Experimental psychologists employ human participants and animal subjects to study a great many topics, including (among others) sensation & perception, memory, cognition, learning, motivation, emotion; developmental processes, social psychology, and the neural substrates of all of these.[1]

 

[Marvin Edwards]

Is obsessive compulsive behavior an expression of free will?

No. That would be a significant mental illness that removes the person's normal control of their behavior.

Is habitual behavior free will? Is continually posting on a 4000 post thread free will or does it become a conditioned habit?

Yes. Habits are formed by earlier decisions made of our own free will.

Is free will inherent in our physical brains or is it a learned attribute?

Yes. It is both. But to be technically correct, it is the decision making function of the brain that comes hard-wired with the ability to make distinctions and choose between different options. That innate ability is further enhanced by practicing it, just like any other ability.

There is experimental psychology that tries to put these kinds of issue s on on an objective experimental basis.

No. They don't. Free will is a matter of definition, just like a cat or a dog is a matter of definition. We learn what it is by being shown one, and being told what it is that we are looking at.

 

[Jarhyn]

No. That would be a significant mental illness that removes the person's normal control of their behavior.

Unchecked OCD is more aptly "a will that is free", but not an example of "a person acting with free will", unless the person with OCD accepts and does not question their behavior.

It may even be a case of... Well, let's assume you have multiple variants of the will to decide for oneself. Each variant describes a "way" you are free, a will which generates a report describing that you did this yourself...

Well, it's entirely apt for a system inside any given human to report that a will is "freely held" on the dimension of "came from within the skull" but not freely held on the dimension of "no matter how I resist, I still compulsively do this thing".

This is why I discuss the "special will", the "will to choose for oneself" in general terms, as the freedom of particular wills to generate an identification of "freedom" in some respect. Its why I don't define the specifics of it.

Of course some people are oblivious even to the nature of their own behavior. They may do something slavishly, thinking they have available to them, if they were to choose otherwise, to do so even when they do not have this power.

This describes some drug abusers, and why we intervene with them despite the fact that "they can quit any time they want" despite the fact that they never do actually quit, even when they want to.

The compartment with the addiction's will to be free is stronger than the will of the agent who hates the fact that there is a part of them that needs a fix.

To that end, it can get rather hoary to discuss 'free will' because 'the will to decide for oneself' has various available roots of 'self' with varying applicability.

In fact learning to pay granular attention to the various ways that various wills to decide for oneself with respect to particular organizations of neurons express freedom, one can discern more readily whether the reason they wish to do something is OCD or something they wish to do.

It can allow the person to more readily sculpt which sources of wills are allowed freedom, and under what circumstances.

 

[steve_bank]

Not to worry. Biden by executive order all will be free.

I see. If I define free will and percieve the definition in myself, free will exists? That is subjective argument.

I define what the experience of god is, see the definition is my feeling, percptions, and thoughts play out, therefore god exists?

So if OCD is nit free will then free will depends on how the brain works? How do you decide something is or is not free will?

Is free will hard wired into the brain, or is free will a a human created abstraction?

How can yiu know what is and what is not hard wired in the brain? The old question nature versus nurture.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

Not to worry. Biden by executive order all will be free.

I see. If I define free will and percieve the definition in myself, free will exists? That is subjective argument.

I define what the experience of god is, see the definition is my feeling, percptions, and thoughts play out, therefore god exists?

So if OCD is nit free will then free will depends on how the brain works? How do you decide something is or is not free will?

Is free will hard wired into the brain, or is free will a a human created abstraction?

How can yiu know what is and what is not hard wired in the brain? The old question nature versus nurture.

Free will is an event. It is something that happens, like when it rains or when you walk to the kitchen.

Free will is the event where someone decides for themselves what they will do, while free of coercion and undue influence.

You can see this event actually happening by going into any restaurant and watching the customers open the menu, consider their options, and select what they will order for dinner.

At the end of the meal, the waiter brings them their bill, holding them responsible for their deliberate act.

That's free will and responsibility in a nutshell.

 

[steve_bank]

Of course it is an event, neurons firing in your brain.

Free will is like a bird chirping in the woods. You look for it but when it seems like you are getting close it seems to come from somewhere else.

Free will is like a fart. You can smell it but you can never tell where it comes from.

Fre ewill is like a dog chasing its tail. No matter how fast he goes he never quite gets there, but he never gets tired of trying.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

Of course it is an event, neurons firing in your brain.

Free will is like a bird chirping in the woods. You look for it but when it seems like you are getting close it seems to come from somewhere else.

Free will is like a fart. You can smell it but you can never tell where it comes from.

Free will is like a dog chasing its tail. No matter how fast he goes he never quite gets there, but he never gets tired of trying.

Yeah, like I keep telling DBT, incompatibilist free will is built from metaphors, and washes away like a sandcastle when confronted with the pure water of empirical observation and common sense reasoning.

I've given you a workable definition of free will.

 

[pood]

Steve, did you decide what to eat for dinner tonight, or did the big bang?

 

[Jarhyn]

Steve, did you decide what to eat for dinner tonight, or did the big bang?

I think that depends on whether there is a Mrs Bank or additional Mr. Bank, in which case it's probably influenced more by "the big bang" as one might say.

But while figuratively true, this post is literally false.