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I stopped believing in free will since diving into physics in high school/college. Everything we've ever observed appears to follow laws of universe over which

I stopped believing in free will since diving into physics in high school/college. Everything we've ever observed appears to follow laws of universe over which we have no control. Feeling like you have free will does not mean you have it, and many studies have found your "decisions" happen before you are even conscious of them.

mr_spothawk 8y ago
This is an existential dilemma that has always bugged me, but I found a work through that's satisfactory for now: there seems to be a distinction between Free Will (the ability to act in the moment, I don't believe it exists) and Self Awareness (the ability to consider your-self & your actions in the past or future, which apparently does exist for me). To me, it seems we have no choice about what to do in the moment. But the moment afterward, we begin to reflect on our experience, replay those sensory signals & imagine our different responses or outcomes, and rewire our brain for the next opportunity to automatically respond in a "free-will" scenario.
- analreceiver 8y ago
  What and how you reflect is conditioned by all your life experiences which are in turn caused by "luck".
  - mr_spothawk 8y ago
    oh, please. if luck causes everything, we might as well call it circumstance. as luck would have it, I thought the article was total garbage... it raises no questions and offers no valuable insights beyond: historic circumstances exist.
- ambrosite 8y ago
  Very interesting way of looking at it. I've always wondered what is the evolutionary advantage of consciousness -- if we don't have free will, then why have self awareness at all if we would function just as well without it? Your idea provides one possible answer to that question.
betenoire 8y ago
Free Will is the the ability to try. It is not the power to change. That part is luck.
collyw 8y ago
Consciousness isn't something you observe, its something you experience and physics so far has no explanation for it. Buddhism (from my limited reading on it) seems a lot closer to the answers than western science.
- lostmsu 8y ago
  Sounds like BS. Of course you indirectly observe consciousness, and ML and neural nets in particular are pretty good rough models of it.
  - jacquesm 8y ago
    > ML and neural nets in particular are pretty good rough models of it. No they're not, they are not even close. They are only good rough models of the brain if you want to look at the brain in the most over-simplified way. I blame the 'blue brain' project for myths like these.
    - lostmsu 8y ago
      They are definitely better, than parent's karma model.
      - collyw 8y ago
        Where did I mention karma?
3pt14159 8y ago
I just think the argument is at the wrong layer. When reasoning about an HTTPS connection I don’t start delving into details about how light bounces around in a fiber optic cable. It’s irrelevant. Free will to me is ultimately the same thing. While understanding how gluons hold stuff together is beautiful, it doesn’t change that I think that people should take ownership of their actions. Besides, say that we lived in some other world where consequence was fundamentally indeterminable in order to embue our existence with “true free will” or some such. Would it be a better world? I like that our world is coherent and understandable. I don’t need magic voodoo to have a soul. My soul is made up of stuff that I can understand.

mr_spothawk 8y ago

This is an existential dilemma that has always bugged me, but I found a work through that's satisfactory for now: there seems to be a distinction between Free Will (the ability to act in the moment, I don't believe it exists) and Self Awareness (the ability to consider your-self & your actions in the past or future, which apparently does exist for me). To me, it seems we have no choice about what to do in the moment. But the moment afterward, we begin to reflect on our experience, replay those sensory signals & imagine our different responses or outcomes, and rewire our brain for the next opportunity to automatically respond in a "free-will" scenario.

analreceiver 8y ago
What and how you reflect is conditioned by all your life experiences which are in turn caused by "luck".
- mr_spothawk 8y ago
  oh, please. if luck causes everything, we might as well call it circumstance. as luck would have it, I thought the article was total garbage... it raises no questions and offers no valuable insights beyond: historic circumstances exist.
ambrosite 8y ago
Very interesting way of looking at it. I've always wondered what is the evolutionary advantage of consciousness -- if we don't have free will, then why have self awareness at all if we would function just as well without it? Your idea provides one possible answer to that question.

betenoire 8y ago

Free Will is the the ability to try. It is not the power to change. That part is luck.

collyw 8y ago

Consciousness isn't something you observe, its something you experience and physics so far has no explanation for it. Buddhism (from my limited reading on it) seems a lot closer to the answers than western science.

lostmsu 8y ago
Sounds like BS. Of course you indirectly observe consciousness, and ML and neural nets in particular are pretty good rough models of it.
- jacquesm 8y ago
  > ML and neural nets in particular are pretty good rough models of it. No they're not, they are not even close. They are only good rough models of the brain if you want to look at the brain in the most over-simplified way. I blame the 'blue brain' project for myths like these.
  - lostmsu 8y ago
    They are definitely better, than parent's karma model.
    - collyw 8y ago
      Where did I mention karma?

3pt14159 8y ago

I just think the argument is at the wrong layer. When reasoning about an HTTPS connection I don’t start delving into details about how light bounces around in a fiber optic cable. It’s irrelevant. Free will to me is ultimately the same thing. While understanding how gluons hold stuff together is beautiful, it doesn’t change that I think that people should take ownership of their actions. Besides, say that we lived in some other world where consequence was fundamentally indeterminable in order to embue our existence with “true free will” or some such. Would it be a better world? I like that our world is coherent and understandable. I don’t need magic voodoo to have a soul. My soul is made up of stuff that I can understand.