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But aren't you just the amalgamation of all those distributed processes?

Jeff_Brown 7y ago
In the same vein: whatever "external" influences you think undo the possibility that your will is free -- the chemicals in your blood, your experiences from childhood -- aren't you that system in its entirety?
- toasterlovin 7y ago
  The problem with the concept of free will isn’t in how we define the self, it’s in how we define free will. What do you actually mean by ‘free will’? I would put forward that, if you really start examining things, most people’s idea of free will is equivalent to the popular notion of a soul. That is, it’s something which exists separately from the body, yet which can somehow think and feel and decide. This conception of free will is not really coherent, since free will ceases to function when the body dies or loses functionality when certain parts of the brain are damaged. You can redefine free will to just be the collection of algorithms and processes that play out as your brain decides how to respond to environmental stimuli, but then I think you have departed far enough from most people’s conception of what free will is to essentially just be redefining terms to suit your argument. FWIW, I think the best explanation of free will is that it doesn’t exist, but instead that it’s an explanatory framework we impose upon each other as a way of regulating people’s behavior.
  - Jeff_Brown 7y ago
    That's really interesting. If that's what people mean, I agree with you. When I hear someone deny the existence of free will, it sounds to me like they're saying a person's decisions are not really their own. If that's what they mean, I think it's preposterous -- of course your decisions are yours, that's definitional.
    - james_s_tayler 7y ago
      They aren't entirely your own. People do stuff all the time that they wish they didn't do. Or that they can't stop doing. Plenty of things you do aren't because of any decision or choice that you made.
dr_dshiv 7y ago
Yes. That's a pretty big cloud of processes! Many desires exist within us. Desires motivate us to act. Our will is the harmonization of those many desires into intended actions. The individual self is an illusion. We are the confluence of infinite influence. There is no single I. Weird but true. Identity and personhood is a useful social construct, but it doesn't make any sense when considered.
- james_s_tayler 7y ago
  A big... cloud... of processes. Wait... is this how AWS eventually becomes sentient?

In the same vein: whatever "external" influences you think undo the possibility that your will is free -- the chemicals in your blood, your experiences from childhood -- aren't you that system in its entirety?

toasterlovin 7y ago
The problem with the concept of free will isn’t in how we define the self, it’s in how we define free will. What do you actually mean by ‘free will’? I would put forward that, if you really start examining things, most people’s idea of free will is equivalent to the popular notion of a soul. That is, it’s something which exists separately from the body, yet which can somehow think and feel and decide. This conception of free will is not really coherent, since free will ceases to function when the body dies or loses functionality when certain parts of the brain are damaged. You can redefine free will to just be the collection of algorithms and processes that play out as your brain decides how to respond to environmental stimuli, but then I think you have departed far enough from most people’s conception of what free will is to essentially just be redefining terms to suit your argument. FWIW, I think the best explanation of free will is that it doesn’t exist, but instead that it’s an explanatory framework we impose upon each other as a way of regulating people’s behavior.
- Jeff_Brown 7y ago
  That's really interesting. If that's what people mean, I agree with you. When I hear someone deny the existence of free will, it sounds to me like they're saying a person's decisions are not really their own. If that's what they mean, I think it's preposterous -- of course your decisions are yours, that's definitional.
  - james_s_tayler 7y ago
    They aren't entirely your own. People do stuff all the time that they wish they didn't do. Or that they can't stop doing. Plenty of things you do aren't because of any decision or choice that you made.

dr_dshiv 7y ago

Yes. That's a pretty big cloud of processes! Many desires exist within us. Desires motivate us to act. Our will is the harmonization of those many desires into intended actions. The individual self is an illusion. We are the confluence of infinite influence. There is no single I. Weird but true. Identity and personhood is a useful social construct, but it doesn't make any sense when considered.

james_s_tayler 7y ago
A big... cloud... of processes. Wait... is this how AWS eventually becomes sentient?