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> the brain already made a decision even before the conscious mind became aware of it. Thus putting doubts on our conscious experience of free-will. Seems to c

> the brain already made a decision even before the conscious mind became aware of it. Thus putting doubts on our conscious experience of free-will. Seems to conflate consciousness and free will. Just because you're not conscious of it, your brain still made that decision. And your conscious mind can still go back on the decision and "change your mind".

brabel 6y ago
> And your conscious mind can still go back on the decision and "change your mind". No, that's not possible. That's what those experiments are showing, you're just failing to grasp its consequences. If later you report "changing your mind", that will also have happened unconsciously, and you wont' even know why in your conscious experience: but you will be convinced you chose that - when you really haven't.
- throwawayexodus 6y ago
  what's funny is you're ignoring what the experimenter himself concluded about the experiments. he concluded that we have free will to veto these choices, its always rich to see his experiments so badly misused.
  - brabel 6y ago
    > he concluded that we have free will to veto these choices That's circular. The brain makes a decision, then the brain can choose to veto it? Where does the decision to veto come from? Free will as you're describing is an impossibility: To even come up with the idea of vetoing something, there must be some process in the brain that's started by "something else", and the something else must be also possible to veto ad infinitum. Think for yourself instead of just accepting what the experimentallist suggests you should conclude.
- radarsat1 6y ago
  I hear what you're saying, but I'm still not sure that consciousness over a decision is what determines whether it was done of free will. Conscious or not, it was your brain making that decision. Not someone else telling your brain what to think. Your brain thought about it, considered the options, made a decision, and then informed your consciousness of it. That doesn't undermine the idea of free will, it just changes how we think about consciousness.
  - brabel 6y ago
    > Conscious or not, it was your brain making that decision. Not someone else telling your brain what to think. If you accept free will, there IS something else telling your brain what to think. Unless you explain what this something else might be, your hypothesis is not scientific. If you accept your brain, and your brain alone, makes the decision, then you accept that, given the condition of the brain before that decision was made, then the brain MUST make that same decision regardless of anything external to it. Hence, no free will. Even when you consider quantum physics (which most neuroscientists, from the books i've read on the topic, say have almost certainly very little effect on brain processes outside of normal chemistry), you will still end up with only a probability of possible decisions you could've made.
    - radarsat1 6y ago
      I don't even disagree with you, but my point here is that what you are describing is all orthogonal to the idea of consciousness. You can make exactly the same arguments with or without considering whether your thoughts are conscious.
baja_blast 6y ago
> your brain still made that decision This is what I have always said when hearing these arguments. Our brain is us, what we see and decide is that part of the brain being broadcasted through out our mind. But people often times change their mind, stop them selves from doing something all the time which means our minds kinda run on a consensus. IMO thoughts are like the interplay of various regions of the brain broadcasting it's say. For example when I contemplate something it's like a debate from a multitude of differing perspectives. So sure each thought was decided by a different region beforehand, but that's like saying words were spoken before being transmitted over the wire.

brabel 6y ago

> And your conscious mind can still go back on the decision and "change your mind". No, that's not possible. That's what those experiments are showing, you're just failing to grasp its consequences. If later you report "changing your mind", that will also have happened unconsciously, and you wont' even know why in your conscious experience: but you will be convinced you chose that - when you really haven't.

throwawayexodus 6y ago
what's funny is you're ignoring what the experimenter himself concluded about the experiments. he concluded that we have free will to veto these choices, its always rich to see his experiments so badly misused.
- brabel 6y ago
  > he concluded that we have free will to veto these choices That's circular. The brain makes a decision, then the brain can choose to veto it? Where does the decision to veto come from? Free will as you're describing is an impossibility: To even come up with the idea of vetoing something, there must be some process in the brain that's started by "something else", and the something else must be also possible to veto ad infinitum. Think for yourself instead of just accepting what the experimentallist suggests you should conclude.
radarsat1 6y ago
I hear what you're saying, but I'm still not sure that consciousness over a decision is what determines whether it was done of free will. Conscious or not, it was your brain making that decision. Not someone else telling your brain what to think. Your brain thought about it, considered the options, made a decision, and then informed your consciousness of it. That doesn't undermine the idea of free will, it just changes how we think about consciousness.
- brabel 6y ago
  > Conscious or not, it was your brain making that decision. Not someone else telling your brain what to think. If you accept free will, there IS something else telling your brain what to think. Unless you explain what this something else might be, your hypothesis is not scientific. If you accept your brain, and your brain alone, makes the decision, then you accept that, given the condition of the brain before that decision was made, then the brain MUST make that same decision regardless of anything external to it. Hence, no free will. Even when you consider quantum physics (which most neuroscientists, from the books i've read on the topic, say have almost certainly very little effect on brain processes outside of normal chemistry), you will still end up with only a probability of possible decisions you could've made.
  - radarsat1 6y ago
    I don't even disagree with you, but my point here is that what you are describing is all orthogonal to the idea of consciousness. You can make exactly the same arguments with or without considering whether your thoughts are conscious.

baja_blast 6y ago

> your brain still made that decision This is what I have always said when hearing these arguments. Our brain is us, what we see and decide is that part of the brain being broadcasted through out our mind. But people often times change their mind, stop them selves from doing something all the time which means our minds kinda run on a consensus. IMO thoughts are like the interplay of various regions of the brain broadcasting it's say. For example when I contemplate something it's like a debate from a multitude of differing perspectives. So sure each thought was decided by a different region beforehand, but that's like saying words were spoken before being transmitted over the wire.