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I find the idea that we don’t choose how we act and behave to be strange. I’m with you that memories are inaccurate but the latter point just reads like you ful

by nawgz 4y ago

I find the idea that we don’t choose how we act and behave to be strange. I’m with you that memories are inaccurate but the latter point just reads like you fully deny free will and there is not even conscious level filtering or decisions made prior to action. Can you expand on what you mean?

feanaro 4y ago
The conscious filtering and the actions are an illusion. They certainly happen on some level, since humans are clearly adaptable and reactive systems, but they are not likely to be conscious as we conceive of them. We usually feel like there is a person inside that has control and almost extra-physical ability to override, but surely this must be result of physical inputs and processes? In a weird twist, meditation is one thing that makes this subjectively apparent. There have also been some (contentious) scientific experiments pointing towards this.
- NateEag 4y ago
  > We usually feel like there is a person inside that has control and almost extra-physical ability to override, but surely this must be result of physical inputs and processes? I know of no rigorous evidence against the idea that we're purely matter and physics, nor do I know of any rigorous evidence showing that's all there is to humans (or living beings generally). It's arguably a "mysticism of the gaps", but the "hard problem" form of consciousness still seems like a pretty weird outcome of evolution to me if that is in fact what it is, and not something that's adequately explained by, say, the anthropic principle. I realize opinions will vary, and I'm okay with that - this one happens to be mine at the moment. It seems to me to require a decent amount of faith in the idea that only matter exists to conclude that consciousness and free will must be illusory. It's certainly a defensible, reasonable stance, but I don't think it's the only plausible one. > There have also been some (contentious) scientific experiments pointing towards this. If you're referring to Libet's analysis of the Bereitschaftspotential experiments, there has been some acceptance in the past few years that this paper shows he misinterpreted the data: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1210467109 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1210467109 Popular summary of the debate in The Atlantic: https://archive.ph/SHH0p https://archive.ph/SHH0p
  - feanaro 4y ago
    > It seems to me to require a decent amount of faith in the idea that only matter exists to conclude that consciousness and free will must be illusory. Why only matter? My default position (of which I'm not entirely convinced of!) is that there are only physical things, not that there is only matter. So if consciousness and free will are physical phenomena of some kind, that makes things logical again. But if they are physical, then surely they follow physical rules, and need to somehow interact with the rest of physics. This again leaves no gap for there to be a divine kind of free will, one that is extra-physical and capable of overriding cause and effect. When I say that free will is illusory, I mean it in this sense: I don't see a logically coherent way in which free will could be non-physical and outside of the usual cause-and-effect chain. ** I did mean Libet, thanks for the references.
    - feanaro 4y ago
      > I did mean Libet, thanks for the references. And quickly skimming through the linked paper, their suggested mechanism changes the "decision" to simply be a result of stochastic fluctuation in neural activity. So it resolves some of the weirdness introduced by Libet, by not having the moment of decision precede the moment of conscious experience. But at best, it still leaves free will with a kind of ancillary role, in which it represents the "feeling" of volitional control, with the actual decision still being stochastic at best. This is certainly possible, but not what people usually mean when discussing free will colloquially (I find).
- nawgz 4y ago
  > The conscious filtering and the actions are an illusion > They certainly happen on some level What a strangely useless statement. Why, if they certainly happen, is their appearance in the consciousness and subsequent action when so consciously decided "an illusion"? What illusion is exactly at hand here? > We usually feel like there is a person inside that has control and almost extra-physical ability to override I do not see how you can project your qualia on to me, nor how there is a "we" in this statement. I do not feel similarly to this at all. Overall, this is the kind of unenlightened junk I expect to hear from people that claim to understand what our lives are and what they mean. No one understands these things, but it's certainly fun to ponder.
  - feanaro 4y ago
    No need to start out antagonistically if you expect a real answer. You might as well assume I had no bad intentions. Perhaps we just misunderstood each other? > Why, if they certainly happen, is their appearance in the consciousness and subsequent action when so consciously decided "an illusion"? What illusion is exactly at hand here? How do you understand the concept of "volition"? > I do not see how you can project your qualia on to me, nor how there is a "we" in this statement. I do not feel similarly to this at all. Okay, I apologize for using the word "we". It is certainly my experience that people perceive this in the way I described, from many discussions I've had. The statement above is not meant to be universal in a hard sense, despite my literary use of "we". I'm not claiming to understand how things ultimately work, but I've certainly had personal experiences pointing towards there not being a homunculus, or an extra-physical volition capable of overriding raw cause-and-effect. In fact, it appears that everything is ultimately cause-and-effect -- and I find people commonly object to this idea when exposed to it. (Just noticed you're the grandparent poster.) In fact, what do you mean when you say "there is not even conscious level filtering or decisions made prior to action"? What purpose does the conscious level qualifier serve in your sentence, if the filtering and the deciding is ultimately just another effect produced by some cause? How does this differ from any other causal system which is traditionally not considered to possess free will, such as a mechanical contraption?
    - nawgz 4y ago
cortesoft 4y ago
Do you feel like you make the same decisions when you are tired, or hungry, or angry, as you do when you aren’t those things? Do you ever feel a disconnect about what you wish you would do and what you actually do? (E.g. exercising more, eating better, spending more time doing x, or anything else) Have you ever had trouble kicking a habit, or starting a new one you want to have? I am not talking about direct control in the sense of “I want to move my hand here and then I make my hand move”, but more in the sense of “there is sometimes a disconnect between the choices I want to make and the choices I actually make”. That difference ebbs and flows, and I am sure some people are better at living exactly how they want to live than others, but I don’t think anyone ALWAYS makes the decisions that are perfectly in line with what they want to choose to do.
- nawgz 4y ago
  > Do you feel like you make the same decisions when you are tired, or hungry, or angry, as you do when you aren’t those things? Yes, unless those prescribed emotions are causing my body to care more to tend to survival than the normal state of chilling > Do you ever feel a disconnect about what you wish you would do and what you actually do? How does the ability to exercise one's will have anything to do with whether or not one has the will? > Have you ever had trouble kicking a habit, or starting a new one you want to have? Partial control of my complex meat machine from subconscious levels of my mind do not invalidate the idea that I have complete control over select scenarios. For instance, you have decided to make an argument based on the idea that your meat machine and you share more of a collaborative existence than you would assume a creature with free will would share with its meat-or-otherwise machine, whereas I hold that existence is naturally inextricably tied up with the act of acquiring energy via eating and alleviating whatever burdens sleep is designed to lift and these facts should not be confused as indicating we are slaves to our vessels. Quite a weak argument to me.
  - cortesoft 4y ago
    I think you are misunderstanding me. > do not invalidate the idea that I have complete control over select scenarios. I was not trying to say you NEVER have complete control. I am saying we don’t ALWAYS have complete CONSCIOUS control. I am saying we often make decisions for reasons that we are not fully conscious of, or even aware at all. In fact, we will sometimes tell ourselves (and actually believe) we are doing something for one reasons when we are in reality doing it for another reason we aren’t fully aware of. Our subconscious controls a lot more of what we do than we realize, is my point. I am not saying we can’t choose to, at moments, take more full conscious control for a while. I am also in no way arguing against free will. I am just saying that we are only aware of a part of what goes into our choices of actions.
wruza 4y ago
It’s amazing how “free will” still lives as an idea. Imagine exact past yourself in the exact past situation and tell how exactly it would work that you could decide not the way you already did (ignoring any amplified fundamental uncertainty, which is the opposite of “will” by very definition).
- nawgz 4y ago
  > Imagine exact past yourself in the exact past situation and tell how exactly it would work that you could decide not the way you already did This does not seem like a meaningful definition of free will to me.
  - wruza 4y ago
    What does?
    - nawgz 4y ago
      If an oracle could exist which, given the current state of the universe, could predict every future state including human actions, then we would be deterministic entities, driven exclusively by chemical reaction. If such a thing can't exist, then we (or some other entity I suppose) are holding some idea like free will which is at least existing outside physical determinism. This does not seem to me analogous to saying whether a human being would behave the same as itself in the same situation, as the presupposed information differs significantly.
      - wruza 4y ago
        I’m likely just getting it the way I want to, cause it seems equivalent to me. The difference is that you seem to find (no oracle) -> (free will) arrow having a structure, while I think it is too much of a stretch. It goes like that: If the reason an oracle can’t exist is fundamental chaos, then that chaos cannot be connected to results of free will without handwavy logic, it would span too many abstraction levels to be useful and/or predictable. The assumption to be made here is that whatever free will is, it must be a similar oracle which predicts chaos instead. Not a direct contradiction but in the same spirit. One may also view that second oracle as not predicting chaos, but instead acting on top of it, or simply being it. Not sure if you meant this or not. If an oracle could exist, then yes the chaos is broken (it is no more). The case where an oracle can’t exist for a different reason is still to be explored. Edit: realized that I’m using “chaos” in place of “uncertainty”, please assume they are the same here.

by nawgz 4y ago

feanaro 4y ago

The conscious filtering and the actions are an illusion. They certainly happen on some level, since humans are clearly adaptable and reactive systems, but they are not likely to be conscious as we conceive of them. We usually feel like there is a person inside that has control and almost extra-physical ability to override, but surely this must be result of physical inputs and processes? In a weird twist, meditation is one thing that makes this subjectively apparent. There have also been some (contentious) scientific experiments pointing towards this.

NateEag 4y ago
> We usually feel like there is a person inside that has control and almost extra-physical ability to override, but surely this must be result of physical inputs and processes? I know of no rigorous evidence against the idea that we're purely matter and physics, nor do I know of any rigorous evidence showing that's all there is to humans (or living beings generally). It's arguably a "mysticism of the gaps", but the "hard problem" form of consciousness still seems like a pretty weird outcome of evolution to me if that is in fact what it is, and not something that's adequately explained by, say, the anthropic principle. I realize opinions will vary, and I'm okay with that - this one happens to be mine at the moment. It seems to me to require a decent amount of faith in the idea that only matter exists to conclude that consciousness and free will must be illusory. It's certainly a defensible, reasonable stance, but I don't think it's the only plausible one. > There have also been some (contentious) scientific experiments pointing towards this. If you're referring to Libet's analysis of the Bereitschaftspotential experiments, there has been some acceptance in the past few years that this paper shows he misinterpreted the data: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1210467109 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1210467109 Popular summary of the debate in The Atlantic: https://archive.ph/SHH0p https://archive.ph/SHH0p
- feanaro 4y ago
  > It seems to me to require a decent amount of faith in the idea that only matter exists to conclude that consciousness and free will must be illusory. Why only matter? My default position (of which I'm not entirely convinced of!) is that there are only physical things, not that there is only matter. So if consciousness and free will are physical phenomena of some kind, that makes things logical again. But if they are physical, then surely they follow physical rules, and need to somehow interact with the rest of physics. This again leaves no gap for there to be a divine kind of free will, one that is extra-physical and capable of overriding cause and effect. When I say that free will is illusory, I mean it in this sense: I don't see a logically coherent way in which free will could be non-physical and outside of the usual cause-and-effect chain. ** I did mean Libet, thanks for the references.
  - feanaro 4y ago
    > I did mean Libet, thanks for the references. And quickly skimming through the linked paper, their suggested mechanism changes the "decision" to simply be a result of stochastic fluctuation in neural activity. So it resolves some of the weirdness introduced by Libet, by not having the moment of decision precede the moment of conscious experience. But at best, it still leaves free will with a kind of ancillary role, in which it represents the "feeling" of volitional control, with the actual decision still being stochastic at best. This is certainly possible, but not what people usually mean when discussing free will colloquially (I find).
nawgz 4y ago
> The conscious filtering and the actions are an illusion > They certainly happen on some level What a strangely useless statement. Why, if they certainly happen, is their appearance in the consciousness and subsequent action when so consciously decided "an illusion"? What illusion is exactly at hand here? > We usually feel like there is a person inside that has control and almost extra-physical ability to override I do not see how you can project your qualia on to me, nor how there is a "we" in this statement. I do not feel similarly to this at all. Overall, this is the kind of unenlightened junk I expect to hear from people that claim to understand what our lives are and what they mean. No one understands these things, but it's certainly fun to ponder.
- feanaro 4y ago
  No need to start out antagonistically if you expect a real answer. You might as well assume I had no bad intentions. Perhaps we just misunderstood each other? > Why, if they certainly happen, is their appearance in the consciousness and subsequent action when so consciously decided "an illusion"? What illusion is exactly at hand here? How do you understand the concept of "volition"? > I do not see how you can project your qualia on to me, nor how there is a "we" in this statement. I do not feel similarly to this at all. Okay, I apologize for using the word "we". It is certainly my experience that people perceive this in the way I described, from many discussions I've had. The statement above is not meant to be universal in a hard sense, despite my literary use of "we". I'm not claiming to understand how things ultimately work, but I've certainly had personal experiences pointing towards there not being a homunculus, or an extra-physical volition capable of overriding raw cause-and-effect. In fact, it appears that everything is ultimately cause-and-effect -- and I find people commonly object to this idea when exposed to it. (Just noticed you're the grandparent poster.) In fact, what do you mean when you say "there is not even conscious level filtering or decisions made prior to action"? What purpose does the conscious level qualifier serve in your sentence, if the filtering and the deciding is ultimately just another effect produced by some cause? How does this differ from any other causal system which is traditionally not considered to possess free will, such as a mechanical contraption?
  - nawgz 4y ago

cortesoft 4y ago

Do you feel like you make the same decisions when you are tired, or hungry, or angry, as you do when you aren’t those things? Do you ever feel a disconnect about what you wish you would do and what you actually do? (E.g. exercising more, eating better, spending more time doing x, or anything else) Have you ever had trouble kicking a habit, or starting a new one you want to have? I am not talking about direct control in the sense of “I want to move my hand here and then I make my hand move”, but more in the sense of “there is sometimes a disconnect between the choices I want to make and the choices I actually make”. That difference ebbs and flows, and I am sure some people are better at living exactly how they want to live than others, but I don’t think anyone ALWAYS makes the decisions that are perfectly in line with what they want to choose to do.

nawgz 4y ago
> Do you feel like you make the same decisions when you are tired, or hungry, or angry, as you do when you aren’t those things? Yes, unless those prescribed emotions are causing my body to care more to tend to survival than the normal state of chilling > Do you ever feel a disconnect about what you wish you would do and what you actually do? How does the ability to exercise one's will have anything to do with whether or not one has the will? > Have you ever had trouble kicking a habit, or starting a new one you want to have? Partial control of my complex meat machine from subconscious levels of my mind do not invalidate the idea that I have complete control over select scenarios. For instance, you have decided to make an argument based on the idea that your meat machine and you share more of a collaborative existence than you would assume a creature with free will would share with its meat-or-otherwise machine, whereas I hold that existence is naturally inextricably tied up with the act of acquiring energy via eating and alleviating whatever burdens sleep is designed to lift and these facts should not be confused as indicating we are slaves to our vessels. Quite a weak argument to me.
- cortesoft 4y ago
  I think you are misunderstanding me. > do not invalidate the idea that I have complete control over select scenarios. I was not trying to say you NEVER have complete control. I am saying we don’t ALWAYS have complete CONSCIOUS control. I am saying we often make decisions for reasons that we are not fully conscious of, or even aware at all. In fact, we will sometimes tell ourselves (and actually believe) we are doing something for one reasons when we are in reality doing it for another reason we aren’t fully aware of. Our subconscious controls a lot more of what we do than we realize, is my point. I am not saying we can’t choose to, at moments, take more full conscious control for a while. I am also in no way arguing against free will. I am just saying that we are only aware of a part of what goes into our choices of actions.

wruza 4y ago

It’s amazing how “free will” still lives as an idea. Imagine exact past yourself in the exact past situation and tell how exactly it would work that you could decide not the way you already did (ignoring any amplified fundamental uncertainty, which is the opposite of “will” by very definition).

nawgz 4y ago
> Imagine exact past yourself in the exact past situation and tell how exactly it would work that you could decide not the way you already did This does not seem like a meaningful definition of free will to me.
- wruza 4y ago
  What does?
  - nawgz 4y ago
    If an oracle could exist which, given the current state of the universe, could predict every future state including human actions, then we would be deterministic entities, driven exclusively by chemical reaction. If such a thing can't exist, then we (or some other entity I suppose) are holding some idea like free will which is at least existing outside physical determinism. This does not seem to me analogous to saying whether a human being would behave the same as itself in the same situation, as the presupposed information differs significantly.
    - wruza 4y ago
      I’m likely just getting it the way I want to, cause it seems equivalent to me. The difference is that you seem to find (no oracle) -> (free will) arrow having a structure, while I think it is too much of a stretch. It goes like that: If the reason an oracle can’t exist is fundamental chaos, then that chaos cannot be connected to results of free will without handwavy logic, it would span too many abstraction levels to be useful and/or predictable. The assumption to be made here is that whatever free will is, it must be a similar oracle which predicts chaos instead. Not a direct contradiction but in the same spirit. One may also view that second oracle as not predicting chaos, but instead acting on top of it, or simply being it. Not sure if you meant this or not. If an oracle could exist, then yes the chaos is broken (it is no more). The case where an oracle can’t exist for a different reason is still to be explored. Edit: realized that I’m using “chaos” in place of “uncertainty”, please assume they are the same here.