4 ms·

Perhaps you're right, but if so, what is a single 'willpower' level the body has that we can measure? The comparison you made with energy is very appropriate.

Perhaps you're right, but if so, what is a single 'willpower' level the body has that we can measure? The comparison you made with energy is very appropriate. As an aside, and not related to the broader point here about this kind of psychology experiment, scientific fatalism rejects the notion of willpower altogether.

Dylan16807 13y ago
It doesn't matter what it 'truly' is. The colloquial definition is pretty easy to measure by proxy, and in reality every measurement every taken is a proxy of some sort. And as far as I know fatalism is only concerned with the abstract philosophical definition of willpower, not the practical definition that relates to desire and objective behavior.
- foobarbazqux 13y ago
  Science is only concerned with what things 'truly' are. Anything that is presently an untestable claim - such as the brain having explicit circuitry devoted to our concept of willpower - is not a scientific hypothesis. Measurements tell you about the thing you are measuring and you can do science with them. However they do not tell you the mechanism by which the thing you are measuring works internally. For example, when Newton discovered gravity he did not know how gravity worked, so gravity was a black box that he simply measured. It's now a much smaller black box thanks to better experimental methods. The problem is not making scientific claims about the behavior of the black box, the problem is extrapolating to the point where you're claiming that your model of what's in the box is the right model, with no way of checking. Hopefully as neuroscience makes progress we will be able to test our claims about the inside of the brain. I don't know how to make it clearer. As far as fatalism is concerned, some scientists believe that everything since the big bang is predetermined, and choice is an illusion. It's unfalsifiable, but the point is that's just as valid as the claim that we actually have willpower.
  - Dylan16807 13y ago
    I'm replying to this part in a separate comment to avoid it distracting from the real discussion. >Anything that is presently an untestable claim - ... - is not a scientific hypothesis. Screw that. With the miniscule size of transistors in today's chips, it's untestable whether an i7 has an NSA backdoor. That doesn't make the theory unscientific. It's unscientific if I can't propose a buildable test at all, but it doesn't matter if the test can be built in 2013. (If you don't like that example, replace it with something that involves reaching a Voyager probe. Completely impossible to do in 2013, completely possible to be scientific.)
    - foobarbazqux 13y ago
      Strangely enough, for me this is the real discussion. I think it speaks to the extent we are miscommunicating here. > It's unscientific if I can't propose a buildable test at all, but it doesn't matter if the test can be built in 2013. I agree that this is a better definition. I am unable to propose a buildable test that determines whether our brains have neurons dedicated specifically to cognitive processing and willpower and moreover that these functions draw separately from the same pool of processing resources. Perhaps neuroscience will get us there in the future.
  - Dylan16807 13y ago
    Science is based on cause and effect. Science doesn't care the slightest bit about philosophy. If you hold a sphere of silicon in your hand, is it one object, or is it 10^25 objects? Science doesn't care, it depends on context, it's a semantic issue. The mechanism of willpower-actions, the actual choices, is based on neurons firing and chemical shifts and such. We don't fully understand these mechanisms, but we have a rough idea of how the brain works and any specific hypotheses are completely falsifiable. On top of that, it doesn't matter if there is explicit willpower circuitry. I think by most definitions my muscles don't have explicit energy circuitry, but it'll still become harder to balance if I've been running or lifting weights extensively. And the reason is that they're low on energy. For any particular definition of an aspect of 'energy' I can show you the precise biological mechanisms and give you objective measurements. It doesn't matter that the term 'energy' is overarching. So, in terms of objective science and provable mechanisms: Bringing up an argument about whether things are predetermined has nothing to do with whether people make willpower-actions. It's a metaphysical question about whether the actions have meaning. Science does not care about meaning. Basically, I understand you when you say that metaphysical willpower in the sense of free will is not a falsifiable thing. But that's not what these experiments are about! These experiments are about the objective side, the measurement side, the willpower-as-defined-by-people-with-heads-outside-of-their-navels, about whether people make the hard choice or the bad choice. As far as I can tell you're claiming the entire thing is trash just because they used the word willpower. These experiments are talking about a real thing, with partially-understood mechanisms, that are falsifiable in every way except for word choice. The word 'willpower' is not a specific mechanism that's claimed to be in the black box. It's just a description of something the box does.

Dylan16807 13y ago

It doesn't matter what it 'truly' is. The colloquial definition is pretty easy to measure by proxy, and in reality every measurement every taken is a proxy of some sort. And as far as I know fatalism is only concerned with the abstract philosophical definition of willpower, not the practical definition that relates to desire and objective behavior.

foobarbazqux 13y ago
Science is only concerned with what things 'truly' are. Anything that is presently an untestable claim - such as the brain having explicit circuitry devoted to our concept of willpower - is not a scientific hypothesis. Measurements tell you about the thing you are measuring and you can do science with them. However they do not tell you the mechanism by which the thing you are measuring works internally. For example, when Newton discovered gravity he did not know how gravity worked, so gravity was a black box that he simply measured. It's now a much smaller black box thanks to better experimental methods. The problem is not making scientific claims about the behavior of the black box, the problem is extrapolating to the point where you're claiming that your model of what's in the box is the right model, with no way of checking. Hopefully as neuroscience makes progress we will be able to test our claims about the inside of the brain. I don't know how to make it clearer. As far as fatalism is concerned, some scientists believe that everything since the big bang is predetermined, and choice is an illusion. It's unfalsifiable, but the point is that's just as valid as the claim that we actually have willpower.
- Dylan16807 13y ago
  I'm replying to this part in a separate comment to avoid it distracting from the real discussion. >Anything that is presently an untestable claim - ... - is not a scientific hypothesis. Screw that. With the miniscule size of transistors in today's chips, it's untestable whether an i7 has an NSA backdoor. That doesn't make the theory unscientific. It's unscientific if I can't propose a buildable test at all, but it doesn't matter if the test can be built in 2013. (If you don't like that example, replace it with something that involves reaching a Voyager probe. Completely impossible to do in 2013, completely possible to be scientific.)
  - foobarbazqux 13y ago
    Strangely enough, for me this is the real discussion. I think it speaks to the extent we are miscommunicating here. > It's unscientific if I can't propose a buildable test at all, but it doesn't matter if the test can be built in 2013. I agree that this is a better definition. I am unable to propose a buildable test that determines whether our brains have neurons dedicated specifically to cognitive processing and willpower and moreover that these functions draw separately from the same pool of processing resources. Perhaps neuroscience will get us there in the future.
- Dylan16807 13y ago
  Science is based on cause and effect. Science doesn't care the slightest bit about philosophy. If you hold a sphere of silicon in your hand, is it one object, or is it 10^25 objects? Science doesn't care, it depends on context, it's a semantic issue. The mechanism of willpower-actions, the actual choices, is based on neurons firing and chemical shifts and such. We don't fully understand these mechanisms, but we have a rough idea of how the brain works and any specific hypotheses are completely falsifiable. On top of that, it doesn't matter if there is explicit willpower circuitry. I think by most definitions my muscles don't have explicit energy circuitry, but it'll still become harder to balance if I've been running or lifting weights extensively. And the reason is that they're low on energy. For any particular definition of an aspect of 'energy' I can show you the precise biological mechanisms and give you objective measurements. It doesn't matter that the term 'energy' is overarching. So, in terms of objective science and provable mechanisms: Bringing up an argument about whether things are predetermined has nothing to do with whether people make willpower-actions. It's a metaphysical question about whether the actions have meaning. Science does not care about meaning. Basically, I understand you when you say that metaphysical willpower in the sense of free will is not a falsifiable thing. But that's not what these experiments are about! These experiments are about the objective side, the measurement side, the willpower-as-defined-by-people-with-heads-outside-of-their-navels, about whether people make the hard choice or the bad choice. As far as I can tell you're claiming the entire thing is trash just because they used the word willpower. These experiments are talking about a real thing, with partially-understood mechanisms, that are falsifiable in every way except for word choice. The word 'willpower' is not a specific mechanism that's claimed to be in the black box. It's just a description of something the box does.