[ 3 / biz / cgl / ck / diy / fa / ic / jp / lit / sci / vr / vt ] [ index / top / reports ] [ become a patron ] [ status ]
2023-11: Warosu is now out of extended maintenance.

/sci/ - Science & Math

View post   
File: 43 KB, 707x800, 1306605619001.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3249014 No.3249014 [Reply] [Original]

So does free will exist?

Is consciousness a cruel joke that makes us think we have free will?

>> No.3249024

Define free will.

If by free will, you mean the ability to make decisions, then we definitely have it. We make decisions all the time.

>> No.3249023

>>3249014

Pretty much.

I reccomend Alan Watts. youtube that shit.

>> No.3249029

>>3249014

If by free-will you mean you get to make decisions that aren't coerced by outside forces, then yes.

If you lacked free-will you could tell quite easily. Your hands would move without your discretion, every decision would feel involuntary and forced, etc

>> No.3249036
File: 118 KB, 480x640, a goose.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3249036

Choose to perceive her as ugly.

You can't do it can you?

You are an automaton.

>> No.3249039

>>3249029

Perhaps it already is. You just simply believe you are commanding yourself.

>> No.3249049

>>3249029
http://www.google.com/search?q=alien+hand+syndrome
http://www.google.com/search?q=intrusive+thoughts

>> No.3249052

>>3249036

moar

>> No.3249054

This gets asked so many times that it is now considered a troll thread

>> No.3249057

>>3249039

Ok but then other people, or you yourself would detect anomalies with your behavior.
If you believe you are acting freely, and you approve of your decisions, then it doesn't matter where they began--since you approve of them--in which case you take responsibility for them.

>> No.3249058

>>3249036
3DPD

>> No.3249060

>>3249036
I don't like her face and that get-up just doesn't suit my taste.

But I do believe that free will has been washed out of our minds since we were children. Do this because its good, don't do that because it is bad, why would you do that? Its not going to benefit you.

Sometimes thinking logically or socially correct is not the best way to go about a situation, but most people will follow what they have been taught nontheless. Even if you do do it your own way you usually have that little spot in your conscious telling you no and making you hesitate.

>> No.3249073

there is no argument against free-will, only arguments for it

we know it exists because we experience it

just like pain and pleasure, we know them when we feel them. They idea that they might be illusions is absurd and irrelevant--when something feels this real, it is real.

>> No.3249078
File: 66 KB, 342x550, seer.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3249078

>>3249057

The world moves based on physical laws. Scientists understand this and accept it as a paradigm of its own.

Water flows in a stream, clouds glide through the sky, the planets graze across the cosmos in their epochs, and Suns give light to us all.

It is arrogant to believe that we are Separate and to think that we have a shred of control.

Its time to give in, accept that you are subject to the atmosphere of your own mind just as you cannot stop rain.

>> No.3249085

>>3249014
No, free will is an illusion.

Every action a human takes is the result of the biology they were born with and the net sum of all the experiences they have absorbed. It feels like we are making decisions, but our minds are just electrochemical reactions with no more freedom than a coke and mentos fountain.

>> No.3249092

>>3249085
Arbitrary perspective of what "Free will" means. "Free will" is a metaphysical ideology.

>> No.3249093

>>3249073 we know it exists because we experience it

Worst logic ever.

>> No.3249097

>>3249014

no.

no.

>> No.3249107

>>3249092
Free will means that the "self" has total control on what it does. But if the self is controlled by biochemical and biophysical processes, how can we say it's independent?

>> No.3249117

>>3249078
>>3249085


Just because molecules lack a property doesn't mean brains lack it. Fallacy of composition.

Higher levels of organization create properties that don't exist down below, and vice versa.

You can't know if our Universe excludes the possibility of free-will, you would have to go outside it or know its nature through and through. So appealing to some symmetry between the universe and our bodies is irrelevant.

>> No.3249130

Total free-will is just as absurd as absolutely no free-will.

We have a mix of both. Some things are voluntary, somethings obviously aren't, and other things are in between.

The fact that we feel free is probably the best argument for it. When you go to a restaurant and a waiter gives you a menu, you don't say "no thanks, what I pick is already determined, I'll just wait here until I order it"

>> No.3249139

>Is consciousness a cruel joke that makes us think we have free will?

According to every scientist, neuroscientist, non-bullshit philosopher ever, yes. If you subscribe to a scientific worldview, you are necessarily a determinist. And no, QM does not posit free will either. Probabilistic mathematical modelling due to inherent physical and practical limitations =! lol free will exists because it's all so randum we can't measure and must approximate lol. Shit just doesn't work that way, it isn't even defined that way.

Free will implies breaks in the chain of physical causation, it posits the existence of spirits or souls that through sheer will of its own affects the way we behave. We observe none of that, and in the light of absence of such observations, there is no reason why we continue to maintain such a hypothesis. And unless you're a wishy washy compatibilist, you would along with free will throw morality out of the window.

>> No.3249151

>>3249093

Same is true for pain and pleasure and "other minds". No other way to prove they exist, they are 100% subjective and everything we use to describe them we infer from the subject by analogy.

>> No.3249152

predetermined simulation

>> No.3249148

>>3249117 appealing to some symmetry between the universe and our bodies is irrelevant.

Saying our brains are exempt from generally accepted rules without justifying the exemption.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_pleading

Its a fallacy. You lose.

>> No.3249154

>>3249107
Again, you're arbitrarily changing the definition of "Free will".

Stop posting.

>> No.3249156

>>3249130
your vision of what free will means is very limited.

>> No.3249161

>>3249139
>implying determinism has been proven

determinism is metaphysical and impossible to demonstrate

why is it being discussed by scientists? because philosophy is actually interesting and science is boring.

>> No.3249163

>>3249154
Not "again" because that was my first post in this thread.

Also, what do you consider to be the definition of free will?

>> No.3249166

>>3249148
>Saying our brains are exempt from generally accepted rules without justifying the exemption.

>generally accepted

>implying Free-will isn't generally accepted

nice job shooting yourself in the face

"generally accepted" is how we argue now? lol

>> No.3249170

stupid question. Grow up.

We can experience decision making etc. whether the universe it deterministic if not. Stop being a baby.

>> No.3249180

there is neither determinism, nor free-will

neither can be demonstrated. :(

>> No.3249189

>>3249139
Excellent post.

The next step in overcoming that prison of causality, in my opinion, is realizing that life is whatever attitude you decide to subscribe yourself to. That is, if you're a subjectivist. We can then say that by discarding the paranoid eyes that persistently analyze the causality of the inner universe and taking on an attitude of "living in the moment" so to speak, we can liberate ourselves from that deterministic existence. Free will is simply the attitude, the feeling, of being liberated from such limitations, and this is where things like spontaneous courage and determination may come from.

>> No.3249195

Do animals have free will?
Only mammals or even insects? Or even worms?

>> No.3249196

this is about as dumb as arguing that pain doesn't exist because how could atoms smashing together cause pain? atoms don't feel pain

oh wait nigga, its cause modern day neuroscience and psychology knows jack shit about consciousness. literally they know 0%

so until they figure out consciousness, free-will is a mystery..

lol @ dumbasses saying no free-will cuz atoms don't have free-will---you guys just went fullretard.

>> No.3249197

>>3249180
>nothing that cannot be demonstrated is true
Godel would like a word with you.

>> No.3249198

>>3249161
Psychology is a science, is it not? And psychology relies heavily on the theory of causality in the universe.

>> No.3249201

>>3249196

odors are illusions cuz atoms have no odor.
physics proves this.

>> No.3249206

>>3249197

>implying Godel has something to do with this and his proofs are relevant outside a strict subsection of mathematics.

>> No.3249207

fuck, /sci/ is full of dumb people

>> No.3249211

>>3249198

it relies on many unfounded assumptions

that's how models work my friend...don't take them too seriously

>> No.3249214

>>3249139
>And unless you're a wishy washy compatibilist, you would along with free will throw morality out of the window.
Isn't that itself a moral judgment on your part against the holding of irrational beliefs? I mean, if we don't have free will, then people who believe that morality is real do so because that is the only possible way they could feel about it.

In fact, if you accept determinism, there is no point in arguing anything at all, since everything that proceeds does so as the result of immutable physical laws, and nothing you say can change that.

>> No.3249222

>>3249214
actually the act of saying something can make the other person chage his/her mind. determinism doesn't imply immutability

>> No.3249236

>>3249014
You need to define "free will" first.

Related:
(Argument that free will and determinalism are compatible) Daniel Dennett lecture on "Free Will" (Edinburgh University)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKLAbWFCh1E

>> No.3249238

>>3249222
My point is that anyone who accepts determinism would logically be wholly apathetic about the beliefs of others, or even about themselves. Determinism by definition implies nihilism.

The fact that you are arguing against free will implies that at least on a subconscious level you believe in free will, otherwise your action would be utterly meaningless, and you wouldn't have done it.

>> No.3249241

>>3249206
>implying reality is something other than mathematics

>> No.3249248

>>3249238
nihilism doesn't imply apathy.

and no, the fact that i argue with you has nothing to do with a "subconscious belief". btw this is pseudoscientifical bullshit.

>> No.3249255

If you believe everything is deterministic, then yes free will is an illusion.
That doesn't mean we can't make decisions, it's just that those decisions are 100% going to happen before we make them.

>> No.3249271

>>3249241
>implying mathematics is anything but a language for describing reality
Reality governs the validity of mathematics. If you find a disconnect between perceived physical reality and the mathematical language you use to describe it, I'd suggest you reevaluate the validity of those mathematics rather than alter your world view to suit an artificial construct.

>> No.3249279

>>3249238
I disagree that believing the universe is deterministic removes moral responsibility.

>> No.3249281

>>3249248
>believes he has free will
>still acts like a moron

>> No.3249280

>>3249279
(Damn word filters. Not sure what part is disallowed.)

I'm taking the position of Dan Dennett.

Moreover, as my own position, I am unable to fathom a physical phenomenon which is neither predictable nor true-random. Human behavior is a physical phenomenon. Is it deterministically predictable, or does it contain some true-random? Can you have the traditional idea of free will in either case? How does a soul help matters?

>> No.3249285

>>3249280
You're either deterministically predictable, or you're true random. I fail to comprehend an alternative. Invocations of "a soul" are little more than a hand wave and an appeal to magic without offering any substantive. It's just saying "There's something else", while not attempting to explain its workings, nor give a falsifiable prediction from the hypothesis.

>> No.3249288

>>3249285
perhaps we're unpredictable

>> No.3249289

People and their smart answers. Every true philosopher knows not to make every thing out of a "-sim".

Your answer: Why are you on 4-chan? Did some one make you? Was there a force telling you had to?

>> No.3249299

>>3249288
I offered that as a possibility, under "true random". I fail to see an alternative besides predictably deterministic - predictable in principle - vs true random.

>> No.3249310

From the moment we are born, every single decision we make will be formed by our brain, which is impacted by external input and genetic composition.

Do not be foolish, young ones.

>> No.3249312

>>3249206

Actually he has a lot to do with everything considering that his work on sets is the foundation for ALL math and well I could cite the incompleteness theorems but just wiki it.

>> No.3249323

>>3249271

Right because when Netwon couldn't calculate the motion of mercury is was totally from his definition of an integral not that he didn't know relativity.

>> No.3249324

>>3249206
This just sounds too specific. It has to be someone who knows better and is trolling. Goedel is incredibly influential in modern mathematics, and his incompleteness theorems apply to any (sane) math that includes Natural Numbers, more or less.

>> No.3249346
File: 130 KB, 520x555, god's proof.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3249346

>>3249324

>> No.3249364

>>3249346

Godel's definition of god doesn't match up with the english language's definition of god.

>> No.3249367
File: 16 KB, 500x375, neckbeard.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3249367

>Is consciousness a cruel joke that makes us think we have free will?
>You just don't understand my nonsensical question because it's too deep for you.

>> No.3249376

>>3249285
>You're either deterministically predictable, or you're true random. I fail to comprehend an alternative.
Self-determined. It's not a difficult concept. It's just not possible to mathematically model, except as if it were some kind of random distribution.

>> No.3249385

>>3249376
This is what I refer to hand waving and invoking magic. I read that as "You're self determined. What that does mean? I don't know. It does look indistinguishable from if your actions were true-randomly determined."

>> No.3249386

>>3249036
cool false dichotomy bro

>> No.3249409

>>3249346

I don't find his argument convincing. The key is that god has to always exist but that's not a falsifiable statement as you can't test all of time or every so called world either.

Mathematically it means that if his argument is incorrect then one of his sets is empty that he must have assumed to exist.

Furthermore it doesn't even make sense to talk about God using logic as if he is such a supreme being then clearly he must come before any sort of axioms or basic logic we have. I'll just leave this as a conjecture though, not going to prove it to you :P

>> No.3249415

If consciousness is a cruel joke then there must be an omnipotent entity to create the cruel joke.

>> No.3249419

>>3249409
>can't prove axioms
>wants to prove axioms

>> No.3249423

Does it actually matter if it does or doesn't? Arguing over whether free will exists is like arguing that we're in some perfect simulation indistinguishable in every aspect.

If it exists, we are our own agents making choices. If it doesn't exist, our actions are merely the multitude of circumstances and conditions before us that make it seem like we are making choices. It's a distinction without a difference.

>> No.3249425

>>3249423
well, if you choose determinism, then the transhumanists win

>> No.3249428

>>3249425
Meh, I think I'll just choose to jerk off.

>> No.3249442

>Is consciousness a cruel joke that makes us think we have free will?
>Can switching to Geico really save you 15% or more on your car insurance?

>> No.3249460

>>3249139
>>3249139
I disagru

>> No.3249468

>>3249442
>>3249460
>>3249428
yep