Free Will, Where Does It Come From?

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Drogue
Berz: Free Will is the idea that you can change your future. That your future is not decided, because there is still a chance you could choose one action, or a chance you could choose another. I agree that we can choose our own choice. I agree that we are free from others who want to make choices for us (to some extent). However while we can choose, what we will choose is already known. We cannot change the future, since our actions will be what our actions will be. That is why I don't believe in parallel/alternate universes, because there is only one way things can happen, the way that they will do. The future is as solid as the past. Admittedly we cannot know what it is, but it is a static object, in that it doesn't change.

No, free will is NOT that. Free will is the power to make your own decisions, without someone else making them for you.

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by Drogue
I'm not talking about how biology determins your behaviour. I'm talking about how that choice you make is already known, and that the future is already inclusive of that. I'm saying that you do not have the free will to choose differently than you will do. The future is not ours to change, it is already decided.

But you're saying it as if it is a proven fact that there's no free will - AFAIK it is not so far, not even in neurobiology (yes, I may be wrong, but what I read in thread so far wasn't the exactly what I'd call ultimate proof pro or contra free will ).

To the consciousness thing: I read a (philosophical)argument against the "pure physics rule" position that says, even when you know everything you can know about the brain and its function due to physics and neurobiology, you cannot describe physically why we have subjective impressions due to our senses and how they are - subjectively - experienced.

[Drogue]

I'm more saying that there is determinism, as opposed to their not being free will. IMHO, the fact that the choices you make are known removes that aspect of free will, but I do believe you make those decisions.

[Solly]

Drogue

Because if you had everything being exactly the same, everything in the same position, then everything would do the same.

Given two identical quantum experiments, you can get two different outcomes. Can you explain why.

[Drogue]

Because they're not identical. There are minutely differences. Even differences as small as a change in the magnetic field, or the different position of the sun are enough. For it to be exactly the same, it would need to be in exactly the same place, at exactly the same point in time. That is impossible, hence the different result.

There is not such thing as an identical quantum experiment, because it is chaotic. Hence the differences, from any minute difference (such as those mentioned above) could produce huge differences in outcome.

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by Drogue
I'm more saying that there is determinism, as opposed to their not being free will. IMHO, the fact that the choices you make are known removes that aspect of free will, but I do believe you make those decisions.

I have trouble to understand what you mean: when you are saying the future is already decided you are ruling out that a free will can exist. Do you mean we make decisions, believing that we are free to make them, but the outcome is always determined before (so, that in fact, as some say, our free will is just an illusion)?

[Solly]

"Because they're not identical. There are minutely differences. Even differences as small as a change in the magnetic field, or the different position of the sun are enough. For it to be exactly the same, it would need to be in exactly the same place, at exactly the same point in time. That is impossible, hence the different result."

Have you read much about the quantum world?

[Solly]

Fundamental to contemporary Quantum Theory is the notion that there is no phenomenon until it is observed. This effect is known as the 'Observer Effect'. 1

The implications of the 'Observer Effect' are profound because, if true, it means that before anything can manifest in the physical universe it must first be observed. Presumably observation cannot occur without the pre-existence of some sort of consciousness to do the observing. The Observer Effect clearly implies that the physical Universe is the direct result of 'consciousness'.

There is a delicious irony in all this. Contemporary Western scientific theory postulates that human consciousness is solely a result of the workings of a physical brain, yet if the observer effect is correct, the physical matter comprising a brain cannot come into existence until it is the subject of observation by some pre-existing consciousness.

http://www.vision.net.au/~apaterson/science/observer_effect.htm

[Drogue]

BeBro: Compatabalism
Free will and determinism are not mutually exclusive. People can believe in free will and determinism.

We are free to make decisions. We can choose what we want. However, what we will choose is already decided. Imagine you are put in a situation, in a time loop. Say you're deciding what to have for breakfast. You go over this situation multiple times, but you never know you are doing it again. You will always do exactly the same thing. You will always choose to eat the same thing, because each time, you are exactly the same person. Given exactly the same starting point, you will do exactly the same action. You are free to choose whatever option you wish, but you, being you, in exactly the same point in space and time, will always choose that option. In a different place in time, you may choose differently, but given exactly the same situation (I can't stress that enough, it doesn't mean the same experiment twice, it means in that individual, unrepeatable point in space and time) you will choose the same option.

You are free to choose, but that freedom is an illusion.

[Drogue]

Originally posted by Park Avenue
Have you read much about the quantum world?

Some. I wouldn't class myself as an expert, but I ave read some articles on it. Moreover, I would consider my dad partly an expert on it (his PhD was not in quantum physics, but he had a strong research interest in it), and I have discussed ideas on chaotic and complex systems with him.

With regards to the observer effect. It is just another way of putting the idea that if a tree falls in the woods, and no-one hears it, did it make a sound. I think a phenomenon can occur without being observed. If something needs to be observed before it can manifest itself in the physical world, then how can it? How can it be observed when it is not physical, so that it can be made physical? I never got the point of the observer effect. I don't believe there is a pre-existing conciousness, there is no evidence for that, nor does it seem to make sense, how something can be concious without a brain.

What I do know is that quantum experiments are chaotic. And that means that if nothing changes at all, in exactly the same position in space/time, the same thing will happen. That can obviously never happen in this universe, since time travel is impossible. However since there is no random variable, just chaotic systems that appear random, nothing different can happen.

[Solly]

"Given exactly the same starting point, you will do exactly the same action"

I see exactly where you are coming from. Yours is a very classical version of events.

However...

"Quantum theory says that what happens to any individual photon is genuinely and inescapably unpredictable"

http://www.newscientist.com/hottopics/quantum/inthebeginning.jsp

"IN the quantum world, measurements are what make things happen. When a measurement is made, one definite answer emerges from of a range of possibilities. Without measurements, evidently, the whole Universe would languish in a permanent fog of indeterminacy."

http://www.newscientist.com/hottopics/quantum/deadoralive.jsp

DO some reading then come back.

[JimmyCracksCorn]

Originally posted by Ramo
Consciousness, as I definie it, is the capacity to produce abstract thought. Free-will is a nonphysical influence on one's actions. I would not say they are the same thing as I see no reason why the capacity to produce abstract thought should be supernatural.

Neurobiologically, consciousness is the communication between the prefrontal cortex and the sensory cortex of the human brain. The prefrontal cortex is the newest part of the brain (evolutionarily speaking) and as far as we know is only present (at least at such a large size, maybe a small one in some other high primate) in humans.

Why bother to philosophize or get into quantum physics when the biology of the brain itself answers your question. Its all connections of cells that dictate our behavior, and we certainly do have free will, which is completely random, or as random as it could possibly be within our programming.

Think about it, for the vast vast majority of our evolution we were scavengers, and 4 million years ago we became hunter-gatherers with Australopithecus and we did that from then until only 11,000 years ago when the last cold period ended and the last of the big game died. We're designed to hunt and gather and free will is just the difference between us all reaching for the same fruit on the tree or us all focusing on something different and random.

There is nothing dictating our future, either actively or passively, except neurons and cells in each of our own heads.

[Ben Kenobi]

because each time, you are exactly the same person.

Unless you erase the memory, this will not be so.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Drogue
I'm more saying that there is determinism, as opposed to their not being free will. IMHO, the fact that the choices you make are known removes that aspect of free will, but I do believe you make those decisions.

I don't think that really works - since every part of the universe affects every other part of the universe (VERY minutely) to somehow predict, using a computer, the interactions of atoms within the human body, you would have to have a computer capable of storing and processing information about the entire universe. Such a computer would necessarily be AT LEAST as large as the universe itself. You might say the the universe itself is a computer to predict (or more precisely, "dict" ) the future of the universe.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Drogue
Because they're not identical. There are minutely differences. Even differences as small as a change in the magnetic field, or the different position of the sun are enough. For it to be exactly the same, it would need to be in exactly the same place, at exactly the same point in time. That is impossible, hence the different result.

There is not such thing as an identical quantum experiment, because it is chaotic. Hence the differences, from any minute difference (such as those mentioned above) could produce huge differences in outcome.

However, according to quantum theory (which actually IS supported by A LOT of evidence, despite your objections) , the universe is not deterministic, but probabilistic.