Article on free will in Wired. Based on research.

[David Bailey]

What irritates me is that an experiment like that (and particularly its conclusions) starts to fall apart as soon as you pick into it, yet it featured on the 8 AM news! Other experiments such as presentiment seem far more robust, but hardly anyone knows about them!

David

[Chris Noble]

Originally Posted by David Bailey

What irritates me is that an experiment like that (and particularly its conclusions) starts to fall apart as soon as you pick into it, yet it featured on the 8 AM news! Other experiments such as presentiment seem far more robust, but hardly anyone knows about them!

David

Have you read the conclusions of the study?

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Ian

A non-conscious decision is surely an oxymoron. Does the spherical boulder decide to roll down the hill?

Explain to me exactly how it is an oxymoron. Make sure you account for your insistence that every nonconscious choice I do make is not a "decision."

The boulder is irrelevant, since we agree it does not have libertarian free will. The question is: If we have libertarian free will, does every decision we make with it have to be conscious?

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Open Mind

(1) Consciousness is an illusion, with the illusion of having freewill, a complex process that evolved through evolution for no purpose whatsoever since exactly the same can supposedly be achieved by unconscious processes..

Who supposes this? There are obvious reasons why a feeling of will is evolutionarily beneficial. It supports making future decisions based on past actions.

(2) Consciousness allows freewill but often utilizes subconscious habits that were the result of prior freewill choices, offering the evolutionary advantage of trusting a prior pattern with the consciousness only intervening when required.

If we have libertarian free will, this is a perfectly good additional mechanism. In particular, the habit is formed by previous decisions made freely.

~~ Paul

[Interesting Ian]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

Explain to me exactly how it is an oxymoron. Make sure you account for your insistence that every nonconscious choice I do make is not a "decision."

The boulder is irrelevant, since we agree it does not have libertarian free will. The question is: If we have libertarian free will, does every decision we make with it have to be conscious?

~~ Paul

It's an oxymoron because non-conscious things simply follow physical laws or algorithms. It's future state is fixed. A decision on the other hand implies the ability to choose one course of action over another. This decision is not inevitable, but is made in the now so to speak. That is to say I hypothesise that regardless of the previous physical state of the Universe and the physical state of my brain, I can choose to act amongst various alternatives -- I spontaneously cause myself to act in one way rather than another.

If this hypothesis is wrong (as those who adhere to the materialist metaphysic must maintain) then no one ever makes any decisions. If the boulder does not make a decision to roll down the hill, then I equally do not decide to respond to your post. Both I and the boulder are simply behaving according to physical laws and it is inconsistent to say that I decide but the boulder doesn't. In order to be consistent and say that I decided we must subscribe to this magical free will.

Now, could you name an example of a non-conscious choice I might make?

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Ian

It's an oxymoron because non-conscious things simply follow physical laws or algorithms.

I'm not talking about nonconscious things. I'm talking about humans. If we have free will, what law says that all the free decisions we make have to be conscious ones?

Now, could you name an example of a non-conscious choice I might make?

The one where you decide which way to turn at the intersection when you're in the middle of a conversation with someone else in the car.

Now, if you're going to define choice and decision to require conscious thought, and call all the nonconscious decisions something else, then of course you will win the argument. But then it will be the case that most of the decisions you make in life are not free.

Both I and the boulder are simply behaving according to physical laws and it is inconsistent to say that I decide but the boulder doesn't.

No, it's not. It's just a question of your definition of decide.

~~ Paul

[Interesting Ian]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

I'm not talking about nonconscious things. I'm talking about humans. If we have free will, what law says that all the free decisions we make have to be conscious ones?

To decide something is to choose. That which is non-conscious does not choose as any action is simply the playing out of physical laws.

The one where you decide which way to turn at the intersection when you're in the middle of a conversation with someone else in the car.

Now, if you're going to define choice and decision to require conscious thought, and call all the nonconscious decisions something else, then of course you will win the argument. But then it will be the case that most of the decisions you make in life are not free.

They don't need to be free. Nay, we don't want them to be free. Just think how tedious it would be if when walking from A to B we had to consciously decide to put one foot in front of another every step of the way.

No, it's not. It's just a question of your definition of decide.

What definition of "decide" do you have which allows a human being operating wholly according to physical laws to decide, but which doesn't allow other things operating wholly according to physical laws to decide?

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Ian

To decide something is to choose. That which is non-conscious does not choose as any action is simply the playing out of physical laws.

You could define a free will decision to require conscious thought, and that is certainly part of the folk definition of free will, but it is arbitrary. Whatever mechanism is proposed to account for libertarian free will could come in two flavors: conscious and nonconscious.

The problem with requiring all free will decisions to be conscious is that you'll be sad when you learn how many decisions you make nonconsciously or semiconsciously, but would like to be decisions that you made freely. Now they cannot be free.

They don't need to be free. Nay, we don't want them to be free. Just think how tedious it would be if when walking from A to B we had to consciously decide to put one foot in front of another every step of the way.

And this problem is easily repaired by allowing for free decisions to be nonconscious. Otherwise you just admitted that you've never walked anywhere freely. Even if you claim that you made an initial free decision about your destination, you've lost any control over whether your body in fact walks to that chosen spot.

What definition of "decide" do you have which allows a human being operating wholly according to physical laws to decide, but which doesn't allow other things operating wholly according to physical laws to decide?

It would have something to do with having a brain that uses memories and environmental inputs to calculate decisions. It's simply a question of definition.

~~ Paul

[Open Mind]

Originally Posted by Open Mind

Take your pick .....

(1) Consciousness is an illusion, with the illusion of having freewill, a complex process that evolved through evolution for no purpose whatsoever since exactly the same can supposedly be achieved by unconscious processes..

To clarify, I certainly don't believe it ... but Susan Blackmore seems to ....

'...... all human actions, whether conscious or not, come from complex interactions between genes, memes and all their products in complicated environments. The self is not the initiator of actions, it does not 'have' consciousness and does not 'do' the deliberating. There is no truth in the idea of an inner self inside my body that controls my body and is conscious. Since this is false, so is the idea of my conscious self having free-will.

Dennet (1984) has described many versions of the idea of free will and argues that some of them are worth wanting. Unlike Dennet I neither think the 'user illusion' is benign , nor do I want any version of free will that ascribes it to a self who does not exist.

Sue Blackmore – The Meme Machine, Page 237

I cannot agree with Blackmore's comment .... what I believe is (2) ....

Originally Posted by Open Mind

(2) Consciousness allows freewill but often utilizes subconscious habits that were the result of prior freewill choices, offering the evolutionary advantage of trusting a prior pattern with the consciousness only intervening when required.

Paul I'm pleased we found something at long last we agree on, that being freewill almost certainly exists.

[Open Mind]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

And this problem is easily repaired by allowing for free decisions to be nonconscious. Otherwise you just admitted that you've never walked anywhere freely. Even if you claim that you made an initial free decision about your destination, you've lost any control over whether your body in fact walks to that chosen spot.

Paul (& Ian) , perhaps we have more than one type of freewill......

Hypothetical process ....
'.....Contemplation (type of freewill) -> prior habitual unconscious responses -> pattern subconsciously selected -> option to consciously intervene (another type of freewill) - > action -> full conscious experience of process result.

As Ian said .... '....They don't need to be free. Nay, we don't want them to be free. Just think how tedious it would be if when walking from A to B we had to consciously decide to put one foot in front of another every step of the way....

But how did something like this evolve, which is more fundamental, freewill or unconscious patterns?

(a) Freewill finds unconscious habitual patterns an evolutionary advantage (non materialism)

or

(b) Habitual patterns finds freewill an evolutionary advantage (materialism)

or

(c) both

Which do you prefer Paul?