Article on free will in Wired. Based on research.

[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

It is rather amusing that you criticise others for supposedly rejecting results that contradict their beliefs but here you appear to be doing exactly that.

In these experiments the results allowed the experimenters to predict which button the participant was going to press before they knew they had made part or all of the decision with an accuracy of 60%.

You suggest that some presentiment experiments are more robust. I would be interested in seeing an accurate comparison. These are not the types of numbers that Radin is giving.

Can Radin predict which type of image is about to be presented from the galvanic skin resistance or whatever? It's one thing to be able to detect statistically significant differences (artefactual or real) between the two and for them to have any predictive value.

If you sample enough Americans and Australians you will probably find a highly statistically significant difference in height. This doesn't mean that you can use the height of an individual to predict their nationality with any accuracy and certainly not 60% of the time.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Open Mind

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

What she said has nothing to do with whether a feeling of will is beneficial. The terms free will and feeling of will are not the same thing.

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

You apparently missed the highlighted word in my statement:

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

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Open Mind

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)

By "Freewill" do you mean libertarian free will? If so, I don't think it's relevant, because I don't think it's a coherent concept.

or

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

I think there is an evolutionary advantage to having a feeling of will about performing actions, because then the results of the actions are "owned" by the individual and the individual will plan to improve future actions. I do not think this feeling of will has anything to do with libertarian free will.

~~ Paul

[Interesting Ian]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

By "Freewill" do you mean libertarian free will?

How can anyone answer that question until you explain what it means?

You keep banging on about "libertarian" free will all the time. Yet you steadfastly resolutely refuse to define it. How does it differ from normal free will?

[Interesting Ian]

[quote=Paul C. Anagnostopoulos;4709]

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.

The definition of any word is arbitrary. The point is that free will has a particular meaning. If you wish to define it as meaning something else, then don't expect people to know what you're talking about. That goes for consciousness too and many other things which materialists have redefined.

Whatever mechanism is proposed to account for libertarian free will could come in two flavors: conscious and nonconscious.

I don't believe that free will has a mechanism. I do not subscribe to the mechanistic philosophy -- as I've repeated to you over and over and over again. And I don't understand what "libertarian" free will means.

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.

I am not remotely sad about it.

And this problem is easily repaired by allowing for free decisions to be nonconscious.

As I keep explaining ad nauseum a decision or choice by definition is not non-conscious. Otherwise we would need to say a statue chooses to remain still.

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.

We're in full control. I do not make decision as to put one foot in front of another, but I do choose to walk to a particular destination. Whilst I am walking I am on "autopilot", but at any time my conscious will can intervene to abort my walking.

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.

So computers make decisions?

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Ian

How can anyone answer that question until you explain what it means?

You keep banging on about "libertarian" free will all the time. Yet you steadfastly resolutely refuse to define it. How does it differ from normal free will?

"Normal" free will is some folk definition of free will. I have no idea what you mean when you say "free will." We need to distinguish between libertarian incompatibilist free will and compatibilist free will:

Free will - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Libertarian free will requires a mechanism that is neither pretermined nor random. It appears that this is the sort of free will you are talking about.

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Ian

The definition of any word is arbitrary. The point is that free will has a particular meaning.

Which would be what, exactly?

I don't believe that free will has a mechanism. I do not subscribe to the mechanistic philosophy -- as I've repeated to you over and over and over again. And I don't understand what "libertarian" free will means.

Then choose a word other than mechanism. It is a process, or an algorithm, or a device, or something. There has to be a sequence of steps that one goes through to make a free choice. Please describe the steps, paying particular attention to the part that is neither predetermined nor random.

As I keep explaining ad nauseum a decision or choice by definition is not non-conscious. Otherwise we would need to say a statue chooses to remain still.

No, we wouldn't. We can simply say that statues don't make choices.

We're in full control. I do not make decision as to put one foot in front of another, but I do choose to walk to a particular destination. Whilst I am walking I am on "autopilot", but at any time my conscious will can intervene to abort my walking.

But it would be too late, because you would have already walked off the cliff. You must decide to continue walking toward the destination, self-correcting along the way, or you have no idea where you will end up. You must make a sequence of decisions to keep yourself on the path.

So computers make decisions?

Yes.

~~ Paul

[Open Mind]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

What she said has nothing to do with whether a feeling of will is beneficial. The terms free will and feeling of will are not the same thing.

Do you agree with Blackmore's statement, yes or no?

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

I think there is an evolutionary advantage to having a feeling of will about performing actions, because then the results of the actions are "owned" by the individual and the individual will plan to improve future actions. I do not think this feeling of will has anything to do with libertarian free will.

Paul are you saying that the decisions you make are unconscious and the illusion of consciousness interprets these as 'freewill' ..... yes or no?

[Open Mind]

Paul , forget the word 'Libertarian' .... I don't know the historical origin but it is possibly a strawman used by determinists to make freewill sound difficult concept.... it isn't.

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

"Libertarian free will requires a mechanism that is neither pretermined nor random.

No. I don't think so. What is the problem? Classical causality = the law of cause and effect. When we apply this to the mind we have cause = freewill ..... effect = fate ...... in otherwords we have freewill how we react to our fate, which in turn will create another effect/fate and freewill how we react to it and so on ..... freewill and fate are two sides of the same coin of cause and effect

Now there is no problem here either with the conscious/freewill mind being a casual mind and the subconscious mind being the habitual effects of the conscious mind.

Solved

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Open Mind

Do you agree with Blackmore's statement, yes or no?

Probably, although we may have different definitions of some of the terms she used.

Paul are you saying that the decisions you make are unconscious and the illusion of consciousness interprets these as 'freewill' ..... yes or no?

I think some decisions are nonconscious and others are the result of a sequence of smaller decisions with consciousness acting as a feed-forward mechanism. This is not a yes/no question.

~~ Paul