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    View Poll Results: Where do you stand on free will?

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    Thread: Where Do You Stand on Free Will?

    1. #26
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      Quote Originally Posted by Summerlander View Post
      Some may argue that consciousness is a fundamental of existence and necessarily primary if anything is to be said to exist. The verdict is still out. Until we unravel the mysterious nature of subjective experience, the verdict will be out on consciousness: what is the truth? Panpsychism? Epiphenomenalism? Dualism? Eliminativism?

      Unfortunately, the uncertainty is still strong on this subject ...
      You know, it kind of reminds me of how scientists debated the existence of lucid dreaming. Some scientists didn't believe true lucidity actually existed. They argued that one only dreamed that they were lucid. However, eventually, famous experiments did support that lucidity does exist, thanks to Dr. Hearne and others after him.

      I feel like free will is something very similar, and perhaps, one day, we will see a similar conclusion.
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    2. #27
      lover of bright things thel's Avatar
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      Summerlander- Thank you for the explanation. My example wasnt good. My point was that on both views you need to accept consciousness on evrything. If we are the consciousness created by the phisical components (brains, body, etc) then a stone is the consciousness or perception created by its atoms, for example. If we are the phisical components (we are our brains, bodies, etc) then a stone is its components. Nothing differences a human from a stone (on this argument) If we say the human is conscious the stone needs to be too. the computer example was unnecesarily complex. Just saying that then, free will is also consciousness, and then we (as consciousness) are free will, then we are free. To negate free will, you need to either negate consciousness or accept that free will is not it by defending that only phisical things are consciousness.

      Also, sorry for assuming you said that on the babel library post, i remembered wrong. Thank you for explining your view on the matter

      Moonage- I believe that in these matters the main issue is that the parts dont have a clear view on what is exactly free, free will, consciousness, etc. Once the matter itself is defined, its way easier to experiment and get a conclusion, for example, the scientists agree that one is lucid in a dream when the person knows that is a dream. Before it, lucidity was just an abstract thing and it was nearly impossible to define what is a lucid dream and whats not. Those limits may be arbitrary but are necessary for science. If scientists agree that a free human is someone capable of swimming for example, science can experiment and determine who is free and who is not quite easily following the scientific method. Mainly because if there arent any limits between things to difference them we need to accept that they are the same thing and only our view (or the limits we make) makes them different. They arent less different for that, at least for us, but it would be way simpler to just accept that and stop trying to change things in my opinion.

      Vvilliam- yeah, we can assume that at some point we will be free if we consider we arent. You see, if we take death off the equation, we just need to keep going for enough time and it will necessarily happen. Even death could be considered also our imagination, when we dien in dreams what happens is what we expect, even if we dont want to. "here" is no different, even if you expect nothing and try to evade it, you are expecting something to happen, or death wouldnt exist and you dont die, nothing happens you keep living like now. But if you die something should happen differently from your normal life, what you expect. To differ one needs to find a difference between dreams and reality. It can be subjective, like saying we are more conscious here and less in dreams (if you dream you are more conscious in the dream than in the reality, then when you dream relity is the dream?)

      Voldmer- everything being imaginary if we see it as illusory doesnt mean that its meaningless or less real if we dint want it to be without meaning. Things are real for one that believes so. And an imaginary things is not meaningless for one that doenst believes so. Please note that your view on the meaning you give defines the meaning you perceive on that thing. Same for its degree of "realism" Also, note that a difference needs to be made between real and non rel things for both to exist. Why call everything non real if real things dont exist? its like telling a person he is bad when everyone is, a bit pointless. For example, you can say that the only real thing is the one that imagines everything, you, god, or someone else
      Last edited by thel; 04-23-2022 at 01:41 AM. Reason: addition
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      Hope with all your might!
      Because when you do
      we will be able to advance further!

    3. #28
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      Quote Originally Posted by thel View Post
      Voldmer- everything being imaginary if we see it as illusory doesnt mean that its meaningless or less real if we dint want it to be without meaning. Things are real for one that believes so. And an imaginary things is not meaningless for one that doenst believes so. Please note that your view on the meaning you give defines the meaning you perceive on that thing. Same for its degree of "realism" Also, note that a difference needs to be made between real and non rel things for both to exist. Why call everything non real if real things dont exist? its like telling a person he is bad when everyone is, a bit pointless. For example, you can say that the only real thing is the one that imagines everything, you, god, or someone else
      I think we disagree more on the use of words than on the meaning behind those words. When I talked about something being meaningless I implied it had no objective meaning. Subjective meaning on the other hand is in abundance. If there is meaning at all, this meaning is created by us (God/the multiverse/whatever).

      I do distinguish between "real" and "not real", with every experience of a world being an experience of something "not real", although to the observer it may be very real. There is also what I would call "reality", but this is unobservable (well, maybe the few truly enlightened may have glimpsed it). My belief at this time is that "reality" is too complex and overwhelming to be perceivable, and this is the exact reason why we create worlds; these worlds are simplified versions of reality, adequately simple for us to perceive.
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      So ... is this the real universe, or is it just a preliminary study?

    4. #29
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      The human mind can be literally divided with a knife. Have you heard of the peculiar effects of callosotomies -- the severing of commissures connecting both brain hemispheres (once used as a treatment for conditions like severe epilepsy)? Once a living brain is dissected via the corpus callosum, both hemispheres become independent centres of awareness. You get two minds in one body! Moreover, they often disagree with each other in opinion, beliefs, and control of the body.

      It has even been reported that some split-brain patients possess one God-fearing religious hemisphere in contrast to a neighbouring atheistic one! According to some religions, one half of the brain should be going to heaven while the other one goes to hell...

      But jokes about afterlives aside, consciousness is a real mystery. Why should any complex system of matter become aware of itself and often, but not a requisite, the surrounding world?

      I remember reading 'Waking Up -- A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion' by Sam Harris and, after mentioning what the phenomenon of binocular rivalry entails in healthy brains, the neuroscientist points out something quite profound about consciousness.

      Imagine that each of your eyes are visually stimulated in different ways. One is shown a house, and the other, a face. Intuitively, you would expect to see a blending of images -- or a superposition of both -- in consciousness. But this is not the case. Rather, you see the house for a few seconds, then the face, then back to the house, and so on...

      Surprised at this switching at random intervals? The input remains constant, and yet, conscious and unconscious components of vision continuously change as they occur in the brain. While you are conscious of one image, you become unconscious of the other. But wait! I haven't mentioned the greater mystery yet...

      The subjects experiencing binocular rivalry are CONSCIOUS throughout the experiment! This implies that consciousness runs deeper than just being aware of sensory stimuli. Now, if you were to take away all the senses, surely, a "naked" awareness would remain, wouldn't it?

      Even I'm racking my brains at that one. It seems that two different sets of visual data arrive in the brain but they are delivered one at a time interval (never simultaneously) to consciousness. And while we can say that when the individual is conscious of the house he is unconscious of the face and vice versa, we must acknowlege that consciousness is present throughout. At no point does the individual become unconscious.

      Now, it could be argued -- against the implication that consciousness runs deeper -- that while we are aware of seeing the house (in its prominent appearance in consciousness), we also see the face. But because the house perhaps had more of an impact on the neurons, we forget that we saw the face, too. Subsequently, as the brain is aware that there is another stimulus to take into consideration, it removes the house (as it had enough conscious exposure) and introduces the face into visual awareness. Indeed memory and consciousness interrelate. Now, this is just a hypothetical explanation. I don't know why the binocular rivalry should be. Perhaps the brain hemispheres wrestle even when they are attached to each other as one prefers the face while the other prefers the house.

      This is redolent of something else. Split-brain patients can draw two different things at the same time with ease: the left hand can draw a dog while the right draws a person. People with their brains intact, like you and me, will find this exercise next to impossible as one hand will tend to copy the other.

      And then we arrive at lucid dreaming. Someone here once posed the question of whether or not dream characters are conscious. After all the talk about callosotomies and binocular rivalries, such proposition doesn't seem so far-fetched. Perhaps they represent the intelligent and conscious right hemisphere while the dreamer is mostly representative of the left hemisphere. Who knows! Split-brain individuals, funnily enough, report having only mundane dreams where oneiric environments differ very little from the real world. It seems these poor people are deprived of the more surreal settings which tend to provide escapist adventures.

      In our ordinary dreams, the dreamer lacks control and lucidity while dream characters seem as alive as ever and appear to know the dream setting well. But the dreamer quickly seems to rob them of their apparent elan vitale when lucidity is attained. Perhaps Waggoner wasn't far-off from the truth when he said that there is a kind of intelligence behind the dream. Some may want to argue that the right hemisphere does not deal in language and therefore isn't conscious. But I would dispute that by saying that experimenters are able to communicate with the right just as well as the left. The right hemisphere can recognise the shapes of written words and may use this to answer questions. It also exhibits more consciousness than an infant.

      More to the point of this discussion, I don't believe in the afterlife (especially not the religious hereafter scenarios). Neuroscientific evidence strongly suggests that at death you've had it. But we must remember that consciousness is still a mystery. Just because I don't believe -- and just because evidence is strongly indicative of zero experience once the brain dies -- doesn't mean there is nothing. The debate hasn't really been settled as the scientific side that struggles to even define consciousness hasn't really provided us with something absolutely conclusive. Perhaps part of the conundrum is the fact that consciousness is trying to study consciousness. Could this be an impasse? I don't know.

      When you open the brain and have a look, there is nothing to suggest that it's a locus of experience. Tomorrow, I could be surprised to find that consciousness is something independent of the brain. This, of course, would not necessarily confirm the existence of ghosts, miracles, gods, and eternal life.
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    5. #30
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      I think of the concept of the higher free will like a random number generator in a computer.
      Say you make a program where you click a button and say a random number or word pops up on screen. Seems random, doesn't it? Well, no, actually. Computer science people and just anyone who's been informed of it know that random number generators aren't random at all, and are already determined JIT when that button is clicked. No random event can happen in this environment and that's how reality is. Nothing is actually free will at all, but it seems like it at face value. You can make a move and think to yourself you chose for that event to happen but in reality there's a far bigger picture and that "random" movement fits into it. That "random" number was determined by the computer as a part of its sort of plan, and likewise freewill, events we do that seem to us as if we chose to do them ourselves, are part of a plan of the higher being.
      It's the God has a plan stuff, but not for the individual, individual action is used for the bigger picture rather than it being isolated from other individual actions.
      So I'd say I'm a... determinist in regards to the bigger picture of our place in the universe and who or what created us, but at the earthly lower level have your way with your simulated freewill if you so choose. Because y'know that random number generator REALLY does feel random.
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    6. #31
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      Quote Originally Posted by monoe96 View Post
      I think of the concept of the higher free will like a random number generator in a computer.
      Say you make a program where you click a button and say a random number or word pops up on screen. Seems random, doesn't it? Well, no, actually. Computer science people and just anyone who's been informed of it know that random number generators aren't random at all, and are already determined JIT when that button is clicked. No random event can happen in this environment and that's how reality is. Nothing is actually free will at all, but it seems like it at face value. You can make a move and think to yourself you chose for that event to happen but in reality there's a far bigger picture and that "random" movement fits into it. That "random" number was determined by the computer as a part of its sort of plan, and likewise freewill, events we do that seem to us as if we chose to do them ourselves, are part of a plan of the higher being.
      It's the God has a plan stuff, but not for the individual, individual action is used for the bigger picture rather than it being isolated from other individual actions.
      So I'd say I'm a... determinist in regards to the bigger picture of our place in the universe and who or what created us, but at the earthly lower level have your way with your simulated freewill if you so choose. Because y'know that random number generator REALLY does feel random.
      What you say here is also apparent in the mathematics which presents the evidence that reality [the physical universe] is not fundamental. Spacetime is not fundamental.
      Therefore, anything we [consciousness] experience re spacetime, is more a product of the ‘headset’ we are experiencing [what we refer to as ‘reality’], including the idea that we have freewill/choice…

      Just as with so-called ‘random generators’ – freewill is not what it appears to be. There is no such reality as freewill, any more than there is any such reality as random.

      The sheer size and diversity of spacetime itself, allows for the illusion of both.
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJukJiNEl4o

      Seeing the truth and seeing what you need to survive are very different things [13:51]
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    7. #32
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      “Just keep something in mind, will you?”

      “What's that?”

      “The illusion of free will.”

      “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

      “Whether you stay here in Trinity or scoot on back to Charleston, makes no difference. You only think it's your decision.”


      Maybe I'm missing something, but as far as I can tell, free will is an illusion.

      “Did I ever tell you about the illusion of free will?”

      “The illusion of free will.”


      Our choices are determined by our personality. And our personality is determined by a bunch of things that we have no control over - the parents you were born into, the town you grew up in, the school you went to, your genetics, etc. None of these things you had any control over.

      So if you can't control the things that determine your choices, how can you control your choices?

      “Now these laws, because they're so trustworthy, they enable incredible technological achievements. But look at yourself. We're just physical systems too right. We're just complex arrangements of carbon molecules. We're mostly water, and our behavior isn't gonna be an exception to these basic physical laws. So it starts to look like whether it's God setting things up in advance and knowing everything you’re gonna do or whether it's basic physical laws governing everything, there's not a lot of room left for freedom. So now you might be tempted to just ignore the question or the mystery of free will. Say, Oh well, it's just a historical anecdote. It's sophomoric. It's a question with no answer. Just just forget about it. But the question keeps staring you right in the face. Think about individuality, for example. Who you are, who you are, is mostly a matter of the free choices that you make. Or take responsibility. You can only be held responsible, you can only be found guilty or be admired or respected for things you did of your own free will. So the question keeps coming back and we don't really have a solution to it. It starts to look like all your decisions are really just a charade. Think about how it happens. There's some electrical activity in your brain, your neurons fire. They send a signal down into your nervous system. Passes along down into your muscle fibers. They twitch, you might say reach out your arm. Looks like it's a free action on your part, but every one of those, every part of that process is actually governed by physical law, chemical laws, electrical laws and so on. So now it starts to look like the big bang set up the initial conditions and the whole rest of our history. It's really just sort of playing out of subatomic particles according to these basic fundamental physical laws. We think we're special. We think we have some kind of special dignity. But that now comes under threat. I mean, that's really challenged by this picture. So you might be saying, well, wait a minute, what about quantum mechanics? I know enough contemporary physical theory to know it's not really like that. It's it's really a probabilistic theory. There's room, it's loose. It's not deterministic. And that's going to enable us to understand free will. But if you look at the details, it's not really going to help because what happens is you have very small quantum particles. Their behavior is apparently a bit random. They sort of swerve. Their behavior is a bit absurd in the sense that it's unpredictable and we can't understand it based on anything that came before. It just does something out of the blue. According to a probabilistic frame work. But is that going to help with freedom? I mean, should our freedom just be a matter of probabilities, just some random swerving in a chaotic system? That starts to seem like it's worse. I'd rather be a gear in a big deterministic physical machine than just some random swerving. So we can't just ignore the problem. We have to find room in our contemporary world view for persons, with all of that entails, not just bodies, but persons. That means trying to solve the problem about freedom, finding room for choice and responsibility, and trying to understand individuality.”

    8. #33
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      andreasdevig, out of curiosity, what are the quotes from?
      Check out the Tasks of the Season - Autumn 2022
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      Singled out from some of my favourite quotes from Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri: "Risks of [Planet] flowering: considerable. But rewards of godhood: who can measure? - Usurper Judaa'Maar: Courage: to question."

    9. #34
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      Quote Originally Posted by DarkestDarkness View Post
      andreasdevig, out of curiosity, what are the quotes from?
      Oh it's from the show American Gothic (1995-‘96). And the last quote is from the film Waking Life (2001).

    10. #35
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      It seems to me that, without a Planck constant, we really don't have a prolific base for reality. At the same time, though, I find it difficult to wrap my brain around the idea and I don't think any amount of reading on the subject will enlighten me much further. I could be wrong, of course. Are we, as human beings, even capable of picturing what mechanically takes place at such scales using our brains as tools?

      Our logic doesn't just intuitively fail us regarding reality scales and how far space can be divided. Take the notion of free will as a principle adopted by our judicial system ...

      Daniel Dennett can only say that a human being has a sense of free will as opposed to a rock which has no experience. The analogy only reinforces the illusory nature of free will---or indeed its non-existence.

      Regardless of our sense of autonomy, if we knew all the causal factors involved, our predictive power would grow to see uncertainty---along with the illusion of self-control---simultaneously dwindle. Not even chaos theory would be able to preserve free will like in some liberty-of-the-gaps fallacy. The brain is a causally open dynamical system that began from its initial embryological conditions to be constantly impacted upon by continuous experience.

      Our encephalons are virtually double rod pendulums being perennially teased by the fingers of experience making its effects seem like random decisions. It's a deterministic organ whose behaviour can be predicted in principle. However, it's such a complex 'chaotic system' that we are hardly able to accurately measure current states much less put up with its uncertainty in forecasting neuronal events that don't even cover 1% of its Lyapunov lifetime, so to speak. When meaningful predictions cannot be made, the system appears random; and in this case, if the system is known to be aware of itself, the erroneous LIBERUM ARBITRIUM assumption is invoked. This is a mistake akin to theology, as Sam Harris pointed out in his thesis, because it ignores all arbitrary influences involved.

      These days I find it slightly pathetic when people claim they know for sure that they'll dream about Freddy Krueger because they've just watched 'Nightmare on Elm Street'. This doesn't take into account all the experiences and thoughts one will have until bedtime; all the memories that could be triggered; and all the relative LaBergian schemas as a result. It shouldn't be surprising to hear that they didn't dream about Freddy after all---or that Freddy looked more like Robert De Niro than Robert Englund!
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