General / Off-Topic So... Do we have free will? :)

Chaparral

Chaparral
Sorry just came back to this thread. Is it now about medical ethics?

Did someone respond to my point that questions about free will always devolving into moral justice and systems of morality?

I have a brother that is an endovascular neurosurgeon. He always does his best, but people die. It's really hard on him. These aren't thought experiments for everyone.

Might want to step back a bit and think about the utility of moral decision structures in perpetuating biological populations. An individual's hardwired capacity to integrate these systems is not only a matter of education - it's evolved and embedded in neurology and biochem. These decisions are statistical expressions of biological needs - local, familial, and population. You can argue till the cows come home about the source of truth and natural law, etc. etc. but if the population does not endure, the argument is irrelevant.
 

Bob Lighthouse

Banned
Bob Lighthouse
It's rather interesting to me that Robert Sapolsky simultaneously sides on the "no free will" side while he's also the "Garbage Dump Troop guy".
 

WeComeInPeace

WeComeInPeace
Commander Danicus said:
Sorry just came back to this thread. Is it now about medical ethics?

Did someone respond to my point that questions about free will always devolving into moral justice and systems of morality?

I have a brother that is an endovascular neurosurgeon. He always does his best, but people die. It's really hard on him. These aren't thought experiments for everyone.

Might want to step back a bit and think about the utility of moral decision structures in perpetuating biological populations. An individual's hardwired capacity to integrate these systems is not only a matter of education - it's evolved and embedded in neurology and biochem. These decisions are statistical expressions of biological needs - local, familial, and population. You can argue till the cows come home about the source of truth and natural law, etc. etc. but if the population does not endure, the argument is irrelevant.
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We've been around quite a few subjects. I'm pretty sure ethics came up, because it's related to free will, but you already know that. And yes we're "slightly" OT.

We were also discussing birds and consciousness. If a bird is conscious, and that seems highly probable, does it then make choices? I agree that we often forget our link to the other animals. However, if MWI turns out to be true, then the causal deterministic argument against free will looses some of it's strength, even for a lot of other species. I've been playing with an idea about microorganisms for a while now. We know that they communicate quite similar to the signaling molecules in a brain, and we know that they, as a culture can show something that faintly resembles simple intelligence, so can we prove that a bacteria culture can "think", or even "make choices"? I know this sounds crazy, but I grew up when animals were considered biological automaton. Today we know better than that.

"In a Belgian study from 2015, 23 out of 24 adult ants scratched at small blue dots painted on their clypeus (part of their "face") when they were able to see the dot in a mirror. According to the purported results, the ants were individually tested and were from three species, Myrmica sabuleti, Myrmica rubra and Myrmica ruginodis. None of the ants scratched the clypeus when they had no mirror to see the dot. None tried to scratch the blue dot on the mirror. When they had a mirror and a brown dot similar to their own color, only one of thirty ants scratched the brown dot; researchers said she was darker than average so the dot was visible. They also reacted to the mirror itself. Even without dots, 30 out of 30 ants touched the mirror with legs, antennae and mouths, while 0 of 30 ants touched a clear glass divider, with ants on the other side. Ants a few days old did not react to the dots. These three species have limited eyesight, with 109–169 facets per eye, and the authors suggest doing tests on ants with more facets (some have 3,000) and on bees."

 

Morbad

Morbad
WeComeInPeace said:
Because choosing between right and wrong demands that you have free will.
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Moral and ethical decisions are no more or less deterministic than any other. If some ideas about morality require free-will for someone to be morally culpable for their actions, that shouldn't change the processes for evaluating whether or not those actions were preordained, even if there is possibility for an answer that would invalidate that moral system.

The idea that free will must exist because one's morality demands it is completely backwards.
 

jasonbarron

jasonbarron
Well, that's what someone who is lacking a moral code would say. My take away from the topic, both broadly and specifically to this thread is that the end game of the deterministic approach is to separate human beings from their moral and ethical codes. Not that that is in itself an argument against determinism, simply a value observation: without morals or ethics we are left with horror and atrocity. That's a good enough reason to push back right there. Plus, other than some philosophical naval gazing I've seen no incontrovertible proof that free will is an illusion whilst determinism is correct. At best a bunch of goalpost shifting, generally to counter the hundreds if not thousands of examples of free will that can be demonstrated.


I hope you are not adding looking at yourself as an NPC to the list of disagreements I've had with you recently, Morbad, because that will be just the icing on the cake:)
 

WeComeInPeace

WeComeInPeace
Morbad said:
The idea that free will must exist because one's morality demands it is completely backwards.
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What I wrote was more the other way around. If we had no free will, then the idea about making choices becomes pure computation in the brain, and that sort of vaporizes the good with the bad. Again: I do not claim lack of free will. I don't claim that we have either. Just that the old argument against it is weakened.
 

Morbad

Morbad
jasonbarron said:
without morals or ethics we are left with horror and atrocity.
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Most of the horrors and atrocities I'm aware of weren't committed by the amoral, they were done in the name of moral imperatives and moral outrages. They were either considered righteous goals in and of themselves, or necessary sacrifices in the name of some greater good. Someone has to know they are doing 'good' to be a real monster.

One look at human history should make it fairly clear that systems of morality are used as weapons as often as not.

jasonbarron said:
I hope you are not adding looking at yourself as an NPC to the list of disagreements I've had with you recently, Morbad, because that will be just the icing on the cake:)
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I have far more doubts about your capacity for free will than I do my own.

WeComeInPeace said:
What I wrote was more the other way around.
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Fair enough.

WeComeInPeace said:
If we had no free will, then the idea about making choices becomes pure computation in the brain
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Any will at all is a 'computation in the brain'. How much choice we actually have is the question, not where the choosing occurs.

WeComeInPeace said:
Again: I do not claim lack of free will. I don't claim that we have either.
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Neither do I.

However, I also don't see that it matters much in the end. I might be doing what I do because I have chosen to do so because of free will, or because my choices have been determined by actions outside my control (which could be determinism, random chance, fate, necessity, or whatever). Either way, the result is the same. I have done what I have done. I will do what I will do.

Same goes for pretty much any other unanswerable question.
 

jasonbarron

jasonbarron
Morbad said:
Most of the horrors and atrocities I'm aware of weren't committed by the amoral, they were done in the name of moral imperatives and moral outrages. They were either considered righteous goals in and of themselves, or necessary sacrifices in the name of some greater good. Someone has to know they are doing 'good' to be a real monster.

One look at human history should make it fairly clear that systems of morality are used as weapons as often as not.



I have far more doubts about your capacity for free will than I do my own.
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The fact that you don't doubt your own sense of free will but are willing to ascribe NPC status to me is kind of the reason why an absence of ethics and morality are so scary.
 

Shinji Ikari

Shinji Ikari
jasonbarron said:
Well, that's what someone who is lacking a moral code would say. My take away from the topic, both broadly and specifically to this thread is that the end game of the deterministic approach is to separate human beings from their moral and ethical codes.
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Not at all, it is true it's a consecuence but claiming that's the objective is quite laughable.
 

WeComeInPeace

WeComeInPeace
Arry said:
One could say that an NPC/human called Nixon; was now due to history, preordained; to be a criminal, of some kind.
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Nah, lot's of people are called Nixon, but I couldn't help smiling when I target locked this one. Who says ED is completely without humor?

Morbad said:
However, I also don't see that it matters much in the end.
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If we for a second asume one possibility out of two, being that we do have free will, then I think a lot of people would appreciate being proven wrong. The other option is too weird to really wrap ones mind around. And yes, it's seems to work, even though it puzzles some of us.
 

Morbad

Morbad
jasonbarron said:
The fact that you don't doubt your own sense of free will but are willing to ascribe NPC status to me is kind of the reason why an absence of ethics and morality are so scary.
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I said I had fewer doubts about my free will, not that I had no doubts.

I also never claimed to be absent a code of ethics or morality. I stated that good and evil were uselessly subjective, because they are. You seemingly took this, and other statements of mine that were contrary to your own personal set of values to mean that I had none of my own. Some might find that a fairly 'scary' leap to take.
 

Slange Lands

Slange Lands
"All are mere words, of what use are they to you? You are entangled in the web of verbal definitions and formulations. Go beyond your concepts and ideas: in the silence of desire and thought the truth is found."

"I am That" by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj (page 295)
 

6xes

6
Stigbob said:
An infallible omnipotent programmer/creator wouldn't make mistakes so the NPC's would do exactly and only as he intended when he programmed them. Including transgressing then punishing each other. There's no room for error or glitches all the disasters, diseases, good and all the bad are firmly his doing. No room for free will at all its just a puppet show.

"He is the Rock; his deeds are perfect. Everything he does is just and fair. He is a faithful God who does no wrong; how just and upright he is!"

Deuteronomy 32:4.
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For however long it was when Adam and Eve were first created on earth..... it is a misconception of mankind to assume the Devil was created on earth.. The devil or satan.. or the enemy of God almighty was around long before mankind was in existence...
in fact it says Satan was cast out of heaven at a certain point in time... which suggests he was a type of being that resided in Heaven
The fact he conversed with God and accuses Gods Son... it is akin to a enemy who is in a legitimate legal battle!! how much different is this scenario to the Democrats and republican fight taking place today!!

The point is... God Almighty and his Kingdom... are essentially fighting for right of Rule for the hearts of Men!!
why i do say this?? it is because that is where the HACK took place in the beginning of Genesis...
The 1st deception that took place by Satan... was making the Forbidden Fruit desireable...and suggesting that you will NOT die.. but will become like God Almiighty

arguing over diseases, disasters and all manner of trouble facing mankind... is simply a whole separate issue... a valid one sure... but to throw it all in... just makes a mess of the argument of Free Will

It is the will of God that mankind be saved.... but if mankind choose destruction(consequence of bad instruction).. who is God to change your Mind and your will
That is God Almighty giving you the Freedom to choose as you so will!!
(The hearts and minds of America is being fought for Today - This is the choice of its people to determine its Fate!! This is essentially the essence of Free Will)
Just be aware Satan has been around since the Dawn of man... deceiving mankind!!
Choose your path!!
 
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Jools

Jools
as much as i like this topic... i don`t think it`s a good topic for forum debate.

It`s among the hardest philosophical questions around (and intertwined with various religious believes too) and talking about it on forums would only make mess of things i think... so as tempted as i am, I won`t comment any further
 
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