Watch or listen to R.C. Srouls " Chosen by God" he give a great breakdown of a biblical veiw of freewill, or the bondage of the will, or the freedom of the will, what the Bible claims. The will is misrepresented by many Christians. I think you will enjoy R.C. if you are "willing" to give him a chance. Christians that read this should do the same. It is a very helpful resource.
Free will cannot exist in any sense that equates to morality because, weather we have physical or transendal minds, they will either be are either determined or random, and we will have no choice. Just because we don't know something, doesn't mean it isn't determined.
We can still have morality of a sort, as it is analytically true that it is a good thing to fulfil preferences (in a way) and therefore a world in which more people have their preferences fulfilled is superior.
Our free will is just one piece of pie in a pie chart that otherwise consists of determinism, but that delicious piece of free will is undeniable.
Even look at tAA right now... he thought he would self-fulfill his prediction that he would turn to God in a dark moment, but he has overcome that possibility. How do you explain that? Free will.
I'd explain it in terms of his brain/body interacting with the world around it.
Brains take in new data, and new thoughts are the result.
If the non-determinism can be understood in terms of quantum mechanics, then our 'will' is still a 'slave' to physical laws. The laws just happen to be non-deterministic.
rabidape, you seem like a good guy, i wanna help you out. the bible has over 1000 prophesy's, over 700 of them amazingly have already came exactly true, 3 of them unknown, and the rest about the endtimes. well the book of revelations is unfolding exactly perfectly right now, which is about the end times. look up 2012 and what is to come, this isnt in the media because the new world order/illuminati want us to have to submit to them when we are out of resources. look up william cooper.
all this told, i agree that QM as such has nothing to do with free will, but because of the complexity of the system human brain effectively simulates the same statistical behaviour/description we are forced to apply to QM systems. free will's name is not a good name. if at all i say that free will is our ability to see past and future. and thanks to memory predict or realize tasks extent in time and not be slaves to the present, in this sense we have free will....
I don't understand how that has anything to do with what I just said.
Regardless of whether or not it is possible, if you were able to do it you wouldn't be able to tell the model apart from the thing being modeled. They would essentially be identical.
But if calling random strangers on the internet idiots distracts from that gnawing fear that you will die alone, go right on ahead.
yes, but it works on quatum systems only, if i'm not mistaken, and you have to "prepera" (in essence it happens during copying/spliting) system. i doubt you'd be able to entagle macroscopis system. tho i watched video of penrose's lecture where he mentions of experiment to entangle macroscopic objects in hopes to better understand how gravity "paints" itself into the quantum picture.
Well, we may not ultimately be responsible for the underlying physics of whatever guides our consciousness, but we are still aware of the consequences of our actions, which in essence means we can consciously predict an outcome, and that to me is free will also.
Interesting. The only thing I feel like clarifying is that biological non-determinism isn't the same thing as free will.
Then again free will is something that can't really even be defined scientifically. It can only be defined as an experience. It's just like the experience of the color red cannot be defined scientifically. Scientifically we can only describe the physical wavelenght corresponding to a specific optical sensors in our eyes.
There was no evidence supplied that the brain is dictated by the butterfly effect, or that quantum mechanics plays any role in the operation of the brain ... plain speculation, I think.
However, the brain is not static, so such a proposed simulation could only be accurate for a moment of time, but (imo) would illustrate your original point.
With the absence of individual souls, does that mean the self that I perceive to be me is the same as the self that you perceive as you?
Our different experiences, memories and the chemicals and genetics that dictate our moods aren't interchangeable, so this accouts for our different personalities and the fact that I can only perceive my self to be me. But am I and every one else the really same the same self?
k i got a question. and i agree with the scientific part of free will being an illusion, (this is just a philosophical waste of time) but u claim its wrong to punish somehting for being what it is. now if a person kills someone, why should they be punished if really their brain was reacting to chemicals and electrical signals, and random chance brought them to the situation where they have to kill someone due to the chemical processes in their brain?
there's a functional use if you need one that bad. ;D
If you have a society where crimes are punished, your brain will (hopefully) react in such a way as to keep you from committing the crime in the first place.
Further, it seems that neurological determinism is guilty of violating the law of non-contradiction. A thing cannot be A and non-A at the same time. An advocate for determinism implicitly negates determinism, since the advocate relies on the ability of non-determinists to accept or reject the creed. It is a self-contradiction.
The true determinist would have to say that science could one day demonstrate how the mind of Einstein developed the theory of relativity.
Wouldn't the lack of free will destroy cause and effect? As human actors in the universe, we intervene to change the course of events from that which are set in motion. We act because our action, via cause and effect, has the ability to change the course of events. If determinism is 100% true, man would never act.
"Free Will" has suffered the most from mislabelling if anything else i think. But i think we are naturally "free willed" organisms, who interpret free will in all kinds of unique and personal ways. Noone disagrees as to its existence. Which is i think...the point! :)
I've read somewhere (can't make a direct quote) than experience really shapes the brain (neural plasticity) a neuroscientist rewired the mind of a ferret so that the information from the retina was plugged in the visual cortex, to his surprise the auditory cortex "mimicked" the visual cortex. (Sur I think was the name of the neuroscientist)
the human genome project in a way demonstrates the limits of genetic determinism by affirming that we are not only a text (GTCA), we have so much genetic junk (introns) that makes the interpretation so complicated. We have to be "read" in context, by what our cells/environment feedback to our dna.
True free will to me is the ability to not worry whether or not everything we do is mathematically determined, to create purpose in the world of the mind, which is wholly ours. Free will can't come from anything outside ourselves, and it can't be taken away from anything outside ourselves.
several things wrong with what that person said. One, if indeed the brain cannot be predicted, and is affected by random chance, that is not free will. You would be just as much a slave to the randomness as you would be if your actions were deterministic. Secondly,random does not actually exist in nature. Even a random number generator on a computer is deterministic. Just because we don't understand how something works does not make it random-ie the weather was probably once thought of as random
"Even a random number generator on a computer is deterministic"
This is 1 of the most misleading scientific statements I've read on YT. "Random" number generators in computers are NOT random, they're pseudorandom, they repeat their cycles. There isn't one single machine humans have EVER devised to produce truly random numbers that is NOT built from inherently quantum micro processes (and they DO exist, using atomic clocks etc, which I guess you deny exist).
Free will is great - to have free will, you would have to be something other than matter, because randomness is not free will. But, if there is no free will, nothing seems to matter (no pun intended). But, who honestly believes that? It all comes back to the question I've been asking all my life - who am I?
Ah sorry I didn't saw your video response to my text. I agree that chosing the term free will or random will to adress this issue of uncertainty was not very good.
And yes I am atheistic humanist.
Btw I enjoyed reading the posts here (a bit more interesting than certain loop discussions with fundamentalists)
Australian society and the family i was raised in are quite secular, so i wasn't introduced to the idea of free will until after i grew up. I still don't understand the concept of it, and i think it is one of those fussy ideas you have to be introduced to as a child for your brain to not automatically reject it.
This is because when your brain is developing as a child it is able to beleive anything, for example it is able to beleive 1+1=3. But if you walk up to an adult, you would not be able to then introduce the idea that if you put 1 apple on a table, and then another, you are left with 3 apples on the table - his brain will reject the concept because the concept makes no sense.
That is what it is like for free will - how is the interaction of matter and energy in your brain any more than the interaction of matter and energy in your brain? Free will is the third apple.
There's free will in the sense that we don't have physical or psychological blockages that prevent us from doing what we want and then there's "contracausal" free will (the silly kind), in which our actions are uncaused and are yet not random. Contracausal free will is what the fundie would need to resort to in their theistic rationalizations, but all moral ties would fall apart nonetheless.
You might know about it already, but the Vvolitional acts and readiness potential experiments by Benjamin Libet basically disprove any idea of free will that exists.
Stephen Pinker is the only modern intellectual to have pinned down the concept of Free Will in one sentence. Amazingly, you drew the same conclusion, on your own, at the very end of the vid. Pinker said this: "Beleiving in Free Will is exactly equal to claiming there is a part of the brain that operates independently of biology."
Anyone who has actually studied physics knows that there is no such thing as "quantum randomness", but there is such a thing as quantum indeterminacy (QI). People who say that the brain is "exploiting" QI are literally claiming the brain has a special mechanism for actually telling the momentum and position of an electron, but that our "crude lab instruments" do not.
This is a stupid, uneducated conclusion of course. Wolfgang Pauli actually showed that no machine so constructed in this universe can know both at once, including brains of animals and humans.
Okay all and all you've disproven christian concept of free will, yet helped to define what 'real' free will is and isn't. Sorry I just had to sum it up for myself. Alot to take in. O.o
Well... actually it's my own work. I haven't published my complete findings yet (I'm still tinkering with a few details). I'm sure that when I do, I'll totally win the Nobel prize in meta-quantum-vortex physics. The world will never be the same after that. I'm also working on a fully automated vacuum cleaner that will most likely revolutionize the entire housekeeping industry. How do I do it you ask? Dedication my friend; simple dedication to science, truth, and the American way.
Everybody knows that the hydoplaxus effect generated by interneuronal gravitation beams within the brain cannot account for electronominal wave disturbances outside of the cranial manifold; therefor we have free will. I swear RabidApe... don't you know this stuff?
I agree Rabid, a non-deterministic universe does not mean the free will can than exist. Our choices are still based on environment+heredity+quantum randomness.
He didn't really make an argument for free will. Just made it less deterministic and more random. It is still operating under physical laws and properties.
I don't think quantum indeterminacy is an issue in neurology. The probability waveform of an election has a MUCH smaller "cross-section" than the medium it is traveling through in the brain; and it is not the electrons themselves that govern thought, but rather the pathways they follow, right? Also, the brain doesn't care where your electrons might be (exactly), only that they get to where they need to.
I go with the uncertainty principle and say that there is no way we could ever make a one-hundred percent prediction about the future, because we can never have all of the variables. Would this not put a limit on determinism? Is it possible that we can willfully change the outcomes of certain processes in the brain?
What I mean is that determinism may itself be just a mathematical curiosity, but that doesn't mean that everything can be predicted, and that everything has to happen according to some set rule. It comes down to the fact that we simply don't know enough to ever fully decide on whether or not free will is real.
But can one part of the brain cause a change in any other area of its own volition? Would that change be determined within a mathematically sound framework, or would it be random? Can it be random? Those are questions to which we don't have answers to yet. And until we do, I think it's premature to say determinism wins out.
As far as I know, every time an information is "recalled" (that means that some symapsis are used) the structure is changed, cause the more a symapsis is used the "thicker" or more conected it gets. A path becomes a highway so to speak.
I guess there is a certain amount of order and chaos involved at the same time.
I think there isn´t 100% determinism, but there is likeliness and tendency. We have choices, but they are limited through our limited objektivety, and we are likely to prefer one choice over another due to previous experiences. Like A is preferable to B, B is preferable to C....
I would just argue that based on the present evidence there is nothing to suggest that we have Free Will (defined as will outside cause and effect). I would like to see some evidence for Free Will, just as I would like to see some evidence for the existence of God, before I support the idea.
I would like to see the evidence for determinism. Mathematics is wishy-washy at times. That's why there is such a thing as prob and stats. I really don't think you can make predictions about human behavior based on an equation.
I support the idea of determinism because I have never heard of anything which has no cause. Only nothing comes from nothing. Because something is hard to predict does not mean it doesn't have a cause. In my opinion, if something is unpredictable it is because:
a) we don't know how to predict it yet
b) we don't have the resources to predict it
c) we don't want to invest the resources to predict it
IF there is a god who is omnipotent and has a plan, THEN there is no free will. But I don't believe in this god. And I refuse to believe that my thoughts are just the predictable firings of synapses in my brain dependent on some super physical order for their existence. I think. I reason. I am.
If you want to argue physics and say "free will" doesn't exist, okay. But how can you then say you are responsible for anything? If I were to shoot you though the head because something in the physical world determined that I must do that, can I then say "Ape had to die because I have no free will. I like the guy, but I had to shoot him."? Can I use this for a defense in court. I need your answer before I finalize my plans. ;->
Largo, it still wouldn't be matter of if it was your fault or not. If your brain leans toward decisions of murder, you should be put away. You can blame your brain, but its still in your head ;)
but how does that non-determinism effect our choices? i mean, just because we've managed to find this "randomness" along the line, does it really mean that this is the smoking gun? i don't think so, and i definitely don't think that this has anything to do with a soul. free will is still an illusion.
our mind is partly independent from physical nature. we are talking about software running on hardware, turing-complete highly complex software evolved to run on programmable neuronal nets.
to make a decision on the free will-issue we will need mathematics and computer science. linguistics might also help, quantum mechanics is completely useless in this discussion.
This is something I've been thinking about too. I think we're making an assumption that the quantum fuzziness is random. It could be that all possible outcomes occur in different parallel universes, so there could be a meta-determinism or something over the multiverse, in which all quantum outcomes have to be reached. I don't think we can dismiss this kind of free will so easily, because we don't really understand consciousness or quantum mechanics.
We know about metabolism of cells, and electrical impulses, and we can even make good predictions about quantum physics. But none of this really explains our subjective experience. The machinery of it just doesn't seem to explain it adequately. So the answer must be deeper into the microscopic. Is it possible that in that quantum fuzziness, lies our minds, and with it our will?
if you simulate the hardware (our brain) to a degree that our software (our mind) is running in the simulation, then the simulation would have the software (our mind) running in it.
it would be just like making a copy of your mind, as if youself try to predict what youself will be doing next. is that enough to disprove free will?
Even if that was a random act,that still does not count as freewill,its still clearly randomness,and the decision to come back was plainly based of his reasons,which were deterministic.
I know. I recommend the book Cryptonomicon if you haven't read it already. It's amazing. Please go check it out whenever you have time. Turing is one of the characters.
I don't think we really have the answer to that question. Subjective experience, the sense of existing and perceiving is just so strange a thing to emerge out of this galaxy of atoms that is my brain. We don't fully understand consciousness or the behaviour of the very very small, so I don't think we can point either way yet.
Watch or listen to R.C. Srouls " Chosen by God" he give a great breakdown of a biblical veiw of freewill, or the bondage of the will, or the freedom of the will, what the Bible claims. The will is misrepresented by many Christians. I think you will enjoy R.C. if you are "willing" to give him a chance. Christians that read this should do the same. It is a very helpful resource.
kr5501 2 years ago
Free will cannot exist in any sense that equates to morality because, weather we have physical or transendal minds, they will either be are either determined or random, and we will have no choice. Just because we don't know something, doesn't mean it isn't determined.
We can still have morality of a sort, as it is analytically true that it is a good thing to fulfil preferences (in a way) and therefore a world in which more people have their preferences fulfilled is superior.
SuperiorSavior 3 years ago
How can you support your theories? As any one could say any bullshit and calim it reality. It's hillarious.
gregozo 4 years ago
Our free will is just one piece of pie in a pie chart that otherwise consists of determinism, but that delicious piece of free will is undeniable.
Even look at tAA right now... he thought he would self-fulfill his prediction that he would turn to God in a dark moment, but he has overcome that possibility. How do you explain that? Free will.
5thWatcher 4 years ago
I'd explain it in terms of his brain/body interacting with the world around it.
Brains take in new data, and new thoughts are the result.
If the non-determinism can be understood in terms of quantum mechanics, then our 'will' is still a 'slave' to physical laws. The laws just happen to be non-deterministic.
No need to inject this mysterious X factor.
RabidApe 4 years ago
How is this video a response to a video that was added at a later date? How do ppl do this?
zombiemouse 4 years ago
rabidape, you seem like a good guy, i wanna help you out. the bible has over 1000 prophesy's, over 700 of them amazingly have already came exactly true, 3 of them unknown, and the rest about the endtimes. well the book of revelations is unfolding exactly perfectly right now, which is about the end times. look up 2012 and what is to come, this isnt in the media because the new world order/illuminati want us to have to submit to them when we are out of resources. look up william cooper.
fffaabian 4 years ago
will you buy me a case of beer on January 1st, 2013?
RabidApe 4 years ago
lol, u bet, and a pack of smokes to go with it.
fffaabian 4 years ago
I cant wait to see the pious do there back pedalling in 2013. Like they do every...oh I dunno 5 years or so.
UcanbeGOD 3 years ago
all this told, i agree that QM as such has nothing to do with free will, but because of the complexity of the system human brain effectively simulates the same statistical behaviour/description we are forced to apply to QM systems. free will's name is not a good name. if at all i say that free will is our ability to see past and future. and thanks to memory predict or realize tasks extent in time and not be slaves to the present, in this sense we have free will....
jogayot 4 years ago
The only way to model a sufficiently complex system accurately is to create a model indistinguishable from its originator.
Booyashaka!
Chaotheist 4 years ago
you idiot the point is quantum theory fucks that up
evoneal 4 years ago 2
I don't understand how that has anything to do with what I just said.
Regardless of whether or not it is possible, if you were able to do it you wouldn't be able to tell the model apart from the thing being modeled. They would essentially be identical.
But if calling random strangers on the internet idiots distracts from that gnawing fear that you will die alone, go right on ahead.
Chaotheist 4 years ago
"I don't understand how that has anything to do with what I just said."
point is you can not copy the state of the system at a given time because QM prohibits you from extracting all information from it.
jogayot 4 years ago
look up 'quantum teleportation' and 'quantum entanglement'
RabidApe 4 years ago
yes, but it works on quatum systems only, if i'm not mistaken, and you have to "prepera" (in essence it happens during copying/spliting) system. i doubt you'd be able to entagle macroscopis system. tho i watched video of penrose's lecture where he mentions of experiment to entangle macroscopic objects in hopes to better understand how gravity "paints" itself into the quantum picture.
jogayot 4 years ago
Well, we may not ultimately be responsible for the underlying physics of whatever guides our consciousness, but we are still aware of the consequences of our actions, which in essence means we can consciously predict an outcome, and that to me is free will also.
coaxx 4 years ago
Interesting. The only thing I feel like clarifying is that biological non-determinism isn't the same thing as free will.
Then again free will is something that can't really even be defined scientifically. It can only be defined as an experience. It's just like the experience of the color red cannot be defined scientifically. Scientifically we can only describe the physical wavelenght corresponding to a specific optical sensors in our eyes.
marshallbs 4 years ago
the purple intellectual
TitusofBrutii0001 4 years ago
Conclusions from speculations?
There was no evidence supplied that the brain is dictated by the butterfly effect, or that quantum mechanics plays any role in the operation of the brain ... plain speculation, I think.
However, the brain is not static, so such a proposed simulation could only be accurate for a moment of time, but (imo) would illustrate your original point.
bpabbott1st 4 years ago
If this is the case then even as an atheist I needn't be so disappointed at the prospect of dying one day.
Also it would encourage people to be nicer to each other (them selves).
digdogdoo69 4 years ago
With the absence of individual souls, does that mean the self that I perceive to be me is the same as the self that you perceive as you?
Our different experiences, memories and the chemicals and genetics that dictate our moods aren't interchangeable, so this accouts for our different personalities and the fact that I can only perceive my self to be me. But am I and every one else the really same the same self?
digdogdoo69 4 years ago
how can not believe in freewill and believe in reason? you cant reason without freewill
luxfero 4 years ago
no..just..no smh
BreadWinner06 4 years ago
k i got a question. and i agree with the scientific part of free will being an illusion, (this is just a philosophical waste of time) but u claim its wrong to punish somehting for being what it is. now if a person kills someone, why should they be punished if really their brain was reacting to chemicals and electrical signals, and random chance brought them to the situation where they have to kill someone due to the chemical processes in their brain?
urbanclimber777 4 years ago
there's a functional use if you need one that bad. ;D
If you have a society where crimes are punished, your brain will (hopefully) react in such a way as to keep you from committing the crime in the first place.
RabidApe 4 years ago
lol plus its not like they've been wrongfully punished we can't help reacting the way we do. sry 4 wasting ur time.
urbanclimber777 4 years ago
Further, it seems that neurological determinism is guilty of violating the law of non-contradiction. A thing cannot be A and non-A at the same time. An advocate for determinism implicitly negates determinism, since the advocate relies on the ability of non-determinists to accept or reject the creed. It is a self-contradiction.
The true determinist would have to say that science could one day demonstrate how the mind of Einstein developed the theory of relativity.
Austrolibertarian 4 years ago
Wouldn't the lack of free will destroy cause and effect? As human actors in the universe, we intervene to change the course of events from that which are set in motion. We act because our action, via cause and effect, has the ability to change the course of events. If determinism is 100% true, man would never act.
Austrolibertarian 4 years ago
"Free Will" has suffered the most from mislabelling if anything else i think. But i think we are naturally "free willed" organisms, who interpret free will in all kinds of unique and personal ways. Noone disagrees as to its existence. Which is i think...the point! :)
0GoldenRatio0 4 years ago
I've read somewhere (can't make a direct quote) than experience really shapes the brain (neural plasticity) a neuroscientist rewired the mind of a ferret so that the information from the retina was plugged in the visual cortex, to his surprise the auditory cortex "mimicked" the visual cortex. (Sur I think was the name of the neuroscientist)
utryhard 4 years ago
the human genome project in a way demonstrates the limits of genetic determinism by affirming that we are not only a text (GTCA), we have so much genetic junk (introns) that makes the interpretation so complicated. We have to be "read" in context, by what our cells/environment feedback to our dna.
utryhard 4 years ago
True free will to me is the ability to not worry whether or not everything we do is mathematically determined, to create purpose in the world of the mind, which is wholly ours. Free will can't come from anything outside ourselves, and it can't be taken away from anything outside ourselves.
Staunts 4 years ago
several things wrong with what that person said. One, if indeed the brain cannot be predicted, and is affected by random chance, that is not free will. You would be just as much a slave to the randomness as you would be if your actions were deterministic. Secondly,random does not actually exist in nature. Even a random number generator on a computer is deterministic. Just because we don't understand how something works does not make it random-ie the weather was probably once thought of as random
elshizzo 4 years ago
els
"Even a random number generator on a computer is deterministic"
This is 1 of the most misleading scientific statements I've read on YT. "Random" number generators in computers are NOT random, they're pseudorandom, they repeat their cycles. There isn't one single machine humans have EVER devised to produce truly random numbers that is NOT built from inherently quantum micro processes (and they DO exist, using atomic clocks etc, which I guess you deny exist).
schrodcat 4 years ago
Free will is great - to have free will, you would have to be something other than matter, because randomness is not free will. But, if there is no free will, nothing seems to matter (no pun intended). But, who honestly believes that? It all comes back to the question I've been asking all my life - who am I?
TheGiantRobot 4 years ago
Ah sorry I didn't saw your video response to my text. I agree that chosing the term free will or random will to adress this issue of uncertainty was not very good.
And yes I am atheistic humanist.
Btw I enjoyed reading the posts here (a bit more interesting than certain loop discussions with fundamentalists)
blork5 4 years ago
Australian society and the family i was raised in are quite secular, so i wasn't introduced to the idea of free will until after i grew up. I still don't understand the concept of it, and i think it is one of those fussy ideas you have to be introduced to as a child for your brain to not automatically reject it.
THEoldy 4 years ago
This is because when your brain is developing as a child it is able to beleive anything, for example it is able to beleive 1+1=3. But if you walk up to an adult, you would not be able to then introduce the idea that if you put 1 apple on a table, and then another, you are left with 3 apples on the table - his brain will reject the concept because the concept makes no sense.
THEoldy 4 years ago
That is what it is like for free will - how is the interaction of matter and energy in your brain any more than the interaction of matter and energy in your brain? Free will is the third apple.
THEoldy 4 years ago
There's free will in the sense that we don't have physical or psychological blockages that prevent us from doing what we want and then there's "contracausal" free will (the silly kind), in which our actions are uncaused and are yet not random. Contracausal free will is what the fundie would need to resort to in their theistic rationalizations, but all moral ties would fall apart nonetheless.
DarthDinosaur 4 years ago
You might know about it already, but the Vvolitional acts and readiness potential experiments by Benjamin Libet basically disprove any idea of free will that exists.
zakiechan 4 years ago
Stephen Pinker is the only modern intellectual to have pinned down the concept of Free Will in one sentence. Amazingly, you drew the same conclusion, on your own, at the very end of the vid. Pinker said this: "Beleiving in Free Will is exactly equal to claiming there is a part of the brain that operates independently of biology."
otonanoC 4 years ago
Anyone who has actually studied physics knows that there is no such thing as "quantum randomness", but there is such a thing as quantum indeterminacy (QI). People who say that the brain is "exploiting" QI are literally claiming the brain has a special mechanism for actually telling the momentum and position of an electron, but that our "crude lab instruments" do not.
otonanoC 4 years ago
This is a stupid, uneducated conclusion of course. Wolfgang Pauli actually showed that no machine so constructed in this universe can know both at once, including brains of animals and humans.
otonanoC 4 years ago
'no machine so constructed in this universe can know both at once, including brains of animals and humans.'
That's exactly what I meant with this quantum randomness (indeterminacy).
And I agree there is no such thing as free will in the definition of it given by Plato.
(There are other (non supernatural) definitions however)
blork5 4 years ago 2
Dude, I can see your brain.
atypicalguy 4 years ago
You should read Mindscan. Its a good book and the copy turns out very different to the original.
lamnaa 4 years ago
Okay all and all you've disproven christian concept of free will, yet helped to define what 'real' free will is and isn't. Sorry I just had to sum it up for myself. Alot to take in. O.o
zombiemouse 4 years ago
good stuff
vWendyv 4 years ago
Well... actually it's my own work. I haven't published my complete findings yet (I'm still tinkering with a few details). I'm sure that when I do, I'll totally win the Nobel prize in meta-quantum-vortex physics. The world will never be the same after that. I'm also working on a fully automated vacuum cleaner that will most likely revolutionize the entire housekeeping industry. How do I do it you ask? Dedication my friend; simple dedication to science, truth, and the American way.
D4Shawn 4 years ago
Everybody knows that the hydoplaxus effect generated by interneuronal gravitation beams within the brain cannot account for electronominal wave disturbances outside of the cranial manifold; therefor we have free will. I swear RabidApe... don't you know this stuff?
D4Shawn 4 years ago
*sorry... the correct term is 'hydroplaxus'. I forgot the 'r' (which makes all the difference when it comes to free will).
D4Shawn 4 years ago
A decision dependent on the flip of a coin is also not free-will.
eswyatt 4 years ago
reminds me of the free will segment in the movie "waking life".
Yeah, "Free will" is a bitch.
socratesone 4 years ago
This guy SO needs to make a video. I say we mail him a webcam. Of course, then I think I'd have to smoke my first joint while watching it.
mwest1234 4 years ago
Best comment response video ever.
ickytoadstool 4 years ago
I agree Rabid, a non-deterministic universe does not mean the free will can than exist. Our choices are still based on environment+heredity+quantum randomness.
enclave2k1 4 years ago
Quantum effects don't happen on the macroscopic scale. Freedom from causality doesn't seem possible.
Mjhavok 4 years ago
He didn't really make an argument for free will. Just made it less deterministic and more random. It is still operating under physical laws and properties.
TheAtheistPaladin 4 years ago
God can calculate the whole universe. NOW what?!
TheRealCalamityJames 4 years ago
I don't think quantum indeterminacy is an issue in neurology. The probability waveform of an election has a MUCH smaller "cross-section" than the medium it is traveling through in the brain; and it is not the electrons themselves that govern thought, but rather the pathways they follow, right? Also, the brain doesn't care where your electrons might be (exactly), only that they get to where they need to.
Could be wrong though...
Dashes000 4 years ago
Interesting video.
DrOman5596 4 years ago
I go with the uncertainty principle and say that there is no way we could ever make a one-hundred percent prediction about the future, because we can never have all of the variables. Would this not put a limit on determinism? Is it possible that we can willfully change the outcomes of certain processes in the brain?
dragon2wolf 4 years ago
"Would this not put a limit on determinism?"
What do you mean limit? Isn't determinism still determinism even if there is a lot of it going on at the same time?
"Is it possible that we can willfully change the outcomes of certain processes in the brain?"
If you've been lucky enough to be exposed to relevant information then why not?
phaexus 4 years ago
What I mean is that determinism may itself be just a mathematical curiosity, but that doesn't mean that everything can be predicted, and that everything has to happen according to some set rule. It comes down to the fact that we simply don't know enough to ever fully decide on whether or not free will is real.
dragon2wolf 4 years ago
I think that we can assume that free will very probably does NOT exist.
You are your brain, without your brain you don´t exist.
DeletedDelusion 4 years ago
But can one part of the brain cause a change in any other area of its own volition? Would that change be determined within a mathematically sound framework, or would it be random? Can it be random? Those are questions to which we don't have answers to yet. And until we do, I think it's premature to say determinism wins out.
dragon2wolf 4 years ago
I "belief" there is no volation.
As far as I know, every time an information is "recalled" (that means that some symapsis are used) the structure is changed, cause the more a symapsis is used the "thicker" or more conected it gets. A path becomes a highway so to speak.
I guess there is a certain amount of order and chaos involved at the same time.
DeletedDelusion 4 years ago
I think there isn´t 100% determinism, but there is likeliness and tendency. We have choices, but they are limited through our limited objektivety, and we are likely to prefer one choice over another due to previous experiences. Like A is preferable to B, B is preferable to C....
DeletedDelusion 4 years ago
I would just argue that based on the present evidence there is nothing to suggest that we have Free Will (defined as will outside cause and effect). I would like to see some evidence for Free Will, just as I would like to see some evidence for the existence of God, before I support the idea.
phaexus 4 years ago
I would like to see the evidence for determinism. Mathematics is wishy-washy at times. That's why there is such a thing as prob and stats. I really don't think you can make predictions about human behavior based on an equation.
dragon2wolf 4 years ago
I support the idea of determinism because I have never heard of anything which has no cause. Only nothing comes from nothing. Because something is hard to predict does not mean it doesn't have a cause. In my opinion, if something is unpredictable it is because:
a) we don't know how to predict it yet
b) we don't have the resources to predict it
c) we don't want to invest the resources to predict it
d) a combination of a, b and/or c
phaexus 4 years ago
What's the point in predicting it? If determinism is real, then there is no point in having a court system. No one can help doing what they do.
dragon2wolf 4 years ago
"What's the point in predicting it?"
To gain an advantage.
"If determinism is real, then there is no point in having a court system."
Of course there is. It helps influence people's behavior.
"No one can help doing what they do."
To me that's not a problem. Criminals can't help doing crime and society can't help punishing criminals. That's reality.
phaexus 4 years ago
IF there is a god who is omnipotent and has a plan, THEN there is no free will. But I don't believe in this god. And I refuse to believe that my thoughts are just the predictable firings of synapses in my brain dependent on some super physical order for their existence. I think. I reason. I am.
Largo64 4 years ago
If you want to argue physics and say "free will" doesn't exist, okay. But how can you then say you are responsible for anything? If I were to shoot you though the head because something in the physical world determined that I must do that, can I then say "Ape had to die because I have no free will. I like the guy, but I had to shoot him."? Can I use this for a defense in court. I need your answer before I finalize my plans. ;->
Largo64 4 years ago
if determinism is true then whether you can or can not use that for a defense in court doesn't matter, you have no choice.
undefinedego 4 years ago
Largo, it still wouldn't be matter of if it was your fault or not. If your brain leans toward decisions of murder, you should be put away. You can blame your brain, but its still in your head ;)
CheezMonsterCrazy 4 years ago
Because causality exists.
ManifestMiasma 4 years ago
but how does that non-determinism effect our choices? i mean, just because we've managed to find this "randomness" along the line, does it really mean that this is the smoking gun? i don't think so, and i definitely don't think that this has anything to do with a soul. free will is still an illusion.
marklethanarkle 4 years ago
weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeh! i would say thats correct, being that i love quantum theory :P.
johnmicstring 4 years ago
I think I might respond to this in a bit.
azrienoch 4 years ago
What about Wills Will of Wills Will of Will. :D
RRSAlabama 4 years ago
oh, and another thing to add:
our mind is partly independent from physical nature. we are talking about software running on hardware, turing-complete highly complex software evolved to run on programmable neuronal nets.
to make a decision on the free will-issue we will need mathematics and computer science. linguistics might also help, quantum mechanics is completely useless in this discussion.
kurtilein3 4 years ago
Yep I jumped the gun with my last post. He covered that....
thefakeyeti 4 years ago
This is something I've been thinking about too. I think we're making an assumption that the quantum fuzziness is random. It could be that all possible outcomes occur in different parallel universes, so there could be a meta-determinism or something over the multiverse, in which all quantum outcomes have to be reached. I don't think we can dismiss this kind of free will so easily, because we don't really understand consciousness or quantum mechanics.
theinquisitor 4 years ago
We know about metabolism of cells, and electrical impulses, and we can even make good predictions about quantum physics. But none of this really explains our subjective experience. The machinery of it just doesn't seem to explain it adequately. So the answer must be deeper into the microscopic. Is it possible that in that quantum fuzziness, lies our minds, and with it our will?
theinquisitor 4 years ago
The possiblities you suggest are very appealing.
premed411 4 years ago
Great stuff! I love the free will topic! Would like to hear more!
natewheatshelf 4 years ago
About the putting a human brain into a stimulation and predicting what the person will do wouldnt work!
It is not putting into account outside events.. other people, natural events, etc etc.
thefakeyeti 4 years ago
i dont think that what blork5 is accurate.
if you simulate the hardware (our brain) to a degree that our software (our mind) is running in the simulation, then the simulation would have the software (our mind) running in it.
it would be just like making a copy of your mind, as if youself try to predict what youself will be doing next. is that enough to disprove free will?
kurtilein3 4 years ago
Randomness is not freewill.
worldlystone 4 years ago
What if.. we choice to be random?
My friend quit his job, moved to the cities. Then later decided he wanted his job back.. but they didn't take him back..
Random? Yes.. a choice? Yeppers.
thefakeyeti 4 years ago
Even if that was a random act,that still does not count as freewill,its still clearly randomness,and the decision to come back was plainly based of his reasons,which were deterministic.
worldlystone 4 years ago
A much more interesting question is: 'is consciousness even computable'?
NoFaithTheist 4 years ago
maybe a description of the Turing test may help?
eddygoombah 4 years ago
Turing might be called a hero. It is sad that he was persecuted for what he did in the privacy of his home. Forced to commit suicide.
Mjhavok 4 years ago
I know. I recommend the book Cryptonomicon if you haven't read it already. It's amazing. Please go check it out whenever you have time. Turing is one of the characters.
eddygoombah 4 years ago
first! :D
HubertCumberdale22 4 years ago
fission mailed
NothingIsFact 4 years ago
Nice video!
But we can't control that randomness which influences our decisions, so doesn't that mean that freewill doesn't exist at all?
HubertCumberdale22 4 years ago
I don't think we really have the answer to that question. Subjective experience, the sense of existing and perceiving is just so strange a thing to emerge out of this galaxy of atoms that is my brain. We don't fully understand consciousness or the behaviour of the very very small, so I don't think we can point either way yet.
theinquisitor 4 years ago