- Matthieu Miossec
- Newcastle-Upon-Tyne
- United Kingdom
Doctoral Student - Genetic Medecine (Congenital Heart Disease),
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There is no such thing as free will.
Some questions that might be relevant to the debate on the existence or otherwise of free will:
What do we mean exactly when we talk about free will and how do we make sense of it in the light of our current scientific knowledge?
Can we really claim to have indeterministic brains in an essentially deterministic world?
Is it fair to separate our thought processes from the rest of our body?
Is free will the illusion of complexity in the brain as chance is the illusion of complexity in the world?
Closing Statement from Matthieu Miossec
Both sides of the debate have been strongly defended in this debate. When re-reading this debate, one should try and understand in what sense one means 'free-will' as many have meant very different things by 'free-will'. I will let my fellow TEDsters decide what the conclusion of this debate is rather than imposing my own view.
Prabhakar Krishnamurthy
1. No you cannot separate thought processes from the rest of the body.
2.Yes; Free will is illusion of complexity. If there are no absolute and everything is relative;where is the question of free will?
Austin R 20+
yashi jetley
Scientifically, yes ,the complexity of brain function depends on millions of years of evolution and even as an individual a whole lot of integral processes lead up to determine what we think right now but in a larger social context, say, if we have to choose an electoral candidate ,we do get to exercise our free will or as someone commented maybe a self-deceptive idea of free will.
natasha nikulina 50+
Tiger Cow
On a related note, looking back at history, what was a task for an intelligent person many many years ago is now a task that is performed by computers. Artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms of recent years are beginning to mimic the decision making process of humans. In that sense, once we understand the rationale, motivations and the chain of reasoning behind making a decision, it may be possible with varying degrees of accuracy to setup the environment where a particular choice is favored.
As human beings, we are driven by stimuli from various sources. If a hypothetical being with better senses, cognition and IQ is able to track our learning, understand the way we respond to various stimuli, that being may be able to guide our path and the choices we make by manipulating the environment around us in various ways. However, like the insect from the example above, with the instrumentation and senses we currently have, we may never know if the choices we make, the serendipity and coincidences we experience are a product of the chaos of the universe or the result of choices that we make without understanding why.
Daniel Franz
Until computers can accurately predict human brains, and MRIs can get the details required to capture an initial state, humans effectively have free will. The fact that universe has only one outcome or is basically a simulation, is irrelevant, since nothing that existed within the parameters of the universe could ever know what this outcome is (because of uncertainty in measurement), and anything outside the universe (if such a contemplation even makes sense) could not interact with it without changing said outcome.
You should probably define your use of freewill and determinism within the context of this debate more accurately. Free Will doesn't necessarily have to be freedom of action over physical laws. People (most of them) don't think they can defy gravity if they thought enough, nor do they claim they can walk through walls by exerting their will. The idea of free will stems from the fact most people believe the active agent in the choices they make is themselves. The brain, as well as any other computer of certain complexity, can easily follow deterministic laws and be such an agent.
On a side note, I believe that free will doesn't exist, but that is more because I do not believe that the decision making part of the brain is necessarily the same as the conscious part. Determinism doesn't play a role.
Dan Notty
Drew B
Matthieu Miossec 100+
Matthew Kolasinski
This implies an autonomous subject to act. There is a subject/object relationship in this. If you remove the subject from context of home, friends and family, work, it gets very challenging to identify a discrete 'self' to be having any volition. The consideration of whether something which doesn't exist can have a volition lands us in the realm of theologians and mystics.
In that in any given event, the event will be unique and there will be one and only one choice which we actualize, there is no repeatability of the 'experiment' possible in this. Thus it is not possible to determine verifiable quantitative components of any 'free will' or lack there of. We're left with speculation.
But in a cultural context, things are what we say they are and free will has meaning, whether it has a measurable existence or not.
Of course, you're free to believe differently.
:-)
matt k.
Dan Notty
Alan Watts 30+
Dan Notty
My position would be that it's on others to give evidence for the existence of free will, and to continue to be skeptical of it until then.
In my own personal life experience, I tend to see the way I'm controlled and defined much more clearly than I do any sense of independence. More and more I've also seen the way I control and define my environment right back as well.
I think people need to focus less on free will, and more on how things flow. It's wonderful watching how all the pieces fit.
Dan Notty
Joseph McMahon
Siobhan Watters
Parmeet Shah
First, the burden of proof always lies on the claimant and hence free will is something that remains to be proved. So by default we should be refusing to believe it exists from a scientific perspective, which asks us to be skeptical about things before we accept it. But that is hardly the case and it seems we have a STRONG innate inclination to believe that we are acting on a free will. This innate inclination might be a necessary evolutionary adaptation, which our dear Robert Wright calls one of the many self-deceptive traits of our psychology. There is every reason to challenge the idea of free will.
Another related but sort of irrelevant fact: it has been established in scientific experiments that people who are happy and confident have a very strong 'feeling' of free will and this 'feeling' reduces proportionately as you move down on that scale with depressives feeling like they have very little control and free will in their lives. Little risky to re-phrase abstracts of experiments, but it is on those lines. Great, great debate. I personally believe it is a self-deceptive evolutionary adaptation.
Matthieu Miossec 100+
yashi jetley
Ed Schulte 50+
In all exemples he is not referring in the limited "brain" category of existence but actions/choices of the Higher Self / Psyche / in order to experience its Source and therefore advance towards Self knowing of it infinite BEing-ness. What is will ?..it is the Union-marage of Psyche and Love.
Apr 5………………….
To consistently choose love, peace, or forgiveness leads one out of the house of mirrors.
Apr 4……………………..
Freedom (**free will**) is the opportunity to fashion one's own destiny and learn the inherent spiritual truths that are essential. For merit or demerit to occur, the choices have to be made in a state of belief and experience to be considered "real". Thus, even illusion subserves spiritual growth, for it seems real at the time.
Apr 3……………………….
One's range of choice (*free will*) is ordinarily limited only by one's vision.
Apr 1………………………..
The level of consciousness is determined by the choices (**free will**) made by the spiritual will, and therefore is the consequence as well as the determinant of karma. Freedom to evolve requires a world that affords the greatest opportunity to ascend or descend the spiritual ladder. Viewed from that perspective, this is an ideal world, and its society is constituted by a wide range of experiential options.
Matthieu Miossec 100+
Mackenzie Lee
vahid daem
the other solution is that we look at the consequence of a Will . we could consider a free will is something that should result to our benefit. because no one wills against himself. the influencing will of others could be against us or could have a mutual benefit. so others might be willing to change our will for their own benefit. if they are so kind they might consider a mutual benefit. :) . so i think ( I do not know) that we should talk about free will in relation with other free wills and influences.
we could will to do something but unless we have the condition needed we can not do it. or the condition might be there but we do not will to do it. or someone might change your free will to match her free will.
so more than talking about free will i am interested in what makes a Will satisfactory and beneficial to have. our perception is part of it . who could affect your perception can affect your free will.
Linden Roberts
Daniel Sheehan 20+
Sean Hines
1. The problem of free will comes from the gap between our reasons and our actions. Reasons do not cause us to do anything, but having sufficient reason wills (but doesn't force) us to act. So in any decision situation we experience a gap between our reasons and our actions. This is what causes us to think that we have free will. (or so they tell me in the philosophy of mind lectures I have been following)
2. I think it is more of a question of how much determinism is there. Im not qualified (yet!) to give a detailed explanation of the neuro-biological and psychological process of decision making- but it is crystal clear that if consciousness is caused by the brain that it is somewhat determined by physical processes creating it. It seems impossible to theorize about this without a PHD in everything. Our own minds trying to understand the underlying process that causes decision making, it almost seems like a joke to theorize at my current level of understanding. I think it will take a dedicated group of researchers from MANY disciplines to appropriately tackle this problem.
Searle describes the process: We have the first-person conscious experience of acting on reasons. We state these reasons in the form of explanations. [T]hey are not of the form A caused B. They are of the form, a rational self S performed act A, and in performing A, S acted on reason R.
But to people with messed up brains have free will? Do animals? Which part of the brain enables it? Does our free will degenerate?
3. The Mind-Body Problem. Im going to jump in bed with Searle again on this one and state that consciousness is a system feature of the brain. Hopefully in the near future our neurobiology will shed a little more light on what "the self" is and how "we" perceive it.
Sean Hines
In my own mind (haha)- free will could go either way. I feel as if I am floating through uncontrollable events in my life, and that due to chance learning about myself and the way things work- I am developing a sort of 'free will.' Ridding myself of bad or training myself to have good habits, while learning to control my "behaviors" and emotions in order to more appropriately direct my intention and achieve what I desire (but does an organism learning behaviors constitute will, or free will?)- all of that over the backdrop of my general disposition or outlook on life (which is probably a product of deterministic learned behavior and perhaps a little biology *vagus nerve activity, for example). Did I forget anything? Oh yeah- my current mood, and perhaps even a more intermediate outlook on life.
A mind confused by the illusion of complexity? I cant tell!
Molly Lavik
Derek M
I believe that we do have free will. I can choose to be happy/sad, I can choose to walk outside in the grass, or to take off all of my clothes and start screaming. A dog can choose to run away, or it can choose to sit down and growl to let it's master know that there is a squirrel close by. Both the human and the dog do this by evaluating outcomes and choosing the one they feel is best based on previous experiences.
Similar to an AI robot being turned on for the first time, it will bump into all the walls, but then quickly learn where the walls are, and that it shouldn't bump into them because it causes a sensor on it's side to fire.
If you put a wireless chip in your brain which can communicate in and out, then connect "storage" (blank wireless brain with exact same ability as human brain), then randomly "cut out the power" to each brain off and back on so that they learn to become identical copies instead of simply increasing brain size, then completely shut down the 1st brain, you still act the same, are you the same person?
What does it mean to be the same person? Is it possible that we're a new person every time we go to sleep? Then why do I not FEEL like a different person?
It's pretty obvious that people who have massive brain damage do not act the same at all, and many times, family members will even say that they "are not the same person." This leads me to believe that brain matter matters. In the brain copy example, does the original person's soul "die"? I don't know...
Matthieu Miossec 100+
Derek M
Matthieu Miossec 100+
Alan Watts 30+
Sean Hines
An "AI" robot that moves around and stores locations of walls so that it doesn't run into them does not actually learn- it is only manipulating symbols it has no ontological experience of understanding.
I often wonder about the problem of being unconscious during sleep and waking up to be the same person. There is no acceptable answer to this philosophically- sadly. Unless the soul counts :(
Mackenzie Lee
Consider depression. How can somebody completely change their outlook on life by going on anti-depressants, without their "identity" (conscious experience of self) in some way being tied to materialist causes?
Dave Potter 20+
Now because someone will challenge me to prove it does. I will, by not posting on this thread again, regardless of what is posted.
Everything else is just semantics.
Have a great day all
Matthieu Miossec 100+
Mackenzie Lee
So, in many ways, your comment is "just semantics" (I'm not sure that the common use of the word semantics in this sense is really appropriate to its meaning."
Samuel Freemantle
I think that the observational bias I mentioned before can be found in the way consciousness interacts with time. Time is essential to rational though. Without time nothing moves, the universe is static. It is only through the dimension of time that positions can become motions, objects become actions. In order to think the brain must think in time.
If you take the view that everything that can happen has happened then time becomes a series of frozen moments chained like images on a film strip. Free will then becomes ability to change the probability that a state will occur, not the exclusion of alternate pasts and futures via actions, but the inclusion of them in a timeless probabilistic environment.
Sean Hines
Samuel Freemantle
To begin with my position on free will is slightly paradoxical; I think that its existence depends on the perspective from which the question is asked. It exists and we act with freedom, but freewill is an emergent phenomena based in a deep rooted observational bias. So it exists as far as humans are concerned, but I do not think that there is feature that necessitates it as a universal principle.
Free will as I see it is this. A person is sitting at home, one hour later they could be at a coffee shop or they could be in a clothing store. Both states are equally probable, but one person cannot experience both. There is nothing except the X ingredient of free will that allows the individual to choose actions which will allow a selected physical state to occur.
Determinism I always think of in terms of dominoes set to collide in a massive chain reaction when a single domino is set in motion. If one falls the others must fall. Depending on the degree to which a person espouses determinism this view can be applied to everything from the interactions of electrons to human social patterns.
Continued...
Michael Stevens
It's not easy to keep track of everything seperated as much and notice that it's just a very complex and large amount of factors changing in response to causes and in turn becoming causes for future effects with no times where any part of you can rise above cause and effect and in turn that makes free will impossible. If you can't rise above cause and effect then you can't have free will because the state you're in at any moment is fully dependent on all the causes in the past, which are dependent on the same and so on forever into the past (or atleast to the point of the big bang, I'm not sure if cause and effect ruled before that)
Ross Kleiman
I believe in an infinite number of universes. I believe that every single time an event occurs that leads to a change in the universe another universe is formed where the opposite change occurs. For example, consider the phenomena of radiation. A single radioactive atom may or may not decompose at any given time, while half-life tells us how a large number of atoms will behave as a group, it does not tell us the exact time a single atom will decay (although it will give a probabilistic distribution where you could estimate a range of likely times). So consider a single moment in time (I also believe time is discrete), an atom may or may not decay, and at any given moment of time two universes are born, one where the atom decays and another where it doesn't.
I believe that life is like this. We go through life making decisions and through these decisions we carve our path in the infinite number of universes. So my belief is that we do have free will, but every possible outcome of the universe will be achieved. I don't believe that there is only one destiny for our universe.
Anyway, as I said before I think that just about anything on this topic is speculation. Science barely knows the nature of consciousness, let alone free will.
Sanjay Phadke
Michael Stevens
I think part of the sense of having free will might just be from how communicating things to others requires you divide up the universe into many separate parts instead of just one flowing system if that makes any sense. Words like me/I/you and such. I think some degree of consistency (may be a bad word for it) also might be a part of the sense of free will or self directed action or whatever you wanna call it.
Like how the factors that you identify with your idea of 'you', like your likes and dislikes and views on things and even the matter that makes you up changes over time. So many factors that only a small fraction of them are changing at any point in time. Over time all of them will have changed to where you're pretty much a completely different person than you were 10 or however many years ago, but they happened so gradually and without shaking up the large majority of the factors in too short a time. You have time to integrate the changes into your concept of your self bit by bit. You'll be in every way a different person. Just the changes will have been so minor and unnoticeable at any point in time to where you'll have the feeling of a consistent solid self going through life at all times since you focus on all the factors together at once as you and they don't all change at the same rate or time or whatnot. Gives the feeling of a solid consistent you at the reigns going through life