Do we have Free Will (my video)

ZonedOut
reply to post by Mr Mask

 

To more directly address and answer the ethical issue, we don't have to worry about that on two fronts!

1] Because as I showed above the situation does involve an active actor in the subconscious who also observes and is affected by that very observation that occurs consciously and so there is no need to abrogate the responsibility of the individual from the crime.

I must say that very bright minds in science and philosophy demand you are very wrong, and have given long lectures and have written entire books expelling why they think your view is not only wrong but brutally unfair. I would need more reasons given for me to accept your views as reasonable. Thus far, they seem very unfair to the victims of "minds not tuned to function correctly".
And ...

2] Because punishment already exists and is a natural part of existence via cause and effect we don't need to assess that as bad because in reality it is just wild and we can then opt for a less wild alternative after reflecting upon just how wild our decisions were.

Punishment does not "exist in nature" as it does in our intelligent world of manmade systems. It is the farthest thing away from natural.

Wild = life is short savage and brutal and that's an all around loss!

It is true that life is savage and brutal (and short). But it is "intelligence" that gives humans a chance to act in a way that separates us from such brutality. Harris and others suggest we do so. I agree with them.

I can not subscribe to the lose cannon ideas of "life's a B, walk it off", when it comes to the reality of the situation.

Less wild = More civilized! Gains can be made here contractually between subconsciousness's and that is called an agreed reality!

More civilized would be a punishment system that acknowledged the truth- "criminals have no choice but to be criminals". They have as much choice in the matter as we all had in the Big Bang happening. A murderer has as much free choice in altering the orbit of Mars than they do altering the systematic functions of their mind.

They are victims.

Ultimately criminals don't tend to learn from their mistakes and my proof is the high rate of repeat offenders returning to prisons and this is because they do not reflect upon their actions in disregarding their contractual duties as a citizen in polite civilized society in a positive light and the negative reflections create a hell for them and their creation.

There is much reason to assume that the failure of many criminals to reform after being imprisoned and punished has as much to do with the fact that out prison system is barbaric (and it is) as well as the idea that they are still only victims of their mind's systematic operation.

Our prisons and the way we handle criminals is designed entirely with the idea of "free will" was involved when the crime was committed. If that is factually false, than the system is inhumane.

3 strikes and you're out rule seems to be a wise reflexive response to that, however that just creates a financial whirlpool of misery and societal decay when maybe it is better to be more ruthless and simply cut the cancer out with death penalty for 3rd time offenders.

Wow…it is clear you have a taste for brutality. Now you want to murder victims of physics? For finical relief even? Sigh…


I'm sorry, but I do not support a death penalty for any single crime in this world.

Not only for reasons that the criminal had no choice, but also because death is an easy out for anyone who "may" deserve a longer sentence to be "reconditioned". Notice I say "reconditioned" and not punished.

Sometimes you just have to put a rabid dog down ... doesn't mean you hate them ... look at old yeller!

May justice be tempered by mercy when and where required and not one iota more than that.

I must say I am very glad you do not call the shots within our systems of punishment.

You seem very cold to the absolute truth that people are victims of mind science. Physics is not punished for doing what it does to people…why should the victims of physics be put down when they could be bettered by "proper care and reconditioning".

Sigh…please…don't answer, I can hear it now- "people need to die for money and pride!". Sorry sir, another callous hand is not needed in humanity. What IS needed is smarter minds considering finer facts and creating better solutions…ones that do not rape or murder victims that are doomed to behave how physics demands.

MM

reply to post by Mr Mask


The way I think of free will (at the moment): Everything that we could possibly do has already been written out as plays. We get to choose the play we want to see ourselves act in, but we do not get to write the play, or the roles, themselves.

More, I think there is no way to logically conceive of a root cause for cause and effect (or causation). So, the fundamental force has to be will - it is the only thing which says it does not have to obey causation. (Think of the first cause: What was it the effect of? Another cause? This cannot go into infinity because cause and effect requires a beginning and an end. The only thing that can override cause and effect is will, and since we know there cannot logically be a root cause, then we can guess that cause and effect is really the appearance of manifested will but we see it with delusions.)

Only one way to find out what free "will" would or could be.

That is to exercise it until it becomes completely in control, of EVERYTHING.

So far no one on this planet has had the courage to even take control of one day in some parts of their soul.

reply to post by Mr Mask


Do we have free will?
Yes and no.

Funny how many things in life are like that.

Excellent video! One has to wonder: If we are living in an infinite system of reality, with no beginning or end, then the possibilities are infinite, correct? There should be room to create new experiences forever. Whether looking at this mathematically or subjectively (can we measure personal feelings or thoughts accurately?), the parts should be able to fit in innumerable arrangements. On the other hand, to suggest that we have no free will should suggest that every possible outcome has already happened, and we are merely sliding into a predetermined slot from a finite list of well founded possibilities.

It always seems so much easier to list a number of reasons why something is unprovable. For the uber-rational, it seems comforting to feel like one has the answer. What exactly is a choice? Are we choosing the idea, which has different tones or feelings to different people? Or are we choosing the particular arrangement of particles, which may exist in infinitely varying locales? Also, if we can agree that we are each individuals, then without free will, somebody/something else decides for us, right? Sort of hard to defend without knowing what that something really is.

This is the sort of topic that we can chase for eternity lol, but there is never any real "finished work", is there? Best advice I could give is to love your life, one way or another!

Great post! Keep up the good work!

Just thought some of you may want to know, this video just got featured on the front page of Ebaumsworld.com and is currently getting lots of love there. This is my 5th video to have reached the top of that site's front page, and its so amazing when something like that happens to a small guy with a small channel, like me lol.

Big hugs.

Check me out all fancy at the top of the front page for all the world to love or hate.

www.ebaumsworld.com...

Hi mr Mask, very interesting thread. I've posted a very similar one to yours a year ago.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Why is a question about free will in the science and technology section? It's a philosophical question!

Many practitioners of mindfulness certainly feel they have free will. And yes, you will say back, the EEG records the impulse to act before you actually act! So? So what? We have two hemispheres and this is how they function. The right hemisphere situates attention before the actual experience of attention. This is what the EEG is picking up. Cross hemispheric communication between the right brain and left brain. The right seems to coordinate activities that the left brain gives "linear" and "expressive" quality to.

Countless metanalyses have been done showing that the right and left hemispheres of the brain are asymmetrical in their structure and function. The relationship is sometimes described as "emotional" verse "logical", but in fact both hemispheres are involved with emotion and logic. This question of "What" is also, ironically enough, reflective of the differences between the right and left hemispheres. The left hemisphere likes quantitative and linear, sequential ways of thinking. It thrives with syllogistic, logical, sequential and linear processing. We know this because people with right brain lesions or left brain lesions develop conditions with consistent differences. Lesions in the right temporal hemisphere produce the experience of not knowing where you are in your body relative to your environment. Thus, you lose what psychologists call "proprioception". You also lose awareness of your internal "bodily feeling", which is known as "interoception". In essence, you lose your felt connection with your body, which often produces a mutism, if the lesion is on the right anterior cingulate. The brains language areas in the left hemisphere are working just fine. It's the deficits in the right anterior cingulate, an area which links subcortical emotion generating areas (hypothalamus, PAG) with a cognitive "desire to speak". Damage in this area ALWAYS produces a mutism, telling us that this area is involved in translating emotional drives into environmentally re-cognized desires.

The right brain is contextually oriented, sees things in terms of relationships, betweenness, hence it's much denser connections with the subcortical areas which control bodily processes, bodily feeling, and the production of emotions: all things experienced "in the body". The left brain conversely is like a "representation device". It manipulates information by representing it back to itself, and seeing it as particulars.

Scientists have done interesting experiments with subjects who had one of their brain hemispheres inactivated by trans-cranial magnetic stimulation. This lasts for 30-40 minutes. The scientists decided to write a syllogism: All monkeys climb trees. All warthogs are monkeys. All warthogs climb trees. And they gave it to the subject who had his right hemisphere inactivated. When asked if this statement was true, he said yes. He insisted that the structure of the argument was sound. All monkeys climb trees? Check. All Warthogs are monkeys? check. All warthogs climb trees. Makes sense! The left hemisphere sees only the linear relationship between clause 1, and clause 2, and clause 2 and clause 3. But it doesn't connect all 3 together to arrive at a sound and reasonable conclusion. This approach is what we find when the left hemisphere is inactivated. The right hemisphere has more fibres than the left. Which means it excels even in some left-hemisphere functions. As said, when the left hemisphere is inactivated, the right brain reads the syllogism and snaps back FALSE! It recognizes the absurdity of the 2nd clause: all warthogs are not monkeys. Thus, the conclusion, all warthogs climb trees, is absurd nonsense. The right hemisphere is able to make distinctions and understand the distinctions with a coherent contextual whole.

I mention this because both sides of the hemispheres represent "us". I am not simply my conscious mind, but I am also my unconscious mind. What happens "there" oftentimes finds its source with what I pay attention to "here".

Free will for someone with high self awareness is a very real thing. But, unlike most people, I agree that "free will" is not something that simply "exists" by itself. If people are constantly reacting to events, and not wisely choosing their course, than they do not have the awareness that supports the practice of free will. It's unfortunate, but is true. This is precisely why knowledge is power. Even in our interpersonal relationships, we take for granted our own knowledge vis a vis someone were talking to. Do we listen and pay attention to what the other person is telling us? In their interests? Way of relating? Surely, after a relationship is formed, we should know that some people are more aware and self controlled than others. Specific pathologies formed at a point too early for verbal memory to remember oftentimes guide adult pathologies. Adults get angry, or feel this way towards that person in this context, oftentimes, because of what that memory "means" to the unconscious. My mother, for example, couldn't watch American Hustle because she said she didn't like the late 70s. Even this recognition acknowledges the relationship between the cue - the movie were watching, and the setting it takes place in - and the emotional response: "I feel depressed, anxious, a little sick". But self awareness entails a PRIORITIZING of attention. My mom may acknowledge the relationship, but she doesn't yet have the awareness to know that she has the ability to inhibit the emotional response.

When someone achieves a point where they can put a separation between the impulse to act - and the act itself - where they have room for a freely willed response - something our society terms "mindfulness" - then they can say they possess free will. Otherwise, free will is qualified by the degree of awareness one has. Each situation is different. When the awareness is little, and the contextual environment is strong, one has a very very constrained free will.

Astrocyte
Why is a question about free will in the science and technology section? It's a philosophical question!

Because it is the most debated subject within neuroscience right now, and this video is about peer reviewed lab experiments…not philosophy.

Sigh…If you want philosophical discussions on free-will, seek Dennet, not Libet…if you can not understand the difference between science and philosophy, I can't make the video any clearer.

HUGS!

MM

reply to post by Mr Mask


If there is NO free will. Then any desire that there is a free will is just as artificial as the consciousness itself i.e. It would be an illusion!

One does not simply accord any rights to an ILLUSION!

Any appeal to authority fails on that logical measure alone.

Mankind is a construct of the universe, therefor humanity and its actions exits naturally and any attempt to divorce them from that is just as artificial, hence punishment IS natural.

The appeal that we are 'Intelligent beings" falls on deaf ears, since IF we have no free will, Then intelligence itself is a subconscious act that we have no control over, Hence it is pointless to argue from that position.

If everything is predetermined then so is their punishment and the moral question simply evaporates into thin air because even if we wanted to avoid that we couldn't as the universe itself would carry it out somehow!

If that is factually false, than the system is inhumane.

Existence is capricious, malevolent and cruel!

Of course we have Free Will.

Example: I can put my shoes on and walk out my door and walk down the road for days, weeks, or months until my feet hurt. But, I have made an obligation for any bills I have. And I don't want my family to have to be responsible for that. I have people that count on me at work and with things I volunteer for. And I don't want anyone that cares about me to feel bad if I left, as I care about them, too.

I also belong to a society and have agreed, even in any small manner, to abide by the rules of that society.

But I could just walk away.

Free Will held back by promises and obligations that I myself have made (even if unspoken) is still Free Will.

reply to post by Mr Mask


God granted each of us free will and now we have decided to usurp the Lord
in lieu of wealthy individuals whom have taken away our right to choose!
Welcome to the nanny nation where we need to be told what's good for us,
Even if it isn't!

reply to post by Mr Mask


So of all that I wrote, that's the only thing you wanted to discuss?

reply to post by Mr Mask

If a killer has no choice but to kill, surely he/she must be contained, but to what degree should he/she be punished?

You act as if we have the free will to choose how we want to punish them.

Astrocyte
reply to post by Mr Mask

 

So of all that I wrote, that's the only thing you wanted to discuss?

If your first statement was so "out of the ballpark wrong" and "rude", do you think I wanted to read a novel more?

Seriously…you asked "why is a video about science in a science forum".

You expected me to explore your position on this further, after that? Sorry sir…Didn't happen.

MM

ChaoticOrder
reply to post by Mr Mask

 

If a killer has no choice but to kill, surely he/she must be contained, but to what degree should he/she be punished?

You act as if we have the free will to choose how we want to punish them.

I can see your confusion of my point there if you glance at the subject quickly.

But delve deeper. The reason we make choices and actions are based off environment, genes and subconscious brain activity.

Meaning, if your brain is presented with a new environment "you will make different choices". If the new environment presented, was one where new facts proved old systems to be broken (like our punishment systems), then we would logically reconstruct those systems.

Before man had language, we didn't have writing. Language was created and writing followed suit. No free will, just a new environment. New information=new choices.

MM

Perhaps
reply to post by Mr Mask

 

"Do we have Free Will"

I certainly had the free will to close out the video as soon as the ad came on.

... anything further is simply conjecture.

I didn't even open the clip, my "free will" kicked in when it's obvious someone in the video is trying to convince me that I do not have it. that might be called a paradox.

jimmyx

Perhaps
reply to post by Mr Mask

 

"Do we have Free Will"

I certainly had the free will to close out the video as soon as the ad came on.

... anything further is simply conjecture.

I didn't even open the clip, my "free will" kicked in when it's obvious someone in the video is trying to convince me that I do not have it. that might be called a paradox.

edit on 18-3-2014 by jimmyx because: (no reason given)

Hiding from peer-reviewed science won't make it go away.

But it's good to see you took the time to comment on something you didn't even watch.

Sigh…gotta love the logic of some folks.

Don't worry, the vid got about 30,000 views on Ebaumsworld and another 40,000 on Break.com, and 12,000 on my channel. I don't really think you not watching it is going to change much. Hugs bro!

MM

Brotherman
Hey bro came in to let you know I bumped ya on youtube and liked your work alot hope your channel continues to grow and you take on bigger and bigger projects, keep it up broski

AWWWWW BROTHERMAN!!! You are always so nice homie. Thanks for the love and for checking out my latest creation.

Its making its rounds on the internet and getting a lot of love (and of course some hate).

Sadly, there is a large number of folks who misunderstood the content and/or closed their ears and eyes in attempts to make it go away.

No worries. It reached those who enjoyed it anyways.

Hugs bro and again, thanks for the love.

MM

reply to post by Mr Mask


I think you're being a bit sanctimonious and a tad bit sensitive. But if what I wrote offended you so much, I apologize.

Is it possible now for you to respond? Or would you like to continue "punishing me" by ignoring what took me a bit of time to write?