Free will is an illusion, biologist says

Your environnment, the "input" factors can be changed. Changing your input changes the series of actions that happend after that point.

Human can obviously change their input parameters, squewing his entire model. Those changes may be unconscious, or they may derive out of changing knowledge.

Seeking out knowledge is an act of will.

The intrinsic component missing in his model is it doesn't explain our results being different than every other animal.

Knowledge, and seeking knowledge is a survival trait that encourages free will choices in order to optimize potential adaptation FOR THE SPECIES.

Freewill is an adaptive surival behaviour which is a predicated on new knowledge and the abililty to use it.

Only if you take freewill out of the survival equation does it seem at odds.

Originally posted by RestingInPieces
You have infinite choices.......... you can choose any one you want. That is free will.

If I had free will, I could will a dinosaur into existence.

If you find yourself buck naked falling to your death off the side of a cliff, you may very well think you have free will, but the choices you make on the way down will hardly matter: the outcome will be the same

I guess you still don't understand...

Do you know what "will" is? Seriously...

It has nothing to do with magically making things appear, or magically making things happen.

You are free to make any choice you want, IN YOUR MIND. What happens on the external world doesn't matter. The outcome doesn't matter... it doesn't effect your free will.

Just because the outcome is different than your will, doesn't mean you don't have free will.


[edit on 9-3-2010 by ALLis0NE]

reply to post by predator0187

I was in a class on psychology years ago. I listened quietly while the professor preached behaviorism to us...it was supposed to be an overview of psychology but he was a true believer...anyway. After he was done expounding on the psychological switches and triggers that made up our psyche I raised my hand and asked him if he really believed that he was that and nothing more.

I was asked to leave the class.

My understanding of "free will" is the idea that the conscious mind (cause) has the choice of only either two effects one being;-
The illusory matrix of the ego, which is time, space, form, doubt, fear, hate, anger and war or the other which is the reality of light, love, knowledge, eternal, infinite, certainty, joy, happiness and finally peace of mind.
We are here in this world to remember the later, because after all love is... what we forgot what life was really about.

[edit on 8-3-2010 by Epsillion70]

Free will is an illusion.

The second Matrix movie, Matrix Reloaded, was highly underrated in that it had some insightful commentary on the illusion of free will and the illusion of control.

Merovingian: There is only one constant, one universal, it is the only real truth: causality. Action. Reaction. Cause and effect.

Morpheus: Everything begins with choice.

Merovingian: No. Wrong. Choice is an illusion, created between those with power and those without. Look there, at that woman. My God, just look at her. Affecting everyone around her; so obvious, so bourgeois, so boring. But wait. Watch, you see, I have sent her a dessert...a very special dessert. I wrote it myself. It starts so simply; each line of the program creating a new fate, just like...poetry. First, a rush. Heat. Her heart flutters. You can see it, Neo, yes? She does not understand, why? Is it the wine? No...what is it, then, what is the reason? But soon it does not matter. Soon the why and the reason are gone, and all that matters is the feeling itself. And this is the nature of the universe; we struggle against it, we fight to deny it, but it is of course pretend, it is a lie. Beneath our poised appearance, the truth is we are completely out of control. [inhales] Causality. There is no escaping it. We are forever slaves to it. Our only hope, our only peace is to understand it, to understand the why. Why is what separates us from them, you from me. Why is the only real source of power, without it you are powerless.

The why is genetic and environmental programming.

A clear observation of free will:
A person with access to a large amount of food decides to commit suicide by starvation.

The choice a person makes in such a situation is not free at all. They are not free to decide to eat or not eat. That decision has already been made by their complex genetic and environmental programming routines.

If one had access to those routines one could predict with absolute certainty the choice that person would make (assuming quantum randomness wouldn't affect the result).

reply to post by ghostsoldier


If you had lived his life in his body then you would be killing yourself to just like him.... therefore doesnt this mean that freewill does NOT exist.... and that it was a combination of nature and nurture that created the product?

It is a religious belief... and an ignorant one at that.

Originally posted by predator0187

I have to ask just because 'god' gives us free will. If he gives us free will and free will is an illusion is he then, too?

Did god really give man free will, or was it an ultimatum?

Man is told that he has a choice and is advised to "choose correctly".

I'd hardly call that free will.

Quite the bag of worms you've opened up here pred .

I have to disagree however. This seems awfully newtonian to me. In the quantum world where things are measured with probabilities each with it's own chance of occuring free will has its place.

According to Indeterminacy

indeterminacy is of a much more fundamental nature, having nothing to do with errors or disturbance.

en.wikipedia.org...

Probability is everything. Every state has multiple possible outcomes some of which can occur without a measurable causal link.

However the theory of determinacy (which isn't the end all theory the greeks thought it was) eliminates free will altogether. Without the aid of the supposed "hidden variable" (convienient that their hidden huh!?) determinacy falls apart in the face of quantum theory.

en.wikipedia.org...

according to Hume free will should not be understood as an absolute ability to have chosen differently under exactly the same inner and outer circumstances. Rather, it is a hypothetical ability to have chosen differently if one had been differently psychologically disposed by some different beliefs or desires. That is, when one says that one could either continue to read this page or to delete it, one doesn't really mean that both choices are compatible with the complete state of the world right now, but rather that if one had desired to delete it one would have, even though as a matter of fact one actually desires to continue reading it, and therefore that is what will actually happen.

Philisophicaly speaking I would say the question is moot. Even if it could be answered would you really want it to be? I mean how horrifying would it be to know that your crummy life path no matter what you do may stay crummy.

It is in my opinion and personal beliefs that its a philisophical nightmare that just leaves a horrible taste in my mouth. God or no god is beside the point in my opinion though (not the board for that discussion ).

Intersting either way S & F for you Pred

[edit on 9-3-2010 by constantwonder]

reply to post by OnceReturned
Before I reply to your last post, let me respond in more detail to the previous one.

It seems to me that you are arguing from a dualist position: claiming that consciousness is a nonphysical entity, that one must possess it before one is able to talk about it, and therefore it is in some sense the cause of this conversation, which is in some sense physical. Is this correct? If not, would you please clarify your position?

As it happens, I am not a strict epiphenomenalist; I believe that consciousness is an evolved property associated with, or having, a specific function; that of processing data that are too complex, surprising or otherwise awkward to be dealt with by the automatic (unconscious) subroutines of which most brain function consists. Consciousness seems to be intimately bound up with thinking; it could be the precursor, the mechanism or the byproduct of thought. Certainly, it is always absent when thought or attention are absent. As to which of these three it is, I cannot say; you may call me epiphenomenally agnostic.

I do believe consciousness originates in the brain and is very much a physical phenomenon. I am emphatically not a dualist.

I don't agree that the arguments you have advanced actually trounce epiphenomenalism. As I imply above, the experience of thought may well be backwash from the actual data-processing, or mentation if you prefer, that is going on. If consciousness is a physical phenomenon--even if it is an epiphenomenon--why should it not be as equally subject to contemplation and mentation as are other physical phenomena? There is a difference between an epiphenomenal, ie physically impotent, state of mind and the physical act of mental processing. It seems to me that you are confusing the two. If consciousness is the epiphenomenal backwash of processing, then what we are discussing is the perceived effect of the processing. I don't see that such a connexion is necessarily banned; perhaps you can explain how it must be.

Meanwhile, on to your second post.

In all cases - dinner, consciousness, unicorns, ect. - it is not the thing itself which has a causal influence on our brain, it is the concept of the thing.

In saying this, you assume what you set out to establish. It is not a given--indeed, it is far from true--that concepts influence brains. Concepts are produced by brains. It is sensory and other physiological inputs that influence brains, which sometimes (by no means always) give rise to concepts as a result of them.

Unicorns don't exist but the concept of unicorns exists, and this concept corresponds to some brain state.

True, but that doesn't mean that the concept 'unicorn' gives rise to the brain state 'unicorn'. This would imply some Platonic ideal unicorn that existed in an immaterial world of forms, which is somewhat far-fetched to say the least. Your average punter gains the concept 'unicorn' from sensory inputs: words on paper, a picture in a book, an image on a screen. Once upon a time someone's brain came up with the concept 'unicorn' from scratch, but I'm sure I don't have to insult your intelligence and that of others on this thread by explaining in physicalist terms how that probably happened.

Consciousness is different from dinner and unicorns. Consciousness has the peculiar quality that it can only have meaning to you if you have it.

No, they are all the same. Unicorns don't have meaning unless you have a mental reference for them. The same goes for dinner. Thinking, crudely put, is brain activity represented in consciousness by the shuffling of mental images--not the manipulation of material objects in the external world. That's action, not thought.

It is impossible to capture consciousness in any informational language, and to use that informational representation meaningfully to any non-conscious information processing entity. We can say, "what is it like to see the blue sky?"

Interesting you should use this analogy. How about asking 'what is blue like'? Can you capture the experience of blue in any language? How do you know that the colour I see when I see blue isn't the colour you see when you see red?

You could talk about the electrochemical consequences of impingent light of a certain range of frequencies on the human retina, or some such, but it would be no more meaningful than a similarly mechanistic description of consciousness. Consciousness is not unique in this; indeed, consciousness is the sum of all such experiential inputs. We can't think about anything unless we relate it to personal, conscious experience.

Dinner is not like this. I can express in a language all of the properties of dinner. You can therefore have the concept of dinner meaningfully conveyed to you, even if you have never had dinner.

Do you really think so? Could you do that even if I had never in my life seen or heard about dinner? Could you meaningfully convey the concept 'ocean' to men who had never seen one? Henry Hudson tried it with gauchos; he didn't get very far.

What is special about consciousness is that it's existance and influence is proven by the fact that we are talking about it.

No again. The same is true of everything. Remember, there is no way to prove that the entire world is not a self-created illusion. In this respect, as in the others discussed above, there is nothing special about consciousness.

Only conscious things can have a meaningful concept of consciousness.

How do you know this?

As far as we know, only conscious things can have a meaningful concept of anything. But we may be wrong; we have no way of telling.

The fact that we are able to refer to this concept in a meaningful way means that we are conscious. The fact that our concept of consciousness is manifest somewhere in our brains, means that consciousness somehow interacted with our neurobiological representational system.

The fact that we are able to refer to any concept in a meaningful way means that we are conscious. This is not disputed. The fact that our concept of consciousness is manifest somewhere in our brains means only that it is a product of the brain--whether epiphenomenal or not, I neither know nor, frankly, care. The point, as far as I am concerned, is that consciousness has a physical origin, and its existence does not imply free will.

Free will is found nowhere in the bible. Many verses point towards a partial will that is under Gods absolute control.

reply to post by constantwonder

The theory of determinacy eliminates free will altogether. Without the aid of the supposed "hidden variable" (convienient that their hidden huh!?) determinacy falls apart in the face of quantum theory.

Curious that you should see indeterminacy as a prop for the concept of free will. Surely indeterminacy should be, if anything, an obstacle to the exercise of will?

Besides, I don't think quantum theory eliminates determinism at a macroscopic level. There is certainly no evidence, nor any mathematical grounds for claiming that it does.

Probability is everything. Every state has multiple possible outcomes some of which can occur without a measurable causal link.

But do those acausal outcomes ever, in fact, occur? How could we even know if they did?

I'm not accusing you of naivety, constantwonder (I know you too well for that), but there are people on ATS who propose that the observer effect proves the existence of free will--and not just free will but that gibbering revenant 'mind over matter'. They are, of course, quite wrong; the observer of a quantum event (even a conscious observer) can no more determine the exact outcome of that event than he could jump over the moon with a pogo-stick. The day someone says 'the scattered photon is going to impact here with energy E' is the day quantum mechanics proves the existence of free will--and disproves itself as a theory, for as you are well aware, the Uncertainty Principle states that day will never come. Quantum mechanics, to me, demonstrates that free will, even if by some miracle it does exist, is contingent and pretty well impotent.

I mean, how horrifying would it be to know that your crummy life path no matter what you do may stay crummy.

Nothing to worry about there. The existence or absence of free will has absolutely nothing to do with it, one way or another.

reply to post by SmokeandShadow

The Bible? Are we discussing theology now?

This is the Science and Technology forum. The subject under discussion in philosophical in nature but closely related to neuroscience. What the Bible says is of absolutely no relevance.

what I can say is that I can change my mind ... if that is free will or not I dont know

another thing, free will in a society type matter is different than opinion free will, since we all know we are slaves and we need to work to be able to survive ... you just cant do anything you want

reply to post by predator0187


To even discuss about 'neural activity', one needs to understand how neurons work. They are electrical excitable cells. The keyword is electrical excitable. The biologist Cashmore may had missed out the most critical point of his thesis.

In order for a machine to work, it needs energy - or more common in today's knowledge which would be electricity. And such energy source comes from somewhere else - perhaps batteries, turbines, etc.

Where do neurons get its electricity/power source from? The neuron cell is composed of chemicals, which carry charged ions as signals accross the cell membranes, generated by environmental stimuli.

To cut entire years of neuroscience study short and simplified it, the environment causes the chemicals with ion charge particles within the neuron to generate electricity to other parts of the specific neuron cells that governs our sight, hearing, taste, touch, smell - our reality.

The keyword here is ENVIRONMENT. And environment is the sum of our education and experiences in reality - memories/conciousness to know good and bad, and then make that choice. That choice is free will.

Example:- we are taught that fire will burn our skin. That's education. We can disregard education. And then put our finger to a lighted flame. It burns and pain happens. That's experience. The next time in the presence of another lighted flame, we have a choice - to get burn or to avoid the flame.

That choice is more commonly term as 'Free will'. Free will does exists.

( As for 'environmental stimuli' or even external direct influence to 'electrical excitable' neurons, we learnt from Tesla that electricity can be sent over the airwaves. And digitised information packaged as radio frequency waves too can be similarly sent, as in the form of our cellphone tech.

That is a whole new study into neuroscience that we have yet to even begin researching, even though telepathy is known to exist long before even science exist!)

Just my humble insignificant contribution, and could be either right or wrong, and only as a subject of discussion.


[edit on 9-3-2010 by SeekerofTruth101]

Originally posted by SeekerofTruth101Example:- we are taught that fire will burn our skin. That's education. We can disregard education. And then put our finger to a lighted flame. It burns and pain happens. That's experience. The next time in the presence of another lighted flame, we have a choice - to get burn or to avoid the flame.

That choice is more commonly term as 'Free will'. Free will does exists.

No. You said it yourself: brain activity is electrochemical reactions. These are deterministic. When you experience the fire and have the opportunity to apply your finger to the flame once again, your brain will access data and run computations based on the current situation and memories involving fire. This will determine whether or not you "choose" to burn yourself again.

reply to post by Astyanax

The point, as far as I am concerned, is that consciousness has a physical origin, and its existence does not imply free will.

I agree that there is certainly no sensible case to be made for free will, and that consciousness is not a source of free will. My original point was in response to the article in the OP, the thrust of which is that there is no free will because consciousness is epiphenomenal. This is what I disagree with, I don't think that consciousness is epiphenomenal. Despite this, I am not proposing that its existence implies free will.

I do believe that consciousness has a physical origin, and that mental states cannot be separated from brain states. However, I don't believe that a physicalist/materialist understanding of the brain is complete, because of certain peculiar aspects of consciousness that go unaccounted for in such an understanding.

I'm going to respond to your post in detail, but not right now.

Are you familiar with the Mary experiment? A brief version of it:

Mary is a brilliant scientist who is, for whatever reason, forced to investigate the world from a black and white room via a black and white television monitor. She specializes in the neurophysiology of vision and acquires, let us suppose, all the physical information there is to obtain about what goes on when we see ripe tomatoes, or the sky, and use terms like ‘red’, ‘blue’, and so on. She discovers, for example, just which wavelength combinations from the sky stimulate the retina, and exactly how this produces via the central nervous system the contraction of the vocal cords and expulsion of air from the lungs that results in the uttering of the sentence ‘The sky is blue’. [...] What will happen when Mary is released from her black and white room or is given a color television monitor? Will she learn anything or not?

The central idea/question in this thought experiment will be relevant to my response. She has never seen color, she is in possession of all of the information included in a physicalist/materialist description of seeing red, yet when she actually sees red for the fist time something happens. What happens?

Originally posted by Golden Boy

No. You said it yourself: brain activity is electrochemical reactions. These are deterministic. When you experience the fire and have the opportunity to apply your finger to the flame once again, your brain will access data and run computations based on the current situation and memories involving fire. This will determine whether or not you "choose" to burn yourself again.

You said it yourself too. " YOU CHOOSE". It's a choice. Even should we dispense with semantics, the actions/reality reflects an action, an action that you can 'either go for it OR NOT" - no one else in your environment pointed a gun in your head and said go for it. No one pushed you into it. You stand before the flame, and based on your education and experiences, you, on the fullest freedom to decide, made a choice.

I would say a sensible one if chosed not to burn the fingers though! Cheers!:-)


[edit on 9-3-2010 by SeekerofTruth101]

Originally posted by SeekerofTruth101

Originally posted by Golden Boy

No. You said it yourself: brain activity is electrochemical reactions. These are deterministic. When you experience the fire and have the opportunity to apply your finger to the flame once again, your brain will access data and run computations based on the current situation and memories involving fire. This will determine whether or not you "choose" to burn yourself again.

You said it yourself too. " YOU CHOOSE". It's a choice.

Note the quotes. You "choose" to take that course of action. However, this "choosing" is, in reality, the only outcome that was possible, as the reactions are deterministic.

reply to post by Golden Boy


Er...if you say so.

Cheers anyway! Take care. (and that's hopefully, something you will 'choose'...hehe!:-P)

reply to post by SeekerofTruth101


You, too. *waves*