dgary@ecsvax.UUCP (07/06/84)
Skinner and his ilk delight in ridiculing the notion of free will. It is,
in fact, very difficult to argue logically in favor of free will, but I think
I can argue in favor of BELIEVING in free will...
Either there is free will or there isn't. If there isn't it makes no
difference what you believe (and you have no choice anyway). If there is
free will, however, you are correct if you believe in it, wrong otherwise.
Not believing in free will might lead you to choose (by free will) a course
dependent on the notion that free will doesn't exist. Ever heard somebody
say, "I don't wear a seatbelt. I believe if it's your time to go, you go."
Personally, I sometimes hang around after 5.
D Gary Grady
Duke University Computation Center, Durham, NC 27706
(919) 684-4146
USENET: {decvax,ihnp4,akgua,etc.}!mcnc!ecsvax!dgarylaura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton) (07/08/84)
The best argument that I have heard as a proof of the existence of free will is the existence of the human brain. (or mind for you guys on the other side of the fence). Human beigs have much better hardware than other animals. The generally accepted explanation (Larry Bickford, if you are reading this I know that it isn't your explanation...) for the existence of this hardware is that it works real well at something called ``concept formation'' (another thing like ``justice'' which I can't show you). And ``concepts'' are what one uses to make decisions -- good decisions for the most part. So this is an evolutionary advantage. Now, suppose everything were determined. Since I don't really ``make decisions'' the quality of my hardware isn't all that significant. After all -- the cochroaches have been around a long time. Would anything as complicated as the human brain ever develop if there wasn't an advantage in the making of free decisions? After all, if I just deliberated for an hour over whether or not to eat that berry that might be poisonous, and actually my body chemistry determined that I was going to deliberate for an hour and then decide to eat the berry I seem to be at a disadvantage with respect to those that wouldn't do the thinking and would just eat it -- if only because while engrossed in thought something might come along and eat me! The counter claim is that what I call ``deliberating'' is just a very inefficient program that inevitably yields good results (over the long term -- individual uses of this program may not work well). It is just behaviour that I call ``deliberating'' and is just INEFFICIENT, not FREE. The problem with this is that there is a tremendously complicated feedback system (when I do something rotten I feel guilty) which is also more inefficinet than is necessary. Forget feeling guilty -- what about if we all like Mr. Spock didn't have any emotions at all but just didn't repeat things that these days we would feel ``guilty'' about. Why even is guilt a successful emotion? Why don't I feel ``fear'' or ``pain'' after a bad decision -- or nothing at all given that I am not responsible for it? The argument is far from watertight, of course. We only have one free willed thinker candidate right now - (unless the dolphins pan out) - and we really could use some more data! Personally, I think that both ``free will'' and ``mind'' are a result of the complexity of the brain -- higher level phenomenon than the squishy hardware, but only possible on complicated hardware of some sort. Laura Creighton utzoo!laura
rlr@pyuxn.UUCP (Rich Rosen) (07/09/84)
> Now, suppose everything were determined. Since I don't really ``make > decisions'' the quality of my hardware isn't all that significant. > After all -- the cochroaches have been around a long time. Would anything > as complicated as the human brain ever develop if there wasn't an > advantage in the making of free decisions? After all, if I just > deliberated for an hour over whether or not to eat that berry that might > be poisonous, and actually my body chemistry determined that I was > going to deliberate for an hour and then decide to eat the berry > I seem to be at a disadvantage with respect to those that wouldn't > do the thinking and would just eat it -- if only because while engrossed > in thought something might come along and eat me! The survival advantage is in making reasoned deliberated decisions, not in the (imagined?) making of "free" decisions. The notion that one can "will" an action seems to be solely a subjective notion. Pursuing the already offered example of eating when hungry. One might put forth the scenario: what about someone who "chooses" to eat when they're not hungry? Is this person making a "free will choice" to eat? Or is it just a manifestation of learned behavior that the person would like to "think" they are exercising "control" over (e.g., a learned behavior pattern that food offers personal gratification and self-satisfaction in the absence of human interaction and intimacy, thus the person "chooses" to eat (??) ). The "deliberating" is just as much a biochemical process as the behaviors found in (supposedly) less self-conscious "lower" animals. > Personally, I think that both > ``free will'' and ``mind'' are a result of the complexity of the > brain -- higher level phenomenon than the squishy hardware, but only > possible on complicated hardware of some sort. Why free will at all? Isn't it just a subjective perspective that one has about one's actions ("I *decided* to do that!! That wasn't the result of some chemical reactions! That was *me* *deciding* and *willing*!"). [Laura, have you just recently returned from a prolonged absence or were links to your neck of the woods (or to mine FROM yours) just recently (re-)established/restored?] -- WHAT IS YOUR NAME? Rich Rosen WHAT IS YOUR NET ADDRESS? pyuxn!rlr WHAT IS THE CAPITAL OF ASSYRIA? I don't know that ... ARGHHHHHHHH!
laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton) (07/11/84)
Rich, The short answer is ``I've been busy''. (The long answer is pretty long...). Do you agree that ``thinkking'' is a pretty wasteful if it is impossible to make decisions? If so, why has such a wasteful design prospered so much? Laura Creighton utzoo!laura
rlr@pyuxn.UUCP (Rich Rosen) (07/12/84)
> Do you agree that ``thinkking'' is a pretty wasteful if it is impossible > to make decisions? If so, why has such a wasteful design prospered so > much? > Laura Creighton Not wasteful at all. What gets called "thinking" would merely be the chemical processes "running" (as with a program) to eventually come up with some final result (hopefully---sometimes you get stuck or two or more answers are returned; then you use the same set of processes to decide again). -- AT THE TONE PLEASE LEAVE YOUR NAME AND NET ADDRESS. THANK YOU. Rich Rosen pyuxn!rlr
laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton) (07/12/84)
Rich, The B.F. Skinner version of ``conditioning'' eliminated the idea of free will. You can only do what you are conditioned to do. At that rate, when I think about some decision I am trying to make I am just going through some busy states before I go off and do what I was going to do anyway. Predestination is in -- though it is one's genes and one's environment which determine everything, not some God. Given this model, thinking is pretty inefficient. However, if I am not determined then thinking is a pretty useful thing! The question is -- am I totally determined into having the thoughts that I am having now by my genes and my environment...or is there a ``me'' there which could think about something different if I chose to? This question is independent of the question of what that ``me'' would be -- an effect of my needing language to talk about my thoughts, or some non-corporal soul, or the inevitable result of the complexity of my brain. Laura Creighton utzoo!laura
brianp@shark.UUCP (Brian Peterson) (07/16/84)
Does ANYthing matter if all the movements of our molecules are predetermined? Why shouldn't they bounce in such a way as to make brains? Maybe that is one particular favoured way for swirls of molecules to group. Maybe all this behaviour science, evolution, biology, etc. is just the study of the motions of molecules. (Throw a jillion perfectly elastic balls into a perfectly elastic room, no other forces, and do you get self awareness?) Brian Peterson tektronix!shark!brianp
rlr@pyuxn.UUCP (Rich Rosen) (07/18/84)
> = Brian Peterson tektronix!shark!brianp > Does ANYthing matter if all the movements of our molecules are predetermined? If you believe that it matters, i.e., if you are conditioned to believe that your input to the world has a potential positive effect on the world around you and if you are conditioned to wish to have such a positive effect on the world around you, then yes, it will matter. So much for life being "meaningless" in a predetermined or even a non-free-willed world. > Why shouldn't they bounce in such a way as to make brains? Maybe > that is one particular favoured way for swirls of molecules to group. > Maybe all this behaviour science, evolution, biology, etc. is just > the study of the motions of molecules. > (Throw a jillion perfectly elastic balls into a perfectly elastic > room, no other forces, and do you get self awareness?) Or, if not a "favoured" way, a way that just happened to happen here. (As opposed to the billions of other places where it didn't happen.) -- "Now, Benson, I'm going to have to turn you into a dog for a while." "Ohhhh, thank you, Master!!" Rich Rosen pyuxn!rlr
jim@ism780b.UUCP (07/25/84)
#R:ecsvax:-285700:ism780b:27500013:000:2794 ism780b!jim Jul 17 23:27:00 1984 > Given this model, thinking is pretty inefficient. However, if I am not > determined then thinking is a pretty useful thing! This is extremely philosophically naive. If it is determined, than it is determined, and issues like efficiency are irrelevant. The deterministic model says that it was determined that objects with big brains which involved extremely complex chemical processes which resulted in extremely complex and varied responses to complex and massive external influences would come into existence inexorably as the workings out of the constraining relationships among particles (or probability waves or whatever) governed by physical laws. From the evolutionary view, big brains were selected for species survival and all this contemplating the naval and ability to build atom bombs just came along as a side-effect, much like writing a programming language to solve a bunch of mathematical problems just happened to provide a tool to solve a lot of other problems as well. For a fuller understanding of this non-pan-selectionist (that is, not all traits are a direct result of natural selection) view, read Stephen Jay Gould. (Darwin himself was not a pan-selectionist, he was not a "social Darwinist", he did not believe in nor coin the phrase "survival of the fittest"; it is amazing how widely these Fascist (Conrad Lorentz, anyone?) beliefs are held. People apparently believe them because they *want* to.) > The question is -- am I totally determined into having the thoughts that > I am having now by my genes and my environment...or is there a ``me'' > there which could think about something different if I chose to? But what is the nature of this choosing? If there is only one future, there is only one future, and so all your behavior and thoughts are "pre-determined". My favorite model is the multiple-worlds view, which holds that for each quantum-decision point there is a reality split, and while many choices are possible from a given brain-state, "this" you is the one defined by its particular past. But this model isn't really any less deterministic than the single-path view. And none of this affects whether or not you have free will. The degree to which you have free will is the degree to which your future actions cannot be predicted, not the degree to which some mechanism to which you have no access will produce them. The real problem is that the notions of "free will" and "determinism" are so deeply rooted in semantics, that is language, that is a construct of the human mind, that is something governed by the laws of the universe be they deterministic or no, that it is impossible to separate them out and study them free-standing. They must be understood in light of the way we think about about them. -- Jim Balter (ima!jim)
jim@ism780b.UUCP (07/27/84)
#R:ecsvax:-285700:ism780b:27500020:000:1212 ism780b!jim Jul 19 00:46:00 1984 > Does ANYthing matter if all the movements of our molecules are predetermined? The mattering of things is an emotional state. You can train yourself to let nothing matter, but that is independent of the level of determinism, aside from the fact that you can use your belief in determinism as an excuse to not let anything matter. But you and your mattering are *inside* of the system. Choosing to become despondent because nothing matters is still choosing. > Why shouldn't they bounce in such a way as to make brains? Maybe > that is one particular favoured way for swirls of molecules to group. > Maybe all this behaviour science, evolution, biology, etc. is just > the study of the motions of molecules. Well, of course the brain is "just" a bunch of molecules which are "just" a bunch of atoms which are "just" a bunch of probability waves. But it is still a brain. Just like a program is just a bunch of statements, which are just a bunch of tokens, which are just a bunch of characters. The problem is that you are trying to figure out what it *really* is, when in fact all these things are *concepts* which have their own existence, and are what we *really* deal with. -- Jim Balter (ima!jim)