Current state of the debate between free will and determinism in philosophy and neuroscience

[iNow]

6 hours ago, martillo said:

One thing is the existence of the possibility to make choices, that's the "will". Other thing is what caused our decision in a particular situation considering all the conditions present and the result of our thinking at the time. Different things.

How so? Will you please provide an example? You seem to be suggesting some supernatural capability beyond our neurobiology.

[martillo]

1 hour ago, iNow said:

How so? Will you please provide an example? You seem to be suggesting some supernatural capability beyond our neurobiology.

Not supernatural at all. I'm just considering the ability of everybody to think before making a choice or decision.

As an example I would mention that is on my free will that I decide to discuss here what we are discussing. Nothing force me to do that. I am free to do many other things, may be more productive ones indeed but not, I'm freely preferring to discuss this subject.

 

2 hours ago, studiot said:

What plain rubbish.

May be you are not understanding something.

I have made a search for the meaning of "will". Actually there's a discrepancy on the meaning between "desire/intention" and "the faculty of choice/decision". Seems when the term is used alone, just "will", it is preferentially associated with "desire/intention" and when associated with free, the "free will", is associated to "choice/decision".

In our discussion here I was associating first, "restricted will" and now (as a consequence of @iNow disagreement with the qualifier "restricted") simply just "will" with "the faculty of choice/decision" as in the text of the article I mentioned. I am considering "free will" as associated in dictionaries to the faculty to "take a choice/decision independent of any condition" (my phrasing).

If you understand this I will continue answering your comments on your post. If not, I can't continue.

I hope everybody else can also understand that. If not please comment what is wrong and how I should proceed using the term "will" or "restricted will" or "free will" if it would be the case.

 

IN SUMMARY:

At the inverse: what we are really discussing here is the real possibility of making choices/decisions we can have in the real world sometimes. Please, how we should call that? We all must agree in that, if not impossible to have a discussion...

Edited October 30, 2023 by martillo

[iNow]

5 hours ago, martillo said:

I would mention that is on my free will that I decide to discuss here what we are discussing. Nothing force me to do that. I am free to do many other things, may be more productive ones indeed but not, I'm freely preferring to discuss this subject.

You assert this, seemingly without having any knowledge about the way your mind functions and how chemo-electricity is making those decisions before you even “think” them.

You seem to have convinced yourself that the post-dictive narrative the language centers in your brain created AFTER the decision event occurred was the event itself.

It's not. It’s just a story you tell yourself. 

5 hours ago, martillo said:

how we should call that?

Experience, not will. Whether free or something else, it’s just the outcome of chemistry. 

[martillo]

2 hours ago, iNow said:

You assert this, seemingly without having any knowledge about the way your mind functions and how chemo-electricity is making those decisions before you even “think” them.

You seem to have convinced yourself that the post-dictive narrative the language centers in your brain created AFTER the decision event occurred was the event itself.

It's not. It’s just a story you tell yourself. 

I know neuronal cells can interchange information through electric impulses and chemical neuro-transmitters.

Seems you are not considering that if the subject we are considering runs at a small enough velocity the brain have time to transform some quantity of "chemo-electric" information it receives to language, rationalize on it and finally take a choice/decision on some possible action we could perform in consequence. 

For instance in the given example of discussing here in the forum: at some moment I saw your post but took my time to read it, understand it, rationalize about, google something, drink some soda, elaborate an answer and finally write this answer to you.

I don't know exactly how the brain is capable to do all that. May be is all "chemo-electrical", I don't know. As I said some time ago the process of thinking is still a mystery for me. But I know I made some purely rational choices/decisions in that process BEFORE the final decision to post it. 

In summary quite now I was able to make choices/decisions.

2 hours ago, iNow said:

Experience, not will. Whether free or something else, it’s just the outcome of chemistry. 

Not fine for me. As for now I will try to not mention "will" but just "choices" and "decisions".

Edited October 31, 2023 by martillo

[Eise]

16 hours ago, martillo said:

I have found something about that could help in defining things (https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/thematic/will-the/v-1) :

As traditionally conceived, the will is the faculty of choice or decision, by which we determine which actions we shall perform. As a faculty of decision, the will is naturally seen as the point at which we exercise our freedom of action – our control of how we act. It is within our control or up to us which actions we perform only because we have a capacity to decide which actions we shall perform, and it is up to us which such decisions we take. We exercise our freedom of action through freely taken decisions about how we shall act.

  Made it bold for you...

12 hours ago, martillo said:

As an example I would mention that is on my free will that I decide to discuss here what we are discussing. Nothing force me to do that. I am free to do many other things, may be more productive ones indeed but not, I'm freely preferring to discuss this subject.

So free will exists?? Is your decision determined or not?

13 hours ago, martillo said:

what we are really discussing here is the real possibility of making choices/decisions we can have in the real world sometimes. Please, how we should call that?

I would say we call that 'making choices/decisions'... See, the question is not if we make choices and/or decisions. We do. There are two questions when discussing free will:

• are choices and decisions determined?
• can we act according our choices and decisions?

I answer both questions with 'yes'. And it is in the second question that the possibility of free will exists. We simply cannot always act according our choices and decisions, I can be forced to do something I not really want, then we are not free.

6 hours ago, martillo said:

I don't know exactly how the brain is capable to do all that. May be is all "chemo-electrical", I don't know.

So you do not think that there is a naturalistic explanation? 

I think we all (iNow, Studiot, me) see that you don't have a clear viewpoint. It is no use to try to find 'correct' words to hide that fact.

[martillo]

Your questions are not precisely asked. You must precisely define first "free will" and when you talk about determination you must specify by what thing(s) you are considering. Then I must answer your questions in the following way:

1 hour ago, Eise said:

So free will exists?

What exist is is the possibilities to make choices/decisions sometimes according to the conditions of the situation.

1 hour ago, Eise said:

Is your decision determined or not?

They are determined by the past, the conditions and our thinking.

1 hour ago, Eise said:

are choices and decisions determined?

They are determined by the past, the conditions and our thinking.

1 hour ago, Eise said:

can we act according our choices and decisions?

Sometimes we can. Depends if the conditions of the situation allow that.

1 hour ago, Eise said:

I answer both questions with 'yes'. And it is in the second question that the possibility of free will exists.

No, is in both. If you don't have the possibility to make choices/decisions then "will", "free will" or whatever you call it does not exist. Of course if you can't act according to your choices/decisions it also not exist.

1 hour ago, Eise said:

So you do not think that there is a naturalistic explanation? 

May be there is, I don't know I admit. I don't know how the brain processes language and rationalize about the things. Do you know? Can you explain that for me?

 

1 hour ago, Eise said:

I think we all (iNow, Studiot, me) see that you don't have a clear viewpoint. It is no use to try to find 'correct' words to hide that fact.

I have a clear viewpoint. I'm well answering your questions. Is just that I don't agree with your viewpoint with well founded arguments and you don't like that.

Edited October 31, 2023 by martillo

[studiot]

58 minutes ago, martillo said:

I have a clear viewpoint

 

This is what I understand you viewpoint to be.  Please confirm or correct this.

'The free will only exists if there is a choice'

 

Consequently if no choice exists then free will cannot exist.

[MJ kihara]

15 hours ago, martillo said:

Nothing force me to do that. I am free to do many other things, may be more productive ones indeed but not, I'm freely preferring to discuss this subject

Are you sure its not the urge of your brain to exchange and process information that leads you to discuss?

 

1 hour ago, martillo said:

If you don't have the possibility to make choices/decisions then "will", "free will" or whatever you call it does not exist.

You make 'will' appear as if it's some immaterial matter that can be accessed remotely,so that you can have it or not,is that the case?

[iNow]

8 hours ago, martillo said:

Seems you are not considering that if the subject we are considering runs at a small enough velocity the brain have time to transform some quantity of "chemo-electric" information it receives to language, rationalize on it and finally take a choice/decision on some possible action

More precisely, the "language," the "rationalization," and the "choice/decision" are all also chemo-electrically done and it happens in areas of the brain which come BEFORE conscious awareness / BEFORE the areas normally considered "self" in our own minds eye. 

8 hours ago, martillo said:

As I said some time ago the process of thinking is still a mystery for me

I understand, which is why I keep reminding you of the importance of not making too many uninformed assertions about it.

8 hours ago, martillo said:

I know I made some purely rational choices/decisions in that process BEFORE the final decision to post it. 

This is another example of a post-dictive narrative that you are telling yourself, but it does not accurately map on to the way it actually occurred in your wet meat computer (aka: brain and nervous system). 

[dimreepr]

On 10/30/2023 at 12:53 PM, martillo said:

No, you can choice to be a compatibilist if you want. I'm just pointing out that "will" and "determinism" are mutually exclusive by the definition of them. Is up to you how to deal with this. @Eise and @iNow are talking about redefining "will". I don't think that would be possible. If you can't make choices is not a "will", is something else.

On 10/30/2023 at 8:29 AM, Eise said:

My definition is direct and simple: if you can act according your beliefs and wishes, you have free will. 

That's not free will. That's freedom to act. No opposition to do something. It is not about making a choice which is the definition of "will".

I think freedom to act is far more free when the choices are restricted; for instance, if I can do 'anything' I could spend a lifetime deciding where to start, my will will be fighting itself.

I'm not sure what philosophical label to use; I'd certainly be determined to start at the right place... 😉

[iNow]

16 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

I think freedom to act is far more free when the choices are restricted

It's not necessarily more "free," but we do tend to feel better about our choice when it was made from a limited set of options. We're also less likely to be overcome by a "paralysis through analysis" when fewer options are presented. Relative value is the core point here. 

We seem to perform a relative value comparison across the options available before us, and when there are too many options we often feel regret that the one we selected may not have been the best fit... that we perhaps failed to maximize our return. We seem to fear that a different option may have had a higher marginal benefit / return to us, and the probability that we didn't maximize the benefit of our selection is higher when the set of options is higher.

If you buy a hot dog at the baseball game, and the concession stand has 16 toppings (ketchup, BBQ sauce, relish, onions, chili, yellow mustard, dijon mustard, spicy mustard, horseradish mustard, stone ground mustard, etc.), you tend to enjoy your selection less for fear that a different combo may have been better. If we instead got a stand with only 3 toppings (ketchup, yellow mustard, and relish), then we feel far better about the selection since it's so much more obvious it was the best one available to us).

The idea here is that with a smaller set of options, the selection we make is MORE likely to be better than the other available peers in the group, thus we generally feel better about it and more confident it was the correct one (we paradoxically doubt ourselves much less and feel remorse far less often in these circumstance of fewer choices, even though one would intuitively think more options are better). 

Not really related to free will though, IMO. The decision still occurs before we even realize it was a decision. 

Edited October 31, 2023 by iNow

[dimreepr]

5 minutes ago, iNow said:

Not really related to free will though, IMO. The decision still occurs before we even realize it was a decision. 

Maybe not, but I'd like to think I'm more conscious than an anthill.

[martillo]

2 hours ago, studiot said:

This is what I understand you viewpoint to be.  Please confirm or correct this.

'The free will only exists if there is a choice'

I must say: "The free will only exists if there is a free choice"

2 hours ago, studiot said:

Consequently if no choice exists then free will cannot exist.

Right.

 

1 hour ago, MJ kihara said:

Are you sure its not the urge of your brain to exchange and process information that leads you to discuss?

Totally sure.

1 hour ago, MJ kihara said:

You make 'will' appear as if it's some immaterial matter that can be accessed remotely,so that you can have it or not,is that the case?

Not at all.

 

 

[studiot]

What is a free choice?

11 minutes ago, martillo said:

I must say: "The free will only exists if there is a free choice"

 

11 minutes ago, martillo said:

2 hours ago, studiot said:

Consequently if no choice exists then free will cannot exist.

Right.

So in the 2023 Wimbledon Men's Singles final Alcaraz beat Djokovic in a long match that was hard fought right to the end.

Either competitor could have won right up to the last ball.

So I am to conclude from this that you think Djokovic did not want to win ?

[dimreepr]

7 minutes ago, studiot said:

What is a free choice?

The current state of the debate...

[martillo]

Just now, studiot said:

What is a free choice?

 

A free choice would be a choice without any conditions present. That is to match with the dictionaries definition of "free will" something like "the possibility to make choices or decisions without any conditions present". Then I can conclude that actually a "free will" does not exist in reality because always some conditions are present. The possibility to make choices and decisions sometimes does exist but always under certain conditions present. 

[iNow]

1 minute ago, martillo said:

A free choice would be a choice without any conditions present.

No such condition is possible in our universe. Conditions are always present. 

2 minutes ago, martillo said:

always some conditions are present.

Exactly, hence the previous comment is moot. 

[martillo]

Just now, iNow said:

No such condition is possible in our universe. Conditions are always present. 

I agree...

[iNow]

2 minutes ago, martillo said:

The possibility to make choices and decisions sometimes does exist but always under certain conditions present. 

What does it mean to "make a choice?" Are you not always acting on the conditions present in your neurobiology, based on the chemical inputs and signals which arrive prior to any conscious awareness or involvement from the parts of the brain commonly referred to as "self?"

[martillo]

34 minutes ago, iNow said:

What does it mean to "make a choice?" Are you not always acting on the conditions present in your neurobiology, based on the chemical inputs and signals which arrive prior to any conscious awareness or involvement from the parts of the brain commonly referred to as "self?"

2 hours ago, iNow said:

More precisely, the "language," the "rationalization," and the "choice/decision" are all also chemo-electrically done and it happens in areas of the brain which come BEFORE conscious awareness / BEFORE the areas normally considered "self" in our own minds eye. 

2 hours ago, iNow said:

This is another example of a post-dictive narrative that you are telling yourself, but it does not accurately map on to the way it actually occurred in your wet meat computer (aka: brain and nervous system). 

Seems you are right in that all happens "chemo-electrically" in a "wet meat computer (aka: brain and nervous system)" but I don't think all I perceive is actually a "post-dictive narrative". There could be a time delay between the real activities of the brain and my perception of them but not in a way that I'm not conscious about what is happening. I'm not just as spectator of what is happening.

I find important here now my first post:

On 10/14/2023 at 10:07 PM, martillo said:

I stay with the quote of Steve Hawking: "I have noticed that even those who assert that everything is predestined and that we can change nothing about it still look in both ways before they cross the road."

But we don't have total free will, our decisions are always conditioned by some things, environmental or personal ones, physical or psychological. We should talk about a conditioned free will. So it is something in the middle between total free will and determinism.

 

 

Edited October 31, 2023 by martillo

[TheVat]

13 hours ago, iNow said:

You assert this, seemingly without having any knowledge about the way your mind functions and how chemo-electricity is making those decisions before you even “think” them.

You seem to have convinced yourself that the post-dictive narrative the language centers in your brain created AFTER the decision event occurred was the event itself.

It's not. It’s just a story you tell yourself. 

While I agree the Libet experiments support this pre-decision process, I don't think it entirely rules out downward causation (as philosophy of mind terms it).  One could, after all, consciously work out how some future decisions will be handled, well before the events where the pre-conscious decision is made.  So one could, hypothetically, preset a future decision by means of a downward causation act in the past.  This might happen (not saying it does) if the brain, operating at a holistic level, can choose between some kind of quantum superposition.  It's the weirdness that Penrose and Hamerof write about.  

If I am choosing in the coming week  I will lean towards mushroom over pepperoni.  

[iNow]

2 hours ago, martillo said:

I'm not just as spectator of what is happening.

How can you be so certain?

 

2 hours ago, TheVat said:

One could, after all, consciously work out how some future decisions will be handled, well before the events where the pre-conscious decision is made.

But those cogitations seem to be pre-conscious, too. In short, you appear to be asserting a distinction without a difference. 

Edited October 31, 2023 by iNow

[martillo]

55 minutes ago, iNow said:

3 hours ago, martillo said:

I'm not just as spectator of what is happening.

How can you be so certain?

I can't believe I would have to demonstrate that to you. Do you consider yourself as just an spectator of your own life? Don't you feel you intervene in your reality? Now you will tell me that is just a "post-dictive" illusion, isn't it? Sorry, I can't follow the discussion in this path of thoughts.

[TheVat]

I am also not seeing many decisions as the sort of split-second kind, as studied by Benjamin Libet et al.  Many involve a back and forth dialectic between conscious and unconscious cognition that goes on longer and is unlike, say, suddenly turning a steering wheel or  politely returning a wave.

And as I said earlier a brain that can produce quantum superpositions of states could potentially exert downward causation and have realtime conscious processes.  

 

[iNow]

55 minutes ago, martillo said:

Do you consider yourself as just a spectator of your own life?

Depends on which narrative arrives that day, but it’s always just a narrative. 

55 minutes ago, martillo said:

Now you will tell me that is just a "post-dictive" illusion, isn't it?

Exactly

5 hours ago, martillo said:

I'm not just as spectator of what is happening.

Once more:

2 hours ago, iNow said:

How can you be so certain?