Consciousness is space for new possibilities, which is the difference between being reactionary and being responsive. Many people have no free will because they are caught in an endless chain of unconscious reactions to their environment. It is not what you feel that matters, but rather what you choose to do with those feelings. True freedom is conscious choice. ❤

@sujok-acupuncture9246

4 ай бұрын

👌... I remember Gurdjiff used to say that whenever he was provoked he responded only after 24 hours. After 24 hours he would feel the foolishness of reacting to most provocations. This was his father's teaching. This transformed his whole life.

@BugRib

4 ай бұрын

@sujok-acupuncture9246 - This is great advice! 👍

One book full of information...👌

personally i believe identifying oneself exclusively with the reflective conscious self, and not as well the automatic and subconscious self, is a limiting perspective.

Lawrence Kuhn is always crisp clear and to the point. Patrick is beautifully able to reciprocate with the same clarity and depth here. We need more interviewees who can respond like like this - rather than a whole lot of the mumbo jumbo that is become all too prevalent in a topic like this.

@JagadguruSvamiVegananda

4 ай бұрын

​🐟 11. FREE-WILL Vs DETERMINISM: Just as the autonomous beating of one's heart is governed by one's genes (such as the presence of a congenital heart condition), and the present-life conditioning of the heart (such as myocardial infarction as a consequence of the consumption of excessive fats and oils, or heart palpitations due to severe emotional distress), each and EVERY thought and action is governed by our genes and environmental conditioning. This teaching is possibly the most difficult concept for humans to accept, because we refuse to believe that we are not the author of our thoughts and actions. From the appearance of the pseudo-ego (one’s inaccurate conception of oneself) at the age of approximately two and a half, we have been constantly conditioned by our parents, teachers, and society, to believe that we are solely responsible for our thoughts and deeds. This deeply-ingrained belief is EXCRUCIATINGLY difficult to abandon, which is possibly the main reason why there are very few persons extant who are spiritually-enlightened, or at least who are liberated from the five manifestations of mental suffering explained elsewhere in this “Final Instruction Sheet for Humanity”, since suffering (as opposed to pain) is predicated solely upon the erroneous belief in free-will. Free-will is usually defined as the ability for a person to make a conscious decision to do otherwise, that is to say, CHOOSE to have performed an action other than what one has already done, if one had been given the opportunity to do so. To make it perfectly clear, if one, for example, is handed a restaurant menu with several dishes listed, one could decide that one dish is equally-desirable as the next dish, and choose either option. If humans truly possessed freedom of will, then logically speaking, a person who adores cats and detests dogs, ought to be able to suddenly switch their preferences at any given point in time, or even voluntarily pause the beating of his or her own heart! So, in both of the aforementioned examples, there is a pre-existing preference (at a given point in time) for one particular dish or pet. Even if a person liked cats and dogs EQUALLY, and one was literally forced to choose one over the other, that choice isn’t made freely, but entirely based upon the person’s genetic code plus the individual's up-to-date conditioning. True equality is non-existent in the phenomenal sphere. The most common argument against determinism is that humans (unlike other animals) have the ability to choose what they can do, think or feel. First of all, many species of (higher) mammals also make choices. For instance, a cat can see two birds and choose which one to prey upon, or choose whether or not to play with a ball that is thrown its way, depending on its conditioning (e.g. its mood). That choices are made is indisputable, but those choices are dependent ENTIRELY upon one’s genes and conditioning. There is no third factor involved on the phenomenal plane. On the noumenal level, thoughts and deeds are in accordance with the preordained “Story of Life”. Read previous chapters of “F.I.S.H” to understand how life is merely a dream in the “mind of the Divine” and that human beings are, essentially, that Divinity in the form of dream characters. Chapter 08, specifically, explains how an action performed in the present is the result of a chain of causation, all the way back to the earliest-known event in our apparently-real universe (the so-called “Big Bang” singularity). At this point, it should be noted that according to reputable geneticists, it is possible for genes to mutate during the lifetime of any particular person. However, that phenomenon would be included under the “conditioning” aspect. The genes mutate according to whatever conditioning is imposed upon the human organism. It is simply IMPOSSIBLE for a person to use sheer force of will to change their own genetic code. Essentially, “conditioning” includes everything that acts upon a person from conception. University studies in recent years have demonstrated, by the use of hypnosis and complex experimentation, that CONSCIOUS volition is either unnecessary for a decision to be enacted upon or (in the case of hypnotic testing) that free-will choices are completely superfluous to actions. Because scientific research into free-will is a recent phenomenon, it is recommended that the reader search online for the latest findings. If any particular volitional act was not caused by the preceding thoughts and actions, then the only alternative explanation would be due to RANDOMNESS. Many quantum physicists claim that subatomic particles can randomly move in space, but true randomness cannot occur in a deterministic universe. Just as the typical person believes that two motor vehicles colliding together was the result of pure chance (therefore the term “accident”), quantum physicists are unable to see that the seeming randomness of quantum particles are, in fact, somehow determined by each and every preceding action which led-up to the act in question. It is a known scientific fact that a random number generator cannot exist, since no computational machine or software program is able to make the decision to generate a number at “random”. We did not choose which deoxyribonucleic acid our biological parents bequeathed to us, and most all the conditions to which we were exposed throughout our lives, yet we somehow believe that we are fully-autonomous beings, with the ability to feel, think and behave as we desire. The truth is, we cannot know for certain what even our next thought will be. Do we DECIDE to choose our thoughts and deeds? Not likely. Does an infant choose to learn how to walk or to begin speaking, or does it just happen automatically, according to nature? Obviously, the toddler begins to walk and to speak according to its genes (some children are far more intelligent and verbose, and more agile than others, depending on their genetic code) and according to all the conditions to which he or she has been exposed so far (some parents begin speaking to their kids even while they are in the womb, or expose their offspring to highly-intellectual dialogues whilst still in the cradle). Even those decisions/choices that we seem to make are entirely predicated upon our genes and conditioning, and cannot be free in any sense of the word. To claim that one is the ULTIMATE creator of one’s thoughts and actions is tantamount to believing that one created one’s very being. If a computer program or artificially-intelligent robot considered itself to be the cause of its activity, it would seem absurd to the average person. Yet, that is precisely what virtually every person who has ever lived mistakenly believes of their own thoughts and deeds. The IMPRESSION that we have free-will can be considered a “Gift of Life” or “God’s Grace”, otherwise, we may be resentful of our lack of free-will, since, unlike other creatures, we humans have the intelligence to comprehend our own existence. Even an enlightened sage, who has fully realized that he is not the author of his thoughts and actions, is not conscious of his lack of volition at every moment of his day. At best, he may recall his lack of freedom during those times where suffering (as opposed to mere pain) begins to creep-in to the mind or intellect. Many, if not most scientists, particularly academic philosophers and physicists, accept determinism to be the most logical and reasonable alternative to free-will, but it seems, at least anecdotally, that they rarely (if ever) live their lives conscious of the fact that their daily actions are fated. Cont...

The setup of the study or experiment was, from the very beginning, bound to lead to a false conclusion. Regarding intentionality, from the moment you informed your test subjects that at some point in time a button should be pressed by them, their mind coded that intentionality at that very moment that at some point it would activate a motor system to execute the action. So the experimentalists helped to code the intentionality minutes or hours ahead of the motor action. What if you were to instruct your test subjects to decide to do anything? In such instance, their minds would have to get to work in DECIDING what to do before instructing the electrochemical system to execute the action. In such experiments you would clearly see intentionality preceding the action.

@dr_shrinker

4 ай бұрын

You make assertions based on no evidence. “You would clearly see intentionality preceding the action.” - based on what evidence?

@peweegangloku6428

4 ай бұрын

@@dr_shrinker It is self evident. We do it everyday. eg. You decided to go somewhere, you decide when to go, the time reaches you activate your motor system, legs, hands and body and then you get into your vehicle and take off or walk. I think the experimentalists are the ones making assertions without unbiased evidentiary supports.

@mmganesh6087

3 ай бұрын

correct.. I keep feeling there is something that does not match or not correct or not understandable because of this "intentionality " I could not put in words clearly. You have expressed that more clearly. Yet I am not able to follow this experiment ...

After a long and deep analyses that i excavated inside my intricate mind, I now conclude that FREE WILL is just an ILLUSION. 🧐

I like the view that the brain is a "prediction machine", helping us to survive. And I can imagine that somehow the brain smells that a decision is going to be made. So it is trying to predict the outcome of whatever the decision will be.

Topic apart, Can we create a discord server so that community can discuss this topic on regular basis

What about the involuntary pressing of a button?

I have always thought about the Libet experiment in the following way: A person needs to randomnly push a button, how can he do that? He "asks" his brain to initiate the generation and execution of that event and, when the task is done by the brain, the person becomes conscious about the outcome. So, in my view, the real play of consciousness in Libet's experiment is actually to initiate a process that the brain needs to execute and not the realisation by the brain of what was the outcome of that task the brain executed.

@mmganesh6087

3 ай бұрын

that sounds cool.

The thought you have to make a decision, looking at the clock and then making note of it must take some time so wouldn't that time difference make up for the electrical impulse of actually making the decision?

The experiment described is interpreted by some as suggesting a person’s actions precede their conscious decision to make a particular action. And that our experience of choice is therefore an illusion. But instead of this strange and artificial situation described in the study, how about a more realistic thought experiment of hooking a chess grandmaster up to a similar device. Are the 40 minutes she spends thinking through a dozen or so lines, each 5 to 10 moves deep really going to somehow show she moved her piece prior to any decision on her part to do so? Does this experiment mean one asks a person to marry them, prior to them spending any period of time deciding whether or not to do so? Or that all that angst before hand was somehow not a real part of the process? I can imagine, though, the building up of tension and all kinds of brain activity just prior to the moment of someone actually popping the question. And I can imagine a similar build up of tension (what is being called here, a “readinesses potential”) prior to the chess grandmaster actually making her move. Imo, the readiness potential may be a real thing that occurs just prior to making some kinds of actions, but whatever it is or turns out to be, it in no way shows, imo, that the ability to make choices is an illusion.

@quantumkath

4 ай бұрын

That's the thing. There are no conscious decisions. We are conscious of our decisions. Our choices are not an illusion, but it's our brains making the choices. What is so wrong with our brain making and delivering that decision to our consciousness. It's still who we are.

@tristanotear3059

4 ай бұрын

Thank you. Beautifully stated.

@dr_shrinker

4 ай бұрын

Well, one thing for sure….a grandmaster will move according to determined rules and tactics. A grandmaster will be forced into moves based on their opponents actions. Their choice resides in their preference to win or lose. In ALL cases, their 40 minutes of deciding is determined.

So we have free will but it just happens before we are aware of it? Is that really free will?

@mmganesh6087

3 ай бұрын

( A) ramesh balsekar says- " we have to act as if we have freewill all the while knowing that we do not have it " (B) Also have a look at the thomas young double slit experiment that can show some insight into this free will issues. You really cannot know the future..( which by the way is predetermined ) So, Therefore we have to act as if we have free will while knowing that it is all predetemined.

Free will is not an illusion. The readiness potential is a normal subconscious activity and has nothing to do with it. It addresses a simple situation when exercising free will would be an overshoot. There are many examples of subconscious, nearly automatic activity in our lives. Like when you are playing basketball you have to be super fast. There is no time for a "free will", your training develops instincts that fire instantly in a situation that cannot be predicted. Free will works completely differently. You observe the world around you, then it comes a situation where you have to decide.

The concept of libertarian free will seems to me to be logically incoherent, but I still believe we have it.

Question: You can use your "free will" to stop breathing, until the very end, if you want to. But I might be wrong, maybe you can't do that. However, there are body processes that you can actually stop from happening You can't use your free will to stop coughing or sneezing or when you must go to the bathroom. You can, but you won't be able to stop that. So, in some cases, you can stop, and others you can't stop, no matter what. What is that saying about free will? Does that prove or disprove free will? I guess not being able to stop some things, disproves it, but in some cases you can actually stop it. There is inconsistency here

@simonhibbs887

4 ай бұрын

Free will is about intentionality, not capability. It’s the will to do something, the decision making process, not the ability to do it.

@simonhibbs887

4 ай бұрын

Free will is about intentionality, not capability. It’s the will to do something, the decision making process, not the ability to do it.

@milannesic5718

4 ай бұрын

@@simonhibbs887 Yes, but if our bodies do everything automatically, if it is just particles interacting, how come I can stop some things? For example sneezing is automatic, there is no free will there, I can't stop, it is doing it on its own. But even though, breathing is also automatic, I can interfere there, and harm myself. If everything is automatic, just particles interacting, I would not be able to harm myself like that? Or I could? But I can't in many cases. In other cases I am helpless. I don't know if you understand what I mean. I can't explain what I am trying to say. Also, why there is a hunger and thirst? To force me to find food? But I have no free will, body can go and take the food automatically, no need to force me and remind me. Actually, there is no "me" at all. Who is getting the hunger signals? Why there is a feeling of hunger? What its purpose? Makes zero sense

@simonhibbs887

4 ай бұрын

@@milannesic5718 The body doesn’t ’force you’ to do anything, you’re body is you. That means all of the priorities, drives, needs , desires, fears and worries that motivate you are also party if your body and part of you. They’re all different neural pathways and structures in your brain communicating with each other. This communication process is how your different mental functions sort out what you’re going to do next at any given moment. That’s consciousness.

@imaginaryuniverse632

4 ай бұрын

​@@simonhibbs887The question of free will comes from the question of why will we do something. The reasons for us doing something in the next moment are present in this moment as the information that effects us and the means by which we process this information. The evidence is in my opinion that the Universe is a process which continually produces inevitable results but it may be possible to change this fractile of inevitability by consciously removing ourselves from our emotional attachments to choices in order to make more rational decisions than we otherwise inevitably make. The stoics of ancient Greece said we should prepare ourselves for situations before we engage in them so we can plan on making better choices in anticipated situations. Like going to Thanksgiving dinner and knowing beforehand a relative will make the same obnoxious statements they always do and imagining ourselves as handling the situation in various ways which we know will probably be better than what we would otherwise inevitably do. I've found just nodding my head to acknowledge I heard but not giving any other response even in expression will usually bring rude behavior to an end or at least make them irrelevant. I've found that ignoring someone who can obviously be heard isn't nearly as effective as acknowledgement without reacting. This method can help in lots of different situations like preparing for traffic or having to wait etc.. I think this is just moving from one fractile of inevitability to another but I believe it's a much better fractile. The only force in the Universe today with the ability to change anything from it's otherwise inevitable position is consciousness. 🙏

Are there "things" without free will? If we look we see clocks ⏰️, gravity, electrons, photons, inanimate matter. Are these things not free because of their relationships to other things; or not free because they have no relationship to other things? Am i more free because i can take advantage of these "things" that have no freedom; or is the "state" of my freedom determined by my consciousness of what is not free? The more I'm conscious of what's not free makes me more free ...or less free? Is my consciousness determined by the ratio of what's not free to what's free? Was the consciousness of people who lived before the age of the atom different from my own? Were they more free or less?

A kind of conscious-consciousness relating to the unconscious.

Our bodies cannot remain still for very long while awake. There is a tendency to shift position, due probably to the many stimuli acting through our senses: muscles, nerves, vision, sound etc, not to mention our own brain activity, memory, thoughts, free association going on. We are probably hard wired this way.

It feels as if , I get the intention AND THEN the impulses, electrical activities begin. I am unable to conceptualise that electirical activities begin and then the intention is recognised . With just a fraction of second difference , it is really hard to press the button .. the the time lapse is too small.. I am having difficulty in following the assumptions from Libet experiments. ( we think we have freewill... we actually dont... our brain starts electrical activity BEFORE we make the choice.)

Hold a thought for 5 mins, without interruption. You’ll soon see how physicality controls your thoughts. If your thoughts are controlled by physicality, so is your will. Will is thought.

@ianwaltham1854

4 ай бұрын

Will is intention to do something. Its not thought.

@dr_shrinker

4 ай бұрын

@@ianwaltham1854how does one intend to do something without thinking?

@dr_shrinker

4 ай бұрын

@LifesInsightthe choice is up to physics. A non-physical thing cannot determine future physical events. Only physical things can determine the future of physical events. Casper cannot open doors, and spirits don’t move bodies. This axiom means your future (choice) is determined.

@dr_shrinker

4 ай бұрын

@LifesInsight So you can make yourself choose to enjoy the smell of skunk poop?

@imaginaryuniverse632

4 ай бұрын

​@LifesInsightWhat appears to drive us to choose is the information presented to our brains and the system present in our brains that processes the information which are known unchangeable states at the moment we, our brains, make a choice. When you say, "you" still make the choice, who is the "you" you are referring to? Is the you the one who chooses or the one who is aware of the appearance of the one who chooses? Looking back at a past choice what would have had to happen in order for you to have made a different choice?

If you're conscious mind and your unconscious mind are still you with your pre-existing personality and belief systems, then if the subconscious brain is preparing you for an action before your conscious brain is aware of it, I would think it is still YOU making the decision, and thus... your will.

It seems to me no matter the cost what will be will be. Of course there may be something to the fact that the only force in the Universe with the ability to change anything from it's otherwise inevitable position is consciousness. Perhaps we can move from one fractile of inevitability to a better one or even back and forth to create a combo fractile of inevitability but still and yet the evidence suggests even this will be inevitable. 🙂

The question should be "do things living in a simulation have free will" and we should think about Mario in Super Mario Bros since that's what we are, basically. He probably doesn't have free will.

@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC

4 ай бұрын

*"He probably doesn't have free will."* ... Since you are the one operating the game controller and not Mario, then you enact Mario's free will via proxy.

@markb3786

4 ай бұрын

@@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC He is saying we are Mario, not the game controller.

@legron121

4 ай бұрын

There is nothing literally "inside" a simulation - there is just the display.

@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC

4 ай бұрын

@@markb3786 *"He is saying we are Mario, not the game controller."* ... I didn't say Mario (or us) is the game controller. Within the game, Mario's free will is enacted via proxy (an outside intelligence). Mario is not an individual, free-thinking construct. We provide that for the character within the game.

@longcastle4863

4 ай бұрын

Just because the mathematics of a simulation can be used to describe some aspects of reality, doesn’t mean that reality is therefore a simulation. I don’t remember the exact story, unfortunately, but Feynman describes seeing a plate wobbling in a circular motion in a university cafeteria and deducing from that the mathematics of certain wobbling or spinning atomic particles***. This doesn’t mean, however, that atomic particles are wobbling plates, just that a similar mathematics applies to both. In a similar fashion, it appears that the mathematics of a holograph apply also to understanding the surface of black holes (see several excellent Leonard Susskind’s Stanford Lectures on this topic). Imo, however, this does not mean that black holes are therefore holographs. Just that similar mathematics apply to both. *** Anyone who knows the story more exactly, please feel free to correct me if I’ve got it wrong.

Every event is determined by the events immediately preceding it, all the way back to the Big Bang.

@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC

4 ай бұрын

*"Every event is determined by the events immediately preceding it, all the way back to the Big Bang."* ... Preceding events can absolutely influence future events but not necessarily determine them.

@drbuckley1

4 ай бұрын

I suppose it may depend on one's definitions of "event" and "determine." Here I use the terms in their natural sense, that is, physically. Reference Newton's laws. Taken in that sense, I stand by my original claim. We travel though spacetime at the speed of light, but no faster. Faster than light causality is impossible. There is no simultaneity, and cause always precedes effect. By "immediately preceding," I mean not only temporal, but also spatial immediacy, i.e., space time. Immediate space, proximate space, local space, inertial frame, or however one thinks about "now." An event's "light cone" of effect expands at the speed of light, but cannot exceed that limit. Similarly, an event's causes (many, many, causes, but only a finite number of causes), cannot exceed lightspeed. Neither the past nor the future can be altered, and certainly not by humans. Everything was determined at the Big Bang. I'm not trying to change minds, I'm trying to engage minds. I can see most of the problems with my own argument. Anyway, thanks for the engagement. @@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC

@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC

4 ай бұрын

​@@drbuckley1 *"There is no simultaneity, and cause always precedes effect."* ... 1 + 1 = 2 is a simultaneously executing, instantaneous event. There is no "time" involved in mathematics. "Cause and effect" is no different than "before and after" or "beginning and end." It's just playing around with semantics. *"Neither the past nor the future can be altered, and certainly not by humans."* ... The past is an information database of all events that have ever happened. Once an event happens, it is supplanted by the next event. To suggest the past can be changed is a non sequitur. The lack of "time machines" serves as proof. The future is nonexistent. It's merely a specific degree of probability based on data acquired from past and current events. *"Everything was determined at the Big Bang."* ... Like us, Big Bang (the Universe) has absolutely no idea what yours or my next move will be. *"I'm not trying to change minds, I'm trying to engage minds. I can see most of the problems with my own argument. Anyway, thanks for the engagement."* ... You're welcome. Good discussion. I'm equally trying to free people who are unknowingly trapped within the theism-like belief system called "Hard Determinism" and actually believe that they have no individual effect on "Existence."

@simonhibbs887

4 ай бұрын

@@0-by-1_Publishing_LLCThe point about 1+1=2 being instantaneous is interesting. Thanks for raising the issue. I think that’s true in the sense that it can be simply a description of a state of affairs. There is an apple here in the house, and now I see that there is also another apple. That means there are 2 apples. I’ve not moved the apples, I didn’t do anything to them. There already were 2 apples, it’s just that now I’m aware of that fact. There being 2 apples was a pre-existing state of affairs independent of the calculation. Also the expression 1+1=2 is just static information. By itself it’s not doing anything. On the other hand something has changed in the apples example, and that’s my state of knowledge. In that sense there was a process of counting where I observed the apples and performed a calculation. That activity took time to complete. In this view there are mathematical expressions that are static information, but mathematics itself is the process of evaluating and calculating those mathematical expressions, and that’s a temporal activity. It’s something that takes time to do. At least that’s how I think about it.

@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC

4 ай бұрын

@@simonhibbs887 *"I’ve not moved the apples, I didn’t do anything to them."* ... Ahhh, but you did! You established their existence by counting them. That's "Existence's" fundamental version of "cogito ergo sum." *"There being 2 apples was a pre-existing state of affairs independent of the calculation."* ... You can count the apples; therefore, they exist. Prior to your counting them (as an outside observer), the apples technically did not exist. *"Also the expression 1+1=2 is just static information. By itself it’s not doing anything."* ... 1 + 1 = 2 is a framework (or a placeholder) for future actions / evaluations. Is it really just "static information" when you can apply it to so many different situations? My car isn't doing what cars normally do until I start it up and drive it. Even so, is it any less than a "car" even while I'm not driving it? The phrase, _"1 of something"_ still implies "existence" because a "something" necessarily belongs to the set called "Existence."

His statement that the readiness potential shows that "...your brain knows you are going to move, but you don't..." is ABSOLUTE, UNSUPPORTED NONSENSE. First - the subject consciously knows that they are going to move, and that they need to decide at some point when to do so, in all time periods between movements: they are, throughout, always on the "edge of their seats" getting "ready to move". Second - there is no understanding about how the energy of this electrical potential arises, what it is doing, and what the relationship is between it and the decision to move at a specific instant. What is the signal content of this potential? Any information flowing? Is it inducing some other activity in a cause-and-effect chain that produces a physical action? Or, is it just "charging up a capacitor" -- storing potential energy for doing work when the conscious being (or "free will"?) decides to do so? These are the basic questions that a rigorous scientist or engineer would ask about an observed energy flux that appeared to be connected to an event they were studying in a complex physical system. Why are they not be asked here, Robert? You could turn the key in your car's ignition, send juice to the starter/ignition system which rotated the engine and fired the spark plugs, AND...still the car would not start if you additionally had to press a button (or foot pedal, as we used to have to...) to activate the fuel injection system. So, NO - the engine turning and plugs firing would not mean that the driver had decided to start the car (but just didn't know it). DUH. The Libet Experiment demonstrates nothing about free will. It is perhaps the crude beginning of the chimp's understanding of "if", "how", and "when" the weird animate creature inside the black box decides to have it make noise and move around. The decades of reverence for and misinterpretation of Libet does illustrates how far brain "science" has departed from science in its unsupported fantasies about what it understands.

Plot twist: Free Will is not possible.

The readiness potential is consistent with the idea of the Soul. The Soul is our true identity inside the cehicle the body. The Soul makes the decision and the body executed. The readiness potential could be a manifestation of Step 1 ie the Souls decision.

All this is “remarkable” only if one vastly underestimates the unconscious mind, while simultaneously vastly overestimating the conscious mind.

@longcastle4863

4 ай бұрын

They’re probably both more under estimated than over

What does that mean that my field is making a power play to create solution to the idea of free will? ... It's like Schopenhauer said, Man makes choices but doesn't will what he wills. So his will is not free, it comes to him. He can choose to understand why he wills something, but he cannot control what he wills. And what creates will? To me it's everything that preceded the moment of the will arriving, which Haggard talks about. In science this is Newton's Third Law of Action and Reaction. For every action (force) in nature, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Which could be thought of as all the actions that preceded the moment of will arriving.

So frustrating just answer a good question with yes or no please and then rant about the why....this is so hard to follow, basically he just doesn't know, for me its just logical the body needs time to prepare, so either way there will always be an intro of activities before our conscious actions.....🤷

If free will doesn't exist, doesn't that give Hitler a pass?

@dr_shrinker

4 ай бұрын

It doesn’t give him a pass, he was still accountable for his actions. He was a problem in the world that needed removing. But. He didn’t define his actions. His actions defined him. It he did things differently, those actions would have defined him - differently. So if he was an altruistic person, then those actions would have defined him as an altruist. Also, those definitions that make a person are after the fact and an effect of a cause. His actions were determined and those determinants defined him. That means he couldn’t control his will, but he also couldn’t control how the universe reacted to his actions.

@OBGynKenobi

4 ай бұрын

@@dr_shrinker if he has no agency then how can he be held accountable? By the way, I'm not defending Hitler.

@calo9889

4 ай бұрын

​@@OBGynKenobi the same way we hold COVID 19 accountable for killing people. You stop it don't you? What's the difference with "evil" people. Just because they aren't morally responsible doesn't mean we shouldn't stop them and hold them accountable.

Well, your brain is you! You have free will as long as the cognitive part of your brain is in excellent condition! Fluctuations fuel readiness but before all that the brain has to have some experience to begin with!

So no free will requires dualism.

@legron121

4 ай бұрын

It does not. It requires animate, self-moving creatures with intellect and will (like human beings).

@stellarwind1946

4 ай бұрын

@@legron121 whenever I hear physicalists talk about free will it always sounds like they’re describing the brain as a separate entity from our conscious mind, that we can’t control. Which in turn raises the question of why there is any subjective experience accompanying the brain at all.

@legron121

4 ай бұрын

​@@stellarwind1946 I take free will to be an ability of *human beings* (biological organisms of the species _homo sapiens),_ not of brains or minds, to act or refrain from acting in the circumstances of life.

@dr_shrinker

4 ай бұрын

@@legron121 would you be able to refrain from acting if you accidentally stepped on a Lego? Or got a root canal without numbing?

@legron121

4 ай бұрын

@@dr_shrinker No, since those are involuntary responses. "free will" is being able to perform voluntary actions, not being able to omit involuntary reactions.

As usual, CTT misses the signal in favor of the noise.

No one ever talks about the unconscious mind, which plays the most important role in free will!

@user-gk9lg5sp4y

4 ай бұрын

But if it 'below' conscious level is it free will?

@mandelbot5318

4 ай бұрын

@@user-gk9lg5sp4yWhen I read their comment I instinctively gave them the benefit of the doubt and assumed they meant ‘most important role in the topic of free will’. If they did indeed mean to suggest that the unconscious mind actually plays the most important role in free will as you understood them, I would have to agree with you (assuming your question is mostly rhetorical and you think only the conscious mind could make free choices, if they exist at all).

@user-gk9lg5sp4y

4 ай бұрын

@mandelbot5318 I want to know how is it 'free will' if your conscious mind isn't aware of it until after it happens?

@ghaderpashayee8334

4 ай бұрын

@@user-gk9lg5sp4y it is determined by our instincts and the environment from childhood! Which we can change it little by little over the time, so that our thoughts and actions will become more compatible with our conscious and in a sense we become more free!

@ghaderpashayee8334

4 ай бұрын

@@mandelbot5318 by that little free will in conscious mind(if it exists) we can manipulate the unconsious mind and make our automatic actions more compatible with our volition. But it's a slow and complicated and indirect process!

Free Will: Essence and Nature Depends upon that Fundamental Reality Truth & love if You Know or Your Free Will Be Ruled By Your Higher Self , Who knows The Real Truth , Understand Your Reality

FREE Essence & Nature Depends upon that Fundamental Truth & love if You Know or Your Free Will Be Ruled By Your Higher Self, Who knows The Real Truth, Understand Your Reality You Are only Free To Will That You Know Fully, Woke GODDESS & GODS out of memory🙏 In Present Reality

Free will is not relevant to whether I wish to push a button in a lab. Free will is about human morality; about conscious choices that affect others in our communities.

@JagadguruSvamiVegananda

4 ай бұрын

INCORRECT. 😬

@longcastle4863

4 ай бұрын

I differ somewhat. Free will, I think, is all about human beings-and likely other living things too-having the ability to make choices in everyday normal kinds of situations: how to hunt that water buffalo over there, where to camp for the night, etc. And only later was this ability to make choices applied by humans to issues of ethics and morality, right and wrong, good and bad, guilt and culpability-especially as we began living in larger groups and communities and with the advent of civilizations.

@imaginaryuniverse632

4 ай бұрын

We can't have a community if everyone makes up there own definitions. I could say, free will is chewed gum stuck to a desk. I'm thinking you might be trying to wedge in your view point about morality and your opinion of justice. Let's see, is justice when others face the consequences for exercising their free will which is against the openly agreed upon views of societal morals?

@jeanettesdaughter

4 ай бұрын

I had that thought too but not so clearly as you’ve stated- just an hmmmm. Then I wondered how this knowledge might be used to reduce or stop the rise to violence, the evolution or decision to do harm. But can you really do that inside a frame in which certain things are permissible against certain others. I’m sure you get my drift. One thing I know for sure: increase in knowledge about how the brain works on such an intangible thing as free will does nothing ( yet) to influence actions with more potential for harm than Pushing a button. Does the button detonate a device⁉️ When the readiness recedes rapidly for the act to occur - there’s a lapse , a void if I’m understanding this rightly. Where is consciousness in that void, is there a millisecond of ‘ not push the button.’ ⁉️ Getting closer to truth means getting closer to knowledge that advances life. We do know a few things about what makes for a ‘ good’ life for the ordinary human being. It’s the moral dimension, I call it the fifth dimension, that seems to elude us.

@OBGynKenobi

4 ай бұрын

I see free will as mere reaction to input. The brain is an input processor and it will produce an output to an input.

This experiment is too random to be valid.

It's interesting that all the scientists and even philosophers Ignore the important role of unconscious mind! If they cannot study the unconscious mind scientifically, It doesn't mean that we have to ignore it!!!!

@user-gk9lg5sp4y

4 ай бұрын

They can, they do and they don't.

@longcastle4863

4 ай бұрын

@@user-gk9lg5sp4y ditto

You are missing the point. Freedom is an interpersonal thing. Freedom from coercion by someone. Voluntary movement is about freedom from uncoordinated movement such as Parkinsonian tremor, or epilepsy. You are playing with manufactured metaphysical complexities, nothing to do with freedom in ordinary language.

@mandelbot5318

4 ай бұрын

This is not a video about “freedom in ordinary language”. It is a video about the philosophical concept of free will. (Such debates do often veer into discussions of more ‘ordinary’ senses of freedom, but the ultimate aim is to examine evidence and arguments related to the much deeper concept.)

@christophergame7977

4 ай бұрын

@@mandelbot5318 Yes, it's about a philosophical concept. But I find that like counting the angels dancing on the head of a pin. If you are really interested in indeterminism, don't thieve an ordinary language word to label it. Use the word 'indeterminism'.

@mandelbot5318

4 ай бұрын

@@christophergame7977 Your reply does help to clarify your point for me, but I see it as an indefensible position. Philosophers haven’t “thieved” an ordinary language word. ‘Free will’ is not the same as ‘freedom’. (For instance, a person could be free from coercion, or free from prison, in a fully deterministic universe without having free will.) What you’re arguing, essentially, is that philosophers should steer clear of all mention of ‘free will’ because they already have an alternative term, i.e. ‘indeterminism’. But ‘free will’ is also not the same as ‘indeterminism’. The latter could relate to random/chaotic variables that lie outside the capacity of an ideal physics to predict, whereas ‘free will’ is intentional, not random. So all talk of indeterminism would not necessarily be talk of free will. The question here is whether humans (and other beings) play any role in ‘choosing’ future events through their own volition, which is not the same discussion as whether there are simply ANY undetermined causal factors at play. Philosophers could, of course, avoid calling it ‘free will’ and refer to it as something like ‘undetermined intelligent volition’, but there’s no reason they NEED to do this. The fact is the topic - and the label - of ‘free will’ has been around for thousands of years. To demand that it not be used by philosophers for the reasons you give seems rather fruitless. It would be like someone clicking on a video about ‘bats’ expecting to learn about flying mammals, but instead watching cricketers or baseball players discussing their tools, and subsequently objecting to their use of the word ‘bat’. These words and phrases have meaning in a particular context, and it should be fairly clear what the meaning of ‘free will’ would be in a video on a philosophy channel, surely? (And, without wishing to sound rude, I have to ask: if this kind of discussion is like “counting the angels dancing on the head of a pin” to you, why watch it?)

@christophergame7977

4 ай бұрын

@@mandelbot5318 "The question here is whether humans (and other beings) play any role in ‘choosing’ future events through their own volition." Not only do you want to thieve "free will" to use it as click bait. You also want to obliterate the word 'choose'.

@mandelbot5318

4 ай бұрын

@@christophergame7977 If you want to completely ignore everything I wrote above except my use of the word ‘choosing’ (which I placed in inverted commas for a reason), then you are (arguably) free to do so. But I’m struggling to believe that you’re being sincere in accusing a philosophy channel of using the term ‘free will’ as click bait. Does that accusation apply to every philosopher that has used it in their work for the last two and a half thousand years? Did you genuinely click on the video expecting a discussion of “freedom in ordinary language” as you put it? Are you unfamiliar with philosophy? Is this your first time watching anything on this channel? I just don’t get where you’re coming from at all. It’s baffling, and I’m tempted to just assume you’re trolling at this stage, as that at least would make some sense.

There is no *total* _free will_ nor is there any *total* _hard determinism._ You do have free will in a variety of situations and no free will in others. Many situations are completely deterministic (like death, jail cells, and accidents) whereas other deterministic situations can be easily negotiated based on the decisions we make (chocolate vs vanilla, act vs don't act, etc.). The ones who believe there is absolutely no free will or that libertarian free will actually exists only do so because it helps to support an underlying *core ideology* that they value more than all others. Their mindset is that any ideology that doesn't directly support their core ideology must be marginalized. If your argument supporting a completely hard deterministic reality (or libertarian free will) is predicated on *semantics,* then you have no empirical evidence whatsoever in support of your claim(s). ... _You're just playing around with "words!"_ *Example:* the phrase _"You cannot choose to choose what you choose!"_ is a non sequitur.

@quantumkath

4 ай бұрын

You said, "deterministic situations can be easily negotiated." Robert Lawrence Kuhn summed up what Patrick Haggard referred to as the Libet experiment showing: "Our brain is already going to move before we think we are in charge of doing it." The brain controls the action, and then you have the conscious experience that you are controlling the act. Therefore, from the information on this video, I have to disagree with your statement.

@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC

4 ай бұрын

@@quantumkath *""Our brain is already going to move before we think we are in charge of doing it."* ... I can choose to pick up a penny, but there is still time and mechanics involved before picking up the penny. I still have to orchestrate my arm, fingers and waist before I can pick it up. The fact that things don't happen "instantaneously" (including synaptic function) in no way negates the existence of free will. We are still the "individuals" who caused our brains to switch into gear no matter how long the process takes. *"The brain controls the action, and then you have the conscious experience that you are controlling the act."* ... (see above) *"Therefore, from the information on this video, I have to disagree with your statement."* ... You are *perfectly free* to "choose" not to agree with me. No one other than yourself can compel you to do otherwise.

@quantumkath

4 ай бұрын

​@@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC You said, "I can choose to pick up a penny." But that is the opposite of what the Libet experiment shows. Before we consciously think about the act, the brain is already in control of the act we are about to make. The brain tells you to pick up the penny, and THEN you become conscious and think you choose to pick it up. I'm just saying. My brain disagrees with your statement, and now I am conscious of it.

@mandelbot5318

4 ай бұрын

@@quantumkathIf the answer to this question is ‘no’ it’s going to seem like a very bizarre question, but did you write a book called ‘Quantumology’? I ask because the Kathy that did write the book attended one of my Philosophy Cafes some years ago and your name made me wonder if that’s you. 😊 (Also, apologies to you both for interrupting your chat.)

@quantumkath

4 ай бұрын

@@mandelbot5318 No, sweetie. It wasn't me.

No mention of the Intellect and Will. The faculty of Reasoning and ability to act. I see i am redundant here. I shall remove myself.

No Freewill... Causes and Consequences....