Thread: Does free will exist?

Originally Posted by MoSurveyor

It's not simple. If it were "simple" there wouldn't be thousands and thousands of books over thousands of years discussing the issue.

There is objective proof of that. That's all I've ever asked, objective proof. There isn't any - at least none that I've ever seen provided.

Repeating the same thing in multiple posts won't make up for the lack of evidence.

You've seen this before but not in this thread so I'll post it again.
If you want to verify the contents of said book that's on you. I looked - the eBook price is ~$200 and the hardback is ~$500, though you might find it at discount if used or edition one.

So you are using a book from 2004 as your reference and end all argument? You do see how that is a mistake right? In this modern age 8 years can be a lot when it comes to sciences.

Richard Frackowia is an MD, PhD is a member of the Posit Science Scientific Advisory Board. Which says this: Brain Functions
These parts of the brain work together to perform every function that make our lives our own—they enable us to speak our native language, play the guitar, dance the cha-cha, love our families, remember our childhood, and much, much more.

"First, the proposed center bridges the disciplinary gap between molecular and neural system studies of memory on the one hand and cognitive psychological studies of memory on the other. In doing so, the center addresses one of the central problems in neuroscience and one of the great challenges for biology: understanding the higher cognitive functions of the brain, including the human brain, on the molecular level.

Now in this link it points to objective proof that love which is an emotion is the result of activity within the brain. Chemicals to be precise. Brain in Love, Brain Chemicals, Brain Science - Posit Science | Posit Science Notice that the title is the brain in love not the mind?

Here is a more modern paper that discusses in it Helmholtz's notion of unconscious inference. ScienceDirect.com - International Journal of Psychophysiology - Prediction, perception and agency

http://www.acnr.co.uk/JA08/ACNRJA08_web.pdf
In other disorders
Many brain-based disorders impair social and communication function. For
example, some types of schizophrenia involve a disturbance of mentalising.
Unlike autism, this disturbance seems to point to an overactive attribution
of mental states, extending these to a wide variety of other agents, including
physical objects which may be experienced as senders of significant messages.
11Theory of Mind difficulties can also be acquired through brain damage in frontal cortex or in the region of the temporo-parietal junction
(TPJ).
12 Patients with fronto-temporal dementia are also prone to suffer
from an inability to mentalise.
13

Now do you see why I have been asserting that that it is known that the brain is the source of the mind? If not it is because modern science says so.

Watch this

Originally Posted by MoSurveyor

Step one, activate emotional circuits and record values of electrical potential (negative and positive).
[optional] Step two, modify recorded values from step one using GoalMatrix (12).
Step three, compare values and branch accordingly.
Endless loops are bad programming.

Of all the actions we take, survival based ones are probably the least conscious (whatever that means!) of the bunch.
- Someone jumps out and yells Boo! Adrenalin rushes through your body and you may even slightly jump away from the other person before you realize what happened.
- Some jerk of an advertiser inserts a subliminal message into the drive-in's commercials and you end up stuffing yourself with hot dogs even though you ate before you left the house.
- This girl you're dancing with somehow smells 'just right'. Or did you ever see a woman in a picture who didn't look all that hot but when you actually met her she just rang your bell? In fact, there are so many times we don't 'decide' in those situations that it's become a common joke, Which head were you thinking with?
Where are the 'decisions' there? Are you sure it's not just a bunch of electrochemical reactions and you're just watching the movie?

Now we're back to consciousness. And, again, with all our studies of the brain and all our ways of detecting electrical impulses and measuring what chemicals we can indirectly, we have no clue from where consciousness might come. As far as I know we have no objective proof that it exists at all. We can all sit here behind our eyes looking out and agree we think we know what consciousness is but in the end, without objective proof of it's existence, it's just an illusion we all seem to have.

Do you agree that you are aware of yourself as a separate, named entity? If you do then you are a sentient, conscious being. I know what you're saying as far as the purest defines "self awareness", "consciousness" and "free will" that there is no absolute definitions. If you parse out, analyze and break down everything to it's bare components it becomes impossible to see how the complex comes together as something more than we can currently express. There are a 1000 ways to sorry in 100 different languages and yet they all imply the same meaning with slightly different variations. How many different ways do we have to express the feeling of love and affection, almost infinite. Mere words alone are poor communicators of complex/simple emotions and thoughts that even with actions are not expressed in there entirety.

Point is I agree that we're far from understanding our complete nature or our surroundings. Eventually we'll probably discover that "free will" as we believe in is simply a set of calculated risks.

Originally Posted by grip

Do you agree that you are aware of yourself as a separate, named entity? If you do then you are a sentient, conscious being. I know what you're saying as far as the purest defines "self awareness", "consciousness" and "free will" that there is no absolute definitions. If you parse out, analyze and break down everything to it's bare components it becomes impossible to see how the complex comes together as something more than we can currently express. There are a 1000 ways to sorry in 100 different languages and yet they all imply the same meaning with slightly different variations. How many different ways do we have to express the feeling of love and affection, almost infinite. Mere words alone are poor communicators of complex/simple emotions and thoughts that even with actions are not expressed in there entirety.

Point is I agree that we're far from understanding our complete nature or our surroundings. Eventually we'll probably discover that "free will" as we believe in is simply a set of calculated risks.

Yes, I do agree that I'm sentient, that we are all sentient, with the important note you made at the end - that we are far from understanding even ourselves. I do not believe we have, as yet, figured out exactly what it is that apparently makes us so different. As you also said much earlier, it's quite possible that we're not the only animals that are sentient. It could be a matter of degree with chimps/bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans falling next in line and probably whales and dolphins thrown in there somewhere as well, with other animals trailing off to almost no sentience at the far ends of multi-cellular life. Without knowing the source it's hard to predict how far it's reach.

Originally Posted by FreedomFromAll

So you are using a book from 2004 as your reference and end all argument? You do see how that is a mistake right? In this modern age 8 years can be a lot when it comes to sciences.
[............]
Notice that the title is the brain in love not the mind?

((Just a quick response because I'll have to study the rest.))

In all this stuff you posted where is this updated definition of consciousness you seem to believe you found. As you say, it's been 8 years and Dr. Frackowiak previously stated "At this point the reader will expect to find a careful and precise definition of consciousness. You will be disappointed." After your flippant remark I expected a "careful and precise definition of consciousness" - so where is it? Or is 8 years really not as outdated as you claim?


And, yes, I noticed very much that it was "brain" and not "mind" or "consciousness" being used. Why is that? You think emotions aren't a part of the brain? I never assumed they weren't. But I'm not convinced they're anything more than another quantifiable electrochemical system with nothing that says "free will". As I pointed out in my comment to grip, emotions are the most animalistic part of our brain. If free will is going to be found it sure isn't going to be found in emotions.


I'll get back on the rest sometime tomorrow.

Originally Posted by MoSurveyor

((Just a quick response because I'll have to study the rest.))

In all this stuff you posted where is this updated definition of consciousness you seem to believe you found. As you say, it's been 8 years and Dr. Frackowiak previously stated "At this point the reader will expect to find a careful and precise definition of consciousness. You will be disappointed." After your flippant remark I expected a "careful and precise definition of consciousness" - so where is it? Or is 8 years really not as outdated as you claim?


And, yes, I noticed very much that it was "brain" and not "mind" or "consciousness" being used. Why is that? You think emotions aren't a part of the brain? I never assumed they weren't. But I'm not convinced they're anything more than another quantifiable electrochemical system with nothing that says "free will". As I pointed out in my comment to grip, emotions are the most animalistic part of our brain. If free will is going to be found it sure isn't going to be found in emotions.


I'll get back on the rest sometime tomorrow.

I do not buy into the claim that emotions are separate animalistic and removed from what is oneself. The reason that I am asserting that free will is reliant on emotions is that a completely logical mind would not retain the free will to act outside of logic.

And again I am not asserting that that free will or consciousness will ever be pin pointed in a certain location. Its much like wanting to pin point one American as the source of who America is as an collective. Or one fish in a school of fish as the leader. While it has been shown that certain sections of the brain perform certain functions it is the brain that did those functions not the chemicals. Yes the chemicals are a part of that the equation but chemicals do not do anything by itself as an substance.

BTW emotions do not originate in the more primitive section of the brain. Love actually happens in the angular gyrus.

Our findings suggest that love, as a subliminal prime, involves a specific neural network that surpasses a dopaminergic-motivation system. There is a PDF link at this link as well which is the study that this person is talking about.

What I am doing here is showing you that your bias is clouding the reality of what is going on in an entire field of science. Im not here to prove that things are opposite of what you say at all. That is why I started out with the assertion that your argument is somewhat of an strawman argument. In other words your position that I must provide proof of the existence of an specific location in the brain for the mind/consciousnesses/free will is fallacious in nature since it was never my intention or my assertion that such a place exists. I have even made the claim before that the brain works as an unit therefor the mind/consciousnesses/free will exists within it as a whole as the collective result of all of the functions of the brain. So no we are never going to to say there right there is mind/consciousnesses/free. Not unless we are looking at the entire brain as an unit.

But here read this: Cognitive scientists often say that the mind is the software of the brain. This chapter is about what this claim means. And this Neuroscientists Identify How the Brain Works to Select What We (Want To) See Here is a great link! Brain Explorer :: Allen Brain Atlas: Human Brain

When a human being loses consciousness (dies) the biochemical process of blood feeding the life sustaining oxygen and nutrients to the cells ceases, discontinuing any hope of renewed mental awareness. The bottom line for life as we define it, is a state of continued conscious awareness, excluding sleep, coma and other vegetative states. The question is what is mind (active mental awareness) in comparison to a state of rest or what is the difference, beyond increased activity between a conscious and unconscious brain?

Everything that exist in the universe is essentially energy, e=mc2. Mass and energy can be converted back and forth and had the same origin or source. Our bodies are basically made of small particles of energy (atoms) combining together into a complex, functioning energy form. Through our five senses our brains take in sensory information about our surrounding environment in order to interact with forces outside our being. With the most complex and highest functioning part being the central, controlling nerve mass called the brain. There is no doubt that humans developed to the point of becoming self aware as separate entities from each other and their environment. Though we're still part of the original energy mass of universal particles, as long as we're conscious we identify ourselves as a unique and individual force through some complicated process as yet unknown.

So is there an underlying energy animating our brains giving us a mind with consciousness, self awareness and free will? What is the "ghost in the machine" that eludes our detection or is it all an illusion simply made from the complexity of physical existence? Maybe our minds are a reflection of creation, since that's what our brains literally do with the senses and we're trying to see a mirror with a mirror?

If consciousness arises from increasing complexity, then possibly the universe as a whole is self aware. Biblically god called himself "I Am", which sounds like the source of animated life, conscious self awareness. Many places in scriptures alludes to the spirit of life living in humans, making us all part of the same source. Jesus said "I am in the Father and he in me, and I am in you, as you are in me." If the universe is made of energy it could also be the mental construct of a dynamic conscious source, recreating itself thru us as it's children and when we perish we become part of the universal conscious collective? From One the many and from many the One. It's possible that we're not completely separate from each other and are only given the appearance of being separated from the source thru these bodies in order for us to mature into unique individuals (souls)?

I don't believe we'll identify the source of self awareness, consciousness or free will in my lifetime, so I reach for the "god of the gaps" to fill in what I can't explain further. At some point science may fail or human understanding may be self limiting due to our limited capacity. Faith, hope and love and of these three love is the greatest. Maybe love will have to be enough?

Originally Posted by JusticeForSome?

"If cause does not preceed choice, then it really wasn't a choice. If cause preceeds choice, then, ultimately, choice is not free." - AKG.

Originally Posted by JusticeForSome

Deduction B: Choices are caused by motives (From 3 & A)
Deduction C: We cannot choose our motives (From A & B)

There is no reasoning provided for why a choice cannot also cause a motive.
(New Years resolution to exercise this year)

And how does deduction C come from A and B? Choices must be caused by motives. OK. And a choice can cause a motive (above). Just need to kickstart the loop and let it go

And what is this notion that choices must be either random or causally determined? Radioactive decay is caused, and random. (Wiki)

FreedomFromAll makes an astute observation that maybe consciousness is not a separable entity or singular source of origin but actually arises from the whole. Meaning the whole of our brain/body is one and the same as our consciousness. Or it's possible that consciousness does NOT originate from us individually but rather from a universal source? The singularity that expanded during the Big Bang may be a form of energy that by transforming itself has made it's nature manifest through self replication. If a star at the end of it's cycle is the right size it can become a singularity in a blackhole similar to the big bang. Possibly we are the universe looking back on itself?



universe.jpg

From my hero ...

Question: Why can’t we understand the basis of consciousness?

Richard Dawkins: Well, both what it is -- it clearly has something to do with brains, and it's something that emerges from brains. When brains get sufficiently big, presumably, as human brains have, consciousness seems to emerge. As to what it is, that's a philosophically very difficult question, which biologists are no more equipped to deal with than anybody else.

Question: Is there a certain brain capacity necessary for the development of consciousness?

Richard Dawkins: Oh, nobody knows, because we don't know which animals are conscious. We don't actually, technically, even know that any other human being is conscious. We just each of us know that we ourselves are conscious. We infer on pretty good grounds that other people are conscious, and it's the same sort of grounds that lead us to infer that probably chimpanzees are conscious and probably dogs are conscious. But when we come to something like earthworms and snails, it's anybody's guess.

Question: How can science have a unique insight into cognizance?

Richard Dawkins: Well, that's a very difficult question since we can't actually measure whether creatures are conscious. So I guess science has as much insight as any other subject, but I don't think I can answer that question directly. Maybe computer science has as much insight into it as any other science.

Recorded on: October 21, 2009

Sound familiar? And, no, I hadn't seen this before about 3 min ago ... LOL!

The Riddle of Consciousness | Richard Dawkins | Big Think
http://bigthink.com/ideas/17064

Well, here's plenty of ammo for both sides of the question ...

The Brain: The Mystery of Consciousness - TIME

written by Steven Pinker | Harvard | Articles

To make scientific headway in a topic as tangled as consciousness, it helps to clear away some red herrings. Consciousness surely does not depend on language. Babies, many animals and patients robbed of speech by brain damage are not insensate robots; they have reactions like ours that indicate that someone's home. Nor can consciousness be equated with self-awareness. At times we have all lost ourselves in music, exercise or sensual pleasure, but that is different from being knocked out cold.

ANOTHER STARTLING CONCLUSION FROM the science of consciousness is that the intuitive feeling we have that there's an executive "I" that sits in a control room of our brain, scanning the screens of the senses and pushing the buttons of the muscles, is an illusion. Consciousness turns out to consist of a maelstrom of events distributed across the brain. These events compete for attention, and as one process outshouts the others, the brain rationalizes the outcome after the fact and concocts the impression that a single self was in charge all along.

(emphasis added)