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Park Avenue
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Liberal and defender of freedoms for the people
Oct 1999
time: 05:33
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Dr Strangelove
Interesting about the cat. Electrical impulses or whatever may govern our actions, but no-one is claiming in defence of free will that electricity (or whatever) is unimportant. With free will, it is our spontaneous freedom that perhaps creates the electric current in order for a response.
quote:
Someone else may argue that once we reach such a level of understanding we will find that the human mind in all it's complexity, and working upon the basis of the subjective-objective reciprocal duality, creates in itself an entity that is original and integral above it's environment and thus exhibits "free will". |
I don't see how acausality can come from a deterministic view. Additionally, there are other complex systems, far more complex than the brain. Consider for an example for trillions of particles involved in weather patterns. Do you assume consciousness in a storm because of its complexity?
The more I think about this, the more sure I seem to become that panpsychism is going down the correct route - that everything has some form of rudimentary self-awareness.
Free will is connected with quantum levels of physics - effectively, when the wavefunction is collapsed, quantum particles have the option of "where to be". Only they themselves know, and it's a private decision. A very good metaphor with human behaviour and how feelings like pain are private - the outside universe doesn't know them. That the outside universe is unaware of what we are feeling is an amazing thought - and completely puts paid to determinism (if it hasn't been counted out already). If only "I" know what I am thinking and feeling, the outside world must wait for me to act before it can know how to respond.
This may sound a bit jumbled, and to be honest I haven't had time to formulate a sound, logical process for explaining it.
I believe free will comes in when there is an absence of physical laws to actually force our behaviour - there are apparently no laws forcing very small particles to behave one way or other. So they have the freedom - spontaneous freedom - to choose. They have free will, as do we.
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Dr Strangelove
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quote:
Originally posted by Park Avenue
Dr Strangelove
I don't see how acausality can come from a deterministic view. Additionally, there are other complex systems, far more complex than the brain. Consider for an example for trillions of particles involved in weather patterns. Do you assume consciousness in a storm because of its complexity?
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In the brain each neuron acts as a "decision point". In the atmosphere the molecules of nitrogen, oxygen, and carbon dioxide don't react individually in a way that contributes to the dynamics of the weather, which is largely governed by forces much greater than those that act at the molecular level. quote:
The more I think about this, the more sure I seem to become that panpsychism is going down the correct route - that everything has some form of rudimentary self-awareness.
Free will is connected with quantum levels of physics - effectively, when the wavefunction is collapsed, quantum particles have the option of "where to be". Only they themselves know, and it's a private decision. A very good metaphor with human behaviour and how feelings like pain are private - the outside universe doesn't know them. That the outside universe is unaware of what we are feeling is an amazing thought - and completely puts paid to determinism (if it hasn't been counted out already). If only "I" know what I am thinking and feeling, the outside world must wait for me to act before it can know how to respond.
This may sound a bit jumbled, and to be honest I haven't had time to formulate a sound, logical process for explaining it.
I believe free will comes in when there is an absence of physical laws to actually force our behaviour - there are apparently no laws forcing very small particles to behave one way or other. So they have the freedom - spontaneous freedom - to choose. They have free will, as do we. |
You've got a lot of work left ahead of you if you're going to develop these ideas!
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Odin
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Biology Nerd at Minnesota State University Moorhead
Sep 2000
time: 23:33
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By what I know about the brain I think free will is the abillity of the prefrontal cotex to regulate signals from other parts of the brain (hence the readiness potential) using information from memory sent from the thalamus. When we think about a problem the prefrontal cortex cycles through memories and when it finds the right memory, like that 2+2=4, the impulse to write the number is released. The prefrontal cortex going through memory is what causes the readiness potenial, I think. So we don't exactly have a free will, but we do have a veto, a free "won't", so to speak. That is why people with ADHD, like me, are somewhat impulsive, our prefrontal cortex is not properly developed. There is also evidence that serial killers tend to have a damaged prefrontal cortex, so that there is a possibility that serial crime is a brain disorder! 
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Rogan Josh
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quote:
Originally posted by skywalker
There isn't anything BUT probabilistic and deterministic. Either the universe obeys rules, or it doesn't. It can't both not obey rules AND not not obey rules. |
That isn't what he was meaning. By 'probabalistic' PA was maening that events happen with determined probabilities (like quantum mechanics), whereas 'deterministic' is a fixed outcome for a fixed set of initial conditions. Both of these are simply obeying physical rules, and bot of these systems preclude free-will.
Physics has already shown (to very good certainty) that the universe is not deterministic and that the rules governing the universe appear probabilistic. But since we haven't looked at everything, there is no need to assume that everything obeys physical rules.
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Dr Strangelove
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Just because quantum mechanics is probabalistic does not mean that it is acausal. Furthermore the reactions that govern the function of the brain occur at the molecular level and therefore quantum mechanics doesn't apply.
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DAVOUT
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AUERSTADT
Jun 2002
time: 05:33
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quote:
Originally posted by Park Avenue
The universe can't be completely causal, as that would surely mean it wouldn't be here. If you track back, something has to have happened without a cause. |
Yes, but the *something* can be outside. Therefore, the universe based on the fundamental laws would be completely causal, that is it would be a machine the production of which is described in the fundamentals laws. According to this, life is a very minor effect of the fundamental laws, so small that it was not taken into consideration when the machine was designed. As a result, life would not be tied by causality, but the free will, although existing, would have not effect on the outcome.
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Dr Strangelove
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Deus Ex Machina?
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31-01-2004 22:53
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