Our concept of free will could all be an illusion, new research suggests.

originally posted by: Astyanax
a reply to: akushla99

The second remark is just comedy gold...boring, but comedy gold nonetheless.

Boring but funny? How can that possibly be? Bores aren’t funny.

I’ll tell you what’s funny: the extreme contortions you’re putting yourself through to avoid examining the possibility that free will does not exist. You’re performing some amazing acrobatics here, but mind you don’t put your back out.

What is it you fear so much about your unconscious self? Who knows, perhaps you are right to be afraid.

The record will show that you are more intent on examining me, than you are the OP...that is quite clear...

Å99

originally posted by: BigBrotherDarkness
a reply to: LAkadian

Lets not bring karma into this... posting creates enough as it is.

Are you the game police? Try me.

Incredible discussion. Posting so I can come back to read this easily. Did I chose to do that?

a reply to: LAkadian

no sweet heart I dont play games and people shackle themselves enough as it is... if anything I say hey see those shackles? The key is always in your hand as you chain yourself repeatedly in concepts, stop forging those chains for one, and then use the key to drop them for good. As long as people keep making their own chains of conceptual thought and saying hey ave you chained yourself to this belief yet? and they go yup.. and you go great I thought I didnt chain myself up right thanks for the confirmation/affirmation that im binding myself up pretty good...

Might sound rediculous but thats how it is and why free will doesnt seem to exist... although, unbinding takes a lot of effort and work on ones part no matter how many keys I or anyone else past present and future have handed will hand you or continue to hand you til you say dang I was locking myself up and blaming others the whole time because of my very own belief and attachments not allowing me to have the experience id rather talked or learn about instead of putting in the effort to get free...

A lot people love to talk religion science and other concepts but few walk it live it and breath it beyond such concepts... of course gotta start walking it and see where it goes believing is just sitting there waiting for an usher to say come on doors are closing time to leave aint no body coming back cause they were walking it and havent stopped... seriously think about it... no one showed any of them the way, of course they got a ton of directions like everybody else then said you know what lemme walk and see what happens... next thing you know? free and then they pointed directions as long as they could til others said dang guess Ill walk it but some have just been sitting enjoying the choir and waiting like someone but death is gonna come take their hand in the mean time of all that waiting... but I believe!.. there goes chain number one... click. Done trapped yourself... now what?

a reply to: Aphorism

I always understood that free will was regarding controlling one's actions.

You have misunderstood. Free will is not controllIng your actions but being free to choose how to act.

None but ourselves are controlling our actions.

If the decision is made before you are aware of making it, in what sense are you free to make a choice? May unconscious decisions be termed choices?

originally posted by: Aphorism
I always understood that free will was regarding controlling one's actions. No one but ourselves are controlling our actions. Prove me wrong.

It would be impossible to prove you wrong - it can be realized but no one can prove you wrong!
No one can make you listen to the following video.

Clicking the link and listening will happen or it won't.

a reply to: Astyanax

You have misunderstood. Free will is not controllIng your actions but being free to choose how to act.

I'll accept that, as it seems more precise.

If the decision is made before you are aware of making it, in what sense are you free to make a choice?

If the decision is made by whom? If I had decided long before I was aware of doing so, it was still no one else but myself who made the decision.

May unconscious decisions be termed choices?

Since unconscious processes are involved in the conscious ones, it would seem right to include them in the decision making process. Choosing isn't only a conscious affair. (Something crazy like 97% of our thinking is unconscious). Likewise, we are not only conscious agents, but unconscious ones.

What sort of restraints does a human being have when it comes to making choices?

originally posted by: Aphorism
What sort of restraints does a human being have when it comes to making choices?

A human being is appearing to happen - all it appears to do is just happening - no one is inside. Bodies move and thoughts appear - apparent choices are made - but there is no one separate to the happening controlling the happening.

a reply to: Itisnowagain

If no one was inside then who typed your post? If you say you... sit under that tree and let me know when the fruit is ripe, dont worry I wont eat it from your hand.

originally posted by: BigBrotherDarkness
a reply to: Itisnowagain

If no one was inside then who typed your post?

No one typed the post.

There maybe an idea that there is 'someone in there' doing stuff but life (everything) is simply happening.

a reply to: Itisnowagain

The cherry blossoms are nice this time of year... please mind the pit, so you dont crack a tooth.

Perhaps "free will" is like a child given an unplugged controller but thinking he is in control, all the while it is his Father who is actually playing the video game. Once the child begins understanding the game, he realizes he was never actually in control. The Father did this because he knew the child would have to first learn through observation before plugging in his controller. The game is truth.

a reply to: Aphorism

If the decision is made by whom?

It doesn't signify. Decisions don't need persons to make them. As anyone who has ever servedd on a committee knows.

Regarding the other point, there is no way to show that an unconscious choice is free.

Thank you for this OP!

I've sensed for a long time that every choice we make is predetermined by previous experiences and conditioning, which is another thing entirely than the article proposes but it's something.

We are like forces that have been set into motion and all we can do now is just let everything run it's course- including ourselves.

I feel like we're all inside of some kind of machine, honestly. And we're all robots. There's always a "why" answer to your choices. Why did you do that? Well it's because so and so and etc. There's always an answer. In this way, a decision is never isolated unto itself. It always has roots. Even the subjects in this experiment- even if it's just guessing where the colored circles will show up next which sounds random, it's reminiscent of the mole game where you have to bonk the moles on the head whenever they surface? And there's more where that comes from, too. Every choice seems to have a reason backing it up, and it's like we're constantly being programmed which will determine future choices. Idk if that means there's no free will but I tend to lean towards that belief myself.

Some posters are missing this part of the linked article:

Interestingly, this only happened when the red circles appeared quickly - when participants had more time before the colour changed, the percentage of "yes" answers dropped back down to around 20 percent, hinting that, given enough time, students really were making a conscious choice.

"This result ensured that participants weren’t simply trying to deceive us (or themselves) about their prediction abilities or just liked reporting that they were correct," Bear added.

To me this just shows a bias to sometimes think we're making choices when we're in fact not. I'd like to see this compared to the participants level of confidence. Does high confidence correlate to more bias? I know in other research I've seen results which suggest we're sometimes prejudiced to believe in our own correctness. Don't feel like digging in my favorites.

The fact it fell to 20 percent--the amount expected if it's a conscious choice--shows the evidence both supports and denies the assertion free will is an illusion.

Also I've always believed in determinism, even though we experience it as free will. If every atom and pulse of energy inside us could be mapped and understood then our decisions are ackin to the final alignment of billiard balls after being struck by the cue ball. It's just so complicated and beyond our reach we can't pin it down, so it comes across as being free. The problem is current theories do not support determinism as a full explanation for the universe. Einstein believed in determinism but was never able to show it explained everything. I wish I could remmber the specific terms ,but it has bene a while since I read about it. Keep in mind I'm referring to hardcore determinism which would exist on every level. To some extent, we DO have determinsim. But super determinism which exists on a quantum level? No.

What does this mean for all of us? Debunking free will might be the ultimate ploy to enact tyranny? But it's not necessary to go to that extreme. Personal control: The right to make decisions as an individual. Consider alcoholics or the mentally ill--and repeat criminals even. They don't make sound decisions, right? It's easy to disqualify them as having the right to make choices, even if free will is believed to exist. So we should be able to see the the fruits of these tyrannical labors right now, if we haven't already for a long time. All; the controllers need to do is add more people to the 'disqualified' list.

a reply to: geezlouise

The paradox, is when adults cant adult when asked why... and regress to childhood behavoirs of lying or trying to cover up the reason to escape judgement. Well that baggage will be dragged around and dragged around as a noose and burden and no amount of belief or faith will unshackle the lie they tell themselves when assuming others are too ignorant to know better. An adult that is honest and forth right hides nothing and as a responsible adult accepts whatever judgment or consequence for their actions. The regression to a childlike state to avoid such personal responsibility, can be seen as plainy by adults when asking a child if they ate the chocolate cake and the child saying no... forgetting they had a face to put the cake in leaving the evidence of deciet clear to see.

Its just from poor coping mechanisms, and the conditioning that the child learned that deceit has gotten them out of trouble... while the chocolate cake is not concidering that maybe they had forgiving parent(s) that loved them more than the cake, and the belly ache would be its own punishment later... of course carrying that into adulthood and the adult not seeing the benvolence of their parent(s) can carry that into deciet as adults and regress to the child state of no I didnt... and cross their fingers hoping theres plausible or a resonable deniability for such actions... politicians use this all the time, I can neither confirm nor deny so the burden of proof becomes a task to waste the courts time when honesty and responsibility could settle it then and there... of course whether the parent was benevolent or harsh makes no difference, as it leads to the exact same behavoir... not really a paradox just the reality of the situation.

If honesty is a game, truely responsible adults arent playing it...

a reply to: Astyanax

information. gathering data. evolving. the only thing i could think of is its like an experiment. so you set some rules for the creation of the universe and you let it go. you learn a bunch of stuff and eventually you start over and the universe gets a little bit better each time you do so. free will is essential to gather good experience.

a reply to: Astyanax

It doesn't signify. Decisions don't need persons to make them. As anyone who has ever servedd (sic) on a committee knows.

But we are talking about persons. Once again, to your question “If the decision is made before you are aware of making it, in what sense are you free to make a choice?”, what would be making that decision? Certainly not a committee, which is a group of persons.

Regarding the other point, there is no way to show that an unconscious choice is free.

If unconscious brain activity correlated with hand waving occurs before consciously deciding to wave the hand, I don’t see how that proves or disproves free will. Where does the unconscious end and the conscious begin? Whether conscious or unconscious, there is only one being making the choice, and that same being is the one acting. Nothing else is choosing the course of action for him; nothing else is deciding for him; nothing else is willing for him. He is his brain; he is his unconscious; he is his nervous system; and so on.

a reply to: AllIsOne

consciousness may be a fundamental part of physics that we have not addressed yet. That would change everything. Don't you think?

Not if it is causal.

I don't know if it is possible to think about these things and come to any definitive conclusion, since likely, the thinking is based on wrong views.

Here is one idea -

We can say in a sense that an animal is more prone to "causality" or deterministic in the sense that they are swayed more strongly by their feelings/emotions and innate nature.. while a human may be less swayed. A human may be said to have more "tempered reason" or may exercise - deliberation.

I don't know if we can call this "freewill" but it is a distinguishable trait.