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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Original Post - Apr 2, 2012 - 01:47am PT
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Cut and pasted from a web article circa 12/2011
The Christmas issue of the New Statesman, guest-edited by Richard Dawkins, includes an essay by the neuroscientist and atheist author Sam Harris on the illusion of free will. Here, for Staggers readers, is a sneak preview.
Even though we can find no room for it in the causal order, the notion of free will is still accorded a remarkable deference in the scientific and philosophical literature, even by those who believe that the mind is entirely dependent on the workings of the brain. However, the truth is that free will doesn't even correspond to any subjective fact about us, for introspection soon grows as hostile to the idea as the equations of physics have. Apparent acts of volition merely arise, spontaneously (whether caused, uncaused or probabilistically inclined, it makes no difference), and cannot be traced to a point of origin in the stream of consciousness. A moment or two of serious self-scrutiny, and you might observe that you decide the next thought you think no more than you decide the next thought I write.
All of our behaviour can be traced to biological events about which we have no conscious knowledge. In the 1980s the neurophysiologist Benjamin Libet demonstrated that activity in the brain's motor regions can be detected some 300 milliseconds before a person feels that he has decided to move. Another lab recently used functional magnetic resonance imaging data to show that some "conscious" decisions can be predicted up to ten seconds before they enter awareness (long before the preparatory motor activity detected by Libet). Clearly, findings of this kind are difficult to reconcile with the sense that one is the conscious source of one's thoughts and actions.
For better or worse, these truths about human psychology have political implications, because liberals and conservatives are not equally confused about them. Liberals usually understand that every person represents a confluence of forces that he did not will into being - and we can be lucky or very unlucky in this respect. Conservatives, however, have made a religious fetish of individualism.
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I believe that Sam is only half right on this one.
JL
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WBraun
climber
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Sammy fell into the deep dark well of scientism and is stuck there.
Another one dimensional mental speculator .......
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Bruce Morris
Social climber
Belmont, California
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Seems to harmonize fairly well with the Freudian concept of unconscious intentionality where powerful emotions are always trying to escape the prison in the unconscious where they've been repressed because they're either too scary or too anti-social. And sometimes they do escape and compel us to do things against our rational wills. Hence, the Freudian "slip" that reveals what we're unconsciously thinking or feeling. Certainly possible to place a bio-chemical spin on all this.
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Wayno
Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
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Get a gun in your hand and then speculate about free will.
Grasp some stone and think of free thinking.
Jump in an ice cold lake and define thinking.
Try to merely think when you are having sex.
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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Liberals usually understand that every person represents a confluence of forces that he did not will into being
Well, of course, Harris's free will delusion thesis supports this one. I remember when I read of Crick's (or was it Watson's) contention that free will is an illusion maybe 15 years ago, my reaction was, "stick to biology!". I don't believe in "magical" forces or agents in any way, but I've always had a soft spot for free will. One with limits of course. A ranting, crazy man seems likely to be acting under "impulses" rather than directly exercising free will. I guess I always figured that a reasonably functioning brain was capable of summoning together this vast network of connections in order to decide on the next move. But, of course, free will is all about the "summoner/decider". Who/what is this agent?
I'm beginning to think my life-long stance on this subject is wrong. It's been fun going through little thought experiments to try to clarify the positions I've held. I'm going to continue to read up on this one.
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Spider Savage
Mountain climber
The shaggy fringe of Los Angeles
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So we are nothing but meat pinballs careening through a the debris of the universe and there's nothing you can do about it and any thought that you can is a delusion.
Gotcha.
Happy sailing.
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WBraun
climber
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Everyone has independent free will.
When you're a stupid sheep then you have none.
All the people here always say "think for yourself", and then the next moment say they're stupid and have no independent free will to think for themselves.
If you have no free will, then you are a stone.
Americans are stupid ......
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WBraun
climber
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Most all other nationalities are smart. :-)
They're not lard ass meat heads sitting around making a huge military pushing everyone else around telling them what to do trying to make them their sheep.
:-)
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
mammoth lakes ca
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Terrorizing other smarter races is just a Freudian Slip on a larger scale...We have no control over these impulses and being stupid lard-ass Americans has nothing to do with it..Where's my crack pipe and case of diet pepsi....RJ
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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maybe it's part of the way brains work? free will...
hey, look at the poor fruit fly guy
Learning From the Spurned and Tipsy Fruit Fly
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/16/health/male-fruit-flies-spurned-by-females-turn-to-alcohol.html
"Fruit flies apparently self-medicate just like many humans do, drowning their sorrows or frustrations for some of the same reasons, scientists reported Thursday. Male flies subjected to what amounted to a long tease — in a glass tube, not a dance club — preferred food spiked with alcohol far more than male flies that were able to mate."
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"The researchers found that levels of a chemical active in the brain called neuropeptide F, or NPF, correlated strongly with the flies’ appetite for alcohol: when levels of NPF were low, alcohol consumption was high, and vice versa.
The NPF molecule in flies is thought to be analogous to the action of chemical called neuropeptide Y in humans, or NPY.
Previous studies have found that NPY is involved in a wide range of behaviors, like eating, sleeping and response to stress. But the new study, and others, suggest that scientists could reduce drinking by developing drugs that enhance the activity of NPY, said George Koob, a professor of neurobiology and addiction at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif."
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rectorsquid
climber
Lake Tahoe
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Sammy fell into the deep dark well of scientism and is stuck there.
Another one dimensional mental speculator .......
Seems to be a lot of that around here. Each thinking along a single line incapable of moving in a different direction with our/their thoughts.
A wise philosopher might look at many points of view and speculate on all of them to learn more and to become enlightened in a multi-dimensional sense instead of just moving towards the enlightened end of their own one dimensional string of thoughts ignoring all other directions.
Or to be blunt, you too don't seem to be looking anywhere but straight ahead while on your own path to enlightenment. You will be screwed if you're headed in the wrong direction and don't know it because of your own blinders.
Dave
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 2, 2012 - 12:10pm PT
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A moment or two of serious self-scrutiny, and you might observe that you decide the next thought you think no more than you decide the next thought I write.
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This part he got right (IMO), in terms of us having no decision or creative input per thoughts arising in the first instance. They just geyser up out of the void relative to the task or idea or shizat at hand, either internal or external. Sam got this insight from the years he spent in India practicing meditation. But he left too soon. He didn't get to the next part of the training.
The fact that thoughts geyser up unbidden means we exercise no "free will" or direct influence - at least in any absolute way - over the arising of the content of consciousness. However cognition is not simply bearing witness to random thoughts coming down the pike, and having to like it. The real work is in the secondary functions of focusing on this or that aspect of the geyser till up bubbles what we were looking for or what we feel is appropriate for the story I am writing or the equation Ed is crunching. The neutral element of raw awareness is at play here.
Now what we choose to choose, or how we react to this or that thought or feeling or impulse, is also prone to determined choice and in fact our psyches are geared to keeping us in an environment where our responses are proven and well grooved and we can just go along for the ride. We need make no conscious effort to get by. We merely let our nervous systems guide the ship on auto-pilot. When we do this were are operating inside our "comfort zone."
Note that when we move out of our comfort zone, where proven choices are less determined for the lack of antecedent situations similar to the present, we naturally feel vulnerable because we face the prospect of making choices not fully determined by the past, there being not enough of it to impose a choice - and being wrong.
The above uneasiness is well-known and established in the recovery movement and is called "taking contrary actions." Such contrary actions are also prone to be largely determined but not absolutely. Both Sufism and modern Ennegram studies take it as a starting point that virtually all of our choices are determined by mechanistic functions within us. A large point of the so-called spiritual work is to bust free of our machine nature - not possible in any absolute way, but incrimentally, yes. And you can never do it by yourself.
Lastly, the whole notion of the brain being basically a stimulus response mechanism - just unconsciously pumping up thoughts and feelings and whatever the organism decides is germane to impose on awareness - this is only one way to look at the process. There are several other angles that are particularly amazing to consider.
Gotta work.
JL
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Spider Savage
Mountain climber
The shaggy fringe of Los Angeles
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There are several other angles that are particularly amazing to consider.
Wise words.
Trapped in a single dimension slot along this line is quite a rut. A trap even.
Truth has variations.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 2, 2012 - 02:41pm PT
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There are several other angles that are particularly amazing to consider.
Wise words.
Trapped in a single dimension slot along this line is quite a rut. A trap even.
Truth has variations.
I don't expect everyone to be able to follow this thread because few have the experience or interest to self-observe as closely as they observe external things. Ergo all of this will befuddle many and sound like "word salad." That's to be expected.
But for those who fancy self-inquiry, one of the really out there notions is that ideas don't bubble up at all, and are not "produced" by the brain, but rather they are always present in some undisclosed way and that our awareness, partially self directed but mostly drawn by unconsciousnes forces, moves about like a cursor and settles on appropriate ideas. This is one reason why nobody can ever see a thought arise or vanish, because data is not being retrieved as such, but rather, our awareness is drifting isle to isle.
These, in turn, can turn into a thought stream requiring no input from us, rushing on like the Nile in flood.
Back to work...
JL
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WBraun
climber
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Truth has variations.
Yes .... simultaneous oneness and difference ....
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Bruce Morris
Social climber
Belmont, California
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One of the big problems is that the neo-mammalian brain, the frontal lobes, the neocortex is only a recent evolutionary development. Not very sure of itself, so to speak. But the reptilian brain, the paleo-mammalian mind, the lower brain stem has been around for a lot, lot longer and still basically calls the shots when we are threatened or frightened. The neo-cortex congratulates itself that it's really in charge, operates according to the 18th century Enlightenment's doctrine of free-will, but dark frightening forces repressed into the unconscious are always intruding and making choices for you. Hence, neurotic symptoms and psychosomatic complaints that fill doctors' offices all over the Western world. That delay between the unconscious mind making a decision for you and you making a conscious rational decision is just one more indicator of unconscious intentionality at work. This kind of stuff sure upset people in the early 20th century, why is it such a big deal today in the 21st? I guess little social democrats are still "Afraid of Virginia Woolf"!
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Bruce Morris
Social climber
Belmont, California
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Sounds awfully dualistic to me! The eternal war between the flesh and the spirit! BS!
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MH2
climber
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I'll start to worry about it when it works as a legal defense of criminal behavior.
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Bruce Morris
Social climber
Belmont, California
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Excuse or not, Dostoyevsky sure was right when he noted we all have criminal minds. We just haven't evolved far enough to reconcile the unconscious and conscious portions of the brain. Those who have not been conditioned by rational and/or moral social codes, sure do like to pick up a machete or a gun and go on a killing spree. Likewise, if they've been traumatized by their upbringing and social environment, they're a heck of a lot more likely to do that. For a few moments at least the child primitive must feel really, really good about wielding the machete or squeezing the trigger, immense release of pent up negative, fearful energy. But of course then there are judicial consequence, huh? What do you do with someone who habitually indulges their id? Lock 'em up for life and throw away the key or else put them out of their misery for their own good and the good of society. But a better way of approaching it is making sure they're not so messed up in the first place. Easier said than done!
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