Interesting article on free will vs. determinism...

[RunningMn9]

Not from the philosophical angle, but from the neuroscience angle.

Article is Here on Wired. Interesting quote towards the end:

"Neuroscience can help us see that all behavior is mechanical, that all behavior is produced by chains of physical events that ultimately reach back to forces beyond the agent's control," said Greene. "And if we can see that, then I hope we will think differently about punishment, that we'll think of it as a practical tool and not as a way of balancing the universe's moral books."

Interesting, if without any substantiating evidence for such a bold claim. But since it agrees with my worldview, I won't challenge it.

[AttAdude]

jez the man makes almost no atempt to show evidence for his claim. Thats really not good science. However being a big Fan of BF skinner and Black box psych, i gotta agree with the jist of the artical. Its strange tho that they did not atempt to prove thier claim at all.

[RunningMn9]

jez the man makes almost no atempt to show evidence for his claim. Thats really not good science. However being a big Fan of BF skinner and Black box psych, i gotta agree with the jist of the artical. Its strange tho that they did not atempt to prove thier claim at all.

Well, in their defense, this isn't a scientific paper - it's just a blurb on Wired. I posted it as an interesting article, not as definative proof that we have no free will.

I'm assuming that if there is any good science, it's going on behind the scenes. We could make Gebeker dig it up for us.

[Mr. Sparkle]

Of course, that's easier said than done. Emotions are powerful, and it's sometimes difficult to be rational in the face of them. After all, we're not Vulcans.

Not yet.

[Mr. Fed]

I knew you were going to say that.

[Mr. Sparkle]

I'm assuming that if there is any good science, it's going on behind the scenes. We could make Gebeker dig it up for us.

I've worked a little bit in the field (and have dated a neuroscientist or two), and I would say we are pretty f'in far from being able to make any definitive statements about the nature of "free will" and how it relates to the brain.

There is a real big disconnect between animal work and human work, as far as the brain goes... I worked with a guy who did EEG recordings directly from peoples cortex, but the oppurtunity to do that type of recording is limited to patients with intractable epilepsy... and the techniques are very different... since nobody who works with rats or whatever would do EEG, when they can do single unit or multi unit recordings.

Basically, there are a horde of Nobel prizes to be handed out in the field of Neuroscience... and don't think that the people working on it don't know that... that's what soils the science in my mind, as people espouse these grandiose theories with little or no evidence... simply for politics.

I remember my ex- getting pissy about that group in North Carolina who do lots of monkey work and have been on TV a lot... thinking that their science was pretty sloppy, but that politics meant that they were poster children to the masses. Personally, I thought it was pretty cool that they could get monkeys to control a mechanical arm with their brains... sloppy or not (which I am not qualified to assertain).

I knew you were going to say that.

I guess that puts the nail in the coffin of free will then, eh?

EDIT: monkees->monkeys (as far as I know the satircal British pop group were in no way involved)

[AttAdude]

jez the man makes almost no atempt to show evidence for his claim. Thats really not good science. However being a big Fan of BF skinner and Black box psych, i gotta agree with the jist of the artical. Its strange tho that they did not atempt to prove thier claim at all.

Well, in their defense, this isn't a scientific paper - it's just a blurb on Wired. I posted it as an interesting article, not as definative proof that we have no free will.

I'm assuming that if there is any good science, it's going on behind the scenes. We could make Gebeker dig it up for us.

Thats true, but even when posting a blub its bad form not to site a source. that goes double when making a huge claim about the total lack of free will. That pretty important, if not to defend your claim, then just to let other people know where to go for more info.

[The Mad Hatter]

The ability to genetically engineer traits doesn't imply that the genetically engineered person won't be able to override them. I'm taking a neuroscience class right now and they definitely don't know enough about consciousness to reduce it to a mechanistic process. They might be able to tinker with it and influence actions but not determine them.

[RunningMn9]

I don't know TMH. You're in a college class. Geb does this for a living, and he's done some pretty odd things that go along way in my mind to suggesting determinism (even if he won't cop to such a conclusion ).

I think he runs tests on monkeys, and by hooking probes up to their brains, he could tell whether they would succeed or fail before they were presented with the test.

This "free will" business smacks of a conclusion reached because we don't know, and we would prefer it if we weren't reactive sacks of chemicals.

I'm not suggesting that I know the answer, or that neuroscience is close to closing the door on the question.

I'm merely suggesting that from what I can tell, it's leaning one way more than the other - and it's not leaning towards "free will".

[LordMortis]

However being a big Fan of BF skinner and Black box psych, i gotta agree with the jist of the artical. Its strange tho that they did not atempt to prove thier claim at all

Nice fluffy white bunny...

I'm assuming that if there is any good science, it's going on behind the scenes. We could make Gebeker dig it up for us

That's Erratum's forte. I don't know if he made the jump. 'Twill be interesting (one of many then meaningless words) if we can ever reduce every action to a predictable biochemical causal event.

I'm merely suggesting that from what I can tell, it's leaning one way more than the other - and it's not leaning towards "free will".

Which is why nothing has been our fault for a long damned time and ironically there is a disconnect between responsability and accountability.

[RunningMn9]

That's Erratum's forte. I don't know if he made the jump.

Geb's as well. And he did make the jump.

'Twill be interesting (one of many then meaningless words) if we can ever reduce every action to a predictable biochemical causal event.

Well, one event I think is a little bit too simplistic. But what I would expect to find is that our behavior and will to act is completely contained within the physical brain and is causal. I don't think I would go so far as to say that behavioral response in humans will become completely predictable, as the sheer number of "causes" seems to large to me for something like that.

Predicting seemingly random misfires of neurons might prove difficult, even if we understand that by "random" we simply mean that we don't know all of the contributing factors in advance, and by "misfire" we simply mean something that was not expected.

I understand the arguments for Free Will from the philosophical angle, but I just don't see how they hold up on examining the brain, unless one posits that there is some component of Mind or Will that exists outside the physical brain. But that just sounds like your making stuff up to satisfy your philosophical argument.

Which is why nothing has been our fault for a long damned time and ironically there is a disconnect between responsability and accountability.

Even if the notion of "fault" goes by the wayside. People would still be held responsible for their actions, at least as much as they are today. Society will still need a mechanism to protect itself. Whether it's protecting itself against free agents who are choosing to do bad things, or chemical automatons that are doing bad things. The "doing bad things" isn't going to be allowed (unless we are willing to sacrifice the notion of "society").

I wonder. What do free will adherents think about other mammals with mammalian brains? Do they have developed theories on what makes the human brain different such that humans can act as free agents, whereas beavers cannot?

[The Mad Hatter]

I don't know TMH. You're in a college class. Geb does this for a living, and he's done some pretty odd things that go along way in my mind to suggesting determinism (even if he won't cop to such a conclusion ).

I think he runs tests on monkeys, and by hooking probes up to their brains, he could tell whether they would succeed or fail before they were presented with the test.

This "free will" business smacks of a conclusion reached because we don't know, and we would prefer it if we weren't reactive sacks of chemicals.

I'm not suggesting that I know the answer, or that neuroscience is close to closing the door on the question.

I'm merely suggesting that from what I can tell, it's leaning one way more than the other - and it's not leaning towards "free will".

Sure, we can map regions of the brain associated with different actions or feelings, even in real time. We also understand basic autonomic reactions in response to stimuli that everyone has. Coming to understand these aspect of behaviour, even the nature of consciousness itself, doesn't nullify free will though.

[LordMortis]

Even if the notion of "fault" goes by the wayside. People would still be held responsible for their actions, at least as much as they are today. Society will still need a mechanism to protect itself. Whether it's protecting itself against free agents who are choosing to do bad things, or chemical automatons that are doing bad things. The "doing bad things" isn't going to be allowed (unless we are willing to sacrifice the notion of "society").

Responsible is peachy, and doesn't change, it just gets reassocieted into proximate and approximate cause. Accountability and fault on the other hand go whacky as they already are. The problem is the chemical I took or the natural chemicals in my brain or I was raised that way or in a I was raised in a rough environment. Conversely, my success isn't my "fault" either. It is happenstance. The psychology of motivation is given a mortal mortal blow by the science of determinism.

I wonder how many neuroscientists have lost and/or found spirituality from their field.

[RunningMn9]

Sure, we can map regions of the brain associated with different actions or feelings, even in real time. We also understand basic autonomic reactions in response to stimuli that everyone has. Coming to understand these aspect of behaviour, even the nature of consciousness itself, doesn't nullify free will though.

I submit that there is a threshold of understanding that we will cross which will nullify free will. The problem with the "free will" argument from a scientific standpoint is that it is very difficult to reconcile with our notions of cause/effect and a very physical brain.

An example. Smoove_B punches you in your face. How would someone recognize whether or not your response to that action is the sum result of your brain chemistry processing the input "Smoove_B punched me in my face" - or the expression of your free will acting against what the chemical response would have been.

How would one demonstrate that the sum result of your brain chemistry processing that input yielded "punch Smoove_B in her face", and that this was overcome by "free will" to result in your reaction to do nothing?

How would we know that you doing nothing isn't simply what the sum result of your brain chemisty is at the moment she punched you?

Unless one proposes some external force capable of acting on and supressing the normal operation of our mammalian brains, how does "free will" hold up in light of our notions of cause/effect and a very physical brain?

[Mr. Sparkle]

Let's say that we know *everything* about how cognition works, how genetics influence your brains' development, and how external stimuli affect the development of cognitive processes etc...

Could we make an RM9 model on a computer and predict every single reaction to anything with 100% certainty?

I would say no, because quantum effects are indeterminant and big enough compared to neurons.

I'm in the Humans are Turing Machines + a Perfect Random Number Generator camp.

[The Mad Hatter]

Sure, we can map regions of the brain associated with different actions or feelings, even in real time. We also understand basic autonomic reactions in response to stimuli that everyone has. Coming to understand these aspect of behaviour, even the nature of consciousness itself, doesn't nullify free will though.

I submit that there is a threshold of understanding that we will cross which will nullify free will. The problem with the "free will" argument from a scientific standpoint is that it is very difficult to reconcile with our notions of cause/effect and a very physical brain.

An example. Smoove_B punches you in your face. How would someone recognize whether or not your response to that action is the sum result of your brain chemistry processing the input "Smoove_B punched me in my face" - or the expression of your free will acting against what the chemical response would have been.

How would one demonstrate that the sum result of your brain chemistry processing that input yielded "punch Smoove_B in her face", and that this was overcome by "free will" to result in your reaction to do nothing?

How would we know that you doing nothing isn't simply what the sum result of your brain chemisty is at the moment she punched you?

Unless one proposes some external force capable of acting on and supressing the normal operation of our mammalian brains, how does "free will" hold up in light of our notions of cause/effect and a very physical brain?

On the other hand though, how would we know that our brain chemistry isn't a mechanism which our free will draws on but is not bound to in a deterministic fashion? If Smoove B punches me in the face, I'll have the standard physical "fight or flight" processing, interacting with my genetic base. There's also the factors specific to my past - how many times I've been punched in the face before, the resulting conditioning augmenting or counteracting my level of aggressive response or submissive reaction. Then again, there's my personal response to Smoove B - is he my worst enemy, loved one, or a stranger? The more complex my emotional attachment to him the less likely any scientific understanding will be able to predict my response. There's also the societal factors - I remain aware that getting into a fight with Smoove B might put me in jail. All of these elements are going through my mind as my body is processing the pain and other physiological responses to being hit in the face. I believe that aspects of my response are beyond the chemistry of my brain and thus could never be purely deterministic. Science might be able to give you my likely response but there's always a variable there that's beyond biological cause and effect.

[RunningMn9]

Could we make an RM9 model on a computer and predict every single reaction to anything with 100% certainty?

Building a perfect computer simulation of RM9 is not a requirement of determining that free will is not happening.

I would say no, because quantum effects are indeterminant and big enough compared to neurons.

Again - even if the behavioral response is driven by the sum set of your brain chemistry + the variation that occurs as a result of quantum effects - free will is still dead.

Free will requires that there is an UNCAUSED agent that is determining your action. If your actions are caused by your mental machinery and any fuckups introduced as neurons randomly misfire, your actions are still CAUSED by your mental machinery and random neuron misfires. That it is no longer predictable, does NOT mean that it is somehow not caused - which is a requirement of being able to act with free will.

All of these elements are going through my mind as my body is processing the pain and other physiological responses to being hit in the face. I believe that aspects of my response are beyond the chemistry of my brain and thus could never be purely deterministic. Science might be able to give you my likely response but there's always a variable there that's beyond biological cause and effect.

You're confusing me. "All of these elements" are simply your brain chemistry processing a set of inputs. Considering your experience, your emotional attachment to Smoove, the societal consequences, the level of pain caused, etc.

ALL of these are simply input signals to your chemical machinery. It's all biological cause and effect.

Remember - you are adding an adjective here, "purely deterministic". By implication it seems like you are telling me that if we can't completely determine and predict your response - then you have free will and/or are not deterministic.

That's not true. Whether we can compute or understand the necessary variables that collectively determine your response has no bearing on whether or not your response is 100% determined by some collection of necessary variables.

My position ultimately is that our actions are determinant, but that we will forever lack the ability to have complete enough knowledge to determine or predict exact human behavioral response. That's the illusion of free will. That's not actual free will.

[Mr. Sparkle]

That it's not deterministic, at least leaves the door open for "free will"... maybe our souls play dice.

[LordMortis]

Free will requires that there is an UNCAUSED agent that is determining your action.

Fucking mind blowing irrationalism, isn't it. It makes 2+2=5 in terms of normal math seem not only possible, but small. It's the stuff that naval lint is attracted to.

If your actions are caused by your mental machinery and any fuckups introduced as neurons randomly misfire, your actions are still CAUSED by your mental machinery and random neuron misfires. That it is no longer predictable, does NOT mean that it is somehow not caused - which is a requirement of being able to act with free will.

I don't think you are being genuine here. All predictable means, is that there is a capacity to be know the causal chain. Given the proper framework, misfires should still be predictable as would their outcome. Cause and predictability are trivail, which is to say they are tautalogical unless we believe there are truly random events, which is swimming up a different stream entirely and does not fit in with a completely scientific world, though it is also not the same as a world with free will nor it is mutually exclusive from it.

Frickin' beautiful. Now all you have to do is add the concept of nothing. And you have the makings to be Budda...or reach insanity...at least a migraine.

[Trent Steel]

I wish I still had the thread from GG when I proved LordMortis' existence was a result of my posting on the forums.

[LordMortis]

Funny,

I thought you proved that your life is meaningless without my existance.

[Trent Steel]

No, that is simply the preception generated in your mind, which is a result of my creation of you.

[RunningMn9]

That it's not deterministic, at least leaves the door open for "free will"... maybe our souls play dice.

Well, I guess I would ask "deterministic by whom?" By other humans? We're stupid.

I agree that in the absence of accounting for every last variable and demonstrating how each effects the overall equation of our behavior - one must allow that an uncaused agent *could be* allowing you to violate what our more simplistic models predict. But you probably know how I feel about inventing supernatural agents to account for things without any evidence of them existing.

I don't think you are being genuine here. All predictable means, is that there is a capacity to be know the causal chain. Given the proper framework, misfires should still be predictable as would their outcome. Cause and predictability are trivail, which is to say they are tautalogical unless we believe there are truly random events, which is swimming up a different stream entirely and does not fit in with a completely scientific world, though it is also not the same as a world with free will nor it is mutually exclusive from it.

Of course, the logical extension of my position is that misfires and quantum effects are equally deterministic and predictable. I was just trying to show how the claim that quantum effects, etc. simply add more inputs and information to the chemical decoder box that is our brains.

I'm just pointing out that things in this universe are caused. Including our decisions. How could free will work in such a universe, without inventing a supernatural way out?

Whether or not I can quantify and predict the causes is irrelevant. Some people say that vacuum flucuations are actually uncaused events, but I'm not so sure that isn't just an example of us not knowing the cause, and thus assuming it doesn't exist.

This is the same kind of thing where people want to believe that the "feeling of love" is something more than a chemical reaction in your brain. Based on what? What is it if it isn't something wholly contained in the brain? If contained in the brain, it's just chemicals interacting. If it's not completely contained in the brain, how the hell is it interacting with the brain?

Maybe I'll just settle for hoping that someone explains how free will can work in a universe where we allege that everything is caused.

[The Mad Hatter]

All of these elements are going through my mind as my body is processing the pain and other physiological responses to being hit in the face. I believe that aspects of my response are beyond the chemistry of my brain and thus could never be purely deterministic. Science might be able to give you my likely response but there's always a variable there that's beyond biological cause and effect.

You're confusing me. "All of these elements" are simply your brain chemistry processing a set of inputs. Considering your experience, your emotional attachment to Smoove, the societal consequences, the level of pain caused, etc.

ALL of these are simply input signals to your chemical machinery. It's all biological cause and effect.

Elements within those factors are simply input signals to my chemical machinery. That does not make it all cause and effect. Just because there's a biological element to my ability to experience emotions doesn't mean that emotion is simply a biological function. There may be something else involved, the uncaused effect as you put it. I believe there is, you don't, but that at least leaves the door open to free will.

My position ultimately is that our actions are determinant, but that we will forever lack the ability to have complete enough knowledge to determine or predict exact human behavioral response. That's the illusion of free will. That's not actual free will.

The failure of science to fully understand something like consciousness to me implies the possibility that it's beyond science. Not simply an illusion of free will created by randomly misfiring neurons, but something else. That's enough for me.

[LordMortis]

I'm just pointing out that things in this universe are caused. Including our decisions. How could free will work in such a universe, without inventing a supernatural way out?

Exactly!!! (Except invent here is emotionally charged languaged) And now you know the exact reason why I am a spiritual being and not an athesit and why I consider myself a romantic irrationalist. I take on the all the crap it entales, but at least it keeps me getting out of bed in the morning and from putting a bullet in my head before I go to bed at night. Nihilism is not very comforting to me. I wish it were. I also wish I could believe in God. I'd find that to be a much larger comfort than the belief system I have now. However, I suppose in a wholly causal universe, I get stuck marching to the beat of my own drum as the universe dictates the rhythm.

Maybe I'll just settle for hoping that someone explains how free will can work in a universe where we allege that everything is caused.

That was Erratum's insistance. Though he spouted the exact same things you do. He just makes a different turn it comes to conclustion time. You'd have to find GG's archives to get the conversations.

[RunningMn9]

Elements within those factors are simply input signals to my chemical machinery.

What makes you think that some parts of those factors aren't input signals to your chemical machinery? If they are thoughts that you are having that you are using to evaluate your response, why wouldn't you consider them just input signals to your chemical machinery, similar to the ones your pain receptors are sending?

Are you suggesting that "thoughts" aren't completely contained within the brain?

That does not make it all cause and effect.

Well, I would caution you to be aware of the can of worms you'll open here on the philosophical front if you start allowing for a whole host of uncaused events existing within our causal universe.

Just because there's a biological element to my ability to experience emotions doesn't mean that emotion is simply a biological function.

What do you think emotion is, if not simply a biological function of your brain?

If your answer is "I don't know", why do you think that emotion is not simply a biological function of your brain? Have you seen evidence that emotion is not a function of brain chemistry?

I assume you admit that it is partially the result of brain chemistry, since we can alter it with chemicals.

There may be something else involved, the uncaused effect as you put it.

There may be. What evidence is there that a biological explanation for emotion is insufficient?

I believe there is

Why?

but that at least leaves the door open to free will.

Only if that thing you are talking about is coming from outside our caused universe, and only if being outside the universe allows for events to be uncaused.

The "if"s are mounting.

I'm just curious now, because your rebuttal for your decisions being caused was to start listing all of the causes for whatever your final response was. That seemed like and odd way of arguing against a lack of free will because we live in a causal universe.

The failure of science to fully understand something like consciousness to me implies the possibility that it's beyond science.

I'd be careful with that statement on a few levels. For one, it sounds like you are imposing your own lack of understanding of consciousness on the rest of humanity, and I don't know if that is true. Perhaps someone like Gebeker, whose job it is to determine and predict responses of primate brains, understands consciousness, or at least more than us laypersons?

Secondly, the statement implies that it will hold true in the future.

Consciousness happens within this universe. That brings it well within the boundaries of Science, even if we don't completely understand it today.

It wasn't so long ago that we didn't understand relativity or quantum mechanics. That didn't mean that Newton was right.

Anything that interacts with the physical world is subject to science. It's the achilles heel of supernaturalists. Sure, ghosts can exist in some ethereal plane outside of our realm of existence. But if we experience them - they must be interacting with our world - and that interaction is absolutely subject to scientific inquiry.

Same goes for God. Science may not be able to investigate Him - but they can investigate His interaction with our world. Of course, that interaction seems to have stopped as Science came of age and had the opportunity to investigate (conveniently ).

I guess now I'm more interested in WHY you think that there is something more to these emotions than chemicals racing around a gray blob in your skull. Is it because you need there to be something more? Hope that there is something more? Is that sufficient justification for not realizing that there is no evidence available to support such a view?

Unless you have evidence that supports such a view. Then I'll shut the hell up.

[RunningMn9]

And now you know the exact reason why I am a spiritual being and not an athesit and why I consider myself a romantic irrationalist. I take on the all the crap it entales, but at least it keeps me getting out of bed in the morning and from putting a bullet in my head before I go to bed at night. Nihilism is not very comforting to me. I wish it were. I also wish I could believe in God. I'd find that to be a much larger comfort than the belief system I have now. However, I suppose in a wholly causal universe, I get stuck marching to the beat of my own drum as the universe dictates the rhythm.

No I don't. You believe that the biological answer isn't all there is, because if that's all there is, you couldn't accept the nihilism that would ensue and wouldn't be able to get out of bed or not kill yourself?

Is nihilism the only alternative to your kind of worldview? Is it the only possible worldview in light of living in a caused universe without free will?

[Mr. Sparkle]

I guess I really don't care if I have *true* free will or not... if it's an illusion, it's a damn convincing one. It sure seems like I can make rational choices... good enough for me.

[RunningMn9]

I guess I really don't care if I have *true* free will or not... if it's an illusion, it's a damn convincing one. It sure seems like I can make rational choices... good enough for me.

That's the view I take when not actively participating in a discussion on the topic.

The illusion of free will is good enough for me.

Whether my "rational" choices are simply the result of a complex chemical reaction that I can't possibly hope to understand or predict, or the result of some uncaused supernatural force interfering with our caused universe - what does it matter?

If I can't discern the difference, whether we are talking about reality or a simulacra becomes a meaningless question. But that's the philosophical angle, not the neuroscience angle.

[Smoove_B]

I read this and lost 1D10 of SAN.

This paper argues that at least one of the following propositions is true: (1) the human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a “posthuman” stage; (2) any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof); (3) we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation. It follows that the belief that there is a significant chance that we will one day become posthumans who run ancestor-simulations is false, unless we are currently living in a simulation. A number of other consequences of this result are also discuss

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[LordMortis]

Is nihilism the only alternative to your kind of worldview? Is it the only possible worldview in light of living in a caused universe without free will?

These seem like tow different questions.

I would imagine Nihilism is opposed to my world view. But my world view is hardly the only one out there. So I guess it depends on where you are going with "kind."

My worldview does view that a universe without freewill is a necessary outcome from a wholly rational universe, (though a world with no free will could exist in a ~wholly rational universe either) My world view also holds that Nihilism is a necessary part of a universe with out free will as well. (though it could also be a world view consistant with freewill as well)

On the bright side, nihilism isn't a terribly bad world view. As a matter of fact, by it's nature it can't be bad or good. It's almost Pooh and zenlike. It just is. I don't like it though, so I rebel. I suppose that may even be some sort of insanity. I bet if probed deep enough, we could find several sorts within.

[LordMortis]

The illusion of free will is good enough for me.

Of course it is. You are not capable of seeing the world any other way. Exactly as I am not capable of accepting a Delphinian world view.

[The Mad Hatter]

Elements within those factors are simply input signals to my chemical machinery.

What makes you think that some parts of those factors aren't input signals to your chemical machinery? If they are thoughts that you are having that you are using to evaluate your response, why wouldn't you consider them just input signals to your chemical machinery, similar to the ones your pain receptors are sending?

Are you suggesting that "thoughts" aren't completely contained within the brain?

I'm suggesting that the chemical processes in the brain aren't the sole force behind thought.

Just because there's a biological element to my ability to experience emotions doesn't mean that emotion is simply a biological function.

What do you think emotion is, if not simply a biological function of your brain?

If your answer is "I don't know", why do you think that emotion is not simply a biological function of your brain? Have you seen evidence that emotion is not a function of brain chemistry?

I assume you admit that it is partially the result of brain chemistry, since we can alter it with chemicals.

We can alter aspects of emotion with chemicals, reduce aggressive tendencies, dull the fear response to stimuli. There is no chemical compound that will make you fall in love with Smoove B, because we have no concrete understanding of what love is. We have hypotheses on the adaptive function of positive emotion helping to maintain social networks that allow us to survive and reproduce, but that's far removed from an explanation of love. In the absence of a scientific understanding, there is the possibility that love involves something beyond chemical processes.

I'm just curious now, because your rebuttal for your decisions being caused was to start listing all of the causes for whatever your final response was. That seemed like and odd way of arguing against a lack of free will because we live in a causal universe.

It was more an attempt to illustrate all the different elements that would go into such a response. There's clearly chemical element there but some of them potentially involve a "higher" level of processing.

The failure of science to fully understand something like consciousness to me implies the possibility that it's beyond science.

I'd be careful with that statement on a few levels. For one, it sounds like you are imposing your own lack of understanding of consciousness on the rest of humanity, and I don't know if that is true. Perhaps someone like Gebeker, whose job it is to determine and predict responses of primate brains, understands consciousness, or at least more than us laypersons?

He may well have a better grip on the subject, but I'd be amazed if he claimed to understand the nature of consciousness. Only the religious among us would claim that.

Secondly, the statement implies that it will hold true in the future.

Consciousness happens within this universe. That brings it well within the boundaries of Science, even if we don't completely understand it today.

It wasn't so long ago that we didn't understand relativity or quantum mechanics. That didn't mean that Newton was right.

Very true, and it's certainly been a fascinating area to learn more about. My prior experience had been on the liberal arts side - I could recite Anselm's justification for the existence of God but I knew nothing about higher brain functions. I'm not sure science will ever reach the level of certainty that medieval theologians claimed, though.

I guess now I'm more interested in WHY you think that there is something more to these emotions than chemicals racing around a gray blob in your skull. Is it because you need there to be something more? Hope that there is something more? Is that sufficient justification for not realizing that there is no evidence available to support such a view?

Unless you have evidence that supports such a view. Then I'll shut the hell up.

Nothing I've seen in scientific research explains why humanity developed forms of art, spiritual belief systems or metaphysics in general. I don't see the adaptive purpose of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony or Saint Augustine's City of God. They are not necessary for us to survive and reproduce, in fact they can be counterproductive to that end. Why do they exist?

[LordMortis]

Nothing I've seen in scientific research explains why humanity developed forms of art, spiritual belief systems or metaphysics in general. I don't see the adaptive purpose of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony or Saint Augustine's City of God. They are not necessary for us to survive and reproduce, in fact they can be counterproductive to that end. Why do they exist?

An even better response would be that you simply don't have a choice in the matter. Who cares about evidence? RM9 will keep talking if the chemicals keep reacting in a make RM9 talk kind of way and if they change direction, he will stop. Better than providing evidence is just have the shut the hell up reaction occur. Niether you nor he actually have control over that reaction, though.

[Kelric]

<entire thread>

My brain hurts.

[Mr. Sparkle]

I read this and lost 1D10 of SAN.

This paper argues that at least one of the following propositions is true: (1) the human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a “posthuman” stage; (2) any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof); (3) we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation. It follows that the belief that there is a significant chance that we will one day become posthumans who run ancestor-simulations is false, unless we are currently living in a simulation. A number of other consequences of this result are also discuss

[/url]

I'm not sure what to make of that article, other than the fact that Doctorates of Philosophy in Philosophy are perhaps a mistake to award.

I'm sure it would seem "really deep" if I was high or trippin' right now... but alas...

[RunningMn9]

TMH, I apologize for this, but I'm going to disregard much of your post, not because it's bad (or because you're right ), but because you said two things that I'd like to focus on.

I'm suggesting that the chemical processes in the brain aren't the sole force behind thought.

Based on what? Why? What evidence have you seen that there are outside forces meddling with your brain chemistry as you build and process thoughts?

It was more an attempt to illustrate all the different elements that would go into such a response. There's clearly chemical element there but some of them potentially involve a "higher" level of processing.

I think we have a disconnect. My contention is that whatever your laundary list of reasons for your reaction to Smoove_B slapping you - the ultimate result is CAUSED by that collection of reasons. Whether I can predict it in a lab or not - your reaction is the sum of all the things you are describing, plus many, many more that you haven't even contemplated yet.

What I'm saying is that even though *I* can't predict your response - you're response is predictable because it is simply the mechanical response to some very large set of variables. And because of the causitive nature of our universe - free will can be nothing more than an illusion.

Nothing I've seen in scientific research explains why humanity developed forms of art, spiritual belief systems or metaphysics in general. I don't see the adaptive purpose of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony or Saint Augustine's City of God. They are not necessary for us to survive and reproduce, in fact they can be counterproductive to that end. Why do they exist?

Again, you're making dangerous claims here. Certainly you aren't going to expect me to believe that your examination of the scientific research on the survival aspects of works of art is exhaustive. Are you?

And you aren't going to make the mistake of presuming that the absence of such a scientific paper is significant enough to overturn the obvious conclusion that there *IS* an evolutionary advantage to the production of art.

If there wasn't - you would have seen humans that possessed no aptitude for art outcompeting humans that were "wasting their time" on it.

There is no "reason" for the existence of art. They exist because human beings covet it and confer survival benefits on those humans that provide it for us.

I'm not sure I understand why you are relying on our lack of complete knowledge on this topic as a reason to invent solutions that have absolutely no evidence for them.

Again - unless you have evidence that thoughts are something that exist external to the physical brain. I'd be more than happy to look at that.

Sorry - that was three things I wanted to talk about.

NOTE on Evolution: Things don't have to be "necessary" to survive in order for them to confer an evolutionary advantage. Things only need to provide some benefit towards surviving long enough to reproduce. If human beings are wired to appreciate creative expression, we are likely to reward those who express creatively. And I don't think it takes many scientific research papers to demonstrate that creative expression is something that has contributed mightily to there being 6.4 billion of us roaming around.

Creative expression doesn't only come in the form of paintings and poetry and music. It can come in the form of atl-atl's and aqueducts as well.

And I'm *really* surprised that you don't understand the survival benefit of human spirituality. I suggest the work of Pascal Boyer as a starting point.

[milo]

<entire thread>

My brain hurts.

Not possible. There are no pain receptors in brain tissue.

[Bob]

Okay.. I skipped that last ~3 posts or so. They seemed long and I've been at work for 12 hours.

Free will requires that there is an UNCAUSED agent that is determining your action.

This definition of free will is pretty silly. Do we need to refine it? Would you say that you might mean this:

Free will requires that there is a non-physical cause that is determining your action.

Because the first thing, an "uncaused" agent, would simply mean random, no?

I disagree however, that free will requires an non-physical agent. I think it merely requires a certain level of complexity.

The brain has what billions of connections? You've got internal and external inputs firing off those billions of connections constantly, and the results of firings are another input, and the results of that are another input, and another, and another, and another, like holding a mirror up to another mirror. It goes on and on only limited by the speed of electrons whizzing around in yer head.

We just don't know what a system with that much feedback does.

I'm willing to maintain that it's more than the sum of it's parts until someone can prove me otherwise.

Cuz it feels that way. And I'm stubborn.

[The Mad Hatter]

Apologies for the brevity here, I'm buried under lectures in Criminal Psychology and Neuroscience.

Nothing I've seen in scientific research explains why humanity developed forms of art, spiritual belief systems or metaphysics in general. I don't see the adaptive purpose of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony or Saint Augustine's City of God. They are not necessary for us to survive and reproduce, in fact they can be counterproductive to that end. Why do they exist?

Again, you're making dangerous claims here. Certainly you aren't going to expect me to believe that your examination of the scientific research on the survival aspects of works of art is exhaustive. Are you?

Not at all, I'm talking about why I believe that to be true. Ask Grund for more exhaustive information, I believe he teaches art history.

And you aren't going to make the mistake of presuming that the absence of such a scientific paper is significant enough to overturn the obvious conclusion that there *IS* an evolutionary advantage to the production of art.

If there wasn't - you would have seen humans that possessed no aptitude for art outcompeting humans that were "wasting their time" on it.

There is no "reason" for the existence of art. They exist because human beings covet it and confer survival benefits on those humans that provide it for us.

I'm not sure I understand why you are relying on our lack of complete knowledge on this topic as a reason to invent solutions that have absolutely no evidence for them.

It's not a question of inventing solutions - it's a response to your contention that there's no such thing as free will. I'm not making a definitive statement either way, only expressing why I believe we do have free will in some form. You may be right, it may be purely biological, but on some basic level that sounds wrong to me. Maybe after years of hardline agnosticism I'm mellowing on on these issues, it's hard to say.

NOTE on Evolution: Things don't have to be "necessary" to survive in order for them to confer an evolutionary advantage. Things only need to provide some benefit towards surviving long enough to reproduce. If human beings are wired to appreciate creative expression, we are likely to reward those who express creatively. And I don't think it takes many scientific research papers to demonstrate that creative expression is something that has contributed mightily to there being 6.4 billion of us roaming around.

Creative expression doesn't only come in the form of paintings and poetry and music. It can come in the form of atl-atl's and aqueducts as well.

And I'm *really* surprised that you don't understand the survival benefit of human spirituality. I suggest the work of Pascal Boyer as a starting point.

It looks interesting from a quick google of that name. Again though, I just have a basic problem with the idea that our entire concept of spirituality, from cave drawings to Buddha to Thomas Aquinas, is a product of chemical processes in the brain. Does that mean I believe in God? No. It means that I believe the human condition in some unknown way extends beyond biology.

Bizarre that I'm coming off here as just taking some of these ideas on faith. How times change.