Are we essentially biological robots?

take everything

sbsquarepants wrote: »

So, do you believe that everything, every single action that every living thing on this planet, from bacteria to giant whale, has done in the past and will do in the future has been set in stone since the very beginning?

I don't know but this (determinism) would seem incidental to the argument of free will anyway.
Deterministic universe: what is the mechanism for free will?
Indeterministic universe (Copenhagen interpretation of QM): what is the mechanism for free will? Quantum randomness?

Either way, you are constrained by physical laws, because you are part of that physical stuff. Otherwise you have to invoke a supernatural agent (soul?) to explain your actions.

take everything

MungBean wrote: »

So your ignoring all I have said, writing it off as nonsense and just assuming any opposing argument is supernatural in theory because your incapable or unwilling to try and understand what I'm saying then ?

I did preface what i said with a disarming sorry.
But honestly, the idea that at some arbitrary level, thought becomes free of physical law strikes me as nonsensical. It's an acknowledgement that there is something other than physical there. Maybe if you could reconcile this.

MungBean

take everything wrote: »

I did preface what i said with a disarming sorry.
But honestly, the idea that at some arbitrary level, thought becomes free of physical law strikes me as nonsensical. It's an acknowledgement that there is something other than physical there. Maybe if you could reconcile this.

Maybe if you could read what I said, I know its rather confusing but its a pity to have written all that to be ignored. The original discussion between us was that not all views of the self have to be supernatural in nature. After certain comments about people not believing in god yet holding onto a supernatural self.

We cant even prove determinism is true on a tiny tiny scale using one particle. Yet your assuming its true because it sounds logical despite the fact that it can never be tested. We see things differently it seems. May wait till someone figures it out before either of us knows for sure. But I still refuse to accept that how I perceive the mind or its actions is to be in any way equated with the supernatural.

Bullchomper

You interact with the environment so unless you have to account for all environmental variables and their effect on your current bodily state to make things predictable. One glitch in the free will argument is that it is possible to train the mind against such things as optical illusions which is mind-blowing impressive considering that they result from a chemical habituation effect at the neural level.

http://eprints.usq.edu.au/2552/

take everything

Maybe if you could read what I said, I know its rather confusing but its a pity to have written all that to be ignored.

I didn't ignore it. I read it. How could i have deemed it nonsensical without reading it. I asked you to reconcile it without appealing to the supernatural and you haven't.

We cant even prove determinism is true on a tiny tiny scale using one particle. Yet your assuming its true because it sounds logical despite the fact that it can never be tested.

Did you not read my posts. Whether the universe is deterministic or not is irrelevant to free will.

So:
Free will doesn't work if the universe is deterministic.
Free will doesn't work if the universe is non-deterministic.
Free will only works in a magical, supernatural setting where the brain somehow frees itself from physical law. I have been asking you what you think that is.

We see things differently it seems. May wait till someone figures it out before either of us knows for sure.

I don't know but there is no reason to believe that the brain and its processes (no matter how meta or sophisticated) works by some law other than physical. And certainly no reason to believe that this process is unique to humans. That's incredibly anthropocentric and hubristic tbh.

But I still refuse to accept that how I perceive the mind or its actions is to be in any way equated with the supernatural.

You haven't explained how this might be.

HavingCrack

I just realised, if our minds are making these decisions, even subconciouslyso in effect our concious mind has no role to play surely we still have a free will of some sort? Chemical and biological reactions are still our reactions rather than an outside force.

I'm not explaining what I'm trying to say very well but hopefully someone will understand :pac:

sbsquarepants

take everything wrote: »

Free will only works in a magical, supernatural setting where the brain somehow frees itself from physical law.

I don't know but there is no reason to believe that the brain and its processes (no matter how meta or sophisticated) works by some law other than physical. And certainly no reason to believe that this process is unique to humans. That's incredibly anthropocentric and hubristic tbh.
.

Its a bit off topic, but did you see anything about the "faster than light" nuetrinos from the cern large hadron collider? Basically they have repeated the experiment, having screened out all the causes for error they can imagine, and got the same result. It appears that the nuetrinos really are travelling faster than the speed of light, (still pending independent confirmation) Now i don't claim to understand the physics involved but even i know that's the rule book turned on it's head. These physical laws you're on about are still not fully understood.
You don't know what a thought is, where it came from or what it consists of. You, as yet, have no way of knowing if chemical reactions in the brain were the cause or the effect. I've said it a few times in this thread, brain and mind are NOT just 2 different words for the same thing.

sbsquarepants

sbsquarepants wrote: »

Its a bit off topic, but did you see anything about the "faster than light" nuetrinos from the cern large hadron collider? Basically they have repeated the experiment, having screened out all the causes for error they can imagine, and got the same result. It appears that the nuetrinos really are travelling faster than the speed of light, (still pending independent confirmation) Now i don't claim to understand the physics involved but even i know that's the rule book turned on it's head. These physical laws you're on about are still not fully understood.
You don't know what a thought is, where it came from or what it consists of. You, as yet, have no way of knowing if chemical reactions in the brain were the cause or the effect. I've said it a few times in this thread, brain and mind are NOT just 2 different words for the same thing.

Nope.

http://www.science20.com/quantum_diaries_survivor/opera_confirms_neutrinos_travel_faster_light-84763

"It is necessary here to note that since distance from source to detector and time offsets necessary to determine the travel time of neutrinos have not been remeasured, the related systematics (estimated as well as -possibly- underestimated ones) are unchanged. The measurement therefore is only a "partial" confirmation of the earlier result: it is consistent with it, but could be just as wrong as the other. "

take everything

Its a bit off topic, but did you see anything about the "faster than light" nuetrinos from the cern large hadron collider? Basically they have repeated the experiment, having screened out all the causes for error they can imagine, and got the same result. It appears that the nuetrinos really are travelling faster than the speed of light, (still pending independent confirmation)

Now i don't claim to understand the physics involved but even i know that's the rule book turned on it's head. These physical laws you're on about are still not fully understood.

So. The nature of science is new theories superceding older ones. This is not revelatory. This is irrelevant to this Free Will thing.
The Free Will issue has nothing to do with science. It's a logic thing; It is illogical.

You don't know what a thought is, where it came from or what it consists of. You, as yet, have no way of knowing if chemical reactions in the brain were the cause or the effect.

I never said i knew exactly what constitutes a thought. But what logic would allow a thought to exist outside the realm of causality? This is what free will is- something uncaused (irrespective of what science is involved, deterministic or indeterministic). You want to put a causal break between yourself and the universe but you fail to show how this logically might be.

sbsquarepants

It seems illogical, to me anyway, for particles to pop in and out of existence but they do.
If faster than light travel is possible, then apparently it's possible to send information backwards in time, meaning cause and effect do not need to follow in chronological order. (Don't ask me to explain why, i'm merely parroting something I read:). I'm nobodies fool but some of this theoretical physics goes over my head!)
If this is shown to be legit and not just some error or oversight, surely that would be a big break in causality?

sbsquarepants

@ Take everything.
This whole concept of free will being an illusion has grabbed my interest so i've been reading up on it a bit and i've come across this thought experiment, which i believe goes a long way to proving free will does exist.
You're in a room with an all knowing being/computer - they know everything, every minute detail of every particle in the entire universe. They say to you that seeing as they are all knowing about all past and present events, and know all physical laws and interactions, they can predict the future with absolute accuracy, it's all just dominoes after all. You say "prove it, predict what hand i'll raise in the air next" They use all their knowledge to predict either right or left. You are determined to prove them wrong. Do you really believe that, after hearing their prediction you couldn't just simply opt to raise the other hand?