Scientist, after decades of study, concludes: We don't have free will

[mpp]

Interesting article, what do you guys say?

 

Scientist, after decades of study, concludes: We don't have free will

PHYS.ORG

---

Before epilepsy was understood to be a neurological condition, people believed it was caused by the moon, or by phlegm in the brain. They condemned seizures as evidence of witchcraft or demonic possession, ...

 

[anthony]

He employed free will to conclude he/nobody has free will. Bravo.

[mpp]

I understand this counter: Arriving at the conclusion that we lack free will through rational or logical means is intrinsically self-contradictory, as rationality and logic epistemologically presuppose the existence of free will.

I struggle with the second part though to fully understand: why do rationality and logic presuppose / imply free will?

[Peter]

From: "George H. Smith" To: <objectivism Subject: OWL: Re: Mind as emergent [was: Objectivism's concept of free will] Date: Mon, 12 Apr 2004 14:44:30 -0500 Neil Goodell (4/11) wrote: "I'm not sure I agree with Mike Rael's (4/9) characterization of mind: [Rael] 'The way I see it, once the physical constituents of a mind have been created, the mind can control the starting of its own processes to some degree. What happens when I raise my hand up? Physical things are going on, but the determiner is my mind.' [Goodell] In my reading of it he seems to trying to keep the advantages of a dualist perspective of the mind-body question but without calling it that.

 The term "dualism" covers a broad range of views in philosophy. It is often associated with Cartesianism, according to which the mind is a "substance" that can exist independently of matter. In less extreme versions, dualists are those who repudiate reductionism, according to which the mind (i.e., consciousness) is nothing but "matter in motion." Dualists in this latter sense don't necessarily deny that consciousness depends on matter for its existence. They contend, however, that consciousness (a state of awareness) is not something physical per se, however much it may be causally dependent on physical phenomena.

 I am a "dualist" only in this latter sense, and I suspect the same is true of Mike Rael. Indeed, the kind of emergence theory that Neil goes on to defend is a common foundation for this variety of dualism. Ayn Rand, in maintaining that consciousness is epistemologically axiomatic, that a state of awareness cannot be explained by something more fundamental, was also defending this sort of mitigated "dualism." But I doubt if she would have cared for this label, given its customary association with the Cartesian theory of mind, which of course she did not agree with.

 Neil wrote: "George Smith makes a distinction between "hard" determinism and "soft" determinism (4/11), between biology and psychology if you will, concluding, "Even though I disagree with physical determinism, there are powerful arguments in its favor, and it is a position deserving of respect. I'm afraid I cannot say the same about "soft" determinism."

 "As I've said previously, I'm a complete and committed determinist, but I don't agree with any of these views. My position is that mind is an emergent property of the brain. What this means in philosophic terms is that the nature of the causality that operates at the level of the brain is separate and distinct from that which operates at the level of the mind. (This is similar to a levels of analysis argument.)"

 I agree with emergence theory, as here summarized. This is one reason I reject physical determinism, and it also plays a role in my not-so-thinly disguised contempt for "soft determinism."  The mind, as an emergent phenomenon, needs to be studied on its own terms, and we can access it directly only through introspection. We should not assume that causation in the world of consciousness is analogous to causation as we observe it in physical phenomena. We should not assume, for example, that "motives" operate like physical particles that, upon striking other mental "things," such as choices, "cause" them to move.

 The mind is not a world of mental billiard balls moving to and fro, engaging in endless collisions which "cause" us to choose this or that. Of course, the soft determinist will repudiate this characterization of his position as unfairly crude and inaccurate. But it doesn't take much scratching beneath the language of the soft determinist to see that this is exactly how he analyzes mental phenomena. He adopts what is essentially a mechanistic, linear view of mental causation, in which a mental event (say, a value) somehow "causes" another mental event (say, a preference), which in turn "causes" us to make a choice to put the eight ball in a given pocket.

One needn't defend that view that choices and other mental events are "uncaused" in order to defend volitionism. Certainly Rand didn't take this view, and neither do I. I subscribe (as did Rand) to an "agency theory" of causation, according to which a rational agent -- and not merely antecedent *events,* whether mental *or* physical -- can properly be said to be the "cause" of his own mental acts. This is essentially an Aristotelian perspective, one that has been defended not only by modern Thomists but also by other contemporary philosophers, such as Richard Taylor. It had a number of able defenders in earlier centuries as well, such as the eighteenth-century philosophers Richard Price and Thomas Reid. This position was also defended by Nathaniel Branden in "The Objectivist Newsletter" and, later, in *The Psychology of Self-Esteem.*

Neil wrote: "And I do not believe my position is inconsistent with Objectivism. (More on this below.)"

Emergence theory does not conflict with Objectivism, but any form of determinism most certainly does.

[snip] "Rand says over and over again that the premises a person holds in their mind is what determines their character. As she writes in Galt's Speech, "...that your character, your actions, your desires, your emotions are the products of the premises held by your mind—that as man must produce the physical values he needs to sustain his life, so he must acquire the values of character that make his life worth sustaining—that as man is a being of self-made wealth, so he is a being of self-made soul—that to live requires a sense of self-value, but man, who has no automatic values, has no automatic sense of self-esteem and must earn it by shaping his soul in the image of his moral ideal..."

This passage does not entail or suggest determinism. On the contrary, Rand's claim that man "is a being of self-made soul" is an expression of free-will.

Some time ago on another list, I wrote a post in which I discussed the possibility that, according to Rand, our only truly free choice is the choice to think (or focus) or not, after which everything else is necessarily determined. Although I concede that there are some passages by Rand that give this impression, I don't think this is what she believed; and I would further maintain that this interpretation is inconsistent with her overall approach, including many of her remarks about ethical theory and moral responsibility. I think the passages in question were probably instances of rhetorical exaggeration, made for the purpose of emphasis. This sort of thing is fairly common in Rand's writings.

Neil wrote: "I don't know whether George Smith would characterize this as "soft" determinism, but it is certainly determinism of a non-biological kind, "your character, your actions, your desires, your emotions are the products of the premises held by your mind." If this were *not* the case, it would mean that the relationship between premises and character was arbitrary, which would have the effect of eviscerating the entirety of Objectivism's concept of virtue."

Rand did not defend any kind of determinism, whether "hard" or soft." In calling our character, actions, desires, and emotions the "products" of premises held by our minds, there is good reason to believe she was drawing logical, rather than strictly causal, connections. In any case, one needn't be a determinist to maintain that how and what we think will greatly influence what kind of characters we have and how we will act. This complex issue has nothing to do with determinism one way or the other.

Neil wrote: In other words, if determinism is denied, there can be no morality. If specific causes do not lead to specific effects (i.e., indeterminism) then effects are arbitrary and a person cannot be held responsible for them."

If this were true, then we could hold a rock or a tree or a snail morally responsible for its behavior -- for in all such cases specific causes lead to specific effects. In order for there to be moral responsibility, there must first be a moral agent, i.e., a rational being who can make autonomous decisions and choices that are not causally necessitated by antecedent events that he is powerless to change or control. If the actions of a mass murderer were causally necessitated by a chain of antecedent events, which reach back (presumably) to infinity, long before he (or any life form) existed, then he is no more "responsible" for his behavior than a snail. Both behave not as they choose, but as they *must.* For what, in a deterministic scheme, could we hold a mass murderer responsible *for*? For being born? For possessing undesirable genes? For not making better choices that were metaphysically impossible for him to make? For not possessing an omnipotent power to alter past events over which neither he nor anyone else has any control?

When we pass a negative moral judgment, part of what we mean is that a person *should* not have made the choice he did under those circumstances. He *ought* to have chosen differently in that precise situation. If, however, his "choice" (and I use the word advisedly in this context) was causally necessitated by antecedent events that he was powerless to change, then to pass moral judgments on humans makes no more sense than to pass moral judgments on clouds for causing a flood. Ghs

[anthony]

2 hours ago, mpp said:

I understand this counter: Arriving at the conclusion that we lack free will through rational or logical means is intrinsically self-contradictory, as rationality and logic epistemologically presuppose the existence of free will.

I struggle with the second part though to fully understand: why do rationality and logic presuppose / imply free will?

For fun, I'd call it "three in one" free will in a continuum. The sense-percept apparatus, while automatic to every animal, may still be directed from this to that. LOOK here, listen there, touch/taste here. Right off the bat, one has selective options for attention from a large range.

Where it gets most complex, (refer to Rand here) the non-automatic conceptual apparatus needs your highest volitional effort to gather and collate, compare, assimilate - then evaluate - the percepts into orderly form.

Last, what does one DO? With one's knowledge/value/character base? When to apply this conception in what situation - then act?  And in which way? Again free will.

This final "action" stage is where many contra-free will thinkers get tied up and narrow, far as I've read. As though they lose the plot focusing on evident human mechanical activity and look for its pre-determining antecedent causes. In the physical world. And in the brain. Overlooking the good ole self-made (emergent) mind. Naturally, they are also mechanistic.

[tmj]

“Volitional” means selected from two or more alternatives that were possible under the circumstances, the difference being made by the individual’s decision, which could have been otherwise.

 

Leonard Peikoff,
The Philosophy of Objectivism lecture series, Lecture 3

 

I think volition and volitional better connote the normative operation in a discussion associated with self conscious conceptual beings and morality.

 

In a more ontological frame , 'free will' is a possible misnomer in that existence or nature is what it is and all aspects of it subject to the law of identity are ultimately 'determined' by virtue of what 'they' are.

[anthony]

9 hours ago, tmj said:

“Volitional” means selected from two or more alternatives that were possible under the circumstances, the difference being made by the individual’s decision, which could have been otherwise.

 

Leonard Peikoff,
The Philosophy of Objectivism lecture series, Lecture 3

 

I think volition and volitional better connote the normative operation in a discussion associated with self conscious conceptual beings and morality.

 

In a more ontological frame , 'free will' is a possible misnomer in that existence or nature is what it is and all aspects of it subject to the law of identity are ultimately 'determined' by virtue of what 'they' are.

Most complete of all, "a being of volitional consciousness" denotes one's mind identity, a "will" free to roam, to defocus/focus the mind.

I'm suggesting by its nature one self-directs a v.c. in a range -  integrated - of levels.

"Choices" all the way down to the subsequent actions.

"Could have been otherwise" - absolutely.

[Peter]

14 minutes ago, anthony said:

Most complete of all, "a volitional consciousness" denotes mind identity, a "will" free to roam, defocus/focus the mind.

I'm suggesting by its nature one self-directs a v.c. in a range -  integrated - of levels.

"Choices" all the way down to the subsequent actions.

I am dumb about this subject so I will go this way or that way or any way, or I will go nowhere.  Oh no. Did i just . . .    

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Sapolsky is a great scientist and a pretty good explainer of it.

And he looks like a hippy while doing it.

You can call him hairbrained if you like. He's got lots of both, hair and brains.

 

 

I find it odd he came to determinism from studying animals (his specialty).

It's obvious to me that all animals have both free will and are determined. It's not either-or. It's both. A tiger does not choose the fact that it eats you as part of its nature. But it does choose whether to attack you when it sees you, and whether to go this way or that in getting to you. (Animals also dream when they sleep as free will and pre-determined brain processes try to come to an agreement.  )

Humans are the same way, but to a much more complex level.

If you want to go the fractal way, once again, it's not either-or. It's both. A pattern in the universe is for static elements to exist within an entity that hold it together, and there are dynamic elements that changes all over the place. This dynamic elements are often called chaos, but notice that they only operate within the constraints of the static elements. This is true for all entities. For living things, this dynamic elements are controlled by volition. Not so much the static elements, which comesbuilt-in. 

 

If observation is the bases of all knowledge (this is the Randian view), it's stupid to observe that living creatures have elements they cannot choose and elements they can choose, notice that everyone observes the same thing, and say this doesn't exist.

Even if you believe observation is not the basis of all knowledge, but is the basis of a lot of it, it's still stupid to see something everyone else does and claim it doesn't exist. It gets worse when you claim this is true because you have hidden knowledge (whether from mystical revelation of scientism mental pretzels).

Sapolsky's view of determinism is a scope problem (like Rand's at times, except in a different direction). He sees something within a context, comes to a great insight about it, and doesn't stop there. He then claims it is universal for all contexts and starts going around telling everyone he's a badass.  

Friggin' vanity, wanting to be the person who discovers or proves the One True Truth for all of existence and all of human history. 

 

Don't forget, Sapolsky is a professional academic, meaning he's from the same people who brought you manmade climate change, critical race theory, postmodernism, defense of bioweapons and poison vaccines, lots of Marxism, and on and on... And now, "Why Do You Think You Think?" dressed up in different words...

Tenure working at it's finest...

From that lens, it's actually better if Sapolsky doesn't have free will. Think of the mess academics would make if they had free will... Oh... Actually they do make messes. Expensive ones, too.  

For me, Sapolsky doesn't need to have free will if he doesn't want it. I have free will, you have free will, and that's good enough for me.

 

 

Also, I find the idea of something primary like consciousness emerging from a universe where it does not exist to be fantasy. Opinion at best, and an ignorant opinion at that. The human mind may have evolved as the species evolved, but it did not "emerge" as the product of a mystical brew called synergy or complexity or whatever. The universe already had consciousness in it regardless of the form. I am a believer that A is A. The Universe is the Universe. For the mind to "emerge," the Universe would have to be the Universe and not the Universe at the same time.

Also, maybe there's a different aspect of existence we do not perceive yet due to the limitations of our sense organs and human reach. I personally believe this is the case and that we get glimpses at times (since the human species is still evolving). But that is another discussion.

Michael

[mpp]

I would be happy to bring the discussion back to the scientific denial of free will.

How can we have free will if they can run experiments in which they can predict that subjects will press a button in 10 seconds? Or that you can send someone a signal to move his fingers and he will do it but thinks he came up with it?

[anthony]

2 hours ago, mpp said:

I would be happy to bring the discussion back to the scientific denial of free will.

How can we have free will if they can run experiments in which they can predict that subjects will press a button in 10 seconds? Or that you can send someone a signal to move his fingers and he will do it but thinks he came up with it?

Afaic, the "scientific denial of free will" is the basic cause of everything wrong, bad and evil today. You don't have volition, the men of science have 'proven' - which has seeped into the mainstream (education, media - etc.), what A RELIEF:

you won't ever need to take yourself to task, nor be faulted for your bad actions. To a greater degree, your actions, knowledge, character qualities/faults, etc.,  were ~determined~ for you in your distant or near past by prior causes.

Secular leftists for one are most taken with the theory: She couldn't help herself!

One's evasion of reality now is at worst a minor mistake, moral judgments of anyone are superfluous or unjust.

For the Christian religious - they believed at least that each has and is responsible for their own "Soul", religious or not (and ykw is going to judge it one day). But ever since Western religions began declining - disappearing with them are the last remnants of western free will and self-responsibilty (plus individualism). 

If I recall those sophomoric experiments, they showed nothing more than that a specific area of a person's brain 'lights up' an instant before he selects and presses a button (or suchlike). His brain told him - "determined" what choice to make? Or the choice made registered on his brain? Causation is key.

Self-refuting or inconclusive scientism. The same tests were demonstrated continually on the internet, claiming to nullify free will. The audience responses were all very highly positive giving one a clue of the effects of this belief on the great numbers in societies. The ease with which people are being indoctrinated and propagandized, and submit to authority - indicates that loss.

Once volition is eliminated, consistently there also goes the volitional consciousness. Sam Harris was one who stated free will -and- the mind do not exist. Whatever his rationale, he got it right, as far as it goes - you take out the one logically you remove the other.

The content of consciousness is all-reliant on the volitional, deliberated efforts that compose and organize a huge input into the mind.

These destructive neurologists (and the rest) were not able to locate "the mind" in the most sophisticated MRI scans. They looked for consciousness in biological matter, and unsurprisingly it wasn't there.

The culpability for the damage done to masses of mindless minds today must be directed at them.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

7 hours ago, mpp said:

I would be happy to bring the discussion back to the scientific denial of free will.

How can we have free will if they can run experiments in which they can predict that subjects will press a button in 10 seconds? Or that you can send someone a signal to move his fingers and he will do it but thinks he came up with it?

M,

There is no scientific denial of free will.

There are only opinions from scientists who use data and observations wrong, then try to ram their opinions into proven facts.

I have not read Sapolsky's book yet (and only partially read Behave, although I have seen several online lectures by Sapolsky), but I did read a popular book where a neuroscientist author spoke against free will and even emotions: How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain by Lisa Feldman Barrett (referral link). I actually need to reread this book since I was not familiar with any neuroscience at the time I first read it, so I probably misunderstood several things. However, for this post, I did some keyword searches of the text and can say the following with confidence.

Barrett believes there is no such thing as universal emotions. And she believes free will is a feeling. Since (to her) there are no universal emotions, free will is more illusion than fact.

And she backs this up by showing inherent brain activity, especially networks of neurons like the "default mode network." Also, since an impulse (or choice) goes to different networks and different types of neurons, and there are time lapses in this distribution, you might be consciously aware of a choice you make after you start acting on it. In other words, you might think, "I am going to get a drink of water," but your hand is already at the glass to get the water.

But then comes the scope problem of overextended logical inferences (I paraphrase): If some choices (the ones she is discussing) are made automatically by the brain, then all choices are made automatically by the brain, thus conscious awareness is merely some kind of tracking system that feels like it is in control.

Now comes the kicker. Since she cannot deny emotions can be observed in others, and she cannot deny that different people do different things in forms she cannot explain by automatic brain processes, she comes up against the question: What causes them to do it if not free will or universal emotions? Her answer: collectivism. 

She does not use the term "collectivism," but instead culture or society. In her view, you learn concepts and emotions from your environment. And those absorbed concepts (ones you did not choose to absorb) determine the patterns of your thinking and feeling. Choices do not. Choices are effects to her, not causes. She makes an exception, though. She says you can choose to not expose yourself to certain concepts and to expose yourself to other concepts. (How? Well, there's that...  ) Thus you can improve your thinking and feeling patterns. Lots of blah blah blah around this idea.

Lisa Feldman Barrett is a neuroscientist with a lot of prestige and credibility in the field.

But do you see the intellectual sell-out just so she can feel right and superior about a pet opinion?

 

I have a suspicion that Sapolsky is doing something similar, but I need to read the book first before I can nail him and see what his pet thing is.  (I will, but not soon--too much already lined up.)

 

One thing is clear from people like this, though, and we can learn from it. Many of the choices you feel you make by free will are more the product of you having previously accepted the automated brain processes and behaviors in certain contexts than coming up with an idea out of nothing. However, this does not cover all choices. Also, these scientists do not explain creativity and insights well. 

 

But dig in. I suggest you read works like this to get a feel for what and how they come to their conclusions. You will learn a lot about the brain. But try to keep your irritation down when the haranguing starts on their pet agenda positions.

 

btw - There is an excellent book on the brain and memory that Stephen Boydstun recommended here on OL when he was around (he comes and goes and I have yet to figure him out  ) called A Sense of Self by Veronica O’Keane (referral link). She is an Irish feminist neuroscientist and her views on elevating certain intellectual things Irish and her venomous hatred of Sigmund Freud (and other patriarchal issues) have made me grit my teeth more often than I want to. I want to learn about memory and the brain, not deal with her highly-charged social opinions. The effort to ignore this shit gets boring after a time and I put the book aside. However, in the part I have read, she does an excellent job of describing brain components, regions and processes where memories are created, stored, retrieved and interacted with.

 

Scientists are good when they are scientists. You can actually learn science from them.  But they are all over the place when it comes to politics, philosophy, communication, and so on. What's worse, a lot of them have a lot more enthusiasm for communicating their boneheaded views or pet peeves than for the science they are specialized in.

If you want to explore this area in order to check premises on Ayn Rand's conclusions about free will, epistemology and so on, just be aware of this. You need more than curiosity to plow through these books with profit. You also need the discernment to be able to separate the science from the bullshit, especially since there is plenty of both.

 

Michael

[tmj]

I've been on a Bernardo Kastrup craze of late , watching probably too many interviews in the last few whiles, lol.

Here is an interview from his Essentia Foundation on free will/ determinism I find very interesting.

 

[Dglgmut]

In the first clip he implies the definition of free will to be the ability to choose what one desires, then immediately after uses "free will" in the context of the ability to make one's own choices ("our predetermined choices"). It looks like he's going to dive into a lot of irrelevant complexity to solve a much simpler issue. You cannot use data to negate the fact that we are conscious and aware, and that our consciousness interacts with the physical world.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

T,

I tried to watch this, but in the first minute I ran into two brick walls using my form of thinking as the standard.

 

Brick wall number one: I did not fully understand their logic that if we really did have free will, we would choose what circumstances we happen to be in. I think the reason is to be happy or something. Whatever it is, I did not understand it. I did catch their smugness about it, though.  

I understand free will as the ability to make choices about values and actions and it sounds like, to me, they understand free will as some kind of magic wand that produces outcomes in reality without causality.

Here is an example that comes to mind that seems relevant. Viktor Frankl (who wrote "Man's Search for Meaning") survived a Nazi concentration camp. And he was a proponent of free will. In what those guys in the video said, if he really did have free will, he would have chosen the concentration camp and been happy (or something). I have no way to fit that into any form of rationality.

Frankl said that he did not choose to be in the concentration came and he was forced to be there by bullies. But they could take everything from him except for one thing: how he chose to face that situation. He could choose to survive and seek escape or what little happiness he could find in that situation (choose to adapt so to speak), or he could choose to check out mentally and just die. And there were some other choices he mentioned.

Choosing to adapt under horrible circumstances until things get better, to me, is free will operating at a high level of awareness. And in a dire situation, it is hard to keep exercising it. But it exists.

 

Brick wall number two: One of the guys said: "Nothing in the universe knows what our predetermined choices are going to be."

Why? Because he said so?  

Anyway, I have no idea what he means by "know." Does he mean be aware of? And how is he aware of what everything in the universe can know or not? 

Also, I dislike phrases like "predetermined choices." It sounds too much like "silent noise" or "still motion" or something like that. Using this kind of language as poetical metaphors is OK because it makes you look outside the thing being observed in order to see further functions and causality (like a spinning top having still motion). But as a literal description of something in reality, it is "A is not A" in the raw.

Also, to determine implies volition. So if, as he claims, a person does not really make a choice since it is predetermined, although it feels like it, then something else made the choice, something else determined what the choice was going to be. In other words, that something else has free will. And what is that something else? God? Reality? (Which in this context is another form of saying God--you have to take its existence on faith.) Determinism in God form?  

 

I love that you are working your way through this stuff. I'm not sure I'm going to see the rest of the video, though. The first minute made me want to scratch my fingernails on a blackboard and call that a symphony. Then go sit with my nose in a corner and pretend I was the bell on a tuba.  

Michael

[tmj]

His stance is coherent within his system of Analytical Idealism(tm?). I started down an idealism bent after stumbling upon Alfred North Whitehead and the algorithms have eventually steered me to Kastrup. He is like a ‘new atheist’ a la Dawkins and Sam Harris and others adjacent , though his target is strict materialism and/or hardcore physicalism.

His view is that what we call physical reality is ultimately all a form of ‘mentation’ or consciousness. That ‘hard problem’ of consciousness is ultimately solved by undoing the Whiteheadian bifurcation of Descartes’. In that the answer to how explain the emergence of consciousness ‘out of’ inanimate matter is to do away matter as such. That experience is the fundamental aspect of reality or the universe and ultimately the state of all being is grounded in an unbounded subjectivity.

Actually what he has to say doesn’t run ‘ a foul’ of O’ist axioms , well except for the primacy of existence, but maybe not even that as existence and consciousness are in a way two sides of the same coin.

What he says about free will and determinism or the debate between the two in current mainstream western thought is based on a false worldview dependent upon the idea as matter as the irreducible primary. He calls free will a red herring , I know it smacks of woo woo so hard , but it’s interesting as all get out, and seems to get less woo wooy the more time I spend in this ‘area’.

I think it’s in the tradition of trying to meld eastern and western thought on the state of being.

There is the universe and my experience of it , just trying to figure it and get a feel for my connection to it, lol! The age ole problem

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

T,

Why not go deeper and use only your brain for a minute and not the thoughts of others?

Do you believe you are made out of something that is not part of the universe? Or do you believe you are made out of the same stuff the universe is made out of?

 

I have seen so many people say they and the universe are of the same stuff, but in all their arguments, they use being different as an unspoken premise. (For example, that odd word "emergence.")

In other words, does premise-level human knowledge of reality come from recognizing it by observing the same same stuff you are made of (in different arrangements and forms), or does it come from observing something fundamentally different than you, or does it come from deducing reality from axioms?

It may seem silly to think about it like this, but foundations unusually seem that way. That is, until you pull them away at the right moment and everything built on them crashes down.

 

Michael

[tmj]

A little butt hurt that you thought my explanation or quasi defense of BK's position was parroting on my part. But I do recognize my lack of communication skills probably lends itself to the cause of that conclusion.

I came upon this discussion of free will , one that is based on a wholly materialist foundation and describes a behaviorist explanation and tried to introduce an almost diametrically opposed framing as contrast. 

The whole point of an idealist frame is to question or refute the notion that the universe is 'made' of 'stuff'. It's later in the game as far as my intellectually curious 'career' goes,lol, and I am coming to see how much of my philosophic framing comes from my O'ist roots and I am starting to question how much of my understanding is grounded in the 'materialist camp'. It is probably misapprehension on my account , but from O'ism I did not garner a very 'ontologically rich' metaphysical view.

[anthony]

Sorry, at the start of BK 's discussion, "You will own nothing and be happy" came to mind. Effortless happiness...

No free will - and that's great! Ha, confirms what 'a relief', I suggested

I seem to repeatedly see the identical strawman such thinkers raise; Whatever they take it to mean, volition is NOT *a guarantee* of life success, happiness, certainty and so on, but is THE essential prerequisite for them.

AND it is not any single "choice", but a series of many.

 I will watch more.

I had to turn for relief to Branden and bits from a passage in HTS:

"Free will - in the widest meaning of the term - is the doctrine that human beings are capable of performing actions that are not determined by forces outside their control, that we are capable of making choices that are not necessitated by antecedent factors....

"Freedom does not mean causelessness, this point must be stressed. It is caused by the person who makes the choice, and the choice entails a enormity of issues... {lists several requisites]

"While focusing is not synonymous with reasoning, we can see how central the role of reason and rationality is...

"Our freedom is neither absolute nor unlimited, however..." [Due to factors including the developmental, genetic and biological]

You can see where Branden's heading, free will being one column for his subject, self-esteem. (Was xyz my successful doing (self-earned) or was it 'predetermined' - out of my control?)

One more casualty of determinism, the definite cause of the widespread low self-esteem by people, definitely of increasing anti-individualism.

 

[tmj]

BK is more a 'dark night of the soul' kinda guy. He sees suffering as meaningful, not a happy go lucky camper this one

The reason I mentioned the video was because of the discussion/ reasoning around free will, perhaps he is too much of an acquired taste.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

On 10/30/2023 at 10:45 AM, tmj said:

A little butt hurt that you thought my explanation or quasi defense of BK's position was parroting on my part.

T,

I didn't--and don't--think that.

 

Every year or two this issue comes up in O-Land and people nit-pick it to death. 

I was just slashing through the Gordian Knot with a sword.

 

Michael

[tmj]

..then , um nice Kobyashi maru there, but let's set the phazer on stun and zap mpp's ass too, no ?

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

T,

LOL...

I had to look up "Kobyashi maru."

I had no idea what that was.

I used to like Star Trek when I was young, but in the same manner I liked Mr. Ed or The Addams Family or Bewitched or My Favorite Martian or shows like that. 

 

When Star Trek 2 came around, they put a weird looking bald guy as captain and I never got interested.

 

Some day I will probably go on a binge and catch up on the TV shows and movies of all that.

Another I never watched was Dr. Who. I don't think I have seen a single episode...

 

A question, though. Why are you interested in mpp's butt? Such odd...

Well, I'll just leave that right there...

 

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

T,

I am finally coming up for air. This weekend I will have more to say about all this.

(I wish I could write and do bullshit at the same time, but I can't.)

 

Michael

[chuff]

Disbelief in free will makes the rest of life meaningless. There is no longer any way to make moral judgments, no way to decide (lol) what is right for ourselves, no means of choosing (lol) life over non-life when it comes to our actions.

Someone who has internalized this disbelief in free will can only enjoy life to the extent he temporarily forgets about it, and acts like he has free will despite himself.