What Evidence Do We Have For The Existance of Free Will?

I've come to the conclusion, after years of study on the brain and behavior (at uni and on my own) that free will does not exist.

Is there any reason it should or we think it might beyond "it'd sure be nice" or "muh ego"? Do we have ANY evidence that it might exist?

Other urls found in this thread:

davidhume.org/texts/ehu.html
nature.com/news/2008/080411/full/news.2008.751.html
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatibilism
youtube.com/watch?v=sKa0eaKsdA0
twitter.com/SFWRedditImages

Begging the question.

Read this;

davidhume.org/texts/ehu.html

>after years of study

Then you're surprisingly scarce with your verbosity.

What page do I read?

Nope. Just the usual
>humans must be special though
On the other hand, a bunch of experiments objectively pointing the other way, basic meditation showing that subjectively that its not there, as well as basicly everything else that is confirmed to work contradicting the very idea.

Some decisions are made up to 7 seconds before you consiously make them. nature.com/news/2008/080411/full/news.2008.751.html

Intuition is a shit-grade unreliable guide to how things actually function.

you have a point, but only from a scientific realistic standpoint.

It's hard to know where to start the approach without knowing where you're at.

Let me start like this: A neuron either fires (1) or doesn't (0), there's no in-between. A neuron fires based on the sum of what other neurons tell it, either Excitatory (+) or Inhibitory (-) Post-Synaptic Potentials, to different degrees.

So, theoretically, if we had a computer and the values for all the brain's IPSP's and EPSP's, we could determine a given "decision". Keep in mind that neural pathways are always changing, so easier said than done. Still, my point stands, as these changes are simply factors of the environment.

It's on my kindle, thanks friend.

>scientific realistic standpoint

Not to sound condescending, but what other kind is there?

>using your will to question your will

>neurons are binary
>they taught you this at uni

16 year old detected.

Is this a bait thread?

Ofcourse free will exists you retarded.

You chose out of your own free will to make this thread.

You choose out of your own free will what to eat and buy.

Are all atheists this retarded?

You need to read "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding" by John Locke. You're so off base.

the logic is that if all our functions arent completely conscious will isnt free, implying a thing is free only if its conscious

but why ?

>but what other kind is there
a lot. Are you familiar with metaphysical and epistemological skepticism?

spotted the indirect realist. Baka.
Daily reminder that it's impossible to distinguish your sense data

*to distinguish your senses based of your sense data

I'm referring more to the human ability to reflect on data without receiving new data. This is the basis of free will.

Trust me, brother.

Read that enquiry and all shall be explained.

>neurons aren't either on or off

Am I wrong?

Alright, will do, thanks.

Every moment is preceded by the last one. Humans and most animals can break the fetters of the moment that preceded the current one by using their power of perception. If we accept that the big bang started the disposition of molecules and sent them into motion it makes since that everything is on a determined path

>There is no free will because I've read a few books and had a look at some brain photographs that depict what we know as of currently.

Oh wow, I am so amazed at your conclussions.

Trust me when I tell you that videogame graphics don't get better than this. Pic related.

It doesn't get better than this, fucking neo-geo man, arcades at home! How can anybody beat this? HA!

>if we accept big bang

I don't, lad. You shouldn't either because there's no reason to. It's likely, but definitely not absolutely true.

It's the best information that is told to us. Why shouldn't I believe in something?

I'm sorry, I thought I was in another thread. I'm more familiar with his indirect realism and I got triggered because Locke's indirect realism is flawed. My other Locke knowledge is a bit rusty. What was his reasoning behind the human haveing the ability to reflect on data without receiving new data again? Muh tabula rasa?

>It's the best information that is told to us

If your best information is the inane rambling of some retard that hasn't even seen the tip of the dick of the universe but he apparently knows how the universe came about you're a fucking idiot.

No, I was compelled to make this threads due to various factors (curiosity about free will, the notion someone on Veeky Forums would have interesting insight, access to a computer, etc) which themselves are due to factors, which themselves are...etc.

On food and consumption any number of possibilities factor into the choice, such as if I like the anticipated enjoyment, price, etc. But, basically, why you chose what you do all boils down to two things:

1.) Conditioning - the past's influence on you, subconscious or not. This includes learning, memory, and anticipations of the future.

2.) Neurological structure - which "I" can't take credit for creating.

>a thing is free only if its conscious
>but why ?

No, I'd say I am conscious, but not free. Rather, "I" am just watching the unfolding of this long, complicated chain of cause-and-effect.

>Are you familiar with metaphysical and epistemological skepticism?

No, and unless you can relate them to the topic at hand, I'm momentarily uninterested.

>Neurons aren't binary

Do you have evidence otherwise? I'd love to see it.

Again, I'm saying that the evidence I've come across leads me to believe we aren't in actuality, making the decisions we think (hope) we are. If you have any real input to give, please do.

>It's likely, but definitely not absolutely true.

Good point.

>unless you can relate them to the topic at hand,
they're literaly the only single most important thing to the topic at hand

see, a statement like
"I" am just watching the unfolding of this long, complicated chain of cause-and-effect.

is bullshit without any metaphysical and epistemological theory behind it

I obviously do have metaphysical and epistemological theories behind my reasonings, I'm just not familiar with the nomenclature.

than elaborate on that theorie behind your reasoning

Free will and determinism aren't at odds.

The majority of religions both eastern and western describe our coming into existence as some disturbance or mistake in a more peaceful state.

God says "choose".

How do you figure? I assumed they were on opposite ends of the spectrum.

He/She is speaking of this:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatibilism

Like I said, I'm not well versed in the jargon, but I think I would fall under the category of materialism; it seems to me that matter/energy is beholden to certain actions or laws. It acts upon itself and, when the proper conditions are present, life and, eventually, consciousness arise. Again, consciousness seems to be an intricate illusion caused by various sensory electrochemical inputs.

Everything is in constant flux; this includes the neural construction ergo personality. There is no individual soul. We are "apertures through which the universe experiences itself".

Thoughts are echoes of experience, not some spring of wisdom from "Me" inside this skin. If there is a purpose, it seems to be that life exists and propagates for the sake of existing; experience and awareness of this Happening.

Again, if there is no individual soul, I would reason that other beings (yourself included) have a similar experience but unique perception compared to my own; therefore, bringing ethics into it, I strive to minimize suffering as a whole.

I have not enough faith to be an atheist.

Not sure of you're referring to me, but I'm no atheist.

I'm very much on the determinist side of things, if more with Marx (our conditions of existence determine our consciousness but we are simultaneously able to change the conditions of our existence through praxis) than with more vulgarly one-dimensional incarnations of it.

Genes aren't atomistic 'beads on strings', they're broken up into co-operating regions, their expression is conditional on cellular machinery and conditions, and their reproduction is similarly dependent on such background processes. The picture of genes as controlling and as difference makers only appears as a result of using inbred lab strains in which the contributions of individual genes can be highlighted against a uniform genomic and organismic background - that individual gene effects can be highlighted does not imply that they can act independently of this whole genome/whole organism background

You do not create yoru wants. They just pop into your head.
You can't decide to have a thought. Because deciding it would be a thought itself, and you'd need to have made a decision about having that thought as well, tat being another decision, and so on.
If you could decide your thoughts, it would be an infinite regress.

You just become aware of your needs and wants, you don't create them.

Free will can't work in principle, its a completely broken concept, prepped up by a strong delusion/intuition that you have ultimate agency in this. That intuition is a manifestation of psychology, not an insight into how your brain or conciousness actually works.

*your
I can't type

>I've come to the conclusion, after years of study on the brain and behavior (at uni and on my own) that free will does not exist.
Even though you're probably lying so more people will take you serious (even though this is a discussion board for all people). You haven't even began to scrape the surface of the phenomenon of free will.

Considering the fact that we do many things that go against the fundamentals of life such as the concept of birth control. Hell, even in the case of viruses and mitochondria, two organisms evolved into a dead being just so they could preserve their DNA. I think its safe to say free will has overcome animal instinct.


Or why do people having hobbies, like reading, building model airplanes, or painting. Non of them serve us any real purpose and everyone has varying preferences on them.

There is none OP.
Given the fact that we haven't found any other seemingly trans-physical systems or mechanics in any other part of the human body, other organisms, or literally ever in any given scenario, it most likely doesn't exist.

Or maybe at least not as we think it does. Maybe there is a physical way to explain free will. Who knows? But we haven't found anything that we can conclusively say is above nature's laws yet, so that's at the very least not a worthy route of study.

Literally the exact same fucking shit was said about memories.

We know that they're at least converted by the hippocampus. This is also the site of the brain where scientists determined that cognition partially takes place (I'm pretty sure it was a study published in the Royal Academy).

tl;dr: no.

The illusion of free will exists enough to classify it with an abstract term. It's sort of a pointless thing to discuss, imo, almost as pointless as someone asserting that they know they cannot know. Phenomenologically, you are choosing to act, even though these actions are the result of your perceptions and experiences. The illusion is so strong that you make "choices", from a phenomenological perspective, giving free will as much evidence observably as holding an acorn proves that acorns exist. This only stretches as far as your first-person view of reality, though.

>Considering the fact that we do many things that go against the fundamentals of life such as the concept of birth control
Most male rodents eat any babies they find around their territory, even their own, to eliminate future competition. Natural selection isn't so black and white in the regard of eliminating your own offspring, but that aside, humans are incomparable to other animals when it comes to abstract thinking, and they're too dynamic to hold against some kind of evolutionary stereotype such as maximum numerical propagation.

How would optical illusions be related to free will?

If you aren't free to decide how you perceive certain things (faces etc) then would this mean that we don't have true 'free will' for this at least and that it's limited due to our evolutionary path?

youtube.com/watch?v=sKa0eaKsdA0

To be fair we are a construct of 14 years of the universe and 300 million years of evolution.

We are constrained by our emotions and body and even our language.

In some languages certain ideas do not exist and yet others have a great deal of vocabulary to describe certain things.

If all you know is English you might be limited by your thoughts. Even if you know 5 languages you still might be limited in thought.

14 billion years. I'm drunk.

existence* of free will...

Well put.

No, I wasn't lying. In relation to why people do pleasurable activities like hobbies and recreational sex: We do them precisely because they are pleasurable. Again, it boils down to by previous points:

1.) We are conditioned to do them - recreational sex is a textbook case of operant conditioning. It "goes against the fundamentals of life" in that it doesn't lead to procreation; but is still socially reinforced (muh expensive baby; sex is everywhere in our culture, just look at half this board)

and 2.) because certain neural circuits in the brain dictate it, eg the mesolimbic DA pathway.

Yes, thank you.

Interesting topic senpai. I think decision making has some similarities to deterministic chaos. The behaviour is so complex that it appears chaotic or "free". Apart from that I think any concept of freeness does not work if there is no truly random variable added. So as long as we dont find any true randomness that might impact our thinking we may as well regard it as being deterministic. In regards to quantum effects like virtual particles, I think thay neurons are too macroscopic to be influenced by that, but I am no expert.