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grannymh
Guest
Hi Nancy,
This Monk one is a keeper. Hope you are doing well.
Blessings,
granny
John 3: 16 & 17
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This Monk one is a keeper. Hope you are doing well.
Blessings,
granny
John 3: 16 & 17
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Leela
Guest
This story might have relevance to anyone who thinks that evolutionary theory proposes that humans descended from monkeys, in other words, no one.
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nancy_dalrymple
Guest
HI Leela, If you don’t believe you came from God, and you don’t believe you came from Darwin’s theory, then my Dear, where else could you have come from?
Love of Christ Nancy
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benedictus2
Guest
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tonyrey
Guest
The very title of the article is nonsensical. If free will is located in a specific part of the brain it does not exist. According to the physicalist if a particular volition is caused by neuronal activity (whether artificially initiated or not) it is caused solely by that event.
Freedom becomes an illusion because every event without exception is thought to occur within the framework of physical causality. Even random events are not free in the normal sense of the term. Freedom is not unpredictability. It is the power of self-control…
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nancy_dalrymple
Guest
Dear Touchtone, I went to a site where they talked about finding free will in the Cortex of the brain, induced by electricity, to prove their point. Now to prove my point, God has given us all free will, to pick and choose, please listen, if I give you a Choice of an apple or a peach, it is your free will to be able to choose what you want, Why? because the brain has it already instilled inside of the memory that the Apple taste better so you pick the apple, But if you have never tasted the apple or the peach, you still have this free will to pick and choose, Not by memory, but by Choice, which is God given! You are loved Nancy
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Touchstone
Guest
Nancy,
I think Leela was getting at the common misconception that man descended from monkeys, rather than both man and monkeys descending from a “common ancestor” which was neither man nor monkey. That understanding puts a nice twist on the poem you provided, which is, I suspect, which she pointed it out. The monkey’s right, even on the evolutionary view, man did descend, but “didn’t decend[sic] from us.”
-TS
(and Leela, if I assumed incorrectly that you are a “she”, my apologies for getting it wrong!)
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Touchstone
Guest
Thanks, Nancy, I understand what you are saying. Freewill and autonomous choice are tricky subjects, and I certainly appreciate the appeal of the explanation you are offering here.
-TS
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Touchstone
Guest
I’m not following. I guess that if you are thinking of free will as being some supernatural substance or other, and you happen upon some natural explanation for it, the reaction might be, “That’s not free will”, as it doesn’t match your previous understanding of free will. cf compatibilism.
The problem here is the conceptual baggage you are carrying around, here, I suggest. Free will, as it seems you comprehend it – a supernatural something-or-other – would be shown to be illusory, or maybe we should say just imagination, on a naturalist explanation. The “normal sense of the term” is a casual (and useful) one, but illusory (which makes it useful) with respect to physical phenomena.
In any case, that was just the “story du jour”, literally, on that subject. There’s a whole lot going on in that field, now that observational technologies are widely available for researcher that provide detailed views of brain activity, among other reasons. It’s a hard problem, to be sure, but it shows all the signs of yielding ground as researchers climb that mountain like so many others that have been scaled. There are no guratantees, but the outlook is encouraging.
-TS
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tonyrey
Guest
Let us confine ourselves to the issue at stake without indulging in pejorative side-tracking:
We do not attribute free will to an electronic computer so why should we attribute it to a biological computer? All electrical activity in the brain is caused by physical processes. Since volitions are equated with electrical activity in a specific part of the brain they are caused by physical processes and require no further explanation. Free will must be an illusion because it implies the independent activity of a rational agent. How else would you define free will?
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nancy_dalrymple
Guest
Freedom
Freedom of human action requires the randomness of absolute chance to break the causal chain of determinism, yet the conscious knowledge that we are adequately determined to be responsible for our choices.
Freedom requires some events that are not causally determined by immediately preceding events, events that are unpredictable by any agency, events involving quantum uncertainty.
These random events generate alternative possibilities for action.
They are the source of the creativity that adds new information to the universe.
Randomness is the “free” in free will.
Freedom also requires an adequately determined will that chooses or selects from those alternative possibilities. There is effectively nothing uncertain about this choice.
Adequate determinism is the “will” in free will.
Adequate determinism means that randomness in our thoughts about alternative possibilities does not directly cause our actions.
Random thoughts can lead to adequately determined actions, for which we can take full responsibility.
We must admit indeterminism
but not permit it to produce random actions
as Determinists mistakenly fear.
We must also limit determinism
but not eliminate it
as Libertarians mistakenly think necessary.
Event acausality is a prerequisite for any kind of agent causality that is not pre-determined.
When philosophers in the 1920’s looked at the newly discovered quantum uncertainty principle as a means of breaking the iron grip of determinism (actually many determinisms), they found it most unsatisfactory.
If my action is the direct consequence of a random event, I cannot feel responsibility. That would be mere indeterminism, as unsatisfactory as determinism. For some philosophers, any indeterminism threatens reason itself. Reason seems to require strict causality and perfect certainty for truth.
Determinism and indeterminism are the two horns of the dilemma in the standard argument against free will, which is seriously flawed.
Arthur Stanley Eddington, a scientist who understood the quantum mechanics, and who hoped it would throw light on the problem of free will, accepted the standard argument and declared “there is no halfway house” between randomness and determinism.
We propose a model of human freedom that is a halfway house between chance and necessity, one that involves both, first indeterminism to generate free alternative possibilities, then adequate determinism to choose, to will one of those possibilities.
Without this freedom there can be no explanation for human creativity, which brings unpredictable new information into the universe, “something new under the sun.”
Our mind model invokes quantum uncertainty to provide an “Agenda” of unpredictable thoughts and actions, critical to both freedom and creativity. We call this the “Micro Mind,” but it not in a particular location in the brain. The Micro Mind describes the brain’s information processing systems, the storage and retrieval of actionable information, communicated by structures small enough to be affected by quantum uncertainty, by quantum and thermal “noise.”
The “Macro Mind” examines the agenda and chooses what to do or say based on its character (past actions and feelings) and its values. The Macro Mind has evolved to suppress the microscopic low-level noise. It averages over vast numbers of atoms and molecules in a large enough physical structure to be highly predictable - adequately determined - its choices are in practice unaffected by quantum uncertainty.
Our mind model uses random noise when it needs it for imagination and creativity, but suppresses noise whenever it needs to for consistent behavior and responsibility.
soft causality, but no strict determinism Our model eliminates the perfect certainty associated with many strict determinisms). Nevertheless, we retain the very important concept of causality - despite the fact that some events are unpredictable from prior events. The world contains an irreducible quantum indeterminacy.
Each event, as an effect, still has its causes. But some causes are now what ancient philosophers called a causa sui, a cause that includes itself among its causes. This modified or “soft” causality contains the mixture of unpredictability and predictability, of indeterminism and adequate determinism, of acausality and causality, that we need for freedom and creativity on the one hand and responsibility for our actions on the other.
In our history of the free will problem, we have found that many great thinkers have anticipated this two-stage solution to the classical problem, among them William James, Henri Poincaré, Arthur Holly Compton, A.O. Gomes, Karl Popper, Henry Margenau, Daniel Dennett, Robert Kane, and Alfred Mele.
Mele describes the importance of the temporal sequence quite clearly, though he remains agnostic on the truth of determinism and does not see (as others did not see) a location of indeterminism in the brain that does not compromise agent control.
GO TO NEXT THREAD
Freedom of human action requires the randomness of absolute chance to break the causal chain of determinism, yet the conscious knowledge that we are adequately determined to be responsible for our choices.
Freedom requires some events that are not causally determined by immediately preceding events, events that are unpredictable by any agency, events involving quantum uncertainty.
These random events generate alternative possibilities for action.
They are the source of the creativity that adds new information to the universe.
Randomness is the “free” in free will.
Freedom also requires an adequately determined will that chooses or selects from those alternative possibilities. There is effectively nothing uncertain about this choice.
Adequate determinism is the “will” in free will.
Adequate determinism means that randomness in our thoughts about alternative possibilities does not directly cause our actions.
Random thoughts can lead to adequately determined actions, for which we can take full responsibility.
We must admit indeterminism
but not permit it to produce random actions
as Determinists mistakenly fear.
We must also limit determinism
but not eliminate it
as Libertarians mistakenly think necessary.
Event acausality is a prerequisite for any kind of agent causality that is not pre-determined.
When philosophers in the 1920’s looked at the newly discovered quantum uncertainty principle as a means of breaking the iron grip of determinism (actually many determinisms), they found it most unsatisfactory.
If my action is the direct consequence of a random event, I cannot feel responsibility. That would be mere indeterminism, as unsatisfactory as determinism. For some philosophers, any indeterminism threatens reason itself. Reason seems to require strict causality and perfect certainty for truth.
Determinism and indeterminism are the two horns of the dilemma in the standard argument against free will, which is seriously flawed.
Arthur Stanley Eddington, a scientist who understood the quantum mechanics, and who hoped it would throw light on the problem of free will, accepted the standard argument and declared “there is no halfway house” between randomness and determinism.
We propose a model of human freedom that is a halfway house between chance and necessity, one that involves both, first indeterminism to generate free alternative possibilities, then adequate determinism to choose, to will one of those possibilities.
Without this freedom there can be no explanation for human creativity, which brings unpredictable new information into the universe, “something new under the sun.”
Our mind model invokes quantum uncertainty to provide an “Agenda” of unpredictable thoughts and actions, critical to both freedom and creativity. We call this the “Micro Mind,” but it not in a particular location in the brain. The Micro Mind describes the brain’s information processing systems, the storage and retrieval of actionable information, communicated by structures small enough to be affected by quantum uncertainty, by quantum and thermal “noise.”
The “Macro Mind” examines the agenda and chooses what to do or say based on its character (past actions and feelings) and its values. The Macro Mind has evolved to suppress the microscopic low-level noise. It averages over vast numbers of atoms and molecules in a large enough physical structure to be highly predictable - adequately determined - its choices are in practice unaffected by quantum uncertainty.
Our mind model uses random noise when it needs it for imagination and creativity, but suppresses noise whenever it needs to for consistent behavior and responsibility.
soft causality, but no strict determinism Our model eliminates the perfect certainty associated with many strict determinisms). Nevertheless, we retain the very important concept of causality - despite the fact that some events are unpredictable from prior events. The world contains an irreducible quantum indeterminacy.
Each event, as an effect, still has its causes. But some causes are now what ancient philosophers called a causa sui, a cause that includes itself among its causes. This modified or “soft” causality contains the mixture of unpredictability and predictability, of indeterminism and adequate determinism, of acausality and causality, that we need for freedom and creativity on the one hand and responsibility for our actions on the other.
In our history of the free will problem, we have found that many great thinkers have anticipated this two-stage solution to the classical problem, among them William James, Henri Poincaré, Arthur Holly Compton, A.O. Gomes, Karl Popper, Henry Margenau, Daniel Dennett, Robert Kane, and Alfred Mele.
Mele describes the importance of the temporal sequence quite clearly, though he remains agnostic on the truth of determinism and does not see (as others did not see) a location of indeterminism in the brain that does not compromise agent control.
GO TO NEXT THREAD
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nancy_dalrymple
Guest
We also review the conundrum of how we could have done otherwise in identical situations.
We celebrate the first modern philosopher, René Descartes, in naming our mind model, as other psychologists also have, the Cogito. Descartes thought (as did great theologians before him) that he could reason logically to truths about himself, the world, and God. His hubris about the power of Reason undermined reason and philosophy itself, leading to a great fall after David Hume’s criticism and Immanuel Kant’s desperate attempt to limit Reason to make room for freedom, values, God, and immortality. Only today can we glimpse a path to recovery from the crisis of reason.
The ancient philosophers understood the need for a random element very well. From Aristotle’s “accidents” or chance causes to Epicurus’ “swerve” (the clinamen), they added the exceptional event that was causa sui, the start of a new causal chain. The Latin word for thinking embodies our mind model in its etymology. Cogito derives from co-agitare, to “shake together.” The key concept is that the resulting connections of ideas, and actions based on them, are as unpredictable as when we shake and then roll the dice.
But even in ancient times, chance, and any willed actions involving chance, were attacked as “obscure and unintelligible,” terms still in use in the debates today. The Greeks called chance ἄδηλος (unclear, inscrutable, obscure), and ἄλογος (irrational, inexpressible). Aristotle said chance (τύχη) was "obscure to human reason (ἄδηλος ἀνθρωπίνῳ λογισμω - Metaphysics, Book XI, 1065a33)
Our Micro Mind is the undetermined source of alternative possibilities, of human creativity, of genuine novelty, something new under the sun, and when this unconscious runs out of control, we’ll see it is the way to madness.
Our Macro Mind is the adequately determined will that de-liberates, and chooses among the alternative possibilities based on an individual’s character, values, past actions, and present circumstances. Every action of the Macro Mind creates new information in the mind.
Free will is a combination of microscopic randomness and macroscopic adequate determinism, in a temporal sequence - first chance, then choice.
Determinists and compatibilists have been right about the will, but wrong about freedom.
Libertarians have been right about freedom, but wrong about the will, which must be adequately determined for us to accept moral responsibility.
Randomness without determinism is blind chance.
Determinism without randomness is empty fate. HOPE THIS HELPED! LOVE OF CHRIST NANCY
We celebrate the first modern philosopher, René Descartes, in naming our mind model, as other psychologists also have, the Cogito. Descartes thought (as did great theologians before him) that he could reason logically to truths about himself, the world, and God. His hubris about the power of Reason undermined reason and philosophy itself, leading to a great fall after David Hume’s criticism and Immanuel Kant’s desperate attempt to limit Reason to make room for freedom, values, God, and immortality. Only today can we glimpse a path to recovery from the crisis of reason.
The ancient philosophers understood the need for a random element very well. From Aristotle’s “accidents” or chance causes to Epicurus’ “swerve” (the clinamen), they added the exceptional event that was causa sui, the start of a new causal chain. The Latin word for thinking embodies our mind model in its etymology. Cogito derives from co-agitare, to “shake together.” The key concept is that the resulting connections of ideas, and actions based on them, are as unpredictable as when we shake and then roll the dice.
But even in ancient times, chance, and any willed actions involving chance, were attacked as “obscure and unintelligible,” terms still in use in the debates today. The Greeks called chance ἄδηλος (unclear, inscrutable, obscure), and ἄλογος (irrational, inexpressible). Aristotle said chance (τύχη) was "obscure to human reason (ἄδηλος ἀνθρωπίνῳ λογισμω - Metaphysics, Book XI, 1065a33)
Our Micro Mind is the undetermined source of alternative possibilities, of human creativity, of genuine novelty, something new under the sun, and when this unconscious runs out of control, we’ll see it is the way to madness.
Our Macro Mind is the adequately determined will that de-liberates, and chooses among the alternative possibilities based on an individual’s character, values, past actions, and present circumstances. Every action of the Macro Mind creates new information in the mind.
Free will is a combination of microscopic randomness and macroscopic adequate determinism, in a temporal sequence - first chance, then choice.
Determinists and compatibilists have been right about the will, but wrong about freedom.
Libertarians have been right about freedom, but wrong about the will, which must be adequately determined for us to accept moral responsibility.
Randomness without determinism is blind chance.
Determinism without randomness is empty fate. HOPE THIS HELPED! LOVE OF CHRIST NANCY
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tonyrey
Guest
Randomness and determinism alone do not produce free will. They are features of the physical environment in which we operate. The will is certainly determined but if we are responsible then **we **are the ones who determine the will. What are “we”? Not brains but entities we describe as persons or selves.
Self-determinism is the only adequate explanation of free will and responsibility.
Without the self there can be no self-control
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Leela
Guest
Hi TS,
We pragmatists wonder if this free will/determinism issue is really an issue at all. Since beliefs are best understood as habits of action, and we can’t imagine how one could behave as though she has no choice (or how it would be any different from behaving as she did have a choice) then we are talking about a difference that makes no difference–i.e., no difference at all. It all seems to be just idle talk that has no conseqences in lived experience.
Best,
Leela
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tonyrey
Guest
- Beliefs are not best understood as habits of action but as mental acceptance of the truth of a proposition, theory, principle, explanation or description. Many beliefs are not habits. We can change a belief instantly as the result of reflection and discussion. Many beliefs have nothing to do with action, such as the belief that the universe is expanding.
- We can imagine how we can behave if we have no choice because we can imagine we are biological machines operating according to physical laws…
- We can imagine how it would be different from behaving as we did have a choice because we can imagine, like fatalists, that we are not responsible for our choices.
- Belief in free will does have consequences in lived experience because if we believe we are free we make an effort. If we are convinced we can’t do something we don’t even try. We just let ourselves be carried along by the tide.
- Pragmatism is a form of logical utilitarianism which does not explain our moral obligation to seek the truth. Nor does it explain the coercive nature of truth which imposes itself on us whether we like it or not regardless of the consequences. It is a futile attempt to evade the metaphysical principles on which reasoning and science are based.
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nancy_dalrymple
Guest
And another thing to think about We are responsible being’s and animals are not, we cannot compare to them because they can’t hold a job, and animals have NO boundry’s.And we are not robot’s I agree for i can pick and choose, i am not programed, are you? Love of Christ Nancy
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Leela
Guest
While the belief about whether or not the earth is expanding has little consequences for us, it guides inquiry for the scientists that study such things. If a belief really did have no consequences, then talking about it would just be idle talk.
I disagree. The fatalist doesn’t not bother to get out of bed. I think the only difference in behavior imaginable is how the fatalist would later describe why she got out of bed. I can’t see how someone can possible live as though they have no choices to make. I don’t think there is any way to make the distinction between fatalism and free will matter. What would you do right now if you did not have free will? If fatalism is right, you would be doing exactly what you are already doing. Both philosphical positions cash out to the same thing.
We do what we prefer doing. You can say that we have no control over our preferences. No freedom. We can’t will ourselves to prefer what we don’t prefer. But on the other hand, we can also say that we literally ARE our preferences.
Best,
Leela
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tonyrey
Guest
The fact that the belief that the universe is expanding has no consequences for many individuals shows that beliefs cannot be explained solely or always in terms of consequences.
During my fifteen years in Africa I met many fatalists who did get out of bed! They argued that what will be will be and nothing we do will make any difference: “what is written is written”. They believe it is a waste of time trying to fight corruption, for example, because human beings will always be corrupt.
Not at all. To be free you have to believe you are free. If you don’t believe you have any control over your destiny you become more passive.
Sometimes we don’t do what we prefer doing, e.g. when we are forced to do something we don’t like. We can also force ourselves to do something different from what we prefer doing, e.g. when we make an effort to study rather than watch TV.
We can also will ourselves to prefer what we don’t prefer! We change our preferences as the result of thinking about them and deciding they need to be changed. Until recently my son and I preferred to play cricket rather than tennis but now we prefer to play tennis because we decided it is less dangerous.
We can say that but it’s not true! Our preferences don’t choose us; we choose them and change them. That is the difference between freedom and determinism. The determinist believes we are the product of our heredity and environment whereas the self-determinist believes we become what we choose to become. If all your beliefs are habits of action they are not really yours at all. What happens before they are habits? When you behave rationally you think first and then go into action. Actions don’t precede thoughts unless they are reflex or instinctive.
The only way to avoid this conclusion is to be a behaviourist and regard all our thoughts as neural activity in the brain. And then you no longer have a self because “you” are no more than a collection of physical events. So it is not just a question of idle talk but a difference that transforms our attitude to ourselves. According to your interpretation, our habits of action change with regard to our habits of action!!
I don’t believe(!) that beliefs are best understood as habits of action. I believe they are best understood as habits of thought for which we are responsible because we choose what to believe in the light of logic, experience and education. It makes all the difference in the world if we believe we are creative entities rather than physical organisms programmed by evolution to behave in certain ways…
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nancy_dalrymple
Guest
HI Leela, How far back does the teaching of evolution go? Darwinism? I went to your site Well put together, but not so understood. Love of Christ Nancy
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