Topic: FAO: Fake Anon
Ks !KansasxqvM started this discussion 14 years ago #23,400
Does free will really exist? <- I've always found this level of philosophy irritating. It seems like philosophy just devolves into a form of mental masturbation at this point. I'd still like to hear you take on it though. =D(Edited 42 seconds later.)
cccuuunnttt !CaTLdYmooc joined in and replied with this 14 years ago, 1 minute later[^] [v] #365,702
Dr. Robert had some retarded opinions about this.
Killer Lettuce !!iNo3FkiZx joined in and replied with this 14 years ago, 12 minutes later, 14 minutes after the original post[^] [v] #365,705
This is a prominent debate in Psychology. The consensus within Psychology is no, we do not have free will. The main evidence for this is that studies have found that brain scans can predict a decision you will make before you consciously "determine" it.
However, even though free will doesn't seem to really exist, it is important that we maintain the illusion of it. People must be held accountable for their actions for the law to work. People should feel like they are in control of their own lives.
@previous (cccuuunnttt !CaTLdYmooc)
lol. Such as?
However, even though free will doesn't seem to really exist, it is important that we maintain the illusion of it. People must be held accountable for their actions for the law to work. People should feel like they are in control of their own lives.
@previous (cccuuunnttt !CaTLdYmooc)
lol. Such as?
(Edited 9 minutes later.)
cccuuunnttt !CaTLdYmooc replied with this 14 years ago, 1 minute later, 16 minutes after the original post[^] [v] #365,707
@previous (Killer Lettuce !!iNo3FkiZx)When you say the flower does not really exist, that is nihilism.
When you say that "you" will last forever, that is idealism.
Of the many sitting with Siddhartha Gautama,
the Buddha, the Awakened One,
Only Mahakasyapa saw the flower freshly,
a once upon a once,
a never before, and never again.
Mahakasyapa required nothing from the Buddha.
squeegee !hbZVTk6JYc joined in and replied with this 14 years ago, 7 seconds later, 16 minutes after the original post[^] [v] #365,708
I believe that free will does exist, i think the universe is normally bound by determinism but life is the exception. Life can alter its own course.
Also the nature of the universe is to go from ordered to unordered (entropy) but life defies that by becoming ever more complex.
Also the nature of the universe is to go from ordered to unordered (entropy) but life defies that by becoming ever more complex.
Anonymous E joined in and replied with this 14 years ago, 1 minute later, 17 minutes after the original post[^] [v] #365,709
> mental masturbation
I lol'd because it's true
I lol'd because it's true
Killer Lettuce !!iNo3FkiZx replied with this 14 years ago, 5 minutes later, 23 minutes after the original post[^] [v] #365,712
@365,707 (cccuuunnttt !CaTLdYmooc)
Oh god, I'm glad I hardly ever sent any time there. I'd get enraged at how he's so unscientific and unobjective yet still calls himself a psychologist. I'd try calling him out on his nonsense but it would probably be the same as telling a fundie that there is no evidence of their imaginary friend. A waste of time for all involved.
Oh god, I'm glad I hardly ever sent any time there. I'd get enraged at how he's so unscientific and unobjective yet still calls himself a psychologist. I'd try calling him out on his nonsense but it would probably be the same as telling a fundie that there is no evidence of their imaginary friend. A waste of time for all involved.
(Edited 1 minute later.)
cccuuunnttt !CaTLdYmooc replied with this 14 years ago, 3 minutes later, 26 minutes after the original post[^] [v] #365,715
Ks !KansasxqvM (OP) replied with this 14 years ago, 5 minutes later, 32 minutes after the original post[^] [v] #365,716
@previous (cccuuunnttt !CaTLdYmooc)
Psychology tries so hard to be scientific though! Psychology is the love child of philosophy and data, a bastard no one can love.
Psychology tries so hard to be scientific though! Psychology is the love child of philosophy and data, a bastard no one can love.
(Edited 18 seconds later.)
Killer Lettuce !!iNo3FkiZx replied with this 14 years ago, 5 minutes later, 37 minutes after the original post[^] [v] #365,720
@365,715 (cccuuunnttt !CaTLdYmooc)
That's actually another prominent debate within psychology.
Basically it all depends on how you define scientific and what area of psychology you look at. For example, the current dominant force in psychology, neuroscience, is actually very scientific. They look at something we can directly observe (brain activity) and can study its effect on behaviour.
Most other areas of psychology may not have this, but the majority of psychology is backed up by numerous and varied studies, which is good evidence in itself.
Sure, psychology may not meet the ridgid definition of science, in that it has no paradigm and such, but I personally don't mind that. Human behaviour is a much lore abstract thing than chemicals or physics, so it's probably better that Psychology doesn't fit the exact criteria of being a science anyway.
That's actually another prominent debate within psychology.
Basically it all depends on how you define scientific and what area of psychology you look at. For example, the current dominant force in psychology, neuroscience, is actually very scientific. They look at something we can directly observe (brain activity) and can study its effect on behaviour.
Most other areas of psychology may not have this, but the majority of psychology is backed up by numerous and varied studies, which is good evidence in itself.
Sure, psychology may not meet the ridgid definition of science, in that it has no paradigm and such, but I personally don't mind that. Human behaviour is a much lore abstract thing than chemicals or physics, so it's probably better that Psychology doesn't fit the exact criteria of being a science anyway.
Killer Lettuce !!iNo3FkiZx double-posted this 14 years ago, 4 minutes later, 41 minutes after the original post[^] [v] #365,722
@365,716 (Ks !KansasxqvM)
It strives to be as scientific as possible, trying to study something that we cannot actually see. Again, trying to make psychology actually fit the criteria of a science is unrealistic, in my opinion.
It does use the scientific method in its studies, though. Researchers will come up with a hypothesis, test that hypothesis with a study or experiment and make a sound conclusion based on that. It produces sound evidence despite what it's studying, in comparison to disciplines such as chemistry.
It strives to be as scientific as possible, trying to study something that we cannot actually see. Again, trying to make psychology actually fit the criteria of a science is unrealistic, in my opinion.
It does use the scientific method in its studies, though. Researchers will come up with a hypothesis, test that hypothesis with a study or experiment and make a sound conclusion based on that. It produces sound evidence despite what it's studying, in comparison to disciplines such as chemistry.
Ks !KansasxqvM (OP) replied with this 14 years ago, 13 minutes later, 55 minutes after the original post[^] [v] #365,724
@previous (Killer Lettuce !!iNo3FkiZx)
For what it is Psychology has made some remarkable progress. But I think Psychology, for the most part, will be nulled as neuroscience makes advances. Psychology will likely always have some role to play though, even if it's a minor one.
For what it is Psychology has made some remarkable progress. But I think Psychology, for the most part, will be nulled as neuroscience makes advances. Psychology will likely always have some role to play though, even if it's a minor one.
squeegee !hbZVTk6JYc replied with this 14 years ago, 2 minutes later, 58 minutes after the original post[^] [v] #365,726
@previous (Ks !KansasxqvM)
You mean like prescribing the best mind altering drugs prescriptions can provide?
You mean like prescribing the best mind altering drugs prescriptions can provide?
Ks !KansasxqvM (OP) replied with this 14 years ago, 2 minutes later, 1 hour after the original post[^] [v] #365,728
Anonymous F joined in and replied with this 14 years ago, 12 minutes later, 1 hour after the original post[^] [v] #365,731
Don’t forget: the outcomes of psychological therapy can be validated through science, but—just like with psychotropic drugs—the actual mechanisms by which therapy works are not directly observable or provable.
Anonymous G joined in and replied with this 14 years ago, 6 minutes later, 1 hour after the original post[^] [v] #365,733
determinism for dummies by fake anon
Killer Lettuce !!iNo3FkiZx replied with this 14 years ago, 4 minutes later, 1 hour after the original post[^] [v] #365,735
@365,724 (Ks !KansasxqvM)
I don't think that therapy will ever take a minor role, so psychology as a subject will likely be around for the forseeable future.
Also, I think you're expecting a bit too much from neuroscience. It can't study all aspects of behaviour, so other areas of psychology will still have a role to play. As it stands now, cognitive psychology is still very prominent despite the existence of neuropsychology.
Another interesting point is that your viewpoint on neuropsychology is the same as that of many approaches about themselves in the past. The behaviourists thought they were the the most advanced approach because they overthrew the psychodynamic approach, until the cognitive approach was developed and overtook behaviourism. Just because an approach is considered better than all of the ones before it doesn't mean that different evidence to challenge it won't come up later.
But I do appreciate that you acknowledge the progress of psychology. It's a fascinating area of study with lots of useful applications.
I don't think that therapy will ever take a minor role, so psychology as a subject will likely be around for the forseeable future.
Also, I think you're expecting a bit too much from neuroscience. It can't study all aspects of behaviour, so other areas of psychology will still have a role to play. As it stands now, cognitive psychology is still very prominent despite the existence of neuropsychology.
Another interesting point is that your viewpoint on neuropsychology is the same as that of many approaches about themselves in the past. The behaviourists thought they were the the most advanced approach because they overthrew the psychodynamic approach, until the cognitive approach was developed and overtook behaviourism. Just because an approach is considered better than all of the ones before it doesn't mean that different evidence to challenge it won't come up later.
But I do appreciate that you acknowledge the progress of psychology. It's a fascinating area of study with lots of useful applications.
(Edited 1 minute later.)
Anonymous H joined in and replied with this 14 years ago, 5 minutes later, 1 hour after the original post[^] [v] #365,740
@365,712 (Killer Lettuce !!iNo3FkiZx)
You can't call him out on anything. Seriously. Long before we started spamming his board, someone sent him an email challenging the way he answered a question posed to him a few weeks prior, and he would not even accept the possibility he might have been wrong in the way he responded to this question. He deleted the question and his answer from his email archives, then removed the post on the forum that called him out, and banned a few of the (then) forum regulars.
He takes any criticism of his approach to his "patients" super-seriously.
You can't call him out on anything. Seriously. Long before we started spamming his board, someone sent him an email challenging the way he answered a question posed to him a few weeks prior, and he would not even accept the possibility he might have been wrong in the way he responded to this question. He deleted the question and his answer from his email archives, then removed the post on the forum that called him out, and banned a few of the (then) forum regulars.
He takes any criticism of his approach to his "patients" super-seriously.
Anonymous H double-posted this 14 years ago, 1 minute later, 1 hour after the original post[^] [v] #365,741
@365,707 (cccuuunnttt !CaTLdYmooc)
It's always fun trying to decipher the shit he says.
It's always fun trying to decipher the shit he says.
(Edited 12 seconds later.)
Syntax joined in and replied with this 14 years ago, 1 hour later, 3 hours after the original post[^] [v] #365,763
@365,715 (cccuuunnttt !CaTLdYmooc)
> Psychology isn't scientific at all, though.
For sure not, but therapy can be extremely valuable/helpful/ Mind expanding...been a bunch of years since & multiple experiences all positive...which includes being invited into sessions of "others" and its good for the economy
@previous (H)
On a trip to Baja Mexico with a GF - We met the doc and had lunch and a long conversation. Went to a club with him and .... This was before his first forum.
Other then an occasional something that went over both our heads, he was easy to understand. My Gf was going through a tough patch with her own therapy with two sessions a week - One was in general stuff and the other was because of a Rape. Prior to our relationship, she never told anyone about the event(s) and I researched therapy, and she joined a Santa Monica Rape crisis program and on occasion I was called in to participate. She decided to share with the Doc in Baja. He offered some valuable advice. Instant respect. What was going on in his forum in my opinion, required a slew of other Docs as Mods or Mentors.
The Doctor should have recognized this early on. Failed Nevertheless he tried his best which ended up Fail But I bet a few found help there.
@previous (H)
> It's always fun trying to decipher the shit he says.
Yes not easy but that was not the speek We found in R/L with meet up over a 2-3 day period.
> Psychology isn't scientific at all, though.
For sure not, but therapy can be extremely valuable/helpful/ Mind expanding...been a bunch of years since & multiple experiences all positive...which includes being invited into sessions of "others" and its good for the economy
@previous (H)
On a trip to Baja Mexico with a GF - We met the doc and had lunch and a long conversation. Went to a club with him and .... This was before his first forum.
Other then an occasional something that went over both our heads, he was easy to understand. My Gf was going through a tough patch with her own therapy with two sessions a week - One was in general stuff and the other was because of a Rape. Prior to our relationship, she never told anyone about the event(s) and I researched therapy, and she joined a Santa Monica Rape crisis program and on occasion I was called in to participate. She decided to share with the Doc in Baja. He offered some valuable advice. Instant respect. What was going on in his forum in my opinion, required a slew of other Docs as Mods or Mentors.
The Doctor should have recognized this early on. Failed Nevertheless he tried his best which ended up Fail But I bet a few found help there.
@previous (H)
> It's always fun trying to decipher the shit he says.
Yes not easy but that was not the speek We found in R/L with meet up over a 2-3 day period.
(Edited 3 minutes later.)
Killer Lettuce !!iNo3FkiZx replied with this 14 years ago, 13 minutes later, 3 hours after the original post[^] [v] #365,768
Fake anon !ZkUt8arUCU joined in and replied with this 14 years ago, 1 hour later, 4 hours after the original post[^] [v] #365,798
This is actually a problem I've been interested in for a while. Here's how I think about it.
So the first thing you've got to do when you ask "Does free will exist?" is define what exactly you mean when you say "free will". Here, philosophers fall into two general categories. The first are called "Compatibalists" and the second are called "Libertarians". Compatibalists make the following general claims. First, that the universe is deterministic. That is to say, the universe is such that given a certain state of affairs at a certain time, every event that follows that moment is guaranteed (or "fixed") as a matter of natural law. Second, they say that "free will" is, to put it inelegantly, "doing what you want". So suppose that you want to eat an apple. There is an apple in the fruit bowl, and there is no physical reason why you cannot get the apple (you are not tied to a chair or handcuffed or anything like that). You act freely if you eat the apple because you want to.
Libertarians view it differently. They think that the universe is indeterministic, which is defined (sticking with the previous definition of determinism) as "given a certain state of affairs at a certain time, at least one event that follows that moment is not guaranteed (or "fixed") as a matter of natural law". Libertarians think that free will is, again in a very general sense, "doing what you want AND wanting what you want". So sticking with the apple example, you act freely if you want to eat the apple, you do eat the apple, and you eat the apple because you wanted to eat the apple (to be healthy or whatever).
I find neither of these to be compelling. I think compatibalism fails for two reasons. First, because I find their definition of free will to be weak. I think there is more to acting freely than simply acting on your desires. Of course, some compatibalists offer very complex accounts of when someone acts freely (for an example of this, see e.g. Lynne Rudder Baker's Moral Responsibility Without Libertarianism (PDF) p.g. 13.) The second, more powerful, objection is that if it is impossible in principle for someone to have any kind of control over what their desires are or how they act on them (which is something that is true if determinism is true, and they are committed to saying determinism is true), then I see no way it makes sense to say that someone "acts freely".
I think Libertarians fail for an analogous reason. If the universe is indeterministic (fundamentally, it behaves in accordance with the probabilistic equations of quantum mechanics, or what have you) then your choices are not something you control. If the determinists have a hard time getting free will because eveerything is in a sense "pre-determined", libertarians have an equally hard time explaining how the random nature of quantum mechanics leads to genuinely free action. If I chose to do some action because the electrons in my neurons were in location X at time T because the laws of quantum mechanics dictated that was the most probable location for it, I did not act freely because I didn't pick the laws of quantum physics, and I didn't pick the kind of neurons I have or the locations of the electrons in my brain.
tl;dr Free Will can't exist because the concept is incompatible with indeterminism and determinism.
Edit: Sorry if that was dense or confusing. I am not super-happy with the way I wrote it but I don't feel like going back and editing it. If you want me to explain more about something, just ask!
So the first thing you've got to do when you ask "Does free will exist?" is define what exactly you mean when you say "free will". Here, philosophers fall into two general categories. The first are called "Compatibalists" and the second are called "Libertarians". Compatibalists make the following general claims. First, that the universe is deterministic. That is to say, the universe is such that given a certain state of affairs at a certain time, every event that follows that moment is guaranteed (or "fixed") as a matter of natural law. Second, they say that "free will" is, to put it inelegantly, "doing what you want". So suppose that you want to eat an apple. There is an apple in the fruit bowl, and there is no physical reason why you cannot get the apple (you are not tied to a chair or handcuffed or anything like that). You act freely if you eat the apple because you want to.
Libertarians view it differently. They think that the universe is indeterministic, which is defined (sticking with the previous definition of determinism) as "given a certain state of affairs at a certain time, at least one event that follows that moment is not guaranteed (or "fixed") as a matter of natural law". Libertarians think that free will is, again in a very general sense, "doing what you want AND wanting what you want". So sticking with the apple example, you act freely if you want to eat the apple, you do eat the apple, and you eat the apple because you wanted to eat the apple (to be healthy or whatever).
I find neither of these to be compelling. I think compatibalism fails for two reasons. First, because I find their definition of free will to be weak. I think there is more to acting freely than simply acting on your desires. Of course, some compatibalists offer very complex accounts of when someone acts freely (for an example of this, see e.g. Lynne Rudder Baker's Moral Responsibility Without Libertarianism (PDF) p.g. 13.) The second, more powerful, objection is that if it is impossible in principle for someone to have any kind of control over what their desires are or how they act on them (which is something that is true if determinism is true, and they are committed to saying determinism is true), then I see no way it makes sense to say that someone "acts freely".
I think Libertarians fail for an analogous reason. If the universe is indeterministic (fundamentally, it behaves in accordance with the probabilistic equations of quantum mechanics, or what have you) then your choices are not something you control. If the determinists have a hard time getting free will because eveerything is in a sense "pre-determined", libertarians have an equally hard time explaining how the random nature of quantum mechanics leads to genuinely free action. If I chose to do some action because the electrons in my neurons were in location X at time T because the laws of quantum mechanics dictated that was the most probable location for it, I did not act freely because I didn't pick the laws of quantum physics, and I didn't pick the kind of neurons I have or the locations of the electrons in my brain.
tl;dr Free Will can't exist because the concept is incompatible with indeterminism and determinism.
Edit: Sorry if that was dense or confusing. I am not super-happy with the way I wrote it but I don't feel like going back and editing it. If you want me to explain more about something, just ask!
(Edited 2 minutes later.)
Anonymous F replied with this 14 years ago, 7 minutes later, 5 hours after the original post[^] [v] #365,801
inb4 mountainman
Ks !KansasxqvM (OP) replied with this 14 years ago, 14 minutes later, 5 hours after the original post[^] [v] #365,802
@365,798 (Fake anon !ZkUt8arUCU)
> tl;dr Free Will can't exist because the concept is incompatible with indeterminism and determinism.
After reading your assessment of both sides I'd tend to agree. But it's not a very satisfying answer. Nonetheless you've made a simple and great case for the non-existence of free will.
Way to go Mark, you've killed free will! :(
> tl;dr Free Will can't exist because the concept is incompatible with indeterminism and determinism.
After reading your assessment of both sides I'd tend to agree. But it's not a very satisfying answer. Nonetheless you've made a simple and great case for the non-existence of free will.
Way to go Mark, you've killed free will! :(
Fake anon !ZkUt8arUCU replied with this 14 years ago, 18 minutes later, 5 hours after the original post[^] [v] #365,808
@previous (Ks !KansasxqvM)
Well I agree that my answer is in some sense unfulfilling. Every day I (like everyone) have hundreds of things that feel like they are free decisions that I make, but philosophically speaking, I don't see how that can be the case. I think the strongest case you can make for free will is the argument from immediate experience. Nothing could be more obvious to me or to any conscious individual that sometimes, I freely choose to do one thing rather than another.
The decision I guess you have to make is do you stick with your gut, or do you go against what you just intuitively know and live an awkward existence where you believe one thing to be true, but always act as though it were false? And to be honest I don't really have a good answer.
My views are similar in many respects to a philosopher named Derk Pereboom. He wrote a book called "Living without free will" and I think one other one whose name escapes me. I personally cannot stand his writing style but if you want to want to learn more about this position, that might be a good place to start. I know Sam Harris wrote a short book on Free Will but I haven't had a chance to read it yet. I think he attacks Free Will on different grounds though.
Well I agree that my answer is in some sense unfulfilling. Every day I (like everyone) have hundreds of things that feel like they are free decisions that I make, but philosophically speaking, I don't see how that can be the case. I think the strongest case you can make for free will is the argument from immediate experience. Nothing could be more obvious to me or to any conscious individual that sometimes, I freely choose to do one thing rather than another.
The decision I guess you have to make is do you stick with your gut, or do you go against what you just intuitively know and live an awkward existence where you believe one thing to be true, but always act as though it were false? And to be honest I don't really have a good answer.
My views are similar in many respects to a philosopher named Derk Pereboom. He wrote a book called "Living without free will" and I think one other one whose name escapes me. I personally cannot stand his writing style but if you want to want to learn more about this position, that might be a good place to start. I know Sam Harris wrote a short book on Free Will but I haven't had a chance to read it yet. I think he attacks Free Will on different grounds though.
Ks !KansasxqvM (OP) replied with this 14 years ago, 10 minutes later, 5 hours after the original post[^] [v] #365,812
@previous (Fake anon !ZkUt8arUCU)
Sam Harris is like a rock star of philosophy. You should be like Sam. Do it.
Sam Harris is like a rock star of philosophy. You should be like Sam. Do it.
Anonymous K joined in and replied with this 14 years ago, 1 day later, 1 day after the original post[^] [v] #366,187
All rational activity presupposes free will.
Fake anon !ZkUt8arUCU replied with this 14 years ago, 7 hours later, 2 days after the original post[^] [v] #366,316
@previous (K)
I don't know about that. I think you can make decisions for reasons, but have those reasons and that decision be totally out of your control. I guess that raises the problem of how they are actually "your" decisions if "you" (whatever you are) didn't make them freely, though.
@365,812 (Ks !KansasxqvM)
He is a neuroscientist-turned-philosopher, which is sexy, from a marketing standpoint. I am just a boring old philosopher.
@365,705 (Killer Lettuce !!iNo3FkiZx)
I actually took a course about free will and we covered the Libet experiments. Here are some of the concerns among philosophers with respect to the interpretation of the data. First, and I think most troubling, is the equivocation of the (in Libet's case) increase of the readiness potential over time that peaks before the participant is aware of the decision, with the free choice itself. The problem is, how do we know that the increase in brain activity is the decision itself, and not merely, say, a necessary condition for the action in question? Surely there is some interaction between the brain and mind (and I don't mean that in some substance dualist sense or anything), but to say that the brain activity in this case is the mental activity of making a decision, and not merely correlated with the mental activity is a claim that goes beyond the raw data.
Secondly, (and the article notes this), there is substantial difference between the mental processes involved in pushing a button, and making complex moral decisions, which is really where people care about free will the most, since a lack of free will would seem to imply a lack of moral responsibility. If the conclusion of the study is "there is no free will in any circumstance", then they have grossly overstated their case. The best they could hope to show is that in simple, boring decisions, humans make decisions before they are consciously aware of making them. I think you can accept that while also saying that we have free will in complicated, morally significant decisions.
I don't know about that. I think you can make decisions for reasons, but have those reasons and that decision be totally out of your control. I guess that raises the problem of how they are actually "your" decisions if "you" (whatever you are) didn't make them freely, though.
@365,812 (Ks !KansasxqvM)
He is a neuroscientist-turned-philosopher, which is sexy, from a marketing standpoint. I am just a boring old philosopher.
@365,705 (Killer Lettuce !!iNo3FkiZx)
I actually took a course about free will and we covered the Libet experiments. Here are some of the concerns among philosophers with respect to the interpretation of the data. First, and I think most troubling, is the equivocation of the (in Libet's case) increase of the readiness potential over time that peaks before the participant is aware of the decision, with the free choice itself. The problem is, how do we know that the increase in brain activity is the decision itself, and not merely, say, a necessary condition for the action in question? Surely there is some interaction between the brain and mind (and I don't mean that in some substance dualist sense or anything), but to say that the brain activity in this case is the mental activity of making a decision, and not merely correlated with the mental activity is a claim that goes beyond the raw data.
Secondly, (and the article notes this), there is substantial difference between the mental processes involved in pushing a button, and making complex moral decisions, which is really where people care about free will the most, since a lack of free will would seem to imply a lack of moral responsibility. If the conclusion of the study is "there is no free will in any circumstance", then they have grossly overstated their case. The best they could hope to show is that in simple, boring decisions, humans make decisions before they are consciously aware of making them. I think you can accept that while also saying that we have free will in complicated, morally significant decisions.
(Edited 39 seconds later.)
Killer Lettuce !!iNo3FkiZx replied with this 14 years ago, 1 hour later, 2 days after the original post[^] [v] #366,400
@previous (Fake anon !ZkUt8arUCU)
> . First, and I think most troubling, is the equivocation of the (in Libet's case) increase of the readiness potential over time that peaks before the participant is aware of the decision, with the free choice itself. The problem is, how do we know that the increase in brain activity is the decision itself, and not merely, say, a necessary condition for the action in question? Surely there is some interaction between the brain and mind (and I don't mean that in some substance dualist sense or anything), but to say that the brain activity in this case is the mental activity of making a decision, and not merely correlated with the mental activity is a claim that goes beyond the raw data.
The article does say that the researchers were able to use the brain activity to correctly predict some of the decisions the participants made, which would imply that this brain activity is related to the decision to some degree. But, of course, they didn't guess correctly all of the time, so one could also take the view that the brain activity is not the actual decision being made.
It'd be better if they'd stated the number of correct predictions to incorrect ones. If it was only a small margin, I could probably make a stronger case for the brain activity being related and the incorrect guesses being anomalies. The way they word it makes it sound like a there were a significant number of incorrect predictions, though, so your criticisms are not unfounded.
> Secondly, (and the article notes this), there is substantial difference between the mental processes involved in pushing a button, and making complex moral decisions, which is really where people care about free will the most
You make a good point. Further research is needed in this area.
> . First, and I think most troubling, is the equivocation of the (in Libet's case) increase of the readiness potential over time that peaks before the participant is aware of the decision, with the free choice itself. The problem is, how do we know that the increase in brain activity is the decision itself, and not merely, say, a necessary condition for the action in question? Surely there is some interaction between the brain and mind (and I don't mean that in some substance dualist sense or anything), but to say that the brain activity in this case is the mental activity of making a decision, and not merely correlated with the mental activity is a claim that goes beyond the raw data.
The article does say that the researchers were able to use the brain activity to correctly predict some of the decisions the participants made, which would imply that this brain activity is related to the decision to some degree. But, of course, they didn't guess correctly all of the time, so one could also take the view that the brain activity is not the actual decision being made.
It'd be better if they'd stated the number of correct predictions to incorrect ones. If it was only a small margin, I could probably make a stronger case for the brain activity being related and the incorrect guesses being anomalies. The way they word it makes it sound like a there were a significant number of incorrect predictions, though, so your criticisms are not unfounded.
> Secondly, (and the article notes this), there is substantial difference between the mental processes involved in pushing a button, and making complex moral decisions, which is really where people care about free will the most
You make a good point. Further research is needed in this area.
Fake anon !ZkUt8arUCU replied with this 14 years ago, 10 minutes later, 2 days after the original post[^] [v] #366,411
@previous (Killer Lettuce !!iNo3FkiZx)
It's not that they were wrong some of the time, which is fine. Human error, miscalibration of machines, etc. can account for that. Suppose that 100% of the time, they predicted it correctly. That wouldn't show that what they are measuring is the mental activity. All it would show is that whenever there was this reaction in the brain, awareness of a mental decision followed X seconds later. There's a difference between two things that happen to be perfectly correlated and two things that are either in a causal relationship, or 2 apparently different things that are actually the same thing. The best that you can get out of this kind of experiment, so far as I can tell, is that 100% of the time, a conscious choice is preceded by this type of brain activity. Nowhere is there evidence that the brain activity caused the decision, or is the decision process itself.
It's not that they were wrong some of the time, which is fine. Human error, miscalibration of machines, etc. can account for that. Suppose that 100% of the time, they predicted it correctly. That wouldn't show that what they are measuring is the mental activity. All it would show is that whenever there was this reaction in the brain, awareness of a mental decision followed X seconds later. There's a difference between two things that happen to be perfectly correlated and two things that are either in a causal relationship, or 2 apparently different things that are actually the same thing. The best that you can get out of this kind of experiment, so far as I can tell, is that 100% of the time, a conscious choice is preceded by this type of brain activity. Nowhere is there evidence that the brain activity caused the decision, or is the decision process itself.
(Edited 28 seconds later.)
Killer Lettuce !!iNo3FkiZx replied with this 14 years ago, 15 minutes later, 2 days after the original post[^] [v] #366,422
@previous (Fake anon !ZkUt8arUCU)
They are using the brain activity to predict the decision, though. It's not air-tight proof of a cause-effect relationship between the activity and the decision, but it implies that there could be one.
Hayes said that he planned to do further research, which should hopefully produce more evidence on the matter.
They are using the brain activity to predict the decision, though. It's not air-tight proof of a cause-effect relationship between the activity and the decision, but it implies that there could be one.
Hayes said that he planned to do further research, which should hopefully produce more evidence on the matter.
(Edited 50 seconds later.)