What is the appeal of considering free will an illusion?

Free Thoughts, free will, this illusion are all controlled by physics.

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." - Aristotle.

I do not accept the current level of my free will. Although It is certainly an illusion. This is why it is so appealing to me to believe it is all an illusion.

 

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That is because you seem to still think (contrary to my many clear statements) the "you", who may or may not have free will, and the self subroutine of the RTS are not the same. Again:"you" ARE that subroutine. If it can make choices based on its own, (atomomously) then it has free will and so would "you" as it IS "you."

I have already admitted it / "you" can only chose "a." The alternative choice, "b" it /"you" think "you" have as a possibly is only and illusion. I.e. "You," (the highly evolved from initial DNA code which mainly enables this learning / evolution of the code) are deterministic in "your" choices. - You chose what you want. In that sense "you" have free will. What you want is a result of "your" evolutionary modification of the self section of RTS code that is "you" and that is what you do (and must) chose.

 

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Here I give you a choice of your free will. Live or die? Frankly I don't care. The current state of free will leads directly to your death and a fate you will accept, but If you accept that you have free will on this current path in history and click on the free thoughts button, you will see a statement that is completely true (given nobody chops your head off or you blood drains out... basic physical injury stuff). As long as there are electrical signals flowing through your constant stream of thoughts as well as your body you will have free will. Unless I decide to rip the object out of your body. Believe what you want to believe, the choice is still yours in this "REAL TIME" strategy code.

Did you ever think the question of live or die would come in the form of a push of a button? It has...

 

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oK... so the issue is... can the subroutine (which is you) make uninfluenced choises.!!!

An for a fresh start... describe what the "subroutine/you" is.!!!

 

It is a sub component or routine within the main RTS. It has full access to "your" memories and very likely much of it also comes from the frontal lobes. (The old "ice pick" operations on them show that much of "your" personallity is made or stored there).

It perceives what is being represented (and continuously updated to closely conform to external reality) in other parts of the RTS. It also can "issue orders" to at least the motor cortex, which is conveniently just forward of the parietal cortex, which is making the RTS. I.e. it can activate / control all of the voluntary mussels of the body. That is how "you" act upon the world. (This control is awkward at first, but later the self just send the request to the cerebellum where learned patterned programs for the movement are stored.)

This self subroutine is quite simple at birth (DNA made, as are your hands, gross brain layout, etc.) to be mainly* a "learning machine."** What is learned is mainly used to modify (make more capable and vastly more complex) the initial self routine, either directly or by changing the content of memory which the self routine has access to. I won't (and can't) get into consciousness, but at least the self routine does have self awareness soon after birth if not before.

The choices are determined ONLY by the self routine, but can be "influenced" by what the self perceives in the RTS representation of the external world. For obvious example, a gun held to your head. Or internal factors, like pain in a tooth, may cause the self routine to chose to issue orders to your finger to dial the dentist’s telephone number.

* It does have some innate knowledge. For example, it knows at birth the correct arrangement of the parts of a human face, some behaviors like to cry if hungry, smile when not, and even some very detailed things about how language must be structured plus where to parse vowel sounds. {Synthesizers can continuously “slide” one vowel into another and all humans (plus a few other mammals) make the hearing switch at essentially the same point.}***

**That includes physical skills like making both eyes point in same direction or later how to walk, etc. as well as how to think, evaluate perceived conditions, etc.
I doubt if I can say much more about it, but ask definite questions that are reasonable and I will try to answer.

***It is hard to condition or get a trained response from less than day old child, but they do get bored by repetition. So if you slide the vowel sound around but do not pass that point it will soon cease to interest them, but cross that point and they will look towards its source again. Even though it is a changing sound pattern, it is still an <a> until it crosses that point and becomes something new, not boring, for example an <e>.

Likewise you can show many proper line drawings of faces and then show one with the two eyes, one above the other, and both to one side of the nose and they stare at it with interest. A new born baby knows the correct geometric arrangement of two eyes, a nose and a mouth even if it has not yet seen a human face.

 

Originally Posted by cluelusshusbund
... An for a fresh start... describe what the "subroutine/you" is.!!!

Its ironic that in you'r effort to create a scenerio in which free will can esist wit-out brakin any laws of physics... that in all you'r explinations... you go into detale describin how each component is influenced... by such thangs as DNA... memories... external reality... internal factors such as pain... ect... ie... you'r RTS jus adds a layer of complication that still doesnt result in free will.!!!

 

I don't think there is much to say ...

If we settle for materialistic reductionism, then it is indeed only rational to consider free will an illusion.

While it may seem rational to settle for materialistic reductionism (after all, empiry seems the most reliable method for obtaining relevant knowledge about the world), it remains that there is something repugnant about the notion that free will is an illusion.

So the question is actually about why settle for materialistic reductionism (ie. why believe that we are basically our bodies); why believe that this is "as good as it gets"; why discount the intuition that there is something repugnant about such settling.

I am afraid though that at this point, the humanists don't have much to offer other than blind optimism ...

 

If free will is an illusion, then all our life is an illusion.
Then I prefer to live with the illusion that free will is not an illusion.

 

Could you say a bit more about this?

What thoughts and feelings come up in you when you consider the possibility that free will is an illusion?

Why do you not discount those thoughts and feelings that are against the notion that free will is an illusion?

 

You have a rite to any unevidenced beleifs you want... but what woud be repugnant to me is... ignorin evidence/logic because i didnt like the directon it ponted.!!!

 

And it is repugnant to me to think of oneself as nothing more than a fancy, deterministic machine.

 

The idea that there is no free will,destroy the will.
Any action is futile,even discussing this issue is futile.

 

I thank its irrresponsible to ignore logic in favor of beleif... an im a very responsible person in spite of... or because of (?) my deterministic world view :shrug:

 

Excellent points Signal. And I agree with all you say here.

What fascinates me is: why is it that we feel this repugnance?

I think you're conflating a few issues here. I don't see how a materialistic account is "settling" at all. To say such a thing implies that there's some better position available. In making such a move, we've then run right back into ethics.

[Personal aside:

I'm continually surprised at how ethics gets introduced into philosophical topics, and this one in particular. It's entirely possible to discuss nearly anything without the need to introduce a value judgment. Why this seems so slippery an eel confounds me....]


In any case, I don't think saying "this is as good as it gets" (another ethical interjection...) represents the materialistic account as opposed to something along the lines of "this is the way it is".

I'm particularly intrigued by this comment, though, I'm not at all sure what you mean......

 

Do not underestimated the instincts.
The logic is based on the axiom,axioms which are determined by instinct.

 

Ive thout free will is an illusion for about 40 years now an i thank the issue is very interestin... as in figerin out how a magician does his tricks... an i still enjoy livin an makin plans for the future :shrug:

 

Mayb one of the reasons for som religious type people is because the notion of free will is necesary for ther beleif system :shrug:

 

Was it my GPS's free will to turn on without a charge, and point in the direction of a place that haunted my past when I already thought I was going crazy stuck in traffic to a job Interview? nervous as hell as well.

No, I don't think so. Even though the cause to the matter is undetermined, I have carried out with my life. This is why I all believe we have different levels to free will and it is important to accept "certain levels" of your "mental abilities" as Illusion. And as time passes by it is only inevitable that we will gain more of the philosophical aspect of "free Will". I.e. "learn something new every day". When you abandon the aspect of knowledge and humor in life you loose a small amount of free will in how your actions affect the future. The butterfly effect so to speak. If you are able to "plan ahead" or be whitty during times of conversation, hopefully you are a good comedian who sees laughter in life. If not then your anger will impede your free will. If you are "scared" you will miss out on the opportunities that allow you to concur your fear and only succeed in making yourself more afraid. But I hate to end on a bad note so my OCD will just say, "Oh look a butterfly, how pretty"

 

In this particular case, the reason is posited in post #1:

and echoed in others, like post 18:

In effect, certain proponents of free will were positing that the reason some oppose the concept of free will is that they take satisfaction from believing that no one carries any responsibility for their actions—in effect, that ethics (as most people think of the term) becomes a dead letter and we are (from that point of view, from proponents of free will) "free" to be as unethical as we choose to be. We can then explain away immoral conduct as the unavoidable outcome of deterministic minds, each devoid of any responsibility.

 

It is a thread Are humans the only species in which individuals lie to themselves?
It means that you are able to lie to yourself and you take action as would depend
something of your own free will and your fate is not predetermined.