Although I should note that I believe there to be phenomena that qualify to be defined as ‘free will’. Specifically endogenous processes generating behavioral variability and thus non-linearity. Especially if you can show that the complexity of transformation by which a system shapes the outside environment, in which it is embedded, does trump the specific effectiveness of the environmental influence on the defined system. In other words, mind over matter. You are able to shape reality more effectively and goal-oriented and thus, in a way, overcome its crude influence it exerts on you. For example, children and some mentally handicapped people are not responsible in same the way as healthy adults. They can not give consent or enter into legally binding contracts. One of the reasons for this is that they lack control, are easily influenced by others. Healthy humans exert a higher control than children and handicapped people. You experience, or possess a greater extent of freedom proportional to the amount of influence and effectiveness of control you exert over the environment versus the environment over you. Though this definition of free will only works once you arbitrarily define a system to be an entity within an environment contrary to being the environment. Thus the neural activity, being either consciously aware and controlled by the system itself, or not, is no valid argument within this framework. Of course, in a strong philosophical sense this definition fails to address the nature of free will as we can do what we want but not chose what we want. But I think it might after all be a useful definition when it comes to science, psychology and law. It might also very well address our public understanding of being free agents.
I should have checked the lesswrong wiki before posting this. And of course read the mentioned posts here on lesswrong.com.
One of the easiest hard questions, as millennia-old philosophical dilemmas go. Though this impossible question is fully and completely dissolved on Less Wrong...
Anyway, for those who care or are wondering what I have been talking about I thought I should provide some background information. My above drivel is loosely based on work by Björn Brembs et al.
“Our results address the middle ground between simple determinism and randomness that is currently not well understood or characterized. We speculate that if free will exists, it is in this middle ground.” This leads me to believe that the question of whether or not we have free will appears to be posed the wrong way. Instead, if we ask ‘where between chance and necessity are we located?’ one finds that this is precisely where humans and animals differ. Humans may not have free will in the philosophical sense, but even flies have a number of behavioral options they need to decide between. Humans are less determined than flies and possess even more options. With this small reformulation, the topic of free will becomes the new biological research area of studying spontaneous behavior and can thus be discerned from the philosophical question.
Maybe a misinterpretation on my side. But now my above comments might make a bit more sense, or at least show where I’m coming from. I learnt about this via a chat about ‘free will’.
Hope you don’t mind I post this. Maybe somebody will find it useful or informative.
Faced with novel situations, humans and most animals spontaneously increase their behavioural variability...
Controlling external events: the input
Thus, competitive success and evolutionary fitness of all ambulatory organisms rely critically on intact behavioral variability as an adaptive brain function. But relative freedom from environmental contingencies is a necessary, but most often not a sufficient criterion for such accomplishments. Tightly connected to the ability to produce variable behavior is the ability to use the effects of these behaviors to control the environment. The incoming stream of sensory information is noisy and fluctuates for any number of reasons. Any covariance between the behavioral variations and those of sensory input indicates that the latter are con-sequences of the behavior and can thus be controlled be the animal. This function is so paramount, that we humans express our delight over control of our envi-ronment (including other people) already as children, by e.g., shrieking in excitement when Daddy jumps after a “boo” or proudly presenting Mom with “look what I can do!”.
Although I should note that I believe there to be phenomena that qualify to be defined as ‘free will’. Specifically endogenous processes generating behavioral variability and thus non-linearity. Especially if you can show that the complexity of transformation by which a system shapes the outside environment, in which it is embedded, does trump the specific effectiveness of the environmental influence on the defined system. In other words, mind over matter. You are able to shape reality more effectively and goal-oriented and thus, in a way, overcome its crude influence it exerts on you. For example, children and some mentally handicapped people are not responsible in same the way as healthy adults. They can not give consent or enter into legally binding contracts. One of the reasons for this is that they lack control, are easily influenced by others. Healthy humans exert a higher control than children and handicapped people. You experience, or possess a greater extent of freedom proportional to the amount of influence and effectiveness of control you exert over the environment versus the environment over you. Though this definition of free will only works once you arbitrarily define a system to be an entity within an environment contrary to being the environment. Thus the neural activity, being either consciously aware and controlled by the system itself, or not, is no valid argument within this framework. Of course, in a strong philosophical sense this definition fails to address the nature of free will as we can do what we want but not chose what we want. But I think it might after all be a useful definition when it comes to science, psychology and law. It might also very well address our public understanding of being free agents.
I should have checked the lesswrong wiki before posting this. And of course read the mentioned posts here on lesswrong.com.
Anyway, for those who care or are wondering what I have been talking about I thought I should provide some background information. My above drivel is loosely based on work by Björn Brembs et al.
PLoS ONE: Order in Spontaneous Behavior
Maybe a misinterpretation on my side. But now my above comments might make a bit more sense, or at least show where I’m coming from. I learnt about this via a chat about ‘free will’.
Hope you don’t mind I post this. Maybe somebody will find it useful or informative.
There is more here: Brains as output/input devices