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Free Will vs. the Programmed Brain

sciam.com — If our actions are determined by prior events, then do we have a choice about anything—or any responsibility for what we do?

Who dugg this? Made popular Aug 20, 2008

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  • OneLess, on 08/20/2008, -2/+29Did I just see "OMG" in a Scientific American article?
  • stormist, on 08/20/2008, -6/+29Don't click it you don't really get a free Wii.
  • inajeep, on 08/20/2008, -3/+23Sorry my free will says to digg you down and my programmed brain agrees.
  • DraxusD, on 08/20/2008, -1/+19I don't blame you for not agreeing, it wasn't your choice.
  • matthewinDRO, on 08/20/2008, -1/+18I knew it wasn't my fault that I liked porn, pot, and cheetos.
  • hauntedchippy, on 08/20/2008, -1/+16It all depends on how you are defining what 'free will' actually is. The devil is in the detail.
  • jehan60188, on 08/20/2008, -1/+15I was going to come in here, and say that Determinism is an age old school of thought, but then I read the article, and saw that there was actually an experiment performed on it.
    Philosophically speaking, Determinism does NOT free you from moral obligations; but as you can see, statistically, people use determinism to forego morals.
    Very interested.

    Reminds me of a friend I had who spent an entire summer on her couch because "it was part of Gods plan" and if god wanted her to do anything, she'd do it whether she motivated herself to or not...
  • Swil, on 08/20/2008, -19/+31Please don't digg down this comment, I didn't decide to post it.
  • TeflonDom, on 08/20/2008, -2/+13Where can I get my 'Free Wii'?
  • anonymous1986, on 08/20/2008, -1/+11That's true, quantum mechanics says that the world is inherently indeterminate. However that does not suggest the existence of free will.
  • dazparkour, on 08/20/2008, -0/+9How do you chose if not by using a combination of your previous experiences (so you know which one you like more) and your current cravings, which are a direct result of not have finished eating?!
  • LokitheComplex, on 08/20/2008, -2/+11The experiment sounds deeply flawed. You could have got them to read a religious passage telling them that all sins are forgiven and the "Luck God" loves cheats. You could have told them that the brain works on predetermined biological limits that include moral frameworks.
  • hauntedchippy, on 08/20/2008, -5/+14Newtonian determinacy (which is what you mean by being able to predict future events with enough information) has been dead for about 80 years. Quantum mechanics blows it right out of the water.
  • Asrrin29, on 08/20/2008, -8/+16The problem with saying that free will exists is that you are basing it on a classical representation of the universe, which is inherently false. On the scale of neurons and molecules, quantum mechanics rules the world, and instead of predetermined actions you have "clouds of possibilities" in which a single particle can "choose" which course of action to take. I believe that this quantum uncertainty is what gives us our free will. Sure, in a situation I may choose to go the path that is most "logical" according to classical mechanics because of the bell curve of possibilities, but there is always that chance that I take the unexpected route.
  • laserdog, on 08/20/2008, -0/+8Idiots love to believe there are only two possible buckets to put things in, the "good" bucket of things that agree with and the "evil" bucket of things they disagree with.

    In case that is too subtle, you're a tool for needlessly dragging politics into a debate about the most basic cosmological question in philosophy. Clearly you support high tariffs on steel.
  • MelroseMan, on 08/20/2008, -1/+8When I was in the 4th grade I didn't give as much thought to morality and determinism and such. I was more worried about my balls dropping.
  • inactive, on 08/20/2008, -1/+8We must distinguish Will that is 'free' and Will that need not be deemed Free.

    Kant (sorry, I love him), says we're free in that we are independent, and we can only be independent if our will is enslaved to our reason - - and on 'outside' forces like our emotions or instincts.

    But, since rationality doesn't like multiple choice, 'free' will may seem a lot less free than you think.

    Example:
    Say you are hungry, and want a sandwich. You believe there is a sandwich in the fridge. You have nothing else to do, nothing urgent calling you, no phone call or any other desires or whims, you're feeling well, and you really are hungry for a sandwich.

    In what sense can we say that your will was 'free' when you went to the fridge to get the sandwich? How 'free' is that?
  • JitMaster, on 08/20/2008, -1/+7The only way to see if our actions are deterministic, would be to create exactly the same universe and run it forward and see if exactly the same things happen(of course no peeking, or you'll change it, doh).
  • groovechamp30, on 08/20/2008, -4/+10Everything is predictable if you have sufficient information. All your thoughts and mental processes are the result of physical things, i.e. electronic impulses in your brain, therefore if you had all the information and variables of your brain and the universe you would be able to predict everything you will ever do and think. So if it's predictable, is it pre-ordained?

    I don't know!
  • tattertech, on 08/20/2008, -0/+6So you're saying you actually truly randomly decide between ice cream? No thought about that flavor is, what you're in the mood for, etc?
  • bratterscain, on 08/20/2008, -0/+6Quantum uncertainty is not uncertainty on the particles' level, but uncertainty on our part due to not knowing how exactly particles at the quantum level function.
  • TheKitchenSinkX, on 08/20/2008, -2/+8No, you decided to post it, but you were going to no matter what. You decision, while still a decision, was an inevitable decision.
  • compulsive1, on 08/20/2008, -1/+7Don't feel free to do evil just because you are preprogrammed to do so. The society has been preprogrammed to punish you for it.
  • mstachiw, on 08/20/2008, -1/+7Even free will is governed by the laws and limitations of science, physics, and reality
  • Hetman, on 08/20/2008, -1/+6It is funny because your assumption is just as arrogant as theirs.
  • Neoanarchist, on 08/20/2008, -0/+5Lmao that is what I saw at first also.
  • Zipko, on 08/20/2008, -2/+6I don't have a free will. I just do whatever inajeep does
  • dazparkour, on 08/20/2008, -0/+4Your male - your preprogrammed for porn.

    Everyone is preprogrammed for pot, which leads to cheetos nicely.
  • inactive, on 08/20/2008, -2/+6I should have underlined the word 'freedom' there?

    My point was that the question of freedom is outside the scope of human comprehension.

    Even if scientists decide that they're pretty sure we have no free will, people cannot really accept that.
    Just like you can look at two dots on a piece of paper, and you see two dots, but it's really one photon at two places at once. We are incapable of accepting that idea.

    We're hardwired differently.
  • murrdpirate, on 08/20/2008, -3/+7Eh, I kinda think consciousness implies free will. I know that's not provable, but maybe it's just one of those fundamental things, such as 'existence exists.' If every decision we make is really a set of neurons automatically responding to their environment and experience, how are we here to witness it? How do we know we're not forcing those neurons to fire?

    There is no fundamental difference between our neuron network and a robot's circuit network. Are robots also conscious? Maybe consciousness is a property of subatomic particles and the more you have connected, the more aware the network becomes.
  • inactive, on 08/20/2008, -2/+6Free Willy!
  • TheCatsPants, on 08/21/2008, -0/+4"This must mean that by simply observing our world, each of us is changing it at the quantum level. If we also take into account the theory of quantum tunnelling"
    When scientists say 'observe' they mean 'locate/measure' which means bouncing a photon off a tiny sub-atomic particle or off another photon (because we can't use anything else). The result is the examined photon stops doing what it was doing and goes careening off - the observation interferes with the fate of the photon. When you see/observe something, your eyes gather photons which have already bounced off something, so you aren't causing something to happen, it already has happened.
  • im2emo4myshrt, on 08/20/2008, -2/+6Actually everything isn't predictable. Modern quantum physics has basically proved that what seems to be common sense in actuality is not. Why would one assume the same type of things do not apply to the human mind? Basically I see it as either you can theoretically predict every action with sufficient information, or it is a random reaction perhaps based on probability.
  • MrRuslan, on 08/20/2008, -0/+4There are too many variables to take into consideration when trying to determine something like this. In my opinion we will never truly know if there really is free will or not.
  • inactive, on 08/20/2008, -2/+6It is already predetermined that you would contemplate which route to take and attempt to fool your fate.
  • jehan60188, on 08/20/2008, -0/+4that's the thing. they did one half of the complete experiment.
    ideally, someone else will offer a passage to a new group of participants that talks about the brain having moral framework, etc. and then see what happens...
  • inactive, on 08/20/2008, -3/+7This is like 4th grade philosophy right here. If this concept is new to you, something is wrong.
  • bluezombie, on 08/20/2008, -1/+5"Absolute Free Will" may not exist. In fact, I do not believe that it does. On the other hand, "Effectively Free Will" certainly exists. The sheer number of inputs, the fuzziness of the data, the complexity of the function, all result in a computation that cannot be solved. Therefore it is effectively impossible to predetermine how each individual will behave beyond establishing a probability weighting for each choice. Since the choice that will be made is unknown, free will is proven.

    There. I solved the problem for y'all. Now go clean your room!
  • honutt, on 08/20/2008, -1/+5Just because it is difficult to see how previous events lead up to the "choices" that you make, does not mean that you truly have free will. The illusion of free will is like the illusion of random numbers in a computer.

    It is possible to have a system that is theoretically deterministic, but that is far beyond the capacity of any individual to comprehend the behavior of that system as a response to a given set of inputs.
  • bratterscain, on 08/20/2008, -0/+3What does the free will argument have to do with crime and punishment? If you believe we have free will, you are free to do what you will, regardless of punishment. And if you decide not to do the crime because you know you will be punished, it's not free will.
  • blaker00, on 08/20/2008, -1/+4how do you even define free will? I mean by definition, randomness != free will.
  • thorseth, on 08/20/2008, -0/+3I personally use alcohol for that.
  • DiggerUpper, on 08/20/2008, -1/+4"REAL POWER IS WHEN YOU KNOW YOU CAN, BUT YOU DON'T"
  • webyatri, on 08/20/2008, -1/+4Man was predestined to have free will.
  • datastorageguy, on 08/20/2008, -0/+3It's an argument between Newtonian classic physics where a system can be calculated such that the outcome is always determined and quantum physics where there is uncertainty and outcomes of events are a product of probabilities.

    My two cents.
  • gigamugged, on 08/20/2008, -0/+3Actually, Gödel proved that any consistent self-referential formal system is incomplete. Chaitin (http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~chaitin) put together a beautiful book showing Gödel's proof as a short LISP program. Most scientists exercise their free will and ignore the implications of this while searching for the grand unified theory of everything. Determinists have to come to grips with the fact that our reality has a provably infinite set of axioms, of provably infinite variety. An infinite set has plenty of room for free will (and everything else you can imagine).
  • WriterSD, on 08/20/2008, -0/+3I was thinking the same thing. My Calvinist friends will rejoice at this, even though IMO the experiment was pretty lame for determining a concept as complex as free will.
  • 5xSTUN, on 08/20/2008, -0/+3You're absolutely right. That's why every night Keith Olbermann spends ten minutes forgiving the Bush Administration for its actions, explaining that the President and his people are all just simply victims of circumstance.
  • Kyrgizion, on 08/20/2008, -0/+3Glad I wasn't the only one who noticed that.
    Though I don't necessarily think it's terrible. Language is something that evolves. It's only to be expected that newer idioms like OMG will be used more widely and out of the context of the internet.
  • anonymous1986, on 08/20/2008, -1/+4Sorry particles don't 'choose' which course of action to take, that would entail a certain level of conciousness-like behaviour. Furthermore take the double-spin experiment. If particles were able to choose which slit to go through (if a detector is placed on the slit) then the probability of the particle going through a certain slit after many permutations would not be 50% since the particle could 'choose' to continually pass through a certain slit. The same applies for spin.
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