Are you in control of your own thoughts, actions and decisions?

[bxbrkrz]

Since Evolution never stop, what would be its raison d'être to mold us, the only species who invented the concept of a PhD, into becoming more and more like machines?
It feels like Devolution to me, or a way to justify a path to a conclusion already pre established.

I mean, what if our subjective experience was that of a machine learning to love?

What if all of this that we experience is what is required for a machine to learn to love? And we are those machines?

So instead, it's that evolution is molding us more and more to be like loving beings (that we now know as humans)?

But my question was specifically about an observable phenomenon seen by multiple humans. In that case the phenomenon would pre exist the 'illusion'. I understand all cases will be rejected, no matter the size of the sample of the observers.

Depends entirely on the phenomenon and the pre-existing beliefs.

We're not short of examples today where people can be divided on what is happening, even when watching the same recorded video or assessing the exact same stats.

It's why members of a jury may disagree, despite seeing the same evidence.

https://www.wordnik.com/words/machine
So many definitions. All built by someone, or another machine.



it seems reality had the free will to decide to build itself.

[avasopht]

https://www.wordnik.com/words/machine
So many definitions. All built by someone, or another machine.

...

It seems reality had the free will to decide to build itself.

Not following. Seems like a bit of a non-sequitur.

But if we were half as free as we thought we were, we'd be able to switch all of your preferences for a year.

If we hate maths, we could immediately switch to liking maths (especially if liking maths was beneficial to our current goals).

Yet we consistently see the exact opposite.

[bxbrkrz]

https://www.wordnik.com/words/machine
So many definitions. All built by someone, or another machine.

...

It seems reality had the free will to decide to build itself.

Not following. Seems like a bit of a non-sequitur.

But if we were half as free as we thought we were, we'd be able to switch all of your preferences for a year.

If we hate maths, we could immediately switch to liking maths (especially if liking maths was beneficial to our current goals).

Yet we consistently see the exact opposite.

One could say free will stops at conception for human beings. Other humans decided to start a life. The universe on the other hand decided to create itself. True free will.

As far as the switch, many cases similar to the man in the video exist. Maybe our potentials in our brain are like the Tesla cars. All the options are included from factory. You unlock them if needed.

Jason Padgett grew up struggling in school — until one night in 2002 when he was attacked in a bar and everything changed. Padgett said after the incident, he was using areas of the brain he didn’t previously have access to; he experienced choppy vision, was drawing intricate shapes and was seeing complex mathematical objects everywhere. Dr. Darold Treffert, a world renowned expert on savants, later diagnosed Padgett with acquired savant syndrome, which explained Padgett’s new skills.

[bxbrkrz]

THINKING too hard causes a build-up of toxic chemicals in your brain, study reveals...




Do you ever find yourself physically worn out after a long day at work, even if you've just been sat at a computer?
Scientists have found out that there is a reason for this, as a toxic chemical begins to build up in the brain after it has been active for extended periods of time.
The brain therefore shifts towards actions that do not require as much effort to avoid circulating this chemical, glutamate, any more.
This manifests as a lack of desire to do work, or cognitive fatigue, claim the neuroscientists from Pitié-Salpêtrière University in Paris, France.
Dr Mathias Pessiglione, who led the study, said: 'Influential theories suggested that fatigue is a sort of illusion cooked up by the brain to make us stop whatever we are doing and turn to a more gratifying activity,
'But our findings show that cognitive work results in a true functional alteration—accumulation of noxious substances—so fatigue would indeed be a signal that makes us stop working but for a different purpose: to preserve the integrity of brain functioning.'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech ... brain.html

[avasopht]

THINKING too hard causes a build-up of toxic chemicals in your brain, study reveals...




Do you ever find yourself physically worn out after a long day at work, even if you've just been sat at a computer?
Scientists have found out that there is a reason for this, as a toxic chemical begins to build up in the brain after it has been active for extended periods of time.
The brain therefore shifts towards actions that do not require as much effort to avoid circulating this chemical, glutamate, any more.
This manifests as a lack of desire to do work, or cognitive fatigue, claim the neuroscientists from Pitié-Salpêtrière University in Paris, France.
Dr Mathias Pessiglione, who led the study, said: 'Influential theories suggested that fatigue is a sort of illusion cooked up by the brain to make us stop whatever we are doing and turn to a more gratifying activity,
'But our findings show that cognitive work results in a true functional alteration—accumulation of noxious substances—so fatigue would indeed be a signal that makes us stop working but for a different purpose: to preserve the integrity of brain functioning.'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech ... brain.html

Cognitively intensive activities for extended periods of time.

Very different from merely exercising critical thought, introspection, and contemplation

[plaamook]

It’s just pushing data through a mechanism.
If I cane it in Reason my little MacBook cooks. But it’s not doing anything volitionally as such. It’s crunching numbers imposed upon it.
If you put me in a very stressful situation I’ve got to process a lot of data and the neurotoxins build up and I feel like I need a break. This may be a situation I’m interested in and find fun or a situation I’m not interested in but feel I must engage for whatever reason. Probably some pre programmed reason.
But same result either way.

So...yeah. No free will there fars I can see.
Sticking to the topic like.

[bxbrkrz]

Psychedelics, Meditation, and Self-Consciousness

In recent years, the scientific study of meditation and psychedelic drugs has seen remarkable developments. The increased focus on meditation in cognitive neuroscience has led to a cross-cultural classification of standard meditation styles validated by functional and structural neuroanatomical data. Meanwhile, the renaissance of psychedelic research has shed light on the neurophysiology of altered states of consciousness induced by classical psychedelics, such as psilocybin and LSD, whose effects are mainly mediated by agonism of serotonin receptors. Few attempts have been made at bridging these two domains of inquiry, despite intriguing evidence of overlap between the phenomenology and neurophysiology of meditation practice and psychedelic states. In particular, many contemplative traditions explicitly aim at dissolving the sense of self by eliciting altered states of consciousness through meditation, while classical psychedelics are known to produce significant disruptions of self-consciousness, a phenomenon known as drug-induced ego dissolution.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6137697/


A great looking but atypical meditation chamber

[plaamook]

I think you’ll find that most serious meditative traditions (not mindfulness) believe that the reason you can experience such temporary states of ego dissolution is because you’re actually connecting with what is real rather than triggering some extra state. The fact that the ego is illusory is why you can experience egolessness basically.

I’d argue it’s the same w trip drugs and dream states and all sorts of little moments tucked into our not so seamless flow of experience.

[jam-s]

If a machine can come up with these "creative" pictures, are we really more than elaborate bio-machines telling ourselves the fable of free will to not go mental

[bxbrkrz]

If we connect to 'reality' via deep meditations or some drugs, how do we know it is not yet another illusion? Maybe like the movie Inception, reality could be an onion with layers of illusions upon layers of illusions. Since we can't tell the difference, no one can can say if free will is real or not since we are forever part of everything. All possibilities are true because we are all inside the same box, with that Schrödinger's cat next to us.







The real fable about A.I. 'artworks' is how heavily influenced by some specific cultures its overall output is, but never by others...

[plaamook]

All experience is illusion, I’m not gonna argue against that. But that also means free will is illusory. The illusion flows and our volitions are just part of that flow. Not separate from it.

[bxbrkrz]

If all experience is illusion, why not not believing in free will... simply be another one too?

[motuscott]

Some say 3,957,826,645.2 angels can dance on the head of a pin.
I have my doubts

[bxbrkrz]

Have you seen what an angel would look like, based of the exact description in the Bible? All those eyes and wings?
You see 3,957,826,645.2 creatures, only because your mind cannot understand seeing all realities, space and time, collapsed into one location: the head of a pin

[plaamook]

If all experience is illusion, why not not believing in free will... simply be another one too?

Well, most people do.
I dont think it’s a problem. Do what you like. But as we dig deeper we’re seeing it in different ways. Some people are anyway.
But I think the flow of illusion has some consistency based on causality and that doesn’t line up w what we generally experience as free will. Or more importantly what we conceptualise free will to be.

You know...important experiences are often explained in very dry biological terms. But that doesn’t make love less profound. Or anger. Or any number of other ordinary and not ordinary experiences.
What’s coffee taste like? Etc. That’s not an idea. It’s an experience to be had and the most ordinary experiences are way off the scale of any kind of deep explaination. And that’s ultimately our ride. Experience. Not models of experience.

[avasopht]

If all experience is illusion, why not not believing in free will... simply be another one too?

Well, most people do.
I dont think it’s a problem. Do what you like. But as we dig deeper we’re seeing it in different ways. Some people are anyway.
But I think the flow of illusion has some consistency based on causality and that doesn’t line up w what we generally experience as free will. Or more importantly what we conceptualise free will to be.

You know...important experiences are often explained in very dry biological terms. But that doesn’t make love less profound. Or anger. Or any number of other ordinary and not ordinary experiences.
What’s coffee taste like? Etc. That’s not an idea. It’s an experience to be had and the most ordinary experiences are way off the scale of any kind of deep explaination. And that’s ultimately our ride. Experience. Not models of experience.

^This.

What most people don't seem to get is that if your decisions weren't deterministic, it would mean they were essentially determined randomly. Determinism is a prerequisite for agency.

Without determinism there is no agency.

For example, there's a log coming towards your head.

You only have two choices - be hit by the log and spend the rest of your life sellotaped to poorly maintained medical machinery while only being able to eat varying flavours of practically flavourless wheat, which due to the impact of your injury you are partially allergic to or .... ... not get hit by the log.

I bet you'd all choose to not be hit by the log.

But if free will couldn't be deterministic, for reasons beyond your awareness, control, detection, avoidance and/or anticipation, you'd be compelled (nay, forced) to make the opposite decision (if it really was not deterministic).

[plaamook]

Exactly.
What free will is to most is something like...I want to do what I want and believe that ‘I’ did it.
But really you’re just choosing between a few options presented to you by the vast web of causality. And what you choose is probably part of that web...determined.
You do t experience that and that’s great. Spices things up in a way.
But I think it’s amazing that what we are and what we do is connected to everyone and everything across all of time and space.
And I get to feel like an autonomous being.
And if that sucks I can relax into the flow of determinism.
Woo hooo!!!

[bxbrkrz]

If randomness is not the base of our reality, then a deterministic universe is, a self created [something] with a self created purpose, in which everything is connected to everything, coded from the start (no free will), but with the built in illusion of beings believing to be autonomous. Why? Maybe because our 5 senses would be overloaded by the amount of too much non illusion. Reality is doing its best protecting us from going non functioning. AKA Lies.
Also randomness cannot be the foundation of everything because we are proof it can't be. We are good at avoiding random flying logs, thanks to the arrow of Evolution.

Thus an organized no free will [something] was birthed from an infinite Chaos of nothingness. Better yet, you cannot control your own thoughts because some illusions are more tangible than others. No free will being the most concrete of all. WYSIWYG!

^This?

[avasopht]

If randomness is not the base of our reality, then a deterministic universe is, a self created [something] with a self created purpose, in which everything is connected to everything, coded from the start (no free will), but with the built in illusion of beings believing to be autonomous. Why? Maybe because our 5 senses would be overloaded by the amount of too much non illusion. Reality is doing its best protecting us from going non functioning. AKA Lies.
Also randomness cannot be the foundation of everything because we are proof it can't be. We are good at avoiding random flying logs, thanks to the arrow of Evolution.

Thus an organized no free will [something] was birthed from an infinite Chaos of nothingness. Better yet, you cannot control your own thoughts because some illusions are more tangible than others. No free will being the most concrete of all. WYSIWYG!

^This?

Randomness isn't what most people think randomness is.

The universe doesn't appear to be entirely deterministic btw, but it wouldn't make much difference to our decisions.

For a start, our neurons exhibit effectively random properties anyway.

Autonomy is not the same thing as free will by the way. In fact, "free-will" is the exact opposite of what people often think it means. Free-will basically means that you aren't making all of your decisions, and that instead, where your will would have been to do one thing, instead random forces will randomly change them.

Free will is antithetical to pure agency.

[jam-s]

If randomness is not the base of our reality, then a deterministic universe is, a self created [something] with a self created purpose, in which everything is connected to everything, coded from the start (no free will), but with the built in illusion of beings believing to be autonomous. Why? Maybe because our 5 senses would be overloaded by the amount of too much non illusion. Reality is doing its best protecting us from going non functioning. AKA Lies.
Also randomness cannot be the foundation of everything because we are proof it can't be. We are good at avoiding random flying logs, thanks to the arrow of Evolution.

Thus an organized no free will [something] was birthed from an infinite Chaos of nothingness. Better yet, you cannot control your own thoughts because some illusions are more tangible than others. No free will being the most concrete of all. WYSIWYG!

^This?

I think we evolved the illusion of free will as otherwise individuals of our species would get depressed and not strive to reproduce or keep on living. Thus it serves its biological evolutionary purpose. Religions/cults on the bigger scale culturally evolved in a similar fashion as a means to organise larger groups of individuals after a common arbitrary goal and thus get the edge over a competing assembly of folks. But as this topic tends to be loaded we should not further discuss it here and instead raise a toast to our "free will". Cheers.

[bxbrkrz]

If randomness is not the base of our reality, then a deterministic universe is, a self created [something] with a self created purpose, in which everything is connected to everything, coded from the start (no free will), but with the built in illusion of beings believing to be autonomous. Why? Maybe because our 5 senses would be overloaded by the amount of too much non illusion. Reality is doing its best protecting us from going non functioning. AKA Lies.
Also randomness cannot be the foundation of everything because we are proof it can't be. We are good at avoiding random flying logs, thanks to the arrow of Evolution.

Thus an organized no free will [something] was birthed from an infinite Chaos of nothingness. Better yet, you cannot control your own thoughts because some illusions are more tangible than others. No free will being the most concrete of all. WYSIWYG!

^This?

Randomness isn't what most people think randomness is.

The universe doesn't appear to be entirely deterministic btw, but it wouldn't make much difference to our decisions.

For a start, our neurons exhibit effectively random properties anyway.

Autonomy is not the same thing as free will by the way. In fact, "free-will" is the exact opposite of what people often think it means. Free-will basically means that you aren't making all of your decisions, and that instead, where your will would have been to do one thing, instead random forces will randomly change them.

Free will is antithetical to pure agency.

So from the premise of your question, the ultimate answer to your thread is to not participate, as more replies is proof there is no free will?
I never used the word 'autonomy' or 'autonomous' directly, I did it in a reply.

A not entirely deterministic universe would mean it is partially deterministic. Knowing this fact is making a huge difference to our decisions, which is the case for billions of humans right now, every day. We can have the free will to ignore it, but can't.

Anything 'pure' is an abstract.

Too bad more people are not participating, it is a fun thread, based on a very very old debate started eons ago.

[bxbrkrz]

If randomness is not the base of our reality, then a deterministic universe is, a self created [something] with a self created purpose, in which everything is connected to everything, coded from the start (no free will), but with the built in illusion of beings believing to be autonomous. Why? Maybe because our 5 senses would be overloaded by the amount of too much non illusion. Reality is doing its best protecting us from going non functioning. AKA Lies.
Also randomness cannot be the foundation of everything because we are proof it can't be. We are good at avoiding random flying logs, thanks to the arrow of Evolution.

Thus an organized no free will [something] was birthed from an infinite Chaos of nothingness. Better yet, you cannot control your own thoughts because some illusions are more tangible than others. No free will being the most concrete of all. WYSIWYG!

^This?

I think we evolved the illusion of free will as otherwise individuals of our species would get depressed and not strive to reproduce or keep on living. Thus it serves its biological evolutionary purpose. Religions/cults on the bigger scale culturally evolved in a similar fashion as a means to organise larger groups of individuals after a common arbitrary goal and thus get the edge over a competing assembly of folks. But as this topic tends to be loaded we should not further discuss it here and instead raise a toast to our "free will". Cheers.

The only way for me to be loaded is after too many toasts raised to our free will, and its never ending change of its definition

Are you aware you need another to tell you you don't have free will? If you conclude by yourself, without help or influences from others that free will does not exist, then maybe your are at least a free thinker.

If everything is based on a preset, whose doing all the programming?

[avasopht]

Are you aware you need another to tell you you don't have free will? If you conclude by yourself, without help or influences from others that free will does not exist, then maybe your are at least a free thinker.

Free will has absolutely nothing to do with free thinking.

They're two completely different things.

Free will effectively means that you are not in control of your own actions, as they're not deterministic.

If everything is based on a preset, whose doing all the programming?

Programming?

Determinism doesn't mean you're not making a decision.

It just means that the way that you make decisions is built on top of behaviour in the universe that doesn't randomly change (and therefore interfering with your decision against your will).

[plaamook]

Avasopht...
Why do you think there is a difference in free will and free thinking?
Is thinking not an action? Do you not feel that you experience volition to some extent when directing your thoughts or attention?
Does a considered physical action (not a reaction) not require a decision and therefore is bound up w thought?

To me they’re the same in that we experience a kind of agency but then there so much going on under the hood that where the agency lies is suspect.

[RobC]

If we wouldn't be, then we would be in our own foolproof room. : )