Consciousness and the Paranormal

[Goggs Mackay]

As good and informative this thread is, like most people I imagine, I haven't came close to reading all the posts. So I may be unaware of everything that has already been discussed. I think the topic I'm about to introduce is very at home in this thread.

I suppose in a nutshell it's the old 'do we have free will or not?' argument. I'm actually undecided as to whether we do or not, for the following reason: Whenever we have a thought in our heads, a question or even a statement in a discussion, we become aware of it as a fully formed thought pretty much. But the thought had to have been 'built' to a degree surely? Like, whatever initial spark of energy that is the embryo of a forming thought, it must go through a rapid process of fact-checking and grammar-checking of a sort. Our brains must be checking against stored facts etc to try to make sure the thought makes sense and does not go against our normal lines of thinking. It surely is also formed into a logical order with a choice of correct words to make it up in a way that can be transmitted to others - if it's gonna be spoken aloud or written down.
Let's not go as far as processes for speech or physical handwriting or typing, we are just talking about when we are aware of a fresh thought - perhaps something to be used in a discussion. We don't consciously build such thought up from scratch, as far as I can tell, thoughts mostly come fully-formed. But the work that goes into forming such a thought is done unconsciously or even pre-consciously surely? So there is a side of us creating the thoughts we type or speak and it's doing it before 'we' are aware of it. We become aware once it's already 'made'.
Now this is not the same as when say, you are thinking aloud and possibly thinking to and fro and slowly building up an argument or statement etc. I think the same unconscious thing is going on prior to all those to and fro bits of thinking.

So if I am correct in thinking thoughts are constructed in this way, we aren't really fully conscious in creating new thoughts - so how does this affect our view of ourselves and free will?

Nothing I've written here is backed up by anyone else's thinking, let alone any scientific research so I'm not claiming anything that I can back up. I'm merely hoping to get the discussion going in this direction for a little bit...please jump in and let me know what you all think?

 

[Wade]

Well Goggs my thought on whether we do have free will always boiled down to this. ..and it is probably way too simplistic... While we do have choice, it usually comes down to making a decision on a situation that is forced on us. In other words someone in the chain or sequence of events takes an Acton or makes a decision that ultimately affects our choice or decision. ..a cascading number of sequences courtesy of the chaos theory so if that is our life, if we are held prisoner to the butterfly effect, Can it be considered free will if in large part it means taking an action on something that may be out of our control ?

 

[manxman]

we havent got free will, if i were blurt out what i am thinking every time i talk to people, i would of spent half my life in ambulances

 

[smcder]

As good and informative this thread is, like most people I imagine, I haven't came close to reading all the posts. So I may be unaware of everything that has already been discussed. I think the topic I'm about to introduce is very at home in this thread.

I suppose in a nutshell it's the old 'do we have free will or not?' argument. I'm actually undecided as to whether we do or not, for the following reason: Whenever we have a thought in our heads, a question or even a statement in a discussion, we become aware of it as a fully formed thought pretty much. But the thought had to have been 'built' to a degree surely? Like, whatever initial spark of energy that is the embryo of a forming thought, it must go through a rapid process of fact-checking and grammar-checking of a sort. Our brains must be checking against stored facts etc to try to make sure the thought makes sense and does not go against our normal lines of thinking. It surely is also formed into a logical order with a choice of correct words to make it up in a way that can be transmitted to others - if it's gonna be spoken aloud or written down.

Let's not go as far as processes for speech or physical handwriting or typing, we are just talking about when we are aware of a fresh thought - perhaps something to be used in a discussion. We don't consciously build such thought up from scratch, as far as I can tell, thoughts mostly come fully-formed. But the work that goes into forming such a thought is done unconsciously or even pre-consciously surely? So there is a side of us creating the thoughts we type or speak and it's doing it before 'we' are aware of it. We become aware once it's already 'made'.

Now this is not the same as when say, you are thinking aloud and possibly thinking to and fro and slowly building up an argument or statement etc. I think the same unconscious thing is going on prior to all those to and fro bits of thinking.

So if I am correct in thinking thoughts are constructed in this way, we aren't really fully conscious in creating new thoughts - so how does this affect our view of ourselves and free will?

Nothing I've written here is backed up by anyone else's thinking, let alone any scientific research so I'm not claiming anything that I can back up. I'm merely hoping to get the discussion going in this direction for a little bit...please jump in and let me know what you all think?

See if this is similar to what you are saying:

Brain Scanners Can See Your Decisions Before You Make Them

Note:

Caveats remain, holding open the door for free will. For instance, the experiment may not reflect the mental dynamics of other, more complicated decisions.

"Real-life decisions -- am I going to buy this house or that one, take this job or that -- aren't decisions that we can implement very well in our brain scanners," said Haynes.

Also, the predictions were not completely accurate. Maybe free will enters at the last moment, allowing a person to override an unpalatable subconscious decision.

"We can't rule out that there's a free will that kicks in at this late point," said Haynes, who intends to study this phenomenon next. "But I don't think it's plausible."

I'm glad you brought it up - it's an interesting subject and one I don't know a lot about. It's a complex subject philosophically, even defining what we mean by free will - there are a variety of positions to take, this is a good starting point:

Free Will (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

an excerpt:

The majority view, however, is that we can readily conceive willings that are not free. Indeed, much of the debate about free will centers around whether we human beings have it, yet virtually no one doubts that we will to do this and that. The main perceived threats to our freedom of will are various alleged determinisms: physical/causal; psychological; biological; theological. For each variety of determinism, there are philosophers who (i) deny its reality, either because of the existence of free will or on independent grounds; (ii) accept its reality but argue for its compatibility with free will; or (iii) accept its reality and deny its compatibility with free will. (See the entries on compatibilism; causal determinism; fatalism; arguments for incompatibilism; anddivine foreknowledge and free will.) There are also a few who say the truth of any variety of determinism is irrelevant because free will is simply impossible.

In Consilience

Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge: Edward Osborne Wilson: 9780679768678: Amazon.com: Books

EO Wilson argues that we don't have free will but that we can't really tell the difference - he says something like he feels like he has free will and that is good enough.

I suspect some aspects of the question of free will, just like some form of the hard problem of consciousness, may always be with us - with any experimental evidence like the above opening up new questions . . . but even if we were somehow able to prove we didn't have (some defined form) of free will . . . would it make any difference in our experience of free will and what other implications would it have - say on criminal justice? Is free will incompatible with any particular view of the universe?

 

[Burnt State]

Actually I remember now I've seen this one! . . . but right now I'm occupied building a cloudbuster:

Cloudbuster Construction Details

Well I will hold back from posting Kate Bush's Cloudbusting video here but know that I'm singing that song merrily in my head for you. I daren't sing out loud for fear of mockery by the 12 year old sitting beside me as she knows I can't hold a tune. Now I thought that Reich's devices always used nearby water masses and large plastic tubing connecting the device to the water mass to help with the orgone energy?

Listen, I'm sure you read this section in the instructions, but all I'm saying is be careful Steve, and don't piss any of those angry animal militating UFO's off!

Do be discriminating which UFO’s you aim at, though. If they are not predatory and you make them mad, they may pay you back by messing with your carburetor or something, as they did to us once. The really advanced ones are not susceptible to the cloudbuster, as they apparently don’t need a deadly orgone field to operate. Our take is that all but these use nuclear fusion or some other noxious, old-paradigm energy source. It’s open season on the B Sirian craft and other predatory ones, as far as we’re concerned. They can’t hurt you, by the way, if you aren’t afraid of them. Universal law restricts them more than it does us. We can pay later for breaking it, but they are just unable to break it, apparently.

And then, if you don't get probed, or kicked out of the neighbourhood, and everything works out ok let me know how it all goes. If you do attract the scary UFO's might I suggest kites instead? This isn't like the Japanese text I've got but there are some 'safe' toys here for you to play with. http://www.kitelife.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Kite-Lines-v1-2.pdf

Either way we will be both sculpting in the sky come spring.

 

[smcder]

Well I will hold back from posting Kate Bush's Cloudbusting video here but know that I'm singing that song merrily in my head for you. I daren't sing out loud for fear of mockery by the 12 year old sitting beside me as she knows I can't hold a tune. Now I thought that Reich's devices always used nearby water masses and large plastic tubing connecting the device to the water mass to help with the orgone energy?

Listen, I'm sure you read this section in the instructions, but all I'm saying is be careful Steve, and don't piss any of those angry animal militating UFO's off!



And then, if you don't get probed, or kicked out of the neighbourhood, and everything works out ok let me know how it all goes. If you do attract the scary UFO's might I suggest kites instead? This isn't like the Japanese text I've got but there are some 'safe' toys here for you to play with. http://www.kitelife.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Kite-Lines-v1-2.pdf

Either way we will be both sculpting in the sky come spring.

Now I thought that Reich's devices always used nearby water masses and large plastic tubing connecting the device to the water mass to help with the orgone energy?

Who says I don't have both . . . ?

 

[Soupie]

Denying free will is difficult for humans because the subjective feeling of free will is incredibly strong. We feel like we have free will, so that means we do, right? Not necessarily; Subjective Consensus Reality != Objective Reality.

Furthermore, not everyone experiences free will equally. Thus not even our private subjective realities of free will are the same (of course). Consider for instance people suffering from Alien Hand Syndrome and other mental/brain illnesses.

 

[smcder]

Denying free will is difficult for humans because the subjective feeling of free will is incredibly strong. We feel like we have free will, so that means we do, right? Not necessarily; Subjective Consensus Reality != Objective Reality.

Furthermore, not everyone experiences free will equally. Thus not even our private subjective realities of free will are the same (of course). Consider for instance people suffering from Alien Hand Syndrome and other mental/brain illnesses.

Denying free will is difficult for humans because the subjective feeling of free will is incredibly strong.

Is it - or does that vary by culture and among individuals? Also the defintion probably varies . . . what do we mean by free will, or what do you mean here by free will specifically?

We feel like we have free will, so that means we do, right?

Here are some of Wilson's actual words on the topic:

E. O. Wilson - Excerpt 1

 

[smcder]

Denying free will is difficult for humans because the subjective feeling of free will is incredibly strong. We feel like we have free will, so that means we do, right? Not necessarily; Subjective Consensus Reality != Objective Reality.

Furthermore, not everyone experiences free will equally. Thus not even our private subjective realities of free will are the same (of course). Consider for instance people suffering from Alien Hand Syndrome and other mental/brain illnesses.

Wilson:

So there can be no determinism of human thought, at least not in obedience to causation in the simple way physical laws describe the motion of bodies and the atomic assembly of molecules. Because the individual mind cannot be fully known and predicted, the self can go on passionately believing in its own free will. And that is a fortunate circumstance. Confidence in free will is biologically adaptive. Without it the mind, imprisoned by fatalism, would slow and deteriorate. Thus in organismic time and space, in every operational sense that applies to the knowable self, the mind does have free will.

 

[Constance]

See if this is similar to what you are saying:

Brain Scanners Can See Your Decisions Before You Make Them

Note:

Caveats remain, holding open the door for free will. For instance, the experiment may not reflect the mental dynamics of other, more complicated decisions.

"Real-life decisions -- am I going to buy this house or that one, take this job or that -- aren't decisions that we can implement very well in our brain scanners," said Haynes.

Also, the predictions were not completely accurate. Maybe free will enters at the last moment, allowing a person to override an unpalatable subconscious decision.

"We can't rule out that there's a free will that kicks in at this late point," said Haynes, who intends to study this phenomenon next. "But I don't think it's plausible."

I'm glad you brought it up - it's an interesting subject and one I don't know a lot about. It's a complex subject philosophically, even defining what we mean by free will - there are a variety of positions to take, this is a good starting point:

Free Will (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

an excerpt:

The majority view, however, is that we can readily conceive willings that are not free. Indeed, much of the debate about free will centers around whether we human beings have it, yet virtually no one doubts that we will to do this and that. The main perceived threats to our freedom of will are various alleged determinisms: physical/causal; psychological; biological; theological. For each variety of determinism, there are philosophers who (i) deny its reality, either because of the existence of free will or on independent grounds; (ii) accept its reality but argue for its compatibility with free will; or (iii) accept its reality and deny its compatibility with free will. (See the entries on compatibilism; causal determinism; fatalism; arguments for incompatibilism; anddivine foreknowledge and free will.) There are also a few who say the truth of any variety of determinism is irrelevant because free will is simply impossible.

In Consilience

Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge: Edward Osborne Wilson: 9780679768678: Amazon.com: Books

EO Wilson argues that we don't have free will but that we can't really tell the difference - he says something like he feels like he has free will and that is good enough.

I suspect some aspects of the question of free will, just like some form of the hard problem of consciousness, may always be with us - with any experimental evidence like the above opening up new questions . . . but even if we were somehow able to prove we didn't have (some defined form) of free will . . . would it make any difference in our experience of free will and what other implications would it have - say on criminal justice? Is free will incompatible with any particular view of the universe?

Excellent post, Steve. I'm astonished by the number of people in our time who are eager to believe that they have no meaningful degree of 'free will', freedom of choice in how they will behave -- and even think -- in the situations in which their lives take place. Sartre's philosophy of existential freedom recognized that our freedom is a situated freedom: we are free within the conditions of our facticity to choose how we will respond to those conditions, with intelligent and purposeful action when that is possible, with refusal to passively accept outrageous conditions when we cannot change them. If human beings possessed no core of freedom, our species' history would not demonstrate a moral sense or moral compass --much less the systems of ethics that have been developed in the philosophies of all human cultures. These demonstrate our tacit recognition of our freedom and thus our responsibility for that which we do to others and even that which we permit to be done to others . . . and to ourselves as well. Again, I wonder about the source of our contemporary cultural eagerness to believe that we are automata of one kind or another. Can it perhaps be motivated in part by an aversion to facing up to the degraded conditions of life to which we as a species have reduced the natural world of this planet in a matter of a few tragic centuries?

 

[Soupie]

Denying free will is difficult for humans because the subjective feeling of free will is incredibly strong.

Is it - or does that vary by culture and among individuals? Also the defintion probably varies . . . what do we mean by free will, or what do you mean here by free will specifically

I define free will - as I believe it is commonly understood - to mean that one's actions (and thoughts) are directed by the conscious self, the "I."

It's possible that the subjective experience of free will does vary from culture to culture. For example individuals in a culture that values group cohesion over individualism may report a differnt "level" of free will than an individual from the latter culture.

 

[smcder]

I define free will - as I believe it is commonly understood - to mean that one's actions (and thoughts) are directed by the conscious self, the "I."

It's possible that the subjective experience of free will does vary from culture to culture. For example individuals in a culture that values group cohesion over individualism may report a differnt "level" of free will than an individual from the latter culture.

It's a tricky one to define - even before you turn to the philosopher's take - of course "I" is notoriously problematic - I look in and don't really see anything solid and stable - but I let the focus go back and it works pretty well both for me and everyone around me - in fact things go better when I stay "inside" that I.

A lot of the questions on these forums are like that - things work well at one level of focus and then break apart when you step back or look close and maybe that's something about our minds - I think of Pip falling off the boat on Moby Dick and seeing the coral animals - seeing the weaver God weaving the world and he goes insane. But I've decided he didn't have to - it was his prior commitment to the way the world is supposed to be that left him open to that insanity.

Free will, consciousness, I fully expect there to be some mechanism behind the material aspects - but I don't automatically see a conflict with other ways of seeing the world - some times it seems obvious that it would all interlock, that every level or kind of explanation would dove tail - I can't seem to sharpen this idea up enough to get into words and convey it, unfortunately and I can't always "see" it myself.

Another thing I'm aware of is advertising. I told my nieces over Christmas that when they go out into the world, the vast majority of things they "want" - it was never there idea to want them in the first place. So that constrains freedom - and when I contemplate where my desires come from and who or what wants them - I find both a multiplicity of "I"s and also no real "I" that is permanent. Not to mention compulsions and whether or not I am free to resist them . . . and I notice some of my mannerisms come from my parents and some turns of expression come from my friends - do I freely chose them or do I just acquire them? I have only so much attention I can pay. . . so it really does break apart when you look at it too long. And like I said this is all before the philosopher's get hold of it.

 

[smcder]

Excellent post, Steve. I'm astonished by the number of people in our time who are eager to believe that they have no meaningful degree of 'free will', freedom of choice in how they will behave -- and even think -- in the situations in which their lives take place. Sartre's philosophy of existential freedom recognized that our freedom is a situated freedom: we are free within the conditions of our facticity to choose how we will respond to those conditions, with intelligent and purposeful action when that is possible, with refusal to passively accept outrageous conditions when we cannot change them. If human beings possessed no core of freedom, our species' history would not demonstrate a moral sense or moral compass --much less the systems of ethics that have been developed in the philosophies of all human cultures. These demonstrate our tacit recognition of our freedom and thus our responsibility for that which we do to others and even that which we permit to be done to others . . . and to ourselves as well. Again, I wonder about the source of our contemporary cultural eagerness to believe that we are automata of one kind or another. Can it perhaps be motivated in part by an aversion to facing up to the degraded conditions of life to which we as a species have reduced the natural world of this planet in a matter of a few tragic centuries?

Sartre's philosophy of existential freedom recognized that our freedom is a situated freedom: we are free within the conditions of our facticity to choose how we will respond to those conditions, with intelligent and purposeful action when that is possible, with refusal to passively accept outrageous conditions when we cannot change them.

These demonstrate our tacit recognition of our freedom and thus our responsibility for that which we do to others and even that which we permit to be done to others . . . and to ourselves as well.

I agree and to account for this without human freedom would take some tortuous explanation.

Again, I wonder about the source of our contemporary cultural eagerness to believe that we are automata of one kind or another.

I don't know - it's a deep question and disturbing to see automata-like behavior out in the world, avoiding responsibility, denying its existence or simply not being raised with the concept - maybe there are many sources - the fascination with zombies ties in some how, the dehumanization of the body - but i see it portrayed in other ways too, people who are emotionally and morally zombies -in Shattuck's book Forbidden Knowledg: From Prometheus to Pornography he discusses Camus' The Stranger in light of this - I'll see if I can find something on this, I think its relevant.

 

[Burnt State]

Sartre's philosophy of existential freedom recognized that our freedom is a situated freedom: we are free within the conditions of our facticity to choose how we will respond to those conditions, with intelligent and purposeful action when that is possible, with refusal to passively accept outrageous conditions when we cannot change them. If human beings possessed no core of freedom, our species' history would not demonstrate a moral sense or moral compass --much less the systems of ethics that have been developed in the philosophies of all human cultures. These demonstrate our tacit recognition of our freedom and thus our responsibility for that which we do to others and even that which we permit to be done to others . . . and to ourselves as well. Again, I wonder about the source of our contemporary cultural eagerness to believe that we are automata of one kind or another. Can it perhaps be motivated in part by an aversion to facing up to the degraded conditions of life to which we as a species have reduced the natural world of this planet in a matter of a few tragic centuries?

Freedom is situational & power means everything when it comes to choice. As someone who works with youth where increasingly i see issues of mental health on the rise i wonder about the state of our society when it does to nurturing the idea of choice. When it comes to the construction of automatic responses due to our highly regulated, time based, amusement oriented, drugged, buzz-on-the-phone-that-you-must-answer-immediately we have bread a consume/work/commute world where every person is on autopilot to some degree or other.

Youth are more stressed and anxious than they ever have been before in the history of so-called civilized life in North America. The number of them who have eating disorders, self-esteem issues and are bullied is on a high order. The only age group where suicide is on the rise is youth from mid-teens to early twenties.

Check out these American stats

-Teens 16 to 19 were three and one-half times more likely than the general population to be victims of rape, attempted rape or sexual assault. (National Crime Victimization Survey. Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Department of Justice, 1996.)

-According to the Justice Department, one in two rape victims is under age 18; one in six is under age 12. [Child Rape Victims, 1992. U.S. Department of Justice.]

-While 9 out of 10 rape victims are women, men and boys are also victimized by this crime. In 1995, 32,130 males age 12 and older were victims of rape, attempted rape or sexual assault. [National Crime Victimization Survey. Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Department of Justice, 1996.]

So there are a lot of things forced on youth, and depending on their class, race, sexuality etc. there are other extremes and restrictions on your personal power and freedom. While I would not deny that some issues of social freedom are on the rise, i think we should look at youth growing up in the digital revolution as a bellwether for society. There is a grand social experiment taking place right now with kids learning about sex through online hardcore pornography, logging thousands of hours in reblogging, playing video games and simulating much of their human experience online. Their access to free will comes with a lot of restriction and choices based on limited options.

 

[smcder]

Excellent post, Steve. I'm astonished by the number of people in our time who are eager to believe that they have no meaningful degree of 'free will', freedom of choice in how they will behave -- and even think -- in the situations in which their lives take place. Sartre's philosophy of existential freedom recognized that our freedom is a situated freedom: we are free within the conditions of our facticity to choose how we will respond to those conditions, with intelligent and purposeful action when that is possible, with refusal to passively accept outrageous conditions when we cannot change them. If human beings possessed no core of freedom, our species' history would not demonstrate a moral sense or moral compass --much less the systems of ethics that have been developed in the philosophies of all human cultures. These demonstrate our tacit recognition of our freedom and thus our responsibility for that which we do to others and even that which we permit to be done to others . . . and to ourselves as well. Again, I wonder about the source of our contemporary cultural eagerness to believe that we are automata of one kind or another. Can it perhaps be motivated in part by an aversion to facing up to the degraded conditions of life to which we as a species have reduced the natural world of this planet in a matter of a few tragic centuries?

Partially Examined Life Ep. 87: Sartre on Freedom | The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast | A Philosophy Podcast and Blog

What is human nature? Sartre says that there isn’t one, but there is a universal human condition, which is our absolute freedom. This freedom is a basic certainty in our experience, and it comes out of the mere fact of our being able to will, so no subsequent alleged science can contradict it. If you claim to be determined by your character or circumstances, you’re acting in “bad faith,” which is what for Sartre has to serve as an ethics given the lack of good and evil floating out there in the world or duties assigned to us by nature or God or any of that. He describes his project as a matter of teasing out the often unrealized implications sic atheism.

I assume it should read: ". . . unrealized implications of atheism."

 

[smcder]

Excellent post, Steve. I'm astonished by the number of people in our time who are eager to believe that they have no meaningful degree of 'free will', freedom of choice in how they will behave -- and even think -- in the situations in which their lives take place. Sartre's philosophy of existential freedom recognized that our freedom is a situated freedom: we are free within the conditions of our facticity to choose how we will respond to those conditions, with intelligent and purposeful action when that is possible, with refusal to passively accept outrageous conditions when we cannot change them. If human beings possessed no core of freedom, our species' history would not demonstrate a moral sense or moral compass --much less the systems of ethics that have been developed in the philosophies of all human cultures. These demonstrate our tacit recognition of our freedom and thus our responsibility for that which we do to others and even that which we permit to be done to others . . . and to ourselves as well. Again, I wonder about the source of our contemporary cultural eagerness to believe that we are automata of one kind or another. Can it perhaps be motivated in part by an aversion to facing up to the degraded conditions of life to which we as a species have reduced the natural world of this planet in a matter of a few tragic centuries?

Two more thoughts:

undermining free will (nominated by physicist Paul Davies) is listed under Wikipedia's most dangerous ideas article:

The World's Most Dangerous Ideas - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hard determinism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

see especially:
implications for ethics
psychological effects of belief in hard determinism

Free Will - arguments from the biological cost and argument from raitonality

I had forgotten about John Searle's views - he says the feeling of free will as an epiphenomenon is unlikely from an evolutionary point of view given the biological cost - he also argues that "All rational activity presupposes free will ".

John Searle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Rationality
In Rationality in Action (2001), Searle argues that standard notions of rationality are badly flawed. According to what he calls the Classical Model, rationality is seen as something like a train track: you get on at one point with your beliefs and desires and the rules of rationality compel you all the way to a conclusion. Searle doubts this picture of rationality holds generally.

Searle briefly critiques one particular set of these rules: those of mathematical decision theory. He points out that its axioms require that anyone who valued a quarter and their life would, at some odds, bet their life for a quarter. Searle insists he would never take such a bet and believes that this stance is perfectly rational.

Most of his attack is directed against the common conception of rationality, which he believes is badly flawed. First, he argues that reasons don't cause you to do anything, because having sufficient reason wills (but doesn't force) you to do that thing. So in any decision situation we experience a gap between our reasons and our actions. For example, when we decide to vote, we do not simply determine that we care most about economic policy and that we prefer candidate Jones's economic policy. We also have to make an effort to cast our vote. Similarly, every time a guilty smoker lights a cigarette they are aware of succumbing to their craving, not merely of acting automatically as they do when they exhale.

It is this gap that makes us think we have freedom of the will. Searle thinks whether we really have free will or not is an open question, but considers its absence highly unappealing because it makes the feeling of freedom of will an epiphenomenon, which is highly unlikely from the evolutionary point of view given its biological cost. He also says: " All rational activity presupposes free will ".[42]

 

[Tyger]

I think it's someone on this chat site who has a signature quote that says something along the lines of: "Humankind must believe in freewill, it has no choice."

The debate on freewill is a long-standing one. Recall the schisms that eventuated over freewill vs predestination. Wars were fought. There were/are sound rational reasons to believe in pre-destination, though it is given a more glory sound when pronounced with all the ego-assurance of a Napoleon who felt 'in his bones/soul' that he had 'a destiny'.

In a way, both are 'true', albeit they appear to contradict each other. We are pre-determined by our biology, our hormones - by being born with two hands, two feet, ten fingers, ten toes, 20/20 vision, etc. - any deviation and our experience of this 'darkling plain' is pre-determined in other ways. Which then impacts how we build up our conceptual life - or the conceptual life rooted in the physical senses.

Yet every spiritual/philosophical stream, more or less, across history, one way or another, speaks of two common factors in the raison d'être of the existence of humankind: freedom and love.

Life on earth proceeds according 'to plan' - plants behave according to their kind, animals behave according to their instincts. Humankind alone is the sole creature on the earth who can contradict 'the plan', their kind, their instincts. This aspect is imbedded in the earliest stories of humanity, as in the story of Genesis - humankind says 'no' and walks away from 'the plan'. Freewill - albeit, with consequences - but freewill nonetheless.

Regarding thinking and our thoughts: A cognitive element underlies all activity, but there are differences in kind of thinking. Not all thinking is the same. There is ordinary cognition - but there is also a higher kind of thinking that does not involve any kind of 'ratiocination, cerebration, calculation, or logical deduction.' The kind of thinking being referenced here does not demand that the "brain" produce thoughts, but rather that it become 'so still that, instead of thinking in the ordinary sense, we begin to experience - to think, to feel, and will - what it is "to be thought, felt, and willed". This kind of thinking is a suprasensory, "brain-free" activity. It engages the whole person, not "I think, therefore, I am," but "It thinks me".'

What is the 'it' thinking me?

In my salad days when I attended an occult school for a few months, it was a significant idea that we 'think' with our whole bodies - with every organ participating. When, as a writer, one is producing 'true', there is an overall sense of well-being, the whole body is involved. In the same way, when we find ourselves reading or hearing what is 'true' our whole body has a response.

 

[Tyger]

Aware that what I just posted could be misinterpreted, I offer this: that what makes us human, is not our perceptual universe and our perception-based thinking, but the fact that our thinking is informed by something beyond sense - and that thoughts do just 'drop in' fully formed sometimes. It is what the ancient Greeks called one's Genius. It's why someone as impaired as Nick Vujicic can be such a cogent thinker and liver of life.

LINK: No arms No legs No worries - Nick Vujicic

 

[smcder]

Excellent post, Steve. I'm astonished by the number of people in our time who are eager to believe that they have no meaningful degree of 'free will', freedom of choice in how they will behave -- and even think -- in the situations in which their lives take place. Sartre's philosophy of existential freedom recognized that our freedom is a situated freedom: we are free within the conditions of our facticity to choose how we will respond to those conditions, with intelligent and purposeful action when that is possible, with refusal to passively accept outrageous conditions when we cannot change them. If human beings possessed no core of freedom, our species' history would not demonstrate a moral sense or moral compass --much less the systems of ethics that have been developed in the philosophies of all human cultures. These demonstrate our tacit recognition of our freedom and thus our responsibility for that which we do to others and even that which we permit to be done to others . . . and to ourselves as well. Again, I wonder about the source of our contemporary cultural eagerness to believe that we are automata of one kind or another. Can it perhaps be motivated in part by an aversion to facing up to the degraded conditions of life to which we as a species have reduced the natural world of this planet in a matter of a few tragic centuries?

I wondered if, through some kind of training like biofeedback - the scanners in this experiment could be "thrown"?
Brain Scanners Can See Your Decisions Before You Make Them
People can throw lie-detector tests, personality tests, intelligence tests, the kobayashi maru test . . . and the text discussed one potential loophole:
Also, the predictions were not completely accurate. Maybe free will enters at the last moment, allowing a person to override an unpalatable subconscious decision.
Perhaps someone could learn to "exploit" this too . . . I think of the scanners proposed in airports that read stress to predict who might be a terrorist:
The airport security scanner that can read your mind | Mail Online
And I think this is relevant to your question about the eagerness to consider ourselves automata - maybe that is literally the wish . . . this need to view humans as machines and therefore predictable (if only in principle). Also, John Michael Greer on biophobia and Fukuyama's concern about transhumanism - there is a whole thread here . . . it seems the desire to download consciousness into a silicone and steel body isn't that different from the idea of resurrection, certainly it is literally a form of re-incarnation and one that seems to be striving to meet exact criteria of sustained identity.

 

[smcder]

Searle on free will, by Richard Corrigan (the philosopher, not the chef . . .)

Freedom and Neurobiology by John Searle | Issue 66 | Philosophy Now

The primary question addressed here is: how can humans reconcile a world composed entirely of “mindless, meaningless, unfree, nonrational, brute physical particles” with our everyday conception of ourselves as “conscious, intentionalistic, rational, social, institutional, speech-act performing, ethical and free-will possessing agents”?

(glad you asked!)

Searle contends that we’ve only recently gained the capacity to deal scientifically with problems such as free will, consciousness, language, rationality and so forth. The answers we can now provide are a natural progression from the basic facts we have established about the world. The basic facts to which he refers are the findings of the sciences in the areas of evolutionary biology and quantum theory.

. . .

Searle does not adopt a compatibilist understanding of ‘free’ – instead asserting that “according to the definitions… that I am using, determinism and free will are not compatible” (p47). He contends that the free will problem has proved particularly difficult to resolve because it involves what appears to be two conflicting convictions. Firstly, we generally think that natural phenomena occur as a consequence of natural laws and prior physical states. However, there appears to be a special type of occurrence that we generally accept does not conform to such deterministic explanation. When we provide an account of the reasons upon which we acted, we do not believe we are providing a report of a sufficient set of determining factors – we do not believe that the reasons we had for acting were causally determinate for the action undertaken. We believe that, had we so chosen, we could have done otherwise. Searle calls our consciousness of such causal insufficiency ‘the gap’ . . . Thus, we believe that there is a significant sense in which our actions are under our control. He calls consciousness of this control ‘volitional consciousness’ (p41). Hence, Searle concludes, the problem of free will stems from volitional consciousness – our consciousness of the apparent gap between determining reasons and choices.

We experience the gap when we consider the following: (i) our reasons and the decision we make (ii) our decision and action that ensues (iii) our action and its continuation to completion (p42). Searle believes that, if we are to act freely then our experience of the gap cannot be illusory: it must be the case that the causation at play is non-deterministic.

. . .