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Forums - General Discussion - Do humans have free will?

 

What do you think?

Yes 67 70.53%
 
No 28 29.47%
 
Total:95
Dr.Grass on 24 October 2011
Kasz216 said:
Dr.Grass said:
Kasz216 said:
Dr.Grass said:
Kasz216 said:
Dr.Grass said:
 

 


Maybe he's just an evolutionary biologist.  Oddly enough that's how most evolutionary biologists judge free will.


I seriously doubt that.


Well you'd be wrong then.

Most evolutionary biologists & Psycologists believe how we act is all due to DNA we were born with before we were born. 

Most also believe in free will.

This was found in more then a couple studies that gauged religious belief by scientific field of study.

Here's one of them.

We anticipated a much higher percentage for option B and a low percentage for A, but got just the opposite result. One of us (Provine) has been thinking about human free will for almost 40 years, has read most of the philosophical literature on the subject and polls his undergraduate evolution class (200-plus students) each year on belief in free will. Year after year, 90 percent or more favor the idea of human free will for a very specific reason: They think that if people make choices, they have free will. The professional debate about free will has moved far from this position, because what counts is whether the choice is free or determined, not whether human beings make choices. People and animals both certainly choose constantly. Comments from the evolutionists suggest that they were equating human choice and human free will. In other words, although eminent, our respondents had not thought about free will much beyond the students in introductory evolution classes. Evolutionary biology is increasingly applied to psychology.

https://www.americanscientist.org/issues/id.3747,y.2007,no.4,content.true,page.5,css.print/issue.aspx


Before I read that  I would just like to say that my post there was an attempt to prompt you into giving info to back up a topic I find both fascinating and infuriated by at the same time.

thanks

You could of just asked...


Since we are commenting on each other's behaviour I might add that you could've not wasted your time with this post and instead replied to the one I made that was actually in reply to your earlier one.



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Slimebeast on 24 October 2011
Dr.Grass said:
Slimebeast said:
Dr.Grass said:


I see what you mean, but its wrong. These fundamental interactions have (supposedly) shaped our entire universe. How can the world be deterministic if it would've been completely different without this randomness?

It could be randomness within limits.

Like the Butterfly effect. Some people think that if a butterfly flaps his wings in America it could cause a tornado on the other side of the world. But most likely a tornado would require millions of butterfly flaps to occur in a very short time span in a limited area, and that's unlikely to happen.

''It could be randomness within limits.''

I don't know what to make of this 'statement' honestly.

''But most likely a tornado would require millions of butterfly flaps to occur in a very short time span in a limited area, and that's unlikely to happen.''

I think you've misunderstood the purpose behind the 'butterfly effect' tale that gets told so often. The point is that a small effect can propagate and eventually be the cause of something of a much grander scale. You can show with a pc and some nifty coding that a butterfly can in fact cause a tornado on the other side of the world - point being the tornado wouldn't have occurred at all if the butterfly didn't flap its wings.

Now the point of the story shouldn't be interpreted too literally, because the odds of a butterfly causing a tornado are approacing zero. 

No that's a myth and there's no example from real life that proves the Butterfly effect. A very small event can't cause gigantic events. It takes a fairly big event to cause a gigantic effect.



Dr.Grass on 24 October 2011
Slimebeast said:
Dr.Grass said:
Slimebeast said:
Dr.Grass said:


I see what you mean, but its wrong. These fundamental interactions have (supposedly) shaped our entire universe. How can the world be deterministic if it would've been completely different without this randomness?

It could be randomness within limits.

Like the Butterfly effect. Some people think that if a butterfly flaps his wings in America it could cause a tornado on the other side of the world. But most likely a tornado would require millions of butterfly flaps to occur in a very short time span in a limited area, and that's unlikely to happen.

''It could be randomness within limits.''

I don't know what to make of this 'statement' honestly.

''But most likely a tornado would require millions of butterfly flaps to occur in a very short time span in a limited area, and that's unlikely to happen.''

I think you've misunderstood the purpose behind the 'butterfly effect' tale that gets told so often. The point is that a small effect can propagate and eventually be the cause of something of a much grander scale. You can show with a pc and some nifty coding that a butterfly can in fact cause a tornado on the other side of the world - point being the tornado wouldn't have occurred at all if the butterfly didn't flap its wings.

Now the point of the story shouldn't be interpreted too literally, because the odds of a butterfly causing a tornado are approacing zero. 

No that's a myth and there's no example from real life that proves the Butterfly effect. A very small event can't cause gigantic events. It takes a fairly big event to cause a gigantic effect.


Look man, this issue isn't up for debate - it's been settled:

''Small differences in initial conditions (such as those due to rounding errors in numerical computation) yield widely diverging outcomes for chaotic systems, rendering long-term prediction impossible in general''

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory

The butterfly effect was born out of mathematics. It wasn't some hippy in the desert dreaming up stuff.



Slimebeast on 24 October 2011
Dr.Grass said:
Slimebeast said:
Dr.Grass said:
Slimebeast said:
Dr.Grass said:


I see what you mean, but its wrong. These fundamental interactions have (supposedly) shaped our entire universe. How can the world be deterministic if it would've been completely different without this randomness?

It could be randomness within limits.

Like the Butterfly effect. Some people think that if a butterfly flaps his wings in America it could cause a tornado on the other side of the world. But most likely a tornado would require millions of butterfly flaps to occur in a very short time span in a limited area, and that's unlikely to happen.

''It could be randomness within limits.''

I don't know what to make of this 'statement' honestly.

''But most likely a tornado would require millions of butterfly flaps to occur in a very short time span in a limited area, and that's unlikely to happen.''

I think you've misunderstood the purpose behind the 'butterfly effect' tale that gets told so often. The point is that a small effect can propagate and eventually be the cause of something of a much grander scale. You can show with a pc and some nifty coding that a butterfly can in fact cause a tornado on the other side of the world - point being the tornado wouldn't have occurred at all if the butterfly didn't flap its wings.

Now the point of the story shouldn't be interpreted too literally, because the odds of a butterfly causing a tornado are approacing zero. 

No that's a myth and there's no example from real life that proves the Butterfly effect. A very small event can't cause gigantic events. It takes a fairly big event to cause a gigantic effect.


Look man, this issue isn't up for debate - it's been settled:

''Small differences in initial conditions (such as those due to rounding errors in numerical computation) yield widely diverging outcomes for chaotic systems, rendering long-term prediction impossible in general''

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory

The butterfly effect was born out of mathematics. It wasn't some hippy in the desert dreaming up stuff.

Can you give a real life example of something on the same level of magnitude as the butterfly effect? I don't think you can.



Dr.Grass on 24 October 2011
Slimebeast said:
Dr.Grass said:
Slimebeast said:
Dr.Grass said:
Slimebeast said:
Dr.Grass said:


I see what you mean, but its wrong. These fundamental interactions have (supposedly) shaped our entire universe. How can the world be deterministic if it would've been completely different without this randomness?

It could be randomness within limits.

Like the Butterfly effect. Some people think that if a butterfly flaps his wings in America it could cause a tornado on the other side of the world. But most likely a tornado would require millions of butterfly flaps to occur in a very short time span in a limited area, and that's unlikely to happen.

''It could be randomness within limits.''

I don't know what to make of this 'statement' honestly.

''But most likely a tornado would require millions of butterfly flaps to occur in a very short time span in a limited area, and that's unlikely to happen.''

I think you've misunderstood the purpose behind the 'butterfly effect' tale that gets told so often. The point is that a small effect can propagate and eventually be the cause of something of a much grander scale. You can show with a pc and some nifty coding that a butterfly can in fact cause a tornado on the other side of the world - point being the tornado wouldn't have occurred at all if the butterfly didn't flap its wings.

Now the point of the story shouldn't be interpreted too literally, because the odds of a butterfly causing a tornado are approacing zero. 

No that's a myth and there's no example from real life that proves the Butterfly effect. A very small event can't cause gigantic events. It takes a fairly big event to cause a gigantic effect.


Look man, this issue isn't up for debate - it's been settled:

''Small differences in initial conditions (such as those due to rounding errors in numerical computation) yield widely diverging outcomes for chaotic systems, rendering long-term prediction impossible in general''

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory

The butterfly effect was born out of mathematics. It wasn't some hippy in the desert dreaming up stuff.

Can you give a real life example of something on the same level of magnitude as the butterfly effect? I don't think you can.


Slimebeast, this has now gotten to a point where I don't know if you are being serious or not.

How about the big bang? Big enough for you?



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Kasz216 on 24 October 2011
Dr.Grass said:
Kasz216 said:
Dr.Grass said:
Kasz216 said:
Dr.Grass said:
Kasz216 said:
Dr.Grass said:
 

 


Maybe he's just an evolutionary biologist.  Oddly enough that's how most evolutionary biologists judge free will.


I seriously doubt that.


Well you'd be wrong then.

Most evolutionary biologists & Psycologists believe how we act is all due to DNA we were born with before we were born. 

Most also believe in free will.

This was found in more then a couple studies that gauged religious belief by scientific field of study.

Here's one of them.

We anticipated a much higher percentage for option B and a low percentage for A, but got just the opposite result. One of us (Provine) has been thinking about human free will for almost 40 years, has read most of the philosophical literature on the subject and polls his undergraduate evolution class (200-plus students) each year on belief in free will. Year after year, 90 percent or more favor the idea of human free will for a very specific reason: They think that if people make choices, they have free will. The professional debate about free will has moved far from this position, because what counts is whether the choice is free or determined, not whether human beings make choices. People and animals both certainly choose constantly. Comments from the evolutionists suggest that they were equating human choice and human free will. In other words, although eminent, our respondents had not thought about free will much beyond the students in introductory evolution classes. Evolutionary biology is increasingly applied to psychology.

https://www.americanscientist.org/issues/id.3747,y.2007,no.4,content.true,page.5,css.print/issue.aspx


Before I read that  I would just like to say that my post there was an attempt to prompt you into giving info to back up a topic I find both fascinating and infuriated by at the same time.

thanks

You could of just asked...


Since we are commenting on each other's behaviour I might add that you could've not wasted your time with this post and instead replied to the one I made that was actually in reply to your earlier one.


Didn't see said reply.



Kasz216 on 24 October 2011
Dr.Grass said:
Kasz216 said:
Dr.Grass said:
Kasz216 said:
Dr.Grass said:
spurgeonryan said:
I had a funny reason that I wanted to add, but it would make Jay mad about recent things. By the way I have a thread about that if you want to share with all of us!

Humans do have free will. I just ate a carmel apple , did not have to, in fact something inside me (arteries) told me not to, but because of my free will I decided to eat it. Just like I decided to post here instead of the latest JoelCool7 thread, or one of my own.


That's not an argument at all. Just because things happened in a certain way and you feel you were the cause does not mean you are the cause - that's the whole point of this debate.


Maybe he's just an evolutionary biologist.  Oddly enough that's how most evolutionary biologists judge free will.


I seriously doubt that.


Well you'd be wrong then.

Most evolutionary biologists & Psycologists believe how we act is all due to DNA we were born with before we were born. 

Most also believe in free will.

This was found in more then a couple studies that gauged religious belief by scientific field of study.

Here's one of them.

We anticipated a much higher percentage for option B and a low percentage for A, but got just the opposite result. One of us (Provine) has been thinking about human free will for almost 40 years, has read most of the philosophical literature on the subject and polls his undergraduate evolution class (200-plus students) each year on belief in free will. Year after year, 90 percent or more favor the idea of human free will for a very specific reason: They think that if people make choices, they have free will. The professional debate about free will has moved far from this position, because what counts is whether the choice is free or determined, not whether human beings make choices. People and animals both certainly choose constantly. Comments from the evolutionists suggest that they were equating human choice and human free will. In other words, although eminent, our respondents had not thought about free will much beyond the students in introductory evolution classes. Evolutionary biology is increasingly applied to psychology.

https://www.americanscientist.org/issues/id.3747,y.2007,no.4,content.true,page.5,css.print/issue.aspx

I'm sorry but,

My original interpretation of your statement was that it was the view of evolutionary biology that agreed with the underlined statement. From what you've posted it just seems likes it's the view of humans. Nothing to do with evolution or biology, just a poll done on those people (who happen to be in a specific field) with their respective opinions. Who knows, maybe the most important evolutionists voted 'no'. I hope you get my point.

This leads us to an interesting place...

CLEARLY modern science has very little to say about this subject. And what it does have to say is pathetically 'unsientific' in its own right.

I never go into 'preaching mode' like most others as I have little to gain from it and I know how much it just plainly pisses people off, but...

 

This whole debacle does give me a lot of faith in those miraculous books from India...

'' After the conversations about Indian philosophy, some of the ideas of Quantum Physics that had seemed so crazy suddenly made much more sense.'' ~Heisenberg

''There is no kind of framework within which we can find consciousness in the plural; this is simply something we construct because of the temporal plurality of individuals, but it is a false construction... The only solution to this conflict insofar as any is available to us at all lies in the ancient wisdom of the Upanishad.''~Schrodinger


Your original interpretation of my statement was incorrect.   My point was that most evolutionary biologists believe that is what free will is.

Free will as a scientific concept is essentially non-existant due to ethical limitations.



Dr.Grass on 24 October 2011
Kasz216 said:
Dr.Grass said:
Kasz216 said:
Dr.Grass said:
Kasz216 said:
Dr.Grass said:
spurgeonryan said:
I had a funny reason that I wanted to add, but it would make Jay mad about recent things. By the way I have a thread about that if you want to share with all of us!

Humans do have free will. I just ate a carmel apple , did not have to, in fact something inside me (arteries) told me not to, but because of my free will I decided to eat it. Just like I decided to post here instead of the latest JoelCool7 thread, or one of my own.


That's not an argument at all. Just because things happened in a certain way and you feel you were the cause does not mean you are the cause - that's the whole point of this debate.


Maybe he's just an evolutionary biologist.  Oddly enough that's how most evolutionary biologists judge free will.


I seriously doubt that.


Well you'd be wrong then.

Most evolutionary biologists & Psycologists believe how we act is all due to DNA we were born with before we were born. 

Most also believe in free will.

This was found in more then a couple studies that gauged religious belief by scientific field of study.

Here's one of them.

We anticipated a much higher percentage for option B and a low percentage for A, but got just the opposite result. One of us (Provine) has been thinking about human free will for almost 40 years, has read most of the philosophical literature on the subject and polls his undergraduate evolution class (200-plus students) each year on belief in free will. Year after year, 90 percent or more favor the idea of human free will for a very specific reason: They think that if people make choices, they have free will. The professional debate about free will has moved far from this position, because what counts is whether the choice is free or determined, not whether human beings make choices. People and animals both certainly choose constantly. Comments from the evolutionists suggest that they were equating human choice and human free will. In other words, although eminent, our respondents had not thought about free will much beyond the students in introductory evolution classes. Evolutionary biology is increasingly applied to psychology.

https://www.americanscientist.org/issues/id.3747,y.2007,no.4,content.true,page.5,css.print/issue.aspx

I'm sorry but,

My original interpretation of your statement was that it was the view of evolutionary biology that agreed with the underlined statement. From what you've posted it just seems likes it's the view of humans. Nothing to do with evolution or biology, just a poll done on those people (who happen to be in a specific field) with their respective opinions. Who knows, maybe the most important evolutionists voted 'no'. I hope you get my point.

This leads us to an interesting place...

CLEARLY modern science has very little to say about this subject. And what it does have to say is pathetically 'unsientific' in its own right.

I never go into 'preaching mode' like most others as I have little to gain from it and I know how much it just plainly pisses people off, but...

 

This whole debacle does give me a lot of faith in those miraculous books from India...

'' After the conversations about Indian philosophy, some of the ideas of Quantum Physics that had seemed so crazy suddenly made much more sense.'' ~Heisenberg

''There is no kind of framework within which we can find consciousness in the plural; this is simply something we construct because of the temporal plurality of individuals, but it is a false construction... The only solution to this conflict insofar as any is available to us at all lies in the ancient wisdom of the Upanishad.''~Schrodinger


Your original interpretation of my statement was incorrect.   My point was that most evolutionary biologists believe that is what free will is.

Free will as a scientific concept is essentially non-existant due to ethical limitations.

Yeah I conceded that, but that implies that you might as well have said,

''Maybe he's a pilot'',

Instead of,

''Maybe he's an evolutionary biologist'',

since I see no reason why you should jump to a conclusion about his adherence to some scientific school's thought about a matter the school itself has nothing to say.

I believe (if your interpretation of my interpretation is correct) that you were driven to your original statement (''Maybe he's just an evolutionary biologist'') because you believed there exists some credible research about the matter in the school.

Subsequently the link between the group of people and their beliefs turned out to be nothing more than a statistical result that probably holds for most subsets of occupation.

Hence my original assumption that your statement was based on developments in the field itself.

 

 

''Free will as a scientific concept is essentially non-existant due to ethical limitations.''

(So I'll be straightforward this time)

This statement intrigues me. Care to elaborate?




tolu619 on 24 October 2011

You probably had the free will to create this thread.



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Kasz216 on 24 October 2011
Dr.Grass said:
Kasz216 said:
Dr.Grass said:
Kasz216 said:
Dr.Grass said:
Kasz216 said:
Dr.Grass said:
spurgeonryan said:
I had a funny reason that I wanted to add, but it would make Jay mad about recent things. By the way I have a thread about that if you want to share with all of us!

Humans do have free will. I just ate a carmel apple , did not have to, in fact something inside me (arteries) told me not to, but because of my free will I decided to eat it. Just like I decided to post here instead of the latest JoelCool7 thread, or one of my own.


That's not an argument at all. Just because things happened in a certain way and you feel you were the cause does not mean you are the cause - that's the whole point of this debate.


Maybe he's just an evolutionary biologist.  Oddly enough that's how most evolutionary biologists judge free will.


I seriously doubt that.


Well you'd be wrong then.

Most evolutionary biologists & Psycologists believe how we act is all due to DNA we were born with before we were born. 

Most also believe in free will.

This was found in more then a couple studies that gauged religious belief by scientific field of study.

Here's one of them.

We anticipated a much higher percentage for option B and a low percentage for A, but got just the opposite result. One of us (Provine) has been thinking about human free will for almost 40 years, has read most of the philosophical literature on the subject and polls his undergraduate evolution class (200-plus students) each year on belief in free will. Year after year, 90 percent or more favor the idea of human free will for a very specific reason: They think that if people make choices, they have free will. The professional debate about free will has moved far from this position, because what counts is whether the choice is free or determined, not whether human beings make choices. People and animals both certainly choose constantly. Comments from the evolutionists suggest that they were equating human choice and human free will. In other words, although eminent, our respondents had not thought about free will much beyond the students in introductory evolution classes. Evolutionary biology is increasingly applied to psychology.

https://www.americanscientist.org/issues/id.3747,y.2007,no.4,content.true,page.5,css.print/issue.aspx

I'm sorry but,

My original interpretation of your statement was that it was the view of evolutionary biology that agreed with the underlined statement. From what you've posted it just seems likes it's the view of humans. Nothing to do with evolution or biology, just a poll done on those people (who happen to be in a specific field) with their respective opinions. Who knows, maybe the most important evolutionists voted 'no'. I hope you get my point.

This leads us to an interesting place...

CLEARLY modern science has very little to say about this subject. And what it does have to say is pathetically 'unsientific' in its own right.

I never go into 'preaching mode' like most others as I have little to gain from it and I know how much it just plainly pisses people off, but...

 

This whole debacle does give me a lot of faith in those miraculous books from India...

'' After the conversations about Indian philosophy, some of the ideas of Quantum Physics that had seemed so crazy suddenly made much more sense.'' ~Heisenberg

''There is no kind of framework within which we can find consciousness in the plural; this is simply something we construct because of the temporal plurality of individuals, but it is a false construction... The only solution to this conflict insofar as any is available to us at all lies in the ancient wisdom of the Upanishad.''~Schrodinger


Your original interpretation of my statement was incorrect.   My point was that most evolutionary biologists believe that is what free will is.

Free will as a scientific concept is essentially non-existant due to ethical limitations.

Yeah I conceded that, but that implies that you might as well have said,

''Maybe he's a pilot'',

Instead of,

''Maybe he's an evolutionary biologist'',

since I see no reason why you should jump to a conclusion about his adherence to some scientific school's thought about a matter the school itself has nothing to say.

I believe (if your interpretation of my interpretation is correct) that you were driven to your original statement (''Maybe he's just an evolutionary biologist'') because you believed there exists some credible research about the matter in the school.

Subsequently the link between the group of people and their beliefs turned out to be nothing more than a statistical result that probably holds for most subsets of occupation.

Hence my original assumption that your statement was based on developments in the field itself.

 

 

''Free will as a scientific concept is essentially non-existant due to ethical limitations.''

(So I'll be straightforward this time)

This statement intrigues me. Care to elaborate?


Nope, my point was largely that a lot of smart people don't actually think about the philosophical nature of "Free choice" espiecally those whose work if anything would make them AGAINST the idea of free choice. 

Afterall most evolutionary biologists for some reason seem to think there is a difference between the way animals choose things and the way humans do... even though according to general evolotionary biology and ESPIECALLY evolutionary psychology you would think the opposite would be true.

 

As for Free Will.  Free will essentially can't be measured without very strict controls on humans, and likely cloning which aren't possible ethically.

It's a larger pointless and impossible thing to measure.