https://www.theverge.com/2016/4/25/11501230/blake-ross-cant-...
If there are people who can’t picture and people who don’t have an inner dialogue, I think it lends more credence to the idea that we don’t have free will and are just a bunch of chemicals controlling our behavior. It also makes you think about consciousness and whether it’s even real.
That seems like a bizarre leap. What's the connection?
I’m not willing to die on this hill by the way so if someone else comes along and argues otherwise, I’m open to other ideas.
Is "just" a synonym for "exactly" in this context?
"Clearly" because exterior stimuli clearly influence both thinking and feeling, a concept supported by common experience and scientific understanding of human cognition and emotions.
I wouldnt think the fairly self evident assertion that exterior stimulus changes both the internal state of a person as well as their behavior would be controversial.
At this point in history "free will" is really just the god of the gaps and those gaps shrink every year. Its probably a useful religious concept but as far as reality goes its the least interesting question one could ask about the whole human experience.
This seems like a rather recursively self-referential problem.
Private experiences may be very important for individuals and like I said elsewhere, free-will is certainly a useful idea in religious contexts. I do not believe this has any bearing on practical matters such as our ability to predict or understand the actions taken by any given system such as humans or computers.
Like, where are the details of how you are "measuring" these things? And what measurement instrument returns values like "is clearly" and "is really just"? I can think of only one.
Yes what I am describing is my opinion which I have formed from looking at evidence. My opinion isnt really a measurement in the sense that one can measure activity in parts of a brain with an MRI. It is really just the state of the system.
I'm not really interested in abstract epistemological definitions of free will because they arent useful in the way that neurology psychology and biology are generally. I am interested in predicting or explaining behavior or observations mostly. You might be interested in that kind of exploration which is great! If you think it does have bearing on such things I am totally interested in hearing how.
Are you saying that these two claims have some sort of scientific ~proofs:
1.Thinking isn't even a path to "free will".
2a. Thinking is pretty clearly determined by exterior stimulus
2b. just like feeling is.
Note: a definition for "determined by" (in percentage of total causality) would be required in the specification, as would a non-ambiguous definition for "just like".
Have you an opinion on whether your opinion is necessarily true?
> If you think it does have bearing on such things I am totally interested in hearing how.
I happen to believe humans have > 0 free will, and that if we do it derives from cognition, at least primarily. If this is the case, I believe that it would be advantageous to be able to exert control over cognition on demand. I also believe that doing something often requires trying to do it, and that if one doesn't think something can be done, it decreases the chances that one will try to do it, in turn decreasing the chances that it gets done.
I believe this to be > 0 "true", and that it has extremely broad applicability.
I guess what I am asking is what is causing you to exert control over cognition? I would say its the sum of too many variables to count (including previous states of the system) acting on you to cause you, the system to be in such a state that that is just what it does. Given enough time and resources we could probably come up with a half decent accounting of the most important of those variables and be able to explain why the system is doing a given thing. In this example that means explaining why the system is modifying its own state in some way. What would you say is the cause?
> Have you an opinion on whether your opinion is necessarily true?
Yes my opinion is that my opinion is likely true as I believe it is supported by evidence. I would bet on it but I am not certain about it.
No. I think this statement is a conclusion only indirectly supported by scientific fact. This is a logical leap from more and more behaviors and internal states being correlated with various external stimulus over time. I believe it only a matter of time until it becomes entirely possible (though silly and will likely not be done because it only serves to prove a foregone conclusion and would be a unfathomably huge undertaking) to provide a complete accounting of all the factors that influence a system bringing it to the state where it reacts in a given way to some stimulus.
The only other conclusion I can see is that human beings are not deterministic and there is some magical spark IE everlasting soul making randomized decisions for us.
Can you expand on this "supported by" scientific fact? Is it something more than is not inconsistent with, and more towards must be, necessarily?
Can you explain how it is not? As I see it, my theory is directly breaking out of determinism.
> I guess what I am asking is what is causing you to exert control over cognition?
Consciousness (self-awareness, will & determination, etc...the "how" of which I make no claims of knowledge about). I absolutely agree that it is substantially out of our control and thus at least semi-deterministic, where we would differ (at least) is on the 100% part.
There are many problems, here are some:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decidability_(logic)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necessity_and_sufficiency