Are there actually more than two possibilities? Isn't that a little like saying you're just a "little pregnant?" Either we have some amount of autonomy over ourselves, or we do not. The scenario is binary by nature.
Well, there are weird medical conditions, etc. but that is rather tangential. I guess what I was saying is that it is possible that science will explain our free-will without us loosing it.
In the situation you describe, I would still call that "free will" -- if your will can make a decision that is not 100% a reaction to everything that has happened in the past to it and shaped it. That is not mechanistic to me in the sense I was using the term.
(To me, mechanistic is where actions are predetermined, whereas free will would be the ability to pick something even randomly if so desired. But the latter might still be a paradox... It's a little tedious to extrapolate, though.)
I don't know then what interpretation to mechanism to give. I thought Athenian200 just meant a scientific explanations that explains who we are, and why we do things.
I find it hard to believe that a scientific explanation about such a commonly experienced thing as Consciousness or Will, will defy our common-sense notion of what it is by too much.
You could delete the word "just" and still have it convey the same thought I meant, I suppose.
(And honestly, what you choose to imagine is fine with me, as long as it has some connection with reality and isn't just spurious confabulation.)
Just is a loaded word. I am not sure what argument there is without "just." We have a mechanism, and we have free-will (without the just).
It is clear we are made up of matter. Just as it is clear that speech is made up of sounds. But understanding the mechanism of sounds does not deconstruct the meaning given to speech. In fact, it gives us insight into why some languages and customs come about. Again this is a bit tangential.
Still, how would we go about "proving" (or at least making a strong case for) "us" being software sitting on/in a machine, rather than firmware that driven by the machine itself?
I think the burden-of-proof is on the person claiming impossibility, not the other way around. But, it is fairly complex even in the computing example.
If you only have one copy of a program, and it gets corrupted, then that program exists no more. The program creator may recreate/repair it, if he/she deems it fit to do so.
Our body, our brain, our mind, and our soul are linked. We are not able to copy ourselves in mind and soul, and it is unknown if our creator(s) will ever make another instance of us if we get corrupted.
There are remarkable similarities between twins, as there are remarkable similarities between siblings, even when reared apart. However, every pair of twins I've known have been distinctly different people. I would never call both the same person, nor two instances of the same person. If it was simply about the material, how are they two different people?
You could make some case about chaotic systems, etc, and initial conditions, leading to distinct enough people to consider them two different individuals (rather than two instances of the same one). But I think this is just a different labeling for the same thing.
Consider also that the body keeps changing --we are certainly affected by these changes, but we are still the same person. We are also affected by changes in our bodies as well as the environment, just as self-modifying programs behave differently under different hardware conditions, and when they receives different inputs.
We don't consider ourselves a different actual person from moment to moment. This is not the common-sense way we think of ourselves, at-least. I think the reason is that we
are the same person, identity-wise (again, unless the changes are so bad we get "corrupted").
Well, I know eastern thought can promote this, but trust me that many westerners also live as though this were true -- that the "ego" is separate from the body. The sundering came with the Greek philosophers and up through the ages, and only recently (because of science advancement) have we really begun to realize that some of what is "us" is driven heavily if not completely by the body. Holistically, the body is not an attachment or option, it's part of "us." But I can't prove that either.
Still (and here is a little example), if our hippocampus is damaged, we can form no more long-term memories. Our sense of history stops at the time of damage, and we can no longer evolve/mature. In addition, the memories are stored physically in our brain by actual neurons, not in primarily some metaphysical sense; damage to the brain results in memory loss. Without the physical storage unit of the brain, we seem to no longer exist.
(The best case I can see you making is that "we exist" elsewhere but can no longer communicate or express that existence via the vehicle of our body-- and this argument is pure speculation. It's not verifiable.)
But now we are hitting on "life after death" issues. And there was some interesting "cloning" speculations involving Star Trek transporters that I think came up on INTPc a number of months ago. Which deals with the same questions, basically.
We are not separate from our bodies. But we are not our bodies (again, this seems to be the common-sense). If our bodies are corrupted we risk ourselves being corrupted. When we get ill, we aim to get better. But most people are able to be themselves even after a sever injury like loosing an arm (unless their identity is severely attached to the arm).
When we take psychotropic drugs (anti-depressants, etc.), are we changing ourselves? Or simply improving some biological impediments like low-seratonin? If they are bad drugs, they will corrupt us. But most of these seem to do nothing much other than give temporarily relief, and an occasional head-trip.
Sure, I'd love to see what you're thinking here.
Possible Mechanism of Will
Here I am giving a
possible mechanism of will, to show that it is possible we have a mechanism as well as will.
For now, I will use the common-sense notion of
making choices as will, and try to mechanize it.
The Environment, Causality, and Decision Making
Imagine an archer firing arrows at his enemies. The arrows he has fired, he no longer controls. They are set on their course and may or may not hit their targets. The archer can gauge by how much he has missed and adjust his aim. This is an act of will, though you may say his aim is
determined by his environment (where the target is). In fact, the better his readjustment, his act of will, the more his action was determined by the environment.
It is said that you are actually better able to predict the actions of better poker players.
Our Natures and Decision Making
When we fight our own natures, we show poor judgment. This is true whether our natures are genetically rooted or formed by a combination of environment and genetics. If it is the latter, we can choose our new environments and thereby influence our future nature.
Again, better uses of our will (the common-sense notion of it), are more determined by our natures than worse uses.
Defying the Odds and Decision Making
It is actually impossible to defy the odds, but we need to choose
which odds make the most sense. On average, we are all C to B students (grade inflation
), and we have an IQ of 100, will likely not make enough money to retire, ... But if you know more about yourself, you can see perhaps that you are actually a B to A student, with an IQ of 145 and are on track for a comfortable retirement.
Her you can show error in judgment by judging yourself too average, but you can also judge yourself too special (or incorrectly special), and believe you can defy the odds. Again, the best judgment is the one
determined to be the best based on the situation.
Particles and Decision Making
There has been some notion of particles/photons being able to consistently make the right "choice" (in terms polarization, etc.) consistently despite the fact that there is no known mechanism for it getting the information it needs. Physicists call this phenomenon, quantum entanglement, but provide no mechanism for it.
Some postulate that what is at work here is an ultra-accurate (Godly?) use of judgment to make the correct decision under impossible odds.
They further postulate an elementary unit (like matter) that makes this possible. In addition, these elementary units act in resonance (40 Hz, I believe) to create our conscious minds and our ability to make choices judgments instead of simply moving along according the odds specified by our constituent chemical and biological parts.
Consciousness, in this construct, is considered yet another form of quantum coherence, similar to superfluidity and superconductivity.
I don't know if it is true, or if it has been debunked. But it hardly violates the sense I have about free-will and it's existence. In fact, it makes me think that I am actually a small bit of quantum coherence in the over all mind of God. Hardly someone lacking will.
