Why Buridan’s Ass Doesn’t Starve

[chaz wyman]

This programme is not a respectable organisation and does not have unbiased research aims.

Big Questions in Free Will, a four-year, US$4.4-million programme funded by the John Templeton Foundation in West Conshohocken, Pennsylvania,

It's stated aim is to prove free-will and is prepared to throw 4 million at it to prove the statement.
This can only attract those that are determinism deniers' Christians for whom the concept of free-will is essential for redemption and conversion to Christianity.

As the article point out there are a range of other studies that confirm the findings.

Fried's experiments showed that there was activity in individual neurons of particular brain areas about a second and a half before the subject made a conscious decision to press a button. With about 700 milliseconds to go, the researchers could predict the timing of that decision with more than 80% accuracy. "At some point, things that are predetermined are admitted into consciousness," says Fried. The conscious will might be added on to a decision at a later stage, he suggests.

Templeton claim to be a scientific research foundation and yet this is one example of their key projects.

http://humbleapproach.templeton.org/incarnate/

Sorry but this is NOT science.
And nor are the aims of his foundation scientific.

Sir John was a Presbyterian elder and active in his denomination (also serving on the board of the American Bible Society), he espoused what he called a "humble approach" to theology. Declaring that relatively little is known about the divine through scripture and present-day theology, he predicted that "scientific revelations may be a gold mine for revitalizing religion in the 21st century." To his mind, "All of nature reveals something of the creator. And god is revealing himself more and more to human inquiry, not always through prophetic visions or scriptures but through the astonishingly productive research of modern scientists."

People who form their knowledge from Faith are no ultimate threat to science.

The entire basis of the backlash against the neuroscience is solely due to this Foundation, And Nature is offering a rather tongue in cheek, though subtle refutation of this move.
There is not doubt that the Templeton Foundation is a very powerful institution, but there is nothing of any importance to emerge from it if you are a freethinker.
Despite this there is no doubt that Nature does not think much of the challenge offered by the Templeton Foundation despite the 4 million.

Thanks for linking it. I take this as positive confirmation of the concept of determinism.


PS.You might like to listen in on the Reasonable doubts podcasts. THey have addressed issues around the Templeton Foundation one or twice.

http://doubtreligion.blogspot.com/search?q=templeton

Beyond that I would in any event recommend their program as an indication that the USA is not completely full of religious extremists.
If you ever get time when you can only listen rather than type, or view, then like IOT, they are worth the while.

http://freethoughtblogs.com/reasonabled ... on&x=0&y=0

[chaz wyman]

Okay Name ONE SECULAR philosopher that argues a case against determinism.

Belnap.

He is secular is he?

WHich Belnap are you talking about?

I've looked into a logician but can't find any reference to his work on free will.


How does he stand up against; David Hume, Epicurus, Einstein, Spinoza, Russell, Schopenhauer, Anthony Collins, Thomas Hobbes and many others.

[SpheresOfBalance]

What some of you seem to forget, is that your subconscious is you.

Since you were conceived/born you have been building it as per the environmental stimulus of your exposure, for the first 5 years, especially the first year. This is why I see the importance that absolutely 'no' extraordinarily harsh situations are experienced during this time period. The first year should be nothing but love, soft and sweet as in touch, sound, smell, taste and finally sight, nurture is the buzzword. Anything that is extreme, shall taint the formation of the subconscious psyche, and destroy the full potential of that life. This includes a slap on the ass and circumcision, birth is traumatic in and of itself. At no point should we experience shock no matter how slight during that first year. During the next four it should be held to the bare minimum, but there is a little room for an ever so slightly more harsh environment.

This is the method to ensure you have the freest mind of purity that shall be more capable to weather the storms of adulthood, as their foundation, in their dealings, shall be free and calm, with singular resolve.

In the other extreme the subconscious is a swirling mass of confusion born of internal conflict in response to negative, conflicting external stimuli, that thwarts the freedom of will that would have been a pure self supporting system, otherwise.

The argument of subconscious versus conscious, in a balanced life, as I've indicated above, is a moot point, as they are both one in the same, at least as much as possible, because a calm, clear and free life is what we all want, and it all starts from day one, if the parents understand and implement this clearly loving, positive and consistent method, of psyche formation.

[chaz wyman]

Your subconscious like every other part of you is also part of the Universe, and has to comply with Universal laws; including the simple fact that nothing comes from nothing, and that there are causes for every event.

[MGL]

MGL

3) My interpretation: there are processes going on in the brain that precede the awarenes of a decision that favour one decision rather than another

Chaz

Sorry it is only a difference of semantics. You have just shot yourself in the foot.
Because 3 confirms determinism, whilst you have nothing to support free-will.

MGL

1) Are you interpreting the words "begin to shape" and "favour" as determine ( in the deterministic sense )?
2) I am not claiming there is evidence for free-will. I am only claiming there is no evidence against it.

Chaz

Yeah so difficult that there is not one single example you can show, that cannot more easily be explained and is more rational than airy-fairy free-will.

1) Any case of unpredictable behaviour allows for the possibility of free-will, but of course not the probability of free-will. However, I would suggest that the positing of free-will is actually a simpler explanation than one that relies on a more complex deterministic process to generate pseudo-random behaviour. I don't see one more rational than the other unless you want to apply occam's razor and favour free-will.


Chaz:

If Kane made any sense to you, then You would be able to explain his bullshit. He is motivated by his right wing political agenda, which rests on a justification of oppression of working people and those in society are poor, because he wishes to deny then mitigating circumstance; rather he has to convince himself to avoid moral problems that the poor choose to be poor. He's a Texan good old-time religion boy of the worst sort.


MGL

So, if the motivation is wrong, the conclusion is wrong. Interesting principle of reasoning.

Chaz

We cannot be free of who we are. It is essential to us all that we make our choices based on what we understand our situation to be, and that is determined by our experience. Were we to have the same circumstances again our choice would have to be the same, otherwise it would not be our choice, but a random one.

MGL

This is the very thing you need to explain. Why is a random choice less OUR choice than a determined one? Surely you are not simply stipulating a necessary connection between choice and determinism? Certainly there is a connection between choice and causation, but there is no necessary connection between causation and determinism. Choices are caused by our experience but what we chose does not necessarily have to be inevitable if such causation is non-determinsitic\probablistic.

[chaz wyman]

MGL

3) My interpretation: there are processes going on in the brain that precede the awarenes of a decision that favour one decision rather than another

Chaz

Sorry it is only a difference of semantics. You have just shot yourself in the foot.
Because 3 confirms determinism, whilst you have nothing to support free-will.

MGL

1) Are you interpreting the words "begin to shape" and "favour" as determine ( in the deterministic sense )?
2) I am not claiming there is evidence for free-will. I am only claiming there is no evidence against it.

You mean exactly like god and unicorns?
It seems to be you can play with as many fanciful ideas as you like for which there is no negative evidence as those are legion. That doe not offer them any validity.
For free -will you would have to account why it can work in a situation that seems to transgress the laws of nature as they are understood. Unless you wan to demonstrate other cases where universal causality does not apply.

Chaz

Yeah so difficult that there is not one single example you can show, that cannot more easily be explained and is more rational than airy-fairy free-will.

1) Any case of unpredictable behaviour allows for the possibility of free-will, but of course not the probability of free-will.

No it does not. It simply points to the fact that there are a multitude of causes that are no easy to identify or predict. The brain is as complicated as any thing in the know universe. We have every reason to think that people's actions are hard to predict.

However, I would suggest that the positing of free-will is actually a simpler explanation than one that relies on a more complex deterministic process to generate pseudo-random behaviour. I don't see one more rational than the other unless you want to apply occam's razor and favour free-will.

Ockham's razor will eliminate free-will but that is not a reason to apply it. There is nothing to demand that the most simple explanation is always the right one. The purpose of the razor is simply to consider whether or not a simple explanation can work rather than retain a host of occult causes for which there is no real justification. In Ockham's own time much was attributed to spirits and daemons, and acts of god. Ockham's interest was to find material causes without necessarily neglecting the possibility of incorporeal ones. It does seem free-will is an appeal to a non-corporeal or spiritual reality.



Chaz:

If Kane made any sense to you, then You would be able to explain his bullshit. He is motivated by his right wing political agenda, which rests on a justification of oppression of working people and those in society are poor, because he wishes to deny then mitigating circumstance; rather he has to convince himself to avoid moral problems that the poor choose to be poor. He's a Texan good old-time religion boy of the worst sort.


MGL

So, if the motivation is wrong, the conclusion is wrong. Interesting principle of reasoning.

He stand alone, a man of the libertarian creed would offer no other such interpretation as one that asserts free-will.
It would be like asking a priest to deny god.
I asked if there was a 'secular' philosopher that supported free-will.
I have to say that I do not know his argument, but I doubt he has anything new.
Maybe I am wrong?
Have you read him?

Chaz

We cannot be free of who we are. It is essential to us all that we make our choices based on what we understand our situation to be, and that is determined by our experience. Were we to have the same circumstances again our choice would have to be the same, otherwise it would not be our choice, but a random one.

MGL

This is the very thing you need to explain. Why is a random choice less OUR choice than a determined one?

Because of I want a dice to show 6, I place the dice on the table with the 6 uppermost. that is determined by my knowledge of the dice; the movement of my hands and the disposition of the dice.
If I throw the dice I am not choosing anything.
The dice's disposition is determined by its vector; wind speed, the resilience of the table and so on.



Surely you are not simply stipulating a necessary connection between choice and determinism? Certainly there is a connection between choice and causation, but there is no necessary connection between causation and determinism.

I think there is.

Choices are caused by our experience but what we chose does not necessarily have to be inevitable if such causation is non-determinsitic\probablistic.

If we imagine the same circumstance if my choice is to truly represent my will (call it free or not) is it comes out differently then we are doomed to make choices that do not reflect the circumstance in any way. Every choice would be of no use whatever. And living in such a world we would be unable to play billiards. For why would a billiard ball not also have the freedom to choose the outcome of an event?

[MGL]

MGL

2) I am not claiming there is evidence for free-will. I am only claiming there is no evidence against it.

Chaz

You mean exactly like god and unicorns?
It seems to be you can play with as many fanciful ideas as you like for which there is no negative evidence as those are legion. That doe not offer them any validity.

MGL

Just because there is no good evidence for something that is no reason to exclude it as a valid possibility. I infer from your point that an 18th century european would have been wrong to consider a black swan as a valid possibility.

-----

Chaz

For free -will you would have to account why it can work in a situation that seems to transgress the laws of nature as they are understood. Unless you wan to demonstrate other cases where universal causality does not apply.

MGL


It wold only transgress laws of nature if they were wholly deterministic which is the very claim you need to justify.

----

MGL

1) Any case of unpredictable behaviour allows for the possibility of free-will, but of course not the probability of free-will.

Chaz


No it does not. It simply points to the fact that there are a multitude of causes that are no easy to identify or predict. The brain is as complicated as any thing in the know universe. We have every reason to think that people's actions are hard to predict.

MGL

If neuroscientist like Libet and Haynes did not think unpredictable behaviour allowed for the possibility of free-will, why did they set up an experiment to test arbitrary choices to falsify this hypothesis? It may be the case - if the universe is deterministic - then true random behaviour is physically impossible, but that is the very thing you still need to prove.

------


Chaz

It does seem free-will is an appeal to a non-corporeal or spiritual reality.

MGL

Only if your definition of free-will requires it to intervene in a deterministic universe. If the universe has non-deterministic laws then free-will can be seen as a natural phenomenon.

---

Chaz

Because of I want a dice to show 6, I place the dice on the table with the 6 uppermost. that is determined by my knowledge of the dice; the movement of my hands and the disposition of the dice.
If I throw the dice I am not choosing anything.
The dice's disposition is determined by its vector; wind speed, the resilience of the table and so on.

MGL

This analogy is just PRESUMING an arbitrary choice has deterministic causes. It is this presumption you need to demonstrate.

-----------

MGL

Surely you are not simply stipulating a necessary connection between choice and determinism? Certainly there is a connection between choice and causation, but there is no necessary connection between causation and determinism.

Chaz

I think there is.

MGL

I know you think there is. But why do you think there is?

---------

Chaz

...For why would a billiard ball not also have the freedom to choose the outcome of an event?


MGL

Non-deterministic/probablistic causation does not imply that all causal laws are non-deterministic, neither does it imply that anything at all can happen. It simply allows for a LIMITED range of possible effects each with different probabilities for some causes. Even if everything was ultimately reducable to non-deterministic causal laws this could still account for the reliability of the behaviour of billiard balls.

Pretty much all your responses simply rely on the assumption of absolute determinism. If you can demonstrate its logical necessity - or the logical impossibility of probablistic causation - I will be convinced that free-will is an illusion.

[ughaibu]

I am not claiming there is evidence for free-will. . . . I will be convinced that free-will is an illusion.

Free will is demonstrable, it is an observable fact. So it can only be denied by appealing to a metaphysical stance which abandons recourse to science and to a world common to all healthy human adults. Free will denial is the most irrational position that I know of, its present vogue, among a few neuroscientists, shouldn't sway a person to the view that it is intellectually respectable.

[chaz wyman]

I am not claiming there is evidence for free-will. . . . I will be convinced that free-will is an illusion.

Free will is demonstrable, it is an observable fact. So it can only be denied by appealing to a metaphysical stance which abandons recourse to science and to a world common to all healthy human adults. Free will denial is the most irrational position that I know of, its present vogue, among a few neuroscientists, shouldn't sway a person to the view that it is intellectually respectable.

GO on then. Prove it!

Show how denial of it is irrational!

Demonstrate how you can make a choice of will, despite all the determining factors of your life.

[chaz wyman]

MGL

2) I am not claiming there is evidence for free-will. I am only claiming there is no evidence against it.

Chaz

You mean exactly like god and unicorns?
It seems to be you can play with as many fanciful ideas as you like for which there is no negative evidence as those are legion. That doe not offer them any validity.

MGL

Just because there is no good evidence for something that is no reason to exclude it as a valid possibility. I infer from your point that an 18th century european would have been wrong to consider a black swan as a valid possibility.

I disagree. Just because there is no evidence for a teapot orbiting Jupiter there is no reason to say it does not exist.

-----

Chaz

For free -will you would have to account why it can work in a situation that seems to transgress the laws of nature as they are understood. Unless you wan to demonstrate other cases where universal causality does not apply.

MGL


It wold only transgress laws of nature if they were wholly deterministic which is the very claim you need to justify.

The laws of nature demand that there is a cause of things. You are demanding an exception to those laws without evidence.

----

MGL

1) Any case of unpredictable behaviour allows for the possibility of free-will, but of course not the probability of free-will.

Chaz


No it does not. It simply points to the fact that there are a multitude of causes that are no easy to identify or predict. The brain is as complicated as any thing in the know universe. We have every reason to think that people's actions are hard to predict.

MGL

If neuroscientist like Libet and Haynes did not think unpredictable behaviour allowed for the possibility of free-will, why did they set up an experiment to test arbitrary choices to falsify this hypothesis? It may be the case - if the universe is deterministic - then true random behaviour is physically impossible, but that is the very thing you still need to prove.


That is what scientists do. They set out to examine a problem. Whilst people like you demand that such a thing exists without evidence they seek to falsify such a claim.
They have verified that your case is wrong. Of course you can dismiss all INDUCTIVE logic if you wish. No one can prove the the universe is not an illusion, nor that the sun will rise tomorrow, or indeed that the next bullet hurtling towards your brain will kill you. However science and our knowledge of the universe has to proceed on these probabilities.



------


Chaz

It does seem free-will is an appeal to a non-corporeal or spiritual reality.

MGL

Only if your definition of free-will requires it to intervene in a deterministic universe. If the universe has non-deterministic laws then free-will can be seen as a natural phenomenon.

That is the daftest thing you have said thus far, and requires no response.


---

Chaz

Because of I want a dice to show 6, I place the dice on the table with the 6 uppermost. that is determined by my knowledge of the dice; the movement of my hands and the disposition of the dice.
If I throw the dice I am not choosing anything.
The dice's disposition is determined by its vector; wind speed, the resilience of the table and so on.

MGL

This analogy is just PRESUMING an arbitrary choice has deterministic causes. It is this presumption you need to demonstrate.

No I do not. You would have to demonstrate the converse.

-----------

MGL

Surely you are not simply stipulating a necessary connection between choice and determinism? Certainly there is a connection between choice and causation, but there is no necessary connection between causation and determinism.

Chaz

I think there is.

MGL

I know you think there is. But why do you think there is?

Common sense and reason.

---------

Chaz

...For why would a billiard ball not also have the freedom to choose the outcome of an event?


MGL

Non-deterministic/probablistic causation does not imply that all causal laws are non-deterministic,

Sorry you argument is that the universe is non deterministic.

neither does it imply that anything at all can happen. It simply allows for a LIMITED range of possible effects each with different probabilities for some causes. Even if everything was ultimately reducable to non-deterministic causal laws this could still account for the reliability of the behaviour of billiard balls.

So you are saying god has given us a special ability that the rest of the universe does not possess?
If you are pleading special a special case you need to demonstrate how and why that special case applies.
Other wise you are not only damning the principle of Inductive Logic, but you are also damning Uniformitarianism.
You also seem to be doing away with reason. What will you have left to think with in your search for free-will?



Pretty much all your responses simply rely on the assumption of absolute determinism.
Not at all - you would say that.
If you can demonstrate its logical necessity - or the logical impossibility of probablistic causation - I will be convinced that free-will is an illusion.

Logic is a human artefact. I thought you would need a natural explanation.
Science is based on induction - you have already thrown that out.
Probabilistic causation even if it did exist does not in any way advance your assertion of free-will.
Please show how a random event advances free-will.

[ughaibu]

MGL
If neuroscientist like Libet and Haynes did not think unpredictable behaviour allowed for the possibility of free-will, why did they set up an experiment to test arbitrary choices to falsify this hypothesis? It may be the case - if the universe is deterministic - then true random behaviour is physically impossible, but that is the very thing you still need to prove.

That is what scientists do. They set out to examine a problem. Whilst people like you demand that such a thing exists without evidence they seek to falsify such a claim.
They have verified that your case is wrong.

As clear an example, as one could want, of why attempting to reason with denialists is futile. It has been shown, on this thread, that Chaz Wyman's claim, about what has been demonstrated by neuroscientists (among other things), is false. Yet here he is, carrying on as if the contrary were the case.
The problem is that for denialists, denial is an epistemic paradigm. So they deny that arguments which demolish their claims have been presented or that they haven't supported their own position, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Nothing interesting, just assertion and denial.

[chaz wyman]

As clear an example, as one could want, of why attempting to reason with denialists is futile. It has been shown, on this thread, that Chaz Wyman's claim, about what has been demonstrated by neuroscientists (among other things), is false. Yet here he is, carrying on as if the contrary were the case.
The problem is that for denialists, denial is an epistemic paradigm. So they deny that arguments which demolish their claims have been presented or that they haven't supported their own position, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Nothing interesting, just assertion and denial.

The reason why you find yourself incapable of arguing you own case is that you do not have a case to support. You are wrong.

[ughaibu]

As clear an example, as one could want, of why attempting to reason with denialists is futile. It has been shown, on this thread, that Chaz Wyman's claim, about what has been demonstrated by neuroscientists (among other things), is false. Yet here he is, carrying on as if the contrary were the case.
The problem is that for denialists, denial is an epistemic paradigm. So they deny that arguments which demolish their claims have been presented or that they haven't supported their own position, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Nothing interesting, just assertion and denial.

The reason why you find yourself incapable of arguing you own case is that you do not have a case to support. You are wrong.

It's kind of amusing, if you take it lightly, but think about it. This guy is an atheist, yet he denies that which he knows to be true, by observation, for religious reasons. When I first encountered these religiously neurotic atheists or negatively religious metaphysicians, I thought I must be mistaken. Surely no atheist makes ontological claims for religious reasons, I thought, but they do. Similarly, there are those making ontological claims for political reasons. Chaz Wyman seems to be in both groups.
Can anyone think of a more irrational position than that of an atheist denying his experience of the world for religious reasons? Seriously, I'm interested, is there a more irrational position?

[chaz wyman]

As clear an example, as one could want, of why attempting to reason with denialists is futile. It has been shown, on this thread, that Chaz Wyman's claim, about what has been demonstrated by neuroscientists (among other things), is false. Yet here he is, carrying on as if the contrary were the case.
The problem is that for denialists, denial is an epistemic paradigm. So they deny that arguments which demolish their claims have been presented or that they haven't supported their own position, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Nothing interesting, just assertion and denial.

The reason why you find yourself incapable of arguing you own case is that you do not have a case to support. You are wrong.

It's kind of amusing, if you take it lightly, but think about it. This guy is an atheist, yet he denies that which he knows to be true, by observation, for religious reasons. When I first encountered these religiously neurotic atheists or negatively religious metaphysicians, I thought I must be mistaken. Surely no atheist makes ontological claims for religious reasons, I thought, but they do. Similarly, there are those making ontological claims for political reasons. Chaz Wyman seems to be in both groups.
Can anyone think of a more irrational position than that of an atheist denying his experience of the world for religious reasons? Seriously, I'm interested, is there a more irrational position?

QED - you have nothing to give by way of support of your argument.

[MGL]

Many of your responses either seem to have completely missed my point as they seem to be responding to something I never said, or are just contradictions with no supporting argument. As one example of your misunderstanding consider the following thread.

==========

MGL

Any case of unpredictable behaviour allows for the possibility of free-will, but of course not the probability of free-will.

Chaz


No it does not. It simply points to the fact that there are a multitude of causes that are no easy to identify or predict. The brain is as complicated as any thing in the know universe. We have every reason to think that people's actions are hard to predict.

MGL

If neuroscientist like Libet and Haynes did not think unpredictable behaviour allowed for the possibility of free-will, why did they set up an experiment to test arbitrary choices to falsify this hypothesis?

Chaz


That is what scientists do. They set out to examine a problem. Whilst people like you demand that such a thing exists without evidence they seek to falsify such a claim.
They have verified that your case is wrong.

================

You have simply re-stated what I thought I was making implicit in my question without answering the question. My question was not a general question about why scientist conduct experiments. It was a specific question about why they thought testing ARBITRARY choices was relevant to falsify the hypothesis that there is free will? Surely it was becasue they thought that a case of seemingly unpredictable behaviour allows for the possibility of free-will and if they could show that this unpredictable behaviour actually had deterministic causes then the free-will hypthesis could be shown to be false. My point was that the scientist did not think that apparently arbitrary\random behaviour was irrelevant to the question of free-will which is what you seem to be claiming. Otherwise they would have felt no need to perform the experiment.

Rather than respond to the rest of your responses, I will summarise what seems to be behind our disagreement - the issue of determinism and defintions of free-will.


2) Your insistence that the world is wholly deterministic seems to be based on the scientific method of induction which is the practice of projecting from patterns we have observed in the past onto the rest of reality including the future. There are good pragmatic reasons for adopting this practice, however, I am not aware of any rational reason why the principle of induction should encourage us to always project wholly deterministic patterns rather than probablistic ones. It would be good practice to always search for deterministic patterns behind apparent probablistic ones, but to rule out the possibility that probablistic patters are inherent in nature is an assumption that needs some further justification which the principle of induction just does not provide. If it does you need to explain how it does without relying on other principles such as nothing comes from nothing which are also in need of further justification.

3) My understanding of free-will is that it requires the possibility of someone being able to have done something different in the same circumstances.
That implies that actions are arbitrary\random\unpredictable. That means they would only be possible in a universe with probablistic laws of nature.

Your definition of free-will seems to require a spritual\ghost in the machine entity which can override the laws of nature and is not subject to any causal laws of its own, yet still somehow not be random\arbitrary\unpredictable.

If you posit such curious phenomema it is not surprising that you will find it easy to dismiss it as nonsense. What I would like to know is why my understanding of free-will is nonsense - or why it fails to amount to free-will. Your arguments denying that it is free will seem to depend on your understanding of causation which presume determinism.