| Author | Message | ||
     Anand_n Hero Username: Anand_n Post Number: 13071 Registered: 02-2008 Posted From: 72.177.241.31 Rating: N/A |
Had to suspend a really interesting chat with a Comp sci researcher yesterday - where they were trying to do evolution simulations and trying to assess if they went back in time and restarted would it follow the same sequence ? i asked do you change any other variable and he said no- it is to understand if it would randomly take another path..and then we got summoned for something else before he could elaborate on what they were finding  So I guess we will find an answer to your question in the next few years
Yes - that's what I am asking ? But on further reading your posts from the book - I see Sam Harris is talking about free will in the sense that a thought free standing from all experiences, thoughts and interpretations that you control..my question is would you have the ability to recognise such a thought ? I may be digressing from your initial post a little here Thought is not just a chemical impulse - the way I see it , it is the mental interpretation of that impulse -I had posted a thread couple years ago wondering why the same NDE or divine visitation mental experience is visualised by people of different religions in different forms - people see their personal deity which has to be part of the translation you change the translation logic, you change the thought in response to the same impulse..and this translation logic is what we put into our brain...by memory, practice, analysis And if you understand the cause effect of the impulse , can you reverse engineer the process to create the "right" impulse ? If meditation can change the brain chemistry as a whole, it is a practice influencing all future thoughts.. Time is at a premium so interesting as the discussion is , I have to exercise my free will and divert my mind to think about things that need immediate attention  The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance; the wise grows it under his feet : James Oppenheim | ||
| Kalikaalam Side Hero Username: Kalikaalam Post Number: 7043 Registered: 01-2008 Posted From: 68.80.3.128 Rating: N/A |
Book lo yemi raasaaro theliyadu gaani, yes. I think that I have absolutely no influence on what we think.Not sure about others.. | ||
| Nisarga Junior Artist Username: Nisarga Post Number: 456 Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 27.7.3.235 Rating: N/A |
Sam Hariss blog on NDE( near death experience): http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/science-on-the-brink-of-d eath. | ||
| Nisarga Junior Artist Username: Nisarga Post Number: 455 Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 27.7.3.235 Rating: N/A |
Cause and Effect In physical terms, we know that every human action can be reduced to a series of impersonal events: Genes are transcribed, neurotransmitters bind to their receptors, muscle fibers contract, and John Doe pulls the trigger on his gun. But for our commonsense notions of human agency and morality to hold, it seems that our actions cannot be merely lawful products of our biology, our conditioning, or anything else that might lead others to predict them. Consequently, some scientists and philosophers hope that chance or quantum uncertainty can make room for free will. For instance, the biologist Martin Heisenberg has observed that certain processes in the brain, such as the opening and closing of ion channels and the release of synaptic vesicles, occur at random, and cannot therefore be determined by environmental stimuli. Thus, much of our behavior can be considered truly “selfgenerated”— and therein, he imagines, lies a basis for human freedom. But how do events of this kind justify the feeling of free will? “Self-generated” in this sense means only that certain events originate in the brain. If my decision to have a second cup of coffee this morning was due to a random release of neurotransmitters, how could the indeterminacy of the initiating event count as the free exercise of my will? Chance occurrences are by definition ones for which I can claim no responsibility. And if certain of my behaviors are truly the result of chance, they should be surprising even to me. How would neurological ambushes of this kind make me free? Imagine what your life would be like if all your actions, intentions, beliefs, and desires were randomly “self-generated” in this way. You would scarcely seem to have a mind at all. You would live as one blown about by an internal wind. Actions, intentions, beliefs, and desires can exist only in a system that is significantly constrained by patterns of behavior and the laws of stimulus-response. The possibility of reasoning with other human beings—or, indeed, of finding their behaviors and utterances comprehensible at all—depends on the assumption that their thoughts and actions will obediently ride the rails of a shared reality. This is true as well when attempting to understand one’s own behavior. In the limit, Heisenberg’s “self-generated” mental events would preclude the existence of any mind at all. The indeterminacy specific to quantum mechanics offers no foothold: If my brain is a quantum computer, the brain of a fly is likely to be a quantum computer, too. Do flies enjoy free will? Quantum effects are unlikely to be biologically salient in any case. They play a role in evolution because cosmic rays and other highenergy particles cause point mutations in DNA (and the behavior of such particles passing through the nucleus of a cell is governed by the laws of quantum mechanics). Evolution, therefore, seems unpredictable in principle.13 But few neuroscientists view the brain as a quantum computer. And even if it were, quantum indeterminacy does nothing to make the concept of free will scientifically intelligible. In the face of any real independence from prior events, every thought and action would seem to merit the statement “I don’t know what came over me.” If determinism is true, the future is set—and this includes all our future states of mind and our subsequent behavior. And to the extent that the law of cause and effect is subject to indeterminism—quantum or otherwise—we can take no credit for what happens. There is no combination of these truths that seems compatible with the popular notion of free will. | ||
| Nisarga Junior Artist Username: Nisarga Post Number: 454 Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 27.7.3.235 Rating: N/A |
i am good. thx. just started reading it. not quite sure what you mean by "Does he say we have absolutely no influence on what we think". you asking..cant we shape/influence/direct our thoughts?? in Moral Responsibility chapter we would get more clarity on his stand. | ||
| Ishan Side Hero Username: Ishan Post Number: 9747 Registered: 01-2009 Posted From: 98.194.159.57 Rating: N/A |
Free will is a myth, its no news. How can 'will' be free if it always caters to the demand of senses and ego? | ||
| Jujung Junior Artist Username: Jujung Post Number: 439 Registered: 02-2010 Posted From: 24.0.145.159 Rating: N/A |
Is there anything truly random in the universe? The folly of mistaking a paradox for a discovery, a metaphor for a proof, a torrent of verbiage for a spring of capital truths, and oneself for an oracle, is inborn in us.- Paul Valery | ||
| Anand_n Hero Username: Anand_n Post Number: 13069 Registered: 02-2008 Posted From: 166.137.156.26 Rating: N/A |
How r u ? Interestingly just coming back from an open house in comp sci research on computational intelligence, natural learning , building decisioning and replicating evolution thru computing ...and watching the world champion robots play soccer Back to the article - kottaga emu cheppaledu kada ... The fact that we do not have visibility or control on everything that generates our thoughts was never under dispute. Does he say we have absolutely no influence on what we think ? Now that would be different and fatalistic - did not think Sam Harris was a fatalist - so will have to reAd more of the book The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance; the wise grows it under his feet : James Oppenheim | ||
| Vjavasi Hero Username: Vjavasi Post Number: 10934 Registered: 11-2009 Posted From: 24.248.216.135 Rating: N/A |
good post.....but what if we are wrongly identifying the source of will in our mind and thoughts | ||
| Nisarga Junior Artist Username: Nisarga Post Number: 453 Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 27.7.3.235 Rating: N/A |
http://www.amazon.com/Free-Will-Sam-Harris/dp/1451683405. seems a good read. We do not know what we intend to do until the intention itself arises. To understand this is to realize that we are not the authors of our thoughts and actions in the way that people generally suppose. Of course, this insight does not make social and political freedom any less important. The freedom to do what one intends, and not to do otherwise, is no less valuable than it ever was. Having a gun to your head is still a problem worth rectifying, wherever intentions come from. But the idea that we, as conscious beings, are deeply responsible for the character of our mental lives and subsequent behavior is simply impossible to map onto reality. Consider what it would take to actually have free will. You would need to be aware of all the factors that determine your thoughts and actions, and you would need to have complete control over those factors. But there is a paradox here that vitiates the very notion of freedom—for what would influence the influences? More influences? None of these adventitious mental states are the real you. You are not controlling the storm, and you are not lost in it. You are the storm. Changing the Subject It is safe to say that no one was ever moved to entertain the existence of free will because it holds great promise as an abstract idea. The endurance of this notion is attributable to the fact that most of us feel that we freely author our own thoughts and actions (however difficult it may be to make sense of this in logical or scientific terms). Thus the idea of free will emerges from a felt experience. It is, however, very easy to lose sight of this psychological truth once we begin talking philosophy. |
