Science Suggests Free Will Doesn't Exist 

The left and right eye do not report to different sides of the brain. This is true of our voluntary muscles, but different with our vision. Instead, the left field of view of both eyes reports to the right side of the brain and vice-versa.

@@Zuluknob yes it is. But he mistakenly said that that right eye communicates with the left hemisphere and vice-versa. That's not actually the case. With vision, it's the visual field that's divided. Both eyes communicate with both hemispheres. But the left hemisphere only sees the right visual field from both eyes, and vice versa.

Are you saying that science has proved a negative?

@@Zuluknob Indeed! If you read "The man who mistook his wife for a hat", Oliver Sacks describes some incredible split brain experiments where the subject can easily identify an object when held in his left hand and viewed in his left visual field, but can't begin to tell you what it's used for. At the same time he can hold the object in his right hand and view it with his right visual field and develop all sorts of ideas of how the object might be used, but he can't recognize or tell you the name of the perfectly familiar object (like a glove).

@@tomwhateley5697 >> Are you saying that science has proved a negative? Despite common "wisdom" there are cases where we can prove a negative. But I don't think even those that believe free will is an illusion are quite ready to claim it's been proved.

This is the answer. 😂

Why are you waiting so long...?🥂🍹

You're doomed

Drinking aside, that's proof your wife has no free will. She had no choice but to believe you could control your drinking in the afternoon before watching the video. And no choice but to conclude you cannot control it after watching the video. She was never in the driver's seat. No one is. You could show her another video. Maybe it will change her mind, maybe it won't. But one cannot unsee what one has seen. Cannot unconclude what one has concluded.

This is the way, cheers~🍻

Yeah

Nice, but there is a problem of definition which I didn’t hear Miles address: what is free will? Choice may not be part of free will, depending on the definition. It may be our choice as to what to do, in that the choice was made in our mind, but that choice may have been determined+ (Determined+ - determined to the extent that effectively random quantum collapses aren’t involved. Quantum collapses within our brain processes would not be part of most people’s idea of Free Will)

I wish you the best, I hope someday you are able to take control of your actions. I feel bad for people that are unable to make their own decisions. Blessings to you.

Nothing is truly random but when you've got so many particles interacting the possibilities are near enough infinite. Probability waves can't diffract and interfere in reality if they are simply the probability of finding a tiny point in space. You need a physical wave medium for that, 2 tiny points can't interfere or diffract. The universe is 100% deterministic, but by increasing the number of choices and selection mechanism at all levels in a system the appearance of Free Will emerges until almost fully real. -- It becomes a definition of how you define your 'self' and 'freedom' in the end though. These are quite wishy-washy.. There is certainly no such thing as 100% free will, but those who aren't kids or demented are generally above 50% free on the FREE WILL SCALE... But then maybe the left and right extremes and moral majority centre are the most brainwashed and the fringes in between have the most free will.. Liberty requires scales and balance. -- I am now redefining Entropy as Simplicity in My Universe... Time reduces closed system complexity. Universe's simplest state is perfectly ordered empty field. Complexity requires energy input

You have always had the freedom to take your medication or find ways to cope with your deficiency of executive function. I have ADHD also and sometimes struggle with staying focused, but you can learn effective coping strategies if you really try.

​@@PrivateSiummm... Entropy increases in reality, though....

​@@kayakMike1000 eh i prefer to live without meds, ive tried meds and like. you get focused and stuff but you lose alot of the weird creativity that you have without it. tho that could just be the type of meds i tried, i did hear different meds have different effects so i might need to try the others. another analogy i have for ADHD is its sort of like living with an autopilot. hyperfocus? distraction? etc one time i was addicted to webnovels where i tried to stop reading them and like... the moment i found my mind unoccupied and empty i just automatically openned chrome, to novelupdates then wasted a day until i noticed what i was doing... its all just like a faulty autopilot and whats rather interesting getting it to like work properly. those like productive focused moments is essentially when the autopilot is aimed at the preferred direction i came up with some methods albeit they are rather weird. but they work lol. on the thing i mentioned about how important it is on how one defines oneself. if you figure out a really good rationalization for something i found it gets really easy to counter it. one time when i was in my lowest longest months long adhd paralysis streak i remembered a post describing adhd as "its like you have a problem with an easy solution, but you aren't doing the solution, and you don't know why" i sort of rationalized by saying "i know why, its because i ask why, asking the question itself is why im not working, cause asking the question spends time" after that i made it so that if i found myself asking the question i would in a theatric exaggerated motion stand up and "pretend" to work to get to work i think a term for this whole thing is Cognitive Reframing. only learned of it recently. but depending on how you frame and view your situation it can honestly surprisingly make alot of things easier. most reframes their situation like a game, like the whole turning schedules and tasks into quests and stuff. there are even apps for that. For me i like to reframe my situation like im trying to learn a ficitonal magic system, like describing habits and triggers as trap cards in a TCG game like yu gi oh or something. or describing emotional investment as a system of mana. which surprisingly helped me set up some stuff in regards to how to much more easily steer my autopilot.

Um, no. As long as there's quantum randomness in the world you can add that into your decision process and a pre-crime system either cannot decide which crime you would do or would convict you of something you wouldn't have done (with x% probability). Randomness isn't enough to create free will, but it is enough to destroy prediction.

Like I said in a comment as well, he doesn't even give a working definition of free will that he's supposed to be invalidating. Which makes any conclusion he would even be drawing unclear (even if his arguments were valid). I mean he's correct to say that indeterminacy doesn't get free will (alone). But in that case, why assert determinacy removes free will? All this because he doesn't define his terms and doesn't appear familiar with free will discussions at all. Certainly compatibilism, which accepts determinism and free will, has been entirely ignored, and its the most common position on free will in philosophy!

I do as well. As for the last chapter, it's not about being unable to do certain things. When asked why they did certain things that only one side perceived, they gave a fabrication similar to LLM hallucinations. So they just made something up to compensate for the disconnection. The point is they believed it was true. One example was instructions for one side to smile. When asked why they were smiling, they said things like thinking of something funny. This demonstrates our conscious experience is dictated by the unconscious brain and our mind which we associate with our will is not only not in control but has no idea of whether we're actually experiencing anything at all. It's a good point. He just seems to disregard that it is still our brain and we don't understand the conscious mind. What we do know is it forms when areas of the brain communicate. Breaking that communication is how anesthesia works. Imo the whole brain and body works together. His last chapter highlights how important it is for the entire brain to work together and the conscious mind is but a part of the whole. Free will has never sat right with me. Its closer to a negotiation. Some people seem to think that if our mind isn't in full control of our choices then there's no free will. They must perceive the mind and brain as separate but there's no reason to think that way.

The study you’re referencing in an experiment by Libet in like the 18 or 1900’s, thats determinism. If you’re sitting down and “decide” to stand up, you still need your brain’s neurochemistry to send the signal and trigger the neurons in the leg muscles to do such. But even leaving that out, Lets just say you want to turn your brain off and play the Free Will game. You’d quickly find out that everything you’ve been doing has been previously determined. Going to work or school, Even getting hungry is determined for you. So you can decide what food to get when your hungry so you get the illusion of choice. But we all know if we don’t eat and hydrate we’ll suffer for it.

Libet concluded that we don’t necessarily get free will, we do get the power to veto the brain’s thoughts tho. And the illusion of choice, like sure you can put on Outfit X, Y, or Z. But you can’t choose to wear nothing so Free Will there should be getting vetoed by common sense.

Even using the bathroom is determined for you, and a window for going to sleep. I’m willing to listen to any Free Will Arguments, I had to do a presentation in my Philosophy class last year on this tho. There’s really not much area for Free Will with how the world works.

But at least we had no choice but to hold each other accountable :-)

Yeah.. this is what fucks with me

The concept of free will, whether it exists or is relatively new in the history of our species. We have got along fine without stressing over the topic. And in any case, the religious among us will fight like the devil (LOL) to maintain we have it. It ain't going out the window any time soon.

To accept no freewill I think a person needs to have a large amount of compassion, because the conversation inevitably swings around to the justice system. I believe the global public does not have enough compassion to make up for a disbelief in freewill.

​@12pentaborane : that lack of compassion is not their free will. We are simply observers in a 4d movie

@ 8:25 ish... (I'm walking myself through my own internal arguments here.) can't reside at the level of the organism. Can a computer be corrupted by outside influence? Cosmic rays, EM radiation? Synesthesia like... I'm totally on board so far... But we don't have a perfect understanding of matter, past the plank scale... Let alone connective processes in the brain... which we are imbedded in. Measuring waves in the ocean looks discrete enough, but what is that field doing, really, at the level of energy? The driving mechanism doesn't have to be inherently random...(pseudoRNG)... for emergent frameworks to have random outcomes. Especially if our understanding of the pattern isn't complete, which it can't be. Coherence/decoherence happens above a fundamental level even if your argument is correct, and it's turtles all the way down. Will, seems to be more of a computer program than anything fundamental. I definitely have more autonomous agency than my dog, for example. Option space, or each place a dichotomous logic operation can happen... Sure the framework is pre existing, but that only dictates the type of information it must be coded in, but not what programs can be built with it. If we can't build a turing machine that can determine halting, what does that say about process and it's measurability? Albeit, I can see how the collective "superego" of process, can ultimately supercede the nucleation of individual locus of control. It's dynamic, a super process needed to exist before,,, say the autistic agent,,, could begin to digest what it was, they were looking at. But still, how did the first idea sharers begin to form coherence, or is the evolution of the process itself enough? Was there a halting moment? Or did we just gain knowledge collectively, enough to create the inceptive ideas around will...as a secondary outcome of communal process, and the drive for existence? This is all very fascinating. Dialectics is inherent to pragmatism, which is a shoddy way of thinking about a human level FEP. Which is built out of our brains desire to keep doing what it is doing... AKA being alive. But within this context, there are agents who build culture up in good faith, and those who deceive as a way to counter act any "power of agency" this culture gives to "others." Will is drive, free will is the ability to control those drives... Except we are chemical machines, even if the outcomes of the computational parts feel, on the surface, random... There is no way the chemical process can be random, even if we don't understand it... Meaning... That... Since we breathe, drink water, and eat... The desire to keep doing those things is what drives everything that can emerge from it... No "free" will... Ok, I'm back. But inside of the context of doing what your body wants, we have the frame story, and that has nothing to do with the chemical... The practically infinite number of ways ideas can be mixed and shared, almost makes the difference between the concept of "free" will, versus choosing the outcome of ideas within the framework of allowed possibility, seem semantic... Which I get, is what is being described. Mind is body, monism, and therefore even ideas come from something we can measure, surely??? But if we are indeed imbedded into this consciousness thing, and can't determine halting, then we can't ever understand it completely, can we?. Only build representation of it, through this language thing.... there is the superego again... So one can only understand self through the constant updating of these representations, within the context of our own processing capabilities, which are emerging as a function of society. Ok, so... I feel like the conclusion I have come to, on this portion of the journey, has led me to this... Will is the framework, and _mostly_ what people are actually arguing for/over is more accurately/correctly described as choice. Within the context of the necessary pre-conditions, accounting for life seeking desires, choices are pseudo free. They are not random, but they are not determinable up front.

On to the second half ...😊

I love it! Great stuff...

@ end of video... Good grief, we nailed it!

There might not be a point, but you can still enjoy it. A movie has a predetermined outcome, and people still choose to watch movies even though they have no influence over it

We evolved as a social species because we choose to get along for the good of the individual and community. Free will, whether it exists or not, is irrelevant to that. It is our evolutionary heritage that defines us. Free Will is a philosophical sideshow.

Isn't a "point" entirely subjective? Why would anyone expect life to have an objective point? That would feel even more stifling than being told I don't have "free will."

@@DinoCism I think the debate about free will or whether there is a point to life or not is silly and unnecessary. Life is what you make of it is enough for me.

There is still pleasure, knowledge, family, friends, and all the things that make up the enjoyable parts of a human experience. Just because you're watching a movie of your own life doesn't mean that life isn't worth living. You are a biological agent that was given consciousness and for that we ought to all be grateful.

Either way, the "decision" (i.e. action without free choice) happens, and then the awareness that the action occurs happens after. IOW, events happen, and then we make up stories about them.

@@CliffSedge-nu5fv Maybe the right brain has free will, but the interpreter doesn't know and makes up stories.

@@blucat4 Nope. The senses sense. The memory records. And the senses sense the recollections of memories. It all happens so fast that we mistake our immediate memories of events as if they were our prior thoughts before the event happened.

…and if they did manage to go back in time and chose something different, even THAT was predetermined.

Yet somehow we are still unable to predict the future. 😂

@@askedofgod9067Are you talking about gypsy seances and such. If not your logic doesn't follow. Try again.

@@lucidmoses free will exists. And science cannot disprove it. An analogy of time travel is stupid.

@@askedofgod9067 Ok, supply your evidence that it does exist, as to date, there has been none.

But that assertion is impossible, therefore free will is not disproved.

Another way of looking at this; whenever you 'choose' to do something, everything that has happened to you in your life up until that point causally bears down upon that single decision making it inevitable. @@nicktecky55

@@atlasnetwork7855 have you read anything else on this? The research is slim

Word salad

@@robguyatt9602 Seth loyd’s a Turing test for free will - read that then complain

What you wrote unfortunately makes no sense. One starting premise of yours, which is clearly wrong and breaks physics, is that we can "read electrical signals before a decision". This cannot be the case, because the only way that could happen is if an effect somehow happened before a cause. Any and all decisions you're making are the result of neurons, electricity, hormones, and the rest of your inner biochemistry, which you cannot and do not control in any way, shape or form. You freely admit there is programming, and would likely admit that many things about our lives are directly out of our control, are not a choice whatsoever, such as our sexual preferences or our parents or where we're raised or which genes express themselves, or which genes you're given, but somehow, with the power of magical thinking, or perhaps the power of wishful thinking, you believe that your identity, your 'I", bootstraps thoughts -- this means you believe effects can happen before causes, and that breaks the laws of physics. Congrats, you believe in magic, and that's very silly.

Big brain time 🧠🫡

Who is the you that is modifying your brain to react differently? Who is it that chooses your destiny? Just because the MRI scanner can identify what decision can be made before we make a decision a few seconds before we are "consciously aware" doesn't mean really anything.

@@kayakMike1000why not?

The problem with your statement "we aren't in control of our destinies doesn't mean that we can't choose to enjoy life or be better people." I hate to say it, but that's exactly what it means. That's the whole point. You won't, you CAN'T, choose anything. It's all been determined. That's scientific fact so I'll accept it...but it sucks lol

@@screamerchaotix5182choice doesn't mean free choice. it just means choice. looking at options, and picking one. free will doesn't have to exist for that to happen. It may not be 'your choice' in some ephemeral sense, but that doesn't matter or have anything to do with my thoughts on the matter , because my point was that it doesn't matter if your will is free, it's still will.

Well, consciousness needs to come from somewhere and with my consciousness I have the ability to visualize a square or a cube or other objects. Yet my brain is not changing physical shape. So Some field in physics has to allow for this visualization of multiple dimensions to occur in human consciousness. May we call it the conscious field or something else, hell it may simply be the electromagnetic field and when you work through math with that, it utilizes the properties of complex numbers which can allow for those multiple dimensions. But sadly Many horrible books about stupid things with consciousness has really destroyed the ability to have this conversation in the world of science, but physics needs to start working towards consciousness and understanding what it is

@@1337asader well if you store the information as a combination of neurons, you can re-imagine the cube by running through set neurons with an electric signal I think, so there would not be an extra dimension needed as you already experience reality with neurons, so the reality we experience gets encoded with neurons, now if we decode it, it feels the same way as actually experiencing it because the experience itself was made up by neurons, so activating the neural structure that remembers the event (seeing the cube) feels the same as actually seeing it

The explanation you give *IS* the proof that free will is an illusion. One cannot think a thought before one has thought it, but once thought, our brain is merely creating a _post hoc_ rationale that deceives our conscious self that we were the author; in reality, all our thoughts and actions are brought into being without any conscious input.

The title of vid is click bait. Lol

I agree. Also at the end where he says if the interpreter has to make something up we can't be in control, is wrong. The decision could be made by the right brain, but the explanation is lacking, that doesn't mean there was no free will. I'm sure some people refused the command. I wonder what they said when asked why they refused the command? Probably, "I didn't see any command." Also the idea that the only action of the brain if from atoms up seems to be wrong. Our brains create electromagnetic fields, and are influenced by them. External EMFields could interact with our brains and affect the decision making process. He hasn't taken this into account at all.

​@@blucat4 I don't try to predict precisely the locus of freewill, or the mechanism by which it may operate, _if_ it exists. I only allow that there are realms of intelligence which we understand very poorly, or not at all, and I don't think what we _do_ know about is complete enough to make any absolute declarations with unassailable certainty. I'm fine with just admitting that we have a lot more to learn in the field, and I will just wait and see what shakes out. In the meantime, it's really a pretty academic question, about which it's not really important that we have certainty. The really useful information, when the question is answerable, will be in a much broader theory of intelligence.

Your question makes the wrong assumption that things need a reason. Counciosness may just be a byproduct of the brain, simply, complex structures will have Consious emergence. It could just be a fact, not a reason.

yes but i think things in life have a reason and you don't so that's that

@@Alexander21025 Consciousness IS a product of the brain. Complex structures MAY have a conscious emergence.

@@robguyatt9602 I agree with your corrections of his reply

Do this when u r high. Its. Crazy lol

That is not something we could have computed from initial conditions of the universe without just letting the universe unfold as it already has. To do so would require a universe sized simulation that would be identical to the universe that you're already in.

What is absurd about not having free will? That can only seem absurd if you don't think about it. It only takes a couple simple thoughts to show that free will is impossible. Not having free will is the only logically sound (non-absurd) conclusion.

@@CliffSedge-nu5fv The argument against free will necessarily depends upon assumptions whether hidden, explicitly stated or simply overlooked. Supposedly noncontroversial assumptions or self-evident axioms can be wrong or arbitrary. Throw infinity into the mix and things get dicey quickly. Think about the axiom of parallel lines in geometry or the axiom of choice in set theory. Would you bet your life that there's no such thing as free will? I wouldn't.

@@kredwol2103 You just spouted a bunch of gibberish, so are not worthy of a serious reply.

@@CliffSedge-nu5fv the tard is strong in you

If will was free, we wouldn't be able to drug them, buy them, influence them with food, lights, sounds, and peer pressure. Will is not free.

No. It is well-defined, and its definition makes it an absurd impossible concept. Defining it differently would be defining something that isn't actually free will. That is what some philosophers try to do; they redefine the term to be something that could be real, but then it isn't really free will. Similar to how some unsophisticated religious apologists redefine what a "god" is so that it isn't actually a god anymore.

You're describing how quantum theory supports randomness but randomness is not freedom for us. We still don't control what happens by chance

@@konyvnyelv. Just because WE don't understand or control it doesn't mean it's random. In fact, it must not be random for the universe to be coherent. I personally don't believe in randomness or coincidence.

"the structure of the brain is basically an analog computer" biologists would like to talk to u if you know the brain so well because they seem to think otherwise, this video seems particularly poorly sourced, also what even is free will is it the ability to do anything I choose bc I cant do that, society prevents me, laws prevent me, what are you saying by free will the ability to have control over yourself? it doesnt even feel that way in psychosis for some. Also if you haven't heard of any other arguments then you aren't a science communicator, go find and source some with the links to the papers so people can read more and try to begin to form an idea about something extremely complicated that has been debated likely since the dawn of thought, your 15 min yt vid isnt going to make a dent in this debate especially not by laughing at the other side. Like an analog computer my ass DOI:10.1126/science.adl0913

I find it's easier to be kind in a world without free will or the illusion of it. It's difficult to be angry or hate anyone much like anything.

We can choose to have free will the moment we are challenged and told we don't have it😛People have done things irrational, hard to rationalize, hard to explain in any biological sense like "self-preservation instinct" , since the dawn of time. The real problem is that we are limited overall in what we can do, our choices are kinda limited by our physical, cognitive abilities, which could be enhanced, but would still make them limited. I suspect this is why there is evidence for no free will found by scientists.

Does this mean Sabine has converted another follower for Super Determinism or can an idea like The Transactional Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics still have a chance? Post-Script: TIQM almost feels like it's trying to say time itself is a living thing and our actions are basically a spider web weaving itself while regarding which route it wants to take. I could just not be understanding it very well though :).

I do not think so. I see on a daily basis how my actions often predate my awareness of my actions. Also to answer a question you may also have asked, does it matter and or do you care, no and no.

To add to the above we know that our brains have the ability to comprehend things. For example you can comprehend the video and comment. But the atoms on their own can't comprehend. So the argument that atoms cant make decisions and thus the brain can't may not hold true. I do agree with you that it makes sense that there is no free will but the question of consciousness, comprehension and the illusion of free will need answering before you can confidently say that free will does not exists at all.

There is no certainty that humans do not have free will. What was offered in this video, and most others on this topic, was various arguments as to why free will does not exist. It is all an unproven hypothesis. The scientific proof of human determinism does not exist. Even if life was completely deterministic - and I don't think it is - a person would be well advised to just continue to live life believing that they have free will. if you have watched 74 video on the subject then you are not going to get anything more by watching a 75th video that proposes determinism. Get out of the rabbit hole that is determinism. It is not helpful. Try looking for videos that support free will. There are less of them but they are around. Anyway - good luck to you. I wish you well.

You very well express the one of the problems with determinism. That is the potential for nihilism. However it need not be like that. As you may have worked out from my previous post I don't believe in determinism - for many of the reason said in that post and others as well. But leave that aside for the moment even if the world is deterministic it need not lead to nihilism. Perhaps you could think of life as a very long train journey. Once you are on the train your destination is determined. However that does not mean that you can't enjoy the trip. You can watch the world go by and admire its beauty and diversity. You can interact with the other passengers on the train and enjoy their company. After all you are all on this trip together. Joy and happiness still exist and they are real if you choose them. Even in the video the presenter of the video said at the end - "Joy is still joy and sorrow is still sorrow. We are part of a great connected Universe where the play button was hit billions of years ago and the story is continuing to unfold with us both as the actors and the audience." Enjoy the trip. You might as well.

to me it's not even useful to think about. in either possiblity nothing changes

The acceptance of the plain fact that one cannot think a thought before one has thought it, puts free will to bed. One's brain makes a _post hoc_ rationale for each thought and action that deceives one into thinking the conscious self was the author. The fact is we are all watching a computer game playthrough with the controller unplugged, our brains convince us that we are controlling the action on screen, but it's just a subtle sleight of neuro-chemical hand.

@@chimpinabowtie6913 I don't think you read my post. Or of you did I don't think you understood. The post hoc rationalisation performed by the conscious mind has been well known for decades. It doesn't stop other cognition from occurring. Nor does the argument convince me that all is predetermined. A physicist is trained to analyse problems by reduction. It's a powerful method for analysing problems bound by simple rules. But this is not system bound by simple rules. It's a complex system. To understand a complex system requires a more complex system. There is a lot we do not understand about cognition, plenty of space for what we call free will to come about.

I couldn't agree more. Nothing worse than physicists who because they have a hammer, see everything as a nail. Free will has nothing to do with physics or causality. At worse, this sort of reductionism is harmful because it denies the possibility of ethical agency. From a philosophical point of view, the arguments levelled here are perfectly tautological. Is free will an illusion ? So is then everything else in human experience : After all, we're just a few kilograms of water and carbon, temporarily shaped by the universe. The possibility that the living self can will to act while being totally conditioned by the material environment, is ironically too abstract for people who think the world as a Lego set.

"The fact is we are all watching a computer game" ->@@chimpinabowtie6913 . You clearly have access to "facts". How lucky of you.

In this case I think it is more to make a controversial video so that he can make some money and that I would say is intentional and there fore free will.

Isso não faz sentido. Dentro da lógica da inexistência do livre arbítrio a pessoa só está pesquisando sobre o livre arbítrio, porquê, obviamente, ela não tinha o poder de não fazê-lo. Em outras palavras, uma série de acontecimentos passados, e reações químicas em cadeia e interações neurais do indivíduo o levaram à esses questionamentos.

@@Zafe_f Just in case others read this, you've written: "It makes no sense. Within the logic of the non-existence of free will, the person is only researching free will, because, obviously, they did not have the power not to do so. In other words, a series of past events, chemical chain reactions and neural interactions led the individual to these questions." You are simply asserting your result as fact beforehand. Any such assertion requires a thought experiment. That experiment requires the selection of an infinitesimally small point in space/time to establish the initial conditions. Then you need to come forward in time with only deterministic effects acting on the thought experiment. Good luck with that. Você está simplesmente afirmando seu resultado como um fato de antemão. Qualquer afirmação desse tipo requer um experimento mental. Esse experimento requer a seleção de um ponto infinitesimalmente pequeno no espaço/tempo para estabelecer as condições iniciais. Então você precisa avançar no tempo com apenas efeitos determinísticos agindo sobre o experimento mental. Boa sorte com isso.

Your statement is only valid if free will does not, in fact, exist.

@@AreAitchSea Well, even if free will does exist, then someone who does NOT believe it exists cannot blame me. If they would, they would immediately deny their belief

No.

Nope

I've had premonitions all my life and all of them have come true. Not a single vision has failed to come to pass. Free will is an illusion, a man-made concept that didn't exist until we as a species arrogantly decided we were in control. You are a part of something much bigger than you or anyone else could ever hope to be. Just enjoy the ride and quit bitching.

Interesting idea, that free will runs on deeper circuitry in the brain - I'd argue that its even more likely to be deterministic and out of our control in that case

One more criticism of those experiments. Scientists said they can predict 4 seconds ahead of the participants being aware of it. What happens when a participant makes a decision instantly when the math numbers are presented? One could easily divide, multiply, add subtract those numbers within 4 seconds. Free will may determine which operation is first because of preference. There's no preference in quantum state. It's all of them all the time.

Not irony, but destiny…😂

Why would adding complexity to decisions add any amount of freedom?

@@spooky_action because freedom requires a context. When that context is arbitrary then the decision making process is also arbitrary and therefore can be measured and then predicted. I guess the measurement and prediction system is just detecting a tendency towards sides (in the case of left vs right hand) or the tendency towards something more abstract but equally arbitrary in terms of addition or subtraction. What if free will is actually the ability to shape and modify the natural choices of our mind. Each choice, however arbitrary, is presented to us as our own decision so that we have a clear sense of self. In fact, each (non-arbitrary) choice is much more the result of many previous choices we've made combined with various values and beliefs that we hold. In fact, how free you are is a factor of the beliefs you hold, but bear in mind that someone can hold two contradictory beliefs. Ben Miles is a case in point, since he believes that free will doesn't exist, but at the same time he wants it to exist, therefore his desire contradicts his head knowledge, and those two contradictory things will fight internally when Ben is faced with decisions or value judgements that rest on our understanding of free will, such as concepts of justice. You could say that free will is truly exhibited when Ben decides to listen to his head or his heart when making such value judgements. I suspect he will listen to his heart, since that will lead him to more morally desirable and pleasurable outcomes than his somewhat mechanistic head knowledge. Scientists can have a tendency to over simplify the universe and then draw bogus conclusions. (cue spherical cow meme)

@@stephen-rhythm-28 Because the illusion of free will does exist, which is all it could ever be, an illusion, given a computational system such as a brain. Adding any amount of complex word salad won't make it any more free. For example, you say "What if free will is actually the ability to shape and modify the natural choices of our mind". Shaping and modifying things has the same problem, the process of shaping and modifying is not free. It's just another process. You can't escape the fact that the process is determined by the state of the system and the laws of physics.

@@spooky_action Indeed, but the laws of physics are incomplete, and may remain so given that 95% of the matter and energy within the observable bounds of our universe are beyond our observation, and so called dark matter and dark energy for this reason. What I mean is, we do not know all the laws of physics, and the ones that we do know are at best a subset. Anyhow, I’m of the opinion that the wave equations governing quantum interactions are real, as otherwise how could we harness them in order to solve equations within quantum computers. Wave equations and superposition are abstract notions, so we can draw the conclusion that our universe comprises of these equations as its building blocks, and in my opinion experimentation so far confirms this (eg, such as the delayed-choice quantum eraser experiment). Free will is also an abstract notion, therefore I do not see how our incomplete knowledge of the laws of physics is sufficiently complete to rule out the abstract notion of free will, which may be as real as wave equations. However, there is certainly a difference in kind between the two. Wave equations relate to the extremely small, whereas general relativity relates to the extremely big, and newtonian mechanics relates to ordinary scales. All of these are descriptions of physical phenomena, whereas philosophy aims to describe the metaphysical and the existence of the metaphysical requires self aware, broadly intelligent beings, capable of independent reasoning. Indeed it is the exploration of the abstract yet tangible experience of these beings that causes this conversation. This sort of investigation is qualitatively and quantitatively different to that of the physical at its three major scales: quantum, macro and relativistic. Yet, that at the quantum scale the universe is the equations that govern it, perhaps should suggest that we shouldn’t so easily dismiss other abstract notions as being illusional rather than real. This becomes especially so if we define ‘real’ to mean shared experience, since we all experience a quality we describe as freedom of choice, and though the investigation of that is certainly fascinating, it should take quite a lot of evidence to rule it out as a thing, and I’m simply arguing that we don’t have enough evidence to do that. Moreover, the whole may be more than the sum of its parts, as can be observed with the spontaneous symmetry breaking that happens in crystals, and the fact that the resulting low energy state can’t be predicted by the laws of physics although it is perfectly allowed for (it doesn’t violate these laws). Or to put that another way: laws of physics can lack predictive power in certain circumstances, and then we often formulate new laws, and this is why chemistry is a separate subject to physics. In other words, much of the phenomena that we observe in chemistry cannot be predicted by physics, although the laws of physics are not violated by these phenomena. One could argue that it is wise to apply Occam's razor and conclude that free will must be an illusion. However, the reasons against this are the very real conclusions on subjects such as justice that may follow if we firmly draw this conclusion. Or in other words, important things in life actually become worse if we conclude this. Furthermore, over application of Occam’s razor can lead us to remove things simply because they are too unknown for us. If on the other hand we posit that free will is real or could be real, then there is a great deal left to investigate and explore on this topic. Nevertheless, it is up to us to decide whether to accept free will as something real or as an illusion or conclude that we don’t know. It is kind of similar to the quantum physics discussion on whether wave equations are real or whether they are simply our own approximation for something else and in that sense are a useful illusion. As someone who is interested in mental health, I find it important to take ownership of ones own actions, and free will as a concept is a necessary part of that. I’m not a fan of theories which close of sections of possible reality, I think the cost of getting it wrong is too great while there still remains plenty of possibility that such phenomena are actually real. I’ve found a lot of positive outcomes when I follow this more open minded line of thinking! I can actually live by this and remain healthy.

@@Betulaaah whoah there horsie, you don't have to go full postmodernism on us, there is a compromise between words being meaningless with respect to a hypothetical objective reality and being very meaningful indeed with respect to ourselves. take your time and muse over the 'apple' for instance, you will see that its referentiality serves as a truism as good as any.

According to the model Miles presented, your procrastination was determined to a large degree and maybe random in some ways due to quantum collapses which you have no control over. How? Maybe your past determined either that 1) your discomfort with doing the thing Or 2) your fear of making the wrong move - would be more powerful than your desire to get things done. As to those reasons, I’m speaking from personal experience.