{"id":134770,"date":"2021-08-23T13:43:20","date_gmt":"2021-08-23T18:43:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bigthink.com\/?post_type=ftm_question&p=134770"},"modified":"2021-09-15T07:50:39","modified_gmt":"2021-09-15T12:50:39","slug":"do-we-have-free-will","status":"publish","type":"ftm_question","link":"https:\/\/bigthink.com\/questions\/do-we-have-free-will\/","title":{"rendered":"Do we have free will?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n <\/a>\n
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\n \n Neuropsych <\/a>\n <\/div>\n\n
\n \n Is free will an illusion? <\/a>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
Philosophers have been asking the question for hundreds of years. Now neuroscientists are joining the quest to find out.<\/div>\n\n\n
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\n \n Dr. Uri Maoz <\/a>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
Dr. Uri Maoz is an assistant professor of computational neuroscience at Crean College of Health and Behavioral Sciences at Chapman University. His research lies at the intersection of volition, decision-making,[…]<\/div>\n
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“You could think about this as a struggle<\/mark> between the later unconscious and the current conscious\u2026”<\/p> <\/div>\n

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“…because later on I will not be in a position to control myself in the way that I want it. Neuroscience is a newcomer to the field of free will. What are exactly the kind of questions that are worth asking? What different kinds of experiments that can say something about conscious and unconscious decisions could help us be more modest in what we realize we can control and what we can’t, and then also be a bit more forgiving towards ourselves about our decisions and our actions? Not everything is within our control<\/b> as much as we would think or maybe even would wish.”<\/p>

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The ability to interact peacefully and voluntarily provides individuals a better quality of life.<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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We also know that that brain is set up so that there are at least two kinds of behavior.\u00a0<\/p> <\/div>\n

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[The first is] what happens when I shine a light in your eye and your iris contracts, or I hit your knee with a hammer and your leg jerks upward. […] It’s that second kind of behavior, one that engages vast amounts of the brain, particularly the frontal lobes, that incorporates an enormous amount of information in the causation of the behavior, that has some mental model of the world, that can predict the consequences of possible behavior and select them on the basis of those consequences. All of those things carve out the realm of behavior that we call free will. Which it is useful to distinguish from brute involuntary reflexes<\/b>, but which doesn’t necessarily have to involve some mysterious soul<\/mark>.<\/p>

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In reality, I don’t think there’s any free will at all.<\/p> <\/div>\n

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The polite thing that I’ve sort of said for decades, is that, well, if there’s free will, it’s in all the boring places and those places were getting more and more cramped. If you want to insist that today you decided to floss your teeth starting on your upper teeth, rather than your lower teeth, rather than the other way around, that that was an act of free will, whatever, I’ll grant that one to you, that’s where the free will is. In reality, I don’t think there’s any free will at all.<\/b> […] When you look at the number of things we recognize now that are biological organic, where 500 years ago, or five years ago, we would have had a harsh moral judgment about it. And instead we now know, “Oh, that’s a biological phenomenon.” And when we’re we gonna get to the point is recognizing, “Yeah, we’re biological organisms.” This notion of free will, for want of a less provocative word, is nothing but a myth.<\/p>

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There’s a very sharp limit to the depth that we as conscious agents can probe our own activities.<\/p> <\/div>\n

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There’s a very sharp limit<\/b> to the depth that we as conscious agents can probe our own activities. This sort of superficial access that we have to what’s going on, that’s what consciousness is. Now, when I say, who’s this, “we,” who’s got this access? That’s itself part of the illusion<\/mark> because there isn’t a, sort of, boss part of the brain that’s sitting there with this limited access. That itself is part of the illusion. What it is, is a bunch of different subsystems, which have varying access to varying things and that conspire in a sort of competitive way to execute whatever projects it is that they’re, in their, sort of, mindless way executing.<\/p>

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Every time we look at an electron, it moves. There’s uncertainty with regards to the position of the electron. So what does that mean for free will?<\/p> <\/div>\n

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It means, in some sense, we do have some kind of free will. In the sense that no one can determine your future events given your past history. There’s always the wild card.<\/b> There’s always the possibility of uncertainty<\/mark> in whatever we do. So this means that free will, determining the future? Hey, these are philosophical questions that seem to indicate that we have some kind of free will.<\/p>

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The essential part of free will that people wanna hold on to is the sense that that therefore makes you responsible<\/mark> for your actions.<\/p> <\/div>\n

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So, there is the idea of personal responsibility. And I think that’s very important. And I don’t think that all this mechanistic work on the brain in any way threatens that. You learn that responsibility is to be understood at the social level. The deal, the rules that we work out, living together. So the metaphor I like to use is cars and traffic. We can study cars and all their physical relationships and know exactly how that works. It in no way prepares us to understand traffic when they all get together and start interacting. That’s another level of organization and description of these elements interacting. So the same is with brains. That we can understand brains to the nth degree and that’s fine and that’s what we’re doing, but it’s not going to, in any way, interfere with the fact that taking responsibility in a social network<\/b> is done at that level.<\/p>

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Free will vs. morality: is free will worth it?<\/div>\n
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Is a world with less free will but also less suffering one in which we would want to live?<\/p> <\/div>\n

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If our decision-making can be manipulated or determined by our biology, should we not try various interventions to prevent the criminally inclined from harming others?<\/p> <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

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As Burgess, who penned A Clockwork Orange, wrote, \u201cIs a man who chooses to be bad perhaps in some way better than a man who has the good imposed upon him?\u201d Intuitively, many say yes. Moral decisions must, in some way, be our own. [\u2026] And yet, it begs the question: is \u201cfree choice\u201d worth all the evil in the world<\/span>?<\/span><\/b> If my being brainwashed or \u201crehabilitated\u201d means children won\u2019t die malnourished or the Holocaust would never happen, then so be it. If lobotomizing or neuro-editing a serial killer will prevent them from killing again, is that not a sacrifice worth making? There\u2019s no obvious reason why we should value free will above morality<\/mark> or the right to life. A world without murder and evil \u2014 even if it meant a world without free choices for some \u2014 might not be such a bad place. \u2014<\/span>Jonny Thomson<\/i><\/span><\/p> <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

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What’s the difference between brainwashing and rehabilitation?<\/div>\n\n\n
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Jonny Thomson taught philosophy in Oxford for more than a decade before turning to writing full-time. He\u2019s a staff writer at Big Think, where he writes about philosophy, theology, psychology,[…]<\/div>\n
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Beware of the “fallacy of excessive expertise.”<\/div>\n\n\n
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\n \n Barnaby Marsh <\/a>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
Dr. Barnaby Marsh is an expert on risk-taking. As a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, he did pioneering research on decision making in complex situations. He works with leaders of major[…]<\/div>\n
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“Great decisions in some ways are always evolving. You make a choice and then it’s critical to follow that choice up with another choice that’s the right choice and so on.”<\/p> <\/div>\n

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“So a great choice isn’t a single point in time, but a great choice is a commitment to take a path<\/mark> and a series of decisions along that path to keep things going in the right direction.”<\/p> <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

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These three things can help you make smarter and faster decisions.<\/div>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n\n
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When facing a hard decision, consider choosing change over inaction.<\/div>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n\n<\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n \n
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There is a neurological link between serotonin levels and the brain’s ability to control impulses and patience levels.<\/div>\n\n\n
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\n \n Jaimee Bell <\/a>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
Jaimee Bell is a freelance writer who specializes in sexual education and wellness, psychology and mental health. Alongside her freelance writing, Jaimee is a published erotica author. Her debut title,[…]<\/div>\n
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“The old adage \u201cpatience is a virtue\u201d is coming undone due to new research that suggests patience (along with impulse control) can be linked to specific neurological<\/mark> systems.”<\/p> <\/div>\n

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“A particularly interesting part of this study was that, upon stimulating the mPFC region of the brain in the mice, their ability to wait for the food reward was enhanced but only when they did not know the food\u2019s arrival time. <\/span>These results suggest that serotonin in the mPFC can impact the animal\u2019s ability to evaluate the time required to wait for a reward.<\/b><\/span>“<\/span>
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A study finds that sexual regret doesn’t change how we behave in the future.<\/div>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n\n
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Research from Ohio State finds that acetaminophen affects our emotions.<\/div>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n\n<\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n\n\n\n\n <\/a>\n
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Study confirms the existence of a special kind of groupthink in large groups.<\/div>\n\n\n
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I\u2019m a writer, musician, and father living in central New York with my wife, two daughters, one dog, two cats, and countless questions. I\u2019m especially interested in animal rights, creativity,[…]<\/div>\n
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\u201cEven though we predicted it, I was nevertheless stunned to see it really happen. This result challenges many long-held ideas about culture and how it forms.\u201d<\/p> <\/div>\n

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“That study concluded that after an idea enters a discussion among a large network of people, <\/span>it can gain irresistible traction by popping up again and again in enough individuals\u2019 conversations.<\/b><\/span> In networks of 50 people or more<\/mark>, such ideas eventually reach critical mass and become a prevailing opinion.”<\/span>
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Why your brain wants you to follow the crowd.<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Researchers explore the “complex web of connections” in your brain that allows you to make split second decisions.<\/div>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n\n
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“Neuroscience research is revealing how the chemistry and architecture of the brain make decisions for us,…”<\/p> <\/div>\n

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“…and how the brain\u2019s reaction to decision-making is based on confidence. Researchers have shown that a networked, hierarchical process is strung out across the brain to achieve these functions, even while specific neuron clusters are more active than others in helping us make decisions.”<\/p> <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

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New research pinpoints the neurons responsible for your choices.<\/div>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n\n
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Escaping the marshmallow brain trap.<\/div>\n\n\n
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\n \n Roman Krznaric <\/a>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
Roman Krznaric is a public philosopher who writes about the power of ideas to change society. His latest book is The Good Ancestor: A Radical Prescription for Long-Term Thinking. His[…]<\/div>\n
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“Do I party today, or save for my pension for tomorrow?”<\/p> <\/div>\n

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“Do I upgrade to the latest iPhone or plant a seed in the ground for posterity? And the part of our brain which drives our short-term behaviors, I call the marshmallow brain. It’s part of our neuroanatomy which is all about immediate rewards and instant gratification.”<\/p> <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

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Can thinking about the past really help us create a better present and future?<\/div>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n\n
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\n \n Can quantum physics explain consciousness? <\/a>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
A theoretical physicist returns to Penrose and Hameroff’s theory of “quantum consciousness.”<\/div>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n\n
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A recent study showed that monkeys can make logical choices when given an A or B scenario.<\/div>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n\n
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\n \n Life <\/a>\n <\/div>\n\n
\n \n Why a ‘genius’ scientist thinks our consciousness originates at the quantum level <\/a>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
Do our minds have quantum structures that give rise to consciousness? Sir Roger Penrose, one of the world’s most famous scientists, believes this and can explain how he thinks it works.<\/div>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n\n
\n\n \n
\n \n
\n \n \"\" <\/picture>\n <\/figure>\n <\/a>\n <\/div>\n\n
\n
\n \n Thinking <\/a>\n <\/div>\n\n
\n \n How philosophy blends physics with the idea of free will <\/a>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
How does philosophy try to balance having free will with living in a deterministic universe?<\/div>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n\n
\n\n \n
\n \n
\n \n \"\" <\/picture>\n <\/figure>\n <\/a>\n <\/div>\n\n
\n
\n \n Neuropsych <\/a>\n <\/div>\n\n
\n \n What\u2019s the deal with free will? <\/a>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
Some experts say there’s no such thing. I choose to believe there likely is.<\/div>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n\n <\/div>\n ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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