Unconscious Determinants of Free Decisions in the Human Brain
No matter what anyone tells you, you have the total free-will to punch yourself in the face. By applying enough discipline, you can even regulate your punching to 2 fps (face-punches / second) going on for as long as 20 seconds. Or as long as your heart desires. Go ahead, try it out now!
Alright, please don't. Jokes aside, notice that most of the times we're pretty much on autopilot until we're conscious enough to imagine and flaunt our free-will to do whatever we want, at any moment in time. Of course, all within the boundaries of physical reality. Like punching yourself in the face is easy. But jumping 30 feet up in the air without a jetpack? That's impossible unless if you're a mutant.
Sorry for digressing. What I really want to do today is to try to blow your mind and perhaps, change your thoughts about the nature of free-will and its implications on responsibility / accountability. If you believe that everything that happens in nature is a result of causes and effects since the beginning of time, why do we mostly shove it aside when it comes to our free-will? Are our minds separate from nature?
It's easy to answer that. Just imagine someone piling a screwdriver into your skull, mashing up your brain like mashed potato. It wouldn't take a genius to say that your mind will be totally f**ked, if you're not dead yet. Point is, our brain is the processing unit in which all free-decisions are made (or the illusion of it).
What will happen to libertarianism if it could be sufficiently proven that free-will does not really exist? In my opinion, it will improve the case, not destroy it. By rationalising the matter in this post, I have hopes for libertarians to start thinking about this: choose compassion over condemnation (criminalisation), quite simply because of this little fact: free-will does have its limitations and it's quite likely an illusion anyway.
Sure, it's not a new thing to ponder about, and the neurosciences still do not have any convincing evidence regarding the matter.. other than this interesting paper which was published back in 2008 - Unconscious Determinants of Free Decisions in the Human Brain. Here's the abstract:-
There has been a long controversy as to whether subjectively ‘free’ decisions are determined by brain activity ahead of time. We found that the outcome of a decision can be encoded in brain activity of prefrontal and parietal cortex up to 10 s before it enters awareness. This delay presumably reflects the operation of a network of high-level control areas that begin to prepare an upcoming decision long before it enters awareness.
Now you might be thinking - if your set of choices for decision-making were predetermined way before time.. that would still not stop you from doing the most ludicrous of actions even in the most pressing of situations. For example, if you see a car speeding up your way while you're crossing the road, there's absolutely nothing to stop you from deciding to take off your clothes off, and start to jump around like Frogger.
Knowing everything that you can really do at any point in time before doing it.. this is the true test of free-will! But of course, it's impossible given that we're limited by time and the mental capacity to process the fullness of our situations. Which is why I believe that whatever we do with information and attention are crucial in determining the quality of our free-will.
So keep in mind - If you find yourself in an emergency and somehow thought about doing something wacky and bizarre, just know that you can't really control what really appears in your mind. It happens when it happens, but you will still have the final say on whether if you want to act upon any of your thoughts. It's just that your final say is based on the limited set of choices (or quite simply, information), in which your mind had somehow given attention to.
This is a write-up for an upcoming effort to renew and update my 6-month old Steemit article: The End of Criminalization: On Free Will, Accountability, and Compassion. I hope by looking at more questions and inputs from inquisitive minds, I would be able to illustrate some keypoints in the future. Thanks for reading!
Note: All images are for open-use, attribution free.
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I still remember "The End of Criminalization: On Free Will, Accountability, and Compassion" and I consider it one of the very best Steem post. I totally agree with what I remember of it and I was sharing those thoughts even before I read your post. I always intended to mention it in one of my post and I most probably will in the future. I glad you are thinking about revisit it.
Thanks @teamsteem, that's a huge encouragement :) I was thinking of rewording it. As it is, it feels kinda incomplete..
I think the concept of doing something wacky and bizarre is actually triggered by existential dread regarding free will.
It's deterministic for a human brain to think "Oh no, I have no free will? But maybe I can prove it somehow. I know, I will do something unexpected."
But the very conclusion that you should do something wacky and unexpected was caused by thinking about free will, which was caused by another event.
Cause and effect leads to determinism, and this determinism does not exist as a separate part of the universe, but exists the same way time does.
It's just the way it is.
It is not something you should be worried about, in my opinion. It's more wise to just focus on reality as it is, and not mourn over unchangeable aspects of reality and the universe. Best to accept it with courage, and move on.
You've expressed it well enough here - thanks :)
It warms my heart to see other people taking the question seriously about the incompatibility between 'free will' and quantum uncertainty and determinism... specifically that any assumption of indeterminacy cannot be proven, by the nature of it!
Lol I like this sentence. Way better than "it happens when it happens"!
Btw, I think there are some research going on about the point-of-no-return when it comes to decision-making, which is kinda interesting :)
The thing that really gives us free will is information. It's a part of the process that even the subconscious does not control. The risks that must be taken to acquire new information are a decision based on your knowledge though.
But even then, your information-banks have already decided that they need to acquire new data somehow, of course they can't know what will come. Yet even still, sometimes you just somehow know that some random thing is going to produce a useful new chunk of data which will change your decision processes.
I think it's pretty funny how anti-determinists like to portray determinism as though it makes everything a machine, even the precious 'self', and as though this somehow desecrates it. Yet at the same time they assert that AI will obsolete us! Which is it?
It's that final say we have. I have a thousand ridiculous scenarios running through my head in response to every day events. One day I would like to be able to react in many of those ways without consequence. But that's the rub isn't it. It's the potential consequences that define our reactions... Mostly ;0)
There is a certain correlation to be had between real life and online behaviour too. Online people feel free if the structures that normally bind them in situations. Giving them free reign to vent often heinous things without regard for feelings. Done studies and interviews with tools have found them to be relatively normal people. Tis very bizarre.
Damn it's 7am here. I think I need to neuter my brain with some caffeine!!
Havin' some afternoon beer :)
LOL sorry that you had to read such a thing in the morning!
I thought stake-based social comms may change this up a little. But anyway, the same person screwin others up online may be a perfectly nice stranger when meeting in person.. lol
Man, I am jealous. It's stupid to be jealous of different time zone beer drinkin! I know what I will be doing straight after work then lol.
I worked with a guy a couple of years ago that was a really funny, intelligent, gentle person. One day we came in and he was getting marched off the premises because he had made the local paper for aggressive trolling of some Scottish celeb woman. I spoke to him later and he said he was just joining in and thought it was a bit of fun. When I read what he wrote however I was like eek, that's not fun that's insane!
Mad world!
Hahah.. sometimes people dont know if they went overboard with the trolling and bullying. I don't think this kinda thing will happen all too often with blockchainbased social media platforms.. unless someone got downflagged.
The « Free will or not free will » question is a consequence of our perception of time. If you think that the time is linear, you may be wrong. If you accept that consciousness is permanent in the « now » time (the present moment) then free-will and non-free-will can co-exist in the now.
I suggest the reading of Deepack Chopra « the book of secret » and the Eckart Tollé videos for a better understanding of what is the present moment.
I find Eckart Tolle's stuff a little more digestible. Sometimes ago I watched a debate with Deepak Chopra in it and I must say that I only had question marks about his concept of consciousness xD
Honestly, I don't really care about free-will. Am just living my life how I like it, and the rest does not matter :)
I only bother about it since it's the bedrock argument for punishment in all its forms.. but otherwise, yeah nobody cares xD
It indeed should not be part of any arguing at all :(
I find this stuff hard to read.
Because it is some fine logic built on a pile of fallacies. Fallacies that the entire science community (except for those people who were black balled) accepts as fact.
There was a study done by a brain surgeon. He pricked a patients finger, and found the spot in the brain that was stimulated by that. He then set up to stimulate the area directly.
The current thinking was that if you prick the finger, the signal takes a finite amount of time to travel up the arm to the brain.
So, he pricked the finger and timed the response time.
Then he stimulated the area of the brain and timed the response time.
The pricking of the finger took 0 seconds to get to the brain.
The stimulating of the brain took longer.
So, the signal in your finger travels back in time to show up in your brain the moment it actually happens.
Determinism is based on particle physics of a physical universe. This model is quickly being thrown out. The universe is not physical, except at the point we interact with it.
Time is not linear, it is a loop. And the future is not determined by the past, the future is pulled into being by the now, and the past is just a back drop onto which it is painted.
Or, a specific example. Hitler was destined to show up. Even if someone would go back and time and kill baby Hitler, or his parents, he would still show up. He was a key pivotal moment in many people's unfolding life's story. Changing anything in the past or the future always resulted in Hitler.
Any papers published this? Most likely a poorly calibrated measuring device, or possibly one without sufficient resolution.
In my circles it is a well known study.
However, I have no memory of names, so I would have to google till I found it.
The reason I bring it up is that the results were so solid and so backwards from scientific point of view.
Pricking the finger was instantaneous.
Stimulating the brain took time to feel.
These strange findings also correspond with my current understanding of physics and metaphysics.
Your article on free will was so interesting, that I couldn't help but write my own.
Check it out here.
You've got nice ideas, but I've got my own, so I'd love it if you replied and told me what you think. =]
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