Free Will, is it just for Man?

[RAFH]

Check out this article:
http://brembs.net/spontaneous/
It appears Man may not be the special creature some creaIDiots claim he is, others like the lowly fruit fly may also be tested by GAWD to see if they can make the right decisions and so earn their place in Heaven or conversely, land up in a place with not Fruits at all.

[Cath B]

The survival value in spontaneity is high, unpredictability in movement makes things harder for predators.

...a rabbit being chased through a forest. Now, if the rabbit ran predictably (e.g. ten feet forward and five feet to the right, allowing for obstacles) then any moderately good brain capable of learning this model could catch it relatively easily. So the rabbit must run less predictably than this. Now if it could decide to jink to the side at a certain point, then its path becomes intrinsically less predictable. However, any good poker player will tell you that people deciding to do something have unconscious 'tells' that will reveal to a crafty player exactly what their opponent is planning. So the predator could theoretically learn to predict such a voluntary change in path.

An interesting consequence of this is that to truly optimise its chances of survival the rabbit must make use of indeterminacy - it must make movements that it does not plan in advance. Then there is no way the predator can learn to predict what the rabbit is going to do. And the consequence of that is that the predator's brain has to be able to do the same thing...

from Don Alhambra's post here (http://www.talkrational.org/showthread.php?p=33189#post33189).

[Febble]

Time for a little Dennett, I think.

What makes this decision-making process any free-er than any other kind?

[Preno]

The survival value in spontaneity is high, unpredictability in movement makes things harder for predators.What makes you think that free will or freedom entails unpredictability or that there is some sort of intimate connection between the two?

[Febble]

The survival value in spontaneity is high, unpredictability in movement makes things harder for predators.What makes you think that free will or freedom entails unpredictability or that there is some sort of intimate connection between the two?

She doesn't say she does, does she?

[Preno]

I guess you're right, she talks about spontaneity, I must have connected it with the thread title.

[Monad]

The survival value in spontaneity is high, unpredictability in movement makes things harder for predators.What makes you think that free will or freedom entails unpredictability or that there is some sort of intimate connection between the two?

Exactly what I was thinking. I don't see unpredictability/spontaneity, however useful for survival, as having a lot to do with "free will".

[RAFH]

Free will could allow spontaneity, but then so could a lack of free will, imagine if you will, being unable to plan or even imagine alternatives just always doing whatever comes to mind. Free will would entail the ability to go with impulse or analyze the situation and plan a response or do what you've always done or flip a coin or follow someone else's example or whatever, including even the ability to go against all of those and just say fuckit, door number four.

I tend to suspect free will is highly over rated and exists to a very small degree, if at all. One will do what one has been programmed to do, any variation is a result of variations in the situation, even if it's just that you've been there before and sort of know what lies behind door number 4. You didn't know that before. And if you did, there will have been many changes since anyway. People will do what they are programmed by their past experiences and genetic makeup. The only unpredictability lies in what we don't know about that past experience and genetic makeup. In many situations, many people will simply fail to decide to do anything, letting the situation control them.

[Linus]

Doesn't this study just show that flies have memory (rather than showing that flies have free will)?

[Elka]

Free Will, is it just for Man?

Naw, it's for woman too!

Elká

[Barbarian]

I don't see unpredictability/spontaneity, however useful for survival, as having a lot to do with "free will".Consider the usual attempts by proponents to explain the popular, dare I say natural concept of free will, and it becomes obvious that whatever they mean by it, they consider the incomplete determination of one's choices by external, physical factors to be a - or maybe the - fundamental component. It would seem that they think there is some sort of internal determination mechanism filtering out the remaining choices and leaving only one, which is actually realized. Since any particular physical mechanism is usually deemed to be 'external', it follows that this internal mechanism must be non-physical, and therefore looked at from the physical world it is non-deterministic, which is at least a sub-case of - if not outright equivalent to - unpredictable.

So this is the point of bringing unpredictability into free will discussions.

[Monad]

Yes I know why they are bringing it in - I just think they are looking in the wrong direction. It's the same cop-out argument as the appeal to quantum mechanics to explain consciousness.

[Febble]

Well, I think determinism looks terribly un-free, so people assume (indeed I did, for half a century) that a bit of stochastic slop would be necessary (if not sufficient) for freedom to exist.

Daniel Dennett's triumph (for me) was to show that any "freedom worth having" was as possible in a deterministic system as in a non-deterministic one. All quantum indeterminacy can do (which could be important, nonetheless) is to possibly give us the option of NOT willing an outcome - of leaving it to chance. Which is a bit ironic, really.

[Barbarian]

Yes I know why they are bringing it in - I just think they are looking in the wrong direction.I've explained it for the benefit of the lurkers. :D

I think you should do likewise, i.e. explain why do you think they are looking in the wrong direction? As far as I can tell, definitions involving non-determinism come the closest to actually grasp the natural, almost innate fuzzy notion of free will.It's the same cop-out argument as the appeal to quantum mechanics to explain consciousness.Penrose FTW. I despise that attempt too.

[Febble]

It's the same cop-out argument as the appeal to quantum mechanics to explain consciousness.Penrose FTW. I despise that attempt too.

FWIW, so did I, even before I read Dennett!

And I might say, Barbarian, that it was you who started me down that long road....

Thanks!

[Barbarian]

Daniel Dennett's triumph (for me) was to show that any "freedom worth having" was as possible in a deterministic system as in a non-deterministic one. All quantum indeterminacy can do (which could be important, nonetheless) is to possibly give us the option of NOT willing an outcome - of leaving it to chance. Which is a bit ironic, really.We should have this discussion sometime.

[Monad]

Yes I know why they are bringing it in - I just think they are looking in the wrong direction.I've explained it for the benefit of the lurkers. :D

I think you should do likewise, i.e. explain why do you think they are looking in the wrong direction? As far as I can tell, definitions involving non-determinism come the closest to actually grasp the natural, almost innate fuzzy notion of free will.

Because for me reducing free will to being able to do things randomly leaves real choice out of the picture just as much as complete mechanical determinism does. So we are either machines or randomisers? For me free will is not an absolute (as in say Sartres "Man is a useless passion condemned to be free" or Cartesian dualism) - it's a relative capacity for self determination that arises from our capacity to self model our actions and intentions and those of others (including becoming aware of tacit aspects of our thinking and action - see Polanyi) and through this become relatively more aware of our choices and the factors influencing our potential response to those choices and the potential consequences of our actions. This is perfectly compatible with a materialist viewpoint - it's only a problem for absolutists who want it to either be pure freedom or determinism. I would say I tend to agree with the view that free will and freedom = consciousness of necessity combined with the ability to effect change through human action (which may be individual or collective) - we make our own history but not under circumstances of our own choosing, to paraphrase Marx. Our freedom is not unfettered choice but contextualised choice and for me that makes it more meaningful as it has a ground and substance.

[Monad]

It's the same cop-out argument as the appeal to quantum mechanics to explain consciousness.Penrose FTW. I despise that attempt too.

FWIW, so did I, even before I read Dennett!

As did I (well I've not read Dennett actually and didn't know he argued this).

[Cath B]

The survival value in spontaneity is high, unpredictability in movement makes things harder for predators.What makes you think that free will or freedom entails unpredictability or that there is some sort of intimate connection between the two?

Exactly what I was thinking. I don't see unpredictability/spontaneity, however useful for survival, as having a lot to do with "free will".

I don't think it does: I have yet to be convinced that free will exists. I feel as if I possess it but suspect I may be deluded.

The "Free Will" bit comes from the article linked in RAFH's OP. not from me.

[Don Alhambra]

I don't think it does: I have yet to be convinced that free will exists. I feel as if I possess it but suspect I may be deluded.

Me too.

One day I will get round to reading Dennett. :D

[Cath B]

One day I will get round to reading Dennett. :D

Me Too! :D

[Monad]

tbh (I know this might sound heretical) I don't find him that interesting as a philosopher so I've not really been motivated to get around to it. I've seen him talking about his ideas (in Dawkins series on Atheism for example) and wasn't really impressed.

[Febble]

tbh (I know this might sound heretical) I don't find him that interesting as a philosopher so I've not really been motivated to get around to it. I've seen him talking about his ideas (in Dawkins series on Atheism for example) and wasn't really impressed.


Well, same for me, until I actually read his books, Freedom Evolves especially. I think he's less good at selling himself or his ideas outside his books than Dawkins (who is better?) but I find the books themselves more original (so far). Freedom Evolves radically changed the way I think