Is the Scientific Method invalidated without Free Will?

[Queso]

very interesting, i did not know that. sometimes i wish i could experience the mind of a mad man, or someone with severe mental issues, so i can get a better understanding. because obviously i know nothing than what i observe.

 

i know this guy who doesn't get a lot of sleep, i thought nothing of it.

he wanders around the town at night and stands in front of peoples houses he barely knows and just stands there and stares for hours. he was caught once not too long ago, and claimed he had no idea how he got there.

what do you think this is? :) should i be worried about him?

[Fishteacher73]

It could be sleep walking. Although sleep deprivation can cause dementia... :)

[Queso]

that makes sense. what exactly is dementia?

[Fishteacher73]

Essentailly the scientific term for crazy. :)

 

It can aslo refer to the gradual decline in mentyal abilities over time, ie senility.

 

But technically dementia encompasses psychosis, delerium, and depression.

[Fishteacher73]

There was a thread on religion and suicide, it seems that there is no significant connection. Suicide and celibacy take you out of the gene pool, intentionally. Your use of the term "comforting" implies we CHOOSE it because it's comforting.

 

Perhaps I jumped to conclusions on suicide with that example, but one can see that bad code can cause a program to crash. I think this is correlary to suicide IMO.

 

As for choosing comfort, thermodynamics does not choose the path of least resistence. We sleep, we eat, we produce wastes. All of these things are comforting, but we do not choose to do them. These are requirements for life. There are some that have the faith that the lack of these actions achieves their goal of enlightenment. This is the mental pathway that has been built in their minds. This is the same as reproduction. Animals and people do some increadibly dumb things just to "get some". This is instinct kicking in. Procreate or else. Some have been able to develop other pathways that the mind/brain rewards to compensate or pre-occupy this aspect of life.

[bumab]

Perhaps I jumped to conclusions on suicide with that example, but one can see that bad code can cause a program to crash. I think this is correlary to suicide IMO.

 

I'm not sure I'm comfortable with that reductionism, yet. :)

 

Animals and people do some increadibly dumb things just to "get some". This is instinct kicking in. Procreate or else. Some have been able to develop other pathways that the mind/brain rewards to compensate or pre-occupy this aspect of life.

 

And how would they go about doing that? You don't see dolphins playing so much that they forget to mate!:)

[Fishteacher73]

Do dolphins pray? Most celibacy is linked to religious purity. Remember, everything alters the pathways. Many inputs do not drastically alter ones nature, but a culmination of these can. Religious indoctrination would be one way to. (I do not mean to start a bad religion thread, but I think it is an apt and powerful example). Sexual fetishes also illustrate this pretty well. These serve no intrinsic reproductive aim, but are usually rewarded by the brain in the same way.

[Biochemist]

..i wish i could experience the mind of a mad man, or someone with severe mental issues, so i can get a better understanding...

It is interesting to experience folks that are are severly dysfunctional, but it is usually either really sad or really scary.

...i know this guy who doesn't get a lot of sleep...he wanders around the town at night and stands in front of peoples houses he barely knows and just stands there and stares for hours...should i be worried about him?

Until someone professional assesses his risk, there is cause for concern here. This is a serious enough behavior that it is worth asking whether he percieves social boundaries normally. Specificaly, he might not perceive violent behavior normally. That would be sociopathy. He is probably not a sociopath (probably merely eccentric) but you don't know yet. Unless you know him personally.

[maddog]

However, I think it's important to realize that free will is something outside of nature, because by definition it defies causality. That's why I've been pushing ya- I want to see if you can come up

with a way free will DOES NOT defy casuality.

:)

Let's see you have started this line of thinking by "Claiming" that "Free Will" were it to exist MUST be

OUTSIDE of Nature and CAUSALITY. I would wish for you to Show me an example of a Causal Event

that would be Broken. My whole point as has been the exchange (though a bit more heated) with

FshT is that were Free Will to EXIST, it would have to do so within the Realm/Domain of the Mind which

I question whether it Exists in a "Physical" way. Like you I may "Believe" it may exist (think it does). I

do not Accept FshT's counterClaim that it MUST Not Exist.

Has nothing to do with sentient or intellegence, those are just lines in the sand. Many people think dolphins are sentient, or at least somewhat intellegent. Do they have free will? It could go on down the line. Or is that what makes humans special, is free will what Genisis was talking about: "made in God's image" ?

Unlike Qfwfq, I think Free Will (independent action) is a test for Sentience. If a Dolphin under

experiment would perform such that Free Will was definitely demonstrated, I would say a Dolphin (or

Porpoise) is Sentient. I have heard of a pair of Dolphins in an experiment where one is trained to do a

task. Next day the other Dolphin does the task as expected of the first without fail. First Dolphin must

have communicated the instruction to perform to the second. Some biologist think All mammals have

the capacity for communication of some form. Do all mammals have the requirements for Sentience ?

I am open to hearing more data, though I have not formed an opinion one way or the other.

 

Maddog

[maddog]

What I am saying is the human thought is no more than a sieres of physical and chemical interactions. Just as molecules do not think, their combined actions really do not "think". They can cause observation and instigate causal cascades in the brain to have a reactioon, but they do not "think" and niether to we.

I was wondering if this was your position. So don't ask me to accept this as FACT. Then we will have no

problem. I can accept that this is your belief. Of course, since you were to determined to believe that

what does it matter, since you don't think. My question is, if you and I are made of the same kind of

tissue and stuff (maybe different genetics and experiences and all) why would we have Opposing

Beliefs, if it is all Determined anyhow ? :)

 

Maddog

[maddog]

You misread my first quote. The mind is a function of the brain. The brain is a chemical/electrical "machine". Part of the result is the human mind. This allows the human to take in information and use it to their advantage (usually). So I will rephrase, the mind is an extension of the brain; at what point do chemical reactions and electrical impulses get to do what they want and not waht the basic laws of nature demand?

This is where I disagree with you again. I don't the human (or any animal) Mind as something that is

Physical per se. I do think whatever it is (if it actually exists) is linked to the Brain in some process we

are not yet familiar with. I also don't call this SuperNatural either. Just Not Physical. Your Belief in

Determinism however you have made it up is fine with me. It just isn't any longer what was prominent

back in the 18th Century as you appear to define it.

Again, I think you mistook my second quote. The "decision" making trees are not genetic, but the individual's ability to construct them accurately is. This can be fine tuned through experience. This advanced ability is what make humans much more adaptable and successful so far.

No again you misunderstood me as well. Using reductionistic thinking. What is the smallest element

that makes a single decision ? Research has been attempting to address this. Best guess so far is

a neural net of neurons. Just how many is not the moment known.

 

Maddog

[maddog]

Humans do a very good job at developing and altering the causal mental cascade through experience. (See my post in "Where does intelligence come from?").

If all thinking processes was simply deterministic, there would no insightful, or Creative

thinking. This type of thinking can be sometimes even counterintuitive when compared to conventional

thinking. A good example is the scientist who had discovered Benzene. He had this compound he knew

was carbon based yet could figure out how connect it together. One night he had a dream

where six snakes were connected such the head of each snake was eating the tail of another. With

this he woke up realizing a new way to link carbon was in a ring. This was never considered before.

So where deterministically did that come from ? In fact, where deterministically do Dreams come

from ? You could say Dreams are just one method the mind uses to regurgitate the experiences of the

day. Yet numerous times something in a dream which had not occured in any way in that persons life

and yet communicated something in which that or another individual was able to get foreknowledge

for some future action. You might think that odd. Such an event has happened to me. So I don't

To me that would create a loop in causality were this just one after another. There are some physicists

today who seem to consider that now allowed. Maybe Hawking is against, Though Kip Thorne of

Cal Tech is OK with it as is Archibald Wheeler in special cases. I am not so sure that this is limited to

a requirement for Sentience either. :)

 

Maddog

[maddog]

We sleep, we eat, we produce wastes. All of these things are comforting, but we do not choose to do them. These are requirements for life. There are some that have the faith that the lack of these actions achieves their goal of enlightenment. This is the mental pathway that has been built in their minds. This is the same as reproduction. Animals and people do some increadibly dumb things just to "get some". This is instinct kicking in. Procreate or else.

I understand bodily function are required. However the mind can temporalily control these functions.

Sufis who can volitionally stop their heart. Deep sea divers when diving for pearls can hold their breath

up to 15 longer than most. Any person when underwater can choose to hold their breath upto a

minute and not deplete the oxygen in their brain. This measure of control is affecting their

parasympathetic nervous system. People can fast many days and not eat. Instinct would have them

eat and they do not. Zen Buddhists choose to think of nothing for months even years at a time. :)

 

Maddog

[maddog]

Do dolphins pray?

Don't know myself, have you learned to communicate with them yet. Their pops and clicks could be

prayers for lots of fish to eat. Who knows... :)

 

Maddog

[ldsoftwaresteve]

Please forgive me if I tend to oversimplify but here's what I see:

 

IF we can identify what free will is and in so doing connect it to conscious creatures like ourselves, then we can say we have it. If we can't, we don't.

 

IF we don't have it, I'm not worried about losing it.

 

IF we have it, can we lose it? Like an eyeball, we know we have at least one. We can take steps to protect it/them. Can we take steps to protect our free will?

 

If we don't have to, then please tell me why we are discussing this again. I've already shown that SM can only be invalidated by the SM, which means, free will is outside of the discussion. So we're talking about free will.

 

What is the issue, really?

 

If the issue is "I don't want to be controlled by existence", well, I think S.O.L. applies.

 

Life is a road that splits and goes in different directions. We choose the path and that's all we can do. If that's free will, then so be it, we have it. If we rail against the choices and the fact that we have to pick a path, we simply waste time and miss out on some of the paths.

 

Let's say that in our lifetime we have roughly 2270592000 seconds of life available to us. If we make one choice per second, that's how many choices we could possibly make. If we simplified that and said we made one choice per hour, we'd have 630720 choices over one lifetime. In any case I imagine that I'd have trouble distinguishing between 630720 and 2270592000 and infinity.

[Qfwfq]

I'm still busy too, bumab! :)

I personally would not call that free will, since it is still outside our control (if our sense of self is not an illusion), but if that's your definition, I think it holds water. But, I would still argue with it- unpredictability is not "free." I think you've got a good arguement for a will, however, that will is still not free to do as it wills. So we're still in the dilemma, it's just gotten a little less predictable.

 

Steering it back to the topic- now our will is even LESS predictable, without freedom. That makes the scientific method ever more in danger!

I see your point, if you make the distinction between "our will" and "our will" then what I call will isn't free to do as it wills!!! :) Maybe it's because I'm agnostic but I don't worry about that distinction. I feel OK even if it's only unpredictability that makes me different from a simple mechanism.

 

Assuming free will DOES exist, is it even possible science could "find" it, since science only looks for cause and effect? I would say science is, in a way, biased against it, since we look for a cause and effect pattern in everything.

I don't consider science as being biased against it. Some scientists are, some are biased the opposite way. It's a pov a bit outside the scope of science. It isn't even quite in the scope of epistemology, it's metaphysics according to some or it's theology. Some people even draw religious, or similar, conclusions from the Born interpretation of QM.

 

Free choice... whatever that means! :)

 

This thread has been fun but I can't keep up. :)

[Qfwfq]

Unlike Qfwfq, I think Free Will (independent action) is a test for Sentience.

I can't remember having discussed any relation between them. According to a dictionary, sentience means having perception, something quite basic to survival for most animals. A sophisticated robot could be considered sentient, in it's own way, just as the perception of a honeybee, a cat, an eagle and a fish differ from each other.

I have heard of a pair of Dolphins in an experiment where one is trained to do a

task. Next day the other Dolphin does the task as expected of the first without fail. First Dolphin must

have communicated the instruction to perform to the second. Some biologist think All mammals have

the capacity for communication of some form. Do all mammals have the requirements for Sentience ?

Most animals do have perception, and need it. Not all are capable of learning from experience and certainly not all to equal degrees. I also heard that an ornithologist disovered by serendipity that a wild bird was able to count. He had to trick the bird to avoid it knowing that he was in the old hunter's hut that he was using as an observation post, the bird could remember the shooting from that hut. The guy came with an increasing number of people, had them crowd into the hut and all leave but him, I can't remember exactly but the bird wasn't tricked until he had six or so people come with him and leave.

 

Many animals have demonstrated capacity to comunicate what they have learned to their similars.