You don’t have free will, but don’t worry. (Sabine Hossenfelder)

[Secular Sanity]

Life is a meritocracy, nature is not. Life happens in nature, but life is not, itself, nature.

What?

[Syne]

Life is a meritocracy, nature is not. Life happens in nature, but life is not, itself, nature.

What?

Simple English. Find a dictionary. Go word by word if you really have to.

[Secular Sanity]

Life is a meritocracy, nature is not. Life happens in nature, but life is not, itself, nature.

What?

Simple English. Find a dictionary. Go word by word if you really have to.

The term is ambiguous but I disagree. I think that nature also includes life. Even you said that illness was a natural evil. Bacteria are alive.

I am the master of my fate
I am the captain of my soul

Good luck with that.

[Syne]

What, already tired of talking about Nietzsche?

Life is a meritocracy, nature is not. Life happens in nature, but life is not, itself, nature.

What?

Simple English. Find a dictionary. Go word by word if you really have to.

The term is ambiguous but I disagree. I think that nature also includes life. Even you said that illness was a natural evil. Bacteria are alive.

Well, since life, in the biological sense, is nature, maybe you're not aware of any other definition?

life - the period between birth and death, or the experience or state of being alive
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dict...glish/life

You have biological life but you also live a life...in the natural world. The experience of life is both a meritocracy and fundamentally different from the biological nature of lifeforms. Nature doesn't care if you son's life ends today, but you presumably do, because you make value judgements. Value judgements are the essence of meritocracy. Now, you may think you have no choice in what you value, but that, in itself, is a choice. And people make that choice all the time, whether it's a person choosing to love a stepchild, forgive a cheater, etc..

I am the master of my fate
I am the captain of my soul

Good luck with that.

Who are you talking to/quoting? I never said that.

Let's see, you've now responded to stuff prior to my last post (or at least I assume that's what those non-sequiturs were) and responded to stuff I never said. Next will be the lame dismissal. You're so predictable.

[Secular Sanity]

What, already tired of talking about Nietzsche?

I like his work a lot.

Who are you talking to/quoting? I never said that.

Let's see, you've now responded to stuff prior to my last post (or at least I assume that's what those non-sequiturs were) and responded to stuff I never said. Next will be the lame dismissal. You're so predictable.

It’s from Invictus. You know, freewill vs. fate.

What's with all the non-sequitur shit? Does everything have to be in perfect order for you? I'm curious. Do you eat only one food on your plate at a time?

[Syne]

What, already tired of talking about Nietzsche?

I like his work a lot.

Just not any critical analysis of it, eh?

Who are you talking to/quoting? I never said that.

Let's see, you've now responded to stuff prior to my last post (or at least I assume that's what those non-sequiturs were) and responded to stuff I never said. Next will be the lame dismissal. You're so predictable.

It’s from Invictus. You know, freewill vs. fate.

And I've never expressed that sentiment.

What's with all the non-sequitur shit? Does everything have to be in perfect order for you? I'm curious. Do you eat only one food on your plate at a time?

There's a lot of territory in between perfect order and having no recognizable connection to what it purports to respond to at all. And as usual, you seem to have zero interest in connecting the dots.

I forgot about your occasional completely off-topic twaddle before or in lieu of your lame dismissal. Notice zero productive discussion on the subject of free will...or even your fav Nietzsche. 9_9

[Secular Sanity]

Just not any critical analysis of it, eh?

I don’t mind. It’s not like it's a religion. Like most curious people, we ransack through old closets of intellectuals searching for honest self-evaluations. Hoping to find something that fits.

I asked the question about perception not only due to Nietzsche’s perspectivism, but because I was also interested in Mark Hallet’s work. 

Free will does exist, but it’s a perception, not a power or a driving force. People experience free will. They have the sense they are free. The more you scrutinize it, the more you realize you don’t have it.”

Most people think that free will means that you develop an idea that impinges on the motor system and the motor system produces the movement.

There’s another way to think about…

This is what I call a perception model and that is that the motor system produces a movement and informs our consciousness that the movement is going to be taking place. And in this sense freewill would be a quale. Quale is one of the components of consciousness. It would be a passive perception of what the brain was doing.

Going back to the freewill model, there is sense of causality that people have. This sort sense that consciousness is driving the motor system, and then the question that come up is, can consciousness of will or something correlated with it actually influence the motor system. To do so, it would have to be prior to the motor command because that’s the way that causation works.

You have one advent that leads to another. There has to be some sort of time order of those particular things. So, the question is, is the consciousness of will preceding the motor command.

This question was first addressed carefully by Libet and colleagues in a paper in 1983. (He goes on to explain Libet’s, Soon’s and Lao’s experiments.)

He thinks that we live in the past. If you think about it, it becomes relatively obvious that that has to be the case. If there is a real-world event of some kind, it has to get into the nervous system and be processed before you realize that that’s happening. The subjective present is slightly in the past. So, that content of consciousness having to do with willing seems to follow the brains decisions to move, and hence, it cannot be causal because again you have to have it prior to the event.

If that’s the case, how does the decision to move come about? Well, I don’t think it’s a puzzle. We know a lot about how the brain operates. The decision to move is influenced by many different things. Emotion mediated by the limbic system, homeostasis mediated from the hypothalamus, reward activity mediated by dopaminergic mechanisms, sensory influence from the posterior half of the brain, cognitive functions is the frontal lobe and noise also relevant. A movement generation system.

When the activity in the motor cortex exceeds a certain threshold, there’ll be a movement depending upon what these different influences are. So, this is the way this system probably works. There are feed forward signals coming from the brain’s intention and movement generation and feedback from the movement itself. The feed forward signals give rise to the sense of willing and the feedback signals give rise to the sense of agency, which is the sense that you are the agent of the movement that has just been made, which is another feature of the sense of freewill.

Now, let’s go back to dualism. The issue that was prevalent. The strong form of that is that the mind and body are separate and most people deny that these days. Most scientists deny it but there’s a weak form of dualism, in which our language contains implicit dualism, which is part of the problem and things like, “your brain knows before you do, that you’ll be making a movement” or “you don’t have freewill if your brain is doing it and not you.” It’s implying that your brain and you are separate, but that’s not true. You are your brain. The brain is doing many things simultaneous and most of them are unconscious.

Does consciousness have an etiological or causal role?

It mostly operates at an unconscious level but sometimes that sense will bubble to the surfaces crating a sense of agency.  That’s the way it seems to work whether we like it or not. In order to have an active role, it has to anticipate the action and there’s no evidence for that in this particular circumstance. I think that consciousness is playing out passively.

So, then what can we say about freewill? Is the brain free to choose what to do? When you’re asked questions like who is in charge inside your head? The answer is simple, it’s you.

SOURCE

The other question was asked because the essence of “eternal reoccurrence” is deterministic and I was trying to see if I could marry Nietzsche’s affirmation with determinism.

I think I can because even if there was only one future possible, it would still be my future.

You have biological life but you also live a life...in the natural world. The experience of life is both a meritocracy and fundamentally different from the biological nature of lifeforms. Nature doesn't care if you son's life ends today, but you presumably do, because you make value judgements. Value judgements are the essence of meritocracy. Now, you may think you have no choice in what you value, but that, in itself, is a choice. And people make that choice all the time, whether it's a person choosing to love a stepchild, forgive a cheater, etc.

(…) I forgot about your occasional completely off-topic twaddle before or in lieu of your lame dismissal. Notice zero productive discussion on the subject of free will...or even your fav Nietzsche.

The fancy of the contemplatives—

What distinguishes the higher human beings from the lower is that the former sees and hear immeasurably more, and see and hear thoughtfully—and precisely this distinguishes human beings from animals, and the higher animals from the lower. For anyone who grows up into the heights of humanity the world becomes ever fuller; ever more fishhooks are cast in his direction to capture his interest; the number of things that stimulate him grows constantly, as does the number of different kinds of pleasure and displeasure: The higher human being always becomes at the same time happier and unhappier. But he can never shake off a delusion: He fancies that he is a spectator and listener who has been placed before the great visual and acoustic spectacle that is life; he calls his own nature contemplative and overlooks that he himself is really the poet who keeps creating this life. Of course, he is different from the actor of this drama, the so-called active type; but he is even less like a mere spectator and festive guest in front of the stage. As a poet, he certainly has vis contemplativa and the ability to look back upon his work, but at the same time also and above all vis creativa,[Contemplative power; creative power.] which the active human being lacks, whatever visual appearances and the faith of all the world may say. We who think and feel at the same time are those who really continually fashion something that had not been there before: the whole eternally growing world of valuations, colors, accents, perspectives, scales, affirmations, and negations. This poem that we have invented is continually studied by the so-called practical human beings (our actors) who learn their roles and translate everything into flesh and actuality, into the everyday. Whatever has value in our world now does not have value in itself, according to its nature —nature is always value-less, but has been given value at some time, as a present—and it was we who gave and bestowed it. Only we have created the world that concerns man! —But precisely this knowledge we lack, and when we occasionally catch it for a fleeting moment, we always forget it again immediately; we fail to recognize our best power and underestimate ourselves, the contemplatives, just a little. We are neither as proud nor as happy as we might be.—Nietzsche

Would it make me a slave to an external force?  I don’t think so, because I, too, am a force.

"If they ask you, 'What is the evidence of your Father in you?' say to them, 'It is motion and rest.'"

Life is part of nature and all the forces that drive me to value it are natural forces, but like Nietzsche said, judgments of good and evil are not immortal. They’re ever-changing but that is how we exercise our power. Unfortunately, the will to power elevates itself above and beyond life itself. Many are willing to take a life or sacrifice their own for the sake of their values.

The Seven Seals (Or the Yes and Amen Song)

Never yet have I found the woman from whom I wanted children, unless it were this woman whom I love: for I love you, oh eternity!
If my virtue is a dancer’s virtue and I often leaped with both feet into golden emerald delight:
If my malice is a laughing malice, at home beneath rosy slopes and lily hedges—for in laughter everything evil is together, but pronounced holy and absolved by its own bliss:
An if that is my alpha and omega, that all heaviness becomes light, all body dancer, all spirit bird—and truly, that is my alpha and omega!
Oh how then could I not lust for eternity and the nuptial ring of rings—the ring of recurrence!

The Second Dance Song

Then did Life answer me thus, and kept thereby her fine ears closed:
"O Zarathustra! Crack not so terribly with thy whip! Thou knowest surely that noise killeth thought,—and just now there came to me such delicate thoughts.
We are both of us genuine ne'er-do-wells and ne'er-do-ills. Beyond good and evil found we our island and our green meadow—we two alone! Therefore must we be friendly to each other!
And even should we not love each other from the bottom of our hearts,—must we then have a grudge against each other if we do not love each other perfectly?
And that I am friendly to thee, and often too friendly, that knowest thou: and the reason is that I am envious of thy Wisdom. Ah, this mad old fool, Wisdom!
If thy Wisdom should one day run away from thee, ah! then would also my love run away from thee quickly."—
Thereupon did Life look thoughtfully behind and around, and said softly: "O Zarathustra, thou art not faithful enough to me!
Thou lovest me not nearly so much as thou sayest; I know thou thinkest of soon leaving me.
There is an old heavy, heavy, booming-clock: it boometh by night up to thy cave:—
—When thou hearest this clock strike the hours at midnight, then thinkest thou between one and twelve thereon—
—Thou thinkest thereon, O Zarathustra, I know it—of soon leaving me!"—
"Yea," answered I, hesitatingly, "but thou knowest it also"—And I said something into her ear, in amongst her confused, yellow, foolish tresses.
"Thou knowest that, O Zarathustra? That knoweth no one—-"
And we gazed at each other, and looked at the green meadow o'er which the cool evening was just passing, and we wept together.- Then, however, was Life dearer unto me than all my Wisdom had ever been.—
Thus spake Zarathustra.
• One!
• O man! Take heed!
• Two!
• What saith deep midnight's voice indeed?
• Three!
• “I slept my sleep-
• Four!
• “From deepest dream I've woke and plead:
• Five!
• “The world is deep,
• Six!
• “And deeper than the day could read.
• Seven!
• “Deep is its woe-
• Eight!
• “Joy—deeper still than grief can be:
• Nine!
• “Woe saith: Hence! Go!
• Ten!
• “But joys all want eternity-
• Eleven!
• “Want deep profound eternity!”
• Twelve!

"In my heart do I love only Life—and verily, most when I hate her!

But that I am fond of Wisdom, and often too fond, is because she remindeth me very strongly of Life!" 

He chases after her (Wisdom) like most men searching for truth. Not only does she remind him of life, she makes him aware of life. And when his awareness leaves—so too, will life leave him. They are one in the same.

What if…he whispered into her ear that he knew she was pregnant—eternally pregnant with ever-changing ideas and new values. His seed would live on through his work…

Do I strive for happiness? I strive for my work!

Well then! The lion came, my children are near.

Just a thought.

[C C]

Since I started this thread, I suppose I should toss in ten cents for the heck of it. Here's my take on free will (for today, anyway):

Going back to the Wittgenstein era of construing metaphysics as usually consisting of just preset word-play, then...

Incompatiblism (which outputs a least three different stances) chooses definitions or conceptions of FW that are antagonistic to determinism.

Compatibilism (especially when in metaphysics context rather than practicality) chooses definitions or conceptions of FW that are commensurable with determinism.

In the end, the underlying motivations and passion for either trans-experiential romp are probably driven by what the individual or group ironically feels is beneficial with respect to everyday life. For the incompatibilist factions which deny FW, this obviously includes what can intially seem contrary to needs of everyday life: I.e., the European academic exaltation of facing up to an _X_ that the proles consider a bleak prospect, but then inventing a positive spin for it -- deriving a kind of intellectual nobility for themselves via such boldness posturing against _X_ grimness.

When I have to step a foot into such metaphysics territory...

I usually tend go the compatibilism route (although what I state here might[?] very well still be applicable to the everyday world rather than venturing outside it). Not only is it a tad disconcerting to see multiple conclusions or outlooks falling out of incompatibilism, but why would one want a word-game where FW is vulnerable to the possibility of determinism or anything else?

In terms of a word-game's definition for FW, I can go with "The capability of conscious choice and decision and intention". That consciousness reservation doesn't have to be absolute or continual (i.e., we're surely verbally and phenomenally aware of when we're deliberating and selecting at least once in a while during a lifetime).

Rocks don't have the internal apparatus to even make decisions, but human bodies do. To pretend otherwise is tactical faux insanity. To pretend that the choices humans made in the past did not necessarily contribute to the modern world we reside in today is likewise tactical faux insanity. The contemporary state of the Earth depended upon the internal activities of human bodies, not upon global regularities abstracted from developmental patterns of the universe's existence (laws) and passed off as if they were real concrete objects -- which even if they did have causal potency, would be too "stupid" to plan and accomplish the civilization of today, without human bodies mediating such for them.

What the "free" adjective adds to "will" is "The power of making free choices unconstrained by external agencies." For most people, is some other entity with an AGENDA (person, machine, animal, organization, etc) constantly hovering around one during all waking hours and forcing once to do what one does not want to do or would otherwise not do? Seems highly unlikely or ridiculous.

[Secular Sanity]

Or just counterintuitive, not unlike relativity. Who knows but fun to think about.

[Syne]

Going back to the freewill model, there is sense of causality that people have. This sort sense that consciousness is driving the motor system, and then the question that come up is, can consciousness of will or something correlated with it actually influence the motor system. To do so, it would have to be prior to the motor command because that’s the way that causation works.

You have one vent that leads to another. There has to be some sort of time order of those particular things. So, the question is, is the consciousness of will preceding the motor command.

This question was first addressed carefully by Libet and colleagues in a paper in 1983. (He goes on to explain Libet’s, Soon’s and Lao’s experiments.)

Libet-like experiments have been debunked (CC posted a thread about it). Just as I've said for years.
Soon and Lau (who I think you meant) made the same error as Libet, in using random choice as a stand-in for intention.

He thinks that we live in the past. If you think about it, it becomes relatively obvious that that has to be the case. If there is a real-world event of some kind, it has to get into the nervous system and be processed before you realize that that’s happening. The subjective present is slightly in the past.

It's trivial that we can only make choices upon perceptions we've already received. Otherwise, it would be nothing more than random luck if our guesses about the external world just happened to be true. IOW, if I say "I want the blue one", we presume I've already seen such an option. Seeing the option does not determine the choice.

So, that content of consciousness having to do with willing seems to follow the brains decisions to move, and hence, it cannot be causal because again you have to have it prior to the event.

That simply does not follow, as a delay of perception does not rule out choice being the fundamental driver. You're just conflating the perception>action order in time with perception>choice>action. IOW, you're just preemptively excising choice, with zero rationale.

If that’s the case, how does the decision to move come about? Well, I don’t think it’s a puzzle. We know a lot about how the brain operates. The decision to move is influenced by many different things. Emotion mediated by the limbic system, homeostasis mediated from the hypothalamus, reward activity mediated by dopaminergic mechanisms, sensory influence from the posterior half of the brain, cognitive functions is the frontal lobe and noise also relevant. A movement generation system.

You overestimate our understanding of the brain. If we knew as much as you imply, there would be no argument over free will and consciousness, as we would have already devised compelling experiments. We have not.

Now, let’s go back to dualism. The issue that was prevalent. The strong form of that is that the mind and body are separate and most people deny that these days. Most scientists deny it but there’s a weak form of dualism, in which our language contains implicit dualism, which is part of the problem and things like, “your brain knows before you do, that you’ll be making a movement” or “you don’t have freewill if your brain is doing it and not you.” It’s implying that your brain and you are separate, but that’s not true. You are your brain. The brain is doing many things simultaneous and most of them are unconscious.

Considering over 80% of the world is religious, I seriously doubt most people deny dualism. Just asserting that dualism isn't true, e.g. "but that’s not true", isn't a reasoned argument. Dismissing it as an artifact of language doesn't cut it either.

Does consciousness have an etiological or causal role?

It mostly operates at an unconscious level but sometimes that sense will bubble to the surfaces crating a sense of agency.  That’s the way it seems to work whether we like it or not. In order to have an active role, it has to anticipate the action and there’s no evidence for that in this particular circumstance. I think that consciousness is playing out passively.

Consciousness is just the fact of being conscious. It doesn't imply anything about free will, as you can be a conscious, passive rider just as easily as you can be a conscious, active driver.

So, then what can we say about freewill? Is the brain free to choose what to do? When you’re asked questions like who is in charge inside your head? The answer is simple, it’s you.

And that tells us nothing about what "you" are. We have zero evidence to determine what a person ultimately refers to when they say "I".

You have biological life but you also live a life...in the natural world. The experience of life is both a meritocracy and fundamentally different from the biological nature of lifeforms. Nature doesn't care if you son's life ends today, but you presumably do, because you make value judgements. Value judgements are the essence of meritocracy. Now, you may think you have no choice in what you value, but that, in itself, is a choice. And people make that choice all the time, whether it's a person choosing to love a stepchild, forgive a cheater, etc.

(…) I forgot about your occasional completely off-topic twaddle before or in lieu of your lame dismissal. Notice zero productive discussion on the subject of free will...or even your fav Nietzsche.

The fancy of the contemplatives—

What distinguishes the higher human beings from the lower is that the former sees and hear immeasurably more, and see and hear thoughtfully—and precisely this distinguishes human beings from animals, and the higher animals from the lower. For anyone who grows up into the heights of humanity the world becomes ever fuller; ever more fishhooks are cast in his direction to capture his interest; the number of things that stimulate him grows constantly, as does the number of different kinds of pleasure and displeasure: The higher human being always becomes at the same time happier and unhappier. But he can never shake off a delusion: He fancies that he is a spectator and listener who has been placed before the great visual and acoustic spectacle that is life; he calls his own nature contemplative and overlooks that he himself is really the poet who keeps creating this life. Of course, he is different from the actor of this drama, the so-called active type; but he is even less like a mere spectator and festive guest in front of the stage. As a poet, he certainly has vis contemplativa and the ability to look back upon his work, but at the same time also and above all vis creativa,[Contemplative power; creative power.] which the active human being lacks, whatever visual appearances and the faith of all the world may say. We who think and feel at the same time are those who really continually fashion something that had not been there before: the whole eternally growing world of valuations, colors, accents, perspectives, scales, affirmations, and negations. This poem that we have invented is continually studied by the so-called practical human beings (our actors) who learn their roles and translate everything into flesh and actuality, into the everyday. Whatever has value in our world now does not have value in itself, according to its nature —nature is always value-less, but has been given value at some time, as a present—and it was we who gave and bestowed it. Only we have created the world that concerns man! —But precisely this knowledge we lack, and when we occasionally catch it for a fleeting moment, we always forget it again immediately; we fail to recognize our best power and underestimate ourselves, the contemplatives, just a little. We are neither as proud nor as happy as we might be.—Nietzsche

And that refutes what? I know it's fun to sound smart, just quoting smart people, but the real test is if you can digest that into arguments of your own. Otherwise, you're just a fan-girl.

Would it make me a slave to an external force?  I don’t think so, because I, too, am a force.

"If they ask you, 'What is the evidence of your Father in you?' say to them, 'It is motion and rest.'"

Life is part of nature and all the forces that drive me to value it are natural forces, but like Nietzsche said, judgments of good and evil are not immortal. They’re ever-changing but that is how we exercise our power. Unfortunately, the will to power elevates itself above and beyond life itself. Many are willing to take a life or sacrifice their own for the sake of their values.

It's telling that you quote the Gospel of Thomas and generally dislike the Bible.

Again, if you think you're just a puppet to natural drives and external forces, that's exactly the life you get. And you don't seem to see how believing in moral relativism leads directly to devaluing life.