Free Will

[johnofgwent]

Good to have a biochemist in the discussion - so when you say "You create" do you mean the conscious you, or some other meaning?

Your cells cause a concentration of each ion by expenditure of energy. Cause is interesting. For many of these impulses the cause is automatic and self regulating. I refer to the autonomic nervous system driven largely by the primitive hindbrain, but in the higher areas you cause it by thinking. By which i mean a medical scan can pick up electrical activity when the operator asks you to remember something. Ans some people (and I am one) have a degree of conscious control over their autonomic systems. I had a party trick that allowed me to grab the hot end of a soldering iron and not only would it not cause pain, it would not cause blistering either because i could by sheer act of will increase the blood flow through the capillaries by willing it to be so, causing cooling. This ability was measured by one of our research fellow back in the 80's who wired me up to his monitors to see it happen, He was impressed.



I believe this is the same technique certain shamen of various religions use to exercise apparent control but i do not have anything like the ability they have. I stopped playing round with this years ago after i shut down by autonomic respiration and could not restart it for hours, because another little quirk i possess, in my case a quirk if inheritance, is the ability to have my haemoglobin function and keep me alive at external )2 partial pressures way below the norm needed to sustain life and consciousness.  Last time i used THAT was when I went into atrial fibriillation after an RTA when some T@@@ in an NTL cabletel van rammed the side of my my car as he pulled out onto a roundabout i was already on, and tried to blame me when the police came. I switched myself into near hibernation, right down to losing most of my vision. In resus they didnlt believe what they were seeing, and asked me to pack in whatever it was i was doing because their beds had a sensor that detected breathing and the alarm kept going off saying i was dead.



But again i fear this digresses from the idea of free will.



But I wouldn't believe a word i say under a polygraph, as seeing an instrumental response to my nerve stimulus or seeing a needle twitch on a galvanic skin response monitor is all i need to shut it down.

[T00ts]

"thoughts" are little more than electrical impulses communicated between brain cells and changes in chemical components in those cells as a result of certain receptors being stimulated, or not.  You crate the impulse by pumping potassium and sodium into and out of the cell membrane generating a measurable electrical potential difference. On arrival at another cell the electrical change may be a stimulation of, or inhibition of, further activity depending on what the cell receptor is. It can excite, or depress.



So the biochemistry behind the process acts not only to create the event but also to react to its arrival at the next cell which processes it.



It's rather wonderful really. And entirely chemical.

God is really clever to have created that don't you think?   Thanks for the explanation. :hattip

[Nalaar]

You crate the impulse by pumping potassium and sodium into and out of the cell membrane generating a measurable electrical potential difference.

Good to have a biochemist in the discussion - so when you say "You create" do you mean the conscious you, or some other meaning?

[johnofgwent]

I could never have come up with that reply. So do I get from that that the biochemical thingy is not the instigator but the result of thought? If so it suddenly makes me much more confident that I understand my brain. I was getting quite concerned.

"thoughts" are little more than electrical impulses communicated between brain cells and changes in chemical components in those cells as a result of certain receptors being stimulated, or not.  You crate the impulse by pumping potassium and sodium into and out of the cell membrane generating a measurable electrical potential difference. On arrival at another cell the electrical change may be a stimulation of, or inhibition of, further activity depending on what the cell receptor is. It can excite, or depress.



So the biochemistry behind the process acts not only to create the event but also to react to its arrival at the next cell which processes it.



It's rather wonderful really. And entirely chemical.

[GregB]

OK this is the point where i say my degree in biochemistry gave me the knowledge to detect the electrochemical stimuli that manifest as the thinker does the thinking, and on that basis there very much IS a thinker of thoughts.



But more to the point, as a scientist turned engineer I spend my days in pursuit of the possible and the useful



I'm note sure I even understand where this is going, unless to the "it's all a waste of time, drink the kool-aid "... or similar depression ...



I mean, about seven hours ago i was suddenly dragged back to reality when the dream i was having ended with a bump with my brother jumping to his death from the back of a transit van in flight without any visible means of lift. What he was doing in the back of a flying transit van, and how i was able to stand on a small platform outside the rear doors I have no idea, but It was at that point I came to understand that taking the slices of cheese and mushroom pizza my daughter offered me late yesterday evening probably wasn't the cleverest idea I've had in a while,. and maybe i ought to send the food hygiene people to investigate where the local Dominos gets their mushrooms ....

There's definitely someone in this thread who needs to advise where they get their mushrooms from but it's not you or Dominos  

[T00ts]

OK this is the point where i say my degree in biochemistry gave me the knowledge to detect the electrochemical stimuli that manifest as the thinker does the thinking, and on that basis there very much IS a thinker of thoughts.



But more to the point, as a scientist turned engineer I spend my days in pursuit of the possible and the useful



I'm note sure I even understand where this is going, unless to the "it's all a waste of time, drink the kool-aid "... or similar depression ...



I mean, about seven hours ago i was suddenly dragged back to reality when the dream i was having ended with a bump with my brother jumping to his death from the back of a transit van in flight without any visible means of lift. What he was doing in the back of a flying transit van, and how i was able to stand on a small platform outside the rear doors I have no idea, but It was at that point I came to understand that taking the slices of cheese and mushroom pizza my daughter offered me late yesterday evening probably wasn't the cleverest idea I've had in a while,. and maybe i ought to send the food hygiene people to investigate where the local Dominos gets their mushrooms ....

I could never have come up with that reply. So do I get from that that the biochemical thingy is not the instigator but the result of thought? If so it suddenly makes me much more confident that I understand my brain. I was getting quite concerned.

[johnofgwent]

Nobody is in control. There is no thinker of thoughts, only witnesses of them.  

OK this is the point where i say my degree in biochemistry gave me the knowledge to detect the electrochemical stimuli that manifest as the thinker does the thinking, and on that basis there very much IS a thinker of thoughts.



But more to the point, as a scientist turned engineer I spend my days in pursuit of the possible and the useful



I'm note sure I even understand where this is going, unless to the "it's all a waste of time, drink the kool-aid "... or similar depression ...



I mean, about seven hours ago i was suddenly dragged back to reality when the dream i was having ended with a bump with my brother jumping to his death from the back of a transit van in flight without any visible means of lift. What he was doing in the back of a flying transit van, and how i was able to stand on a small platform outside the rear doors I have no idea, but It was at that point I came to understand that taking the slices of cheese and mushroom pizza my daughter offered me late yesterday evening probably wasn't the cleverest idea I've had in a while,. and maybe i ought to send the food hygiene people to investigate where the local Dominos gets their mushrooms ....

[T00ts]

Okay - This is a usable example.

You read what I had posted, and it made no sense to you. You could not of chosen for it to make sense. Either it makes sense to you or it doesn't, you have no say in the matter.



By way of a simple example - Try to not understand the following sentence

'The man in the blue hat was late for work today.'

Now no matter how hard you try it is impossible for you to not understand that sentence.



I can do my best to try and help you understand the concept in my last post to you, and so at some point you may understand it, or you may not, but either way you won't have a choice in the matter, because you don't choose whether you understand something or not.

Would you agree with this?

But you have now changed your argument. Before you said 'This ignores the fact that all thoughts/decisions/actions etc are based on prior causes, over which we have no control.' Of course I have a reaction to statements that you make, but if I am sitting alone in a quiet room and a thought comes into my head (we'll leave out for the moment where that thought might come from) I have control over what I decide to do it.

[Nalaar]

You last sentence however makes no sense.

Okay - This is a usable example.

You read what I had posted, and it made no sense to you. You could not of chosen for it to make sense. Either it makes sense to you or it doesn't, you have no say in the matter.



By way of a simple example - Try to not understand the following sentence

'The man in the blue hat was late for work today.'

Now no matter how hard you try it is impossible for you to not understand that sentence.



I can do my best to try and help you understand the concept in my last post to you, and so at some point you may understand it, or you may not, but either way you won't have a choice in the matter, because you don't choose whether you understand something or not.

Would you agree with this?

[Nalaar]

OK.



Leaving god out of this for the moment, what are you then saying. If you are not in control of what you think, who is.

Nobody is in control. There is no thinker of thoughts, only witnesses of them.  

Your first premise seems flawed to me. I'm in control of what I'm thinking writing this, and I'm in control of why I came to this site to read this.

Are you in control? What evidence do you have of that control? When you saw what I had written, you may of reacted with surprise, confusion, anger, humour...you didn't know how you felt until you felt it, and yet you sit now convinced that if you wanted to you could of felt different? Could you?

[T00ts]

I think the discussion can be had with or without a god. There are atheists with differing views on Free Will.  

Ofcourse - No matter what the situation a believer in Free Will can look back retrospectively and believe that a different choice could of been made. This ignores the fact that all thoughts/decisions/actions etc are based on prior causes, over which we have no control.

Yes we can all change our minds - particularly if female - and that usually is through experience. You last sentence however makes no sense.

[Nalaar]

As I thought so there is no basis for a discussion.

I think the discussion can be had with or without a god. There are atheists with differing views on Free Will.  

From my perspective choosing not to believe in any gods demonstrates free will.

Ofcourse - No matter what the situation a believer in Free Will can look back retrospectively and believe that a different choice could of been made. This ignores the fact that all thoughts/decisions/actions etc are based on prior causes, over which we have no control.

[johnofgwent]

I'll just outline the very basics and then can address the questions that come from that.



We do not have Free Will. Two parts.



The first basic premise is this - You are not in control of your thoughts. You only become aware of what you are thinking after it has occurred to you.



I think most people find this the easier aspect to agree with.

OK.



Leaving god out of this for the moment, what are you then saying. If you are not in control of what you think, who is.



Your first premise seems flawed to me. I'm in control of what I'm thinking writing this, and I'm in control of why I came to this site to read this.



Unless you are going down the road of "you are an automaton reacting to external input, that input originating from either a supreme being who likes to be a puppet master, or random electromagnetic pulses depending upon your philospohy (sorry, programmed input)" I'm not quite sure where this is going

[T00ts]

From my perspective choosing not to believe in any gods demonstrates free will.

Absolutely right. That is the whole point.

[cromwell]

As I thought so there is no basis for a discussion. We come at the question not just from two opposing sides but from completely different understandings. Unless of course you are prepared to question your beliefs.  

From my perspective choosing not to believe in any gods demonstrates free will.