Free will - An illusion?
Earthninja
WandererWest Australia Veteran
Hey guys!
I'm sure this one would have been brought up before! I feel this topic might be incredibly liberating for some people. I find this has helped me along the way to direct understanding.
Here is an extract with the link.
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2013/03/27/3724727.htm
_"_This latest research by Dr Soon and colleagues was in a paper called "Predicting Free Choices for Abstract Intentions". They monitored brain activity by testing the 17 volunteers inside a Magnetic Resonance Image scanner. The scanner looked at the metabolic activity of various parts of their brains. (This is called fMRI, or functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging).
The task the volunteers had to do was predominantly intellectual. They were shown images at the rate of one per second. Each image had a number in the centre of the image. Using their free will, the volunteers had two decisions to make. The first decision was to decide when to start doing arithmetic with these numbers. The second decision was whether to add the numbers on one image and, one second later, the next image — or whether they would subtract them. And all the time, their brains were being scanned.
Amazingly, by looking at the fMRI scans, the neuroscientists could predict when the volunteers would make a decision, and whether they would do an addition or a subtraction. And even more amazing, they could make this prediction up to three or four seconds before the volunteers were aware of the decisions.
Interestingly, different parts of the brain were involved. The regions of the brain that predicted when the volunteers would make the decision were quite different from the regions that predicted whether the arithmetic would be addition or subtraction.
This research is a step in trying to understand the ancient problem of whether 'free will' exists, and if it does, how to define what it is. It will be a long time (if ever) before we solve this problem. After all, if our human brain was simple enough for us to understand it, then we not would be smart enough to figure it out..."__
I feel the choice the of free will is an Illusion. Although it very much feels like I can for instance CHOOSE to pick up a pen. I know that CHOICE, was not determined by me. It was a thought.
Try and stop the thoughts? You can't. At least not for long.
Another example that you guys would definitely relate to. Driving hypnosis is when you drive home and are completely unaware of the drive home. It can be seconds or even minutes! The self is lost in thought, yet you still decide to indicate left and turn the car left. It just happend.
And finally a third example for me that helps my self inquiry, is my body. How is it that it feels like I can control my arms,legs,breathing regulations but I can't control say my hormone regulations? Or my blood circulation. or the Millions of other automatic bodily functions. How can it be my body if I can't control it?
Incredibly cruel ... But liberating. I can't be it.
If I am not the body, and I am not the mind. Who or what makes choices? But am still aware a choice has been made...
I'm interested to see how you guys feel about this?
Comments
Free will is a question for independent agents. As such the question itself is fundamentally in error, like asking "Where does the candle flame go when it's blown out?".
These types of experiments are just shedding light on the fact that everything is a process, and our conscious awareness isn't the locus of control we believe it to be. Consciousness is a feedback loop!
In other words on the question of free will, 'tis neither "yea" nor "nay"! Same as "self".
It's the difference between the duality of mind and body, where consciousness is this separate thing in control of the body, and realizing that awareness is the subjective experience of the body itself. They are not two but one, and on a deeper level not even separate from everything "outside". It takes a long time for scientific truths to become common truths.
"Who is making choices?" is always apropos for Buddhists to ask themselves.
I think we make choices all the time, it's just that we only become aware of them once the choice is made. It's bit like unmindful car drivers who only remember to signal as they are making the turn. The brain is multi-tasking all the time.
And if we're really mindful, can we become more aware of this "unconscious" prelude to decision making? I think so.
@SpinyNorman I think you'd enjoy "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell. I just finished it a couple days ago. It goes into our subconscious machinations and is an eye-opener.
Not just unconscious choices. Like I ask you do you want the banana or apple?
Experiments are now showing the brain has already chosen even before you are aware of it. Not even an unconscious reaction.
Spooky
Not even an unconscious reaction.
If the brain is making decisions before we're aware of them, then surely that is by definition an unconscious reaction?
@SpinyNorman I took it as Subconscious and not unconscious.
I will never make it as a detective! It makes so much more sense what you wrote ! Haha
This is great! It blows personal karma out the window and makes decisions that much easier. I don't have to feel a sense of responsibility for my actions because I didn't really choose to do them.
I mean, if the arrow is off the mark, is it the fault of the arrow or the archer?
I wonder if it's only the decisions that don't take any thought to make such as letting preference speak.
Of course I am going to choose an apple over a handful of raisins... I don't like raisins!
I don't really "get" the scenario given or see how it relates to negating free will. How accurate were the predictions? If they were less than 100 % then I have to figure it's wishful thinking on behalf of somebody that wants to prove a creator or first cause.
The question it does raise is how much of our decision making is instinctual and how much is rational.
Yeah, I think you hit on the key right there.
That's a double-insightful.
Maybe this study raises the question of the nature of our conscious will, not whether we're making decisions or not. Regardless of when we become aware of them its still our brain making the choices, presumably even when we waffle or choose an alternate approach it is happening before our conscious knowledge in us.
I also feel that the degree to which an individual is aware of the subtle and not so subtle workings of their mind they can see which way their mind is going prior to taking action and that knowledge can work in a type of feedback loop, informing a different choice.
Personally, I do believe in some sort of ability to sway the course of our lives and don't feel a strict deterministic view of our minds takes into account the effect our immediate present awareness can have on the causal process.
The mind and the self (the temporary self that suffers, whatever label if "self" offends) are both elusive and cannot be found. There is nothing we can point to and say "this is the mind" or "this is the self" but they are sensed through.
If it is said "I am not the brain" I can understand. Although the function of the brain certainly affects the ability of mind, the brain can be pointed to but there is no one spot in the brain that "I" or "mind" can be pointed to.
It would probably help if "the" was not presented in "I am not the mind" because since the mind cannot be pointed to, it cannot really be considered a thing.
Nouns are funny but I think I'm off topic now, sorry about that
Thoughts are observed. You can observe the thoughts rise and pass away. Therefore I say I am not the mind. I'm sure there is other versions of what mind is!
I'm not sure what the problem is? If Anatta is non self. So everything has no self. No entity doing things. Just life unfolding.
Then these experiments tie beautifully with
There is definitely a feeling of choice or free will when you associate with the body mind complex. No doubt.
But isn't this then the problem? We can't be the body mind complex. Because it doesn't exist.
So what is free will?
Sorry for all the intense deep and meaningfulls!
And thank you for your replies.
I think in a Buddhist context it would be intention or volition.
For me, I am unsure about free will. Many many things happen spontaneously but only a few happen seemingly from choice. Or it appears so.
The one making choices. I can't find through self inquiry. It's scary and liberating at the same time.
Which is why I come here to see how you guys feel about it or if anybody feels similar.
I understand volition or intention. I don't understand who or what makes it. It really feels like I make choices.
I try and look for the I that makes choices. It's not there.
I think if you continue to practice you will find yourself making different choices - the way the choices get made is perhaps not as important as what the choices are.
@Earthninja, I remember watching what must either be the same programme, or one similar to it, where it was demonstrated that a split second before we made a decision in our Minds, the brain had already made that decision.
Two things:
1) It's still the brain making that decision, and the Mind, agreeing.
2) Many millions of Buddhists around the world will not know of this physiological phenomenon, and will continue trying in their Efforts to live Skilfully.
Had you not discovered this, you would be doing the same.
I vote you log the info as wonderfully interesting/fascinating, but continue Efforts to live skilfully.
While making conscious choice, I am aware that I am making conscious choice.
Decision meditation
There is no mountain.
Sam Harris (a neuroscientist) does a great talk on this subject:
I don't think 'freewill' stands up to Buddhist philosophy either. Dependant arising teaches that everything (which will include our will) depends upon causes and conditions.
So if our will depends upon causes and conditions (such as our genetic inheritance (our brain structure we start with), and all of our experiences, much of which we have little or no control over); then how can the will be free?
But that's not to jump to another extreme and say we have no control over our will either. I always think of my drinking when thinking of 'freewill'. I used to drink and couldn't stay stopped even when I really wanted to, so I joined A.A. and they showed me how to create the causes and conditions so I could exercise my will and live sober.
So I think it's a middle-way thing. The will isn't free, but that doesn't mean we're zombies on automatic pilot either.
The ones I've climbed certainly existed or I've done a lot of sweating over something that doesn't exist!!
But I'm sure they exist by convention, and name, and probably some other modes which don't spring to mind.
"Before I had studied Chan (Zen) for thirty years, I saw mountains as mountains, and rivers as rivers. When I arrived at a more intimate knowledge, I came to the point where I saw that mountains are not mountains, and rivers are not rivers. But now that I have got its very substance I am at rest. For it's just that I see mountains once again as mountains, and rivers once again as rivers."
Qingyuan Weixin
When we are in the grip of the personal being, the sense of gibber-monkey-mind creates a strong delusion of a self.
We can describe that self, that personalities likely responses. Really it is just a pattern repeating conditioning. Sam/Sara.
In the will free far shore, Nirvana, enlightened mind, that never came or left, the decision making is transparent.
In other words we have choice but the very 'qualities' that are innate to the True Being or 'Buddha Nature' are open to the potential of our karmic unfolding or expression. No need to be chain rattlers.
We can move into the template of the real being. Practice so to speak. That is a more skilful temporary means of expression, perhaps preferable to self, others and society but none the less still Samsara.
Wisdom, compassion, patience, kindness are Real Being or being real.
That is theory, practice and experience.
One way of looking at Buddhist practice is creating the right conditions. Choices depend partly on ones state of mind.
The way I break it down is that "will" is intention. "Free" is independent.
In other words, "free will" means "independent intention".
I don't see that teaching in Buddhism. Intention is also not-self.
It does seem very much tied up with self-view though.
@SpinyNorman Pesky self-view.
The ever-fluctuating psycho-physical conumdrum that we conventionally label as "I" is composed of more or less subtle and gross skandhas through which that "I" interacts in the world.
The fact that our choices originate in the brain does not mean that the brain does those choices.
Digestion happens. It's carried out by your digestive system.
Thinking happens and well, it's not the liver the place where the thinking process happens. It's the brain the place where all that thinking is sparked and takes place.
But that does not mean that it's the brain that is responsible for our thinking or our choices, or the will that led to those choices.
Dependent arising teaches that everything depends upon causes and conditions.
Those who believe in rebirth postulate that our present circumstances originated in other lives, which presents us with a rather deterministic view.
Except that, if I supposedly have no power over the circumstances that led to my present moment, free will can be exercised over my present and future choices.
Through our skillful or unskillful present choices, we are determining the causes for future effects.
And that free will, and those choices, are beyond the simple click of a physico-chemical brain reflex.
How would one go about explaining such a concept as the lack of free will without some kind of divine hand?
We like to say there is no self and that we are not the thinker of the thoughts.
I know it sounds all mystical but what is it really saying?
While washing the dishes I know and am aware that I am washing dishes. There is nothing I can label as a washer of dishes but right now I am washing the dishes. There is nothing that can be labeled as a walker but I will be walking soon. There is nothing to be labeled as a goner but one day I will be gone.
I am speaking but I can't find the speaker?
Oddly enough, as soon as I start looking for a speaker I am now looking so I should really be looking for the looker. I can't do that by trying to point at anything, I can only do that by really looking and feeling it.
The speaker is not a speaker when it stops speaking so it was never a speaker. What was a speaker is now a seeker and when that gets old the coffee drinker rears it's head.
You are not the problem, the identification is the problem.
Thinking you don't really exist and your choices are not yours to make just sounds like a recipe for karmic disaster.
I guess the 'divine hand' is called evolution by natural selection. It's a force that's been at work 24/7 since the first life (somehow) began.
My garden is well fertilised with all the shit that's in it.
I get that but evolution by natural selection seems to go against predetermination doesn't it?
I don't know if we live in a deterministic universe. It bends my brain just thinking about it. But I don't think evolution necessarily rules it out.
Evolution is a messy trial and error process including random gene mutation, so it's very difficult to view it as deterministic.
Theists keep trying to incorporate evolution, but these ideas don't stand up to close scrutiny. Intelligent Design, Theistic Evolution, stuff like that, words beginning with capital letters as if that makes them more credible....hmmmm!
Random stuff may only appear random because we don't understand all the variables that cause the phenomena of 'randomness'? Who knows?
Maybe at the point of the Big Bang, it was all determined to be the way things happened; including the way genes mutated? There's nothing in determinism that would rule out messy and seemingly 'trial and error' processes. Things arise because of causes and conditions and things demise because of causes and conditions to be replaced by new things by... you get the idea. At the point of the Big Bang, it could've just been 'determined' that way. I use the apostrophies because I don't think a sentient being determined anything.
As far as I know (and admittedly I don't know a lot), the clever scientists say that at the quantum level there is randomness; but again, maybe that's because they don't know the variables that create the phenomena?
It is an interesting subject and determinism and freewill are linked. If we do live in a deterministic universe, we can't have freewill.
And since you mentioned theism, I'm not sure the Christian God could live in a deterministic universe since then He wouldn't be able to change the outcome (since it's already been determined). You can't have an Omnipotent (all powerful) God and deterministic universe, just like you can't have a married bachelor.
In relation to evolution, random and deterministic seem mutually exclusive. And we're talking about trillions and trillions of random mutations over a 2 billion year period, combined with the chaotic process of adaptation and natural selection, combined with extinction level events like global climate change and meteor strikes. And all that in a universe 93 billion light years across. No wonder people look for simplistic solutions.
I'm not looking for any solution; as far as I'm concerned it's just intellectual mind fodder.
Nothing you've wrote rules out a deterministic universe either. Just because the variables are almost infinite, doesn't mean it can't be deterministic.
The best argument philosophers have for negating a deterministic universe seems to be - funnily enough - freewill.
Should you wish to disprove a deterministic universe, maybe you should prove freewill?
Indeterminism is the opposite to determinism; and that probably goes against Buddhist philosophy in that indeterminism says things can happen without regard for previous events (things don't always rely on causes and conditions).
I only know the gist of this stuff though; and it's an argument that goes back to the Greeks and still goes on today.
@Tosh has been swallowed by Manjushri . . . no escaping them Buddha possessions . . .
I enjoyed reading your post, @DhammaDragon, but what if the 'choices' I make, in the present moment are just an electro-chemical process and part of that process is that it feels like I made a decision?
How would I possibly discern the difference?
We know evolution has a random component so by definition it cannot be deterministic and predictable in terms of cause and effect.
If you throw a dice you cannot predict the outcome. All you can do is talk about probability of a particular outcome, in this case there is a 1 in 6 chance of a particular outcome. With evolution we're looking at probabilities like 1 in 100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
There was an idea in science that if you could predict the state of all possible variables you could predict an outcome. And then somebody came up with Chaos Theory.
"Random" just means we don't know. It doesn't actually mean that anything is happening apart from causes and conditions. We describe dice rolls as random too, but that doesn't mean it's not completely down to the forces involved.
I don't believe in the concept of "random", apart from ignorance. Our ignorance may be small, or it may be great, but everything is happening due to its own causes and conditions. I carried that with me right into Buddhism, and never found a problem with it.
I take it that's an educated guess....? :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:
It doesn't mean it cannot be deterministic but it is highly unlikely and it would be kind of redundant too.
Free will would help negate a deterministic universe unless our choices are already known even as they are not forced.
I would imagine we have free will but only to a certain extent. I can't just sprout wings and fly.
>
Fixed that for ya.
You'll thank me later, when someone picks you up on it!
Thanks, I just made it up and hoped nobody would notice,
Why do you suggest that random means without cause?
Something happening at random means the cause couldn't have been predicted, not that there was no cause.
No, random means unpredictable. Even with supercomputers they can't reliably predict the weather more than a couple of days ahead. Chaos Theory, Butterfly Effect, all that stuff. Unpredictability is built into natural systems, including ourselves. We think we know somebody really well then they do something completely unexpected, it could be a tiny, random, co-incidental thing that prompts it.
I'm not saying that conditionality is wrong, I'm saying it's unpredictable.
Unpredictable doesn't mean without cause and condition, it means it's beyond us to nail it down specifically, much like the weather. It's our inability and ignorance; it doesn't mean true randomness exists. It means we're not f'in gods that can know everything. The failure is in us, not in nature. Not in reality.
This is why I say "random" just means we don't know the specifics. We don't know enough. "I don't know" is much better than using that cheat word and pretending nature isn't bound by laws.
Yes, it means that the effect of a particular cause is unpredictable. Instability in a system is one way of describing it.