[neilep]

In MY opinion I can't accept that we are programmed....I can accept that we are influenced by our biological proclivities, our environment and personal circumstances be them physical, physiological or psychological . It seems that you are saying that we are just a vehicle for bunch of genes !


Don't you think that in their programming of us that they've made a programming error when it comes to destroying ourselves ?...and thereby...themselves too ?

[neilep]

Can i also add that if we were programmed...then would it not be impossible for us to know that ?

[wolfekeeper]

In MY opinion I can't accept that we are programmed....I can accept that we are influenced by our biological proclivities, our environment and personal circumstances be them physical, physiological or psychological . It seems that you are saying that we are just a vehicle for bunch of genes !

Do you mind? We're not just a vehicle, we're a really elaborate vehicle for a bunch of genes!

Don't you think that in their programming of us that they've made a programming error when it comes to destroying ourselves ?...and thereby...themselves too ?

Who knows? But in the long run, we're all dead, even our genes.

[wolfekeeper]

Can i also add that if we were programmed...then would it not be impossible for us to know that ?

Maybe if evolution had tried it many times before and each time it had gone bad eventually genes that preclude it from being known would eventually evolve, but I don't think that that has happened, and genes have absolutely no foresight.

[Gordian Knot (OP)]

Wolfe said "They ARE a part of you, but they're not just a part of you."

Okay Wolfe, you win the gobbledegook award for the thread! That comment makes NO sense whatsoever. LOL.

Wolfe 2 "They're (our genes) .... they're not exactly part of you. They have their own 'agenda' in that nearly all of them are in other people as well and they look out for (in an adaptive sense) themselves, not you."

Don't mean to be singling you out Wolfe, but I had no choice! No free will and all. (Yes, smart ass remark! Couldn't resist, so just ignore).

I would really like to see some verification, any verification of this remark. Our genes are a part of us, but they have their own agenda?? Whose? May I ask? I never considered that our genes had their own agenda separate from our own individual agendas.

David, do not want to ignore you. Your theory seems to suggest that we have no free will because whatever we decide, that is what we were going to decide. Ergo, Ipso Facto Columbo Oreo (I just love that line!) But I digress.....

There is something logically wrong with that concept, though I do not know  how to put it into words. Yet.

[neilep]

In MY opinion I can't accept that we are programmed....I can accept that we are influenced by our biological proclivities, our environment and personal circumstances be them physical, physiological or psychological . It seems that you are saying that we are just a vehicle for bunch of genes !

Do you mind? We're not just a vehicle, we're a really elaborate vehicle for a bunch of genes!

Don't you think that in their programming of us that they've made a programming error when it comes to destroying ourselves ?...and thereby...themselves too ?

Who knows? But in the long run, we're all dead, even our genes.

In MY opinion....this is nonsense .......I am assuming you meant as a species yes ?

[wolfekeeper]

Our genes are a part of us, but they have their own agenda?? Whose? May I ask? I never considered that our genes had their own agenda separate from our own individual agendas.

Their own agenda is to reproduce themselves more. In some situations, those genes will cheerfully kill you, if that means that they get to reproduce more widely.

A classic example is a spider that gets devoured by her own baby spiders.

Your genes are not on your side, they're on their own side! Often they're fairly well aligned, but sometimes completely not!

[Gordian Knot (OP)]

Again, what proof do you have for this concept that my genes are not on my side. It is a bold statement. You need to back it up with some evidence. Otherwise it is your opinion.

[wolfekeeper]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene

All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace: The Monkey In The Machine and the Machine in the Monkey

[Gordian Knot (OP)]

Thank you sir. This will take some time to digest. I will return!

[David Cooper]

I don't understand...if we have no free will....then where does the ' drive ' you mention come from ?

We're talking about causes. What causes you to do one thing rather than another? One option may be better than another, but how can that cause the decision to be made in its favour? Computation has to be done to determine that one option is better, so something in that computation shares the causation. To map the entire mechanism of the causation, you need to understand how the computation is performed. It's easier to follow this in ordinary computers than with neural computers like the brain, but they can be running identical algorithms.

I don't know how much you know about programming, so I'd better just explain a little about how computers make decisions to clarify things. We can skip the programming language level and go straight to the machine code where things are really simple. Suppose a robot needs to head in the direction of a light. There is a sensor on the robot which points in one direction, and as the robot rotates it will detect more light as it turns towards the light and less if it turns away. It has to make decisions all the time as to whether to turn left or right as it makes its way towards the light source. So, how's it going to work? The first thing it will do is read the input from the sensor, which will come in as some value between 0 and 255. Let's say it's 20 to begin with. The program takes that value and stores it in a CPU register. The robot now turns a fraction either to the left or right - we have to program in an initial preference for which direction it will turn first, though we could modify the program later to make a pseudo-random decision about this or maybe consider other factors which might make turning one way more likely to be successful than the other. Anyway, let's just make it turn to the right for now. It turns to the right a bit and the sensor is read again. This time the value is 19. We now compare the 19 with the number we stored earlier, and that might be done by subtracting the stored 20 from the new 19 that's just come in. That will set a carry flag in the CPU because a the result is negative. A machine code instruction will now cause a jump if the carry flag is set, which it is, so we jump to a different bit of code to handle this, and the result will be that the robot will turn to the left next time instead. So, the robot now turns a bit more to the left and the sensor is read again. The new value is compared with the old value and that again determines which way the robot will turn next time. The program will cause the robot to keep turning until the sensor value is as high as possible, and it will keep count of how many times it's changed direction so that it stops when it's pointing the right way. It can now move forwards. While moving forwards it may repeatedly read the sensor value and compare it with the previous value. So long as the value keeps going up, it might as well keep running forwards, but as soon as it starts to fall, the robot needs to go back into rotate mode to realign itself with the target. All these decisions are made by comparing two values and seeing which is higher, and it's the same for any decision made in any program in a computer - a subtraction is always made and then the program branches according to whether the result is positive, negative, zero, not zero, etc. - various flag bits are set according to different results and then conditional jump instructions branch to the right part of the program to handle the result.

People make their decisions in much the same way - this tastes better than that, so I'll eat this. Wait a minute though - that is healthier than this, so maybe I'll eat that instead. Anyone who's done a bit of programming should be able to see how these decisions could be programmed for, and as soon as you can see the algorithm that underlies the behaviour, you can see how the result is forced.

David, do not want to ignore you. Your theory seems to suggest that we have no free will because whatever we decide, that is what we were going to decide. Ergo, Ipso Facto Columbo Oreo (I just love that line!) But I digress.....

There is something logically wrong with that concept, though I do not know  how to put it into words. Yet.

It comes down to what a decision is and how best to make them. If you just make random decisions, it won't be long before you make a bad one that will wipe you out. You have to be designed to make good decisions rather than random or bad ones, and only to try to make random ones when you can't tell which option is best. It's all about trying to do the best thing, and that forces your hand every time. This chair's uncomfortable, but the one over there looks soft, and there's more light over there which means I'll find it easier to read this book, so I change location: yes, that's so much better. That isn't free will. Everything we do is cause and effect, but the causes can be multiple and complex. Free will is something people believe in if they don't understand the mechanisms, but as soon as you do understand the mechanisms you have to ditch the idea of free will. This isn't something to worry about too much though - it usually forces us to do the best thing. The problems come in where someone for example likes food more than they like being a healthy weight, and it's precisely because there is no free will that they are driven to get fat. If they get scared about their health at some stage or depressed at being overweight, that may be able to drive them to hold out more strongly against the desire to shovel the food in, but it's tough because so it's hard to get the weight off, and that tends to lead to them lapsing and pouring the food in. Evolution designed us to stock up when food is in good supply, and that's hurting us now - nature used to force us to starve the weight off again from time to time. A computer doesn't have likes or dislikes, so it would be easy for it to maintain the correct fuel intake just by deciding what the best amount is, but our likes and dislikes aren't programmable - we just get what we get and have to live with it.

[Nizzle]

Their own agenda is to reproduce themselves more. In some situations, those genes will cheerfully kill you, if that means that they get to reproduce more widely.

A classic example is a spider that gets devoured by her own baby spiders.

Your genes are not on your side, they're on their own side! Often they're fairly well aligned, but sometimes completely not!

If this were true, how do you explain the fact that I willingly choose not to reproduce?
I am fully capable of reproducing, but I have my personal selfish reasons not to do it.
How come my genes aren't forcing me?

Or do my personal genes have a different agenda than anyone else's?

And then @ David Cooper, how does the Heisenberg's Uncertainty principle fit in your theory of the non-existence of free will? The fact that physics at the very very basic level isn't "certain of itself" means that it has consequences for all higher order 'stuff' not being certain of it's future...

[wolfekeeper]

Their own agenda is to reproduce themselves more. In some situations, those genes will cheerfully kill you, if that means that they get to reproduce more widely.

A classic example is a spider that gets devoured by her own baby spiders.

Your genes are not on your side, they're on their own side! Often they're fairly well aligned, but sometimes completely not!

If this were true, how do you explain the fact that I willingly choose not to reproduce?
I am fully capable of reproducing, but I have my personal selfish reasons not to do it.
How come my genes aren't forcing me?

Or do my personal genes have a different agenda than anyone else's?

No, they certainly haven't got their little protein heads around contraception yet! it hasn't been long enough, evolutionarily speaking.

It may be that you're too smart for your genes to survive.

But there is also a thing where individuals don't have to survive, provided (on average) they increase the survival of genetically related people who do reproduce; so genes for altruistically increasing the survival of the village (historically, we evolved in villages) at your personal expense probably exist, because they're all brothers and sisters and uncles, aunts etc. Presumably that's partly how people can go to war for example, because they protect their genes that are elsewhere.

[Gordian Knot (OP)]

So it does take a village. Bravo Hillary! 

Wolfe. I have studied up on Dawkins. I do agree with his comments on religions! On his determination for the lack of free will, that one is harder. I am still trying to get my mind around the concept that our genes control our decisions in all things. I believe that I am making an accurate statement when I say that everyone does agree that our genes are not conscious or aware in any sense of those words.

Thus making the leap that one part of what makes me me, controls every choice I make is difficult. I could accept that one's genes make it more or less likely for one to be able to make free choices. After all this follows the pattern of genes in other areas of how we are made. Our genes give us varying levels of strengths and weaknesses in all that we are. From the very basic like hair or eye color, to capability of math skills, or motor skills to be an athlete.

This is how I understand how we are biologically constructed. If the genes that control free will were to act like the other genes in our body, at the most they should give each of us a different level of skill, and freedom, at making our own decisions.

The concept of controlling our decisions forces genes to act, in this one instance, completely different to how genes act in every other aspect of who we are.

There are, obviously, those who disagree with Dawkins' theories, the late Stephen Jay Gould being one of the more recognizable names. And for all the discussion, it still comes down to concepts more of philosophy than science.

The reason I say that is there have been no experiments, at least that I could find, to support a claim for or against the combatting theories on free will. To state that Dawkins' ideas are the way we are wired is premature.  If it cannot be tested, it cannot be anything more than opinions. Not fact.
____________________________________________________________________

David, your comparison to the programming of a computer is problematic. The human mind is orders of magnitude more complicated than even the most sophisticated program we have been able to code at this time. Your comments may be appropriate as a simple example of the process. As a direct comparison to human behavior, though,  I believed it is flawed.

[Geezer]

I think Wolfekeeper is quite correct.
 
We like to think we are somehow "special", but usually that's where religion comes into the picture. There is nothing to show that we are any more than machines, exquisitely elaborate machines of course, but machines none the less.
 
That's why the "free will" argument breaks down. If we have free will, and we are machines, any machine can exhibit some amount of free will. If machines, by definition, cannot have free will, neither can we (unless you use the "special" argument, which means we are back to religion).
 
(All complaints regarding this post should be sent directly to Sheepy)
 

[neilep]

 

 
(All complaints regarding this post should be sent directly to Sheepy)
 

THANKS !! 

If you don't get me just leave a message on my answer machine..... Gosh !...machines leaving messages for machines on a machine !

[David Cooper]

How does the Heisenberg's Uncertainty principle fit in your theory of the non-existence of free will? The fact that physics at the very very basic level isn't "certain of itself" means that it has consequences for all higher order 'stuff' not being certain of it's future...

19 - 20 = -1. In order to get a different result, you need to start with different numbers. If a sensor is somehow sending both a 19 and a 21 at the same time by branching off a new version of the universe, that could allow different results and different actions to be triggered in those different universes. If we suppose for the moment that is actually happening (which I find hard to believe for a couple of reasons), then that wouldn't help the case for free will at all - if multiple actions are happening, you are actually having some of your decision making taken away from you: e.g. if you think you're choosing out of your free will to have an Italian meal rather than Chinese, the reality could be that instead of making a decision you're branching the universe instead and having both.

I am still trying to get my mind around the concept that our genes control our decisions in all things. I believe that I am making an accurate statement when I say that everyone does agree that our genes are not conscious or aware in any sense of those words. ...

Genes don't control all our decisions. What genes do is build and maintain the hardware. Some of the design of that hardware forces some of your behaviours, but a lot of it is not programmed by genes at all - the brain is programmed to a large degree by external, environmental factors. This can be illustrated most easily by thinking about how education programs people to be able to solve problems in particular ways which uneducated people would be unlikely to work out for themselves. If no one helps you learn how to read, you aren't going to read books. The brain is a general purpose problem solving machine, and it collects methods for doing simple things which it can then try to combine into compound solutions for new complex problems. Huge components of its decision making are therefore driven by environmental factors which influenced the way it was set up.

David, your comparison to the programming of a computer is problematic. The human mind is orders of magnitude more complicated than even the most sophisticated program we have been able to code at this time. Your comments may be appropriate as a simple example of the process. As a direct comparison to human behavior, though,  I believed it is flawed.

The way the human mind works appears to be complicated for a number of reasons, including the one that it actually is complicated. However, it clearly must be using efficient algorithms that keep things separate when it's an advantage to keep them separate - there's no point in mixing up two separate decisions you're trying to make that relate to different problems because all it would do is introduce harmful errors. You don't want visual input to interfere with your ability to walk either unless the thing you're seeing is relevant to the way you're walking - it makes sense to jump over a dog poo on the pavement, but you don't want to jump at the sight of one on the far side of the road. Data is comparmentalised and is only sent where it's useful to send it.

I work in artificial intelligence and my job is to work out how I think and to try to turn that into program code to enable a computer to do the same things I do. Bit by bit, I'm working out algorithms that the brain must be using, and I always get a feel for when the algorithm is right because it ties in so perfectly with the way I think and act. I've discussed a little about my work in this thread http://forum.osdev.org/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=24698 which sets out how the mass of complexity in the way our minds work can be broken down into manageable chunks which a machine could duplicate, and far from the brain being orders of magnitude more complex than anything we can program today, I am currently building a system (A.I. software) which I reckon ought to be able to match my own intelligence on a very ordinary machine within a few months of learning after the build is complete (which should be around the middle of this year).

On the small scale, the mechanisms would not be the same because the brain uses neural networks to do its processing, but neural nets can be simulated on standard computers and standard computers can theoretically be simulated on neural network machines, though it would be hard to train them to do the job properly. Indeed, it's hard for our brains to be trained to do any job properly, and that's why we're so error-prone in everything we do. Neural nets are trained by doing things over and over again until they get things right most of the time, but they never reach perfection. A neural computer trained to add two numbers together may give 4 as the answer to 2+2 a thousand times in a row, and then suddenly it may spit out a 7 instead because the neural net is still not perfect. That can be got around to some degree by double-checking for errors, but most of the time they will get things right and that's usually good enough. However, a single thought may involve hundreds of different processing components in the brain, and it only takes an error in one of them to result in a wayward result, which is why we make lots and lots of errors. The important point though is that the components will act the same way as procedures/subroutines in a computer program, the essential algorithm being the same, so the fine detail is unimportant, and most of the complexity of neural nets can simply be bypassed in a program which has been put together intelligently to carry out a task in the optimal way and without possibility of errors.

[Geezer]

If you don't get me just leave a message on my answer machine.....

I asked my answering machine to call your answering machine to see if, together, they could sort it out.

Bleeping thing told me to bleep off!

[Gordian Knot (OP)]

I think Wolfekeeper is quite correct.
 
We like to think we are somehow "special", but usually that's where religion comes into the picture. There is nothing to show that we are any more than machines, exquisitely elaborate machines of course, but machines none the less.
 

Perhaps. There is one very big difference between us and computers that makes us much more than just elaborate biological machines. We have sentience. Sentience brings an additional dimension to the human brain. It makes the human thought process more complicated than computer programming. It makes how we think, how we make decisions, very different from how computers compute.

p.s. I tried to leave this message for Sheepy, but his damn answering machine seems to be preoccupied with other things.

[cheryl j]

I read about an interesting experiment where they demonstated, I think using PET scans, that a person's brain had made a decision to act or not act, before the person was conscious of having made a decision. I wish I could find the source. But when I read it, I thought, wow, that does mess with the concept of free will somewhat.