Alfred Mele - Free Will: Key to Consciousness?

Why might free will be a key to understanding consciousness? What is it about the problems of free will such that addressing these problems can elucidate the deep structure or underpinnings of the mind?

[sngscratcher]

I agree with Mele: the biggest stumbling block in this debate is that people have different definitions of free will.

"Free will is an emergent property that is consistent with the microscopic dynamics." – Sean Carroll

“I am very comfortable with the idea that we can override biology with free will.” – Richard Dawkins

“I have noticed even people who claim everything is predestined, and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road.” - Stephen Hawking

“Free will is to mind what chance is to matter.” – Charles Darwin

[dmartin]

Excellent discussion which neatly sums up my issues with compatibilist theories. As an atheist and a scienttific naturalist I have always struggled to reconcile my thoughts in this area.

[tedgrant]

Sometimes my dog refuses to get off the sofa because he loves it so much.
If I try to force him, he turns his head towards my hand as if he is thinking of biting me.
But he then he works out that it would not be a good idea and eventually complies, reluctantly.

[Arunava_Gupta]

I would like to tell here the story of a materialist philosopher who found himself once all alone in a room. There was in that room nothing besides him and a rock. It was a typical rock, bereft of any sophistication. Then, suddenly, the materialist philosopher hears a voice coming from within the room. Now a ordinary person would have concluded almost immediately that there must be some personality in the room hidden from view but whose presence can be inferred from the characteristic sounda and features of living beings. But this was no ordinary person; this was a materialist philosopher. So he looks around and sees nothing but the (typical) rock; and he simply says, "it must be the rock, " and, pronouncing thus, aecures a fund to study the *innards* of that rock.

[gamblinguru]

Hard Indeterminist/determinist: "The universe is either deterministic or indeterministic, and neither one give you absolute free will. Therefore, we shouldn't use the words 'free will' to describe any human thought or action."

Compatibilist: "Yeah, but the free will you are referring to is logically incoherent so it doesn't matter if our actions are determined. We can still use the words 'free will' to describe certain thoughts and actions in the sense they are uncoerced by outside influences."

[Arunava_Gupta]

When all our meditations on the nature of the brain, and on the nature and role of the neurons that constitute it, point to some unseen extra encephalic entity for having something as special as free will, why, then, do these materialist scientists keep on saying there's no evidence and, like an ostrich burying its head into the ground, refuse to acknowledge the obvious which is as apparent as daylight ?

[caricue]

I think Dr Kuhn blew this interview. After watching the whole thing, I don't have a clear picture of what Mele was trying to say, or what is his point of view. I got a little inkling here and there, but it was more like he was doing the interview. I totally got Dr Kuhn's view.

[ObeySilence]

4:21 Keep on clicking it. Very entertaining haha

[TJ-kkzf]

he is totally correct. I have thought of this manner of free will for a long time

[CaptainFrantic]

Enjoyed the video but thumbed-down because of all the subtle circular logic in Mele's exposition. He also seems to be saying that moral responsibility is a fundamental aspect of the universe and I definitely do not buy that. If the non-existence of freewill trashes the notion of moral responsibility then so be it.

[ScottJPowers]

the bald guy sounds like religious people/creationists that I've talked to. he and they never answer your question, they just dance around it and redefine everything to suite themselves.

[charlesbrightman]

Modern science claims that from a singularity, everything in existence in this universe came into existence, including the forces of nature that it operates by and including all the conscious entities in existence in this universe.

Now, does everything in this universe even exist per se, OR does only the singularity exist in the form of all things, including having many consciousness'?

[timgray]

Yes' the motte and bailey debate technique. Ask the same survey group. “If you could go back in time, could you have chosen something different?

[amirhesamnoroozi]

How does that little control over a probabilistic process work in the first place?

[BradHolkesvig]

If we have free will, then we would be the designers of the computer generated simulation program we're involved who got to program our thoughts into the visible characters we see ourselves in. We would have been the one's who built the artificial intelligence and voice called God's voice with intelligence to teach us everything we experience. We would be able to understand what kind of computer technology it took to build the AI and voice into the system that gives us life experiences in many different make-believe worlds called visions and dreams.

There is no free will people. We can only experience a program being played out and observe our bodies doing whatever they're programmed to do. The illusion we get that makes us believe we're controlling our bodies is that most of the time, we're not paying any attention to what our bodies are doing. We're so busy with all the various thoughts that are entering our minds that we forget where our bodies are taking us.

An addict also learns that free will is an illusion by watching the body constantly pumping drugs into it while he's getting thoughts to stop this insanity or committing suicide and many other thoughts until the drugs take effect and totally alter his thoughts into some other crazy world illusion.

Have a good time with your free will as your body is dying and can't keep it alive.

[otakurocklee]

Nothing nonphysical is going to help with freewill. Galen Strawson has already answered this. The whole physical/nonphysical aspect is completely irrelevant. There is no freewill regardless. What you do is determined by what you are, and what you are is already determined before you decide to do what you do. There's no way around it. If what you do is not determined by what you are, then it's ridiculous to call it free will.

[rwc]

Foolishness. Precognition makes his whole argument foolishness. Do you people sell books. Unbelievable!

[kcwong]

At one extreme, a decision can be purely logical.  In this case, the decision is not free.  On the other end, a decision can be purely emotional.  Here, the decision is free if the person's emotion is not manipulated.  In general,  most decisions are a combination of logical and emotional decisions.  Whatever the combination, it seems that only the emotional part can be 'free'.
 I do not know whether a decision can be something else other than a logical and emotional one.  If I am right, whether I have a free decision (or free will) depends on whether my emotion is free.
My emotion is a part of my consciousness, which is connected to the universal Consciousness.  My emotion can be affected by the universal Consciousness and I have no way to know it.  (If anyone disagrees with this statement, I suggest him to investigate nore on emotion and stop studying what is free will.) I can never know whether I have free will. If I have, it is a gift by the universal Consciousness, GOD.

[cgm]

Free will is a bad idea. The more you push on the mushier it gets. We are responsible for the decisions we make, no excuses. There are explanations: mental illness, being threatened, tripped on the carpet, values money more than life and so on. We are the material of our bodies and activities of our bodies. That material behaves in nonchaotic (laws of physics) way. Your material self (aka yourself) behaving is you making decisions, there's no magic. You behave the way you do because of who you are.

You get drunk, you do something, you can blame it on the alcohol but ever heard you are what you eat? You're what you drink too so the alcohol was part of you as much as the hemoglobin and the oxygen that was carried around with alcohol in your blood was part of you.

You could have done otherwise? What does that mean? What would have to be different for you to have made a different choice? Note that "made a different choice" isn't an answer to that question.

When the evidence is clear that someone committed a crime the question should be how did they come to commit the crime? and what should be done about it? Chasing free will is a waste of time. It's going to take some moral judgements, some give and take, but you don't need to free will to do that.

"Free will" is the silly remains of dualism. Evil spirits don't explain mental illness and free will doesn't explain anything. We could live perfectly happy, meaningful and moral lives, and maybe even explain the universe, without ever using the concept. Free will is trying to split ourselves from ourselves; she's not responsible her brain made her do it. She and her brain are not different things. "She is responsible", "her brain did it", "her brain is responsible" and "she did it" could all be equivalent statements.

Free will should follow caloric theory into the bin of ideas we used to have. That doesn't mean we should do away with the ideas of heat and responsibility. But it could mean that we can talk about heat and responsibility in a more useful ways.