Robert Bilder - How Free Will Probes Mind and Consciousness

Can free will reveal the nature of mental states? Free will seems so obvious, yet defies physical explanation. That’s the reason why free will can be a tool to explore the mind. Free will probes consciousness by examining what it means to pick, choose, select, decide in the closed physical system of the world. But is ‘free will’ just a trick of the brain?

Dr. Robert Bilder is Tennenbaum Family Professor of Psychiatry & Biobehavioral Sciences, and Professor of Psychology at UCLA. He is also Chief of Medical Psychology – Neuropsychology and Director of the Tennenbaum Center for the Biology of Creativity in the Jane & Terry Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior.

Closer to Truth, hosted by Robert Lawrence Kuhn and directed by Peter Getzels, presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers.

[TesserId]

Yes, I have definitely thought about how attraction to or away from light formed the first decision making processes.

[wingsuiter]

An individual claiming that they have Freewill because they feel like they have Freewill tells me that they have not understand that, by in large, what one thinks and feels is an illusion created by our senses and our brain.

[cheddarfiend-acrylicpourin]

If I have free will, why do I need discipline? Why am I fighting my own temptations when I have the power to determine them?
Discipline says, "fight that laziness! fight fight fight because you don't have free will!"
Free Will says, "poof laziness be gone." (which never happens because there's no free will).

[holgerjrgensen]

Our Eternal Will,
is a matter of Degree, Not about 'free'.
The Circuit-Principle. From minimum to maximum performance.

[B.S...]

If our choices are caused then we are not truly in control of our own actions. We can only be truly free if we are able to choose our actions without being influenced by anything else.

[ronhudson]

How is the idea of free will fit into the concept of a block time universe?

[quantumkath]

I've got a free will!!! They sent it to me in the mail 😊

[mkrafts]

But how can it be done wireslessly? Nano transmitters digested through unknown food source? Hijacked mail order.

[lilliansmith]

What about that study that showed that the brain had already made the decision before the person was even aware of it? Is that free-will?

[kallianpublico]

Existence controls the question of free will. That which exists determines the possibility of free will: whether one thing that exists effects other things that exist.
Did dna exist before it could be consciously perceived? Yes. Therefore one must conclude that consciousness, human consciousness, has limited access to existence.
How then to access existence in order to answer the question of free will? Reason and consciousness as currently understood by science is inadequate to the task. Only a "complete" inventory of existence can ever answer the question.
Is there a form of consciousness that does give us access to all of existence at once? If there is, one must then answer the question of ignorance. Why are we ignorant? Why do we not know what to do?

[TheDeepening]

If I have free will, why do I need discipline?

[kaielvin]

I still don't see a single difference between free will and simply will. Change my mind.

[mcgee]

Did I miss something? He's describing a preprogrammed action and call it free will?

[markfischer]

Philosophy and neuropsychology doesn't have the tools to determine if free will exists. Physics does and concludes beyond doubt using the best tools we have that it does not exist. It's an illusion we cling to out of hope and fear but our knowledge based on observation and deduction outweighs our emotion and to rebut the argument that it doesn't exist you'll have to explain how the human brain where the mind resides gets around the laws of physics in our universe whether we know what they are or not.

[vm-bzcd]

Free Will is such a WONDERFUL illusion 😀

[chayanbosu]

Those who are claiming conciousness is an illusion then the question arises who's illusion? Who's illusion? Another important question is if we do not have free will and we are running by neural firings then why do we trust in good or bad ? Because we are just material objects so no question shouldn't asked about morality, ethics.

[playpaltalk]

Perseverance and subliminal messages..II would say that the consciousness of a blind person is at a higher level than the average person.

[stephenzhao]

0:56 I would argue with it that even though that's a completely automatized predictable process that he's showing a drive to get to the light and to get to where the food is and I think you know we have such an elaboration of this process over you know hundreds of millions of cells later and a couple of billion years that the same fundamental processes though that are associated with our drive to survive to reproduce and execute actions that will be in the service of those goals that. This is Free Will. 1:29 what about problems with Free Will trauma that occurs to the brain or the neural chemistry that alters Free Will in different ways what are some of the neuropsychiatric disorders that impinge on our understanding of free will. 1:46 ... 4:53 ... what does that tell us about the nature of Free Will the sense that whatever I'm doing I'm doing it because I want to do it. 5:00 ...6:17 ... when you see problems in free will these very specific aspects do they have implications for the whole sense of free will that the individual has or is that just a minor aberration. 6:31 RB: one amazing thing is that the patients who have these problems will frequently not have much insight into the nature of that problem so ... from my point of view and again I'm not a philosopher so a philosopher might have a cleverer point of view but I believe that what we're witnessing there is a breakdown in the substrates of the neural basis of free will that are actually robbing us of elements of Free Will um in terms of our subjective experience of free will. Now the degree to which you're actually manifesting free will depends on the nature of the problem (sure) I mean I would see free will as being the ability to execute action plan that is in line with the goal that you had at the beginning and so unfortunately many syndromes will disrupt something about that process. 7:16

[BalramSingh-dxsu]

The brain can only process information. By the "time" it processes a "bit" of information and analyses it the result is in the past. Therefore, the brain having given thought to an issue such as moving your hand is a past phenomena. The thought is in the past and moving the hand in the past, in other words, it already happened. Therefore no free will exists in this sense. The information that the Brain is permitted to admit to be processed and analyze is not a matter for the Brain to decide. For example, the Brain has no input as to which part of the electromagnetic spectrum that it will observe and examine in the ordinary course of things. It has no input as to what the result will be, therefore, it has no free will. On a higher level, the Brain can only remember, since everything is already past, even a "thought' is in the past. The Brain is therefore called upon to REMEMBER what it thought, what it analyzed and the result of that analysis.Even on a higher level, everything already exists. E=MC2 had already existed before the Brain of the great Albert Einstein " Discovered" that it is there. His magnificent Brain "Remembered" it when he "discovered" it's existence. And alllow me to add that Jesus had said that if you think it, you had already committed it, he was referring to sin, but it applies to everything in it's totality. So far we see that the Brain as it is, is an observer of the past and a remembrance of that which already exist but is now in the past. But does a present exist? It does, as the generator or creator of that which shall be the past. It is consciousness, not as an observer nor analyzer of information, but as the information itself as a source of all that is, and that shall be, and the Brain can also remember it, as it is present and already there. That "present", source information, or consciousness cannot be analyzed in parts as the past can, for example E=MC2. In other words all parts, altogether exist in the present, as the present. AND again Jesus said it as " as it was in the beginning so shall it be in the end". In the beginning the present existed and so shall it be in the end. It is there to REMEMBER. Bless.

[tonystoklosa]

Every night the brain goes into "sleep mode". The world disappears and the sense of self disappears. There is nothing to even be conscious of. Therefore, it seems there is no ghost called "I" at a control panel making decisions.