What is free will?

[axordil]

What do you two mean when you say free will?

[Primula Baggins]

What you mean when you say we may not have it.

I was just wondering if it makes sense to attribute all human behavior to stimuli with automatic responses, when that behavior can be so complicated and go through so many iterations. Writing a novel is the most complex example of human behavior I'm familiar with, so that was what I thought of. It just seems too long and filigree a chain to be traceable all the way back to any stimulus or set of stimuli. There's so much (as you know) that one decides just for the hell of it. Some of it is meaningful and related to the writer's experience; some of it is sheer fiddlery.

As far as I can see, it's either free will or a complicated form of chaos.

[baby tuckoo]

Good point, Mith. The "compulsion" defense has indeed been used. The arguement states simply that the crime was inevitable based on the circumstantial motives and life story of this particular defendant.

It is rarely successful. The number of "innocent for reason of insanity" verdicts returned are a small small percentage of those attempted. However, it is often used as a mitigation in sentencing, with somewhat greater success.

But I reject the idea that I am a prisoner of my circumstances. Both Christianity and Islam have a thread of predestination in them. In Islam, it is fairly mainstream; in Christianity, a substantial undercurrent. "It is written". "It is God's will." "Allah"s will be done."


The question is a good one. How could Calvinists or Presbyterians put someone on trial? How could you let someone who is humming "Que Sera, Sera" to herself babysit your kids?

[axordil]

I wouldn't say we don't have anything resembling free will. In fact, I just TOLD yovargas what I thought it actually was a bit earlier in this thread. I would say that the concept has been defined until very recently in terms more philosophical and psychological than empirical and biological, and now that the empiricists are starting to look at it, the purely philosophical models are showing some cracks.

In the reactive model of free will, the ability to conceive of fictional actions, settings, characters, et al, is clearly still there. We can ALL fantasize. The volition to make that ability to fantasize INTO something is a different thing entirely, and not entirely free. You would not write a novel unless you felt a need to do so. Where does that need arise? Even if one woke up one day and said "I need to write a novel" out of the blue, what that actually reflects is a complex, long-term reaction to environment, upbringing, education, taste, and other aspects of who you are that have been brewing your entire life, all of which lead to a need to create in general, and for those so inclined by temperament or talent, write a novel in particular.

You can't choose to NEED to write. You know that.

[anthriel]

I still think you're mixing up the software and the hardware.

I am naturally very skeptical of this "perception comes after the movement itself" premise, because even in the limited amounts that I have studied the brain, I have realized that very little in the way information is processed is straightforward. Perhaps, for example, the pathways for "decisions" are different than the pathways for "perceptions of decisions"? Not a particularly brilliant idea, btw, since so much of the brain is apparently overwired and seemingly redundant. But if this were true, then this experiment's data is junk.

There are so many factors. Are you familiar with the fact that your brain (and mine, I hope) are "myelinated"? Myelin – a white, fatty material that is wrapped around brain axons – acts like a plastic insulator in an electrical wiring system. It prevents the leakage of the electrical current from the axon. Myelin is crucial for the brain’s function. It prevents “cross-talk’ between adjacent axons. If there were no myelin, electric current would leak throughout the brain, and information would become scrambled.

Myelin allows the brain to process information at the speed at which it does. Children’s brains are very slow compared with adult brains because of the relative state of myelination. And as we age, our brains become de-myelinated. An older person has a slower computation time than does a young adult.

Who were the study participants? Was their relative rate of brain myelination taken into account when the study was constructed? Are the different parts of the brain responding to this decision myelinated in different amounts, and so would be "measured" differently by an outside source? Myelination starts at the base of the brain, the reptile region, and, with maturity, continues to build in the higher parts of the brain (where, for example, opera is composed). It also, fascinatingly, de-myelinates in the opposite order, where higher thoughts travel more slowly as the myelination recedes with advancing age. Simple movements, though, would be controlled in the older parts of the brain, and so would always have a better chance of being myelinated, and therefore detectably "faster".

As to your example of typing, and how you (and sometimes I ) do not have to "think" about typing and therefore, in your example, are not using our free will, I again present the highly complicated brain. "Muscle memory" is what we all strive for in typing, and riding, and swinging a golf club, and playing the piano... also known as neuromuscular facilitation, muscle memory is simply the fact that you can train your brain to do some complex functions without having to think about all the components individually. Thankfully.

Here is, in part, what wikipedia says about muscle memory:

Muscle memory starts with the visual cue. As the brain processes the information about the desired activity and motion such as a golf swing, one then commits to that motion thought as correct. Over time, the accuracy and skills in performing the swing or movement improve.

Muscle memory is the control center of the movement. In maximizing muscle memory to learn a new motion, practicing that same motion over a long enough period makes it become automatic. This learning process could take months, even years, to perfect depending on the individual's dedication to practice, and their unique biochemical neuromuscular learning system to retain that practice.

In detail, inside the brain are neurons that produce impulses, which carry tiny electrical currents. These currents cross the synapses between neurons with chemical transporters called neurotransmitters to carry the communication. Neurotransmitters are the body’s communicative mechanisms and one of their many functions is to travel through the central nervous system and carry the signal from visual cue to the muscle for the contraction.

Although there are many types of neurotransmitters, the communicative ones primarily used in muscle memory is acetylcholine and the other is serotonin.

Acetylcholine is the major neurotransmitter used in memory, focus, concentration, and muscle memory. It is the substance that transports messages from one nerve cell to another. Acetylcholine is critical to the process of creating and remembering the muscle contraction. It achieves this through motor neurons.

Serotonin is imperative in the muscle memory process. Serotonin has multiple physiological actions at neuromuscular junctions where communication crosses over, this includes facilitation of transmitter release from nerve terminals and an increase in the communication to muscle fibers.

When a motor neuron depolarizes, an electrical current is passed down the nerve fiber and the impulse causes the neurotransmitter acetylcholine to be released to the muscle cell. Acetylcholine then binds with receptors on the muscle membrane to create the contraction. Over time, with acetylcholine the brain-muscle learns the chosen motion and induces its own form of memory. This process is also called neuromuscular facilitation. Once muscle memory is created and retained, there is no longer need to actively think about the movement and this frees up capacity for other activities.

This doesn't mean the idea isn't YOURS. It means that that amazingly complicated thing called your brain is working in yet another way to facilitate the thousands of daily activities that we all take for granted. It does NOT mean that you-- and your "will"-- aren't a participant in the activities. It just means that the tool you use to think-- your incredible brain-- is more complex than can be measured by tracking one conduit to establish whether or not a "decision" has been made.

That decision you made was as complicated a feat as any system you can imagine, and required a thought, idea, or vision, to begin it.

The argument that any decision you make is predicated upon your own experiences is difficult to counter. Of course. But it doesn't mean you are some sort of a slave to knee-jerk type reaction that you simply perceive as being your choice. It IS your choice.

That writer could have refused that chocolate cake, no matter how much he wanted it. He chose to eat it, and that choice was not made by his chocolate-addicted body, or pod people who invaded him, or a brain simply on auto-pilot with him along for the ride. He was in charge of telling the waiter "yes" (a very complicated series of brain pathways), picking up a fork (another), and eating that cake (yet another). His brain, and therefore muscles, merely obeyed him.

You can't study music by taking a piano apart.




Edited: to fix several typos. Darned muscle memory has stinkin' holes in it...

[Voronwë the Faithful]

That's really interesting, Anth. Thank you for sharing it.

[anthriel]

Oh, I could go on and on.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Please do (at least as far as I am concerned). I know nothing about this, but I find it fascinating.

[Primula Baggins]

Fascinating, Anthy! I hope you'll go on as far as you like.

[Maria]

Muscle memory! Cool! I always wondered why my husband picks up physical skills faster than I do. He has an Artisan personality type-- much more rooted in the physical world than I am-- and he learns physical skills like skiing or judo measurably faster than I do. In judo, he could learn a throw reasonably well in 2 or 3 tries, whereas I'd still be struggling to get the moves in the correct order (much less do them right!) after 2 or 3 different lessons on different days. We practiced the same amount, and I enjoyed it as much as he did, but he just *got it* faster.

Better muscle memory. That explains it. The sensei calls that sort of student a "natural athlete". I guess that makes me an unnatural athlete!

[MithLuin]

I also must say that I don't understand why the idea that giving into something is almost inevitable should contradict classical thinking on human free will. Because the whole concept of temptation is that you are much more likely to choose something if you expose yourself to it. If you want to forgo the chocolate cake, you need to decide in advance and not ask to see the dessert menu . In other words - if things seem 'inevitable' it's merely because we aren't doing a very good job of exercising our free wills. How long a child can sit alone in a room next to a box they are told not to open increases as the child's age increases. In other words - they are learning to choose to obey. At a young age, they peak almost as soon as the adult is out of sight .

You can train yourself not to want something that you think you want. Struggling with temptation doesn't have to be painful denial. It only feels like that initially, or in the absense of any "talk" you are giving yourself about why. If you spend your entire diet fantasizing about ice cream and groaning about what you can't eat, you've missed the point. You will go right back to eating "normally" once you are finished your diet, or even cheat a lot. But if you talk yourself into changing your lifestyle, you may be able to.

That's not all there is to it, but that is part of it. No alcoholic can be cured against their will. They have to buy into it, they have to want to change. That alone isn't enough - lots of addicts sincerely want to be different, but just can't shake their habits. But it is crucial.


You asked for my definition of "will" - it is the part of you that chooses, that makes decisions. It is the part of you that is responsible to your conscience. It resides in the soul. The "how" of decisions may be found in the brain, but the "why" will be beyond science to explain.

[axordil]

Sorry to crank something up and run, but you all will have to carry the discussion on without me for a while. Or not. I have an arbitrary deadline for a disliked manager, so I'm going to be scarce through Monday.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Good luck, Ax. When you get back, you can answer the question of whether you were exercising free will in meeting the arbitrary deadline for the disliked manager.