The Black Vault

Greeney, you say physical movement has nothing to do with free-will, but if I implanted a chip in your spine so I could control your every movement via a computer, your free-will would be diminished, yes?

You seem to be using a very strange definition of free-will which only refers to thought, and not physical movement, but free-will involves actions as well as thoughts. This is the dictionary definition:

Free-will: "The power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate; the ability to act at one's own discretion."

If your brain decides what you're going to do and when you're going to do it (which is what the experiments show), then you do not have free-will.

By the way, I only mentioned endurance to say that is NOT what we're talking about.

I actually found WIKI reference to the experiment I am talking about, by Benjamin Libet:

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

Now, in that link, one of the objections is indeed about the timing of the experiment, but that argument is further weakened by the experiments cited here:

http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2 ... 14-03.html

No one else doubts these are tests of free-will, greeney, I am not sure why you do. I have seen people disagree with the conclusions, but no one ever says they aren't tests of free-will!

Greeney sees physical movement in the experiments and automatically assumes they are then tests of endurance, but they're not, they're tests of a human's capacity to act out of their own volition

I never said that. Endurance is the measure of physical conditioning ability, and I explained what you call simple "will", I explained what I thought extraordinary "will" is when our limits are tested. I also explained what I define as "free will" that is not related to phyical reactions, reflex, or the time to process these thoughts. One person did tell you not to use Free will defining basic will.

Underlined, so a quadrapalgic would have no will keeping him from doing the task, or physically incapable of doing it?

Everthing does not manifest itself in the form of physical movements, and the decisions of free will we refer to are not physical in nature, which I gave several example of.

Did you read the WIKI article?

Because it's the whole scientific world vs you right now as far as I can tell. Your objections make no sense and your definition of free-will is strange to say the least.

Anyway, I thought the experiment was interesting and I sense it's now time to move on as this discussion is going nowhere.

humphreys wrote:Did you read the WIKI article?

Because it's the whole scientific world vs you right now as far as I can tell. Your objections make no sense and your definition of free-will is strange to say the least.

Anyway, I thought the experiment was interesting and I sense it's now time to move on as this discussion is going nowhere.

Going nowhere or you just can not see others point of view, or force your own views on them? Other people do precieve things differently from you, like Faith and faith, or will and free will, and what they refer to.

You're the one unable to see someone else's point of view. You made an initial assumption about what the experiment was about and then stuck to that blindly even though I made it extremely clear.

Your definition of free-will seems to be entirely your own and is not in any dictionary or encyclopedia as far as I can tell. It is more akin to freedom of feeling rather than "free-will".

You don't get to make up your own definition of free-will and then declare that the experiment is not about "free-will" (your own invention of what it means), that just isn't on. Then you blame me for being closed-minded? Pretty typical!

A quote from you own links, as well as statements no concencous has been agreed on in this field!

"To be clear, no single study would disprove all forms of free will. This is because the term "free will" can encapsulate different hypotheses, each of which must be considered in light of existing empirical evidence."

By the way, we can ignore the physical part of the experiment altogether and it is still a valid test of free will.

For instance, if you have the thought "I will move my arm", simply the thought, the experiment shows that the brain prepared for that thought well before you were aware of it. The brain at an unconscious level is still calling the shots.

By all definitions free-will fails.

* When we have a thought, the brain unconsciously knows we're going to consciously have it long before it manifests - the thought itself is out of our control
* When we move physically, the same applies
* We cannot control feeling either - same as above

Where is there left for free-will to hide greeney?

greeney2 wrote:A quote from you own links, as well as statements no concencous has been agreed on in this field!

"To be clear, no single study would disprove all forms of free will. This is because the term "free will" can encapsulate different hypotheses, each of which must be considered in light of existing empirical evidence."

Great, progress has been made if you can at least accept it is a test of free-will!

You will see I made it clear it was no absolute proof of no free-will, just very suggestive of it, and the timing issues mentioned in the first link were addressed in the second link.

There is not just a single study, either, I have made mention of three already, tackling different parts of the free-will problem.

There is no known or intelligible mechanism by which free-will can exist, scientifically speaking. We are all apart of the Universe, and therefore subject to the forces within that Universe, without proof of an external force capable of acting outside of those forces, it doesn't even make sense to entertain the possibility of free-will existing, in my opinion.

Maybe you can explain what the underlined refers to in your own information, and that there is NO CONCENCEOUS AMONG RESEARCHERS? it says there are different concepts as to the definiation of "Free will" and what it means, not just to you and I, but in the world of science related researchers. What more do you want?