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Comment by msluyter | Hacker News Reader

I've long believed that free will is illusory. Empirical evidence includes studies that suggest that we may make decisions before we're actually aware of them (See Benjamin Libet: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Libet) Your conscious mind is like a 6 year in the back seat with the toy steering wheel, pretending he's driving and making up stories about where he's taking us.

Despite that, I can't actually live my life as though I really have no free will. I tried it (briefly) as an experiment, and I merely sank into a sort of post hoc analysis of everything I did. "I was supposed to do that. That's what my unconscious made me do. Etc..." Indeed, I believe that free will is inseparable from identity to such an extent that even if we find unassailable proof that it's merely an illusion, we'll continue about our lives, "choosing," as if nothing ever happened.

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There is a fascinating book by Julian Jaynes called The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind that goes even deeper into this area.

Basically, he says, our two minds were previously split and "you" would "hear" your other mind issuing instructions about what to do. (Much like Snow Crash and the nam-shubs of Enki).

Over time the two merged, and we ended up with a single stream of consciousness. Among other things, he says, we can see the remnants in people experiencing "the voice of God", and the way we are extremely susceptible to commands spoken closely into our right ears.

To be clear: modern theories of consciousness and psychology have v. little time for Jaynes, but as a philosophical curio/thought game it's great fun.

Interesting right ear findings:

http://www.google.com/search?q=spoken++right+ear.

I looked at this article, but I don't think the experiment proves as much as Libet claims it does. Neither he nor subsequent researchers seem to have gone beyond toy problems (what EEG activity appears in someone writing or programming?).

Also, I find it hard to believe that free will "lives" in one or another part of the brain; neither determinism nor randomness is freedom, and a physical "organ of free will" would have to be either deterministic (from macro-scale physics) or random (from quantum-scale activity).

I agree that living without free will is probably psychologically insupportable; even Muslims and Calvinists, who believe in double predestination (and Marxists, who believe in historical determinism), live as if free will was true. (Read _The Pilgrim's Progress_ and tell me that Bunyan really believed Puritan doctrines...)

We get angry when theologians try to overstep their bounds into science, so we should also get angry when scientists overstep their bounds into philosophy with all kinds of hamfisted assumptions.

I mean just because an assumption is necessary and reasonable for exploring the mechanics of the universe does not mean you can simply extrapolate to something as mysterious as the nature of consciousness and free will.

Philosophy ceases to be philosophy when its claims can be tested empirically. The major branches of science (physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, etc.) were once considered topics in philosophy, but are no longer. It appears that Philosophy of Mind is currently making this transition.

(Edit: Changed "Theory of Mind" to "Philosophy of Mind"... psychology lingo crept in there for a second)

Absolutely true, however it's a bit overzealous to jump from starting to understand how the brain works to materialistic assumptions about the nature of consciousness of free will.

See, from my perspective it's overzealous to assume that the conscious mind is not materialistic in nature.

With a question as ill-posed as the nature of consciousness, what's reasonable and what's overzealous depends entirely on your perspective.

Yes it's overzealous to assume either way. That's why it's philosophy not science.

Libet's EEG timings are only a problem for free will if you think that only the conscious mind can begin an exercise of our free will. Why think that?

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