I can't be. Not under those conditions you just specified.

Now do you want to discuss the actual conditions which prevail in the real world? Or continue to make up whatever shit comes into your head and then say "hey, if this bullshit I've just 'reckoned' is true than some other bullshit I also reckon must be true too" and pretend that's serious thought?

Go for it.

Al those things you listed are the activities of the human organism. The organism regulates its activities, but it is not a "single entity" if by that you mean there is some overarching central program. You make if sound as if there is a super-organism over and above the organism, a super-organism that controls the organism

I just said it regulates itself. I’m not sure how that implies two organisms. How do I make it sound as if there is?

I just said it regulates itself. I’m not sure how that implies two organisms. How do I make it sound as if there is? — NOS4A2

When you say this:
"and caused by a single entity: the human organism" you are saying the activities of the human organism are caused by the human organism, which sounds redundant. They are just the activities of the human organism. and in any case are also caused and conditioned by external influences such as oxygen, food, water, sunlight, trauma, injury and so on.

Are the activities of the human organism uncaused or caused by something else?

Free will is delusional, and it is agreed the acceptance of this reality creates chaos for society in the forms of religious sin and legal responsibility for one's behaviors. It is perhaps an impossible task for our evolutionary development. All creatures are reactionary creatures including humanity, humanity's greatest error is their belief in themselves as in control. The fact the all movement is motivated movement spells reaction not action. Perhaps if this is accepted, we might live sanely in this world.

Is this you trying to say that certain reflexes are controlled by hammers, and not, say, a reflex arc?

Some choose to believe in "free will".

Some choose to believe that "free will" is an illusion.

Some choose to believe that "free will" is compatible with being determined.

And some choose to think that 'whether or not we have "free will"' is a distinction that does not make a significant practical difference in our everyday lives.

We, of the Voluntarist Delegation, are willing to agree to 90+% of this statement, with some minor edits (see above). All in favor of moving the question, choose to say "aye."

Ahem, unfortunately, the Compatibilist Delegation has moved for a reading of their edits as well...

Some are determined to choose to be determined to believe in "free will".

Some are determined to choose to be determined to believe that "free will" is an illusion.

Some are determined to choose to be determined to believe that "free will" is compatible with being determined.

And some are determined to choose to be determined to think that 'whether or not we have "free will"' is a distinction that does not make a significant practical difference in our everyday lives.

However, the delegation seems split in:

"Some choose to be determined to choose to..." and "some are determined to choose to be determined to..." We may need to adjourn while they discuss the compromise position of "some choose to be determined to be determined to choose what they are determined to choose to be determined to..."

Your claim...

Every action... is controlled and regulated and caused by a single entity: the human organism. — NOS4A2

It's not. The reflex is caused by the hammer.

Here's a nice user-friendly diagram of the various TRP channels at the skin boundary and the way external agents cause neuronal responses.

But isn’t the rising of the leg caused by the contraction of muscle?

All a hammer can do is compress the tendon.

But isn’t the rising of the leg caused by the contraction of muscle? — NOS4A2

What causes the contraction of the muscle?

A motor neuron

A motor neuron — NOS4A2

And what causes a motor neuron to release sufficient acetylcholine to innervate that muscle?

I’m not sure, but I suspect that you’re going to eventually say the body is like a Rube Goldberg machine, or that the body does not govern, control, or cause any of these actions. Is that what we’re getting at?

Look at the diagram I posted above of the electro-chemical reactions at the skin surface in response to external stimuli.

You've agreed that at one end of the neural chain acetylcholine is released which innervates a muscle fibre causing it to move.

You see from the diagram, that at the other end of the chain external stimuli cause electro-chemical responses in neurons.

Each nueron has an axon. Each will either cause a neighbouring neuron to fire or it won't (depending on signal strength)

The only way that motor neuron is going to release acetylcholine is if it's been stimulated to do so by a preceding neuron (barring random noise).

So. Where's the break in the chain? Because I've studied the human neurological system quite closely and all I see are more neurons, each connected to the preceding one and each only stimulated to fire by that preceding one (again, barring random noise).

So where's the 'will' get in?

And where do those externally generated signals get stopped?

And the above is all about 'will' of course. We needn't even go that far.

Your nonsense is shown simply by the first diagram alone. There is an external stimuli, heat, which deforms the nonselective Ca2+ channel in the cell membrane... We can stop right there because this very first stage immediately disproves your claim that...

Every action... is controlled and regulated and caused by a single entity: the human organism. — NOS4A2

It isn't.

The opening of the membrane's Ca2+ channels at the epidermis is caused by heat. External heat.

Cocky Libertarian gets humbled by Neuroscientist on the Reality of (the nonexistence of) Free-Will.

edit: I'm going to actually try to say something substantive, sorry for the cringeworthy jokes

where do those externally generated signals get stopped? — Isaac

Do you think externally generated signals must be stopped at some point in order for free-will to exist?

What if there is some function by which beliefs, for example, are stored and represented at least partially by some sort of stochastic factor and then this sort of moderately understandable randomness results in enough deviation to allow one to say, with moderate certainty, that their beliefs are not formed only from external signals and personal valuation, but rather also a number of hidden factors that may or may not be physiological? What if we couldn't even observe the means by which beliefs are formed and acted upon, at least not on the right level?

Maybe we can do all that, and after reading about this I think the credition model of belief is probably accurate, but it seems to me that there is enough elbow room for us to posit that maybe not knowing everything about the brain could allow free will to creep in, even if it could be viewed as grasping at straws.

edit: this is my best argument for free will, and I'm not even committed to it; I know it is weak.

Your causal chain begins rather arbitrarily, at the point where the hammer strikes the tendon, and not in the doctors brain for instance. It begins exactly where it suits you, somewhere in the environment. But that the environment can affect the body is a given. I’m speaking about the body, so all I can say is your hammer’s impact causes the compression of the tendon. That’s it. Your causal chain begins precisely where it ends, because every causal link you can muster to describe after that is caused by the body, utterly contingent on its being, structure, function, and so on. There is no hammer in there firing neurons and constricting muscles, I’m afraid.

Some are determined to choose to believe in "free will".

Some are determined to choose to believe that "free will" is an illusion.

Some are determined to choose to believe that "free will" is compatible with being determined.

And some are determined to choose to think that 'whether or not we have "free will"' is a distinction that does not make a significant practical difference in our everyday lives. — 180 Proof

Corrected.

Are the activities of the human organism uncaused or caused by something else? — NOS4A2

An activity of the human organism may be caused by previous activities of the human organism (endogenous events), and may or may not also be caused by exogenous events.

So where's the 'will' get in? — Isaac

Random noise, duh! :gasp:

That's basically the argument I made. Not my best, by far. I seem to remember hearing about an essay by Dennet that says something similar.

Do you think externally generated signals must be stopped at some point in order for free-will to exist? — ToothyMaw

To be honest, I think talk of free-will and talk of CNS signals are from two different worlds and don't have much corroboratory overlap. We use words like 'free-will' to talk about coercion by others, it's a word used in a social context when entertaining concepts of blame, responsibility, and autonomy. the only overlap I can see with neuroscience or cognitive science is where we can identify a pathology to say "he would have acted differently had it not been for X" and then show that by reference to a 'normal' CNS functioning without this pathology.

All I'm saying here with the examples I've given to @NOS4A2 is that if one were to theorise a 'free-will' in a physiological sense (which is the sense in which @NOS4A2 introduced it), then it would have to somehow interrupt that chain of action potential > action potential which seems to run all the way from sensory input to motor output.

What if there is some function by which beliefs, for example, are stored and represented at least partially by some sort of stochastic factor and then this sort of moderately understandable randomness results in enough deviation to allow one to say, with moderate certainty, that their beliefs are not formed only from external signals and personal valuation, but rather also a number of hidden factors that may or may not be physiological? What if we couldn't even observe the means by which beliefs are formed and acted upon, at least not on the right level? — ToothyMaw

There's certainly a lot of stochastic activity in the brain. Neurons will fire randomly just due to depolarisation as a result of gradual leakage of Na+ through some non-selective membrane channels (as well as a few other, less significant causes). There are also damages which can make it more likely for these random firing to occur in clusters. But we have tow main mechanisms to prevent this from having any effect. first most neurons will be wired such as to require a number of preceding neurons to fire in order to raise sufficient action potential, so one random firing in that set is unlikely to do anything. the second is more complex. Various cortices act together to 'interpret' the signal entering them before sending on some 'result' to the cortices above them in the brain's hierarchy. As part of this process they have backward acting neurons which suppress signals that don't fit an 'expected' pattern, This way signals which are likely to be noise never reach the next stage in the processing hierarchy.

It's possible that some signals make it through all of these controls and I think it likely that these may be interpreted post hoc (when detected by interoceptive cortices) as 'spontaneous thought'). But I don't see any way these could be frequent enough, nor from a complex enough source to hold our beliefs.

In addition, lesion studies and, more recently, single neuron probing studies, seem to have a greater evidence base for our beliefs being encoded in quite normal parts of the brain taking up positions in the chain of CNS processing which we can identify with some degree of certainty.

But, yes, there's a lot we don't know about how brains work.

Your causal chain begins rather arbitrarily, at the point where the hammer strikes the tendon, and not in the doctors brain for instance. — NOS4A2

Which would still be external to the system under analysis.

that the environment can affect the body is a given. I’m speaking about the body, — NOS4A2

So your argument is "if we limit ourselves to speaking about the body... then we find that all events are caused by something in the body". well, no shit.

Random noise, duh! — invicta

That would be randomness then. Not 'will'.

Which would still be external to the system under analysis.

And just as arbitrary.

So your argument is "if we limit ourselves to speaking about the body... then we find that all events are caused by something in the body". well, no shit.

Does talk about the will have to do with anything else? For some reason you’ve limited the discussion to “cause” only, but the body also controls, regulates, orders, directs such activity, and it does it under no other influence.

Which would still be external to the system under analysis.


And just as arbitrary. — NOS4A2

I didn't say it wasn't arbitrary. That's the point. Any step in a causal chain could be called 'the cause' there's no right answer, it depends on the context.

Does talk about the will have to do with anything else? — NOS4A2

Not if you beg the question, no. But if you're asking if there is such a thing, then talk about it very much does have to do with forces outside the body. Those being among the alternative explanations for action you'd have to dismiss the possibility of to prove your position.

For some reason you’ve limited the discussion to “cause” only, but the body also controls, regulates, orders, directs such activity, and it does it under no other influence. — NOS4A2

Again, just spouting nonsense you happen to reckon is not a substitute for a rational argument. Have you studied human physiology? Have you put any effort at all toward checking if your 'reckon' is correct, have you examined these 'controls, regulations orders, and directions' to see if they do indeed occur without any outside influence?

No.

You just spew up whatever you happen to think and expect to be taken seriously. If you want to discuss human regulatory physiology, then learn about it first.

Way to make neuroscience make sense to someone scientifically illiterate like me. I half expected to be grouped in with NOS because of my lack of understanding, although perhaps I didn't make as many, or perhaps any, overly specious claims - or so it would seem from the way you broke it down.

I have no other arguments for free will and will now step aside so people with your knowledgeability can keep fighting the good fight.

:up: