Free Will and The Subconscious...

Post Reply New Topic

The faster the response required, the less free will is involved. Animals have evolved mechanisms to use the fastest possible means to avert physical injury. If we accidentally touch something hot, our pain receptors send a signal to the brain telling it about the problem. The longer the hand is in contact with the burning object the more damage will be done. The signal only reaches as far as the spinal column (or brain stem... I forget now) before it sends a signal back to the muscles telling them to contract. This reflex action happens automatically. Only afterwards does the signal get processed by the subconscious then finally the conscious mind feels the pain and says "Ouch!".

The subconscious brain has also learned though evolutionary history that snakes are dangerous; so we (and other apes) are likely to leap / be startled if our subconscious sees something resembling the shape of a snake in the corner of our eye; especially if it is moving!

While this is true for instant decision making, there is a lack of evidence supporting the idea that this holds true for long term thinking, which shapes the electrical pathways within the brain. While we may not have a direct say in immediate action, we likely have free will in terms of how we shape our thinking which indirectly affects our future decisions. It has also been suggested that frequent meditation and long sessions of intense thinking directly influence the frontal lobes, which are responsible for logic and rationality, while most of our impulses and the decisions affecting our physical actions come from impulses originating in the limbics lobes, the cerebellum, and the brain stem, but are influenced in their intensity by impulses from the frontal lobes.

It is all quite fascinating stuff. Personally, I can't get enough of it. Neurology, neurophysics (especially electromagnetism in the brain), neurophysiology, neurochemstry, neoroanatomy, neurologic mapping. I love it all.

It is certainly a fascinating field. The biggest problem we face with discussion of free will is how to define it. I argue that there is no such thing as free will because the brain effectively runs deterministic hardware and software and even when we make pseudo random choices (guessing the toss of a coin) our brain is likely following deterministic (pseudo random) algorithms to make a decision. Proponents of free will tend to think there is a separate "me" somewhere inside the brain (or as a soul) that does all the decision making then passes their decision to the rest of the brain. But I would argue that the more we study the brain there seems to be less and less a distinct thing called "me". Even our behaviour and personality is just an amalgam of instinctive and learned responses. People who believe in free will tend to think of their mental processes rather like the driver of a car as "them" and the car as their brain; but in the case of the brain there is no separate driver/car.

If you really ponder this issue from a subjective self-introspecting angle, it seems to me that I superficially seem to make decisions but in reality don't know exactly how I came to those decisions. The conscious mind is presented with various scenarios and various possible choices but our analysis of these choices is really very superficial then suddenly our choice suddenly appears in the conscious mind. Shall I go for a walk or watch TV... BANG - there it is in my consciousness "I'll watch TV". Where are the hundreds or maybe thousands of calculations and analysis that went into this decision? I can't see them. I don't know what they were. All I see is "my" decision. Even if we try to consciously think about a complex issue such as moving house or what to study at university or whether to ask a particular girl out etc, we can consciously think of lots of pros and cons and superficially seem to evaluate one against the other, but ultimately the choice just seems to make itself, sometimes in spite of our conscious analysis! My "gut" seems to make all my decisions; but in reality "gut" is just another word for my subconscious, the real decision maker.

Someone recently asked me a very complex question; a question that would involve my memory of many years of study.

Did this person expect me to remember every item of learning in these many years before answering?

Or did this person expect me to let me run the problem in my subconscious, and let my subconscious
assemble the various conclusions reached during study and contemplation, and tie these up into a
neat package for me. You have control over this part of your mind, but NOT of the process. Your
mind is only a tool.

There are various theories on the mind and how it operates and some which posit the dodging of a
blow or the instant arising of road rage as a third functioning area of the mind which you, they claim,
CAN NOT control (but I don't agree with this fully).

Our subconscious is not a separate person in our body.....it's US. And how we learn to control it or it
controls us is a topic for practice.

Free will??????? Instead of asking if we have free will ask rather how we can train and control our will.

the free will part of it is accepting the inevitability of your decisions and not terminating them with a suicide. staying on the ride of life requires a will to remain, and if it is not there, then one will fall off rapidly.
whatever happens in life is inevitable. all the decisions i make are inevitable, but my decision to stay watching it all inevitably unfold is due to my free will (which i guess is also inevitable).

The way I approach free will is by considering it in much the same way the photographer Ansel Adams approached an exposure.

Ansel was a master of his craft both in the darkroom and in the field, with years and years of study and experimentation. At the moment of shutter release he says:

?You don't make a photograph just with a camera. You bring to the act of photography all the pictures you have seen, the books you have read, the music you have heard, the people you have loved.?
― Ansel Adams

This is how you use your subconscious. It requires patience and practice. And belief you can do it.

And free will????? It's as free as YOU make it; it's quite malleable you'll find.

Putting on my Zen hat: One could argue that such training and control is being exercised by our subconscious anyway, attempting to modify its own behaviour deliberately because it is aware it has flaws or is badly optimised in certain ways. The conscious mind views this mental activity and is yet not part of it, merely the witness. There is a perception of thoughts , feelings and desires (by nobody) and they are not "me". Merely passing flotsam and jetsam through consciousness.

where can i see a pic of that hat

Do you ever ask your subconscious a question or depend on it for an answer?

The way I and others do this is by running subroutines. We learn to do this in an attempt to understand and accommodate the huge memory our big brains afford us. But the conscious control of each individual varies; some are impulse driven and some studied. The subconscious is a handy tool, because of it's processing speed, but ultimately a flawed one.

YMMV

Absolutely. Many years ago I read an article somewhere that the intuitive side of the brain is always keeping track of what you are trying to do or trying to achieve but it often has difficulty getting a word in edgeways trying to talk to the logical side of the brain. The article went on to say that the more one ignores the feedback from the intuitive side the less it tries to help out. I have no idea if the article had much basis in truth, but I made an effort to listen better to my intuitive side and I've built up a very good collaboration between the hemispheres since. The best example was one night I had a dream of a solution to a highly complex problem with a scientific mathematical model I was working on for the UK government. The dream woke me up and I scribbled down some notes and programmed it the following day... it worked wonderfully. My logical side had spent days looking for a solution in vain, but my intuitive side had a visual solution all ready for me.

I've often noticed since that if my logical brain is struggling trying to resolve an issue or technical problem, I just leave it alone for a few hours and do something entirely different... then suddenly the intuitive side gives me a nudge and says... "Hey, try this..." It is as though it has been busy all this time, quietly working on solving the problem in its own quiet and "invisible" way.

Your self study here reminds me of a thin book by SHUNRYU SUZUKI called Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. It makes me think a Beginner's Mind is a mind where the hemispheres cooperate, thanks.

^You can say that again. Free will is one of the concepts that can have a thousand slightly different definitions to a hundred different people.

^^^ like art.

I think you're right and this leads us to ask the wrong question (Is there free will?). Philosopher123 (in this forum a while ago) implied it was proof that ultimately your chromosomes and situation of birth (which you have no control over) are ultimately at the root of and responsible for your specific path, and actions, throughout life. Is this a productive thought or is it meaningless? How about a different question I think is more productive? How about asking: "Given my chromosomal makeup and situation of birth, how can I take responsibility and sculpt my life?"

Is this even possible? For example: That a person can, by conscious control, change their life toward a direction of their choosing? Is this affected by your chromosomal makeup or place of birth? But, you say, the thought of changing your life toward a different path will not occur to (or be accepted by) one raised "unskilled" and not taught to believe this thing is possible. But even though this may be true we humans always try to improve our circumstances and this is a path anyone can follow.

The proponents of "no free will", although adamant about their beliefs, will not say a person born of and raised by a devil will become a devil or a person raised by and born of a saintly person will become a saintly person; they posit only that the person's life "will" be changed in some way.

But if this is true can we now say our fate is beyond our control? Why waste time considering this? Instead bend your life path the way you will! When it comes to control of your life it beats the alternative.

in another way of thinking about it, i would think that if there is such a thing as "free will", then it would have always been ours.

if "free will" is given to us due to forces beyond our personal crafting, then how free is it really?

before i was born i was nothing. i had no intentions or will. but when i was conceived as a human, i magically became endowed with a sentience that i had no part in designing.
i did not choose to have free will, so my idea of my "free will" is an illusion that distracts me from the otherwise futile realization that i am just an object that flows inevitably in the current of time, devoid of true choice.

i guess to deny the concept of free will is also to deny the concept of spontaneity. is anything truly spontaneous or is it just an unexpected but inevitable eruption caused by previous events that culminated in it?

it all boils down to the question of whether we really have a soul that is divorced from all physical manifestation. i feel like i am seeing things from inside my head, but there is a deeper seat of consciousness that is where i truly am which has no physical location.

something i always wondered was why is my consciousness trapped within the boundaries of my body? i have a seeing eye that is deeply me, but why is it always attached to my physical body?

why can i never see through anyone elses eyes? why am i always me? if the soul is not in the same realm as physical manifestation, then why is my soul trapped in my physical body?

i think also that curiosity is an expression of free will. i am curious to know the answers to many things, and i think curiosity is something artificial intelligence will never achieve.

i want to know "why" and that is fundamental to me having a will.
wanting to learn about the world in which one treads is beyond the scope of my idea of "inevitability" and i think that adaptation is quite spontaneous.

I just like to go with the flow of things me.

I run on instincts.

Are instincts part of the subconscious?

again i have to accept .. very very limited verbal capacity here .. reading just snippets of thread ..

consciousness mentioned .. what popped up ..

discussing consciousness .. one image i've heard .. The Simpsons intro .. Marge and Maggie in the car .. BOTH turn their steering wheels in time .. looking just like they both drive the car .. Marge turning the actual real steering wheel .. and Maggie turning her toy steering wheel ..

probably .. to Maggie it feels every bit as real as to Marge .. an image of our consciousness, maybe .. it feels real and in control .. because we need and want it to .. perhaps .. consciousness as self-fulfilling ..