EdwardTheAwesome wrote:Dryunya wrote:Morgan wrote:Assuming that you have your own author, for you, is not something that can be proven. Perhaps should you ever go through to the world your author inhabits, you can then come back and tell me that you do not have free will in this world. That is the position I find myself in currently.
However, again, I know exactly what a lack of free will feels like. <...>
Logical fallacy detected. She admits that we can't know if we have free will until we see our higher-layer fiction, and yet she says that
she feels it, despite having seen it when being fictional herself. Nope, lady, the rules are the same for everyone.
I don't really see the fallacy there. I'm pretty sure she's saying that, having experienced HER higher level, she can feel the deference, which she then goes on to describe in great detail. And I donno, that "having a magnet on your heart" stuff she talked about feeling in her story? Yeah, I don't feel anything close to that here. If we experienced her lower level, maybe we would.
Sorry Joe, I just really think they are right here...
I've definitely experienced different levels of "free will," and I've discovered it to be, partially, a learnable skill. It's also partially a matter of situational context -- sometimes there are more clear-cut choices in a given situation, like when there are
Two Roads Before You, or when you're in a store with thousands of products, and a finite amount of money and time. What catches your attention? Why? Can you learn to focus your attention, or consciously juggle between the mental lenses, and brain circuits, that correspond to where you look, or what you choose?
Ron Howard gives advice to Project Imagin8ion participants... [2m]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEc736vFBlQThe term "free will" is often associated with intractable debates. But like the "nature vs. nuture debate," the reality is more than an either-or-thing, as life is an interplay between genes/neurodevelopment/experience, reaction to the environment, learning from it, and making further choices based in part on how you come to see yourself, your mind, and the world.
Even writing this I'm torn by inner factors -- like the voices of everyone who chastises me for writing long posts, or acting like I'm teaching people, or throwing in scientific references and millions of links. If your intention is to avoid thinking about things, such things are, indeed, a menace. And hence I have a Moral Dilemma, even in writing this post!
Part of me is trying consider how different people will interpret what I write, when you'll stop reading, how many demerits and grudges will get stacked up for each word and paragraph I write. And yet, with *reality* at stake, vs. *friendships*, what's a person to do?
The more I become aware of those inner conflicts, just like learning chess, or the map of a city, the more I experience a range of conscious selections, rather than just stream-of-consciousness writing, or giving up and doing something else. As a result, I have a greater range of movement than, say, a rat pressing a lever to get a reward, or a Hero or Villain with a clear-cut challenge. Writing itself is rewarding, as is creating meaningful experiences for others, but there is so much more to take account of, and I don't have one particular gambit in mind! Hence the problem of responsibility, of doubt, and of choice amid uncertainty.
So a big question is, where do decisions come from? It *is* a science, and one that has only recently started entering popular culture and discussions. Certainly, there are situations where free will is a non-issue. But sometimes, especially in conflict, and moral dilemmas, and attempts to change, the line between free and constrained comes into focus. And that's why conflict can be one of the best ways to learn about free will, whether in drama, experientially, or from neuroscience.
This video, from neuroscientist David Eagleman, of the
Eagleman Laboratory for Perception and Action, provides a view on inner conflict that may be relevant to to all this, including the different sides to all of us that come out at different times.
The Brain: A Machine Built of Conflicting Parts [3m]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byMJkFB0CHYDavid Eagleman wrote:"The first mistake I think has been made for the last century, when people think of how the brain actually operates, is to think of it as a single device, as sort of one computational thing that gets running. In fact, what you have are all these competing networks in the brain, that are trying to drive the single output channel of behavior. They have to battle it out, all the time. It's a machine built of conflicting parts.
So, if I were to put a big piece of chocolate cake in front of you, part of your brain wants to eat that right away, it's a rich energy source, part of your brain says, 'don't eat it, you're going to get fat,' and you have an argument with yourself, right? You can cajole yourself, get angry with yourself.
Who's talking to whom, exactly? It's all you, but some are involved in short-term decision-making, some are involved in long-term abstractions, and they're always fighting it out, and battling with each other, and I think that is really, what I see, as framework that's going to help us get to the next step."
Of course, most of the time people aren't facing such intense inner conflict, but sometimes you can feel it more intensely. For example, if critics are standing over your shoulder, breathing down your neck, ready to condemn to for any move you make, that conflict tends to be more palpable."
David Eagleman wrote:"When you're trying to make a decision between a couple of choices, you have networks in the brain that care about price point, you have other ones that care about the emotional experience, whether something is aversive or rewarding, you have other networks that care about the social context, whether your friends like it, or not, and so on, and these things are always fighting it out.
But the key is, it's all happening incognito, right? You don't know this. So, when you're at the store, in the ice cream aisle, or whatever, and you're trying to decide which ice cream to get, there's a lot of stuff happening under there, and you don't know why you grab that one and not that one."
The whole question about morality, and of judgment, largely revolves around what a person freely decides, including who to be, what to do, and what to set or keep as an intention. One of those choices is, whether to give the question of conscious choice, and where it comes form, some attention and study, or whether to take the red pill and maybe try again later.
As for the fictionals, *I* understand why they are making such a big deal out of it. And I imagine, meta, that I'm not alone in thinking that free will is a question relevant to a morally challenging narrative structure. Without that question,
there would be no story.
