Here is a fascinating article on free will. Prior to performing an action, our brain accumulates an electron charge that, when discharged, causes us to act. Apparently, before you make a conscious decision to do something, electrons start to buildup in the region of the brain that is responsible for said action. You actually make a conscious decision to do something after the buildup has started. This implies that we aren’t really making decisions at all. We are only justifying what we did by thinking that we meant to do it.
Here are some of my amateur musings on the subject:
1) Could a decision to do something be made well in advance of the electron buildup? If I am driving down the street and need to turn left, don’t I make that decision about halfway down the block? My decision is only put into action when needed. Therefore the electron buildup is done near the time to turn, but the actual decision to turn is made before that.
2) I have been wondering recently why I do the things that I do when I do them. For instance, this Saturday I wanted to get a coffee but I also wanted to work. So I am working, staying focused, and then bam I was out the door without really making a decision to go get a coffee. My work left half done. This kind of thing happens more often than I like, and I am trying to understand. I wonder if this could be related to the electron buildup. Maybe I have a slow electron leak in my Decisionator 3000 that is causing that action potential to be reached and causing me to get a coffee in the middle of doing something.
3) Here are some question about brains to ponder. Do people with higher IQs have more electricity in their brain? It seems that if electricity is the fundamental way that a brain transmits information that a smart person would have more information being transmitted and therefore more electricity? Or do smart people have more sensitive responses to changes in the level of electrical impulses? Further, do certain activities require more power? Does my brain require more power to type than to speak? If so, what is the breakdown of percentage of brain power needed for certain functions?
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So here’s what i got:
If the actual decision is made before the electrons fire and the electrons firing represent concious thought then the outcomes that you’re achieving are only truly determined by instinct. Snap decisions. Then, you rationalize them (however quickly) in such a way as that they make sense when translated in your head.
We can see an example of this when someone moves their hand prior to thinking that “fuck, this is hot.” The hand moves, then you get the burning sensation, then you think “i burned myself.” In that order. It may happen super fast, but i guarantee that you’re moving your hand first, even before you think about it.
If we apply this idea to all the various levels of concious thought we can see that the trend is toward instinctual reponses that are built from experiences in your past. These experiences have determined the fastest way for electrons to fire in your head to achieve desired outcomes (another biochemical reaction simultaniously happening in your brain), and in doing so have also pre-determined your “instinctual” response.
Contradictory! (You may say) Circular argumentation! (Others may say) Bullshit! (Would be my response)
Not really.
Because the electrons have already developed a pattern of firing, they need not BE firing to guarantee similar results. It is not the electrons firing that determine the outcome, it is the neural network of your brain that has already been developed. {The highways are already made for the little guys, they just havn’t gone on their trip yet.}
Your instincts may amount to more than just sex, food and shelter (not necessarily in that order) but these three things are at the very foundation of who we are as animals. It is this animal nature that truly drives who we are. Every mundane decision that gets made eventually can be boiled down to: survive.
Which is what your neural network was really designed to do in the first place. Self sustain. Everything else is just a rationalization, which happens after the fact.
Or, maybe not. Hell, i’m just a graphic designer, what the fuck do i know?
But after i think about it, this may be a circular line of logic.
Since the network is there with or without electrons then its strengths and weaknesses (heightened response, lowered response, sic: high school chemistry) lie in its ability to move these electrons. Which means that the network would be shaped by previous electric charge (read as: experience), which would build up the structure in some areas of the brain, while decreasing the structure in other, unused parts of the brain.
Which means that we start with a certain chemical and structural makeup (birth, genetics, nature) and then evolve through different forms of bio-electrical stimuli (external, internal, etc…) to produce the pathways that we use for the rest of our lives. These pathways are translated as a whole (all parts of the brain) to be the determining factor on our conciousness.
The interesting thing is that the independant parts of our brain are all rooted in instinct and work together in various ways to produce desired results. So i think that the rationalization is just the excess of trying to produce desired results. The extra parts of the brain that continue to fire (transfer electricity) and have to go somewhere. (Newtons pesky laws).
Jesus, i gotta stop thinking about this.
DAMN YOUZ BSTOP, DAMN YOUZ!
Dude, seriously, i love questions like this.
Love you guys lots.
I’m interested in this distinction between the brain and the conscious mind: “Your brain is doing the real work … and all the time your conscious mind is tagging along behind.”
?Is the “brain” the mechanics and the “conscious mind” the sum of the moving parts? Or are they separate and different? When differentiated, as in the article, conscious mind and having free will start to get as nebulous as the romanticized concepts of having “soul” or having “heart”…
?Is, implicit in the brain/conscious-mind parsing, the “brain” our unconscious mind?
?How do the unconscious and the conscious minds articulate? Does it have something to do with this: “Despite their choice being electronically directed, these patients continued to report that they were freely choosing which hand to move.”
Academics sometimes point fingers and say some groups of people suffer from false consciousness. But this article would say that all consciousness is a front. We’re all fronting. Tabasco.
Does anyone know anything about chaos theory and if it fits in here? Google Scholar turns up an article that gestures to the intersections we’re talking about: “At this time, psychoanalysis can only use deterministic chaos and fractals metaphorically, but in the future, especially if psychoanalysis is seen in terms of process or organismic theory, it is likely that such models can be produced.” http://pep-web.org/document.php?id=apa.041.0003a
“If Mittens chose to save the baby penguin because of his beliefs, and his beliefs are out of his control, does Mittens really have free will?”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sb7eLgaddI4
snl spoof of Dora the explorer.
This is one of my canned rants that I can bring out with little notice or provocation.
I tend to believe that we are biological/social beings–and that psychology tends to be an expression of those two things. By psychology, I mean thought, conscious and other otherwise, reactions, emotions etc…
We are, at base, input/output machines with a biochemical filter. Needs, emotions, desires, ethics are simply evolutionary mechanisms designed for procreation. When people move too far out of the norm they are ostracized or outright killed. That’s how we do.
Like most things, I believe about half of that, but I still may sponsor some honest, simple, hard-working indigenous peoples of… wherever.
Wow. That was totally worth it. Nice pull trev.
Erm, mmm, er, uh, I don’t understand how we evolved to have emotions, desires, ethics, etc in order to procreate. I thought that was what my Johnson was for I guess what I am really saying is that I don’t understand.
I think a beer(s), a porch, a fire, some boxing gloves, and other such necessities are in order so we can hash this out. I’m pretty sure we are about to solve the meaning of life. We might need a little suite as well, cause if we solve the meaning of life, I want to forget it promptly. I have no use for it.
Sure. The meaning of life is like ice cream.
When you don’t have it you want it, and when you do have it you get bored and it melts and then dribbles on your shoes.
One simple way to look at would be attachment to children. Now, human babies take a ridiculous amount of time to develop. Because of that they require a lot of care.
Not like those walking giraffes. Where as some animals don’t develop bonds between parents and children, or may be short lived, some are downright adversarial, some do.
The thought experiment is: is a baby more likely to live if a parent feels an emotional attachment or not? Now, the chemical processes of emotions, love and responsibility can be genetically developed like anything else. Maybe it is just a predisposition and culture fills in the gaps, but those more prone to “care” have children that live. That behavior is both innate and learned and the grandchild of that lineage also has a greater chance of survival. That is a simplistic way of stating the argument.
We aren’t the only animals that do this, but there is a line of argument that follows which states that empathy is simply a device of procreation. Furthermore, ecological empathy–for other animals, the environment–can be seen in a very similar manner.
To really mess with your head regarding evolution etc.. This is an amazing article about human evolution, new dating and DNA techniques. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17542627/site/newsweek/
All we know is how much we don’t know.
Did none of you get the Fight Club reference from Trev’s last post on Free Will? Check the last sentence. From Beth.
Ok, so I told her to write this.
i don’t remember when they say “all we know is how much we dont’ know.”
where is that in the movie?
Like most things, I believe about half of that, but I still may sponsor some honest, simple, hard-working indigenous peoples of… wherever.
it was this one.