The Illusion of Free Will: If true, how does this affect your political ideology

[vash1012]

One of the hot topics in science news these days is the ever mounting amount of research in neuroscience that's leading us to believe that "we" aren't quite as in control of our decisions as "we" think we are. I put "we" in quotations because I'm talking about the notion that we have a conscious self that is ultimately in control that is often considered separate from our biologically derived proclivities and inclinations.

So the question that comes to mind for me is, in the event the we were to discover that decisions made by humans are far more a product of their biology rather than the higher intellectual will we previously thought separate from our biology, what will that mean for your political ideology?

To elaborate, would the knowledge that a person's unchangeable biological make up is vastly more influential than we've been lead to believe alter your perception of how the government, in all its forms, should operate?

To get the conversation started, let's start with the most obvious example. In the case of the judicial system, we've already seen the effect of this idea. Many of our laws are based on the idea of intent; in that if a person is willfully intending to commit a crime, it is considered worse than a person who commits the crime in an act of passion or by accident. We've already set the precedent that a person who commits a crime because of a known defect in their biology cannot be held fully accountable for their actions because this person is not committing a truly willful act. As we get better and better at determining where a defect lies in people who have a biologic predisposition to crime, we could start seeing more and more people getting lighter sentences. This would necessitate a fundamental restructuring of our idea of justice. After all, can a person really deserve punishment for his decisions if they are the product of his physiological make up of his brain? We would have to change our system to focus less on punishment and more on preventing future crime. We would need to base our sentencing on the likelihood of recidivism. In this case, should the death penalty be abolished since a human can't really deserve to die for something that's out of their control? Or should it be used more often because there's no hope of rehabilitation?

What would this mean for the destitute who continue generation after generation to make bad decisions that keep them poor rather than taking the opportunities available to them to get out of the cycle of poverty? Would they deserve more pity and help because its partly out of their control? Or should they get less help because there is no hope of really improving their situation?

Should the successful man's wealth be redistributed more because his creativity and work ethic are more a product of his genes than a willful decision to work hard to be successful?

Or does it not make any difference to you whatsoever since the result is the same whether or not we are able to overcome our biology?

This is meant to be a peaceful discussion and in no way was designed to be biased to one side of the other. Please do your best to eliminate partisan bickering..if you aren't predisposed to it by the size of your central lobe and amygdala :lol:

 

[Alyssa]

First, I would like to dispel the idea that justice actually exists. It is a subjective concept. It does not exist on some higher plane of existence, nor is it handed down to us from Heaven. Justice is doled out based on favoritism, social status, and financial gain. It is not blind and there are no scales.

Logically, society needs to focus on the method that would reduce crime, not on punitive "justice" which may or may not affect recidivism. Free will? Imo, there is no black and white free will versus predestination. It's a mixture of the two. While it is true that a significant portion of who and what we are is determined by genetics/environment, people still make decisions that they must be accountable for. For instance, genetics and environment may have given someone unfavorable circumstances for which they have no control over. Very few of us have any measurable control over our environment. However, we can control how we react to the environment. (of course how we react is also largely determined by genetics and environment). In practice as a society and free of emotions, reducing crime should be the sole purpose of the judicial system.

 

[vash1012]

For the record, I do not think this is a black or white issue either. I am neither a hard determinist or a person who accepts free will to be absolute. Any rational person likely understands that there is some balance that exists between the two. The point of the thread, though, was to discuss the implications on one's political philosophy's if we knew for a fact that a person's biology is the majority of or the sole deciding factor in a person's projection of will. I'd rather not debate free will itself.

I agree with your thoughts on justice though.

 

[Alyssa]

Yes, the rate of recidivism should determine judicial law. The knowledge that a person has no free will because of the absolutist concept of biological predetermination would not lessen their "punishment" if the punishment reduced recidivism. In other words, No. It is not wrong to punish these people regardless of a lack of free will. Morality is subjective.

 

[DDD]

One of the hot topics in science news these days is the ever mounting amount of research in neuroscience that's leading us to believe that "we" aren't quite as in control of our decisions as "we" think we are. I put "we" in quotations because I'm talking about the notion that we have a conscious self that is ultimately in control that is often considered separate from our biologically derived proclivities and inclinations.

So the question that comes to mind for me is, in the event the we were to discover that decisions made by humans are far more a product of their biology rather than the higher intellectual will we previously thought separate from our biology, what will that mean for your political ideology?

To elaborate, would the knowledge that a person's unchangeable biological make up is vastly more influential than we've been lead to believe alter your perception of how the government, in all its forms, should operate?

To get the conversation started, let's start with the most obvious example. In the case of the judicial system, we've already seen the effect of this idea. Many of our laws are based on the idea of intent; in that if a person is willfully intending to commit a crime, it is considered worse than a person who commits the crime in an act of passion or by accident. We've already set the precedent that a person who commits a crime because of a known defect in their biology cannot be held fully accountable for their actions because this person is not committing a truly willful act. As we get better and better at determining where a defect lies in people who have a biologic predisposition to crime, we could start seeing more and more people getting lighter sentences. This would necessitate a fundamental restructuring of our idea of justice. After all, can a person really deserve punishment for his decisions if they are the product of his physiological make up of his brain? We would have to change our system to focus less on punishment and more on preventing future crime. We would need to base our sentencing on the likelihood of recidivism. In this case, should the death penalty be abolished since a human can't really deserve to die for something that's out of their control? Or should it be used more often because there's no hope of rehabilitation?

What would this mean for the destitute who continue generation after generation to make bad decisions that keep them poor rather than taking the opportunities available to them to get out of the cycle of poverty? Would they deserve more pity and help because its partly out of their control? Or should they get less help because there is no hope of really improving their situation?

Should the successful man's wealth be redistributed more because his creativity and work ethic are more a product of his genes than a willful decision to work hard to be successful?

Or does it not make any difference to you whatsoever since the result is the same whether or not we are able to overcome our biology?

This is meant to be a peaceful discussion and in no way was designed to be biased to one side of the other. Please do your best to eliminate partisan bickering..if you aren't predisposed to it by the size of your central lobe and amygdala :lol:

Your issues of changing law and order, distribution of wealth, ignorance, and non partisan discussion reside on the non supported premise. These are weak foundations to make claims such as: We are not in control of our own biology. Mentioning "neuroscientists have made us believe" is just like saying "scientists say." It is vague, imprecise, and non-referral.

You see first you need to establish that people are slaves to their own biology premise before you can move on to those other issues that reside to this first one. So how about you point out to those neuroscientific evidence about us being slaves to our own biology first?

 

[DVSentinel]

Wouldn't affect my philosophy at all.

I have long believed that our instincts played a much greater role in our behavior than people thought.

Also, environment at a young age plays critical roles in development. A child that has never been taught discipline will not suddenly develop it when they become an adult. Without good discipline when young that develops good self discipline in an adult, achievement is impossible.

 

[vash1012]

Your issues of changing law and order, distribution of wealth, ignorance, and non partisan discussion reside on the non supported premise. These are weak foundations to make claims such as: We are not in control of our own biology. Mentioning "neuroscientists have made us believe" is just like saying "scientists say." It is vague, imprecise, and non-referral.

You see first you need to establish that people are slaves to their own biology premise before you can move on to those other issues that reside to this first one. So how about you point out to those neuroscientific evidence about us being slaves to our own biology first?

If you were to read my post, you would have seen me say multiple times that the questions were posed in the event that we knew concretely that we were not in control. I am not debating whether we are or not. I am asking, IF it is true that we aren't in control, how would that affect your philosophy.

 

[DDD]

If you were to read my post, you would have seen me say multiple times that the questions were posed in the event that we knew concretely that we were not in control. I am not debating whether we are or not. I am asking, IF it is true that we aren't in control, how would that affect your philosophy.

If we are slaves of our biological instincts like animals then there would be no abstract concepts known to be enforced by law, no knowledge worth retaining other than the ones that assure one of the basic biological needs, now technology to begin with. Hence we would not be even able to talk about this online.

 

[vash1012]

If we are slaves of our biological instincts like animals then there would be no abstract concepts known to be enforced by law, no knowledge worth retaining other than the ones that assure one of the basic biological needs, now technology to begin with. Hence we would not be even able to talk about this online.

Intelligence and the ability to rationalize in no way imply the lack of instinct. The premise of the idea is that in every decision we make there are countless influences in our "subconscious" (I think the word is misapplied in this context) that affect what you will choose. This is nothing new. What's new is the evidence that suggests these influences are much more powerful than we thought. Its why the idea is called the illusion of free will. In our conscious experience, it feels like we are in control.. but perhaps that's as much part of our biological instinct as the "subconscious". For the record again, I am in no way implying I believe in hard determinism. I am posing the question how would hard determinism being true affect your political views.

 

[DDD]

Intelligence and the ability to rationalize in no way imply the lack of instinct. The premise of the idea is that in every decision we make there are countless influences in our "subconscious" (I think the word is misapplied in this context) that affect what you will choose. This is nothing new. What's new is the evidence that suggests these influences are much more powerful than we thought. Its why the idea is called the illusion of free will. In our conscious experience, it feels like we are in control.. but perhaps that's as much part of our biological instinct as the "subconscious". For the record again, I am in no way implying I believe in hard determinism. I am posing the question how would hard determinism being true affect your political views.

If we were slaves to biological instinct than those would take precendence. Raionalizing and logical thinking would then be considered as a waste of time. Something losers do when they could instead follow the instincts like everyone else who is enslaved by biological instincts.

 

[vash1012]

If we were slaves to biological instinct than those would take precendence. Raionalizing and logical thinking would then be considered as a waste of time. Something losers do when they could instead follow the instincts like everyone else who is enslaved by biological instincts.

You summarized succinctly what I think about Fox news, MSNBC, and those who watch it. You are basing your objection to the idea on the flawed assumption that the conscious self created by human intelligence and our ability to rationalize is a separate entity from our biological instincts. The human experience makes us feel like we have a willed being that is distinct from our physical presence, but this is a fallacy. Our self is a product of our physical presence, the composition of our brain, thus they can't be separate. Our free will, our sense of control, can't exist outside of the tangible matter that creates it. We may have the ability to learn, to rationalize, to perceive, but we can't separate ourselves from our biological instincts.

 

[DDD]

You summarized succinctly what I think about Fox news, MSNBC, and those who watch it. You are basing your objection to the idea on the flawed assumption that the conscious self created by human intelligence and our ability to rationalize is a separate entity from our biological instincts. The human experience makes us feel like we have a willed being that is distinct from our physical presence, but this is a fallacy. Our self is a product of our physical presence, the composition of our brain, thus they can't be separate. Our free will, our sense of control, can't exist outside of the tangible matter that creates it. We may have the ability to learn, to rationalize, to perceive, but we can't separate ourselves from our biological instincts.

If you payed attention to my post you would see that I did not separate cognition from emotion, you did. I prioritized it.

Simply put if instinct has higher priority than thinking then why bother thinking? Why think about outcomes when you can just go out there and get what you want?

If you have no added position on this then it is getting pretty late. And I have to catch the bus and deal with other issues.

 

[vash1012]

If you payed attention to my post you would see that I did not separate cognition from emotion, you did. I prioritized it.

Simply put if instinct has higher priority than thinking then why bother thinking? Why think about outcomes when you can just go out there and get what you want?

If you have no added position on this then it is getting pretty late. And I have to catch the bus and deal with other issues.

I don't think you are understanding the subtle point here. How can instinct or thinking have a higher priority if they are one in the same? The idea isn't that we can decide to use our brains and think OR we can operate on instinct. Its that thinking IS instinct. One can't be prioritized over the other. They are just different manifestations of the same process. When you feel like the in control "self" has decided he wants chocolate cake instead of vanilla ice cream, it isn't as much because you made a conscious decision to eat chocolate cake, but a host of other factors going on in the background of your subconscious influenced the emotional and rational parts of your brain in such a way that you felt like your in control "self" decided that you wanted that chocolate cake when really that decision was in some ways as automatic as a lion deciding he wants to eat a gazelle. It feels in the human experience like we are making a rational decision..like we've deliberated the merits of chocolate cake instead of vanilla ice cream and come to a decision of our own free will.. but (again, I'm not saying I believe in hard determinism, I'm just being the devil's advocate here) that seemingly higher intelligent process is the ILLUSION part of the illusion of free will debate. There is no higher, intelligent you. You are your brain. Your brain wants chocolate cake. The act of rationalization and deciding is just the manifestation of the biological processes in your brain which lead to you getting cake instead of vanilla ice cream.

 

[DDD]

I don't think you are understanding the subtle point here. How can instinct or thinking have a higher priority if they are one in the same? The idea isn't that we can decide to use our brains and think OR we can operate on instinct. Its that thinking IS instinct. One can't be prioritized over the other.

References that equalize cognition with instincts please?

 

[vash1012]

References that equalize cognition with instincts please?

PLOS ONE: Tracking the Unconscious Generation of Free Decisions Using UItra-High Field fMRI

Neuron - Internally Generated Preactivation of Single Neurons in Human Medial Frontal Cortex Predicts Volition

http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/v11/n5/full/nn.2112.html

Chapter 27 The Bereitschaftspotential as an electrophysiological tool for studying the cortical organization of human voluntary action

Cambridge Journals Online - Behavioral and Brain Sciences - Abstract - Unconscious cerebral initiative and the role of conscious will in voluntary action

The timing of the conscious intention to move - Matsuhashi - 2008 - European Journal of Neuroscience - Wiley Online Library

Transcranial magnetic stimulation can influence the selection of motor programmes.

Focal transcranial magnetic stimulation and response bias in a forced-choice task.

I can summarize all these studies for you. The first set of them are all variations of the same experiment wherein people are placed in an fMRI machine focusing on their brain and asked to make a simple, forced choice (ie. push a button with your left or right hand). Which option they choose is entirely left up to the person. What they showed was that they could pinpoint brain activity that predicted what option they would choose BEFORE the person perceived himself making the cognitive decision. Some studies this was seen only a half a second before and in some it was as high as 10 seconds before. What they surmised from this is that your decisions may be essentially being made for you before you perceive your higher cognitive function making that decision. They don't go so far as to say we have no free will at all though. They believe higher cognitive function act as a stop check for the involuntary, instinctive process that came before it. A person can still choose whether or not he wants to commit the act or not as a result of our higher cognitive function. So central point: We may be perceiving ourselves choosing one thing over the other when that decision is essentially already made for us in the involuntary subconscious of our mind (instinct).

The last few studies are I think the more interesting. In them, a similar simple forced choice experiment is done..but the experimenters use different methods of affecting the persons subconscious to affect in a very predictable way how that people chose to act while that person still maintained the sense that he had made a conscious decision. I don't have a link to this one, but in one, people we asked to memorize a number either 2 or 7 digits long, walk down a hall way, and recite the number. Along the way, an experimenter would stop them without their knowledge that this was part of the experiment and offer them either fruit or cake. People who only had to memorize 2 numbers chose cake or fruit in similar numbers to control groups, but people who had to remember 7 digit numbers overwhelmingly chose cake. Why? Parts of the brain that would normally say "hey buddy, get that fruit because cakes' bad for you" were tied up trying to remember that longer number so the impulsive, emotional sections of the brain were left to make that decision. I think these are more interesting studies because in the real world we make so many of our decisions while we are half paying attention to something else.

 

[DDD]

PLOS ONE: Tracking the Unconscious Generation of Free Decisions Using UItra-High Field fMRI

Neuron - Internally Generated Preactivation of Single Neurons in Human Medial Frontal Cortex Predicts Volition

http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/v11/n5/full/nn.2112.html

Chapter 27 The Bereitschaftspotential as an electrophysiological tool for studying the cortical organization of human voluntary action

Cambridge Journals Online - Behavioral and Brain Sciences - Abstract - Unconscious cerebral initiative and the role of conscious will in voluntary action

The timing of the conscious intention to move - Matsuhashi - 2008 - European Journal of Neuroscience - Wiley Online Library

Transcranial magnetic stimulation can influence the selection of motor programmes.

Focal transcranial magnetic stimulation and response bias in a forced-choice task.

I can summarize all these studies for you. The first set of them are all variations of the same experiment wherein people are placed in an fMRI machine focusing on their brain and asked to make a simple, forced choice (ie. push a button with your left or right hand). Which option they choose is entirely left up to the person. What they showed was that they could pinpoint brain activity that predicted what option they would choose BEFORE the person perceived himself making the cognitive decision. Some studies this was seen only a half a second before and in some it was as high as 10 seconds before. What they surmised from this is that your decisions may be essentially being made for you before you perceive your higher cognitive function making that decision. They don't go so far as to say we have no free will at all though. They believe higher cognitive function act as a stop check for the involuntary, instinctive process that came before it. A person can still choose whether or not he wants to commit the act or not as a result of our higher cognitive function. So central point: We may be perceiving ourselves choosing one thing over the other when that decision is essentially already made for us in the involuntary subconscious of our mind (instinct).

The last few studies are I think the more interesting. In them, a similar simple forced choice experiment is done..but the experimenters use different methods of affecting the persons subconscious to affect in a very predictable way how that people chose to act while that person still maintained the sense that he had made a conscious decision. I don't have a link to this one, but in one, people we asked to memorize a number either 2 or 7 digits long, walk down a hall way, and recite the number. Along the way, an experimenter would stop them without their knowledge that this was part of the experiment and offer them either fruit or cake. People who only had to memorize 2 numbers chose cake or fruit in similar numbers to control groups, but people who had to remember 7 digit numbers overwhelmingly chose cake. Why? Parts of the brain that would normally say "hey buddy, get that fruit because cakes' bad for you" were tied up trying to remember that longer number so the impulsive, emotional sections of the brain were left to make that decision. I think these are more interesting studies because in the real world we make so many of our decisions while we are half paying attention to something else.

I agree that these are interesting studies. Plus you use words "we" in that experiment with cake and fruits. Are you a researcher or have you been an assistant, or participant maybe?

For arguing sake, these sources you provided do not confirm that higher cognition equalizes instinct. Your initial position was that there is no need to prioritize between instinct and cognition between the two are the same. I asked for sources to support this position of yours and you brought these studies. But to the contrary your own studies make the distinction between cognition and instincts where cognition has more of a stopping role and watches over above instinct.

So to get back to the point of this discussion and summarize. Cognition differs from instinct as your own sources state. Cognition has priority in a civilized world (serves as a watchtower over instincts figuratively speaking) otherwise we would be animals and none of what we have for granted today would not be worthy to follow if cognition was deprioritized.

In short words, if we had only instincts to follow not only would we be slaved to instinct but we would also not be civilized. No law, no organized army, certainly no education, just people following their instincts blindly.

 

[Buck Ewer]

Bull**** premise.
Sorry no ...
I will not go there.

 

[iangb]

One of the hot topics in science news these days is the ever mounting amount of research in neuroscience that's leading us to believe that "we" aren't quite as in control of our decisions as "we" think we are. I put "we" in quotations because I'm talking about the notion that we have a conscious self that is ultimately in control that is often considered separate from our biologically derived proclivities and inclinations.

So the question that comes to mind for me is, in the event the we were to discover that decisions made by humans are far more a product of their biology rather than the higher intellectual will we previously thought separate from our biology, what will that mean for your political ideology?

To elaborate, would the knowledge that a person's unchangeable biological make up is vastly more influential than we've been lead to believe alter your perception of how the government, in all its forms, should operate?

To get the conversation started, let's start with the most obvious example. In the case of the judicial system, we've already seen the effect of this idea. Many of our laws are based on the idea of intent; in that if a person is willfully intending to commit a crime, it is considered worse than a person who commits the crime in an act of passion or by accident. We've already set the precedent that a person who commits a crime because of a known defect in their biology cannot be held fully accountable for their actions because this person is not committing a truly willful act. As we get better and better at determining where a defect lies in people who have a biologic predisposition to crime, we could start seeing more and more people getting lighter sentences. This would necessitate a fundamental restructuring of our idea of justice. After all, can a person really deserve punishment for his decisions if they are the product of his physiological make up of his brain? We would have to change our system to focus less on punishment and more on preventing future crime. We would need to base our sentencing on the likelihood of recidivism. In this case, should the death penalty be abolished since a human can't really deserve to die for something that's out of their control? Or should it be used more often because there's no hope of rehabilitation?

What would this mean for the destitute who continue generation after generation to make bad decisions that keep them poor rather than taking the opportunities available to them to get out of the cycle of poverty? Would they deserve more pity and help because its partly out of their control? Or should they get less help because there is no hope of really improving their situation?

Should the successful man's wealth be redistributed more because his creativity and work ethic are more a product of his genes than a willful decision to work hard to be successful?

Or does it not make any difference to you whatsoever since the result is the same whether or not we are able to overcome our biology?

This is meant to be a peaceful discussion and in no way was designed to be biased to one side of the other. Please do your best to eliminate partisan bickering..if you aren't predisposed to it by the size of your central lobe and amygdala :lol:

Hard determinism may mean that there is no 'free will' which affects our decision making - but that still doesn't mean that our decisions are hard-wired into us from birth. All sorts of macroscopic external factors affect our brains, for better or worse. The thread title itself is an indicator of this - (paraphrased) "If you knew that free will did not exist, how does that affect your political choices?". The only way for a) free will not to exist, and b) someones 'choice' to change based on their knowledge of this fact, is if c) people's knowledge (and what they are thinking about as they make a 'choice' affects the choices they make.

Because of this, your discerning between a 'premeditated crime' and a 'crime of passion' does not follow. The difference between the two is that the premeditated crime has time to think about the consequences of their actions and go ahead with it anyway, whereas in a crime of passion the criminal does not have time to consider "Wait, society thinks this action is wrong!", or "But I could be punished severely for my actions, it's not worth it!", or "Is there another way to resolve my problem without committing a crime?".

Furthermore, I would say that the consequences of a crime are not primarily 'punishment', they are a)dissuding factors to another would-be criminal and b)ways to change the mind of the criminal so that they do not commit further crime. Yes, there may (hypothetically) be certain genetic factors which make one more predisposed to crime, or poverty, etc, but that does not mean that they are limiting factors.

Because of this, my political opinions are unaffected by whether free will exists or not. It might also explain why I have chosen (meta!) to become a teacher - as with the absence of free will, your education (not just academic, but in totality - see Pratchett et al's "Make-a-human Kit") becomes one of the most important influences in your life. Mind you, it's pretty important even if free will exists...

EDIT To clarify: there are influences on us all our lives, affecting what we do. If free will exists, we can choose between those influences, if it does not then we cannot - but those influences are there, nonetheless. Since political theory etc is all about affecting the influences, not the (absence of) choice itself, my ideology does not really change.

 

[Slartibartfast]

I am not sure the right question is being asked by the OP.

This is a subject which fascinates me to no end and I have spent a lot of time reading the literature, this is how I view it. Its not so much that we don't have free will, but our brains are more or less prone to various modes of thinking and thought framing. This has a GREAT influence on our individual political choices.

For example, lets take something like the gold standard.

Virtually everyone who advocates for the gold standard that I have talk to (small sample size, i know, but going with it for the sake of illustration of my point) has expressed an interest in having their currency based on something "real". There is a high percentage of these people who also advocate for the idea of natural rights, partially because its based on something "real". These same folks tend to prefer listening to the opinions of the mover and shakers of the business world because they "made something real" using their own decisions, sweat, and piss and vinegar. Do you notice a trend here? For those who tend to populate this part of the political spectrum, there are some obvious emotional trends. There is a preference for concrete over abstract, there is a preference for personal freedom over things that get in their way, stuff like that. Liberals are by and large the same in terms of being emotional thinkers, but tend to prefer the abstract over the concrete, tend to think about things holistically and relationally (whereas conservatives and libertarians tend to want to strongly categorize things and look at things one at a time), and other things.

But in the end these are all emotional preferences, which, (I believe, based on observation, but I don't have a theory about how the mechanism works exactly) then lead us to our political choices. People like to think they are making rational decisions when they are in fact making comfortable decisions. This is why political views tend to cluster too and we don't see as many political independents that pure rationality would indicate. People are making choices that fit into their personal comfort zones.

Here is the thing though, we are still displaying free will. We are actively choosing our politics. I am highly confident I can say all of us on this website have thought deeply about our politics, considered alternatives, and choose what we chose. What few of us realized is WHY we chose what we chose. The way our brain frames problems, determines its comfort zones, makes some decisions seem more appealing to others, etc may look logical to our pre-frontal cortex, but in many cases its not. We are in fact influencing our free will (in a subtle but really powerful way), greatly at times, and not even realizing it, which is why we tend to think we have free will.

I guess you can call it GREATLY INFLUENCED AND UNDERMINED BY OUR LOWER BRAIN WILL to be as accurate as I think the term should be.

And before anyone goes off half cocked that I am declaring this group to be better than that group. I think this is how people work in general and I am no better. Lets stick to the points I am making.

 

[vash1012]

I agree that these are interesting studies. Plus you use words "we" in that experiment with cake and fruits. Are you a researcher or have you been an assistant, or participant maybe?

For arguing sake, these sources you provided do not confirm that higher cognition equalizes instinct. Your initial position was that there is no need to prioritize between instinct and cognition between the two are the same. I asked for sources to support this position of yours and you brought these studies. But to the contrary your own studies make the distinction between cognition and instincts where cognition has more of a stopping role and watches over above instinct.

So to get back to the point of this discussion and summarize. Cognition differs from instinct as your own sources state. Cognition has priority in a civilized world (serves as a watchtower over instincts figuratively speaking) otherwise we would be animals and none of what we have for granted today would not be worthy to follow if cognition was deprioritized.

In short words, if we had only instincts to follow not only would we be slaved to instinct but we would also not be civilized. No law, no organized army, certainly no education, just people following their instincts blindly.

To reiterate, I don't support the opinion that no free will exists. I was just playing devil's advocate to your position. So let me summarize my own view points as they stand with the currently available research. While there isn't any research that shows that cognition is entirely separate from instinct, I do think these studies give the hint that perhaps part of the decision making process that we feel as part of the human experience to be cognition is possibly predetermined by involuntary subconscious processes which is what I am terming instinct. Where humans differ from animals is that we have SOME ability, because of a higher cognitive ability, to rewrite the coding of our instinct. We are taught by others. We learn things from our own experience. Sometimes we pick up habits or ideas that are incorrect or bad and it takes us a while to write those our personal code. Our instinctual code is constantly being changed and added to (at least while we are young ), by what we experience in life. However, when I apply this concept, I struggle to say we truly have what I think of as a pure free will. If part of our chooses are determined by instinct and our instinctual code is determined partly by things that are out of our control (where you were born, who your first grade teacher was, which school you went to, etc), then at least part of our choices are made a result of circumstance. This is where, for me, I start calling SOME of our free will an illusion. Its also why I have a harder time judging people than I used to who might grow up poor that end up repeating the same cycle as their parents, which is one of the main reasons I started the thread.

Also, I think we can all agree that some of us have less cognitive powers than others. Thinking the cognitive role in decision making is really just as a stop measure just makes me think back to friends in college who didn't seem to have that stop measure. There's some anecdotal evidence for that idea as well. You can find a number of reports of people who suddenly lost that stop gap measure to some extent after developing brain tumors or having brain surgery. There appears to be a biological basis for using that stop gap measure of cognition to prevent action after an involuntary impulse. The "strength" of that biological basis (I'm no neuroscientist, maybe it should be size?) is variable from person to person. Its the biological manifestation of will power. Here's a synopsis of one I found interesting.

Radiolab Story On Klüver

To summarize, the seemingly true idea that some of our decision making ability is due to involuntary subconscious processes that are developed in part because of circumstances that are out of our control and the ability to resist those involuntary impulses is variable and has at least partly predetermined biological basis has made me more sympathetic to my fellow man. I can't really say its changed my opinions on the best way to move forward, but its changed how I react emotionally to ideas which would previously incite vitriol in me.

 

[vash1012]

I am not sure the right question is being asked by the OP.

This is a subject which fascinates me to no end and I have spent a lot of time reading the literature, this is how I view it. Its not so much that we don't have free will, but our brains are more or less prone to various modes of thinking and thought framing. This has a GREAT influence on our individual political choices.

For example, lets take something like the gold standard.

Virtually everyone who advocates for the gold standard that I have talk to (small sample size, i know, but going with it for the sake of illustration of my point) has expressed an interest in having their currency based on something "real". There is a high percentage of these people who also advocate for the idea of natural rights, partially because its based on something "real". These same folks tend to prefer listening to the opinions of the mover and shakers of the business world because they "made something real" using their own decisions, sweat, and piss and vinegar. Do you notice a trend here? For those who tend to populate this part of the political spectrum, there are some obvious emotional trends. There is a preference for concrete over abstract, there is a preference for personal freedom over things that get in their way, stuff like that. Liberals are by and large the same in terms of being emotional thinkers, but tend to prefer the abstract over the concrete, tend to think about things holistically and relationally (whereas conservatives and libertarians tend to want to strongly categorize things and look at things one at a time), and other things.

But in the end these are all emotional preferences, which, (I believe, based on observation, but I don't have a theory about how the mechanism works exactly) then lead us to our political choices. People like to think they are making rational decisions when they are in fact making comfortable decisions. This is why political views tend to cluster too and we don't see as many political independents that pure rationality would indicate. People are making choices that fit into their personal comfort zones.

Here is the thing though, we are still displaying free will. We are actively choosing our politics. I am highly confident I can say all of us on this website have thought deeply about our politics, considered alternatives, and choose what we chose. What few of us realized is WHY we chose what we chose. The way our brain frames problems, determines its comfort zones, makes some decisions seem more appealing to others, etc may look logical to our pre-frontal cortex, but in many cases its not. We are in fact influencing our free will (in a subtle but really powerful way), greatly at times, and not even realizing it, which is why we tend to think we have free will.

I guess you can call it GREATLY INFLUENCED AND UNDERMINED BY OUR LOWER BRAIN WILL to be as accurate as I think the term should be.

And before anyone goes off half cocked that I am declaring this group to be better than that group. I think this is how people work in general and I am no better. Lets stick to the points I am making.

Well put, sir. I think it would be an interesting thought exercise to see if we could determine the things in our own personalities and background that have caused us to choose our political views. Any of my friends would tell you that I am a skeptic to the bone in all facets of my life and that I reject dogmatism in every form (except my dogmatic position of rejecting dogmatism I suppose). This is why, while I like talking about political concepts on how to best run a country, I HATE politics. Spewing half truths, misusing conceptual ideas, believing that the entirety of your party's ideas are right and the other party's is wrong, blaming the President for EVERYTHING...I can't talk about politics in their real world form without sounding completely rancorous. I have a scientific background so I've always been drawn to evidence and wary of using "common sense" to judge an idea. This is probably why my political views are all over the map. I also have grown up constantly aware, maybe because of the rise of the internet during my youth, of how little of the knowledge of the world I'll ever get to understand simply because of a lack of time and exposure. This has led me to not dig into one position too deeply because there could always be some piece of information I haven't heard yet that could change my mind completely.

 

[Slartibartfast]

Well I will put it this way (for everyone who reads this). When a political or philosophical idea feels right and causes you to feel satisfaction, if you were rational why would you feel anything at all?

logic is unemotional and unfeeling (for example a computer or Spock from Star Trek) right?

The question has a real, factual answer, but I'm going to ask as a hypothetical and thought exercise.

 

[DDD]

To reiterate, I don't support the opinion that no free will exists. I was just playing devil's advocate to your position. So let me summarize my own view points as they stand with the currently available research. While there isn't any research that shows that cognition is entirely separate from instinct, I do think these studies give the hint that perhaps part of the decision making process that we feel as part of the human experience to be cognition is possibly predetermined by involuntary subconscious processes which is what I am terming instinct. Where humans differ from animals is that we have SOME ability, because of a higher cognitive ability, to rewrite the coding of our instinct. We are taught by others. We learn things from our own experience. Sometimes we pick up habits or ideas that are incorrect or bad and it takes us a while to write those our personal code. Our instinctual code is constantly being changed and added to (at least while we are young ), by what we experience in life. However, when I apply this concept, I struggle to say we truly have what I think of as a pure free will. If part of our chooses are determined by instinct and our instinctual code is determined partly by things that are out of our control (where you were born, who your first grade teacher was, which school you went to, etc), then at least part of our choices are made a result of circumstance. This is where, for me, I start calling SOME of our free will an illusion. Its also why I have a harder time judging people than I used to who might grow up poor that end up repeating the same cycle as their parents, which is one of the main reasons I started the thread.

Also, I think we can all agree that some of us have less cognitive powers than others. Thinking the cognitive role in decision making is really just as a stop measure just makes me think back to friends in college who didn't seem to have that stop measure. There's some anecdotal evidence for that idea as well. You can find a number of reports of people who suddenly lost that stop gap measure to some extent after developing brain tumors or having brain surgery. There appears to be a biological basis for using that stop gap measure of cognition to prevent action after an involuntary impulse. The "strength" of that biological basis (I'm no neuroscientist, maybe it should be size?) is variable from person to person. Its the biological manifestation of will power. Here's a synopsis of one I found interesting.

Radiolab Story On Klüver

To summarize, the seemingly true idea that some of our decision making ability is due to involuntary subconscious processes that are developed in part because of circumstances that are out of our control and the ability to resist those involuntary impulses is variable and has at least partly predetermined biological basis has made me more sympathetic to my fellow man. I can't really say its changed my opinions on the best way to move forward, but its changed how I react emotionally to ideas which would previously incite vitriol in me.

Well there is nothing new here. The extent of how much one relies on subconscious instinct in deciding to lean in political party and how much one relies in conscious one is well known.

Politicians know this and use either the direct or the indirect method of reaching out to the audience for voting. The direct method treats the topic and is more accurate in verbal communication. The indirect method treats anything else and uses more non-verbal symbols in order to subconsciously effect the ones who rely more on their instincts in order to vote.

Bush Junior uses the indirect method when he says with his open palm:

"Bigger and better!"

That is as far as it gets verbally but the way he says it means a world to the ones who prescribe to indirect, instinct driven, potential voters.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jonathan-haber/critical-thinking-how-lon_b_2205286.html