We have no "free will": everything we think reflects the biochemistry of
our nervous system

The concept of human free will is a Christian legacy which is no longer in adequation with scientific knowledge.

Introspective psychopharmacology and the study of different states of consciousness clearly demonstrate that what we think, what we do, or what we say is merely a reflection of the particular biochemistry going on, at a certain time, in our central nervous system (CNS). This is why, for instance, mankind is so irrational.

Experiments of mine have shown that by slightly modifying brain neurochemistry we can think in completely opposing ways and argue, for instance, with pseudo-logical arguments to justify this brain neurochemistry unconsciously.

For instance if I modify my brain biochemistry in a more dopaminergic way, or more serotoninergic way or if I experiment with a sociabilising molecule such as gamma-hydroxybutyrate or even ingest female hormones, then I will see very clearly in myself how my thoughts only reflect my CNS biochemistry.

This can be quite spectacular sometimes as you may find yourself arguing "logically" in opposing ways, depending on the induced biochemical modifications!

 
(So where is the 'free will' . If you replicated the above experiment 100% of humans would have the same result

 Where is this mans 'free will':

  The flip side of joy is pain. The next film shows a patient having his "aversive system" stimulated. His face twists suddenly into a terrible grimace. One eye turns out and his features contort as though in the spasm of a horrible science-fiction metamorphosis. "It's knocking me out ... I just want to claw..., " he says, gasping like a tortured beast. "I'll kill you...I'll kill you, Dr. Lawrence."

 from: http://www.paradise-engineering.com/brain/

 

 

For a psychopharmacologist there is no such thing as "free will", etc. This belief is only a prejudiced judeochristian cultural belief and a delusion. There are only states of consciousness expressing a particular CNS biochemistry.This is an extremely important scientific and philosophical observation as it teaches us that any human discourse is always suspect as someone will always just express, verbally, his particular CNS biochemistry.

When you become aware of this crucial fact you no longer feel an urgency to communicate with others in a pseudo "communication", as words are merely a way of altering the brain neurochemistry of someone else so he may share the same delusions as yours! Words are thus similar to psychotropic drugs and such words as "love" or "hate", "freedom", etc, are particularly hallucinogenic.

 

Politicians are experts in using hallucinogenic words in order to manipulate the mental states of others. So are playboys with their victims! And the media!All these things are sources of places to let the humans self hallucinate!

All great dictators, such as Hitler, etc, have always been very keen at manipulating the biochemistry of others through word-induced emotional hallucinations, which are called corticolimbic hallucinations.

These hallucinations are far worse than cortical hallucinations induced by molecules like psilocine(magic mushrooms) or other "hallucinogens". Corticolimbic hallucinations mostly go unrecognised in nature as people are not aware that they are, very often, hallucinating corticolimbically. This is why I also call these everyday hallucinations "unidentified hallucinations".

These hallucinations are the most dangerous forms of hallucination for the human species and have been and are at the root of man's aggressive and violent behaviour intra-specifically. All wars, all conflicts start with corticolimbic hallucinations. . .

A human being can never have perfect objectivity, and the examples in Science are numerous: to discourage us from trying to attain an authentic objectivity, as scientists, like everybody, mostly express their own frustrations or delusions in their discourses. Science is not objective even though it tries to reach objectivity. Science is the expression of the human mind and we can conceive that very advanced intelligences could be completely at odds with what we believe they should do as their "science" will also reflect the organisation of their "central nervous system" or equivalent.

A New Philosophy of Reality:Psychopharmacophilosophy


Traditional philosophy is outdated and should now be replaced by a new philosophy termed "psychopharmacophilosophy" .

 

Psychopharmacophilosophy has an extraordinary importance as it shatters completely many deep-seated beliefs of human beings. For instance, it clearly demonstrates that all religions are human creations and not "divine". We have to become used to that! There is no other choice. If all the mystics of history had been subjected to haloperidol or risperidone they would have never persuaded other human animals that they were in contact with the essence of reality... Religion is a consequence of the architecture and functioning of our memory which leads us to create imaginary structures with no counterpart in actual reality. Psychopharmacophilosophy also clearly demonstrates that all human thoughts and emotions are the consequences of underlying neurochemical events.

 
This, in turn, makes human "logic" highly suspect of continuous bias and distortion... When a person tries to have a "logical" discourse is she purely logical, like a machine, or is she intrinsically biased because of her particular brain functions? The answer is that she is always biased!

Some dopamine here and, say, Robert will say discourse "A". Some more serotonine there and Robert will have discourse "B"! Some tyrosine hydroxylase activation and Robert may very well give rise to discourse "C", etc, etc, etc, and bla, bla! So no logical discourse is really "logical" as it contains suspicious subjectivity, a subjectivity which cannot be erased at all. Our CNS works like that, not like a purely logical computer!

 

In this subjectivity we nearly always find dominance as Henri Laborit has well demonstrated...

 

All human beings seek dominance, consciously or not.

 

When you are aware of that you do not converse any more with others unless you are sure that their "logical" arguments are not based on a desire for dominance... This is the reason why Laborit hated to talk with people and much preferred writing.

 

True communication will be achieved only when the human desire of dominance has been complety eradicated in the future CNS remodelled through Neuromorphogenetics.

 

This desire of dominance is commonly seen in the "fonctionnaires" scientists!! It is a primitive behaviour that they share with monkeys and wolves...

 

Claude Rifat
"

http://www.shaman-australis.com/%7Eclaude/dreams.html

Mr. Farlops:

Good point. However this is not a perfect world and sometimes we have a very limited degree of control over all the factors that make a thing what it is. Sometimes, despite our best efforts, errors still arise. In a complex and changing world, surprises are certain.

Yes, it's true that our society at present cannot take control of all variables. As our scientific understanding increases society will increasingly take control of the environmental factors, IMO.

Soon we'll be able to fully understand and manipulate genetic code.

Mr. Farlops:

So, if I interpret this right, you don't know the details yet. You have a goal but the implementation is still fuzzy?

So until your project has clarified this, we have to carry on the way we've been doing--laws assume that sane adults are responsible for their actions and should be punished if they break the rules.

How would your project make beings who'd never commit crimes? From what I've read, you're still not certain on that point and have had to admit that our current system, which assumes adults are responsible, flawed though it may be, is best we have so far.

Yes, there is no plan to replace personal responsibility yet - as it's design would require unprecedented collaboration. Just like Aubrey DeGrey can only point to factors and call for research - all we can do at this point is to highlight the promises of biotechnology. Genetic engineering, intelligent/compassionate societal engineering, and medical/scientific advancement will be required.

We can design humans that are motivated by pleasure gradients to adhere to subdirectives - one important factor to consider in the interim. Eventually our consciousness must become separate from the propensity to break the law and suffer consequences.

It's only a bad design that motivates humans to break the law, both in the sense that humans are made to break things and in that society drives people into illegal activities by failing to provide for their optimal happiness.

We have to stop designing unhappy beings that are motivated to be optimally happy and expect them to live in a society that needs them to be unhappy.

The more we learn about human design and increase our ability to control environmental and genetic variables - the more it will become unethical to inflict pain upon beings that act the way they were designed to.

Mr. Farlops:

Abolitionist:

Eventually all societies must unify as one entity on some level.

Ah, now I see where this is going. We'll all be somehow subsumed into the divinely happy superbeing, eh? I don't think that will be universal. It might happen in some places but not in others

Initially, but how would other societies be able to keep their citizens from coming over to the good side? Imagine how much more prosperous an advanced society could become if it were scientifically uninhibited by religious dogma and truly interested in the happiness of it's citizens?

chimaster:

Chironian, maybe she wasn't ready for it. If you read the whole text, you will find several examples where exposing truth about the lies a person, even an intelligent person, has lived for 30 or more years, can result in a fierce retaliation. So don't, or be prepared for the consequences.

Everyone may find their own intelligent way of promoting the ideas contained there but it takes some time. Sometimes I've laid the link to the whole book along with a comment or two, sometimes I've taken out carefully chosen snippets.

My Greetings, chimaster;

It's more likely from the way things are devolving here that Abolitionist, with his broken record posting strategy, will simply run every one else into the ground from shear boredom and frustration. I generally only genuinely communicate intelligence with about 1 in every few dozen active members on boards with thousands of participants.

I understand, too, why you don't post here that often, with all these people who choose to live in de Nile of their own freedom of thought. I'm seriously thinking about backing off a ways myself, as I'm just getting dragged through the mud from trying to respond to members who describe themselves as barely sentient or sapient.

 Mr. Farlops was right about 'free will' not being debatable, but not for the reasons he specified. Information has no physical attributes, which was what my software/hardware analogy was about. Have any of you heard of the explanation gap, or the mind/body problem? How about strong emergence?

regards,
 

 

Chironian:

Mr. Farlops was right about 'free will' not being debatable, but not for the reasons he specified. Information has no physical attributes, which was what my software/hardware analogy was about. Have any of you heard of the explanation gap, or the mind/body problem? How about strong emergence?

Your position is based on a significant misunderstanding and that's why I dismissed it.

Information is always embodied in something. Whether it's the electrochemical reactions of the synapses, the smears of ink on a page, the emulsions on film, the nanoscopic magnetic traces on a disk drive or the sound waves carrying my voice to your ears. What is special about information is that it can be embodied in many things. The physical substrate is interchangable but there must be a physical substrate of some kind. It is true that the mind is not a physical object but it is a process and all processes, patterns and information must be embodied in something. The mind is what the brain does. The dualism of information theory is not the dualism or idealism of Plato and his ilk.

That being the case, I really don't see how you think free will enters into this. You keep mentioning various concepts, often misunderstood, without ever demonstrating explicitly how they support your position.

Abolitionist:

Yes, it's true that our society at present cannot take control of all variables. As our scientific understanding increases society will increasingly take control of the environmental factors, IMO.

Soon we'll be able to fully understand and manipulate genetic code.

Ah, but that's where I disagree. I think there is a limit to how much we can pefect this process. Complex systems, even ones we build, always have a way of surprising us eventually. And if we throw complex systems (Your imagined divinely happy superhumans.) into larger complex systems (The real world.) to interact things get very obscure and perverse indeed. We'll never get to a point where we're somehow cranking out perfect individuals that never fail in a perfect world. The universe is infinitely complex and perversely surprising. In my opinion that's what makes it so wonderful.

We may make advances and reduce suffering but it will never be a finished process.

You would have us believe that the world can be reduced to some perfectly ordered clockwork where there are never any flaws or errors of any kind and nothing ever disturbs this crystalline joy. Ugh! How boring!

Abolitionist:

Yes, there is no plan to replace personal responsibility yet - as it's design would require unprecedented collaboration. Just like Aubrey DeGrey can only point to factors and call for research - all we can do at this point is to highlight the promises of biotechnology. Genetic engineering, intelligent/compassionate societal engineering, and medical/scientific advancement will be required.

We can design humans that are motivated by pleasure gradients to adhere to subdirectives - one important factor to consider in the interim. Eventually our consciousness must become separate from the propensity to break the law and suffer consequences.

This all sounds very Skinnerian and, as such, I'm skeptical of it.

As I keep saying in various ways, Ab, it's my opinion that fallibility can never be banished. Superhuman intelligences may be less fallible than we are but all that really means is that they are capable of even grander mistakes than we are. Mistakes so staggeringly complicated that it would take all the books in all the libraries in all the world's history to explain the first causes of.

Think of it this way, the number of failure modes for a hammer is small. The number of failure modes for a nuclear weapon are enormously greater.

Here is another way to think about it. Let's build a utopia for ants, a myrmecological heaven.

Food is always provided. There are no predators or rival colonies to fend off. All disease is kept at bay. We may even render these ants immortal and sterile so they don't breed themselves to death and there is never any risk of mutants arising. If we let them breed, we control what genes will pass on. Every aspect of this ant colony is under our control. The ant's capacity to suffer, such as it is, is never exercised or stimulated. They are as happy as ants have the capacity to feel happy.

Sounds kind of dull doesn't it?

Let's also keep in mind that if we try to evolve this colony towards grander things, the number of failure modes tends to increase. If we keep going down that path, eventually this super-ant colony get's very hard to for us to control. Unexpected patterns and flaws begin to emerge as we add new features. Just like any software or engineering project, it get's perversely complex as we try to adapt to a changing world. Feature and mission creep set in. Legacy solutions never get properly excised.  One hand doesn't know what the other hand is doing. We find that we have to overdesign to anticipate unimagined stresses. And on it goes.

Now, let's scale my metaphor up. Humans and human society is a hell of a lot more complicated than ant society.

I'm not saying your project is utterly doomed, I'm just saying that it will certainly disappoint on occasion and it will never be perfect.

Anyway, I've wandered far afield.

The sites you've pointed me to so far never seem to have all these details accounted for. They seem like a lot of handwaving to me. "...and then a miracle occurs and we are all universally and forever happy!" You've hinted at some vague directions to go in, wireheading, psychopharmacology, simulated worlds, etc. but, when I've pointed out limitations to each of these techniques you get vague again and talk past my objections.

My responses are going to be posted in the Abolitionist project validity thread to help keep this discussion topic on track.

Abolitionist:

hey's guys I don't mean to devalue self-questioning and the like but let's debate the theory of free will.

Why? Debate has the dynamic attributes of a zero sum game, which makes it a waste of time. Please read the links provided here if you want to understand free will.

If free will exists - we should be able to verify it's existance. In fact, how can we say that it exists until we can provide evidence? To do so would be unscientific and irrational, IMO.

That's why I've asked for proof or at least a cohesive theory that supports the existance of free-will.

Do you think that subjective feelings or thoughts provide evidence for free-will?

So far there is no evidence for free-will and much to suggest that our will power cannot exist without interaction with other processes.

Abolitionist:

If free will exists - we should be able to verify it's existance. In fact, how can we say that it exists until we can provide evidence? To do so would be unscientific and irrational, IMO.

Does the opposite not also apply? 

That's why I've asked for proof or at least a cohesive theory that supports the existance of free-will.

Do you think that subjective feelings or thoughts provide evidence for free-will?

I'd say the ability to overrule conditioned autoresponses provides evidence, yet you seem to be saying that's all we function on. 

So far there is no evidence for free-will and much to suggest that our will power cannot exist without interaction with other processes.

There is definitely interaction from other processes, but biochemistry and autoresponses are not the sole driving force of human actions.  This means there must be free will. 

ideal:

I'd say the ability to overrule conditioned autoresponses provides evidence, yet you seem to be saying that's all we function on.

By "autoresponses" you would mean "instincts", right?

Determinism does not equal pure instinct. Determinism means that your action results entirely from your surroundings & internal state. The only logically conceivable possibilities are determinism and a partially-random, partially-deterministic process. Neither is free will according to the usual definition - "some ill-defined thing that's neither determined nor random nor a combination thereof." You can define free will as "non-instinctual response", but this is not the usual definition. 

There is definitely interaction from other processes, but biochemistry and autoresponses are not the sole driving force of human actions.  This means there must be free will.

What processes? What factors besides (a) internal brain state and (b) sensory input are known to affect a person's actions? 

EschewObfuscation:

By "autoresponses" you would mean "instincts", right?

No.  I'm referring to things you are conditioned to do.  Instinct plays a role in many autoresponses(fight or flight for instance) but it's more reliant on what a person has been trained(though typically no actual 'training' is involved) to do.  I'm referring to(as the word which I just realized I may have made up implies) automatic responses that don't involve thought.  Reacting a given way to a given situation as a fighter would counter a blow within exacting parameters.  From what I've read here, the theory against freewill seems to be that even the preceding thoughts are simple autoresponses.

(Leaving a section of your post out because I've just addressed it, probably to the best of my ability.)

What processes? What factors besides (a) internal brain state and (b) sensory input are known to affect a person's actions? 

The 'other processes' I was referring to were biochemistry and autoresponses.  There are no other factors known to affect a person's actions but I've seen no evidence that mental state(an extension of internal brain state)  is deterministic.

ideal:

Abolitionist:

If free will exists - we should be able to verify it's existance. In fact, how can we say that it exists until we can provide evidence? To do so would be unscientific and irrational, IMO.

Does the opposite not also apply?

What do you consider the opposite?

ideal:

I'd say the ability to overrule conditioned autoresponses provides evidence, yet you seem to be saying that's all we function on.

Do we have that ability? Is not our learning process also the result of genes interacting with environment? Who or what is the power you're referring to [that has an ability to over-rule the effects of genes interacting with environment?]

Show me evidence for an aspect of consciousness that exists freely and independently of other processes. Do you think it's necessarily invisible to humans?

The brain only serves mind.

Chironian:

The brain only serves mind.

The mind is more than a process within the brain? Are you saying there's a nonmaterial part? Show us the evidence. 

EschewObfuscation:

Chironian:

The brain only serves mind.

The mind is more than a process within the brain? Are you saying there's a nonmaterial part? Show us the evidence. 

What material property does the experience of self-awareness resemble? Is love just a chemical?