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Does free will exist? (lemmygrad.ml)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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First of all, I need to say that, even if it is ignorant, I even do not bother to read philosophical speculations.

I am interested in empirical premises. I've heard that there is some research, where scientists, monitoring activity of a person's brain, are able to predict which switch (s)he's going to switch, before (s)he does, or maybe before (s)he's conscious about the choice. This implies that our decisions are results of some chemical processes determined aside of our "free choice" and so called free will is only an illusion, a way in which alternatives presents to us, while the choice is made already deep in our minds unconsciously and maybe even deterministically. Does anybody know this research and could cite it?

Since I am constantly busy, I really sucks in the theory, so could anybody say what's the Marxist stance on free will if any?

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

Yes.

Our universe had two seemingly contradictory properties: determinism and probability.

Determinism states that if I put a cat in a box, fill it with poison gas, and wait 30 minutes, it will die. Probability says that if I put the same cat in a box with a radioactive isotope that has a 50% chance of decaying in 30 minutes, which triggers a sensor that releases the gas if it detects decay, then after 30 minutes the cat has a 50/50 chance of being alive or dead and I have no way of actually knowing until I open the box.

With determinism, we can always predict the next step in the chain, but with probability we can only predict the likelihood of an event happening, but we don’t know the outcome until we actually observe it.

If we lived in a universe with only determinism, there would be an unbroken chain of cause and effect and our actions would all be preordained. If we lived in a universe with only probability, then our actions would be arbitrary because we would never be able to predict their outcome.

However, we live in a universe where our actions have predictable consequences, but there are also things happening we can’t predict. This means our actions are both meaningful but not fixed. Therefore, we have free will.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The fact that we cannot predict something does not imply that we have a free will, probably by any definition.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Your OP was about questioning free will on the basis of prediction. Without prediction, what is the basis for your OP?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

As far as I remember, I meant that scientist are able to predict response by observation of brain process, almost surely, not by simulation of a process of a brain. Some brain activity were supposed to tell that the patient will select precisely this switch