
Think You're Operating on Free Will? Think Again - fogus
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2000994,00.html
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joshkaufman
Here's a re-framing of "free will" that I find very useful - it's more like
"free won't." The technical term is Inhibition. Our physical and mental
processes may make us _inclined_ to act in a certain way, but we have a
limited ability to inhibit that initial response long enough to do something
different by using willpower.

Think of a lion in the brush, ready to pounce on an unsuspecting antelope. The
lion _wants_ to pounce, but inhibits the response for a little while, waiting
for the antelope to come a little closer.

Since willpower is depleted with use (a process called Ego Depletion),
inhibition is a very limited power - it's difficult, requires a lot of energy,
and can't be maintained indefinitely. Our natural inclinations and environment
are extremely powerful forces, and we can't hold out for long.

That's why, if you're experiencing some form of temptation (wanting to do what
you know you shouldn't), it's better to inhibit and remove yourself from the
situation as quickly as possible vs. rely on your "free will" to save you.
Otherwise, you'll progressively find it more and more difficult to resist
until you act.

I find this definition very useful because it maintains human agency (the
ability to choose your behavior), while respecting the undeniable power that
environment and circumstances have on our behavior.

~~~
benno
I agree on the power of inhibition, but I think the second point you alluded
to is the larger one -- the ability to remove the stimulus.

Certainly it's hubris to believe that one can exercise "free will" to remain
completely uninfluenced by one's environment. But what we can do is exercise a
measure of intelligence and free will to anticipate the relationship between
stimulus and response, and alter our environment accordingly.

I.e. if you're trying to lose weight, don't allow yourself to be exposed to
fast food advertising.

Our brains may be heavily influenced by our environment in ways that we are
not normally aware, but the existence of studies like these shows that we can
begin to understand the dynamic of influence. Once we have understanding we
can take appropriate measures.

As I see it, that's the true power of intelligence and human agency.

After all, as you point out, animals also have certain powers of inhibition.
But none have the ability to comprehend their own minds and alter their
environment accordingly.

~~~
benno
By pure coincidence, this ties in well with something Nassim Taleb just
tweeted:

"Unless we manipulate our surroundings,we have as little control over what &
whom we think about as we do over the muscles of our hearts."

~~~
benno
<http://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/17647441068>

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msluyter
I've long believed that free will is illusory. Empirical evidence includes
studies that suggest that we may make decisions before we're actually aware of
them (See Benjamin Libet: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Libet>) Your
conscious mind is like a 6 year in the back seat with the toy steering wheel,
pretending he's driving and making up stories about where he's taking us.

Despite that, I can't actually live my life as though I really have no free
will. I tried it (briefly) as an experiment, and I merely sank into a sort of
post hoc analysis of everything I did. "I was supposed to do that. That's what
my unconscious made me do. Etc..." Indeed, I believe that free will is
inseparable from identity to such an extent that even if we find unassailable
proof that it's merely an illusion, we'll continue about our lives,
"choosing," as if nothing ever happened.

~~~
bonaldi
There is a fascinating book by Julian Jaynes called The Origin of
Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind that goes even deeper
into this area.

Basically, he says, our two minds were previously split and "you" would "hear"
your other mind issuing instructions about what to do. (Much like Snow Crash
and the nam-shubs of Enki).

Over time the two merged, and we ended up with a single stream of
consciousness. Among other things, he says, we can see the remnants in people
experiencing "the voice of God", and the way we are extremely susceptible to
commands spoken closely into our right ears.

To be clear: modern theories of consciousness and psychology have v. little
time for Jaynes, but as a philosophical curio/thought game it's great fun.

~~~
rokhayakebe
Interesting right ear findings:

<http://www.google.com/search?q=spoken++right+ear>.

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dkimball
On actually reading the article: this title is a bad summary. (Makes me think
of Slashdot.) What the article covers is the point, which I hope is
uncontroversial, that stimuli give rise to responses, and influence the course
of cognition: holding a warm cup of coffee makes you think more, well, warmly
of someone you're interviewing; seeing a framed picture of a library causes
you to speak more quietly; the smell of cleaning agents inspires you to keep
your cubicle clean; long dint of repetition encourages you to decide that yes,
in fact, you are having a Big Mac attack.

None of this is controversial, unless you're thinking in terms of Descartes --
the body and mind as purely separate and the mind as purely master of the
body. There's a Catholic saying that "body and soul are one" -- what the soul
(or mind, if you prefer) does, affects the body, and what the body does,
affects the soul.

Another thing I'd mention: like evolutionary psychology, this article's
research is highly culture-bound. They don't seem to be interested in
determining whether pictures of libraries mean the same thing to Indonesian
hill tribes, or whether the scent of Febreeze means the same thing to
Moroccans (or red mages).

Also, as the article points out, this kind of unconscious encouragement can be
overcome; you have only to be aware of it.

~~~
Matti
Perceptual Control Theorists would argue that you don't understand behavior if
you think that we, or other animals, respond to stimuli.

 _"The illusion of stimulus and response [..] What we see from outside the
system is that the crosswind pushes sideways on the car and the front wheels
of the car immediately cock into the wind, preventing any important change in
the car's path. It looks just as if the car is being stimulated by the wind,
and is responding by turning its front wheels into the wind. Of course we know
that neither the car nor the driver can sense the crosswind; this appearance
of stimulus and response is an illusion. The true explanation is a little more
complicated than the stimulus-response explanation would be, but not much more
complicated.

But we can see now how the impression that stimuli cause responses could
arise, even if the system in question is really a control system that works as
just described."_

\-- William T. Powers, A Brief Introduction to Perceptual Control Theory:
<http://www.benchpress.com/aboutPCT.htm>

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grellas
The law as it has stood for centuries has imposed different degrees of
liability based on one's mental state and this is often tied to moral
standards.

Just a sampling: (a) it takes "malice aforethought" or premeditation to
support higher degrees of a murder conviction; (b) one must act with
"scienter" (intent or knowledge of wrongdoing) to be held liable for various
intentional torts such as fraud; (c) punitive damages may be awarded to punish
a wrongdoer for conduct that is outrageous or wanton or done in reckless
disregard of the rights of others.

When I read reports such as this piece, I always wonder how the science can be
real and yet have such a disconnect with real-world application, i.e., if it
is true that we fundamentally don't control our actions, why should we be held
responsible for them depending on varying states of mind? Why should we incur
larger penalties if we "intended" to take a wrong action if our intention is
ultimately based on unconscious stimuli over which we have no control? Why
should it be wrong to steal something if an uncontrollable impulse made us do
it?

Given these sorts of disconnects, I wonder if society doesn't treat science of
this type effectively as if it were really more like philosophy - interesting
to contemplate but often having no real-world application. Certainly, if it is
true science (verifiable, repeatable, etc.), the law should change to follow
suit. Yet how would that happen without chaos ensuing in the areas of crimes,
torts, etc. where people are supposed to be held responsible for their wrongs
and particularly if they intended to commit them?

~~~
mzl
One reason that legal punishment can still work in the absence of free will,
is that absence of legal punishment might make more of the moist robots do
societally damaging things. Essentially, it is not about a moral decision, it
is about preventive damage control.

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willfully_lost
I think it's important to remember not to make free will vs determinism a
binary argument. As I look at it, the truth is both and neither.

For various reasons certain people will be influenced and coerced down the
path of least resistance by their environment more so than others. Free will
is essentially something you must claim for yourself (of course I mean
relatively, no one can ever be <i>fully</i> in control of the developments of
their life).

------
albemuth
In addition to the up and down vote there should be a button to nominate the
article for the "HN Classics" section, a new list dedicated to all those
topics that seem to surface every other week

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FleursDuMal
Is it possible to have a sincere discussion about this? If I falsely believe
in free will then surely I don't have a choice in the matter.

~~~
mzl
Even if you have no free will, that doesn't mean that your mind can't be
changed by arguments.

~~~
dkimball
But, he can only be persuaded by the arguments that will necessarily persuade
him, not necessarily those which correspond to reality. What merit is it to
simply find the right button to push?

~~~
mzl
Lots of merit, because pushing that button will give an enjoyment feedback of
being right.

Compare with adventure games that more or less consists of finding the right
buttons to push in some order :)

~~~
dkimball
You experience adventure games pretty differently from how I do.

Also note that "merit" and "enjoyment" are different things.

~~~
AndrewDucker
Of course they are. "Enjoyment" is something that can objectively defined,
"merit" means whatever you want it to.

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jared314
I have always wondered how well you can actually control psychological studies
about why someone is thinking something.

~~~
Tichy
In any case this area of research seems to open up a lot of opportunities for
snake oil consultants.

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jaekwon
OMG guys, let's get over this free will thing ok?

Free Will is an oxymoron. Will is supposed to be determined by you. Free Will
points at our desire to think that our actions aren't determined by our
universe, i.e. the desire to separate oneself from the observed determinism of
our own universe.

It ain't gonna happen so long as you are capable of thinking. If you are
thinking, you are determining your will.

Can't live a happy life without Free Will? I'm perfectly happy knowing that my
thoughts, actions, and wants are a timeless pseudo-determined reality of this
Universe. I feel at one with everything around me including people and
inanimate objects. Why can't you?

Probably because some of us are conditioned to reject authority, and what
bigger authority than the big U? Guess what... the way the universe appears to
you is determined by the way you think. For example, just about everyone sees
time as always moving forward. Why is thermodynamics and entropy the way it
is? Because that is how we think, in terms of time/causality/consequences. If
you reject the observed determinism of your universe, you are really just
rejecting the process of your mind.

Which is fine, reject your brain if you want. Just know, that you're not
rejecting some higher authority, rather you're just rejecting yourself.

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yason
The article doesn't seem to be much about free will but rather about which
choices are conscious and which are not.

Free will means that, out of all life's choices, I _can_ choose whichever I
want.

It doesn't mean I'm always conscious about my choices.

It doesn't mean I would _not_ want to limit my choices consciously or
unconsciously: suicide is very well within the free will of each person but
few choose to exercise their free will that way.

It means there are no "don't"s or "can't"s. For example, if you think you
_can't_ act in some controversial way in some social situation, you're wrong.
You surely could, if you wanted to. You might have internal limitations such
as that you fear too much. It still doesn't rule out that you absolutely
could.

As long as there's no gun pointing at you, you can choose whatever you want.
In fact, if there is a gun pointing at you, you can still choose your own way,
even if you end up dead.

------
nlh
I've noticed a similar phenomenon in certain business situations: Ever worked
at a tradeshow booth or done product demos? One thing you'll surely notice is
that over the course of interacting with hundreds (or thousands) of people,
strong patterns will emerge. Different people will say the _exact_ same thing
in certain situations, and they'll all think they're being super funny or
super original and clearly the first person to think of that.

We may have "free will" in the conscious sense, but our brains are still, for
the most part, wired the same way, and what we think is an original or free-
response is likely part of a very common, very non-original pattern.

~~~
kranner
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophenia>

I believe it is better to form a hypothesis about a pattern first and then go
about trying to prove or disprove it, even if empirically, rather than to
observe an apparent pattern and then consider the same observation as proof
that it is real.

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parallax7d
I would argue that for practical purposes, free will should be redefined as
the ability to face a choice, and the capability to choose. Our reasoning is
irrelevant, the predetermined interactions of our particles is irrelevant.

The interactions of all atoms follow physical laws. Yes, in this regard the
entire future is as set in stone as the past. The whole universe is like a
burned CD playing until it ends.

Free will, for practical purposes is a higher level concept, that exists as a
mental shortcut/concept in our brains to deal with what to eat for lunch,
irregardless of the underlying atomic interactions which run this simulation
we call life.

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aplusbi
I believe very strongly that free will is tied to the existence of randomness.
Without randomness there can be no free will.

From the little I've read it appears that true randomness does exist, in that
there are experiments where all causally relevant variables are controlled and
yet the outcome is still uncertain.

I'm not convinced that there is true randomness in the universe however, and I
guess that means I subscribe to some sort of hidden variable theory with
regards to the aforementioned experiments.

~~~
jaekwon
I don't think free will has anything to do with randomness. Rather, if you
assume that free will exists, then you are cornered into looking for it in
randomness.

And you say yourself, that you don't believe in randomness in the universe.
Even if there were randomness, it wouldn't explain much more than determinism
because there is plenty of chaos without it.

Read my other posting here and try to figure out why you want to believe in
free will.

------
prewett
Lousy title: the article doesn't seem to contradict free will at all. If
people are more likely to keep a clean desk with the smell of cleaning fluid
in the air, that still means that some people were not affected. Obviously
those guys have free will. Nothing in the studies they referenced said
"whenever this stimulus is introduced, people always do X"; that would
demonstrate lack of free will. The cited studies demonstrate the opposite of
the title.

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eirene
I'm digging the fact that scientists are finally catching up with the meta-
humanity thinkers & tinkerers (philosophers, artists, writers, etc) i.e.
unconscious will can be & has been extrapolated from first principles, i.e.
this is old news. Still, exciting!

1) Rigors-of-academic-inquiry(oldnews) = new data = new model = new algorithms

2) Makes moving my research forward that much easier. Similar case: I went
from getting an orders of magnitude brush-off from a theoretical physicist on
the topic of string configurations and cellular-level biochemical reactions. A
few years later, I see he is working with David Albert on Subjective
Experience as a Window on Foundational Physics
<http://www.ctnsstars.org/enews/news_team5.html>

\+ the recent the quantum entanglement in DNA paper on arxiv
<http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/25375/..>.

Embodied cognition, ghosts in biological machines, feels a bit like racing
toward god. I can see how it can make some people feel uncomfortable. Still,
it's what we're made to do, what the amalgam of our biology+experience gifts
us with.

------
qubit
I honestly don't understand how anyone can question that we lack free will
unless one believes in a soul or some other kind of "magic". If all of our
actions are governed by our brains, and our brains are simply a collection of
particles obeying the laws of physics, where is the room for free will?

~~~
prewett
Physics may not be entirely deterministic. At the quantum level physics starts
being about probability. (In fact, quantum physics is all about probability,
something my grades wish I had understood while taking the course...) Maybe
particles have free will: do I tunnel now or not? Not now, maybe later. Maybe
the Heisenberg uncertainty principle is a reflection of the free will: you can
determine either a particle's position or velocity as much as you want, but
you give the particle an equal amount of free will to choose the other one.

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mmphosis
We only get to choose how to respond or not respond.

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thecoffeeman
but if I decide to think again, am I then doing it because it was my decision?

