Atlantic: There's No Such Thing As Free Will

[gbear]

What about the impact of events on our brains?  So if a person suffers from PTSD, and then they do something terrible, is what they do their responsibility?  As my wife and I raise medically fragile kids, a few of whom have had terrible things done to them, are we to believe nothing we do will enable them to make good decisions?  I see in my son the impact on his decision making, but I still believe our teaching him may bend the curve a bit allowing him the chance to change his impassivity, to mitigate the preordained paths. 

 

Can we change the brain process over time?  Is this self determinism or free will changing the determinism?. 

 

Having seen Ericksonian hypnotherapy work, I also question how fixed these predetermined thoughts, reactions and emotions are to given stimuli.  Can we not change how our brains work?  If we can decide to change these paths, then the predictive value of the determinist model would seem to fall apart.  Granted, one may say the decision to change was predictable, but were the situations to allow us to do so also predictable?

 

Raising kids who have gone through trauma but still have highly malleable brains, I have to hope the nurture model can help.  Maybe I am but a part of the masses needing to be gullible, but I tend to think the brain was wired to make this choice and do this action is believable only in a static scenario.  My brain as it is right now will always decide A if given a choice between A and B.  However, I might be trained to look at both choices and sometimes choose B based on a different decision model.  My thought processes are not carved in stone, and I hope my neuro paths are not either...though a bit more resistance to cuts of those paths would be nice (Sorry, bad MS joke since Multple sclerosis, which I have, means many cuts).

 

Could we not plausibly argue the brain paths simply predispose us to a course of action or thought at a given time under given circumstances?

[twa]

 

RIP Will

[gbear]

I keep thinking about this article, especially in light of my son running away this weekend:

http://thelifewelllived.net/2016/05/24/learning-how-to-see-family/

 

I find myself almost desperately hoping we are able to change thought processes of our children.  I understand the theory espoused in the article for explaining any thought or action at a given time, but does it account for our ability to change how we and others think and react?

[PeterMP]

I keep thinking about this article, especially in light of my son running away this weekend:

http://thelifewelllived.net/2016/05/24/learning-how-to-see-family/

 

I find myself almost desperately hoping we are able to change thought processes of our children.  I understand the theory espoused in the article for explaining any thought or action at a given time, but does it account for our ability to change how we and others think and react?

Changes in thought processes would be allowed, but in a probabilisticly deterministic manner.

 

To take an extreme example, nobody is going to claim that acting alcoholics can't change their thought processes and become recovering alcoholics, or any system based on that idea is going to fail because it doesn't adequately explained observed changes in behaviors.  Addicts of all kinds can and do change.

 

A non-free will perspective would indicate that the person that becomes a recovering alcoholic didn't really make the choice to do so.  Some combination of environmental factors and genetics caused them to do so.

 

And the flip is for the person that remains an addict.  They aren't actively making the choice to remain an addict in any way they can really control.  Their remaining an addict is the result of environmental factors and genetics and is not their fault any more than a cat sharpening its claws on furniture where you rather it wouldn't.

 

At a simplistic level, I think a good way to describe a deterministic view point (i.e. there is no free will) is that we just have a much more complex decision making system than animals, but it is essentially the same.  Our bodies take in information, and our brains generate some sort of output.  The output can be different because of things diffusion and other processes that will generate random affects, but the same basic thing is happening just at different levels of complexity.

 

Some simple animal has a brain/neural system that is the equivalent of a Comodore 64.  Ours is the equivalent of a super computer.

 

In that sense, you could be an environmental input affecting your child's decision making process and could potentially affect it.

 

(On another note, if you are trying to get somebody to change their thought processes are you familiar with the concept of motivational interviewing.  It isn't a something a know a ton about, and I understand that there are whole workshops on it, but it seems to me that there are some good basic ideas/concepts there:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivational_interviewing

)

What about the impact of events on our brains?  So if a person suffers from PTSD, and then they do something terrible, is what they do their responsibility?  As my wife and I raise medically fragile kids, a few of whom have had terrible things done to them, are we to believe nothing we do will enable them to make good decisions?  I see in my son the impact on his decision making, but I still believe our teaching him may bend the curve a bit allowing him the chance to change his impassivity, to mitigate the preordained paths. 

 

Can we change the brain process over time?  Is this self determinism or free will changing the determinism?. 

 

Could we not plausibly argue the brain paths simply predispose us to a course of action or thought at a given time under given circumstances?

 

In the context of free will, I would argue for environmental and genetic pre-disposition.  I don't think anybody is going to claim that genetics and environmental factors play no role in who we become.

 

I also don't think anybody is going to claim that we can't change at all (same as above, that isn't supported by real life evidence so anybody claiming change isn't possible at all is going to be laughed at).

 

The question becomes why did the change occur.  Was there some sort of active choice or was the change just the result of some environmental factors interacting with the genetic make up?

 

How much credit to we give to people that make changes vs. people that do not?

 

Does an addict that remains an addict bear any responsibility or have the just been unlucky and not had the right combination of environmental and random affects to interact with their genetic makeup to stop becoming an addict?

[turtle2328]

What about the impact of events on our brains?  So if a person suffers from PTSD, and then they do something terrible, is what they do their responsibility?  As my wife and I raise medically fragile kids, a few of whom have had terrible things done to them, are we to believe nothing we do will enable them to make good decisions?  I see in my son the impact on his decision making, but I still believe our teaching him may bend the curve a bit allowing him the chance to change his impassivity, to mitigate the preordained paths. 

 

Can we change the brain process over time?  Is this self determinism or free will changing the determinism?. 

 

Having seen Ericksonian hypnotherapy work, I also question how fixed these predetermined thoughts, reactions and emotions are to given stimuli.  Can we not change how our brains work?  If we can decide to change these paths, then the predictive value of the determinist model would seem to fall apart.  Granted, one may say the decision to change was predictable, but were the situations to allow us to do so also predictable?

 

Raising kids who have gone through trauma but still have highly malleable brains, I have to hope the nurture model can help.  Maybe I am but a part of the masses needing to be gullible, but I tend to think the brain was wired to make this choice and do this action is believable only in a static scenario.  My brain as it is right now will always decide A if given a choice between A and B.  However, I might be trained to look at both choices and sometimes choose B based on a different decision model.  My thought processes are not carved in stone, and I hope my neuro paths are not either...though a bit more resistance to cuts of those paths would be nice (Sorry, bad MS joke since Multple sclerosis, which I have, means many cuts).

 

Could we not plausibly argue the brain paths simply predispose us to a course of action or thought at a given time under given circumstances?

If a person suffers PTSD it was unavoidable and any of their preceding and subsequent actions... also unavoidable. Your attempt to change the victim's brain pattern? Also unavoidable.

 

It's fate dude. Every event happens because of the collective preceding events.  We aren't good at predicting outcomes because of the complexity of the systems - but a system it is... or so says the article.