Re: New research is bad news for people who believe in free will

Maria <info@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
news:d1fbab94-4a47-421b-b8e6-9a02064d327d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:

On Apr 22, 8:14 am, A Monkey <mon...@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Maria <i...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote
innews:937dbb75-b73b-4315-87c9-ab70f6f976
7c@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:



On Apr 21, 6:44 pm, A Monkey <mon...@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
There's a new paper in Nature that shows our brains make decisions
before we're aware of it. Basically it's another (big) nail in
the coffin for the traditional idea of free will.

Wired: 'All of the data of cognitive neuroscience are pushing us
to replace the idea of mind-body duality, which is so intuitive,
with the idea that mental processes are brain processes. But
these results on the neural processes underlying free decisions
rub our noses in it!'

The abstract of the paper is this:

'There has been a long controversy as to whether subjectively
'free' decisions are determined by brain activity ahead of time.
We found that the outcome of a decision can be encoded in brain
activity of prefrontal and parietal cortex up to 10 seconds before
it enters awareness. This delay presumably reflects the operation
of a network of high-level control areas that begin to prepare an
upcoming decision long before it enters awareness.'

I believe that your life outcomes are mostly determined by your
genetic make-up - the decisions you make will largely be
predetermined by your genetic personality type.

What about environment?

I believe that either enhances or damages one's predisposed tendencies
- someone prone to criminal behaviour can be persuaded not to allow
themselves to commit such acts for example, and equally someone
generous and gifted can be corrupted and made useless and even
harmful.
I have only even met my father 10 times in my whole life, and yet I am
the only one of ten (who had a different father) who had
entrepreneurial skills and bought their own house, like him. I look
like him and behave like him, and yet he had zero to do with my
upbringing. I am also like my mother in being somewhat too benign, and
she had little to do with my upbringing also. My grandparents raised
me.
I have two children who rarely see their fathers, and they are the
same, even their mannerisms are the same.
An important job of parents in my view, is to train the negative
aspects of their children out and help them focus on their strengths.

I agree. But lots of people don't think being a parent is a job - it is,
partly, a job. And there's all this nonsense about letting children be
themselves, which is actually an anglo saxon pathology which says that
individualism is the be all and end all. You mustn't supress a child's
individualism, as he expresses himself by setting fire to a bus shelter.

In this day and age where everything and everyone is 'equal', that is
frowned upon - we are supposed to just accept everyone for what they
are, even if they are so weak that they become drug addicts or losers.
Competition is not allowed.


You live long and prosper if your parents
brought you up nicely.

Not necessarily. I was brought up nicely but have never prospered -
most of the working class people I know have been brought up very
nicely, but are trapped by poverty. I also know middle-class parents
who are in despair because their children have become druggies and one
is in prison for selling his Dad's merc to pay his dealer off...

OK, but as a general rule you'll do OK if your parents did well. I can
think of exceptions, but since the war the rule about clogs to clogs in
three generations hasn't been true.


Although it's true that parents pass on their
genes, so sometimes you don't have much choice in the matter.

That is where I always argue! I believe that if you are aware of your
'built-in' weaknesses, you are able to make choices which overcome
those weaknesses, or attempt to at least. Another job of parents, if
only we were allowed to criticise the little buggers....we are
supposed to just praise them, not point out where they might be going
wrong...


My observation is that however hard
people try to overcome their propensity to make certain decisions
in the usual way, they fail and end up making the same mistakes
over and over,

Maybe they're just in the wrong place at the wrong time?

Many people use that as an excuse, but continue to make the same
'mistakes' over and over again, but apparently that is also often
genetic - there is a part of the brain which learns from mistakes, but
some people's brains do not function correctly in that department.
Scientific research recently showed that those people (who never learn
from mistakes) are also strongest because they never give up trying!
So I guess it is a bad thing and also a good thing.


and that's only those who appear to be somewhat aware that they
tend to certain unencouraging behaviour against their concious
will, let alone those who zoom through their lives on autopilot.

Yeah agreed up to a point. But also most people have a niche unless
they're thick as shit, but many of them don't find that niche.

Agreed - if our education system could be reformed in a way which
could make childrens's aptitudes be identified at an early age, we
would be a far more skilled society, and therefore richer and less
dependent on the state. I don't think there are enough teachers for
that to happen...again parents should do this job where they can, and
they often do, but see above. Alcoholic/workless families will be too
preoccupied with problems and making ends meet to worry about what
will happen to their children. When you live on the breadline, all you
can think about is where you are going to get the next 50p to stick in
the meter, or how you can feed your family for £1 a meal.

Those who
do succeed 'against the odds' aren't doing so by free will as such,
but by very strong will exerted against their natural condition, to
curb their damaging tendencies.

Genius is just wanting to do something enough.


I wish I could agree with that. There are many things I would like to
be able to do, and I just don't have the aptitude for it, or the money
to do it, and the things I am good at and enjoy, were identified too
late in my life to be of any use in a career.


There are supposed to be two types of genius - the ones who have a single
big instinctive idea they unleash on the world at an early age. They
have to be lucky because the time has to be right and the world has to be
ready for their big idea. We're talking about Mozart, Herman Melville,
or William Pitt. The other type is the slow-burner who takes decades to
brew ideas up, gathering data and techniques and experimenting and
failing and experimenting again and again.

But really, that theory isn't just about geniuses, it's about any type of
creative person whether an asrtist or a maths professor. Some have said
everything they're going to say by the time they're thirty and others
still haven't started.

In any case, parenting takes a bloody genius sometimes, and think about
the things you've learned from having your 16 kids. Was it 16, Can't
remember.

--
A monkey

"Monkeys are superior to men in this: when a monkey looks into a mirror,
he sees a monkey."
.

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