Does free will exist?

[emjay]

This one is just for you EM, since you're a reader (we've got fuckin reader here!)

Explaining why the whole is sometimes smarter than the sum of its parts, Johnson presents surprising examples of feedback, self-organization, and adaptive learning. How does a lively neighborhood evolve out of a disconnected group of shopkeepers, bartenders, and real estate developers? How does a media event take on a life of its own? How will new software programs create an intelligent World Wide Web?

In the coming years, the power of self-organization -- coupled with the connective technology of the Internet -- will usher in a revolution every bit as significant as the introduction of electricity. Provocative and engaging, Emergence puts you on the front lines of this exciting upheaval in science and thought.

https://www.amazon.com/Emergence-Connect...7321&psc=1

It's a good book, I thoroughly enjoyed it.  I couldn't stop telling people about it whether they asked or not, and this was twenty years back.  Free will in emergentism, I think, is ultimately not the thing you're looking for (waves hand), but a term used to denote particularly effective forms of self organization.  Self organization which is not at all limited to just human beings, just living things, or even just self aware things.  An emergent free will is..perhaps disappointing, but certainly expansive.  This, imo, is why emergentists would prefer to discuss in what way or by how much we are free, or independent, rather than whether or not we are strictly and truly speaking, either of those things.  Because self organization is ubiquitous and undeniable even if or when it isn't "free" or meaningfully independant of some causal chain.  Self organization is manifestly apparent all over the place, and if you understand that translation then it makes little sense to bicker over whether or not we have the x.

Consider it bought And consider it high priority along with the one I'm reading; which I'm very much enjoying... it's very hard going, but I think there's a structure there to decode, that once it finally sinks in, will be beautiful, perhaps over many reads, like layers of an onion. Just out of interest, if you're aware of the terms described in that book, 'scientific reductionist' and 'scientific emergentist', which camp do you most identify with?

[Rhythmcs]

Well, it's not just that it's not relatable, it's seemingly false on it's own grounds. If our keeping trying is somehow enabled or driven by our assumption that we might eventually catch a break, this is -very much- a mathematical equation. Our "free willer" is considering probabilities and acting accordingly, albeit with a very low threshold for acceptable possible outcomes. Game theory is not "not math" - if we're gaming things then we're doing math. All of these things an emergentist might say we're doing could be true. We really are doing them.

But so what?

[Dānu]

Just a footnote:  Chaotic processes are not random; they do not behave according to chance, but rather deterministically, at least at a macroscopic level.

I was thinking about the butterfly effect, how small changes can evolve into big impacts.  Obviously not all butterflies cause tornadoes, so some chance is involved.

Small changes evolving into big impacts is not randomness. Let's say that a butterfly, if it were to flap its wing a microsecond earlier, a world war would be averted. The question of whether the butterfly flaps its wings at that precise moment may reflect some random process, but having flapped its wing, either then or a microsecond before, events will follow deterministically according to which happened. It is not the case that the butterfly, having flapped its wing a microsecond earlier leads to the situation that results if it had not, or the reverse regardless of when the butterfly flapped its wings. That would be random. But that doesn't happen. There's a similar confusion around quantum phenomena with many people mistakenly claiming that quantum events are random; they are not. They are stochastic, possessing both indeterminate and determinate components. Many times a person will assert that the quantum world is an example of random processes, in effect highlighting the indeterminate aspect to the exclusion of the determinate aspect. If you don't understand the dual aspect of quantum phenomena, then you have misunderstood it.

[Alan V]

It sounds like you're a bit conflicted about your priorities.  You enjoy some aspects of the act of participating on a forum, but not others.  So, in addition to determining what is more important to you, how not participating feels compared to how participating feels, and the benefits and disadvantages of each, you might want to consider whether you can manage the pluses and minuses associated with each in a different way.  I'm facing a similar quandary.  I want a social life and romance, but at the same time I don't want to give up the joys of solitude and being alone and independent.  It's a question of priorities, but as yet, I'm on the fence.  I recalled a DBT exercise for dealing with such situations that my therapist googled for me and that I'll briefly describe.  Take a piece of paper, and draw lines to separate it into four quarters.  On the upper left, write "pro" and on the lower left, write "con." Do the same for the other side.  The left side represents one course of action, which for me is remaining single and alone, and the other side represents the opposite, which for me is being social and dating, which obviously will preclude certain things while enabling others.  Anyway, just a thought.  If you're conflicted, or a bit on the fence, you might find such an exercise useful.

I tried your exercise and got a pretty clear answer.

[emjay]

@Alan V

By the way, thanks for the discussion anyway, it's been interesting And who knows, we'll see if anything changes once I've read more about emergentism in these books.

[Alan V]

I can't relate to any of this. Good luck with it, but it's just way too different a perspective for us to find any meaningful common ground I think.

When it comes to human behaviors, limited human perceptions are important, correct or not. We should all be able to understand this since we are all humans.

Free will gives us the freedom to act like fools if we want. What we should understand and do is an entirely separate question.

[Cavebear]

Well it was a long hard way up the food pyramid...  But I haven't seen a chimp or dolphin yet that could deliberately sketch a right triangle much less understand A square + B square = C square.  If god didn't tell us that or our bodily microbes didn't, how did we, without free will?

What would a dolphin do with a drawn triangle? All life perceives, and cares to perceive, everything that is relevant to the world they live in. Dolphins evolved in a different direction, experiences differently and processes differently. It is very likely a ton better than us at perceiving and evaluating things that are relevant to its life, and maybe looks down on us for not having those capabilities. 

You can no more understand what they know than they understand what we know. Species are specialized. That is what makes nature so amazing - and so easy to destroy.

We think ourselves better than others. They may see us as simply being able to kill and destroy indiscriminately.

Well, what good was a right triangle to ancient people before they started looking at one? If other sentient beings (let's not get into a definition-discussion of that right know here, please) came across the concept, who knows where that might have led them?

I completely agree that species evolved according to various environmental demands and are very good at being what they are. Humans would be very poor dolphins and pigs would be very poor cats. I think I have mentioned previously that all species have a necessary view of the world unique to themselves.

I will cautiously suggest that humans are "better" at more things than most other species. Granted, you can look at "better" in many ways. On the positive side, I doubt any other species has any actual sense of ethics, none have a concept of a universe, and we have some idea of "time". We have far more self-awareness. We can plan deliberately (because it requires an understanding of "future). We understand we will die eventually.

On the negative side, I doubt any other species truly has a concept of murder, organized war, or bigotry. We have many failings.

In between, there are things like fidelity, caring, and group-help. Some species display aspects of those to a degree as we do. Some species mate for life (like geese), some help each other survive (like wolves), some feel grief at loss of others (many mammals and possibly others animal families).

You mentioned "They may see us as simply being able to kill and destroy indiscriminately". I doubt that other species quite understand "destroy indiscriminately" as we do. Most animals understand "being hunted". Most animals are killed by others and that they have to fear those that can kill them. But I don't think they grasp the idea of intentional species-wide threat from humans. Group-think is not something I suspect other animals are good at.

Deer may come to fear humans and mice fear cats on an individual level. But not in a total species way. A deer in my State fearing humans is not communicating that fear to deer in another State. They just don't have that kind of species-awareness. Yet, if a human is killed by a crocodile in Australia, humans around the world know of it.

Not that I mind the present course of discussion, but I think we have slipped away from "free will" a bit. If the subject is fading at the moment, that's OK. It will come up again sometime. And maybe we will all have newer thoughts about it then.

[Rhythmcs]

Well, what good was a right triangle to ancient people before they started looking at one?  If other sentient beings (let's not get into a definition-discussion of that right know here, please) came across the concept, who knows where that might have led them?

Alot of good.  They'd never seen one "out in the wild"... but, for example, imagining one allowed them to better understand pressure flaking.  Which, itself, may not have actually been discovered by any thinking human or wise human, but is actually a loaner from a now dead branch of "dumb" hominid.

You mentioned "They may see us as simply being able to kill and destroy indiscriminately".  I doubt that other species quite understand "destroy indiscriminately" as we do.  Most animals understand "being hunted".  Most animals are killed by others and that they have to fear those that can kill them.  But I don't think they grasp the idea of intentional species-wide threat from humans.  Group-think is not something I suspect other animals are good at.

Deer may come to fear humans and mice fear cats on an individual level.  But not in a total species way.  A deer in my State fearing humans is not communicating that fear to deer in another State.  They just don't have that kind of species-awareness.  Yet, if a human is killed by a crocodile in Australia, humans around the world know of it.

Interestingly enough, some of our (as in, humans) more broadly distributed or ubiquitous fears are believed to be in some way informed by our shared evolutinary history with rodents and ruminants (and we're still tied to the hip with both, btw).  Why are so many people afraid of or revulsed by snakes?  They don't actually present much of a threat to us.  As for deer..why are we afraid of dogs?  If I told you that you had five minutes to beat up a midget of 50-75lbs you'd spend four minutes laughing and sixty seconds brutalizing that little fucker -and yet...people run from dogs.

Why is it that everything we do for ourselves privileges rodents or ruminants, and why is it that everything we fear disadvantages rodents and ruminants?

[Cavebear]

Well, what good was a right triangle to ancient people before they started looking at one?  If other sentient beings (let's not get into a definition-discussion of that right know here, please) came across the concept, who knows where that might have led them?

Alot of good.  They'd never seen one "out in the wild"... but, for example, imagining one allowed them to better understand pressure flaking.  Which, itself, may not have actually been discovered by any thinking human or wise human, but is actually a loaner from a now dead branch of "dumb" hominid.

You mentioned "They may see us as simply being able to kill and destroy indiscriminately".  I doubt that other species quite understand "destroy indiscriminately" as we do.  Most animals understand "being hunted".  Most animals are killed by others and that they have to fear those that can kill them.  But I don't think they grasp the idea of intentional species-wide threat from humans.  Group-think is not something I suspect other animals are good at.

Deer may come to fear humans and mice fear cats on an individual level.  But not in a total species way.  A deer in my State fearing humans is not communicating that fear to deer in another State.  They just don't have that kind of species-awareness.  Yet, if a human is killed by a crocodile in Australia, humans around the world know of it.

Interestingly enough, some of our (as in, humans) more broadly distributed or ubiquitous fears are believed to be in some way informed by our shared evolutinary history  with rodents and ruminants (and we're still tied to the hip with both, btw).  Why are so many people afraid of or revulsed by snakes?  They don't actually present much of a threat to us.  As for deer..why are we afraid of dogs?  If I told you that you had five minutes to beat up a midget of 50-75lbs you'd spend four minutes laughing and sixty seconds brutalizing that little fucker -and yet...people run from dogs.

Why is it that everything we do for ourselves privileges rodents or ruminants, and why is it that everything we fear disadvantages rodents and ruminants?

Um, OK... Will you allow that sometimes we don't quite understand the replies of other people? I'm not sure about the problem with rodents and ruminants as a choice. I've never been threatened or attacked by either. So I am probably missing some intent of your post and would like to understand it better.

I do dislike deer in too many numbers. They eat the landscape. And having no natural enemies (since hunting is difficult given so much "no hunting property") and they thrive, there are too many of them. Personally I admire them. Graceful, sort of cute, biggest wild animals in my area...

Rodents are not a thrill, but I haven't had a problem with any for decades. Oh, moles raise slight tunnels that I just walk on to and voles find a crocus bulb or 2 every year. But with 3 cats who love to hunt, there aren't too many and no mice inside the house.

A solution to deer would be reintroducing wolves. But I'd rather meet a deer by surprise than a wolf or a few. There are no rats around here that I have ever seen or trapped.

[emjay]

I can't relate to any of this. Good luck with it, but it's just way too different a perspective for us to find any meaningful common ground I think.

When it comes to human behaviors, limited human perceptions are important, correct or not.  We should all be able to understand this since we are all humans.

Free will gives us the freedom to act like fools if we want.  What we should understand and do is an entirely separate question.

I just think that continuing this discussion from these completely different and incompatible perspectives - you from a first person psychological perspective and me from an outside-looking-in (?third person) reductionist perspective - does it an injustice if nothing else. Ie I'm sure your perspective is a.very rich and psychologically empowering viewpoint, that if it was couched under any other terms than free will... ie something like 'freedom of choice (from our perspective)'... then I wouldn't necessarily disagree with it. But I just don't feel comfortable calling it free will given our different working definitions of that term, and just think that continuing to do so would likely just lead to more ambiguities down the line of what we're agreeing to, explicitly or implicitly, when we're each referring to free will, so best just to knock it on the head here I think.

[Dom]

When it comes to human behaviors, limited human perceptions are important, correct or not.  We should all be able to understand this since we are all humans.

Free will gives us the freedom to act like fools if we want.  What we should understand and do is an entirely separate question.

I just think that continuing this discussion from these completely different and incompatible perspectives - you from a first person psychological perspective and me from an outside-looking-in (?third person) reductionist perspective - does it an injustice if nothing else. Ie I'm sure your perspective is a.very rich and psychologically empowering viewpoint, that if it was couched under any other terms than free will... ie something like 'freedom of choice (from our perspective)'... then I wouldn't necessarily disagree with it. But I just don't feel comfortable calling it free will given our different working definitions of that term, and just think that continuing to do so would likely just lead to more ambiguities down the line of what we're agreeing to, explicitly or implicitly, when we're each referring to free will, so best just to knock it on the head here I think.

Well, we have all been thinking about basically the same thing I think, as have many branches of human thought for a long time. There are a lot of approaches, and I don't think any one approach on its own can come to a perfect conclusion. It will take a point where all the roads meet. "Free will" comes under many different names and descriptions, depending on the venue of thought. I think it will only be reduced to one term/concept once all the roads cross.

[Dom]

What would a dolphin do with a drawn triangle? All life perceives, and cares to perceive, everything that is relevant to the world they live in. Dolphins evolved in a different direction, experiences differently and processes differently. It is very likely a ton better than us at perceiving and evaluating things that are relevant to its life, and maybe looks down on us for not having those capabilities. 

You can no more understand what they know than they understand what we know. Species are specialized. That is what makes nature so amazing - and so easy to destroy.

We think ourselves better than others. They may see us as simply being able to kill and destroy indiscriminately.

Well, what good was a right triangle to ancient people before they started looking at one?  If other sentient beings (let's not get into a definition-discussion of that right know here, please) came across the concept, who knows where that might have led them?

I completely agree that species evolved according to various environmental demands and are very good at being what they are.  Humans would be very poor dolphins and pigs would be very poor cats.  I think I have mentioned previously that all species have a necessary view of the world unique to themselves.  

I will cautiously suggest that humans are "better" at more things than most other species.  Granted, you can look at "better" in many ways.  On the positive side, I doubt any other species has any actual sense of ethics, none have a concept of a universe, and we have some idea of "time".  We have far more self-awareness.  We can plan deliberately (because it requires an understanding of "future).  We understand we will die eventually.  

On the negative side, I doubt any other species truly has a concept of murder, organized war, or bigotry.  We have many failings.

In between, there are things like fidelity, caring, and group-help.  Some species display aspects of those to a degree as we do.  Some species mate for life (like geese), some help each other survive (like wolves), some feel grief at loss of others (many mammals and possibly others animal families).

You mentioned "They may see us as simply being able to kill and destroy indiscriminately".  I doubt that other species quite understand "destroy indiscriminately" as we do.  Most animals understand "being hunted".  Most animals are killed by others and that they have to fear those that can kill them.  But I don't think they grasp the idea of intentional species-wide threat from humans.  Group-think is not something I suspect other animals are good at.

Deer may come to fear humans and mice fear cats on an individual level.  But not in a total species way.  A deer in my State fearing humans is not communicating that fear to deer in another State.  They just don't have that kind of species-awareness.  Yet, if a human is killed by a crocodile in Australia, humans around the world know of it.

Not that I mind the present course of discussion, but I think we have slipped away from "free will" a bit.  If the subject is fading at the moment, that's OK.  It will come up again sometime.  And maybe we will all have newer thoughts about it then.  

I don't even know where to begin to address this. Comparing evolutionary paths leads nowhere. Your world is nothing like theirs, and you can't understand theirs any better than they can understand yours. What is important for a human to survive is useless to a Dolphin. What is relevant to you is irrelevant to them. We only evolve in areas that are useful to our immediate survival.  You have no way of judging the effectiveness of an evolutionary trait in any animal's world because you cannot perceive what they perceive. 

What if dolphins were interested in triangles? Would they be like humans, dominating all plant and animal species as well as inanimate objects by destroying what we don't like? Why would they even want to be like that? Would they see a benefit to that? What would that be?

[Dānu]

I just think that continuing this discussion from these completely different and incompatible perspectives - you from a first person psychological perspective and me from an outside-looking-in (?third person) reductionist perspective - does it an injustice if nothing else. Ie I'm sure your perspective is a.very rich and psychologically empowering viewpoint, that if it was couched under any other terms than free will... ie something like 'freedom of choice (from our perspective)'... then I wouldn't necessarily disagree with it. But I just don't feel comfortable calling it free will given our different working definitions of that term, and just think that continuing to do so would likely just lead to more ambiguities down the line of what we're agreeing to, explicitly or implicitly, when we're each referring to free will, so best just to knock it on the head here I think.

Well, we have all been thinking about basically the same thing I think, as have many branches of human thought for a long time. There are a lot of approaches, and I don't think any one approach on its own can come to a perfect conclusion. It will take a point where all the roads meet. "Free will" comes under many different names and descriptions, depending on the venue of thought. I think it will only be reduced to one term/concept once all the roads cross.

Wittgenstein famously said that many of what are thought to be philosophical questions are simply language issues, that once you get the language right, the rest will follow. If there is a difference of usage or some lack of clarity surrounding terms -- and as often as not, a disagreement resolves to nothing more than that -- one can choose to clear away the kruft to find the common ground and build from there. It's an option, though simply accepting that some differences are irreconcilable is certainly a valid option.

[Dom]

Well, we have all been thinking about basically the same thing I think, as have many branches of human thought for a long time. There are a lot of approaches, and I don't think any one approach on its own can come to a perfect conclusion. It will take a point where all the roads meet. "Free will" comes under many different names and descriptions, depending on the venue of thought. I think it will only be reduced to one term/concept once all the roads cross.

Wittgenstein famously said that many of what are thought to be philosophical questions are simply language issues, that once you get the language right, the rest will follow.  If there is a difference of usage or some lack of clarity surrounding terms -- and as often as not, a disagreement resolves to nothing more than that -- one can choose to clear away the kruft to find the common ground and build from there.  It's an option, though simply accepting that some differences are irreconcilable is certainly a valid option.

That's kind of what I meant by my post. But it's not as simple as to agree to call it all the same thing. The concepts, while targeting basically the same thing, all have different attributes to bring to the table. It needs to be boiled down to arrive at a common denominator.

[emjay]

I just think that continuing this discussion from these completely different and incompatible perspectives - you from a first person psychological perspective and me from an outside-looking-in (?third person) reductionist perspective - does it an injustice if nothing else. Ie I'm sure your perspective is a.very rich and psychologically empowering viewpoint, that if it was couched under any other terms than free will... ie something like 'freedom of choice (from our perspective)'... then I wouldn't necessarily disagree with it. But I just don't feel comfortable calling it free will given our different working definitions of that term, and just think that continuing to do so would likely just lead to more ambiguities down the line of what we're agreeing to, explicitly or implicitly, when we're each referring to free will, so best just to knock it on the head here I think.

Well, we have all been thinking about basically the same thing I think, as have many branches of human thought for a long time. There are a lot of approaches, and I don't think any one approach on its own can come to a perfect conclusion. It will take a point where all the roads meet. "Free will" comes under many different names and descriptions, depending on the venue of thought. I think it will only be reduced to one term/concept once all the roads cross.

Yeah. I don't mean to imply that I think I have the only valid viewpoint; I don't mean that all. This thread is full of insights from different perspectives and all of interesting in its own right, and its own terms. I just mean that from a practical point of view, I don't think it makes much sense to try and discuss 'cross-perspective' when radically different definitions and assumptions, many of which unarticulated, are in play... that that's just almost inevitably going to lead to more ambiguity down the line, and probably do more harm than good to the overall discussion... IMO.

[Dom]

Well, we have all been thinking about basically the same thing I think, as have many branches of human thought for a long time. There are a lot of approaches, and I don't think any one approach on its own can come to a perfect conclusion. It will take a point where all the roads meet. "Free will" comes under many different names and descriptions, depending on the venue of thought. I think it will only be reduced to one term/concept once all the roads cross.

Yeah. I don't mean to imply that I think I have the only valid viewpoint; I don't mean that all. This thread is full of insights from different perspectives and all of interesting in its own right, and its own terms. I just mean that from a practical point of view, I don't think it makes much sense to try and discuss 'cross-perspective' when radically different definitions and assumptions, many of which unarticulated, are in play... that that's just almost inevitably going to lead to more ambiguity down the line, and probably do more harm than good to the overall discussion... IMO.

Well, I enjoy looking at things from as many different angles as possible. It may not produce any solution, but it widens my horizons, and I am always interested in that. But yes, it gets messy at first. And it can prove to be impossible to integrate all angles to form a full picture.

[emjay]

Wittgenstein famously said that many of what are thought to be philosophical questions are simply language issues, that once you get the language right, the rest will follow.  If there is a difference of usage or some lack of clarity surrounding terms -- and as often as not, a disagreement resolves to nothing more than that -- one can choose to clear away the kruft to find the common ground and build from there.  It's an option, though simply accepting that some differences are irreconcilable is certainly a valid option.

That's kind of what I meant by my post. But it's not as simple as to agree to call it all the same thing. The concepts, while targeting basically the same thing, all have different attributes to bring to the table. It needs to be boiled down to arrive at a common denominator.

I think that finding the common denominator may be a bridge too far, though a nice ideal to aim for. But yes, in principle I agree the whole subject of 'free will' has multiple facets and different perspectives focus on different aspects of that... so in that sense I don't think mine and Alan's for instance, or even your, perspectives could be easily reconciled/integrated just by substituting a few words... but with 'closer'/more similar perspectives, that sort compromise/clarification would be more productive.

[emjay]

Yeah. I don't mean to imply that I think I have the only valid viewpoint; I don't mean that all. This thread is full of insights from different perspectives and all of interesting in its own right, and its own terms. I just mean that from a practical point of view, I don't think it makes much sense to try and discuss 'cross-perspective' when radically different definitions and assumptions, many of which unarticulated, are in play... that that's just almost inevitably going to lead to more ambiguity down the line, and probably do more harm than good to the overall discussion... IMO.

Well, I enjoy looking at things from as many different angles as possible. It may not produce any solution, but it widens my horizons, and I am always interested in that. But yes, it gets messy at first. And it can prove to be impossible to integrate all angles to form a full picture.

Well I admire you for that, but I kind of see that as a skill I'm not great at, requiring a certain amount of compartmentalisation that is hard work for me... ie the sort lateral thinking required to set aside my own assumptions to truly read and understand people's perspectives on their own terms alone.

[Dānu]

Muscles are built by using them.

[Rhythmcs]

Consider it bought And consider it high priority along with the one I'm reading; which I'm very much enjoying... it's very hard going, but I think there's a structure there to decode, that once it finally sinks in, will be beautiful, perhaps over many reads, like layers of an onion. Just out of interest, if you're aware of the terms described in that book, 'scientific reductionist' and 'scientific emergentist', which camp do you most identify with?

Reductionist.  Not because I don't think that the things emergentists bring to our attention are happening, but because I simply don't have a negative reaction to the phrase "nothing but" or the term "just" that emergentists seem to be prickly about.  Yes, sociology is psychology, psychology is biology, biology is chemistry, chemistry is physics, physics is math.  When people ask me if I think we're "nothing but" or "just" information processing I say yeah.  I do think that.  I also think the processing that we are is fucking amazing, so I'm not sure what the just or nothing but objection is supposed to be pointing at.  Yes, systems can express behaviors (or possess capabilities) that the individual components do not.  The behavior of a system or it's abilities is still reducible to a description of the individual components as they relate to the gained function.  They are, after all, the actual working explanation of the emergent x's.  If the individual ants had an even simpler form of data processing then we may not see seemingly emergent intelligent behavior at all.  They'd never "get there" because the colony would need to be too large to easily support before it reached processing parity with ants in their current state, and how they respond to that is by splitting - thus the colony would never reach critical mass.   If they had a more capable form of individual data processing, we might be sitting here having this discussion with ant colony hive minds themselves - as they explain why it's right and proper for man to know his place as a favored servant-pet of The All.  Now get back to work in those aphid fields.      

Um, OK...  Will you allow that sometimes we don't quite understand the replies of other people?  I'm not sure about the problem with rodents and ruminants as a choice.  I've never been threatened or attacked by either.  So I am probably missing some intent of your post and would like to understand it better.

You were mentioning things like species wide fears (and relationships).  It was a semi aside.  Those do exist, or seem to exist - and in the case of humans they often persist about things that we have no clear reason to continue to be afraid of (if we ever had one in the first place).  Some people believe that this is in some sense hereditary.  That the structure of our ancestral species brains was very much hard wired to fears relevant to them and this structure carried over to us, imperfectly..piecemeal..perhaps... even if the danger didn't.  Same with species wide relationships.  While suburban and exburban development and the elimination of wild predators and the creation of lawns (and temples to lawns..golf courses) all sound like the indiscriminate destruction of the natural environment to green minded people..to deer, they're the actions of a benevolent partner species who..increasingly, is also revulsed by the thought of preying on them.  When we do well, ruminants and rodents do well.  When we do poorly, rodents and ruminants do poorly.  Hell, one of the most salient experiments on the causes of drug use/abuse involved a bunch of rats and some heroin. The similarities between us and the other animals we interact the most with aren't superficial.

We don't just share practical living arrangements.  We share a common - and recently common- evolutionary history.  We share the all important mammalian brain.  We believe that this mammalian brain is responsible for a range of shared behaviors between aligned species like ours.  That these commonalities are what make us suitable -as- partner species.  TLDR, I don't think it's beyond the pale to suggest that closely related species and species with well developed mammalian brains, particularly, could also share particular forms of conceptualization.  Deer may understand, may have a concept of construction and clearing crews as land improving benefactors.  Something like "good", even.  Similarly, dolphins or whales may have a concept of humans as indiscriminate killers or destroyers.  Alot of species tend to respond to us this way, at least, for some reason...possibly related to those construction and clearing crews.

I'm not sure if I'd say that animals are smarter than we think they are or that we're dumber than we think we are - but it's something like both, combined, imo. Having some kind of concept of an apex predator (or any other species) and it's relationship to you is not the pinnacle of cognitive achievement in the universe it would seem to be suggested as, when we dismiss other animals (even..and especially... close species) as possibly capable in this regard.

[emjay]

Muscles are built by using them.

I'm assuming this is addressed at me? Basically if I was treating this thread something like a compendium, ie something like 'a collection of essays relating to the self and will', with no particular investment in it beyond curiosity, then I wouldn't have much problem doing that lateral thinking and compartmentalisation. But where I have a strong opinion on a matter and/or assumptions about it, some of which might be subconscious, then it's harder to turn them off (or suspend them), or even identify them sometimes. But yeah, I agree it's a skill that could come with practice.

[Rhythmcs]

That, itself, is a conundrum for free will - to my mind. I'm not so sure that practice can overcome it. We might get better at recognizing when we're being irrational, for example, but does that translate to us feeling less compelled by the irrational thing?

Not in my experience, personally. It's more like "huh, that's funny, I'm funny" - and then I compartmentalize, to avoid insecurity and embarrassment, which I also cannot choose to feel or not feel or what triggers it and what doesn't. I think that's why I find the overdetermination objection to emergentism so compelling. Because I experience life as a ball of snakes with conflicting principles and motivations all jockeying for access to volition. In the first person, it's often not my body, but my mind, that prevents me from doing or choosing a thing. That compels me to doing or choosing a thing.

[emjay]

That, itself, is a conundrum for free will - to my mind.  I'm not so sure that practice can overcome it.  We might get better at recognizing when we're being irrational, for example, but does that translate to us feeling less compelled by the irrational thing?  

Not in my experience, personally.  It's more like "huh, that's funny, I'm funny" - and then I compartmentalize, to avoid insecurity and embarrassment, which I also cannot choose to feel or not feel or what triggers it and what doesn't.  I think that's why I find the overdetermination objection to emergentism so compelling.  Because I experience life as a ball of snakes with conflicting principles and motivations all jockeying for access to volition.  In the first person, it's often not my body, but my mind, that prevents me from doing or choosing a thing.  That compels me to doing or choosing a thing.

I'm not sure we're talking about quite the same thing because I think of you as being incredibly accomplished at this 'skill' we're talking about, ie to digest other people's arguments in their own terms, while at the same time still being assertive about your own opinions. Basically to my mind, assumptions are not necessarily irrational, they're just a framework we build, or that builds, for and around our ideas.

[Rhythmcs]

I like to practice with the mechanics of arguments, sure. I just haven't noticed that being all that effective in my life. Of practicing with the mechanics of arguments changing core beliefs or motivations or behaviors. More that I'm looking for a way to accurately and intelligently describe what I already feel compelled by. The possibility of this being an epiphenomenal ability..even on it's own grounds. As you know, I'd like to say that my ability, our ability, to reason has some causal effect in the world - but my own experience often stands there condemning the notion as narcissistic fantasy. Why can't I actively change my own mind, why do I recall so few moments of such a change, or reasons for them? Why can I be compelled by something I know is factually wrong. As we all do when we say that we understand that x is not how things are, but that we feel that x is how things should be? Are we even in the drivers seat with respect to those basic parameters of shoul;ld (real or in error)...? Or do they come standard and fundamentally unalterable with the package to one extent or another - no matter how practiced we are or become at considering rational arguments?

[Dom]

I like to practice with the mechanics of arguments, sure.  I just haven't noticed that being all that effective in my life.  Of practicing with the mechanics of arguments changing core beliefs or motivations or behaviors.  More that I'm looking for a way to accurately and intelligently describe what I already feel compelled by.  The possibility of this being an epiphenomenal ability..even on it's own grounds.  As you know, I'd like to say that my ability, our ability, to reason has some causal effect in the world - but my own experience often stands there condemning the notion as narcissistic fantasy.  Why can't I actively change my own mind, why do I recall so few moments of such a change, or reasons for them?  Why can I be compelled by something I know is factually wrong.  As we all do when we say that we understand that x is not how things are, but that we feel that x is how things should be?  Are we even in the drivers seat with respect to those basic parameters of shoul;ld (real or in error)...?  Or do they come standard and fundamentally unalterable with the package to one extent or another - no matter how practiced we are or become at considering rational arguments?

There is no 'we" in this. We all process vastly different. Some of us change minds easily, some don't. We all think along different lines too, as this thread proves. I don't think there is a "one size fits all" here.