I saw ‘free will’ come up a few posts recently and wanted to gather a few other opinions of it. As far as I know, it’s one of those things that can’t yet be proven either way and there is plenty of argument on both sides.
I’m sceptical of the whole ‘free will’ thing, but I’m no neuro-scientist.
I thought this is relevant to pheromones because if humans did possess ‘free will’, wouldn’t that render pheromones ineffective?
Would I be right in saying that pheromones trigger a chemical signal in our brain which causes an emotion that we would otherwise not feel?
If ‘free will’ existed within us, wouldn’t we have to decide whether a person is attractive or not?
But if our decsion has already been made due to a sub-conscience detection of a scent, then where does that leave our ‘free will’?
Whats the opinion of the phero guru’s or even professionals in the field?
Free will isn’t black and white. You’re implying freewill either exists or it doesn’t. Black and white. How about that in between gray area? Varying degrees of freewill. We’ve also evolved to the point where we humans possess intricate social filtering.
These filters give us the ability to consciously disregard and outright ignore these chemical responses. I theorize they work for people that unconsciously receive the stimulus and it doesn’t go against the rules set about by their social filtering.
If you were to spray a corpse at a funeral with TUTH women wouldn’t suddenly start humping it raw. But if you say the reason they don’t is due to the fact they possess freewill therefore pheromones do not work would be an invalid hypothesis.
Well I give the human brain a little more credit than that. It’s not going to process that single chemical signal to make that decsion, but also take into account experiences learnt from prior events, current circumstances and genetic human nature it was born with*(instinct?)*. Is that what your refering to as social filtering?
If you were to spray a lawn mower with Turn Up The Heat, women wouldn’t suddenly start humping it raw - Not because of ‘free will’ but the brain determines it to be as natural as ‘humping a corpse at a funeral’. Mainly due to instinct, I’d say sexual urges and lawn mowers\dead corpse have no relavance to the brain. So a decision is made subconsciencly by the brain not to mount the lawn mower\dead corpse, without the human having to consciencly think of it and ‘decide’ not to.
However, if you spray Turn Up The Heat on the body of a living human - now the brain can process the chemical signal along with instinct, current circumstances and previous experiences and respond by triggering different emotions: desiring sexual attention, aggression, ect, ect.
I agree, it’s not black and white, sorry I didn’t mean to imply that. It was a brief post on a complex subject.
Is there a definite definition? -I don’t think so because it is interpreted in different ways depending on your religious\philosophical\scientific beliefs.
What I don’t like about ‘free will’ is the suggestion that our ‘decisions’ are made consciencly and can be random, or “someone else” is making them for us.
“The question of free will is whether, and in what sense, rational agents exercise control over their actions and decisions. Addressing this question requires understanding the relationship between freedom and cause, and determining whether the laws of nature are causally deterministic. The various philosophical positions taken differ on whether all events are determined or not—determinism versus indeterminism—and also on whether freedom can coexist with determinism or not—compatibilism versus incompatibilism. So, for instance, hard determinists argue that the universe is deterministic, and that this makes free will impossible.”
From Free Will (Free will - Wikipedia), Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 1 Nov 2007, 12:56 UTC. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 2 Nov 2007
I’m really not sure of exactly what question Ryan was asking in the OP. At first read, it seems like a straightforward hit on the question of scientific determinism. Reading again, I’ve ruled out any theological implications, but leave open the question of whether Ryan is touching on possible ethical issues related to culpability.
(Ryan, if you can elaborate on the reasons for your interest, that might help.)
On the issue of scientific determinism: if you are a hard determinist you’d consider the whole universe to be one giant mechanical instance that appears to have intelligent life and free choice, but that is actually careening down a path with no brakes or steering (no way for free will to operate.) So the action of pheromones is just one more mechanical process to a hard determinist … and therefore not of any special interest.
But a ‘soft’ determinist allows for some ‘gaps’ in the chain reaction of determinism … and in the gaps, the free will can be exercised to push the steering a bit in one direction or another, or to speed up or slow down a bit. How? It’s a mystery … an unanswered philosophical question. How much can things be steered, how strongly can the free will push the accelerator or hit the brakes … there’s a broad spectrum there, from “free will is rarely operating” leading right past the middle of the road where “some individual responses cannot be controlled” (i.e., they are unconscious or involuntary) and some are completely free and on to “free will operates so often it’s unremarkable and mostly unnoticed.”
The opposite far edge from hard determinism is kind of mystical: that our “reality” is wholly the product of and determined by our freely imagined wishes (will), and that as soon as we think something, it is so – that our ‘free will’ operates automatically to make our reality. (Even when we “choose” to feel our free will is frustrated, lol!)
So, at either edge, how pheromones work is really not interesting, philosophically.
But … in the middle of the road – in terms of the dynamics of HOW to perceive, and notice, and operate … and LEVERAGE … those gaps in the deterministic linkage, whoa, that’s where there are some interesting questions.
Now … after all that build up, however, I think that the scientific journey in exploring pheroland is so new that it would be, eh … ambitious … to try to predict or characterize what will ultimately be revealed. But I think you are spot on, Ryan, in fingering this point:A good understanding of the detailed dynamics of pheros might give us a peek at the deterministic linkage .. and the gaps therein.
Apologies to anyone who comes across this post and wonders what the hell I’m blathering about. Haven’t had a good philosophic ramble in a while, and usually try to avoid them in public places. Sort of a bad habit, like poets who read their stuff out loud in cafeterias.
Quite conversely, what if in theorem there were women into necrophilia at the funeral or a woman with a lawnmower fetish? People are capable of having what could be argued as unnatural strange sexual urges BECAUSE they possess freewill.
Yes but if you take somebody that is sexually aroused by a corpse, and douse it in TUTH, whose to say what would happen. I assume they wouldn’t start raping it either, but there would probably feel a really strong stimulus to do so. As for the lawnmower, I’m not so sure either, as I don’t know and don’t care to know if there are people sexually attracted to them. But what about another inanimate object like a sex toy? Could the TUTH possibly heighten the urge to use it?
I think the scientific needs to be split from philosophical/religious freewill.
Philosophical/religious can entail Fatalism which means you are born into a predetermined destiny of sorts to which you will live to realize. A fatalist believes freewill is non existent.
A religious person (or Dualist) will believe they’re granted freewill by a divine being so that they may be judged and placed accordingly in the afterlife upon death.
An existentialist lives and operates by the biochemical computer that is his Brain. He possesses absolute freewill and paradoxically can consider himself his own god. Once he’s dead, he’s dead, and is a master of his own fate and his actions are based upon the ever changing and updating neuro software his brain has developed.
Philosophy/religion must taken out of the equation to arrive at a proper scientific conclusion. I’m guessing there is a cluster of neurons in the brain that manage the freewill department and have control over processing the incoming stimuli.
I’m having alot of fun with this thread Ryan. Real thought provoking.
There is also the view that there is only “All There Is”, and that in order to learn about itself, it had to have something “other” to compare itself to. So it allowed part of itself to forget what it was in order to experience itself from “outside”.
Within that context, each little bit of the “other” part would have free will in order to experience most effectively. Predestination would sort of defeat the purpose in this scenario.
On the other hand, being a part of the “All There Is” provides a sliver of a chance of seeing the “future” or the “past” if the individual part somehow gets beyond the “forget” barrier.
Remember, time only exists so everything doesn’t happen at once.
I see the use of pheromones as a method of communication. It is like deciding on a mood that you intend to bestow on others around you. Other people can decide what to do with their reactions to it. But the pheromone communication comes from you, and they are reacting to you. The other person’s will is just as free as it ever was.
I knew this thread would light a fire under some peoples thoughts and generate some good posting. So, I’m not realing looking for a specific answer to a question, just interested in other peoples views. When you bring up a subject where Science, Religion and Philosophy conflict, your bound to get some strong reactions and good arguments
Good, we’re on the same page then
Yes I agree there would be instances of that, but I put instances of necrophilia, phedophilia, ect down to genetic disorders, not free will.
I don’t believe you consciencly decide what to be attracted to or stimulated by. And I’m pretty sure this is the basic argument against the death penalty; people don’t consciencly decide they want to rape a corpse\child, they are affected by a genetic disfunction whereby they feel attraction\stimulation where a normal person wouldn’t. This abnormal stimulation overcomes any normal sense of ‘not to do the wrong thing’.
In this case mental therapy\rehabilitaion could fix this problem rather than killing the person for making a wrong conscience decision.
I agree, sorta. I don’t believe in free will, at the moment I’m leaning Einstein’s way on ‘Hidden-Variable Theory’: the unpredictability of quantum mechanics is due to ignorance of an additional set of physical variables not explicitly included in the standard theory.
Religion may have served it’s purpose in ancient history but I believe it has long been superceded by science.
Thats just me though, and I’m sure that last one liner will trigger some emotion
This is excellent
I think this is a common situation where there can be several outcomes.
So your morals & beliefs overcome your sexual desire?
What about a different person in the same position who has cheated?
Lets say a girl named ‘Jane’ was in the exact same circumstances as yourself. She knows cheating is the wrong thing to do, she didn’t wan’t cheat on her Husband, but under hot & raunchy circumstances she broke out in a sweat and was burning up inside - her sexual desire eventually overcame her morals & beliefs. After cheating she felt regret because she didn’t want to do it in the first place. Would it be fair to say that Jane’s natural instinct and genetic properties overpowerd her conscience decision not to cheat? Were her actions against her free will? How did it happpen if she didn’t want it to happen?
What I love about these topics is that there is no right answer, cause nothing has been proven (yet). What interests me is how each person has come to their own conclusion, what circumstances has led them to believe what they now believe.
Just thinking about it is a good way to get a headache… sorry :o
No I would say Janes morals and beliefs were not as strong as mine. Maybe Jane has a weaker personality and is lead by others easily. There could be alot of different varibles. But if Jane was absolutely dead set against it no matter how hot she was for the other person she wouldnt do it. She would probably run home and have a hot heavy night with her husband. Drugs or alcohol can overpower or distort a persons consious decisions but not mones.
That sounds just right to me – parallax vision depends on integrating two perspectives, so also consciousness needs an ‘internal’ and ‘external’ perspective … the big jump is in making the inference that “therefore, so also the material universe.”
Brilliant quote, funny. All along I was thinking that time was the result of memory … and that memory came from persistence of sensation (as when you close your eyes and briefly still see the image before you.)
I would think it’s much more likely that these people are more or less genetically normal but have some experience or set of experiences that creates unconscious responses. I’m in agreement that it’s not free will operating.
The Reductionist position is appealing in some senses … the idea that if you model enough layers of our real systems in physics that eventually you see all of the gears and levers are determined.
But mathematical chaos research shows that there are, logically, always more layers … an infinite number of dimensions (fractal geometry) and fuzzy logic relationships.
And Kurt Godel showed that in any system complex enough to be non-trivial, there are propositions that are provably true, those that are provably false, and those that are unprovable … in other words, that some of our reality is undecidable, not determined.
Tisha, I love the direct approach. The philosophical wiggling is fun, like Twister for the mind. You just splashed the Mazola around, lol.
It seems to me that whatever we have the capacity to think about, “to think through” is what we can exert free will over.
This raises the whole idea of “perversity”: I think we call perverse someone who knows (.. who has thought it through ..) that doing a certain something is bad for them does it anyway.
I’d argue that people only ever do what is in their highest and best self-interest. If we see them do something that we consider perverse, it’s because we see it as badbut they don’t. So I would say that Jane decided that cheating and feeling regret afterward was better than the alternatives available to her at the time, assuming she had time to “think it through.”
If we have incomplete information but are under a deadline, then we make the best choice we can given the circumstances. My best and yours may differ: YMMV. My perceptions, my model of the universe, my construction of meaning: from all of this it follows that I will value certain things differently than others. “One man’s pleasure is another man’s poison.”
Here is an observation: when people repeatedly do things .. plainly self-destructive acts .. from the palpable physical suicide attempt to acts of social suicide or to self-undermining choices economically (spending, behaviors where one earns a liviing) … we either lock them up or give them drugs because we categorize them as “sick”.
And isn’t it part of our socialization to take care of everyone to our best ability … unless they are gaming the system, faking the need for our help?
But I also note that Uncle Fred once gave this one out: “If you cannot teach someone to fly, teach them to fall faster.”
Oh … one last thought .. I don’t see why I should have to act out some psychological drama (and really believe it and be hurt by it) in order to get access to the good drugs, lol! Why can’t I just self-prescribe?
Theres definitely evidence of that, as in the effects that childhood abuse can have in adolescence and adulthood.
Theres a few blogs on youtube about free will, I thought this one was good. At the end you realise the agenda is actually anti-death penalty, I mentioned it earlier. But if you can look past the way the ‘fuckwit’ presents it, he’s got some interesting points.
I like what he says about randomness, but what I don’t like is that he’s presenting his opinion as fact - which can’t be proven.
Even with free will, your conscious mind has to know you are being influenced in order to make a choice. If I say “turn right” to someone, she can choose. But if I gently guide her into doing what I want without her knowing it, then her free will may never come into play (unless there’s another influencing factor).
Since pheromones are very subtle and cause instinctive responses, the conscious probably has no idea what is going on (in most cases).
???
I’m not quite following 100%, but I’ll give it a shot :o
Without the concept of free will, when the brain is proccessing all the info (genes, previous experience, the ‘hidden variables’, ect) to make a decision or to trigger an emotion or what ever, mabey the addition of a pheromone could be just enough to tip the balance the other way?
If you’ve got 10,000.000001kgs on one side of the scale and 9,999.999999kgs on the other. Well 0.000003kg may seem insignificant, but its enough to change the outcome on the scales.
If a guy went on a date with a girl, without wearing phero’s. The date goes ok, they get along ok, but the girl just didn’t quite feel enough attraction towards the guy to advance the relationship further.
Had the guy been wearing the appropriate pheromones, and the girl felt that little more attracted, is it possible that it would have been enough to ‘tip the scales’?
If this is the case, then the only variable that was changed was one she was not consciencly aware of, yet it changed ‘her conscience decision’ - thus changed the outcome. We’ve gone from a miss to a hit, the pheromone was effective.
How about this situation.U need some money and u know that u have to work hard as to get it.While walking down the street u see a guy leaving his car open and on the first seat a bag of money.100000 bucks or more.So u see u can easly get the money and run away.There is noone to see u, no police nearby just u and the opened car.Isn’t this a free will situation too?The money are not spreyed with pheromones but are I think even more desirable than a verry hot pheromone using chick. So if u decide to take it and run away who’s fault is this?The guy who left his car oppen and all this money on the front seat or yours who stole it?There may be temptation but the final desision comes from your personalyty.Pheromones are not like spanish flie rpoducts, taht make someone horni by taking it.Using this on someone can be considered like crushing his free will, but the pheromones are like temtation.U only make yourself more attractive and the other dicides wheter to play with you or not.Just like women on a date.if even pretty girl come to date with you dressed like her granny and whith verry ugly makeup, smelling like not taken a bath for a month you wont have anything whith her, right?
but if the same girl comes to the date dressed like a cutie in minisquirt, boots , sexy black stokings tight blause and with expensive parfume ( without pheromones) and ex. u will be instantly attracted to her, ye?That’s the same situation with guy using pheromones.Make up issue, and not crushing one’s will, witch is prohibited and can be persuited in court.
I’m not too sure how you could related that one to pheromones. I think it would still come down to current circumstances and previous experiences.
I’d assosiate $1m in cash sitting on the front seat of a car as a drug deal. I’d pretend I never saw it and get the fuck away from the car, without looking around suspiciously. I reckon at that point my brain would produce a shit load of adrenaline because of the possible\probable danger it would recognize due to my education and previous experience\exposure.
Someone else with more or less education, or different experiences may produce a very different outcome.
As for the ugly granny, I think your placing too much importance on our sight, we have 4 (or 5) other senses we use.
I have found myself heavily attracted to women who didn’t seem physically attractive, pheromones (natural or not) most likely playing a part in that.
On the other hand been totally turned off by women who’s good enough to be on the front of one Hef’s books.
I’ve never been able to control the way I feel about people, I can’t consciencly decide to like someone or not.
