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Mission Statement

The Human Thought Experiment strives to answer the question of whether we can make any further progress on figuring out our existence simply by creating a movement of thought. Is it within our mental abilities to explain our situation, or will we find that the nature of the universe is truly beyond our comprehension? Although some individuals grappling with big ideas may have previously found the pursuit frustrating and fruitless, the Human Thought Experiment is meant to change that paradigm by creating a truly productive forum. At a time when science and religion are often at odds, The Human Thought Experiment offers an alternative approach and is meant to include people of all ages, all backgrounds, of all ideas, and is meant to truly revolutionize the manner in which we address our existence. The two best assets humans have are our cognition and our ability to communicate; the thoughts must come from individuals like you and the Human Thought Experiment will provide the tools of communication. There is at least a possibility that intense human thought on this subject directly could lead to greater understanding of our existence: this is that experiment.

Saturday, May 17, 2008

Free will and unpredictability

So I'm reading this book "Chaos" by James Gleick about the choas theory. You're probably familiar with the Butterfly Effect - that if a butterfly flaps its wings in New York it changes the weather in, say Tokyo. The idea is that each tiny change in the world induces the whole system to function differently, in an entirely nonlinear fashion such that one small perturbation could have vast consequences. 

I want to combine this with the idea of nature and nurture influences on the self. Our bodies are just a biological consequence of our parents, informed and shaped by our parent and their friends and their community. We make decisions by the way our neurons fire in our brain, and our neurons fire in this way due to either our biology or our environment. I am going to argue that nature and nurture here are not important distinctions. What is important is that they are both ultimately out of our personal control. So, the first human born long ago would make decisions based on factors outside of his control and by doing so he/she directed our future by making small perturbations that would amplify to become the world we know. 

If our decisions truly rest in our genome and with our upbringing, then each decision is dependent on previous ones and if you trace this back to the conception of humanity, you get to a point where the first decision ever must have created all future possibilities. If you trace this idea into the future, you find that we are enmeshed in decisions we have to make because of who we are, and the idea of free will becomes pretty much impossible. 

Do you agree with my logic? Must there be a third influence on decisions in order to permit free will?

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1 comment:

I.C. said...

Isn't free will allowed by free will itself? Maybe this is circular. I'm just wondering if it's possible to reduce the will of a person and their ability to make choices and decisions solely on neuronal firing. How then does one explain experience, and wisdom? People who repeat bad mistakes? if it's all just neurons, then can we program people to act "appropriately", say, with pharmaceuticals or electric stimulation to the brain? Maybe this is possible (but scary).

Maybe I am just reacting to my neurons, but deep down I feel as if I'm in control; that I have the ability to overcome both nature and nurture through will. Isn't that what differentiates humans from other animals? Our ability to direct our will in new and creative ways? I don't have any answers to this, but just thoughts that were prompted by your post...

May 22, 2008 at 10:52 PM

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