Thalia Wheatley - Is Free Will an Illusion?

I'm convinced that people can be fooled in many ways by clever psychologists.

This Will guy should be released immediately. He deserves freedom.

Will someone just pick up the damn coffee cup already.

I look at it like this: we are moving forward in time like watching a DVD. When you watch a DVD movie for the first time you don't know what's going to happen next or what happens at the end because you're watching it live (live, like Live from NY, it's Saturday Night). But all the information for the whole movie is already there. The end of the DVD has already been written. While watching it you can feel like you'd want it turn out a certain way but you obviously have no control over it (even though sometimes it feels like we do). Time is an illusion in itself. We are watching it live so it feels like we have free will but it's already all been written. That's just my two cents

Free will and conscious choice / action are two different things. Free will when move the mouse around, conscious choice / action when employee stop the mouse. Conscious choice / action when there is a change, such as stopping mouse or starting to move mouse around, free will when keep moving mouse around. The subject was exercising free will (neural activity) until the mouse stopped, while it was the employee conscious choice / action that stopped the mouse.

It’s a paradox... I honestly don’t see how I have it or don’t have it... meanwhile I’m trying to understand the experiment after listening 3 times

It seems to me we have free will over some things and not others things. But to the hardcore determinists I pose a question; I think to myself why would a universe allow for lifeforms which can trick themselves into thinking they have control? This would have no evolutionary benefit so why would it come about? Also, if I am angry at someone, then shouldn't I realize that I shouldn't be angry at them because they didn't actually have control of their actions that angered me?

I wonder how that non-free will argument works a court of law?

Post hoc ergo proctor hoc... just because there are physical inclinations toward a given action does not mean that we are not free to go with the action or even veto it.

I will grant the "picking up the coffee cup" scenario--I find it fascinating. But how about for a less impulsive and reactive scenario, such as deciding over the course of months which college to attend, or whether to leave one job for another? Undoubtedly there are all kinds of subconscious contributors to the eventual decisions that we make in these examples, but what would be the explanation for all of the long deliberation being devoid of free will?

“Yes I have free will; I have no choice but to have it.” ― Christopher Hitchens

the underlying question is: if you set every neuron in your brain to a certain state and start the process, would the outcome (deciding to take a coffeecup) be always the same? If you bring quantum mechanics and uncertainty into the game, then this is most probably not the case. What do you think, guys?

5:11 This is flawed logic. Of course, external stimuli will affect your decisions a lot. Like maybe 99% of the time. In your experiment, you tricked someone into thinking that it is their own decision, not very difficult to do. You can do that a million times on million people, it won't prove there is 0 free will. It just proves that external stimuli can affect people's decisions and they can be tricked into thinking that is responsible for them entirely. Heck people often feel guilty about things that they have no control on.

I think this old topic would benefit from a clarification: Free Will is an illusion of our subjective experience. The only reason it subjectively feels like "free will" is because even we don't know what stimuli will next cross our paths or enter our mind.

The hand does not go to coffee cup when there is no cup. Free will starts prior to the point you are thinking is the starting point. First you consciously choose to take coffee, then unconsciously decide how to hold the cup by your hand, then you move your hand with conscious experience. So to trace neural activity you should go back little further than your starting point.

First Thalia Wheatley hesitantly stated "Yes" to the question, "Free will is an illusion?" at 8:20 Then she quickly gave a second answer, "It may be." Then she very quickly gave the third answer, "At least a confabulation." She gave the 3 answers in quick succession. It's okay to change your mind Thalia Wheatley. You have the ability to choose. You can give an answer, then think about it for a few milliseconds, and realize there's a problem, then give a second answer, then immediately realize that there's a problem with that answer, then think about it for a few more milliseconds and give a third answer. The thinking involved to process each answer literally happens in milliseconds. That's fast mental processing. How is it possible for a person to change their mind 3 times in a few seconds if that person doesn't have the ability to choose? Maybe, she exercised freewill?

Let's say I'm playing chess. My opponent makes a move and I evaluate his move to try and determine his strategy. I form a hypothesis. I already had my own strategy in mind, but his move makes me rethink that strategy slightly. Instead of moving the piece I had originally intended to move, I make a different move. One that a I think might be more advantageous. Have I not exercised free will?

Their biggest argument is that awareness of the movement comes only milliseconds after the muscle movement. But becoming aware of something can be just a feedback loop that confirms we did what we intended to do. They have no way of telling whether intention is brain induced. Intention can initiate muscle movement and brain reacts and records this movement. Thoughts?

Free will is a property of consciousness. Suppose if we take away Thalia consciousness, will she still end up doing the same events in her life were consciousness present to her? If we take away her consciousness will I see her going to university to deliver the lecture?

The problem here i believe is that we rely too heavily on words for meaning. We can conceptualise so easily a "self explanatory" definitions to concepts like free will? Maybe we're confusing free will and impulse. You can't control you coffee addiction but you can control what cup you choose to drink it from. What method of operation you wish to have today. Addictions and habits I don't think should interfere with the concept of free will. If you are free to think anything you want, regardless of whether you act upon it, isn't that free will already? I can free willingly think of a rock on Mars. What if that creative thought was enough to start a rocket business?