There are philosophers today who are not only concerned with deep thought. They also conduct scientific experiments related to the nature of free will and good and evil
If you think for a moment about the field of philosophy, an image like this will surely come to your mind: a man sitting comfortably on an armchair, lost in thought, looking through old books. And maybe you are imagining an academic field, difficult to understand in its essence and devoid of any real scientific basis. Either way, you probably don't think about people going out into the field and conducting experiments.
And yet, surprisingly, a group of young philosophers has arisen who are doing just that. These "experimental philosophers" claim that the investigation of the deepest questions of philosophy can be aided by a practical inquiry into the causes of human thoughts and feelings. To advance in this investigation they use all the methods of modern cognitive sciences. They conduct experiments, team up with psychologists and publish in journals that were reserved, in the past, mainly for scientists. The result is almost a revolution. Although the movement only started a few years ago, it has already produced hundreds of articles, a steady stream of surprising results, and very opinionated views from all sides.
At first glance, this may seem very strange - as if the philosophers stopped doing real philosophy and moved on to do something else entirely. However, in practice this approach may not be as strange as it seems. In a typical research program, scientists work with certain instruments (telescopes in astronomy, microscopes in biology, etc.). Usually, they don't need to put much thought into the tools themselves: they simply use them to discover a reality that exists apart from them. And yet, sometimes there is something in the information that comes from these devices that confuses and embarrasses the researchers: it can be information that seems clearly improbable, or that goes against the established theories, or even contradicts itself. In such cases, it is sometimes useful to distance yourself from the reality that you are trying to investigate, and look carefully at the devices themselves for a moment. Sometimes you even find that the best way to solve a problem in astronomy is to start scientifically investigating the telescopes.
We philosophers don't have much to do with telescopes or microscopes. We rely almost entirely on one device: the human mind that produces the ideas that drive our profession. However, the basic principle is the same: we are usually not too bothered by how our thinking brain works, and simply use it to identify an independent reality. But sometimes, this approach fails. Sometimes it seems that the brain works in two opposite directions, as if there are two voices inside that give opposite answers to the same question. In such situations, it is useful to examine the mind itself and scientifically examine the sources of our own and other people's philosophical intuition.
This is where the experimental philosophy comes into play. The main idea is that if we can better understand the psychology behind philosophical intuitions, we can know with more certainty which intuitions are trustworthy, and which we should discard as unreliable or misleading.
We hope that this work will allow us to better understand people's beliefs on major philosophical issues. What makes people believe in free will? Do they see their moral positions as objective truth? The findings may ultimately have practical implications in the fields of law, ethics and other fields.
About the author
Joshua Knobe is a professor in the philosophy department of Yale University and one of the founders of experimental philosophy. He gained publicity following the identification of the "Noob effect", in which moral judgments have a surprising effect on the way humans understand the world.
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A. Ben Ner,
No. Free will means that an external party does not force you to make this or that decision. Therefore, if your decision is forced by flipping a coin, it is not free will.
To Zvi
You're right. What you (as a scientist) see as randomness others interpret as "free will".
Isn't "free will" another name for the concept of "randomness"? Yes No
Choose your answer randomly and freely
A. Ben Ner
Determinism does not necessarily contradict free will, depending on how you define it.
The statistical nature of quantum theory can conflict with free will because the two people you describe making different decisions will do so randomly.
To Zvi
To your question: "What is the connection between free will and quantum mechanics? "
Well, of course I don't have an answer to your question, I'm not the one who raised the explanation about the connection in quantum mechanics
And the (elusive) concept known as "free will", I just brought up, from my memory, an opinion that I heard from Fr. Yakir Aharonov.
As a matter of fact, I hypothesize that it is the statistical (non-deterministic) nature of quantum theory that may constitute the
The basis for the hypothesis regarding the connection between her and Bain is "free will". "Free will" can also be defined as a statistical, non-deterministic phenomenon, characterized by the fact that two different people (or a single person at two different events in time),
Under equal conditions (to the extent that the conditions are indeed equal) different decisions will be made.
There is a certain similarity, but the proof of the definite connection is still far away.
Michael talks about the Or party on Facebook.
As Michael (my father, where did Michael go?) once mentioned, free will will usually lead to disaster, and therefore it is good that the will is not free but prevented by any considerations that are not free.
Brain research is probably moving towards a fairly clear determination that there is no such thing as "free will", and the feeling as if we independently decided whether to turn right or left, or whether to take this or that object from the shelf, is actually a consequence of chemical and electrical processes in the brain that ultimately led to this decision.
There are very interesting experiments that have shown that it is possible to identify with a very high level of accuracy what decision a person is going to make (for example, whether to choose the green or red card) a few moments before he has consciously decided on this choice (this is done by examining the electrical signals in his brain).
A. Ben Ner
What is the connection between free will and quantum mechanics?
In connection with the article three-four-five... eight questions:
1. Does "free will" exist in humans? in large animals? in small animals? pettiness? miniature? Viruses? ….
….in the inanimate matter?
2. Why does at least part of the human population believe that "free will" does exist?
3. Is free will a product of chemistry? Or maybe physics?
I once heard from Prof. Yakir Aharonov, a renowned physicist, a hypothesis that free will is a consequence
of quantum mechanics …..
A true story related to the spiritual realm
A few weeks ago I was in mourning, the nephew of the deceased told with such genuine excitement,
That a neighbor who was sitting next to her at the moment of her death, told him that she saw the soul of the deceased in blue color coming out of her flight and ascending to the sky.
The interesting effect named after him illustrates well why one should be careful with gut feelings and conclusions based on the feeling that something does not seem logical. The best way we have today to examine this is through examining facts, rational thinking and controlled experiments. Of course in cases where it is not possible to do all of these (such as in religious belief) all that remains is just a gut feeling of one kind or another, more elegant or less elegant.
For a brief description of the experiment that presented the effect, read here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Knobe#The_Knobe_Effect
An example is a person who is unlucky, will think that the world is bad. 🙂
Examples?