BookTalk.org

masterful stylin'

DWill wrote: I couldn't find where I'd posted the link to an Atlantic article by Paul Bloom called "The War on Reason," but I'll post it here again. . . .

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc ... on/357561/

This article makes a very good ancillary read to go along with Haidt's book. Bloom's central theme has to do with free will, as in do we really have it? Or are we just a "soft machine" (John Updike) or "biochemical puppet" (Sam Harris)? He quotes Haidt with regard to the lawyer part of our brain called upon to defend the actions of his client.

But I don't get the idea that Haidt is arguing that we have no free will, only that a lot of our actions are based on automatic impulses. Maybe this is the strawman that DWill alludes to? Certainly we use free will all the time, choosing the college we go to, accepting a job offer, even planning the best way to get to the grocery store (and maybe stop at the dry cleaners on the way back). Our brains evolved a certain autonomy exactly so we can sometimes override our animal instincts. Just using birth control is our way of inserting our free will (not to make a baby) without having to abstain from sex.

No, I don't get the idea that JH is arguing against free will, that argument that I always have such a hard time understanding. But it has never occurred to me that the role of reason is central in the free will debate. I guess it can be. Whatever we mean by "will," it denotes a conscious process, and Haidt is saying that our conscious willing or reasoning is often just a contrived explanation for our deeper intuitions. But not all reasoning or willing falls into that category, of course: calculating the best way to get to the airport, or using birth control, for example. He says our reasoning starts to function like a lawyer or press secretary when we are presenting reasons connected with morality, broadly speaking, which would include politics.

I was probably unfair to Bloom in saying he was hitting at a straw man. He is balanced in his criticism. The title of the article is hyperbolic, but that's not his fault.

The most significant thought I took away from this chapter was that the development of our frontal cortex was not just a boost for our ability to reason, but also brought emotion to bear crucially on our exercise of reason. We (or at least I) usually think of emotion as residing in an older part of the brain, but the orbitofrontal cortex is essential for both emotional experience and exercising reason. The research on that seems fairly convincing. The case of Phineas Gage is often used as an example.

"Reason and emotion must both work together to create intelligent behavior, but emotion (a major part of the elephant) does most of the work. When the neocortex came along, it made the rider possible, but it also made the elephant much smarter, too."

The Divided Self phrase reminds me of this old lyric

For united we stand, divided we fall
And if our backs should ever be against the wall
We'll be together, together, you and I.

geo wrote:Certainly we use free will all the time, choosing the college we go to, accepting a job offer, even planning the best way to get to the grocery store (and maybe stop at the dry cleaners on the way back). Our brains evolved a certain autonomy exactly so we can sometimes override our animal instincts. Just using birth control is our way of inserting our free will (not to make a baby) without having to abstain from sex.

A hardcore determinist like Sam Harris would argue that this is not really free will (of course people define it differently, as Daniel Dennett does) in that those choices depended on your brain state at the time, which depended on previous brain states, etc. Unless you believe that your brain can somehow mysteriously step outside this sequence of causation.

Dexter wrote:

geo wrote:Certainly we use free will all the time, choosing the college we go to, accepting a job offer, even planning the best way to get to the grocery store (and maybe stop at the dry cleaners on the way back). Our brains evolved a certain autonomy exactly so we can sometimes override our animal instincts. Just using birth control is our way of inserting our free will (not to make a baby) without having to abstain from sex.

A hardcore determinist like Sam Harris would argue that this is not really free will (of course people define it differently, as Daniel Dennett does) in that those choices depended on your brain state at the time, which depended on previous brain states, etc. Unless you believe that your brain can somehow mysteriously step outside this sequence of causation.

As a proficient meditation practitioner, wouldn't Sam say that we have some ability to alter our brain states? Your brain can't step outside the chain of causation, but your brain isn't just one unit, either, so that it's possible for a part of it to alter that chain of causation (I guess).

Dexter wrote:A hardcore determinist like Sam Harris would argue that this is not really free will (of course people define it differently, as Daniel Dennett does) in that those choices depended on your brain state at the time, which depended on previous brain states, etc. Unless you believe that your brain can somehow mysteriously step outside this sequence of causation.

Yeah, I've never quite understood the hardcore determinist position, though I haven't read much Sam Harris. I could prove free will right now by going downstairs to the lobby of our hotel (in Boston) and for no reason at all, punch the clerk in the face, thereby setting off a sequence of events that previously didn't exist (get arrested, arraigned, etc.) I'm not going to do that for the same reason I'm not going to jump off a cliff to prove the effect of gravity. But it sure seems that we have some level of free will.

geo wrote:

Dexter wrote:A hardcore determinist like Sam Harris would argue that this is not really free will (of course people define it differently, as Daniel Dennett does) in that those choices depended on your brain state at the time, which depended on previous brain states, etc. Unless you believe that your brain can somehow mysteriously step outside this sequence of causation.

Yeah, I've never quite understood the hardcore determinist position, though I haven't read much Sam Harris. I could prove free will right now by going downstairs to the lobby of our hotel (in Boston) and for no reason at all, punch the clerk in the face, thereby setting off a sequence of events that previously didn't exist (get arrested, arraigned, etc.) I'm not going to do that for the same reason I'm not going to jump off a cliff to prove the effect of gravity.

But if you punched that clerk in the face, that would be the result of a series of causal events and brain states leading up to it. Since you didn't, that was in fact the result of all those previous events. Just like you don't really choose the next random thought that pops into your head. And just like the subjects of the split brain experiments didn't choose to give a rationalization of what the other side of their brain is apparently doing.

But it sure seems that we have some level of free will.

True, it seems like you could have chosen something else than what you actually did. But that would seem to require an exception to the physical laws that govern everything else. And quantum theory, as some have wanted to invoke here, would seem to give you some randomness, not anything like free will.

DWill wrote: As a proficient meditation practitioner, wouldn't Sam say that we have some ability to alter our brain states? Your brain can't step outside the chain of causation, but your brain isn't just one unit, either, so that it's possible for a part of it to alter that chain of causation (I guess).

In a sense, yes, just like hitting yourself over the head can alter our brain states. But what led you to hit yourself over the head? STOP HITTING YOURSELF OVER THE HEAD, DWill!

Dexter wrote:

But it sure seems that we have some level of free will.

True, it seems like you could have chosen something else than what you actually did. But that would seem to require an exception to the physical laws that govern everything else. And quantum theory, as some have wanted to invoke here, would seem to give you some randomness, not anything like free will.