Your Brain at Work

That's why social myths "work." Likely correlational not causal.

Probably under stressful times, this would be even more true. Likely for other pop ideas as well, e.g., "leadership," "passion," "authenticity", etc.

You really can't seel or have public discourse about anything other than pop myths. That's why we keep science and empirical stuff walled-off for the young.

You can make no money debunking Santa Claus but a whole lot of money selling it.

Social myths aren't "bad" any more than a lawnmower is "bad." They just stop working sometimes and don't really do much that is interesting most of the time. Kind of boring actually.

If free will was a really useful myth, then things going really, really bad when consciousness is in full swing (econ meltdown, etc)would be such a darn problem!

David,

Thank you again for another illuminating and thought provoking column.

It caused me to think of the work of transformational pioneer, Werner Erhard, who has stressed that the way the world occurs to us can and will affect the way we feel, think and what we believe. And if we can change the way it occurs to us, all of those will spontaneously change. If you feel the world is against you, you will feel, think and believe very different things than if you feel the world is on your side. Or as Henry Ford said: "If you think you can and think you can't. You're right."

So the question in my mind is whether there is such a thing as free will or are we nearly always reacting to the world as it occurs to us?

FI believe that free will does not exist in any fundamental sense yet we perceive it to exist. Given what we know about human perception this should hardly surprise us. I enjoyed this post because it goes to the pragmatic issue. Is it helpful to believe in free will? The answer to this is clearly and over whelmingly "Yes" since our entire culture is built upon the concept of human agency and individual responsibility.

This is a much more productive approach (with my deepest apologies David) than searching for free will in philosophical quantum treacle.

If you could will yourself to believe that 1+1=3 then you'd get 1 more out of life too. So drink up.

You may find believers in X do better than non-believers in X in a work environment where their boss is a believer in X. Therefore, it would benefit your work-prospects to convert to your boss' faith.

Now, as a theoretical-hyperbolic-HR-tech, if there were only a way to find out whether someone were to believe in X before hiring them, because then I'd be in the money. Perhaps I could locate zipcodes with high concentrations of belivers in X and target my HR efforts toward those zipcodes. Or I could simply ask them, as I don't believe that determinism and its ilk have acheived the protected status which all religions enjoy.

God bless.

And please don't make me break this down for you, I hate having to explain jokes.

Clearly our conscious, verbal self and social-talk and will power controls our world and that of others.

Obviously, what I consciously think/will at work is the basis for my success.

Clearly the earth is the center of the universe, or our universe is the center of all universes, or whatever the heck is out there anyway.

Clearly human beings (and especially me)are the focus of the animal kingdom and whatever gods and supernatural beings inhabit the heavens and want to help (me mainly!) out.

And this is all so clearly right that we'll build a business around it , have conferences and write books.

The message being - "What I want/feel/need/etc is the center of all experience." Bingo!

Man (and especially me)is clearly the measure of all things.

It's simple. Duh!

I have a scholarly paper being scrubbed by a neuroscience journal in which I critique the Libet study and those that followed. I argue a case that all of these studies have conceptual flaws and that the widely held view on lack of free will is not justified by the research evidence thus far presented.

What is/are the difference/s between the following sentences?:

It is what I think/will at work which makes me sucessfull.

It is what I freely think/will at work which makes me sucessfull.

Interesting article, a couple of thoughts:

1) Most social science studies over reach. Although we quote them all the time, they do not serve us very well. Part of the problem is that most studies can only isolate a few variables to do their research but real life has hundreds of moving variables. Like everything else in life we just focus on the variables that serve us and ignore the rest (except in academia we do that "scientifically".

2) We don't like to use the teachings of people who actually live this stuff. For example many wisdom tradition teachers who spend their lives actually training their minds and emotions to achieve specific results are never solicited for their opinion. Instead we keep going back to people who think about stuff rather than practice the stuff.

Once we are mature enough to begin to identify other possible sources of wisdom and knowledge I think our understanding we expand considerably.

The question I ask myself is whether this study reveals something about beliefs/expectations about the world or rather a tropism (extroverted in this case) previously positively reinforced.
There are a lot of milieus in which the person who presents himself as self-confident, autonomous, and firmly holding to the notion that Will can prevail receives a lot of positive reinforcement and the 'belief' self-fulfilling. Perhaps those milieus are ones where
1) tropism for extroversion is best rewarded by affirming belief in free will for subject x
and
2) rewarding such affirmation of belief is best play for all relevant non-x

yield, stable positive expected value equilibriums.
If, moreover, we ourselves currently believe ourselves to inhabit a portion of the phase space where such conditions obtain, then absolutely, the result is as seductive as earlier notions re. Protestant Work Ethic, instinctual renunciation, Mclelland 'n-achievement', and so on.

It would be nice to think that what are, au fond, ontological propositions have more weight than solid information about preferences.

Nice but wishful. Bad faith is how one wins the game of Kavka's toxin.

There is a world of difference between understanding that free will is a myth, and concurrently wrongly concluding that as a result what we do does not matter much, and understanding that free will is a myth, and concurrently concluding that our predetermined actions nevertheless have consequences.

Until self-regulation research addresses that salient distinction, its results should be regarded as limited, and more political than scientific.

Check out the heisenburg uncertanty princapal. It's come to split the world into many many dimensions.

Using the Bio-psycho-social model and adding the free will does indeed exist, although isn't oft exercised (conscious inhibitions--rather than auto-pilot behaviors. I view human beings much like the game of Pin-ball. You have have a few flippers that can alter the game and influence what happens, although the pinball often roams around fairly randomly, and at times no matter what choices/timing you use--the pinball goes straight through the flippers and free will to change the pinball's path just doesn't in that situation.

the funny thing is that when person A is a 'determinist' and person B is a 'free willer' person A will argue that person B is wrong, or believing in a myth or some such. But this makes no sense because both people are just arriving at a conclusion that was predetermined based on their prior experiences and neither is wrong. In fact A arguing that B is wrong is stating that there is a preferred belief that is correct and a non-preferred belief that is wrong. But how can either person be 'wrong' since they are just predetermined by their past to arrive at that conclusion, they are actually arguing against determinism by arguing for determinism.

it makes sense that people who believe in free will are less likely to cheat since cheating is wrong, and are better workers since they want to achieve success. to a determinist being wrong, or gaining success is no better or no worse then being right or failing.

Radical biological reductionism can be used for a whole laundry list of horrible things and has been throughout human history--from Genocides, to tyranny. I would also note that although a fair amount of religious people are either determinists, or seem to cherry pick when things are predetermined and when they are not---there are Christian's and those of other faiths that do believe in Free Will, and that is part of the very essence of our freedom to mess up the world on such a grand scale :) It's not merely the hedonistic imperative at work.

If free will doesn't exists and if we are subjugated to our innate nature then what makes us to grow as a civilization?

Ever drive a route so familiar you don’t remember getting there? It is as if your brain was on autopilot. Many scientists think this zombie-like behavior is the norm. They say that even when we are aware of having done something, it was willed subconsciously, and we only became consciously aware after the fact. This has led to a common notion among scholars that free will is an illusion. At least that is the argument promoted long ago by scholars like Darwin, Huxley, and Einstein. Many modern scientists also hold that position and have even performed experiments they say prove it.

These experiments supposedly show that the brain makes a subconscious decision before it is realized consciously. Willed behavior is making an intent, choice, or decision, and it can be accomplished subconsciously. “Free will” could only occur if a person consciously selects from among two or more available alternatives that are not constrained by either external or internal imperatives.

In a paper in the current issue of Advances in Cognitive Psychology (Vol. 6, page 47-65, I challenge a whole series of experiments performed since the 1980s purported to show that intentions, choices, and decisions are made subconsciously, with conscious mind being informed after the fact. I charge that these experiments do not test what they are intended to test and are misinterpreted to support the view of illusory free will.

I go on to argue that in the real world, subconscious and conscious minds interact and share duties. Subconscious mind governs simple or well-learned tasks, like habits or ingrained prejudices, while conscious mind deals with tasks that are complex or novel, like first learning to ride a bike or play sheet music.

We are not inevitable zombies driven by our subconscious, though we may act that way, as is most obvious when we act out of habit, prejudice, or prior conditioning. We do not have to be victims of genetics and environment. We are responsible for what we make of our brains and for the choices in life we make. In a free-will world, people can choose to extricate themselves from many kinds of misfortune — not to mention make the right choices that can prevent misfortune.”

I argue this case in my recent book, Blame Game, How To Win It, designed to help people become more responsible. But now, I try to bolstermy position on personal responsibility by disarming skeptics who think people lack free will.

In the typical experiment supporting illusory free will, a subject is asked to voluntarily press a button at any time and notice the position of a clock marker when they think they first willed the movement. At the same time, brain activity is monitored over the part of the brain that controls the mechanics of the movement. The startling observation typically is that subjects show brain activity changes before they say they intended to make the movement. In other words the brain issued the command before the conscious mind had a chance to decide to move. All this happens in less than a second, but various scientists have interpreted this to mean that the subconscious mind made the decision to move and the conscious mind only realized the decision later.

My criticism focuses on three main points: 1) timing of when a free-will event occurred requires introspection, and other research shows that introspective estimates of event timing are not accurate, 2) simple finger movements may be performed without much conscious thought and certainly not representative of the conscious decisions and choices required in high-speed conversation or situations where the subconscious mind cannot know ahead of time what to do, and 3) the brain activity measures have been primitive and incomplete.
I identify 12 categories of what I regard as flawed thinking about free will. Some of the more obvious issues that many scientists have glossed over include:

• Decisions are not often instantaneous (certainly not on a scale of a fraction of a second).
• Conscious realization that a decision has been made is delayed from the actual decision, and these may be two distinct processes.
• Decision making is not the only mental process going on in such tasks.
• Some willed action, as when first learning to play a musical instrument or touch type must be freely willed because the subconscious mind cannot know ahead of time what to do.
• Free-will experiments have relied too much on awareness of actions and time estimation of accuracy.
• Extrapolating from such simple experiments to all mental life is not justified.
• Conflicting data and interpretations have been ignored.

A basic problem is scientists do not yet have a good independent brain-function measure of the conscious generation of intentions, choices, or decisions. Without such a measure, it is not possible to measure the time at which a willed action occurs.
My paper concludes with a series of suggestions that scientists can use to test free-will issues. Equally important, the research he suggests would not only help identify reliable markers of conscious decision making but would also help scientists learn what the brain does to achieve consciousness in the first place.

Well, consider this hypothetical scenario:

Suppose that it turned out that belief in a god who created humans in their current form resulted in people being happier, more generous, and more likely to give to charity, and thus improved society overall. Suppose that numerous studies were done all supporting this. Would you advocate that people believe in creationism, that everyone was taught to be a creationist, and that employers should consider whether someone is a creationist when hiring them?

There's something more sinister to consider here. You're effectively encouraging people to believe in something which is unproven. You're encouraging them to believe in something on blind faith, rather than considering the evidence for and against it and making a rational decision. Teaching people to think like this will encourage irrational decision making, leading to a whole host of societal problems.

Want to replace the current evidence based practice of modern medicine with voodoo and magic? It's of course ridiculous to do so if you're rational and put value on evidence, but if we teach people to believe in something just because it makes them better people rather than because there's evidence supporting it, it wouldn't be too surprising if modern medicine was replaced by something faith-based rather than evidence-based.

The progress of society relies on science, and for science to advance, new scientists must be taught to base their beliefs on experiment and evidence, and not on what's comforting or what results in better job performance.

Teaching people to choose their beliefs based on what may be good for society is incompatible with teaching them to base their beliefs on evidence. And ironically, it may harm society both in the long run, by stalling scientific progress, and in the short run, by replacing evidence based solutions like modern medicine with faith based ones.

Teaching people to strive to improve themselves, on the other hand, is fine (which isn't incompatible with lack of free will, since a deterministic universe can still have causality, so taking actions to improve oneself can cause one's abilities to improve). There's plenty of evidence that taking actions to improve oneself can result in real improvements.

"Carol Dweck lays out how people with 'fixed mindsets' believe that their achievements are based on innate abilities. As a result, they are reluctant to take on challenges. People with what Dweck calls 'growth mindsets' believe that they can learn, change, and develop needed skills. They are better equipped to handle inevitable setbacks, and know that hard work can help them accomplish their goals. A growth mindset sounds like a person feels they have some free will. As an employer, hiring several people each month, I start to wonder if I might test for people's belief in free will somehow..."

I have a "growth mindset" but I do not believe in free will.

My actions are simple: I am trying to live in God's plan. And "God," to me, is really just the universe. All living things are the same. I know what I am capable of so I live to unlock 100 percent of my capabilities at all time.

"the funny thing is that when person A is a 'determinist' and person B is a 'free willer' person A will argue that person B is wrong, or believing in a myth or some such."

As soon as you tie things into absolutes you lose. "The smaller the mind the greater the conceit." Someone of true intelligence realizes we cannot truly know anything. Perception is reality.