You really know such things? — Heiko

Well... Sure. I do not doubt geology and paleontology. All those big bones, big teeth. Do you doubt it? Now, as for free will, we dispute whether we have free will, so there's not much chance of imputing even an iota of free will to Tryrranusaurus Rex
without a fight.

My guess is that the Awesome Rexes probably had an iota of free will, at least. Not a lot, certainly. Their bird-brain descendants (crows, for example) seem to have a little free will -- not much, but some. As for our free will -- we have enough of it to over-estimate how much we have.

fun fact: we live closer on the timelime to the T-Rex than the T-Rex did to the Stegosaurus. — StreetlightX

Fun fact, indeed.

I just wanted to point out a possibility. In my eyes the initial question mixes up to very different fields of observation: the reflection of nature and self-reflection. From this point of view one does not have to ask or search for self-reflectory entities in natural processes and this - evolution. The theory of evolution will easily point out the significant role of increased mental capabilities in the genesis of the homo sapiens. The question - with which I want to point you and anyone else thinking about this specific matter to a certain direction - is: What if you simply do not get the one without the other?

I guess one could call it a decision whether to fight or not. A dinosaur likely is a genius considering a whole lot of things when compared to paramecium.

May be I spoke too soon. — TheMadFool

I frequently make that mistake.

But our ''failure'' can be attributed to poor choices we make. If everybody realizes the fact that we're harming the planet and takes action then we would surely survive for longer than the dinosaurs barring, of course, catastrophes like asteroids and volcanoes. — TheMadFool

Maybe our choices were poor, but at the time (since the industrial revolution began up until about 1960) our exploitation of coal, oil, and wood seemed eminently sensible. The immediate benefits of industrialization were just to great. We liked having trains, planes, steam ships, cars, plastic, insecticides, herbicides, fungicides, purple coal dyes, bright arsenic-green dyes, et al and we still do. We like them so much that just about nobody is willing to give them up, even though we are heading for what could be (two or three centuries out) a terminating disaster.

Since Silent Spring by Rachel Carson there has been a steady drumbeat reporting adverse consequences from industrialization and hog-wild resource exploitation pointing towards irreparable damage to the the environment upon which we are (we are learning) absolutely dependent.

Using everything at hand to do interesting stuff is just what we do, it's our nature--free will and common sense be damned. If we were really sensible, at least 3 billion of the world's human population would be frantically striving to find ways to live on a small carbon foot print. That would mean giving up a good share of our goodies, like disposable plastic containers holding a small amount of something that will be used once, then tossed into the garbage or into the street where it will ultimately end up in the ocean poisoning animal life. Like not flying around the world for really very trivial purposes and short term benefit; junking private cars and replacing them with mass transit; converting to an economy not based on oil and coal, and on and on and on.

We (people) may recognize that all these drastic changes make good sense, but we find that we do not have the necessary free will to actuate these plans in a timely manner (which would be about 30 years ago). We can look at it, see it, understand it, know what we should do, then have a horrible sinking feeling in our guts and decide to think about something else.

Organisms of all kinds (paramecium on up) have to act, or not act, to survive. Maybe the decision making is hard wired so that choice is nothing more than a serious of switches being thrown. Insects, we know from observation, make decisions. Animals with more brain cells make somewhat more complex decisions in their environment. Is that lion over there a risk or not? Wildebeest seem to be able to identify a hungry lion from one that has a full stomach. Wolves have to cooperate, signal, and make decisions to hunt moose (elk) successfully. One wolf can't kill a moose alone.

Even our exalted selves depend on that kind of machinery to avoid risks -- when we jump back from a car coming too close, without thinking about it. If eating egg salad makes us violently ill a couple of hours after eating it, we may not be able to get another egg salad past our noses for years -- even if you want to. If an irresistible potential sex partner crosses our path, we may throw caution and morals to the wind and follow the trail.

I do think we have at least a lot of free will, but there are also built in limits on the extent to which we can exercise it.

Maybe the decision making is hard wired so that choice is nothing more than a serious of switches being thrown. — Bitter Crank

Nice post all in all but I'd say it is a popular category error to say this would contradict free will.
You can be feeling cold although you are fevering.

Given your Buddhist studies, you likely hold the other 0-2-4-6-8-and-more-legged creatures in higher regard than many do. — Bitter Crank

Respect for liiving creatures is certainly fundamental in Buddhism, although, interestingly, only human beings are able to become Buddha.

Anyway- in terms of free will, humans are uniquely able to choose to do something. I have had this argument on DharmaWheel forum also and was surprised to find quite a few there who didn’t agree, but as far as I’m concerned it can be amply supported with references in the dialogues of the Buddha.

interestingly, only human beings are able to become Buddha — Wayfarer

Because, like, where would we be if a clam or an orangutan could become Buddha?

Because, like, where would we be if a clam or an orangutan could become Buddha? — Bitter Crank

Maybe an orangutan could become a person, if it evolved a computationally universal brain?

Because, like, where would we be if a clam or an orangutan could become Buddha? — Bitter Crank

Yes, it's about hierarchy. Those have to reincarnate as humans first and then may become Buddah.

Because, like, where would we be if a clam or an orangutan could become Buddha? — Bitter Crank

The belief is that animals and devas (divine beings) can become bodhisattvas - I think the former is because in Buddhist lore, the Buddha-to-be incarnates in the form of lions, deers, and so on, in his previous lives as a bodhisattva, always to illustrate the moral of a story (and those 'jataka tales' are amongst the oldest recorded scriptural texts known to history). Devas, who are numerous in Indian lore, of course, appear to be enlightened beings from the perspective of the human, but ultimately they will be re-born again in the 'saha world' (the realm of samsara). Humans alone are intelligent enough to comprehend and follow the dharma, which is why the idea of a 'precious human birth' is stressed in Buddhism.

Personally, I don't claim to know or understand much or any of that. But intuitively, I also feel as though being 'born as human', especially now, has some kind of cosmic significance, as do the decisions we make and the life we live at this time in history. After all the Universe seems pretty well devoid of other sentient beings, from what we can tell, but the fact that we're able to find that out is itself pretty amazing when you think of it. I really don't buy the common myth that humans are 'chemical scum' (Stephen Hawking's charming phrase).

Nice post all in all but I'd say it is a popular category error to say this would contradict free will.
You can be feeling cold although you are fevering. — Heiko

Well, the switches referred to the behavior of very simple animals, and reflexive responses in higher animals--like a literal knee jerk.

When we have an infection pyrogens signal the hypothalamus to raise the body's set point from 98.6 to... maybe 102. For a period of time, we will "feel cold" because we are colder than the hypothalamus says we should be (during a fever). When our temperature gets up to 102, we will stop shivering and just feel hot--and wretched.

No matter how 'hot' you are, being 98.6 is cool.

Maybe an orangutan could become a person, if it evolved a computationally universal brain? — tom

What is a computationally universal brain?[/quote]

What is a computationally universal brain? — Bitter Crank

I've been through this many times.

Skipping the preliminaries, it is a brain that may instantiate arbitrary programs. Animal brains lack the hardware to do this. It is a brain that can instantiate programs that create knowledge, explanations, and qualia. Animal brains don't do that either.

What if you simply do not get the one without the other? — Heiko

and the implications of that would be...???

We (people) may recognize that all these drastic changes make good sense, but we find that we do not have the necessary free will to actuate these plans in a timely manner (which would be about 30 years ago). We can look at it, see it, understand it, know what we should do, then have a horrible sinking feeling in our guts and decide to think about something else. — Bitter Crank

In my opinion having the ability to choose between what is beneficial and harmful, evidence of free will, is a survival advantage given, of course, that our motivations are life-sustaining and not otherwise. If this is so, then free will would be, to say the least, on the cards if not the ultimate goal of evolution.

Of course one could look at it from another angle and say that having free will actually makes it possible to make wrong choices, choices that are life-destroying e.g. suicide. That would be bad for evolution if survival is the main goal.

In my opinion having the ability to choose between what is beneficial and harmful, evidence of free will, is a survival advantage given, of course, that our motivations are life-sustaining and not otherwise. If this is so, then free will would be, to say the least, on the cards if not the ultimate goal of evolution. — TheMadFool

The problem is, to depict such choices in terms 'what benefits survival' is reductionist. All it amounts to, is a form of utilitarian ethics - that we do what we do because it's likely to 'provide a survival advantage'. Now, obviously, one ought not to leap off cliffs or walk in front of buses, and the ability to avoid such obviously lethal behaviours is 'advantageous'. But in terms of ethical philosophy and principles, it means pretty well zilch. You see, you're falling into the very common mistake, in my view, of taking evolutionary biology as a kind of 'guide to the good life', which it isn't. (This is exactly what makes Sam Harris such a crap ethical philosopher, IMO.)

Did I post a link to that NY Times opinion piece by Richard Polt, on this topic? I've mentioned it a lot of times on this forum. Oh, to hell with it, here it is again.

he problem is, to depict such choices in terms 'what benefits survival' is reductionist. All it amounts to, is a form of utilitarian ethics - that we do what we do because it's likely to 'provide a survival advantage'. Now, obviously, one ought not to leap off cliffs or walk in front of buses, and the ability to avoid such obviously lethal behaviours is 'advantageous'. But in terms of ethical philosophy and principles, it means pretty well zilch. You see, you're falling into the very common mistake, in my view, of taking evolutionary biology as a kind of 'guide to the good life', which it isn't. (This is exactly what makes Sam Harris such a crap ethical philosopher, IMO.) — Wayfarer

I'm not claiming evolution led to ethics in a direct causal fashion. I'm only saying it gave us (or will give us) intelligence and free will - the basic tools for everything under the sun. What do you think.

Thank you for the link.

the basic tools for everything under the sun. What do you think. — TheMadFool

That anything that 'explains everything' explains nothing.

Programs and hardware are anthropomorphic in this context. Your use of the terms will ether change the use of the terms (doubtful, given their primacy within actual programing and hardwaring), or the use will just die out.

Just tossing in little bits of confetti here and there for now.

Programs and hardware are anthropomorphic in this context. — Noble Dust

It's called science. It is proved, that according to known physics, universal computers are equivalent - they possess the same repertoire - and that there is no higher form of computation. Either the human brain is equivalent to one of these objects, or it is less capable.

There are strong arguments that the human brain must be computationally universal.

They're anthropomorphic in the sense that we made programs and hardware, and then we decided that the world is like our programs and our hardware.

Just a little confetti.

It is proved, that according to known physics — tom

Is it proved, or is it according to known physics?

It's called science. — tom

What is?

Just some unorganized non-anthropomorphic, non-software confetti for ya

They're anthropomorphic in the sense that we made programs and hardware, and then we decided that the world is like our programs and our hardware. — Noble Dust

We did not endow our brains with computational universality, nor create the first software to be self-aware. Evolution did that.

There is nothing beyond computational universality. Either we have it or we lack it.

No, we made tech that created computational universality, and then we started getting anthropomorphical about it. Evolution didn't do that; the evolution of us making tech did that. What sort of evolution is that, anyway?

Everything is beyond computational universality.

Just some confetti.

No, we made tech that created computational universality, and then we started getting anthropomorphical about it. Evolution didn't do that; the evolution of us making tech did that. What sort of evolution is that, anyway? — Noble Dust

It is a principle of physics, as important as Conservation of Energy, that a universal computer may exactly emulate any finite physical system by finite means. It's called the Church-Turing-Deutsch Principle, but I prefer the name the Deutsch-Principle, to distinguish it from the Church-Turing Thesis.

I could spend all day citing physics and computer science papers about this, but this is the one that started it all. Please don't read it as it will only confuse you. I provide it merely to indicate where the academic industry that studies universal computers began.

https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~christos/classics/Deutsch_quantum_theory.pdf

There really is nothing beyond computational universality, we either have it or we don't.

As for the phenomenon by which certain systems, subject to incremental change, may suddenly achieve universality in their domains, Evolution has produced at least two of those in the history of our planet.

Deutsch-Principle, to distinguish it from the Church-Turing Thesis. — tom

I prefer the Douche Principle, and the Church Thesis. Sorry, too perfect. I'll stop trolling.

Please don't read it as it will only confuse you. — tom

Thanks; I almost dived in!

I have no arguments against this nonsense; I'm just the dunce, for now. Just here to throw some confetti. Confetti sometimes gets deleted, but sometimes it scatters widely and adds a nice dolup of humanity to an otherwise robotic landscape of laconic lunacy. The confetti isn't for you, @tom; don't worry.