Re: Making your mind up

On 4/5/24 9:05 AM, Martin Harran wrote:

There was quite an interesting discussion a few weeks ago on Free Will
vs Determinism but it died a death, at least in part due to the
departure of some contributors to the Land Beyond GG. I'd like to take
up some of the issues again if anyone is interested.
 One point made by Hemidactylus that didn't get developed any further
was the way that we sometimes give a lot of time and effort into
making a decision - he gave the example of buying a car. It's also
common for someone to want to "sleep it on it" before making a
decision where the decision is important but it is not clear what
decision is best. If a decision is essentially predetermined then what
is the point of that time and effort or sleeping on it?
 Tied in with that is our ability to change our minds after we have
made a decision - has determinism some convoluted way of working that
predetermines what way we will make a decision but also predetermins
that we will change it?
 A reminder that in the Libet experiments so beloved of determinists,
there was no precursor activity found in regard to making *major*
decisions or changing one's mind so how does that fit in?

I've been out of town, so I'm late to this discussion, and I haven't read everyone else's contributions yet.
Many decisions (like buying a car) are too complicated to reason through, at least not entirely. In such cases, the best outcomes, I have read somewhere, come from loading your brain with all the relevant data, letting it brew (so to speak) and make connections subconsciously, and then, after a day or so, going with your feelings. (If I recall right, the relevant experiment used people buying furniture, not cars.)
Making a decision is an emotional process. Reason can influence it, but without emotion, you'll just sit there doing nothing. (This is based on a brain-damage patient whose emotional centers were damaged. He could reason well what outcomes would come, but he didn't make decisions.) Emotions can be swayed by any number of things, such as how tired or hungry you are, so it shouldn't be surprising that decisions can change.
Libet's experiments of course would not apply to anything that took a lot of time and effort.
--
Mark Isaak
"Wisdom begins when you discover the difference between 'That
doesn't make sense' and 'I don't understand.'" - Mary Doria Russell