The Libet experiment explains the form of propaganda we've been seeing among planted agents in the Medical Freedom Movement! These agents get ahead of peak readiness potential and coopt the action that would otherwise gain steam to effectively push back against tyranny!
Thank you for this moment of education.
Update: I made your lesson the foundation of my most recent article:
Whether it’s resisting the urge to watch the next episode, have that third piece of chocolate, refresh our social media feed for the 10th time… whatever it is, even the smallest victory means progress.
This is key. For a lot of people, these little actions don’t feel like enough. But culture is built up by the actions of many individuals. Detoxifying our own lives is the first step towards creating a truly free society.
I suspect the not getting it has been baked in to what we call education, but is largely, indoctrination. If you want to develop a population to follow orders and rules; rely on external authority and expertise, you would not wish to introduce them - in any meaningful way - to introspection or even the question of 'self'.
Ah, sweet memories. The Libet experiment was all the rage at Heidelberg in the 90s. It was a good primer in fraudulent study design (you don’t measure free will, you measure the observation of an internal observer observing your own action. Free will happens at the point you order the physiological action or not).
Yes, it really comes down to that, doesn't it? When I wrote the article, I simply tried to put myself in the position of the participants, and even then I could sense by introspection that it works just as you described. Alas, introspection is often considered a sin by science-absolutists...
The following strategy to teach children from an early age to rationally reflect on their choices and preferences, and not simply act on impulse, would help them making conscious decisions in adulthood.
Humans (especially children) are motivated less by gifts/rewards/trophies than by internal accomplishments of their will. Any reward for obedience is a lesser motivation than the power to respectfully disagree and disobey.
The formula I am proposing:
A) Set your rules and expectations applicable to a child.
B) If the child does not want to do what is expected of them, ask them to give you reasons why the expectation is unreasonable at this time. If the reason given is unsatisfactory, explain why it failed. This way you are adhering to the same rules of argumentation that are expected from the child, and this imprints the fundamental principle of ‘discourse ethics’.
C) If at the end of this process the child would demonstrate a reasonable effort to argue consistently and on relevant merits, a concession to the rules/expectations should be granted. The reward of ‘respectful disobedience’ then becomes a powerful incentive to argue more consistently, identify relevant merits, and (in time) to develop sufficient understanding not to dissent on inadequate merits.
Saw this when you linked it on notes yesterday, I had always heard about this tangentially but never seen the details before so thanks.
It is surprisingly to me that no one has mentioned the relevance of neuronal lag. I forget the exact speed but I know that impulses go through the nervous system at much less than the speed of light. I am thinking that the whole result could potentially be explained by the lag in communication between the eye and the brain.
Also, the instructions given seem far too nebulous to build anything serious off of.
Interesting idea. Bottom line for me is that you should first look at every conceivable explanation (there are many on offer) before proclaiming that we have no free will cause muh materialism. It is all rather preposterous.
What is will? We need to start with some understanding of what me mean. Will depends on having a direction or a moral compass of where you have the intention to go. Will recognizes there are elements outside of oneself and within oneself that will deflect or resist the direction. Will maintains attention and responds to the deflection or resistance by taking measures to continue in the original direction.
Awareness of yourself, because of our scattered nature, is paramount, because will depends on a unified nature to attain an aim or direction. For example, the aim or direction chosen can range from a simple desire, like hunger, to the aim to lose weight, to the aim to train for a decathalon, to the aim of winning a decathalon. The idea of training, shows will can be developed.
Matt: 6:22: “The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.”
Having many years under my belt, it's empirically obvious that we have free will. I enjoyed the technical/philosophical explanations above. It is important to work the brain continually.
A conscious pilot overriding a largely-in-charge subconscious autopilot at crucial junctions. Putting the pilot on longterm gym routine to build some versatile muscles (six-pack abs ain’t no goal—but won’t hurt either).
I’m free-falling in love w/ this image as I type 😂
In listening to this old video of Andres Segovia, at about the 37+ minute mark he talks about will as the reason for his accomplishments. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmdRCywCtbs
The Libet experiment explains the form of propaganda we've been seeing among planted agents in the Medical Freedom Movement! These agents get ahead of peak readiness potential and coopt the action that would otherwise gain steam to effectively push back against tyranny!
Thank you for this moment of education.
Update: I made your lesson the foundation of my most recent article:
https://roundingtheearth.substack.com/p/how-the-magic-trick-works-cutting
Whether it’s resisting the urge to watch the next episode, have that third piece of chocolate, refresh our social media feed for the 10th time… whatever it is, even the smallest victory means progress.
This is key. For a lot of people, these little actions don’t feel like enough. But culture is built up by the actions of many individuals. Detoxifying our own lives is the first step towards creating a truly free society.
Indeed, it's such a simple point, and yet so few truly get it.
I suspect the not getting it has been baked in to what we call education, but is largely, indoctrination. If you want to develop a population to follow orders and rules; rely on external authority and expertise, you would not wish to introduce them - in any meaningful way - to introspection or even the question of 'self'.
Thanks.
Ah, sweet memories. The Libet experiment was all the rage at Heidelberg in the 90s. It was a good primer in fraudulent study design (you don’t measure free will, you measure the observation of an internal observer observing your own action. Free will happens at the point you order the physiological action or not).
Yes, it really comes down to that, doesn't it? When I wrote the article, I simply tried to put myself in the position of the participants, and even then I could sense by introspection that it works just as you described. Alas, introspection is often considered a sin by science-absolutists...
Cool that you were in Heidelberg!
Ah, those notorious glorious proxy markers 😇
The following strategy to teach children from an early age to rationally reflect on their choices and preferences, and not simply act on impulse, would help them making conscious decisions in adulthood.
Humans (especially children) are motivated less by gifts/rewards/trophies than by internal accomplishments of their will. Any reward for obedience is a lesser motivation than the power to respectfully disagree and disobey.
The formula I am proposing:
A) Set your rules and expectations applicable to a child.
B) If the child does not want to do what is expected of them, ask them to give you reasons why the expectation is unreasonable at this time. If the reason given is unsatisfactory, explain why it failed. This way you are adhering to the same rules of argumentation that are expected from the child, and this imprints the fundamental principle of ‘discourse ethics’.
C) If at the end of this process the child would demonstrate a reasonable effort to argue consistently and on relevant merits, a concession to the rules/expectations should be granted. The reward of ‘respectful disobedience’ then becomes a powerful incentive to argue more consistently, identify relevant merits, and (in time) to develop sufficient understanding not to dissent on inadequate merits.
Saw this when you linked it on notes yesterday, I had always heard about this tangentially but never seen the details before so thanks.
It is surprisingly to me that no one has mentioned the relevance of neuronal lag. I forget the exact speed but I know that impulses go through the nervous system at much less than the speed of light. I am thinking that the whole result could potentially be explained by the lag in communication between the eye and the brain.
Also, the instructions given seem far too nebulous to build anything serious off of.
Interesting idea. Bottom line for me is that you should first look at every conceivable explanation (there are many on offer) before proclaiming that we have no free will cause muh materialism. It is all rather preposterous.
What is will? We need to start with some understanding of what me mean. Will depends on having a direction or a moral compass of where you have the intention to go. Will recognizes there are elements outside of oneself and within oneself that will deflect or resist the direction. Will maintains attention and responds to the deflection or resistance by taking measures to continue in the original direction.
Awareness of yourself, because of our scattered nature, is paramount, because will depends on a unified nature to attain an aim or direction. For example, the aim or direction chosen can range from a simple desire, like hunger, to the aim to lose weight, to the aim to train for a decathalon, to the aim of winning a decathalon. The idea of training, shows will can be developed.
Matt: 6:22: “The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.”
Having many years under my belt, it's empirically obvious that we have free will. I enjoyed the technical/philosophical explanations above. It is important to work the brain continually.
A conscious pilot overriding a largely-in-charge subconscious autopilot at crucial junctions. Putting the pilot on longterm gym routine to build some versatile muscles (six-pack abs ain’t no goal—but won’t hurt either).
I’m free-falling in love w/ this image as I type 😂
Free will is a choice.
Suffering sometimes makes the choice more evident.
In listening to this old video of Andres Segovia, at about the 37+ minute mark he talks about will as the reason for his accomplishments. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmdRCywCtbs