Does Evolution Have An Objective?

The outcome already existed beforehand.

Why would that be relevant?We have free will if our actions cannot be predicted without knowledge of our internal state. We choose because our nervous systems are responsible for our actions. It matters not a jot whether those nervous systems are deterministic or not.

Well, no, it didn't. It could be predicted with total knowledge, but that's not quite the same thing.And that ability to predict has no baring on whether or not we have free will.

You previously used the example of a bee foraging for nectar as an objective. Does a bee have a concept of that objective? Isn't it more unconscious instinct?You previously used the example of an AI computer having an objective. Does the computer have a concept of that objective? Hold that objective conceptually? I don't think a gene could. But I am not sure that bees or currently existing AI computer programmes can either. Passing itself on successfully I guess.Personally I am unconvinced that objectives can be assigned to entities that cannot consciously hold them. But with your bee and computer example I thought you were taking a different approach.

Hi Jack, I appreciate your point. It matters not whether the nervous system is deterministic or not. Except, It seems the brain chooses up to 10 seconds prior to the conscious person does. So our brain "knows" the outcome before our conscious mind does.A PET scan operator can know the outcome of your choices prior to you.
Unconscious determinants of free decisions in the human brain | Nature NeuroscienceEdited by 1.61803, : add linkEdited by 1.61803, : link correction

I guess we understand different things by the phrase "completely deterministic"... It makes it an illusion! You're not really really making any choice at all.In Message 17 you wrote: Predictive ability doesn't really matter. If the outcome of the action of your nervous system is pre-determined by the condtions leading up to it, then you're not really making any choices, even if there's an illusion set-up that makes it look and feel like you are.

Have you seen the experiment with the green dot that changes red as it flys across the screen and the people seeing the red dot before it even gets there and before its even red... or somethign like that?I can't seem to google it up because I can't remember enough about it.You know what I'm talking about?

I have not heard of that one. However I did hear about a experiment concerning Top Gun pilots. Researchers where interested in how they could make split second choices that always seemed to be the correct choice. In other words what gave them they're edge. The hooked them up to various telemetry to record brain waves, vital signs etc.. Then on a screen showed randomly selected images that were either disturbing or relaxing. The pilots brain waves and vital signs preceded the randomly selected image by some milliseconds before the image was shown.

I have no idea why people think the unconscious mind is not also them.

Of course you're still making choices, why wouldn't you be?I can write a computer program that makes choices.

You are not really making the choice if its pre-determnined, its just an illusion that you're actually making a choice. If its "completely determined", then you the programmer will decide what choice the computer makes, not the computer itself.

That's easy. The unconscious mind is not part of our awareness, which is what most people think of as "them". That other parts of the mind have coordinated a decision before passing it on to our awareness for action is outside the conscious experience.

If one's actions are immutably predetermined before any decision or choice has even been made then there is no choice at all is there? There is just the illusion of a "decision" or "choice" because it would be impossible to do anything other than than which was predetermined.In a strictly deterministic world freewill is an illusion because choice is an illusion. No?Edited by Straggler, : Grammar

Compatabilists might argue that choice is really the result of subjective beings presented with imperfect information. Dan Dennet argues this quite well. From wiki:

quote:

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Free will, seen this way, is about freedom to make decisions without duress, as opposed to an impossible and unnecessary freedom from causality itself. To clarify this distinction, he coins the term 'evitability' as the opposite of 'inevitability', defining it as the ability of an agent to anticipate likely consequences and act to avoid undesirable ones.

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I agree Jack, our brain is us. I do not believe the universe is fully deterministic in the sense of a clock-work universe.
I believe it is both deterministic and chaotic.