Free will Flashcards
Name the ways we can be free in a deterministic world (7)
Understand how you are free, what you are, the question of free will, how mind generates choices, how deliberation led to you, how a balanced mind is a free mind, how free will has evolved
Name the 3 cognitive biases
Bandwagon effect, hindsight bias, impact bias
Explain the bandwagon effect
Tendency to do or believe things as many people do or believe the same
What is hindsight bias?
Tendency to see past events as being predictable at the time those events happened
Define impact bias
Tendency to overestimate the length or intensity of the impact of future feeling states (overthinking)
Describe cognitive dissonance
Refers to situation involving conflicting attitudes, beliefs or behaviours
What does cognitive dissonance produce and suggest?
Produces feelings or discomfort leading to alteration in attitudes, beliefs or behaviours to reduce discomfort. Suggests we have inner drive to hold attitudes and beliefs in harmony
What does Wegner describe ‘you’ as?
You are an illusion
How does evolution define ‘you’?
You are a unit of selection, a collection of matter and beliefs
When is it said that an organism is responsible for its actions?
When it could have done otherwise (principle of possible alternatives)
Name the 3 ways to reduce dissonance
Lower importance of discordant factor, add consistent elements, change a dissonant factor
Describe the 2 dual processes?
Fast and automatic (unconscious), slow and effortful (deliberate)
What does Jungian describe ‘you’ as?
A collection of conscious beliefs and unconscious associations
How does the modern world define ‘you’?
You are an individual and shouldn’t care what others think about you
Describe the medieval definition of ‘you’
You were defined by your community and what people thought about you was extremely important
Define locus of control
Belief about internal/external controls over life
What is a deterministic view?
The past completely determines the future
What does indeterminism state?
The past doesn’t completely determine the future
A hard deterministic view is that…
No free will, but determinism
What is the view of compatibilism?
Free will and determinism
A hard INdeterminstic view says that…
No free will and no determinism
What is the view of a libertarianism?
Free will and no determinism
What parts of the brain are involved in generating choices?
Parietal cortex (associations), medial temporal lobe (memory access), prefrontal cortex (cognition, central executive), basal ganglia (attention)
Define episodic future thinking
Given choice of direction, stop to make a decision, trial and error learning. Provides neuroscientific evidence that we can generate choices
Describe simulation theory
We simulate behaviour and can internally activate sensory cortex to resemble its external activation.
Explain p-self
Holds onto reality to prevent mistakes
Explain Skinnerian creature
Genes and learning from bad responses (learn from errors)
What is an popperian creature?
Preselects based on an inner environment that contains info about outer environment (most free)
State the 3 negatives of incompatibilism
Moral contradictions (no free will), dual casual curiosity, internal locus of control
