NYTimes article on free will

[Mercutio]

...because we haven't had any threads on free will in a day or two.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/02/science/02free.html?_r=2&th&emc=th&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
Having just lived through another New Year’s Eve, many of you have just resolved to be better, wiser, stronger and richer in the coming months and years. After all, we’re free humans, not slaves, robots or animals doomed to repeat the same boring mistakes over and over again. As William James wrote in 1890, the whole “sting and excitement” of life comes from “our sense that in it things are really being decided from one moment to another, and that it is not the dull rattling off of a chain that was forged innumerable ages ago.” Get over it, Dr. James. Go get yourself fitted for a new chain-mail vest. A bevy of experiments in recent years suggest that the conscious mind is like a monkey riding a tiger of subconscious decisions and actions in progress, frantically making up stories about being in control.

[hammegk]

"A bevy of experiments in recent years suggest that the conscious mind is like a monkey riding a tiger of subconscious decisions and actions in progress, frantically making up stories about being in control."

And those with free-will can choose to have faith in that "suggestion"; or not. The rest will have to accept whatever their programming computes regarding it.

[Cosmo]

Compulsory website registration really annoys me.

[Mercutio]

"A bevy of experiments in recent years suggest that the conscious mind is like a monkey riding a tiger of subconscious decisions and actions in progress, frantically making up stories about being in control."

And those with free-will can choose to have faith in that "suggestion". The rest will have to accept whatever their programming computes regarding it.
I knew you'd say that. We all knew.

[Tricky]

(waves hand franticly)

Oooh oooh! Can I be the tiger? Can I?

[hammegk]

Merc: Predicableness on specific issues doesn't really get to the heart of things, does it?

[Huntster]

...A bevy of experiments in recent years suggest that the conscious mind is like a monkey riding a tiger of subconscious decisions and actions in progress, frantically making up stories about being in control. ....

And where are the "bevy of experiments" suggesting that the subconscious mind cannot be manipulated or "controlled"?

[joobz]

And where are the "bevy of experiments" suggesting that the subconscious mind cannot be manipulated or "controlled"?
I'd guess the "Brain tumor made a dude a pedophile" issue is a good start. If such abbarant uncontrollable, social behavior can result from such an organic source, it's hard not to start to buy into the notion that we are just a series of electro-chemical responses that may be resistant to change.

But, for me, I still like to think that my little monkey typed that sentence and not some tiger that I couldn't control.:)

[hammegk]

I don't think the concept that 99% or more of what we say and do is 'without freewill'. And that what we perceive as the human body in its' entirety is required to be in basic good order for normal thoughts and behaviors to ensue.

That as many here know has nothing to do with "free-will -- the undefinable" as a topic in philosophy.


And also predictable is that Mercutio throws a stone in the pond and dis-engages; do you take notes, Merc? Discuss in class?

[CFLarsen]

Do I have to read the article? ;)

[Huntster]

Do I have to read the article? ;)

Nope.

[Ichneumonwasp]

Good article. Kind of funny that the movement disorder guru (Mark Hallett) would vote against free will. Who would have thunk that?

[l0rca]

I think it's pretty that a NY Times journalist thinks he can write a respectable essay on free will.

[CFLarsen]

Nope.

Missing the joke, as always.

[Huntster]

Originally Posted by Huntster
Nope.
Missing the joke, as always.

Not always.

Just answering the question:

You don't have to read anything.

[SezMe]

I think it's pretty that a NY Times journalist thinks he can write a respectable essay on free will.
Um, did you leave a word out after "pretty"?

[l0rca]

I was going to say "pretty cute," but I thought pretty as an adjective did the job well, and sometimes I like to use rhetoric to challenge a person's language comprehension. Sometimes you'll see me here correcting people's grammar, and I'm always mentioning semantics.

[Meadmaker]

I have decided that I must have free will. I base this on the following extremely convincing and impossible to argue with reasoning.

1. I feel like I have free will.
2. If I do have free will, I might as well use it.
3. If I do not have free will, I can't really decide to use it or not use it or even whether or not I have it. I'll just do whatever I do, and I'll make up some rationalization on "why" I did it, but really I just did it because I was programmed to do it. After all, the aliens who posed as God gave me superpowers and...oops...scratch that. Wrong tape got loaded there for a minute.

[SezMe]

I was going to say "pretty cute," but I thought pretty as an adjective did the job well, and sometimes I like to use rhetoric to challenge a person's language comprehension. Sometimes you'll see me here correcting people's grammar, and I'm always mentioning semantics.
Um...OK...I guess. Too bad I don't understand a thing you said.

[69dodge]

And where are the "bevy of experiments" suggesting that the subconscious mind cannot be manipulated or "controlled"?What do you mean? Controlled by what? "You"? That's just circular. How do "you" decide what to manipulate it into doing?

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Dr. Dennett, the Tufts professor, is one of many who have tried to redefine free will in a way that involves no escape from the materialist world while still offering enough autonomy for moral responsibility, which seems to be what everyone cares about.

The belief that the traditional intuitive notion of a free will divorced from causality is inflated, metaphysical nonsense, Dr. Dennett says reflecting an outdated dualistic view of the world.

Rather, Dr. Dennett argues, it is precisely our immersion in causality and the material world that frees us. Evolution, history and culture, he explains, have endowed us with feedback systems that give us the unique ability to reflect and think things over and to imagine the future. Free will and determinism can co-exist.

“All the varieties of free will worth having, we have,” Dr. Dennett said.

“We have the power to veto our urges and then to veto our vetoes,” he said. “We have the power of imagination, to see and imagine futures.”

In this regard, causality is not our enemy but our friend, giving us the ability to look ahead and plan. “That’s what makes us moral agents,” Dr. Dennett said. “You don’t need a miracle to have responsibility.”
I agree with his conclusion. But, as usual, lots of machinations ensue to endow us with responsibility.

~~ Paul

[rebecca]

I blogged about (around) this topic yesterday (http://skepchick.org/blog/?p=313). I found the article very well-written and thought-provoking. Some of you might be interested to read another recent New York Times essay (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/01/opinion/01bruckner.html?em&ex=1167886800&en=fb40fdea64b1c485&ei=5087%0A) that I felt tied in quite nicely with this one.

[kurious_kathy]

I have decided that I must have free will. I base this on the following extremely convincing and impossible to argue with reasoning.

1. I feel like I have free will.
2. If I do have free will, I might as well use it.
3. If I do not have free will, I can't really decide to use it or not use it or even whether or not I have it. I'll just do whatever I do, and I'll make up some rationalization on "why" I did it, but really I just did it because I was programmed to do it. After all, the aliens who posed as God gave me superpowers and...oops...scratch that. Wrong tape got loaded there for a minute.
I use to make a joke about why God gave us free will, but it's really not funny. Most of us are rebels at heart because of our fallen, sinful nature so we are constantly challenged to try to surrender our will to God's. At least this is from a Christian point of view which I have now.

In the old days before coming to faith in Christ I truly felt God gave us free will to mess up our lives. But that's not exactly how I'd say it when I was out partying with friends. Boy am I glad I'm not where I was just a couple of years ago.

But seriously free will can be a problem that many struggle with in this life if we don't come to terms with it. Our free will can either serve ourselves, selfishly which is most people in the world, Or we can choose to surrender to the Lord's will and serve God to help humanity. The choice is still ours which is why it's called free will.

[Beerina]

Free will is the (mental) freedom to do what you want. The error philosophers have been making all along is not considering that "what you want" may very well be deterministic.

But in the larger picture, the mind is just a computational device. It takes inputs and generates outputs. Please someone tell me what is non-deterministic about how the human mind makes decisions, if not weighing choices and selecting one? How is that not deterministic? The most you could argue for is some randomness thrown in, but that doesn't save free will, just ends pure determinism.

What is this "spiritual clockwork mechanism" called your mind, if not something that obeys laws of determinism? I have never heard a satisfactory response to that.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Free will is the (mental) freedom to do what you want.
This sounds like compatibilist free will. Many people want libertarian free will, but I have yet to hear a coherent definition of it. Libertarian free will is supposed true, real, nondeterministic, nonrandom free will.

Articles on free will usually mix these two types of free will up into a frothy goodness.

~~ Paul

[Ichneumonwasp]

Libertarian free will is supposed true, real, nondeterministic, nonrandom free will.


Yeah. Magic. As it is otherwise known.

[MadOverlord]

There's a good overview of this topic in the year-end issue of the Economist (a newspaper I highly recommend).

My short opinion: in the absence of structural damage to the brain, we *appear* to have free will; structural damage may place constraints on how that is expressed.

However, if it is shown that human behavior is, in fact, deterministic (though perhaps not predictable, like chaotic orbits), then the very fact that we know this to be true will allow our thinking minds to, in principle, regain "free will" by dint of extra effort. At which point, it becomes "turtles all the way down" if you know what I mean.

In daily life, I think (and I use the term advisedly!) that we can express free will by using some mental effort, but that for most of our daily activities and small choices, it isn't cost efficient to do so, thus we fall back on a complex state machine to handle that stuff.

I look forward to testing this hypothesis at the TAM poker tournament... grin.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

However, if it is shown that human behavior is, in fact, deterministic (though perhaps not predictable, like chaotic orbits), then the very fact that we know this to be true will allow our thinking minds to, in principle, regain "free will" by dint of extra effort.
Huh?

Welcome to the forum.

~~ Paul

[MadOverlord]

Things are complicated by the fact that it's hard to come to a consensus on exactly what is meant by free will.

Seems to me, however, that there are two basic possibilities:

1) neural systems are low-level enough to be perturbed by quantum events. If so, then, subject to the limits placed on us by our personal brain structure, we have free will, since our state at some reasonable time in the future is not predictable.

2) neural systems are not affected by quantum events (or not often enough to make practical difference, because the effects get damped out). Then we are deterministic state machines, but since the state machines are so complex, they function as chaotic systems (like orbits of asteroids) and are not predictable in the long time. This is the "illusion of free will" case.

My money is on case (1), but let us assume that (2) is in fact the case. In such an instance, we are complex deterministic state machines. But we all think we have this property called consciousness, which permits us to consider that we might be deterministic, and also model what it would be like to be non-deterministic - so even if we don't have "free will", we can emulate it. At which point, it's an infinite recursion.

Whichever case prevails, our expressions of free will is limited by the structure of our own brains. There are some cases where brain damage (ie: the paedophile tumor case) places restrictions on the expression of free will. The problem of what to do with such people (and in the greyer cases where the brain structure was affected by, say, childhood abuse) is a very, very difficult one.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

1) neural systems are low-level enough to be perturbed by quantum events. If so, then, subject to the limits placed on us by our personal brain structure, we have free will, since our state at some reasonable time in the future is not predictable.
I don't think the typical free-willie is excited by the prospect of free will being randomness.


2) neural systems are not affected by quantum events (or not often enough to make practical difference, because the effects get damped out). Then we are deterministic state machines, but since the state machines are so complex, they function as chaotic systems (like orbits of asteroids) and are not predictable in the long time. This is the "illusion of free will" case.
And they certainly aren't excited by this.

Neither of these possibilities satisfies the libertarian free will advocate.

~~ Paul

[hammegk]

Same old, same old. The usual pap.

1. Assume Materialism = TRUE

2. Wave arms, discuss plausibility ( settle on compatibilism )

3. Go back to sleep, secure in the cocoon of Materialism = TRUE.


But many of you (Hi, Mercutio :D ) knew I would have to post that ....


Freewill, should it exist, would be one of those 'attributes of god' Paulie keeps asking for.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Freewill, should it exist, would be one of those 'attributes of god' Paulie keeps asking for.
You can call it an attribute of god or an ingredient in a Dagwood sandwich. The question is: What exactly does it mean for (libertarian) free will to employ a mechanism other than predeterminism or randomness?

Heck, eliminate the word exactly. Can you give me even the vaguest notion how it works? A clue? Throw me a bone here. How is it anything more than a grand case of wishful thinking?

~~ Paul

[hammegk]

And I keep telling you you will have to find your own answers.

Atman=Brahman. There. Unfortunately, meaningless to you, huh?

mu

[l0rca]

I didn't know zen was hip.

[hammegk]

Live & Learn, as they say .... :D

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

And I keep telling you you will have to find your own answers.
I have: Libertarian free will in an incoherent concept.

Atman=Brahman. There. Unfortunately, meaningless to you, huh?
Hey, I'm a trained teacher of Transcendental Meditation. I know that the soul is the unchanging, transcendent Godhead. I am Hiranyagarbha!

mu
Mu, too.

~~ Paul

[hammegk]

I am Hiranyagarbha!
~~ Paul
Then why ask me?

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

It was a question to all the world.

~~ Paul

[hammegk]

Why does Hiranyagarbha bother?

I'm beginning to lose my belief you actually are that entity.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Because he has no clue what libertarian free will is, either.

~~ Paul

[hammegk]

As I suspected; you are Paulie The Greek, not Hiranyagarbha. Fibber.

[Beerina]

This sounds like compatibilist free will. Many people want libertarian free will, but I have yet to hear a coherent definition of it. Libertarian free will is supposed true, real, nondeterministic, nonrandom free will.

Articles on free will usually mix these two types of free will up into a frothy goodness.

~~ Paul

I have a tough time even conceiving of what "free will" could be, divorced (at least partially) from determinism with possible random influences.

I think the mind arises from the brain using purely physical processes (if poorly understood and obviously with some aspects of physics we don't have a clue about yet that generate the subjective perceptual experience) and is thus deterministic. It feels "free willish" though because, quite simply, your mind is a calculation device that weighs a myriad of inputs to generate fuzzy feelings and therefore decisions on what to do next. It can feel exactly like it is yet still be deterministic. Yet you can "make your free choices" exactly in the computational sense that you weigh inputs, one of which is threats of punishment for doing bad things.

"It's clear your mind gave insufficient weighting to the possibility of 20 years in jail before you did xyz. Placing you in jail will hopefully correct this error in evaluation in your own future decisions as well as the decisions of others who will use your punishment as inputs to their decision processes."

[MadOverlord]

Ah, the perfect demonstration of my initial caveat -- that people have a tough time agreeing on the definition of free will.

If you are an atheist (like me), how can you conclude that there is some "essence" that we can't detect, outside all the known laws of physics, that gives us this "free will"?

If seems to me to be more reasonable to conclude that our feeling that we have free will is an emergent phenomenon of the complexity of the brain, like our perception of consciousness. If so, the question is: is the neural state machine totally deterministic (and thus, in potential, perfectly simulatable), or are is there enough random quantum input to make this impossible (though of course, you can come close).

I don't think the typical free-willie is excited by the prospect of free will being randomness.

Note that there is a big difference between randomness and unpredictability. This is one reason why I side with the compatibilist position.

The free will argument reminds me very much of the "are we living in the real universe, or a simulated universe" question (if we are, then the only way we'd be able to determine that is if the simulation has a bug!). The cute twist in that argument is that if it is possible to simulate human mental processes on a computer (in which case, simulating the inputs is a no-brainer, pardon the pun), then the odds are overwhelming that we are, in fact, living simulated lives -- and down the rabbit hole we go.

[PixyMisa]

My money is on case (1), but let us assume that (2) is in fact the case. In such an instance, we are complex deterministic state machines. But we all think we have this property called consciousness, which permits us to consider that we might be deterministic, and also model what it would be like to be non-deterministic - so even if we don't have "free will", we can emulate it. At which point, it's an infinite recursion.

I tend to lean towards (2) - that we function as deterministic systems, even though we are not truly deterministic; that quantum events do have some influence, but that this is noise rather than normal function.

Just as computers (the silicon kind) are not truly deterministic, merely our best attempt at making them such.

And welcome!

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I have a tough time even conceiving of what "free will" could be, divorced (at least partially) from determinism with possible random influences.
If you can get anyone to explain it to you, please let me know.

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

As I suspected; you are Paulie The Greek, not Hiranyagarbha. Fibber.
Apparently so, yes. Dang.

~~ Paul

[l0rca]

Just as computers (the silicon kind) are not truly deterministic, merely our best attempt at making them such.

Would you explain what you mean here?

[hammegk]

It explains that Pixy remains un-philosophical. :)

[hammegk]

If you can get anyone to explain it to you, please let me know.

~~ Paul
If you can get anyone to explain consciousness, please let me know.

I'm still waiting on a definition of energy, too.

[joobz]

I'm still waiting on a definition of energy, too.
Matter that lost it's way.:)

[hammegk]

That's the best to date. Not quite as precise as I'd like, though ... :D

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I'm still waiting on a definition of energy, too.
Energy can be described quite well by mathematics, which is a form of definition. If you can give me anything even close for libertarian free will, I will agree that is a definition.

~~ Paul

[Robin]

If you can get anyone to explain consciousness, please let me know.

I'm still waiting on a definition of energy, too.
Hmm, it seems to me that I remember you got a definition of energy over a year ago, but didn't like it. Energy is basically a term used in mathematical models that describe observations. It was never intended to be a term for any "thing-in-itself".

So I can't understand your problem with the physics textbook definition. What are you asking? "What would be the definition of energy if it were not a physics term?" Something like that?

As for finding somebody to explain consciousness I can't help you - I couldn't find anybody to "explain light", or "explain gravity" either.

I did see a pretty good article from John Searle outlining how science might go about studying consciousness. I could probably find it for you if you are interested.

[hammegk]

Hmm, it seems to me that I remember you got a definition of energy over a year ago, but didn't like it.
Yeah, the question is unanswerable imo.


Energy is basically a term used in mathematical models that describe observations. It was never intended to be a term for any "thing-in-itself".
What in this universe could possible constitute a "thing-in-itself"? And a couple threads are (again) ongoing discussing the 'reality of mathematics' as opposed to 'reality'. Which is more real, the quark, or boson, or ???, or the math describing it?


So I can't understand your problem with the physics textbook definition. What are you asking? "What would be the definition of energy if it were not a physics term?" Something like that?
What Is Energy should be a koan ...:)


As for finding somebody to explain consciousness I can't help you - I couldn't find anybody to "explain light", or "explain gravity" either.
True again. We do have a reasonable (mathematical) handle on light, gravity much less so.

As to Consciousness? LOL.


I did see a pretty good article from John Searle outlining how science might go about studying consciousness. I could probably find it for you if you are interested.
Thanks. Been there, done that. Choose materialism = True, and great (and not-so-great) minds continue to search for 'plausible' answers under that belief.

[Robin]

Yeah, the question is unanswerable imo.
On the contrary it has a straightforward and simple answer, available in any physics text book. But since energy is a component of a mathematical model the definition can only be a mathematical one.
What in this universe could possible constitute a "thing-in-itself"?
You tell me. You ask the question "what is energy?" as though the answer would be about the thing-in-itself. What sort of answer do you expect? Again, since energy is a component of a mathematical model the answer to "what is energy" can only be a mathematical one.
And a couple threads are (again) ongoing discussing the 'reality of mathematics' as opposed to 'reality'. Which is more real, the quark, or boson, or ???, or the math describing it?
It is a meaningless question. They are one and the same thing - the quark and boson are components in a mathematical model. You will recall that I am fond of quoting Hawking on this, that it is meaningless to ask if physical models correspond to reality, they match observations.
What Is Energy should be a koan ...:)
Not a very good candidate, since, as I have pointed out, the question has a simple and clear answer.
True again. We do have a reasonable (mathematical) handle on light, gravity much less so.

As to Consciousness? LOL.
If we had mathematical models predicting the behaviour of the phenomenon of consciousness would you think we were closer to explaining consciousness? Probably not, and you would be right.
Thanks. Been there, done that. Choose materialism = True, and great (and not-so-great) minds continue to search for 'plausible' answers under that belief.
I don't recall Searle assuming any such thing. He simply warns against assuming (even if unconsciously) that dualism is true.

The question of whether materialism is true or not is utterly irrelevant when deciding how to study something scientifically. Something physicists have appreciated since at least the mid 18th century.

[hammegk]

On the contrary it has a straightforward and simple answer, available in any physics text book. But since energy is a component of a mathematical model the definition can only be a mathematical one.
I see. Only the math exists .... ;)


It is a meaningless question. They are one and the same thing - the quark and boson are components in a mathematical model. You will recall that I am fond of quoting Hawking on this, that it is meaningless to ask if physical models correspond to reality, they match observations.
Has someone recently observed a quark? The human eye can directly observe bosons in the form of photons.


I don't recall Searle assuming any such thing. He simply warns against assuming (even if unconsciously) that dualism is true.
As most wannabe materialists end up doing.


The question of whether materialism is true or not is utterly irrelevant when deciding how to study something scientifically. Something physicists have appreciated since at least the mid 18th century.
As I continue to. Materialism is a worldview as is idealism; science works equally well under either choice (or as our behavorists posit, what has been computed, encoded and computed by all previous events since conception -- and we call it a "choice", 'now' . :) ).

[Robin]

I see. Only the math exists .... ;)
No, the point is that if you ask for the definition of a mathematical entity then you must expect the definition to be a mathematical one.

You seem to assume that you have presented a deep philosophical conundrum because nobody can supply a metaphysical answer to a mathematical question.
Has someone recently observed a quark? The human eye can directly observe bosons in the form of photons.
If I were to be picky I would point out that the human eye is a device incapable of observing anything.

However a human can observe neither photons, bosons nor quarks. They are mathematical abstracts that form part of a model that partially describes stuff (whatever it is) that we can observe.
As most wannabe materialists end up doing. (assuming dualism)
Then obviously Searle is right to warn against it.
As I continue to. Materialism is a worldview as is idealism; science works equally well under either choice
And it works equally well if you disregard both worldviews, or any metaphysical worldview for that matter.

[hammegk]

No, the point is that if you ask for the definition of a mathematical entity then you must expect the definition to be a mathematical one.

You seem to assume that you have presented a deep philosophical conundrum because nobody can supply a metaphysical answer to a mathematical question.

If I were to be picky I would point out that the human eye is a device incapable of observing anything.

However a human can observe neither photons, bosons nor quarks. They are mathematical abstracts that form part of a model that partially describes stuff (whatever it is) that we can observe.

Then obviously Searle is right to warn against it.
You may even think you had a new or different idea in there somewhere. I don't.


And it works equally well if you disregard both worldviews, or any metaphysical worldview for that matter.
I agree the set of the dead and unborn fit that criteria; for the living I don't think it possible.

Anyway, for me, in this thread, that's enough of this cross-purpose chitchat.

[Robin]

You may even think you had a new or different idea in there somewhere. I don't.
Ah, again, your tactic of ramming all my responses to different points together as though they were a single response. Very tricky.

No I don't think they are new and different ideas - they are just ideas that you have apparently failed to grasp.

And it (science) works equally well if you disregard both worldviews, or any metaphysical worldview for that matter.
I agree the set of the dead and unborn fit that criteria; for the living I don't think it possible.
Are you serious? You don't think it is possible for a living person to do science without first selecting some metaphysical world view? But you think a dead or unborn might? That makes no sense to me whatsoever.

I am not sure why you introduce the categories of unborn, living and dead - I think a dead or unborn person might face certain obstacles in either doing science or selecting a metaphysical wordview - don't you?

In what way do you think selecting a metaphysical world-view would alter the way that someone conducts a scientific study?
Anyway, for me, in this thread, that's enough of this cross-purpose chitchat.
OK, I will catch you next time you pop up puzzled as to why you can't get a metaphysical answer to a mathematical question.

[hammegk]

...
Meaningless tripe discarded.


OK, I will catch you next time you pop up puzzled as to why you can't get a metaphysical answer to a mathematical question.
You do that. If it appears you managed to buy a clue as to why you are in a philosophy thread, I might choose to answer.

[Robin]

Meaningless tripe discarded.
In other words you cannot explain what the hell you meant by meaningless references to "dead, unborn and living" any more than I could. I am glad that you are as puzzled by your post as I was.
You do that. If it appears you managed to buy a clue as to why you are in a philosophy thread, I might choose to answer.
So are you are saying is that you might get a metaphysical answer to a mathematical question, just so long as you ask it in an internet forum labelled "Philosophy"?

That makes sense. Not.

[hammegk]

No, I'm saying, imnsho, your questions have so little attachment to the discussions they are in, I have no interest in fielding them.

[Robin]

No, I'm saying, imnsho, your questions have so little attachment to the discussions they are in, I have no interest in fielding them.
So do you mean that "dead, unborn and living" meant something? Or were you just babbling?

[Robin]

No, I'm saying, imnsho, your questions have so little attachment to the discussions they are in, I have no interest in fielding them.
And by the way you seem to have spent quite a lot of time fielding questions that you now say you had no interest in fielding.