# About the illusion of free will **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 25, 2014, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-illusion-of-free-will/689217 "2014-05-25T01:26:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 21
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2014, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-illusion-of-free-will/689217/401 "2014-06-01T16:45:08Z")
> [@Pjen](#): > > If you have such credentials then the money on your education was wasted. People can claim anything on line, but will be known by the quality of their posts. Your posts are an indication of failure to understand either the basic problem or the methods of argument suitable. Again, you offer a derogatory _opinion_ of my posts, and I note the plain _fact_ that you keep offering demonstrably incorrect statements. One of those is a suitable method of argument; the other is – well, demonstrably incorrect. ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2014, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-illusion-of-free-will/689217/402 "2014-06-01T16:49:44Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > Again, you offer a derogatory _opinion_ of my posts, and I note the plain _fact_ that you keep offering demonstrably incorrect statements. One of those is a suitable method of argument; the other is – well, demonstrably incorrect. Your non-intellectual, argument avoiding sniping drive-bys just go on and on. You are adding nothing to this debate but pointless disruption. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2014, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-illusion-of-free-will/689217/403 "2014-06-01T17:03:42Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > If “you” are your thoughts and feelings, how could you ever act in opposition to them? If “I” am my thoughts and feelings, how could I ever act in opposition to myself? Can you rephrase the question? I don’t understand it as posed. > [@](#): > > What are you deliberating, if _you_ are your thoughts and feelings? Doesn’t the act of deliberation require you to be separate from these things? Of course not. My thoughts and feelings ARE the process of deliberation, as am I. What else would I be? That’s the whole point: if I am not doing these things, there IS no me; to deny that this process takes place effectively erases me entirely from the screen. > [@](#): > > I am not the same person now as I was when I was 12 years old. You’re not??? Can you elaborate on that? I mean of course you have changed over time but you can recall the entire process (more or less) as a set of experiences, but isn’t there a fundamental YOU, a consciousness that has been there and gone through all this who still feels directly connected to all prior “you”? > [@](#): > > You can’t say “you” are your consciousness in one breath and then say your thoughts+feelings are equally “you” in the next . Because your consciousness is not the author of thoughts+feelings. My consciousness _consists of_ my thoughts and feelings. These are different terms for the same thing. No thoughts, no feelings = no consciousness. It isn’t that my consciousness is One Thing and that it is “having” thoughts and feelings. For that matter thoughts are not really things separate from and distinguishable from feelings, although we emphasize different aspects of them when we use the different terms. What’s actually happening is an interwoven cognitive emotionally-driven process. > [@](#): > > If you can’t say with certainty what all the choices were your brain deliberated to reach a decision, then you can’t say anything about what information went into the decision-making process. What kind of free agent is this? From my vantage point you appear to be saying that there is a “me” that is separate from some cognitive processes that “caused me” to reach decisions and whatnot, whereas I am saying that the two things you’ve separated there, the “me” and the processes, are one and the same and that hence “I” am causing “me” to do things and hence I am not “free”, which, if you see what I mean, is a nonsensical formulation when viewed that way. > [@](#): > > That’s whole the point, right? If it’s hard to define what isn’t external to us, then maybe we should drop this requirement and only speak of “volition” or “constrained will” or something else that isn’t weighed down by so much baggage. Yeah. The term “free will” seems to have a long convoluted history and I’m not driven to become an expert at everything everyone who has spoken on the subject has meant by the terms they’ve introduced and so on. > [@](#): > > People certainly do appear to possess volition–acting purposefully in according to what feels natural and sensical to them. The key words for me are “natural and sensical”. If a person is acting in a way that DOESN’T feel natural and sensical to them, I have no problem saying they are impaired somehow. I also don’t have a problem judging if their sense of “natural and sensical” is abnormal or broken. What I DO have a problem with is saying that they we are in the position to judge when a person is or isn’t capable of acting with free will. This requires a much larger burden of proof–one that I don’t think could ever been attained. I agree with you there. It’s a very slippery slope and I’m inclined to attribute volition to everyone in the absence of overwhelming reason to think otherwise. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2014, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-illusion-of-free-will/689217/404 "2014-06-01T17:18:06Z")
> [@Pjen](#): > > Your non-intellectual, argument avoiding sniping drive-bys just go on and on. You are adding nothing to this debate but pointless disruption. Well, take the latest; you wrote: _“But you will not define what is meant by Free Will which is why you are able to engage in such misunderstandings”_; how can it be pointless disruption to reply to your point? And how can it be an argument-avoiding drive-by, if my response addresses your point directly and conclusively? You offered a demonstrably incorrect claim; I responded, accurately and thoroughly. One of those may be a non-intellectual approach, but I doubt it’s the one you think. If you feel this sort of thing sidetracks the thread, then the answer’s simple: I’ll stop correcting you when you stop making demonstrably incorrect claims. Keep doing it, though, and I’ll note it: with intellect and without disruption, on point and in detail. ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2014, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-illusion-of-free-will/689217/405 "2014-06-01T17:43:35Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > Well, take the latest; you wrote: _“But you will not define what is meant by Free Will which is why you are able to engage in such misunderstandings”_; how can it be pointless disruption to reply to your point? And how can it be an argument-avoiding drive-by, if my response addresses your point directly and conclusively? > > You offered a demonstrably incorrect claim; I responded, accurately and thoroughly. One of those may be a non-intellectual approach, but I doubt it’s the one you think. > > If you feel this sort of thing sidetracks the thread, then the answer’s simple: I’ll stop correcting you when you stop making demonstrably incorrect claims. Keep doing it, though, and I’ll note it: with intellect and without disruption, on point and in detail. I will not be responding directly or otherwise to any of your past or future postings on this thread as it is a waste of my valuable time. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2014, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-illusion-of-free-will/689217/406 "2014-06-01T18:45:01Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > I guess? > > I mean, as I’ve said repeatedly, I consider thoughts and feeling as external. You may not. If you think thoughts and feelings don’t count as external, then I guess you are inclined to conclude we have free will. But I think the argument for thoughts and feelings being external is very compelling. Quite simply: > > 1. No one chooses what thoughts they will have. . . . I often choose what thoughts I will have. ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2014, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-illusion-of-free-will/689217/407 "2014-06-01T18:47:55Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > I often choose what thoughts I will have. You assume that you choose the thoughts you have. There is no proof that anything other than your brain chooses them for you and you experience them. Unless you identify with your brain, and then you have conceded determinism. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2014, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-illusion-of-free-will/689217/408 "2014-06-01T19:07:46Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > If “I” am my thoughts and feelings, how could I ever act in opposition to myself? > > Can you rephrase the question? I don’t understand it as posed. Permit me to intrude; as I understand the point, it derives from **monstro** ’s Boolean view of free will, that it must either be absolute, or nonexistent. The view I’m pushing is that the mind is made up of many parts, some of which are in conflict with others. We sense this in ourselves when we have trouble making up our minds. It often happens that we’ll have conflicting motivations, and this can lead to serious internal conflict. > [@](#): > > Of course not. My thoughts and feelings ARE the process of deliberation, as am I. What else would I be? That’s the whole point: if I am not doing these things, there IS no me; to deny that this process takes place effectively erases me entirely from the screen. Agreed. Consciousness and self-awareness are consistent with volition. Without choices – in a purely deterministic system – there would be no purpose to consciousness. Why bother with a helpless, passive, impotent observer, if everything happens with no input from that observer. > [@](#): > > Can you elaborate on that? I mean of course you have changed over time but you can recall the entire process (more or less) as a set of experiences, but isn’t there a fundamental YOU, a consciousness that has been there and gone through all this who still feels directly connected to all prior “you”? re “I am not the same person now as I was when I was 12 years old.” I can actually accept that I am not the same person. Enough has changed. (This comes up often in “Star Trek Transporter” debates.) A great many of my most fundamental values have changed. My world-view is different. (I have a much better appreciation of the value of money! Working for a living does that!) > [@](#): > > My consciousness _consists of_ my thoughts and feelings. These are different terms for the same thing. No thoughts, no feelings = no consciousness. It isn’t that my consciousness is One Thing and that it is “having” thoughts and feelings. For that matter thoughts are not really things separate from and distinguishable from feelings, although we emphasize different aspects of them when we use the different terms. What’s actually happening is an interwoven cognitive emotionally-driven process. . . . Total agreement. Emotions are brain functions, just as “rational” thoughts are. They’re both decision-making tools. And…we can have control over our emotions just as we can have control over our thoughts. It’s a little harder, as emotions are a bit more “primal.” (And sometimes, we lose control. Who has never lost their temper and shouted at a loved one?) ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2014, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-illusion-of-free-will/689217/409 "2014-06-01T19:10:11Z")
> [@Pjen](#): > > You assume that you choose the thoughts you have. There is no proof that anything other than your brain chooses them for you and you experience them. Unless you identify with your brain, and then you have conceded determinism. Those are your claims, with which I choose to disagree. (Or with which I was destined to disagree. Shrug.) ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2014, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-illusion-of-free-will/689217/410 "2014-06-01T19:55:50Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Those are your claims, with which I choose to disagree. > > (Or with which I was destined to disagree. Shrug.) I am afraid that scepticism trumps certainty. It is up to you to prove your assertion, else it just remains a guess. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2014, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-illusion-of-free-will/689217/411 "2014-06-01T20:42:02Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > I often choose what thoughts I will have. How does this work? Quick! What’s the first thing you think when I say… SPIDER! When my thoughts are obsessive and flying off the rails, I’ll do something to distract myself, like go for a walk. This is a technique I’ve learned through experience, and my brain seems to respond positively to it. It seems to calm me down enough for “normal” thinking to take over. I’ll go from nonsensical and ego-dystonic thoughts to something that feels more “normal” and eco-syntonic. But I don’t choose what I’m going to think once the crazy fog lifts, just like I didn’t choose for the obsessive thoughts to take over my mind. Both just seem to happen. So I guess you can say…I’m quite envious of your ability to choose (or at least your self-confidence). You say you choose your thoughts. Do you choose your feelings too? If someone calls you a bad name, do you choose whether to feel sad or angry? Or do the emotional reactions just happen, just like how a burning sensation just happens when you touch a flame? If a person can choose their thoughts and feelings, shouldn’t this make them highly resistant to mental illness? Or does mental illness take away one’s ability to choose, making it so that the only way a person knows whether or not they don’t have a choice is when their thoughts are depressive and anxiety-provoking? And wouldn’t this be kind of, I dunno, awfully convenient? > [@AHunter3](#): > > If “I” am my thoughts and feelings, how could I ever act in opposition to myself? > > Can you rephrase the question? I don’t understand it as posed. You say _you_ are your thoughts and feelings. But you also believe that you make choices between different thoughts+feelings. How is this possible? How can you recognize a thought+feeling as both separate from you and _being_ you. To make a choice, seems to me you can’t have both. > [@](#): > > Of course not. My thoughts and feelings ARE the process of deliberation, as am I. What else would I be? That’s the whole point: if I am not doing these things, there IS no me; to deny that this process takes place effectively erases me entirely from the screen. I disagree with this. I don’t think the thoughts+feelings are the result of a deliberation. I don’t think our consciousness consists of two dualing lawyers presenting their cases to conjure up thoughts+feelings in the jury. I think our brains are way more simple than this. I believe the choices we have are _contained_ in the thoughts+feelings, which are triggered the moment our brains (not necessarily our consciousness) recognizes there’s a problem. I get to the end of the sidewalk and I’m about to make a choice between stepping into the street or waiting for the light to change. Just as I lift my foot up, I get a mental flash of a image of a car zooming dangerously close to me, which naturally frightens me. So I stay put and wait for the light to change. Absent this thought+feeling, I would have kept on walking. There wouldn’t have been a deliberation, because my consciousnesses wouldn’t have recognized that there was anything to deliberate. I do have decisions that are much more important than this, of course. But personally, I don’t do a lot of stewing over problems (unless I’m obsessing…which just goes to show that deliberation isn’t necessarily a “normal” or healthy thing). What usually happens for me is that I have a problem and I do some worrying about it, vacillating between the few options I was able to come up with. Then inevitably I get distracted by something. I go watch a movie or go take a walk. I go eat dinner. Or I just go to bed and sleep. Quite often, the moment I go back to the problem, I’m suddenly seized by the most amazing idea for how to fix it–one that I hadn’t even considered before. Hasn’t this ever happened to you, **AHunter3**? Or you, **Trinopus**? You’ll be taking a shower or doing something really mundane, and then suddenly this awesome eureka moment hits you. As if it just came out of nowhere. (Which, I assert, it did since it wasn’t in your conscious mind). I don’t know about you, but I can’t take credit for what comes to me from seemingly out of nowhere. If I were a religious person, I’d thank God or Buddha or whomever. For me, I just thank my subconscious mind for doing the _real_ thinking. My subconscious is “me”, but it is different from my consciousness. My subconscious is unknowable to me. So when I have an amazing revelation, I am both proud of myself and immensely humbled. Perhaps this alone is why I don’t dig the notion of free well. It doesn’t sound humbling enough, IMHO. Maybe you feel differently about your own thought processes. Maybe it doesn’t bother you to lump the hidden thought processes in with the conscious thought processes and call everything “you”. But I can’t do this. I don’t feel connected to that which feels foreign and unknown to me. I guess you can say it dilutes my sense of “self” to say that I’m my entire brain and all its mysteries. It is logical to me to limit my “self” to only what I have awareness of and what is knowable to me. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2014, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-illusion-of-free-will/689217/412 "2014-06-02T00:18:03Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > How does this work? > > Quick! What’s the first thing you think when I say… > > SPIDER! Choosing one’s thoughts is not the same as choosing one’s first immediate association. As it happens, I chose the word “rhinoceros” and when I opened the spoiler, “rhinoceros” was my first thought. > [@](#): > > When my thoughts are obsessive and flying off the rails, I’ll do something to distract myself, like go for a walk. This is a technique I’ve learned through experience, and my brain seems to respond positively to it. It seems to calm me down enough for “normal” thinking to take over. I’ll go from nonsensical and ego-dystonic thoughts to something that feels more “normal” and eco-syntonic. That is exactly what I’m talking about. You “chose” to go for a walk, in order to take control of your thoughts. You have just given an absolutely peachy example of my viewpoint. We can take actions which enable us to have influence over our own thoughts. We don’t have magical total control. But we have some control. If Free Will were absolute, then no decisions would be difficult for us. We wouldn’t have to look at both sides of an issue, and try to figure out the costs and benefits. Meanwhile, if Free Will didn’t exist at all, all decisions would be automatic and insectlike. Human consciousness would have no purpose, as we’d all just be strapped in to a big roller-coaster ride, with no ability to influence the turns and twists and lifts and drops. The truth is somewhere in between. We have volition; it’s just imperfect and very lumpy, and lots of times we mess it up and choose what we didn’t actually want. > [@](#): > > But I don’t choose what I’m going to think once the crazy fog lifts, just like I didn’t choose for the obsessive thoughts to take over my mind. Both just seem to happen. So I guess you can say…I’m quite envious of your ability to choose (or at least your self-confidence). But you chose to go for the walk. I didn’t say I have total control over all my thoughts; that’s an unfair distortion of what I actually said. I really hate the way, in this thread, people have been challenging me on the basis of things I have not actually said or believe. I hold this to be really rotten debate technique. > [@](#): > > You say you choose your thoughts. I said I often choose my thoughts. > [@](#): > > Do you choose your feelings too? If someone calls you a bad name, do you choose whether to feel sad or angry? Or do the emotional reactions just happen, just like how a burning sensation just happens when you touch a flame? Some of both. Sometimes, I control and choose my emotional responses. Sometimes they slip away from me. I don’t always lose my temper and get angry. But it happens sometimes. Other times, I maintain control and don’t lost my temper. > [@](#): > > If a person can choose their thoughts and feelings, shouldn’t this make them highly resistant to mental illness? Or does mental illness take away one’s ability to choose, making it so that the only way a person knows whether or not they don’t have a choice is when their thoughts are depressive and anxiety-provoking? And wouldn’t this be kind of, I dunno, awfully convenient? How is depression “convenient?” People can sometimes choose their thoughts and feelings. When one is mentally ill, that faculty is severely diminished. Someone with clinical depression is less able to choose his feelings. (A person with a bruised leg is less able to run. A person with a broken leg is entirely unable to run. Even a person with a perfectly healthy pair of legs can’t run 500 mph. Our ability to choose is not absolute.) > [@](#): > > You say _you_ are your thoughts and feelings. I don’t recall saying that, and I don’t think I agree with it. If I said it, I shouldn’t have. It isn’t a definition I want to defend. There are also structural parts of the brain – “hard wiring” if you will – that we have much less control over. You may have known that I am, in fact, arachnophobic. I have almost no control over my feelings if you show me a big picture of a spider. > [@](#): > > . . . I don’t think the thoughts+feelings are the result of a deliberation. I don’t think our consciousness consists of two dualing lawyers presenting their cases to conjure up thoughts+feelings in the jury. I think our brains are way more simple than this. I believe the choices we have are _contained_ in the thoughts+feelings, which are triggered the moment our brains (not necessarily our consciousness) recognizes there’s a problem. . . . Well, that’s where we disagree. > [@](#): > > Hasn’t this ever happened to you, **AHunter3**? Or you, **Trinopus**? You’ll be taking a shower or doing something really mundane, and then suddenly this awesome eureka moment hits you. As if it just came out of nowhere. (Which, I assert, it did since it wasn’t in your conscious mind). Heck, yes! I’m a (frustrated) writer, and I’ve had characters walk right up to me out my unconscious mind and start talking to me as if they were real people. It’s wonderful. Also eerie as hell! > [@](#): > > . . . I don’t know about you, but I can’t take credit for what comes to me from seemingly out of nowhere. If I were a religious person, I’d thank God or Buddha or whomever. For me, I just thank my subconscious mind for doing the _real_ thinking. My subconscious is “me”, but it is different from my consciousness. My subconscious is unknowable to me. So when I have an amazing revelation, I am both proud of myself and immensely humbled. Perhaps this alone is why I don’t dig the notion of free well. It doesn’t sound humbling enough, IMHO. IMHO, I do get to take credit for it. Also, I don’t believe the unconscious is unknowable. I have a somewhat Freudian view, that the unconscious can be explored. It isn’t easy, and it isn’t perfect or complete by any means. But I can shine a flashlight around some of the shadowy places in the big old scary basement of my mind. I have mastered semi-lucid dreaming, for instance, and I don’t have ordinary nightmares. (I do have hypnagogic hallucinations, which are different.) I can tell when a dream is about to get scary, and I can “nudge” it into a different direction, so the scary bit doesn’t happen. I have some communication and control even over my unconscious. > [@](#): > > Maybe you feel differently about your own thought processes. Maybe it doesn’t bother you to lump the hidden thought processes in with the conscious thought processes and call everything “you”. But I can’t do this. I don’t feel connected to that which feels foreign and unknown to me. I guess you can say it dilutes my sense of “self” to say that I’m my entire brain and all its mysteries. It is logical to me to limit my “self” to only what I have awareness of and what is knowable to me. These are opinions, and I respect them. I hold different opinions, but I do not scorn or ridicule or belittle your views. I’m perfectly content for you to disagree with me. That’s how most of these kinds of debates go. We reach a polite impasse, and must “agree to disagree.” I can’t think of any argument you could make that would convince me of your views…and I’ve already put forward every argument I can think of to make my own views as persuasive as I can. It seems highly unlikely either of us is going to change his or her mind. So… No worries! I think the debate is fascinating, without any need for “winning” it! ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2014, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-illusion-of-free-will/689217/413 "2014-06-02T00:20:44Z")
> [@Pjen](#): > > I am afraid that scepticism trumps certainty. It is up to you to prove your assertion, else it just remains a guess. At this point, there is no “proof.” You and I hold disagreeing beliefs. Prove to me that chocolate is better than vanilla. Prove to me that Sauron is scarier than Godzilla. Not gonna happen. Call it a “guess” if you wish, but don’t object too strongly when I hold your views to be exactly as “guess-like” as my own are. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2014, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-illusion-of-free-will/689217/414 "2014-06-02T00:54:58Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > I hold this to be really rotten debate technique. I’m kind of done with arguing at this point, but I just wanted to say, this bugs the shit out of me, **Trinopus**. If you go back to what I said, I said that I envy your ability to choose. AND THAT IS ALL I SAID. I’m well aware that you said “often”. How does that change the fact that you expressed having the ability? It doesn’t! I don’t like being accused of debating in a rotten fashion. You may not like my style, but twice you’ve jumped down my throat because you misinterpreted me. Maybe you need to _choose_ to stop doing this. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2014, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-illusion-of-free-will/689217/415 "2014-06-02T01:55:42Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > I’m kind of done with arguing at this point, but I just wanted to say, this bugs the shit out of me, **Trinopus**. If you go back to what I said, I said that I envy your ability to choose. AND THAT IS ALL I SAID. I’m well aware that you said “often”. How does that change the fact that you expressed having the ability? It doesn’t! > > I don’t like being accused of debating in a rotten fashion. You may not like my style, but twice you’ve jumped down my throat because you misinterpreted me. Maybe you need to _choose_ to stop doing this. It makes a big difference. The word “often” also implies there are times I can’t choose my thoughts. You left that out, and argued with me as if I had claimed I could always choose my thoughts. You may not have deliberately employed a distortive technique, but you did employ a distortive technique. ---
**Author:** ![common\_good](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f475e1/32.png) [@common\_good](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/common_good)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2014, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-illusion-of-free-will/689217/416 "2014-06-02T03:26:23Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > As Peter Sellers said in Murder by Death: “Is confusing.” > > I see three materialistic varieties of rebuttal to Free Will. > > 1. Newtonian determinism. Every grain of sand was determined, from the origin of the cosmos, to lie exactly where we see it now, and every word you speak was scripted for you, before our sun burned bright in space. > > 2. Modified determinism under Quantum Physics: Okay, not from the origin of the cosmos, but from a week ago, every atom in your body is following a physical destiny. There are tiny random variations, and they add up over long periods of time, but in the short haul, life is deterministic. > > 3. Psychological determinism. At this very moment, your choices may feel free, but are inevitable. **monstro** ’s example – "I choose Cheerios because my brain chooses the Cheerios, and my brain chooses them because the yellow box stimulates the release of dopamine . . . " – summarizes it nicely. > > (I, myself, believe in a variant of this: some decisions are a lot harder to make than others. It’s very hard for an alcoholic to stop drinking, or for nearly anyone to stop smoking, or for a father to turn his son in to the cops for stealing, etc. The brain offers obstacles to some kinds of choices, but these obstacles can be overcome.) > > Just for completeness, although no one here seems to be advocating it, you also have modified Calvinistic determinism as a theological stance: God elects whom shall receive grace, and if you aren’t chosen, then you cannot become saved. No action of our own can enable us to receive Christ; only God can choose. That’s well expressed. I’ve been trying to explain that to my theist friends, who don’t quit with the Jesus stuff. Thanks ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2014, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-illusion-of-free-will/689217/417 "2014-06-02T04:14:49Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > At this point, there is no “proof.” You and I hold disagreeing beliefs. Prove to me that chocolate is better than vanilla. Prove to me that Sauron is scarier than Godzilla. > > Not gonna happen. > > Call it a “guess” if you wish, but don’t object too strongly when I hold your views to be exactly as “guess-like” as my own are. Science does not work like that. Currently we have no explanation for anything like ‘Free Will’ except to class it with belief in God, djinns and elves. These are human constructions without a physical representation in the real world and which have no proven effect of the world- merely a matter of belief- like the sun go round the earth, the world being flat, the aether, phlogiston, Vital Essence and so on. The track record of ‘insight’ and ‘belief’ about the world is abysmal. What does work is empirical science where we work to understand what rules govern things rather than mere conjecture without support. My claim is that we have no supportable idea how this gut feeling of “Free Will” works or if it exists at all. I would like someone to prove it to me. Until it is proved it remains a human belief it is not proven to be a real force in the world. I am open to persuasion by proof. I suspect that Free Will is a convenient myth like all the errors of belief above, but I do not have to prove a negative. I say- if you think that in some way something nonphysical causes change in the world, demonstrate it. I feel the same about Perpetual Motion Machines, telepathy, homeopathy, God, luck, karma, reincarnation, Cold Fusion, and so on. It is not up to me to prove any of these to be mere figments of the human imagination. It is up to their proposers to prove that they do exist. Over to you. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2014, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-illusion-of-free-will/689217/418 "2014-06-02T04:38:01Z")
> [@Pjen](#): > > . . . I say- if you think that in some way something nonphysical causes change in the world, demonstrate it. . . . I don’t. That isn’t my view in any way, and never has been. This is one of the most frustrating damn debates I’ve ever seen. People keep attributing views to me that I do not hold! ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2014, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-illusion-of-free-will/689217/419 "2014-06-02T05:22:18Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > I don’t. That isn’t my view in any way, and never has been. > > This is one of the most frustrating damn debates I’ve ever seen. People keep attributing views to me that I do not hold! Do you claim that anything other than your brain condition ‘chooses’ what it does in a non -mechanistic way or do you accept that brains make the decisions and any awareness of this has not been proved to affect the outcome? ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2014, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-illusion-of-free-will/689217/420 "2014-06-02T05:33:30Z")
Your question contains a forced dichotomy that I do not accept. I believe that the brain is natural and material, but that it is too complex to be deterministic in the Newtonian sense. There are too many feedback loops going on. It’s a “committee meeting.” No one can predict the outcome of a committee meeting, but the outcome doesn’t depend on non-material causes or processes. You aren’t going to shoe-horn me into your limited model of brain function. I believe that our awareness does have an influence on the outcome; I have also said, from the beginning, that this isn’t absolute. I get that you disagree. Can you get that I disagree with you? This thread has become nastier than I like. You’ve cut off listening to **The Other Waldo Pepper** , and **monstro** is upset with me. You and I are at an impasse. It isn’t being fun any more. Wanna drop it and let it die? We can argue about the Star Trek Transporter. Or Abortion. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-illusion-of-free-will/689217.md?page=20) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-illusion-of-free-will/689217.md?page=22)