# 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:** 3
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2014, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-illusion-of-free-will/689217/41 "2014-05-25T04:37:23Z")
> [@simster](#): > > All three of the above - I can also actively choose not to be health conscious ‘some times’ - I don’t think I choose to be health conscious. I think I’m health conscious the same way that I’m introverted and quiet. It’s a part of my make-up. I’m not always health conscious. But when I eat a Big Mac, it’s not that I’m choosing to NOT be health conscious. It’s just that at that moment, a Big Mac is more desirable to me than the feeling of virtue I get when I’m eating nuts and berries. And why is the Big Mac more desirable? I don’t know. But it’s not because I _want_ it to be more desirable. It just is. It is possible for me to take one bit of the Big Mac and walk away from it, virtue intact. But I have to be compelled to do this by _something_. If the something is external (a loaded gun pointed at me), then this is outside of my control and doesn’t represent my will. If the something is internal (a mental image of me gaining a bunch of weight), then subconscious processes are responsible. Not my conscious mind. > [@](#): > > why, were you ‘compelled’ to read that particular book or did you make a choice to do so? I was compelled to read that book because I kept reading threads like this one and felt like I was missing out. I’m an intellectually curious person, particularly when it comes to subjects that weave together science and morality. But I do not choose to be this type of person. I was shaped by my genes and my environment to be this type of person. ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2014, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-illusion-of-free-will/689217/42 "2014-05-25T05:05:11Z")
> [@Robert163](#): > > so why put criminals in jail if there is no free will? i guess to prevent them form doing harm, right? i mean, they are not morally at fault if they have no free will, are they? That is certainly a morally sustainable position and what empirical research points to. Free Will is merely a social construct with no meaning in the Natural World. ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2014, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-illusion-of-free-will/689217/43 "2014-05-25T05:06:20Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > Well, many “free will is an illusion” folks do believe the current criminal justice system needs to be reevaluated. Throw away the key for people who show signs of re-offending, and focus on education and support services for those who just got caught up in the game. > > But punishment is useful even if free will is an illusion. We yell at toddlers and puppies when they do wrong not because we necessarily want to punish them, but because this is how you deter them (that is, their brains) from doing wrong again. And it works, in moderation. But that does not rely on free will, it relies on the learning ability of the chastised. Free will is not necessary to the chastiser nor the chastised. ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2014, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-illusion-of-free-will/689217/44 "2014-05-25T05:09:54Z")
> [@marshmallow](#): > > Assembling data and making choices isn’t what most people mean by free will. Insects can do that. Some computer programs can too. Free will is usually some ephemeral quality only humans have, or humans and a couple higher mammals (like consciousness). > > The standard argument against free will is that either: 1. our actions are caused by prior events and our brains are mechanical devices following heuristics so we don’t will anything beyond our biology, or 2. our actions are caused by indeterminate randomness, in which case they weren’t freely chosen either. > > It’s not so much which cereal you pick, but whether you could have picked otherwise given the same conditions. There is no empirical evidence to back up your Statement. What is true is that only Humans (and maybe some higher animals) can believe anything at all in a conscious manner (‘belief’ may exist unconsciously in humans and in other animals), but only humans have the ability to reflect in detail on the possibility of free will. There is one train of thought that I am attracted to that suggests that until Human culture had reached a certain level of complexity, Humans possessed no sense of Free Will. Julian Jaynes suggest that this break point may be as late as about 1000 bce. ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2014, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-illusion-of-free-will/689217/45 "2014-05-25T05:10:54Z")
> [@Robert163](#): > > if you can respond to “re education”, that means free will does exist right? No. You can train and retrain a flea and many other lower animals without considering them to have free will. ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2014, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-illusion-of-free-will/689217/46 "2014-05-25T05:12:05Z")
> [@Robert163](#): > > ah, but you can, i can have cherrios three days in a row and then swap to raisin bran. even if i am swapping just for a change, i still made a choice… A choice was made, but by whom or what. Computers make complex choices with no evidence of Free Will. ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2014, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-illusion-of-free-will/689217/47 "2014-05-25T05:20:32Z")
> [@Robert163](#): > > so what then is the difference between a human and a computer program? My take on the matter. A Computer program differs in two ways from a Modern Human. A Modern Human is an evolutionary outcome of a process that has created self-replicating organisms that through some freak of nature at some point in that process became able to perceive very simple experiences- pain, heat and so on in a more than factual manner. A computer has knowledge but it lacks feeling. Evolution is a whore- it will go with any small trait that is useful for survival and given time and enough organisms will magnify any slight advantage. this is how eyes developed from simple very slightly light sensitive skin patches. If such an emotional experience was a possibility in the natural world, even in its most attenuated form, evolutionary processes are highly likely to have amplified such advantages. Such base level experience would increase in complexity and by a process like metaphor would gradually become more complex and able to feel and even know real things about the external world in a way that a mere calculator would not. So a computer lacks a substrate of feeling and cannot apparently turn knowledge into experience- facts into meaning. ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2014, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-illusion-of-free-will/689217/48 "2014-05-25T05:22:43Z")
> [@Robert163](#): > > well, liking tings sounds a lot like free will to me. but i have a bias. i dont like the idea of a predetermined universe/life. Many people don’t like the outcomes of epirical science. The Cathlic Church was not keen on geocentrism, many people still do not believe in Evolution. Discomfort does not count against Knowledge. ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2014, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-illusion-of-free-will/689217/49 "2014-05-25T05:25:46Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > Do you choose what you like? Or do you just like what you like. > > I don’t know why I like corn chips. I just do. It’s not like I woke up one morning and told myself I would learn to like them, transforming myself into a Frito-lover. I guess you can say I was born into the world with this preference. If this is the case, then you can neither fault me or praise me for this particular trait. Because I didn’t “will” it to happen. > > I don’t believe in a predetermined universe, but I don’t believe in free will. For me to say that I possess free will, I’m essentially saying that I am capable of doing things that I don’t feel compelled to do. And I can’t say this. I am compelled to do everything I do, whether it be to eat because I feel hungry, shower because I dislike my BO, or go to work because I want money. Take away my motivations and I simply will not move. I know this about myself. So this alone is why I don’t believe in free will. But this doesn’t require me to believe that everything was predetermined at the moment of the Big Bang. A wise philosopher (my memory currently fails me as does Google) once suggested that “you can want what you will, but you cannot will what you want”. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2014, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-illusion-of-free-will/689217/50 "2014-05-25T05:36:00Z")
> [@simster](#): > > Thats an interesting take that I hadn’t thought of - > > “whats compelling me to do X” - and its that ‘compelling’ feeling that takes away your ‘free will’ ? Can you think of anything you have ever done consciously that couldn’t be traced to a specific motivation? You may do something you don’t want to do. Like clean the toliet or walk the dog in the pouring rain. But you’re still motivated to do these things because of the consequences of NOT doing them. If we only do things that we are compelled to do, then already our freedom is limited. But the fact that we do not dictate what we are and aren’t compelled to do is an even bigger constraint on our “freedoms”. So the way you’ve worded the question misses my point. It’s not that the “compelling feeling takes away my free will”. It’s that will and compulsion are one in the same. If a person doesn’t determine what compels them (and I assert that they don’t), then they don’t determine their will. It’s as simple as that. ---
**Author:** ![Robert163](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4af34b/32.png) [@Robert163](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robert163)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2014, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-illusion-of-free-will/689217/51 "2014-05-25T06:49:03Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > You’re not getting it. > > You like corn chips but you dislike being fat even more. Just as you don’t choose whether corn chips are pleasing to you, you don’t choose your personal aversion to fat and obesity. So you aren’t _willing_ anything. “Will” implies volition. Which I assert you do not have when it comes to the matter of preferences and desires. > > I don’t mind arguing, but it’s like you’re not understanding what I’ve been saying to you over the past hour. no, we just view the same event in different ways. it is indeed an act of will to avoid corn chips or a big mac. if it was simple aversion and desire there would be no - decision - involved. but i just now made a conscious decision to avoid corn chips (i was just at the store). if it were nothing but competing desires, then what of my conscious decision? > [@monstro](#): > > I don’t think I choose to be health conscious. I think I’m health conscious the same way that I’m introverted and quiet. It’s a part of my make-up. > > I’m not always health conscious. But when I eat a Big Mac, it’s not that I’m choosing to NOT be health conscious. It’s just that at that moment, a Big Mac is more desirable to me than the feeling of virtue I get when I’m eating nuts and berries. And why is the Big Mac more desirable? I don’t know. But it’s not because I _want_ it to be more desirable. It just is. > > It is possible for me to take one bit of the Big Mac and walk away from it, virtue intact. But I have to be compelled to do this by _something_. If the something is external (a loaded gun pointed at me), then this is outside of my control and doesn’t represent my will. If the something is internal (a mental image of me gaining a bunch of weight), then subconscious processes are responsible. Not my conscious mind. > > I was compelled to read that book because I kept reading threads like this one and felt like I was missing out. I’m an intellectually curious person, particularly when it comes to subjects that weave together science and morality. But I do not choose to be this type of person. I was shaped by my genes and my environment to be this type of person. yes! shaped by but not determined by. why do you think shaped by = predetermined. and if you don’t think shped by = pre detemined how can you say there is no free will? > [@Pjen](#): > > My take on the matter. A Computer program differs in two ways from a Modern Human. > > A Modern Human is an evolutionary outcome of a process that has created self-replicating organisms that through some freak of nature at some point in that process became able to perceive very simple experiences- pain, heat and so on in a more than factual manner. A computer has knowledge but it lacks feeling. Evolution is a whore- it will go with any small trait that is useful for survival and given time and enough organisms will magnify any slight advantage. this is how eyes developed from simple very slightly light sensitive skin patches. If such an emotional experience was a possibility in the natural world, even in its most attenuated form, evolutionary processes are highly likely to have amplified such advantages. Such base level experience would increase in complexity and by a process like metaphor would gradually become more complex and able to feel and even know real things about the external world in a way that a mere calculator would not. > > So a computer lacks a substrate of feeling and cannot apparently turn knowledge into experience- facts into meaning. a human has one thing a computer doesn’t, aside from emotion. the ability to override it’s own programming. ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2014, 8:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-illusion-of-free-will/689217/52 "2014-05-25T08:30:38Z")
> [@Robert163](#): > > a human has one thing a computer doesn’t, aside from emotion. the ability to override it’s own programming. I don’t think you understand. Apart from gut feeling (which gave us gods, geocentrism and creationism) there is no indication that human action is caused other than by natural physical processes. The only difference between us and animals is that we are able to believe that we have free will, not that we actually have it. If you disagree, what is your evidence that free will exists? ---
**Author:** ![Robert163](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4af34b/32.png) [@Robert163](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robert163)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2014, 8:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-illusion-of-free-will/689217/53 "2014-05-25T08:33:18Z")
> [@Pjen](#): > > I don’t think you understand. Apart from gut feeling (which gave us gods, geocentrism and creationism) there is no indication that human action is caused other than by natural physical processes. The only difference between us and animals is that we are able to believe that we have free will, not that we actually have it. > > If you disagree, what is your evidence that free will exists? deliberation- the power to hold a concept in the mind, contemplate, and decide ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2014, 8:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-illusion-of-free-will/689217/54 "2014-05-25T08:49:19Z")
> [@Robert163](#): > > deliberation- the power to hold a concept in the mind, contemplate, and decide You experience a feeling of deliberation which you believe you are in control of. You have no more evidence for that being true than a committed Christian has for the existence of God. It is a belief without proof. ---
**Author:** ![Robert163](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4af34b/32.png) [@Robert163](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robert163)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2014, 8:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-illusion-of-free-will/689217/55 "2014-05-25T08:56:04Z")
> [@Pjen](#): > > You experience a feeling of deliberation which you believe you are in control of. You have no more evidence for that being true than a committed Christian has for the existence of God. It is a belief without proof. You experience a feeling which you perceive as not being in control. You have no more evidence for that being true than a committed Christian has for the existence of God. It is a belief without proof. ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2014, 9:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-illusion-of-free-will/689217/56 "2014-05-25T09:15:02Z")
> [@Robert163](#): > > You experience a feeling which you perceive as not being in control. You have no more evidence for that being true than a committed Christian has for the existence of God. It is a belief without proof. I assume nothing. I am saying that there is no proof that there exists something such as human agency. I am not saying that human agency does not exist, just that there is no evidence that it does. Human Agency is in the class of entities such as Gods, unicorns, leprechauns, El Dorado, Atlantis, the lodestone, etc. These are entities that may be brought before human awareness but have no empirical proof. Note that I am not denying the possibility that someday someone may prove human agency to be true, but so far no one has done so. If it happens then that will be an event as momentous as Quantum theory, Relativity and other major paradigm shifts. On the other hand it may go the way of the planetary model of atoms, the anther, phlogiston or eland vital. It is up to the person suggesting that Agency exists in the universe to prove it, not for sceptics to disprove an unsupported belief. This is how science works. ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2014, 9:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-illusion-of-free-will/689217/57 "2014-05-25T09:16:36Z")
> [@Robert163](#): > > You experience a feeling which you perceive as not being in control. You have no more evidence for that being true than a committed Christian has for the existence of God. It is a belief without proof. I do experience being in control. I reject the experience in the same way I reject other beliefs that I experience that have no empirical evidence to support them. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2014, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-illusion-of-free-will/689217/58 "2014-05-25T11:53:37Z")
> [@simster](#): > > Maybe I’m being dense - but as long as I have a choice - then there is ‘free will’ - the ability to assemble data is part of what makes it so - just like all things, I have a choice in what data I assemble and what conclusions that leads me to - counter to a machine that only has what is input to it to select from and a hard set of logic on what conclusions it can reach from it. (the machine has no choice in its dataset) There is nothing fundamental about the ability to “assemble data”; given suitable inputs, computers can do it a lot better than we can. Our brains have a physical existence and are machines like any other. To believe otherwise one has to appeal to either magic or some indefinable notion of spirituality. > [@Robert163](#): > > so what then is the difference between a human and a computer program? Only the level of complexity. Just like the apparent vast difference between an electronic desk calculator that just adds numbers and a machine that can play chess at a grandmaster level or carry on a reasonably intelligent conversation is a difference of complexity. The calculator and the AI machine might even be made from the same basic components, but the AI machine has far more of them and vastly more interconnections and information content. This yields qualitatively different attributes, but the fundamental underlying processes and the deterministic nature of both are the same. My answer to the “free will because we have choice” argument is simple. Consider for the sake of argument – just to see where it leads us – the hypothesis that the universe is completely deterministic and its entire future is predetermined. So that theoretically if we had sufficiently detailed information about its state, we could predict the future with any desired level of accuracy, including the future behavior of these deterministic machines we call humans, whose behavior is exactly predictable based on the neural state of their brains and predictable external events. Just a hypothesis, but think it through for a moment. If that were really the true nature of the universe, how could you possibly distinguish it from any other? How could you distinguish it from one which was not predetermined and in which you really did have free will? You could not. So whether one believes in “free will” or not, it’s pretty futile to try to argue or “prove” that we have it in any falsifiable objective sense. It’s intrinsically a subjective concept. Our apparent freedom to make choices is entirely premised on our perception that we’re making them freely. ---
**Author:** ![Robert163](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4af34b/32.png) [@Robert163](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robert163)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2014, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-illusion-of-free-will/689217/59 "2014-05-25T12:34:46Z")
> [@Pjen](#): > > I assume nothing. I am saying that there is no proof that there exists something such as human agency. I am not saying that human agency does not exist, just that there is no evidence that it does. > > Human Agency is in the class of entities such as Gods, unicorns, leprechauns, El Dorado, Atlantis, the lodestone, etc. These are entities that may be brought before human awareness but have no empirical proof. > > Note that I am not denying the possibility that someday someone may prove human agency to be true, but so far no one has done so. > > If it happens then that will be an event as momentous as Quantum theory, Relativity and other major paradigm shifts. On the other hand it may go the way of the planetary model of atoms, the anther, phlogiston or eland vital. > > It is up to the person suggesting that Agency exists in the universe to prove it, not for sceptics to disprove an unsupported belief. > > This is how science works. oh, thats how “science” works. ok. and you had no choice but to type those exact words, down to the comma or lack of comma, did you? ---
**Author:** ![Robert163](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4af34b/32.png) [@Robert163](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robert163)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2014, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-illusion-of-free-will/689217/60 "2014-05-25T12:36:38Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > There is nothing fundamental about the ability to “assemble data”; given suitable inputs, computers can do it a lot better than we can. Our brains have a physical existence and are machines like any other. To believe otherwise one has to appeal to either magic or some indefinable notion of spirituality. > > Only the level of complexity. Just like the apparent vast difference between an electronic desk calculator that just adds numbers and a machine that can play chess at a grandmaster level or carry on a reasonably intelligent conversation is a difference of complexity. The calculator and the AI machine might even be made from the same basic components, but the AI machine has far more of them and vastly more interconnections and information content. This yields qualitatively different attributes, but the fundamental underlying processes and the deterministic nature of both are the same. > > My answer to the “free will because we have choice” argument is simple. Consider for the sake of argument – just to see where it leads us – the hypothesis that the universe is completely deterministic and its entire future is predetermined. So that theoretically if we had sufficiently detailed information about its state, we could predict the future with any desired level of accuracy, including the future behavior of these deterministic machines we call humans, whose behavior is exactly predictable based on the neural state of their brains and predictable external events. Just a hypothesis, but think it through for a moment. > > If that were really the true nature of the universe, how could you possibly distinguish it from any other? How could you distinguish it from one which was not predetermined and in which you really did have free will? You could not. > > So whether one believes in “free will” or not, it’s pretty futile to try to argue or “prove” that we have it in any falsifiable objective sense. It’s intrinsically a subjective concept. Our apparent freedom to make choices is entirely premised on our perception that we’re making them freely. but we don’t know in advance the exact outcome of every single action or event [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-illusion-of-free-will/689217.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-the-illusion-of-free-will/689217.md?page=4)