About the illusion of free will

Great Debates
181

I don’t know about you, but I think there is a huge difference between a person who is delusional and a person who isn’t. A person who is delusional is likely to believe in all kinds of craziness (like that they can will themselves out of depression, or that they are more virtuous than someone who doesn’t make the same choices they do). A person who isn’t delusional sees the world for what it is and makes sound judgments because of it.

And we can expect them to act differently too. I would not expect someone with free will to ever make a Freudian slip, if such things exist, or suffer from nightmares or implicit bias. Because they would lack a subconscious mind.

However, according to neuroscientist David Eagleman, not having a subconscious mind would be very bad indeed. It would mean never being able to go on automatic. Imagine how stressful it would be if we were conscious of every choice we are required to make whenever we drive a car. We’d be exhausted upon arriving to work in the morning. We would no doubt kill ourselves a million times over. So bring on the subconscious!

It is quite possible that we are better people because we have limited will.

So I’m disappointed that you can’t why any of this is important.

182

Not being jerkish; can you explain this a different way, my brain is not following you to your destination :slight_smile:

183

Yes, but, again, that’s obvious, isn’t it? Show me a delusional person, and someone who isn’t, and the whole point is that the difference is profound. Show me two people, and tell me they’re functionally identical – acting the same way, making the same choices, meeting with the same results – and when I ask you which one is the delusional guy, you reply, uh, hold on a moment; ya gotta understand, it’s so danged hard to tell 'em apart, since they consider the same things the same way when reaching the same decisions, at which point the same effects follow.

Again, talk of limited will seems to throw the whole thing into sharp relief: picture a guy who has no free will, and then picture a guy who has – what was it you just said? Oh, right: limited free will. What’s the difference? They both make the occasional Freudian slip and et cetera – but one never demonstrates free will on other occasions, while the other sometimes does. How can we tell them apart?

Both of 'em sometimes go on autopilot. One of 'em is only ever on autopilot. The other one sometimes ain’t. Which is which?

184

Not being jerkish; can you explain this a different way, my brain is not following you to your destination :slight_smile:
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If you point to an addict, and say he obviously lacks free will, I first imagine how different he’d be if he had free will, at which point I’d agree with you; if he were granted freedom from his addiction tomorrow, his life would change dramatically.

If you point to someone who isn’t an addict, and say he obviously lacks free will, I first imagine what he’d be like if he had free will – and I then note that the addiction-free guy I’m picturing would be doing the same things for the same reasons, making the same choices after considering the same alternatives; if he were granted free will tomorrow, he’d keep going about his life in the exact same way.

185

But you can’t really know these people are choosing anything. If you ask them if they chose to believe, of course they will say yes. Because this is their “just so” explanation for why their situations worked out the way they did. But you don’t really know what they did or didn’t choose. Fundamentally, you’re trusting the delusional to tell you the truth. That’s never wise.

What I think is that some people are more sensitive to certain pushes or suggestions than others. Tell one person that prayer works, and they will accept this rather easily. They will find evidence that it works because they are the type of person who is inclined to see supernatural intervention in everyday coincidences. But tell another person the same thing–a person who is wired differently,or has had a different set of experiences–and they won’t find evidence. So they won’t believe. The type of person we are determines how we interpret an experience, and the interpretation of the experience then determines what we will believe about it. Thus, given that we don’t have control over the type of person we are, we can’t say with any certainty how much control we have over the beliefs we hold.

I can say that I made the choice to read more about the illusion of free will, and that’s why I’m so passionate about it now. But I didn’t make the choice to be the type of person who would be intellectually curious enough to read books about it. Nor did I make the choice to be passionate about the ideas contained in those books. I can speak informally about having made a choice. I can tell someone else they can “choose” to do own their research if they don’t believe me. But there is no person who is going to believe something they weren’t already inclined to believe. They just won’t know that they are so inclined.

186

This all seems very simple to me.

There is an explanation of human behaviour which relies upon observable factors, such as the biological make-up of the brain (which is shaped by both genetics, and life experiences) and the mind which is emergent therefrom (implied by brain scans and so forth.) Decisions can be seen in this context as a response to external stimuli, in a manner which appears consistent with the mind within the context of the place and time.

On the other hand, there is an explanation which has all of these aspects, but which then also posits a vague, ill-defined, mystical-thinking notion called ‘free will’, which seems to suggest that we are both a biological entity experiencing a subjective interaction with the external world, shaped by the context of our mind within the context of place and time, and additionally, that we can step back from this nature in order to activate our ‘free will’, where we override our natural, developed nature and reactions in order to… make the same decision that we would have done without positing such an arbitrary, poorly-delineated function.

It seems to me that this free will debate is often, if not explicitly religious, then at least influenced by the remainders of religious doctrine even in secular societies; we aren’t just animals, from a Judaeo-Christian (and Islamic) perspective, and to say we are essentially no more than intelligent apes, one branch of mammalian evolution, is to debase God’s creation. So, rather than assuming that we behave in line with how we view most animals, it is assumed that our design in God’s likeness must have imbued us with some kind of unique ennobling ‘soul’ or ‘spirit’ which allows us free will above the animals. This kind of humans as distinct thinking persists even amongst irreligious people, to a noticeable degree, in my opinion.

Human-centrism leads us to believe that we alone have such rational justification for what are essentially our driving desires and will to act. We decide, act and then rationalise after the fact, for the most part. I personally think that it may be our developed sense of self-reference, tied in to our language use, which prompts us to imagine that we must be so consistently rational with deliberate decision-making processes.

Nonetheless, if you posit that we are more than merely biological entities acting in line with our inherent drives and learnt behaviours, much as you would imagine an animal doing, then the burden of proof is upon the assertion that we possess this exceptional free will which isn’t evidenced by any physical evidence.

Arguments from consequence, such as ‘why get out of bed if you don’t think you have free will’ etc, prove nothing, and only suggest why you would be clinging to an unjustified assertion as opposed to trying to offer proof for it.

187

I don’t follow you. Why do you say they posit that we are more than entities acting in line with that stuff – right after you explicitly note that they posit we’d make the same decisions with or without free will?

188

Idle philosophical musing: if there is no free will, and we were capable of getting and processing all the data that goes into individuals’ decision making, would that make “pre-crime” arrests and/or punishments morally just?

189

That incongruity is intentional.

Supposedly we have this faculty of ‘free will’ (which I have argued is wishy-washy mystical thinking) though I fail to see how that could possibly be distinguished from the simpler, non-vague, ‘nature-and-nurture’ dependent concept of humans as animals. I hold that ‘free will’ is an entirely extraneous, arbitrary explanation for something which is adequately explained by biological, psychological and sociological factors.

If indeed free will exists as those who support it posit it does, I request some ‘proof’, or at least a suggestion of how it could be tested/falsified. I have suggested why it is non-necessary and surplus to requirements, if someone believes it is necessary and extant then I suggest the burden of proof is on them to illustrate how it exists, beyond vague thought experiments which can be used to display either side of the coin.

190

Well put.

Everyone declaring that free will does or does not exist should begin by declaring the thing. I think they will find they cannot give it a concrete definition.

The concept only exists because of our intuitions: it feels like ideas just appear in my mind from “nowhere” because I cannot introspect my mental processes. And it’s convenient to consider people culpable for their actions whenever we cannot see a clear causal path, and not culpable otherwise.

But these intuitions are misleading, and stand in opposition to neuroscience, and indeed, logic (because the concept itself doesn’t stand up to logical dissection).

191

Morals are a rationalising narrative. Punishments are justified insofar as they prevent crime, disorder etc. If in theory you could ‘minority report’ people, it would be strategically justified. As for morals, I’ll leave that to priests and secular humanists. It’s worth noting that my answer begs the question of societal order being preferable, which is of course a value judgement, and hence subjective, and hence arbitrary.

192

I told you how we would distinguish the two. We would test them by scanning their brains while performing specific tests on them. The guy with free will will never be wrong. The guy without free will will frequently be wrong. The guy with free will will be able to activate or deactivate whatever part of the brain I command him to. The guy without free will will fail at this test.

So they would appear the same, yes. But only in a superficial sense. Just because they would give you the same verbal responses to the same question doesn’t mean they will behave in the same way.

Do you not see the oxymoron here? “Limited free will” is an impossibility. By definition, “free” cannot be “limited”. And limited will and free will are a world apart. If you can’t see a clear difference between running a race with iron shackles and running one without them, then we’re reached a conversational impasse. The shackled runner may not know he’s shackled. But that doesn’t mean he is free. It means he is both physically and mentally impeded.

How does a Freudian slip happen if a person is aware of his inner thoughts and desires? A Freudian slip only exists because a person doesn’t have access to these things. They show up when one’s brain, their subconscious train of thought, has formed an association between two seemingly unrelated things. So no, I wouldn’t expect someone with free will to show this sign. Unless they were trying to stump me intentionally, so as not to be found out. (But in that case, it wouldn’t be a Freudian slip. I would expect a sensitive enough brain scan to indicate this.)

Why would someone with free will ever go on autopilot? Going on autopilot is essentially delegating your decision-making to your subconscious. Meaning, it is outside of your volition. Outside of your conscious control and awareness. If a person makes decisions while on autopilot and yet still possess free will, then I really need to hear the definition of “free will” that would allow for this apparent contradiction. Because in my book, free will requires, at a minimum, awareness. Awareness doesn’t exist when one goes on autopilot.

193

But that’s my point: it’s almost as if people said folks would lack X and Y and Z without “free will” – and so postulated “free will”, defined in terms of X and Y and Z, for to believe that folks sure do have X and Y and Z – except it turns out that, oops, folks in fact have X and Y and Z, so “free will” doesn’t need to be postulated.

But if so – if they have the X and Y and Z that would’ve defined “free will” – then, well, that’s what free will is, because that’s all it ever was! After all, what else could it have been? You say it can’t possibly be distinguished from the simpler explanation; I say that’s because it is that simpler explanation.

194

It would make some sort of intervention justifiable, but seldom arrests or punishments; with that kind of knowledge you could & should intervene in subtler ways. Give the people in question counseling or antidepressants or whatever they need to keep them from going off the rails. Punishment is something of a blunt instrument in the first place; with that kind of knowledge of human minds it should typically be unnecessary. A problem with the “arresting and imprisoning people for pre-crime” scenario is that it mixes the super-advanced with the primitive; people with that kind of knowledge of the mind probably wouldn’t be fooling around with primitive methods like prisons and so on.

There’s also the question of whether or not this foreknowledge is possessed only by the authorities, or by everyone. If the “pre-criminal” has the same kind of predictive ability then you’re going after them for something they are already planning; for conspiracy, in essence.

195

Then the point is that while it may be your WILL, it is not FREE. It cannot be free, if it is constrained by prior predilections and conditions and natures. The notion is flawed from the start. Hence, you cast out free will as a nonsensical, poetical notion left over from pre-rational religious thinking, and instead address the issue as one of biological, psychological and sociological factors.

196

That seems like a straw man.

Consider the opposite claim: that someone lacks free will – but, well, it’s a limited lack of free will; he lacks free will, except, uh, when he doesn’t. It’d be just as easy to describe him in terms of “limited free will” as to talk of “limited determinism”.

That sounds kinda oxymoronic. But your argument seems to be: a man sometimes acts as if he lacks free will, so we conclude that he doesn’t have unlimited free will. And yet he sometimes acts as if he has free will, so we conclude – what?

He acts like he can’t will away the pain when he’s in overwhelming pain; granted. He acts like he can consider alternatives and make choices Of His Own Free Will at other times; whuh?

If you can’t see the difference between running with shackles and not running at all, then I certainly agree.

That’s the whole point! By mentioning what’s missing when one goes on autopilot, you emphasize what’s present when one’s not on autopilot!

197

How often do you think you’re on autopilot?

It seems to me that personally I’m only rarely on autopilot.

But how do really I know this, if being on autopilot means lacking awareness? How is possible to be aware of unawareness?

So you may presume that someone with free will would know when they are and aren’t on autopilot. But can you see why this statement doesn’t make sense?

198

But you said that folks with “free will” would make the same decision that would’ve been made without the posited stuff. That the same decision would result in response to external stimuli, in a manner which appears consistent with the mind within the context of the place and time, with or without “free will”. That those biological and psychological and sociological factors lead to the same choices, the same outcomes, the same life, as would follow from “free will”.

Why cast it out if it’s functionally identical? Why cast it out if it’s there? You’re claiming people make decisions as if they had free will, and you’re then adding that they don’t actually have free will. I have no problem with you doing the first part, and then don’t see any point in bothering with the second part.

199

Please read what is written. I am not denying Free Will. I am pointing out that there is as much scientific evidence for it as there is for God or elves or aether or elan vital or any of the other non-physical non-empirical ideas that the mind comes up with.

The question is not " Why don’t humans have free will" but "Why do humans believe they have free will when such a concept runs counter to every piece of evidence from the best system we have for deciding how the world works- empirical science.

If we are debating whether God exists, Be;ievers do not get the advantage of claiming that just because many people believe in the existence of God, then God is a part of the Universe. We have insufficient proof of the existence of God, and therefore it is unproven that God exists. It is a matter of faith alone. Similalrly with Free Will- it is merely a claim of faith with no evidential backing.

For many years humans have believed many incorrect things- Flat Earth, elan vital, aether, phlogiston, geocentric universe, telepathy, spirits, ghosts, continuous structure of matter, non-relative dynamics, incorrect theories of motion and so on. All have been believed merely on human faith. All have been eventually overturned by empirical science. There remain some categories (among them Gods and Free Will) that have no proof of them, yet which are still seen by the faithful as worthy of belief.They are as yet unproved and the history of science suggests that eventually they will be debunked when the true underlying processes are discovered.

This mindset is not one special to a small group of fanatics. Virtually all philosophers deny libertarianism and no Neuroscientist subscribes to that dogma. The vast majority are either Determinists (believers in no free will that has any meaning) or compatibilists who assert that although the universe is either determined or semi determined (randomness may occur) Free will may be talked about as a descriptive term that applies to humans and maybe others, but yet the Universe remains non libertarian.

200

There is no evidence that this Free Will you claim exists. It is a way of talking about complex behaviour. If you insist that it exists as a real effect in the world, please provide evidence of such. There is none available in the canons of science.

It is a matter of faith- you believe in it, yet there is no proof that Free Will is in any way part of our universe.

If you know of the evidence that proves it please provide a cite.