# Another "Free Will" debate. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 28, 2006, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-free-will-debate/385885 "2006-12-28T17:51:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2006, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-free-will-debate/385885/1 "2006-12-28T17:51:40Z")
At the invitation of \*_Sapo_ in the [Atheists](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=8095669#post8095669) thread, and this particular exchange in particular: > [@Sapo](#): > > > [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > > > “Free Will” is a logical impossibility, by the way, but that’s a different debate. > > I prefer to think of it as the atheist’s God of the Gaps but, as you well said, that is a different debate. Your thread or my thread? So here we are. First, I’ll outline my reason for saying that the concept of moral “free will” is logically incoherent. I’ve done this before so I’ll try to make it short. There can’t be a moral “choice” without a cause. That cause has to be either random or determined. If it’s determined, it’s not “free.” If it’s random, it can have no moral value _and_ it’s not free. Choices cannot cause themselves. You can’t make a choice without deciding what to choose and you can’t decide what to choose without deciding what to decide what to choose. You have to end up in either an infinite regression, an external cause, a predetermined cause or a random number generator, none of which meet the classical understanding of libertarian free will. The concept doesn’t make sense (and this same logical problem exists for God himself, by the way). That’s my case in a nutshell. Now I’d like to know what kind of “gap” I’m filling. I yield the floor. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2006, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-free-will-debate/385885/2 "2006-12-28T18:26:50Z")
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic] There can’t be a moral “choice” without a cause. [/QUOTE] You lost me in the first sentence. 🙂 Cna you give an example of what you mean by “cause”? I will be eating lunch soon, and I will have to choose what to have. What’s the “cause” in that process? ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2006, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-free-will-debate/385885/3 "2006-12-28T18:29:10Z")
I was thinking the same thing. I can choose to have what I usually have, or, not. Please predict what I will do. ---
**Author:** ![the\_PC\_apeman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ac8455/32.png) [@the\_PC\_apeman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_PC_apeman)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2006, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-free-will-debate/385885/4 "2006-12-28T18:32:19Z")
[QUOTE=mlees] I was thinking the same thing. I can choose to have what I usually have, or, not. Please predict what I will do. [/QUOTE] Saying that the universe is deterministic and/or random does not mean that it is determinable. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2006, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-free-will-debate/385885/5 "2006-12-28T18:33:15Z")
I wasn’t disputing anything, though-- just trying to understand the terms. The “cause” for me eating lunch might be hunger, but it might be something else-- I might not be hungry, but I might be invited to lunch by someone I’d like to socialize with. Are those “causes”? I honestly don’t know what \*\*Dio \*\*means by that term in that context. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2006, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-free-will-debate/385885/6 "2006-12-28T18:34:56Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace] You lost me in the first sentence. 🙂 Cna you give an example of what you mean by “cause”? I will be eating lunch soon, and I will have to choose what to have. What’s the “cause” in that process? [/QUOTE] Exactly. You don’t really have a choice. You will simply act according to programming. Whatever you choose to eat for lunch is not really “decided” at all. To try to put it another way, “choices” are really effects, not causes. What causes the effect? ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2006, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-free-will-debate/385885/7 "2006-12-28T18:35:19Z")
[QUOTE=mlees] I was thinking the same thing. I can choose to have what I usually have, or, not. Please predict what I will do. [/QUOTE] Whether or not something can be predicted is a problematic test. There’s so many different influences that could come into play. If I say “You’ll go with the usual” you might pick the other just so i’m wrong. If, however, I had a fantastic computer into which I could enter all the influences on your decision, I could predict it with 100% accuracy. I’m in the no free will camp. And I think that not having free will is a good thing, because without it we don’t make random decisions. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2006, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-free-will-debate/385885/8 "2006-12-28T18:42:14Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace] I wasn’t disputing anything, though-- just trying to understand the terms. The “cause” for me eating lunch might be hunger, but it might be something else-- I might not be hungry, but I might be invited to lunch by someone I’d like to socialize with. Are those “causes”? I honestly don’t know what \*\*Dio \*\*means by that term in that context. [/QUOTE] I’m not trying to be opaque. Like I said your choice to eat – and what to eat – are affected completely by external causes and internal programming. I always seem to have trouble comminicating my point on this debate even though it seems very simple to me. I’m saying there has to be a reason WHY we make choices. There always has to be an element which is not “free.” The only way to be truely self-determinant is to be random. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2006, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-free-will-debate/385885/9 "2006-12-28T18:45:46Z")
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic] Exactly. You don’t really have a choice. You will simply act according to programming. Whatever you choose to eat for lunch is not really “decided” at all. To try to put it another way, “choices” are really effects, not causes. What causes the effect? [/QUOTE] Now I’m even more confused. When you said “There can’t be a moral “choice” without a cause”, that last word doesn’t make any sense to me. You might as well have said: There can’t be a moral choice without a blurp. Define “cause”. ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2006, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-free-will-debate/385885/10 "2006-12-28T18:48:35Z")
But there _are_ people who make choices that defy the causes. Those choices don’t make sense, and then your gonna call those folks stupid or insane. Your fantastic computer will have to know everything about everything, which I thought was impossible. (With the observer effecting the results, and with not knowing the position on electrons in their cloud, and so on.) Forgive me. I am a average joe, with a high school education masquerading as a Straight Doper. 🙂 Let’s say I decide to buy Ice Cream for desert today. My choices: Chocolate, and Strawberry. I prefer chocolate, but I like strawberry too, on occasion. Are you telling me that there is a way to know, with 100% certitude, which I will get? Heck, I can’t find a Doctor who will state with 100% certainty that I wont drop dead in the next 5 minutes from natural causes… (Oh goodness! I just jinxed myself. Wish me luck!) ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2006, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-free-will-debate/385885/11 "2006-12-28T18:52:08Z")
[QUOTE=mlees] I was thinking the same thing. I can choose to have what I usually have, or, not. Please predict what I will do. [/QUOTE] Just because something is determined doesn’t mean it’s easily predictable. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2006, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-free-will-debate/385885/12 "2006-12-28T19:00:12Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace] Now I’m even more confused. When you said “There can’t be a moral “choice” without a cause”, that last word doesn’t make any sense to me. You might as well have said: There can’t be a moral choice without a blurp. Define “cause”. [/QUOTE] I’m not using any esoteric definition of the word. I don’t understand what you don’t understand. I’m saying that something has to determine the choice. That is, something has to “cause” you to choose one thing over another. That something has to be either random or determined. The act of “choosing” in itself is really a result of that determinant. It’s not actually a determinant in itself. ---
**Author:** ![Sapo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@Sapo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sapo)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2006, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-free-will-debate/385885/13 "2006-12-28T19:03:04Z")
Well, this won’t be too much of a discussion of we both agree, will it? 🙂 I also don’t believe in free will (and I believe my disbelief might be of a wider scope than yours). Just as we have used gods to fill the gaps of our understanding of the universe, I believe that Free Will has been used to fill the gaps of our understanding of the human psyche. And just as science keeps encroaching in the turf of God, so does in the turf of FW leaving every day less of room for there to be a FW at all. Socially awkward has become Asperger’s Syndrome and jumpy-little-brat has become ADHD. Personalities have become collections of conditions (if likeable) and disorders (if not). Mental processes have started to be mapped more and more precisely. Love, Pleasure, Fear, Comprehension have all become neurological responses better understood each day. It won’t be long until our understanding of the functioning of the human brain reaches the point where it can all be explained and there will be no room left for Free Will. It will all be responses. We do not think of our liver as being free to respond to its environment. It does what is supposed to do based on its circumstances. Our brain is doing the exact same thing. Its environment is more complex (and maybe its processes) and so it displays a more varied range of responses but they are responses nonetheless. That is why I call it a “God of the gaps” I am very amused at the most rational minds of the world, who can clearly see Religion for what it is, turn suddenly blind to their own worship of their own flavour of inexplicable deity called Free Will. That is why I call it the “Atheist’s God [of the gaps]” Demolish at will (no pun intended) ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2006, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-free-will-debate/385885/14 "2006-12-28T19:04:09Z")
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic] I’m not using any esoteric definition of the word. I don’t understand what you don’t understand. I’m saying that something has to determine the choice. That is, something has to “cause” you to choose one thing over another. That something has to be either random or determined. The act of “choosing” in itself is really a result of that determinant. It’s not actually a determinant in itself. [/QUOTE] OK. Why does something have to determine the choice? Why can’t the determinant be “free will”? ---
**Author:** ![Sapo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@Sapo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sapo)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2006, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-free-will-debate/385885/15 "2006-12-28T19:04:13Z")
Holy crap! did I take so long to post this that there is now a page full of responses? ---
**Author:** ![Sapo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@Sapo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sapo)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2006, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-free-will-debate/385885/16 "2006-12-28T19:10:40Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace] OK. Why does something have to determine the choice? Why can’t the determinant be “free will”? [/QUOTE] so what is this “Free Will” is it natural or supernatural? If it is natural, then it is just one more process. If it is supernatural, then well, we are back to religion. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2006, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-free-will-debate/385885/17 "2006-12-28T19:11:50Z")
[QUOTE=mlees] But there _are_ people who make choices that defy the causes. [/quote] Cite? > [@](#): > > Those choices don’t make sense, and then your gonna call those folks stupid or insane. They’re choices may not make sense to _you_, but that’s only because you don’t know all the variables. They are still being “caused” to do what they do. They have to be. > [@](#): > > Your fantastic computer will have to know everything about everything, which I thought was impossible. (With the observer effecting the results, and with not knowing the position on electrons in their cloud, and so on.) > > Forgive me. I am a average joe, with a high school education masquerading as a Straight Doper. 🙂 > > Let’s say I decide to buy Ice Cream for desert today. My choices: Chocolate, and Strawberry. I prefer chocolate, but I like strawberry too, on occasion. Are you telling me that there is a way to know, with 100% certitude, which I will get? > > Heck, I can’t find a Doctor who will state with 100% certainty that I wont drop dead in the next 5 minutes from natural causes… (Oh goodness! I just jinxed myself. Wish me luck!) All we really mean is that the sum of all determininants will be inexorable in their effects. _Theoretically_, if you could know every variable, you could make the predictions. I’ll make an analogy to the weather. The weather is not really “unpredictable,” it’s just extraordinarily difficult to know every variable. We can only make some vague, short term predictions about what is statistically _likely_ to happen under certain conditions. That doesn’t mean the weather doesn’t have “causes,” only that we have a hard time getting a handle on what all of them are. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2006, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-free-will-debate/385885/18 "2006-12-28T19:17:12Z")
[QUOTE=mlees] But there _are_ people who make choices that defy the causes. Those choices don’t make sense, and then your gonna call those folks stupid or insane. [/quote] Ah, but they do make sense, _to them_. Your example of making an “unusual” choice only works if we were to take a general view of what you’re like and your tastes. Then we’d predict you’d go with the usual. If, however, we know all of the influences affecting you, we’d know that you’d pick the unusual choice. > [@](#): > > Your fantastic computer will have to know everything about everything, which I thought was impossible. (With the observer effecting the results, and with not knowing the position on electrons in their cloud, and so on.) Good point. Let’s say that _theoretically_, if it were possible to know all the influences on someone, you would be able to predict their choices with a 100% accuracy. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2006, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-free-will-debate/385885/19 "2006-12-28T19:18:21Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace] OK. Why does something have to determine the choice? Why can’t the determinant be “free will”? [/QUOTE] You’re begging the question. My whole point is that it is not logically possible for “will” to be “free.” What determines the will? How do you determine your “will” without having the will to determine your will and what determines that will? Like I said, unless you define free will as a random number generator, then you’re always stuck with an infinite regression of 'wills." ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2006, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-free-will-debate/385885/20 "2006-12-28T19:24:30Z")
[QUOTE=Sapo] Well, this won’t be too much of a discussion of we both agree, will it? 🙂 I also don’t believe in free will (and I believe my disbelief might be of a wider scope than yours). Just as we have used gods to fill the gaps of our understanding of the universe, I believe that Free Will has been used to fill the gaps of our understanding of the human psyche. And just as science keeps encroaching in the turf of God, so does in the turf of FW leaving every day less of room for there to be a FW at all. Socially awkward has become Asperger’s Syndrome and jumpy-little-brat has become ADHD. Personalities have become collections of conditions (if likeable) and disorders (if not). Mental processes have started to be mapped more and more precisely. Love, Pleasure, Fear, Comprehension have all become neurological responses better understood each day. It won’t be long until our understanding of the functioning of the human brain reaches the point where it can all be explained and there will be no room left for Free Will. It will all be responses. We do not think of our liver as being free to respond to its environment. It does what is supposed to do based on its circumstances. Our brain is doing the exact same thing. Its environment is more complex (and maybe its processes) and so it displays a more varied range of responses but they are responses nonetheless. That is why I call it a “God of the gaps” I am very amused at the most rational minds of the world, who can clearly see Religion for what it is, turn suddenly blind to their own worship of their own flavour of inexplicable deity called Free Will. That is why I call it the “Atheist’s God [of the gaps]” Demolish at will (no pun intended) [/QUOTE] Well then, I guess I don’t really disagree with you. I thought you were saying that the _denial_ of free will was an atheists’ god of the gaps. I do agree that a lot of people who pride themselves on rationalism, atheism and skepticism do seem to unthinkingly accept the concept of free will as a given without ever stopping to consider not only how illogical it is but how _religious_ it is. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-free-will-debate/385885.md?page=2)