# Any atheists here who believe in free will? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 6, 2019, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-atheists-here-who-believe-in-free-will/838240 "2019-08-06T14:23:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2019, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-atheists-here-who-believe-in-free-will/838240/61 "2019-08-06T23:26:42Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > IANAPhilosopher, but I’m fairly sure this is not what “free will” normally means in these discussions. > > This lack of agreement on basic terms makes these discussions frustrating. I gave my definitions. What are yours? ---
**Author:** ![OldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/3bc359/32.png) [@OldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldGuy)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2019, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-atheists-here-who-believe-in-free-will/838240/62 "2019-08-06T23:37:08Z")
As my theist friends are wont to point out, “believe” means to take on faith. No proof (and apparently little logic) is required to believe. So yes in that sense I believe in free will. I can’t explain it, but it definitely feels like I have it. Cogito ergo liberum arbitrium habere. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2019, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-atheists-here-who-believe-in-free-will/838240/63 "2019-08-06T23:43:11Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Er, this is the first I’ve ever heard it _hinted_ that babies and idiots don’t have free will. Really? You’ve never heard someone argue that a person shouldn’t be held responsible for his crimes by reason of insanity or mental impairment? You’ve never heard of juveniles getting lighter sentences than adults based on the argument that “they don’t know better”? You’ve never heard someone try to excuse their behavior by saying they were drunk, sleep-waking, or blind with rage at the time? If you have heard these things, then you’ve heard “hints”. > [@](#): > > And I wouldn’t expect (or believe) that most people would or even _could_ give a right and complete explanation for why they do things. Exactly. So why should we believe these people when they say they have free will? If they are so wrong so frequently, why should we trust they know what the hell is going on in their own cognition? Compare these statements: “I don’t know why I killed that person, Your Honor. I was insane at the time. Please spare me.” “I don’t know why I killed that person, Your Honor. But because I believe in free will, I guess I performed an act of free will? What do you think?” I think if you say you’re committing an act through your own “will”, you know good and well why you’re committing it. Otherwise you’re functionally no different than a puppet on a string. A slave to your subconscious–like someone who has been hypnotized. Do you think a hypnotized person has free will? > [@](#): > > I think your definition of “free will” is far, _far_ more restrictive than most other people’s. That may be. But if free will was as simple as the majority of posters seem to think it is, why has it been the subject of debate for so long? Volition is pretty self-evident and thus not worth caring about. But the ability to carry out actions completely independent of external factors and events is a different matter all together. This is what “free will” means to people who spend a lot of time thinking about it. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2019, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-atheists-here-who-believe-in-free-will/838240/64 "2019-08-06T23:45:13Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > Because when I hear someone making an appeal to free will, I assume they are arguing that they have the ability to operate however they want (the third hypothesis), no matter what variables they are operating under. If they make a stupid choice, it’s because they made a stupid choice. It’s not because they were under the control of environmental factors X, Y, and Z interacting with the biological factors 1,2, and 3. And when I hear people talking about free will, I assume they’re saying that the free-willed person is able to make decisions based on _available knowledge_ without their decision-making process being interfered with by outside manipulation. I would consider “are my pants tight” to be part of available knowledge. The fact that somebody acts differently depending on whether they like the song on the radio or not doesn’t show they don’t have free will; it shows that they have varying preferences for various stimuli and react differently to the stimuli depending on their preferences and the current situation as they perceive it. There’s absolutely nothing in that that conflicts with any version of free will that I’m aware of, except maybe yours. > [@monstro](#): > > I gave my definitions. What are yours? Free will = “Sentient external forces aren’t controlling decision-making process with an aim to alter my outcomes to match their intentions.” ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2019, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-atheists-here-who-believe-in-free-will/838240/65 "2019-08-06T23:56:07Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > Really? You’ve never heard someone argue that a person shouldn’t be held responsible for his crimes by reason of insanity or mental impairment? You’ve never heard of juveniles getting lighter sentences than adults based on the argument that “they don’t know better”? > > You’ve never heard someone try to excuse their behavior by saying they were drunk, sleep-waking, or blind with rage at the time? > > If you have heard these things, then you’ve heard “hints”. None of that has _anything at all_ to do with free will. Not even slightly. I’m really having a hard time even articulating your version of free will. It’s like you think that when a person is annoyed, free will shuts off on account of…what? Free will only being possible if you’re coldly logical or free of emotion? > [@monstro](#): > > Exactly. So why should we believe these people when they say they have free will? If they are so wrong so frequently, why should we trust they know what the hell is going on in their own cognition? > > Compare these statements: > > “I don’t know why I killed that person, Your Honor. I was insane at the time. Please spare me.” > > “I don’t know why I killed that person, Your Honor. But because I believe in free will, I guess I performed an act of free will? What do you think?” Free will has nothing whatsoever do to with people being _logical_. > [@monstro](#): > > I think if you say you’re committing an act through your own “will”, you know good and well why you’re committing it. Otherwise you’re functionally no different than a puppet on a string. A slave to your subconscious–like someone who has been hypnotized. Do you think a hypnotized person has free will? _Your subconsciousness is not a different person from you._ Look. You have a head. (Or at least I assume you do.) Inside that head is your brain. That brain is _you_. What your brain decides to do, you decide to do. Getting drunk doesn’t mean that _alcohol has gained sentience and taken control of your body._ Being a little sleepy doesn’t mean you’re possessed by a demon. Altered mental states can make you confused (possibly to the point where people see no justice in holding you culpable), but they don’t imply that you have had control of your will taken over by an external entity. > [@monstro](#): > > That may be. But if free will was as simple as the majority of posters seem to think it is, why has it been the subject of debate for so long? Volition is pretty self-evident and thus not worth caring about. But the ability to carry out actions completely independent of external factors and events is a different matter all together. This is what “free will” means to people who spend a lot of time thinking about it. Free will has been the subject of debate for so long because people disagree about the definitions. You see that stopping? ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2019, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-atheists-here-who-believe-in-free-will/838240/66 "2019-08-07T00:02:22Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > And when I hear people talking about free will, I assume they’re saying that the free-willed person is able to make decisions based on _available knowledge_ without their decision-making process being interfered with by outside manipulation. I would consider “are my pants tight” to be part of available knowledge. And what if a person isn’t aware that those tight pants are negatively impacting their blood circulation, resulting in inefficient cerebral metabolism, resulting in poor decision-making? How does this get factored into a “free will” framework? > [@](#): > > The fact that somebody acts differently depending on whether they like the song on the radio or not doesn’t show they don’t have free will; it shows that they have varying preferences for various stimuli and react differently to the stimuli depending on their preferences and the current situation as they perceive it. Without any evidence, you are presuming that the song on the radio is the best predictor. Perhaps it is the car temp +pants snugness + bladder fullness that predicts whether **Dinsdale** gets so distracted he misses the red light. Is this evidence of free will or it is evidence that **Dinsdale** is an entity whose behavior can be predicted as long as you collect enough information about him? > [@](#): > > There’s absolutely nothing in that that conflicts with any version of free will that I’m aware of, except maybe yours. I disagree. :shrug\* > [@](#): > > Free will = “Sentient external forces aren’t controlling decision-making process with an aim to alter my outcomes to match their intentions.” You will not find a definition in any scholarly text that matches this definition. No one claims that an amoeba is governed by “sentient” forces. But 99% of people think that amoebas lack free will. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2019, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-atheists-here-who-believe-in-free-will/838240/67 "2019-08-07T00:28:13Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Laplace’s Demon argues that if the universe operates deterministically then all outcomes are predictable if sufficient knowledge is available. And I agree. I think that people _are_ fully deterministic, and that they _would_ be fully predictable if a Demon (like, say, God) had full knowledge of literally everything about the present state of the universe. > > The thing is, though, I don’t consider that to be a problem. Because, like I said, people _manifestly_ make decisions based on preference. If you offer me choice between eating a fresh strawberry or a fresh ghost pepper, I will pick the strawberry _100% of the time_. My decisions can be predicted if you know me well. But that doesn’t mean I’m not making decisions freely - only a complete idiot would say that free will means that your own preferences aren’t included in your decision process. > > Just because your will is predictable doesn’t mean it isn’t free. You are either using an unorthodox definition of “decision” or you are using the word “predictable” in two different senses. Laplace’s demon doesn’t just know you well, it knows every single particle that makes you, and all of their velocities and other properties. The demon can predict exactly how you will behave at every instant in the future. This isn’t at all the kind of prediction such as, I like strawberries more than ghost peppers, so I will always pick strawberries. When you say that you have “preferences” and that those preferences influence your decision, and make you predictable, that is totally different than saying a demon can literally predict the future. It’s like you are a character in a fictional movie, and the demon is watching your movie for the fifth time. Sure, your character has a choice… maybe you have a backstory which says you don’t like ghost peppers as much as strawberries. But the demon isn’t going by your backstory, it is going by the fact that it already knows what you are going to do because it has already seen the film. Your backstory might not even be part of the film. In this allegory, the movie is fictional, therefore the choices of your character are fictional, too. Overall, I think you are missing the implications of predeterminism. If the physical state of the universe at the next instant _state[SUB]next[/SUB]_ can always be determined by the physical state of the universe now _state[SUB]current[/SUB]_, and such a chain of causation extends back ad infinitum, then no matter what “choice” you think you can make now, the universe will always reach _state[SUB]next[/SUB]_=_strawberries_ in the next instant. It may _seem_ that you are given a choice between a ghost peppers and strawberries, but ultimately it is a choice that is pre-determined. It is physically impossible for you to choose ghost peppers tomorrow, or possibly to want to choose ghost peppers. How is that a choice at all? So what you may wonder? What happens when instead of you “choosing” between ghost peppers and strawberries, it is a mass murderer “choosing” to shoot schoolchildren? I’m not talking about the old environment versus character debate, but the implication is that it is physically predetermined that a certain person would shoot and kill twenty children at Sandy Hook Elementary; that the murderer may have thought he had a choice, but in reality he did not and those children were doomed to gruesome deaths from the day they were born. When we talk about the implications of hard- or causal determinism, these are the sort of things that make people say “it can’t be that way”. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2019, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-atheists-here-who-believe-in-free-will/838240/68 "2019-08-07T00:46:01Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > Really? You’ve never heard someone argue that a person shouldn’t be held responsible for his crimes by reason of insanity or mental impairment? You’ve never heard of juveniles getting lighter sentences than adults based on the argument that “they don’t know better”? > > You’ve never heard someone try to excuse their behavior by saying they were drunk, sleep-waking, or blind with rage at the time? > > If you have heard these things, then you’ve heard “hints”. > [@begbert2](#): > > None of that has anything at all to do with free will. Not even slightly. Oh really? [Free will and the Criminal Justice System](https://www.orlandocriminaldefenseattorneyblog.com/free-will-determinism-criminal-justice-system/) [Free will and psychiatric assessments of criminal responsibility: a parallel with informed consent](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2949553/) [Neuroscience, Free Will, and CriminalResponsibility](https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2605&context=faculty_scholarship) [The Illusion of Free Will and Mental Illness Stigma](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-skeptical-shrink/201603/the-illusion-free-will-and-mental-illness-stigma) [Human Biology and Criminal Responsibility: Free Will or Free Ride?](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1390331) [073003JONES.DOC09/03/034:55 PMOVERCOMING THE MYTH OF FREE WILL INCRIMINAL LAW: THE TRUE IMPACT OF THEGENETIC REVOLUTION](https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1187&context=dlj) You can disagree with me all you want, but it is wrong to argue that nothing I’ve said relates to free will–or more precisely, how plenty of people through history have conceptualized free will. If you continue to dismiss me like this, I will be compelled to ignore you since I don’t want to spend a whole lot of time educating you on the entirety of the discourse. > [@begbert2](#): > > I’m really having a hard time even articulating your version of free will. It’s like you think that when a person is annoyed, free will shuts off on account of…what? Free will only being possible if you’re coldly logical or free of emotion? You don’t understand what I’m talking about if you think I’ve been talking about “free will shutting off”. So maybe you need to stop lecturing me about what is and isn’t free will (and so confidently!) and simply ask for clarification. To clarify (since you’re confused): I think the notion of free will that most people have is bullshit. That notion being that we can make decisions free (free is supposed to mean something!!) from biological constraints, both known and unknown. And no, I don’t consider all of one’s brain to be _them_. No one really does. No one pats themselves on the back for their awesome peristalasis. The brain does all matter of things a person isn’t aware of, that they aren’t in control of. I personally think that is a disingenuous cop-out to argue that involuntary processes are free will. Because that means humans are no different than amoebas in the will department. And no one believes we make have the same will as amoebas. The whole “free will” concept was invented so we could see ourselves differently (better than) all other life forms. The concept is used to distinguish organisms that do things “unthinkingly” from those that do. And it has been logically extended to distinguish people with impairments or undeveloped executive functioning from healthy, mature individuals. I’m sorry if this is all brand new to you, but that’s really not my problem. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2019, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-atheists-here-who-believe-in-free-will/838240/69 "2019-08-07T01:14:18Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > I gave my definitions. What are yours? The one I already delivered that you said was all over the place. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2019, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-atheists-here-who-believe-in-free-will/838240/70 "2019-08-07T01:35:04Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > The one I already delivered that you said was all over the place. So you can’t come up with something more coherent? ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2019, 10:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-atheists-here-who-believe-in-free-will/838240/72 "2019-08-07T10:35:42Z")
> [@mark10](#): > > I think one of the major reasons why Atheists exist is because they wanted freewill. So, every Atheists believed in freewill, that is why they are one in the first place. I’m not sure this will be fruitful, but there are Atheists _in this very thread_ that don’t believe free will exists (I’m not sure why you capitalize that). So, please provide a cite for your claim, since it seems pretty much disproven by this very thread. I didn’t become an atheist so I could believe in free will – I was never brought up in any belief system so never had any belief in the supernatural. Believe me, when I was 5 years old, I wasn’t thinking about free will, its existence or not, and the implications of such. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2019, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-atheists-here-who-believe-in-free-will/838240/73 "2019-08-07T12:08:59Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > I will tell you what I infer from the statement “I have free will”. > > I surmise that someone saying this means that they believe when they perform an action (i.e., make a choice), they are exerting their conscious will. They consciously deliberated the pros and cons of that action and consciously determined that they selected the wisest course. They didn’t just “randomly” act. They didn’t carry out that act like how an automaton, a puppet, or hypnotized person might carry out that act. When they give an explanation for why they performed that act, that is always the right explanation since they were fully aware of all the information that compelled them to make that choice and nothing external to their consciousness (i.e., their environment and biology) forced their hand. No, we don’t make conscious choices for ever single action we take. But at some point in the past we did make those choices. Consider the act of typing. You don’t consciously decide which key to hit, with which finger, and with which degree of pressure. But remember when you first used a keyboard, you actually did make these conscious choices. You had to find each key and decide which finger to strike it with. But after a while, with enough repetition, your subconscious took over, and you remembered having made the same choices over and over. So thanks to your subconscious memory, you no longer had to made the same choices. Or remember the first time you drove a car. You had to make so many choices, they seemed overwhelming. But now when you drive, most of the time your subconscious takes over, and you’re not at all conscious of what you’re doing. But if an exception happens - if you have to type a special character, or if you have to pull over to allow an ambulance to pass - that’s when your consciousness kicks in and overrides the automatic decisions of the subconscious. But none of this violates the principal of free will. Even when your typing or driving seems to be automatic, it’s all based on conscious decisions you made in the past, decisions that due to repetition your subconscious has made automatic. > [@monstro](#): > > Because when I hear someone making an appeal to free will, I assume they are arguing that they have the ability to operate however they want (the third hypothesis), no matter what variables they are operating under. If they make a stupid choice, it’s because they made a stupid choice. It’s not because they were under the control of environmental factors X, Y, and Z interacting with the biological factors 1,2, and 3. Like everything else in the universe, free will is contextual. You don’t have the free will to swim somewhere if you’re not near any water, or if you’re paralyzed. Free will is the subset of the reality within which it operates. But it’s not that reality that determines your choices. Even if your choice is limited to “think or not think”, you are still the agent that makes that choice. In fact, that’s the fundamental choice you will ever make. ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2019, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-atheists-here-who-believe-in-free-will/838240/74 "2019-08-07T12:12:50Z")
If you are an atheist, that means you believe that there is no entity or “power” that plans or determines anything. So, wouldn’t you have to believe in “free will” by default? I mean, if you aren’t calling the shots in life, who or what is? ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2019, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-atheists-here-who-believe-in-free-will/838240/75 "2019-08-07T12:21:10Z")
> [@Jasmine](#): > > If you are an atheist, that means you believe that there is no entity or “power” that plans or determines anything. So, wouldn’t you have to believe in “free will” by default? I mean, if you aren’t calling the shots in life, who or what is? Physics and chemistry? Does a bacterium have free will? A plant? Who calls the shots when a plant angles itself towards the sunlight? ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2019, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-atheists-here-who-believe-in-free-will/838240/76 "2019-08-07T12:47:02Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > There’s absolutely nothing in that that conflicts with any version of free will that I’m aware of, except maybe yours. **begbert2** , I agreed with everything you’ve said in this thread, up to this point. Because “free will” is actually defined in lots of ways, and is the root of the whole problem. 1. Mostly, people just define it in a very vague way that doesn’t really mean anything e.g. “Could have chosen differently” 2. But others define it in a self-contradictory way. e.g. Implying that free will cannot be causally connected to the past, but that random events also don’t count. So…a reasoned decision that cannot be based on any reasons (which would link it to the past). 3. Then finally of course you have the baggage of religion. Free will is often used as a defence against the problem of evil; God is not culpable in any way because…free will. This kind of free will is based on the listener being satisfied enough to not bother to think about what free will is, how decisions are made and how it therefore absolves God of responsibility. Any attempt to do so and it falls apart. From my point of view it is so frustrating, because it will forever be considered as one of the great problems of philosophy. And yet, the whole problem is down to loose or self-contradictory definitions. Every coherent definition for free will I have seen, free will either trivially does or does not exist, based on the definition, and there is no debate. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2019, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-atheists-here-who-believe-in-free-will/838240/77 "2019-08-07T13:51:40Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > No, we don’t make conscious choices for ever single action we take. But at some point in the past we did make those choices. Consider the act of typing. You don’t consciously decide which key to hit, with which finger, and with which degree of pressure. But remember when you first used a keyboard, you actually did make these conscious choices. You had to find each key and decide which finger to strike it with. But after a while, with enough repetition, your subconscious took over, and you remembered having made the same choices over and over. So thanks to your subconscious memory, you no longer had to made the same choices. So all this tells me is that sometimes I have awareness of what I do and sometimes I do not. Sometimes I have the sensation of making deliberate decisions and sometimes I don’t. None of this points to free will. > [@](#): > > Or remember the first time you drove a car. You had to make so many choices, they seemed overwhelming. But now when you drive, most of the time your subconscious takes over, and you’re not at all conscious of what you’re doing. I infer from this that consciousness is not only unnecessary to carry out actions, but it can actually hinder actions. What I don’t infer is that we have free will. > [@](#): > > But if an exception happens - if you have to type a special character, or if you have to pull over to allow an ambulance to pass - that’s when your consciousness kicks in and overrides the automatic decisions of the subconscious. All this tells me is that my consciousness is always on stand-by. It doesn’t tell me anything about the process I used to come to decisions. If I am driving along a road on mental automatic and then suddenly a deer darts out into my path, which comes first: my awareness of the deer or my foot pressing on the brake? I have not tested this out, but I am guessing that a video camera would catch me moving my foot before the time I would report being aware of the deer. Now if this hypothesis is true, if I don’t stop in time to avoid hitting the deer, who is to blame? The conscious part of me–the one who likes to brag about making only smart, responsible decisions? Or the reptilian part of me that I have no awareness of, that does stuff I have no awareness of, that doesn’t brag since reptiles can’t speak? > [@](#): > > But none of this violates the principal of free will. Even when your typing or driving seems to be automatic, it’s all based on conscious decisions you made in the past, decisions that due to repetition your subconscious has made automatic. You are presuming that your conscious is working independently of your subconscious. You are presuming that your conscious is the thing feeding information to your subconscious rather the other way around. These are presumptions without evidence. I think the thing that I call my consciousness is just a tiny window into my cognition. Like, sometimes I am conscious of the content of my dreams, but I know I have had many dreams that left no mark on my consciousness since I have no memory of them. However, I don’t assume that means those unremembered dreams aren’t influencing my behavior. There have been many instances where I have gotten out of bed in a foul mood. At no time in the middle of the night did I consciously plan for that to happen. But it happens. So I gotta think that whatever happened “behind the scenes” of my consciousness is directly responsible. That is the control center, not my consciousness. So if it is my subconscious that is setting the initial stage for all subsequent thoughts and actions, at what point can I say I was in conscious control of anything? I can make guesses, but that is all they would be. I can’t objectively know when conscious me is in control or reptile me is. So instead of thinking I have some ability I can never know I have, I assume I don’t. And somehow I am still a happy, high-functioning, non-nihilistic individual. > [@](#): > > Like everything else in the universe, free will is contextual. You don’t have the free will to swim somewhere if you’re not near any water, or if you’re paralyzed. Free will is the subset of the reality within which it operates. But it’s not that reality that determines your choices. Even if your choice is limited to “think or not think”, you are still the agent that makes that choice. In fact, that’s the fundamental choice you will ever make. I have never been able to “not think” on command. I have never been able to “not feel” on command. I have experienced the sensation of making myself think and feel certain things. But I have no way of knowing whether these are not merely illusions. My brain creates illusions and delusions all the time. For all I know, when it seems I have successfully convinced myself I am looking cute today just by saying it enough times, really what did the trick was my repitilian brain waking me up this morning with an extra infusion of oxytocin in my blood stream. So why do I pat myself on the back for having the self-discipline to recite mantras? Because I have been programmed to think that I can make myself act and feel “right” just through sheer will. Almost everyone has been programmed to think like this. But perhaps if we were programmed to think of ourselves as walking bags of hormones and nerve impulses, we would be more humble. As a determinist, if someone were to ask me why I have such great self esteem, I would start off by saying I don’t know and then rattle off some guesses. A stereotypical free willer (which may not describe you) would give a more confident response. A free willer is more likely to advise a person with low self-esteem with a platitude like "just believe in yourself!"than a determinist is. A determinist is more likely to prescribe certain re-programming tricks (like CBT) that get at the root problems–which are typically buried in the subconscious. A someone who says they believe in free will, but who leans more on re-programming approaches than “just try harder!” solutions, is a functional determinist. Sent from my moto x4 using Tapatalk ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2019, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-atheists-here-who-believe-in-free-will/838240/78 "2019-08-07T14:01:02Z")
> [@Jasmine](#): > > If you are an atheist, that means you believe that there is no entity or “power” that plans or determines anything. So, wouldn’t you have to believe in “free will” by default? I mean, if you aren’t calling the shots in life, who or what is? Free will means being able to act freely independent of initial conditions. It does not just mean the ability to act independent of an “entity” or “power”. So no, I don’t think free will is the default. Sent from my moto x4 using Tapatalk ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2019, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-atheists-here-who-believe-in-free-will/838240/79 "2019-08-07T14:08:24Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > I think this severely conflicts with the atheistic view towards God. It is like arguing that because the universe is so complex that is impossible to develop a unifying theory to explain everything in it, we may as well assume God exists." Sure, if that’s where your trillions of neural pathways take you based on the inputs you have received. As far as I know, the atheistic view toward God is that there is no evidence of such a thing, whereas we do know that brains exist and have some idea of how complex they are. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2019, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-atheists-here-who-believe-in-free-will/838240/80 "2019-08-07T14:14:12Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Sure, if that’s where your trillions of neural pathways take you based on the inputs you have received. As far as I know, the atheistic view toward God is that there is no evidence of such a thing, whereas we do know that brains exist and have some idea of how complex they are. But how does a complex brain equate to free will? We have complex computers. We may as well say they have free will, right? Well, no, because someone knows how they work and understands their programming. One day our complex brains may cease to be a mystery to us. If this happens, do you think people will still conclude we may as well believe in free will, or do you think they will adopt a different ideological framework? Sent from my moto x4 using Tapatalk ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2019, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-atheists-here-who-believe-in-free-will/838240/81 "2019-08-07T14:37:49Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > But how does a complex brain equate to free will? Only in the sense of being indistinguishable in practice, like a computer-generated pseudorandom sequence being indistinguishable from a million dice-rolls. I’m not using the complexity of the brain to prove free will, I just argue that the complexity of the brain (relative to our current understanding of its mechanics and probably our future understanding for at least the next several decades) means we may as well act as if it operates by free will. > [@](#): > > We have complex computers. We may as well say they have free will, right? Well, no, because someone knows how they work and understands their programming. Even this is slipping away from us, with computer systems becoming sufficiently complex that no human can grasp how they overall work. (reference: [CGP Grey, “How Machines Learn”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9OHn5ZF4Uo)) > [@](#): > > One day our complex brains may cease to be a mystery to us. If this happens, do you think people will still conclude we may as well believe in free will, or do you think they will adopt a different ideological framework? I think at that point, “free will” as a concept will probably be abandoned. Arguably, humanity will have to do this at some point to ensure its long-term survival, since without some significant tinkering with human instinct, future technology will empower psychopaths to kill millions the way contemporary psychopaths use modern firearms to kill dozens. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-atheists-here-who-believe-in-free-will/838240.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-atheists-here-who-believe-in-free-will/838240.md?page=5)