Any atheists here who believe in free will?

[Knowed_Out]

OP: to clarify, are you advocating that sense God gave everyone free will, atheists shouldn’t be able to refute it because it actually exists?

[begbert2]

@Knowed_Out

OP: to clarify, are you advocating that sense God gave everyone free will, atheists shouldn’t be able to refute it because it actually exists?

It doesn’t sound like that; it more sounds like he’s proposing his own idea of how free will might work, something that supposedly would be functional within an atheist worldview. Way back in this post he said

@KidCharlemagne

Free will, from a Newtonian perspective, would outright violate the laws of physics (let’s forget quantum mechanics just for a minute). In order for there to be a decision via free will, some chemical reaction in the brain must have taken place that wouldn’t have taken place otherwise. If it was simply reacting according to known laws, then it wasn’t free will. I’m talking here about the very genesis of the decision, not the resulting chain of reactions (that may very well follow the laws of nature). But at that moment of free decision, some chemical reaction must have been stopped or started by something that violates the laws of chemistry.

So he wants decisions to be made by something that violates the laws of physics/chemistry, which sure sounds like it could be an appeal to souls, doesn’t it? However he then proceeds to argue that quantum mechanics are the source of the decision making, presumably via QM having some sort of sentience or something. I didn’t really attempt to follow that too closely myself; it makes little sense to me that decisions can be made by anything that doesn’t have access to (and an understanding of) all the mental state. And in a non-spiritualist model all that can safely be assumed to be being stored in the brain, not in the quantum layer or whatever.

[kevlaw]

@KidCharlemagne

So are there any atheist Dopers out there who believe in free will who have an argument any better than “because life would be intolerable otherwise?”

Atheist here. I believe in free will.

@KidCharlemagne

I remember being appalled by Richard Dawkin’s comments in an interview wherein he said he believed in free will because “life would be intolerable otherwise” and that the notion of free will “is just an inconsistency we’d have to live with.” I was stunned how little he had thought about it.

I don’t have access to the interview you mention, but I expect that Professor Dawkins has thought a great deal about free will. He is usually very thoughtful on issues like this. I can understand that you might be disappointed if he didn’t go into his reasons in great detail in a short media interview though.

I don’t know Professor Dawkins’ reasons but I’ll describe mine as best as I can. Let’s get some assumptions out of the way first.

I have a naturalistic worldview without supernatural or mystical elements. I worship no God of the Gaps and I reject souls of all kinds. There might be a Science of the Gaps though and I’ll get to that in a moment.

I don’t believe that compatibilism does anything but redefine some common words. It’s just warmed over determinism. Determinism is not compatible with free will.
As far as I know, physics gives us only two options to explain how things happen the way they do.

1. Randomness at the quantum level.
2. Cause and effect at the macro level.

In other words, settled science tells us that our actions are either pre-determined or they are random and neither of these options leaves room for free will. But — and here’s the science of the gaps bit — at the end of the 19th century, scientists thought they were almost done with physics and just a handful of gaps remained that would be explained once they found evidence of the ether. Twenty years later, there was a whole new paradigm for science and all the old certainties were swept away. I don’t expect that we will solve the problem of free will until we find a new paradigm.

So what will this paradigm look like? I think there are a few options.

The most promising among them is the discovery that Epicurus had it right with his Theory of The Swerve and that uncaused brain activity can have some causal effect on the path of sub-atomic articles. No one has found this yet but then, no one has looked for it either. They didn’t find the Higgs boson until they looked. Wouldn’t it be funny if they find it in the pineal gland?

Also promising is the idea that reductionism is inadequate to explain how lower levels of abstraction apply at higher levels. Chaos Theory is a recently discovered paradigm that addresses this problem. Maybe we’ll find another one that makes room for free will in the gaps between layers of abstraction. I don’t believe that Manchester United beating Chelsea four-nil on Sunday was pre-determined and I don’t believe that it was random either. We don’t have a good theory to explain it yet but I bet we find one one day and I bet it has something to do with the mind of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.
The best evidence for free will is that some people seem to have more of it than others. Some people seem compelled to do things that are harmful to themselves and others manage to avoid them. Some people are able to exercise restraint and self-discipline and make choices that result in better outcomes.

A trip to the zoo shows more of the same. The lower animals seem to respond entirely to triggers. As you get closer to our branch of the evolutionary tree, animals seem to have more intentions and more agency to effect them. They are able to plan for specific outcomes rather than just reacting to their environment. Higher animals have more options and make more choices.

Free will versus determined is not just a binary choice between two options. They exist along a spectrum that goes from carnivorous crickets that will eat their own guts given the right feeding trigger to Lionel Messi who seems to conjure up new options from thin air.

Admittedly, Libertarians like me are currently stuck with a paradox but the determinists are not entirely paradox-free. As far as I can tell, determinists necessarily reject justice, merit, blame, good, evil and all of the other things that make life worth living. Note that I am not appealing to consequences here. I’m claiming that the determinist’s worldview is riddled with paradoxes and inconsistencies where my side has only one small paradox to sort out.

This Atlantic article, for example, argues that even though free will is an illusion, we should continue to teach that free will is real because…

It seems that when people stop believing they are free agents, they stop seeing themselves as blameworthy for their actions. Consequently, they act less responsibly and give in to their baser instincts.

This presupposes that we have a choice in whether to teach or not to teach that free will is real. The argument is self-refuting. If free will is real, it’s real. If it’s not real, we have no choice in what we teach. I’ve never heard a determinist address this paradox.

Determinists live, love and administer justice as though they have free will. They say it’s just an illusion but we need to keep it a secret because, otherwise, society will apart. They say this as though they have a choice and they say it with no apparent irony.

From the same article,

In fact, belief in free will turned out to be a better predictor of job performance than established measures such as self-professed work ethic.

and

For example, he and colleagues found that students with a weaker belief in free will were less likely to volunteer their time to help a classmate than were those whose belief in free will was stronger. Likewise, those primed to hold a deterministic view by reading statements like “Science has demonstrated that free will is an illusion” were less likely to give money to a homeless person or lend someone a cellphone.

I sometimes wonder if determinists are all psychopaths who really do have less free will than the rest of us. Or perhaps they are perpetual underachievers who cling conveniently to a story that absolves them from blame.

Still, if the determinists are right—and free will really does not exist—they deserve no credit for being right and I deserve no blame for being wrong. In fact, those words would have no meaning.

[Gukumatz]

Strange question to ponder. (Thanks!)

Is my brain deterministic? The amount of input to consider is so enormous that every human being is a n=1 experiment. A universe without free will would be indistinguishable from a universe with it.

[begbert2]

@kevlaw

I don’t believe that compatibilism does anything but redefine some common words. It’s just warmed over determinism. Determinism is not compatible with free will.

Well, one of the words we redefine is “free will”. Doing that really does change the picture somewhat - among other things, determinism is totally compatible with free will (as we define it).

@kevlaw

As far as I know, physics gives us only two options to explain how things happen the way they do.

1. Randomness at the quantum level.
2. Cause and effect at the macro level.

In other words, settled science tells us that our actions are either pre-determined or they are random and neither of these options leaves room for free will. But — and here’s the science of the gaps bit — at the end of the 19th century, scientists thought they were almost done with physics and just a handful of gaps remained that would be explained once they found evidence of the ether. Twenty years later, there was a whole new paradigm for science and all the old certainties were swept away. I don’t expect that we will solve the problem of free will until we find a new paradigm.

Under my view of the universe, the two options we have are actually:

1. Randomness at any level, from any source.
2. Cause and effect at any level, from any source.

I don’t care if your cause and effect is happening with subatomic particles, and I don’t care if your randomity is coming out of a random number generator the size of a house. It doesn’t even matter if the randomity/causes are coming from outside puppetmasters or supernatural entities. It’s not about where it’s from at all; it’s about whether the outcomes are determined by the prior state of something somewhere, or whether they’re not (and thus are completely random).

And given that that’s an A ∨ ¬A situation, I don’t see room for any gaps. No matter what is invented, discovered or imagined, I see no space for Free Will Particles to leak through.

@kevlaw

The best evidence for free will is that some people seem to have more of it than others. Some people seem compelled to do things that are harmful to themselves and others manage to avoid them. Some people are able to exercise restraint and self-discipline and make choices that result in better outcomes.

A trip to the zoo shows more of the same. The lower animals seem to respond entirely to triggers. As you get closer to our branch of the evolutionary tree, animals seem to have more intentions and more agency to effect them. They are able to plan for specific outcomes rather than just reacting to their environment. Higher animals have more options and make more choices.

To me that just looks like varying levels of complexity, and varying levels of range in tolerable preferences. There are a lot of restaurants that I and my friend go to where he loves half the things on the menu, but there’s only one thing on there I’ll eat. (I am such an accommodating guy.) To an outside observer that looks like I have way less free will than he does, but it really comes down to me seeing a different world than he does due to my differing preferences. He sees a menu of tasty; I see a menu full of messiness and spice.

@kevlaw

Admittedly, Libertarians like me are currently stuck with a paradox but the determinists are not entirely paradox-free. As far as I can tell, determinists necessarily reject justice, merit, blame, good, evil and all of the other things that make life worth living. Note that I am not appealing to consequences here. I’m claiming that the determinist’s worldview is riddled with paradoxes and inconsistencies where my side has only one small paradox to sort out.

Dunno about the non-compatiblist determinists out there, but this compatiblist at least simply perceives the operation of choice and will differently than you do. Within my compatiblist framework justice, merit, blame, good, and evil all are accepted and reasonable and recognized things, and so are cookies, which are what make life worth living.

[Max_S]

@begbert2

Falsifiable claims are just claims that can be proven wrong one way or the other. The term tends to be associated with physicality because the bulk of important non-falsifiable statements in common parlance are about things that nobody can show to exist, but the term is not limited to the non-material, and being nonmaterial doesn’t mean that statements about you are nonfalsifiable.

Personally I have a different definition of falsifiability but I see no harm in adopting yours. We can go back to [POST=21801129]post #128[/POST] where I wrote:

@Max_S

@begbert2

Minds demonstrate a reasonable consistency of state - they change, but not with wild randomity. It’s a flow from one state to another based on causes that drive it from one state to another; it’s not like static snow on a screen without a signal, where the random mess of static one moment is completely unrelated to the snow a moment before.

It does not follow. Just because minds do not change with “wild randomity”, doesn’t mean every change in state flows from a cause. For example, a nonmaterial mind may change randomly for no cause, but still never change with wild randomity. How could you know? Nonmaterial claims are nonfalsifiable. This marks the first assumption: every change in mental state flows from a cause.

Also note that the causes themselves can be random or otherwise nondeterministic, regardless of whether the causes are physical or nonphysical in nature.

If I may now revise that:
It does not follow. Just because minds do not change with “wild randomity”, doesn’t mean every change in state flows from a cause. For example, a nonmaterial mind may change state randomly for no cause, but still never change with wild randomity. How could you know? You cannot directly examine a nonmaterial mental state. You cannot apply the laws of physics to the nonmaterial substance, so you cannot possibly test a hypothesis concerning the inner workings of the mind. As such, your claim that minds “flow from one state to another based on causes” is not a testable claim, and cannot possibly be disproven by science. This marks the first assumption: every change in mental state flows from a cause.
Also note that the causes themselves can be random or otherwise nondeterministic, regardless of whether the causes are physical or nonphysical in nature.

@begbert2

Being a theorized nonmaterial entity/object doesn’t make something immune from being logic’d about and even disproven, no matter how much people might wish that was the case.

Agreed.

@begbert2

Naah, my argument is fine with my mind being the only mind in existence. I’m only making an argument about all the minds that work the way that I observe my mind to work. If solipsism happens to be true, my argument is content to merely prove that my mind (the only mind!) operates in a functionally deterministic way such that free will and choice cannot sensibly rely on nondeterministic factors.

I mean, if I have the only mind in existence, then that’s all the free will there is to talk about, right?

Alright.

@begbert2

Tell you what - I’m willing to be entirely unconcerned with cases where small random perturbations damage the stability of any part of mental state, because I recognize that logically it makes no damn sense to consider any introduction of randomity as an addition of will.

I disagree. Randomity is merely the lack of a definite pattern or method. Random is the exact opposite of deterministic. I touched on this before, but if a God-like entity is above physics, it is random by definition. Free will without a random element is not free will at all.

@begbert2

It doesn’t matter if randomity is slightly screwing with your ability to make decisions, or if it’s slightly screwing with your ability to remember things, or if it’s slightly screwing with your ability to clearly read your senses. There could be small random perturbations all over the place - we just know that for most people (which is to say me, since as you say we’re all solipsists here) the amount of randomity isn’t sufficient to upend the entire apple cart. I mean, I’m not senile, not yet anyway.

Don’t confuse randomness with equiprobability. Equiprobability (equal probability) leads to chaos and is only one form of randomness. Equiprobability is wild randomity. Randomness is not necessarily wild. If there’s a general pattern, but the pattern is not 100% predictable, that is still randomness. If things usually happen for physical reasons, but sometimes happen for no reason at all, that is still randomness. If random things happen, but the results are strictly confined to a number of physically valid outcomes (assuming multiple solutions are possible), that is still randomness.

Just because your mind isn’t constantly effecting chaotic physical changes, doesn’t mean your mind isn’t random.

@begbert2

And we are talking about damage here. In a discussion like this one where I’m not restricting myself to minds located in the physical universe, non-determinism only comes in one flavor: not determined by anything, be it physics, souls, or gods. Pure randomity. That’s what non-determinism means: randomity. Pure mindless randomity.

What is wrong with souls or gods being the agent of randomness? If a soul has the power to effect an alternate reality, to actually make a single choice or not, and if the soul can make this choice freely, and is not absolutely bound to one choice, then the soul acts randomly, the soul has free will, and reality is nondeterministic. The same goes for a god, if you replace “soul” with “god”. I build this argument a priori.

@begbert2

And I have no idea why you thing I’m talking about equprobablity. I’m quite confident I never mentioned the term; I can’t even spell it.

I have a strong feeling that what you call random, I call chaotic. To me, random and non-deterministic are synonyms. Random does not mean “nobody gets to choose”, that would be physical randomness. Maybe I need to ask. What exactly do you mean when you say random?

@begbert2

In any case I’m willing to ratchet back my assertions about where randomity is in the mind - I’m willing to allow that there is a constant hiss of random static all throughout the mind everywhere, conditioned on the realization that its effect on cognition is contained and very close to nil. The static doesn’t wipe out the thoughts, it doesn’t erase the emotions, it doesn’t fuzz out the opinions, it doesn’t snow away all the knowledge and memories. Not immediately, anyway.

So there are limitations on how random the mind can “act”. That’s fine. Any physical effects have to follow the laws of physics. It does not follow that randomness is inconsequential, iff the laws of physics allow for multiple solutions AND reality does not constantly split into multiple Schrödinger-esque universes.

@begbert2

Dude, I’ve been trying very hard (and imperfectly) to keep the physicalness out of it. I’m talking about how minds observably work, regardless of where they’re housed. And when I define “cognition” I only mean “that thing that’s doing the thinking and decision-making that I’m clearly observing to be happening”. If your definition is incompatible with that, then I’m not sure what discussion we’re even having.

I can use that definition for cognition. That is also the definition I use for the mind. If we go back to [POST=21801994]post #134[/POST], you wrote:

@begbert2

Again, this conclusion is based on observation of behavior - we know randomity is not a major part of human cognition because minds don’t act random.

Now, I replace “cognition” with “mind”:

@begbert2

Again, this conclusion is based on observation of behavior - we know randomity is not a major part of [the] human [mind] because minds don’t act random.

Just because the outputs are constrained does not mean the inputs are constrained, too. And I don’t think it has been established that minds act without any randomness, or that the randomness is inconsequential. So I am denying both of your premises.

@begbert2

And that’s all the agreement I need, really.

The things that can influence your mind’s behavior are exclusively limited to:

1. Your mental state, which is a major factor in your subsequent mental states.
2. Randomity messing around with your developing mental state.
3. Things that are not part of your mental state, influencing it from the outside.

That’s the entire possible list. Anything you might mention: gods, souls, the enticing aroma of strawberries - those all fall into one of those categories, because A ∨ ¬A covers all bases by definition. (The randomity also falls under either A or ¬A by defintion, and I don’t particularly care where you put it, because it can’t possibly impart will anyway because randomity isn’t willful.)

…
A ∨ ¬A, yo. In that sentence I considered randomity to be in the ¬A category, because it totally is; random perturbations can’t be part of your mental state because they only occur as perturbations in the advancement from one mental state to another. A given fixed snapshot of a mental state doesn’t have chunks of ‘determined randomity’ sitting in it; the closest you could get is a chunk of the mental state that has a value that is completely not determined by anything about the mental state immediately prior.

I can agree with that classification, not with your distinction between randomity and (free) will. If the mind itself can be random, within constraints, that constitutes the mind’s free will.

@begbert2

A mental state, by definition, is a state. A state, by definition, has a state. Things that are random don’t have a state while they’re being random; they only have a state once they’ve resolved out to one outcome or another. Even if you have some kind of nexus of randomity it will produce an actualized outcome at some point; whatever its outcome happens to be at the moment the state is examined can be taken as the static condition of that part of the state at that moment.

Randomity, if it’s occurring, can only be perturbing things as you change from one state to the next. That’s literally the only place it can be.

A probability function describes quantum state, and unless you subscribe to some form of hidden variable or multiverse theory, that wave function is the state.

@begbert2

And the rules most certainly aren’t off - there is a rule that the thing that is causing the minds is causing the minds…

Unless the mind does things without causes some of the time, in which case the things that usually cause the mind don’t fully cause the mind or don’t exist. Have we ruled out that possibility? Certainly some of the time I think as if my thoughts were immune from the laws of physics, as if I could think of almost anything I want, as if I could determine what I want to think about at will.

@begbert2

I love debates like this! :D:D:D

Aw jeez, sorry to keep you waiting. I must have accidentally marked this thread as read without reading it.

@begbert2

Actually in my experience proponents of libertarian free will never, ever talk about godly power or souls…

A libertarian free will proponent most certainly wouldn’t say anything about the grace of the mind. Remember, libertarian free will argues from a presumed materialist framework where the mind is located in the physical brain and isn’t graceful at all…

An interesting read, but still besides the point. Such a position as the one I laid out is libertarian by virtue of affirming free will and denying determinism. Tu quoque.

I am less interested in what you think of generic libertarian arguments, and more interested in what you think of mine, because I am here to defend myself, even if I have not set my heart on libertarianism.

@begbert2

People discussing souls usually just say “but souls!” and stand there smugly, without bothering to acknowledge that we can totally examine the behavior of souls by examining the behavior of the people they allegedly control.

Can you though? You can’t observe them, only what they do. They don’t necessarily follow the laws of physics, it’s not like they are invisible or can be found or looked at or have physical parts. Yes they function somehow, but as far as I am concerned, they function by magic, because they don’t physically exist but they produce physical events. They can have preferences and be influenced by physical things, but we cannot conclude that they are deterministically controlled by such things.

If you want to criticize this position as unscientific, you are within your rights. If you want to say it is demonstrably wrong, inconsistent, or incompatible with facts or science, I challenge you to back up that assertion.

~Max

[begbert2]

Hi again!

Looks like it would be most efficient to deal with this right off the bat:

@Max_S

I have a strong feeling that what you call random, I call chaotic. To me, random and non-deterministic are synonyms. Random does not mean “nobody gets to choose”, that would be physical randomness. Maybe I need to ask. What exactly do you mean when you say random?

Consider a random number generator that we (somehow) know always produces output in a standard bell curve. In other words any output could be produced, but ones towards the center of the curve are far, far likelier than the ones on the extremes.

You apparently would say that that’s randomity, through and through.

I would say that it’s plainly obvious that something is causing the outputs to be in a bell curve. That which is causing the distribution to be nonchaotic is, by my view of things, a deterministic effect - something about the generator is determining that the output follow that specific probability pattern.

All expressions of randomity have constraints to their output set; you can’t flip a coin and get 7 as a result. The fact a coin only has two sides (and an extremely improbable edge) is a deterministic factor effecting the output of the flip. All constraints, and all inherent determined properties of the random number generator (like the improbability of it landing on the edge) are deterministic factors in my opinion. The randomity that exists is the chaotic randomity that is permuted into the result set by the deterministic properties of the generator.

So yeah - to me, the only randomity is chaotic randomity. If your distribution isn’t equiprobable I don’t just shrug that off - I take that as indisputable* evidence that there’s something deterministic that is operating behind the scenes to permute any equiprobable randomity present into the distribution we see.

• indisputable presuming that we somehow know that the distribution really isn’t chaotic. Because, of course, it’s always possible for complete randomity to appear like any specific distribution or even any completely nonrandom sequence you want. It’s just unlikely to the point of nigh-impossibility.

(Note: I’m going to be making a lot of statements that could effectively be countered by the above fact: in theory everything everywhere always could just be completely random and only look like there’s rules and consistency due to dumb luck. However the odds against that are nigh-infinite, so I will be carrying on as if things that clearly aren’t random are non-random, and marking everywhere I am (indeed) making that assumption with a *.)

So, to summarize, I consider it absurd to claim that there isn’t a deterministic cause behind every non-equiprobable random distribution, and the less random the outputs are, the less random the thing generating them is. *

Okay. Keeping that in mind…

@Max_S

Personally I have a different definition of falsifiability but I see no harm in adopting yours. We can go back to [POST=21801129]post #128[/POST] where I wrote:

If I may now revise that:
It does not follow. Just because minds do not change with “wild randomity”, doesn’t mean every change in state flows from a cause. For example, a nonmaterial mind may change state randomly for no cause, but still never change with wild randomity. How could you know? You cannot directly examine a nonmaterial mental state. You cannot apply the laws of physics to the nonmaterial substance, so you cannot possibly test a hypothesis concerning the inner workings of the mind. As such, your claim that minds “flow from one state to another based on causes” is not a testable claim, and cannot possibly be disproven by science. This marks the first assumption: every change in mental state flows from a cause.
Also note that the causes themselves can be random or otherwise nondeterministic, regardless of whether the causes are physical or nonphysical in nature.

I don’t have to be able to examine the inner workings of something to test hypotheses against it, and the fact that brains clearly aren’t chaotic* allows us to test a hypothesis concerning the inner workings of the mind - to wit, there clearly are inner workings in there that operate in a deterministic manner. I dunno what those workings are, but something in there is determining that people don’t act randomly.

And seriously, minds don’t really act random at all. If there’s any randomity in there, it’s extremely tamped down by the mechanism generating the mind.

So yeah, the fact I like strawberries is most definitely based on a cause. We know this because it continues to be true over time, which wouldn’t* be the case if randomity were the cause of this preference because randomity wouldn’t* cause me to still consistently like them as time went on.

And we know that even if the mind is based in a nonmaterial substance or whatever.

@Max_S

I disagree. Randomity is merely the lack of a definite pattern or method. Random is the exact opposite of deterministic. I touched on this before, but if a God-like entity is above physics, it is random by definition. Free will without a random element is not free will at all.

Physics-as-we-know-them aren’t the only possible set of deterministic rules out there, and for any God to continue to exist it has to be operating on some set of deterministic rules that, at a minimum, determine that it doesn’t randomly cease to exist.

You’re literally the first person I’ve heard who has stated or implied that God is random, much less that he must be random. Seriously, the guy is typically defined as being all about rules, and half the time is defined as being unchanging!

@Max_S

What is wrong with souls or gods being the agent of randomness? If a soul has the power to effect an alternate reality, to actually make a single choice or not, and if the soul can make this choice freely, and is not absolutely bound to one choice, then the soul acts randomly, the soul has free will, and reality is nondeterministic. The same goes for a god, if you replace “soul” with “god”. I build this argument a priori.

What’s wrong with the idea that souls are “agents of randomness” is that the people they allegedly control don’t act random at all.

And as I’ve been arguing, there’s nothing about choice that requires or even implies randomity, by the common definition of the term. Choices can and are made based on, determined by, preferences. That’s how choosing works - you choose the outcome you want, the one you think is the best option at the time. There is precisely nothing random about those approaches to choice - decisions made for reasons aren’t random.

Heck, I’d be willing to argue that any “choice” made randomly isn’t actually a choice. The closest that comes is you can choose to accept the outcome of a random source (like, you flip a coin), but the choice there is that you’ve you determined that you don’t wish to make the choice yourself at all!

So if souls are ‘agents of randomness’ injecting randomity into the decision-making process, I would argue that they’re agents that fight against the free will.

Summary: It’s patently obvious by their behavior that our minds have little or no randomity influencing their behavior. If souls are injecting randomity, then that’s not introducing free will and honestly wouldn’t help anything at all. Which doesn’t mean it’s not happening; just that it’s something our minds would have to compensate for or in some other way ignore in order to make actual choices and have free will.

@Max_S

So there are limitations on how random the mind can “act”. That’s fine. Any physical effects have to follow the laws of physics. It does not follow that randomness is inconsequential, iff the laws of physics allow for multiple solutions AND reality does not constantly split into multiple Schrödinger-esque universes.

Human behavior shows that the minds driving the humans only have an inconsequential amount of randomness in them; that’s clear by observation of the fact that people think rather than spazzing out and acting unthinkingly random all the time.

Of course, just because the randomness is inconsequential doesn’t mean it can’t have consequences. If you really don’t care whether you grab the package of meat on the left or the same-size same-price package of meat on the right, then maybe the mind relies on a random number generator to decide to pick the one on the right. The mind doesn’t care; it just randomly grabs one.

And the one it grabs was tainted and poisons you and you die. Consequence!

(Of course in reality people would have a bias for one package or the other so it wouldn’t be picked randomly at all; they’d take whichever was is closer, whichever was in better lighting, whichever is more to the left if they’re in a left-to-right country…)

@Max_S

Just because the outputs are constrained does not mean the inputs are constrained, too. And I don’t think it has been established that minds act without any randomness, or that the randomness is inconsequential. So I am denying both of your premises.

If the inputs are random and every single one of the outputs are “I will eat the strawberries rather than the broken glass, and are you insane?”, then that means that the decision making process is clearly ignoring the randomity. *

Observational evidence of human behavior proves that human minds are not driven by randomity in any consequential way. (Give or take tainted meat scenarios like above that have nothing to do with choice or free will.)

@Max_S

A probability function describes quantum state, and unless you subscribe to some form of hidden variable or multiverse theory, that wave function is the state.

I subscribe to the idea that things can (and clearly do) have states, which are unchanging at any specific moment.

You can get all quantum and stuff, but minds clearly don’t operate like that - my taste for strawberries isn’t some kind of Schrodinger’s preference without a determined value.

@Max_S

Unless the mind does things without causes some of the time, in which case the things that usually cause the mind don’t fully cause the mind or don’t exist. Have we ruled out that possibility? Certainly some of the time I think as if my thoughts were immune from the laws of physics, as if I could think of almost anything I want, as if I could determine what I want to think about at will.

Forget the laws of physics - we’re still operating on the assumption that maybe we’re being puppeted by ghosts. The laws that matter here are your laws - the laws that your mind is clearly operating under. The law that you’d rather eat strawberries than broken glass. The law that you know what cheese is. Those are the laws you are talking about being free of, the laws and mechanisms that cause the mind to retain state and preferences and be able to apply them to the decision-making process.

And we haven’t ruled out the possibility that random effects are perturbing our mental processes; we’ve simply ruled out that they have any consequential effect whatsoever or that taking actions based on randomity could sensibly be called an act of will - free or otherwise.

Seriously, the concept of will itself is about intention - “It is my will that this will happen”. The notion that randomity can have intention is impossible by definition.

@Max_S

Aw jeez, sorry to keep you waiting. I must have accidentally marked this thread as read without reading it.

Eh, whatever. You’re back now; all good.

@Max_S

An interesting read, but still besides the point. Such a position as the one I laid out is libertarian by virtue of affirming free will and denying determinism. Tu quoque.

I am less interested in what you think of generic libertarian arguments, and more interested in what you think of mine, because I am here to defend myself, even if I have not set my heart on libertarianism.

Tu quoque? That “not graceful at all” comment was a pun. Grace of the mind as being a supernatural thing? Purely physical brains being ‘ungraceful’? Get it? Get it?

(sigh.)

Anyway, as for your argument, I think you’re making a categorical error in thinking that just because something is nonmaterial and outside the laws of physics that it’s random. I also think that your preferred definition of “random” is a way of taking mostly or completely deterministic processes and calling them random, which seems like a pretty poor way to achieve ‘libertarian free will’ to me.

@Max_S

Can you though? You can’t observe them, only what they do. They don’t necessarily follow the laws of physics, it’s not like they are invisible or can be found or looked at or have physical parts. Yes they function somehow, but as far as I am concerned, they function by magic, because they don’t physically exist but they produce physical events. They can have preferences and be influenced by physical things, but we cannot conclude that they are deterministically controlled by such things.

If you want to criticize this position as unscientific, you are within your rights. If you want to say it is demonstrably wrong, inconsistent, or incompatible with facts or science, I challenge you to back up that assertion.

I am of the opinion that behavior that clearly has causes has causes. I clearly am choosing the strawberries because I prefer the strawberries. If the decision is being made by a supernatural soul, then the supernatural soul clearly prefers strawberries. Laws of physics don’t matter; observability doesn’t matter, magic doesn’t matter - the choice is still clearly and observably being made deterministically based on my preferences.

I’m still cheerfully entertaining the idea of souls here, so the facts of science aren’t an issue here. At issue is the fact that we can clearly tell by observation that the choice isn’t random; it’s mostly or entirely determined by my preference for strawberries over broken glass. Claims that I randomly grabbed and just happened to not grab the glass are clearly wrong based on the observable facts. Therefore the things that lead you to think that the mind making this choice is random (your definition of randomity, your assumption that the metaphysical must be random) must logically be wrong, because they lead you to a false conclusion. Disproof by contradiction, and all that.

[Corry_El]

@kevlaw

Atheist here. I believe in free will.

1. The best evidence for free will is that some people seem to have more of it than others. Some people seem compelled to do things that are harmful to themselves and others manage to avoid them. Some people are able to exercise restraint and self-discipline and make choices that result in better outcomes.

…
2. Admittedly, Libertarians like me are currently stuck with a paradox but the determinists are not entirely paradox-free. As far as I can tell, determinists necessarily reject justice, merit, blame, good, evil and all of the other things that make life worth living. Note that I am not appealing to consequences here. I’m claiming that the determinist’s worldview is riddled with paradoxes and inconsistencies where my side has only one small paradox to sort out.

3. This , for example, argues that even though free will is an illusion, we should continue to teach that free will is real because…

This presupposes that we have a choice in whether to teach or not to teach that free will is real.

4. Determinists live, love and administer justice as though they have free will. They say it’s just an illusion but we need to keep it a secret because, otherwise, society will apart. They say this as though they have a choice and they say it with no apparent irony.

I’m Catholic and believe in free will according to Catholic teaching (which may or may not correspond exactly to other forms of Christianity and is potentially significantly at odds with any given cartoon/straw man presentation of Christianity by anti-Christians on the internet ).

I generally agree with your post (hope that doesn’t make other people who previously agreed change their minds).

1. I don’t know if this is objective evidence of a such thing as free will, but I do agree it’s evidence society is on the right track to organize itself on the assumption most people in most situations can make better or worse choices and need to be incentivized to make the better ones. There is no contraction between this general idea and recognizing that some people lack this ability for mental health particularly, but also potentially other reasons, and that on a ‘moral’ basis it makes a difference how much ‘temptation’ the person faces to make the wrong choice. If one were to say ‘OK but that’s beside the point of our intramural atheist debate about free will’ I’d respond that then the whole debate is beside the point. In fact a lot of the posters clearly track back their abstract ideas about ‘free will’ to concrete public policies like who if anyone to hold responsible for their actions.

2. There’s always a paradox someplace, but I agree if you take determinism far enough then most concepts like the ones you listed become meaningless.

3. This is somewhat reminiscent of the idea that religious faith makes people behave better (though I guess if one were to present some study showing that it would get a lot more instantaneous and vociferous push back here than the article you quoted ). My only point is that they are similar in that if ‘everyone’ concludes the belief is false, you can’t really teach it effectively and it becomes irrelevant if it’s practically beneficial to believe it. Although as of now I think the % of people in the world who don’t believe in free will, as I’d define it practically, is pretty tiny. It’s a lot smaller than the % with no specific belief in a God’s role in their life.

4. I also agree there, assuming as in 2 it’s a meaningful discussion at all. In which case it would impinge on the basic practical question of if/when to hold people responsible for their actions. If you basically don’t, with some exceptions, I don’t see how you have a society. Whereas believing people should be basically responsible for their actions except in extraordinary circumstances, the concept of which can evolve, seems to have proven workable.

[begbert2]

@Corry_El

I’m Catholic and believe in free will according to Catholic teaching (which may or may not correspond exactly to other forms of Christianity and is potentially significantly at odds with any given cartoon/straw man presentation of Christianity by anti-Christians on the internet ).

Out of curiousity, what is the non-cartoon/strawman definition of free will, in your opinion?

Specifically, what is it supposed to be freed from?

[Mijin]

As a nitpick, several people here are using the term “chaos” in a nonstandard way. (Or at least; not the way mathematicians or physicists use it. And the word in a colloquial sense doesn’t have a firm enough definition to contrast it with “randomness”, as some here have)

Chaotic systems are by definition deterministic (although we may see chaotic behaviour in systems with nondeterministic elements / subsystems).
And, let’s imagine we have a chaotic system that at each iteration delivers an integer between 1 and 100. The fact that it’s chaotic does not necessarily mean even that all the numbers in that range will be visited, let alone that they will be visited at equal probability. Our hypothetical chaotic system may have zero probability of ever returning the number 71, say.

[begbert2]

@Mijin

As a nitpick, several people here are using the term “chaos” in a nonstandard way. (Or at least; not the way mathematicians or physicists use it. And the word in a colloquial sense doesn’t have a firm enough definition to contrast it with “randomness”, as some here have)

Chaotic systems are by definition deterministic (although we may see chaotic behaviour in systems with nondeterministic elements / subsystems).
And, let’s imagine we have a chaotic system that at each iteration delivers an integer between 1 and 100. The fact that it’s chaotic does not necessarily mean even that all the numbers in that range will be visited, let alone that they will be visited at equal probability. Our hypothetical chaotic system may have zero probability of ever returning the number 71, say.

Chaotic, equiprobable, I think that we all get the point.

[Mijin]

@begbert2

Chaotic, equiprobable, I think that we all get the point.

Chaotic does not mean equiprobable. See strange attractors for example.

As far as I can tell, you are using the word chaotic in the colloquial sense, but as though this casual word is a concrete mathematical concept.

Sent from my Redmi 5A using Tapatalk

[begbert2]

@Mijin

Chaotic does not mean equiprobable. See strange attractors for example.

As far as I can tell, you are using the word chaotic in the colloquial sense, but as though this casual word is a concrete mathematical concept.

Yep!

And I’m unapologetic about it, too.

[kirkrapine]

It’s either free will or determinism, and I think modern physics pretty much rules out determinism.

[Mijin]

@kirkrapine

It’s either free will or determinism, and I think modern physics pretty much rules out determinism.

The thing is, the “no such thing as free will” guys will just say something like “how can the froth of randomness at the quantum level have implications for free will at the level of a mind?” without realizing the implication for how we’re defining free will:

If an action is in theory predicable, that’s not free will, they would say. But if it’s unpredictable, but for reasons not based on knowledge or reasoning, that doesn’t count either.

But how can we have unpredictable knowledge-based decisions? In a hypothetical universe with free will, how are free decisions made?

This is why I personally believe the whole topic is stupid: free will is being defined in this context in an incoherent / meaningless way. And it’s equally meaningless to therefore say it doesn’t exist.

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[ozziemaland]

I am 50% atheistic and I half believe in free will.

[peccavi]

@Mijin

The thing is, the “no such thing as free will” guys will just say something like “how can the froth of randomness at the quantum level have implications for free will at the level of a mind?” without realizing the implication for how we’re defining free will:

If an action is in theory predicable, that’s not free will, they would say. But if it’s unpredictable, but for reasons not based on knowledge or reasoning, that doesn’t count either.

But how can we have unpredictable knowledge-based decisions? In a hypothetical universe with free will, how are free decisions made?

This is why I personally believe the whole topic is stupid: free will is being defined in this context in an incoherent / meaningless way. And it’s equally meaningless to therefore say it doesn’t exist.

Sent from my Redmi 5A using Tapatalk

Science is always more complicated then either/or and this is apparently the case with randomness versus non-randomness in decision making. What if the brain incorporates its own neural noise as one part of the process of decision making?

(from the Atlantic: “A Famous Argument Against Free Will Has Been Debunked”)

[begbert2]

@peccavi

Science is always more complicated then either/or and this is apparently the case with randomness versus non-randomness in decision making. What if the brain incorporates its own neural noise as one part of the process of decision making?

(from the Atlantic: “A Famous Argument Against Free Will Has Been Debunked”)

In my reading of the article, I didn’t notice them suggesting that the “neural noise” was random. And I would consider it axiomatic that the brain state is part of the mechanics of decision-making.

[mjmlabs]

[Full disclosure for this drive-by: I am a lifelong atheist, an ordained Taoist rabbi, a card-carrying Discordian, a Reasonably Merry Prankster, a former Psychology major, a former National Merit Scholar, and a total fuckup. You may use any or all or none of these facts to assess my post, as you … well, that rather begs the question if I use the cliché “as you see fit,” doesn’t it, so let’s go with “any or all or none, whichever.”]

I think that unless and until neuroscience and/or data science yield a far better understanding of the processes by which the emergent phenomenon of consciousness is (apparently/evidently/subjectively, pick your adverb) produced by neurochemical activity, the discussion of “free will” is premature. And of course any discussion without agreed-upon common terminology is more frustrating than enlightening, which is not to discourage the attempt.

Having said that: I am convinced that I have some degree of free will, and I am further convinced that if free will does not exist, nonetheless the subjective perception I have that my actions are to some extent volitional is, although illusory, still beneficial. And if the free will I perceive myself to possess is in fact illusory, then I have no choice but to believe this – by definition.

And now I believe it’s time for a beer. L’chaim!

HAIL ERIS!

[begbert2]

@mjmlabs

[Full disclosure for this drive-by: I am a lifelong atheist, an ordained Taoist rabbi, a card-carrying Discordian, a Reasonably Merry Prankster, a former Psychology major, a former National Merit Scholar, and a total fuckup. You may use any or all or none of these facts to assess my post, as you … well, that rather begs the question if I use the cliché “as you see fit,” doesn’t it, so let’s go with “any or all or none, whichever.”]

I think that unless and until neuroscience and/or data science yield a far better understanding of the processes by which the emergent phenomenon of consciousness is (apparently/evidently/subjectively, pick your adverb) produced by neurochemical activity, the discussion of “free will” is premature. And of course any discussion without agreed-upon common terminology is more frustrating than enlightening, which is not to discourage the attempt.

Having said that: I am convinced that I have some degree of free will, and I am further convinced that if free will does not exist, nonetheless the subjective perception I have that my actions are to some extent volitional is, although illusory, still beneficial. And if the free will I perceive myself to possess is in fact illusory, then I have no choice but to believe this – by definition.

And now I believe it’s time for a beer. L’chaim!

HAIL ERIS!

So I see you saying that any discussion without agreed-upon terminology is more frustrating than enlightening…and then you go on to talk about “free will” without defining what you mean by the term.

Yep, discordian prankster.