# Convince me I should believe that Free Will really exists! **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 20, 2013, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convince-me-i-should-believe-that-free-will-really-exists/658822 "2013-05-20T15:11:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Learjeff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/94ad74/32.png) [@Learjeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Learjeff)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2013, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convince-me-i-should-believe-that-free-will-really-exists/658822/141 "2013-05-20T22:46:43Z")
I doubt it could ever be proven to exist, though it might become better understood. Currently the dividing line between mind and body is the source of a lot of confusion, especially to the experts who delve into it in the most rigorous ways. I think that free will only exists from a certain point of view, like qualia. I’m an [emergentist](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergentism) (though I don’t necessarily agree with everything in the Wikipedia article). I believe that physical facts at one level can give rise to higher-level **phenomena**. Nothing woo here, just physics at the root. Simplest example is the gas law. While we can derive the large-scale behavior by tracking every molecule in the gas, it makes more sense to look at the higher level phenomena caused by that behavior. (Actually, it’s actually NOT possible to track every molecule … as we well know, thanks to uncertainty.) Emergence doesn’t suspend or contradict any laws at a lower level. It just causes epiphenomena, where discussing it makes more sense at a higher level than reverting to the underlying level. It’s for this reason that while chemists need to know some fundamental quantum physics, they still speak in terms of chemistry rather than physics, most of the time. Likewise, cytobiologists don’t talk in terms of physics, but use the results of biochemistry to explore processes at the cellular level. If there ever is a solid science of psychology, it won’t be based on physics, but rather, it’ll be based on an understanding of neural processes _as well as_ emotions, motivation, and other mental phenomena. Free will is an epiphenomenon of sentience just as qualia like color are epiphenomena of sensation. The phsycialist explanation of color misses the subjective experience of qualia. It might predict that subjective experience exists (it doesn’t but maybe someday it might). Even then, it doesn’t completely explain it, as it can’t communicate what it’s like to experience it. (This is an oversimplification of [The Knowledge Argument](http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qualia-knowledge/).) IMHO, most discussions of TKA go off the track because people don’t seem to realize that qualia are epiphenomena created by the mechanics and act of sensation, and these epiphenomena only exist to the subjective entity doing the sensing. Ditto for free will. From “outside”, it doesn’t exist. Run the program, over and over, and you get the same results (or there are random inputs, in which case it’s nondeterminstic, but still dictated by the physics and the odds). But from the point of view of the consciousness created by the machinery, free will exists, just as the experience of the color red exists. This may seem to be a pretty weak form of free will, since we appear to have no control. However, we _are_ the entity created by the machinery and its inputs, and how we think creates those responses. This is the kind of “strange loop” discussed by Hofstadter in Goedel Escher & Bach. We don’t escape from physics, but we are part of it. On a tangent, we have to assume free will for ethical purposes, and for managing our own lives. That doesn’t mean it has to exist, though. ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2013, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convince-me-i-should-believe-that-free-will-really-exists/658822/142 "2013-05-20T22:55:18Z")
> [@Learjeff](#): > > I doubt it could ever be proven to exist, though it might become better understood. Currently the dividing line between mind and body is the source of a lot of confusion, especially to the experts who delve into it in the most rigorous ways. > > I think that free will only exists from a certain point of view, like qualia. > > I’m an [emergentist](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergentism) (though I don’t necessarily agree with everything in the Wikipedia article). I believe that physical facts at one level can give rise to higher-level **phenomena**. Nothing woo here, just physics at the root. > > Simplest example is the gas law. While we can derive the large-scale behavior by tracking every molecule in the gas, it makes more sense to look at the higher level phenomena caused by that behavior. (Actually, it’s actually NOT possible to track every molecule … as we well know, thanks to uncertainty.) > > Emergence doesn’t suspend or contradict any laws at a lower level. It just causes epiphenomena, where discussing it makes more sense at a higher level than reverting to the underlying level. It’s for this reason that while chemists need to know some fundamental quantum physics, they still speak in terms of chemistry rather than physics, most of the time. Likewise, cytobiologists don’t talk in terms of physics, but use the results of biochemistry to explore processes at the cellular level. If there ever is a solid science of psychology, it won’t be based on physics, but rather, it’ll be based on an understanding of neural processes _as well as_ emotions, motivation, and other mental phenomena. > > Free will is an epiphenomenon of sentience just as qualia like color are epiphenomena of sensation. The phsycialist explanation of color misses the subjective experience of qualia. It might predict that subjective experience exists (it doesn’t but maybe someday it might). Even then, it doesn’t completely explain it, as it can’t communicate what it’s like to experience it. (This is an oversimplification of [The Knowledge Argument](http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qualia-knowledge/).) > > IMHO, most discussions of TKA go off the track because people don’t seem to realize that qualia are epiphenomena created by the mechanics and act of sensation, and these epiphenomena only exist to the subjective entity doing the sensing. > > Ditto for free will. From “outside”, it doesn’t exist. Run the program, over and over, and you get the same results (or there are random inputs, in which case it’s nondeterminstic, but still dictated by the physics and the odds). > > But from the point of view of the consciousness created by the machinery, free will exists, just as the experience of the color red exists. > > This may seem to be a pretty weak form of free will, since we appear to have no control. However, we _are_ the entity created by the machinery and its inputs, and how we think creates those responses. This is the kind of “strange loop” discussed by Hofstadter in Goedel Escher & Bach. > > We don’t escape from physics, but we are part of it. > > On a tangent, we have to assume free will for ethical purposes, and for managing our own lives. That doesn’t mean it has to exist, though. That’s more like it. Very good explanation. ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2013, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convince-me-i-should-believe-that-free-will-really-exists/658822/143 "2013-05-20T22:56:49Z")
I will let this run here but want to explore the question of the effect that Free Will has on the way in which we interact as entities. See separate thread. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2013, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convince-me-i-should-believe-that-free-will-really-exists/658822/144 "2013-05-20T22:57:30Z")
> [@Pjen](#): > > Many animals are sapient. We have no reason to believe that many animals are problem solvers and abstract thinkers. I think you are confusing [sapience](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapience#Sapience) and [sentience](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentience). Many animals are sentient; humans are the only animal known to be sapient. ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2013, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convince-me-i-should-believe-that-free-will-really-exists/658822/145 "2013-05-20T23:08:18Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > I think you are confusing [sapience](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapience#Sapience) and [sentience](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentience). Many animals are sentient; humans are the only animal known to be sapient. I think I am not. Sapiens was chosen to define modern humans, but many modern humans were probably not sapient (see Julian Jaynes and others) and nowadays many scientists would suggest that chimpanzees exhibit basic sapience. Lower animals, IMHO quite a long way down the phylogenetic ladder, have sentience. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2013, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convince-me-i-should-believe-that-free-will-really-exists/658822/146 "2013-05-21T00:19:18Z")
> [@Pjen](#): > > Not Statistics but FACT. For 99.999997% of the time the universe existed there was no evidence of Free Will affecting Physics, then suddenly in the last 0.000003% of the life of the universe, Free Will changed the laws of Physics. > > Put like that it seems a little outlandish! And where did you get this fact? ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2013, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convince-me-i-should-believe-that-free-will-really-exists/658822/147 "2013-05-21T00:38:16Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > And where did you get this fact? The Universe has existed for 14 billion years. Sentient humans took almost all that time to evolve (it may have evolved somewhat quicker elsewhere, but the ratio between dead time- no sentience and mind time is a massive ratio even if sentient life developed elsewhere. That date is anything between 4000 years and 100,000 years. Most of the time elapsed has been spent without sentience- which is a very late comer! ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2013, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convince-me-i-should-believe-that-free-will-really-exists/658822/148 "2013-05-21T01:33:14Z")
> [@Pjen](#): > > The Universe has existed for 14 billion years. > > Sentient humans took almost all that time to evolve (it may have evolved somewhat quicker elsewhere, but the ratio between dead time- no sentience and mind time is a massive ratio even if sentient life developed elsewhere. That date is anything between 4000 years and 100,000 years. > > Most of the time elapsed has been spent without sentience- which is a very late comer! Can anyone else spot the galaxy-wide gaping hope in this logic? ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2013, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convince-me-i-should-believe-that-free-will-really-exists/658822/149 "2013-05-21T01:43:40Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Can anyone else spot the galaxy-wide gaping hope in this logic? Do you actually have anything to contribute to this thread besides terse belligerent one liners and hectoring pseudo-professorial questions? **Learjeff** and **Human Action** have responded to **Pjen** with actual substantive arguments. Can you do the same? Or is all you have borderline insults and belittling snark? ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2013, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convince-me-i-should-believe-that-free-will-really-exists/658822/150 "2013-05-21T02:07:08Z")
> [@Pjen](#): > > But how do you know it is not basic brain physiology/Chemistry that causes that, not an imaginary entity like Free Will? More important than basic brain physiology is physiological variation: the thing that makes me hate green peppers, makes the next guy love basketball, on ad infinitum. Give a child a sidewalk, a magnifying glass and a sunny day, one child will burn an ant or two out of curiosity, another will spend the afternoon burning ants and yet another will have no interest at all in burning ants. We describe this as “free will”: choosing whether to be cruel to insects, but the reality is the choice it more likely based on how the child’s brain is configured. Hence, the biggest misconception about free will is based on the premise that we are all more alike than different when in fact the choices we make may be based on how we are put together. Give me five guns and two hundred rounds, I will almost certainly not hold a massacre, simply because it is not in my nature. That guy at the end of the block, though, I cannot speak for him (cringe). ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2013, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convince-me-i-should-believe-that-free-will-really-exists/658822/151 "2013-05-21T02:13:46Z")
> [@Pjen](#): > > The Universe has existed for 14 billion years. > > Sentient humans took almost all that time to evolve (it may have evolved somewhat quicker elsewhere, but the ratio between dead time- no sentience and mind time is a massive ratio even if sentient life developed elsewhere. That date is anything between 4000 years and 100,000 years. > > Most of the time elapsed has been spent without sentience- which is a very late comer! Considering the vast expanse of time and space that makes up our universe, from where do you get your certainty than _we_ are the sum total of sentient life, or that if sentient life did evolve elsewhere, it was around only as long as we have been here? It took sentient humans 14 billion years to evolve to where we are now? That makes about as much sense as saying that the sandwich I had this morning took 14 billion years to make-you don’t get to start the clock for sentience at the beginning of the universe for more than one reason: 1. You cannot say for certain that sentient life didn’t have a start elsewhere at a far earlier date or, if _did_, it died out quickly(if at all). 2. If you have to start the clock for _our_ sentience, the proper place would be the beginning of life on the planet, in my opinion. Determining the rarity of sentient life by what little we know about our tiny section of the universe is not possible, and declaring this to a certainty of 99.999997% is silly. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2013, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convince-me-i-should-believe-that-free-will-really-exists/658822/152 "2013-05-21T02:22:52Z")
The term “free will” always seems to me to be tainted by theology, and so I prefer to speak of “volition.” That this exists seems obvious. There are decisions we make every day. Some of them are difficult. Sometimes, we fail, and do things like lose our tempers. A lot of people set out determined to diet…and not all of them succeed. Addictive chemicals like nicotine have the effect of weakening our volition; even so, some people manage to stop smoking. To say that all of this is pre-determined in a Newtonian sense seems absurd. Why would evolution go to all the gigantic expense of devising a decision-making instrument – the brain – if there aren’t any decisions to be made? Evolution would simply make use of tropisms, and we’d all be as happy as plants or insects. If volition didn’t have any meaning, then neither would consciousness. The fact that our brains go to such extra effort as to model our own behavior is a strong indication that there are actual decisions being made. There is no need to resort to a magic homunculus, an “inner I,” or a soul. The decision-making apparatus is divided into operating parts. **drewtwo99** mentioned stories about people with brain injuries, who lose portions of their decision-making ability. This supports the notion that the structure can be reduced. Brain scans also indicate the brain makes decisions in a distributed fashion. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2013, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convince-me-i-should-believe-that-free-will-really-exists/658822/153 "2013-05-21T02:56:49Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > … Why would evolution go to all the gigantic expense of devising a … Go de-anthropomorphize evolution and start again. > [@](#): > > If volition didn’t have any meaning, then neither would consciousness. Why should any of it have meaning? It all just is, what more do you need? ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2013, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convince-me-i-should-believe-that-free-will-really-exists/658822/154 "2013-05-21T03:32:51Z")
I haven’t read the thread. I read the OP. How is free will not existant? Outside of any laws that limit my behavior, I can do whatever the fuck I want. End of story. ---
**Author:** ![Randvek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a6a055/32.png) [@Randvek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Randvek)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2013, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convince-me-i-should-believe-that-free-will-really-exists/658822/155 "2013-05-21T03:33:51Z")
> [@Pjen](#): > > The Universe has existed for 14 billion years. > > Sentient humans took almost all that time to evolve (it may have evolved somewhat quicker elsewhere, but the ratio between dead time- no sentience and mind time is a massive ratio even if sentient life developed elsewhere. That date is anything between 4000 years and 100,000 years. > > Most of the time elapsed has been spent without sentience- which is a very late comer! While humans demonstrate this trait abundantly, we’re not the only ones. It sure seems like apes, chimps, some dolphins, whales (orca, in particular, make a very convincing case), dogs, cats, horses, and even some birds have very strong cases for sentience. We cannot say with any certainty that the rise of humans was also the first existence of sentience. We can’t even say that about the rise of mammals. ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2013, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convince-me-i-should-believe-that-free-will-really-exists/658822/156 "2013-05-21T05:37:59Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Can anyone else spot the galaxy-wide gaping hope in this logic? I am tiring of your belligerent approach and lack of real debate. If it took 14,000,006,000 years for Free Will to evolve on Earth, can we rationally suggest that it occurred incredibly quicker anywhere else? It would seem to require vast quantities of dead universe as atoms and molecules develop out of plasma, planets and solar systems to form and self replicating and evolving organisms to arrive. Maybe the Earth is a massive outlier and we are millions of years late to the party, but that seems quite unlikely to me. The truth is that the universe existed for many millions (billions) of years without needing Free Will. Where has it come from and how does it affect the Physical Laws of Nature. A simple questions which you seem increasingly difficult to address. If it exists, what is it and how does it act? How would we recognise it if it existed? ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2013, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convince-me-i-should-believe-that-free-will-really-exists/658822/157 "2013-05-21T05:41:11Z")
> [@For You](#): > > More important than basic brain physiology is physiological variation: the thing that makes me hate green peppers, makes the next guy love basketball, on ad infinitum. Give a child a sidewalk, a magnifying glass and a sunny day, one child will burn an ant or two out of curiosity, another will spend the afternoon burning ants and yet another will have no interest at all in burning ants. We describe this as “free will”: choosing whether to be cruel to insects, but the reality is the choice it more likely based on how the child’s brain is configured. > > Hence, the biggest misconception about free will is based on the premise that we are all more alike than different when in fact the choices we make may be based on how we are put together. Give me five guns and two hundred rounds, I will almost certainly not hold a massacre, simply because it is not in my nature. That guy at the end of the block, though, I cannot speak for him (cringe). In my view, the ‘thing’ that makes you hate green peppers etc. is your current Brain State which has been created by your genetics and by your experience as an organism. Certainly people act and think differently from one another, but could they act and think differently to the way that the do act and think? ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2013, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convince-me-i-should-believe-that-free-will-really-exists/658822/158 "2013-05-21T05:43:14Z")
> [@FoieGrasIsEvil](#): > > I haven’t read the thread. I read the OP. How is free will not existant? Outside of any laws that limit my behavior, I can do whatever the fuck I want. End of story. Interesting story. Your empirical evidence for that is…? We believe similar factoids about other parts of our own cognitive processes that are equally unsupported by empirical data and are provably wrong. Introspection has to be the second worst method of understanding human action after pure guesswork. ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2013, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convince-me-i-should-believe-that-free-will-really-exists/658822/159 "2013-05-21T05:44:35Z")
> [@Randvek](#): > > While humans demonstrate this trait abundantly, we’re not the only ones. It sure seems like apes, chimps, some dolphins, whales (orca, in particular, make a very convincing case), dogs, cats, horses, and even some birds have very strong cases for sentience. We cannot say with any certainty that the rise of humans was also the first existence of sentience. We can’t even say that about the rise of mammals. I do agree. There is a Sentience/Sapience gradient and no empirically defined cut off point. That does not affect the rational argument against the necessity of Free Will in humans though. ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2013, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convince-me-i-should-believe-that-free-will-really-exists/658822/160 "2013-05-21T05:45:39Z")
> [@For You](#): > > Go de-anthropomorphize evolution and start again. > > Why should any of it have meaning? It all just is, what more do you need? Nice points! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convince-me-i-should-believe-that-free-will-really-exists/658822.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convince-me-i-should-believe-that-free-will-really-exists/658822.md?page=9)