Does no free will necessarily entail fatalism or nihilism?

[Mijin]

@Thudlow_Boink

if I understand you, maybe the reason you find the concept of free will incoherent is that you’re so philosophically committed to causal determinism

No, not really. For one thing, I would say the balance of data right now is that our universe is not deterministic…It doesn’t make any difference to the free will concept, because the problem is with the concept itself, not any property of our universe.

When you talk about decsions being a product of some factor, or about how free will would “work,” it makes me think maybe you can’t help thinking deterministically.

Well please suggest how I should phrase it then.

When I ask questions like “Are souls blank slates?” or “How do entities in a universe with free will by definition choose between coffee or tea?” what grammar can I use to ask such questions? Are we simply not permitted to ask such follow-up questions?

@Thudlow_Boink

Anyway, here’s one analogy that may—or may not—help and may—or may not—relate more directly to the topic of this thread.

Think of your life as playing a video game. Unless you’re a solipsist, it may be more relatistic to think of it as an MMORPG, but for simplicity you can imagine a traditional one-player game. You make decisions that control what your character does, subject to what the game allows you to do, and influenced by where you are in the game. Everything else works as it’s been programmed to, possibly with some randomness and/or AI built in, but your character’s actions alone are not determined within the program; they’re chosen by someone outside of the game.

But if you don’t have free will, it’s as if you’re watching a demo version of the game, or perhaps playing through a Visual Novel where your responses don’t actually have any effect to influence the outcome of the game.

I don’t want all my responses to be combative, so let me start by saying this: you are outlining very well the standard kind of analogy for a debate on free will. Not only is it a popular kind of analogy, but philosophers a lot brighter than me use these kinds of arguments too. That’s the background here that I completely acknowledge. I know I’m the oddball on this and perhaps I am simply wrong.

With that understood, I’ll now state why I don’t find the analogy convincing or useful.

IMO This is an analogy that basically just assumes the very things that I am contesting: that the “free will” concept has a coherent definition, and that not having it equates to Fatalism. I dispute both these things.
And suggesting that a game with players outside has free will, clearly kicks the can down the road; not only do we still need to explain how those outside entities have free will, but in fact we’ve made zero progress towards explaining what free will *is*.

[Exapno_Mapcase]

If the universe is not deterministic and free will is an incoherent concept, then what is the proper descriptor?

[Spice_Weasel]

I don’t know if I have the philosophical chops to contribute much to this debate, but I don’t think lack of free will must necessarily entail nihilism. I think feeling like you have free will and sort of believing in the illusion is sufficient to build a life of meaning. I’m an existentialist.

In Zen there’s this distinction between Conventional and Absolute reality. Maybe in Absolute reality there is no free will, but in conventional reality it’s just too convenient and useful a concept to abandon.

I’m not commenting about what Zen thinks of the idea of free will because I don’t really know, but there’s a general belief that everything that arises is due to previous causes and conditions, and my takeaway might be that even free will is an illusion. That might naturally follow from the idea that Self is an illusion.

But again, conventionally, Self and free will are very useful concepts.

[Mijin]

@Exapno_Mapcase

If the universe is not deterministic and free will is an incoherent concept, then what is the proper descriptor?

I don’t use the term “free will” at all; I think it has too much baggage. So it isn’t on me to try to define it.

But I could talk about something simple like “choice”.

If you offer me coffee or tea, I’ll think through my past experiences with those beverages “Which do I like the taste of?” and the specifics of my situation right now “Can I drink high caffeine this late?” and make a choice.
Those thoughts that went through my mind were really how my decision was made.

However it’s also true that if you could reverse time, put my brain / soul / whatever exactly back in the same situation, of course I will choose the same thing for the same reasons.

If the universe is deterministic, that means a hypothetical third party with perfect knowledge could predict my actions but note that A) They need to simulate my thoughts to predict my choice; that’s ultimately where the rubber meets the road. So essentially they are running a play universe and asking the me in that universe whether I want coffee or tea. B) They are limited in what they can do with that information. It’s not like they could tell me I will pick coffee; that changes the universe, so now I may indeed pick tea.

If the universe is not deterministic then perhaps (depending on the nature of the indeterminancy) it’s impossible for a third party to predict my actions with perfect accuracy. OK, but so what? It doesn’t change at all how I make choices. Nobody on either side of this debate thinks of randomness as “choice”, so it’s irrelevant.
My choice is still based on my experiences, my predilections and the options presented today.
If there’s something beyond this, that’s also not random, then let’s hear it.

[Exapno_Mapcase]

I will stipulate several things. No Gods or other supernatural considerations. Randomness is irrelevant. The future is not predictable. The total conditions of the world and one’s journey through time provide the basis for choice.

You use the word choice as well, but you also make this statement.

@Mijin

However it’s also true that if you could reverse time, put my brain / soul / whatever exactly back in the same situation, of course I will choose the same thing for the same reasons.

This is the assertion at which I part ways. Consider this analogy.

There is a mathematical game in which the player must try to reach 10 in two steps from a given starting point, using only the numbers 1 through 9, and the four basic arithmetic functions, addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Takes longer to describe than to play.

E.g., Start - either randomly or by a methodical progression through numbers - with 42. Add 8, divide by 5. 42+8=50. 50/5=10.

In this toy universe, the choices are constrained but open. Starting with 42, the player may make a different choice. Subtract 2, divide by 4. 42-2=40. 40/4=10.

Why would any player make the same decision to use add 8, divide by 5 every time? Is there something in the situation of time, place, experience, and brain function that demands this? Without a determining factor, which we have both ruled out, I see no basis for this assertion. You yourself say:

@Mijin

My choice is still based on my experiences, my predilections and the options presented today.

And there it is. The options presented. To our understanding, options always exist. No situation can be postulated for a real human life that does not present options, however limited. Options imply choice. And choice implies …

Well, as I said earlier, human actions are indistinguishable from what has been over the centuries been tagged as “free will.” Does the phrase have too much baggage? Perhaps. Call it something else then. What about “choice based on options”? I think that is the proverbial distinction without a difference, but you used those exact set of words so I must presume they are acceptable to you.

If not, then what? I’d be fascinated to hear of a Hegelian synthesis of thesis and antithesis on the matter. Choice based on options is not, unfortunately, it.

[Mijin]

@Exapno_Mapcase

Why would any player make the same decision to use add 8, divide by 5 every time?

Your premise answers this: “The total conditions of the world and one’s journey through time provide the basis for choice”

When I talked about going exactly back in the same situation in my hypothetical, I am talking about the “total conditions” being the same; the entire universe, including your own memories.
Of course, when we “rewind the tape” there may be a random factor on top of this that means things play out differently, but you have said randomness is irrelevant (and I would agree, with regards to choice).

This of course leads to the second answer to the question “Why would it be the same”; the simple and flippant-sounding “For what reason would it be different”?
The critical word here being reason. There’s either a reason we can point to for why a player picks a different number (given exactly the same universe state, including their memories), or there isn’t.
If there’s a reason then that’s a difference in the universe state. If there isn’t then it’s randomness. It’s frankly lose-lose for the concept of free will.

@Exapno_Mapcase

And there it is. The options presented. To our understanding, options always exist. No situation can be postulated for a real human life that does not present options, however limited. Options imply choice. And choice implies …

I explicitly stated that we make free choices in my last post.
But no, I don’t think this entails free will because the latter is a garbage term that is never adequately defined. And we’ve seen it in this thread – when I question the definition of free will, the responses have basically been “OK, well you define it then” rather than any attempt for anyone to define it themselves.

@Exapno_Mapcase

What about “choice based on options”? I think that is the proverbial distinction without a difference, but you used those exact set of words so I must presume they are acceptable to you.

Two differences are firstly that “choice based on options” is trivial to define, and secondly this simple concept works fine in a deterministic universe (indeed it’s irrelevant whether the universe is deterministic), and even works fine if a God can predict my actions.

“Free will” meanwhile is the thing that people usually assume is incompatible with Determinism and further is invoked to solve issues like the problem of evil. It doesn’t stand up to scrutiny though as a coherent thing, as I’ve tried to explain.

[Exapno_Mapcase]

Just like free will is indistinguishable with the way humans act, to me your arguments are indistinguishable from assertions that are not the way humans act.

But this is not the thread to beat this further into the ground.

[Mijin]

@Exapno_Mapcase

Just like free will is indistinguishable with the way humans act,

That’s a pretty strong claim. Can we start with what you think “free will” means?

@Exapno_Mapcase

to me your arguments are indistinguishable from assertions that are not the way humans act.

But this is not the thread to beat this further into the ground.

No, please elaborate, this is right at the nub of the OP.
What part of my argument asserts something contrary to how humans act?

[Exapno_Mapcase]

I was using a stylistic device to mirror my first sentence. Humans act as if they have free will and would have acted differently. One cannot toss aside all human behavior when discussing a basic facet of human behavior. That is in contrast to your assertion. However, I can touch upon some of my misgivings.

You say “For what reason would [a choice] be different”? Because the ability to be different is inherent in the word choice. Else it is determined. Which you toss out.

You use randomness to cover a multitude of sins. I know what the term means in information theory, but it’s falsely applied here. It is not needed to explain a different “universe state.” We do not know what consciousness is, how it forms, or works, or persists. Some theorists posit that consciousness is an emergent property, just as wetness is an emergent property of water molecules. Wetness breaks down at the molecular level. Consciousness might do something similar. This would obviate the restrictive argument that the universe state of atoms are responsible for the lack of choice.

I use free will because that is the phrase in the common language, and I don’t know of any usable substitute. Even philosophers use the term, and most appear to agree that it exists. Free will has an instant and obvious meaning, choice based on options. That may not be rigorous enough for some but since it appears to covers both my view and your view, it would seem to work sufficiently well, given that nobody knows enough to answer the question in any rigorous way.

[Mijin]

@Exapno_Mapcase

Humans act as if they have free will and would have acted differently. One cannot toss aside all human behavior when discussing a basic facet of human behavior.

Ah so are we going with the “could have chosen differently” definition?
And what do you think I am tossing aside?

@Exapno_Mapcase

You say “For what reason would [a choice] be different”? Because the ability to be different is inherent in the word choice.

That’s not an answer.
Like I say, it’s lose-lose here for free will; if there’s some reason that a situation plays out differently, then that reason is a difference in the state, and we’ve broken the premise. If there is no reason yet it plays out differently, then it’s randomness.

Your response avoids trying to say how it could be different, only to say that choice requires that it *can be*. So follow your own logic through: what you’re defining “choice” to mean looks to be on shaky ground until you can propose how it could possibly be different, right?

@Exapno_Mapcase

You use randomness to cover a multitude of sins. I know what the term means in information theory, but it’s falsely applied here. It is not needed to explain a different “universe state.” We do not know what consciousness is, how it forms, or works, or persists. Some theorists posit that consciousness is an emergent property, just as wetness is an emergent property of water molecules. Wetness breaks down at the molecular level. Consciousness might do something similar. This would obviate the restrictive argument that the universe state of atoms are responsible for the lack of choice.

I don’t understand this paragraph. But anyway, in terms of the final sentence, note that I have said in my last post, and the one prior, and several other times in this thread that I very much believe that people freely exercise choice.
Please do not claim my argument is the polar opposite of what I have said.

@Exapno_Mapcase

I use free will because that is the phrase in the common language, and I don’t know of any usable substitute. Even philosophers use the term, and most appear to agree that it exists.

Doesn’t any of this leave you with a bad smell?
I mean you’ve used the argument that lots of people believe in free will, and now lots of philosophers believe in free will…this is the kind of argument people use whenever something is poorly-defined or poorly supported by data.
Ideas need to stand on their own merits. If there is a clear definition of free will and good answers to questions like “How would an identical universe and identical memories make a different outcome, in a non random way?”, then let’s hear them.

[Exapno_Mapcase]

And yet, I think I’m the one whose opponent’s statements totally lack definition. Moreover, your refusal to state what your third way is if it is neither determinism nor free will leaves a murk that avoids addressing the core issue.

As I said before. We seem to be at an impasse.

[Der_Trihs]

The obvious candidate for something that is neither determinism nor free will is determinism with some randomness mixed in, with quantum mechanical effects being the presumed random factor.

As for free will, I’m of the camp that considers the standard concept of free will be simply incoherent. It sounds appealing but means nothing, it’s “not even wrong”.

[AHunter3]

I’ve been a 'doper for a ludicrously long time and I tend to wade into these threads.

I haven’t been brought to agreement with the folks I came in to dissent with, but I’m not unaffected by your perspective either, and I’ve been reading you all this time too.

You want to know where I ended up? It seems to me like there’s a lot of intense focus on what free will means, or would have to mean if it were real. But somewhere along the line, I noticed there was a lack of attention to the self who either does or does not have this thing called “free will”. As if, in the proposition I have free will, we automatically agree on who “I” is, or for the corresponding you have free will, the non-problematic, not-worth-contemplating definition of “you” need not occupy our attention.

But most of the causal deterministic propositions — the consideration of “reasons for the person’s behavior” — most of them are tacitly dividing Reality into The Person and Everything Else, and the latter becomes the reason for the person’s behavioral choice.

When I first noticed that, I pushed a lot of arguments that the identity questions, the definition of the self, was a separate and equally important component and that if you didn’t also think about that, you couldn’t really address whether that “self” has or doesn’t have free will.

Lately I’ve been more inclined to re-collapse them and think of the Self and the Free-Will-Or-Not material as different ways of looking at the same unified Reality.

To be blunt, if I define the entirety of Reality, of the entirety of Everything That Is, as “myself”, then there’s nothing external to me to be causing me to do or think anything. I’m obviously localized to a body in a space, but my volition as I experience it, my sense of deliberately choosing and creating, may involve all these interactions and connectivities, but rather than “they cause me” I can view it as “this is all part of who I am”.

From sociology alone, we know that a very large portion of what we think of as “our thoughts” are socialization, that our individual selves sponge up understandings and perspectives from the social environment. That doesn’t mean volition is an illusion, not if you think of the culture-as-a-whole as an entity, processing these shared thoughts over the course of generations. But it does paint us the picture of the “individual isolated self” as an illusion. I often think this is a central part of what the determinists are trying to get at. If so, they’re right about that.

And if we move on to physics, it’s not just the social world but the physical world, particles and charges and momentum and mass and all that. If we can posit it as causal, we can reciprocally think of it as Self.

[Mijin]

@Exapno_Mapcase

And yet, I think I’m the one whose opponent’s statements totally lack definition

What would you like me to define? I remain quite happy to answer your questions.

@Exapno_Mapcase

Moreover, your refusal to state what your third way is if it is neither determinism nor free will leaves a murk that avoids addressing the core issue.

The third way as you put it is likely the universe we live in; our best understanding of QM implies it is not deterministic, but that’s essentially randomness so has no bearing on how our decisions are made.
Also it’s irrelevant. What we mean by a “choice” is weighing up the information we have, with our own preferences and coming to a conclusion for a reason. “Choice” doesn’t include determinism or indeterminancy in its definition, and so it doesn’t actually depend on either.

@Exapno_Mapcase

As I said before. We seem to be at an impasse.

Before we do the “agree to disagree” thing, do you want to attempt to answer any of the questions that have come up?
How would you define free will?
How would an identical universe and identical memories make a different outcome, in a non random way? For what reason would it be different?
How do entities in a universe with free will by definition choose between coffee or tea?

[Cmyers1980]

@Der_Trihs

neither determinism nor free will is determinism with some randomness mixed in, with quantum mechanical effects being the presumed random factor.

I agree and I’d add that quantum randomness still doesn’t get you free will. Everything would still boil down to things you couldn’t control and forces beyond your control going back billions of years. What’s ultimately free about that?

[Thudlow_Boink]

@Mijin

How would an identical universe and identical memories make a different outcome, in a non random way? For what reason would it be different?
How do entities in a universe with free will by definition choose between coffee or tea?

If, by “for what reason” or “how,” you mean “by what mechanism” or “what determines their choice,” you’re missing the point or begging the question. Under free will, you can’t look for a causal chain that extends further back than the individual doing the choosing.

[Mijin]

When an entity in a free-will-by-definition universe selects tea, if I were to ask that entity the question “Why did you choose tea?”, can they answer that question, or not?
And could they give answers like “Because I like the taste of tea”?

[Thudlow_Boink]

@Mijin

When an entity in a free-will-by-definition universe selects tea, if I were to ask that entity the question “Why did you choose tea?”, can they answer that question, or not?

If the question is interpreted as "What factors influenced your choice?’ or “What did you consider when making your decision?” then yes, they can probably answer, as least as far as to say what they were consciously aware of when making the choice.

If it’s “What determined your choice?” or “What caused you to choose tea?” the ultimate answer is “I did.” But in a universe without free will, we generally can’t answer such questions because we don’t know all the factors and influences that determine our choices.

[Der_Trihs]

I disagree; a core part of the free will concept is that there’s no cause for why a person chooses something; if there was then that’d be determinism. People are just magical unmoved movers.

In a deterministic universe we can know much more about why people make a particular choice. Both because causes are ideologically allowed to have effects and because there’s a lot of information that can be gathered on those causes.

[Mijin]

@Thudlow_Boink

If the question is interpreted as "What factors influenced your choice?’ or “What did you consider when making your decision?” then yes, they can probably answer, as least as far as to say what they were consciously aware of when making the choice.

OK then: “What is the primary reason you picked tea?”
Note that this is not some unfair gotcha, these are perfectly reasonable questions that we can ask humans in our universe. It’s only necessary to dodge around because either straight answer is problematic for spooky free will.

@Thudlow_Boink

But in a universe without free will, we generally can’t answer such questions because we don’t know all the factors and influences that determine our choices.

Still waiting on a definition of free will, but I’d say this is clearly false.
If you ask me why I picked tea, I can answer to the best of my knowledge. Not having perfect information is not a requirement here, and of course, would apply equally to the indeterminate universe in any case (how would I know “all the factors and influences” in the “free will” case?)