# Free will -- How and when do you make your first choice? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 29, 2016, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will-how-and-when-do-you-make-your-first-choice/767244 "2016-09-29T22:23:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2016, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will-how-and-when-do-you-make-your-first-choice/767244/41 "2016-09-30T23:35:56Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > What makes you think there’s any difference between free will and determinism? So far as I can tell, the two are synonyms, and neither one of them is in any way in conflict with physics. They’re not synonyms, but otherwise I agree. Free will and determinism are perfectly compatible. > [@octopus](#): > > Sure they do. Doesn’t the presence of free will mean that the universe is non deterministic? > > Free will has to operate outside of determinism. What mechanism allows non-deterministic choice? No. The real issue is that free will is just a subjective abstraction, like consciousness. It has about as much physical meaning as how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. We have free will because subjectively we feel we are making choices freely. That’s all that is required. Meanwhile the neurons in our brains are firing in accordance with the basic laws of physics – they are either completely deterministic or ultimately randomized by quantum uncertainty, but one thing they assuredly are not is magic. Free will is a subject in psychology and not physics; from a hard science standpoint the subject is of little interest. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2016, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will-how-and-when-do-you-make-your-first-choice/767244/42 "2016-09-30T23:39:23Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > A person who has free will weighs all the options before they make a decision, correct? They don’t just study the two or three options that someone has directed her attention to. That would be like me giving someone a gift card to spend “freely”, but the card only works at three stores in the entire world. > > I would argue that’s exactly what happens to us, though. When we face a problem, we don’t study all the options available. Just those options that come to mind. And since a person doesn’t choose which options come to mind, then they can’t necessarily be blamed for not choosing the best option. Maybe they only considered crappy options because they ddn’t know any better. Any decision making or search space heuristic starts by pruning away clearly bad choices. It makes perfect sense for our brains to have evolved to do the same thing. If we had to evaluate all possible choices we’d be paralyzed. Like breathing this is way below the conscious level, so we might have freer will to make decisions than we are aware of. I do British cryptic puzzles, and one of the things you learn is to throw away the obvious meaning of a clue - the meaning your mind sees first - and look for weird interpretations which get pruned away. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2016, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will-how-and-when-do-you-make-your-first-choice/767244/43 "2016-10-01T00:15:48Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Like breathing this is way below the conscious level, so we might have freer will to make decisions than we are aware of. I think we can only confidently say that we are more aware of some decision-making processes than others. These decisions are almost always egosyntonic, so of course they’re going to feel like they are the fruits of free will. (Ironically, whenever we make egodystonic decisions, we are often diagnosed with mental illness and thus denied free will.) But I don’t think we can conclude these decisions are more “free will-ly” than those actions we know are under the control of our reptilian brain, like breathing or digestion. Reptile is running the controls all over our body. What makes us think it isn’t feeding us our thoughts and feelings too? If Reptile is the one calling the shots while graciously allowing our consciousness to let take the credit for everything, we wouldn’t know. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2016, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will-how-and-when-do-you-make-your-first-choice/767244/44 "2016-10-01T01:01:40Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > If you have a thousand theoretically possible choices, but in fact are limited to just a few options, freely choosing among those is still free will. If I’m deciding to turn left or right on my walk, the fact that I can’t leap over tall buildings in a single bound doesn’t really restrict my choice much. How do you know that you go with “left” because that’s what you consciously want to do, and not because your brain–your programming–has a left-ward bent? > [@](#): > > Of course there is no soul. But we seem to have several cooperating minds within our brain. (There was a psychologist on NPR last night who said this, and I think it is a good insight.) > If our subconscious decides for us - like when you suddenly realize what the best option is - isn’t that still free will? That’s not in line with my definition of free will, no. When people usually talk about free will, they mean possessing higher level executive functioning. A cat doesn’t have free will because a cat is presumably governed primarily by a reptilian brain. Crazy people don’t have free will because they are presumably incapable of making rational decisions. People believe that children and crazy people deserve leniency in the criminal justice system because it’s assumed they lack what normal adults have–the ability to make deliberate decisions under their own free will. Cats and children can behave in an apparent stochastic manner, and yet people still don’t think they possess free will. So just in case you’re still confused, I’m not making any statements about the determinism/indeterminism of the universe. > [@](#): > > A little man or woman sitting behind your eyes making free decisions is absurd. Why? Are dreams absurd to you? Involuntary movements and reflexes too? Implicit biases? Hypnosis? Learning and imprinting? All of these things speak to something being in control that’s outside of our apparent control. If you think I actually believe that a little man or woman literally lives inside our brains, pulling levers, then I don’t know what to say other than I apologize for giving you the impression I’m batshit insane. > [@](#): > > Whether it is free or not really depends on how you interpret that word. > If every decision we make is a function of decisions made in the past, we are masters of our destiny but in a way we can’t possibly precisely predict. But we can predict in broad outlines, which is why we tell kids to do their homework and eat their veggies. If every decision we make is a function of a decision made in the past, which also results from a previous decision, including other people’s decisions _ad infinitum_, then we aren’t the master of _anything_. We are just riding a very long wave. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2016, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will-how-and-when-do-you-make-your-first-choice/767244/45 "2016-10-01T01:45:10Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > At the moment the soul moves/attaches to the new person’s body it does have ultimate free will, that is at the moment of the body’s death the soul will be given the option, to come out with God back to life or descend into death. Where that point is, when the soul is firmly rooted into the new body is uncertain but very early and in-utero - I would place it at the point it ‘roots’ into the uterus. Before this the soul is still free floating unattached, though attracted to the new body, if at that time the body is destroyed it simply floats on. Replying to a coupe posts above to my post, and going beyond witnessing, I do believe it is the only way things make any sense, in the sense that life in worth anything. For example the abortion debate - both sides - are automatically silenced if the fetus, fully acknowledged as fully human, has the absolute free will decision of life or death offered by God at the time of bodily death, as every other person does as every person dies. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2016, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will-how-and-when-do-you-make-your-first-choice/767244/46 "2016-10-01T03:33:15Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > There’s a thread going on now in ATMB about whether “[telling someone their premise is wrong is threadshitting](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=805666).” > > This current thread is based upon the premise that people have free will, if I’m interpreting the OP correctly. Several posters are disputing that premise. I don’t think that’s threadshitting, but I do think it may be hijacking the thread away from its intended (by the OP) purpose, into other discussions like “ **Do** people have free will?” and “What does it even mean to have free will?” > > I think these are reasonable and interesting questions to discuss, but they’ve been discussed here on the SDMB before, in other threads. I’m not saying it’s wrong to discuss them here, but I am a bit disappointed that there isn’t much discussion of the OP’s original question, which assumes (at least for the sake of argument) that people do have free will, and which I thought was also a reasonable and interesting question. > > But, if we don’t have free will, I guess we all had no choice but to take this thread in the direction it’s gone… Never is a valid answer to the OP’s question. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2016, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will-how-and-when-do-you-make-your-first-choice/767244/47 "2016-10-01T03:40:54Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > By that definition no one has free will, since we are all at least partially influenced by our hormones, how tired we are, alcohol, etc. That is way too strict a definition. Monstro is right though. Without a precise mechanism that can override deterministic outcomes it seems hard to believe you can have free will. It’s hard to know and to articulate why what you perceive as you and your consciousness behaves as it does. Does a worm have free will when it chooses to burrow left instead of right? ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2016, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will-how-and-when-do-you-make-your-first-choice/767244/48 "2016-10-01T03:45:05Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > They’re not synonyms, but otherwise I agree. Free will and determinism are perfectly compatible. > No. The real issue is that free will is just a subjective abstraction, like consciousness. It has about as much physical meaning as how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. We have free will because subjectively we feel we are making choices freely. That’s all that is required. Meanwhile the neurons in our brains are firing in accordance with the basic laws of physics – they are either completely deterministic or ultimately randomized by quantum uncertainty, but one thing they assuredly are not is magic. Free will is a subject in psychology and not physics; from a hard science standpoint the subject is of little interest. That seems like circular logic there. And free will is debated. Here is one such stance. [The Quantum Physics of Free Will | Scientific American](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/quantum-physics-free-will/) ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2016, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will-how-and-when-do-you-make-your-first-choice/767244/49 "2016-10-01T04:20:07Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > How do you know that you go with “left” because that’s what you consciously want to do, and not because your brain–your programming–has a left-ward bent? Irrelevant to my point, which is that limiting ones choice does not automatically eliminate free will. Whether the decision among the remaining options is free is another matter. > [@](#): > > That’s not in line with my definition of free will, no. When people usually talk about free will, they mean possessing higher level executive functioning. A cat doesn’t have free will because a cat is presumably governed primarily by a reptilian brain. Crazy people don’t have free will because they are presumably incapable of making rational decisions. People believe that children and crazy people deserve leniency in the criminal justice system because it’s assumed they lack what normal adults have–the ability to make deliberate decisions under their own free will. I clearly don’t think you believe in a literal little man. But this isn’t a bad model for higher level executive function. If there was such a thing, it could make decisions shutting out hormones and even external stimuli. > [@](#): > > If every decision we make is a function of a decision made in the past, which also results from a previous decision, including other people’s decisions _ad infinitum_, then we aren’t the master of _anything_. We are just riding a very long wave. But everything we do is influenced by what we have done before. The decision to make pancakes for breakfast assumes you know what a pancake is and that you know how to make them. But if free will exists knowing this stuff does not necessarily determine that you will make them or not. But your brain contains the state of your knowledge of lots of things. Making a decision based on the state of your brain is not the same as a little man doing it, but it is still you doing it. After all, the executive function/little man is making decision based on its/his internal state, so free will discussions around that model just pushes the problem down a level. As I said, I neither believe nor disbelieve in free will. But since it is impossible to predict what someone will do our universe looks like we have free will, within the constraints I’ve already mentioned. Kind of like a strong deistic god who never interferes and leaves no fingerprints. People believe because it makes them feel good, but act as if the god does not exist. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2016, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will-how-and-when-do-you-make-your-first-choice/767244/50 "2016-10-01T05:57:55Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > That seems like circular logic there. And free will is debated. Here is one such stance. [The Quantum Physics of Free Will | Scientific American](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/quantum-physics-free-will/) No circular argument there at all. Furthermore, oddly enough, if you read that article, the author is saying precisely what I just said, uncannily using almost exactly the same words (I had never seen the article before, BTW). Namely that free will is perfectly consistent with determinism, and it’s simply a subjective perception – as he put it, an emergent property like consciousness (and directly related to it). OTOH, as the author and I both also said, if one posits that our neurophysiological processes are affected by quantum randomness\* then the choices we make are both deterministic and also influenced by random factors so they are imperfectly predictable – predictable only within some margin of error. But this has nothing to do with the magical influence of “free will” – it’s basic deterministic physics with the injection of a noise factor. Whether such matters are “interesting” is a matter of opinion. It may be interesting to philosophers but I don’t think it’s interesting from a scientific perspective simply because there’s not much more to say about it. There’s no argument about whether we’re conscious or sentient because by definition of what those words mean, we are those things because we think we are. There’s no argument that we have free will as long as we feel we’re making free choices. But it’s nothing more than a subjective perception. We don’t perceive our own deterministic internal processes any more than we perceive the deterministic processes that will determine the precise pattern of air molecules that will form breezes and weather patterns tomorrow. You may as well argue that the weather has free will, too. It’s all just physics with complex emergent properties. – - Whether quantum events like particle decay or the state into which a wave function collapses are truly random at some deep level of causality is a whole other story, but they are unknowable and can therefore be treated as random. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2016, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will-how-and-when-do-you-make-your-first-choice/767244/51 "2016-10-01T06:43:09Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > What does “free” connote to you? To me, it connotes the lack of restraint and inhibition. > > If the difference in the agency of a child and an adult is just a matter of degree rather than kind, then what is the point of using a loaded term like “free” to describe the will of an adult? It’s like saying that a person who gets around with crutches has “free mobility”, something the person in a wheelchair lacks. I’d argue that both of them are constrained. I’ve got neither crutches nor a wheelchair, but by such radical definitions I’ve got no free mobility. I can’t fly without tools, all my joints have a limited range… My opinion about the OP’s original question is that little kids start exercising free will long before they can express the choices, long before they can talk. A kid who knows enough to decide whether to go on playing the “make Mommy pick up thrown toy” or not knows enough to exercise free will. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2016, 7:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will-how-and-when-do-you-make-your-first-choice/767244/52 "2016-10-01T07:31:00Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > No circular argument there at all. Furthermore, oddly enough, if you read that article, the author is saying precisely what I just said, uncannily using almost exactly the same words (I had never seen the article before, BTW). Namely that free will is perfectly consistent with determinism, and it’s simply a subjective perception – as he put it, an emergent property like consciousness (and directly related to it). OTOH, as the author and I both also said, if one posits that our neurophysiological processes are affected by quantum randomness\* then the choices we make are both deterministic and also influenced by random factors so they are imperfectly predictable – predictable only within some margin of error. But this has nothing to do with the magical influence of “free will” – it’s basic deterministic physics with the injection of a noise factor. > > Whether such matters are “interesting” is a matter of opinion. It may be interesting to philosophers but I don’t think it’s interesting from a scientific perspective simply because there’s not much more to say about it. There’s no argument about whether we’re conscious or sentient because by definition of what those words mean, we are those things because we think we are. There’s no argument that we have free will as long as we feel we’re making free choices. But it’s nothing more than a subjective perception. We don’t perceive our own deterministic internal processes any more than we perceive the deterministic processes that will determine the precise pattern of air molecules that will form breezes and weather patterns tomorrow. You may as well argue that the weather has free will, too. It’s all just physics with complex emergent properties. > > – > > - Whether quantum events like particle decay or the state into which a wave function collapses are truly random at some deep level of causality is a whole other story, but they are unknowable and can therefore be treated as random. It is circular. You have free will if you feel like you have free will? How is that not a circular argument? The idea that you have real agency is what most mean when they talk about free will. And that would have to come from either a supernatural influence or some aspect of physics no one quite understands yet. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2016, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will-how-and-when-do-you-make-your-first-choice/767244/53 "2016-10-01T07:35:30Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > I’ve got neither crutches nor a wheelchair, but by such radical definitions I’ve got no free mobility. I can’t fly without tools, all my joints have a limited range… > My opinion about the OP’s original question is that little kids start exercising free will long before they can express the choices, long before they can talk. A kid who knows enough to decide whether to go on playing the “make Mommy pick up thrown toy” or not knows enough to exercise free will. Monstro isn’t saying you can’t think. Monstro is saying what you think is governed by your physical state and the rules of chemistry and physics. Which is an interesting point of view. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2016, 8:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will-how-and-when-do-you-make-your-first-choice/767244/54 "2016-10-01T08:20:40Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > It is circular. You have free will if you feel like you have free will? How is that not a circular argument? > > The idea that you have real agency is what most mean when they talk about free will. And that would have to come from either a supernatural influence or some aspect of physics no one quite understands yet. No, it is not, and I suspect you’re just not understanding my point. It’s much like Descartes’ proof of his own existence, “I think, therefore I am”. Things like consciousness and sentience are intrinsically subjective. Free will is the same, or as your cited article states, it is an emergent property of consciousness. What test could you devise to distinguish “real” agency from one’s _ **perception** _ of having real agency? None is possible, and the idea that there is some objective thing called “real” agency is just muddled thinking that leads to nonsensical attempts to explain it like supernatural forces instead of acknowledging that our behaviors are the results of physical processes. You might ponder how you would feel if it someday become possible to capture the complete neurological state of your brain in such a way that your response to some given stimulus – the choice that your “free will” would make – could be predicted with a very high degree of accuracy, minus some uncertainties perhaps due to measurement errors or even quantum effects. Which, incidentally, I fully believe will be possible someday. I know how I would feel. Namely, it wouldn’t make a whit of difference to me. I would still be able to go around feeling like I’m making my preferred choices, since that’s what free will is (and all it is) and I would regard the ability to predict my choices in advance to be nothing more than an interesting technological demonstration. Think about it. Behaviors are already reasonably predictable in various high-level ways; it’s the whole basis of human relationships and management theory. That you can reasonably predict how someone will respond to particular inputs, especially if you know them well, doesn’t make them any less “free” because they’re still subjectively making their preferred choices. My hypothetical brain-scan scenario above simply takes that predictability to a very fine level of detailed granularity, but it changes nothing. Free will is a subjective perception emerging from the same complex but ordinary physical processes that also give rise to consciousness. ---
**Author:** ![igor\_frankensteen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/839c29/32.png) [@igor\_frankensteen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/igor_frankensteen)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2016, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will-how-and-when-do-you-make-your-first-choice/767244/55 "2016-10-01T13:18:37Z")
The very first response contained the first most important concern: in order to have any meaningful discussion of this, you MUST define your terms first. Otherwise everyone is talking at sixes and sevens, and will never say anything functionally meaningful to each other. Another very important thing to start with, is that the entire subject of so-called Free Will, is a very old concern, which has always been wrapped up in who ought to be able to tell other people how to behave, and to whether gods exist or not. Other concerns enter into it as well, the more details you get in to about it. Therefore, it is MOST important that when someone proposes any sort of conception as to whether or not “free will” exists, it is imperative that we know WHY THEY WANT A DECISION TO BE MADE. What are they planning to do with the decision? I have witnessed, for example, people who wanted to get everyone to agree that Free Will does NOT exist, in order to excuse their own selfish behavior; I have seen people who wanted everyone to agree it didn’t exist, so that they could claim that their particular god was in charge, and that everyone should immediately follow their instructions; and I’ve seen people who wanted us all to believe in Free Will, in order to overthrow religions, or to allow them to firmly place blame on people they didn’t like. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2016, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will-how-and-when-do-you-make-your-first-choice/767244/56 "2016-10-01T13:22:56Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > I’ve got neither crutches nor a wheelchair, but by such radical definitions I’ve got no free mobility. I can’t fly without tools, all my joints have a limited range… If you met a space alien who can fly across a galaxy in the same time it takes you to take a single step, would you continue to say you have “free mobility”? I wouldn’t. I’d drop the “free” thing all together. Because from the space alien’s point of view, I sound like a jackass–trying to distinguish my range of mobility from everyone’s by using a lofty word like “free” when I’m obviously nowhere close to that. From the alien’s point of view, you ain’t free unless know how to create wormholes with your mind (with the help of some spice, of course). All I’m saying is you ain’t free unless you can override all the baggage of your biology and environment, including its history, to make decisions. Since it’s impossible to divorce oneself from their body and environment, then it’s impossible to override these things–or at the very least, know that they have been overridden. Thus, a person cannot claim to have free will. Their vantage point does not grant them the ability to test this hypothesis. All they can do is either settle for self-delusion (“I believe I have free will so thus I have free will”) or complete indifference to the whole concept (which is what I personally try to shoot for). > [@](#): > > My opinion about the OP’s original question is that little kids start exercising free will long before they can express the choices, long before they can talk. A kid who knows enough to decide whether to go on playing the “make Mommy pick up thrown toy” or not knows enough to exercise free will. A plant “knows” enough to bends its shoot towards a window to maximize its access to light. I wouldn’t say a plant has free will, though. Would you? ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2016, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will-how-and-when-do-you-make-your-first-choice/767244/57 "2016-10-01T14:05:47Z")
> [@igor\_frankensteen](#): > > Therefore, it is MOST important that when someone proposes any sort of conception as to whether or not “free will” exists, it is imperative that we know WHY THEY WANT A DECISION TO BE MADE. What are they planning to do with the decision? > > I have witnessed, for example, people who wanted to get everyone to agree that Free Will does NOT exist, in order to excuse their own selfish behavior; I have seen people who wanted everyone to agree it didn’t exist, so that they could claim that their particular god was in charge, and that everyone should immediately follow their instructions; and I’ve seen people who wanted us all to believe in Free Will, in order to overthrow religions, or to allow them to firmly place blame on people they didn’t like. I kind of disagree with you. I don’t believe in God, and this disbelief has nothing to do with my feelings on morality, my desire to sleep in on Sundays, or my disdain of self-important clergy. It has everything to do with the lack of evidence for an omniscient supernatural entity. Plenty of people continue to believe in God while harboring negative feelings about religion and its practitioners. I don’t believe in free will for the same reason I don’t believe in God, souls, or ghosts. (My definition of free will is consistent with Merriam-Webster’s: “the ability to make choices that are not controlled by fate or God.”) There is no evidence that humans–or anything else, for that matter–are capable of making choices totally independent of events that preceded it. If I wake up with pancakes on the brain because I dreamed about pancakes, so then I decide to eat pancakes, I did not make that choice freely. I made it because events outside of my conscious control made it so. For all I know, a burglar broke into my house last night and hypnotized me into thinking about pancakes. Of course the idea to make pancakes seems like _my_ idea and once I sit down to eat those pancakes, it will feel like I’m carrying out my own will. But in actuality, I would be carrying out the burglar’s will. I believe this happens all the time since our brains are so suggestible and self-deluding. Except that 99.9% of the time, the burglar’s hypotic suggestions are being broadcast to us on TV, radio, and billboards. I will confess that my passion about this topic does come from a personal place. I am regularly exposed to my unconscious mind’s mischief in the form of Tourette’s Syndrome. The whole thing has taught me that my brain (at least, I don’t want to speak for other brains) is rife with bizarre associations. If I think or see certain things, I am compelled (coerced?) to perform certain crazy behaviors. I am helpless against this. Obviously Tourette’s makes me a bit of a freak, so I can’t extrapolate too much. But it does make me wonder _in what way_ am I a freak. Am I a freak because I have these bizarre associations? Or am I a freak because these bizarre associations–that everyone has–manifest themselves in bizarre actions rather than thoughts and feelings? Perhaps for almost everyone else, their bizarre associations affects them emotionally or physically, but not their body movements–which just happen to be readily visible. Either way, I don’t have any evidence that my “free will” differs from anyone else’s. I only have evidence that I move in an unusual way. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2016, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will-how-and-when-do-you-make-your-first-choice/767244/58 "2016-10-01T14:49:41Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Irrelevant to my point, which is that limiting ones choice does not automatically eliminate free will. Whether the decision among the remaining options is free is another matter. If your brain has a directional bias–a bias that is unbeknowst to you–then you cannot know whether you are freely choosing between left and right. Only an outside observer would be able to discern this. > [@](#): > > But everything we do is influenced by what we have done before. The decision to make pancakes for breakfast assumes you know what a pancake is and that you know how to make them. But if free will exists knowing this stuff does not necessarily determine that you will make them or not. Again, if your brain only presents you with the option to eat pancakes, then you have no choice but to eat pancakes. From an outsider’s point of view, of course the options seem limitless and “free”. But for the individual with a brain that is perseverating on pancakes, their hand is being pushed to go with the pancakes and that’s what they’re always going to do. > [@](#): > > But your brain contains the state of your knowledge of lots of things. Making a decision based on the state of your brain is not the same as a little man doing it, but it is still you doing it. After all, the executive function/little man is making decision based on its/his internal state, so free will discussions around that model just pushes the problem down a level. Have you ever suffered from a hallucination, either visual or auditory? I have. And I can tell you, it didn’t feel like “me”. It feels very much “other.” When your unconscious creeps into your conscious, you don’t get a feeling of “oneness”–like you’re meeting another part of yourself. You get a feeling like your mind isn’t functioning right. That little person behind your eyes is supposed to stay hidden. I think it is a cop-out to attempt to solve the free will question by defining “self” as the entirety of one’s brain. Personally, I wouldn’t know the last thing about which hormone needs to be squirted out when, or when to relax or contract this or that smooth muscle. “Free will” speaks to voluntary actions exerted in accordance with one’s desires and values. My unconscious mind’s comings and going are, by definition, involuntary. And my unconscious mind’s activities are always going to be in line with my desires and values since it is my unconscious mind that establishes my desires and values. Duh. At any rate, defining “will” so broadly that it encompasses the whims of the reptilian brain means that there is no real difference between a human’s free will and a rat’s. I don’t think most people attribute “free will” to rats. That rat brains can “choose” to navigate through a maze successfully or not doesn’t impress people very much. Probably because a robot can do the same thing. We would like to think that human cognition is superior to both the rat and the robot–that we possess something special that both of these things lack. > [@](#): > > As I said, I neither believe nor disbelieve in free will. But since it is impossible to predict what someone will do our universe looks like we have free will, within the constraints I’ve already mentioned. Kind of like a strong deistic god who never interferes and leaves no fingerprints. People believe because it makes them feel good, but act as if the god does not exist. You think it is impossible because your definition of free will is so broad. If you were using my definition of free will, you would have a much easier time imagining what it would look like. (And again, I make no claims about the nature of the universe. I am only speaking about free will in the context of cognition, not physics). ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2016, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will-how-and-when-do-you-make-your-first-choice/767244/59 "2016-10-01T15:13:55Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > What test could you devise to distinguish “real” agency from one’s _ **perception** _ of having real agency? None is possible, and the idea that there is some objective thing called “real” agency is just muddled thinking that leads to nonsensical attempts to explain it like supernatural forces instead of acknowledging that our behaviors are the results of physical processes. I would not say “none” are possible. [Neuroscience](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroscience_of_free_will) is rife with examples of the self-delusions of free will. I recommend reading David Eagleman’s book “Incognito: The Secret Life of the Brain”. He talks about “just so” stories in the context of neurological disorders–like [Anton-Babinski syndrome](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton%E2%80%93Babinski_syndrome). Then he posits that it’s not just people with disordered brains who tell themselves “just so” stories, but all of us do. Just [because](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auditory_illusion) our [brains](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_illusion) control [our](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tactile_illusion) perception of reality does not mean that it is impossible for us to know that reality is being distorted. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2016, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will-how-and-when-do-you-make-your-first-choice/767244/60 "2016-10-01T17:00:33Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > No, it is not, and I suspect you’re just not understanding my point. It’s much like Descartes’ proof of his own existence, “I think, therefore I am”. Things like consciousness and sentience are intrinsically subjective. Free will is the same, or as your cited article states, it is an emergent property of consciousness. > > What test could you devise to distinguish “real” agency from one’s _ **perception** _ of having real agency? None is possible, and the idea that there is some objective thing called “real” agency is just muddled thinking that leads to nonsensical attempts to explain it like supernatural forces instead of acknowledging that our behaviors are the results of physical processes. > > You might ponder how you would feel if it someday become possible to capture the complete neurological state of your brain in such a way that your response to some given stimulus – the choice that your “free will” would make – could be predicted with a very high degree of accuracy, minus some uncertainties perhaps due to measurement errors or even quantum effects. Which, incidentally, I fully believe will be possible someday. I know how I would feel. Namely, it wouldn’t make a whit of difference to me. I would still be able to go around feeling like I’m making my preferred choices, since that’s what free will is (and all it is) and I would regard the ability to predict my choices in advance to be nothing more than an interesting technological demonstration. > > Think about it. Behaviors are already reasonably predictable in various high-level ways; it’s the whole basis of human relationships and management theory. That you can reasonably predict how someone will respond to particular inputs, especially if you know them well, doesn’t make them any less “free” because they’re still subjectively making their preferred choices. My hypothetical brain-scan scenario above simply takes that predictability to a very fine level of detailed granularity, but it changes nothing. Free will is a subjective perception emerging from the same complex but ordinary physical processes that also give rise to consciousness. I understand all that. But the average person who believes in free will actually thinks they have what is typically thought of as free will. Calling a belief in free will actual free will even when acknowledging determinism is muddling the conversation imo. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will-how-and-when-do-you-make-your-first-choice/767244.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will-how-and-when-do-you-make-your-first-choice/767244.md?page=4)