Free will - implications?

Great Debates
1

Einstein said “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them”. In my opinion, Trump becoming the elected leader of “the free world” is a hilarious contradiction. But I think there’s a naivety in the extent to which we to-and-fro between over-the-top blind, idle optimism (Obama/Trump/Brexit, depending on affiliation) and over-the-top fatalistic doom-mongering (Obama/Trump/Brexit, depending on affiliation). The difference between the harshly-perceived “selfish” mainstream economic right vs the harshly-perceived “elitist” mainstream liberal “left” is vastly exaggerated, which leads to chronic pettiness. Or perhaps our diminished expectations of what actual change can look like together with our self-centric perspectives lead us to believe that negligible tweaks to the status quo represent meaningful change. It takes all types – no opinion is objectively correct, no opinion is fixed; I learn and grow and strive for the belief that we’re all doing our personal best in view of our ever-changing individual faculties and frailties. The endless “vote for change” messages are becoming comically dull… As per what Einstein reckoned, I don’t believe any political party – left, right, loony – is able to bring the degree of change society is clearly collectively requesting (hence the division… the internal conflict) so long as they’re confined by the principles that have brought us to this point of stagnation. I think we’d do well to take a look at ourselves rather than blaming or looking to our favourite commentators / bloggers / mates for answers. To get over ourselves, broaden our perspective, and stop wasting time with small-minded vitriolic rhetoric which focuses on problems rather than solutions. And to think big!.. to think as radically differently as the difference we want to see in society… “be the change you want to see in the world”, the world will follow.

For instance:

Turns out there’s no such thing as free will. Neuroscience says so. But some reckon we can’t handle the truth!.. “the assumption of free will runs through every aspect of American politics, from welfare provision to criminal law. It permeates the popular culture and underpins the American dream”… civilisation AS WE KNOW IT could collapse. Hmm… firstly, what small-minded rubbish… we coped with hearing the world isn’t flat… we won’t collapse… we’ll adapt and advance. Secondly, what are we waiting for!?! There are a lot of very angry people in the world, widening economic and social division, a climate change problem we’re clearly unable to address in our current collective mindset, an ever-worsening global mental health crisis… it seems to me that, amongst the things we’re getting right, there are some fundamentals we’re getting very wrong at a personal/societal level.

From the above article, on Sam Harris’ perspective:

*Illusions, no matter how well intentioned, will always hold us back. For example, we currently use the threat of imprisonment as a crude tool to persuade people not to do bad things. But if we instead accept that “human behavior arises from neurophysiology,” he argued, then we can better understand what is really causing people to do bad things despite this threat of punishment—and how to stop them. “We need,” Harris told me, “to know what are the levers we can pull as a society to encourage people to be the best version of themselves they can be.”

According to Harris, we should acknowledge that even the worst criminals—murderous psychopaths, for example—are in a sense unlucky. “They didn’t pick their genes. They didn’t pick their parents. They didn’t make their brains, yet their brains are the source of their intentions and actions.” In a deep sense, their crimes are not their fault. Recognizing this, we can dispassionately consider how to manage offenders in order to rehabilitate them, protect society, and reduce future offending. Harris thinks that, in time, “it might be possible to cure something like psychopathy,” but only if we accept that the brain, and not some airy-fairy free will, is the source of the deviancy.

Accepting this would also free us from hatred. Holding people responsible for their actions might sound like a keystone of civilized life, but we pay a high price for it: Blaming people makes us angry and vengeful, and that clouds our judgment. “Compare the response to Hurricane Katrina,” Harris suggested, with “the response to the 9/11 act of terrorism.” For many Americans, the men who hijacked those planes are the embodiment of criminals who freely choose to do evil. But if we give up our notion of free will, then their behavior must be viewed like any other natural phenomenon—and this, Harris believes, would make us much more rational in our response.

Although the scale of the two catastrophes was similar, the reactions were wildly different. Nobody was striving to exact revenge on tropical storms or declare a War on Weather, so responses to Katrina could simply focus on rebuilding and preventing future disasters. The response to 9/11, Harris argues, was clouded by outrage and the desire for vengeance, and has led to the unnecessary loss of countless more lives. Harris is not saying that we shouldn’t have reacted at all to 9/11, only that a coolheaded response would have looked very different and likely been much less wasteful. “Hatred is toxic,” he told me, “and can destabilize individual lives and whole societies.”*

Thoughts?

2

I was going to post a response…but now I’m not sure if it came to me of my own free will, or if it would change anything already set in motion if I did post it.

3

I suddenly feel an irresistible desire to buy the world a coke.

4

The kind of free will that Sam Harris is talking about is contracausal free will, which is our strong intuitive sense that we could have done otherwise in precisely identical circumstances. This is the kind of free will that Sam Harris argues does not exist (and virtually all philosophers agree with him). It does not mean freedom in the sense of liberty or lack of constraint, it does not imply fatalism, and it has few implications for the democratic process. The strong implication is in criminal justice: it is ethically indefensible to punish solely for retribution.

If anyone is not familiar with the arguments against free will, Sam Harris’s book is a short tract that can be read in a couple of hours.

5

We had a discussion about this recently that arose tangentially from a QM thread, so I’ll post up some of what I wrote there to summarize the “no free will” argument. I’ve edited myself in a couple of places in square brackets to clarify.

A common first response to this is to assert fatalism. If we have no free will, what’s the point in having this conversation, let alone a more serious discussion of the ethical basis for a justice system? If it’s all predetermined, why bother even thinking about it?

6

Hi Riemann. Fascinating stuff. I can’t say I’m that well-read on the subject, but the debate really strikes a chord with me on an intuitive level. My sense is that its more about a re-defining of what we think of as free will. Acknowledging the illusion or not, “To be or not to be” is STILL the question! I.e., as you point out, the question of determinism vs fatalism is independent of free will… the deterministic view that all conscious decisions and actions lead to future events (and therefore to the optimist in me are still relevant) is not that which is under scrutiny.

Embracing the emerging definition - that the choices we make are part and parcel of the chain of cause and effect - I feel has potentially radical implications for the way we look upon ourselves, on our relationship to and judgement of others. The understanding it affords has to lead to a more empathetic, less ego-centric perspective.

Gus Speth: “I used to think that the top environmental problems were biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and climate change. I thought that thirty years of good science could address these problems. I was wrong. The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed and apathy, and to deal with these we need a cultural and spiritual transformation. And we scientists don’t know how to do that.”

7

This I agree with.

(1) It undermines most religion. There was always the paradox of freedom in the sense of “lack of constraint” when God is purportedly omnipotent & omniscient. But this is a deeper issue: free will cannot possibly exist, even absent God.

(2) It undermines right wing Libertarianism of the Ayn Rand flavor. It makes a nonsense of the idea that people deserve or earn their fate in society.

(3) In criminal justice, it is surely wrong to punish people solely to hurt them, for retribution, except to the extent that retribution may provide effects such as deterrence or perhaps even solace for the victim.

However, with regard to (2) and (3): “no free will” does not imply that we should be “soft” on crime or necessarily more “lax” or generous in social welfare. The absence of free will does not negate cause and effect in the decisions people make. Harsh criminal punishments or strict welfare conditions may certainly still be justified for deterrent or incentive. But it certainly helps us think more clearly about why we punish criminals and why we provide social welfare, and how they should be structured.

8

If you wanna know my will it’ll cost ya.

9

The majority of philosophers are compatibilists.

I don’t know if there’s a clear fallacy or cutesy phrase to counter the “why have this argument then” point, but I wish there were. If free will doesn’t exist, it doesn’t mean inputs to systems don’t matter. Arguments and experiences can still change your views. Besides, there are other reasons to post crap on the internet. Like for fun, or narcissism - people think their opinion is so important strangers need to see it. Or to procrastinate. Or to let off steam. Or…

10

It’s the appeal to consequences fallacy, at least implicitly: if there is no free will, then everything seems pointless and weird, so there must be free will.

But there is no free will, and we must simply re-think what certain things really mean in light of that knowledge: what it means to choose, right and wrong, criminal responsibility, etc., all of these things must be reconsidered, and there is no wholly satisfactory and intuitive answer. But the lack of a satisfactory answer does not save free will, we must face up to what it implies.

11

Marshmallow: the cutesy answer you’re after… I’m pretty sure it’s 42

12

This doesn’t get to the root of my frustration. It’s more a misunderstanding over what the lack of free will would mean. If you think everything has to happen the way it does because physics, man, then asking why we’re having this conservation is pretty silly. Couldn’t have happened another way. Or, all the inputs in my brain made me want to have this conservation because I found it appealing given my life experience and personality. Trace the causes as far back as you want.

As far as I know there’s no way to prove or disprove free will without access to godlike knowledge or time travel. Even then, people would argue about certain results would mean, just as they do over the various thought experiments.

13

I don’t know how democracy can represent a value in a world where there is no free will. In my opinion, if there is no free will, fascism will make more sense.

Democracy – individual rights, tolerance, peaceful competition
Personal opinions influence political hierarchy through free elections.
Individuals choose to actively participate in the civic life.
Individuals and their human rights matter equally and they should be protected.
Everyone is equally responsible and the law applies the same to everyone.
**
Fascism – elitism, hierarchical ranking, aggressive competition**
The group’s point of view influences membership and hierarchical position.
The group controls individual behavior and prevents/eliminates opposition.
The group and its elite matter more than the individual and they should be protected.
The law applies selectively by preserving those who can be assimilated and by eliminating those who can’t.

14

In accepting the absence of free will in the way we classically understand it, all that’s happening is we’re shedding another layer of ignorance. Akin to the effect of carbon dating on the doctrine of Christian creation. Such upheaval - the necessity to give up blind faith - is inevitably met with resistance. The fact is the question “why do we bother” is relevant whether or not we accept the free will illusion. The existential question: to be or not to be, to participate or not to participate, to see purpose or not to see purpose, to love or not to love, is - until some kind of final truth is revealed - neither emerging nor going away. So any perceived fatalistic implications are irrelevant and a product of misunderstanding.

The presumption that we somehow need the illusion of free will to function and “be good” comes, by definition, from a place of ignorance. Free will requires a doer… someone who is thinking the thoughts, seeing the sights. But where’s the logic in this? The null hypothesis is surely that there are simply thoughts, there are simply sights (“sight-seeing” is a ridiculous concept!). We think our faith in free will is intuitive. But is it? (and more crucially would it make it true if it is?)… Our mindsets, whether we like it or not, are deeply conditioned by theology, and the belief in free will underpins Abrahamic religion. Plus, there’s clearly appeal in blindly adopting the self-important mindset that “I’m doing this”, “I’m in charge”.

So free will as an illusion calls upon us to re-assess what we understand as our independent, autonomous selves. This isn’t to say we’re suddenly no longer autonomous… the same close dynamical coupling between our phenomenal selves and our actions applies - just that we ‘are’ our actions rather than ‘will’ them. We either accept this or concede to blind faith. The former affords us more rational judgements. As previously mentioned, at a societal level there are implications for the legal system… if people’s actions are a product of causation then it no longer makes sense to pass judgements about people as being “good” or “evil” (which only provokes a needlessly emotive response). The result is a more rational, efficient and effective system that concentrates on what is collectively beneficial rather than what satisfies ignorant emotional responses. I think it has societal implications far beyond the judicial system. Would the pressure and intent to have engaged in middle eastern conflicts have been there in a more rational, less emotionally volatile society? Would the personal greed and self-righteousness that drives economic and social division be tempered by the more rational, less judgemental, less self-centred mindset in a society which understands and emphasises in its teaching the self-evident truth of inter-dependence (a concept which by the way does nothing to devalue the individual) over the irrational you vs me attitude.

Personally I see no link to fascism.

15

I don’t agree with this. It’s just not an empirical question. The supposed concept of contra-causal free will is simply nonsense, it is not defined coherently. You cannot, even in principle, do experiments to test nonsense.

16

I believe that free will comes in levels. The more enlightened we are the higher level of free will we have. The input we receive will be compared to a very larger number of possible outcomes based on how we respond, some of us consider the most favorable out come to our own personnel needs the desirable outcome while others have learned to weigh consequences and far reaching effects. The more finite the information is being weighed the higher level of free will an individual has attained.

 Pulling the levers as Harris suggested I believe could work but because of the extreme amount minute details needed to properly condition a brain this task might not be well suited for the current scientists and psychologists that are presently being assigned the task. We have many people who walk among us who are particularly adept at reading and manipulating people. They are good at identifying one another and could be called into action for what I would consider a worthwhile experiment in rehabilitation. I doubt this will ever happen though as they have no credentials.
17

Beautifully written.

I think the realization that contra-causal free will is an illusion is deeply confusing. Threads like this tend to abound with “gotcha” comments like “well, if you have no free will how did you decide to write this?”, or confusing free will (an illusion) with consciousness (obviously a real phenomenon), or equating determinism with fatalism.

The non-existence of free will does not mean that we do not make choices, it does not even mean that we lack “agency”, it certainly does not mean that “good” and “evil” are no longer useful concepts. It’s just that as we (in your words) “shed another layer of ignorance” these things must mean something slightly different from our prior conception.

We still choose, but choice is now seen as sophisticated computation. And we realize that there is no “free” homunculus supervising the choosing, our our identity is the computation.

18

You seem to be discussing free will as “lack of constraint”, “sophisticated autonomony”, “freedom to act without coercion”. There’s a separate conversation to be had about that, but I just want to clarify the distinction between what you’re talking about and contra-causal free will, the latter defined as a capacity to act otherwise under precisely identical circumstances. Virtually all non-theologian philosophers agree that contra-causal free will is nonsense, but the majority then take what’s known as a “compatibilist” view, the idea that free will is compatible with determinism. They do this by simply redefining free will: since contra-causal free will is obviously nonsense, they argue, “free will” can only usefully mean something else such as “freedom from coercion”.

Personally, I find the compatibilist view unhelpful, it’s saves the words “free will” by simply redefining them to mean something other than the commonly-held idea. But it distracts from the primary point that most people in the word refuse to accept, that free will in the usual sense of contra-causal free will does not exist.

It’s reminiscent of the criticism of Dawkins for writing The God Delusion: you’re attacking a straw man, nobody is so unsophisticated to believe in that kind of God!

19

So I think the question is, and I’m sure a lot of people have put more thought into this than I, is how should the criminal justice system work in the case of no free will? To me, punishment that inflicts any suffering would be immoral for even the most heinous of crimes. I used to think simple separation from society would have to be acceptable, as to protect the self-preserving rights of others… but separation from society would also cause severe suffering of the criminal. So now I think if it were possible to change the physical state of the criminal’s brain to where they would no longer be a threat but would not suffer, as dangerous and short-sighted as this sounds, may be the best solution. Getting to that point safely and ethically is probably going to be a challenge though.

20

I don’t see how any of that follows from the fact that we have no contra-causal free will.

Yep - there may be some use in redefining the term “free will” as many philosophers have done, when they’re talking among themselves. However, if you’re trying to communicate ideas out to the general public, it just leads to confusion to say free will does exist, with the “as we’ve redefined it” caveat not mentioned.

You’re overlooking the fact that suffering of someone who has committed a crime can be a deterrent for someone else who is just considering a similar crime. I agree with you for the most part, and I’ll add that any suffering imposed has to be for the purpose of a deterrent to others. Inflicting suffering for only retribution is immoral.