# Free will? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 22, 2003, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will/156718 "2003-02-22T03:55:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![TVAA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c57346/32.png) [@TVAA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TVAA)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2003, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will/156718/41 "2003-02-23T15:54:41Z")
To return to the subject of the OP: **leechow** : You’re suggesting that there are two possibilities: one, that our actions and decisions are governed by some deterministic mechanism, and two, that our actions are decisions are governed by something else, which for ease of reference we’ll call a “soul”. But then the question becomes, “How does the soul work?” In psychology, this is known as the “homunculus problem”. When people first began wondering how the mind works, they often imagined the mind as a tiny person or _homunculus_, working in a chamber filled with relays and connections. This homunculus would then orchestrate all of a person’s actions and decisons. Of course, now they needed a way to explain how the homunculus does things… and they quickly realized that if we tried to explain an unknown phenomenon by referring to another unknown phenonemon, we could do this infinitely without ever creating any basics for conclusions or meaning. If we want to understand thought, we have to postulate about possible mechanisms instead of just displacing the problem. This is essentially the problem with your original question. If we postulate a soul than makes our choices or decisions, how does that soul work? There’s still a mechanism required – an innate mechanism – that chooses. The two possibilities you suggest are equivalent: there are no implications of one that aren’t also implied by the other. ---
**Author:** ![bluemoonz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c57346/32.png) [@bluemoonz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bluemoonz)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2003, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will/156718/42 "2003-02-23T17:43:55Z")
This is a very bad topic to discuss because if we dont have free will, then whatever we post here is not up to us. If we do have free will, then you have the answer to your question. Also, if we dont have free will, then we wont know until the “thing” that controls lets us know. But then again, does **it** have free will? If free will does not exist entirely, then there is nothing that “controls” us because it doesnt have free will either. If only humans dont have free will, then we will never know. ---
**Author:** ![TVAA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c57346/32.png) [@TVAA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TVAA)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2003, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will/156718/43 "2003-02-23T18:07:02Z")
That’s not a meaningful objection, **bluemoonz**. It’s not at all the case that “whatever we post here is not up to us”. We _do_ decide what to post or do – it’s just that our decisions are the result of causation, just like everything else. If the nature of the universe demands that a person feel it’s a good idea to post to The Straight Dope at this time, and other people respond, it’s inevitable. It’s entirely possible to reach the conclusion that humans don’t have free will if they don’t have free will. The only question then is whether the universe will reach a configuration where humans know this; this is an empirical question not resolvable by logic. ---
**Author:** ![Iamthat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Iamthat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iamthat)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2003, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will/156718/44 "2003-02-23T18:55:11Z")
We only have an appearance of free will because we are only an **appearance** as an entity. We think we are the **experiencer** but if we don’t know who or what decides or knows then we are the experience of that which does. As body/thoughts (or whatever we take ourselves to be) we are not even conscious. Just a stream of thoughts in which some of the thoughts are comprised of the ideas that the thoughts themselves are somebody that knows something. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2003, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will/156718/45 "2003-02-23T18:55:20Z")
Vorlon wrote: > [@](#): > > Intelligence is what intelligence does. You’re clearly a very intelligent person, but if you don’t use that intelligence well, you’re being dumb. So, which is it? Am I intelligent, or am I an idiot? **in·tel·li·gent** ( P ) Pronunciation Key (n-tl-jnt) adj. Having intelligence. Having a high degree of intelligence; mentally acute. Showing sound judgment and rationality: an intelligent decision; an intelligent solution to the problem. Appealing to the intellect; intellectual: a film with witty and intelligent dialogue. **id·i·ot** ( P ) Pronunciation Key (d-t) n. A foolish or stupid person. A person of profound mental retardation having a mental age below three years and generally being unable to learn connected speech or guard against common dangers. The term belongs to a classification system no longer in use and is now considered offensive. > [@](#): > > What makes the underlying principles of aesthetics different from the underlying principles of mathematics or science? We don’t consider those to be beyond the realm of verification. I think I see what you mean. “To fully understand poetry, we must first be fluent with its meter, rhyme and figures of speech, then ask two questions: 1) How artfully has the objective of the poem been rendered and 2) How important is that objective? Question 1 rates the poem’s perfection; question 2 rates its importance. And once these questions have been answered, determining the poem’s greatness becomes a relatively simple matter. If the poem’s score for perfection is plotted on the horizontal of a graph and its importance is plotted on the vertical, then calculating the total area of the poem yields the measure of its greatness. A sonnet by Byron might score high on the vertical but only average on the horizontal. A Shakespearean sonnet, on the other hand, would score high both horizontally and vertically, yielding a massive total area, thereby revealing the poem to be truly great.” — “Understanding Poetry”, by Dr. J. Evans Pritchard, Ph.D., _Dead Poets Soceity_ Is that the gist of it? ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2003, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will/156718/46 "2003-02-23T19:04:51Z")
I don’t see how the concept of “free will” is of value. All it says is that we are free to choose without giving any clue as to why one choice is made over another. For example consider the woman who drowned her children in the car. Susan Smith was it? Yes, she could choose to or not to commit such an irrational act. Why she would chose one over the other isn’t even touched by the idea of “free will.” ---
**Author:** ![TVAA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c57346/32.png) [@TVAA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TVAA)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2003, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will/156718/47 "2003-02-23T19:18:23Z")
How can we determine intelligence besides looking at behavior? If someone behaves intelligently, we call them intelligent. If someone behaves foolishly, we call them a fool. A person can behave intelligently despite being generally stupid, and an intelligent person can do incredibly idiotic things. [sigh] To use poetry as an example: Would you consider your personal emotional reaction to a poem as the defining element of its greatness? If so, there are rules that govern your reactions (if there weren’t, you wouldn’t be having reactions at all). The greatness of a poem can be objectively determined: it’s whatever results in a positive response from you. Of course, the study and appreciation of poety was crippled before you were born, and it will be devastated when you die, but at least you were able to give scant enlightenment to the world for a brief time. What about the degree to which the poem is well-known? What about the number of people who enjoy it? What about the complexity and use of literary devices? What about the composition, the harmony, the uniqueness of its ideas or perspectives? If the concept of greatness has any meaning – if it isn’t merely an empty collection of sound that we place in a sentence – it has a definition. If is has a definition, then we can determine the greatness of a poem in an absolute and non-subjective sense. How do we do this? _ **It depends on the definition.** _ Whatever greatness _is_ will determine the tests. _Dead Poets Society_ (note the violation of the _i before e, except after c_ rule) focuses on the importance of the perceptions of the individual. This is an excellent idea, in my opinion, but it makes it impossible for there to be any way in which a poem can be great _except to an individual_. We must reask the question whenever we deal with a different individual. Come on, **Lib** – with all your knowledge of philosophy, you _must_ have picked up more practical skills with reasoning that you’re demonstrating. These ideas aren’t complicated. ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2003, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will/156718/48 "2003-02-23T19:53:52Z")
—And it’s not possible for those values to be objectively correct?— I don’t see how that statement could even be meaningful. How cana value be judged “correct” without simply assuming another value with which to judge it? —In the same way that different ways of baking a cake or building a house or writing a computer program can be objectively better than others, different ways of living one’s life can be objectively better than others.— But we aren’t talking about the processes here, we’re talking about the goals. And more importantly, what the goals “should” be. Different ways of living your life CAN be judged as better or worse… but only when you settle on a single criteria for measuring what “better” means. But how do you go about demonstrating what “better” means? Better along what criteria, towards what end? —We don’t consider things like hunger, pleasure, or pain to be arbitrary. We recognize them as systems that steer us away from certain actions or states and toward others. People whose drives resulted in their persisting and having children with similar drives persist. Those whose drives were inconsistent with continued survival didn’t.— So what? What’s natural to us is not necessarily moral. To some people, the highest attainment, the prime acheivement in life, is to overcome hunger, pain, and even pleasure: even to spurn life itself in the sake of a cause. Just because their brains are hardwired with these drives doesn’t mean they cannot also be soft-wired (or hard-wired) with other, conflicting drives: that people cannot choose to value things other than what a genotype might hope for. —If we’re not injured, but we experience pain anyway, can’t we consider the pain to be ‘wrong’? If we’re injured, but we don’t detect it and don’t recognize it as an injury, isn’t our lack of pain also ‘wrong’?— Perhaps wrong in the sense of “incorrect.” But why is that necessarily “wrong” in the sense of moral? —If we take the opposite position – that values have no objective meaning – then there’s really no reason to care about them, is there?— The problem is, I don’t know what is meant by “objective meaning” in this context. Meaning is objective in the sense that, for there to be meaning, it must be objectively true that there is a being that can find things meaningful. Otherwise, “objective meaning” is like “objective anger.” There is no reason to care about caring: you either do or you don’t: caring IS the reason that motivates one’s active concern for what is or isn’t right. —Emotion is a form of thinking. All evidence shows that this is the case.— I don’t know what you mean. Both are forms of experience, but certainly different kinds. I’m not sure where your dispute with Lib on this comes from: whether or not they occur in different physical loci (as they seem to) seems irrelevant to the question at hand (and they are certainly well integrated as experiences). ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2003, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will/156718/49 "2003-02-23T20:01:25Z")
—We think we are the experiencer but if we don’t know who or what decides or knows then we are the experience of that which does. As body/thoughts (or whatever we take ourselves to be) we are not even conscious.— Oh, it’s worse than that: for all we know, it could be conscious too (remember, we don’t know how or if consciousness arises from the brain, so we can’t map the systems that compose it and claim that there is only one of them per brain). Two conscious experiences in the same mind, both pretty much exactly the same, but unaware of each other. And the company that will bring it to you… AT&T. (sorry, it just sounded right) ---
**Author:** ![lekatt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lekatt/32/7269_2.png) [@lekatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lekatt)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2003, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will/156718/50 "2003-02-24T02:03:09Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by eburacum45 \* > \*\*Some of our actions are not performed because of freewill, but are automatic responses to internal states > the question is, perhaps, > are _all_ our responses automatic or are some of them caused by ‘free will’ whatever that is. \*\* This question is deeper than it appears on the surface. We always act out of free will, but our actions may be automatic at the same time. Suppose you have been taught since youth that an X-person was bad, and you have throughly assimilated that teaching and believe it. Then when you meet an X-person you react automatically by attacking them. Your action was still free will, because you could have chose not to attack the person. Every day we see these typical knee-jerk reactions going on. One person calls another a name and the knee-jerk reaction is to call a name back. It is our job to use our intelligence to analyze our beliefs and how we interact with others. We always act out of free will, even to the emotions we hold and express. It is our responsibility to understand/learn from any given situation and our accountability for the actions we take and the things we say. We always have free will. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2003, 10:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will/156718/51 "2003-02-24T10:44:03Z")
Vorlon wrote: > [@](#): > > Dead Poets Society (note the violation of the i before e, except after c rule) focuses on the importance of the perceptions of the individual. This is an excellent idea, in my opinion, but it makes it impossible for there to be any way in which a poem can be great except to an individual. We must reask the question whenever we deal with a different individual. > > Come on, Lib – with all your knowledge of philosophy, you must have picked up more practical skills with reasoning that you’re demonstrating. These ideas aren’t complicated. Note the violation of the “n” after “tha” rule. Note also Gaudere’s majesterial greatness. ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2003, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will/156718/52 "2003-02-24T12:55:36Z")
As is often quoted here in GD: _Correlation does not equal causation_. That you “decide” to do something, and that it then happens, does not mean that your decision “caused” the event. (Researchers who induce motor functions in subject’s muscles have a difficult time persuading them that they _didn’t_ “choose” to move). As Susan Blackmore advised in _The Meme Machine_, ridding ourselves of the “necessary fiction” of free will can actually be quite liberating, and need not require taking on a fatalistic attitude. ---
**Author:** ![TVAA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c57346/32.png) [@TVAA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TVAA)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2003, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will/156718/53 "2003-02-24T13:33:18Z")
Well, **Lib**? Are you going to respond to _any_ of the substance of my post? Or are we going to spend all our time sniping at each other’s typos? ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2003, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will/156718/54 "2003-02-24T14:08:08Z")
Vorlon wrote: > [@](#): > > Well, Lib? Are you going to respond to any of the substance of my post? The substance? I’m reminded of the scene from _Funny Farm_. Andy Farmer gives Elizabeth his manuscript for their anniversary. He asks her to read it while he goes to get champagne. When he returns, he asks her what she thinks. She bursts into tears, and cries out how the book flashes back, flashes forward, and flashes sideways. She explains how it would drive an editor to suicide. After her outburst, and his feeble attempts to point out how the book is both witty and profound, he says, “But what about the story?” Her face contorts into a mighty indignation. “The _story_?” ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2003, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will/156718/55 "2003-02-24T14:10:23Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by SentientMeat \* > \*\*As is often quoted here in GD: _Correlation does not equal causation_. > > That you “decide” to do something, and that it then happens, does not mean that your decision “caused” the event. (Researchers who induce motor functions in subject’s muscles have a difficult time persuading them that they _didn’t_ “choose” to move). > > As Susan Blackmore advised in _The Meme Machine_, ridding ourselves of the “necessary fiction” of free will can actually be quite liberating, and need not require taking on a fatalistic attitude. \*\* Good point, Sentient. We’ve discussed Ramachandran’s findings on God and the limbic system many times as well, and it’s a similar thing. You cannot know whether it is brain activity that is causing spiritual experience, or spiritual experience that is causing brain activity. ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2003, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will/156718/56 "2003-02-24T14:21:21Z")
Indeed, **Lib** I read _Phantoms in the Brain_ at your suggestion. In this instance (_ie._ on the subject of “free will”), he and Blakeslee agree that _“our sense of having a private, non-material soul ‘‘watching the world’’ is really an illusion” (p.256)_ ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2003, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will/156718/57 "2003-02-24T14:26:18Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Libertarian \* > \*\*Vorlon wrote: > > Note the violation of the “n” after “tha” rule. Note also Gaudere’s majesterial greatness. \*\* Hey, **Lib** , maybe it was a subtle compliment…what he said was: > [@](#): > > with all your knowledge of philosophy, you must have picked up more practical skills with reasoning that you’re demonstrating. I.e, over the years you have picked up more practical skills with reasoning, which you are demonstrating. 🙂 **Sentient Meat** , excellent point. But a question: if some event sequence exhibits a 1:1 correlation and is such that if either antecedent or putative consequent is omitted, the other fails to occur, is it not reasonable to presume a causal relationship, regardless of whether a “tight” system of cause-and-effect can be established? It would be my presumption that this is so, and the methodology for discovering new principles in the sciences, but I have not been formally trained in this and therefore don’t have a firm opinion. Care to expound a little (or does anyone else who happens to know).? ---
**Author:** ![Ramanujan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/51bf81/32.png) [@Ramanujan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ramanujan)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2003, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will/156718/58 "2003-02-24T14:43:37Z")
in my experience and schooling, when one event is strongly correlated with another, such that we have enough evidence to presume that one causes the other, and one event comes first chronologically, then that event can be said to cause the second event. of course that brings up questions about induction and probabilistic reasoning, but these are topics for another thread. ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2003, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will/156718/59 "2003-02-24T14:49:15Z")
Of course, **Poly** , but there is no such 1:1 correlation. If, having been told to press a button some time in the next minute, I think to myself “I’m going to press it _now_…no, _now_…wait a moment, right _this_ is the one…” then there is only _one_ such correlation amongst all of those “decisions”, _ie._ the one immediately preceding the action. This is then backwards reasoned as being the _cause_ of the action. Further, if there is evidence of unconscious brain activity _before_ you have the experience of “choosing”, this would imply that even if there were such a correlation, the origin of the “choice” is not “conscious” at all. (Benjamin Libet discovered that so-called ‘‘free’’ choices were preceded by an unconscious ‘‘readiness potential’’ in the brain around 500 msec. before the ‘‘choice’’ was made.) ---
**Author:** ![Ramanujan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/51bf81/32.png) [@Ramanujan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ramanujan)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2003, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will/156718/60 "2003-02-24T14:52:44Z")
**Lib** , i don’t really think many people would call your intelligence into question. your lack of clarity in this thread, though, has been a source of annoyance for more than just **Vorlon**. i think if you responded to my objections seriously, and in a manner that you actually expected me to understand, this wouldn’t have degenerated so. so back to the topic: why do we say we have free will? why do you say we have free moral volition? whence comes this freedom? why is moral volition fundamentally different from volition itself? and if we use your definition of heart (which is by no means clear), why is it that this heart is not the brain, or the seat of intellect? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will/156718.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will/156718.md?page=4)