I’ve heard the argument before that free will as it is commonly understood is logically contradictory. Since all actions have some motivation and reason behind them (even if the motivation is insanity or randomness) then this seems to exclude the possibility of freedom to make decisions…( in other words if a person had the exact same innate makeup and experiences, and if faced with the exact same choice would he be able to choose differently, and not randomly?) Waht are some good arguments against this?
Well, first off, all actions DON’T have some motivation or reason behind them. For example, if a meteor were to slam into the planet and kill all life on the surface, would there be any motivation or reason behind that? Nah. Shit happens, that’s all.
Second, even if human action has a motivation/reason behind it, that doesn’t mean that the action itself is “locked in”. For instance, let’s say you have two people, Willy and Horace. Willy’s hungry. Horace is hungry. They want to get food. Willy goes to McDonald’s to get food. Does this mean that Horace must also go to McDonald’s?
A simplistic argument, but “motivation” does not equal “action”.
Assuming that there is no god, and that the universe just is, then well, we’re just a bunch of sub-atomic particles all clumped together in different objects. So if there is no outside influence by a god or something like it, then, wouldn’t that “ultimate equation” thingy that physicists are striving for chronicle all time, past, present, and future? Or wouldn’t quantum physiscs mean that there would be an infinite amount of possible timelines and so we’d only be seeing one and be given the illusion of freewill, but only just the illusion, as we would be trapped on a set path.
But why should you “see” just one of these. If there are infinitely many universes, then why do you not have infinitely many consciousnesses? Or would you stipulate that you can somehow be unaware of all but one of your consciousnesses? Is your consciousness a metaphysical singularity?
It was quantum physics that put the nail right in the forehead of scientific determinism. It’s exactly not the case that, if we’re all just a clump of subatomic particles, then the equations governing those particles are a chronicle of all time.
I covered this in a philosophy class, not physics, so don’t expect me go all Hawking on you. The idea behind scientific determinism is that there is a definite state to the universe. If we have perfect knowledge of that state at time T, and perfect knowledge of the laws of physics governing that state, then we can know the state for any other time T +/- n. If the equations perfectly govern the state, then there is no room for free will.
Starting with Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, it’s doubtful that there is a determinate state to the universe. With philosophers like Thomas Kuhn around suggesting that science is not progressive or cumulative, it’s doubtful that there can be perfect knowledge of the equations. So, both premises of scientific determinism fail. It’s always possible that we’re just not looking closely enough, but quantum physics suggests that the problem isn’t about looking closely enough.
Even given the uncertainty principle…which I’m sure would have been brought up at sometime…would that still leave open the possibility of free will? I mean the uncertainty principle just means we can’t predict everything right? It doesn’t preclude the possibilty that all actions have behind them a motivation.
Even if it did, doesn’t that still seem incompatible with our concept of free will as it stands? Free will sort of implies that we actively choose something…if it just randomly happens…which is what the uncertainty princple allows (randomness) then how is that free will? It seems like the randomness itself would be a kind of motivation and force behind the action.
Tom Stoppard, in his play Arcadia (an excellent story, I suggest everyone pick up a copy) played around with the idea of Determinism. One of the conclusions reached was that even if an “equation” for the universe existed, you’d need a computer as big as the universe in order to calculate it.
In other words, the equation would be so complex that it would be indistinguishable from true Free Will.
Make of that what you will.
To the extent that the uncertainty principle (and quantum mechanics generally) suggest that we can’t predict anything, it goes pretty far towards killing scientific determinism, but doesn’t say much at all about whether or not we have free will. It puts the ball back in philosophy’s court, since it robs science of the ability to talk about determinate causes, and the reduction of human behaviour to those causes.
First of all, the uncertainty principle says nothing about randomness–it’s about the indeterminacy of state at the subatomic level. These are very different things: dice are random but perfectly determinate (ignoring rolls where one stands on end). It suggests only that a billiard-ball model of causality is inappropriate at that scale.
Second, even if the sum of the actions of subatomic particles were randomly determined at each instant, it wouldn’t make sense to claim that human behaviour is reducible to that sum, because then human behaviour would be perfectly random when it evidently isn’t.
If an exact copy of the universe were made at a specific point would both run in exactly the same way? This is a different question to whether someone could actually predict how they were going to run.
Well if a random event can’t be held responsible for human behavior, what then is? It seems that a human’s choice depends on 2 things: 1) experiences in the world.
2)something innate…(call it a soul…genetics…or something else that is intangible…whatever you like.
Both those things would be ultimately out of that persons control. A person could choose, say, who he hangs out with, and that could be seen as a form of choosing one's experiences, but in reality it would be previous experiences or something innate that led hom to that choice. So it seems that every act could be seen as an inner rational discourse between alternatives. But, since every meaningful act has a motivation behind it, it is in a sense determined.
Even if a person were to choose "against reason", this choice would have resulted from some type of innate faulty sense of reason, which again isn't under the control of the individual.
(This last point shows why people who like the Backstreet Boys clearly aren't responsible for thier actions, and should not be blamed.)Do you see what the problem with this question is? It assumes that there are causes of human behaviour, and that those causes are exhaustive. You’re basically saying “well, if physics doesn’t determine human behaviour, what does?” You’re not admitting the possibility of free will as a significant factor.
It’s always possible to find influences on human behaviour–upbringing, brain chemistry, angels, whatever–and to describe them in a way so monolithic that there’s no room for free will. The problem is that, like scientific determinism, it’s hard to claim that they’re exhaustive when we’re unable to give an exhaustive account of how theyr’e so.
Well, you wouldn’t see them all 'cause you’d be the conciousness which recieves all its information from the brain in your dimension. You wouldn’t have a connection to any other input excpet from where you were.
Man, this is giving me a great opportunity to procrastinate before my test tomorrow.
True, as with alot of questions, its hard to exclude things unless you know the system in its entireity. That seems to be the problem in finding absolute truth within things like science.
I don’t think that for this argument its nesscesary, however. It would seem like whenever I made a choice with a reason behind it, that would not be free will.
Say I were to have to make a choice between chocolate and vanilla ice cream. I really feel like having vanilla. That feeling would be the motivation for my choosing vanila, and I would have been determined to eat that ice cream. Now, I suppose I could “will” myself to want chocolate instead and take chocolate, but that would not be a true free choice since there would be some other reason behind why I made the choice to will myself to want chocolate (the attractive girl behind me says only nerds like vanilla).
Eventually, that regression of reasoning will extend beyond myself (my reasoning self…not my genes, my soul or what have you). And when it does, it also extends beyond my will. It also must nesscesarily extend beyond as to not become simply a random act. I don’t think random acts are what most people talk about when they mean free will.
I don’t see why having a reason to make a choice means that choice is determined. You like vanilla, and you want vanilla, but you could still choose chocolate. It’s not about willing yourself to like chocolate or want chocolate–you chould simply choose to have chocolate instead (seriously, try it sometime).
Except that it’s within your reasoning self that apparent free will exists. You have reasons and motivations, but that doesn’t mean you can’t ignore them, or chose to spite them.
Just because I like vanilla, and choose vanilla, doesn’t mean I couldn’t have chosen chocolate instead.