# Lack of Freewill doesn't mean lack of choice **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 10, 2021, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lack-of-freewill-doesnt-mean-lack-of-choice/954128 "2021-11-10T15:31:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 136
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2021, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lack-of-freewill-doesnt-mean-lack-of-choice/954128/136 "2021-12-10T17:51:13Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > A potentially-infinite stack of “wills” (where “will” is not defined adequately in the first place) doesn’t even make sense let alone allow us to understand anything better. But a potentially infinite chain of causes is all fine? > [@Mijin](#): > > Also, are you now conceding the point about my brain being the proximate cause of my actions? I am claiming, and have always claimed, that you brain, your intention, is not the origin of your actions (on your view), and hence, has no explanatory power regarding them. Just like ‘because cog B moves’ is no explanation of why cog C moves—it just kicks the can down the road. > [@Mijin](#): > > In terms of your takedown of Determinism, I was embarrassed by it. To claim that Determinism means we cannot even say my brain is the proximate cause of my actions shows absolute desperation to maintain a conclusion. I’m referring to this argument, which you haven’t addressed, despite asking me to repeat it: > [@Thompson's Lamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thompsons-lamp/955473/7): > > > [@Thompson's Lamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thompsons-lamp/955473/7): > > > > Please elaborate. > > I have, at several points in this thread. For example: > > > [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > > > But then, that’s of course not the real argument against free will. Ultimately, it’s claimed, the notion itself is incoherent from the start—which, if true, of course makes any appeal to science, to determinism or chance, facile. After all, it’s supposed to be both definite—there is one, and only one, choice made—and yet, undetermined—as otherwise, whatever determines it by proxy determines the choice’s outcome—without being arbitrary—as a choice made without cause isn’t a choice at all. So, the ‘free’ and the ‘will’ parts of ‘free will’ just seem to pull in opposite directions. > > > > But this misses the option that the will determines itself. If the reason why we willed A over B is just the will, then there’s no external determination, and no arbitrariness. Of course, this immediately collapses into circularity—as Schopenhauer put it, ‘a man can do as he wills, but not will as he wills’. We can choose whatever we want, but can’t choose our wants. Otherwise, we face an infinite regress: if my will0 makes me choose cornflakes over peanut butter, then some will1 must determine my will0 to be cornflake-wanting rather than peanut butter-wanting, and some will2 determine my will1, and so on, either to infinity and beyond, or until we meet a magical regression-breaker. > > > > But then, what of it? Any account of how things happen ultimately faces the same problem. If things happen according to an unbroken causal chain, then either we have to continue this chain infinitely into the past, or we have to invoke some ‘first cause’ to begin it. If things happen as per the dictates of natural law, what dictates them, in turn? Randomness, similarly, hinges on ‘infinitary’ notions, although it’s not as obvious: mathematically, producing a truly (algorithmically) random string requires solving an undecidable problem (the halting problem), which can be done by a machine performing infinitely many steps of computation. > > More explicitly, there’s actually the same infinitary issue at work at every instance where some A causes B to occur: > > > [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > > > But then, the same infinity crops up at two (superficially) distinct places: first, either the chain of causality is infinite, or it isn’t. If it isn’t, it must have started somewhere—but then, that starting place can’t be causally determined (perhaps it’s some random initial condition—which leads us back to where we were). But more importantly, in any given instance of causation, we’re faced with the same regress: if matters of fact A made it so that matters of fact B obtain, what made it so that matters of fact A are matters-of-fact-B-causing? In short, you’re claiming that there’s a special problem that makes the notion of ‘free will’ uniquely problematic. There isn’t: the notions of causality and chance are at least as problematic; somebody appealing to them isn’t any better off than somebody appealing to free will. You can validly say, well, then we just don’t know how things happen; you can also hold that in that case, appeal to either is equally valid; but you can’t, for example, appeal to the causal connection of your intentions to the universe _and_ maintain that you’re saying something that makes any more sense than appealing to free will. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lack-of-freewill-doesnt-mean-lack-of-choice/954128)._