# What is this free will I keep hearing about? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 10, 2009, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-free-will-i-keep-hearing-about/509574 "2009-09-10T16:52:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2009, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-free-will-i-keep-hearing-about/509574/81 "2009-09-17T16:40:51Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > I agree that I am because I think, axiomatically. But thinking i_is_ the experiencing of the sensation of agency. And that agency may very well be illusory in that nothing is outside of prior causation, _at least_ until you get to the big bang (and first cause I won’t get into). Insofar as I am conscious, if nothing is outside of prior causation until you get to the big bang, then I am obviously the big bang. That makes sense, actually. (A whole lot more sense than it probably does at first glance). Nothing else has ever existed, nor has anything else ever occurred. Everything else that appears to do so is merely a subset thereof. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2009, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-free-will-i-keep-hearing-about/509574/82 "2009-09-17T16:42:26Z")
> [@CurtC](#): > > You lost me here - if consciousness is purely a property of the functions of a physical brain Why would you make such an assumption? ---
**Author:** ![Mojo\_Pin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Mojo\_Pin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mojo_Pin)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2009, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-free-will-i-keep-hearing-about/509574/83 "2009-09-17T16:48:11Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > Why would you make such an assumption? Because all signs so far point to yes and the other assumption is laughable. But it doesn’t matter whether consciousness arises from synapses or the soul or leprechauns in the 10th dimension. The decision making process is what matters in a question of free will. Logically, any choice stems from causes that are either deterministic in nature or things that are random. A combination of the two does not a “free” will make, no matter how you _feel_. ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2009, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-free-will-i-keep-hearing-about/509574/84 "2009-09-17T16:51:50Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > Originally Posted by CurtC > > You lost me here - if consciousness is purely a property of the functions of a physical brain > > Why would you make such an assumption? What’s an alternative? ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2009, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-free-will-i-keep-hearing-about/509574/85 "2009-09-17T17:13:51Z")
> [@Mojo\_Pin](#): > > Because all signs so far point to yes and the other assumption is laughable. But it doesn’t matter whether consciousness arises from synapses or the soul or leprechauns in the 10th dimension. The decision making process is what matters in a question of free will. Logically, any choice stems from causes that are either deterministic in nature or things that are random. Untrue. That formulation either assumes that the decision-maker is determined by “causes” which are not in turn and coterminously caused BY the decision-maker, or else assumes the conclusion from the outset, that everything that is is already determined by something else (in a mystical cascade of determinants that fades back into time and off-stage from origin). [QUOTE=CurtC] What’s an alternative? [/quote] We know that consciousness _inheres_ in the brain, that at least as we know it consciousness doesn’t inhere elsewhere, and that destroying the brain in bits and pieces wreaks similar havoc on consciousness and how it is capable of functioning. If I built an antenna and some kind of signal interpreter (TV set, let’s say), I get TV shows, and if I don’t have the equipment I don’t get to see the show; furthermore if the TV set has problems ranging from faulty electronics to me smashing it with a hammer, I get distortions, reception problems, or no freaking TV show. But the TV show is actually not a property of the function of the physical apparatus I have set up. Dont read overly much into the metaphor, I’m NOT claiming that consciousness is “broadcast” and that brains “pick it up”, I’m just tossing this out as an illustration of how consciousness may be held to be something other than a byproduct of mechanical/electrical physical processes. ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2009, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-free-will-i-keep-hearing-about/509574/86 "2009-09-17T17:24:44Z")
> [@CurtC](#): > > You lost me here - if consciousness is purely a property of the functions of a physical brain… Did he insist that it was? I don’t remember him saying such a thing. Unless I missed something, he seems to be arguing the opposite. ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2009, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-free-will-i-keep-hearing-about/509574/87 "2009-09-17T17:37:58Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > Dont read overly much into the metaphor, I’m NOT claiming that consciousness is “broadcast” and that brains “pick it up”, I’m just tossing this out as an illustration of how consciousness may be held to be something other than a byproduct of mechanical/electrical physical processes. I still don’t understand what you’re saying. In the TV show analogy, the show itself is a product of something physical that happens elsewhere. I have seen people who make that very argument about consciousness - that it happens elsewhere and the brain is just an antenna, so I’m glad you’re not claiming that. So what ARE you saying with the metaphor? If it’s not a byproduct of electrochemical/physical/mechanical processes, and it’s not a product of something that happens elsewhere, then what alternatives does that leave? BTW JThunder, I’m not debating, at least not yet, I’m just trying to understand what he’s saying. ---
**Author:** ![Sparky812](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eb9ed0/32.png) [@Sparky812](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sparky812)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2009, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-free-will-i-keep-hearing-about/509574/88 "2009-09-17T17:58:52Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > There is choice, regardless of what any vomit-colored muppet says about it. I know this because I make choices every day. Any six-year-old child knows that he or she makes choices every day. The existence of choices is bountifully obvious to almost everyone. Generally those who deny it are those who have chosen to bury themselves in piles of philosophical mumbo-jumbo while carefully steering around good common sense. Yep, there is choice, yet the options available to you are out of your control. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2009, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-free-will-i-keep-hearing-about/509574/89 "2009-09-17T17:59:59Z")
I am saying that it is NOT established that merely because a brain appears to be necessary for consciousness (and a brain in decent working condition at that) that consciousness is “purely a property of the functions of a physical brain”. I am not asserting the superiority of any other specific and well-understood model. ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2009, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-free-will-i-keep-hearing-about/509574/90 "2009-09-17T21:05:43Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > I am not asserting the superiority of any other specific and well-understood model. That’s fine - but what are those alternative models? What else is there, other than consciousness being an emergent property of the electrochemical processes in a physical brain? I can’t even imagine a coherent concept other than that. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2009, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-free-will-i-keep-hearing-about/509574/91 "2009-09-17T22:39:36Z")
Reductionism is useful and meaningful and valid in its own right, but it is not the only validity in town. You need to wrap your mind around that. The mere fact (and it totally IS a fact) that my dog is composed of organs and organelles which in turn are composed of tissues composed of molecules comprised of atoms made up of protons electrons and neutrons which consist of up quarks and strange quarks and whatnot, does NOT mean that my dog’s behavior has its origins in the interactive processes of quarks. There is a _reason_ that she circles around rapidly and hops frenetically about when I come home and no description that confines itself to quark-level behavior and the emergent properties thereof (no matter how comprehensive and tomelike) is going to yield up an inherently more accurate or coherent explanation for her behavior than a consideration of her thought processes and intentions. Too much hard science to the exlusion of other intellectual endeavors can embed you too deeply into causal determinism as the only relevant process for addressing the question “Why”. (It can also mislead you into some dangerously inaccurate beliefs with regards to “objectivity” but that’s yet another hijack). ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2009, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-free-will-i-keep-hearing-about/509574/92 "2009-09-18T01:09:42Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > Well, that zipped right past the point I was trying to make. If you decide whether or not to think A or B, you first have to know – have to think – A or B, else, there would be no way for you to decide (since you wouldn’t have options between which to decide). Now, do you decide whether or not to think A or B beforehand? There’s that infinite regress that makes the self-willing will impossible again. You’re applying rules from pure mathematics to the mind. The mind is not bound by the rules of mathematics, or even by boolean logic. Consider this question: what was the first idea that you ever thought? Obviously you don’t know that, nor does any person know the first thing they ever though or the first thing that any other person ever thought. Yet if one applied pure math, one could prove that there had to be a first idea that each person thought. Now the truth is, of course, that the human mind emerges slowly from the complete incoherence of a baby to become a thinking apparatus. Hence the question of what a person’s first thought was cannot be answered, but that hardly proves that thinking is impossible. By a similar argument, one can start a decision-making process without knowing the precise moment at which it starts. If I choose to think about my car, for instance, there’s no way to know the exact first thought in the process that lead up to me thinking about my car, but that doesn’t prove that it was an infinite chain. > [@](#): > > The problem with the freedom of the will is one of sufficient cause: if sufficient cause for an action exists, then the will is not free; if sufficient cause for an action does not exist, then how could it conceivably occur? Exercising one’s ‘volition’ is no answer; it is at best question-begging: does sufficient cause for your volition exist? Then, sufficient cause for the action exists (some of it is just lumped in under the term ‘volition’), and the will is not free. Does no sufficient cause for your volition exist? Then, how could it…? If there’s a philosophical model that can’t explain free will, that the sensible thing to do is to toss the model rather than to toss the will. Clever philosophical ‘proofs’ like this seems, to most people at least, as pointless as proving that white is black or that trees don’t exist. As I see it, my will is the cause. When I make a decision, I myself at the moment of the decision become the cause of the decision and of actions that result from it. What more needs to be said? There’s no sufficient cause for the decision before the decision takes place. At the moment it takes place, I become the cause of it. ---
**Author:** ![Mojo\_Pin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Mojo\_Pin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mojo_Pin)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2009, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-free-will-i-keep-hearing-about/509574/93 "2009-09-18T07:03:48Z")
[QUOTE=ITRChampion] If there’s a philosophical model that can’t explain free will, that the sensible thing to do is to toss the model rather than to toss the will. Clever philosophical ‘proofs’ like this seems, to most people at least, as pointless as proving that white is black or that trees don’t exist. As I see it, my will is the cause. When I make a decision, I myself at the moment of the decision become the cause of the decision and of actions that result from it. What more needs to be said? There’s no sufficient cause for the decision before the decision takes place. At the moment it takes place, I become the cause of it. [/QUOTE] The sensible thing to do is what? Toss out a line of reasoning that makes perfect sense because you _feel_ otherwise? _“When I make a decision, I myself at the moment of the decision become the cause of the decision”_ No. When you make a decision, you are playing your part in the grand universal game of dominoes, nothing more. Unlike the rock that rolls down the hill though, you are a domino that thinks it pushed itself over, patting itself on the back. ed: [QUOTE=CurtC] That’s fine - but what are those alternative models? What else is there, other than consciousness being an emergent property of the electrochemical processes in a physical brain? I can’t even imagine a coherent concept other than that. [/QUOTE] I don’t think this is even very important. What ever _it_ is, its some process of taking inputs, making calculations, and giving outputs. It can be magical spiritual broadcasts for all I care, it still falls under the constraints of _making a logical decision_, i.e. it can only give one output for the same inputs, barring randomness. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2009, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-free-will-i-keep-hearing-about/509574/94 "2009-09-18T14:17:46Z")
> [@](#): > > it still falls under the constraints of making a logical decision, i.e. it can only give one output for the same inputs, barring randomness. Again, makes the error of assuming the self that is making the decisions is not one of the inputs, and also tacitly assumes the self is not having a simultaneous effect on (co-determining) the determining inputs. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2009, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-free-will-i-keep-hearing-about/509574/95 "2009-09-18T14:21:03Z")
So the self’s choices and the self itself are _not_ the result of that which has happened before? How does that work? ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2009, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-free-will-i-keep-hearing-about/509574/96 "2009-09-18T16:14:46Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > So the self’s choices and the self itself are _not_ the result of that which has happened before? There is a sense in which everything “is the result of that which happened before” but that assumes that “what happened before” is a different “thing” than the “everything” that is pointed to as the result thereof. It is the old problem of the [head-tailed cat](http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Head-Tailed-Cat&id=1765515) Selves extend through time; there are no “instantaneous” selves. Therefore all of the “what happened before” is/was a matrix of events each of which was influenced BY the self even as they INFLUENCED the self, and therefore the self’s choices and the self itself are “the result of” them only in the same sense that they are “the result of” the self. See also prior posts / same thread about the LOCATION of the self. Don’t assume the classical “discrete individual person”. (Unless some other poster specifies that they DO want to argue from that definition of Self, of course). ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2009, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-free-will-i-keep-hearing-about/509574/97 "2009-09-18T17:17:42Z")
> [@Mojo\_Pin](#): > > The sensible thing to do is what? Toss out a line of reasoning that makes perfect sense because you _feel_ otherwise? _“When I make a decision, I myself at the moment of the decision become the cause of the decision”_ No. When you make a decision, you are playing your part in the grand universal game of dominoes, nothing more. Unlike the rock that rolls down the hill though, you are a domino that thinks it pushed itself over, patting itself on the back. > > ed: I don’t think this is even very important. What ever _it_ is, its some process of taking inputs, making calculations, and giving outputs. It can be magical spiritual broadcasts for all I care, it still falls under the constraints of _making a logical decision_, i.e. it can only give one output for the same inputs, barring randomness. The sensible thing to do is to toss out lines of reasoning that contradict reality. I experience trees, therefore I know that trees exist. Hence any line of reasoning which concludes that trees do not exist must be wrong. I experience music, therefore I know that music exists. Hence any line of reasoning which concludes that music does not exist must be wrong. I experience free will, therefore I know that free will does not exist. Hence any line of reasoning which concludes that free will does not exist must be wrong. Your claim to your reasoning “makes perfect sense” is wrong; it actually makes perfect nonsense. This morning I chose to eat toast for breakfast. I could, instead, have eaten cereal, oatmeal, eggs, or nothing at all. That was a choice. You can claim that my choice was predetermined by various things, but you’re completely unable to back up that claim with evidence. The idea that my brain can only give one output given certain inputs is false. Sometimes I’m faced with the same decision multiple times and make different choices. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2009, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-free-will-i-keep-hearing-about/509574/98 "2009-09-18T18:12:01Z")
I [experience](http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/) rectangles that seem to step out of phase even though they actually are moving in concert, and gray spots that do not exist, and … let’s just say that my experiences can deceive me. There are hosts of perceptual and cognitive illusions. In fact from the very start of sensory input up to the highest cognitive levels we experience that which is not there but which we are primed to believe is there anyway. I need not believe them slavishly, even if they serve a useful role. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2009, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-free-will-i-keep-hearing-about/509574/99 "2009-09-18T19:40:19Z")
I find claims that things are self-evidently what they appear to be and claims that everything is eternally unknowable because we are trapped in an impenetrable veil of illusion to be equally mindless and annoying assertions. ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2009, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-free-will-i-keep-hearing-about/509574/100 "2009-09-18T19:48:14Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > I experience free will, therefore I know that free will does not exist. Heh. > [@](#): > > The idea that my brain can only give one output given certain inputs is false. Sometimes I’m faced with the same decision multiple times and make different choices. But you’re not really faced with the same decision - the inputs are not the same. One of the inputs is the total set of experiences that you’ve ever had. The scenario of the “same” decision multiple times does not lead to the conclusion you think it does. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-free-will-i-keep-hearing-about/509574.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-free-will-i-keep-hearing-about/509574.md?page=6)