OK, just thought I’d ask. I, on the other hand, do.
I’m not a slave to causality. Causality is an illusion, although a useful one.
I am a part of the only thing that has ever happened in all of eternity and it has no prior cause.
Maybe I misunderstand your point.
If “You” is consciousness plus subconscious plus a dozen other brain subsystems plhs past experience plus… blah blah blah.
And “You” make decisions based on all these factors, which we consider internal to “You” rather than external…
That doesn’t mean that “You” could ever do otherwise than you have done. You’re still bound by causality, by past events. It just means that when “You” choose A instead of B due to your childhood trauma with B, we say that this experience is a part of “You”, so this isn’t an external choice imposed on “You” but rather an internal one.
Defining “You” in this way gives “You” agency, allows “You” to choose things.
But the only thing thing that changed is our sdefinitionm under this model, “You” aren’t any more capable of choosing B over A - we simply don’t define that choice as being externally imposed.
Since the only thing that changed is our definitions and perspective, I don’t view this as a meaningful distinction.
Was this bit edited in? Didn’t see it when I wrote my post but I don’t see an “edited” symbol on your post.
These claims are incompatible with my view of reality. If causality is an illusion, I don’t know that we can make any claims about anything at all. Reason itself falls apart. It is certainly possible that we live in an acausal universe, but if that is the case we may as well abandon all efforts to understand any part of the universe.
Eta: quick clarification. In philosophy it may be very useful to question and challenge the concept of causality and how much of it we can ever truly observe or understand, since all we can actually do is interpret sequences of events and try to guess at the underlying causal relationships. However. Even if it is epistemically impossible to truly observe causal relationships, that does not mean that they don’t exist.
I would need some very good reasons to interpret causality as an illusion over my own experience of free will. One is entirely self-evident in the world around us; the other falls apart under close examination.
So are causal connections; what is observed is just Hume’s ‘constant conjunction’.
If there is a mechanism, it can’t be logically incoherent.
Well, and the simplest hypothesis that explains something seeming a certain way is it actually being that way. And it’s that hypothesis that underlies ultimately all empirical evidence: when I say ‘the temperature is 17°C’, I do so because I have a certain subjective impression of a thermometer reading, which I trust tracks reality sufficiently closely to be reliable. So it seems to be the simplest hypothesis to extend that same courtesy to the subjective impression of choice—everything else would require additional hypotheses. There’s often some claimed evolutionary benefit to a subjective impression of freedom, but that’s of course nonsense—selection pressure only works on our external behaviors, so it simply doesn’t matter if we’re happy about what we’re doing, or abjectly miserable, as long as we do whatever we’re doing: they’re completely decoupled.
Only because you’re satisfied with explanations that leave a black box with a big question mark and maybe a ‘here there be dragons’-sign, as long as they’re labeled ‘causality’ and ‘randomness’. Don’t get me wrong: that’s perfectly fine; the buck’s gotta stop somewhere, and there’s reason to believe that human thought (finite manipulations on finite strings of symbols) falls systematically short of the world. But if somebody postulates a box labeled ‘free will’, then you want to know what’s going on inside, going so far as to label it ‘logically incoherent’. This hardly seems consistent, so, what do we get if we try to peek into the other black boxes?
Well, the machinery needed to generate randomness is exactly the one I described for free will: a device that could traverse infinite steps in finite time, because such a device can decide the Halting Problem, and the production of (algorithmic) randomness is reducible to its solution. So if you’re not satisfied with ‘randomness’ as an unanalyzable primitive notion, then you’ll find yourself appealing to pretty much the same ‘wild speculation’ that gets dragged into the picture by not accepting ‘free will’ as primitive.
So what about causality? Well, how did that get started? Either, there’s a cause for every effect—leading again to some infinite regress. Or, there’s a point where this first got started—meaning something uncaused. And if that means it’s random, then we’re back where we were—and if it means it’s not random, well, then there’s the answer to your question to how something is generated that’s neither deterministic nor random.
So you see, ‘free will’ only seems exotic to you because you’re not treating it on the same footing as other explanations for how stuff happens. If you extend the same scrutiny to the notions of ‘cause’ or ‘randomness’, rather than accepting them as given, you’ll quickly land in much the same troubles; and if you’re willing to accept it, on the other hand, as given, then it’s not anymore problematic than either.
Anyway, this is getting somewhat off topic. All I really wanted to point out is that it’s not so easy to just dismiss the ‘free will’ issue; there’s significant debate to be had, once one goes beyond the usual straw men that are habitually knocked down with familiar aplomb. So for the purposes of a hypothetical, I see no reason not to entertain the thought that it’s possible.
If the only “evidence” for X is a subjective feeling, and X is not consistent with anything else that we observe anywhere in the universe, then I really don’t think the simplest hypothesis is that X is real.
Especially when it requires postulating some new deep fundamental process that is not consistent with deterministic or random processes. The fact that causation and randomness are ultimately black boxes does not mean that postulating (without objective evidence) a third black box is a good explanation.
When we know that so many other aspects of our subjective experience are illusions, the simplest explanation by far is that our subjective impression that “we could have done otherwise” is also an illusion.
I don’t think it’s especially important to this discussion whether our subjective impression of free will is adaptive or an epiphenomenon. But your argument that it cannot be adaptive is nonsense. Natural selection acts on any heritable trait that influences behavior. You appear to have simply assumed the conclusion that subjective mental state does not influence behavior.
There’s nothing ‘extra’ that needs to be added. As I pointed out, if you’re ready to admit that the world has the capacity to produce true randomness, then you also ought to admit its capacity to produce true freedom—both require the same resources. If these resources are made use of, though, I don’t know—but as long as they’re there, why shouldn’t they.
No, I’m merely pointing out that the illusion of being free can’t be subject to selection pressure, because we’d show exactly the same behavior while laboring under internal anguish of feeling ourselves constantly forced to act a certain way. We might just as well have the subjective experience of just being along for the ride, finding ourselves doing things without any pretense at originating them—because as long as the behaviors are the same, so is our fitness. So there’s nothing that favors the illusion of freedom over the (on your account) reality of unfreedom.
[ my bold ]
How do you not see that in the bolded part you are simply assuming your conclusion? If our subjective mental state (“internal sense of freedom” or “internal anguish”) does influence behavior, then natural selection will act on it.
never mind
You’re missing a bit there: ‘… anguish of feeling ourselves constantly forced to act a certain way’. Think demonic possession: you find yourself constantly gripped and compelled to act by and unseen force you have no control over. Or everything just might feel like an irresistible compulsion you can’t help but act upon. Or take alien hand syndrome: we might just feel like that all the time, with everything, a sort of ‘alien body syndrome’. As long as this leads to behavior relevant for reproductive fitness, evolution don’t care.
Point being, evolution has no need to engineer an illusion of feeling like we’re in control of our actions. We might just as well feel like we have no control over our actions whatsoever, as long as we’re still acting.
Why do you believe that this feeling of agency is something that was directly selected for, as opposed to a byproduct of other things (problem solving, long term planning, resource management, etc) or a necessary component to allow those other things?
Why do you think that I do believe that?
Because you said:
I assume the point of these statements was to claim that the illusion of free will could not evolve since it cannot be acted upon by the mechanism of evolution. If that was not the point, then I’m at a bit of a loss as to what the point you were making is.
My point is that if the illusion of free will is a byproduct of, say, the ability to imagine novel situations and prepare for them - then even though the illusion of free will itself cannot be directly selected for through the mechanism of natural selection, it can still evolve due to selection pressure driving us to develop that “novel situation imagination” ability.
The point is to counteract the argument that we evolved the illusion of agency to keep acting in a way beneficent to our reproductive fitness, as opposed to sulk in the corner thanks to the sheer meaninglessness of it all. But we could just as well have evolved to subjectively feel compulsions to act in certain ways, without any illusion of agency, and without that having any impact on our reproductive fitness, so the argument just doesn’t hold water.
This doesn’t entail any belief on whether the illusion of subjective fitness is selected for, only that its absence isn’t selected against.
I don’t think that would make a very good pro-illusion argument anyways (and that’s the stance I hold). If we lacked the illusion of free will, I don’t think we would sit on the corner crying over the meaninglessness of it all. Ironically, I think we would need the illusion of free will in order to get upset over its potential lack! So I suppose I agree with you on this?
I would agree that the absence or presence of the illusion of free will probably have no direct bearing on fitness, or anything putside of our subjective experience. I think our sense of free will is a side effect of a prerequisite for much of what makes us humans special (namely, the ability to imagine oneself in a completely novel situation and plan accordingly). Since that ability is so useful, it is selected for, and thus, so is the illusion of free will.
So what? How does the fact that we might hypothetically have evolved other mechanisms to modulate behavior prove that we do not in fact use subjective mental states to modulate behavior?
The (il)logical structure of your argument is identical to: insulin could not have arisen through natural selection because what ultimately matters is regulating energy supply, and I can think of other ways to do that without insulin.
So motivated reasoning. And it’s a pretty bizarre argument. Would you similarly argue that other subjective mental states - emotions - are not adaptive, that they are not a mechanism that evolution has found to modulate behavior?
And “sulk in the corner” and “meaninglessness” are projection. I don’t feel that way at all. I certainly find it deeply weird to realize that my strong subjective sense that I could have done otherwise is an illusion. But that doesn’t imply that I think it’s sensible to fight the illusion of free will moment to moment in thinking about the world, any more than my knowledge of saccades leads me to change the way I use my eyes. And philosophically, I’m perfectly content that underneath this illusion is computation in which I do things for good reasons, with a sprinkiling of purely random whimsy.
But the critical implication from understanding that contracausal free will is an illusion (aside from the fact that Christianity is founded on incoherent nonsense) is that we need to reform our justice system. There is a strong implication that punishment solely for retribution is amoral. We can arrive at that conclusion for other reasons, but I think the knowledge that we could not have done otherwise is the strongest.
I don’t believe that God would take into consideration free will when deciding if we should be punished or rewarded, I don’t think he would have any interest in rewards or punishment. But society and the earthly world we live in is another matter. We don’t have the ability to know why a person thinks or acts the way we do but we do have a responsibility to hold them accountable.
That’s only true if we’re equally likely to do X if it makes us miserable or if it makes us happy.
In practice, our internal expectation of, and related to that our previous experience of, a given behavior does affect the likelihood that we’ll engage in that behavior (whether or not we could have done otherwise). So the internal and external can’t really be separated in that fashion.
I think it’s quite well established that creatures, humans included, are far more likely to do things they experience as pleasurable, and far less likely to do things they experience as unpleasant. (The fact that some people find pleasurable things that others find distressing doesn’t change that; nor does the fact that most humans and I expect some other creatures will do something they find distressing if they expect enough pleasure to result to make it worth it to them.) Do you think that serotonin and the ability to sense pain didn’t evolve?
There’s quite a difference between “laboring under internal anguish” and having “the subjective experience of just being along for the ride”. If we had no concept of free will, why would we be disturbed in any fashion by feeling we were just along for the ride?
If sulking in the corner can modify the decisions that we make and hence our behavior, aren’t we asserting that our behaviors aren’t utterly determined by externalia? Or course that’s assuming we aren’t embracing the notion that “you don’t have free will, your sulking made you do it”, i.e., that one’s emotions are not a part of one’s self…