Why Free Will does not Exist

Nakosis · Nov 21, 2017

Skwim said:
Take the event of a hammer hitting your thumb. Skip ahead two minutes. The hammer hitting event no longer exists but it's aftermath, a swelling thumb does. I'll let you figure out the rest.

Correct. The event occurred which transferred the energy of the hammer to the thumb. The effect of swelling is now possessed by the thumb. Your action at that point is now caused by the swelling.

Tell that to your swelling thumb.
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Sure, I can do that. The thumb is not something you can actually have a conversation with but mentally, you can imagine any scenario you want. That one possible choice of action.

Or you could put ice on it. For either, the swelling of the thumb would be causal.

For one cause there are multiple possible outcomes in this case.

Nakosis · Nov 21, 2017

Skwim said:
Yes it can. Take a look at the video, which explains why. In essence, It's the only logical operative mechanism behind our actions. If there was a better one we'd here about it. Free will certainly doesn't qualify because it's operation has never been explained. At best it's merely a label. A label suggesting "I could have done differently if I had wanted to." but lacking any explanation as to how this could have come about.

What's untrue about this? If you had wanted to do something else you could have. The want is causal. Why does this have to be explained?

If you honestly believe this then you don't understand the issue.

The issue is that according to determinism is that a cause can lead to only one possible effect. What I believe, and would be necessary for choice, is that it is possible for a cause to lead to more than one effect.

Problem is, choosing doesn't exist under the causality of determinism. Choice is an illusion.

Right again because determinism assumes any cause can only lead to one possible outcome. So the problem is not that there is a cause for and outcome. The problem is that according to determinism there can be only one possible outcome.

No such thing as choice so, yes, they do necessitate your actions.

According to how causality is understood in the philosophy of determinism, which may or may not be correct.

Yup.

Glad we find something to agree on.

If by "natural forces" you mean the inevitable causality of determinism, then Nope.

Yes, this is what's up for debate. Whether the causality of determinism is correct or not. If you now accept the truth of this without question, then you're a true believer. I doubt any amount of discussion would dissuade you from this belief. However this is the basis of the debate for free will. In which case for you there is no debate. You're just proselytizing your belief.

Well there are a lot of things we humans can do that an 8 ball can't, and if I understand your framework here, any resistance you made was because you could do no differently. The chain of cause/effect events leading up to the moment of resisting determined that you had to resist. You could do no differently.

This is determinism 101. If you're going to accept the truth of this there is no debate on free will for you.

And that's part of the illusion. There is no such ability other than what the previous events leading up to the resisting made you do.
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No, but kind of a different subject. Events in the past are no longer causal. The may explain the current state of things but the only thing that can be causal is the current state of things.

Nakosis · Nov 21, 2017

Skwim said:
Whatever the outcome, your feelings or your "decision," depends on the nature of those previous casual events leading up to the moment of action.

Only if the previous casual events make you.

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Ok, you believe this, I disagree. You've accepted determinism as true, I continue to question it.

Nous · Nov 21, 2017

blü 2 said:
I fear not. I decided on what I wrote as seemed best to me, but behind the scenes and out of my sight, that was deterministic.

It doesn't help you to speak in contradictions. If you decided to write the sentence "I fear not," you determined to write that sentence rather than another sentence or no sentence at it; forces beyond your control did not determine that you would write that sentence. In contrast, in a world where the thesis of determinism is true, there are no multiple possible futures where one can decide to write or not to write a sentence:

Causal Determinism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Determinism: The world is governed by (or is under the sway of) determinism if and only if, given a specified way things are at a time t, the way things go thereafter is fixed as a matter of natural law.

And I'm using my own phrase, 'fuzzy determinism' as short-hand for 'quantum-fuzzied determinism' meaning chains of cause&effect disrupted by phenomena randomly generated at the quantum level, which would not, even in principle, give rise to perfect predictions of the future even if we had the means to marshal the data and project them.

What you have described here is not determinism at all. See definition of determinism above. And the reason that you have to make up your own phrase here is because your idea doesn't make sense. If your car worked according to "fuzzy determinism," then sometimes your brakes would work and sometimes they wouldn't.

If you want to discuss it further, I'm not avoiding discussion

Have you got anything other than contradictions and gobbledygook?

osgart · Nov 21, 2017

landing on the moon was predetermined, the invention of the computer also. no way, the inventors could have chose to do something else, but they exercised free will to create those happenings.

I find this guy's arguments dull of sense. it's just a teenage rant to undermine reality, and shirk responsibility.

blü 2 · Nov 21, 2017

Nous said:
It doesn't help you to speak in contradictions. If you decided to write the sentence "I fear not," you determined to write that sentence rather than another sentence or no sentence at it; forces beyond your control did not determine that you would write that sentence.

But from my point of view, that wasn't the experience. I had no sense of automatism, no sense of compulsion or necessity, so my words reflect the lack of that perception.

Intellectually I acknowledge that it's down to determinism, but since that doesn't register with my emotions, I continue this discussion with you instead of lapsing into depression. The sense of self is, it seems to me, the heart of the matter of perception, and it carries on, however deterministically, as an evolved member of a gregarious species, with notions of personal responsibility, power of action, ability to consider choices and make one, and so on ─ even if, on analysis (an analysis that for functional purposes is wholly inaccessible to me), none of that is literally true.

Nous said:
In contrast, in a world where the thesis of determinism is true, there are no multiple possible futures where one can decide to write or not to write a sentence:

Except that under fuzzy determinism, as I said, there are multiple possible futures. But yes, it's still determinism.

Nous said:
What you have described here is not determinism at all. See definition of determinism above.

But it's fuzzy determinism, and I've defined that for you.

Nous said:
If your car worked according to "fuzzy determinism," then sometimes your brakes would work and sometimes they wouldn't.

That would be true if in this context they were susceptible to quantum effects, as perhaps they are on rare occasions. More complex things than brakes, like brains, may be more susceptible.

Or they may not. I simply assert the possibility and point out that if so, strict determinism is broken by random events of a kind that we know exist.

Nous said:
Have you got anything other than contradictions and gobbledygook?

I'd be more ready to accept 'gobbledygook' if you'd addressed the distinction I make between strict determinism (fixed future) and fuzzy determinism (future not predictable because of randomness). But you haven't. You've merely noted it's not in the (admirable) Stanford Philosophical Encyclopedia, a datum that (in my view) shouldn't leave you incapable of addressing the point.

I'm happy for you to criticize determinism. That's what discussion's for.

Nor is it essential that you have a view of your own. But the terms of your dismissal above appear to imply you have some 'better' alternative in mind; so I confess surprise that you've offered no coherent definition of 'free' nor the mechanism by which the brain makes 'free' choices. Is it the case that you don't have such a view?

It Aint Necessarily So · Nov 21, 2017

Nakosis said:
Does a human being have the ability to resist the "natural" forces acting upon them? If you are hungry, can you resist that urge and choose not to eat?

If you do, it is not necessarily because of free will. Once again, the self can be conceived as the passive observer of two contradictory desires coming form different brain centers that resolve themselves before the self. An older part of the brain says, "Hungry! Eat!" while intellectual centers say th not eat - perhaps because you're dieting or going out for dinner in an hour. These would both be natural "forces."

Nakosis said:
This ability to resist natural forces certainly makes it feel like we have a choice whether to react to them or not.

Many people call free will an illusion. If so, it certainly is a powerful one.

It's impossible to determine of any decision we made could have been made otherwise under exactly the same circumstances, including with the chooser having exactly the same mental state. Repeating the situation and choosing otherwise would not answer the question, since the second time around, we are a little different. One would have to be able to go back in time to the exact same environment and mental state, make the choice again, and see a different choice being made to assert that the decision could have gone either way.

If the fact were that a person could be returned to the same time and place in the past, and made the same choice every time, shouldn't we conclude that that choice was determined by "natural forces"?

Unfortunately, this is not something that we can test. We must decide by other means if possible whether the choice is freely chosen or deterministically imposed.

It Aint Necessarily So · Nov 21, 2017

Nakosis said:
So something "causes" you to become angry. You have no choice then except to react to that anger. Will the anger you feel cause your actions? Or can you decide not to let the anger cause your actions? Can you resist the urge to act on your anger?

One can have competing desires, but that fact doesn't mean that they aren't both generated deterministically outside of consciousness and delivered to it from without, nor that the outcome of the tug-of-war between them isn't also deterministic.

Twenty-five years ago, I exploded in anger at a crewman on a cruise ship, later regretted it (not because of adverse consequences, but due to shame), and was resolved to prevent that from happening again. I could see that my behavior wasn't working for me.

Over time, by actively resisting the urge to indulge my anger with an outburst, the urge to anger attenuated from disuse, like leg muscles that atrophy if one cannot walk. Starve a habit, and it dies.

But in my opinion, both urges, though contradictory, were delivered to me from extra-conscious neural circuits. The result of the exercise was better anger management. But it seems to me that this was a conflict between two different cognitive centers that worked itself out before my eyes.

Do I deserve credit for any of it? Not according to my present understanding of what happened. My cerebral cortex gets credit for subduing the amygdala. I was just a spectator of this great drama.

Nakosis · Nov 21, 2017

It Aint Necessarily So said:
One can have competing desires, but that fact doesn't mean that they aren't both generated deterministically outside of consciousness and delivered to it from without, nor that the outcome of the tug-of-war between them isn't also deterministic.

Twenty-five years ago, I exploded in anger at a crewman on a cruise ship, later regretted it (not because of adverse consequences, but due to shame), and was resolved to prevent that from happening again. I could see that my behavior wasn't working for me.

Over time, by actively resisting the urge to indulge my anger with an outburst, the urge to anger attenuated from disuse, like leg muscles that atrophy if one cannot walk. Starve a habit, and it dies.

But in my opinion, both urges, though contradictory, were delivered to me from extra-conscious neural circuits. The result of the exercise was better anger management. But it seems to me that this was a conflict between two different cognitive centers that worked itself out before my eyes.

Do I deserve credit for any of it? Not according to my present understanding of what happened. My cerebral cortex gets credit for subduing the amygdala. I was just a spectator of this great drama.

So you never made a conscious decision to alter your behavior?

The way I look at it, conscious or not what was causal was internal to you. Your subconscious is part of you, even though you may not be aware of all its inner goings on. So you were the causal agent.

What I believe though is that we are consciously able to alter the behavior of the subconscious mind. Initially it's a constant conscious effort to override subconscious impulses, but over time, it no longer requires conscious effort. The subconscious mind has been programmed with the new behavior.

Evangelicalhumanist · Nov 21, 2017

I cannot provide an in-depth response at this time, but I'd like to make several points, in a rather rapid-fire fashion that I hope to be able to expand on further:

Benjamin Libet showed that our choices are made before our conscious awareness, which would seem to indicate that my "will" operates without my consciousness. This doesn't upset me -- lots of what makes me function as a human works the same way. Welcome to the brain.
Chaos theory shows that all systems in which there is the potential for feedback behave, well, chaotically. That is, strict determinism would seem to have some limitations of much if quantum theory is true.
My brain/mind is most assuredly a system with strong feedback! Not only do I act or behave or think, but my awareness of my own actions, behaviours and thoughts immediately begin the job of changing my own internal feelings about what I've done or thought. (Admittedly, this does not say I acted out of free will -- it merely says that in internally reacting to my own feelings about what I've done, I've begun the process of reprogramming me. I think this is an important poinr.)
I am of the opinion (which of course I cannot prove) that the world is far too infinitely complex for a strict determinism to be even imaginable, let alone true. I think Laplace was wrong, period-end-of-story.

I'll just sum up right now by saying that it seems obvious to me that I don't actually and consciously make the choices that I do. In that sense, therefore, I do not think I have the "dictionary definition of free will." On the other hand, I do think that the feedback mechanisms of my own brain and mind have the power to make me the real actor that I feel myself to be, and that I am therefore responsible for my actions.

(That last point, by the way, I would mitigate when there is real evidence of mental illness or brain damage.)

corynski · Nov 22, 2017

Nakosis said:
This part is not determinism. It's just saying there was a cause for your choice.

This is the assumption of determinism. That you cannot resist the effect of any of these prior causes.

Well, you do make a decision. Determinism only assumes the decision that you do make was the only decision you could make in that particular situation.

Like saying the 8 ball could decide whether or not to go into the pocket regardless of how it was hit.

You however, as opposed to the 8 ball, possess knowledge and experience and the ability to control the motion, to a specific degree, of your body.

Events that happen in the past no longer exist. They no longer exert actual influence. They are now only memories, thought, ideas that you possess. You have to a greater or lesser degree, it varies with the individual, control over them.

While you can't control the event which cause you to feel anger in the first place. You can control your thoughts and desires. You can choose to think "happy" thought. Relive a happy or pleasant experience. These choices will negate the influence of anger on your actions.

Part of Buddhism is right thoughts, right action. It assume that you at least have the ability to control your thoughts. And, your thoughts control your actions.

Nakosis, thanks.... a lot to think about. You say I can 'choose' to think happy thoughts....... well, yes and no. I remember when is was young I would slip into a depression for some unknown reason, and might stay there in spite of everything I thought and did, until the moment when for some unknown reason I suddenly was out of the depression. I felt like I had no control over my thoughts, so I would say there must be more going on. And I remember learning of the bodily system that provided hypostasis for the body, it regulated bodily temperature and moisture levels and such..... and now 40 years later I'm learning about another system of the body called the cannabinoid system that is said to be the regulator of the hypostasis system, further refinements within our bodies that attempt to keep us on the straight and narrow. I think we have the illusion of control, but I see consciousness more as the rider on the horse, who thinks he is in control, while the horse does as he pleases. Anger and depression are the two emotions that frighten me, as I really don't feel that I have conscious control over them, but that my body and mind together have learned to deal somewhat with them.

atanu · Nov 22, 2017

Skwim said:
Despite all the previous discussions about free will here on RF, I feel the video below, which I just stumbled across, is still worth taking a look at.

A succinct six minute video explaining why free will does not exist.

Presentation ends at the 6:00 mark

From your assertion (and the video), OTOH, seems that objective discernment of any proposal is possible and that would indicate that free will was possible. Else how do you conclude the way you do?

Skwim · Nov 22, 2017

atanu said:
From your assertion (and the video), OTOH, seems that objective discernment of any proposal is possible and that would indicate that free will was possible. Else how do you conclude the way you do?

Gotta explain what you mean by "objective discernment of any proposal is possible and that would indicate that free will was possible."

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atanu · Nov 22, 2017

Skwim said:
Gotta explain what you mean by "objective discernment of any proposal is possible and that would indicate that free will was possible."

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Yeah. I noticed. I meant "Objective discernment of truth of any proposal is possible and that would indicate that free will was possible".

In other words, if determinism rules then why your analysis is better than mine?

Is that a bit more clear?

Nous · Nov 22, 2017

blü 2 said:
But from my point of view, that wasn't the experience. I had no sense of automatism, no sense of compulsion or necessity, so my words reflect the lack of that perception.

The title of the thread does not ask about anyone's "sense" or "experience" in any situation. I haven't watched the video that @Skwim decided to link to in the OP, but I don't get the impression that it is about people's subjective experiences. When I'm driving my car, I am not aware of specifically choosing to step on the brake pedal when I am approaching a red light or when I see an animal in the street. But I certainly can choose to engage in that voluntary bodily movement (at least when danger isn't involved). If asked, I can foretell well in advance that, and when, I will make such bodily movements--just like I can foretell that I will pay my internet bill by the 5th of December, or like I can foretell that in my next post I will write the name of King Lear's youngest daughter. The ability to foretell a bodily movement is the mark of its voluntariness, that it is a willed act, not an involuntary bodily movement. You haven't addressed that issue here.

Intellectually I acknowledge that it's down to determinism

I don't know what that is supposed to mean. Apparently you haven't understood that the experimental evidence shows that the postulate of realism is violated therefore the thesis of determinism is false. You should try to understand that evidence.

Except that under fuzzy determinism, as I said, there are multiple possible futures.

That's because what you defined as "fuzzy determinism" is not determinism according to the definition of determinism. The thesis of determinism does not entail multiple possible futures. According to the thesis of determinism, what happens tomorrow is already determined by what happened in the past (indeed, at the beginning of the universe). That's what determinism is.

Nous · Nov 22, 2017

Nous said:
I can foretell that in my next post I will write the name of King Lear's youngest daughter.

Cordelia.

Willamena · Nov 22, 2017

Nous said:
Cordelia.

As I've explained before, if you say you're going to do something and then go ahead and do it, it wasn't technically a prediction. Predictions have uncertain outcomes.

Skwim · Nov 22, 2017

atanu said:
Yeah. I noticed. I meant "Objective discernment of truth of any proposal is possible and that would indicate that free will was possible".

In other words, if determinism rules then why your analysis is better than mine?

The "quality" of the event, however measured, is determined by its causal factors. In other words, it can well be the case of GIGO. In the case of free will vs determinism, the position that determinism is better than the position of free will is, in part, a result of the lack of a convincing argument for free will. Unlike determinism, which is grounded in the operative mechanism of causality, free will believers have never presented an operative mechanism of any kind. As with creationists, who never make a case for creationism, but try to find fault with evolution, free willers seldom if ever make a logical case for free will, but instead are forced to find fault with determinism. Present a good, rational case for fee will without referencing determinism and I'll be all ears. Free will fails because there's nothing propping it up other than wishful thinking. At most it's a label indicating not-determinism.

Is that a bit more clear?

Much clearer. Thank you.

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Nous · Nov 22, 2017

Evangelicalhumanist said:
I cannot provide an in-depth response at this time, but I'd like to make several points, in a rather rapid-fire fashion that I hope to be able to expand on further:

Benjamin Libet showed that our choices are made before our conscious awareness, which would seem to indicate that my "will" operates without my consciousness.

Offhand, I can't say exactly what Libet claimed to have shown with his various experiments. Nevertheless, the subjects of his experiments consciously agreed to do what they were instructed to do well before the experiments were begun, well before they were hooked up to the EEG and trying to determine exactly where the hand of an quickly moving analog clock face was when they thought something.

How do you account for my ability to foretell long in advance that I would write the name of King Lear's youngest daughter in my subsequent post? See #56.

Chaos theory shows that all systems in which there is the potential for feedback behave, well, chaotically. That is, strict determinism would seem to have some limitations of much if quantum theory is true.

The chaotic behavior of nonlinear dynamics is at least in principle deterministic even though we cannot predict the state of such a system after a short while.

Nous · Nov 22, 2017

Willamena said:
As I've explained before, if you say you're going to do something and then go ahead and do it, it wasn't technically a prediction. Predictions have uncertain outcomes.

Notice that I didn't say anything about "technically a prediction".

You don't dispute that I correctly foretold that I would write the name of Kiing Lear's youngest daughter in my next post, do you?

Why Free Will does not Exist

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"Truth" isn't a thing...

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