Choice as an illusion

[SabahTheLoner]

The term "illusion of choice" seems to get thrown around a lot. I'm unsure how accurate it is to announce something abstract but mentally tangible such as choice as a mere illusion of reality. By all accounts atoms may as well be optical illusions at this point.

I don't think choice is an illusion. I believe I have Will and my Will allows me to make a choice. And depending on my choice, I will receive something from my Will. (I capitalized it on purpose. It's a distinction between the individual's willfulness and the idea of will.)

Firstly, let me present you with a choice; vanilla ice cream or chocolate ice cream. You can choose one or the other.

"I choose strawberry!" You exclaim. Strawberry? Well, that was not in the original choice. You could choose strawberry ice cream, but we don't have strawberry or mint or cookie dough or even birthday cake. Just the vanilla and chocolate. The ice cream shop isn't infinite.

"Alright, how about both so I don't have to choose?" You're choosing to choose both, then. It's still a choice.

"Well, I might as well not have ice cream at all!" again, you exclaim. Okay, that's fine. But that's still a choice. You're choosing not to have ice cream, and you can choose to have ice cream. You can't choose anything in-between really; how can you have ice cream without having ice cream?

Choice is not an illusion because we live in a finite universe from which we source from. Resources are always finite, even if it takes a long time to deplete. If we lived in an infinite universe, then we wouldn't have choice because we could do everything. We also have Will which allows us to consciously select things. Basically that's all choice is; narrowed down selection. And because our universe is finite, selection is also finite. Although in your mind you can choose everything, you can't do everything. If you could, it'd be like a constant psychedelic dreamstate. Maybe weirder an that, even.

Why would choice be an illusion then?

 

[sun rise]

Predestination versus free-will is one of the oldest, long running philosophical debates.

 

[Sunstone]

I recently heard that the consensus in the neurosciences now is that there is no such thing as freewill. Of course, even if that's true, the majority of non-scientists will have no choice but to deny it because the illusion of choice is so convincing to people who aren't familiar with the science. .

 

[bobhikes]

I agree that choice is not an illusion but it is limited to yes or no. You have the ability to follow the path life is giving you or not to. You cannot decide to be rich, an astronaut or a professional athlete. Life has to give you the abilities and path to do so. If you choose not to follow the current path life will present new paths for you and you will still have the yes or no decision.

Paraphrasing Randy Pausch
You can't choose the cards your dealt but only how to play them.

 

[Laika]

The term "illusion of choice" seems to get thrown around a lot. I'm unsure how accurate it is to announce something abstract but mentally tangible such as choice as a mere illusion of reality. By all accounts atoms may as well be optical illusions at this point.

I don't think choice is an illusion. I believe I have Will and my Will allows me to make a choice. And depending on my choice, I will receive something from my Will. (I capitalized it on purpose. It's a distinction between the individual's willfulness and the idea of will.)

Firstly, let me present you with a choice; vanilla ice cream or chocolate ice cream. You can choose one or the other.

"I choose strawberry!" You exclaim. Strawberry? Well, that was not in the original choice. You could choose strawberry ice cream, but we don't have strawberry or mint or cookie dough or even birthday cake. Just the vanilla and chocolate. The ice cream shop isn't infinite.

"Alright, how about both so I don't have to choose?" You're choosing to choose both, then. It's still a choice.

"Well, I might as well not have ice cream at all!" again, you exclaim. Okay, that's fine. But that's still a choice. You're choosing not to have ice cream, and you can choose to have ice cream. You can't choose anything in-between really; how can you have ice cream without having ice cream?

Choice is not an illusion because we live in a finite universe from which we source from. Resources are always finite, even if it takes a long time to deplete. If we lived in an infinite universe, then we wouldn't have choice because we could do everything. We also have Will which allows us to consciously select things. Basically that's all choice is; narrowed down selection. And because our universe is finite, selection is also finite. Although in your mind you can choose everything, you can't do everything. If you could, it'd be like a constant psychedelic dreamstate. Maybe weirder an that, even.

Why would choice be an illusion then?

From the scientific point of view, it is still a highly controversial and widely debated subject particularly because of the size of its implications and the degree of philosophy involved. What I would say is that you are assuming that choice is the same as freedom. It is not necessarily the case. If by freedom we mean the act of chosing, then yes choice is the same as freedom. But if freedom means choosing a course of action that will produce an intended outcome, freedom is defined in relation to the interests that determine that choice and the physical circumstances that make that outcome possible.

In terms of the results, our choices have consequences and some of those can be harmful. We can chose to jump off a tall building, or to swallow poison, or to hold our hand in a flame. Simply willing to do this does not defy the physical laws which will cause us pain and suffering. Our theoretical capacity for choice maybe infinite, but if we are to make choices which enable us to thrive we have to make decisions that correspond to known facts about the environment we live in. In a material sense, it is not in our interests to behave in a way which is in direct opposition to material laws because it is often not in our interests to do so.

The second dimension is that if we make decisions that correspond to material laws, we may be able to harness them and use them to serve our interests. By looking at the process by which seeds grow, we can learn to grow crops. we can find ways to fertilise the soil to increase the crop yield so we have more food. If we build cities close to water sources such as rivers, we can have ready access to water to support a larger population. Our understanding of the laws of converting matter into energy means we can create nuclear power. the laws of aerodynamics can show us how to construct heavier than air means of manned flight.

So in both opposing and harnessing these natural laws, our "choices" are determined (by one extent or another) by our interests. Choice is not infinite or absolute, but is a process of negotiation with those laws and greatly limits the scope of our freedom of action. This is not particularly controversial because we accept the role of natural science in our lives and decision making (mostly).

Where it becomes controversial is when we think that human behaviour is itself a law governed process and start to apply the principles of natural science to social science. Man is an animal, and as an animal man is therefore determined by his environment and his biology. If human decision making can be reduced to the physical process of the brain, it is determined by a series of natural laws and is (in theory) predictable. Our ability to predict human behaviour is dependent on the degree to which we have knowledge about the causes for our behaviour. The more we have knowledge of the brain and its life processes, the more we would (in principle) have knowledge of human behaviour. Hence choice is an "illusion" because we would know that our choices are determined. By what isn't relevant here, but simply the fact that we know human behaviour is determined by physical laws which are predictable means we could no longer accept the idea of human freedom as an infinite set of possibilities but a finite set of outcomes. What the stakes are is that if human behaviour is predictable, it can also be controlled.

Ideas about free will typically have a close relationship with a belief in individual liberty because no-one can predict what you will do and why and so people cannot be controlled and it is not in anyone's interests to accept that control as a restriction of their free will. However, "determinist" philosophies typically have a closer relationship to totalitarian thinking; if you can predict what people will do, you can control them. If you can measure what is in people's interests objectively, an authority can make decisions about what is "good" or "bad" for them.

If it is true that human behaviour is determined by natural forces that we cannot immediately control AND our behaviour could therefore be consciously determined/controlled by someone else, choice and freedom as we understand it would be an illusion.

 

[Liu]

If it is true that human behaviour is determined by natural forces that we cannot immediately control AND our behaviour could therefore be consciously determined/controlled by someone else, choice and freedom as we understand it would be an illusion.

I agree with most of your comment.
But even if we can control the natural forces which shape our will/decisions, even that control would be based on decisions which in turn would be caused by natural forces.
That's basically why I don't believe in free will but in determinism.
However, whether someone else could consciously control our behaviour is open to debate - in principle I suppose so, but in reality it seems pretty unlikely that anyone could both know about and control all those factors that affect our choices.

 

[SalixIncendium]

For choice to not be an illusion, one would have to conclude that our perceived reality is not an illusion.

 

[shunyadragon]

First, Natural Law and the chain of resulting cause and effect events in human choices limit the possibility of choice in human will, whether our universe is finite or infinite. In reality determinism governs our physical existence whether the ultimate cause is simply Natural or Divine Creation, and humans cannot chose to do whatever they want. The question is with determinism as the foundation what would be the possibility and nature of Free Will choices. There is another interesting factor that applies to pretty much all cause and effect relationship in macro physical universe and likely our decision making process, and that the fractal nature of the cause and effect nature of events, and nothing that occurs is truly random in our macro universe.

Basically I am a compatibilist. Dennett's compatibilist proposal that there is limited opportunity for free will in a deterministic world he describes as 'wiggle room' in the possible range of human choices in any given opportunity for human Free Will choice. I consider this a minimum Free Will. I also believe there is the 'potential free will,' which I may go into further later, in the chain of cause and effect decision making process.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

These discussions benefit from taking a close look at just what is meant by free will:

What most people call free will is the experience of wanting something and being unimpeded in its pursuit, unaware that the the desire might have originated outside of the mind by deterministic brain circuits. There's really no place for indeterminism in such a scenario. If this is all we mean by free will, what is free about it?

What I mean when I use the term is that what we will is chosen by the conscious observer - the self - seated in the theater of the mind. That is, by free will, I mean that the self's wants, desires, urges, and impulses arise originally with the self itself seated in its personal theater, uncaused by any external, extramental neural circuits.

Does that happen?

Perhaps not. Very possibly, these impulses to act arise from outside of the parade of conscious phenomena dancing past the self-aware self seated within the theater, having arisen from deterministic neural mechanisms that then deliver their mindless preferences to the self like its memories, which are stored in neuronal substrates outside of the mind; the emotions, which are generated by the limbic system; and the external sensations that are channeled in from without.

If the self cannot sense that the will is delivered to it rather than chosen by it, it will mistakenly think that it is the author of these urges rather a passive recipient of them. This would be what I would call the illusion of free will.

A few modern experiments beginning with the Libbet experiment have suggested that the self is not the author of what it considers its desires:

2 minutes long

 

[Willamena]

The term "illusion of choice" seems to get thrown around a lot. I'm unsure how accurate it is to announce something abstract but mentally tangible such as choice as a mere illusion of reality. By all accounts atoms may as well be optical illusions at this point.

I don't think choice is an illusion. I believe I have Will and my Will allows me to make a choice. And depending on my choice, I will receive something from my Will. (I capitalized it on purpose. It's a distinction between the individual's willfulness and the idea of will.)

Firstly, let me present you with a choice; vanilla ice cream or chocolate ice cream. You can choose one or the other.

"I choose strawberry!" You exclaim. Strawberry? Well, that was not in the original choice. You could choose strawberry ice cream, but we don't have strawberry or mint or cookie dough or even birthday cake. Just the vanilla and chocolate. The ice cream shop isn't infinite.

"Alright, how about both so I don't have to choose?" You're choosing to choose both, then. It's still a choice.

"Well, I might as well not have ice cream at all!" again, you exclaim. Okay, that's fine. But that's still a choice. You're choosing not to have ice cream, and you can choose to have ice cream. You can't choose anything in-between really; how can you have ice cream without having ice cream?

Choice is not an illusion because we live in a finite universe from which we source from. Resources are always finite, even if it takes a long time to deplete. If we lived in an infinite universe, then we wouldn't have choice because we could do everything. We also have Will which allows us to consciously select things. Basically that's all choice is; narrowed down selection. And because our universe is finite, selection is also finite. Although in your mind you can choose everything, you can't do everything. If you could, it'd be like a constant psychedelic dreamstate. Maybe weirder an that, even.

Why would choice be an illusion then?

Firstly, what is Will? How is it defined in contrast to ordinary will?

Secondly, no choice is not a choice. That would seem definitional. I understand the inclination that asserts that choosing inaction is a choice, but then you have to post-haste refine what it is that was being chosen, and recognize that the terms of choosing have been adjusted. Choosing inaction is choosing something, not nothing.

Choice is an illusion and, like all illusions, it exists. It is the illusion of will, nothing more or less (and nothing capitalized); that idea that there is an "I" who is in the driver's seat guiding events with a "consciousness." Choice exists in this instance, and free will too.

 

[Nous]

The denial of the ability to choose is self-stultifying no less than (and for similar reasons as) the assertion of epiphenomenalism is self-stultifying. Like Epiphenomenalism, Denial of Free Will is Self-Stultifying

To deny that one can choose between proposition A and proposition B is just the denial that one can choose the correct answers to questions such as whether one has the ability to choose between A and B. The answers a (non-programmed) volitionless entity is able to provide are no more valuable than the answers the Magic 8-Ball provides.

For a person who is unable to choose what acts s/he will perform, all acts are mere involuntary bodily movements. Yet humans demonstrate the ability to engage in voluntary acts on a regular basis by foretelling specific acts that they will engage in far into the future. It's common for humans to agree to pay a mortgage company a certain amount of money by a certain date each month for the next 30 years, and then fulfill that agreement. This is entirely unlike unpredictable muscle spasms. .

 

[Willamena]

To deny that one can choose between proposition A and proposition B is just the denial that one can choose the correct answers to questions such as whether one has the ability to choose between A and B. The answers a (non-programmed) volitionless entity is able to provide are no more valuable than the answers the Magic 8-Ball provides.

There is a significant difference, alternately a difference of signficance: to the volitional entity, the choice has meaning.

 

[Geoff-Allen]

Believing in predestination, a new father set out three objects on the dining room table in preparation for his son's arrival home from school.

The first object was a £100 note. "That represents high finance. If he takes this, he's go into business."

The second object was a Bible. "If he takes this one, he'll be a man of the cloth."

The third object was a bottle of cheap whiskey. "If he goes for this one, he'll be a drunkard!"

The father and his wife then hid where they could see their son's approach. Soon, the son entered the room and examined each article briefly. He then checked to make sure that he was alone.

Not seeing anyone, he stuffed the money in his pocket, put the Bible under his arm, and strolled out of the room draining the whiskey.

The father looked at his wife and beamed, "How about that! He's going to be a lawyer!"

 

[Geoff-Allen]

A man died and went to heaven and he saw 2 lines. One line said “Predestined” and the other line said “Free Choice”.

So, being a good 5-point Calvinist, he got in the predestined line.

And he worked his way up to the front and the angel in charge said “Why are you in this line?” He said, “Well, I chose to be here.”

The angel said, “Well, this is the wrong line. The free choice line is over there.”

So he moved over to the other line and he worked his way to the front of the line and the angel at the desk said, “What are you doing in this line?”

He said, “Somebody made me come here.”

 

[Enoch07]

The term "illusion of choice" seems to get thrown around a lot. I'm unsure how accurate it is to announce something abstract but mentally tangible such as choice as a mere illusion of reality. By all accounts atoms may as well be optical illusions at this point.

I don't think choice is an illusion. I believe I have Will and my Will allows me to make a choice. And depending on my choice, I will receive something from my Will. (I capitalized it on purpose. It's a distinction between the individual's willfulness and the idea of will.)

Firstly, let me present you with a choice; vanilla ice cream or chocolate ice cream. You can choose one or the other.

"I choose strawberry!" You exclaim. Strawberry? Well, that was not in the original choice. You could choose strawberry ice cream, but we don't have strawberry or mint or cookie dough or even birthday cake. Just the vanilla and chocolate. The ice cream shop isn't infinite.

"Alright, how about both so I don't have to choose?" You're choosing to choose both, then. It's still a choice.

"Well, I might as well not have ice cream at all!" again, you exclaim. Okay, that's fine. But that's still a choice. You're choosing not to have ice cream, and you can choose to have ice cream. You can't choose anything in-between really; how can you have ice cream without having ice cream?

Choice is not an illusion because we live in a finite universe from which we source from. Resources are always finite, even if it takes a long time to deplete. If we lived in an infinite universe, then we wouldn't have choice because we could do everything. We also have Will which allows us to consciously select things. Basically that's all choice is; narrowed down selection. And because our universe is finite, selection is also finite. Although in your mind you can choose everything, you can't do everything. If you could, it'd be like a constant psychedelic dreamstate. Maybe weirder an that, even.

Why would choice be an illusion then?

A short video on the topic.

I agree with Jordan here.

Whether or not choice is an illusion. We have and always will percieve it that way. I think that some people do not want to believe in choice or freewill. Because so long as freewill exist so does self responsibility. When you take away freewill, even if it is an illusion, you absolve them of any guilt, because then they can just blame it on predestination or predeterminism and they don't have to be responsible for their own actions. This is a very dangerous idea, with a very slippery slope.

 

[SabahTheLoner]

Firstly, what is Will? How is it defined in contrast to ordinary will?

Lowercase will is the concept of having a desire or motive. Uppercase Will is one's unique desire or motive. Choice is determined by the latter, it is a reaction to our environment. That's why the desire not to choose can lead to the choice not to participate in the choice. If they are all illusions then it would seem that what most of the population would deem as "reality" is an illusion. A choice is always present, some are just harder to make, for various reasons.

 

[shunyadragon]

Firstly, what is Will? How is it defined in contrast to ordinary will?

Ordinary will? Not sure what this means. There are basically three philosophies concerning human will: (1) Determinism where human free will is an illusion. (2) Compatabilism which supports that Determinism and Free Will are compatable in one way or another. (3) Libertarian Free Will which believes there are no restraints on Free Will, and humans are capable of 'contrary' choices against deterministic influences.

From: libertarian free will definition - Google Search
"Libertarianism is a school of thought that says humans are free from physical determinism and all the other diverse forms of determinism. Libertarians believe that strict determinism and freedom are incompatible. Freedom seems to require some form of indeterminism."

There are variations within each philosophy. The above is only a general description for further discussion.

I consider Libertarian Free Will the most unrealistic of the alternatives. It is believed in one form or another by many Christians.

Secondly, no choice is not a choice. That would seem definitional. I understand the inclination that asserts that choosing inaction is a choice, but then you have to post-haste refine what it is that was being chosen, and recognize that the terms of choosing have been adjusted. Choosing inaction is choosing something, not nothing.

Needs clarification.

Choice is an illusion and, like all illusions, it exists. It is the illusion of will, nothing more or less (and nothing capitalized); that idea that there is an "I" who is in the driver's seat guiding events with a "consciousness." Choice exists in this instance, and free will too.

Are you supporting a version of compatabilism here?

 

[SabahTheLoner]

A short video on the topic.

I agree with Jordan here.

Whether or not choice is an illusion. We have and always will percieve it that way. I think that some people do not want to believe in choice or freewill. Because so long as freewill exist so does self responsibility. When you take away freewill, even if it is an illusion, you give absolve them of any guilt, because then they can just blame it on predestination or predeterminism and they don't have to be responsible for their own actions. This is a very dangerous idea, with a very slippery slope.

Awesome video on the topic, thanks for sharing.

I agree with you; the idea of free will is very dangerous and determinism has the down side of external blame that could be used for self-improvement. Responsibility is a product of free will.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

Choice is an illusion and, like all illusions, it exists. It is the illusion of will, nothing more or less (and nothing capitalized); that idea that there is an "I" who is in the driver's seat guiding events with a "consciousness." Choice exists in this instance, and free will too.

And you are comfortable with this notion? Because it says, quite specifically, "I am an automaton being fed the false notion that I'm actually a being with some control over my own life and actions."

How does that make you feel about being you? Or are you, in fact, even "you" (in just the way you used quotes in your notion of the 'idea that there is an "I"')?

 

[Willamena]

Lowercase will is the concept of having a desire or motive. Uppercase Will is one's unique desire or motive. Choice is determined by the latter, it is a reaction to our environment. That's why the desire not to choose can lead to the choice not to participate in the choice. If they are all illusions then it would seem that what most of the population would deem as "reality" is an illusion. A choice is always present, some are just harder to make, for various reasons.

I don't accept that lower case will isn't relative to me, so there is no need of a bigly upper case will.