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In my opinion, the concept of Free Will makes no sense. It makes no sense to make a decision which is not based on the things happening around us, inside of us, in the past of us or in the genes of us.
The only way to make a decision that’s not fully based on these inputs, is to make a decision involving randomness. And randomness is not actually a willful decision.
It really is a question of definition. When you define it like most people think of it, that there was an alternate possibility in which they had not made the decision, then yes, the concept doesn’t make sense.
But a more useful definition might just be the ability to act according to one’s own desires, a common stance held by many compatibilists, which corresponds quite closely to what people are actually referring to when they speak of “free will”.
Edit: more info here: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/compatibilism/
But “desires” derive from the things happening around us, inside of us, in the past of us or in the genes of us.
It’s just shoving an additional layer into the argumentation, thinking it somehow doesn’t need to be explored, which is a logical fallacy.Nobody is saying that desires are not based on anything, that would be quite silly. It’s just that if you redefine free will in terms of desire instead of some metaphysical independence you might get a more useful definition.
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Not quite, agency is to what degree someone acts to their own “moral judgement” (an unuseful term in my opinion, since it is a social construct), rather than desires.
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The opposite of determinism is called metaphysical libertarianism iirc.
The definition of free will is obviously very tricky even among compatibilists, and depending on who you ask you will get very different answers. But usually yes, there are no absolutes, as there are always many factors involved in making decisions, and personal interests (however you might define them) will be different proportions of that.
Yeah, alright, I get what you’re saying. Most people don’t have as clear/isolated of a definition of Free Will as those who strongly oppose it anyways, so we could just start ignoring the ‘Free’ and pretend nothing happened. I guess, I can accept that being a strategy.
However, personally, I feel like humanity does need to be bonked with the fact, it does not have Free Will, because we’re behaving like absolute buffoons, because of it.
For example, many people believe Free Will makes us different from animals and we should apply different morals, when we’re not. And it makes us feel like we’re somehow ultra special and need to be billionaires or whatever, when it would be less of a waste of money, if we shared with others instead.Obviously, a massive amount of our modern moral understanding and laws and such, foot on Free Will. It will be a painful bonk. But yeah, I don’t think, continuing unbonked is a valid option either, not when we’re so convinced that we’re doing things correctly…
Yes, I do agree that the world could do with some more humility in its worldviews. Oh, if people could just understand that they’re nothing beyond the physical, that movement of time makes no sense or that knowledge is impossible (see Münchhausen trilemma)… when you take a stap back, so many of today’s struggles, both verbal and physical, suddenly appear completely nonsensical.
But you must realise that the vast majority of the world population still believes in a religion that puts themselves at the centre, and that it can be clearly seen that people, upon being challenged, just cling harder to their egocentric worldview. Worldviews, being a social phenomenon, are formed after what people want to believe, and don’t have to be restrained much by reality, however logical your argument is.
And, I mean, the truth is inevitably nearing us because of the progress of science. So don’t push your ideas too hard; faster, more forced change is just going to create even more tension than there already is, since people who believe feel more and more challenged and more and more obliged to fight back through dangerous extremism.
Yeah it needs to be better defined. You do have free will but that doesn’t mean it’s not subject to the limitations of the system in which u exist.
U can’t decide to jump off the planet cuz gravity will pull u back down but that doesn’t mean u don’t have free will.
In my mind if you didn’t have free will you wouldn’t have any control over your body at all.
If you can move within the system unfettered to any extent then you have free will. Any reduction in movement is considered entropy within that system.
I don’t think it’s that simple. Decisions can be based on more than one factor. Nobody doubts that the things around you affect your decision, the question is whether they fully determine your decision.
Which is not to say that free will definitely does or does not exist. But you’ve described all decisions as necessarily predetermined or random. Technically that is correct, since formally a “random” variable is simply one without a fixed value (ie something that is not predetermined and should be described as a range of possible values). Using the formal definition, “randomness” is exactly what you would expect if free will exists.
The more common understanding of “random” is “completely arbitrary” or “outside anyone’s control”, in which case you have presented a false dichotomy. If free will exists, then a decision could be non-arbitrary, within one’s control, yet not predetermined.
I can definitely see why one might read my comment as presenting a dichotomy, which is why I was actually very careful to not do that in my formulation.
Well, except that I am talking about true randomness (which I doubt exists, but we haven’t proven that on the quantum level). The more colloquial definitions of randomness, I count towards badly understood inputs or just a lack of inputs.Thing is, if we add true randomness to an input-based decision, it stops being predetermined, but there’s still a logically conclusive choice you’re going to make, based on the incomplete inputs you have. You cannot ‘freely’ decide to not pick that choice, because you have literally no reason not to pick it.
Even if you think, you’re going to pick the ‘illogical’ choice for a change, that is still part of your inputs. It’s likely even baked into our genes, because what appears logical is often not actually the best choice and those who successfully experimented, ultimately survived+procreated.
if we add true randomness to an input-based decision, it stops being predetermined, but there’s still a logically conclusive choice you’re going to make, based on the incomplete inputs you have. You cannot ‘freely’ decide to not pick that choice
I think you are contradicting yourself. If you cannot freely choose something else, then your choice is predetermined.
Whereas if a choice stops being predetermined, then there is no “logically conclusive choice” that you are definitely going to make. There is a range of possible choices, one of them is chosen by you, and the others could have been chosen but weren’t.
For example, you choose a tuna salad sandwich for lunch, but you could have chosen a ham sandwich. That choice was quite possibly not determined by logic, considerations of evolutionary fitness, or genetics. If it were, then you would probably always choose tuna salad over a ham sandwich.
I feel as if the answer to this is, by general consensus, yes. You have free will.
Like, does Evil exist? Scientifically? No, absolutely not, but the word still has meaning. If I say, “that man is evil!” And you look at him and recognize his terribleness, then, sure: he is IS evil.
Just because something isn’t objectively, physically quantifiable, doesn’t mean that it’s not a valid rational construct.
I think the actual argument which has been making the rounds recently, is not, “do humans have free will?” But, Rather is, “are humans accountable for their actions, given that thier will is significantly biased by factors outside of their control / awareness?”
It’s just that doesn’t get people’s attention.
Ps, I believe that fundamentally, all physical interactions are deterministic in practice. Any conscious or rational being is fundamentally set in motion with the arrow of time, and if you could develop a fuzzy quantum state based intelligence, you’d only succeed in creating a person with slightly more random ideas. There would be no meaningful uplift in “free will.” However, I also Believe that this is an absurd deconstruction of heady topics. It’s akin to telling someone that a table doesn’t exist because it’s just a decomposing tree. Free will is a rational idea for human animals, and judged by that standard, fulfills it’s purpose in describing the experience of conscious decision making.
A decision can be based on either determinism or randomness. Neither is what people consider free will.
If there was a third option, what would that be? Explain how a decision can be neither determined nor random nor a mixture of both.
Many scientists and philosophers beg to differ. Prominent among them is Kevin Mitchell, a neuroscientist at Trinity College in Dublin.
I’m sure that has nothing to do with his argument.
What? Neuroscience has a lot to do with Mitchell’s argument.
Confirmation bias, maybe.
Confirming what? Neuroscience?
Are you unaware that confirmation bias in science is real?
I am aware it’s real, but I’m not aware why it specifically applies to Mitchell.
Do you not like his conclusions? Because that would be confirmation bias - on your part.
Indeed it would be! Delighted! Perhaps you’re correct.
ETA: Some religious institutions don’t interfere in research. I think I’ma but gunshy in the states with “Bob Jones” graduates and the ilk.
LOL, fair enough!
And don’t worry. Trinity College, aka the University of Dublin, is the top research university in Ireland. It is the Irish counterpart to Oxford and Cambridge, and it was founded by Queen Elizabeth I, not the church.
interesting take. i doubt we’ll ever resolve this, but might be good to continue the conversation
It’s only relevant for some specific religions. It’s not particularly important for most people who have or will exist.
i’d extend that to anyone who ponders philosophy as well. it’s doubtful to be a binary, yes or no, but how much does one have at any given moment
If free will is an “illusion” by whatever standard is used to determine that, then free will doesn’t functionally exist anywhere that we know of outside of that “illusion” anyway, which means the concept is meaningless, even in a negative, at that point. It’s like telling people they aren’t unicorns while no unicorns are around to even compare their not-unicornness to.
