I tried posting this in 4chan's /b/, but it got pushed off the board in a matter of minutes. I'd rather have some actual discussion, so I'll try here.
I've come to the conclusion that free will is just an illusion. That's not to say that the future is set, quantum physics throws a fair amount of randomness into the universe, but you're still powerless to affect it in any way.
Discuss.
Does it matter? Who cares? If you find out there is no free will, how are you going to live your life differently?
I don't think the concept of free will ultimately makes any sense. A certain person, in a certain situation at a certain time, will react a certain way -- no? What does "free will" mean? How will that person react differently from if they didn't have "free will"?
The free will/destiny debate is in my mind, a discussion on the paradox of dichotomies.
It's really pretty simple:
(*) Is a "2" two entities of "1" or one entity of "2"?
(*) Are mind and body seperate or the same?
(*) Is a coin two different objects just because it has two different sides?
These seem like childish questions because they're so elemental.
(*) A "2" is both one number and two (2 = 1+1)
(*) Mind and body are like two sides of a coin
(*) A coin is a single object with two sides that appear to us at different moments in time.
Humans are constantly free and constantly under control.
People who deny the existence of free will seem to me to be attempting to avoid taking responsibility for their actions.
>>5
I can understand that viewpoint, but in this case it's just a scientifically based philosophical conclusion. Like saying that due to what we know about neuroscience, Cartesian dualism can't be real. From what we know about biology and physics, free will can't be real.
Philosophy goes in /Science/
Nice topic!
Needs some definitions though. Philosophy, done properly, requires precision. Feel free to disagree with these and suggest improvement!
Will: volition, conscious directedness of thought toward some goal
Free will: will not bound to external causality (e.g. influence of environment, genetics, upbringing, stock market). When person A does action B, and it was the case that he could have NOT done B, he acted with free will.
Determinism: belief that the future is something specific. May be because the universe acts in a definite mechanical fashion, or because God decrees what will be. This view precludes the possibility of free will. You will do what you will do, your future actions are something specific, already set in stone/whatever reality is made of.
Fatalism: Determinism PLUS the belief that human choices and actions are unable to influence the future, because whatever will be, will be.
responsibility: person A is responsible for action B if it is appropriate to blame or praise A for the occurrence of B
I believe in determinism, but not fatalism. Actions and choices are real, and have effects on the world. This seems quite obvious, and to deny it would be self-refuting. Observe:
If our good friend >>1 really was powerless to affect reality, this thread wouldn't exist. QED.
>>2
The OP said human actions are powerless. How can that not affect how he lives his life!? Well, admittedly, people don't always act consistently with their espoused beliefs...
>A certain person, in a certain situation at a certain time, will react a certain way
I completely agree. Law of causality~
>Humans are constantly free and constantly under control.
Free of what? You say we are under control. I agree with that. We are not free of what controls us.
There is no contradiction in this: we are in control of our actions, and we are controlled by influences out of our control. Nozick put forward a great analogy: a thermostat controls a room's temperature. A thermostat is obviously controlled by external factors: the laws of physics, the material constitution of the room and itself.
>>5
I, for one, do not reject the concept responsibility. A rejection of free will does not imply fatalism. Human actions are part of the world, not separate from it.
>>12
I'm having a hard time making a distinction between your definition of determinism and fatalism.
I believe in responsibility, but I believe that the concept of "choice" is just an illusion. It has the appearance that you're consciously affecting things or making decisions, but really it's just the physics of the matter of universe reacting to one another. To say that you can somehow "choose" to manipulate the particles and chemicals of your brain to affect a certain outcome (i.e. to make a decision) is as ridiculous as to say you can "choose" to levitate a billiard ball from across the room in defiance of the laws of physics.
Due to the nature of quantum physics, however, I do not believe in determinism. There is no singular set outcome for every event, but it is regardless impossible to affect the outcome of any event.
>I'm having a hard time making a distinction between your definition of determinism and fatalism.
I'm not sure how I could make it any clearer. Fatalists would, if they were to put their money where their mouth is, not bother to do anything at all. Their rejection of the efficacy of human action would imply that the achievement of any goal whatever is out of their control. They would degenerate to 'acting' purely on 'instinct', repudiating rational decision-making.
>I believe in responsibility, but I believe that the concept of "choice" is just an illusion.
What's your definition for 'choice'? I think it refers to a very useful concept.
>It has the appearance that you're consciously affecting things or making decisions, but really it's just the physics of the matter of universe reacting to one another.
I believe you have accepted a false dichotomy. We consciously affect reality by acting. The physical constitution of reality acts in some specific way according to its nature, and we are no exception to that. There is no contradiction here.
>To say that you can somehow "choose" to manipulate the particles and chemicals of your brain to affect a certain outcome (i.e. to make a decision) is as ridiculous as to say you can "choose" to levitate a billiard ball from across the room in defiance of the laws of physics.
It's not that complicated . We are real, physical organisms, brains and all. Why shouldn't physical things affect physical reality? Consciousness is a part of our nature. Choice is the ability to consciously determine a course of action for ourself from a set of alternatives. We make decisions with some goal in mind, comparing potential actions with each other, making predictions based on our knowledge. This is a mechanical, causal, deterministic process, I think. So the alternatives we assess and end up rejecting were never truly available to us. Nevertheless, we chose what we did choose.
I like Aristotle's account of these things. He saw no need for messy, vague notions like 'free will', and didn't destroy the concepts of responsible human action either :D
http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.3.iii.html
>Due to the nature of quantum physics, however, I do not believe in determinism.
I don't really understand quantum physics. But I do understand causality and the fact that rejecting it would destroy the foundations for rational action and all sorts of good things D:
> There is no singular set outcome for every event, but it is regardless impossible to affect the outcome of any event.
Impossible for what to affect the outcome of events? Anything? Even the entities involved in the event itself?
>>15
It's both.
>Choice is the ability to consciously determine a course of action for ourself from a set of alternatives.
>So the alternatives we assess and end up rejecting were never truly available to us.
Therefore, choice is nothing more than an illusion.
>Nevertheless, we chose what we did choose.
Not really. If the alternatives were never truly available in the first place, how can you say that you made a choice? An analogy would be imagining yourself on a railroad car. There's a fork in the tracks, but the switcher has been shifted so that the railroad car will only be able to go down one path once it reaches the fork, and nothing can make it go down the other path. There is the appearance of there being multiple possible outcomes, but really, there's only one path the railroad car can take.
>Impossible for what to affect the outcome of events? Anything? Even the entities involved in the event itself?
Yes, anything.
I'll try to make an analogy for this as well. Imagine the big bang setting forth into motion all the particles and energy in the universe. Now imagine the particles are billiard balls, and the universe is a pool table. Nothing can affect the motion of the balls without some sort of intervention from outside the table(universe.) Because the balls have already been set in motion and nothing can alter them, it's not really accurate to say that one ball is altering the path of another if they happen to collide. That collision could have been predicted from the moment the balls began their motion, so really they're just proceding along their natural course.
Now to throw quantum physics into the analogy (in a very rudimentary way.) Imagine that one of the balls has a 75% chance of being in location A on the table, and a 25% chance of being in location B on the table. It's impossible to predict with absolute certainty whether the ball will ultimately manifest itself at location A or B (only that it's more likely that it will manifest at location A,) so there are two possible outcomes of ball motion that can occur. However the balls themselves are still completely unable to change the ultimate location of the quantum ball and the subsequent motion.
That being said, and going back to my initial assertion that free will is just an illusion, humans are ultimately just made up of billiard balls, and nothing can be doneto affect their motion. There may be multiple paths of motion depending on where the quantum balls manifest themselves, but to say that you can choose to affect something is like saying one billiard ball "chose" to strike another.
>Therefore, choice is nothing more than an illusion.
???
Please show us your reasoning. It would be quite impressive if you could logically go from "choice is something" to "choice is nothing"!
>Not really.
Yes, really D:<
> If the alternatives were never truly available in the first place, how can you say that you made a choice?
Because I consciously assessed a set of apparently potential actions and decided on the one that, according to my knowledge, would most effectively move me toward my goals. That is what choice is, nothing more, nothing less. If you disagree with my definition then I'd be interested in hearing your alternative.
>An analogy would be imagining yourself on a railroad car. There's a fork in the tracks, but the switcher has been shifted so that the railroad car will only be able to go down one path once it reaches the fork, and nothing can make it go down the other path. There is the appearance of there being multiple possible outcomes, but really, there's only one path the railroad car can take.
Okay, there's no choice for the car. But what's this got to do with human action? There's no consciousness here, no goal, no internal weighing-up-of-facts.
Continue'd from 18
>>17
>Because the balls have already been set in motion and nothing can alter them, it's not really accurate to say that one ball is altering the path of another if they happen to collide.
Yes, it is. If they didn't collide, the paths would be different, no?
>That collision could have been predicted from the moment the balls began their motion, so really they're just proceding along their natural course.
That's true too. I believe you have accepted a false dichotomy here. The rest of your argument rests on this mistake.
>Please show us your reasoning. It would be quite impressive if you could logically go from "choice is something" to "choice is nothing"!
I don't believe I ever even started with "choice is something." "Choice is nothing" has been my standpoint all along. It has the illusion of being something, but in reality, it is nothing.
>Because I consciously assessed a set of apparently potential actions
The key word here, as you have highlighted yourself, is apparently. They have the appearance of being potential paths for you to take, but in reality, there is only the one path, just as with the railroad car. My point, as I outlined in the example with the pool table, is that consciousness or goals as we perceive them are irrelevant. Consciousness is matter (made up of it at least,) and to say that the particles of your mind can behave any differently than the balls on a pool table and somehow choose to affect a certain outcome is as ridiculous as saying the balls can choose how they move and strike each other on the table.
>Yes, it is. If they didn't collide, the paths would be different, no?
But because the balls have been set in motion in a particular way, the collision has to occur (not counting the quantum ball for the moment,) therefore nothing is truly being "altered."
>I believe you have accepted a false dichotomy here.
Please explain to me what this dichotomy is.
>"Choice is nothing" has been my standpoint all along. It has the illusion of being something, but in reality, it is nothing.
How can 'nothing' even have the illusion of being something? Nothing doesn't have anything.
Or are you referring to the concept of choice... and saying that it's an invalid one? Well, my concept might be slightly different to most people's. But it makes sense in the same contexts as the usual use of the word. And it's useful, I think, to be able to distinguish chosen action from unchosen action.
>My point, as I outlined in the example with the pool table, is that consciousness or goals as we perceive them are irrelevant.
My point is that they are extremely relevant! They are a part of our identity, and entities perform actions in accordance with their identity - law of causality.
>Consciousness is matter (made up of it at least,)
I'd say it's more accurate to say consiousness depends on matter, as much as inertia or temperature.
>and to say that the particles of your mind can behave any differently than the balls on a pool table and somehow choose to affect a certain outcome is as ridiculous as saying the balls can choose how they move and strike each other on the table.
The particles do not do the choosing. The thinking human being, as a whole unit, does. The pool table, being non-conscious, becomes a disanalogy at this point.
>But because the balls have been set in motion in a particular way, the collision has to occur
Yes, the balls do what they do because they are the particular way that they are (they have their specific velocity, mass, etc). If their identity was different, their (re)actions would be different. Regardless of the fact that, at that time and place, they had to be that way.
>(not counting the quantum ball for the moment,)
Thank God :)
>therefore nothing is truly being "altered."
The velocity of the ball is being altered.
>Please explain to me what this dichotomy is.
You seem to think these points:
A) The universe as a whole behaves in some deterministic way
B) Entities causally interact with each other
are mutually exclusive. I see no reason to accept this. Both are true.
Where you believe I have accepted a false dichotomy, I believe you are continuously contradicting yourself.
For the issue of whether the balls on the table are "altered" or not, I believe that's just an issue of semantics, but we both agree that
>Regardless of the fact that, at that time and place, they had to be that way.
Now, back to the issue of people, you say
>The particles do not do the choosing. The thinking human being, as a whole unit, does. The pool table, being non-conscious, becomes a disanalogy at this point.
Remember, a mind is made up of particles just like balls on a table, the only difference is that they are configured in such a way that they give self awareness, and the appearance of will, but these particles are still subject to all of the same laws as matter everywhere. So tell me, what is the special process that you believe occurs, in total violation of the laws of physics, that allows a "conscious" mind (essentially made up of billiard balls) to be able to "choose" to manipulate matter in some way that balls on a table are not?
I've decided it would be better to continue this in Science.
Haha, "decided."