Does Free Will Exist? (Does it matter?) [Continued Discussion]
June 7, 2010 - 2:26pm
So in the podcast, we stumbled across the topic of whether free will actually exists or that it is simply an illusion. I'm curious what others think.
It seems to me that in order to think free will actually does exist, you'd have to believe in a dualist universe- one realm which is controlled by physics and the collision of atoms (aka reality) and another "spirit" realm where your consciousness resides. The spirit realm would provide free will because the spirits are not controlled in a predictable way by atoms colliding in a way that builds up a neuron firing which builds up to a decision which gives the illusion of free will. In a spiritual scenario, free will would exist.
I reject that assumption and accept that we only have the first half- the physics controlled universe soooo, though we believe we are the ones choosing the actions we take, in fact those actions and choices are simply the continuation of a trillion trillion trillion other atoms' interactions which influenced the state of your mind, the state of the inputs to your mind, and the way your mind will react. Ultimately, the way I see it, our choices were all decided for us from the start.
What do you think?
June 14, 2010 - 10:22pm
#2
I like that way of thinking about it, but it just brings doesn't really address the inevitableness of the decisions you "freely" choose. Yes, I decide for myself whether I go out and kill people, or whether I eat Bojangles (both equally heinous acts) but what doesn't change is that the action I chose was predictable in a physics equation. There wasn't some supernatural dice roll that occurs which permits me to do otherwise unforeseeable acts.
But yes, I agree that this fact shouldn't let us abandon morality or civilization, nor do I think people should think that nothing really matters. The fact that our actions are knowable doesn't mean we know. We should still seek the answers and try our best to make our tiny spec of the universe as nice for one another as possible.
November 21, 2010 - 12:10pm
#3
I stumbled into this website so to speak, that I plan to revisit often to hone my thinking/analytical skills, besides being an interesting place to browse and read in.
"Less Wrong is devoted to refining the art of human rationality-the art of thinking."
On this site I came across a section on Free Will that contains a series of posts which serve as a guide to thinking through/to the answer to "Does Free Will exist"
Below is the link to the home page for less wrong"
Hope you find this site interesting and the Free Will question resolved through the series of posts.
December 10, 2010 - 7:46am
#4
First, thanks DrScientist for your links and contributions! We're happy to have you onboard!
Second, learning a bit about your history makes me think that you might also be interested in the "skeptic" community. Skepticim, atheism, and science have a LOT of overlap between them (you can imagine a Venn diagram with three circles that mostly overlap). However, there are slight nuances to our approaches that make them distinct. The five of us Bettors are all involved in all three communities to greater and lesser extents, but we felt that of the three, the atheist community had less of a presence on the web. Thus, we created Pascal's Bettors!
A couple GREAT places to introduce yourself to the skeptic community are the James Randy Educational Foundation (or "JREF", pronounced J [as in the letter] ref [like the first syllable of referee]) and the New England Skeptical Society (or "NESS", pronounced like middle word of "Loch Ness Monster"). If you listen to our podcasts, you may have heard us mention "The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe" or "Dr. Steven Novella". Dr. Novella is the president of NESS, which produces the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe podcast.
Dr. Novella also founded Science-Based Medicine, a blog edited entirely by medical doctors (Dr. Novella, for instance, is an academic neurologist at Yale University School of Medicine). The NESS homepage describes the Science-Based Medicine as "a blog dedicated to issues of science and medicine and [which] fearlessly tackles controversial topics in medicine. SBM features a long list of health care experts in a variety of fields." Given your particular interests and background, this might be a fantastic compliment to Pascal's Bettors in scratching all of your atheistic, skeptical, and scientific itches.
December 11, 2010 - 12:11pm
#5
thank you, very worthwhile suggestions, especially Dr Novella's site.
I will be checking that out soon!
January 13, 2011 - 12:25am
#6
Oooo - I'd like to add "Neurologica" blog to the list, which is also by Dr. Steven Novella. He's a very thorough thinker and knows his logical fallacies in and out!
I believe that free will exists, but not in the way that we imagine it to. Our naive understanding implies that we act independently of the environment that surrounds us and that somehow -- and paradoxically -- we can interact with that environment, and be influenced by it, and yet still be separate from it and, concerning our decisionmaking abilities, unaffected by it. I think this line of thinking comes about because people simply cannot reconcile their high-level sense of willpower from the mechanics of it. It is doubly difficult because accepting the low-level mechanics undermines the thought-process behind decision making. If we say "well, all of our decisions are made based on physics out of my control*, so I shouldn't be bothered to care about what decisions I make or whom I affect". This kind of feedback is very disturbing to people -- it certainly is to me -- so it makes sense that we should find determinism to be odious, if not dangerous. How are criminals to be held accountable if it was really a conspiracy of physics that led to their criminal behavior?
My answer to that problem, certainly not as well-worked out, I'm sure as professional philosphers', is that "oughts" (normative rules) and accountability are compatible with determinism since they are still part of the process. Having laws against murder and holding people accountable for murder via a justice system is still an actual factor in a potential murderer's decision-making process. And keeping murderers in jail to prevent them from murdering again still has the same positive (or negative) results, regardless of whether the naive definition of free will exists or not.
We can take it a step further. Free will can be defined in terms of determinism so that it keeps most of the benefits of our sense of free will without being wrong, or taking away accountability. I would define free will as the ability of an intelligent entity to make decisions based directly on the inner workings of its center of intelligent, which are not effected in any direct way by another intelligent entity. That is, God could show you Jesus descending from heaven, but cannot force your brain, in a direct way, to believe that it truly is Jesus (and not some trickery), nor force you to convert from heathenism to Christianity and start missions. If God instead directly changed your mental state to result in your believing and converting, then that would be a case of non-free will. I feel that my definition is a bit hand-wavey and weak, but given the difficulties in dealing with free will, it's the best I can do. I'm only human and this stuff scares me too.