Impossibility of free will

[FurtherSuntime]

Free Will is probably a full real impression only, of free will, arranged by our observation point in observance. The ultimate reality is prob a whole manisfistation of multiple and relative timespace itself. Our perception a relative one. The expansion, background radiation, an illusion which is logically consistent with what is…only. We are living out the substantialness of a unique non-repeatable consciousness. Individual measures all in keeping with the ultimate timespace, in the ultimate reality.

So look at a fish bowl with many fish swimming about, or a whole vase of little flowers making up the wholeness. From a decided spot in the tank or the vase, everything seems to be evolving from the one perspective, but the truth is, the whole vase and aquarium exists in its entirety “by” the full range of perspective available outside of the happenings.

So we are all at once, all…but not from within the experience. The experience then does not require justification and is what it is…by what ultimately is all together. I think probability is a good example of an apparent random, out of the inability to mentally arrange an understanding of all that is required and in motion to satisfy the laws, relative to our perception, which must satisfy themselves…in other words the boundaries in a system will be perfectly expressed mathematically from every possible perspective, in spite of the random feature in operations…and that requires explanation…why? because the system then becomes remotely predictable by the laws found in the certainty of themselves… So we have now established rules for outcome. An outcome which is hazy as well explainable, and very very real.

 

[packermann]

It’s not fruitless. Just because you are programmed to believe whatever you believe at this very moment, does not preclude the possibility of casual factors ever re-programming you. If you hear an argument against free will that’s compelling enough, you will helplessly believe it.

Hearing a compelling argument does not you are helpless to believe it. You still have a free will to choose to accept the argument or reject it.

But if you programmed to think in a certain way, how can you trust your judgment.

So it’s not a pointless discussion in that sense, and it has implications beyond merely our own specific beliefs. If the whole world came to understand that free will is an illusion, it would have a significant effect on our relationships with each other, and we’d know greater compassion for one another in the face of someone committing an immoral act. This is what Sair was talking about earlier.

If everyone believed that free will was a illusion, there would not be greater compassion, there would instead be greater manipluation.

If free will does not exist, why not give criminals a lobotomy. After all,if no one has free will. why not brainwash people to think the way that is socially acceptable?

 

[ASimon]

Hearing a compelling argument does not you are helpless to believe it. You still have a free will to choose to accept the argument or reject it.

If the argument or evidence is compelling enough, you have no such option. To believe in something is to believe you have good reasons for believing in that something.

But if you programmed to think in a certain way, how can you trust your judgment.

The same way you would trust your judgment if you did have free will to make decisions.

If everyone believed that free will was a illusion, there would not be greater compassion, there would instead be greater manipluation.

If free will does not exist, why not give criminals a lobotomy. After all,if no one has free will. why not brainwash people to think the way that is socially acceptable?

Because that’s what rehabilitation is for. And we’d have one less obstacle to applying it if we could get passed this idea of retribution against people for committing immoral acts.

 

[packermann]

If the argument or evidence is compelling enough, you have no such option.

I may have no moral option or no reasonable option to deny something that has compelling arguments. But I still have the freedom to reject something even though I know deep down it is true. Or that the evidence may be objectively compelling but because I my own bias I cannot see it.

To believe in something is to believe you have good reasons for believing in that something.

Exactly. But being programmed to believe in something is a different story. Let’s go back to the computer. I computer does not weigh the reasonableness of my instructions. It blindly obeys. But you and I can determine whether an instruction is reasonable or not. If I instruct you destroy all the company records, you will probably question this. If I instruct a computer to destroy the files, it would do it without giving a single thought. You would evaluate whether my instruction is reasonable. A computer would not.

The same way you would trust your judgment if you did have free will to make decisions.

Not really. You are making a blind leap of faith in trusting your judgment even though you believe in reality it was not your judgment at all, since that judgment was programmed into you.
But since I believe that I have a free will, I believe that it is possible for me to come up with an objective judgment.

Because that’s what rehabilitation is for. And we’d have one less obstacle to applying it if we could get passed this idea of retribution against people for committing immoral acts.

The Catholic Church would also teach that that we should get pass the idea of retribution. But instead of doing it by denying free will, it is by focusing on the gospel. God died for our sins. Since God died for all, this shows that we are all precious in God’s sight, and all of us a redeemable, no matter what evil we have done. You talk of rehabilitation. But the gospel talks of redemption. There is a difference. Redemption means that man, through the grace of God, can change. In order for man to change, he must take the first step and admit that he is responsible for his actions.

But this is the one thing the person cannot do if he thinks he has no free will. Alcoholics Anonymous realized that the first act toward recovery is for the addict to admit that he is responsible to his own actions. He must stop blaming his parents, or his environment, or his genes. He must stop blaming other people or other things. But if he believes that he was not free, he can never change. If he was not free to enter into alcoholism, then he is not free to leave alcoholism. If people are not responsible for their actions, then they do not have the power to change them.

 

[Sair]

As a result of our own experience we can distinguish between planned and unplanned events. SETI, for example, is based on our ability to detect rational activity.

SETI’s research is based upon the notion that certain patterns - such as a sequence of prime numbers, for example - would reflect intention rather than the kinds of patterns we find, as a matter of course, in undirected nature. This has little to do with the ability to discern cause and effect, which are abundantly discernible in nature.

We have direct experience of intelligent causality and can distinguish it from physical causality.

Leaving aside your assumption that intelligent causality is distinct from physical causality, why does the knowledge that humans can design and build tools, machines, dwellngs and so forth indicate to you that living animals or geological formations, for example, must have been designed and built by a supernatural intelligence?

Please explain how truth, purpose and justice can be explained as collections of physical phenomena…

I have covered the notion of truth before, as being the correspondence between our statements and reality. As for purpose, it’s hard to imagine how a purpose could encompass anything not able to be physically realised - for example, if my purpose is to help the needy, how would this be accomplished other than through physical exertion and the demonstrable increase in well-being of those I sought to help? I might, were I to resume belief in supernatural religion, consider “helping” them through prayer, but even then, I would still have to go through the physical motions of undertaking said prayer, and the efficacy of that prayer could only be demonstrated by changes to the physical circumstances of the people I sought to help. Justice is a state of affairs in which all involved parties receive returns according to what they have been reasonably able to expend, without deceit or coercion - from each according to his ability, to each according to his need. Again, the only way to demonstrate what justice actually is, is through physical states of affairs.

Personal relationships are one example. Purposeful activity is non-causal from a physical viewpoint.

How can personal relationships and purposeful activity be non-causal? A personal relationship is the result of shared interests between individuals; purposeful activity requires the existence of a perceived need or desire to motivate the activity concerned.

They act logically but - like an insane person - they don’t understand what they are doing.

Psychopaths understand intellectually what they are doing - they just don’t care for such behavioural nuances as empathy.

Personal activity is far more than the production of outputs from (name removed by moderator)uts because it is intuitive, creative, flexible and innovative. The occupational hazard of a programmer is to interpret everything in terms of computer functions…

The fact that computers are not - and cannot be, given their physical capacities and limitations - sensitive to the immense variety of (name removed by moderator)uts that human nervous systems process every day, as a matter of course, in no way detracts from the fundamental process of rationality.

Would you really imprison people just because you think they are likely to commit crimes?

If imprisonment proved to be the only way to prevent such a person from harming others, yes. It’s also quite possible that this may be done with the person’s complete consent, if they desire to be prevented from harming others.

How can you be so sure we shall ever be in that position?

We may never be, and I certainly don’t expect that we will be within my lifetime - although we might. Predictability is a quality we selectively associate with human behaviour anyway, so I’m not sure why there seems to be such panic about the extent to which we may be able to discover what a person will choose to do or not do.

Scientists are not infallible neither were Hitler or Stalin. Skinner’s behavourism has fallen into disrepute like Nazism and Stalinism. Science is not devoid of fanatics like those who performed hundreds of leucotomies and lobotomies.

Where has anyone claimed that scientists are infallible? As far as I’m aware, only the Catholic Pope ever claims such a quality. My point was most emphatically not that science is a guarantee against fanaticism - but that irrationality comes in numerous guises, whether they are religious, political or pseudo-scientific. The primary advantage of science in this regard is that its methodology contains potential safeguards, such as demonstrability, repeatability and peer review, that may overcome the intellectual fallibility inherent in human nature. Of course, when totalitarianism is involved, and the “dear leaders” think they are infallible, there’s little hope for rationality to win through.

That sums it up perfectly. Man’s inhumanity to man established on a strictly scientific basis - and the prediction of criminal behaviour falls into the same category…

You seem to be assuming that science is prescriptive, rather than descriptive. Man’s inhumanity to man has been “justified” on many bases, most of them religious or at least in line with religious teachings. Again, the advantage of science, no matter how marginal, is that it is far more susceptible to correction than religious dogma, which is normally claimed to be infallible and irrefutable (not to mention inscrutable!)

 

[packermann]

Leaving aside your assumption that intelligent causality is distinct from physical causality, why does the knowledge that humans can design and build tools, machines, dwellngs and so forth indicate to you that living animals or geological formations, for example, must have been designed and built by a supernatural intelligence?

We are contingent beings, and our intelligence is also contingent. We did not have to be intelligent. So how did our intelligence come into being? There are three options.

Our intelligence has no cause. But this is not possible, because our intelligence had a beginning and it did not have to exist.

Our intelligence is self-caused. But this is a logical absurdity. For intelligence to cause its own existence, it make exist before its existence, which is a contradiction.

Our intelligence came from another. But then where did that intelligence come from? From still another? This cannot go on forever. Otherwise you have an infinite regress. So there must be an Agent Zero. There must be one who started all the intelligence – one who had no beginning, whose existence is not contingent on anything else –an Ultimate Intelligence that is the ground for all intelligence.

Also, it is not just we can design things. We have self-consciousness. We are conscious of ourselves. We are even conscious of us being conscious of ourselves. Where did we get this come from? How did I, a self-conscious being, evolve from non-conscious being? Something cannot come from nothing. A non-concious being cannot cause a self-consious being. A non-conscious being cannot pass on what it does not have. Some other self-conscious being being must have implanted this self-conciousness into the process.Can this self-conscious being be someone other than God? Yes, but then we have to ask where this self-conscious being received its self-consciousness. And so on and so one. We cannot go on forever. We cannot have an infinte regress. There must be an Agent Zero, who is uncaused.

 

[tonyrey]

We are contingent beings, and our intelligence is also contingent. We did not have to be intelligent. So how did our intelligence come into being? There are three options.

Our intelligence has no cause. But this is not possible, because our intelligence had a beginning and it did not have to exist.

Our intelligence is self-caused. But this is a logical absurdity. For intelligence to cause its own existence, it make exist before its existence, which is a contradiction.

Our intelligence came from another. But then where did that intelligence come from? From still another? This cannot go on forever. Otherwise you have an infinite regress. So there must be an Agent Zero. There must be one who started all the intelligence – one who had no beginning, whose existence is not contingent on anything else –an Ultimate Intelligence that is the ground for all intelligence.

Also, it is not just we can design things. We have self-consciousness. We are conscious of ourselves. We are even conscious of us being conscious of ourselves. Where did we get this come from? How did I, a self-conscious being, evolve from non-conscious being? Something cannot come from nothing. A non-concious being cannot cause a self-consious being. A non-conscious being cannot pass on what it does not have. Some other self-conscious being being must have implanted this self-conciousness into the process.Can this self-conscious being be someone other than God? Yes, but then we have to ask where this self-conscious being received its self-consciousness. And so on and so one. We cannot go on forever. We cannot have an infinte regress. There must be an Agent Zero, who is uncaused.

Inexorable logic!

 

[tonyrey]

SETI’s research is based upon the notion that certain patterns - such as a sequence of prime numbers, for example - would reflect intention rather than the kinds of patterns we find, as a matter of course, in undirected nature. This has little to do with the ability to discern cause and effect, which are abundantly discernible in nature.

It has everything to do with intelligent cause and effect. “undirected nature” begs the question.

But you don’t actually have a basis for assuming that physical causality is not an adequate source or function of rationality, since we don’t have a complete understanding of physical causality.

We don’t understand intelligent causality completely but we know it is more powerful and we rely on it rather than unintelligent causality.

Leaving aside your assumption that intelligent causality is distinct from physical causality, why does the knowledge that humans can design and build tools, machines, dwellngs and so forth indicate to you that living animals or geological formations, for example, must have been designed and built by a supernatural intelligence?

The principle of adequacy. What reason do you have for believing blind processes are more powerful?

I have covered the notion of truth before, as being the correspondence between our statements and reality.

That is not an explanation of how they are derived.

As for purpose, it’s hard to imagine how a purpose could encompass anything not able to be physically realised…

It does not require physical exertion to investigate your thoughts and become more

…I would still have to go through the physical motions of undertaking said prayer, and the efficacy of that prayer could only be demonstrated by changes to the physical circumstances of the people I sought to help.

Prayer does not require physical motions and its effects need not be tangible.

…Again, the only way to demonstrate what justice actually is, is through physical states of affairs.

Justice is not demonstrated through physical states of affairs because it is an intangible principle. It is demonstrated primarily by the intangible intentions and consequences on the persons concerned - which are often psychological rather than physical (as in the case of mental cruelty).

A personal relationship is the result of shared interests between individuals; purposeful activity requires the existence of a perceived need or desire to motivate the activity concerned.

Needs and desires are primarily psychological - even when it comes to physical survival. For many people death is preferable to being a slave.

Psychopaths understand intellectually what they are doing - they just don’t care for such behavioural nuances as empathy.

The issue concerns entities - like computers - that don’t understand.

The fact that computers are not - and cannot be, given their physical capacities and limitations - sensitive to the immense variety of (name removed by moderator)uts that human nervous systems process every day, as a matter of course, in no way detracts from the fundamental process of rationality.

A variety of (name removed by moderator)uts is a hopelessly inadequate explanation of rationality which requires the understanding of (name removed by moderator)uts.

If imprisonment proved to be the only way to prevent such a person from harming others, yes. It’s also quite possible that this may be done with the person’s complete consent, if they desire to be prevented from harming others.

These are abnormal cases rather than potential wrongdoers.

Predictability is a quality we selectively associate with human behaviour anyway, so I’m not sure why there seems to be such panic about the extent to which we may be able to discover what a person will choose to do or not do.

So whether people are imprisoned for something they may never do is insignificant.

Where has anyone claimed that scientists are infallible?

It is not a question of claiming but acting as if they are infallible like the leucotomists and lobotomists.

My point was most emphatically not that science is a guarantee against fanaticism - but that irrationality comes in numerous guises, whether they are religious, political or pseudo-scientific. The primary advantage of science in this regard is that its methodology contains potential safeguards, such as demonstrability, repeatability and peer review, that may overcome the intellectual fallibility inherent in human nature.

Science without morality is a threat to civilisation:

There is a sort of poverty of the spirit which stands in glaring contrast to our scientific and technological abundance. The richer we have become materially, the poorer we have become morally and spiritually. We have learned to fly the air like birds and swim the sea like fish, but we have not learned the simple art of living together as brothers.

scientificaesthetic.com/2008/12/11/science-without-a-moral-core/

You seem to be assuming that science is prescriptive, rather than descriptive. Man’s inhumanity to man has been “justified” on many bases, most of them religious or at least in line with religious teachings. Again, the advantage of science, no matter how marginal, is that it is far more susceptible to correction than religious dogma, which is normally claimed to be infallible and irrefutable (not to mention inscrutable!)

It is not science that is prescriptive but scientists! Nor are infallible dogmas are confined to religion - as Dawkins (inter alia) clearly demonstrates. Philosophical, psychological, social and theological discoveries have refined and developed Christian teaching.

Inscrutability certainly applies to the fundamental tenets of materialism.

 

[sandomenico]

Well, for starters, we think we have free will. That’s one necessary condition for something being an illusion - some part of us has to begin with the notion that it’s real.

We know that we have, as causal factors influencing our thoughts and choices, our genetics (which we didn’t choose), our upbringing (which we didn’t choose), and all our experiences (none of which were things we chose). And I assert that there is nothing else, no other element in our “self” that allows us the ability to think thoughts and choose choices independent of our causal factors. There is no room for us to have free will.

Some people assert that free will is something we are given by God, either as part of our “soul,” or at least synonymous with it. But this is not a coherent assertion. Leaving aside the fact that nobody can prove that God even exists, much less that he’s ever gifted us anything, the idea that we were 'given" free will is a philosophical non-starter. If you are kind and decent person, and you attribute this to the soul that God gave you, that’s not free will. Think of the worst person you’ve ever heard of, past or present. Now imagine you step into that person’s shoes, appropriating their genetic makeup, upbringing and experience as your own. You are no longer who you are at this moment. Now ask yourself, would you be free to behave differently than that person does or did? If you say yes, on what authority do you assert this? What makes your “free will” different from the “free will” this horrible person supposedly had? Did God give you a different “flavor” of free will? And if he did, is it really “free?”

ASimon,

If you were me at this moment, believing in free will, would you be asking yourself that question?

I would choose differently even if we accepted that free will exists, because I would have taken the will of this other person as well as his genetics, and intellect/memories/thoughts/influences/experiences, and upbringing. The only way we could posit some different choices would be to accept some different makeup in being, in which case, the experiment goes “boink” because I am still partly myself.

Isn’t that also true of free will, as well as determinism? Why is it unreasonable to assert that everyone makes free choices based on the influence of their different experiences, upbringing, and genetics? Why is it more reasonable to say that those three decide for us what we will do individually?

And even in the latter case, don’t the GEU act as a Will, albeit a predetermined one?

God love you,
sandomenico

 

[jochoa]

I have one question for consideration:
If the argument is…
Free will does not exist because we are forced to choose based on genetics, upbringing, and past-experiences
Then…
can creativity, imagination, the formation of new ideas exist?

 

[ASimon]

I may have no moral option or no reasonable option to deny something that has compelling arguments. But I still have the freedom to reject something even though I know deep down it is true. Or that the evidence may be objectively compelling but because I my own bias I cannot see it.

If you "know deep down that is true, then it’s too late for you to reject it as false. Knowing something is true is equivalent to believing it. You can, of course, explicitly claim not to believe something you know to be true (to lie, in other words), but with the benefit of knowing your mind, that’s not rejecting anything, in the first place, and in the second, you can’t author the choice to say you don’t believe in something either.

Exactly. But being programmed to believe in something is a different story. Let’s go back to the computer. I computer does not weigh the reasonableness of my instructions. It blindly obeys. But you and I can determine whether an instruction is reasonable or not. If I instruct you destroy all the company records, you will probably question this. If I instruct a computer to destroy the files, it would do it without giving a single thought. You would evaluate whether my instruction is reasonable. A computer would not.

You having more options available to you than a computer does not make you the free author of the choice you make between them. This is the hole that people often fall into in this debate. Having a variety of options available to you in any given moment does not, in itself, make you the author of the choice you eventually choose.

Not really. You are making a blind leap of faith in trusting your judgment even though you believe in reality it was not your judgment at all, since that judgment was programmed into you.
But since I believe that I have a free will, I believe that it is possible for me to come up with an objective judgment.

The fact is, we are hardwired to form beliefs about the world that track with the reality we observe and experience in the world. This does not preclude that two humans, having lived on the same planet, or even in the same town, for the same amount of time, can’t reach different conclusions about how the world works. Some people think that prayer is an effective method for problem solving. I disagree. But given the sheer totality of things that we can have judgments about, I would wager that the percentage of beliefs we actually share in common are in the high 90s. And this is nothing but a consequence of having similarly structured brains and living on the same planet for a stretch of time.

It’s also worth pointing out that whether or not I trust my judgment is also not something I can freely choose. But the fact remains, I have beliefs about how the world works, and I’ve made it into adulthood with some of those judgments having been legitimately overturned and others not. If I develop a brain tumor, and subsequently begin believing that aliens are sending me secret messages, this may ultimately hinder my ability to continuing living a functional life

The Catholic Church would also teach that that we should get pass the idea of retribution. But instead of doing it by denying free will, it is by focusing on the gospel. God died for our sins. Since God died for all, this shows that we are all precious in God’s sight, and all of us a redeemable, no matter what evil we have done. You talk of rehabilitation. But the gospel talks of redemption. There is a difference. Redemption means that man, through the grace of God, can change. In order for man to change, he must take the first step and admit that he is responsible for his actions.

But this is the one thing the person cannot do if he thinks he has no free will. Alcoholics Anonymous realized that the first act toward recovery is for the addict to admit that he is responsible to his own actions. He must stop blaming his parents, or his environment, or his genes. He must stop blaming other people or other things. But if he believes that he was not free, he can never change. If he was not free to enter into alcoholism, then he is not free to leave alcoholism. If people are not responsible for their actions, then they do not have the power to change them.

But they clearly do. What they don’t have is the ability to author that choice themselves. Certain experiences and biological factors can changes a person’s bad habits, just as certain experiences and biological factors were the cause of developing the bad habit in the first place.

Obviously, in light of determinism, an alcoholic is not responsible for becoming an alcoholic. But even given this, I’m not sure that “taking responsibility” (in some superficial sense) can’t have positive utility. Whether we author our choices or not, they do have effects on us, and those effects can, in turn, influence us to make different choices in the future. Just going on the record and acknowledging that you accept responsibility for your drinking (and the consequences of that choice) can aid you in not drinking in the future. Probably better than blaming your genetics and upbringing and life circumstances for it (although those are, in fact, the ultimate causes).

 

[ASimon]

I have one question for consideration:
If the argument is…
Free will does not exist because we are forced to choose based on genetics, upbringing, and past-experiences
Then…
can creativity, imagination, the formation of new ideas exist?

I can’t think of any reason why they wouldn’t.

 

[ASimon]

I would choose differently even if we accepted that free will exists, because I would have taken the will of this other person as well as his genetics, and intellect/memories/thoughts/influences/experiences, and upbringing. The only way we could posit some different choices would be to accept some different makeup in being, in which case, the experiment goes “boink” because I am still partly myself.

If you acknowledge that there’s no grounds on which you would behave differently than this horrible person, given their G-E-U, it seems to me that you’re left with two possible conclusions. Either admit that we don’t have free will of any sort, or assert that God makes us who we ultimately become (which also isn’t free will). If there’s a third option, I’m not aware of it.

Isn’t that also true of free will, as well as determinism? Why is it unreasonable to assert that everyone makes free choices based on the influence of their different experiences, upbringing, and genetics? Why is it more reasonable to say that those three decide for us what we will do individually?

If the only three influences on your behavior and choices are your specific G-E-U, you don’t choose any of those things for yourself, I don’t know where you think you’re getting your capacity to make free choices.

And even in the latter case, don’t the GEU act as a Will, albeit a predetermined one?

I think I made this point earlier on. If you want to take your specific, unchosen, causal factors, lump them together and call them a “Will,” I suppose you’re welcome. But if the mad scientist was controlling your thoughts and actions by remote control, any Will you could be said to have would be the mad scientist’s Will. If you would still consider his Will to be yours, I guess you could do that. But at some point, the word has to stop meaning anything.

 

[jochoa]

I can’t think of any reason why they wouldn’t.

Please consider the following concept:
Since we can form new ideas, and the will is founded on ideas, then we can form a new will by forming new ideas.
Since we can form a new will, the will is free.

 

[ASimon]

Please consider the following concept:
Since we can form new ideas, and the will is founded on ideas, then we can form a new will by forming new ideas.
Since we can form a new will, the will is free.

If the will we form is new, that just makes it new. Where do the new ideas that found our new will come from? If you’re saying that we come up with those ideas ourselves, then you’re already asserting our free will as a way to prove we have free will, which doesn’t work as an argument.

Every new idea you have, and every singular basis for every new idea you have, comes to you through your experiences, which you had no hand in choosing for yourself. If I asked you to name a country in the world, I know one thing - You have absolutely zero chance of selecting a country you’ve never heard of. The fact that you’ve never heard of it is obviously not your choice, and if I were to name you a country that you had never heard of, you would then be aware of it (experience), but it wouldn’t be an experience you chose to have, either.

 

[FurtherSuntime]

even if it could be proven there is no free will, it still leaves the question which says, what cause’s the impression of free will, and exactly then if so, whats the difference?

 

[Sair]

even if it could be proven there is no free will, it still leaves the question which says, what cause’s the impression of free will, and exactly then if so, whats the difference?

It’s a good question, and it’s fair to say that we feel like we have free will because we are ignorant, at a conscious level, of the numerous occurrences and processes that influence and cause our decisions.

What difference does it make? Well, that depends, to a large extent, upon your perspective on free will and the role it plays in our lives as social beings. One of the main arguments against free will, although it is rarely phrased in such terms (except by those arguing against the concept) is that if we can’t blame the person for actions that harm others, what possible outlet is there for our sense of vengeance?

But there is still - at least, according to the compatibilist version of free will, with which I tend to agree - a very real and practical sense in which what we think of as the person, that is, the individual, bodily entity, is responsible for the way they respond to circumstances, both internal and external. We are part of the causal web, even if we are not ultimately the free-floating or contra-causal authors of our every thought and action, and considering ourselves to hold some responsibility for our actions does actually have an effect upon our behaviour.

If we hold each other responsible for our actions, that sense of accountability becomes part of the framework that informs and essentially causes our actions. If it comes down to brass tacks, a person - such as a psychopath - who rejects the social, interactive aspect of personal responsibility thus represents a danger to the majority of people who do accept this bargain with their fellows. Whether it is considered just to restrain the psychopath depends upon whether you value the wellbeing of those who might otherwise be harmed by that person who accepts no personal responsibility for his/her actions, or who sees no reason to treat others as he/she would like to be treated.

There’s an interesting - and, if looked at dispassionately, slightly weird - notion that the free will of any given human being is the highest good that can be conceived, a notion that lies at the core of modern Christian thinking (and is generally offered as a defeater - though unsuccessful, in my opinion - for the philosophical problem of evil). This gets very convoluted when considered in the light of the possibility that contra-causal free will might not obtain. Is it just to lock up a potentially dangerous person, given they have no real “control” over their actions? Well, that has to be weighed against the harm they might otherwise inflict upon other, equally innocent beings.

 

[packermann]

If you "know deep down that is true, then it’s too late for you to reject it as false. Knowing something is true is equivalent to believing it.

You can, of course, explicitly claim not to believe something you know to be true (to lie, in other words), but with the benefit of knowing your mind, that’s not rejecting anything, in the first place, and in the second, you can’t author the choice to say you don’t believe in something either.

My major in college was psychology. Believe me, it is far more complicated than that. A neurosis would contradict what you just wrote. It is also possible to lie to yourself. It is possible to be in self-denial. Our human make-up is far more complicated than what your describe.

You having more options available to you than a computer does not make you the free author of the choice you make between them. This is the hole that people often fall into in this debate. Having a variety of options available to you in any given moment does not, in itself, make you the author of the choice you eventually choose.

If there is no free will, then we have only one option, the one we are programmed to do. All the other options are merely hypothetical. In the same way the computer has only the option of what its designer intended to do. So the options are not with the computer to choose, there are with the designer. Once the designer decides what the computer to do, the computer has no other option. So if we have no free will, then our option is only one, just as with the computer. That is what it means to be programmed.

The fact is, we are hardwired to form beliefs about the world that track with the reality we observe and experience in the world. This does not preclude that two humans, having lived on the same planet, or even in the same town, for the same amount of time, can’t reach different conclusions about how the world works. Some people think that prayer is an effective method for problem solving. I disagree. But given the sheer totality of things that we can have judgments about, I would wager that the percentage of beliefs we actually share in common are in the high 90s. And this is nothing but a consequence of having similarly structured brains and living on the same planet for a stretch of time.

Whenever I hear someone talking about someone talk about being hard-wired in our belief about the world, they always use religion as an example. But if we are hard-wired, then an example will do? So I have a few examples. Do you agree with these statements?
We are hard-wired into believing that science reflects the reality of the world.
We are hard-wired into believing that doctors heal more people than witch doctors.
We are hard-wired into believing that superstition is not true.

But the fact remains, I have beliefs about how the world works, and I’ve made it into adulthood with some of those judgments having been legitimately overturned and others not. If I develop a brain tumor, and subsequently begin believing that aliens are sending me secret messages, this may ultimately hinder my ability to continuing living a functional life

I do not deny that this is the case. But you need to look at historically how you came to your thinking. It is going from one extreme to another.

In the Middle Ages, man was free to use reason to find truth, but within the boundaries set by the magisterium of the Catholic Church. Contrary to popular opinion, the Church did tell the people what to think (btw, if there is no will, then than that actually what would not be wrong, would it?). Rather the Church allowed us to freely use our minds as long as it did not stray into heresy. People read Plato and Aristotle. Cathedrals were built to also be space observatories. The scientists in the Middle Ages laid the ground work for all subsequent science – John Buridian, Nicole Oresme, Copernicus, etc. Isaac Newton said “If I see further than others, it is because I am sitting on the shoulders of giants”. Those giants were in the Middle Ages.

Luther then came to the scene and said the people did not need the pope, but can find truth in the Bible on their own. The Catholics used similar arguments, as you are using. They would argue that each individual cannot be trusted to find ALL the truth on his own. Luther disagreed.
Then the Enlightenment came. It went further than Luther. Man not only does not need the pope, but man does not even need the Bible. Reason was their goddess. This gave birth to Rationalism. Man is capable of knowing all the truth through reason.

Now we are in Post-modernism. Post-modern man is now to the other extreme from Rationalism. It is now no longer that man can find truth through reason. Reason is suspect since we are all hard-wired into thinking that our own truth is reasonable. This bring the death to reason.

So what I am saying is the in the Middle Ages, there was moderation. Reason was used but not exalted. Because man was made in the image of God, he could use his reason to find truth. But since man is also a sinner, he cannot fully trust his reason.

What you say has an element of truth. We can have a brain disease. This is why we cannot fully trust our reason. We are not TOTALLY free. We still have our fallen nature. This is where Rationalism went wrong. It exalted the view that man was made in the image of God, but it forgot that our God-like image has been corrupted by sin. But you go too far the other way, of not seeing that our God-like image is there.

The Bible says that we have this treasure in an earthen vessel. The treasure is us made in God’s image. But it is contained within the earthen vessel. Rationalism only sees the treasure. Post-modern man only sees the earthen vessel.

 

[sandomenico]

ASimon,

Either there is free will or there isn’t. Either we are free to choose as we please, or something/s control however we are to act. Do you agree?

So, why is it more reasonable to say that we have no control over what we choose? Why is it less reasonable to say that we make free choices based on influences/experiences we have received?

Which one of the three G, E, or U, takes the most “control” in deciding how we are to act?

How would you define influence?

God love you,
sandomenico

 

[antunesaa]

Why would rational thinking go out the window if we discovered that all the thoughts we are already having are not caused by some ex nihilo free process? Let’s start by saying that a thing is rational insofar as it is consistent with logic. Our arguments can be consistent with logic even if we are not their authors.

Well I don’t believe there is a magical law, so I would never consider that in the same scenario as reality. Are you saying that you would doubt our ability to be rational if such an ability was merely evolved? Our eyes have merely evolved, and yet we can see… Lol glibness aside, being rational is adaptive, so it is developed. I don’t see how that really presents an obstacle to the idea that 1+1=2, for example.

I think you have several things right. There are conditions which have entitled us to reason, but these laws did more than just enable reason, on my view they determined it (ignoring any possible quantum indeterminism). Daniel Dennett has a chapter in his book Freedom Evolves in which he describes a computer programme that allows a designer to create ‘life-forms’ in a world made up of a grid of cells that can either be turned on or off and which remain on or off according to the status of their neighbours. The ‘life-form’ is merely a group of these cells turned on close together so that by the rules of the game, they maintain their shape over time. There are some life forms which vanish immediately when time is advanced, because by the laws of the game, they lack the necessary neighbours to remain switched on. Others move, oscillate, or fire particles outwards, consume or destroy other life forms, and do various things. The point I’m trying to make by this example (ironically the opposite point Dennett goes on to make) is that if we have a certain set of laws and a certain arrangement of cells turned on or off at the start, there is only one outcome, only certain arrangements will prevail, and this will happen as a matter of course. Those which survive appear to have the characteristics which aided them fortuitously built into them, but the reality is that certain forms of clutter persist, and others don’t. We are just the necessary, determined arrangement of clutter that would be around if we took a sample of all the initial or possible arrangements, and then advanced time. In terms of complex piles of matter, only those piles of atoms/molecules/proteins/cells/organs which ‘work together’, act logically, act socially, reproduce etc etc are going to be the patterned piles of clutter still around today. We are like the glider gun configuration (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway’s_Game_of_Life) being fired off into the future until something swallows us up - perhaps a meteor.

Well I can only apologise that it was your post which prompted this ramble. Nevertheless, I do think our lack of free will and possession of the ability to reason are perfectly compatible. If nothing else, have a look at the game of life article, it is good.

(On a second reading of your post, it seems you’re saying that freedom is determined + this wouldn’t have happened without God?)

I’m sorry, I didn’t have the time to come back here but now. As for Dennett’s example, the problem is still that reason really doesn’t seem to be warranted, because in his example the burden of creating reason moves from God to a law that ensures that creatures behaving consistently (or what we call consistently) will tend to hang around longer. Why is there such a law? You should expect chaos and arbitrary laws (or no laws at all), and not laws forcing clutter to act rationally. It looks suspiciously artificial - either it was ex-ante rationally devised (by God, as I believe) or it was ex-post devised by rational beings. But in the latter case you have just posited a convenient natural law that allows you to think you’re being rational. It is as if you’re throwing a boomerang at various angles and velocities in the air and, when it finally comes back at you, you say that the correct way to throw it is with such angle and such velocity and there’s no other way you could have thrown it! There is an implicit alignment between ex-ante laws and ex-post outcomes (in both the law and the boomerang) that suggest purpose or teleology or whatever you might want to call it.

As for your last comment, yes I think only God can ground freedom; all materialistic views lead, in my opinion, to essentially no freedom and to the corollary of it - no reason. And if you want to take this argument a little bit further, this is enough for me to reject materialistic world views because I think I can reason. So, to me, there’s two perfectly defensible views: (freedom + reason + God) or (pure necessity + no reason + no God). I prefer the first one because I think naturalistic laws positing the emergence of reason are anti-causal, or, if you prefer, they can only be cherry-picked ex-post.