Is Natural Free Will Possible?
I saw an argument a while ago:
1. Everything in nature is either determined or random
2. Free will is neither determined nor random
C. Free will does not exist.
This seems like a good argument to me. It seems to me that neither a deterministic algorithm nor a random number generator have free will. If we are entirely composed of such elements, then we cannot have free will, because all of our choices could be decomposed into elements that are not free. Therefore, I concluded a while ago that belief in free will is the same as belief in the supernatural.
Free will in principle seems to be outside the scope of mathematical/scientific description, because the laws of a system describe how a system must be, but the "free" in "free will" means that we are not forced or predetermined to do anything, and thus free will could not be described by any kind of law.
My father said once, however, that he thinks that the randomness of quantum mechanics might somehow contribute to free will. I didn't like the idea at first because of the above argument, but after thinking it over, it does sort of make sense. I will discuss some other ideas relating to free will first, however.
Even if our choices were fully determined, in practice, the processes leading to our choices are extremely complex, so that nobody would ever be able to predict with certainty ahead of time what a person might do.
Also, I've heard from computer programmers that it is generally impossible to know in advance what the result of a computation will be. The fastest way to find the result of a computation is to just do the computation. Therefore, whatever computations are going on in our heads, it is generally impossible for anyone (including ourselves) to know what we will settle on before we have settled on something. This is another point that explains why we have the experience of free will, even if it might not technically exist.
Now, for the problem of a system that has both deterministic and random elements. I imagine that the human mind is mostly deterministic, but that the exact manner in which we perceive events may have some randomness in it due to quantum effects that might take place at the level of individual neurons. Also, even if the external circumstances are actually determined, due to our limited knowledge, they appear somewhat random to us.
As an example of how human behavior on a certain level is deterministic, a person who gets punched in the face will almost certainly experience either fear or anger rather than joy (meaning that the emotional response is not random). So, our emotional responses are fairly easy to predict. And our emotional responses get our thinking processes started. So, for instance, a punch to the face triggers pain, which perhaps triggers fear when the person realizes he's being attacked, which triggers thought processes aimed at avoiding a potential second blow, which are then followed by actions.
However, the exact manner in which an event is perceived or acted on might be somewhat random. What if a certain state of mind might cause one neuron out of a thousand to behave in an unpredictable manner (it may or may not fire), due to quantum fluctuations which are truly random. Maybe this might have some minute effect on the final result, such as by noticing or not noticing the color jacket of an attacker, or the exact position of the next footstep.
Another interesting thing about the human mind is that it can think about itself. We can think about what our values are or what the outcomes of previous choices were, and thus value things differently than we did in the past. So, as an analogy, we are like a computer program that has some capacity to rewrite its own code.
So, I think of our control system as something like a mostly deterministic algorithm, but with the special property of having access to its own source code, and with some small degree of true randomness somewhere in the process. So, the result might be that when we have many experiences, we typically respond to them in a predictable way, but one day we might randomly have a change of heart and become a somewhat different person. Now, if this "randomness" comes from predetermined external circumstances, then it only appears to be random. But if it comes from quantum fluctuations in our own minds, then it truly is random. Now, I don't know if this is consistent with what theists would think of free will, but it would explain how it might be possible that a person might make an unusual choice which maybe not even God himself would be able to predict*.
*If God is like a computer programmer, then he might choose on purpose to add a true random number generator (like what appears to be the case for quantum particles), or maybe add a special type of thing called "Free will" which is neither determined nor random, and in either case, he would not be able to predict what would happen before it happened. This would not diminish from his omnipotence, because he chose on purpose to make it this way. In a similar way, you wouldn't say that a programmer was necessarily incompetent for adding a random number generator to his code. Now, if God exists outside of time, it might be the case that he still has foreknowledge, not because he's writing the books of our lives for us, but because he can finish reading the book before we have finished writing.
Of course, this is all just speculation. It was just interesting to me that you can come to some idea that's similar to free will using only reasonable speculation from known physics.
1. Everything in nature is either determined or random
2. Free will is neither determined nor random
C. Free will does not exist.
This seems like a good argument to me. It seems to me that neither a deterministic algorithm nor a random number generator have free will. If we are entirely composed of such elements, then we cannot have free will, because all of our choices could be decomposed into elements that are not free. Therefore, I concluded a while ago that belief in free will is the same as belief in the supernatural.
Free will in principle seems to be outside the scope of mathematical/scientific description, because the laws of a system describe how a system must be, but the "free" in "free will" means that we are not forced or predetermined to do anything, and thus free will could not be described by any kind of law.
My father said once, however, that he thinks that the randomness of quantum mechanics might somehow contribute to free will. I didn't like the idea at first because of the above argument, but after thinking it over, it does sort of make sense. I will discuss some other ideas relating to free will first, however.
Even if our choices were fully determined, in practice, the processes leading to our choices are extremely complex, so that nobody would ever be able to predict with certainty ahead of time what a person might do.
Also, I've heard from computer programmers that it is generally impossible to know in advance what the result of a computation will be. The fastest way to find the result of a computation is to just do the computation. Therefore, whatever computations are going on in our heads, it is generally impossible for anyone (including ourselves) to know what we will settle on before we have settled on something. This is another point that explains why we have the experience of free will, even if it might not technically exist.
Now, for the problem of a system that has both deterministic and random elements. I imagine that the human mind is mostly deterministic, but that the exact manner in which we perceive events may have some randomness in it due to quantum effects that might take place at the level of individual neurons. Also, even if the external circumstances are actually determined, due to our limited knowledge, they appear somewhat random to us.
As an example of how human behavior on a certain level is deterministic, a person who gets punched in the face will almost certainly experience either fear or anger rather than joy (meaning that the emotional response is not random). So, our emotional responses are fairly easy to predict. And our emotional responses get our thinking processes started. So, for instance, a punch to the face triggers pain, which perhaps triggers fear when the person realizes he's being attacked, which triggers thought processes aimed at avoiding a potential second blow, which are then followed by actions.
However, the exact manner in which an event is perceived or acted on might be somewhat random. What if a certain state of mind might cause one neuron out of a thousand to behave in an unpredictable manner (it may or may not fire), due to quantum fluctuations which are truly random. Maybe this might have some minute effect on the final result, such as by noticing or not noticing the color jacket of an attacker, or the exact position of the next footstep.
Another interesting thing about the human mind is that it can think about itself. We can think about what our values are or what the outcomes of previous choices were, and thus value things differently than we did in the past. So, as an analogy, we are like a computer program that has some capacity to rewrite its own code.
So, I think of our control system as something like a mostly deterministic algorithm, but with the special property of having access to its own source code, and with some small degree of true randomness somewhere in the process. So, the result might be that when we have many experiences, we typically respond to them in a predictable way, but one day we might randomly have a change of heart and become a somewhat different person. Now, if this "randomness" comes from predetermined external circumstances, then it only appears to be random. But if it comes from quantum fluctuations in our own minds, then it truly is random. Now, I don't know if this is consistent with what theists would think of free will, but it would explain how it might be possible that a person might make an unusual choice which maybe not even God himself would be able to predict*.
*If God is like a computer programmer, then he might choose on purpose to add a true random number generator (like what appears to be the case for quantum particles), or maybe add a special type of thing called "Free will" which is neither determined nor random, and in either case, he would not be able to predict what would happen before it happened. This would not diminish from his omnipotence, because he chose on purpose to make it this way. In a similar way, you wouldn't say that a programmer was necessarily incompetent for adding a random number generator to his code. Now, if God exists outside of time, it might be the case that he still has foreknowledge, not because he's writing the books of our lives for us, but because he can finish reading the book before we have finished writing.
Of course, this is all just speculation. It was just interesting to me that you can come to some idea that's similar to free will using only reasonable speculation from known physics.
Comments (61)
I have the freedom to hold "will" for or against anything, but if my circumstances or other factors do not permit, such will is essentially in name only, rather matters not and for some intents and purposes may as well not even exist.
I'm sure most if not all people have the will to eat something they find tasty for their next meal, however based on many factors ranging from finances to mobility, may not ever occur.
"I think therefore I am" comes to mind for some reason. Say someone is born with a genetic deposition to, I don't know, be incredibly prone to anger or is perhaps unable to "feel" as typically imagined ie. does not feel emotion the way most do (is a sociopath). They still have the capacity to have a will to further their understanding of what and why people feel the way they do and perhaps can, distantly, grasp the concept if they put enough effort into it. Someone with a theoretical hardwired anger problem can, if done fervently, will themselves to be mellow and easygoing. It's just significantly more difficult.
If you have a neuro-typical brain, your "choices", thoughts, or "imagination" is your will. Seems free enough in the closed confines of one's own head, of course that doesn't mean if I will to do 1,000 pushups I'll be able to actualize said will into the real world.
I recently obtained some fresh catfish filets from my local supermarket the other day. I chose to add said foodstuff to my "cart" because of the following reasons to the best of my knowledge: A.) A TPF moderator suggested to try catfish. B.) I was fond of catfish growing up and haven't had any for some time. C.) I recently engaged in tasting different kinds of fish and posting said dishes in the Shoutbox and happen to enjoy doing so. D.) There are only about 5-6 different kinds of fish available at this supermarket with said fish happening to be in stock at the time of my order. So many things are responsible and relevant to each of those reasons, each can be analyzed and as a result produce dozens and dozens of further side reasons/cause and effect chains to the point they can no longer be kept track of or reasonably assumed to be actual contributing factors. Regardless, I still could have easily removed the catfish and opted for salmon instead. The fact my local supermarket doesn't have prehistoric Acondylacanthus fish in stock and I happened to have wanted to try some, or any other sort of cause-effect dynamic outside of my control, shouldn't be a deciding factor in whether free will exists or not. Does it?
Many things outside our control can limit our final actions and their ultimate outcomes, but will is desire and while the reason one may desire one thing and not the other is likely based on a torrent of things outside our control, even before we were born, one still has the agency to determine the difference between what was expected, what actually occurred, and whether or not the latter serves or opposes the original, free desire or thought, and to what degree.
Note the passive voice: everything in nature is determined. Determined by what? If human behavior is determined then it needs to be determined by something other than ourselves, or else it is determined by us, which entails free will.
To get around this determinists often posit an abstraction of ourselves to be the determiner of our actions. But it's just a roundabout way to say we determine our actions. For example, if our behavior is determined by our "emotional responses", then it is determined by ourselves, because we are our emotional responses. If it is determined by neurons, then it is determined by ourselves, because we are our neurons. If it is determined by a "certain state of mind", then it is determined by ourselves, because we are our states of mind.
We have to consider the ultimate source of our actions, and rarely is this source something other than ourselves. If the source of our acts and behaviors are an abstraction of ourselves, then it is invariably determined by us, unless some other force in the world can be shown to produce such an act.
Good OP. Sometimes a beheaded cranium lasts alive for a few seconds. The "seat" of consciousness is the brain, complex matter. A structure like that can be said to have necessary AND random aspects, and I agree the random movements within the brain can be the expression of truly free will. But old Kant was in a bind when said nature was separate from consciousnss, the latter of which sees only appearances. Consciousness is shrouded in ever escaping darkness but to live is be united, to be organism. Sight is the gift that reaches out to expreience beyond it things and other beings. Free will is the core experience of consciousness. Animals may only have partial structures of it
You have claimed that Item 1 is true without justification. Perhaps you think it is self evident, but I disagree.
Item C is wrong. The correct conclusion is that free will is not in nature. It isnt clear to me thats the same thing as saying it doesnt exist.
I'll add that I disagree with #2. If the 'free' means free from determinism, and will is random, then it is free from determinism.
Im OK with your way of looking at it. To tell the truth, I dont even really know what it means.
I've never heard that there is a general consensus regarding from what free will is supposed to be free. But if it's physicalist determinism, then will is free if it is random. I think that's what means by "free".
Except I dont think deterministic and random are the only two choices. I dont think theres any empirical way to determine whether or not the universe is deterministic. I think it is clear that its not random.
But I agree that physical determinism and random are not the only two choices, and I think consciousness and free will are proof of another.
Some things in nature is unknown e.g. the origin of the universe. Therefore the premise is unsound.
Free will is unknown, therefore Free will is unknown. (A tautology, but true statement.)
"Waiter, don't bother to show me the menu, just bring me the meal I am predetermined to eat."
"Sir, the menu is free although it is also predetermined, but the food is not free and the prices are predetermined. Pay what you are predetermined to pay, and then I will know what I am predetermined to bring."
Human freedom marks the distinction between reacting and responding. When I am reacting to a post, I am not free, but being controlled by my habits and by the post, But when I respond, I am free to accept or reject the meaning conveyed, and move the dialogue on.
Speaking as someone who has studied physics, when I first saw the argument, I thought it was obvious that nature was "determined" by the laws of physics. All natural laws described by physics prior to the discovery of quantum mechanics are deterministic laws. You can take the equations of parabolic motion taught in high school as an example. If you know the initial conditions of the ball, then you know when and where it will end up.
Quoting T Clark
If you spent a lot of time studying natural sciences, you would probably realize that all the models we use are either deterministic (almost all of them) or random (quantum mechanics, or statistics when the underlying fundamentals are too complicated to calculate).
Also, the "free" in free will means that it's not forced by anything (or that's what I imagine it means)
How does physics, or natural laws described by physics, determine your actions? Do equations of some law of motion decide which direction you will walk, for example?
Thought experiments can only be useful when one already knows precisely what one is talking about. They are therefore of little value to philosophers, who are only called in when folk discover that they don't quite know what they are talking about after all.
To reject unenlightened's principle is to believe in the efficacy of magic spells.
I'm an engineer and I'm reasonably familiar with physics. When I was younger I was a strong materialist and believed in determinism, but I've grown out of that. Since then, I've come to realize that causality, materialism, and objective reality are metaphysical concepts, by which I mean they are neither true nor false. They have no truth value. This is a discussion we've had many times here on the forum, so I'm not interested in going any further into it now. I did start a discussion many years ago - Deathmatch Objective Reality vs. the Tao - that addresses the issue.
Quoting T Clark
It sounds absurd to me that those things have no truth value at all. If that were the case, then why does science work? Either the efficacy of science and technology are one big coincidence and we are all deceived, or causality, materialism, and objective reality are accurate descriptions of how most things work.
Quoting unenlightened
Based on the argument you made, math and science are magic spells, because they predict how things work by the use of logic symbols. I would be angry that you have written such ignorant nonsense without even bothering to read the OP, but I am used to it by now.
Not so. Science first looks. Science first considers evidence. Argument is the servant of evidence, not the master. I also am used to silliness - including my own.
And, a small correction; I read the thread before commenting, because I like to check that I am not repeating a point that has already been made, without acknowledgment.
If all is random how do we make decisions by predicting the future? Are you saying we have no control over our lives?
We can plan, and make decisions, but we can't predict if a bus is going to hit us tomorrow.
But making plans in life implies we can predict the future with some accuracy
Making plans speaks to routine, and we do have routine, but routine may be interrupted.
You never walked to the car knowing you would get there? Usually changes in routine happen gradually
What does control over life mean?
Not always, as my example of getting hit by a bus illustrates. Or, suddenly getting diagnosed with cancer. Or, winning the lottery. Or, reading a good book that changes your perspective on life.
Quoting Gregory
This reminds me of stoicism. There are things we control, there are things we do not, and wisdom lies in knowing the difference.
"Freedom is the only worthy goal in life. It is won by disregarding things that lie beyond our control."
Disregarding what lies beyond our control means separating between what we can and cannot control with a will to control (power)
Hmmm ... that's not how I see it. For example, sometimes we have to accept things in our life that suck. Things we cannot change. For example, a cancer diagnosis, Now, we might rail against God, and scream at the sky, "Why?"
But there is no answer to that question, "Why?" It was all just a random instance of cells malfunctioning.
"In the active practical reality of consciousness observation thus finds opened up before it a new field. Psychology contains the collection of laws in virtue of which the mind takes up different attitudes towards the different forms of its reality given and presented to it in a condition of otherness. The mind adopts these various attitudes party in view to receiving these modes of its reality into itself, and conforming to the habits, cutoms, and ways of thinking it thus cones across, as being that wherein mind is reality and as such object to itself..." Hegel, phenomenology of mind
Life doesn't suck. As the spirit desires so it has
I lost my husband 3 years ago to MS. The last couple years of his life were very difficult. At one point, as he was having a lot of trouble making a transfer, I said to him, "Tired of this life?"
He replied, "No, this life is good. It's this body I am tired of."
What free will is, is also mercurial. It is clear that an intentional act is free when it is not coerced by some else; and that an act's being free is considered essential to the agent being responsible for the consequences. It's less clear what it means for an act to be free rather than physically determined.
It's also clear that free will is used by theists in order to overcome the problem of god's responsibility for evil.
And that's the usual motivation for the need to give an explanation of free will.
So discussions such as this are often veiled theology.
Well I'm not going to argue with that
That's an excellent reply.
Quoting Gregory
You get what you desire? So that if you get poor outcomes, it's becasue that is what you desire?
And I suppose that those who say they did not desire mishap, misadventure and disability are denying what they really desired? True Scotsmen, one and all?
Pretty shitty reasoning.
Then you won't get far. The past doesn't exist
Layered shite is still shite.
Yes
Quoting Banno
There is no such thing as a bad outcome. It all depends on how you take it. Every second is a past but the present remains
Gobbledegook, attempting to make an excuse to not be responsible for one's choices.
All my choices have been right in my view. How about your's to you?
I dont agree that life and desire work in that "logical" way
Yep. You have difficulty with logic.
Believing that folk only ever get what they deserve requires great faith.
Well you have the mind of a doubter. Won't get you far
Thank you.
:up:
Yes, or they point to brain regions, neurons, hormones, etc., as if these are not part of us and as if these would not have to be involved if we were doing any thinking/deciding. Sam Harris thinks to think all proponents of freedom are 17th century substance dualists.
I am reading Sapolsky's "Determined" because it seems to have been somewhat influential, but so far it is just layering on tons of empirical findings (some incredibly weak, like the unreplicatable "Lady Macbeth effect") instead of tackling any serious philosophy of free will. This is an unfortunate tendency in popular science, avalanches of citations substituted for clear argumentation.
But I can see how this might come about. A lot of analytical/legal work on free will is incredibly narrow and seems to miss the point to me.
Here would be my proposal: people are free or unfree. This isn't a binary, it's a sliding scale. We can be more or less self-determining. We might describe intentional versus unintentional actions, and free versus unfree acts (these will overlap, and arguably relatively unintentional acts can be free is they involve a freely chosen habit). However, this level of freedom will be parasitic on the freedom of the person. The analytic fixation on "free acts" and not "free people" is unhelpful.
I also don't get the desire to split off political freedom from freedom tout court. They are deeply related.
Science works now and then, more or less. It works best when the conditions tested match the metaphysical underpinning best, e.g. materialism and reductionism. The further you get from those conditions, the less precise and the less definite the results you get.
In this case, it is effectively random because we don't know the information. But if we knew all the information and if quantum mechanics didn't make a difference, then in theory, it would all be determined. This is the same way that a die is technically determined if you do the physics equations to predict how it will fall.
Effectively, randomness is the single emotion of desire. Determinism is the single emotion of fear. And finally the balancing emotion is anger. And these three forces, these three emotions, together, are the full set, all there is, which taken as a whole and summing them throughout the metaverse is love, God, Truth, ALL; the which terms are all synonymous.
Free will IS a thing, the only thing really that exists. It is caused by the balance, the infinite balance maintaining the perfection of choice as free will caused by the interaction of the three emotions.
Seems absurd to say that this post is not coming from choices I am making right now, and now again.
But if there is no room in this universe for freedom, no position from which to halt the constant drive of determined necessity and take responsibility for these words here, and here again, and stake a claim as being the sole source of these words precisely here in this post as I alone cause them to be, then we are all stenographers. And we have no idea why. Or how. Or why I just said how.
Not 'knowing' (a bad choice of words because we DO NOT 'know' things, but instead we are aware in varying degrees of things) does not have a direct relationship with things being random or determined.
If you mean to say 'seems' random, ok.
Quoting Brendan Golledge
This 'but' is crazy. ANY precondition of perfection, in this case omniscience, requires ALL perfection. So, if you get your precondition, NOTHING ELSE need be mentioned because we are AT perfection.
If you mean to say 'all relevant inputs to situation are states of which we are reasonably aware' that would be more clear, although in such a case you are partaking in an error that says there is any situation that can meaningfully be studied in isolation. The truth is there is no isolation and that the entire state of the universe matters to any and all observations, no matter how small a change any given state of 'things' makes to that effect or situation. This is why horoscope is not possibly entirely wrong.
Quoting Brendan Golledge
No, the randomness is NOT judged AFTER the toss. The randomness is included in HOW the chooser chooses to toss the die. You are focusing on the wrong timeframe in general. The various vagaries of choice in something as powerfully empowered as a human being is quite relevant. For example, it would be a miracle human, but not impossible, who could FEEL the divots in a die representing the pips well enough to know how the pips on the die were situated in their own closed hand. Then they need only develop a very controlled throw in roughly the same wind conditions and against similar bouncy surfaces and voila! they can 'control' chance and determine the results of the throw of the die.
P2 is the most controversial premise. I don't see why free will is incompatible with causal determinism. As a compatibilist, I believe in a form of sourcehood freedom such that one has free will if they have the ability act in accordance with their own will (i.e., to act voluntarily); and one has free choice if they have the ability to reach a decision through rational deliberations (i.e., to choose through reason).
The special aspect of a human brain that makes it capable of free will and choice, is that it has the ability to will against it's nature in accordance with its own conative dispositions and to reach a conclusion through the principles of reason. We do not think via the laws of nature, and we do not will necessarily according to natural appetites.
I don't think it is just veiled theology: if there is no free will, then there is no moral responsibility at all. You can't blame people for murdering, raping, etc. if they don't have the right kind, sufficient degree, or basic free will: even if they do not have the ability to have done otherwise.
Nor do I. I said it is often veiled theology.
Do you agree that it at least can be veiled theology?
If by "veiled theology" you mean that a person might ad hoc rationalize their belief in (traditional) theism with libertarianism (in order to provide a solution to the problem of evil), then that is of course possible. How often does that happen? I am not sure. I think a far more common ad hoc rationalization for libertarianism is moral responsibility, not a justification for theism itself. I think most people intuit that they cannot hold people morally responsible for their decisions if that person did not have the ability to have done otherwise; and so it becomes more like a companions in guilt style argument.
Discussions in the religion forum are only "veiled" theology for those who don't know where they are.
It is worthwhile to ask whether free will is coherent on a naturalistic view. Approaches like Chomsky's "Mysterianism" are pulling on the same thread.
Quoting Bob Ross
Well, there's the problem. This is understood by some as causal, in a Newtonian, wind-up universe way. Hence my first post here. What we need for assigning responsibility is intent, and intentionality, not physics.
Agreed. I was just noting that people find this very compelling, hence why (I would argue) most people find libertarianism appealing and are confused what compatibilism even is.
An argument against free will is an arguement against consciousness.