Questions for those who believe in free will

[Rational Atheist]

I'm trying to understand the belief in free will. For those who believe in free will, do you believe that your actions are determined by a chain of prior causes or not? If you do, you're a determinist and do not believe in free choice, since you can't control the causes that took place before you were born. If you don't believe your actions are determined by a chain of prior causes, or don't believe that that causal chain extends to before your birth, then you believe that at some point before your action, an event occurred for no reason whatsoever (purely random). How could this possibly get you free will either? No combination of determinism nor indeterminism (randomness) gives you "free will" in the sense of authorship of and responsibility for your actions. How can you believe anyone is ultimately responsible for what they do?

[Purple Knight]

You said “the self is a construct”, and you said “it preserves itself “. That sounds contradictory to me. That sounds like the self has made a decision to preserve.

It's not really a decision. It's just programming. It's a bit of complicated flotsam floating through the universe and acting according to the laws of physics.

But you're right that there's not a self if there's not choices. If there's nothing in the driver's seat then it's meaningless to ponder where the thing making the choices begins and ends. We say, that is me because that is the thing the me controls. We say, my arm is part of me, the tree is not, because the thing we imagine is in the driver's seat controls the arm, but not [inherently] the tree.

You're astute to have made that observation and it's quite true.

[Mrs.Badham]

[Replying to Miles in post #21]

When you say “might factor in”, do you mean “make a decision regarding”?

I’m getting the impression you believe that, so long as our “will” is grounded in the laws of physics, we can never call it free. So the fact that a determinist may or may not factor something in to a decision, makes no difference. Both factoring and not factoring are within the laws of physics.

Is that correct?

[Mrs.Badham]

[Replying to Purple Knight in post #22]

So, the programming... Evolution? Or, is there a consciousness behind it all.

I feel that if there’s no free will, we’d all be equal. Luck, or chance would level the playing field.

I believe in free will, and I believe some wills are better than others. That is why some people are more successful than others.

[John Bauer]

[Replying to Mrs.Badham in post #13]

It seems to me that our consciousness would then provide no benefit.

How does that follow?

I'm no evolutionary biologist, but it sounds unlikely that if we were just a bag in the wind we would evolve a consciousness at all.

Let's assume that it's so wildly unlikely as to be practically impossible—which is probably true.

Here's the thing, though: It nevertheless happened.

The chances of getting hit by lightning is something like one in 500,000. What are the chances of being hit twice? Three or four times? Incredibly unlikely. And yet Roy Sullivan was struck seven times between 1942 and 1977.

Unlikely things happen all the time, AND they have an explanation. Some we can figure out. Others are more elusive.

Don't get me wrong, consciousness is a real, genuine problem for science to solve. Hell, we can't even really understand what consciousness is in the first place (although its real). But that's just the nature of the problem: Humans evolved, and we are conscious beings. How does the latter arise from the former? We don't know yet, but it's an exciting field of inquiry.

[Mrs.Badham]

I can’t think of what a consciousness would do without freewill? Would it simply observe what happens to it? I can’t help but feel that consciousness and freewill are somehow the same thing. Perhaps one is a consequence of the other.

[Miles]

[Replying to Miles in post #21]

When you say “might factor in”, do you mean “make a decision regarding”?

No. Just as the shape of the landscape and foliage can determine how a small mud flow wends its way down hill, so too do determinants factor into how the mind works, and all with no "decisions" being made.

I’m getting the impression you believe that, so long as our “will” is grounded in the laws of physics, we can never call it free.

Too bad, because I don't.

So the fact that a determinist may or may not factor something in to a decision, makes no difference. Both factoring and not factoring are within the laws of physics.
Is that correct?

No it isn't. I'm a determinist because no one has yet shown how thinking, both consciously and unconsciously, can take place without being caused---in which case it would be working utterly at random. And because causes are not random events, each is dependent on something that brought them into existence. "A" arose because the preceding effects; a,f ,d i, c, and n determined it would arise rather than not. Free will asserts that, in effect, the will of the mind operates all on its own. That is, nothing pushes it one way or the other. It simply chooses, out of thin air (in effect, utterly randomly), to do A rather than B. Now if this makes sense to you go right ahead and believe free will exists, but personally, it makes absolutely no sense to me. The will of the mind operates as it does because it has no choice to do any differently. It is not free.


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[Mrs.Badham]

Okay, I get it now... I think.

When you reach a fork in the road, you may go left or right, but no matter which way you go, you will have to think about it first. That thought is not free from previous thoughts, and so your decision will be based on the previous thoughts... which were also based on previous thoughts, etc. etc.etc.

[Miles]

Okay, I get it now... I think.

When you reach a fork in the road, you may go left or right, but no matter which way you go, you will have to think about it first. That thought is not free from previous thoughts, and so your decision will be based on the previous thoughts... which were also based on previous thoughts, etc. etc.etc.

Bingo !

Your "decision" to go one way rather than the other is determined by all those cause/effect events that led up to the moment of going left or right. Whatever these cause/effect events were that would make you go one particular way, they materialized, whereas those that would make you go the other way could not have. It's as if going right required a sum of four numbers that equaled 31 and going left required a sum that equaled 32, AND the determining numbers happened to be are 1+ 5 + 22 + 3 (31). With such a sum there is no way you would ever have been able to go left. Heck even if the determining numbers were 3 + 3 + 15 + 10 (again 31) you would still have to go right rather than left. Of course this doesn't rule out other possible actions at the consequential moment. Perhaps a whole other set of numbers were coming into play at that time, like 5 + 9 + 24 + 17 (55), which made you pick your nose rather than go left or right. We do what we do because we simply can't do otherwise. To do so would require different set of antecedent causes/effects (numbers, as it were), but there weren't so we didn't.



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[Mrs.Badham]

[Replying to Miles in post #29]

Hmm. Well, I can see why you think that. I can’t really say I disagree. I think I get the idea.

[Purple Knight]

Okay, I get it now... I think.

When you reach a fork in the road, you may go left or right, but no matter which way you go, you will have to think about it first. That thought is not free from previous thoughts, and so your decision will be based on the previous thoughts... which were also based on previous thoughts, etc. etc.etc.

The thing is, by this interpretation, Two-Face has free will. (At least, he does if his coin is hooked up to a random number generator hooked up to the decay of a radioactive isotope.) He chooses to flip the coin but he doesn't choose the result.

This is hardly the kind of free will people want, however. As I explained to someone else, let's say Two-Face has a choice. He can go to Kum & Go (which is objectively better), or he can go to stinky 7-11 which is worse in every way. Instead of basing his choice on thoughts, he flips his coin. It comes up tails, so he goes to 7-11. "Oh well," he says, "I didn't really want to go to 7-11, I wanted to go to Kum & Go, but the coin is the coin."

Where I'm getting is that yes, our choices are predetermined, because they're based on something. The only alternative is to have them based on nothing and be random.

So do we want to be Two-Face just because his coin gives him a plausible claim to free will? I don't. Not really. I'd rather go to Kum & Go and get the exact beverage I want.