Why Free Will is an illusion

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Miles
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Why Free Will is an illusion

Post #1

Post by Miles »

Interest in free will has usually centered around the affirmation and/or a denunciation of it. Some very interesting thoughts on both sides have come out of these discussions, many well thought out and others not so much. Whatever the case, there's been a frequent problem with some of the terms involved, most often those concerning "free will" and "will."

As I see it, free will is important to many because without it would mean each of is nothing more than an automaton, which is anathema to the notion personal freedom. If I have no freedom of choice how can I be blamed for what I do? For Christians this has the added consequence of robbing the concept of sin/salvation of any meaning. So most people are loath to even entertain the idea of no free will. Free will is almost always regarded as a given.

Any exception to free will is commonly seen as temporary constraint. "I am free to to do this or that unless someone/thing comes and prevents it. Of course this isn't what the issue of free will is about at all. Free will is about the idea that, aside from any external constraints, "I could have chosen to do differently if I wished." So I think a decent working definition of "free will" is just that: the ability to do differently if one wished.

Those who most disagree with this are the hard determinists, people claiming that everything we do has a cause. And because everything we do is caused then we could not have done differently, therefore it's absurd to place blame or praise. A pretty drastic notion, and one rejected by almost everyone. So whatever else is said about the issue of free will ultimately it must come down to this very basic level: Are we free to do other than what we chose or not? I say, No you are not. Free will is an illusion. But before going into why, we first need to get rid of the term "choice" because it assumes to be true the condition under consideration, freedom to do what we want. So no use of "choice," "choosing,"chosen," or any other form of the word.


There are only two ways in which actions can take place; completely randomly, or caused. By "completely randomly" I mean absolutely random, not an action which, for some reason, we do not or cannot determine a cause. This excludes things such as the "random" roll of dice. Dice land as they do because of the laws of physics, and although we may not be able to identify and calculate how dice land it doesn't mean that the end result is not caused. This is the most common notion of "random" events: those we are unable to predict and appear to come about by pure chance. The only place where true randomness, an absolutely uncaused event, appears to occur is at the subatomic level, which has no effect on superatomic events, those at which we operate. And I don't think anyone would suggest that's how we operate anyway; completely randomly: what we do is for absolutely no reason whatsoever. So that leaves non-randomness as the operative agent of our actions. We do this or that because. . . . And the "cause" in "because" is telling. It signals a deterministic operation at work. What we do is determined by something. Were it not, what we do would be absolutely random in nature: for absolutely no reason at all. But as all of us claim from time to time, we do have reasons for what we do. And these reasons are the causes that negate any randomness.

So, because what we do obviously has a cause, could we have done differently? Not unless the causes leading to the event had been different. If I end up at home after going for a walk it would be impossible to end up at my neighbor's house if I took the exact same route. Of course I could take a different route and still wind up at home, but I would still be in the same position of not ending up at my neighbor's. To do that there would have had to be a different set of circumstances (causes) at work. But there weren't so I had no option but to wind up at home. The previous chain of cause/effects inexorably determined where I ended up. So to is it with our decisions. We do what we do because all the relevant preceding cause/effect events inexorably led up to that very act and no other. There was no freedom to do any differently.

What does this all mean then? It means that we cannot do any any differently than what we do. Our actions are caused (determined) by previous events and nothing else. Even our wishing to think we could have done otherwise is a mental event that was determined by all the cause/effect events that led to it. We think as we do because. . . . And that "because" can never be any different than what it was. We have no will to do anything other than what we're caused to do. In effect then, the will does not exist, nor does choice, etc..

Of course this means that blame and praise come out as pretty hollow concepts. If you cannot do other than what you did why should you be blamed or praised for them? To do so is like blaming or praising a rock for where it lies. It had no "choice" in the matter. Of course we can still claim to have free will if we define the term as being free of external constraints, but that's not really addressing free will, and why free will exists as an issue. The free will issue exists because people claim "I could have done differently if I had wished." Problem is, of course, they didn't wish differently because . . . .

Any disagreements?

koko

Post #81

Post by koko »

thought you were arguing against the intelligent version of what free will is: that we are in normal circumstances free to choose, barring tsunamis and thunderbolts

Well, perhaps I made myself misunderstood.

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Post #82

Post by Closingaccountreadgmailna »

So if I am to say, I am going to make a bread, I need medication, because I "clearly" have a problem, since I don't have a free will?

And if I am to choose to punch a cat it's not my choice, wind made me do it?

I am then nothing, I am then dead, no?

I am walking, talking nothing, I can't smell, I can't touch, I can't make a sound.

To say a word is just because it is and not because I want to speak up.

And to write this reply I am doing it, not because I want to reply, but because something made me do it? Then, I don't exist and everything is dead, including me?

This is ridiculous. Will read your reply.

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Post #83

Post by Kyrani99 »

rosary wrote: So if I am to say, I am going to make a bread, I need medication, because I "clearly" have a problem, since I don't have a free will?

And if I am to choose to punch a cat it's not my choice, wind made me do it?

I am then nothing, I am then dead, no?

I am walking, talking nothing, I can't smell, I can't touch, I can't make a sound.

To say a word is just because it is and not because I want to speak up.

And to write this reply I am doing it, not because I want to reply, but because something made me do it? Then, I don't exist and everything is dead, including me?

This is ridiculous. Will read your reply.
The accepted scientific view of reality is that is "materialism is all that there is". That is why Sam Harris claims that "we can't map free will onto reality".

There is growing evidence that there is a supernatural reality that is quite apart from this reality. Have a look at this Dutch cardiologist, Dr Pim van Lommel's work here:
on near death experience, when a person is clinically dead and before they have been resuscitated.

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