For people arguing they have free will, they typically mean they have the ability to do other than what they did do. That is, whenever they make a choice, they do so under the belief that they could have, in principle, made a different choice. As far as science is concerned, such a free will does not exist, because the behaviors you exhibit appear to be completely explainable in terms of the environment impressing upon you, and the effects that impression has on your neural activity. There is no “you” making free decisions in this picture. There’s just stuff bumping into other stuff, and how is that free?
Regarding a general consensus of free will, that’s just not even an argument anyone should care about. Plenty of people are flatly told they have free will because, “they don’t have a choice, God made them with free will”. Others/most are simply uneducated or under-read on the subject. That’s fine, but it doesn’t mean their opinion should weigh on our conclusions. If you show most people an optical illusion and ask them if it appears to be moving, they’d say yes, even though science will tell you there’s nothing moving.
I personally am a hard deterministic regarding free will. I think we have a will but nothing about it is free. It is subject to natural laws just as a rock rolling down a cliff. That’s fine. There’s a related philosophical position of compatibilism, which believes that we have a determined will, but that the truth of the determination does not undercut our ability to talk as if and use the phrase free will as if we really do have such a thing. In this sense, compatibilists would say we don’t have the ability to do other than what we are determined to do, but since we might not yet know what we are determined to do, then that ignorance captures what is meant by free will. So compatibilists are determinists, they just think free will as a concept is compatible with that determinism.
I guess a hard determinist would say that humans have as much “free will” as a rock. There is nothing useful to saying these systems are similar in that regard.
This is because there is such a thing as “causal inertia”: there is a difference in agency where a human system bases its decisions on a large spatial, time range of experiences (moments to life-long experiences and multi-generation planning, tiny tools all the way to architecture planning, a large number of connections by multiple means to other humans’ experiences) to make “decisions”. What do you call that?
Because it exists and if it’s not called free will, that’s probably the closest thing that scientifically can be measured and associated with “free will”.
We may just be “transistors” responding to the environment, but we are complex enough to introduce chaos by connecting lots of unrelated things to the point of being as close to being unpredictable as any random system in the universe.
there is a difference in agency where a human system bases its decisions on a large spatial, time range of experiences (moments to life-long experiences and multi-generation planning, tiny tools all the way to architecture planning, a large number of connections by multiple means to other humans’ experiences) to make “decisions”. What do you call that?
I would call this determinism as much as anything else. Whatever you discover by reflecting on memories, you make your decision based on those memories, ergo there was a reason that determined your choice.
Because it exists and if it’s not called free will, that’s probably the closest thing that scientifically can be measured and associated with “free will”.
I would just agree that we have a “will”. It’s the “free” qualifier that’s disputed.
We may just be “transistors” responding to the environment, but we are complex enough to introduce chaos by connecting lots of unrelated things to the point of being as close to being unpredictable as any random system in the universe.
Sorry, I can’t agree. We have ignorance about the future, but that doesn’t mean my decisions are undetermined. As far as I can tell, everything is either determined or not determined. If it’s determined, then I was not free to choose it. If it’s not determined, then it’s random, in which case I again could not have freely chosen it. You seem to be moving towards compatibilism, which accepts determinism but believes determinism can still be compatible with a notion of free will, e.g. our ignorance of the future is what we mean by free will.
Personally, I think life is very interesting bring a wet robot! However, I understand why most reject the concept out of hand.
I don’t like the “There’s just stuff bumping into other stuff, and how is that free?” Argument. I feel like it’s unessisarily reductive.
A stone washing down a river might be guided deterministically by fundimental forces, as are all of the actions of a human brain.
However, the stone was dislodged by erosion. My will was set into motion by abstract human concepts. My memories, biases, emotions, education, habits, etc. these are not fundamental or physical forces. I was free, uninhibited by state or peers, to decide based on these internal factors.
Sure, if you rewinded time and replayed it, I would always make that decision, and so would the stone wash down the river, but the human had a meaningful perception of free will.
I would argue that free will is not a physical concept, but a phycological one. It succeeds in describing the experience of mulling over a decision, and freely acting upon it. It is fair and reasonable to say it, just like in my example it is fair and reasonable for me to say a terrible person is evil.
If you twist the definition of free will contain some mention of subatomic autonomy, then sure, it doesn’t exist, but the concept predates such ideas…
Heck, even the Bible- I’m an atheist- but the point of writing that God gave humans free will was the expression of the human experience. The writers wanted to explain why being a human FELT different from being a stone. They were grappling with the experience of consciousness in a spiritual way. The original text never claims to be the ultimate expression of physics. It’s reductive to dismiss the text as meaningless just because some later “free will” proponents claimed that the brain is quantum or whatever.
Sorry, I agree with you about the nature of the universe. I just think these reductive debates are, in general, unproductive. I believe they misrepresent the subject from both sides.
That’s what it is to be a compatibilist. They are determinists who believe that there is still a meaningful use of the phrase free will, despite the apparent determinism of the universe. They would redefine free will to not mean I have the ability to supervene on the natural laws, but that when you make a decision absent certain forces compelling a particular choice, that’s what we mean by free will.
Sure, if you rewinded time and replayed it, I would always make that decision, and so would the stone wash down the river, but the human had a meaningful perception of free will.
Perception of free will and actual free will are not the same. It feels like you understand this by the part of your comment I just quoted, but are trying to redefine them as the same as a way to rationalize your want for free will to exist
For people arguing they have free will, they typically mean they have the ability to do other than what they did do. That is, whenever they make a choice, they do so under the belief that they could have, in principle, made a different choice. As far as science is concerned, such a free will does not exist, because the behaviors you exhibit appear to be completely explainable in terms of the environment impressing upon you, and the effects that impression has on your neural activity. There is no “you” making free decisions in this picture. There’s just stuff bumping into other stuff, and how is that free?
Regarding a general consensus of free will, that’s just not even an argument anyone should care about. Plenty of people are flatly told they have free will because, “they don’t have a choice, God made them with free will”. Others/most are simply uneducated or under-read on the subject. That’s fine, but it doesn’t mean their opinion should weigh on our conclusions. If you show most people an optical illusion and ask them if it appears to be moving, they’d say yes, even though science will tell you there’s nothing moving.
I personally am a hard deterministic regarding free will. I think we have a will but nothing about it is free. It is subject to natural laws just as a rock rolling down a cliff. That’s fine. There’s a related philosophical position of compatibilism, which believes that we have a determined will, but that the truth of the determination does not undercut our ability to talk as if and use the phrase free will as if we really do have such a thing. In this sense, compatibilists would say we don’t have the ability to do other than what we are determined to do, but since we might not yet know what we are determined to do, then that ignorance captures what is meant by free will. So compatibilists are determinists, they just think free will as a concept is compatible with that determinism.
I guess a hard determinist would say that humans have as much “free will” as a rock. There is nothing useful to saying these systems are similar in that regard.
This is because there is such a thing as “causal inertia”: there is a difference in agency where a human system bases its decisions on a large spatial, time range of experiences (moments to life-long experiences and multi-generation planning, tiny tools all the way to architecture planning, a large number of connections by multiple means to other humans’ experiences) to make “decisions”. What do you call that?
Because it exists and if it’s not called free will, that’s probably the closest thing that scientifically can be measured and associated with “free will”.
We may just be “transistors” responding to the environment, but we are complex enough to introduce chaos by connecting lots of unrelated things to the point of being as close to being unpredictable as any random system in the universe.
I would call this determinism as much as anything else. Whatever you discover by reflecting on memories, you make your decision based on those memories, ergo there was a reason that determined your choice.
I would just agree that we have a “will”. It’s the “free” qualifier that’s disputed.
Sorry, I can’t agree. We have ignorance about the future, but that doesn’t mean my decisions are undetermined. As far as I can tell, everything is either determined or not determined. If it’s determined, then I was not free to choose it. If it’s not determined, then it’s random, in which case I again could not have freely chosen it. You seem to be moving towards compatibilism, which accepts determinism but believes determinism can still be compatible with a notion of free will, e.g. our ignorance of the future is what we mean by free will.
Personally, I think life is very interesting bring a wet robot! However, I understand why most reject the concept out of hand.
I don’t like the “There’s just stuff bumping into other stuff, and how is that free?” Argument. I feel like it’s unessisarily reductive.
A stone washing down a river might be guided deterministically by fundimental forces, as are all of the actions of a human brain.
However, the stone was dislodged by erosion. My will was set into motion by abstract human concepts. My memories, biases, emotions, education, habits, etc. these are not fundamental or physical forces. I was free, uninhibited by state or peers, to decide based on these internal factors.
Sure, if you rewinded time and replayed it, I would always make that decision, and so would the stone wash down the river, but the human had a meaningful perception of free will.
I would argue that free will is not a physical concept, but a phycological one. It succeeds in describing the experience of mulling over a decision, and freely acting upon it. It is fair and reasonable to say it, just like in my example it is fair and reasonable for me to say a terrible person is evil.
If you twist the definition of free will contain some mention of subatomic autonomy, then sure, it doesn’t exist, but the concept predates such ideas…
Heck, even the Bible- I’m an atheist- but the point of writing that God gave humans free will was the expression of the human experience. The writers wanted to explain why being a human FELT different from being a stone. They were grappling with the experience of consciousness in a spiritual way. The original text never claims to be the ultimate expression of physics. It’s reductive to dismiss the text as meaningless just because some later “free will” proponents claimed that the brain is quantum or whatever.
Sorry, I agree with you about the nature of the universe. I just think these reductive debates are, in general, unproductive. I believe they misrepresent the subject from both sides.
That’s what it is to be a compatibilist. They are determinists who believe that there is still a meaningful use of the phrase free will, despite the apparent determinism of the universe. They would redefine free will to not mean I have the ability to supervene on the natural laws, but that when you make a decision absent certain forces compelling a particular choice, that’s what we mean by free will.
Perception of free will and actual free will are not the same. It feels like you understand this by the part of your comment I just quoted, but are trying to redefine them as the same as a way to rationalize your want for free will to exist