Yet psychologists widely agree that unconscious processes exert a powerful influence over our choices. In one study, for example, participants solved word puzzles in which the words were either associated with rudeness or politeness. Those exposed to rudeness words were much more likely to interrupt the experimenter in a subsequent part of the task. When debriefed, none of the subjects showed any awareness that the word puzzles had affected their behavior. That scenario is just one of many in which our decisions are directed by forces lurking beneath our awareness.
Thus, ironically, because our subconscious is so powerful in other ways, we cannot truly trust it when considering our notion of free will. We still do not know conclusively that our choices are determined. Our intuition, however, provides no good reason to think that they are not. If our instinct cannot support the idea of free will, then we lose our main rationale for resisting the claim that free will is an illusion.
Is Consciousness Just a Brain Process?
Though a young movement, experimental philosophy is broad in scope. Its proponents apply their methods to varied philosophical problems, including questions about the nature of the self. For example, what (if anything) makes you the same person from childhood to adulthood? They investigate issues in ethics, too: Do people think that morality is objective, as is mathematics, and if so, why? Akin to the question of free will, they are also tackling the dissonance between our intuitions and scientific theories of consciousness.
Scientists have postulated that consciousness is populations of neurons firing in certain brain areas, no more and no less. To most people, however, it seems bizarre to think that the distinctive tang of kumquats, say, is just a pattern of neural activation.
Our instincts about consciousness are triggered by specific cues, experimental philosophers explain, among them the existence of eyes and the appearance of goal-directed behavior, but not neurons. Studies indicate that people’s intuitions tell them that insects—which, of course, have eyes and show goal-directed behavior—can feel happiness, pain and anger.
The problem is that insects very likely lack the neural wherewithal for these sensations and emotions. What is more, engineers have programmed robots to display simple goal-directed behaviors, and these robots can produce the uncanny impression that they have feelings, even though the machines are not remotely plausible candidates for having awareness. In short, our instincts can lead us astray on this matter, too. Maybe consciousness does not have to be something different from—or above and beyond—brain processes.
Philosophical conflicts over such concepts as free will and consciousness often have their roots in ordinary intuitions, and the historical debates often end in stalemates. Experimental philosophers maintain that we can move past some of these impasses if we understand the nature of our gut feelings. This nascent field will probably not produce a silver bullet to fully restore or discredit our beliefs in free will and other potential illusions. But by understanding why we find certain philosophical views intuitively compelling, we might find ourselves in a position to recognize that, in some cases, we have little reason to hold onto our hunches.
This article was originally published with the title Is Free Will an Illusion?.
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84 Comments
Add CommentThe article seems to say that there are illusions and therefore free will is an illusion.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is not a convincing argument.
A better argument would be to explain the ramifications of this choice to me. If the ramifications are beneficial, I will reject free will. Otherwise I will keep my current perspective.
Jayjacobus' first two lines put it succinctly. I have made a slightly longer response along a similar line here: http://anthonyburgoyne.com/2011/10/24/shaun-nichols-on-the-illusion-of-free-will/
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd I third Jay (are you in Philly Jay?)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMore frequently my two favorite magazines pose more and more articles where an idea is redefined just so it can be argued against.
In this case it's that 'free will means independent of the past' when the truth is we can always choose the degree in which we consider the past.
But I think a better definition, and one that challenges the above, is that free will equals an infinite number of choices (of what's chooseable of course). Despite past events I can choose to use any information known to me to make my next choice so if that's not free will what else could it possibly be.
No, not Philly. North Jersey.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf we have free will, then why don't we choose nice happy thoughts 100% of the time and just be done with it?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo say the past completely defines the future is to eliminate the the evolution of entirely new forms. This is absurd. The universe is obviously developing infinite variety. And who can say on the basis of scientific knowledge that consciousness cannot influence that development.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe question is do we live in a determinate or indeterminate universe. Evidence points to determinate. Being part of the universe we ourselves are determinate, therefore no free will. Your feelings, intuition or wishes have no impact on whether this is true or not. There is no "ghost in the machine" free from the influence of physical laws. Free will is a useful illusion and being determinate is not the same as being predictable.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisthis problem with free-will is silly. As John Searle would say "Let;s start with what we know". We know for example that most of the time when confronted with opportunities large and small we go one way some of the time and another way at other times. We decide to have an extra cup of coffee or we don't. We decide to act on an impulse and steal a watch or we don't. We decide to give someone the benefit of the doubt or we don't. Sometimes we feel compelled to to do something - "He made me angry so I hit him", "She wasn't playing fair so I took my ball and left." These are situations in which we begin to see the relevance of being able to decide and not being buffeted about by random situations. Our social institutions are largely based on the presumption that most of us most of the time have the ability to constrain our behavior - that we don't "have to " act on a compulsion. We don't tolerate too much of the "food coloring in the kool-aid made me kill my parents" explanations for marginal behavior although we clearly recognize that there are causes and conditions that heavily circumscribe the options that are reasonably available to a person. Put a person in a battle-field context and they are constrained much differently than if they are working in a flower shop preparing potted plants. We have plenty of day-to-day evidence that we have the option to decide to do one thing or not in most situations and that is the basis for the operation of our legal institutions and other social institutions. Our ongoing experience of the degree to which we condition each other's perceived options is the basis for an ongoing exploration into when we cut each other slack and when we say "enough!"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo put the cat among the pigeons, I agree with the experimental philosophers that our perceptions of the outside world, are governed by neural firing patterns in our brains.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI do disagree that free will is an illusion because we and the other higher animals are not mere automata, making choices purely in response to what has happened in the past, i.e. as a function of learned behavior.
I have observed my mother's cat experimenting with different routes to try to get to my mother's canary. Even though the cat was well fed, he chose to go after the canary in the cage. He behaved like an automaton because the canary triggered his neural firing patterns that governed his hunting instinct.
A human being can make conscious choices and even though we are creatures of habit, we can also behave in unexpected or unpredictable ways. We can reason out why one choice at one time, is better than at other times. Sometimes we can choose to do something differently, to relieve the tedium of a repetitive mundane task.
Of course free will is usually constrained by external forces that limit the number of choices available.
I doubt the Universe has an infinite number of choices because at the sub-atomic level quantum mechanics and M theory show that energy levels occur at specific levels or amounts; there are no continuous progressions, but discrete levels of observable energy. At the macro level of existence fractal mathematics show there are discrete scales of shapes within which matter and energy may be distributed. Chaos theory shows that two identical systems will evolve into one of two possible states, if a slight but discrete parametric change is made during the initial evolution of the state of the system. Such discretization of parameters prevent infinitesimal choices from becoming available.
Experimantal Philosophers?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA more cogent argument might be does pre-ordination negate free will - and if not why not?
I think there are too many oversimplifications - you can't base the fact that there is free will because you thought you made a decision to do something and completely neglect the ability of the subconscious making that decision for you and it being mirrored in the conscious as an appropriate cognitive decision.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFor the commenters using the word "Universe" -- keep in mind the word "Multiverse". Even if any one Universe is fixed in it's progression of outcomes -- thus determinate -- an infinite number of possible Multiverses effective renders "all things possible". Since speculation is all we have here -- I would further speculate that our consciouness bifurcates into alternate Multiverses as we collapse the wave function of our current Universe. We're not limited by our current deterministic Universe. IMHO All things are possible.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDiscomBob. Your comment seems based on the idea that everything must all be determinate or indeterminate. Don't you think it is possible for mayn things to habe both determinate and indeterminate aspects?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI do. You are right that there is much evidence for a higher level of determinism than easily meets the eye, but it seems very illogical to me to say that such evidence means that there are no indeterminate aspects.
Memory is a necessary condition for free will. Without free will memory would not have evolved.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree with SkepticalKen, and the non-admission admission of "our choices are either determined... or they are random", strongly suggests that the "experimental philosophers" are none to confident in their own arguments. If randomness is allowed, then our universe can't be governed by "hard" determinism; and, if any non-deterministic events are possible, then the door remains open for free will.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe "Imagine a universe" experiment proves only 2 things: (1) experimenters can devise hypothetical univeses and (2) you can never underestimate people's ability to not understand the question. Based on the paramters of the experiment it's clear that John's decision to have fries MUST have been caused by previous events, but that says absolutely nothing about conditions in THIS universe.
The experimenters also seem to overlook the constant daily barrage of messages - some obvious, some subtle - exhorting people to CONFORM. Psychological conditioning is a very powerful effect that must be accounted for. Just because many people (or sheeple) don't exercise their free will doesn't mean they don't have it.
Oh, and before anybody asks, my choice of words to put in all caps (MUST THIS CONFORM) was not an attempt at a subtle message.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think t get a better understanding we should look at the mentally insane
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNot everything necessarily can be explained scientifically. "Free will" by its nature is a philosophical concept that science can say nothing about, even if there was some commonly accepted definition. One has to accept that some things are better explained with tools other than the natural sciences.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAll this argument about whether or not we really have free will. First, *define* free will.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's not randomness, we aren't claiming people are merely complex dice.
And yet it's not algorithm, as that would make us robots. We are positing that there is something about our decisions that is not a necessary consequence of how we were made nor what we were exposed to.
What kind of process is neither algorithimic nor random? There are such (to refer to a proof by Moshe Koppel of Bar Ilan U)... There are processes that do not fit a finite description -- so they are not algorithmic. Yet any subset fits a description smaller than itself -- so we can't call them random, either.
What we don't have is a description of what they are, just proof of what they aren't. It might be that they are inherently ineffable, that language can only describe the algorithmic process, or identify something as not fitting such a description.
I think that free will arises out of the fact that we have many external things influencing us. The alarm rings and one inclination is to get up immediately and go to work, another is to kick back for another ten minutes, a third is to call in sick. We now have a chance to exercise our free will-- or not.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisin the "free will" experiments, the subjects usually have no reason to pick one action over another, so it is no surprise that they tend to just go whichever way the wind is blowing. On the other hand, not every one who was primed with rudeness interrupted the interviewer, so some did in fact choose differently than they were being induced to do, so seem to be exercising their self control anyhow.
As per my comment above, look into Libet's experiment
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAgree that free will is an illusion. Most of our decisions are compelled to a greater or lesser extent neurologically. Only the very trivial decisions like deciding between a ham sandwich versus a tuna sandwich for lunch are random. Free will is a philosophical construct thought up with no reference whatsoever to the relevant physical reality, namely the brain.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's clear from physics that the past does not completely determine the future. Quantum mechanics says that the outcome of a given measurement or observation is not deterministic, but probabilistic.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne of the most important principles of quantum mechanics is that the universe is not deterministic. A particular physical variable or "observable" can have only a restricted range of possible results, and it is impossible to predict in advance which possible value of an observable will in fact be observed for each individual measurement.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Free will" as usually understood philosophically is the complete freedom of each individual to choose which actions he or she will and will not take in any given situation. This is clearly not valid in most cases in which humans make choices.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you are going to claim that free will must be an illusion, then you must also consider that there is no such thing as randomness,and that the uncertainty principle is also an illusion. If all the progression of events is pre set by the initial conditions, then there can be no lower limit on precision,in any of the fundamental physical quantities. Experimental evidence would suggest otherwise - so what is at stake? reality, or the hubris of phylosophers in assuming they can account for even things which humanity may have no present knowledge.We cannot be sure that everything can be reduced to a yes / no arguement.Further, if time,like other physical properties has no lower limit on subdivisions, then the initial conditions would need to contain infinite information to generate the ensueing infinite states -unless the universe comes to an abrupt end, without warning,when it runs out of information.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFree will as the commonly understood philosophical construct is in my opinion an illusion, i.e., not corresponding to any actual physical reality. In contrast, the uncertainty principle relates directly to actual physical reality. So does randomness.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is widely believed that time, space, and other physical properties are NOT infinitely subdivisible. I.e., there is strong reason to believe that these entities have smallest possible units, called Planck units, and it is not physically meaningful to talk about an interval of time shorter than Planck time, or an interval of space shorter than Planck distance, etc.
I have never seen a really satisfactory explanation from either theology or philosophy as to what free will is. My suspician is that it really cannot be explained in any sense close to what we classically mean by the term. In this it is similar with consciousness and human-ness. (or God, for that matter) While we have working definitions in everyday life, those definitions simply fall apart under any scrutiny.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd hence my comment about deterministic not being the same as predictable. Adding random fluctuations does not equate to not deterministic but to not being predictable.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisScott Adams (Dilbert) has fun at times on his blog (see http://dilbert.com/blog/?Search=%22free+will%22&x=16&y=10
) with free will and it's discussion. I especially liked one description he had a while back (can't find it at the moment) where he likened people's motivations to a bunch of dials clicking along back and forth in reaction to certain actions/experiences which would trigger certain behaviors at certain values. One of his points was that the occasional random shifting of a dial didn't make the behavior any less deterministic.
The mind is deterministic, not consciousness. The mind portrays the world as it is.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf I decide to drink some water, it is my consciousness that chooses. Consciousness is aware of thirst through my mind. Without a mind, consciousness would be unaware of physical stimuli and would not react to reality.
If drinking water is deterministic, it doesn't involve consciousness (consciousness is simply an observer). But I know when I do something intentionally and when I do something automatically.
The strict determinist must think that I never do anything intentionally. If that's the case what's the point of thought, memory, pain or the mind. The mind is the cause. Conscious action is the effect.
Libet thought he showed that people make decisions before they are aware of having made it. That doesn't mean the decision wasn't conscious or free will, just that it takes time to become aware that one consciously made a decision. There is a 2nd layer being checked -- not that the the decision is conscious, but that I am conscious of having made a conscious decision.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSee http://www.consciousentities.com/libet.htm a relevant page on Conscious Entities. He suggests that Libet is measuring the time it takes to make a physical action. But consciousness isn't on the level of "I'll pull this muscle in my leg now". It's more abstract, such as "I'll walk to the store.
So, even had his experiment not been fundamentally flawed, his interpretation of its results was.
In any case, a newer experiment (2009), casts huge doubt on Libet's results. See this http://www.consciousentities.com/?p=233 blog entry, same blog. They found a way to compare cases where the person chose to move with those where they chose not to. Turns out the signal Libet measured has nothing to do with choosing to move or not -- it was present either way.
IOW, all he did was show that people were thinking about whether or not to move about 1/3 sec before moving. Not that they decided already.
OK, I see that perhaps I was not sufficiently attuned to the subtle difference between "deterministic" and "probabilistic". In general I agree with your post. Nothing exists other than what physically exists.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIs free will an illusion? Only if I choose to believe it is.....
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLibet's work definitely illustrates that consciousness isn't instantaneous. Consciousness operates in the 100s of milliseconds scale. The fact that Libet has demonstrated that there is neural activity "just prior" (10s of milliseconds) to an action or conscious report does not say that our actions or conscious reports were "pre-determined" but rather that our actions and conscious reports are sustained by temporally local neural processes
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFree will in some idealistic absolute sense is non-existent. However the argument from neurological processes is not on point. Our day-to-day experience IS the way in which the neurological processes manifest and that includes our decisions which are our interior manifestation of some neurological processes that we are able to manipulate. Much as your typing on a keyboard manipulates processes in the computer that you're using (mobile phone or whatever). Our ongoing experiences which ARE aspects of our ongoing neurological processes are in varying degrees manipulable.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFundamentally our decisions are conditioned internally and externally by various causes including our thoughts and our feelings and we have some degree of control and responsibility regarding what we think and how we feel. This is what is relevant about the idea of free-will. Fundamentally we build our institutions on the basis of the idea that most of us most of the time can be usefully taken to be responsible for our actions.
There is plenty of evidence that there are no local-hidden-variable theories that satisfy your claim regarding "no limit to precision" which incidental and irrelevant to the issue of "do people have the ability to make decisions more-or-less freely".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt may be widely believed but the physics doesn't indicate that space and time are "really" made of little Planck sized pieces. What is claimed from the physics is that there are Planck limits to interaction but nothing definitive regarding whether space and time are ultimately discrete or not. All current physics that "works": Quantum Mechanics, various Quantum Field Theories and so on are based on the usual continuous Real and Complex mathematical constructions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHorse hockey! The mind is full of noise. Check out Daniel Wolpert's work at Cambridge www.neuroscience.cam.ac.uk/directory/profile.php?wolpert for example.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDeterminism is an illusion. A useful approximation in some situations but an illusion none-the-less.
We have no freewill we all are dancing on tune of our unconscious mind.great philosopher Spinoza wrote "Men believe themselves to be free,simply because they are conscious of their actions,and unconscious of the causes whereby those actions are determined"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThose who painstaking open their unconscious mind they know how we are slave of our unconscious mind.We don't do bit of action without help of our unconscious mind.
You are straying to the extremes. You are saying that because we are conditioned by unconscious processes we have no intention, no volitional facets to our being and were that most of the time for most people then there would be no basis for social institutions from tribes to nation-states.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHi Xristy -I agree with most of your comment. I am having a bit of difficulty distinguishing the philosopher's ideas about free will from conscious and unconscious mind. To my naive thinking how much choice we have and indulge in is inversely related to the required decision time. When drawing up tables for braking distance for vehicles related to vehicle speed,part of the total is the distance travelled in "thinking time", or how long it takes the average driver to react.Obviously choice is still limited to the options available, but different choices over many selections, even at the trivial level can lead exponentially to widely differing outcomes a significant distance into the future. The butterfly effect.If they ( the philosophers )are saying that all these choices,and the one we would choose is determined exactly from the historic state of our brains,or that a third party knowing that state could exactly predict our choice, then they cannot believe in the findings of quantum mechanics, so should have an alternative theory as to why devices based on QM work. A metaphor that might help is an orchestra playing music.At any instant only particular sounds can be heard, but we appreciate more than just that instant, just as a painting is more than a collection of brush strokes. If the orchestra were jazz musicians improvising,despite some of the limits set by the original theme, what is produced can vary greatly.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThese articles on SciAm on free-will should look at the work of actual philosophers and their results instead of sensationalising 'experimental philosophy'. Surveys of laypersons' opinions on free-will isn't going to answer the question, just like asking a layperson about whether the Higgs Boson exists will not answer the question. There is plenty of research on neuropsych and its impact on the free-will question, my own, for example. http://johnostrowick.blogspot.com/2011/11/this-debate-amongst-neuroscientists-and.html and http://uct.academia.edu/JohnOstrowick/Papers/73223/The_Timing_Experiments_of_Libet_and_Grey_Walter
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree with you that the non-linear effects of the myriad causes and conditions that play a role in our actions largely render impotent any determinism and at the same time our constitution and history constrains the range of those very effects. We are typically not free to act in any arbitrary conceivable way and yet we are usually reasonably held responsible for our actions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThanks for the links to two of your papers. I looked at the second one and agree with you that Libet's interest in retaining some notion of free-will colors his interpretations; however, your apparent view that consciousness is epiphenomenal and of no causal import in conditioning neural processes is also problematical. You cite Libet 2001 but don't seem to address Searle's response to Libet at the end of that article. The fundamental issue in that regard is, as I mentioned in an earlier post in this thread of layperson's comments, that the time scale for consciousness is on the order of 100s of milliseconds and Libet's and other researchers results showing Readiness Potentials (RPs) preceding conscious reports by 400 - 550 milliseconds does not at our present state of knowledge imply that what we experience is epiphenomenal and of no causal consequence. The RPs can be simply interpreted as aspects of neural processing that ultimately constitute our experience. As Searle says in his response to Libet 2001: "On my view conscious states with all their subjective first person ontology are part of our biological life, and are as much a part of the ‘physical’ world as any other biological phenomenon."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhatever 'free will' is or means, there are obvious limitations to that potential. For example, as a species we are self evidently not 'free' to evolve a moral conception with an integrity that would end war. And within the existing value hierarchy, humanity is such a 'slave' to material perception that we may be destroying the very basis for our existence by environmental degradation and destruction. Has evolution itself, as it does for other species, placed a glass ceiling on our potential? That we can imagine what it might be like on the other side but are without the knowledge, as means to realize the dream! http://www.energon.org.uk
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisStrangely this topic doesn't even take into account the possibility that the FUTURE can affect currently-being made-decisions. These actions of forethought in my opinion are what free will is all about. We have the capacity to imagine an outcome, weigh it against our beliefs, morals, experiences, and decide if we wish to continue on that path. For example, Gene Roddenbery envisioned Star Trek and we as a society have accepted many of his visions. Now we have made that science fiction a reality with many inventions that were sparked by it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt strikes me that the camp of philosophers in this article would argue that these items are in fact PROOF the events prior to production of say the tablet PC forced its production and it was inevitable. I counter with Neigh, not, no. I believe it was choice. For example again, the current use of orbiting satellites. Were it not for ONE MAN's, Sir Arthur C. Clarke, CBE, continuous striving efforts against the resistance of peers in his own community ultimately PROOVED and help establish earth orbit used in geosynchronous satellites. Only one of his MANY accomplishments, *nod to a missed genius*. I put forth that his free will led him as all others, he decided not to fit in with the masses and decided to push the boundaries. There are many examples of people in history who strove to break out of the box that could have been each of their lives. These people are sometimes looked upon as black sheep, sometimes as saviors. I cannot see how someone can conceptually tie an individuals descisions/actions 'definitively' all the way back to the beginning of time or even just to one's birth. It is FAR MORE REASONABLE, in line with occums razor, to state that they are influences on free will. For those not familiar with occums razor, restated it is essentially: "when you have two competing theories that make exactly the same predictions, the simpler one is the better."
I find it unreasonable to believe the concept of no free will. That, to me is too similar to saying life is an equation and if you can show all the variables you can with 100% accuracy re-enact it.
I would also quite adamantly disagree with the statement "For example, as a species we are self evidently not 'free' to evolve a moral conception with an integrity that would end war."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhile it may not have happened yet, there are certainly cases proving the bounds of what we accept as truths are merely bounds we have self accepted. We have the capacity to decide to change, we are not forced to do so without thought, opposing action, or to be purely based on things that 'have come before'.
Case in point: the concept that time is a universal for all mankind. We have found a tribe of isolated men that have NO CONCEPT of time.
Brain processes involve electron movements. These movements are affected by electronic signals from sensory inputs and also by chemical substances in the brain whose concentration and behavious depend on our state of mind and recent events. There is no mechanism or force which we can use to inflence the movement of electrons. The outcome of the movement (decision) may be unpredictable because so many factors are in play and because of quantum uncertainty but there is no free will. Evolution has endowed us with an inescapable conviction that we determine our own destiny but it is still an illusion.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf we accept the conclusion that the flow of time is an illusion and that the lives of our own and other universes are laid out already, from beginning to end, then there can be no free will and we each discover our life, we do not create it.
Quite recently some neurological experimenters conducted a research project in which they utilized either pet-scan or fMRI to observe the process of choice/decision in test subjects. In their study they observed that decisions/choices were locked in, many nano-seconds before any aspect of cortical awareness was illuminated. From this study it seemed quite clear that "free will" is finally consigned to metaphysical hoodoo contemplation where it has always belonged. To use the universe's "behavior" as a model from which to imagine correlations with biological creatures strikes me as a ludicrous leap in logic. False correlations only demonstrate erroneous experimental designs, bad math or both.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLike many emotionally charged discussions, this one is driven by semantics - in this case, the definition of the English language phrase "free will."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLet's stop using that phrase for a moment, and look at what really happens...
Do we do what we want to do? Sure we do. Do we know what we want to do? Not always consciously. For example, if I say, "I want a cheeseburger, but I am going to have the salad instead," what do I really "want?" All things considered and weighed, I "want" the salad.
Now, why do I want what I want? It is all about nature and nurture (genetics and upbringing) - there is nothing else for anything to be about.
If I do what I want to do, don't I have "free will?"
But if what I want (and choose) is driven by genetics and upbringing, maybe I don't have "free will."
So the whole discussion about "free will" gets to be circular, and a bit silly.
If you are a theist you Must accept the idea that you cannot be "in control" of anything, that whatever you do is the result that your god has foreseen for you personally. Further, it is proscribed that you must not try to alter this outcome, and that such efforts would be useless anyway.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHowever, atheists like myself recognize that whether or not one allows evil impulses to dominate one's life is a moral choice having absolutely nothing to do with supernatural forces.
Therefore, whether or not free will is influenced by one's unconscious mind, the religionist is insanely constrained, and the rationalist and atheist is the only source of freedom and logicality.
While many of our choices are obviously random, there are still many more that do rely on free will. That too is logically obvious. Free will and the amount of choices utilized using free will I believe are a function of intelligence. Those with higher intellects are making choices more often based on free will whereas those who are not thinking about situations are obviously making random choices.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think the philosophers here are confusing the choices available with the choices actually taken. The former is simply a random set of choices the latter can either randomly or intellectually chosen.
Fascinating - Made the brain juices flow! But, what does illusion mean? Does it refer to an abstract emergent property derived from the function of the human brain and mind? I'm reminded of the statement that consciousness is to mind/brain as walking is to legs. One could substitute free will for consciousness in this statement.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am not straying to the extreme,I stressing reality.Be your self,accept your destiny, in that limit explore your intentions.don't run to fulfill illusion which are not suitable to your nature.Unfortunately most people don't know their destiny and made their life hell.Those who know their destiny and do to fulfill it they are more happy and experienced the self satisfaction.I firmly believed that Pure joy and self-satisfaction are only precious in man`s life other achievements may be great in mundane life but they not give us pure joy and self faction.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf we went by what is intuitively obvious to us we would never acknowledge that the earth goes round the sun! The issue is larger than that of free will for humans or other animals. The basic question is about causality itself: do we live in a deterministic universe where cause is followed by effect? Extrapolating from indeterminacy at the subatomic level is hardly conclusive. In other words: is there any way that we can dispute the 'inevitability of the actual'? Apparently not. One cannot think even of a thought-experiment to disprove the inevitability of the actual.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe illusion of freewill is real. Even the most committed determinist cannot get rid of it. So belief in determinism cannot alter our behaviour. Therefore the notion that if the belief in free will was to be undermined moral responsibility would disappear is not correct. While there seems to be no way to dispute that determinism is a fact, we have to act on the assumption that free will exists.
Unfortunately an article which debates questions of free will needs to start with a phrase like: "If my will is determined by prior events, or is random in its operation, there is no need to read further. I am obliged to arrive at the conclusion I do, and I have no basis whatsoever for maintaining that it is true."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSigh, If you want to know if we have free will you better define it. If its whether a human has choices in their actions and should have responsibility for it, then we do have free will. If its whether the choices are predictable based on sufficient knowledge of past events (right down to the molecular level) then we don't. The problem is that people conflate these two as if they are identical concepts. They aren't. The only thing stopping most people accepting this apparent paradox is this widespread belief in a supernatural "soul", for which there is no evidence. We have responsibility for our personal choices and the universe is deterministic (from a practical perspective). This really isn't a big deal.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut when you ask "Do I have free will?" just who do you identify as "I"? I don't think the question has been raised in this thread.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI know that my personality and values were tremendously molded by a loving mother and a demanding father. I know that some of my feelings for life were shaped by the only time I killed a deer . . . to find that she had just given birth to a fawn within the hour. I know that many of my beliefs about this present issue were threshed out in late night hours reading Descartes and Augustine and Skinner. I know the recent rejection of one of my story shas led to temperary depression and a new determination.
All this has made me what I am, and I have no hesitation in admitting that. And when I am deciding whether to join OWS, or to kill this fly or chase it out, or what to write in this comment . . . or to move my left leg or my right . . . I feel that "I" am making the decision, the "I" that became what I now am by all these influences. And of course I do not feel my freedom restrained by the fact that it was I that made it.
Now assume that determinism is right, and that each of these influences was paralleled by, say, neuronal reattachments. So what! the brain and the self are still in absolute synch. It's still what I think of as "me." The identically same fabric, viewed from a less personal and more utilitarian side. Why fret at being determined, if I myself am equally the determiner?
So as I see it, free will is free choice by the individual that I already accept as "I" and thus quite compatible with determinism. Conflict can only arise if one claims the ability to be someone other than one actually is, other than the "I" one happily accepts in all other thoughts and actions in life.
I suppose if you want to, you could try to deny that anything made you what you are, but that would be denying that you are you, which is not much of a victory for free will. But it's your choice. (:-)>
Your religous perspective is slanted.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGod is not obligated at all.
If you think about that it means that people have free will (they are not obligated either).
People, who feel constrained by their religion, are obligation to their religous community. But I need not be an athesist to be in control of my own life.
I am thinking also that all events which are happening in the universe are one - or a chain of events - that produce other events, but generally speaking this doesn't mean that we don't have free will.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut free will is not always free. It is subject to our past experiences, our state of the body, but especially to the limit of the human brain.
Just to give an example, if with fantasy we travel towards the future, we can easily accept that we will never arrive at the "end" of the eternity, for the eternity! And so also the time in the future will be always finite because it will never arrive at one end.
But this same concept, if we are applying it to the past going backwards in time, we are not able to grasp that it is the same concept and we will think that time is coming from the past infinity and it is infinite. And in many other situations our free will is fouled by the limit of our brain.
But this doesn't mean that our free will is never free in all situations.
For reductionists, the easy way out of having to explain free will is to invoke 'intuition' as equivalent to 'illusions' about self-evident perceptual physical phenomena or conceptual metaphysical logic has established as 'verifiable' human existential experiences as recorded in history and other reliable accounts of reality. I agree that are 'awakened' state is essentially the genetic unconscious and/or memetic subconscious control of reflex-like, robotic responses to environmental threats to our biopsychosocial equilibrium. BUT, there exist many documented cases of conscious free willing responses against reflex, unconscious, genetic driven self-preservation BPS interests, as witnessed in e.g., heroic and altruistic responses to events threatening the responders life, mental happiness and social conviviality. When you see a mother running to the middle of the street to save her childs's life from a speeding car. We are now comparing the unconscious, genetic driven reflex to protect the biological integrity of responder as opposed to the conscious, free-will choice to preempt the powerful inherited genetic + the powerful acquired memetic thrust, by consciously acting against self interest. Dr.d
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisConsciousness, free will,and mind, all these are no more than patterns of brain activity via neurones,synapses and neurotransmetters.My intuition about free will comes from a trustworthy incidents that happens every day. If we could examine deeply these incidents, we could obviously observe that even the so-called random free will decision is in fact deterministic activity of the brain.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs an emeritus professor of philosophy I have read many responses from those wanting to support the notion of free will. If we mean by "free will" the fact that we apparently have choices unincumbered by any known physical or mental coersion, then in that sense we do have free will. But the fact is that there is no "I" that resides in my brain making decisions. The 'I' is a constellation of neuronal connections reflecting the sum of my past experiences and genetic propensities --- which dictate the course of our behavior and thoughts.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI used to hypnotize students and give them post-hypnotic suggestions that they would get a sense of wanting to scratch their cheek, and would do it, or I would suggest that they would raise their hand in class following a particular question I would ask the class in general. They would give an answer that I suggested them to give under hypnosis. Each student fully believed that they were freely deciding to scratch, or raising their hand with a specified answer. I did this in the mid 1970s. Try to think of what is entailed by the concept of Free Will. We feel that we have it (just as my students believed they were acting freely, and had no memory of the instrutions I gave them), but the evidence appears to be that we do not. This does NOT absolve responsibility though, it just means that we must understand it a bit differently.
Evolution is impossible if biological (living) matter does not have its 'ability to chose' (or in traditional terminology so called 'free will').
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisProblem is not with 'free will' but with people who do not want to see that 'ability to chose' (aka 'free will') appeared much earlier that humans and our consciousness.
E.g., any animal obviously goes for food - it's determined. But if there are similar choices and the presence of danger then it starts to make choices. If its choice is correct - it survives, if incorrect - dies. It's the basis of evolution.
Science also developed as result of our ability to calculate different choices (aka 'free will').
Free will implies the conscious awareness of making a choice. Genetic mutations occur at random, but within a set of constraints based on the organism and its current genetic makeup. A mutation is not based on conscious awareness. It is not in any respect a "choice". It simply happens.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUmmm...it sounds like you are saying: "If it is beneficial for me to believe Santa Clause is real, I will believe Santa Cluase is real." The problem is, you really have little choice about what you 'believe'. You believe what you believe, and you don't believe what you don't believe. You can't decide to 'believe' something different than what you do 'believe'. You can't suddenly decide to believe Unicorns are real. You either believe it or you do not believe it. If I could simply decide to believe there is a personal god, I would. It would make many things in my life much easier...but the fact is, I don't believe that. Likewise, if you do believe there is a personal god, you can't 'decide' to not believe that. Now, that does not mean you can not be persuaded or change your mind. It just means you can't do it simply because you 'want' to believe something else.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSorry, you are still missing the point...free will is not synonymous with choosing. Free will implies the ability to choose other than as you do.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOK, but 'determinist' is not synonymous with 'pre-ordination.'
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe problem with arguing that our actions are totally determined is that such an argument has no weight except in a universe of discourse where free will exists. Did you freely weigh the evidence to choose one option? If your "choice" was predetermined then it has no persuasive power as it could just as easily be determined to be the opposite. This doesn't prove free will exists, but it means that any argument against it self-destructs. If we are all automatons, then the argument that we are all automatons is so much noise. What does "truth" mean in such a universe of discourse?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisummm...what is your 'argument' that free will has to exist for truth to exist, and or to be able discuss truth. I am very skeptical about that notion.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlso...when you say "If your "choice" was predetermined then it has no persuasive power as it could just as easily be determined to be the opposite.", you are making two errors, 1) determined is not the same as pre-determined, and 2) only if it was random, not determined, could it just as easily be the opposite. Indeed the fact it is determined says it could not be otherwise.
OK, I see, in English it's seems like a terminology problem. But in other languages, in other countries (including my own) it's only one and the same term - 'ability to chose' = 'free will'. Seems like in over-religious American society 'free will' becomes something different from 'ability to chose'. So is it a 'linguistic' war against particular religious terminology? Or? What's the real reason and real definition? What we are fighting for and against?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe difference between free will and determinism is your friends were predetermined to be friends with you while mine chose to be friends with me.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou are close with your translation. Many people think that 'free will' means simply the ability to choose. That however is not the debate here. Of course we choose, I don't think anyone would argue with that. Some people say free will is being able to choose without external pressure or coercion. While I am able to make my decisions free of anyone else making me make them, that is really a pretty trivial definition of free will.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe important question is: could I choose differently than I do? I would argue that I can’t. (And I don't mean I can't change my mind, and if I do so, that will be 'caused' as well)
I believe that for a number of reasons. First, I believe that actions are either caused or they are random. I can’t think of any other alternative, but I'm open to someone convincing me there is another option. At any rate, if our actions/choices are determined, they are not free...and, alas, if our actions are random they are certainly not free in any meaningful way either.
Don't confuse determinism with pre-determination. Pre-determination suggests someone or something, has decided things will be a certain way, and then they are. For example, I can say that if God knows what will happen tomorrow, then what will happen tomorrow is pre-determined. I do not believe that to be the case, but if it was, if it is already determined, ahead of time, what I will do, well that certainly is not free will, but that is not what determinism is.
Determinism means all of our actions are caused. I believe, and I have never seen any argument that convinces me otherwise, that our decisions are 'caused' by all of the events that have gone on before the choice is made. We are such that they can’t be other than as they are.
My second argument for the lack of free will, is that all of the experiences I have had, and my genetic makeup is such that at this moment in time I will make the choice that I make, because I am me. The problem is,I have no power over who I am, I can’t choose to be different than I am in any meaningful way. If we could do that, things would be very different indeed, and we would all be perfect, at least in our own eyes. But alas, I can’t change who I am. By extension, if I am not free to be other than as I am, and the choices I make are the choices I make because I am me, then my choices are not free either.
That, I believe, is what the discussion is about.
This is a really weerd question. I do beleive that I make choices (sometimes) based on the best guess according to the information available. Sort of like any other computer. Sometimes there are a lot of hormones that also want something to say. Sometimes just things I beleive in are the right things to do.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow can a computer have free will?
If free will is an illusion then why not abolish prisons, laws, and other constraints? After all, people can't help what they are or what they do - it's all predetermined!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis theory is a total nonsense, and will simply give rapists, burglars and paedophiles an excuse for their behaviour. "I just couldn't help myself!" will be the cry. Will those who propose this theory suggest a solution - the execution of offenders rather than punishment and rehabilitation, maybe?
My decision to write this comment was not predetermined. I really wanted to say how wrong this idea really is!
Geoff Chapman
Karen,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think you have done an excellent job of explaining why it is that nobody has a free will.
Geoff,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJust because people can't help but commit the crimes they commit, doesn't mean we ought not separate them from the rest of us that are not committing crimes against each other.
Little Dragon,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou're right, computers can't have freedom of will.
time is not linear. please check out this video, in it michio kaku explains. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFLR5vNKiSw
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisomg. to whose intuition do you refer?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think you missed a step or two back there.
As an amateur scientist in several fields and a professional Software Engineer for the past 30 years, I long ago intuited that consciousness was a reflection of what I term "brain state." In the article, patterns of neurons firing are mentioned. This corresponds closely to my belief.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFurther, I believe that "conscious thought" is a "flowing" between states. The "tang of a kumquat" that many people correlate in the article as negative evidence of neural patterns is, in fact, the response of multiple neurons and structures to the stimuli of the chemicals and concentrations of those chemicals that stimulate the taste buds and the smell receptors. I can surmise that sight and touch may add influence though I doubt very much I can hear a kumquat under most conditions. Experiencing and recognizing "the tang" does not require consciousness, it's a basic memory task, not something that requires additional thought.
Certainly, I'm influenced by many things in my past, among them my education and training but also my choice of science fiction over other genres for much of my life. That taste has changed in the past decades but I haven't forgotten the concepts and precepts I learned from those stories. My feelings _always_ influence me, especially the memories of all the emoptional pain I suffered from the various bullies. Avoiding more pain is primary in my considerations. Preventing or healing others' pain, my empathic bent, is as important when my pain isn't first.
Philosophy was an interesting experiment in the reasoning ability of humans. Science is the practice of experimentation in order to find the facts, as well as we can. May the day that we can understand even 10% of consciousness from the physical to the perceptual come soon.
The definition of free will: The power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate; the ability to act at one's own discretion.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPeople are basically advanced computers, so advanced we have developed a form of consciousness. Comparing your vast complexity of emotions and character with a TI-83 seems mundane, but holds a lot of potential to be true. If you program a computer with enough commands, an ability to memorize/learn, and positive and negative reinforcement in the form of hormones with their respective receptors(reward finding food/love/water; punish self-inflicted pain, mistakes, etc), you will create essentially a human person. A baby. If you now give this baby to a human family to be nurtured, it now begins to learn; it learns that justice is greater than evil. It begins to learn about guilt, and emotion, and the sanctity of human life, slowly developing socially into a typical human.
Now, what was the point of comparing humans to computers? Computers obviously do not have free will, and neither do humans. If you are given two distinct options, go to a museum, or go to a rock concert, You will pick whichever one is more relevant to yourself, whichever you believe will bring you more happiness. Now since happiness is fundamentally positive reinforcement in the form of hormones, your conscious mind chooses whichever event will positively improve your life/your human body. Museums would improve it culturally, and a rock concert would bring pleasure because you experience being part of a group and listening to music, so culturally and socially. Whichever one your subconscious has decided has a greater positive effect on your life, it will release pleasure hormones in an attempt to make your conscious mind choose that one.
If I make a choice at one moment, say at 1:30 pm, sunday, July 1st, I decide that I'm thirsty and want to go get water from the refrigerator, that choice will be the same, if the scenario is repeated. If we recreate this exact moment, with the same amount of water in my body, the same energy in my body, same amount of water in the refrigerator, I will make the same decision.
In conclusion the idea of free will, does not exist in it's current definition. When we choose to do things, we are making decision based on our surroundings, and the idea that those decisions are not based on necessity or fate, is an illusion.
I think there can be a much more optimistic outlook when there is discussion about our connection to the universe and its laws. Some people seem extremely upset by the fact that their consciousness is a result of biochemistry in the brain. Although I realise what people are talking about when they say things like "We are biochemical puppets, swayed by foces beyond our conscious control" which I have seen, I think there is a better way to put it. I think we can accept the illusion of free will as a factual conscious experience and at the same time logically know that the universe does not allow for this in its functioning.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPlease read my article "Accepting the Illusion of Free will" to understand me further:
http://www.nathanbastian.com/accepting-the-illusion-of-free-will/
I like this article because consciousness is the ability of the brain in each part to work to it full capacity. Every one of the body organs able to move helps us feel body consciousness. The network of millions of neurons will be able to become linkage according to the neuro-transmitters. Once the whole brain thinking happens from the feeling of body consciousness, the inner ability would be elicited. For example, we can monitor and detect the state of the mind, we can choose to either adopt or reject them. This technique is effective for me to stay positive and act impervious towards something unfavorable so that the progression of pieces of tasks would reach goals without attempt. Moreover, consciousness helps us feel happy and active since being in a good mood is the consequential outcomes of stopping being negative, but fulfilling being attractive. In addition to all matter, consciousness helps us sharpen the five sensations as well.
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