Free Will, Decision making and religion

[FreeTony]

Almost all religion relies on the concept of free will, and the ability to make choices. This supposedly then justifies any reward/punishment.

What is normally glossed over is how decisions are actually made by the brain.

We do know that decisions are made based on:
Circumstance
Upbringing
Genetics
Surrounding culture
Past experiences
and probably many more

If decisions were made purely on this basis, then we would be no different to a deterministic programmed robot, albeit one with the ability to learn (the ability to learn is a crucial when it comes to future decision making)

Most people don't view themselves as this, even though it actually seems to be the simplest explanation for human behaviour. They tend to say that there is something deep down that can override all of this and make a decision. This seems to purely down to a feeling of how they view their own consiousness, rather than anything else.

People have said that QM demonstrates that this is possible. The model then becomes a learning programmed robot, plus a random element. However this is no different to someone rolling a dice and making decisions based on the outcome.

So people posit something else deep down in the brain that alters the decision making process. Perhaps this is the closest definition to free will that I can find.

Now where does Free Will come into all of this. Having thought about it for a while, I don't think that it either has a good enough definition to tested, or even understood. Running a thought experiment, take 3 groups of people:

1. The first just make decisions based on genetics/previosu experiences etc (they are the learning robots)
2. The second just makes decisions based on the roll of a dice (QM analogy), along with previous experience etc.
3. The third has genuine free will (whatever that means) along with previous experience etc

Can you tell which one is which based on the decisions made? Can you even devise a methodology to determine which one is which?

If you cannot even achieve this, then you have no place telling people they have free will.

What is more damning is that in reality if you did this, you would find that the decision making would be most affected by culture, previous experience, upbringing and perhaps genetics.



From a scientific point of view this is fascinating, and still unanswered. This is where religion clumsily wades in. It says that we do definitely have free will (which it doesn't define) and that this is the most important part of decision making. It also says that this justifies eternal punishment/reward. One could take some of the learning robots and punish them based purely on their programming, but most would see this as immoral.

One may argue that if free will does not exist then the prison system is a waste of time. However, this is why the prison system is not based on religious ideas. Putting people in prison is about changing behaviour and protecting the rest of society. This works better with the learning robot than it does the genuine free will person or the dice led decison person.

The concept of Hell is nothing like prison. It is just about punishment. There is no chance of reform. It also flies in the face of the Jesus "turn the other cheek" philosophy.

The other point I would make is that religious people already realise that the decision making process is mostly based on upbringing and experience. This is why they isolate their children from any outside influences and try to indocrinate them.

[robvalue]

I don't believe I have "free will" but it's such a slippery term to try and define. I believe I run on nothing but determinism, possibly coupled with quantum randomness. So the only things making a choice, if anything, are random.

With regard to prison and accountability, this is not a problem. If we accept there is no free will, then the punishing agents are also not subject to free will, so their judgement cannot be changed anyhow. It's only an issue where one agent who does have free will has the option to punish or not punish another agent without free will.

Claims of omnipotence as are so often made in religion contradict free will too, including god's own free will. Can't have both without trying to redefine everything ever to get around it.

[GrandizerII]

Spot on, OP. If choice is not predetermined, then it can only be spontaneous or random. How can randomness ever indicate free will?

[RobertE]

Almost all religion relies on the concept of free will, and the ability to make choices. This supposedly then justifies any reward/punishment.

What is normally glossed over is how decisions are actually made by the brain.

We do know that decisions are made based on:
Circumstance
Upbringing
Genetics
Surrounding culture
Past experiences
and probably many more

If decisions were made purely on this basis, then we would be no different to a deterministic programmed robot, albeit one with the ability to learn (the ability to learn is a crucial when it comes to future decision making)

Most people don't view themselves as this, even though it actually seems to be the simplest explanation for human behaviour. They tend to say that there is something deep down that can override all of this and make a decision. This seems to purely down to a feeling of how they view their own consiousness, rather than anything else.

People have said that QM demonstrates that this is possible. The model then becomes a learning programmed robot, plus a random element. However this is no different to someone rolling a dice and making decisions based on the outcome.

So people posit something else deep down in the brain that alters the decision making process. Perhaps this is the closest definition to free will that I can find.

Now where does Free Will come into all of this. Having thought about it for a while, I don't think that it either has a good enough definition to tested, or even understood. Running a thought experiment, take 3 groups of people:

1. The first just make decisions based on genetics/previosu experiences etc (they are the learning robots)
2. The second just makes decisions based on the roll of a dice (QM analogy), along with previous experience etc.
3. The third has genuine free will (whatever that means) along with previous experience etc

Can you tell which one is which based on the decisions made? Can you even devise a methodology to determine which one is which?

If you cannot even achieve this, then you have no place telling people they have free will.

What is more damning is that in reality if you did this, you would find that the decision making would be most affected by culture, previous experience, upbringing and perhaps genetics.



From a scientific point of view this is fascinating, and still unanswered. This is where religion clumsily wades in. It says that we do definitely have free will (which it doesn't define) and that this is the most important part of decision making. It also says that this justifies eternal punishment/reward. One could take some of the learning robots and punish them based purely on their programming, but most would see this as immoral.

One may argue that if free will does not exist then the prison system is a waste of time. However, this is why the prison system is not based on religious ideas. Putting people in prison is about changing behaviour and protecting the rest of society. This works better with the learning robot than it does the genuine free will person or the dice led decison person.

The concept of Hell is nothing like prison. It is just about punishment. There is no chance of reform. It also flies in the face of the Jesus "turn the other cheek" philosophy.

The other point I would make is that religious people already realise that the decision making process is mostly based on upbringing and experience. This is why they isolate their children from any outside influences and try to indocrinate them.

Spot on post. As for the concept of heaven and hell, these are merely concepts that exist biologically within our minds. Leaving schizophrenics out of the equation, anyone who takes a life in a land where only prison exists, will most likely suffer. At the start there will be some sort of bravado going on because he/she murdered someone, but then I am pretty certain that sooner or later, negative bias will eventually kick in and his memory will begin to play those moments over and over again. He will no longer be able to sleep, he will be mentally tortured, and like it or not, death row is an ideal place for exploiting this. The murderer knows that he/she is going to die, it is just a matter of time. This will increase the negative bias within his own mind, and this will eventually make him crack. However, only a few more years to wait, which is not going to help matters. Yes, hell is in the mind, just like heaven. People are not tortured by spirits poking forks and they are not burning, they are simply being tortured by their own evil deeds. Why do I bring up negative bias? Well, admittedly, I remember watching a video ashamedly of those two idiots from the Ukraine who bashed some guys head in with a hammer, and it wasn't nice. There are moments where someone posts a video, and curiousity gets the better of you and you have to watch it, only to have a mental image later on. Compare that to beautiful souvenirs and you can be rest assured that the actions of two scrotes bashing someones head in will stay with you simply because of negative bias.

[FreeTony]

With regard to prison and accountability, this is not a problem. If we accept there is no free will, then the punishing agents are also not subject to free will, so their judgement cannot be changed anyhow. It's only an issue where one agent who does have free will has the option to punish or not punish another agent without free will.

The other point that could be argued about prisons is the idea of justice for victims. However in order to wrong someone, you have to somehow make their life worse in some way (e.g. steal from them). You cannot do this to an omnipotent being. (An emotional omnipotent being makes no sense whatsoever, but perhaps another topic).

Spot on, OP. If choice is not predetermined, then it can only be spontaneous or random. How can randomness ever indicate free will?

Glad I'm not alone on this.

But it asks the question what even is free will?

[Ignorant]

Having thought about it for a while, I don't think . . .

Well, if the ideas expressed here are true, then of course "you" don't "think". "You" don't "do" anything if "you" are reducible to a mixture of physical interactions determined by nothing but a previous causal history. "You" can't help BUT "behave" in the way you do, in a very similar way, although admittedly more complex way, that a bacterium or a pine tree or a cow can't help BUT "behave" as they do. Your entire post is nothing but the effect of a long series of randomly occurring causes that would not differ in any substantially meaningful way from say, falling asleep, defecating, telling your children that you love them, writing a poem, painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, or composing a symphony (all of which would be equally reducible to the random alignment of causes into your own specific causal chain). That is, if what you have described is true.

In fact, your own experience of "identity", the "you" we see and the "I" you experience are ultimately delusions. If "you" are reducible to a particular and determined causal chain, then what "you" were 5 seconds ago is not the same "thing" as the "you" that exists now (having undergone 5 seconds worth of the continuing causal chain). There is no "you". Mind blowing.

[FreeTony]

Having thought about it for a while, I don't think . . .

Well, if the ideas expressed here are true, then of course "you" don't "think". "You" don't "do" anything if "you" are reducible to a mixture of physical interactions determined by nothing but a previous causal history. "You" can't help BUT "behave" in the way you do, in a very similar way, although admittedly more complex way, that a bacterium or a pine tree or a cow can't help BUT "behave" as they do. Your entire post is nothing but the effect of a long series of randomly occurring causes that would not differ in any substantially meaningful way from say, falling asleep, defecating, telling your children that you love them, writing a poem, painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, or composing a symphony (all of which would be equally reducible to the random alignment of causes into your own specific causal chain). That is, if what you have described is true.

In fact, your own experience of "identity", the "you" we see and the "I" you experience are ultimately delusions. If "you" are reducible to a particular and determined causal chain, then what "you" were 5 seconds ago is not the same "thing" as the "you" that exists now (having undergone 5 seconds worth of the continuing causal chain). There is no "you". Mind blowing.

I actually think it is more likely that we are just like a learning machine, simply because I don't actually see the need to add anything else (Occams Razor) to explain human behaviour and decision making. I'm not saying that there isn't either a random QM like element, nor some other thing that approximates to the "feeling that we do have a conscious choice over decisions" we experience. More investigation is needed.

We may feel like we have free will. This isn't justification for saying we do, especially when we can't even define it or test whether a person has it or not.

[robvalue]

I don't think free will means anything, it's just a (misguided, perhaps) metaphor for describing how we perceive ourselves working.

[GrandizerII]

Glad I'm not alone on this.

But it asks the question what even is free will?

Putting aside the compatibilist notion (or shall I say notions) of free will, usually what people mean by free will is that magical ability to make choices independent of any prior factors whatsoever.

---

Having thought about it for a while, I don't think . . .

Well, if the ideas expressed here are true, then of course "you" don't "think". "You" don't "do" anything if "you" are reducible to a mixture of physical interactions determined by nothing but a previous causal history. "You" can't help BUT "behave" in the way you do, in a very similar way, although admittedly more complex way, that a bacterium or a pine tree or a cow can't help BUT "behave" as they do. Your entire post is nothing but the effect of a long series of randomly occurring causes that would not differ in any substantially meaningful way from say, falling asleep, defecating, telling your children that you love them, writing a poem, painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, or composing a symphony (all of which would be equally reducible to the random alignment of causes into your own specific causal chain). That is, if what you have described is true.

In fact, your own experience of "identity", the "you" we see and the "I" you experience are ultimately delusions. If "you" are reducible to a particular and determined causal chain, then what "you" were 5 seconds ago is not the same "thing" as the "you" that exists now (having undergone 5 seconds worth of the continuing causal chain). There is no "you". Mind blowing.

There is no "you" in the discrete sense that you speak of, correct. But that does not make it a delusion as there is a "you" at any certain point in time that "you" exist, but the boundaries of what constitutes "you" are sort of arbitrary.

Or, in short, "I think, therefore I am" regardless of what kind of "I" I am.

Are you done with the argument from incredulity now?

[Aoi Magi]

not enough data to achieve a definite conclusion on this scientifically.