Why I don't believe in 'free will'

[Edwardo Piet]

Pretty much comes down to "we may not have behavioral choice, but we do have control of our behavior", a kind of free will that governs control more than choice.

Any thoughts?

I am familar with Dennett's argument. I think that was an awesome article to read and I strongly agree with his argument there.

He defines 'free will' very differently to how it is usually defined. He rejects behavioral choice...we should be satisfied with the fact we simply have more capability and freedom (in that sense) than any other life form we know on this planet planet at least.

You can call it 'free will', you can not call if free will. It is certainly freedom in the sense we humans have a lot of freedom that other life forms on earth don't.

It's not how I was defining 'free will' or how most people I believe do (or at least an awful lot of people) - but as Dennett explains...that is because how most people defines it is ultimately pointless and as he has said on youtube videos I've seen, to paraphrase: 'it gives you nothing more...no extra powers at all'.

He strips 'free will' of the common pointless definition and keeps the term - without the unneeded definition that gives you no extra powers at all.

Highlights (important and interesting parts) from the article for me are:

Since the 1920s physicists have been trying to convince themselves that quantum indeterminacy can in some way explain Free Will. Dennett dismisses this idea as silly. How, he asks, can random resolutions of quantum-level events provide people with any control over their behavior?

As I have been saying. Indeterminism doesn't give any indication of free will. It simply imples more random whereas determinism is completely fixed. And how on earth does simply more random equate to free will or give evidence of free will?

Dennett is able to accept determinism and Free Will at the same time. How so?

This indicates a clear different definition of free will to how we have been defining it on this thread. As Adrian has said how determinism and 'free will' are incompatible before I think...(and I have said it makes 'free will impossible (yet indeterminism as the opposite doesn't at all imply free will, etc).

So Dennett's definition is very different here. Namely one of avoidability or what he calls evitability. We have this with or without the usual definition of free will - he is defining it differently.
I have to highlight all of the (hidden) following paragraph simply to say I completely agree with the absolute lot of it (I have also bolded a part that is very important IMO):

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If all people have is an illusion of behavioral choice, if people are just machines behaving in the only way they can, then what about personal responsibility? How can we hold people responsible for and punish them for their behaviors if they have no choice in how they behave? Dennett gives a two part answer to this question. First, we hold people responsible for their actions because we know from historical experience that this is an effective means to make people behave in a socially acceptable way. Second, holding people responsible only works when combined with the fact that people can be informed of the fact that they are being held responsible and respond to this state of affairs by controlling their behavior so as to avoid punishment. People who break the rules set by society and get punished may be behaving in the only way they can, but if we did not hold them accountable for their actions, people would behave even worse than they do with the threat of punishment. This is a totally utilitarian approach to the issue of responsibility, there is no need for moral indignation when people break the rules of proper behavior. Is it, then, moral to punish people who are unable to do other than break a rule? Yes, people have the right to come together and improve their condition by creating rules and enforcing them. We would be worse off if we did not do so. Again, an argument for utility.

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Again I have bolded a part that I think is particularly important:

In Elbow Room he tries to explain why all the attempts that people have tried to make to prove that people have behavioral choice have failed and are, in the final analysis, not really important anyhow. As humans, we are as much in control of our behavior as anything in the universe. As humans, we have the best chance to produce good behavior. We should be satisfied with what we have and not fret over our lack of behavioral choice.

(Bolding included again):

As usual, I find it very hard to disagree with Dennett. My largest complaint about Elbow Room is that it does not satisfactorily deal with the issue of why we feel so strongly that we do have behavioral choice. I agree with Dennett that we do not have choice, but why do we feel like we do?

[...]
As Dennett writes, Belief in Free Will is a necessary condition for having Free Will.

Since Dennett doesn't believe in behavioral free will he is speaking here simply of how people psychologically seem to need to believe in this behavioral free will. And when he says that's necessary for having free will though he then means that it's necessary for having his definition of free will - control, avoidability (or as he calls it -evitability, etc). Because he obviously isn't saying that belief in behavioral free will is necessary for behavioral free will because he doesn't actually believe behavioral free will is possible as he said. People feel attached to that kind and this attachment can make the kind that he believes is possible (control, avoidability, evitability, etc).

People commonly do seem to have to believe in behavioral free will in order to not fall into fatalism and lose a greater freedom of 'control'/'avoitability'/'evitability', etc.

That is common. I believe that since I understand how that works now that must be why this doesn't apply to me.

For the reasons that Dennett gives and because it makes no sense to me and I know of no reason or evidence to believe it - I also reject behavioral free will like Dennett does...but because I understand this I myself do not need to actually trick myself into actually believing it or something like that in order to have a greater freedom of Dennett's definition of Free Will - 'control', 'evitability' 'avoidability' which we all have whether the more common behavioral definition of free will exists or not.

I do not need to believe in to behavioral free will. I cannot trick myself anyway - many do because they believe that if they don't believe in free will then they are less free so they then act that way.

But that is not the case. Because if you never had free will then stopping beleving it shouldn't make you any less free because you're no less free than you've ever been because if you don't have behavioral free now then you never have! So it makes no difference logically!

It's just that commonly believe that without free will they are less free than when they previously believed it. But they're not because like I said - they can't be any less free than they were when they believed in it! Because if they don't have (behavioral) 'free will' now then they never did!


We are behaving...we are controlling.....we have more freedom than other life on earth (at least mentally).....we have 'control' in that sense. Whatever we are doing we are just doing mechanically but we do have freedom in the sense we are a lot more capable and consciousness than other life forms (on earth anyway).

I will close with perhaps the most significant line from the article to me that I bolded earlier but it's just one sentence and particularly striking to me on the matter of 'free will', and also a vid where Dennett discusses free will and the guy interviewing him keeps on about how Dennett is defining free will differently to most and he has a problem with that - and Dennett explains because the normal definition is useless and gives you to paraphrase 'no exta powers', etc.

He also speaks of what he calls 'evitability'

The quote from the article that I consider particularly important to my argument:

As humans, we are as much in control of our behavior as anything in the universe.

The Vid:

[youtube]Utai74HjPJE[/youtube]

(Side note: I have posted this vid elsewhere on the forum I believe (or perhaps it was the part about consciousness but from the same interview) - but it's certainly very appropriate here since this is what the thread is about ('free will'))).

EvF