Why I don't believe in 'free will'

[Darwinian]

I don't sense an illusion. I sense no free will at all.

I'm amazed!!!

[Edwardo Piet]

Yup. What illusion? I sense an illusion for those who BELIEVE It....to THEM it seems to be there....

But for me personally there is no sense of it - I sense no illusion.

Doing stuff is not an illusion for CHOOSING to do stuff for me. Not anymore.

Evidence of free will? I know of none. Any reason to believe in it AT ALL? Not as far as I know, nope.

That is how it feels to me. I sense no free will. I sense no illusion. I am simply aware that OTHERS sense it (i.e. - those who believe in free will).

EvF

[Tiberius]

I'm not going to believe on 'faith'. I need a rational reason to believe - I need evidence.

As I explained to you last night (and I seem to remember you agreeing with me), evidence isn't the only example of rational reasoning. There is no evidence that 1 + 1 = 2, but we believe it because maths works better when that holds.

Philosophy and logic cannot possibly have evidence for them, and this is a philosophical issue. Hence there is no evidence for either side. The rational reasons to believe are based on logic.

[infidel666]

Let me try approaching the concept of lack of belief in "free will" from another angle.

There are lots of people who think that it is a choice to be a gay person. Most gay people I know disagree. Then some theists respond, even so, it is still your choice whether or not to act on it. But aren't some people just biologically (nature) and/or experientially (nurture) prone to exercise more self denial than others? Don't you think it likely that "ex-gay" people get some kind of reward out of that self denial that more than compensates for the cognitive dissonance they experience from their self-denial?

We could perform the same types of analyses for people who are overweight, or people who are into S&M. And however much these things seemed like choice some years ago, more and more we find that they have a biological cause, and less and less that things can be attributed to "free willl."

All I'm saying is that I see a trend developing. That's all. And while I decline this excellent opportunity to leap to the conclusion that there really is no such thing as self control, I certainly don't discount that possibility. At least, I'd go so far as to say that the concept of "free will," in the Biblical sense, is long gone out the window. May I have an "Amen" on that?

[lrh9]

I believe that options equate to free will. (Especially when there are stimuli for more than one of the options.)

[Edwardo Piet]

I'm not going to believe on 'faith'. I need a rational reason to believe - I need evidence.

As I explained to you last night (and I seem to remember you agreeing with me), evidence isn't the only example of rational reasoning. There is no evidence that 1 + 1 = 2, but we believe it because maths works better when that holds.

Philosophy and logic cannot possibly have evidence for them, and this is a philosophical issue. Hence there is no evidence for either side. The rational reasons to believe are based on logic.

I didn't agree actually. I agreed that I cannot absolutely know these things. I'm agnostic on basically everything.....In that sense I'm philosophical.

I do expect evidence for a belief though. By evidence I mean in a very general way - I simply mean I need a valid reason to believe in something. If there's no valid reason to believe then why believe? If there is a valid reason to believe then that would have to be an indication of the truth of the belief - otherwise it wouldn't be valid. And if it's an indication of the truth of the belief then for me it is iow evidence. That is all I mean.

I need some indication that free will is true. By evidence I just mean that. A valid reason to believe in the truth of it - any whatsoever. If valid then it would iow count as some form of evidence, I would think?

I believe that options equate to free will. (Especially when there are stimuli for more than one of the options.)

How couldn't options be there just as easily without free will? I know of no reason whatsoever to believe that options are an indication of free will. Options can be there and you can still 'act them out' without having any real choice in doing so. Without 'free will'. How would options make a difference?

I still need reason to believe in free will. Otherwise I don't see why on earth I would.

EvF

[Tiberius]

I've been doing some reading online on the issue of free-will, and I think I pretty much agree with Daniel Dennett on the issue:

http://www.geocities.com/ResearchTriangl...lbows.html

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In 1983 Dennett delivered the John Locke Lectures at Oxford on the topic of Free Will. In 1984 these ideas were published in the book "Elbow Room: The Varieties of Free Will Worth Wanting" (review). In this book, Dennett explored what it means for people to have Free Will. The title, Elbow Room, is in reference to the question: are we deterministic machines with no real freedom of action or do we in fact have some elbow room, some real choice in our behavior?

A major task taken on by Dennett in Elbow Room is to clearly describe just what people are as biological entities and why they find the issue of Free Will to be of importance. In discussing what people are and why Free Will matters to us, Dennett makes use of an evolutionary perspective. Dennett describes the mechanical behavior of the digger wasp Sphex. This insect follows a series of genetically programmed steps in preparing for egg laying. If an experimenter interrupts one of these steps the wasp will repeat that step again. For an animal like a wasp, this process of repeating the same behavior can go on indefinitely, the wasp never seeming to notice what is going on. This is the type of mindless, pre-determined behavior is what people can avoid. Given the chance to repeat some futile behavior endlessly, people can notice the futility of doing so, and by act of free will do something else. We can take this as an operational definition of what people mean by free will. Dennett points out the fact that as long as people see themselves as able to avoid futility, most people have seen enough of the Free Will issue. Dennett then invites all who are satisfied with this level of analysis to get on with living while he proceeds into the deeper hair-splitting aspects of the Free Will issue.

From a biological perspective, what is the difference between the wasp and a person? The person can, through interaction with its environment, construct an internal mental model of the situation and figure out a successful behavioral strategy. The wasp, with a much smaller brain and different genetic program, does not learn from its environment and instead is trapped in an endless and futile behavioral loop that is strictly determined by its genetic program. It is in this sense of people as animals with complex brains that can model reality and appear to choose among several possible behaviors that Dennett says we have Free Will.

The deeper philosophical issue of Free Will can be framed as a paradox. On one hand, we all feel like we have Free Will, a multitude of behavioral choices to select among. On the other hand, modern biology describes humans as mechanisms that follow all of the same deterministic rules as wasps or inanimate objects. How do we reconcile our feeling of Free Will with the idea that we are mechanical components of a mechanical universe?

What about determinism? When we say that a person chooses among several possible behaviors is there really a choice or does it just seem like there is a choice? Do people just (through the action of their more complex brains) simply have better behaviors than wasps, while still being totally mechanical in executing those behaviors? Dennett gives his definition of determinism on page one: all physical events are caused or determined by the sum total of all previous events. This definition dodges a question that many people feel should not be dodged: if we repeatedly replayed the universe from the same point in time would it always reach the same future? Since we have no way of performing this experiment, this question is a long-term classic in philosophy and physicists have tried to interpret the results of other experiments in various ways in order to figure out the answer to this question. A related current fantasy game for physicists is to imagine that there are multiple universes and every time there is quantum indeterminacy each possibility occurs and new universes branch off. 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?

Since Dennett wrote Elbow Room in 1983 there has been a futile, but still on-going attempt by some physicists to answer this question by assuming that the brain is a device for controlling quantum indeterminacy so as to construct behavioral choice. Dennett argues that such efforts to salvage Free Will by finding a way out of the prison of determinism are wasted.

Dennett discusses many types of Free Will. Many philosophers have claimed that determinism and Free Will are incompatible. What the physicists seem to be trying to construct is type of Free Will that involves a way for brains to make use of quantum indeterminacy so as to make choices that alter the universe in our favor, or if there are multiple universes, maybe brains can choose among the possible universes. Dennett suggests that we can have another kind of Free Will, a type of Free Will which we can be perfectly happy with even if it does not give us the power to act in more than one way at any given time. Dennett is able to accept determinism and Free Will at the same time. How so?

The type of Free Will that Dennett thinks we have is finally stated clearly in the last chapter of the book: the power to be active agents, biological devices that respond to our environment with rational, desirable courses of action. Dennett has slowly, through the course of the book, stripped the idea of behavioral choice from the idea of Free Will. How can we have Free Will if we do not have real behavioral choice? Dennett tries to substitute control for choice. If our mechanical brains are in control of our behavior and our brains produce good behaviors for us, then do we really need choice? Is an illusion of behavioral choices just as good as actual choices? Is our sensation of having the freedom to execute more than one behavior at a given time really just an illusion? Dennett tries not to beat his readers over the head with this issue, but I think he should have.

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.

One final issue, if people do not have real behavioral choices, why not collapse into fatalism? Again, Dennett's argument is that we may not have behavioral choice, but we do have control of our behavior. Dennett asks us to look around at the universe and ask, can I even conceive of beings whose wills are freer than our own? For Dennett, the answer to this question is, no, not really. 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.

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? My answer to this question is that our sensation of having behavioral choice has been carefully selected by evolution. The well developed human sensation of having Free Will and being able to select among possible behaviors has strong survival value. People who loose the feeling that they can plan alternative behaviors and execute their choice of possible behaviors tend to become fatalistic and stop struggling for survival. As Dennett writes, Belief in Free Will is a necessary condition for having Free Will. When we are planning for the future and thinking about possible actions to take in the future, we are expending considerable amounts of biologically expensive resources (brain power). Evolution has designed us to feel strongly that all of our effort of planning pays off, that we control what we do. If this connection between our brains efforts to model reality and predict the future and so make possible good outcomes is disconnected from our sense of self and our will, then fatalism and self-destructive behaviors are close at hand.

So at the end of our philosophical hair-splitting, we reach the same conclusion as the average man on the street, but we have some additional baggage. If we accept Dennett's arguments, then we recognize that we have no real behavioral choices, but we continue to behave as if we do. I would say that when we feel like we are making a behavioral choice, this is a very convenient way for a brain to make sure that it keeps planning and struggling for survival. Our conscious thoughts never see the detailed working of our mechanical brains, we can never directly sense that we never really have behavioral choice, that our brains are deterministic machines. Our brains are designed to present us with a tantalizing array of apparent possibilities and the sensation that we have choice, while in reality there is only one way things will work out in the end. So, at the end of our philosophical journey we must be satisfied that our brains are in control and we must content ourselves with behaving as if we have behavioral choice, even though we know we do not. Nature has played a devious trick on us. Grin and bare it. It could be worse, think what it would be like to be a wasp.

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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?

[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

[Darwinian]

If fruit flies have it then so do I

http://brembs.net/spontaneous/

To be honest, the researchers are aware that a philosopher could quibble over "that's not really free will", so they are not quite as blatant as I presented it. Still, any philosopher who wanted to use such a defence would be faced with defining what free will is, if it isn't what has been found now.

This of course raises the question, what is free will? Specifically, if we can find it in all sorts of animals, including insects, does it really count?

Anyway, I did say that I was going to leave this subject alone, but perhaps something in my brain has taken control and is making these decisions for me

[Edwardo Piet]

If fruit flies have it then so do I

This of course raises the question, what is free will? Specifically, if we can find it in all sorts of animals, including insects, does it really count?

From the above article that Adrian posted - once again:

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

Not just animals. And not just life forms. Anything. So we are as much in control of our behavior as an a spec of dust of a stray atom iow. Zero in other words...

It's not about control of behavior. It's about freedom as in more capability, consciousness, intelligence and freedom in general (avoidability/'evitability' that Dennett speaks of basically).. And defining 'free will' as being capable of controlling our own behavior (when there's no real reason (at least that I know of yet to believe we are anyway) is a completely gratuitous definition. It might seem meaningful but it doesn't give us any more powers, ...you don't need it to be moral in anyway, doesn't give us any more real meaning, nothing that matters anyway, you don't need them, who cares (to paraphrase Dan Dennett at the end of that vid somewhat).

It doesn't really give us any more powers to believe otherwise...as Dennett says in the vid it's just an illusion[ to think that it does.

I believe that I know it's an now illusion though and since because of that and incidentally I don't believe in (behavioral) 'free will' - it's no longer an illusion for me other than I'm aware that it is for others who do[/b] believe in the behavioral definition of 'free will'.

Anyway, I did say that I was going to leave this subject alone, but perhaps something in my brain has taken control and is making these decisions for me

...

Something in your brain that was either influenced by external things or from other thoughts in the brain, or both - I'd say that I think it's almost certainly it [i]must be both. Because there is a constant interaction between what goes on internally in the brain and how it interprets and is effected by the outside world...surely?

So I'd say something in your brain, and your reactions in the brain to things outside of your brain, your genetics, your environment, etc, - made you have to chip in just that once more (whether it was determined or not. I don't believe it is because I'm a indeterminist. Because that Quantum Mechanics supports INdeterminism right?)

Because of course INdeterminism as (as least attempted to be) explained in this thread by me doesn't give any more power to (behavioral) 'free will' than does determinism....determinism simply makes it impossible.

Because the thing is...how does more random equate to more choice? It doesn't does it? That was my point about the dice. Simply being random as opposed to rigged doesn't make you have make you have any more 'free will' (as in behavioral free will.).

To close again with another quote from the article that supports this point I am making and have been at least trying to make throughout the thread lol (crucial part bolded) :

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?

This is why INdeterminism gives no more power to the more common definition of free will (behavioral free will) than determinism....determinism simply makes it impossible. There is still no known valid reason to believe that INdeterminism would somehow give people 'any control over their behavior' (as said in the above quote) whatsoever.



Basically it's physics. And you and I are part of physics. And whether we believe that we are simply doing what it is compelling us to or not - we are. Because the belief itself is part of physics either way, whether believed or disbelieved - it's still physics. The way it rolls - we are part of it and we follow it - we are part of the ride! Whether we have a consciousness or awareness or not. Whether we are intelligent or not.

I am what I am. I am doing what I am doing. It may be stating the obvious but at least it's without any wishful thinking - tells it like it is.

EvF