Free Will, Free Won't?

[ManMachine]

Ben Libet's now legendary experiment into the relationship between conscious experience of volition and the BP, which seemed to suggest Free Will was questionable, still left the door open when subjects were able to prevent intended movement at the last moment, the 'Free Won't' as it was subsequently called.

It now seems that 'Free Won't' is no more under our conscious control than Free Will.

There is no Free Won't

The question of how important the idea of free will is to people is clearly one for debate, but the question I'm putting on the table is how much weight should we give neuroscience in this debate, if indeed any at all?


MM

[MindForgedManacle]

At best, I think neuroscience would help further nail what science and philosophy have been driving towards for centuries: determinism. It would be rather odd to say that the constituents of everything (atoms, fields, etc.) have their behaivors determined, but in the big picture you're in control. Although that sounds like a composition fallacy. o.o

I'm not sure anything but determinism makes sense. But the compatibilist view of free will could still be true even if determinism is.

[ManMachine]

At best, I think neuroscience would help further nail what science and philosophy have been driving towards for centuries: determinism. It would be rather odd to say that the constituents of everything (atoms, fields, etc.) have their behaivors determined, but in the big picture you're in control. Although that sounds like a composition fallacy. o.o

I'm not sure anything but determinism makes sense. But the compatibilist view of free will could still be true even if determinism is.

I'm not sure science and philosophy lead us toward determinism alone but certainly toward the position that there is no free will. This leaves us two potential fall back positions, one of which is determinism and also hard incompatibilism, the latter is closer to my own preferred position.

I think what science does show us is the universe is not deterministic and is rather driven by probability, which in itself might suggest another position. If we hypothetically accept there is no free will then we accept we are programmed to respond subconsciously to external stimuli before we become conscious of the decision to act, but as that stimuli is probabilistic and not deterministic it leaves our subconscious in the position of playing games of chance.

But, in saying this are we throwing the baby out with the bath water, because if we are saying the only two options neuroscience seems to be presenting us are determinism and hard incompatibilism (assuming compatibilism and libertarianism are ruled out by the lack of empirical evidence for free will), which simply reduces sub-conscious action to a 'punt' on a chance result.

Perhaps free will lies in the retroaction of applying our conscious justification to the sub-consciously initiated action, which potentially brings compatibilism and libertarianism back into the mix.

My feeling is that neuroscience has less influence on the philosophy of free will that it appears at first pass.


MM

[Whateverist]

I've never been sure what to make of the Libet results. If neuroscience measures activity which precedes our conscious realization of our choice, is it measuring a process on its way to becoming our choice or is it measuring a process which leaves us out? How do we decide which it is? Surely no one is so naive as to think discursive thoughts unattached to any desires, habits or drives are the source of volition. Must actions which the will undertakes freely have to be ones in which we are able to choose consciously between alternatives as if on a whim? If so, then free will is an odd idea. But if free will means we are unrestrained in acting to attain that which in fact we want, then we sure seem to have that. In fact we may even at times be capable of acting unconsciously to attain what we want, as when our hand flies off the hot stove to attain our desire not to burn.

Of course we are not free to choose what we want because what we want is one of the ways to characterize who we are. So we can no more choose what we want than we can choose to be a different person or species. Furthermore, why would we want to do that? If free will requires the capacity to be who we want to be or feel we should be, then I don't think we have that kind of freedom.

[ManMachine]

I've never been sure what to make of the Libet results. If neuroscience measures activity which precedes our conscious realization of our choice, is it measuring a process on its way to becoming our choice or is it measuring a process which leaves us out? How do we decide which it is? Surely no one is so naive as to think discursive thoughts unattached to any desires, habits or drives are the source of volition. Must actions which the will undertakes freely have to be ones in which we are able to choose consciously between alternatives as if on a whim? If so, then free will is an odd idea. But if free will means we are unrestrained in acting to attain that which in fact we want, then we sure seem to have that. In fact we may even at times be capable of acting unconsciously to attain what we want, as when our hand flies off the hot stove to attain our desire not to burn.

Of course we are not free to choose what we want because what we want is one of the ways to characterize who we are. So we can no more choose what we want than we can choose to be a different person or species. Furthermore, why would we want to do that? If free will requires the capacity to be who we want to be or feel we should be, then I don't think we have that kind of freedom.

I think in fairness to neuroscience, Libet's conclusions are still up for debate. Dennett pointed out attention may play a part in the delay between the subconscious activity leading up to the conscious action, and there are experimental results that appear to bear this out. Having said that this doesn't fully negate Libet's conclusions, it just qualifies them.

Furthermore, as you rightly point out, that perceived freedom could be curtailed by individual developmental and personality factors. It is certainly the case that the idea of free will is important to us on a social level. It plays a vital part in our value systems, and perhaps the answer lies there. That is where I was coming from with my question, does neuroscience have anything to say about the idea of free will or does the debate stall without its input?



MM

[Zone]

It's better if we just assume we have our own freewill and carry about our business as normal. We may well run on autopilot most of the time to save energy but I'd say we can flip out of it and take full control when necessary.

[Ryantology]

It's better if we just assume we have our own freewill and carry about our business as normal. We may well run on autopilot most of the time to save energy but I'd say we can flip out of it and take full control when necessary.

I agree. The sheer scale of a deterministic universe is so far beyond us as individuals, or even as a species, that we'll never grasp any more than an insignificant portion of the whole process. Even if every single action we execute was set in stone 13.7 billion years ago, we don't individually have the capacity to utilize that fact in any sort of useful predictive way. So, to me, it makes no real difference to me whether or not I was fated to want fries with that.

[Whateverist]

The sheer scale of a deterministic universe is so far beyond us as individuals, or even as a species, that we'll never grasp any more than an insignificant portion of the whole process. Even if every single action we execute was set in stone 13.7 billion years ago, we don't individually have the capacity to utilize that fact in any sort of useful predictive way. So, to me, it makes no real difference to me whether or not I was fated to want fries with that.

I've always thought it was worse than that. If it is strict determinism then there isn't really anything to decide, is there?

[ManMachine]

The sheer scale of a deterministic universe is so far beyond us as individuals, or even as a species, that we'll never grasp any more than an insignificant portion of the whole process. Even if every single action we execute was set in stone 13.7 billion years ago, we don't individually have the capacity to utilize that fact in any sort of useful predictive way. So, to me, it makes no real difference to me whether or not I was fated to want fries with that.

I've always thought it was worse than that. If it is strict determinism then there isn't really anything to decide, is there?

We do seem to have the capacity to surprise ourselves with our decisions, or at least critically review them, however we arive at them. Somewhere between this juxtaposition of processes the death of determinism lies, at least in terms of our perception of it.

The fact is that the evidence is not conclusive leads me to the conclusion that neuroscience is not relevant to this kind of debate, although it seems - for the avoidance of dissonance perhaps - the majority of people want free will to exist, the question that is begging here is, why?


MM

[Zone]

the majority of people want free will to exist, the question that is begging here is, why?

Why would you not want to be locked inside a prison cell?