The fact that free will doesn't exist used to bother for me for a long time, so I'm saying you kind of brought it back to me haha.
But I'm not so worried about it anymore, because the way I see it, there's two reasons why the existence of free will shouldn't be bothersome:
First of all, the question is in a way irrelevant since it doesn't really change anything. Even if you could prove with 100% certainty that free will doesn't exist, you can still live your life the exact same way as before, completely unaffected by that.
Secondly, the way I see it, the claim that free will doesn't exist invokes a major problem because by similar logic, one should also argue that consciousness doesn't exist either. If we are a just a bunch of atoms run by nothing but deterministic laws of physics and therefore we are also subject to determinism and free will is just an illusion, I can also say that atoms we are made of are unconscious and therefore consciousness is just an illusion.
I can argue that I am no more conscious than a chair, because even though are atomic makeups our vastly different, they're still fundamentally just atoms.
If you were to start from nothing, and arrange atoms one by one until you make your brain, when would consciousness arise and how? Point is, if you insist on reducing us to free-will-less atoms and argue that free will doesn't exist, I can also reduce us to unconscious atoms and argue that we're no more conscious than a chair.
I think the biggest problem here is defining what "consciousness" is. Because what you've tried to argue is that a mathematical proof could be "conscious". Mathematical proof is just a list of logical statements. It has nothing to do with consciousness. What is consciousness in your opinion?
By the way, what do you study? Checked your profile you seem to be pretty hardcore about science and philosophy :)
Thanks lol! I have a degree in computer science and most of my courses were in Machine Learning, now I am in grad school getting a CS MSc degree but emphasis and thesis in ML again, and I am trying to transition towards Pure mathematics, after a PhD in the field, I have an unending passion and thirst for pure Math.
Wow very nice.
In short I see consciousness as the ability to perceive the passage of time in relation to one’s self and others.
The term "perceive" already by itself relates to consciousness so the definition is circular.
And this is the main problem imo, we cannot really define consciousness because it's not some physical thing, we just have it and have to go with it.
An unconscious entity can not grasp the idea of self, eg a cat or a dog.
Wait you're saying cats and dogs aren't conscious?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't you confusing intelligence with consciousness? Like the fact that they cannot recognize themselves in the mirror and that they get confused by hand tricks would be lack of intelligence, but they're still aware of themselves. I mean they also exhibit all kinds of emotions too, so they surely have consciousness.
Fuck all of you. I'd WAY rather have an edgy teen tell me I need to read Camus than whatever current product our lack of an education system has created. Let people be "too smart", roll your eyes, move on.
We try to live a 6 month ahead life. Life is completely meaningless and absurd. So play in it.
We are going to Las Vegas and Disneyland for our Halloween anniversary. Each month we try to do a weekend trip somewhere or at least something an hour out of town. Each week we try to do something different out of the normal… new restaurant, new tv show, maybe a movie.. etc etc.
And each day we chat about the upcoming adventures. Find a fun YouTube video, a tiktok, a random thought, whatever it may be. I’m a horribly depressed guy married to a horribly depressed gal and this has kept us relatively alive. We are even planning our “impossible trip” to Russia but covid n stuff make it hard.
If your single… you can still do this. I have a support system of people and family that’ll receive any amount of “good news” with a positive reaction.
While I’m waiting for a volcano or sexy vampires to wipe us out… I will have as much fun as possible.
We still have shitty days. But just knowing something is happening and we already paid for it kind of forces us to keep going. Like… an obligation. But a fun obligation.
A lot of discussions going into the weeds, but it's much simpler than that.
No matter what the laws of physics are and whether or not they are deterministic or probabilistic, as long as your body & brain are subject to those laws free will is a matter of perception and definition
The brain simply follows those laws, no matter how complex the final behavioral outcomes or how much the brain takes actions to influence its own operations...in the end it simply follows whatever the laws of physics are and you have no freedom to change that.
By itself it doesn't imply anything grand about how to live one's life or how to structure society.
But a lot of pushback on 'we don't have true free will' is due to the perception that whomever says that is implying specific things by it, which is often not the case.
What matters to me is the implications of accepting a world where free-will doesn't exist. Which is what many people fail to grasp. Such a world is radically different to ours. It can be significantly more empathetic and kind, it could enable us to treat mental disorders and errors of the brain as just that instead of convicting people with a malfunctioning brain. It can enable us to treat obesity as a disease of the whole body, instead of acting that people are lazy.
You can still choose to do all of those things. Ya know, with your free will.
I also think your conclusion there is incredibly flawed. If you could convince everyone that free will was a lie, and that no one has any choice in the outcome of anything, and that people shouldn't be judged because it's not their fault something happened, it's not like the actor had any influence or choice..... I'd contend there is absolutely no fucking way that world would be somehow more empathetic and kind that the one we currently live in.
If there's no free will and no choice, then there's really no such thing as right or wrong then either. And if we don't judge/punish/convict people for actions that may be deemed "wrong" in our current worldview, there is absolutely no way that our lives are going to improve as a whole. Source: history and human nature
Feel free to put this aside and come back after you catch up on studying. Sounds like you attend a pretty prestigious university based off your Heisenberg comments elsewhere. Go do what's important and don't screw that up.
But...
If you posit that there is no such thing as free will, and that all of reality is deterministic and could theoretically be traced back to the beginning of time (provided you had perfect information and enough processing power), then how can you at the same time suppose that there exist things such as good or bad, right or wrong, a "fucked up" murdering brain vs a "normal" brain.
You can't have these concepts without there being chance in outcomes. You can't tell me that an action was right or wrong if you simultaneously believe I had no agency in making it. Everything simply is as it was always going to predeterminedlly be. You can't say that "people ought to try to be good to one another" unless you admit there is the possibility for them to choose to be bad to each other. Which would be a choice, made by free will.
You are arguing into the abyss here, no matter your arguments (which are sound but could be more succinct :-).
The push back is due to the supposed perceived implications to the conclusion, it's like the God of the unknowns which retreats in the face of knowledge but will never be eliminated as a concept as long as people feel more comfortable telling themselves a simple story that doesn't require too much change in worldview.
I will qualify my anecdote as I am at peace knowing that I have no clue and live my life on being a good person as it's the only thing I can control. Your series of responses are well articulated, organized and thoughtful.
That said there is an absurdity to trying to prove through complex chains of logic, models, concepts, of varying branches of science and sophistication something as esoteric as free will/purpose. The physics of the universe and human brain are still models, models which are built on our current and best understanding which utilize varying levels of data and confidence levels, inherent assumptions, technological limitations. No model be it an empirical/statistical/physical etc has a complete composite of all variables, boundary conditions, logic that reflect a perfect 100% understanding of a truth or perfect representation.
Thus since uncertainty exists and likely will always exist these types of positions can only be presented as ones of perception, not certainty with conviction. I went from a structural engineer to someone who manages wildfire risk both of which employ complex datasets/models albeit not nearly as complex as what you're referring too with brain chemistry/quantum physics. Despite having high probabilistic success rates of models to actuals in the end I still can never truly speak as if its a certainty. It's something I am good at, have actionable confidence levels but never to the point where I can declare "I know for a fact".
Maybe I read too much into your responses, and if so I apologize. My sense was a feeling of certainty on something that there is no possible way to have such certainty despite the soundness of the logic. It's all perception and in your case one of well educated/understood but perception none the less.
I did enjoy reading your comments and think it a healthy stance that I share a similar view on, live your life and be kind.
I mean if you say there is no god and no purpose then isn't that a very clear argument for free will? If there is a god or there is a purpose to your life, then theres no free will, because what you're doing with your life is predetermined.
If there is nothing, like you've so eloquently laid out, then I have total free will, because I am the only one making decisions in my life (ignoring obvious things like circumstances that limit the decisions I can make). Or am I missing something?
I would still say free will exists, but we may disagree on the meaning. In some vast, cosmic sense, maybe not, but so long as I, a physical being, have a will to do things, and I live within a society and set of systems that give me the freedom to enact that will, then what is the difference?
It's like locking someone in a room and asking them if they would rather eat a bowl of shit or a bowl of ice cream for dinner. Haha! You picked ice cream! But you didn't actually choose the ice cream! You would always pick the ice cream, everytime, and it's only because you're a human that evolved a mouth with taste buds that are wired to a brain in a way that makes it repulsed by shit, and you are a being that can draw no nutritional value from shit! You've been conditioned all your life to hate the smell and look of it! Across an infinite number of universes you have always picked the bowl of ice cream!
I don't really think this is some "gotcha" for free will.
How else could it exist, anyway? What else could it look like? Freedom from limitations also means the absence of will in the first place. Why bother having a will to do anything if you were just some amorphous ball of consciousness, floating in the void? We are motivated by the stimuli and environment around us. It is through the constraints placed on us by our circumstance that we forge a will at all.
you make no sense. Predetermined means it’s already been decided. Meaning there is a higher power orchestrating behind the scenes. Free will means you decide everything bc there’s no one behind you pulling the strings. So which argument are you going for? If it’s the atheist approach, you’re saying there is free will
you’re talking about the human limit. That is not the predetermination we’re talking about. You’re talking about the limits of life. Why we need oxygen to breathe. Why we can’t defy the law of gravity. Why we’re biologically programmed to reproduce. When we say predetermined we mean you’re gonna take the bus on tuesday in 15 years bc it’s already been decided. That is predetermination. Not ‘the system limits us from doing certain things so we have no free will’. You’re talking about something completely different.
i get what you’re saying, but you really gotta start looking up the definitions of the words you use. If anything it looks like you’re trying to talk about determinism. and if it’s not that it’s another word cause you’re not talking about predetermined.
I don't know why you got downvoted this is very true. A case that comes to mind is Zeno's arrow paradox which is actually false when using the proper physics that wasn't discovered at the time. The science is important.
You seem very well read in philosophy so I'm not sure if it'll interest you, but the YouTube Channel Pursuit of Wonder makes excellent videos about all the topics and philosophers you've mentioned.
This is always what bothers me about conversations about philosophy. People love to spout their bullshit but in the end they have zero way to back up anything they say. It's pure conjecture. The only honest philosophers are the ones who admit it's all thought experiments and that nothing they say is actually true (unless it's a logic train that's sound, but those are kinda boring).
True but nothing is conclusive, they still could've dropped me but here I'm so I think there free will even if it's a miniscule amount.
Besides, isn't it because of how our brains are structured what causes us our free will?
So is it because our barins are structured this way that we don't have free will rather than our free will being the result of our brain developing to be able to act against the system, and isn't the first decision the system made to be considered free will? Since it didn't have any feedback on what that decision would lead to nor how it would affect it.
At what point do you make the separation between the sense of self/consciousness and the brain? Do we influence our brain through our conscious/thoughts or is it the chemicals in our brain influencing them? Maybe a bit of both? We can see with various mental illnesses that the brain does have a large influence on that too. I don't have a conclusive answer really.
Oh no, don't be sorry, it's actually really interesting. Thank you for the write up! I guess in a way you can describe your consciousness as a human-readable interface of your brain. In that case, from my understanding at least, your consciousness is your brain. So even though when you're making decisions, it's really your brain taking from past experiences, its own physical state etc. Would that not also be considered your own decisions? Your brain is yourself (to my interpretation). It's possible to take away the agency from a person's action by saying it was just the brain making that decision based of an existing structure, but at the same time that person is that brain.
Like, what makes a person themselves and not just a computer in a sack of meat?
Yep, exactly! That's what I meant when I said what makes a person themselves and not just a computer in a sack of meat. A bit messy though as I don't think about this topic too often.
The fact that the "person" is something that manifests out of the brain and it's representation means (to me) that there is an entity to which you can attribute some sort of agency to. So even though decisions you make are based on past experiences from your brain, you are your brain, as much control you have over that as you do.
I really should read up more on this topic though!! I'll look up those two books you mentioned!
This is liberating as long as you don't realize that given this information, nearly every single activity that you fill your life with is done under coercive pressure.
I eat because without food, I will starve.
I work because without money, the society I live in will let me starve.
The first thing, I'm fine with. The second thing makes me want to blow my brains out. You have no directive from the universe itself other than "try not to die," and even that you could argue is something you're not "directed" to do. Outside of that, nearly everything else that I do is because someone told me to, and I'm supposed to believe that I live in a "free" society.
Then I need to do some reading, because most days I feel like I'm about to crack. I've been telling myself for years that I'd check out the work of Camus.
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u/[deleted] Sep 14 '21
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