Free Will

What, so far, has been the most convincing account of the truth of freedom of the will, or the falsity of freedom of the will? Try and say what the view is and why you think it's the best view to have.

>What, so far, has been the most convincing account of the truth of freedom of the will, or the falsity of freedom of the will?

Neurologists have scanned the brain and seen that the decision to move a limb is made before the person is aware of it, and described the human consciousness as being along for the ride - you are a viewer, and observer of how your body acts, rather than an actor making decisions.
The decision to do something is made, then the process of doing that thing begins, then you are made aware of that decision, then you use your great power of rationalization to convince yourself that you made that decision.

Anyways, the burden of proof lies with free will supporters, not the other way around.
Free will isn't apparent, and isn't the least complicated solution, you should prove that such a unique and philosophically awkward thing exists, not assume it to and ask others to prove otherwise.

To append to this, a more curious question than if there is free will (anyone who looks at the question properly will deduce there isn't), is the question of how our social structure would work without the construct of free will?

Without blame, without merit, how do we judge criminals, how do we thank people for doing something good, and so on, if we publicly agree that what they did was just a consequence of their life until now, how they were raised, how society treated them, what positions they were put in, and so on.
Can't blame them, since they just observed the chain of dominoes coming down.

Free will in this sense is, like God, a construction required for humans to live in larger groups together, rather than just extended family packs like wolfs.

>rationalization
Indeed, it's worth nothing that most of your actions are rationalized post-facto. And on the flip side, the reason you did something in many cases is that you had precommitted to doing so beforehand (hopefully after thinking about it back then), so even when you've planned your actions you've only enslaved your future self to your past self's decisions: you still don't have free will in the present and few even realize what they're doing when they narrow their range of action by planning.

Not having a free will means being constrained by causalitie and therefore your actions being determind from the beginning to the end. The problem with determinism is the assumption that there exists a "you" outside the laws of causalitie that can be restrained at all. Imagine you are trapped inside a simulation. But actually you are not trapped because you are part of the simulation itself. How can you be trapped inside yourself? There is nothing to break free as the word simulation implies there is a "real" thing that is being simulated. The same goes with with causalitie. We are parts of this deterministic universe and therefore there isn't anything that could be restrained by it. We are as free as we could ever possibly be.

Even ignoring causality and probability, we still have needs to fulfill. We have to eat, drink, sleep etc. and eventually die. This leaves surprisingly little time for us to actually do what we want.

What you just said makes no sense at all. First off, what correlation is there between simulations and determinism in our reality? And if we are part of a deterministic universe then how are we free in any sense?

The "you" construct is just used to explain things to idiots such as "yourself".
Nobody actually claims there is any "you", each gene in your bulk is only working with others to maximize its chance of replicating.

>b-b--b---b-b-bb-b-bbut i can choose to starve! instead i choose to eat, because i am smart!!!

>determinism is the assumption that there exists a "you"
Wrong. Determinism is the assumption there is no external force, soul, god, etc influencing the decisions. Its the assumption that everything that is, has been, and will be is part of the system that is/has/will be basically influenced by chain of cause/effect all the way down/up/etc

It's in the phrase itself.

Since when is "will", a neurological process, possible of being "free"?

> Free
> Will

Your being certainly feels like a thing, and you feel like an entity.
The questions are:

1. Are you really a single entity, as you feel you are?
2. If you are an entity, are you responsible for the actions of your container, or is your being a consequence of the chemistry of that container?
3. Does your being, if it exists, exist outside of the container, independently of it?
4. If so, can your being be digitized, moved into a different container, preserved to be awoken in the future, etc.

>First off, what correlation is there between simulations and determinism in our reality?

It's an analogy about the concept of freedom. The initial assumption is that our free will is caged inside this deterministic world like a theoretical person inside a simulation and therefore isn't free. I tried to show that, although intuitive, this assumption is wrong or at least lacking in some form.

>And if we are part of a deterministic universe then how are we free in any sense?

If you phrase this a little bit different it will make more sense. When I said we are part of the deterministic universe I meant that we are itself! We are the universe. (Obviously we are not in fact everything in the universe. This is why I said we are part of it.) The same applies to our will. It can never be not free because anything that could restrain it is just an extension of itself and therefore not able to do so as that would be illogical.

Our will is as free as it could ever possibly be if we define freedom by the absence of restraints or oppression by external forces. Although this might not be the freedom one would initially assume. But if we don't believe in a dualistic world etc. any attempt to be even "more free" is absurd.

If there is nothing that could be described as a concious entity ("you") then the question whether we have a free will or not is obsolete as will is a product of that "you". If there is no will then it obviously doesn't make sense to ask how "free" this nonexistent thing is. I assumed OP was aware of that when he made this thread.

Is a theoretical general AI computer deterministic?

I would assume so.

Determinism doesn't determine whether or not conscious entities. It determines whether they have influence. In fact there could be trillions of gods but they could be powerless or just don't care in a deterministic world.

As for the specific of your post, there could be a conscious entity ("you") or rather there could be consciousness in general. There could be a "you" in general. Yet it could be divorced from an existence of a separate entity. That is to say, "you" as an identification, "you" as a conscious person could simply be an emergent property of the brain or deterministic world. Neuroscience tells us that our every decision has been made before we're even aware of it and we simply make up a rationalization after the event has already taken place. This can very well mean that the existence of a "self"-conscious being, that is us, REQUIRES deterministic world. Our choices maybe an illusion, our will maybe an illusion, however our conceptualization, our rationalization, and our very "existence" of ourself is only possible because our brain evolved in a deterministic world.

OP here. Just want some clarification on what you're saying here.
>Neurologists have scanned the brain and seen that the decision to move a limb is made before the person is aware of it, and described the human consciousness as being along for the ride - you are a viewer, and observer of how your body acts, rather than an actor making decisions.
In such experiments, individuals may will to prepare themselves to decide, where there is a distinction between choosing to prepare for make a decision, and making the decision which is relevant to the experiment. This would, it seems to me, suffice to explain the phenomena as observed, but would preserve freedom of the will. Is this fair to say?
>Free will in this sense is, like God, a construction required for humans to live in larger groups together, rather than just extended family packs like wolfs.
Do you think that, should free will be conclusively recognized as false, that we should try and maintain ourselves as behaving as though it is true as a pragmatic measure for social health, or should we act in recognition of the truth?
>most of your actions are rationalized post-facto
Isn't this generally because it is more effective to habituate certain methods of decision making, rather than painstakingly plot out every move you will be making in advance?

I think we are both agreeing on the same thing:
There can be a "you" in a deterministic world. I must wonder if it even makes sense to differentiate between this "you" as an emergent property of the brain and a separate entity as they seem to be almost indistinguishable.

I believe our main disagreement stems from different definitions of "having influence". So I must ask you to explain to me what you meant by that.

Probably Hawking.

"Since we cannot know whether or not we have free will, we may as well consider that we do."

Hawking sounds like a pleb.

He absolutely is.

Litterally any great feat of willpower.

>Litterally any great feat of willpower.

What a colossal moron you are.

>"Since we cannot know whether or not we have free will, we may as well consider that we do."
Why is this more valid than "Since we cannot know whether or not we have free will, we may as well consider that we don't."?

You judge criminals according to the danger they pose, as well as to dissuade others, and you incarcerate them to protect society from them until they have been rehabilitated or the punishment becomes disproportional the the crime. Free will is irrelevant.
>how do we thank people for doing something good
If a reward encourages them and others to perform well in the future, then that too was inevitable.
>Free will in this sense is, like God, a construction required for humans to live in larger groups together, rather than just extended family packs like wolfs.
Seems like a complete leap of logic to me. Explain it.

>1. Are you really a single entity, as you feel you are?
Biologically speaking we have no idea about what our bodies are. Few of us do intellectually, and in terms of sensing every aspect of our body's processes? Not even the tip of an iceberg.
>2. If you are an entity, are you responsible for the actions of your container, or is your being a consequence of the chemistry of that container?
Responsibility doesn't in any way need to be tied to free will. If a building collapses, then you can investigate the ruins, the architectural plans, and similar buildings, and discover why it collapsed: what was responsible for its collapse. "Responsibility", as in the factor which is responsible for a certain outcome, doesn't even need to be tied to any sort of conscious thought, much less free will.

>this is actually what Spinoza believes

If a building collapses, the responsible people are architects, safety inspectors, engineers, etc.
Thats why you need a building permit, to have someone responsible for the building (whoever signed it).

>You judge criminals according to the danger they pose, as well as to dissuade others, and you incarcerate them to protect society from them until they have been rehabilitated or the punishment becomes disproportional the the crime. Free will is irrelevant.
(And also of course to satisfy vengeful onlookers who may otherwise resent your leadership.)

Thats not why we punish today,
We like to think we are a meritocracy, and everyone gets what they deserve.
Some people make the decision to steal, thus deserve punishment. This feels good.

If there is no free will, then this isn't punishment, its just removing undesirables from polite society. That feels bad.

Well, what I'm really saying is that the difference between "responsibility" and "cause" is irrelevant.

What I am saying is that we track down the closest "free will" and call that responsible.
An architect is responsible for the building, a master is responsible for the dog, you are even responsible if a tree in your yard falls down on the sidewalk and injures someone.

No free will = who is responsible?? Who is guilty for things??

The construction of the "self", the "consciousness" and our "choices" are all based off of determined path. These are simply post-determined events making sense of reality.

I say they have no influence mainly because they do not themselves act, but are the mere effects of the acts. Now its possible to say, these effects have after-effects and that could be considered "free will" but this argument rests on the assumption of the effects(self/consciousness/choices) all being non-deterministic. Another approach to this is argument from complexity which could say something like "even if our brains and acts are already predetermined, our selves/consciousness are so complex that they can be said of "free will" of sort given the complex nature of our consciousness/self and its after-effects". Or we could say the since the time delay between us being conscious of the predetermined decision and the act of predetermined event are small enough, we can effectively be said to have free will.

I don't buy the fact that we have free will. But it could be argued that the sense of complexity could create a pseudo-free-will which we use to operate within our conscious world, atleast for morals/legal matter.

We most of the time live in automatic mode, as it is impossible to make each decision individually... We don´t think before putting a shoe

We however usually analyze when we are calm, a situation before choosing a path.

Based on what do we choose? previous experiences and second hand experiences, and our natural personality may play a hand in that...

If there is a thing called free will it is there


If a let you to choose, would you rather
A) win 100 thousand dollars right now
B) win 1 million in a course of 15 years(being updated with inflation and power of buying)

Regardless of your answer you will probably take a more "rational" decisions based on who you are. maybe we are slaves of who we are after all, but you always can change who you are gradually based on second hand experience, we all have several perspectives to look to it.

But if I try to burn you, you won´t have any choice but to try to run, maybe fight back... or if you are a fucking monk you could overcome this basic instinct, but to do that it would take years of meditation...

Therefore Yes, I believe in free will, but only in medium and long term, not short.

You can change who you are, when but not immediately.

I had depression, would think I never would change, with a psychologist I helped myself and set myself free of expectations and bad thoughts that enslaved me.

Will power can and will change you, but in the long run probably, in short term you will be water trying to change the direction of a rock, initially it won´t move, it will be hard, but eventually it will roll

Actual freedom, in my opinion, would be "ability to exert will without outside influences or ties to causality ".

As nothing exists outside causality and everything happens because of the action before it, nothing is really an exertion of free will.

Free will itself is an illusion. A blanket to protect our mind.

It seems as though you're saying free will only exists with difficult choices that you can't answer immediately. I would think that this is simply answered by the brain not working instantaneously and trying to figure out, based on its experiences, which option is the best. Assuming instant processing power, all decisions would be made instantaneously, making free will altogether non-existent.

>As nothing exists outside causality
If nothing existed outside causality there would be nothing. For anything to exist at all there must be something outside of causality.

>Neurologists have scanned the brain and seen that the decision to move a limb is made before the person is aware of it, and described the human consciousness as being along for the ride - you are a viewer, and observer of how your body acts, rather than an actor making decisions.
I've seen a few of these experiments and unless I'm missing something this conclusion does not actually follow from them.

None of these experiments actually task the subject with making a meaningful decision. When to move your arm, when to press a button, and other similar actions which these experiments base their conclusions on are meaningless decisions. Within the context of the experiment there is no reason for the conscious mind to choose whether or not to perform the action. The only way to choose is to basically have the subconscious run an RNG program. Then when your subconscious returns "press the button now", since your consciousness has no reason not to press the button you will obviously go ahead with it.

It's a situation where the conscious mind has absolutely no role to play, so concluding from it that the conscious mind must not play a role in any decision is nothing short of dishonest.