I wrote this article about free will with the intention of submitting it to be published somewhere. After I wrote this, I read Sam Harris's book "Free Will." I decided that my article sounded too similar to Sam Harris's views so I decided I wouldn't submit it anywhere. But I'll be damned if it doesn't get read by someone so I'm putting the link here.
P.S. If you have any feedback you want to give, I'd appreciate that as well.
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Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.Daniel Dennett pointes Out when debating Harris on free will the following: if there is no free will why would we hold anyone accountable when signing legal paperwork or making contracts? Clearly if we have no real freedom of choice all legal contracts are null and void. The legal system cannot hold me responsible for my decision to run a red light or steal as I was predetermined to do that.
Free will is a hing pin to civil society.
SpineyNorman
Level 5
Apr 23, 2019
0
I'll assume that you're actually making the argument (rather than just relaying Dennett's argument) so I'll respond to it.
I believe that "responsible" is the wrong word to use. Sure, we can't hold anyone "responsible" for their actions, not only because there is no free will, but also because there is no inner person, a "self," with whom the responsibility could lie. To get to the answer, we need to investigate the consequences of obeying and breaking documents that one has signed.
The act of signing a document has its own set of causes: mainly, the feeling of responsibility to obey the document, the retrospective guilt associated with disobeying it, and the fear of consequences for disobeying it. So you can see that the very act of signing a document encourages someone to do whatever they agreed to do.
@BFrydell why would signing a document you don’t believe in force you to follow it? Meaning, if you don’t believe you had the free will to choose, how do you have the free will to obey? Guilt, obligation and fear require free will to understand and motivate you to make a good decision about what you sign. If you believe in determinism, you are saying you have no choice but to sign and those factors won’t matter.
@SpineyNorman honestly, it doesn’t seem like you understand determinism. The things that you list don’t require free will to exist. If I sign a contract to cut your grass every week, and then one week I don’t cut your grass, a determinist would fully admit that it is possible for me to feel guilty. He would simply also say that there is a reason that I decided to not cut your grass and that my not cutting your grass is the reason that I feel guilty.
Signing a document wouldn’t “force” you to follow it. It would simply strengthen the influences that push you to follow the instructions laid out in that contract. So you have neither the free will to sign not the free will to obey.
This has actually been on my mind quite a bit, but independent of outside philosophical discussions.
I believe that every event stems from a single existence. Smaller than on an molecular level, because that has components to it. Whether or not it was created by a God is up for debate, but there was something from nothing.
From this something a series of events occurred. It wasn't multiple possible outcomes, it was two. Null or not null. This is the way of the universe at the smallest level. There is a law of opposites or 2 divergent paths. Male...female. Yes...no. From that there are now 2 events that diverge into 4 possibilities and so on. Are we unique, yes. But on the most basic level, we all stem from that single existence. If we diverged into the same infinite paths of null, not null, would we result in the same outcome? Yes. That means that there is no good or bad. It simply is. It is nothing personal. Emotions and beliefs are therefore irrelevant because they are in ourselves an outcome of this series of occurrences.
Now for the implications of that. Feel sorry? No. We are a vector of infinite vectors. Based on our makeup we make a series of null or not null decisions. Each occurrence creates a new vector. That doesn't dismiss the importance of our actions in THIS occurence. We make choices. We aren't obligated to enable or make excuses. Hold each accountable. Create and strengthen the vector that we are in according to what has already occurred, such as acceptable social behavior and/or laws.
Just as a homicidal sociopath simply exists, so do we. We are free to act accordingly to their actions. There is no moral dilemma.
Francais1331
Level 4
Apr 21, 2019
1
Not to be to obnoxious. But this “debate,” if it can be called that. Seems to me to have, an underlying motive, statism. The need to allow rulers, the best and the brightest; i.e. academics and socialist to control the population. Experiment with it, mold it into something that fits their vision. Help it to “evolve.” Seems others had the same ideas in the past and we look back on them with horror.
You know. If, anyone was interested. The Bible covers all this. Including a more just society. But not with top down control but bottom up.
DanMartinovich
Level 7
Apr 21, 2019
0
Interesting ideas--ultimately an appeal for less 'hate' in the world. Odd tact. I think this is a thesis set against itself. In the opening line, the premise of contradiction jumps out at you.
If we accept that free will does not exist, these goals would not suddenly disappear. If everyone on earth unanimously accepted that free will is not real
If free will isn't real, why would anybody think that it is? Why would we be having this conversation? Why would you be thinking about it, writing about it? What would be the point? I think the idea itself would be some evidence that we have free will. I can't imagine why 'nature' would have you wasting resources speculating. Personally, I think speculation could be evidence of free will.
However, there is an emotional, motivational aspect of punishment that can be discarded: Hate. Disgust. The feeling that the criminal, in some sense, deserves the punishment.
Often said by people who haven't been victimized. If someone intentionally hurt or killed one of my children, there is not much I wouldn't do if left unrestrained and with the means. As much as the perpetrator was predestined to commit the crime, I can be predestined to torture him and remove everyone he's ever valued in some minute way from the face of the earth. I don't even have to pause. Anything I do is justified, morality is once again irrelevant.
If we are to make moral progress as a species...
Morality is irrelevant, and we couldn't 'progress' toward it if we wanted to. But, why would we want to? Our behavior and the behavior of others is predetermined. There's no 'growth' or progress. You're just acting out the script something else wrote for you.
We have been desperate to purge ourselves of many aspects of the human condition
Wouldn't that desperate urge imply free will?
And they’re what we’d lose if we accept that free will does not exist.
Individual agency. All of the 'we accept', we decide, we learn and grow, moral progress--those are attributes of agency--the idea we can affect the world, that we have competence and purpose. They're antithetical to not having free will.
In what sense was Charles Manson at fault for the genes he was given and the environment in which he was raised? None at all.
We would seem to have choices. There are people who are attracted to children for sex who CHOOSE not to victimize children. The crime isn't the attraction. The crime is victimizing another person. People choose not to be violent all of the time--every day.
It's a tough topic to debate. It's an abstract concept, but MY OPINION is that there is sufficient evidence in our nature to dispel predestination. But, reasonable people disagree.
chuckpo
Level 8
Apr 21, 2019
3
Thanks for the feedback. Among other things, it seems I should've added a paragraph explaining the deterministic view on the word "choice" (and "decision" and "urge" ). A determinist, such as myself, would say that it's still useful to talk in terms of "decisions;" however, those decisions are the product of outside influences. We do make choices but we have no choice as to the choices we make.
So it is possible for people who do believe in free will to cease to believe in free will; it would just need to be caused by something (like me talking about free will). Now, the fact that we're talking about free will AT ALL is, at minimum, a huge coincidence (and, at maximum, evidence of free will). I was thinking about that this morning. It's an interesting predicament.
We can feel the urge to purge ourselves of some of the more harmful aspects of humanity. That urge was caused by something: namely, the fact that we realized that almost nothing good comes from it (hateful people probably live shorter lives than loving people, hatred causes unnecessary violence, etc.).
The same for your point about the phrase "we accept."
Regarding child abusers, those who are able to resist the urge to do it, a determinist would argue, simply have weaker urges to do it or stronger urges NOT to do it. They might be extra afraid of the repercussions or extra sensitive to the apparent immorality of the terrible act. Determinists would simply say that there's got to be a reason that he was able to resist the urge.
@BFrydell, ahaha, REALLY interesting stuff. I don't agree, but I think you're making a reasonable argument worth considering. Fun. I would not say to you I'm providing you feedback. I'm trying to understand the nature of reality too, so it's infinitely useful to come into contact with other people with surprising and innovative theories to compare my own theories to.
I can see where the right suppositions allow something like 'free will' to fall away. But, I don't think that is the real reality. I can't say it's wrong. I don't know. It's also unpalatable to me. I'm curious if the idea of predestination is palatable to you? Do you feel good about that or bad about that or nothing about that? Granted either of us feeling any particular way has zero impact on what the truth of the matter is. I'd just like to know how your theory makes you feel, if that's fair to ask.
I don't know if this will be interesting to you or not, but I come from the same direction in religion. My observations about human beings don't make sense without continuance--we continue on in some form after death. That could be God, a god, or some natural extension to our understanding of our lives. It seems to me such a system is the predicate for all things human--the answer to why do we care to hold this conversation? A bit of a rabbit hole, but the two seem to be related--maybe necessarily so.
@chuckpo well I'd say that I actually feel slightly good about it. It seems like the main way that it could negatively affect your life would be the idea that you are unable to affect your future, get that degree, get that black belt, because everything is determined. The idea of "destiny." A fatalist would say "well, if free will doesn't exist, then why should I do anything at all? I'll just sit here and wait and see if I'm going to get my degree since everything is predetermined." However, that is itself a choice that will have proximate causes: like not getting that degree. So I definitely don't think that the lack of free will could negatively affect anyone's emotional life if they look at it the correct way.
I feel slightly good about it because, well, the point I made in the article. I find it much easier to forgive people if I knew that "they" didn't do it. That "their" choice to do whatever ignorant or rude thing they did was caused by something else.
I put the word "they" in quotations because, at rock bottom, there is no "they." The idea of free will is closely related to the idea of the self. In particular, I believe that there is no "self" (the "ghost in the machine," the feeling that "you" are not identical to your brain and body, that you're something more) to have been able to make choices that are unaffected by the natural world. This is covered in the books "On Having No Head," "Waking Up," and others.
Yeah, free will and God are related. You might be able to tell this but I'm currently an atheist. If God does exist then that would force me to rethink the free will issue
@BFrydell, here's an interesting consideration (I've been thinking about this). In the end, predestination may not be functionally important at all. Because no matter what I do, I'm doing what I was always going to do. So, you still have to make the choices you make--even if that choice is to do nothing. You were always going to do nothing. Ultimately, it puts the onus for choices back onto the individual.
This reminds me of infinite parallel universes where every iteration of my possible choices have their own space to be what's 'real'.
I'd also suggest there's a difference between predestination and knowing in advance what choices we are going to make. Knowing doesn't make predestination. I know, in general, the stages my children are going to pass through during their lifespans. It's already a near certainty. However, I'm not predetermining their courses. I simply recognize the maturing process within some bands of common behavior.
Theism, atheism, agnosticism--it's not like this stuff is easy, haha. We're all just trying to figure it out, and personally I think there's honor in the process.
"There's probably nothing that I could ever say that hasn't already been said better by someone else." ~Drow~
BrandonHart
Level 4
Apr 21, 2019
3
There truly is no new thing under the sun . I wrote a blog for 5 years , stating the obvious . It worked
Georgesblogforum
Level 7
Apr 21, 2019
1
What's that saying? Great minds think alike?
Phrankhs
Level 7
Apr 21, 2019
3
Haha thanks. Well my view on free will was definitely influenced by Sam (I've watched a few videos of him speaking about it) but the "then why should we punish people at all" question is still being asked and I had an answer to it. And I thought it was an issue that Sam hadn't yet mentioned.
Probably after my morning coffee
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