A Famous Argument Against Free Will Has Been Debunked (2019)(theatlantic.com)
theatlantic.com
A Famous Argument Against Free Will Has Been Debunked (2019)
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/09/free-will-bereitschaftspotential/597736/
9 comments
The only argument against free will that’s needed is that consciousness emerges from physical processes in the universe. There’s nowhere for free will to “come from,” even if there are non-deterministic effects in the brain.
If you gave radios to people who didn't know about radio waves, wouldn't they conclude that there's nowhere for the sound to come from?
If you are willing to toss out what we currently think we know about cause and effect, and quantum mechanics, then everything could be true. A separate soul, gods, angels, demons, life after death, everything. I’m about 50/50 on that one.
without knowing anything about anything, I wonder about a multiverse oriented argument. Across the multitude of collapses/splits out multiverse-spanning self both makes choice A and not choice A. The cell becomes cancerous, or remains healthy. Dies, does not die.
Is there a space here where there is always at least one of our bifurcating selves who forever escapes the quantum splits that kill us, forever just eacaping death through an improbable journey through the eye of a needle, living until the end of all time? And if there is one that makes it through, were not their choices the ones that were truly free of the universe?
in all probability nonsense... :)
in all probability nonsense... :)
There is no reason for free will to exist to explain what we are witnessing. The only reason people are entertaining the conversation of possibility of free will is that ironically this desire came to be from a predeterministic evolutionary process.
The most common view of free will in philosophy is "compatibilism", i.e. that free will and determinism are compatible.
Pretty neat how the brain is capable and willing to believe obviously and totally incoherent things like compatibilism.
Compatibilism "solves" only a moral and political problem, it offers pretty much no insight into the actual behavior of the universe and consciousnesses within it.
Compatibilism "solves" only a moral and political problem, it offers pretty much no insight into the actual behavior of the universe and consciousnesses within it.
In general i would probably agree with idea of consciousness emerging solely from physical processes as the safest bet that i could argue for, if i had to.
However, I'd like to add a hypothetical „counterpoint“ (meant as a thinking draft, not a real argument): What if our human concept of time is not even a close estimate of the actual reality? If we haven't yet fully grasped what time really is, then there might be other sources for free will than we currently can even think of. Consider this analogy: what if what we perceive as time operates more like color in a dimension just above our understanding (of reality)? If these „colors“, like frequencies, mix and blend, they could result in countless timelines and realities overlapping. In such a (unrealistic) scenario, free will could arise from interactions across these myriad timelines, rather than being strictly confined to our current perception of deterministic physical processes. Sure, this thought is full of flaws, just trying to sketch out that even though i think your argument is valid, I wouldn’t be so sure about it being „the only argument needed“. The sheer possibility that we have a totally inaccurate understanding of fundamental concepts like time should remind us, to not be too sure in thinking that there can not be any source of free will other than things what we can perceive in our realities.
But yes, valid point of yours. I will have to think about this a few more times in the future. But i believe (probably just wishful thinking), that there is more to it, than just cause and effect in our observable universe & perceivable realities.
Like moving your arm to drink a sugary drink. Sure, zooming in on the atoms, B moves because A moved and so on. Clearly deterministic. But who is looking at the sugar-molecules that are triggering the chain? And who is looking at the countless years of evolution making me crave it & reach for it? Sure, still deterministic processes. But when looking at the atoms in my arm moving, observing deterministic processes and stop looking, we would just ignore the component of time & evolution that made this deterministic process possible AND made it happen „right now“.
And then also the societal influence…
Maybe i should have started asking about your understanding of free will and then compare it to mine. Maybe i am not even thinking of „free will“ as truly non-deterministic, but just simulated non-determinism. The closest example i can think of right now would be something like a GPT model running in real time, finetuned over the existence of life…
Which should still be closer to „non-deterministic“ than to „deterministic“, at least in regard of what we as humans can perceive.
Anyway, i didn‘t even read the article yet. Probably should start to do that before commenting thinking drafts like this.
However, I'd like to add a hypothetical „counterpoint“ (meant as a thinking draft, not a real argument): What if our human concept of time is not even a close estimate of the actual reality? If we haven't yet fully grasped what time really is, then there might be other sources for free will than we currently can even think of. Consider this analogy: what if what we perceive as time operates more like color in a dimension just above our understanding (of reality)? If these „colors“, like frequencies, mix and blend, they could result in countless timelines and realities overlapping. In such a (unrealistic) scenario, free will could arise from interactions across these myriad timelines, rather than being strictly confined to our current perception of deterministic physical processes. Sure, this thought is full of flaws, just trying to sketch out that even though i think your argument is valid, I wouldn’t be so sure about it being „the only argument needed“. The sheer possibility that we have a totally inaccurate understanding of fundamental concepts like time should remind us, to not be too sure in thinking that there can not be any source of free will other than things what we can perceive in our realities.
But yes, valid point of yours. I will have to think about this a few more times in the future. But i believe (probably just wishful thinking), that there is more to it, than just cause and effect in our observable universe & perceivable realities.
Like moving your arm to drink a sugary drink. Sure, zooming in on the atoms, B moves because A moved and so on. Clearly deterministic. But who is looking at the sugar-molecules that are triggering the chain? And who is looking at the countless years of evolution making me crave it & reach for it? Sure, still deterministic processes. But when looking at the atoms in my arm moving, observing deterministic processes and stop looking, we would just ignore the component of time & evolution that made this deterministic process possible AND made it happen „right now“.
And then also the societal influence…
Maybe i should have started asking about your understanding of free will and then compare it to mine. Maybe i am not even thinking of „free will“ as truly non-deterministic, but just simulated non-determinism. The closest example i can think of right now would be something like a GPT model running in real time, finetuned over the existence of life…
Which should still be closer to „non-deterministic“ than to „deterministic“, at least in regard of what we as humans can perceive.
Anyway, i didn‘t even read the article yet. Probably should start to do that before commenting thinking drafts like this.