The Death of Free Will

[Walker]

Contradiction produces confusion. Is it better to consciously experience it so as to find the door or better to avoid it in favor of an acceptable lie?

I figure that what you mean by consciously experiencing a contradiction* is to experience the consequences of one’s actions that are based on the contradiction. This could be dangerous if it involves wild animals, heights, speed, women or liquor.

Another way to experience the contradiction is to be aware of the contradiction. Since a contradiction is a thought based on a delusion, then the delusional thought can be found in contemplation.

Favoring an acceptable lie? I wouldn’t judge that other than life is short so if the lying path gets tiresome there's not much road left. Life can be spectacularly harsh or harsh like an endless, featureless gray-scape, and people find all kinds of ways to keep going.

Predilection determines which path.

What are your thoughts about the doorway of lies that Weil references?


* Or confusion

[MustaphaTheMond]

if free will truly isn't then my stubborn belief in it is as determined as every-thing and -one

that is: if you're right, then I have no choice in the matter...I believe in free will (libertarian agent causation), believe I am a free will (a causal agent), and that's beyond my or your control

robotic you wrote your piece cuz that's simply how the causal chain unfolded

robotic me rejects your piece cuz that's simply how the causal chain unfolded

neither of us can take any credit or be burdened by any blame

'nuff said

Yes, whether you like it or not, your belief in free will is also determined.
And yes, that is how the causal chain unfolded.
Reductionism is true, whether we like it or not.
To argue against this simply because you don't like it is the "appeal to consequences fallacy".

[MustaphaTheMond]

I have just published an essay putting the final nail in the coffin of free will over on Malady:

https://philosophical-malady.blogspot.c ... -free.html

In it I have attempted to describe the "standard argument" against free will and interrogate the salient evidence from neuroscience and physics. I would be interested to hear peoples' views/responses.

(Apologies if posting links is not allowed, I can reproduce the essay here in its entirety but it is 5000 words long)

I think the issue is thus:

If one asks why "truth" is important (i.e. Frankfurt), you will encounter the pragmatic response. It tends to very useful, one has trouble successfully carrying out ones plans without regard to truth. But what if there is a conflict between what is good and what is true? Some strands of Buddhism say, go with what is good.

So, what if it is "true" that there is no free will but consequences are ultimately negative. I think there is room for debate on the matter. An IAI debate on this matter had a panelist decry, "screw the metaphysics" (i.e. we need to ignore truth because we are better wallowing in ignorance on the matter).

Perhaps that is where better discussion lies; what does society look like if we assume free will is an illusion. Does it change much? If so how?

This is a very interesting point and yes, I agree with you, it could be debated intensely.
I would argue that a society that accepts free will as an illusion is ultimately a society which benefits.
We are evolutionarily programmed to consciously feel that we are in control, have free will etc. which is why it is so shocking and unintuitive to think the converse.
A society that understands we are all products of causes outside of our control can become truly humanitarian, rehabilitative, equitable and compassionate as we realise that the dictator or corporate king does not really "deserve" his position just as none of us really do. We are all just conscious brain-meat passengers on this train, and none of us choose our circumstances. One can feel empathy for the pauper or the homeless man as one realises they didn't deserve their reality.

[MustaphaTheMond]

what does society look like if we assume free will is an illusion?

if free will is fiction, who or what is there to assume anything?

it seems to me that I consider things, that I direct myself in that consideration of things, but if my thinkin', my reasonin', is just determined process, then I truly assume nuthin', conclude nuthin'...I do nuthin more than a calculator does as it mechanically adds 1 to 1 to arrive at 2

Again, henry, it just seems that you find the conclusions unpalatable and therefore you are rejecting them on that basis.
Ultimately, you're right, but you are still embodying the causal chain of your body's particles, chemistry, neurones, brain etc.
You are still the prime "character" in your RPG, if you will. You're not ultimately in control, other forces outside of your influence are, but you are the being that interacts with the world around you and embodies your sack of neurones.

It just depends on how you want to interpret the truth. To fall into fatalism is a mistake and misses the point. And, as Hossenfelder has said, if you've lived all your life as if you have free will and it's worked for you so far, then carry on as usual!

[MustaphaTheMond]

if there is no freedom of choice, there can be no moral consequence

-Imp

Correct, but society is still going to lock you up to protect the rest of the citizenry.

Things can still be immoral, heinous and evil without the people committing them being ultimately morally responsible for them, don't you think?

[MustaphaTheMond]

In determinism the physical universe moves step by step. Each step comes from a previous state and the previous state is part of an ever progressing causal chain.

The brain also functions step by step but the mind often leaps from one line of thought to another. The leap is causally unexplainable. It could have a cause but that cause is unknowable. To say that it comes from a causal chain is not true. To say that it comes from a causal leap is unknown.

So believe what you want but don't say you have definite proof.

I believe I have free will. Why? That's what I want to believe.

You want to believe it exists, so you believe it exists, fair enough. But I would hesitate to describe that as a powerful or legitimate argument, more a sort of fideism.

And the mind "leaping" from one line of thought to the other is the result of neuronal activity and chemical states of the brain. It is not truly a leap in causation, that is just the way your mind is interpreting it. Everything slots into the chain of causation (other that indeterministic quantum events as already described).

What do you think Jaycob?

[henry quirk]

if free will truly isn't then my stubborn belief in it is as determined as every-thing and -one

that is: if you're right, then I have no choice in the matter...I believe in free will (libertarian agent causation), believe I am a free will (a causal agent), and that's beyond my or your control

robotic you wrote your piece cuz that's simply how the causal chain unfolded

robotic me rejects your piece cuz that's simply how the causal chain unfolded

neither of us can take any credit or be burdened by any blame

'nuff said

Yes, whether you like it or not, your belief in free will is also determined.
And yes, that is how the causal chain unfolded.
Reductionism is true, whether we like it or not.
To argue against this simply because you don't like it is the "appeal to consequences fallacy".

if I have no free will, am not a free will, as you assert, then, literally, I have no choice in the matter...any argument I make, whether sound or not, whether substantive or fallacious, simply is

I'm no more responsible for my fallacy than you are for your 5000 word essay

now, if I am a free will, a causal agent, I might argue that experience of myself in the world informs my view; I might argue that no one really understands how the brain works, the nature of mind, or why free will, if an illusion, seems deeply persistent; I might argue that while the universe is certainly deterministic, there's no real evidence the universe is determined

but: what's the point in prolonged conversation? you say I'm determined...if so, I'm determined to reject your assertion, determined to offer no undergirding for my rejection

as you reckon things: all of it is utterly beyond my control

[Nick_A]

Contradiction produces confusion. Is it better to consciously experience it so as to find the door or better to avoid it in favor of an acceptable lie?

I figure that what you mean by consciously experiencing a contradiction* is to experience the consequences of one’s actions that are based on the contradiction. This could be dangerous if it involves wild animals, heights, speed, women or liquor.

Another way to experience the contradiction is to be aware of the contradiction. Since a contradiction is a thought based on a delusion, then the delusional thought can be found in contemplation.

Favoring an acceptable lie? I wouldn’t judge that other than life is short so if the lying path gets tiresome there's not much road left. Life can be spectacularly harsh or harsh like an endless, featureless gray-scape, and people find all kinds of ways to keep going.

Predilection determines which path.

What are your thoughts about the doorway of lies that Weil references?


* Or confusion

“One must not think slightingly of the paradoxical…for the paradox is the source of the thinker's passion, and the thinker without a paradox is like a lover without feeling: a paltry mediocrity.” ~ Soren Kierkegaard

All true good carries with it conditions which are contradictory and as a consequence is impossible. He who keeps his attention really fixed on this impossibility and acts will do what is good.
In the same way all truth contains a contradiction. Contradiction is the point of the pyramid. ~ Simone Weil

I'm not alone in admitting that I say one thing and do another. St. Paul described this situation in Romans 7 and called himself the "Wretched Man." How do we deal with the human condition as it expresses itself in our being? We may want one thing yet do another.

This contradiction is the passion of the philosopher as Kierkegaard describes. Simone Weil describes the value of conscious attention to reconcile this duality It produces the point in the pyramid from a higher conscious perspective necessary to resolve the contradiction within ourselves.

There Comes

If you do not fight it---if you look, just
look, steadily,
upon it,

there comes
a moment when you cannot do it,
if it is evil;

if good, a moment
when you cannot
not.

Normally we lack this quality of attention so the tendency is to accept the lie to rationalize why we want one thing and do another. The ability to experience our contradictions rather than judge them opens the door to a higher more conscious perspective which reconciles duality.

[henry quirk]

We are evolutionarily programmed to consciously feel that we are in control, have free will etc. which is why it is so shocking and unintuitive to think the converse.

actually, as you reckon it, this too is a fiction, an illusion...the counter-intuitive shock is a shadow, just dominoes fallin'...no more meaningful than fallin' rain, or a lightnin' strike

you, sayin' you agree with KL: no you don't...you're a bio-machine, followin' a complex natural program...just trifles in the air

[henry quirk]

what does society look like if we assume free will is an illusion?

if free will is fiction, who or what is there to assume anything?

it seems to me that I consider things, that I direct myself in that consideration of things, but if my thinkin', my reasonin', is just determined process, then I truly assume nuthin', conclude nuthin'...I do nuthin more than a calculator does as it mechanically adds 1 to 1 to arrive at 2

*Again, henry, it just seems that you find the conclusions unpalatable and therefore you are rejecting them on that basis.
Ultimately, you're right, but you are still embodying the causal chain of your body's particles, chemistry, neurones, brain etc.
You are still the prime "character" in your RPG, if you will. You're not ultimately in control, other forces outside of your influence are, but you are the being that interacts with the world around you and embodies your sack of neurones.

**It just depends on how you want to interpret the truth. To fall into fatalism is a mistake and misses the point. And, as Hossenfelder has said, if you've lived all your life as if you have free will and it's worked for you so far, then carry on as usual!

*as you reckon it, no, I'm not rejectin' anything...as you reckon it, I'm just a Roomba

**as you reckon it: I interpret nuthin'...as you reckon it, I'm just a vehicle for universal inertia

[henry quirk]

if there is no freedom of choice, there can be no moral consequence

-Imp

Correct, but society is still going to lock you up to protect the rest of the citizenry.

Things can still be immoral, heinous and evil without the people committing them being ultimately morally responsible for them, don't you think?

society does what it does, mechanically, just like you and me and him and her...it can't be any other way, if free will is a fiction

and: all this talk of immorality & evil...poppycock...my outrage at, say, a child's rape: just a determined reaction, no more or less meaningful than the rape itself, which is, of course, just another determined event

this is what you reckon, yeah?

[henry quirk]

In determinism the physical universe moves step by step. Each step comes from a previous state and the previous state is part of an ever progressing causal chain.

The brain also functions step by step but the mind often leaps from one line of thought to another. The leap is causally unexplainable. It could have a cause but that cause is unknowable. To say that it comes from a causal chain is not true. To say that it comes from a causal leap is unknown.

So believe what you want but don't say you have definite proof.

I believe I have free will. Why? That's what I want to believe.

You want to believe it exists, so you believe it exists, fair enough. But I would hesitate to describe that as a powerful or legitimate argument, more a sort of fideism.

And the mind "leaping" from one line of thought to the other is the result of neuronal activity and chemical states of the brain. It is not truly a leap in causation, that is just the way your mind is interpreting it. Everything slots into the chain of causation (other that indeterministic quantum events as already described).

What do you think Jaycob?

no, not fair enough...without free will, Jay only seems to choose to believe...as you reckon it

does it matter what Jay thinks? you might seem to have an interest in his view, but, as you know, your interest is false, not really your interest, or a interest, at all

[Immanuel Can]

Everything slots into the chain of causation (other that indeterministic quantum events as already described).

no, not fair enough...without free will, Jay only seems to choose to believe...as you reckon it

does it matter what Jay thinks? you might seem to have an interest in his view, but, as you know, your interest is false, not really your interest, or a interest, at all

And why would it be true that: "Everything slots into the chain of causation (other that indeterministic quantum events as already described) "? All that is called a 'quantum event" are things we do not currently understand the causal nature of. But is that enough to give us the conclusion that they have no causal nature? No, of course not. When nobody knew the world was round, was it flat? Did it only become round with Magellan? Of course not. Why would "quantum events" be the lone, unique case of a "non-causal" event, if everything else was strictly a product of a causal chain?

On the other hand, if "quantum events" are genuine exceptions to causal determinism, how would we know consciousness wasn't another such genuine exception? The whole strength of the Determinist argument depends on there being no other possible explanation for anything. If we allow for exceptions at all, then the Deterministic argument becomes as useless as a jug with a hole in the bottom; for then, it only describes a limited subset of all the events in the world, and no number of Deterministic "cases" would warrant the conclusion that all others had to work the same way.

Any way you slice it, some measure of freedom of will returns, unless strict and absolute Determinism can be shown to be true. But since it cannot, we can paraphrase the old saying of Mark Twain, after his mistaken obituary:

"The reports of the death of free will are greatly exaggerated."

[jayjacobus]

In determinism the physical universe moves step by step. Each step comes from a previous state and the previous state is part of an ever progressing causal chain.

The brain also functions step by step but the mind often leaps from one line of thought to another. The leap is causally unexplainable. It could have a cause but that cause is unknowable. To say that it comes from a causal chain is not true. To say that it comes from a causal leap is unknown.

So believe what you want but don't say you have definite proof.

I believe I have free will. Why? That's what I want to believe.

You want to believe it exists, so you believe it exists, fair enough. But I would hesitate to describe that as a powerful or legitimate argument, more a sort of fideism.

And the mind "leaping" from one line of thought to the other is the result of neuronal activity and chemical states of the brain. It is not truly a leap in causation, that is just the way your mind is interpreting it. Everything slots into the chain of causation (other that indeterministic quantum events as already described).

What do you think Jaycob?

Hell no. The causal chain doesn't exist in the mind. It does in the brain which is subject to the mind's direction. Prove that their is neural activity in the MIND that neural scientists have identified. Besides, the mind is the cause that comes from the mind. Circular?? Perhaps. How do you explain that circularity?

[Impenitent]

if there is no freedom of choice, there can be no moral consequence

-Imp

Correct, but society is still going to lock you up to protect the rest of the citizenry.

Things can still be immoral, heinous and evil without the people committing them being ultimately morally responsible for them, don't you think?

moral consequence and legal consequence are completely different

-Imp