Free Will: Now You Have It, Now You Don’t

NY Times ^ | 2 January 2007 | Dennis Overbye

[shrinkermd]

“Is it an illusion? That’s the question,” said Michael Silberstein, a science philosopher at Elizabethtown College in Maryland. Another question, he added, is whether talking about this in public will fan the culture wars.

“If people freak at evolution, etc.,” he wrote in an e-mail message, “how much more will they freak if scientists and philosophers tell them they are nothing more than sophisticated meat machines, and is that conclusion now clearly warranted or is it premature?”

Daniel C. Dennett, a philosopher and cognitive scientist at Tufts University who has written extensively about free will, said that “when we consider whether free will is an illusion or reality, we are looking into an abyss. What seems to confront us is a plunge into nihilism and despair.”

Mark Hallett, a researcher with the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, said, “Free will does exist, but it’s a perception, not a power or a driving force. People experience free will. They have the sense they are free.

“The more you scrutinize it, the more you realize you don’t have it,” he said.

That is hardly a new thought. The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer said, as Einstein paraphrased it, that “a human can very well do what he wants, but cannot will what he wants.”

[Iris7]

Please excuse the typos and most awkward construction. Editing errors on my part.

[Thywillnotmine]

I don't think it's a crack at religion. Schopenhauer lived in the 19th century, which was a time of intense, religious, philosophical enquiry. He saw the world as evil and full of suffering (which the realm of the Prince is, so no conflict with religion there), and he believed in salvation. The 'will' is opposed to 'perception', which agrees with the Christian view of God's will versus the worldly and sensuous. We are so worldly, and our perceptions are so flawed, so influenced by the realm of Satan, that we must work very hard to submit to the will of God. Free will? You bet! We are free to be evil -- it is the easiest thing, in fact... but we are also free to obey the will of God. The word 'will' is applied from two perspectives, our free will and God's divine will.

[tadowe]

Your premis is unclear, and so what is your conclusion?

Meat machine, or decider . . . ?

[B-Chan]

"Secondly, your argument is not disprovable and so cannot be scientific."

With apologies to Karl Popper, this statement is itself not disprovable and so cannot be scientific. Sorry!

I happen to agree with you otherwise.

[tadowe]

Nanster says, "I don't think it's a crack at religion. Schopenhauer lived in the 19th century, which was a time of intense, religious, philosophical enquiry." It was a crack at the notion that man can change the laws of nature via "will" (walk-on-water, etc.) As I mentioned, this is NOT the "will" which is discussed when "psychology" takes the floor and arrogantly denies the idea of "free choice," or when a "journalist" attempts to translate that chutzpah into layperson's vocabulary/understanding . . .

[bahblahbah]

Check out more pictures of the dastard Calvinist jihadis at: http://www.oldtruth.com/blog.cfm/id.2.pid.503

[B-Chan]

“If people freak at evolution, etc.,” he wrote in an e-mail message, “how much more will they freak if scientists and philosophers tell them they are nothing more than sophisticated meat machines, and is that conclusion now clearly warranted or is it premature?”

Meat machines, eh? Someone needs to tell this guy about the many documented cases of human beings with tiny, atrophied brains who nevertheless had full mental function. For example, British pediatrician Dr. John Lorber recorded several famous cases of normally-functioning (and even high-IQ) patients whose brain tissues were less than 1mm in thickness — or who lacked any brain tissue at all. If the human mind were only a program running on a meat computer (the brain), then these people should have been drooling vegetables — but they weren't.

I don't buy it.

[Cheburashka]

Well said. The will is a slave to the heart.
---
The will might be a slave to the heart, but the mind is not.

1) I wanted to drink, so I did.

2) I wanted to drive, so I did.

3) I hit and killed that woman and her 4 children.

4) Since I am merely a meat puppet, what purpose is served by punishing me? I don't have free will - when I get out I will drink and drive again. Because I don't have free will.

The logical extension of this is laws are useless, they can't control people, so why have them?

That way brutal and murderous anarchy and the death of society lie. I killed him because I'm a meat puppet, I molested the child because I'm a meat puppet, I cheated on my taxes because I'm a meat puppet. (Ya think the IRS will buy that one?)

Laws and punishment have utility only if people can control their will. It adds additional incentive to those who might otherwise be inclined to follow their will. Punishment and the threat thereof can only work if the mind can control the will.

[Moonman62]

The liberal NYTimes making more excuses for people who behave badly.

[300winmag]

" Daniel C. Dennett, a philosopher and cognitive scientist at Tufts University who has written extensively about free will, said that “when we consider whether free will is an illusion or reality, we are looking into an abyss. What seems to confront us is a plunge into nihilism and despair.”

If he believed that, how could he be capable of writing those words? It's like all those leftists, published in paper, TV, and internet, saying that America stifles their free speech.

[freedomfiter2]

Laws and punishment have utility only if people can control their will.


Wrong. Punishment changes the perspective. A selfish individual may still want to steal his neighbors car, but the likelyhood and severity of punishment makes it not worth it to him. He still is acting out the desires of his heart.

[Moonman62]

Calling someone a "science philosopher" or couching the question in terms of describing man as a "meat machine" changes nothing nor adds to the discussion.

If we were mere meat machines, we would not be conscious. Only a tiny fraction of people have brains wired so badly that they can't keep from acting out their impulses.

As Buford T. Justice used to say, "You can think about it, just don't do it."

[ChessExpert]

Good arguments all. I especially liked your third argument:

Third, organic structures work on the quantum level. Examine biochemistry and physical chemistry. Therefore organic structures are not bound by "causality" in the same way as, and for the same reason, as electrons in the two slit experiment. Therefore by their nature organic structures are not predictable except statistically.

It seems to me that much of the philosophical basis for determinism lies in Newtonian science and the belief in a mechanistic, clockwork universe. It seems that philosophy hasn’t been updated to account for quantum mechanics. As I understand it, the result of some quantum experiments depend on an act of will. Somewhat similar quantum events happen within the brain. Perhaps one holds one thought, or another, by a similar act of will. This corresponds to my experience, and perhaps is good science too. The thought one holds, the thought one rejects, can be crucial. Hold one thought, ruminate, return to it again later, and later again. These actions provide the basis for habits and rewiring of the brain. It seems to me that acts of will are as as real and “scientific” as anything else science or philosophy can consider.

[Cheburashka]

Wrong. Punishment changes the perspective. A selfish individual may still want to steal his neighbors car, but the likelyhood and severity of punishment makes it not worth it to him. He still is acting out the desires of his heart.
---
You are talking about how and why he controls his will.

If he's a meat puppet he can't control his will, no matter what the threatened punishment is. Therefore punishment is useless.

You can't be selfish or generous if you're a meat puppet. You do everything you do the way you do it because you're a meat puppet. You have no free will.

[CharlesWayneCT]

In fact, without a soul, you cannot possibly have "free will".

I'll "prove" it. All of your actions are based on inputs and how those inputs are processed. Your brain is like a computer, albeit as you note a living organism. It stores previous information, and generates signals which cause reactions, including your thoughts.

Given a sufficiently advanced technology, I should be able to build a perfect replica of your brain, and i should be able to program it with precisely the current state of your brain. Maybe I'll clone you with an accelerant for growth, and then I'll dump your current synaptic pattern into your brain. (Think "6 days", with Arnold S.).

Now I can control precisely the input to your brain. If there is nothing controlling you outside of the things that make up your physical nature, when I provide identical inputs to you and your doppelganger, both of you will take the same action.

You could argue that both of you would choose the same way, that you both had free will. OK, now I put you in a sensory deprevation unit, and feed an input to your doppelganger. Then I bring you out and feed you the same input, and you do exactly what I already KNEW you would do.

You had no real free will, you simply did exactly what all of your prior history, along with your genetic makeup, led you to do.

Wait, though, these ARE biological organism, there is random variation.

Quite right. So in fact I can't be certain what you are going to do. But on the other hand, a random variation causing you to do something different isn't really "free will", because you can't control the random variation. If you CONTROLLED it, you and your doppelganger would control it in the same way.

But there is still some variation possible. Suppose you and your doppelganger decide to flip a coin to make a decision. You could get different results. But it still isn't free will, you both chose the same way based on your prior existance and input to allow a coin to control your destiny, and the coin was hardly "free will", unless you had a way to force it to land the way you wanted -- in which case your doppelganger would have done the same.

The only way in which there can be true "free will" is if there is a soul that exists outside the physical limitations of our body, and that soul has "god-like" properties which include the attribute of free will, by design.

I realise we can't create your doppelganger, but I merely argue that it is theoretically possible to do so, if not by our current technology.

BTW, even though I do believe in free will based on a soul, it isn't a completely free actor. We all have the ability at some level to accurately predict how other people will react to input. Some people are very good at it, and can uncannily "forsee" what others will do, especially people they know really well.

How often do married couples complete each others sentences correctly? Is this not anecdotal evidence that most of what seems to be "free choice" is in fact the foregone conclusion of our history and inputs?

My conclusion: Without God, there is no free will, only the illusion of it based on forced choices. With God, there is free will, but only so far as he has granted that attribute to us, subject to his control.

Realise that if you believe in a God that knows the future exactly, then you could have "free will" but not "free choice" since God's knowledge already sets the results in stone. And if you believe in a God that actually can control your life (even if it is only to the extent you submit to Him), that control must certainly include controlling those around you.

If you believe Jesus had to die on the cross for our sins, you must necessarily believe that God controlled the actual people around Jesus for his entire life to ensure nobody decided to kill him before the appointed time.

That's just the most obvious example of religious infringement on "free will". If God has appointed the hour of my death, I don't have the free will to choose to kill myself

[Quix]

Good point.

LOL. . . . So a Calvinist Conservative is a contradiction in terms?

I think a number would protest that conclusion.

[trebb]

Not sure it's really relevant as such. Like Clinton had trouble defining the meaning of the word "is", when it was convenient to do so, these "intellectuals will redefine "free will" as it fits their own anti-God agenda.

Free Will is a Biblical concept to demonstrate that God loves us so much, He will allow us to do what we decide to do, regardless of what He wishes for us. His granting of Free Will is an act of supreme humility and what makes him a loving God instead of a fascist tyrant.

To take a definition out of context, then use the perverted definition to "prove" it doesn't exist is asinine. Of course, most self-named "intellectuals" do tend to be asinine, but their Kool-Aid always seems to find some parched lips...

[freedomfiter2]

You are talking about how and why he controls his will.


No, I'm talking about how and why he controls his actions. A will that you can control isn't free. If you are saying that your mind can control your will then what makes some want to control their will and others not?

Not having a free will doesn't mean we are meat machines it simply means we will tend to make choices that often contradict what our intellect says is logical.

[Unassuaged]

I apologize if that was a joke, but God gave out free will, to use it is all part of the plan, right?

[r9etb]

The thrust of the article seems to say that it's an either/or situation.

I think the reality is simply that "people are complicated."

Ultimately, I think the lab experiments described cannot control for all of the possible factors behind one of the decisions they're purporting to measure. The so-called "finger-twitch" experiment, for example: how much of the respective "twitching" decisions were pre-determined by the fact that the subject knew in advance that he was going to be asked to move things randomly?

People just have too much previous history and experience for our actions to be neatly placed into either "deterministic" or "free will" boxes.