RedbeardUH

The argument I'm using is an adaptation of Hume's understanding of Free Will.

There exist two possibilities, either we have free will or we do not. A closely related question is the possibility of an indeterminate vs. determinate universe. By indeterminate I mean that the universe's future has not been determined and will not be determined by physics. By a determinate universe I mean a universe that phyics has decided what course of actions will occur from here onto the end of time. (To those who are going to spout out Quantum Theory, understand that no one understands QT. This means that no one has ruled out that its a completely physical process (even Einstein thought that "God did not play dice." I don't think anyone who posts here has enough background, or ethos, to talk about QT and its implications in anything more than a general manner.)

First, let's look at free will in a determinate universe. If everything is decided then, simply put, there can be no free will. Humans certainly have the illusion of free will, but if causes of 100 years ago determined the effect that is my actions and choices, then it is easy enough to dismiss free will.

Now, let's look at an indeterminate universe. If previous causes do not lead to an effect out of necessity then the universe is not determined. How could a free will act in such a universe, though? Choosing an action depends on some understanding of the result of an action. People need a strong belief in effect to be able to act and will. Without determinacy then actions can never be determined. Free Will cannot exist in an indeterminate universe without being a very confused little puppy, always wondering why its actions produce random effects.

To clarify, let's think of a pool table: If all the objects trajectories can be determined then one is able to hit a cue ball and (hopefully) have a desired effect of hitting other balls into the pockets. This is easy to imagine in a determinate universe.
Now imagine an indeterminate universe with all the balls moving randomly and without structure. It is impossible for Free Will to choose anything other than random absurdity. One would have to hit the cueball and just pray that it would hit another ball.

Now lets get creative and assume that the physical universe is determined but human's 'free will' is somehow apart from this. In our pool table the balls will be "determined" but the cue ball is the free will. The cue ball, being indeterminate, hits the other balls, which

It would seem that an notion of free will is foolish, then. then lose their determinacy because they've been affected by things outside of the normal phyiscal patterns of natural laws. They, in turn, move around and affect other natural objects and throw out their trajectory. The result is that things start happening without determinacy and our 'laws of nature' depend on that determinacy. We would eventually have to discard our laws of nature.

How can we then have free will?

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He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you

-Friedrich Nietzsche

Hektore

In order to say that the universe is entirely bound by the laws of nature you have to acknoledge that physical laws control conscious thought(which is a part of the universe), if you do then you have to reject free will. If you allow that conscious thought, and decision making as a part of that, is not controlled by physical laws then we can have free will in a universe that obeys physical law and have cause effect relationships related to free will. The randomness that exists in the universe will exist will be centered around where the things that do not have free will pass under control of things that do have free will.

Just because an object is no longer doing what it would have done had it not come under control of an object with free will does not mean that it stops obeying physical law, it simply means that the object is not determinant. The assumption that in order to have things obey physical laws the universe must be determinant I believe is a false one.

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The advantage law is the best law in rugby, because it lets you ignore all the others for the good of the game.

nezmot

Yeah, it's well known that purely deterministic laws can have non-deterministic consequences - I'm referring of course to things like the three-body problem, Lorenz strange attractors, Godel's incompleteness theory, Conway's game of life and others.

What all that boils down to is that whether the universe is 'determined' or not is immaterial, because it is impossible to predict to the level of detail required what is going to happen, before tiny (and completely unavoidable) errors balloon into orders of significance far beyond the original scope of the calculations.

Thus, and without any crazy talk about QT, I suggest that the question is flawed. Or if pushed, both determinacy and free will are preserved.

RedbeardUH

The point isn't whether we can know it or not. Its an epistomological issue. If life is compulsive (regardless if our knowledge of its compulsiveness) its not free. This argument does not allow for free will.

And as for the consciousness issue, there's no documentation that consciousness is somehow detatched from the physical universe and plenty to suggest otherwise. Such as when electrical impulses hit areas of the brain it affects our consciousness. Just look at drugs and how they physically affect our consciousness.

__________________
He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you

-Friedrich Nietzsche

nezmot

So even though it can't be determined (despite following natural laws), it can still be deterministic? According to you, yes. Fair enough. Though it still seems like arguing semantics to me.

You'll never be able to prove whether you have free will or not. Deciding one way or the other can only become a matter of faith. What do you believe? I don't see how logic is going to help here. Especially if the logic in question starts off by positing only two choices when there can be other unconsidered options(like the flourishing of 'free will' within the practical indeterminancy of a traditionally 'deterministic' universe)

What exactly is free-will, or 'choice' anyway? Is there a way to tell a choice from a non-choice? Is a choice something entirely random? Something unpredictable? Does predictability help weed out choices from non choices? I don't know if we can even answer this question to any great satisfaction.

If a hungry man chooses to eat, is that his choice, or something he's driven towards? If he decides not to eat, but gives his food to another, does that make it *more* of a choice? What if it was his daughter, or someone he loved? Or if he'd just been thinking about free-will and wanted to try and prove to himself that he had a will of his own? Down that road lies paradox - suggesting the question as framed has some flaw in it.

So to come back to your initial question, I don't know whether we really do have free will. In the meantime, I'll assume we do, and comfort myself with the notion that nature has, to all intents and purposes, hidden the nastier logical implications of living within a deterministic universe beneath a curtain of practical impossibility.

I don't understand your point on drugs or how they affect the conciousness - where does that fit in?

RedbeardUH

The drug part was in reference to the post above your initial post.

__________________
He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you

-Friedrich Nietzsche

noahfor

Isn't there some sort of rule that if two different scenarios always yield the same results that they are just the same thing, or something like that. It seems like it should be a rule.

There is no way to tell whether or not we have free will, so free will is meaningless. Something like that. That's not supposed to be an argument, but maybe someone can make it into one.

We choose what we want. That is, our wants make our choices. We can't choose our wants freely, only by wanting a want can we choose it, and then we are in the same position. Our wants define us, so to be a self and not have some predetermined wants is impossible.

pennywise121

aha, the old determinism v free will debate. how i love it.

not to throw a monkey wrench into all this, but what if we cannot look at this issue using such boolean methods? in short, what if it were both?

now, before the kneejerk, hear me out. there are forces at play that control aspects of my life for me. for instance, my birth. i had no say in who my parents are, or when i was born (and this is intentionally leaving out all the metaphysical rhetoric about my soul choosing a body and all that). if i cannot control the circumstances of my creation in this existence, i cannot ever say that i have truly free will, for true free will must extend even into those situations that set us in this world.

now, that being said, there are things that affect my entire life- my gender, race, ethnicity, etc. all these things are out of my control both in creation and impact on my life. however, these uncontrollables give rise to ancillary controllables. in other words, although my race, gender and parents may limit my choices, they do not determine the outcome. even a poor black boy from south-central can become a successful businessman if he makes the choices along the way to make it happen (likely, maybe not, but possible, definitely)

now, as for the choice v non-choice issue, not to choose is to choose. as cryptic as it may seem, non-action is to choose other than action, and is therefore a choice.

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Food for thought.

nsfx

Here's a lofty but fun possibility:

Free will exists through quantum physics. In learning to control the sub-atomic particles of our bodies, we can will any physically possible outcome by tweaking our own universe within the infinite array of potential parallel universes.

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"...as no thought can perish, so no act is without infinite result."
- E. A. Poe

RedbeardUH

The reason I wanted to preclude QT is because I highly doubt anyone on this forum is qualified to make statements such as this. I mean really, you're just pulling this out of nowhere.

Look at the real issue: If the universe is indeterminate (meaning the laws of nature aren't always going to occur) then there cannot be free will. On the only other possibility, determinism, there cannot be free will.

__________________
He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you

-Friedrich Nietzsche

pennywise121

Therein lies the rub, however, because the natural course already doesnt happen in all circumstances. i had my appendix removed about two and a half years ago. i should be dead, but i chose to have a natural-course-changing procedure done.

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Food for thought.

noahfor

That's a perfectly natural course. Bacteria in your appendix stimulated pain sensors, which sent electrical signals into your brain, causing atoms to be bounced around in your brain in such a way that caused electrical signals to be sent down nerves to your mouth and hands and feet, which all did some stuff that ended you up in the hospital. You only perceived this special bouncing around of atoms in your brain as choice.

This all reminds me of the duck-rabbit. One guy says it's a duck; one guy says it's a rabbit; it can't be both at the same time if it's being interpreted in that sort of a way, and yet it is both, and neither. That sort of thing. It's all being misinterpreted. We need to step back and see the big picture. Don't ask me how to do that.

nsfx

Well, you're right that I'm not qualified to talk about quantum physics on a technical level, but the post, albeit "lofty" as I said, was not completely devoid of basis. There have been a number of studies on the effects of meditation on different forms of matter which suggest a correlation between emotive states and molecular structure. (Plenty of sources here.) This is what I meant by "tweaking" reality. And the notion of parallel universes is just an extrapolation of what quantum physics is all about -- possibilities.

This is where we disconnect I think. From what I gather, you're stating: People require determinacy in order to will, or, in terms of your metaphor, the cue ball needs someone to aim it meaningfully in order to hit another ball.

First, why are the other balls rolling around at absolute random by default? In my eyes, to make the metaphor accurately represent the universe, some of the other balls on the table will be cue balls as well (other beings with their own will). Couldn't all the cue balls on the table "will" to stay still? Or all travel north in unison? I don't think I'm understanding your metaphor correctly. We ought to take a step back like the other guy said, haha.

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"...as no thought can perish, so no act is without infinite result."
- E. A. Poe

braindamage351

I think we can all agree that excluding the notion that thought occurs in some magical plane, thought occurs physically in the brain. The brain is either completely subject to the strict physical laws that everything else in the universe is, or our idea of physics is completely wrong. If everything exists only physically and the laws of physics are real there is no free will.

What if the laws of physics aren't true? Well then we have no control. Action doesn't result in a reaction (keep in mind that thinking and willing are actions, too). We aren't capable of causing anything to happen, and that is the definition of free will.

Quantum mechanics?
A. Either it's not really random, or you can't control it. If you can't control it, it wont help any free will argument. If you can control it, it doesn't have any special properties, so it is covered in the argument that applied to all matter.
B. Even if you could control indeterminate quantum particles, you wouldn't be any freer. The results of your actions/choices/willing might be indeterminate, but those actions themselves would be just as determinate as anything else.

There is no reason to believe that there is any magical spiritual plane that exists precisely to enable the thoroughly debunked delusion that you naturally believe in as a human. If you believe in God, you could also pull the "LOL HE CAN DO ANYTHING" card. But neither of those ideas have any more validity than the "Pink bunnies baked the universe into existince inside a giant easy-bake oven" theory.

nsfx

The phenomenon of consciousness has never really been explained scientifically. Scientists have tried over and over to locate the "observer" in our brains with no luck. The question remains, why can't we observe on the cellular or tissue level? And if the entire human population resembles a neural network, why can't be observe on a higher level? Where is the line for consciousness drawn? I think this is a critical issue in discussing free will because without it, "I" or "my will" is not clearly defined.

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"...as no thought can perish, so no act is without infinite result."
- E. A. Poe

Martian

There's a fundamental problem with determinism, in that it removes the need for any sort of morality.

This was an issue a few centuries back, during the crusades. Men of God raped, pillaged and stole. Their reasoning was based on a deterministic theism; essentially the thinking was 'if I can do it, God meant for it to happen.'

One can hopefully see the havoc caused by such a train of thought.

Having isolated the practical issues with determinism, I would like to address the OP's illustration as well.

See, the thing is, you're throwing the baby out with the bathwater. You're stretching it a bit too far; to state that if physical laws do not direcdtly govern our behaviour, they must not govern anything is to stretch the argument.

An example of my own : when I'm on the highway driving in my car, I follow certain rules. I signal my lane changes, I buckle my seat belt, I obey the speed limit (or close enough to it so as not to attract any undue attention). Yet here, sitting in front of my computer, I do none of these things. Does that mean the rules of the road are meaningless, or that I have to do those things? Clearly not; I choose to obey the rules of the road, because I have no wish to suffer the consequences of not doing so. And yet, I don't have a seat belt on my computer chair and to date have not suffered for it.

Quantum mechanics (and indeed, all physics) are a method of describing how the universe works. This is what men such as Isaac Newton all the way up to Dr. Hawking today have been trying to do. We want to build a framework through which we can understand why things are the way they are. These rules need not apply to the way we think.

Now, obviously, I cannot break these rules. Despite numerous attempts as a child, I remain to this day unable to avoid the effects of gravity and I'm certain that I could get better mileage out of my car if only I could do away with that pesky friction. These physical aspects of it are beyond my control; yet my thoughts are not physical in nature. Therefore those things that describe the physical realm need not apply.

Which, of course, begs the question of just what is a thought. I cannot see it or taste it or hold it in my hand. I only know of it's presence through my ability to suppose that it must be there; I have no further proof of thought beyond my own ability to think. As has been pointed out, a great deal of effort has gone into deciphering the nature of thought to no avail. At the moment one would be just as correct in assuming that a thought is not a part of the physical realm and is intangible in nature as one would assuming that it is physical, but beyond our current methods of detection. We can neither prove nor disprove either one of these theories.

Now, let's revisit your pool table. You may not be aware that I do enjoy shooting a few rounds of eightball in my off time myself. Through a combination of my understanding of physics and long hours spent practicing, I now understand the angles required to place the balls where I want to. I make the decisions, I take my shots and, if everything works the way I've envisioned it, one or more balls will go off the table and into one of the pockets. I'm using an understanding of how the world works granted me through observation; both my own and that of great minds that have come before. This understanding grants me the ability to predict the outcome of a specific action and therefore allows me to make choices based on those predicted outcomes. I may, for example, choose a harder shot now with the knowledge that should I sink this shot I'll be left with an easy one for my next turn.

According to the deterministic view, I was destined to attempt the harder shot should I make this choice, and I am destined to either sink or miss the shot accordingly. But is this necessarily valid? Can you prove that the selection and outcome of said shot was predetermined? Of course you can't, just as I can't prove that the selection was not decided long ago. There is no concrete evidence of one or the other and therefore this is one of those situations where personal belief takes over. But to assume that because physical matter is guided by natural laws my intangible thoughts must be as well is, in my opinion, stretching the argument.

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I wake up in the morning more tired than before I slept
I get through cryin' and I'm sadder than before I wept
I get through thinkin' now, and the thoughts have left my head
I get through speakin' and I can't remember, not a word that I said

- Ben Harper, Show Me A Little Shame