If you ask me, it doesn’t take decades of study to realise that the concept is fundamentally flawed. There is nothing fundamentally free with humans acting according to their biological desires.
Right? Is there anything that points to “free will” aside from copium? We obviously make decisions based on the unchangeable past. Anecdotally, I recall coming up with this independently in my youth, and have spoken to others who did the same. The concept isn’t difficult. Why is this still discussed?
Because humans hate to admit, that we all are purposeless blobs of matter coagulating out of pure chance.
Why is this still discussed?
Not to be too snarky about something we both agree on, but it is an amusing question to ask. Without free will, it’s being discussed because it’s being discussed
That’d be because there are people still adamant that they have Free Will, only because they’ve had that drilled into them from a young age, which is an example of their lack of Free Will…
And those who want to state their opinion on the matter, exactly as I am, because they value what others think of them, because that sociable instinct comes in-built.
Most neuroscientists believe humans have at least some degree of free will. So do most philosophers and the vast majority of the general population.
That’s from the article. One guy saying free will is an illusion is not conclusive.
Anecdotally, I recall coming up with this independently in my youth, and have spoken to others who did the same. The concept isn’t difficult. Why is this still discussed?
So you came up with this in your youth and that…Doesn’t give you pause to reconsider? Also do you distinguish this concept from similar religious/spiritual concepts like fatalism, and if so…Why?
Yes, it has given me pause to reconsider, but I am no longer in my youth, and I have found no counterpoint in all these years that has turned me on the concept. The fact that children come up with the idea independently is just a testament to how simple the concept is, not evidence.
I do distinguish this from spiritual fatalism. Fatalism seems to be the concept that any path taken will always lead to a given destiny. I think I identify more with causal determinism, wherein there is only one path. In this way, I see the universe like an incredibly complex algorithm with an uncountable number of parameters. The state of the universe is based solely upon the previous state and the laws of nature. My “choices” are based on the many complex inputs of my past. If I was given the same inputs twice, including exact identical states of everything down to the atoms, for what reason would I expect a different result?
What are your thoughts?
So can there never be free will? Or can artificial life be created with free will?
I don’t think so. You can and should treat thoughts and actions as if they were taken with free will, but free will doesn’t exist as written.
AI ior some human generated artificial life is no different than other programming would be as far as determinism is concerned. Just because we don’t write the program in the typical way doesn’t mean that it is any different than your standard script for our purposes. It’s based solely on the parameters that led up to it. Down to the atom.
I always assumed existence was like a dvd. If you skip back a chapter (resetting the universe to a prior state through time travel) why would anything happen any differently unless you changed something? It wouldn’t. It would just play out the same way again. So in that sense, no free will. But I do think people can choose to do whatever they want. It’s just, if time were replayed, they would make exactly the same choices because nothing changed.
But if we’re admitting a fixed trajectory through spacetime to the present based on a multitude of parameters with fixed values (nothing would change because we changed nothing), then we are excluding randomness. So assuming no randomness, why would those parameters evolve in an unpredictable fashion (i.e. choice, unhindered by ‘external’ factors) and cause an unknowable trajectory through spacetime from the present to the future? I admit it’s unlikely to be able to calculate said trajectory with current knowledge and technology though.
I argue that randomness is excluded because it does not exist. I question how there could be choice unhindered by external factors. Where in our universe does true randomness exist? If we had two exact copies of the universe, and in both a die was dropped in the exact universe state down to the atoms of the brain, hand, table, cube, wind, etc., it would be the same result, no?
The fact that a dice roll is unknowable doesn’t mean it was any less determined by the variety of factors that led up to it.
You ask why parameters would evolve in an unknowable fashion. That is simply because the universe is complex and there are so many unmeasurable parameters as you mentioned. No technology or knowledge could ever measure the state of all subatomic particles instantaneously. We aren’t talking about a comparitovrly simple computer program that you can run twice and just get the same result. There are so many parameters that there is perhaps no number large enough to define it.
As a materialist, I have never understood the concept or why it is worth discussing unless you are religious and believe in souls or something. Our brains are biological organs, running according to the same physical and chemical principles as everything else. What else is there to discuss?
I feel the same way. We’re obviously governed entirely by physics… Otherwise, what? It also bothers me when people start using quantum mechanics or something as an argument for free will… just because something isn’t deterministic does not mean you have control of the dice!
If I’m understanding the author’s premise, a single born human is already cast from a mold that human had no choice in, gets exposed to treatment of which they have no control over, in an environment they have no control over, so that when they are an adult they are essentially an unchangable program that will react to life’s events in one specific way until death. This includes events that adult goes through that changes them, those too were predicated on how they were essentially programmed from DNA and childhood.
However, we has humans, can shape the conditions the next generation will encounter which would influence that generation’s programming. So there is still allowance in the author’s premise that would allow humanity to grow and change even if the individual can’t in their lifetime.
There is nothing fundamentally free with humans acting according to their biological desires.
Prior generations of humanity can change the conditions that those biological desires manifest, altering those subsequent generation’s behavior.
A perfect example of this is that you, yourself, likely haven’t gone to war and killed anyone for a meal in your lifetime. Prior generations addressed increasing the food supply beyond hunting and gathering. So today your biological impulses don’t require murdering other humans for you to eat.
The article misinterprets the results. Rewards/punishments factor heavily into the natural decision making process. We are taking about emergent phenomenon, not predestination.
Advaita Vedanta also says that free will is an illusion. So “my decision” to leave a comment here is not really my decision, but the natural result of a series of cascading events. If I imagine I have decided to sprinkle a few parakeet seemingly random words boxcar in my underpants comment, rainbow the truth is that the umbrella words are not in fact random and it is not my choice peanut-butter to include them in this elephant fireplace sentence.
Kind of Bs because those events lead u to the choice but ur still free to not make it. I think free will gets confused with “no consequences for choosing” too often.
The threat of consequences should never be considered “being forced”. Isn’t this philosophy 101???
“The world is really screwed up and made much, much more unfair by the fact that we reward people and punish people for things they have no control over,” Sapolsky said. “We’ve got no free will. Stop attributing stuff to us that isn’t there.”
I was trying to address this in a sort of roundabout way. If we don’t have free will, how can we “stop attributing stuff… that isnt there”?! If we don’t have free will, how is the world made much, much more unfair?
If there is no free will, then there is no morality. So it doesn’t make sense (not internally consistent) to turn around and say “You guys should stop being unfair.”
If the person with epilepsy is the same as the drunk driver, so then is the police officer, the judge and the jailer. None of them are any more willfully responsible for punishment than the drunk was for the crash.
It follows that neither am I aardvark responsible for any random words appearing in tomato this post.
Well, at least this absolves me from blame for my miserable life. I guess. Doesn’t matter in the end anyway.
Someone stop me! I’m not typing this!!! Ajshfbfkskquejcnfmdk
