This topic has been buzzing around my mind for a while, so I figure it's time to externalize it. "Free will is an illusion" is a meme that I've seen quite a lot on this site especially. I don't think most people who repeat it have thought much about it.

Yeah, materialism (which I hear is popular around here) suggests a mechanistic universe, one without true randomness, defined solely by predictable input and output. That contradicts our intuition about independent free will, which seems unpredictable (or at least not fully predictable) when we experience it. I don't think a fully mechanistic universe is incompatible with free will, though - in fact, I think that any coherent definition of free will must necessarily exist even under a materialist lens. Those of you who are (like me) pop-philosophy dilettantes probably know that this position is called "compatibilism".

Obviously, though, people disagree. I want to know why. If you don't believe that free will exists, under what circumstances do you think it would exist? What do you think would change if it did exist according to your definition?

  • WheresAnEgg [he/him]
    ·
    4 years ago

    I agree that any simplified or limited understanding of sensation wouldn't be the same as subjective experience - even fully simulating a human mind wouldn't be sufficient - but I don't think that means experience can't be physical.

    Imagine an impossibly complex computer, purely composed of physical and electrical components. Imagine it's capable of self-observation, that it has a basic form of consciousness. We could document every bit of that computer's innards, understand every input and output. We could scrutinize its self-observation. We still wouldn't know what it feels like to "be" that computer. We couldn't access its qualia, even though it would be purely physical.

    And yeah, the obvious rejoinder to that is that it wouldn't be experiencing qualia, and wouldn't be actually conscious. To me that feels like solipsism, but I admit that it's impossible to know. This whole thought experiment might be circular, actually. If a purely physical thing can experience qualia, then qualia must be physical, but if qualia aren't physical then a purely physical thing couldn't experience them. That question might be irresolvable.

    • Catiline [he/him]
      ·
      4 years ago

      And yeah, the obvious rejoinder to that is that it wouldn’t be experiencing qualia, and wouldn’t be actually conscious. To me that feels like solipsism, but I admit that it’s impossible to know. This whole thought experiment might be circular, actually. If a purely physical thing can experience qualia, then qualia must be physical, but if qualia aren’t physical then a purely physical thing couldn’t experience them. That question might be irresolvable.

      This is essentially what it comes down to, and why I say my theory is mostly just conjecture; there's simply not enough information at the moment nor is it clear there will ever be.