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

    Free will doesn't require any part of a person to exist outside of causality. Really, the idea of anything existing outside of causality is sort of incoherent.

    To exposit a bit on compatibilism, the idea is that a self-consistent idea of free will must be compatible with a mechanistic world. The only requirement for free will, in this view, is that a free-willed actor must control their actions - that is, what you are decides what you do. A rock isn't free-willed because it can't take make decisions or take actions. A person is free-willed because they make decisions that lead to actions; a person would not be free-willed if their decisions had no effect on their actions (e.g. they were mind-controlled by a compliance chip). Yes, in a mechanistic world, those actions might be pre-determined, but they are pre-determined in part by the actor. A person is part of the universe; a free-willed actor is a cause in itself. Having unchosen desires doesn't negate this. (Side note - the idea of "chosen desires" is shaky too; in the absence of pre-existing, unchosen desires, why would anyone choose to desire anything? Inherent value doesn't exist, so without at least one unchosen first-principle desire, there would be no reason to choose to desire one thing over the other. And without desire, why exercise free will?)

    The problem with most people's concept of free will is that it assumes its own negation. If free will means being outside causality, unaffected by the universe, then it can't meaningfully affect anything in the universe. Free will can't mean making decisions regardless of causal input, because those decisions would be baseless. Really, fully baseless, to the point of incoherence - how could anyone make a decision without knowing what they're deciding between? If part of the human mind was "outside causality," what would that even look like? Either the acausal mind is internally consistent, and would make the same decisions as an identically conditioned causal mind (in which case there would be no real difference), or the acausal mind would make decisions randomly. I don't think randomness is a requirement for free will - the exact opposite, actually. If actions are essentially random, then the actor has no agency.

    This is why I'm asking people to define free will in their terms. Almost no one here has.

    • KrasMazovThought [comrade/them]
      ·
      4 years ago

      The only requirement for free will, in this view, is that a free-willed actor must control their actions - that is, what you are decides what you do

      So a fox has as much free will as a person. Sure, if your definition of "free will" is what you are (the current state of your configuration) determines what you will do (the actions or inactions that then follow), free will absolutely exists and is possessed by mice and flies as well.

      Yes, in a mechanistic world, those actions might be pre-determined but they are pre-determined in part by the actor

      If those actions are pre-determined by the actor, but the state of the actor is *itself * is also fully pre-determined, it's... Determinism, the outcome is determined, the actor is determined, it's a chain of causality. In a mechanistic world, it's not "those actions might be pre-determined" they are.

      a free-willed actor is a cause in itself [...] the acausal mind

      A human being as an actor in the world causes things to happen, and that human is also entirely an effect of previous causes. If you're claiming they are a cause but that cause is itself undetermined, that's the crux of the debate, and leads to all that I've said above. There is no acausal mind -- if there is, how did it come to be, what part of it is outside of causality, how is this possible, and what evidence do we have to make that claim?

      • WheresAnEgg [he/him]
        ·
        4 years ago

        that human is also entirely an effect of previous causes

        What else could they be? You've missed the more important part of my argument. How can you define free will in a way that is independent of previous causes?

        • KrasMazovThought [comrade/them]
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          4 years ago

          How can you define free will in a way that is independent of previous causes?

          Forgive me if I misunderstood but you asserted choice and will were determined in part but not fully.

          Your brain and will are entirely, fully the result of things outside of your control, the previous state . If you're claiming there is some element of the will, or mind, or brain, outside of causality whatsoever that's the extraordinary and immaterialist claim. If you're claiming the will and mind are entirely determined and the outcomes that occur because of that determination are "free will", that's just rephrasing determinism as free will.

          • WheresAnEgg [he/him]
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            4 years ago

            The human mind can be entirely deterministic and still possess free will, for any coherent definition of free will. That is literally my entire point. What definition of free will are you using?

            • KrasMazovThought [comrade/them]
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              4 years ago

              What definition of free will are you using?

              The one you gestured towards when you mentioned an "acausal mind", something which causes but in itself is not caused. So my definition of free will is a mind that is in part somewhere not subjected to causality. What exactly is your definition?

              You keep sidestepping the basic question of do mosquitoes possess free will? By what you've offered as a definition, they absolutely do. And if so, I hope you might see why the implications of that present a problem for how most people view the freedom of the will. I'm completely cool with it though, flies and toads have as much free will as humans. If that's how we're defining it, absolutely, free will exists.

              In what sense is an entirely determined mind "free"? What is it "free" from?

              Here's the SEP on the basic critiques of compatibilism, or what compatibilism is in attempt a response to, the approach you have here:

              the thesis of causal determinism tells us, that everything that occurs is the inevitable result of the laws of nature and the state of the world in the distant past. If this is the case, then everything human agents do flows from the laws of nature and the way the world was in the distant past. But if what we do is simply the consequence of the laws of nature and the state of the world in the distant past—then we cannot do anything other than what we ultimately do. Nor are we in any meaningful sense the ultimate causal source of our actions, since they have their causal origins in the laws of nature and the state of the world long ago. Determinism therefore seems to prevent human agents from having the freedom to do otherwise, and it also seems to prevent them from being the sources of their actions. If either of these is true, then it’s doubtful that human agents are free or responsible for their actions in any meaningful sense. These lines of argument, which have been regimented in the work of Ginet (1966), van Inwagen (1975, 1983), Wisdom (1934), Mele (1995), and Pereboom (1995, 2001), among many others, present a real problem for those who are inclined to think that we are free and responsible for our choices and actions and that the natural world might operate as a deterministic system (or if not completely deterministic, one in which an indeterminism is merely stochastic noise that is causally irrelevant at the level of human agency).

              • WheresAnEgg [he/him]
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                4 years ago

                Did you read the third paragraph of my first reply? I already addressed the acausal mind idea. It's untenable - either it would be indistinguishable from a purely causal mind, or it would make decisions randomly (which sort of defeats the point of free will).

                And sure, mosquitoes have free will. So do trees, mushrooms, and bacteria. To a much lesser extent than humans (their decision space is way more constrained), but it's there.

                • KrasMazovThought [comrade/them]
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                  4 years ago

                  And sure, mosquitoes have free will. So do trees, mushrooms, and bacteria. To a much lesser extent than humans (their decision space is way more constrained), but it’s there.

                  I think then our only disagreement is actually nomenclature honestly