At Mind Matters News: John Horgan at Scientific American: Does quantum mechanics kill free will?

_{Denyse O'Leary

March 16, 2022

Intelligent Design, Mind, Physics}

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Physicists take sides: Sabine Hossenfelder thinks superdeterminism enables quantum mechanics to kill free will; George Ellis disagrees:

One of the most interesting science writers of our era is John Horgan, who has managed to infuriate so many of the right people (to infuriate) while giving the rest of us something to ponder. In a recent column in Scientific American he takes on the question of whether quantum mechanics (quantum physics) rules out free will.
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Einstein’s suggestion that the moon “would feel thoroughly convinced that it was traveling its way of its own accord” doesn’t really resolve anything because the moon isn’t thinking anything at all. For that matter, few ponder whether particles, viruses, or termites have free will. The problem is making arguments against free will coincide with human experience. Nor can we simply say, “People just want to believe they have free will”. Sometimes we want to believe that. But other times (when we are looking for excuses).

We don’t want to believe that.

Horgan sides, somewhat tentatively, with free will. He notes that humans are more than just heaps of particles. Higher levels of complexity enable genuinely new qualities. What humans can do is not merely a more complex version of what amoebas can do — in turn, a more complex version of what electrons can do. Greater complexity can involve genuinely new qualities. A philosopher would say that he is not a reductionist.
But that also means that mental phenomena are a reality. Materialists won’t stay comfortable with that for long. We haven’t heard the last of this debate.
News, “At Scientific American: Does quantum mechanics kill free will” at Mind Matters News (March 16, 2022)

Takehome: Horgan’s arguments against superdeterminism work quite well but they require a world in which the human mind really exists. Is he prepared to go there?

Mind Matters News offers a number of articles on free will by neurosurgeon Dr. Michael Egnor including

Can physics prove there is no free will? No, but it can make physicists incoherent when they write about free will. It’s hilarious. Sabine Hossenfelder misses the irony that she insists that people “change their minds” by accepting her assertion that they… can’t change their minds.

Does “alien hand syndrome” show that we don’t really have free will? One woman’s left hand seemed to have a mind of its own. Did it? Alien hand syndrome doesn’t mean that free will is not real. In fact, it clarifies exactly what free will is and what it isn’t.

But is determinism true? Does science show that we fated to want whatever we want? Modern science—both theoretical and experimental—strongly supports the reality of free will.

Comments

SA,
But as you say above, she gained the power of deliberation – that’s where her free choices begin.
If you define "free choice" simply to mean "deliberated", then yes, her choices are free. I (and most people, I believe) mean something else.
For your theory to be correct, a person’s development would be linear. We have a “nature” and that determines the future in a direct line. But free choice subverts that.
No, you have misunderstood what I mean by one's "nature", even though I've been careful to spell it out over and over again. I do not mean something immutable that defines us; quite the opposite. As I've said repeatedly, one's nature changes constantly as a result of new experiences and the outcomes of prior choices. One's nature is simply what I'm calling the sum total of all of a person's attributes that affect one's choices, such as their beliefs, desires, values, priorities, commitments, fears, hopes, and so on, and so on.
A person can behave very well, then behave badly, then correct that and become better than ever before.
Yes, this is of course true.
But in no way is that determined by initial conditions.
Again I agree, and I've never suggested that initial conditions determine one's behavior. I've attributed them to the effects of continuing interaction between innate characteristics and experiences, which continually change our natures.
People rise above all sorts of obstacles – the same obstacles and environment that cause others to fail in life.
Of course this is true as well. Please read my example @37; perhaps our differences will become more clear.dogdoc_{March 17, 2022
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Scamp, precisely right that you cannot prove responsible rational freedom. That's because it is a branch on which we all must sit first truth and first principle. Proofs come a long way after it and depend on it. To deny it, we imply the validity of the denial, which requires exactly the freedom being denied or sidelined. Self referentially absurd. Instead, we must learn to recognise when we are in the presence of first principles and we must be humble enough to accept that an inescapably pervasive first truth is self evidently true and inextricably embedded in our acts of reason, KFkairosfocus_{March 17, 2022
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DD, if your arguments are predetermined by non rational forces, i.e. you are not judging on merits and choosing to accept warranted conclusions on said merits, your thinking has no credibility. KF PS: Your gear train was anticipated 2360+ years ago by on certain Aristocles AKA Plato, in The Laws, Bk X . . . yes we got the point as a civilisation over 2,000 years ago:
Ath. . . . when one thing changes another, and that another, of such will there be any primary changing element? How can a thing which is moved by another ever be the beginning of change? Impossible. [--> apply to determinism including compatibilism, the computational chain has no independent value and GIGO brings it under doubt . . . valid programmer and debugging needed and needs to be tested] But when the self-moved [--> notice, locus of freedom, reflexive self action with capability to initiate chains, programmer not substrate running a program blindly as a dynamic stochastic entity] changes other, and that again other, and thus thousands upon tens of thousands of bodies are set in motion, must not the beginning of all this motion be the change of the self-moving principle? . . . . self-motion being the origin of all motions, and the first which arises among things at rest as well as among things in motion, is the eldest and mightiest principle of change, and that which is changed by another and yet moves other is second. [--> notice, the self-moved, initiating, reflexively acting causal agent, which defines freedom as essential to our nature, and this is root of discussion on agents as first causes.] [[ . . . .] Ath. If we were to see this power existing in any earthy, watery, or fiery substance, simple or compound-how should we describe it? Cle. You mean to ask whether we should call such a self-moving power life? Ath. I do. Cle. Certainly we should. Ath. And when we see soul in anything, must we not do the same-must we not admit that this is life? [[ . . . . ] Cle. You mean to say that the essence which is defined as the self-moved is the same with that which has the name soul? Ath. Yes; and if this is true, do we still maintain that there is anything wanting in the proof that the soul is the first origin and moving power of all that is, or has become, or will be, and their contraries, when she has been clearly shown to be the source of change and motion in all things? Cle. Certainly not; the soul as being the source of motion, has been most satisfactorily shown to be the oldest of all things. Ath. And is not that motion which is produced in another, by reason of another, but never has any self-moving power at all, being in truth the change of an inanimate body, to be reckoned second, or by any lower number which you may prefer? Cle. Exactly. Ath. Then we are right, and speak the most perfect and absolute truth, when we say that the soul is prior to the body, and that the body is second and comes afterwards, and is born to obey the soul, which is the ruler? [[ . . . . ] Ath. If, my friend, we say that the whole path and movement of heaven, and of all that is therein, is by nature akin to the movement and revolution and calculation of mind, and proceeds by kindred laws, then, as is plain, we must say that the best soul takes care of the world and guides it along the good path. [[Plato here explicitly sets up an inference to design (by a good soul) from the intelligible order of the cosmos.
In short, self referential incoherence. Our rationality depends on freedom, and the imposition of lab coat clad worldviews that undermine it only manages to entrench self referential incoherence. As Provine inadvertently admitted:
Naturalistic evolution has clear consequences that Charles Darwin understood perfectly. 1) No gods worth having exist; 2) no life after death exists; 3) no ultimate foundation for ethics exists; 4) no ultimate meaning in life exists; and 5) human free will is nonexistent . . . . The first 4 implications are so obvious to modern naturalistic evolutionists that I will spend little time defending them. Human free will, however, is another matter. Even evolutionists have trouble swallowing that implication. I will argue that humans are locally determined systems that make choices. They have, however, no free will [--> without responsible freedom, mind, reason and morality alike disintegrate into grand delusion, hence self-referential incoherence and self-refutation. But that does not make such fallacies any less effective in the hands of clever manipulators] . . . [1998 Darwin Day Keynote Address, U of Tenn -- and yes, that is significant i/l/o the Scopes Trial, 1925]
He undermined his own view. A better answer is to accept that while we are error prone, we are also rational, as a first point of thinking. That implies responsible, significant freedom and it is undeniable on pain of self referential absurdity and principle of explosion driven destabilisation of thought. So, we reject any and all views that undermine credibility of thought, for cause.kairosfocus_{March 17, 2022
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I find that arguments about free will are pointless. You can’t prove that it exists and you can’t prove that it doesn’t. Free will is something we either take on faith, or we don’t. It can no more be proven that the existence or non existence of God. All of the ridiculous claims of “warrant” don’t change this.Scamp_{March 17, 2022
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DD
As she develops, she gains the ability to deliberate about her choices.
We call this "she reached the age of reason". She's able to make choices for which she has responsibility. Prior to that, she was developing, but was moved by instinct and biology. But as you say above, she gained the power of deliberation - that's where her free choices begin.
The attributes upon which she bases her choices (that is, her nature) change as her brain and endocrine system develops, and as she encounters and learns from different experiences.
"Learning from experiences" is a function of free-will. We take in data. We sort it, compare, keep some, reject some, remember some, ignore some -- we make hundreds of rational free choices in sorting data. Prior to this, we had no power to do it - so our free-will rational processes cannot be based on prior "nature" since we didn't have the power of rational choice before then.
She may become more empathetic, or selfish, or curious, or apathetic, or competitive, or cooperative, and so on. Each of these attributes affect the choices she makes, which in turn affect her nature
She becomes those things, selfish, apathetic, competitive - based on the free-will choices she made in the past. Each set of choices affects (but does not determine) the future. She has more to sort through.
Alice is able to determine her own attributes without relying on the attributes that she already has developed, over which she had no control.
As soon as she started making choices, she had control. The attributes she developed came from the good or bad actions she performed through free choice. That's what the learning process requires. We're not locked into any one path, and people make radical changes in their life becoming much different than what they started out as when a child. For your theory to be correct, a person's development would be linear. We have a "nature" and that determines the future in a direct line. But free choice subverts that. A person can behave very well, then behave badly, then correct that and become better than ever before. But in no way is that determined by initial conditions. People rise above all sorts of obstacles - the same obstacles and environment that cause others to fail in life. Acts of virtue require a deliberate fight against temptation. We fight against the world (outside influences) the flesh (our own weaknesses) and the devil (the enemy of our spiritual progress).Silver Asiatic_{March 17, 2022
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This has been an interesting exchange for me. I see it's not simple to make the Basic Argument against free will clear and comprehensible. I'll try it with a more explicit example - a story about Alice. Alice is born, initially unable to deliberate about choices. Her nature at birth is determined by innate characteristics in combination with the totality of her (pre-natial) experiences. As she develops, she gains the ability to deliberate about her choices. The attributes upon which she bases her choices (that is, her nature) change as her brain and endocrine system develops, and as she encounters and learns from different experiences. She may become more empathetic, or selfish, or curious, or apathetic, or competitive, or cooperative, and so on. Each of these attributes affect the choices she makes, which in turn affect her nature. In order to assert that Alice has free will (of the sort that confers moral responsibility, at least), we have to be able to say at what point in this process Alice is able to determine her own attributes without relying on the attributes that she already has developed, over which she had no control. People who believe in free will would like there to be some other factor - her volition, or her soul, or her will - that is ultimately responsible for her choices, over and above her nature. Let's say, for example, that Alice uses her will to decide to be a religious person, and her will's decision is not entirely based on whatever tendencies she may have innately or as the result of her experiences. The critical question is this: Upon what basis does Alice's will decide that Alice should be religious? If her will bases its decision on Alice's beliefs, desires, values, priorities, prior choices, and so on (i.e. her nature) then her will is in fact the same thing that I have been calling her nature - which is itself the result of an unfathomably complex interaction between her innate characteristics and her experiences, neither of which Alice freely chose. And if her will does not base its choice on her nature, then her will is choosing for no reason at all. And choices made for no reason at all are not the sort of free choices that people want.dogdoc_{March 17, 2022
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SA,
The term “deliberation” betrays the reality. We weigh options. We use different weights for a variety of reasons.
That is exactly what I mean by "deliberation" - we weigh options according to what we believe, feel, want, love, hate, are tired of, are enamored of, and on and on and on and on... whatever you'd like to add to this list of attributes that you believe might contribute to your deliberations.
This is the freedom.
You're not wrong; it is just a different sort of freedom from the one I'm talking about. People even argue that strict physical determinism is compatible with freedom, because they mean something different too by the word "freedom". We do of course make choices, and you might want to consider any choice we make that is not directly forced by external circumstance to be "free" - even the poor person with the tumor on their amygdala causing them to fly into a homicidal rage (or another person with an equally horrible pathology in their brain that doesn't show up on radiological imaging) - they could be said to be acting "freely" as well, since nobody is putting a gun in their hand and pressing their finger on the trigger. But I'm talking about a different sort of freedom, and I think it's the sort of freedom that most people assume we have: That somehow we can choose our personal attributes, and then use those attributes to make further choices, without accounting for how our original personal attributes (upon which all others depend) were chosen in the first place. It seems obvious to me that this is impossible, for the same reason we cannot lift ourselves off the ground by our own bootstraps. We would have to be ourselves before our self could decide what self to be.dogdoc_{March 17, 2022
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Jerry, Interesting! Yup, all those things affect our decisions - our experiences interact with the way we are when we decide. Still we can't decide the way we are when we decide. So in that sense, our choices are not ultimately free..
Try figure out how women choose shoes. If you can do that you will rule the world.
Oh I gave predicting women decades ago :)dogdoc_{March 17, 2022
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Jerry
Most new products fail and most ad campaigns hardly move the needle. Which is why they do a lot of testing.
Nobody knows what's going to motivate the buyers. There's some influence, more or less. The buyers themselves do not know what they're going to choose. It might be price, quality, consumer reviews, or just some good feeling on the product. It could go one way or another. It's the definition of free-will. Unpredictable and non-determined. We have no idea what's going to happen. Political events show this all the time. Nobody always picks the winners - even with pre-polling stats.Silver Asiatic_{March 17, 2022
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DD
And because each deliberation along the way was made based on the way we were at those moments, there was never a time when we could “stand outside of ourselves”, as it were, and decide what sort of person we were going to be.
The term "deliberation" betrays the reality. We weigh options. We use different weights for a variety of reasons. This is the freedom. We deliberate. We toss it around. It's not pre-selected. We can, and must, indeed decide what kind of person we are going to be. That's why we make the choice. Have the past choices been good or bad? That's what makes the present-day choice free and not determined by the past. Otherwise, we wouldn't be choosing. We'd just be walking along a path. But we don't have a path ahead of us - we create a new future. The past influences us but we can choose with it or against it.Silver Asiatic_{March 17, 2022
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What else besides our beliefs, desires, values, priorities, commitments, fears, hopes, etc. would end up compelling a deliberative decision?
I worked at the highest levels of advertising, each agency had a different schtick to sell to their clients. One I used to teach to my students when I taught advertising was benefit likelihood. This involved asking consumers how important various benefits were and how likely would these benefits be found in a product found on the market. This produced a likely to buy for a certain benefit combination and this became the basis of product development for a superior product. The actual product’s ability to deliver the benefits and the ability of the ad campaign to communicate became a major part of product choice. Was this science? Yes and no. Most new products fail and most ad campaigns hardly move the needle. Which is why they do a lot of testing. Another form of product development is problem solving. Product development is based on obviously solving a problem. People like it when their problems go away. They choose the option that alleviates a problem the easiest or cheapest or fastest. Another rule of thumb for product development, fast, cheap or good. Choose any two of three. Try figure out how women choose shoes. If you can do that you will rule the world.jerry_{March 17, 2022
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SA,
Beliefs? No. I chose something I did not believe previously.
Upon what did you base that choice?
Desires? No. It goes against my desire.
When did you freely choose to desire, or not desire, that - and why?
What other options? Intuition, spiritual insight, flash of understanding, curiosity, contrarianism, the weather, the unknown, fear … There could be 20 different things happening, some unconscious even …
Yes, good - you can add all of those - and more - to the list of things that I am referring to "our nature" or "the way we are"!
You should be able to predict a person’s every choice based on your reasoning.
No, that isn't possible! I think we agree that computers are (typically) deterministic, but complex computer systems are completely unpredictable.
But it never works that way. People are unpredictable. Their choices come from the immaterial intellect and immaterial human consciousness – it’s not a deterministic process.
My argument has nothing to do with consciousness, materialism, or determinism. Only that reason-responsive deliberation is necessarily based on aspects of ourselves that we cannot freely choose.dogdoc_{March 17, 2022
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SA,
Reducing free will to the moment of choice is like a post hoc argument. “We were determined to make all the choices we made”. Proof? “You made all those choices, didn’t you?”
No, I'm not trying to prove your choices were determined by reducing them to the moment of choice. You are completely correct that the way we are at each moment reflects a lifetime of deliberation, evaluation, and previous choices. My point is that each choice is based on the way we are when we make that choice (so much seems perfectly obvious). And because each deliberation along the way was made based on the way we were at those moments, there was never a time when we could "stand outside of ourselves", as it were, and decide what sort of person we were going to be. In other words, causa sui is a logical contradiction.dogdoc_{March 17, 2022
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And what compelled your choice of standard? 1) Beliefs, desires, values, priorities, etc 2) Random mental coin flip 3) There is no other option
Beliefs? No. I chose something I did not believe previously. Desires? No. It goes against my desire. Values? No. It provided new values that I didn't have. Priorities? No. It's something I just discovered so I don't know. What other options? Intuition, spiritual insight, flash of understanding, curiosity, contrarianism, the weather, the unknown, fear ... There could be 20 different things happening, some unconscious even ... You should be able to predict a person's every choice based on your reasoning. But it never works that way. People are unpredictable. Their choices come from the immaterial intellect and immaterial human consciousness - it's not a deterministic process.Silver Asiatic_{March 17, 2022
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DD
they are compelled by the way we are at each juncture
The way we are at each juncture is influenced but not determined by our free will choices we have made. Reducing free will to the moment of choice is like a post hoc argument. "We were determined to make all the choices we made". Proof? "You made all those choices, didn't you?" But it doesn't work that way. We deliberate. We go along with our background or against it. What does God want from you right now? That's called "discernment". We have to figure it out.Silver Asiatic_{March 17, 2022
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SA,
These things [beliefs, desires, etc] did not just magically appear in us and they didn’t just arrive in a fixed format.
Agreed.
We made choices which shaped those things, and we have to evaluate if they are good or bad.
Absolutely.
We choose a standard and try to reach it.
And what compelled your choice of standard? 1) Beliefs, desires, values, priorities, etc 2) Random mental coin flip 3) There is no other optiondogdoc_{March 17, 2022
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DD
What else besides our beliefs, desires, values, priorities, commitments, fears, hopes, etc. would end up compelling a deliberative decision?
These things did not just magically appear in us and they didn't just arrive in a fixed format. We made choices which shaped those things, and we have to evaluate if they are good or bad. We choose a standard and try to reach it. We can choose the Christian life, and the standard of God through the life of Jesus. We miss the mark, and try again. We didn't create the moral standard. We freely choose to follow it or not.Silver Asiatic_{March 17, 2022
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KF,
Do you recognise that absent responsible, rational, significant freedom, reasoned discussion and argument, much less decision, are impossible?
I saw a cartoon once which was a big set of interlocking gears, with gear A interlocked with other gears as well as the cogs of gear B. Gear A says "I don't believe in free will." Gear B says "In that case, why are you trying to turn me?" Get it?dogdoc_{March 17, 2022
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DD
No, I’m saying that the reason we make new choices is always based on other reasons.
First, you're saying "make new choices" which is what we do freely. Previously, you said "dictated" by prior choices. But that's not the case. We made a choice in the past. Now we can reject it. We gain new information and question the previous choice, or ignore it. We can go with our emotions, our philosophy, our faith, our intuition, our logic - any of those can be chosen. Is there any law, rule, fixed condition that tells us which one will be selected at any time? If there was no free will, then there would be. We would always choose because of ... whatever. But we don't. We use several different foundations for choice - for good reasons or bad. Often, we didn't think enough about it, or maybe we over-analyzed. We weren't determined and we weren't dictated by other things. We were influenced, yes - but the choice remained free for a good reason or bad reason.
Let’s say you are a compassionate person. Did you freely choose to be compassionate? Did you deliberate about it – hmmm, should I be compassionate or not?
Yes, of course. Compassion is a virtue. Before I was selfish. Now I decided - "I should be compassionate". Why did I choose that? Was it determined by something? No. I learned, I grew mature, I freely tried this or that - then I wanted to be compassionate. Am I too compassionate? I can freely adjust my compassion so that it is just and not unjust (we can be compassionate towards evil, for example, and that would be unjust). Yes, we have standards. We freely make choices to meet the standard. Am I acting the way Jesus shows in the Gospel in His example? Now I can understand and choose. Maybe I have been wrong. Or maybe I did very well - how can I do better? There are hundreds of things I can think about before making a choice. Sometimes it's selfish, other times it is done for love of a person. Did I make the right choice? I look back to figure it out. Nothing dictated what I was going to do.
On one hand it takes a lot energy, but on the other hand it seems that God wants me to be compassionate, and I want to do what God wants me to… but why do I want that?
Exactly. Did I just want a reward? Was I afraid of something? Or did I truly love God and want to honor Him? We freely made a choice - maybe it was good or maybe not.
When did I decide to want to do what God wants me to do? And why? And so on and so on, all the way back to when we were born
The fact that we have been freely making choices since the age of reason doesn't mean any of them were not free. Right now, you will make choices based on many factors. Every choice you make is limited by your knowledge, your motives, your virtues, your sins - but you can choose one way or another. Your background doesn't determine what you will do. One person is very wealthy and choose to become more wealthy. Another person is very wealthy and decides to give to charity and lose the wealth that way. Some things influenced both of those choices - education, physical conditions, friends, advertising - there are always influencers. But the reason we make a good choice is because we freely chose the right thing, no matter what the influencers said. Sometimes the influencers move us in the right direction, other times in the wrong direction. We can't just blame the influencers for when we made a bad decision. No, we freely chose the wrong thing - then we see that we were arrogant, selfish, cruel, lazy, greedy - or many other things that we have to work against. If we weren't free, there would be no reason to strive for virtue. There would be no guilt for our bad deeds. But when we choose badly, we have guilt in our conscience because we know we could have done better with our free choice. Mastering the skill of making free-will decisions is the ultimate work of a lifetime. That's where character and integrity come from. It's not something that is handed to us. Education itself requires hard work. We can choose to do that or not. It's the same with virtue - we have to build the good habits and that requires repeated good choices, freely made. Otherwise, everybody would be virtuous, but that's not the case.Silver Asiatic_{March 17, 2022
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Jerry,
Decision making has a lot of antecedents as have been pointed out. But are all decisions determined?
Either our choices are responsive to reasons or not. If I believe that God wants me to feed the poor, and have a desire to do God's will, then if I have a choice whether or not to feed the poor I will choose to do so for those reasons. If I chose not to, it would have to be because of some other beliefs and desires. The only alternative is to make choices without deliberation at all - a mental coin flip that is not the sort of freedom we're talking about.
Rather than say this or that combination determines a decision is it better to say that all the prior states and needs are coaxing rather than forcing a particular decision?
What else besides our beliefs, desires, values, priorities, commitments, fears, hopes, etc. would end up compelling a deliberative decision?
Some would say his free will was overridden by his hormones.
Hahahah good story. But seriously, if you'd like to add hormones, brain wiring, gut biotics, gene expression or any of that to our "natures" that compel our choices, that goes right along with my argument.dogdoc_{March 17, 2022
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Seversky, "if we are wholly determined, why do we have the sense or experience – which we all do – of exercising free will? If the cosmos is deterministic, why was that experience determined to be thus? What purpose does it serve?" In all my years of debating you those are the most honest questions that I have ever seen you ask. As to: "What purpose does (natural selection creating the illusion of free will) serve?" I agree. This is an insurmountable problem for Darwinian materialists. Exactly why did natural selection go to all the trouble of creating the illusion of free will? As well, since survival is the only criteria for evolutionary success, then why did natural selection also go to all the trouble creating the illusion of subjective conscious experience in the first place? Why not just create mindless meat robots, and/or mindless zombies? i.e. Besides the illusion of free will, natural selection creating the illusion of conscious experience also seems like a hugely inefficient endeavor for a process that is only concerned about, 'red in tooth and claw', survival of the fittest.
Is Consciousness a Spandrel? - Sept. 2015 Introduction Excerpt: as several authors have pointed out, establishing that evolutionary processes produced consciousness to fulfill some biological function is a tall order (cf. Flanagan and Polger 1995; Polger and Flanagan 2002; Rosenthal 2008; Nagel 2012).The difficulties with adaptationist accounts appear so serious that some reject standard evolutionary theory—and even materialism along the way (Nagel 2012). https://www.researchgate.net/publication/282619766_Is_Consciousness_a_Spandrel Published online by Cambridge University Press Mind and Cosmos - Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False - Thomas Nagel Excerpt: If materialism cannot accommodate consciousness and other mind-related aspects of reality, then we must abandon a purely materialist understanding of nature in general, extending to biology, evolutionary theory, and cosmology. Since minds are features of biological systems that have developed through evolution, the standard materialist version of evolutionary biology is fundamentally incomplete. And the cosmological history that led to the origin of life and the coming into existence of the conditions for evolution cannot be a merely materialist history. http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199919758.do David Chalmers - Why is Consciousness so Mysterious? - (The Hard Problem of Consciousness) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTIk9MN3T6w As Frank Jackson made clear in his philosophical argument ‘Mary’s Room’, no amount of scientific and physical examination on Mary’s part will ever reveal to Mary exactly what the inner subjective conscious experience, i.e. qualia, of the color blue actually is until Mary actually experiences what the color blue is for herself. 11.2.1 Qualia - Perception (“The Hard Problem” ) Philosopher of the mind Frank Jackson imagined a thought experiment —Mary’s Room— to explain qualia and why it is such an intractable problem for science. The problem identified is referred to as the knowledge argument. Here is the description of the thought experiment: “Mary is a brilliant scientist who is, for whatever reason, forced to investigate the world from a black and white room via a black and white television monitor. She specializes in the neurophysiology of vision and acquires, let us suppose, all the physical information there is to obtain about what goes on when we see ripe tomatoes, or the sky, and use terms like 'red', 'blue', and so on. She discovers, for example, just which wavelength combinations from the sky stimulate the retina, and exactly how this produces via the central nervous system the contraction of the vocal cords and expulsion of air from the lungs that results in the uttering of the sentence 'The sky is blue'. (...) What will happen when Mary is released from her black and white room or is given a color television monitor? Will she learn anything or not?" Jackson believed that Mary did learn something new: she learned what it was like to experience color. "It seems just obvious that she will learn something about the world and our visual experience of it. But then is it inescapable that her previous knowledge was incomplete. But she had all the physical information. Ergo there is more to have than that, and Physicalism [materialism] is false.” https://www.urantia.org/study/seminar-presentations/is-there-design-in-nature#Emergence
Quote and Verse:
"I think, therefore I am" - René Descartes Exodus 3:14 And God said unto Moses, I Am That I Am: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I Am hath sent me unto you.
bornagain77_{March 17, 2022
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DD,
Free will is what we are discussing; you are simply declaring we have it, without argument.
Do you recognise that absent responsible, rational, significant freedom, reasoned discussion and argument, much less decision, are impossible? KFkairosfocus_{March 17, 2022
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Decision making has a lot of antecedents as have been pointed out. But are all decisions determined? Rather than say this or that combination determines a decision is it better to say that all the prior states and needs are coaxing rather than forcing a particular decision? I once watched a man decide what job to take and was doing an ROI analysis of the incomes and expenses of where to work and live. I said why don’t you ask your future wife where she would like to live. An hour later he had decided on suburban New York City after talking with her. Some would say his free will was overridden by his hormones.jerry_{March 17, 2022
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SA,
The reasoning process is an exercise of free will.
I don't see it that way. Unless I decide to deliberately be irrational, I am compelled by my beliefs, desires, etc to my conclusion. And even if I did decide to be irrational, I must have been led to that decision by some beliefs, desires, etc.
If we didn’t have freedom of choice, there would be no purpose for or need for the reasoning process.
We are led to our conclusions by our reasons, for the purposes that we see (survival, altruism, happiness, whatever). But since we don't choose our desires or beliefs, etc, those choices are not ultimately free.
The fact that we choose badly or wisely is evidence of our freedom.
Not at all! Let's take an extreme example: Imagine someone develops a tumor in their amygdala that affects their thinking, and that leads them to make the terrible choice of killing their wife. (There are many examples of this sort of thing in medical literature of course). We would not call this very unwise choice free.
The entire learning process is an exercise of free will.
Learning is obviously accomplished by all sorts of things to which we don't typically attribute free will, like spiders or flatworms.
We can decide what values to esteem and which to de-prioritize.
Yes we do this continually, always based upon our current beliefs, desires, and so on.
We can follow our emotions or we can follow our philosophy. We can choose to serve and worship God, or we can neglect that. All of that is evidence of free choice.
No, it is not evidence of free choice in the sense of being the ultimate authors of our decisions, because our we did not freely choose our reasons.
You’re saying that at no time does a person ever choose something new?
No, I'm saying that the reason we make new choices is always based on other reasons. Let's say you are a compassionate person. Did you freely choose to be compassionate? Did you deliberate about it - hmmm, should I be compassionate or not? On one hand it takes a lot energy, but on the other hand it seems that God wants me to be compassionate, and I want to do what God wants me to... but why do I want that? When did I decide to want to do what God wants me to do? And why? And so on and so on, all the way back to when we were born, when we obviously could not have deliberated about anything.
You’re saying that everything is “dictated” (determined) by what you already had.
Not in the sense of physical determinism, but in the sense that if our choices are deliberative (philosophers call it reason-responsive) then they are compelled by the way we are at each juncture, all the way back to our birth.dogdoc_{March 17, 2022
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DD
But the choice to have that belief was not random; it too must have been the result of some reasoning process
The reasoning process is an exercise of free will. If we didn't have freedom of choice, there would be no purpose for or need for the reasoning process. Our rational intellect structures thought so we can decide on choices. The fact that we choose badly or wisely is evidence of our freedom. The entire learning process is an exercise of free will. We choose, learn, adjust and choose again. For various reasons, we can make bad choices also - that's the nature of freedom. We can decide what values to esteem and which to de-prioritize. We can follow our emotions or we can follow our philosophy. We can choose to serve and worship God, or we can neglect that. All of that is evidence of free choice.
But at no time did you choose your beliefs, desires, values, etc except as dictated by the beliefs, desires, values etc. that you already had.
That sentence is not clear. You're saying that at no time does a person ever choose something new? You're saying that everything is "dictated" (determined) by what you already had. But again, the entire educational process fights against that. We seek out new information and knowledge and build wisdom. It's not dictated by anything. We freely choose to pursue wisdom, truth and goodness - or we choose another path of sin, ignorance and vice. Either way, the choice is ours.Silver Asiatic_{March 17, 2022
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SA,
Yes, you did not choose to exist in the beginning and you did not choose your human nature.
Agreed.
But free choice is an aspect of human nature given to you by reason of existing. So, even though you didn’t choose free will, it remains.
Free will is what we are discussing; you are simply declaring we have it, without argument.
If we look at the “reasons for your choice” ...This is the reasoning process. In the end, you have a reason for your choice. You can trace it back. “I didn’t cheat because of this, this, this and this.” Those are your reasons.
Agreed.
You chose them freely. You could have gone another way and were moved by various factors.
Let's say I choose to believe it is more important to follow God's commandments than it is to have more money, and this convinces me to pay my taxes. But the choice to have that belief was not random; it too must have been the result of some reasoning process (unless it was made for no reason at all). And so on.
Your choice today, affects your knowledge and choice tomorrow.
Indeed it does. But at no time did you choose your beliefs, desires, values, etc except as dictated by the beliefs, desires, values etc. that you already had.dogdoc_{March 17, 2022
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Dd
But if my choice is the result of such a deliberation, then it is dependent upon those aspects of my nature that I did not myself choose.
Yes, you did not choose to exist in the beginning and you did not choose your human nature. But free choice is an aspect of human nature given to you by reason of existing. So, even though you didn't choose free will, it remains.
none of the reasons for our choice were themselves chosen by us
If we look at the "reasons for your choice" then we look at the rational process. You have some variables. You compare and contrast. You weigh and measure. Is the money worth the risk of getting arrested? Is my moral conscience stronger than the desire for gain? Do I want to follow God or do I not care and will break the commandments? What is my philosophy? This is the reasoning process. In the end, you have a reason for your choice. You can trace it back. "I didn't cheat because of this, this, this and this." Those are your reasons. You chose them freely. You could have gone another way and were moved by various factors. You may not have even made a perfectly rational decision. In the end, you are fully free enough to make a moral decision. If you made a big mistake - you would have something to learn from for the next time. Your choice today, affects your knowledge and choice tomorrow. You are free to choose badly. You can do this repeatedly or not. It depends what you learn and what you're willing to risk.Silver Asiatic_{March 17, 2022
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SA, You did not address the argument either, I believe. Let's agree arguendo that there are limits constraining our choices. You claim that some freedom remains over and above those limits. But my example @9 regarding a reason-responsive choice shows that none of the reasons for our choice were themselves chosen by us, and therefore we did not make the choice freely at all.dogdoc_{March 17, 2022
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Seversky
if we are wholly determined, why do we have the sense or experience – which we all do – of exercising free will? If the cosmos is deterministic, why was that experience determined to be thus? What purpose does it serve?
Those are excellent questions. As an evolutionist and materialist, how do you answer them? The freedom to choose wrongly, make fatal mistakes and even the time required to deliberate over choices - all come at a heavy cost. As you ask: What purpose would the illusion of free will serve and why would it be selected? It would seem far more efficient for organisms to be determined towards survival and reproductive goals - evolution should select for that. Then adding the fact that freedom would be an illusion in a deterministic model, it's hard to see what value it would have.Silver Asiatic_{March 17, 2022
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Since we cannot freely choose our natures, and our deliberative choices depend on our natures, we do not have free will.
Human free will is always limited by the limits of humanity itself. We're contingent beings, we didn't create ourselves. We have freedom within limits - the limit of our powers and our status. The fact that nothing can create itself, and therefore has certain limits, is not an argument against the freedom human beings have to make choices. There are a lot of impossible things that we can't choose - that doesn't mean that free will choices do not exist for us. We are free within the limits of contingent being.Silver Asiatic_{March 17, 2022
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