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Recent Comments
- In The Mailbox: 02.28.23 (Afternoon Edition) : The Other McCain on Hey, longtime pw readers…
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No.
Seems like the obvious answer.
But since in a way it’s a 50-50 query, it can’t hurt to give it a go.
Besides, no human being anywhere ever would have or could have the sort of knowledge necessary to brace the question, it’s sufficient to take any “yes” as redolent of a simulacrum. So, just go with no.
Since I believe my mind is separate from my brain, I say “yes.”
The answer is obviously yes, but I’m going with no.
Because I can…
I took a nine-credit honors seminar on this very topic back in my undergrad days. Three credits each of physics, philosophy, and literature, following the pendulum between determinism/fate versus chance/free will. We went from classical Greece through the Renaissance and Enlightenment and up to relativity and quantum mechanics. Seeing the transition from Newtonian determinism to Heisenbergian uncertainty reflected in philosophy and lit was fascinating. Doubly so because our ancient philosophy prof actually knew a lot of the early quantum physicists personally in his earlier days. That was also when I learned that scientists are way better at discussing art and lit than writers are at understanding math.
I’m on the side of free will. Partly because I prefer it, and partly because the Universe is way too perverse to allow for a master plan.
See how it isn’t really a serious question? That’s partly because it’s very difficult to take seriously, and partly because it’s easier to just opt out.
So go with no.
I believe we are each fated to die when it’s our time, and not a second before. Other than that, how we live the time we have is all on us. How we use or free will, the decisions we make throughout our life kinda create our own destiny, but that’s a product of our free will, our destiny isn’t fate.
If we were just a machine, we probably wouldn’t be asking the question.
What if the supreme arbiter forces us to (non) ask the question, bg? What then?
Even if the correct answer were no, the only proper way to live is as if the answer were yes.
He promised he wouldn’t force us.
Actually, this question is one of the first addressed in Genisis, with that whole apple business in Eden.
I’m going with the ‘ol Alpha and Omega dude myself. There would be no reason for consequences without free will. Or, seems it would be a pretty boring game for the Holy Creator able to build our reality.
I have to imagine…
Or, as McGehee signaled, I feel sorry for anyone who doesn’t believe in free will.
That’s less a question than a pre-ordained conclusion, that Genesis bit. But that doesn’t make the whole Genesis bit any less characteristic of human beings who demand (they know not why) justice all over the earth, and dimly perceive that something called free will is going to enter in willy-nilly come what may. Also characteristic of human beings, when caught red-handed committing injustice they opt for deterministic causes quicker than we can say “serpent”.
I should have capitalized the second “he” in my above.
The question of free will cannot be answered scientifically (at least, not to my satisfaction), since I believe it would require an external agency to evaluate the question. Even then, it would require our faith in that agency to believe in the answer.
Since I already have faith in an outside agent, and that agent has stated that free will exists, I don’t feel a need to further pursue the question. Conversely, I don’t believe I can go further with the question.
Still, I won’t rule it out for future pondering if I receive any new information. I think that’s the best I can do given humanity’s limited ability to perceive the universe.
Erwin Schrödinger, I thought, asked a good (even serious) question in 1944: What is Life? [pdf] Kicked off quite a research program, still firing on all cylinders today so far as I can tell.
What is “free will”? If completely free of any and all constraints, the equivalent of Allah in Islam then the answer is no. In Christianity even God has certain restraints on what he may do.
To analogize.
Absolute free will, anarchy.
Free will that we likely have — Constitutional Republic with individual rights and rule of law — Christianity/Aquinas
No free will, autocracy, Islam
What is life? That’s easy!
Creation.
What do I win?
If we didn’t have free will, we wouldn’t have to answer the question because it would never occur to us to ask it in the first place.
So the real questions are to what extent is our will free and how perfect is our volition?
Swift wrote of Little-Endians and Big-Endians away off in Lilliput and Blefuscu but didn’t trouble himself to speak of the Dead-Endians away off in the desertlands . . . but maybe just because Gulliver never got around to visiting there.
Geoffb, I like that.
How’s this? Free will that we likely have- individual will but with a Devine conscience. Or perhaps better said as with a consvience of Devine origin.
Good ol’ Andy. What a voice.
So, two comments here. One: The thinking of the brain is caused by the firing of neurons, which, in turn, cause more neurons to fire, in a cascading manner. So, the question is: what causes that first neuron that generates that cascade to fire? Answer: It happens at a level that appears to be subject to quantum mechanical constraints. In other words, at the bottom level of our brain, the actions of neurons appear to be influenced by something as simple as an electron passing from one energy state to another energy state in an atom. Now, one of the cornerstones of modern physics is that such changes in energy state are probabilistic, but not predictable. In other words, there is no way to tell for a given electron in a heightened energy state when it will drop to a lower state. This means that the actions of our neurons are basically random. This equates to free will.
Two: One of the most interesting things that neuroscience has discovered in the last 20 years is the incredible effect brain chemistry has on our thinking. The effect is so pronounced that there have been cases when a person who has undergone radical brain chemistry has actually changed from a liberal Democrat to a conservative Republican (really!) and in another case I read about, went from being a gourmet diner to a person who preferred Taco Bell, McDonalds, and other fast foods. At first blush, neither one of these facets of our personality would seem to be something that is governed by our brain chemistry, but, as it turns out, it is.
So, on the one side, we have quantum mechanical effects guaranteeing our thinking is non-deterministic and random, and on the other side, we have vast swathes of our personality determined, or at least strongly influenced, by our brain chemistry.
So, do we have free will? I would say yes, but not as much or in as many areas as we would suppose.
By the way, to clarify my what is life? answer, I don’t mean THE creation, or A creation, but the state of creation. A corn plant is alive because it is in a state of creating corn.
Art is the illustritive depiction of creation.
When man was made in the image of God, it was the spirit of creation that was the image.
Other species of animals nor plants are able to crest anything beyond their own existence. Man alone, made in Gods image, is able to create that beyond themselves.
If not for free will, what separates us from the rest of creation?
I’ll admit my response is more pragmatic than philosophical, but I’m only interested in the angels on a pin thing if they’re actually going to dance.
Free Willy
The how of the who.
Let’s assume that we can reduce the choice: what do you want for lunch? to a list of variables that account for 100% of the preference, and we can then calculate precisely, to millions of decimal places, the value of every variable. In doing so we find that Harry’s Hamburgers is precisely 63.33299420234902349940202 our preference AND Mike’s Burger Place is precisely 63.33299420234902349940202 our preference also. And then picking ONE of them is a choice that is the equivalent of tossing a coin. Choice = free will.
So, the answer, from my ability to choose, either scientifically or emotionally, is, of course we do.
(And given that good and evil exists in the Universe, God choose Good….ergo, free will)
I human brains were easy to figure out, we would be to stupid to do it.
The bear wins.
McGehee, your first answer is still the best.
Anything else is pure speculation.
I do, you don’t.
Slightly more seriously, the chemistry thing is not difficult – if you have free will but it can be suborned by chemistry (or trauma), then you have free will that can be suborned by chemistry or trauma.
Saying that negates the idea of free will is like saying you’re not really alive because you can be killed.
As a general matter, I tend towards the “how am I supposed to tell whether or not I have free will” camp.
The question that I find interesting is “What are the physical mechanisms that allow free will?” That is to ask, what do we mean by free will when we speak of matter and its relationship with cause and effect? If we’re into homunculus territory then I can’t make sense of the idea. Even when that’s possibly explained in non-supernatural terms, I don’t understand how this homunculus is “me” if I didn’t choose this choice-maker in the first place but instead simply came into being as someone who would make this or that choice like an algorithm might.
If it’s instead defined as a metaphysical or spiritual issue then I tend to think we should all just operate under the assumption that such a thing like free will exists because it leads to better outcomes.
Just to make one point clear, at around 4:31 the talking head asks “Why do they believe this?” and gives an answer that is not true for myself. I do not wonder about whether or not we’re robots because then that forces me to concede that there exists supernatural phenomena. That is simply not true. That’s a strawman.
Why does he do this? Is he lying? Is he simply misinformed about what his fellow men believe?
I thought that the video would be a standard recapitulation of the actual issue rather than this horseshit so I didn’t watch it the first time I commented.
What nonsense.
I haven’t watched it at all. While there are some video-only presentations I’m willing to take the time to watch, philosophical topics that I’m already
smuglycomfortably settled on are more inviting in text.It’s trash, is the problem. Fundamentally unserious, to say again. Not that I’ve anything against the now deceased former professional pitcher who makes unserious pitch. The conclusion was ever a done deal.