[SummerlyMars]

> Society is basically brainwashed into believing everyone has free will. The result is that people with the most capital prosper and I assume the foregoing wouldn't be the case if everyone was a determinist.

Why do you assume this? If everyone believed in determinism rather than free will, couldn't those with the most capital (deterministically) say "Well, that's just the way it should be. They can't choose to be different."

I'm not inclined to think that will is all that free, but I can't seem to see the connection between that and capitalism.

[abellerose]

The understanding of free will being an "illusion" opens a few doors for approaching life. One of them being how society is structured and regarding healthcare, housing, finances, education..

Anyway, people cast their votes by the beliefs as well and currently we're living in social systems designed from the belief of have free will. The idea of someone earned what they have, contrary to someone worse off and people aren't just destined by their life circumstances to end up homeless. Genetics, environmental factors and all proceeding moments are factored from the preceding forces.

Well, when you realize the foregoing about free will is untrue and you really take the time to adapt your thinking to the understanding of free will being illusion. I assume you become more compassionate because you're actually observing reality for how it truly is awful to some and those people had no control for their misfortune. I know from my own life when I understood it took a few years to truly get "it" but after I deeply feel more empathetic and disgusted by the current systems that refuse people the medical help they need or getting someone shelter & food.

Everyone is just assigned a life at birth without any say and that's the same to what happens after without any real control existing to alter your destiny. So a nihilist can say well so what?..everything is just destined. But that doesn't mean we should keep stalling people from being educated of how reality happens to be and designing better social systems that adapt to the true reality of the universe. Anyway that's my long rant/suggestion on it.

[pdonis]

> when you realize the foregoing about free will is untrue and you really take the time to adapt your thinking to the understanding of free will being illusion. I assume you become more compassionate

You assume wrong. The most brutal totalitarian governments in history have been built on the same understanding of humans that you describe. So that understanding can go either way: it can make you more compassionate, or it can make you much less so.

Free will is best understood not as a "fact" but as a right. Every person has the right to make their own choices instead of someone else making those choices for them. And the most dehumanizing thing you can tell a person is that they are "destined by circumstances" (your phrase) to be in the situation they are in, instead of having the power to change it by the choices they make.

Sure, the power to make one's own choices is not unlimited. We can't choose to not be affected by gravity. We can't choose to be omnipotent or omniscient. And, most important, we can't choose how other people will make their own choices (more on that below). But that doesn't change the fact that people do make choices, and can change their situation by doing so. The proper role of compassion and charity is to help empower people to make better choices for themselves.

And the proper understanding of situations where some people are deprived of basic necessities through no fault of their own is not that it was just "destined by circumstances", but that other people made choices that created those situations. Trying to hand-wave that away and pretend that things like famines and homelessness are just accidents of nature, instead of products of deliberate choices made by particular people in power--the whole "how society is structured" that you slide by without really looking at where it comes from--only makes those problems worse.

[abellerose]

Feel free to email me for further discussion. I have the impression you don't understand my definition of free will compared to your own definition. I will express here that the idea of making a conclusion by the past in history isn't fair or even comparable to what I could argue against people doing under the belief that people have free will. Anyway I'm not convinced by what you've expressed against my views and would appreciate a longer discussion by email if you're up to it. I fundamentally think it's morally wrong to keep someone in the dark from reality by deceiving them about their will or life outcome and especially if that person is homeless or suicidal for example.

[pdonis]

> what I could argue against people doing under the belief that people have free will

What sorts of terrible things do you think people do under the belief that people have free will?

[Layke1123]

Ignore human child trafficking and starvation.

[pdonis]

How does that follow from a belief that people have free will? Is it somehow impossible for people who have free will to traffic in other human beings or force them into starvation? I don't see the logic.

Of course you are implicitly accusing those who "believe in free will" of saying that being trafficked or starving are the person's own fault; but I don't see the logic of that either. There is no requirement that believing in free will requires focusing on only one person's choices. The human traffickers and the corrupt leaders who allow their people to starve are making choices too--bad ones. And part of believing that people have free will is being willing to call a spade a spade when people make bad choices.

[pdonis]

> Feel free to email me for further discussion.

Why not just have the discussion here?

> I have the impression you don't understand my definition of free will compared to your own definition.

I think you are trading on the ambiguity in the term "free will" to avoid having to confront the actual issues involved. That's why I used the less ambiguous term "making choices".

If you don't think people can ever make choices that make a difference in their situation, then you and I have a fundamental disagreement that I don't think will get resolved by any discussion. Also, if that's your belief, I think you are being inconsistent; you talk about "designing better social systems", but that very process involves people making choices that will make a difference in their situation (as well as the situation of many, many other people).

If you just think the amount of difference a person can make in their situation by making choices varies with the situation, of course I agree with that. But that's not a problem that can be fixed by "designing better social systems". It can only be fixed by being willing to call a spade a spade when people in power make choices that disempower others, so that people in power can be stopped from doing that. The biggest barrier to people being able to change their situation by making choices is restrictions put on them by other people, not some abstract claim about free will being an illusion. "Designing social systems" makes that problem worse, not better.

> I fundamentally think it's morally wrong to keep someone in the dark from reality by deceiving them about their will or life outcome

I think you are confusing your opinions with "reality". Telling people they don't have free will, or that free will is an illusion, is just as much of an opinion as telling them they do have free will. Neither is a statement of "reality". That's why I say free will is best viewed as a right: because in my opinion, believing that people have free will is respecting their right to make their own choices, and believing that people don't have free will is not respecting that right--which just means arrogating to yourself the power to make choices that disempower them. Respecting people's right to make choices is not a factual claim about people; it's a policy, which I think should be adopted because it will end up helping people.

> especially if that person is homeless or suicidal for example

I don't see how it's any help to a person who is homeless or suicidal to tell them free will is an illusion. Nor would it be any help to tell them it isn't. A person who is homeless or suicidal has much more pressing things to think about than whether or not free will is an illusion. And helping such a person has nothing at all to do with your own opinions or beliefs, much less foisting them on others in the guise of "telling them about reality".

[Layke1123]

Claiming a different definition of free will does not make you right about free will existing.

At the fundamental levels of reality, free will does not exist. It isn't even meaningful to talk about. Particles react to their environment. That's it.

You are just a giant collection of particles reacting to it's environment. You will never be able to be anything other than a giant collection of particles reacting to it's environment.

Moving this collection of particles from one area that is unpleasant, say a really cold environment, to one that is warm is not an exercise in free will. It is largely a predictable process based on a sequence of events occurring within the collection of particles.

Defining free will as "making choices", such as building a fire to warm your house because you are cold is not proving free will exists. It intentionally lies about the fundamental nature of reality that you don't have to. Yes we make choices as far as we can tell from our experience of reality. But that doesn't disconnect you from the underlying reality that it is not up to you what your particles do.

[pdonis]

> Claiming a different definition of free will does not make you right about free will existing.

You are missing my point. I explicitly said that I used a different term, "making choices", instead of the term "free will", exactly because it allows one to avoid all the pointless arguing about whether free will "exists" or not.

> Defining free will as "making choices", such as building a fire to warm your house because you are cold is not proving free will exists.

Again, you are missing the point. Sure, you can say that "free will" doesn't exist because "particles react to their environment". And my response is, who cares? Sure, people are ultimately made of particles reacting to their environment. That doesn't mean they can't make choices, and it doesn't mean the choices they make don't make a difference, to themselves and to others. It doesn't mean that some people's bad choices don't cause other people to suffer. It is perfectly possible to both understand that, at a microphysical level, everything is "particles reacting to their environment", and that, at a personal level, people make choices and their choices have consequences. And if you focus solely on the former and ignore the latter, the result is worse consequences, not better ones.

[abellerose]

The main reason for me of suggesting email is because I simply don't find writing responses on HackerNews as a great medium to have a conversation that likely will be lengthy. Basically, there's no good way to quote or even make a list with bullets and I prefer my macOS mail interface than a html textbox.

The phrase "making choices" is just semantics for the topic of free will being an illusion. There's no different outcome for how a person will live from start to end. That's the reality we live. Science hasn't proven otherwise and the current evidence from neuroscience suggests we don't have free will. Even logically it's impossible to imagine free will being possible when you're inside a system and every thought or act you perform is because of the system you're in. People are no different from water choosing to flow downstream.

Knowledge is power in society. Does it change your fate? The answer is no but generations do get better than the past because humans are progressing from knowledge. So the argument I think we truly are having is whether the norm of the populace should be deceived that they have free will or told the truth that there is no free will.

You already know what I believe the answer is for the foregoing. I have my own personal reasons as well. My life was fairly damaged by people that believed in free will because of religion and after many years of self reflection. I realized they were in fact acting mentally ill because of their belief that people make choices when regarding one's sexual orientation and gender identity.

I don't blame them or ever want to desire they had free will because I would've sought vengeance for the conversion therapy I suffered. Instead I'm glad fate had me realize they weren't to blame but how the universe unraveled and no individual had any power over how they came to be. I personally don't think that means people should be left scot free when they violate others. I think the social systems just need to change to a rehabilitation system like how the healthcare system treats people that get sick. It just happens in life and the systems are what make people behave the best and have the best life contrary to other systems.

Anyway I'm writing in a text box and if you want to have lengthy discussion about it. I really do enjoy email back & forth about it. I personally could probably chat about the topic in-person and never get bored about it.

[Layke1123]

This was a very eye opening response that even made me think about things in a new light. Thank you for sharing your story.

[pdonis]

> The phrase "making choices" is just semantics for the topic of free will being an illusion.

I disagree. See my response to Layke1123 just now.

> Knowledge is power in society. Does it change your fate? The answer is no

Again, I disagree; see my response to Layke1123 just now. I understand the attitude you are taking; I just don't think it's a good idea. Believing this will cause more harm and more suffering. More on that below.

> I realized they were in fact acting mentally ill because of their belief that people make choices when regarding one's sexual orientation and gender identity.

I'm very sorry you went through what you went through. And how you deal with it personally, in your own life, is of course entirely your choice. But that very observation (see the irony?) illustrates the error in the general conclusion you are drawing from it.

Even if people's sexual orientation and gender identity are not choices they make (which I agree they aren't), that doesn't mean there are no choices at all, period. For example, even if you can't choose your sexual orientation, you still choose who you partner with, and those choices make a difference. And that's not all; see further comments below.

> I don't blame them or ever want to desire they had free will because I would've sought vengeance for the conversion therapy I suffered. Instead I'm glad fate had me realize they weren't to blame but how the universe unraveled and no individual had any power over how they came to be.

First, as your very next sentence illustrates--"I personally don't think that means people should be left scot free when they violate others."--you admit that the matter of vengeance is separate from the question of choice. Whether or not people make choices is a separate question from how we should respond to what people do.

Second, even if your family didn't choose the religion they got brought up in, or the beliefs that religion inculcated in them, they did choose to put you through the ordeal they put you through. They could have chosen otherwise. What's more, they themselves might not have realized that they could have chosen otherwise (more irony)--those very same religious beliefs quite possibly included the belief that they were forced to do what they did, and if they had instead believed they had free will, the ability to make their own choices, they might have stopped to think instead of just acting automatically on their beliefs about sexual orientation and gender identity. In other words, they were blaming you for what they claimed was your choice (when it wasn't), but they were also refusing to admit their own ability to make choices and that those choices affected you. Whatever that is, it is not a simple "belief in free will" and wouldn't be fixed by a simple eradication of "belief in free will".

> I think the social systems just need to change to a rehabilitation system like how the healthcare system treats people that get sick.

But that system is screwed up as well. Homosexuality used to be defined as "sickness"--and the system then forcibly medicated people with sex hormones to "cure" them. (Look up what happened to Alan Turing, arguably one of the best mathematicians of the 20th century.) And don't even get me started on all the other ways the healthcare system disempowers people and thereby makes their condition worse instead of better.

The only way to avoid having people be abused is to respect their freedom of choice. What should happen in cases like yours is that the person themselves should choose how they want to deal with whatever it is they are dealing with. Their family shouldn't dictate it to them. No "system" should dictate it to them. No "system" should label them, whether it's labeled as "sickness" or "non-standard sexual orientation" or "gender dysphoria" or whatever. No system should tell them they need "rehabilitation". If people ask for a particular kind of help or care, that's fine; but a belief like "free will doesn't exist" has always been a handy excuse for others or "the system" to force "treatment" on people and abuse them.

[Layke1123]

I fully believe my decisions and actions are largely determined long before I am fully aware of what is taking place.

This doesn't make me despair or not care to do anything, but makes me extremely resilient and adaptable to changing situations. I can acknowledge that no matter what I want to do, I cannot stop my leg from twitching when someone hits the nerve underneath my kneecap.

I also accept that if I make bad decisions because of an addiction or deficient reasoning process, I willingly would accept a mechanism to correct said process or improve my deficiency.

It's not that free will is necessary to understand reality. It's that free will is necessary for YOUR reality. Some of us get along just peachy without it.

[pdonis]

> I also accept that if I make bad decisions because of an addiction or deficient reasoning process, I willingly would accept a mechanism to correct said process or improve my deficiency.

If that's what you want, you are free to choose to accept it, yes. If you're happy with how things are for you, more power to you.

Just don't try to force your way of being happy on me. If I make bad decisions, for whatever reason, I want to have the choice of how to improve. I don't want anything else, whether you want to call it a "mechanism" or not, forcing something on me that someone else thinks is an "improvement".

[Layke1123]

But you don't actually believe that! You would put someone in prison if they attacked you physically for no reason. You would willingly force that person into confinement until they no longer tried to inflict violence on you. You can't have ti both ways.

[pdonis]

No, you can't have it both ways. You didn't say you would willingly accept prison. You said you would willingly accept a mechanism to improve your deficiency. The way you have described prison elsewhere in this thread, you clearly believe that prison doesn't do that. So you wouldn't accept prison. You would only accept a mechanism that "improves your deficiency".

What I said is that I want to have the choice about how to improve. That doesn't mean I have the right to harm others with impunity. Choices have consequences, and if I make a bad choice that has the consequence that I get thrown in prison, well, that's the consequence of my choice. I personally avoid that consequence by not making choices that will predictably get me thrown in prison. Someone else might choose to do such things anyway--and yes, if they do that I won't stop the consequences from happening. Respecting someone's right to make choices doesn't mean choices don't have consequences.

If your objection is that the consequence of getting thrown in prison is somehow artificial, well, the natural consequence of attacking someone physically for no reason is that you get physically harmed or killed yourself. If you want to argue that letting that consequence happen is better than throwing the person in prison, given what prisons are like, sure, go ahead and argue that. But to argue, as you are, that respecting people's right to make choices means I should refrain from imposing any consequences at all on other people's behavior when it affects me is not only a non sequitur, it makes for an even worse society with even more suffering.

[mongol]

I agree with almost everything except that to say that famine and homeless can be caused both by human choices and accidents or events outside of human control.

[pdonis]

> famine and homeless can be caused both by human choices and accidents or events outside of human control

Yes, I agree that accidents or events outside human control can cause bad things to happen. I would also point out, though, that how bad those things get has far more to do with human choices. There are many choices that people can make to be better prepared for accidents and events outside their control if and when they happen.

[Layke1123]

They will think its justified, just like the masses will justify taking all the hoarded wealth. Fairly distributing capital and power is the only reasonable solution in a world that is so obviously deterministic.

[wizzwizz4]

Never underestimate the adaptability of rhetoric.

[Layke1123]

While cute, it misses the point. If I say a car is coming, it is then up to the person to decide whether they step into the street or not. This is not a rhetorical argument.

[wizzwizz4]

You say that the world being deterministic somehow makes “we should be nice to each other” an inescapable conclusion… but really, it's just a framing that lets you escape the existing divisive rhetoric. If it became widespread, we'd get new rhetoric.

[Layke1123]

Rhetoric doesn't stop a car from running over you no matter how the warning is phrased if you choose to not understand said rhetoric. This is not a rhetorical argument.

[wizzwizz4]

Could you explain this analogy?