[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.

[Layke1123]

Because believing in free will as commonly referred to means it's ok to choose not to do something about bad behavior happening in the world. It's not ok to stand by and let child trafficking happen.

[pdonis]

> believing in free will as commonly referred to means it's ok to choose not to do something about bad behavior happening in the world.

Yes, that's true. However...

> It's not ok to stand by and let child trafficking happen.

...unless child trafficking is happening right in front of you, you're not "standing by". There are a zillion bad things always happening around the world. Are we all supposed to stop all of them? And how would not believing in free will help stop all of them? I don't see how that follows at all.

Furthermore, let's say we do stop believing in free will; then what? Do we all get forced to drop everything else in our lives and go stop child trafficking? Says who? There is no way to even implement a scheme like that unless someone makes a choice and decides what needs to be stopped and tells others to go stop it. Calling this "not believing in free will" strikes me as pointless at best, and deliberate manipulation at worst.

[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.

[Layke1123]

Free will does not exist, so telling people they have a form of free will called "making choices" is a misdirection. You aren't actively making choices even if you feel like you are. You are only reacting to the stimulus you receive from the environment. Change the stimulus, and the behavior changes.

Your definition of free will is useless because it doesn't accurately reflect the reality. I make what "feels" like a choice, but it isn't really a choice.

This kind of reasoning actually does lead to better consequences, not worse.

[pdonis]

> This kind of reasoning actually does lead to better consequences, not worse.

I strongly disagree. Believing that people don't make choices is just a handy excuse for some people to make choices that cause others to suffer.

See my response to abellerose just now (edit: and my response to you upthread about child trafficking).

[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.

[abellerose]

Thanks. I felt lucky to read your responses to the person that's stuck on semantics or by whatever force(s) that make him assume he has choices when there's no choices.

Majority of people I've been able to have the discussion with do eventually understand free will is an illusion and "making choices" is just a human expression that doesn't describe reality. So, I think it's possible that one day determinists will out number free will believers. Would be nice to have been born into such a society that's modern and well structured for everyone's health with a dream of equality.

Btw, I have cancer so I don't have as much energy and cannot write on HackerNews as much as I used to be able to. Once again, thanks for writing what you did and even when it was just by fate.

[Layke1123]

Ahh to have been born into a society that is free of misinformation and the willing propagation of it indeed would be something else.

I'm sorry you have cancer. =/ I wish we would have figured this one out by now but it seems we are more interested in how to sell batteries instantly over the internet more than we care about solving the medical problems of others. We are still a very self centered form of life for the moment. I wish you the best of luck and if I can donate at all to your fight against cancer, I hope my small contribution would make a difference none the less.

[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.

[abellerose]

> 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.

No. I didn't have a choice at all. You keep using the word "choice" or assuming it when there's no choice and I'll repeat there's truly no choice. I think or act from a set of unique forces that interacted upon me in the past and even now. The only possibility things could've been different is if the starting point of the universe made the unique set of forces different and resulted in a different outcome because of it. Similar to everything else you write, I disagree.

I also am aware that the "feeling" I have from what happened to me and how I became aware about free will being illusion.. is outside my control as well like everything else in life. Anyway I think you're not willing to have a lengthy discussion by email and so for some reason by fate that won't happen. I'm always up for the emails though because it's an interesting topic that some people are destined to grasp while others aren't.

[pdonis]

> I think you're not willing to have a lengthy discussion by email

Correct. I'm sorry you had to go through what you went through (and I'm sorry you have cancer and have to deal with that too, I saw your post upthread about that). I wish you the best, and I will leave it at that.

[Layke1123]

Your reasoning defeats itself. No system should tell people they need "rehabilitation", and yet you still support prisons that try to "rehabilitate" prisoners.

People do not have choices. They are particles reacting to their environment, and what you describe as a "choice" is actually a carefully choreographed cascade of chain reactions. You can attribute a sense of "making choices" to that all you want, it doesn't change the fact that if I interject into that process and stop any one piece of that chain reaction, your behavior is altered.

You only have the illusion of free will, because you don't understand exactly how the system works. You brain has hallucinated not just the outside world, but your internal world as well. It is inescapable, and rather than fight it, you should embrace it like some us do and learn to operate in this new mental paradigm, not out right reject it because you fail to be able to operate in that space.

The fact that I exist is the only evidence you need to show that "not believing in free will" doesn't lead to your prediction of "worse outcome".

[pdonis]

> you still support prisons that try to "rehabilitate" prisoners

You don't get to declare by fiat what I support and what I don't. The fact that I can make choices does not make me omnipotent. You are simply failing to recognize the fact that everybody makes choices--including the people who set up our current prison system and who keep it running. If the prisons they are running are abusing people, that is their responsibility, because they are the ones that made those choices.

> you should embrace it like some us do and learn to operate in this new mental paradigm

I don't understand what "new mental paradigm" you are even describing. But even without understanding it, I can still ask an obvious question: has this "new mental paradigm" enabled you to fix the prison problem you describe? If so, how?

[pdonis]

> You brain has hallucinated not just the outside world, but your internal world as well.

Very interesting. I agree with these statements--yet I also think they are perfectly consistent with people making choices. In your ultra-physicalist language, human brains hallucinating "the outside world" and "the internal world" are just part of the causal processes that happen inside those brains. And those causal processes still have effects outside those brains even so.

[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.

[Layke1123]

No it doesn't, and I'm not advocating for a violent person to not be stopped. You are. You say the most important thing is to defend a person's right to "choose" their behavior. In that case, you are a hypocrite because then you turn around and say I am OK with subverting the will of a person as long as it affects me negatively. If it affects someone else, well, do you really care? From your answers, you seem not to care in the slightest.

[pdonis]

> I'm not advocating for a violent person to not be stopped.

You're advocating for "stopping" them by having someone else rearrange their brain so they won't be violent any more. And you refuse to acknowledge the fact that that someone else is making a choice that has consequences; to you it's all just particles reacting to their environment. Yet you also seem to think suffering is bad--but if it's all just particles reacting to their environment, there is no such thing as suffering, any more than there is such a thing as choice. So you are the one who is being inconsistent, not me.

> If it affects someone else, well, do you really care? From your answers, you seem not to care in the slightest.

You clearly don't understand my actual position, and I don't know how to explain it any better than I already have.

[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.