[dlkf]

> A growing chorus of scientists and philosophers argue that free will does not exist.

This isn't _new_, this "chorus" has existed for so long that it used to be referred to exclusively as a "khoros." Secondly, it's totally embarrassing that the matter isn't considered settled. The standard argument against free will is sound. The closest thing to an objection you'll see is people moving the goalposts so far that we are talking about something else.

[jakobnissen]

The debate between "no free will" and "magical supernatural free will" is silly and pointless, and yes, it should have been settled long time ago.

But it bugs me that so many people are eager so claim that because magical free will doesn't exist, that means no free will can exist. Compatibilism is not a new idea either. The usual argument is that compatibilists are moving the goal posts, but I simply don't understand that argument.

Suppose an argument between two sided: "Bigfoot exists" versus "no non-human apes exists". Is it moving the goalposts to point to gorillas?

Or suppose we're in the 1700's, and people are discussing vitalism: The force that separates dead things from living. The two sides debate whether the "vital spark" exists, or whether life is an illusion and it's meaningless to talk about living things at all. Is it moving the goal posts to try to find a non-magical definition of life?

To me it's pretty clear that we have free will, and that has nothing to do with determinism.

[danbruc]

The usual argument is that compatibilists are moving the goal posts, but I simply don't understand that argument.

It is moving the goal post because it just changes the definition of free will into some triviality. I had a choice between apples and oranges and I picked the apple because I like apples more. Sure, you can call this free will if you want to but what is the point? The max function had a choice between 1 and 2 and picked 2 because it likes bigger numbers more.

Maybe you want to contrast the above situation with a situation where the apples are sold out or someone forces you at gunpoint to pick the orange. But this is now an entirely different thing, now we are talking about external constraints. And you can move into all kinds of directions and define free will to be this or that but the result will always be kind of trivial.

[jakobnissen]

Do you really think the difference between someone coerced and someone free is "trivial"?

Or between someone who is free to make a choice because they are informed versus one who can't make it because they don't know of it? Or between someone who is capable of understanding the consequences of their actions and someone who is not?

These differences are - obviously, I might add - very important. And they have nothing to do with magical free will.

By the way, the difference between internal and external factors is not the critical thing. There are several ways to restrict people's free will with internal factors - like for example, a person who doesn't know X exists cannot make a free choice to do X.

[danbruc]

They are trivial in the sense that you can easily reason about them. Sure, you can construct wildly complex scenarios where available knowledge, resulting consequences, existing constraints, and what not make it non-obvious what can or cannot or should or should not be done but that this will only be a consequence of the complexity of the situation. This is in contrast to [magical] free will where you have fundamental problems of even defining the meaning of your concepts and arguably you are destined to fail because the concept is logical inconsistent to begin with.

[jakobnissen]

I'm sorry, but I still completely fail to understand why concerns about competence, informed decision making, ability to understand consequences and coercion is not _the_ relevant point here.

Why is it relevant how easily we can reason about them?

[danbruc]

I agree with you that this are the relevant points but they only become the relevant points once you accept that there is no magical free will. And it seems to me that this is not generally accepted.

[dlkf]

> These differences are - obviously, I might add - very important. And they have nothing to do with magical free will.

So why continue to use an unrelated term that has so much baggage? Why not just tackle these issues individually, on their own terms, in language that isn't laundering outmoded intuitions about some magic grounds for responsibility?

[jakobnissen]

Because they _do_ have something to do with _actual_ free will. When you drill down at what "free will" could plausibly and coherently mean, you inevitably end up focusing on these important differences.

And then you can _actually_ begin to articulate why someone is culpable and another person isn't. A magical free will believer can't really make sense of that, because if free will is something indescribable and magic, there is no reason to believe a person does not have free will to do X, just because they e.g. are incapable of doing it.

Conversely, if you believe _both_ in magical free will, and have also thought about the material conditions for free will (e.g. they must be informed, and understand the consequences, and not be coerced etc.), then you already have a completely coherent materialistic belief about free will, and have just awkwardly bolted supernaturalness to its side, completely unnecessarily.

[danbruc]

Because they _do_ have something to do with _actual_ free will.

But this is the problem right there, you call it actual free will and someone believing in magical free will will deny this and call magical free will actual free will. Sure, one can do this, overload the term, and figure out from context what kind of actual free will is meant in each instance. But would it not be much easier to give up on the term free will and use new different terms for different things?

[croon]

I don't know where I myself land, but free will gets more interesting in situations like:

* I see a piece of litter on the sidewalk and a garbage can on the other side of the road. Do I pick it up or not. Why/why not?

* I never feel like working out. Sometimes I do it, sometimes I don't. Why?

Sure, you can reduce these down to apples v oranges and just claim they have more variables to check first, but there's a lot of things we "decide" to do outside of preference.

[danbruc]

There are always constraints and preferences and whatnot. Do you have time to pick up the can? Do you care about the garbage on the street? And this will result in an action be somehow combining all those bits and pieces. Could be perfectly deterministic but could as well have an element of randomness, for example you care enough to pick up the can four out of five times if no other constraints prevent you from doing so. But whether there is some deterministic logic behind your decision or whether your brain just flipped a coin or a combination of both, there is no deep mystery here, just a very complex system that is hard to predict.

[usgroup]

I think decisions presupposing self-consciousness posit an input into the decision making process that doesn’t come from the outside. Surely correlated with the world but not determined by it.

[dlkf]

The point of disagreement here probably boils down to the perceived significance of what you're calling "free will" in your final sentence (as opposed to "magical supernatural free will").

On my view it is literally nothing. It's the tautological observation that agents with desires, uninhibited, can and will seek to satisfy those desires. It gives us no grounds for responsibility, punishment, etc etc. (Those are all good things, but their justification has to come from elsewhere.)

But by continuing to call it "free will," you're invoking the intuitions that many people have regarding the magical bullshit variety, and laundering those intuitions/feelings into the new discussion.

[jakobnissen]

That's interesting! In my view, nothing important hinges on magical free will. How could it, when people can't even articulate what it is?

In my view, everything we associate with free will: Responsibility, punishment, "do better next time" et cetera, are not only recovered when you reach for a serious answer to what free will is. It's actually better recovered than with magical free will!

For example, everyone agrees that children are not as morally responsible as adults. Even though children supposedly are as magically free as adults. How can that be? That _only_ makes sense in the compatibilist view.

Suppose someone invents a completely deterministically programmed robot that has general intelligence and understands the world, and people well. Would you sign a contract with it? Would you punish it if it broke it? Would you hold it responsible? Would you be outraged if it decided to lie to you? I definitely would.

[dlkf]

> Responsibility, punishment, "do better next time" et cetera, are not only recovered when you reach for a serious answer to what free will is. It's actually better recovered than with magical free will!

And we've found the point of disagreement. I simply think they're not. I believe they have to be justified independently, in terms of the degree to which they tend our lives and our society in a desired direction.

[mensetmanusman]

Free will isn’t binary, there are gradations.

[_y5hn]

It's like saying higher frames of references can't exist, so they don't exist. The logic fails to prove or disprove unknowns.

Virus don't contemplate their hosts.

Mature minds handle unknowns properly.

[AstralStorm]

However, is properly exactly the same as deterministically?

Injecting non-determinism makes the question of free will rather funny, in that the standard argument "you would not choose differently" does not work as the act of traveling back in time injects further nondeterministic results...

Under non-determinism, free will would be something like changing location of probability wells for actions. Our brains do that structurally and chemically all the time, and not particularly deterministically either. (Chemistry is involved.)

On the other hand, posing free will as decision theoretic choice, you're facing an outcome of statistical masses of decisions a lot of which are not observable. Philosophically simplifying it to binary choice ends up with absurd results.

[_y5hn]

Philosophy is one way to try to grok the world. It is deceiving when it claims the universe is finite, bounded and fully quantifiable, without proof.

Determinism in an infinite interconnected quantum universe ceases to have pragmatic meaning. There is order, but we can't measure everything exactly. It's playing out right here with us, but we fail to grasp it all.

The possibility of higher frames of references invalidates absolutism to mind-games. Which is what hypotheticals are, until new actions are made.

[JI00912]

Settled? We don't even understand what 'will' is because we don't understand what it means to think. We haven't began answering the question because we don't know where to start.

[stubish]

I think it is the other way around. Taking the standard meaning of free will, you have to add the caveat 'where the choice is not determined by past events'.

Anyway, you are free to chose your definition (and I bet I can predict what yours will be).

[_y5hn]

All actions are in the chain of events of prior actions. Humans knowing what future actions might look like, decide to counteract believed future actions. It is basic to sentient life. Such actions may break the illusion of karma, by employing dharma, which is divine, from a higher frame of reference.

The absolutists are going to explode.

[senectus1]

> The standard argument against free will is sound.

I must have missed that memo :-P

[danbruc]

Just try to define what free will actually means and see things fall apart. The entire idea of free will makes no sense to begin with if one thinks clearly about it.

[AnimalMuppet]

I suspect you're wrong. But you made the claim, could you supply some of this "clear thinking"?

[nefitty]

If all events have causes, then nothing can happen spontaneously. A “will” in that world can’t be “free” or disconnected from the causal chain.

If there are events that don’t have causes, either they are random, or we need to introduce an unfalsifiable explanation. In a random world, a “will” is still constrained by rolls of the dice. It does not express itself. It is not “free”.

If we introduce a metaphysical explanation, then it is no longer science, and can properly be discarded as “nonsense” in the context of the project of inquiry into the physical world. In its company we find concepts like souls, ghosts, deities, magic, etc.

[PinkPigeon]

Same here!

I had a lot of fun with this lecture series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftIllWczf5w

[kevin_thibedeau]

The universe has planted a few sceptics to liven things up.