Atlantic: There's No Such Thing As Free Will

[China]

There’s No Such Thing as Free Will

 

But we’re better off believing in it anyway.

 

For centuries, philosophers and theologians have almost unanimously held that civilization as we know it depends on a widespread belief in free will—and that losing this belief could be calamitous. Our codes of ethics, for example, assume that we can freely choose between right and wrong. In the Christian tradition, this is known as “moral liberty”—the capacity to discern and pursue the good, instead of merely being compelled by appetites and desires. The great Enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant reaffirmed this link between freedom and goodness. If we are not free to choose, he argued, then it would make no sense to say we ought to choose the path of righteousness.

 

Today, the assumption of free will runs through every aspect of American politics, from welfare provision to criminal law. It permeates the popular culture and underpins the American dream—the belief that anyone can make something of themselves no matter what their start in life. As Barack Obama wrote in The Audacity of Hope, American “values are rooted in a basic optimism about life and a faith in free will.”

 

So what happens if this faith erodes?

 

Click on the link for the full article

[HOF44]

[Zguy28]

As a 5 point Calvinist, this doesn't bother me one bit.

[mistertim]

As a practitioner of the 5 point palm exploding heart technique this doesn't bother me one bit either.

[btfoom]

I didn't want to write a reply, but I was destined to post this anyway.

[twa]

I'm better off than ya'll anyway.

[PeterMP]

It is actually a pretty interesting piece

 

Though, I'm not sure what people expected science to find on this issue.  Did they expect science to find a little man sitting in our heads controlling us that represents free will?

 

To me, saying there is no free will based on science is like saying that science has proven there is no God.

 

That's the one POV they don't seem to get into.

 

Interesting but full of contradictions:

 

"Determinism not only undermines blame, Smilansky argues; it also undermines praise. Imagine I do risk my life by jumping into enemy territory to perform a daring mission. Afterward, people will say that I had no choice, that my feats were merely, in Smilansky’s phrase, “an unfolding of the given,” and therefore hardly praiseworthy. And just as undermining blame would remove an obstacle to acting wickedly, so undermining praise would remove an incentive to do good. Our heroes would seem less inspiring, he argues, our achievements less noteworthy, and soon we would sink into decadence and despondency.

Smilansky advocates a view he calls illusionism—the belief that free will is indeed an illusion, but one that society must defend. The idea of determinism, and the facts supporting it, must be kept confined within the ivory tower. Only the initiated, behind those walls, should dare to, as he put it to me, “look the dark truth in the face.” Smilansky says he realizes that there is something drastic, even terrible, about this idea—but if the choice is between the true and the good, then for the sake of society, the true must go."

 

And then:

 

"Smilansky is not advocating policies of Orwellian thought control. Luckily, he argues, we don’t need them. Belief in free will comes naturally to us. Scientists and commentators merely need to exercise some self-restraint, instead of gleefully disabusing people of the illusions that undergird all they hold dear."

 

If they do not have free will are they capable of exercising self-restraint?

 

And then things get wishy washy (people trying to have it both ways):

 

" One of these is Bruce Waller, a philosophy professor at Youngstown State University. In his new book, Restorative Free Will, he writes that we should focus on our ability, in any given setting, to generate a wide range of options for ourselves, and to decide among them without external constraint.

For Waller, it simply doesn’t matter that these processes are underpinned by a causal chain of firing neurons. In his view, free will and determinism are not the opposites they are often taken to be; they simply describe our behavior at different levels."

 

But then:

 

"Yet Waller’s account of free will still leads to a very different view of justice and responsibility than most people hold today. No one has caused himself: No one chose his genes or the environment into which he was born. Therefore no one bears ultimate responsibility for who he is and what he does. "

 

The answer to that is sure they can be.  They didn't take the time to generate enough options.  They had the ability (free will) to mentally generate options that weren't criminal, and they did not do it.

 

Might there have been extenuating circumstances?  Yes, but nobody (that I know) denies that now.

 

I don't know anybody that thinks environment and genes don't matter at all.  The issue is given those things, do we have the free will to rise above them?  Did the person have the ability to generate more/better options?  Or are they limited based on their genes and environment as to what options they can generate?

[Jumbo]

we had a big thread on this a few years back (remember Peter?)---great, interesting, topic and all the players you'd expect showed up to the best of my memory.  i posted all i cared to say on es about it then, but there's some great material to work with on the matter.

[mcsluggo]

we had a big thread on this a few years back (remember Peter?)---great, interesting, topic and all the players you'd expect showed up to the best of my memory.  i posted all i cared to say on es about it then, but there's some great material to work with on the matter.

 

 

In MY day we knew how to have a proper discussion on thigs like this..... and we liked it!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

whippersnappers today... no respect

[Jumbo]

[mcsluggo]

i will have to thank my lucky stars that all i see there is a little red x

[Jumbo]

i will have to thank my lucky stars that all i see there is a little red x

 

 

When you see that red x on your front door, be vewy vewy afwaid...Jumbo is'a comin'...

[Destino]

Is there an expert on free will out there somewhere? I bet that person is the creepy one at the company happy hour.

[Koolblue13]

We do good to promote our society. It happens with every single social animal. If anything, we're worse at it than most animals.

[alexey]

I'm an expert on free will but I can't bring myself to post about it.

[Jumbo]

I was thinking  of you, too, alexy (and TB and others) when I saw this---good to see you're still kicking it.

[Jumbo]

Is there an expert on free will out there somewhere? I bet that person is the creepy one at the company happy hour.

  

 

I find that exercising "free" will can be very expensive.

 

 And if at least a few company employees don't get creepy during happy hour, you're in a boring company or in a lame ass bar.

 

As a racist, I suggest the lounge at any low budget Chinese restaurant offering one. Major score for those with easy access to a liver transplant.

[Fresh8686]

The reality is that there is a dynamic, context-specific, ever-changing mixture of self-determination and automation.

Both the capacities and abilities of self-determination and automation can develop or degrade over time. We live in a confluence of influence and all of these influences, from micro to macro, inter-relate, compete, or cooperate with each other at all times and that includes volition.

 



 

[PokerPacker]

Yeah, I've long assumed we don't truly have free will, but the illusion of it is good enough for me.

[grhqofb5]

The creator of the great algorithm has assumed ultimate responsibility for all of us.

[AlvinWaltonIsMyBoy]

I've always thought this was an interesting topic.  Morgan Freeman explaining it makes it even more interesting.

[Kosher Ham]

we had a big thread on this a few years back (remember Peter?)---great, interesting, topic and all the players you'd expect showed up to the best of my memory. 

 

Suicide thread ? 

 

If not, that was a perfect example of many things, from many people that I did not expect. 

I do believe, that I recall the thread you are referencing however. Hmm...

[Zguy28]

So, do you choose the way you choose because that's who you are, or do your choices make you who you are? My personal opinion is that we do things that reflect who we are already, essentially we choose according to our nature.

 

I'm no philosopher, but one objection to libertarian free will I found plausible:

Causality — If causes are understood as conditions prior to an effect that guarantee an effect, and all events have causes, then it follows that all events were preceded by conditions that guaranteed those events. But this is the same as saying all events are determined. Since the choices of humans are events, it follows that the choices of humans are determined.

[Spaceman Spiff]

 

 

Lombardi's Kid Brother?

[mistertim]

Lombardi's Kid Brother?

JMS