On Free Will
Every human has a decision making mechanism. This mechanism some people refer to as a soul or consciousness, or the machine-like interactions, etc. The mechanism is essentially YOU.
When we say free will, what do we mean? Do we mean that the mechanism is free to do what it wants? That YOU are free to do as you please? Well certainly any human can do what he or she pleases.
Do we mean that the mechanism may be predestined to make a certain decision? That is, given the same set of circumstances, you would choose the same path every time? If we believe that “cause and effect” holds for the universe and there is no such thing as “random,” we must concede this. Even if you had a soul and your mechanism was intangible, would you want to have a decision making mechanism that would make different decisions when confronted with the same circumstances? This would imply that your mechanism had some intrinsic randomness. Is this free will?
I think what people mean when they refer to free will is that they subconsciously realize that they are trapped within themselves. They realize that without some randomness in their decision making process, they are machine like, and are predestined to make certain choices.
The reason that the Uncertainty Principle gives the human race so much hope is that it suggests that the universe is not machine like, and that every interaction only has a probable outcome. This randomness is just the thing a mechanism needs to remove it from its own design. In this way humans can remain free from their own confines.
However, the more free and random our mechanisms are, the less control we have over ourselves. We are defined less as our unique mechanisms and more as the randomness of the universe. You may decide which you want.
But perhaps our decision making mechanisms encompass the idea of a soul, an intangible entity that exists outside the confines of our known physical universe. Some people prefer to believe we have souls, but even a soul would suffer the same problems of free will as a purely physical mechanism. Soul's are also not above being scrutinized with thought experiments.
Would your soul make the same choice given the same set of circumstances? If it always would, then your soul is predestined, and mechanistic. If it doesn't, than your conscious mind must have some random mechanism that affects your decisions. If this is the case, then you would only have some level of vague control over your soul.
When we say free will, what do we mean? Do we mean that the mechanism is free to do what it wants? That YOU are free to do as you please? Well certainly any human can do what he or she pleases.
Do we mean that the mechanism may be predestined to make a certain decision? That is, given the same set of circumstances, you would choose the same path every time? If we believe that “cause and effect” holds for the universe and there is no such thing as “random,” we must concede this. Even if you had a soul and your mechanism was intangible, would you want to have a decision making mechanism that would make different decisions when confronted with the same circumstances? This would imply that your mechanism had some intrinsic randomness. Is this free will?
I think what people mean when they refer to free will is that they subconsciously realize that they are trapped within themselves. They realize that without some randomness in their decision making process, they are machine like, and are predestined to make certain choices.
The reason that the Uncertainty Principle gives the human race so much hope is that it suggests that the universe is not machine like, and that every interaction only has a probable outcome. This randomness is just the thing a mechanism needs to remove it from its own design. In this way humans can remain free from their own confines.
However, the more free and random our mechanisms are, the less control we have over ourselves. We are defined less as our unique mechanisms and more as the randomness of the universe. You may decide which you want.
But perhaps our decision making mechanisms encompass the idea of a soul, an intangible entity that exists outside the confines of our known physical universe. Some people prefer to believe we have souls, but even a soul would suffer the same problems of free will as a purely physical mechanism. Soul's are also not above being scrutinized with thought experiments.
Would your soul make the same choice given the same set of circumstances? If it always would, then your soul is predestined, and mechanistic. If it doesn't, than your conscious mind must have some random mechanism that affects your decisions. If this is the case, then you would only have some level of vague control over your soul.
posted by flowbeus at 1:48 PM
3 Comments:
Remember, however, that even if you don't have free will, it doesn't matter to you, since you can't detect the difference anyway. Whether you actually have "free will" in an uncertainty sense, or whether you're trapped in a deterministic framework, I don't think it matters since you don't know the difference anyway.
In some sense, you're right, it doesn't really matter to us since we can't detect the difference between pure determinism and some other mechanism that may or may not resemble some loosely defined concept of free will.
However from a philosophic perspective it does matter. I would certainly prefer it if our consciousnesses were somehow operating outside the confines of our known physical laws. This would imply the possible existence of a soul and would allow human consciousness to be not purely defined by the physical functioning of the brain.
Nice post, Flowbeus.
As you know, I believe that there is no such thing as free-will, because I believe that our "mechanism", as you call it, is governed by deterministic processes. The introduction of randomness, a concept which I do not currently give much weight in despite Uncertainty Principles, gives you LESS control of yourself -- as you pointed out.
This is the absurd beauty of the Universe... If you have a completely deterministic mechanism then you actually have more control over your fate despite having no free-will, as you are less effected by random chaos in laws that govern our universe, and your decisions are completely encapsulated inside you (despite having external parameters/percepts to base your decisions on).
On the other hand, if you have a mechanism effected by some type of intrisic randomness, then your decision-making not only hinges on your precepts ("a systematic network of forces," a la Foucault) but also on some roll of the cosmic dice.
In the first scenario, you make your own decisions (despite having no free-will) unto yourself, while in the second your decisions are imperceptably altered based on some uncontrollable chaotic seed... and I say, fuck that.
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