Free Will is an Illusion. So What?

I think it is best to think about decisions that are not very emotionally charged - so they are not so hard to decide either way. Think for example of all the free will decisions involved in formulating a reply to this very forum. IFW seems to imply that we act like a function in a program that just inputs one or more prior posts, and mechanistically generates something in response!

IFW invalidates all forms of intellectual pursuit.

David
Could we make a reply without prior inputs?
 
To me, this is the crux of the argument, because arguing whether we become dehumanised if we are machines, is utterly subjective and slippery.

David

I'm not sure I agree with this. For example, we have the following research papers:

The Value of Believing in Free Will, Vohls and Schooler, 2008.

Prosocial Benefits of Feeling Free: Disbelief in Free Will Increases Aggression and Reduces Helpfulness, Baumeister, Masicampo, and DeWall, 2011.

Free Will and Punishment: A Mechanistic View of Human Nature Reduces Retribution, Shariff, et al, 2014.

In the first two series of studies, it is interesting to note that with three groups, anti-free will, pro-free will, and control, the only one that differed in behavior was the anti-free will group, indicating that most people already believe in free will. It is rather disturbing to see that very short exposure to anti-free will statements can manipulate behavior of groups in a negative way (one method used was statements from Crick's Astonishing Hypothesis, another was taking a neuroscience class), resulting in greater anti-social behavior. People do seem to base their moral decisions on philosophical worldviews, at least in part, either consciously or unconsciously.

Baumeister, et al. (2011) states that:

Thus, disbelief in free will serves as a cue to act on impulse, a style of response that promotes selfish and impulsive actions such as aggressing and refusing to help. Some philosophical analyses may conclude that a fatalistic determinism is compatible with highly ethical behavior, but the present results suggest that many laypersons do not yet appreciate that possibility. (pg 267)

Perhaps many scientists, psychologists, philosophers, and academics would say that laypersons are just too unintelligent to understand that they should be happy to be automata, but the data is pretty clear that this is not the case; it is part of a category of mechanistic dehumanization, robbing us of our unique human characteristics, since significant exercise of free will appears to be absent in other animals.

Even more subtle is effect on children, because Mueller and Dweck (Intelligence Praise can Undermine Motivation and Performance, 1998) found that attributing success to an inborn trait (intelligence) rather than the child's effort actually reduced effort and enjoyment. This may not seem directly related to free will, but it seems to support the idea that the more we attribute to inherited or biological causes, the less beneficial the behavior. This is also seen within medicine, since Lebowitz and Ahn (Effects of Biological Explanations for Mental Disorders on Clinicians' Empathy, 2014) found that:

Biological explanations have been thought to make patients appear less accountable for their disorders, which could increase clinicians' empathy. To the contrary, biological explanations evoked significantly less empathy. These results are consistent with other research and theory that has suggested that biological accounts of psychopathology can exacerbate perceptions of patients as abnormal, distinct from the rest of the population, meriting social exclusion, and even less than fully human. (Abstract, emphasis added)

Miller (Science and the Courts. In Mock Case, Biological Evidence Reduces Sentences, 2012) also found that biological explanations reduce sentences of criminals, and Rai and Holyoak (Exposure to Moral Relativism Compromises Moral behavior, 2013) found that exposure to moral relativism compromises moral behavior. Again, moral relativism may not be directly related to free will, but it is almost implicit in a belief in a lack of free will, since morality is only a relative social construct with no absolute truth, and your morals are only the result of the culture you happen to find yourself in since there is no free choice in the matter. This does seem related because of the previous study of Shariff, et al. found a similar effect on reduced sentences with exposure to anti-free will statements. Some people, like the author of the article in the original post, seem to think this is a good thing, but it appears to be an overall degradation of societal behavior.

Considering that anti-free will beliefs encourage cheating and stealing, this has grave economic implications, since the US is already burdened with over a trillion dollars a year in theft and fraud. Corporations also like anti-free will beliefs since this encourages impulsive behavior and drives consumerism. Pharmaceutical companies like biological explanations of psychopathology since Lebowitz and Ahn (2014) found that "biological explanations yielded significantly higher medication effectiveness ratings than did psychosocial explanations." What sort of effects do all of these have together? What does this add up to? Decreases in pro-social behavior, increased consumerism, increased medicating, reduced empathy in the medical system, and reduced sentencing of criminals. All of this can be driven by mechanistic dehumanization, which apparently we are told we should be happy about! I rather think that because of all this, ignorant proclamations against free will by academia is morally reprehensible and contributing to social decline.
 
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What would its context? What would be its meaning?

Logic and semantics are lost.
So context, meaning, logic and semantics are lost without prior inputs... I agree.

What is left then? What exactly is the freewill part that operates distinctly from these?
 
So context, meaning, logic and semantics are lost without prior inputs... I agree.

What is left then? What exactly is the freewill part that operates distinctly from these?
ya know That is a damned good question.

Here is the best website on this subject I have encountered: http://www.informationphilosopher.com/freedom/

The Information Philosopher proposes a model of human freedom that is indeed a halfway house between chance and necessity, one that involves both, first indeterminism to generatefreealternative possibilities, then adequate determinism to choose, to will one of those possibilities.

I am more concerned with the will and its relations to "bio-understanding".
 
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So context, meaning, logic and semantics are lost without prior inputs... I agree.

What is left then? What exactly is the freewill part that operates distinctly from these?

Why would free will operate distinctly from context, meaning, logic, and semantics? Wouldn't those be involved in a free choice?
 
Why would free will operate distinctly from context, meaning, logic, and semantics? Wouldn't those be involved in a free choice?

Well, Stephen was saying (rightly imo) that those things depend on prior inputs. Surely, true freewill must require "something" that doesn't depend on prior inputs. Given that we have an immeasurable number of various complex inputs shaping us from our moment of birth (and likely before), it is extraordinarily tricky to exclude them from the mix. The very senses that we rely on to assess our environment cannot even develop without those inputs.

Without more specifics on the nature (supernature?) of freewill, saying our decisions "feel" free, and that it "benefits society" to believe in freewill (anyone who has frequented these forums for a while will recognise this as the "Sciborg Gambit" ;)), may not be enough to persuade the agnostic.
 
Well, Stephen was saying (rightly imo) that those things depend on prior inputs. Surely, true freewill must require "something" that doesn't depend on prior inputs. Given that we have an immeasurable number of various complex inputs shaping us from our moment of birth (and likely before), it is extraordinarily tricky to exclude them from the mix. The very senses that we rely on to assess our environment cannot even develop without those inputs.

Without more specifics on the nature (supernature?) of freewill, saying our decisions "feel" free, and that it "benefits society" to believe in freewill (anyone who has frequented these forums for a while will recognise this as the "Sciborg Gambit" ;)), may not be enough to persuade the agnostic.

I'm not sure that I understand. If you exclude any inputs, what is supposed to be chosen and how?
 
Surely, true freewill must require "something" that doesn't depend on prior inputs.
It requires experience as a knowledge base. An infant doesn't have the freedom of adult. But most of all it requires an "eye" to future states.
It is a future state that is chosen and the will enforces the activity to obtain its manifestation.
 
Being closer to the non-free will position is entirely different from saying that there is no free will. I do believe that we are either influenced or controlled by many biological, environmental, and psychological factors, and a lot of people live without exerting much in the way of free will choice, but free will is a capability that most people appear to have. However, it is a world of difference to say that free will does not exist.

It just seemed to me that you were basically describing things the way I do, but just called the quantum bit free where I wasn't. It could be that I missed something but that was the impression I had.

Mechanistic dehumanization is the result of eliminating an essential human characteristic, that of agency and free will, by claiming by fiat (rather than evidence), that free will does not exist. Attempting to essentially explain humans as biological robots simply reacting to inputs and their genetic codes is a quaint and demonstrably false analogy.

Well, I've already pointed out that he didn't claim it by fiat, but referred to evidence, linked to some of it, as well as to the opposing view. I'm not sure how this is by fiat.

Your next bit uses another of those modifiers like "just", in this case "simply." Theva suggestion you seem to be making is that if one does not believe in libertarian free will then one simply views others and themselves as without any more value than a toaster, or other machine. As I said above, this doesn't hold.

I'll say it again: we either have free will or we don't. That is: we already either have it or we don't. Everything that any human has ever valued has occurred in this environment. Figuring out whether our will is free or not will not suddenly turn off all of our faculties.

What we're talking about is trying to figure out how everything works. Fields like physics and biology are devoted to it. Would you say that having figured out how our other bodily functions work "devalued" humanity?

It is morally reprehensible because there is plenty of research that shows when people are exposed to this type of anti-free will opinion, it can negatively impact social behavior, for example encouraging cheating, being more aggressive, and being less helpful. This research also demonstrates how easily this effect is induced by short exposure to the types of anti-free will ideas. Given that it is not logically valid to conclude that free will does not exist, plus evidence we do have that points towards free will (ex: Libet's 'free won't' experiments and more), and the fact that our legal system requires free will, it is morally reprehensible to attempt to conclude that free will does not exist when we know how this affects social behavior. Simply saying that we should be happy that we are automata is not going to change that.

I'm going to withhold commenting on this part for now. I've got some preliminary thoughts on the matter but I want to take a closer look at the studies you linked to first.

The question of how our beliefs about free will affect our behaviour is valid and we should be concerned with how presenting these ideas impact people. This is, of course, a separate issue from whether free will exists or not but still important to discuss.

Certain behaviors can be consistent with both metaphysical positions, but that doesn't support the conclusion that free will does not exist.

Agreed, the part I was responding to there was about whether the article was morally reprehensible.

He pretty clearly states that free will does not exist, which, given the reasons above, is why I don't think that is unfair.

He doesn't add a caveat every time he mentions it, I agree, but he certainly includes a caveat. We don't need to dwell on this point though, it's not that important.
 
Yawn.The position that humans don't have free will carries the implication that they would be unable to determine if they have it. No free will defeats the notion of free inquiry.

I don't see why it would necessarily entail that. The fact that we operate within a web of causes and effects (with perhaps some randomness) doesn't alter the fact that some of the things we do within that web is figure stuff out. The challenge here is to figure out how libertarian free will works.

That said, since we haven't figured out yet how libertarian free will works on your argument this supports the proposition that we don't have it! ;)
 
I don't see this as being a neutral idea. It seems quite negative because it means that my conscious choices of how to direct my life are an illusion. My thoughts are not causally affective and things just happen to me. It seems that experimental evidence also supports the negativity of anti-free will opinions since it negatively affects social behavior.

It means that we simply respond mechanistically and deterministically based on genetics and input signals; it means that our thoughts are not causally affective

We've discussed this in the other thread. My position is that our thoughts (including our decision making/choice making processes) are as much a part of the cause and effect web as anything else. Why single them out?

Why can't they be causally effective and part of the web?

Note that if randomness plays a role then they would not be entirely deterministic.
We are not 'just' living things or animals, because we have the most developed mind (not brain) that allows us to exert the most free will, and allows our complex thoughts to be more causally affective than any other living being on this planet.

Take out the phrase about free will, does this change much? We're still all those things. That's my point. We're not "just" anything. We're many things. We have many characteristics. And we have these characteristics whether or not we have free will!

It changes something if we have emprical evidence that influencing belief in free will negatively affects behavior.

I agree with you to a degree, but if we made robots that simulated love, friendship, etc, we would not feel the same about destroying that robot as a real human. It is the dehumanization of the robot analogy that leads to more permissible behavior and justifying anti-social behavior. This mechanistic dehumanization is one form of many types of dehumanization that is used in a lot of negative behavior.

I'm going to hold off on this until I take a look at those studies, but I plan to come back to this.
You are right that a non-materialist or physicalist position still has the free will question. Simply having a soul wouldn't mean that the soul has free will.

I would argue that the very structure of quantum theory involves the "free choice of the experimenter" and probing actions taken by conscious agents.

I dunno, the way I see it, quantum mechanics may have elements that are random but over the spectrum allow us to make pretty specific predictions.
 
I wouldn't quite say that taking away free will makes us a machine. If a human had no free will but still had an internal subjective experience of pain and suffering, I would not treat that being as a machine.

I didn't see this before my last couple posts. Now I'm confused since it seemed to me that's exactly what you were saying with lines like I quoted above. Now I'm not sure what you meant.
 
Isn't that your problem?

Edit: At least we are asking the same question!

I don't think so. I think it's pretty simple...mind is not equal to brain, and mind is causally affective on brain states allowing for the capacity for free will.
 
I didn't see this before my last couple posts. Now I'm confused since it seemed to me that's exactly what you were saying with lines like I quoted above. Now I'm not sure what you meant.

Dehumanization isn't an all or nothing deal. You're right in that we still have a lot of things even if we didn't have free will, but taking away more and more of what is generally considered to be part of human nature is chipping away at what we think being human means. A scientist may say that we just need to redefine what it means to be human, but I would say that they don't know enough to make such claims especially considering the negative behavior it can foster.

So if you say we have no free will but we have a soul, that is one step, but if you say we have no soul or free will, then that is further dehumanization.
 
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It just seemed to me that you were basically describing things the way I do, but just called the quantum bit free where I wasn't. It could be that I missed something but that was the impression I had.

It's not the quantum aspect itself, but really it is that mind is not equal to brain, and it can causally affect brain states through directed attention and effort. The mind is very influenced by the brain and all the normal factors like genetics, nutrition, environment, etc, but with effort and attention it can make free choices. If practiced, this can be easier to break out of automatic responses.

Arouet said:
Well, I've already pointed out that he didn't claim it by fiat, but referred to evidence, linked to some of it, as well as to the opposing view. I'm not sure how this is by fiat.

The title of the article already says a lot and he also makes claims like the following without any evidence, which is why I said by fiat:

The question helps people realize that their thoughts and actions are determined entirely by their genetic and social conditioning. In other words, it helps people intuitively grasp the idea that free will is an illusion.

It might seem, at first blush, that many of the decisions you made later—during late childhood or adolescence—were based on free will, but that is not the case.

Looked at in this light, belief in free will is itself a consequence of genetic and social inputs: without the development of the neocortex and without exposure to the idea of free will from societal inputs, we wouldn't believe in free will.

Thus, although it might seem like you exercise free will in overcoming temptations or in overriding self-centered interests, this is not the case. Free will is equally uninvolved when you give into temptations and when you curb them.

His "evidence" is pretty much limited to the following:

Over the past few decades, gathering evidence from both psychology and the neurosciences has provided convincing support for the idea that free will is an illusion.

This isn't evidence to support the claim, especially since there are items in these fields that do not seem to fit the claims the author is making, such as self-directed neuroplasticity in neuroscience, or highly specific psychosomatic responses in hypnosis examples in psychology. The entire article is more of a "just so" story than anything.

He also makes this statement which is a double-whammy since I posted two different studies on both attributing outcomes to biological qualities in children (their intelligence, rather than effort) producing poorer behavioral outcomes and of course how anti-free will beliefs negatively impacts multiple areas of behavior.

Those who recognize that free will is an illusion will realize that their successes and failures have much more to do with “luck”—the set of genetic and social inputs to which they have been randomly exposed—than with their “self developed” talents and consciously-made choices.

This is an incredibly ignorant statement because we cannot make the claim that free will does not exist (for logical and empirical reasons), and on top of that, the two beliefs encouraged are known to create negative outcomes. I'm sorry, but isn't the field of psychology supposed to improve things? This is why it is morally reprehensible and irresponsible.


Arouet said:
What we're talking about is trying to figure out how everything works. Fields like physics and biology are devoted to it. Would you say that having figured out how our other bodily functions work "devalued" humanity?

Those are quite different. How my liver detoxifies my blood isn't nearly the same as free will. We can try to figure everything out, but we must be careful not to jump to conclusions. Because of pessimistic meta-induction, we should be very cautious here, especially when we have anomalous data even within these fields, and of course psychology should pay attention to contemporary physics since physics was starting to talk about consciousness and "free choice on part of the experimenter" as psychology was falling into the grips of behavioralism.
 
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We've discussed this in the other thread. My position is that our thoughts (including our decision making/choice making processes) are as much a part of the cause and effect web as anything else. Why single them out?

Why can't they be causally effective and part of the web?

They are. It's just that thoughts are not reducible to brain activity and can be causally affective on brain states. There does seem to be quantum randomness in decision making, though, as it seems from evidence from the field of quantum cognition. But this is not an issue of free will, but rather than there are quantum aspects involved.


Arouet said:
Take out the phrase about free will, does this change much? We're still all those things. That's my point. We're not "just" anything. We're many things. We have many characteristics. And we have these characteristics whether or not we have free will!

It changes an awful lot! It's eliminating one of the distinguishing human characteristics! It's part of mechanistic dehumanization, and the metaphysical/philosophical implications are apparent since anti-free will claims negatively impact behavior.


Arouet said:
I dunno, the way I see it, quantum mechanics may have elements that are random but over the spectrum allow us to make pretty specific predictions.

Those predictions depend on establishing basis vectors for calculating those probabilities of objective outcomes, and establishing those basis vectors requires the "free will on the part of the experimenter," or a conscious agent, to decide what question to pose to nature. The very structure of using operators or "actions" instead of numerical values of physical properties also further supports this. Physics has failed for the last 80 years to try to get rid of this structure and to be entirely objective, and experimental data is still supporting this model and making other purported objective models untenable. Psychologists don't seem interested in this, but then again, they aren't even very interested in many other aspects related to psychology since it doesn't fit their models, and apparently want to just go on ignorantly claiming that there is no room for free will.
 
I don't think so. I think it's pretty simple...mind is not equal to brain, and mind is causally affective on brain states allowing for the capacity for free will.
This is certainly one possibility.
Mind you, I think it's anything but 'simple' ;)
 
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