There's no free will, so you're unable to believe me

I gave it my best try last night -- arguing that we humans don't have free will, though it seems ever so obvious that we do. (Of course, it also seems obvious that the sun goes around the Earth, which demolishes the "obviousness" argument for anything.)

My wife and I belong to a three-couple book/article discussion group. Yesterday the subject was the justice system. When it came time for me to share my thoughts, I started off by quoting from Jerry Coyne's column in USA Today, "Why you don't really have free will."

The issue of whether we have of free will is not an arcane academic debate about philosophy, but a critical question whose answer affects us in many ways: how we assign moral responsibility, how we punish criminals, how we feel about our religion, and, most important, how we see ourselves — as autonomous or automatons.

But before I explain this, let me define what I mean by "free will." I mean it simply as the way most people think of it: When faced with two or more alternatives, it's your ability to freely and consciously choose one, either on the spot or after some deliberation.

A practical test of free will would be this: If you were put in the same position twice — if the tape of your life could be rewound to the exact moment when you made a decision, with every circumstance leading up to that moment the same and all the molecules in the universe aligned in the same way — you could have chosen differently.

Well, it was a good choice to lead off my part of the discussion in this fashion. Because it stimulated some passionate exchanges between me and several free-will believers. 

I said that if the goals of the U.S. justice system basically are deterrence, punishment, rehabilitation, and restitution, one of these -- punishment -- should be taken off the table, since people don't have free will. Punishment (retribution) doesn't make sense if someone wasn't able to freely choose between committing a crime or not committing a crime.

Deter further crimes by putting them in jail, and serving as a warning to other potential criminals. Rehabilitate them through education, counseling, training, and such while in prison. Force them via restitution to pay back people they've harmed.

But don't believe that someone deserves to be punished out of a sense that he or she freely willed to commit a crime.

As Coyne implied above, this belief requires a supernatural, immaterial, non-physical source of our actions, a soul or free-floating consciousness unaffected by genetics, prior experiences, environmental factors, memories, unconscious influences, hormones, and so on.

At every moment, I argued, all we know is that what happened, did.

A belief in free will assumes that something other than what did happen, could have. That's an interesting philosophical notion which has inspired lots of fictional works. What if Hitler won the Second World War? What if John Kennedy hadn't been assassinated?

However, we never see those "what if's" in reality. There's only one path through time and space that we follow. Coyne says:

Now there's no way to rewind the tape of our lives to see if we can really make different choices in completely identical circumstances. But two lines of evidence suggest that such free will is an illusion.

The first is simple: we are biological creatures, collections of molecules that must obey the laws of physics. All the success of science rests on the regularity of those laws, which determine the behavior of every molecule in the universe. Those molecules, of course, also make up your brain — the organ that does the "choosing."

And the neurons and molecules in your brain are the product of both your genes and your environment, an environment including the other people we deal with. Memories, for example, are nothing more than structural and chemical changes in your brain cells. Everything that you think, say, or do, must come down to molecules and physics.

True "free will," then, would require us to somehow step outside of our brain's structure and modify how it works. Science hasn't shown any way we can do this because "we" are simply constructs of our brain. We can't impose a nebulous "will" on the inputs to our brain that can affect its output of decisions and actions, any more than a programmed computer can somehow reach inside itself and change its program.

And that's what neurobiology is telling us: Our brains are simply meat computers that, like real computers, are programmed by our genes and experiences to convert an array of inputs into a predetermined output. 

That word, "predetermined," came up often last night. Some of my fellow discussants were strongly opposed to the notion that everything we do, think, and feel was determined at the moment at the big bang, with events simply unfolding according to the laws of physics.

I understand. Again, almost everybody feels like they have free will. I certainly do. But feeling so doesn't make it so. 

Also, I pointed out that the "pre" part of predetermined usually is an abstraction when we're talking about people. Practically speaking, it's more accurate to say that our behavior is determined. Meaning, the human brain is so complex, as are the environmental influences acting upon us, there's no way to precisely predict what someone is going to do.

It's like chaos theory.

Chaotic systems, such as a turbulent river, are deterministic yet unpredictable. Throw a cork into the water above some rapids. You won't be able to predict where it will end up, but it will end up somewhere after innumerable causes and effects act upon it. The cork doesn't use its free will to decide "I'm going to head this way rather that way for no reason, just because I want to."

Yet us humans imagine that we can, the imagining being determined, of course, just as everything else is. 

Last night I was told that without free will, there can't be any morality. I don't get this argument. Other primates act in ways we'd call "moral." Apes demonstrate empathy, concern, sharing. Why is free will required for getting along with our fellow humans?

We respond to other people; we communicate with other people; we learn about their needs, and tell them our own; we do our best to act kindly, compassionately, honestly, generously. Why? Because we're drawn to. This is our nature. We aren't isolated individuals. We're connected with, and influenced by, everything and everyone we come in contact with.

To me, a belief in free will is horribly confining. It implies that I'm a tiny island rather than a vast continent, a free-standing part rather than an integrated whole, a fallen leaf rather than living foliage on the branches of a tree that, ultimately, is the entire cosmos.

Actions are determined. So justice should be determinate.

Within reasonable guidelines, judges should be able to determine sentences which fit with determining factors of the criminal and the crime. Since there's no such thing as a Free Will Fairy which floats above people's heads and makes decisions out of the blue, completely independent of brain functioning, heredity, environmental influences, or whatever, condemning a troubled 14 year old to a life sentence without parole after he shot his grandfather is absurd. 

When we give up belief in free will, genuine morality is possible. Otherwise we're trapped in cruel Old Testament "eye for an eye" vengeance, assuming that we can be as free to punish as a criminal was free to commit a crime.

Jerry Coyne responds to comments on his free will essay here. Interesting give and take. I feel like I understand his position, which makes a lot of sense, but other people are so invested in their free will'ness, they misinterpret Coyne's arguments and fuzzy-up the whole notion of free will.

LIke Massimo Pigliucci does. 

Indeed, it is not surprising at all that we make all sorts of unconscious decisions before we become aware of them... Incidentally, I find it strange when some people argue that “we” are not making decisions if our subconscious is operating, since presumably we all agree that our subconscious is just as defining of “us” as conscious thinking is.

Hmmmm. So an intuition pops into awareness from my subconscious, and when I follow it, that's "free will"? Even though I wasn't free to will it? That's a strange view of free will, not at all as Coyne describes it. 

Comments

[nietzsche]

After understanding Dennett I tend to agree that it seems that during evolution we developed a guessing mechanism that observes the other and supposes intentions to make the other predictable. Like we suppose intentions with a chess computer in front of us just to 'choose' the right move, we can not calculate its exact state. This mechanism has let us to think that we have intentions ourself to. Our 'me' is the result of these supposed intentions.

On the other hand what would a moral sense be for if there was not a kind of free will? It would have no function in evolution and I don't see how it is a byproduct of something else. I can very well imagine a world of creatures calculating each others intentions and reacting without a sense of good and bad, just maximizing their benefit.

But we do not just maximize our benefits. Do we?

[George]

The first question to ask on free will imo is whether nature is truly deterministic or whether there is an aspect of randomness to the universe?

Biology is to extent deterministic, but the theory of evolution relied firmly on random mutations. Classical physics was deterministic, until quantum mechanics came along with its uncertainty, unpredictability and quantum indeterminacy. Einstein famously said God does not play dice with the universe, but QM says God does play dice, chaos theory says the dice are loaded and hawkings says the dice are sometimes thrown where they cannot be seen.

The second question is whether such randomness or indeterminacy is truly random or chaotic (apparently random).

We don't know the answers to either of these questions, but we do know that chaos is a result of massive complexity. That is, a system that potentially has so many causes, factors or variables influencing one another in unknown relationships, that for all practical purposes chaos is random.

If our conscious minds are emergent products of such chaotic complexity, as opposed to some random aspect (which science has not discounted), it still means that for all practical purposes our will is also 'free'. I think this is dennet's viewpoint. This is why on a day-to-day basis we are able to exercise a degree of control over our more primitive desires. Even if this is a result of environmental conditioning, the whole system is so complex that for all practical purposes such as criminal justice we do have free will.

Whether criminal justice is fair or effective is another question, and to what extent societal moral norms should govern the individual is another question.

[Brian Hines]

George, if randomness rules the roost in our consciousness in some fashion (quantum uncertainty?), then I don't see how this fosters free will. After all, there is no will involved in rolling the dice and following whatever comes up: "Even, I buy this car; odds, I don't."

With highly complex chaotic systems, there is hidden determinism. We can't predict what will emerge from the system, largely because small inputs (butterfly flapping wings) can result in large outputs (hurricane).

I also don't see how free will is present in that sort of situation, if the system is deterministic. Like I said in this post, free will as defined by Coyne seems to require the ability to stand outside of the physical brain/body and make a choice that is utterly unconstrained by the material qualities of neurons, atoms, chemical goings-on in the brain, and such.

As Coyne put it, rewind your life and restore the exact qualities of every atom and subatomic particle, then imagine yourself making a different decision than you did. I don't see how this is possible. Personally, I do this all the time in a more limited degree.

For example, I think about a mistake I made, a wrong turn in my car, or whatever, and recall my state of mind at that moment. Then I wonder, "Could I have done anything different, given what I knew, how I was looking at things, etc? I answer, "No." Same inputs, same output.

So where is the free will? I don't find any room for it, unless I change one or more of the inputs. Then I have a different deterministic system, not genuine free will.

[Robert Paul Howard]

Dear nietzsche,

Your phrasing "...reacting without a sense of good and bad, just maximizing their benefit" is inherently contradictory; i.e., "maximizing their benefit" already involves "reacting with... a sense of good and bad."

Robert Paul Howard

[George]

[George, sorry for delay in publishing this comment. Somehow it went into the TypePad spam filter, where I just discovered it. -- Blogger Brian]

Brian,

Well if there is a truly random aspect to the universe, and this influence mechanisms such as gene shuffling or random mutation, this means our genes aren't determined from the time of the big bang, neither is our biology, nor the universe nor our present consciousness, nothing is in fact determined.

But as you say there is alot of order around us, so how can random quantum effects be accounted for? I think those are the two big questions, what is the underlying nature of reality (if any) and how do we get from that state to the apparently ordered world we see around us?

Some possible explanation are: that our ordered apparently determined world is only one of many worlds (so at each instant all quantum states branch off), that order has somehow emerged from disorder through some as yet uknown relation between the laws of entropy and gravity, that nature is inherently both ordered and disordered, or that reality is fundamentally ordered just apparently chaotic as you seem to suggest and then order again emerges superficially?

I think 'free will' basically means our human-ability to not be enslaved to our biology. I think it means some sort of higher cognitive ability which frees us from our natural genetic inheritance. We are a particular kind of ape, whose behavior more than any other ape or animal is more influenced by our culture than our genetics. Not only but we seem to have an even higher cognitive ability in being able to reason and critically evaluate a rule or norm taught to us (conditioning). Hence, we can overcome not only our genetic inheritance (nature), but also our environmental conditioning (nurture) to some extent. Perhaps not totally but to a very great extent, hence free will in a relative sense. But I mean the brain is the most complex structure in the known universe, tho it has a finite number of neural connections, for all intents and purposes it is a very massive number of connections, which pretty much explains why the appearance of free will seems likely to be a pretty good approximation. Genius, invention, creativity, spontenaity - are these truly orginal or merely products of a very complex, albeit finite determined system? Its largely irrelevant the effects are still the same for all practical purposes.

[nietzsche]

It occured to me that free will might be spontaneous behavior. Random fluctuations that differ a little from normal behavior. Then this behaviour is reinforced or weakened by culture etics or whatever feedback system is present. In that way we evolve very much faster than we could on dna mutations alone. The end result is that one person tries bad behaviour without the etics feedback and becomes a criminal relying on social punishment. The other one becomes a good person ontroling himself.
Justice is still needed and you need good dna to get out of the ghetto.
But these random fluctuations make life very interesting.
Free will gets less and less important.
I also like Dennetts view on humor. He sees it as tryal and error that is rewarded with pleasure. We constantly try new things and laugh them away or adopt them in our system. It is a very strong reward system for important behavior.
But the random variations could also be little choices ;)

[nietzsche]

Hi Robert I agree with that on later introspection. What I was thinking of was some information about the scools in nazi Germani. I read that they teached Darwinism there. They used argumentation based on survival to justify their behaviour.
Than what is the difference between the nazi good and bad and the jewish good and bad? Or are they not that much different? I find that conclusion difficult. Do we need a God to not maximize our potential like the nazis did?

[Roger]

It is medically and scientifically proven that when there is a sensation in the body, let's say a tingling in your finger, it takes half a second before it is perceived in your brain. Therefore, there is a delay between the stimulus in your finger and the registration of consciousness of it -- a gap of half a second, which we call space. This gap is where the possibility of free will resides.

What usually happens is that in this half second you immediately react and therefore there is never space, or what one could call free will.

If you can observe the space and not react to the impulse, you have exercised free will. This could also be called detachment. Therefore, free will arises when you cease to react to impulse.

[Robert Paul Howard]

On "exercis[ing]...free will" one might cf. the case of "Jesus" in Guam, a Chamorro who was suffering lytico-bodig disease (pp. 156-159 of Oliver Sacks' _The Island of the Colorblind and Cycad Island_ [1997]). Other cases are also referred to in the book.

Robert Paul Howard

[Steve Agnew]

___For one thing, we have instinctive as well as rational choices that are necessarily probabilistic. No two instinctive choices will ever be the same. Is that free will?
___For a rational choice, given the exact same situation with 50:50 benefit/deficit for a free will choice, wouldn't we expect a second round to make another 50:50 choice, and so on?
___Suppose you continued your logic and unwound a whole life of choices and remade them all one by one. Wouldn't you eventually come to lot of free will choices as a result?
___Finally, the universe is inherently probabilistic. The uncertainty principle simply says that when push comes to shove, we definitely move but not always in the direction intended.

Just wondering...

[TheAncientGeek]

'However, we never see those "what if's" in reality. There's only one path through time and space that we follow. '

Two other things we don't see are deterministic physical laws, and our future space time trajectories. It is of course a fallacy that if we have a unitary past history, we must also have a unitary future.

"Coyne says..."

Coyne goes in to repeat the common argument that operating under the laws of physics is the same as operating under deterministic laws of physics. (At least he provides no separate argument against indeterminism based free will)

Determinism in physics is a complex subject. Eg, John Earman s Aspects of determinism in modern physics.

http://pitt.edu/~jearman/Earman2007a.pdf

[TheAncientGeek]

'Hmmmm. So an intuition pops into awareness from my subconscious, and when I follow it, that's "free will"? Even though I was not free to will it '

Why were you not free to will it? Because your unconscious mind has nothing to do with you? But that is to flatly contradict Pigliucci. Or because you did not have a conscious experience as of freely choosing? But the absence of the feeling of choice doesn't automatically mean absence if actual choice, any more than the presence of the feeling of choice automatically means the presence of actual choice,

[x]

But the absence of the feeling of choice doesn't automatically mean absence if actual choice, any more than the presence of the feeling of choice automatically means the presence of actual choice,

Did you choose to publish your spelling and grammatical mistakes, or should the reader assume you couldn't have corrected them due to your genetics, your conditioning, and the circumstances?

[George Poergie puddin 'n pie]

Why something rather than nothing?

Why is that something ordered at all?

Why is that order so finely tuned?

These are very strong arguments against indeterministism.

Feynman said that the universe is stranger than we could possibly imagine. I believe that is correct. If we can imagine God, then it's possibly even stranger then that.

There are certain tenets of modern physics which are so far off from explaining reality and our existence, that I suspect we don't have any clue.

[George Poergie puddin 'n pie]

So the Big Bang was the moment rverything was created.

Before the Big Bang there was nothing.

Yet we also know from the second law of thermodynamics that energy cannot be created or destroyed. We also know that matter and energy are converable qualities from Einstein's infamous e=mc2 simplification of special relativity.

So if energy cannot be created or destroyed and if part of it was converted into matter during the Big Bang, this raises some wierd-arsed questions

It means that there has always been a finite and fixed amount of energy in the universe. Cos it can't be created or destroyed. So what is his number and who decided on it?

This means energy is external and fixed - it has always existed. But this is wierd, because surely only a supernatural entity is eternal. What physical element is eternal? None.

Also what triggered the partial conversion into matter? Why the bang

[TheAncientGeek]

@x

Oh well. Allah alone is perfect.