Spooky free will is an illusion

Everybody believes they have unfettered free will, yet almost certainly nobody does. This is just one of the illusions that Anil Seth debunks in his captivating book, "Being You: A New Science of Consciousness."

I'm fascinated by free will. Of course, I don't have a choice in this.

Seth makes a strong case for being skeptical about our ability to choose actions, thoughts, emotions, and such by somehow stepping outside of all influences other than... 

That's what's so difficult to come up with. What could possibly reside in human consciousness that produces the "free" part of free will? 

If something like that existed, it would be spooky. Meaning, supernatural or other worldly -- like a ghost. Seth writes:

Let's first be clear about what free will is not. Free will is not an intervention in the flow of physical events in the universe, more specifically in the brain, making things happen that wouldn't otherwise happen. 

This "spooky" free will invokes Cartesian dualism, demands freedom from the laws of cause and effect, and offers nothing of explanatory value in return.

So does this mean that everything is determined by those laws of cause and effect? Maybe.

But denying free will doesn't rest on a strict determinism. Even if randomness is at play in certain aspects of reality, such as the quantum realm, this doesn't provide support for free will.

Once spooky free will is out of the picture, it is easy to see that the debate over determinism doesn't matter at all. There's no longer any need to allow any nondeterministic elbow room for it to intervene.

From the perspective of free will as a perpetual experience, there is simply no need for any disruption to the causal flow of physical events. A deterministic universe can chug along just fine.

And if determinism is false, it doesn't make any difference because exercising free will does not mean behaving randomly. Voluntary actions neither feel random, nor are random. 

Seth uses the act of making tea to illustrate features that characterize most, if not all, experiences of volition. 

The first defining feature is the feeling that I am doing what I want to do.

...Although making tea was fully consistent with my beliefs, values, and desires, I did not choose to have these beliefs, values, and desires. I wanted a cup of tea, but I did not choose to want a cup of tea. 

Voluntary actions are voluntary not because they descend from an immaterial soul, nor because they ascend from a quantum soup. They are voluntary because they express what I, as a person, want to do, even though I cannot choose those wants.

As nineteenth-century philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer put it, "Man can do what he wills, but he cannot will what he wills."

Then Seth talks about something that Sam Harris emphasizes in his arguments against free will. To me this is a very strong argument.

The second defining feature is the feeling that I could have done otherwise... I made tea. Could I have done otherwise? In one sense, yes. There's coffee in the kitchen too, so I could have made coffee. And after making the tea, it certainly seemed to me that I could have made coffee instead.

But I didn't want coffee, I wanted tea, and since I can't choose my wants, I made tea.

Given the precise state of the universe at the time, which includes the state of my body and brain, all of which have prior causes, whether deterministic or not, stretching all the way back to my origin as a tea-drinking semi-Englishman and beyond, I could not have done otherwise. 

You can't replay the same tape and expect a different outcome, apart from uninteresting differences due to randomness. The relevant phenomenology -- the feeling that I could have done otherwise -- is not a transparent window onto how causality operates in the physical world.

Thus our usual conception of free will is an illusion. However, Seth says:

From another perspective, free will is not illusory at all. So long as we have relatively undamaged brains and relatively normal upbringings, each of us has a very real capacity to execute and to inhibit voluntary action, thanks to our brain's ability to control our many degrees of freedom.

This kind of freedom is both a freedom from and a freedom to. 

It is a freedom from immediate causes in the world or in the body, and from coercion by authorities, hypnotists and mesmerists, or social-media pushers.

It is not, however, freedom from the laws of nature or from the causal fabric of the universe. It is a freedom to act according to our beliefs, values, and goals, to do as we wish to do, and to make choices according to who we are.

This is a much reduced conception of free will from the usual feeling of "I could have done otherwise." It's basically compatibilism, which is a greatly watered-down view of free will where determinism is compatible with acting freely.

Except, you aren't really free in the sense of being able to do something other than what you did. You're merely free to act according to what you're motivated to do -- with the cause of that motivation being outside of your control.

If someone wants to call this free will, it's because they're motivated to do so. But they aren't free to choose to believe in free will. That's a result of causes and effects, not free will.

Comments

[Spence Tepper]

Funny how many people are concerned about "getting what I want" and angry when things don't go "my way", but clearly they don't have free will, so there is no "they" to want anything, to be proud of anything, even to think anything.

Without free will we aren't even individuals. Just cogs in a machine.

Without free will, there is no freedom to take from anyone.

Without free will there is no imposition on another's will or choices, because they have none and never made those.

Choices were made, will is there, but it isn't theirs, it isn't "free" by "my own choosing".

When you take away free will, you remove freedom. And you justify every tyrants claim on the world, and your body and mind.

Yes, the universe is deterministic, but only if we know all of it.

So there is quite a bit of presumption, the kind that comes easy to those who harm others and excuse it with "destiny", "Nature", "determinism".

[Manoj]

Spooky free will is an illusionary...

I guess we all love to have the idea of free will, but when we can also make serious mistakes in our lovely little lives and if we give our lives away to some so called Fake Baba like Gurinder Goon Dhillion & Radha Soami Cult we automatically cut off our very chances off ever having any free will whatsoever in our lives.

The false Baba Gurinder Singh Dhillion sets the disciples a very strict resume of rules & regulations that he never would himself follow and never be able too and doesn't either. It makes the disciples suffer endlessly not being able to follow them too.

The struggle goes on an on, guilt creeps in but its a lost cause.

Free will becomes a endless prison sentence! Thanks to Gurinder Singh Dhillion & RS Cult

Lets be clear this Goon Baba Gurinder is a Ram Rahim in disguse, just waiting to be caught out and put with his brother in the next jail cell sometime very soon.

Whatever free will we Do have we need to entertain and give no space in our lives to thie like of a very Nasty Vile Convict Criminal Baba we all know as Gurinder Singh Dhillion and his psychotic Radha Soami Cult

[Uchit]

Free will is what we are born with, it is your birth right and we have the power of free will choice. But narsasists like Gurinder Singh Dhillon and the snakey manufactured RSSB belief system kills and poisons innocent vulnerable peoples mind that need real guidance and help. This is just a gist of how these interdimensional negative entities that GSD channels subdue your free will:

1. You are chained from birth , where you are surrounded by already RSSB brainwashed parents or so called friends.
2. First Out of curiousity then indirectly you are forced to attend regular satsangs which if you don't you believe something terrible will happen.
4. The presenters drill into your minds the need for a living master; that your a sinner and carry a heavy karmic debt ; you are told to love and worship the master; and completly surrender everything , that he is god in human form. This is nothing but falling in love with a mafia leader, a co dependency relationship.
3. You are indirectly coherced to go to seva, which we know is cloaked slavery. You become accustomed to obeying orders , and being humble and unable to stand up for your self, and leaving everything into his , the fake masters, hands
4. You believe you are the chosen one as you have found "Jesus Christ ", a living master, and that you will be released from the prison of 84 lakes, which is a false promise. This is the way the entity sets you up to trap you in its web.
5. You are told to repeat 5 holy names, which are nothing but summoning up demonic entities to take and guide your soul to satan heaven.
6. You marry into RSSB, and your friends become your new family.
7. You see nothing wrong with the guru as all you see is the false fantasy he has put you in, and him as a god - you are in fact caught in a spell and totally deluded.

These are just a few ways RSSB and GSD use to manipulate you and take away your free will - infact you offer it up for free to him on a plate. The spiders web traps you but you still have the choice to wake up and stand in your power to leave. I did it !!!!!

[Vinny]

There is no tea making in unconscious mind. It is illusion of tea making.

[Ron E.]

It appears that the issue of free will is confused with choice. Choices are limited to the data that we are programmed with via our cultures and genetic natures. We may have a propensity toward liking certain foods – so we choose something sweet for example, or if we have taken on board some health information, we may choose to avoid the sweet option and go for the salad instead. Also, beliefs and knowledge can direct us to choose how to behave, think and act in specific situations.

Conversely, to have free will there needs to be an entity (somehow within the organism) that is separate and uninfluenced by the physical brain/body. This would require some mysterious agent that operates outside of natural laws. The concept of free will can give justification to the hope or desire that there is some agent (call it a soul, God etc.) running the show - which helps with mankind’s neurosis about our future demise.

There are fears in society and law that without free will criminals cannot be held responsible. This may be due to free will being confused with choice. We are social creatures both by nature and by the cultures we belong to. As such there are natural and social rules that we instinctively adhere to, breaking them invites punishment. These are our choices, nothing to do with free will.

Different cultures of course have different rules and interestingly many are dependent on local beliefs and superstitions. Some of the worst atrocities are committed by ordinary people who have been indoctrinated to believe that some people, races and whole countries are evil and should be destroyed because of their particular beliefs – examples are rife!

[albert]

Great debate...always will be for every human being. After reading Brian's nice post I began perusing Skinner and Pavlov this morning and their undeniably solid conclusions regarding conditioning - reward and punishment for desired or undesirable behavior. It became clear to me that we humans are far more conditioned than we would like to admit.

According to both Pavlov and Skinner life is a learning process in which the likelihood of a specific behavior increases or decreases in response to reinforcement or punishment, so that the subject comes to modify and associate the behavior with the pleasure from the positive reward or the displeasure from the pain and punishment. This is true for all living creatures, including we humans.

I believe the majority of our actions, thoughts and feelings are actually "reactive responses" that have been learned from repetitive events and consequences - rewards and punishments - throughout our lives. As one Master put it about a century ago, freeze a moment of time for any human being and they are involved in one of two motivations: The person is either pursuing learned sense enjoyments (conditioned by sensory repetition) or avoiding pain of any sort (also learned by repetitive painful consequences for specific actions).

The above explanation for "freedom of will" may be simplistic but It seems to me that our life is guided by "likes and dislikes", or actions that bring the consequence of either pleasure or pain.

[Tendzin]

This is pretty much in line with what Charan Singh and other RSSB gurus said about free will, or the lack thereof. I don't have precise quotes but I've heard Charan say several times that in the absolute sense there is no free will (i.e. despite karma, everything that happens is a pre-ordained destiny).

Whatever the source, I find this idea of no free will strangely comforting, even with a theistic spin. Unless that spin is Calvinistic.

[Ruby]

Tendzin,
I believe what Maharaji Charan Singh said was that viewed at this level (physical) we have conditional free will, but viewed from the higher/highest level we have none. In other words, it's like we are all dealt a hand of cards, how we play those cards is our free will at this level.
Ruby

[Uchit]

RSSB agent @ruby I wouldn't put charan on a pedestal, most gurus are demon channellers that have sold their soul in exchange to be seen as a god of this physical world, while doing the dirty work of the devil. The dirty work in this case GSD is used as a vessel of satan to expand the RSSB cult into a world wide religion, there by expanding their beliefs, a virus and sucking in innocent lost gullible souls desperate for help. Just use common sense .

[Bertie O Hallaran]

Yep these rssb gurus make a lot of sense - in the absolute sense there is no free will.

What I cannot understand though is the atheist view which is to accept that universe is fundamentally deterministic.

I mean not only is there something rather than nothing, but that something is determined and ordered rather than being a complete random mess.

What worse is what happens if we discover or get closer to the position that there is no randomness at all, that randomness is not random in any way just a level of complexity that cannot be understood so we call it random.

What happens if quantum theory is not actually ‘random’ like Einstein always contended and that god does not play dice, it’s just the best explanation that our limited minds currently have.

It seems to me the more science discovers, the more laws it uncovers in what was previously considered to be random chaos. It’s not closing down god if the gaps but shedding light on an increasing ordered universe.

If everything is fundamentally ordered - surely you have to ask the question who or what created such order?

If the universe is 100% ordered how the hell can something pop out of existence from nothing. Atheism is an entirely illogical position if there is no true randomness.

It just doesn’t make sense that there is nothing or no higher power - there must be something that creates order and at the very least it’s Einstein’s god or scientific laws. And God might be a lot more then that.