"The question, whether the law of causality applies in the same strict sense to human actions as to other phenomena, is the celebrated controversy concerning the freedom of the will: which, from at least as far back as the time of Pelagius, has divided both the philosophical and the religious world." -- JS Mill
"I have noticed that some readers continue to find my argument about the illusoriness of free will difficult to accept." -- Sam Harris
I agree with Sam Harris: free will is an illusion.
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Thanks again William for another argument to free will from metaphysics. I think that's something I can take away and keep using: the notion of the possibility of the *freedom* of the will is, in fact, a metaphysical theory. It could be that beyond our natural world is a supernatural world that interacts with the natural world in some complex way that might allow some, but not all, physical impossibilies to be circumvented. For example, physical processes could in some or all cases cause death, but at this very point of death, the human will might interact with the supernatural world in a way where the supernatural world interacts on behalf of the human will to bring some natural processes into submission to that will, even a will to continue living. The physical world seems not to permit human wills to be free, but our lack of knowledge of all details permits a "god in the gaps" who could be orchestrating things via separate and sovereign negotiations with human wills. I can't disprove that argument. It's not my personal position though. -
Thanks for the suggestion of "both ... and" CJ. I'd need a little more elaboration. The law of excluded middle is unbreakable. The sun will rise tomorrow OR the sun will not rise tomorrow. There is no "both ... and" about it. The world is full of false distinctions, which are applications of the law of excluded middle where it does not apply. The right of politics are trying to steal your freedom! No, the left are! But this is sloganeering, so often based on false distinctions, to keep things oversimplified. Both left and right want government to control things, that's why people vote for them! People vote for parties they think will take *less* of their liberty away. More positively, neither left nor right wants to rob people of *all* their liberty, just the liberties they believe are anti-social licenses. But the question of the liberty of the human will is a matter of Yes or No. I *do* kind of take a middling position, along with Sam Harris, that our wills *look* as though they are free because we cannot see what moves them the way they are moved; but on the other hand, given everything else in the universe operates according to universal laws, our wills should be like that too. So Sam and I say Yes, the will appears to be free, but No it cannot actually be free. Sam might agree with me that in the end it doesn't really matter if our wills aren't free, because we can't see how they are bound, and because they feel free, we might as well enjoy and play along with the illusion. That's OK for ordinary life, but it's not good enough in hard science or rigorous philosophy. Most people are only interested in ordinary life. Sure, get on and enjoy it! :)
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Dear brother Akintayo, Romans 9 discusses this very point of human responsibility even given God's predestination of souls. Even twins, even before birth, we are told: "Jacob I loved but Esau I hated." And we are told this is all about God's Grace: "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy." And shown the same point in reverse: "So it is not by the one who wills or acts, but by God's grace." Having painted such a strong clear picture of a Divine plan for history covering each person from before birth all the way to eternity, Paul asks the same question we do: "How can God blame us, since who resists his will?" Look carefully, how does Paul answer our question for us? He doesn't give a definite answer. He can't explain the whole thing. God doesn't tell us. He tells us that it *is* so, he doesn't say how or why. Or at least that's how Augustine, Calvin and I read the passage. There are other views. JS Mill knows this whole question arose in theology before ever science started thinking about it. In theology, the no-free-will theologians Augustine, Luther and Calvin won the day (unless we are Jehovah's Witnesses or Roman Catholics). The same issue is likely to divide the church until Jesus' return. ;)
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Alastair,
Very concrete exposition of those passages. I believe that no man (Christian or not) truly has FREE will. If you are an unbeliever, scripture says you're slave to sin and the desires of your flesh (Romans 8:7; John 8:34, 44). If you're redeemed according to the grace of God through Christ scripture says you are "caused to walk in [God's] statutes (Deut. 30:6)."
It is not for our fallible, finite, depraved, selfish, and weak minds to know how or why the Sovereignty of God works 100% of the time. God knows every bit of information about the past, present, future AND all of the alternatives to any and every action made in that time. Until we get there, we honestly shouldn't pursue a "free" will. We'd have no idea what to do with it. We can barely handle the limited ones we have now. -
Amen Seth. That is exactly how I see it also. No further comment needed ... unfortunately! LoL Following your page. :D
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Alastair, you made a reference to a supernatural world imposing on this one at times. I truly hate references to supernatural worlds though, as to me they sound like fantasy land. Are not the experimentally supported findings of modern science strange enough?
When science supports the notion that the future determines the present, that time runs both forwards and backwards, we have gotten into very strange territory without adding anything more. We cannot simply assume a purely materialistic world without ignoring what modern science has found. Einstein's General Theory of Relativity and Maxwell's electromagnetic equations exclude that.
While a dualistic universe cannot be proven, given our current scientific knowledge it remains plausible, just as a purely mental world remain plausible. Either a dualistic and a purely mental universe would easily accomodate free will. A universe where the future determines the past would easily grant the illusion of free will.
Now given that we cannot determine what the nature of our existent universe is at present, whether it is purely mental, dualistic or materialistic with time running both forwards and backwards, all of which are plausible given our current level of knowledge, we cannot hope to answer a question of free will without great and unforeseeable advances in our knowledge. The one universe we may safely exclude though is that we do not live in a purely materialistic universe where time marches resolutely and exclusively forward and the answer regarding free will may be easily found. -
Fundamentally, I think its hard to "determine what the nature of our existent universe is at present..." if you immediately eliminate the supernatural. Until very recent history, almost all of mankind took the supernatural for granted (and many still do). Experimental support does not eliminate the necessity for mankind to fulfill his spiritual craving...a craving that requires some kind of supernatural "ideas" to exist.
Having said that, the point is this--are you truly able to do anything you want in this life? Before you make a decision, do you not consifer the impact of that decision on the lives of your family, friends, colleagues, etc.? Do not your morals play a role in your decisions? Or simply the environment in which you make those decisions? Based on the obvious answers to those questions I don't think man, in any of the theoretical realms or the reality that we live in, truly has (or needs or craves) a free will. -
Seth, I see no reason to claim that any factors that i consider in making a choice restrict my free will. For me to even consider them is itself an act of free will, unless you posit some external agency that forces me to consider all these factors. If it is internal, even via conditioning which I chose to accept, it is a result of free will.
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You two are leading me to a more interesting question or two here. To what extent would a perfectly moral universe, without moral transgression leave room for free choices? Do moral choices depend for their moral value on a presupposition of free or conscious selections between options? Are moral values, like good and bad, hard-wired in some epiphenomenal way into reality as we know it? At what point? Are they out there on the moon, if only we go to the moon, or are they in us, say in our brain? And if they are in us, are they in each of us the same way, or does it differ? Are some people born with higher gifts of moral sensitivity as it were? In all these questions we are exploring the boundaries between the objective material world, and the subjective personal world. Our wills, our choices, our physical operations on the world, mediated by our decisions, are a kind of boundary case of thinking about the human experience. I can look at a chess problem, think hard, solve it, without leaving my chair or lifting a finger. This is the life of the mind, whatever the physical processes like vision and breathing and heartbeats that underlie it. But if I engage with someone else's mind, in a real game of chess, then we will each make physical changes to the board in front of us as we move pieces around in making choices. So, if I make some move in chess, how free is my move? I cannot break the rules of the game. I may instinctively avoid some moves that will lose me the game, while others will require more careful reflection. Does the time I take to arrive at a move matter? Is the aim of winning the game a key element in constraining my moves? Does that have analogies in our instinctive moral choices in ordinary human life? Are they purposeful in some long term or big picture way that we even lose conscious sight of at times, while nonetheless marching to the beat of that deep purpose within us that drives the choices we are making?
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Alastair, in regards to your chess analogy, there is a flaw. I am fully capable, that is to say I CAN break the rules while playig chess. However, I MAY not do so. Now if I would break the rules in chess, I will be forced to take my move back, and if I persist in breaking the rules I will probably be ruled to have lost the game, but those would be consequences of my choice. I am free to attempt to break any rules I wish to, but in many cases there will be consequences, quite often consequences I do not wish to incur. The only thing that blocks my free choice of breathing water is that I would not like the consequences. I may choose to fly, but unless I stay very close to the ground, best if I start standing on the ground, I will not like the consequences. That I choose not to like the consequences of some choices, and thus avoid them, does not mean that I am incapable of choosing them. In fact I tried a few such things when I was young and dumb. Learning how much some of these choices hurt managed to revise how I choose.
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Hi, Alastair, sorry for the long break,
I think it is nice to consider the place of 'God's foreknowledge' in predestination (and vis a vis God's Sovereignty), as Paul also was conversant of it in his same Romans Epistle (8:29), "For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son,.." I like to distinguish 'fatalistic predestination' from "predestination out of God's foreknowledge and Grace." [I mean fatalism like, you yes go to hell, and you, yes go to heaven at random..] (For by GRACE you have been saved through FAITH; and that not of yourselves, it is the GIFT of God... Ephesians 2:8; John 3:16, 17). Grace, Faith and Gift of God are important words which need to be seriously examined.
God foreknew all that Jacob was going to do (even before his birth). HE knew Jacob was going to make a great mess, repent and seek after God in prayer... build an altar (Bethel) for the HIM; REPENTANCE and WORSHIP which we do not see in Esau. Jacob seems to provide a link for the continual worship of YHWH, otherwise there would have been a premature break in worship after (Abraham and..) Isaac. I can easily understand Pauline Epistle better through "God's foreknowledge" before Jacob and Esau were born, "Jacob I love.. Esau I hate" Romans 9:13. I try to search for the role of foreknowledge in the discourse by the virtue of which God's LOVE is in conformity with HIS other attributes such as Justice.
I love and respect CALVIN and LUTHER, but they are not 'the Scripture'. I also like proper biblical exegesis (true to the Scripture). -
Seth, William and Alastair,
Very interesting...
There are certain factors that keep humans from using the 'freewill' in an absolute sense, hence would like to qualify freewill as a 'limited freewill'. But Seth may like to dispute this that if it is limited, then it is not free; but that is not true. It is still free until the set boundary is reached. It is not an absolute freewill though.
Definition/description of freewill may help clarify our thoughts. So what is 'freewill'?
1. If freewill means absolute freedom, then no known human has it, as I already explained at some point above. Seth will be comfortable with this definition/description of freewill. Absolute freewill does not exist.
2. If freewill means ability to make some choices within a set boundary, then all humans have freewill within the set boundary. The boundary could mean some of the points already raised above. So William is right, if he meant 'limited freewill' So we have it.
Seth is right if he meant absolute freewill, no human has it. And thanks to Alastair for his question. -
@William. Your "can" v "may" distinction is exactly the same as that implied by my long series of questions, and a clear and helpful thing it is for you to make it. My illustration is only that, an illustration, it's hardly the suggestion that people have no choice in life except to play chess! LoL ;) The analogy works by allowing the rules of chess to illustrate the laws of nature, but the choices of move to illustrate the application of the human will. There *are* laws of nature. The human will exists and is exercised everywhere. The questions are: is that will free of any constraint under the laws of nature, and does it need to be free in order for there to be any possibility of a theory of morality?
PS As far as your suggestion that you can fly at will but choose not to in order to avoid consequences, I'll allow that you can jump or maybe do things I cannot do, but I'm coming from the perspective that gravity is beyond our power to avoid, we may choose to harness its power by jumping from a diving board into a pool, but we have no choice about how gravity operates. That fact may be pressed further, in that the functioning of our brains has a chemistry that we do not completely understand, but is likely to work by cause and effect like other things, leaving our choices as ultimately effects of our brain chemistry, even though we experience them as being choices according to a pattern that we consider to be our "self." -
Dear Akintayo,
you articulate classic semi-Pelagianism, but from different passages to the ones normally offered for it. You believe the Bible teaches salvation by works, just as Pelagius did (and John Stuart Mill mentions in the quote in my question), and that is very common in Christian thinking today, just as it was in Augustine's day.
Grace has a different meaning in Pelagianism and Roman Catholicism to what it has in Scripture, understood with due attention to context. In scripture, grace refers to God's sovereign election of some to eternal life, in the context of him excluding the remainder. God binds all men over to disobedience so that he might have mercy on some elect (end of Romans 11). Grace is undeserved election, not based on what we have done, are doing or will do. If you died in 10 years time, would you go to heaven? Scripture teaches us to say, "Yes," because God elected me in Christ before the foundation of the world and wrote my name in the book of life before I was born, a totally different book to the book of my deeds.
In Pelagianism and Roman Catholicism, grace is an assistance God gives us to come close enough to his standards, or even to totally fulfil them, that he foresees, oversees and finally judges us according to our grace-assisted actions. Many people these days teach that the Holy Spirit does the same thing. Charitably I can call it a long standing interpretation of the scripture shared with Pelagius, that is motivated by either: (a) a horror at the thought that God chooses some for destruction; or (b) a pride in one's own efforts to persevere in walking in God's ways. Motive (b) is of real concern, motive (a) is just an understandable lack of trust in God's complete love due to incomplete familiarity with the full text of the Bible and appreciation of some of its most prominent themes.
But the main thing is that the Bible nowhere teaches that God has no power to command the human will, but rather everywhere asserts that he is all powerful, and specifically over the human will, not simply to first shape it, command it and foresee, oversee and judge it, but also to change it, to replace hearts of stone with hearts of flesh, to make what is dead to be alive.
Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be. -
Alastair;
Constraints make human freewill a LIMITED FREEWILL. I doubt the existence of freewill without qualification among humans. Constraints like gravity, hunger/willingness to eat due to chemical composition of the brain and digestive system are NOT sufficient grounds for denying freewill. There are still elements of freedom although not without motivation towards certain choices like an hungry man going for food, but still have within his ability to choose to eat or not , or to make selection out of the available menus. -
Dear Alastair,
That 'essay' of mine does not fall under semi-Pelagianism. {... 'I try to search for the role of foreknowledge in the discourse by the virtue of which God's LOVE is in conformity with HIS other attributes such as Justice'...}
I expected a response to 'GOD'S FOREKNOWLEDGE, Predestination, God's Love and Justice' vis a vis Human's Freewill/Determinism. Discussions around some of these and other related terms will be helpful, which are in line with your question, 'Does free will exist?'
St Augustine wrote extensively on foreknowledge and predestination. Augustine was also involved in a lot of discourses with Monks against Pelagianism.
Salvation is by GRACE (unmerited favour) through FAITH, which is the GIFT of God (Ephesians 2:8). -
I've just finished an interesting book on "Will" (José Antonio Marina, "La Voluntad Perdida", Barcelona 1997). His kantian inspiration (don't know if he would accept de adjective) guides him through a rough, hard but amusing investigation on kantian grounds and in human positive sciences (psi & sociology) on what "moves" us to final decisions. Unfortunately it's a long way to nowhere: he finishes stating that it's not easy to explain that strange & typical human behavior called decision (where free will stands).
To say that free will is not clear because there are lots of forces "causing" us to act is, I think, missing the point. When a sometimes long series of considerations, justifications, propositions, is finished... it's finished by me... and I experience it's "me" doing it albeit "subconscious", "social", "structural" conditions. There is that conditioning, but I'm still feeling me free. That's why merit and penal guilt exists.
It amused me to read in Marina that we should pay more attention to the phenomenical descriptions done by a medieval philosopher, Tomas Aquinas, on free will.
The contemporary followers of Aquinas find the free.will in intelligence. In the mind and brain problem, I state first of all, intelligence overflows neuronal activity, at least in the actual stage of neurophysics. Intelligence is possibly all things (Aristotle): she (she!) can reach "any" reallity, and that is the trascendental freedom. Not "absolute" as William wrote, because we are limited beings: we cannot do or be all we would like to do or be...
There is no experience in this world, in this history, in this humanity o something such as absolute free will, even when all the liberal tradition of XIXth century preached something like that.
Luther (perhaps learning it from Bernard of Clairvaux) thought the freedom of man similar to the freedom of God (in his nominalistic formation one should pay attention to meaning of the word), in his capacity for decision, if not in its reach...
The point:
1-I would make distinctions on different, in technical words *analogue*, dimensions of freedom, of free will: transcendental freedom, moral freedom (developed skill to manage our own actions), social freedom, political freedom.
2-The experience I have of psicological, sociological, environmental, familiar, educational conditionings dont eliminate the stronger experience of free will. See how we react when someone somehow someway sometimes tries to overwhelm our convictions... I have, in spanish words a "libertad situada" (R. Yepes Stork, free will in a *place*, in a *time*, in an *environment*). -
Under 'normal circumstances,' humans have 'LIMITED FREEWILL' within a set boundary or boundaries.
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Yes, Akintayo: I omitted to underline that I liked that: but without capitals. Limited freewill within a set boundary or boundaries.
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In Islamic Philosophy it is discussed as the problem of Jabr and Qadar (destiny and free will), a number of Islamic thinkers under influence of alien philosophy find solace in a position in between absolute determinism and absolute free-will. But, like pristine Islam I does believe in absolute destiny. Even we act under specif situations not differently, but we are prior destined to react like that. One may say it is in our genes and there may be given several arguments to be these reactions being of our own free choice as when one knows ordinarily what reaction should be why not one reacted differently. This problem in the philosophy of geography is discussed under environmental determinism and posiblism. But, much earlier Friedrich Engels has warned that each victory of ours over nature will result bit by bit avenge by nature, it turns out true and Green Movements have revived the philosophy of environmental determinism- control of nature on our actions, our behaviours and culture. One may argue so far we could got victory of our own free will. To me it was already destined for the people of our era to learn again what in history different cultures like those of Babylonians and Mayans have learned or we know why different cultures or communities were destroyed as told in all scriptures of major religions, but we are adopting their behaviour and cultural traits at a high speed. Scientifically, we cannot defy gravity and fly like birds. Time and space barriers are intact in spite of FLAT EARTH or GLOBAL VILLAGE. I am communicating with the community on this thread and my communication you will receive say instantly when I finish or I communicate with you through video-conferencing or using Webcam, but you will loose the opportunity to see me fully and loose the opportunity of laughing on my English vernacular accent and poor grammar. -
Hello Mohammad Firoz,
It was nice you introduced Jabarism and Qadarism to this discourse. Could you briefly tell us if Mutazilism also has anything to offer Freewill discourse?
As you have preferred to align with 'absolute destiny,' would you like to explain the correlations between 'absolute destiny' and God's Justice? Where is Justice if a man/woman has been programmed, remotely controlled, or systemically maneuver (absolute destiny) to act one way or the other throughout life, unable to actually make alternative choices, and would be judged for whatever he/she does. Do you think there are no complications in that position? -
Perhaps, you have forgotten, that Most Muslims are afraid of Allah's Justice. If Allah does justice,there had been no human on this planet we have declared war against Allah. All Muslims and other religious persons who know seek God's Mercy, only Mercy, not Justice.
Do you mean when we are programmed to sin why should to be punished for our destiny. A very old question and answered by too many Muslim ulema. It started with the mischief of Muslim sect that believe in absolute justice from Allah. They, through their non-Muslim slave asked this problem from the Muslim Ullemah of the time in the form Arabic Poetry during period of Imam Ibn Taymiyyah. All Muslim Ullemah gave satisfactory answers but they want a fitting answer. Indeed, Imam gave a fitting answer and I know that, but search the way like me to know the answer for your satisfaction. -
Thank you, Mohammad Firoz. Is there any grounds in Muslim thought to separate religious considerations from, say, philosophical thinking? I'm aware of the richness that carries the religious thinking, more if it is revelation. But, I believe on the possibility of rationale thinking on man, and consequently, on free will.
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Judaism, Christianity and Islam, based on their scriptures, but accepted by believers because it makes rational sense all believe God is Almighty, and hence that there is no freedom in regard to the human will. What they also all believe in is a morally responsible will. The important questions arise from moral accountability: Are we guilty? What happens because of guilt? Is God merciful? On what grounds does he extend mercy? Simply put, all three religions believe that God is merciful to the repentant. But there are different theories of how justice works in that. The religions differ, interpretations of the religions differ. But all rational theories of justice are "incomplete." Even atheists, or especially atheists, find metaethics difficult to establish on an axiomatic (deductive) or empirical (inductive) basis.
But scientists generally, and most atheists actually agree with religions on this point about the human will. It is common sense that the will is not free. The difference between atheists and theists on the subject is only that religions have an a prior rational reason of a metaphysical kind, scientists have an a priori reason of an empirical kind.
Nothing in the physical universe we can observe except man has a will, and all things work by cause and effect. The human will is not free, because whatever it wills is caused by something. Because we cannot see the causes, some people like the idea of freedom.
Some people get trapped in a losing game of saying: OK I don't ever choose to fly because I cannot cause that to happen, but I'm free within constraints. Then they have to admit: OK I choose to speak English because other people here speak English, but I'm still free within those constraints. Then they need to admit: OK I'm answering a particular question caused by other people, but I'm still free within those constraints. Of course, we can keep pushing and pushing until we reach the fact that there are many, many, many, many known constraints that radically limit any possibility of freedom of the will. But people stubbornly cling to the idea that there must be freedom down there somewhere, despite the fact that there's endless evidence of constraints, but there's no evidence at all of freedom at any level.
We know that we wilfully make choices, but ultimately we have limited knowledge of what causes those choices. The notion of free will is not just an illusion, it's a matter of pride for many people. At that point, rationality has a habit of leaving discussion, whether the free will defenders are religious or atheist. There is more hope for religious defenders of free will, however, because they can claim it is supernaturally assisted in some way. -
Alastair,
Can you justify the claim that "... there's no evidence at all of freedom at any level." as you wrote in your last post? That statement will be true only among robots, considering all the debates we have had so far.
But as you rightly said, it is nice to stop at certain point, and this could be the right place. I am happy to be recognized with my claim for 'Limited Freewill' within the overwhelming constraints among humans. But, who or what factors control the remaining part of the 'Will' if it is limited? That is a good question for further research. These could be constraints already mentioned in our debates like gravity, hunger/desire to eat, and I will further add here addictive substances, evil spirit and God for those who have a religion. Humans are ultimately responsible for their actions and in-actions and all that they permit or allow.
I will agree with you on some theists' claim for the relevance of the supernatural to support them in time of uncertainties and in the use of their WILL POWER especially in a positive way and for peaceful purposes. Humans can seek help whenever necessary and that is the reason why many pray as it works for them.
I can quickly cite a few Christian examples for further studies like George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, Smith Wigglesworth and Billy Graham. These Bible preachers believed in the transforming power of the Gospel as recorded in the Bible and it worked for them. Their 'clients' were transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit who came to live in their lives having believed the Gospel. Anybody can read about them too and correlate it with the teachings of Jesus in the Bible. Nice meeting you all. Cheers. LIMITED FREEWIL -
Akintayo Olayinka & Manuel de Elía,
Absolute Justice as one the attribute of God implies free-will on the part of its slaves (creature) . I shall explain it by an example, let me declare first that God me test Its creature, not the vice versa. In India across all religion it is common saying, if you sow barley, you cannot expect to harvest wheat. One may argue that it itself implies we eat fruits of work done by our free-will. Nay. Tow persons test their common personal God, one depends on Its mercy and says whether I toil in the field or not, whether I sow my field or not my Lord provide food from this field. Another, whatever weather conditions and hardships and I want to see how my Lord stop me to taste the fruit of my toil. He worked hard, sow best seeds of wheat available in the market, apply fertilizer in adequate doses and irrigate the field at correct times. Crop is very good, every one visit to see how cultivation is done and praise the owner of the field. Now crop matures and the farmer find his field at prime time to harvest the crop and take the grains home. He goes to bring harvester and mean while a small patch of clouds emerge from on the horizon and in a short duration reaches the village and hails fall down in a narrow belt over a long distance and the field of the farmer who wanted to taste the fruit of his toil ia also complete, the grains far gone, he could not even take straw to his home. Both were fools who tested their God, if God wanted them to live and eat he will open some other way, but not their own way. It is why we do what other are doing because we are destined to do that but we cannot expect to realise our desired results.
Yes, in fact philosophy and logic may be used as a component of wisdom only in on situation. The situation is when a direction is not found in the Holy Book and in sunnah (deeds and saying of the last Apostle of Allah, a leaned Muslim or Alim (educated in religion), then as ijtehad can use these two in such a way major norms are not violated and no contrast is found with the Book and Sunnah. -
I don't really believe in free will, but I suppose statistical mechanics and the Heisenberg uncertainty principle point toward the idea that it is possible... probably. -
I'm far of your way of thinking Mohammad Firoz. And Allison, belief and supposition doesn't make a statement: If our feeling free-willed is illusion, it shoud be proved as such. Those who deny the existence of free will continue to defend it against any agression. Why!?
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I guess it was a bad joke...
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I believe that to do any thing some effort is done and power to carry out this effort is given by our Lord, without this grant of power, one cannot expect that the out would be as expected. If otherwise why delay in reversing climate change which is outcome of our deeds? Try to carry out farming desert and semi-desert by constructing dams on a perennial stream from these areas as the Babylonians did? It is urgently required for starving humanity. Whatever we can do for mankind we think it is who is doing all this. The fact is that our Lord let humans know how to use laws of nature to utilize for their benefit. Instead of thanking our Lord Who set these law and created situations and granted power of effort to know and apply these laws for our well-being, we revolt, deny Lord's existence and consider ourselves our own lord, how ungrateful we are. If you can leave the universe why not you settle in another dimension, either parallel or linear and find out a universe where you can express your arrogance which is source of all turmoil, war, hatred and terrorism.
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@Allison. It was not a joke. Did it sound offensive? Sorry me if it was the case, cause was not what I meant. But this can help the argument: was I free when I wrote that? If I wasn't, was I responsible for offending? Responsibility, civil responsibility, moral responsibility, personal responsibility, is correspondent term to free-will. Whithout free-will there is no responsibility. Whithout responsibility there is no society, no possible dialogue, no peace.
Saying that belief or supposition dont made a statemente I mean that there is no possible scientific verification in individual considerations. In writing this I consider also that the personal expierience of freedom is realy universal, even if there can be doubts on this perception, I will not allow anyone to act against me imposing me anything.
If I can offend -that I dont want- is because I'm moraly free, and responsible for my acts. If yor, Allison, can feel offended for what I expressed myself in such an unskillful way, is due to your confiding in my freedom.
I really *know* that free-will is more than a belief: I would... die for freedom, defending your freedom and my freedom. -
Manuel. My apologies for the misunderstanding. My post was a joke that was playing on my discipline which is chemistry, I was talking about probability at the quantum level. What I meant was "I guess my post was a bad joke."
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@ Manuela, great illustration.
Your freewill to be polite in your response to Allison was not fully free, but guided by your value system/moral value, training, knowledge and possibly, belief system. Not everybody will use their freewill the way you have used yours, being courteous. The factors restricting us from using our freewill in a similar way are barriers in themselves. Although you exercise a high level of freedom in deciding to reply Allison, move to your computer/device and communicate, but your freewill was restricted by your understanding of values and consequences of your actions, like being sensitive to how Allison would feel or other readers of your post. Were you fully free?
J. L Mackie, arguing on Freewill and the problem of evil wrote, "What value or merit would there be in free choices if these were random actions which were not determined by the nature of the agent?" <http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~drkelly/MackieProblemofEvil.pdf>; Even though I do not fully support everything Mackie has ever written, but here, one can see that you cannot call that freedom, if your actions are random and not in control of what you do. If one is in control to certain extent, he/she though free, is not absolutely free.
We humans are free, but restricted by our knowledge and value system. The freedom that we have is LIMITED FREEDOM, otherwise, we will all be acting as if intoxicated. Humans can use the little freedom we have to make the world better and more peaceful. -
Akintayo, if our actions can make the world better and more peaceful, then that better and more peaceful world will not depend on anyone's free will, but on our free will to take away their free will to do harm. As it turns out, there is no evidence for free will, the only evidence we have is to the contrary. Experiments show gravity exists, time passes, cardiac arrest kills, brain injury impairs mental function. Everywhere we actually go to the trouble of looking, there we find cause and effect of strictly material kind, without any need to believe in metaphysical wills, unmoved by the material universe but able to act upon it. In short, you are simply begging the question in favour of a "god of the gaps": because we don't know everything about why someone choses a blue shirt or a green shirt, then you conclude the choice is uncaused, except by a spontaneous action of some metaphysical entity that has never been observed which you call the will.
Quantum mechanics doesn't really help in the end, because wave equations are all about hypothesising particles as having intrinsic randomness, i.e. accidental properties of location or whatever. Quantum entanglement does illustrate elements of randomness, but much more powerfully elements of causation. One paradox is that entangled particles seem to cause one another's properties to propagate faster than the speed of light, essentially instantaneously. Either that, or material reality is embedded in a deep layer of fundamental determinacy. Entanglement suggests no free will. Randomness doesn't describe freedom, just unpredictability. If a will had unpredictable success, that wouldn't be freedom.
To clarify the question again. Given that everybody already knows that the human will is radically limited by being an effect of genetics and brain neurology, is there any hope for freedom of the will? What experiment could be designed to prove a human will was free? Or, is it possible to explain why no such experiment could ever be designed. The freedom of the will is an a priori logical fallacy, essentially a logical contradiction if expressed in precise language.? -
On one side, as Alastair puts it, there is gravity (that is not free), time (I would better say: movement, cause ¿who has seen *time*?), cardiac beating... All these are not free events, but guided by physics. Physics are about measurable matter, experimentation on things (particles, waves, bodies...) we can measure.
Is there any proof of the existence of free-will? Of course not in the world of Physics, cause there is no freedom in Physics: there is need, *causes*. The proof of the existence of free will *must* be searched out of Physics.
Does "Metaphysics" mean something else than *magic*, *mystery*... say *nonsense*? Nonsense in the way Wittgenstein or Popper use the term: things we can't *verify* experimentally?
Alastair: the statement "everything has a cause" is a non-physical statement, a non scientific statement: the validity of the statement must be looked for beyond physics, Aristotle would say Meta-physis. We should say, perhaps, in Logic, and that would be right. But beyond that, if intelligence can say something logic on the world, that is not because of Physics.
I affirm, for me is evidence, that there are interesting topics beyond experimental sciences, and freedom belongs to that topics. Culture accepts today there is no place for Metaphysics (on the Aristotle's way, not Hegel's): since Descartes through Montaigne, Leibnitz, to Hawking, Man is a machine. Well, that is just a non proved and unverified statement. Popper reminded Carnap and the whole Circle of Wien that the statement "there is no place to Metaphysics" cannot be verified, and consequently is not scientific.
Freedom cannot be proved in Physics. It can be observed, studied, explained... in a different way, that is also Knowledge, and Sense (against nonsense). -
We can feel gravity but although all I do is constainted and limited by gravity I am not a rock. The rock simply accelerate under gravity unless it is stopped to do so by another external force. Me, I not able to jumb to the moon but I am not a rock. I can walk whereever I want and for walking gravity is a necessary constraint. A bird can even fly where it wants. Take any physical laws and for living organisms this law is not a determinant but only a constrained which is taken advantage off. Life is far far too complex to be determine by a very simple set of physical laws.
There are laws in nature as there is laws in our societies. Although I respect all the laws of my society, does it mean that these laws deternine my life? Not at all. Nature is like society, it has laws but these laws do not govern/determine all aspects of Nature and the most complex living being on this planet even less. Where does this metaphysical idea that everything is cause and effect come from? -
as one of my favorite musicians stated:
In our confrontation with an enormous and cold universe
There is something comical to the idea
That we can really enforce our will on humanity
I don't believe in free will because I know that there is a mathematical equation that starts at the singularity and predicts everything that ever was to happen. Nobody will ever deduce this equation, but it still exists. -
Manuel, the Law of Cause and Effect is technically a hypothesis, an assumption about the phenomenal world that has no counterexamples. We can state that law in Spanish, English, German or Dyirbal. Those statements might be characters typed and seen, representing sounds uttered and heard--phenomenological things, empirical things--but with an interpretation that is an idea, a proposition, a truth-claim, that has no independent existence of its own outside human minds (unless there are alien lifeforms or gods and supernatural beings exist). Propositions only have meaning in the sense that they refer to the phenomenological world, or that they can be modelled within it. The brute fact that ideas are not actually real, but epiphenomenal, doesn't stop them from being true. 1 + 1 would not equal 2 in that case, it would simply mean nothing at all. "One" is an abstraction of individual particularity, "addition" is a different abstraction, and duality is yet another. But these ideas can be modelled in any number of ways that make the proposition 1+1=2 work out to be true, i.e. to be an accurate description of the state of affairs that actually obtains in the world we can test empirically. We can also model the symbols and abstractions in ways that do not work.
All that is to provide a rough overview of the philosophy of language developed before WWII and still current today. When I state the Law of Cause and Effect, I'm simply stating the basic principle of science. You don't need to believe in science, that's fine by me. Karl Popper didn't believe in science, and that's fine by me too. But most people do. The Law of Cause and Effect, like any other inductive law is not deduced from self-evident truths, it is an extrapolation from the known and experienced, i.e. empirical observation, to the unknown. It makes a prediction, an educated guess, that since everything we've seen so far is like X, everything we see in the future will be like X. That's what science is. It is a logically invalid argument, however it is very often true, and even more often it is the best we can do to establish facts and make best guesses about the future. Gravity could stop tomorrow, but we don't think it will, because we've never seen it stop anywhere else.
Likewise, the Law of Cause and Effect might have exceptions, one of those might be human choices. But since science has never yet observed a breach of cause and effect, it seems that human choices cause things, but they are themselves caused by things we can guess about, but simply don't know in detail ... yet. It doesn't worry me whether my choices are caused or not, since I enjoy making them, and from my point of view they are about the future and what I can cause to happen, not the past and what leads me to want to cause certain things to happen. The main thing is that I *feel* free, not that I actually am, but my choices wouldn't change at all if I learned that they were always caused by brainstorms of certain kinds tri... [more] -
About in the middle of the 19th century it was beleived that the physical world was orderly and deterministic and everything is an effect that follow from a cause and so the whole story of the universe was determined from the beginning. The 20th century quantum physics changes all that. Before quantum physics, Darwin had understood that RANDOM mutations were fundamental. Since 1927 we know that the idea of the world as a big machine is not true. The world has evolved in complexity because it is not a big machine. All the marvelous mechanisms that are part of the living have been invented during evolution; they were not part of the order of the universe at the time of the bing bang.
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That's not quite right Louis. In the 19th century, physicists thought the universe to be the size of the galaxy and in an eternal steady state with no creation. A Catholic priest (and maths PhD) solved some of Einstein's equations and came up with the theory of an expanding universe. There was scepticism, because it sounded like a scientific version of Genesis, but Einstein agreed. Hubble then observed it. Finally, we even "heard" the Big Bang in the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation. That prompted a theory of hyper expansion to explain how the temperature was the same in all directions, which it shouldn't have been by simply extrapolating current observations backwards. Where differences exist, we now view those as quantum effects, which have since resulted in the differentiated mass structures of the observable universe.
Short summary of above: random quantum effects existed from the creation/big-bang, evolution is a different and relatively trivial phenomenon. The *universe* and *without life* was evolving for seven billion years before our sun and solar system evolved out of it. It took generations of galaxies to produce stars that went nova before we could get the iron for the core of the earth, and other elements--notably carbon--needed for life as we know it on earth. We still don't actually know how the first self-replicating molecules started here.
Second point: random mutations are not fundamental. If randomness was very high, since most mutuations are deleterious, not beneficial, species would never form, offspring mutating out of existence too quickly to exploit what are called "niches." Though it is true that if randomness were zero, we'd simply have endless cloning without evolution. In fact, randomness is probably a bit too low, so sexual reproduction evolved, which increases randomness.
Third point: randomness is not free will. If your thoughts are random, Louis, why do you trust them? Randomness doesn't mean the present wasn't determined by the past, it means the way the future is determined by the present is opaque to us, we can't see it in detail, we can't determine what makes it so. Another way of looking at it is that our wills are not truly wills and cannot cause anything if everything is random. The concept of will itself is the assumption that a human mind can cause an effect. If you deny the law of cause and effect, then you deny the possibility of will, let alone free will. The very thing that makes a human will a reall will is the law of cause and effect. -
Louis,
Very good argument except the case of mutation in connection with Darwin as even well-known biologists who devoted their life to evolutionary biology and others in related fields like bio-chemistry etc. differ on this count. It is to a great extent true that world emerge out of chaos whatever theory of universe are multiverse is considered, first stage after initiation is that of chaos. However, the matter out of chaos took different forms and developed in an orderly system. What were [natural] constants or laws that matter took different forms and subsystems being apart at astronomically or cosmologically being apart follow the same laws and some system opposite to known systems [still being explored at initial level] behave differently. I don't think, any stochastic theory may explain it. My conclusion is that it was destined by THE ONE who set the laws of behaviour of the matter so that an orderly system could develop. -
Alastair,
The purpose of my last posts was not to explain how free will is possible but to establish that the science of the last century has discredited the Laplacian deterministic picture of reality. Classical physics was Laplacian and General Relativity which is the last remnant of classical physics is still Laplacian as was Einstein. But the bulk of physics is based on quantum physics and this is the part of physics that is most relevant to living organisms. Most quantum physicists rejects the idea the quantum world is deterministic or the idea that everything in the quantum world is cause and effect, mechanistic. This quantum physicists think that the quantum reality is irreductible and involves an irreductible creativity/randomness/spontaneity.
I personally believe that biological evolution is not completely explained by neo-Darwinian theory but I agree with most biologist that random mutations plays a role.
I personally do not believe that this is not the end of the story but my point here was to illustrated that randomness plays a role in Biological evolution and so that we do not live in a Laplacian biological world.
I mostly agree with what you said about the early part of the universe history but I do not see your point. I agree with your second point but it is not relevant to the issue.
<<Third point: randomness is not free will. >> Agree
<<If your thoughts are random, Louis, why do you trust them?>> My thought s are not randoms but there are not the result of a mechanical process.
<<Randomness doesn't mean the present wasn't determined by the past, it means the way the future is determined by the present is opaque to us, we can't see it in detail, we can't determine what makes it so.>>
Quantum physics is clear, the unpredictability is not an artifact of our lack of knowledge but is intrinsic to reality. There is no hidden machinery. The argument that you stated is Spinoza’s argument and this argument is dead.
http://www.informationphilosopher.com/freedom/standard_argument.html
by Bob Doyle
<<The Standard Argument against freedom has two parts:
First, if determinism is the case, the will is not free.
We call this the Determinism Objection.
Second, if indeterminism and real chance exist, our will would not be in our control, we could not be responsible for random actions.
We call this the Randomness Objection.
Together, these objections can be combined in the Responsibility Objection, namely that no Free Will model has yet provided us an intelligible account of the agent control needed formoral responsibility.
Both parts are logically and practically flawed, partly from abuse of language that led some 20th-century philosophers to call free will a "pseudo-problem," and partly from claims to knowledge that are based on faulty evidence. We shall consider the evidence and show how to detect and correct errors in the reasoning.
>>
This is an excellent web site on free will and how the world evolved by the continual cr... [more] -
Here's an article from the journal Science indicating that even if we do have free-will, we rarely use it: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/329/5987/47.abstract
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Allison,
In science, we can only analyse aspect of reality and express our findings as a model/mechanism. Any scientific models, models that have been experimentally tested and empirically validated do not represent reality but represented aspects of reality from the perspective of the relations between the measurables/variables in the model. All that science can ever know are models/mechanisms. Should we infer that all there is, reality is a big machine. Quantum mechanics at the level of the quantum is definitive on this question: NO. What about the more complex entities we know in the cosmos: human beings? Since it is epistemologically impossible to know anything that is not a mechanism about human beings, should we infer that this limit is the limit of the reality of a human being and that we are a complex machine? That cannot be proven scientifically because the question cannot be tested empirically. Whatever that can be known about specific aspects on how human being manage to direct their actions, and I have no doubts that we can learn a lot on this vast topic, this will never prove nor disprove that we are a macnine. Science is a method to uncover mechanism and we can scientifically know are mechanisms. But let not foul ourself that we should necessarily limit reality to mechanism. Classical physics had made this mistake and has been proven wrong. -
Science *is* cause and effect, Louis. Classical mechanics is as true today as it was when it was first stated. It accurately describes macroscopic physics at speeds not close to that of light. The 20th century saw *refinements* of existing theories. The new theories still have to explain "normal" macroscopic nonluminal mechanics, and do so no differently than before, just recognising them as special cases of more general rules.
I'm still working through Bob Doyle's material. To his credit, he lines up a few dozen of the biggest names in philosophy and science, quotes them all saying similar things, then says they are all wrong. That's fine, but I'm not sure I buy Bob's explanation. I think I see what he's claiming, but I've got to understand it better before I can restate it well enough to critique it properly. Theologically, I've got no wriggle room on this topic, but in the natural world, it is just possible something wierd might happen, or could be stated more clearly. I'm interested to hear what he has to say, but thinking it through needs to be in my spare time over the next few days or week or so. -
The thing about science is that we have to have a testable subject. The issue of the existence or inexistence of free-will belongs to the humanities.
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Alastair,
At the quantum level, particle physics classical physics is not valid. So 3 of the 4 forces of nature are explained by quantum physics and only the gravitational force remain classical but probably not for long.
IF you want to understand the point of view of the information philosopher, Bob Doyle, begin with his general world view:
http://www.informationphilosopher.com/
and the 3 kinds of emergence/creations of informational structure in Nature. A nice theory of the creation of this universe where free will is at home. -
I'm very familiar with this whole field, Louis. Bob Doyle clearly lists many of the greatest minds *against* his own view: philosophers, scientists and philsophers of science. He is presenting his own unique view that sounds creative, but slightly confused, to me. I'll give an open mind to his view when I get some time, may well have immediate objections of my own, and might confirm those by checking for other critics.
But in regard to your low view of classical physics, new science rarely renders old science invalid. It typically has to refine and extend previous results into new territory. It is Newton, not Einstein that gets spacecraft to Mars according to Michio Kaku. If new results really made old ones invalid, how come all the experiments confirmed and can still confirm classical mechanics? It's because the classical description is still adequate at the macroscopic level, at the *microscopic* level, it is not *entirely* valid, but many of the basic principles remain there too. Conservation of mass-energy, and cause and effect.
There is overstated rhetoric all over the place in popularised versions of the philosophy of science. But rhetoric is all it is. Billiard balls still do what billiard balls always did, and an adequate explanation is found in classical mechanics.
It's easy for me to see all of this because the first thing I ever really specialised in was mathematics, and issues are very clear cut there. The square root of minus one is an essential single simple construct to "complete" algebraic theory. It can be modelled in the real world, but only in sophisticated ways. The point is, that "discovery" of complex numbers as they are known, did not invalidate prior mathematics, it extended prior mathematics and made it more complete. When the "imaginary component" is zero, we are back dealing with real numbers, and they are adequate to model many or rather most real world phenomena, just not all of them.
There is a trap called by some "present-ism," which is closely related to the vanity of "free will." It counts the past as irrelevant to the present, but is biased because it thinks the present is relevant to the future. You can't have your cake an eat it too. I believe the past determines me, hence I believe I can influence the future. The present is always the experience of being part of the past influencing the future. We cast ripples while we surf the waves of the past. We are part of things. We cause things. We are responsible for what we cause. But we ourselves are caused and things prior to us are responsible for what we are. We are, we exist and act, but we are no more free than the things are free upon which we are able to act. -
Alastair,
I agree with 90% of what you wrote. The crux of our disagreement is that you seem to believe that the world is deterministic and that yourself is entirely determined. This is in contradiction with your statement "We cause things." If you are entirely caused , you cause nothing. I cannot see where you can be blame of anything since you think that you are caused. You give up free will and so you cannot claim to be a responsable person. Whatever you do has been caused by something before back to the big bang. You think that you are one of these balls on the billard table. Can we blame such a ball for anything? Please tell me that I am completely wrong about what you think. -
This is a subject that can be made very difficult if you believe that personal existence is based entirely upon random events. Such a belief is deterministic and results in no freewill and consequently there would be no basis for morality. This would automatically place all living things within the same behavioral category. However, it should be obvious that all living things are not categorically the same. Humans possess a mind with a sense of morality that influences their free will behavior. Animals do not have moral standards and therefore do not have human-like minds. They have cause and effect instinctual standards regulated by their brains alone. This fact places humans in a category of being that is not regulated entirely by their brain’s cause and effect reactions. In other words, human minds and their animal-like brains compete for control. Therefore, by simple **deduction, the human mind is not entirely subject to natural laws like the animal brain. This means that some human action must be based upon supernatural laws. There are a number of viable explanations available for the inquiring mind regarding what these super natural laws might be. I prefer the concept of “Molinism” outlined by the 16th Century Jesuit theologian Luis de Molina. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molinism .
Simplistically speaking, this places the formation of the human will but not the mind before the big bang in a timeless environment controlled by supernatural laws based upon logic alone. Since it is timeless, it is not subject to cause and effect because everything happens at the same time, so to speak, and is thus entirely free of time sequencing effects. In that environment, events occur in a logical order based entirely upon free will decisions. Any brain-like predictable decisions occur as they would naturally. Also because everything is happening simultaneously, our minds are not consciously aware of the events. We need the cause and effect sequencing aspects of time in order for our intangible minds, the real us, to record the events. Consequently, everything that has happened, is happening, and will happen is already recorded in advance. This concept is known as Eternalism or Block Time http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Block_time and is supported both by Einstein’s theory and belief.
Our present existence is an illusion based upon events already established during Molinism’s Middle Knowledge (MK) phase of our existence simplistically speaking. However, our morality is based upon our free will decisions also made during that period thus making us accountable for our actions. So, unlike animals, we have free-will and are thereby placed in the uncomfortable position of being held morally responsible for all our actions both good and bad. Our existence is the means by which we learn about the good and bad aspects of free will and the role we occupy. Free will is unpredictable and therefore is a scary force to unleash without control... [more]
