8 ms·

I find the topic of the free will to be the most fascinating. The abscence of the free will ('free will' as it is defined by the pop culture) is a revolutionar

I find the topic of the free will to be the most fascinating. The abscence of the free will ('free will' as it is defined by the pop culture) is a revolutionary idea because the current world structures and narratives are based on the notion that free will exists. It is a much more revolutionary idea than Copernicus' round Earth discovery, because the illusion of the free will influences our lives more and in multiple ways. I'm also a strong believer that the society without the idea of the free will would be a much more compassionate, healthier and happy.

austinjp 8y ago
Well that's a cliffhanger. How would that society be all those things?
- l3mu 8y ago
  I suppose it wouldn't have a choice!
- karmakaze 8y ago
  I can defitely see some of the upsides-mostly a lack of judgemental views and just pragmatic solutions. Some examples are the varying effectiveness of prison systems around the world. Similarly for treatment of mental health issues or addictions. What I find hard to gauge is the potential downside to thinking without free will. There's no accountability so anything goes, or even a 'then why bother at all' infliction. Personally I think we're moving in the right direction on this and could move somewhat faster so thus kind of awareness and discussion is great. I'm less in favor of taking it to the extreme and hoping that it wasn't too far. Maybe a small population will do that experiment for larger groups to watch and learn from.
coldtea 8y ago
There's an endless loop in this argument. Per definition, if free will doesn't exist, then you can't say that "the illusion of the free will influences our lives more and in multiple ways." If free will doesn't exist, then our lives, thoughts and choices are predetermined, and thus they can't be "influenced" by our belief in free will (or lack thereof). In fact if we are in such a world, the we can't even opt to believe in free will or not -- since in such a world, our beliefs are also predetermined themselves. The society wont be any more "compassionate, healthier and happy" in such a world based on any of its beliefs. It would only be compassionated, healthier and happy if its predetermined to be so. The only option for your argument to work, would be for free will to exist while the society doesn't believe it does. Such a society, indeed, could be more compassionated, healthier and happy (it remains to be proven, but it's a possibility that non-belief in free will could change things positively, as long as free will exists for this non-belief to make a difference).
- colomon 8y ago
  For your last case, isn't it just as likely the opposite would happen? If Fred don't deserve any blame for being a mass murderer, why should Sally get any credit for not giving in to her instinct to see him hang for it? And what would the point of trying to be compassionate be?
- n4r9 8y ago
  I don't follow your reasoning at all. You seem to be quite confused over how beliefs could possibly work in a predetermined world. Firstly, a lack of free will does not imply predetermination, since it's possible that some things are fundamentally random. Secondly, even if everything is predetermined, it can still be the case that our choices can be influenced by our belief in free will. You could imagine two instances of a fairly simple bot which has a "isFreeWillBelieved" property. One of them has it set to true and the other to false, and they make different choices accordingly. Thirdly, whilst we can't "opt" to believe in free will or not, whether or not we believe in it can certainly change over time due to building evidence and argumentation.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    >I don't follow your reasoning at all. You seem to be quite confused over how beliefs could possibly work in a predetermined world. Firstly, a lack of free will does not imply predetermination, since it's possible that some things are fundamentally random. Predetermined or random is all the same for the sake of the argument I've made. Both are beyond the control of the subjects. >Secondly, even if everything is predetermined, it can still be the case that our choices can be influenced by our belief in free will. Not really. If "everything is predetermined" then we don't have choices, and what we do (the singular thing that we cannot but do) is only influenced by the start event in the casual chain (that predetermined everything). >Thirdly, whilst we can't "opt" to believe in free will or not, whether or not we believe in it can certainly change over time due to building evidence and argumentation. That only applies to a universe with free will. If free will doesn't exist, then evidence and argumentation doesn't matter -- as those are not the causes that shape our beliefs. Instead both our beliefs and any evidence that appears are determined from the entire predetermined casual chain (or are random, as you said, and as such, are still not based on the presence of evidence or not).
imglorp 8y ago
> society without the idea of the free will would be a much more compassionate, healthier and happy. I'm less optimistic. What will keep people--resigned to their fate--from plopping on the couch to wait it out, as opposed to attempting something more ambitious? As someone famous said, if the outcome was certain, it wouldn't be a game; so if humans don't have some risk, some excitement, there will be no motivation.
- tjoff 8y ago
  I find that argument similar to "without religion what stops you from murder and raping people?" The absolute knowledge that free will doesn't exist doesn't really change much at all. It might give you a different outlook and, optimistically, a better understanding of different viewpoints. If you are absolutely contempt to sit on the couch for the rest of your life nothing stops you from choosing that in a free-will world. Most of us would be bored and will try other ways to entertain our self. Whether that desire is founded on free will or just a predetermined evolutionary trait doesn't really change the outcome. You believing in free will or not is quite irrelevant compared to the impact your surrounding has on you. It is even your surrounding that forms the basis of your belief in the first place.
- trabant00 8y ago
  > What will keep people--resigned to their fate--from plopping on the couch to wait it out, as opposed to attempting somethin I don't think this is how it works from my observations. People don't decide to couch it out based on their philosophy or the expected outcome. They may rationalize it that way but what I believe is that based on their experiences so far some people are simply driven to go out and do stuff and others don't want to do anything mostly. And my belief is compatible with the "no free will" theory.
- dziungles 8y ago
  "What will keep people--resigned to their fate--from plopping on the couch to wait it out, as opposed to attempting something more ambitious?" When the mind and body is in movement, when it has goals and ambitions - that all creates a good feeling for a human being. Look at kids in healthy environments. Look at kids in unorthodox schools. Look at successful entrepreneurs who keep working even after they become financially independent. The opposite "lying in bed" doesn't stimulate the mind, nor body, is boring and depressing. Only in today's world, where we have the concept of responsibility, we blame people if they try and fail. Or we don't create opportunities for people to learn useful skills, and then we force them (in a moral ways of course) to work in poorly paid, low status and hard labour jobs. Of course, under such conditions, many people believe that happiness is lying in bed.
zaarn 8y ago
If we discovered free will doesn't exist, provably, which is my current position, I don't think anything would change. The illusion that we have free will was strong enough that we used law to keep everything in line, make people responsible for their actions, etc. I see no reason why either side of the coin would or should stop that behaviour. If our actions are a result of our environment, shouldn't the environment to the best of our ability be changed such that negative actions have a lower probability of occuring? With free will you punish people for a crime because it's their fault. Without you punish people to create an environment in which crime is not desirable. (Though resocialization / rehabilitation is probably a better option)
tmoravec 8y ago
> I'm also a strong believer that the society without the idea of the free will would be a much more compassionate, healthier and happy. There's a major religion where one of the main theses is that everything is predestined. I haven't noticed those societies to be significantly more compassionate, healthier, or happy.
- dziungles 8y ago
  Which religion?
akavel 8y ago
I'm not really sure I understand what you're arguing for or observing, but notably, the article actually argues for free will existing (thus I assume not being an illusion), if you read it to the end: > Although the Free Will Theorem can't prove if we have free will, it does have a fundamental consequence: if the Universe is deterministic, and a particles behaviour is always described by a function of the past, then we can’t have free will. And Conway is convinced that we do: "I can’t prove we have free will but I still believe that we do." > While this and other repercussions are still being discussed by the mathematics, physics and philosophical communities, the theorem has had a profound impact on Conway himself. "It’s really affected how I look at the world. I believe that the glimmerings of freedom are in every particle – in the clouds, in everything – the particles are all taking free decisions." > [...] > And he immediately emphasises he’s not attributing some sort of consciousness to the particles. "You mustn’t misread it, we’re not asserting these particles make decisions, we’re not saying they have any consciousness. What happens is they act, they indubitably act, and which action the particle does is free in this sense, it is not a predetermined function of the past. And that’s not the same as randomness, oh dear me no!" Though I'm still not sure to what extent this whole argument hangs on the third axiom dubbed "MIN", which according to the article, "isn’t experimentally testable" per Conway. Given it's also the one I don't-understand-the-most, I'm not sure how to look at the whole thing at face value. That said, the way they constructed the analogy, and how the article's author managed to approach it with an attempt at simplifying, are totally super interesting. I mean, that just the possibility of even constructing an analogy here (between something so vague and problematic to measure as free will, and something so material and experimental as behaviours of particles) is certainly stimulating for thoughts and some philosophical pondering.
monort 8y ago
Ted Chiang has a short story "What's expected of us" about possible consequences of proving the absence of free will: https://www.nature.com/articles/436150a https://www.nature.com/articles/436150a
glitchc 8y ago
It's been tried. Many times over. The type of society you advocate is a religious one. One would argue this is still the dominant model. In America, more than 50% believe in some form of God. Some nations are outright religious. Poland and Italy are ~85% accepted Catholic and over 95% if you include lapsed Catholics. Most religions believe in predestination, in that God's Will supersedes man's will, everything happens for a reason, and our fate is decided the day we are born. Individual religious folk are more compassionate on average, take care of the needy, poor and downtrodden. Religious societies however, have led to intolerance, persecution and rigid class systems.
- dziungles 8y ago
  As far as I know, the opposite is true. The concept of the free was heavility influenced by Christianity and I bet by other religions too.
posterboy 8y ago
You are free to do so, but talking in absolutes won't get you anywhere. There's the will to be free and the will to be content, not to say contained. These are two extremes and the target is in the middle, if and only if this is really just a two dimensional thing ... If you wonder how two dimensions can have a middle, think of negative and positive parts of the number line as individual axis ... I havent' figured out the maths, it's not a normed vector space, though. Either way, people strive for consistency, but will is a highly inconsistent notion. So there must be more angles to the equation. Free will is an oxymoron, or the homogenous solution ignoring higher orders at best, because will immediately constrains freedom.
8bitsrule 8y ago
Absence... is a revolutionary idea Indeed. For one thing, if it were true, then everyone who's ever been convicted of a crime and punished has been the victim of a complete fantasy ... imposed on them and us by fate. Stereotypes, biases, hate crimes, going to war or not, building the pyramids or not, painting the Mona Lisa, creating a symphony ... picking this flower or not, falling in love or not, discarding a cigarette butt on the beach ... all equally driven by immutable, unstoppable fate? That's not happy.

austinjp 8y ago

Well that's a cliffhanger. How would that society be all those things?

l3mu 8y ago
I suppose it wouldn't have a choice!
karmakaze 8y ago
I can defitely see some of the upsides-mostly a lack of judgemental views and just pragmatic solutions. Some examples are the varying effectiveness of prison systems around the world. Similarly for treatment of mental health issues or addictions. What I find hard to gauge is the potential downside to thinking without free will. There's no accountability so anything goes, or even a 'then why bother at all' infliction. Personally I think we're moving in the right direction on this and could move somewhat faster so thus kind of awareness and discussion is great. I'm less in favor of taking it to the extreme and hoping that it wasn't too far. Maybe a small population will do that experiment for larger groups to watch and learn from.

coldtea 8y ago

There's an endless loop in this argument. Per definition, if free will doesn't exist, then you can't say that "the illusion of the free will influences our lives more and in multiple ways." If free will doesn't exist, then our lives, thoughts and choices are predetermined, and thus they can't be "influenced" by our belief in free will (or lack thereof). In fact if we are in such a world, the we can't even opt to believe in free will or not -- since in such a world, our beliefs are also predetermined themselves. The society wont be any more "compassionate, healthier and happy" in such a world based on any of its beliefs. It would only be compassionated, healthier and happy if its predetermined to be so. The only option for your argument to work, would be for free will to exist while the society doesn't believe it does. Such a society, indeed, could be more compassionated, healthier and happy (it remains to be proven, but it's a possibility that non-belief in free will could change things positively, as long as free will exists for this non-belief to make a difference).

colomon 8y ago
For your last case, isn't it just as likely the opposite would happen? If Fred don't deserve any blame for being a mass murderer, why should Sally get any credit for not giving in to her instinct to see him hang for it? And what would the point of trying to be compassionate be?
n4r9 8y ago
I don't follow your reasoning at all. You seem to be quite confused over how beliefs could possibly work in a predetermined world. Firstly, a lack of free will does not imply predetermination, since it's possible that some things are fundamentally random. Secondly, even if everything is predetermined, it can still be the case that our choices can be influenced by our belief in free will. You could imagine two instances of a fairly simple bot which has a "isFreeWillBelieved" property. One of them has it set to true and the other to false, and they make different choices accordingly. Thirdly, whilst we can't "opt" to believe in free will or not, whether or not we believe in it can certainly change over time due to building evidence and argumentation.
- coldtea 8y ago
  >I don't follow your reasoning at all. You seem to be quite confused over how beliefs could possibly work in a predetermined world. Firstly, a lack of free will does not imply predetermination, since it's possible that some things are fundamentally random. Predetermined or random is all the same for the sake of the argument I've made. Both are beyond the control of the subjects. >Secondly, even if everything is predetermined, it can still be the case that our choices can be influenced by our belief in free will. Not really. If "everything is predetermined" then we don't have choices, and what we do (the singular thing that we cannot but do) is only influenced by the start event in the casual chain (that predetermined everything). >Thirdly, whilst we can't "opt" to believe in free will or not, whether or not we believe in it can certainly change over time due to building evidence and argumentation. That only applies to a universe with free will. If free will doesn't exist, then evidence and argumentation doesn't matter -- as those are not the causes that shape our beliefs. Instead both our beliefs and any evidence that appears are determined from the entire predetermined casual chain (or are random, as you said, and as such, are still not based on the presence of evidence or not).

imglorp 8y ago

> society without the idea of the free will would be a much more compassionate, healthier and happy. I'm less optimistic. What will keep people--resigned to their fate--from plopping on the couch to wait it out, as opposed to attempting something more ambitious? As someone famous said, if the outcome was certain, it wouldn't be a game; so if humans don't have some risk, some excitement, there will be no motivation.

tjoff 8y ago
I find that argument similar to "without religion what stops you from murder and raping people?" The absolute knowledge that free will doesn't exist doesn't really change much at all. It might give you a different outlook and, optimistically, a better understanding of different viewpoints. If you are absolutely contempt to sit on the couch for the rest of your life nothing stops you from choosing that in a free-will world. Most of us would be bored and will try other ways to entertain our self. Whether that desire is founded on free will or just a predetermined evolutionary trait doesn't really change the outcome. You believing in free will or not is quite irrelevant compared to the impact your surrounding has on you. It is even your surrounding that forms the basis of your belief in the first place.
trabant00 8y ago
> What will keep people--resigned to their fate--from plopping on the couch to wait it out, as opposed to attempting somethin I don't think this is how it works from my observations. People don't decide to couch it out based on their philosophy or the expected outcome. They may rationalize it that way but what I believe is that based on their experiences so far some people are simply driven to go out and do stuff and others don't want to do anything mostly. And my belief is compatible with the "no free will" theory.
dziungles 8y ago
"What will keep people--resigned to their fate--from plopping on the couch to wait it out, as opposed to attempting something more ambitious?" When the mind and body is in movement, when it has goals and ambitions - that all creates a good feeling for a human being. Look at kids in healthy environments. Look at kids in unorthodox schools. Look at successful entrepreneurs who keep working even after they become financially independent. The opposite "lying in bed" doesn't stimulate the mind, nor body, is boring and depressing. Only in today's world, where we have the concept of responsibility, we blame people if they try and fail. Or we don't create opportunities for people to learn useful skills, and then we force them (in a moral ways of course) to work in poorly paid, low status and hard labour jobs. Of course, under such conditions, many people believe that happiness is lying in bed.

zaarn 8y ago

If we discovered free will doesn't exist, provably, which is my current position, I don't think anything would change. The illusion that we have free will was strong enough that we used law to keep everything in line, make people responsible for their actions, etc. I see no reason why either side of the coin would or should stop that behaviour. If our actions are a result of our environment, shouldn't the environment to the best of our ability be changed such that negative actions have a lower probability of occuring? With free will you punish people for a crime because it's their fault. Without you punish people to create an environment in which crime is not desirable. (Though resocialization / rehabilitation is probably a better option)

tmoravec 8y ago

> I'm also a strong believer that the society without the idea of the free will would be a much more compassionate, healthier and happy. There's a major religion where one of the main theses is that everything is predestined. I haven't noticed those societies to be significantly more compassionate, healthier, or happy.

dziungles 8y ago
Which religion?

akavel 8y ago

I'm not really sure I understand what you're arguing for or observing, but notably, the article actually argues for free will existing (thus I assume not being an illusion), if you read it to the end: > Although the Free Will Theorem can't prove if we have free will, it does have a fundamental consequence: if the Universe is deterministic, and a particles behaviour is always described by a function of the past, then we can’t have free will. And Conway is convinced that we do: "I can’t prove we have free will but I still believe that we do." > While this and other repercussions are still being discussed by the mathematics, physics and philosophical communities, the theorem has had a profound impact on Conway himself. "It’s really affected how I look at the world. I believe that the glimmerings of freedom are in every particle – in the clouds, in everything – the particles are all taking free decisions." > [...] > And he immediately emphasises he’s not attributing some sort of consciousness to the particles. "You mustn’t misread it, we’re not asserting these particles make decisions, we’re not saying they have any consciousness. What happens is they act, they indubitably act, and which action the particle does is free in this sense, it is not a predetermined function of the past. And that’s not the same as randomness, oh dear me no!" Though I'm still not sure to what extent this whole argument hangs on the third axiom dubbed "MIN", which according to the article, "isn’t experimentally testable" per Conway. Given it's also the one I don't-understand-the-most, I'm not sure how to look at the whole thing at face value. That said, the way they constructed the analogy, and how the article's author managed to approach it with an attempt at simplifying, are totally super interesting. I mean, that just the possibility of even constructing an analogy here (between something so vague and problematic to measure as free will, and something so material and experimental as behaviours of particles) is certainly stimulating for thoughts and some philosophical pondering.

monort 8y ago

Ted Chiang has a short story "What's expected of us" about possible consequences of proving the absence of free will: https://www.nature.com/articles/436150a https://www.nature.com/articles/436150a

glitchc 8y ago

It's been tried. Many times over. The type of society you advocate is a religious one. One would argue this is still the dominant model. In America, more than 50% believe in some form of God. Some nations are outright religious. Poland and Italy are ~85% accepted Catholic and over 95% if you include lapsed Catholics. Most religions believe in predestination, in that God's Will supersedes man's will, everything happens for a reason, and our fate is decided the day we are born. Individual religious folk are more compassionate on average, take care of the needy, poor and downtrodden. Religious societies however, have led to intolerance, persecution and rigid class systems.

dziungles 8y ago
As far as I know, the opposite is true. The concept of the free was heavility influenced by Christianity and I bet by other religions too.

posterboy 8y ago

You are free to do so, but talking in absolutes won't get you anywhere. There's the will to be free and the will to be content, not to say contained. These are two extremes and the target is in the middle, if and only if this is really just a two dimensional thing ... If you wonder how two dimensions can have a middle, think of negative and positive parts of the number line as individual axis ... I havent' figured out the maths, it's not a normed vector space, though. Either way, people strive for consistency, but will is a highly inconsistent notion. So there must be more angles to the equation. Free will is an oxymoron, or the homogenous solution ignoring higher orders at best, because will immediately constrains freedom.

8bitsrule 8y ago

Absence... is a revolutionary idea Indeed. For one thing, if it were true, then everyone who's ever been convicted of a crime and punished has been the victim of a complete fantasy ... imposed on them and us by fate. Stereotypes, biases, hate crimes, going to war or not, building the pyramids or not, painting the Mona Lisa, creating a symphony ... picking this flower or not, falling in love or not, discarding a cigarette butt on the beach ... all equally driven by immutable, unstoppable fate? That's not happy.