8 ms·

I’ve given up on the idea of free will. I think the illusion does more harm than good to society but everyone deeply has been conditioned to think it’s true and

I’ve given up on the idea of free will. I think the illusion does more harm than good to society but everyone deeply has been conditioned to think it’s true and things will never change in my lifetime. The article doesn’t do the necessary job of convincing me that quantum physics has any real impact on people having responsibility over their thoughts & actions. I’ve always wanted to see how a person could somehow not be effected by the system being the universe and where the person is a subsystem. I think that would be the most interesting thing for me. Sadly the belief that a God just made it so isn’t logical and not something I can even begin to see how it would work. Determinism being partially untrue by some outside force making the universe truly random doesn’t allow a person making personal choices they should be responsible over. In fact such an existence would be terrifying. Performing thoughts & actions that just randomly happen with no valid reason. I’m predicting society will eventually throw away the free will illusion when science destroys inequality.

hsitz 6y ago
Maybe you're familiar with Yuval Noah Harari's position in the free will vs. determinism debate. He argues that, not only is the idea of free will a myth, it's harmful to society: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/sep/14/yuval-noah-harari-the-new-threat-to-liberal-democracy https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/sep/14/yuval-noah-har... Also, it seems you're getting at an interesting idea: we can understand determinism, and we can understand chance, but free will seems to want to combine the two concepts in some incomprehensible/nonsensical way, which nobyd can understand.
- naasking 6y ago
  Combining them is easy. Lookup Compatibilism, which is the dominant view among philosophers.
  - hsitz 6y ago
    Yes, so easy it doesn't really combine them. Compatibilism gives an explanation that essentially redefines what is meant by "free will". Compatibilism makes compatible a concept of determinism and a specific concept of "free will". Yes, it gives a coherent way of speaking about these two seemingly contradictory things; enabling us to avoid nonsense or self-contradiction. However, the compatibilist notion of "free will" is in fact incompatible with what most people mean (or think they mean) when they say they "have free will".
    - naasking 6y ago
      > However, the compatibilist notion of "free will" is in fact incompatible with what most people mean (or think they mean) when they say they "have free will". I disagree, and the data seems to disagree as well: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/274892120_Why_Compatibilist_Intuitions_are_not_Mistaken_A_Reply_to_Feltz_and_Millan https://www.researchgate.net/publication/274892120_Why_Compa...
- raxxorrax 6y ago
  But he has no evidence of either case. I read more about technological fears and the perspective is interesting, but personally I am more optimistic. If there is no free will there is certainly a mechanism that fools us on that fact for any practical purpose. We also strive for control, at least for or own lives, and there are certain elements in his perspective that shifts the topic to that instead towards the prevalence or absence of free will. The discussion around free will are ancient, so are discussion about ascension (mostly through unpopular topics if we are honest to ourselves) or elevation above others. I am used to it in engineering circles but am still able to see it. Could also be some coping for how often he sees others being manipulated. Sounds critical now, but I believe he is a nice guy.
naasking 6y ago
Free will is inescapable. Without it, you have no ability to assign moral blame, which means law and order become impossible. If someone punches you in the face unprovoked, you are just as responsible for putting your face where his fist was going to be. Thus, there's no justification for your attacker to be rehabilitated rather than you, an innocent victim. Your issue is not with free will, but with retributive justice, ie. the argument that moral blame deserves punishment.
- jbay808 6y ago
  > Thus, there's no justification for your attacker to be rehabilitated rather than you, an innocent victim Free will or not, it's pretty easy to see which party we should confine to reduce the frequency of future face injuries.
  - CMCDragonkai 6y ago
    Why "should" we do anything in the absence of free will. What will happen is what will happen. Everything is inevitable, including the punch to the face.
    - jbay808 6y ago
      Why do you feel like a novel has suspense, when the ending is sitting right there in front of you, already written, in the pages that you haven't read yet? Determinism or not, you have to wait to find out what tomorrow will bring. And tomorrow still depends on what you do today -- even if what you do today is fully determined by yesterday. If losing the illusion of free will means you'll sit there on your sofa letting time pass, because why make any effort if the future is already written, then you're just misunderstanding determinism. I believe the future is already written, but I'm still going to work as hard as I can to make sure that it turns out to be as good a future as possible. Once you've internalized a deterministic worldview, this is not a contradiction. (If you're familiar with Newcomb's problem, I'd choose one box). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newcomb%27s_paradox https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newcomb%27s_paradox
mikeyjk 6y ago
Sorry for posting this here, this is from a prior comment chain. I've just taken quite a while to read and then summon the energy to respond :P. It takes me a while to write about this topic without: a) seeming like I'm insane, and b) not getting carried away with the amount of topics that come to mind. > Yes, some things are simply impossible. Not even a traditional concept of God, could have or make free will be real and knowing so is from understanding the logic of cause & effect. Not even true randomness can make us be free agents. Agreed, and good point. > Although I think randomness is an impossibility because there's always a cause and that can be passionately debated for the theory of quantum physics in our universe. But randomness doesn't matter in regard to free will being an illusion. Also agree here, I think 'random' is a human descriptor for when prior events are too numerous, or complicated, or not known. I'm open to change on this though, as the delayed choice / quantum eraser experiment is mind boggling - and we know that our intuitions mean next to nothing for determining the truth :). As you say, even if we did have 'true randomness' in the mix (if such a thing exists, which we both doubt), that would be evidence against us having any say in what we think or do. > Furthermore, the idea of free will being an illusion made it simpler for me personally to understand harder concepts than before. How humans created the concept of good & evil, but we simply apply it incorrectly and to what we observe throughout our existence. That's really cool that it directly informs your view on concepts, e.g. good vs evil. I guess it probably does for me as well, but I 'feel like' it is far down the chain of reasoning for me - maybe because I came across the concept of free will relatively recently (early twenties, in my late twenties now). I think studies have shown though that our 'reasoning' or explanation of how we arrive at a thought are typically delusions anyway, so maybe it does directly inform my views and I am just not aware :). > My reflection from a mirror has the same control as I do I've read this a few times and it halted my brains execution on each attempt, haha. That sentence is really cool - it sounds vaguely ridiculous but I completely agree with it. I can't even articulate why it 'seems' ridiculous to me. I have looked in the mirror before and experienced what is tantamount to an existential crisis - I feel like I'm one entity, when really we are composed from billions of cells / bacteria which are also living. We just happen to have a stream of chemical and electrical impulses driving our every action making us feel like we're the pilot. > Providing me with wishful thinking that the universe could repeat and where the same conditions that made our life, could happen repeat again & again; with improvements occurring each iteration depending on the starting variables. Maybe like a brute-forcing algorithm. That's the spiritual part I get out of understanding the concept of cause & effect. That's an interesting take. I think I view it quite selfishly, and given that my consciousness probably (?) wouldn't be involved in the later iterations removes the wishful quality for me, haha. It's an interesting point though, if we live in a deterministic universe it means it would in theory be possible to have a giant simulation of which we are unwitting participants. Maybe our brain compute while a tedious resource to create / evolve, is actually good at solving certain types of problems the grand architects are bad at :P? I jest, but I think that's why sci-fi as a genre is so cool - it circles around these profound questions. Perhaps there are 'n' universe in parallel or sequence with the naturalistic laws mutating across each universe. I've definitely read that notion written elsewhere. I struggle to take anything especially spiritual out of it though. Even when I was in the hands of religious indoctrination I never especially had a desire or understanding to seek out the 'spiritual'. > There's no reason for me to care if free will is an illusion because it has always been and if life doesn't repeat, well I find that more perplexing than the idea of the universe repeating for infinity. I think it is truly bizarre that 'there is anything'. This probably sounds like the statement of a 6 year old, but it really does seem strange. The universe encompassing 'everything' is a problem for me straight out of the gate - how can anything encompass everything? How can there not be an 'outside'? I've watched probably hours of youtube videos trying to develop a math-illiterate understanding of the double slit / delayed choice experiment. Those experiments say to me that we have a long way to go before understanding some pretty fundamental information/behaviours of our universe. The laws that govern our universe seem so complicated and detailed - these are just static rules that exist in isolation to everything? I'm not really sure if there's a point here, but I just think it would be a lot less confusing if there were nothing at all :P > Now, the concept of rehabilitation being superior makes the most sense if society desires to progress humanity and to the purest essences of equality. The concept of judgement & punishment being a deterrent, is a fallacy, and just a one sided convenience for the privileged. The ones born into a life where they'll never be judged & punished while the misfortunate individuals born into a life where they will eventually commit a crime. They were needing help from the start and were used & thrown away like a piece of trash throughout life. I find the current day justice system similar to the Salem witch trials. I think any hard determinist Judge forced into caring out the justice system of today, simply punishes an individual for the sake of the health of someone harmed and while the one harmed hasn't grasped there isn't free will. Otherwise I think the person harmed would have a tough time placing the blame on anyone or desiring it. I completely agree once again here. I would maybe just quickly add that if someone took an action that killed someone you loved dearly, I suspect you'd feel the typical human emotions of outrage and injustice etc. I think this is what I mean by juggling the intellectual understanding with conditioned responses to external events. I prescribe agency to others when it suits me, I think, even though I know we're all pinball's bouncing off the side of the box we're in. Some people have the most unfair lives it is crazy. To be able to sit here on this website and spend time musing on this topic is seriously spoiled. I'm not even the most spoiled person I know, haha. > Nevertheless, I'm a pacifist from the understanding and somewhat grateful it happened. I think the world will eventually adapt when it becomes common knowledge. I personally would have preferred to be born into such a society and instead of the current day one if humans collectively cherish equality above all else. My fear of death is gone as well and I find things more interesting than the past. I've skipped a bit just before this because my stamina is wearing out (in terms of responding not reading). I agree that religion has caused extreme harm to society, and I would not be sad to see it go. I have a slightly different take on the above though: I'm pretty glad to be born when I am, for fear of us self destructing in the next 50 or 100 years, be it war, or climate change. It seems like the 'great filter' is perhaps just human nature, or 'biological nature' having an upper limit on capacity/understanding vs our desire to reproduce and not having a reward function which benefits a long term civilisation. I also fear death a great deal. I think it's the journey to death I fear the most. I've always had a complex about 'missing out on the party' / have generally been a hypochondriac. If our civilisation does last substantially longer I would be pretty annoyed I couldn't have lived in a more intellectually curious time haha (not that I'd have anyway of knowing..). But I just struggle to see how we are going to last the long haul. I feel like we need some sort of simultaneous social and educational revolution. Dare I mention the president of the USA, I feel like he is a figurehead for the anti-intellectual - but I'm a bit worn out on that topic. The reward function of society is completely the opposite to what is needed for us to become a space faring civilisation. We don't see amazing scientists getting crazy amounts of followers on instagram (a bit of a contrived analogy). Usually I'm quite parasitic on forums - I will and ask people leading questions without every responding hoping to read something interesting, so hopefully somewhere in that incoherent ramble was something you found interesting as well :) Edit: added asterisks around quotes, the formatting options on this site aren't amazing imo

hsitz 6y ago

Maybe you're familiar with Yuval Noah Harari's position in the free will vs. determinism debate. He argues that, not only is the idea of free will a myth, it's harmful to society: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/sep/14/yuval-noah-harari-the-new-threat-to-liberal-democracy https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/sep/14/yuval-noah-har... Also, it seems you're getting at an interesting idea: we can understand determinism, and we can understand chance, but free will seems to want to combine the two concepts in some incomprehensible/nonsensical way, which nobyd can understand.

naasking 6y ago
Combining them is easy. Lookup Compatibilism, which is the dominant view among philosophers.
- hsitz 6y ago
  Yes, so easy it doesn't really combine them. Compatibilism gives an explanation that essentially redefines what is meant by "free will". Compatibilism makes compatible a concept of determinism and a specific concept of "free will". Yes, it gives a coherent way of speaking about these two seemingly contradictory things; enabling us to avoid nonsense or self-contradiction. However, the compatibilist notion of "free will" is in fact incompatible with what most people mean (or think they mean) when they say they "have free will".
  - naasking 6y ago
    > However, the compatibilist notion of "free will" is in fact incompatible with what most people mean (or think they mean) when they say they "have free will". I disagree, and the data seems to disagree as well: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/274892120_Why_Compatibilist_Intuitions_are_not_Mistaken_A_Reply_to_Feltz_and_Millan https://www.researchgate.net/publication/274892120_Why_Compa...
raxxorrax 6y ago
But he has no evidence of either case. I read more about technological fears and the perspective is interesting, but personally I am more optimistic. If there is no free will there is certainly a mechanism that fools us on that fact for any practical purpose. We also strive for control, at least for or own lives, and there are certain elements in his perspective that shifts the topic to that instead towards the prevalence or absence of free will. The discussion around free will are ancient, so are discussion about ascension (mostly through unpopular topics if we are honest to ourselves) or elevation above others. I am used to it in engineering circles but am still able to see it. Could also be some coping for how often he sees others being manipulated. Sounds critical now, but I believe he is a nice guy.

naasking 6y ago

Free will is inescapable. Without it, you have no ability to assign moral blame, which means law and order become impossible. If someone punches you in the face unprovoked, you are just as responsible for putting your face where his fist was going to be. Thus, there's no justification for your attacker to be rehabilitated rather than you, an innocent victim. Your issue is not with free will, but with retributive justice, ie. the argument that moral blame deserves punishment.

jbay808 6y ago
> Thus, there's no justification for your attacker to be rehabilitated rather than you, an innocent victim Free will or not, it's pretty easy to see which party we should confine to reduce the frequency of future face injuries.
- CMCDragonkai 6y ago
  Why "should" we do anything in the absence of free will. What will happen is what will happen. Everything is inevitable, including the punch to the face.
  - jbay808 6y ago
    Why do you feel like a novel has suspense, when the ending is sitting right there in front of you, already written, in the pages that you haven't read yet? Determinism or not, you have to wait to find out what tomorrow will bring. And tomorrow still depends on what you do today -- even if what you do today is fully determined by yesterday. If losing the illusion of free will means you'll sit there on your sofa letting time pass, because why make any effort if the future is already written, then you're just misunderstanding determinism. I believe the future is already written, but I'm still going to work as hard as I can to make sure that it turns out to be as good a future as possible. Once you've internalized a deterministic worldview, this is not a contradiction. (If you're familiar with Newcomb's problem, I'd choose one box). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newcomb%27s_paradox https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newcomb%27s_paradox

mikeyjk 6y ago

Sorry for posting this here, this is from a prior comment chain. I've just taken quite a while to read and then summon the energy to respond :P. It takes me a while to write about this topic without: a) seeming like I'm insane, and b) not getting carried away with the amount of topics that come to mind. > Yes, some things are simply impossible. Not even a traditional concept of God, could have or make free will be real and knowing so is from understanding the logic of cause & effect. Not even true randomness can make us be free agents. Agreed, and good point. > Although I think randomness is an impossibility because there's always a cause and that can be passionately debated for the theory of quantum physics in our universe. But randomness doesn't matter in regard to free will being an illusion. Also agree here, I think 'random' is a human descriptor for when prior events are too numerous, or complicated, or not known. I'm open to change on this though, as the delayed choice / quantum eraser experiment is mind boggling - and we know that our intuitions mean next to nothing for determining the truth :). As you say, even if we did have 'true randomness' in the mix (if such a thing exists, which we both doubt), that would be evidence against us having any say in what we think or do. > Furthermore, the idea of free will being an illusion made it simpler for me personally to understand harder concepts than before. How humans created the concept of good & evil, but we simply apply it incorrectly and to what we observe throughout our existence. That's really cool that it directly informs your view on concepts, e.g. good vs evil. I guess it probably does for me as well, but I 'feel like' it is far down the chain of reasoning for me - maybe because I came across the concept of free will relatively recently (early twenties, in my late twenties now). I think studies have shown though that our 'reasoning' or explanation of how we arrive at a thought are typically delusions anyway, so maybe it does directly inform my views and I am just not aware :). > My reflection from a mirror has the same control as I do I've read this a few times and it halted my brains execution on each attempt, haha. That sentence is really cool - it sounds vaguely ridiculous but I completely agree with it. I can't even articulate why it 'seems' ridiculous to me. I have looked in the mirror before and experienced what is tantamount to an existential crisis - I feel like I'm one entity, when really we are composed from billions of cells / bacteria which are also living. We just happen to have a stream of chemical and electrical impulses driving our every action making us feel like we're the pilot. > Providing me with wishful thinking that the universe could repeat and where the same conditions that made our life, could happen repeat again & again; with improvements occurring each iteration depending on the starting variables. Maybe like a brute-forcing algorithm. That's the spiritual part I get out of understanding the concept of cause & effect. That's an interesting take. I think I view it quite selfishly, and given that my consciousness probably (?) wouldn't be involved in the later iterations removes the wishful quality for me, haha. It's an interesting point though, if we live in a deterministic universe it means it would in theory be possible to have a giant simulation of which we are unwitting participants. Maybe our brain compute while a tedious resource to create / evolve, is actually good at solving certain types of problems the grand architects are bad at :P? I jest, but I think that's why sci-fi as a genre is so cool - it circles around these profound questions. Perhaps there are 'n' universe in parallel or sequence with the naturalistic laws mutating across each universe. I've definitely read that notion written elsewhere. I struggle to take anything especially spiritual out of it though. Even when I was in the hands of religious indoctrination I never especially had a desire or understanding to seek out the 'spiritual'. > There's no reason for me to care if free will is an illusion because it has always been and if life doesn't repeat, well I find that more perplexing than the idea of the universe repeating for infinity. I think it is truly bizarre that 'there is anything'. This probably sounds like the statement of a 6 year old, but it really does seem strange. The universe encompassing 'everything' is a problem for me straight out of the gate - how can anything encompass everything? How can there not be an 'outside'? I've watched probably hours of youtube videos trying to develop a math-illiterate understanding of the double slit / delayed choice experiment. Those experiments say to me that we have a long way to go before understanding some pretty fundamental information/behaviours of our universe. The laws that govern our universe seem so complicated and detailed - these are just static rules that exist in isolation to everything? I'm not really sure if there's a point here, but I just think it would be a lot less confusing if there were nothing at all :P > Now, the concept of rehabilitation being superior makes the most sense if society desires to progress humanity and to the purest essences of equality. The concept of judgement & punishment being a deterrent, is a fallacy, and just a one sided convenience for the privileged. The ones born into a life where they'll never be judged & punished while the misfortunate individuals born into a life where they will eventually commit a crime. They were needing help from the start and were used & thrown away like a piece of trash throughout life. I find the current day justice system similar to the Salem witch trials. I think any hard determinist Judge forced into caring out the justice system of today, simply punishes an individual for the sake of the health of someone harmed and while the one harmed hasn't grasped there isn't free will. Otherwise I think the person harmed would have a tough time placing the blame on anyone or desiring it. I completely agree once again here. I would maybe just quickly add that if someone took an action that killed someone you loved dearly, I suspect you'd feel the typical human emotions of outrage and injustice etc. I think this is what I mean by juggling the intellectual understanding with conditioned responses to external events. I prescribe agency to others when it suits me, I think, even though I know we're all pinball's bouncing off the side of the box we're in. Some people have the most unfair lives it is crazy. To be able to sit here on this website and spend time musing on this topic is seriously spoiled. I'm not even the most spoiled person I know, haha. > Nevertheless, I'm a pacifist from the understanding and somewhat grateful it happened. I think the world will eventually adapt when it becomes common knowledge. I personally would have preferred to be born into such a society and instead of the current day one if humans collectively cherish equality above all else. My fear of death is gone as well and I find things more interesting than the past. I've skipped a bit just before this because my stamina is wearing out (in terms of responding not reading). I agree that religion has caused extreme harm to society, and I would not be sad to see it go. I have a slightly different take on the above though: I'm pretty glad to be born when I am, for fear of us self destructing in the next 50 or 100 years, be it war, or climate change. It seems like the 'great filter' is perhaps just human nature, or 'biological nature' having an upper limit on capacity/understanding vs our desire to reproduce and not having a reward function which benefits a long term civilisation. I also fear death a great deal. I think it's the journey to death I fear the most. I've always had a complex about 'missing out on the party' / have generally been a hypochondriac. If our civilisation does last substantially longer I would be pretty annoyed I couldn't have lived in a more intellectually curious time haha (not that I'd have anyway of knowing..). But I just struggle to see how we are going to last the long haul. I feel like we need some sort of simultaneous social and educational revolution. Dare I mention the president of the USA, I feel like he is a figurehead for the anti-intellectual - but I'm a bit worn out on that topic. The reward function of society is completely the opposite to what is needed for us to become a space faring civilisation. We don't see amazing scientists getting crazy amounts of followers on instagram (a bit of a contrived analogy). Usually I'm quite parasitic on forums - I will and ask people leading questions without every responding hoping to read something interesting, so hopefully somewhere in that incoherent ramble was something you found interesting as well :) Edit: added asterisks around quotes, the formatting options on this site aren't amazing imo