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So if you watch the video it will provide context. Morality is predicated on free will in the sense that without free will humans cannot do good or bad things,

So if you watch the video it will provide context. Morality is predicated on free will in the sense that without free will humans cannot do good or bad things, because if our behavior is entirely deterministic, no action is truly an action and therefore cannot be good or bad. Bad things happening to people is an amoral concept, people doing bad things is within the scope of morality. It is not evil for, say, a piano to land on someone, but to deliberately drop a piano on someone is something that can be examined morally. >Nobody had ever explained to me in any coherent form what free will is. This is where watching the video to get the context comes in handy. Basically philosophers/scientists like Descartes and others made a point which I think is very compelling, that the only thing we can be certain exists, because we experience it directly, and it is arguably the only thing we experience directly, is that we have free will, and therefore to presume that it does not exist but then to investigate other things is silly. The concept is closely related to Descartes' "evil demon" thought experiment from which we get the famous though often misunderstood phrase "I think therefore I am". In the video Chomsky even makes a great joke that for someone to argue that free will doesn't exist they have to have, and therefore experience first hand, free will, unless their argument is that they have no choice to argue that point because they were driven to it deterministically.

red75prime 6y ago
> it is arguably the only thing we experience directly, is that we have free will If you unpack that statement, you'll get something like "I can't know my choice until I make it" and "I determine my choice". Both statements are compatible with determinism. First, you cannot get information from the future about your choice, because it creates paradoxes in a deterministic universe. Second, the same physical state of your body can arise from different starting conditions, hence it's the state of your body, which uniquely determines your actions, not initial conditions of the universe.
dorfsmay 6y ago
> Morality is predicated on free will Yes, and this is key, but it works both ways. We have free will, for example I 100% chose to make this comment, but people don't grow up outside of a context, don't make their decision without being influenced by their local culture, education, and personal history. Ever wondered why social science is able to predict political allegiance, religions, life choices and outcome, etc... based on socioeconomic groups? Check Sam Harris' lectures on free will for a counter argument. Here's an example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzj1helboAE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzj1helboAE
dudeman13 6y ago
>Morality is predicated on free will in the sense that without free will humans cannot do good or bad things, because if our behavior is entirely deterministic, no action is truly an action and therefore cannot be good or bad. How would non-deterministic actions be any more subject to morality than deterministic ones? Surely randomness isn't subject to morals?
- betwixthewires 6y ago
  Alright, replace "deterministic" with "not decided by us" then and your answer is in the part you quoted. What I was focusing on was not deterministic v random, it is whether the individual makes the decision to do something or not.
  - dudeman13 6y ago
    Fair enough about not focusing on dereministic/not deterministic, although I would still like to know your opinion on it. As far as I can see it, both a deterministic and non deterministic reality can't possibly have free will. Is this fundamentally a false dichotomy then (there's some other category or interval to reality that isn't covered by deterministic/non-deterministic)? You can't really use your free will as an argument for reality not being ( deterministic OR not deterministic ) since your feelings of being free to pick X instead of Y could potentially be an illusion. I.E. you think you have free will, but enough computing power would be able to predict all the things you'll decide or the relevant probability distribution
kiba 6y ago
Morality is predicated on free will in the sense that without free will humans cannot do good or bad things, because if our behavior is entirely deterministic, no action is truly an action and therefore cannot be good or bad. That still doesn't make an action any less harmful or beneficial just because we don't have free will, nor does it makes examination of morality a pointless exercise.
red75prime 6y ago
> they have no choice to argue that point because they were driven to it deterministically In the same vein: why bother running deterministic programs, if we know that their results are completely predetermined?

red75prime 6y ago

> it is arguably the only thing we experience directly, is that we have free will If you unpack that statement, you'll get something like "I can't know my choice until I make it" and "I determine my choice". Both statements are compatible with determinism. First, you cannot get information from the future about your choice, because it creates paradoxes in a deterministic universe. Second, the same physical state of your body can arise from different starting conditions, hence it's the state of your body, which uniquely determines your actions, not initial conditions of the universe.

dorfsmay 6y ago

> Morality is predicated on free will Yes, and this is key, but it works both ways. We have free will, for example I 100% chose to make this comment, but people don't grow up outside of a context, don't make their decision without being influenced by their local culture, education, and personal history. Ever wondered why social science is able to predict political allegiance, religions, life choices and outcome, etc... based on socioeconomic groups? Check Sam Harris' lectures on free will for a counter argument. Here's an example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzj1helboAE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzj1helboAE

dudeman13 6y ago

>Morality is predicated on free will in the sense that without free will humans cannot do good or bad things, because if our behavior is entirely deterministic, no action is truly an action and therefore cannot be good or bad. How would non-deterministic actions be any more subject to morality than deterministic ones? Surely randomness isn't subject to morals?

betwixthewires 6y ago
Alright, replace "deterministic" with "not decided by us" then and your answer is in the part you quoted. What I was focusing on was not deterministic v random, it is whether the individual makes the decision to do something or not.
- dudeman13 6y ago
  Fair enough about not focusing on dereministic/not deterministic, although I would still like to know your opinion on it. As far as I can see it, both a deterministic and non deterministic reality can't possibly have free will. Is this fundamentally a false dichotomy then (there's some other category or interval to reality that isn't covered by deterministic/non-deterministic)? You can't really use your free will as an argument for reality not being ( deterministic OR not deterministic ) since your feelings of being free to pick X instead of Y could potentially be an illusion. I.E. you think you have free will, but enough computing power would be able to predict all the things you'll decide or the relevant probability distribution

kiba 6y ago

Morality is predicated on free will in the sense that without free will humans cannot do good or bad things, because if our behavior is entirely deterministic, no action is truly an action and therefore cannot be good or bad. That still doesn't make an action any less harmful or beneficial just because we don't have free will, nor does it makes examination of morality a pointless exercise.

red75prime 6y ago

> they have no choice to argue that point because they were driven to it deterministically In the same vein: why bother running deterministic programs, if we know that their results are completely predetermined?