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Can HN help me understand this: When people say that free will doesn't exist, is that a falsifiable position? What would it take to convince you that free will

Can HN help me understand this: When people say that free will doesn't exist, is that a falsifiable position? What would it take to convince you that free will does exist?

kiba 5y ago
It would help to consider if free will is a coherent notion in the first place.
- onceiwasthere 5y ago
  This is what I always try to ask people. Is there even a possible definition of free will within the laws of physics? It seems to me to be blurry philosophy and nobody has the same definition. Not that it's invalid to talk about if there's no physical framework. But there's no scientific way we can talk about it that I've seen.
  - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
    If you accept that cause and effect holds in a closed system, then no, there is no possibility of free will. But within that viewpoint, everything we think of as making us human is dead. It's not just free will. Truth is dead. (You can't determine whether something is true, because you have no choice whether you believe it or not. All you can say is that you found the explanation convincing.) Morals are dead. (Both because you can't blame anyone for what they do, and because you have no ability to choose what you think is right or wrong.) Even love is dead, at least in the higher sense of choosing to do what's best for the other person, because you can't choose anything. And even in the lower sense of attraction, that's determined too. The problem is, this view really doesn't match with our experience of what it means to live as human beings. We experience deciding. We become convinced that things are actually true. We love and are loved. We know, from direct experience of living as human beings, that this is not who we are. This leaves a dilemma. Either our experience is wrong, or our initial starting point is wrong. Either the laws of physics are not what is "furthest back" (in Francis Schaeffer's term), or else we really are determined and our lived experience is an illusion.
    - tanseydavid 5y ago
      Is Brownian Motion deterministic or not? If your view is that Brownian Motion is not deterministic then does that not contradict the idea 'that cause and effect holds in a closed system' as any sort of absolute?
      - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
        The subject was free will. I said "determined" in contrast to free will. So, if you've got Brownian Motion (or, worse, quantum uncertainty), then you've got some randomness in there, and it's not a purely deterministic system. But that doesn't give you any more free will; it just means that the machine that determines your choices has a random number generator as one of the inputs. You still don't get to choose, because you don't control the randomness.
    - dTal 5y ago
      Option 3 - your logical leap was invalid, and it is perfectly possible to be human and believe in truth and love and morality and all the rest of it, all within a deterministic physical system. Choice is deterministic, but that doesn't make it less real - on the contrary, it gives your choices meaning! They have causes, reasons, justifications! It would hardly be preferable if your "choice" were the outcome of a fair dice roll, would it? What kind of choice would that be? I think the problem arises from a confusion of of abstraction levels. At the level of atoms and chemical reactions, you are completely deterministic and "choice" isn't a meaningful concept. 10 stories up, at the level of thoughts and ideas, it is. This is no different than how "pressure" is a meaningful concept for a tank of air, but not a single air molecule.
foxyv 5y ago
I tend to think of Free Will as something close to Buddhist enlightenment/liberation. Something we are capable of, but not something that everyone practices. The ability to look past the reactions of your monkey brain 0.2 and observe your own thoughts then make mindful decisions while practicing loving kindness for yourself and others. However, free will in the sense of a soul commanding a body separate from that body that is tallying up sins to be punished based on those decisions is hard to believe. But to falsify a concept like "Free Will" it needs to first be defined. It's one of those things where you can get 1000 different definitions.
mosseater 5y ago
I think the better question is, 'why does it matter?'. We all at least have the illusion of free will, even if everything is predetermined. Effectively it makes no difference to our perception and experience. Looking at psychology, in general we see people who feel like they have agency in their lives are happier, and people feeling like they have no agency are depressed. Our agency allows us to do great things, like spearhead interesting projects or just make our lives better with our choices. Some people will link free will to the conscious experience, but I don't think that's quite right. We all know that we are 'aware'. But being aware, experiencing life consciously, doesn't make a difference to whether we are watching some great cosmic play being preformed. In fact, the way things happen in life, all things being the made up of cumulative events from the past, it be strange if things weren't predetermined. To me personally, a bit of hypocritical belief is necessary to continue acting out the play.
- lucasnortj 5y ago
  Free will is an illusion it matters because it makes hatred pointless. You wouldn't hate a bear that ate your arm, it's just being a bear and it makes as much sense to hate a person who commits a heinous crime against you. Ofc that doesn't mean you wouldn't shoot the bear or kill your assailant
dTal 5y ago
What about when people say it does exist - is that a falsifiable position? If nobody can conclusively say anything about "free will" - if all we can agree on is that it's intrinsically ineffable - then it all starts to sound a bit like Russell's Teapot, or angels dancing on pinheads, and we should probably focus our energies on something more effable.

Can HN help me understand this: When people say that free will doesn't exist, is that a falsifiable position? What would it take to convince you that free will does exist?

kiba 5y ago

It would help to consider if free will is a coherent notion in the first place.

onceiwasthere 5y ago
This is what I always try to ask people. Is there even a possible definition of free will within the laws of physics? It seems to me to be blurry philosophy and nobody has the same definition. Not that it's invalid to talk about if there's no physical framework. But there's no scientific way we can talk about it that I've seen.
- AnimalMuppet 5y ago
  If you accept that cause and effect holds in a closed system, then no, there is no possibility of free will. But within that viewpoint, everything we think of as making us human is dead. It's not just free will. Truth is dead. (You can't determine whether something is true, because you have no choice whether you believe it or not. All you can say is that you found the explanation convincing.) Morals are dead. (Both because you can't blame anyone for what they do, and because you have no ability to choose what you think is right or wrong.) Even love is dead, at least in the higher sense of choosing to do what's best for the other person, because you can't choose anything. And even in the lower sense of attraction, that's determined too. The problem is, this view really doesn't match with our experience of what it means to live as human beings. We experience deciding. We become convinced that things are actually true. We love and are loved. We know, from direct experience of living as human beings, that this is not who we are. This leaves a dilemma. Either our experience is wrong, or our initial starting point is wrong. Either the laws of physics are not what is "furthest back" (in Francis Schaeffer's term), or else we really are determined and our lived experience is an illusion.
  - tanseydavid 5y ago
    Is Brownian Motion deterministic or not? If your view is that Brownian Motion is not deterministic then does that not contradict the idea 'that cause and effect holds in a closed system' as any sort of absolute?
    - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
      The subject was free will. I said "determined" in contrast to free will. So, if you've got Brownian Motion (or, worse, quantum uncertainty), then you've got some randomness in there, and it's not a purely deterministic system. But that doesn't give you any more free will; it just means that the machine that determines your choices has a random number generator as one of the inputs. You still don't get to choose, because you don't control the randomness.
  - dTal 5y ago
    Option 3 - your logical leap was invalid, and it is perfectly possible to be human and believe in truth and love and morality and all the rest of it, all within a deterministic physical system. Choice is deterministic, but that doesn't make it less real - on the contrary, it gives your choices meaning! They have causes, reasons, justifications! It would hardly be preferable if your "choice" were the outcome of a fair dice roll, would it? What kind of choice would that be? I think the problem arises from a confusion of of abstraction levels. At the level of atoms and chemical reactions, you are completely deterministic and "choice" isn't a meaningful concept. 10 stories up, at the level of thoughts and ideas, it is. This is no different than how "pressure" is a meaningful concept for a tank of air, but not a single air molecule.

foxyv 5y ago

I tend to think of Free Will as something close to Buddhist enlightenment/liberation. Something we are capable of, but not something that everyone practices. The ability to look past the reactions of your monkey brain 0.2 and observe your own thoughts then make mindful decisions while practicing loving kindness for yourself and others. However, free will in the sense of a soul commanding a body separate from that body that is tallying up sins to be punished based on those decisions is hard to believe. But to falsify a concept like "Free Will" it needs to first be defined. It's one of those things where you can get 1000 different definitions.

mosseater 5y ago

I think the better question is, 'why does it matter?'. We all at least have the illusion of free will, even if everything is predetermined. Effectively it makes no difference to our perception and experience. Looking at psychology, in general we see people who feel like they have agency in their lives are happier, and people feeling like they have no agency are depressed. Our agency allows us to do great things, like spearhead interesting projects or just make our lives better with our choices. Some people will link free will to the conscious experience, but I don't think that's quite right. We all know that we are 'aware'. But being aware, experiencing life consciously, doesn't make a difference to whether we are watching some great cosmic play being preformed. In fact, the way things happen in life, all things being the made up of cumulative events from the past, it be strange if things weren't predetermined. To me personally, a bit of hypocritical belief is necessary to continue acting out the play.

lucasnortj 5y ago
Free will is an illusion it matters because it makes hatred pointless. You wouldn't hate a bear that ate your arm, it's just being a bear and it makes as much sense to hate a person who commits a heinous crime against you. Ofc that doesn't mean you wouldn't shoot the bear or kill your assailant

dTal 5y ago

What about when people say it does exist - is that a falsifiable position? If nobody can conclusively say anything about "free will" - if all we can agree on is that it's intrinsically ineffable - then it all starts to sound a bit like Russell's Teapot, or angels dancing on pinheads, and we should probably focus our energies on something more effable.