All there is to know about free will (and freedom in general)
There is a nice line of argument about free will which I might spell up as follows. I'm not sure yet what I am to think about these thoughts I had recently. Maybe I'm all wrong, but it seems to make sense.
All there is to know about free will is that: i) is doesn't exist and that ii) we have the impression that it exists.
I.
Why should we say that free will doesn't exist, despite our intuition that we are making free choices all day long and thus that we are committed to these choices and responsible for them?
If the human will is the result of neuronal activity, which in turn is the result of chemical-biological deterministic causes, then will - as well as emotions and other mental states - are the result of deterministic causes. Even though will raises problems as a mental state because of its being about other mental states (an issue left aside here).
Some have suggested that the high complexity of the brain converts this determinism into non-determinism. To understand this, a parallel is sometimes drawn with complex causalities in the world, such as meteorological ones. Complexity would thus lead to accept both determinism at the local level and unpredictability at the global level. Such complex facts as weather forecast or neural activity are problematic for their understanding by humans: the number of parameters that may play a crucial role at any point of any process of that sort is too high to allow causal predictions. A high number of uncertainties about possible situations at possible points in time defeats any attempt to predict - thus explain - the causal chains at work.
Yet from a more abstract point of view, clearly, unpredictability in that sense is simply due to the limitations of our capacities to make predictions on complex processes, not only on the computational level, but also at the level of the required knowledge to manipulate, that is, because the number of relevant variables that have to be taken into account in order to make predictions is out of any hope of reach.
Complexity, thus, is not about theoretical but about practical unpredictability. That the weather forecast is inaccurate does in no way entail that there are not deterministic causal chains at work which will produce what will be the weather at some later time, despite that the humans can't predict that. Nonetheless, humans are capable of making simulations that allow for at least some approximations (for example about the climate), which is a good indicator that such processes are not happening by mere chance.
Similarly, the complexity of the human neural system doesn't allow for predictions about the genesis of intentions (will). Will is thus not predictable, but again this non-predictability is only a matter of practical, not theoretical, determination. Practically, it is too complex to think of predicting the will of an individual, although the genesis of will is itself a deterministic process indeed.
The only other options are either that i) will arises by random, arbitrary chance, which would make us totally irrational and unpredictable, which we are not; or ii) that free will exists at a non-material stage (somewhere in some soul), since material things are subject to determinism, an option which is hard to reconcile with neural activity.
Conclusion: will is a deterministic process occurring in the mind, thus it is something which is not 'free' in any sense of that term, since there is no control we can exercise on our neural activity. Free will does not exist.
II.
Then why do we have so strong a feeling that our decisions are taken out of the exercise of free will? It is indeed a fact of experience that we naturally tend to think that free will exists, at least between some limits imposed by the condition of humans living in a society and possibly having a psychology that might restrict in some way the exercise of it. But whatever the limits we think there are to our free will, we nonetheless tend very strongly to assume that there is at least a domain of exercise of our free will, which grants the acceptance, in turn, of judgement.
The cognitive answer comes up: we need the feeling that free will exists because would we think it doesn't, would we most certainly loose the reasons for action, at least for actions that are not directly tied to our immediate survival. But then remains to explain why we get that feeling of having a free will without in fact having it? After all, we certainly don't have the feeling that we have anything like a free will when establishing that what we see is a circle or a square, what we hear is a a music or a scream, and even when grasping the meaning of some sentence.
Unpredictability comes up again. The parameters at play in determining the generation of a decision (will) are far too numerous even for us to make any solid predictions about our own behavior in any projected context. In turn, this inability of predictions of oneself's actions explains our intuition that decision of action - will - is intrinsically unpredictable thus non-deterministic thus free.
We have said that free will doesn't exist, but that we nonetheless feel it exists, which we explained by the notion that neural activity is too complex to allow predictions by ourselves on ourselves. Whereas this leads humans usually to think that they act out of free will, it is just an illusion. We suggested however that the illusion is useful in providing grounds for action.
Knowledge and experience do enter as parameters - probably crucial ones - in our decisions. Not only knowledge (or what we think is knowledge) about the outer world, but also the longing for pleasure and the fear of pain or suffering, which have to do with knowledge and experience but also with other aspects of cognition, play a role. Making a decision has to do with anticipating, but also with emotions and non-rational trends (the search for pleasure for example may eliminate notions of risk in a decision-taking procedure, as it is for smokers for example). But the weather, the quality of the night before, the work to be done, the ability to project into other people's minds or to represent their expectations, and lots of other facts intervene in our decision-taking procedures. Among things we know are things we learn, out of interaction and introspection, about what is desirable as a behavior and what is not. This 'deontic' system - about what we should do and what we should not - resorts to ethics, morals, law. They constrain our decision-making system so that if we have integrated the rules shared by the society we're in, it enables us to take decisions that take these moral or judiciary parameters into account. Punishment also exists to enforce the strength of some of the knowledge we have acquired as for what regards undesirable actions. Will is simply constrained by these aspects of knowledge, expectations, and emotions such as fears. That we have thought reflexively about these does not mean that at some basic level of neural organization, our subtile thinking is not deterministic just as spontaneous behavior is.
Next comes the notion of responsability. Responsibility is the immediate correlate of free will. If the latter doesn't exist, the former doesn't either. Yet as much as we need the notion of free will in order to have an incentive for action, so do we with responsibility. Even if at the cognitive level, there is just an automatic stream of material (biological-chemical) processes leading to decision without will being anything like free and thus without any validity to be for a notion of responsibility; the fact that we feel responsible nonetheless allows for another constraint in our decisional processes so that human actions tend to better conform to the common good.
Most of us won't kill, but not because of free will or responsibility; just because it won't cross our mind to do so, and we would even be unable to do so probably.
Knowledge, I said, is crucial for decision. One thing seems sure: we don't believe things - we don't incorporate them into what we think we know - out of anything else than mere cognitive heuristics (see all the work by Sperber & al on 'epistemic vigilance'). A similar line of investigation makes it likely that the best explanation of "free will" is that of a mere but useful illusion. Which doesn't mean anything sad after all, probably.
Now: freedom. Freedom is about physical and legal limitations to action. Being free is about not being in prison. Being free of doing x is having the material and possibly legal possibility to do x. Freedom is about something which has in fact nothing to do with free will.
All there is to know about free will is that: i) is doesn't exist and that ii) we have the impression that it exists.
I.
Why should we say that free will doesn't exist, despite our intuition that we are making free choices all day long and thus that we are committed to these choices and responsible for them?
If the human will is the result of neuronal activity, which in turn is the result of chemical-biological deterministic causes, then will - as well as emotions and other mental states - are the result of deterministic causes. Even though will raises problems as a mental state because of its being about other mental states (an issue left aside here).
Some have suggested that the high complexity of the brain converts this determinism into non-determinism. To understand this, a parallel is sometimes drawn with complex causalities in the world, such as meteorological ones. Complexity would thus lead to accept both determinism at the local level and unpredictability at the global level. Such complex facts as weather forecast or neural activity are problematic for their understanding by humans: the number of parameters that may play a crucial role at any point of any process of that sort is too high to allow causal predictions. A high number of uncertainties about possible situations at possible points in time defeats any attempt to predict - thus explain - the causal chains at work.
Yet from a more abstract point of view, clearly, unpredictability in that sense is simply due to the limitations of our capacities to make predictions on complex processes, not only on the computational level, but also at the level of the required knowledge to manipulate, that is, because the number of relevant variables that have to be taken into account in order to make predictions is out of any hope of reach.
Complexity, thus, is not about theoretical but about practical unpredictability. That the weather forecast is inaccurate does in no way entail that there are not deterministic causal chains at work which will produce what will be the weather at some later time, despite that the humans can't predict that. Nonetheless, humans are capable of making simulations that allow for at least some approximations (for example about the climate), which is a good indicator that such processes are not happening by mere chance.
Similarly, the complexity of the human neural system doesn't allow for predictions about the genesis of intentions (will). Will is thus not predictable, but again this non-predictability is only a matter of practical, not theoretical, determination. Practically, it is too complex to think of predicting the will of an individual, although the genesis of will is itself a deterministic process indeed.
The only other options are either that i) will arises by random, arbitrary chance, which would make us totally irrational and unpredictable, which we are not; or ii) that free will exists at a non-material stage (somewhere in some soul), since material things are subject to determinism, an option which is hard to reconcile with neural activity.
Conclusion: will is a deterministic process occurring in the mind, thus it is something which is not 'free' in any sense of that term, since there is no control we can exercise on our neural activity. Free will does not exist.
II.
Then why do we have so strong a feeling that our decisions are taken out of the exercise of free will? It is indeed a fact of experience that we naturally tend to think that free will exists, at least between some limits imposed by the condition of humans living in a society and possibly having a psychology that might restrict in some way the exercise of it. But whatever the limits we think there are to our free will, we nonetheless tend very strongly to assume that there is at least a domain of exercise of our free will, which grants the acceptance, in turn, of judgement.
The cognitive answer comes up: we need the feeling that free will exists because would we think it doesn't, would we most certainly loose the reasons for action, at least for actions that are not directly tied to our immediate survival. But then remains to explain why we get that feeling of having a free will without in fact having it? After all, we certainly don't have the feeling that we have anything like a free will when establishing that what we see is a circle or a square, what we hear is a a music or a scream, and even when grasping the meaning of some sentence.
Unpredictability comes up again. The parameters at play in determining the generation of a decision (will) are far too numerous even for us to make any solid predictions about our own behavior in any projected context. In turn, this inability of predictions of oneself's actions explains our intuition that decision of action - will - is intrinsically unpredictable thus non-deterministic thus free.
We have said that free will doesn't exist, but that we nonetheless feel it exists, which we explained by the notion that neural activity is too complex to allow predictions by ourselves on ourselves. Whereas this leads humans usually to think that they act out of free will, it is just an illusion. We suggested however that the illusion is useful in providing grounds for action.
Knowledge and experience do enter as parameters - probably crucial ones - in our decisions. Not only knowledge (or what we think is knowledge) about the outer world, but also the longing for pleasure and the fear of pain or suffering, which have to do with knowledge and experience but also with other aspects of cognition, play a role. Making a decision has to do with anticipating, but also with emotions and non-rational trends (the search for pleasure for example may eliminate notions of risk in a decision-taking procedure, as it is for smokers for example). But the weather, the quality of the night before, the work to be done, the ability to project into other people's minds or to represent their expectations, and lots of other facts intervene in our decision-taking procedures. Among things we know are things we learn, out of interaction and introspection, about what is desirable as a behavior and what is not. This 'deontic' system - about what we should do and what we should not - resorts to ethics, morals, law. They constrain our decision-making system so that if we have integrated the rules shared by the society we're in, it enables us to take decisions that take these moral or judiciary parameters into account. Punishment also exists to enforce the strength of some of the knowledge we have acquired as for what regards undesirable actions. Will is simply constrained by these aspects of knowledge, expectations, and emotions such as fears. That we have thought reflexively about these does not mean that at some basic level of neural organization, our subtile thinking is not deterministic just as spontaneous behavior is.
Next comes the notion of responsability. Responsibility is the immediate correlate of free will. If the latter doesn't exist, the former doesn't either. Yet as much as we need the notion of free will in order to have an incentive for action, so do we with responsibility. Even if at the cognitive level, there is just an automatic stream of material (biological-chemical) processes leading to decision without will being anything like free and thus without any validity to be for a notion of responsibility; the fact that we feel responsible nonetheless allows for another constraint in our decisional processes so that human actions tend to better conform to the common good.
Most of us won't kill, but not because of free will or responsibility; just because it won't cross our mind to do so, and we would even be unable to do so probably.
Knowledge, I said, is crucial for decision. One thing seems sure: we don't believe things - we don't incorporate them into what we think we know - out of anything else than mere cognitive heuristics (see all the work by Sperber & al on 'epistemic vigilance'). A similar line of investigation makes it likely that the best explanation of "free will" is that of a mere but useful illusion. Which doesn't mean anything sad after all, probably.
Now: freedom. Freedom is about physical and legal limitations to action. Being free is about not being in prison. Being free of doing x is having the material and possibly legal possibility to do x. Freedom is about something which has in fact nothing to do with free will.
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