Free Will

I was chatting to some work colleagues recently about crime and punishment (the process of criminal justice, not the novel; I'm waiting for the movie to come out)

Everyone of them was adamant that punishment is an important part of the criminal process.
Why?
Because people must be hell responsible for crimes.
Why?
Because they have decided of their own free will to commit those crimes.

So far so good, until you ask 'What is this 'free will'' - I mean, physically; observably, what is it? Is free will the last great, acceptable belief in the supernatural in society today? We seem to accept it as unquestioningly as people once accepted God, but from what I've read, most scientists and even philosophers are skeptical of its existence, to say the least.

Do you believe in Free Will and why?

suicide_circus

of course we have free will, we have no choice

Philosophy forum -->

Outlaw Pete

Great film.

suicide_circus

Outlaw Pete wrote: »

Great film.

we're gonna need a bigger boat

Deleted User

Deleted User wrote: »

Philosophy forum -->

Philosophically speaking, I'm not sure there is much to discuss.

It would be like starting a thread in the radio forum asking whether radio waves are controlling our minds -- something else for which there is absolutely no evidence, and probably shouldn't be entertained.

I'm more curious as to why people don't question this belief and its implications more commonly.

mad muffin

As the great one once said. Do or do not. There is no try.

Wanderer78

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote:

Everyone of them was adamant that punishment is an important part of the criminal process. Why? Because people must be hell responsible for crimes. Why? Because they have decided of their own free will to commit those crimes.

We ve been more or less exercising this punishment approach to crime for centuries, is it really working? We know a lot more about its origins now, maybe we should create social institutions that actively try prevent crime?

Lorelli!

I don't know. Some people say that there is no such thing because you are determined to respond to events in a certain way based on an accumulation of all your previous experiences in life.

It still doesn't justify not punishing criminals appropriately because that will bring about new learned experiences for them and could turn the tide.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

Of course free will exists. It is the ability to act at one's own discretion. We all exercise free will many times every day.

A Tyrant Named Miltiades!

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

Philosophically speaking, I'm not sure there is much to discuss.

I'm more curious as to why people don't question this belief and its implications more commonly.

You're contradicting yourself. It certainly belongs in the philosophical realm, but also touches on psychology & theology. A broad question, which doesn't fit in these irreverent quarters.

Raymond Mysterious Vegetarian

Raymond Mysterious Vegetarian wrote: »

Of course free will exists. It is the ability to act at one's own discretion. We all exercise free will many times every day.

Give us something tangible to work with. What is it and where does it come from?

Deleted User wrote: »

You're contradicting yourself. It certainly belongs in the philosophical realm, but also touches on psychology & theology. A broad question, which doesn't fit in these irreverent quarters.

I actually did a search of the philosophy forum before I started this thread, and from what I saw, there was broad agreement that it's a supernatural belief.

I figured if I wanted to hear from non-religious people who actually believe in it, this would be a good starting point. Good luck in modding the AH Forum, didn't read that update!

Hedgelayer

This is going to be a deep discussion, free will is ok if one has the ability to work out how their will effects their own destiny.

Some religion's and spiritualists believe our roadway is laid out already.

Then you're getting into the theory of being able to manipulate time and space travel by folding something from one side to the other, like an envelope folded in half, therefore bringing one side parallel to the other in an instant, but yet they're not fully connected.

More talk about us being a simulation and we've no control over our thoughts, but have the ability to not act out on them.

It's an absolute puzzle trying to figure it all out.

Gimme A Pound

"Oh no... Willy didn't make it! And he crushed our boy!"

"Ugh... what a mess."

Hedgelayer

Regina Faithful Posy wrote: »

"Oh no... Willy didn't make it! And he crushed our boy!"

"Ugh... what a mess."

Now we're getting into a parallel universe, this could go anywhere now...

What if Willy was another gender ?

Franz Von Peppercorn

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

Philosophically speaking, I'm not sure there is much to discuss.

It would be like starting a thread in the radio forum asking whether radio waves are controlling our minds -- something else for which there is absolutely no evidence, and probably shouldn't be entertained.

I'm more curious as to why people don't question this belief and its implications more commonly.

I don’t think you can so easily dismiss the existence of free will, but it’s largely irrelevant to a justice system anyway.

Franz Von Peppercorn

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

I don’t think you can so easily dismiss the existence of free will, but it’s largely irrelevant to a justice system anyway.

To say that Free WIill is "largely irrelevant" to the justice system is like saying that "blameworthiness" is irrelevant to the justice system, because blameworthiness (moral blame) is based on the concept of one's free will.

We already accept that killers and rapists cannot be convicted of murder when they lack sufficient moral agency (exercise of free will) due to psychiatric illness and automatism respectively.

But we continue this charade that everyone else is acting wholly freely, clinging to some quasi-religious concept of free will because the alternative is Very Inconvenient.

Hedgelayer wrote: »

This is going to be a deep discussion, free will is ok if one has the ability to work out how their will effects their own destiny.

Some religion's and spiritualists believe our roadway is laid out already.

Then you're getting into the theory of being able to manipulate time and space travel by folding something from one side to the other, like an envelope folded in half, therefore bringing one side parallel to the other in an instant, but yet they're not fully connected.

I'm talking about something far more simple here.

The idea that the physical world is controlled by the physical world, and not some supernatural force. In other words, our actions and behaviours are determined by our genes, our neuroanatomy, physiology and biochemistry (e.g. hormones). Free Will doesn't fit in to any of that.

LessOutragePlz

You choosing what to do with your life without interference from the government or any other organisation or group of people is free will.

/thread.

Junkyard Tom

Raymond Mysterious Vegetarian wrote: »

the ability to act at one's own discretion

Within certain parameters and often we act on sheer inertia which does make one wonder if we're just twigs in a torrent.

orourkeda1977

Is free will free will?

What we think of as free will may not be as free as we think or would like.

There are so many external, uncontrollable and unconscious influences in life which influence our decisions that the simply declaring that "crime is a choice" is a little too simple.

I'm all for punishment to suit the crime, however, to say that all criminal simply decide to commit a crime is rather too simplistic a view

kneemos

How much of your day is spent doing things you don't want to do?

Franz Von Peppercorn

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

To say that Free WIill is "largely irrelevant" to the justice system is like saying that "blameworthiness" is irrelevant to the justice system, because blameworthiness (moral blame) is based on the concept of one's free will.

It is and the justice system has to assume free will in most cases because the alternative is no justice system. I’m responding to your idea that nobody has free will, not that some people don’t.

We already accept that killers and rapists cannot be convicted of murder when they lack sufficient moral agency (exercise of free will) due to psychiatric illness and automatism respectively.

In this case the justice system has decided these people don’t have full agency, but they are generally locked up albeit in a hospital. The system still works. I’m not sure what kind of justice system you want.

But we continue this charade that everyone else is acting wholly freely, clinging to some quasi-religious concept of free will because the alternative is Very Inconvenient.

Where do you get the idea that free will is a religious idea? Plenty of religions don’t believe in free will - large tracts of Protestantism. And free will doesn’t need a belief in the supernatural. The debate isn’t settled and is complex.

I'm talking about something far more simple here.

The idea that the physical world is controlled by the physical world, and not some supernatural force. In other words, our actions and behaviours are determined by our genes, our neuroanatomy, physiology and biochemistry (e.g. hormones). Free Will doesn't fit in to any of that.

Constraints on people’s behaviour by their upbringing or genetics is not the same as being an automation, if we were automations we couldn’t change our behaviours, but humans do change behaviour all the time.

Wanderer78

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote:

In this case the justice system has decided these people don’t have full agency, but they are generally locked up albeit in a hospital. The system still works. I’m not sure what kind of justice system you want.

But does our justice system actually work?

AllForIt

Who's Will and where is he being kept captive?

Robert McGrath

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

Constraints on people’s behaviour by their upbringing or genetics is not the same as being an automation, if we were automations we couldn’t change our behaviours, but humans do change behaviour all the time.

And those behavioural changes were predetermined. This entire conversation was predetermined. It’s not philosophy, it’s physics. A leads to B. We are just complicated machines. Just because we’re so complicated that we cannot predict what a particular human will do next does not make us any less automated. What was Arthur C Clarke’s line? Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic for those who do not understand it ... free will is the “magical” interpretation we impose on the cause and effect electrical activity in our brains that we call consciousness

Avatar MIA

Is Will a coronation street character? I better remember the Free Deirdre (pronounced like dreary) campaign.

Re free will, I think we HAD free will, but our decisions have already been made. By that I mean time doesn't exist and every moment of our lives (and before and after) we have existed still exists - we are just experiencing this element of it now (thinking it's linear). But, there's another us (infinite us) experiencing other "points" in time thinking it's the present.

https://www.bbc.com/reel/video/p04s223f/physics-suggests-that-the-future-has-already-happened

Franz Von Peppercorn

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

It is and the justice system has to assume free will in most cases because the alternative is no justice system. I’m responding to your idea that nobody has free will, not that some people don’t.

Espousing the 'free will' theory because the alternative is too inconvenient -- not exactly a glowing defence of Free Will, is it?

Since the Englightenment, western societies have generallyadhered to the belief our modes of thought, concepts and ideas ought to be subject to rigorous criticism and investigation. We have far too much BS left in society without adhering to outdated beliefs for the sake of convenience - particularly when it comes to issues like crime and society.

Where do you get the idea that free will is a religious idea? Plenty of religions don’t believe in free will - large tracts of Protestantism.

I believe I said it was quasi-religious -- i.e. it is a belief that people hold quite passionately, speak about as though it were factually or scientifically based, and for which there is absolutely no evidence. Quite the contrary - we now have alternative ways of explaining human behaviours, via genetics, biochemistry and physiology,

And free will doesn’t need a belief in the supernatural. The debate isn’t settled and is complex.

Please, elaborate. If Free Will doesn't require supernatural belief, then what is its basis in the natural world, i.e. science?

kneemos

kneemos wrote: »

How much of your day is spent doing things you don't want to do?

The absence of Free Will doesn't just control 'negative' (non-desirable) human behaviours, it also controls our hobbies and our talents.

Most of the tasks we undertake are probably things we want to do, but we didn't choose to want them, any more than we chose our flaws.

The flip side for not being morally responsible for your flaws, is that you're also not morally responsible for your achievements.

Mad_maxx

Raymond Mysterious Vegetarian wrote: »

Of course free will exists. It is the ability to act at one's own discretion. We all exercise free will many times every day.

True but its a completely over used term, for example when religious believers are asked " why does God allow good people to suffer", the answer is often something about free will

In truth only someone committing harm has free will, the person having harm done to them has none

Franz Von Peppercorn

Robert McGrath wrote: »

And those behavioural changes were predetermined. This entire conversation was predetermined. It’s not philosophy, it’s physics. A leads to B. We are just complicated machines. Just because we’re so complicated that we cannot predict what a particular human will do next does not make us any less automated. What was Arthur C Clarke’s line? Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic for those who do not understand it ... free will is the “magical” interpretation we impose on the cause and effect electrical activity in our brains that we call consciousness

Not everything is driven by physics, if we ever create artificial intelligence then the software mind would be driven by its software not the physics.

Software needs hardware to run and the hardware follows some very simple rules but the flow of electrons in a device doesn’t follow the law of physics but the rules of the software algorithm running on it.

Similarly a consciousness isn’t driven by low level chemical reactions but drives the low level chemical reactions.

This isn’t to say that the consciousness is deterministic or not but that it that it is at the level of the mind rather than individual molecules that we should be looking.

p1akuw47h5r3it

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

I was chatting to some work colleagues recently about crime and punishment (the process of criminal justice, not the novel; I'm waiting for the movie to come out)

Everyone of them was adamant that punishment is an important part of the criminal process.
Why?
Because people must be hell responsible for crimes.
Why?
Because they have decided of their own free will to commit those crimes.

So far so good, until you ask 'What is this 'free will'' - I mean, physically; observably, what is it? Is free will the last great, acceptable belief in the supernatural in society today? We seem to accept it as unquestioningly as people once accepted God, but from what I've read, most scientists and even philosophers are skeptical of its existence, to say the least.

Do you believe in Free Will and why?

I find these bull**** philosophical questions to be such a waste of time.

Avatar MIA

DanDan6592 wrote: »

I find these bull**** philosophical questions to be such a waste of time.

Thanks for taking the time to tell us that. We'll keep your response on file... in a filing cabinet.

p1akuw47h5r3it

Avatar MIA wrote: »

Thanks for taking the time to tell us that. We'll keep your response on file... in a filing cabinet.

Why would you do that? It not be better to just ignore it and move on? Seems like a waste of filing space to me.

Avatar MIA

DanDan6592 wrote: »

Why would you do that? It not be better to just ignore it and move on? Seems like a waste of filing space to me.

Agreed. It has been deleted in line with GDPR regulations.

Franz Von Peppercorn

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

The absence of Free Will doesn't just control 'negative' (non-desirable) human behaviours, it also controls our hobbies and our talents.

Most of the tasks we undertake are probably things we want to do, but we didn't choose to want them, any more than we chose our flaws.

The flip side for not being morally responsible for your flaws, is that you're also not morally responsible for your achievements.

This is a terrible philosophy.

Of course humans are restricted by genetics and environment but the idea that this precludes free will entirely isn’t proven. If I’m in a maze I’m restricted in my movements but I still have choice.

Avatar MIA

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

This is a terrible philosophy.

Of course humans are restricted by genetics and environment but the idea that this precludes free will entirely isn’t proven. If I’m in a maze I’m restricted in my movements but I still have choice.

You have a choice, but the choice you take is always the choice you were going to make. How can it be any other way.

CrankyHaus

Surely the basis of free will is consciousness?

p1akuw47h5r3it

Avatar MIA wrote: »

Agreed. It has been deleted in line with GDPR regulations.

Thankyou. I'm also happy that in the future people will not be able to use my beliefs on Philosophy against me now that there is no record of them.

Avatar MIA

CrankyHaus wrote: »

Surely the basis of free will is consciousness?

I think therefore I am?


We're just passengers in our lives with (mostly) insufficient intelligence to realise it.

Not sure if the above would look good on a T-Shirt though

Atoms for Peace

Outlaw Pete wrote: »

Great film.

I preferred the sequel, Good Will Hunting.

Robert McGrath

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

Not everything is driven by physics, if we ever create artificial intelligence then the software mind would be driven by its software not the physics.

Software needs hardware to run and the hardware follows some very simple rules but the flow of electrons in a device doesn’t follow the law of physics but the rules of the software algorithm running on it.

Similarly a consciousness isn’t driven by low level chemical reactions but drives the low level chemical reactions.

This isn’t to say that the consciousness is deterministic or not but that it that it is at the level of the mind rather than individual molecules that we should be looking.

Everything is driven by physics. Everything is subject to the laws of physics. Chemistry and biology are just particular fields of applied physics but everything is based on the cause and effect chain of events involving physical particles.

The software algorithm and the movement of the electrons depends on the laws of physics.

Consciousness is a very complex result of the chemical reactions, not vice versa. Just because we don’t understand it entirely does not mean it is any less a product of physical phenomena in our brain. We are very very complicated meat robots

Franz Von Peppercorn

Avatar MIA wrote: »

You have a choice, but the choice you take is always the choice you were going to make. How can it be any other way.

People are saying that without proof. It’s actually not that radical or new an idea, rather simplistic actually.

It treats conscious beings as equivalent to photons emitted by the Sun today which were always going to happen (in classical theory at least) since the beginning of time.

I’ll write some thought experiments later when I have more time about how an AI we would build with the future with restricted free will would in fact know it was restricted.

Robert McGrath

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

People are saying that without proof. It’s actually not that radical or new an idea, rather simplistic actually.

It treats conscious beings as equivalent to photons emitted by the Sun today which were always going to happen (in classical theory at least) since the beginning of time.

I’ll write some thought experiments later when I have more time about how an AI we would build with the future with restricted free will would in fact know it was restricted.

Thanks - that sounds interesting

Rubberchikken

i only hear complaining and whining in my work place. they never have such philosophical discussions.

Franz Von Peppercorn

Robert McGrath wrote: »

Everything is driven by physics. Everything is subject to the laws of physics. Chemistry and biology are just particular fields of applied physics but everything is based on the cause and effect chain of events involving physical particles.

The software algorithm and the movement of the electrons depends on the laws of physics.

Consciousness is a very complex result of the chemical reactions, not vice versa. Just because we don’t understand it entirely does not mean it is any less a product of physical phenomena in our brain. We are very very complicated meat robots

The software algorithm depends on the algorithm. It can be logically extracted from the hardware. Or compiles to different hardware. It’s it own thing.

It’s true that when running it does depend on some rudimentary physics facts, like capacitance etc.

However a program that stores all prime numbers in memory will fill the memory capacitors of the memory chip in a deterministic way based on the algorithm, the electron flow in the chip is not following the kind of classical physical laws that the photon from the sun is following.

A physicist cannot look at the state of a memory chip at the beginning of a program and work out using the laws of physics what the end state of the electrons in capacitors will be when the program ends because what’s driving the electron flow isn’t the laws of physics but the higher abstraction of the algorithm. A programmer who understands the system down to the hardware level could.

Thus the electron flow is not driving the software but the reverse. If we didn’t understand software we’d assume the opposite.

The software here is deterministic. I believe that the conscious mind is non deterministic but that remains to be proven, a bottom up approach isn’t useful.

DanDan6592

DanDan6592 wrote: »

I find these bull**** philosophical questions to be such a waste of time.

Ah! An epistemological nihilist

kowloon

We're extremely complicated Rube-Goldberg contraptions. A stimulus triggers a nerve which releases a chemical and so on. The reactions are predictable but it all contributes to something so complex that it seems random and autonomous. But we aren't autonomous, everything we do is just responses to outside stimuli acting on an internal state that we also have no control over.
At no point do we exert any control from outside that network of reactions and stimuli. Without something that exists outside reality as we know it there's nothing to act independently of this chain of reactions. This is where belief in spirits or souls has its place. I don't believe in either so I'm a slave to my biology and any interactions with the outside world with a bit of hysteresis thrown in for good measure.

Robert McGrath

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

The software algorithm depends on the algorithm. It can be logically extracted from the hardware. Or compiles to different hardware. It’s it own thing.

It’s true that when running it does depend on some rudimentary physics facts, like capacitance etc.

However a program that stores all prime numbers in memory will fill the memory capacitors of the memory chip in a deterministic way based on the algorithm, the electron flow in the chip is not following the kind of classical physical laws that the photon from the sun is following.

A physicist cannot look at the state of a memory chip at the beginning of a program and work out using the laws of physics what the end state of the electrons in capacitors will be when the program ends because what’s driving the electron flow isn’t the laws of physics but the higher abstraction of the algorithm. A programmer who understands the system down to the hardware level could.

Thus the electron flow is not driving the software but the reverse. If we didn’t understand software we’d assume the opposite.

The software here is deterministic. I believe that the conscious mind is non deterministic but that remains to be proven, a bottom up approach isn’t useful.

Everything that happens in the physical world depends on the laws of physics. We have managed to build sophisticated machines that can essentially perform maths quicker than we can understand, but they are still sophisticated machines that are bound by the laws of physics - including how they produce their results. What you’re describing is a complicated physical process but a physical process nonetheless

Balanadan

Who's Will?

Avatar MIA

Balanadan wrote: »

Who's Will?

If you don't know he needs to be free, you wont know him.