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Do You Choose to Believe in Free Will?

Scientist, writer and outspoken atheist Sam Harris has posted a series of blog entries recently discussing the topic of “free will”, in the context of the ‘science and morality’ topics he explores in his recent book The Moral Landscape (Amazon US or UK). In “Morality Without ‘Free Will’” Harris says plainly that…

…the concept of free will is a non-starter, both philosophically and scientifically. There is simply no description of mental and physical causation that allows for this freedom that we habitually claim for ourselves and ascribe to others.

In a follow-up post, “Free Will (And Why You Still Don’t Have It)“, Harris notes that many readers had written him “to share the Good News that quantum mechanics has liberated the human mind from the prison of determinism”. However, Harris doesn’t subscribe to the idea, pronouncing that “it is pure hand-waving to suggest that quantum indeterminacy renders the concept of free will scientifically intelligible”.

Reading through these posts, including the third instalment “You Do Not Choose What You Choose“, I get the feeling that Harris is sometimes conflating “free will” with ‘complete freedom to make choices without any previous context or contributing factors’. He also seems to set up a straw man for “what you choose”, often using subconscious intrusions (e.g. using “rabbit” rather than “elephant” in his third post) to illustrate ‘choice’, rather than considered, binary, yes vs no decisions. By combining these two fallacies, his argument looks solid – but I don’t think it actually gets at the heart of the problem.

In an addendum, “My Friend Einstein?“, Harris quotes the great scientist in support of his cause (whilst thoroughly denying ‘argument from authority’, no less). But given Einstein’s (incorrect?) opinions on quantum indeterminacy (“God does not play dice”), his view is hardly a surprise. Though Harris says that free will is a ‘non-starter’ scientifically, there certainly are a number of prominent scientists who believe quite the opposite. For instance, Michio Kaku comes out directly in this video and says “Einstein was wrong”:

Physicist Henry Stapp is another who believes that quantum indeterminacy provides an opening for free will. In his fascinating book Mindful Universe (Amazon US or UK), Stapp describes the philosophical upheaval that is inherent in the ‘new physics’ and, (perhaps presciently) notes how many modern-day intellectuals still seem to be stuck in a worldview that became obsolete 80 years ago). On indeterminacy, he says:

The most radical change wrought by this switch to quantum mechanics is the injection directly into the dynamics of certain choices made by human beings about how they will act. Human actions enter, of course, also in classical physics. But the two cases are fundamentally different. In the classical case the way a person acts is fully determined in principle by the physically described aspects of reality alone. But in the quantum case there is an essential gap in physical causation. This gap is generated by Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, which opens up, at the level of human actions, a range of alternative possible behaviors between which the physically described aspects of theory are in principle unable to choose or decide. But this loss-in-principle of causal definiteness, associated with a loss of knowable-in-principle physically describable information, opens the way, logically, to an input into the dynamics of another kind of possible causes, which are eminently knowable, both in principle and in practice, namely our conscious choices about how we will act.

All in all, a fascinating (and at times, mind-bending) discussion – from all parties. What are your thoughts (or, if you prefer, what are the thoughts emanating from your mind that were always going to do so)?

Editor
  1. Physcobabble
    We have lost all sense of determinism in America, so what is there to debate. It’s now all about the Benjamin’s, and Benjamin Franklin would not be pleased!

  2. Determinism means what?
    “Determinism” brings to mind the mythology of Laplace’s Uber-Calculator, able to compute the Universe’s evolution from initial inputs and the general laws. Dynamical chaos has proven how non-sensical such hopes really are. If we can’t compute in a deterministic manner the outcomes of simple physical systems, then what hope of “determinism”? That’s the bit all the nut-bag philosophical Determinists just don’t grasp. “Determinism” means squat to all physically reasonable Agents – as far as we can ever hope to know, we aren’t preordained/determined.

    1. First, we can compute the
      First, we can compute the outcome of simple dynamic systems, that is why engineers are able to design and build things like cars, computers, airplanes, etc.

      It is true that we do not currently have general purpose methods for solving nonlinear or chaotic systems, but that does not mean that they are not deterministic systems. The whole point of chaos theory is that chaotic(appearing unpredictable or random) behavior can develop from deterministic systems. Modern determinism simply says that there is no need to invoke non-material explanations for human decision making. It doesn’t say that we’ll necessarily be able to predict those decisions.

      Going back to the main article, I’m not sure where Henry Stapp is finding his determinists. The ones I’m familiar with all tend to favor a digital physics hypothesis for the nature of reality. I am unable to think of anyone who has a pre-quantum mechanics mindset. I would be interested to know why he thinks the quantum effects are indeterminant, and not the result of a currently unknown chaotic system.

      Greg: Could you elaborate on why you think considered yes or no questions provide better support for free will? I find that odd, because any determinist is going to argue that your choice is the result of a causal chain.

  3. Possibly the single most important debate
    My two cents:

    If time is an illusion, which by many theories and experiments it is, then free will is also an illusion. But, I think if you use the simple idea of ego vs self, you can ascribe both. The self has already experienced the entirety of existence. It has made all the choices. It did this in the instant of creation i.e., no time.

    The ego on the other hand, experiences the illusion of time. And, the ego’s purpose is to place value on the experience e.g., positive or negative.

    This allows for ‘fated’ outcomes and ‘freewill’. The self had choice/freewill in the ‘original’ creation of everything outside of time. Inside time, the ego determines the value. The ego is ‘fated’ to experience the choices the self made, and is free to determine the value of the experience.

    It maybe that that is the result of my Teutonic upbringing, but it does make some sense of the old sagas that deal with fate and choice.

    And, since time is an illusion, the ego may be present when the self makes a choice. So, no contradiction there.

    It is only if we except time as truly existing that there is any dichotomy.

    This is a work in progress.

    Also, short of paypal, is it a check in snailmail?

  4. from the Tis-Simple-Dept.
    It all depends on how one defines “free will”.

    “I” act (which includes non-action). And after those actions, other actions occur = ‘the future’. These actions continue to have action far after “my” action is over.

    But it looks like there really is no “I”. So these actions happen, some of which I (can/choose to) attribute to myself, that I claim ‘copyright’ to, in a sense :3

    “The future” and “the past” I don’t think are nouns, but are relations, processes.

    Even in Physicist Henry Stapp’s quote, I act.

    One must be careful to distinguish between determinism and predeterminism — one is aboot the cause-effect chain, the other is some more metaphysical idea of ‘is the future fixed?’

    I think anxiety comes from “Ok, how is it that I have these experiences when I know that the laws of nature seem to be digital, 1/0, on/off?” For me, that anxiety has lessened due to my getting rid of predeterminism as a meaningless concept or the future as a noun as a meaningless concept.

    So, I act, and can come up with (thanks to such things as my memory) rationales for why I acted.

  5. I don’t know why this subject
    I don’t know why this subject is always an either/or proposition. How about we have free will until a higher will sometimes intrudes and overrides it? It would then a war of will or a skirmish anyway.

  6. experience
    These philosophical debates will rage on until higher ontological entities appear and take back the reigns. Until then, the fact remains that we •feel we have free will. That subjective sense – illusion or not – matters more to me than any rational argument. Why? Because that sense is my own. Those who wish to tell me never to trust my own eyes, so to speak, seeks to have dominion over my individual subjective experience.

    This debate is a power game. If I tell you that you have no free will, that it is an illusion and that all my high-status friends say so, then you must either agree with me, strengthening my position and upping my own status amongst my peers – OR – you may disagree with me, in which case you shall have proven yourself a fool for believing your own subjective experience over what I TELL YOU is the Objective Truth. Domination. Subjugation. Negation of your individual will to that of the group.

  7. Remote Viewing
    I remember reading from Greg Bishop’s book Project Beta something pretty interesting —and possibly pertinent— re. the United States remote viewing program.

    The researchers learned that the viewers’ hits became increasingly more accurate whenever they briefed them about the results of the mission —i.e. after the fact. They finally concluded that ascribing a typical Newtonian causality function to these experiences was not as effective as eliminating the need for a cause to have a precedence over an effect.

    In short, remote viewing seemed to demonstrate consciousness is not always subject to the normal arrow of Time. So that lets us view the free will problem from a whole new perspective 🙂

  8. second foundation…..
    if any of you are readers of Asimov then you would see the concept of Second Foundation in this artical.

    It’s all about constants and variables….to resolve the variables would take a super computer not yet in our grasp. The one variable that can never be resolved is FREE WILL.

    Actions can be predicted only to, maybe 99%, the other 1% being the variable of free will.

    In physics that we understand now we can predict aspects of the universe in physical terms to a degree of precision. What appears as chaotic can be resolved into a pattern and possible outcomes calculated. But in human terms the degree of predictable outcomes increases because of the FREE WILL variable that changes every nanosecond creating many branches of possible outcomes continuously.

    The proporganda machines that run continuously are for direction to a particular outcome but then again are subject to the same rules and variables that will determin that a desirable outcome is only a percentage of completion.

    The FREE WILL variables will always create this uncertainty.

  9. Experimental fun!
    A simple experiment to consider in context…

    Lets go through a short visualization in the minds eye. As you breath down to calmness, you see a tree on a hill nearby. Its green, verdant and lush. You start walking towards it and notice it’s a lemon tree. Going up to it, visualizing all the detail you can, you see big beautiful lemons hanging from the branches and pick one. Pealing it open, you take a big bite…

    Now, I’ve done this with many people, and rarely does anyone NOT begin to salivate and get the zing we all know. The point is this; if I walk someone through this meditation in a language they don’t know, they obviously don’t get the same physical reaction. Why obviously? The word lemon possesses no intrinsic information in it. It is strictly an abstract verbal symbol. Otherwise I could say lemon in any other language and, if the participant sincerely visualizes, will get the physical reaction. This works at all because, by use of our freewill, we choose to observe the relationship between the abstract verbalized symbol with the experience of “lemon”. So by the simple act of observation we trigger a measurable biometrical event. Interesting. Don’t think this is an arbitrary observation? Try learning a new language. This little example is one of zillions of mind-body experiments anyone can do to actually experience the direct ramifications of focused, (and here is the keyword) ARBITRARY observation on the body. Martial arts are rife with examples. See Michael Murphy’s “The Future of the Body” for a comprehensive and well sourced place to start. Anyone who argues against this hasn’t honestly researched the copious amounts of data on this subject. Biofeedback is another great example, as again, abstract symbols are interpreted and biology will change in realtime. Oh, but its just an idea in our “mind”. 🙂
    “But if thats true, why can’t I just levitate?” is a common rebuttal. Thats like saying I can show you some chords on the guitar and suddenly you can play Bach. To which they rebut, “No one has practiced so much that they can levitate”. I can’t say I’ve seen levitation, but I have seen things that would upset some people quite a bit, as I’m sure others have. Experience is the sole arbiter of wisdom. Get out of the house a little more often. Hunt for it relentlessly. Don’t be an armchair philosopher.

    This is my first post, but I’m a looooong time reader. Absolutely killer site and community!

    Cheers!

  10. For skeptics to be so
    For skeptics to be so committed to determinism is curious, considering it is perilously analogous to the belief that God’s will is responsible for everything that happens to us – that God micromanages our daily lives. In either case the responsibility for all our failures, all our bad decisions and short comings are lifted from us. As an example I know a woman whose marriage was crumbling and eventually got divorced for the second time. She said during her troubles, “that Satan is sure causing problems in my marriage.” Took the responsibility right off her shoulders – when all the problems this couple had were of their own making. Of course determinism likewise would negate her responsibility – since no other outcome was possible and her decisions were made for her by all that preceded them leading inextricable to each fateful decision…

    Sadly this is another case of philosophy and science getting ahead of itself. It is very intellectually elitist to believe you have the answers others cannot comprehend – narcissistic is another word that comes to mind. So does insecurity… Yes – we have pavlovian responses. Yes we operate on autopilot most of the time – emotionally, intellectually and physically – and these habits are responsible for many of our problems. Even intellectual and introspective contemplation are subject to preconceived notions and prior experience pitfalls. However by recognizing these facets of human nature and actively working to overcome them we can break these habitual cycles and create new patterns, new actions – called self-improvement. Determinism is really circular logic in that its proponents simply argue that each new pattern was predetermined, etc…to infinity. If there is no free will, the problem does not lie with Free Will, but rather the inadequacy of language – the inability to properly define free will.

    A good analogy is the definition of art. Marcel Duchamp among others helped to expand the definition of art to such broad extremes that anything and everything can now be defined as art, making the definition virtually meaningless. And so goes the definition of Free Will…

    1. from the Zen-Growing-Dept.
      [quote=Greg H.]For skeptics to be so committed to determinism is curious, considering it is perilously analogous to the belief that God’s will is responsible for everything that happens to us – that God micromanages our daily lives. In either case the responsibility for all our failures, all our bad decisions and short comings are lifted from us.[/quote]

      Aren’t they just meaning that none of our actions are ’causeless causes’, that they are relational? Or, to use Buddhism, all actions follow the Law of Karma (actions are influenced and constrained by previous actions) and Dependent Origination (all actions are conditional).

      If I try to take a look at one of my actions and see what causes arise from that, that is a choice of mine — I determine which part to pay attention to and which not to, just like in any examination of a bit of existence.

      And here’s something fun: even if there were some force out there that could somehow force us to act in a certain way, couldn’t it be said that we still have free will, because the body doing the acting (using the hormones and brain states and ‘soul’ etc etc) would be us?

      Maybe it becomes confusing to treat free will as a noun or an essence, a soul-like thing, instead of a conditional relationship?

      Hmm :3

      EDIT: more fun stuff: I also think that I was taught to treat my actions (and thoughts and feelings) as somehow something that is separate from me, when, it can be said that my actions (and thoughts and feelings) are not such. So I get this idea that there is something separate (the “I” or “me”) that can tinker with these actions, thoughts, feelings…

  11. Unfree will
    It just sounds like so much newthink, newspeak.

    You know, free will simply becomes unfree will. Freedom is itself slowly removed from the concept of being.

    And after we have all talked about it for a spell, restacking words so that the nonsense becomes the accepted group sense, we will agree that free will does not and cannot exist… even though we just applied a bit of it when considering how to deny it.

    “It’s a beautiful thing, the Destruction of words. Of course the great wastage is in the verbs and adjectives, but there are hundreds of nouns that can be got rid of as well. It isn’t only the synonyms; there are also the antonyms. After all, what justification is there for a word, which is simply the opposite of some other word? A word contains its opposite in itself. Take ‘good,’ for instance. If you have a word like ‘good,’ what need is there for a word like ‘bad’? ‘Ungood’ will do just as well – better, because it’s an exact opposite, which the other is not. Or again, if you want a stronger version of ‘good,’ what sense is there in having a whole string of vague useless words like ‘excellent’ and ‘splendid’ and all the rest of them? ‘Plusgood’ covers the meaning or ‘doubleplusgood’ if you want something stronger still.”

    7-up: The unCola…

    That was brilliant marketing.

    1. from the Lois-Saved-Every-Time-Dept.
      [quote=Redoubt]You know, free will simply becomes unfree will. Freedom is itself slowly removed from the concept of being.[/quote]

      In your opinion, free from what?

      1. Free to…
        [quote=Inannawhimsey]

        In your opinion, free from what?[/quote]

        It’s not necessarily free from, but free to.

        I understand the freedom from want or fear thing. But overall, freedom doesn’t have to denote a previous negative or a means of escape. Freedom can be simply the ability to think, to speak, to move and to live as one chooses.

        It is these kinds of freedoms that are being slowly but surely chipped away. And if you need an example, I submit that freedom was living in a time when one could build a crude raft and slowly float down the river whilst smoking a fat stogie and sipping a shot of corn whiskey.

        Such today has been rendered almost impossible due to various regulations and codes and laws regarding approved, environmentally safe, tax-paid, Coast Guard approved, state inspected and fully insured flotation.

        Just as a single example.

  12. Sad
    It is very sad that so many “scientists” etc. lives are so empty that they feel compelled to write about something that they have no justification to deny, but untold amounts of research and anecdotal information to hold up the case of free will.
    His mumblings are illogical and non scientific. So sad, So sad.

  13. Innanawhimsy wrote, “Aren’t
    Innanawhimsy wrote, “Aren’t they just meaning that none of our actions are ’causeless causes’, that they are relational?”

    I agree our entire consciousness is the accumulation of our sum total experiences. From my early tweens I began conditioning myself, or unconditioning might be a better term – to shape my thinking to be the person I choose to be and not the person chosen by other’s actions toward me, or experiences affecting me. Of course I cannot completely extricate myself from life experience – every experience shapes us – it is only through experience do we learn all we know. We are pretty much blank slates at birth. My analysis is that most people passively allow life to shape them without the realization of it occurring – resulting in their “instinctual” reactions to events. For example a person who was verbally abused by a parent as a child, might as an adult involuntarily recoil at the sight of a stranger verbally abusing a child…other reactions could be nausea, anger, etc…all dependent on their prior conditioning. Their unconscious reaction could be considered lacking of free will as it is a conditioned/programmed response. My definition of free will is the person who fights these programmed/conditioned responses to react uniquely to situations as they arise based on an optimal reaction. In other words choosing the best reaction, rather than passively reacting. In other words having and making a choice – or free will.

    Skeptics will argue – no such thing exists because the “choice” is merely a programmed response, but of course all actions mental or physical must be based on experience or like brain damaged individuals who’ve had their memories wiped, they revert to infant like status. Without prior knowledge – no thought is possible, however despite the skeptic’s claims the existence of prior experience does not negate the potential for choice aka free will. it is just a question of how often it is utilized and how often we run on auto-pilot. Really becomes a question of semantics – and like all philosophical questions is a subjective one impossible to definitively prove and ultimately depends on faith. So I’ve come full circle to my original post that a belief in determinism is perilously analogous to a belief in God’s will as they are both dependent upon faith.

    1. from the Language-Encourages-and-Limits-Dept.
      [quote=Greg H.]Innanawhimsy wrote, “Aren’t they just meaning that none of our actions are ’causeless causes’, that they are relational?”

      I agree our entire consciousness is the accumulation of our sum total experiences. From my early tweens I began conditioning myself, or unconditioning might be a better term – to shape my thinking to be the person I choose to be and not the person chosen by other’s actions toward me, or experiences affecting me. Of course I cannot completely extricate myself from life experience – every experience shapes us – it is only through experience do we learn all we know. We are pretty much blank slates at birth. My analysis is that most people passively allow life to shape them without the realization of it occurring – resulting in their “instinctual” reactions to events. For example a person who was verbally abused by a parent as a child, might as an adult involuntarily recoil at the sight of a stranger verbally abusing a child…other reactions could be nausea, anger, etc…all dependent on their prior conditioning. Their unconscious reaction could be considered lacking of free will as it is a conditioned/programmed response. My definition of free will is the person who fights these programmed/conditioned responses to react uniquely to situations as they arise based on an optimal reaction. In other words choosing the best reaction, rather than passively reacting. In other words having and making a choice – or free will.

      Skeptics will argue – no such thing exists because the “choice” is merely a programmed response, but of course all actions mental or physical must be based on experience or like brain damaged individuals who’ve had their memories wiped, they revert to infant like status. Without prior knowledge – no thought is possible, however despite the skeptic’s claims the existence of prior experience does not negate the potential for choice aka free will. it is just a question of how often it is utilized and how often we run on auto-pilot. Really becomes a question of semantics – and like all philosophical questions is a subjective one impossible to definitively prove and ultimately depends on faith. So I’ve come full circle to my original post that a belief in determinism is perilously analogous to a belief in God’s will as they are both dependent upon faith.[/quote]

      I grok, Greg H. :3

      I think that the concept of ‘choice’ in our actions is the same kind of problem caused by something similar to “Can an omnipotent being create a boulder that it can’t move?” The language creates the problem/fun.

      Because I don’t think we can prove or disprove that we have this thing called choice in our actions, because to do so, we would somehow have to be able to ‘see’ the future. But even then, even if the future were predetermined, we would still act.

      Your notion on faith ties into my previous post — whatever we do is always intimately connected to us, if we try to remove ourselves from the ‘equation’ in this sense, we change it. We are always involved.

      When I think of the term ‘free will’ I think, ‘free from what?’ :3

  14. Inannawhimsey wrote, “Because
    Inannawhimsey wrote, “Because I don’t think we can prove or disprove that we have this thing called choice in our actions, because to do so, we would somehow have to be able to ‘see’ the future. But even then, even if the future were predetermined, we would still act.”

    I agree. If you read up on and believe testimony on near death experiences you’re familiar with the concept that outside our earthly 3 dimensional existence time becomes meaningless. That people during the “death experience” report simultaneously experiencing and bouncing between the past, present and even future during the life review – that they all exist simultaneously. If there is any truth to these experiences then it would imply the future is set meaning free will does not exist…until you consider the quantum mechanic ideas of new time lines created with each different choice creating parallel universes… And if we could see the future and chose a different action than is predetermined – could we deviate? What would stop us? And if we could, then theoretically that would have open up a new timeline of cascading events…

    And as you say – free from what? So long as an illusion of free will exists – what is the difference? What would we do differently if a different version of free will existed then the one we perceive? Perception is reality – such is the subjective nature of consciousness, therefore if I’m fooled into thinking I have free will and I don’t – what’s the difference anyway. That being said – I choose to believe in free will according to my definition, hence that is my reality. Of course it really comes down to how free will is defined and who decides that – the skeptics or the believers?…

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