this post was submitted on 18 Oct 2023
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The article just says we don't have free will over and over again, but doesn't explain why that would be the case or what research has been done to back it up. Instead just says this dude wrote a book.
It also says determinism means we can’t treat people differently based on their actions, which is just a complete non sequitur.
What's the odds that this author is up to some heinous shit in his free time and this is just a philosophical cover?
Yeah, that conclusion simply isn't as self-evident as people like to believe. I guess the idea is that we punish people for their choices, and if they can't actually make choices, then you can't punish them.
The problem is, under this framework, there is no 'they' that's making a choice at all, so all that follows is that we need another justification for punishment (or any other kind of differential treatment). The impact of those actions seems a pretty reasonable basis, as well as reinforcing the notion in that person's brain (and in others) that the action is not tolerated or without consequences.
I disagree that that's necessarily a problem and I believe the problem only arises when looking at the perspective of no free will from the basis of the opposite side. The colloquial idea of 'punishment' comes from most people's current perspective of free will; if there's no free will it isn't punishment, it's just solving a problem.
As an example of an analogous perspective irrespective of free will, take chemistry: Say you're reacting two substances which oxidize when exposed to an atmosphere, if you want to react them in their non-oxidized state you have to do so in an oxygen free environment so you pump in pure nitrogen to displace all the air. The air has no free will to choose whether or not it'll react with the substances and ruin your intended reaction so it'd be silly to say you're punishing the air for something it has no choice in. You're treating the air differently simply because it's problematic, not because you're trying to teach it a lesson.
It has a paragraph with the explanation: Basically he says our behaviors are driven by our brain chemistry, genetics, and biases formed by prior events. Every decision we make is a culmination of those things. We think we're in control, but we're really just following a pre-ordained script.
Can't decide if I'm onboard with that. Definitely not onboard with letting criminals off the hook for bad deeds. If your "brain script" leads you to kill, you just need to be removed from society. Sorry.
While we can identify influences that have common outcomes, the fact that there are different outcomes at an individual level supports free will. Free will does not mean you are free from influence, just that there is an opportunity to make a choice.
Poverty leading to increased crime does not result in everyone in poverty committing crimes.
Well I think their argument is that this doesn’t follow. To have variation between individuals all you need are different influences over the time leading up to the measured outcome. That basically everyone is assured essentially unique genetics and a unique existence from conception (no two people occupy the same body, apart from twins briefly) guarantees that everyone has unique influences.
So the question then is what is the relationship between influences and behaviours and can we measure whether variations in the former are sufficient to explain variations in the latter.
All of which excludes the argument that many people basically lead to similar outcomes under similar influences.
This is where I suspect the scientist’s thoughts/theories will fall down. In the end, it seems to me we need a complete or at least pretty good theory of consciousness to truly get to bottom of this. We don’t. Arguably we’re pretty clueless on how any sophisticated cognition works all the way up from biochemistry to behaviour. So I’m not sure how certain anyone can be either way.
Different outcomes at an individual level supports the idea that individual humans are not exact copies existing in the exact same environment. If on the other hand different outcomes does support free will then the fact that electrons put through the same process (influences) can end up with different spin-states means that electrons have free will.
I mean, I am on board with that. There probably isn’t free will.
But, we should continue to jail those not following society’s rules. If we could jail hurricanes so as to not cause damage, we would—why is jailing a person any different?
Yea the article wasn’t particularly thoughtful. As you say, justice can simply preventative without being punitive. But on balance, aiming for rehabilitation can still make some sense even without compassionate anti-blame arguments. There are limits to how much we want to keep people out of society and it costs money, so prisoners will return to society at some point.
So what’s the best approach for preventing harm? If a blame-worthiness approach premised on free will is fundamentally false, or at least not correct enough, then ideas about punishment and deterrence would likely be ineffective compared to more rehabilitation based approaches.
There's always been one piece of this that has bugged me. I'd like to hear - from someone who is familiar enough with both neurons and quantum theory - an explanation on why thoughts are physically too big to be influenced by quantum randomness.
Very back-of-envelop calculation:
The quantum scale is characterized by an action comparable to the Planck constant, hbar=6.6x10^-16^ eV s. A quick wikipedia search tells us that the typical electric impulse needs at least 25 mV (from -70 mV in the resting state to -55 mV in the threshold), and lasts around 1 ms, giving an action of 2.5x10^-5^ eV s, which is 300 billion times larger that the quantum noise.
Well, that's simultaneously both very enlightening and kind of depressing. Thanks for spreading the knowledge.
If you accept strict determinism, the fact that killers should go to prison is one of the "biases formed by prior events" that will determine that most people won't become killers. Which in turn determine us as individuals in a society to create and enforce justice systems.
Under that kind of analysis, there is no 'we' that can even be meaningfully spoken about.
Not to mention, the same brain chemistry that drives someone to commit a crime will also drive someone to seek some kind of justice or retribution, and so if we're considering biology to be holy for some reason, that goes both ways.
I think that we have free will but it's extremely limited, but we are capable of weighing our emotions and logic to make a choice. I'm always extremely skeptical of people that say we don't have free will, so when they do they better have some really solid evidence. Otherwise what's the point of nature evolving consciousness? Merely to be a passive observer in our predetermined lives? Evolution is effective, if it didnt need it then it wpuldnt have evolved it woth so many animals. Consciousness is there to help us make decisions and map out visions that are beyond the capability of simple automatons.
My bone to pick with this article is that there is no talk about the research that was done to reach the conclusion, so I just have to take this dudes word for it. And I don't feel like reading his book. And based on where we are in science either this is a sensationalized take or this dude is filling in a lot of blanks with his opinions.
So you believe, that if you would rewind time to a specific choice you made, you would be able to make a different choice, even though your brain and your surroundings are in the exact same state as before? Or do you believe your choices to be originating from somewhere else than your brain?
if thought truly is entirely deterministic, then it's surely both sufficient and necessary that you could build a machine that, given the state of the universe as input, could fully simulate what your answer to any given question would be
but if you suppose that, then you basically run into an issue very similar to the halting problem
you put your subject in the room with your magic machine, tell them to disagree with whatever the machine spits out, then tell the magic machine to predict what they're going to say after they've been told the result of said prediction
whatever the machine spits out, there's nothing stopping your subject from just disagreeing
I now imagine the machine long time doing nothing and then spitting out "This is taking too long, i am going home!".
Maybe you couldn't but I'm different, sorry bout it
So you are exempt from the laws of physics?
That's correct, sucks you have that constraint
Not sure that’s fair. The basics of his thoughts seem to be outlined … the article clearly states: behaviours are always primed by experience, history, state and genetics all of which are beyond our control, and so if our behaviour is not within our control we have no free will.
I don’t think there’s anything really there about hardline determinism and I’d bet his basic view is pretty compatible with some form of chaos based individualism.